COAA News college of the atlantic association june 1986 Printed below are responses to our previous Forum books, or even books that broach the subject, but topic. In the last issue of COAA News we posed the literature. Poetry and fiction that try to plumb question "How doesthe threat of nuclear war creep humanity (perhaps even human ecology) on a small into your day-to-day life?" Our thanks to the people scale, so that each person who reads them might be below who responded with their thoughtful essays. just enough changed to effect change on a larger scale. Small comfort this, but comfort. When I was growing up with a father in the Pentagon I had one false comfort. I did not then have the sense George Benington there was something I could be doing to improve the situation but was not. I am now acutely aware of my "The Promise of World Peace" is a document mortality. I am informed enough of the world around recently released to the peoples of the world. It is the me to better sort out right from wrong (or at least better Baha'i statement on Peace. The treatise defines the from worse). And I am publishing books--not politcal nature of man, identifies the major issues surrounding the attainment of world peace, suggests a long-overdue' meeting between all the world's leaders addressing the peace issue, and enjoins upon all humankind to take heart. For the first time in history it is possible for everyone to view the entire planet, with all its myriad diversified people, in one perspective. World peace is not only possible but inevitable. It is the next stage in the evolution of this planet--in the words of one great thinker, 'the planetization of mankind.' The authors state, "Banning nuclear weapons will not remove the root causes of war." And further, " the abolition of war is not simply a matter of signing treaties and protocols, it is a complex task requiring a new level of commitment to resolving issues not customarily associated with the pursuit of peace." We do well to study this statement , for in so doing our understanding of the meaning of world peace broadens, hence our efforts in one vein or another gain relevancy to the entire task before us. Frances Pollitt Langford Cassandra, the daughter of Priam and Hecuba, was given the gift of prophecy by Apollo. However, he subsequently made the gift worthless by causing COAA NEWS 1 everyone to disbelieve her. The name is thus applied COAA News to those whose forecasts of doom are generally College of the Atlantic Association disbelieved. Since much of Human Ecology involves Bar Harbor, Maine bad news about paths of society, and since most of Arlington, Massachusetts society isn't interested in bad news, much of the "environmental movement" suffers from the Cassandra syndrome. The problem of nuclear annihilation is Staff: persistently the worst news of all, and thus suffers the Jean McHugh, Editor syndrome most. Andrew Bennett, Graphics and Pasteup Bruce Friedman, Computer Operations What does the scientific point of view suggest? Jill Kolva, Asst. Editor Unfortunately, science seems to have an infinite Janey Winchell, Class Notes Coordinator capacity for diffusing issues with an erudite verbal haze. Massive armies of experts, each proceeding down a slightly divergent path (the crucial rule of With help at COA: "original contributions") have a hard time agreeing on anything that, distilled to its essence, doesn't sound Sally Crock like a restatement of the problem. We must give science credit, however, for honest intent and proceeding as far as good definitions of the problem. The COAA News is a production of the COAA Communitcations Committee. And what have I been doing? What gives me the right to take such a categorical, pessimistic swipe? Not a lot, I must admit, not a lot. A few years ago, a group of young "name scientists," i.e. Stephen Jay Gould and Carl Sagan, first proposed and then carefully defined the nuclear winter problem. This was not accepted at all by some of the more senior scientists congenial to the Reagan administration. There were other senior scientists, however, who could accept the nuclear winter idea immediately for the simple, drastic calamity it represents. One of these, fortunately, was my images by JPJ father-in-law, Herbert Simon. We sat beside the Christmas tree as he wrote a guest editorial for Science, pointing out that the nuclear gun was impossible to aim, and was likely to destroy the 16.3 15.1 16.1 2 COAA NEWS 1 6.02 civilization that launched it just as surely as the one it was aimed at. I was a bit more in touch with what the younger scientists had been up to, and so was able to modify a few things and then edit the piece, which was subsequently published in Science and noted by POLICE the New York Times. Perhaps I helped a little, but it's a mighty, mighty thin straw to be clutching. Bruce Bender The Nuclear Question is as impossible to discuss as the God Question. Most of us see the solution as 8.01 obvious, but that does not mean that in a crowded room our solutions would not themselves become engaged in battle. While the Nuclear Question may be that I keep at it, the more powerful are my efforts at complex, it is fairly clear at this point that the result of communication. The more powerful my efforts, the a Nuclear Event of any kind, intentional or accidental, more far-reaching. The more far-reaching, the more will result in the absence of life. effective, the more dangerous. It is all that I can do. Nothing and everything There are those who might say that life as we would encounter it following a Nuclear Event would be Enclosed please find a series of photographs from a superior to life under any flag other than our own. larger series titled: "Shooting at Strangers". These Better dead, than red. I, for one, disagree. I am images represent street photography as a predatory presently working with nearly 100 artists living in experience, one extreme to which people who have "red" nations. I know that