The Dedalus Log

When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school,
It’s a wonder
I can think at all
And though my lack of education
Hasn’t hurt me none,
I can read the writing on the wall.

Kodachrome –
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summer
Makes you think the world’s a sunny day.
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away.
(Kodachrome: Paul Simon – 1973)

I started hating cameras after my father joined Camhi/Bardovi Photography as their “opaque specialist”. This was a new commercial photography studio established in Culver City in 1956 or 57. He was offered this entry-level position by one of the partners, a friend from their Fred Archer Photography School days after the war. At first the job consisted of part-time work after his day job at Foix Bakery, and I imagined him as a budding disciple of Ansel Adams, and a real-life version of Man With a Camera, a 1950’s television series starring Charles Bronson. I suffered my first disillusionment with the profession when I learned what his job really consisted of. Opaque photography was the “old fashioned” method of “photo-shopping” one item of a photograph out of and on to a different background. It was done by hand, and required his sitting at a specially lit desk, and painting out, or masking, one figure or object from one photographic negative (or transparency) so it could be mounted on another photo. This painstaking work required a steady hand and a calm and patient demeanor (two characteristic which my dad demonstrated to us throughout his life), and it gave me my first insight into what photography was really all about.





Photography became incredibly popular in the 1940’s and 50’s after Eastman Kodak simplified the once cumbersome process into the slogan, “you press the button, we do the rest”. With the Kodak Brownie, the company made photography available to the masses, convincing them that it was a “snap and shoot” process. Unfortunately, by having a professional in the family, I learned otherwise. Photography was actually a time-consuming practice that required hard work and concentration in the darkroom before a final “positive” print, or photograph was produced. Most people never saw this part of the work. They simply pointed cameras, pushed buttons, deposited the completed rolls of film at a drug store, and picked up their prints the following week. This was the glamorous, consumer side of photography that I imagined when I received my first Brownie. It was magic, and I didn’t mind too much the delay of seeing the prints of photos I’d forgot I’d taken. However, when dad joined the Camhi/Bardovi Studio, I was finally exposed to the business side of the profession, and quickly lost my appreciation of its art and creativity.





You see, even though my father was a “professional”, working as a salaried photographer for a very reputable studio, it was more than a 9 to 5 job. In order to buy homes and raise families, photographers had to work well beyond those hours and function as laborers, craftsmen, artists, salesmen, and businessmen in order to live. This was hard, time-consuming work. My dad did favors and picked up extra money by photographing children, family and community events, weddings, and sports. He joined clubs, community organizations, and professional associations, and attended all their meetings and events. I became aware of this side of the business because, as the oldest child in my family, I was given the honor of being his assistant at many of these functions. I will admit that the responsibility was exciting at first, but after the second or third time, it became WORK. At family events and weddings, I wanted to join my brothers and sisters playing with cousins and uncles, not following my father around, carrying his extra cameras and flash bulbs. I wanted to watch the baseball and football games we attended in the stands, not moving from sideline to sideline, lugging equipment. The worst was joining him on Friday nights when he developed the film he shot, and printing the negatives to produce photos. This was a long, long process, which usually found me fast asleep, sitting in his desk chair, waiting for prints to dry. By the time I graduated high school, I had two ironclad opinions about photography: I would never become a professional, or adopt it as a hobby. This last opinion really confused Kathy after we married. She was completely befuddled by my total aversion to cameras. She had to assume that responsibility, and happily, she loved it and did a great job. Our photo albums are filled with her pictures of both our families and our children. If it hadn’t been for Kathy there would be no photographic evidence of our marriage, life, or children. I bring up these obscure pieces of family history because I’ve lately gotten involved in a new project that has resurrected some of these old feelings about a time-consuming aspect of digital photography.




Despite my long-held prejudices about photography, I have to confess that I have spent the last 16 years taking tons of pictures on ever-improving digital cameras. I started taking pictures while a principal at Van Nuys Middle School and discovered the ease and simplicity of the process on small, pocket-sized cameras. Gone was the intrusive camera with bulky equipment case and accessories, or the need for flash bulbs or batteries. Gone was the need to develop film in a darkroom, or even dropping it off at a store for processing. All I needed was my Canon Sureshot, a computer, and a printer, and I had instant photos. It was a miracle! Not only was it a functional and practical piece of equipment at school, where I could use it to record incidents, events, and people, but it was a way of interacting with people and recording family events. Of course, eventually the iPhone and other modern cell phones would match and overtake these early pocket-sized cameras, but they were my first, practical enticement back into my dad’s world of photography. I became so confident and visible in using my ubiquitous pocket camera at school, that when I retired from Sun Valley Middle School in 2009, I was given a high-quality Canon camera as my departing gift. Suddenly, and for the first time, I truly appreciated that part of my dad’s art that I never allowed in. I discovered that I loved taking pictures!





However, this last year, I’ve gotten into a panic about preserving my photos. At about the time I left Van Nuys Middle School in 2005, I purchased an external hard drive to save my expanding digital photo library and reduce the storage space on my computer. Up until then I’d been saving and backing up my photos on separate disks and flash drives. By the time I retired in 2009, I had managed to transfer all the photos on these disks and drives onto the external, hoping to consolidate. So from 2009, year-by-year, I was blissfully moving iPhoto albums from computer to the external hard drive, believing they were safe and secure. Well last year when Kathy went to retrieve an early photo from the external drive, she was shocked to discover that some files were unreadable and some were empty of photos. We could only conclude that the external had corrupted with time and many of my photos were lost. So began my search for a new method of storing and preserving all my photos. It was while researching the various “digital cloud” methods of storing photos, videos, and files, that I discovered that by virtue of our Amazon Prime membership we already had unlimited storage capability on the Amazon Cloud.


I’ve gotten myself stuck in long-term projects before, and I’ve learned that my initial enthusiasm doesn’t always survive long hours of monotonous, boring work involved. My one exception was the Vinyl Music Project that I started in August of 2010 (see The Vinyl Music Project) and finished on December 29, 2012 (see A Good Day For Me). It was not an easy 2-year process, and there were countless delays, frustrations, and interruptions, but I got it done. What drove me, I suppose, was my love of music. Music has a mystical ability to transport me through time, emotions, memories, and dreams. It is lovely to hear and experience on many levels. Well, I’m finally beginning to think of photography and photographs in the same way. Of course, most people immediately recognize the historical significance of photographs and their ability to document events, but since 2009, I think I’ve begun to see the art of photography in the way my father did, so many years ago. I think photography was music for my dad, and he knew how to play, compose, and arrange it in many, many ways. The hard work was simply part of the creative effort, and he didn’t dwell on that aspect. He kept his eyes on the final product.




