Short Stories -- Duff Walker

Winning the Hearts and Minds

2008-05-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

Winning the Hearts and Minds

"Dinky Dau," Kate replied. "It's Vietnamese for 'crazy'." The lieutenant was in her mid thirties, an army nurse with a voice like a wood rasp. She had a few miles on her after eight months in country, but she was still attractive.
"They call the C.O. Colonel Dinky Dau?" asked Ellen. She was just off the plane and still had that fresh look the cherries always have. She had bright red hair, freckles, an engaging smile, and some nice curves.
"He distinguished himself again today," Doug Warren began. Doug was our court jester. He carried an extra twenty pounds and had an easy laugh. He was the internist, assigned to volunteer for this week’s medcap mission.
"Our mission is to win the hearts and minds in Hoa Loc Village. Right?" At lunch, Doug began his irreverent imitation with this description. "Colonel Crazy, chief of Neurosurgery, steps out of his air conditioned headquarters. He is a bad ass in his Special Forces camouflage with subdued insignias, a jungle hat with a plastic bottle of insect repellent in the hatband and camouflage netting securing branches and leaves. He looks like Dicky Smothers in a special forces uniform—with a web belt and canteen on the left, a forty five holster on the right, and an extra clip at each side of his chest for the M-16 in his left hand. He takes command. With a snappy salute to our protection, the platoon of grunts in the first three jeeps, he jumps in the lead jeep of our little convoy, and we're eating his dust down to the river.”
The mess hall was a dangerous place for this performance, but that’s where Doug performed and he would risk anything for the laugh.
Mike McManus, our soft spoken, thin, balding trauma surgeon from St. Louis had laughter in his pale blue eyes. "Not one of those grunts laughs at Dinky Dau. Right away, I feel safe—those are some disciplined troops." We laughed again.
"We all know Col. Dinky Dau. But what about this "winning the hearts and minds" deal. You want crazy? We pass out a few pills to the women and children. When the men come back to the village tonight, are they going to be impressed with our humanitarian effort? What do we expect? That they--what? Call in V.C. positions? Hell, maybe they are V.C. themselves. We are expecting them to change sides to the ARVN’s? "
"So. How's ‘winning the hearts and minds’ any different from this whole damned war?" Kate asked.
Nobody had the answer.
We were two docs, two nurses, the dentist, two dental assistants and the pharmacist back from our jungle medcap mission late for the usual Saturday lunch of fried rice. We were chasing it with Kool Aid, the only substance that could partially disguise the heavily chlorinated water.
"Well. Look who's coming. It's our mover and shaker, Dr. J.D. White," Mike said almost under his breath.
"This one's not crazy. He's just a jerk—also the chief of surgery," Kate murmured to Ellen, still looking after her newcomer.
"Did we get some good numbers?" J.D. asked Mike as he pulled up a chair.
"Step right up, folks. It's the Great American Medicine Show." Mike pulled some folded sheets from a pocket. He smoothed them out on the table with both hands, and read aloud. "We saw 32 patients for medical diagnoses 6 for infectious disease, 14 for surgical diagnoses, 3 minor surgeries if we count iatrogenic disease. Pharmacy dispensed 44 bottles of liniment, 240 tabs of Pen VK, 220 tabs of lomotil, two million units of IM penicillin. Jim did 5 extractions and 7 fillings, and stole the show with his shiny instruments, mirrors, and dental chair.
"I sure am glad to have the support of some numbers, J.D. Aren't you?" Doug asked irreverently. He loved to needle J.D. "It’s important that we go about this scientifically."
J.D. just shook his head. He knew what was coming. He would chuckle at the jokes, even enjoy them. But he had one main interest. That was command.
"Let's see," Doug continued. "What equals one 'heart and mind'? An extracted tooth? A lomotil tablet? Tell me. And I’m sure that we have a control group…you know, a village that has had no madcap mission. Do the generals compare these stats with body counts of the field units? You know, see how we did on the hearts and minds, see if we decreased the number of our casualties."
"If you want to find out what goes on in the field units, I can arrange that. I just hope that you saw more patients than the docs from 93rd Evac, smartass. That’s what the brass wants. It’s what I’m going to give them. They want us to count, we’re going to count." J.D. bored in.
"Oh," said Doug in mock disappointment. "You mean it's not really an experiment?" Doug couldn’t quit.
“You just volunteer and count and things will be fine, Doug,” J.D. turned to Mike, "If iatrogenic disease counts? What's that supposed to mean, Mike?"
"Physician caused disease, J.D."
"I know what the word means, smartass. What did you guys do out there this morning?
"We did you proud J.D.," Mike said, deadpan serious. "We're the only medical team to come back with a body count. We had down three when the smoke cleared. It took two cases of oranges, but it worked like a charm."
Doug laughed. Ellen burst out crying.
"You insensitive clod," Kate hissed at Mike. "She thinks it's her fault."
"I wanted to give the children a treat...some candy or...something." Ellen sobbed.
"Oh no you don't," Doug said earnestly. I want the credit. I’m in line for a bronze star. Those oranges were my idea. While you nurses were dreaming about candy; I scrounged two cases of oranges."
"I guess you got the three notches for orange crates." Mike saluted Doug with his left hand.
"You're not funny." Kate was furious.
"We wanted to give the kids something," Ellen whispered.
"Goodwill miscarried once again. It's the American way." Mike said.
“As American as apple pie and Viet Nam,” said Doug.
J.D. gave them a wry smile.
"It's all a joke to you two. You make fun of everything don’t you?" Ellen was bright red in the face angry.
"We try," Doug replied
"This is funny," Mike said softly to Ellen. "Enjoy this. Serious will come in on the choppers tonight."
"Now, children." J.D. held both hands up, palms out. Then he got serious."Stop talking in innuendo, Doug. Tell me what happened, the details."
Here's how Doug reported our mission:
They loaded us into three gun boats. The river was a half mile wide and bordered by a lush tropical jungle. Two hundred foot trees, triple canopy, with growth between the trees so dense that it was almost dark on the ground. There was all kinds of sampan traffic. Several boats passed us very close. They were filled to the gunwhales with people taking goods to market...fish, wicker cages full of ducklings, bags of fruit, and baskets of eggs. The river people were doing their activities of daily living. The war seemed remote.
We tied up at Hua Loc just upriver from the outhouse, the four holer on stilts over the river. The water beneath was boiling with jumping fish -- number one Vietnamese fish flush toilets. Some women were washing clothes on rocks 200 feet—down stream.
Our platoon did a sweep through the village and sent their interpreter to fetch us.
"Alpha Charlie Echo," he said.
I didn't get it. Then I realized it was the name that the grunts had given him.
"Ace?" I asked.
"Yes," he said with a broad smile. He was enthusiastic.
Ace was about 17 years old, with skin as smooth as a nectarine. He was dressed in the smallest possible size of camouflage fatigues. He wore the same U.S. jungle boots that I had and a canvas military style belt with a brass buckle. He spoke quickly but exactly. His English was good, and he was comfortable with us round eyes. As I talked with him, the boisterous conversation in the platoon quieted, and every soldier concentrated on Ace. When he talked, they listened. The platoon had chosen his name carefully.
"Number one platoon?" I asked.
"Yes, number one," he said.
"Are you always with them?"
He nodded once, "Yes, always."
"At night?"
"Many missions in night," he replied seriously.
I nodded.
"Hua Loc. V.C.?"
"No V.C.," he said with confidence.
"Do you live here?" I asked.
"My village …Mekong...south."
"Long way," I said.
"Gone," he said flatly.
"Gone?" I asked crossing my throat with my index finger.
He nodded yes.
"Your family?" I asked.
"Dead," he said. He maintained his control, only his eyes showed the loss.
"I'm sorry," I almost whispered.
He just looked at me, alert, waiting for my next question. God, my “sorry” was so inadequate.
"Have you translated for clinic before? You know. Words for talking to sick people?"
"Yes, many."
An old man with a wispy goatee greeted us. He was the village chief. Slowly, Ace and Chief led the procession. Mutual curiosity was silent at first. Ace broke the ice and started a few conversations for us. We broke out our Nikons, and the villagers had a good look at us…at all the stuff we hauled out there. Their houses were open, thatched roof structures. They had no windows and no doors. During the day the ducks, chickens, dogs, and pigs had free run of the village including the houses. The only villagers around were women, children, and a few frail old men. The men were hiding. If the Americans get your “hearts and minds” in the morning, the V.C. come at night and get you “by the nuts”.
The old women were in the streets. They had taken positions in front of their houses and were squatting flatfooted with their butts effortlessly suspended above the ground between their ankles. Most were grinding what looked like rice using mortar and pestle. They looked at us with a mixture of curiosity and the resolute acceptance. About half were chewing beetelnut. They smiled broadly and showed us their red stained teeth. Chewing is an old woman's sport. They are tough. No spitting—they swallow most of it.
A group of about twenty children brought up the rear following the nurses and medics who were toting the boxes of medicines, instruments, and oranges.
"The chief says after clinic...big party," Ace told me as we arrived at the community center. There were about 30 patients waiting in line.
"What do they eat?" I was worried about this party.
"Fish," Ace said. My stomach flipped as I remembered where the fishing would probably be best. And what about drinking water. I was worried about this party.
We set up clinic. Mike with Kate and Ellen with me, we kept Ace between us so that we could alternate patients. We started working on the line hawking our medical magic.
We started with a middle aged lady with deep set eyes.
"What kind of trouble is she having?"
Ace exchanged several sentences with her. "Pain. Arms and legs" he summarized.
"Have her point."
More chatter. She points to her left elbow, then right knee.
"How long?"
This question stimulated a long conversation.
“Some pains a long time from child but not bad. Very bad one month.”
"Both the knee and the elbow?"
Another long conversation. "Mostly elbow," Ace replied.
Did she ever hurt it? Has it been red or warm? Other joints involved? Each question had its conversation. I gave up sorting out degenerative joint disease, rheumatic fever, and rheumatoid arthritis using Ace's condensed history and a thermometer.
"Are we taking any samples back to the laboratory?" I asked looking over at our supervising CO.
He shook his head "No lab work."
"Follow up visits?"
The Dinky Dau shook his head, "No" again. "No hospitilization. No surgery," he said.
"Not much to do. We can only treat her symptoms. Have we got some kind of Tiger Balm--something topical? "I asked our pharmacist.
"Sure. Liniment in 8 ounce bottles." He held it up. It was a pretty blue liquid. Our patient smiled. She liked the looks of it.
"Tell her to rub it in. Right where it hurts. It will feel very warm. She should exercise the elbow, keep it moving," I told Ace and he passed it on.
She opened the bottle and rubbed a few drops on her elbow. We could all smell the oil of wintergreen. Her eyes widened with surprise of the warm skin sensation. She looked at me and bowed slightly.
My second patient was a middle aged woman who presented her arm to me and pointed to her elbow.
"How long it has been hurting?" I asked Ace. They traded several sentences of Vietnamese.
"Long time," Ace replied.
"Give her some liniment," I told Ellen.
Mike and Ace took the next patient in line who pointed to his knee. The history was briefer this time, and the end result was a bottle of the blue medicine.
Ellen had been down the line.
"The patients in the front of this line aren't sick. There are two draining abscesses at the back, and two patients that had to be carried," she said.
Our next patient was pointing to her wrist. A short sentence of translation, Vietnamese then English.
"Pain," said Ace.
I reached into the box and retrieved a blue bottle, and gave it to our patient who nodded her head with great satisfaction. Once they caught on, every patient stepped up and said “Pain”, Ace told us. “Same, Same last man”
“Do they all want colored liniment to rub on?” I asked Ace. He nodded.
"Tell him to get rid of these people who crowded into line. Let's get to the sick ones," hissed Kate.
Ace shook his head. I looked at him inquisitively.
"These first," he said, pointing to the front of the line. "Number one big shots."
"Bullshit," said Ellen with disgust.
"No bullshit," Ace stood his ground. He knew how to buy influence. The generals should put Ace in charge of the Hearts and Minds program.
Mike's next patient was pointing to her wrist.
"Blue medicine?" he asked Ace. He nodded.
Ace nodded and Kate gave her a bottle as the next patient stepped up for Ellen and me.
"Line up for blue medicine," I announced.
Ace translated. Things moved right along. I passed out a bottle of blue medicine to 26 patients, exuded good will, and examined any offered body part. There was a slight hitch when we ran out of blue medicine and had to switch to red liniment with a cinnamon scent. Red sold even better. We passed out another 18 bottles, and the cupboard was bare. It added to the prestige of those who had received liniment when some of their later and lesser neighbors came up short. Oil of wintergreen – now there is some kind of propaganda juice.
We were down to the patients who were sick. A twelve year old boy had a bamboo splinter in his elbow for about 3 weeks, an untreated joint space infection that had destroyed the radial head. We incised the joint and left a drain in, with instructions for irrigation and oral antibiotics.
We had about five of these spectacular complications from untreated infections. There were four of five patients with untreated fractures that had healed with debilitating deformities. But we couldn’t do any surgery, so the patients had to get by on liniment.
As the finale, we saw a woman with a huge ulcerating breast cancer. No magic. No one had the fortitude to offer her liniment.
The villagers took us to a clearing where they had cooked a pig on a spit. They had put it on a table surrounded with bowls of rice and fruit. The chief made a long speech. I feigned interest in the cook's carving skill to get in for a close look at the meat. It was well done.
We ate with a feeling of ceremony. The meal was delicious. The locals came out in force...to eat and to inspect us. They gave us the same curious awe that Mike had for their water buffaloes.
As things were winding down, the time seemed right for an American innovation--dessert. Ellen and Kate were giddy. They could give their gifts to the children. The corpsmen brought the two cases of oranges to the tables and opened them.
"Have the children form a single line. We will give each child an orange," Ellen told Ace.
I made a rough check. No problem. Plenty of oranges. Ace was making the public announcement and the line was forming in front of Ellen. The smaller children were eager. They were the first in line, a horde of eager cherubic faces. As Ellen began to pass out the oranges, the older children began to come forward. They were trying to say something to each kid, to present each orange. It was too slow. The older kids pressed from behind.
"Tell them to stop pushing," Ellen said to Ace.
Ace tried. Despite his efforts, excitement in the lines mounted. The small ones in front had their faces smashed up against the edge of the table. They were wedged, unable to move.
"Let's get rid of the damn things," urged one of the corpsmen as he took oranges from the box behind the table and started passing them out to the left side of the table. Another corpsman took a position on the other end of the table. The lines disintegrated. The larger children were breaking for the ends of the table. They knocked the smaller children down, ran over them, on them. Small bodies hit the ground. They made dull thuds. Sounded like a close up mike on a goal line stand at a Rose Bowl game. Heads were bouncing like melons. Sickening sounds. Mike and I started throwing oranges toward the rear of the crowd to take the pressure off of the front rows, and the larger children still overran several of the small ones in the open field.
"Dear God! Stop this!" Ellen was screaming.
Where were the parents? Standing at the periphery gathering the booty, five or six oranges cradled in folded arms. None of us had thought to ask the street value of an orange. A child would deposit an orange with a parent, and fly back into the melee undaunted by a bloody nose or a knot on the head.
I looked to one of the mothers hoping for help. She turned away in fear. She looked back over her shoulder like a raccoon stealing groceries, ready to bolt...with her arm load oranges. We began throwing the oranges near the parents to reduce the collisions. The corpsmen followed suit.
It was as fast as a prairie grass fire. Whoosh. Then it was over.
As families left, almost in flight, we surveyed the damage. Three kids were still down, semi-conscious. There were no fractures. We got off with a bloody nose and three scalp lacerations and three concussions. We did a thirty minute suture clinic. Then we packed up to leave.
Doug ended his report with: “So, J.D. They stood in line all morning for thirty eight bottles of liniment. They almost gave the lives of several children for 2 boxes of our oranges. So, the jury’s out with regard to the hearts and minds?

Who is Carlo dalMasso

2008-05-06T15:14:00.001-07:00

Who is Carlo dalMasso?

“Let me see,” Pinky insisted.
“None of your business,” I replied, pulling down my bike shorts.
“You said you were a little saddle sore.”
“So? We did ride 50 miles, you know.”
“Aha! I got a peek. You have baboon ass again. I saw red.”
“I’ll be fine. So let’s have a look at yours, smarty pants.”
“Not on your life, buster. Mine is fine. You didn’t rinse the soap out of your shorts last night. That’s why you’re sore. It takes three rinses”
“Tonight then. Three rinses, no more soap.”
“I can make you feel better too,” she said. “It’s right next to the toilet. I’ll run some warm water in it for you and you can just soak a little.”
“No way. I’m not sitting in that thing.”
“Nobody will know. It feels good. You’d like it if you would just try it. Come on, just have a little soak. The Italians all use them. Ask Carlo. I bet he has. I’ve used it twice.”
“I am not asking Carlo.”
Carlo was our host at La Soffita, a Bed and Breakfast in Schio, Italy. We were traveling in Italy on our bikes. I wasn’t going to ask him any kind of personal question, especially not that one.
“I’ve known him for about twenty four hours, and I’m not asking him if he sits in a douche bowl.”
So began our second night in at La Soffita. Why had we come here? The art, history, and the cuisine; we had the usual laudable reasons. Those were really the excuses for spending money. On arrival in Venice, the real purpose of our trip had been: Find a three pronged adapter for the standard European two prong plug on Pinky’s hair dryer and my battery charger. Perfect, our trip was a success within 48 hours. We could have gone home – dry haired, charged, and satisfied. But Pinky now had a new purpose for her trip: to get me into the bidet.
I had my own mission: a Reverse Amerigo Vespucci Mission -- Prove the existence of Italy. My approach was existential. I presumed that no part of Italy been discovered if I had no photographic record of it.
“I would like to burn the Venice photos onto a CD so I can start over with empty memory chips in the camera. Carlo is home now. I’m going down stairs,” I said .
“Isn’t his computer at work?” Pinky wondered.
“It is, but Federico’s coming over tonight at ten.”
Frederico was our host’s son, a computer scientist, and I hoped he would have the equipment I needed to burn the CD.”
“That Carlo is something else isn’t he?” The internet junkie had impressed her.
“He’s not playing ‘Donkey Kong’ online. He likes the cerebral stuff.”
“Who would ever download ‘Quantum Computing and Sentient Behavior’ or whatever it was, for entertainment?”
“More amazing is that he read it.”
“I’d say he might be your kind of guy, Mr. Webmaster,” she teased. “And you have other things in common with Carlo, one son with a Ph. D. in physics, and other who is a computer geek like his Federico. Plus Carlo rides a bike to work.”
“Yep. I love this guy already.”
“Who pays for the paper he prints everyday, not to mention his time?”
“I’m not sure. But, I get the idea that he may be the one asking questions at work.”
“The Boss? Nah, I bet he puts his pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us. Besides, if he’s the boss, why is he running a Bed and Breakfast?”
“I don’t know. It’s like asking a CFO at Shell Oil Company who pays for his computer paper -- when he would probably be thinking more about the merger with British Petroleum.”
“His wife works at the Care Center in Malo. He’s probably a working stiff exec.”
“Maybe. At any rate, he’s a great guy.
I recalled the pleasant introduction to Carlo. We had barely arrived, when boom – he was home from work. We chatted a little about our families, then he asked whether we needed a recommendation for dinner.
“Well, yes,” I admitted. We knew next to nothing about local restaurants.
“What type of meal do you prefer?”
“Close, for the biccicleti a notte,”
“And probably something cheap,” Carlo smiled.
Pinky had laughed about that. “Did he have you figured out or what?”
“He did,” I told her. “but I’m not alone. He put a smile on your sweet little face with the ‘Al Paiolo’.”
What a meal. The people at the restaurant had ransacked their kitchen to find a paiolo to show us how they grind polenta. They went an extra mile, in my opinion.
After dinner,they invited us into the back where they were preparing herring for their polenta festa in the village on Saturday. “Taste; e Vino, .. wine… oh, e polenta,” the owner told us, gesturing a little space between thumb and index finger; then zap, the waitress appeared with these accessories to our tasting of the herring – another meal.
When we got back to La Soffita, Carlo told me he and Marielena have never eaten there. We decided they might not eat out very much, or maybe they ate at nicer restaurants, although I don’t know how it could get much better than Al Paiolo.

After sharing an after dinner drink of Grappa with Carlo and his wife, we realized we had many things in common. We got to know them well on that first night.
Pinky had remarked that their daughter, Emma, was a cutie.
“Yes, she’s absolutely the most beautiful Chemistry major I’ve ever seen.” Emma was the one who actually met us and signed us in, passport numbers…so on, and then giving us directions to the pizza place, ‘firs-ta you go on this-a streeta to the T, turn left-a, then next a right-a, there will be a bridge-a.’, perfect English but with some ending vowels to give it a comfortable rhythm.”
“I love the accenta” Pinky experimented with her own vowel additions. We were becoming more Italian every day.
“I love it, too. Well, we have some new friends, Italian friends. And I’m going downstairs with the memory chip” I said.
“So, go,” she shooed me out of the room. Probably so she could rinse her shorts in peace.

Downstairs, Carlo told me that he spent a lot of time in front of a computer at work, and when he saw my face light up, he said he was a user, not a computer person. He said he works with recycling; explaining that he was involved in manufacturing paper from recycled paper products. He has been staying close to home for the last several years because his mother is pushing ninety, and his dad is 93. They live in the apartment, the several rooms just beyond the kitchen, totally self contained and separate but tangent, as are their lives. What a good son, I thought. It was good planning, and good luck to be able to carry it out.
We shared some of our experiences. Pinky told them about moving her parents to the nursing home in Mount Vernon, the vagaries of caring for dementia, and I told them my recent bout as executor for my mother’s estate. We talked about my latest website projects. Federico is 24 and did La Soffita’s website, but does much more sophisticated things. He is flying to Los Angeles in a couple of weeks on Microsoft’s dime and is anticipating a related employment opportunity. That is globalization of the tech industry up close and personal, our son being concerned that Sun Microsystems will have a third round of layoffs.
Marielena rolled her eyes back and moaned, “Physick. Oh no.”, as her Carlo and I launched into a discussion of the book Chaos by Gleik. She and Pinky found their own things to talk about. Pinky learned that Carlo and Marielena built the house and have been there about 15 years. Marielena works two days a week, but is off this week. Emma is 19, in her first year of university in Padova and goes on the train. Marielena is from Thiene a few miles east, and Carlo is from the tiny nearby town of Zane. They are about 10 years behind us and married for 27 years. Emma would like to do an student exchange program to the U.S., maybe for 6 months or a year, and we told them about Lewis and Clark and PLU.
Emma sat on the arm of the couch leaning on her mom while we drank grappa. Carlo was a little worried about Emma. He thought she was a little intimidated, a little uncertain after her first day at the university. But he recalled that Federico was very uncomfortable until his first college midterm exams, then told Carlo he’d figured it out just like high school, went to the top of the class where he stayed. Neither of the kids is married, and Emma was without a regular boyfriend. We told Carlo it couldn’t be long. “Hopefully without blue hair, and multiple piercings,” he begged. Blue hair and piercing…the whole world has them. When we went upstairs to bed that first night, I told Carlo that my short stories were on my website.
On our third night, Carlo had found a story which he had downloaded and read. He wanted to know how much was true.
“Cut it all in half,” Pinky told him.

He had asked me how far we usually rode in a day. He took the 50 mile number I gave him and he had several suggestions for bike rides. We went for his first offering: Marostica – Bassano – Schio loop. Marostica has a town square is laid out as a chess board and their festa every other year is a pageant with a chess game having live participants as the pieces: knights, kings, queens, bishops, etc. We used maps Carlo had printed to navigate through intervening towns to Bassano where there was the famous covered wooden beam bridge and the well regarded grappa distillery with its local outlet. We then made a detour up into the hills above near Conco and back to Schio. When we got back after dark, he was waiting. He claimed he was getting ready to call 911.
They sent us off to the Pizza place where Emma had been an employee. When we got back we had the espresso and grappa ritual, and we summarized our trip. We described our adventure getting Italian instructions at the alimentary (small grocery store) in the tiny town of Zane. The little store’s proprietress, a lady dressed to the nines, gave us each a chocolate after directing us to Schio. She would not have us go out in the dark empty handed.
“I have checked the weather,” Carlo said, “and it is supposed to be good. I think that tomorrow you should do the other trip that I told you about.”
“The bus to Lavarone and the ride back down through Asiago?” asked Pinky.
“Yes,”
“Carlo, you have a friend for life,” Pinky gushed. She loved that word “down” as it would have been a challenging climb the other direction. Our cycling buddies at home would roast us for riding the bus up and coasting down, but Pinky was not about to care.
“You can put the bikes on the bus. Folding is not needed,” he said. “And I have another map here to show you how to get to the bus station in Schio. There also is an opportunity for a bicycle trail into Schio that begins right behind the building where you had pizza tonight,” said Carlo spreading out the map.
I was able to get Carlo talking about paper manufacturing. I learned that the non-drying ink on newsprint is removed with bubbles that are stabilized by chemicals that are also solvents for the ink, and that environmental disposal of that is not too difficult. I was pretty excited to tell him that he could put a portable computer and a wireless network with a web camera in a factory with internet availability and save some traveling to make adjustments to their equipment in South America and China. Taking it a step further: that with some programming he could possibly get data from transducers inside the machinery to the wireless network. It would be more difficult because of the requirement for custom programming. He said, “Programming is not a problem. We have a many programmers.” Getting custom programming sounded like calling the janitorial staff for a spill in the cafeteria.
“Where do you work?”
“It is very close. I am able to show you in the morning,” he said. He revealed only little clues about exactly what he did, a trail of bread crumbs. Conversation shifted to hobbies and vacations. They had a Euro-wide motor home in the driveway covered with a tarp. He said that it was unused over the last several years but they used it a lot when the kids were younger. He had bought it used at a good price and fixed it up. I couldn’t tell if he was holding the wrench or had it done. He and Marielena also had a hobby of collecting videos of old American movies. Their favorite was Lucille Ball in the Long Trailer. What nostalgia! They remembered many of the details from these movies that we had seen as kids, and we laughed hard.
They were anxious for comments on their B&B service. “They say, ‘If there is something you like, tell somebody else. If there is something you don’t like, tell us,’” Carlo said smiling. “Was the breakfast is good? Is there something you would like?”
I told him it was good, and we got what we needed.
“Well, maybe a second cup of coffee. But it’s great, no other requests,” Pinky told him. And we were suddenly nodding off so we went upstairs.
As we were getting into bed, I said, “He talks and behaves like a manager, an important one. He thinks like one. If he isn’t pretty important he is going to be. But they drive one, small car.that I’dd guess is four years old. He’s just as close to a nickel as I am. I can’t tell whether he owns the place or he works in the mail room.”
“Ask,” she said. It was not an interesting problem to her.
“I’ve been trying. It’s more fun to try to figure it out, without being blunt as a pig’s nose. Ouch!” I had turned over, landing on a sore spot.
“Please,” She said rolling over, “Try it once. Don’t be so narrow-minded.”
“I’m not getting in that thing.”

As predicted, it was a bright blue sky morning –fantastic for a ride in the mountains. I got tickets to Lavarone as the bus pulled up. The driver opened the door to the bus, and I forgot every Italian word I had learned. I finally broke through and blurted out “Ho due bigletti per Lavarone arriva a undici mezza.” He looked down at us. He eyed my bike. He didn’t relish handling the bike. He gave me rapid fire Italian, listing his stops, and I recognized none of them.
“Cambiamo?” I was guessing we had to transfer.
I couldn’t understand his reply, “Asiago,” I guessed.
He shook his head. “Prossimo.” He told us it was next bus.
We missed this 11:30 bus, and left at the crack of noon by another bus to Asiago where we had a four star Italian lunch. Then we did a modest climb from Asiago to Lavarone, where we turned for home just before dark. Above Lavarone we crested the pass and marveled at the sight of the snow covered Alps, laid out before us as if planted in a cloudless sky. In the mountain towns the architecture changed, and it felt like Switzerland. The long downhill ride for home through a canyon of a river (T. Astico on the map), was spectacular. What a beautiful ride. We arrived Schio about 8, and were busted again by Carlo for late riding. Due to darkness he was about to call 118 (the Italian 911). So instead of explaining to the cops, we ate left over pizza from the night before and went straight to the espresso and Grappa with Carlo and Marielena.
We reported on our day again. Carlo began asking me about what I had done before retirement. I told him radiology and we covered the usual FAQ’s. I told him about interpreting diagnostic x-rays, ultrasounds, CT, MR, and Nuclear Medicine. I explained how I injected the patient with radioactive material and made images. I described arteriograms and interventional prodecdures. We spent quite a bit of time on MR – lots of Physick involved, so he loved it.
Meanwhile, I heard Marielena and Pinky talking about Palladio, the architect; and all the buildings he did in his native Vicenza, an hour’s train ride away.
Carlo and I began comparing our medical care delivery systems. He has been satisfied with their care, but says in some of the more populated areas it can be very difficult to get an appointment, and there are long waiting lists. Pharmacy cost and physician availability is not a problem in Schio. He didn’t know much about statistics for things like coronary surgery, transplants, marrow transplants and other high end procedures.
“Tonight is a full moon,” Carlo said, “When that occurs we often go into the mountains, and it is quite beautiful in the night. We have some things to eat and then we come home. Please, can you go also?”
“That would be wonderful,” Pinky and I said, almost in unison.
“We have to leave by about 5:30, so we must talk about your plans tomorrow.”
“I can’t believe you’re worried that we’d be late.”
He gave me a look. “I recommend to look at the map for a shorter ride. Or if you want to rest a day, Vicenza is very nice.”
“We could see all the houses Palladio did,” Pinky said. Marielena had my architect’s daughter hooked and reeled in, an hour earlier. “And there is this really cool theatre, the Olympic Theatre.”
“Sign me up” I said. We drained the Grappa and headed upstairs.
“First shower,” she said at the top of the stairs. “You could try…”
“Don’t start.” I was laughing, and the last drop of Grappa went up my nose.

I flatted on the bike path, and we were late to the station. We missed the train, but the taxi driver was standing right there and told Pinky that he could take us for 25 euro, or we could wait two hours for the next train. After some difficult negotiation…with Pinky, I handed him a 20, and showed him my open palms. He shrugged his shoulders, picked up Pinky’s backpack and we walked to the car. Vicenza was as advertised, worthwhile. The Olympic Theatre with its famous set having 5 Venice sized streets converging on center stage (so acclaimed on the opening performance in the theatre centuries ago, that it has never been taken down). It had the stone semicircular seating and the life-sized statues along its walls depicting each of the many donors who paid the bill for the original construction. On out tour of the town, the Palladio buildings were many and in his characteristic style. They look like Monticello (Tom Jefferson was a copycat).
As we waited to cross the street to the train station going home, we were recalling Carlos’ comments about cross walks, “If you stand at a cross walk in England, cars stop as soon as you appear and the cars wait. If you do that in Italy, you will be there all day.” There was an Italian lady next to us. As soon as she advanced her foot, we did too. A woman in the first arriving car stopped abruptly, and was hit from behind by a larger car. There was modest damage, and a huge and very exciting argument between the drivers. Strangely, they were not angry with us. There is nothing like a good Italian argument. The split decision went, on points, to the more verbally agile woman (Pinky voted twice as is the custom). We felt bad and causative, but we made the train.
Back in Schio, the weather gave us another great day for our hike in the mountains with Carlo and Marielena. The trail was a road which had been blocked off. In the mountains above us we could see other similar roads which had been used by both sides in World War I to defend the Italian-Austrian border. The lights were beginning to sparkle in the towns below, whose names Carlo and Marielena gave us. About half way up, we met three couples who were Marielena’s buddies coming down. They had planned to go with us, but had to return early and had to leave well before we did. They were so happy to see Marielena, and we got to meet some of her friends — very chatty and fun. The end point was a refugio. It was a nice warm building with a bar and restaurant located on a mountain trail. The moonlight dinner at ten in a remote mountain restaurant, was an adventure. We started back at 10:30. All the vegetation appeared black, and the sheer walls of the mountain were glowing white and spectacular. Everything seemed right with the world. We could see why Marielena liked it so much.
On our return, as we climbed the stairs, I said, “Another day better than the last.”
Pinky nodded her head at the top of the stairs as she stepped through the door, looked wistfully into the bathroom. “You know what would make it perfect? Let’s take a little dip, what do ya say?” I put toothpaste on my brush and declined.
I woke up early and went down stairs. Carlo had the newspaper in front of him. The headline said, “New Evidence Shows Universe is Finite Size, Comprised of 13 Galaxies”.
“It never stops,” he said.
“I’m embarrassed. All the talk about setting up wireless networks. I forgot about cell phones. For 160 dollars in the US, we could buy a cell phone that has a camera and a screen. You can talk on the phone and take a live video.”
“They will be in Italy soon.”
“We want you to come visit us in Mount Vernon.”
“I used to go to the U.S.” he said. “I haven’t been in 5 years”. He is feeling the paper between his index finger and thumb, assessing the quality of the news print.
“In my business, the U.S. is no longer competitive. They make paper. But they have lost control of the manufacturing technology.”
“There is no recovery?” I asked.
He shrugged. “The last manufacturer of the type equipment that we make was Beloit, and it went Chapter 11 last year.” He leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. I had some dreams, but…” and he stopped. “You can put a man on the moon, but…it’s sad.” He was sincerely sad.
“Who is the competition?”
“Germany and the Nordic countries.”

Pinky came down the stairs and it was time to go. “Well, come visit us
if you can. Thanks for the wonderful hike last night and all of your kindness.”
“We will keep in contact by email.” We shook hands.
After breakfast, I put the bikes back in their suitcases while the neighbors watched. We each got our picture with Marielena. We watched the shepherd and his sheep crossing the field.
“Pecore,” Marielena gave us their Italian name.
“Did Carlo ride his bike today?”Pinky asked.
“Yes”
“He must have been late.”
“No, it’s close, right there,” and she pointed. It was about ¾ mile. A white building said “Comer” in blue script on the side.
“It is really nice that you could build your house so close to his work,” Pinky said.
“Oh, no,” said Marielena. “The house was first. The office moved here later,”
“Pretty nice,” Pinky smiled as the taxi pulled up.
We were in and on the way to the train station and I asked, “So the corporation just happened to move that office building to Schio next to his house?”
“I guess so.”
Our trip went on. We went by train to Florence , then by bicycle to San Siena, Assisi, and Vitiano near Arezzo. The Cathedrals and Palazzi of Venice, Florence, and Siena ran together in my mind. Art museums were many, fast, and fabulous
In Assisi waiting for the bus to Spello, we met Elena, the beautiful hard working single mom, a Ukranian artist from Kiev. She creates one or two intricate paintings per year (her total output), brings them from the Ukraine to Switzerland, banks some money, and returns to the Ukraine to do it again. We spent an afternoon and evening with her.
In Vitiano, our friends in the neighboring apartment spoke Italian and had learned that there was an olive oil bottler working on the hill up our road. I found it and enquired. They let me watch for a day and two afternoons. They told me how they did everything, how each machine worked – in Italian. In addition, Giancarlo Gianinni, the owner and il capo, gave me an Italian-sign language tour centering on the history of the plant and on his family history. The plant looked like an abandoned warehouse from the outside, with no sign, no logo. The machinery inside was breathtaking, highly automated and computerized with high speed slotted counter-rotating plates crushing the olives and seeds, huge mixing bins stir it to a homogenous, runny paste; then the goo is pumped through a 3660 rpm centrifuge extracting nuts and water, and a second set of centrifuges for final water extraction. It was bottled and labeled in the building next door. The olive oil was all exported, sold mainly in Germany and England. It was fabulous. I wished I had worked harder on my Italian.
We met a few people that made our trip, largely because we were traveling at bike-speed, poking into things looking for opportunities to get into lives of people where we stayed.
“You really liked the olive oil,” Pinky said. “but, Carlo in Schio is your main man in Italy.”
We got home, and a couple of days later I entered “Comer” in Google. Comer Industries has a website in English and Italian. They are an engineering operation. They make many things, including a division making planetary gear dirves for the Stationary industry. They have a Mechatronics Research Center and operating headquarters in Riggiolo, Italy. They reported 170 million in revenues and 5 million net profit with 924 employees with offices in Charlotte, NC; Desford, Uk; Thibaultd des Vignes, Fr; Zug, Switz; and Shanghai, China. Is my man Carlo in that 924?
“That’s it,” I said to Pinky
“That’s what?”
“The mission for my trip to Italy.”
“So…?”
“My mission is to figure out ‘Quien e Giancarlo dal Maso?”
“What?”
“Who is my friend, Carlo?”

Epilogue—
Subsequent email Carlo tells me that I had the wrong Comer website, and the correct name of his company is Comer S.p.A. (comertech.com), and that he is one of 100 employees. So he kept me from straying far from the truth, but didn’t really solve the mystery. In the subsequent year I know from his emails that 2004 was a good in that he filed for several patents, that he and Marielena have put in a garden, and that he will be “independent for vegetables by next year”. What do you think? Why is the company a stone’s throw from his house? Does he have a corner office with a window or an office in the basement? He has read the story, and he won’t tell me.

