The Happy Bavarian

Lake Oeschinen seen from the flank of the Bluemlisalp

In a remote corner of Alberta filled with tall, jagged mountains, I spent a week decades ago skiing with a group of people that included a gentleman we all referred to as “Erhart zee Happy Bavarian”. Erhart was one of those ageless life-long skiers, as calm in his bearing as his skiing was smooth in a way that belied his many years well-spent in the mountains. A native of Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany, he could have been 65; he could have been 85; his actual age was unclear and utterly unimportant.

Erhart alpine skied in randonnée boots — we’d call them “alpine touring boots” now — at a time when they were uncommon in North America outside the guiding community. When I asked him why that was, his response embodied his whole approach to the sport: when there was a line for lifts at home, he would just start walking uphill instead (“Ven der iz a line for zee leeeft, I chust valk up zee moun-tain”). We shared many stories on that trip, as you do, and one of Erhart’s has been on my mind a lot lately.

Erhart did a lot of business in the United States throughout his career, frequently flying across the Atlantic to do so in that blessedly analog time. The very first thing he would do each time he arrived in the United States was to buy a Hershey’s milk chocolate bar before even exiting the airport. Garmisch-Partenkirchen was among the first German towns liberated from the Nazis by the U.S. Army in the Second World War, and to this day has a large U.S. military presence, and the distinctly American appearance of the Hershey’s bar and its particularly American taste and texture triggered vivid memories of the GI’s who handed them out to the local schoolkids, including Erhart. With each saccharine sweet chocolate bar, he was reminded of those young soldiers from our Greatest Generation, filled with the infectious optimism and generosity that inspired Erhart throughout his life along with countless others in post-war Europe. Buying one right off the plane, unwrapping the brown paper and foil, and savoring the sweetness of it was his way of paying tribute to those GI’s and of reminding himself of the modern, liberating democracy they brought to the world.

I’ve recently returned from an exceptional trip hiking in the mountains of the Bernese Oberlandt in Switzerland. I stayed in a small, remote town, just busy enough for the local folk to look forward to the slower pace and quieter weeks of autumn but without any bitterness or a lack of genuine welcome towards their guests. Though my mountain adventures are the premise for these trips I enjoy, without fail it is the distinctiveness of each place I visit and the opportunity to meet and get to know the people that stays with me long after I’ve returned home. My trip hiking in the beautiful near-vertical mountains around Kandersteg was no exception.

My German is terrible — I speak just enough to engage in a conversation that involves saying hello, ordering lunch or coffee and then quickly moving into English or French. The effort makes a difference in my casual interactions with people, especially if I am happy to take time and move and speak slowly — particularly important with the mountain Swiss who are just not in a hurry to do or say anything as though preserving their energy for what is really important is the regional pastime. On this recent trip, the locals in my hotel, in mountain huts, shops and tramways were curious to engage a little bit longer with me but only when nobody else was around.

“American?”, I was asked quietly and carefully. What followed my “yes” was usually a quiet nod and gently raised eyebrow, and it often included the sheepishly asked question: “Trump?”.

Obviously, I have my political views. It’s very important to me that I am a good, non-partisan ambassador for our republic and our people when I am overseas. For whatever reason, when traveling I frequently and politely have been put in the position of being the great explainer of all things American to the people I meet. This year, this trip, these interactions felt different. I felt as though the people who asked me about the current President in such loaded fashion really wanted to know whether their idea of America, the image they clung to in the same way as my friend Erhart, is still valid. It’s a question that I ask myself quite often at the moment, and I do worry very seriously that America’s deliberate abdication of leadership and advocacy for democracy and democratic values has left behind only a haze of constant, bellicose, selfish noise. It’s hard for us to maintain an informed and hopeful world view while drinking from a firehose, and it’s clearly challenging for our friends overseas to watch when they are accustomed to looking up to us and the society we created here.

