Much has been said about the great flood of the northern Mississippi River on this journey. The story has been front-page news for weeks now. The latest reports question whether the floodwall protecting St. Louis will hold. The great rivers of the North American continent are higher now than they have ever been since records have been kept. Most of Illinois, Indiana and much of Missouri have been declared disaster areas. The bulging Mississippi and Missouri Rivers are cutting new channels and rerouting. The land will never be the same. New streams, creeks and rivers, new ponds, lakes and natural gardens are now forming to change the maps and rearrange the inhabitants.
It is a tumultuous event in the continuing evolution of mother earth but around here they don’t talk about it much. What is there to say? It’s a big river and a hell of a flood. Not much you can do about it except pick up and move when your time comes. These are not the kind of people to panic. Other than a catastrophic collapse of the floodwall, the biggest concern now seems to be the supply of drinking water. It’s ironic. With all this water fresh from the heavens, they’ve had to cut off the public water supply in many communities. I guess you can’t drink that river water. It’s contaminated. I’m sure somebody can set me straight on this. It just seems a mighty strange world when you can’t drink untreated water.
I noticed it several years back in the high Sierras of California: Don’t drink the water. It will kill you. It had something to do with deadly microbes. I don’t know what the story is here.
Driving through St. Louis on a bright summer day you would never imagine it was an official disaster area. We have seen little evidence of the great flood from the vantage point of the interstate, only the immense rolling rivers themselves. Just north of St. Louis is where the Missouri joins the Mississippi from the west and the Illinois from the northeast, making it a critical flood area. To the south the great Ohio and Tennessee Rivers join forces at Paducah, Kentucky, and feed into the Mississippi at Cairo, Illinois. The flooding is confined to the north. By the time you get to Tennessee the worry is about a drought. Nature is full of irony.
The Missouri crosses under the interstate at St. Charles on the outskirts of St. Louis. These are dirt-water rivers the color of creamed coffee and thick in appearance. Of the two, the Missouri is the more impressive. Its breadth is mammoth and the force it carries can be felt like brain fever even from the highway above.
There are a few scattering raindrops but little more to hint at the looming terror at the floodgate. There is a clarity of vision rarely seen in the heart of an industrial land, a brightness of color, sharp crisp angles of the St. Louis skyline and the great arch, which conjures images of MacDonald’s despite its striking beauty.
St. Louis strikes me as the first eastern city on the interstate, like Memphis to the south. The line is drawn at the Mississippi. It presents a stunning contrast to Kansas City, which seems to have neither eastern nor western roots, and an even greater contrast to Columbia. Its glory and its pain are wide open to the view of all who pass through its gates. Its stylish towers and skyscrapers, its Victorian houses and classically drawn neighborhoods seem to be at war with its brick housing projects, crumbling buildings and concentrated poverty.
Here too are the billboard advertisements of assorted Gentleman’s Clubs and Dancing Girls by the score. You can’t mistake a sign like that. I make the inevitable suggestion that we give it a look. It’s our last day on the road, the last major city we will encounter and the last chance at false romance.
Before this journey began I had written a series of jazz poems under the title Random Erotica. It might have titled the Wet Dream Series. Those who are associated with erotic literature yield to an unspoken law that they should never cross the line that divides the sensual from the sexual. I have no such restriction. With the Wiz playing background, we recorded several of them in the schoolhouse before we left. It is a part of our repertoire.
We had intended to catch a ballgame in St. Louis but the killer of Tioga Pass threw us well off schedule. Now there’s only one thing left to do.
We pick out a billboard advertising a place called Cheeks that seems to be on our path. The name is a little obvious but what can you expect? This is not art. We pull off the highway at the advertised exit and find ourselves in the middle of slum city. Welcome to East St. Louis. There are no white folks here except in the joint where we’re headed. We drive about ten blocks when the red neon sign of danger lights up the front of my consciousness. I turn to Wiz to gaze his thoughts. He is not alarmed as I am: What could be more inviting to the criminal element than a couple of white boys in a bright orange Mustang with California plates? How bad do we want it?
I make the suggestion: Let’s get out of here. Wiz is not ready to turn back: Let’s give it a few more blocks. I figure he wants it a little more than I do. A few blocks up we pull into the parking lot of Cheeks. It is a flat top painted brick building that looks like it could have been a garage in a former life.
