Here’s my latest collage:
It’s called The Blues Ain’t So Bad. I made it as a postcard thank you for a friend who has helped me out a lot in the last few months. It should have arrived in her mailbox by the time this post comes up.
Jun6
Monthly Archives: June 2016
Jun5
People Want to Walk That Trail
As I established earlier, when my work season started, the trail was closed. Forest Service employees were back there removing hazard trees, and they didn’t want civilians wandering near falling trees and chainsaws. That’s why the Forest Service threatened people caught on the trail with a $5,000 fine and up to six months in prison. But some tourists didn’t want to take no trail for an answer.
My boss told me my job is one of advising and not enforcement. Fair enough. I don’t want to be some kind of enforcer anyway. But I was not shy about advising people of the possible fine and prison sentence.
My first weekend at the campground near the trail was the one before Memorial Day. Many people, upon seeing the gate to the parking lot closed, turned into the next driveway with an open gate. That driveway belongs to the campground where I was the temporary host. My weekend (mostly on Saturday, but some on Sunday too) consisted of me repeating the following information: The trail is closed…Hazard trees…Forest Service is serious…Fine…Prison. I invited people to park in the campground and have a look at the giant sequoias (probably at least a dozen) growing in it. I told people about a scenic overlook ten miles down the road and another sequoia grove twenty miles down the road. I was polite. I was helpful. In other words, I was a camp host super hero.
Most visitors were disappointed, but understanding. Several carloads of folks did spend time in the campground. Several picnic lunches were eaten.
I think talking to someone ostensibly in authority, made people feel accountable. I guess it’s difficult for someone to say s/he didn’t see the sign when a real live person said out loud the trail is closed.
Some people managed to slip in when I was at the back of the campground cleaning restrooms. As I walked to the front of the campground, I saw a whole extended family exiting the trail. There were even more people back there, but they slipped into the trees when I hollered over, Hey! Didn’t y’all see the trail is closed?
They told me they didn’t know, as they crossed the yellow caution tape stretched across the exit. They siad there wasn’t a sign at the other entrance. (I’m 98% sure they were lying.) Well, if those other people are in your group, you might want to tell them about the possible $5,000 fine and six months prison sentence, I said as they hustled to wherever they’d left their vehicle. I’m going to tell them right now, one woman said. I didn’t ask how she planned to do that while the others were hiding in the woods.
Trees felled by the forest service.
Late in the afternoon, I saw some young folks hesitating on the legal side of the barricade. I saw them read the flyer that spelled out $5,000 and prison. I think they were just about to cross over when I called out, Excuse me. The trail is closed. One guy said he identified hazard trees for a living, implying it would be ok for him (and his friends) to go on the trail because he knew what dangers to look for. I told them I was simply advising them of the situation. They told me they were from the area, so I said they should come back later in the summer when the trail reopened. They were relieved to hear the trail would be reopened. They thought the trail had been closed for good. I assured them they would be able to visit the trees later in the summer, and if they weren’t happy when they left, they at least didn’t seem pissed off.
Early Wednesday morning, as I walked up to check the front restrooms, I saw a huge, older motor home pull into the campground’s driveway. The motor home was towing a big trailer, upon which was painted a lot of words. I couldn’t read the words because of the angle of the trailer, but the cross painted on the motor home and my previous experience led me to suspect those words were biblical scripture.
As I approached the motor home, the driver left his seat and exited the motor home through the side door. He was a clean-cut, with short hair, a totally normal looking middle-age guy. I asked him if he were looking for a camping spot. Although I didn’t know if any of the sites could accommodate such a big motor home and trailer, I figured if he wanted to camp, I’d let him look for a spot that might work.
He said he didn’t want to camp, he just wanted to walk on the trail.
I didn’t get much more than closed and hazard trees out of my mouth before he said, They can’t do that! He seemed to think because the trail is on public land, it can never be closed to the public. I didn’t want to argue with the guy, but I’m pretty sure public land can be closed to the public when there’s a safety issue.
I just gave him what had become my standard line of Well, the Forest Service is pretty serious about people staying off the trail because there’s a possible $5,000 fine or six months in prison for anyone caught out there.
They can’t do that either! the man exclaimed. My grandfather fought in a war!
My wackadoodle sensors went off. Trotting out a veteran in the family two generations in the past or equating the Forest Service cutting down hazard trees with Nazis (which I think is where he was heading) did not seem like valid arguments to me. Even if he had made a valid argument , I wouldn’t have told him he could go out there. So I just said, Sir, I’m only advising you of the situation. If you want to park your motor home, the best place to try will be in the overflow lot down the road.
I don’t know which part of what I said turned the tide, but he smiled and thanked me, got back in his motor home and drove away. Disaster averted.
