A number of years ago, anchored off Islesboro at eventide, Gordon asked if I would be willing to speak at this service.
Talk about “out-of-the-blue….” What did he want me to talk about? All I got back was that Cheshire-cat sort of smile of his and-“you’ll think of something” as he drifted off into another of his innumerable naps.
My problem has been thinking of too many things. A problem of what to leave out, not what to leave in.
I’ve got some great Gordon stories — including the three or four times he almost had Katabatic or our boat Sooloo on the rocks because he thought chart plotter manuals were for sissies.
I also know with a certainty that there are thousands of similarly wonderful and unique stories and memories of Gordon that you all have.
So, rather than talk to you about my memories, I’d like to ask everyone to do this:
Please take the next minute–close your eyes if you want—and privately remember your most enduring memories of Gordon, bringing him here with us through our thoughts this morning.
Thank you. The space here is alive with Gordon.
Gordon and I met through our strong mutual connection to Conservation Law Foundation: me as the new director of CLF’s Maine Advocacy Center and Gordon as a CLF board member and generous donor. Gordon had first been introduced to CLF ‘s advocacy woek through the fight to block Great Northern Paper’s proposed Big Eddy dam on the West Branch of the Penobscot River.
On route to a Forest Society Board meeting in Bangor, Gordon apparently wanted to meet and take the measure of the guy who was going to be making the future decisions about CLF’s work in Maine, especially any Great North Woods advocacy, a geographical area about which he tended to be very proprietary, protective, and opinionated.
He ended up spending the night at our house in Rockport ME, sleeping on our too–short couch without complaint in his ancient but lamentably ripped down sleeping bag. Many of you probably know that bag well from camping trips.
I often imagined that bag as being one of the first down bags Leon Bean ever sold. Gordon certainly treated it as an antique.
Because of the down storm that seemed to inevitably follow wherever that bag went—including our Rockport home that night–we ultimately had to ban “the bag” from all cruises. He told us that he threw it out but I recently heard from Taffy that she just found it, tucked away in the back of Gordon’s closet. Gordon had some serious Yankee in him.
In any event, I must have passed whatever test he was giving me and our friendship grew and deepened from there, year-after-year. I know that many of you have had similar experiences with Gordon and are still in shock over his death.
I won’t tackle the monster list of Gordon’s accomplishments.
· his many innovative real estate activities,
· his athletic achievements,
· or the extraordinary forest and coastal island conservation home runs Gordon hit in his life. Like Babe Ruth, Gordon was never afraid to swing for the fences for things he cared about. Unlike Mr. Ruth, however, Gordon rarely struck out when he made his mind up to do something, sometimes waiting for decades to pounce as he did with the acquisition and protection of the Big Eddy Falls with Chewonki, some 20 years after the dam fight took place.
I can’t help note, however, how remarkable I find it that this year, when most at 92 year-olds would be puttering around in a golf cart, Gordon and Taffy created the Gordon Hall Family Scholarship program through the Stephen Phillips Memorial Scholarship Fund to benefit college-bound Lynn and Marblehead students children with academic and leadership potential.
Gordon’s remarkable legacy spans New England and time.
It is important, I think, not to sugarcoat his philanthropic legend or other achievements, to think of them as a natural consequence of his white privileges or some other such thing. Gordon was a very complex man and had to overcome personal tragedies and obstacles that would have stopped a less dedicated soul in their tracks. I want to thank all of you here today who were so indispensable to him in meeting those psychological, emotional and spiritual challenges. He would not have become Gordon without your dedication.
As near as I can tell, it was the Maine’s Great North Woods that really got its hooks deepest into Gordon’s soul, originating undoubtedly with the first fishing trip he took there with his father and with his camper/counselor days at Chewonki.
From my perspective, apart from precious times he spent with his family, Gordon was never happier than he was at his primitive camp on Pleasant Lake in northern Maine. Gordon together with the outdoor skills and partnership he developed with his extended North Woods family–wardens Dan Glidden and Tom Ward and Tom’s children –wrestled that abandoned and dilapidated camp back from the primeval forest, the resident bats and the mice. Well, they almost got the nice under control.
I have always thought of Pleasant Lake and the camp as Gordon’s spiritual home, embodying his full-blown love affair for both place and for the woodlands way of life.
My fondest memory of Gordon is sitting with him on the camp’s porch in the evening, him sipping the cold remains of the morning’s coffee and quietly watching as the last light drained from the dancing waves of the lake and the loon chorus started up. It is a memory of Gordon completely at peace with himself and his world.
I want to thank personally Taffy for being in Gordon’s life. Being the rough-cut gem that he no doubt still was in the 1990’s, hooking up with Gordon must have been a bit of a gamble for her. But they loved and respected each other and made it work … work well.
Taffy taught Gordon
· to “knock it off” when he got out of line
· to eat his greens and veggies
· take better care of his physical and spiritual life;
· and to start loving himself again;
Gordon is also here in the room through his children and their families: Gordy and Linda, David and Lisa, and Max and Allison and their six children. Although they all walk now successfully to their own drummers, as Gordon pretty much always did himself, it is not hard to see the reflections and personality recombinations of Gordon’s character in them that made him so special and that now make them all so special. Taffy’s children– Cally and Matt and their families–are also here and now very much a part of Clan Knowlton Hall.
One word sums up Gordon Hall for me– Gratitude.
Gordon, I am so grateful for your generosity toward me and so lucky to have had you in my life. It was a memorable Class V river run with you. You inspired and enriched my life immeasurably.