Celebrating Henry

Celebrating Henry is a new documentary about the work of the Walden Woods Project and the Thoreau Institute. It aired recently on a program called Eco View that is apparently shown on about 5 cable systems nation-wide. A friend of ours thought she was watching the right show, but was treated instead to documentaries about Poland and feet. We’re very happy that we ran into someone on the Internet who was able to get us a copy. (Thanks misbob!)

The special features footage of the opening of the Thoreau Institute in June of 1998, as well as speeches by Edward Kennedy and John Kerry. Those looking real hard will also be able to spot Don’s lovely wife, Sharon in a few of the shots. Ed Begley offers up comments on the importance of the Thoreau Institute and informs us that Executive Director, Kathi Anderson is a, “…real powerhouse.” The producers of the special also thought that the haunting, reedy sounds of Titanic’s “My Heart Will Go On” would provide a fitting soundtrack. All of that aside, the bulk of the special is an interview with Henley. Clad in a royal blue jacket and black t-shirt and sitting on what appears to be a throne, Don talks about all sorts of subjects. He discusses the origins of the WWP and TI. He talks about the collections of Thoreau materials (which are called Thoreauviana for you word lovers out there) and the climate-controlled archive. He doesn’t say much that’s new, but he expands on a few themes and waxes nostalgic about his past. Here are some excerpts:

“I didn’t study Thoreau in college, I don’t believe, nor in high school that I can recall. My father became very ill with heart disease in 1967 or 68, I believe it was. He had to sell his business that he had run since shortly after World War II. He was an avid gardener, so we planted about an acre and a half of vegetables every year. He taught me how to grow things. And he took me fishing and camping and things like that. So that piqued my interest in the outdoors. I grew up basically outdoors. It was a wonderfully rural area to grow up in. It was not a bastion of culture. The picture show was gone by the time I was 12 or 13, but there were a lot of ponds and lakes and woods. That’s the way I grew up.

“When my dad got sick, I decided to leave college at least for a while. I completed about 3 ½ years and made the Dean’s list my last semester, so I thought to go home and spend some time with my dad. My band was also thinking about going to California to see our fortune. During the spring of 1969, I went back to my hometown and had what you might call an epiphany. I rediscovered my hometown.

“I was hungry for spiritual knowledge because I was trying to make sense of my father’s illness. I was very disturbed about it and the First Baptist Church wasn’t giving me the answers that I needed. So somewhere along the line I picked up Thoreau. I don’t remember how or why, but everybody was reading Walden at the time. So I started reading Thoreau and Emerson and I was struggling to make sense of my father’s illness and I was struggling to become a songwriter. I started spending more time in the woods and started getting a sense for the spirituality that is inherent in nature. It helped me deal with my father’s illness and put things in perspective.

“Basically, in the late ‘60s I came face to face with my father’s mortality and hence my own mortality. Thoreau and Emerson were very comforting to me in those times and I realized that I had to make the most of my life because it might be short.”

“I have to remind people that writing itself is a communal act because writing implies a reader. Thoreau wouldn’t have written all these things down if he hadn’t intended to communicate with a larger group of people.”

“George Harrison wrote a song many years ago called “I Me Mine” and I think that’s the mindset we’re living in today. I’m not saying people should go back and live in the forests and live primitively without all the modern conveniences. I’m just saying that we’re going to have to learn to live sustainably. We’re going to have to put back for a change instead of just taking because there is a limit to what ecosystems can take and I think we’re about to exceed ours. We’re going to have to learn about balance and develop new technologies that are more environmentally friendly. The strange weather has not been an act of God; it’s an act of man and it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.

Return to Features