Andiamo

Even though I grew up in a factory dominated town, I was always kind of an outdoorsy guy. Playing in the park down by the river, walking up into the “woods” which is now an industrial park, Boy Scout camping at the local camp and state parks. I decried the industrial pollution that I lived in, marching out of my high school on the first Earth Day, pulling trash out of the wetlands that went along the high school driveway All of that outdoor enthusiasm was taken to a new dimension in the IDC, when I met my friend, Rick Bombaci.

Rick had some of the same outdoor bent, but was far ahead me on of the curve of outdoor exploration. His Boy Scout experience was deeper and he had traveled further afield with his troop, up into the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Beyond his greater experience there was (and still is) a certain ethic, a certain intellect, a certain way of approaching outdoor recreation. I still teach the taut-line hitch, “two on the inside, one on the outside” and when the pack is too heavy ask myself, “what would Rick take out?”. The door had opened and I walked through.

A loose confederation of same spirited IDC people seemed to fall together. At the core were Rick, myself, Mike Babinski, and the lurpy lad referred to in a previous post, Doug Hammerstrom. Core is too strong a word I think. Anyone was welcome, lots of folks moved in and out. Some only went on one trip others went on several.

A trip was organized to Franconia Ridge in the Whites with Rick at the lead. It was as I was come to learn, a true Bombaci trip. Too many people (thirteen, I think). Each day way too long for the the fitness level of the group (raises hand sheepishly), lots of really tender feet, and no way there was going to be room at any of the tent sites on the trail for a late arriving group of college kids during a peak fall foliage weekend. The stragglers were encouraged, with the call of “just one more switchback” from higher up on the mountain. It was then, and still is, a lie. I was miserable, I was defeated, but when I popped over the ridge to see the Pemigewasset Wilderness in rust colored fall beauty, stretching out below with the Presidential Range behind, I was in love, forever.

There were bunches of backpacking trips out of the IDC. Let me tell you about some (groans and rolled eyes from my children). The Whites offered a return trip the following fall, and winter and spring break trips, including the Mt. Eisenhower Death March. There were trips to the Adirondack Mountains, featuring a clutch grab of my once and future wife sliding away down a sheet of ice covered rock to the lip of Panther Gorge and the epic winter trip named “Flaccid in Lake Placid”. IDCers were involved in the UCONN Outing Club, hiking all of the CT section of the Appalachian Trail in 24 hours. The Catskills and New Jersey Highlands offered hiking just after finals. People varied. If you had the time and the inclination, you could come along. You might come back with sore feet, poison ivy, a hangover or maybe a new life partner, but you always had a great story to tell.

And then, the Lurpy Lad from Pittsburgh came back from winter break ‘75 with a National Geographic. On the cover was a picture of a cold gray mountain, ribboned with snow, against a impossibly blue sky. The cover had a single word title, Banff. The lurpy lad uttered the most profound words he has ever spoken, “We should go there!”

And so it was I found myself in the August of ‘75 crammed into a VW microbus named, “Gus the Bus”, with Doug and Rick, and two kids from Pittsburgh whom I had never met (but who had gas money) on our way across the USA to the Canadian Rockies and Banff and Jasper National Park. If hiking in the White Mountains got me outdoor religion, The Skyline Trail was my pilgrimage to Mecca.

OK, just one story, since you asked. We had crossed over Nigel Pass down into a scrub meadowland. I woke early, needing to heed the call of nature. I unzipped the tent and made my way to take care of business. After fumbling with my shorts, I settled in, looked up and found a moose, a large cow, munching grass and staring at me about 20 yards away. I was astounded. In sotto voce, I whisper yelled, “It’s a moose!”, to my snoring comrades in the tents. “IT’S A MOOSE”, I whisper yelled again. By the time I backed up to the tents and stuck my head inside to again whisper yell, “IT’S A MOOOOOOSE!”, she was gone.

That trip has become a touchstone in my life. My IDC wife and I returned to the area in 1984 for a month of hiking, doing all of the the Skyline Trail in the company of IDCer Andy Horton. We returned in in 1995 with our children to reconnect with Rick and Doug who also brought their families for the 20th anniversary of the ‘75 trip. We went again in 1999 with our children and another family. When we retired in 2015, the first place we traveled in retirement was, Banff, Jasper, and Yoho. We were joined by one of my grown daughters and her husband for a trip up the Yoho River valley. As a group, we are thinking about going back in 2020 for the 45th anniversary, only because if we waited until 2025 for the 50th, we will all be close to 70 years old.

That trip to Banff has been a foundational piece for a life that from that point forward has always included the out of doors, environmental stewardship and friends. The friends from the early backpacking trips have become deep and abiding friends for life. I have expanded my outdoor skills beyond backpacking over the decades becoming an accomplished whitewater canoeist and kayaker. Doug dragged me into the world of cross country skiing. Babinski taught me about the discipline of riding a bicycle for hours. And Rick, well he still walks long distances. I am proud to have supported his Appalachian Trail walk now years in the past and I am in awe of his solo backpacking trips along the Continental Divide and the Northern Canadian Rockies.