they are not free. Some of lost the ability to communicate might go. The "X" them are definitely not safe. But all of them would represents, among other things, the power of denial rather be red than dead. Most of them have found and destruction in the hands of the one who pushes the subtle methods for avoiding both. trigger. It presents the viewer with the negation of life. It will take subtle methods for devising life without the nuclear threat. In fact, despite all the talk, I'm not sure The rarely exhibited prints of these images measure that life without the nuclear threat is even possible approximately three by five feet, printed on a machine now. Thus: What can be done? called the "Giant Xerox". To stand alone in a large room full of them is to experience them as familiar In my work as an artist dealing primarily with channels scenes from life as we know it which, following a of communication, I believe that the only solution is to Nuclear Event, might never be repeated. transform every possible breath with the strength of my beliefs. This is exhausting. However, the longer J.P. Jacob COAA NEWS 3 This essay was submitted by Dan Kane just a few hole, our helmsman attempted a spectacular raft days after the deadline for submissions to the last pirouette. The foaming current overwhelmed our newsletter. Even though last year's graduation is'no paddle power, however, and we grazed the hazardous longer fresh in our memories, we're printing it now rocks in the middle of the turn, then rushed on in the hopes of inspiring would-be adventurers to backwards down the final declivity of the overall organize this year's rafting trip. seventeen-foot drop through the Crib Works, as the other three rafts waiting ahead at the bottom cheered us COAA MEMBERS BAPTIZED ON WEST on. BRANCH A wild raft trip down the West Branch of the Following the foaming Crib Works and Big Eddy, Penobscot River along the Katahdin Range following were a series of long runs over the fabulous standing this year's weekend of graduation activities provided waves of Little A and Big A falls. The rapids led us an impromptu outdoor orientation reunion for many through the Horse Race to the Nesowadnehunk Dead COA alumni and staff. Steve and Janet Anderson and Water where we stopped for a steak cookout (too bad several members of Steve's class were joined by for the vegetarians!) The Nesowadnehunk Dead water alumni and friends from Bar Harbor for a total of ends in a sharp left turn followed by an abrupt thirty-four adventurers in four sixteen-foot Unicorn twelve-foot drop over the falls into a standing wave rafts. eight to ten feet high. The standing wave broke over the bow of our raft, completely filling it and obscuring We left Bar Harbor at 4:00 a.m., donned wet suits and events. As we cleared the immense standing wave, it checked out equipment at the Unicorn base camp at was apparent that two members of our crew of nine Millinocket Lake, then assembled at the edge of were missing. Steve Anderson and Anne Kozak were Ripogenus Gorge where the rafts were lowered eighty swept out of the standing wave, to emerge bubbling, feet to the backwater of the Ripogenus Dam power sputtering with very surprised looks on their faces! house. We descended the goat trail and after brief We pulled them aboard in the quiet water below, then instruction in the backwater plunged down the final stopped at the confluence with Nesowadnehunk stretch of steep walled Ripogenus Gorge to the Stream. It drops into the West Branch over long Exterminator. As we dropped through this first falls, granite sluices providing an hour of swimming and buffeted by rocks below, Pam Parvin involuntarily sliding in our wet suits. headed over the side of the raft. Our fast-acting navigator Myron grabbed her receding foot and pulled Our trip was so memorable that it could become a her back into the raft as we came out of the regular event for alumni outdoor orientation reunions Exterminator, dropped down the Staircase and stopped following graduation in years ahead. Speaking with in a backwater to gird ourselves for the Crib Works. others from the trip several days later, it was clear that none of us had yet left the West Branch and our minds As we pulled out of the middle of the "S" turn between were still far away in the foaming ominous waters of the Scylla and Charybdis of a cliff face and suction the Penobscot. 4 COAA NEWS FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK. GRADUATION -- Hello everybody! It's been quite a while since our last SCHEDULE OF EVENTS newsletter, due mostly to the breakneck schedules of your editors. Lisa Hawkins-Holley left us when she moved down to Washington, D.C., but fortunately Saturday May 31 Sunny, high in the 70's Bruce Friedman and Jill Kolva have become active members of the communications committee. 8:00 - 10:00 Breakfast in The Turrets 10:00 - 12:00* Annual Meeting in the Auditorium We've been trying to come up with a new production 1:00 - 5:00 Graduation and Reception method to circumvent the problems of publication 9:00 - ???? Dance at the Jordan Pond House delays. It's a problem. We don't want to hire (with return engagement by Right somebody out of the COAA budget and yet it is Time) impossible for one or two people to produce a newsletter worthy of being called the COAA News. Sunday, June 1 Sunny, breezy, more good After much discussion the solution seems to be weather delegation. For the next issue Andy, Jill, Bruce, and I will be calling to ask individuals to do an article on a 10:00 A.M. Breakfast at Jordan's specific topic. This will take some of the pressure off 11:00 A.M Meet for Hike at Jordan's us, allow people to participate without making too big a commitment, and generate an informative, good Monday, June 2 Clear, cool, high's in the looking newsletter. mid-70's This is the issue of class notes. Seems like everybody Back to work. Fantasy Island is is up to something and hasn't been able to tell anyone once again but