by Tom Ryan
My campaign would be simple. There would be no team. Atticus and I would simply knock on every door in the city. I’d have a conversation with the voters, one by one. More than telling them what I was all about, I’d listen to what they had to say. It worked with the Undertoad, and I knew it would work running for office as well.
Early feedback was strong. People called telling me I could put campaign signs on their property. The editor of the Newburyport Current, a weekly newspaper, told me I was the strongest candidate in the early stages. I knew that the Daily News would never support me, but that was a blessing in disguise, since it was seen as part of the establishment and the average voter rejected the establishment. This was something that had festered in old Newburyport, and whenever the hoi polloi had their say, they liked to stick it to the powers that be.
The weekend before my nomination papers were due, Atticus and I went north and hiked the four mountains of Franconia Ridge. It was like seeing an old friend again. We took our time moving from Lafayette to Lincoln to Liberty to Flume. It was a pleasant summery day, with a breeze just strong enough to keep the bugs in check.
On top of Lincoln, we drank and ate, and Atticus went off and sat by himself. He gazed with his new eyes into the Pemigewasset Wilderness over the long green hump of Owl’s Head, toward Galehead, the Twins, the Bonds, the Hancocks, and Carrigain. A slight updraft rose from the valley below and caught his ears, sending them flying. It did my heart good to see him that way again—the wind in his face, the joy of freedom.
Back in Newburyport a few days later, I announced that I was pulling out of the mayor’s race. A local reporter was shocked and wanted to know why.
“Because I made a promise to Atticus,” I told her. And I had.
I was going to sell the Undertoad, and we were moving to the mountains.
But there was one problem—no one really wanted to buy the Undertoad. It was not a moneymaker. It was my passion, and it had turned into my job, and I barely scraped a living out of it. My propensity to tell it like it was and refuse to shy away from controversy kept the major advertisers in town (banks, insurance companies, the local hospital) away. They all read the paper; most even subscribed. They just didn’t want their business associated with it.
Ultimately, there were two parties interested in buying it, and they weren’t offering much. One was a group of reputable businessmen from out of town. They hoped the Undertoad would give them a presence in Newburyport. But there was a problem: Our beliefs didn’t line up.
I’d never adopted my father’s conviction that Republicans carried the plague. I was an unenrolled voter but was admittedly far more liberal than conservative.
Although some questioned that, since over my last three years with the paper I’d let Peter McClelland, a retired schoolteacher, write an extremely conservative column. When some of my liberal readers threatened a boycott of the paper and some of the businesses who advertised, I pointed out that being a liberal meant I respected another person’s right to print his or her opinion, even though it differed from mine.
In my last issue of the Undertoad, I wrote that I was proud of standing by Peter’s right to express his views, but also that, being the editor, I had the last say. And it was a mischievous last say. One thing Peter routinely took aim at was gay marriage. He was vehemently against it. Because I considered Peter a homophobe, I surrounded his column with ads for gay businesses. I couldn’t help myself.
The potential buyers would have liked Peter McClelland, but he might not have been conservative enough for them. They were to the right of the religious right. They loved George W. Bush, supported the war, didn’t think women should have reproductive freedom, and believed there was something inherently wrong with gays and lesbians.
Unfortunately, the only other person interested in buying the Undertoad came with baggage—and lots of it. He was trouble. He was in his forties and had a lengthy police record. And when I say lengthy, I think he had nearly as many arrests as he had years.
I gave it a lot of thought, but it was clear I didn’t have a choice in the matter, so I followed my conscience and sold the Undertoad to the convict. My father would have been proud.
Soon after paying cash up front for it—it was the only deal I’d accept from him—the new owner was arrested once again. There would never be another issue of the Undertoad.
Many deemed it a fitting ending. It wasn’t that they disliked my paper. To the contrary, they considered it my creation and didn’t think it should be in anyone else’s hands.
I didn’t get rich with the sale, but I made enough so that Atticus and I could pay off some debts and move to the mountains, and we wouldn’t have to worry about money for close to a year. It would give us a start in our new home.
Our leave-taking was bittersweet. Not only was I saying good-bye to the Undertoad, I was leaving my adopted hometown and all our friends. There was once a time I thought I’d never leave the city, but the mountains had called, and Atticus and I were going.
I kept count during our last four weeks, and I’ll remember it as “The Month of Forty-Three Good-bye Parties.” I didn’t want a big party. Instead I wanted more intimate get-togethers where I could spend time with each person I cared about. There were coffees and teas, breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. There were hugs, kisses, gifts, and cards exchanged. Some couldn’t believe that Atticus and I were actually going to leave Newburyport. Others envied us.
On the day we left town, we’d said all our good-byes and I was ready to leave. We took one final loop around the city in my car. Our last stop was at John Kelley’s gas station to fill the tank. John was old Newburyport.
“Well, you did it,” he said. “You came to town, you had your say, you made a difference, and you did something I didn’t think was possible.”
“What’s that?” I asked him.
“You got out without getting shot.”
