Toasting Kit at 84
My life with Kit began in the summer of 1977 when he walked into a classroom at UCLA and lit up the room with his energy and inner light. That is the thing about Kit that has touched so many during his 84 years of life. His spirit abounds and fills whatever space he enters. It is infectious and inspires conversation. And for those of us fortunate to have been in his life and light, today’s blog is a remembrance past and present of life with Kit worthy of toasting.
Geography literally brought us together. When I moved to Los Angeles in 1974 from too many cold winters in Nebraska, I was a teacher eager to know more about the subject that Kit was about at UCLA. Over the next decade, he not only instilled in me a love of reading the landscape, but he also inspired thousands of K-12 teachers at National Geographic summer institutes to become geo-evangelists across the country.
In a birthday note to Kit this week, his long-time friend and colleague, Dr. Richard Boehm—Distinguished Chair in Geography Education at Texas State University-San Marcos—wrote the following: “Happy Birthday to Kit: the leader, the director, the innovator, the organizer, the stimulator, the driver, the challenger, the energizer, the manipulator of President Gil Grosvenor and the NGS so that they would support for over three decades the Alliance Program—the most powerful geography education program in the U.S. We all thank you and we will never forget your dedication and willingness to lead and guide. I have long been proud to be one of your followers.”
But at 84, Kit has published a book that focuses not on himself as recipient of the National Geographic’s first National Distinguished Geography Educator Award. Rather, his book comes from a place within that has been evolving since his retirement in 2002 after forty years of life as a professional geographer. It comes from his deep seeded love of words and decades of storytelling. And it comes from his leadership in forming a community in Columbia, MO where local writers, publishers, poets, and book lovers could convene once a month for a Saturday Morning Book Talk by a local author. And it comes from having edited my books and books by his sisters Kate, Pat, and Jean.
Episodes in a Life is pure Kit. Episodes, vignettes, tales, and travels collected over the past several years and published on the cusp of his 84th birthday—just in time for a recent Salter family reunion here in Nevada City, CA, our home these past 16 months. I believe that until four months ago when he experienced a fall that led to a traumatic brain injury, Kit intended to share memories of his work at NGS. But with his birthday and the family reunion looming, and the hospitalizations required after his fall presenting us with one detour after another, it was time to edit the episodes he had compiled thus far and save others for a later edition of his book.
Kit’s editor and publisher, Yolanda Ciolli, Compass Flower Press, him as follows: “Career geographer and educator, Kit Salter, has revealed his ‘true innovator’ in getting the most from life with his anecdotal accounts of his adventures in Episodes in a Life. From tandem biking in Taiwan, to hitchhiking across the U.S., to van-camping with his kids and Chloe (his loving wife of over forty years), as well as numerous ventures and capers as an educator, Kit is an ‘adventurer extraordinaire’ one journey at a time—and loving life along the way!”
Orders for Episodes in a Life have been brisk. Geography colleagues, grad students, neighbors from our years in Missouri and new home in Nevada City, and fellow authors and book lovers from Kit’s years of directing monthly book talks in Columbia, MO have been sending birthday greetings and enclosing a check for a signed copy. Copies of the HB copies have already been re-ordered (HB $36 plus $4.00 shipping and handling). Paperback copies are available for $25.50 (PB book plus shipping and handling). Upon receipt, Kit pens a note and I mail off a signed copy in a padded book mailer.
What a wonderful way to toast Kit—an extraordinary source of light and vision, a man who has worn many hats and remarkable ties over the decades, and is the beloved scion of the Salter clan—on his 84th birthday. If I know Kit, he’ll be dancing at the next Salter reunion. Boy howdy, what a guy!