Thank you for the invitation to the fortieth anniversary celebration at Packers Corners and for your handwritten note. Jan and I would love to attend, but regrettably that date coincides with our yearly pilgrimage to Lund British Columbia where we established our own total loss farm thirty eight years ago.

Your invitation has spurred me to delve into the collection of relics of our days in Vermont I’ve stashed in a file cabinet, and has brought our stays there both in the period 1968-70 and our visit with you and Marty in 1993 vividly back to mind, accompanied by great gasps and sighs.

Forty years seems a particularly powerful interval. Perhaps the the rounder number of 50 will be as strong, but I suspect by that time many more of us will have dropped out of sight and those who remain will be pretty unsightly. We attended the 68-08 Columbia Strike Reunion in May, getting together for wonderful times with Peter Behr and Linda (Grace) Leclair.

I’ve scanned and uploaded a few pictures from 1968 and 1993 on my Flickr site.

I imagine you’re overwhelmed with archived documents, but let me know if you’re lacking The Occasional Drop of 4 October 1968, 19 December 1968 and 21 December 1969. They are here in good condition.

Love,

Jan and Steven and Ian travel to Idaho to visit Joe and Amy and Ethan and Abel. They drive Reddy and stop at Yosemite Valley, sleep over in Tuolumne Meadows, and pass bomb disposal site in Hawthorne NV. On the way back home they stop for lunch in Sacramento. Slideshow

Chute Lake’s placid surface mirrored clear skies on Tuesday morning. Behr and Robert drove off and the five men remaining headed down the trail whose surface was hard packed after days of rain. For the whole of the 30 km descent the slope remained steeper than anywhere on the ascent, increasing speed and ease of pedaling. Bleak burnt and logged-over landscape gave way to mature second growth forest carpeted with grass and wildflowers. A rushing stream crisscrossed the trail.

We stopped to explore Rock Ovens in the woods built to bake bread for the railroad work crews. The nurses whizzed past shouting instructions for us to bake bread for them. Lionel replied that their place was in the kitchen. Flush with downhill speed, we overtook the women slowed by their bike trailers, and stopped at an opening in the forest cover to take pictures of the sand cliffs, endlessly stretching lake, orchards, vineyards and small settlements in the Okanagon valley below. As soon as Andy broke out three beers remaining from yesterday, the nurses came barreling down behind us and screetched to a halt when we held out the bottles. After a shared toast, they passed around a mickey of powerful cinnamon liqueur, and we agreed to meet for lunch at a vineyard once we reached Naramata.

The glorious rolling descent continued, with more elegant prospects at every turn, reminiscent of the English Lake District. At the mouth of a huge tunnel framing the southern end of the lake, we encountered three professional bicyclists in their middle seventies who advised us to have lunch at the Red Barrel winery and promised to tell the nurses to meet us there. But once again, we had trouble following directions. So, driven by hunger and the desire to keep moving, we forsook the fantasy and pressed on to Penticton, through whose streets we roared, feeling like the Wild Ones come to town.

Along the Lakefront Drive of this prospering resort we found a lively establishment, Salty’s Carribean Café. A middle aged couple seated there told us the food was great and when they heard of our adventure, the husband told us we were admirable and offered to pick us and our bikes up in his truck and take us to their place in Summerland for a free Barbeque with lots of wine. We hedged on an answer and ordered meals—no rice and vegetables–along with several bottles of good local wine from our server, a young Valley Girl in a flimsy top and tight jeans whose parents, she told us, had settled here “to found a church.”

As we were drinking our coffee, the restaurant’s manager, came over to chat. She was planning a trip on the KVR the following week and wanted to hear all about it. After a few minutes of lively conversation she declared, “It looks like you guys haven’t talked to a woman in quite a while.” One member of our group stroked her sleeveless arm and she noticed some frayed threads on his jersey, which she trimmed with her teeth.

The long lunch complete, Steven and Murray took a swim in the lake, and then our reduced band dispersed to find a place to sleep. Some stiff bargaining came up with a Lakefront pre-season suite at $30 per man with bikes indoors. After a nap and more local vintage, we explored town and ate another excellent meal in a posh Italian restaurant serenaded by recorded opera. This day’s dissolute return from the woods to civilization concluded with a visit to Slack’s, a stripper bar highly recommended by the motel manager. Two ladies performed for the sparse audience with the requisite abandon, but without raising much excitement in our tired party.

