Once looking for scoops, author Tom Ryan found solitude with his best friend, Atticus

By RAY DUCKLER

Monitor staff

Published: 04-19-2018 12:19 AM

To this day, Tom Ryan can’t explain it, and don’t expect him to try during his appearance Thursday night at Red River Theatres.

There, starting at 7, he’ll talk about Following Atticus, the latest selection for Concord Reads – a citywide literary effort encouraging community members to read and discuss the same book. Atticus is a look at Ryan’s adventures hiking in the White Mountains with his miniature schnauzer, Atticus, first while living in Newburyport, Mass., from 2005 to ’07, then after he moved to the Granite State in ’08.

Ryan learned later that Atticus, who died two years ago, was suffering from cataracts, meaning there’s a good chance he was virtually blind while leading his master – make that his best friend – on all those snowy trails.

“I don’t pretend to know how he did it,” Ryan told me during a phone interview. “People say it’s a superpower.”

There are a lot of connections to vision for this column. The original Atticus Finch had plenty of vision, a literary character who saw racism in the deep south and chose to fight it.

Ryan, who lives in Jackson after a zany, controversy-filled journalism career in Newburyport, Mass., had the vision to see a story growing from his bond with a dog and the White Mountains, both of which he says changed his life.

And then there’s Atticus. No sight? No problem. In fact, Atticus sat on all those mountaintops, with the vast scenery spread before him, and stared out at the peaks and valleys and rivers and trees.

“I blamed myself for his sight after I found out, thinking it happened because of the reflection from the snow,” Ryan said. “The doctor said, ‘No, look at the dogs in the Iditarod.’ He said he was most likely already blind leading me over those mountains, which is pretty amazing.”

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Ryan’s experiences with Atticus soothed a once hard-boiled journalist. He started what he labeled an editorial journal in Newburyport called the Undertoad, a biweekly publication that Ryan said topped out at a circulation of 2,300 in a city of 18,000.

For 11 years, Ryan sold the ads and delivered the paper. He also wrote juicy must-read stories by immersing himself into the city’s fabric. He cultivated anonymous sources and was often charged with exploitative methods, once writing ‘KKKnight’ instead of ‘Knight’ as the surname for a local cop whom Ryan saw as prejudiced.

Ryan told me it was a typo.

He also told me, a world-weary journalist at an established newspaper: “You have to follow company guidelines, while I was a guy who didn’t know what he was doing. I can see why they did not like me all the time. I made myself a target without meaning to. That’s what I signed up for.”

He began hiking with Atticus in the White Mountains, looking for peace where his family had taken cherished vacations when Ryan was a kid.

Then, feeling pressure from cops and others – he said his tires were slashed and the police once confiscated his garbage looking for who knows what – Ryan sold his paper and went north for good, seeking relief from the day-to-day stress he had created for himself.

He set goals, all of which were attached to the central theme of climbing all 48 of New Hampshire’s 4,000-foot mountains with Atticus twice during one winter.

And while Ryan never met those goals – he scaled 81 of 96 peaks – the dog and the mountains changed the man forever.

For one thing, Ryan loved the solitude offered by deep woods and hiking during cold nights. He said winter hiking proved easier than summer hiking, since the rocks and tree roots were covered by snow.

He stayed close to weather reports, wore a headlamp, and alerted others when he and Atticus were on the move, just in case.

There was an awful blizzard through the Bonds in the Pemigewasset Wilderness, which added about five hours to a 10-hour hike, but Ryan reported no major emergencies as he and Atticus made their way over some of the most beautiful and dangerous landscapes in the Northeast.

And Atticus led the way, no leash necessary, not even when the pair had to venture onto the Kancamagus Highway while trailhopping and those monstrous trucks came zooming past.

Atticus, Ryan said, knew when he had to be picked up, sensing when rivers hadn’t frozen enough to create a safe, solid path for him. He kept his cool when a bear came near.

And Ryan, speaking directly to his critics, told me Atticus never hiked when he had no interest in doing so. There was no cruelty involved.

“I’d open the car door to go on the hike in certain conditions and he’d stay in the car and we’d go home,” Ryan said.

He continued: ​​​“People like to think their dogs are special, and they are because they love the dog and the dogs love them back. But he was very ...”

Ryan paused, then continued.

“I would do things that I would not do with the two dogs I have now. They are great, energy-wise, but they don’t have the discipline he used to have.”

Ryan later learned that Atticus had, in a sense, been a seeing-eye dog, out front, leading the way, sensing where to go, with very limited vision.

He blogged about it and received donations to help pay for the $4,000 surgery needed to restore Atticus’s sight.

Following Atticus and other writing projects have helped Ryan, now 56, earn a living and live by his own rules. He’s secluded in Jackson, with a P.O. box number, meaning he writes and socializes on his own schedule.

He never married and has no kids, but says he’s got a large stable of loyal friends and is far from lonely.

He does miss Atticus, of course. Two years ago, Ryan, who has had problems with his weight over the years, was hospitalized for five weeks with heart and kidney problems. He had blood clots and suffered a stroke.

At the same time, Atticus, then 14, got sick as well. Ryan rallied in time to make it home and say goodbye to Atticus, who died in his arms 12 days later.

“I always said I would make it out of the hospital because Atticus was waiting for me,” Ryan said. “I remember not being able to get back from the vet’s office because I couldn’t see the road; I was crying too much. Such emptiness.”

Ryan still walks with his new two dogs, but climbing is out due to his health. His views in the months and years since Atticus died have evolved.

“I’m not like a lot of people with death who sort of never get over it. I just sort of look at it as part of the packaging,” he said.

As for explaining how in the world Atticus knew how to maneuver over that tough winter terrain?

“He knew how to lead me when he was losing his eyesight,” Ryan said. “But I don’t pretend to know how.”

(Ray Duckler can be reached at 369-3304, rduckler@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @rayduckler.)

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