I came across a website dedicated to the memory of Professor William Alfred, from whom I took Old English and Beowulf as an undergrad. There were only a few posts on this site, so I wished to add my own. Here is a copy of it.

"I never had the pleasure of a friendship that many enjoyed with Professor Alfred, but I have never forgotten his teaching. He had the ability to create an aura, a time and place apart from the little room where we were meeting for "Beowulf". The room would quieten in anticipation, and it felt to me like the lights were dimming to the red coals of an ancient firepit; and each student was not a twentieth century erudite studying a long dead language, but rather we were all alive, sitting around the mead hall more than a dozen centuries earlier. I imagined smelling the smoke from the fire as it wafted towards the ceiling. Then Professor Alfred would start....

"Hwaet! We Gardena / in gear-dagum..."

with that richly cultured voice, and it was clear that no, we were not listening to a dead language at all, but one that was brought very much alive by Professor Alfred.

I probably deserved to fail the first semester of Old English; I had been indifferent all semester and completely choked on the final exam. But a desperate plea, written by me at the end of my blue book, was apparently heeded with his legendary kindness, and a barely acceptable in-major grade of C- was given to me by this forgiving man. I took the second semester, Beowulf, and earned a B+, my highest grade ever (save one) at Harvard, and my most cherished, for I had fulfilled his faith in me. I always said a special prayer for him when I saw him at mass at St. Paul's, and even now I still do at times. The kindness we do for others, especially that which can never be repaid, is the truest measure of our humanity.

Dave LeLacheur '87"

Red Sox Nation: alive and well in Page, AZ

Today's entry demonstrates the reach of our very own Boston Red Sox. We took a boat trip for 16 miles down the Colorado River, starting from Page, AZ, which was great fun (and very hot). Before getting underway, we purchased a few snacks in the company store, and chatted with the nice lady who was helping us. When she found out we'd traveled all the way from Massachusetts, she asked if we were Red Sox fans. Of course! It turns out that she was the kindergarten teacher for none other than Jacoby Ellsbury (who apparently was friendly with her son at that time as well).

I keep telling Marcy, it's all about baseball. Everything.

Visit our National Parks and See the World

Our ongoing tour has recently alighted into southern Utah for some of the famous National Parks in this area, specifically Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park. Of course, the natural sights here are astonishing almost to the point of being un-photographical (at least by amateurs).

But that isn't what has surprised me the most. What has surprised me the most is the huge variety of foreign languages I hear being spoken. In Bryce, we saw several tour buses, mostly of Asian (my ear thought Japanese) tourists. It's a stereotype, I know, but it arose from somewhere real, evidently. As our family was doing the Navajo Trail hike (which we extended into a longer hike because the the end of the trail loop was closed without being marked, tsk tsk), we were accompanied along the journey by a group of about 20 Japanese women, with a Japanese man as the group leader. Sure, they took pictures; so did we. What was astonishing was the vigor of the group. In the end, climbing back up the canyon wall was a somewhat harrowing experience for me personally (heights not being my thing at the best of times), but it was ameliorated by our company. Was I inspired by the 75 year old Japanese women who I could barely keep up with -- or was I shamed? Doesn't really matter; motivation was found when needed.

In Zion we got around to a lot more sights and a variety of shorter hikes. That, combined with the useful shuttle buses required for visiting the main canyon area, gave us greater exposure to other visitors than Bryce. The effect in languages heard was even more pronounced (haha): lots of German speakers, some Chinese, Japanese, and quite a few Scandinavian speakers (despite my Old Norse, my ear isn't clever enough to distinguish Swedish from Norwegian or Danish; though my guess is that most of these folks were Swedish), and a few French and British folks.

Let's be clear about this: my estimate is that more than 50% of the visitors were not from the USA. I was astonished. For grins, on the way back on the last shuttle bus I decided it was time for my daily lesson in "La Marseillaise". Gwen, the Daughter, learned it last year in her French immersion class, and I've been trying to pick it up under her tutelage. She's got the teaching knack down pretty well, and is one tough cookie. ("Dad, you almost got it right, just these 3 syllables were wrong....") During the ride, I think I finally mastered the last bits of the second line.

Anyways, I felt comfortable doing this because of the variety of tongues being spoken all around me. I thought we wouldn't even be noticed. In this I was incorrect, however, as the driver noted jovially after a little while (on the loudspeaker no less), "You know, your entertainment won't reduce your fare." (Which is $0 btw.) To which I replied: "But we accept tips!" His response: "When I say that, everyone usually heads for the door!"