a fading memory. about it. If you're curious about someone not mentioned within, I will be happy to send our listing *COAA will be looking for three new board of their most recent address and phone number. For members. If you live in the Boston area please give the price of xeroxing and postage, I will also send a some thought to joining the board. complete directory (wow!). So on to the newsletter. hope you enjoy it and will ANNOUCEMENTS send us your thoughts and responses. Be sure to read Andy's suggestion for the next Forum for Discussion. Norah Davis is now working for Downeast Magazine as an associate editor. Her article on The See you at graduation. Turrets appeared in the October issue. Jean McHugh '81 Roc Caivano "passed his quiz" (as Harris Hyman puts it) and is now a registered architect. Roc is working for Venturi, Rauch, & Scott-Brown in Philadelphia. Brunswick ('81) has hit the road in search of lust and libation after disbanding PinHeads, his contemporary, punk rock, jazz fusion band. He was last seen hitchhiking along the Great Wall of China. Pam ('83) and Brian ('80) Lord-Farmer. From the beautiful, hand-made birth announcement: "Shea Wosila Lord-Farmer came through Pam with much love and joy from Brian on Sunday afternoon July 21, 1985 at 4:47. At birth she was beautiful, healthy, and weighed 8 pounds, 2 ounces." COAA NEWS 5 CLASS NOTES with seasonal adventures as a wildlife biologist with the North Slope Borough in Barrow, AK. She has also done fish studies in the Prudhoe Bay area. '74 Bruce Bender and his wife Barbara Simon have one child and live in Jamestown, RI. Bruce received a Karin Bagn writes, "I attended COA in 1974 for one Masters in community planning in 1980 and now does term and the following summer. Since then, I have some consulting as an environmental planner, but worked with Native people and issues in a legal tends to devote more energy towards the building of framework in South Dakota and other areas of the boats and the everyday demands of a househusband. midwest. I spent a year in Indiana being a single mom, moved to Colorado in 1980 and finished law Fred Davis and his wife, Lucinda, live in Billerica, school there in 1983. I had major health problems and MA. Fred is running his own company, Fred Davis decided to move to Alaska. I drove to within 300 Associates in Boston, MA. The company acts as a miles of Anchorage when I was involved in a manufacturing representative for lines of innovative near-fatal car accident (there are no accidents). Spent energy products from light bulbs to woodstoves. He is the last year healing and growing. I am currently also involved in solar energy promotion and involved in the Union Graduate School's doctoral development through various state-wide organizations. program in the interdisciplinary study of feminist therapy and alternative forms of healing. Craig Kesselheim and his wife, Beth, are living in Evanston, WY where he teaches 7th and 8th graders "Any COA'ers are welcome to visit when in Alaska. the wonders of life and earth science. One of their Please send hugs and kisses to Steve Katona and Susie recent highlights was a six week canoe trip on the Rat Lerner and Scott Kraus wherever their travels may and Porcupine Rivers, both north of the Arctic Circle have sent them lately." in the Northwest and Yukon Territories of Canada. They crossed the Richardson Mountains by canoe, '75 ascending the Rat River for 80 miles and then descending the rest. Says Craig, "teachers' vacations are one of the best aspects of their jobs." Dale Davison Keller gave birth to Ryan Keller on May 2, 1985. That makes four (and counting?) for Chellie Pingree still resides, with her husband Dale and Trace. Charlie and three children (ages 4 to 8), at Banks Cove Farm in North Haven, Maine. Their businesses seem '76 to change with the seasons. Charlie is currently a furniture builder and Chellie runs a sweater business that starts off with wool and ends with finished Kate Darling writes from the far north, Ester, AK, product, often with the help of 25 other knitters. They where she has passed several milestones in the past also keep their hands in farming: some of their years. She is married to Tim Kennedy, they have a animals are "raising" antibodies which are sold as one year old named Molly, a dog, their own land, a diagnostic research products to a company in Portland. house they built, and even a recently acquired car. Kate has changed careers from carpenter/house builder Alice Leeds writes, "as for personal news--no to carpenter/ cabinet and furniture maker. She says her marriage, no kids other than the ones I'm accumulating part of the country is downright beautiful. in our growing Montessori classroom (ages 6-9). Music/art/drama are focal points in the classroom as John March and Maude Russell were married in are research projects, reading, creative writing, May, 1985 and have recently moved to Mt. Desert history, geometry, and math in the academic areas. I Island where John is informally acting as a freelance still clown occasionally, just returned from a consultant to the college. Previously, he was the cycling/hiking trip in Scandinavia and a pilgrimage to associate editor for the Harvard Business School Bar Harbor. Astrology is an emerging hobby Bulletin. They now have a daughter, Elizabeth (obsession?) over the past year which is merging a bit Simpson, born in Bangor on October 17th. with my teaching in an interesting way. Durham is a very forward-looking town with many fine people. Kathy Hazard alternates living in Munro, Maine Y'all come down and see us! Much love" 6 COAA NEWS Mary Levanti-Cuellar and her husband, Carlos, live in Portland, Maine with their 4 1/2 year old daughrter, Clara. Mary is a real estate broker. '77 Jule MacLeod and Iain are in Bangor (Iain turned 7 in November). Julie is working as an art teacher in the Holden and Eddington Elementary Schools (K-4) and Patricia Dodd Hagge graduated from the in the Holbrook