If you don't walk as most people do

Waiting on the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage has got me thinking about how my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has influenced my opinions on the matter. I grew up Mormon in the most Mormon county in the most Mormon state in the U.S., though my experiences in "Happy Valley" were more varied than you might expect.


I went to high school and on a mission with the son of the single largest donor to Yes on 8, Alan Ashton, co-founder of WordPerfect, who single handedly gave a million dollars to the California proposition to ban gay marriage. Every Halloween we would trick-or-treat Bruce Bastian, the other co-founder of WordPerfect, who is openly gay and gave a million dollars to No on 8 (and who also handed out king-size candy bars). My mission president Kevin Hamilton, now a general authority, was the LDS public affairs director in California during Prop. 8 and wrote the unofficial response to criticism of Mormon activism on the issue (called colloquially the Hamilton Letter). I've attended church with Mitch Mayne, the openly gay executive secretary in my cousin's ward in San Francisco. My uncle John was gay and died of AIDs. I participated in Boy Scouts as a youth and currently serve as a scoutmaster in Fairbanks where several boys in our stake have come out over the last few years. Finally the LDS church's position on homosexuality, summarized in the quasi-canonized The Family: A Proclamation to the World was central to my father leaving the church when I was 13.

When I was in San Francisco last December for a science conference I met up with my first and longest friend (coincidentally also the child of a WordPerfect executive) and a conversation we had changed the way I view Mormonism and homosexuality. Nora and I have known each other since we were three. She left the church when her parents divorced soon after mine did, and several years later discovered that she was lesbian. She now feels that the church is a patriarchal and homophobic institution unwieldy to social reason and change, which of course gives us plenty to talk about as I am a fully practicing and believing Mormon. We were talking about the overall effect of Mormon teachings on its adherents' views towards homosexuality. Do church teachings and culture result in a net increase or decrease in peace, love, tolerance, and acceptance of gays and lesbians. Going into that conversation I think we both assumed that the answer was no. 

We started talking statistics and soon found that they was shockingly little data on LGBT social and mental well-being (the Wikipedia article on Lord Voldemort is three times as long as the article on LGBT suicide). While it is broadly held that suicide among LGBT youth is shockingly common (several times the national average ) there is no data suggesting that gay Mormon youth are more likely to attempt suicide than gay non-Mormon youths (Mitch Mayne has a thoughtful article on the subject of Mormon gay suicide). After twenty minutes or so of discussing generalities we started talking about individuals, particularly me. I am a Mormon, but I feel no separation from or judgement of my gay and lesbian friends. Is my acceptance of gays and lesbians in spite of or because of my interactions with the church? That's when one of my favorite church children's songs came into my mind, I'll walk with you:

If you don’t walk as most people do, Some people walk away from you, But I won’t! I won’t!

If you don’t talk as most people do, Some people talk and laugh at you, But I won’t! I won’t!

I’ll walk with you. I’ll talk with you. That’s how I’ll show my love for you.

Five years old, I remembered sitting in my tiny orange primary chair singing that song and feeling resonance and rightness course through my body (feelings that I now recognize as The Spirit or Holy Ghost). I committed to befriend not bully those who are different. I didn't know at the time that the song was written by Carol Lynn Pearson, about her husband who left her for a man and who she took back and cared for as he died of AIDS. I do now and understand more why its message had such a profound impact. That divine truth of non-judgmental kindness towards all was reinforced by hundreds of Sunday school lessons, discussions on campouts, and interviews with leaders. That is not just a tertiary plot that you can find if you look for it in scripture, that is the theme of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the central point of the Book of Mormon.

The teachings I received in Sunday school and since encouraged me to be more peaceful and accepting. I believe that children exposed to such teachings are less likely to bully, mock, or denigrate gay or lesbian classmates, or anyone who differs, by choice, environment, or genetic disposition. I was taught that acting on homosexual feelings was sinful, though it wasn't emphasized as more grievous than other sexual transgression (such as heterosexual sex outside of marriage), and the distinction was always made that homosexual feelings or orientation were not sin, only following those feelings.

I am not saying that the influence of the church is wholly positive and uplifting towards gays and lesbians. Mormonism consists of the doctrine (principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ found in the Bible, Book of Mormon, and other scripture), church institutions (leaders, organizations, programs), and Mormon culture (predominant attitudes of members, physical community, and personalities). There are clearly large failings in church institutions and culture, though thankfully efforts are being made to welcome gay and lesbians within and outside the church as evidenced by the recent launch of www.mormonsandgays.org. I do believe, however that several aspects of church operations and culture have long encouraged broader thinking, acceptance, and love.

First, while the church can seem ideologically homogeneous from the outside, my experience has been that it provides a precious forum for meaningful interactions with people more different from yourself than you would have almost anywhere else. We seek out like-minded friends and we work with people in our same socio-economic bracket (plus open conversation and exchange of values is unfortunately frowned upon in some professional circles). Church is where I sit between professors, plumbers, high school teachers, free spirits from deep in the boreal forest, unemployed, doctors, and basketball players. Church is when I can openly discuss my civil and spiritual values with those brothers and sisters. Being involved in each others' lives makes us less likely to hate and fear. This diversity of opinion is evidence in the multitude of views held by gay and straight members of the church on homosexuality. I have gay friends still active in the church and fully supporting the church’s positions, still active in the church but holding that the church is mistaken on this issue, not active in the church but still believing in the restored gospel as taught by the church, not active in the church and not believing it is true. I have straight friends in all of those same categories. Many believe the church will eventually accept gay marriage and many do not, but interacting with the other side makes you less likely to assume someone is an idiot for thinking differently than you.

Along a similar vein, it is difficult to serve an LDS mission and not return with a broader and humbler worldview. As a missionary you serve so intensely and care so deeply for all the people in your area, not just those who are or may become members of the church. That love fosters empathy, tolerance, and respect. There are certainly a few snide, proud, or mean-spirited missionaries but the majority I have met and served with are wide-eyed and sincere.

Last, from church headquarters to the deacon's quorum at Salcha Branch, the church operates in councils. Decisions are made and goals are set by groups of people in open discussion. The process of counseling with other members of the church tempers and moderates views. The network of councils and committees in the church creates a safety network to temper the extreme views of any one participant. Bad decisions are still made and insensitive policies put forth, but I have seen surprising wisdom, patience, and love come from the councils I have interacted with.

Nora didn't agree with many of my positions, but she listened and I listened to hers. I have several friends whose experiences are very different than mine, who feel that the institutions of the church treated them severely and abusively. My experiences don’t invalidate theirs. Every ward (congregation) is different and even within the same ward, individual background and temperament will elicit different behavior from the involved parties. But my experience isn't invalidated either. I simply put my thesis and experience forward, that the church has influenced me and many others to be more loving, accepting, and non-judgmental.

