American Ess ence
American Essence ISSUE 3
The Voyage of Life
Thomas Cole pioneered American landscape painting, expressing moral or religious meanings with his “higher style of landscape.”
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36 Planet Bigfoot Despite a lack of indisputable evidence, at least six Bigfoot museums have opened across America in the past six years, and there may be more believers now than ever. 46 Generation to Generation Fishing has a way of captivating the young. Even an afternoon fishing trip teaches important life lessons of planning, execution, patience, celebration, and more. 48 Your Stories An 82-year-old reflects on the hardships she has faced in life, sharing the lessons she learned while following her heart and never losing her optimism.
Features 12 Climbing Everest at 75 The oldest American to summit Mount Everest reflects on the physical and mental prep and the attitudinal adjustments that helped him reach the top of the world. 24 Georgia Peaches A Tennessee couple built a business with dreams of delivering America’s most flavorful, farmfresh peaches by truck across the country. 30 Saving Newborns After tragedy befell his beloved wife, Nick Silverio found a calling to honor her, and has since helped save 338 children from abandonment.
52 The Last Frontiersman Roland Welker lives like an oldtimer, depending upon his skills, physical fitness, and the land while surviving for months at a time in the Alaskan wilderness.
History 54 America’s First National Parks Our national parks are a direct result of numerous artists, authors, and activists who portrayed nature as a treasure. 64 Washington’s Resounding Prayer An eyewitness observed George Washington praying in the woods at Valley Forge. That hard winter in Pennsylvania became a touchstone, and a pivotal moment in history.
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66 The Santa Fe Trail A trader blazed the trail from Missouri to Santa Fe while Mexico gained independence. After navigating harsh terrain and uncertain hospitality, he found profit.
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78 Teaching Virtue How do you teach respect, responsibility, and self-discipline along with academics? One mothers’ co-op designed a curriculum that includes character education. 80 Sacrifice as a Saving Grace We can’t realistically have it all in life, but difficult decisions make our chosen paths all the more rewarding and meaningful. 82 Dante Alighieri: All About Love Dante demonstrated how the beauty of words could draw people together instead of causing pain and estrangements.
American Artists
54 A Love of Learning 70 Poetic Education in Action Gregory the Great Academy bestows the character of happy men through adventurous encounters with the good, true, and beautiful. 74 Outside Changes Everything Getting children outdoors can improve everything from physical to mental and social well-being, boost confidence, and even promote learning.
90 Made in America The Pageant of the Masters is one of California's oldest artistic traditions, where master artworks come alive onstage. 96 ‘The Voyage of Life’ America’s most prolific landscape painter, Thomas Cole, created a visual testament to the spirit of man that takes us on a journey through the four stages of life.
The Great Outdoors 106 The Magnificence of Yosemite Yosemite National Park has a dramatic history, and millions of people from around the world pilgrimage to its breathtaking landscapes every year.
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90 116 Cowboy Cookin’ When Kent Rollins and his crew are ranching and cooking meals out in the elements, being resourceful and adapting to Mother Nature are key philosophies. 120 The ‘Most Sublime of Nature’s Works’ One of Virginia’s most amazing architectural treasures wasn’t formed by the hand of man at all— Natural Bridge State Park.
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F E AT U R E S
“Who wouldn’t be skeptical of a grandfather who says he wants to climb Mount Everest?”
Climbing Everest at 75 Arthur Muir became the oldest American to scale the world’s highest mountain, setting the record as an afterthought WRIT TEN BY ROBERT MACKEY
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rthur Muir is nonchalant about the record he holds as the oldest American to climb Mount Everest at age 75. He reached the summit of the world’s highest peak on May 23 of this year, not while eying the glory of breaking a record, but rather with the humble yet steady thought of achieving a treasured personal goal. Muir lives in the Chicago suburb of Northbrook. He worked as a lawyer for more than 35 years—not as a professional or lifelong mountain climber. Only two of the five highlights of his life involve mountain climbing. He revealed a key to his way of thinking, as well as to his lifetime achievements, when expressing his plan to
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retitle his standard public speaking presentation for groups. Originally titled “It’s Not About Success, It’s About Effort,” Muir changed it to, “It’s Not About the Summit, It’s About the Effort.” He believes firmly in the value of aspirational goals—goals that we may or may not achieve—because they get people to take steps forward and generate self-discovery through the journey. He scaled other peaks prior to conquering Mount Everest and trained intensively for his attempt to reach its top. “Anybody that does this has to be really lucky—and they have to have really good support,” Muir noted with characteristic modesty. 12
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Climbers from Arthur Muir’s Mount Everest expedition making it through the icefall.
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Poet Dante Alighieri spent the last 20 years of his life in exile, where he composed the “Divine Comedy.”
