When I got home the other night, The Light of my Life™ was sitting bundled up in scarf and fleece sweater. “I think there’s something wrong with the boiler,” she said “I can’t get the house warm”.
“Well, do you realize how cold it is outside?” I asked “That could have something to do with it.”
Our house is comparatively small, which means it heats up very quickly, but it’s also made of papier-mâché and spit, which means it cools down very quickly too. Our gas fire only has two settings, “On” and “Not On”. When it’s running, it has the living room toasty in no time, when it’s off, things cool down fast. So, we spend a lot of time hopping up and down to meddle with the switch.
However, the fire only heats one room. The rest of the house relies on an ancient and rather frightening boiler which sits in a cupboard and emits loud rattles and clunks at regular intervals. The thermostat seems to operate under its own volition with very little regard for the actual temperature and we’ve spent many a happy night, lying awake listening to it fire up and switch off, fire up and switch off, sometimes several times a minute. We’ve been warned by people who know about these things that it will need replacing soon, but at the moment we’re frittering away our income on food and car repairs so it will have to wait. And to be fair, it does a passable job of keeping the house warm.
Except when temperatures plummet the way they have this week.
Our friends in Phoenix were horrified when we announced our relocation to the frozen wastes of Colorado.
“Don’t you know it’s cold up there?” they asked. Well yeah, of course we did but as I pointed out repeatedly, it’s supposed to be cold in winter. And one of the many delightful things about Colorado is that even in winter, the sun shines most days so while there may be snow on the ground, and ice in the shady spots, it’s usually still comfortably warm outside.
But not this week.
I was spoiled on Monday because I drove the Subaru to work. With its powerful heater, road hugging tires and best of all, heated seats, I cruised down that hill and back up again at night, all the while wondering what everyone else was complaining about – the roads were fine, the snow wasn’t so bad, it wasn’t that cold. Sure, there were hurricane force winds out there (109mph recorded in Golden) but they didn’t affect me. What’s the big deal? I found out on Tuesday when I was back to driving my usual transport, Angus the 4Runner. Now I love Angus to bits, and he’s taken me places I would be scared to attempt in the shiny Subaru, but it has to be said, when it comes to luxury, the car manufacturers have moved on somewhat in the eighteen years since he rolled off the production line.
The heater works, sort of, in that it dries out your eyeballs while making no discernible difference to the temperature. The tires don’t hug the road so much as caress it, in a gentle stroking motion. And worst of all, the seats have to be heated manually, namely by placing your bum on them for 45 minutes or so. Even the tape player refused to be roused from its slumbers, forcing me to rely on the radio, which never helps my mood.
Although the drive through the mountains wasn’t too bad. It was only when I hit the town that things got really gnarly as a winter storm was in full force and traffic at a virtual standstill. Still, I made it into the office eventually, much to the surprise of the city dwellers who hadn’t expected to see me at all. Having arrived late, I had to remain shackled to my desk until well after 7pm, but at least, I thought smugly, the roads will be better now. Wrong again Einstein.
Although the snow had for the most part been cleared, the ground itself was slick and shiny as sub-zero temperatures caused everything to be coated in a film of ice. There’s nothing quite like that exhilarating little thrill when you feel your car begin to slide beneath you, especially if you’re surrounded by much bigger vehicles, often traveling faster than you are. 2-wheel drive, 4-wheel drive, it’s all the same when you’re on ice and I think that’s the best workout my heart’s had since the last time I attempted to go jogging.
Creeping along at around 35 mph I was passed by a blonde soccer mom type in a Ford Explorer doing, I would guess, about 70. About 1/4 a mile ahead I saw her taillights suddenly begin to zig-zag as she fishtailed across three lanes of traffic. Luckily the drivers around her were driving cautiously and each had time to avoid her so she ended up on the hard shoulder, completely unharmed. As I passed her she was staring fixedly ahead with her knuckles white on the steering wheel. About 5 miles further on, creeping along at around 35 mph I was passed by a blonde soccer mom type in a Ford Explorer doing, I would guess, about 70. Sigh.
Still, Angus and I made it home unscathed and in no time I was indoors and ready for dinner. There’s nothing like a big bowl of steaming hot, home-made soup on a night like this so it was a shame we didn’t have any. Instead, I microwaved a pizza and munched disconsolately while huddling over the space heater. By bedtime we were, according to our cheapo thermometer on the front deck, down to -13F. I talked to the dogs to see if I could persuade them not to pee until say, May, but it was no dice. So, wrapping myself up like Nanook of the North, I dragged them outdoors for their evening constitutional. It was ear nipping, toe stinging, snot freezing cold out there – the kind of cold that sucks your breath from your lungs. Still, there’s something inherently comically in watching a dog try to pee without putting any feet on the ground.
When I dragged my bum out of bed at 5:30 the following morning, the windows were coated in Jack Frost’s artwork – even on the inside. Cheapo thermometer told me it was -28F, which is bloody cold. I took one look at Angus, buried in a cocoon of ice, another look back at the kettle, and thought.
“Today, I’m going to work from home.”
The Way of the Wolf
The Way of the Wolf
“O grandmother, what large ears you have!” “The better to hear you with.”
“O grandmother, what great eyes you have!” “The better to see you with.”
“O grandmother, what large hands you have!” “The better to take hold of you with.”
“But grandmother, what a terrible large mouth you have!” “The better to devour you!”
~ Little Red Riding Hood
I’m not a huge fan of the movement to pad the world in cotton-wool to ensure that today’s children need never have a bad experience. However, I wish Little Red Riding Hood’s parents hadn’t let her make the half hour’s journey through the woods to her grandmother’s house alone. Not only was the wretched child quite obviously uhm, developmentally challenged, her tale and others like it has contributed to one of mankind’s more reprehensible actions. Despite there never being one single authenticated account of a healthy wolf attacking a human, fear and ignorance have led to these beautiful, social and highly intelligent creatures being systematically exterminated almost to the point of extinction throughout the globe.
This thought was weighing heavily on my mind as we drove through the gates of Colorado’s Wolf and Wildlife Center, founded in 1993 by a lady named Darlene Kobobel after she rescued a two-year old wolf named Chinook. Upon receiving 15-20 phone calls a day from people wishing to surrender ‘their’ wolves she realized the necessity of providing not just a sanctuary, but an educational facility as well. Today the center conducts tours and programs that focus on dispelling myths about wolves and other wild canids and helping people appreciate the role wolves play in their ecosystems.