As far as the supreme court ruling is concerned, I do not believe there are constitutional grounds to deny gay couples the right to marry and I hope they so rule. I don't believe that allowing same-sex couples to marry is a threat to heterosexual marriage or that it will increase the incidence of homosexuality. The civil rights associated with marriage should be available to all couples, following the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. I don't think that people who hope for the opposite ruling are evil, homophobic, or uninformed. Any effort to portray a viewpoint in such a way to prevent or discourage someone holding a different viewpoint to engage with or listen to that viewpoint is a misguided effort. We should all do more listening and less judging.

We Mormons have our own history with "non-traditional" marriage. In the late 19th century the church's practice of polygamy was the national scandal. Acts of congress and appeals to the constitution ensued, very similar to those of the current struggle with gay marriage. We believed then that consensual sexual and marital practices, however nonconforming or imaginative, were protected by the First Amendment. Some of the Mormon reticence towards allowing civil same-sex marriage may be rooted in lessons learned or scars from the tumultuous battle and defeat with the federal government over plural marriage rights. In any case, I believe the ending of Mormon polygamy was inspired (along with being politically expedient) and am grateful it ended in 1890. The point is, whether one considers the practice of homosexuality immoral or no, I have not yet heard a cogent constitutional argument justifying why same-sex couples shouldn't be able to marry.

On the question of gay couples adopting children, I think there are legitimate questions to be raised about optimum environments for children. While these questions aren't necessarily any more complex than eligibility criteria adoption agencies wrestle with currently in regards to selecting heterosexual couples for adoption, much of the research on gay parents is politically charged (on both sides) and there is much we still don't know. Elder Oaks (one of the 12 apostles) brought up this question in a respectful way in last year's October Conference when he quoted a New York Times article (Gay Parents and the Marriage Debate) about how we do not yet know the implications of same-sex parents for adopted children, that this is a social experiment. We are talking about redefining human institutions that have been in place for many millennia and caution is merited.

I'm reminded of Nephi’s interview with an angel in 1 Nephi chapter 11. When the angel asks him "Knowest thou the condescension of God?" Nephi responds, "I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." I think this is one of our doctrines we most often set aside, focusing on how much we know. We identify ourselves as the church with answers, and while we do have detailed explanations for many of life’s puzzles, we should never forget that we are to live by faith (not knowledge) in a world of uncertainty. This scripture has certainly comforted me as I have struggled with the Church’s position towards gay marriage and homosexuality in general. I do not know how this issue will eventually be sorted, whether the church will one day acknowledge and accept homosexual marriage or not. I do however know that God loves all his children, LGBT and even me. I learned that in Sunday school.

The cost of living

March 2007

“Free Paper!”

“He’s not a very good salesman,” I mutter to myself. “He didn’t even look at me.” As I pass, an article about Utah groundwater disputes catches my attention; I’ve always had a soft spot for aquifers. Despite the risk of smashing a passer-by with my protrusive, stuffed-to-capacity, daypack, I whirl around in the crowded hallway to face the Salt Lake Tribune subscription pusher.

            He is perched on a long-legged stool, hunkered over dual stacks of his “free” newspapers like a fisherman hovering above his hook. Now wanting the paper’s weather report, I interrupt his sermon on the excellent annual rates “offered exclusively to USU students.”

            “Do you deliver to PO boxes?”

            “We can deliver to your house or apartment.” Classic sales-speak: never admit that you can’t do something, just answer a new question that you can say yes to.

            “I only have a PO box here in the TSC. I live outside.”

            “Well . . .” I can almost hear him wince as he realizes that the Trib isn’t able to deal with this particular contingency and that I am going to get away with a free paper (as offered) but no subscription. “. . . OK then, have a nice day.”

            I thank him politely and spin back into the flow of students with my paper, eager to catch up on the “Western Water War.”

             In an effort to expose myself to the natural world, I live without walls, outside in the elements. Our beliefs are shaped by what we experience and by the eyes through which we see those experiences. After having lived a specific event, we incorporate it into our ideology with comparisons and liaisons, boxes and bridges. We think: “good” or “bad,” “possible” or “inapplicable.” These labels and groupings allow us to interpret the world around us. They also can trap us if we don’t methodically challenge the assumptions and lenses the world around us offers.

In the fall of 2003, due to increased costs of living, particularly of the non-monetary sort, I decided to live outdoors. I wanted to explore, to see and better understand my conditioning and true dependencies. I wanted to hear the deer tiptoe down the limestone scree each evening. My skin wanted to touch the night air. I wanted to know what I really needed and what I had just been taught to need.

College students are generally curious and sociable. In most conversations the question eventually comes up, “and you Ben, where do you live?” After admitting that I “camp-out,” as levelheadedly as I can manage, the person I’m speaking with goes all squinty-eyed, leans back and suspiciously contests my claim. “Nuh-uh.” I try not to justify myself, instead relying on the silence to assert, in effect “I can’t prove it to you, but yes, I really do live outside.” Once my credibility is established, cascade of incredulous inquiries ensues. I’m always grateful for these impromptu interrogators. Indeed, their questions reveal what amenities, habits, and behaviors they consider to be the most indispensable.

“Where do you Shower?”

“. . . three, four, five” I count the liquid hand-soap dispenser pumps. “Just enough for a good washing.” My bare feet squeak on the tiled floor as I slide past the toilet stalls to the tan, utilitarian shower room. Carefully cupping the gelatinous detergent in my left hand and sheltering it behind my back, I pull the unwieldy faucet and twist it all the way to the “H.” The pad of early morning joggers percolates into the acoustically sensitive room from the indoor track, mingling with a wetly whistled version of “Born on the Bayou.” I cock my head to listen for the 6:30 wave of ROTC students. They always go straight for the toilets. Using a urinal isn’t, in itself, inconsiderate, but the flush chokes the usually robust shower-stream to a pitiful trickle, which is tepid and inconvenient. Grateful for my solitude, I lather the rich, pink hand-soap into my drenched hair. The shampoo industry is a crock.

Bathing is an important behavior socially, hygienically, and psychologically. Since it requires a highly specialized, even sophisticated dwelling, it was one of the first issues I had to deal with in order to move outside. For $30.00 a semester you can rent a brown 10” by 24” locker in the Field House. Though designed to hold a towel and running shorts, it also fits books, shaving cream, a helmet, biking shoes and a full wardrobe of clothes. One day, on the way to the laundromat my friend Tommy told me, “You have fewer clothes than my 5 year old has socks.”  The Field House fee also gives you access to a fresh, white towel. Once soiled, you simply toss it into an oversized, wheeled hamper near the building’s north entrance and a friendly, but professional, staff member hands you a new one.

A communal shower eliminates my dependence on a personally-owned facility. It also connects me to an unlikely, but delightful social network.

