ALONGSIDE KEROUAC

Posted on June 17, 2012 by betunada

ALONGSIDE KEROUAC

(“the hitches”)

More than thirty years have elapsed since I last ‘seriously’ engaged in the art and practice of hitch-hiking. I hitched somewhat regularly for about ten years prior to that. Little would I have imagined forty or so years since my primary reliance upon this mode of transport that I would be custodian of three gas-guzzling vehicles. Attended Republican precinct caucuses, a few county assemblies, one state convention. Had three IRAs. And would be most chagrined and attempt to forbid my children from ever hitch-hiking.

Mayhaps it was a different world then. Perhaps I was a different person. Nevertheless, my experiences ‘on the road’ might be of the rose-colored-glasses variety, in that most everything seemed positive. Or so I remember it.

My personal remembrances invoking the hitchin’ mode of transportation are recollected in six sections. They won’t be in chronological order, but, in chronological order they are:

(a) Startin’ out, Spring 1968.

(b) To (& from) L.A., February 1970.

(d) Nov 1972, out to east coast.

(e) Mexico, Jan 1975

(f) 1977/1978, up north CANADA vancouver island.

— Jack Kerouac (might have said this. So might have Lao Tzu)

Ever have the road call you? Today is the day. I’m going.

I had no concrete plans, but the idea of a kerouacian ‘great amerikin road trip’ had been fomenting (and probably fermenting) in my mind for a while. I hadn’t been on a really long solo trip before. The person that I was in 1970 had a different sense of time than I do now, and a considerably more flexible outlook in regards the definition of “home.” “Home” would be the road, or, at any rate, not as fixed with respect to “place” – and time. Anyway, I moved every 4 or 5 months back then. It SEEMED a ‘long time’.

I DID, however, have a place of my own – and my semi-transient friends would be more than happy to have a base camp while I was gone.

Lighting a stick of incense (such a hippie!), I left my apartment. Focused on the smoke curling up from the smoldering wand, I considered the four cardinal directions. Subconsciously, there were other directions, other dimensions, as well.

I decided to leave boulder to the west. The road that direction was the lightest-traveled and also closest to get to. Yes, west. And up. Straightening up under the backpack, I left my apartment and walked to the edge of town. West prolongs the daylight. I told myself that I’d have a ride before the incense went out. I did.

Up boulder canyon, past nederland, north to estes park I rode.

I was in Estes Park by mid-afternoon. Coney Island West. Being summer, it was heavy-duty tourist season. The sidewalk- and curio-shop-throngs, many many hundreds of them, seemingly content to be in the rocky mountains without really being IN them. I sat, watching. Observing and speculating. After all, I was timeless. My pack was half-full with granola. I could go on indefinitely.

Fellow traveler, long hair, backpack, walks up to me, asks where I’m goin’. “Anywhere. Nowhere in particular. Everywhere.”

“Fine. You’ll go with me to Oregon, then?”

Jeff and I seamlessly circulated to a party. Kerouac would have been proud. Beer, communal ‘herbal’ cigarettes, loud music, chattering people. Each of us was Universal-Life-Church-married, he to a thin blond pretty waif, replete with green mad-hatter derby, me to her chubbier friend. I fantasized about Jeff’s ‘Penny’ for a some time after.

Next morning, saying goodbye to our wives, Jeff flagged down a car with east coast plates and two acolyte fellow travelers. They were en route to the west coast, wherever that was, but were easily convinced “Oregon” was on the way.

We slept that night on the shores of an unseen Great Salt Lake. Purgatorial. Too hot to crawl inside the sleeping bag, too many mosquitoes for exposed skin outside of. Space in the car only for one. They had a regular breakfast. Last night’s leftover wine was fine for me. I felt like I had elektrik-koolaid-assidtest control.

Jeff’s family’s house in suburban Pendleton, Oregon by nightfall. His parents had gone away, his sister took one look at us and disappeared. For dinner I made bulbous soup. Sleeping bag on a carpeted floor. I slept soundly.

Jeff continued to steer the ship. Eugene was where they were going next. Not me, in the back of my mind I had envisioned Seattle.

Reverend Bob answered an ad for a roommate a year or so back. He turned us on to the Universal Life Church, where for only $1, one could become a registered minister. The ULC’s credo: “we believe in whatever’s right.” Shortly thereafter, his lottery number in the single digits, the conscientious objector option unattainable, Bob began migrating to Canada. His last known address was Seattle.

I rowed ashore in Portland. The sails of the frigate faded over the horizon to the south. Big city, big traffic.

I became part of a hitchhiking group of four. Three Canadians – two Quebecois who barely spoke English, and a straight-talking mid-westerner like myself — somehow convinced me not only was there safety in numbers, but a better chance for a ride. A businessman driving a station wagon picked us up. “Where you kids goin’?”

The Canadians were going home, planning on attaining the Trans-Canadian highway, then east. My next stop became their next rest stop. “Canterbury Castle. On a hill overlooking Lake Washington,” I said.

“I’m going right by there. Think I could have a tour?”

At dusk we pulled up. A brooding large brick structure, replete with battlements and banners. Kitty Canterbury met us at the door. Reverend Bob had slipped across the border two months before. “A friend of Bob’s is a friend of mine.” She invited us all in. Our driver got his tour. The Canadians found spare bedrooms. I ate dinner and drank prodigiously with the other tenants – Reverend Bob’s former roommates. Jake-the-Smuggler brought me up to date on Bob’s situation. Bob had had a minor run-in with the law (jay-walking!) and his name was entered in the local system. A week later, a couple strange phone calls and a mysterious vehicle parked across the street. Jake took Reverent Robert to the bus-station and the draft-dodging was complete. And I had his new address.

The Canadians told me I would have difficulty getting into Canada looking the way I did, and penniless besides. To ‘remedy’ this, we intended to donate at the local blood bank as someone had said that we’d be paid $10 each.

The blood bank had stopped the practice of paying for donations the week before. “We were getting too many unhealthy transients and winos. Research has shown that normal, healthy people will still donate for free.”

The Canuck majority still loaned me $30 and we got on the bus to Vancouver. At the border I was the only one escorted off the bus for questioning. I fit the profile. However, my $25 (bus tix cost $5) and draft card indicating 1Y –>

(psychological deferment – mentally unfit for military service unless there’s a “national emergency.” Back then, I figured a “national emergency” would really be. A national emergency)

status eased the border-official’s doubt somewhat. Twenty-five dollars. And enough granola for a couple weeks. NOT your ordinary penniless draft-dodging vagrant – such a vagrant whom, no doubt, would be joined lips-locked-to-the-teat of the Canadian dole in a matter of weeks. I joined my travel companions back on the bus.

From downtown Vancouver I headed to an outlying area to the southwest. Only six or so level miles. After walking several blocks on a major north-south arterial, noting the manicured lawns and carefully tended gardens, I stopped abruptly at a major exception to the prevailing yard rule. Uncut grass, patches of barren dirt and trash – THIS was the sort of place Reverend Bob would be at. I pulled out Jake’s scrap of paper… yep, a match on the address. However, for the first time this sojourn, I experienced apprehension and mild panic. Was anybody home?

Knock at the door. After about a minute, a scraggly scowly face peers through the curtain. I’m even more apprehensive. Bob would be around happy people. “Yeah, you mean Wilson? He’s upstairs …”

“Bay-toon-ah-dah!” Bob falls on top of me from mid-way down the stairs. Hearty back-thumping. It’s obvious he appreciated a link to his former life.

For the next week or so, I lived the life of someone on the Canadian dole, indistinguishable (as far as I could tell) from the life of an American draft-dodger. Sleep in late, prolific cannabis availability; work a little, lots of good strong Canadian beer at the pubs every night. “Watch it,” Rev. Bob warned me. “This is NOT what you’re used to in the states. This beer is twice as strong.”

And he was right. Inexpensive entertainment: cheap drunk. Every other morning we’d go to a salvage yard and bang on Volkswagens with sledgehammers. This is what Rev Robert did for work. I could bang away for a couple of hours, if I paced myself.

The day I left, Bob dropped me off near the border tossing out (as he later wrote) “a handful of bills and prolific oaths and curses.” There were two huddled depressed groups of humanity clustered on the side of the highway. An upright thumb or two protruded from each. One group had been there a couple days. Nevertheless, I felt buoyant, upbeat. I was NOT going to hitch sitting down. I think everyone has his or her “hitching rules.” One of mine is DON’T hitch sitting down, or leaning against something. (For an exception to this, see part ‘a’. I was a novice hitcher then, and hadn’t formulated and internalized my rules yet.) You must either be standing or walking backwards, facing oncoming traffic. I stood.

Betsy Elizabeth Richardson was going to Ft. Collins, Colorado in her VW bug. She did not have room for the larger groups. Although I had been contemplating Los Angeles, I was on my way back to Colorado within three hours of being dropped off.

Ft. Collins … no, I did NOT have a viable girlfriend there – it took me about three days to figure that out. I took a bus to Frisco, visited an old friend. His mom took me to Leadville the following day. It was easy to hitch to Aspen, and visit my parents. They were NOT exactly overjoyed to see me.

(A few daze later). Things were closing in on me again. It was time to move on. I perused the community bulletin board downtown, scanning for notes asking for “riders.” There were a few – asking for help driving, money to pay for gas, and preferably some guarantee of redeeming personal qualities. There were requests for rides, also. All of these had specific locations in mind, as well as thinly veiled ‘songs of self praise.’ “I need a ride to Kansas City before August 19. I can help drive, pay for gas, play the guitar well, and am a good conversationalist.”

I sat down and crafted my note. “HELP! RIDE WANTED. ANYWHERE.” (That should expand the possibilities, eh?) “lousy conversationalist. no money.” More derogatory items fleshed out the card. I walked back to my parents’ house and the phone was ringing as I walked in. It was Richard. “How soon can you leave? I’m going to L.A.” He was by 20 minutes later. My parents looked up as I walked out, backpack on, asked where I was going.

“TO L.A.!”

We drove to santa fe where I had some friends at edge of town. I smoakt hoobyjooby with Bob – (old friend? of a friend of mine — Cliff Athey) and had either a panic attack or my kundalini really was rising… next day, as we drove nonstop I became tremendously ill. Richard had to stop every 10 or 20 miles so I could diarrhea! Pleasant, eh? We finally made it to “Kip’s” house somewhere due east of encino. Kip, a modern day sorcerer/healer, gave me some concoction, which made me well almost immediately. Next morning I called Slum (Kevin J) and walked away from Kip’s – down some “main road” which I presumed k.j. would know – he (and bruthur Donald) came driving up what seemed to be a few minutes later. His parents (mom, especially) sensed that Kevin was due to “leave the nest” — on his (long overdue?) trip away from home. Mom talked to me about “looking out after him.” We flew out of l.a. – back in those heady days of “youth fare” – I think it was $20 each.

