Orson Pratt Bird, O.P. as he was known to most, was born near Topeka, Kansas in the late 1880’s.  He was a gifted athlete as a youth. He loved and played all sports, but excelled in football and wresting.  Upon reaching adulthood O.P. enrolled in college with the goal of becoming a football coach.  There he met the love of his life, Aileen Powell, and the course of his life changed.

After they were married they moved to southern Colorado and homesteaded a farm near Walsenburg.  It was a hard life in what was then wilderness territory. The winters were harsh and the summer sun unrelenting.   The “cabin” had been dug into the hill side and had a dirt floor.  O.P. got a job in the local coal mines and together they set out to raise a family of six children.  After an accident at the mine O.P. was laid off and set out with the family to visit relatives in California.  While they were out west the mines back home flooded and there was no work to go back to.

Settling in Stockton, O.P. opened a garage and tried his hand at the mechanics trade.  However the depression wiped out his business and left the family in a desperate situation.  So in order to put food on the table O.P. went pro.  Signing on with a carnival he traveled the state under the moniker “Husky” Bird and would take on all comers to a match where for a small fee a local could win a few bucks if they could last three rounds.

Of course the real money was in the side bets as the towns folk would lay wagers in support of the local challenger.  And shills in the crowd were more than happy to take their money.  O.P. stood about five foot six and weighed maybe one fifty soaking wet.  So a lot of the locals in these towns…especially after a couple of beers…would think, “Hell, I can take him”.  What they didn’t know was that O.P. was AAU state champion.  He had a rock hard body and a miner’s grip.  Most of them ended up flat on their backs by the middle of round one.  He would take them on one after another all night long, then pack up and head for the next town.   In the summer when school was out the family would join him on the road, working on set up and selling tickets.  At times the challenger and his buddies…their pride wounded and their money gone…would start trouble, causing a hasty exit in the dark of night.

After Pearl Harbor O.P. took a job as a welder in the shipyards, building Liberty ships for the war effort. After the war he opened a small amusement park in Stockton, fabricating most of the rides himself. And thus ended the professional career of my grandfather, Husky Bird, the man who went to the mat to get his family through the depression.

In the summer of 1979 I had a job as a park aide at a state park in Washington state. The job was offered through the CETA program, which was a federal jobs program designed to provide jobs to minorities. However at that time there were no minorities in the county where I lived so they gave the jobs to the local hippies, who happened to be me and my landlord. It was a minimum wage entry level job intended to teach the individual marketable job skills for use in the real world. And so it was here that I apprenticed in the finer points of cleaning public restrooms and picking up cigarette butts, among others.

The Head Ranger was an older gent we called “The Colonel” behind his back. The Colonel had spent a career in the Parks Service. Now, nearing retirement, he spent most of his time practicing up for it. This left most of the day to day operation of the park to the Assistant Ranger, Ranger Rick. In contrast to the Colonel, Rick was a man of action. In addition to park ranger he was also a state trooper, complete with a gun and badge that he was fond of show anyone and everyone. With the Colonel’s retirement imminent Rick, the heir apparent, busied himself building his soon to be empire in this back woods outpost at the foot of Mt. St. Helens.

Not that Rick was all business. Indeed he would find time in his busy schedule a couple of days a week to hold bonding exercises with the other two park aides, a redheaded coed from California and a local kid who’s family owned a ski boat. Rick embraced life with enthusiasm that at times exceeded the bounds of good judgement. He had risen quickly to a position of authority yet barely in his thirties and the maturing process was still very much a work in progress.

So it’s Fourth of July weekend and Rick and the local kid are driving through the campground on patrol. Fireworks are illegal in the park and there are “NO FIREWORKS” signs all over the campground. As they are cruising they come across a boy and girl running with lit sparklers, running across the road and into a campsite. Getting out of the truck Rick walks into the campsite, where he finds the parents sitting around the campfire drinking beer. A box of sparklers sat on the end of the picnic table.

Puffing himself up, Rick pointed to the box of sparklers and in his most official tone asked, “Are those yours?”, to which the couple nodded sheepishly.

“Well I’ll tell you what we do with those around here”, he said, grabbing the box of sparklers and tossing it into the campfire. I at this point assume that most of my readers have gotten to where I am going and are already picturing the roaring pillar of flames that somehow Rick didn’t see coming. As the campers scrambled to safety they must have wondered what sort of madman the State Parks had unleashed on them. For on that day Ranger Rick was neither safe nor sane.

It was the winter of ’81, a cold clear night in the city. Ellenwood and I were headed back from a jam session out at Carlton’s place out in the Sunset. We were cutting through Golden Gate Park on our way back to his place when the left rear tire went flat. Grabbing a flashlight I assessed the situation only to find the car jack inoperable, meaning we couldn’t change the tire and were going to need road service. In these pre-cellphone days that meant having to go find a pay phone, so Ellenwood stayed with the car while I struck out for the Shell station at Lincoln and 19th.

As it happened the Shell station was the local AAA service so when I got there I explained the situation to the attendant. He informed me that the tow truck was out on a call and I would have to wait until it got back. So I hung around the station for what seemed liked an hour but likely only 15 minutes or so. Finally the tow truck roared into the driveway and screeched to a halt by the near pumps, towing what remained of an early 1950’s era pickup. As the driver exited the tow truck he looked like he was about to puke. The top of the cab was missing and shards of glass littering the bed and as I approached I spotted a chunk of brain matter laying in the bed of the truck amid the blood and shattered glass.

As I was taking this in a voice came booming through the night air, “YOU AT THE PUMPS FREEZE!” Looking up, I saw an SFPD squad car parked on the opposite side of the station. A half dozen cops crouched behind it with their guns pointed straight at me. As I raised my hands slowly above my head I felt the tug of the flashlight protruding from my coat pocket. I quickly shouted “IT’S ONLY A FLASHLIGHT!”, hoping to avoid a flash of silver metal triggering a deadly volley. As I said this the wail of an ambulance siren drew ever closer, finally coming to a halt near the squad car. Apparently the cops had been so sure of bloodshed that they called for one in advance.

After my surrender the situation diffused as the cops began to investigate. I was told an off duty cop in the bar across the street had seen me hanging around the station and had concluded that I was robbing the place and had called it in. The attendant was questioned and confirmed my story about waiting for the tow truck. Just as the situation seemed to be resolved the officer in charge informed me that they had run my license and come up with a warrant for me in Oakland. I had never been stopped or arrested in Oakland and I told him so. Apparently reluctant to send the man they had almost accidentally shot off to Oakland city jail, perhaps mistakenly, he handed my license back to me with a “Get this taken care of”. With that the scene began to clear out and I headed back to the car to wait for the tow truck. Soon the tire was fixed and we headed back to Ellenwood’s.

Have thought many times over the years about that night, how a wrong alcohol fueled assumption almost led to me making the papers. Now, in these times, I am given to wonder…am I still alive because I am white? Did the color of my skin hold the trigger fingers just long enough? Did an unspoken priveledge change my fate? If I were black would someone else be telling my story? The questions hang in the air like a moment frozen in time.

Word got out and they came from everywhere.  The death of a queen will always draw a crowd.  Family, friends, and loved ones put their lives on hold and gathered in the room where she lay dying.  The doctors had done all they could and now all that was left was to wait and say our final goodbyes.  Mojo, the Queen of Fun, was leaving us.

She had led a remarkable life.  Her early life in Detroit.  Her time in the 60’s rock and roll scene, partying with the Who and Jethro Tull and touring with Mad Dogs and Englishmen.  Her days in New Mexico with the Hog Farm, living off the land high in the mountains. On to California, tending bar in Marin County while raising two daughters on her own.  There she joined the Renaissance Faire, where she became a prime instigator and purveyor of her own brand of crazy fun.  Finally she moved up to the Russian River, immersing herself in the community while going back to school and earning her degree. When the Iraq war came she became politically active and joined Women in Black, protesting on the street corner in Guerneville every Friday.  Finally, her daughters grown, she settled into enjoy her passions, art, coffee and pot.  Now the final chapter was about to come to a close.

It was the culmination of an ordeal over the last year and a half…of illness, of doctor’s and hospitals.  Doctors had been slow to diagnose and by the time they did the end seemed almost inevitable.  Yet she chose to fight on and we backed her with all we could.  Through the illness and the frailty and the pain, the procedures and the treatments, the complications and the set backs she fought on with a warrior’s spirit.  Indeed we were in the middle of planning a fundraiser for that weekend to raise money for treatments when fate intervened and the fundraiser became a wake.

I got the call from Anna Wednesday morning that Mojo was back in the hospital.  When I got there I found Simone waiting outside her room.  Simone had been Mojo’s core support during the ordeal, putting her own life on hold to take care of her mom.  It was a heavy burden, as anyone who has cared for an ill parent knows, but Simone bore it with grace and dedication, taking on the cooking and cleaning, always there to help with meds or changing bandages while helping keep Mojo’s spirits up. Now it was the end game.  Time for one final duty…deathwatch.  The hospital moved Mojo into a hospice room and Simone and I agreed that she would stay the first night and I would take the next.

Mojo and I had been dating for six years.  We had met decades before while working at the Ren Faire and had been close ever since though fate took us on separate paths.  Kindred spirits who loved a good laugh and the embrace of friends.  The flirting had begun at an Easter Beer Hunt, leading to a brief courtship that almost ended after one date which ended in disaster and embarrassment.  Given another chance we booked a weekend up at Orr Hot Springs.  It was there that the spark of romance would ignite a flame that would burn for the next six years.

Mojo and I never lived together.  I don’t think either of us could have handled that, plus my work schedule would have made that difficult.  I would come up on the weekend and we would share whatever adventures presented themselves.  Sometimes there would be a party, an open mike, or some other event happening, at which she would likely be at the center of whatever was happening.  It was often said that the party didn’t really start until she got there.  Other times it would be a quiet night in front of the tv, and maybe a soak.

Sundays were about sleeping late.  A trip down to the local coffee house for a wake and bake session with the gang.  Then a day a lounging in front of the tv, especially if the game was on, or a walk through the woods.  A game of fetch with Mojo’s dog Lucy, our constant companion and co-conspirator.

Of course the summers were spent on the river.  Kayaking was Mojo’s religion, to be on the water, at one with the flow of nature.  The river had a calming affect on her soul while invigorating her spirit and she rarely missed an excuse to commune with it.  I was new to kayaking and so it was a bit of a learning curve, but it became clear at once that if I was going to hang with Mojo I was going to get wet.

The years went by and the adventures continued.  There were good times and bad.  We were together through the death of her mom and the death of mine.  Through feast and famine.  From the dark days of war and recession to the promise of hope and change, we carried on.  It wasn’t always easy, she could drive me crazy at times.  A personality as big as hers takes some patience, but I understood that this was part of the package…what made her who she was.  If  she was spontaneous and unpredictable it was from an abundance of vitality and irrepressible spirit.  Now the cancer that ravaged her body had drained her energy, but the spirit endured.

When I got to the hospital the next morning more people were arriving as the news spread.  They were coming from near and far.  Swan and Ashley came in about mid-day.  Others gathered as day stretched into night.  That night we gathered in her room one more time to talk and laugh and share our love.  Cory sang one of Mojo’s favorite songs from “Jesus Christ Superstar”.  When the nurses weren’t looking Lucy was smuggled in for a last farewell.  Then the others left and Mojo and I settled in for the night.  I read to her and we held hands and talked into the night until the drugs took effect and she drifted off to sleep.  I put a couple of plastic chairs together and tried to sleep but it took a while before exhaustion overcame me.

Morning brought a fresh round of visitors.  A gypsy camp sprung up in the parking lot out back.  People brought food and drink to share among us as the vigil grew.  I found a comfy chair in the hallway  outside her door and faded into it, bleary from lack of sleep and lost in my own thoughts.  Madeline arrived for one last heart to heart with her mom.  Their relationship had seen some rough patches, mostly because they were so much alike.  Now was a time to put all that behind them and to hold each other one more time.  Early in the afternoon Mojo’s brother Max arrived from LA.  Late in the afternoon the room cleared out and most of the visitors gathered outside while she rested.  After a bit one of the hospice nurses went into the room.  Soon after she emerged to tell me Mojo wanted to see me.  I quickly headed into the room while she went to gather the others.

Mojo lay in the bed beaming peacefully.  As I approached the bed she mouthed, “I love you”.  In a bit of a daze I took her hand as I knelt beside the bed.  Soon the room filled up and I was engulfed in a mass of humanity focusing their collective love on her, which she returned with all that she had left.  I had seen death before.  I had been at my brother Bill’s bedside when they pulled the plug.  I remember the confusion and fear in his eyes as he woke from a week long coma gasping for air and finding none.  This was a totally different feeling.  There was no panic, no fear.  There was some sadness, but it was comforted by the overwhelming love that filled the room.  The gentle afternoon sunlight seemed to envelope us and fill us with a sense of peace.  There were tears mixed with the prayers, but there was a sense of joy in our oneness.  Mojo gazed back at us with an expression of eternal bliss.  She had fought the good fight, had gotten every measure out of life.  Now at the end, the battle nearly over, she lay in peace, surrounded by love.  At one point the nurse gave her some medicine “to help with her breathing” and afterward her energy began to wane.  As I held her hand I felt her pulse weaken until it faded away and I knew that she was gone.  Mojo, the Queen of Fun, had left the building.  Gathering ourselves we slowly rose and filed out of the room as Madeline prepared a sacred ritual.

The next night was scheduled the fundraiser which had become a wake.  My thanks to Kym who’s hard work through the pain made it happen.  The spirit of Mojo was everywhere among the crowd that came to honor her.  We rocked the joint and raised a good sum to help cover expenses.  Through the love and the tears and the joy that night you could feel the warmth of her giant smile over all of us.  It is a warmth that I have felt many times in the years since.  A few days later I was cleaning my desk and came across a receipt  from Orr Hot Springs and the date on it stopped me in my tracks.  The receipt was for the weekend of May 5th and 6th of 2006.  Exactly six years to the day from when our time together began and when she left.  Six years that I will cherish the rest of my life.  And when my time has come may I face it with the dignity and grace that I felt in that room, on that day, when we said farewell to the Queen.

It was the winter of 1975/76 and I was living in the City, in the flat on Vallejo Street with Ellenwood, Duffy, and Mace.  Ellenwood was attending SF State and had a project due in his film class.  The assignment was a short film.   The Patty Hearst trial was the big news at the time so it was decided to make a short super8 film spoofing Patty and the SLA.  For younger readers I will offer a brief history of the SLA.  As for super8, I’m not going to explain, google it.