My dad was not the only Delgado who became a hardworking artist and craftsman in the creative field of photography. He helped hire his younger brother, Ricardo (Kado) Delgado, who joined him at Camhi/Bardovi Photography for a few years before starting his own studio. And although my dad died much to soon to see his children marry, his grandson, Carlos Delgado, joined the profession in 2006 as a photo/journalist. My dad helped me appreciate the hardships of his chosen career, and I have unbounded admiration for the work of Kado, who ventured into color photography, and Carlos, who graduated into the digital age. I am a dilettante in comparison to these professionals, so the least I can do is put forward the effort to insure that the photos I’ve taken, and the old photos I’ve copied, are preserved in a place that is safe and accessible. So I’ll let you know how this new project proceeds.

“A hero ventures forth
From the world of common day
Into a region of supernatural wonder:
Fabulous forces are there encountered,
And a decisive victory is won.
The hero comes back from this mysterious adventure
With the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”
(Joseph Campbell: The Hero with a Thousand Faces – 1949)

What finally hit me in the gym, as I was listening to Joseph Campbell’s words about the various stages of the hero’s journey and the universal motifs and metaphors used in classic myths and folktales, was that those same characteristics were present in an essay I wrote in 2007. The story was called Tres Mujeres (see Tres Mujeres), and it recounted the events of a trip I took with my high school friends, Greg and John, to Ensenada, in Baja California. At the time I called it an “adventure” because I wanted it to sounds special, even though it was just another of our many road trips. The original story is available on the link provided, but the retelling of the journey is not my main intent. What I discovered for the first time, as my mind reflected on Campbell’s words in the gym, was how many similarities this story shared with Campbell’s stages of the monomyth, and the metaphors and motifs found in the classical myths and tales of the hero’s journey.


I missed many of the key points in Campbell’s book the first time I read it. I was searching for insights into comparative mythologies that would reveal information about Man’s quest for spiritual truth. I wanted to know the secrets and mysteries that heroes discovered and brought back from their mythical journeys. I was certainly not expecting Campbell’s idea that all human lives are reenactments of the struggles in these journeys, and that all human beings project the same unconscious motifs and metaphors that appear in classical mythologies and folktales. It was this central tenet (that human dreams are windows into the collective unconscious, which in turn generated the archetypes and motifs found in classical mythology) that was the biggest stumbling block for me. My epiphany was the realization that my own life and stories, and those of my friends, did in fact mirror the hero’s journey in many ways.


According to Campbell, “the standard path of the mythological adventure of the hero is a magnification of the formula represented in the rites of passage: 1) Separation, 2) Initiation, and 3) Return”. He called this journey of the hero the monomyth, a term he borrowed from James Joyce’s Finnigans Wake. Campbell then sub-divided these three stages of the hero’s journey into eleven components. It is important to note that Campbell stressed that all of these parts or divisions are sytructural devices only, and they do not have to be present, or in the same order, in all mythological tales of quests or journeys. There is great diversity in the tales told of heroes and heroines in the different cultures, tribes, and religions of the world. In my particular story of the Tres Mujeres, I easily identified 7 components of the three-part monomyth:


I. Separation or Departure
            1. Call to Adventure
            2. Crossing of the First Threshold
            3. Supernatural Aid

II. Trials and Victories of Initation
            4. The Road of Trials.
            5. The Meeting with the Goddess
            6. The Belly of the Whale, or the World Navel.

III. Return and Reintegration with Society
            7. The Ultimate Boon

In my story, The Call to Adventure occurred at the Kansas City Barbecue in San Diego, the site where many scenes of the movie Top Gun were filmed:


The tone of the trip was set when John and I finally arrived at Greg’s condominium in San Diego, on Saturday afternoon. Instead of hurrying off toward the border, after a torturously long and time-consuming drive on the 405 Freeway, we decided to slow down, relax, and saunter over to the Kansas City Barbecue, a local BBQ place for sandwiches and beers. We languidly sipped our beer and toasted our reunion, while sitting in the sunny, outdoor patio, overlooked by towering resort hotels and high rises. As beach-clad walkers passed by, we began to verbalize impromptu hopes for the weekend. John was curious about the Carnival/Mardi Gras festivities in Ensenada. Greg was interested in investigating rental homes in Rosarito, for the Bicycle Ride in April. We all hoped to re-visit the wine country in the Guadalupe Valley. All of these ideas were popular, but the question was, could we fit everything within the time we had remaining? We only had this afternoon, the evening, and all day Sunday? After a second round of beer, we concluded that it was worth a try. We had nothing to lose, and much to gain, if everything worked out. At the conclusion of lunch, we hopped into John’s truck and headed for the border. From this point on, all of our activities followed a pattern. Our journey would come to a point of crisis and disaster, and then, magically, come together.

As Campbell points out, this Call does not require a momentous, life-altering reveille. It can be a great or small incident, a challenge, or a blunder the hero falls into. The Call is simply an opportunity to participate in a mystery – a rite, or moment, of spiritual passage, which, when completed, amounts to a symbolic dying and rebirth. This first stage of the mythical journey signifies that destiny has summoned the hero, and is offering him the chance to move his spiritual center from the ordinary world of 4 compass points and 5 senses to an unknown zone.


I am amazed at how my short, simple paragraph could hold some many mythical aspects identified by Campbell. Three friends, whom I described as “a soldier and paramedic”, a “seer and visionary”, and a “scribe and recorder” from different parts of the state, came together in San Diego to consider a trip into a foreign country. They reviewed their needs, hopes, and desires, and considered the problems, difficulties, and dangers they would face. Time seemed to be their biggest obstacle. Could they accomplish their tasks in the time allowed or should they change their minds and do something else? The situation presented a challenge and an adventure, and the three friends accepted the Call, not really understanding what they were getting into.

As the story continued, the friends confronted and crossed the First Threshold soon after leaving the border and then quickly encountered the first of many protective figures who would provide Supernatural Assistance and speed them on their way:

As soon as we crossed the border, we were gridlocked on the single, winding road from Tijuana to Rosarito, for (what seemed) hours. In frustration, I suggested that we forsake stopping at Rosarito and head straight for Ensenada, getting there before dark. “Don’t give up yet”, Greg reassured me. “Things might loosen up”. And they did. We finally discovered that the bottleneck was caused by a strangling, military checkpoint, manned by 10 beardless boys, in camouflage uniforms, hefting huge automatic weapons. The sight was chilling. Children with guns would unsettle any driver forced to stop. Once past this bottleneck, however, we sped into Rosarito, where good luck followed us. We located a landlady/realtor with whom we had rented last year. She showed us three homes that were available for the weekend we wanted, and in less than an hour, we were back on the road to Ensenada. We left deposits for the rental of two beach area homes that would accommodate our party of 10 cyclists.

