Gold Guitars

One of the benefits of living in Gore, New Zealand was participating the Gold Guitars Awards competition. Two years ago this weekend, I took the stage as one of scores of country music entertainers from all over New Zealand who sought the bright lights and stardom in the country's biggest country music event. In addition to a number of age group and genre categories, the Queen's Birthday tradition in Gore includes busking, songwriting awards, best song and album competitions and a variety of workshops. See: http://www.goldguitars.co.nz/

I competed in two categories, Open and Senior (old folk like me). My years experience playing with Tequila Sunrise really gave me an advantage, but unfortunately I didn't advance to the finals. Maybe it was the bad joke about Prince Charles, or the fact that I was one of the only entrants to perform solo (most provided charts for the house band to provide backup), or that neither of the songs was a country standard (one was an original composition, the other a tune by Newfoundland's outstanding Great Big Sea), and/or that I was American???? (Not!) I'll have to work on my act for my next visit.

This year's winners are a vocal trio from Gore called E-Liza. I heard two of the group, Gore High School students Lana Mackay and Taylor Cairns, sing on numerous occasions two years ago and have no doubt of their talent. Word is that they'll be recording in Sydney, Australia before long. I'll be looking forward to hearing more from them!

Wellington New Zealand

Every parent should take their child to college at the beginning of their Freshman year, right? That's what I thought when Jacob suggested it back in the fall of 2005, although I really didn't have the extra funds for an extra roundtrip ticket to NEW ZEALAND! Little did I know that I would be buying a second ticket a couple months later.

For more on that see: http://cmaddaus.edublogs.org/2008/05/28/teach-nz/

Jacob was somewhat of a home-body in high school, athletic, a relatively good student, but not especially social. I always joked that I couldn't 'ground him' because he never went out much anyway. Figures he'd go as far away as possible for college.

Actually though, I think that it took a lot of courage on his part to decide to go to New Zealand as an 18-year-old and he made the best of it, too.

He attended Victoria University in Wellington, on the south end of the North Island. On our arrival we were met by my friend David Hall, who had worked with me in the Wilderness Program at Camp Calument. Dave took us to meet his family and we stayed at his home in Levin for a night before Jake's orientation started. Having Dave there really increased Jacob's comfort level at being half-way around the world from home... and mine, too.

Wellington is the capital of New Zealand and is built on the hills surrounding Wellington Harbor and the Miramar Peninsula. The parliament is located there in a unique building called the Beehive (the Prime Minister is Helen Clark, who is everything Hillary Clinton wants to be) and Peter Jackson based his "Lord of the Rings" production in the city. The views from Mt. Victoria are stunning.

VIC was a great choice in a lot of ways for Jacob. He got involved in a Ultimate Club and played a number of tournaments, including the all-University Games in which his team was a disappointing 3rd. He also worked for an event promoter on a part-time basis and saw a number of concerts. Best of all, he developed an interest in Political Science and International Relations that has led to him excelling upon his transfer to Northeastern University in Boston. His credits transferred to more than we expected, attesting to the rigor of the program and he hopes to work with one of his professors there, again some day. And he was quick to jump at the chance to go overseas again--he's scheduled to study in Dublin and work in the Irish parliament next fall.

It was tough leaving him in Wellington that first time, but I was able to return and spend some time with him the following April and enjoy the city myself.

Isla Negra, Chile

Beth and I were guests of her brother Charlie for the April vacation week on the occasion of his wedding to Luz Maria in Villa Alhue, Chile. As an English teacher, I made sure to study some of Pablo Neruda's writing before the trip (my excuse for not learning any Spanish) and noted that one of Neruda's three homes was in Isla Negra, a coastal town not far from Charlie's.



Isla Negra was Neruda's retreat from the city (he had homes in Santiago, the capital and Valparaiso, the major port) and he wrote his Memoirs there, late in his life. The home is now maintained by the Neruda Foundation: http://www.fundacionneruda.org/home.htm

His description is best:

In my house I have put together a collection of small and large toys I can’t live without. The child who doesn’t play is not a child, but the man who doesn’t play has lost forever the child who lived in him and he will certainly miss him. I have also built my house like a toy house and I play in it from morning till night.
These are my own toys. I have collected them all my life for the scientific purpose of amusing myself alone. (MEMOIRS, page 269)

Our tour was more of a museum than of solely visiting a great writer's home. His collections of ship figureheads, ships-in-bottles, colored glass, insects, seashells, and art reflected his travels and foreign service all over the world. These were all housed in his home, self-designed and built to imitate a sailing ship, and his office, a train.

