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For 90 years, members of this Chicago group have been going "off the beaten path" STORY BY GARY THOMAS
I was into high adventure when I was young. I remember "parachuting" off the roof of the garage when I was about 11 (broken umbrella, no broken bones, stern lecture from mom), jumping from a second story window to impress a young lady at age 13 (nasty gash on hand, bruised ego, stern lecture from dad), and even driving my old MG roadster into a remote, wet and off-limits part of Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky when I was 20 (loss of bumper, $40 tow bill and stern lecture from police officer). Adventures all! Still, they don't really compare with Edmund Hillary's ascent of Mount Everest, Steve Fossett's attempt to balloon around the world, Thor Heyerdahl's ocean adventures on the "Kon Tiki" or Admiral Byrd's exploration of the South Pole. There is another significant difference between my exploits and those of the adventurers mentioned above. They all are or were members of Chicago's "Adventurers Club," I am not. There are a number of other impressive members of this Illinois club, too—such as former president and safari hunter Teddy Roosevelt, Frank "bring 'em back alive" Buck, animal trainer Clyde Beatty, arctic and antarctic explorer Roald Amundsen, "Zoo Parade" host Marlin Perkins, and even one of the Ringlings from the Ringling Brothers Circus, to name just a few. The point is, this is not a club made up of stodgy, old people sitting around in dinner jackets reliving past triumphs. In fact, they are not much for sitting. They're more for doing. They race boats and cars, climb rocks and mountains, hunt and fish in outlying locations, white water raft, explore isolated areas, make extended balloon and glider trips, sky dive, explore unmapped underwater locations, hunt for treasure and do other things I only read about. "This is an active club, made up of people who like to do adventurous things," said Bill "Beau" Meskan, a scuba diver and vice-president of the club. "It's not that we have a disregard for personal safety, but we like doing exciting things. If your idea of adventure is a trip to the Wisconsin Dells or watching the Discovery Channel, we're probably not for you." Basically speaking, members of the Adventurers Club are men and women who tend to live life on the edge. Charles Walgreen is a good example. The patriarch of the drugstore-chain family and one of three generations who belong to the club, decided at age 90 that he wanted to be the oldest person to visit the South Pole. He did so, and while at the pole, he ran into two other members of the club who chose the same adventure, but had used a different route. Neither group knew the other was going to be there.
At age 69, Chicagoan Albert Hanna made a bid to be the oldest climber to reach Mount Everest's summit in 2000. He came within a few hundred feet of the top when weather closed in, forcing him back to the mountain's base. The snow boots Walgreen wore on his adventure currently are on display at the club, and constitute just a small part of an interesting, and rather eclectic, museum. The room features an amazing array of items, including a nice collection of mounted trophy animals—buffalo, antelope, walrus and moose heads, full mounts of grizzly and polar bears, as well as a gorilla and tiger. There also is the bill from a sawbill fish, the tail from a swordfish and lots of mounted snakes. But that just constitutes the "ordinary" stuff. A May 1997 story in GQ magazine described it as an "adult secret tree fort," and there are some rather extraordinary items there. For instance, entering the room, you pass under a sign outlining the club's reason for being: "To provide a hearth and home for those who have left the beaten path and made for adventure." From then on, you're consumed with the club's treasures. A case along the wall contains a half-dozen shrunken human heads collected in South America. Nearby is a letter from former president Theodore Roosevelt, one of the club's early members. Another case features cups, saucers and silver from the zeppelin Hindenberg alongside coal salvaged from the Titanic. Near the bar, there's a harpoon gun made in the mid-1800s standing alongside a cannon recovered from the Spanish galleon San Pedro that sank off Florida in 1733. Another case displays the knife Japanese General Tojo used to try to commit suicide after World War II (he failed in his attempt, and later was hanged). There are tribal hatchets, clubs, machetes and knives, early experimental portable diving gear (preceding Jacques Cousteau's), and some spectacular underwater photography taken many years ago. Two decks of playing cards are encased together—one used in a card game by members at the north pole and one used for similar purposes at the south pole.
A mastodon tusk hangs from a rafter and provides an interesting story: Members were cruising in arctic waters a few years ago and tied up to what they thought was an icy island. It turned out not to be land, but a large iceberg. The next morning they made out the image of what appeared to be an elephant frozen within, so they chopped and blasted away until they unlodged the large animal. They took the two tusks (they had no way of taking Former Adventurers Club member Deborah Chapman, Chicago, jumped on a motorcycle and took it for a ride—a 2,500-mile trip across North Africa's Moroccan Desert.
