BEING CHILDLESS

In a recent magazine article,[i] writer Lisa Hymas brought up a subject that many of us environmentalists are afraid to touch: choosing to remain childless. She values the individual freedom she has had from PTA meetings, trips to the zoo, and many other aspects of being a parent. Even more important, in view of the familiar statistics about population growth and its horrific effects on the environment, she knows she made a sound environmental choice.

As a liberal environmentalist, I am sometimes torn about the population  issue. An increase in population size results from rises in birth rate and/or immigration (or, conversely, from falls in death rate and/or emigration). Immigration, like family planning, is a controversial topic. On the one hand, I would like to see America’s doors open to the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” It is painful to learn about young people who were brought to this country as young children, but cannot go to college or have lives considered normal by United States citizens. Understandably, they want to shed the “undocumented” label. On the other hand, massive immigration is certainly a problem for the environment. There are very apparent limits to space, water, and other resources. Those of us who were born here can do a little bit to counter the effects of immigration by remaining childfree.

There is enormous societal pressure to have children, and it is hard to resist. When I was a young married woman, people I barely knew would ask me when we planned to have children. My reasons were none of their business, of course, but that didn’t stop them. After I had a hysterectomy at the age of 30, I could say sadly and honestly that I was unable to have children, but that didn’t stop some people from urging us to adopt! (Today, of course, we would be counseled to use methods that were unavailable at that time.)

Adoption is fine for many couples, and is one small answer to both the population problem and to involuntary childlessness. To be honest, though, I don’t care all that much about children; I have never cooed at the sight of a baby or said that I “just love children” in general. When kids start to become interesting, I can like or dislike them, just as I would adults. My late husband felt the same way, and so we never considered adoption.

My partner never had children, either, for a different reason that also benefited the environment. Unlike me, he greatly enjoys small children, and would have made a fine father. However, having a genetic disease, he chose not to take a chance on passing on those genes. As a result, he caused less pressure on the environment and avoided damage to the gene pool.

Now that I am in my late seventies, I sometimes wonder whether I should have had one child for purely selfish reasons. When my own mother lived to be more than 100, I was able to do much to make her last years comfortable. My own future may be bleaker than hers was.

I admire Lisa for her courage in writing this article, and hope she will not suffer too much criticism from mommy bloggers and others who will try to make her feel selfish or anti-children. She made a choice that was right for her, and good for the planet.

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[i] Hymas, Lisa. Making a green choice: Childfree living. Mother Earth News Feb/Mar 2014, p. 79.

SMALL IS STILL BEAUTIFUL

Back in the seventies, many of us were inspired by Small is Beautiful, by E.F. Schumacher, who pointed out the necessity of using less of the planet’s resources and living sustainably to protect the environment. When we were young, that seemed so simple and obvious. We lived in small apartments, stayed in youth hostels when we traveled, drove Volkswagen Beetles. We planned to have no more than two children. We could easily save the world.

Those of us who survived the seventies and settled down to a middle- or even upper-class life, though, found it hard to continue living small. Most of us found ourselves in large single-family homes having two or more bathrooms. The VWs were traded in on gas guzzlers. (I must confess to driving a Mercedes for many years, simply because my late husband wanted that car.) Instead of making our own yogurt and cooking simple meals, we started going to overpriced, trendy restaurants serving too much food. We drank too much alcohol. We wasted far too much, caused an appalling amount of pollution. Some of us felt justified in having more than two children if money was not a problem. Even one population biologist and his wife were stymied in their efforts when their carefully planned second child turned out to be twins!

Today, climate change and other environmental issues are making us look again at how we can live in more modest ways to preserve the planet. In some cases that calls for some sacrifices, but in many others, it makes life easier, more beautiful, or happier.

If the United States truly wants to be a world leader, we need to change our ways, to be more like Denmark. (Being part Danish, I am prejudiced, but many people share my opinion.) For many years, research on using solar energy has been carried at Roskilde. The Danes live less ostentatiously than Americans, yet their homes and public spaces are comfortable and attractive. They not only make smallness and simplicity seem desirable, but use those characteristics as tourist attractions.