Our tour began with the foxes which Darlene explained had been rescued from the fur trade. Education being the key, we learned in graphic detail exactly what the lives, and deaths, of these beautiful creatures would have been like if they had fulfilled their destinies. With a twist which would have been comical if it weren’t so tragic, Darlene explained that the reason two of the foxes were white in colour, was because they had been bred that way so they could be passed off as arctic foxes and thereby command a higher price.
On then, to the wolves of which there are twelve in residence, two to each one-acre pen. We met Mika and Shunka first. As the weather is cool right now, the wolves are more active than in the summer, but there was none of the frantic pacing that you’d see with caged animals. Instead, these creatures simply wandered around, occasionally coming up to the wire to say hello. We’d all been warned to keep fingers, camera lenses and children well away from the fencing to avoid any playful theft and this was emphasized at the next pen where we were introduced to Troubles and Bandit. Troubles has a habit of snagging visitors’ gloves and shredding them the way our dogs take out squeaky toys. To date he’s snagged 54 pairs but he never managed to score any from our group.
Darlene did tell us though of the time he pinched her watch off her wrist and swallowed it whole. She was mostly concerned about what would happen when the alarm went off in a couple of hours but listen as she might, she couldn’t hear a thing. Until a couple of days later when she noticed a pile of wolf shit mysteriously beeping. After a good wash, the watch was found to be still working and while she declined to wear it any more, it can now be seen in a display case by reception.
Nikita and Princess were next. Nikita was an enormous bear of an Arctic wolf, looking something like a great Newfoundland. He spent the first three years of his life living in a 5’ x 8’ crate and when rescued; his toenails were over two inches long. His back legs had so little muscle he was unable to walk without assistance. However, he fell in love with CWWC’s first rescue wolf, Chinook and the pair were inseparable until the latter’s death in 2004.
Sabin was rescued from a college dorm where he spent his days locked in a bathroom and lived on a diet of cheetos and beer. Darlene didn’t tell us what happened to the future captains of industry who felt this was an appropriate way to treat a wild animal but hopefully it was something unpleasant. Sabin shares a pen with Raven, named because of the birds who visit her daily.
Yukon spent the first 5 months of his life at a photography farm. I was aware that most photographs one sees of ‘wild’ animals are in fact, taken in captivity, (the cost and unreliability of the animals appearing on cue makes commercial photography in the wild impractical) but I had assumed this meant animals in zoos, refuges and sanctuaries like this one. I never knew that most of the images we see on calendars, mousepads, mugs and so on are of animals raised solely for that purpose, then abandoned once they’re no longer photogenic. Yukon was on his way to a roadside zoo before CWWC adopted him.
At the last pen, we met Wakanda an incorrigible ham, and his partner, the painfully shy Akela. Wakanda is the center’s Casanova and loves to kiss the visitors’ hands through the wire. So for a few minutes, I scrunched under his chin and stared deep into those dark, beautiful eyes. I’ve never had the privilege of being this close to a wolf, my spirit animal before, but I’ll carry that moment for ever.
The park also has a couple of coyotes, rescued from a facility which bred animals for use on ‘guaranteed hunts’. Once a vehement anti-hunter, my views have mellowed somewhat, largely due to meeting people who kill for food rather than simply the sport of killing. However, I still can’t imagine what kind of deviant would enjoy a canned hunt.
The climax of the tour was when Darlene led us in a group howl. By us, I mean the visitors and the wolves. She threw back her head and performed an eerie imitation of a wolf howl, which we did our best to imitate. Dakari the coyote picked up the song and in a few moments we were joined by the wolves themselves.
Nobody can hear that primal sound without feeling their hair stand on end. Just like our ancestors did millennia ago. Thank goodness there are people like Darlene Kobobel to keep the wolf in our world.
Only 24 Hours in a Day
05:30- Huh? What? That beeping noise…what is it? Ohfercryinoutloud, it can’t be the alarm already, I’ve only been in bed five minutes! Ughhhhh, I frickin’ hate mornings.
05:35- Yes, I know I said I was going to exercise before leaving for work this morning, but that was at 10pm, with a glass of ice-cold vodka in my hand. Must have been mad.
05:50- I’m turning into a prune. Must get out of the shower. In a minute.
06:10- Look dog, I’m freezin’ my arse off here. Will you just pee already?
06:20- (Singing) “On the road again” Of all the inventions modern man has come up with, I’d say heated car seats rank right up at the top. Coffee’s pretty darn good too. That said, I’d still rather be back in bed. At least until the sun comes up.
07:30- Yanno, it’s all very well parking on the other side of the river in order to save having to pay, and in the summer the ten minute walk is really quite delightful. But on a bitter winter’s morning it’s amazing how exposed this stretch across the park really is. It’s not often I actually look forward to arriving in the office.
07:55- You can tell it’s going to be a rough day at the office when you’ve handled five phone calls before making it to the bathroom. More coffee, that’s the answer.
10:15- If there really is a hell, I’ll bet it involves conference calls. 10,000 lost souls sitting in eternal torment while two of them repeat the same information over and over again. Wonder what’s happening to my e-mail in-box right now. Dang, I’ve got so much to do; I don’t have time for this. What? My turn to speak? No, I don’t have an update. No, I don’t know when they’ll have it completed. Yes, I’ll follow up. Hmm, did that sound frustrated? I think I sounded frustrated. Should probably watch that.
11:55- Lady, you’re pushing my buttons today. It really isn’t that complicated – your problem is that you haven’t attended any of the training classes and when I try to explain it to you, you just don’t listen. That and you have the IQ of a throw cushion. How do you manage to dress yourself? OK, let’s go over it one more time.
12:45- I need to eat. I need to eat. I need to eat.
13:55- I need to eat. I need to eat. I need to eat.
14:15- Note to self: When mixing up tuna and salad dressing for sandwiches, it’s a good idea to prevent the mixture from being too moist. Soggy bread with the filling falling out doesn’t an appetizing lunch make.
14:59- Say what?
15:01- OK, this isn’t looking good. Surely not.
