Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
|
|
|
May 31, 2012 - 10:23pm PT
|
Juan Diver, the Mexican from Acapulco? The one who got pulled off the Nose like a scab? The mutt that still has my Jumars?
I hope he got rescued from the boulder route at Cragmont where he stuck his hand in the crack and couldn't get it back. They got a shot of it in a TNF catalog from '84 or so.
Perrro!
lol, CV.
Who you callin' brutal?
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
|
|
|
May 31, 2012 - 10:54pm PT
|
I came here to comment on the mind-blowing fact (to me) that Galen's business was in my neighborhood, which was on 5th ST. and Gilman, probably not more than two long par fives apart. Beginning in 1977, I began commuting from El Sobrante to Berkeley on my Italian racing bike that I picked up from Bruce Hamilton at TNF. I had been corrupting him with fishing trips and I got a super deal on it. Nine in, nine out, for 3 and a half years. I was in top shape. I must have ridden past that building hundred of times in ignorance of its existence there.
Since I never knew this garage was located where it was, it may be that it shut down by the time I opened the Factory Outlet for business in '75. This may explain why I never knew it was there. It had lodged in my mind that it was located much farther down San Pablo, more in Emeryville or even Oakland. (It must have been Millis that planted that idea.)
No matter. I knew he was a Chevy FREAK and we had little in common other than climbing. He was an ace, a pro with a lens and with a wrench.
I hate working on cars and don't understand them so well so I hate them for that and other reasons; and I lost my baby's birth pictures when the kiosk on Gilman and San Pablo was robbed and my 110 film ended in some Berkeley dumpster.
He put up Stone Groove. I could never even follow it.
He drove a four on the floor. I rode an 18-speed.
He used up a lot of gas. I made up for it.
Some men are born to be wild men. He tempered that wildness with the creative pursuits of writing and photography, while taking the opposite tack with his climbing and muscular approach to transportation.
His was on of the most well-balanced lives of any climber I have known.
What is weird about today is that for the second time in a very short span of hours, I have learned two things I thought were true concerning Galen were in fact not. One is the location of his business. The other was that the Fuller Buttes are in SoYo, not Lassen.
The tales of a legend who left waaay too soon. (Je mousecuse, Rick. I just noted your comment on Chuck Ostin. I added some a's. Plagiarism ismy waaay.)
The shot of a climber on Thank God Ledge.
The fond remembrance of the day at the base of El Cap.
The sound of a '57 Chevy breaking it loose.
California dreaming.
I have been a dedicated listener of classical music since 1998 and was pleased to hear that Galen's mother was a concert cellist. Too cool, Pablo.
I am making a special request to Steve Grossman, if you will oblige me, again. The picture Galen took of the Mouse in Vertical World, could you put it up here? Please. I want to show my knickers. Moby Dick chimney.
|
|
Darwin
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
Given that Peter started this and it's about Galen, I'm re-posting my photo of those two at Indian rock around '71.
apropos Rick's post: Chris Vandiver, if you're lurking out there, we're not far from each other.
|
|
NicoleRowellRyan
Social climber
Plymouth, CA
|
|
|
Aug 22, 2016 - 01:26pm PT
|
Love seeing this thread about my dad's old garage. A few comments and corrections.
1. The Santana link. Rowell Auto Service had a mechanic named Walter Herbert. Walter's son was Herbie Herbert, Santana's manager and later Journey's manager. Herbie bought the biz for his father from my dad in 1971 or so.
2. The 1955 Black Nomad station wagon. It has recently been brought back to Berkeley, CA...purchased by a close friend of the family...complete with my dad's receipts in the glove compartment.
3. The 10 month pregnant mom. Yes, my mother Carol was a month overdue with my brother and did have to have a c section. My brother Tony Rowell has just recently published his own book of astrophotography. https://www.amazon.com/Sierra-Starlight-Astrophotography-Tony-Rowell/dp/1597143138
He also has some astronomy time lapse videos that are being used in movies, tv and ads.
http://www.tonyrowell.com/
http://www.astronomytimelapse.com/
Thanks for the stories and pics.
|
|
Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
|
|
|
Aug 22, 2016 - 01:43pm PT
|
The power of the Taco! great thread, thanks for the update Nicole.
|
|
telemon01
Trad climber
Montana
|
|
|
Aug 22, 2016 - 03:43pm PT
|
Best taco thread I've seen in years! Missed it first time around
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
|
|
|
Aug 22, 2016 - 05:04pm PT
|
Thanks for posting these wonderful TR time-lapse videos. Impressive work.
