Word: hand
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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There you are--hand on the throttle of a full-size, 100-ton steam engine hauling eight graceful coaches from Worcestershire to Shropshire on a track that follows the Severn River as it meanders through unspoiled English countryside. No need for a time machine to fulfill this dream. Adults healthy enough to shovel piles of coal need only register at the Severn Valley Railway school, based in Bewdley, Worcestershire. In the introductory session, they learn safety guidelines and how a locomotive works. They also put in time on the footplate--where the fireman and driver stand, stoking the boiler, firing...
Failing to tough out my own problems, I hand him my fishing line, which I now have tangled into the shape of a bird's nest, a condor's. He begins to work at it with saintly patience, then to my great relief, shows normal human frustration by letting out an expletive that has to do with maternity and copulation...
...After a few casts, he hooks a female cutthroat that shimmers gold and silver as it resists and bends his rod into a bow, like the Zen archer's. When he pulls in the fish, it wriggles under the arc of the bow before he moves it toward his hand. The trout looks up at him in desperate wonder. He reaches for its mouth and sets it free...
Traveling to far-off places to lend a helping hand is catching on as an alternative to leisure holidays. "It satisfies some inner urges that people may not have been able to satisfy in their normal life," says Bill McMillon, the author of Volunteer Vacations. This guide to worthy adventuring includes some 2,000 projects around the world, up from 70 in the first edition 12 years ago. Back then, McMillon remembers, "everybody was aghast that anyone would work on a vacation...
...camps in 50 countries. Since they have a strong interest in classical Greek culture, they volunteered for two weeks last spring to clear the overgrown site of an ancient amphitheater in Mycenae. Occasionally turning up pieces of marble in the theater's dusty floor, Traudi held them in her hand and imagined what the place and people had been like thousands of years ago. Weekend trips to Delphi and Olympia, arranged by the Greek cultural organization sponsoring the work camp, were an unexpected bonus...