Anyways, why Zion, and Bryce? I did not notice many visitors from overseas at Glacier National Park (in fact, I don't remember any up there), and scant few in the Yellowstone / Teton National Park areas. I suppose that they are more remote, and are less easily toured (being so BIG), than Zion and Bryce. And perhaps the closeness of Zion and Bryce to other parks (Grand Canyon, Canyonlands, Aztec ruins, and perhaps Las Vegas) may make for an attractive 2 week vacation package from abroad?

We'll see if the trend continues at the Grand Canyon. In the meantime, if you want a cultural experience, why travel abroad? Just go visit Bryce and Zion!

1001 Uses of Peanut Butter

I love peanut butter. No, I LOVE peanut butter. Sometimes, when at home, I will eat peanut butter three times a day. Rarely does a day pass without my eating peanut butter at all. I can't say why, other than I love it! Eggo's and other waffles, English Muffins, toast and all manner of bread, cornbreads or scones are all fair game. I once tried peanut butter on another favorite food, pizza, but it didn't really do either any credit. One of the worst things about the two weeks of this trip so far is that I have only had a chance to have peanut butter twice (and pizza only once). Must redress this soon.

Anyways, today in Glacier National Park, we went on a tidy 4 mile hike in the Two Medicine Lake area. Beautiful area, great weather, terrific hike. We get back, and I notice this big blotch on the bottom portion of Gwen's pony tail. Turns out she had an encounter somewhere along the way with a pine tree, and the pine tree left its mark: a big glop of sap had fused together a significant portion of her ponytail into one clump.

The Park Ranger who'd guided the hike was sought for advice; she advised alcohol, which we were disappointed to learn did not mean beer, but rubbing alcohol. My wife asked the hotel's front desk where one might find some, only to be advised by the nice woman there that alcohol was a bad idea and might damage Gwen's hair. What was the right substance to use to leetch out the sap?

You guessed it: peanut butter.

I was happy. What father doesn't want to threaten their kids with doing crazy things, right? "If you don't finish your broccoli I'm going to put it in your chocolate milk and make you drink it!" Now I had real, live ammo. "Gwen, you and I have a date tonight, with some peanut butter." The Mom, knowing my affinity for the substance was only to happy to excuse herself to go do gaboons of laundry (is gaboons a real word? or is it just a LeLacheur family word?), and I was on. Sam was disarmed and relegated to a bed to write in his journal with the very credible threat of: "I've got this peanut butter, and I know how to use it. If you don't finish your journal soon DOT DOT DOT." He got the hint.

You know what, the peanut butter worked brilliantly. The sap was drawn out with little fuss or muss, and I got to enjoy one of my favorite smells in the process. I need to go thank the front desk person now. ;-)

Fourth of July in Montana

Well, I've realized that my opportunities to update this, or indeed to write in my old-fashioned journal (i.e., by hand) are much more limited than I've expected. So I'm giving myself the latitude to post stuff here randomly. The longer narration will be continued and updated when I can do so.

Anyways, so here it is, July 5th. We've been lucky enough to spend the last 3 days in Glacier National Park. GNP is located along the Canadian border, in western Montana. Actually, it is perhaps more accurate to say that it is located west of the Blackfeet nation; more on that later. GNP is unbelievable; more on that later, too My topic for this post is pretty simple: Fourth of July celebrations in Montana.

Montana has no restrictions (that I've seen; few if any) on firecrackers and the like, so we expected some pretty rousing shows last night. We're from the Boston area, which has amazing fireworks shows on the Esplanade every year, so maybe we're a little bit spoiled. Still, when we were told we could see the fireworks from our hotel room's back door (it's really a motel room, but who's counting; St. Mary's Lodge, nice place, letting me use their wifi right now; great restaurant -- thanks again for stellar service, Soren!), as I say, we were told to step outside our door and just watch. Okay. We did. So did a few others on either side of us. (Which was funny: Sam was wearing his Zdeno Chara Bruins tee shirt, and it turns out our "neighbors" on one side were big Canucks fans. Happily, they were gracious and not vindictively-minded. ;-)

It was not all that exciting. Finally close to 10:45 or so there was a blast of 15 minutes or so that was pretty cool after all. We were satisfied, and ushered the kids off to bed.

(Aisde: yes, that's 11 pm bedtime for an 8 and 10 year old. And not just 11 pm, but 11 pm MST, which is 1 am in the time zone, EST, they are accustomed to. Yikes.)

Five minutes later, the real fireworks began, or so it seemed. Intermittently, huge blasts kept going off for quite some time. Not in any organized fashion, unfortunately. It seemed like Joe Average Montanan was taking this opportunity to blast off a few noisemakers just for the heck of it. Hey, I thought, that's fine; it's the Fourth of July.

