Monday, May 27, 2013

Old Friends, Part II

On the day I retired, I petulantly promised myself that I would never set foot in a public high school, particularly the one on Green Mountain, again.  So far, with the exception of attending my grandson's graduation in Orlando, I have kept that promise.

But yesterday afternoon I managed to revisit good old GMHS without having to actually walk into the place.  We went to the shower for Gavin's new child, Colton.  We met Todd and saw Ellison running around just like he did at their place in New York a few months ago.  And there at Nils Erickson's spectacular home we found all the people, well a lot of the people, who made Green Mountain such a great place back in its halcyon years, you know, the years when Kathie and I were there.  There was Carol and Harvey DeLockroy, Bud and Janet Simmons, Barb Amberg looking a lot like she did when she was in my Sophomore Lang Arts class.  Nancy Hardesty looking all spiked and tres avant garde.  Mostly there were kids, wonderful kids.  I know they are all in their 30's and 40's now, but they're still kids.

I had a wonderful talk with Nils about his children and the Montessori school close-by.  Tim Skillern and his wife (I'm sorry I forgot your name) were there.  Tim and I worked side by side on the newspaper for four years.  Our relationship was one of my favorite things about my career, yet I barely recognized him.  I almost cried when we hugged.  Kevin Williams and I spent a goodly amount of time talking about our favorite subject--restaurants.  We discovered we live in the same basic area as Stacy Lord and now will start looking for her at the grocery store.  And of course we saw Gavin and his wonderful family again.  It was a rare treat to see him two times in the last couple of months.

Afterwards, we went with Bud and Janet and had a terrific dinner at Gaetano's, one time mafia hang out and current neighborhood Italian joint.  They have surprisingly good food there if you're ever around 38th and Tejon.

Thanks to everyone for reminding me of all that I loved about school, yet allowing me to avoid the many things I learned to hate.

Friday, May 24, 2013

Old Friends

Old people are so irritating.  Maybe you've noticed.  I finished up my workout this morning and headed to the showers anticipating a long stint in the hot tub.  I mean hanging out in the hot tub is really the only thing that makes going to the Y worth the effort.  But this morning things didn't go according to plan.  I walked in the shower room and there in the hot tub were two really nice guys, guys that are ordinarily fun to talk with if the conversation sticks exclusively to travel, but they're evidently too old to deal with the hot tub jets and instead just sit in the still tub (when it is still you can see how dirty it actually is) and soak.  Whenever an individual asks them if it would be okay to turn on the jets, they shout NO in unison.  On those mornings when I see the two of them in the tub, I just sigh a little and take a quick shower and get the hell out.

At what age does a human being stop growing, stop reading the papers, stop watching the news (they watch Fox instead), stop thinking or liking or accepting anything that they have not already thought, or liked, or accepted?  When you read KING LEAR for example, you are supposed to be sympathetic toward the older generation as they are being eaten alive by the ravening wolves of the younger generation, but let's face it, if you really had to deal with Lear and Gloucester and Kent, if you had to give them rides in your car, or share a hot tub with them, or have dinner with them, you would end up hating them and rooting for good old Goneril and Regan to put them out of their misery.  Kent says plaintively that he is "too old to learn."  I used to well up when I read that; now I want to tell him that if he's so old to shut the fuck up about it.

I'm not just talking about chronology here.  There are all kinds of people younger than me who are clearly already in their dotage.  For instance, if I take an "old" person someplace in my car I can't open the sun roof, or keep all the side windows wide open.  And when I do keep everything shut down, I have to be careful that the air conditioner doesn't blast them in the face.  Even if the climate inside the car is acceptable, if it is sunny outside and the old person spaced out his/her sun glasses (old people are always spacing out things like their sun glasses), you would think the old geezer was being exposed to nuclear fall out the way he puts his hand over his eyes to protect himself from the same sun that has been beating down on him without effect for the past 80 years.  I always carry an extra pair of sun glasses in the glove compartment.  Ray Bans.  If I'm gonna help some oldie stay out of the sun, I want them to be stylin'.

And I don't like the way they dress.  Old people always think they have to dress appropriately, so they wear suits during the day and wear hose and wear khakis and never shorts.  I don't trust people who never wear shorts.  They cover up to protect themselves from that same intruding sun in the previous paragraph.