Next morning we were picked up by Neal and ferried back to Princeton. On the way we started considering possibilities for next year’s excursion, including canoeing down the raging Similkameen river that paralleled our road, rafting in the Yukon, and backpacking the slot canyons of Utah.

The wiki for this excursion can be found here. The Flickr Photoset is here.

The morning remained rainy and foggy, the prospect of more pie and pool playing and of getting a tour of Doreen’s husband Gary’s museum made most of us want to lay over for a day, but Behr was eager to return to Vancouver and look after his mother. After extensive discussion a vote was taken and Behr decided to head back on his own. Murray didnt like the idea.

The remaining crew of five agreed to rent one of Doreen’s cabins, a log house fitted out with beds, kitchen, bathroom, and red curtains, none of which was unappealing after four nights in tents. Steven and Murray dove into the cold lake. Doreen joined us for Murray’s morning Pome reading.

Gary reminisced about his history as a lineman and union official during the violent conflicts with BC Hydro in the ‘50’s and then led us through his extensive museum of local antiquities, including his locked collection of electric line insulators, one of which he had sold for $11,000. Among thousands of intriguing items was a portent of the future: an electric lamp whose current flowed through a meter informing the user of real time energy cost.

Despite living in Lund for nine years, Steven had never played pool, so the rest of the band, along with two lodge employees from Germany made it their mission to instruct him. So successful were their efforts that he was condemned to winning four games in a row, required by the rules to face all challengers.

Late in the afternoon, a new group of cyclists came in out of the rain: eight young nurses. Upon first appearance Lionel surmised they were of the “other persuasion,” but was soon disabused by their good looks and suggestive comments toward us boys, prompted by the quick consumption of several beers. As we exchanged tales of conquering obstacles on the trail, the door opened again, and there appeared Robert smiling and healthy, followed by the recently departed Behr. They were loudly welcomed, and so was the eighteen-pack of Kokanee they brought along. Somehow they had made contact in Naramata, many miles down the trail, and agreed to travel together the next day to Vancouver in Behr’s car, leaving Robert’s vehicle to take the rest of us home from Princeton. This miraculous reunion distracted from socializing with the nurses. The rest of the evening was spent in our cabin, cooking vegetables and rice, listening to Behr’s reading from a book about aging gracefully, and playing a somewhat dispirited game of cards.

The wiki for this excursion can be found here. The Flickr Photoset is here.

John left on his mission early.

The diminished band of six packed leisurely and pedaled through the parking lot at the approach to Myra Canyon. At the end of curved cut in the rock a vast panorama unfolded. A huge gulf dropping to Lake level was scooped out of the high plateau to which we’d ascended for three days. A dozen or so side canyons covered with the charred remains of a burnt forest and numberless rockslides, opened into it. At the top of the canyon rose a single, wide, snow-covered peak. Volcanic eruption, landslide, holocaust: a display of nature’s power, demonic and sublime.

Next into view came a fine level line threading its way from where we stood, in and out of the side canyons, heading off towards the snowy summit and then back toward us on the other side of the abyss, supported across gaps narrow and wide by a delicate latticework of trestles.

After a lengthy stop to gaze, we crossed the first trestle on a surface of new planking that produced a clean hum from the tires.

It was a smooth thrill of a ride, created by a double human triumph over nature. The first was the original construction of the railroad, motivated by the desire to extract her wealth. The second was the recent reconstruction of the trail and trestles after decay and fire, motivated by the desire to provide pleasure to visitors. As we stopped again at the end of the first trestle, two kids and their parents on bikes came up behind us. “It’s just like Disneyland,” said one.

There were two tunnels and thirteen trestles, the largest of them rebuilt by the Rotary Clubs of Kelowna, a fact of interest to Steven’s wife, Jan, who was organizing a campaign for her Rotary Club to finance construction of a bicycle trail along the railroad right of way in San Luis Obispo.