15:03- Oh surely…NOT! They could NOT have been so stupid as to roll out the product without making sure this feature auto-updated. Please, please, please, please, please don’t tell me I’m going to have to go in and enter all this manually! I don’t have to do this manually do I? Tell me I don’t have to do this manually. I do have to do this manually. Oh.
15:05- Hi, it’s me. You’d best go ahead and have dinner without me. I’m going to be here late tonight. I don’t know, very late. I’ll call you in a bit. Because it’s my job that’s why.
15:45- I swear, if this laptop freezes up on me one more time, it’s going straight out the window. This is going to take forever.
17:35- I’m telling you – one more freeze up and it’s a fast trip to the ground floor for you my little electronic friend.
17:58- Yep, you deserve a medal for staying an hour late. You must be exhausted poor lamb. But considering you didn’t come in ’till 9:30, I’ll hold off on the rose petals at your feet for the moment, OK? See you tomorrow.
18:25- I wonder how long a human can live on vending machine food. And why is it, the orange juice is always the first one to run out? Ooh look, Twix.
19:20- Crap look at the time, and I’ve barely scratched the surface. There must be a more efficient way to do this. Hmm, how about if I create a spreadsheet and then…
19:55- Well that was a colossal waste of time. OK, back to doing it the original way. Music, that’s what I need. Music feeds the soul. Let’s see what music I can find.
20:20- Have I really just spent the last hour getting no further forward with this? OK, come on now, focus. Grind it out.
22:10- Hi, it’s me. Yep, looks like I’m going to be here all night. I’m not sure, probably 4 or 5-ish. OK, I’ll call you when I pull into the driveway so you can unlock the deadbolt. Sleep well.
12:05- Whoa, where did the time go? Making progress though, if I can keep going at this pace, I should be done by about…Friday. Dang, that’s depressing.
01:25- Consider the Twix my friends. Shortcake, caramel, all coated in a layer of milk chocolate. And just when you get done…there’s another one. Perfection in confectionary. Oh man, I’m tired. Wonder if I could get an hour’s shut-eye if I laid on the floor. No, no – push on, push on. The sooner this is done, the sooner you’ll get home. But oh dearie me, is it ever going to be over?
02:45- Feeling a little fuzzy round the edges now. Must focus on the task at hancze@gh,,,
04:15- OK, that’s it – I’ve had enough. Time to head home. Just send out a few e-mails so everyone can see the time stamp and notice how virtuous I am.
04:30- It’s an odd feeling walking through a totally deserted city. Nobody, but nobody is about. OK, well now that car’s just gone and spoiled it. But apart from that, there’s nobody about.
04:45- Has the steering wheel always been so heavy? Have I always lived so far away? Traffic’s pretty busy going the other way though. Lot of people must start work early. Poor bastards.
05:15- Honey, I’m home!
05:25- Oh it’s so nice to snuggle into warm sheets ready for a good night’s sleep. But first though, I need to set the alarm.
Got to get up for work in the morning.
Heeeeere fishy fishy
I can see myself fly fishing. Standing in a pristine mountain stream with golden late afternoon sunlight streaming behind me as, with the skill and patience of a Zen master, I carve a graceful arc with my line before reeling in a trout of epic proportions. I release the fish, return it to the water and admire the way the light plays off its silvery scales as it swims away. Think Brad Pitt in “A River Runs Through It” and you’ll have the general idea.
Still, I barely have time for the hobbies I have now and fly-fishing isn’t all that cheap a sport in which to get started. Until fairly recently I wasn’t aware that I had any special interest in taking up fishing at all but after giving the sport a go for the first time in years during a camping trip in the summer (where I was the only one in the group to catch a fish – a monster of at least 4 inches) the desire was formed.
I also hadn’t realized how comparatively inexpensive simple spinning rods are. Sure there are the pricey ones for people who take the sport seriously, but ambling round a sports shop one day, I came across some on sale starting at around $20 – $30. That’s well within my price range but first I consulted my friend Ed. Ed’s been kicking around a lot longer than me (well, 7 years longer) and knows about these things.
“So is a $30 fishing rod OK to buy, or is it just a waste of $30?” I asked. Having received confirmation that the rod on which I’d caught my record breaker back in the summer probably only cost about that much, the decision was made. I was to become an angler.
Of course time passed, real life got in the way and if it hadn’t have been for another friend, Melissa, I probably wouldn’t have done anything about it.
“OK, I’m picking you up from work on Friday,” she told me authoritatively last week. “We’ll go to Sportsman’s Warehouse” (a kind of retail toy box for enthusiasts of outdoor pursuits) and pick out a fishing rod for you.” Of course, it wasn’t just going to be just me and her. Christmas is coming and too many other people wanted an excuse to visit the place so the simple act of choosing a rod for me, turned into a team event. Ed was there, of course, along with Robin and The Light of My Life™ so the five of us descended on the place like locusts with charge cards.
Once inside, the wimminfolk spread out and headed for their respective interests. Robin took off for the shoes, The Light of My Life™ for the hats and Melissa for the jeans while Ed and I manned the shopping trolley and gave helpful advice. While waiting Ed, found a camouflage bathrobe, which he thought, would be ideal for hiding among the potted plants, while I came across a pair of shoulder length camouflage gloves. To avoid being spotted during formal evening functions I suppose.
Soon it was time to hit the fishing section and after Melissa rejected my first choice, a 3 ft “My Little Pony” type number in a shade of pink which would match my eyes some mornings, we moved onto my next selection. It was a cool looking silver thing but Ed decided it wasn’t flexible enough. Apparently flexible is a good thing when it comes to fishing rods so he moved along the row and picked out another for me. This one was black and the tip zipped up and down like a whip when I swung it. OK, decision made, but of course – that was just the beginning.
I needed line, hooks, bobbers, sinkers, scissors, a tackle box and of course, the all-important bait. You would think it would simply be a case of walking along the shelves and grabbing the stuff but instead the process involved a level of discussion which would have made a Bedouin camel trader weep. Melissa learned her fishing in West Virginia where the fish are very different animals to our Colorado natives. Ed’s the local expert while I was utterly clueless so we went back and forth over the merits of # 8 hooks versus # 10s, bobbers or not, light line or heavy, the debate went on.
Ed’s an aficionado of the fishing vest, while Melissa’s a tackle box devotee. Being blessed with skinny, weedy looking arms I knew that a bulky vest wouldn’t be much of a fashion statement on me as you probably know, anglers are a stylish bunch so I decided on the tackle box.