I am not suggesting that we all start eating Hershey bars and eating them while binge-watching Band of Brothers in an effort to find a way to heal our nation. I do find the news of the day to be a severe challenge to my belief in the American Dream and my confidence in my own future and that of our Republic. Still, as I always conclude, I will not forsake the immeasurable effort of our preceding generations who came to America on whatever deck of the boat and in whatever status, and who made it the great nation our friends grew up admiring so much. I am not giving up. I am lucky to have Erhart’s memory and the hopeful inquisitiveness of the people I meet as a reminder that America as an idea still looms on the horizon and will always be a work in progress. There can be no going backwards, despite the consensus of the fire hose.

I bought some delicious freshly picked apples and beautiful corn at the farmer’s market this Labor Day Weekend. I did not buy any Hershey’s milk chocolate bars. Maybe I should have, and just maybe the idea of them and their sweetness is enough for now.

Thank you, Erhart. Enjoy your uphill walk, my friend.

Bonderalp ridge between Kandersteg and Adelboden

Farmhouse in Ober Allme; nice cow bells!

A Long Walk Off a Short Pier

The MBTA ferry docked in Hingham,MA

Domestic air travel in the United States this year has become, ummm, shi …, nope won’t say it. Let’s just say that it’s become an expensive, unpleasant and very uncomfortable way of bookending any trip. I’m certainly not old enough to have experienced the pleasures of having walked up a staircase, welcomed into a gleaming new aircraft by designer-clad and remarkably skinny, uniformly white staff resembling residents of Stepford in a pillbox hat, and handed a cocktail in an actual glass while placing my fedora in the ample storage space above my luxurious seat in a two-by-two row. If that was the “Jet Age”, this is something quite different. We get to wait alongside throngs of equally grimy fellow travelers wolfing down fast food while waiting for our non-egalitarian group to be called by a barely audible announcement so we can sit in an inadequately air conditioned over-crowded aluminum tube for three hours before even leaving the gate while praying that we’ll make our connection to the next flight. To be fair, my experience over the last few years usually includes a cabin crew doing their best to ameliorate the circumstances. Thankfully, my standards have sunk commensurably with the experience and I muddle through it all with good books and a prodigious ability to nap on demand while sitting bolt upright and strapped to a chair.

There is something I do that successfully mitigates the damaging effects of air travel on my mind, body, and spirit. It works like magic, never failing to snap me into a low blood pressure relaxed reverie and positive-minded contemplative nature. When flying back East to Boston for whatever reason, personal or professional, after deplaning and collecting my baggage, I get on the bus that transports travelers between terminals and then exit the vehicle at … wait for it … the ferry terminal. With luck I have enough time to stand still on the wharf for a few moments, breathe the sea air, feel the wind in my face, and gaze absent-mindedly across the sailboat-filled harbor at downtown Boston. And then I get on a boat.

Boston’s Logan International Airport sits at the at the end of a long, narrow peninsula immediately across the harbor from downtown, and it is surrounded by little islands. The Boston Harbor Islands National and State Park includes an amazing number of stunningly gorgeous and remarkably interesting spots to explore in a way that feels quite removed from the urban hustle and bustle. It’s far too easy to visit Boston and not have the seafaring life of the city as part of your experience or to rush off to Cape Cod’s celebrated and very busy beach towns without seeing these close-by gems. I can’t recommend visiting the harbor islands enough (https://www.bostonharborislands.org/).

Yeah, yeah; sorry about that. I promise, I am not about to recite “Sea Fever” by John Masefield (although I could, just to make my ninth grade English teacher happy). When I’m able to plan my travel so I can take the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority ferry from Logan to the little port town not far from where my parents live, it works every time. I immediately feel as though I am on vacation. While waiting for the ferry, I even sometimes get to watch the seagulls catch clams, fly high up and drop their prey onto the ferry docks to crack them open for easier dining. The place is littered with clam shells like some seagull’s fantasy Las Vegas buffet, all right underneath the many unsuspecting flights coming and going from the busy airport.