Campbell described the First Threshold as the barrier, or wall, that surrounds the “normal world” of 4 directions (plus up and down) and 5 senses. Huge, menacing giants, ogres, or monsters protected the supernatural lands that lay beyond by guarding this barrier at a gate or entrance. This Threshold was the “Wall of Paradise” which separated the world from heaven, and prevented human beings from seeing the beatific face of God. Representations of these threshold sentries can still be seen as the lions, gargoyles, and supernatural beasts that guard the facades and entrances to cathedrals and temples. In my story, I identified the threshold guardians as the beardless youths who controlled the narrow entrance to the toll road from Tijuana to Rosarito. I didn’t dwell on how they were overcome, but stressed that their ominous presence, with such deadly weapons, warned us that we were entering a very dangerous realm, and should consider turning back. I also mentioned the landlady as the first of many supernatural helpers who helped us throughout this journey.


Campbell characterizes the Supernatural Helper as “the helpful crone or fairy godmother who is a familiar feature in European fairy tales. In Christian legends the role of helper is commonly played by the Virgin, whose intercession wins the mercy of the Father for the traveler. The hero who comes under the protection of the Cosmic Mother cannot be harmed. Such a figure represents the benign, protecting power of destiny. The fantasy is a reassurance – a promise that the peace of Paradise, which was known first within the mother womb, is not to be lost… One has only to know and trust, and the ageless guardians will appear. The hero finds all the forces of the unconscious on his side. Mother Nature herself supports the mighty task”.




This reassurance of aid and assistance is not only provided by outside agents. The hero of the journey already brings with him resources and skills which he has previous received, learned, or won. In my tale, each of the three friends brings with them skills and talents they have learned or acquired over the years and which promise to assist them in overcoming the obstacles of the journey ahead. I described them as follows:

John is the soldier of the group. He guides, guards and cares for us on all our travels. His experiences as an infantryman, ambulance driver, paramedic and fire fighter, all prepared him for this role. On many occasions, he has also been our nursemaid, worrying about our health, finances, and bad habits. Greg, on the other hand is, as a superintendent of schools, a Visionary and Seer of endless possibilities whenever we traveled.  Greg remembers more arcane and useless information than anyone I know. For example, he claimed to know the names of all the heavenly constellations, but I was never sure if he was reciting factual or fictional names. After describing the happenings of my wife and adult children, I quickly quizzed them about their reactions to my blog (internet log), which I had just made public the week before. I also warned them that I would be writing about this trip as well. I would be the official scribe on this adventure, recording with camera and pen. We were three amigos, getting older, and hopefully, wiser.


It is at this point in my story that we crossed completely into the heart of the journey and the trials that awaited us… To be continued.

In my Old San Juan, so many dreams I forged, in my childhood years.
My first illusions, and my unrequited loves, are memories of the soul.
One afternoon I departed for a place far away, that’s how destiny wished it.
But my heart stayed behind, at the edge of the sea, of my Old San Juan.

Farewell, farewell – farewell
My goddess of the sea – my Queen of the palms.
I go, I’m leaving now – but someday I’ll return.
To find my true love, to dream once again, in my Old San Juan.
(Translation of the national song of San Juan: En Mi Viejo San Juan - Noel Estrada, 1943)

I’ve been struggling for months about how to describe my recent trip to Puerto Rico. Should I make it a travelogue about our explorations of this enchanted, Caribbean island? Should I make it about the joys of a healthy recovery after a health scare in Dublin? Or, should I make it about friendship and the importance of relationships that stretch back to high school? I finally decided to just start writing in the hope that the story would figure itself out. It ultimately became an epic-long odyssey about three old friends who took an impulsive trip together. Greg summarized it best on various occasions in Puerto Rico: when we stood overlooking the expansive Atlantic shoreline of San Juan from the parapet of  “la Fortaleza”; when we sat in a patio bar modeling our new Panama hats; and when we played dominos in our hotel room after a day of exploring.
“Isn’t this great,” he would sigh. “Here we are, three retired, old friends who can just take a trip to Puerto Rico without work, worry, or constraints. These are moments that we’ll never forget”.
That was pretty much the mood for the whole trip, and Greg was the instigator.






I never thought that I would ever see the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Caribbean island 762 miles southwest of Cuba. I simply knew it as the American territory gained after the Spanish-American War in 1898, and that many natives, who at birth become naturalized American citizens, emigrated to the United States to work. The idea came up by chance during a telephone conversation with my friend Greg, who lives in San Diego. I was calling him to describe my recent trip to Ireland, and the medical issues I experienced. It was only when I asked him what he was up to that he mentioned his upcoming trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to judge a barbecue contest in February.  I was surprised and impressed. I had known for a while that he traveled up and down California judging barbecue competitions, and I had hoped to join him at one, if it came close to Los Angeles. But I never imagined that he would travel so far to judge a contest, especially one in such an exotic location. Puerto Rico was the next best thing to going to Cuba – there were beaches, rain forests, historical cities, music, art, and great food. It also had the advantage of a more or less bilingual population that used American currency and US cell phone providers. In my questioning I learned that Greg was going alone. At the end of our conversation, I praised him for his sense of adventure, expressed a little envy, and wished him luck. When I recounted this conversation to Kathy later that evening, she simply said, “You should go too!”
“Are you serious,” I stammered, not believing what I heard.
“Yes,” she insisted. “Don’t you want to go?” she added, “because I think you should. You didn’t get much of a vacation in Ireland, and I think this trip will be good for you.”
This staggering suggestion, and Kathy’s willingness to act as my travel agent in making all the arrangements, sealed the deal. I was in a tropical haze for a few days and then I received another bombshell from John. He called the following Sunday to check on my convalescence from Ireland, and then mentioned that Greg had also called him with news about my joining him in Puerto Rico.
“Yeah,” I said, “I don’t know what got into me. When Kathy said I should go, I suddenly realized that I wanted to.”
“Yeah, “ he responded, “that happened to me too. When I mentioned your trip to my wife Kathy, she told me to get out of the house and join you two in Puerto Rico. So I’m going too.”

Greg and I arrived in San Juan at 6:30 in the morning, Atlantic Standard Time (AST), on Friday, February 19^th, about 6 hours before John. Upon our arrival, I asked Greg if we were catching a cab to the hotel.
“No,” he replied, matter-of-factly, “I’m renting a car”.
This was stunning news and it changed all of my previous expectations of the trip. Miraculously, we somehow managed to navigate our way to the hotel in the Convention Center District of San Juan, where we checked in and asked the receptionist for a walking map of San Juan.
“You do not truly wish to walk to Old San Juan?” the amazed receptionist queried. “I can request a taxi for you.”
“How long a walk is it to the old city?” Greg asked. “We’ve been on airplanes for hours. A walk would do us good.”
“It would take about an hour, I think”, she replied, “so a taxi would be better.”
“Ahh, señorita,” intoned Greg with a charming smile, “a short walk would be a great way to stretch our legs.”