Vapor Barrier Attire

2008-05-06T15:12:00.001-07:00

Vapor Barrier Attire

We were two thirds through the ride. “Walker, it’s really raining now,” he said. Halsey is my friend, my only friend willing to begin a bike ride in the rain with me—on purpose.
“It’s getting dark and cold too. Let’s pull into this Haggen’s and get a coffee maybe a bite to eat,” I suggested. We had about ten miles to go back to the car.
Like a shot he swerved into the parking lot. We entered urgently, taking off dripping raingear, helmets, gloves, glasses, and the outer layer, a fleece in my case. Haagen’s was the first upscale grocery store in Bellingham. It had a nice eating area, a dining room really, with an associated deli, hot sandwiches, soup bar, hot pizza counter, salad bar, and Chinese hot table.
We chose a table for four and were setting up our laundry line on the two extra chairs. “We’re dripping wet,” I said.
“Yeah. It’s the rain gear paradox. Wear it and you’ll be wet. Its true function is to keep you warm while your wet. So I don’t put it on unless I anticipate getting cold…like when I stop.
“Agreed,” I say putting on my raincoat.
“Thanks for stopping. My body heat is good, no complaint on the rain gear and tights,” he said. “but my feet are really cold.”
“My feet are still pretty good. I’m using that vapor barrier system you told me about,” I said.
“I told you? When?”
“You were telling me about climbing boots with gortex vapor barrier between the foot and an insulated soc,”. I recalled.
“Right. It’s pricey though, twenty five bucks for the socks and thirty five for the liners,” he recalled.
“It is supposed to keep perspiration from wetting the top insulating liner, right?”
“Yep. But I’ve never seen them for bike shoes. So, where did you get them?”
“Right here, at Haggens…actually the Mount Vernon Haggens, at the check stand,” I said.
He looked at me quizzically. Then he grinned. “Plastic bags,” he said. “So that’s the crunchy sound you’re making…and the fat ankles.” He was looking at a little white plastic sticking barely visible above my left sock.
“Right,” I said. We sat down and started on our soup.
“The price is right,” he said and paused pensively. “So you put the bag right next to your skin and a thick sock on top?”
“I don’t like the plastic next no my skin, and I think a toenail would likely puncture the bag. So I put the bags over socks.”
“Then you put a thicker sock,” he said almost to himself. “But that can’t work today. We’re riding in the rain, so that outer sock gets wet every time you ride through a puddle.”
“I add a second bag…on the outside of the insulation layer to ward off the street water.”
He got up. “Do you want coffee?” he asked.
“Sure. I’ll come with you. I don’t speak Starbuck. You can interpret for me,” I said. He ordered a grande latte with an extra shot, hazelnut , added the nutmeg and cinnamon himself and an Americano for me.
“Those look like your same old bike shoes to me.” He said walking from the coffee stand to the check stand he got four plastic sacks from the grocery bagger.
“They are,” I said.
“Well, time out a second. Your outer layer is a sock. I can see it.”
I nod yes.
“That means you have three socks and two plastic bags. How can you get all that in a shoe?
“I use magic black socks – thin dress socks for both layers. One hundred percent nylon, or any kind of ‘—lon’. They thin. They wear like iron.”
“For the insulation layer too?”
“My theory is that if the insulation layer is dry a micro layer of air in a thin sock is enough.”
“We’re not mountain climbing, and it’s not even freezing outside,” he said. “I’ll try anything at this point.” He had taken off his shoes and socks and was wringing out the socks.
“Let’s put them on the hand dryer in the bathroom,” I said and he was off, barefooted.
When he returned with nearly dry socks, I said, “I have a sock that I use as a stuff sack for a raingear stuff sack. You can use it if you want.”
“Perfect. I can do the experiment. I’ll put just a dry sock on the right foot. On the left, I’ll put a bag next to skin, a dry sock, another bag, and your extra black sock.”
“Science in action,” I said as he got his shoes back on.
“You are out here with seven black dress socks. Tomorrow will you show up for work wearing your white sweat socks?”
“No, I’ve got a big stash of black dress socks,” I said as we left the store. I use the same system for skiing and hiking. Easy removal of neoprene is an added benefit for scuba and kayaking
Outside it was still raining and dusk. We were sharing the streets with a moderate amount of traffic going through the city of Bellingham, so we had to ride single file and it was too noisy to talk. About half way back to the car, Halsey pulled into a parking lot at Thrifty Foods.
“Just wait here a second. I’ll be right back,” he said.
In a couple of minutes he returned, “You guys with hair don’t understand. You lose 20% of your body heat from an uncovered head.” He had rolled down the edges of a plastic grocery sack and had put it on his head followed the thin nylon skull cap he wore under his helmet.
“I guess your right foot got cold.”
“Yep. There is no doubt. The “bagging” works.
“So your head is next,” I replied.
“Yep, I’m a head bagger now,” he said.
“I think you are on to something here. Stick a little gortex in it. It’ll sell.”
We just got in the car and drove, having removed only raingear and helmets. When we pulled up at my house, I said, “Come on in, I have to give you those photos that Jane needs.”
Pinky opened the door as we came up the steps. Halsey took of his cap. He had forgotten about the plastic sack, which had tilted slightly.
Pinky laughed. “I love what you’ve done with your hair.” She paused. “Oh, no. He’s got you wearing grocery bags – everywhere.” she continued. “You’re both walking around in grocery bags, ‘snap, crackle and pop’ ” She handed him a folder of photographs. “This is for Jane. She just called.”
“Am I in trouble yet?” he asked.
“No, I don’t think so. When she asks if you had fun, tell her you just got wet and cold. Everything will be fine.”
“With those black socks and plastic bags, we saved a hundred and twenty bucks today,” Halsey said.
“Right,” Pinky replied. “Everywhere we go he buys black socks. He keeps half the stuff he owns in a black sock. She turned and trotted back to the bedroom and came back with a black sock in each hand.
“This one has batteries, and this one has film and camera accessories. He has a sock for everything that goes in his fanny pack when we tour. He has a sock to keep his rain coat in the water bottle cage of his bike.”
“I tried it for my head at sundown,” said Halsey.
“Well I guess you two make a pair. Except that he is too lazy to select socks. He wants every sock in the drawer to match, ready to wear for: work, dress up, storage container, or play.”
“Lose a sock in the wash. No problem,” said Halsey.
“You’re as bad as he is,” she replied.
“Now he thinks it is some kind of contrarian’s fashion statement. It’s cool to look like you live under a bridge, I guess.”
“Well fashion is important.”
“And your theory breaks down. It turns out that black socks come in endless shades and patterns. Half of the time his socks don’t match, and it drives me nuts.”
“I see him almost every day at work, and I’ve never noticed.”
“I changed my mind. You’re going to be in trouble with Jane if you don’t get home right away,” she said.
“The World Famous Vapor Barrier Sports Cap was born today. You can say you were there,” he said starting his car.

Trains, Bread, Wine, Toilets, and Dogs

2008-05-06T15:10:00.000-07:00

Trains, Bread, Wine, Toilets, and Dogs,
A Travelogue

We arrived at Charles De Gaule, and proceeded to the Gare Mont Parnasse, where we boarded the "bullet" for Bordeaux.
The TGV is magical--110 mph (record speeds up to 288 km/h), with banked turns, two cars rolling on each set of wheels with no sound and no expansion gaps on the tracks. Streamlined and lightweight, they are, above all, on time. Schedule is king. Trains are comfortable. They are French.
We traveled in style Paris to Bordeaux in about 4 hours on our Eurail pass. You handle all your own baggage, and it works well with the limited stopping times to keep passengers traveling light. We had more than most -- right hand to a suitcase on wheels filled with the fold up bike, a duffel bag on the back, containing camping gear and clothes, and a carry-on in the left hand. For boarding we learned to find the labels on the cars: 2nd Class, the car number, and the seat number. We could move to other seats or cars if there was room, but near big cities the train gets crowded and you must claim on your seat. Get situated, buy a sandwich in the dining car, look out the picture windows at the passing countryside, crops, buildings, and towns, the miles of mostly flat bicycle country that make up southern France. Zip zap you're there. Next day we caught the slower electric from Bordeaux to Bergerac ostensible home of Cyrano and the center of French tobacco farming. We needed to cut a day off of the trip. In the bike guidebook, Pinky noticed "a killer hill" described between Bordeaux and Bergerac, and opted for the train ride. It was Sunday and, on our arrival, we had the train station in Bergerac to ourselves. So we put the bikes together in the waiting room.
We had a cheese sandwich on the train, with fancy soft caloric French cheese. The cheese was fabulous but the fresh baguette and that wonderful crust. There are bakeries everywhere, every few blocks, in the smallest village or the biggest city. Fresh French bread, baguettes by the basket full are available every morning throughout the country. They eat only fresh bread, every single day…hence croutons and French toast to use yesterday’s unconsumed bread. The bread makes even street food gourmet. A foot long hot dog begins as a fresh baguette impaled on a red hot poker. The dog is deposited in the center hole with a squirt of Dijon mustard. They are spectacular. We met a French couple returning from a visit to their son to Germany. They were ecstatic to be returning home…the bread was terrible. They need daily fresh baguettes, they are French.
A civilized lunch hour is a birth right—and two hours in length. There is a national strike from noon to two. Everything stops. The French choose a meal with the care that Americans reserve for choosing a new car or even a house. What a boon to the touring cyclist, are the spectacular meals acceptably are priced in the smallest towns throughout the country. We ate at a truck stop near Carcasonne. I was expecting that truck driving culture would be similar to our own. Twenty eighteen wheelers in the parking lot, a rough looking crowd of rowdy men, condom dispensers in the bathrooms, and the dirty magazines were all there, but the meal was serious business. It was a two hour meal, table cloths, flowers, and ornate chargers that served as platforms for the standard plates for each of the five courses (appetizer, soup, one of the five entrees, cheese, and dessert) plus Vin du Pays (the local house wine of the region). I had the Lapin Moutarde, and the rabbit was pretty nicely attired in a fancy Poupon mustard sauce. We had white cloth napkins. It's no wonder that their medical community is at the forefront in cardiac medicine.
We had an afternoon and night between train trips to explore Bordeaux, the heart of the famous wine country. Our wine discovery was Vin du Pays (van do payee - wine of the region) which was amazingly good. bottled in plastic 5 litre screw cap jugs. It is the daily fare in the countryside. Show up with your four liter plastic jug, and they fill it from large two chambered stainless steel tank, the red hose(red wine) or the green hose(white wine). The price and quality met the same high standard as fresh baguettes. What a startling discovery. Vin du pays is made by every community cooperative; growing succulent grapes on acres of small yellow stones hardly believable as soil were it not for the plants visible in the rocky till. Vin du Pays is sold in the smallest grocery store in the smallest village from a vat larger than a family car. "Garden hose" wine may have been our greatest discovery. Suck eggs, Robert Parker. These wines—they are French.

In this country fixated on food and drink, logic dictates the next concern: toilets. French toiletry is as impressive.. First is the astounding variety. The French never destroy a toilet, and they always adopt new technology. . An early development was two-foot plates straddling a hole, all crafted from porcelain; a strange sight to us sitting ducks. At one of the campgrounds our first pass through the bathhouse produced an argument.
"Is that a shower. Where is the shower head?"
"Don't let anyone see you standing in that with a bar of soap."
I pointed to the foot spaces on each side.
Pinky, realized what it was, and said, "Not for me."
The water closet came across the channel, and moved the action indoors because it had the U shaped pipe in the sewer connection so that water remaining in the U prevented sewer gas from coming into the house. Some of the first water closets constructed remain in use, often for the usual two franc charge.
More recently it seems popular to conceal the flush handle. A chain out of sight overhead, a button on the wall sometimes remote from the bowl, one or the tiles above the bowl may be a button, a small rod sticking up through the top of the tank is a pull handle. They must chuckle at anxious American tourists searching desperately for the flusher. Their penchant to hide this key part, has been further extended and there has been modern fascination with high tech toilets--they now hide the entire toilet. The standard public toilet is a two franc kiosk cylinder with an electronic door that has a star wars sound. Security electric doors that suggest secret service clearance might be required…look at the lens to present your retinal pattern for entrance. Once inside the sink and toilet look freshly sterilized. My first use was with some urgency. Relief was immense. Standing there, a three coil steamer in the stainless steel bowl, I began a search for the flusher. I knew it wouldn't be easy, but even with prior experience, I was unable to find it. I pushed everything in that small building that had any distinguishing feature regardless of its location. No flusher. Clock is ticking; things are desperate now; I can't let anyone else come in here. I need language assistance to solve this problem; I have to open the door and get Pinky to come help. I am able to open the electronic door, but it doesn't like being held open, and a loud buzzer sounds. Pinky sees my desperate face and begins laughing. She is purposely slow to help. There are faces in the now impressively long line that are as desperate as mine. The first man in line understands immediately. He is waving his hand like a windshield wiper and he is urgently telling me: "Automatique, automatique." Relieved to hear that, I step out. The electronic door closes behind me and the whole inside of the building was washed, sterilized, and dried in about 15 seconds. It was ready for the long line.
Our evening meal at a restaurant had another twist on toilet technology. Pinky came back to the table, " Your turn," she said. Then as I got up "Bonne Chance." (good luck). In the restroom, again there were all kinds of electronic noises with mechanical events. I found the flush button, inconspicuously placed as a little plaque on the wall above the toilet. I pushed and instead of a flush, there was another electronic whine as the entire toilet disappeared into the wall. Gone, gone, gone. Thirty seconds later it returned; flushed, cleaned, and under bright blue ultraviolet light. I stood waiting and watching. When the ultraviolet light went off, I softly applauded. When I returned to the table, Pinky was smirking.
I have been trained at home by a beagle, and was well prepared for France where le chien is pretty much in the cat bird seat. The dogs are their constant companions. Dogs are riding around in cars, grocery carts, and purses. They are under tables, at the feet of about a fifth of the patrons in restaurants. They are carried in little wicker baskets; with, maybe even a second head protruding from the basket carrier's purse. They are fed and groomed in every imaginable way. Dog extravagance is closely associated with a French stubbornness. They insist on canine company everywhere. It's the land of the portable pooch. For the places that do not cater to the dogs, it is a most unpleasant job to tell a patron "no dogs allowed", and I never saw it on a sign. There will be "no smoking" in France before there is "no dogs". Dogs go every where. Walking the dog is a major social activity, better than having a baby, if you want to chat. I didn't need much French to make a friend talking about my Beagle (baygla). And if you want help or directions, make friends with the dog, and the master draw you a map. The big problem is the fecal debris especially in Paris. They have dog poop patrols, utilizing various levels of scooper and blower technology, bags and shovels to miniature street sweepers; and somehow the job gets done.
On our Bike Friday fold up bikes we look like performing circus bikes. So, we keep an eye out for other cyclists and what they are riding. There is a particularly large array of bikes in France, in large part because they are maintained and used over long periods, and because everyone wants something different from a bike. Some need a truck, some a racing machine, a show machine, a mountain climber, trick bike for jumping and gymnastic tricks by the rider, a bike especially for bicycle broom ball, a stable three wheeler, a unicycle juggling and showmanship, a bike with motor assist, a bike to pull a trailer, a velocipede as a historical artifact, or a bike that folds for travel. There is a panoply of bikes in France. Old men on old bikes are the most fun. The most memorable was a wizened old fellow in a beret who gave us directions, then followed us at a one block distance to correct our incompetent attempts to follow those instructions. Using facial expressions of painful tolerance and hand signals, he came into view pointing to correct each error he knew that we would make, all the while mounted on his sixty-year old bike, motor assisted. It was tricked out with leather saddle bags and a putt putt motor hinged on the front handlebar so its small drive wheel rested on the front tire to turn it at bike speed of 12 miles per hour. The cars give us wide birth and impeccable courtesy compared to the USA. In a bicycle-car accident, the driver of the car is presumed to be at fault. Now there is a novel attitude. It is French.

The Tilt-a-Whirl

2008-05-06T15:09:00.000-07:00

The Tilt-a-Whirl

The end of the day had finally come. I was parking my pick-up at the fairground parking lot. I loosened my tie, my first step in winding down from another Friday afternoon's work in the pressure cooker at the hospital. I took a deep breath, blew it out, and willfully brightened in contemplation of the Fairbanks fair.
Exploiting the Alaskan summer days, the fair bustled for all the daylight hours with the feel of a never-ending party. There’s plenty of time. Relax.
This fair was for participants, not observers. My neighbors...husbands, wives, children...all had something to display; from their garden, from their kitchen, from their shop, or from Four H Club: artwork, scout projects, pets, and science projects. I was wishing that I had entered the ladder that I had made for the loft in our house. I loved this about Fairbanks: it made you want to get off your butt and join in.
I had the paper scrap. "Your wife will meet you at the rides near the entrance by the Texaco station," it said. I was starting to relax a little as I headed for the midway where the dancing lights of the rides struggled to flash in the midnight sun. I strolled leisurely past the Ferris wheel, bumper cars, merry-go-round, the hammer, and a milk toast roller coaster ride.
I saw my boys. Their backs almost to me, they were looking up in wonder at the operator of the tilt a whirl, talking to him, I thought. He was a tall tough looking guy with thoroughly tattooed arms, a stringy mustache and a dirty ponytail. Low slung levis just barely clung to his hips and a black leather vest partially covered the almost black tanned skin of his torso. Pinky was behind them. She had a red ticket in her hand. When she looked up, her face was glowing with affectionate recognition. She leaned down to the boys, and pointed toward me. When her head came back up, she looked relieved; relieved, I guessed, because I had gotten free of the hospital and hadn't disappointed the boys.
Their faces just lit up. In unison they hollered, "Dad!" Their hair blew back in the wind as they ran, showing their excited smiles as they covered the 40 yards between us. It was the warmest reception I had received from my boys, probably ever, and the moment still remains a tender memory. As they reached me, one boy went to each arm and I hugged them both. They each grabbed a hand and pulled me toward Pinky. She was smiling, almost laughing. No troubles for me, I was on top of the world.
"Take a ride with the boys. I got you a ticket," she said.
The Tilt-a-Whirl is an undulating surface mounted on a large disc which is at a 30 degree angle. On each undulating segment there is a small car, like a round restaurant booth, which is free to careen on its own circular track as the larger disc rotates on its inclined plane. A benign looking ride, but if that's what they wanted, "Sure, let's take a ride." I thought. I gave the man my ticket.
"The boys are riding free," Pinky said.
The boys selected a car and took care to get me between them. I was flattered that they both wanted to be next to me. The operator pulled the shoulder high lever back to the first notch, his weight suspended from its handle, and the disc began to slowly rotate. It was pretty much what I had expected. Our little booth would rotate part of a circle as we were on the downhill side of the disc and came to a standstill on the uphill side. Two revolutions and he pulled the lever to the second notch. We could feel the effects of the centrifugal force now and it began to press us back into the seat. The boys were looking at each other and beginning to grin. This time around our booth made a full revolution on its little track, and that added a new dimension. It was my first inkling that there were some real possibilities for excitement. Another revolution and he pulled the lever to the third notch. Our booth began doing several revolutions each time the disc went around. As the nausea hit, I noticed that our little booth was the most active on the disc. We passed Pinky. It looked to me like she was laughing--uncontrollable side splitting type laughter. Big trouble. It was not fun. I was going to be sick if I didn't get off. I yelled, but everyone else was yelling too. I tried to get up and couldn't move because of the centrifugal force. The operator grasped the handle. Oh, relief. He had seen me. I could hardly wait for the world to stop spinning as he applied the brakes. Instead he swung down with his full weight, pulling the lever to the fourth notch. The little booth careened wildly, suddenly stopped, reversed directions and spun. I closed my eyes, spread my feet, and pushed back into the seat no longer conscious of what was going on around me. I was preparing for embarrassment, trying to hang on to the end. I suddenly had a mouthful of gastric juice. Mercifully I was able to swallow. The ride was beginning to slow. Our booth's violent accelerations moderated. When we came to a stop, I had difficulty standing. Pinky came out to help me as I walked with a broad-based gait to the exit. The world around me was still slowly rotating, and I was still in danger of tossing my cookies. Standing still with my eyes closed and my hands on slightly flexed knees like a football player in a huddle, I took several minutes to recover enough to notice my surroundings. The boys were ecstatic. They were jumping up and down, begging Pinky to go with them.
Pinky couldn't answer. She was just killing herself laughing.
"I watched your face the whole time," she said, pausing to laugh, then to breathe. "You tried to get up, didn't you?"
"I couldn't move."
"You turned absolutely green," she paused for more laughter.
"I still feel pretty green."
"I'm sorry, but it really is funny," she apologized. "I've been standing here long enough to become an expert. And I have to tell you that no one has whirled around on that thing like you guys did."
"I think that I can walk now," I said hopefully.
"Before you got here, the boys chose that ride. They rode by themselves the first time. The platform went around but the little car seemed to be stuck and didn't turn at all. They were really disappointed," she said finally controlling her laughter.
Still a little unsteady, I was walking and burping to try alleviating the sensation of pressure in my stomach.
"The operator was really nice to the boys. He told them that they could try again for free and that what they needed was some weight in the car," she said.
"They were so disappointed. I was going ride with them. I even bought a ticket. But then...I saw you," she said.
"You gave me your ticket. Didn't you?" I asked.
"I leaned down and said, 'Look who's here guys.' They saw you, and their little faces just lit up," she said. She was again laughing uncontrollably.
The heart felt greeting was the timely end of a search by my grade school hedonists for a larger guileless companion.
"Yeah," I said. "I thought it was filial devotion." I said.
"I know," she said. "I could see it on your face when they ran to get you. And they do love you that much. So don't feel sorry for yourself." She paused.
"Was I ever relieved to see you," she said opening her eyes wide. "It was everything that I could do to hand you that ticket with a straight face." She laughed and clapped her hands together.

The Perfect Woman

2008-05-06T15:08:00.001-07:00

The Perfect Woman

With great display, I marked my place and put my book on the bedside table. I turned out my light.
"My eyes are tired," I said sleepily.
I rolled over and looked at him. He was squeaky clean from his bath and had settled in to read his book. I felt warm inside.
He saw me in his peripheral vision, and replied, "Uh Huh."
He put his left arm around my neck, and with his left hand under my left shoulder rolled me toward him; and I snuggled up against his side. He inclined his head slightly and kissed me lightly on the lips. It was warm but perfunctory.
He went right back to reading his book. I pressed more fully against his mostly bare skin with a slow motion wiggle. He squeezed me a little tighter but continued reading. I put my hand on the soft line of hair above his navel. He put his right hand on mine, anticipating that I might rub the hair up against the grain.
"Let me finish this page," he mumbled.
"How long is that going to be?" I asked as I moved my hand down just a little. Just the slightest hint.
"Okay, just a couple more minutes," he said.
"Diane looked nice, dressed for success in her velvet dress. Didn't she?" I asked.
"She did, but what I really liked was the hat with the feathers," he replied smiling.
"You say nice things about Diane easily enough," I say softly. "Why can't you ever say nice things about me?" I continued… "I bet you wish you were married to Diane." Now he’s got to mount some kind of defense.
"Oh no," he was groaning. He put the open book face down on his chest, rolled his eyes back then gave me a look as close to patience as he could get.
"He still isn't catching on," I thought to my self.
"At least talk. What did you do at work today?" I said, all ears.
"I don't want to relive my work day, and you don't want to hear it," he said.
"I guess not...if you don't want to tell it."
"Well what then?" he asked, still pragmatic but softening slightly.
He is playing dense.
"I want to chat," I said. I gave him my smug smile and a squeeze.
"What do you want to chat about?" he said.
"Say something about me, something nice," I cooed.
He took that in and his eyes began to twinkle in anticipation.
"Oh no you don't," I said. "If you tell me, 'For a fat girl, you don't sweat much', I am going to put my cold feet on you, and I promise that you won't be able to read in bed tonight or for the rest of the week."
His eyes were still sparkling.
"He's going to pay the price," I told myself.
He changed his expression. He was more serious, but gentle.
"I love you," he said.
It was nice. I liked it. But he still wasn't catching on.
"That's nice. I know you do, and I love you too," I said. "But I had in mind for you to say some things about me."
"You want me to say a bunch of mush, right," he said. "The aphrodisiac lies."
"Give it a try. ," I said.
Taken a little aback, he thought a few seconds and said, "Would you like semi-truthful stuff or shall I go straight for the lies?"
"Either would be better than what we're doing right now," I replied. I looked at his face. It was hard on him but he was composing something.
"If I tell out loud what I'm thinking, I'll laugh. And you'll get mad," he said
"Try it," I wheedled.
"You give me an example of something you might be expecting me to say."
"Your own words are best, especially if you're anticipating sex," I said. "But I can get you started."
"How are you going to do that?" he asked
"I want you to think of the perfect woman," I said.
He was thinking. His face was inscrutable. After about ten seconds, he rolled toward me.
"Describe her," I told him gently.
"Small but not petite....small to me.....just right."
"Go on," I said.
"She's a looker. Cute little butt."
"Um, Hm," I say. The line in his forehead is deep. He's thinking.
"Loving big brown eyes. Always alert. Ready for fun, sometimes even mischievous. When you look into her eyes, sometimes the devil is in them. They say “Come with me. Let’s go."
"That's nice," Two sentences. He is on a roll now.
"She always wants you close, makes you feel like you're the center of the universe."
"See. It's not so hard," I am saying.
"Hates to miss any fun, and gets sad if she's left out. When you come in the door she lights up like sunshine itself," he says, and it seems to flow easier now.
"Yes. Keep going." I say to myself.
"And?" I encourage him.
"She doesn't expect much. And she gets so excited with the simplest things."
"Something a little more personal," I coach.
His forehead line deepens again. "She never gets angry. She is guided by a delicate sense...," he says wistfully.
"Sensitivity, sensibility...what?"
"Not too young. A few spots on her skin … that would cover nicely in a fur coat," he is saying. The impish twinkle is back in his eye.
" A white tip on the tail?" I asked. It's our beagle that he has been describing. I attacked him. With cold feet and tickling I have him writhing. I am able to grab his book and throw it on the floor. The bed covers were all off from his thrashing efforts to protect himself from my attack. I was about to push him off the bed.
"I don't think so," he said, after I had pushed him a few inches with my feet and I was almost off the other side from the effort. His counter attack was under way. It got quite personal...and nice.
Then, we were resting dreamily, holding hands.
Still, I was jealous of that damn dog now.
"What was it you said? Center of the universe? Excited with the simplest things? Would cover nicely in a fur coat?" I repeated to him.
“Oh no you don’t,” he anticipated
I raise my closed fist in victory, "Yes! You did say fur coat."

The Kitty

2008-05-06T15:07:00.001-07:00

The Kitty

I was at the crest of the hill on my right foot, left leg resting on the bike's crossbar, turning back to look down the hill behind. What could they possibly be doing? Kirk stood below at the roadside talking to his mother...not the least interested in pedaling. It has been a while. I whistled. When they looked up, I gave them the “Wagons Ho” arm signal. I had made two mistakes. They beckoned to me.
Pinky was leaning down by the back wheel of her bike. Red faced angry, she stood and shouted through cupped hands, "Dammit, come back down here."
Uh Oh! Broken spoke, maybe a flat. They must need the tools. When I reached them I saw the towel lined cardboard box with the tire marks, one corner crushed. A few feet away was a dead brown calico kitten. Kirk was holding the loudly meowing 3 ounce brother in his left hand. He was an orange brown calico kitty. He was reaching out desperately with his forepaws. He was skinny but surprisingly vigorous. His green eyes were huge. He had a loud husky voice. Everything about him was cute, from his tiny perfect pink nose down to his miniature bung. Kirk tucked the kitty under his chin. He quieted. Cat and boy closed their eyes. The kitty was covered with hungry red ants that had already been working on his brother. Pinky and Kirk meticulously pinched the ants out of his fur one by one.
"Poor baby. Who could do this to you?" Pinky asked the hungry kitten.
"Looks like a drive by toss out," Kirk added in disgust.
"I guess it’s cheaper than getting a cat fixed." I said. "It's hard to kill babies and easier to dump them. Finders keepers, finders weepers."
"How can we get him home?" Pinky asked.
"You can save the kitty. But don't bring it home." I said.
She ignored me.
I had to dig my feet on this one. I didn’t want another cat. I knew I could not let the cat in the house or it would stay forever.
There are no limits for Pinky. All things turn out well, for lucky Pink. Buy more. Do more. Go more. Save more. Well, that is mostly for me, the worry wart. Her answer is always, "Yes." Trip to France--sign us up. A dog for Kirk--what every boy needs. New house--we need something new in our lives. Retire--no worries, go ahead on it. Another kitty--sure. Somebody will take care everything. I want the responsibilities and time limits up front.
"He's a survivor," she said. "Look at this little guy screaming at us. We can't leave him."
"How do we carry him," Kirk asked.
"Diane will take him for the barn. Dennis and Dimity like cats. Maybe Pam would take him. Somebody will."
"Bring a stray cat to a friend. Diane might love you. But she won't like that."
"He is cute," said Kirk.
"We can keep him while I find him a home," Pinky said, partly bravado partly pleading.
"Oh no."
"We might as well kill him," Kirk mumbled.
"It might be better than being eaten alive by red ants," I said.
"I'm not leaving him here," Pinky said.
"If you take him home, he's not coming in the house." I was adamant. "He can stay in the truck. If he doesn't have a home by Monday, I'll take him to the shelter."
"Just one more cat. What's it going to hurt? "
"No more kitties." I said emphatically.
"You ladle out another cup of food in the morning. How hard is that?
"Blackjack and Kecia would just as soon not have company."
"So you love each kitty. And after two, that love is all used up? Does it come in packages or something...Give this kitty one package and there won't be enough love for Blackjack and Kecia? Come on."
"And when do we stop? We have more than enough cats. They shredded the chair in the bedroom. They bring in dead animals. You were ready to get rid of Blackjack because he sheds."
"Responsibility. Hooey. You whining. You'll fall in love with the Kitty, just like you did in Fairbanks." Then she thought...and continued, "That's it. Isn't it? What you're really worried about is that you'll care."
"In Fairbanks, the neighbors' dogs killed my kitty," I nodded. "I should be able to choose...choose if I'm going to be this kitty's daddy."
"Here we go. A right to life discussion." Kirk rolled his eyes back.
"Right," she said to Kirk. Then she muttered to herself, "Get a grip. Its just a cat. We have to do something."
"There's a house right there. Looks like they're gone." I pointed to the top of the hill where I had been waiting. “Pass it on, no pass back.”
"We could get a box at the Day Creek Store."
"It's about eight miles up the road."
"We could leave him on that porch."
"Not too different than dumping him on the road," said Kirk.
"Right. We could come back with a box and if he's still here we'll take him home and figure something out."
"Three days in the truck then the pound." I would not be ignored.
"At the pound they get three days. Then they suck em...a vacuum chamber" Kirk was petting his new kitty.
"Kill him or keep him, or dump him, are the only solutions. The dump is easiest."
Pinky was on her way up the drive way with a plan. No answer came for the doorbell. She put the kitty down on the porch, and ran back to the bikes. Step one was in place.
Then it was bike trip as usual, to Day Creek where there was one cinder block store, no bar, and a white one room church with a gray shake roof. At the Day Creek Grocery, we bought red licorice and Hawaiian punch. And there was a box of pears on the picnic table out in front with a sign saying "Free, Take One". They sat in the sun, sweated, ate, and drank. We watched pickups roll up to the gas pump and disgorge dirty tired loggers wearing broad red suspenders buttoned into high-water levis , zipper-neck shirts with tiny vertical black and white stripes, and cork boots only partly covered by shredded midcalf pant legs. The trucks ran on gas, the men on beer...about the same mileage, judging by the cases they carried out of the store. We watched Billy, the owner’s son, put his new BMX Rockhopper two through its paces.
“Hi, “ Pinky said.
“I’m five,” he said.
“I’ll bet he would like a kitty,” I said.
“No Kitty,” his mother said from behind the cash register. She was the cash cow at her house I think.
“My sister is in school. She is in first grade.”
“Do you have a small cardboard box we can have to carry the kitty we found on the road?”
Kirk asked.
“I think so, check just outside that back door,” the mom said.
Kirk went followed the instructions and came back with a box.
Billy had ridden several times around the gas pumps circling the fueling pickups.
“She takes her lunch,” he continued his report on his sister.
We got the box fixed to the rack with a bungie cord and were mounting our bikes. “Thanks for the box,” we called to mom, who waved.
As we started back, Billy closed with: “I’m five, and I go to school next year.”
When we passed the yellow house going back, the kitty was exactly where Pinky had left him an hour before, on the porch, nobody home. He recognized us, with desperation in his eyes and forepaws outstretched. Kirk picked him up. We tried to give him water from a cupped hand. No. So into the box he went, and strapped to the rack. The box rattled vigorously, amplifying the vibration of Kirk's bike. The back seat driver complained stridently and continuously. .
"I'll meet you guys back home," Kirk said. "I'm going to push a little harder this last fifteen miles."
Kirk was training for his upcoming triathlon.
"Go for it. Introduce him to Blackjack and Kecia," Pinky said.
"Put him in the truck." I said.
Pinky and I leisurely cruised back. We made one stop to put on rain gear for a light shower. Rain was dripping from the helmets into our eyes and into our cold squishy shoes. We ate one of our free pears. Then Pinky found satisfactory cover, went in to the bushes, and returned relieved. The sun reappeared.
As we pushed our bikes to the road, Pinky asked, "What do you think he'll do?"
"What do you mean?"
"About his dilemma."
"Dilemma?"
"I want him to take the kitty in... keep the cat. You want him to put the kitty in the truck...take him to the pound. Which will Kirk do?"
"I told him to leave the kitty outside."
"Right.” That’s the old bull trumpeting to the herd. “The kitty will be inside."
"Better not be," I huffed, falling for the bait
"Oh, relax. It will be fine," she dismissed me –smiling her disbelief.

We arrived home, a little stiff, and began putting their bicycles away. Kirk was conspicuously absent.
"Shouldn't he be here?" Pinky asked.
"I would have thought."
There was nothing to do but go into the house. Pinky went in. I rolled up the hose while we waited for Kirk. Pinky was at the front door when he rode up the driveway.
"Where is the kitty?" Pinky asked anxiously.
"That's why I'm late. I took care of the kitty," Kirk said.
"Good for you," Duff said, relieved.
"Where's my kitty?" Pinky intervened.
"Taken care of," Kirk said.
"Did you turn him loose?"
Kirk smiled at his mom.
"What happened?"
"Solved" He said enigmatically.
"What did you do?" she asked anxiously.
"Oh, relax. It will be fine." Kirk repeated her earlier taunting reassurance to me. Teenagers pick right up on the buttons to push.
"Kirk!" Pinky yelled smiling.
Were there limited resources for cats, or were the limits as boundless as love?
"Pinky. I don't think he's going to tell."

