bob judd

Why Do Beavers Bomb Our River's Shore?

2012-02-10T08:25:00.000-08:00

West Gallatin River on the Double Ditch Ranch.

Why do beavers bomb our river's shore,

Beavers are second only to man in altering the landscape. The wetlands they create with their dams are as bio-diverse as rain forests.

leave this tree for the wind,

Beaver population is 5% of what it was before Europeans came to America

cut this log to fireplace lengths,

Beaver Lodge. Beavers rarely overpopulate because they are strongly territorial and only have "kits" once a year

or mate for life?

all these pictures taken on yesterday's walk with the dog

It must be the moon.

A MOOSE, A MOOSE, WE SAW A MOOSE!!!!

2012-01-30T08:09:00.000-08:00

Late Saturday afternoon, just before dusk, we set out to drive down Axtell-Anceney Road. Third generation rancher, Joe Axtell, is our next door neighbor two miles away.

click to enlarge

Charles Anceney founded the Flying D ranch (now Ted Turner's 113,613 acre ranch) that stretches from Yellowstone National Park to (almost) Joe Axtell's ranch.

The old dirt road winds along to tops of ridges and down into valleys.

Suddenly Kathryn yelled STOP. STOP THE CAR!

Kathryn knows a moose when she sees one. We thought this one might be guarding a little calf down by the creek. But we weren't about to go down and have a look. It was huge, twice the size of a cow.

We're thrilled to have a moose (and a mountain lion, black bears, deer & Sand Hill cranes) for a neighbor. She can come visit any time she likes.

The Ressurection of Allard FBA 685 Part III

2012-01-24T08:16:00.000-08:00

I had an Allard in London in the 1960s

It was a holler and a hoot and a blast to drive.

I sold it to a gentleman in Florida to pay for a 6 month drive around the world.

50 years later, Martin Stickley, another gentleman in Florida, found FBA 685 abandoned, tired and dirty in a shed. He had it completely restored.

And showed it at the Amelia Island Concours de'Elegance last spring

Now FBA 685 is alive and well and younger and faster and living in Florida.
While I am older and slower and living in Montana. But we still keep in touch.

When we were young we thought the landscape told the truth

2012-01-18T08:43:00.000-08:00

When we were young we thought our town, Chappaqua, was the center of the universe,

and Katonah, a dull burg on a hillside north of nowhere.

Katonah used to be a river town where the Cross River ran into the Croton river.

The New Croton Dam changed everything.

Croton River valley flooded for over 20 miles. Over 150 farms were drowned.

The houses of Katonah jumped up

and ran

for the hills

Happy New Year

2012-01-02T06:56:00.000-08:00

Sunrise over the Gallatin River Valley

Christmas Day Walk Along River Road

2011-12-26T09:31:00.000-08:00

Christmas was warm and sunny, a good day for a walk along River Road where we live in Bozeman, Montana

Barkley needed a little reigning in at first

River Road follows the Gallatin River

And runs along the pastures of the Kelly Ranch

There was a unicorn in the pasture by the stone house, looking for his lost horn

We walked five miles. So we were glad to get back to the Double Ditch Ranch and build a fire in the fireplace

In praise of public works

2011-11-30T09:58:00.000-08:00

Instead of a device designed to hold 34 billion gallons

The New Croton Dam was built 1892-1906 largely by stone masons who were brought over from southern Italy without their families. Each stone weighs 2,500 - 3,500 lbs.

of fresh water for New York City,

What was once Croton River is now 20 miles of Croton Lake

think of the New Croton Dam as a sculpture.

As schoolboys we climbed up the spillway

The closer you get,

the more beautiful

it is

Deer murder at the Double Ditch Ranch

2011-11-25T10:49:00.000-08:00

Tuesday morning I went out the back door to get the paper and there were some big feline tracks. My size 13 boot is on the right. (these 1st 3 pictures were all taken the day after the attack so the evidence is a little fuzzy.)

Later that morning we found a flattened deer at the bottom of the ditch behind the house. In the summer, the ditch looks like an English trout stream and it is full of trout. But it's drained in the winter and the deer use it as a highway.

The victim looked like it had been flattened by a 500 lb. eagle.

