Hello Most Excellent Ones,
I had the privilege this week of hiking with the Wise in one of the most spectacular settings I have ever seen. The Kananskis Country, which is about an hour from Calgary is a mountain park famous for its beauty. It is well deserved. The Wise were my parents Helga and Alf, and their hiking friends, Fran, Maureen, Craig, and Derwin. Or DerVin in German. All these fine folks are retired and remember the 1950's fairly well, which is not a very subtle clue into how old they are. I wasn't even born till well into the 1960's, which made me a babe amongst this group. I am not exaggerating by stating that if you added up all our ages there was about 500 years of life experience amongst us.
Now the Wise could have had their excuses for not hiking that day. Too dangerous, one lung, bunions, bad heart, history of cancer, out of shape, balding, tender old skin, bad knees, sore hip, headache, have to wash my hair, have to watch my TV show, busy eating jello, I am old, old, old, old, old etc. Instead this group got out there and marched up and down Alpine meadows, over rocks, across streams, through trees all the while exclaiming their joy in being together, getting excited about Alpine flowers and rocks, and marvelling at the amazing mountains. Although I was the youngest and am pretty fit I had to work pretty hard to keep up. The Wise reminded me of my kindergarten group in HK. When one of them sees an ant crawling along I basically have to shut everything down for a while because everyone wants to join in the wonder of it. So it was with this group. Oh look at this flower, look at this rock, wow look at the view, on and on it went.
So there it is. The Wise proved that if you don't lose that kindergarten wonder for life you will live well. Not necessarily long, but well. So stay young at heart my friends. Stay young at heart!
Love adios and peng on!
Dirk
The Wise. From left to right: Derwin, Craig, Fran, Maureen, Helga and Alf.
With Alf and Helga high up in the mountains. Alf took 300 pictures. I took about 50. Alf wins the Gold Medal for picture taking. As usual.
Gaining elevation the hard way.
In an alpine meadow.
Picking our way through a rock field.
Dangerous, but fun. The Wise have a great sense of adventure.
Some views. Awesome.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
I had the privilege this week of hiking with the Wise in one of the most spectacular settings I have ever seen. The Kananskis Country, which is about an hour from Calgary is a mountain park famous for its beauty. It is well deserved. The Wise were my parents Helga and Alf, and their hiking friends, Fran, Maureen, Craig, and Derwin. Or DerVin in German. All these fine folks are retired and remember the 1950's fairly well, which is not a very subtle clue into how old they are. I wasn't even born till well into the 1960's, which made me a babe amongst this group. I am not exaggerating by stating that if you added up all our ages there was about 500 years of life experience amongst us.
Now the Wise could have had their excuses for not hiking that day. Too dangerous, one lung, bunions, bad heart, history of cancer, out of shape, balding, tender old skin, bad knees, sore hip, headache, have to wash my hair, have to watch my TV show, busy eating jello, I am old, old, old, old, old etc. Instead this group got out there and marched up and down Alpine meadows, over rocks, across streams, through trees all the while exclaiming their joy in being together, getting excited about Alpine flowers and rocks, and marvelling at the amazing mountains. Although I was the youngest and am pretty fit I had to work pretty hard to keep up. The Wise reminded me of my kindergarten group in HK. When one of them sees an ant crawling along I basically have to shut everything down for a while because everyone wants to join in the wonder of it. So it was with this group. Oh look at this flower, look at this rock, wow look at the view, on and on it went.
So there it is. The Wise proved that if you don't lose that kindergarten wonder for life you will live well. Not necessarily long, but well. So stay young at heart my friends. Stay young at heart!
Love adios and peng on!
Dirk
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