Some of our universities have become bloated, investing too much in costly buildings and too little in more important areas. Small colleges seem to be doing better, partly because they have less money. My alma mater, Kalamazoo College, is a very small school that began in 1833 as a Baptist college dependent on Baptist alumni and friends. Even now, alumni are a major source of the school’s funds. Allen Hoben, the president of Kalamazoo College in the 1920s and 1930s, once said that he wanted “K” to be the best school of its kind. “K” today has about 1500 students, only a little larger than when I attended it in the 1950s, but it has grown steadily in the proportion of students who join the Peace Corps or take part in the school’s very desirable foreign-study program. It has always provided a good liberal arts education, has produced a great many scientists, is regularly cited as an excellent college, and I am very proud to be an alumna.

Even our pets can show the advantages of small size. I have seen people travel in RVs with very large dogs, for instance. How silly! For many years I helped raise a series of Scotties, terriers that are small enough to fit into small spaces and to eat reasonable amounts of dog food but just large enough to provide some protection when necessary. I always felt safe when walking with one of our Macs. Cats, too, can provide companionship without taking up a large space in the environment. If we adopt cats from shelters, keep them indoors, and have them neutered, that also helps lower the population of feral cats that kill enormous numbers of birds.

Collectors tend to amass very large, expensive collections of whatever they fancy. Far better is what one jade collector did: His collection always consisted solely of the finest piece of jade he could find. Each time he found a better one, the older one was sold. The small quantity of his collection was in inverse proportion to its enviable quality.

The small-house movement is an encouraging sign today. Though it has been enforced in part by the high cost of larger homes, some architects and designers have also embraced it as a challenging way to provide desirable cottages. In these homes, which often have a rustic Arts and Crafts style, the furniture is simple and functional.  Nothing can be wasteful or merely decorative. As a result, life in them is simplified. If you don’t have room for an enormous TV, you are unable to waste time watching it! My only reservation about small houses is that some of the super-rich are building them as cute little vacation houses rather than living in them.

Many small cars are just as appealing as larger ones. My Honda Fit is an amazing little car that fits into tiny parking spaces, but holds anything I want to carry in it when the back seat is folded down. It’s “small on the outside, big on the inside.” My partner’s tiny old Suzuki Samurai is vital for us in the winter, when we need 4-wheel drive on snowy hills. Like the Fit, it uses little gas.

When I was a grad student at Stanford in the early eighties, I did some quantitative research in education. To run the statistical tests, I used main-frame computers that took up most of a very large building. A student today could do the same research on her laptop computer. What an improvement that miniaturization has been! The same trend has been true in most electronics, mostly to good effect. My tiny digital camera, for example, is not really as good as a professional photographer’s film camera, but for my purposes it is fine, uses no film, and certainly is more portable.

My favorite case of compact size, though, is our Winnebago View. We shopped for a long time to find a small motorhome that was large enough for us, with a nice galley, real bathroom, comfortable bed, and other features we wanted. (Yes, a tent might be a bit easier on the environment. We tried tent camping, but a bear came moseying through our site, and chipmunks stole our food. If we were going to travel long distances, we needed a motorhome.) At the same time, the motorhome had to be small enough to fit into a couple of standard spaces in supermarket parking lots, narrow enough to stay well within traffic lanes. At times we despaired of ever finding the Goldilocks combination we wanted, but the View (7 feet wide, 24 feet long) has been just right. When we see gargantuan RVs squeezing into small campground sites or slopping across several spaces at a Walmart, we feel quite smug about the View. Constructing it required much less material than would be needed for a large rig, and it uses much less fuel. (How can anyone defend driving something that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and goes only six or seven miles on a gallon on gas?)

So, I see some hope for the future in the “small is beautiful” trends of today. The gloomy Dane part of me feels very pessimistic about population growth, which is the elephant in the room no one wants to mention. Immigration, especially, will continue to drive consumption and pollution higher in this country, and the ever-growing populations of India and China will do so in those countries. However, until war or epidemics reduce the world population to a sustainable size, we can use common sense and technology to lessen our demands on the environment.

 

READING ON THE ROAD

When we bought our 24' motorhome, we realized that storage would be a problem. At first, though, we focused on the kitchen and clothes closet. Even RVers need a minimum of dishes and clothes. Only gradually did the issue of books become crucial. We are both avid readers, and at home we have many shelves filled with our personal libraries. (When I sold my previous bricks-and-mortar home, I sold or gave away about a thousand books. It was painful to a point, but I actually needed or wanted only a fraction of them, which I have kept.) Being on the road without much reading material would be a disaster.