Wiz ran out of cash somewhere between Boulder and Kansas City. Before we embark I hand him a twenty and suggest that we not sit in the front. I am not a veteran of these joints but I know there’s a world of difference between a titty bar where well-rounded women with too much makeup shake their breasts, slap their asses and take your contributions with their cheeks, and a true strip joint where the women move with the grace and sensuality of cats or swans and stimulate erotic dreams with a blueprint of the universal male psyche. I am an admirer of a good erotic dancer and an artful tease. This place is somewhere between.
It is surprisingly tasteful with red carpeting, velvet drapes, a circular bar, padded barstools and several small stages with lighting in red, blue and amber. We sit at the bar, order the beer on tap and turn our attentions to stage one. The dancer is tall, thin, blonde and beautiful, a worthy specimen of the profession. If she’s smart and looking to get ahead, a few years on these stages and she’ll have enough money to buy a house or go to college or pursue the kind of life she chooses.
She dances with a natural rhythmic talent but little imagination and less choreography. Choreography is not in her job description. The first song closes and Wiz springs from the bar to approach the dancer. I have no idea what he’s up to and less sure that I like it. He returns with a shrug and explains that he was trying to buy me a table dance. Unfortunately, it costs twenty bucks and after the beer he only has ten. I tell him it wasn’t meant to be.
The next song starts up and the blonde dances for me. She’s sure she can get the extra five and she wants me to know she’ll give me my money’s worth. I resist the temptation but acknowledge her raw talent. There is a thin line between enjoying the erotic nature of human kind and infidelity. It is a line I’ve chosen not to cross.
A man with a dark complexion steps up to the blonde, whispers in her ear, hands her a bill and the dancer springs to action. Wiz got it wrong. It turns out the specialty of the house is the lap dance. She straddles him as he sits on an armless chair and grinds with a piston action that would turn back the floods. She presses her well-contoured breasts to his face and squeezes. She spins on a dime and continues her riveting motion from the backside view. All the while she maintains eye contact with the Wiz and I. We’re marked at the next recipients of her charm.
Suddenly she rises and stands like a stature before her customer. Without pause he produces another bill and the show goes on. It reminds me of a mechanical horse outside a supermarket. It is as close to sex as it gets without penetration. It is also one solution to the AIDS epidemic and it is no coincidence that these places have thrived in the wake of that deadly disease.
I say to myself: Yes, this will do. The words begin to mold themselves into poetic form. It will be my first wet dream poem in a thousand miles. I signal the Wiz, leave a five on the stage, and we walk out to the startling daylight of East St. Louis. The plan was: One beer and we’re out of here. I am a little surprised we lived up to it.
We head out to the highway, Wiz at the wheel, the image of the blonde still fresh in our minds, words circling in my brain, finding their niche like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. As we near the southern turnoff I whip out my notebook and write:
She was a streamline model nobody’s whore
Breasts the size of golden delicious apples
She pressed her cheeks against the mirror image
Twisted and squeezed in a manner that suggests one thing
Twenty bucks she said mouthing the words
Twenty bucks to feel the force of her machine
Shake it baby grind it to the rod and core
Writhe and squirm and squeeze
Drive it like a locomotive full steam
Like an atomic powered submarine
Quake it shake it take it down in liquid lust
Guide the stream of wanton dreams
Buck and quiver like a wild stallion
Ride it high and low
Take me to the poorhouse
Drop me off the edge of sanity
Lay me down in tupelo honey
Floating in the waves of fantasy
You’ve got to feed the monkey she says
Beyond the sweet blue flame of far far away
The monkey has been fed
Ten bucks for a beer and a poem. Not bad. She delivered on her unspoken promise. She gave us our money’s worth.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
GRAND CANYON: THE ROAD TO NASHVILLE
It has been a long road and an eventful journey. Only now do our thoughts return to Nashville. As we venture south on highway 127 everything around us begins to look like Tennessee. For the first time since Utah or Nevada we abandon the mass transit multi-lane interstate and settle into the rural American countryside. The further south we travel, the denser the forest becomes. The night is serenaded by multitudes of clicking, screeching, croaking insects and tree frogs that are never seen but always heard. Through the rolling hills of southern Illinois, the bluegrass pastures of western Kentucky, the farm, dairy and grassland communities with their small clusters of modern life, all-night convenience stores, fast food restaurants and brightly lit gas stations. They seem as out of place in this wide-open country as a California Mustang in East St. Louis.
