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| Spirit of the Mountains |
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| Welcome! |
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 Welcome, Cyber Wanderer, to Spirit of the Mountains! My name is Sam Southworth, and I’m a writer; hence, these pages. Come on in and set a spell. Here you will find my poetry, stories, articles, notes on the Arts, mountain and river and ocean trip notes, musings and safety tips, some book recommendations, recipes and links to my favorite places. If you imagine yourself as a lonesome traveler in this electronic landscape, this site is meant as a Hut of Refuge, a Shelter of Contentment, a haven to recharge and ponder, before you set off again, pack on your back, to cross the ridges and seek the next summit. I believe in talking to cool people, and children, and education, and the outdoors, and most of it comes from knowing my family and friends, and reading great books. I’ve been very lucky. My first book came out in 1997 (Great Raids in History: From Drake to Desert One; Sarpedon Publishers), my poetry has been getting published, I’m working on a couple of free lance projects and book ideas, and I’m considering future musical projects. Of the many things I’m interested in are literature, poetry, history, military history, espionage and intelligence and counterintelligence, wilderness hiking, canoeing and camping, nautical history and modern small boats, paranormal phenomena and conspiracy theories, the history of New England and New York (city and state), lost treasures, education and assessment, aviation, politics, engineering, shamanism, technology, archeology, the past, the present and the future. So what’s the theme here? The Spirit of the Mountains represents the best of my imagination and my attempts at visionary thinking, the sum of what I’ve learned and the faintest glimpse of my hopes for the future. It’s the mist rising out of the valley in the early morning, and dinner cooking on a fire by a remote Maine river, and the sun on Franconia ridge, and the sound of children’s voices singing a little song called “Wildflower” as they climb Mt. Washington. It’s wool hats, and guitar picks, and fast Chevys and sedate Volvos, and big black boots, and little poems that rhyme, and big rapids, and laughter, and history, and family and friends. It’s the ocean at dawn, the city at noon, the mountains at twilight, and a soft down comforter on a cold winter’s night. It’s the stars over Labrador, the hills of Dartmoor, the mighty Rockies and White Mountains, the Marshes of Glynn in Georgia, dancing school in New York and teaching my friend Hannah Kitzmiller to navigate. It’s climbing Chocorua the day after Christmas, and dining at the Ritz in Boston that night. It’s the love of books, and ideas, and poetry and conversations, and long naps on rainy days. It’s a screaming lead guitar, and a gentle acoustic strumming, and the sound of the waves on the shore at Little Boar’s Head, and the roar of the river just before Big Black Rapids on the St. John, and the wind in the pines Way Up North. The Internet (and World Wide Web) is the largest document in the world WITH NO EDITOR, and it shouldn’t all be streaming video XXX and weird stuff. Only you can build an electronic legacy for the future, protect freedom of speech, and contribute to the revolution of ideas. We CAN make a better world, we are NOT without context, and what you do DOES make a difference. “The Revolution will not be televised, and things do not go better with Coke” as Gil Scott Heron reminds us. Don’t believe advertising. Don’t mistake possessions for spiritual holdings. TV is not your buddy. Only the Weather Channel can REALLY help you. “Simplify, simplify . . .” as Thoreau said. Read Emerson, Frost, Blake, Joyce, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Welty, Steinbeck, Poe, Lovecraft, and the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. Read a newspaper. Discuss politics. Nurture participatory Democracy. And, as John Lindsey used to say, “Give a Damn.” And if you’re not having an interesting a life, and you don’t know why, you better have a spell of knowin’! Write some poetry, take a class, teach a child, be kind to people you run into, learn First Aid, take a hike, organize some fun, and get on the good foot! If you feel marginalized, powerless, helpless or aimless, help other people. Forget your problems. They’ll be there when you get back. Think globally, act globally, and do something right there where you live. The world needs good people—you could be one of them. But enough of my yakkin’ . . . go inside and enjoy my site! Let me know what you think, and thanks to Dina for the Web design. Want your own Website? Get in touch with her! She has reasonable rates and a wonderful eye for visuals. At this site, the words are all me, and anything that looks cool and artistic is her. Everything is copyrighted, so don’t be stealin’ stuff without telling me. Bookmark this site, vote for it, tell your friends, and get one of your own! To paraphrase Thoreau in a Seventh Peak song...: “There’s one thing that I know is true There’s always somethin’ to do— If you can’t think of any cool stuff Well, maybe you haven’t thought hard enough. I love you baby, but yes, indeed, YOU CAN’T KILL TIME WITHOUT WOUNDING ETERNITY!”   