I can’t quite explain why it is that traveling by boat is such a compelling and relaxing way to transit from one place to another, and it most certainly is the antidote to the current challenges of domestic air travel. It’s quite different from paddle boarding or canoeing on a river, it’s certainly not a cruise, and why isn’t important. Take the ferry to Nantucket rather than fly; take the mail boat from Portland to visit friends on the islands of Casco Bay; from Greenwich Harbor to the islands in Long Island Sound for a picnic with a view of Manhattan; or from Seattle to Whidby Island for dinner at your favorite seafood restaurant. Watch the commercial fishing boats or pleasure craft float by as the people on board waive and, abracadabra, that little bit of transit becomes a calming, restful nugget of vacation in a way unlike anything else can achieve. The people on passing boats do waive in a way that is a noteworthy distinction from the drivers in Boston traffic who flip the bird or just cut off other vehicles while listening to the talk radio shows that make them angry at the world while speeding ever faster. Maybe those people just need a slow trip on a sturdy vessel to relax a bit (https://www.timeout.com/boston/news/boston-drivers-ranked-worst-in-the-nation-for-the-10th-consecutive-year-062625). I for one will remain happy on the slow boat.

I’m genuinely grateful to be out of the shoulder season doldrums and into a busy summer season even though I am up to the gunnels in work. Still, if the Hades-hot weather forecast proves to be correct here in the landlocked middle of the continent, I will eagerly anticipate the joys of a long walk off a short pier and into some cool mountain water. Followed by an ice cream sandwich in the shade of a big tree. Because it’s summer, and these things are important to keep me on the right tack all season long. I will look forward to my next travel plans that can include the gentle rocking of a boat in the harbor, the salt spray, and the wind in my face, and I feel better just thinking about it.

Typical fisherman's shack near the Nantucket ferry terminal

View of downtown Boston from Logan International Airport

Not Just a Nametag

The view from the sun-baked patio of the wonderful Hotel Eiger in Mürren, Switzerland

Imagine this: You’re sitting in the dining room of a lovely little hotel in a famously picturesque mountain village in the Swiss Alps. Outside it is pouring rain so the large brightly colored awning covering the entrance and the umbrellas that ordinarily protect patrons from the sunshine are all put away. Most of the diners in the lively room with stunning views through the panorama windows are on a half-board, pre-fixe meal plan, as am I. It includes several choices of delicious main courses that follow a range of exceptional soups, a fish course or salad, and fresh bread. The wine is plentiful, the atmosphere convivial, and the staff are friendly, efficient, and engaging in numerous languages.

After a long, vigorous day of hiking I am ready for the wonderful plate of beef stroganoff when it arrives, piping hot from the kitchen and made with care. And then it happens. It really did; and I wish it hadn’t.

From somewhere behind me, I hear the uniquely loud and nasally voice of an American. She says to the dining room manager (the always hilarious and quite amazing Carla), in specific reference to the meal just placed in front of me, “The smell of burning flesh is disgusting to me. We’d like to sit outside”. I did not turn around. I did hear Carla ask gently whether they realized that we were in the middle of an enormous and quite terrible rain storm, only to be dressed-down by the nose-talker about how it can’t possibly be hard to pull out the awning, dry off the table and chairs, and turn on the heaters. The American and her companion promptly walked out and waited in the hotel lobby, toe tapping, while the staff scurried to make them happy (or at least less miserable). I went ahead and dove face first into my stroganoff with vigor and more than a tiny bit of amazement. The staff bit their tongues.

I wish this had been an isolated incident. On that trip, I had several other encounters just like it.

After the few worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I tip-toed back into travel and eventually swan-dove in with vigor. In each of the last three years, I’ve sought out and found some exceptional experiences hiking in mountains far from home and getting to know some wonderful people. In my recent travels, I have always been made to feel welcome without exception or qualification and I have never felt as though I was being served by the people who staffed the hotels where I stayed, the cafes and remote mountain huts I visited, or the shops in which I poked around. Wherever I have traveled, the local people have been universally hospitable in the best sense of the word.

This year, in advance of my trip to the Bernese Oberlandt in Switzerland, I’d had in mind an article about the distinction between service and hospitality. It was a perspective that I kept in mind as I roamed around the car-free streets of Mürren and the surrounding villages perched on the cliffs above the Lauterbrunen Rift. It’s as beautiful a place as you can imagine, and yet it was the welcome of the people I found throughout the area that elevated it into the realm of the “I wonder if I could stay here for a long while” places. What stopped me from writing my article, what surprised me the most, was the realization that many, dare I say most, of the Americans in the bustling little village quite obviously did not share my view of how to experience the place and the hospitality of its people.