My last encounter with someone who really wanted to walk the trail happened a few hours before the trail reopened. Of course, I didn’t know the trail would reopen that afternoon, just in time for Memorial Day weekend.
A crew of about a dozen Forest Service guys were out on the trail, their chainsaws buzzing, when the white car pulled into the campground. I walked up, said Good morning, asked if they were looking for a campsite.
The driver was a woman in her early 50s. In the passenger seat sprawled a girl about eight years old.
The driver said she wasn’t looking for a campsite, that she wanted to park so they could walk the trail.
I told her the trail was closed, had maybe said hazard trees when someone in the backseat poked her head up from behind the driver’s seat. She was wearing big sunglasses and a big, floppy, fashionable hat.
Do you work for the Forest Service? she asked me.
No, I said, but before I could explain private company and concession from the Forest Service, she said, Yeah, well, we’re going to go on the trail anyway. She spoke in the most spoiled rich girl tone of voice I have ever encountered.
I said, Well, Forest Service guys are out there working right now, and if they see you on the trail, they might opt to give you a $5,000 fine or six months in prison.
Ms. Prissy Pants deflated. I could practically hear the waa wa wa waaaaa of a losing contestant on a 1970s game show.
I suggested another trail they could go to and see giant sequoias, but Ms. Prissy Pants said they would probably go to a different grove, which she called by name to make sure I knew she was an insider.
I said, Great! Have a nice day!
The driver asked if the campground restrooms were open, and I said they were. I walked away as she was parking, I didn’t want to have any more interaction with Ms. Prissy Pants or the people stuck with her on a road trip.
I took the photos in this post.
Jun4
Pregnant Lady
Mr. Carolina, Lil C, the Okie, and I were traveling on I-40, trying to get Lil C home to Kansas City in time for his mamma’s birthday. Crossing into New Mexico felt like a homecoming to me, even though I wouldn’t see my friends in Taos for several months.
We pulled into Gallup needing gas for the van. We started our money-making endeavors at a gas station. While we were there, we talked to some other travelers. They were from Oklahoma I think, and they gave us a handful of change. The boys took turns sitting with me on the brick planter near the doors to the convenience store; we held our cardboard sign saying we were going home and out of gas.
The going home part was true for half of us. Lil C was going home to his mamma, and now that we were on the 40, Mr. Carolina was heading to his family for the holidays. The Okie didn’t seem to have anywhere particular in mind, and my plans were nebulous at best. But some of us were going home, so the sign was true. As for the out of gas part, if we weren’t currently totally out of gas, we would be soon.
So we held our sign, and kind people blessed us with some dollars, until the manager told us we had to leave. That’s typically how it happened, so we weren’t surprised or upset. We decided to try our luck at Wal-Mart and headed that way.
At the shopping center housing the Wal-Mart, I found the most promising exit and positioned myself there. It was a weekend afternoon, so there was a lot of traffic. I’d been standing there a while and had made some money for our cause when an obviously pregnant woman with two little kids in tow approached me. She was upbeat and friendly and told me she was the girlfriend of one of the travelers we’d met at the gas station. (The boyfriend had described us to her, I guess.) She wondered how much longer I planned to stand there at the Wal-Mart because she was hoping to get a chance to stand there with her sign and try to bring in some funds for her family. I allowed I’d be willing to give up the spot at two o’clock, which was about 40 minutes away. She said she and the kids would hang around until then.
Are you on your way home to Oklahoma? I asked her.
Honey, she replied, I’m nine months pregnant and four centimeters dilated. I ain’t going nowhere!
I was impressed. Nine months pregnant is one thing, but four centimeters dilated is serious.
I stood there with my sign for a while more, but my heart wasn’t in it. If that pregnant woman was four centimeters dilated and ready to stand outside Wal-Mart flying a sign, she must really, really need the money. I’d gotten some dollars, enough to get some gas in the van and get us down the road, probably enough to get me and the boys each a hamburger for dinner too. I was ready to go.
When Mr. Carolina came to check on me, I told him about the pregnant woman, told him I was ready to relinquish my spot to her.
As we drove away from Wal-Mart, we saw the pregnant woman and the two little kids standing at the exit. The woman was holding a big sign that said family in need She held the sign in such a way that her pregnantness clearly showed. The little kids jumped up and down and waved at each passing car.
Personally, if I had kids, I’d be nervous to have them with me while flying a sign admitting I wasn’t able to provide for them. I’d be afraid CPS might come along and ask questions. But maybe CPS in New Mexico is too busy for such inquiries.
In any case, what they were doing seemed to be working for them, and I hope they’re all ok, wherever they are now.
Photo courtesy of https://www.pexels.com/photo/pregnant-photoshoot-161485/.