“You’ll want one with a shoulder strap,” explained Melissa, “because you’ll have your rod and stuff in one hand, your beer cooler in the other and you won’t want to be messing with a tackle box in your third.” Sound advice that, so we picked out a green one and moved on.
Selecting my first supply of bait was another big decision. Back in the days when I last fished, you either purchased a small bag of some unidentified marine life from a crusty old guy in a kiosk at the head of the pier, or you went into the back yard and dug up worms. I haven’t seen a worm in Colorado and I doubt they would keep ’till the warm weather so instead we checked out the endless supply of commercial offerings. It would never have occurred to me that fish would go after some of these fluorescent concoctions but it seems those are the “in” colours. Bright red salmon eggs, neon orange Power Bait, “Drag Queen Bait” and even “Glitter Balls”, which caused juvenile fits of giggles all round – it was all here. Even little jars of multi-coloured paste which you use, presumably, to roll your own. It’s all very hi-tech these days.
Finally we were done and I headed for the checkout to hand over a sum of cash considerably higher than the $20-$30 I had originally anticipated. I’ll need Melissa and Ed to show me how to work most of this stuff, but I did spend a happy hour on Saturday unwrapping it all and placing it neatly in my new tackle box. I also picked up my first fishing injury, drawing blood when the snap of the box ripped open my index finger. How manly is that?
Still, I’m all set to go now. The gear is primed, I’m ready for the hunt and fish had best beware. Everything is in place.
So how long is it ’till the ice melts?
Mosquito Coast (Without the coast)
Mustn’t scratch.
Mustn’t scratch.
Mustn’t scratch it will only make things worse mustn’t scratch oh fercryinoutloud OK then perhaps just a little scratch.
Ahhhhhhh, sweet relief.
Mustn’t scratch
Mustn’t scratch.
I was out walking with one of the pupsters on Sunday morning. I try and get out for a longish hike at least one day each weekend and this spell of beautifully warm fall weather is a perfect antidote to a week spent suffocating in an office. The sky is pure cobalt blue, the aspens are shining in all their golden glory and butterflies are everywhere you look.
As are the insects.
I’ve always had a love-hate affair with insects in that I hate them while they love me. At least the biters do. For some reason, they want to eat me up, piece by tiny piece. I’m not sure if it’s the smell of fear, payback for misdeeds in a former life or if I simply taste good but invariably, if there are nibblers around, they’ll make a bee-line for me. (Bee-line! Get it?)
I’m told one of the early uses for lap-dogs was that fleas were more inclined to live on pooch than a human. Ergo, carry an ugly little dog on your lap and he’ll soon be flea-ridden while you remain comparatively free. Sad to say, it appears my role in the circle of life appears to be that of a Pekingese. In the sense that as long as I’m around, everybody else can enjoy the great outdoors while I slap, scratch and curse as the little devils eat me alive.
I once spent a couple of weeks doing volunteer work for a conservation group in the far north of Australia . We were laying the foundation for an elevated boardwalk which would allow day-trippers to experience the rain forest once ‘the wet’ set in and the land would be under 3-4 feet of water. The work involved digging holes, moving concrete blocks and worst of all, carrying twenty-foot long steel girders called perlons through the trees, sometimes for ½ a mile or more, before dropping them by the side of the path. This wasn’t too far from Kakadu National Park – Crocodile Dundee country but what the films didn’t show, was just how steamy hot that terrain was.
From early morning ‘till dusk we toiled in the oppressive heat of the jungle, while our begrimed clothes stuck to our bodies and the sweat ran into our eyes. The air was so thick you almost had to swim through it. We smokers found ourselves uncharacteristically popular because our glowing cigarette tips were the perfect solution for removing the leeches which could be found stuck to inappropriate parts of one’s anatomy at any given time.
But no matter how grueling the work days, the evenings were the worst because that’s when the vampire mosquitoes came out to play. And they made straight for me.
Oh, everybody else took a share and the conversation was punctuated by slaps and oaths as we tried to keep them at bay. However, none were so persecuted, so abused and so miserable as I. It was rare I completed a sentence without flailing at some part of my anatomy in a vain attempt to exact retribution. Great minefields of welts sprang up on my neck, arms, shoulders and legs as the little fiends lined up to feast on my blood.
Eventually I could take it no more and began dressing in jeans and a sweatshirt every evening. That’s no picnic in 95 degree weather with 100 degree humidity but if I’d owned gloves and a balaclava, I would have worn them too. And still the little b******s got to me. On my wrists, my ankles and around my head and on one memorable occasion during a late night nature call, on the tip of my willie. The pain was relentless.
After a few days my joints swelled up – the exact symptoms of some hideous tropical disease the name of which escapes me now. “Get into town and have it checked right away.” I was told “You don’t mess around with that!” Fortunately, it turned out to be nothing more serious than the sheer volume of bites I’d received on such a small area of skin that had caused my flesh to balloon.
The mosskeeters chased me halfway round Australia and most of Asia and in time, I came to dread that little nasal whine. Usually it came just minutes after lights out and a few moments before I began cursing myself for not paying the extra for a hotel that provided mozzie nets. Even today, over a decade later my stomach still knots up whenever I hear that noise. Mosquito coils, scented candles, repellant with contents-banned-in-most-western-countries, I became an expert in the effectiveness of each. (They’re all useless).
When we were looking to relocate from Phoenix, I had one criterion above all. No mosquitoes. Amazingly we even had a few right there in the desert, mainly due to the influx of easterners and their lawn fetishes, not to mention the golf courses which have spread like a virus in Arizona. All those sprinkler systems and artificial lakes brought them running. Bailey, Colorado, at a little under 9,000 feet seemed to fit the bill and although I have seen a couple of mozzies since we moved here (having been bitten by both of them) they are blessedly rare.
So I’m not entirely sure what was noshing on me this weekend. I’ve picked up a handful of bites each summer, some of them quite painful but I don’t believe I’ve been feasted on quite like this since moving to Colorado. Both arms, my legs and the back of my neck are a rash of little red bumps, each one feeling as though I’ve been stabbed with a needle dipped in Tabasco sauce. And the itching, oh dearie me, the itching.
