GRAND CANYON: FAMILY GATHERING

It is an evening picnic in the large back yard of my brother John’s house. When we called from Los Banos no one was inside to receive it. Everyone is here. Dave and his wife, who passed on Graeagle, are here with their two children. Cameron is a precocious seven-year-old overcoming an only-child syndrome. Matthew is an infant whom I have only seen once. Dave is the best golfer in the family and at this stage of life may be the most cynical. He is a technical golfer in the Jack Nicklaus tradition. In the recent past he has overspent on such frivolous items as a large-screen television to go with his new house on the west side. He is grateful to me for having loaned him five hundred dollars in a time of need without making him suffer a lecture on economics. He won my admiration for the diligent manner in which he repaid me. He is the only person I have ever loaned money who did not require a reminder of the debt. I am aware that loaning money is often the surest way to end a friendship but in this case it helped form one.

Dave is an honest and honorable man who is in danger of losing faith. He is skeptical of spiritual values. He is skeptical of affirmation, the power of the mind, the concept of karma and alternative paths to enlightenment. He believes in hard work and he is frustrated when it is not enough. He has recovered from hard times and now seems content. His wife Lisa is in many ways a reflection of himself. Very intelligent, highly competitive, talented and hard working, she has an edge of cynicism. It is amusing to see them both on the golf course. They both demand so much more of themselves than they expect in others. It is little wonder Dave has all but given up the game. He can no longer rise to the level of play that once allowed him to break the course record at Dryden Park. He does not seem to enjoy the walk. The demands they place on each other almost cost them their marriage but all is well now and I wonder if they have discovered something. Maybe they are beginning to enjoy the walk.

The next generation of the family now numbers six with one more on the way. My brother Bob’s wife Robin has given birth to their second child and John’s wife Margie is pregnant with their third. It is a huge surprise since she had her tubes tied. It is ironic that my sister Sue, the most spiritual of the family, wants desperately to have a child but it hasn’t happened. In another world maybe she could have raised the unwanted child of a brother.

Coming from a large family, there was a time when my parents began to wonder if the future of the family was secure. The fear of a lost progeny is gone. The children have become the dominant force in the family. They are the markers of time, the center of all gatherings, and the primary topic of discussion.

This gathering however is for the childless, a wondering son back home from Tennessee. We talk about Nashville, my marriage, John Prine, the music business, the rich forestland of the Tennessee countryside, ticks and chiggers, and the sweltering heat. I realize that I am the only member of the family who has strayed from the nest. Drawn by an old but not forgotten love, I followed her wandering nature to another world. I alone have broken the chain.

I realize as well that the time for wandering and adventure has pretty much passed my family by. Only the youngest, Tom and Robin, are without their own families to bind them to this place. I sense they are not likely to leave. They are attached to the central valley and the surrounding area. They each have a spirit of rebellion that expresses itself in different ways: driving too fast, drunken parties, reckless relationships. They have both had schooling in Texas and Oklahoma before returning home. They have shown no inclination to wander again.

There is comfort here and a sense of security that is at once reassuring and disturbing. It was that disturbing feeling of getting stuck, of not advancing, of being left behind that I answered with my move to Tennessee. I fear the age of the journey is coming to an end not only for myself but also for the nation. There are so few hitchhikers on the road these days and most of them are hitchers of necessity rather than choice. This generation of youth does not seem interested in the journey as a path to spiritual growth. Maybe the futility of my generation has made its mark. Maybe they have learned what Henry Miller learned late in life at Big Sur: Sit still and watch the world go by while all the things you need come to you.

Brother Tom has inquired about my philosophy, my way of looking at life as a journey of the soul and the road to wisdom. I told him about the books that inspired me: Castaneda, Hesse, Kerouac, Miller. He gave them a look but they didn’t take hold. They did not hold the magic for him that they did for me. To each his own. In the end we must all find our own paths. It is one of the tenets of my own journey: There is no one way.

Our days in Motown are numbered now. There is a vague and growing sense of urgency that I do not define. Time is growing short. We spend what remains of the night and most of the next day with Robert and Sue. We tell stories, kick the old dogs, exchange opinions and enjoy music. Robert is in rare form on the trumpet and on the microphone. Brother Randy who has formed a bond with Robert joins us. They are like children, singing and recording songs a little off key. I am convinced that Randy has a chance to rebuild his life. I wonder if his transformation has something to do with Robert’s way of diving into the center of one’s being.