We both laughed.
Atticus and I were heading north to the mountains as we’d done so many times before. Only this time it was different. We’d given up Newburyport and were moving into an apartment in Lincoln owned by the same people we’d always rented a cabin from when we were hiking. As we started across the bridge spanning the Merrimack River, Atticus was looking out the window at the trees of Moseley Pines, and I couldn’t help but be aware of the lump in my throat.
The Undertoad may have died in the hands of its new owner, but the city had a new set of scribes to document its trials and tribulations. Several blogs started up, following Mary Baker Eaton’s lead, but again it was Mary in her Newburyport Blog who summed up my leaving: “It sounded as if when it came to Newburyport, that in the end, ‘all passions were spent.’ And Mr. Ryan left on October 1, 2007, for the White Mountains of New Hampshire.” Mary was right—all my Newburyport passions were spent. In eleven years I made my mark, changed the city more than a little, and was leaving on my own terms. It was something to be proud of.
Atticus and I were ready for new adventures—and they were on their way.
Part III
Full Circle
Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.
—JOHN MUIR
23
A New Quest
One of my favorite places in the White Mountains is on top of Cannon Cliffs. It’s about a half mile below the summit of Cannon Mountain along the Kinsman Ridge Trail. The cliffs sit above where the Old Man of the Mountain, the state’s symbol, used to reside before he collapsed in 2003, the day after my father’s car accident.
The Old Man was a famous rock edifice made up of several ledges, and if you looked up at it from the bottom of Franconia Notch, you could clearly see a man’s pro
file. It was so clear that Daniel Webster once said, “Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoemakers hang out a gigantic shoe, jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but in the mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men.”
The Old Man was also Nathaniel Hawthorne’s inspiration for his short story “The Great Stone Face.”
The Old Man was the main reason we’d camped either in or near Franconia Notch when we were kids. And no matter how many times we saw him, the next time was just as striking as the first time. My father loved him, and we all did, too. My father also loved riding the tram to the summit of the mountain, and once on top we’d hike around. But we never made it down to Cannon Cliffs. I would have remembered that, for they are simply breathtaking.
From the top of the cliffs, the drop-off is precipitous. Combine the view down into the notch and up to the towering summit of Mount Lafayette, and the dimension is staggering. It’s a place where you feel fully alive, yet insignificant in the big picture of things. You are high above the valley but dwarfed by living, breathing mountains. Whenever I stand on top of them, my fear of heights takes hold, and it feels as though gravity will suck me over the edge. My stomach lurches, and my legs shake. And yet such heights never deterred Atticus; they were but a vantage point for a better view.
On a relaxed day, when we weren’t in too much of a hurry to get anywhere and we just wanted to hike to an awe-inspiring spot, the top of the cliffs was also a great place to take a nap. I’d use my backpack for a pillow, and Atticus would lie down next to me. We’d look at the views for a few minutes, then drift off to sleep. It’s a particularly nice place for a nap on a breezy autumn afternoon, and during one afternoon in the last week of October that’s what we were doing.
I woke up to see Atticus sitting closer to the edge than I like to get. He was looking intently up at the summit of Lafayette.
Seeing him do this always captivated me, but after the cataract surgery it had an elevated meaning. I thought of his eyes, of his thyroid problem that had disappeared, of those who’d contributed to him in our hour of need, of Angell Animal Medical Center—a great nonprofit that helps thousands of animals—and I made a decision. Since we were living in the mountains full-time and were in no hurry to do anything for the immediate future, I decided Atticus and I would take another crack at doing two rounds of the forty-eight in winter. Once again we’d use it for fund-raising, but our second Winter Quest would benefit Angell Animal Medical Center.
Angell loved the idea. I announced our efforts on our blog, and contributions started rolling in. Each peak was dedicated to a beloved pet, either living or departed. When people dedicated a peak, they sent along a check made out to Angell, but they also sent a photograph, and sometimes even a written vignette about the animal. Each time we reached a mountaintop, I’d post the photo of the pet it was dedicated to on our blog.
When the fund-raising was all set up, I thought about how different our lives had become. It was the last week of October, and back in Newburyport the city was reaching the end of the mayoral campaign. The following week the people of Newburyport would choose their mayor. For the first time since 1995, I didn’t have a thing to do with how it would turn out—and it felt grand!
With afternoons spent on Cannon Cliffs or walking over the Southern Presidentials without a care in the world, I couldn’t believe how blessed Atticus and I were. Each day sparkled for us. We’d overcome much, had learned a great deal along the way, and were experiencing the tingling sensation that comes with new beginnings.
Atticus missed having a downtown where everyone knew his name, but if we wanted that, we simply went hiking on a busy day, and there were many on the trails who knew him. Our lives had reversed. We’d gone from being very public at home and private on the trails to being public on the trails and private at home.