Middle School (5-8). University of Southern Maine with a B.A. in Psychology and is now enrolled in the Masters of Peter Cohen is working in NYC with Onas HBO, a Social Work program. She and her husband, Cyrus, cable television programmer. He administers national have two children, Willow 3-1/2 and Alicia 1-1/2. accounts with responsibility for contract negotiations, sales strategy, marketing plans, financial projections Scott McIsaac now lives in Boston and works for and budgets. He is a possible sponsor of a COA Liberty Properties, Inc. which renovates abandonned intern. He aspires to travel, to get out of New York industrial buildings for office space. and live simply on a far away island and to sail around the world twice. Frances Pollitt Langford has returned to the United States after two and a half years serving in the Liza Carter married Jeff Hart on September 28th. Peace Corps and one and a half years at the Baha'i World Center in Haifa, Israel. She is starting a Master Barbara Sassaman decided (after 11 years) that she degree program in adult education at the University of liked the Island well enough to stay. She bought a Southern Maine. house on Strawberry Hill (half-way between the sewer plant and the dump station), so now there is another Karen Roy and Steve Englehart ('74) were place to crash when you visit the Island. married in June, 1985. They are now living in Ausable Forks, New York. Karen works for Adirondack Park Jonathan Gormley is working for the Institute of and Steve is involved in historic preservation. Professional Development at Thomas College in Waterville. He and Robert Dworak share digs down '78 there while their wives live in peace and quiet on MDI. Kevin and Anne Timoney became parents on June Cathy Ramsdell and Larry Sweet were married last summer. 8, 1985 with the birth of their son Seton Robinson Timoney. Sally Swisher Wetzell gave birth to Benjamin Dodie Jordan Hajra and Mohammed Hajra had Thomas Wetzell on September 10th. Weighing in at over 7 lbs., she and her husband Jeff decided he was a a son, Michael Mohammed Hajra, on May 8, 1985. keeper. Susie Saxton is traveling in Thailand and Nepal for six months (returning early June). Last summer she '79 Compiled by Sue Inches was a cook for "Forest Fire Hot Shot Crews" in the Pacific Northwest and she will probably be doing that Rick Moss is living in Fair Oaks, California. He again this coming summer. Before that she spent two received his M.A. in Public Policy from Claremont summers working as an American Obvserer on Graduate School back in 1980 with a concentration in Japanese fishing trawlers in the Bering Sea monitoring energy and environmental policy. Now he's working their catch and collecting biological data (some for as a transportation planner with the California Sarah Hinckley). Any COA student interested in Department of Transportation. Rick's responsibilities working as an American Observer on foreign fishing include statewide air quality and energy planning boats should contact: activities that relate to "multimodal" transportation. Rick would like, ultimately, to have a major impact on Julie Fuller air. pollution policies within the state. He spends his Observer Program free time backpacking, climbing, snowshoeing, Fisheries Research Institute x-county and downhill skiing in the wilds of COAA NEWS 7 California; enjoying the clean air he is helping to Lisa Damtoft is now in her second year as a Public protect, no doubt! Relations Assistant at the headquarters of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Priscilla Bright and Phillip Bryce were married on October 26, 1985. She received her Masters in Public '80 Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at Boston University's School of Medicine last spring. She is currently living in New Jersey and working as a health Sue Freed writes that "after four years of promotion consultant and employee counselor at frustration, hard-work, and self-denial, I have Metropolitan Life's home office in NYC. She is a completed my graduate work. I presented my thesis consultant and employee counselor for the corporate two weeks ago, a graphic representation of a Design health promotion program. Center for Albuquerque. Briefly, it included showrooms for the design trades where architects, Lynne Womack Espy reports that she is employed interior designers, and other design professionals shop as a hydro-geologist in the Earth Science Division of wholesale; convention rooms for design-related E.C. Jordan, an environmental engineering firm in meetings and conventions; and a 300 room hotel, two Portland, Maine. She will be moving to the restaurants and a nightclub, a health spa, and retail and Brunswick/Durham area soon. office spaces. Greg Merrill is currently enrolled in a Masters "I am getting married to a man I met in architecture program in social work which follows from his work school. We are very happy together. I never thought at The Loft where he was working with adolescents in that I would get married. It has never been something a short-term behavior management program. Specific that I wanted to do. I guess it just took meeting the responsibilities included coordinating staff right person to change my mind. We have very similar interventions, acting as team leader during crises and interests and share a common lifegoal. It feels like a doing theraputic counseling with youths. Greg permanent situation to me." continues with mountaineering, cross country skiing, cycling, gardening, and woodworking in addition to Sue and Cameron Erdmann were married October 12, his new interest in mushroom hunting. 