Well, by the time it was the Fifth of July, I was ready for it to stop. Amazingly, the kids had passed out into glorious slumbers by then. But no, on and on. The last blast I heard was at 5 am. I have concluded that Montanans have taken a very rational approach to their fireworks, actually, reserving the right to use them only in the dark. Since it doesn't get dark around here until almost 11 pm, and begins to light after 5 am, this makes a certain amount of sense.

And so passed the Fourth, and began the Fifth, in Montana.

More Background leading to The First Day

There and Back Again

A six week trek, odyssey, and adventure starring Sam, Gwen, Marcy and Dave.

Journal by Dave LeLacheur

6/23/2011. It was all begun as something of a lark. About two months ago, Marcy was coming down the home stretch of her master's in counseling psychology program; she was extremely busy, working day and night, a pace which would last into the second week of May. Somewhere in that hectic period, one of us jokingly raised the idea of all four of us going on a cross-country voyage. We'd considered it a Good Idea from long ago; on the strength of Marcy's two such extended vacations when she was young (which occurred when she was 2 and 12, I believe), the notion had long ago slipped unassumingly into our pantheon of Good Ideas, where it had remained comfortably uninspected ever since.

Like most such Good Ideas -- we all have them; some of my others include vacationing to Machu Picchu, hiring out a real castle in England or France to live in for a month, or participating in a (and perhaps even organizing) "Wooster and Jeeves" themed weekend for adults, allowing one to soak in the Wodehousian atmosphere in a country estate, served by a brilliant, if temperamental, French chef, while the largest concerns of the day would be how to steal a policeman's hat, or how much to wager on the local children's three-legged race -- like most of these, I had no real expectation that it would actually happen. Is not the main point of such fantasies the reveling in the imaginative flight of "What if...?"

And yet the seed evidently had some roots about it, for much to my surprise, those careless conversations took hold of me. The question that, once asked, could not be answered was simply: "If not now, when?" It could be answered, of course, but that answer would simply and finally be "Never." I think that is what won me over: I was not prepared to accept "Never" as a final verdict and close down this Good Idea forever.

The planning had one ally in my mind: a prior commitment for myself. Last fall, I had agreed to meet up in Wichita, Kansas, for ~10 days of playing World in Flames with two German friends, at Eric's home. The group of us had played three years in a row at EuroWiFCON in October in Germany, but none of us were going to be able to go in 2011. When Karsten and Michael proposed to come to the states this summer instead, my reason for not going -- a financial one -- was greatly ameliorated, so I agreed. For much of the several months since committing, I had been uneasy about the decision. It's all well and good that I was taking some time off after the prior work with CareerLeader had ended; even I, with my famously poor ability to see what I needed, recognized that I needed rest. I was emotionally, morally, and physically exhausted from the last several years. So puttering around for a growing number of months did not trouble me strategically (although at a more tactical level, the one-way flow of money was always worrisome). But the notion of taking a vacation, a personal vacation away from the family at that, in the midst of a period of not working seemed more than a little self-indulgent.

The trip beautifully erased all such feelings. The cost of getting to Wichita was halved (I will have to take a train from Gallup, AZ, while the others saunter through Colorado for a week before catching up with me), and while I am playing, so will Sam, Gwen, and Marcy be playing too. A bold stroke; guilt erased. And while the cash flow worries remain (and indeed have been accelerated by this trip), it is also true that the fact of going away galvanized me to take some job-like actions which may have set some good things in motion in that realm as well.

The morning progresses here in Poplar Grove, Illinois, where we are staying one night at Marcy's Uncle Barry and Aunt Maryanne's lovely house enfolded by a golf course, so I will wrap up today's writing with a quick synopsis of the first two days. 6/21, Tuesday, was the last day of school, and the first day of the trip. A couple of intense weeks of planning, plotting, and logisticing had gotten us as ready as possible. Emotions were running high, especially for Sam and Gwen, who only once had been away from home for more than a week (that was a two week jaunt to Florida, including a few days at Disney World and visiting both sets of grandparents, which tended to minimize the away-from-home feelings), and were now keenly aware that they were going to be vagabonds for a month and a half. Gwen got a little manic, but her excitement was still ahead of her fears. Sam tends to feel his fears in advance, and on the final days before going, his excitement was surpassed by a collection of feelings, partly concerns over the vacation, but also supplemented and extended by the end of the school year (which he loved unreservedly; in fact we delayed the trip several days to honor his wish to complete his year of perfect attendance), the fact that several schoolmates, notably Will, one of his best friends, were moving away, and most of all that he'd been away from all of his friends for a long time.

More any day

The bullet train westwards has finally slowed. The Ravioli has performed splendidly, and we are now in Cody, WY. Much to update on, and, if Internet access holds over the next few days as expected, I should have plenty to write about here. More any day....