There is an odd camaraderie between users of the shower-room. We see a lot of each other but not very often. Most people go there once a day to lift weights, play basketball or take a physical education course. Because the Field House serves as my shower room and storage unit I go there considerably more frequently. Whenever I want to go on a bike-ride or read from “Eco-Economy” for my Watershed Science class, I have to pop into that steamy, tiled changing room. The inordinate amount of time I spend there usually goes unnoticed since none of the other “tenants” linger long enough to realize how consistently I’m there. This phenomenon of anonymity, combined with the fact that people are much less inquisitive when they’re naked, accounts for why I haven’t once been asked why I have so much crap crammed into that high aluminum box in the wall.

 “Where do you sleep?”

The crunch of tennis shoes on gravel wrenches me from sleep. Hoping I’m far enough off the trail not to be seen, I sink into my mummy-bag and try to blend into the underbrush. Something smashes into my foot.

“Ooof! What the . . .? Ah!”

The footsteps, initially sluggish, now sprint off into the early morning mist.

“They should hire me to rouse students every morning on their way to class; I bet that would vastly improve participation in early-morning courses,” I chuckle to myself, though I’m actually as worried as the poor girl who stepped on me. I quickly roll up my gear, in case she returns, and briskly walk to the Field House where my hot, dry towel awaits.

It takes me just over three minutes to unfold my red tarp, unroll my orange, self-inflating pad, and extract my blue and black sleeping bag from its tight compression sack. As far as “housekeeping” convenience goes, this lifestyle is pretty well unparalleled. Where security is concerned, however, things aren’t quiet as sure. After a few weeks “in the open” you build up a repertoire of camping nooks with little-to-no risk of discovery or harassment. There’s a great alcove just south of the Fine-Arts building, and an extensive patch of trees and shrubbery west of the Institute complex. Even when sleeping on campus I rarely worry about someone seeing me. The main danger of detection comes from the ruckus I make rolling up in the morning. Zippers, tarps and valves buzz, crinkle and hiss unless packed painfully slow. This caution used to retard my routine but I’ve learned that an explosive burst from the bushes draws less attention. Once in the open I take my time drying and packing my gear in the hot Utah sun.

“Where do you go during the day?”

The moisture from my damp sleeping bag humidifies the bright corner on the second floor of the Merrill-Cazier Library. Grateful for the wide windows, I lean back in the richly upholstered chair, cracking my back over its back. Cracker crumbs, dislodged from my mustache, fall to the floor where my gear lies steaming in the sun. Students, scattered along the handsome wooden study-stations type studiously, apparently indifferent of my unorthodox use of the public space we share.

            The library, Student Center, Fine Arts Building and Natural Resources Building are my most frequent haunts. In their halls, classrooms and student lounges, I do homework, eat, socialize and play. My access to these areas, assured by my status as a student, provides me with space, heat, water, toilets and internet access. While it’s nice to never need to clean the bathroom, it’s also humbling to have no control over the space you inhabit.

Outside, I don’t experience the same uneasiness concerning property rights. I’m most comfortable in the canyons or hills. We attempt to divide natural resources and fence off parcels of wilderness, but the nature of Nature eludes ownership altogether. We all have equal rights in the landscape to which we belong.

“What about when it gets cold?”

An unidentified liquid, most likely drool or dew, oozes across my clammy cheek and drips onto my synthetic sleeping bag where it freezes. I can’t feel my nose. My hands won’t close the zipper on my coat. Morning moisture flakes and falls from my frosty bike to the icy ground as I hurriedly secure my bulging backpack in the basket.

I have a sleeping bag rated to zero degrees Fahrenheit. I was unaware, however, when I purchased the inexpensive sack, that this is a “survival rating.” When supplemented by an emergency blanket, a good pad, and every article of clothing I own, my “High Mountain” bag keeps me from freezing to death. On really cold nights I sleep on a ventilation grate. Every morning I’m temporarily deafened by the rumbling, but the warmth is worth it. There are advantages to cold spells. I can be sure that no one has visited my “campsite”—the snow keeps track for me. Also, around the 15^th of September the mosquitoes, ants, and spiders stop trying to sleep with me. On the subject of intimacy, living outdoors I’m connected to the earth’s circadian rhythms and aware of its moods, patterns, and changes. The weather controls my life more than the typical collegiate.

“What do you eat?”

“Ding, Ding, Ding,” the cheerful microwave chime calls me from the corner of the Student Center “Hub.” I hurry over and peer through the dim window to see if my meal is ready. Slurping the instant potatoes (watered down into a drinkable soup) from my “Rubbermaid” lidded bowl, I smile. That bowl’s the best $2.39 I’ve ever spent. It has survived countless nukings.

With 23,000 undergraduates currently enrolled at Utah State, there is a free dinner, lunch, or opening social almost every day. With selective attention to the events calendar, and by getting on a half-dozen club e-mailing lists, you can count on at least 2,500 calories a day. I supplement my scavenged diet with “Quaker Instant Oatmeal” packets, dehydrated potatoes and rice, and an occasional loaf from the “Wonder-Bread” outlet’s dumpster down on First West. My eating expenses are almost zero but my food intake is largely determined by chance and luck.

“What do your parents think about it?”

“Have a good semester and be safe honey.” My short, brown-haired mother ushered me out the door, unperturbed and confidently unconcerned about my decision to camp here and there.

 “Serious students need a place to study and stack their books. You’re going to expend all your energy on subsisting,” my father fretted when I proposed the idea to him (a few days before heading up to school). Despite his apprehensions he drove me up to Logan my first semester outside. I assured him that it wasn’t financial or social constraints causing me to camp out. I buttered him up a little, reasoning that I’d be able to give more time to my studies since I wouldn’t be so immersed in the dorm social scene. The jury’s still out as to whether my decent grades are due to my alternative lifestyle or just a healthy fear of losing my tuition waiver, but this explanation seemed to calm my father. Subsequently, he has become a great supporter and chronicler of my experiment.

“How do you date?”

“Should we meet at your place or at mine?”

“I’ll come by at 8:30 OK?” I respond quickly, without hesitation, grateful she had posed the question that way.

“OK, what’s your number?”

“Uh,” This time I stall, looking upward for inspiration. “E-mail is the best way to get a hold of me. Send me a message if you can’t make it, alright?”

“Sounds good. Are you driving or me?”

“How bout we walk?”

“Uh, sure. OK see ya!”

The puzzled girl I just asked out waves politely as she steps through the library doors. I turn back my to research. It will be easier to explain once we’re actually on the date. 

With no house, car, phone, roommates, or consistent venue for socializing, I encounter a selective slice of the student population. These challenges haven’t seriously impeded my social success, however. My camping out is often considered novel and interesting. My homelessness isn’t ultimately motivated by a desire to pick up on women, but my occasional attempts at drawing their attention are helped more than inhibited by this peculiarity.

