Finally! After many, many distractions and deviations, I am back to get on with this adventure.
Today, as promised, we are flashing back to a walk I took on July 26. I'm going back up the hill, but now I'm taking you with me. You've practiced your slope walking and feel confident, right? So let's take the first step:
Now, you see that? You see how narrow the space is between those little concrete pillars? As you may recall from my previous post, this is the entrance to the Old Hill Burying Ground in my adorable, historic little town of Concord, Massachusetts. It's crazy narrow! Something you can't see in this picture but which shows up in the next is how getting between these pillars also implies mounting an approx. 6" step up, and only after taking another few-inch-high step up which is not shown. This is one example of why, while wheelchairs are groovy and we're all glad we have them, you really might not want to plan to live your whole life in one unless you must. No wheelchair's going to get through this entrance unless it's folded up and lifted up. You could make it with crutches or a walker, but even that would be annoyingly challenging. And the only other way into this park, besides clambering over a wall, is through somebody's private back yard, not exactly a public thoroughfare. (It's not a smooth ride, either. I'll show you when we get there.)
In fact, even standing up, getting through this entrance is no picnic, especially if you've eaten as many picnics as I have. Yeah, I had to turn sideways and hold my breath as I squeezed through. (No, there was no popping noise when I finally made it through; hush now.)
Once through, I began to walk up, of course. I passed some interesting things.
The history elves I mentioned in my last post were out doing headstone conservation. It's kind of an interesting process.
The elves mark with bright electrical tape the headstones which are in danger of falling over, probably because they have broken somewhere beneath the surface. Then, one at a time, they repair them.
This one is broken on the bottom. See where the base kind of slants? That's the break. It happened underground over the course of centuries of heaving and freezing. The history elves carefully mapped its location, then dug it up, made a nice orthogonal hole where it came out, and now they are going to reset it in this hole when the concrete in the new support they've built for it has cured. (Click to enlarge.)
Zillions of tourists will come through this park every spring, summer and fall (not so much in winter; icy asphalt pathways with steep grades = not much fun even for the able-bodied) and see a bunch of headstones all standing as erect as the reputations of the citizens they commemorate. It will be less quaint, certainly, but it will also all be around longer. Most tourists will never know the headstones ever slanted. That's the beauty of history elves.
All that is on the left. As we climb higher, this is the view to the right, sort of looking back.
Doesn't that look like a lovely place to have breakfast or afternoon tea? And you know what? The house, which I believe has been divided into apartments, is for sale. It's on a busy street (Lexington Road, right at the town center rotary), and there's absolutely no garden, but most of the neighbors are very, very quiet.
Let's keep climbing.
Look how far apart my feet are! I make good time going up this hill, taking long, powerful strides. The steepness of the hill actually makes it easier. I have no fear of falling forward because, as you can see in the photo above, even as I roll off my organic foot, the mechanical knee is held stiffly open by the force of my weight upon the heel of the prosthetic foot. The excellent traction given by my sandals really holds my prosthetic leg reliably in place, too. The asphalt is a little lumpy in places, so I do have to watch my step slightly. It's really not bad, though.
(Note: One of the ways my initial suction socket was unacceptable was the height in front. The socket came up so high that it limited my range of motion for activities such as this. Since I do not put weight on the front of my socket, I had it trimmed down substantially. If your socket interferes with how big a step you can take forward, and if taking big steps forward is as important to you as it is to me, I recommend talking to your prosthetist about it. It's an easy adjustment which s/he should be able to make in the workshop while you wait.)
Sadly, as mentioned above, I've eaten a lot of yummy picnics. (Oh fine, I admit it; I'm not really sad about that at all.) Also, I can't remember where I read this helpful little tidbit, but walking in a single transfemoral prosthetic is said to burn three times as many calories as walking on two ordinary organic legs. Plus, today is a very hot day, even though the sun is playing hide-and-seek with clouds, as evident by the wildly diverse exposure seen in these photos. So by the time I reach the shoulder of the hill, which is where the path turns to steppingstones, I'm a bit winded.
Maybe you are, too. (Literary conceit; just humor me, please.) I think it's time to take stock of how far we've come, maybe look around a little bit, so let's step off the trail for a minute.
This is how high we are.
Looking off to the right, I think I see some interesting stuff. Let's check it out.
All the way at the edge, looking down on St. Bernard's Catholic Church offers an interesting architectural view of its large stained glass windows. (Click to enlarge.)
Looking right again, you can see the street, and the rotaries. (Click to enlarge.)
Let's see how close to the edge we can get without falling and breaking our necks. (Click to enlarge.)
Pretty darn close, eh?
Okay, let's move along now. There's lots more to see!
Walking up a steppingstone path is a whole lot like walking up an asphalt path.