I’m a little surprised he does not probe deeply into my life on the present journey. Maybe there is no need. Maybe he understands what I am beginning to realize. I am no longer a part of his world. I may never return home. My visits may grow further and further apart until I am only a stranger he once knew.

I wonder if Randy is in fact the true adventurer of the family. He has been to the belly of the beast and wrestled with the dragon of his inmost self. It is something I have not yet experienced. I force myself to see everything with new eyes. There is no one way.

Wiz and I have a date with the theater. We excuse ourselves and drive down to Turlock for Uncle Vanya. It is the finest production of Chekhov I have ever seen. Patty plays the object of desire and the personification of life in a decaying world. It is a familiar role and one that she graces with the ease of a professional. Jere is the enlightened doctor who perceives the decay in the deforestation of the land. He senses life in the wife of another man and is too wise to be denied by the moral code of a dying society. Gary is the personification of death and the social machine that enforces it. His is the most tragic of tales: Growing old without comfort. Another old friend whose life journey seems parallel to my own plays the title role. He has married, moved to Seattle and is now preparing for a move to Dublin, Ireland. His talent has blossomed under the tutelage these gifted forces of the creative mind. His part is that of a humble man, a man who lives by the rules, who works diligently and suffers without complaint only to find that his interests are discarded in the decaying rubble. He too is in love with live and his tragedy is that he has known so little of it.

It is a surprisingly moving play and one that speaks to our world in more ways than the obvious. It raises the question: As we destroy our environment, are we not also destroying our souls? Have we lost our zeal for life? Are we destined to meet our ends with the realization that our lives have been without meaning? Life is the rallying cry. Live and have no regrets. That is the central purpose of our journey. Enlightenment must follow life. It cannot escape or transcend life itself. Without life made rich and full by experience there can be no wisdom.

We gather at Jere and Patty’s after the play as I have so many times before. Wiz finds harmony with Jere’s brother John, a superb guitarist. As the conversation gradually shifts from the play to more personal matters, my attention is increasingly drawn to Gary. He is now fifty, an age that I have come to believe is the age of the shaman of my generation. He was twenty-five in the summer of love. He has seen the world change through the eyes of a man. His childhood was not happy. He shares with us a story of abuse at the hands of a nun in parochial school. Wiz had a similar experience.

I wonder if these women, empowered with the cloth of faith and the role of a teacher, realize the mark of cynicism they left in the world. It is no less than a miracle that those abused children grew up to be the men that stand before me now. Maybe it served as their initiations. Maybe it helped them to break free of the ties that bound them. Their wounds healed as they made their way through life’s journey.

Gary preceded me on the path of wisdom that is represented in the words of Joseph Campbell. He is the sage that enabled both of us to reclaim our faith. When once I believe in none, I now believe in all religions. I believe they are essentially the same. I believe they are one. I believe in a universal mythology that, far from reducing their value, empowers them to speak to all. Gary understands this far better than I. He has achieved a level of wisdom if not enlightenment that I am still pursuing. I give him a copy of my latest works in the hope that he will understand my intentions and shed some needed light. We wish him well as we depart in the late hours of the night.

We have two more rounds of golf before we leave this valley. We are scheduled to play a course in Manteca with Jere and Patty and Creekside in Modesto with Robert and Sue.

Manteca is a beautiful valley municipal course. Tight well-kept fairways, varied terrain, water hazards and a major wind factor on the back nine. Jere and Patty opt for a cart. Wiz and I are walking. We share some of our ideas concerning Zen golf, a topic that is not new to them. Patty is open and Jere is less skeptical than he was. He proclaims: It’s not the shots; it’s the ride. Wiz turns in some amazing shots and cards his second birdie, adding to the mystical appeal of Zen.

We take the turn to the backside in good shape but the long haul and the adversity of the wind begins to take its toll. On the sixteenth hole the foursome behind us fires a pair of drives beyond us as we look for my ball in the woods. While we’re on the green a third shot skips hotly past us to the right. I linger on the next tee to issue a stern but vague warning. The force of my voice surprises my playing partners. Wiz wonders if I have a little of the redneck buried within. To me it is no more than the game demands: Respect your fellow players. In the future they will be a little more cognizant of those around them and in front of them.