At the parking lot near the far end of the Canyon, we waited for John’s return, watching a constant stream of dirt bikes and ATV’s crossing the railroad trail. It was the back country’s only preserve free from their uncouth roars. Before long, he arrived in his Mom’s sprightly little Smart Car, popped out, opened the tailgate, and served up organic bread, humus dip, a watermelon and beer! He also gave us replacement bags of rice, dried vegetables, salami, cheese and oatmeal and then took off.

The next stage of the trip opened views of Kelowna and its lake far below through a grim landscape that alternated burn and logging slash. The afternoon grew chilly and grayer but it was cheered by the chance to pedal rhythmically without interruption, putting kilometer after kilometer behind us.

Around 5 p.m. we arrived at Chute Lake, a compound with docks, campground, canoes for rent, well-kept lawns, a playground and a large log lodge. On its windowsills appeared a collection of old steam irons, each with a different design. Inside looked inviting—a wood heater surrounded by naugahyde-covered chesterfields, a pool table, and walls decorated with antique signs and implements.

The inkeeper, Doreen, our third grandmotherly provider, spoke quietly but firmly as she looked us directly in the eye and negotiated the camping fee–$25. per two man tent. We sat warming up with coffee and huge slices of the rhubarb and apple pie she’d baked that morning on her woodstove. The conversation waxed philosophical–comparing media revolutions of the sixteenth and twenty first centuries, examining the history of ideas of God, considering different ways to face death.

Then it was time to pitch the tents, cook rice and vegetables and return to the lodge to drink beer and converse with Bruce Williams, an electrician from Campbell River who was cycling solo from Nelson to Nanaimo. Much effort was devoted to deliberating about the next day’s travel plans and connecting up with Robert. It rained hard all night and Ian and Murray’s tent leaked.

The wiki for this excursion can be found here. The Flickr Photoset is here.

After two days of rain and overcast, the morning broke with sun over the lake. Steven went for a cold water swim and shave. Ian received a phone message that Rob was feeling better and would spend time touring the Kootenays by car before rejoining us back in Princeton.

Puddles on the trail deepened, but after Murray endured one wet spill we learned that in low gear bikes are navigable in water. At Summit Lake the uphill grade (never more than 1.9% on the long ascent) levels and we looked forward to the predicted grand scenery of Myra Canyon. Steven was pedaling as happily as a five year old on his first bike, when suddenly his left pedal and crank fell off and landed in the sand. He yelled in protest at this new reverse. The crew gathered round, and Ian, our official bike mechanic—he’d been a fisherman for 7 years—looked for the correct Allen wrench in the kit provided with the bike to tighten the bolt that had fallen out and released the crank. It was missing. The pliers of a Leatherman served as a provisional substitute to tighten the dropped bolt and those on Peter’s bike which had also loosened.

On the flat ground puddles got more challenging. Just as he was emerging from the longest and deepest, Steven fell over cursing. The crank had fallen off again, and now the bolt was lost in the freezing muddy water. A long wait for the sediment to settle and an extensive search, including Murray’s naked groping on hands and knees, didn’t yield the essential piece, so once again we were stymied. John carved a wooden wedge to substitute for the bolt, but it fell out after a couple of minutes’ use. Andy called the bike shop in Princeton and, with a less ingratiating tone than John’s, convinced Jim Harrison to make the four hour trip to bring a replacement bike and meet us at the next junction with the road at Myra, about four kilometers ahead. He didn’t ask Jim to bring food.

Then Peter thought of the improbable shift of towing Steven’s bike, body and baggage. Andy connected his saddle column to Steven’s front fork with twenty feet of rope and lo, it worked. Without complaint and any apparent extra exertion he pulled his disabled passenger to the Myra junction no slower than the rest of the group. There we waited for Jim, some of us unpacking and scouting out the Canyon ahead, while Andy found a campsite with a great view of Kelowna and Okanagan Lake. Jim finally arrived, dressed in mechanic’s apron with a substitute bike on top of his smoking little Tracker, tools to tighten Peter’s cranks, and an unexpected two six packs of beer.

We dried drenched clothes in the large fire ring at the edge of the burn area that encompassed Myra Canyon, and then John cooked up the last of the rice and vegetables. A call ahead to our next destination, Chute Lake Lodge, revealed that they were not serving meals because of an employee shortage. John came to the rescue. He was planning to leave the group early to attend a conference two days later at Whistler. He said he’d distribute his baggage among us in the morning, ride through the Canyon, peddle down the road to his mother’s place in Kelowna, load up on groceries and drive back up to meet us at the junction beyond the canyon. We went to sleep comforted.