“Why do you do it?”

The buzz and snap of my bike’s tires heightens as I pick up momentum on the old banked hill, just west of campus. My shoulders shudder involuntarily, not from the cold, but from a jubilant impulse issuing from every corner of my body. I hoot and then yelp, unable to contain the surge of compact speed and hearty simplicity the early morning trip to the laundromat infuses me with. Distributed between my backpack and my bike-basket, I’m carrying everything I own.

I camp out because I feel invigorated by the whiff and bite of winter wind; because it minimizes my ecological footprint; because I feel more aware of what is necessary and what is expendable; because I don’t need an alarm clock or vacuum cleaner. There is something primal and earthy about the daily necessities of rolling up camp, finding places to stay dry, and having to expend energy to assure myself a consistent caloric intake. When the sun hangs low over the Wellsvilles around 5:00 pm, or when the temperature plummets unexpectedly, I often feel an intimate communion with the hundreds of thousands of other human beings who live, or have lived, from day to day, between buildings and beside trees. It’s a curious sensation and surprisingly appropriate to life.

Living outside has afforded me a delicious sensation of communion with nature, freedom and mobility. Freedom isn’t, however, inversely proportional to dependence. Those who own or use more than I do aren’t necessarily enslaved by their possessions. Nonetheless our ability to live deliberately is compromised when we are ignorant of the fact that our so-called “dependencies” are often imposed by others’ preferences and traditions. The longer I live under the liquid moon the more I’m convinced that exposure to night air teaches us our true context and place in the world. The more aware we are of what we truly need to be happy, the more we can serve those around us—the more we can relish the ironies and idiosyncrasies of this lopsided and unlikely existence. With new experience comes exciting detachment—new perspective that permits us to see our worlds from the outside. So I’m willing to live without.

To hear the wind through the trees
I took down my four walls
and stepped quietly into the moonlight
to the sound of snowfalls.

Ben Abbott, November First 2006

Father Son Conundrum

23 August 2003 
2 p.m., Sunday

Ben loads his mountainbike into the back of my van, throws in a backpack bulging with a tent, sleeping bag, and cooking equipment, adds a cloth bag full of books and a little dufflebag holding a few clothes, tosses in a bike helmet, and we're off, headed from Orem to Logan, where Ben will start his second year at USU.

My eighteen-year-old son is just back from Colorado where he and his friends Erike and Gabe have spent most of a week camping below Conundrum Peak.

We talked philosophy, Ben tells me, while relaxing for hours in hot springs and later while backed into a rocky hole in the scree above timberline while a wild thunderstorm boomed around us. We played lots of music, me on mandolin, Erkke on his backpacking guitar, and Gabe on penny whistle. And on the way home I came up with what I call the elevator theory of education.

Glad you’re going back to school, I say, elevator or not. Do you have enough money for the semester.

Sure do, Ben answers. $600 cash from my scholarship after tuition and fees. $400 from my last construction job with Brandon. And $1000 in my bank account.

Although I’ve been biting my tongue through Salt Lake and past Bountiful, I finally can't keep myself from asking: So with all that money, why are you so intent on camping in the canyon for the semester? I’d happily pay your rent.

I wouldn't stay up the canyon out of necessity, Ben answers decisively. It's something I want to do.

I'm worried, I add, that you'll spend so much time surviving that you'll neglect your chemistry and calculus and American lit.

I've thought that through, Ben answers. The time I'll save from social activities in the dorms will more than make up for the lost time.

Driving through Ogden, I continue to press my objections: Now I'm worried about your state of solitude. There's a good chance you'll become a new unibomber.

No, Dad, Ben starts . . . but I break in: It doesn't matter what you argue, Ben, I'll just have another worry based on the last conclusion. Let's change the subject.

Ben describes last spring’s bike trip from Logan down to the Bear River Bird Refuge and back. He's a fine raconteur, and by the time he's finished, we're entering Logan. So are lots of other parents and students. I look at their packed cars jealously, certain they have a house or a room with an address to go to. Ben guides me up the hill, past his dorm from last year, through a quiet, well-cared-for neighborhood, up a road leading to a little cut in the hills north- east of town, onto a gravel road. A couple of restrooms stand at a trailhead. We drive up the canyon a ways, and Ben announces that this is the place. He takes out his bike, his bags, and gives me a big hug.

Take care, I say, and hand him five twenties. Security funds.

Thanks, Dad. This will come in handy. Take care yourself.

I will, I promise, and guide the van down the canyon, through Logan, and south toward Utah Valley, my mind buzzing with worry and pride, climbing my own conundrum peak.

08/25/03 02:46PM
benjawa <benjawa@cc.usu.edu>  

Hey pops,

You should see the spot I found. It's a secluded oak grove quite a way above those picnic tables we looked at. Its only drawback is a touch of slantiness so I woke up in a bundle at the bottom of the tent. It's hidden enough though that I'm confident of the area’s robber-free status. I rented a locker at the field house and a p.o. box at the post office and bought a stove and a sports radio last night. Your money was really helpful thank you. I've met lots of people and run into lots of people I already know. My geomorphology class is excellent and my chemistry professor has already proved himself to be three or four times the teacher of my last year’s crap-head professor. You start school on Wednesday correct? Well good luck and love from me. Thank you so much again for the ride yesterday and all your love and money.

Ben

26 August 2003 
ABBOTTSC@uvsc.edu

Hi Ben,

thanks for the email. It gives me a sense for where you are, and that you are. I know it's a virtual space, but it's a real message. Glad to share my love and money.

Driving home yesterday, after leaving you and your precious few things in Green Canyon, my head was spinning with thoughts. To deal with them, the good ones as well as the bad ones, I gathered them into groups, compared them with each other, figured out alternative takes on the issue, and gradually realized I was writing a piece in my mind. Why shouldn't Ben and I, I thought, use our daily emails to talk about this attempt to live in solitude outside the normal structures of student dwelling?
Are you interested in a daily exchange of thoughts on survival, on dwelling, on space, on nature, on home, on learning, on our relationship.

There’s a risk, of course. Free and open correspondence between father and son can get tricky. Franz Kafka’s letter to his father, for instance, must have been a hard pill for Mr. Kafka to swallow:

      Dearest Father,

      You recently asked me why I claim to be afraid of you. As usual, I had no answer,     

      partly because I am afraid of you, partly because in order to explain the fear would 

      require more details than I could even begin to bring together in a conversation. . . 

      Franz

Are we willing to risk written conversation? What the hell is geomorphology?

love, Dad

08/26/03 05:54PM 

benjawa <benjawa@cc.usu.edu> 

Dad,

I love the idea. I'm incensed in fact. I watched the most glorious sunset of my life last night while the indoor students socialized and you know I couldn't say which activity was more worthwhile. It sure it strange though to think of the restless dorm energy interactions which are immediately cotemporary to me sitting on a log trying to find audio patterns in the treble harmonies of cicada and cricket. In a way the other students are surrounded by life. In a way I'm surrounded by life.