(a).

BEFORE i had ever heard of Jack Kerouac, i participated in my first hitchhike. On a Friday afternoon during our first year of college, Roy H and i decided to take the less-expensive and probably more-adventurous method back home to the Evergreen/Conifer area. Just beyond the edge of Gunnison we got our first ride. “How far ya’ goin’?” i ventured. The driver remarked that THAT was NOT an appropriate thing to ask. Having never hitch-hiked before, i believed him. Now, i know that THAT is a very appropriate question to ask.

I believe that that first ride took us 60 miles, to Salida. I don’t remember anything else, so the rest of the trip must have been somewhat quick and uneventful. I also don’t remember how we got BACK to college later that weekend.

I hitched by myself a couple times, and with Roy H more than once. The most memorable aspect of one solo mid-winter hitch from Gunnison to Aspen – where my friend Larry Plume was a projector-operator for the movie-house there – was spending the night in a blizzard in a VW abandoned by the side of the road.

Roy and i took a “hitching vacation” in the summer of 1968. My parents weren’t exactly thrilled, but somehow acquiesced. I presume Roy’s parents felt the same. A constipated State Patrolman, Officer Grimes (i hope to encounter him in the afterlife) was on our case immediately. He expected us to walk, on the left side of the road, all the way to wherever we were going. If he caught us with our thumbs out again, well, we didn’t want to have that happen.

We walked 17 miles. No kidding. Most the way from Conifer to Grant. Officer Grimes had nothing better to do that day, a Sunday, and he would drive by every 5 minutes or so. We walked and walked. Once, Roy quickly thumbed at a car going by just after the patrolman passed and was out of sight. We got a ride for about five miles. When Ossipher Grimey drove by us again, he was fuming. The drive-bys were reduced to about three minutes. Finally, we must have reached the edge of his territory, or possibly another crime-in-progress demanded his attention and we got some “serious rides.”

Two hippies, guy and girlfriend, in a big old sedan took us half the remaining way to gunnison. His driving rules were simple. Go fast. When you catch up to somebody, pass them, regardless. If i had my life to live over again, there are at least 20,000 things i’d do differently, and high on the list is that i’d beg and plead and shout if necessary for him to let us off.

Roy and i arrived at Dan and Ray’s place in Gunnison. They were our compadres from the previous (freshman) collegiate year. We spent a few days doing what we all did best: lots of talking, coffee and some beer drinking, cigarette-smoking (all but me). Collectively, we were MASTER philosophers and there was no problem that we could not solve.

Roy and i left after a few days with Aspen in mind. Two hispanic fellows in a pick-up truck took us through the Grand Mesa National Forest pretty much from the Gunnison area to what is now I-70. We rode in the back of the truck. It was my first time along much of that route – through peach- and apple-orchards (Paonia?), over the backside of the Grand Mesa, and down to the Colorado River. They handed a bag of cherries back to us. We went through Crawford – i thought of the only person i knew from there. Arlian (last name) on the college track team. Many miles later, somewhere on the Grand Mesa our two benefactors stopped to meet another person in his truck. It was Arlian.

A carload of gregarious hispanics picked us up next. They squeezed us into their already-mostly-full car. In the back seat, a fellow played a portable record player. They seemed concerned about every vehicle stopped for problems – flat tire needed changing, overheated radiator. They would stop at each and every and ask what they could do.

Roy and I walked through Glenwood. We made it to Aspen and ended up at a sort of ‘hippie / head / trinket’ store for the night. We both were offered jobs clearing brush and whatever from the ski slopes the following day. Roy decided that he’d stay and work. He moved into a laborer’s/workers dorm. I left.

Later that summer i hitched from Las Vegas back home to Evergreen. I hadn’t planned on thumbin’, but the situation called for it. Roy A (not to be confused with Roy ‘H’) asked me to help him move his mom from Evergreen to Lost Wages. He rented a U-Haul truck into which we transferred the household goods. R A was out to make some money, but probably also saved his mom half of what a regular, professional, moving company would have cost. I still think i should have been paid – a modest stipend, something symbolic. But Roy knew i’d go along “for the adventure.” Sucker me. If it weren’t for the mortgage and “the ranch,” i probably would be tempted to do something similar tomorrow.

My high-school friends share a few discrete (concrete) character traits. We all would have vehemently denied it at the time, but with the clarity of historical 20-20 hindsight, ANAL RETENTIVENESS (AR) was endemic among us. Probably still is. One person’s AR rarely was compatible with another’s. R A’s AR, once it got stewing … well, i’d put money on RA’s AR up against everybody else’s AR for ‘best of show’ among all the AR’s i’ve had the occasion to have experienced.

After the drive to Vague Ass, the un-packing, a few daze in the area, then a spur-of-the-moment drive (he/we had his mom’s car for this) to Los Angeles,

– I saw the ocean for the first time, at age 19. A few days there, in which we lived in my uncle’s garage and in the car. “Stop by any time,” Uncle Ed had told me a few months earlier. “No advance warning necessary.” My uncle and family had left on vacation and were not home when we unexpectedly arrived. The combination of the garage, R’s mom’s car, and breakfast at the nearby IHOP was far cheaper than the Holiday Inn. Then the drive back to Vague Ass –

I couldn’t tolerate R A’s AR any longer. I asked, no, i INSISTED he let me out on the north part of the strip.

Since i didn’t think anyone knew about ‘evergreen’, i scribbled “DENVER” on a piece of cardboard. Contrary to what i proclaimed earlier – i wasn’t standing, i was sitting on my suitcase. After all, i was only nineteen. Shorthaired, black plastic-rimmed glasses, collared long-sleeved shirt. And surly. Well, trying to look surly.

Mid-august. It wasn’t that hot. I watched northbound traffic on the strip for two or three hours. Entertainment at its finest. “Sorry, i’m not going that far,” joked a cyclist riding by. I didn’t mind. I was free, not at the mercy of anyone else’s AR, and i was wide open to any future plans.

A dirty black cadillac with california plates cruised by three lanes out. I saw the passenger turn and say something to the driver. I was not surprised when, a couple minutes later, the same car (after having circled the block) pulled over. I got in. The car pulled back onto the strip and continued north.

Two fellas, long black hair and beards. “Are you headin’ to Denver?” I asked.

“Yep.”

After several more minutes, i attempted another conversational prod: “you guys headin’ beyond Denver?”

“Yep.”

We drove on in silence for perhaps a half hour more. I wasn’t apprehensive – oh, maybe a little. Remember, this was 1968 – and ‘long-hairs’ were almost universally considered peaceful ‘searchers.’ These guys were stony silent.

Gradually my benefactors became more talkative. Within a few hours i was part of a small tribe of nomads, kindred spirits. They were heading back to work at a university in Ohio, where they were philosophy professors. I was at home in my space in the back seat. I still remember a dream or semi-sleep where a woman’s voice said my name several times. Clearly. Convincingly. They dropped me off at the US 40 exit about ten miles from my house.

This story didn’t end with my arrival home. A few days later R A showed up at our house, having (allegedly) hitched from Las Vegas.

(b) One doesn’t merely hitchhike along a highway. Lose track of a train of thought and if you locate it again, it’s two or three rides down the road.

— Huzzel Jon Ruzzel

John “Huzz” Russell was inspired by Jack Kerouac more than anyone i knew. I didn’t know WHO J K was when, one day – in 1969, Huzz was very very sad. “Why?” we asked. “Jack Kerouac died yesterday.” he replied. The rest of us had very little idea, really, who J K was.

Partly due to Kerouac’s legacy (of THE GREAT AMERICAN ROAD TRIP) and also due to another great Amerikan road trip: that being Ken Kesey’s psychedelic bus trip “FURTHUR” as chronicled in the ‘Electric Kool Aid Acid Test’ – Huzz and i decided in February, 1970, to hitch-hike out to L.A. to visit our friend Kevin “Slum” Justice. In keeping with Kesey’s cinematographic record of his trip, Huzz acquired a super-8-mm camera and lots of film. We also talked an acquaintance, Bob Crosson (nicknamed “Smerdyakov” from ‘the Brothers Karamazov’) into accompanying us.

Huzz has said that the movie is no longer. But I’ll always remember its world-premiere. We knew four girls attending CU a couple blocks from our place. Their living room was much larger than ours so we showed it there. It was great fun.

THE MOVIE would show us driving (in Huzz’ car) to Gunnison. Shot of Huzz driving, ’gripping’ the steering wheel with his teeth; with Crosson’s long hair as a screen (Huzz and i weren’t “really good in the back” for a few months yet). The requisite night at McMillen and RayRod’s.

Next morning we start walking west from Gunny. (Huzz’ car left at RayRod and Dan’s.) Seemingly seamlessly and surprisingly we are outside of Fruita (125 miles away) before we know it. We get a ride from a Minnesota couple. He is on the lam from the law, so he sez. She is quietly proud to be with her outlaw. They are going to L.A. He has a large supply of falsified checks (“rubber checks,” he describes it. We all laugh).

They have some of the latest 8-track tapes. I remember the one of the Stones breaking the glass — the 8-sided album — sort of thing I could listen to 40 or 50 times before it got old. They don’t play that. I’m looking forward to good rock and roll but he and she also have Leslie Gore’s greatest hits. There were three songs in a row, which he plays over and over. And over. Huzz’ movie film shows the looks on our faces – gradually becoming numbed and numb-er. “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.”

“She’s a fool (she has his love and treats him cruel).”

“My Johnny’s come back” – my Johnny’s come back my Johnny’s come back My Johnny’s come back, to me – ee – ee – ee – eee” Those three songs are ingrained into my tormented psyche for the rest of this life, and I might know the words in future incarnations. No sooner would Leslie gloat about Johnny being back, then mr. outlaw would punch the 8-track player three times quickly so we could begin all over again with “It’s my party…”

Though mr. and mrs. outlaw offered to rent us the room next to theirs in Lost Vague Ass, we were only too glad to escape. We thanked them for their generosity and the ride and started walking.

We didn’t walk far. A flashing neon sign proclaiming “MIDNIGHT CHAMPAGNE BREAKFAST BUFFET” at the last small casino before the edge of town was very tempting. “All you can eat. $2.99.” We had slightly more than enough between us.

The wait staff had to have been really bored. I guess they were so used to the usual retinue of late-night gamblers that three borderline-vagrants right off the street replete with backpacks was a novelty. Waitresses, busboys, champagne-glass-fillers hovered about our table. Our tales and bantering apparently were NOT of the usual fare reciprocated from customer-to-wait staff at that locale. We ate. We drank (a sip out a glass was quickly replenished). Good vibes all around.

Out into the edge-of-las-vegas late winter / early spring past midnight. We walked, bantering/chattering about stuff. High on life. We walked for many miles before we stuck our thumbs back out.