Indeed a bald eagle showed up the next morning to help the magpies, bobcat, and fox clean up the leftovers. But he was a long ways short of 500 lbs. and he swore he was not the perp. No way he could knock over a full grown deer.

Our rancher neighbors say, no question, it was a mountain lion. Joe Axtell, whose ranch is next door, lost 35 sheep to a mountain lion two winters ago. The mountain lion didn't eat the sheep, he just killed them for fun. Joe and his neighbor, rancher Dan McReynolds, hunted it down and shot it. They had it stuffed and it now stands in McReynold's living room.

Deer Stories at the Double Ditch Ranch

2011-11-18T12:23:00.000-08:00

In the summer there were fauns in the pasture

And young bucks

Our first snow was in October

This morning we had our first real snow, a momma and her twins

Barkley and Kathryn loved it

It is very beautiful

We woke to a throttled scream on the Double Ditch Ranch

2011-09-21T08:35:00.000-07:00

The scream wasn't human, but close enough. We startled up from our bed and ran to the back porch. The villains strolled out from behind the cottonwoods wearing feathers. Three sandhill cranes: Mom and Dad and the kid who was probably the one that was yelled at, following behind.

Maybe they saw us, watching from the back porch. Whatever, they took off to wake up some other ranch.

There were a lot of deer last night. Bow and arrow season started last week but we're still more than a month away from gun season. These fawns are still innocent of winter.

These young bucks are horny teenagers, showing off to the pretty young does in by the fence.

Something startled them and they were off in a flash of tails.

Raptor Rescue at the Double Ditch Ranch

2011-07-29T09:50:00.000-07:00


Maybe the bird was dazzled by the rainbow. Or just missed a chickadee and dove down the chimney at its usual 40 MPH		.

We heard it in the fireplace the next morning and called Raptor Rescue. We expected a SWAT team with helmets, bullet proof vests and shields. But it was mild mannered Cynthia who showed up, armed with a towel.

Cynthia dove headfirst into the fireplace

"It's OK," she beamed. It was a Kestrel, the smallest falcon on the continent. Only weighed around 4 ounces. Not much bigger than a sparrow.

Cynthia stretched one wing then the other and felt the raptor's legs and feet for broken bones.

It wasn't hurt just filthy from a night in the fireplace

Cynthia let it go. "It won't do that again," she said.

Dog is my Navigator

2011-07-18T13:50:00.000-07:00

                The dog and I cleared out of South Bend, Indiana and drove to Rochester where I took some shots of the house where John Logan, of A Mighty Fool Stunt, grew up. It was only 4PM the dog said go for it so we drove 300 miles to get to the great Commerce Street Bar & Grill in Plankinton, South Dakota.
                 But it was closed for two weeks while Chef Ted was in France.
                "Hit the road," the dog said. "I'll navigate."

                                                                                  The next thing I know we're in The Badlands.

"No sweat," the dog said, "I''ve been here before. "

Barkley Stays in Beagle Heaven.

2011-06-20T07:24:00.000-07:00

This is where Barkley stayed while we went to my college reunion

Clover Hill Farm is a beautiful horse farm next to Williams College with a grand view of the Berkshires in all directions.

Carolyn Henderson, who owns Clover Hill Farm said, "Oh there's always room for another beagle. She has four.

Barkley, the dog, slept with her and Snoopy, Lucy, Charlie, and Ladybug. Under the covers. $15 a night

This is where we stayed. Normally $59 a night, the motel gave us their special reunion weekend rate; $159 a night.

These sweet little towns: Miracle Cure at The Commerce Street Grill

2011-06-06T07:16:00.000-07:00

You never know what the road is gonna serve up

After lunch in Sundance, Wyoming, Barkley had a pee in the park and seemed just fine. (stay with us it gets better.)

After we crossed the Missouri river Kathryn had a hunch about Plankinton, South Dakota, and we pulled off the highway. Look closely and you'll see the last of the wedding party carrying on behind the Ponderosa.

So we pulled up in front of the Commerce Street Grill. A place you might miss walking down the street. And is worth, in the words of the Guide Michelin, a journey.

Barkley commenced to shake, cough, and gasp for air. (The little dog had disappeared from our locked hotel in the morning (still a mystery how he got out) and who knows what happened.)

This coughing and shaking goes on for a long and worrying while. Siezure, burr up his nose, cardiac event. Dr. Quack is no use at all.