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A LOV E OF L E AR N I N G
The Classics
Dante Alighieri
All About Love WRIT TEN BY ELIZABETH LEV
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hen the Beatles crooned “Love is all you tection of Guido da Polenta, where he died in 1321. need” in 1967, they coined an anthem for It was during this turbulent period of his the flower power age, but when Dante Alighieri life that the poet errant composed the “Divine composed “The Love that moves the sun and the Comedy,” a poem of 100 stanzas, called cantos, other stars,” he created the theme song of the divided into three books: Inferno, Purgatory, and Renaissance and beyond. Paradise. He developed a rhyme system called Worldwide celebrations are underway for the “terza rima,” an interlocking musical rhythm that 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death, the propelled readers through an imaginary journey Italian philosopher poet whose early amorous through the horrors of Hell, the sufferings of ditties would give way to an epic poem capable of Purgatory, and the joys of Heaven. Written in the uniting a scattered nation, inspiring generations vernacular, the work crafted timeless images out of artists, and reflecting a universal human story. of words, raising Italian to a language of literature, Dante Alighieri, often simply referred to as while forging a common tongue for the fractious Dante, was born in Florence Italy in 1265, and as populace of the numerous city states freckling the a scion of a distinguished house, he followed the peninsula. Dante demonstrated how the beauty usual track of medieval young influencers: military of words could draw people together instead of duty in a few skirmish battles with neighboring causing pain and estrangements. towns, a stint at the University of Bologna (then The “Divine Comedy,” although a masterpiece merely a century old), and participation in public of the Middle Ages, was inspired by the ancient political life. But neither war nor statesmanship Mediterranean literary traditions of Homer drew Dante; his path lay in the art of poetry. and Virgil, the latter—who famously wrote that Influenced by courtly troubadours of France “love conquers all”—acting as guide for the first and Sicily, he moved swiftly away from writing part of Dante’s journey. Yet, while the “Aeneid” in Latin—still the official language of the Italian recounted the story of the Roman people, and peninsula—to the Italian vernacular, the dialect the “Iliad” that of the Greek states, Dante’s poem of the people. Dante was soon attracted to a set transformed the human condition itself into an of young poets pioneering a “sweet new style” of epic tale, proposing an existential heroism that popular verse that employed accessible language, could be transmuted from age to age. Certainly catchy meter, and sang of love, love, love. the window dressing of the “Divine Comedy” feaHe enjoyed fame and fortune until the vicis- tures a fair amount of medieval insider gossip, but situdes of medieval politics ousted him from his spiritual journey would resonate with people Florence. Dante spent the final 20 years of his far beyond his own borders. life in exile, dependent on benevolent benefacDante, a believer, moved in an age of faith: His tors, and experiencing “the bitter taste of others’ heroes are saints and his framework Christian, bread,” until he settled in Ravenna under the pro- yet his story captures the collective imagination. 83
America’s National Parks
TH E GRE AT OUTDO OR S
Yosemite’s Wonders WRIT TEN BY JEFF PERKIN
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limpsing a photograph of California’s iconic Yosemite Valley, it is easy to understand why millions of people from around the world make the pilgrimage to its breathtaking landscapes every year. Yosemite is home to some of the largest waterfalls in North America, one of the biggest exposed-granite monoliths on Earth, and a wide range of beautiful scenes indicative of the varied elevations and ecosystems of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Whether you stand in
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a scenic meadow, look up the heights of a mighty sequoia, or look down from the edge of a sheer granite monolith, there is no shortage of reasons why Yosemite provided an impetus for the birth of America’s National Park System. Inspired by its vast geological wonders, influential American historical figures such as President Theodore Roosevelt and naturalist John Muir devoted themselves to protecting Yosemite for future generations. In the 19th century, most
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ABOVE Looking up the
mighty heights of the largest exposed-granite monolith in the world, El Capitan. ABOVE RIGHT President
Theodore Roosevelt and naturalist John Muir together above Yosemite Valley in 1903.
of the United States was still an undisturbed “Eden” in the eyes of the young nation’s citizens. Yosemite Valley, with its awe-inspiring walls, lush meadows, and abundant forest groves, was one of the most prized areas of this newly threatened Eden. The controversial battle to conserve Yosemite through government oversight set the precedent for the National Park System we know and love today. YOSEMITE’S DRAMATIC HISTORY
The history of Yosemite is a dramatic, dualistic microcosm that includes the violent expulsion of Native Americans, and the subsequent fight to halt the destructive practices of private commercial interests. Evidence of the presence of Native Americans in and around Yosemite Valley 107
dates back thousands of years before non-indigenous settlers arrived. A tribe of Paiute Native Americans, the Ahwahnechee, once lived amid the immense granite monoliths of the epic valley they called Ahwahnee, meaning “large mouth.” When the California Gold Rush suddenly brought tens of thousands of European Americans to the Sierras in the mid 1800s, life was forever changed for indigenous people. Violent conflict was one predictable result of the newly arrived settlers claiming land and resources in their pursuit of striking it rich. Gold provided the motivation for explorers to brave the largely undisturbed and rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains. As a result of growing conflict with the Ahwahnechee, a group of armed settlers known as the Mariposa Battalion pursued the tribe into the valley in 1851, burning their villages and forcing them out. Mariposa Battalion member Dr. Lafayette Bunnell ironically named the valley “Yosemite” in honor of the expelled tribe, without knowing it was a name—created for the Ahwahnechee by surrounding Miwok tribes—that meant “Those who kill.” Despite the dark and morally questionable circumstances of this conflict in Yosemite Valley, Bunnell had these beautiful words to say about the landscape: “As I looked, a peculiar exalted sensation began to fill my whole being and I found my eyes in tears with emotion. I said with some enthusiasm, ‘I have here seen the power and the glory of a Supreme Being, the majesty of His handiwork is in that testimony of the rocks.’”
A magazine for anyone who loves America— and the values she stands for. American Essence focuses on traditional American values and great American stories. It recounts significant historical events, from the time of the Founding Fathers, through to the average Americans today who want to give back to their community and country. American Essence celebrates America’s contribution to humanity.
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