Patricia Hearst, heiress to the Hearst media empire, was kidnapped from her Berkeley apartment in February, 1974 by members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a leftist terrorist organization led by escaped convict Donald DeFreeze aka “General Field Marshall Cinque”.  Their goal was to bring about revolution through acts of urban warfare including murder, robbery, and kidnapping.  Soon after Hearst swore allegiance to the SLA and took the name “Tania”.  In April she took part in a robbery of the Hibernia Bank, brandishing a rifle and shouting orders.  In May, after Cinque and most of  his followers were killed in a shootout in L.A., Hearst and the other surviving members went into hiding in the Bay Area.  Then in September the FBI caught up with them.  Now the trial was front page news.

Ellenwood and Mace wrote the script overnight and the usual suspects were gathered for the cast.  Patty was played by Ellenwood’s sister Mary, who bore a passable resemblance.  Carlton, the only black member of the troupe at the time, of course played Cinque and I was cast as Bill Harris.  Most of the filming, including the kidnapping scene, were filmed in and around the flat.  The film would climax with the now infamous Hibernia bank robbery.

Realizing it was highly unlikely that the bank would allow us to “shoot” inside, the plan was to do an exterior shot.  The plan was to do it on Sunday morning when the bank was closed and the streets fairly empty.  So on Sunday Ellenwood and I loaded the camera and a cache of prop guns into the blue Olds and headed for the Sunset district.  Heading west on Noriega Street we soon realized that we had no idea where the bank was.  It was a lovely sunny day in the city and soon we came across a line of parents with their kids lined up outside a Bud’s Ice Cream shop.  Ellenwood pulled the car to the curb and I shouted, “Does anyone know where the Hibernia Bank is?”  One of the dads responded, “Back at 22nd Avenue”, gesturing east as he approached the car…only to stop dead in his tracks as his eyes fell upon the pile of guns on this front seat between us.  With a “Hey thanks!” Ellenwood flipped a u-turn in the middle of the block and we headed back toward the bank.

When we arrived everyone else was already there so we hustled to set up the camera and set the scene.  The shot called for us to hide around side of the bank and then suddenly rush the door as Ellenwood filmed from across the street.  So we grabbed our props and took our places, waiting for the signal.  Just then one of the local street people wandered west up Noriega and into the crosswalk at 22nd, his mind seemingly still fogged from the night before.  He was halfway across the street when he noticed us, huddled along the wall on 22nd , clutching our fake guns.  From his reaction I could see that this moment of instant clarity had been a shock to his senses so I pointed over to the camera to try to calm him.  He then proceeded to the corner where the camera was set up and started giving Ellenwood a piece of his still inebriated mind.  I started over to assist but as I started across the street the sight of the replica Walther PPK in my hand seemed to convince him to continue on along his way.

With the situation resolved we shot the scene in one take and then quickly dispersed before we attracted any more attention.  Of course if we had tried doing this today we would likely have the swat team down on us in two seconds flat, but things were different back then when we were too young and dumb to know better.

PROLOGUE

It was the fall of 1974 that I set out on the great adventure of my youth.  I was just turning 21 and was working in a ski resort in the Sierras.  One morning my buddy and I were on our way to breakfast, discussing my latest dilemma.  The couple that I had been renting the top floor of their A frame had given me 30 days notice (could have had something to do with my habit of passing out with the music blasting at 2AM, I don’t know).  Rentals were tight in the village and my maintenance job, though steady work, didn’t pay that well.  As we approached the diner I scanned the bulletin board looking for rentals.  That’s when I noticed a note on a 3×5 card pinned to the bulletin board.  It read:

 

Driving to the East Coast and back in October.  Looking for a third to share the trip.  Contact Karen or Jessi in the Diner.

 

Karen and Jessi were both working that morning, and over breakfast the subject of their road trip was topic A.  They were getting laid off for a month and so were driving to New York, then down the eastern seaboard and back the southern route.  The plan was to camp and stay with family and friends along the way.  They were looking for someone to share the driving and the expenses.  This sounded too good to pass up, so I offered to go along.  They figured with the cost of gas, at 50 cents a gallon, and meals, etc. it would cost about $300 each, or about what a month’s rent would cost me.  It was a plus that I was handy with cars, also that I came across as a guy who could handle it if things got weird.   Karen had this big old Buick that would sleep three…we took turns riding the hump on the back seat floor…with a huge trunk for our gear. The plan was we would leave the middle of the next week so I set about gearing up for the vast unknown ahead, thoughts of Jack Kerouac floating through my mind.

 

The Great Basin

Getting a mid-morning start we headed up over Ebbetts Pass and down into Markleeville to cash our last paychecks and buy traveler’s checks.  From there north toward Reno and Interstate 80, the mainline to the east coast.  At Reno we turned east and put the pedal down.  As we had gotten a late start that day, the open stretches of Nevada highway were the perfect place to make up time.  Nixon on his way out the door had set the national speed limit at 55mph but in Nevada the fine was $15 for “Failure to Conserve Fuel”, which tells you how seriously they took the new national mandate.  Driving in shifts we found we could cover a lot of road.  So it was pedal to the metal across the vast expanse of the American outback.

The Great Basin, as the area is known, is an ancient seabed that now had become a high plateau stretching between the Sierras and the Rockies.  It is mostly high desert interspersed with small mountain ranges until you hit the salt flats of Utah.  The interstate is dotted along the way with small towns which support the region’s three main industries, namely mining, gambling, and prostitution.

This seems like a good point to introduce my fellow travelers.  Karen was the de facto leader of the expedition, owing to it was her car.  Karen had been raised down in the valley.  She was a child of the middle class, the girl next door.  She had just graduated college with a degree in French and was embarking on a post-grad spree before settling down to a career and presumably family.  Jessi had come up from Santa Cruz with her boyfriend to get back to nature.  She had a degree in Ecology and it was something that she cared very deeply about, as she also did for her Jewish heritage.  She was the girl next door…if you lived in Berkeley.

Shortly after sundown we hit one of those desert thunderstorms where the road ahead seems to disappear beneath a waterfall.  Nothing to do but slow down and let it pass which happened almost as quickly as it came on us.  Stopped for dinner in Elko, where I did my first legal gambling. The multitude of tv screens in the casino were showing the A’s playing the Dodgers in the World Series.  Then we headed across the state line and on to the salt flats, which gave off and eerie glow under the waning moon.  We drove on for a couple more hours until we reached the Salt Lake.  Finding a campground in the Wasatch mountains above the lake we settled in for our first night on the road.

 

Land of the Dinosaurs

Dawn broke on a glorious autumn day.  The vibrant fall colors of the maples and the aspens seemed to be reflected in the sunrise which in turn were reflected in the lake below.  There was a slight chill in the air which was vanquished by the rising sun.  We rose stiff and a bit tired and set about making breakfast on Jessi’s one burner camp stove. Priority of course was coffee, that caffeine infused supplement that our bloodstreams required to sustain us over the long miles ahead.  We ate at a leisurely pace and then packed up and hit the road.

East of Salt Lake City we cut south off of I-80 on state 191 headed toward Denver. The two-lane blacktop wound through the high desert, passing through small towns that were all centered on a small Mormon temple, each one identical with there distinctive central spire.  Turning east on state route 40 we headed for the Colorado border.  Around noon we hit Jensen, Utah where we saw a sign for the road leading to Dinosaur National Monument and decided that would be a good place to stop for lunch.  So we followed the road north along the Green River up to the visitor center, which we set out to explore after a quick lunch in the parking lot.

The visitors center is located in an old quarry and features exhibits relaying the geologic history of the area from it’s time as a primordial swamp.  The highlight of the exhibits is a glassed-in observation deck where you can watch workers on scaffolding expose fossils in the quarry wall.  They worked slowly and precisely, as if they were sculpting these giant beasts in the face of the rock.

The sun was getting low when we left so we decided to grab some dinner and call it a night.  We found a wide spot in the bank along the Green River and rolled out our bed rolls, vowing to make Denver the next day.

 

The Road to Denver

I awoke to a crackling sound.  As I moved I realized that the sound was coming from above.  I poked my head out of my sleeping bag to discover a thin sheet of ice blanketing the river bank.  Overnight a mist had settled on the bank and then frozen.  Karen and Jessi were crawling out of their bags and seemed visibly cold and uncomfortable.

I discovered the reason for this was technology.  While my old polypropylene bag had kept me warm and dry, they had both opted for new high-tech down bags.  The new bags, which were filled with goose down were much less bulky than the old cotton filled bags.  However the goose down needed to “breath” and to accommodate this required that the outer liner be a permeable fabric and thus not waterproof.  So as the mist settled it settled into the bag and then froze, creating a cocoon of ice.

A dose of hot coffee cured the shivers and soon we were on the road again.  We headed southeast, climbing steadily through twisting canyons, until we hit I-70, the road to Denver.  Karen said she had a friend in Denver she wanted to visit who would put us up for the night so we pushed hard up the mountain over Loveland Pass and across the Great Divide.  Rolling down the eastern slope we stopped for lunch in Idaho Springs.  After lunch we decided to stretch our legs by exploring an old gold mine on the edge of town.

The Argo mine was a remnant of the Colorado gold rush of the late 1800’s.  The Argo was at one time the largest gold processing plant in the world and featured a tunnel that ran four and a half miles through the mountain and connected with other mines by rail.  Once the gold was gone the mine fell into neglect until the locals restored it as a tourist attraction.  It was here that the first tension on the trip surfaced.  As we were wandering through the site Jessi took me aside and voiced concerns that Karen was too focused on making time and that Jessi didn’t want to spend the trip on the interstate.  Jessi tended to be on the passive side and seemed somewhat intimidated by Karen, who was the more assertive of the group.  Jessi asked me to intercede with Karen and I said that I would.  I don’t know if Karen overheard our conversation but her mood seemed to change and she seemed to relax a bit.

Back on the road we soon came upon the turnoff for Lookout Mountain and decided to take the side trip.  At the top of Lookout Mountain is a museum marking Buffalo Bill’s grave site, which was dedicated to the life of the frontiersman and showman as well as other artifacts of the old west.  As the name suggests, Lookout Mountain also features impressive vistas, especially toward the east.  The image of Colorado is of a rugged mountainous landscape but eastern Colorado is as flat as Kansas, which you can probably see from where we stood on a clear day.

From there we made our way down to Denver and Karen’s friend’s house.  Karen’s friend lived in the Cherry Creek district, the oldest part of Denver and the epicenter of the Colorado gold rush.  Much like in San Francisco, the Colorado gold rush had spurred instant wealth and Cherry Creek featured blocks of elegant Victorians.  Karen’s friend was someone she knew from college and over the course of the evening it became apparent that they were more than just friends.  So it was no surprise that after dinner Karen disappeared upstairs into his room while Jessi and I crashed on the living room floor.

 

The Black Hills

Got a late start out of Denver due to some much needed laundry getting done and it was well past noon when we got back on the road.  The consensus was there was nothing of interest due east so we decided to head north toward the Black Hills country of South Dakota.  I had been reading “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee”, so I had a great interest in seeing those lands.  Driving north along the eastern slope of the Rockies we arrived sometime after dark at Custer State Park where we made camp for the night.  After a quick supper we rolled out our bags under a sky full of stars and the thin sliver of a waning crescent moon.

We woke to bright sunshine and an incessant chirping.  It seemed that in the darkness we had pitched our camp in the middle of a prairie dog colony.  All around us they would pop up, chatter at each other…or possibly us…and then drop back underground.  And so we rose to begin what turned into a glorious autumn day.  After breakfast we decided to do some sight seeing and take in some of the local attractions.

Top of the list was Mt. Rushmore, a short drive to the north, so after breakfast we headed up past herds of thoroughly disinterested buffalo.  As we approached the entrance the iconic heads came into view nestled into the rock face of the mountain.  Up close from the visitor center it is hard not to be impressed by the scale of the edifice, the giant heads of dead presidents sculpted with dynamite from the granite cliff.

The rest of the day we spent on cave tours.  The Black Hills are riddled with some of the longest and most complex cave systems on the planet.  We visited two of the most prominent ones; Wind Cave, which is known for it’s unique cave formations, and Jewel Cave, whose calcite crystals sparkle like jewels when exposed to light.

It was mid-afternoon when we got back on the road.  We hit I-90 at Rapid city and headed east across the northern plains.  Sometime after dark we passed through Mitchell, home of “The World’s Only Corn Palace”, it’s ornate spires emblazoned in the night sky.  East of Sioux Falls we crossed into Minnesota and sometime around midnight we pulled into a campground outside of Mankato and made settled in for the night.

 

The Great Lakes

We rose to another beautiful autumn day.  The spectacular colors of the upper Midwest were beginning to fall from the trees, creating a golden carpet throughout the forest.  We drove into St. Paul, stopping at the home of friends of Karen’s parents, whom had grown up in Minnesota.  They were a very warm and charming couple who treated us to classic Midwestern hospitality, including Sunday dinner with all the trimmings.  It was late in the afternoon we drove up to Stillwater, where Karen’s dad had grown up.  The old farmhouse had been long deserted, a symbol of the migration from the Midwest that had followed World War II.  From there we crossed the Mississippi and head east toward the Great Lakes, stopping for the night at a roadside rest just west of Milwaukee.

Slept late the next morning and took our time getting around.  Life on the road was starting to get to us and fatigue was setting in so it was around noon when we hit Milwaukee.  We decided among us that no trip to Milwaukee would be complete without a brewery tour.  So we headed into the Miller brewery.  The tour was fairly standard…the kind where a budding sales rep tries to make giant stainless vats sound interesting.  At the end the tour we were led to a tasting room and served pitchers of draft in the different styles that Miller was featuring at the time.  On the table there were postcards advertising the brewery that could be sent postage free anywhere in the country.  We discovered that as long as we were filling out post cards they kept bringing pitchers so pretty soon we were trading addresses with the people at the next table.  Messages like, “Hi, you don’t know me but we’re having a great time”.

Staggering out of the brewery we decided a long lunch was in order so we didn’t make Chicago until mid-afternoon.  After enduring rush hour traffic and seemingly endless construction delays we finally crossed into Indiana.  Looking to avoid the toll roads we hit the back roads and rolled through rural woods and farm lands of northern Indiana and Ohio before crashing for the night in a parking lot in Kent.

The next morning we all felt in need of a shower, so we snuck into the dorms at Kent State.  Pulling into the college we looked across the green that had been the site of the infamous massacre a few years before.  Clean and refreshed we hit I-80 through Pennsylvania with the goal of making New York by night fall.

 

New York City

My first impression of New York was literally quite striking.  We planned to stay with Jessi’s aunt and uncle, the Isaacsons, who lived in Brooklyn just off Flatbush Avenue.  We pulled into a parking space on Flatbush looking for a pay phone to let them know we had arrived and get directions to their house.  As I am walking Jessi to the phone I noticed out of the corner of my eye a teenage male across the street talking to three very large plain clothes police officers.  As I focused on the group suddenly the kid smacks one of the cops while shouting, “Now take me to jail!”  The officers then obliged, stuffing the young tough in the back of an unmarked car for what looked like a very uncomfortable ride down to the precinct.