They tell me that eating copious amounts of garlic will deter the little blighters from coming too near. Sadly, that would also deter most humans from coming too near so it’s not entirely practical. Plus, it isn’t really much good after the event so instead; I resorted to Benadryl, my anti-histamine of choice.
Benadryl is known to cause drowsiness, although it didn’t help me sleep last night. I am however, more than usually tired today as I sit at my desk and pretend to work. The label says not to take whilst operating heavy machinery and while my laptop isn’t exactly heavy, I’m still having challenges driving it today.
So if anybody needs me, I’ll be xvcnxzzzzzzzzzzzz…
Working on the Chain Gang
Wayne, the gang boss started out by giving us “The Rules”.
“Watch out for traffic. Make sure you have your orange vest on at all times. And you don’t have to go down steep bankings unless you want to.”
OK so far, but then he went on.
“If you come across any bags containing pipes or bottles, don’t touch them. Apparently, because the polis can trace stuff from dumpsters, the meth producers are now driving out into the country to dump their old equipment. However, if you open those bags, the fumes can kill you. Also, if you come across anything like a human body or a weapon, simply mark the spot and leave it alone.”
Melissa and I both perked up at the thought of finding a gun or maybe a bazooka or rocket launcher by the side of the road. Who knew highway clean-up would be this big of an adventure?
A bunch of us had volunteered to give up our Sunday afternoon by doing our bit for the neighbourhood as part of the “Adopt-A-Highway” trash collection program where concerned citizens wishing to help clean up littered thoroughfares can “adopt” a 1-mile stretch of road. The local government provides bags and reflective vest and twice a year, the volunteers go out and tidy “their” stretch of highway. The programme was founded in Texas in 1985 and since then, thousands of groups have volunteered their time and effort picking up litter on highways all over the country. Forty-nine of the 50 states in the U.S. now have a program like Adopt a Highway.
Suitably kitted out in our orange vests (“Mine doesn’t fit.” “This clashes with my T-shirt.” “What other colours you got?” etc.) and carrying our heavy-duty orange garbage bags and pointy sticks, we split into two groups, and each took a side of the road.
I soon became a connoisseur of the different qualities of garbage. Beer cans were the easiest to collect as a swift stab with the pointy stick speared them easily on the nail. Bottles meant bending over to pick up by hand. Paper was straightforward enough too but the very worst was the plastic bags. Usually, these were tangled amongst the weeds but any attempt to extricate them invariably saw the plastic disintegrate. It didn’t take long to establish that unless the bag was easily accessible, it was best to simply leave it where it was.
It was also a learning experience to discover just how many beer cans and bottles local drivers throw out of their windows. They aren’t beer snobs by any stretch of the imagination – with the exception of a few Corona bottles they were all domestic brews and let’s face it; you’d have to drink a lot of Coors Lite before you got any kind of benefit from its pitiful alcohol content. Even so, it does go a long way to explain some of the displays of reckless driving we routinely see.
The first dead body we came across turned out to have once belonged to a cat. We never did find any human ones but there were plenty more corpses by the side of the road. It was really rather tragic just how many. A couple of them were complete, such as the raccoon and one of the deer. However, most were in a state of disrepair and the majority were nothing more than partial skeletons. (What kind of person would throw a deer skeleton out of a car window while driving?) Here’s a tip kids, write this down. If you’re ever in need of deer bones, skulls, ribs, vertebrae or teeth, just take a walk along any stretch of Colorado highway. They’re everywhere.
With the amount of meat lying around, it was inevitable the conversation would turn to the suitability of road-kill when it comes to making dinner plans.
“Oh yeah, I can just see the look on my daughter’s face if I told her I was cooking up road-kill.” said Mary.
“You should go to Safeway” I told her. “Buy a ham bone and drop it in the pot. Then when she gets home, tell her you aren’t sure what it is, but you found it this afternoon.”
Nobody ever takes me up on my bright ideas.
We also came across the remains of that morning’s serious car accident. Judging from the skid marks it would appear the driver came around the corner too fast, apparently unaware that in Colorado the tradition is that whenever the road goes from two lanes to one, all drivers slam on the brakes and drop to 10 miles an hour below the speed limit. Nobody’s quite sure why; it’s just the way things are done around here. From the fast food wrappers we found at the site, it also suggests the driver didn’t have his full attention on the road but by the damage to the trees, I suspect he got pretty banged up.
On and on we trudged, under the blazing sun. As each bag was filled, we tied them in a knot and left them by the roadside from where they would magically disappear sometime the next day. We also added the tires, lumps of wood and larger car parts such as the bumper Ed found. Ed was particularly attentive when it came to recovering the old tires but we suspected that was because he was checking to see if they were better than the ones currently on his Jeep.
Finally, we made it down to the end of our designated mile where, grubby and tired but feeling pretty darn good about ourselves, we waited for the mini-van ride back to the start. 33 orange bags in total, which wasn’t a bad haul for such a short stretch. And it wasn’t just paper, beer cans, plastic bags and dead animal parts either; we came across some real treasure. A fire extinguisher, a thermos flask, an intact beer glass, lots of socks and several car parts among other things. However, Wayne won first prize with his trophy.
An empty can of “Karma Sutra Honey Dust.”
You have to wonder just how much attention that driver was paying to the road.
An American Thanksgiving
As any American history nerd can tell you, the Pilgrim Fathers landed on what is now known as Massachusetts in 1620. There’s no evidence they actually landed at Plymouth Rock or carved the date which appears on it today; that was more likely the handiwork of some enterprising member of a later Chamber of Commerce. What is evident however is that the onset of winter is a particularly bad time when it comes to founding a new colony.
Well-meaning and enterprising they may have been, but as pioneers they were hopelessly ill-equipped. Lacking even a basic knowledge of agriculture and having neglected to bring a single cow, the effects of the harsh winter were soon to take their toll. By spring, over half the original band of 102 souls were dead. Indeed, as popular lore has it, the remainder would not have survived had they not been befriended by some English-speaking natives who taught the pilgrims a few survival tips and earned themselves not only a place in the history books, but a slap-up turkey dinner to celebrate the first harvest.
