4 Outward Bound USA

The name "Outward Bound" generally evokes the sort of bucolic images that appear in catalogues of stylish but

rough-and-ready outdoors gear. One pic­tures white-water rapids being skillfully navigated by a group of wholesome col­lege kids in a raft. Rocky hillsides where people dad in orange Gore-Tex(r) are pulling one another by rope. Virgin forests where the only evening sound might be a nightingale's song. The aisles of a Sloan's supermarket, a subway station in New York's finandal district, and a hos­pital cafeteria in Harlem seem a million miles away. But these are the setting of a New York City Outward Bound weekend course. And to those who take such a jour­ney, neither those locales, nor Outward Bound, ever look the same again.

As with most Outward Bound courses, I wondered, periodically, what on earth I was doing there and how I might get out of it. The first such flash came right at the beginning. I had shown up, as instructed, at South Street Seaport; the mimeographed instructions had told us to take the subway to Fulton Street and then walk east away from the World Trade Center until we reached our meeting point under the prow

of the clipper ship Peking. I didn't know a soul, and, standing there in my old clothes, small duffle in hand, on an unusually raw and cold mid-November evening, I didn't relish, at age forty-four, being instructed to join in a circle and play a game at which my children would have laughed.

"Everyone who likes spaghetti, run to the other side," the instructor shouted. After each command, the circle would re­form, but with one person not having squeezed in and hence have become the new caller in the center. "Everyone wear­ing red, run to the other side." "Everyone who's seen Malcolm X, run to the other side." (The movie had only been out for a week, and half the partidpants charged across.) "Everyone who's hungry and won­ders where the bathroom will be tonight, run across." That time we all crossed.

It had seemed silly, but it worked. Right away, I knew that I had more in common than I had realized with this group of total strangers, half of whom were high school kids from the south Bronx and Brooklyn whose background and experience seemed to have little in

common with that of a New England­bred, Ivy League-educated art historian.

Names were then called out, and we formed into three groups of ten, each unit with two instructors. Five of the ten were youths-almost all African

American or Latino--and in our group all from different schools in east Brooklyn. And there were five adults: men or women in our thirties or forties, middle class and white, four from various places on the East Coast and one from Oregon. We had paid double tuition, to cover the cost of ourselves and our youth partners.

Everyone was issued aluminum-frame backpacks, sleeping bags, eating utensils, and a few other bare-bones necessities. The instructors checked out what we had

brought along, encouraging people to get rid of anything unnecessary or of extra food, and we loaded our packs. Additionally, we handed over our watches and wallets, any money, and in some cases beepers. These items would all be returned at the end of the weekend, but for 48 hours we would live without our usual props. We were, however, each given an emergency kit in a sealed envelope, with $5 in it and instructions on how to reach the trip lead-

ers through their beepers, in the event that we were separated from them.

We picked partners. Mine was Jay-sev­enteen years old, the veteran of one rural Outward Bound course. He and I helped one another get our very heavy backpacks on. We were told that our first task of the week­end would be to procure the next day's breakfast for 12 with $18 at Sloan's. The other pairs had similar assignments, and we all figured that we made quite a sight at the sui>ermarket-this group of people of vary­ing ages and different races, weighed down by bulging backpacks, comparing the prices of different types of orange juice, reading the ingredients of pita bread to determine the healthiest, and going through flyers on the floor in hopes of finding useful coupons.

The twelve of us then began our first hike-into Chinatown. Jay was fasdnating. I am embarrassed to say that when I was his age the only black teenager I ever knew even slightly was the one out of the 500 students at my prep school, and he had been so shy he would scarcely speak. I have not lived quite such an insular life since,

but Jay was open with me to a degree I found refreshing. He told me he dressed like a tough street kid so that the real hood­lums wouldn't mess with him. Then he

surprised me when our instructor started to lead us on a short cut through a housing

project. "I don't do projects!" Jay shouted. When I asked him why not, he explained that in projects near where he lives, people shoot from above. I figured that he knew what he was talking about, and was grate­ful when we took another route.

With a budget of $50 for the group, the twelve of us did well having dinner in

Chinatown. Sitting around the table, I realized that this was the perfect urban equivalent of riverbank meals I had known on other Outward Bound courses. It was by no means foreign; I had had many low-

budget Chinatown suppers in college. But the discussion, quite programmed, was unusual; we each had been asked on our walk to interview our partners about their sense of community, and now we reported on what we had heard from one another,

-and took it from there. "Community" was the theme of this journey.

