Washington Heights

Hard to believe it's been a month and a half since Kingswood. That means it has also been a month and a half since brothers have formally united.

It was my responsibility to write a post about camp-- that will still come, though Ray and I will get together to reflect and cowrite that one when the time comes. It's time to move on, towards Fall. I'm currently rolling in my second to last semester in college. Whitman has been an incredible place for me, but with my two off campus studies experiences I haven't had a full year in Walla Walla since I was a freshman. I'm excited for that to change.

It has been amazing being back here. There is an energy on campus-- a brightness and excitement-- that keeps me motivated and engaged. Classes have been fine, but at this point in my college career my focus is really shifting towards that daunting post collegiate netherworld in which Ray currently admirably toils.

I aspire to own and operate my own company, Amaku Cultures, handcrafting and bottling local//organic//raw kombucha, a sparkling, lightly fermented tea rich in probiotics, antioxidants and enzymes. Since the summer after freshman year I've known that this is what I wanted to do. Now, as I rapidly approach the finish line of my contemporary academic career, the challenge is to figure out how to get there. No longer is this an abstract vision from which I am safely distanced by years of school. It's finally time.

Fun summer concept label, "Organic * Raw * Probiotic * Swag"

I've taken this year as a chance to beta launch the company, including setting up a Facebook Page and running targeted Facebook ads in the Whitman community. Friends and family, like the Amaku Cultures page! 

To continue the type of experiential learning I discovered in Philadelphia, I applied to the brand new Whitman Community Fellows program and, after an extensive process, managed to land a job working as a Junior Advisor at the Walla Walla Small Business Development Center! The perfect position! I get to see what goes into taking a business from an idea to a reality, and, correspondingly, do that for my own business. 

Here are the 2012 Whitman Community Fellows with Mayor Barrow and Whitman President Bridges! 

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Ray turned twenty three this past weekend. Strange. Twenty three seems seriously up there, especially when considering how twenty three appeared to me just a few years ago. So old. 

Life's moving on, rolling forward! All heights here in Washington. More posts to come soon!

Brothers UNITE!

Three cases of Kombucha bottled 9/29

Brothers Hiking at Kingswood

One of the roles Dave and I fill at Kingswood Camp is Master Fisher/Hiker or, in latin, outdoorsmanius extraordinairus.  On one of the first days of the session, I was sent with a group of campers up Mt. Adams, the second highest peak in the Northeast after Mt. Washington.  Like Washington, Adams boasts the meteorological maxim of "The Worst Weather in America" and in true form, our ascent was quite similar to the Washington epic that Dave, Adam and I survived earlier in the summer. 

Trudging along in white-out conditions at around 4,500 ft.

When sporadic rain showers and dropping temperatures didn't deter us, we quickly lost almost all visibility in the complete fog.  Then, as we approached the summit, the freezing rain picked up and quickly completed its phase change to all-out hail.  We breezed by the summit without even stopping in search of an Appalachian Mountain Hut we knew to be nearby for shelter.  But on the descent the weather relented and we finally got a few spectacular, albeit ephemeral views. 

The valleys of the White Mountains appear behind a canopy of clouds.

Group shot!  The background disappeared in the time it took me to put the camera on a timer and run over...

The following week, Dave and I were thrilled to be assigned Kingswood's most challenging hike, the 3-day.  For this trip, we headed up to the furthest reaches of the White Mountains, the North Woods.  Despite the fact that my brother and I have each been backpacking for over half a decade, this was to be our first ever overnight trip together. 

Brothers Unite! To do dishes.

Dave takes in the views from Roger's Ledge in the early morning.

We had a great group.  I'm amazed that they put up with the double dose of McGaughey Brothers.

Can't complain.

3-Day conquered, on to the next one.

Our final outdoor adventure as a tandem took place the following day after the North Woods hike.  Dave and I teamed up with legendary angler Nate White for a fishing excursion to the world-famous destination Indian Pond.  After helping the campers and launching all the canoes, we counselors got to take a few casts of our own. 

2nd Session's Fisherman Greats: Dave, Ray and Nate

Smooching my prize of the day

Dave switches is up to fly-fishing

Viva the outdoors, Viva Kingswood!

Road Trippin' With My Two Favorite Allies

On the road again! The brothers set sail from a spectacular Cousin’s Reunion in Cape Cod north to beautiful Piermont, NH to pick up our summer counselor recruit Adam, a great friend of mine from school and head out into the hills. 

Adam joins the team

The Plan: a week backpacking throughout the New Hampshire White Mountains. 

The First Stop: the summit of Mt. Washington. 

As we arrived at Kingswood, our summertime home away from home, we received a rather rude and unexpected weather report. 

The Weather: thunderstorms, Monday-Friday with highs in the low 70’s.

