His name was Ruhland but we called him Baba. I understood the Ruhland part: a surname binding the generations migrating randomly. I was the random Ruhland of my generation. The name Baba I am a bit less sure of. If someone ever told me the genesis of the name, it is now lost in the fog we call middle age.
There are those that accommodate their roles and those embrace them. Baba embraced his. More importantly he had reverence for his role. Whether the role was colleague, mentor, husband, father, or grandfather; he cherished his part. He was worldly but not haughty. His was intellectual but not snobbish. He was confident but not arrogant. He had the style and substance you would usually reserve for a statesman. He was Baba.
I was introduced to Baba in 1958. My first memory of him is at Old Gulph Road. I have no memory of my grandmother because she died when I was very young. Events at Old Gulph were largely Harlow / Daudon affairs. There was a house full of kids and parents with Molly, Anna, and Dewey in attendance to compliment the chaos. The circular drive in the front was our NASCAR track for bikes and trikes. The expansive grounds our field of play for tag and chase with Anna’s special chocolate chip cookies clutched in our paws. We were introduced to finger bowls for dinner, a foot bell that summoned meals from the kitchen, and co-ed football in the backyard.
Baba used to come out to our house in Minneapolis for Christmas about every other year. It was always a production to have him with us because he always gave the best presents. They were saved for last and usually the grand finale. I remember one year when he told me he was giving me a donkey. The build up was incredible. There were days spent talking about where I would have to keep him, if I knew what to feed him, if I knew that donkey’s can sometimes bit you, and that they can be especially tough to ride. The whole idea seemed ridiculous but after a couple of days of this donkey dialogue there became a suspension of disbelief and I began to believe that it could be possible. After a morning of crème of wheat, stockings and gift grabbing he excused himself and left the room to get my new donkey. He emerged, pulling mightily on a rope the stubborn animal that still remained out of my view. After a spirited struggle the protesting mule lost his battle and emerged in the form of a new red bike. Dad had a hold of the handlebars out of view at the other end in a tug of perception war. A successful suspension of disbelief.
Our first trip as Grandpa’s group was to Alaska. A group of us stopped at Disneyland first then met in Anchorage to begin the adventure. Camp Denali is a base camp for Mt McKinley. We all stayed in different cabins and went for day hikes, played games, and played folk music. (It was the sixties after all.) The mosquitoes were the size of Black Hawk gun ships, descending on our lily white skin as if we had bulls eyes painted on us. Our only defense was combat style protective garb with a netting headdress. This made family pictures interesting since the only way to identify anyone was by body type observation and height. A frightening visual in retrospect. Everyone paired up into cabins with Marc usually bunking with Baba. This made me very jealous since I felt that I should be allowed a turn to room with my grandfather and was being passed over because Marc was older. This bothered me until we arrived at Point Hope, the next leg of our tundra adventure.
Point Hope is basically the Northern most point on the planet where creatures with 2 legs walk. The sun barely set if at all and our cabin was little more than a converted Marine Corps barracks with the rooms separated by next to nothing. There was no TV or radio and most of the architectural highlights were bones and carcasses from unfortunate creatures that ended up on the wrong end of a harpoon. It was here when my envy of the bunk buddy sleeping arrangements ended. With all of us functionally in the same room separated by hanging blankets and assorted animal skins, we settled in for our first night of sleep. Less than an hour after lights out I heard what sounded like a combination of vacuum cleaner and wounded wild animal. It was loud and it was mammal. I was almost ready to run to my parents for protection from the beast that had invaded our hut when I realized it was Baba: snoring! Since that night the charm wore off on the privilege to bunk with Baba. I was ready to move in with my new Eskimo friends and adopt their culture for our one week stay to escape. In the future sleeping anywhere away from that running buzz saw would be fine with me.
The travel agent had indicated our barracks at Point Hope had amenities that included running water. When we arrived we looked at the sink with open pipes below it leading to a plastic bucket pondering just how rustic this adventure was going to be. We all looked at each other then saw out the window sled dogs pulling large containers of water on a sled. We now knew the Eskimo meaning of the term “running water”.
Food and supplies were flown in by bush plane or hunted. Our normal dining routine took a turn to the primitive as we sampled the local cuisine of whale blubber, seal fat, and everything fish. One of the local delicacies was called muck tuck, a dish from the whale family that was half black and half white. I was at the beginning of my 45 year phase of putting mustard on every food group and was proud of the fact I was going to sample this local favorite. They eat this stuff the way we eat hot dogs, the Norwegians eat Lutefisk, and Wisconsin people eat anything deep fried. I covered my whale blubber, that in shape resembled a slice of watermelon, with copious amounts of French’s yellow mustard. I triumphantly took a large bite and felt the Inuit rite of passage would be mine. I then realized I had bitten the non-meat end and instead consumed several bites of pure fat. It was like an episode of fear factor! Supermarket style food was scarce so when the canned fruit had to be divided up it was a major production. It was here that Baba’s immortal phrase “half of a half of a half of a pear” was born. It became the phrase that captured the trip.