Of course we cannot haul around reference books and heavy novels, but there are some useful workarounds. The e-book readers now available (Nook, Kindle, and their kin) are a great help. I just downloaded Darwin’s The Origin of Species by Natural Selection onto my Nook (from Gutenberg.org, an excellent free source for classic books that are in the public domain). Most people would find it very easy to travel without Darwin’s book, but as a biology writer and editor I like to have it around for reference. I read it thoroughly in college, and once was enough. Using the Nook has been frustrating; I got it for only $80 on a Black Friday sale, and probably should have bitten the bullet and spent more for a Kindle, which is easier to use. I’m gradually learning how to read and save library books on the Nook, and bought a couple of e-books from Barnes & Noble. It will be very useful for travel, and even at home I like the lighted screen. This will never replace printed books, though.

We can also borrow some magazines and newspapers for online reading through the library, but I have yet to master that process. It looks as if some of the magazines we enjoy, such as Discover, are available for borrowing, and many others can be subscribed to commercially if we want to actually pay for them.

Being necessarily frugal, we tend to avoid paying for reading material if possible. Stopping at libraries along the way, as I described in an earlier post, is a pleasant way of catching up on reading and using Wi-Fi. (We do put a little money in each library’s donation jar.)

There are also a few printed books and magazines in the View, of course. We need specific information about the places we want to visit, a Walmart atlas helps when we need to blacktop-boondock, and there are always a few items we can’t pass up. These can help keep us satisfied until we go home, or to the next library.

BUCKET LIST

It’s a good thing that getting rich was never on my bucket list, because I have spent most of my life as a student or writer/editor, and am now embarrassingly grateful for Social Security and senior discounts. My own goals have been different, though they required some money to be accomplished.

After a few years of working to put my first husband through grad school, I was envious and frustrated enough to want a Ph.D. for myself. Never mind the fact that an M.A. was nearly sufficient for my needs—I was grimly determined to be Dr. Stone. It meant denying myself and my new husband many things. However, at the age of 46 I was able to clutch a diploma from the Stanford University Graduate School of Education. An important item crossed off the bucket list!

After earning the doctorate, I hoped to help design an NSF curriculum project like one of those I had edited. However, funding for curriculum projects was winding down by that time, and so I set up an editorial business, The Stone Cottage, instead. It was meant to be a temporary situation. I closed the business 30 years later.  . .  Owning my own business was very satisfying in many ways, but it had never been a bucket-list item.

When the phone rang in 2000 and Dr. Robert Krebs asked if I would like to write my own biology textbook for Greenwood Press, it seemed like a gift from heaven. I tried to restrain myself, and instead screamed, “Yes! Yes!” Authoring my own science book, rather than co-authoring or editing yet another one, had been a dream for years. Writing The Basics of Biology  turned out to be very difficult (and not very profitable), especially as my husband was dying during those years; somehow I persisted, and have been pleased with the results.

Being a good caregiver was unplanned, yet became a major goal during my husband’s illness and my mother’s aging. They are both dead now, and I did take good care of them. Nothing I have ever done has been so important.

Studying French in college had exposed me to that graceful language and literature, and I planned to travel to France at the first opportunity. The years passed, though, and I was unable to cross France off my list until 2005, when I finally went to Paris with an Elderhostel group. Though the tour was wonderful, I should have managed somehow to go there when I was young.

My bucket list today has changed greatly from what it was years ago. I never expected to spend my retirement years living in the woods and traveling in a motorhome! Yet, this way of life has led me to wishing to visit all the national parks—it is most unlikely that I will manage that—in addition to traveling abroad again and doing many more things before I kick the bucket.

TOO MANY PILLS

Like many elderly people, I have some medical conditions that must be monitored. For nearly a year, my blood tests have shown a slightly low level of magnesium, an element that is essential for nerve and muscle function. In addition to having me eat lots of spinach and almonds in an effort to increase my magnesium level, my doctor gave me a prescription for magnesium pills. I take one of the pills every day, along with a variety of other meds that are all too familiar to the elderly.

Thanks to medicines and a generally healthy lifestyle, I am well most of the time. Lately, though, I have had some symptoms of hypothyroidism, such as dry skin and hair. As my level of thyroid hormone was borderline a while ago, my doctor prescribed levothyroxine to correct it, and I have continued taking it. Those pills are a pain—I have to take one on an empty stomach every day, at least 30 minutes before breakfast. (I get hungry. More important, I have to suffer through those 30 minutes without coffee!) I would love to stop taking them, but probably my doctor will not allow it.

