Hannah Coulter and a Vanishing Way of Life

As I sit to write this post, I have an aching heart, lump in my throat, and unshed tears burning behind my eyes. All because of a book I almost didn't finish. I was ready to put it down around page forty, because of its slowness. But since it was for bookgroup, and I hate not to have read the book, I kept on. I'm so glad I did.

This is the first writing I've read by Mr. Wendell Berry. Oh, I've heard plenty about him. Lots of people talk about his poetry and admire his lifestyle of being a farmer AND an intellectual. So I've been meaning to read him for a long time, and when a member of the bookgroup picked this particular book to read, I was glad. Now, at long last, I'd read Wendell Berry.

He's written several books that take place in Port William, Hannah Coulter being one of them. And this one is written from a woman's point of view. That was the first thing that struck me as amazing. How could a man know and describe a woman's heart so well? I don't understand. I could no more write a book from a man's point of view than I could turn into a man. I just couldn't do it. Mr. Berry must have an extraordinarily developed sense of empathy. I wonder what it's like to be his wife? I'd like to meet and have a good long visit with her.

The book is about community life in Port William and how interdependent all the inhabitants are on each other, not only socially but economically. They call themselves 'the membership'. They remind me in many ways of the Amish and Mennonite groups the way they all come together to help bring in each other's harvests and have barn raisings and other gatherings to support each other.

I remember life being this way during my childhood in the late 50's and early 60's. I grew up on my grandparents' farm in a very small town in the Tennessee mountains. Life revolved around community and what was happening with each other. The children played outside until dark in the summertime while the adults finished chores or visited on the front porch. Life was slow and savored.

On Sunday afternoons, we'd go over to my daddy's parents' house and visit all afternoon. We only lived a few miles from them but didn't often see them during the week. The women would sit inside and talk about their children and recipes while the men stayed on the porch talking politics and other things newsworthy. I much preferred the company of the men as I thought their topics of conversation so much more interesting than the women's in the next room. Often my uncle would bring out his guitar and he, my daddy, my grandpa, and anybody else there would sing old hymns together.

Children then would sit quietly in the presence of their elders and listen if they were interested or go off and play with each other. Now that I think about it, I was usually the only one who loved listening to them. I learned much about life from my listening.

So other than Hannah Coulter being about her life, it's also about two ways of life; one dying life beginning after WW II and the new one taking its place. It's about the agrarian life being replaced by the technological. And it just makes me sad, so sad, for I lived this...am living it. I've seen warm summer evenings catching fireflies change to no one being outside. I see children not know the value of a hard day's work and not being willing to work unless they're paid much more than their worth.

I've seen farm after farm with fields lying fallow; the broken and rusty machinery of their trade lined up beside barns that no longer hold anything but memories. Gone are the aproned grandmas standing behind screen doors watching for their men to come home from the fields. And it makes me sad, for this was the world of my childhood, and I want it back.

The book also contrasts two kinds of people. One is the kind that hankers and yearns for more. More life, more travel, and more education. These are the ones that don't come back once they're seen and tasted the bigger world.

The other kind of person is satisfied to do what has been done for generations before him. He's not dissatisfied with his life and wants nothing more.

There's an irony in Hannah's story, because she wants her children, as most parents do, to have all the benefits she never had. So she and her husband make sure all three children have college educations. While wanting the children to come back and help on the farm and someday take over, they realize that because of their exposure to new ideas, people, and places, the children are gone forever which perpetuates the dying of the farm and the life the community holds so dear.

As a grandmother, Hannah notices a grave difference in how she grew up and how her grandchildren now live. Since she lived in Port William all her life, she knew intimately all the other people living there which included her family. You get to know people that you spend time with; face to face in conversation or side by side doing work.

Now since her own children have moved away and only come for occasional visits, she doesn't have the pleasure of knowing her grandchildren very well. And that is only made worse by her grandchildren's indifference to her by their absorption in their various video games, phones, and other electronic devices. There is very little to none 'face to face' anything going on.

For anyone who's studied much of history, you know that ways of life come and go and the world keeps on spinning. And I'm sure it will continue to spin until God deems it time to end.

But this I know. People need to realize that with technological advances, wonderful as they are, comes much personal responsibility. We need to know when to limit our childrens' time with their various machines of entertainment. To say, "Enough. Turn it off and go outside and play." And then to do likewise, for if we don't follow our own good advice, neither will they.

We can still have a rich, mindful life today but not without much vigilance. For this I've learned, that the more you have and the more complicated life becomes, the more is required of you and the harder it will be to live simply and wisely.

Getting up to date on First Aid and CPR

The American Canoe Association requires instructors to be certified in First Aid and CPR--a knowledge base that we've made use of on more than one occasion as coaches.

In the past, we've taken the two-day Wilderness First Aid (WFA) course offered by Wilderness Medical Associates, and we've long been interested in the Wilderness Advanced First Aid and Wilderness First Responder courses. But with time and money as limiting factors, we haven't yet managed to attain those certifications.

With our WFA about to expire, we set up a one-day American Heart Association Heartsaver First Aid course with John Browning, an ACA Level 4 Sea instructor trainer, emergency medical technician, and instructor with both the American Heart Association and Wilderness Medical Associates. This set-up allowed John to tailor the usual Heartsaver curriculum to a class mainly comprised of kayak instructors, and to add some additional wilderness and paddling-related elements.

Cap'n Browning, at the helm of the First Aid course.

The Heartsaver curriculum is very urban in its orientation. It's geared mainly toward workplace safety, and assumes a quick response from emergency personnel. By contrast, the WFA course is geared toward guides and outdoors enthusiasts on short trips away from civilization. So while the Heartsaver course emphasizes how to perform CPR (some of which recently changed) and how to staunch bleeding while waiting for emergency personnel to arrive, the WFA teaches participants how to evaluate and stabilize a victim far from help.

The course was not without its surreal moments. It is taught with the help of a slick video featuring workplace and urban scenarios that are then repeated in a studio by sweatsuit-clad actors.

Gloves, projector, action!

Even the mannequins seemed sleepy after a full day in a small room.

Zzzzzzzzz.

There's no question that staying current on First Aid is valuable, and we especially appreciated the additional outdoor content John provided. (His reading list alone was worth the price of admission!) But taking this course motivated us even more to get additional training in Wilderness First Aid, because most of the incidents we encounter happen outdoors.

Bison Country

Here is a shot from Custer State Park in the Black Hills of South Dakota. After spending almost 3 days in Nebraska photographing the Sandhill Crane migration in unusually hot temperatures for spring (each day the temp almost hit 90 degrees!), it was nice to drive up to the Black Hills and have the weather change along the way. On this day the temp never got above 45 and in the higher elevations of the hills it was about 36 degrees and sleet was falling from the sky.



This photo was taken along the "Wildlife Loop Road" in Custer State Park. This state park is a great one for wildlife. I saw lots of other critters as well, but the Bison stole the show. I saw probably close to 200 Bison. While I enjoy a good close-up shot of an animal, I also like to compose shots that show them and their surrounding environment. I think (in most cases) that photos such as this tell more of a story than a close-up does. At any rate, I hope you like it!

Reaching skywards

These tall chimneys need a ladder attached to them for ease of maintenance. I love the spiked finials - or whatever they're called! Everything about this roof seemed to be reaching up into the cloudless morning sky.