This is the land of the Shawnee, Choctaw and Cherokee. It is the land of the great rivers where thousands of Indian nations, faced with the onslaught of a European invasion, condensed social evolution into a microcosm. The distinctive Indian burial grounds still mark the landscape. It is the land of the pioneers as well, the Daniel Boones and Davy Crockets who braved the dangers of the forest and moved on at the first sight of smoke on a distant hill. It is the land where the line was drawn in civil war, a land rich in the ironies of a nation.
As we drive by the large simple houses with their huge and manicured yards and open spaces between them, our minds drift to quiet places and simple times, settling at last on the place we now call home. This land holds added meaning to Wiz. He grew up in these parts. His grandparents still live here in a little town called Royalton. His old haunts are in Pinckneyville down the road. The place is full of ancient memories for Wiz and he is surprisingly sentimental. This is his heritage: Small town America.
Our first stop is Nashville, Illinois with a population of 3,202. We’ve started talking about golf in Nashville and decide to take advantage of this early opportunity. There are not many hours of daylight left as we drive down Main Street and turn at a small sign directing us to a golf course. For a small town there is a large park with lighted baseball fields, picnic tables, driving range and golf course – all in one cozy package.
As we drive down the one-lane road to the clubhouse, kids are playing baseball off the road. Nothing brings out the kid in me more than a ball game. I wouldn’t mind a few innings but Wiz is a bit anxious. We locate the clubhouse and he lingers while I check out the scene. Strangely, the clubhouse door is locked. Inside a circle of gray haired folks, neatly dressed, are engaged in an intense discussion as they sit around a large wooden table behind a Plexiglas wall. I think about knocking for an explanation but their intensity pushes me back.
I walk back to the car and tell Wiz what I’ve seen. He goes for his own look and comes back with the same impression: Looks like there’s no golfing today.
We head back the way we came and drive to Pinckneyville, arriving as the sun sets slowly on a distant horizon. It’s a charming little town with forties architecture and a circular drive at its core. Wiz takes it all in with a quiet breath of nostalgia.
You can never go back, my friend.
I don’t know whether it’s the rural scenery, the mood of sentimentality or the remembrance of home but we pass on an opportunity to fill up with gas though we are getting low. After a spell I begin to calculate mileage in my mind and take a look at the road map. Sure enough it looks like an adventure. The oversight costs us a detour to Royalton when the little town of Vergennes is closed for the night.
In the not too distant past, I remember discovering what was for me the key to driving mountain roads. They had terrorized me and left me feeling far more exhausted than I should have been. The key was relaxation in the gut, the solar plexus, freeing the third chakra of all tension. Suddenly the car seemed to bond with he curve of the road and found its proper pace. When the inevitable maniac came sniffing at my tailpipe, I calmly pulled over at the next opportunity and allowed him to pass. No panic, no tension.
I summon the technique now and the effect is immediate. There is an undeniable joy in risk taking, an attraction to the excitement and mystery of danger whether it is real or imagined. I recall running curfew as a teenager, being chased by cops through back yards and alleys not know if a growling dog would greet you over the next fence or afterwards if your friends managed to escape. It was a childish pleasure and one of the great adventures of youth.
We struggle into Carbondale, a veritable metropolis in these parts, and fill up with gas at an Exxon station. Sally takes in 16.3 gallons, close enough to justify the worry. We grab coffee and a burger at a local fast food, marvel at how closely this town is like every other town across the country, and toy with the idea of hitting a local bar before we head out into the night.
We cross over the Ohio, Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers and enter western Kentucky just north of the Land Between the Lakes. We drive in virtual silence, thoughts to ourselves, until a roadside attraction pulls us off the road one more time. Somewhere around Saratoga or Lamasco or Wattonia there is a late night driving range just off Highway 24 to Nashville.
There on the Kentucky roadside, more than two hundred holes behind us, in the land of a billion flying, crawling, buzzing and biting insects, I find the missing link that molds my golf swing into one flowing, magical motion. A widened stance strengthens my balance and playing the ball back toward center sends my long irons screaming into the darkness straight as an arrow. Here on the bug infested Kentucky roadside I am playing the best golf of my life.
I know that the lessons of today might not be the lessons of tomorrow. The swing, like the golfer, is a dynamic ever-changing phenomenon. But for the moment and the moment is all we really have, the game and I are in perfect flowing harmony. If all the lessons of golf could be reduced to just one, maybe it is this: Savor the moment. Nothing in golf or life lasts forever. When it’s right, it’s right: embrace it, cherish it, bask in it, and create a picture in your mind to remember it by.