Among my compatriots, there was a clear expectation of being in receipt of service in Mürren, of being served, of experiencing the place just enough to be able to say that they’d been there and to show off their photos. There’s no other way to say it: the other Americans were noticeably and loudly disinterested in the people of the area, in their language and their culture. Their needy and entitled voices frequently interrupted my quiet reverie. I’ve been telling the uncomfortably numerous stories of my run-ins with cartoonish Americans to my friends here at home, selectively of course, and we all understand that underneath the entertaining tales about ugly Americans is a dark reality and a valuable signpost for the rest of us.

To be clear, I have zero issues with people preferring to modify their experiences for personal preferences, comfort, health or welfare. I do have an issue, a quite significant one, with people who treat the staff of exceptionally welcoming places like servants. It makes my skin crawl, especially when that staff is so committed to making all who come to their corner of the world feel at home in their home. Ours was among the first nations to cast aside social class as an essential component of how society is ordered and I would hope that egalitarianism is a part of our DNA whether we are at home or abroad, so this behavior really is challenging to my beliefs about who we are as a people. Thankfully, when I gently confronted Swiss villagers about whether this was a new phenomenon, their warmth with me remained unabated and they often shared their frustrations in a way that was always kind and made clear that they understood my own angst – their optimism about Americans remained unqualified even when tinted by polite consternation. Having the trust and confidence of the people there and being made to feel like one of their own was exemplified by the resident dog of a mountain hut invariably laying on my feet while having these conversations in French or my terrible German, and it did make me feel good about the world and my own place in it.

In Aspen Snowmass and in mountain resorts throughout North America, the common practice of staff wearing name tags that have their hometown on them is a subtle but effective way of humanizing each of us. The staff that work hard to keep the place clean and shovel the sidewalks, the wait staff in restaurants and everyone else are named and identified as people, not anonymously hiding like a nameless and faceless palace staff around the confines of a formal dining room, invisibly and silently serving their masters. The hometown on nametags indicates that we’ve each arrived here for a reason that often is similar to that of our visitors, and that our geographic diversity invites mutually respectful conversation and enriches our guests’ experience. I do hope that it keeps all of us, guests and staff alike, feeling and being squarely on the hospitality rather than the service side of the equation.

So, to my newfound friends in Mürren, danke schoen. Gracie mille. Merci beaucoup. Thank you for having made me feel welcome and for reminding me that true hospitality is neither transactional nor can it be rehearsed, and that its effect on the people being made welcome is far-reaching and quite wonderful.

I’m already looking forward to my next overseas adventure. For now, I may just have to treat myself to another slice of apfelstrudel at Bonnies on Aspen Mountain – it may make me feel soft around the waist but it does always make me feel good about the world.

The First to Fall

Boston harbor on a summer evening

Crispus Attucks has been on my mind lately. Considering the long-view context of his death at the hands of British soldiers in 1770 has been helping me find my footing in light of recent events.

Given that my home is in the mountains, it’s no surprise that when I try to make sense of the world around me and the people in it, I shift my gaze to high altitude to gain valuable context, stepping back and climbing up to get a better view. In the case of our recent Presidential election, I’ve had to step very, very far back in order to regain my balance and have a sense of what is happening. I stand by my conclusions though they have brought me no satisfaction. In essence, my view is that the arc of our American society and political history alternates between three steps forward and two steps back, and three steps forward four steps back (or five, or six).

Crispus Attucks was the first casualty of the American Revolution; the first person to die in the cause of American liberty. In an interesting historical wrinkle, he was of Wampanoag Nation and African descent, and it is unclear whether he was an escaped slave or had been freed by his owners. In Boston, he was well-known in his community as a free man and a working sailor. He was shot and killed by uniformed British troops outside the Customs House at the Boston Massacre. Though his race was happenstance to the means of his death, it does lend interesting punctuation to the timeline of the relationship between African Americans and the nation Attucks's ultimate sacrifice helped create.