To prepare for my next office visit, I Googled for hypothyroidism and discovered that it’s important to wait at least four hours after taking levothyroxine before taking magnesium. When magnesium and levothyroxine are taken too closely together in time, they bind to each other, and both meds are made less effective. The label on my pill vial warns about not taking calcium for four hours, but says nothing about magnesium, so I have often taken magnesium with breakfast.

Ouch! Back in the day, I studied biochemistry and pharmacology, but even a bright high school chemistry student would have realized that if calcium can inactivate another compound, magnesium probably can as well. I should have realized the possible problem. Now I will be more careful, consult with my doctor, and hope to feel healthier and get better results from lab tests.

Interactions among drugs are a common result when a patient takes many medicines and has to keep track of complicated dosage schedules. It’s hard enough at home, but harder on the road. I use one of those 28-cell pill containers; it helps greatly, though it is barely big enough. (I take 15 or 20 prescribed pills or supplements every day.) Organization helps: Each day I put that day’s pills in my purse or backpack, where I can retrieve them easily at mealtimes. Having a companion with his own medical issues helps, too—we remind each other to eat properly and take our meds.

Medicines today are much more powerful than they were even 50 years ago. Thus they are both more effective and more dangerous. We elderly people often take several powerful drugs having side effects such as lightheadness or loss of equilibrium. The added result can interfere with driving, bicycling, even walking. We get all the bad effects of alcohol without the fun.

Alcohol itself is a problem for many of us, as it is such a common part of social life that it is hard to avoid it. I enjoyed drinking wine for my entire adult life, especially after moving to California and discovering the delicious, inexpensive wines at Trader Joe’s. As I have aged and begun using meds for hypertension and other conditions, I have gradually stopped drinking altogether.

I am grateful for modern meds, of course, and would hate to try getting along without them. But all of us who depend on prescriptions need to use them sensibly, to read labels carefully, and to ask questions of our doctors and pharmacists.

HIGH OR LOW, FAT OR CARBS?

Here we go again! According to some recent research, giving up high-fat foods and increasing high-carbohydrate foods to lose weight was all wrong—dieters simply ate more sugars and starches to feel satisfied, and so they failed to lose weight. Duh! Isn’t this rather obvious?

Of course lipids (fats and related materials) in small amounts are important for good nutrition. The myelin coats around many nerve cells are made of cholesterol, a lipid that is also essential for making hormones. Fats are the most concentrated form of energy found in food, and they carry the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K. Omega-3 fatty acids appear to protect us from heart disease. We need lipids for all those reasons. The problem comes when we eat too much fat—or, for that matter, too much carbohydrate or protein. Instead of being entirely used as needed for energy and for building needed compounds, part of the food is stored as fat deposits around the heart and other muscles.

When did Americans start eating too much fat? Perhaps it began, or at least was intensified, just after World War II. I can still remember eating white oleomargarine (or dyeing it yellow with little dye capsules) during the war. The stuff was unappealing at best, and when butter rationing ended with the war’s end, real butter tasted wonderful. Cooks could again use it, and everyone could slather butter on pancakes, waffles, and toast. Corn-fed beef became more available, too. We started eating “high on the hog.” 

Back in the fifties, it was hard to find nonfattening foods. In the Midwest where I grew up, there were wonderful fruits and vegetables to eat in summertime, but in winter we were mostly limited to canned vegetables and sugar-sweetened fruit. Soft drinks, too, contained a lot of sugar. Adding to the problem, we were also riding around in cars much of the time; walking and bicycling were not yet popular.

As a child and teenager, I struggled continually with overweight. Besides eating too much, I was a bookish girl who avoided exercise. Diets then were rather Draconian: Dieters were advised to eat very small amounts of food, or to eat only one kind of food. There was a cottage cheese diet, for instance; after a few days of that, I couldn’t face cottage cheese for years. Until my mid-twenties, I found that I could lose weight only by severely limiting my Calories. Though I never became anorexic or bulimic, my dieting was certainly unhealthful. I had muscle cramps and felt tired in spite of getting enough sleep.