Huzz and smerdyakov were wily. No sooner than the just-released marine blazing back to l.a. after blowing his last paycheck picked us up, they were burrowed into the back seat sound asleep. My job was to help keep him awake, and all of us alive, for the remainder of the ride. He dropped us off mid-morning in the middle of Barstow. The movie shows us wading, shoes in hand, pant-legs rolled up, across shallow canals to get to a more-appropriate on-ramp. We could have been trapped a long time but, relatively quickly, a pretty girl in her VW bug picks us up. She, too, must have been really bored. She’ll take us to wherever we wish to go. The movie shows her chattering away, long hair flying out the window in the wind.

We arrive at Justice’s. No-one home. Our chauffeur asks if we want to go to the beach. Smerdyakov (and possibly huzz?) had never seen the ocean before. She drives us to a nearby beach – zuma, i think. Remember, it’s mid-February, and, for the locals, it is cold. Not for us. Pausing only to remove our shoes and wallets we charge right in. Groups of locals wearing jackets stop to watch us frolicking. Our lady-friend calls out to us that she is illegally parked and has to move her car to another location. All our stuff is still in her car. The thought briefly intrudes that this is the big moment she has been waiting for – it would be easy to drive away, later to leisurely catalogue our backpacks and other valuables. Well, maybe sorta valuables. I wasn’t too worried. She had been a saint so far, and things in general had just been too excitingly weird. She waits 45 minutes until we’re borderline-hypothermic and splash back to shore.

The movie shows Mr. Justice coming to the door, looking mildly perturbed. “Are you guys planning … on … staying … the night?” he asks.

We stayed almost a week. The movie shows us hanging out at Slum’s junior college, “bulbing” about and along with seemingly everybody. Bob smerdyakov crosson meets a young lady doing Tarot readings and other esoterica. The stars were aligned just so, and he leaves us to go live with her. I heard later that they lasted (as a couple) about two weeks.

Time for huzz and i to go back home. Kevin slum justice drives us in his parent’s big white continental up over the mountains to the north and drops us off at victorville. The movie shows him speeding away, raising a cloud of dust, middle finger extended high out the window and laughing maniacally.

Hours pass. We can’t go onto the highway – serious-looking signs warn of the consequences to pedestrians who go past the on-ramp. Huzz draws a large increasingly complex mandala in the sand. He sits in the middle of it. Just another exciting short scene from the movie. I don’t remember if it’s the first or second ride but a single fellow is going to Albuquerque. Serendipity. On through the chilly desert night.

We should have accompanied him to Al-be-cue. We ended up doing that later. We thought that we could get off at Gallup, and hitch straight up infamous ol’ Route 666 (we had been on 66 most the way) into the Four-Corners area. Shortest distance to Gunnison. It was about 3 in the morning. Whatever traffic roaring by seemed occupied by drunks. After several hours, with dawn approaching, we switched back to the highway to Albuquerque.

I thought i’d died and gone to heaven – a DONUT TRUCK picks us up. Alas, no donuts, but plenty of coffee. The movie shows me waving goodbye to Mr. Donut outside of Al-be-cue and turning north. Brief shot of an ordinary-looking businessman in his suit. Not shown are other rides, less well remembered. We hook up with a solitary hermit, hiking back home with an axe handle he has ventured to town to purchase. A semi-truck slows – room in the front only for one. Mr. hermit sits in the daylight while huzz and i spend yet another weird interlude in the 99.5% totally dark interior of the back. He tries to film it. The movie would show entire books of matches ignited, in a vain attempt to illuminate our situation. I still remember huzz laughing like a banshee.

The residual cargo bounces around, onto, and by us. I finally nab one rubbery object, feel it, smell it, and try to psychically commune with it. It’s a potato. The movie shows the truck driving away, we’re in the middull of the san luis valley.

Another ride and we’re outside of salida (poncha junction) and it’s late evening, late winter, high country colorado. Seems a blizzard is approaching. Huzz thumbs the next vehicle approaching, and the greyhound bus quickly stops. The driver chortles that we’re all lucky that he could see us in the dark. Still, we had to pay the fare to gunnison …

(d) We didn’t intend to hitchhike back to the east coast during the first big blizzard of the winter of 1972. Jeff Timms was on his way to re-unite with the love of his life in Boston; and I thought I was going to Europe and possibly ‘points beyond.’ It seemed logical to join forces for his trip and the first part of mine.

I thought we had arranged a ride with a chance acquaintance. This mutual venture possibly was coalesced thru’ the Univ. of Colo. ride board, or something similar. Anyway, Jeff and I slumped, large backpacks with sleeping bags and etc. on the floor in front of the ride board at the mutually agreed-upon time. Our ride didn’t show up. Hours passed. Jeff was anxious to get back to his girl friend, and, basically, I just wanted to “go”. My plan was to go on the furthest trip I’d ever been. Getting to the east coast would be a step in the right direction.

After maybe half a day of waiting, a guy best described as sort of sleazy, more than slightly unsavory-looking, and past the five-o’clock shadow of furtiveness materialized. He asked us what our plans were. “Maybe he didn’t show up because you didn’t have money to help pay for the trip,” he suggested.

We assured him that THAT was NOT the case. Furtive-guy became very interested. In what seemed a quick couple of hours later, we were on the road, VW-bug-sailing off into the blizzard enveloping the middle half of the country. We had helped what’s-his-name pay to get his car out of a parking lot, purchase some minor parts, and buy road food to get us started. The snow fell heavier and heavier but we had just begun. As pitch dark enveloped us, we slowly drove up to a “highway closed” sign on Interstate 76 northeast of Brush. We went around it. Snow came up past the middle of the hubcaps as we churned northeastward. There were no other vehicles on the highway. Occasional drifts up to the top of the hood. Just into Nebraska the highway officially opened and there were other vehicles on the road.

This was, remember, the early 1970’s, when the national gulf between the hippie-long-hairs and the ‘straights’ was, generally, a deep chasm. Having been sheltered in Boulder and in resort towns, running the gauntlet of Middull Amerika meant experiencing a culture clash. Ol’ what’s-his-name was impervious to this. He was a foul-mouthed, loud, angry redneck at heart. Jeff and I ventured somewhat timorously into a roadside cafe in eastern Iowa. Every bib-over-all’d baseball-capped crew-cut head swiveled to stare. Seconds later, what’s-his-name stomps in through the door. “Holy FUCK! Shitty weather! Driving sucks! How you all doin’! I’m frozen! Screw this snow!”

The cafe regulars sensed a kindred spirit, regardless of physical appearances to the contrary. In unison, nodding their heads in agreement with our companion, complacency took the place of scorn. It was like a window shade drawn down over each face. We ate our breakfast in a nonhostile environment.

In the exact middull of Ohio his VW finally and totally died. We pushed it onto a service station parking lot. Redneck-hippie-head claimed he’d come back and rescue it later. We hitched. Three of us, lugging as much stuff so as to make it seem like six. Jeff had his guitar, which helped get the first ride. The driver was very eager to learn new guitar songs. Periodically we’d stop so Jeff and the driver could get out and play.

During the third night, I think, we got a ride most the rest of the way. We hadn’t slept much, and Jeff and furtive sleazoid dove into the back seat and immediately crashed. My job, of course, was to help keep the driver awake. It turned out to be very easy. Kelley was his last name… let’s say Mike – went to the high school which was nearest mine at about the same time. We had several mutual acquaintances. A Navy guy, he was on his way to his nuclear submarine in Connecticut. The time passed quickly. We let grumpy furtoid out just north of New York. Furtoid-now-beggoid asked me, “the money of the trip,” for a final $5 or so loan.

Mike Kelley drops us off near Boston – as his exit to his base has come up. I can’t remember how we arrived at Holly’s (Jeff’s heart-throb) place in Cambridge. I think I slept for about 18 hours, straight. I met the girl who was to become my wife in a burger joint in Harvard Square the following day.

(e) Deb and i took a bus from San Carlos, Mexico, to Mexico City. It was an open-ended trip. We didn’t know if we would go further, or for how long. Having my wallet fall out of the back pocket while on the Mexico City subway shortened our trip considerably. We had enough money to go back north. Even if it wasn’t ‘enough,’ it had to be anyway.

This time, we took the train. I’m glad we did. It was slower, often stopping for hours for apparently no reason in the middle of steaming jungles, or on a mountainside, sometimes in a town. Such times we could get out and walk a little, barter for goods from vendors – who would also just come onto the train at almost every stop. We made friends, good friends all, for most portions of the trip.

The train station in the Guaymas area was far out of town, and we arrived at about midnight. As far as we could tell, there was not any public transit. Shuffling to the road from the station, then onto a highway, we put our thumbs out.

My/our Mexico hitchhiking experiences entail only two rides. We didn’t wait long until a semi-long-haul trucker pulled over. Young, long-haired (I had been hassled in some towns for looking that way!), soft-spoken. He dropped us off at the intersection to San Carlos. A cold January night, even for Northern Mexico. With little likelihood of a ride, and ten miles to walk, we bedded down in a field. A couple hours later I thought the banditos were kicking us. A herd of burros was grazing through, and over us. Back to a fitful sleep. At daybreak we trundled over to the highway where the first vehicle by picked us up. The proprietor of the San Carlos gas station and his noisy VW –a familiar face. Our place was a few blocks from his place of business, and our south-of-the-border hitchhiking experiences were over.

(f) The destination is in the going. The going is in the destination.

— Jack Kerouac, maybe, or Lao Tzu …

I had just finished the winter semester of college, with just one year remaining. Additionally, my seasonal “Christmas rush” job as a Post Office clerk had also ended a little early. Apparently not as many people as in prior years were in the spirit of burgeoning the USPS with excessive cheer. There was about a month before classes started up again. My wife was working to put her husband through college. What was I going to do – stay home and study?

All the people who could afford it, and many who could not, went south for the holiday – to the beach somewhere. Always (well, maybe ‘frequently’) of a mindset to consider the not so obvious, the path not taken, the pasture far from the madding crowd, I decided to go north – to Vancouver Island to visit an old friend, Reverend Bob (see “c”). I had had some luck with the college Ride Board in the student center (usually acquiring passengers, instead of being one). I started to fill out a card for a ride to Seattle – which, I assumed, would be a good and safe bet towards getting me most the way to my destination. A fellow I knew was also there filling out a card. I looked at his, he looked at mine. We tore up our respective cards and he and his girlfriend picked me up two days later en route to Banff, Canada.

They dropped me off at the edge of Calgary. They were going into town for supplies or whatever. If, on their way back, I was still there, they would take me to Banff.

It was late afternoon, a few days before new year’s eve. I stood in my down parka wearing a backpack on the trans-canadian highway west of calgary. Just as the sun fell, I could see the icy-glistening peaks of the canadian rockies all along the western horizon. It was probably a few degrees below zero (Fahrenheit).

