Blessings On Blessings

Kathy and I celebrated our 10th anniversary on July 6, and that weekend the kids popped for dinner. That's why I'm talking about. Because my younger daughter, Lindsay, couldn't be present -- she was at work down at Camp Stevens in Julian -- it wasn't quite perfect. But nearly so, thanks to (beginning over my bald head) stepson Dan, future son-in-law Mark, stepdaughter Meaghan, honorary daughter Ciara, Meg's friend PJ, and my elder daughter, Valerie. What can I say but that blessings abound?

Adult Daughters

Few joys exceed meeting one's adult daughters for lunch on a warm spring afternoon. Valerie (right), who's marrying Mark in October, with her father serving as officiant, was back from a three-day parks and recreation conference in Long Beach. She works for the Yorba Linda community center and discloses that Amy Poehler has become living patron saint of an entire generation of municipal employees, or at least those charged with planning nonsectarian Santa breakfasts.

Lindsay will be graduated from Long Beach State in May and is thinking about parlaying her degree in political theory (she has been known to mention Rousseau, Locke, and Mao in polite conversation) into a career serving those at need, which will be easy given her brains and openness of mind and heart. When I asked for a little help for the tip, she said apologetically, "I gave my last dollar to a homeless person."

We lingered happily over lunch and in the sunshine on the sidewalk. Reluctant to leave Fullerton, which everyone in Orange County loves or should, Valerie and Lindsay asked if I wanted to go for some additional refreshment. I declined and asked for another kiss. After Valerie changed out of her parks and rec shirt in the back of her VW, they wandered away together, past the Fullerton museum with its permanent exhibit on local hero Leo Fender. Adult daughters! Life is good.

"Valleri," The Monkees

Featuring the late Davey Jones on lead vocals, the namesake song of my elder daughter, Valerie, who's getting married on Oct. 6. Don't tell her, but I might see if the St. John's folk circle can get this together for the reception. Song by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart. I always wondered if guitarist Mike Nesmith really played those runs.

Double Duty In October

Last Sunday we celebrated my elder daughter Valerie's 27th birthday (which is today) with dinner and a fine ale from the Bruery in Placentia supplied by her fiance, Mark. They'll be married on Oct. 6, when I'll walk her down the aisle as well as (gulp) officiate.

Brief Empty Nest Inspection

My favorite Christmas Day photo -- Kathy after making the day festive for everyone, Lindsay rocking her Nepalese cap from Joshua Tree and getting set for the snows of Washington State, Valerie and Mark experiencing their last single Christmas, and Meaghan and Dan a few hours before their flight to London.

The Great Post-Feast Of Easter

After Easter services, we go to brunch at El Adobe in San Juan Capistrano. Daughters Lindsay and Valerie are flanking Valerie's boyfriend, Mark. Below is Kathy's son, Dan, teaching a family friend, 20-month-old Eilee, how to play air mariachi guitar.

Time For Another Beer Summit?

"Palestinian" isn't the same as "Muslim" -- almost, but not quite. About 50,000 people in the West Bank and Gaza, or 2% of the population, are Christian, and last weekend in the all-Christian West Bank town of Taybeh, a good number of them were hoisting one of the finest lagers in the world at the town's sixth annual Oktoberfest. Founded by the Khoury family in the heady early 1990s, when the Oslo accords seemed to presage a Palestinian renaissance, the Taybeh Brewing Co., which makes about 160,000 Pale-stein gallons a year using German and Polish hops, was the subject of a tasty LA Times article today.

You won't find Taybeh beer at Trader Joe's. Two strikes and it's out: It ships without preservatives and with a label reading "Made in Palestine." Israeli checkpoints make it hard (but not impossible) for the brewery to get its beer into Jerusalem. It's controversial on the home front as well, according to the Times:

Subtle Muslim-Christian tensions were apparent Saturday during the festival's opening ceremony. The mayor spoke of the need for a "moderate Palestine." Later, the regional governor, a Muslim woman wearing a head scarf, invited Oktoberfest attendees to enjoy the locally made products, such as olive oil and spices. But she couldn't bring herself to mention the beer.

