A year ago this month, our family was blessed to help out at the Good Shepard Agricultural Mission. Thanks to John Marshall‘s book Wide Open World, we were compelled to volunteer there, like John and his family had done.

Looking back at that time, and in the context of our entire trip – our circumnavigation, it was our favorite experience. Ask our kids. They’ll say that the best part of our adventure was India, and that was because of GSAM. It was joyful, enriching, enlightening.

As I’ve described it since, especially as an “orphanage,” I emphasize the idea that the kids there are having a fabulous childhood. That many other children, while they may have parents, families, even money, vacations, and a world’s worth of opportunities, don’t have the same relationships, structure, purpose, and love, love, love!

Here’s a little slide show of our time there…

On Thursday, March 2nd, we finally pulled off a field trip that had been put off due to the deluge of rain that fell before our President’s Week holiday. I’d made arrangements with Greg Timm, the Pescadero Historical Society President, and Ed Weeks, a prominent resident and Greg’s authentic sidekick on many of these “Pescadero Walking Tours.” As an English & History teacher, I’ve appreciated the several tours Greg & Ed have given my students over the years. They not only do they learn about our town, Pescadero, but they learn about how it is explained by people who have lived it, and people who have studied it for years using a variety of sources.

My “Intensive” English class (the competent 6th, 7th, & 8th graders) first read part of
A Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters. Then, we read Our Town by Thornton Wilder. The first was in the context of poetry, the second in the context of drama. Both have people speaking from the grave. But the stories of our cemetery in Pescadero seem to have even more stories than both literary works put together. For students with a sensitivity to the past and especially to people who have passed, it was an interesting day!

First, some pix of our group in Greg’s backyard, in the Native Son’s Hall, and walking down the street…

Eventually, we walked down Stage Road to the cemetery: Mt. Hope for the Protestants, St. Anthony’s for the Catholics. First, Ed Weeks (who had a 90th birthday several days earlier) took us to his family plot and we saw where he will eventually arrive (with his first and second wives), then the students explored some of the other notable plots in the cemetery…

In the course of the morning, most of the students experienced a poignant moment or two with one or more of Pescadero’s past and passed.

I recommend that you too come for a visit, to pay your respects to the characters who have lived hereabouts, made our town, or are simply spending eternity on the hill…