Sometimes (often?) there is a bit of pride in hitchhiking, and I didn’t want to experience the chagrin, or slight sense of ‘failure’ should my former companions drive by again. After about an hour, a pickup truck with two younger fellows stopped. They were dressed in western garb, hats and all. I remember their articulate and type-writer-like style of talking. Each word crisply pronounced, no slurring, nothing sloppy. Very polite. We drove up the foothills, into the valleys amongst the peaks. There was a slight nervous pause – I think they muttered something not really intended for me to hear. The one sitting next to me turned and said, “Would you mind if we pulled off the road and smoked some marijuana?”

They drove up some switchbacks and over a ridge. We stopped on a treeless, wind-swept tundra in the moonlight overlooking a large ice-covered lake. I probably became quite under the influence. Back on the highway, a few miles later, my benefactors pulled off at their intersection.

Two or three short rides later; Dwayne and Maureen careened to a stop. Dwayne was allergic to coffee, and drinking beer (and, I suspect, the resultant inner hydraulic pressure) kept him awake. “You ever been to Pagosa Springs, down at the foot of Wolf Creek Pass?” I was temporarily impressed that he knew my state so well. Maureen laughed. “That’s a line from a song – same guy who wrote ‘Convoy’”.

Up, up, and over the Canadian Continental Divide. We stopped in Revelstoke, so Dwayne and company could ingest more “stay awake medicine.” Reveling with the revelers in Revelstoke.

We drove for another hour and they turned south. “You NEVER heard of the Okanagan Valley?!” exclaimed Maureen. I have now.

I had a ride every hour, for about sixty miles each until I reached the ocean, or the Strait of Georgia. Each ride was pleasant, each with a single male companion. And every one told me about the upcoming revolution. “No – not Quebec. Western Canada has had it with Ottawa. Alberta and British Columbia will secede and become it’s own country.”

“No, I’m not talking about Quebec. The Maritimes are tired of supporting the rest of the country, and will become a separate country. And, screw Quebec.”

The originally least-gregarious driver had an entirely different revolution in mind. After about ten minutes of general commentary, he stared straight ahead, both hands gripping the wheel. Then he turned to me and said, “Do you know what I do for work?” I said that I had no idea. “I work for God.”

“Oh.”

Generally, I do not do well talking to God’s employees. I feel like I’m on the defensive, and usually become agitated. Not so with this guy. Somehow, I felt at ease. I could ask him questions. No strings attached. He told me of the upcoming revolution between those aligned with the deity and those who were not. This revolution would start in, of course, Canada, and then spread to the rest of the world. He said that he sensed that I was on the same side as he. We talked as casually and pleasantly as I had with my other rides. He dropped me off outside of Vancouver.

On the ferry to V Island I acquired my next ride, one that would take me up V Island to the departure point for the Hornby Island ferry. A pleasant couple. Everyone I met was a part of the introduction to the area in which I was to be a resident for the next couple weeks. And, on the next, smaller ferry I acquired the requisite (an)other ride to get across whatever island (Denman?) to the actual Hornby Island ferry. Whew. I arrived at my destination just before dark; two daze before New Year’s, 1976/1977.

Reverend Bob was not home. He lived in a small cabin, one of about a half-dozen clustered together. Within minutes, residents of another cabin invited me to move into Bob’s. Bob was visiting friends down in Victoria for New Year’s. And, breakfast the following morning for everyone in the immediate area was at Nadine and Marco’s whenever the collective was ready.

I’m having too much fun to bother calling Bob. Another cabin resident (Derek, I think) shows me where, when, and how to catch the wily oyster. After a couple days, I’m getting up early when the tide’s out and bringing more back each day. I break every blade on Derek’s Swiss-army knife. Every morning, more and more people show up for breaded-and-fried oysters at Nadine’s.

Two nights after my arrival, it’s New Year’s. Everyone on Hornby Island is going to the Hornby Island pub, where the local band, “Garden” is playing. I’m a friend with everybody. Midnight arrives – and I’ve been saving three intertwined (really “crooked”) cigars. I’m at a table with two women over 50 years of age. (I’m only 27). Do I offer them the cigars? I do, and they both grab one. We puff away.

I call Bob the next day and he returns the following. I stay about a week – pleasant time, not as hectic as the previous sojourn. Everyone, it seems, is “on the dole.” I witness Reverent Robert in his “bi-weekly exercise in mindfulness.” He is filling out his UIC (Canadian unemployment) form. The requisite answers are “Yes yes no yes.” There is even a yacht in the vicinity with that name. EVERYONE knows what that means. (“Were you ready and available to go to work? Did you approach at least three potential employers? Did you turn down or refuse any offer of employment?” I cannot remember the fourth question, but the answer is “yes.”)

Bob takes me to the ferry and the sequence back to Vancouver is almost like rewinding the tape of how I got there. I’m on the U.S. side of V and it is night. A trucker “pulling a set of doubles” stops. He wants to know if I’m carrying any “stay awake medicine” (speed, dexedrine, whatever). No, I’m not. He picks me up anyway.

“How can you be sure I’m not a homicidal maniac?” he poses, in a somewhat angry voice. I’m slightly taken aback. A few years back I would have steadfastly promulgated my “faith in the intrinsic goodness of mankind” philosophy – but I’ve become a little jaded. So I try to expostulate my basic faith in the presumed goodness of most of mankind … philosophy? Probably more like a theory, or hypothesis. (In retrospect, I assume that he was hoping for ‘speed’ and disappointed; but lots of coffee and conversation will have to do.)

Wade and I become best friends for the rest of the trip. He takes me to Portland – all the way through Washington. Shortly before dawn I’m on the final stretch. I had planned on visiting Dan McMillen (see ‘a’ and ‘b’), who now lives near Eugene. After a few days at Dan’s (and Meriam’s) I would take a bus back home. I would elaborate on the bus trip but it wasn’t “hitching” per se, though the trip DID INVOLVE red, red wine and the hike to acquire it almost resulting in missing the bus mid-trip. Grape soda cans — which we quickly emptied so as to replenish from the large paper sack, and compadres…

Moon River, wider than a mile; I’m crossing you in style, some day —

Oh dream maker, you heart breaker; Wherever you’re going, I’m going your way –

Two drifters, off to see the world; There’s such a lot of world, to see –

We’re after the same rainbow’s end, Waiting ‘round the bend;

My huckleberry friend, and I.

— H. Mancini & Johnny Mercer

FULL CHESTAL CONTACT, PICK-UP, and SPIN

Posted on June 11, 2012 by betunada

Full Chestal Contact Pick-up and Spin

& other recent artifices

Satyrday (Joon 9) — the local run-club trail run — the annual “Water Tower” 5-mile.

Many of the usual suspects, some new faces, and collectively we exhibit what could be a worrisome trend. Among the 20+ entrants, the youngest was 43! “All the young people are at the tri-athlon” someone suggested — which is true. THAT would be more in keeping with what the younger crowd is into — a big-deal schwagg-bag not-too-pricey entry fee (put on by a local Parks & Rec) event; unlike our low-key “$1 suggested donation” trot through the dusty desert north of town.

I ran slightly better than I expected. After all, I’ve been ‘ramping up’ recently a little, with the frequency and intensity of work-outs increasing somewhat. I was even at the heels of a pack of faster runners — able to not lose ground on the uphills (I think I narrowed the gap a little) but they’d run away from me on the downhills.

Afterwards, those who’d finished waited for the slower ones. There was plenty of fruit, cookies (!?), water and gatorade. I had brought Betty’s dog, RockSea, and when the race started she stayed at the start/finish. Maybe she’s smarter than we think.

The fastest runner was Larry, who is a surprising 49-years-young. He looked back at the three-quarter-mile mark, and I think he was hoping that he’d have some company. Nobody at that point was within 200 yards. And then there’s Sallee.

At 52-or-so-years young, she is THE SWEETHEART of the running club. For those of you guys (okay, gals too) who don’t even look at anyone over, say, 30, I say: look again.

I KNOW I would have found her attractive, nay, appealing, when I was a younger 20-something.

She’s compact, blond, radiant, not diminutive in the chestal aspect, effervescent, fast.

I was closer to her than usual in this run — I had her in my sights most the way. Never-the-less, she is a (running) force to be reckoned with, rating wa-a-a-ay up there, NATIONALLY, in the age-group rankings. Seriously, I’d say she contends for top ten in the country.

As the post-run schmoozing and socializing was breaking up, good-byes were being said, after a few hand-shakes she said “I’d rather get a hug.”

Dutiful and gallant as I am, (and her husband was just standing there) I stepped over and embraced her. And … picked her up. Full chestal contact pick-up and spin. Spun her around. Maybe twice.

Should I not have done that? Heck, glad I did.

I’m a guy. The proverbial red-blooded heterosexual. I like full chestal contact. It’s the next best thing to … you know. As I drove home I could still … feel … the contact. I hope my wife doesn’t read this. I hope no-one in the running club does, either. Deep down inside I hope Sallee does, and, maybe, feels the same way.

Running races can be fun, you know?

& other things:

fighting? to unravel the tiresome demands of the quotidian

(Yeah, rite. Yeah — no doubt — succumbing).

I don’t know about you, but often it seems I can sense and feel currents peculiar to each of the seasons. They often intermingle. Couple Fridays ago, while pedaling my bike up a new, to me, road into the Flat Tops area, I felt a hint of fall. Or so I thought. But it figures. The Flat Tops beckon to me. There’s a primeval-ality about them, reminds me of sci-fi or fantasy stories about areas in the present-day world where either the pre-historic and/or nature-spirit/faerie realms have a pronounced presence.

Fall? It ain’t entirely absent. It’s always there, brooding, perhaps, and when it’s time, it’ll just out and flaunt. It.

Another weekend when I probably shouldn’t have left the couch.

During that Friday’s work-out I decided to explore a new road, heading up West Elk Creek into the Flat Tops. I think I’ve only actually been IN the Flat Tops many (many) years ago, when I was about 13. So, I flirt with the area. Tentative forays since then. I had been to the end of the pavement on the W. Elk Creek Road (Garfield County 245, I think) — riding there and back on my road bike. This time I parked the car at the transition, and pedaled the mountain-bike up the dirt road a few miles. Ah, the feeling of being “up in the mountains” — can’t beat it.

The following Saturday morning I had promised my brother I would help dig a hole next to his house. He intended to find where the sewer line exited the basement, and put in a new-something called a “drop-out.” After three hours of taking turns digging and hauling dirt, we hadn’t found it. I announced that I had had enough fun and left.

I called him later and he said that they had found their target.

actually, betty takes a break from yard-watering. Milli (whose brother, Vanilli, is probably assleap elsewear) uses his LASER EYES to burn holes into things)

Betty and I spent the rest of the day pouring water on the yard. The quotidian really is entrenched and the enslavement aspect is quite evident here.