1985 aboard the yacht "Petrel" in New York Harbor. Andrea Lepcio has recently graduated from the Lisa Hawkins-Holley has moved to Washington, MBA program at Berkeley with a degree in finance and D.C. (with Bob) where she will be working with a real estate and subsequently accepted a research sports management firm, Proserve, assisting in the position with Dr. Lou Rosen, a leading housing organization of a 13-city tennis tournament. economist. '81 Loie Hayes is living in Somerville, MA and working as the Features Editor for the Gay Community News, Marjorie Lau Mabie has spent the last two years a national weekly for lesbians and gay men. studying acupuncture at the Traditional Acupuncture Institute in Columbia, Maryland and in Boston. She Steve Oransky is now married to Jan Newlin and started practice with three other established practioners they have a son, Eric John. Steve is still designing, this past fall at the office of Traditional Acupuncture consulting, and building homes with an emphasis on Associates in Somerville, Mass. energy conservation. Peter Anderson has been living primarily in John Jewett has earned his M.D. and plans to do Colorado, but has had several diversions in the past his residency in occupational health. few years. He spent several months in Wisconsin taking apart a log cabin, log by log to be re-assembled Sue Inches just started as account executive for at a new location. (Fine people there in the nation's Creative Design and Marketing. Her duties include breadbasket). He has continued his love affair with working with clients, writing all kinds of ads and white water rafting, recently traveling to Alaska and promotions, and overseeing the production of artwork working as a river guide on the Nenana River near and commercials. She remarks that it is very diffferent Denali National Park. When he is not rafting or taking from Maine Audubon, but a lot of fun. apart log cabins, Pete has been "covering the beat" for 8 COAA NEWS the local newspaper. He reports on such events as the Leslie McConnell is living back in Maine after crowning of the rodeo queen and town council receiving her Masters in Education from Lesley meetings, "which were held in the town hall next to the College in Cambridge, MA. Leslie is in her third year railroad tracks when the train came through no one at Casco Memorial School where she teaches remedial could hear anybody else so the meeeting would come reading, writing, and language arts to students in the to a momentary standstill." He also wrote a book on first and second grades. the history of St.Elmo, the ghost town in the President's Range of Colorado where Peter lived for Beth Allman Trowbridge married in September several years. Pete "Scoop" Anderson is doing more and lives with her husband, Charlie, in Fairbanks, and more freelance writing: travel stories, and essays AK. Beth received her B.A. from the University of and features for an environmental newspaper that Alaska in their Northern Studies Program, an inter- covers the Rockies. He has an ambitious project in disciplinary approach to biology, anthropology, and mind that deals with the Burro and the American history. Her minor was in Native Studies focusing on West; he plans to gather material for a book by contempory issues facing Alaska's Natives. Beth is spending two summers trekking the length of the now working as an economic research aide at the Continental Divide with a burro. Peter recently moved Community Research Center (CRE) for the Fairbanks to Durango, Colorado and has wasted no time getting North Star Borough. The CRE publishes a quarterly familiar with the territory by helping to organize the report on the socioeconomic conditions of the first annual High Country Folklife Festival. Finally, he borough. Beth collects data and does all the graphics. invites any and all "long lost friends from downeast" She is also involved in special research projects: to write or visit. consulting for the North Slope Borough, monitoring housing conditions, and helping non-profit and health Bob May reports from Seattle, WA that he is in his organizations with planning. Beth intends to complete second year of a 4-year professional program at John a teaching certification program and start working Bastyr College of Naturopathic Medicine. In his spare with rural Alaskans(mostly Native), helping to train time he works as a lab assistant (phlebotomist) and educate them in resource management. This and drawing blood for a local medical center. similiar fields have begun to take on a growing importance due to the changing social, economic, and Marti Gudmundson is working as a piano cultural environment of Alaskan villages and technician for Zack's Piano Co. in Durham, N.C. She communities. Outside of the workaday world, Beth attended a piano tuning and repair program at Central and Charlie spend a considerable amount of time Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, N.C. raising eight sled dogs for recreational winter camping She's still contradancing and is also singing with a trips and just plain "running". politically progressive women's chorus-- Common Woman Chorus. Marti dreams of tuning George Kass Hogan and Jeff Cherry, presently residing in Winston's piano, having a savings account, traveling Armenia, NY, are planning to be married in half the year, riding in a hot-air balloon, visiting South September. Kass is working at the Institute for America and Africa, knowing herself better, and Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY where, as becoming a better letter writer. program specialist in education, she is developing an ecology curriculm for high school students. Gene Myers, who received his B.S. from Huxley College in 1982, is now a doctoral candidate in human Wendy Lee Van Dyke recently moved back to the development at the University of Chicago. Gene is Boston area from Florida. excited about the opportunity to look deeper into the developmental side of human ecology, and to inquire Alice Levey is on the west coast enrolled in a into how our ecological roots are still evident in Masters program in Anthropology at San Francisco cultural symbols, belief systems, and even possibly, State University. She also has two part-time jobs; she cognitive, affective and mental well-being is a production supervisor for