The wiki for this excursion can be found here. The Flickr Photoset is here.

Coffee, oatmeal, gorp and dried fruit again launched us forward, but for Robert cycling was becoming a terrible ordeal. He needed to lie down and rest along the trail every kilometer or so, and it was clear that he was too sick to proceed despite his valiant efforts. At the Wilkenson Creek Bridge, we again split into subgroups, Andy remaining behind with Rob. A few kilometers further, the rest of us waited at a junction with a road in the middle of a logging slash. With time on our hands there was extended deliberation about how to rescue Rob and allow us to proceed. A flatbed truck on the road was flagged down and the long haired driver and two young passengers were told of our dilemma. They said they were looking for cedar higher up the mountain and would be passing back down in an hour and a half.

Robert finally arrived, ashen and exhausted. John reached Ty in Beaverdell by cell phone and managed to persuade him to drive up and take Rob to the Hotel. He located us at the Wilkenson Creek Road. Another hour passed and Ty didn’t show up but the truck fully loaded with cedar came back down the hill. More conversation revealed that we weren’t at Wilkenson Creek Road but at Rupert Road and that Ty was out on a wild goose chase. The guys in the truck agreed to take Rob and his bike down to the Beaverdell Hotel, and he welcomed the prospect of lying in a bed rather than alongside the road.

Eager to proceed, the rest of the company pedaled uphill for another 30 km across dozens of huge culverted stone embankments built to maintain the steady grade, learning to negotiate the soft sand in places and the deep puddles in others. We were tempted to stay at a beautiful campsite by a lake where we stopped for salami and cheese, but the remaining hours of daylight and the expectation of beer and different food at a place called McCulloch Lake created by the guide book drew us forward. By the time we reached McCulloch it turned out that the lodge there was closed, replaced by a large resort now under construction. We backtracked to a campground a kilometer above the trail, welcomed by a friendly Australian attendant who brought us water in plastic containers. A short altercation between John, who took off in front of the group to locate a campsite further on and Murray, who was ready to stop near a group of high school girls, was resolved by apologies and the recognition that it was worth the extra mile to find a quiet spot near beautiful Hydraulic Lake. As we rolled in, an osprey dove and pulled a fish out of the golden-light water.

Once again we enjoyed rice and vegetable stew for dinner, but felt some concern that oatmeal, rice, vegetables, salami, and cheese rations were running low. John called his mother in Kelowna suggesting she join us for a walk next day, but she declined because of other plans before he got to ask her to bring us food.

The wiki for this excursion can be found here. The Flickr Photoset is here.

Breakfast was Murray’s gourmet coffee and instant oatmeal from packets enriched with a compote of white peaches and bing cherries made up from dried fruit Steven brought along from San Luis Obispo. Murray discovered that his wallet was missing from his fanny pack and a search of the campground yielded nothing. While we listened to Murray reading his Pome about yesterday’s events, readied for departure, a small hooded figure on a smaller bike drove up and and asked, “Did anybody lose a wallet?” We all cheered. She introduced herself as Gloria, Paul’s wife, at our service. The wallet had been found at the caboose and identified by George who had heard about its loss. She told us not to miss the beautiful cascade along the railroad a few kilometers north.

We set out on a side road, crossing another bridge, passing sheep in a pasture, and then rejoined the railroad trail, which followed the serpentine curves of the river into a canyon where it rushed wildly through two hairpin turns. The trail hugged the cliffs on a right of way blasted into the rock and supported by concrete buttresses at water level. John and Steven scrambled up an outcrop for views and pictures of the blended spectacle of natural splendor and human artifice.

Beyond the canyon we crossed another bridge converted from railroad to bicycle transportation. After a stretch of vigorous pedaling uphill we reached Beaverdell, former railway stop and mining town, now a center for bikers and hemp growers. At the newly renovated old pub, our host, stone faced, deep voiced, iron pumping Ty, served us beer and burgers.