Unfortunately, I experience a little karmic kickback, doubling the next hole. We all struggle to the finish. I reflect that maybe my partners were right. I have an acute sense of right versus wrong that can trigger an angry response. It strikes a contrast to my normal mellow demeanor and often shocks those I know. It is something I must work on: controlling my emotions. It is a reminder as well that we are never alone in the game of golf. Our fellow players are as much a part of our game as the trees and the wind. The struggle is not so great as our scores are respectable. We have spent the afternoon in the company of friends and we are grateful.

Next stop: Creekside. It was falsely billed as Modesto’s first championship course. It is in fact far too short for that status and the trees are a good ten years from becoming the barriers they should be. It is nevertheless a good layout. Like Jere and Patty, Robert and Sue opt for a cart while we prefer the walk. We are acclimated to the humidity of Nashville so the dry heat of California goes relatively easy on us.

It is a good day for golf and I am on my game. I have come to believe that good golf, like bad, is contagious. We all play the front nine well once we hit our strides. An errant shot into the water on the difficult ninth hole costs me a sub-forty round. We grab a bite to eat at the clubhouse and start the back nine in good spirits. Like Manteca, the wind picks up as the day goes on and the backside is wide open.

We allow a series of twosomes in carts to play through. They are excellent golfers but the speed of their play is excessive. I speculate that they are gamblers who have chosen golf as the field on which their stakes are laid. I am aware that Robert is a gambling man. I once witnessed his magic in high stakes action on the blackjack tables in Lake Tahoe. There is an unmistakable aura about him when he’s on a roll. He speaks of it in spiritual terms. It feeds on the positive energy of those around him. It feeds on itself. It is its own entity and it is something to behold. It is the Zen of gambling. There is no other way to describe it. Though I am not a gambler, I understand it through the venue of golf. I know the feeling. The energy of the life force is focused and channeled into one cause. The effect is inevitable.

I cannot pass judgment on the chosen venue. Whether it is golf or bowling, darts or basketball, pool, gambling or a path of artistic endeavor, it is all one. It gathers at the center of one’s being and unites the one with all. It is the essence of faith and the mystical wonder of the human experience.

I have been driving the ball extremely well. On the thirteenth hole, a long par five with a tail wind, I let loose a monster drive. The rockets down the left side of the fairway like a rifle shot. It will measure about three hundred and ten yards. As the others take their turns at the tee an elderly man playing solo approaches. He is the image of the immortal Sam Snead with his easy manner and a small straw hat. We invite him to play through and he graciously accepts. He steps to the tee and hammers a drive with a smooth, even-tempered swing. Swing easy, hit hard. He tips his hat and delays his departure long enough to tell Wiz that the three-wood he has picked up at a yard sale is a classic persimmons wood. It is highly valued.

As we trail behind him, I notice that he walks as if by instinct to the longest ball. It is not his. He pauses and scans our foursome from a distance until his eyes meet mine. This master of the game is impressed. I give him a satisfied nod which he returns as he walks back to his own ball. He places it on the front of the green, misses the putt and settles for a tap-in birdie. By the time we reach the next tee he is long gone.

It is a perfect moment in golf and one that leaves me with a feeling of exhilaration. I play inspired golf, birdie the fifteenth and finish the back nine at level par. On the sixteenth sister Sue finds her iron game and rips a series of fine shots. She is elated and her joy is gratifying. Robert reaches the greenside bunker in two but takes three to get out. His red haired temper flares and he gives his wedge a heave. It is a modified thrust which allows him to claim later that he was merely tossing it aside to retrieve his putter. The contrast in moods between Robert and Sue strikes me as hilarious and I have to fight my instinct to laugh.

To Robert’s credit he recovers his demeanor on the next hole and finishes a fine round. We have all played well. It is a fitting goodbye to golf in the valley of my upbringing. Tomorrow we are back on the road. Our first destiny is Wawona Golf Course in Yosemite National Park. It has been a wondrous visit and all that I could have asked for. Like a good round of golf, it will leave me with a yen to return.