And here I thought Herbie was a VW bug. Thanks for clearing THAT up! :0)
|
|
guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
|
|
|
Aug 22, 2016 - 05:18pm PT
|
If I remember correctly, Scot Walker's mom was head of the DMV office in Berkeley. More stories about this side of the picture but I must again check the statute of limitation criteria for the good State of California.
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
|
|
|
Jan 14, 2018 - 07:33pm PT
|
Bumper bump.
Albany Hill in background.
|
|
Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2018 - 06:53am PT
|
Nice addition, Mouse!
|
|
Bad Climber
Trad climber
The Lawless Border Regions
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2018 - 07:03am PT
|
Great stuff! I don't know if it's been mentioned elsewhere, but the Mountain Light Gallery here in Bishop has closed its doors--the end of an era. Made me sad to see it go. I only met the great man a few times at AAC meetings decades ago when I was a very youthful member, but I did have another tangential connection: My first love was a very serious cellist and took lessons for years from Rowell's mom.
BAd
|
|
Don Lauria
Trad climber
Bishop, CA
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2018 - 12:55pm PT
|
Met Galen in Camp 4 sometime in the early 60s. Never got to climb with him, but spent a lot of time at Camp 4 tables with him.
One day in the late 60s in Camp 4, just after I had read Galen’s first Summit article “with photos by Rowell”, Galen came running up to me and excitedly, his camera swinging wildly from its strap around his neck, and asked if I had seen the article. Yes, I had read it. What did I think? I thought it was great. He then announced that he’d made a life changing decision. He was going to henceforth devote his energies (he had energies) to writing and photography. I previously had a story printed in Summit so with that in common our friendship was now firmly established.
Later, in the early 70s at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley during that year’s annual American Alpine Club banquet, Galen and I were conversing in the lobby. In the course of our chat he mentioned he was going to be running in the hills in the morning, “would I like to go?” Sure. I was into running then and had been in a couple of marathons, so I was delighted to be invited.
Next morning at 4:30 am we met in the lobby and Galen led me out the door and into the Berkeley hills. It was probably the most difficult course I’d ever been exposed to … steep and then more steep. An hour and a half later I managed to drag myself back to my room and collapse. I’m sure Galen was still trotting in place somewhere outside. Again, a man of great energies.
When he and Barbara moved to Bishop and opened Mountain Light Gallery in 2001, I spent some time with him, helped move some furniture into the gallery and visited him in his beautiful new Bishop residence. I expected to see more of my new neighbor over the years, but while on a river trip on the Salmon with Guido in August of 2002, we learned of the plane crash.
In October of 2003, Galen’s son, Tony, contacted me and asked if I would accompany him on an ascent of the Mountaineer’s Route on Mt. Whitney. He explained that he and Galen had started a winter ascent a few years back and had been turned back by the weather. In Galen’s memory, Tony wanted to finish the climb he and his father had begun. Tony was just beginning his venture into professional photography and brought his camera along. I have a photo hanging in my living room fhat Tony took of me that October at the base of Whitney at sunrise. Tony has since gone on to become an award–winning astrophotographer.
|
|
Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
|
|
|
Jan 15, 2018 - 12:58pm PT
|
Do you have a picture of El Bravo, Don?
|
|
Larry Nelson
Social climber
|
|
|
Jan 16, 2018 - 08:17am PT
|
Bump for one of the best threads on the Taco.
|
|
John Morton
climber
|
|
|
Jan 16, 2018 - 09:41am PT
|
Apropos of Don Lauria's mention of the Claremont Hotel, I recall being recruited to join Dozier in rappelling the tower, perhaps 1964. This was in connection with some kind of winter fair. Descending before us was Galen, who I think had set up the gig and took the opportunity to do some route finding amongst the tower roof pitches. Galen rappelled while carrying a cocktail, which he served to someone through a window.
|
|
guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
|
|
|
Jan 16, 2018 - 06:48pm PT
|
|
|
Kalimon
Social climber
Ridgway, CO
|
|
|
Jan 16, 2018 - 07:46pm PT
|
I had bailed from the taco but you all deserve so much thanks and love for the marvelous Galen stories! Thank you all for sharing these incredibly timeless memories . . . you all had some good times.
|
|
Clint Cummins
Trad climber
SF Bay area, CA
|
|
|
Jan 17, 2018 - 01:11am PT
|
Chris Jones wrote:
His father was, as I recall, a professor of rhetoric at Cal. This is correct.