Becoming one of the early members of Weight Watchers in the 1960s may have saved my life, or at least kept me well. For the first time, I learned to lose weight without being hungry by eating large amounts of chicken and fish, drinking skim milk, and making fruits and vegetables a large part of my diet. At that time, cookies, candy, and ice cream were all “illegal” foods for Weight Watchers members, which automatically lowered the amounts of carbs and fat we ate. Many no-sugar foods appeared on the market at that time, too. (Since then I have been able to eat sensibly without the strict rules of Weight Watchers, and have never returned to extreme dieting. My weight has fluctuated a few times during times of stress, but now I weigh 118 pounds, 40 pounds less than when I was in high school.)

In the late fifties, a few years after President Eisenhower’s frightening heart attack, scientists were beginning to find a possible link between cholesterol and heart disease. When they found eggs had a high cholesterol content, many people gave up eating eggs. Not a good idea. Today we know that eggs, with their high protein content and low number of Calories, are important for good nutrition.

More and more studies found that eating fats could contribute to heart disease. For 20 years or so, we were counseled to protect our hearts by eating less fat and exercising more. Exercise does use Calories, and it has many other important effects on the body. Except for dancers and  athletes, though, most people don’t exercise enough to lose weight.

Our eating habits became more sophisticated in the sixties. Many of us watched chef Julia Child on television, bought her cookbook, and tried to prepare dishes like boeuf bourguignon and trout meuniere. Though Julia sometimes used a lot of butter and sugar, she recommended keeping portions small.  Americans tend to go overboard on everything, unfortunately. During the sixties even our dishes and glasses grew larger, the better to hold large servings of food and wine. Hamburgers grew from the small patties we had eaten in the fifties to the gigantic monstrosities, laden with cheese and bacon, that are common today.

There have been many diets and weight-loss programs over the years. We have seen the Atkins diet, the Pritikin diet, Jenny Craig, TOPS, the popcorn diet, and so forth. One diet promoted eating grapefruit, which was supposed to contain a magic enzyme that broke down fat.  One of the strangest diets that came along in the seventies was the “drinking man’s diet.” The general idea was to limit carbohydrates severely, while satisfying ourselves with fat, protein, and alcohol. I remember several coworkers coming back from lunch with silly smiles on their faces, feeling they were dieting. That diet didn’t last long—in some people the high level of protein led to ketosis, a potentially dangerous condition.

Perhaps that kind of diet was partly what led to the anti-fat reaction in the nineties. Suddenly, carbs were in and fat was out. We were told to eat more grains—and so some interpreted that as permission to eat huge portions of pasta laden with sauces. Advice to eat legumes became permission to eat baked beans with molasses. We were told that fruit was good for us—and many of us ate too much of it, or consumed it as pie. People ate huge muffins. And then they wondered why they gained weight instead of losing it.

Some hopeful treatments are on the horizon, at least for the severely overweight. A just-released study shows that bariatric (obese) surgery leads to long-term weight loss. It may also be possible to alter the DNA of persons with a genetic predisposition to obesity. Various physiological studies are underway.

For those with less serious problems, though, the standard advice is what it has been since antiquity—eat less in general, fill up on fruits and vegetables, get more exercise. We all know that’s the secret, but we get bored with sensible eating and exercising, devote too little time to them, or eat for emotional reasons. The “Mediterranean diet” has been popular in recent years, and is surely the best diet to come along. High in the delicious grains, fish, fruits and vegetables, nuts, and olive oil that contribute to good nutrition and weight loss, it even includes a little wine—a major plus for most of us. (Alas! I can no longer drink alcohol, as it interacts with some of my prescribed medicines.) I fear that if the pendulum swings toward eating less rice and more bacon, dieters will lose the benefits of Mediterranean foods. And, in ten years or so, nutritionists will discover again that we need to eat more carbs and less fat.

LIFE IN THE FOREST

Our view from the front porch

Seven years ago I sold my home in the San Francisco Bay area and moved to California’s Gold Rush country. And not just to a city or small town (though later on I would buy a house in Placerville), but to my partner’s home in the forest, bordering the El Dorado National Forest. It seemed very romantic and exciting at  the time. We would be surrounded by the pines and oaks, out of sight of neighbors and far from traffic noise. Our block-long graveled driveway would be free of other cars. When we needed firewood, we would cut down an expendable tree. On winter evenings we would gaze into the fire while reading and listening to music. We could forget about caring for a lawn, because the surrounding forest is carpeted with attractive bear grass. (Should I have wondered why it is also called “mountain misery”?) Every spring we would look for native wildflowers, and never plant invasive plants from a nursery. Black-tailed deer would be our companions. It would be the ideal lifestyle for us environmentalists.