The Drunk

2008-05-06T15:06:00.001-07:00

The Drunk

The doorbell rang twice. I raised up on an elbow to see over Pinky's head. It was 1:30 in the morning. Immediately following the second ring there was urgent pounding on the door. An emergency. As I walked out of our bedroom door, I saw the baby through the open door of his room. Scott was awake, standing up in his crib, watching. I stepped into the living room and turned on the light and the pounding on our apartment door finally stopped. I went back to the bedroom and retrieved the pants to my uniform. As I put them on, I was wondering what could be happening. I could hear a car idling outside, and there was the familiar sound of rain--nothing else. As I passed the closet in our four foot hallway, I reached in and grabbed the hammer from the toolbox and gently kicked the closet door shut as I passed. I was across the living room in a few steps. I put the hammer on a chair near the door, the handle out for easy access. I pushed the drape aside a few inches and looked out. An empty, four door, late model Chevrolet was idling in front of our apartment.
"Who is it," I asked. I tried to sound threatening, voice like a chain saw.
"Got car trouble," a slurred voice rumbled outside the door.
I opened the door slightly to get a look. He already had the screen door open and was crowding up onto the door sill trying to get out of the rain. He was a head shorter than I, and all that I could see was a pink bald spot surrounded by white hair atop a rotund body barely covered by a tan military style raincoat with a hand grasping the collar on each side pulling the coat up to ear level.
As soon as the door opened, he took several tiny shuffling mamma-san steps, gently pushing on the door, coming part way into the house, inching forward, as the door opened.
"Gotta come in a minute...," he said.
He looked up. We were almost nose to nose. His face was red, especially his nose, a drinker's nose. His blue eyes were pleading.
"Please," he said.
Alcohol hung in the air around us. Maybe he was a fire hazard, but he was physically harmless. As I opened the door, he staggered and almost went down. He had leaned on the door not only to get out of the rain but to assure himself the dignity of upright posture. I caught his left elbow. His left foot moved quickly, he recovered and stood. This wasn't his first time for such assistance. He knew how to use it, too well. He rose to his full height, clasped his hands beneath his paunch, and surveyed the apartment like a captain taking command of a new ship.
"Nice place you've got here," he said, pursing his lips out in approbation.
One moment unsteady, the next he had summoned a presence. He seemed about to make a suggestion or maybe give an order. He took off his coat, handed it over, nodded for me to throw it as he gestured at the chair. He just pointed to the sofa and took a few broad-based steps. He accepted the support that I gave at his left elbow as he turned to sit. About half way down he relaxed completely, hitting the cushions with his full weight. He would have gone over backwards had he selected one of our straight back chairs. Our seat cushions and his round body gasped together, releasing their last air from the compression. A small fart punctuated the halt of his downward progress. He beamed with a satisfaction that gave me cause for concern. He was too comfortably seated.
"Ohhh. Thanks. God bless ya," he said. "sh 'cold out there." The gratitude in his voice was heart felt--difficult to resist.
I closed the front door. His car was still idling . No problem. He just needed to make a phone call.
"So. Whatcha do? Work I mean," he asked.
Scott started crying. I ignored him for a moment.
"I'm a doctor," I said.
"Might have known. God bless you," he said. The voluble old guy tilted his head down to his right side and held his right index finger up near his ear. Rosy cheeked, he looked like a mall Santa, greeting the next tot in line.
Scott began crying in earnest, so I walked over and looked in his room. He was still standing at the end of his crib. He stopped crying.
"I'll get you a bottle," I told Scott. He started crying again as I headed for the kitchen.
"Little fella wants his bottle. I can understand that," my guest said with a hoarse chuckle. He slurred, "I’m kind of a bottle baby myself."
Pinky was still asleep. I stepped to the kitchen and got a bottle out of the refrigerator. I made the few steps to his bedroom and handed him the bottle. He stopped crying, pushed the bottle aside, and held both hands in the air to be picked up. He squeezed with his little arms as I lifted him out of the crib. I put him on my hip and walked back out to the living room.
"You at Madigan?" the colonel asked. "Best hospital we used in twenty years."
I assented with a nod.
"Captain or major, son?" he asked, speech slightly slurred.
"A captain," I replied.
"You opened the door. Saw that black stripe...those pants," he said. He was getting maudlin. "I just wanna cry," he blubbered.
I was a little uncomfortable...too sentimental for me.
"I could just as well have been an elevator operator," I tried to head him off with a joke.
"Knew it would work out. I saw those pants. Just like family," he was crying. "What elevator?" he asked.
"Are you in the Army?" I asked.
He recovered a little. "Retired in sixty three. Twenty three years in Signal Corps."
"You had a black stripe down your pants too?"
"Sure did," he said. "Colonel, full bird." he said swelling with pride, with a serious demeanor. I thought he was going to salute. He turned into a colonel.
I didn't want to tap into the war stories. I had to get to business.
"What happened to your car?" I asked, changing the subject.
"Somethin broke. Terrible noise. Transmission," he said, thick of tongue.
I decided to go have a look; at least, I could turn off the idling engine. I was hoping to discover a simple problem with the car. Instinctively, I wanted to get him on the road.
I took Scott to his room, swung his legs over the side of the crib. He grabbed me tight around the neck with both hands and wouldn't let me put him down. The willful grip of those little arms surprised me. He wanted to protect me or to be protected--maybe a little of both. For just a second, I felt like blubbering with the Colonel.
Sentiment yielded to reality. The danger that we had pulled together to face was Colonel Santa Claus entrenching himself in our living room. I put Scott back on my hip. I didn't want to take him out in the rain, so I altered my plan.
"Would you like to use the phone?" I asked.
"To call Cora," he mumbled.
"The phone's in the kitchen," I said. I pointed.
"Wonderful little woman," he said with feeling. "Love her. More'n I can say." He wasn't moving. "Finest little woman...ever known. Nothing she wouldn't do," he said, blubbering incomplete thoughts.
"How about I call for you?" I asked.
"Good. It’d be nice," he said. He picked up where he left off, crying again, "Don't know why she keeps on." Then he started sobbing, "Loves me so much. Got her out chasin’ me round again." He struggled for control. He stopped crying. "Sorry," he said, sniffing. "Sorry."
"I know, Colonel. I need her number." I asked.
"736-4427...uh...2447...uh...736-2447."
"Your wife?" I asked.
"Daughter-in-law...real gem. Tough for her. Three kids. Husband in Viet Nam."
"Right. Colonel, you never told me your name," I said.
"Ed," he said. "Ed Callahan. "Your little trooper sure takes it all in doesn't he? Doesn't even blink."
"He's got a pretty good stare, doesn't he?" I was dialing as I asked him, "Cora, right?" He nodded, "yes."
"Hello. Is this Cora?" I asked.
"No. Who is this?" came the angry question from the other end of the line.
"Doctor Walker. I'm calling about Ed Callahan."
"Never heard of him. It's 1:45 in the morning. You ought to mind what you're dialing at this hour," the voice rasped. The line went dead.
"Sorry," I said softly to myself as I cradled the phone
"Oh, no," I thought to myself. "That's not good. If I can't find her, what then?"
"What's going on?" said a sleepy but insistent voice from the bedroom.
I walked to the bedroom door and said, "I've got a retired colonel on the sauce. He needs a ride. I'm trying to call the daughter-in-law."
"What's the baby doing up?" Pinky asked, her voice rising slightly in pitch.
"He won't let me put him down."
"I'm getting up. I'll make him some coffee," she said. "Sounds to me like he needs some coffee." She was up and putting on her robe.
"First, hold Scott," I said. "I want to go turn the car off. Maybe see what's wrong with the transmission." Scott hung on tight again.
"Go to mom," I said handing him off. "I have to go outside in the rain."
I opened the door and trotted to the car. I sat in the driver's seat. The gas gauge said half full. Good. It had an automatic transmission. I pulled the shift lever from park to drive, and the car was in gear and moved forward a few inches. There was a horrible metallic scraping from under the car. I put it back in park, got out, kneeled on one knee and looked. Under the transmission there was a partially crushed 20 gallon metal barrel that said "Janitor in a Drum". It had been run over and almost crushed but still contained some soap. I stood up and looked behind the car. A slimy trail marked the car's course. He had driven down VA Drive, but on the shoulder and in a few front yards, not on the road. For a few seconds I tried to imagine where he had driven that car to hit a full barrel of "Janitor in a Drum". There was no other damage to indicate that he had driven through a fence or a building.
I lay on my back on the wet pavement, scooted under the car, and pushed on the barrel; but it was firmly wedged. I turned around and kicked it. Unbelievably, I had no luck. Damn! I shut off the engine. The colonel needed a ride and a bed. I had to find Cora.
Scott, was on the floor staring across the coffee table at the Colonel who was sipping a cup of coffee. Pinky was sitting in a chair across from him. The colonel was garrulous. It was old home week. She had gotten all the skinny: how his wife developed breast cancer and died, where he had met her, their last three duty stations, their last trip together, his wonderful daughter-in-law...and more. The coffee was doing its work.
The Colonel began playing peek-a-boo with Scott, hiding his face behind his hands. He was making friends all around. Moving in with us, that's what he was doing.
"What's wrong with his car?" Pinky asked.
"Nothing except that he ran over a steel barrel filled with soap. It's still wedged under the transmission. I couldn't get it out."
She was ready with the next question.
I preempted her firmly with, "We have to find the daughter-in-law."
I turned to the colonel and asked him, "Where does Cora live?"
"1342...uh...1432...uh...anyway...142nd," he said.
"Can you remember the street, Colonel?"
"I42nd Place...yes, 142nd Place."
"In Tacoma?" I asked.
"Yes."
"What's your son's name?"
"John."
I went to the kitchen and dialed information. They had a number for John Callahan at 1342 142nd Place. I dialed 736-2477, and Cora's sleepy voice answered. I was relieved.
"I'm sorry to wake you. My name is Duff Walker. I've got your father-in-law in my front room. He's been drinking."
"Oh, Dad," she said to herself. Her voice held neither surprise nor worry but a profound weariness.
"Don't let him go," she said. "Where are his keys?"
"I've got them in my pocket," I said.
"Good," she said, relieved. "Is he okay?"
"He's fine. He hit a steel barrel of soap somewhere. The barrel is wedged under the car."
"Was he in a wreck?, she asked.
"No. I don't think so. But the barrel is stuck under the transmission. It drags. It makes a terrible noise."
"How bad is he? Drunk...I mean."
"He's having some trouble walking," I replied.
"Where is he this time?" She was desperately, trying to be polite but there was a trace of irritation. She was bone tired of retrieving the old fart. Then, I heard her crying softly.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"I'm sorry," she said. "It's the third time this month. I'll have to leave the kids alone again." She summoned composure and asked, "Can you give me some directions?"
"We live on VA Drive. Take the Ponders Corner exit from I-5. Head west toward the Sound. VA Drive is the first left turn. We are in the first apartment complex on the right, number twelve. It's right on VA drive and you'll see his car in front."
"I'll be about twenty minutes. Please. Don't let him have his keys," she pleaded. "He'll take off again."
"I'll hang on to the keys. Our phone is 738-7397. Just in case.," I said.
"I'm on my way."
"Bye."
I hung up the phone. Old home week was still going on in the living room. There's nothing like a friendly drunk for a little conversation. He had grown expansive. Pinky and Scott were spellbound. The colonel was chewing on a cigar with his thumbs in his belt.
"Yes, little lady. That was in sixty three, before my wife died," I heard the colonel retelling his story as I returned to the living room.
"You must have seen all of Europe then," Pinky said. She was having a great chat. It could have been a bridge party.
"Yes," he said. "We grew to love Germany. We had a nice house, the best of the lot."
"Where did you live?" she asked.
"Right there on the base. They had the best PX in Europe. We could buy anything. Better than here."
"You miss the Army, don't you?" she asked with empathy.
He nodded, looking into his coffee cup. "Yes...things were different then. Yes, they were."
Pinky poured for him from the cup of human kindness. I had drawn a short cup that night, and I silently urged Cora to come save us all.
"She's on her way," I told him.
"She's a peach. I told you she was," he said thickly. "She's trying...t' track me down." He gave us a self-satisfied smile. "I'm more than she can handle."
"Colonel, there's a barrel crushed and stuck under your transmission. " I broke in, addressing the soldier, trying to ignore the drunk. "Where did you hit that barrel?"
"Captain," he said, his steely blues glaring at me. "I didn't hit anything." For second, a tougher full bird Colonel came out of hiding.
"The car will be okay. You can take care of it tomorrow," I said. "Satisfactory, Captain," he chose the words carefully.
The doorbell rang. I opened the door for Cora. The overlapping layers of clothing...nightgown, terry cloth robe and tan military raincoat... covered her knees. With a smile and a minimum of work, her face would have made her pretty. She was tired.
"Hi, Dad," she said. There was a sadness in her expression that said, "Here we are again."
"Hello, sweetheart. God love ya," he said. "Ain't she a peach?" he asked the heavens.
"Get your coat, Dad. Let's go home," she said.
Cora looked at Pinky. They could have had a real talk.
"Thanks for looking after Dad," she said.
"Its okay," Pinky answered. "I enjoyed talking to him."
Pinky and I, one on each side, gave the colonel a hand to his feet. Slowly but firmly he pulled his arms free of our assistance, one at a time. He walked to Cora and put on the coat she was holding for him. He was surprisingly steady.
Cora turned to me and said, "We'll do something about the car in the morning if that's okay with you."
"Sure," I replied. I took the Chevrolet's car keys out of my pocket and offered them in my palm. The Colonel grabbed for them. He was way too slow. Cora's right hand was quick as a lizard's tongue. She had the keys.
He opened the door and walked into the rain.
Cora had pulled up in her station wagon, across the street, headed the opposite direction from the Colonel's Chevrolet. Cora got in and started the engine. Pinky and I walked the Colonel across the street around to passenger door. He opened the door to get in. He had forgotten something. He leaned down and looked in at Cora.
"Gotta have my briefcase," he said.
We couldn't hear her reply inside the car.
"The appraisal...for the house," he said firmly.
There was a long pause and a muted reply.
"Give me the keys, damn it," he said. The unctuous elf had departed his voice and the full bird Colonel was back. "Now!"
We strained, still unable to hear her reply.
"I promise," he said softening again.
He had the keys. I had a feeling of foreboding.
He walked to his car, opened the driver's door, and got in behind the wheel. Immediately, he reached over the front seat not for the ignition. He grabbed his briefcase from the back seat. I was relieved.
Tomorrow, they would all be gone--the people, the cars, the barrel, the soap, and to a large extent, our recollections. We would not know how it came out.
No! He started the car. But it didn't move. There was a chance. His car lurched forward about ten feet emitting its horrible scraping sound. The crushed barrel hit a pot hole, the car bounced up, and the barrel popped out.
He was free. His headlights came on. Both cars remained there, idling for the longest time. Cora ended the suspense. Her station wagon pulled away first, onto VA Drive headed north. In a heartbeat, the Chevrolet slowly moved on to VA Drive headed south.
Both sets of taillights slowly grew smaller...and smaller as they diverged, then finally disappeared into the dark, lonely, and rainy night.

The Contest

2008-05-06T15:05:00.001-07:00

The Contest

The contest tomorrow was the sole reason for this particular John McFarland Trio. I would play the bass. John would play the piano. Boddly was our drummer--the perfect drummer. If he were worse John wouldn't have him; if he were better, we couldn't have talked him in to it. He had aspirations--his name in the lights with John's.
We had just had our final rehearsal. I had confidence in "Bags Groove". Its base line was simple, and the chord changes were easy to hear. The month's practice showed, and John gave it the okay first time through. The other tune, "Con Alma" needed some work. A sophisticated tune, it had chord changes that were tougher to anticipate. The piano was to play a solo introduction. Its last two measures were deceptive. They sounded like the first two measures of the song itself, so it was easy to start the playing two bars early. I didn't have the feel of it. After several tries, I succeeded by disciplined counting...twelve bars of intro, then play. I hit it three times, and John was happy. We just had to do it one more time tomorrow--for the money.
We packed up our instruments and went to the party for the contestants. I had been at the edge of this group of musicians for a year...listening. Tonight I was at the party, a participant. I began talking to Lee Guilles, a guitarist who had been around Boulder for three or four years and knew John well. He asked, with his slightly English accent, "So, I heard you're playing the bass for McFarland?"
"Yes," I replied.
"John usually has Warburton on the bass. Those are some big shoes to fill. You should be proud," he said. He was smiling through the steely blue eyes that were nearly inscrutable but seemed to be laughing.
"I am. We're good friends." I was feeling some slippery footing here. My face warmed.
"I haven't seen you around much."
"Well, I'm in school here at CU." I was sweating...putting a pit in my only white dress shirt.
"So, you play for the Astronauts or something?" Lee asked with an amused smile, pleased at putting me off balance, gently accusing me of being a rock and roller. It was borderline unfriendly. If Jazz were my life, I would have spit in his drink, but I was slow to recognize the insult. He glowed with self-indulgent pleasure. He had found a soft spot and wanted to continue working on it. For the contest, as far as Guilles was concerned, there would be no beginner's permit.
I heard John over my shoulder, "He's all right, Lee. Don't put him on."
Our plan had gotten around the Boulder jazz community, and not every one liked it. They were professionals developing their careers. A bass player with one month of practice accompanying a tape recorder, learns two bass lines, and plans to win the state jazz contest on the shoulders of an eminent piano player...not so funny a joke to some of John's friends. They let us off with only this shot from Lee Guilles. It was a tribute to John, for his friendships and for the respect he commanded.
Performance day was upon us. Backstage, we set up an hour before curtain time. We were to be first up. We helped Boddly carry the drums to the stage. John played a few scales and the two handed run from "Con Alma". John, impeccably dressed, set the standard...a stylish dark suit, white shirt, and a thin black tie with a small tight knot at the button down collar...not a hair out of place. He had an eye for detail, but I was confident I could pass inspection. My once worn Brooks Brothers three piece suit should be good along with one of my father's dark knit ties. My black dress shoes had a drill sergeant shine. John did his inspection, nodded his initial approval. Then his eyes went to my tie. He grasped the knot with his left thumb and index finger and pulled the top free end until the knot was as small as he could make it. The knot still wasn't small enough. He was obsessed. He pulled several more times.
"I forgot part of the intro. I've got to go up to my place and listen to the tape," he said. He turned and left.
I looked at my watch. We had forty five minutes. "Forgot!" I said. My mind raced. I had an image of John stuck in traffic. I could plead with the contest judges ... for a later starting time...illness (the butterflies in my stomach were already in danger of becoming leap frogs.) I could lock myself in a restroom, and leave it all to Boddly for a 20 minute drum solo.
I was left with my lonely second thoughts. I began to think back on how I got here. It had begun simply enough. We were at CU in Boulder, college kids, cooking burgers when the phone rang. John answered it.
I could hear John's side of the conversation. He was organizing some work for his band.
"Yes. Speaking." Pause. "What's happening?" Pause. "No I can't. But, on another subject, can you make Aspen this year?" Pause. "I can only do a week--the week before Christmas. Can you make that?"
John shook his head. "No. I'll just call Ken at the Onion and tell him we'll take that first week." Pause. "Seven hundred and fifty a night for the group, just like last year. I'll set it up. Yep. Bye."
John hung up the phone, pulled apart two frozen patties, and asked, "You want to ski Aspen for the first week of Christmas vacation?"
"Just like that?" I was incredulous.
"We do it every year."
"Play music all night and ski all day...for seven hundred and fifty bucks a night?"
"It’s a gas. We get room and board too. There's room for you."
"I can't. I'm going home."
He would earn enough on his Aspen ski vacation, playing music, and chasing the girls to pay for a year of in-state tuition at CU. But there was more to it. John assumed an adult persona...control of his life, negotiating contracts, and lining up the club owners. He was at ease doing the business.
When he hung up, I realized that he had a reputation, more than a kid with promise. Some of that promise had been delivered.
That was enough business for John. He had an urgent announcement. "Peterson is going to be at the Band Box in Denver...tonight only. We've got to catch that. Can you swing it?"
John's idol was in Denver. That was big news.
"How did you find out?"
"My old music teacher. He called my folks."
"To tell you about Peterson?"
"Since we won the scholarship, he calls any time Peterson comes to town."
"A scholarship? " I stopped eating and looked at John.
"Not for school. Music."
"What kind?"
"To study with Oscar Peterson for a year. Piano."
"Was there some kind of contest?"
"Not exactly. You have to be recommended by a teacher," he replied. He was going to another thought, and I stopped him.
"So the private music teachers decide?"
"No. The master decides."
"How?"
"He listens to the tapes. You send him a tape...a thirty minute tape."
"How many slots are there?"
"Three."
"Where is the school?"
"Toronto."
"He's the best isn't he?"
"In my book. But that's hardly an objective opinion," John said through a mouthful of hamburger, putting on his coat. "We'd better hit the road."
We were driving the Denver Turnpike, always fun in John's sporty two door Buick with bucket seats, four on the floor, and G force acceleration. John was telling me about this prize possession.
“It was a gift from my grandmother.”
“There is nothing quite as grand as a grandmother is there?”
“Mine certainly is.”
“My folks weren’t so happy about the car, though.”
“Why?”
“They felt like it predisposes to a life style. Fast cars, easy money, loose women, the night club circuit, even drug addiction, which is what they are really worried about.”
“But you are squeaky clean.”
"But its little reassurance. And they're right about some of it," John explained. "But not every jazz musician has a drug habit...which is close to what they believe."
"You're already in the business. How do they feel about that?"
"Nervous. But it pays a lot of my expenses."
"What do they think about the scholarship?"
"On the one hand they're proud parents, but they are really scared that I'll do it."
"Couldn't you do it...?" It was part question, part suggestion.
"Sure. They could live with it...if they had to." He nodded approbation of his parents.
"Tough choice." That scholarship was a chance for John to fulfill a dream.
"Yeah...and basically, I've chosen. It’s hard to hit the big time in music, a lot of luck involved. Look at Grusin's brother. Getting that gig on the Andy Williams Show was all luck. He could still be playing the bars and living on the road."
We drove in silence, absorbed in John's chances to hit the big time.
We had arrived in Denver. As we walked down the alley to the front of the Band Box, a tall figure passed us headed for the rear of the building, big, black, and decked out...suit, tie, and an expensive black overcoat. Just as we passed in the alley, John gave me an elbow, and when we rounded the corner, he looked at me, his eyes slightly widened, and said, "Himself."
Near to greatness, we stayed for both shows--Oscar Peterson at the piano with Ray Brown on bass. John listened...absorbed some of the magic. "Con Alma" was John's favorite tune for the evening, I think because of its technical difficulty.
John listened to the bass as much as to the piano. Sometimes it seemed like he had come to hear Ray Brown play the bass. I began listening to bass lines...to all of the notes. John would point out the difficult parts, the chord changes, and especially Ray's distinctive licks.
Back in Boulder we stopped for a nightcap at the Lamp Post, the watering hole for fans of hard drinks and jazz. John was invited to sit in at the piano for a number. He played a tune. "Sound familiar?" He asked.
I strained. I didn't recognize it.
"It's 'Con Alma'," he said. "The one with 'Blue Moon' chord changes."
"You played that from what you heard Peterson play tonight?"
"I have to work on that run, but I've got a pretty good start on it."
"Amazing...to be able to do that" I gasped.
"It wasn't always so great. In second grade, the music teacher pointed at me and screamed ‘You've got perfect pitch.’ I was branded on the playground.”
Now he was used to his ability. It was just something he had, like having freckles.
We were in our final semester, and it was cake. We had time for music...sometimes at the clubs, sometimes on campus, sometimes at a jam or a dance where John played. I spent a lot of time with the jazz crowd listening to music. Listening to bass lines. John would sing along with the bass making a sound that was a mixture of grunting and humming. The lines were made up of single notes--played one at a time. It was easy to distinguish from other instruments and to follow.
One Friday night, we took in the jazz at the LampPost, and ended up sitting around at my apartment. John subconsciously picked up my guitar and played a few measures of a blues scale bass line that he made up on the fly. Then, he put the guitar down. I picked it up, and noodled around a little.
I tried to play the bass line that John has just played. I came close.
His eyebrows went up in surprise. Suddenly interested, he grabbed the guitar from me. He played the line again and he handed me the guitar.
On the second try I got it. I played the echo, almost.
He took the guitar back. He added a few frills and a turn around.
He had to show me the turn around twice, but I caught on.
"Well. The man has a black soul."
We had a few beers and got...not quite wasted. We had windy wide ranging discussions with random topics-- from childhood memories to imagined adventures. We let our imaginations weave dreams. You're in a plane crash at Independence Pass, you have only a pocket knife. How would you survive without matches...make it to Aspen? We fondled solutions. Then, we would pick a new hypothetical topic and start again.
In that spirit. John said, "You know...something...something we could really pull off?"
"What?"
"Enter the state Jazz contest...here in Boulder in about a month. I could teach you the bass lines to a couple of tunes. We might even win."
I had been tagging along for months, listening, talking music, and being the only one who didn't play, a voyeur. Now I could play, thrilled with the sense of belonging. We were going to surprise people, fool them, and we were excited to be doing it.
"Play the bass for you? In this contest?" I asked.
"I'll write you an easy line all quarter notes. We'll keep it simple, but you'll have to learn a solo."
"Solo? "
The solo almost did me in. Almost. But we had passed the bounds of good judgment.
"So how do they judge this contest?" I asked.
John was nonchalant. "Last year it was in the theater of the student center. They had a table with the four judges--guys who pretty much knew their stuff. There were all the other contestants. The audience is pretty small. There will be five or six bands. Each group plays two tunes. I won it last year with 'Bags Groove'."
"And if I screw up?"
"You die," he answered off hand, dead pan serious.
"No. Really," I persisted.
"We could lose. I've done this contest every year since I was in high school. I've won it four times. I don't need to win it again. But it would be a gas if we pulled it off. We'll play 'Bags Groove'; and if I can get through 'Con Alma', we could win." That’s how we got here.
John finally reappeared back stage, and I returned to the present with great relief. He was back. "I've got it," he said. "Plenty of time." He pulled a thin black tie out of his left coat pocket and handed it to me. I changed the tie. John tightened the knot himself. He was happy. He didn't forget the tune. That tie had been his true mission. He relaxed. But my stomach was roiling.
"Would every one please clear the stage, except for the John McFarland Trio," came a voice from the wing. We got in position. It was clear: I was going to have to play.
A voice on the PA system began a speech introducing the master of ceremonies. It got quiet. I realized how much crowd noise there had been -- crowd noise -- a crowd?
"Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome you to the 13th Annual Colorado State Jazz contest. We have a wonderful evening of Jazz. There will be five groups. Many of the artists are returning competitors of previous years. The first group on the stage is a newly formed group, The John McFarland Trio. John has played piano for the winning group the last four years of this contest."
My stomach began doing back flips. My right foot began jumping around; I stood on it, put all my weight on it. The left foot began jumping around. I stood flat-footed with equal weight on both feet. My feet stopped jumping, but not my stomach.
"Please welcome the John McFarland Trio playing 'Con Alma'." the emcee said. The curtain went up slowly--for ten seconds. It took a year. I had time to see several individual couples exchange comments...several times. I saw one of the judges point a pencil at John--no, at me, "Bill, who's the new bass man?"
A hush fell on the crowd. No big deal, McFarland? There was a full house, an ocean of dark forms, thousands of them, formally dressed, their white faces and expectant eyes upturned like hunters in a blind. I was in trouble.
"Oh. Please don't let me vomit," I silently petitioned fate. It was going to be close.
Then, there was applause that went on for a while. My nausea eased. John stood up and took a bow. The applause subsided somewhat abruptly. Recognizing trouble ahead, I rotated the mike over my bass to a new position over the piano sound board. Just being able to do something made me feel better. "Count," I told myself.
John began the Intro. I concentrated on counting, doing fine. Then, an adrenalin rush as Boddly came in on the fake, two measures before the end of the intro. Confused, I began on the next beat. Boddly recognized the error and we were both abruptly silent for the last measure of the intro. I was mentally scrambling to start again at the real beginning of the tune. But McFarland began playing something that I had never heard--not the intro and not the tune either. Then Boddly started again. For me school was out. I had no idea where to start. So, I pantomimed facial expressions, body movements, and stroking the strings as if playing... all performed in absolute silence. After a few measures, I began to hear a "Con Alma" that I could recognize. John was delivering a praiseworthy technical performance on the piano, keyboard wizardry in the face of our trio's disintegration. I gave my entire concentration, to listening for the cues to my approaching solo with a grim determination. I hit the solo right on the money, and I made it all the way-- a simple but near flawless solo. I was immensely relieved. I also had my place back in the song, so I was able to play the last part of the tune with the group. There was applause as the curtain came down. John took his glasses off. He looked up into my face, but his eyes were focused on his suffering miles away. He rubbed his eyes hard with his index fingers, said "Jees-us" in a whisper of miserable disbelief. We hadn't counted on this.
The Master of Ceremonies was introducing our second number. "Ladies and gentlemen, the John McFarland trio again with 'Bags Groove'."
We played. It wasn't perfect, but I did play well enough to get "in the groove" a little. Mercifully there was applause, and it was over. John walked with resignation to a sympathetic reception from the other musicians backstage. He was talking to his friend Grusin as I got the bass covered and ready to travel.
John was shaking his head saying, "Boddly was two bars early, and I was vamping, waiting to pick it up at the top."
Vamping. That explained the totally new tune I had heard at the end of the intro...a kind of musical holding pattern. John's comment gave me my only clue to the meaning of this new word.
"It wasn't Boddly who killed us," I said, eyes to the floor. "But he did provide me with the opportunity," I added, unable to resist the offered scapegoat.
Grusin clapped me on the shoulder, got eye contact, and grinned. "You did okay," he said. "It was right... when you played." It was a perfectly timed kindness. He whispered something to John that brought a smile and some color back to our leader's face.
Our friend took his leave, "Well, we're up next."
I looked at John, shrugged my shoulders and raised my eyebrows. He said, "Right." His tone conveyed understanding but also his need to give it a rest and have a little time alone. He paused, then said, "Let's go sit out front." I nodded, and we went. After ten minutes of anonymity in the crowd, we were able to almost enjoy the remaining performances. During a short break after the last had played, the judges made their final choices. Then, one of the judges took the microphone for the awards.
They went through the winners, beginning with third place. The Bill Branson Trio was finally announced as the first place winner. We were not called.
Sitting next to John I could feel his relief.
Then, the emcee announced, "We have made an additional award this evening. Unanimously the judges award honorable mention for best the piano performance to John McFarland." The applause made John groan. He needed to be finished with this contest..
Thirty years have passed.
"I feel badly for John. That he didn't go for the dream...the big time musical career," I tell my wife.
"Bull," She says. "Whose dream are we talking about here?"
My bass lesson is Tuesdays, 7 PM. She's right. It's my dream now. I've kept my day job. But there's always hope for a born again bass player.

The Bark Comes With Every Dog

2008-05-06T15:04:00.001-07:00

The Bark Comes With Every Dog

Trailing by fifty feet now, refusing to run, but trying to catch up, through the parking lot...on the midway I am walking briskly. There is calliope music, smell of cotton candy, a diesel engine lugging as "The Bullet" carries its screaming load to the ride's zenith. The roller coaster cars make a knocking sound as they climb. Twenty two caliber rifle shots precede the dull plink of bullets, intermittently hitting little metal rabbits in their mechanical parade. "See the four headed calf, the tattooed lady, and Tom Thumb," the barker yells. It is all mixing in the crisp fall air. Charlie has suddenly stopped at the edge of a circle of people. Something's up. A fight, a heart attack? Something.
No. The man in greasy levis and a dirty sleeveless T shirt, holds a crowd’s attention. His right index and third fingers are inside a tiny puppet, a remarkable replica of a dog, a Shitzu. Its hair is waving as it barks furiously. Intermittently we can see the dog's eyes, when the hair is thrown back from its face. Charlie and I are now part of this spellbound crowd. The man plays the shabby master grasping at the miniature dog which appears to leap toward a pretty girl in the front row. She gives a startled half of a scream. The carny's smile is accentuated by his missing left upper incisor. He struggles to control his tiny dog as he passes along the front row of the little crowd. We know that it is a puppet but it becomes somehow real--some kind of dwarf. It can't be. It's only the size of a tennis ball, and it has ten identical twins for sale, fixed in rows to the card board palette in his left hand. That barking. The barking does it. The bark is authentic. It makes the show... and the sales. We are cynics. Yet...This carny is taking us in. The growling and barking brings the dog to life. It is magic. Figure it out. Watch the carney carefully, especially his mouth. His lips part ever so slightly in a half smile but they do not move, even when the dog is moving vigorously. His Adam's apple is similarly fixed and still. We can't tell where the bark is from, his mouth or the dog.
"Take the little dog home," he says in a gravelly voice. "Three dollars. Get your little dog right here."
"Do they all bark?" a ten year old blonde girl blurts out her unabashed challenge. "Like that one?" she points to the dog on his finger.
"I think the man does it, Mandy," her mother explains.
He holds the dog down close. As she reaches to touch it, it barks furiously just as before, then goes for her nose. She ducks.
"The bark comes with every dog," he explains in a reassuring tone.
A woman in the second row nods her head. The hawker is drawn to the sound of her opening purse. "So it will bark...when I get it home...if he shakes it like that?"
"The bark comes with every dog," he rasps solicitously.
"It's for my grandson," She explains.
He puts the dog in a zip lock plastic bag, seals it, and takes her money.
"Amazing. The guy is a good. Isn't he?" A brazen showman himself, Charlie appreciates the performance. "Dogs are cute aren't they?"
"Wait a minute! You don't believe it barks...do you?" I ask.
"Come on, Walker." He is walking away shaking his head. "Jesus," he says in disgust. "You never believe anything. He said the dogs bark. Let's go."
"He didn't say the dogs bark."
The eyes of the crowd are now on Charley and me, our argument. I am embarrassed.
I'm not sure where that bark comes from. But that line is a masterpiece. It is the backbone of his business... It is always true. It means anything you want it to mean whether you are the speaker or the listener. It is a true and perfect answer to any question. The carny delivers it so carelessly--so effectively. I can't let it go.
"Just a minute," I tell Charlie.
"Hurry up." Charlie isn't interested anymore. For him the question had been asked and answered.
"Suck your thumb and make the dog bark." I tell the carnival man.
He holds up the palette of dogs in his left hand and the performing Shitzu puppet on his right. He shrugs his shoulders to show me that he has no free thumb to suck.
"Can I hold the dog?" I point to the dog. "I want to make it bark myself."
"Sure," he says beginning to take a dog from the palette. "Three dollars please," he rasps.
"First, let me hold it."
He can't believe I am so soft headed. Disgusted, he re-attaches the dog to the palette.
"Come on, Walker. The dog barks. Give it a rest. Let's go," Charley said impatiently.
"Look," I say to the carny. "It's clear you take pains to avoid lying." As I take three dollars from my wallet, I say, "Say: 'The bark is inside the dog’, and I'll buy a dog."
"The bark comes with every dog.” the carny said.
As I return the money to my wallet, Charlie's mouths drops. He tilts his head tilts back and smiles, then whispers, "Right. The bark comes with every dog."
We turn and continue down the midway.

