{ Impromptu
44 O v ertur e |
L aura Farmer
Philip Munds
Principal Horn
A player goes native for a cause.
Eight years ago, BSO Principal Horn Philip Munds
and his family of four—wife Amy and two children,
Hannah, 16, and Ian, 11 — traded in their suburban life in Towson for a life aboard their 46-foot
Silverton powerboat. The transition to life afloat
was inspired by a quest for adventure, coupled
with a desire to simplify their life.
“There were many reasons that the move made
sense for us,” says Munds. “When your house is a
boat, your house becomes part of an adventure.
We love docking and jumping off the top to take a
swim.” He adds, “And I got tired of working just so
we could buy more stuff.”
So they took the plunge and discarded more than
half of their accumulated trappings of family life in
order to fit cozily into their three-bedroom floating
home docked in Baltimore’s Canton harbor.
Simple living—with a dash of adventure — is a façon
de vie that the Mundses have long embraced. The
family recently adopted a new diet called Paleo,
which Munds summarizes as “imitating what our
hunter-gatherer ancestors might have eaten
during the Paleolithic age.” Translation? Lots
of protein, vegetables and fruit—skip the carbs,
dairy and sweets.
Last summer, Munds and his family took a vacation
that he described as “the trip of a lifetime.” They
drove cross-country to join their church’s efforts
to serve the impoverished Lakota Native American tribe in the plains of South Dakota. While Amy
and Hannah assisted with humanitarian aid and
programs for Lakotan youth, Munds says, “Ian and
I spent time camping, running around shooting
bow and arrows — you know, guy stuff.”
“I always knew that I had Native American
ancestry. I did some research and found out that
my grandfather was from the Lakota tribe. It was
such an eye-opening trip. But best of all was the
uninterrupted time I got to spend with my family.”
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M itro H o o d
“The Lakota people have so little, yet they are
very generous and grateful,” says Munds. “Their
approach to life is far more relaxed, too.” So
given his own penchant for laid-back living, he
must have fit right in. As it turned out, there was
another reason why he felt so at home.