I love walking and exploring a new city, and Viejo San Juan was a delight. Now understand that Old San Juan, especially the tourist section concentrated in the westernmost part of the bay, is not “typical” to the rest of the island. The colonial streets are narrow and paved with ancient blue bricks. Apartments and homes are balconied and painted in the colonial style of the 1600’s. Many of these buildings serve as street level shops and restaurants, with residents living on the second and third floors. Here English is the default language, and even when speaking to the natives in Spanish, they pronounce English words using standard English vernacular – a hamburger is pronounced hamburger, not hamburguesa. It is in the non-tourist sections of town, especially in the southern and eastern parts of the Bay that the architecture becomes more functional and typical of a modern city, and Spanish is the exclusive language.





In another time, when Greg and I lived and traveled in Mexico City during the summer of 1973, we would metro, bus, and walk everywhere in and around the city. In those youthful days, we were convinced that we could never get lost, even when we failed to reach our desired destination right away. Every excursion was an exploration through an unknown wonderland, and we were navigating our own course and drawing our own map. Every sight was a novelty, every missed turn an adventure, and all we needed was time to recalculate our location, make corrections, and reach our goal – eventually. This again happened on our first day in San Juan.  We crossed the channel of the Bay and took, as it turned out, the longest route to the Old City. We ignored “El Condado”, the popular beachside resort area, and made our way toward the center of the old city along a seaside street that changed names and appearance every block. We passed La Iglesia de San Agustin, and then another street dotted with municipal and Federal buildings. Soon we spotted the distinctive Castillo de San Cristobál, the fortress signaling the beginning of the walled city of Old San Juan.





As it turned out, 9 am was the perfect hour to explore the narrow cobblestone streets of San Juan. The serpentine traffic and densely parked cars had not yet appeared and we were able to truly appreciate the blue, red, and green colonial facades, verandas, and overhanging balconies that surrounded and overlooked us as we walked. We found Ole’s Hat Store (the hat store mentioned in a New York Times Travel article we had read), and vowed to return later with John. We made our way to the Bayside of the city and headed back to the hotel along a modern street that skirted the piers, docks, and parks that studded the shore. Although it proved the shortest route home, it seemed a longer walk because of the weather. It was getting hotter and brighter, with no seaside breezes to cool us down, and we were becoming worried about being late to pick up John at the airport.




Something happens to Greg when he’s in a Spanish-speaking country. I saw it occurring for the first time when we traveled to Mexico City in the summer of 1973, and every time since, whenever we’ve traveled through Baja California throughout the years. Greg goes native. His Spanish fluency reasserts itself, and he becomes strangely emboldened to try, or do, ANYTHING. He changes from being just an encouraging friend and supporter, into a bold and assertive innovator and field commander. While he never actually drove while we were in Mexico City, I could tell by the way he studied the streets, the traffic and driving patterns, and the techniques of the drivers who chauffeured us around. And he has ever since. I witnessed this metamorphosis of Greg into a Puerto Rican driver on our trip back to the airport to pick up John. Again, as his copilot, I knew the direction we were supposed to travel, and I held the cell phone GPS in my hand, but the streets of San Juan did not cooperate. After one failed attempt had us driving away from the airport, Greg finally concluded that the highway to the airport was dividing into parallel routes that were actually frontage roads (eventually we translated the Spanish road sign “laterales” to mean just that). Anyway, between the oral directions coming from the GPS, and Greg’s intuitive assimilation of Puerto Rican road signs and traffic patterns, we finally arrived at the airport and found John waiting outside of the arrival gates. After getting him checked into his room, we resumed our explorations of Old San Juan. Only this time we drove there and bought our Panama hats.


There is something special about strolling through Old San Juan on a warm and sunny afternoon in an authentic Panama hat. Although we all agreed that we paid exorbitant amounts of money for the privilege of wearing a hat purchased at the New York Times recommended millinery, the experience was worth it. We were hand fitted for size and shape, and shown the various colors and textures of hatbands we could choose and have attached. I walked out of the store feeling every inch a Puerto Rican native, and I mocked Greg and John for their precaution of shipping their hats home from the store (a precaution I took the following day when faced with a possible rainstorm).


I once roomed with Greg and John for about 6 months in an apartment in Santa Monica while I was attending graduate school at UCLA. It was during those carefree, bachelor days, when I was dating Kathleen that I saw what a volatile combination these two friends made in two areas. They literally energized and challenged each other in developing the most creative and outlandish culinary menus and travel itineraries I’d ever heard of. They seemed to unleash in each other a limitless number of crazy ideas, plans, and trips. John didn’t blink when he learned that Greg had rented a car in Puerto Rico and was planning on driving.
“Great! Where are we going?” He simply asked.
It was clear that we were not going to be bound to the city. With John bringing along his own Garmin GPS to complement his wanderlust, he had complete confidence that with Greg driving we could travel anywhere and find any place. For example, we quickly realized that it would be cheaper to buy a couple of bottles of wine at a store rather than pay hotel prices. So John convinced Greg to drive to a liquor store he found on his GPS that was 8 miles, or 10 minutes away from Old Town. Well, 15 minutes later, on a highway taking us to the other side of the bay, we knew there was a problem. We passed countless shopping centers and big box stores like Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club, and still we followed the verbal directions of the Garmin. Eventually we came to an address in the city of Bayamon that looked like a store, but turned out being a neighborhood bar in a seedy part of town. So much for the Garmin’s ability to find liquor stores in San Juan! But even that experience didn’t dampen Greg or John’s enthusiasm to explore the island. Over very expensive glasses of hotel wine that evening, Greg and John planned our drive and itinerary for Saturday.



Our second day in San Juan began with John and I walking to a convenience store, while Greg attended an orientation meeting for the judges and officials of the Barbecue Competition on Sunday. The “nearby” store turned out to be an uphill climb that went on for almost two miles. I loved it because we broke free of the Convention District and wandered through a regular, middle class, residential neighborhood with homes, shops, and condominiums. This was the first time I was in a normal living environment, and I relished the signs, the slow traffic, and the snatches of conversation I overheard from passing pedestrians. On our return, we found Greg ready and eager to begin our quest to find a tropical rainforest. Other than our accidental trip to Bayamon, Saturday would be our first real taste of Puerto Rico outside of San Juan. Leaving the hotel and traveling east, we passed the airport and quickly headed into the countryside of the island. At Rio Grande, about 32 miles out of San Juan, we went off highway toward the mountains, and the threatening clouds gathering over them. Signs soon directed us to El Yunque National Forest, the only tropical rainforest in the United States National Park system.