The Apartment

2008-05-06T15:03:00.001-07:00

The Apartment

It was midnight. The cab disappeared in the dark, and they were alone. Two suitcases full of bicycle parts and two duffel bags were piled on the sidewalk. Eight hours ago the luggage represented adventure, now it was a forlorn pile of the sole possessions of west coast refugees, homeless in New York City. “I’ll stay with the luggage. You go get the keys,” Pinky offered.
The building on the corner has a doorman all night. Gretchen had left keys with him. Duff stood at that desk while the doorman went through three boxes from two different closets – no keys. Finally the last envelope appeared with Gretchen’s beautiful penmanship. Oh salvation! Inside were the precious keys and five step directions for the unlocking process for her apartment.
Duff returned and pulled the suitcases to the red door at #5, and performed the first instruction: Turn the red key, in the lock on the red door, one quarter turn counter-clockwise. The lock would not turn. Puzzled Duff poked at his Palm Pilot. The address was #5. It was a red door. Now what? Pinky pulled the handwritten note from her purse.
“It is number 6. You should throw that thing away,” she said with disgust.
“It’s across the street. Embarrassing. Neighbors must be laughing.”
“Calling the cops is more likely at this hour.”
They carried the pile of baggage across the street quickly – surreptitiously.
. Duff turned the red key in the lock of the red outside door, and they piled baggage in the antechamber. The lock clicked as they inched the last bag in enough for the front door to close behind them.
“It feels like we’re locked in—like we’re being inspected.” He was looking up at the camera on the ceiling. It was a little different than the key under the mat at their own house.
Instruction #2: the green key one quarter turn in the bottom lock. The bolt slid but kept springing back. He pushed against the door with his foot to hold the bolt from spring back again. Instruction #3: put the same green key in the upper lock for a quarter turn. What a satisfying sound the bolt made. The door opened. Their hearts gave a few elated thumps. They had cracked it. It took two hands, one foot, and two keys. They carried bags, one at a time, up three flights of narrow stairs. The pile filled the landing. Duff lay atop the baggage pile and reached down to the door, and performed step #4: small key full circle. “We’re in,” he said.
There was one big room with sink, counter, refrigerator, chair, and table on the right and a double bed on the left, entry behind and the balcony ahead. They found the note on the table, retrieved the hidden key, and completed step #5. They opened the iron gate leading to the outdoor balcony, where Duff deposited the suitcases containing the folding bicycles.
“It’s cute,” Pinky said.
They were sticky with sweat. Duff stripped to his jockey juniors. Pinky read three notes on the table: The Instructions. She unpacked and organized stepping over him.
“How can I unpack?” she asked, her voice rising. “What are you doing lying on the floor?”
“Trying to play Gretchen’s new CD, the one with Garrison Keillor narrating the flute music. It was on the table. Hand me my flashlight from the fanny pack, would you?”
“By lying on the floor?”
“Just hand me the flashlight.”
“You look like a bear rug. There is no place to stand with you sprawled like that.”
“The stereo is on the floor under the table, Smarty,” he said. “I have to lie down with the flashlight to see the controls. Everything has push button controls. Clever. She has to bend down and put the CD in the slot, then she operates the whole rig with her toes. There.” Beautiful flute music filled the room with Garrison narrating for the bird.
“That is beautiful,” Pinky said.
“She’s world class, isn’t she? We can take a tour and rubber neck at Julliard …see where she works. It’s after midnight,” Duff said, turning the volume down.
“I can’t hear it. Put it back up a little,” Pinky said, her voice rising. “She practices here all the time, louder than this.” Pinky was working with Gretchen’s new machine from heaven. It was the air conditioner blowing cold air at us. Pinky had found a place for everything, and then developed her system for moving the open suitcase from the chair to the bed depending on which was in use.
“Go sit outside on the balcony, and I’ll take a shower while the place cools down,” she said.
On the balcony, the New York City sounds faded into the cool calm of the courtyard behind the building. The arrival angst was dissolving. He sat with bare skin to the cool plastic of the chair. Fabulous. They were residents of the Big Apple – for a week.
Two minutes later Pinky arrived in her silk nighty with two glasses of ice water and a tiny little piece of cheese. It would be the ritual balcony snack in the night air when they recapped each day and planned the next.
Pinky had a radiant laughing smile. “Wait till you see the shower.”
“What about it?”
“After our snack, read the yellow instruction sheet that Gretchen left and take a shower.”
“Come on. Just tell me.”
“Well. She doesn’t have room in the closet for winter coats. She hangs them along the back of the bath tub on the shower rod, and she has the curtain wrapped around separating them, dry and away from the front of the tub where she stands to shower,” Pinky said with amazement.
“So, from the perspective of the winter coats, the south end of the tub is filled with a cleverly-fashioned plastic coat bag, which has an extension that functions as a shower curtain,” Duff tried to clarify
“Pretty much. I can’t wait to see you in the shower, Mr. Bear.”
Pinky inspected the four flower boxes on the balcony, feeling the soil in each.
“I need to water these. Let’s fill the pot on the stove with water. We’ll have to run it back and forth so I can water these plants.”
“We?” he asked.
She glared at him. “You can help a little, you know.”
“I read something in the note about a faucet outside,” he said.
“I didn’t see it.” She was on her way in to re-read the notes. In a few minutes she said, “I can’t find it.”
“I see a hose on the balcony next door,” he said.
She was looking at the three foot high iron railings of the two neighboring balconies, just inches apart, three floors up. She leaned over the railings to push a chair out of the way on the other side so she could have a landing spot when she climbed over. The light on the balcony went out while she was still reaching. She looked back and saw him standing at the door with his hand inside at the switch.
“Turn the light on. I can’t see anything,” she hissed, seeing him in the doorway standing by the light switch. The light came on again.
“When you go head first over the rail in your nighty you flash about two hundred of our next door neighbors. I got a pretty good shot of the whole whisker biscuit,” he replied.
“You don’t need to talk like that, and keep your voice down. I’ll do it without the light,” she snapped.
“Wait until morning. You might frighten our neighbors creeping around on their balcony.”
“Not one light. They’re not home.”
“It’s 1 AM. They’re asleep,” he said. “In New York, they shoot people for balcony hopping.”
“Don’t touch that light. I’m going over.” She went over, head first. She was not going to sit on that cold metal railing in her nighty.
She turned on the hose. Squirted a little over the end and waited to hear the water hit the concrete three stories below. She smiled. She was thinking of her grandson Max, holding a hose. There is power in a running hose. Then she passed it over the railing and instructed Duff as he sprinkled the plants. Now he had the hose. He was remembering Max too. “Don’t even think about it.” She said. “You won’t like the pay back.”
She climbed back. They left the lights off and sat in the plastic chairs.
“There’s a step ladder in the bathroom leaning against the wall next to the light switch,” Pinky said. “She must have changed a light bulb.”
“No. I know what it’s for.”
“What?” she asked.
“To reach her CD’s. They’re shelved in the bedroom in a single row about eight feet up, above the bathroom door. Look up when you go to brush your teeth.”
“She stores the ladder in the bathroom?”
“Yep. Groovy isn’t it? Very practical. It’s like living on a boat – a submarine maybe.”
“While you were trying to break in across the street, I was looking around at the houses on this block. You know some of the brownstones on this block are really nice. Some of them are pretty fancy. She’s in an upscale neighborhood here.”
“It’s right on Central Park, a block from the subway. Dynamite spot.”
“Well in only a few minutes here we are beginning to share her life. This is the big city: Lots of neighbors, housing at a premium, and reasons out there to have four locks to get where we are now.”
“Yeah and nobody has a garage, a car, a washing machine, or floor space: no tool bench, lumber pile, and no storage for kayaks and bicycles.”
“Everything is big in New York. The good stuff is the best, and the bad stuff is the worst … they say everything in the world eventually seems to show up on this 20 miles of island.
“Yeah, and be ready to walk. New Yorkers walk. There are stairs to the apartments, to the subways, and in the stores. There are two or three blocks to walk, round trip, at both ends every subway trip.”
The late night and travel fatigue were their excuses. They awoke at 10:15 AM. “
“We’re late. We’re late. We’re late--for a very important date,” Duff chanted. “I’ll put the bikes together while you go get some breakfast stuff.”
“Okay. I’m doing some detective work,” she said opening the refrigerator door. “Your mother’s refrigerator is much more interesting. Gretchen cleaned hers out. No clues. I don’t think she eats here much. I’ll be back shortly,” Pinky said.
Thirty minutes later Pinky returned with a plastic bag in one hand and a large bouquet of flowers in the other. “Good boy. You have your bike together, I see. How long until you finish mine?”
“Ten minutes. Don’t distract me. I don’t want to drop any parts through the slats on this balcony.”
“How do you like my bouquet?”
“Pretty. I thought you went to buy food.”
“Relax, skinflint. They were free. I got them from the dumpster next door. They are still fresh,” she said. “When should we call Ned? We’ve got to check out this boy friend.”
“Soon. So we can come up with a plan,” he said. They both looked stunned at the sound of the little 6mm screw bouncing on the wood slats.
“Damn it!” he exclaimed.
“I’m sorry. I guess that’s what you were talking about, huh,” she said smiling.
He gave a resigned, eyes closed nod. They got down on their hands and knees. The screw had not fallen all the way through but was perched on a two by four joist in the half-inch space between the deck slats.
“I don’t have the needle nose pliers,” he said looking at the roll of tools in the suitcase. “I can reach it, but I can’t get a hold of it.”
“I’ll get it,” she said. She was stuffing two sticks of Juicy Fruit gum into her mouth. “Here.” She handed him the sticky wad.
“It’ll never work,” he said.
“Your tools didn’t work,” she replied.
He took the gum and stuffed it into the crack on top of the screw. As he pushed it around with a screwdriver the gum stuck to the screw enough to move it to a more precarious position. It stuck even more tenaciously to the wood surfaces of the slats. He began cursing.
“Here. Let me do it,” she said. “You go in there and wash your hands. Walk down to the stoop and cool off. Look around a little.”
When he returned she held up the gum in triumph. The threaded end was peaking out of the wad. “Disaster averted,” she proclaimed. “Now you have to call Ned.”
“So tell me the nights we don’t have show tickets.”
“Thursday and Friday.”
“Shall we go out or eat here.”
“Out.”
They made the date for Friday. Ned agreed to pick a restaurant. They were going to have dinner with her beau. Pinky was excited, full of questions – girl questions. “What did he sound like?”
“Tall,” Duff answered.
“Come on, you know what I mean. I heard you talking to him. You know what I mean,” she said.
“I don’t. You should have made the call.”
“What does he do?” She would even take a boy question if he would answer it.
“He works for Conde Naste. He’s a graphic designer. You have to wait until Friday and ask your own questions.”
By eleven the bikes were together, ready for a Sunday ride in Central Park. Pinky’s friend Hope had one major recommendation: Zabar’s. Pinky called to reserve a table for dinner. The amazed but tolerant clerk informed her that it was a quintessential deli and gourmet cooking store with tools and supplies for the industrial strength kitchen mechanic. Ha! Tourists. That was enough of planning. They wheeled the bikes down the stairs on their back wheels with the front wheels vertical.
At the street, they mounted their bikes, headed across Central Park West, and pedaled a few blocks. There were a lot of people, and the mood was festive. Police were conspicuous, several on every corner, talking to each other.
Pinky stopped to adjust her seat. “How come there are so many of you guys in the park?” She asked the policeman who was staring at her funny looking bike.
“For the parade. The mayor is not going to have anything like last year happen again.”
“Parade?” she asked.
“Puerto Rican Day Parade,” he said. “Where are you from?”
“Mount Vernon – state of Washington, about 60 miles north of Seattle.”
“You’re going to see New York on that bike?”
She nodded.
“O-o-o-h,” he said. It was sort of a pleading gasp. “Be careful.”
“We will. Thanks,” she said. “Not bad duty today.”
“Yeah. It’s good, and it’s overtime too,” he replied
“How do you get to the Carousel?”
“I don’t know. I work in the Bronx.”
“You don’t work in the park?”
“Oh, no. This is beautiful. It’s like Beirut where I work.”
“I suspect we are very glad that you are here.”
The officer smiled broadly. “Bye,” he said.
They pedaled on, to the playing fields, the open-air playhouse, the castle, the sculptured shrubs at Tavern on the Green, and to the carousel. As they moved south through ball games, baroque concert, street musicians, and the rollerbladers weaving in and out of crowds, there were people in costumes, people dressed in Puerto Rican flags. There were people dressed to the nines. A few who nothing on but a few tattoos. One girl in particular skated with arms extended with an almost flying movement as if in the Ice Follies. There were other bicyclists and everything to quadriplegics in motorized wheel chairs. Gradually, approaching Fifth Avenue, they were packed into crowd tight enough to ride a Tokyo subway. All peoples of the earth seemed represented, an amazing ethnic cross section of New York.
“Where is the parade?” Pinky asked.
“Down there below us, on fifth avenue. You can barely see it through the trees,” Duff replied. “Technically we aren’t supposed to be on the sidewalks with the bikes since the roads are open.”
“And people aren’t supposed to be walking in the middle of the street,” Pinky added.
We passed another policeman, and Pinky asked, “Is it okay to ride bikes on the sidewalk?”
By his face, he was incredulous that she had asked. “This is New York,” he shrugged. The question was rendered irrelevant by practicality. Like the police, New Yorkers in general, seem to accept a panoply of ideas their fellow citizens employ in activities of daily living, somewhere between approval and surrender
A bike messenger unlocked his heavy duty stainless steel construction padlock and removed with the huge 3/8 in galvanized chain from a light pole. He locked the chain around his waist, crossed the street against the light, did a u-turn in a slow moving lane of oncoming traffic, weaved around a bus and two taxis to disappear on a side street. “I guess you were right about these horrible heavy locks you bought,” Pinky admitted.
“We got a little lesson on how to bike in traffic, too. The motorists tolerate bicycles like horses tolerate flies.”
New York City is actually very bike-friendly. There is a bike trail almost all the way around Manhattan Island – the entire west side and about a third of the eastside. Bikes are allowed on the subways. Bicyclists and rollerbladers weave in and out of almost parked cars on the North-South streets and ride along the sides the East-West avenues that have the faster traffic. They watch drivers at the curbs more concerned about getting door jacked than about side-swiped by cars to their left. Surprisingly, the drivers are tolerant, and they expect bikes and skates. When the street is too dangerous to ride, the sidewalk is okay. Don’t get to close and don’t let the bike touch anyone. Most pedestrians pay little attention. Some are not happy seeing a bike but they have a disciplined tolerance. Police attitude seems to be: If you are not hurting anybody, you have your privacy and freedom to do what you need to get through frenetic life in the big city, including riding your bike on the sidewalk.
Monday they rode down the west side along the Hudson around the eastern tip of Manhattan, and up the east side to the Brooklyn Bridge. Along the west side, they passed some wonderful piers maintained as parks. There was great stuff to see: the aircraft carrier Intrepid, a skateboard park, a riding paddock in a warehouse, and environmental zealots who have developed center for the protection of the fish species in the Hudson. There was good “people-watching” when the World Trade Center disgorged bursts of suits into the Waterfront Park for a lunch break. They continued riding down the waterfront to Battery Park where there were the lines of tourists waiting for boats to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. A man spray painted himself in silver and was making angular movements coordinated with recorded robotic machine noises. The entertainment was the uncertainty in figuring out that he was a man acting like a machine rather than visa versa. He responded to overtures from children in a very human and friendly way, and they usually put money in the tip jar.
Pinky and Duff crossed the Brooklyn Bridge for lunch. The history of the bridge is rendered on multiple large plaques. Pinky especially liked the story about the wife of the engineer-builder. The bridge was a marvel begun about ten years after the civil war, engineered by father and then by son. During the final year, her husband bedridden and dying, the faithful wife delivered instructions to the construction site on his behalf.
They headed north in Brooklyn . The kids playing pick up basketball game in a park were skinny and neat, fat and sloppy, some reading, some dribbling a basketball, and all had black pants, white shirt, and the curled locks of hair hanging in front of each ear . “I think they are Hasidic Jews,” Pinky said.
“It’s an unusual pickup basketball game,” Duff said.
“Why not? This is New York.”
The Manhattan Bridge had a bike path that was under construction, so they returned over the Williamsburg Bridge. They continued uptown on the east side passing the UN in the 4:30 p,m. traffic, they learned to ride the parking lanes just out of the fast traffic, weaving as necessary among nearly parked cars of slow traffic. They went on the sidewalk when the street was too scary. They worked their way uptown past the Trump Tower, where they found the only New Yorker who would not abide a cyclist on the sidewalk. Security guards pursue any bicyclist riding on Don’s concrete approaching Trump Tower. Then, from the southeast corner of Central Park, they had bucolic cruise home to the apartment for the three-flight-bike-hike. Hors d’ oeuvres and drinks and they were off to dinner and a show, “Rent.” They would see “The Producers”, “Proof”, and “Stones in his Pockets” by the end of the week.
On the advice of Ned, after the matinee of “The Producers”, Duff and Pinky stopped in the park and got in the stand-by line to see “Measure by Measure”, offered free in the evening by the “Shakespeare in the Park” program. At the head of the line a young couple made a cell phone call. Shortly, a bicycle arrived with a basket on the handlebars designed to carry a big insulated bag. These cognoscenti dined in line on hot pizza. The other patrons had only the aroma and their abundant saliva. We in the standby line got the unclaimed seats. Corporate sponsors almost never used their seats, the best seats in the house, up front. Pinky and Duff arrived standby but sat in the second row. The performance was top notch and free. After the play, they filed out to ride their bikes. The return to Central Park West was lined with police officers, a testimony of the dangers in the park at night.
The next day the bikes were the perfect transportation to the Museum of Natural History, the Genome Project, and Planetarium. Then they covered the short distance across Central Park to the Guggenheim, International Museum of Photography, and the Fricke Museum. The Fricke Collection was a tour of unexpected excellence. It was a no expense spared, one man art collection, housed in his personal residence. The house was designed around the collection by Mr. Fricke, knowing that he would donate it to the city at his death. The art pieces and arrangements were his personal choices, often diverged from prevailing opinions of critics. It had the highest reading on the fun meter for the eastside.
On the next day, Pinky said, “I want to go the Cloisters.”
“What’s there,” Duff asked.
She handed him a brochure. “It says, ‘The Garden in Medieval Life’. You must be thinking of another place,” he said.
“That’s the right museum. That’s what I want to see. You don’t have to go.”
“Let me see that guide book again,” he said. After a few minutes, he said, “I don’t see anything open today that I like a lot better, and at least it is a decent bike ride.”
They rode the bike trail north along the Hudson, north to the state park, to the Washington Bridge, and through Harlem. They reached the Cloisters Museum in Fort Tyron Park. It was a spectacular surprise because the building was so meticulously and caringly built, and because the garden was authentic, medieval, and utilitarian. The cloister was reconstructed from parts dating to the twelfth to fifteenth century collected mainly from one cloister in France. Missing elements were collected elsewhere in Europe or were re-crafted in the United States. It was bought and then donated to New York City by the Rockefellers. They had bought large tracts of land across the Hudson so that the views from the cloister would be wooded rather than urban. The garden tour demonstrated a practical purpose for every plant. All plants were grown in the medieval period, and were planted to provide the foods, spices, medicines, dyes, and magic potions to the inhabitants. Beauty was a lesser consideration. The tour was the personal project of our docent, who identified the plants, gave us the history of the cloister garden. She also demonstrated how they were processed to make medicines, dyes, and potions. Our docent explained the uses of spices and the various food plants present. She described searching for the somewhat rare plants. We made the docent’s last tour of the season. She would not work in the hot weather that was coming.
“Well?” Pinky asked as they were unlocking their bikes.
“All right. All right. I loved the Garden Tour,” Duff admitted.
They returned to the submarine apartment, their much appreciated home base with that cool balcony for the hors d’ oeuvres and the late night snack rituals.
“I want to buy that Picasso print of the musical instruments for the apartment,” Duff said.
“Don’t do it,” Pinky said. “If she liked hanging art on the wall, she would have something there now.”
“Maybe they won’t let her make holes in the walls. We could show her how to use steel sewing needles.”
“Those walls are bare for a reason.”
“So. We have Germanic discipline from the Rhineland; no laisez-faire or foo foo paintings from the French Riviera are allowed.”
“That’s not it. She just likes the white walls. It makes the apartment seem bigger. And I think she is a minimalist like my father,” said Pinky.
The week had flown. It was raining steadily. He stood out on the balcony in his brief lycra swim suit, taking the bikes apart and putting the dripping parts into their suitcases. She was cleaning inside trying to leave the apartment as they had found it. They were ready to call the cab.
“What a strange way to get to know a new friend,” she said.
“It is, isn’t it? We come as new crew on the submarine … live in her empty apartment, raid her refrigerator, have dinner with her boyfriend, and play her CDs.”
“We feel closer to her, and she wasn’t even here.”
“Next time she has to be with us.”
“Yes. She would have liked to see your hot shot jump onto the curb with your bike, with your subsequent front flip over the handlebars landing on your knees, right in front the lady coming out of the Fricke Museum. And the look on that lady’s face…she was calling 911 before you even hit, flabbergasted to see this gray haired man twice her age, arising from the sidewalk laughing, face to face within arm’s reach.”
“We are not going to tell Gretchen about that. We’re late. Call the cab.”
Once again, we were off at the crack of noon.

Taking the Cake

2008-05-06T15:02:00.001-07:00

Taking the Cake

"You and Scott have a meeting tonight...in an hour. Did you forget?" Pinky asked, her voice rising anxiously.
"I remembered. I just couldn't get away from work."
"Hi, Dad. Mom and I have started on the cake. She likes our idea for a hot air balloon cake." Scott said confidently. He had his Cub Scout shirt tucked into his levis, yellow scarf in place, and hair combed. He was ready for Troop Nine's Father-Son Cake Contest. It was a make’m-donate’m-auction’m-buy’m back deal. It kills so many birds with one stone. I wasn’t certain which of its lessons we were supposed to learn. But we were making a cake together and it would likely be some fun…which was good enough for me and Scott.
"The square cake is cooling on top of the stove. It is too hot to put on the counter. You can cut it to size," Pinky said.
"It's perfect." I said. Scott nodded his agreement. I touched the round cake tin at the front of the stove. It had cooled. "You get the aluminum foil. I'll get the plywood." I went to the garage and returned with a thin two foot square of plywood. Presto, we had our instant silver cake platter. I emptied the first layer from the round tin onto it to start our balloon. The round tin with the second layer of our balloon was on the stovetop cooling. I slathered on some frosting on the first layer in the middle of the platter. I could see some relief on Scott's face. We would have a cake.
We were in pretty good shape. Maybe. This cake turned serious. Scott radiated, "Do you think we could win? Dad, I want us to win." Personally I was just happy to have a cake to fulfill the obligation. My cub scout had some big expectations...peer pressure. I had been relieved to see the cake started, but now we had to win. Pinky's face was different, almost amused, it said, "Bet you wish you'd left work fifteen minutes earlier."
The timer buzzed. "That's the timer for the little square cake in the lower oven. Put it on the stove top to cool," Pinky said.
I followed that instruction. “Here’s the basket to hang under the balloon with those licorice whips. Put some of that blue icing on that one.” Scott began putting the blue icing on the lower layer of balloon.
"Turn the oven off. Will you?" asked Pinky from the next room.
I turned the knob till it clicked. "Roger on the oven."
About fifteen seconds passed. "Did you turn off the oven. I smell something..." Pinky appeared in the kitchen as I turned around and saw the stove's glowing front burner under the cooling cake tin, the one containing the top layer of the round cake. The cake was retracted from the sides of the tin, black and smoking. I had turned the burner control instead of the oven knob.
"You have ruined it." Pinky was angry. "And the oven's still on."
"Great place to cool the cake. Thanks for the suggestion." I was glaring at Pinky.
"Didn't you even look?" Her lips were tight.
"Oh, that's a big help. Who's at fault here? Let’s take some time to figure that out."
Scott was still putting frosting on the bottom layer. Tears welled up, no sound.
There was dead silence...for a few seconds. I could feel her desire to bury me in invective.
I took a deep breath, blew it out slowly through pursed lips. I gave her my beleaguered look. "Do we really want to fight about this now?" was on my face. She let us change tack.
"It'll be okay." I patted Scott on the shoulder. "We'll put the burned one on top and ice it up. It'll look fine."
Silent tears still.
"Really. It's going to be fine," I said.
Pinky had the cake out of the pan and had made a test cut. The top wasn't burned, but the bottom and sides were black. "I can cut the black stuff off. You can fill in with a lot of icing." She began the plastic surgery. She tasted a small piece from the center. "It tastes...still burned. More frosting."
I gave Scott a hug and said with a low voice, "Frosting is better than cake anyway. We have a winning idea with this balloon. The red licorice ropes to the balloon basket, will do it for us."
"It's going to look great. I must say that it is unique." Pinky was beginning to see the possibility.
As the tears dried up Scott sniffed, then smiled. I put the burned layer atop the round cake. Pinky took a toothpick and stuck it through the top layer into the lower one, and gave me several and said, "Keeps it from sliding."
I hustled to cover it with blue icing. "Get those red licorice whips and rope this big blue balloon to its basket." I was touching up the chocolate icing on the square cake. "The whole box." I pointed to the licorice. He went to work on it, and I stuck the tiny doll into the square cake...our passenger in the basket below the balloon. Pinky handed me the nozzle ended bag of red icing, and I squeezed out "Around the World" in red letters on the blue balloon.
"It looks fabulous." Pinky gave us a round of applause. Scott was beaming. Pinky had given him the rubber spatula to clean the rest of the icing from the bowl. He had none on the uniform, some in his mouth, and the rest on his face.
"Have a good time boys." She cleaned Scott's mouth with a sponge, and we headed for the pick up.
"I wonder how many other fathers are going crazy getting their cake done."
"Maybe some Moms too," Scott surmised.
I smiled and nodded.
At the school gym they had the six foot folding tables set up to display the cakes. A rotund lady with happy smile directed us to a spot for our cake. She was old enough to be Betty Crocker herself and had on a big button that said, "Judge."
"My! You boys and your dads have come up with some pretty fancy cakes."
It was true. There was a huge flat green cake decorated as a soccer field, a goal at each end, tiny figures for the opposing teams. There were several round layer cakes whose strength was their frosting decoration--one had a brown bear, one a train, and an airplane. There was one huge cake with an icing sculpture of a figure labeled Bilbo Baggins, which was my favorite. Many more cakes were coming to the tables. A few had a distinctively female touch--unfair competition. Some were obviously unassisted efforts: the top layers had slid, and Betty Crocker had repairs under way at the display table. There should have been a separate category for contestants unfamiliar with the toothpick trick. Dads trudged in, their eager sons in tow, anticipating public display and judging of their culinary efforts. Some were better than ours, but we would not be embarrassed. There was not great confidence on most faces.
Our leaders called the meeting to order and presented awards while Betty Crocker did her judging. About half way through the merit badge ceremonial, the gym door opened with a loud clank.
We all watched a lone dad walk the length of the gym conspicuously late, no cake, and no son. He turned in at our row, passed us and sat a few seats down, where his son had a hand on an empty seat. He wore scuffed work boots, low riding levis revealing a hint of plumber's butt at belt line, a tape measure on his belt, and a heavy uniform coat advertising Frostad Plumbing and Heating. His rough and blackened, his washed and empty hands hung down from the jacket.
"Hi Dad," the boy said eagerly.
"Hi, Jimmy." His dad grinned.
"Did you get us a cake?" Jimmy asked hopefully.
Our plumber shook his head. Pop had missed his cake deadline--no cake for the contest. He was in trouble. He hadn't made the bakery either.
I felt lucky to have a burned cake.
After the merit badge awards, they turned us loose to tour the cake table, let us see where the judge had put her ribbons. About half of the cakes got some kind of award. We got one of the big blue ribbons with a placard that said, "Most original." Scott had expected to win the grand prize. He looked satisfied, but not ecstatic. My relief was close to ecstasy.
"Will everybody please gather here at the first table?" It was our scoutmaster. Slowly we did as we had been asked, herded by Betty Crocker. "It is time to start our auction," he said, and started at the first cake.
Auction? Auction! I was stricken. They are going to sell our burned cake...to a friend. Meanwhile, the first cake was on the block and sold for eight dollars. My inner turmoil subsided, as one of the blue ribbon winners went for twelve dollars.
Down the row I heard an urgent voice. "Dad, you said we could buy a cake." It was Jimmy.
"It's too late." Our plumber was staring at his feet, paying the price again.
"You said..."
Even mumbling in a subdued golf voice he couldn’t say, " Before the contest, because I couldn’t cook it.” Instead, he had to say, "We'll see." Dad had seen the light, buy silence for the price of a cake. Anyway, it was a good cause.
"Dad, I want that balloon cake--the one with the red licorice. Please."
It made me proud of our cake. Two intervening cakes sold. They tipped our balloon so everyone could see it. Three or four people bid it right up to twelve dollars. "
"Dad?" Down our row Jimmy whispered.
"Fifteen dollars," the plumber bid, voice as stout and rough as his body.
I was mortified. Fifteen dollars for a burned cake. I had to buy it back.
"Twenty dollars," I said. I thought it would be just enough to stop the bidding. We faced off…two desperate men trying to cover our mistakes, to buy our way out.
"Twenty five dollars," our plumber boomed.
Silence. None of us, even him, could believe that he'd said it. Things were getting out of hand, but I really had no choice. That was way too much for a burned cake.
"Thirty Five." I spoke quickly to give the impression I was a maniac crazed for this cake. It worked.
"They made it, and they want it. We have to quit," he said to his son.
"It's the one I want."
"Jim, I can't." The rough voice was firm, but it had a plaintive quality.
"Okay." Jim's voice conveyed a combination of disappointed acceptance and understanding for his dad.
Going, going, gone...for thirty five dollars. My secret safe, I was the proud winner of our cinder cake.
We had really loosened up the bidding, and the remaining cakes went for fifteen to twenty dollars apiece. The scout leaders were just bubbling, beaming their satisfaction. What a haul. This cake auction stuff was terrific. “Let's do another one in the spring,” the scout master said.
As the meeting broke up, I tapped Jim on the shoulder.
"I want you to have this cake." I turned to his dad. "Hi, I'm Duff Walker, Scott's dad." We shook hands. "I had to buy our cake back. I burned the round cake. The square one is fine."
Jimmy smiled. "Thanks," he said. But his enthusiasm had waned.
"I'm flattered...that you liked our cake. Do you like balloons?"
Jim scarcely paid attention. "Nah."
" Why did..."
Jim brightened. "The licorice." He smiled at me. "I like red licorice." He looked up at his dad, “Can Chad ride home with us?” It was a contest of years past for him. I pulled the opened package of licorice whips from my parka pocket and gave them to Jimmy. He looked up, and his dad nodded. “Thanks!” he said. We all laughed. Scott and I turned for the door carrying our thirty-five dollar cake.

So, You're Not Going to Help Me

2008-05-06T15:01:00.001-07:00

So,You’re Not Going to Help Me?

Michelle was waiting for us. This was the rain check for my birthday ride. Her bike was ready, and she was sitting sideways in the driver’s seat of her Subaru, putting on her bike shoes. I was unloading the bikes from our truck.
“Uh Oh,” I said to Pinky. “You have a flat. It’s the back tire again.”
“Oh, no. Not again,” Pinky groaned to me.
“It’s a pain. But it would be a good time for us to do the tire changing lesson,” I said.
“Yeah,” Pinky acknowledged. “But I don’t want to do it now.”
“You said you wanted to do it.”
“You mean right now. I have to change my tire while you stand and watch?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“Alright, but it’s going to take a long time.” Her voice was rising. “We don’t have time.” She looked at my expectant sweet face, and that did it. She threw her gloves down on the tailgate of the truck and said. “So, You’re not going to help me?” She looked at me again, obviously angry. “Michelle has to get back.” We were face to face. “Well, why don’t you just go by yourself and…”
“It’s okay. We have time.” It was Michelle. Pinky, feeling betrayed, looked at her in disbelief.
“Really, I don’t have to be back. We have time,” she said with sweet reassurance. “It’s a good time.”
Pinky melted. “Rats,” she said, and they started laughing. I put the back wheel of Pinky’s bike between my knees, released the skewer, and pushed the wheel down so the chain on the lower part of the sprocket was the only thing holding the wheel. I twisted and pulled the wheel away from the frame and the chain.
Michelle looked at me and said, “Pinky was supposed to do that.”
“Now you are in trouble with Michelle,” Pinky said smugly.
“You’re not even supposed to be here for this lesson. Except it’s your birthday ride, and we’re helping you write your book,” Michelle added. Then to Pinky she said, “Just lay the bike down on its side with the rear derailleur on the up side.”
It was between them now. They ignored me. Our “Bicycling Chaperone” went to work. It’s magic. It should a paid position—a new service industry.
Recently, it has been my mission in life, for about a month, to get Pinky to change a bike tire…to have the famous “tire change lesson” that Michelle provides her girl friends. Why did I want this? Maybe it is the same reason that she would like to see me take a “housework lesson”. But there is real reason to have this skill. There have been times on bike trips where it would have been really helpful to both of us if Pinky could have changed a tire. It is a basic skill that riders should have to take care of themselves. It is like knowing how to put your skis back on if the bindings release. It is like knowing how to swim if you sail a boat.
Pinky was holding the wheel rim between her thumbs and working her way around inspecting every millimeter of the tire. “I found it,” she said. “Duff missed this second hole yesterday when he fixed the flat the first time.”
“Is there something still in the tire?” Michelle asked as Pinky squeezed a tiny glass fragment out of the tire.
Michelle handed Pinky a tire iron.
“This is the part I hate. My hands aren’t strong enough.” Pinky took the plastic “tire iron” and pushed it under the bead of the tire. When she tried to pry it up to the edge of the rim it slipped off the iron with a “pop”. She repeated this at four or five places along the rim. Had we been alone, she would have thrown it all on the ground. But I was no longer present in their minds.
“You may want to put on your gloves,” said Michelle.
Pinky held up a bike gloved hand, and Michelle said, “Those winter gloves with the long fingers. It’s for your nails.”
“Oh, yeah. Plus, I don’t want this black grease in my cuticles. I just got my gift certificate manicure. It was from the Vietnamese place in Mount Vernon. Have you been there?”
“No, but I’ve heard that they are good.”
“I don’t want to mess up my sparkles,” said Pinky putting on the gloves.
“You should have done your toenails instead of your fingernails.”
They laughed.
“Work the tip of the iron under the bead real good. Don’t worry too much about pinching a hole in the tube, because we will be replacing the tube. You can learn patching tubes later.”
Pinky got a good purchase and the bead came up onto the rim and she held it there, but couldn’t push the iron further along the rim to get more of the tire’s bead out over the edge of the rim
“That little notch in at the end of the “L” can hook onto a spoke and hold the iron while you pry up another place with another iron. It is even harder to get the second iron under the bead just past where its edge is over the rim, but force it in there.”
It took a while, but finally Pinky got a purchase and up it came. The tire irons came off of the spokes. The bead was over but she could still not push hard enough on the tire iron in her hand to strip the bead off around the circumference of the rim.
“If you can’t strip it, just pry it out again a little father along.”
Finally Pinky was able to strip it. “Do I take the tube out now?” she asked.
“Some people do but I take the tire all the way off and look at it. Just put the iron in under the tube and under the second bead. Pry it out and strip it the same way.”
It took several tries, but Pinky got it.
“Now take that nut off of the stem – the cap too. Take the tire from the rim and pull the tube out.” She paused and looked at the inside of the tire, and felt it with her fingers. “I don’t feel any more glass.”
“Don’t you have to keep the tire matched up with the tube just as it came out?”
“That can help you to find the hole in the tire – so you can be sure that the glass or nail is gone if you haven’t found it. But you already found it, and I can’t find anything else in the tire.”
Pinky had the tube out and was starting to put it into the tire.
“You need a little air in the tube now. Loosen that screw on the valve and push that center needle down. That opens the valve. You can use the pump. I just blow on it with my mouth.”
Pinky put her mouth to the valve and blew. Then she put the stem through its hole in the rim.
“Now, I usually put one side of the tire back on the wheel, and stuff the tube in. That keeps the tube in the tire while you working with it.”
Michelle continued, “Start at that valve-stem when you put the bead over the rim. Work your way down, one hand on each side. When it’s tight and won’t go anymore, use an iron to pry that last bit over the edge onto the rim.”
The prying took a few attempts.
“Now start at the stem and put the other bead on the same way. Push the stem up into the tire a little so the bead edge can get around the tube…down inside the trough.”
Slowly Pinky worked the bead over the rim almost all the way around. “I can’t do any more.”
“Sure you can. Use both hands, use your thumbs and push hard. Do a tiny bit at a time. That’s the secret.”
Pinky got a little more done, and reached for a tire iron.
“You can do that, but only if you have to. You don’t want to ding the tube now.”
Pinky tried some more, but couldn’t. She was shaking her head.
“It’s okay. Go ahead and use the iron. Put it in the middle of the overhang there.”
Pinky pried it over the edge with a “pop”. She moved the tire around between her thumbs. “Is this a problem?” She had found a spot where she could see the tube under the bead edge of the tire down in the rim.
I couldn’t keep quiet. “If you pump it now the tube will push out a knuckle of tire and make a bump on the tire. That’s what happened to me yesterday. That bump can hit the break shoe and slow you down, or the tube can blow out.” Nobody paid any attention. After all, I was no longer present.
“Very good,” said Michelle, impressed. “Hold the tire like this.” She was pinching the sidewalls of the tire between her thumb and fingers, with both hands. “Kind of rock it back and forth as you move all the way around the wheel. That gets the tube up into the tire.” She let Pinky take over and finish. “Give the stem a little push up into the tire again.”
“Now we pump?” Pinky asked. I got the floor pump.
“Unscrew the little knob on the Presta valve. Push it in to open the valve. Use that smaller hole on the little nozzle on the pump hose”
Pinky tried twice but the pump fitting turned sideways and didn’t seal onto the stem.
“You have to push it all the way on there – until the fitting gets down to the wider part of the stem, then pull the lever to tighten it.” She waited. “There. That’s it.”
Pinky began to pump. “How much?” she asked.
Michelle looked at me.
“A hundred and twenty.”
“That’s a lot,” Pinky said.
“I use about a hundred and ten but one twenty is okay too.”
Pinky pumped and pumped. “Finally,” she said. “How do you know when you don’t have this floor pump with a gauge?”
“By feel. Pinch the tire side to side, here at the sidewalls.”
“Feel that?”
Pinky nods.
“Try and remember. Pinch every time you pump, and you’ll be able to guess the pressure pretty well.”
Pinky had picked up the bike and was sliding the frame over the tire.
“The easiest way is to turn the bike upside down and set it on the handlebars and seat.”
Pinky did that. She was putting the tire in. She had the sprocket on the wrong side and it wouldn’t go.
“The key to remember is that you put the cassette or sprocket of the wheel in between the upper and lower parts of the chain. Forget about all the turns the chain takes around the derailleur gears. Pull that upper chain up over the sprocket as you slide the wheel into place. The axle will hit the derailleur. Grab the big part of the derailleur near the wheel slot and pull it backwards with your right hand while you slide the wheel down into the wheel slots in the frame.
“It is still not going. It is hitting the brake pads.”
“Yep. We forgot to flip the brake release lever.” Michelle reached down to the lever on the arm of the back brake and released it. The wheel slid into the slots.
“Now push down on both sides of the axle to seat it all the way in then adjust the nut on the skewer until the lever on the other side works to tighten the axle in place.”
Pinky did that, loosened it again, pushed the axle down again, then pulled the lever to tighten.
“Now, spin the wheel and make sure that it spins between the brake pads without hitting.”
“It looks good.”
“It is.”
I picked the bike up and turned it over. Pinky flipped the brake release lever on the rear brake so she would have brakes.
“Very good!” I said.
“I did it,” she said with the deepest satisfaction. I was proud of her. She liked being able to take care of herself. Michelle was in front of me. She started laughing. I turned around to look at Pinky.
She had her gloves off and was holding both hands up, wrists cocked back, with the most admiring gaze. She was examining her fingernails.
“I did it without a scratch or chip, and the glitter is all still there.”

Riding Together

2008-05-06T15:00:00.001-07:00

Riding Together

Today we are negotiating a local trip, about 20 miles to Sylvana. If you want to ride with Pinky, you have to learn.
“Are we going to ride together or is it going to be me alone with the wind again?” Pinky asked.
“Together, of course. Do you want to lead? .”
“Oh, no you don’t.”
“You’d have control. I’d follow you anywhere.” he teased.
” You’re not drafting behind me. Just don’t ride off and leave me.”
“Let me get this right. You want to control the speed, but you want to do it from behind.”
“That would be fine.”
“Think about it. We can pick a speed and try to hold it there, but one mile an hour faster or slower and you will want to change the speed again.”
“I want you in front to pull me, and I want you to find the way.”
“Fine, But it’s no fair complaining that I am going to slow.”
“Well I don’t want to brake all the time to keep from hitting you.”
“What about down the hills? I coast downhill faster than you pedal, so I get ahead. It is only reasonable that you let me use that momentum to get part way up the next hill.”
“Then wait at the top if you’re ahead,” she said. She waited a second and continued, “Don’t you like to chat a little?”
“Right. That’s when I get to talk – when you’re out of breath climbing a hill.”
“Yes. That’s perfect,” she was chuckling.
“We could get a tandem,” he said.
“No way. I want to control my own fate. And I don’t want to be staring at the sweat on your plumber’s butt for hours on end.”
“Yeah. But we’d go like a scalded cat downhill.”
“That’s terror, not fun.”
“Still, there is no reason for me to ride with you, if you just try to ride off into the sunset. What part of this do we to together? The ride in the car?” she asks.
“What is the definition of ‘together’?” he asks.
“Within earshot”
“Whispering?” he paused, “or shouting?”
“Well I guess nobody rides right together with somebody else, do they?” Pinky relented.
“They intermittently wait. Then they can slow down and chat or stop,” he said.
“Then in the interest of togetherness, how does a true friend wait?” Pinky asked
“Is it ten minutes, on the hilltops, for lunch break, at the car, in the bar, or stick like glue?” he guessed.
“I hate having you stuck right to me. Your impatience is palpable. It’s like getting dressed while you’re shaking the car keys impatiently watching me in the mirror as I blow- dry my hair.”
“I don’t try to rush you on the bike.”
“It is just how I feel when you are behind me,” she explains.
“And I don’t like getting too far ahead because I have to ride back, usually up a hill to fix your flat.”
What’s the answer? How can you do it so that everybody has fun? You learn to enjoy the negotiation. The wife makes secret rules. The husband guesses them. The fundamentally constant …yet they must be sufficiently flexible that the husband is accustomed to guessing pretty constantly which variation of the rules is in force.
Listen. You can usually tell if you should be obeying an old rule or guessing a new one. Negotiate. One day she may spontaneously invite you to ride, so be ready; because on the last ride, something redlined the fun meter for her. What was fun was it? Do that again…and again.

My Guess at Pinky’s Current Secret Rules
1. Riding together. If I am not right behind you, wait for me at the top of every hill. (I don’t want you to lose the momentum of a downhill.)
2. My stomach is more important than my bladder. If I say, “I’m hungry.” That’s an emergency.
3. I like you to ride in front. But listen for my voice, as I might have instructions. I could get hungry at any moment. If you get ahead remember rule #1.
4. My speedometer must be working.
5. Any verbalized distance estimate is a promise.
6. I’m not fond of riding after dark. And if you make me ride in the rain, expect to really pay. Dark, raining and cold is over the top and mandates motorized transportation. Add in truck traffic, and I want jewelry.
7. I expect you to recognize developing bikephobia and take preventive action.
8. My bike and all of my equipment should be at least as good as yours.

I get one rule…the Dog Rule. I will deal with the dog. If at all possible get ahead of me. Do not stop or brake. I will slow. Most likely he will approach me. If he continues toward you, I can head him off. I have to be behind to do this. Please do not yell. It communicates fear rather than authority.

Ray and Kristi

2008-05-06T14:59:00.001-07:00

Ray and Kristi

The yard was full of chain sawed log statuary. I slowed my bike and turned in quickly releasing my feet from the pedals just before the front wheel abruptly stopped in the soft gravel. A man was sitting on a bench next to a pretty woman enjoying the warm sun. She had her head tilted back on his shoulder with her eyes closed, he was watching sunbeams dancing on the wall of their trailer.
Ray is 47, born in ’58. He lives on the Birch Bay-Linden Road just off of I-5.
He got up from the bench.
“Hi. May I look at your sculptures?”
“Go right ahead.”
” He looked back at the bench. “I’m Ray. That’s Kristi.”
“Hi Kristi,” I held up my camera with the question on my face pointing to the sculptures.
“Sure.”
He put his right hand out. The calloused hand and a firm grip were just an inkling of the strength in the thick fingers. “I just put the mirrors around the yard. We were just sitting here watching the sunbeams on the house.”
Kristi was heading for their double wide. “I’ve got to get ready,” she said as she passed. She was as gorgeous and bright as the sunny day.
“Do you have any carvings in Sedro Wooley? You’ve seen all that chainsaw art on the main street there, haven’t you?” I asked.
“I don’t have anything there,” he replied. “I do most of this for myself.”
“You don’t sell it?”
“Oh, yeah, some. I’m working on a couple right now -- A bear for a guy in Stanwood, and an eagle for a bank in Oak Harbor.”
“You have a day job?”
He smiled. It was an easy smile, with sparkle in the eyes. “I’m a mason –a brick layer and tile setter.”
The yard was filled with his art. We naturally fell in step touring the yard, and I began to realize just how many carvings there were. He showed me how the wings could be removed from the flying cat statue. His sense of humor shows: This flying cat, with removable wings, the cool logger with hard-hat and shades, an inverted Jay Leno type face with simian features and Ray Charles sunglasses, and the Siamese twin eagles.
“What are you working on now?” I asked as we rounded the side of the house.
He just pointed to a little 4x8 ft. building, a road-side stand just painted white with brown trim. “It’s for Kristi. She’s the dahlia lady,” he said. “It’s pretty plain. We didn’t want it to compete with the bright colors of the flowers.”
“The place is chock-full,” I said surveying the yard again. The collection of carvings included a snake wrapped around a pole, a pink salmon, a great blue heron, an Indian, a bear, an angel with coarse features, eagle heads, relief carvings of faces, a sun symbol, and a man with a canoe balanced vertically on his head.
Kristi came out of the house with a purse over her shoulder, put a hand on each of his shoulders and kissed him firmly on the lips. “I’m late,” she said as she turned for the truck. She stopped. Her face had the “I forgot something” look. She turned around, came back a few steps, and kissed him again, a carbon copy. She got in the truck and headed for work. Ray was still twinkling his eyes .
“Where do you get logs?” I ask.
“People give them to me. The economy is picking up, so there is construction, clearing of land, and that means: stumps.” He pointed to a cedar log. A friend brought this from a job site, dropped it off yesterday.”
“What is it going to be?” I asked, picking up my bike.
“Didn’t come to me yet,” he replied as I slipped my left foot onto the pedal and put a leg over.
“I loved it. Thanks,” I said.
“Come back any time.” He showed me his easy smile again.
What a pleasant life-outlook he had, with a sense of wonder, and the ability to lose himself in dancing sunbeams holding hands with Kristi, the Dahlia Lady sitting in his private chainsaw sculpture park. He was the kind of guy the women kiss, think about it, about face, and come back and kiss him again.