My first warning came when a 100’ tall tree had to be cut down because it was in the path of a garage we needed for our motorhome. My partner felled it himself, and sawed the branches and trunk into large sections, which was an impressive feat. He explained that before he could split it for firewood, we needed to use a rope and pivot system to lower the log rounds down a hillside.  Then we could hand-roll them up the long driveway to the carport. (Who, me? I hadn’t rolled anything larger than a rolling pin in years. We did manage it, though, and I felt quite proud of that accomplishment.) After leaving the rounds to spend the hot summer drying out, he could split them with a steel wedge and sledgehammer. He explained that he was multitasking, getting both firewood and exercise.

Bringing up a log round

The spring wildflowers—some of which are quite rare—are indeed a treat. For two or three months I happily climb up the hill to enjoy them. Then summer arrives, and this area becomes beastly hot at times. Our home is partly solar-powered, and has huge south-facing windows; the house gets very uncomfortable on hot summer afternoons. At sundown the lack of surrounding roads and pavement lets the evening breezes cool off the house quickly. Being environmentalists, of course we have no air conditioning. During extreme heat waves, when we run out of ice cream and become sufficiently miserable, we take the motorhome far up the mountain to a campground near a lake. For a few days we enjoy life there, but it can’t last. We need to take care of things at home, so we drive back to our part of the forest.

More exercise!

One of the things we need to do is to cut the beautiful but highly flammable manzanita bushes that grow quickly all over the property. I have spent many hours cutting them with loppers, making sure that every leaf is removed to prevent any photosynthesis from restoring them, but new bushes seem to spring up immediately. Though the manzanitas are numerous, at least they can be removed while they are small. Established pines and oaks are much larger and harder to deal with. Though it’s tempting to let them grow, we are required to maintain a 50’ bare area around the house because of the danger of wildfires here. (The house is on a steep hillside; if a wildfire ever comes up from the canyon below, even that barrier may not save us.)

The long gravel driveway is a continual problem. In autumn It has to be raked often, to remove the leaves and acorn shells that can rapidly turn to humus. In the winter any strong rain can wash out sections that must be shoveled back into place. Shoveling gravel is not fun.

Life here has been much harder than I expected, and at times I retreat to the Placerville house, where I have a gas furnace, air conditioning, a road that is maintained by someone else, and an easier life in general. I still love the forest and spend a great deal of time there, but I am now seven years older than when I left the city. How much longer can I keep this up? If we leave the forest, where will we go? 

 Any one considering moving to a similar area should think carefully before doing anything irrevocable. Life in the forest is rewarding, but it also involves much drudgery. It can also be lonely. For a woman, especially, the lack of nearby  neighbors and friends is difficult. Like old age, this life “ain’t for sissies.”  

IN PRAISE OF MOTHERS-IN-LAW

My mother was a wonderful woman whom I appreciated more and more as we both aged. She was warm, funny, and wise; and I miss her greatly. By some stroke of luck, though, I also had two delightful mothers-in-law. They were nothing like my mother or each other, but each was wonderful in her own way.

Jessie was my first husband’s mother. Beautiful, charming, and gracious, she always looked serene and cool, even in Chicago’s hot, sticky summer weather. When I remember her, I always picture her wearing a hat and gloves. Jessie was active in a suburban Presbyterian church and spent most of her life as a well-to-do homemaker who raised the twin sons she bore in 1935. Her home was elegant without being overwhelming—she would have abhorred today’s McMansions—and was always spotless.

Seeing our young-marrieds financial struggles, Jessie helped without making us dependent. She bought me some lovely clothes from Peck & Peck and Marshall Field’s, exactly what I needed for my early editorial jobs. Both my husband and I received many gifts from her for our home.

When our marriage ended, Jessie was broken-hearted. She wrote to my mother about it, saying how she hoped “the children” would work out our problems and get together again. It was much too late for that. Hurting her caused me nearly as much pain as the divorce itself did.

Many years after our divorce, Jessie called her husband out to the garden to show him some flowers that had just bloomed. He admired them, and turned aside for a moment. When he turned back, she was lying in the flower bed, dead. What a catastrophe for him, but what a fitting death for that lovely, kind woman.