Jun3
Allen Ginsberg
Today is the anniversary of the birth of Allen Ginsberg.
I first heard of Ginsberg in the 10,000 Maniac song “Hey Jack Kerouac.”
Of course, the song is mostly about Kerouac.
You chose your words from mouths of babes got lost in the wood.
The hip flask slinging madman, steaming cafe flirts,
in Chinatown howling at night.
Then Ginsberg gets his mention.
Allen baby, why so jaded?
Have the boys all grown up and their beauty faded?
I’d never heard of Jack Kerouac, so I looked him up my 1979 edition of the World Book Encyclopedia. He wasn’t there! Then I looked him up in the index and found a mention of him in the short article on the Beat poets. Did I learn about Allen Ginsberg in that encyclopedia article? I don’t remember, but where else would I have learned about him? (Our young, hip, [closeted] teacher never mentioned the Beats when we covered American Literature in 11th grade English class.)
Somewhere in my teenage life, I discovered Allen Ginsberg and grew to love him. William S. Burroughs was a really weird, really old guy and Kerouac’s work never turned me on. (Hey! Want to know what life’s like on the road? Quit reading Kerouac–or Blaize Sun, for that matter–and go spend some time on the road!) But Ginsberg? Ginsberg was a poet. I didn’t always understand what he was talking about, but the way he put words together stirred my heart.
According to Wikipedia,
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and one of the leading figures of both the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the counterculture that soon would follow. He vigorously opposed militarism, economic materialism and sexual repression and was known as embodying various aspects of this counterculture, such as his views on drugs, hostility to bureaucracy and openness to Eastern religions.[1]
Ginsberg is best known for his poem “Howl“, in which he denounced what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States.[2][3][4] In 1956, “Howl” was seized by San Francisco police and US Customs.[1] In 1957, it attracted widespread publicity when it became the subject of an obscenity trial, as it described heterosexual and homosexual sex[5] at a time when sodomy laws made homosexual acts a crime in every U.S. state. “Howl” reflected Ginsberg’s own homosexuality and his relationships with a number of men, including Peter Orlovsky, his lifelong partner.[6] Judge Clayton W. Horn ruled that “Howl” was not obscene, adding, “Would there be any freedom of press or speech if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid innocuous euphemisms?”[7]
My dearest association with Ginsberg came in the early 90s. One of my closest friends called me up from where she went to school across town and told me Ginsberg was going to speak at her university. On the appointed night, she borrowed her mom’s car, disentangled me from my controlling boyfriend, and drove us across town to hear the man read poems, his poems and the poems of William Blake.
I remember Ginsberg reading
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,In the forests of the night;What immortal hand or eye,Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
After intermission, Ginsberg invited the audience to sit with him on the stage. I would have been too shy to go up there alone, but my friend pulled me along, and I shared a stage with Allen Ginsberg. I was so young and naive; I didn’t even fully understand the great energy I was enveloped in.
A few years later, when Ginsberg died, some poets I knew were absolutely heartbroken. I wasn’t a poet yet, and I didn’t understand how they could hurt so deeply for someone they didn’t really know.
What I realize now is that anyone who’s read Ginsberg knows him. The man exposed his heart in every poem he wrote. He didn’t try to hide or sugarcoat. He laid himself on the line with every word.
I understand now that I owe Ginsberg a tremendous debt. I couldn’t be the writer I am today if he hadn’t come before.
[amazon template=image&asin=1568580703]One of the most beautiful books I’ve ever owned is Illuminated Poems a collection of Ginsberg’s poetry, illustrated by the fantastic artist Eric Drooker. It’s one of the few books I miss owning.
Jun2
Birdsong
At one time I wrote quite a bit of poetry, but I hadn’t written a poem in years.
Writing poetry takes a lot of time for me. To write good poems, I need quiet, empty hours stretching in front of me. I haven’t had quiet, empty time in a while, so my poetry writing has mostly dried up.
The last time I wrote a poem was October 2012, when I was stuck with Mr. Carolina in Redding, CA. (You can read that story and the poem here: (http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/02/13/broke-down-in-redding-california/.)
But the other morning I woke up at 5am to the sound of birds chirping. As I listened to the birds, words started coming to me, so I turned on the light and grabbed my notebook.
Here is the poem I wrote:
Birdsong
Birds sing
before the dawn.
My first waking consciousness
is their communication.
What might they say
to one another?
Get out of here!
This is my turf!
And Hey honey!
Let’s make some babies…
The ladies answer
Chase me if you want me
or Your genes aren’t good enough for my offspring.
Later when the children hatch,
there will be choruses of
Feed me! Feed me! Feed me!
Birdsong sounds lovely to the human ear
but to birds
it’s relationship conversation.