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Personally and professionally,
it’s been a terrific year. Pat and Cliff Terry kicked off
2008 with a return to Sanibel Island, Fla., for a combined holiday
and article research trip.
We also attended the Everglades Coalition Conference on nearby
Captiva Island. |
Sanibel’s “Ding” Darling wildlife sanctuary, with
its trolley tour, biking and hiking trails, still is home to a rich
array of wildlife. Development hasn’t bypassed Sanibel, but thanks
to the vigilance of residents and city officials, the island maintains
a delicate balance between concrete and wildlife habitat.
The highlight of our trip: canoeing through the mangroves of Tarpon
Bay. As the guide pulled us together for a moment, we found ourselves
maybe three feet from a yellow crowned night heron sitting on a very
low branch. We also spotted little blue herons, great blues, ibis and
anhingas—all large enough and close enough to see without getting
the binoculars wet.
Last year, Cliff landed a Sanibel story assignment (Pat took photos)
on classic beaches from the Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine.
This year, energized by an advanced online nature writing class with
environmental writer Wendee Holtcamp, Pat researched several nature
and environmental stories.
Cliff’s big volunteer travel story, highlighting Earthwatch and
Habitat trips to Chile, Brazil and Honduras, ran on the cover of the
Chicago Tribune Travel section, as did his articles on the
International Wolf Center and fall colors around Spoon River, Ill. Pat’s
photos ran with all the Tribune articles. Cliff continues writing
for the Lions Club magazine.
Pat’s steady writing assignments for the Chicago Sun-Times
Real Estate/HomeLife section came to an abrupt end when her unusually
creative editor and 30-some other pros were “laid off,”
due partly to financial misdeeds of former executives. Pat’s most
recent stories zeroed in on the gentrification of Cabrini Green, a notorious
Chicago housing project, and a colorful former ABC-TV video editor whose
passion for collecting takes her to Oaxaca, Mexico, four months a year.
One of Pat’s favorite publications, Midwest Home Chicago,
recently ran her stories on an innovative industrial designer and his
fabulous hacienda with indoor rainforest; the owner of Chicago’s
Italian Village restaurant and his spectacular walled courtyard with
20-foot waterfall cascading down the garage; and a charming collector
of outsider art, whose painting and sculpture-filled loft revolves around
an indoor atrium with retractable roof.
UPCOMING FOR SECOND HALF 2008
On the future agenda for 2008, the Terry writers plan several Midwest
“road trips” to scout out nature and travel stories, and
a fall volunteer trip to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation—site of
the Wounded Knee Massacre. In early 2009, they’ll join a Global
Habit trip to rural Vietnam to build homes for very poor people.
HAWAII WEDDING, CHILE HOMEBUILDING
The 2007 highlight was a wedding: younger son, Scott Terry, married
longtime love, Jane Ignacio. Big brother Chris Terry shed his
crutches, earned from a wild dance-floor performance, to serve
as best man at the elegantly restored Moana Surfrider hotel, possibly
the oldest on Oahu. It’s one of those soaring, white gabled
hotels clad in wood and boasting rocking chairs on the wraparound
porches. The wedding was on the back terrace, with waves slapping
the beach maybe 50 yards away. |
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Although we’d long avoided
Hawaii—outdated images of Don Ho, hula skirts and leis—it
was an aching beautiful place to visit, especially after leaving
the urban bustle. On a four-hour, local bus trip, we glimpsed
a very different and diverse Oahu: at various stops along the
side of the road, less affluent locals climbed off and on, walking
long distances to or from their homes. At one stop, three young
spear fishermen climbed aboard with their spears and promptly
fell asleep. A rainforest hike with a local guide was eye opening,
as they say. He filled us on Hawaiian history, including the sad
fact that once Japan returned the island, a coterie including
the U.S. government and the Dole company—deposed the king
and took over the country.
In September 2007, Pat hopped a bus for the Pine Ridge (S.D.)
Indian Reservation to chaperone a youth group trip from her childhood
church in Cleveland, Church of the Covenant. The site of Wounded
Knee (the 1890 U.S. Army massacre, and the 1973 FBI–Oglala
Sioux stand-off), the reservation is in two of the poorest counties
in America, and the experiences of its people have been devastating.
Each morning, before we went off to paint, clean up and repair
houses, the director of Re-Member (a small nonprofit working to
help people on the "rez") read us Wisdom of the Elders.
At night, Oglala leaders, some with hope in their voices, spoke
to us about a range of social issues. (You may want to pick up
the very readable “On the Rez,” by Ian Frazier, about
Pine Ridge today.) |
Terry Writers’ big adventure came in late
September 2007, when we flew to Chile for a two-week project with
Habitat for Humanity’s Global Village Program. We built
homes from scratch, added rooms or finished houses begun by other
groups in Casablanca —a medium-size city about an hour from
Santiago—in the heart of wine-growing country. Our trip
fee covered food, lodging, a donation to the building program
and four days of R&R, including wonderful tours to large and
small vineyards, an Andes ski resort and famed poet Pablo Neruda’s
home on Isla Negra.
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Habitat Global Village coordinates 400 work teams in 40 countries,
and homeowners contribute “sweat equity,” which lowers the
amount of their no-interest Habitat mortgages. Twenty of us worked building
small two-room houses and room additions to homes with no running water,
bathroom, kitchen plumbing or in some cases, electricity. Our group,
led by a retired government worker from Washington state and a New Zealand
high school Spanish/Japanese teacher, was diverse—11 women, 9
men—ranging from a 20-year-old New Zealand (“Kiwi”)
Air Force member to a 75-year-old retired OB-GYN from Beverly Hills.
Besides the Kiwis, volunteers came from Vancouver, Singapore and the
U.S.
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Our talents varied widely, too:
Some knew what they were doing, others of us didn’t know
a chalk line from a pick-up line, but we quickly learned some
basics, like driving home 4-inch nails (MUCH harder than hammering
the 2-inch jobs). We also learned to go with the local flow, leaving
“how we do it in America” at home. That was tough,
especially for the Type A’s.
There was lots of good humor and self-deprecation, with plenty
of wine and beer drinking at day’s end. (We’re not
sure Jimmy Carter would approve, but his brother Billy certainly
would have.)
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After Habitat ended, we joined three other volunteers and took a bus
11 hours south to Villarica and Pucon in the volcanic Lake District.
Hiking, canoeing and carefully eyeing the smoking Villarica Volcano,
we had a great time. Pat picked up pneumonia somewhere along the way,
but she’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Chris Terry, who’s left the journalism field
for an IT position at Sungard, continues following his passion
for comedy improvisation with classes at Improv Olympics, and
his passion for music with on-and-off guitar lessons. And we’re
not sure about the tango! He and his cat, Jake, play house-sitters—and
take care of Terry Writers’ phone calls—while we’re
on the road. |
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Scott Terry remains with Energy
BBDO advertising, on the business side, and follows his passion:
travel to places we have never been. This year it was a solo trip
to Greenland and, yes, he’s talking to locals, taking notes
and hoping to sell it as a travel story. |
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