Getting directions we finally arrived at the Isaacson’s, our arrival celebrated in true Brooklyn style by sending their son down to the corner to purchase what would be my very first bagel.  See, back in the age of pay phones food was much more regional.  You couldn’t find a taco in Brooklyn to save your life…but bagels, they’ve got bagels.  The Isaacsons were a traditional non-practicing Jewish family with a teenage daughter and two adolescent sons. They had been born and raised in that same neighborhood for generations…in fact Mira, the matriarch of the family, firmly believed that the rest of the country was a dangerous outland and that you left Brooklyn at your own peril.   I was to sleep in the spare room in the basement so I headed down the stairs, inadvertently touching the doorknob of the door which connected the two rowhouses then releasing it immediately upon hearing the unmistakable sound of a round being chambered on the other side of the door.

Slept late the next day.  Took the subway to the Upper East side of Manhattan around Central Park.  Near the midway point of the park on 5^th Avenue is the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  The Met was having a huge Rafael exhibit, so we spent a couple of hours immersed in the works of the great renaissance master.  Strolling through Central Park, we made our way south along 5^th Avenue to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, that massive gothic edifice of American Catholicism.  Entering through the giant bronze doors we stepped into the church.  Inside was a myriad of stone columns and arches stretching high above us. At the rear stood the high altar with beneath a bronze canopy.  Exiting the cathedral we crossed the street to Rockefeller Center.  A quick note about crossing the street in New York.  One of the first things I learned in the city was that pedestrians there have a herd mentality.  It doesn’t matter what the light says…you don’t step off the curb until there are enough of you that there is a reasonable chance that some of you will survive.  We wandered about the plaza and past Radio City Music Hall, where the Jefferson Starship was playing, before catching the subway back to Brooklyn.

Slept late again the next day, still feeling the wear of the road.  Finally got moving mid- afternoon, headed for Times Square.  Times Square is the epicenter of the city and gateway to the Theater District.  Sadly it’s former glamour had faded at this time and it had fallen into despair.  It had become a venue for porno theaters and trashy souvenir shops.  On the north end of the square we came upon a ticket booth, where we bought tickets for “Don’t Bother me, I Can’t Cope” at the Edison Theater.  We had a couple of hours before the show so we continued up Broadway.  Broadway, as with much of midtown, was in decline in those years. It was the post Rogers and Hammerstein, pre Andrew Lloyd Webber period and many of the theaters had closed or had been converted to movie houses.  Most of those that were still open were running a fare of reruns of old hits…such as “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “Gypsy”…or low budget productions of newer works.  We past Jack Dempsey’s restaurant, which had just closed after almost 40 years because of a rent dispute.  On a side street found a wonderful little Spanish restaurant where I was served the best Paella a la Valenciana I have ever had in my life.  After dinner we headed over to the theater, which was located in the Hotel Edison on 47^th street.  The show was one of the newer style musicals which featured a presentational style where the actors expounded on the vagaries of the modern world…sort of a fore runner of shows like “Rent”.  “Cope” had the previous years had received two Tony nominations for the writer and a win for the director, but it was nearing the end of it’s run and that seemed reflected in the energy level of the cast.  Afterward we headed back to the subway, where at the midnight hour the world beneath Gotham seemed to take on a much more eerie vibe.

The next day there was a bit of political dissension among us.   Karen and I had planned to head back downtown and wanted to visit the United Nations.  However recently it had been announced that PLO leader Yasser Arafat was going to speak before the General Assembly in November and Jessi, who had spent time in Israel, was boycotting the U.N.  So Karen and I headed out, catching the subway to Grand Central Station.  From there we walked down 42^nd St.  to the U.N. building on the shores of the East River.  It was a slow news day at the U.N.  We took in a couple of hearings, one on international cooperation in regards to space exploration and one on a dispute between two African countries over  sharing hydroelectric power from a dam that bordered their two countries.  We discovered that each seat in the gallery had headphones that would translate the discussion into several languages and so as we listened we scrolled through various languages.  Walked back to Grand Central Station where we took a bus to Times Square.  The schedule said it took a couple of minutes, which factoring New York traffic came to more like a couple of minutes per block.  From there we took the subway over to Lincoln Center over on the west side.  The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a modern public complex containing a main theater, the opera house, the philharmonic hall, the ballet, several smaller theaters devoted to music and both live theater and film and the Julliard School.

Saturday Karen drove up to Boston to visit a friend, so Jessi and I struck out for Greenwich Village.  The Village seemed like a different world, much more colorful and lively than the general grayness that permeated the rest of the city.  The birthplace of the beat generation had taken on a tone of commercialism but had retain much of it’s freaky character.  Strolling through Christopher Park we past the Stonewall Inn, site of the infamous “Stonewall riots” that had taken place 5 years earlier and had been the catalyst for the gay rights movement.  A couple of blocks down Waverly Place we came to Washington Square Park.  There was a flea market in the park that day and so browsed among the items for sale and I bought a couple of books.  Brought a falafel from a street vendor and had lunch by the central fountain near the massive arch at the entrance to the park.  It was a lovely afternoon and everywhere in the park musicians busked, a tradition that went back to when the area was a mecca for folk musicians in the late fifties/early sixties and disciples of Woody Guthrie such as Ramblin Jack Elliot and Bob Dylan would meet and trade songs.  Wandered the neighborhood a bit before heading back.

Sunday was a quiet day.  We were leaving the next day so much of the day was spent resting and packing the car.  Watched the Jet’s game and afterwards played street football with the two sons and some neighbor kids.  Later that night had my mind blown as I watched my first ever episode of  “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” before turning in for the night.

 

Rolling down the Eastern Seaboard

Made it out of Brooklyn early.  Across the Verrazano Narrows and into New Jersey with Lady Liberty waving goodbye in the distance.  Headed for Lansdale  PA by way of Morristown NJ.  As we drove inland the fall colors were resplendent among the mix of farms and woodlands.  Morristown played a key strategic role in the Revolutionary War and there is a National Historical Park there.

From there we drove down into Pennsylvania to Lansdale, where we were going to stay with one of Jessi’s cousins and his family who lived on an apple farm outside of town.  We had a very pleasant visit and when we left the next morning they gave us a jug of home pressed apple juice from their orchard.

The Revolutionary War history tour continued as we drove from there over to Valley Forge, famous as George Washington’s winter encampment of 1777.  We wandered about the park like setting with it’s commemorating arch, taking in the history before heading into Philadelphia.  There we toured Independence Hall and viewed the Liberty Bell before rolling down the eastern seaboard toward D.C.  It was late in the day as we pushed down the I-95 corridor.  Somewhere between Wilmington and Baltimore night fell and the ambient light of the urban sprawl turned the sky a dirty brown over Chesapeake Bay.

Finally arriving in D.C. we stopped at American University where Karen had a friend, Alice, that she wanted to visit.  After dinner Alice took us over to a local hangout where after a couple of beers the girls tried in vain to teach this poor slow footed white boy “The Hustle”.  Upon giving up we headed back over to the dorms where the girls spent the night while I slept in the car.

In the morning Karen announced that she wanted to spend a few days in D.C. with Alice.  At this point we all felt like we could use a break from each other so we decided to split up and meet up later down the road.  Jessi had friends who lived outside of Burnsville in western North Carolina that she was wanting to spend time with so we drove her to Union Station to catch the early morning train with plans to all meet up there in a few days.  On the way back we took a driving tour of the Capitol area, past the Supreme Court and the Capitol, along the National Mall past the Washington Monument and the White House to the Lincoln Memorial.

Back at the University Karen and Alice wanted to go shopping, so I set out on a walking tour down Massachusetts Avenue along Embassy.  I remembered that I had a couple of buddies with the 82^nd Airborne stationed at Fort Bragg NC so decided I would headed down for a visit.  So after dinner I caught the Greyhound to Fayetteville.  We made a stopover in Richmond and got into Fayetteville about 1:00 in the morning.  I walked for what seemed like miles before rolling out my bag in an empty field and crashing for the night.

 

Fort Bragg

Woke at dawn.  Foggy and cold.  Grabbed a quick bite and headed back to the Greyhound station where I found out they didn’t have a bus to Ft. Bragg and so walked over to the Trailways station and caught the local.  This part of the trip being a spur of the moment decision I hadn’t had a chance to tell the guys I was coming, so the first challenge was to find a couple of G.I.’s in an army base full of them.  So when I got to the base I did what usually do when needing direction…find a cab driver.

The cabbie drove me over to the camp locator office where I got addresses for my two buddies, Charlie and Danny.  The cabbie didn’t think Danny’s sounded right so we headed over to Charlie’s barracks.  Turned out he has just gone out into the field and wouldn’t be back until late afternoon.  Tried to find Danny but discovered the unit number I had gotten didn’t exist.

Having no success I decided to chill and found a spot to read until Charlie got back.  In today’s post 911 world it seems strange looking back that some hippy kid could wander around an army base with his backpack without anyone taking notice.  I’ll admit it seemed a bit strange at the time but that’s the way things were back then.  The base itself looked like you would think it would, rows of nondescript wooden buildings and soldiers driving around in jeeps.

Finally got a hold of Charley and he showed up with some of his buddies.  Charlie was a friend that I had met through friends from college that he had gone to high school with.  Charlie was a gung ho kind of guy.  Hard working, hard playing…a little crazy, but then you’d have to be a little crazy to jump out of a plane into enemy fire.

We drove around off base for a while getting loaded before heading back to the barracks.  We visited there for most of the evening then went out to the obstacle course for a smoke.  I hadn’t smoked anything since I left California, so it had something of a tranquilizing effect.  Charlie took me by the motor pool to show me a jeep that had been dropped out of an airplane and it’s ‘chute had failed to open, reducing it in height noticeably.  Then he and his buddies dropped me off at a base park where I rolled out my bag for the night.

Woke again before dawn but stayed in bed for a long time.  A dog had been barking all night and so I started the day tired and grouchy.  As I lay there staring at the sky transports began flying overhead, no doubt heading for a drop zone.  After a while I rolled up my bag and went out to the side of the road to wait for Charlie.  The plan was that Charlie was going to pick me up but apparently something came up and he didn’t show.

Around noon some off-duty soldiers showed up started setting up a picnic, so I took off walking in the direction, I thought, towards Charlie’s barracks.  After walking for a while it came to me that I had no idea exactly where his barracks were.  Exhausted, I sat down by the edge of the road trying to figure out what to do.  After a while a G.I. came by who new where I should be and drove me over to it.  I found Charley in the barracks and we called Danny, who came right over.

No sooner had Danny shown up that Charley got word that the sergeant wanted to see him.   Turned out Sarge had an extra duty assignment for Charlie that night, so Danny and I headed out on our own.  Danny had a buddy in Fayetteville so we went into town to see him.  I knew Danny through the same friends from college.  Danny came off as more laid back than Charlie…just as intense but better at keeping the crazy under control.  All in all a good solid dude.

We hung out at Danny’s friend’s apartment most of the evening, watching tv and drinking wine and smoking.  I learned from Danny that his cousin Mark, who was an old high school friend of mine, was also stationed there.  We set out for the base to try to find him but had no luck that late on a Friday night.   I realized I hadn’t eaten in a while so I had Danny buy me a burger at the px, then we drove back to the park where I had spent the previous night.  I was leaving the next day so we said our goodbyes and I rolled out my bag for the night.

Woke early again but stayed in the sack for a while.  Danny had given me direction’s to Mark’s barracks so I walked over, figuring to at least say hello before I headed out.  When I got there Mark wasn’t there, but the sergeant had an idea where he was so he rousted a guy to drive me out to a single wide somewhere out in the woods off base. Mark wasn’t there when I got there but the young woman at the trailer told me that he and some other guys had gone to town to sell blood to buy a lid and would be back soon so I sat down to wait.

Soon enough they returned and to say Mark was surprised to see me would be a severe understatement.  Mark was a couple of years younger and we had hung out in the same loose knit crowd in high school.  Mark had been rather shy as I remembered him, but the army had toughened him some and he seemed very comfortable with his band of brothers.  We sat around watching wrestling, smoking and catching up for most of the day.

Late in the afternoon I remembered that I was supposed to meet up with my ride the next morning on the other side of the state.  Throwing on my backpack I said my goodbyes and struck out for Burnsville.

 

The Road to Burnsville

I was walking down a back country dirt road headed toward the highway when I guy stopped and offered me a ride.  He said that he didn’t usually pick people up, but the guy who owned that piece of woods was known to shoot at people after dark.  With that I accepted his kind offer and got in.  He drove me out to the highway, where I hitched a ride to Greensboro.

At Greensboro no sooner had I walked down the on ramp than a white pick-up sped past, then slammed on the brakes and back up the on ramp toward me.  Opening the passenger door they offered me a ride and said they were going all the way to Knoxville in Tennessee.  The occupants were a couple of guys who looked to be in their mid to late twenties.  The driver was a wiry little guy with a crew cut and a motor mouth, the passenger was a heavy set long hair who didn’t talk much.  We’ll call them Beavis and Cooter.  There was a partial sixpack on the seat between them and no real mystery where the rest had gone.  But the sun was starting to fade and the offer of a ride all the way across the state was too good to pass up, so I climbed in.

We had been careening down I-40 at a high rate of speed for a couple of minutes when Beavis looked over at me and said, “Of course you know this truck is stolen”.  Turned out it wasn’t stolen, just borrowed from his dad without dad’s permission…or knowledge for that matter.  They were on their way to visit Cooter’s ex in Knoxville to continue a party they apparently had started some hours earlier.

We stopped in Winston-Salem where I bought them some beer and we changed drivers.  The sun set and we drove on through the night.  By the time we reached Statesville Beavis, who was sitting in the middle, had passed out and spilled his beer in my lap.  It was starting to get late when Cooter pulled onto the shoulder and informed me that I could do what I wanted but that he had to crash.

So sitting there in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night I reviewed my options.  Option one was I could sit there until the cops showed up.  Option two was I could get out and try to hitch another ride, which seemed unlikely and probably illegal.  Option three was I could drive.  “Better to keep moving”, I told myself as I slipped into the driver’s seat and dropped it into gear.  And so it was that this hippie kid from California ended up driving across North Carolina in the middle of the night in a “borrowed” truck reeking of beer.

St. Stupid, the patron saint of fools, smiled on me that night and we made into Asheville without incident, where I bid goodbye to my redneck friends and look for a ride up the hill to Burnsville.  My luck held again as there was a VW van full of heads at the gas station in Asheville when we pulled in.  I climbed in the back and they gave me a ride up to Weaverville, which was halfway up the mountain.  They dropped me off on the edge of town, giving me a couple of joints for the road.