And later we drove out to the Bean Ranch BLM to kidnap a few plants and flagstone-walkway rocks

and Sunday we ran/rode 9-Mile-Hill MicroWave Tower area

(The cactus, is, sort of, happy).

nadie sabe que manaña traer

Posted on May 31, 2012 by betunada

la casita de sherie ve la mar

Tengo un cuñado, Alex, quien tuvo una novia, Sherie. Ella tiene una casita en la playa cerca de Tampa. Tuvimos un dìa muy agradable allì, dos años pasado. En el imagen, arriba, los dos personas en el agua son A y S.

el entiende que yo ver (y foto) lo

Este pajaro fue en la playa ese dìa. Parece que el entiende lo que hago (tomar fotos). Hace mucho calor aquel dìa, recuerdo …

un pescado de ben, mientras dos perros vigilar

Mientras, en nuestro lago (estanque, actualmente) mi yerno y yo vamos pesquerìa. Sus perros acompañar. Fue un buen dìa por pesquerìa. “Atrapar y libertar.”

un puente sur de tampa — vamos a nuestro hado, o ruina

Sì, hay un puente sur y oeste de Tampa, muy grande. Fuimos a visitar mi Tìo, Jose, quien es el ùltimo tìo tengo. Fue un otro dìa agradable, y importante para mì, porque no visito unos de mis familia con frecuencia.

‘bruce’ — es el tortuga (no es tortuga del agua) de ‘betty’

Bruce tiene diez-y-siete años, mas-o-menos. Betty conseguir B en Florida y B fue pequeño (peso quinientos gramos). Ahora, B peso casi veinte kilogramos. Come mucho.

gato en un otro dimensiòn

Hugh es el gato de mi hija. Encontraba H hace algun años pasado, en un campo cerca de mì casa. H fue un gatito, muy pequeño. Mi hija quiso H inmediatamente, y tomaba el a su casa mas tarde el mismo dìa. H esta muy contento y vive un vida lleno de experiencias y muchas casas.

los espìritus en los arboles

B y yo fueron en “la Mesa Grande” el verano pasado — y los arboles fueron interesantes. ¿Espiritus en los arboles? ¿Porque no?

ricardo cabeza (izquierda) y su cuñada, betty betunada, buscar por “dios sabe que” en el desierto alto cerca de whitewater, colorawdough

si. fue un dìa fresca y nublosidad en el desierto alto. y todos su perros, y algo mas.

los betunadas tienen un encuentro con espìritus animales y tiempo extraño

ah. otro dìa en primavera y temprano en verano en “Cactus Park.” Fue un dìa con la familia (y alugunos perros, por supuesto). Un otro dìa casi en paraìso.

cosas hacerse mas extraño

Es aguardariente.

el gato ‘hugh’ todavia esta bien (por ahora …)

No esta despues los dimsiònes a este fecha.

¿quatro? o cinco? perros a lado de la forraje

Mire inmediato. ¿Mire el ‘perro’ a la izqueirda?

es tranquilo y lleno de paz en la cueva

Siempre, cosas son tranquilo en la cueva, especialmente en invierno.

betty y su caballo, mitch, trabajan en la arena

B tuve muchos años agradable con sus caballos. El tiempo con caballos por nos termina receiente. Lo siento …

ùltimo, pobrecito ‘Dopey’ hacerse perdido

¿ Supone algo mas ?

los mariachis digame que el es el mundo-pequeño

Mi ensayo pròximo (en español) es de mi nieto, el mundo-pequeño.

post-ecliptic pre-memorial

Posted on May 26, 2012 by betunada

even in later may, the water-fall at the top of Coal Basin appears to be ice

Spurring, if knot in the (w)Rawkeez, then west of the ‘Keez, as the situation (Colorawdough is not always a ‘state’) degenerates into You-Taw. Betty and Rosco and the dawgs hike mid-May up Coal Basin, off the west sighed (yes, some of these mountunz ‘sigh’) of the Grand Mesa.

THIS is how we could see the eeeek!lipps. 4 pairs of sunglasses

I joked earlier in the day with somebody as we left the Texas RoadHouse (it was NOT our best vizzit there) — these others were lookin’ up towards the sun, it was 6 p.m., yes, eclipse-thirty and we said we’d hurry home and put on 3 pairs of sunglasses. Turned out that FOUR pairs was adequate. I think. It’s 5 days later and I’m not totally blind, yet. Weird thing –> we were SKYPEing with our kids. They live in Portland, and, hey, they didn’t know there was an eclipse, it was raining, as usual there. I went out-sighed, back to the sun, faced the laptop toward it, aimed some — ’til I had the sun lined up and “the kids” were, like, “wow!” and I hope they snapped/captured some shots.

the cactus is apparently happy

Meanwhile, up Coal Basin Trail, the cactus is, apparently, happy. It had rained a coupla daze before, so the upcoming drought hasn’t settled in, yet.

bernie and mitch, another day, the last day

We’ve been “horse people,” I guess, for 14 years. THAT ended earlier this week. Betty hasn’t been able to ride, they do cost money, so she gave them away. Among other things, (the ‘mung’ being one or more things) I haven’t been out re-distributing manure quite like I’ve been doing (for 14 years) as much, since. We’re not supposed to think, nor dwell, on whether B & M are happy or not. The vibe has been a bit more melancholy around here …

“the big year” candidate… what kinda … ?

I recommend a movie called “THE BIG YEAR”. It’s probably the only movie you’ll ever enjoy about BIRD WATCHING. (Stars Owen Wilson, Jacques Blak, and Steve Martin). It’s not as boring and pedantic and audobon-society-drum-beating as you’d think. Maybe it is. It’s still a fun movie. Um… never-the-less, Betty and I got to wondering, how many species could we identify and count in a year? There’s crows, peacocks, mallard ducks, magpies, blue herons, sandhill cranes … oh, robins. Red-winged blackbirds. Quail. Then, we’d have to get a book. Above is just one of many (to us) indistinguishable species. We’ve got “little small sparrow/finch/wren/ type thing #1,” and “LSS/F/W TT #2” on up to 5, 6, or 7. And so it goes.

whatever it is DON’T DO IT IN OUR LAKE!

Yeah, please don’t do IT, whatever it is, in our lake!

bringin’ the think global, shop in town, uh, home

We feel so much better, in general, and about ourselves, when the food and produce and other stuff is local, and not maidenchina or sumuthur place far, far uh-weigh …

up off Unaweep, lookin’ to the GrandMesa

Another smallish inuk-thingy emerges from the surroundings, this time just up and off the north rim of Unaweep Canyawn. Lookin’ east, towards “The Mesa”.

mac wilkins hugging oscar schmidt, 36 years later

Posted on May 18, 2012 by betunada

shadows on the periphery (5/17/12) Bowerman & the Men of Oregon Just read the chapter of the 1976 olympix, and what else gwan in the life of B B. I AM VINDICATED: i haven’t told anyone about this, ’til now, … Continue reading →

JAPHY RYDER DREAM SONG

Posted on May 16, 2012 by betunada

JAPHY RYDER DREAM SONG

In 1976 I was a student at CSU (the college in Ft. Collins). The student newspaper had an announcement of a poetry symposium to be held on campus in a few days. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have been interested, but Gary Snyder was to be a featured participant.

I wasn’t as swept up nor taken with the mythos of Jack Kerouac like some of my friends, but read practically everything he penned that I could get my hands on. The Dharma Bums — my introduction to Japhy Ryder/Gary Snyder. Having read Big Sur sometime before, I had thought and hoped Jack’s self-destructive tendency had been transformed — but those books were written in reverse order to that in which I had read them. Anyhow …

The article showed a recent picture of Mr. Snyder. He had become quite “hippi-ized” — counter-culture — kinda like me. Had I not seen that, I would have assumed he was still the crew-cut part-time log-cutter/outdoorsman I had pictured from The Dharma Bums. And so …

A couple days later while wandering the seemingly-labyrinthine hallways of the C S U student-center trying to find the room where Gary Snyder was to be part of a panel discussion, I encountered another lonely wanderer, looking for the same venue. Recognizing the fellow from the photograph, it was like a miniature lightning-bolt hitting my brain. Gary immediately exuded a scowl of annoyance in response to my ocularly-telegraphed kindred-spirit stare. Never-the-less …

We strode up and down the stairs and hallways, talking about what, I don’t remember — free-associating, I suppose. Probably about how lost we were. Our time together was maybe fifteen minutes. I’ll remember this for as long as I can (to quote the “Because I’m Blond” contest winner in Earth Girls are Easy). We arrived fashionably late (?) for Mr. Snyder, at the hushed and expectant venue. Everyone turned to look, and I felt important because, as I sat in the audience, I think everyone assumed I was with him, and special, somehow. To remove any doubt, I kept my mouth shut.

A CSU professor was the group moderator and I probably couldn’t have told you a week later what aspect of poetry this panel, perhaps six or so people total, was supposed to be about.

But I do remember Gary telling one story. The Papago Indians resided in the Sonoran Desert, spread out over present-day Aridzona and el estado de Sonora. They lived there because they had to. More powerful tribes lived in the adjoining lands with more water, better climate, hunting grounds, and cropland. The Papagoes didn’t have much in the way of physical possessions.

The most important and valuable thing a person could own, a “possession” as it were, was a song.

I suppose “rich” Papagoes had many songs.

How they acquired a song varied, and the songs would usually come in dreams. However, to merit/deserve/make oneself worthy of such an impartation, a Papago would have to do something heroic. One might hike all the way to the sea and bring back some salt. Or go beat up on some warriors of another tribe.

When one Indian was real good friends with another, and wanted to make a gift, he’d give his friend a song.

About two years before, Betty and I were vacationing/hanging in Mexico. We had gone on a prodigious train- and bus-sojourn from San Carlos to Mexico City. On the return leg of our journey, we each were beginning to become quite ill. Forty-some hours in an enclosed (windows up ’cause it was January) crowded bus with many people exhibiting symptoms of “el grippe” and buying mystery tacos and dulces-de-cabra from street vendors — “you do the math.”

The flu, probably. A severe, head-clogging, pain-filled, tedious, foreign flu.

Jaunty at the start of this trip, it seemed we crawled back to my parents’ half-completed house in San Carlos. The night we returned, we discovered that the ‘local’ train station was more than 20 miles away. We did hitch a couple rides to halve the distance, but at midnight — and even in north interior Mexico, it’s cold after the sun has disappeared in the middle of ‘winter’ — we felt we had no choice but to burrow into our sleeping bags just out of sight of the road. Dante, when chronicling the descent into the underworld, would have had to be creative to outdo the next incident of our seemingly inexorable downward spiral. Sometime between laying down and first light, I thought the banditos had crept up and were proceeding to kick the poo-poo out of us to get our attention. No … a small herd of semi-feral burros was picking its way through the frigid lunarscape, stumbling over us, and not gently nor quietly. I thought things could not get any weirder.