Doug and Rick hang out in Wallowa County, OR, home of the Eagle Cap Wilderness. Rick lives there. Doug used to full time and now owns property there. Any of our trips west are arranged to connect through Wallowa. Doug and his wife Jodi celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary in conjunction with our 40th anniversary on a cruise along the Alaskan Coast. Rick and his family were through just a few weeks ago to attend a family wedding in CT. Babinski and I get together for “Grumpy Old Men” breakfasts a couple of times a month and ride the rail trails when we can. And that IDC bride of 40 years plus of mine? The only person who absolutely needs the outdoors to feel complete every day is Marsha Bean-Sokoloski. I am glad she has taken me along for the ride. Next spring, we are off to the Big 5 National Parks of Utah for hiking and biking.

And old IDC friend Susan B. just posted she is having a ball driving around New Zealand, camping in JUCY van. And IDC Andy has found a home on the beaches and clear waters of Belize.

Andiamo...

Steve Sokoloksi

Cheap Eats and the Lurpy Lad from Pittsbugh

It is important for us to define a few terms here because I will be calling out a few people out by name in this post. You may ask, what is "lurpy"? It is a bit of a vague term and it sometimes morphs a bit to fit the time or the situation. The best I can do to define a lurpy person, is to say he is male, tallish, perhaps better put as gangly, extremities extending beyond the ends of his clothes which are often mismatched and clearly out of style. He sports a perpetual crooked grin, and there is a dullness in his eyes to the point that makes you question if he is all there with you. An odd duck, close to fitting in, but a bit of a square peg in a round hole.

Douglas Hammerstrom, who coined the phrase, is lurpy. Well, to be fair, he is only near-lurpy. There is a glint, a twinkle, behind the grin and the fashion faux pas, that says there might be something more going on. He is from Pittsburgh, or so he says, but upon closer inspection, in true lurpy fashion he is only from near Pittsburgh, as if metro Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh were the same thing. He thinks that if you can buy Iron City at the corner store and the clerk calls the local football team, "the Stillers", it is close enough, but geography does not lie.

When he came to the IDC we learned that he was Norwegian, and had relatives there. And if that was not exotic enough, he had traveled to Europe. He told us about strange foods he had encountered like lutefisk and blarblarssoppa. He said he could make up a special dish he found in Europe, called bircher muesli and share it with us. For a long time after we believed that bircher muesli  was Norwegian for wall paper paste with dried fruit and nuts. Turns out in true lurpy fashion the dish is of Swiss origin, not Norwegian at all.

And Douglas is cheap, always looking to best leverage a situation to his economic advantage. You know the deal that Volvo sometimes runs for USA customers when the economic conditions are right? Where if you will buy a car through a USA dealer, they will fly you to Sweden where you can take possession of the car and drive it around for up to two weeks? And then they put your now "used" car on a container ship and send it across the pond to your local dealer, and you fly back to the USA, to await its arrival? Somehow the import duties on sending over a "used car" rather than a new car provide enough of an edge to make it make it worthwhile for Volvo, and if you are willing to play the game and wait a little for your car you get a two week vacation in northern Europe. Ever know anybody who did it? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Douglas Hammerstrom.

But this not about Doug or Volvos or gooey Swiss breakfast food. It is about smelt. Smelt. You know, small north Atlantic fish, similar to sardines, maybe a little bigger. I need to take you back in the mists of IDC time to a Saturday. There was no weekend evening food and a small group gathered to figure out a Saturday night meal. We found ourselves traveling down to Four Corners, where at the time there was a full functioning A&P grocery.

Someone cruising the frozen food isle, I want to blame Mike Babinski, saw them. The smelts. I have a distinct memory of a 5 lb. bag of frozen fish in somebody's hands, and Babinski saying, "Hey look, they are only 19 cents a pound!"

Let's do some quick math. Five pounds at 19 cents a pound means dinner for less than a buck We splurged and went for TEN pounds. The crowning piece of economic leverage was finding that you could buy A&P beer, in short squat wide mouth bottles for 99 cents a six pack. Ten pounds of frozen smelt and 18 bottles of beer and we were out the door with a feast for a crowd for under $5.00.

Back at the IDC, up on the fourth floor,  a frying pan, some oil, flour and a hot plate were produced. Hammerstrom as I recall found a large bowl and began mixing s gigantic quantity of bircher muesli. You can't fry bait fish in a small dorm room without your neighbors noticing, and soon the crowd gathered.  The music was soft classical, the beer was cold, the smelt was, well, smelly, but the crowd gorged itself on mass quantities of fish and a mixture of yogurt, oats, raisins, nuts, sticks, and stones that literally would stick to your ribs until the dried fruit eventually loosened the mess around 6 AM the next morning and you flushed it all away.

Good times, such fond memories. Strange thing is that in my onrushing dotage, I now gaze into my daily breakfast bowl and find that strange combo of yogurt, oats, fruit and nuts. It has the low glycemic index and the quick travel time through the digestive system I crave. Memories of Hammerstrom, staring me in the face, every stinkin' day of my life. There is of course the added breakfast course of Rick Bombaci peanut butter and toast, but I will save trashing him for another post.

And of course on this morning, we honor and pray for all Pittsburghers near and far, strong, resilliant and proud, so that they may heal, and that our nation will take the necessary steps to end this type of hateful violence.

Steve Sokoloski (IDC 74-76)

Douglas Hammerstrom, aka "the eyesore of the wilderness", Rick "Andiamo" Bombaci and Steve "Soko" Sokoloski