John had hazy memories of his first visit to this rainforest in Puerto Rico, and he served as our guide when we reached El Portal, the Visitor’s Center of the forest. It was there, as we left the car, that John and Greg looked at me and inspected my tropical apparel – sandals, shorts, golf shirt and my new Panama hat.
“Are you sure you want to wear that?” John said, pointing to my hat.
“Why?” I asked naively.
“One cloudburst and it’s done”, Greg added.
“Really?” I forlornly questioned.
My two friends nodded silently, as I solemnly turned around, took off my hat, and returned to the car. I finally recognized their wisdom in shipping their Panama hats from the store. Although the weather had been remarkably hospitable, the forecast for the week called for cloudy conditions with daily intermittent rain. So far, we had experienced a sunny Friday and a cloudy Saturday morning, with ocean breezes picking up in the afternoons, but that could change suddenly in the mountains. Although insects or rain had not bothered us so far, the skies above the tropical forest were fast becoming darker and more ominous.



John advised us to restrict ourselves to the well tended, walking trails and use the car for longer forays into the rainforest. The whole experience was a revelation. Even on a manicured trail, we saw, heard, and felt the lush, moist, and thick vegetation that surrounded us. We were in constant shadows, not just from the overhanging trees, ferns, vines, and branches but also from the build up of low-lying clouds. It seemed like the moist vegetation around us was the source of the rising mists and darkening clouds. Occasionally, rays of sunlight pierced through, but quickly disappear, as if spotlights were being turned on and off. We assumed that frogs and parrots accounted for the calls and cries that we heard along the trail. Overall I was delighted with my first rainforest trek, especially since I was not interested in a jungle experience with snakes, mosquitoes, jaguars, and other carnivorous mammals and reptiles. After our forest hike, we followed the paved road up the mountain to the Yokahu Observation Tower. The tower, and its surrounding vegetation, was by far the most impressive stop because it provided such a wide, breathtaking view of the rainforest and the lush mountainsides sweeping up from the coastal city in the distance. You could see the steam rising from the mountain vegetation after each misting rainfall. It was a glorious afternoon, capped off by a sumptuous cena at a restaurant in a barrio on the outskirts of San Juan.










How Greg discovers these places always mystifies me, and when he and John begin trading culinary tips and cooking recommendations, I am doubly bewildered. But I will admit that they have rarely steered me wrong when it comes to new foods and restaurants. La Casita Blanca was a restaurant off the beaten tourist track, with a fantastic reputation and a menu that was exotic and savory. I’ve adopted a rule of thumb about restaurants that use daily handwritten menus on whiteboards or chalkboards – they prepare dishes that are fresh, typical of the region, and delicious. La Casita Blanca offered all of that. It was where I truly learned to appreciate mofongo, an Afro-Puerto Rican side dish made of fried plantains. I had tried them with a cod dinner the night before at a restaurant near the hotel, but I only appreciated them here. The meal ended with complimentary shots of chichaito, a licorice drink of anise and coffee. Of course, now I regret not having taken pictures of my meal and appetizers, an Instagram practice I had foresworn. On our return to the hotel, Greg and I dropped John off and drove into Old Town to have my hat shipped home. There we began loitering and window-shopping for possible gifts and purchases. We added a little bar hopping and discovered La Barrachina, a hotel, restaurant, and patio bar that claimed to be the home of the piña colada, and Punto de Vista Bar, a restaurant on the rooftop of the Hotel Milano, where we toasted their signature mojitos. About the only thing we purchased was a set of dominos, which we began playing that night over wine and munchies. On Sunday, we would finally address the real reason for our trip to Puerto Rico – attending the International Barbecue Contest being held at a bayside park in San Juan.







John and I were always curious about Greg’s judging at barbecue contests. Soon after his retirement in 2010, he completed a course to become a certified judge, and started evaluating grilled and smoked meats at countless contests in California and the American Southwest. Despite his attempts at describing these events to us, John and I never got a clear idea of what he actually did. We imagined these contests were something like the chili cook-offs and wine-tastings we had attended that were sponsored by civic and business clubs and organizations. Whatever we imagined, we were not prepared for what we found in San Juan. First of all, we did not expect to find it in such an upscale setting. Rather than holding it in an aging municipal park or rural event space, the location was on the luxurious bayside of Old San Juan, in a futuristic park next to a massive cruise ship, with hotels, shops, and restaurants across the street. We also didn’t expect the cost. Even Greg was caught by surprise and asked us if we were sure about paying such a steep price for admission. John and I looked at each other and shrugged.
“This is what we came for.” I told Greg, and paid.
With Greg rushing off to check in with the event officials, John and I wandered around the grounds, looking in amazements at the plethora of pavilions, product sponsors, food tents, grilling and smoking equipment. I had never seen so many high tech and modern barbecue tools and appliances in my life. I was stunned into silence at the diversity and expense. Later, after locating the tent sheltering the Judge’s Table and waving at Greg, he joined us during a break with food samples and more information. This competition was sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbecue Society (KCBS), one of the largest organizations in the US, and it was divided into four rounds, each serving different meats – chicken, pork ribs, pork shoulder, and brisket. He explained that each entry was judged after taking only one or two bites, scoring for appearance, taste, and tenderness. In this way we passed the early afternoon, John and I wandering about the grounds, sampling meats, or sitting in the shade of a bar side pavilion, and waiting for Greg to join us with more food.







By Sunday night, after three days of eating, shopping, and driving to the rainforests of the eastern mountains, we felt confident in expanding our horizons to the Caribbean side of the island. When I say “we”, I really mean Greg and John. They were desperate to go anywhere new, and I became infected with this enthusiasm to breakout of the confines of the capitol and its surrounding towns and communities. My own internet research found the colonial city of Ponce on the opposite side of the island, with an ideal midway stop at the city of Caguas. As I was reading aloud about the town and its nearby sights, Greg interrupted.
“Wait, did you say Guavate? I’ve heard about that place”. He stopped for a moment to speak into his phone and then read the result of his query.
“Here it is – Guavate. Guavate has La Ruta del Lechón, the ‘Silk Road of Roasted Pork!
My God, how can we not stop at this place?”
Although we were a little “barbecued out” at the moment, I had to admit that the famed Road of Lechoneras sounded interesting. So after further investigation it was decided that we would depart on Monday for a trans-island road trip, stopping at Caguas and Guavate before crossing over to Ponce. From there we would return across the island to Arecibo, and then continue back to San Juan. I foolishly assumed our itinerary was set.