Below is his father's obit from 1975.
He retired from teaching in 1953 at age 68; Galen would have been age 13 at the time.
http://texts.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb4q2nb2nd;NAAN=13030&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00058&toc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=calisphere
Edward Z. Rowell, Speech: Berkeley
1885-1975
Professor Emeritus
Edward Z. Rowell, our esteemed colleague and friend, was born in Silver Lake, Minnesota on September 3, 1885, of Moravian parentage. He took the Ph.B. at the University of Chicago, and the M.A. and Ph.D. (cum laude) at the University of Chicago--the higher degree being awarded in 1922. After a year as assistant professor of philosophy at Carleton College, he returned to the University of Chicago. It was there, during his first year, that a telegram arrived from President Robert Gordon Sproul to the President of the University of Chicago. It read, “I want a man trained in the philosophies who can teach my students to think.” Rowell was the first person to whom the President of Chicago showed the telegram. From that time on Ed's entire career was spent in the speech department of the Berkeley campus. He retired in June 1953, beloved by his colleagues, who honored him with a party that will always live in the hearts of those attending as the most heartfelt ever given in the department.
This latter fact is not accidental. Ed had the remarkable ability to hold the respect and friendship of the entire membership of the department. This feat was all the more remarkable as Ed was neither a pliant nor indifferent man. His philosophic training was thorough, his gentle manner deceptive, for although Ed never raised his voice nor quickened his soft, deliberate--even careful--manner of speaking, many a student and colleague discovered that there was a powerful and critical mind behind the gentleness, and not one to be underestimated. He was, on the other hand, ever supportive of intelligence and sensitivity. To young faculty members whom he deemed worthy he offered steady support, offering generously of his time as counselor and mentor. Though his style was always quiet and his stance that of understatement, he was a gifted storyteller and wit, and as a speaker was much in demand, particularly within the Unitarian Church and the Humanist movement.
His first marriage, to Alice Marion Rowell, ended in her death in 1931. His second marriage, to Margaret Avery Rowell, was, despite the fifteen years difference in their ages, one of the most felicitous we have witnessed.
― 151 ―
The many interests they shared included a profound love of nature, and they went each summer for long hiking expeditions in the Sierra and, during the rest of the year, through the woodlands of the Bay Area. Herself a woman of great talent as a musician and teacher of the cello, Margaret was to Ed a warm and loyal partner, held by all of us in high regard in her own right.
As a scholar, Ed is best remembered for his four-part monograph entitled Prolegomena to Argumentation, considered a major contribution to rhetorical theory and long used as a central oeuvre in graduate courses around the country. During the last twenty years of his active professorship, he was troubled by glaucoma and, ultimately, cataracts, all of which limited his scholarly activity. As a result, his energy was devoted to teaching. His colleague and office mate for twenty-two years, Alan R. Thompson, has left a written testimony to that devotion.
He gives his time and energy to his teaching because he loves to teach. It is a cliche to say that a professor loves to teach, and too often the cliche says more than the truth. Many of us do our duty, but our deepest interests are elsewhere, perhaps in our research. Applied to Ed Rowell the cliche is strictly true. In advising the students in his own classes he has been far more generous of his time than most of us. He helps his students with problems of emotional adjustment. His tact and kindliness here are admirable. He maintains warm social relations with many present and former students. Graduates often drop in to see him. Their attitude shows how highly they regard him.
It should be noted that, although Ed died more than twenty years after his retirement, former students attended his memorial service and spoke of their love for, and devotion to him.
Each member of this committee and all his friends and family will always carry the memory of this grave, gentle man with the cool mind and twinkling eye, in many respects the very model of the humane professor of the humanities.
Ed Rowell died on May 4, 1975. He is survived by his wife Margaret, their child Galen Avery Rowell and his two children Nicole and Edward Anthony, and by the daughter of his first marriage, Anne Rowell Morehead, and her three children, Alice Morehead Cheek, Ruth Morehead Flanigan, and John, and one great granddaughter, Gail Anne Cheek.
Robert L. Beloof Ward Tabler Garff B. Wilson
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!