High Lifter Water developments. Gene thanks the influence of Dick Systems, which manufactures gravity feed water Davis for helping him to formualte the focus of his pumps. So far their clients are mainly marijuana current doctoral work. He also wishes to express how farmers, the Forest Service and the Park Service. Her COAA is a unique connection to important experiences second job is with a collective that does custom metal and "Ancestors" and would love to hear from anyone construction on a contract basis. They do sub-contract whose interests have evolved along similar lines. work for West Coast production companies, usually COAA NEWS 9 building extravagantly wasteful structures and gizmos any good voyage. Gradually, I raise myself on one out of aluminum and steel for "Show Biz". Some of elbow. I feel composed and ready to enter the scene, their flashiest technical pieces include a hydraulic yet the mood is subdued and I don't know why. To staircase and elevator for the opening and closing me this is disturbing, as silence rarely falls on such a ceremony at the Olympics, the set for David Bowie's morning gathering. There is a secret being concealed. world tour, plus kitsch for Vegas shows, car shows I want to hold my breath when a few gentle words and rock videos. Alice reports that it is horribly break the silence, spoken by El Husseini, a man who grueling work. In her spare time she studies, studies, for two years has been capable of making only hushed and studies. demands for chewing tobacco and water. He entered a state of amnesia after six days without water in the In the last few years Larry Childs has been helping Algerian Sahara. He passed each day remote and to establish a village for nomads in a drought-stricken inactive, beneath the partial shade of a thorn tree. He region of northern Mali in West Africa (see his ate and slept alone; occasionally he disrobed to expose descriptive essay in this issue). He writes: "Why a himself to the hot winds and to torment his brother and village for nomads? When most of their animals had keeper, Moussa. These actions defied all desert and died, they realized that in order to have some security nomadic law. But on this sacred morning he has joined in times of severe drought a village can be a very the gathering; he speaks with wisdom and useful place to come back to. They can grow gardens compassion. El Husseini formally greets each member near the well, conduct some trade, send their children of the family and laughs, delighted with his to school, build a cooperative for access to cheaper recollection of names and events. Proudly he takes a grain, and when really down and out, like they were moment to sip his tea and survey the sea of astonished this year, a village is an identifiable point for food and faces which bear witness to his transformation. He medical relief." stands to examine a young boy. "Why you couldn't be Mohammed, you were so small when I last saw you." In March of this year he starts a graduate program in Jubilantly, El Husseini and his aging father walk off Intercultural Management at the School for hand in hand. They pray at the construction site. After International Training in Brattleboro, VT. with hopes this sacred reunion they examine the stacks of of working in the "international development and sun-dried adobe bricks. The son promises to serve his cross-cultural educational sphere." father and family as a mason. NOTES FROM THE DESERT I maintain a certain distance. All of this nostalgia stems from a time that pre-dates my arrival. Like a spectator EPISODE 1-DECEMBER 25,1983 at the theater I am not expected to participate. Some of us return to the chief's tent to await a midday meal. As I press on the reins and hiss my command for descent. everyone shuffles about drawing up blankets and As usual my camel bellows his objections; I press pillows for protection against the hot sand, I steal a again, this time severe and threatening. Slowly, glance at El Husseini. He appears to be occupied by begrudgingly, he drops to his knees. I dismount, take his thoughts with his head lowered, but then he slowly a few steps and massage stiff limbs. Moussa and twists his body to face my direction; quick as a dart his Issouf Iana, a black mason from the river, are not far eyes raise to mine. For a brief moment he holds me behind, the skin tents are vacant, everyone must be at captive. His commanding gaze states clearly that all the well or construction site. this good humor is nothing but staged deception. He is a possessed man and this is the devil's playground. I One by one shepherds pop from the surrounding shiver as he returns to take sadistic pleasure in the dunes. The air of mystery gives way to the commotion gathering of his family. of formal greetings. A small boy wraps his arm about my thigh. I caress his smooth shaved head and tug at The following day El Husseini did not come to work an island of long hair left uncut. A man takes my hand, as he had promised. Once again, he was silent, still and with the boy still clutching my leg, we do a and expressionless. A week later he erupted into fits of drag-and-stagger-step towards the chief's tent. violence. He attempted to kill his own brother with a knife. We were obliged to leave him fastened with The teapot is already nestled in hot coals. All eyes slave shackles and tied to a tent post. For his father lazily watch the steam and eagerly await the first glass. this was a humiliating admission of defeat. I lie still in that sore yet relieved comfort that follows 10 COAA NEWS EPISODE 2- JUNE 1984 she's still doing some photography, and has sold some At dusk on my last evening, I climbed alone to the of her prints. Donna plans to move to the Adirondacks roof of Mohammed's house. Gazing eastward towards this spring. Ultimately she'd like to buy some land, the commotion around the tents, huts, and corrals build a house, and raise sheep. some 200 meters from the building site, I realized that