They don't laugh as much as they used to.  They don't get the jokes on "The Daily Show" and, of course, "Colbert" is a complete mystery.  Why does he pronounce his name that way?  They're on the look out for gay people who might want to molest them, poor people who might want to take their money, black people who might want to marry their daughters and become President.  They miss Johnny Carson, have grown grudgingly accustomed to David Letterman and are still relieved that Conan didn't take over.

They like to eat out, but don't chew their food as carefully and thoroughly as their age requires and end up punctuating every meal with terrifying choking fits usually during or right after the salad course.

Don't get me wrong.  Some of my best friends are old people.  Now that I think about it, ALL of my best friends are old people.  But if you ever catch me rolling up windows, shading my eyes from the sun, choking over an underchewed scallion, or worst of all, turning off the jets in a hot tub, I want you to shoot me.

Monday, May 20, 2013

The Angry Buddhist by Seth Greenland: A Good Book for Me


Katherine today.  Good Morning.

I think this is the last Monday I'm waking up with a pretty good sized To-Do list facing me.  The one vital item at the moment (moving some money into the cash-strapped checking account) can wait at least until the Schwarz Group wakes up.  This gives me time to build up the nerve to let the financial planner know I blew it again.  Things just aren't going according to plan around here.  It pisses me off.

For the last year or so I've watched my angry side grow up.  I've generally buried anger and lots of cancer stuff I've read has suggested that hiding anger inside is like a cancer invitation.  I've been actively working at being okay with being angry on the outside.  I'm not very practiced at it though.  I suck at it.

I know folks at the gym who have anger mastered.  The towels, the temperature of the pool, the temperature of the running track, the lack of Kleenex or the wasteful provision of Kleenex or the generic brand of the Kleenex, the politics of anybody, the weather (I can't remember a day that made a certain crinkly semi-swimmer happy), the kids waiting for a van to school, the crappy coffee--all of these things make these people really angry.  The weather and traffic can make some folks crazy mad and one man is ready to punch folks out because "Obama has cut the parking in downtown Littleton."  Like I said--lots of anger I could learn from if I was any good at taking tutorials.

My problem, however, is none of that stuff makes me mad.  My problem is that I'm vaguely angry.  I have pissed off days.  My doctor and one daughter-in-law suspect hormones because I can't take any.  I'm not sure why it's ok for fellows to get mad, but girls are hormonal if they get mad.  I don't think I'm hormonal.  I think I am unschooled in the whole anger business and it's just another bit of gender discrimination I'm coming to terms with in my sixties.  See--a little anger poking through here.

Now, general existential angst I can handle.  I feel strongly that I have worry and guilt mastered.  I had training here.  My mom made sure I would worry about everything.  She made sure that I would attack duties and complete them at a top-notch level and that I would feel guilty if I did not.   Give me a good existential crisis and I'm ready to roll--I can worry with the best of them.  I need help battling the gods though.

Mom didn't believe in saying anything about bad stuff.  Period.  Anger is bad stuff.  We, as girls, were not to get angry or express anger.  There was no battle practice growing up.  My parents didn't fight.  Mom didn't fight.  It was wrong to fight--but wrong because she was a girl, because I was a girl.   Now here I am and it's downright depressing when I am agitated that I just can't aim a tidy "Fuck you" in any accurate direction.  I'm working on it though.

I've begun to see clues.  I adore Lizbeth Salander in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and her other books.  I like a Pink song where she tells off her husband and the Amy Winehouse anti-rehab song and I looked at two of my playlists a bit ago and pissed off women were there big time.  When I picked them, I remember thinking these would be good for running.  They look angry now.  Lots of gender aiming here.

I'm also avoiding the news.  How can anyone keep from living in anger with what goes on outside--girls chained in basements, marathons blown up, churches on fire, a dysfunctional Congress.  Part of this is just plain age and seeing that the news today is no different than the news of my youth.  I read this morning that the Jackson Hole newspaper compared FDR to Hitler when the Teton National Park was created.  Nothing changes.  It wears on me and makes me mad, but I'm not sure at what.

All of this stuff is why I picked up The Angry Buddhist by Seth Greenland.  I bought it when it first came out, but I just got to it recently.  It seemed like a perfect title for my mood and I ended up really liking the book.  It wasn't a cure--I still feel a good deal of un-targeted anger and I'm not sure if I should identify the anger or not and I'm not feeling any closer to the sort of Buddhist enlightenment that would make dealing with the anger a kind of normal detachment.  None of that happened, but like I said, it's a good book and it's fun to read.