Weather be darned, we said! We’ve hiked in the rain before. Heck, we went to school in the Rockies. We’ve hiked in worse. Well, not all of us. As a matter of fact the summit of Mt. Washington would be Adam’s first peak ever. As I said, weather be darned!

The weather, however, was not to be so easily darned. With dark skies covering the sunset and rain forecasted throughout the night, we revised our First Stop to swing by our aunt Mary Lou’s house in Littleton, NH. I believe Mary Lou is officially our first cousin once-removed but she feels a lot more like our aunt. And, with storms brewing on our horizon and an imminent trip to Spain brewing on hers, she took us in at a moments notice so we could start our trip with shelter. Mary Lou’s lovely hillside home was a much better base-camp than the gravely side of a Mt. Washington mountain road.

The Brothers surprise Mary Lou, our unexpecting aunt, with an inconveniently timed visit!

Early up and early out. Washington here we come. 

Mt. Washington: four hours up, including 25 minutes at the Lake of the Clouds hut for a brief respite from the horizontal rain. On our way up we encountered clouds, torrential rain, hail, white-out fog, blistering winds, a significant temperature decrease and a fleeting moment of sunlight, all of which combined to produce a summit with a 32 degree windchill, lightning to the east and west and the spectacular view of ten feet in every direction.

Amazing views....NOT.

Hiking Phase Two: Brother’s New Knits

Unclear what's going on here..

Hiking Mt. Wash – success. Hiking one more step – a wash. 

After a second surprise trip to visit Mary Lou, this on the eve of her departure, we decided, freezing and drenched as we were, to retire our hiking boots and satisfy our urge to conquer with whole new challenges of guile, grit, commitment, and a delicate attention to detail. Thrift stores, anyone?

After a grueling four town – five thrift store ascent through treacherous Northern New Hampshire, we stopped to conquer the biggest mountains yet—massive decked out burgers and fries at a hamburger joint in Lincoln. If we had learned anything hiking it was that grizzled mountainmen like us can only survive on the barbaric paleodiet of our ancestors. With guacamole on the side. And a beer to wash it down.

Hiking Phase 3: Enjoying the View

After a wonderful excursion through the White Mountains, we headed down to explore a city with a longstanding sports alliance with New York.

Bahston.

Baaaahhston.

Boston.

Enough of the woods. Back to the concrete forests to visit Ray’s great high school friend Nick Murray and more Huntington allies—Caleb and Mima!

Sorry no photo of Nick.  But Adam's faces continue to amuse us.

After an eventful night visiting Nick we made our way over to Caleb and Mima’s to see their mystical playhouse home. While there we pitched the only tent of the whole trip…on their roof...

Camping out...Boston style

Cousin's Reunion 2012

This June, Dave and I headed out to Cape Cod for our annual family reunion on our mom's side: the Huntingtons. Every year is a blast but this year was particularly fun, perhaps because the weather cooperated, there were no major injuries, and no one showed up a week early/late by accident.  If those things haven't happened recently at your family reunions....then you may not be having as much fun as us.

Maximizing the sunset with our cousins Kaylee and Hannah

In addition to the usual beaching and volleyball, a few highlights of the reunion really stand out.  First off, we got to meet a new member of our family Hallie Silvas-Mueller wife of our cousin Nikko.  And since we were around 14-years old the last time we saw Nikko, we essentially got to re-meet him as well.  After a weekend of shenanigans with the Muellers topped off by three hours of Mafia late Saturday night, Dave and I were poised to hop on a plane and go see them in their native element in the artist-haven of Los Angeles.

Three stylish horn-rimmed glasses-wearers: Nikko, Dave M. and Dave A.

 

Next, everyone at the reunion shared the immense pleasure of spending time with two of our youngest cousins: Elizabeth (left) and Kaylee Sheak (right).  Although I'm not entirely convinced that they know who I am or how powerful our bonds are as first cousins once removed, it was a joy to have them around making construction paper monsters and acing us in volleyball. 

Cousin's Reunion is an amazing tradition I am proud to be part of.  And since I had missed two of the last three reunions, it was particularly meaningful that I was able to make it this year.

Below are a few gems from the famous Hallie/Nikko photo collection.  

And check out this Historic Unite: On the beach at night during Cousin's Reunion 2005!

Last but not least, how can I write about our beloved Craigsville, Mass without a sweet sunset pic from our back porch?

Brothers (not) Tonight!

Brothers Just Miss Uniting

I’m on the New York City bound Bolt Bus, it’s 9:50pm on June 13^th. Tomorrow is my mom’s birthday, turning a ripe old “just over 30.” Momma Dukes doesn’t know that I’m coming home tomorrow—I’m slated to get in at 1:50am on the morning of the 15^th. I put in three consecutive workdays from 8am-8pm to finish out my time working at the Morris House Hotel and on-site M Restaurant in Philadelphia. I’d love to say that I put in these 12 hour days just to get home for mom—I’ll certainly tell her that when I see her tomorrow (I’m making her a surprise dinner!)—but it’s not entirely true. I worked relentlessly because, while Philly has been one of the most rewarding chapters in my life, it’s time to look forward and move on.

