Finally! A long lovely rainy day.

My sister Tamar was here for a few days last week and we pulled out a box of memorabilia about my father.  I have been thinking about him since and because our latest genealogy group meeting was about scanning old pictures, I remembered the one below and pulled it out.

This is the observatory staff on Mt. Washington, circa 1946.  My father, Marshall Smith,  is second from the left, holding the cat.  I don't think he was ever without a cat in his adult life, except perhaps when he was working as a sailor in the merchant marine.  Vince Schaefer is in this picture as well.  Marshall made several trips to Central America on the S.S. Mayari, a United Fruit Company "banana boat".

S.S. Mayari

These trips sometimes ended in Boston and the sailors rapidly made their way to the nearest bar.  In the bar, after what turned out to be his last trip, Marshall met a man who said he had been working at the weather station on Mt. Washington, was on his leave days, and didn't intend to return.  He thought that if Marshall presented himself there, they might give him the job.  This is exactly what did happen.  Money that he earned up there enabled him to buy the farm in Pikes Falls where I was born.

Marshall told us two stories about his time on the mountain-- home of the "worst weather in the world".  In one case he was descending one of the Ravine's in winter-- perhaps Tuckermans.  He slipped and began sliding downhill over icy crusted snow.  He managed to turn himself onto his back and use his hands to guide himself between obstacles.  While he eventually was able to stop, his clothes were shredded and his leather gloves worn to nothing.  The other story made it into Nicholas Howe's book Not Without Peril.  This occurred on February 19, 1946.  Marshall descended to meet a new scientist who was climbing up.  Although the weather had been "exceptionally" fine, a sudden cold front came in and Marshall and Vernon Humphrey retreated a half mile to the 6 Mile Refuge.   The emergency food with which the refuge had been stocked was gone but there was a heater and a phone.  They contacted the summit and set up an hourly phone schedule of contact.  They were finally rescued about noon on the third day-- that is about 68 hours later.  Marshall told me that one of them had to be awake to make the hourly phone call for the entire time-- Nicholas Howe says "two men from the observatory arrived with hot tea and soup, then they escorted Vernon and Marshall the rest of the way to the summit and set a meal before them that was entirely adequate to their great need".

After days, no weeks, of little rain we have been rewarded  with a nice soaking one today.  Our Friendship Sampler "picnic" was held at a member's lakeside home in Palermo and everyone felt  blessed by the rainfall.  The number of people in the group was just perfect to fit in her large open kitchen, and we had a wonderful time drawing crayons for a "crayon challenge" and doing our usual show and tell.  After we broke for food (lots and lots of food!) (note to self:  buy that self hypnosis CD  for weight loss) we ended the day with a "UFO" swap and gales of  laughter.  Talk about making lemonade-- the fact that we couldn't spread out on the deck, the shore and in the water, made for togetherness and a day that we will remember with smiles.