It is unfortunate that two people so rarely experience the moment we call Zen at the same time. Wiz struggles at the all-night range and races through his bucket of balls as if he were finishing up a kitchen cabinet. By the time I’m down to twenty, he’s twiddling his thumbs. The bugs are bugging him. At my urging he helps me finish off my shots and we head down the last stretch of road before Nashville, Tennessee.
The silence descends on us as we drive and the Welcome to Tennessee sign appears in the distance. I glance at my watch and inform Wiz that I just turned forty years old. We had almost forgotten. He wishes me a heartfelt happy birthday and our thoughts return to our destination. Across the border, exit one takes on a whole new meaning.
So they say: Life begins at forty.
Somewhere overhead, hidden in darkness, a crow heralds our arrival with a woeful caw. Welcome to Nashville.
This is the land of the Shawnee, Choctaw and Cherokee. It is the land of the great rivers where thousands of Indian nations, faced with the onslaught of a European invasion, condensed social evolution into a microcosm. The distinctive Indian burial grounds still mark the landscape. It is the land of the pioneers as well, the Daniel Boones and Davy Crockets who braved the dangers of the forest and moved on at the first sight of smoke on a distant hill. It is the land where the line was drawn in civil war, a land rich in the ironies of a nation.
As we drive by the large simple houses with their huge and manicured yards and open spaces between them, our minds drift to quiet places and simple times, settling at last on the place we now call home. This land holds added meaning to Wiz. He grew up in these parts. His grandparents still live here in a little town called Royalton. His old haunts are in Pinckneyville down the road. The place is full of ancient memories for Wiz and he is surprisingly sentimental. This is his heritage: Small town America.
Our first stop is Nashville, Illinois with a population of 3,202. We’ve started talking about golf in Nashville and decide to take advantage of this early opportunity. There are not many hours of daylight left as we drive down Main Street and turn at a small sign directing us to a golf course. For a small town there is a large park with lighted baseball fields, picnic tables, driving range and golf course – all in one cozy package.
As we drive down the one-lane road to the clubhouse, kids are playing baseball off the road. Nothing brings out the kid in me more than a ball game. I wouldn’t mind a few innings but Wiz is a bit anxious. We locate the clubhouse and he lingers while I check out the scene. Strangely, the clubhouse door is locked. Inside a circle of gray haired folks, neatly dressed, are engaged in an intense discussion as they sit around a large wooden table behind a Plexiglas wall. I think about knocking for an explanation but their intensity pushes me back.
I walk back to the car and tell Wiz what I’ve seen. He goes for his own look and comes back with the same impression: Looks like there’s no golfing today.
We head back the way we came and drive to Pinckneyville, arriving as the sun sets slowly on a distant horizon. It’s a charming little town with forties architecture and a circular drive at its core. Wiz takes it all in with a quiet breath of nostalgia.
You can never go back, my friend.
I don’t know whether it’s the rural scenery, the mood of sentimentality or the remembrance of home but we pass on an opportunity to fill up with gas though we are getting low. After a spell I begin to calculate mileage in my mind and take a look at the road map. Sure enough it looks like an adventure. The oversight costs us a detour to Royalton when the little town of Vergennes is closed for the night.
In the not too distant past, I remember discovering what was for me the key to driving mountain roads. They had terrorized me and left me feeling far more exhausted than I should have been. The key was relaxation in the gut, the solar plexus, freeing the third chakra of all tension. Suddenly the car seemed to bond with he curve of the road and found its proper pace. When the inevitable maniac came sniffing at my tailpipe, I calmly pulled over at the next opportunity and allowed him to pass. No panic, no tension.
I summon the technique now and the effect is immediate. There is an undeniable joy in risk taking, an attraction to the excitement and mystery of danger whether it is real or imagined. I recall running curfew as a teenager, being chased by cops through back yards and alleys not know if a growling dog would greet you over the next fence or afterwards if your friends managed to escape. It was a childish pleasure and one of the great adventures of youth.
We struggle into Carbondale, a veritable metropolis in these parts, and fill up with gas at an Exxon station. Sally takes in 16.3 gallons, close enough to justify the worry. We grab coffee and a burger at a local fast food, marvel at how closely this town is like every other town across the country, and toy with the idea of hitting a local bar before we head out into the night.
We cross over the Ohio, Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers and enter western Kentucky just north of the Land Between the Lakes. We drive in virtual silence, thoughts to ourselves, until a roadside attraction pulls us off the road one more time. Somewhere around Saratoga or Lamasco or Wattonia there is a late night driving range just off Highway 24 to Nashville.