A lanky 6'6" cowboy, looks like a former tight end, strolls over, kneels over Barkley and places his fingers on the dog's spine, just above and below the dog's shoulders and Barkley is transformed. Cured. Happy. Turns out the lanky gent is a BEST chiropractor of a special kind, he owns the restaurant the chef Ted Jude is a former Fairmont group chef and we have a world class dinner with fine wine.

After dinner Barkley had a stroll in the empty lot next door and we were all just fine

We're not in Palo Alto anymore

2011-06-03T12:05:00.000-07:00

We sold our house in California, took the money and ran.

We stayed in Motel 6s along the way because they're cheap and allow dogs. The dog, we learned, is a terrible driver

We arrived on May 26, our ninth wedding anniversary. There was hail, 50 mph winds and rain. A bighorned sheep would have turned back

The Storey Hereford Ranch cattle stopped by to say hello

We are in the great caldera of a Karakatoa

Our new neighbors are curious

Let me know if you know what this red throat, dagger beak bird is

The robin on her nest was worried

Kathryn is very happy
We leave for Williamstown, MA in a couple of hours

If your bank steals your money will you still care about art?

2011-02-07T10:21:00.000-08:00

Art or food for the starving is a hot topic that is going to get a lot hotter as the globe warms up. Our $700,000 question is in the trillions now.

The question we posed last week, beautiful art for a wealthy college or meals and education for children in extreme poverty is an individual choice. Hearts, consciences, and viewpoints will vary. Hungry Gerald says if you balance people and art, they’ll be no art.

But art isn’t a moral choice, it’s an impulse, a need to see and create fresh views of the universe since we lived in caves. I say support the arts. Or not. Art will survive no matter what.

Molly got it right. Last week’s choice was between art for students who have just about everything and food and education for children who have nothing. Having nothing leaves children prey to prostitution, militias, disease, and crime. And insures continued generations of child prostitutes, poverty, crime and suffering. So I think that one is an easy choice for the future. But if your heart says art, go for the art.

Lest these choices seem like parlor games, idle speculation on what we’d do with our excess money if only we had any, I’d say read Michael Lewis’s stunning book, The Big Short. Inside the Doomsday Machine.

(Lewis also wrote The Blind Side, so you know it's a good read.)

The Big Short is a moral tale on a national level with a stupendous and sickening effect on a great nation. Everybody knows Wall Street runs on greed. The surprise is how that greed has been encouraged to feed on our national treasure. How the uber-rich get more uber-rich at your expense.

Here’s a few bits from the last chapter. “By late September 2008 the nation’s highest financial official, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, (a former chairman of Goldman Sachs) persuaded Congress he needed $700 billion to buy subprime mortgage assets from banks. Thus was born TARP, which stood for Troubled Asset Relief Program. Once handed the money, Paulson abandoned his promised strategy and instead essentially began giving away billions of dollars to Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and a few others unnaturally selected for survival. . . .

Weeks after receiving its first $25 billion taxpayer investment, Citigroup returned to the Treasury to confess that – lo!—the markets still didn’t trust Citigroup to survive. In response, on November 24, the Treasury (Paulson) granted another $20 billion from TARP and simply guaranteed $306 billion of Citigroup’s assets. Treasury didn’t ask for a piece of the action, or management changes, or for that matter anything at all . . . The $306 billion guarantee – nearly two percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, and roughly the combined budgets of the departments of Agriculture, Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, and Transportation – was presented undisguised as a gift.

You see the parallel here between our $700,000 choice between kids who have and kids who don’t and the national treasure lavished on the owners of a Giant Bank while the departments of Agriculture, Education, Energy, Security & etc. go begging.

And the parallel between one Monday this January when Congress extended tax cuts (mainly for the uber-rich) at a national cost of three trillion dollars over the next ten years. And, on Tuesday when Congress called for much needed cuts to national programs of agriculture, education, Energy & etc. of some three trillion dollars over the next ten years.

On that note (nobody ever said the world was fair only that it ought to be) I’m going to wander off into the woods and leave the blog to work on a couple of books for a while. Cheers, and thanks for your time.

Play while the Blog's Away

2011-02-05T10:11:00.000-08:00

              The sky is blue, the sun is warm and the blog is off for the weekend.

              But wait, wait, there's more.

