MUSIC BOX
Melinda Coffey Armstead, piano
Prelude
This Is My Father’s World . . .F. Sheppard; arr. L. Shackley
Musical Interlude
For the Beauty of the Earth . . . C. Kocher; arr. L. Shackley
Postlude
All Things Bright and Beautiful . . . English melody, 17 C.
Sonata in G Major L. 84 . . . Domenico Scarlatti
“. . . in Wildness is the preservation of the world.”
– Henry David Thoreau
This quote appears in an account of a conversation with John Muir published by Albert Palmer in “The Mountain Trail and its Message,” 1911:
One day as I was resting in the shade Mr. Muir overtook me on the trail and began to chat in that friendly way in which he delights to talk with everyone he meets. I said to him: “Mr. Muir, someone told me you did not approve of the word ‘hike,’ ” is that so?” His blue eyes flashed, and with his Scotch accent he replied:
“I don’t like either the word or the thing. People ought to saunter in the mountains – not hike! Do you know the origin of that word ‘saunter?’ It’s a beautiful word. Away back in the Middle Ages people used to go on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and when people in the villages through which they passed asked where they were going, they would reply, ‘A la sainte terre,’ ‘To the Holy Land.’ And so they became known as sainte-terre-ers or saunterers. Now these mountains are our Holy Land, and we ought to saunter through them reverently, not ‘hike’ through them.”
– John Muir