If you visit the brewery, as I did during pilgrimages in 2007 and 2009, you get a tour and free samples. That's my elder daughter, Valerie (left), on last year's trip with Madees Khoury, daughter of one of the brewery's co-founders. The Khourys make a non-alcoholic beer (with a label in Hamas green) for abstemious Muslims. Maybe they should send a few cases to help loosen up the Israeli and Palestinian peace delegations. As for us St. John's pilgrims, keep some in the fridge for us, because, in January, Taybeh, here we come.

Good Times!

I'd almost forgotten about this gracious LA Times profile from February 1996, about my work with Richard Nixon as his post-presidential aide and library director. The original headline said, "Nixon's Taylor," and there was a giant closeup photo (not this one!) that frightened my children. The story wasn't my idea. The reporter called after the I'd organized a Nixon library PR jihad against Oliver Stone's "Nixon," which didn't contain a single completely honest moment. "Nixon" died at the box office not so much because of what we did but because it was just bloody awful.

I winced when I saw that the reporter had me down as my elder daughter's basketball coach (I was just the assistant). That's Valerie in the photo. But my blood ran cold when I saw this well-meaning quote from my buddy Hugh Hewitt:

I think probably with the exception of President Nixon's family, there is no individual walking around on Earth who knew Richard Nixon better than John Taylor. That's because he spent 10 years with him at the end of his life in close and constant companionship.

Typical Hugh. But I knew I'd come to regret it. And it happened soon enough.

We Could Get Used To This!

Historic first dinner party at 24-year-old daughter's house. (No photographic evidence exists of two equally gracious luncheons at 21-year-old daughter's Long Beach apartment.)

Jericho Portrait

Fellow St. John's pilgrim Andy Guilford took this picture of my elder daughter Valerie and me on a balcony of the Monastery of the Temptation high above Jericho in the West Bank.

Beer Buddies

Valerie Taylor and Madees Khoury, both 24, in the brewery founded by Madees's father and uncle in the West Bank town of Taybeh in 1994, the year of the Oslo accords. An exceptionally tasty lager made from German and Polish hops, Taybeh isn't available in the U.S. because it's made without preservatives, which makes shipping complicated, and because it ships with a label that says "Palestine," ditto. If you want to learn more about the Middle East's only microbrewery, do a Google or Facebook search for "Taybeh Beer." While Taybeh is the West Bank's only 100% Christian town, Madees and her family also make a non-alcoholic brew that is gaining ground with abstemious Muslims.

Valerie Always Wanted A Convertible

Sitting pretty on the Mount of Olives. The camel's name is Kojak. Tootsie Roll Pops are extra.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Valerie And The President Before Ford

Visiting the Nixon Library last night, high school students from La Habra, California revealed that they had absorbed both the ceremony and substance of President Obama's inauguration. They knew that he and the Chief Justice had flubbed and repeated the oath of office and that Obama's main goal in his address was providing reassurance about the economy. Rarely have I encountered a student group so well informed about current events. These were bright kids, first of all; and these are times that focus everybody's attention on politics more than usual.

La Habra is a middle- and working-class town where Richard Nixon had a law office in the 1930s. There is room to grow when it comes to the kids' appreciation of this dimension of their heritage. My opening shtick with student groups is to ask them to go backwards through time with the last names of Presidents. I got a big, loud Obama and a medium Bush. After that, the correct answers came from city staff, parents, and probably the kids who run for study body offices. This is par for the course for any group of visitors where the average age is 20 or less. "And the President before Ford?" I asked at last. In our group of 18, one said "Nixon" -- Debbie Musser, history alum of UC Riverside, a longtime citizen volunteer in La Habra who serves on the city's youth committee.
During our early-evening tour of the grounds and museum I was bucked up, as President Nixon would say, by Debbie's enthusiasm as well as our shared experience of anicent times, the era when Mick Taylor was still in the Rolling Stones. We visited President Nixon's birthplace, which is especially evocative at night, comfortingly lit and smelling vaguely like other places we may remember with old wood furniture and floors and century-old textiles, places associated with visits to grandparents and great-grandparents. We did our best to walk the kids through the terrors and ambiguities of the Cold War and the trauma of Vietnam. They learned about RN's world-changing trip to China. They saw the POWs' sacred flag and the President's resignation letter. They lingered over exhibits in a special exhibition containing handwritten inaugural drafts by FDR and Ronald Reagan, also called to reassure and re-energize their anxious people.