I spent Spring Semester of my junior year away from Whitman College (for the second time) on a domestic off-campus studies program. Last time I was away, sophomore fall, I was living the hippie environmentalist dream in the American West. This semester was about as different as it could get—I went from camping out at night, never shaving and taking class in the form of informational interviews with people all over the west to a world of well-cropped young professional with a business focus and classes at night. I went to Philly to get more exposure to the business world I will be entering when I graduate next spring. I also went away because I needed to leave Whitman one more time to get excited about going back. Philly was the perfect medicine.

Tom and I on a typical day at class during Semester in the West.

Life in Philadelphia was Presidential Suite.

Waiting for the trolly by my house in West Philly, Feb 2012

....

The bathroom on this bus is leaking a most horrible substance and smell, and we’re a quarter of the way through the two-hour trip. Am I imagining my feet getting sticky?

If I black out it will be a shorter post than anticipated.

....

After my internship I was hired for the first part of the summer hosting at M Restaurant and continuing my work on the business management/marketing side of the hotel. I got the privilege of designing, wording and formatting some great stuff—I’ll post some if I can figure it all out—that the boutique hotel now uses for a good amount of their marketing.

But as I said, this chapter is closing. I finally exited about 15 Microsoft Word documents just before writing this post. It’s summer vacation time. I  now leave Philadelphia with two cheesesteaks in a paper bag and remedy of closures. I feel like a different man—certainly better looking, more intelligent, more suave, sexy, serendipitous and, uh, humble…

Humble…

I’ll think about that one for a while. At the very least Philly has taught me the value of hard work and the struggles and rewards of repetition. Gotta pay bills, gotta eat.

But more importantly, gotta go to summer camp.

I’m heading into year 14 at Kingswood, none greater than last when I had three of my best friends from Whitman, my best friend from camp and my brother all counselroring beside me. I can’t wait. Microsoft Word closed, tackle box open.

Listening to the sounds of the Lake Tarleton wildlife, Summer 09

Ah, but Dave, dearest, the subject line of your post—the only reason we’re reading all of your stream of consciousness nonsense is something along the lines of brothers not uniting! What’s all this mumbly jumbly happy wavy stuff about closure and camp?

Well yes, my humble imaginary shoulder ferret,  you’re right, there is supposed to be a mope mop going on here, isn’t there. Well, I’ll have you know that despite my valiant efforts in sonship and brotherhood, I have failed to get home quite early enough to unite with the man with whom I shared a womb… Or an egg if you managed to get through my last post…

Ray, my brother from our mother, as I’m sure he will be posting most post-hastidly, has departed TODAY to begin his great South American kibitz. Unfortunately we missed each other by just a few hours. My cheesestook chump is bumbling back to Brooklyn and his Ecuadorian equating is taking him south of the equator.  Alas, we shall be kept disunited until that fateful moment whence we both arrive on the shores of Mother T. I greedily await the day.

Bye for now. My vision has clouded from gaseous fumes and terrible chemicals. If only I could blame that for the content and style of my writing.

Thanks for reading : )

Happy Birthday Mah!

A Brothers Unite gem to close out the post! Ray's graduation, 2011

Historic Unite #1 - Kingswood 2011

This summer Dave will make his annual trip up to the White Mountains of New Hampshire to be a camp counselor at our beloved Kingswood Camp for Boys.  For the second year in a row, I will be joining him. But this will mark only my 7th summer up at the camp on Lake Tarleton, pedestrian numbers compared to my brother. 

As the story goes, I was a camper too, just like Davey (as he was known back then), entering Kingswood in 1999.  Weird Al ruled my brand new Sony Walkmen and Courage the Cowardly Dog was clearly the best thing ever to happen to TV.

Dave and Ray unite after Ray wins a wrestling match (1999)

I stuck with it, returning each year for 5 years, but then I dropped off the radar.  Dave meanwhile, did not miss one summer.  For 14 years.  14 years!!!  Last year, he convinced me to come back and give counselorship a try.  Suffice to say, there were a lot of costumes involved. 

Unclear if intentional....

Definitely intentional....

 

Who's more convincing?

Dave and Sean.  Here Dave is dressing up as.....
Oh wait.  This is how he normally dresses.

 

I might have to say that the only thing that rivals the company you keep at Kingswood is the natural beauty.  When Dave and I find ourselves on fishing or hiking trips together, we invariably wonder: How can this be our job?  Looking forward to Kingswood Summer 2012.  Brothers Unite once again!

Clouds settle in the valley below Webster Cliff

Not a bad sunset over lake Tarleton.  Webster cliff in the background with Mt. Moosilauke behind it.