There on the Kentucky roadside, more than two hundred holes behind us, in the land of a billion flying, crawling, buzzing and biting insects, I find the missing link that molds my golf swing into one flowing, magical motion. A widened stance strengthens my balance and playing the ball back toward center sends my long irons screaming into the darkness straight as an arrow. Here on the bug infested Kentucky roadside I am playing the best golf of my life.
I know that the lessons of today might not be the lessons of tomorrow. The swing, like the golfer, is a dynamic ever-changing phenomenon. But for the moment and the moment is all we really have, the game and I are in perfect flowing harmony. If all the lessons of golf could be reduced to just one, maybe it is this: Savor the moment. Nothing in golf or life lasts forever. When it’s right, it’s right: embrace it, cherish it, bask in it, and create a picture in your mind to remember it by.
It is unfortunate that two people so rarely experience the moment we call Zen at the same time. Wiz struggles at the all-night range and races through his bucket of balls as if he were finishing up a kitchen cabinet. By the time I’m down to twenty, he’s twiddling his thumbs. The bugs are bugging him. At my urging he helps me finish off my shots and we head down the last stretch of road before Nashville, Tennessee.
The silence descends on us as we drive and the Welcome to Tennessee sign appears in the distance. I glance at my watch and inform Wiz that I just turned forty years old. We had almost forgotten. He wishes me a heartfelt happy birthday and our thoughts return to our destination. Across the border, exit one takes on a whole new meaning.
So they say: Life begins at forty.
Somewhere overhead, hidden in darkness, a crow heralds our arrival with a woeful caw. Welcome to Nashville.
GRAND CANYON: JOURNEY’S END
We hit town between two and three o’clock in the morning. For the first time in a month I am aware that it is the hour of the drunken driver. The bar scene in Nashville is lively. It doesn’t seem to matter what day it is. The movers and shakers are always out there making plans, talking shop, and dreaming up schemes until closing time.
We gas up one last time, giving Sally a good pat on the dash for a job well done. Wiz takes the wheel and drives the back roads out to his secluded little house in Williamson County, some twenty miles from the heart of Nashville. His live-in girlfriend Rhonda, a wonderful person and talented singer who has been in various states of war with Wiz since I’ve known them, is naturally asleep. As he circles the house to rouse her or find a way inside I can’t help wondering what kind of greeting he’ll receive.
They were not on the best of terms when we departed. Then again, even when they were on good terms they were often at odds. I’ve often wondered why two people who find it easy to get along with the world find it so difficult to get along with each other. Both have strong wills. Both have strong egos and independent senses of identity, destiny and everything else that goes along with being human. I hope the soothsayers are right when they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Rhonda makes a brief appearance on the porch, clothed in a robe and a fluffy pair of slippers. With a smile and a hug, she wishes me a happy birthday and welcomes us back home. She offers no hit of the whirlwind that awaits me. Wiz unpacks in a matter of minutes and we exchange our so-longs. We’ll talk tomorrow.
I don’t know what I expected. Whatever it was it wasn’t what I got. I had promised my wife that I would be back on this day. Given the volatility of our relationship over the last year, maybe I had hoped that my birthday would set the tone of our reunion. But in the early hours of a still dark morning it made little difference. The celebration ended the moment I walked in the door.
Stumbling on the porch with a handful of belongings and fumbling for my keys, I make enough sound to awaken her. I am surprised when she doesn’t come to greet me. I lower my things on the living room floor and look in on the bedroom. She raises her head and offers the sort of greeting one would expect after a night on the town: What time is it? Late. How are you? She is not fine. She’s hung over and sick. She tells me she’s built up her defenses by playing the If game. If he doesn’t call, he doesn’t care. If he doesn’t call, I’ll stop caring. If he doesn’t call, he doesn’t love me. If he doesn’t call, I’ll stop loving him.
I explain the best I can. I wanted to live the moment. I wanted my mind focused on the journey. I wanted to leave Nashville and all that goes with it, the struggles of daily life and an uncertain marriage, behind. I needed to breathe the air of open country. I needed to live free. I wanted to find the center of my being independent of all bonds and responsibilities. I wanted to be sure that the life I choose is the life that chooses me.
