Favorite Philosopher's Blog

Joe arrived on the planet Earth with red hair.  Actually, as a three year old at play group once pointed out to her mother, rather impatiently: “It’s not red, it’s ORANGE.”  Like most redheads, Joe has not been fond of the distinction.  I have no idea why that is, except that the worlds loves redheads, they are special no question, and they get tired of hearing about it, especially as children.  I also suspect children, in their inexplicable cruelty, may also make it a source of ridicule.  I don’t know whether Joe went through this, but I do know his hair has been different colors over the years…tinged blond, black, auburn.  He also wears a hat 99% of the time, but I think that’s not so much the red hair, but the fact that I put a hat on him in the hospital and never took it off, to shield his fair skin from the sun.  By the time he was three years old I think he felt naked without a hat, and has worn one ever since.

I believe I’ve already mentioned at the hospital he was a little red haired baby amongst a sea of Latino and Asian babies, so I was known as the mother of the redhead.  Later we would go to Golden Gate Park to play and I would hear crowds of Spanish speaking mothers oohing and aahing – “Mira!  Cabeza roja!”   One time at Muir Woods a Japanese tourist asked if they could take a photo of the adorable little red haired American boy – somewhere in Japan my son is enshrined in someone’s photo album, a memory from a trip to the United States in 1988!

I know for a fact it made life easy for him when he started Montessori school.  I would park the car next to the little playground where kids who had already arrived would be playing until it was time to go inside.  He would get out of the car and I would hear little voices yelling from the play structure, before I had even closed the car door: “Hi Joe!”  “Joe’s here!”  “Joe!”   It might be difficult at first to remember other kids’ names – they all looked alike. But the redhead – ah, we know, that’s Joe!

I have to look at photos now to see that beautiful hair, because of his hats and because it is presently auburn.  He has explained to me that, indeed, it gives him a bit of anonymity in Boulder, Colorado, a relatively small town, to not be the guy with the red hair.   You can imagine my delight when I see a little boy with orange hair toddling after mom, or even a grown up young man – there is always a resemblance of a sort, as if they came from the same cave family a billion years ago.  I am hoping, of course, that there will be another little redhead in my future, and I’m not particular if it’s a girl or boy.  When people ask where Joe “got” his red hair, I always say Aunt Joan.  Even if the future grandchild is not his offspring, at least the answer to such a question will be “Uncle Joe.”

Andy just took off for a week camping in Yosemite by himself.  He has given himself this gift of time in one of the most beautiful places in the world because as a senior in college he worked his tail off – 19 credits both semesters to fit in his second major of economics once his philosophy major was completed.  He worked as well during that time both at the Chico gym and at an internship.  I am jealous of him today – I would love to go there myself and will have to control myself not to reschedule my patients this week and show up.  Not cool, Mom.  I can reminisce, though. 

My worst Yosemite story was the year when Andy was in first grade.  It was our last day and Al had taken the three boys out for a small hike in the valley so I could pack up the cabin in peace.  They were gone about two hours, and I was just about finished.  Perfect!  I looked up to see Joe and Jeff running towards me and behind them Al nonchalantly saying “Andy’s with you, right?”  He was not.  My blood ran cold and I totally freaked out. 

Joe was old enough to stay put at the cabin. Grabbing Jeff,  Al and I go over to the ranger’s desk at the Yosemite Lodge.  I’m hyperventilating, not able to even cry, yet just short of hysterical.  My Andy.  My baby.  Lost in Yosemite.  Either in the woods somewhere lost forever or halfway to LA in a van with no windows.  While time is alternately slowing down and speeding up for me, Al is patiently waiting for the ranger to finish with the person in front of him.  Then the ranger is calmly asking Al what Andy was wearing.  Al is answering as only Al can when I’m hysterical and in a hurry – slowly and deliberately, with many pauses to make sure he is relaying the information correctly and clearly.

I’ve had enough. I demand Al give me the keys and I fly out to the Suburban and continue my flight down the roads of Yosemite Valley towards the last place Andy had been seen – on the trail near the ice skating rink and Curry Village.  What had apparently happened was that Al and the boys were walking the trails near there, Joe ran ahead to the bus stop, Al gave him the go ahead – it was not far and it gave Joe, 10, a feeling of independence.  Andy then decided to take off after Joe, which again, did not seem like a problem at the time.  Unfortunately, Al did not realize that up ahead was a fork in the road.  When he got to the bus stop, Joe was there but not Andy.  Al, ever confident of his son’s intelligence, figured Andy had caught a different bus and would be at the cabin when he returned. 

I must explain that this is not illogical nor irresponsible thinking on Al’s part, although at the time I could not believe I had married such an idiot.  We had been going to Yosemite for years and years, and the shuttle system in Yosemite Valley is pretty fool proof, and the boys knew the valley quite well for young lads.

I tear down the length of the valley towards Curry Village, trying not to hit any visitors, peering inside each and every car I pass for my lost little boy. I keep saying out loud to Andy, “Be smart, Andy.  Be smart, Andy. Be smart, Andy.  Oh God, please let him be safe.”  When I reach Curry Village there is a bus stopped at the skating rink and I pull in front of it and slam on the brakes like I am in a James Bond movie and the caper stops HERE.  I jump out of the car, run up to the bus door just in time to hear the bus driver say into her dispatch microphone “I have Andy.” My eyes scan to the left and a boy who is too big to do so jumps into my arms and holds on like a baby monkey to its mother.  

He had done absolutely the right thing, which I had to explain to Joe when we returned, as it was a perfect opportunity for an older brother to point out to his sibling that this was air tight evidence that the younger boy did not have the intelligence to, as my Dad would have put it, pound sand into a rat hole.  I was quite proud of him that he thought to get on the bus, and that he knew not to ask a total stranger for help.  When we asked how he would know where to get off the bus, how he would know where our cabin was, his response was that of a seasoned Yosemite visitor: “It’s right next to the big waterfall.”  There are lots of waterfalls in Yosemite, to be sure, but the big one – Yosemite Falls – is right there next to Yosemite Village inn and cabins.  He would have found us, indeed.

It was also Andy who, one winter visit to Yosemite, slipped on the ice on the way to breakfast our first morning there – we had quite an entourage: five adults and 10 children between us and our friends.  This group had been coming to Yosemite in the winter every year since before our children were born, and we had it down to a science.   Andy was nearing three years old, and when he fell on the ice he started to melt down.  I really truly did not want this to escalate – none of us had eaten yet, and between hungry Andy and hungry Mary it could have gotten ugly pretty quickly.  So thinking fast, I said “Andy!  Look up at the mountain!” 

Yosemite Valley is not what one might normally think of as a valley.  From the valley floor at approximately 4000 ft, the granite walls rise straight up another 4000 ft.  To say it is impressive is to diminish the experience.  Andy was on his hands and knees, crying and angry at his predicament when I told him to look up.  I can still see his little face slowly looking up from the sidewalk, then up at the trees, then up, up, up to the top of the granite walls and without a moment’s hesistation I heard him say with not a trace of a whimper in his voice and with classic three-year-old Andy determination: “I wanna climb it.”  I remember thinking “oh man, you gotta be kiddin’ me…”

And that’s where you will find him today and all this week, climbing at Yosemite.