Old First Church, Springfield

[kelber at mindspring.com]

I also scattered my mother's ashes when she died back in 2004.  My father and sister couldn't come to an agreement about where to scatter the ashes, so it fell upon me to divvy them up.  Half we tossed into the East River, as my sister wanted.  My father arranged for me to take the remainder to Nairobi, where Wangari Maathai, the founder of the Greenbelt Movement, and a good friend of my mother's, would arrange a tree-planting ceremony.  Two days before I was due to arrive in Kenya, Wangari was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  I'd been a little apprehensive about the whole thing and was secretly hoping that Wangari would be too busy being a Nobel laureate to have time for the ceremony.  She was adamant that we stick to the plan.

Despite my anxieties about transporting the ashes through customs at JFK, twice in Dubai, and Kenya, it went off without a hitch.  Nobody asked to see the contents of the wooden box I had on my carry-on bag.  It was an incredibly moving ceremony.  We planted the tree in Karura forest on the outskirts of Nairobi.  A few years earlier, Wangari had been beaten up and jailed during an environmentalist demonstration at the site, which gave the tree-planting extra significance.  There were native drummers providing music, and the Kenyan press covered it, billing it as "Wangari returns to Karura forest."   The trip was one of the greatest experiences of my life.

Laura

PS :  I tried to send this with some pictures attached, but I guess their formatting was too involved for the p-list to handle.

>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>>From: Henry <scuffling at gmail.com>
>>>>Sent: Apr 23, 2008 10:42 PM
>>>>To: 'Pynchon Liste' <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>>>Subject: RE: Old First Church, Springfield
>>>>
>>>>That is me rowing in Arrow Lake in Sterling Forest State Park, NY. 
>>>>
>>>>My father, his lifelong best friend, and I used to fish there, and I'd just
>>>>finished scattering my mother's ashes there, to join my fathers.  
>>>>Arrow Lake had only recently become a Living Memorial Projects site, with a
>>>>totem pole that had been blessed by a number of tribes as it traveled across
>>>>the country 
>>>>http://www.livingmemorialsproject.net/registry_results.asp?myID=115200222401
>>>>PM_6710 
>>>>
>>>>When I visit NY during fishing season, I intend to fish from a party boat
>>>>off Island and at Arrow Lake.  
>>>>Any takers for a day of salt or small-lake fishing?
>>>>
>>>>HENRY MUSIKAR
>>>>Information, Media, and Technology Consultant
>>>>
>>>>http://www.urdomain.us/scuffling.htm 
>>>>
>>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>>From: Michael Bailey
>>>>
>>>>dude! when my cursor lingers over your name in the
>>>>from block (in Gmail) a picture of you in a boat pops up!
>>>>
>>>>mondo coolio!
>>>>