Got a ride up to Mars Hill a few miles up the road, where I waited for some time for another one.  It had gotten really cold and I put on my dayglo orange down jacket with a mismatched tan hood.  Fatigue was setting in and my thoughts were getting fuzzy.  Finally a VW bug pulled up and two guys got out and approached me.  I asked how far they were going and seeming startled they replied that they were only going a mile up the road and that they had only stopped because they thought I was a hallucination.  They said they were going down by the bridge to get high and invited me to join them.  I wasn’t looking to get high but I hadn’t seen another car for hours and my guess was that the bug had a functioning heater so I tagged along.

We drove down an old road that led to a creek below a bridge.  As we smoked we talked a bit about my situation.  One of the guys felt like the best thing would be to find a place to sleep for the night and continue in the morning.  He knew of a college dorm nearby where he thought I could crash.  We drove over to the dorms but the buildings were dark.  He tried a door handle but it was locked, so he started to kick the door in.  Having already pushed my luck that night I quickly stopped him, and they dropped me back off where they picked me up.

I stood there in the shivering cold for hours before getting a ride with a bluegrass musician who was heading through Burnsville on his way home from a gig.  He had a quart of plum wine on the seat between us and a pint of white lightning under the seat.  A couple of pulls and I warmed right up to the point where it felt like my insides were on fire.  Finally got into Burnsville about 3:30am.  Everything was closed so I stumbled along in a semi-stupor until I came upon what looked like a park so I rolled my bag out on the lawn and passed out.

 

Burnsville

Woke at dawn and peeked out of the bag to look around.  It turned out that the “park” where I was sleeping was in fact the town square.  Quickly rolled up my gear and headed down the street to the pay phone to get a hold of Jessi.  Burnsville in the mid-seventies had that Mayberry kind of feel to it.  You half expected to see Andy and Barney hanging around the barber shop.

As I picked up the receiver to call Jessi I glanced through the café wind and noticed the waitress resetting the big clock on the wall.  It was then that I realized that the time had changed over night and instead of 8:00 it was an hour earlier.  Feeling like that was too early to call on a Sunday morning I staggered into the café and sat down to a plate of grits and eggs with a generous helping of medicinal coffee.

Finally got a hold of Jessi and she and her friend Dan came down to pick me up.  Dan was a back-to-nature Jesus freak and he and his family lived on a small farm outside of town.  Their cabin, which they rented for $25/mo., was tucked back into a hollow among the woods, the fall colors of the leaves contrasting with the bluish hue of the mountains.  While it did have electricity it lacked most other modern comforts.  It featured an outhouse and a wood stove for heat and the water came from a spring on the property.  They raised cows and chickens which supplied fresh milk and eggs.  Dan drove an old Willy’s pick-up and gave me a piece of advice that years later I would rue ignoring.  The advice being that if you’re going to own a Willy’s you need to own two…one to drive and one for parts.

It turned out that Karen had decided to spend an extra day in D.C. and so wouldn’t be in until that night.  So what had been planned as a travel day turned into a lazy Sunday afternoon in the Smoky Mountains.  Most of the day was spent recovering from the previous night’s adventure.  Dan was learning to hunt with a bow and so we spent a portion of the afternoon on archery practice.  Later he and I sat at the kitchen table and discussed theology for quite a while, really getting deep into the subject.  Jessi cooked dinner and soon afterward I fell asleep in front of the tv.

 

Burnsville to Idabel

Karen had arrived during the night and so in the morning we got ready to leave.  Dan had asked for a ride to Knoxville so we hit I-40 and rolled into Tennessee.  After dropping Dan off we put the foot to the floor and hit the fast lane and headed west.  We had lost a day so we needed to make up some time.  We made Nashville about lunchtime and grabbed a quick bite before heading for Memphis.  Got to Memphis at dusk, crossing the Mississippi into Arkansas.  It was raining when we pulled into a rest area near the river and bedded down in the car for the night.

The rain had stopped by morning.  We spent some time by the river before getting back on the road.  We were headed for Karen’s brother’s house in Idabel in southeast Oklahoma.  About noon we pulled into Little Rock looking for someplace to eat.  Parking downtown we strolled into a nearby diner.  Once inside the world paused for a second, for from the expressions of the other patrons and staff we were not only the only white people in the diner…it seemed possible that we were the only white people who had ever been in that diner.  After a startled moment we sat down and ordered…I had the fried chicken.  The food was good and we tipped well.

Just west of Little Rock is the town of Hot Springs, Arkansas, home to Hot Springs National Park.  After twenty days on the road a soak sounded really good so we spent a couple of hours in one of the historic bath houses.  As we headed west the flatlands gave way to green rolling hills.  Late in the afternoon we crossed into Oklahoma and soon after arrived at Karen’s brother Tim’s house.

Tim and his wife Jill had transplanted from California to a tract house on the outskirts of Idabel, which is nestled in the Red River Valley on the Texas/Oklahoma border.  Idabel was your typical mid-American small town.  It consisted of an older, somewhat quaint, downtown with newer structures radiating out from the center.  It was cattle country and most of the commerce catered to ranchers.  It was also at that time fairly homogenous.  I remember Jessi asking Jill if there was any prejudice against Jews in the area.  “Oh no,” Jill scoffed, “around here we’re prejudiced against the Catholics.”

It rained heavily overnight and awoke to one of those Midwest thunder storms that feel like the house is being shelled.  Must have dumped a foot of rain overnight it seemed.  After the rain we toured the local area, driving up to Broken Bow Reservoir.  The surrounding area is known as Choctaw Country, as it was the part of the territory to which the Choctaw nation was relocated to from their ancestral lands in the Southeast during the Trail of Tears in the 1830s.  The green rolling hills reminded me of the foothills back home.  The rest of the day was quiet and uneventful as we returned to the house.  Karen took a nap and didn’t wake until late afternoon so it was decided we would stay another night.

 

Route 66

It was raining hard when we left.  We crossed the Red River and turned west, following the river across the north Texas plains.  Soon the rain stopped and turned to an oppressive heat.  We pushed hard across the flatlands, the landscape growing more barren the further we went.  The only thing that seemed to be stirring were horseflies the size of bumble bees.

At a rest stop west of Wichita Falls we discovered an unexpected treat.  As we were rooting through the trunk we found the jug of apple juice that we had been given by Jessi’s cousin in Pennsylvania.  Over the days in the heat of the trunk the juice had fermented quite nicely and we had by luck caught it at exactly the right time, providing a soothing effect to the seemingly endless monotony that is the Texas panhandle.

We made Amarillo at sundown and caught I-40 west. In the old days this stretch of highway was the fabled Route 66, which in the days before the interstate system ran from Chicago to L.A.  Grasslands turned to desert as we drove through the night into New Mexico. Finally at a rest stop west of Albuquerque we stopped for the night.

There I found the second surprise of the day.  Searching through my pack I came across the two joints I had been given in North Carolina.  Karen seemed a bit freaked by this, maybe because we had transported what the feds considered a schedule 1 narcotic across several state lines through states where any amount of weed was a felony and likely prison time.  However Jessi and I promised to destroy the evidence, which we did laying out beneath the desert sky on that Hallows Eve.

 

Mesa Country

Awoke early.  The still desert air had a bit of a chill to it as we got back on the road.  The land had been rising steadily and we crossed the Continental Divide just east of Gallup.  At Gallup we turned north toward the Navajo reservation, rolling thru the high desert. Just south of Shiprock we stopped at a trading post.  Karen and Jessi wanted to do some shopping but I had no interest so I stayed in the car.  As I sat reading I noticed suddenly a large group of older pick-up trucks headed our way.  As they turned into the parking lot I realized that today was the first of the month and that the locals were coming to the post to cash their checks and stock up on beer and ammo.  Pretty soon the girls came out and we headed on our way north toward Mesa Verde.

We took a wrong turn at Shiprock and ended up having to take a back road north out of Farmington.  Somewhere north of Farmington we crossed cattle guards in the road and entered an area marked with signs indicating that the area was under jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture.  There we encountered a bizarre sight.  There were small herds of cattle that were apparently part of some kind of interbreeding experiments being driven south to lower elevations.  The herds consisted of many different breeds, some of which I had never seen before.  Judging from some obvious mutations among the younger cattle there had been a fair bit of interbreeding.

As we reached higher elevations there was a light dusting of snow covering the ground.  The wrong turn and the encounter with the cattle had delayed us to the point that we had to race up the winding mountain road to make the last tour.  As it was having to park the car I missed the tour, so I checked out the visitor center, where I learned about the ancient peoples who had built this pre-Columbian civilization.

When the tour ended we embarked on a driving tour the loop road but it soon began to rain.  Rain quickly turned to snow and soon the road was covered, forcing us to flee for lower elevations.  Leaving the park we stopped for dinner in Cortez, where I had my first Mexican food since Denver.  Then we stuck out for the Grand Canyon, rolling across the high desert as the moon rose full and luminous in the night sky.  Upon reaching the park around midnight moon glistened off the canyon walls.  We pulled into an overlook and settled in for the night, anticipating the spectacular views that awaited us come daylight.

When we woke the next morning we found that a snow stormed had moved in overnight.  The car was covered with an inch or two of snow and visibility extended to the hood ornament.  Since we weren’t carrying chains the decision was to head to lower elevations while the road was still passable.  Clearing the snow from the car inevitably turned into a snowball fight which I admit to have started. Once finished we were headed down the mountain and on to L.A.

 

Los Angeles

As headed down the mountain the snow dissipated and by the time we got to Williams it had turned bright sunshine.   We stopped for gas in Williams where the attendant tried to scare Karen into buying a new set of tires.  Pointing out some wear caused by a minor alignment problem and he told her that those tires would never make it to L.A.  This was a well known scam back in the day in which dishonest establishments would frighten unsuspecting travelers, especially women, into paying for unneeded repairs at exorbitant prices.  Employees often got kickbacks for recommending such work.  She consulted me and after checking the wear I advised that I thought the tires were fine but if she had any concerns they could rotate the tires front to back, for which the posted rate was $5.00, and that would take care of the problem until she got home.  She decided to have the tires rotated, much to the ire of the attendant who muttered that if we were going to drive around on shoddy tires maybe we should leave town.  Once the tire work was done we did so, back on I-40 and headed for the California border.

At Needles we turned south across the desert.  Hit I-10 east of Joshua Tree and headed west, rolling across the barren landscape of sagebrush and the occasional cottonwood.  Hit civilization again at Coachella and rolled west past Palm Springs.  At San Bernardino caught the 210 that skirted along the north edge of the valley at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains.  Traffic really bogged down here and it would take until well after dark when we finally arrive in L.A.  We found a little Italian restaurant on Colorado Boulevard and sat down to our final dinner on the road.  Karen had a friend who was attending Occidental College nearby in the Eagle Rock neighborhood so after dinner we headed over there to crash for the night.  The girls slept in the dorm while I stayed in the car.

Woke early to a pleasant Sunday in the City of Angels.  Karen and Jessi were up soon and we treated ourselves to a leisurely breakfast and did some visiting.  Jessi had some friends who were involved in the Save the River campaign, which supported a ballot initiative that sought to stop the damming of the Stanislaus River.  The election was on Tuesday and there had been a huge rally in L.A. on Saturday.  The headquarters were nearby so after lunch we dropped by.  There we found out that a busload of activists were headed north that evening for a final push before Tuesday.  I asked who they had working in Stockton and the answer was they had no one in Stockton.  I proposed that with a box of fliers and a seat on the bus I could be their guy.  It was agreed to and we drove out to Hansen Dam to meet the bus.

Hansen Dam was just north and it didn’t take long to drive up.  There we met a large group of activists who were waiting for the bus.  The wait lasted for some time as the bus was hours late, having taken a wrong turn in the L.A. traffic.  Finally it arrived and Karen, Jessi and I embraced in a long group hug before I grabbed my box of fliers and climbed onto the big yellow bus for the ride up north and the end of the long strange trip.

 

Epilogue

The bus dropped me in Stockton the next morning and I headed over to my folks place for some extended R&R.  They were glad to see me and after a month on the road it felt good to be home.  With no job and no place to live there seemed little point to going back up to Bear Valley, so I settled in for the winter. I went back to school and got my old job back as stage tech in the drama department at the college, all the time looking toward the next adventure.

I never saw Karen again as she didn’t return to claim her old job.  I ran into Jessi once when I visited Bear Valley to pick up some stuff I had left behind.  Ironically she and her boyfriend had rented the top half of the A-frame where I had spent the summer.  We all went our separate ways, fellow travelers who paths had crossed on an amazing journey and moved on to new adventures.

Years later what remains from the trip are a notebook, an old map, and some faded photos.  But most important are the memories of the sights and sounds and smells.  For words and maps and photos can tell you some things about a place, but until you have touched the soil and breathed the air and talked to the people you can never really know that place.  And this is how I came to know America.

The End

Of the road

 

It was the summer of 1972 and I was hanging out in east Stockton.  It was a Saturday night and word got around about a house party in Linden, a little farming town east of Stockton.  Gene said he was headed out there and since he knew where it was I grabbed a ride with him.  The party was actually at an old farm house outside of town surrounded by orchards.

When I got there I found that my sister had come out with a bunch of her girlfriends in my dad’s car.  My dad’s car was a 1967 Dodge Coronet and it was his pride and joy.   The Coronet was a hybrid where Dodge took a Charger chassis and stuck a Dart body on it.  It had a 318 hemi which delivered plenty of high end power while the lighter body made it agile and quick.  I would never say that our dad loved that car more than his own children, but I think it can be confidently said that at that point in time he liked it better than us.

I can’t say I remember much about the party itself.  They all kind of ran together back then.  There was a keg and all the girls there either had boyfriends or were friends of my sister.  We stumbled around getting buzzed in the dark in the mid-summer heat until late night turned to early morning and it was time to leave.  That is when things unfortunately got interesting.  This was the point of time at these parties where the alcohol took hold and the fights started.  I was standing in the yard when I saw my sister and her friends getting into the car to leave.  Just then I noticed Gene standing next to the car talking to some of the locals and it clearly wasn’t going well.  First clue of some real trouble was when one of then smacked Gene upside his head and knocked his glasses to the ground.  Gene’s reaction was to climb into the back seat and cower between two of the girls.

When the locals moved to go into the car after him I knew I had to act, so I stepped into the doorway to block their path.  I was immediately confronted by the leader of the mob, a tall lanky redneck with long blond hair and a serious heat on.  His response was to land a right hook to my jaw.  I stood my ground and he swung again.  As the second punch landed I saw the mob closing in, cutting off any chance of retreat.  So I charged him and took him to the ground.  I threw a front headlock on him and wrapped my legs around his torso in a scissors lock.  This drew the mob away from the car as they jumped on top of us, punching and kicking me as I squeezed harder, tightening around him like a python.  Pretty soon he’s calling to the mob to back off and let us up.  A truce was called long enough for me to get in the car and I climbed into the back seat as my sister started to back out of the driveway.

