“Come mothers and fathers throughout the land. Don’t criticize what you can’t understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Your old road is rapidly aging. Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend a hand. For your times they are a-changing.” It wasn’t long before the music of Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and Rolling Stones woke me up to the unrest unfolding throughout the country. I memorized the stirring words to many of Dylan’s songs and sang them to myself as I walked around campus. The potpourri of sounds included ethnic music which I … Continue reading
Category Archives: Memoir
Coming from Germany where I spent my last two years of high school, the first day at college in the US turned my world upside down. My plane landed in Dayton, Ohio. It was the last week in September, 1966. As the passengers filed into the airport, I looked around with anticipation, having been notified that someone from the college would be holding a sign with my name on it. When the crowd thinned, I finally saw a small, cardboard placard with the words “Erica Merriam” written in whimsical rainbow lettering, held by a tall guy, barefoot, with long, wildly … Continue reading
Our train to Arosa passed through lush green valleys and along a little mountain river. Uncle Ernst stood in the aisle of the train doing his strange exercises, like deep knee bends with his back straight as a rod, which years later I realized were related to the Alexander Technique. He had been prescribed the exercises to improve his posture and open up his constricted chest. I felt ill at ease watching my Uncle’s uninhibited behavior create stares and neck craning by nearly all the passengers in our section of the train. He exercised with complete focus on what he … Continue reading
On the fourth day of the fast, I awoke feeling refreshed, rested, clear-headed, and actually bubbling with energy—mental and physical energy—while at the same time experiencing a pervasive sense of peace. Hunger had mysteriously disappeared. I had no discomfort anywhere in my body. The world looked different to me. The colors looked brighter. The air smelled pure and intoxicating. I felt alive in a way that was new to me. Strange and wondrous feelings filled my mind and body. Everything in my life and in the world felt perfect just the way it was, no matter what. There was nothing … Continue reading
Uncle Ernst, my mother’s younger brother, was a most unusual Swiss medical doctor. He had been the subject of heated controversy in my family. My mother claimed that he was a genius; my father claimed that he was a quack. While in high school in Germany, I remember traveling with my family to visit Uncle Ernst, a man I barely knew. Ernst had a thriving medical practice in a town called Landquart in the canton of Graubünden. We knew that Uncle Ernst would be too busy to visit with us. We simply wanted to say hello when he got a … Continue reading
Rachel began her life with the deck stacked against her. She has had serious medical problems since birth, most of which are related to the genes she inherited from her parents, and then exacerbated by environmental factors, like the food she eats and the air she breathes. With persistence and determination, Rachel has managed to navigate her way through life, overcoming one challenging health obstacle after another—all the time maintaining her inimitable Jewish sense of humor even in the bleakest of times. We actually laugh together during her appointments with me—even when she is in serious distress. Rachel’s long list … Continue reading
Come join me for the last chapter of this odyssey. One of the Indian students who “interviewed” me asked what most moved me about the trip. Aside from the thrill of being of Antarctica, I was moved by Sir Robert Swan’s dedication over the past 30 years to the preservation of Antarctica and to raising awareness about climate change. His strategy is brilliant. He brings young change makers from all over the world to Antarctica so that they will see for themselves what is so painfully evident. I was equally moved hearing about the dreams and aspirations of the young … Continue reading
Have you ever imagined what the earth looked like in the beginning, before humans tinkered around with it? Antarctica offers us a glimpse into this primordial world. It is the last remaining truly wild place left on our planet. I can see why Sir Robert Swan, after skiing 900 miles across Antarctica over thirty years ago, vowed that he would devote his life to “saving” this majestic and wondrous place. … Continue reading
Come with me on a trip to the most remote and pristine wilderness on the planet—a frozen version of the Garden of Eden, a landmass the size of the US, Europe, and Australia, a place that has never known poverty or war, a place that is covered in ice—ice that is melting fast. The international treaty that protects Antarctica from exploitation ends in 2041—unless we can take actions that will extend the treaty for as long as humans walk the earth. Ever since Sir Robert Swan laid eyes on Antarctica after walking for 70 days to the south pole in … Continue reading
During a nine-hour wait in the DFW airport—lengthened by technical difficulties with our flight—I managed to attract three different people with medical problems. A man and his wife from British Columbia, seated next to me in the waiting area, began chatting with me. They had organized a running marathon on Antarctica—over ice, snow, and rocks—and had gone down there seven years in a row to oversee the event. The subject of Lyme Disease popped up because the man had suffered with the illness for nine years. Of course, I couldn’t help myself from diving right in. After the couple left … Continue reading