*  *  *

Edith was my second mother-in-law. She had come to America as a baby, in that wave of Jewish immigration around 1900. Her family settled on the South Side of Chicago. Life wasn’t easy for them, and she grew up feeling poor. Having enough money, and looking prosperous, was always important to her afterward. She loved nice clothing and wore it well.

Edith was neither the Yiddishe momma nor the Hadassah member type. She was herself, an attractive, strong woman with a raunchy sense of humor that slightly shocked me at first. (I should have expected it, though—my husband could be witty and charming at times, rather crude at other times, but he was unfailingly funny.) As she was a chain smoker, many years of smoking had given her a throaty, sexy voice.

Though she had worked for only a few years after her marriage, she was very supportive of my own career. One evening when she and her sister had taught me how to make chopped liver and some other Jewish dishes that my husband liked, she took me aside and whispered, “Don’t waste your time on a lot of cooking. Find a good deli and buy things there!” Wonderful advice, and I was happy to take it.

An excellent poker player, Edith raked in some of the money she craved by gambling. My diamond engagement ring--an enormous rock--was one she had originally won in a high-stakes poker game. When Harold and I became engaged, she was so  delighted about her over-thirty son finally getting married that she insisted he give me the ring.

Edith and I got along very well, and I looked forward to many years of having such a great mother-in-law. Unhappily, that wasn’t possible. In a freak accident, she swallowed part of a toothpick in a deli sandwich, and developed septic poisoning from a punctured intestine. She died on our first wedding anniversary.

I have never had children, and so I missed the opportunity of being a mother-in-law. If I had, either Jessie or Edith would have been a superb model.

LASSEN VOLCANIC NATIONAL PARK

Lassen peaks in summer

Nearly everyone knows about Yellowstone—the geysers and mud pots, the bears and bison, the magnificent scenery. Unfortunately, because Yellowstone is so famous, it is also extremely crowded. When we stopped there for a few days in the autumn of 2010, all the campgrounds were filled. We did manage to stay one night near Lewis Lake, but on the other nights we had to resort to dry camping outside the park, then driving long distances to see the sights.

Luckily, there is a less-known alternative to Yellowstone. In northern California, Lassen Volcanic National Park offers a wilderness experience complete with dramatic mountain peaks and steamy, impressive geysers. This unique park is one of our favorites. Anyone traveling between Yosemite and Crater Lake will find it a fascinating stop.

Lassen is at the southern end of the Cascade Range, a chain of active volcanoes that range from British Columbia south into northern California. Though ordinarily quiet, the volcanoes occasionally wake up, as when Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980. Back in 1915, Lassen Peak erupted violently and devastated a large area. Congress made the surrounding area a national park in 1916; since then it has been preserved as both a park and a natural laboratory where geologists can study volcanoes and hydrothermal features. The peaks are snow-covered for much of the year, allowing for snowshoeing and wintry hiking. They are beautiful at any time.

For short-term visitors, the most interesting feature of the park may be the aptly named Bumpass Hell, where fumaroles (holes in volcanic regions through which hot gases escape) emit hot, sulfurous fumes. Mud pots and steaming water add to the overpowering, unworldly atmosphere. We hiked there from a parking lot; younger visitors easily hike down to it an hour, but it took us longer. Along the way we saw spectacular vistas of mountains and valleys, and an enormous meadow of huge lupines.

Those who stay longer can take long hikes in the back country, a true wilderness with mountains, lakes, and lava plateaus. Many trails are strenuous, even dangerous, and have only faint markings or are unmarked; they are not for the faint of heart. Easy and moderate trails, also, are found throughout the park, allowing visitors of all abilities to participate in hikes and field trips. Many sights are easily reachable by car or small RV.

Because of the varied soils and elevations, the park has a great variety of plants and animals. Lassen has rare wildflowers such as alpine false candytuft (Amelowskia ovalis) and golden draba (Draba aureola), which grows only near the summits of  some volcanoes in the Cascades. Animals include bears, mountain lions, black-backed woodpeckers, pikas, and other denizens of the mountains.

Several facilities in the park provide information about Lassen’s environment, about the Native Americans who lived here, and related matters. They are very helpful for getting oriented to the park. Near the northern entrance, we especially enjoyed the Loomis Museum; at the southern, the Kohm Yah-mah-nee Visitor Center is a must. As in all national parks, there is a variety of ranger-led hikes and other activities to provide an optimal experience for visitors.