Quality Time

2008-05-06T14:58:00.001-07:00

Professional Courtesy

The work day is over at the hospital. Our town is famous a few weeks for its Tulip Festival. I will have enough sun for an evening bike tour of the fields before the crowds hit this weekend.
"It’s Dr. Jensen. How's the hand?" I ask. He is parked next to me. Three months ago he fractured his wrist, got it x-ray, and we looked at his films together.
He looks up from unlocking his car door. In recognition he holds his right hand up for me, so I step over to have a look.
As always, he is almost stern in his bearing. He is a serious man-- a straight backed Scandinavian blonde with a fully bearded face that could be on a box of Smith Bros. cough drops and always looks like he's about to deliver a sermon. He is tall and his head tilts back as he looks down through slightly condescending blue eyes. He speaks in a controlled quiet voice.
"Three months and it's still swollen," he says. Indeed it seemed almost twice normal size. "It still hurts." He moves the hand up and down to show me its range of motion. It is only about thirty degrees. He gives this report carefully and dispassionately, the facts, no emotion...as though his is just another interesting case. His wrist doesn't work well, and it hurts.
As I take in his report, I consider its consequences, and the news sucks the freshness from the spring evening. He is right handed. He has had complications from the fracture...getting to be long term by now...degenerative changes in the wrist can be anticipated in the future. His face is stony--he has tight control of his emotions.
"I can still do surgery. I can work." He pauses to contemplate. "There's nothing I can't do with the instruments. That's the bright side." He has no enthusiasm for it, no smile. We both know that there are things besides work.
"But I can't do a push up." He pauses, both of us thinking of the things that he can't do. He continues, "Except for surgery, with that arm, I am a cripple." This flat statement lands like a body punch. He doesn't look away to hide his feelings; they are safely under wraps. He looks straight into my eyes, waiting for my inner turmoil to subside, so that he can continue his report.
It began as an emergency call in mid-February, on a bleak Sunday afternoon...three problems to deal with: Cervical spine x-ray films from the emergency room, a CT scan of the head for subdural hematoma, and Dr. Jensen. He wanted the Radiologist called in. Hospital emergency for Dr. Jensen had been rare in the past and always had meant a difficult medical problem. My stomach tightened at the door. I expected something ominous.
As I passed the reception area the technologist said, "The c-spine is on the view box, Phil is in the ER getting the head CT, and you have a personal consult waiting..."
"Thanks." I said as I headed down the hall. I recognized the tall gaunt bearded silhouette.
"What's up?" I asked as I approached the statuesque figure.
He handed me a film, and I put it on the view box. The identification marker at the corner of the film was blank indicating that the film was not in the system to be formally interpreted--a favor to spare him hospital registration, insurance claims and waiting. It showed a fractured wrist at joint surface of the radius. Though not greatly displaced, there were many fragments. Because joint involvement, future degenerative arthritis would be a future concern.
"This is your wrist?" I guessed.
He brought his wrist up for me to see. It was terribly swollen. He showed off a good range of motion.
"How did you do it?"
"Snow boarding...with my son."
"Have you been a boarder for long?"
"This was my first time."
"We see plenty of these fractures in fathers of boarders." Then to the technologist I said, "I want to get another lateral, a little rotation to get a true lateral view." A few minutes later they were back with the film, and I put it up.
"How does it look?" he asked.
"Alignment is pretty good, but the joint surface is involved. So I don't know if they'll want to pin the fragments to maintain the joint surface, or immobilize what you have now with a cast."
"I won't have a cast," he said.
This sounded strange. Did he mean he would refuse a cast or that it wouldn't be necessary.
I looked up at him, "Seriously?" on my face.
"I'm doing surgery next week," he said dead serious, confident that it was adequate explanation. For a minute I thought it was a joke. No joke.
"I have a full week of surgery next week. I can move my wrist just fine."
He fully believed that he was so important in that operating room, that none of his three partners could replace him.
Wasn’t the long term outcome of his fracture worth any change in the OR schedule or giving emergent cases to a partner?
"Maybe you can negotiate with the orthopods...some kind of a removable splint they would let you take off for the surgeries." I was trying to take his side. Find a treatment that he could accept as a patient.
"We'll see," he said.
Smart people can do dumb things.
He intended to just go home...with no treatment...happy with good movement and fairly good position of the fragments.
I grabbed the phone.
"Hang on a minute," I told him. Then, I called the orthopedic floor.
"Are any of the orthopods around?" I asked the ward clerk.
"Dr. Armstrong was here...he just left the desk. You can page him," she answered.
"Thanks," I said and hung up.
"Armstrong is in the building. He could take a look--see your film. Would he be okay?"
Dr. Jensen shrugged. "Sure."
I dialed the operator to page. Dr. Jensen said, "Give me the film, and I'll find him on the ward. I'm going there to see a patient anyway."
"Do you want me to read it for the record?" I asked.
"Either way," he said.
"Might as well. I'll get the tech to make a label for the film when he is done in room one."
"Forget it. I'll just take the film. I don't have time to wait."
I handed him the film.
"Okay," I said. "Good luck." Just as well. Armbrust would leave soon, best to find him. He was off with his film. I went to start an IV for that CT scan of the brain, and life went on.
Now, three months later, in the parking lot, he continues his report to me. "I can't do a push up," he says a second time.
"What stops you, the range of motion?"
"That but mainly the pain," he answers. "I can still do the surgery," he repeats the litany.
"Can you do anything that's fun?" I ask hopefully.
"Not much." He pauses to think and repeats, "I can't play basketball anymore." I can feel him calculating. He is still deciding what that means to him. "That's not too bad," he says. I can see his eyes giving up basketball as he says it.
"I can't play racquetball anymore." For the first time his voice drops, ever so slightly. "I was good at that," he says quietly with hint of a quaver, but keeping control. I know that he has his own racquetball court. He is like a stone statue. It is Scandinavian pathos, and I feel like I could cry.
"Did you ever see an orthopedist?" I asked him.
"We talked on the phone, but that's all. I should have taken six weeks off." He pauses.
"Now, I'm paying for my mistake with the complications." I hope he can tell someone this story…someone that can cry, maybe get him to cry.
"Glad you can work. I hope you get back to the racquetball." I am like jelly inside. He can see it. He tries to think of something nice to say.
"How about you? How have been?”
“Good. No fractures.” I try to smile as I start my car and pull out. I feel terrible. As I drive home I realize-- I gave him the professional courtesy; ultimately, I let him make a decision when he was not thinking straight. A regular patient would have had to see the orthopod in order to get the x-ray. A lot heavier on “professional” and lighter on “courtesy” would have served us better. We’ll both do better.

Professional Courtesy

2008-05-06T14:57:00.000-07:00

Pinky's Fake

2008-05-06T14:56:00.001-07:00

Pinky’s Fake

We have ridden almost 100 miles and are nearing the end of our first day of the Seattle to Portland Classic bicycle ride. Marie started this. It is fitting that she and John pull us the rest of the way to our bed and breakfast in Chehalis having dragged us from Seattle drafting behind their tandem bike for the last 7 hours. I love tandems. We are cruising along at 22 mph. We have hit a long stretch of smooth recently laid pavement and John has accelerated. I am hanging on a foot from that rear tire like Gorilla Glue, and Pinky behind me. A rider pulls along side us on his Trek with its paired bladed spokes, carbon fiber rims, and aerobars, decked out in his Italian lycra, matching shoes, and sunglasses worth more than my Nikon camera. He is a hot shot, a cowboy showing off. I nod “Hello.”
He doesn’t respond. He leads out from us smartly with a flourish. He stops accelerating as soon as he is in front. He is there for only a few seconds. He lets loose for a better hold, and finds himself next to me again, behind the tandem. He is racing with us. He must think that he is in the tour or something. Somebody should tell him that those guys actually talk to each other all the time even to guys on the other teams. He is slowly slipping backward, and he has become a little grim and desparate. On the tandem, John does not even notice. He is totally unaware as the mystery show-boater has cracks like a filbert and has struggled to hook on behind us drafting behind Pinky. Being a slave to fashion myself, I am sensitive to the fancy pants guys. I have to smile. Then I feel guilty cruising so comfortably behind John and Marie. I love that tandem. We just settle into the new rhythm and we approach a Y in the road, new pavement angling right and left.
“Wait a minute, we have to turn” Pinky says anxiously behind me. There were green STP marks on the road “go straight”, but it was a little hard to tell which arm of the Y was straight ahead. Four or five riders had gone of to the right and were about a quarter mile up a slight grade and still going, but far ahead the mainstream headed left and so John on the tandem. He can’t turn. It is clear that momentum and long wheel base of the tandem prevent a quick turn. As my bike touches the directional arrow painted on the pavement, Pinky signals a right turn. Not wanting to leave the group, she but actually make the turn.
“Pinky says we missed the turn,” I pass it on to John and Marie on the tandem.
“Should we go back,” Marie asks John. (The wives work together in these matters.)
“I think we are okay,” John replies.
“I saw a green mark,” shouts Pinky so we can all hear. She is certain that we have made a wrong turn.
John keeps cranking right along at 22 mph.
“We’ll keep an eye out for another marker,” Marie shouts.
“Okay. But how long should we go?” Pinky says. Only I can hear this. I know that she wants to turn around. We whiz over another green marker directing us straight ahead.
“Oh, no!” Pinky calls out talking to us all again. We are on the right course.
We all stop pedaling.
“No, no. I’m okay. I was so sure. I signaled,” she said.
Nobody understands. We are just waiting for her to continue.
“Just as you hit the first green mark before that Y, I signaled for a right turn, and he turned. That guy in the fancy suit that hooked on behind us just shot off like a rocket into that group climbing the hill to who knows where.”
We are just coasting, laughing too hard to pedal.
“Pinky. What timing on the arrogant cowboy. John cracked him like a nut without even noticing that the guy was trying to race us. Now he is on his way to “lost lake”, not yet knowing for sure that he should flip a U until he catches those other four bikes. Just one little perfectly timed flick of your right index finger and you cut him loose.”
“I feel terrible. Do we have enough water to skip the next rest stop?” Pinky asks. “I don’t want to be there when he comes in.”

Partnership

2008-05-06T14:52:00.000-07:00

Partnership

When you’re with your best friend for the first time in a couple of years, it all just tumbles out together—from events of the moment – what you see out the window of the car now, to the big things have changed your lives, careers, and families --windfalls, disasters, dreams. It is in outline form, a kind of code best friends develop over a lifetime.

It was a “best friend catch up”. They were shifting their thoughts at light speed, changing subjects, leaping from a little despairing to celebrating, to joking. They needed to laugh.
“Tell me another lie,” Duff said.
"Marth were they this silly in high school?" Pinky asked.
"Yep. They giggle like 10 year old girls," replied Martha. The wives were shaking their heads in the back seat.
"Duff doesn't act like this with anyone else. Does Charlie?"
"Nope. I used to get disgusted. I’m jealous I guess--that they are in another world having such a good time. Nothing could be that funny."
The men were in the front seat intermittently guiding the car toward Telluride, as conversation permitted, for a week-end of skiing.
"Another lie? I can't keep up," Charlie rejoined.
"So what's with the empty cage in the kitchen?"
"We had a parrot. Columbus. He's nipples north. The bubble gummer next door gassed him," Charlie said.
"It was awful," Martha said from the back seat. "We got these mealy larvae in the flour, and they got in everything in the pantry. Have you ever had anything like that? Anyway it’s really hard to get rid of them."
"He looked just like the cartoon roadrunner run over by a truck. Stiff as a board. I could have pounded a nail with him," Charlie said swerving the car as he gave his imitation of avian rigor mortis.
"We had to get the exterminator. They tell you to do it when you go on a trip for a few days. When we left, I tied Sass's leash to the birdcage in the laundry room and told Darci to put the animals in the garage on the day the exterminator came to kill the meal worms. I guess she wasn't thinking of the bird as one of the animals. She took the dog out but left the bird inside,” Martha said tearing up slightly.
"That's really sad," Pinky commiserated.
"Yeah. Columbus had a pretty hard life. He was traumatized when we got him. He didn't really like anyone but me. He never forgave Cha for the shoe box,” Martha continued.
"I always have about an hour in Denver before the 6:35 commuter flight to Montrose. I wanted to buy Marth a present. I cruised through a pet store where I met Columbus in the parrot section. He had spunk and a mouth. I liked him. I told them that I'd buy him if they could pack him so that I could carry him on the airplane," Charlie explained.
"They put him in a shoe box with holes punched in it. Unbelievable," Martha went on with petulance.
"Guys at the pet store came up with the idea. The baggage inspectors made the trouble. They made me put him through the x-ray machine. That's when he started squawking. Then they wanted me to open the box."
" 'If you want it open, you open it and live with the consequences,' I told them. They went through three levels of management to decide they didn't want a parrot flying around the terminal in Denver. So I got him on. What a great surprise it was for Martha when she opened that box. He went right to her. She named him in honor of his harrowing trip to a ‘New World’."
"From that day, Columbus had a one track mind...Bite Charles," Martha laughed.
"What were you doing in Denver?” asked Duff.
"Three days a month I do a clinic in the morning and work on the breast cancer project at Denver General then I run surgical rounds in the afternoon. I've got a tray full of slides. I get a little free travel on the university’s dime to present our projects at meetings. I'm a talking doctor, now."
"Are you going to move to Denver or stay in Montrose and practice with Ted? Two years ago you were toting up charges, how many procedures you did compared to Ted. It seemed like you were thinking there might not be enough work. You were scrapping with each other about the numbers, who was working harder. Ted was feeling strapped--what with the country club, the boat on Lake Powell and the house remodel--dragging his feet on your partnership agreement.” Duff went on.
"I'm staying Walker. I'm a rural surgeon, famous for it. Right after your last visit, I explained the rules to him: 'You’ve got to decide now. I’m going to have a job with equal partnership in a year somewhere’ He figured it right out. He had a rough draft partnership agreement the next morning. Things have been great for the last year and a half. Business has picked up. There's no baby-catcher in town, so we have been doing the C- sections and all the Gyn surgery. The income is plenty for the lifestyle in a little farming and ranching community," Charlie explained.
"And how did your million dollar U-pick strawberry farm work out in the back forty?" Duff switched topics, chuckling.
"You laugh, you turkey. It was a good idea. But Martha had to work like a dog at the end of the season to pull us up almost even." Charlie was laughing.
"What happened to the big dough?" Duff asked.
"Walker, the weeds killed us, just murdered us."
"The irrigation allotment didn't help," said Martha
"Martha, it sounds like you are out of the strawberry business," Pinky observed.
"With the last weed, I pulled the plug on the family strawberry farm in August." Martha said. She was quite clear on the decision. “Charlie's dad got the lung cancer, and we haven't had time for the get rich projects.”
"How is he doing now?" Duff asked.
"Ted did his surgery. It turned out to be a pretty tough case. They ended up taking some mediastinal nodes and dissecting tumor along the pleura off of the superior vena cava. He did a great job," Charlie said.
"No mets?"
"It has been a year and so far no recurrence. The emphysema is terrible though and getting steadily worse. It is going to kill him, but he is tough, still drinking beer and telling lies. Dad loves Ted, does anything that he says," Charlie replied.
"I'm surprised you didn't take him to the Medical Center in Denver."
"Walker, if you want to get well, stay in your small town hospital. Ted did a better job for the whole package than they can do at the med school. The main man is there on top of things every day, and it's better care."
"So your Dad is hooked by the nose, pushing an oxygen bottle around. I'll bet he hates that," Duff said.
"He does. He has it rigged up pretty cool though. We have a picture of him showing off his design in the book."
"Book?" Duff raised his eyebrows.
"Walker, I'm the editor of the next issue of the Surgical Clinics of North America. We called it Advances in Small Hospital Care. We even have a section in there by our radiologist on Arteriography in the Small Hospital. Things are hoppin' in our little town. I've got residents from the med school rotating through the practice. Ted and I are each going to do a six month job exchange with academic guys at the medical center. We are doing all the endoscopy in town. Ted does all the administration and most of the politics. He goes to the festival of trees, the Kiwanis lunches, and hospital retreats. It is a marriage made in heaven. He does all that crap that I just can't stand, and he loves it. His new house is the perfect set up for the obligatory entertainment. It even has one special little room for the punch bowl. It is like a pulpit surrounded by plate glass overlooking the perfectly manicured garden outside,” Charlie described
"Oh, no. Don't tell that," Martha groaned in anticipation from the back seat.
"I have to tell them," said Charlie. "The remodel went on and on, almost a year. The first event was my partnership party."
"You should have just told him not to do it. You knew what it would be,” Martha scolded.
"Yeah. All the country clubbers, competitive entertaining, social ranking. Phony as debutante's balls. I expected that. I did. Martha had to call for permission to invite the guys from the ranch and to ask Cal, who didn't make the country club cut."
"May did what Ted told her. She thought she had invited everybody in town. She pretty much did," Martha said defensively. She liked Ted’s wife.
"It was a gala affair, Walker. The food was terrific, top drawer yupster. Catered. The rum punch from the great silver bowl in the special room was even better. For two or three hours I explained individually to the upper crust of Montrose society that I had actually been a partner for almost two years, and the party had been awaiting the rebuild of Ted’s palace. We would then go to discuss, the spectacular construction results surrounding us."
"I don't know what got into him," Martha said. They could see the dread on her face.
"At about five o'clock I was filling my cup at the punch bowl. Cal appeared across from me. He held his cup over the center of the bowl for me to fill it. He took a drink, got a sparkle in his eye and said, "Abernathy, if you had a hair on your ass, you would grab that handle and help me toss this punch bowl out there onto the lawn."
"As we spoke I could hear the party sounds all around us. There was a din of glasses, plates, and voices in use. It sounded like F.X. McRorary's on Friday afternoon. Then, I don't recall what happened. There was a sudden full minute of suspended animation with absolute silence in every room of the house. That gave me time to get the trash can from the kitchen, go into the backyard, and begin picking the shards of glass out of the garden, every piece. For some reason I retrieved the ice cubes too. The house was empty in five minutes."
"So, were you angry or upset?"
"No. We just did it. I don't really know why. Afterwards, I felt strangely calm. No guilt. No anxiety. Just a little surprised at how completely we had shut the party down."
"Then what?"
"I told Ted good night and that I would have some one out in the morning to fix the window."
"So what did Ted say on Monday morning."
" 'The window is fixed.' We didn't have anything else to say. All was quiet on the western front, and we did business as usual -- We have continued as good friends. Just like your group does, Walker, we split the call, the money and the time off and we depend on each other for advice and help. It's up close and personal-- like being married, isn't it," Charlie replied.
"He didn't ask you why?"
"Nope. No questions."
"Walker, it is your turn. I heard you crashed your plane. You were lucky to come away with your fat ass. I just gathered up punch bowl full of glass fragments and ice cubes. You have to tell it."

It had been twenty years since that conversation in the car on the way to Telluride. We were at Charlie’s funeral when Pinky heard the story again, she said "Charlie comes across as impulsive or crazy – a real loose cannon," she says. "I didn't understand then either. He dropped a bomb. No explanation. Then both of them acted like it never happened. Maybe it was subconscious, but there had to be a reason."
"I just saw Ted,” Duff said. “I didn't recognize him. He looked a thousand years old, rode hard and put away wet. Ironically, I met him over a punch bowl. He seemed puzzled, trying to answer a question for himself. He said 'You know--I think he was bored. There just wasn't enough for him in Montrose.' I was thinking of a way to ask him about the punch bowl, but I wasn’t quick enough and his line moved faster than mine."
"There had to be a reason,” Pinky said.
"I've had three sets of partners, all still my friends, and I think that any of them would understand the punch bowl,” Duff said.
"Make me understand," Pinky said emphatically.
"Charlie had done a pyramid residency program where for the final year there is one chief resident remaining after the competitive elimination of the other four, one each year. At his last residency year Charlie's only competitor was Jim Fox who died of cancer. Charlie carried his ashes to the top of Long's Peak then did his year as the chief resident. He had made it to the Chief Resident slot and was rewarded with a research year in Boston with Judah Folkman. He was assured of an elite career in academic surgery. He had won. The whole thing was launched. After a year of turmoil, he recanted and opted for private practice in Montrose with his friend, Ted. In his first two years in Montrose he did more cases than Ted, brought in more money, edited the Surgical Clinics book, had a residency program integrated into their practice, and got the professor exchange program going with the med school. He later wrote the Surgical Secrets textbook, became a regent of the University of Colorado, invented an airway monitoring device and did the entire patent application himself. He was a quality guy for a small town like Montrose, wouldn't you say? Ted wanted him to work longer than the agreed period as a junior partner, made him review charts to collect statistics on the practice that proved his monetary contribution. He gave Charlie a belated partnership party which was really designed to show off his new house and impress his country club friends. Charlie had to beg invitations for the guests that he cared about. The punch bowl through the window was impulsive. At least there was no arduous heart to heart talk with accusations and explanations. They carried on. It became acceptable, actually a pretty happy partnership.”
"Are you carrying baggage like that?" asked Pinky.
"Some. So do my partners, all of them," Duff said.
"So, I should be braced for a punch bowl through the window the next time I entertain your partners?"
"Absolutely."

Parenting at the Drive Thru

2008-05-06T14:51:00.000-07:00

Parenting at the Drive Thru

The girls have taken over the living room, in particular the stereo with the big Clipshorn speakers and they are playing an album by Cruel Hearts, the Rap group. The bass notes are synchronizing with the drum beats causing a vibrating buzz of pictures hanging on the other side of the wall, in his study. He can feel it vibrating the floor, the chair, and his viscera. He is on his feet. Maniacal. His daughters would say that he had "lost it".
Instantly, he is in the living room, and screaming," Turn that crap off. I promised your mother a tax return, and I'm working on it now. Grunting about drugs and oral sex is not music. I said turn it off -- Now!"
There is no room for argument. The girls head for the bedroom in hostile silence. He is alone. The adrenaline is subsiding, but he is dangerously close to breaking the pact. He has agreed not to censor Andrea's music. He has agreed that she may keep any records that she has bought with her earnings. Her first purchase had been that Cruel Hearts CD. Andrea and Mike have differences on some important issues; but, strangely, their most bitter struggles have been about music. It is the emotional "line in the dirt".
He takes a slow, deep breath.
Parenting has been a little rocky lately. Andrea is having problems. She is fifteen and awash in hormones. She broke up with her boy friend last week and life is just doesn’t seem possible. Her parents say that there are "other fish in the sea". As Andrea is quick to point out, you have to be there when the fish are biting. The hours that she is allowed to keep have become very sensitive in this time of her loss. Mike and Judy have decided to negotiate reasonable hours with Andrea. If she keeps their trust with those hours, they can trust her to drive the family car. Driving privileges after Andrea's upcoming 16th birthday are in the balance. In her view, the problem is parents with an attitude.
Mike worked for a couple of hours. The tax records are in pretty good order, and the return is starting to fall into place. Judy and Mike have finished dinner. They are talking about their new refrigerator that arrived for their kitchen remodel. This remodel project is taking 3 weeks longer than expected. It’s over budget. Tempers are short. The project has been most recently stalled by a long wait for the special refrigerator that Judy has ordered.
The phone rings. It breaks the tension for Mike as he shifts his attention to answer. It’s his friend Kevin, a friendly ear to bend. After the greeting small talk, he listens, and then says, "Yeah, it finally came. You ever seen an $1800 refrigerator?" Mike listens again, then replies, " Well we've got one over here in the garage. It’s going in on Monday. Ice maker, ice crusher, ice water dispenser, full length freezer and for the last $500 it has no visible handles and it perfectly matches the tile on the counters." He is listening to the reply; now, he is chuckling, "Oh, no. We are fixing up the old one for the cabin ... we had to special order the parts because it's 25 years old. Now we have two refrigerators in our garage." He finishes the conversation and heads for the study to finish up the tax return.
There is a tremendous crash. Mike's first thought is that the Rap is on again and has vibrated several pictures which have fallen from the wall. He runs to the living room. Nothing. He is puzzled.
He opens the door to the garage. Both of the refrigerators have been up-ended and damaged. Mike looks through the hole in the back wall of the garage into the back yard. He can see the family car on the back lawn with its engine gently idling.
Andrea is sitting at the wheel, frozen. The brake lights are on.
Mike is at the car door, trying to maintain control, "Are you Ok?"
She has covered her face with both hands. She nods her hear “yes”.
“Put it in ‘Park’,” he says.
She is not hurt. He relaxes a little.
Andrea shifts to ‘Park’, turns the key, and gets out as the engine stops. She runs to her room. Her door closes as Mike, having followed her part way, finds himself in the living room. The lock of Andrea’s door clicks. That sets him in motion. He heads straight for the CD player. Suddenly, Mike is holding the edges of a CD with his finger tips, each thumb at the center hole. Pushing with the thumbs and pulling with the fingers, he feels a satisfying snap and Cruel Hearts is in two pieces.
Judy came home to the disaster. She has been in Andrea's room for an hour. She enters the living room.
"What do you think happened?" she asks.
"Confused the gas and brake, I think," he says.
"How did she drive through the garage, over two refrigerators, and through a wall before she figured it out?" she asks incredulously.
Mike shrugs and holds his hands out palms up.
"She says that she didn’t actually intend to drive. She was just sitting in the parked car practicing her driving."
Mike is staring out the window, distracted. "I broke her Cruel Hearts CD. It was almost the first thing I did. Why do you think I did that?"
"It’s kind of like starting the engine not intending to drive."

Later, Please

2008-05-06T14:50:00.001-07:00

Later, Please

Ada was screaming, “Mama, help Mitzie.” I arrived at the window. On the sidewalk our beagle was running as she howled as she labored under Spud, the bulldog next door. His stubby front legs clung desperately to her shoulders. As he coupled, Mitzie struggled mightily, pulled away suddenly, and yelping with the pain, bolted at top speed. Spud’s inadequately sprinting back legs and his pelvic thrust kept him upright on hind feet for five or six steps. With each step a squirt of seminal fluid arched forward onto the sidewalk. Once on four legs again, he stood confused, as his organ retracted. As he licked the bottom of the left front paw, then the right. His resignation was palpable. He tilted his head back, sniffed, and trotted up the walk showing us his scrotum wagging back and forth. He approached our garbage can at the curb much as he had Mitzie. It teetered and fell. The top un-bagged layer spilled out. Spud had a mouthful immediately. He tilted his head back, and with two fierce skyward lunges of his blunt snout he had downed my discarded chicken sopapilla. Its fresh red chili from Chimayo (the world’s finest chili and hottest) hit Spud as he was pulling the plastic bag from the can and I was approaching with my broom. He began rubbing his snout with a front paw and yipping, running away from me on the other three legs when he was attacked from the front by Max, the schnauzer across the street. I got Max a good one with my first swing, and he ran for cover. I turned my attention to Spud but couldn’t connect, and he escaped emitting a “red chile” howl. As I was putting the garbage in order, I realized the real reason for the anger in my attack… because of him, now I had to explain to Ada—well, everything. If she were only a decade older than three, I could point out she had just seen the full gamut of male behavior, everything she’d need to make valuable anticipations of—pets, boyfriends, brothers, fathers, anything doused with testosterone. It was so wonderfully simple. Sex, a fight, a meal—the basics were there. But, no, thanks to Spud I would be mired in Ada’s detail questions. I had thirty feet of sidewalk back to the house to prepare for her first talk about sex. Mitzie was back, unfazed and wagging her tail. As I reached the front door, I rescued Ada as Mitzie was licking her face. I put Ada comfortably on my right hip. Her eyes widened and she asked, “Mommy, why does Spud’s penis have that red ball on the end?”
“That happens to Spud when they fight like that,” I answered with a confident explanation that astonished me with wherever it might have come from and with how reasonable this sounded.
Ada paused, said “Ohhh.” The reply floated softly on the cool morning air as her face grew pensive, far away. I waited, terrified of the next question.
She had it formulated, and back from far away, she asked “Can I have a hot chocolate?”
“Sure, Honey. Daddy’s leaving for work, give him a kiss. We’re going to the library to get you some new books, and we will get a hot chocolate with marshmallows at the bakery.” I was trying not to show my relief, my wonder at the incredible reprieve.
My murderous thoughts for Spud returned, and I could see him…how he would scratch a little grass up onto his steamy pile using those stubby back legs. He would trot away scrotum swinging to and fro, howling pitifully, violated from behind by that Chimayo red chili, just as Mitzie had been by him. I smiled warmly, and took Ada’s hand.

It's Lifting

2008-05-06T14:49:00.001-07:00

It’s Lifting

“It rained from Seattle to Mount Vernon, all the way. Don says it’s supposed to rain the rest of the week,” said Sandra as she got out of the car. “This is just a sprinkle. I think it’s lifting.”
Don said, “I’m coming, and I’m settling in. Does our room have a phone – you’ve got DSL I hope. I’ll be doing some business. The furniture will be here in a week. ”
“That line is so old. Furniture? That would be your roll-away bed from home. Judging by the interval since you last told me that, delivery will be in about thirty years.”
“I’m here. I almost missed you when you came to visit us in Durango. That cross country deal on your way to visit your real friends, when you couldn’t find a motel; you ambushed us, stayed over night—ten hours. It doesn’t count, Walker. You owe us a real visit.”
Pinky came out and there were hugs all around.
“Was it ’68…in San Francisco?” I asked.
“It was ’69, at Hamilton Air Force Base,” Sandra replied
“That was no joke,” Don said. “I told Sandra, ‘he’s sitting there by himself. We’ve got to go out there.’”
“That’s right,” Pinky said. “I was back in Denver with the baby. You guys put him on the plane to Viet Nam.” Straining for a quip, I was stopped in my tracks. I remembered that terrible hot afternoon, and how good it was to have their company. And for a moment I had a sense of loss—30 years of lost opportunities to play with my friends.
“I remember San Francisco in 1968,” I said, “We were eating Colonel Sanders chicken with you guys in our apartment. We were going to see “The Graduate”. ‘I’m not doing it,’ Don had said. ‘We’re not taking a baby to that movie. They’ll make us put him to sleep. We’ll have to sit in the john, mute the crying with a popcorn bucket over his head.’”
“I remember,” Don said.
“Well you haven’t changed all that much.”
And he hadn’t. Our banter continued, and San Francisco was yesterday.
Throughout the night we caught up in parallel, all talking at once, about: biking (all of us) teaching, swimming, reading, parenting (Sandra and Pinky), grand parenting (Pinky), grown up children (physics, computers, medicine for us), professional bicycling (their son), acting(their daughter), triathlons (our youngest son), masters competition swimming (Pinky) and mountain biking (Don), winning masters titles (Pinky, Don), photography, retirement and website development (me), Coca Cola business (Don), writing (Sandra and I), whale watching (Sandra and the newspaper).
When we said good night, I closed our bedroom door and Pinky asked, “Where should we ride tomorrow?”
“Somewhere along the water – it’s what we have that they don’t. Whidbey or Camano Island maybe.”
“Water would be good. Those are too long. What about Guemes?”
“Maybe. Lummi Island is prettier, and it’s shorter. The ferry is cooler too. They have reef net salmon fishing and all of those artists.”
“Guemes Island is just as good. But I do love that restaurant in the yellow house.
The next morning it was raining. The group made a list: sea kayaking, a car trip-ferry ride, a bicycle tour, and a boys’ mountain bike ride - girls’ bookstore trip.
“Today’s forecast is ‘intermittent rain’. We could ride a ferry to Friday Harbor, drive around in the car, look for killer whales, and stay out of the rain for sure. Or, there is a bike loop tour of Lummi Island that requires a twenty minute ferry ride. There are two good restaurants, one on each side of the loop.”
“Remember, I’m not the bicycling champion. How long is this ride?” asked Sandra.
“You have been burned too, haven’t you?” asked Pinky. “’Ride ‘til she’s cried’, that’s Duff’s motto.”
“This route is actually Pinky’s. The basic north loop is six miles, a second loop to the south is seven miles,” I said. “Don and I could add yet another seven mile “out and back” hilly segment further south, up the mountain. If we want more, there is a twenty mile loop through the Lummi reservation on the mainland side.”
“Who said anything about all those ‘extensions’? Don’t you try to suck her in,” Pinky said
“Can we do the first six miles and assess?” asked Sandra.
“Yep,” I said.
She looked at Don, the question on her face. He nodded up and down.
“It isn’t raining right now. Let’s do the bike ride,” she said, and continued brightly, “I think it’s lifting.”
“Okay, let’s go to the garage and find you a bike, Sandra,” I said
I looked outside at the gentle rain, the puddles and the dripping roof as the garage door opener was raising the door, and we started laughing. Sandra’s optimism flying in the face of fact put us in motion. I started getting bikes ready and on to the car’s bike rack.
The two Treks were carbon fiber and only five years old. The other two were heavy quality bikes, top of the line twenty years ago. “Not as bad as the mountain bikes, but it’s the same deal, Walker –conspicuous under-consumption,” Don said as he examined the road bikes. “Which one is Pinky’s?”
I pointed to the Trek 2200. He nodded at the Trek 5000.
“It’s yours,” I replied.
“I’m not doing that. I get to be the ‘guide’ at my house. Change the pedals, try on the shoes, raise the seat, adjust the handle bars, then change the racks, on and on. Have somebody ride your bike and it takes a week to get it right again. I’m not riding your bike.”
He selected Pinky’s old bike. We did all of the needed bike adjustments, etc. in about thirty minutes. The bikes were all too large for Sandra. But a folding Bike Friday seemed to do the trick. We put wheels on, adjusted the seat, and changed the pedals.
“Give it the test,” I said.
Sandra accelerated down the steep driveway and turned right, up the hill to the middle of our block. She got a little shaky as she shifted to a lower gear and slowly climbed, weaving slightly to keep her balance at slow speed. She turned around and started back down. As she accelerated she gained confidence from the better balance the speed gave her. She had a broad smile. She was cruising, wind in her hair. She gave the pedals a final crank. She realized that she was going fast, probably too fast to make the turn up our drive way. Her smile dissolved into a frown as she squeezed the brake levers. The bike seemed to accelerate. The frown exploded into a wide eyed white face of terror. She was brakeless, her front tire rocketing toward the center of the grill of their parked Malibu rental. She made the last ditch emergency skidding turn up the driveway. With each foot the bike ascended, it slowed and Sandra’s face relaxed back to the frown, then back to a smile composure and restraint as the bike came to rest at the top of the driveway. She gracefully dismounted as if she were the queen of England.
“We always test the less experienced riders. You were spectacular,” I said laughing sheepishly as I tightened the brake releases that I had forgotten to fasten.
“It was exciting,” Sandra replied, unruffled.
The mist was translucent, but we couldn’t see the houses across the street.
“Should we load up?” I asked Pinky
Sandra answered, “It’s just fog now. It’s lifting.” We started the cars and headed for Lummi Island.
The ferry dock at Gooseberry Point is showed its heavy timbers, gray from weather. It has a small bus stop type shelter, three walls of plywood, and no other building or terminal. We were expecting the Whatcom Chief, the 94 foot 78 ton county ferry that can carry 100 passengers and 18 vehicles or 50.000 lbs across the 0.9 mile five minute crossing. Our fare was one dollar each round trip, collected aboard during the crossing to the island. Ridership has increased by 20% since 1991. Two to three weeks of dry dock maintenance is performed yearly, and a walk on ferry provides service. That walk on ferry was in use for our trip and we lifted the bikes to the crew member on the foredeck as we passed to the stern to board. There were no rain drops and the clouds were high enough that we could see Lummi Peak on the island to the south.
“I told you that it was lifting,” said Sandra.
A misty rain fell lightly as we crossed on the Whatcom Chief. On the Lummi Island side, there is a small terminal…a roof and restroom for ferry patrons with a bike rack buried in a chaotic pile of rusty bicycles, typical island bicycles. A similarly rusty Volvo station wagon was parked behind. The terminal is the beginning. On an island, everybody is a ferry patron. You inevitably meet your neighbors there and realize you are dependent on that ferry…also on each other. That mile of water makes a community.
We were clearly “off-island” tourists dressed in cameras and bright bicycle clothing. We turned right on Nugent Rd. About ¼ mi. up the road at the Beach Store Café, we conferred while Pinky went in to check the hours. I was extolling absences…no camp sites, no RVs, no state parks. “The most conspicuous commercial activity is related to the organic farm, Nettles Farm, whose owners bought the Willows Inn B&B, the associated restaurant Willows Inn Dining and its pub/cafe, the Taproot Inn. I think that they also run this cafe too,” I said playing the guide. “All are quality places.”
It was low tide because we could see Portage Island connected to the mainland by a spit, blocking our view of Bellingham and its bay. We had decided to ride then eat. After all, it had lifted, and we could take advantage of the weather.
“The Beach Store Cafe is my favorite place. They still have the seafood chowder and the fish tacos and they are open until 9 pm.,” Pinky said.
“We did this ride last year on Labor Day when they had the Artist’s Tour.”
“We visited six or seven studios, talked to the artists about their work,” said Pinky.
“They have it Memorial Day too, I think. There are twenty or thirty artists tucked away. They’re on every road around this island.”
“Sculpture, painting, jewelry, cards, wind sculpture, handmade paper, baskets, glass. They do it all here.” While Pinky was inside, Don and I reconnoitered and found theBoys and Girls Club behind the restaurant, the Lummi Grange next door, the post office and an observation deck across the street.
We mounted up and rode. Some houses were closed up for the winter, but the Year-‘rounders were in the majority. There was quite a bit of new construction, pretty fancy places. We saw ornate bird houses, clever mail boxes, sculptures in yards. Island people took time to do projects with thoughts that aren’t permitted to ride the brain waves in a busy city mind. We heard a yell from behind. Don was off the bike working with the chain. I had forgotten to tell him that the chain was minus a few links and too short to be on the large ring of both the front and back sprockets. But that’s exactly where the chain was, so taut that it was difficult to pedal and could not be shifted. My heart sunk. I had forgotten the wrench to take the axle off. One of us could be spending a few hours reading newspapers at that restaurant.
“You might be an okay mechanic, but your maintenance sucks, Walker.”
“Mapel, you cross chained. If you want a low gear, what are you doing on the big chain ring in front?”
“Walker, you could take twenty of those doctor-bucks and buy yourself a whole new chain that’s the right size. If we poor guests are lucky, you’ll at least splice in three links you scam from your bike shop.”
Then I had to tell him we couldn’t take the axle off.
“No quick release axle?” he asked. “Why?”
“I’m big and fat, and I was tired of broken spokes so I got a tandem wheel… more and bigger spokes, but solid axle.”
“I recommend a diet and a quick release.”
I knew that he was going to get to this line when I first saw that taut chain. Pop! He was able to derail the chain by hand. He turned the crank, and it worked…no bent links. We were on the road again, chasing after our wives. We rehashed Lance’s Tour de France victory and he told me that Bob Roll, the loose cannon announcer with the upper incisor gap, lived in Durango. Don had done some riding with him, “hang on by your fingernails” thirty miles an hour, type of riding. Don has been a mountain bike racer but rides the Iron Horse race from Durango to Silverton. His favorite tour rider is Miguel Indurain, the Spaniard who shunned the media, and let his bicycling do all of his talking. I asked Don about his racing and, he became evasive. “Don’t give me that reverse braggadocio”, I said.
“Okay, I won a little local mountain bike race a year ago… a field of two riders in the “over 60” division,” he submitted.
“And you were just a ‘walk on’ because you gave sponsor money?” I asked wryly.
“You got it,” he replied boisterously. (Later, I checked national mountain bike race results. Racing license #22428, 8/14/02—first place, exp master 55-59 division, Durango, CO.)
Several cars passed us going each way, unhurried, cruising at 25 mph, assured that there is not far to go. Almost to a person, drivers waved. All gave us wide berth. We caught up to Sandra and Pinky and slowed.
“It is so green here,” said Sandra.
“There has been more rain since we got here than we got all summer in Durango,” Don added. “Is that Canada?” he asked pointing.
“It’s Birch Bay—a big recreational area with a state park,” I replied.
We rounded the northern tip of the island and continued south along the high bank waterfront on the West side of the island. We looked out at the San Juan Islands, Orcas Island, and Matia in front of Sucia. We began a slow climb. “Check the three story house on the right. It’s right on the beach. The entry,” I pointed, “is right here off the road, onto the top floor.”
He looked. “’On the water’...that’s more like ‘in the water’.”
We crested and started down. We stopped about two thirds of the way down the hill at the Willows Inn B&B.
“We take a trip with a few other couples every spring. We came here to The Willows B&B last year. It was great. One of the couples in our group is an organic farm family. It was fun to visit Nettles Farm with professional friends,” I said.
“Down the bank here, there is a great beach walk, miles of it quiet and peaceful. Watching the waves…it’s like watching a campfire. You might find crab and oyster shells dropped on the rocks by gulls to crack into a meal or children’s shoes discarded in favor of bare feet.”
“Look up the hill. There’s a bunch of houses crowded together. It looks like, Daly City,” Don said.
“Yeah. We’ll be back in the country in a quarter mile.”
“The island is a great circumference kayak paddle. It’s also a good launching spot for touring the rest of the San Juans, but it is really hard to find a place to park your car for more than a few hours. You’ll see all the ‘private beach’ signs,” said Pinky
As we pedaled south, the closest islands Clark and the tiny Sister Islands came into view obscuring all but the tip of Barnes behind. Then we descended and pedaled along the beach around Legoe Bay.
“See the pairs of boats with the towers sticking up?” I asked.
“Yeah. Are they for fishing?” Don asked.
“Reef net fishing. They anchor a funnel made of ropes with green ribbons attached. It simulates a reef that the fish follow into a net between the two boats. On an incoming tide, they watch from the towers with Polaroid glasses. When they have salmon between the boats, they haul the net. They winch it up quickly to make a pocket that traps the fish. The boats pull together, and they pull the pocket onto a lowered section of the deck. They sort the fish, return the unwanted overboard, and dump the keepers into the live tank (made of netting that hangs down through an opening in the middle of the hull into the sea). It is the oldest net fishing, a Native American invention.”
“Is there a season now?” Don asked.
“I think so. I saw reef net salmon on that menu,” Pinky said.”
“What is special about reef net salmon?” asked Sandra.
“They’re fresher because they’re alive longer – stored in that “live tank” until the buyer comes,” Pinky replied
We continued on along Legoe Bay riding in a misty rain. There are some condos, a marine repair shop, and houses of some Lummi Indian fishermen. Our bikes bumped over tracks of the seaway that headed into the water. A guy was pulling a reef net boat onto a dolly with a Komatsu excavator, so that he could pull it up the tracks onto the beach for repairs. Leo’s Live Seafood is down here…selling shrimp, crab, and reef net salmon. On a small point there is a weathered wooden armchair pointed seaward, one of a generous handful of waterfront “look out chairs” that we had encountered on this ride—a symbol for what’s worthwhile to people on island time.
The road turns left up the hill and we passed the pristine white Lummi Congregational Church on the right. It does a good business on Sunday if the size of the parking lot is any indication. Across the street, M&J had a tiny “egg stand”, under cover, $2 a dozen from the six pack cooler on the honor system—island commerce. Pinky, Sandra and I reached the stop sign. We could see the ferry terminal on the left below. A varnished totem, its top figure honoring the crow, was twenty feet up the hill to the right. We had lost Don, easily the fastest rider of the group and never behind. We were thinking: flat tire. We backtracked. His bike was in the weeds and he had his rain coat hood up, covered with tiny droplets. He was standing at a long row of ripe roadside blackberries. His was still packing them in his mouth with blue stained fingertips. “Look at this!” he repeated, several times almost to himself. We began picking too, stopping only to return the greetings of passing drivers. We pedaled back up to the stop sign in the misty rain. Should we do the second loop? Sandra had pulled her hood back and was unzipping her raingear. “I’m warm, so let’s do it,” she paused. “I think it’s lifting.” We laughed.
Turning right we climbed a steep hill. The road was still paved. There were more trees and fewer people. We passed a new red barn with two cupolas, and two grazing deer. In a short while the road darkened like a tunnel as it penetrated the forest. It was a short ride to the next stop sign and decision point.
“To the right the hills get bigger, but there are some good views,” I said looking up the road. “Left is back to the ferry and the Beach Store Café.” I looked at Sandra. “Yeah, yeah. ‘It’s lifting’. Okay, we’ll go further, up and up. The first hill was a corker. We took the intelligence test at the top. Only the women passed and turned around. Don and I failed miserably and elected to ride up hill, in the rain, to the end of the road. All we really lacked for a perfect northwest bike ride was a headwind.
“This is a first. A mountain bike trail with pavement,” Don said. My maximal effort was a stragglers pace for him. He maintained it out of kindness. The first steep hairpin turn was just a grunt – no view of Mount Baker in the rain. At the top there was a lake, and we rested on the shoreline bench. The heron standing on a raft took no notice. What a peaceful place. The downhill, almost all the way back, was a screamer. Survival was more at issue than tourist attractions or views. We arrived at the restaurant just as Sandra and Pinky were taking off their coats.
“They have a wonderful library,” Sandra said.
“Where?” I asked.
“Right across the street from the ferry,” Pinky said
“It is fantastic. I could have spent the day there,” said Sandra brightly.
“The goal of our trip was to discover the Lummi Island Public Library,” Pinky announced.
“Our bicycle trip in France was a quest for a perfectly fitting and bright, French biking jersey…a successful trip,” I added.
“Sandra found a dinosaur,” Pinky continued, ignoring me.
“It is the greatest sign, that Literasuarus. His name is Snap E. Dragon. The kids have to love it. The place is fun,” Sandra bubbled. “They put a free book exchange in the metal barn behind the library. It’s named the “Noble Barn.”
“When she saw that stuff, in she went…a teacher in always-always land,” said Pinky.
“It’s right across the street. I could go back if we have to wait for the ferry,” Sandra said.
The restaurant had seafood quesadillas, seafood chowder, halibut and chips and grilled reef net salmon; all from heaven. “So, you guys have been riding in the rain. That’s really cool,” said our waitress. “Where did you go?” She stayed interested so we told her everything: who went where, some of the things we saw.
“I just got a bike. It’s a mountain bike, and I love it. I just wish that I could ride it more,” she said.
“You will ride every road on the island pretty quickly,” I said.
“Yeah. But I really got it to ride at home.”
“You don’t live on the island?”
“Used to, but I just moved to Lynden. I can’t afford a place on the island. I’m a single mom, and my daughter will be in high school.”
“The kids have to move for high school.”
“No. A school bus crosses on the ferry. It’s okay. But riding the bus is a problem when the kids have activities after school. You know. Sports and stuff.”
“But you plan to work here?”
“Oh, yes.”
Over lunch we discussed island problems: transportation, high real estate prices, rusted cars, rusted bikes, fire protection, emergency medical care, land use battles, tourists, subsistence, and ferries. Then we progressed to the world’s problems, which took the hour we had to wait for the ferry. When we left the restaurant, the visibility had markedly improved. We could see Lummi peak on the mountain at the south end of the island.
“Baker is still in the clouds,” Pinky said.
“There’s always a reason to come back. I’ll be back…with the camera. I’ll send you a virtual trip, a repeat of our route when there is some sun,” I told Don and Sandra.
Sandra was going to speak. Pinky raised her chin. Then, Pinky, Don and I joined in unison, “It lifted.” We laughed.
We headed for the ferry. On the mainland, as we pulled out of the parking lot headed for home, Sandra was pensive. She said, “You two have changed the least of any of our friends.”
“It doesn’t feel like things have changed all that much, does it?”
We had been kids just married in the army or navy anticipating a tour in Vietnam. In the 35 year interval we had become business mogul and teacher, physician and coach, parents of adult children, and now, grandparents. And on this day, we had taken up where we had left off in 1968.
I liked that…a friendship with a long shelf life.