Ian noticed that one of his panniers was missing. When a search of the deli next door, where he’d stopped briefly, didn’t turn it up, Ty mentioned that the other end of town was occupied by crackheads who most likely had stolen it. Nevertheless, Andy convinced Ian to ride back on the trail to look for it, and an hour later they returned with the lost item. It had fallen off when Ian capsized at a gate a mile or two back.

After Beaverdell, the trail ascended steadily, away from farmland and into mountain forest. At Carmi, the beginning of the Myra Canyon Subdivision of the railroad, we stopped at a kiosk next to a strange display of stuffed animals nailed to a woodshed, to search for a 9 km shortcut recommended by Ty, but we couldn’t find it. This was neither the first nor last time we could have benefited from a detailed map of the route to supplement the outdated Trail Guide brought by Murray.

Several more kilometers of uphill pedaling brought on fatigue and motivation to camp anywhere. We found a pleasant site beside the river, where we could renew our diminishing water supply, always using the disinfectant liquid packed by Peter, and pitched tents. John again cooked rice dinner after Andy succeed getting the fire going with wet wood, and afterward shared Cuban rum and cigars. Lionel’s panier-cover helmet drew a stroke of lightning. Steven set up the top of an old telegraph pole with insulator brackets as our guardian demon Zunoqua. She did her work by causing Robert to get sick to his stomach and throw up in the tent he shared with Andy in the middle of the night.

The wiki for this excursion can be found here. The Flickr Photoset is here.

Lionel’s condo on 8th St. in Vancouver was the first assembly point. Steven was picked up by Ian at the Airport’s South Terminal after his one day visit to Lund, Peter arrived from Sequim where he’d just moved his mother from New York City to a nursing home, Murray arrived by Ferry from Nanaimo and Rob drove in from Burnaby. Gear was packed into Rob’s Honda and Peters Tracker. The rainy Spring made the Fraser Valley vibrant green, swelled the muddy river and produced dozens of spectacular waterfalls. Along the Hope-Princeton highway through Manning Park trees were just coming into light green leaf. Steven and Peter stopped at an unnamed serpentine canyon to admire the cascade.

Two carloads reunited at the Cedars Motel in Princeton, where gear and food were distributed. A Greek Taverna in this unprepossessing town served up dinners and beer excellent by any standard. We were joined at the table by Gregory Archambault who was biking solo all the way across Canada during a five month leave from his transportation company in Quebec. After dinner our group agreed to start out at the eastern end of the preplanned route and head back toward Princeton.

May 21

At Backroads Bikeshop we rented bikes and panniers from Jim Harrison, as prearranged by Lionel, and met up with Andy, who’d driven from Edmonton in his red sportster, and with John, whose Mom drove him down from Kelowna. She brought us fresh grapes, wide smiles and grandmotherly blessings, and took our picture in front of the trailer being loaded by Neil Allison, our driver. On the way to our starting point through the beautiful Similkameen Valley, Neil was a bottomless source of local information. Steven recognized his name as that of the founder of Princeton, from whom he was directly descended by way of one native wife. We passed through exploding Osoyoos and its vast outlying subdivisions, a sign of the real estate boom in this border region, over a pass to the quiet Kettle Valley. Eager to get on the bikes, we decided to start at Rock Creek and Neil unloaded us at the Gold Pan café, where we paid him $50 each and ate borscht for lunch.

After a short shakedown in the parking lot to get used to the unfamiliar 35 pound loads that made the bikes rear backward, we crossed the lovely Kettle River and followed an untraveled road upstream looking for the railroad trail, while enjoying the smooth pavement. Two rare mountain bluebirds sitting on a fence as we passed provided an auspicious portent. But as the road ascended away from the river at a much steeper slope than the three percent maximum of a railroad right of way it became evident that we had already lost the trail. Some pressed on, others doubled back, and another group left the road, crossing fences and barriers, heading for the river. Robert went off on his own and Andy went looking for him. After an hour of somewhat anxious waiting, our swarm reassembled, and we continued confidently up the slightly sloping dirt path that bordered and then recrossed the river on a refurbished old railroad bridge.