Last night I didn't bring up enough water so I mooched from a group of drum players in Triangle Cave, a popular pot smoking destination about five hundred yards from my camp. I left my food bag unzipped and came home (I feel like saying "came camp" rather than "came home") to a bagful of immature boxelder bugs. I had to eat though. Maybe I could sell my "shaved almond a la beetle" muffins to Albertsons.

love, 
Ben

p.s. Geo- earth Morph- shape or change Ology- the study of

28 August 2003 
ABBOTTSC@uvsc.edu

Good morning Ben.

I'm pleased as punch to hear from you (although it makes me nervous to think you are "incensed" about writing with me).

I woke up in the night to flashes of lightning and booms of thunder. It was so pleasurable to hear the rain and feel a relief from the dry and hot summer. Pleasurable, that is, till my mind turned to Green Canyon. How did you do last night?

I'm working today on a syllabus for my Ethics and Values class, Philosophy 2050. After reading enough ethical theory so the students can distinguish divine command theory from utilitarianism and deontology, I think we'll work for the rest of the semester on questions of war.

You’re taking geomorphology, American literature, chemistry, calculus 2, watershed biology, biking, and frisbee? Is that the list?

I was wondering about water. How will you solve that problem as time passes? A camelback with a big bladder? With a couple of bladders?

love you, Dad

29 August 2003 

Good evening Father,

I've had the most excellent of days. It started out in a heavy rain but I'll tell ya, Sierra designs a good tent. I was in the mood to "be connected" this morning so I turned on my new $5.00 sports radio and listened to the only station I get, 92.3 bible radio. I rode on drying roads to classes. It was a fierce frisbee game today and then a challenging geomorphology lecture on the fundamental forces of landsculpting. On top of good instruction in my cycling class, we get a twenty percent discount at Sunrise Cyclery.

After only three days I already feel so much more comfortable under the open sky. I was pretty nervous the first night. I spooked myself into a dizzy in fact but I've ridden up to my camp after dark these last two nights feeling fine. I've discovered another illicit canyon tenant. He's got brown hair and sleeps in a purple sleeping bag in the bed of a white pickup truck in the parking lot about three quarters of a mile distant from my camp. When the rain started this morning I heard him curse and start up his truck. Acoustically I don't have any privacy. Even joggers seem to make a racket on the gravelly path. The canyon amplifies everything.

On the subject of water, I bike up drinking water every now and again. For dish cleaning water I use the Logan Canal which is only about a mile down the trail and road. Each night I park my bike only about 15 meters from the trail and then hike up to my site, careful to pick a different route each time to avoid establishing a trail. This is out of respect for the grass and also in defense of my gear.

Well, love you Dad, 
Ben

29 August 2003 

Dear Ben,

Friday afternoon, parking lots starting to empty outside my office. Rain this morning, which felt good, and which made me think of you.

Your last email was sent last night just before 10, which means you must have biked "home" in the dark. Has it indeed started to feel like home?

Yesterday, in my ethics and values class, I had the students read Kant's "What is Enlightenment?" (1784), including this sentence: “Statutes and formulas, those mechanical tools of the rational employment or rather misemployment of his natural gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting tutelage.” Searching for an example to clarify that passage, I told the story of our Sunday drive into Logan, of dropping you off in the canyon, of my "statutes and formulas" linking students to dorms or apartments and of your independent thinking that saw "student" and four walls and a roof as not necessarily connected. Oh my god, one young woman said, what high school did he go to? Orem High, I answered. Oh my god, she said again, Ben Abbott! It makes perfect sense! I know him too, a second student piped up. I sang in Show and Chamber Choir with him.

Ben, you’re famous! 

Dad

09/02/03 21:38 PM

Dad,

Thursday was a long and involved night. I arrived at camp relatively early, around 7:00 p.m., read some and watched the turmeric yellow sunset. By 9:00 I was asleep but a nightmare about wolves woke me up. I turned the radio to the bible station and listened to a sermon to soothe my fear. After killing a few stowaway spiders I settled down and thrashed for five hours. I couldn't get comfortable, the angle of repose was too sheer. My body just wouldn't relax so at 2:00 a.m. I gave up on the tent and threw my sleeping bag into a field of thigh-high grass about 20 yards from my official camp. Oh what bliss the flatness was. Then, of course, came the high-pitched hum of mosquitoes. I smashed the first one on my forehead and then fell asleep.

At 5:00 a.m. I awoke to find my face itching and tickling with a million tiny ant feet. I sat up swatting violently, but was puzzled to find my skin strangely ant free. I looked up to the sky in wonderment and then looked around the entire field. Clouds had rolled in and the humidity had made the tall grass lose some of its rigidity, causing some of it to droop down and brush against my face. I laid back down and watched the powerful ghost-white clouds float on, amazed at the dynamic subtleties of nature as a nightjar called nearby.

The grass barometer was correct and at about 8:00 a.m. rain woke me up to three black widows who had decided to take me as husband during the night. They had begun constructing webs between my bag and the grass. I carefully packed up my gear, covered it carefully with my twelve-dollar space- blanket/tarp, and left the red bundle of my possessions peacefully shedding droplets in the forest for the weekend.

Dad, who was it that remembered me in your class? Give them a hello from me (and also if they're attractive feel free to give them my e-mail address).

I like that Kant quote though I can't quite see what his goal is. Is a lasting and absolute truth his goal or is he resigned to the constant re- evaluation of "everlasting tutelage." The idea of an absolute truth is a comfort and also a depressing sentiment. Oh how I'd like to rest, to find some type of ideological retirement, some "this is it." I wonder how long I'd be content. I'm reminded of Dylan’s lyric from "Visions of Johannah," "inside the museums, infinity goes up on trial. Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while. But Mona Lisa had the highway blues you can tell by the way she smiles."


Love you Dad, 
Ben

3 September 2003 

Dear Ben,

10 p.m. Wednesday night. I'm soooo pleased to read your email from last night, even if it looked like it was sent just before midnight and the thought of you biking up the canyon in the dark still worries me (although last night while I was standing in my skivvies in the back yard under the bright stars sometime after midnight throwing rocks at a half-grown yowling kitten I looked up at the half moon and thought gratefully it must have guided you home).

Kant and truth? He's pretty interested in truth, but he's also the guy who brought us an abiding skepticism about our access to what he called "the thing in and of itself -- das Ding an sich." Make of that what you will.

As for the two young women in my class, they're both attractive and I'll pass on your email address. I like that you used the word "attractive" rather than good looking. It's broader and richer. But it sounds like you're already hitched to those black widows.