Growing Down

2008-05-06T14:48:00.001-07:00

Growing Down

"Well, we're off. Scott, get your skates and your stick," Pinky called from the front door. "Do you guys downstairs need anything?"
"No thanks. We'll stay here and guard this television set," I replied as I settled, semi-recumbent, into the bean bag chair to take in what was left of a Jacques Cousteau program with Kirk, my three year old.
Kirk was engrossed. He had his left thumb in his mouth and the square foot remainder of his favorite baby blanket in his right hand and next to his nose. He acknowledged my presence by hooking his right leg over my left with warm familiarity. We watched as the accented narration described a wreck exploration. When the commercial came, Kirk looked up at me and said, "Dad."
"Uh huh."
"Will I be as big as Scott?"
"In a few years," I replied, only partly attentive.
The wreck dive resumed with the music and bright undersea colors. We were 15 minutes into the adventure. The commercials came again.
Kirk looked up at me again. His thumb was out of his mouth, but he was still holding his blanket near his nose.
"Why do you hold your blanket up like that?" I asked.
"Smell it," he answered with warm satisfaction. The telling seemed to make it even better. A second passed. He asked, "Am I growing up, Dad?"
It was the second query, and I gave it a little thought this time. Wanting to encourage an aspiring younger brother, I said, “Yes. You’re growing up. You will be able to go to Wood River School and be on the Pilots Hockey Team too. You’ll do all the stuff that Scott does.”
The show was back on again, and we watched as they fed fish and retrieved some wreckage for the finale of the show. As the credits were rolling, Kirk looked up at me and said," Dad."
"Uh Huh."
"I don't want to grow up," he said. It was not the answer that I was anticipating. I realized that he had been struggling with his problem. Had something happened to him recently? I found myself trying to think of a response and the silence was growing. I needed something to fill the gap, keep him rolling, tell me how he was feeling.
Kirk saved me the trouble. He said, "I want to grow down." He said it with resolution. He put his thumb back in his mouth and pulled his blanket up into smelling distance, ready for the next program. He was quite satisfied with this solution.
"Growing down," I thought, "Now there is a concept." I broadened my perspective. "I want to grow down too," I said.
Kirk didn't reply. He seemed content, and I thought we had our answer. The next show was news. At the first break, he said, "Dad,” and he looked up at me. “How are we going to grow down?"
We were down to the nitty gritty. "I don't know," I said.
He pulled his blanket up a little. His eyes closed and he was gone.

Cowboys

2008-05-06T14:45:00.000-07:00

Cowboys

"Thomas." The deep voice had some saw teeth in it. It was dad's voice. It had a demanding dignity.
Nick and I were standing at the Keller's front door. Tom had answered the door with his backpack in hand, and his face was bright with his usual enthusiasm. "Dad, I'm going camping with Nick. I'll be back Sunday night after dinner."
"Where are you going, son."
"Gallup"
"Are you going to another rodeo, Thomas?" The voice had more teeth. Trouble the three of us hadn't expected.
A small telling pause, and Tom replied, "I think maybe so."
"Thomas, come talk with me."
Tom put his pack down, looked at the floor, and reluctantly headed for the voice.
"Thomas, is Nick with the Walker boy ...the one you were with two weeks ago?" asked the voice. The voice was talking about me. Its tone was for the likes of a rat infestation.
"Thomas, those boys are not cowboys. You are not a cowboy. You were seriously hurt because you and your friends used poor judgment."
Nick and I were at the front door trying to weather this unexpected storm in silence, checking out the designs on the toes of our cowboy boots…with not so much as a sideways glance at one another. Each statement was true. Still, I was embarrassed and a little offended to be so easily dismissed, and to have my poor judgment proclaimed aloud. I found myself wondering how much of this overheard conversation Nick would report back in the car.
"But Dad....."
"Thomas, I want you to stay home."
Tom came trudging up the hall eyebrows raised, palms up, and shoulders shrugged.
"We’ll call you when we get back," I said in a resigned tone, and turned for the car. That fatherly voice was almost enough to fold our tent for this trip. Having escaped injury on our last outing, the rest of us had not been forced to reveal to our parents the details of the misadventure.
We reached the car. "Tom can't go," I said as Nick and I got in the back seat.
In the front seat, Bill was incredulous. "Why?" he said.
"His dad is afraid we'll get him hurt again. It was pretty final," I said, hoping Nick would keep a lid on the details of the conversation. We were all silent, just letting it soak in.
"At least we won't have to wait for his damn jeep to grind out a trip to Gallup," said Nick with a wry smile on his lips and laughter in his eyes.
"I bet he's out behind the house now looking to see if Nick took his jeep." Bill grinned from behind the wheel.
"Two weeks ago, when Tom got bonked on the head and was a few bricks short of a full load, the only thing on his mind was his precious jeep. All the way home he would plead with me, 'Please, don't let Nick drive the jeep.' Then he'd forget and ask again...every ten minutes for two hours," I said
"I hate that jeep, I had to drive that pile of crap, and not one of you would even ride with me," said Nick. "Then I was the one who got to explain to his parents how it was that Tom got hurt."
We were all laughing....somehow relieved. Two weeks ago had become two centuries ago. We were on our way to the Navajo rodeo in Gallup.
After about forty miles and our first stop for doughnuts, we started talking up the rodeo. Bill said, "My uncle was there last year, and all he could talk about was knee-walkin drunk Navajos and how small the bulls were at the rodeo. He said they were Brahmas...but yearlings."
"Abernathy is missing, and he is going to be pissed if we ride these bulls. He'll have to ride a bull in the Las Cruses rodeo to catch up...Probably draw a ride on the likes of ‘Mexican Joe’," Nick said.
As the laughter died down, the car droned on in silence and I fell into a reverie reflecting on our last trip two weeks ago. It had started when I went to Charlie’s house.
Charlie's dad gave me the news, “That knot head couldn’t wait. He went to the Piggly Wiggly.”
I had to go find him. That was where our trips always started … at the grocery store . Going on a trip? First you need food, then a destination, then maybe a purpose. I spotted him right away. He was facing a display of the cigars. The cart contained one bag of Beechnut Chewing Tobacco, resting on top of circus peanuts, butterfingers, gumdrops, m&m's, an economy size bag of potato chips, one pack of weenies and a pack of buns. Charlie held up a package of cigars. "Cheroots, partner … big as your trigger finger," He swaggered on, "I'm just about done. I just got stuff I knew we'd like, it’s all junk. It’s the perfect menu for a two day road trip."
I picked out a bag of Cheetos. I wanted to claim my rights to independent decision making. "Where do you want to go?"
"There's a Jim Shoulder's rodeo in Las Vegas tomorrow night, then a dance. The Hank Thompson Band is playing. You'll like it... bull riding and guitar music," Charlie said.
As the next 15 hours passed our group had grown to five: Duff Walker, Charlie Abernathy and Bill Stone in the Abernathy’s station wagon, and Tom Keller with Nick Lettra in Tom's army surplus jeep. We had driven to Las Vegas New Mexico. We were in the parking lot at the rodeo. Charlie and I were arguing.
"Walker, if you haven't got the cajones for it, walk on up there, buy yourself a ticket, and sit in the stands. If you don't get off your ass and try something you're never going to get where the action is." He grabbed my hat from the seat and handed it to me, "This will be the ugliest hat in that arena tonight, put it on and let’s go in there."
He was out of the car and walking fast. The others were behind us. I wanted to catch up to deliver my rebuttal or maybe the first punch, but I didn't want to attract attention by running. By the time I was close enough to talk we were within earshot of the guard at the gate, who was already looking down and not seeing the expected identification saying, "Got your passes boys?"
Charlie made eye contact with him just below the brim of his cowboy hat, Charlie’s eyes were stone hard. In the most surprisingly gruff voice, he said, "Number's on my jacket over chute three."
"What event?"
"Steer wrestling. I'm hazing for Duff Walker."
I was already uneasy about a confrontation. I had considered becoming a paid up spectator. I just couldn't believe it. Charlie gave the guy my name. I was flabbergasted. For that second I was really angry, which probably got us in because it gave me a look of some determination as I looked up at the guard and growled, "I'm Duff Walker." I set my jaw and kept walking in near darkness.
We were in. The lights made the arena bright as day. "Your applause is this cowboy's only reward. Let's hear it for Red Jackson, ridin out of Muleshoe Texas, folks." came blaring over the speakers.
A bull was at the other end of the arena coming our way running along the fence looking for an exit. The cowboys sitting in the sand were getting up, beginning to climb the fence. Charlie climbed. I grabbed the fence, had one foot up and looked right into his face when he turned around. He had a golf ball sized protrusion in one cheek. He handed me the open pack of Beechnut Chewing Tobacco. As I reached the top of the fence the bull went by. It rumbled like a passing train. I took a bunch of the sticky leaves, enough to give me a respectable cheek lump, put the wad in my mouth, and returned the package. What a surprise. Chewing tobacco was sweet. Immediately, I had one and a half mouthfuls of saliva. I tried not to swallow. I had to spit. I unloaded with the inaccuracy of inexperience. The puddle grew to silver dollar size as the juice hit, and almost as quickly disappeared into the sand leaving a damp spot an inch from the thumb of the contestant next to me. He didn’t flinch, but glanced up. I don’t know what he saw, but he looked back at the damp spot by his thumb and moved a few yards to a new spot.
The cowboys near the chutes would help out, push on the gate so that they could release the latch but keep the bull contained until the rider nodded. No reason those cowboys shouldn't be us. We moved down the fence where they loaded the bulls. Charlie, Nick and I took positions at the gate. They poked the bull with a section of broom stick to keep him moving in the passage toward the chute. When he reached the chute, a cowboy on the fence slammed down the slide to close off the front. The bull wasn't quite in and started to back up.
"Give me the Hot Shot," said the guy with the stick. It looked like a flash light about six batteries long with two prongs at the business end.
"Zap."
The bull jumped forward and the slide slammed down behind him. He began kicking, struggling and bawling. Then he stopped for a while, stood there with big wild eyes, breathing hard, blowing froth on our boots at the gate. With the bull confined, they began getting the rope around it. The bull rope was a flat, braided, inch and a half wide hemp rope with a loop at one end and a round braid at the other. A cowbell was tied to the middle of the rope to hang down from the bull's belly stimulating the bull to buck and serving as a weight to remove the rope from the bull when the passenger let it go. Each rider had one trusted assistant, and only the two of them touched the rope, threading it around the bull just behind the forelegs. When it encircled the bull, the rider put rosin on the leather glove and rubbed it up and down the free end of the rope. Then he put his hand under the loop, palm up, over the withers and his assistant stood atop the chute one foot on each side and grabbed the rope with both hands and pulled it tight, strapping the riders hand to the bull. When the bull exhaled, the assistant gave it his all, further tightening the rope around the bull and rider's hand. The rider then placed the free end over his palm; and using the other hand, folded each finger of the riding hand tightly over the rope to form a fist gripping it, preventing it from loosening its hold on his hand and bull. Then he pounded on that closed fist with his free hand, presumably to further tighten the grip and prevent the rope from loosening. Then the rider eased his butt down on to the bull's withers and locked one thigh down firmly under the forearm of his roped hand. The free hand and both feet were still on the slats so the rider could get up if the bull started bucking in the chute. When the bull was quiet for long enough he eased his feet down with spurs in place just over the bulls neck on each side. Four of five of us pushed on the gate. The starting judge slid the latch. We alone held the thousand pound bull in the chute.
The rider nodded and said, "Let's see him."
The starter pulled the gate open while we ran for the fence. Spurs in, a goose with the "hot shot", and the bull went crazy. The bull kicked and spun, left then right; and the rider was off. We took notes.
Tom sat next to me at the fence. He had this far away philosophical expression, and said, "If your balls hung down to your knees, would you kick like that?"
"I think that's why they spin," I said.
We were in the swing of things: helping, chewing, climbing the fence, and sitting in the sand with the cowboys. Jim Shoulders himself made the final ride on Mexican Joe.
"This bull hasn't been ridden this year," we heard the announcer say.
Jim didn't make the ride, and the bull almost got him besides. The clowns did some real gutsy stuff inches from the bull. They got their cowboy out of harms way.
The bull had a go at breaking open the barrel while the loudspeaker bantered with the other clown. We sat in the sand along the fence and watched the show for about five minutes. The bull got bored, trotted toward the stands, and began the standard run along the fence. The cowboys around us were casually climbing the fence well in advance of this bull. As I was starting up, I was suddenly very dizzy, then nauseated, but most distressing, unable to get up. I could feel the ground shaking, rumbling like an oncoming train, and the bull was there. It was over in a tenth of a second. The bull ran right by, over the top of me, paying no mind and unbelievably didn't even touch me. Again I was embarrassed. I tried to look like one of the first ones back off of the fence to his seat in the sand.
I thought, "Oh, No! Don’t be sick." I saw my chew in the sand, and happy not to have I swallowed it. Now, if that announcer can just keep his trap shut."
Silence.
I don't think anyone around me even knew. By half way through the saddle bronc event, I had recovered from my virgin chew. The fireworks ended it. We were off to the dance, where we stood at the periphery of the dance floor, hands half in our front pockets, thumbs hooked over each pocket's edge...for about two hours…shuffling around staring at our boots.
We left the dance near midnight, and began a search for a place "under the stars" to throw our bedrolls down. We turned off the highway into the pitch black dark on side road, crossed a cattle guard, and drove a respectable distance from the highway. There were no lights to suggest civilization, the spot was perfect. We rolled out the bags, and slept. At three AM it rained. Nick made it under the station wagon, and Bill got inside.
At six A.M. they found the rest of us wet and cold just waiting for the light. Two men looked down at us. The foreman had a gruff and commanding question, "Who's awake here?"
Charlie was instantly on one foot hopping around putting his levis on, talking the whole time, "We're on our way to the Gallinas. Bill here has family there."
I thought, "True. It's a vacation home. Not a bad reply though.” Bill's family owned a large wholesale grocery business there, and I was just relieved Charlie didn't blurt that out to make an impression.
"It’s posted here. There's a big sign where you turned off the highway. You are on private property."
"We got away late, got turned around. We just put out some sleeping bags. We expected to be gone at daylight," Charlie was saying. On a roll, he talked fast.
"Guainas is a ways from here," said the foreman, still suspicious.
"We stopped to take in the rodeo last night." Charley had his pants on and his cowboy hat. He walked to the foreman with his hand out to shake. "Charlie Abernathy – out of Albuquerque."
Foreman loosened up, even smiled slightly, and shook, "Jim Sanderson."
Charlie put in, "Didn't mean no harm. We could come up with a few bucks for the use of your land here." When I heard that, I knew the real lying had started.
The foreman smiled. "We don't want your money, but you got to move out. We got three truckloads of calves to unload here in an hour."
"We could move the cars, and give you a hand with them calves," Charlie tried to sound like one of the crew.
Somehow I expected him to laugh. I almost did. But Foreman Jim took it in with contemplation. "You lookin for work, are ya?”
"Oh great," I thought, "he's going to tell them we are cowboys looking for a job branding calves. The business end of the iron can burn you good. That’s what we knew about branding."
"No. Just felt bad about trespassing. Willin to help. We got to be back at work in Albuquerque on Monday," Charlie replied.
"That's better," I was thinking.
"What are you boys doin down in Albuquerque?" Jim said, warming up a little.
"We're carrying blasting powder for the road to the ski run in the Sandias," Charlie replied. This true fact did sort of firm up the story....so far so good. Charlie pointed to me and continued, " Before that; Walker, here...and I. We've been ridin down south on the Hubble Ranch." He had done it again, just like at the rodeo gate, gave my name…as if it were some kind of authentication. He had just told Jim that we were also cowboys who had been recently riding the range…for the largest sheep ranch in New Mexico." All he really knew was that Butch Hubble was in our geometry class. A “Sheep-puncher”…yeah, that was me. Foreman Jim will never figure that one out.
Foreman Jim didn't flinch or laugh. He just nodded.
"Tom and Nick came to visit. They’re lookin to do some horseback ridin," said Charlie shaking his head, "Bill has a couple of horses at his place but one is lame."
"Oh, boy. I think I see where this may be going," I thought.
Foreman Jim just nodded again.
"Does your ranch have a few horses that we could exercise? We'd be much obliged, willin to give a hand with the calves."
Jim just nodded again, "Don't worry about the calves, we're just going to run em off the truck. Takes five minutes." He continued, " We got a string of ponies haven't been ridden since fall. They could use a stretch, and they like to run.”
“We’d be much obliged.”
“Bring your car down to the house around the bend at the bottom of that hill when you get organized. We'll see about the horses."
They headed for their pick up.
"Thanks," Charlie said.
He turned around his face alight with his victory. I couldn't believe it. We were going to ride. He basked in deserved congratulations from us fellow “sheep-punchers”. He had just turned a trespassing violation into a free horseback ride with a pack of lies.
The house faced south on a small stream. The road and the river each curved, and they crossed at the middle of the valley about a quarter mile from the house. It was a beautiful setting. The corral bordered the road across from the porch of the house. A dozen horses stood together near the water trough. Foreman Jim introduced us to the owners. We talked weather, what was going on in Albuquerque and in Las Vegas, where Bill's family had a place was on the Gainas River. While we were thanking them for their hospitality, Foreman Jim had been in the tack shed, and had a handful of three bridles. He gave one to Charlie, me, and Nick. "Let’s go have a look," he said. At the corral, we all took one step up on the fence so we could see the horses.
Jim said, "You can ride three at a time. Charlie put a bridle on Maggie the black one in the middle of the corral." He pointed to me, "You get Chili, the bay by the far gate."
I was relieved that he pointed because I wasn't absolutely sure what color bay really was.
He nodded to Nick, "You ride Ricky. The pinto at the trough."
He opened the gate. Charlie was able to walk right up to Maggie but was having trouble with the bit. Nick had no trouble at all. Ricky was interested in the food. I had big trouble. Chili kept the herd between us, I'd cut her off and she'd run right past me into the middle of the herd, and I soon had the corral in turmoil, every animal running. I had a huge dust cloud and no horse.
"Now what?" I thought.
A loop sailed over my head and around Chili's. Jim reeled her in and snubbed her to a post. He said not one word. I did get the bridle on her myself.
Jim was looking us over. "The saddle will need some adjustment. Stirrups are laced so it will take some time."
"Right!" I thought.
It was one of the few things I knew how to do. Then I heard something that took my breath away.
Jim said, “We only have two saddles.”
It was Charlie. He said, "I'd just as soon ride bareback."
I had a sinking feeling. I had the horse with the attitude.
"You sure?" said Jim. His eyebrows went up, his wide eyes full of the question.
Charlie nodded, "Yep."
Jim looked at me, the question on his face, and I replied, "I'll try it bareback too." Nick followed suit.
So we all end up bareback.
One at a time we jumped up lying belly down on the backs of our mounts, the only grip being a handful of mane at the horse’s withers. The horses were nervous and jumping around. It was very close but we all got a leg over and up to sitting position without falling. Thankful more than confident we left the corral at a walk.
Jim stood in front of Maggie looking at Charlie, and said, "Be careful what you tell her with your feet. She's a cuttin horse and turns on a dime." He stepped back to me and said, "Chili has the name for a reason. She doesn't like anything flying out to the side, like a flapping slicker or such... she’ll try to get you off. If she does, she’s pretty good at givin you a good kick on the way down." Then, in general, he said, "Have a good ride."
We let them walk down the road toward the bridge. After about 50 yards, Charlie clucked and leaned slightly forward and Maggie went immediately into a brisk trot. Quickly it became apparent that Chili was not accustomed to being passed and that Ricky would follow Chili but not Maggie. The horses took four strides at a lope, then galloped in an all out horse race. In his effort to stay aboard Charlie had given Maggie a turn signal with one foot. She went 90 degrees to the right up the hill. Charlie immediately went 90 degrees to horizontal position clinging like a pipe wrench. He had to give up and take a dive when Maggie went in the woods. Ricky continued the race with Chili. Chili followed the road left around the curve and over the bridge. I didn't see it, but Ricky galloped to the riverbank, planted all four feet, and set the brakes. Nick scored a 7.5 for his involuntary swan dive into soft black riverbed soil ten feet below. When I finally got Chili stopped and looked back, Charlie had mounted again and Nick appeared, climbing the river bank, totally black with white rings around his eyes. He looked like a coal miner at Miller time, but he had no injuries. Nick and Charlie remounted, and we started again. Charlie and Maggie pulled up next to Chili and me, Charlie held his reins left handed, his enthusiasm was unaffected by the fall. With his right he took the long free ends of the reins and gave Maggie a left, right, left snap on each of her haunches. It wasn't a slicker that he waved, but it was close enough for Chili. She took two hops and accelerated to a gallop in about 4 more strides, hind feet coming out in front between the forefeet. I bounced 4 times to find the base of the horses tail visible at my crotch, and I could hear Jim's fateful words, "She’ll give you a kick on the way down." I took one rein in each hand and on the next stride pulled as hard as I could, all the way up over my head, and my next bounce was on the withers and I jumped to the right off to the front. She still was able to kick me in my left ankle. I limped around a little but remounted. Then things actually settled down a little, and except for attempts to sideswipe my legs on a few trees, Chili and I had a decent ride. As we turned around for home, I was plotting my strategy for the final sprint anticipating audience on the porch. I was determined to walk Chili back up the road from the bridge. It was not to be.
"Don't be such an old woman, Walker. They're going to run. Just let ‘em run," argued Charlie.
"I'm not going to be galloped into that corral," I was saying, pig headed stubborn.
We crossed the bridge and I had choked up on one rein and had the Chili’s head pulled up sideways so she could look down with her left eye only. She trailed the pack but still able to gallop. I achieved a small victory because she stopped mannerly and didn't try to take me through the corral gate at a gallop. Tom and Bill came out for their turn. Charlie wanted to go again, but Nick and I had had plenty. As they left there the horses didn’t race. After they crossed the bridge they ran some, but all riders did fine as they left our view.
About a half hour later, Bill was coming back on Chili leading Ricky. Jim Sanford came out on the porch when Bill pulled up, "Tom fell off in the trees. He hit his head, and he is out cold."
Foreman Jim was matter of fact; said, "Put the horses in the corral." He nodded at Bill and said, "You show me where they are." They headed for Jim's pick up.

As I watched the truck bump along the road, I began thinking about how to say it. "Mr. Keller, this is Duff Walker. Tom fell off a horse an hour ago and is still unconscious."...maybe..."Mr. Keller, Tom got hurt pretty bad. He'll be arriving in Albuquerque by helicopter..."
Finally, the truck returned, driving very slowly. As it crossed the bridge and approached the house, I could see Tom, 6'3", standing in the back of the truck looking over the cab. He looked bright and alert. Maybe it would turn out all right. I waved and Tom waved back. They took him in and put him in bed. We waited on the porch while they gave Tom some TLC and a physical exam by the attending mother, the owner’s wife. The mother called her local doctor and Tom's mom.
The cowboys became just boys, boys in trouble. I thought that our hosts might be upset with us for pretending we were experienced riders. But they saw it more simply. They seemed to accept as a matter of fact that it's in a boy's nature to try just about any horseback ride, and they accepted the risk of occasional falls.
In about 30 minutes, Tom had mother's and doctor's okay to travel with us by car. Still a little woozy, he could remember that Reverend Bob Richards had set the world pole vault record not realizing it had been four years earlier. He couldn’t remember recent events. Every few minutes he would turn to the nearest person and beg, "Please don't let Nick drive my jeep." He seemed otherwise normal. We said our good byes. The owners asked us to come by and see them again, next year after the rodeo. They gave us a direct, heartfelt invitation.
It was quiet in the car on the way home. We were thinking about Tom. We had all been lucky, even Tom. We could have bought tickets, watched a rodeo, and come home. But why watch if you can ride. Trespass, tell some lies when you're caught, get a horseback ride. Sounds like an acceptable explanation for us to give Toms parents, doesn’t it?
My day dreaming passed. I was back in the car with my friends, headed for Gallup. We were hungry again. It had been an hour. We stopped to eat in Grants. Our hopes of riding juvenile bulls with no rodeo savvy were dashed. A poster in the restaurant window advertising the Gallup Rodeo indicated the stock would be provided by the Jim Shoulders Rodeo Stock Company. That meant the likes of Blue Bell and Mexican Joe, no yearlings.
“Well, the admission is less than an entry fee,” I said. We all shook our heads. What rotten luck.

The Cause of All My Sorrow

2008-05-06T14:44:00.000-07:00

The Cause of All My Sorrow

I want to become Abbott, with that sunny disposition, delighted with himself and the world…things are just about perfect. For my problems, I’ll chirp his little mantra, “Pitter Patter, Let’s get at ‘er”. Then, let the good times roll. Boy! Will we eat and drink, and be merry—embracing life. His fun is compelling, even overwhelming when you’re with the guy. Could it be the same without the eating and drinking? I’m 40 lbs over; he’s 60 past his ideal weight.
Slumped unconscious and grey faced during dinner, Abbott came back to life just in time to stop the 911call. We drove him to the ER—but not before he slurped up the rest of his pie. He knew the diet was coming. Weeks later I had my own brush with mortality, palpitations on a bike ride. Our fear induced diets were the reversal of our food compulsion. Eventually I ate again…within hours actually, struggling to embrace the concept of “enough”, and trying to alter persona and diet to fit. For Abbott it came to: “All things in moderation, especially moderation.” For me, what?
I try—stop, take a breath during a meal, and ask, “Enough?” I eat no carbs. I like the rapid results. First my liver glycogen burned. One gram glycogen binds four grams water, and 400 grams of glycogen burned yields 1600 grams of water loss for a total of 2 kilos or 4.4 pounds. Zap! (Eat some carbs and zap you gain 4.4 lbs. back) Without carbs the liver makes no fat, so you burn fat, and get ketones on your breath and in your urine and they suppress appetite. I lost. I cut back on salt and avoid sugar; they increase hunger…the free salted popcorn at the bar has a purpose. I take a multivitamin as it is supposed to facilitate the fat burn. I cut back the calories. I kept up the fluids, which surprisingly required effort. I did my best to feel full on a small meals.
The numbers: Calories are units of energy—heat. Fat 9 calories/gram Carbs 4 cal/g Protein 4 Alcohol 7, One pound of weight is equal to 2500 calories. Men need (1500 – 4000) women (900-2500) calories/day, average ballpark. Ghandi fasting=0. Lance Armstrong,racing=7500. The requirement depends on: Weight, Height, Age, gender, exercise, health, %bodyfat, environment. Teen- 1800 Sedentary Adults: Women=1300 Men 1800 Active Adults: Women=1600 Men=2000. Note the small difference between active and sedentary. It’s not fair. Exercise should burn more calories. Still it’s what we can do to burn more fat.
Exercise: Male 65 210 lbs 5'10" doing 1 hour bicycling at average heart rate of 160 burns 680 calories or loss of 680/2500= .272= .3 lbs. Preferred food of the heart is fat. The preferred food of the brain is sugar. Exercise reduces hunger, but one hour later—look out. Strenuous or competitive exercise burns about 10 cal/min. Disappointing news is that exercise won’t do it, you still have to stop eating. That’s what does it.
Estimate maintenance by Body weight X 14. (Note that you will need less as you lose weight, so dieting gets harder.) For weight loss subtract 500 from the maintenance which would be about a 1500 – 1800 calorie diet for an active male. (There are lots of numbers and formulas for maintenance calories, ideal weight etc. on the internet, eg. site: www.annecollins.com/)
Fats may take as long as 5-8 hours to be digested, proteins take about 3-5 hours and complex carbohydrates take about 2-3 hours. Refined sugars take only 30 minutes. Even though fats contain twice as many calories as carbohydrates, they keep hunger satisfied three times as long. A 154 pound adult male requires about 56 grams of protein daily (.8grams/ lb body weight)
So much for science. I lost 15 lbs. in two weeks, I needed a day off. Accounting for days off and re-entry to the dieting life, I will be at this for months. Do I have the discipline for the re-entries? Maybe, just don’t throw the old clothes.
What of the diet, long term? Can I want to stay scared long enough? Maybe these lyrics will eventually pertain, “It’s the cause of all my sorrow, I think I’ll start tomorrow.”