In 1783, slavery was abolished in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on the basis that it was inconsistent with and repugnant to the state's new constitution. In 1833, slavery was abolished in the United Kingdom. In 1848, slavery was abolished in France and its colonies. In 1858, the United States Supreme Court declared in the Dred Scott decision that African Americans were not and could never be citizens of the United States of America, and that would have applied to Crispus Attucks's descendants despite his place in history. Dred Scott was decided 88 years after Attucks’s killing.

The 13^th Amendment to the United States Constitution abolishing slavery was ratified in 1865, 95 years after Crispus Attucks’s death; the 14^th Amendment providing equal protection of the laws was ratified in 1868, 98 years after his death; and the 15^th Amendment prohibiting discrimination with respect to the voting rights of citizens on the basis of race was ratified in 1870, 100 years after Crispus Attucks was gunned-down by British soldiers. Plessy vs. Ferguson, in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregating on the basis of the race was constitutional, was decided in 1896. 126 years after Attucks was killed, his descendants would have been segregated in every aspect of their life as Americans.

Shall I continue? Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education, in which the U.S. Supreme Court explicitly overturned Plessy vs. Ferguson in a stirring, succinct, and unanimous decision declaring that racial segregation was unconstitutional was decided in 1956; 176 years after Crispus Attucks’s death and 60 years after Plessy was decided. 176 years after so famously dying in the cause of liberty, Crispus Attucks’s descendants finally could attend school, drink out of a water fountain or sit at a lunch counter without a “whites only” sign – at least according to the United States Supreme Court. The March on Washington when Dr. Martin Luther King etched the words “I have a dream” into the American psyche wasn’t until 1963, and John Lewis had his head cracked open by the Alabama State Police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge while marching to secure voting rights for all Americans in 1965. Those seminal events were 193 and 195 years respectively after Crispus Attucks was killed at the start of the American Revolution.

To be clear, the British regulars who fired on a crowd of unarmed protesters in Boston on that March day in 1770 did not care about and did not discriminate against Crispus Attucks on the basis of race. Bullets and musket balls, of course, are race blind. In 2023, the State of Florida provided a new curriculum for the public schools there that speaks glowingly of the skills and self-improvement provided to African Americans while enslaved; and today numerous leading figures in the political life of our nation openly express their view that America does not have a racist history while they openly consort with White Supremacists. Crispus Attucks died 254 years ago, and the constant and ongoing struggle and painful history of his people, our nation, have been white-washed in Florida. Pun intended.

Of course, the same pattern applies to women’s rights, reproductive rights, civil rights and voting rights. It certainly applies to blatant antisemitism in our society including in my own professional life.

Two steps forward, four steps back.

I have friends and family, people I respect and who are very dear to me, who clearly and regularly vote to move us backward. I have vowed not to spend time or expend energy disavowing them of their beliefs or the rationales they use when in a voting booth. I do reserve the right, however, to acknowledge whether they are moving our society backwards rather than forwards. If and when they start to see and understand the larger ramifications of their myopic political choices, I will listen. In the meantime, I’ll continue to search and prepare for every opportunity to inch our society forward along the path to a better future for all Americans - whether it’s on the Edmund Pettus bridge, on a segregated bus, inside a women’s health clinic, on the grounds of a public school, at a polling place, or otherwise. Crispus Attucks, so many others and many more to come will have died in the cause of liberty, and we’ll only know whether their sacrifice will have been in vain after a very, very, very long time. And many more hard-fought steps forward and the inevitable numerous steps back.

Time will tell. Until then: patience, peace, and love for us all.

"Out of My Way, Alexis!"

The true seat of real power in America.

I have been trying to remain positive during this election season. By “remain positive” I mean try to understand how it is that Americans can ignore abject hypocrisy and dishonesty by immoral people whose strategy is to accuse their political opponents of hypocrisy, dishonesty and immorality. I do not believe it is a constructive use of time or energy to try to disavow anyone of what they believe to be true despite a mountain of actual evidence that they are not (or to prove a negative by the complete absence of evidence). I do consider directing people to the nearest Flat Earth Society meeting, where I feel they are most likely to find kindred spirits.