The Friday night sleeping accommoda­tions were unlike any I had ever dreamed of. At a temperature of about 30 degrees,

we slept on the tilting deck of one of the ships moored at the seaport. The land­scape we saw from our sleeping bags was extraordinary-with the lights of the Finandal District skyscrapers in one direc­tion and of Brooklyn Heights across the water. Gulls flew overhead, and there was a prevailing smell of fish past the point when you would want to eat it. I have known New York from many angles, but never before from this one. I did, howev­er, have to lower my head well inside the sleeping bag to be warm enough to sleep.

Outward Bound courses generally start with a bit of "Basic Training" ardor, and

this was no exception. We were woken after under five hours of broken sleep, and told that we had to be ready to get off the boat by a quarter of six. This meant rolling our sleeping bags and packing up in the dark. By 6 a.m. I was serving breakfast on the subway, working my way up and down the front section of a shaking car as I handed out bananas and pita pockets with jam and cream cheese. Jay poured orange juice. The riders who were not part of our group all stared, but we ate happily, doing our best to fortify ourselves for the morning's activities even if we were not yet very hungry. Food on this trip took on

the role of being a necessary fuel more than a diversion or luxury.

The O.B. van met us at the !25th Street subway station, and we headed to Randall's Island. There we divided up into two large canoes. For Jay, holding a canoe paddle was as novel an experience as being at the 12Sth Street subway station had been for m e. For both of us, this was really a day of traveling into another person's world.

Canoeing up the East River, past Hell's Gate to the northern tip of Manhattan, was spectacular. It was drizzling out, and the gray mist lent drama to the urban vis­tas. We tried to identify bridges from

underneath them. We studied the rock formations and the buildings, which ranged from derelict warehouses to hand­some boat houses. A police car stopped on the east side of the river, not far from Yankee Stadium, and the two officers began cheering us on through their speak­er system. We saw the Columbia College crew start a training session. But for all the buildings and roadways in view, people were as scarce as on a hike in the forest. This was an aspect of Saturday morning in the dty I had not seen previously.

And then we entered the Hudson. Suddenly I could imagine what that great wide river looked like to its first explorers, how it appeared to native Americans in the seventeenth century. For all the times I had driven down West Side Drive, I had never before known the river from water level, or in such a quiet setting. We all paddled hard, working on our teamwork, the two canoes in an informal, joking competition with one another. We teased the paddlers who were out of sync or weren't dipping deep enough,

· but everyone was in marvelous spirits.

After we docked above the Cloisters and carried the boats to land, we formed a cir­d~ur general form of meeting-to hear

what lay ahead. This was typical of the way the trip was conducted; we never knew the next stage in advance. Our instructors explained that our wilderness for the after­noon would be Harlem, and that now we would begin our "community exploration."

I felt uneasy. For four years at Columbia College, I had never walked

easily in the East 120s. There had been years when, after a professor was shot at the !25th Street train station, most of us who lived north of the dty had always gone all the way down to Grand Central just to take the subway back up again to West 116th Street, rather than walk in what we thought of as an unfriendly neighborhood. But rarely have I been more relaxed than that rainy Saturday afternoon. Jay and I had the task of inves­tigating the African American Film Society-each pair was given a cultural organization-and of finding lunch for $6 for the two of us. It was unique to be in a city without a penny extra to spend-a reminder of what that experi­ence was like for those for whom it is the

constant reality. At Jay's suggestion, we spent some of our time in stores, even though our acquisitions could only be mental. It evoked the degree to which "getting and spending" is an essential part of spare time. I was fasdnated by

shops full of a range of discounted Timberland shoes and boots, which I had previously thought to be a uniquely East Side phenomenon. Jay told me that he and his friends call them "Timbs" and that they were replacing jazzy sneakers as the footwear of the moment. We looked at a vast selection of suede and leather jackets in a couple of clothing stores, and then in a butcher shop where there was fresh rabbit along with chitterlings. Stands along the sidewalk sold "black

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soap" and several other products of which I had never previously heard.

At every stop, people were exception­ally friendly and helpful to this pair of a black teenager and middle-aged white man, both rather disheveled and wearing the clothes we had slept in. We had a fine time at the Studio Museum, where I was able to interest jay in Jacob Lawrence and Romaire Beardon. He, in return, explained his passion for video games-a subject previously as elusive to me as modem painting had been to him.

Our conversation at lunch-chicken "short pieces" (fried thighs) and rice and beans at Lenox Avenue and 127th Street-was memorable. Jay talked to me about his experience of New York's white neighborhoods. He imitated the way that women clutch their pocketbooks at the sight of him, and that men like me put our hands over our wallets. He confessed that nothing tempts him so to commit a crime-although he resists. He also described the way that cops, both black and white, hassle him when he is, for example, in the East 70's. They invariably stop him and ask what he is doing there, as if he needs a passport.