what we had created here was quite animated and Beth Sekinger is living in South Strafford, alive. Week by week the population and the village Vermont, working on the land. She is a self-employed morale were mounting. Three months ago the future landscaper and maple sugar farmer. Beth has been was questionable, the permanence and stability rototilling , mowing, building rock walls and suggested by the word "village" would have been gardening. She lives with Paul Kifner on 30 acres of presumptuous. The tensions, doubts and confusions woods called the Porcupine Ranch. They're building a of those early days have been endured. Now everyone barn and producing about 100 gallons of maple syrup believes that the recurring drought and poverty can be each spring. Beth says that their livestock at present relieved by the approaching rains. Our village, consists of 2 cats and 2 kittens. Tygerwene, has achieved its birth and looks ahead to a tenuous infancy as the nomads adjust to life in Glen Berkowitz ia appropriating funds to Boston's immobile homes of earth. MBTA with hopes of making the Red Line run on schedule. '82 Compiled by Janey Winchell Jack McAndrew is residing in Portland, Maine and working as an architectual designer and draftsman for Karl Porter had only a few lines of info to report, a small local firm. In his spare time he plans the future but as usual his few words were packed full of development of the City of Portland. material. He is currently working for the Smithsonian's Marine Systems lab. His position has Greg Stone divides his time between Bar Harbor, taken him to the British West Indies where he is the Lubec, Bermuda, and the Gulf of Mexico. His various team leader of a crab agriculture project. As part of research positions rotate according to the season. this work he spends about 9 months of the year acting Summertimes he has been working as the Chief as 2nd mate (hope you watched closely on Gilligan's Scientist for the New England Aquarium's Right Island) aboard the research vessel Marsy's Resolute. Whale study. For the fall and winter he's been doing His dreams include a doctorate in Environmental aerial dolphin surveys in the Gulf of Mexico for Biology and to continue development of agriculture in Biological Surveys Inc. Springtime he spends in the Third World. Bermuda working on the Caribbean whale studies project with Steve Katona. This year (early spring) Suzie Flynn is consumed by both her demanding he'll be making a voyage down to Antartica to work and graduate program. She is living in photograph some humpback whale flukes in order to Norwalk, CT and is in the head teaching position of a start a fluke catalog for that region. In between Greg's family counseling and preschool program. The various excursions he returns to "home" in Bar Harbor emphasis is on special needs kids. She is enrolled in and writes science articles for magazines. Currently he the Elementary Education and Special Education has ten articles published or in press on diving, program at Manhattanville College and has completed whales, and other marine topics. When Greg finds the one year of the program. Suzie hopes to specialize in time he still manages to get in some diving, language and speech therapy when she finishes her photography (both terrestrial and marine) and star program. gazing. Donna Riley is struggling to save some cash while Janey Winchell is living with her very creative living and working in Maryland. She's living in husband Tim Mangini in Lincoln, MA. She's in her Takoma and working at Visual Systems (a family second year working as a curatorial assistant at the owned art supply business) packing orders. She's Museum of Comparative Zoology's Mammal been sailing quite a bit on the Chesapeake and enjoying Department. Her department has just received a major it thoroughly. Donna's been spending most of her free grant from the National Science Foundation for time creating weavings on the new free standing loom extensive renovations. She recently sent off the final a friend made for her. She's currently weaving a wall copy of her monk seal mecropsy manual to Hawaii hanging made from Samoyed dog hair. She also says where National Marine Fisheries will be printing it for COAA NEWS 11 use on the research currently being done on these impressions gathered while traveling in India and endangered seals. Janey is also entertaining the Nepal. thought of a graduate program in Science Communication for next fall. "For me, one of the most attractive things about COA was that it permitted me the freedom not to become a Ray Wirth writes, "I intend to be a bit less nomadic specialist. There have been moments, however, since during the next few years and hope to become I returned to the States when I have regretted being involved with COAA. Presently I am washing dishes such a generalist with a capital "G". Particularly, this at a shorefront restaurant , writing (and struggling frustration has come out because I have been unable to with) my first novel, and taking a creative writing gain meaningful employment. But for the most part I course at the University of New Hampshire in am still convinced that the world is in need of at least a Durham. few good generalists--free thinkers. My current hope is that through writing I might be one of them. I look "A bit disconnected is how I've felt since returning forward to hearing more from COAA." from two years in Sierra Leone (West Africa) as a Peace Corps Volunteer and subsequent travels in Bruce Friedman is doing freelance architectual India, Nepal, and Europe. design and drafting in and around the Boston area. He plans on building or rehabbing a house or two in the "While I was in Sierra Leone, I often reflected on how coming year as a business and investment venture. incredibly relevant my COA education was to my work there as an agricultural extensionist in a remote Richard Hayes Epstein is in love and living in chiefdom in that under-developed West African