We ended up in the Nixon Foundation's offices for a going away party in honor of my elder daughter Valerie, who had arranged the visit for the La Habra youth committee and organized it with a cheerfulness and an attention to detail which have evidently made her a legend at 23. Valerie's leaving the City of La Habra for a new job in the Yorba Linda parks and recreation department, and Debbie had brought a cake and balloons. Imagine being dad as the young people took turns praising and thanking Valerie and saying how much she'd be missed. Upstairs, she posed with President Obama, for whom, unlike certain others in the family, she had proudly voted.

"Have Them Send A Chopper, Daddy!"

Overrated

A travel-savvy friend sent this link to a photo feature of 24 destinations deemed overrated by LA Times readers. Some are obvious, I suppose. Las Vegas? Vulgar and expensive, said a grumpy reader. Of course she hated gambling, so you have to wonder whether she and her husband had done enough research. Nothing to do on Catalina Island? I guess I can buy that, although the buffalo, imported years ago for a movie shoot, are worth hunting down.

But also on the list were Bali, Costa Rica, and Greece, where notwithstanding its being the birthplace of democracy the dissenting couple had a bad experience as a result of loud music and people smoking too much in a nightclub. It's a free country; blame it on Pericles.

As I read through the escalating grumps, I said to myself, "Somebody had better not complain about the Grand Canyon." The friend who sent me the link probably said the same thing to himself about his beloved Hawaii, which didn't make the list. But sure enough, here's bellyache #18:

Although the canyon is certainly a geological sight to behold, the campgrounds are atrocious, about as charming as pitching a tent in the alley behind your local big-box store and just as close to nature. Hiking is limited to down the canyon and up the canyon, and although, yeah, I know that's why you're there, not every member of every family is capable of such strenuous effort. Despite the family demographic, you won't find playgrounds to keep the kids grounded. The Grand Canyon is a great destination if you are under 30 with a good prostate, balance and a taste for trail mix.

The thing is, looking at the Grand Canyon and walking in and out of it are why we go there. That fact actually can't be logically modified by a "while" or an "although." For the same reason, you just can't say, "Although Renoir's 'Luncheon Of The Boating Party' is a beautiful painting, it doesn't say anything funny or serve caffeine-free Diet Coke." In other words, the Grand Canyon is a great destination, period. When a culture has reached the point where people are willing to complain in print, over their own names, about the alleged shortcomings of the most beautiful places in the known universe, we might consider redoubling our efforts in the "count your blessings" department.

One of my blogfollowers (my elder daughter) and I walked in and out of the canyon in November 1998. Quick energy from trail mix, taken in small handsful every 20 minutes, was our salvation. While my prostate was already well beyond 30, the attraction, which indeed has fewer rest rooms than Universal Studios, offers more than enough bushes to hide behind.

On the canyon floor, whose two-billion-year-old rock should give the young earth folks something to thing about, we stayed at the Phantom Ranch, where (at least back then) visitors were offered either steak or beef stew. In the men's bunkhouse, I lay awake most of the night, listening to the rain and wondering how we were possibly going to make it out again.

Yet walking up the Bright Angel Trail the second day was actually easier than the descent. Something about what walking straight downhill for six or seven hours does to your calve muscles. About a third of a way down, Valerie, 13, had sat down on a rock and said, "Daddy, I can't go any further. Have them send a chopper." The next day, she didn't complain once. She walked, and rested, and walked some more, for nearly nine hours. I will never be able to describe the feeling of arriving with my daughter at the trailhead. Overrated, huh? Top five experiences of my life. The LA Times and its reader might consider giving it another try. I suggest they wear two pair of socks, however. I can still feel the blisters.

Photo by Steven Pinker