As any exotic place you see for the first time, the highland city of Caguas, midway between San Juan and Ponce, was a wonderful surprise. We entered from the commercial sector of the town on a busy Monday, and quickly made our way to the tranquil central plaza with its colonial cathedral and government buildings. It was just awakening to the day on the morning we arrived. The carousel was closed, and vendors and pedestrians were arriving to take up their stations near the fountain, gardens, and benches along tree-lined walkways. We walked around the square and then entered the Catedral del Dulce Nombre de Jesús (the Cathedral of the Sweet Name of Jesus). From there we made our way along a nearby mall, lined with kiosks, restaurants, and shops, which were just opening. Eventually we came to the Centro de Bellas Artes, a fine arts complex, located just west of the Plaza, where we returned to the car. Resuming our road trip we drove to “La Ruta del Lechon” (Roasted Pork Road), in Guavate. This route wound its way up a mountainous road, shaded by overhanging bamboo trees, until we entered a stretch of Lechoneras, or rustic roadside eateries, on both sides of the road. These establishments specialized in one dish, lechón, or spit-roasted suckling pig. Even though it was early, all three of us felt the need to stop and sample this cuisine that attracts tourists and locals from all over the island. After the delicious meal, we resumed our travels across the island to the Caribbean.






Ponce, the second largest city in Puerto Rico, is called La Perla del Sur (the Pearl of the South) and is famous for its beautiful neoclassical and colonial style architecture and facades. Upon entering the city limits, we again made our way to the central plaza (Plaza de las Delicias) where we were greeted by more lovely gardens, fountains, tree-lined walkways with benches, and a nearby cathedral. The most eye-catching attraction was a glaring red and black antique firehouse in the corner of the plaza called El Parque de Bombas (Park of Pumps). From there, with a freshly acquired mapa turístico in hand, we spent the next 90 minutes exploring Ponce – inspecting and commenting on its buildings and museums, and finally relaxing and recapping at a local bar and grill. I would have to say that after San Juan, Ponce is the place to see and stay in Puerto Rico. The city is old and lovely without the commercialized air of San Juan, an authentic mix of old and new, without the Disneyland Main Street feel of the capitol city.






It was at this bar, called La Parrilla 50 that I lost control of the itinerary and what Greg and John were planning. As I reviewed my photos in a corner booth over a glass of beer, the old traveling buddies went into a quiet discussion over a map. I assumed we would be making our way north, along Hwy 10, through the mountains to Arecibo on the Atlantic shore, and perhaps stopping there. However, I became suspicious when we returned to the car and John took the shotgun seat, forcing me to the back. I knew something was afoot when we started winding through a series of side streets and back roads, but I didn’t say anything until we exited the main highway and headed up toward the hills on a one lane road.
“Now where are we going?” I asked from the rear.
“It’s a surprise”, Greg responded, without elaboration.
“You’ll see,” John added.
The pair remained silent until the road became extremely rugged and more and more wild.
“I think I took the wrong turn back there”, Greg finally muttered as he stopped the car at a hilltop intersection with a gas station.
“Which turn was that?” I groused aloud, since we had been curving our way up the mountain for the last 30 minutes. At least this stop gave me the chance to exit the car and get my bearings. Looking south from the mountainside crossroad, I could see the wondrous sight of the city of Ponce and the Caribbean shoreline in the far distance. If nothing else, the view made the mystery trip worthwhile.
When I reentered the car, I was greeted with Greg’s assurance of, “Okay, I think I know what happened”.
“So where are we going?” I asked again.
“We’re looking for John’s coffee plantation”, he finally admitted.
We turned around and Greg actually did, somehow, find a coffee plantation (which, unfortunately, was closed to the public on Mondays). From that point on, I gave up predicting where we were going and simply enjoyed the ride. I especially loved the sudden, tropical cloudburst we drove through, toward Arecibo. Later that evening Greg invited us to dinner at Aguaviva, an upscale restaurant in Old San Juan, to review our travels and our trip, which was ending the next day.







So, what was the point of this story? Well, while still writing it, an event occurred which suggested a theme. I was at the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress in Anaheim when I attended a session given by Fr. Ronald Rolheiser. The presentation bore the intimidating title of Moral Loneliness in Our Lives and Ministry: The Deeper Reality Beneath Our Longing for a Soul Mate, but it was during a “spiritual riff” that I made my connection between lifelong friends and Puerto Rico. Rolheiser started with St. Augustine’s quote, “You have made us for yourself, Oh Lord, and our hearts are restless, until they rest in You”, as an explanation for loneliness. Then he elaborated with a meandering journey through biblical stories, legends, and archetypal myths that hinted at the idea that we are in the Second Act of a 3-part drama. Act One was our original union with God and subsequent departure; the Second is our birth and quest through life, searching to recover that sacred union; and the Last Act is the soul’s return and homecoming after death. That is our Faith – that is our Christian belief. Rolheiser suggested that this archetypal drama has been revealed in myth, mysticism, and Catholic tradition. During our lives on earth, we actively seek love, union, and the soulful relationships that hearken back to our existence before birth, when we knew the eternal union with God. Church is one of those unifying relationships, as is marriage, family, and, equally important, lifelong friends.



Thoughts of aging, illness, and death did intrude at various times in Puerto Rico with Greg and John, especially on our last day there, when we finally made time to visit the beach and seashore of San Juan before departing. I had insisted that we couldn’t leave the island until we actually walked along its beaches and took photographs of the Atlantic Ocean. It was during those moments, moments of joy and laughter with two old friends who have shared so many other trips, secrets, and memories, that those thoughts occurred. These crazy and impulsive trips, with their gestalt moments, were unique experiences that no one else knew, shared, or could even imagine. These would be the stories that we tell each other, and argue over, as our memories fade and details become more and more hazy. When these friends die, those memories will be gone forever, and I will be lonelier because of it. This isolation, with the snuffing out of shared memories and the darkening of the past, was what Dr. Greaney bemoaned when he told me that all his friends from medical school, World War II, and his practice were dead. As they died, thier shared memories were also buried, and his children would eventually cease retelling them. In those moments with John and Greg, I realized that this life can end in an instant, or be unbearably drawn out through a long-suffering illness. That was life. And yet, thoughts of isolation, illness, and even the dying process, are dispelled when we are in joyous union with loved ones and friends. That is what happened in Puerto Rico. For 5 days we three friends were together in a blissful paradise – three amigos viejos, without jobs, wives, or families – joyfully at play in the tropical cities, beaches, rainforests, and mountains of Puerto Rico.

This house goes on sale every Wednesday morning,
And taken off the market in the afternoon.
You can buy a piece of it if you want to.
It’s been good to me, if it’s been good for you.

Take the grand look now the fire is burning.
Is that your reflection on the wall?
I can show you this room and some others,
If you came to see the house at all?

Careful up the stairs, a few are missing.
I haven’t had the time to make repairs.
First step is the hardest one to master.
Last one I’m not really sure is there.