             This was a good week with Bobby Kennedy singing in Harlem, Dinner in a Diner with Ashley Judd, boozing on the beach with the Mad Men of London,   playing tennis with a Bernie Madoff wannabe in Paradise ,

              If you missed any of the above, now would be a good time.

                 There's almost a year of goodies here. Like Frank Lloyd Wright's last private house and his big mistake.

New York had another deluge of snow and still nobody seemed to notice the beautify of a blizzard in New York City You'll find a fine snort and a giggle in the wacky wonderful Coneheads at Silverstone. Or the flip side of that madness to the days of dope and meditation in The Volvo Years.

if you missed the all-time-record-breaking-hit- monster blog, The Real Allard Story:give it a click. No, I lied; the tribute to the women who are as"sweet as honey and smile at you like you're made of money," attracted even more hits. And If you missed the 1979 Polish Grand Prix now's your chance.

Or, click on bob judd on the top of this page or slip down the right hand column to click on such gems as my favorite, How You Look at the Sky. Or The Kythera Chronicles to shake hands with Barbarossa.

Or just cruise through the links on the lower right hand side of this page, maybe come upon some unexpected little gem like an excerpt from The Candle, In Praise of the Belleville Midgets, The Midgets of Belleville. Part II, Truth in Grass: a Kansas adventure, The Story of the Larned Eagle Optic, Hollywood Calls, You Pick up the Phone, Hollywood Calls, you pick up the phone part 2 maybe my favorite My Short Happy War in Afghanistan or no, wait, wait, Fangio and the Maserati 250 F for the priceless video of Fangio in a polo shirt and helmet, absolutely relaxed driving a Maserati 250F around a beat up old race track with no run off, no barriers, no safety nothing. My lunch with Rob Walker is a good one even though it leaves out the Betty Grable stories.

You don't want to miss My Short Happy War in Afghanistan

Then there's Erno Goldfingers house-and-mine, which throws in Ian Flemming, no extra charge. Riding around Laguna Seca with Jackie Stewart was picked up by Jalopnik.com.

Read Uncle John's Prayer for guidance through these difficult days.

Then there was the time my Dad, Clarence Judd Head-Butts a Truck. Truck dies. That's a good one.

And, of course, the one that started it all, Truck Story.

Then Virgin calls, and Forrest goes to Hollywood to star with an Electric car. And Forrest does a shoot in bed with Virgin. That one is a lot of fun.

Although, you might want to take a look at Pheromone Dreams to see what they are doing in bed in front of a film crew. While you're there it's just a short hop to Nurse Pelvis.

Or take a dip in the world's largest concrete freshwater free municipal swimming pool.

And for heat on a frosty afternoon, click on my dance with a prima ballerina.

For a tasty bite with bon mots check out my friend, Gerry Freeman's foodie blog as Hungry Gerald globe trots from spa to Paris and beyond.

Or go skip over to the column on the right and click on any date or title from last year. These blogs are evergreen as we say in the trade.

If you had $700,00 to give away

2011-02-04T10:05:00.000-08:00

I have a question.

I had the great good fortune to go to one of the best small colleges in the nation, routinely ranked among the nation's most desirable by Newsweek’s annual poll. It’s a school that honors great teachers and encourages and develops critical thinking.

Part of our reunion gift my old college class is planning to donate to the college is an outdoor kinetic sculpture by George Rickey, entitled Double L Eccentric Gyratory.

It's a beautiful, graceful piece stirred in surprising ways by the slightest breath of wind. Two stainless steel L shapes are poised on a fulcrum and move slowly, or not, seemingly responding to the forces of another world. Or, if you prefer, two angular shapes, separate and identical, graciously and powerfully demonstrate emotional equilibrium. Or, if you prefer, some other metaphor like courtship. It is a sculpture that inspires thought.

It’s also a very large sculpture, 26 feet high and weighing several tons. It's currently in front of the San Francisco Public Library. And previously exhibited at the Pepsico sculpture garden in Purchase, NY.

The cost of purchasing, uprooting, transporting and installing this sculpture is estimated to be around $700,000.

Which brings us to our dilemma.