Suddenly the driver’s side window exploded and my sister lost it, screaming hysterically while covered with shards of glass.  Somehow in the confusion we managed to pull her out of the driver’s seat and Gene took the wheel.  He then proceeded to back out of the driveway at a high rate of speed and across the road into the orchard on the other side.  Turning the wrong way, he sped through the rows of trees without his glasses fumbling for the headlights.  He turned them on just in time to see the embankment of an irrigation ditch dead ahead.  Gene hit the brakes and we skidded on the loose soil until we softly nosed into the berm.  I got behind the wheel and got us back on the road and headed toward Stockton at 100 mph, the hot wind from the shattered window rushing loudly through the car.

As we approached Stockton we realized that one of the girls had been left behind, along with Gene’s car.  So when we got back to the house I grabbed an old derringer my brother had stashed in the linen closet and Gene and I headed back out in my car.  The gun was purely for show.  First, it wasn’t loaded and even if it has been two shots against a crowd of a dozen or more was clearly insufficient firepower.  Second it was such a piece of crap that if I had tried to fire it it likely would have blown up in my hand.  In hindsight a stupid play but I was young and high and jacked up on adrenaline.

When we got back out there the party had broken up and the place was dark and quiet.  We had no idea where the girl had gone but we located Gene’s car.  As he opened the door and the dome light came on we discovered the girl we were looking for in the back seat making out with the lanky redneck who I had fought a couple hours ago.  As he emerged from the car my hand instinctively tightened around the gun in my pocket, but much to my surprise he extended his hand and told me how much he respected me for not taking any cheap shots while we were on the ground.  So we shook hands and I headed back to town, the adrenaline wearing off and being replaced by pain.

I woke the next morning bloody and bruised, my whole body wracked with pain, but considering the odds it could have ended a whole lot worse.  Looking back I don’t know that I would handle it the same way, but I never again doubted that when called upon I would do what I had to do.

It was the summer of 1973 and I was living at my folks house in Stockton.  I had quit my job as a roofer a couple of months before and wasn’t much interested in looking for another one as it would interfere with my current lifestyle of hanging out with my friends and drinking beer.  After this had gone on for a while my mom came to me one day with a proposal.  I could either get a job or go back to school.  So I decided to continue my higher education, which to that point consisted of a semester and a half at the local junior college during which I changed my major three times.  In keeping with my current lifestyle my priority in choosing a line of study was a complete and total lack of homework.  As I perused the catalog Drama 1A seemed to fit my criteria.  It happened that the drama depart was starting rehearsals for summer stock and so I and my sister, who I assume was given the same ultimatum, signed up and were assigned to the chorus of Brigadoon, a musical about a cursed Scottish village that reappears out the fog every hundred years.

I will point out here that singing and dancing were never going to be my ticket to stardom.  However as a former high school wrestler I could fall down with the best of them and once this talent was discovered I was cast in the actions scenes.  My big scene was at the end of Act 1, when in the middle of the wedding scene the antagonist assaults the bride.  At which point I step out of the crowd, pull him off of her and knock him to the ground.  He then comes up brandishing a knife and runs offstage.  There’s an art to a stage punch in the way you sell it.  In this case I would grab his right shoulder with my left hand and spin him around so his back was to the audience.  Then I would swing full force past his jaw and hit the back of my left hand, creating the flesh on flesh sound.  I practiced this over and over with Tony, the actor who played the antagonist until we felt had it down.

As fate would have it soon work came calling and I found myself back working for my old boss at the roofing company.  His name was Louie and his step-daughters were pals of mine from high school.  Louie was an old school Italian of the work hard/play hard school.  He would yell at you all day long but when the day was done the drinks were on him.  And drinking was a major theme around the crew.  Louie’s foreman, Big Gene, would polish off a six pack of Regal Select in the truck on the way to the job in the morning.  There was another sixer for morning break before heading to the bar for lunch.  Then after work we would head straight to the bar where we would stay until they turned the  air conditioning off.  Keep in mind that in Stockton in the summer it would be too hot to be on the roof by 2 pm so the work day started at 6 am.  To further complicate the situation the show was now deep into rehearsals and rehearsals were running deep into the night, sometimes until 2 am.  So my routine became go to work at the crack of dawn, work all day and then head for the bar until it was time to go to rehearsal, catch a quick shower then rehearse until well after midnight, catch a couple of hours of sleep then get up and do it again.  At some point I developed a cyst on my tailbone which made sitting on roofs extremely painful, so codeine was added to the mix.  I began nodding out riding in the truck to the job in the morning.  The boss started to think I had a drinking problem and I let him think that because drunks he understood…but actors?

Finally Opening Night arrived.  After work I cashed my paycheck at the bar and had a couple of drinks with the guys before heading off to get ready for the show.  I was tired from working all week and the pain in my ass was throbbing so in the dressing room I took a pain pill.  Then it was showtime.  You can rehearse a show for months but a live audience changes everything.  The lights are brighter, the music is louder, the energy more intense, the pace quicker.  My adrenaline surged as I focused on staying in harmony and remembering the blocking movements.  Finally the moment arrives as Act 1 comes to a crescendo.  Tony grabs the girl.  I grab Tony and spin him around.  I deliver my stage punch and Tony goes down as I hover over him with fists clenched.  And he’s not coming up.  He’s late on his cue and time is both frozen and racing at once as I wait for it, feeling the eyes of the entire audience upon me.  Finally after seconds that seemed like hours he rises brandishing the knife and runs offstage.  As the curtain drops I  find Tony backstage and ask him what happened. “You clipped me”,  he said.  Apparently the added adrenaline lengthened my swing just enough to catch the point of Tony’s jaw, causing the lights to flash much brighter for him in that instant before going out momentarily.  I sheepishly offered him a codeine.

Thus began my career in the theater, although it took a different path in the fall.  Because once the faculty discovered that I had a talent for pounding  nails I never saw the outside of the scene shop again, save for the occasional bit part where they needed someone to fall down or lift something heavy.  There was no fame or fortune down that path but I was getting paid a whole $15 a week, which usually went toward beer and smoke for the cast parties.  I made some great friends, some of them life long, and accrued 55 units of completely useless theater credits.  It led to jobs with ACT and the Renaissance Faire, where I rose to the head of the Design Department, as well as movie and event gigs over the next dozen years until left the field.  And while I never earned a degree, it helped me achieve my life long goal of getting out of Stockton.

THE SPOT

By

John Bird

 

“I love the trees this time of year,” Frank said as he stared through the French doors.  Outside in the yard the plum and the apple were vibrant with the first blossoms of the season.  Spring had arrived with all it’s magic.  And Frank was hoping to work a little magic of his own, which had nothing to do with trees.  The trees were just a selling point, a bright bow on a pretty package.  The sale was the magic; not that it would take any magic to get an offer.

It was 1998 and the Santa Clara valley, a.k.a. Silicon Valley, was the center of the known universe.  The Internet had transformed acres of orchard and farmland into the nucleus of the high-tech revolution.  The lure of quick cash had seduced would be entrepreneurs who swarmed to the valley in droves.  The impact of the boom swelled far beyond the limits of the infrastructure.  Power, water, and sewage systems were pushed beyond capacity, causing a housing shortage, which sent prices skyrocketing.  The multitude of the new economy descended on the housing market in a frenzy, throwing money at anything with indoor plumbing.

Frank knew he would get an offer, and that as soon as he did there would be a counter offer, which would trigger a sequence of bidding and bargaining which could prove exasperating for both the client and the agent.  That’s when the real work started.  That’s when the magic would have to hold.

Frank glanced toward the clients, Mark and Gwen, to gauge their reaction.  Mark’s gaze roamed across the lawn in the manner of someone whose mind was elsewhere, while Gwen stared intently at the vaulted ceiling.

“What are those bolts?”  Gwen was pointing at the end of one of the beams that supported the ceiling.

“That’s a seismic retrofit.  Actually, a pretty important feature in this area.”  Frank responded.

“They’re so ugly.  Can we cover them up?”

“I’ll get my contractor out here.  Bill Jensen, good man.”  Frank’s stomach tightened.  Frank and Bill had a serious run-in that morning.  There had been a problem between Bill’s lead carpenter, Tom, and Paul Savage, the architect on a project Frank was managing.  Paul was clearly in the wrong, but Frank had sided with him.  Bill had to let Tom go.  A nasty bit of business, but it was business, and carpenters were cheaper to replace than architects.

Suddenly, a cell phone rang.  The trio in the room reached in unison for their phones.

“It’s mine, excuse me” Frank said, flipping open his phone and walking away from the couple.  “Hello, Frank here.”

“Frank, it’s Aunt Ruth.”

“Ruth…Is everything o.k.?”  Frank wondered how his aunt had gotten his cell phone number.

“The people at your office gave me your number.  Frank…your dad is in the hospital.  It’s his heart.  It’s pretty bad.”

Frank felt his own heart give a twinge.  “When did this happen?”

“This morning.  Can you come up?”

“Of course.  I just need to tie up some loose ends and I’ll be right up.”

“He’s in the ICU ward at Community Hospital.  Hurry.”

“I’ll see you soon.  Bye.” Frank turned and walked back toward the couple.  “I apologize, but something urgent has come up and I’m going to have to cut this short.  I’ll have Sandra, my office manager, reschedule you at your convenience.”

“We’ve come all the way out here…can we finish the walk through?”  Gwen’s voice hinted at insistence.

“I’m terribly sorry.  Tell you what, I need to call the office…perhaps you two might want to look around on your own while I do.  I’m really very sorry.”

Gwen shot Frank an icy glare as the couple wandered into the other room.  Frank hit the speed dial on his cell phone as he stepped out onto the deck.

“Thomas Realty, this is Sandra.”

“Sandra, this is Frank.  Listen, my dad’s in the hospital…it’s his heart…sounds pretty bad.  I need you to reschedule the Davidsons, and you better clear my calendar for tomorrow…at least the morning, and book me on the next flight to Sacramento.”

It was about twenty minutes to the airport as the crow flew.  For crows stuck in rush traffic you could triple that.    Rush hour started before five in the morning and ended after eight at night.  Of all the systems stretched beyond the limits traffic was the worst.  Every day a sea of cars washed into the valley, then ebbed back out at night.  Gridlock had become a way of life.  People commuted hundreds of miles every day from houses in the Sacramento Valley to jobs in Silicon Valley, to spend the day wired to their cubicle.  Then they would climb in their cars for the long trek home, where they would sit staring at the monitor with a phone jammed in their ear.   Maybe he should think about opening an office in Sacramento.  If Dad was really sick maybe he should be closer.  But Frank hated Sacramento, and his dad…well…they had been close once.

By the time Frank reached the airport he had missed his flight.  The next flight was in an hour.  Frank called Aunt Ruth to tell her he would be late, then settled in at the bar with a martini and his cell phone.  Time to check his messages.  There was a message from Sandra, the office manager.  Someone had topped the offer on the Lee house and they had twenty-four hours to submit a counter offer.  There was a message from Sarah Henderson, wanting to know how close they were to closing, the tone in her voice clearly impatient.  There was a message from Bill, his contractor; the termite report on the Garcia house had come back, and the news wasn’t good.  Frank hit the speed dialer.

“Hello?”

“Sandra, look sorry to bother you at home, but I need you to call Sue Lee.  Offer her ten thousand over the other offer.  Tell her that’s the best we can do.  I’m going to call Sarah Henderson and Bill Jensen.  If anything else comes up try to handle it.  I should be back in a day or two at the most.”

“I hope everything’s all right with your dad.”

“Thanks, me too.  Bye”

Sipping his martini Frank hit the speed dial again.

“Hello, you’ve reached Bill Jensen, General Contractor.  I’m not in the office right now, but if you leave your name and number I’ll get back to you.”

“Bill, this is Frank Thomas.  Got you message regarding the Garcia job.  Need to get this cleared up ASAP.  I’m going out of town for a day or two, but you can reach me on my cell.  Hope you understand about this morning…I did what I had to do.  Sometimes this business can get a little vicious.  Anyway, give me a call.  Bye.”

Frank downed his martini and signaled for another.  He was going to need it by the time he was through with Sarah Henderson…or more precisely when she got through with him.  Frank wet his throat and hit the speed dial.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Sarah, it’s Frank Thomas.”

“Frank, yes, I’ve been wanting to talk to you.  Listen, I’m starting to be concerned that we still haven’t closed yet.  I don’t understand what the delay is.  I’m wondering if we can’t speed things up a bit.”

“Sarah, all the paperwork has been filed, the wheels are in motion, but the process takes time.”

“There must be some way of expediting the process.”

“I assure you, we’re doing everything we can.  Now…I’m going to be out of town a couple of days on personal business.  When I get back we should have some answers.”

“Another delay?  I don’t think this is a good time to be going off on holiday.”

“This isn’t a vacation…some urgent business has come up that requires my attention.”

“I’m just concerned that my business isn’t receiving the attention it deserves.”

Just then Frank heard the boarding call for his flight.

“That’s my flight.  Listen, Sarah, everything will be fine.  I’ll talk to you in a day or two.  If you have any questions before then call Sandra at the office and she will take care of it.  Good night, Sarah.”

“Hope to be hear some better news soon then.  Good night.”

As Frank hung up he closed his eyes and finished his drink in one swallow.  Then, signing the check, Frank made his way to the gate.  On board the flight attendant announced that airline regulations required cell phones to be turned off, although Frank argued that this was an emergency, so Frank spent the next of hour alone with his thoughts; thoughts of his father and how their relationship had changed through the years.  Frank’s mom had died when he was young, so growing up a strong bond developed between father and son.  But as Frank grew older the more his interests changed and the less he felt any common bond with “the old man”.  The more his dad clung to the bond the more Frank fought to free himself of it.  New friends, girls, parties, college, marriage, his career, the move, the divorce (Frank made a mental note to call Leslie when he hit the ground) all had widened the rift between the two.  Lately there had been a growing desire to renew their relationship, but Frank’s business had occupied most of his time.  And now Frank wondered whether time would grant him mercy just this once.

*

As Frank pulled out of the rental yard he turned his phone on to find two messages: one from Sandra and one from Bill.  Frank hit speed dial.

“Bill Jensen.”

“Bill, it’s Frank.  Look, about the Garcia house.  That place is primed for a quick turnaround.  To throw a red flag now could screw the whole deal.”

“Frank, you asked me to look at it.  I’m telling you what I found.  I can’t pretend I didn’t see what I saw.  That’s just asking for trouble.”

“Look, Bill, I’m not asking you to cover anything up…but you know as well as I do that if we start tearing into that place we’re opening up a can of worms.  Look, check it out.  Let’s see if we can limit the damage.  Oh, by the way, I might have another job for you.  A small job, covering some bolts in a ceiling.  I’ll be back in town in a day or two and we can go over it then.  Got another call, talk to you soon…bye.”