This room here once had childish laughter,
And I come back to hear it now and again.
I can’t say that I’m certain what you’re after,
But in this room, a part of you will remain.
(The House Song: Paul Stookey – 1965)

Finding a unifying thread about two cross-country flights and a trip through Georgia and South Carolina turned out to be a daunting task. The seven days we spent there were a flurry of emotions, images, and experiences: the miseries of TSA checkpoints; the discomforts of minimalist air travel; the excitement of a new city and state with endless sights and possibilities; and the ease of renewing old friendships. It seemed a matter of too much done and too little space to record it all. In brief, Kathy and I traveled to Atlanta, so she could attend the Catholic Leadership Summit hosted by the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA). We spent 3 days in that city, with Kathy, for the most part, attending workshops, meetings, and social dinners, while occasionally joining me on sightseeing adventures. At the conclusion of the conference, we rented a car and drove south to Bluffton, SC, to visit for three days with Ken and Kathy Horton, long-time family friends (see tag: Hortons) who had built a home and retired to Belfair Golf Plantation six years ago. We took our time driving back to Atlanta, stopping at Milledgeville and visiting the nearby sights. Early morning, on October 25^th, we again experienced the miseries of modern air travel, but thankfully, magically arrived home at 11:00 am, three hours after leaving Atlanta at 9:00 am. That was our trip in one paragraph.





However, the question that has daunted me since returning is, what specific experiences on this trip were the most memorable or meaningful? There were so many scenes I could describe: riding the MARTA metro uptown to the Arts Center and walking down Peachtree Street photographing countless sights and places; taking solitary walks through Centennial Park, the Coca Cola museum, and the National Center for Civil Rights; and visiting the Carter Presidential Library and the Historic Oakland Cemetery with Kathy. Finally, after weeks and weeks of restless reflection and rewrites, I came to the surprising conclusion that what really stood out from the trip were three houses – the Margret Mitchell House on Peachtree Street in Atlanta, the Horton Home on Lady Slipper Island Drive in Bluffton, and Andalusia, the Flannery O’Connor Farm outside of Milledgeville. Three houses, with three separate stories, but all somehow unified in their impact on me. Strange…




To be honest, finding the Mitchell House was purely accidental. My initial explorations of the MARTA (Atlanta’s metro, the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) deposited me at the Arts Center Station on N. Peachtree Street. Not wanting to simply make a return trip traveling underground, I decided to walk down Peachtree, paralleling the metro line back to the main hub at Five Points Station. On this southern route, I stumbled across the beautifully maintained, and impressive, Mitchell House near Crescent Avenue. I had read Margret Mitchell’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel in high school, after seeing the film adaptation. At first I was captivated by the Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh version, and naively believed that the movie and the book were authentic representations of the South, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. I was freed from these romantic delusions in college when I learned that both the book and the film perpetuated the heroic myth of the underdog South’s valiant struggle against the tyranny of the Federal government, their rebellion for State’s Rights, and their continued oppression during Reconstruction. Mitchell, and especially the film, failed to deal with the immorality of slavery, the social inequities created by a plantation economy on the South, and the futile war that was fought and lost attempting to perpetuate both. However, despite my college prejudice about the book and movie, I walked away from the house with a totally different feeling about Margret Mitchell and her work.




First of all, calling the residence “the Mitchell House” is a grandiose misnomer. Margret and her second husband, John Marsh, simply rented one of three flats at the Crescent Avenue Apartment House, as it was originally named. It was there, recuperating from an ankle injury, and with the encouragement of her husband, that she typed her only published novel, Gone With the Wind in 1937. The book was clearly a romanticized version of the antebellum South, based on the stories Margaret heard as a child from her grandmother, and from the revisionist histories written by Southern historians after Reconstruction. The book was never meant to be an academically sound, historical treatise, but rather a forerunner of the bodice-ripping, romantic novels that became popular in the late 20^th Century. I ended my tour through the converted apartment house with a new attitude toward Mitchell – feeling much more sympathetic toward this writer who grew up in wealth and social prominence, only to flounder in an abusive first marriage which required her to work for a living as a reporter and journalist. Her second act came with her marriage to John Marsh and his encouragement to pen a book based on her childhood memories and college writings. Their stay at the Crescent Avenue Apartment House changed their lives forever.




After three days of hotel rooms and meeting halls, except for a rare sightseeing excursion, Kathy was anxious to get some fresh air and enjoy a respite with Kathy and Ken. She was confident that staying at their beautiful home in Belfair Plantation would provide the perfect opportunity for reconnecting and renewing our 35-year old friendship. So on Wednesday, we left Atlanta in a rented car and drove five hours down US Interstates 75 and 16 through Georgia to Bluffton, South Carolina. We had one objective – getting to the Horton house on Lady Slipper Island Drive as quickly as possible and relaxing. Luckily these two major highways skirt all major cities and towns, so we were not tempted to stop and explore Macon or Savannah. It was just one, long, boring drive along a forest-lined highway, reading signs and staring at road kill, with only two stops at rural gas stations to use the restrooms.



I always think of Kathy and Ken in relation to their houses. We always visited them at home, with the rare exception of birthdays at McDonalds or Chucky Cheese. They would sometimes reciprocate and visit us, but (not counting their annual Christmas Adam Party) 8 times out of 10 we were at their house on a Friday night, with Ken preparing cocktails, grilling burgers and dogs, or cooking spaghetti. Their first home was a rambling two-story, Walton Family-type structure on Hatteras Ave in Tarzana, with a seemingly endless backyard lot with a pool where the kids could lose themselves for hours. Their second, and final California house was a single floor, ranch-style home in Hidden Hills, with a small lower horse pasture and stable, and a backyard that started with a pool and extended up a vast hillside. Those were the homes their children and ours grew up and played in and visited, until they all went to college and left. In 2010, when the Horton’s’ decided to retire, they left the state and took up residence in a new house they had planned and built in South Carolina.



Visiting Kathy and Ken’s home overlooking the marshy lowlands of the Harbor River always calls up feelings of déjà vu, like recalling a vista you’ve seen a long, long time ago, but couldn’t remember exactly where. Only in this case it was trying to remember an image or scene from countless movies in the South: The Great Santini (1979), The Prince of Tides (1991), The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), and especially The Big Chill (1983). All of them depicted the red and gold coastal marshlands, tidal swamps, and estuaries of the “Low country” of South Carolina, but The Big Chill also inserted the nostalgia of aging college friends in new homes and locales, after the passage of time. That’s how I felt about Kathy and Ken in 2010, on our first visit to South Carolina, and again this time – standing on their back porch and gazing out at the estuary reeds and marshlands of the Harbor River in the mornings, mid-afternoons, and sunsets. We had left so many memories behind, in old homes, in old neighborhoods, but we stayed connected. This sense of comfort is also reinforced when we manage to see their three children, Marshall, and the twins, Kate and Andrea in their homes, in different parts of the country.