A small school in the village of Bodh Gaya in the poorest part of India, sponsored by One World Children’s Fund will feed and educate a child for $4 a month. If you do the math, you’ll find that $700,000 will teach reading, writing and arithmetic and feed, some 14,500 children for a year. That's many times more than the little school in Bodh Gaya could handle but you see my point.

The need of children stuck in poverty in America and around the world is infinite. The sculpture is beautiful. If the $700,000 were yours to give, which would you choose? Please feel free to comment.

Mad Men in London: A Day At the Beach With Llewellyn Thomas

2011-02-03T10:27:00.000-08:00

Dylan, Llewellyn, Caitlin. Aeron, Granny and Coln in front.

Llewellyn Thomas was a trickster, a prankster, a thoughtful shy man living under the shadow of a great and awful father. He was witty, erudite and convivial among friends according to his obit. Days with Llewellyn were always an adventure. Maybe because he'd had such a rough and tedious time when he was a kid.

Once his mother, Caitlin, a famous beauty painted in the nude by Augustus John, popped off the train for a quick drink at the station bar. Two hours later, she remembered, "OH GAWD, I left my 2 year old on the train."

Augstus John's portrait of Dylan

Augustus John's portrait of Caitlin

Llewellyn looked more like his Dad, Dylan Thomas, but woe to you if you called him Dylan. The picture above right is Caitlin when she was dating and posing for Augustus John.

Llewellyn was a copywriter at JWT London with a genius for thinking up wacky stunts. One idea was The Big Dig for Gillette. Buy a pack of Gillette razor blades and win a chance at digging up a two week holiday in Majorca, a new cooker, etc. etc.”

Obviously the real items couldn’t be buried in the sand. But what should be, and how deep and spread over how big an area? Real shovels or toy shovels? Llewellyn suggested that a team from the agency do a trial dig. See how it goes. Gillette said OK.

So one sunny morning a posh bus pulled up in front of JWT in Berkeley Square at 8 AM and around 20 of us piled in. Llewellyn was the last aboard, throwing on crates of champagne first. We were on our way out of the square when the first cork went POP.

POP we went, POP, POP.

When we arrived at the beach the client (a tall severe gent Llewellyn called The Scoutmaster due to his khaki shorts and long socks) was waiting on the tarmac.

The door swung open and we fell out on the pavement, stumbling, sprawling, falling down drunk.

Rye Beach

         John St. Clair, later to become a prize winning film director, was given the task of shooting The Big Dig Trial Day. He made it to the beach, fell on his back and shot a half an hour of clouds in the sky. I and a few others scrabbled in the sand with toy shovels for a while, gave it up and jumped into the Ocean.

         The Scoutmaster, needless to say was enraged. The account rep was sent in shame to the purgatory that was Chicago. We all endured a livid lecture from the JWT management.

          We had endangered the jobs of hundreds. Nearly lost the account. We were irresponsible, juvenile. I don’t remember the trip down to Rye Beach apart from empty champagne bottles rolling on the floor. But I know we had a ball.

And the Big Dig? How did the real one work out? It was the most successful promotion in the history of Gillette UK.

Dinner with Dario Franchitti and Ashley Judd

2011-02-02T10:31:00.000-08:00

The hotel lobby was crowded so I took my time looking around the room. Nope, she wasn't there.

            I thought, being both stunningly beautiful and famous for her roles in Kiss the Girls, The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood, Norma Jean & Marilyn (she played Marilyn Monroe) that Ashley Judd would stand out like a Bird of Paradise in a barnyard.

            She didn't stand out. She was there but I didn’t see her until she detached herself from the hotel lobby wall. It was a kind of yoga trick, of going very quiet and blending into the woodwork so nobody noticed a world famous movie star. It was self defense, because if anybody had noticed Ashley Judd, she’d have been mobbed.

              This is the time of year when the Indy Cars head south for Spring Training to test the cars and drum up a little PR for the new season. I'd called up Dario Franchitti and asked if I could take him to dinner for an interview and he said, “Sure. Would it be OK, if I brought along my fiancé.”

“Sure,” I said. Thinking YIPPPPEEEEE. Wondering if she might be a cousin.

We left the hotel quickly. They were so cute together. Dario in the front seat, reaching awkwardly around his neck to hold her hand in back.