The Breakfast Ride

2008-05-06T14:43:00.000-07:00

The Breakfast Ride

We bike to meet Sally and Ron for Sunday breakfast frequently. The ride is a ho-hum routine. It’s on a road I frequently took to work. They bicycle from their cabin at Cain Lake and we come from Mount Vernon. It is about fifteen miles each to the Hometown Café in Sedro Woolley. They have recently bought have motorcycles, his and hers. Their bicycling careers are in the twilight.
“You’re way short for your weight. You need to dump that motorcycle and keep pedaling” I say to Ron.
“And you need a job, Walker. You’ve got nothing to do but torment me with your retirement.” Ron responds. “You have lots of free time. Help me organize this year’s guys’ bike ride.”
“That’s your show Abbott. You’re Canadian. You should be planning the trip – in Canada.”
“We’ve got no country roads. Every road is packed with trucks and cars, no shoulders. You have a glorious gift in this country, and you don’t appreciate it. Just think about your ride to get here for breakfast, those beautiful those country roads with shoulders to ride on and things to see.”
“We’d swap some of our pavement for your trees. Still – you’re right.” We take our bucolic scenery and empty roads for granted. But there’s something else that we ignore: the advantages of a slow vehicle. We tend to ride our bikes like we drive our cars. The more serious the cyclist, the more interest there is in techniques to ride faster. Concentration is required for safety. Tourism suffers.
Consider drafting, a cornerstone technique for bicycling efficiency. A rider passing through the air leaves a wind shadow in his wake extending about 24 inches behind his bike. A second rider pedaling 12 to 18 inches behind the first saves about 30% in energy expended to follow at the same rate of speed as the leader. If the second rider is fatigued, he may be able to follow at 20 mph, yet be unable to sustain more that 12-13 mph without assistance. This second rider is “Drafting”. Drafting creates synergy, meaning the team’s effort is greater than the sum of its individual parts. It makes bicycling a team sport.
If the front tire of the following rider touches the rear tire of the leading rider, the rider behind will fall. Hence the safe and effective following distance is 8 to 24 inches. The safety secret is anticipation. Never overlap the wheel in front of you, especially when you are riding slightly to one side to gain the “sweet spot” in a cross wind. In the interest of anticipation, riders work together to make speed changes smooth and predictable. Sudden decelerations are dangerous. Steady Eddie wins the day. A rear view mirror helps to avoid changes in speed, that occur when a rider might otherwise stop pedaling to turn his head and look behind. Sit up straight before slowing; it telegraphs your speed change. Close gaps gradually. Keep track of that crucial wheel in front of you using peripheral vision, don’t fixate attention on it. Instead, keep your eyes moving; look through the knees and over the shoulders of the riders ahead to anticipate decelerations, stops, and hazards. Talk. Point. Identify the hazards to riders behind.
Abbott inspired me. He started me thinking about what we fail to appreciate on our rides. I’m moving to the slow lane. Interesting things and people abound on our bike routes. I have passed them by.
“Abbott, I’m taking tomorrow off,” I say grinning. He is generous. He treats me to the response I want.
He rolls his eyes. “Oh good, a day off from retirement.”
“I’m going to take my camera on our breakfast route – look around, ask some questions.”
“Walker, you’ve made the ride a thousand times. Do you need to see it again?”
“Like you said, we don’t appreciate what we have. I’ve got nothing better to do than fix that.”
He winces. “You need a job.”
I am excited to do 1001st trip with renewed interest in the countryside and the people I have long taken for granted, to continue my trip in the slow lane – pay attention to its cumulative nature.
Ron, gregarious elf that he is, gets me started on my exploration immediately. Cheryl is our waitress. She delivers him poached eggs and corned beef hash and he starts schmoozing her about motorcycles, moving on to the history of her restaurant.
The Hometown Restaurant, open 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Metcalf St., has been run for five years by Peggy Procter and Cheryl McLaughlin. Cheryl has lots of balls in the air. The mother of a six year old daughter, she also rides a Harley and sponsors a part of the Sedro Woolley Motorcycle Run benefiting Hospice and the Battered Women’s Shelter. Harleys run in this family. Her husband rides with his own organization, Combat Veterans International. The Harley rocking horse fits in, but café décor also includes a blanket made by Cheryl’s sister, paintings of mountain scenes, and the best of the crayon art by her youngest patrons. Portions are large. The Tuesday special is chicken fried steak. A chainsaw sculpted logger with his crosscut saw stands in the front window. The place is a cultural icon.
“I need a walk after that breakfast,” Sally says.
“ Downtown Sedro Woolley has some great stuff,” Pinky says eagerly. “It’s actually a pretty artsy little logging town.”
“There must be twenty five statues. There’s a carving on every corner. The town is a chainsaw art museum,” Ron says.
We count thirty five sculptures before it’s over. Many are winning entries from past competitions at the Sedro Woolley’s yearly July 4th Logger Rodeo. There are: diving dolphins, loggers with axes, loggers with saws, multiple bears, a cougar, a cowboy on a bucking bull, an owl, a salmon, an eagle, and a bank robber. They are artfully rendered and with shiny finish protecting them from the weather. Woods Logging Supply is still marked by its dealer sign for Stihl chain saws. Hard work and risk no longer guarantee a job in the woods. Times they are a’changin. Loggers are turning to art, and commerce is more apparent at the espresso stand in the parking lot than in the Woods Logging Supply store.
The Chamber of Commerce is open. When I ask for a brochure on the town’s history, the lady looks over her reading glasses slipped slightly down from the bridge of her nose. She does not approve of my bright colored biking shirt and lycra biking shorts. “We used to have one”, she says, relishing her denial of my request. “But there is a website run by a guy, a different guy. But he might be your cup of tea. He rides an old bike with a basket, rides it everywhere.” She is smiling, looking at our shirts with the pockets in back and at our fruity shoes. “You’ll be a match for Noel. He does the website.”
“Does he have an office?”
“No. But he’ll meet with you. We have a flyer for him here somewhere. Here. He’s into history and that kind of stuff.” An eccentric self-appointed Skagit Valley historian on a bike just might take an interest in my cumulative bike tour. The flyer says log on at www.stumpranchonline.com.
His website would give me the following background: In 1878 the log jam on the Skagit River was partly cleared at Mount Vernon, and David Bately and Joseph Hart from England via San Francisco made their way to settle on the north bank just west of the current Sedro Woolley. In 1885 Mortimer Cook built a shake mill, the first with a drying kiln; and a small community resulted. He called it “Bug” because of the mosquitoes. Wives of employees lobbied for a real name and he chose “Sedro” from sedra – Spanish for cedar. A few years later, there was a boom for the coal seam that surfaced 6 miles from Mortimer’s general store. In 1889, Nelson Bennett had finished the Fairhaven and Southern Railroad, the first standard gauge Railroad north of Seattle. It first rumbled down the F&S Grade to Sedro on Christmas Eve. The cargoes were logs and coal. The hope was for riches from the anticipated establishment of Fairhaven as a major railroad terminus. With trains and roads the river was becoming less necessary for transportation and floods were a risk. New Sedro was built about a mile north of the original away from the river. In 1890, P.A. Woolley bought land a mile northwest of the Sedros and built a mill and its community that began 8 years of competition and neighborly enmity that subsided with the joining of Sedro and Woolley in December, 1898.
We head back a block and a half to the Hometown.
“Bikes are still here,” says Abbott.
“‘Carbon Fibre No Match for Chainsaw’ would be a more likely article in their Courier-Times than ‘Bicycles Stolen from Downtown’ ” I suggest. Loggers have no use for bicycles. We mount up and head down Metcalf Street, cross the tracks, turn on highway 20 and veer off onto F&S Grade Road. This road leaves Sedro Woolley climbing gently northwest toward the hills above the Samish River. There is a vista on the left of the broad Skagit Valley with its verdant farmland, pastures, and wetlands, punctuated by several prominent free standing hills that seem slightly out of place on the flats. Inches off the pavement, tiny flowers are blooming. The foxglove flowers cover a hillside. As the road ascends into the forest, moss hanging from the tree branches speaks to our rainy winters. For a half of a mile the road bores into the forest, a tunnel pruned out through interwoven branches of trees lining each side of the road. We stop our bikes at a road killed opossum mother. Killed for moving too slowly, she gives us slow lane cyclists pause for somber empathy.
This slow moving, nocturnal marsupial is Washington State’s number one road-kill. Fifty teeth (the most of any mammal) make her final grimace frightening beyond her peaceful ways. Opossums eat insects, dead animals, worms, berries, fruits, and on a lucky day, pet food. Long, widely separated toes with an opposable thumb on each rear foot make her suited to tree life, and incidentally, easy to track. Her prehensile tail is rat-like and unappealing. She has thirteen nipples which expand and “lock on” suckling infants which are in her pouch for about 2 months. Graduating from the pouch the kids have two weeks of on-the-job training with mom, and then they’re on their own. When surprised, opossums have a shock reaction which renders them flaccid, their eyes closed, a protruding tongue protruding and a markedly reduced heart rate. They are all but dead. It is their involuntary defense mechanism. This one is not “playing possum.”
We reach the top of the hill and descend. The base of this hill is the east bank of the Samish River. At the bottom we turn left across the bridge. There is a beautiful little valley of farm land and wet lands. I would return to this spot with my camera on the following day, as chronicled below.
I made this second trip to take the photographs to illustrate this story. When I stopped at the Samish River on the F&S Grade Road, I found a golf ball, fresh footprints and graffiti under the bridge. On the river, I meet Doug and Tasha from the Washington State Fish and Game Dept.
“What are you working on?” I asked.
“Counting redds,” Doug replied.
“A redd is?”
“A nest in the gravel, in this case, made by a female steelhead – a Gaelic word I think.”
“It’s a new one,” Tasha called up from the stream.
He pointed into the riffle, “See the fresh white gravel she’s dug up. It stands out from all the black gravel which is covered with algae.” Doug is a biologist who has walked a four mile segment here on the Samish every 10 days so he can find each new redd before algae provides its camouflage. Doug has been estimating the size of the returning run and number of redds in the whole drainage by walking several segments.
While Tasha was wading up the stream, I asked, “How are your findings used? To set rules for the fishermen?”
Doug smiled. “Not even that – first we want to simply know whether the fish population is increasing or decreasing.” He looked skyward at circling birds. “Strange,” he said. “That’s an eagle in the middle of all those vultures.” He looked at my face and knew that I needed help. “Vultures have dihedral wings,” he said, “They go up at the tips.” I nodded. I sensed that he is not a talkative sort, but doesn’t mind talking about the things he studies. He likes his job. I asked if they know how much sport fishing depletes the population. They can only guess. They do know of poaching by some local fishermen. He doesn’t do enforcement, but knows they are difficult to catch, fishing at daybreak or dusk. The worst damage they do is driving ATV’s in the stream beds, through redds. In the first thirty five days the eggs are extremely sensitive to movement or weight on the gravel which will dislocate the embryo from the yolk sac. “When they develop eyes, we call them ‘eyed eggs’, and they are pretty tough,” he says. “The hatchery guys say they can bounce them on a concrete floor and they’ll still hatch.” The Samish count is up this year to about 700 fish from March to September at the current rate. They have found 25 new redds since March, 13 of those in this month of May. Doug is approving of the increase, ecstasy bound by the decorum of science.
“Do they all die like salmon?”
“Lots of the males die, but a significant number of fish spawn more than once, sometimes up to three times. They have much more diverse life cycles than salmon. They are anadromous but spend up to four years in the river before going to the ocean for one to four years. A fish banded in the Sea of Japan was caught in the Skagit River, so they get around.”
“How do you determine that a fish is a second time spawner?”
“For some reason the largest are first time spawners, but it is scale analysis that tells us their age and when they entered fresh from salt water.”
“Like tree rings?”
“Kind of, yes”
“The large ones, what do they weigh?”
“Biggest recorded was around 50 pounds, but most are four to eight.”

I persuaded them to let me take their picture but the acceptance was grudging. Doug wanted to be left to his science and out of the limelight.
“Can you find every redd?”
“On the stretch that we walk, Yes.”
“There are more fish than the number of redds aren’t there?”
“At least twice as many.”
“How do you get to the size of the run from your data?”
“We count redds and add the escapement adjusted for estimates of sport fishery, commercial fishery, natural disaster, and poaching.”
“Lots of estimating isn’t there?”
“We can’t even count every fish escaping even for a short time because of expense. You have to pump about 1500 gallons of water a day to count fish.
Tasha was back, and had been waiting in the truck for about ten minutes. “I should go. We have a couple more to do today,” he said.
As their truck pulled away I had an impulse to run after it. I forgot to ask how they know that a redd is a steelhead female and not a salmon. I guessed that they see enough fish to know that the steelhead are running now and the salmon aren’t.
That was my road side chit chat, on my day after, second pass trip for photos. As I cruise by the bridge with Ron and Sally today, I have no inkling of that future, no image in my mind of scientists in plaid pants bouncing “eyed eggs” of steelhead on the polished concrete floor at the fish hatchery.
Ron leads Pinky and Sally across the broad valley. I am “lanterne rouge” (A French cycling term, derived from the red light at the end of a train). There is a flood of yellow from tiny flowers that fill the valley to the south. The valley to the north has a recently hayed field. Abbott has dismounted where F&S intersects Prairie Road. He’s complaining about the speed, the distance he has ridden and the hill he is anticipating. He curses at me softly as I pass him.
“What do you think this is, the Iron Man?” he grunts.
“I’d ride a hundred miles to see that red face you make,” I reply. As Prairie Road goes up the valley it crosses the Samish River two more times. The land here is in one to five acre parcels along the road with farm land in the center parts of the valley. There are country estates, large gardens, horses, barns, riding arenas, and some storage of industrial equipment, trucks, and farm implements. The architecture includes shacks, falling down barns, and double wide trailers as well as tiny houses with big gardens, and a few large expensive homes. We pass through Hickson, a tiny community boasting a volunteer fire station, gun club, and community center bearing its name. We turn on Parson Creek Road. On the corner there is a red barn three stories tall but only about 25 feet long. It has fresh white trim and looks like a one third section of a regular barn, chopped off. Next door, 4 trucks, 3 cars, two trailers and an old tractor lie in wait for use, more likely for salvage or rust. As we climb the gentle hill, Abbott is grumbling again, and our wives call an emergency stop. Pinky and Sally disappear into the underbrush for five minutes. I hear a shout, then cursing. “Nettles,” says Pinky coming up the bank. “Nettles are the only thing worse than mosquitoes if you’ve got your pants down.”
Sally pokes Ron in the belly, “Wipe that smirk off of your face. I got it on my leg – no place else.”
“That goes for you too,” Pinky says to me. “If you had to squat to pull your Willie out, you wouldn’t be laughing about the nettles.”
The forest is lush and green here. There are no houses and the creek is obscured by thick underbrush. Further on, we cross Highway 99. The abandoned Alger Video Store shows the weather of several years, the broken marquee implores, “Stop in. Check us out.” A wrecked Chevrolet pickup is on blocks where its rear axle was removed. It is a fitting complement to the building. We continue down a short hill to Donovan Park on Friday Creek. Friday Creek is a beautiful clear stream in a narrow valley with tall hills on each side. It feels like we could be in Alaska. There is a mix of deciduous trees and evergreens. A picturesque weir spans the creek. There is a wonderful beach. The tables, fire pits, and playground equipment are unused today, and there are only gurgling creek noises. It is my favorite park. It’s hard to believe that I-5 is only a mile to the west, over the mountain in front of us as we stand on the creek. The Abbott’s leave us here, where they parked. They drove here to avoid Cain Lake Road which is on of our few roads with no shoulder and heavy traffic. Pinky and I are extending our ride about 30 more miles. We need the miles in preparation for the Seattle to Portland ride with Cascade Bike Club in July.
“STP. It’s not legs you need. An hour or two of couch time would be cheaper,” Abbott tells us.
“It’s their butts they are worried about,” says Sally.
She is right. It’s one hundred miles. At fifteen miles per hour, that is 400 minutes or 6 hrs and 40 min of saddle time on each of two days. The seat is so narrow –more akin to a colonoscope than a chair. That tender skin which meets the seat needs conditioning, a coat of Chamois BUTT’r lube, and bike shorts with no seams in the crotch. Muscular condition is less important. But general condition is important in that is related to concentration. You need to concentrate to stay safe among 5000 other riders who have riding styles from wild and erratic to smooth and steady, have ages from 11 to 70, and are riding road bikes, mountain bikes, tandems, recumbents, tricycles, and bikes pulling toddlers in trailers. There is everything. It’s a happening, a bicycle Woodstock.
So Pinky and I strike out by ourselves from Friday Creek toward Alger in the name of STP fitness of our butts and legs. We follow Friday Creek, crossing it several times as we approach the Alger Tavern. The rest of the town (the motel, a garage and small office building, and a residential junk yard) is distributed around a flashing yellow light where uneven concrete slabs of Highway 99 cross the heavily traveled, infamous and narrow Cain Lake Road. We turn left and in a mile, cross I-5 and climb slightly to turn south on Barrel Springs Road, passing by the Barrel Springs Mill. It is a small intermittent operation, and today, has a modest log pile in front. Over here the country is mountainous. Some houses are like my subdivision house. But many stand out as owner-built, before strict enforcement of building codes, maybe back when there was evasion of whiskey tax. There is a sailboat in a building almost like a land locked covered dock. We are in a land of yard collections -- junk. But there are a few small country estates, with the earmarks of expensive daughters – horses, trailers, barns and arenas. We wind around the mountain on steadily narrowing pavement. Some buildings are near collapse. A sign proclaims: “School Bus Turnaround,” Pinky doesn’t like this. It is the first indication that I have tricked her into wilderness ride. Again. Then there is “Pavement Ends,” and finally the sign that says, “Primitive Road, No Warning Signs.” It has recently rained and there is a slightly soft mud texture to the smooth dirt road and skinny tires sink in a little, slow us down, and we have to shift down a gear. The mud takes her to the brink.
“How far is it?”
“A couple of miles. I know where I am.”
“We’re lost!” she says, on the verge of tears. This is an early stage of bikephobia. For a few minutes, she believes she is irretrievably lost with the only hope being to backtrack. That is how far away it feels here, like some kind of wilderness preserve.
Then we come to a large new house and intersect a paved road. The view is spectacular. We are looking out on Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands spread out in front of us and across the whole western horizon. The foreground is covered with large farms on the flats. We descend to the little town of Bow, which is now simply a little cluster of houses, a little neighborhood. It used to be a larger town four miles from its sister city of Edison. The Bow Post Office is about two miles to the south on Chuckanut Drive across the street from the upscale Rhododendron Restaurant and the Chuckanut Store. We turn downwind and fly there at 22 mph. Pinky loves the spinnaker run and has forgotten being hopelessly lost in the outback on Blanchard Mountain.
We fail in our resolve to travel slowly and look, rocketing to the next intersection at Allen West Rd. The yellow hangar has no signage. It used to sell and service farm equipment. The cinder block grocery store, has added an espresso and hot dog stand. My favorite bike ride convenience store across the road failed several years ago, and it is now The Vanilla Swan selling sandwiches, espresso, and ice cream and is sporting a clever and expensive-looking swan logo on the sign, “Now Open ‘til 9 PM”.

We high tail it all the way to Burlington on the good shoulder of Chuckanut that is smooth until we hit Cook Road. I silently curse the large gravel chip seal. I believe that it loosens your fillings, removes any bike part not welded on, and pounds your prostate flat as schnitzel. “Our cost cutter county… I wonder where the saved money goes.” I grumble to Pinky.
“You have a suspicious mind. Ask them if you really want to know,” she replies.
Certain that the gravel has become larger in the last few years; I call Jim Sullivan at maintenance department for county roads the following morning. He explains. An oil sprayer makes a layer of hot oil, dump trucks fill the hopper of the chip spreader that lays down a mixture or sand and ½ in. rock in a uniform 3 in. thick layer. It is left on the road for about 10 days and then broomed off. The rock that has been through a crusher, then a cone shaped grinder and then shaken through a screen with a grid opening of ½ in. square, so some rocks squeeze through diagonally and may be slightly larger than ½ in. They tried 5/8 in. rock several years ago but switched back to ½ in. and that is now used on roads classified “heavily traveled.” “Residential” class roads get 3/8 in. rock. He says that the Overlay Program has been terminated. That means the “high travel roads” which used to receive a new layer of asphalt for maintenance are now getting ½ in. chip seal. That is the cost saving strategy. He feels that asphalt should be used rather than chip seal, but they don’t ask him. Maybe it is chip seal where there used to be new pavement that causes my discomfort. Jim doubts rock size is my demon since the 3/8 in. is about the same cost as ½ in. rock. Still I was not able to determine the extent and dates of the trial using 5/8 in. rock.
Burlington has the 4 large Malls, a Costco, the most Mexican restaurants, and most of the other commercial development. Mount Vernon has more people, the county government, and a combination Burlington’s envy and enmity that has not been seen since Sedro vs. Woolley in the 1890’s. We bypass the commercial strip, traveling through a mainly residential area on Anacortes St. and past the soccer fields along the banks of the Skagit River. We turn south across the new Skagit bridge which has a nice bike lane which is a cruel joke. It is isolated with no way to safely enter the bike lane from the approaching streets – a symbol of the grudging nature of bicycle tolerance. It could be worse. We could be truly down and out – we could be pedestrians.
On Fir St., a block from home, in our subdivision next to the Church of the Nazerene and across from the immaculately manicured elder community of trailers lies the most interesting home in our neighborhood to me. About 15 years ago there was a small house occupied by a single old man who farmed a half acre backyard with a Ford tractor. The front yard had a front end loader under repair and a trailer. He parked a dump truck, apparently related to his day job. Several other items of heavy equipment were in the large shed that was open along its front side. His small house burned, and he moved to a trailer which was nestled among slowly accumulating trucks and tractors. The trailer disappeared. Now a forty foot house boat on blocks stands partially sanded and painted. I think that he lives in the boat he was painting, while continuing to accumulate equipment: a large diesel dump truck pulling a tractor with backhoe, 2 forklifts, a D3 Caterpillar, a rusting and very old tractor, and a 2.5 ton truck. Today there was a new addition. A 1966 Merucry Commuter station wagon has a hand written note taped in the driver side window stating, “4 sale, inquire within.” A large garden in back is partially cultivated. The Troybuilt Roto-tiller stands mid row. Four rows of corn are about a foot high.
We are home, done with the ride. In order to resume the bicycle slow travelogue inspired by the Ron and Sally at breakfast, we retrace our first leg out to Sedro Woolley where we met them this morning.
Our standard route on the back streets passes the green houses on Waugh Rd., bordering a swampy wetland known as Barney Lake. We ride up the hill by Centenial School and through a vacant lot on 200 feet of wooded foot path. The exit is onto a street that comes out on Frances Rd. We go the back way through Clear Lake, on Wood Rd., descending to Mud Lake Rd. We are in farm land. There is small fleet of dump trucks parked on a concrete slab that is the sole remainder of the previous dairy farm. Its 40 acres of pasture across the road are split by a muddy road and two huge piles. Sticks and branches in the piles are uniform, even the slash is cloned. Small stumps of hybrid poplars dot the muddy expanse that was a poplar grove two months ago. Just ahead is a recently painted home with out-buildings and a barn, a country estate with a beautiful garden – one plant, a huge blue rhododendron which fills the entire front yard.
I will return to this farm on my photography trip tomorrow to investigate further. I own some land nearby that I might rent for poplars, so I will call the owner. Mike is proud of his rhody, but on the poplars he says, “Don’t do it. A Canadian outfit bought the place and lost their shirt. The trees grew fast enough, but they had the flood and blow down. Then the pulp market took a dive.”
The internet says hybrid poplar is the fastest growing tree with simple genetic code and cellular DNA that is easily modified, allowing selection of trees for herbicide tolerance, insect resistance, low-lignin production, and sterility. It must be pulped 4-6 hours after harvest to maintain its light color so desirable for paper. At about 70-90 tons of trees yielded by an acre of land, this forty acres would produce income of $32,000 - $68,000 after 8 years of growth. Road-mapping genes allows selection of DNA sequences causing a shift of growth from the leaves to the stems and branches – we get more pulp. But there are unanticipated results too: herbicides control competition from weeds but puts Round-Up in ground water, fish, and birds. The 100% sterility cannot be guaranteed, so genetic alteration of wild trees is possible.
Lignins provide strength if chip board is the intended use but the most likely market is pulp, which requires their removal. Those suspicious of big lumber and paper corporate self interest advocate using the lignin free pulp fiber from hemp to avoid genetic alterations. But industrial hemp, though having only a tiny fraction of the psychoactive agent necessary for use in a bong, is currently outlawed as marijuana. We can’t open that door I guess. Imagine getting stoned on the output of the office paper shredder.
Dr. Jon Johnson, researcher and poplar expert at Washington State University says that the pulp market seems to be coming back a little, but large companies are now using poplar for peeler logs cut for structural use in veneer not for pulp. Use for veneer requires longer growth cycles, wider spacing, and pruning. Jon Johnson easily convinces me that poplar trees neither easy nor lucrative.
So my interest in poplars when I see the slash piles on the bike ride will decline as I learn more.
For the present, we keep pedaling – past the Baptist Church on the right and past Mud Lake, nearly covered with lilly pads, on the left, into the tiny town of Clear Lake – two churches, Clear Lake Elementary School, Evelyn’s Tavern, the Clear Lake Store, and a county park and the swimming hole with lifeguards, lane lines, concession stand, and dressing rooms. I meet an old-timer coming out of the Clear Lake Grocery, as I ready my camera. “Visiting our bustling metropolis are you? Where’re you from?” he asks amused by a tourist photographing downtown Clear Lake.
“Mount Vernon,” I reply. He bursts into hearty laughter as he gets in his ’68 ford pickup. I think because he is incredulous that a resident of the neighboring town would have any interest in this small neighboring village with its “back woods” reputation.
At the south end of Clear Lake, we visit this Lanning’s.
Jill, Will, Monica, and Zachary are known as Lanning’s Mannequins. They are once again dressed to the nines standing in Lanning’s front yard at the bend on SR9. Jamie Lanning and Barbara Rumsey keep their tradition in its 14th year, a front yard greeting that gives the passing world a smile. The figures have a long history, including kidnapping and theft. It began with Lucille, a head and shoulders bust only, so large that she required surgery to get into even the largest of her Salvation Army clothing. “I did the first mastectomy in Clear Lake,” claims Lanning. Then came Will (the husband) from an Army recruiting center in Mt. Vernon and Jill (the wife) from the closet of a vacated rental house in Sedro Woolley. They have traveled to classrooms, a school play, the Four H Club exhibit, vacation bible school, and with Jamie to Mr. Chatt’s fourth grade Christmas Play. Will has lost an arm to a scavenger hunt. In April of 1998 Barbra’s grandchild was born. In celebration they added a cabbage patch doll, Zachary (the son) into the display. He has grown, now being the boy in the exhibit. Monica (the young woman) was inspired by Lewinsky of the same name. “We’ve had people leave clothes, and notes of appreciation,” Jamie says, “and we’ve been in the paper a few times.” Not all the attention has been good. The front yard family has been spray painted, dismembered, and stolen. The sheriff once responded when Jill disappeared, and in fact found her dismembered body, which Lanning was able to repair. Happily the mannequins have inspired poets as well as vandals – one poem, “Silently Observing” by Nadine Bushong, was published in a poetry collection.
We drink cold orange juice and Jamie talks. Proud to be from North Carolina, he ran a backhoe for the City of Sedro Woolley. I ask about his notoriety at Sedro Woolley City Council meetings. He replies with a smile “Yeah, I looked after them for quite a while.” He loves a laugh. He collects toys: little ones for children, and big ones, his Model A coupe with a rumble seat, a pristine model A pickup, a bicycle with a motor on the front wheel, a rubber spider, a mummified cat, a windup monkey that turns back flips and laughs, railroad tracks passing through the middle of his driveway, a windmill, and a quarter epoxy-glued to his sidewalk. I can see why Barbara sticks with him. He is fun. They still change the scene and redress the mannequins about every eight weeks, but Jamie gets around with a cane now. “I’m thinking about selling,” he says.
“Oh, no. You would miss this place,” I gasp.
“Yeah. But it’s just too much work.”
If you pass by on Highway 9, take your notice, chuckle, and tuck it in your memory. It’s not going to be there forever.
We head north, up Highway 9 past Clear Lake. On the right a weathered sign shows a full size painting of a 1957 Chevy. A nearby newly varnished playhouse shows owners with new interests. The South Skagit Highway takes off to the left headed for Day Creek. A home-made junk yard decorates the turn as the road in front of the house turns to its upriver course. We cross the bridge looking upriver through the railroad trestle. Sedro Woolley appears just beyond the lumber mill. Typical northwest low clouds hang half way up the back side of Cultus Mountain. Highway 9 joins Highway 20. Turning right we see the “Welcome to Sedro Woolley sign and the information center dedicated to logging and railroading. We pass through a residential area to the Iron Skillet Restaurant on State St., make a left and go to Metcalf St. and the Hometown Restaurant. The loop is complete.

Bonnie's Three A's

2008-05-06T14:42:00.000-07:00

Bonnie’s Three A’s
Bonnie had invited us for soup. When we were newbies in town Bonnie invited us to her cabin for an afternoon, and our families had such a good time that we stayed for three days. We took some great trips. She taught us how to make the “World’s Best Chicken Soup”. Bonnie was teaching English—and what English teacher would live in the same community as Tom Robbins and make no effort to know him? She read several of his books, called him up. Surprise. He agreed to meet.. As a parent she ever so sweetly provided the school district an epiphany—concerned mothers gained preeminence over the Good Ole Boy network at school board meetings. She retired last week after 22 years, teaching in the gifted student program. . Students and colleagues loved her. They had asked her to speak. And she did.
Bonnie had made the chicken soup for us. We were just starting dessert, and Pinky said, “Bonnie, what an honor. Was it hard or was it like teaching a class?”
“It was hard,” she said. “I had stage fright for weeks. But it was okay when I actually got in front of the group.” She had made us dinner. We were pushing her hard to hear the talk she had given.
“Are you going to give it again?” Pinky asked.
“Once was enough.”
“Will you let us read it?” I asked.
“I just have a couple of note cards.”
“Did you choose the topic?” I inquired.
“I did. That was the hard part.”
“So what did you choose?”
“I thought about the people in my life: friends, family, colleagues, students. I asked myself what they had taught me, and my answer was: how to approach life.”
“Now I really want to hear it,” Pinky said..
“It’s too long. We’ve got dessert to eat, and we’ve got to talk about our children. But I can give you the gist.”
“What’s the title?”
“I called it ‘The three A’s of Effective People.”
“A mantra of “A’s”, I like three, more would be two many,” I interjected.
“Let her talk. I want to know what they stand for?” asked Pinky
Bonnie laughed. “My first “A” is for Awareness. It might be listening, observing, realizing a significance, knowing background information. And then I gave some examples. The second and most important lesson they taught me was “A” for Attitude. It can turn the world around. And I had some examples. Then, I had an “A” for Action, for the people who make things happen. The examples were easy. The movers and shakers are easy to remember. And that was my talk.” She clapped her hands together, and smiled a big smile. “And it turned out great. I had lots of nice comments afterwards.”
We could feel her joy when she had clapped her hands, but we also knew that our teacher was moving on to another topic. And so we did— visiting about our own children.
Several days later, I thought about those three “A’s”, and I thought about them again off and on over several years, because I had this question: Is the crux that the three “A’s” are related? Aren’t we obliged to put them together: awareness, then attitude, then action.?
I can recall a small personal success as an example. Ten of us in the dive group had leisurely walked the half mile back to the resort along the beach of Grand Cayman at 9 o’clock, after dinner. Babette phoned. She had lost a bracelet, her favorite bracelet. She recalled having it in the restaurant and was sure that it fell off as she meandered down the beach with us. I called everyone in the group. We met again at their condo to help Babette. They questioned her intently, was she sure that she: wore it to dinner, saw it in the restaurant, first missed it at the condo? Well, yes, we could walk the beach again they said. They were discouraged, but most thought that we should walk the beach again to try. They expected not to find it. I sensed that she just wanted everyone to leave, so that she could cry and deal with her loss in peace. She was preparing herself to give up. I knew we had to find it. “No! No!” I said. “Everybody get your dive light and come with me. We are going to find it.” Even Babette was going through the motions. “Really!” I said. We checked the restaurant and tried to trace our steps. I walked ahead, shining my light from the grass to the water as if mowing a lawn with an electric trimmer. I wouldn’t let them talk. I spread them out 10 abreast, shining lights on every square inch. Concentrate, it is there. About a quarter mile from the restaurant I saw a piece of metal…not a bracelet…maybe a half buried dime. I reached down and pulled, and the gold bracelet came out of the wet sand. I was dumbfounded. Concentrating on their sweeping beams, they didn’t see my find. I walked to Babette, took her hand and put the bracelet on it. Wow! What a rush for us both. I had realized how special the bracelet was to her, believed that we could find it, organized a search and did find it…the three A’s each one leading to the next..
Bonnie, for years I have wondered about your examples, and I have wondered this: Was synergy was on your mind when you thought of your “A’s”?

Bikephobia

2008-05-06T14:40:00.000-07:00

Bikephobia

Q: "What moving part is the most important
to a touring bicycle?
A: (The automobile.)
Pinky Walker 1995

I promised France if she would bicycle. But my dad's health was precarious--potential for a summoning phone call. Pinky wanted to see the October color in New Hampshire and Maine. Advice on the internet was: if you don't have reservations, be prepared to camp. We agreed that I should buy lightweight sleeping bags by mail order... for backup. When they came, I tested one. I was in the bag on the porch one night when she came home from coaching swim team. She had quite a laugh, a real gut buster. But she saw the real possibility of sleeping on the ground (where is the hot shower?). The next night when I came home from work, she had B&B reservations all over New Hampshire and Maine. No uncertainty for her. Master card camping only. Don't be cheap. It was supposed to be a trip to France.
Next on the table was negotiation of acceptable distance between B&B’s. Pinky has a resting heart rate in the low fifties and swims 3000 meters a day, three days a week, but she has proclaimed the limit of her bicycle endurance to be fifty miles. If her speedometer doesn’t work, she won’t ride. Her eagle eye is ever on the odometer. Conversely, her eye is not on the clock. When we start seeing things...the church, golf course, crab boat, lighthouse, and we meet the fisherman, the golf pro, and the lighthouse tender...she doesn't want to leave. When there is a little road with a sign that says "Studio", she wants to detour. Smell the flowers. Leave at the crack of noon, turn for home at dark. No type-A behavior.
We have awakened. It is eleven o'clock. Our hosts at the bed and breakfast say that Pemaquid Point would be a good day trip with lots to see. It is about 14 miles to the point from our B&B in Newcastle. There is a good restaurant near the point. So, a twenty eight mile round trip sounds perfect. It is a two hour ride, add an hour for hills, and an hour for meals...three extra hours before dark at about six.
We start down the west side of the peninsula with blue sky weather toward Walpole on 129. If Maine has anything, it is waterfront property-- more coastline than the remainder of the entire U.S., as we were later told at the lighthouse. There are lots of peninsulas like this one, and lots of islands. There are green rolling hills and very little traffic wonderful countryside for biking. We stop and enjoy at a little white church built in the 1700's - amazing when we consider the San Juan Islands where we live were not colonized until the mid 1800's . We have to stop at the Wawenock Country Club, compare green fees and a myriad other details important to my wife, the golfer. We take a side trip to the water at Clark Cove to look at the boats in the harbor, then cross the peninsula to the town of Pemiquid. I find a wonderful restaurant and try fish hash for lunch. Have you ever had fish hash? It's like corned beef hash except with fish. It is fabulous and comes in working fisherman's portions. Pinky goes for the lobster, which is affordable in Maine. They prepare it in every possible way: boiled, fried, baked, steamed, with or without sauce, shredded, salads, bisque, and it is always has that big money taste.
It is one thirty. We fill water bottles and strike out for the point passing Coombs Cove, Fosset's Cove and Lookout Hill after our post-prandial negotiation. Should we peek at New Harbor? Maybe on the way back and we could pedal home along the east side of the peninsula instead of the west side that we came down. If we want to see the lighthouse, we’ll have to truck.
We do make it to Pemaquid Point about quarter to three. The museum at the Pemiquid lighthouse is wonderful. It shows all of the lighthouses in the state on a map. It shows how the lighthouse works and what the life was like. We learn plenty of history not only of lighthouses but of the Main fishery. There are several big models of boats. The attendant is well-informed and friendly. She likes to talk about her state. I show Pinky my watch. "It's getting dark," I say.
"Isn't this what we came for? We skipped everything else. You were in a big rush to see the lighthouse. Now I want to see it."
“Okay.”
We take forty five minutes to enjoy this gift from the tax payers. We get on the bikes for home at about three fifty.
The clouds have rolled in and it is cooler, but still good riding. The return trip we ride along waterfront through New Harbor, then Chamberlain up the east side of the peninsula. New Harbor is closing down for the season; beautiful, quiet, and almost eerie. There is a mist so fine that we think it is fog. Then there is the first sign, the anxious voice. Pinky refuses an ice cream stop.
"I don't want to be here when the mist turns to rain and it is going to get dark." It is time to head for home in earnest. A little mist; we are still okay.
I pedal ahead, pushing a little. I wait at each hilltop. It is part of our marital agreement. “I want you ahead not right behind pushing me, so if you can’t pull me, at least wait for me at the top of each hill.”
It is raining lightly now. When she pulls up at the hilltop she is grim but not complaining. "I'm okay. Lets keep moving." Not too chitty chatty. It is not quite dark, but we are only half way back.
At the top of the next hill, I stop in the definite steady rain. It is now dark. It is Maine in October and it is cold. Pinky pulls up, gets off of her bike, and holds one handlebar grip and lets the bike down onto its side. She doesn't quite let it fall. I could tell that she wanted to. She is staring at the bike.
"I don't want to be on this bicycle right now." She is not addressing me. She is talking to the bike.
"Do you want to rest?" I ask, attempting to intercede for the bicycle.
"How far?"
"I'm not sure. Five or six miles."
She doesn't care for either part of the answer. "Five miles," she says grimly, "Let's go."
At the next hilltop, a headwind has come up. It is now cold for sure. Traffic is picking up. The cars crest the hill behind us. They don't see us right away. The headlights shine way beyond us in the distance. Then they see us. When they hit the brakes, the nose of the car goes down and the headlight beams retract from infinity and shine on the pavement right at our rear tires, as if we are in their sights. Pinky swings a leg down, holds a handlebar grip and let the bike fall on its side. She is not crying, but the pitch of her voice is rising. "I hate this." She is looking at the bike again. "I am behind you. I see how close those cars come to you. This is dangerous."
"You stay here and I'll come back for you in a car."
"How are you going to do that?"
"I'll find a way."
"No!" She is practically screaming. "Let's just go."
At the top of the next rise, Pinky pulls up, drops the bike, gives the back tire a kick, and says, "I am not doing this again."
I don't reply. I know not to talk when she gets like this.
"Where are we?"
"I thought we would cross our outbound road by now." I have learned, but I always forget. Think carefully before you answer questions in a cold rain. It wasn't the right thing to say.
"We're lost," she says accusingly. The wind pushes a few preliminary tears back along her cheeks toward her ears. "and I hate this bicycle," she mutters through clinched teeth.
"I could ride ahead and …"
"Just go!" now she is yelling.
I start out again. In a hundred yards, I can see all kinds of lights. There is a big road. It has to be Highway 1. Then I can see the double arches of McDonalds. Hot food, warm building, telephone, highway; we have to be at the outskirts of Newcastle or Damariscotta. We are saved. I sprint back to tell Pinky. "There's the highway we've got to be close." I am expecting that we will high five, all smiles.
For her it is the end of all hope. Because we haven’t found the exact road of our outbound track; in her mind, we are hopelessly lost. Also, we have only a highway to ride on, in peril of high speed night-time traffic. She regards this as a death sentence. She is weeping. "I'm scared, and I'm not riding on that highway." She drops her bike and kicks the back wheel.
"Lets go to that McDonalds and get something to eat. I can call the B&B and get a ride or get directions." I take off, and she picks up her bike, mounts up, and pulls in behind, weeping.
We pull up in front of Mc Donalds in a continuous downpour. Pinky is still crying. She lets the bike fall to the ground. The sound it makes when it hits the ground is like a spark in a grain elevator. Pinky explodes, cursing and kicking her bike. I lean on her and push into position between her and the bike. She will break some spokes if I don’t stop her.
"I should have known better. I'm not ever doing this again. This is my last bike ride. We are driving. We're renting a car tomorrow." Attendants can't get people to pay attention to placing their orders at the counter in Mc Donalds. I turn around and I can see the curious faces of the diners on the warm side of the plate glass. The customers are pressed against the windows, looking at us, some of the noses flattened. Pinky's tirade stops as it is getting into full swing. She has developed a very impressive bloody nose. The blood is on her rain gear and on her pants. It is gushing.
"Let's get inside."
"I'm not going in there like this"
I run in and rip two handfuls of napkins out of the over packed dispensers. I just get them to her and have to make a second trip for more. She is sitting on the concrete picnic bench in the rain with her head tilted back on the table, and the bleeding is beginning to slow. My fellow customers inside regard me sternly. The most recently arrived customers think that I have beaten her. I can see by their facial expressions as I get more napkins that they are considering how dangerous it might be to interfere in a domestic dispute. I am expecting the police.
The next car to park is a pickup truck, twenty years old in mint condition. I step quickly up to the truck and I am standing face to face with the driver as he steps out. He is a middle aged pleasant thin guy appropriately surprised by my approach and that I’m standing so close.
"You have to help me," I say urgently. I turn and point to Pinky surrounded by bloody napkins holding her nose. Still close, I can see a few hairs from his nose merging into his mustache.
"Okay," he said. I can see that he believes me.
"We need a ride to our bed and breakfast in Newcastle." I pause. "This is your chance to save a marriage," I plead.
"I think I could do that," he says. "Let me get something to eat."
The raining and the bleeding have both stopped. I take him over to the table and we make introductions. I get his order, acknowledging that he deserves better than Mc Donald’s. The other customers motion that I should go to the front of the line. Gratefully, I do, and I make the first order since the show began. The service is quick. I go back out with the sacks of food. In my absence Pinky has transformed. They are almost nose to nose across the table, like a couple of teenagers at the soda shop. She is smiling, twittering, animated in conversation. She is telling him all about our boys, about bicycle touring... on and on at a dizzying pace. We eat the warm food, McDonald’s best, and things are looking up. He says that he has to go, and we can load the bikes in the back of the truck. I give him the address and he takes us to our B&B, with the confidence of a man driving home from work. It was only a few blocks away. We unload the bikes, thank him, and offer him money that he refuses. As we walk up the driveway, I say, "Nice Guy."
"He is. He was on his way home after work. He is the week end conductor on the train from Newcastle to Rockland. It is mostly for tourists. His day job is refinishing furniture. He specializes in antique early American and he is some kind of expert on authentic colonial period furniture. He is single. He lived at home for a while with his mother but has had his own place for a few years. He grew up in this town and never left.”
"There's more." She says smiling as I opened the door to the garage. As I we park the bikes, that smile disappears. I see on her face that she has recalled her grievances. “I’ll tell you this. I am not riding that bicycle tomorrow.”
“I don’t think we can stay another day here because our hosts are leaving tomorrow themselves,” I say.
“I know. We can’t take a day off…not if we want to get to Bar Harbor,” Pinky says, tears forming along her lower eyelids. She is having a relapse. I am able to deflect her kick at the bicycle with my right leg, then turn her around toward the door. We head from the garage to the house and her spirits improve with each step. “We saved a day by a taxi ride to Portland instead of biking,” she said hopefully.
“Okay. Look. I’ll pack the bikes in the suitcases, and we’ll do our next leg warm and dry. We’ll go for a new indoor record, a ten day bicycle trip with two legs by taxi,” I respond.
“You had better do that because I’ve got bikephobia way to bad to peddle tomorrow.”