Dylan ought to have a Nobel Prize, don't you think!

love you, and take care. 
Dad

7 September 2003 

Dear Ben,

Where the hell are you? Nothing since early last week. Swallowed up by the universe?
Dad

9 September 2003 

Dear Dad,

Sorry about the communicative hiatus. I went to the Sawtooth Mts in central Idaho with the FOP (friends of the Pleistocene). They're a group of geologists from all around the U.S. who get together once a year and go on these theme-based geologic tours. This year’s FOP was on the effects of crown fires on debris flows in the Sawtooth Mts. We camped next to some hot springs and sang geology songs around the campfire. "Go go, go glacier go, go go, go glacier go, go go, Glacier be cold."

I'm covered with oozing bugbites from I don't know what. It's rained quiet a bit but I've just been sleeping under the stars (and my red tarp). Every trip up the canyon is easier, although I just remembered – on Thursday I lost my bike key and ran the four miles from campus. On Friday I gave up on ever finding my U-lock key and called campus police. "So, your bike is locked up to a tree and you live in Green Canyon??" the incredulous dispatcher asked. They eventually sent an officer and then he called for backup and a guy came with a grinder and in an impressive fan of sparks they vanquished my trusty bike lock.

Not having the heart to throw it away, I hid the lock corpse behind a row of bushes by the Ray B. West building and I eat lunch by it sometimes.

I feel a little strange today. Pensive. . . maybe, melancholy. . . yeah I guess a little bit but it's mostly just a mood thing. Tom and I talked about our moods on the phone a few weeks ago. He said that just once or twice a month nothing glimmers anymore, appeal dissolves into dark indifference and you wallow for a few days. I'm in the midst of such a wallow. I'm OK though.

Love, 
Ben

p.s. What were you like at my age? What did you believe in, who did you read, what were you passionate about, what did you think about?

10 September 2003 

Hey Ben,

Sooooooooooooooo nice to hear from you, and to learn that you weren't lying among the embers of a lightning-induced fire or that you hadn't broken your leg in the night trying to get back to camp and then had been pecked to death by hungry magpies or that you hadn't fallen victim to a bevy of drug-crazed and sex-starved ex-students. You had just gone on a field trip!

I'm surprising myself at the level of ambient nervousness I'm feeling. I guess I ought to remember my feelings when Tom was scratching together a living playing his sax in the New York subway or when Maren had police burst into her apartment at Snow College. If you care for someone deeply, you're letting yourself in for anxious moments as well as sweet ones.

More later. And love now. 
Dad

09/12/03 11:45AM 

Dad,

I'm going to a College of Natural Resources leadership retreat this weekend so you won't hear from me but I can't wait to write you. So much has happened (foxes, moons, Rousseau's paintings, lovers, Buddhists. . .) and I feel like a new person. Man, life is really great, I'll tell you about it later.

for now remember that I love you. 
Ben
p.s. I still want to know what you were like at my age.

14 September 2003 

Dear Ben,

Your Friday email left me with an easier heart, knowing (sort of) where you would be. Your list about what has happened (foxes, moons, Rousseau's paintings, lovers, Buddhists. . .) has me wondering if we ought to have a father/son talk about the potential psychological and health dangers of multiple lovers. (Is this middle-aged jealousy talking?)

You mentioned depression, and said you had talked with Tom about his bouts with that old slayer of liveliness. I wrestle occasionally with what feels like a laming sadness, a kind of miserable melancholy; and your mother does as well. That makes you prime genetic material for the disease. I don't court depression, but I do see it as a welcome reminder that I'm human, that I'm mortal; and in the process, those dark scrims set off the brighter days of my life all the more brilliantly.

Now, to an earlier question about my life as an 18 year old. Of that first year at college I have several clear memories:

1. A brief but passionate couple of months in the company of a fellow honors student, a girl from California whose kisses graduated me suddenly from high school to college.

2. The intellectual thrill of lectures, hanging around the honors reading room, films, lots of reading — the general excitement of college.

I was outgoing, yet shy, curious but a bit lazy, very interested in girls but a little backward, drawn to dress well but poor as a junior-high-school teacher's son. I stayed on campus over Thanksgiving, having collected extra dorm cafeteria food for a couple of weeks, rather than going home to Farmington, N.M., so I didn't see my parents from August till Christmas. I wrote to them twice, at most. Looking back, I'm amazed at that distance and pleased that you and I are sharing a richer conversation.

love, 
Dad

16 September 2003 

Daddio,

It sounded like a traffic jam this morning, The wind was thrashing the oaks all around me. A few hours and a few inches of snow later I decided it was time to go to school. I'd written a song "Victims like me of the wind and wet (an ode to fallen leaves)" that I whistled to myself on the 20-minute ride to school. My stiff plastic rain poncho gouged into my bare knees and meltoff ran down both legs and completely filled my boots.

Last week my newly purchased Ventura roadbike got stolen. It was a fine orange vehicle with aluminum toe clips and sleek, powerful lines. I'd bought it at the ORC gear swap for $20 along with a new 15-degree sleeping bag. Here’s the journal entry I made that night: "I write, humbled and grateful. Today was like a waking dream – so much became clearer. All my stuff fell from my backpack when I was riding through the rain across the fieldhouse intersection – books, newly washed laundry, and lettuce all got the wet road grime treatment. I laughed though, happy to be alive. Geomorphology was good. Afterwards Janet, Justin and I had a splendid time laughing for the sake of enjoyment. I ate a great sandwich, practiced 'My funny Valentine' and my bike got stolen. I walked across campus feeling quietly alone to get my trusty Marin Eldridge-grade mountain bike. On my ride home I stopped and pilfered some tart red apples from the 1400-north tree. I idly prayed and for whatever reason I started to freely cry.

“A fox was waiting for me at the trailhead of the path that leads to my tent. I stopped about five feet from it. It glided towards me and its large tail swung and bobbed purposefully behind. In the moonlight its body and tail were cream colored and its huge eyes were dark opal blue. It had this innocent secure energy about it that shook me to the core. Never in my life had I met a human being so completely unapologetic. It brushed against my left leg and then sat, leaning on my derailleur. A few seconds later it stood, gave me a nod and padded off down the trail. I'm not alone in the canyon anymore."

Dad, this whole week under the heavy moon has been extraordinary. A little bit later each night the moon drags its wintergreen light across my canyon making everything grey/blue/cream. The junipers look like polygon simplifications of trees. I feel like I'm sleeping in Rousseau's painting "The sleeping Gypsy" and I'm constantly expecting a curious lion to appear.

My comment about multiple lovers referred to three woman all of whom I am and am not in love with. Maybe “lover” wasn’t exactly the right word.

Hey I love you.