The book takes place in desert California and Jimmy Duke is the protagonist.  He's been recently forced out of the police department in a suburb of Palm Springs because he didn't kill a dog he was ordered to kill.  Jimmy is angry about this and lots of other things in his world.  His all-image brother Randall is running for re-election against a very Sarah Palin-ish woman in a Congressional race.  Randall wants to use Jimmy and a recently paroled third brother, Dale, as political props.  There is lots of political fuel for Jimmy's anger here as well.

Lots of odd characters float through adding fun and fire.  There's a bisexual tennis coach/tanning salon girl and a political advisor both scheming their way to the tops of their weirdo worlds.  There's a hard-ass local police chief (named Hard) who forced Jimmy off the force and he discovers some folks can get angrier than he can.  There are lots of folks who remind me of the dolt in Fargo--sometimes crime needs to be left to the criminals.

Because of the dog (happily living with Jimmy), our hero did a small stint with anger management classes the department required him to take before his ultimate departrure.  He found his way to some beginning Zen teachings and as his asshole political brother keeps pushing his buttons, Jimmy imagines Randall in pink bubbles and has the bubbles float off the horizon of his mind.  It doesn't work long or very well for Jimmy.  I've tried floating away some thoughts in pink bubbles a couple of times.  It didn't work for me.  I just can't think in pink.

This is a fun and funny book.  It attacks politics and the people in politics and how the only thing a politician can do is run for office.  The remaining circus of characters make fun of the self-importance we all suffer from--I mean I'm writing my wee thoughts on this wee blog with its wee following.  I know I overweigh my thoughts, but the characters surrounding Jimmy are superstars at over-valuing everything about themselves.  Mostly, The Angry Buddhist is a really good time.




Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Watching Jim Write


Katherine today.

We've spent our lives as teachers and even though we left our classrooms eight years ago, we think of ourselves as teachers still.  It creeps me out a bit--you spend the heart of your life trying to define yourself and to get others to value that definition and then you discover you have to shed the definition and find another definition.   At least in terms of profession.  We were teaching professionals.  It really was life for us.   Now we aren't.  How about that?

Generally Jim and I share our definitions.  We both define ourselves as parents and outdoorsy types and literary types and foodies as well as defining ourselves as teachers.  It's only the professional definition sparking this today.

Without the teacher definition, we both have had to train ourselves to read books without making notes in the margins.  We both have had to realize that we'll never control any part of our world the way we controlled a classroom.  We both have had to learn that it's okay to have a snow storm and not pray for a snow day.  We both have had to learn that we don't need to check out new staplers in the hopes one will finally not jam when faced with teenagers.    I have had to learn new reasons to buy shoes.  At least that part was easy.

Because I am still involved with teachers and schools with my Job at Metro, learning a new definition has obvious stumbling blocks for me.  I do look for other jobs--I need to fund my desires somehow.  I check the Ritz Carlton and the Four Seasons every month or so to see if they are looking for somebody to take care of guest services here in town.  No luck so far, but I'm having a hard time looking for jobs when I'm not at all sure what I'd like to do.   Travel writer appeals to me, but my stuff just seems too personal.  I'm betting the description I posted about me drinking tamarind juice and vodka in Belize is not what SUNSET MAGAZINE has in mind.   I think that's true for a lot of what Jim and I write.  We aren't what the mainstream has in mind.

Jim has done better with new definitions than I have.   He launched his retirement with a handyman period that still pays off in various improvements around here.  He's off on a rare outing into the hammer and nail world as I write this.  For the last two years he's been in writer mode.  It's the first time I've watched a person redefine himself without assigning a grade while he or she went through the process.  High school kids redefine themselves often.  I like that about them.  Adults hang on far too long at times--I am a prime example.   Anyway, Jim is redefining himself and I have a technicolor view.  He's a writer.  He's not a teacher.  Mostly.

Jim does lots of writer-type things.  In AP/Honors classes I always did some work on the nature of artists.  I taught kids that artists live in different worlds and get obsessed and generally don't behave like regular people.  Back then I lived with a teacher and I was a teacher and lesson plan obsessions and evenings where nobody did anything but read made sense.  Only one of us is a writer now though.  I think we're both on a learning curve here, but it's a good ride.

Jim has finished one book and is in the process of looking for an agent to sell it.   Another book is in its second draft and in the editing process.  A section of the first book looks like it will get morphed into a play soon.  There is a third book outlined in his mind.  Each explores music and requires research (blues in the first and string quartets in the second one) and he needs to do a bunch of research on Jack Kerouac and jazz in Five Points and around Denver before he gets rolling.  I think the play is a way for him to keep writing while he's researching.  I think this is addictive stuff.  He's getting better and faster and his ideas are getting ahead of his time alone and home projects we can afford.