Frank took the new call as he pulled into the hospital parking lot.

“Hello.”

“Frank, this is Sandra.”

“Hi, I was just going to call you.  How did it go with the Lee’s”

“I just got off the phone with Sue.  She told me that the other guy has already topped our offer and told her he will top any offer we make.”

“That’s insane.  The place is already way over valued.  The guy may be bluffing.  I’ll talk to the client and get back to you.  Got to go.”

Frank hung up as he entered the hospital lobby and approached the front desk where the receptionist was seated.

“Excuse me, I’m here to see a patient in ICU.”

“Down the hall to the elevators…third floor…to your right.”

“Thanks.”

Frank walked down the hall. Stopping in front of the elevators Frank pushed the “up” button.  After a few seconds the elevator doors opened and Frank entered. Frank pushed the button for the third floor and the doors closed.  Frank felt a surreal sensation, as if life itself had slowed to the pace of an elevator.  The elevator doors opened and Frank walked out into the corridor.  Aunt Ruth was sitting near the nurses’ station.  As she rose and walked toward him, Frank could see that she was shaking.

“I got here as quick as I could,” Frank whispered, hugging Ruth.

“I’m afraid he’s gone.”

Frank had considered the possibility several times in the last three hours, yet finality of the words staggered him, causing him to back away from Ruth, “What happened?”

“It was his heart.  He had been ill for a while.”

“I don’t understand.  I talked to him last month and he didn’t say anything.”

“You know how he was.  He would never admit to anyone how sick he was.  I only knew because I saw him all the time.”

Frank felt his emotions all rushing together and churning inside him.  “Well, why didn’t you say something to me?”

“He asked me not to.  He didn’t want to bother you with it.  He knew how busy you are.”

“Too busy to see my father before he died?” his voice rising in anger.

“That’s why I called you. I should have called you sooner…” Frank could see the tears welling up in Ruth’s eyes.  Instinctively he reached for her.

“I’m sorry…It’s not your fault.  Where is he.”

“They have him in a room down the hall.  They’re getting ready to move him downstairs.  Fourth door on the left.”

As Frank walked down the corridor he felt like the outside world had melted away and a strange new presence was closing in around him.  The fourth door on the left was open and Frank could see a nurse and two orderlies unhooking equipment and preparing to move the body onto a gurney.  The nurse moved to block his entrance.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m Frank Thomas.  I’m his son.”

“I’m so sorry, please come in.  Would you like some time alone.”

“If I could have a couple of minutes, please.”

“Take as long as you want. We’ll be outside if you need us.” The nurse turned in the doorway, “He asked for you at the end,” then closed the door as she left.

Frank stood staring at his father, lying still upon the bed.  He looked old and frail; a bare resemblance of the vigorous, robust man Frank had grown up with.  Frank’s dad was a carpenter and his natural rugged strength was suited for the hard physical work of construction.  Dad loved the outdoors and spent most of his free time hiking camping and fishing, usually dragging Frank along until Frank was old enough to say no.  The last few years Frank noticed how the erosion of time took its toll on the old man, but even into his seventies, Dad had never lost his love of the outdoor life.  Now seeing his dad lay pale and lifeless sent chills through Frank’s body.

“Well, Dad, sorry I wasn’t here.  Guess I let you down again.   If I’d known you were sick, I’d have made more time to be here.  I wish you had let me know.  I wish I had known.”  Frank could feel the tears welling up.  Time to get a grip.  Time to be strong.  Frank opened the door and stepped into the corridor.  As the orderlies entered the room Frank turned to the nurse.

“Is there any paperwork to do?”

“Nothing that can’t wait ’til tomorrow.  You should get some rest.”

“Yeah, I’ve had a really bad day.”  Frank walked toward Aunt Ruth, who was waiting by the nurses’ station.  “I’m going to head over to the house.  Would you like to come over?  I could use some company right now.”

“Me, too,” Ruth nodded as she took his arm and headed toward the elevator.

*

The house was in an older tract located near what used to be the edge of town.  Now the city stretched several miles east to the foothills.  As he drove down the quiet neighborhood streets Frank pulled out his phone and hit speed dial.

“Hello?”

“Sandra, it’s Frank.  Sorry to bother you at home this late.  Listen, my dad died.”

“Frank, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, thanks.  Look, I’m going to be another couple of days.  See if Jim Riley will cover for me with the Davidsons.  He owes me one.  Call Bill Jensen and have him work up an estimate on the Garcia place.  Oh yeah…and try to keep Sarah Henderson off my back.”

“What about the Lee’s?”

“Let’s sleep on that one.  I’ll get back to you in the morning.”

“Don’t worry about things here…we’ll manage.    Are you going to be all right.”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.  Just got some loose ends to tie up.  If anything comes up you know where to reach me.  I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“You take care of yourself.  Good night.”

Frank hung up as he pulled into the driveway.  The site of the old house sent another wave of chills through Frank.  He glanced at Aunt Ruth to see if his emotions were betrayed, but Ruth seemed lost in her own thoughts.  Frank studied her face, noting the family similarity.  Aunt Ruth had become sort of surrogate mother after his mom had died.  Mostly though it had been just Dad and him.  Then it was just him.  Now they were both alone.

As Frank opened the front door he reached for the light switch.

“I left in such a hurry I didn’t pack a change of clothes,” Frank said as he stepped into the entry.

“There’s probably some clothes here,” replied Ruth as she followed him in.

A gentle smile crossed Frank’s face.   “Nothing that would fit me.  That okay, I’ll pick something up tomorrow.  I assume they still take Visa out here.”

“I’ll make us some coffee,” said Ruth as she headed toward the kitchen.  Frank wandered down the hall until he came to a bedroom door.  Turning the knob, the door swung open and Frank stared into the room.  Frank hesitated a moment before entering, then flipped the light switch and walked in.  The room was furnished in early thrift store, just a bed, a nightstand and a dresser.  Frank walked over to the dresser and ran his finger across the top, noting a thin film of dust.  Above the dresser were several pictures in frames hung on the wall. One picture was of a woman holding a baby in front of a 1953 Chevy.  Another of a young boy holding a large trout on the shore of a small lake high in the mountains.  Another picture of Frank as a young man standing with his bride on their wedding day.  Another of Frank as a teenager with shoulder length hair standing in front of an old VW bug.

Frank looked at the bed and he saw himself lying there. He was seventeen.  The Who were blasting “My Generation” from the stereo on the dresser.  A large poster of Jane Fonda as “Barbarella” hung on the wall above the dresser.  A cigarette burned in the ashtray on the nightstand.  Dishes, clothes, and other artifacts were scattered about the room ankle deep.  Suddenly the door opened.  It was the old man.

“Can’t you turn that down,” Dad reached for the volume knob on the stereo as if to emphasize that this wasn’t a request.

“Can’t you knock?” Frank shot back.

” I did knock…you couldn’t hear me over that racket.

“Or maybe I didn’t want to be bothered.”

” Listen, I was going to go up to the lake this weekend.  Do you want to go?”

” Nah…fishing’s boring.”

“So you’d rather lay around here, listening to that noise.  That’s all you do anymore.  Is that what you’re going to do with your life?”

” No, I’m going to be a miserable wage slave like you.”

” This wage slave has put a roof over your head and food in your belly.  Not to mention all the money I’ve stuck in your college fund all these years in the hope that you do make a better life for yourself.  But you’re not going to do it laying on your ass all day.”

As the door slammed shut Frank let his finger do the talking.

Frank exhaled a long deep sigh as he stared at the empty bed.  Turning off the light, Frank closed the door and walked down the hall to the next door.  Opening it, Frank switched on the light and entered. The room was Dad’s office. Frank stared at the old wooden desk, the swivel chair with duct tape on the arms, and the brown metal file cabinet.  Frank opened the top drawer of the file cabinet.  Lying in the drawer on top of a pile of insurance papers and packets was a large manila envelope with “WILL” handwritten across it.  Removing the whole pile from the drawer, Franks left the room and headed back toward the kitchen.

In the kitchen Ruth was pulling two cups down from an upper cabinet as the coffeemaker gurgled in the corner of the counter.  Frank set the pile of papers on the old formica table by the sliding door.  Sitting down, Frank reached for the manila envelope and opened it as Ruth carried two cups of coffee to the table.  In the envelope was a facsimile of Dad’s will.

“The original is probably in the safe deposit box,” Frank assumed as he scanned the document.  It was one of those forms from the back of a do-it-yourself book with the blanks filled in by hand.  At the bottom was a handwritten notation.

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” asked Ruth as she handed Frank the cup.

“Might as well get it over with.  I can’t sit around staring at the walls,” Frank replied as lifted the cup toward his mouth.  The first sip burned his lips, as always.

“Pretty cut and dried,” Frank said as Ruth sat stirring creamer into her coffee.  “Dad left everything to me.”

“That’s as it should be,” Ruth answered as she added sweetener.

“Down at the bottom he stipulates disposition of his remains.  He wants his body cremated and for me to scatter his ashes at the spot.”

“The…spot?”  Ruth’s face tightened around the question.

“It’s a place in the mountains where we used to go fishing.  Haven’t been up there for years.  Pretty remote.  It’s a day and a half hike in.  Guess he figured he’d drag me up there one more time.”

“Where in the mountains?”

“Dad made me promise never to tell anyone.  He claimed it was the fisherman’s code of secrecy.”

*

There was a memorial service at a chapel downtown.  Dad was never much on churches, Frank recalled.  He used to point toward the mountains and say, “That’s my church.”  Afterward there was a gathering at the house for the neighbors and Dad’s old union pals.  Frank was standing in the living room talking to Bob’s wife Ellen.  Bob was Dad’s best friend and fishing buddy.

“He seemed so peaceful,” Ellen remarked, “like he was just asleep.”

Frank chuckled, “Dad wasn’t peaceful when he slept.  Snored like a Texas thunderstorm.  You could hear him from the sidewalk. I can remember going on camping trips when I was a kid…trapped in a tent with that godawful noise, longing for the peace and quiet of the city.”  Frank spotted Leslie walking into the room with her new husband, Jim.  Jim was a mechanic for the bus company.  Jim was balding on top, thick around the middle, drove an old pick-up…Leslie hadn’t exactly traded up Frank told himself.  “Excuse me,” Frank said as he made his way across the room.

“Glad you could make it,” Frank said as they hugged briefly.  Frank then extended his hand toward Jim.  “Good to see you, Jim.”

“Sorry to hear about your dad,” Jim replied as they shook hands.  “Leslie’s told me a lot about him.  I wish I could have met him…” Jim had the look of a man who’d rather be in traffic court.  “Well, I’ll give you two some time alone.”

“Make yourself at home,” Frank tried to sound gracious, “There’s food in the kitchen.”  This sent Jim off in a slow trot in the direction Frank had motioned.  Frank turned and looked at Leslie, trying to pick his first words carefully.  Finally Leslie broke the silence.

“I’m really sorry.  This must be hard for you.”

“No, not at all,” Frank lied. “It is good to see you.  And Dad would’ve wanted you to be here.  He was always very fond of you.”

“I really liked him a lot.  I know the divorce hit him pretty hard.”

“Yeah, it hit us all pretty hard.”

This was possibly the worst time for Frank’s cell phone to ring.  Frank stood wishing he had turned the damn thing off.  He considered ignoring it but on the second ring pulled from his coat pocket and glanced at the number.  It was Sarah Henderson.  Perfect.  The last person in the world he wanted to talk to right now, but there would be hell to pay if he didn’t.

“Excuse me,” Frank muttered, “I have to take this.”

“No, by all means,” Leslie sighed as she turned and headed toward the kitchen.

“Hello, this is Frank.

“Frank, this is Sarah Henderson.  Why haven’t I heard anything?  I’ve been leaving messages at the office, but I haven’t heard from you.”

“Sarah, can you hold on while I go someplace we can talk?”  Frank bolted through the door that led to the garage.

“Ok, Sarah, what’s the problem?”

“The problem is nothing’s happening.  Everyone’s sitting around waiting instead of doing something to speed this up.”

“Sarah, I already explained this to you.  The process takes time.”

“I spoke to a friend of mine and she said there’s a form you can file to expedite the closing.  I told Sandra to file but she won’t do what I tell her to do.”

“That’s because I told her not to.  This is way too far into the process to file an expediter.”

“Then why didn’t you file for it in the beginning?”

“Because it’s a very risky procedure.  It exposes all sorts of liability and I strongly recommend against it.  Look when I get back to town we can talk about our options.”

“Another delay?”

“Sarah, I can’t talk right now.  Let me get back to you, okay?  Goodbye.”

As he hung up the phone, Frank could feel his emotions begin to overwhelm him.  Suddenly he felt helpless and alone.  He leaned back against the washing machine as the tears welled up and rolled down his face.  As he struggled to contain his emotions, Frank surveyed the reminders of his father’s life. The garage was packed with carpentry tools and hunting and fishing gear.  A kid’s bicycle hung from the rafters.  Suddenly Frank heard the doorknob turn.  Summoning all his strength, Frank regained his composure, wiping his eyes with his shirtsleeve.  The door opened and Bob wandered in.

“Sorry, I didn’t know anyone was out here.  I was just stepping out for a smoke.”

“It’s ok; I’m ok, Bob.  I was just trying to figure out what to do with all this stuff.  I swear Dad was king of the pack rats.  Always dragging home some piece of junk that someone else had thrown away.  Always going to fix it or make it into something else, but he never got around to it.”

“Well, he didn’t have a lot of spare time when you were growing up, especially after your mom got sick.  Later on I think a lot of it didn’t matter.”

“Yet he could never bring himself to throw any of it away.  See that bike up there.  That’s the first bike I ever had.  I out grew it in second grade. ”

“I think he was hoping to give it to his grand kid.”

“One more way I let him down.”

“He was very proud of the man you had become.  I think he hoped you’d have someone to go fishing with when he was gone.”

” I haven’t been fishing in years.  Don’t even have any gear.”

“There’s plenty of nice gear kicking around out here.”

“I’ve got no time for fishing.  If you see anything you want help yourself.  All of this stuff has to go away.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Get rid of it, have it hauled away, then sell the house.  This stuff meant something to Dad, but I’ve got no use for it.  I’ve got no time to deal with it.”

“How long are you going to be in town?”

“Just long enough to tie up loose ends.  I’ve got a business to run and the clients are already on my back.”