For my own sanity and blood pressure, I often turn to the work of some of the early writers about our nation to find clarity. Alexis de Tocqueville’s seminal book Democracy in America published in 1835 is always a welcome source of wisdom and remarkable prescience. De Tocqueville wrote after having been dispatched to the fledgling United States by the French government to study our people, our democracy and how it all was working. Blah, blah, blah; I get it – not exactly a ‘made for prime time’ analysis for our sound-bite driven, short-attention-span times. Still, de Tocqueville has been on my mind lately for another reason altogether. I’ve concluded that if good old Alexis had experienced the phenomenon of the increasing numbers of Tesla Cybertrucks parked in suburban strip malls while on his travels throughout the country, his conclusions about the viability of our democracy would have been very different.

Certainly, the Cybertruck is an interesting experiment in consumerism. If you aren’t sure what it is, have a look around the parking lot of the most expensive shopping areas where you live. The vehicle looks like a cross between a giant stainless-steel doorstop and a truck of the future designed by an eight-year-old. It’s appearance itself is really very striking, even show stopping – the Cybertruck simply looks like nothing else on the road. What makes it interesting as a sociological phenomenon, however, is not its appearance – it is that the thing is very expensive, horribly engineered, challenging to drive, not functional as a truck, not even remotely reliable, and has been subject to at least five significant factory recalls in the past year. And it costs more than $100,000. And it is selling; quickly.

Why on earth would anyone buy such a vehicle? Two very good reasons: it is very, very fast; the fastest and quickest accelerating truck ever made. And it commands lots and lots of attention wherever it goes. I therefore believe it to be an example of two very important psychological characteristics of Americans: (1) the dearth of available Freudian analysis for people who really need help with their overwhelming desire to prove their, uh, similarity with Arnold Palmer; and (2) why so many Americans vote against their self-interest.

Snarky, sarcastic not-so-subtle partisan digs aside, one of the truly vexing dynamics of modern American politics is that significant numbers of Americans vote in ways that are clearly contrary to their best interests – economic, civil liberties, physical health and wellbeing, environmental, belief systems, etc. The differences between polling results that ask Americans about their preferences on a policy-by-policy basis without mentioning political party or candidates and those that do demonstrate this effect with remarkable clarity. This certainly is not a new phenomenon though it has become far more pronounced in recent election cycles.

I am fearful of completing any analysis of this electoral contrariness – I am a true patriot on a deep and meaningful level and I have no wish to denigrate my fellow Americans. I just want them to make better decisions because, ultimately, the well-being of our Republic and ourselves is in the mix. Hence the entertaining and yet frightening dichotomy of the Cybertruck and Alexis De Tocqueville.

Alexis De Tocqueville spent significant portions of his writings on the uniquely American combination of the role of individual beliefs, the separation of church and state, the political philosophies underlining the Constitution, and the work ethic of a people not encumbered by institutionalized aristocracy and its constituent limits on participation in civic and economic life. The basic premise was and is that when everyone acts and votes in their own self-interest in a democracy a society achieves a successful and balanced consensus. That’s quite a mouthful to be sure, but it stands in stark contrast to the success of a $100,000 jalopy sold by a thrice married multi-billionaire with eleven children and a long list of bizarre and destructive core beliefs that directly run counter to the original guiding egalitarian principles of our Republic. I believe that one look at the Cybertruck and the giddiness of those who buy them and Alexis would turn around and put his money in Euro Bonds concluding that the American people are not what they once were and that there is a high risk of the failure for our nation.

On good days, I do not agree with that fictional yet plausible assertion by my buddy Alexis. On bad days, I do wonder how we moved so quickly from the sublime to the ridiculous. On really bad days, I wonder whether the list of the “enemies within” that one of our Presidential candidates has vowed to prepare and pursue will have my name on it.