17 September 2003 

Good morning Ben.

just after 8 a.m., brilliant sun shining through my windows, fresh coffee brewing, and an email from you to read. Feels good.

Sorry about the theft of your bike, the rain on your books and wash and lettuce. Sounds like you dealt with it existentially and well. What a face-to-face meeting with the fox! It really leaned against your bike? The image of you standing there, having picked the apple like Adam, praying and weeping, undid me.

Take good care! 
Dad

18 September 2003 

Dad,

I've taken to sleeping with my toothpaste, otherwise I end up with frozen toothcake. Soon I'll start doing the same with my apricot preserve and peanut butter.

My two goals in this homeless venture are one: to conquer my fears of the beast and of being alone, and two: attempt to only own what I really need. In defining this need, past my physical necessities, I've included books, my guitar, mandolin, and movie camera. I get this sleek, stripped down feeling when I've got all my possessions on my back. I'm no St. Francis but I do hope to experience independence as fully as possible.

How are you father? Anything come of those girls I know in your class? What questions or dilemmas have you been thinking of? I've been wrestling with the problems of free will and have been trying to find a reliable determiner between foolhardiness and bravery. Any insights on those issues?

Ben

p.s. Some of my minimalizing has created new reliances. I dry my shoes off at the geology building heat vent and I have about a meal a day.

23 September 2003 

Hey Dad,

Monday, aggravated by a gimpy Achilles tendon, I rode home, barefoot, with that worthless, hollow, spit-and-grimace feeling. I pedaled up the gravel trail choking back dejection/terror tears and then barefooted, painstakingly picked a prickly path up to my juniper "garage" where I parked my bike. Then I heard a "CRACK!" from only a few feet ahead of me. My vision was still tinged with red from the exertion, but my nose was filled with an evil acidic odor. "SNAP!" This time I whipped out my 'Black Stallion' lock blade and jumped out from the confining cover of the tree into the clearing below my camp. "HOLY LUCIFER" I yelled, the earth was scalding hot and had burned my feet! I high-stepped up the path a few steps and looked back, bewildered. It was then that I noticed what looked like thousands of tiny red-glowing eyes, eyes of thousands of hellish imps marching in formation across the glade. A breeze blew a thick billow of smoke into my face and I realized that the mountain was on fire! I sprinted up to my camp, grabbed my 'Tropicana' gallon water container, jerked on my boots and was back to the demons seconds later. The cool breeze had quickly nursed the nascent embers into flames. A circular area about 20-feet across with a juniper dead in the middle was burning. I fell into that burning ring of fire and kicked, stomped, doused, dropped and rolled all over those flames.

I remembered that I'd seen a light up canyon and when I had most of the flames under control I ran down the trail, leaped across a 10-foot wide ravine and sprinted up the canyon access road screaming "Is there anyone up there at that light?!"

After a few seconds I heard a "Yeah, I'm up here," from up on the hillside. "Do you have any water? There's a fire across the canyon?"

"Not that much water, I've got a shovel though"

We jogged back towards the fire. He was a lanky, fit, leathery middle- aged guy who introduced himself simply as John. Together we dug a fire break, smothered all the glowing eyes, and then carefully sifted through the dry needles under the tree feeling for hotspots.

It looked like the fire had started right next to the trunk of the
juniper, smoldered deep into the parched, organic loam and slowly burned outward until it hit the grass. I'd somehow had the luck to get there right as it really began. The wind would have led it right to my tent and then right up the mountain. Not only would I have lost all my gear but I'm pretty sure the Forest Service would've hung me out to dry, I mean who would believe that it wasn't me? With the fire only feet from my camp and no other explainable ignition source I tell ya, that would have ruined my day.

Well, it's time to do some Chemistry (not the combustion kind). I've got a test on Wednesday.

Love, 
Ben

25 September 2003 

Hey Pops,

I got the nicest packages from Maren today. A snaps cowboy shirt and some cookies. Man she made me feel so good.

Today in American Lit. I lead a discussion on personality formation. The whole Nature/Nurture is relatively interesting but what I like to think about is free will. Self is prerequisite to choice, as far as I understand, so who is responsible? Is choice ramification and response, are we echos and rockslides or are we creators? I was thinking that perhaps the immense complexity of our response is what makes us humans. It's an intricate, synthetic, and I think beautiful dance between reactants and products.

I moved camp, the fire made me nervous and even vaguely suspect an arsonist. I'm closer to campus by about half a mile. I consciously made a urination perimeter around my tent which now makes me wonder if there is any interspecial territory respect. Do I smell menacing or wimpy. If I lift weights does my pee gain credence? Our explicit abstract language has replaced many of those subtle cues. We don't have a corner on the abstraction market though. Those forms of olfactory communication are just as representative as our hieroglyphs and vocal clicks. A certain smell isn't inherently offensive, the coyotes have simply learned what it means.

love, 
Ben

30 September 2003 

Dear Ben,

Glad you moved your camp. Vaguely suspecting an arsonist just adds to those subconscious anxieties that you fight in an unusual living situation, huh?
The question you are raising about nature/nurture, about biological determinism vs. free will and creativity is one I've been thinking about on and off over the last decade. Writing after my brother John's death of AIDS, I tried to think through how much of his sexual preference was chosen and how much biologically determined. There are good studies that link some sexual behavior to biological determiners. And – I was surprised and then pleased to find some gay activists who didn't want anything to do with biological arguments, who felt they had freely and creatively chosen their sexual preference.

A branch of the subject I particularly like is the Marxian one that questions our ability to act autonomously given the social and economic structures that bind us so tightly.

Got weekend plans?

love, 
Dad

6 October 2003 

Pops,

I've gone mobile and given my farewells as Green Canyon turns yellow and red. All my "necessaries" fit inside my backpack which I carry around with me. It gives me such flexibility and freedom. I'll study at the Merril library 'til closing time then stagger into the moonlight, unroll my bag and sleep. I feel so sleek, I'm condensed. The succulent, saccharine, seductive luxuries of on- campus, under-bush living come with a new set of perils however. Rain is mild and predictable compared to violent, viperous, hissing, horizontal, scouring sprinklers. I also miss the peace of the canyon. There's a lingering fear of discovery and a definite lack of privacy whenever I sleep on campus. Some of my friends let me sleep in their back yard under a restless elm next to a little stream which reminds me of some urbanized ghetto recreation of my Green canyon campground.

There's that old Puritan idea of Satan residing in the woods, nature's an uncivilized place of carnal and pagan character. Coming out of the woods I've gotten quite the opposite impression. The canyon was wholesome. Oak trees have no hidden motives, grass is for the sake of grass.

