Mr. Cool

It’s been a busy couple of weeks here at Mooallem SuperValue
(That’s my private nickname for myself when I’m working hard to
meet deadlines, and when I feel less like a human writer than a
scrupulously-optimized, prose-production corporation—you
know, checking facts and cashing checks, etc.) I was working so
hard, finishing a big magazine story and the book simultaneously,
that I didn’t have an opportunity to go for a single walk—or for
much self-reflection of any kind--and didn’t even realize that
until the work-week was over. By Friday evening, I was beat, and
settled in to read the local paper. There was an obituary for a
longtime islander I’d never heard of, a man named Gale Cool.


“Gale Cool was a visionary,” the notice began. I read that Gale
Cool was an architect and developer, with an energetic commitment
to showing people the value of “living in nature not next to
nature.” In an era when everyone was starting to build big homes
on small lots, he started building small homes on big lots, and
clustering them together, to show humans their relative size on
the landscape of the island. He did this for a while. Then,
something happened. Mr. Cool was an avid salmon angler, and he
noticed it was getting tougher to catch fish; the local fisheries
were declining. He “declared he’d never build another building,”
the obituary said, and became a self-described “undeveloper”
instead. “He assembled 80 acres of land, dug ponds, raised the
water table with a weir, and reintroduced beavers”—that land is
now a city park. Then he revamped an estuary not far from my
house, gradually drawing in waterfowl and seabirds, and salmon
that spawned. It’s gorgeous there—I walk by it often. I had no
idea that it hadn’t always been so beautiful, or so full of life.


The morning after I read the obituary, I got up at dawn and
headed out for a walk. I was thinking about change—how it
happens; who makes it happen; the blurry line between making it
happen and letting it happen. I didn’t come to any great
conclusions, except that I ought to make this episode a little
tribute to Gale Cool.


This week’s walk is brought to you by Jamie Lowe on behalf of the
podcast Food on Franklin, where there is always stimulating
conversation about food on Franklin Ave. Have a listen!