We’ll know how all this shakes out next week and in the two months that follow Election Day. In the meantime, thankfully, the number of Cybertrucks that I see every day in traffic on Colorado Highway 82 is far fewer than the conventional vehicles that do not send me into existential and philosophical fits. And there is snow across the peaks, which means that we can all look forward to enjoying another winter together in the mountains in a way that would provide Alexis de Tocqueville some validation that his conclusions about us all remain correct.  #morethanavote #rockthevote

Thinking of Robinson and Rickey

American Lake in Aspen, Colorado

My father is a lifelong Brooklyn Dodgers fan. Although I am not and instead respond to Yankees pin stripes in the same way that a young zebra does to its mother’s stripes, the pantheon of Brooklyn’s heroes informs my world view. This past weekend like so many summer weekends, strolling to downtown Basalt, shopping for produce in the farmers’ market and bumping into friends and colleagues there crystalized an idea that had been on my mind increasingly over the last couple of weeks. As I moved among the vegetable stalls and tried in vain to avoid the local bakeries, I recalled that Dodgers players typically lived in Brooklyn and were part of their neighborhoods – shopping for groceries, having a yarn with the school kids playing marbles or stickball in the streets, and generally being members of the tight-knit communities they represented when playing at Ebbets Field and around the nation. Like all subjects Dodgers, this brought to mind Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey.

As a quick reminder, Branch Rickey was the General Manager of the Dodgers who brought Jackie Robinson to the team in 1945. When Rickey joined the Dodgers in 1943 he was already highly regarded as an innovative baseball scout and tactician, and he made clear to the Dodgers that identifying and signing players from the Negro Leagues to break the color barrier in baseball was a priority. Robinson was his first choice for reasons including a now well-understood, long-ago proven and exceptionally rare combination of athletic prowess and personal character. After two years in the Dodgers’ Minor League affiliates, Robinson went on to start his first Major League game in April of 1947, making him the first African-American to play in the Majors.

In August of 1945, Rickey called Robinson into his office for a conversation that has been mythologized in print and on film and that has achieved true legendary status – in sport and, more so, in our society. After being asked to turn the other cheek to the inevitable abuse he was to receive, Robinson asked Rickey if he was looking for a black man who was afraid to fight back. Rickey then famously explained that he was looking for a player “with guts enough not to fight back”. Rickey then signed Robinson to a contract with the Dodgers, assuring him that desegregating baseball was something the team would do as an organization, together.

Over the last few weeks, the conventional and unconventional press has spent a great deal of column-width parsing out and analyzing Vice President Kamala Harris’s approach to her racial identity and ethnicity. That is, she has let others discuss the groundbreaking nature of her potential presidency from that perspective, choosing instead to focus on her vision for America, the tone and approach she will take as President, and the policies she will pursue. She has a job to do and while she isn’t ducking questions when posed to her directly, she is not dwelling on the subject of the place her presidency would have in American history. What occurred to me this weekend while perambulating with a bag full of fresh produce is that she is taking a cue from Jackie Robinson: Vice President Harris is focusing on playing ball and winning games with and for the American people, retaining her remarkable grace and sense of humor in the face of some truly ugly comments and criticism from those that oppose her.

To be clear, Jackie Robinson was not mute on the subject of race or civil rights generally in America. I believe that he and Branch Rickey simply understood that his performance on the field while enduring abuse of a nature and extent that is difficult to fathom was the most important contribution he could make. I do not in any way mean for this to be a criticism of those athletes whose active and essential role in the civil rights and women’s movements were more vocal than his – Muhammed Ali, Billie Jean King, Jim Brown, and Kareem Abdul Jabbar immediately come to mind. Whether those remarkable athletes who used their influence in American culture to move our society forward could have done so without Robinson’s having broken the barrier in the way he did is a question that is more interesting than important to me – Jackie was the first, he did so with aplomb and an indefatigable nobility, and we are all the better for it.

In my world view, given my own family and baseball provenance, comparing anyone to Jackie Robinson requires treading carefully. In this moment I do so deliberately. I don’t know if perhaps President Biden had a quiet chat with Vice President Harris about what she could expect; perhaps it was President Obama whose own experience may be the best guidepost. Perhaps it is simply the examples provided those icons of our Civil Rights heroes with whom she may have had some personal experience that are guiding her – Congressman John Louis, for example. I just hope that when the digital age version of the chants and jeers from the outfield stands test her mettle, the Vice President knows that she can depend on myself and millions of other Americans to pick up the mantle of that other Dodger great Pee Wee Reese, put our arm around her shoulder and face the hate and the resistance to a better future, together.