Lassen has eight campgrounds, but only two are suitable for RVs, and none have hookups for electricity. Manzanita Lake campground is near the northern entrance to the park; Summit Lake campground is near the park’s center, and is usually approached from the southern entrance. Just inside the southern entrance is the Kohm Yah-mah-nee Visitor Center, where there are a museum and a cafe, plus a gift shop with a good selection of books. RVers and other campers can stop there to make or confirm reservations. (Even though Lassen is less crowded than better-known parks, reservations are advisable. It is a very long drive to campgrounds outside the park.)

In the summer of 2012, we visited Lassen in late August in order to take part in their Dark Sky Festival . Because Lassen is remote (it is surrounded by Lassen National Forest and the Caribou Wilderness), the night skies are ordinarily very clear, and visitors can see constellations and planets they may never have seen before. Though naked-eye observations are exciting enough, telescopes are set up so that visitors can look at the rings of Saturn and other celestial marvels.

Thane had just been accepted into the National Park Service’s AstroVIP volunteer program,  so we were allowed free camping during the festival. Because the campground was many miles from the parking lot where telescopes were set up, and we find it hard to drive at night, we also were permitted to stay in the parking lot all night. In our self-contained RV, we were perfectly comfortable there, and could do any driving in the daytime.

We hope to visit Lassen again and explore places we missed the first time. In 2012 our visit was dramatically truncated by a wildfire that sent smoke into the night sky and shortened the Dark Sky Festival. With any luck, our next visit will be calmer, and the sky clearer.

With Supervisory Park Ranger Kevin Sweeney

THE TRAILER PARK FALLACY

“Modern Family” is just about my favorite current TV program. The characters are just close enough to typical Americans to be believable, just different enough to be entertaining. (Who can forget Mitchell and Cameron sobbing, “Snorkels!”?) But I felt upset by a recent episode, when Phil and Claire argued about possible retirement options. While Phil wanted to buy an RV and tour the country, Claire was dismayed by the idea. Not only did she prefer going to Europe, but she made it clear she didn’t want to spend her retirement leaving her lovely home and moving from one trailer park to another.

Claire appeared to share a common attitude toward us, that we are “trailer trash” whose way of life is inferior to that of other travelers. When RVers are shown in movies or on TV, they nearly always are clueless about driving their vehicles, unsophisticated about life in general, or actually trashy.  If they are wealthy, they are the dreaded Ugly American type rather than genteel, well-educated travelers.

In reality, RVers are a cross section of America—no better or worse than others. We do tend to be a bit older than other travelers, because more of us are retired and can spend long periods on the road. And we look more casual, because we don’t need to dress up for staying in expensive hotels. (On the other hand, have you seen some of the people staying in motels or eating in restaurants?) Some of us can afford to stay anywhere, including high-priced resorts, and buy RVs that are as expensive and obscene as any McMansion. A few of us are a bit grubby looking. Most of us tend to look and act like the vanishing middle class. 

What we have in common is our love of RV travel. Staying in an RV, even a very modest one, seems  better than staying in most hotels or motels. In the last few years, bedbugs have been a problem all over the country. Who wants to sleep with bedbugs and perhaps carry them home? Or to stay in a room reeking of smoke and not be able to open a window? As to Europe—note this, Claire—the worst hotel room I have ever stayed in was in Madrid. Any RV would be preferable to it. If touring Europe is what you want, that’s possible in a rented RV. You don’t have to be hauled around on buses at the crack of dawn, or to stay in bad hotels.

Many of the RVers we have talked to have emphasized the freedom of RV life. We never have to lock ourselves in to bus tours or tight schedules. Instead, we can decide where to go on the spur of the moment. We can visit museums (except on Mondays, unfortunately), shopping districts, and entertainment venues whenever we wish, preferably at times when they are not crowded with other visitors.

When the national parks were being developed, and railroad barons wanted to encourage Eastern travelers to visit the West instead of Europe, the “See America First” slogan was used as an inducement. Seeing America first wasn’t a bad idea, then or now.  Being a world traveler is wonderful, but anyone who is able to travel should see this beautiful country as well as others. And for modern families, traveling in an RV is one of the best ways to see it.