The differences are similar to the differences people with two living legs encounter. You have to take smaller steps sometimes. You have to make sure your foot -- either foot -- is solidly placed before you commit your whole weight to it. It helps to have shoes with excellent traction, and it's dangerous to wear shoes with little or no traction. But for a transfemoral amputee, the sameness in walking up a steppingstone path vs. any other kind of hill comes in the mechanism of the prosthetic knee.
Of course. This will sound familiar. To go up a steppingstone path, you kick your fake foot forward, smack the heel down onto a likely surface, and transfer weight onto the fake leg while your weight on the fake heel keeps the fake knee snapped rigid. Right? And where have you heard this before? Yes. Everywhere we talk about walking on a transfemoral prosthetic.
Truckin', baby. It's all truckin' all the time.
Now, of course, this relaxing familiarity only applies to good steppingstone paths, not paths made of scary, wobbly-set stones. In the event you encounter one of these, I recommend doing exactly the same thing we all instinctively try to do -- always, regardless of the health or provenance of our lower limbs -- when encountering an unstable walking surface: Get off the path and walk next to it.
These stones are okay, though, so for now let's just keep going 'til we get to the top.
What you can only just glimpse at the end of the steppingstones is the beginning of a gravel path. Yes! This park has it all! It's not just fascinating and beautiful. It's like an obstacle course for transfemoral amputees! Whee! I wonder what you have like it in your own town?
More interesting than the gravel path, which we will look at more closely later, on the descent, is the stuff to the left of the last of the stones. (Click to enlarge.)
I do not know whose tomb is in the foreground. I seem to remember that the inscription on the covering stone is so worn now as to be illegible. Honestly, though, my reading of these things has not exactly been impeccable. Throughout this park one will find tons of gravestones for various men, each with his own woman listed as his "comfort." It took me an embarrassing number of readings (given my lifelong fascination with lettering styles) to realize the word was not "comfort," but "consort." Well, duh.
But I digress. What's really interesting in this picture are the tomb behind the tomb in the foreground, and the little house-like structure behind that.
The little house-like structure is the Concord Powder House. It's just a little brick building with its one opening covered by a sheet of plywood. It was built in the 1800s to store gun powder, and is scheduled for restoration this fall. Apparently, gunpowder manufacture was quite the going industry locally in the 19th century. Of course, back then, every house had a gun.
The tomb right in front of the Powder House, the one with the pillars and the flag, is really very interesting, too, and quietly lovely. Let's take a closer look.
This is the grave of Rev. William Emerson, Sr., Ralph Waldo Emerson's grandfather. One epitaph is fairly standard (click to enlarge):
The second epitaph -- and yes, this guy did rate two -- is one of the sweetest I've ever read, and it made me cry and smile at the same time (click to enlarge):
I'm not religious, not at all, so stuff about piety and God don't mean much to me. Set in among all those other staid monuments to early settlers, though, with rudimentary images of skulls and fleeting time etched into markers for various men, their comforts -er- consorts, and their diverse issue, births and deaths noted carefully but usually entirely dispassionately, the love on this tomb really shines, even for me, out for a secular afternoon walk among cool stones speckling a hot grassy hill 230 years later. What a nice thing to tell people of future centuries, how enthusiastic and affectionate your dearly departed was. Really, when was the last time you saw anything like this, especially so old?
We are almost at the end of the uphill portion of our walk now. Round the Powder House to the left, and here you will see the only other way into the park, as mentioned at the beginning of this post -- over somebody else's property. As you can see, it's very pretty, but not really open to the public, nor is it a suitable alternative for people whose access requirements are tricky. (Click to enlarge)
My take? If you want to come up here, you should really plan to leg it (one way or another) or forget it. Perhaps you take my point.
Let's turn around and see what else there is to see up here. On the other side of the Powder House are more interesting graves and a view out over rooftops and down between gardens of the approach to Concord Center from Lexington Road (click to enlarge):
And this is a look back at where we've come from (click to enlarge):
Isn't it all so lovely and serene? And look how far we've come, how high up we are. And it was really very easy getting up this far. If I hadn't been taking pictures and strategizing how to explain this all to you as I went, it would have (and has in the past) taken me about ten minutes. Today, though, what with all the pictures and note taking, and side-trippery, and asking questions of the history elves, it probably took me 45 minutes, and because it is a hot day and because I've eaten so very many supernaturally delicious olives, at this point I am panting slightly, sweating like a pig and idly contemplating attempting to justify cutting out back through those people's shady backyards just behind me. 'Cause one thing I know: Getting down will be much more challenging.
How on earth will we get down?
HA HA HA HA HA -- I'm not going to tell you!
A HA HA HA HA HA
Just kidding. Of course I'm going to tell you. I'm just not going to tell you now. See, I can't. This post already has so many photos in it that my computer (running Windows '98, BTW) can't even load the drafting window in TypePad. Thus, alas, I shall have to put the thrilling conclusion in another post.
One more to go. Really. Then on to other topics, I promise. Thanks for your company thus far. Hope you're having fun.
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