*

Dawn was just a promise when Frank pulled into the parking lot at the trailhead.  Finishing his coffee, Frank retrieved his cell phone from the charger and stuck it in his vest pocket.  He stepped out of the car and moved to the trunk, where he pulled out a backpack. After checking the rear pouch where he had placed the small cedar box containing his dad’s ashes, Frank slung the pack over one shoulder on to his back.  Adjusting the pack, Frank started up the trail in the early morning chill.  The trail started out easy enough, but as the light of morning filled the sky the trail began a steady climb up the mountain.  Frank labored in the thin mountain air but soon began to pick up a rhythm to his stride, his body leaning slightly forward to balance the weight off the pack.  In the early morning stillness his new boots crunched noisily up the dirt path.  Soon dirt turned to rock beneath his feet and as the trees began to thin.  Frank watched the shadows recede across the hills in retreat from the advance of the sun.  As Frank reached the treeline the sun made its entrance, casting shards of light from the mountains to the east.  Frank stopped briefly to bask in the new warmth, then continued on with the business of the day.

As his watched beeped 9 o’clock Frank spied a large rock that looked like a good place to sit for a minute or two.  The trail climbed steadily up into the face of the sun.  As he sat Frank pulled the cell phone from his pocket and noted that there still was a signal, albeit a weak one.  Frank hit the speed dial.

“Thomas Realty, this is Sandra.”

“Sandra, this is Frank, any news?”

“Not any of it good.  Talked to Sue Lee, sounds like they are going to accept the other offer.  Bill Jensen called and said that he thought there was about fifteen grand worth of damage to the Garcia place but it could be more once he tears into it.  Oh, and Sarah Henderson has been her usual charming self.”

“Yeah, she called me yesterday in the middle of the wake.  She wants to file an expediter.”

“Yes, she’s called me several times about it,” Sandra interjected, “She’s been pretty insistent about it.”

“Yeah, over my dead body.  You are not to file anything until I tell you to, do you understand?”

“Yes, boss.”

“Call Bill and tell him to write up an estimate so that we can move on it when I get back.”

“What about the Lee’s?”

“Try to stall them.  Tell them whatever you have to.  I should be back day after tomorrow.  I’m going to be out of phone range pretty soon.  I’ll call you when I get back to civilization.”

“You take care of yourself up there.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.  Talk to you soon.”

Frank stuck the phone back in his vest pocket and reached into a side pouch on the backpack, pulling out a water bottle and a granola bar.  Sipping at the water, Frank took a few bites as he stared out at the rugged mountains.  Then restlessness overtook him and he stuffed the half eaten bar into his vest pocket and continued on up the trail, his feet chafing slightly against the stiffness of the new boots.

Frank stopped for lunch by a small lake.  It was the same lake Dad and he used to break for lunch all those years ago, though Frank had forgotten the name and didn’t care enough to look it up.  Lunch consisted of dried fruit and a piece of jerky washed down with water.  His feet were beginning to burn now, an early sign of blisters, and his breath was getting short.  Finishing his lunch Frank hoisted the pack, which felt like it had gained ten pounds, and set off up the trail.

The trail was steeper now as it wound up the slope.  Here and there patches of late spring snow that would last into summer dotted the landscape.  Frank’s focus was on his feet, which were barking pretty loud by now.  Each step more painful than the last.  The pain was enhanced by a general feeling of fatigue.  Frank’s contemplation of his current misery was abruptly shattered by the ring of his cell phone.  Frank reached into his pocket and retrieved the phone.  It was Sarah Henderson’s cell number.  Life just didn’t get much better than this.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Frank, it’s Sarah.  Listen, I don’t know what’s wrong with you people.  I asked Sandra several times to file for an expediter and got no response.  I finally had to go down and file it myself.  I don’t know why I’m paying you to handle this when I have to do everything myself.”

“Sarah, most people hire me to manage their transactions because I am a professional in the field and they’re not.  Filing an expediter as this stage in the game could set the process back weeks, maybe months.”

“That’s completely unacceptable.  You’ve got to do something.  That’s what I’m paying you for.”

“Sarah…” Frank glimpsed a movement out the corner of his eye.  He turned in time to see a small lizard scurry beneath the cover of a large rock.  Suddenly the phone went dead.  Frank looked at the display on the face of the phone.  The message read “lost signal”.  Frank started to hit speed dial then, thanking the lizard for it’s intervention, shut the phone off and stuffed it back into his vest.

The sun was in full retreat when Frank reached a small clearing next to a creek that was boiling with the new spring run off.  Frank located a somewhat flat spot near the creek and hastily made camp in the rapidly dying daylight.   Pitching the small dome tent by himself proved awkward but uneventful, but by the time he was done the light was gone, taking what heat there was with it.  Frank fumbled by flashlight through the pack to locate the small propane camp stove and mess kit.  It took some time for the icy water from the creek to boil in the cold, thin mountain air.  Frank sat shivering and exhausted staring at the pouch of freeze-dried lasagna that seemed to bubble listlessly for what seemed an eternity.  Finally, once the pouch had expanded to the point that Frank deemed it edible, he carefully retrieved it from the boiling pot.  As Frank opened the pouch and the steam escaped, the aroma sparked a raging hunger.  Frank grabbed a forkful and with a cursory blow to cool it, shoved the steaming fork into his mouth.  It was then that he realized that the cursory blow had done little or nothing to dissipate the heat and instinctively spat the scalding pasta out onto his vest as he reached for the water bottle.  Eventually the meal cooled enough for Frank to consume, if not taste it.  The nourishment provided Frank with the needed second wind to complete the evening cleanup.  The last chore of the evening was to secure the food supplies.  Bears and other wildlife were known to roam these parts and any food left in the open was an invitation to forage at your expense.  Frank found an old snag of a tree uphill a little way from camp.  Frank tied a length of rope to the food bag and after several tries managed to toss the rope over a higher limb.  Hoisting the bag high into the tree, Frank then tied the rope off to the trunk.  As he returned to camp exhaustion began to press down on him with the weight of the world.  Peeling off the vest Frank crawled into the tent and sat on the sleeping bag.  There by lantern he performed the one remaining chore of the day; removing the boots.  He did so gingerly, so as to prevent any further pain, yet with a great sense of relief.  His feet as he anticipated were both badly blistered behind the heel and on the outside of the big toe.  As he massaged his swollen feet he glared at the backpack and it’s protruding rear pouch.

“We could have had a nice peaceful ceremony and buried you next to Mom.  But you had to drag me up here one more time.”  With that he crawled inside the sleeping bag, fully clothed, clicked off the lantern and fell straight into a dead sleep.

*

It was still dark when he woke.  As he woke he became aware of a large sound moving outside the tent.

Grabbing the lantern, Frank quietly opened the zipper on the tent.  As he did Frank picked up a scent unfamiliar and at the same time peculiarly alarming. Frank shone the lantern around the camp until it landed on the source of the scent; a large black bear was standing down by the creek.  As the light hit him the bear sniffed the air, then gave off a fearsome snarl. Panicked, Frank shut off the lantern and, eyes glued on the huge beast, fumbled about the pack for something to defend himself.  His hand seized on his fifteen-blade pocketknife.  Deep down Frank knew that if the bear got close enough for Frank to use the knife that the battle was already lost.  The bear started toward the tent, but stopped abruptly to sniff something on the ground near the now extinguished fire.  Frank realized it was his vest.  The bear, after a perfunctory examination tore at the pocket containing the granola bar, devouring the bar wrapper and all.  Then, as Frank cowered in the tent, clutching the knife with two-way corkscrew, the bear leisurely picked at the lasagna stain on the front of the vest.  Finally the bear picked the vest up in his massive jaws and carried it off into the woods.  Frank crawled back in his sleeping bag and lay wide-awake, wanting very much to go outside and relieve himself yet in mortal fear of leaving the tent.

It was still dark when Frank woke again.  His shoulder was stiff and his hip ached.  Frank reached for his wristwatch.  The lighted dial read “4:30 AM”.  After a brief reflection Frank decided that the kid who had sold him the ultra-deluxe hi-tech sleeping pad was full of crap.  Frank also decided that he’d better get up now if he was ever going to walk again.  Dragging himself out of the sleeping bag Frank reached into the backpack for the first aid kit.  The blisters would have to be bandaged if he was going to do any walking, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to stay here. Frank was way behind schedule and was eager to make up the lost ground.

“What the hell am I doing up in this god-forsaken rock pile, ” Frank fumed as he furiously stuffed the backpack.  “I ought to just dump you here and be done with it.”  Breaking camp in the dark Frank stepped on one of the tent poles, snapping it in two.  Shivering and cursing in the predawn cold Frank hobbled up the trail in darkness.

It was mid-day when Frank realized that he should have been where he was going by now.  The terrain looked familiar enough but the landmarks weren’t where they were supposed to be; in fact they weren’t there at all.  Frank pulled a map from the backpack and tried to get his bearings, but he wasn’t quite sure what it was he was looking at.  He’d left camp long before dawn and spent the morning following the trail.  But was this the trail?  His mind had been on bears and blisters and cold and expediters.  True he hadn’t been up here in years, but he should remember something.

“Well, Dad, you know these mountains better than I do.  Any time you want to take the lead is fine by me.”  Glancing skyward, Frank noticed ominous clouds gathering on the horizon.

*

“As you can see, we’ve got a fast moving system dropping down from the Gulf of Alaska that’s going to bring blizzard conditions to upper elevation of the Sierras.”

Ruth sat in her living room watching TV as Noon News weatherman stood in front of a satellite picture of Northern California showing a large cloud formation over the Sierra Nevadas.  Ruth picked up the phone and dialed.

“The caller you are trying to reach is unavailable or out of the service area at this time.  Please try your call again later.”

Ruth dialed another number.

“Hello.”

“Bob, it’s Ruth.  Have you seen the weather report?  There’s a big storm moving into the Sierras.  I tried calling Frank, but I haven’t got an answer on his cell phone.”

“I wouldn’t worry.  He should be on his way back by now.  But I’ll make some calls, see what I can find out.”

“All right.  I’m going to go over to the house.  You can reach me there.”

*

As Frank hurried along the slope, he scanned the terrain looking for shelter from the coming storm.  Frank had heard stories about hikers who’d been caught in freak storms up in these mountains, and it almost always turned out bad.  Dad had said it had happened to him once.  Frank had heard the tale a few times, always fully embellished.   Dad used to say that he had been lucky to survive, but Frank had always figured that was just another one of Dad’s stories.

Frank was picking his way across a rubble field when the ground beneath his right foot gave way, sending him tumbling down the slope.  On the third roll the backpack jettisoned itself and went tumbling off to the left, spraying contents along the slope.  The cedar box slammed into a huge boulder at full impact, shattering the box and surrendering the contents to the coming gale.  Frank stopped rolling a hundred yards down the slope where he lay dazed and bleeding.  The sharp wind on his face brought him around, and looking up the hill he saw his gear being scattered on the wind.  Staggering to his feet, Frank scrambled up the slope, gathering belongings as he went.  He picked up the box, held it for a moment, then discarded it and continued up the slope.  Half way up Frank spotted a rock ledge off to the right.  Gathering as much as he could carry, Frank sought shelter under the ledge as the storm unleashed it full fury.

*

When Ruth heard the knock at the door she knew it wasn’t Frank.  Frank had a key.

“They found Frank’s rental car at a trailhead near Devil’s Wilderness.”  Bob said as he headed down the hall.

“Devil’s Wilderness?” Ruth did not seem reassured.  “That’s a huge area…he could be anywhere.”

“I know exactly where he’s headed.”  Bob opened the door to Frank’s room and walked to the dresser.  Bob pointed to the picture of the boy holding the fish.  “That’s “the spot”.”

*

Frank sat quietly on the shore.  His dad sat just as quietly on a rock thirty feet away and Bob standing further along the shore.  Suddenly Frank’s rod jerked like with a force he’d never felt.  A hundred feet off shore the biggest trout Frank had ever seen cleared the water in a writhing dance of defiance.  Frank’s hands tightened around the rod with all the strength the young boy can muster.

“Dad!  I’ve got one!”  Frank called out as if to keep his chest from bursting.  Dad had seen the fish jump and was reeling in his line as he worked his way toward the boy.

“Boy, that’s a big one!  Set the hook, and then give him a bit more drag…easy now!  You got him!”

Frank woke shivering.  For a moment the dream clouded his thoughts, but the icy wind brought him back to the current predicament.  As he huddled cold, Frank took an inventory of his supplies: backpack, the camp stove, sleeping bag, the pocket knife with the two-way corkscrew, and about three days worth of food…might be able to stretch it to a week, max.  But if it didn’t stop snowing soon it wouldn’t matter, Frank mused as he pulled the sleeping bag around him.

*

“As soon as the storm breaks we’ll send a chopper up there,” the deputy tried to sound reassuring.

“I got here as soon as I could,” Leslie said as another deputy escorted her into the office.  Ruth greeted her with a hug.

“There’s been no word so far,” said Ruth.

“He’s a damn fool to go up there by himself.”

“He’ll be ok,” Bob seemed pretty confident, “Frank spent a lot of time in those mountains as a kid.”

“Yeah, well he’s not a kid anymore, Leslie replied, “and he doesn’t have his dad to look after him.  Damn fool!”

*

“Here we go, again,” muttered Frank as he sipped his martini.

“Sometimes I don’t know why we ever moved here,” Leslie declared from the kitchen.

“This is the hottest market in the country right now,” Frank explained from his seat on the sofa, “that’s why.  This is the “Money Belt”.  There are agents who would kill to have a piece of this market.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t care about the money,” Leslie countered.  “I miss my family and my friends and I hate being so far away from them.  Don’t you miss your Dad?  It’s not like they don’t sell houses back home.”

“This is my home.  I’ve got a damn good career going here and I’m not about to throw it away and move back to the valley.”

“So your career means more to you than I do.”

Frank had heard enough.  He stood and walked his empty over to the wetbar.

“My career puts a roof over our heads and food on the table.  You might try being a little more supportive.”  The phone rings and Frank picks it up.  Glancing at the number he says, “I need to take this.”  With that Frank was out the door into the garage.  But not before noticing Leslie, her back to him, reply with the single digit salute.

Frank woke to the sound of the helicopter in the distance.  The storm had passed and the sun glistened off the fresh powder that covered the ground.  Then he saw it, hovering on the horizon.  Instantly Frank leapt from beneath the rock ledge and ran through the snow, waving his arms.

“Hey! Over here! Hey!”  he shouted, his echo mingling with the noise of the whirlybird.  Frank ran toward the helicopter yelling and waving and yelling and waving.  Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the helicopter darted away from him over the ridge, leaving only the sound.  Frank stood incredulous for a very long moment.  Then reaching down, grabbed a handful of snow and, with a single expletive, fired toward the retreating sound. Returning to the rock ledge Frank gathered his gear.  The snow flurry had transformed the landscape and erased any hint of a trail. Slinging the pack onto his back, Frank noted the point on the horizon that the helicopter had disappeared and trudged off in the direction.

*

As the deputy entered the waiting area Bob, Ruth, and Leslie all stood in unison.