ABOUT ME I’ve had a pretty interesting life so far, and all my trips have brought me here. I was born in New York City in 1960, and lived on the East Side. I attended the Buckley School, where I was a chronic underachiever, and then was asked to leave/thrown out/dropped out of three secondary schools before getting my GED (between repeated cross country trips) and going to the University of New Hampshire. My family has roots in New Hampshire and Massachusetts going back to the early 1600s, and we moved back there from NYC in 1973. I went to the nearest college that would take me. As a confused and rebellious youth, I always believed in books and ideas, but UNH exposed me to real teachers and a fine education. At UNH I earned a BA in English (1981) and an MA in Writing (1983), and later taught Freshman English there for 3 years (1991-1994). The professors in the UNH English Department were (and are) world class talent and very supportive to a somewhat-confused ex-gas-pump jockey who wanted to write, and I owe a debt of gratitude to such luminaries as Mekeel McBride, Charles Simic, Michael DePorte, Gary Lindberg, Tom Williams, John Yount, Mark Smith, and the erudite Tom Carnicelli. In particular, a nice guy named Dan Regan taught me 501 Writing, and endured my endless highway tales with such good humor and encouragement that he made me believe I could actually be a writer. He was right. I also attended a great summer camp in Freedom, NH called Cragged Mountain Farm (1964-1973), and later worked there as a Trip Leader (1982-1994 with some summers off). It was at CMF that I first went hiking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and canoeing in NH and Maine, activities which I still enjoy and pursue avidly when time will allow. The mountains and the rivers spoke with a clear and steady voice to a boy from New York City, and I have never forgotten their glad tidings. The great people I met and the amazing and fun things we did have, to a large extent, made me who I am. Also at Cragged Mountain Farm I started playing guitar with my good friend Norman Bradford, and we formed a duo called Seventh Peak, which later expanded to a full rock and roll band when our good buddy Ivar Engen joined us. Seventh Peak was a great band, and man did we have fun doing it. Our original songs were good, we played cool cover songs, and our motto of “They Dance, We Win!” always won the day (and the night). Ryan Thompson (“Captain Fiddle”) and Jimmy Taylor also aided and abetted us. Playing with those guys on stage was one of the greatest thrills of my life, and you couldn’t do better than to look left and see Norman and look right and see Ivar. Both of them are first-rate guitar players and really nice guys. I was trained as a Wilderness EMT at the North Carolina Outward Bound School (NCOBS), and I took a Winter Mountaineering course with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in Wyoming, and that’s the root of my interest in safety and Search and Rescue. If you’re going to go do that stuff, get training, take the right gear, and watch out for people! I have been blessed with a great family, from my sweet sister Mary (now Mary Wiley of Abilene Texas, where she lives with her goodhearted husband Jason and their two amazing children Robert Lee and Melissa [“Sissy”] Wiley); to my brother Rob (who has shared many of my mountain and ocean and guitar-playing adventures, including climbing a 14,000 foot mountain in Colorado one February) and his wife Linda Fischl Southworth (of the Museum of Natural History in NYC); to my parents, Robert and Katherine. My mother, a talented musician and sportswoman, was very clear about the simple phrase “To thine own self be true,” and her kindness and sense of humor have been a great comfort, while her lifelong pursuit of the Red Sox is a charming eccentricity (“Pennant Fever Grips Hub!”). If they do win the World Series, she’ll be the first one charging the pitcher’s mound at Fenway. Anything I know about standing my ground comes from her. My father, a retired Mobil Oil executive and US Naval Reserve combat veteran of WW II (serving in the Atlantic and Pacific), passed along his sense of humor and quiet competence. He was a really fun guy to grow up with. We always had small boats, and I’ve never seen a better captain in any situation. He took us flying, and climbed Mt. Chocorua with us, and planned wonderful outings all over New York City. His great gift is his sense of curiosity, which has involved him with canals, painting, flying, boating, history, genealogy, cooking, naval gunfire and amphibious operations, and anything else he decide to pursue. He is my model of forthrightness, imagination, fun and inquiry. When in doubt, take action! Anything I know about being a gentleman comes from him. I’m always involved with about 6 projects, ranging from book ideas to articles to poems to planning trips somewhere or other. No, it’s not tidy, and yes, I do enjoy it. If you’ve thought some new thoughts and found some new connections on these pages, go out and do something about it! And if you want to hire a good writer, check out my stuff and drop me a line. I’ve written poetry, textbooks, military history, feature articles, novels and Websites. I may be able to accommodate your needs. Best Wishes, Samuel A. Southworth |
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