Jim's life is wonderfully ritualized from my outside point of view.  He makes me coffee each morning, we either head to the gym or we don't, and I go off to schools until this time of year.  He reads his political stuff and then puts his current effort on the screen.  Notes on the left.  Text on the right.  He reads some of yesterday's stuff and he leaves the computer to nod off.

Stuff happens around the house at this point.  Decks get built.  The lawn gets mowed.  The kitchen floor gets washed.  He returns to the computer and writes.  Sometimes more work gets done around the house.  That happens if he gets stuck.  There was a moment during the first book when I was working in the garden and he was building a path to the backyard.  It was kind of a Eureka moment.  The flagstone went into the sand and he went to the computer and wrote a single sentence that shifted everything.  I mean, I saw that happen.  I knew the sentence when I read the book.  That was pretty cool.

Jim writes and does stuff around the house until he stops writing for the day.  Then sometimes he plays the guitar or does research or cooks.  It'd be a great life without some of the hurdles he faces.  The amount of thought that goes into a paragraph is hard to measure.  Dickens got paid by the word.  I wish Jim could get paid by the thought.

Sometimes he doesn't sleep.  Well, he rarely sleeps, but sometimes this makes it worse.  He thinks about what the people in the book will do or not do.  He worries about writing things he's never done.  There is a cool chase scene in the second book.  Characters jump off a dirt road onto a steep hill and have to struggle to get up the hill.  It's scary and it's supposed to be scary.  It took him lots of drafts and it still worries him.  I'm pretty sure Stephen King hasn't done all the stuff he's written about so I think it'll be okay if Jim has never barely escaped up a rocky slope after being chased by two weird Larry's.    Another time Jim lost sleep over what his invented ritzy music camp would serve for dinner.  You can see this gets obsessive.  I try to help.  I told him the ramps as part of the camp meal were a bit much.  The ramps are now wild ramps.  Like I said, I try to help.  Try to tell George Seurat not to use dots.

My best obsessive story happened about a year ago when he was trying to work out an ending for the first book.  He's had a plan for each book before he started writing, but when he actually started typing, the stories evolved and they didn't necessarily go according to the original plan.   At this time he was struggling between what he planned for the book and where the book seemed to be going of its own free will and I was having my own little pity party at the same time and I was crying and being my emotional self and our struggles met over wine one afternoon.  I was weeping and making no doubt ridiculous hormonal statements about something and I thought he was really hearing me and then he started jotting notes.  Had I looked at those notes at that moment, I think it would have been really bad.  I know it would have been.  I managed to wait though and I looked at the notes the next morning.  Sure enough--all about the book and the solution the book needed.  It's a good solution.  I needed to cry more than anything that day.  It worked out okay.

Sometimes Jim gets bad news that he has no control over.  That's the hardest thing to watch.  I don't know what to do.  It makes me mad mostly.  He keeps plugging away.  He survives better than I ever could.  Bad news is hard.

Jim writes because he loves it and he can see he's getting better at his craft and he's rediscovering all the creative stuff he did in a classroom and as a handyman.  There are such wondrous moments when something he writes and works on is good and we both know it.  I love watching this.

He'd like to be published.  I'd like that too.  It would be way cool.  He ardently works at that side too even though it is more opposed to his real nature.  This boy was not built to sell himself.   All three of our kids have to sell themselves to succeed.  I'm learning to respect their abilities here more and more.

What Jim is doing is both beautiful and painful.  He's being a writer.  It's amazing to watch.








Thursday, May 9, 2013

Date Night

A Place Beyond the Pines

Kathie has already alerted our Facebook friends that we had a date night yesterday.  We caught the four o'clock showing of Derek Cianfrance's new film and then we sat at the bar at Mizuna and had dinner and chatted about the movie.  How sophisticated can you get?  The older I get the less I feel a need to exert any effort about anything, so instead of presenting an organized reaction to our date, here is a random list of observations, mostly about Derek's terrific movie.

