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Hargrove Annual Report for the Year: 1996 
Still at:
6100 Bend of River
Austin, TX 78746-7201
(512) 327-5611
April, 1996: Siberut Island, west of Sumatra
Getting to Siberut is not easy. You take a ferry from
Penang, 13 hours in less than ideal conditions, the kind of ferry where you
start by looking for life preservers. The ferry voyage ends just as dawn is
breaking, providing a dramatic backdrop for the small boats that take you to the
river. Next comes a leisurely two-hour
ride up the river to the home of a friend of the guide. This is where you stay
for several days, in a house on stilts; with pigs rummaging around below; where
mud is part of the environment, clinging to everything; where the local populace
wears loin clothes made from tree bark subsisting on food from Sago palms, with
an occasional pig for a feast. Ah! An anthropologist’s dream. It sounds better
when you see the light in Claire’s face while she tells of the adventures.
“At first, I tried to stay on the logs. The natives have very wide feet with
almost prehensile toes, so they have no problems. I fell off several times.
Finally, I gave up and decided that I was just going to get muddy. We were
fortunate to be allowed to attend a ceremony in the local ‘village’ that few
outsiders have ever witnessed. I worried that tourism would destroy their
society, though.” Jim told her not to worry.
June 10, 1996: Ayote, Nicaragua
Ayote is located literally at the end of the road, a
bruising four-hour truck ride from Managua, when the vehicle doesn’t break
down. It usually does. Linda and Claire spent a week there working in a
makeshift medical clinic. Christian Medical Missions, an Austin group
specializing in third world health, organized the trip. Ayote is “by far the
worst poverty I have ever seen,” according to Linda. Claire, having seen a bit
more of the world, concurs. In the clinic, they did what they could, everything
from extracting teeth to passing out anti-fungal medication. Linda wanted to
pass out birth control pills and information, but the nuns running the local
mission would hardly approve. After a week, they were out of time and medicine,
and came home. Re-entry into our society was difficult: several tearful sessions
describing the conditions to Jim helped.
July 4, 1996: Jackson, WY, nightfall
The day began auspiciously, clear and bright. Together
with our aunt and uncle, Mary and Jim Larue, we ate breakfast outside the
national park, with the mountains in full view, looming over the valley
thousands of feet below. We spent the morning in the park, reveling in its
wonders: checking out wildflowers; pointing out the moose with the radio collar
for everyone; hiking to a small pond to find the nesting Trumpeter Swans. Now,
as night finally darkens the skies, we wait with the residents of Wilson, a
trendy new age enclave near Jackson, for fireworks to start. Meanwhile, the
atmosphere displays its own variety of fireworks, with as many as three bolts of
lightning visible simultaneously. Jim displayed his skill as a weather
prognosticator by accurately predicting, “It will storm, but not here.” He
relied on his mother’s oft-repeated dictum: “We’ll never see these people
again.” The man-made fireworks and the natural combined for a long, boisterous
end to a great day.
November 2, 1966: Rice University Stadium, late afternoon
The first quarter was ominous:
Rice fumbled on the third play of the game, giving Utah the ball on the 25-yard
line. "Oh no!” Jim thought. “Not again!" After that shaky beginning though, we were treated to one of
the best Homecoming games on record, a 55-10 drubbing of Utah. After the game,
Jim sought out Charles in the Bud Light tent outside the stadium.
It was Charles’ fifth reunion, our 30th. "It’s been years
since I saw Rice dominate someone like that!” he managed to shout over the
din, his voice hoarse from all the cheering. Then he remarked, “What am I
thinking of? I’ve never
since Rice clobber someone this way!" Maybe we shouldn’t eliminate the
football program just yet.
December 28, 1996: Palmetto State Park, Ottine, Texas, late afternoon
 The
day began one hour too early, thanks to Jim’s miscalculating the driving time
from Austin to Ottine. Charles, Jim, and Linda started the Christmas Bird Count
at dawn, about 7:00 checking out a small pond containing lamentably few ducks.