Though one could occasionally hear the traffic on highway 33, the trail passed idyllically along the meandering river and through undisturbed farmland and forest, meadow and outcrop. After several kilometers the valley split and our branch narrowed. The surface occasionally softened, slowing travel and requiring more effort, but then hardened again, the slight grade hardly noticeable as the momentum of the loaded bikes carried us forward. At times the trail felt like a tunnel through woods on either side, then opened suddenly to broad vistas of mountain and valley as we left and returned to the riverbank. At one opening, at the base of the forested mountainside, we saw a brightly painted caboose and a sign, “Rest Stop for Cyclists.” We pulled up to it and found a shelter with picnic tables and a hammock. As we leaned our bikes on railings conveniently placed to support the panniers, an ATV barreled down the hillside toward us driven by a spry old man carrying several gallon containers of water.

His gray T-shirt said, “At 85, I’m Deaf, Blind and Cranky.” But though unsmiling, he was extremely friendly. Paul Lautard welcomed us to “Rhone,” a former stop on the old railway and led us into the caboose, which it turned out on closer look, was a simulated caboose build out of wood with painted wheels. It was neatly outfitted with bunks and cooking facilities and displays about the KVR, on which he’d worked as a carpenter. Outside he showed us his museum collection of railroad equipment and explained the uses of the switch, the jack, and the different gauge rails. In front of the memorial he’d built, he paid tribute to the relatives and townspeople who served in WWII. For all this hospitality, he’d take no payment, but he told us we could stay overnight at the Little Dipper campsite up the trail owned by his nephew.

We were greeted there by George and his wife Frauke, in front of an immense new log mansion surrounded by antique cabins, a well preserved old car, and more museum displays about local logging and forest management. All the logs and lumber at this establishment was harvested on their woodlot and cut on their mill. The cost for camping was fifteen dollars. “Each?” asked John. “No, for all of you,” he answered.

The campground also had racks for packed bikes, a children’s playground made of old tires and culvert and RV sites on the bank of the rushing river, but we had the place to ourselves. John cooked the dinner out of ingredients he’d brought: brown rice and dried vegetables, supplemented by envelops of ginger, pickled cabbage and other exotics. It started to rain and we all sat snug at a picnic bench under a roofed canopy and then crashed in our tents before it got dark.

The wiki for this excursion can be found here. The Flickr Photoset is here.

We passed huge construction cranes filling the airspace at the corner of Broadway and on to Earl Hall, the venue for the morning’s programs. Entering the upstairs rotunda we heard the last part of an extraordinary soprano saxophone rendition of “Amazing Grace” closing the memorial celebration for those of the strikers who had died in the last 40 years.

As I stepped inside I remembered this space 38 years ago, filled with paintings, sculptures, photographs, a great inflatable transparent tepee and 180 or so students participating in the three day final-exam festival of performance and ritual that concluded my Pastoral and Utopia class and my University teaching career before we headed for the end of the road in Canada. The poster for that event had been framed by a large Omega, suggesting its apocalyptic overtones but also signifying Ohm, the logo of “The Resistance,” an organization for civil disobedience opposing the draft. In the open-mike session that followed the memorial, Peter spoke earnestly about that group, which preceded and outlasted the Columbia strike–of its assistance to those fleeing the country or going underground, of its sit-ins at draft boards, of its members who went to jail for long periods, of its commitment to non-violence, of the predicament of young males at the time personally oppressed not by sexism but by militarism.

Then it was time for the last of the conference’s beautifully sequenced events–a ceremony at the site of the unbuilt gym in Morningside Park. We walked there with Mike Taylor, a fellow ex-Resistance member and head of a substance abuse clinic at St. Luke’s Hospital who now lives in 423 W. 120th. I’d remembered the park as a littered, graffitied, overgrown and threatening place one tried to stay away from, this being part of the rationale for Columbia’s appropriation of it. But on this overcast Spring day it radiated splendor. Mature trees of many hardwood species were fresh leaved or in full blossom. Jonquils and hyacinths bloomed among glistening rock outcrops. Children of all complexions played tag on the paths and stairways and shrieked in the playgrounds below.

In the fenced-off dog run, pets and owners shared fragrance. Across the the street from the facing row of Harlem brownstones, a man performed acrobatic calisthenics while fans cheered at a softball game.