Bikephobia
Stage I -- Comments regarding turning for home, changing weather, obligations to return
Stage II -- Silence, no more chitty chatty talk
Stage III -- Negative comments pertaining to the bicycle
Stage IV -- Careless treatment of the bicycle
Stage V -- Directed mistreatment of the bicycle which might pass for careless
Stage VI -- Direct assault on the bicycle.
Stage VII -- Assault on the bicycle requiring restraint
Stage VIII - Multiple separate assaults on the bicycle, rekindled aggression after cooling off periods

Bicycle Wheel

2008-05-06T14:34:00.000-07:00

The bicycle wheel is a paradox of strength for its light weight. The spokes seem to push from the hub and axle to support the wheel. The paradox is that the spokes are pulling, and it is the equal pulling of all the spokes that is transferred to the circular rim. It is that tension distributed around the circle that gives the wheel its rigidity and strength through its resistance to deformity. It’s as strong as solid metal center, but only the weight of the spokes.
But there are also forces from the side the wheel on turns when the rider leans the bicycle right or left. The hub of the wheel is about 4 inches across and for every spoke originating on the left side of the hub extending to the middle of the rim there is an opposing next spoke from the right side of the hub to the middle of the rim. The opposing tensions of this spoke positioning scheme prevents sideways deformity of the rim circle.
The front and back wheel are substantially different. Looking down at the front wheel, the spokes angling from the hub to the rim on each side have a shape similar to two dinner plates on edge, face to face. Looking down onto the back wheel the spokes on the left angle in from the hub, but on the right side a substantial portion of the hub is taken up by the rear gear cluster or cassette, and attachment of the spokes has to be much nearer the center of the hub. The right side spokes are therefore more vertical and are also tighter to achieve a balance with corresponding spokes coming from the left side of the hub. Its shape is more like one dinner plate on end. This is called “dish” of the back wheel.
When a spoke breaks, that short segment of the rim is pulled sideways opposite to the broken spoke producing a rim deformity that often rubs the brake pad, increasing the pedaling difficulty. As a replacement spoke is tightened, it pulls the rim back to a true center of the wheel, or into the plane of the rim circle. Fine adjustments are made to one side by tightening the spoke opposite to the deformity of the rim (about 90 degree turn), then loosening the spokes in front and behind the replacement (a 45 degree turn each). The loosening is important so that the tension in that segment is stable and similar to all of the other spokes. Otherwise, with tightening spokes only, the rim would be deformed to a slightly elliptical shape giving the rider a sensation of a “hop” or bump every time the wheel goes around.
How do you adjust the spoke tension? At the rim, the threaded end of each spoke is engaged by a nipple protruding from the inner rim. This nipple has a square shape that can be turned with a spoke wrench. It is opposite of what you expect. If you look from the hub toward the nipple you must turn the wrench to the left to tighten. Progress of the adjustments can be followed by spinning the tire on the bike and watching for a wobble toward one of the brake pads when the wheel spins. In a shop, the wheel is placed on a truing stand that can be set to make small wobble side to side or “hop” out of round more easily observed and corrected.
In the setting of spoke replacement, it is easy. Remove the old spoke and put the new one in its place at the hub and at the empty nipple. There are two points of passing interest. First, each hole at the hub is counter-sunk. Each spoke goes through the hole such that that the head is on the side opposite from the counter-sink. This puts the sharp bend of the spoke, just beyond its head, in the counter-sink, eliminating the sharp edge of the hole that would have cut into the spoke. Second, on most wheels, each spoke passes over the head of the next spoke and crosses two more spokes. This is the “three crossing” pattern which is the most popular compromise among strength, “give” or comfort, and turning stability. (0 crossing is strong but stiff and less stable in turns and four crossing is less strong, but more flexible and more stable in turn)
That’s the magic of the light weight strength of bicycle wheels, front and back..

2525 Zulu

2008-05-06T14:22:00.000-07:00

Two Five - Two Five Zulu

2525 Zulu, astride her floats, was idling at the dock in front of the Silvertip Lodge. Bob Johnson, the lodge manager, was holding my plane by its right wing strut, waiting for Pinky to release her seat belt. My two sons were out and already stationed at the shoreline, doing their job...skipping rocks. Pinky passed boxes of groceries out of the plane, and Bob stacked them on the dock.
Judd Lake, a deep blue wilderness lake, nestled beneath Mount Gerdine, in the Alaska Range. On this April afternoon in 1974, it was home to many bears and two people, the Johnsons, the first recent human kind to brave the lake's winter. The snow-covered peak of the mountain was perfectly reflected on the mirror of still water. Our city tensions began to slip away into wonder at this mountain presiding over its valleys and lakes, its scale in size and time stretching consciousness gently into imagination. I was off call. I sat in my cherished place, the left seat of my Cessna 185. My avocation had become more like a second job, flying supplies for Silvertip Lodge. I liked this work, any excuse to fly.
I planned to leave my family for the spring opening of the lodge, a dry run to pave the way for paying guests. Our boys had disappeared. After extracting her small duffel, Pinky put her knee on the passenger seat, leaned across, and kissed me good bye. They were staying two nights at the lodge, and I was returning to Anchorage. I had to work in the morning.
"Bye," she said. "Don't forget to put Millie out in the morning and lock the dog door before you leave. I don't want her in the house all day."
"Right," I said as she turned and walked up the ramp.
Bob appeared with two Hefty Bags full of garbage. They had done it again. One of the bags was leaking.
Bob put his head in the door and asked with a grin, "You got room for a couple of passengers?"
"Not until you re-bag that leaky one in your right hand," I grumbled. The other pilots hauled the people. I hauled the garbage...in leaking bags. I had recommended it to my partners. I wanted to prevent establishment of a dump that would attract the grizzlies. "What a good idea," they said. Then they waited in deafening silence. So I took this onerous task as my contribution to safety. For my trouble I had become the butt of unkind jokes.
Bob had sprinted, and now returned with a fresh bag. He slid the leaky bag into a new one, put a twist tie on it, and hefted it into the back seat putting the second in the passenger seat next to me. "Thanks," he said.
I just nodded and said, "No see-wet, GI." in Vietnamese pidgin, our veteran’s camaraderie.
"Really," he said getting eye contact. "We appreciate it." He closed the door.
I smiled, and it didn't feel so bad to haul their garbage.
I put my index finger on the fire wall and eased the throttle in with the heel of my hand and Two Five Zulu eased away from the dock. I taxied downwind to the inlet of the lake.
Two days previously, I had hauled in a load of two by fours for the deck railing. My approach had been too high and my touch down too long. I had nearly run up the bank into the willows. Archer had seen this landing from the lodge. He was the kingpin entrepreneur, the directing partner in Silvertip Lodge. He also had logged 1000 hours flying in the Alaska bush, and he was waiting at the dock when I pulled up with the load of lumber.
"Way too high," he muttered, his forehead deeply wrinkled with a disapproving frown.
"I know. I was almost in the weeds when she finally settled."
"You touched down at the middle of the lake. You wasted half your runway."
"I did a gradual descent because of the mirror surface on the lake," I said in defense.
"Fine. But start from fifty feet above the trees at the shore...not a hundred and fifty. Then pull the nose up for your slow descent. Otherwise you're going to be driving around in the rocks up at the inlet."
"I couldn't tell if I was ten feet above the water...or fifty."
"So start lower. Float planes live in the water," he said laughing as he tugged on the bill of my hat.
I wanted to use the remaining three hours of daylight and the return trip to Anchorage was only 45 minutes. I had some practice time. The plane with almost no load would really perform. It seemed a perfect time to shoot a few touch and go landings on the lake, to get my approach down a little lower at the tree line.
I pushed the throttle slowly to the firewall. The plane jumped on to the step, then out of the water. It was exhilarating. I began climbing out at eight hundred feet per minute. Damn, it was fun.
"I might as well get up to a cruising altitude and simulate an inbound approach to the lake from Anchorage," I thought.
I leveled out at 1200 feet and headed for Beluga Lake as a landmark for my turnaround back toward Judd Lake. I had about ten minutes to relax and daydream a little.
A year and a half before, Pinky and I had done a week of baby sitting for the Mabrys. I had grown up with John, roomed with him in medical school. We interned in San Francisco, and served in Viet Nam together in 1968 and 69. In 1973, we were about to finish our Radiology training, John in Denver and I in Seattle.
John and Lynne left their son with us in Seattle for the week while he did a locum tenens job at the Alaska Clinic. The clinic was also recruiting for a full time radiologist, but John already had a permanent job lined up in Wyoming. When they returned, John had decided to change his plans and take the permanent job in Anchorage. He was excited. "It is a twelve man clinic with family practice, OB-Gyn, internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, pathology. They lost their rad a year and a half ago, and they've been using locums coverage."
"That's a long time for a hospital to be without a radiologist. How come?" I asked.
The GP's owned the hospital and the clinic, they kept the radiologist on a salary and milked the radiology cash cow," John said.
"Is that what you signed up for?"
"No. The old guard sold the hospital to the teamsters at a handsome profit. They reorganized the clinic to multi-specialty format with some pay differential to keep pay for the specialists closer to independent guys at Providence, the larger hospital in town. They have contracted with the teamsters to do the care for the Teamsters Health Plan and to design a new hospital and clinic building - a new radiology department with all new equipment. The teamsters say they want the best. I’m going to do it."
"So how did you sell the winter weather to Lynne?"
"It's not too bad," Lynne answered for him. "It can get cold but it is not too different than the coldest winter we had in Denver. I'm excited about it." She looked at John, and laughed. "When we landed, Dick Curtis, one of the doctors picked John up in his super-cub on skis and took him ice fishing across Cook Inlet. John calls him RC. RC hooked John … on the first cast."
"Me and my RC," John said.
"You should go up there and do a week," he said to me.
"The Alaska Clinic?"
"They need two," he held up two meaty fingers.
"They need two radiologists?" I asked.
John nodded, “yes”.
Pinky was frowning. There was a little too much enthusiasm in the conversation.
"You could use your pilot's license. Seven of the twelve doctors have planes."
Now we were talking.
"They want you to come look," he said. He handed me a business card. "This is the administrator."
"I’ll call tomorrow," I said.
There were too many opportunities to pass up. We had to go to the frontier.
We arrived in Anchorage in June, and immediately were immersed in organizing the department and planning the new facility. It was early August. Our morning's work temporarily done, John and I were in our office quizzing each other, preparing for board examinations in December.
Archer, the renegade cardiologist-entrepreneur from intensive care barged through our office door with a flourish.
"It's too late to learn...too early to cram. Stow the books," he began the banter.
"So, how's the radio controlled Expensive Care Unit," I returned. "Be nice. We might take the money for our computers in the ICU from the x-ray budget. Maybe my emergency radio system too."
We ignored his threat.
"That Swan placement looked okay. It’s in the right PA," John said getting to business.
"Big heart attack. I'll save him though. Cardiac shock, just like Al Gossett, he’s the disaster that came to the unit just after you guys got here in June."
"A survivor is a satisfied customer. Unscathed by complications I hope."
"Yep. He loves me. I really saved his bacon you know," Archer said. "I can tell you that he was in plenty fine health at last call in the bar of the Captain Cook Hotel at two this morning." He paused and continued, "Al is retiring, going back "outside"...selling out. I had a few glasses of wine. He got roaring drunk. Women, airplanes, fish, hard times. We covered it all -- earthquake to pipeline."
By two this morning, he was blubbering ...wanted me to have his place at the outlet of Judd Lake... two hundred feet on the lake and two hundred feet on the Talchulitna River. It's pristine wilderness...fly in only."
"A gift?"
"Hardly. It's one of the most famous king salmon rivers in all of Alaska. Even drunk, he would never give it away. But he wanted me to have it. Twelve thousand five hundred...cash...in twenty four hours," Archer said. He was animated now.
"And...?" John asked.
"I bought it...on a handshake."
"A handshake Al may not remember," I murmured skeptically.
"To the old timers, that kind of deal is sacred. I’ll have the title tonight."
We mulled this over in brief silence.
"It is a perfect site for a Lodge. My brother could organize tours through our travel agency for JAL."
"JAL?"
"Japan Airline. The Nips are wild for tours in Alaska right now. If we build a lodge and it goes bust, worst case, we'd own the world's nicest fly in cabin. Can't lose." A beautific smile spread across his face as Archer resumed. "I thought of you guys. I'd like for us to do something together."
"What kind of money do you think it will take to build a lodge?" I asked.
"I have a crew of four kids who will work for room, board, and jobs as guides when the lodge starts running. We can get a building up for about thirty thousand."
"Divided by three?" I asked.
" Four. It would be you and John, me and my brother. Interested?" Archer, entrepreneur-cardiologist-travel center owner, was fast company for us, but...we were entranced.
John stretched and looked down at the desk in front of him for a few seconds. Then, he said, "Let's do it."
We agreed on ten thousand each, thirty five hundred down, cash on the spot. John and I each wrote a check, that we would scramble to cover. We shook hands, and we were in the lodge business.
The remainder of this first meeting we spent arguing about the name for our lodge. John finally came up with Silvertip, in honor of the supreme resident fishermen--the brown bears. We composed an ad which ran in the next issue of Sunset Magazine, soliciting guests for Silvertip Lodge. The deal went from a drunken handshake to a magazine ad in eight hours and thirty minutes. That was business on the frontier.
I wanted the identity of ‘bush pilot’. The lodge project would require plenty of flying. I fraternized with the pilots. I had gravitated to the pilot cluster at parties. But I was ex officio , since I had no airplane. I had my eye on a ten year old Cessna 185, blue with white call letters 2525 Z. It was the older model with only 265 h.p. It was the brown bag model, but still a 185, for fourteen thousand five hundred dollars, tax deductible if we built Silvertip Lodge. Archer had the loyal friendship of the mechanic owner of Alaska Aeronautical Industries. At Archer's request he pulled me from the depths of indecision, pronouncing 2525 Z a reasonable purchase. I bought her. So I became one of the pilots for Silvertip Lodge.
I took six weeks to add a floatplane rating to my pilot's license. Then, I began hauling materials to the building site on Judd Lake: fuel, nails, food, workers, and lumber. I loved the flying, and the image. No job was too large or too small if it involved a flight to the lake.
I carried all kinds of cargoes: in the passenger compartment, in the baggage, inside the floats, tied to the outside of the floats. I had been sucked up into a cloud by an updraft. I had been lost and trapped above weather, and I had iced up the wings. I had accumulated 100 more hours in my log book that first summer. I had joined the bush pilots at Lake Spenard.
The turn around point came up on the horizon. I awoke from my reverie.
I had stayed at 1200 feet to simulate a standard flight from Anchorage. I did my one minute 180 degree turn, straight and level, and I was headed back to Judd Lake. After a few minutes of flying, I could see the lake and the lodge. I was close...and way too high. I had to loose some altitude and speed...soon. I cut the throttle to idle, put on full flaps, and pointed the nose steeply toward the ground. Perfect. Half of the twelve hundred feet in altitude disappeared in no time. Keep a little altitude to spare...450 feet, just right to begin an approach to clear the trees on the windward shore.
At 500 feet I retracted the flaps half way; and the plane settled to 300 feet, lower than I had expected. Too low. I pushed the throttle to the fire wall. I needed full power to be sure to hold that altitude. The engine coughed twice. Oh, Shit! Then it stopped. One second went by...one-alligator...and the wind-milling prop started the engine again. It sputtered...two alligators...then I had all 265 horses. Yes! Run. The engine was screaming. But I was 30 feet above the ground... in a thick stand of saplings, hundreds of them! Finally, the plane was starting to climb. I glanced at the airspeed. It was 70 m.p.h., just above stall speed, but she felt solid, probably ground effect. The plane climbed. One second a myriad of tiny trunks filled my field of view; the next second, the saplings were inches beneath the plane. All the same height they looked like a green runway. I had to dodge several larger trees. In the background, I could see several hundred yards to the tall fir trees at the shoreline. I climbed 40 feet, but there were two alders to get around. Here they come. Air speed 68. Carefully, I rolled the left wing up, and it cleared as the plane turned to the right. Now on the right... a big tree. I rolled the right wing up and turned gently to the left. The wing tip cleared...by inches. I leveled the wings. Now climb, damn it. For a heart beat, I was elated. I had made it. I had flown a slalom course through the saplings.
I pulled back a little on the wheel to get a little more climb, and the airspeed fell to 68. Uh oh. There was one last little skinny tree top, the last fir at the shore line 70 feet up. I can still make it. I might hit. Steep turn, risk a stall? No. Just brush the top. Keep the air speed. Here it comes. I was expecting the little “Tick” brushing the tree tip- top.
No! Wham! There was an explosion just above my left ear where the wing which attached to the fuselage. The engine continued to scream, but the plane just stopped. It groaned as it ever so slowly pivoted ninety degrees around the tree that I had just hit. I could see the setting sunlight pink on Mount Gerdine through the windshield. The right wing dropped, then the entire airplane fell. The cockpit filled with the sound of the stall horn. Through the window of the passenger door I could see the lake coming up to meet me. The engine was still screaming at full throttle.
I locked on to the airspeed indicator. The speed was coming up fast. The needle passed 65 m.p.h. It might fly. I gave it full right rudder and pulled wheel all the way back sucking in my gut to give it full travel. The stall horn was still droning as the right float hit the water. The right wing tip was almost in the water. One alligator, two alligators. The cockpit was suddenly quiet, and the left float gently touched down. I cut the power, and she settled down off the step plowed ahead for forty five yards, and then idled gently along at the middle of the lake.
Thankful would have been reasonable. But it was not my first thought. "How am I going to pay for this?" filled my consciousness. Fifteen grand for the plane, borrowed. Two thousand deductible. Blue book value? Salvage value? Repair costs? I'm in deep weeds."
I looked out along the leading edge of the left wing. Everything was fine until about two feet in from the tip. I had hit the tree two feet down from its top. The treetop was projecting its two feet straight above the wing, as if it had grown there. I had an impulse to laugh.
I turned the plane toward the lodge. Such a trip would embarrass any bush pilot, but especially a newby. The tree that I had hit was down the shoreline, out of earshot and not visible from the lodge. They would know that an aircraft had landed but would have no idea that I had crashed. Bad news. I would have explaining to do. What a blow to my bush pilot image. I had to get a story ready to tell.
Then, I realized that I was going to have to taxi all the way across the lake...slowly. They would have plenty of time to take in the sight...the tree sticking up from the wing tip. They would figure it out: what had happened, that I was okay, that I was fair game for jokes. I wished that I had less time to think about it.
Surprise. When I got to the dock, Bob was waiting...just Bob. He thought that I had just come back for something. He hadn't even noticed the tree in the wing. When I pulled up, he was dumbfounded as he took in the garbage bags in disarray around me.
"Thought you went to Anchor town?" he said as he opened the passenger door.
"Look at my left wing tip."
His jaw dropped. "You hit a tree. Where were you? "
"Here. I was practicing...Just down the shoreline"
"What happen?"
"The engine stopped," I replied.
“We didn’t hear anything.” He looked at the torn sack and said, "What a mess. Look at all this garbage."
"I could use a drink."
"I'll bet. I'll tie her down and get rid of the garbage." He removed a bag to let me out.
Pinky met me half way to the door, with a mixture of questions on her face. She had figured it out. She said nothing. She just hugged me...for a long time...firmly. I could feel a little wetness on my neck.
"I'm okay," I said.
"You look like a ghost."
She just hung on a little longer. Then she let go and looked toward the dock. "There's a tree growing from the wing." She choked out a laugh through tears.
"A late Christmas tree. I knocked the angel off," I said. "Let's go up to the lodge and drink."
My story was: "I had an engine failure." It was the story that I needed. There was amazed shaking of heads and much well wishing. I had a beer, and things were starting to settle down, back to the activities of daily living.
I went to the kitchen and got the hand held radio. For the FCC license, the radio was for hospital intensive care emergencies. For Archer, it was a personal communication system, and we used it for everything from ordering lumber to reporting this crash-- all through the ICU. I needed a ride back to Anchorage for work in the morning and I wanted to talk to a mechanic, to find out if the plane might be air worthy after extraction of the tree top and duct tape patch...maybe save the cost of an airplane house call.
Conventional wisdom was that the high point on the river bank away from the generator and building provided the best radio reception at the hospital 100 miles away. I went out the back door about 100 feet to that bank. Below me the bank descended steeply 20 feet to the river. There was a huge brown bear wading in the river, up wind, with his back to me. He was fishing for a twenty-pound salmon, as matter of fact, like a housewife selecting a cantaloupe in the grocery store. I watched him several minutes, in wonder at just being there watching the continent's largest carnivore tending to business.
I squeezed the receive button, and the radio squawked loudly with static. I was expecting a treat...to see the bear run, to pad slowly downstream, or to sit up on his haunches and sniff, forepaws dangling. Instead, he whirled instantly, his rear feet under him, leaning slightly forward, forepaws out in front ready to use. In that instant of eye contact, I could feel his first calculation: distance to food...to me. His question was not, "Can I?" It was: "Is it worth my effort?" The airplane crash had simply been reactions...no time for fear.
I was frightened. The bear had seen it in my eyes. I made my own distance calculation. He was four of his body lengths away plus that twenty-foot bank. I was in danger of being caught and mauled in my two hundred foot run to the back door. My heart was in my throat. I dropped the radio to run. The bear wheeled...away from me. I felt a mixture of relief and mild nausea. As the bear walked away a few steps, I picked up the radio, squeezed the transmit button and said, "Alaska Hospital ICU, this is Judd Lake. Over." I watched the bear as he continued fishing the shallows.
I got Archer in the ICU, told the story for him and all the eager ears in earshot of the radio at the nursing station, and asked him to see if someone could fly me back in the morning. That was no problem. He also agreed to get me airplane advice.
Dinner turned into a party, a release. We were interrupted by the radio. Jack from Alaska Aeronautical Industries had my aircraft advice. I told my story.
He said, "Yep. If you cut all the way back to idle, you've got to ease in the throttle. Push it right to the wall and you're in trouble. Those fuel-injected engines will just stop. Lucky she started again." A gentle hint, identification a of pilot error, a hitch in my near polished story of engine failure.
"Why?" I asked incredulously.
"Too rich. Raw gas with no oxygen. It’s like flooding a carburetor. What's the wing look like?"
"Other than the two inch thick tree growing out of the wing it looks fine."
"Did you hit it near the cabin or at the wing tip?"
"At the tip."
"Can you move the wing...by hand, pushing on it?"
Bob was nodding his head "Yes."
"Yes," I replied.
"Is there a wrinkle in the skin on the fuselage behind the door?" he asked. He pronounced it like mucilage.
"I don't know."
"Go look"
Bob was already up and to the front door.
"We're checking," I replied. "Do I have to report this to get the insurance?"
"As soon as you can reasonably get to a phone, the law says you have to call the FAA. They'll have you come in and fill out an accident report."
In about twenty seconds Bob was back at the door. He was again nodding "yes".
"The fuselage is buckled slightly," I said.
"Don't let anyone try to fly it. The wing carry through is probably broken."
"Wing carry through?" I asked.
"It’s Two pieces of steel pipe at the root of the wing that give it strength where it attaches to the fuselage. Tie up the plane and I'll have a look for you this week-end," Jack said.
"Thanks."
"See you Saturday at Archer's tie down. Alaska ICU clear," he said signing off.
Now all of us knew that I had almost knocked the left wing off of 2525 Zulu. It wasn't just a little indiscretion.
When we turned in upstairs, I sat on the corner of the bed and looked at Pinky quizzically.
"Do you know what scared me?" I asked.
"What?"
"The bear."
"The bear?" She was incredulous. "Why?"
"I don't know. He scared me. It made me think. I've got some questions...not just about the plane...but about the lodge, even about buying in to the clinic."
"It doesn't look as good in retrospect. Does it?"
"No. This lodge will fall apart in a few years. It's built on skids...no foundation. The first floor joists bow down from the weight of the second story. No wonder we can't insure it."
"Can you fix it?"
"Archer's guys are the labor force, and we can't get him to listen. Besides, the repairs would be major. The worst problem is the high roller himself."
"Archer?" she asked.
"Right."
"Why don't you and John get out then?"
"Archer would probably buy us out. He would have to sign a note. It might work. I could just be a doctor. Forget lodges, air cargo, and Japanese tourism."
"Give it a few days. Then decide."
"I can see pretty clearly right now," I said. "And the medical practice is actually an even worse deal."
"What do you mean?"
"Think about it. The clinic is losing money. They have to borrow money to pay the physician's salaries. There's a constant war between the specialists and general practitioners. I'm wasting my time. They already have my buy in money, and I'll never see it again if I don't jump ship soon."
"You have an air plane crash on your mind. Let's sleep on it."
The Piper Tripacer arrived at 6:45 A.M. and flew me back to Anchorage for work. The cab dropped me off at the hospital, a half-hour late, unshaven in Levi's and wool shirt, but I was there. I waded right into a big stack of films and a busy schedule. At about 10:30 A.M., I called the FAA to report the accident and made an arrangement to fill out the accident report during the noon hour. They told me not to move the plane until the FAA accident inspector released the wreckage.
It was 12:30. I was at the Anchorage office of the Federal Aviation Agency. I had filled out the accident report providing details on the airplane, maintenance, time, location, cargo, my experience, my log book, repair records, and a one page prose description of the accident. I took care with the prose to put myself in the best light, laying my doubts on the machinery. The inspector was methodical, thorough, and courteous. He was also sympathetic. He had been there himself he said. He gave me the report, asked me to sign below my prose, and excused himself to read my essay. He was back in five minutes. Several of the lines had been marked with a highlight felt pen.
"Dr. Walker, you note that you had some work done on the fuel pump about twenty engine hours before the accident." He was reading the hi lighted lines.
"Yes."
"Why is that in your description?"
"I thought it might have something to do with the engine stopping."
"Do you believe that the fuel pump failed."
"I don't know."
He was patient.
"But what do you think?" he asked.
"I doubt it completely failed because the engine did start and did run again at full power," I admitted.
"Completely?" he asked.
"Well..."
He interrupted gently. "All accidents have causes. They can be mechanical, or they can be pilot error."
I nodded understanding.
"We need your help to sort this out." He let it sink in and continued, "If we decide it was mechanical failure of the engine, we will impound the plane, take the entire engine apart in that next room, and we will reevaluate the licensing of the repair stations that signed off on all of the engine maintenance indicated in your documents." He left me to consider that in a silence of about fifteen seconds.
"You can see that when we suspect mechanical failure, we take it seriously. It's expensive, and it takes time. Is that what we need to do here?"
I nodded.
"You mentioned in your report that you had the power back and full flaps and that you allowed 150 feet when you went back to half flaps."
"Yes."
"When you went to full power, what was your altitude? You didn’t say."
"About 150 feet."
"Do you consider that appropriate anticipation for recovery from full flaps."
"No. Two hundred feet would have been better."
"What about power management?"
"I should have had some power during descent, and a more steady advance to full throttle instead of pushing it right to the wall." I hesitated, then admitted, "That was pilot error also."
"I see," he said marking the report form. "Now. We need to decide for sure about that fuel pump."
"It wasn't the fuel pump," I said.
Things were going smoothly now.
"You're sure?"
I nodded, "Yes."
"Nothing to do with this report or interview, your license is suspended automatically until you have a check ride with an FAA examiner, no sooner than one week and no later than three months from today's date."
"I'll probably have to rent a plane. Does it have to be a 185 or can I do the ride in one of the flight school's 150's?" I asked.
"A 150 will be fine," he said.
"Where do I schedule?"
"My office," he said handing me a card.
"Thanks," I said. We shook hands and I left.
I finally made it home that night to sleep on my thoughts in my own bed. My encounter at the FAA office had forced me to further come to grips with my accident. My error in judgment had caused that accident. Did I want to become a better pilot? How much fun had the airplane really been?
Pilot talk had overwhelmed every social gathering. The plane filled every aspect of my non-professional life. I had learned to think in terms of thousand dollar units for repairs. Every time the wind changed, I’d worry about Two Five Zulu’s tie down. Flying had taken every minute, every dollar, and every drop of emotional juice outside work. A mistress would have been less demanding, cheaper, and possibly more acceptable to my wife.
Pinky had to compete for attention. She had recently emerged from the bathroom at bedtime stark naked both arms extended circling the room imitating engine sounds. When I looked up, she said, "I've got drooped tips, long range tanks, and I'm stressed for 13 G's. I'm coming in for a landing, please advise. Over."
I resolved to take my check ride and get my pilot's license back. Then, I'd think about whether to repair the plane or dump it.
Two days later, on the third day after the crash, the vultures had gathered. I received calls from a variety of pirates asking how to find my airplane so that they could "evaluate it for salvage". They wanted to steal parts.
One call was different. It was from Bob, on the radio back at Judd Lake. He had called Archer in the ICU. Two beer drinking Alaska Airline mechanics with big red noses had been poking around. They owned the cabin next door to the lodge, so Bob let them have a good look. They wanted to trade their property for my wrecked airplane. Archer gave me the phone number and said, "Ask for Jeff Masley."
The insurance company would pay $8,200 for the repair. That meant that Jeff Masley's five acres and a cabin would cost me $6,300. It was at least a fair deal, maybe a good deal. I called the number immediately.
"Spenard Bar and Lounge," the husky female voice said.
"Sorry. I have the wrong number. I'm trying to contact Jeff Masley."
"You've got the right number all right. He's not here right now. Maybe in an hour," she said.
"Could you have him call Dr. Walker at the Alaska Hospital?"
"Sure. What about?"
"An airplane. 2525 Zulu. He'll know."
In about two hours, the phone rang. It was a deep raspy voice. "Jeff Masley here. Sorry, I was out when you called. I wanted to talk to you about that wrecked 185 on Judd Lake. I'd like to it off your hands, doc."
"What did you have in mind?"
"Your plane, as is, for our cabin and five acres next to your lodge, straight up."
"I'm interested, but I'd like to think about it a little."
"We'd like to work on the plane this week end."
"The FAA hasn't even released it yet, so let me call you back. Give me a home phone number."
"Just call me here at the Spenard," he said.
On post crash day number four, I got a call from the FAA Field Inspector.
"Doctor Walker." His speech was painfully slow with a deep drawl.
"Yes," I replied.
"I'm Ron Wakeley with the FAA."
He paused, and continued, "I've been to Judd Lake to investigate your accident."
"Is there a problem?"
"No sir. Just a question or two if you don't mind."
"Sure."
"I think I found the tree that you hit about three or four hundred feet to the south. There is a tree right on the shoreline missing its top about sixty or seventy feet up. Does that sound about right?" The drawl continued.
"Yes, that sounds right."
"You were climbing at about sixty eight on your air speed indicator by your accident report. Is that right?"
"That sounds right to me."
"Doctor Walker," he drawled. "How did you do that?"
"Do what?" I asked.
"Land that airplane," he replied.
"I don't know. What do you mean?"
"Doctor Walker, I've been doing this job for 28 years. This is the first airplane with that wing damage that I've seen landed right side up."
Crash landings upside down are universally fatal. I was his only survivor? I was numb. I couldn't think of anything to say.
I just blurted out. "I've sold the plane. Can they work on it now?"
"It's cleared. Good luck, Doctor."
This accident inspector had just cracked my brittle shell. I would take the insurance money and dump the plane.
It was noon. I dialed the number.
"Spenard Bar and Lounge."
"Hi. This is Doctor Walker. Jeff Masley, please."
There were a few seconds of background bar room noise. "Masley here," he rasped.
"Walker here. You've got a deal,"
"Are you the builder in Palmer or the doctor with the bent 185?" he asked.
"The doctor," I replied, wondering how many business deals he had running through his central office at the Spenard Bar and Lounge.
"Well, good. That's just fine," he rumbled. "I'll go pick up the title and have my attorney make us up a bill of sale. Will you be at the hospital?"
"Yep, I'm on a pretty short leash here," I said.
"Can you have the title for the plane by this afternoon?"
"I'll find a way."
I went home that night free and clear of two Five Two Five Zulu. I told Pinky the story.
"So, you are out of the airplane business"
"Looks like."
"Good riddance," she said holding up her wine glass.
That weekend, to everybody's amazement Jeff Masley went from the Spenard Bar and Lounge to Ace Hardware to Judd Lake. He bolted a single steel plate across each cracked wing carry through bar of 2525 Zulu, cranked her up, took off, crossed Cook Inlet, landed on Lake Spenard, and walked away unharmed.
Four months later I had sold out of Silvertip Lodge and five years later it was still standing when Archer sold it. Within five years the teamsters had sold the hospital to Humana Corporation, and the Alaska Clinic had disappeared. Thirteen years later, I heard that Archer and his travel agency were bankrupt.
I moved "outside" to the lower 48, I sold the Judd Lake cabin for twenty thousand dollars, to an attorney flush with the proceeds of his first product liability suit. Two Five Two Five Zulu had, indeed, been the best of my Alaskan business deals.
What's left? For my part, I want to believe that Jeff Masley has installed a fax machine in the Spenard Bar and Lounge where he still trades wrecked airplanes and real estate.

Tag Lines...Index

2008-05-06T13:58:00.000-07:00

TagLines

2525 Zulu
Entrepreneur-bush pilot crashes his Cessna 185 and accesses life decisions in the 1973 Alaskan frontier.
Bicycle Wheel
How a bike wheel works
BikephobiaA wife and a bicycle trip unravel, in the rain and lost, as darkness descends.
Breakfast Ride
A bicycling friend’s appreciation of our country roads in the USA inspires a tour for second looks, repeat trips, more awareness, and meeting people
Cause of All my Sorrow
Fear induced dieting, a guide with everything you don’t need to know but probably want to
Cowboys
City boys in 1958 Albuquerque travel week-ends to try on new identities as rodeo cowboys
Explanations
A dog forces a premature discussion of sex…almost
Growing Down
Philosophical thoughts of a toddler between television commercials
It’s Lifting
Old friends pick up where they left off as they ride bikes on Lummi Island
Parenting the Drive Thru
Trials of parents and teenagers--music, driving, needs, discipline, negotiation
Partnership
A look at partnership, surprises in the wings
Pinky’s Fake
Pinky takes charge and an interloper rockets off course during the STP (Seattle to Portland bike ride)
Professional Courtesy
A doctor watches a colleague direct his own medical treatment for his fractured arm.
Quality Time
Children surprise their father with a flash of insight during the change of a traffic light.
Ray and Kristi
A couple with five acres, a double wide trailer, and satisfied minds sell their chain saw art and flowers at the roadside.
So You’re Not Going to Help
Pinky’s friend Michelle teaches her how to change a bicycle tire.
Taking the Cake
A father and son competition cake bake for the Cub Scouts becomes a ‘big deal’.
The Apartment
We use a friend’s place tiniest place to explore our biggest city.
The Bark Comes with Every Dog
A carnival barker teaches English …if you listen up.
The Contest
One knew how to play, his friend pretended for adventure’s sake. Jazz is not simple. Not the music. Not its culture.
The Drunk
A midnight visit from an affable Colonel, and a Daughter-in-Law rescuer warn us off demon rum.
The Kitty
An abandon kitten touches us. Are responsible for disasters we discover? How to balance with responsibilities we already accepted…the cat we already own.
The Synergy of Bonnie’s Three A’s
Her retirement speech…three qualities of successful persons, did she intend synergy?
The Perfect Woman
He learning what to say, she knows what to hear.
Tilt-a-Whirl
The kids are elated, it fills Dad’s heart, and he fills up their whirling car.
The Vapor Barrier Hat
A system plastic bags and thin black dress socks for warmth, fashion too.
Who is Carlo dalMasso?
The host at our B&B in shares his home and his Italia
Winning the Hearts and Minds
One day of medical care in the village and collecting statistics to support a preconceived result. The army proclaims it science. American goodwill gone awry.