The vista of the Pacific Ocean, even on a cloudy day, was beautiful and surely inspired his writing, although he was prolific and never lacked for inspiration no matter where he was. His love of Chile was certainly nurtured there and although the times were turbulent, he spoke with great optimism of his hope for humanity:

I want to live in a world where no one is excommunicated. I will not excommunicate anybody. I would not tell that priest tomorrow: “You can’t baptize So-and-So, because you are an anti-Communist.” I would not tell another priest: “I will not publish your poem, your creation, because you’re an anti-Communist.” I want to live in a world where beings are only human, with no other title but that, without worrying their heads about a rule, a word, a label. I want people to be able to go into all the churches, to all the printing presses. I don’t want anyone to ever again wait at the Mayor’s office door to arrest or deport someone else. I want everyone to go in and out of City Hall smiling. I don’t want anyone to flee in a gondola or be chased on a motorcycle. I want the great majority, the only majority, everyone, to be able to speak out, read, listen, thrive. I have never understood the struggle except as something to end all struggle. I have never understood hard measures except as something to end hard measures. I have taken a road because I believe that road leads us all to lasting brotherhood. I am fighting for that ubiquitous, widespread, inexhaustible goodness. After all the run-ins between my poetry and the police, after all these episodes and others I will not mention because they sound repetitious, and in spite of other things that did not happen to me but to many who cannot tell them any more, I still have absolute faith in human destiny, a clearer and clearer conviction that we are approaching a great common tenderness. I write knowing that the danger of the bomb hangs over all our heads, a nuclear catastrophe that would leave no one, nothing on this earth. Well, that does not alter my hope. At this critical moment, in this flicker of anguish, we know that the true light will enter those eyes that are vigilant. We shall all understand one another. We shall advance together. And this hope cannot be crushed. MEMOIRS, pages 227-8.

As an American, conditioned as we were in the 60s and 70s to consider Communists as the enemy, I came away transformed in my thinking. That this sensitive and extraordinary writier was a Communist seemed incongruous at first, but having read his Memoirs (which I highly recommend, especially for those of the baby-boomer generation), I'm more determined than ever to reject divisive, polarizing writing or politics of any kind.

While I have yet to appreciate the breadth of his poetry, a few of his poems have resonated with me. One in particular, dedicated to Chile, makes me ponder the future of my own country:

INSOMIA

In the middle of the night I ask myself,
what will happen to Chile?
What will become of my poor, dark country?

From loving this long, thin ship so much,
these stones, these little farms,
the durable rose of the coast
that lives among the foam,
I become one with my country.
I met every one of its sons
and in me the seasons succeeded one another,
weeping or flowering.

I feel that now,
with the dead year of doubt scarcely over,
now that the mistakes which bled us all
are over and we begin to plan again
a better and juster life,
the menace once again appears
and on the walls a rising rancor.

Essential Neruda, page 179

Neruda died in 1973 of cancer, within weeks of Chile's 9/11, the bombing of Salvador Allende in The Moneda, the Presidential Palace, in Santiago, in the Pinochet coup d'etat backed by the United States. Neruda had a close relationship with Allende and the sadness at his overthrow is evident in the last words of his Memoirs.

For more on the coup see: Chile's 9/11

Mt. Waumbat

Late last year, my oldest son Caleb decided to start climbing the 48 New Hampshire 4,000 foot peaks. He has noted the irony that, having been brought up in the Conway, NH area, he waited until he lived in Southern Massachusetts to begin his quest.

He drove up Friday to spend a belated Mother's Day with his mom and stay overnight with us in Dixfield. Saturday was reserved for a climb, and I suggested Mt. Waumbek (#46 at just over 4,000) near Jefferson. South-facing, and therefore likely to be free of snow at elevation, Waumbek is also a moderate climb of 3.6 miles, crossing Starr King Mountain (3,900+) in the process. A good, first climb of the spring.

Caleb agreed to my suggestion, but in his idiosyncratic way, proceeded to fracture the name of our target; hence, it is now referred to as Mt. Waumbat. (His explanation: "I was pronouncing the mountain's name correctly; I just seem to have picked up a strong Massachusetts accent.")

The day was cloudy, with sun peaking through occasionally and a brisk wind rushing through the forest on the final ridge walk to the summit. Conversation was plentiful through the ascent but disappeared as we headed down, the entire hike covering 4 hours. It might have been quicker but I stopped on the way to get numerous shots of purple Trillium for Beth, who was home writing a brief for the law court. She loves wildflowers.

I'm terrible at remembering the names of these creatures but thought she would appreciate the pictures. This seems to have been a good choice, as her book, "Wildflowers of the White Mountains," refers to these purples as Sweet Beth.

Caleb headed south for Massachusetts and I proceeded east on Route 2, having had a good workout. He's now at 9/48.

I'm one peak short of the 48 and looking forward to my Garfield climb, sooner than later this year. Until last year, I hadn't really thought much about climbing them all, but more on that later.