At the Sebring Diner, (much less chance of being recognized in a diner than some fancy place. Plus there are no fancy restaurants in Sebring) Dario was his usual self.    Ask him a question or two and he’s off, funny, open, insightful. Here’s a couple of samples:   “Soft tires, a thousand horsepower, as far as the road courses were concerned the cars were perfect. But they had to slow them down for the ovals because they were just out of control.   I mean 242 average at Fontana with a big wing on the back.

                Least favorite words: Do you know why I’ve stopped you?

                 Favorite words: God says, “there’s a bunch of your buddies in the back room.”

               The interview didn’t take long and then we just talked. Ashley was incandescent. Actors often have a public, glittering, utterly charming public persona. Ashley was just herself. Which is to say very, very bright.

          “Sure, girls from New York are tough. And girls from Georgia are sweet. But those feisty Kentucky girls, they are the ones you have to look out for. We have sugar and fire in our blood. We can ride a horse, be a débutante, throw a left hook and tell you the entire UK football line up all while making sweet tea. And if we have an opinion, you get to know it."

           After a bit we talked about family.

           She knew more of the Judd genealogy than I did. “Right, right, Thomas Judd and his family were on the Griffen, landed in Boston in 1633,. Don’t you wish we still had that farm he had in Cambridge? We’d own half of Harvard?”

Dario wins the Indy 500

The next morning Dario was outside his race car, twisted into some strange yoga stretch. “Where’d you learn that?” I asked.

“Where do you think?”

Behaving Badly in Paradise: my brief stay on Useppa

2011-02-01T09:48:00.000-08:00

You probably haven’t heard of Useppa Island. It’s a private, exclusive, ferociously expensive club on a small island next to Sanibel and Captiva Island just off Florida’s Gulf Coast. Useppa used to be a Navy dump, but never mind.

Click to Enlarge. Note the Hedge Fund Manager Yachts.

As their online brochure says, “we invite the world’s most exclusive travellers. . .” I’d just finished Takeover my big business novel. And while the proofs were at the printers, managed to wangle an invitation to this hidey hole for the super-rich.

I was not a good guest. The first night, at a cocktail party, I got entangled in a heated argument with the guest of honor about the then recent shooting in the back of some suspected Irish terrorists on the streets of Gibralter. Her deceased husband was the British Admiral who had given the order to shoot to kill on sight. She was not amused by my argument that we have courts for judgment. And that public executions were gangster acts. She argued that it was the guerrillas who set the rules. I said, etc. etc.

British Dowager Look-Alike

                She was gracious about it, and told our hosts she enjoyed our debate, coming from a country which thrived on debate.

               I vowed to be a better, less obstreperous guest. Not fuck up any more cocktail parties. And the next morning, I was playing tennis with a gent who asked what I did for a living. "I’m a novelist," I said proudly. "Just finished a book called Takeover. Killed a couple dozen CEOs and I really enjoyed that."

                 “I am a CEO,” he said through gritted teeth.

                 I vowed to be a better, less obstreperous guest. Not fuck up any more tennis games. And the next morning I was playing tennis with a well groomed gent who asked what I did for a living. "Just finished writing a book called Takeover. The villain is a hedge fund manager."

Hedge Fund Manager

“I am a hedge fund manager he said through gritted teeth.

“Great,” I said. “Where do you live?”

Bobby Kennedy in Harlem

2011-01-31T09:10:00.000-08:00

                 I kept looking for the magic scene but maybe it was never filmed. TLC had a two hour long documentary The Kennedys, Home Movies last night, narrated by Stockard Channing. And it was powerful, seeing so much promise and tragedy condensed into two hours.

             Bill Murphy was there and saw it, so this is his story, and I’d like for him to come claim it. He was a beginning copywriter at JWT, like me, in those Mad Men days and we were friends in the same creative group. Bill heard Bobby Kennedy was coming to speak in Harlem so he got on t he subway and went to look for himself.

                 When he got out at 125th street, he found a big crowd around Bobby. A white man in a sea of black faces. It was Kennedy’s first visit to Harlem and his speech was not going well. The crowd was silent, skeptical. Kennedy’s flat nasal New England tones sounded alien, wrong, like what the hell did he know about Harlem?

                     So Kennedy said, “would you like to sing a song?” "Anybody want to sing a song?" No response. Bobby Kennedy was a brave man. There was no band, of course, and no music to sing to. He sang, “WE SHALL OVERCOME.” his tuneless New England voice sailed right past the crowd. He sang the second line, “WE SHALL OVERCOME.” No response. He persevered, “WE SHALL OVERCOME SOMEDAY AY AY AY AYYY.”