The dramatic cliffs, long staircases, winding paths and large trees brought back memories of Fort Tryon and Inwood Parks, where I could go to escape the dark tenement in Northern Manhattan in which I lived as a kid. Approaching the site we heard the sound of a waterfall plunging over the ragged scar of rock blasted before the fence was torn down by protestors, and we saw the large pond below filling the space flattened by bulldozers they’d sat in front of. Above us on the slope rose the apse of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, topped with a trumpeting angel. In the distance the towers of Manhattan, behind them bridges and the low hills of Queens.

The first speaker at the podium set up on the asphalt path was Brad Taylor, President of the Friends of Morningside Park, a neighborhood association devoted to the preservation and improvement of the Park. He gave a brief description of the association whose motto is “Our Common Ground,” told of the recent success of their efforts to give the Park Landmark designation to protect it forever from development, and expressed gratitude to the audience for our efforts forty years ago that made their triumph possible. The community spirit, public participation, and financial largesse of this organization seemed a model of the “new urbanism” celebrated as an alternative to the blight and sprawl afflicting the whole country. But I wondered what proportion of its members lived in the luxury high rise condos on the Cathedral property, and I worried about what those protesting the gentrification of Harlem the day before would have to say about this idyllic picture.

Taylor introduced a man in a leather jacket and jeans who’d been sitting casually on the railing as Adrian Benepe, Parks Commissioner of the City of New York. Benepe welcomed us with another tribute to our actions forty years ago. He remembered as a young boy, his father, a Columbia professor, coming home bloody from police beatings in the melee after the bust. Benepe offered a tribute to the man responsible for the restoration of the scar left when Columbia abandoned construction, Marshall Brown, a master gardener who designed the plan and recruited volunteers to plant and tend the vegetation that surrounded us. To commemorate the revival of the park, we’d be planting a weeping cherry tree to symbolize the idea of people coming together in healing and reconciliation.

Benepe had hoped to introduce Thomas Hoving, colorful former director of the Metropolitan Museum and New York Parks Commissioner in 1966 and 1967 when the gym controversy heated up, but he was not well enough to attend. Instead Benape read passages from Hoving’s autobiography stating his “vow to bring a halt to this disgusting project” and describing his encounters with the loathed Grayson Kirk, who was sure that with Wall Street and City officials behind him there was no way it could be stopped.

Benepe’s folksy self-confidence and his enthusiasm for urban green space as the center of community excited my admiration, but once again, a challenge to authority created second thoughts. While he spoke, a dignified man with a short white beard handed out half-page leaflets accusing Benape of complicity with “The Destruction of Thousands of Trees that has Occurred in New York Under the Bloomberg Administration, mostly in the interest of privatizing public space.” Then I remembered that at the open mike an hour earlier, Joel Kupferman, with the Environmental Justice Committee of the National Lawyers Guild, had accused Benepe of being the one who’s refused to allow anti-war rallies in Central Park and who’s responsible for the installation of artificial turf in dozens of city parks.

The next speaker was Sam White, one of the SAS students who occupied Hamilton Hall. He recalled growing up in Harlem, where he still resides, and loving the park as a child. He and his friends regarded it as theirs not Columbia’s, and when he “went up the hill,” as the first one in his family to attend college, he was devastated by watching the fence erected and the bulldozers going to work. He praised the “creative obstruction” of the takeover and the partnership the students felt with the members of the Harlem community who also came up the hill to provide them food and protection.

The final speaker was Suki Ports, a woman diminutive in stature but powerful in voice and carriage. Not affiliated with the university, she was an early Morningside Park activist and the organizer of this commemorative event. Well before the student demonstrations, she had sat in front of a bulldozer to keep it from knocking down trees at the gym site “that it took three of us to put our arms around.” The many years of battle that produced this outcome, she said, has led to a healing of black and white.

A little internet research while I was writing this revealed that after the gym construction was stopped, the mess wasn’t cleaned up for twenty years, largely due to disputes among different community organizations, including the West Harlem Community Organization, Friends of Morningside Park, and the group led by Suki.

After Suki’s speech, we all clambered down near the top of the waterfall where the tree stood ready for planting. As the audience clapped, four shovel fulls of dirt were thrown on its roots by Suki, Adrian, Sam and Brad.

Note: To access more photos, a slideshow and larger versions of the ones included here, go to this flickrpage.