The group reconvened at 1:30 p.m. As on any hike, I was hot, sweaty, and tired- my shoulders aching from the backpack, my legs feeling as they general­ly do on the incline of a mountain. Only now, rather than heading through woods, we made our way through a trail of side streets-some a fairly sorry sight of deserted buildings and rubble-filled lots. Our goal was North General Hospital, where we were scheduled to do "community service work."

Work of this nature is a basic ingredient of the O.B. urban courses. You may end up at a soup kitchen, a homeless shelter, or any similar organization. At North General Hospital, where we spent the afternoon washing windows, helping to prepare a new gift shop run by volunteers, and sell­ing candy to the patients, we were all tremendously impressed by the handsome, beautifully maintained surroundings and by the warm, personal care given patients. Even on the floors assigned to psychiatric, de-tox, and AIDS patients, there was a rela­tively easy, upbeat atmosphere.

I know that my children would have cringed if they heard me, but I sold gum and candy with rare abandon and enthu­siasm. Imitating a voice I used to love of the sandwich and soda seller on the New Haven Railroad when I was a kid, I announced that we had the freshest, sweetest M&Ms, crisp and delidous potato chips, and Snickers bars that would bright­en your evening. This from a father who rails against such things when his children want them. But with Jay handling the money and me loudly selling, we brought more money into Volunteer Services than the candy cart generally garners.

That evening we had supper in the hos­pital canteen, which was also to be our bed­room for the evening. After we ate, each pair reported on the commu­nity exploration of the after­noon, and gave the spedfics of the cultural oranization it had visited- the Studio Museum, the Apollo Theater, the Schomberg Center. When the name of Langston Hughes came up, one of our instructors turned to Monica, a seventeen-year-old Latino girl whom she also knew from an Outward Bound drama course, and reminded her that Hughes was the

author of the poem Monica had recently memorized.

Suddenly, the normally shy, giggly Monica agreed to go behind a column and "prepare" herself. A moment later, she reappeared and gave a stirring, dra­matic rendering of Langston Hughes's "Democracy." Its impatient craving came alive. Monica's face and voice were those of a great actress, totally alert to the expe­rience and emotions of her writer. I had to hope that everyone else was too absorbed to detect my tears.

That night we were all preparing our beds by 9 p.m. This meant putting our sleeping bags on the linoleum floor, and using extra clothing as a pillow. We then discovered that it was impossible to tum off, or even dim, the very bright flores­cent lights; they need to be on all night for the doctors who might want some­thing from the vending machines in the canteen. One of those people who likes to sleep in total darkness, I was not thrilled.

My solution made everyone else roar. I placed a stacking chair in such a way that I could put my head under it. And although most people do not turn to the Times Travel Section to learn of accom­modations of this sort, I can report in all honesty that rarely in the past ten years have I had a better night's sleep than on the cold floor of that brightly lit room in Harlem, with former strangers at my side. Under that plastic stacking chair I had rich dreams that offered solutions to some work problems that had been plaguing me for years. It was no surprise, really; I had learned that I could do more than I expected, and go places I had never been.

On Sunday morning we again back­packed through the East 120's and then headed north by subway toward Fort Tryon Park. There, equipped with climbing ropes and harnesses, we took turns rock climbing and rappelling. I was on my way down a cliff when Monica, some 15 feet to my right, was on her way up. She was mis­

erable, struggling to find hand holds and foot holds in the slippery rocks. Her great­est fear was that her back-ups would let go of the rope on which her life depended. I did my best to encourage her, as did others from above and below. Eventually she reached the summit, but not without a fair share of tears and anguish.

That afternoon, when we had our final group discussion and farewell meal in Central Park at about lOOth Street, Monica talked about the anguish of that climb. She explained that her greatest battle in life was learning to trust people.

. She could not convince herself that they would not drop ·the rope. We all talked about issues of faith and confidence, and of what it meant to try new experiences.

I confessed, with some embarrassment, that for many years I have walked back and forth through this park and always felt that my territory was the west and east and south, but never before to the north. I felt I should have made the dis­covery decades ago. It seemed foolish that someone who has tramped around

distant rural lands could know so little about nearer places. We then discussed "street smarts." It was great that I had added a dimen­sion to my travels, but I should no sooner walk alone through the park that night than Monica should make her climb without ropes. Yet following the rules, willing to consider some new approaches to familiar places, the possibil­ities are endless.