Barnes Family Christmas Letter 2006
In 1992 our family visited the Grand Canyon. The boys, then 8, 10 and 12, took the fourteen-mile, roundtrip hike with me down the Bright Angel Trail to the exhilaration of Lookout Point. When we returned to the top, tired and toward sunset, I saw three-year-old Natalia with her leg braces and realized she might never feel the thrill of being consumed by the canyon below its rim. Then there was Ariel, only a year old. How could we do it? The mules, the folks told me, it’s the only way! Natalia would have to learn to ride and Ariel would have to turn 14—but a plan was set in motion….
Last September 2005, I made reservations for what I thought was Thanksgiving that year, but reservations are so booked up at the rim lodges that they book a year in advance! So we had to wait for the vacation of a lifetime. Oh, yes, they added, you cannot weigh more than 200 pounds to get on a mule. What!? With me at 217—and hoping to wear clothes on the trip—I would have to lose 25 lbs! How about the boys, pretty big guys, but Gavin was 6’3”, and already fairly slender. It made the effort fraught with problems. However, things have a way of working out; you’ve just gotta give it some time and effort….
In San Diego in the ‘90s, Natalia got more horseback experience than the rest of us put together at the Helen Woodward Center’s riding-with-disabilities program, and Ariel, now over the minimum age of 14, finally qualified. Because I had a “date with a mule” set for Thanksgiving, I jogged three times a week, did push-ups and sit-ups, cut back on the Pepsis and pushed away chocolate desserts, and more—for a year! By weigh-in time, the Canyon’s scale showed me fully clothed at 198; the 25 lbs. were gone! Along the way, I invited Cynthia, my girlfriend of a couple years, to our “event,” and we were happy to have her daughter, Marissa, come as well. My brother, Ken, in Oakland, thought, hell, this many of us might not be this close to him ever again, so he brought himself, in his wheelchair, south a bit to make a grand party of nine. He didn’t take the mule down, but neither, as it turns out, did my three young Musketeers, whose extraordinary camaraderie led them to hike ahead of the mules and even beat us to the canyon floor, 9.6 miles away, at the Phantom Ranch. It was the vacation of a lifetime, especially for the flatlanders from Florida. With the advent of digital cameras, having made the term “roll of film” extinct, we took several hundred photos to be able to relive every cliffhanging moment, and there were many. While, the Canyon was the event of the year—there was other stuff, too….
Thomas graduated in Political Science and International Relations from Florida International University and works for their Emergency Management Program. He has applied to become a U.S. Marine. Another nasal surgery set him back a couple of months, but his physique is getting to be its best ever at 26. It could be a lovely January at Parris Island, South Carolina, and maybe even a lovelier October in the Officer’s Candidate Course at Quantico, Virginia.
Sebastian has traveled much of the globe for Citrix, and the career he worked so hard to reach for so many years is moving along nicely. See, all those computer games weren’t for naught. They had a part in leading him on a certain path—where he wanted to be.
Gavin, a senior at the University of Central Florida, will graduate with honors in Mechanical Engineering this spring. This year he has been a teaching assistant which opened the right doors leading him to pursue his Masters in Mechanical Engineering—focusing on Robotics—at UCF come fall. His computer games worked out for him, too.
Natalia is applying to several colleges, the University of Maryland, George Washington and the University of Florida among them, all for their standout telecommunications programs. Her stage presence and think-on-her-feet ability should land her in front of a camera someday telling you what the news is. She directs and coordinates stage shows at MAST Academy and…did I mention she made the Cheerleading Squad? What would her first doctors say, now 17 years later?
Ariel, one of the youngest in her class has, well…blossomed. No longer the stick little girl in pigtails, she is a dazzling young woman, much more than just age-qualifying to ride the mule so we could all go. Her last year of high school will be a great one, finally understanding the benefit and beauty of studying and reading with passion. In her red-and-white outfit, she cheerleads her school teams—and life—just down the row from her sister.
And, Wayne, dear old Dad…has been investigating up a storm all over Florida, around the Caribbean, in Texas, and far away Veracruz, Mexico. Cynthia and I have traveled to her City Planning conferences where extracurricular activities kept our minds and bodies rested and nimble. We horsebacked outside San Antonio, and hiked Mt. Hallet in the Rockies, all preparations for the big Canyon trek. But it is the manuscript—the book!—The Dance Before The Wall—that needs a mention. All the rewrites are complete, query letters are out and contacts have been made with half-a-dozen literary agents in the hope that someone with savvy and inspiration in the publishing world will enable you to buy it soon in a Barnes & Noble near you!
Until next time…may you all have a joyous season and a happy new year!