1.  I strongly disagree with the movie critics who complained that the three different stories of the film were disconnected, the last two sections weak and undeveloped.  First of all, if I hadn't read the critics it wouldn't have occurred to me that there were three stories.  I thought the narrative string ran unbroken through the whole thing.  I suppose the last two sections were weak only because Ryan Gosling is crazy good in the first sequence.  He haunts the rest of the movie, as well he should.  I strongly suspect that was Derek's intention.  Because of that, I never lost focus.  The transition from the Gosling character's death to the initial remorse of his killer was masterful, I thought.  And the last sequence with the kids was compelling, mostly because the actor playing the cop turned politician's son was brilliant.  The scene where his dad is holding his face in his hand and confronting him might be the most perfect father-son encounter I've ever seen.  I didn't like it much, except as art.

2.  Here is what I like best about Derek's movies:  the performances are always so natural.  Has any woman ever been better than Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine?  Ryan Gosling, who should have had a nomination for Valentine, was even better here.  Ray Liotta.  Nobody does menace better than him.  The critics said that Eva Mendez' character wasn't developed.  I thought it was developed perfectly in countless understated ways.  It wasn't her story, but her heartbreak was always at the forefront.

3.  I loved the way the cinematography didn't call attention to itself, but was masterful at the same time. For instance, during the (AMAZING) chase scene through the cemetery, I was rapt because of him dodging in and out of cool old tombstones; I wasn't constantly thinking, "Wow, what a great shot!"  I think that's called art.

4.  Mostly, and here's my main reaction, even though it is clear that Derek's film is working on the theme of father and son relationships, the most compelling thing about it, and Derek's other films, for Kathie and me is the way they get to the heart of dualities.  I loved the tension between Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in BLUE VALENTINE.  They embody duty and desire, both individually and together.  And the Gosling character in THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES  is eminently likable, until the danger always lurking below the surface breaks out.  I'll say it again.  Gosling is amazing.

5.  I love the way the movie made me think, even though I'm not sure I like what I'm thinking about.  As I've gotten older I've grown less profound.  I think that's fascinating.  In a box in the basement lies a collection of the failed novel attempts of my youth.  They were all serious and loaded with symbolism.  In my mid sixties I have managed to write two novels (both unpublished, but I'm proud of them), neither of which is profound or particularly symbolic.  They're light and, if I say so myself, fun to read. But I certainly wouldn't teach either one of them in an AP class.  It is sobering to realize one lacks profundity, but that's where I am.  Derek obviously has issues that he is passionate about.  I don't.  I'm not sure I ever did.  I know men with father issues who tear up when they watch FIELD OF DREAMS.  My mother and father were divorced when I was 6, but Kevin Costner playing catch with his dead father never did it for me.  See what I mean?  It is hard to be an artist when you are shallow.

6.  The bar at Mizuna is the perfect place to discuss a film.  A really nice sauvignon blanc.  A tuna tartare on paper thin slices of cucumber studded with caviar.  A snapper dish consisting of one perfect bite after another.  All of that followed by a snifter of Armagnac.  And, of course, my best friend sitting next to me being characteristically brilliant.  Thank you Derek for providing the grist for our date night.

Monday, May 6, 2013

Dear Grand Teton Lodge Company or Vail Associates or the Gods of Jenny Lake Lodge: I Like the Thunder Beings



Dear Grand Teton Lodge Company or Vail Associates or the Gods of Jenny Lake Lodge:

My name is Katherine Starkey.  This summer will be the 17th time we visit Jenny Lake Lodge.  We've been staying two weeks most of those years.  We're retired, but we still think of ourselves as high school English teachers.  Jenny, when we found it, became our bliss station and how we used all of our disposable income once we had some disposable income.

We team taught English in a midsize high school in a suburb west of Denver.  There was a time when every sophomore read BLACK ELK SPEAKS at our school and Jim and I grew used to seeing Sioux-like Thunder Beings in the sky when they appeared.  I can say without restraint and knowing I will suffer the jocular derision of many family members because of our proclivity to name certain things as "the best," that the best place in the world to see Thunder Being Clouds roll over the mountains and lord over the world is from the porch of "our" cabin at Jenny Lake Lodge.

The porch of Bluebell is our best place in the world and big companies like GTLC/Vail Associates forget that sometimes the decisions made about bottom lines make a difference to folks out here.  The decisions you make about Jenny Lake Lodge are also about English teachers who like to hike to Lake Solitude in the day and rock on their porch in the evening knowing exactly when the sun will set over Mt. Rockchuck and sometimes Thunder Beings roll in and teach us a thing or too about Mother Nature.

