Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch II….

Every so often we seem to, in a manner of speaking, veer off course in the course of everyday life…

This has been the case with these entries. Each day, at the “crack of dawn” … well… sometime during the morning, the new commitment to sit and write is made anew. And everyday, it seems, the Fates conjure up different situations that do not allow me to meet this somewhat unsure resolve. Not unsure due to not wanting to get it done, unsure due to the amount of issues which are taking up my time and keeping me away from the computer. I could do it from my phone, but it would take forever to one-finger my blog in…

So, why this one today? As it happens, yesterday I was looking at some pictures; some of the very few that still are in my possession, and there were some from one outing we had, as a then family, with three of my children, their mother and grandmother. This was in Santiago, Chile where we lived as a family for about 16 months, prior to moving to Buenos Aires. “Abeba” (an affectionate term for “Abuela” , Grandmother) had come to stay with us for a few weeks and we had gone to “El Cajón”, a pass carved into the mountains near Santiago. This was then (some 30 years ago) a one day trip. Literally. The road was open one way (up) in the morning until 11:45 or so and from 2pm on, it was a one way down road. It would have been much too dangerous otherwise. And, oh yes, the whole thing closed at 7pm.

So, what was so interesting about it, you ask? Going way up into the upper middle Andes and looking down at the world from that height. It was truly awesome. This was a sight to put some cowering into your heart and mind. You begin to realize that, as human beings, we are physically insignificant in front of Mother Nature… It really brings you down to earth, so to speak.

We had prepared for the trip, taking with us some cold weather gear as well as some fare to be eaten up there. One set of items which were thoroughly checked, believe you me, were the car brakes. Although with somewhat of a zig-zag to it, the road was an old fashioned hard packed gravel road and it took a while to traverse up and then down. You can imagine that bad brakes (or a worn clutch) could be somewhat impacting on your fate.

Once up at the top, we did have a great time. Not too much exercising, the air was a bit thin and oxygen was not in full availability to our starving lungs. But the View!!!... OMG!!! This made the trip and the risks well worth it.

Chile is a long and narrow country. On one side the Pacific and on the other, the ever present and very high Andes Mountain range. Like an exo-skeletal backbone which keeps the rest of the country in place. People are good and hard working and, at the time we went to live there, Pinochet was still on the throne. It was during our year there that elections were held and that he, unlike other dictators we have known in the general area, accepted the results which unseated him. Mind you, by a very narrow margin and with a sort of “everyone-in-a-coalition-against-Pinochet” kind of Ad Hoc political party. The resulting society is a modern society, perhaps the most modern in South America, coupled with a relatively young median age.  When I lived there, I was about 40 years old and, believe it or not, at the top fringe of the corporate executive age.

That day marked an important moment. For some reason my son Eric had been a little reluctant to go. We (he and I, privately) talked about it and it came out he was afraid of going all the way up there. My children had never, until we went to Chile, been out of the US… much less up an old road to the seeming top of the world… Definitely a long way from Connecticut… He did finally make the decision to go, and actually enjoyed the trip quite a bit, wanting to return (which we could, for reasons beyond our control, not do) to, as he put it, the roof of the world. He became bolder after this, and also willing to try new ideas and was a bit more open about himself and his thoughts.

So much time and so many things have occurred since that day. Two of the protagonists of that trip are no longer with us; Eric and his Abeba. At least in a physical sense.

All these memories and some more came back while I was looking at these pictures yesterday. I remember the day as if it was just a short while back; the exhilaration of the trip and the perceived danger of the same (very real, by the way), the beauty of the mountains and of the pristine environment. The awed silence on first walking upon the viewing platform. These, and others like them, are the memories which keep our loved ones alive within our hearts and minds for a lifetime; they are those moments in that have a very special meaning and which will always be there, to be reviewed on “instant recall”.

El Cajon, Santiago de Chile, circa 1985.  

Be Well … Be Back!!!

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