A merchant with whom we had conducted occasional business drove by just after sunrise and soon we were ‘home.’ Our condition and spirits would have benefited if the house had HOT running water.

We were too weak and tired from our ordeal to do little else but try to sleep. It was so bad that late one night, as I was tossing and turning and occasionally moaning as if that would help, I did an experiment to “pass the time.” I lay still for as long as I could, trying to sink into sleep, but concentrating as best I could on just passing the time never-the-less. I lay for what had to have been at least a couple hours. I looked at my watch. Two minutes had passed.

I did sink into a pain-free sleep later that night. I was in a cave. It was pitch dark. I couldn’t see anything, but the input from all the other senses gave me as clear a picture — no, clearer — than that which could have been garnered from sight alone — if this location was outside in the light.

I knew that I was seated on a rock ledge in this cavernous room right at the edge of the ocean. The cave would have significantly different aspects depending on low tide, or high tide. The sounds of the ocean, lapping and all the nuances of waves in among rock and coral walls, was vivid. As was the slap-in-the-face smell of the salt-air. I felt the breeze, stirred by each wave and the echoes, moving my hair. This was a large possibly basket-ball-court-sized space, and I was not alone.

They were singing, many dozens of people — in a language I surmised to be the local indigenous aboriginal tongue. This was not the past, nor any time in particular. It was like I had been transported to a dimension adjacent to, but not under much, if any, influence of the world-as-we-presently-know-it. I was NOT in our children’s iPad Internet-centered text/twitter/cellphone world. That world was ‘there’ — somewhere else — but I was in the primal realm that Carlos Castaneda had tried to illuminate to all his readers.

Several layers of chanting, humming, weaving in and out. A solo-ist would intone the next line of melody, and the others would join in, point-and-counter-point with increasing layers of background chorus. The song swept over me, along with the sea-breezes and salt-cave smell and rhythm of the waves. At the time I didn’t think this, but I was a biological electrical appliance, what with all the various currents going around and through me. And everybody and everything else.

I wish I could say that I woke up and the flu was gone. But I did remember the song for several months. I still hear snippets and suggestions and hints, but not very often.

idle fornicatey-fornicatey, Naggy Wall, and Thomas Pynchon

Posted on May 5, 2012 by betunada

Idle fornicatey-fornicatey, Naggy Wall, & Thomas Pynchon My occasional (much too occasional) girlfriend, Naggy Wall, apparently has a more steady boyfriend. Thomas Pynchon. Mr. P has just gotta be hooked into Ms. Wall’s essence to a degree which probably would be … Continue reading →

the hockey diaries

Posted on May 3, 2012 by betunada

Tuesday, October 3, 2006, at about 8:50 p.m.

Should the 57-year-old geriatric have taken up shuffleboard instead?

I’m standing, unsteadily, on what seem like dull rounded-bottom ice skates*, wearing what could be 25 pounds of padding. My view of the surroundings is impaired by a helmet which is not fitting very well. I have to hold up the bottom with one hand so I can see out through the metal-wire face guard. People, big fast athletic men**, are skating my way, intending to whip hard rubber hockey pucks right at me.

Remember the first STAR WARS movie, where Luke wears an opaque face-mask as he learns to use the force to protect himself against a floating taser-zapper ball? Picture Luke, light saber in hand, Obie Wan perplexedly nearby, as he has no idea where the annoying zapping floating ball is.

It could be argued as to whether-or-not my doing this was a conscious decision. More probably, it was a semi- or sub-conscious decision. My life had been getting more and more boring. Many (most?) nights I fell asleep in front of the teevee — “drooling in my beer.”

Since high school I had infrequently played hockey, on ponds, with family and friends. Nothing organized. Nothing which would warrant full body padding and helmets. However, if anyone asked me what my long-term ultimate athletic ambition was — sometimes I would tell them that I planned to be on the U.S.A. over-65 age group national ice-hockey team. THAT seemed a long time in the future, plenty of time to stay in shape, perhaps re-learn to skate starting at 60 or so.

Time passes, it creeps, one day you wake up and it’s no longer the 1990’s. And — NO — I’m not planning on trying out for any national old men’s age-group team, because I’m fairly sure that there is no such thing. However …

River City never had a year-round ice arena until about three months ago. Betty wanted to go check it out right when it opened. It was about 106 degrees that day — not unfortunate for the Glacier Ice Arena. It was packed. Party atmosphere.

I’m not sure why, but I went back a few times. Partly to inquire about “open skating” schedules, as Betty occasionally verbalized a desire to go skate. And — there was a personal reason.

I thought that there couldn’t be THAT much interest in ice-skating in a town which never had access to ‘permanent ice’ (without having to travel 100 or so miles). If ever I was to get into a league, play the game at the “ground level,” this would probably be the last opportunity.

I was surprised. The sign-up board for hockey was filled to 6 or 7 pages, and the likelihood of easily getting on an entry-level team seemed, well, not only inconvenient, but expensive, and perhaps combative as well. The fee for players was about $200 per season, but “goalies play free.” (Note to self: Should I have spent some time wondering WHY goalies were free?) I submitted an application.

I worried a little. A couple weeks went by. Oh well, I hadn’t heard anything back from the rink, and if I did end up on a team I’d get on the task of equipment-acquisition right away.

Eight days before my first game, but the day before what could have been the first game, the hockey director from the rink called me. “Your first game is tomorrow night. You’re on the Bombers,” Curt said. I was stunned. I expected more advance notice. Also, apparently they did NOT have enough goalies for all the teams.

“I can’t make it,” I said. “I have an appointment tomorrow night.” That was true. But what I didn’t know was that the games started late — I could have gone to my meeting and then the game. It was just as well. I needed more time for this to sink in, and to prepare. Maybe ‘preparation’ meant coming to terms with my fate. I then found out that the arena would loan most the goalie equipment, also for free. I already had skates, but had to buy a helmet.

I could buy an ice-hockey goalie helmet for about $250 or an inline-hockey goalie helmet for $50. Even if ice-hockey helmets were available without having to wait a couple weeks to be shipped, I would have been a cheapskate anyway. Pun intended. I found a helmet which fit. I wriggled on my glasses inside the thing, and I shook my head a few times.

What I should have done with the helmet on was to jump about erratically, fall to the floor a few times, bump into the walls. And see what it was like when I began to sweat a lot. But I didn’t. As I put the helmet on game night, I noticed a warning sticker: “NOT INTENDED FOR USE IN ICE-HOCKEY. Helmet is intended for use in games with inline hockey balls, but not ice-hockey pucks.”

Oh great. Perhaps a referee would disqualify the helmet, and me, from the game due to unsafe equipment. But no… I asked an official if the helmet was okay and he looked at me as if that was a silly question. But what I really wanted to know, was … would the helmet pass the puck-in-the-face test?

After about 3 minutes into the first period, I asked a nearby ref if we could stop so I could get the helmet to fit (I had already taken off my glasses, which were not staying put. This was due to excessive sweat and the helmet slipping around). Jeremy (who had already assisted me in the locker room with the unfamiliar leggings and chest protector) pulled and yanked at the 5 straps until the darned sweatbox fit much more snugly. (It still slipped a little).

Partway into the second period, I was facing what had become a familiar sight — this time just one (often there were two) enemy skater(s) bearing down on me without any of my team-mates in sight. I rushed out to deflect the shot, sort of diving/falling down in front of him. For the briefest of a split second I remember seeing the puck going right for my eyes. A second or two later, I was aware of the puck deflecting wide from the goal. I was pleasantly surprised — oh joy and serendipity — the protective grating over my face would deflect a direct shot!

I watched my team the previous week, after my earlier meeting. They used a goalie from one of the more advanced leagues, and were “having their way” with the other team. This week was different. We were playing a team bumped down from the B league so the novice league would have more teams. The team had three players from the local college team! The Bombers didn’t expect to win, in fact, the pre-game talk in the locker room focused on how to minimize the damage. Something called “icing” was to be used — a lot.

Therefore, I think we were loose — we were there just to play, and amazingly, played a bit closer than anyone might have expected. Final score: 12 – 7. (One of the closest games the “Freeze” has had in our league.)

Oh! One last word (or, few paragraphs). When I arrived at the ice arena, an acquaintance was walking in the door just ahead of me. “Hey, Dave” I said. “What are you doing here?”

I asked that because I remembered him telling me he played in one of the more ‘advanced’ leagues. “Oh, I’m not here to play. My daughter’s playing tonight.”

She was out of sight, presumably in a locker room getting ready. Dave told me she was sixteen, and … “she usually plays out on the ice, offense, defense … but this is the first time she’s played goalie.”

*They were. I had them sharpened before the next game.

**During the post-game mid-rink hand-shake, I noted that at least one more opposing player was a young woman.

GAME TWO (the hockey diaries): Betty goes and watches. Betty is NOT ‘supportive.’ The next day I announce to her that I’m emailing the kids, telling them how mean their mom is. She doesn’t contest nor question ‘the mean’ — just curious which category of ‘mean’ I’m telling them about.

So I tell her (and them): I’d like to think that if I attended some function she was doing, no matter what it was, I’d try to focus on something positive if asked to comment. At our “advanced old age,” I should focus on how neat, how adventurous, that she would take up something new. If she sucked at it, well, see the comment on “how brave, especially at your age…”

Does she focus on that? I KNOW I sucked. And she reminds me, as soon as I emerge (last, and late, as it takes a bunch of time to get all that stuff OFF) from the locker room:

“You sucked! I’m surprised your team doesn’t get rid of you.”

Goals allowed average: 15. Shots stopped? I KNOW I stopped many more shots than goals in the first game, but in the second game it might have been about 50%. Highlight of the game (for me) was stopping a penalty shot. I don’t know who on my team did what (a team-mate was lying on the puck, I think). Jeremy instructed me to rush the attacker as soon as the whistle sounded. However, I waited a few seconds to see if he would zig, or zag, or whatever. He started slowly right at me, so then I rushed right at him. Nothing elaborate on my part, I just smashed into him. Betty said she was surprised they didn’t call a penalty on THAT. His shot attempt was snuffed, and he congratulated me. Cheering from my bench. One of a very few bright spots for the team this game.

GAME THREE (the … diaries): Something happened which I had not experienced as a soccer goalie in two years of collegiate intramurals and one year on an adult coed team. We won! Of course, with me in goal the game was closer than it could have been. Perhaps my soccer team nickname, “The Sieve,” would become a moniker of the past. (Yeah, right).

The helmet wasn’t the only piece of equipment I purchased. It was also strongly recommended to acquire a “protective cup.” Though I rankled somewhat about paying $30 for shorts with the cup, a direct shot to “that area” was stopped, and I hardly felt it. This was during the pre-game warm-up.