                   Murphy had the suspicion that this could turn ugly. The crowd was not buying a white man singing their song on their street.

              “DEEP IN MY HEART, I DO BELIEVE. THAT WE SHALL OVERCOME ONE DAY.” Nothing. Except a few murmurs.

               Incredibly Bobby Kennedy started the second verse. “WE’LL WALK HAND IN HAND.” Nothing, no response. He sang the second line, “WE’LL WALK HAND IN HAND,” and a couple of voices joined in. By the time he got to the end of the verse the whole crowd was singing with all their heart, recognizing a great heart was there on their street that afternoon.

              You can’t help but think, this would have been a better, different country if they hadn’t shot Jack and Bobby and Martin Luther King.

His words sound antique now, too naive for prime time. But at the time, they promised that the America we learned about in school was true.:

"This is a generous and compassionate country, that's what I want a country to stand for, not bias, not laws, not disorder, but compassion and love and peace. That's what this country should stand for and that's what I intend to do." RFK

A Footnote to Real Survival

2011-01-23T10:30:00.000-08:00

Find the trail. Can't find it? Never mind. You can always make your own. The next human being is on the other side of the mountain.

Slim Williams and his dogs. If you squint he looks like Clark Gable.

Yesterday's blog on Slim Williams (scroll down a page) and my Uncle John needs a footnote.

Recently, Discovery Channel had a reality show about trekking in the Alaska Wilderness called The Alaska Experiment Ordinary people try to survive in the wild.

They are tracked by helicopters. They have guides, fleece, parkas, gps, gas matches, cell phones, hi-tech boots, radios, high tech tents, sleeping bags, etc. etc.

John Logan and Slim Williams had none of that. Sure John started out looking like a page out of a 1939 Abercrombie and Fitch ("the greatest sporting goods store in the world") catalog. They dumped all that fancy stuff in a few days. Their one canvas tarp was their ground sheet,tent and when there was a river to cross, their boat. Their tools were a rifle and an axe. They didn't have nylon anything. Which makes their trek of 2,500 miles through the wilderness all the more impressive. And John's diary, written every night in pencil by the fire, a rare document of what survival takes when you really are on your own without another soul for a hundred miles.

On that note, the blog is off to Florida for a few days trek by rentacar to friends, family and sandy shores. We will not be taking a rifle or an axe. Do not send search parties.

But wait, don't go. There's a ton of goodies here. Last week's Blog, for example, Frank Lloyd Wright's last private house and his big mistake.

Scroll down for the beauty of a blizzard in New York City the wacky wonderful Coneheads at Silverstone. Or the flip side of that madness to the days of dope and meditation in The Volvo Years.

Or just cruise through the links on the lower right hand side of this page, maybe come upon some unexpected little gem like an excerpt from The Candle, In Praise of the Belleville Midgets, The Midgets of Belleville. Part II, Truth in Grass: a Kansas adventure, The Story of the Larned Eagle Optic, Hollywood Calls, You Pick up the Phone, Hollywood Calls, you pick up the phone part 2 maybe my favorite My Short Happy War in Afghanistan or no, wait, wait, Fangio and the Maserati 250 F for the priceless video of Fangio in a polo shirt and helmet, absolutely relaxed driving a Maserati 250F around a beat up old race track with no run off, no barriers, no safety nothing. My lunch with Rob Walkeris a good one even though it leaves out the Betty Grable stories.

You wouldn't want to miss My Short Happy War in Afghanistan

Then there's Erno Goldfingers house-and-mine, which throws in Ian Flemming, no extra charge. Riding around Laguna Seca with Jackie Stewart was picked up by Jalopnik.com.

Or Uncle John's Prayer.

Or Clarence Judd Head-Butts a Truck. Truck dies. That's a good one.

And, of course, the one that started it all, Truck Story.

Then Virgin calls, and Forrest goes to Hollywood to star with an Electric car. And Forrest does a shoot in bed with Virgin. That one is a lot of fun.

Although, you might want to take a look at Pheromone Dreams to see what they are doing in bed in front of a film crew. While you're there it's just a short hop to Nurse Pelvis.