The decisions hit other folks like us.  We are good friends with other Jenny guests who've become yearly "campers" for their own reasons.   The Monaco's started coming to Jenny over 30 years ago and would be the best source of history from the guests we know.    They come from New York City and should be the "poster couple" for the place.  David Hezlep has come longer than we have and has done more to create Jenny guests than any other person we've met up there.  He's brought friends from Texas and Alabama (his home) and is hugely responsible for turning us into yearly returnees.  He knew the hiking, the best things on each night's menu, wines, and art.  We've met any number of truly wonderful and remarkable folks at Jenny.

Many regular returnees have stopped coming.  Some have stopped for reasons that have nothing to do with Jenny.  Many were pretty darn old and some have sadly died.  If you were fortunate to stay at Jenn when Priscilla was there, you miss her sorely as we do.

Some have stopped coming for other reasons and this is what scares me.  People who could afford the place, unlike us, began to see the kinds of slippage they wouldn't stand for because these folks have other options or standards or something that retired English teachers looking at clouds do.  These folks weren't too old and the ones I know are alive and well.  These folks don't like the corporate edges and little things like having to ask for a fire in the morning.

Jenny thrives because many folks come back.  It is a different creature than The Lodge at Vail.  Most of the hotels GTLC/Vail Associates deal with are like cruise ships--there are tons of rooms and giant restaurants and lots of people to move to ski slopes or somewhere.  Even at Colter Bay and Jackson Lake Lodge the masses seem to be the focus--the company moves the masses across the Lake, down the river, and around the park highway and in and out of a number of appropriate dining spots and guest rooms with perfection.  We know.  We've stayed in those places and loved those places.  Jenny Lake Lodge, however, is not a cruise ship and not meant for the masses.  It's a personal yacht.

Jenny Lake Lodge is not like those places and it needs a staff that knows and loves it.  It needs management that values its longtime return guests instead of valuing the overnighters with the hopes they might come back sometime.  Jenny needs a staff that adores the Tetons more than anything.  A job at Jenny is a seasonal job and only the mountains can hold folks to the kind of upscale dedication that is needed.  The best staffs at Jenny worked to be close to the mountains, because for most of them working for money isn't part of the picture yet.  That's what makes them good at what they do.  They are the great teachers for the guests.

Through friends and FaceBook, it's been clear things are changing at Jenny.  It looks like the dining manager from the Ahwahnee in Yosemite will be taking over the food situation.  The hotel manager hails from Beano's Cabin up by Beaver Creek.  These are big places.  Jenny is small.  I hope they both understand the beauty of small.

With all this in mind, here are my ardent hopes that this summer is the best ever and with that in mind, here's a list of thoughts to keep in mind:

1.  Congrats for hiring Michael Hobbs.  He has the hardest job with the least glory and he's magnificent at it.  Nobody, truly, builds a better morning fire than Michael.  I've seen him figure out how to explain hiking maps to even the densest guest.  He's a fair and kind dining room host.  He knows the history of the place and folks like us and our friends.  This made us and others happy.

2.  Remember to remind the new managers that intimate is good.  That history and folks who come back do deserve some perks.  We are your best and longest business.

3.  Continue the strides towards environmental possibilities.

4.  Remember the dining room and the food is why some folks come.  It was a bumpy road last year.  Talk to Jim Friend, another good soul and staffer who knows the history of the place and what makes it work.  The hiring of the two Josh's to oversee the whole dining approach was a happy step as well.  We have high hopes.

5.  Pay attention to things.  As life long teachers we know that what gets monitored is what gets done.  Michael Hobbs is good at this.  He had a great teacher in Angela Beaumont.

6.  If the new folks have any questions that Michael can't handle, call Angela.  She loves the place and knows it better than anyone.  Why would folks not reach out to its best caretaker ever?

7.  Change anything at breakfast.  Serve Carol Monaco her unique breakfast order on a "big boy" plate.  She deserves it.

8.  Hire folks who love the mountains first.  You can learn to be a waiter.  It's harder to learn to climb mountains.

8.  Love Jenny's littleness and its strange cabins and old-time quilts and its staff.  Love us and all the folks who come.

That's it.  I'm glad you hired Michael.  I wish he was the big boss because he knows so much about the place.  We're excited about seeing Michael and Jim and anyone else who has returned.  Returning is everything--for both staff and guests.  I don't want there to ever be a point in time where I need to weigh the value of the Thunder Beings over Mount Rockchuck with the value of the porch that makes seeing them possible.