And not only turkey. Venison, pumpkin and corn were believed to be on the menu for the feast which ran for three days. Although it soon became an American tradition, Thanksgiving was not celebrated as an official holiday until 1864 during the Lincoln presidency and it was Franklin D. Roosevelt who moved it to the now customary date of the fourth Thursday of November. I’m not sure which president arranged for the football games to be on television around the clock, so I’ll need to get back to you on that.
While I don’t think I’d be up to three days’ worth of feasting, Thanksgiving is without a doubt, my favourite holiday. No commercialization, no religious bickering, no decorations to put up (or take down), just lots of food, drink and the company of good friends. And the chance to take a moment and reflect that no matter how tiresome the humdrum aspects of life may be, we’re still one heckuva lot better off than many other people on this pretty blue globe and we’d all do well to remember that.
This year, The Light of my Life™ and I were invited over to the home of our friends, Kris and Mario. The last time we’d been in their house it was in a state which could charitably (but inadequately) be described as “messy”. We’re not the world’s greatest housekeepers but our house is like Martha Stewart’s compared to theirs. So, we were wondering how in the world they would have it clear enough to accommodate the anticipated twenty bodies. As it turns out, Kris and another friend had spent four days with a pickaxe, a shovel and a flame-thrower and between them, had removed the clutter and restored the house to the attractive, light-filled and eclectic home we knew it to be.
Two long tables were placed end to end, although at a slight angle in order to provide more side edges (the better at which to sit people) and chairs had been borrowed from all quarters. There was no room for mingling; you arrived, you sat down, that was it. Nobody was particularly sorry that three people failed to show as even with the reduced numbers, elbow room was at a premium. But fit we did, and it was a happy bunch that sat to give thanks this year.
Everybody had been instructed to bring a dish with them. The Light of my Life™ took along her specialty pumpkin pie. She opens a can of pumpkin like nobody, that woman. I had been commanded to provide the mashed potatoes, something well within my culinary repertoire. I cooked them, mashed them and creamed them to perfection. They were faultless. The only problem was they ran out before the bowl had made it halfway round the table. Note to self: Seventeen people eat a lot of potatoes.
Even the finest meal is no pleasure if the company is poor, but this diverse group of people made the evening an event in itself. The professional chef carved the turkey. The artist and the chiropractor bartered paintings for a session of spinal adjustment. The published author and the aspiring writer exchanged tips. The child and the schoolteacher swapped stories. And the British guy sat back and marvelled at the wonderful concept which is the American Thanksgiving dinner.
When nobody could manage another bite of dessert, the plates were cleared away and the jewellery designer brought out his wares. Long anticipated as the highlight of the gathering, the womenfolk went into paroxysms of joy as each bracelet, necklace and gemstone was held up, tried on and snapped up. Like most of the other men, I was torn between the despair of seeing my hard-earned beer money disappear so quickly and the relief of realising I wouldn’t have to suffer through the hell that is Christmas shopping.
More beer, more wine, more coffee, more pie anyone? Apart from potatoes, there was still enough food to sink a battleship and I suspect Kris and Mario are even now working their way through the leftovers. Sadly, my work hours and long commute have turned me into an early riser, even though my soul rebels against such a thing. One of the many downsides to this is that even when I have no work the following morning, my aging body starts to shut down around my regular bedtime. So, the night was still comparatively young when my eyes started to droop and my head to nod.
We made our goodbyes and gathered up our belongings before heading out into the night. The moon was almost full, and its light sparkled on the snow like a billion brilliant-cut diamonds. Tired or not, it was impossible not to enjoy driving in that wonderland. We pulled into the driveway of our little cabin among the trees and stepped out of the car to admire the canopy of stars under an indigo sky. Before entering the house, I took a moment to consider how truly blessed we are on this Thanksgiving Day.
Mind you, I had cause to reflect on that a few minutes later when I was on my hands and knees cleaning up an ocean of dog vomit and diarrhoea. No idea what Wiley ate this time, but it obviously didn’t sit as well as my Thanksgiving dinner. It doesn’t do to let too much positive thinking get in the way of real life, but hey, even with a sick dog in the house, things are pretty darn good.
He is not missing, he is here
In a previous Gunsmoke Diary entry (here), I told of the time I was cycling in Belgium, quite possibly the most boring country on the planet for such an activity. Geometrically flat, damp and insufferably dull I found myself almost delirious with delight when I saw a barn or a road sign and had an object on which to focus while I crawled past. And crawl I did due to the ferocious headwind which was doing its best to push me back the way I’d come.
It didn’t help that I was still feeling the effects of some exceptionally strong beer the previous night so by the time I finally reached the outskirts of Ypres, my goal for the evening, I was grubby, ill-tempered and very, very tired. A solitary meal in an overpriced restaurant a few miles back hadn’t done much to lift my spirits and I was just looking forward to a lie down.
Until I entered the town proper by riding through an imposing archway known as the Menin Gate. We studied the First World War in school, and I was already familiar with many of the names on my map. Ypres, Mons and Passchendaele had all been sites of bloody battles and the dull, flat fields which had bored me interminably as I rode through, had seen some of the worst carnage in human history only a few decades earlier.
North-western Europe is peppered with cemeteries holding the graves of the war dead. Geometric lines of brilliant white gravestones set on neatly trimmed lawns, they are sombre, moving places and it’s hard to leave without being touched by the sacrifice made by those young men. Throughout Belgium, Holland and France local families take responsibility for ensuring that “their” soldier’s grave will be kept clean, tidy and manicured. They have done so for decades and will continue to do so as long as the graves are there.
Yet it’s a tragic fact that many of the fallen, particularly from the first war, have no graves. Thousands of bodies were never recovered, and the official war records list those soldiers simply as “Missing, believed killed.” When peace finally came and all hope for their return was gone, the families of the lost men found their grief especially poignant. These relatives and friends had no grave to visit, nowhere to pay their last respects, nowhere to find closure.
So, it was decided that in Ypres, near where so many were known to have died, a memorial would be erected in honour of those whose bodies were never recovered. Originally there was talk of the British Government purchasing the land around the area and turning the entire town into a memorial to the Allied fallen. This was deemed impractical, however. While years of war had reduced Ypres to little more than rubble, many Belgians still considered it home and they were anxious to return. Instead, a memorial comprising of a mausoleum within a magnificent classical archway was built at the entrance to the town, over the river Menin.