The way I live now is closer to a true homelessness. Strangely I feel the change from tent-canyon-dwelling to itinerant-plop-down-nook-sleeping was a bigger change than the house to canyon transition. I've fewer luxuries but the current organization of my possessions is as or more convenient than it ever has been before. Because each of my possessions carries with it a cost (the cost is I've got to carry it) I'm much more discriminating in what I decide to own. Most single purpose items have been eliminated, leaving me with an adaptive set of tools. It's so useful to have all the things necessary for camping in everyday life. I can cut open cracker packages, fix bikes, listen to the radio, brush my teeth, have a flashlight, and tell which way is north (actually I ditched my compass – too big), all with things I carry around with me. I don't have to walk –even across the room – to get to my closet, or sink, or kitchen, or bathroom and because I've reduced all these things to their basic elements I think it actually is more efficient for me to carry around my room than it was to live in it.

8 October 2003


Daddyo, 

I've traveled this last week. I went to Boseman Montana to see
Martin Sexton last Tuesday and then over the weekend I went to Durango Colorado with the USU cycling team and raced. The CC course wound across a sage meadow then up a steep technical canyon ascent and right back down a harrowing rocky cliff descent. It then rolled over gentle hills through an ancient fragrant green and tan juniper forest. Then up a ridge and back down into the starting meadow. I did well and beat most of USU's riders.

Have you ever read Kierkegaard’s "Fear and Trembling"? I've heard it was good and plan on reading it. I'm halfway through "The Botany of Desire" (I've read about the apple and the tulip- just about to come up on marijuana) and I completely love it.

What things are most essential to your lifestyle? What possesions have you leaned against most heavily? I mean both of these questions to refer to material, spiritual, and social things. Have you eaten any really good food lately? What is your favorite color?

love, 
Ben

9 October 2003 

Hey Pops,

Great day today. Paul Hawken gave a seminar on environmentally sustainable behavior that blew me away. This evening I went through the new USU art museum exhibit on west coast abstract impressionism and Miro surrealism. There are some really good pieces of art up here. You should come up, we could ride, eat, and enjoy. Well the full moon beckons, farewell.

(do you think of the moon and mars as feminine, masculine, or without gender?)

love, 
Ben

12 October 2003 

Dear Ben,

The moon. La luna. Der Mond. Three languages, three sexes. Then there’s the man in the moon. And green cheese feels feminine to me. So my jury’s out on that one. Mars, on the other hand, is masculine in my mind; too much bellicose male baggage tied to that red planet over the millennia. Your answers to the same questions?

13 October 2003 

Father Oh Father,

Just one thought in between a successfully completed American Literature class and a dull Economics class: My teacher mentioned "Wow, heavy load" as I lumbered out of class with my 37-pound pack. I retorted "Ahh but not nearly as heavy as all the things you tie yourself to." I then thought about it a little more and realized that the optimization of personal freedom and happiness is a profoundly subjective process. One man’s cage is another man’s ladder (I think that I just made that up).

Well pops, I'm happy, productive, and busy. How are you? 

love Ben

----- Original Message -----
From: Scott Abbott
To: kermit.hall@usu.edu
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2003 9:37 AM 
Subject: Your camping students

Dear President Hall,

My son Ben is one of the three USU students featured in this morning's Tribune story. I have been concerned about him, naturally, but also proud and supportive of him in this venture. I was pleased, then, by your statement on the educational possibilities of a more "natural" student experience. Ben's experience at USU has been exactly what a parent hopes for when sending a child to college.

I'm also an educator, Director of Integrated Studies at UVSC (saw you yesterday at our inaugural), and as part of Ben's and my shared responsibility in a slightly risky undertaking, we've been trying to think through the experience in writing, a column that will be published in Catalyst Magazine. I'll attach a version of it here, to give you a more detailed sense for what Ben (and I) have been learning.

all the best,

Scott Abbott
__________

Scott, thanks very much for sharing this with me. It is a unique situation, but I also think students have to find theier way. Let's keep in touch. I admire your approach.
Best, Kermit 

Hi Ben,

haven't talked with you through the ether for quite some time. I wanted to know, for instance, how the skyroom gig went. And how your classes are shaping up as we move toward the end of the semester. My advanced writing class, where students begin their senior thesis, has dwindled from 30 students to about 15 as the weight of the project gets to them. They'll have to start over next semester.

Lyn and I spent Saturday with a chain saw clearing maples and oak brush from the site where our house will sit. Hated to see those great trees (small but great) go down; but we'll burn them respectfully to heat the house when the time comes.

Okay, here's the bad news: Greta deJong didn't print our piece in the November Catalyst. No answer to about a dozen of my emails. No explanation. Nothing. She also didn't print my piece about Scott Carrier's photos, but at least she told me that she was full for November. Maybe she thought that was information about our piece too. Anyway, I was disappointed, and even a little angry. Because she didn't get back to me with any discussion, I have no idea how we'll fare for December.

But she's not the author of our fates. Let's keep writing.I want to hear your new adventures. And how the hell are you faring with the 16-degree temperatures and the rain and snow?

Got a note back from your president, thanking me for my email thanking him for the reasonable words he spoke about your venture.

love you Ben, 

Dad

13 November 2003 

Dad,

Where should I buy boots? I want Vasque Sundowners and they have them at
a store up here in logan but I think they have them in Orem too. They are 165.00 up here. Could you check for me what they cost down there?

Too bad about the oaks and maples. I love in The Botany of Desire Pollan's constant lingering on the undomesticatability of the Oak tree. I was talking to Brandon about an Oak which he saved in the front yard of a house he built. A single adult tree costs several hundred dollars because they grow so slowly.

I rode to Orem on friday and am going to ride back up this coming saturday or sunday. It was a fine ride but I didn't wear underwear and in the first hour really did almost freeze my penis off. I talked to a doctor the next day and she said that I was actually near permanent tissue damage.

The skyroom gig was so fun. We played three half hour sets: folk, jazz, and rock sets. The sound crew was new and all amplification went out during the second set so we came down off the stage and huddled around the house grand piano. We performed, Night and Day, My Funny Valentine, All of ME, Shine, Write myself a letter, willow weep for me, and Punkies Dillema in the Jazz set. The rock set ended in a fifteen minute led zepplin medly and with me shirtless. On a different note, I'm at a kiosk and there is a spider building a web behind the plexiglass screen protector. Wait the cursor is getting closer to her there

                                                  she's right there----> *

I've just got to get to the bathroom, write you later, 
love
ben

6 December 2003

Dad,


It's been so long but I had a dream about you a few night ago so it actually feels like our separation hasn't been too lanky. Quite a bit has happened. I had lunch with Gary Snyder this week and have been learning alot about nature, video- editing, Tuvan throat singing, and sickness. I've got this stiff joints fever cough thing. No time to write now must learn. Listen to the attached file. The only instrumental accompaniment is a morin khuur stringed instrument. There is no jaw harp, it's all voice. I saw Ghengis Blues last night and it kinda got me interested.

love,
ben