Judie Johnson (left) talking to Rebecca Wiinanen at East Bay Friday, October 23, 2009 after sharing some stories of her life adventures. The brown bag lunch engagement was part of an ongoing series sponsored by the Violence Prevention Center. Johnson, wearing a sweater she knit, said even knitting can be an adventure.
Twenty-three people, most with lunches in hand, showed up at East Bay to hear some stories Friday, October 23, 2009. With a backdrop of giant waves roaring outside the windows and a fire blazing in the hearth, they settled in to hear Judie Johnson of Grand Marais talk about adventure.
The brown bag lunch talk was one of an ongoing series sponsored by the Violence Prevention Center. Fall is a good time to share stories, Jodi Yuhasey said as she introduced Johnson. We have busy lives, and often we don’t take enough time to share our stories.
“Every day is an adventure,” Johnson started out. “As an adult, sometimes you forget. The biggest thing about life is that it is always a risk.”
Johnson talked about adventures big and small. Recently, she has been hiking early in the morning before the sun comes up. She has been rewarded with sightings of falling stars.
Adventure sometimes requires risk. With the high cost of yarn, even learning to knit was an adventure requiring risk, Johnson said. She apparently had a knack to for it, however. She knitted a sweater for her “ex,” she said, who wore it to a college class. Theprofessor commented to Johnson about the sweater, and she said jokingly, “Well, for 500 bucks you could have one, too!”
“I’ll take three!” he said. Judie made some Christmas cash making Christmas gifts for the professor.
“The willingness to just go is part of what makes an adventure,” Johnson said. She once arranged for a guide to take her to see the oldest trees in the United States. When she arrived to meet him, she found a note on the door: “Kayak out back. Dog barks but is nice.” Off she went without the guide.
“As a child, you can make an adventure out of anything,” Johnson said. “I remember how to be a child, and so I have adventures.”
Some of Johnson’s bigger adventures have involved trips to the Boundary Waters, Canada, China, and Peru. “My favorite movie is Dr. Doolittle,”
Johnson said, “because he throws a pin at a globe – and that’s where he’s going!”
Johnson finished college with a double major in biochemistry and Chinese history and as a young person spent a month in China being followed by Mau Zedong party officials. She met a Chinese man who spoke “impeccable” British English. He asked Johnson if she spoke English. “Yes,” she answered, “but not as good as you do!” He had learned it listening to BBC radio.
In Beijing, Johnson stayed in a hotel with military barracks next door. Her group was locked into the hotel every night. What would we do if there’s a fire? she asked a Chinese man. “You’ll break the door down,” was the reply. He knew her well enough to know that she was the kind of person who would find her way out.
The first time she was in China, Johnson said, most of the men wore blue “Mau” jackets. All belts were the same size; people would punch holes in them if they were too big and wear the ends hanging down. The second time she went, people dressed differently because consumer goods were more available.
While in China, Johnson would occasionally slip away from her tour group to see things she really wanted to see, such as the Shanghai Museum. After being literally stuffed onto a crowded bus and finding her way through the city without knowing Chinese, she found the museum – and it was closed. People were inside, however, and she finagled her way in, only to discover that every single item she wanted to see “and them some” was on tour.
Several months later, while visiting her sister in Washington, D.C., she visited the Smithsonian, where she got to see all the items she had hoped to see in Shanghai.
Johnson’s adventures include marathon running. She has run the Big Sur Marathon in April a couple of times, after training through Minnesota winters. It was worth it, though. As she ran, she watched trollers bringing in the shrimp she would eat for dinner.
Johnson has run in the Gunflint Trail 50 miler and the Superior Hiking Trail Marathon. “It was fun. I don’t have to do that again!” she said.
“We choose our adventures, big or small, by the choices we make each day,” she said.
When asked about her background, Johnson, who is African American, said she was born in 1955 – the year Jim Crow laws were abolished. Both of her parents went to college, she said, and both had parents who “allowed curiosity.” After World War II, Johnson’s grandfather told her father that bricklayers were making good money. “That’s nice,” he said, “but the Army is paying for me to go to college.” He got a degree in architecture and urban planning and worked for Illinois Bell in Chicago and General Mills in the Twin Cities.
After her dad got out of the Army, Johnson said, he announced he was done sleeping on the ground. Theirony is that his daughter loves camping.
Johnson’s parents encouraged her to try new things. They would buy food that showed up from other countries in the grocery store, and they would take unknown roads while on vacation just to see what was on them.
Johnson and her friend Trish Francis are planning to hike the 2,700-mile Appalachian Trail next year. Her list of future adventures includes crosscountry skiing with Laplanders, canoeing the Norwegian fiords, and traveling the Nile and the Amazon.
If cabin fever starts to set in later in the winter, community members now know to whom they can speak if they feel a need for some adventure.
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