Goals allowed average: approaching 10! 16 shots stopped, 2 goals allowed.

GAME FOUR: the “Freeze” again. We played them much closer than during my initial game. And … attitude-wise, this was different than the previous games. The over-riding feelings of fear and apprehension I had come to regard as normal were gradually replaced by, yes, looking forward to and anticipating the next attack.

Sometime the previous week I had a dream about one aspect of my “preparation” for the games. Even before the first game I joked that I had a choice — go skating a few times OR drink to the point of becoming borderline “impaired.” Yes, I could have done both, or neither, but I chose to arrive slightly sedated.

My BAC was in the neighborhood of 0.05 for three of the games so far. Only the second game, where I felt I performed the poorest, did I not “prepare” in advance. So, the dream. I cannot NOW remember any details, just that the dream indicated that drinking was an aid to this endeavor. I am such a poster-child for drug-free America, eh?

Goals allowed average: getting closer to ten. 26 shots stopped, 9 goals allowed.

Either before this or the previous game — as the starting buzzer sounded a thought popped up. “Oh darn,” the internal voice rankled. “You have to PAY ATTENTION, FOCUS, for the next hour.” Yeah, I’ve been experiencing more and more D O A H A D D (delayed-onset adult hyper attention deficit disorder) and my lazy mental inner voice expressed chagrin at the difficult task at hand. Pay attention, focus, do not wander, watch, be ready, don’t wander off, stay put. It would be easier if I could see…

GAME FIVE: back to normal again. “The Sieve” is probably here to stay. Being slightly sloshy did not make a difference. I should NOT have kept track of shots stopped, as more pucks went in than were stopped. Picture me standing, no, leaning against the side (the outside) of the goal, friendlily waving the shots in…

GAME SIX: something different, and not just minor stuff, seems to happen each game. For the first time in “my” five losses, I blame the rest of the team, not me. Consider: after the first period, the score was 6 – 3, our favor. “You do the math.” If both teams play anywhere consistently, the end score should be: US, a bunch of goals; THEM, somewhat less than a bunch. The end score was 8 – 7. We didn’t even score when the other team had two guys in the penalty box at the same time!

Irregardless of whether or not I think the rest of team lost this one, they continued to have plenty of advice for me. One good suggestion was from John, whom I regard as the team captain. He told me to keep my left hand (the “catcher’s mitt”/glove) OUT and away from my body, so as to present more surface area to incoming shots. Not a bad idea, as I had previously been covering my crotch with the glove.

My … um, visual impairment, which I had hoped had not been too obvious, must have been becoming more apparent. Perhaps some of them noticed that occasionally I would be concentrating on an attacking player whom I thought had the puck when the player who actually did have it was coming from another direction. More than one teammate suggested that I somehow try to fit glasses, or contacts, or do the laser treatment. Yes, even Betty noted that it seemed frequently I had no idea where the puck was. Darn.

John, and at least one other suggested that I either show up for “open hockey practices” and/or watch hockey on tee-vee. Why bother? I figure I’m getting plenty of practice as is, I’m not going to watch hockey on tee-vee, and the pictures I see in the paper of goalies invariably show them in contortionist positions or lying at the bottom of a heap of players.

Yes, I’ve quit trying to keep track of statistics…

GAME SEVEN: Betty watches again. Apparently, the range is “suckiness” is fairly wide, as she proclaimed that I still sucked, but nowhere near as badly as during the first game she endured.

The team practiced fast and high slap-shots at me before the game, which was a portend of real game conditions. During the second period, I, um, ‘stopped’ a shot in the cup area. Good thing that the cup was there, because I definitely would have been too hurt to do anything for a long time. As it was, I cussed out loud a bit and did little more than just stand there for the next few minutes. (I suspect the team and anyone else who is watching thinks that is what I do pretty much all the time, anyway). Two days after the game, there is a red puck-shaped bruise inches from the, um, target area. (Two weeks after, there is still a pronounced circular ‘birth mark.’) And the third period — another stopped shot found it’s way between the bottom of the helmet and the top of the chest/shoulder pads. Ouch — the right collarbone. I was even more nauseous after that one.

However, I think I’ve adopted a habit which seems to work whenever there is a melee nearby. I started doing this the last half of the game. After allowing two or three sloppy shots skidding right on the ice to go into the goal between my feet, I finally heeded some teammate’s admonitions to drop to my knees. “Drop down.” “Fall on it.” And so, anytime there was a frantic scrambling crowd anywhere near the goal, I’d drop down on my knees, shuffling about like a legless man on a cart, and THAT often ‘did the trick.’

And, THAT is perhaps the most surprising thing, “at my old age,” about this hockey-goalie thing. At home, doing yard work, sometimes during a hike, it seems that I can’t do much in the way of bending over, kneeling down, etc. It’s gotten so that when I’m emptying the clothes dryer and an item falls to the floor, I’ll wait until I’m done because something else often will fall, and I have only so many ‘bend over’s’ in me. But — during my 7-game hockey career — I now don’t even think (much) about falling down, laying down, dropping down, throwing my body on the ice, and getting back up. I get up relatively quickly, often in time to do it all over again a half-minute later. However, back home, emptying the dryer the next day, it’s the same old conservation of altitude…

There is no way my goals-allowed average will drop to less than ten — this season. I can only hope (and, yes, I think it’s true — ) that I stop at least 2/3’s of all shots. Yes, you’re right — many of those stopped shots are done simply by me standing there. But (of course) I’ll act like I meant it.

GAME EIGHT: I was on vacation the previous week and the team acquired a substitute goalie. I had mentioned missing the next game to them after my last game and they immediately began to talk about who they might get. Turns out someone knew a goalie from Montrose, a quite good one at that. They shut out the poor Firefighters 9 – 0. I bet they used at least another ‘ringer’ or two besides. During my only win, so far, there were at least two players drafted for the occasion from the ‘B’ league.

When I arrived at the rink on game night I chatted with Curt, who opened the equipment room for me before each game so I could borrow the leg-pads, shoulder/chest pads, gloves, and stick. I sensed a note of disdain in his voice when he answered my inquiry about my team’s goalie the previous week. “Yeah, they brought in the San Juan team goalie. He’s of “A” league caliber.” If I correctly sensed disdain, it was due to Curt’s desire for, basically, novice teams to be mostly novice.

I also bumped into Jacoba, one of two women on our team. She’s married to Nick, and they regularly come down from Rifle. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I felt that Nick was somewhat friendly when I first met him. Before the following and subsequent games, whenever I would come into the locker room Nick would look at me with a mixture of disgust and disbelief. Disbelief that it was I who showed up and not someone else. Anyhow, I was still in street clothes and I quipped, “you guys sure played a good game last week,”

She brightened. “Yeah, it’d be neat if we could always have that goalie.”

I smiled back. She didn’t recognize me, and if I were her, or anybody else on the team, I’d want a much better goalie.

We were playing the Firefighters again, and I was nervous, possibly more so than usual. If we lost, obviously it’d be MY FAULT. Also, due to the convoluted novice-league records and standings, if we lost we’d be tied with the Firefighters for last place, whereas if we won, we’d be tied for 2nd (it’s a 4-team league). Trivial details.

We were ahead for most the game. Fortunately (?) I’ve forgotten most the details until the 3rd period. We were up 3 – 2. Then they tied it. With two minutes remaining they scored another. This is the only team in the league which has a dedicated following. Usually, there are a couple dozen or more fans — family members and other fire-personnel. There was excitement and an anticipatory buzz from the stands. Their team called a time-out with less than two minutes remaining. I disconsolately skated over to our box. No-one said anything to me, just a comment or two among themselves — “Let’s get a goal and tie this up.”

Unlike the game where I felt I didn’t lose — the rest of the team did — this game was the reverse. The Bombers scored THREE GOALS in that final 1:30. One was called back, another player in the crease or something like that. Still, a 5 – 4 nail biter. Gave the people in the stands a thrilling conclusion (too bad most of them were rooting for the other team). Jacoba and Nick came up and congratulated me. I had the feeling that they’d recently attended a “be kind to senior citizens” seminar.

GAME NINE: (the post-season play-offs): For a few weeks, and a few games, I had been considering something really radical. Improve my vision. I had gone to a glasses store and asked for ‘rec-specs’ — something which might fit in the helmet AND not slip nor fall off. Now that I think about it, they would probably steam up. So …

I got contacts. Forty-five years of wearing glasses and avoiding the alternative. I’m somewhat surprised how quickly I was able to get some. I wore them home from the eye-doctor’s, then took them out when I got home. No sense in too much too soon. However, I put them in before leaving for the game.

On the way to the arena, a policeman pulled me over for going 16 over the limit and running a red light. Good thing I hid the open beer bottle. I didn’t even have to do much pretending — a somewhat distracted borderline senior citizen en route to a rendezvous with probably overwhelming circumstances. No ticket, just a warning … “Good luck,” he said. “Watch your speed and those stop lights.”

Oh yeah, the Firefighters — AGAIN. Of course I was apprehensive. Improved vision might not make a difference. And the other team would be hungry — they came so close last time. And … we were missing a few players. That wasn’t unusual, but what made me (and, I suspect, the rest of the team) feel doomed was the absence of Jeremy, our best regular* player. Blood in the water …

Larry, the only guy on the team I knew from my prior existence, had a son in high school. Tanner regularly played in the high-school league but had played for us before. There are several people who can’t get “enough” hockey and play in more than one league, on more than one team, AND are available as substitutes for other teams. Jeremy and another team member also play in a B league team. Anyway, there was little doubt among most of the team that Tanner saved our lives. An explanation, of course, is in order …

The league officials decided that the playoffs should include only the three “real” novice league teams. The in-house team, the Freeze, which had won all ten regular season games by comfortable margins, was excluded. After all, they were supposed to be in the upper leagues. The three remaining teams had similar records. We regularly outscored the Firefighters. They beat the Rovers two out of three times. And the Rovers won our three games with them. However, they had the best statistics of the three teams. The winner of tonight’s playoff would get a break and play for the championship the following week. The loser of this game would have to play the Rovers immediately after the game. Whoever lost, would be too tired to do well in a second game. No wonder the sense of dread and doom was palpable in the locker room. If we lost, well, if we didn’t actually die, it would seem like it. And so Tanner saved our lives.

During the pre-game warm-ups I could actually SEE. For the first time, I was able to use the left, the “catcher’s mitt” glove to try to catch pucks. Seeing helped me resist the impulse to use that hand to cover the crotchal area. I could see what the other goalie was doing. Previously, I could tell approximately where the goalie was, if he (or she) was flat on the ice, but little else.

We were on the offensive right from the start. Actually, we are a good first-period team. If all our games ended before the second period, we would have won a few more games (we were actually ahead of the Freeze early in the 2nd period one game, and ahead of the Rovers twice). I think I deflected three shots on goal when the period ended. The score was 0 – 0 with perhaps 75% or more of the game played at their end. We were up 3 – 0 after two periods, and I had a little more action.