Our apartment was a simple place, just a few miles from Franconia Notch. It had a familiar feel to it. When I sat at my desk, I could look through the trees bordering the Pemigewasset River where it was as narrow as a stream. The far bank was a tangle of trees and overgrown brush. It had the look of a land that time had forgotten, a place where there used to be life and the happy chatter of families. All that was left, however, were a couple of rutted old dirt roads, some forgotten tires, some vestiges of a campground that once was there, and the skeleton of a dead truck.
I didn’t realize it the first time I looked across the river, but I knew that place. That forgotten campground was one of my father’s favorite places to bring us. It was called Campers’ World. He’d park the trailer above the river, and when my brothers and I played on the river rocks, he sat at a picnic table and wrote on his yellow pad. Those were some of the most perfect days I ever knew. But they’d taken place thirty-five years before. Campers’ World had died an unceremonious death, and there was no sign to remind me that it used to be a place we loved. I smiled at how fate had delivered me to that place and took heart in knowing I’d be writing about a hundred feet from where my father had once written about the mountains and often dreamed about being a writer.
That was reason enough to call him for the first time in more than a year. I could hear the emphysema rattle in his voice, the weight of his age, how tired he was. We talked for thirty minutes, and by the end it was clear he needed to lie down. We were both happy I’d made the call.
Soon after, I made another phone call. I called Paige Foster and let her know about our new lives. I told her that Atticus was thriving. It was a warm and cheery conversation sprinkled with laughter.
Somewhere in the middle of it, I told her there was something I’d always been curious about. All the puppies on her Web site ran from $1,200 to $5,000. Why had Atticus cost only $450?
I considered him the best thing that ever happened to me and had no complaints whatsoever, but I was curious—had she thought he might have some health issues? And if so, was that why she’d contemplated keeping him for herself, as she’d once told me?
That wasn’t it, she said. She’d given me a discount because she got the feeling that’s all I could afford. If she’d sold him to someone else, which she said she wouldn’t have done, he would have gone for at least $2,400. But she had a feeling he and I just needed to be together.
It wasn’t my intent to accuse or offend, and while she said I hadn’t, there was something in her voice that had me feeling I’d done something wrong.
Paige would follow our second Winter Quest by reading our blog and by watching her e-mail for photo updates of the little dog who’d once lived in Louisiana but had made a name for himself in the snowy mountains of New Hampshire.
After my conversation with my father, I got the impression he wished he were up in the mountains walking with me, living the life I was leading. I got the strangest feeling that Paige had a similar longing.
24
The Witch
If there was a word that summed up the beginning of our second winter of fund-raising, it was “snow.”
From the very start of December, snow piled up, and when winter began, we sputtered to get going. We couldn’t establish a rhythm, and because new snow continued to fall, we wouldn’t have the opportunity to hike two days in a row until the third week. Winds were high, temperatures low. All in all, it was an ominous beginning.
On the first day of winter, we climbed the two Hancocks, and then we stuck with the smaller, easier peaks. We were already behind in the game. A year to the date since we’d survived the Bonds’ blizzard, I wanted to add three peaks to our total, and I decided we’d do Tom, Field, and Willey, the three four-thousand-footers of the Willey Range.
The Willey Range had some history to it. It stood on the western side of Crawford Notch, and it was named for an ill-fated family that had been killed in 1826. When a landslide sent a thundering roar from the mountain above, the Willey family ra
n from their house, fearing that it was doomed. But that was a dreadful decision, because the mountain came tumbling down on everything except the house, which was left untouched. No one survived. Six people were found dead outside, while three others were never found.
Numerous White Mountain artists captured the scene of the tragedy in their paintings, and Nathaniel Hawthorne used it as the basis for his eerie short story “The Ambitious Guest.”
At the southern end of Crawford Notch, not too far from the original site of the Willey house, is Nancy Brook. It is named after Nancy Barton, who froze to death in 1778, legend has it, while attempting to follow her fiancé, who had abandoned her and absconded with her dowry. There have been many reports that her ghost still roams the area.
Who knows if the ghost of Nancy Barton still exists or if the accounts are just the fervid imagination of those who claimed to have seen her? I didn’t believe in ghosts, but as I’ve said, I had my own issues with the mountains after the sun went down. And we were headed for the Willey Range late in the day.
As a boy I always slept on my side with one ear protected by my pillow, the other by my sheet and blanket, pulled high to cover and guard it from the horrid witch who determinedly haunted my dreams and hunted for such things as ears, eyes, and noses. When I slept, there was typically nothing visible of my face save for a small breathing hole close to but not revealing my nose.
Once, when I was very young, I dreamed that the witch was in my room, and when she wasn’t able to get at my ears or my face, she decided to smother me by holding the covers over my head. Try as I might, I could not get her off, and I panicked. I panicked even more when I woke up to realize I wasn’t dreaming. She was there, holding the covers down so tight I couldn’t budge them.
I screamed, thrashed, and squealed until I was rescued by my father. However, he told me there wasn’t any witch. I’d simply been so restless in my sleep that I’d turned my body completely around, with my head where my feet should be. The sheets were tucked in, creating the illusion that I was being held down.