We spent the rest of the day driving back roads checking out flocks of sparrows,
meadowlarks, and assorted “small brown birds.” Late in the afternoon, with
little light left, we returned to the pond, incongruously named “Salt Lake,”
to find eight of these beauties: uncommon, but always beautiful
Hooded Mergansers. Magnifique!
Linda
continues to love working as a Nurse Practitioner for two family practice docs
in South Austin. One of the doctors and his son were part of the Nicaragua
expedition. She has devoted herself to planning trips, managing to take several.
After the trip to Nicaragua, she left on a trip to Wyoming and Colorado with Jim
and Claire. Landing in Denver, they took full advantage of Alamo’s “all the
miles are free” deal to drive to Jackson and back. Along the way, we spent a
long weekend with Rosalind and Bubba, our former foster children in Estes Park,
and relived part of Linda’s youth visiting Casper, WY, a town that time has
passed by. Somehow Linda still had the energy for a trip to Minneapolis with her
mother, where they arrived in time for the first big storm of the season. In
family tradition, they headed for the world famous Mall of the Americas.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be the grand opening of Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s latest movie, Jingle
All the Way. The crowd was almost
enough to convince them to leave.
Jim,
after experimenting with semi-retirement for nine months, planned to drop out
completely. Then he got a new job as VP of Development for BRC Health Care in
Austin, “gray matter” for seven programmers. In September, he
said, “A piece of cake.” In October, he lamented, “This job is going to be
hard. There isn’t enough time for birding.” This haiku-like fragment on the
subject was composed for our 30th reunion. Then, on January 2, 1997,
in a major surprise, the parent corporation reorganized and Jim retired yet
again, one more furious charge older and wiser.
Jim has become a total addict to
the Internet, using it for everything from buying plane tickets to finding out
the birthday of Captain James T. Kirk.
His conversation is filled with acronyms, such as, “I think SWBT set up the
SPIDs backwards on the ISDN line; MPP doesn’t work.”
Charles
still lives with Amy in San Rafael, California, where he continues worming his
way through the LucasArts organization. He accomplished the first step from
contract to permanent employee in the Art department, keeping the artists happy.
Now he is moving to the next logical step: keeping the artists’ machines
happy. That is likely to prove a much more daunting task.
In his spare time, Charles hones his fencing skills,
using experience and guile instead of youth and endurance. His maturity in the
sport is showing. We heard him admit, “I was second. The guy who beat me was really
good.” For diversions, he and Amy have explored the vineyards and
other quaint attractions of northern
California with a series of long weekend trips. He has returned to skiing, since
Lake Tahoe is “real close.”
Claire
returned as planned from her excursion around the Pacific Rim in time to enter
the class of ’00 at UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. This required
several trips to Dallas by Linda and Jim to make sure that Claire was situated
well. Several hours of riding around the area near the Med School with a cell
phone finally paid off. Claire snatched up a nice, large one-bedroom apartment
within walking distance of La Madeleine restaurant and other attractions. It is
also the center of the alternative life style in Dallas, which makes for
interesting neighbors. During October, Linda and Jim returned for Parents’
Weekend. After a day of lectures, they ambled down to the Halloween parade on
Cedar Springs. Most of the men wore dresses; it was that kind of parade. Claire
noted accurately, “I’ll bet I’m the only one here with her parents.”
Commensals
included both the feline and procyonic
variety this year. Our three cats continue to do what cats do: sleep a lot
except early in the morning when they demand to be fed. Anyone gullible enough
to fall for this ploy is soon rewarded with a look of utter scorn as they take a
few miniscule mouthfuls before moving on to more interesting pursuits, such as
batting Christmas ornaments across the room. The raccoons, though, are not so easily pleased. One comes in the pet
door whenever we forget to block it up and empties the shelves in search of
chocolate and sugar, two of our main dietary staples. We don’t take kindly to
such incursions. We have had to trap and transport one particularly obnoxious
villain, only to have her quickly replaced by another.
Hope you have
all had a happy holiday season. Thanks for waiting patiently for this annual
letter. Come visit us in Austin!
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