During the final period, I was wishing time would speed up. “One minute down fourteen to go” I said to myself. “Three minutes gone, twelve to go.” At about 10:00 they scored a goal, followed a couple minutes later by another. And then we fouled twice. Two guys in the penalty box at the same time. Although I feel that I am “dug in” most the time, this time we really did. The five of them gathered expectantly around our three for the puck drop.

A bit of frenzied scrambling, some swats at the puck, and Tanner was off on a solo break towards the other goalie. Though his goal attempt was deflected, I could feel the other team become more wary. The pressure was off, slightly. Somehow we held our own for that two minutes, and with about two minutes to go the other team’s “big guy” was whistled for knocking Tanner to the ice. I was relieved but not about to let my guard down.

With less than ten seconds remaining the battle is on near my goal. I remember Tanner swatting the puck up-ice with 6 seconds on the clock and time ran out. Nick started to hoist me up on his shoulder, expecting another or two to join him. No-one else seemed so inclined, so he just bounced me off the wall a few times. One teammate asked if I had been watching goalie instructional videos, and another said he thought I was much improved. “I can SEE,” I said.

*By ‘regular’ I mean actually on the team roster. I don’t think the Bombers had played a game yet without an upper division ‘ringer.’ The previous week, for example, we had Jeremy’s future brother-in-law, a smooth precise sharp-skating Ontario resident.

Post Script: (finals of the play-offs): my gift to the team was not to be there. They acquired the 17-year-old son of the premier team’s goalie. And they won, 9 – 2. So, seeing as how I was the regular team goalie, playing in nine of twelve games, I am a league champ too.

I would have liked to have played, but my employer had a meeting in Denver the morning after the game. It would have been darned inconvenient to play and then get to Denver by 8:30 a.m. I’d like to think we would have still won, but the score would have been more like 9 – 6.

BETUNADAZZ INVADE TRONCONES

Posted on April 12, 2012 by betunada

4 enero 2009: es el día primero para nos aquí a Casa de Oro. Es muy divertido para nos, especialmente que estuvieron al norte en la nieve y frio ayer. Buscamos y encontramos una playa excelente (pero pequeño) no muy … Continue reading →

innunguaq ramblings

Posted on April 7, 2012 by betunada

INUKSUIT ramblings

(“i used to make wombats”)

Ah … a span of time without anchors. A day off from work! No chores at home either (leaky faucets, doors not plumb within frames, unsightly detritus on the premises). Spouse off to her job ’til the dark evening hours, weather not too hot nor too muddy nor too frigid to be outdoors. Time to go ramble, with the dogs.

We (well, the dogs have little choice, they bark and lean over the sides and sometimes poop in the back of the truck) drive a short distance from the house. I go to trailheads where the likelihood of encountering others is slim, partly ’cause that’s the way I like it, and the dogs need time to be free-spirited unleashed beasts without boundaries. Reducing the possibility of bothering karmically-challenged people who worry about strange dogs intruding into their sacred spatial arenas. The buttheads.

I’ve brought two cigars for this trip. And filled-up the brandy flask. No telling, really, where the muse will take us, long as whatever it is ends by dark-thirty or earlier. I did tell Betty a different destination, but the almost-usual last-minute decision dictated elsewhere. I park 6.5 miles from the house, but it could be a few thousand years away. After a half-mile along a trail, we’ll diverge. Chances are after another half-mile, we’ll see little or no indications of other people having been there. Cows, maybe. This is Federal land. And where we’re headed, there aren’t supposed to be any trails…

I used to make wombats. I don’t know why I ever embarked on this pastime, nor do I remember my first wombat. A back-country dog-hike was not ‘good’ until I found a spot to spell out “W O M B A T.” (In rocks. on the ground.) The less likely anyone will ever see it, the better.

An inuksuk (plural inuksuit) alternatively inukshuk is a stone landmark or cairn built by humans, used by the Inuit and other peoples of the Arctic region of North America. The inuksuk may have been used for navigation, as a point of reference, a marker for hunting grounds, or as a food cache.*

Now wombats are on the back burner. I had been considering, experimenting, constructing ‘test’ inuksuk, or inunnguaq (if one wants to get technical as that is the human form of the Inuit cairn-expression). And about two weeks ago the muse, or the subterranean intradimensional influences, or the mental/psychic/emotional equivalent of a long-overdue quasi-artistic urge, manifested in an inuk manner. I found the spot, the materials were available, an inuksuk assembled itself … with some help from me. The dogs just wandered around sniffing and digging and occasionally checking on me and then wandering off again.

So we wander. I have a general area in mind. A ridge beyond where even I occasionally sojourn. Perhaps the ridge after that. It just depends — on the so-called muse, and, of course, the muse would take a good location and decent construction materials into account.

We cruise up the trail, and where it turns to continue up the ridge just north of Highway 141, we don’t. Zigzagging down across the next valley and up the slope to the next ridge. Then down, and up the next ridge and we’ll proceed with the muse-gates more receptive and open on the other side.

I see human boot-prints, and am glad somebody else forsakes the established trail to bushwhack. Whoever it is, an artifact hunter? worse yet, someone with a gun? or a random itinerariless wanderer with an agenda as vague yet esoteric as mine? helps me decide that we go yet another ridge. Beyond the pale, whatever that means. Actually, I wonder if anywhere on this earth is beyond the pale, what with the GPS eyes in the sky and the ever-more accurate precise mapping of everything. Personal, and I’m sure, general experience has shown that one can not just tweak, but whack the pale out of the park with the right mix of psychotropics. But that is not to be seriously approached with my preferred combo of brandy and cigars …

Pale out of the picture, the horizon looks as it probably did a few hundred, nay, a couple, three thousand years ago. The circum-polar landmark potential beckons.

Dogzeneye survey the ridge-top we’re on. The inuk-spot location optimization does not exactly call out for action. The dogs become pre-occupied with pee-mail nexuses and bones to chew on, olfactory delights. I decide that a rock ledge half-way up from the valley bottom to the top of the next ridge north is our candidate location.

But it is not. There comes a time when the line in the sand has to be drawn, and attaining the 5th or 6th (it’s easy for me to lose track) ridge-top north of Highway 141 will either be THE SPOT and if not, we’ll back-track to one of the more-promising locations considered earlier.

It is breezy, nay, windy on this ridge. The approaching winter storm is stalled a few miles to the west.

The word inuksuk means “something which acts for or performs the function of a person.” An inuksuk is often confused with an inunnguaq, a cairn representing a human figure. There is some debate as to whether the appearance of human- or cross-shaped cairns developed in the Inuit culture before the arrival of Europeanmissionaries and explorers. The inunnguaq is distinguished from inuksuit in general.*

I begin the

inunnguaq creation by following a process I initiated a couple weeks before. Gather material, pile it around ground zero. Choose big blocky chunks for the feet. These have to be stable! Take care that the leg-pieces are also flat and preferably square-ish. You will need a couple or more large flat ‘body’ pieces to rest on the legs — and not of the inferior quality sandstone which would break to pieces if you dropped it from waist-high. Be sure there are several thin small pieces for shims and ‘chinking.’ Take care to locate strong and long rectangular rocks for the arms. Enough solid preferably cubic blocks for the upper body and to weigh down the shoulders. A collar-bone section, upon which the neck pieces and, finally, the head can securely rest.

Periodically, rock the structure-in-progress gently with one hand and note where shims or ‘chink’ pieces should be inserted to dampen sway. You do want this to withstand a windstorm, not to mention death by bird-perch. Granted, if a cow were to bump into it … I’d need either a half-dozen labor crew and/or construction machinery to make an inuksuk that large!

The dogs have little or nothing nearby in the olfactory delight availability, maybe the wind or impending storm has them apprehensive, and they are glad to leave.

There is a customary Inuit saying: “The great peril of our existence lies in the fact that our diet consists entirely of souls.”

(By believing that all things, including animals, have souls like those of humans, any hunt that failed to show appropriate respect and customary supplication would only give the liberated spirits cause to avenge themselves.)*

I do not exactly backtrack, and make this a circular, not out-and-back, wandering. I’m not tired, the dogs are more energetic than I, there is yet another cigar and the brandy flask has heft. Unlikely, but perhaps my diet of recent has been mostly comprised of souls. No wonder my seemingly sedate existence is paralleled by the great peril a millimeter away. So I build a smaller inuksuk up but across the valley from the ridge-top one.

Later on, I spell out a ‘wombat’ on a windswept hilltop much closer to the car.

* thanks to Wikipedia.com for selected excerpts

Eddy’s coming to visit. Betty (and I) have to make some effort to re-arrange our house so as to (1) make it more safe for a wandering curious 1-year-old (2) make OUR STUFF less likely to break (3) … I’m sure there’s a third concern but we’re focused on #s 1 & 2.

We decided that a “stairgate” is probably warranted. You know, a device which fits in the space at the top of the stairs, fitting tightly and snugly against the walls so as to prevent baby from tumbling down (along with jack and/or jill, broken crowns and all).

But I couldn’t get the idea of a StarGate out of my head.

There’s a movie (“Click”) wherein Adam Sandler plays a married man who goes to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to buy I-don’t-know-what and ends up at the back of the store, going into the section called BEYOND. Christopher Walken plays the part of the employee back there, and Adam buys a sort of television remote which can SPEED UP (or slow down) TIME, among other things. And … if you can purchase a time-travel/twisting remote at “Beyond,” so I reasoned, it isn’t a stretch that they’d have a STARGATE.

So, I’m considering going into the BEYOND section of the store and purchasing one. You know, a StarGate. Which I can put at the top of the stairs. Yes, there could be problems. Like, if Eddy goes through, where and when and why and how will he end up? Will he be okay? I assume so. I think he’d end up in a place where not only does he have bowell- and bladder-control, heck, he would have CONTROL over any- and everything he encounters. He’d be able to WILL what- and whoever there to do whatever he wants. He’ll master the beasts. Breasts, magnificent breasts of heaven, will appear whenever he so desires, with sustenance of divine (and sometimes playfully diabolic) attributes and taste.

Well, stay toond. At least we’ll buy the stairgate. But the idea of the StarGate got me thinkin’. The doggzenkatz would probably go into it, too. And if not they, something(s) else might come back.

Liven up a dull day, eh?

STAIRGATE, or STARGATE?

ah, go ahead, promulgate, profusely, if possible

ah, go ahead, promulgate, profusely, if possible

ah, go ahead, promulgate, profusely, if possible

ah, go ahead, promulgate, profusely, if possible

ah, go ahead, promulgate, profusely, if possible

ah, go ahead, promulgate, profusely, if possible

ah, go ahead, promulgate, profusely, if possible

ah, go ahead, promulgate, profusely, if possible