The Correspondence of Cattle

Recent view of The Jungfrau from The Land of Happy Cows

Exceptional cheese comes from happy cows. Over the last few years, a constant reminder of that essential fact has been the ringing of cowbells as the background music of my travels hiking in Europe. Most recently, I spent a week in the stunning mountain village of Mürren in the Bernese Oberlandt of Switzerland. While there, I was struck by the total absence of milk barns even though cheese-making is such an iconic and essential part of the local economy. Add to that my overwrought angst about the orange-colored cheddar here in Colorado, and I’ve been thinking about how cows in the Alps might interact with their overseas cousins if given the opportunity. Imagine how a happy Swiss cow might write a letter …

---------------------------

 

Greta Holstein

c/o Mürren Beef SA

Mürren

Switzerland

August 23, 2024

VIA AIR MAIL / PAR AVION

Akiko Wagyu
c/o 5k Ranch Cattle Co
Steamboat, Colorado

Dearest Akiko:

I was delighted to receive your letter, all those weeks ago. I apologize for taking so long to respond – with the summer having been so rainy, the grazing in our highest altitude pastures has been exceptional so we’ve all been out of touch more than we like. If it’s any consolation, the clover has been more plentiful and tastier than usual, so we are all quite fat and happy. Judging from the looks on the faces of the visitors to the mountain hut nearby, it would seem that the milk, cheese and butter we are all providing has been a tribute to our wonderful mountain environment. Thankfully, at least all that high altitude walking keeps us fit even if I am a little soft around the udders these days.

I was delighted to hear that you also have had great grazing weather over there. I do worry from time to time that the arid climate in Colorado can make life challenging for you and your herd. One of the great joys for us in summer is the variety in our daily meadow buffets and I am grateful to know that you and yours similarly aren’t spending these months relegated to only eating hay from bales wrapped in plastic. My children romanticize the life you all must lead out there, cowboys and all - my youngest Heidi in particular derives great joy from my reading your wonderful letters out loud to her in my best American accent.

I would like your opinion about something. Last week, the ladies and I had a conversation with a chatty old sheep dog who was visiting the village with her humans. They were from Wisconsin and the dog was curious about how it is that we dairy cows in Switzerland don’t spend time in a milk shed. As you can imagine, we needed her to explain to us what she meant and we were all quite shocked to learn that some American dairy cows spend their lifetimes inside enormous buildings chained to machines that milk them, day in and day out. Can this possibly be true? It’s such a disturbing thought. How can their milk possibly even taste good? I mean, we may all be deaf from the incessant clanging of the bells around our necks, but at least we are mostly free to roam, and I have to believe that it is part of what makes our Swiss cheese so delicious and keeps our humans so happy. I couldn’t help but wonder if this bovine bondage explains why their humans feel the need to dye their cheese yellow – such an awful state of affairs. I didn’t sleep well for a week afterwards. Please let me know your thoughts and experience on the subject. I may also reach out to Aunt Martha in Vermont – she always has valuable perspective on what makes us cows happy.

We’re all now back in lower pastures just in time to start getting ready for the big end-of-summer traditional cow parade through the streets of the village. Heidi will be participating for the first time and is making a fuss about her fancy new outfit for the occasion – it’s all so very Swiss! I for one will be happy to just fit in mine from last year. Everyone’s expecting a big crowd of tourists and the village has been getting better with their social media exposure, so we’re all anxious to look our best and make an impression. I’ll send you some photos from the event; hopefully the weather will hold.

Please give your lovely bull Clyde my best. Regards also to those kind farmers the Gibsons – such a nice family and they certainly appreciate and know how to take care of their Wagyu. I hope that the grasses are tall and plentiful, the sun is forgiving, and your hooves find only soft ground.

All my love, dear cousin.

Greta