Inside and out, huge panels contain the engraved names of the men of the Commonwealth forces who died in the Ypres Salient area but have no known graves. There are almost 55,000 of them and yet, immense though the Menin Gate is this still didn’t come close to recording the names of all the missing soldiers. The Menin Gate contains only the names of those who died in the area between the outbreak of the war in 1914 and August 1917. Those who died between then and the end of the war, a little over a year later, are listed at another memorial, located in Tyne Cot Cemetery, on the slopes just below Passchendaele. 35,000 more.
And remember, these are just those whose bodies were never recovered.
At 8pm prompt, every single night of the year, the traffic through the gate is brought to a halt. Police guard the entrance and stand at salute while buglers from the local fire department play “The Last Post”. This happens regardless of the weather and visitors from all over the world gather alongside the residents of the town to honour the young and brave who came to die in the defence of their town.
The service has taken place almost continuously since 1927. During the Second World War, when Ypres was occupied, the ceremony was banned. Yet the townspeople kept the bugles safe, and when the Germans finally left Ypres in 1945, the plaintive notes of the Last Post rang out under the Menin Gate that same night.
Evening was falling by the time I arrived in town and I knew I wouldn’t have time to find a hotel, wash, change and return in time. So instead, I sat by the side of the road and looked back the way I’d come. Across that vast expanse of flat nothing and tried to imagine the horrors that had taken place in those fields.
At a few minutes before 8, I smartened myself up as much as possible, and then stood at attention with the others while the haunting tune rang out into damp, cool night. Beside me stood an elderly white-haired gentleman, frail and stooped but at attention, nonetheless. This was in 1988, exactly 70 years since the war’s end. Was he old enough, I wondered. Old enough to have been there? I glanced over to appraise the lines on his face, but when I saw the tears streaming down his cheeks, I looked away, embarrassed. Yes, he’d been there.
In sombre mood, I wheeled my bike away and went in search of a bed. In the days that followed, I clocked up many more hours in the saddle, crossing into France before turning north and heading up the coast to catch the ferry home. The scenery changed as the miles rolled by, with the flat brown fields giving way to rolling hills and flower strewn meadows. The headwind didn’t let up though, fighting me with every turn of the crank no matter in which direction I was riding. Each night I flopped into bed, stiff, sore, thoroughly exhausted, and glad that another day was over.
Yet of course, I knew that my aches were nothing. Nothing compared to the misery suffered by those young men who never left. All 90,000 of them.
“…and now it can be said of each one in whose honour we are assembled here today: He is not missing; he is here!”
Words from the inscription carved on the Menin Gate, Ypres, Belgium.
L.A. Story
Note:
Downtown Los Angeles has been gentrified considerably over the last few years. What with the Staples Center, The Walt Disney Concert Hall, restaurants and many other family-friendly attractions, it’s a destination in itself. However, when I first visited in 1992, it was a very, very different story.
I’d visited Los Angeles once before, a couple of weeks earlier when I’d arrived fresh off the plane from Hong Kong. Well actually, nobody’s really all that fresh after they’ve been sat on a plane for eighteen hours, but the point is, while I was still comparatively new to the United States, I was already an old hand at negotiating my way around the City of Angels. OK, that’s not really true either – my experience so far was limited to the shuttle bus ride from the airport to the backpackers’ hostel, the area around Hollywood Boulevard and a day trip to Venice beach. There’s only so much you can do in L.A. in three days when you don’t have a car.
This visit was even shorter, arriving on the Greyhound bus in the early morning hours, leaving by the same method late that night. I would have been quite happy not to return at all except me dear ol’ Mum had sent a birthday present to the central post office there and as I’d been out of touch with my family for some weeks, I figured it was worth a side trip to pick it up.
When you tour the United States by Greyhound bus you get to see a side of America of most residents don’t. Most residents are probably unaware this side of America even exists and it’s worth noting that most residents are perfectly OK with that. Greyhound doesn’t run buses to Yosemite, the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone. They do; however, service the grottiest, seediest and most dangerous areas of the country’s major cities. Homeless people, alcoholics, the mentally deranged and other colourful characters tend to hang out in the waiting rooms and the sad thing is those are still much nicer than the neighbourhoods immediately outside.
I had three hours to kill before the post office opened and as I knew it wasn’t too far from the bus station, I partook of breakfast while perusing my guidebook.
“Upon leaving the station” it read, “be sure to turn left. Turning right will take you into deepest skid row.”
That sounded like good advice so turning smartly left, I strode out towards the post office. What the birthday present actually was, has I’m afraid been lost to the mists of time. However, I’m sure I appreciated it on the day. Thanks Mum. Either way, once it had been collected, I had some fourteen hours to kill before my bus out of town. There were two reasons for the late departure: both of them sound. For one, it would allow me to arrive at my next destination in daylight, when it’s far easier to search for accommodation. Secondly, even though I’ve never been great at sleeping while sitting up, it would save me the cost of a room for the night. I had however, decided that roaming the streets after dark wouldn’t be a good idea; even if I stayed to the left of East L.A. so decided to be sure I was back at the Greyhound Station well before sundown.
Downtown Los Angeles doesn’t see too many tourists itself these days and while I learned later that I wasn’t too far from the La Brea tar pits, I had never heard of them at the time and wouldn’t have noticed until I was up to my waist. I killed an hour on the free tour of the Los Angeles Times’ offices which was pretty interesting, and I scored a free notebook and pencil, but other than that, the day passed slowly. Even so, I dawdled somewhat, and it was with more than a little alarm I noticed the sun dropping swiftly towards where I assumed the Pacific Ocean must be. Time to head back.
I knew the street I needed and had scouted it out earlier in the day. According to my guidebook it was only a little over a mile, so I figured twenty minutes, thirty tops. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that the Greyhound Bus station had moved since my guidebook was written. It was still on the same street but a good two miles further along. Never mind “turning right will take you deepest skid row” the bus station was already up to its armpits in the ghetto. A fact that became painfully obvious the further I walked and the darker it got.
As evening stole across the streets the hustlers, pimps, dealers and low-lifes materialized around me, presumably from cracks in the walls, all pumped and ready to begin their day.
“Hey white boy! Gringo! Whatcha doin’ here?” came the catcalls from the doorways as I strode purposefully down the centre of the sidewalk, trying to make it look as if I wasn’t totally lost. Pulling out my guidebook didn’t seem like a good idea, nor was asking directions. My money belt dug uncomfortably into my stomach below my T-shirt, and I was only too aware just how vulnerable I would be if I didn’t find the bus station soon. Where the hell was it?
