On Monday my mom, Margaret Vieira celebrated her birthday as she turned a very young and energetic 87! I flew up to Grants Pass, Oregon to spend the day and the week with her. Awesome week!
Mom moved to Grants Pass in late 2011, but before that she had lived in Anchorage, Alaska for over 40 years.
Over the course of those years she spent a lot of time out on ski trails, mountain sides, rivers, hiking trails, and often hiking and skiing where there were no trails. She was a very active member of The Prospectors.
The Prospectors were a robust Alaskan hiking group. I believe the majority of the membership’s age span ran between 50s to 90s (And I think there were a few that overflowed on either side of those numbers). They would often go out on day trips, overnighters, weekend and week long outings and planned adventures.
After each of these outings, when my mom returned home, she would write down a one or two page journal entry, describing the events of their trip. While I was up there this week I started reading through some of the journal entries and was very much entertained by Mom’s writing and narration style.
Her writing was clear and vivid, very descriptive. You could easily envision each scene she described. At times it was humorous and just outright funny! Very entertaining stuff. After I had read a couple of the entries she took the notebook from me and read a couple more to me, out loud. Hearing her voice retell the stories added that much more to the experience.
Great Memories
While it was so nice to hear the stories, I’m just as focused on the memory of hearing Mom read those stories to me that night.
I am so glad we revisited her adventures that evening. I will always remember that. (I was inspired to take these shots while she was reading)
Margaret Vieira is an awesome storyteller. You don’t often see that these days.