Or take a dip in the world's largest concrete freshwater free municipal swimming pool.

And for a fine rainy afternoon divertimento, click on my dance with a prima ballerina.

For a tasty bite with bon mots check out my friend, Gerry Freeman's foodie blog as Hungry Gerald globe trots from spa to boites.

Or go visit Elif Batumen, San Francisco's brightest and funniest writer, a fine lady to curl up with for a good read. Here's Elif's homepage.

Enjoy, Have a ball. See you Monday, January 31 when Juddstory will return.

Slim Williams builds a boat with an axe and a tarp

2011-01-21T10:20:00.000-08:00

In 1939 my Uncle, John T. Logan rode, pushed, carried, and pulled, a motorcycle from Fairbanks Alaska to Seattle, Washington to show a road was not only possible, but also, the best route for a road that would connect the lower 48 to the remote northern territory.

If you look closely you can see the motorcycle his partner, Slim Williams, is loading into a small boat that Slim built in two hours from scratch with an axe and a tarp.

His partner was an old Alaska Sourddough, Slim Williams. Slim had done the trip before in the Winter of 1933 by dog sled. When Slim got to Seattle he took the wheels off a Model T Ford put them on his sled and kept on mushing all the way to the Chicago World's Fair.

Eleanor Roosevelt said Slim and his dogs were her favorite exhibit and invited Slim to the White House. “The driver has the kind of blue eyes that look away off to distant horizons,” said Mrs. Roosevelt. “I loved his dogs. They were grand. I was careful of them and polite to them and asked if I might pat them. There were two, only half wolf, that it was alright to pat.” Slim and his dogs went to the White House several times.

Sometimes Slim built bridges with his axe. It was getting dark and Slim and John were cold and tired and so they waited until morning to cross the creek on their new bridge

A great cracking sound woke them up in the morning. The creek was a fast running river and their bridge was gone.

Slim and John crossed over a hundred rivers. Some of them by a raft they'd build on the spot from trees along the river bank and a tarp they used for a ground sheet or tent depending on the weather. John took photos, and 16 mm movies. Click on this next link and you can see Slim, building the raft (click on "Access this Item" at the top of the link's page) to cross the Klappan River, his only tool was an axe, in this remarkable archive film at the University of Alaska's Museum of Alaska.

We Drove Across Spain Before Lunch

2011-01-20T10:44:00.000-08:00


Casa de Something, Estoril. We stayed in under $125 a night hotels.

        For a while I had a wonderful job.

        For example I said to Tom Bryant, the editor-in-chief of Road & Track, “remember the days when there really was grand touring and you drove across Europe from one Formula One race to another in a fast, luxurious car? How about I go to the Portuguese Grand Prix for a weekend, then drive across Europe to go to the European Grand Prix in Nurmburg, Germany the next weekend. Stay in nifty places and Road & Track will pay for everything."

    And Tom said, "Great."

                 I'd cover the races and we would stay in under $125 a night hotels so my piece would be a practical guide to great places to stay without spending a fortune as well as an up close look at the movers and shakers at the top of Formula One. Here's some snapshots taken at the track.

World Champion Damon Hill finished 2nd

World Champion Alain Prost would later buy Ligier

World Champion Mikka Hakkinen

In the paddock. Ron Dennis in the Middle

After the race we drove up the coast of Portugal and stayed in a small hotel on the beach. In the morning we watched the fisherman push their boats into the sea as fisherman have done in boats like this for over a thousand years. Under the beauty of the old boats and the spectacle of challenging the ocean, there was the grit of brutally hard work, small catches, and almost no money at all.

We drove up to Oporto, and out along the Douro Valley.

My companion wearied of sliding around hairpin after hairpin turn. So we drove across Spain before lunch. At a steady 155 mph the M3 was at ease and so were we.

We stayed in San Sebastian, next to France. In several ways, I believe, San Sebastian is the most delicious city in Europe.

And the next day drove to the Nurburgring in the Eiffel mountains.

The M3 and the Blaue Ecke in Nurmburg

Where Dario Franchitti demo'd Juan Manuel Fangio's 1955 Mercedes W196, the one that won the world championship. The next day Michael Schumacher won the European Grand Prix in front of his home crowd.

It was a good week to go to work.