“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.  An aerial search of the area around the lake turned up negative.  Additionally the weather in the search area has turned bad again.  We’ve had to call off the search until conditions improve.”

“No, please,” Ruth implored, “Frank is still out there.  You’ve got to find him.”

“Conditions should improve by morning, and when they do we’ll continue the search,” the deputy reassured them, “In the meantime we have to hope he can manage, though I must caution you in all honesty that even experienced hikers have become lost in these conditions.”

*

As an icy wind swirled the fresh snow at his feet, Frank instinctively looked to the sky.  The sky on the horizon was darkening with clouds. Frank scanned the surrounding terrain until he spotted a grove of trees in a small valley.  Frank hiked down the mountain toward the trees below as the winds intensified.  As he reached the grove, Frank spotted a cave in the granite face beyond the trees. Frank halted at the mouth of the cave and peered in vigilantly.  It was a shallow cavern, less than ten feet deep, but tall enough to stand up inside.  There were signs that it had recently been inhabited but at present it was empty.  As Frank stood deliberating an icy gust signaled that the storm was upon him.  Looking around Frank entered the cave.

*

Frank sat restlessly staring at the snow covered mountains.

“Dad, can we go?  It’s too cold and the fish aren’t biting.”

“The key to fishing is patience,” Dad counseled, “Try not to think about the cold.  Look around you at the beauty of the mountains and the trees covered with snow.” 

“I don’t care about the mountains,” Frank whined, “I don’t care about fishing.  It’s too cold.”

As the storm raged outside Frank sat shivering in the cave, his back wedged against the cold granite.  Suddenly Frank’s spine went rigid, but it had nothing to do with the cold. At the mouth of the cave a mountain lion stood glaring and snarling as Frank sat terrified and motionless.  The snarling lion slowly approached, while Frank’s mind raced desperately to plot a defense.  Cautiously Frank slowly rose to his feet and raised his arms up above his head, until his fingertips touched the roof of the cavern.  Suddenly Frank began barking like a dog, sharp staccato yelps echoing around the cave.  The startled lion froze in it’s tracks, sizing up this new enemy and looking around for the source of the echos.  Then, hissing and growling, the lion backed out of the cave and disappeared into the storm.  Exhaustion mixed with exhilaration as Frank huddled back against the cave wall.

*

“Well, it looks like the weather’s clearing up,” Deputy Kelly said as he walked into the room.

“Does that mean your resuming the search?” Leslie stood as the deputy approached.

“Yes, we’re fueling the chopper, and as soon that’s done they’ll head back up there.  I’m also organizing a ground search.”

“I’ll go with you,” declared Bob as he moved toward the deputy.

“That’s pretty rough country,” Ruth’s eyes probed Bob, “Are you sure you’re up to it?”

“The walk will do me good,” Bob smiled, “I know that country pretty well.  Besides, Frank’s dad was always there when I needed help.  I owe him this much.”

*

Bob stared out the kitchen window as Frank’s dad talked on the phone. 

“Frank can’t make it this year,” Dad said, hanging up.

“He hasn’t made it the last few years,” Bob shook his head.

“He’s working all the time,” Dad stared at the phone. “Can’t fault him for wanting to make something of himself.” 

As the storm cleared Frank decided to head out before the lion came back for a rematch.  Grabbing his pack Frank hiked down toward the treeline.  It was late afternoon and the sun lead Frank west down into the shadows of the pine forest.  The birds announced his advance through the woods.  An hour into the hike Frank came to a small stream running among the trees.  Frank dipped his hands into the icy water and splashed it on his face.  The chill of the water sent a shock through Frank’s system.  The water found a fresh cut above Frank’s left cheek and sent a stinging burst to the center of his skull.  Yet the feel and the smell of the clean, brisk water gave Frank a new burst of energy.  Reasoning that the stream must lead somewhere, Frank decided to follow it for a ways.

*

“Move your team upstream a bit,” Deputy Kelly said into his radio, “I’m going to cover the area up by the big rock.”  Kelly looked at Bob.  “You think this is the trail he used?”

“This is the only way I know of to get there.  He must of come this way.”

Suddenly the deputy’s attention shifted toward the river.  One of the explorer scouts was running toward them holding something in one hand.  Kelly instinctively moved to meet the scout with Bob following behind.  When the scout reached the men he handed the deputy Frank’s tattered vest while pausing to catch his breath.

“Where did you find this?” Kelly examined the torn vest.

“Just up ahead about a hundred yards off the river, ” replied the scout.

Kelly held the vest to his face.  “Smells like bear.”

“There’s no blood,” Bob pointed out.

Kelly shook his head.  “Still, it’s not a good sign.”  Kelly looked at the scout.  “Fan out in that area.  Look for signs of a campsite.  I’ll call in the chopper.”  The scout went running back toward the river.  The deputy glanced at the sky.

“Maybe an hour of daylight left.  We’ll have to stop at dark.”

“He could be close by,” Bob argued.  “He could be hurt.  We should keep going.”

Kelly shook his head.  “I’m not getting anyone else lost up here,” he said with finality.

*

The sun was sending it’s last faint rays through the forest in shadows when Frank reached the cataracts.  The quiet little stream suddenly had turned into a rushing torrent as it plunged through a small ravine.  On either bank a shear rock face extended up from the rapids as much as a hundred feet to the forest above.  Frank surveyed for a path around but the thick underbrush choked off access for as far as Frank could see.  Frank realized he would be forced to negotiate the treacherous rock face in order to pass.  Slowly, carefully Frank picked his way among the jagged rocks while listening to the raging water below.  His muscles ached as he pulled himself along, but once committed he realized there is no other way.  Finally he reached the bottom of the ravine only to find a small thicket blocking his path. Frank made several attempts to push his way through the bramble, cursing as the brush tore at his clothes and his skin.  Finally, bellowing in frustration, Frank sagged to his knees in defeat.  In the twilight Frank scanned the area.  About twenty yards downstream Frank spied a small clearing on the other side of the stream.  The only path was down the stream picking his way along the rocks.  One slip would land Frank in the water, soaking him and everything he owned.  And with night falling cold upon the mountains, that was a recipe for hypothermia, which more than likely meant death in his condition.  Slowly, carefully, Frank stepped along the rushing stream, his eyes straining in the darkness searching for the next footstep.  His blistered feet ached in the icy water and his knees trembled from the cold and the exhaustion, but Frank pushed ahead, drawing strength from the roaring water and the crisp mountain air.  Finally he reaching the clearing and collapsed on the shore, resting on the cool, soft earth.

*

Something was wrong.  Ruth could see it in Bob’s face as he walked into the room.  Sheriff Moore and Deputy Kelly entered at the same time, looking grim and determined.  Ruth trembled as she rose.

“They’re calling off the search,” Bob announced as he approached Ruth.

“No, you can’t.  He’s still out there.  Bob, talk to them.”

“I already tried,” Bob said, the fatigue tearing at his voice.

“I’m sorry,” Sheriff Moore explained in a reasoned tone, “we just don’t have the manpower or the budget to extend the search.  Our budget was cut twenty percent this year.  I had to lay off three deputies last winter.”

“But a man’s life is at stake,” Ruth insisted.

“I think we have to face the fact,” Deputy Kelly spoke with measured conviction, “that the chances of finding him alive are fairly remote.  If he was an experienced hiker there might be some hope.  But a novice out in these mountains in these conditions…well I just think we have to be realistic.  I’m sorry.”

*

After Frank had rested a bit he found the energy to build a small fire out of pine needles and bark.  Once the fire got going he fed it with spent pine cones, which crackled and popped and shot sparks out in all directions.  He broke off a small branch and used it to dry his socks over the fire, holding them above the fire as if they were large soggy marshmallows.  He placed his boots as close to the fire as he dared.  Frank was hungry and sore, but in his exhaustion he barely noticed.  It was an exhaustion that washed over him, pulling him under until his whole being had one overwhelming need.  As he lay in his sleeping bag melting into sleep he stared up though the trees at the clear night sky bristling with stars.

“Well thanks a lot, Dad.”

“You’re welcome,” came a voice from across the clearing.  Frank turned on his side and saw his dad lying in his old bag ten feet away.  “But your sincerity seems to have gotten lost in all that sarcasm.”

“Look, it’s been kind of a rough day,” Frank said, clearly annoyed by the intrusion. “I’m really don’t need this right now, so if you’ll excuse me, I need to get some sleep.”

“Yeah, you had quite an adventure today, boy.  By the way, that barking dog bit was inspired.  Thought I was going to bust a gut.”

“Well I’m glad you’re so damn amused.”  Frank raised up on an elbow and glared across the campfire.  “Guess it wasn’t a wasted trip after all.  I knew there had to be some reason I risked life and limb to haul your ashes up here.”

“Ashes? Those old things.  Hell, you could have dumped those in the fireplace for all I care.”

“Great!  That makes it all worth it.  I take time off from work to bring you up here…”

“You didn’t bring me up here, son, I brought you.”

“Why?  That’s all I want to know.  What was so damn important that you had to drag me up here one more time?”

“Just trying to get your attention.  Hard to do down there, with the cell phones and the traffic and the TV and the “civilization”.  Hard for a man to hear himself think.”

“Okay, so here we are, just you and me.  What do you want to talk about?  Want to tell me the story of your life one more time?”

The old man chuckled.  “My story’s over.  We know how it turned out.  It’s your story that matters now.  It’s what you make of your life.  A life story isn’t about the ending, it’s about everything that comes before.”

“So this is some great mystical journey about the meaning of life?  I’m supposed to come down from the mountain with all the answers?”

“Answers?  Hell, you don’t even understand the questions yet.  But you’ve still got time, if you make use of it.”

“Dad, I’m really tired.  Can we talk about this in the morning?”

“I’ll be up early.  I’ve had my say.  But I’ll be around.  I’m part of your life…always have been.”

“Dad,” Frank felt the ten-year- old creeping into his voice, “do ghosts snore?”

“Guess we’ll find out.  Goodnight, son.”

*

“Not as many people as last time,” Ruth couldn’t help thinking as she looked around the room.  Most of the people she didn’t know; business associates of Frank from San Jose.  A couple of them, Sandra and Bill Jensen, had made a point of offering their condolences, but most had hung in their own little circle.  Sandra was heard telling Bill that Sarah Henderson was quite upset upon learning the news, remarking that if she had known he was wander off and kill himself that she wouldn’t have hired him in the first place.  Leslie’s husband, Jim, had staked out the buffet table and was talking to Bob’s wife.  Ruth, Bob, and Leslie had gravitated to the kitchen.  Maybe there would have been more people if they had held the service at Frank’s house in San Jose, but Leslie had objected to going there.  Maybe there would have been more people if they had held the service sooner; Ruth had insisted on waiting until all realistic hope that Frank would be found had faded.  Maybe this was all there was.

“So everything’s on hold?” Bob asked Leslie.

“Legally, nothing can proceed until it’s official.  Sandra is in the process of closing out the office.  Jim Riley has taken on as many of Frank’s client as he can handle…and he’s offered to put the condo on the market when the time comes.  We just have to wait.”

“Maybe it’s for the best,” Ruth asserted, “until we know for sure.”

“Ruth,” Leslie’s eyes softened, “nobody would love to see Frank walk through that door right now than me, but I think we need to accept that that’s not going to happen.”

“I’m afraid I have to agree,” Bob’s voice was low and sad. “If he were still alive we should have heard something by now.”

“I know the chances are slim, but some part of me deep down won’t give up on him.  I just feel he’s out there somewhere.  I just wish I knew why he insisted on going up there alone.”

“Truthfully, did any of us really know him,” Leslie shook her head.  “I was married to him for fifteen years and I never felt like I really knew him.”

“I think he closed up when his mother passed away,” Ruth said sadly.  “I remember him at the funeral…this scared little boy clinging to his dad.  It was hard on him.”

“It was hard on both of them,” Bob responded, “but they never would let on.  They were alike that way.  I think that’s what drove them apart for so long.  Maybe they’re together now.”

“Maybe so,” Ruth nodded.

*

Frank lay face down by the stream, still as the rock beneath him. His clenched left hand stretched to the water’s edge, holding the end of a fishing line that led down into the water.

“I know you’re down there,” Frank whispered low. “I’ve got something you can’t resist.  Look at the size of that worm…that big, fat, juicy worm.  You know you want it.  Just one big bite.”  Suddenly the line tightens around Frank’s hand.  Giving a quick jerk with the left, Frank seized the line with his right hand and began pulling slowly upward.

“Yes, I think you and I have a deal, Mr. Fish!”  Frank’s voice rose triumphant.  “A pleasure doing business with you.”

As Frank hiked back to camp, the cleaned trout slung over his shoulder, he inhaled the warm late summer air.  His clothes were tattered and a scraggly beard covered his face, but his limp was gone and his muscles had hardened and tanned.  He gazed up through the treetops at the clouds and listened to the song of the birds.  Then Frank heard a voice.  A female.  Then a male.  Franks eyes scanned the direction the voices came from.  Through the trees, not fifty yards away, he could see a young couple hiking up the trail toward him.  A shout built in his lungs and rushed to his throat…where it lodged.  His hand, which had instinctively started to wave, dropped back to his side.  Frank stood quietly watching for a placid moment before edging softly back into the woods.  As he did his dad’s voice came to him saying, “It’s ok, son, time to go home.”

*

So Frank returned to the land of the living, to a world he knew but that didn’t really know him anymore.  With the proceeds from the condo and the business he bought a small cabin on five acres up near Placerville.  He would take work as a handyman from time to time, but he spent most of his time working around the place and hiking the woods.  Once a month he would drive down to Sacramento to visit Aunt Ruth.  And every spring he would return to the mountains for a month to lose himself all over again.

***

FICTION

SHORT STORIES

The Christmas Wish

The Spot

POETRY

New Day

RAINDROP

What can we do?

BLACK DAYS

Morning Prayer

ARTICLES

PHILOSOPHY

POLITICAL

SPORTS

My Plan to Save Baseball (from itself)

HUMOROUS

BIOGRAPHICAL

MEMOIR

A Memoir of Little Consequence

There Was No Joy In Mudville

The Early Years

The Haunting of Rose Street

The Time I Died

Mistress of Terror

Rumble in Linden

Brigadoon

A ’65 Buick, 2 waitresses, and 6000 miles of road

The Great Hibernia Bank Caper

The Last Ride of the Blue Olds

Safe Place

Ranger Rick

To Tell the Tale

Assisi

Roma Solo

BIOGRAPHIES

Angel’s Wings

Husky

The Mule

The Grand Exit

HUMOR

JOKES

PARODY & SATIRE

THE DISPOSABLE THOUGHT OF THE DAY

Sept. 16, 2024

Sept. 18, 2024

Sept. 19, 2024

Sept. 21, 2024