Cincinnati, Ohio, working as an architectual designer country. Also, my COA-fostered perspective was a and draftsman. This fall he will be begin his quest for useful one from which to interpret the myriad of a Masters Degree in Architecture at MIT in Boston. FORUM holds the "healing earth". Sometime later I actually FOR DISCUSSION visited the chapel and was amazed at its smallness and apparent anonymity. However, by the time I left I knew and felt the power of place that this wondrous Sense of Place earthen and wooden structure exemplified. There is a small chapel in northern New Mexico, north Sense of place has become more than just raw of Santa Fe, called El Santuario de Chimayo. I first perception and physical place. The sanctuary, the heard of its existence while traveling in the area during season, the healing earth, the essence of the one of those nights peculiar to early spring in New geography, my emotional associations all became an Mexico: radiant starlit sky, dry ground level breeze, interwoven image and experience. Rarely does the and sharp cold. For a seventy mile stretch there was spring pass by without the sense of that place crossing an unusual number of people walking along the road. my mind. I now live 3,800 miles away and have There were groups and there were individuals all very begun a new journey to discover the sense of place that purposeful in their determination to reach some I now inhabit. unnamed goal. I managed to ask someone where everyone was heading. During the week between This is a long-winded introduction to our next forum, Palm Sunday and Easter hundreds and hundreds of but I hope it gives you an idea of what we're looking devout Catholics of both Chicano and Pueblo heritage for. Which qualities, events, or rituals celebrate and converge on a small, rustic adobe chapel built in the conjure up the "sense of place" you inhabit? Tap into early 1800's. The pilgrimage is a celebration of faith another level of perception. Rather than taking for at all levels but it is also a celebration of "place". granted the everyday sights of your environment, stop What attracts so many to a structure that at any moment and look at it--what makes it unique? What can accomodate no more than a hundred people? El associations do you have with different seasons, other Santuario de Chimayo has an established history of places in your past? miraculous cures. A small side chapel hods an evolving history of testimonials, artifacts, and icons Send your responses to: COAA News, c/o Jean testifying to the power of a small hole in the floor that McHugh, 12 COAA NEWS Andrew Bennett, when he isn't volunteering his Boston. She's footloose and fancy free and enjoying efforts to the COAA, is living, studying, and working the New England climate. in Boston. With only one year left to earning his Master's degree in architecture at MIT, he has decided Lauren McKean and Erik Wight are living in to take a term's leave and plunge into the working Amherst, MA. Lauren attends graduate school at world. He recently began working for a large UMASS while Erik works as a home inspector and corporate practice, which has begun diversifying its rehabs houses. computer design applications. He is a member of a small, five person team called the Jung/Brannen '84 Research and Development Group, which is developing and marketing a comprehensive architectural management system for use on new While living in Carrollton, GA, Bernadette Alie has generation micro-computers. He says that the seven been working at the Burwell Psychoeducational Center months ahead will put any technological fantasies he's to help children living in the rural areas develop been harboring to rest, and then he can pursue his real socialization skills using group dynamic exercises. aims with a slightly more comprehensive outlook. Future plans are to return to Mt. Desert Island and consider graduate programs in psychology and '83 counseling. Vicky Nichols continues to work at the COA Jill Kolva recently moved to Boston after living in Natural History Museum. She worked with a Kansas City, Missouri for two and a half years. She Monhegan Island teacher this past summer and has worked at a non-profit energy center there and is now participated in four programs aired on Channel 6. running a weatherization program for the City of The Strength of Leaves 10/85 With that persisting life They live the lives of leaves, Their ignorance persists, remains. Singular plays of struggle A life so long, so slow, so subtle Between shadow and sun; It is confused with a darker thing, Gather light for a time; This tie that binds, Grow large, grow old, This form that bears them, And grow still, This network of flow through veins. Their intrusion cut off In the face of impending cold. In spring don't they open infused of it? In autumn don't they fall to rest at its feet? A species of sacrifice, But not before a sap distilled of them Turning brown, turning withered, Purges through the labyrinth of veins, turning to ground, Through the colossus sailing on and on Living in hope forever Upwind through seasons dark and bright. Of some ever-living heaven for leaves. Nothing survives the winter Creatures of light That they know, With minds set for chlorophyll and green, But to the deep sense of roots Without sight or thought Winter and summer are one: For creation of a different kind, The season of inner earth is ever moist and cool, For that which embodies-- Conducive to growth that can endure. To the pact of root, stem, and bough This mooring of sky and earth, They are blind. This tower of rain and light, They die, see others dying, This crypt of corpses and dreams See life a process of ever taking leave; Bears through winter and storm; Their world has an end final and near. A shiftless sentinel Of life beneath the guarded trunk Built and maturing of They do not know; The fleeting strength of leaves. --Ray Wirth COAA NEWS 13 AXIL College COOL of the Atlantic Association