Keith Bates took this cape buffalo during a hunt in Kenya in the mid-1970s. the entire animal), donating one to the club and the other to the Smithsonian Institution. They also cut away a couple of large steaks which they cooked and ate. How many people can say they've dined on mastodon? Although it undoubtedly is one of Chicago's better kept secrets, the Adventurers Club has been around for 90 years, tracing its beginnings to 1911, when Robert Foran arrived in Chicago to work for the Associated Press. Foran, a former officer in the British Royal Army, became acquainted with others who shared his spirit of adventure—big game hunters, explorers and military men—and they began meeting informally at a Chicago grill. During one of their meetings, Foran proposed organizing the group into a club. Originally on Dearborn Street, the Adventurers Club now is located on the corner of Ohio and Franklin streets. The club motto, taken from the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, is: "Do not go where the path may lead, but go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." The ceiling of the Adventurers Club room also is a little different. It's covered with flags—more than 200 of them, and each with a story to tell. Each of these pendants, considered to be the most important feature of the club, includes the club emblem (an "A" over a globe), a member's name and the name of an adventure.
To earn a flag, a member goes before a committee and proposes an interesting and/or dangerous and/or different type of adventure. If the adventure is unique and daring enough, the committee will agree to the undertaking and order two flags to be made. The member then carries the flags along on the adventure, making sure a photo is taken of the member and the flag during the adventure. At the conclusion of the trip, one flag is presented back to the club to be hung on the ceiling at a "flag dinner," during which tales of the adventure are told. The second flag is retained by the member. "Pick an adventure, and one of the club members likely has done it," Meskan said. "Our club members have traveled to both poles and climbed the world's highest peaks. One member has kayaked around Australia, a member rode a bike from Beijing to Paris, one has made a 12,000-mile solo raft trip, while still another has crossed the Atlantic Ocean twice in a dugout canoe." Chuck Hannon, the club's current president, earned a flag for retracing China's historical Silk Road, traveling from Beijing by truck, camel and on foot on a several month-long journey exploring grottoes and caves and crossing the Gobi desert on his way to Xi'an. A semi-retired Chicago lawyer, last year he climbed both Mount Kilamajaro, Africa's highest peak, and Mount Ranter. He has scheduled two tougher climbs for this year, one of which will take him to Timbukto. More recent flag winners include Peter Boczar, Chicago, who spent two weeks hacking through the jungles of French Guyana in search of a World War II Army Air Force plane that crashed and claimed the
life of one of his relatives (he didn't locate the plane), and Chicagoan Bill Orthwein, who spent eight days flying across the Caribbean in an ultralight aircraft that was little more than a kite with a lawnmower engine to propel it. "I could only carry 24 gallons of fuel, so I had to be able to reach a new island to refuel every three hours," Orthwein said. "I used a GPS system and just aimed for each new island. My plane would only go about 25 miles per hour, so I had to find islands close to one another. I was bucking strong ocean winds some days, so there were times when I wasn't making much progress. On one leg of the trip, when I sat down I only had about a quarter of a gallon of gasoline left." The club also includes six honorary members at present, the latest being Norman Vaughn, now in his 90s, who handled Admiral Byrd's dogs during his first trip to the South Pole. Vaughn is the oldest person to ever compete in the Iditarod (a dogsled race from Anchorage to Nome covering more than 1,150 miles that usually takes about 2 weeks to complete), and recently climbed Mount Vaughn, a peak in Antarctica that was named after him by Admiral Byrd. Another aspect of the Adventurers Club is their scientific/educational foundation. A part of each member's dues goes toward exploration and funding re-creations. The club has helped sponsor a Marlin Perkins/Edmund Hillary expedition to search for yeti (the abominable snowman) in the Himalayas, has contributed to several Loch Ness investigations, helped fund the Mayflower II voyage and contributed to a re-creation of LaSalle's explorations of the New World. The Adventurers Club is also a social club. Members meet for lunches regularly (the menu includes items such as buffalo burgers and elk steak), and gather several times a month to hear featured speakers. "This isn't a closed club, and you don't have to be wealthy to join," Meskan said. "Dues aren't outrageous, and you don't have to be able to afford regular trips to the jungles of Borneo or plan a trek across the Sahara Desert. But membership is limited to men and women who share the spirit of adventure. After all, adventure is where you find it. But if you can call your travel agent and book a trip, it's probably not what we would consider an adventure." And that, after all, just might be an adventure in space, at the bottom of the ocean, in semi-active volcanoes or unexplored caverns. "Adventure has changed a lot in the last 50 to 100 years," Hannon said. "Back then members would do safaris and explore third world countries. Today, it's more apt to be white-water rafting, or mountain hiking or sky diving. Members are getting into kayaking, orienteering and adventure racing, like sprints to the top of the Hancock Building and taking part in extended eco-challenge events. The name of the challenge is constantly changing, but there will always be adventure."
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