Fortunately, I came across a police cruiser. A muscular young guy was spread over the front, and I waited ‘till the cops had finished cuffing him before calling out.
“Is the Greyhound Station this way?”
“Yes,” they yelled back “About 1/2 a mile – but hurry!”
They didn’t have to tell me twice and I kicked it up a notch to cover the distance before the atmosphere got even worse.
Finally, up ahead, I saw the familiar electric sign of the skinny dog and stepped into the sanctuary. Except it wasn’t much better inside. People screaming, running, fighting and openly dealing drugs. It was like an 18th century insane asylum but without the charm. I sat on one of the hard plastic chairs and buried my head in my book, not making eye contact with anyone. Not even when a chair went sailing past my head. Not even when I had to step around the paramedics treating a stabbing victim on my way to the restroom.
At last, it was boarding time and I took my place on the bus out of that hell hole. A couple of nights later I sat with a bunch of other backpackers watching a movie on a tiny television. It was the usual cliché, about a small-town girl desperate to escape and “go to Hollywood”.
I couldn’t help thinking, “You know hon, with $60 and a packet of sandwiches, you could be there by tomorrow morning. Go ahead, do it – I dare ya!”
First Published: 20 September, 2005
Wheel of Fortune
I put the spare wheel from the pickup truck back in place last weekend. That was quite an accomplishment because it’s been sitting in the bed for almost two years now. There’s no way to secure it there, which meant any time we planned to park the truck in town, muggins here had to heave the thing into the cab. Then back again when we got home.
“Why didn’t you just put it away earlier?” I hear you ask. Well, mainly because it was such an ordeal getting the darn thing out in the first place and I had no enthusiasm for the process of trying to put it back. The good people at Ford who designed the spare wheel cradle for their truck line in the early 90’s obviously weren’t allowing for the fact that their customers might one day need to actually access it.
First you have to crawl way, way under the truck, so it’s best if you only get a flat on dry days when you’re wearing old clothes. Then you use an enormous spanner (not the one that came with the truck, but a different sized enormous spanner, which of course, you knew to carry with you) to unwind a long bolt which lowers a three-foot long metal bar on which the spare wheel sits.
If the aforementioned long bolt isn’t shiny and new, maybe if it’s been somewhere dirty and wet for perhaps ten or eleven years, like say, underneath a truck, it will be more or less impossible to undo. It might take you an hour or so of struggle before you come to this conclusion but come to it you will. This is why we have the American Automobile Association. However, lifesavers though they may be, they didn’t come back after the flat had been repaired to put the spare away for us.
I know it’s not a good idea to leave it there indefinitely and winter’s a-coming which would make crawling on the ground even less pleasant. So, last Saturday I spent a happy hour cursing and grunting as I tried to take the weight of a ¾ ton wheel with my left hand while screwing it into place with my right. Three days later, my back hardly hurt at all so as wheel changes go, this was far from being my worst.
One that comes to mind was the time when I decide to rotate the tires on Wilf, my first car, some (clears throat) years ago. As regular readers of The Gunsmoke Diaries will have gathered, I’m not exactly Mr. Fix-it and never have been, so why I chose to perform this task an hour before I was due to go out for the night is a mystery, even now. Citroen used an elaborate suspension system in those days, which they claimed would allow their cars to be driven on three wheels. I never put that to the test, but it did make jacking up the car something of a process because even when the chassis was a good three feet in the air, the wheel remained firmly on the ground.
However, the real fun started after I’d given up and jacked the thing back down again. The chassis remained where it was. I suspect this was less to do with Citroen’s elaborate suspension and everything to do with my car being a decrepit bucket of bolts but either way, Wilf remained listing stubbornly to starboard at an angle of some 45 degrees. My friends weren’t best pleased when I called them to say I couldn’t take my turn at driving that night, but the good news was; he gradually eased himself back into place over the next couple of days.
Even so, that still wasn’t the least pleasant wheel change I’ve ever performed. That singular event took place late one winter’s night, high on the moors of Yorkshire. It wasn’t even my car, but instead belonged to my girlfriend at the time. We’d had a pleasant enough evening in a snug and cosy country pub. Crackling log fire, lots of dark wood, just the thing for a cold December night. By the time we left, snow was beginning to fall in great swirling clouds, and I was hoping we’d be well on our way home before it really got started.
Naturally, that wasn’t to be. We were a good fifteen miles from anywhere when my beloved steered us over a large rock sitting in the roadway. It didn’t have an orange flashing light on it, but it would scarcely have been less obvious if it had. Still, over it we went and immediately I heard the dreaded thump, thump, thump that signals a flat. I prepared to do my knight-in-shining-armour bit.
“Where’s your jack?” I asked before receiving the answer that strikes fear into any boyfriend’s heart.
“What’s a jack?”
With a sigh, I pulled on my thin jacket and headed towards the boot. The jack was there, in a well under the spare wheel. Rotten with rust but semi-functional so I hauled it out of its nest and began the backbreaking task of jacking up the car. Mother Nature was obviously waiting for this moment to unleash her full force and the wind picked up to a terrific rate, sending flurries of snow down my neck and robbing me of the little body heat I had left. Visions of sugar plums danced in my head as I heaved and pulled while the car inched painfully higher.
Just when I figured a few more turns of the crank would do the trick, the car gave a sickening crunch as the jack punched its way through the rusted floor.
“Be careful!” yelled my darling from comfort of her down coat and woolly hat, which would have been comforting had she been concerned about me, rather than her car. Gritting my teeth ever tighter, I searched around the verge until I found a flattish piece of wood and using that as a brace; began the task once more.
Finally, the old wheel was off, and I heaved the spare out of the trunk. You won’t be at all surprised to learn that it was flat. And of course, there was nowhere to fill it. Not on the Yorkshire moors after midnight, there wasn’t.
It was about that time, I decided my sweetheart wasn’t all that good-looking, there were plenty more fish in the sea, and there was no particular advantage in continuing to be polite. We had a full and frank exchange of views and agreed to go our separate ways.
But you know what? I’m OK with that.
First published: 13 September, 2005
The Gunsmoke Diaries 