During this visit we never strayed too far from Belfair, with amble opportunities for Kathy and Kathy to chat and catch up on their news while Ken and I walked Jake their dog and played some golf. Our one big excursion was an afternoon on the May River, trying our hand at dockside crabbin’ & fishin’ with Kathy and Ken, and then boatin’ with their son Marshall, and his dog, Cody. On this trip I also played a few rounds of golf with Ken. On previous walks and cart rides around his home I’d been impressed by the coastal beauty of the grounds, fairways, and greens of the two courses on this “golf plantation”, but I had never felt sufficiently skilled to play on them. Now, after 5 years of golfing with friends on various public and private courses in Southern California and Baja, I felt confident enough to join Kenny for 9 or 10 holes. It was an enjoyable experience, with a lot of side talk and Ken pointing out some techniques to strengthen my “short game”. I also got a chance to demonstrate my golfing prowess to my wife, who had never seen me play.


Every evening of our 3-night stay found us lounging on the back porch of the house at sunset, watching the reddish-gold gloaming of the sky over the river and marshes, enjoying Kenny’s cocktails. There we would review the day’s events and activities, plan the next day’s agenda, and talk about our adult children, their spouses, and infants. That’s how I will always remember Belfair – sitting with the Horton’s on their back porch couches, with the sun fading into a golden haze. On Friday we drove back to Atlanta. This was an open-ended excursion, with our only intention being to take a route that would lead us to Milledgeville. We were in no particular hurry and had no idea what we might find there. Our only reason for choosing Milledgeville was curiosity to see the town and the nearby family farm where the American, female author, Flannery O’Connor lived until her death in 1964.


The route we took from Savannah on US Hwy 441 finally got us off the Interstate and allowed us to see the real Georgian countryside, with its rolling, green farmlands, red clay soil, and rural towns. The big surprise was the city of Milledgeville. I had expected to see one more provincial town like the ones we’d passed along the way (Dublin, Irwinton, McIntyre, and Midway-Hardwick), but Milledgeville was far from rural. It is the county seat of Baldwin County, with two colleges and a population of about 20,000. It served as the State Capitol from 1804 to 1868, and came across as a quaint, historic “college town”, with all the cultural and commercial amenities of a modern city. On our arrival on October 24, we drove right into the Main Square, which was hosting Family Day at Georgia College and State University, the college Flannery O’Connor attended under a different name. The streets were filled with cars, families, and visitors, walking through and around the square, being escorted or guided by students or family members. It created a festive carnival atmosphere that livened our experience as we walked around, searching for “The Flannery O’Connor Room” in the College Library.




I became curious about Flannery O’Connor after listening to Kathy and our friend Bishop George Niederauer talking about her in relation to women authors and Catholic themes in American literature. Kathy had read O’Connor’s works in college, while taking a course in Catholic literature, and George had taught a similar class at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo. Knowing nothing of this modern Southern writer, who was also a devout Catholic, I set about reading Kathy’s copy of Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor, by Brad Gooch. It was a fascinating story of a seemingly mousey, non-descript Georgia girl, of Irish-Catholic upbringing, born in 1925, who graduated from a women’s college in Milledgeville, but whose desire to write compelled her to travel to the famous Iowa Writer’s Workshop for a MFA, where she attracted the artistic attention of its director and teachers. After graduation she lived in Connecticut and New York, where she published her first short stories and began the first of two novels, Wise Blood. In 1951, O’Connor was diagnosed with lupus, a deadly, debilitating disease, and subsequently returned to live with her mother at their ancestral farm, Andalusia, near Milledgeville, Georgia.




Escaping the hustle and bustle of Family Days, Andalusia, the O’Connor family dairy farm, was a retreat-like haven. Only 4 miles outside of Milledgeville on Hwy 441, the farm appears suddenly and unexpectedly, near a distractingly, busy commercial intersection. The only warning is a reed obscured white sign with purple trim on a hillside, announcing:
                                                                               Andalusia
                                                                              HOME OF
                                                                        Flannery O’Connor

A red clay road, shaded by pine trees, wound us along a low-lying pond and a distant pasture, until we saw two white, wooden lounge chairs, under a tree, beckoning us toward a driveway next to the main house. Around the two-story, plantation-style home, we could see the vacant poultry and work sheds off to the left, and the abandoned milking and storage barns, beyond the backyard. This farm and nearby Milledgeville were the settings for many of O’Connor’s short stories. More than the Mitchell House, I was deeply affected by the tour through O’Connor’s home. It seemed to truly reflect the writer who lived and died there. The front porch was screened and overlooked the front yard, with its two lounge chairs guarding the road. I easily imagined a frail and weakening writer, having experienced the artistic and literary excitement of the Iowa Workshop and the New York publishing world, sitting in the waning sun with her mother, staring out at the empty road, searching for visitors and news from the world outside of Georgia.




Her brightly lit bedroom was on the first floor, close to the front door entrance. There, I spotted two braced, aluminum crutches, leaning side by side, as if placed just moments ago. They rested against an upright dresser, which served as a backstop to O’Connor’s worktable, holding an opened portable typewriter. It was a reminder of what must have been a 14-year struggle between artist and invalid, with her passion for writing being challenged by her progressively deteriorating and disabling disease. Despite the declining health, she stayed busy with her work and around the house, leaving feminine touches in many of the rooms and walls. She continued writing throughout her residence there, and maintained an active correspondence with contemporary writers and teachers until her death on August 3, 1964. O’Connor, who published two novels and 32 short stories during her lifetime, is now considered an important voice in American literature. She wrote in a Southern Gothic style, relying heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters, while reflecting her Catholic faith, and frequently examining questions of morality and ethics. Although expected to live only five years after her initial diagnosis of lupus, she managed 14, and died at the age of 39.




Our travels through South Carolina and Georgia ended at an airport hotel, a tram-ride away from the terminal in Atlanta. We took our time that evening at dinner, and talked about the trip, our visit with the Horton’s, and our impressions of Andalusia and Milledgeville. Later, back in our room, we fell asleep watching television and dreaming of a quick flight home.

Is it truly strange that after so many miles and so many new sights and locales, I should be most affected by three houses? Houses are the silent sentinels of our memories and lives. I feel that connection whenever I drive past our first house on Yarmouth Avenue, or visit my mom’s home in Venice. Those structures contain years and years of emotions and experiences, with their hidden stories of happiness, sadness, fears, and triumphs. I think it was our visit to Bluffton that set the tone for the trip. Visiting Kathy and Ken was the central event of our travels, and it influenced all our perceptions. It’s comforting to know that we can travel 2400 miles to a house in South Carolina and still feel like home.