I tell her I’m sorry and I mean it. I had called her once on the westward journey but she wasn’t home or she wasn’t answering. I’d left a message of love. When I’d intended to call again, she beat me to the punch. I should have called. I know it. Blame me or forgive me. It is the past and nothing I can do or say will change what has been done.
I wonder if this is karmic payback for the dreams of Boulder and the Kansas highway. I wonder if the struggles of a Kansas golf course were meant to prepare me for this. I try to summon the lessons of the journey to show me the way forward but I feel anger and disappointment growing within. When I last talked to her she was in good spirits. All was well. I have not been here. Am I the cause of her despair or is there something else? My anger blinds me to the lesson that would otherwise calm and guide me: Welcome adversity.
I gently remind her it is my birthday and an uneasy truce is declared in silence. The gloom is so thick it would make the muddy waters of the Mississippi seem sparkling clear. The journey is over. The nightmare has begun.
It is a recurring nightmare and one that has shadowed us for twenty years. Born of jealousy and heartbreak, it erupts without warning. It follows us like the shadow of death, discoloring all it touches, leaving us devoid of hope and wandering aimlessly in the valley of doom. Love is not enough to fight it. Respect and admiration are not enough. It feeds on itself until it devours our bonded souls. Even the angels appear to have abandoned us.
It is an uneasy sleep yet one that I hold onto until I can no longer. It is well into the day when I arise. I warily move into my wife’s presence to learn what the restless night has wrought. To my relief she has tempered her anger, softened her hard edges and found enough warmth and affection to withhold accusations and treat me with civility. All seems well yet beneath the surface, in a place I dare not look, lingers a foreboding wind. The conflict is unresolved and the battle still looms.
What remains of the day passes uneventfully. There is small talk and reserved conversation. I sketch the journey and relate the happenings in California. I did not visit her mother or family. Time was short and I chose to honor those I am close to rather than any sense of obligation. She relates what news there is in Nashville. While Wiz and I have squeezed a lifetime of experience into the last four weeks, Nashville has been frozen in time. Nothing is new.
We make plans for a birthday dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant. It is grounds for hope. A little romance may be all that is needed to rekindle the flames. We are seated in the patio area and my wife informs the waitress that it’s my birthday. Sensing my discomfort, the waitress promises not to sing and I am relieved. The lighting is too bright and there are other parties within our view, dampening the spirit of romance. We order and continue a pattern of small talk, this time revolving around her conversations with the girls. Somehow she has decided that this is the time to bring it up: my collection of Marilyn Monroe memorabilia has to go. They all agree.
It’s strange. I’m really not sure how it started. Long before I wrote a play called Heroes as a tribute to the forgotten heroes within us all and a lament of the hero’s fall, I had begun a collection of memorabilia. It started with Humphrey Bogart and then spread to include The Beatles, Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Einstein, the Kennedy’s, James Dean, Billie Holliday, Samuel Beckett, DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe. The Marilyn thing got out of hand. Whenever a gift was called for, Marilyn was an easy solution. I had to put a stop to it when I realized not only that the cost was substantial but that the real pleasure of collecting was in discovery, not possession. It was not as if I wanted everything with Marilyn’s image imprinted on it. There was an art to it. Some works captured her essence, her mystique, while others did not.
I confess that I along with a generation of romantics was a little in love with the mystery of Marilyn and Norma Jean. I found in her the same qualities I found in my wife. She embodies a strange mix of innocence and worldliness, vulnerability and strength. The absence of a father figure in Norma Jean’s life and the delicate balance she maintained with her mother were both features that ran parallel with my wife. Her transformation from an orphaned child to the most appealing woman of her generation and beyond was and is one of the most intriguing stories of our times. I honored her remembrance in the same way I honored Bogie and Bacall and all the others in my pantheon of heroes.
In her jealously inspired gloom, my wife had decided that Marilyn was at the heart of our problem. None of her friends approved. None of them would put up with it. In my play I had argued that when a man abandons his heroes, he gives up a part of himself. The absence of heroes was symptomatic of a social pathology that made life less meaningful.
I am not willing to part with Marilyn on my fortieth birthday but she is insistent. She is determined to have it out. I ask her to stop but she persists. I tell her in anger that my life has been reduced to the confines of one room and now she wants to take that away.
She walks out of the restaurant. Happy birthday.
I pay the bill and walk out into the Nashville night. My wife is nowhere to be found. I figure she’s in one of the bars within walking distance, drowning her sorrow or feeding her rage. I decide she can find her own way home. As Sally guides me back to the house where I reside my mind is already sifting through my options: I could return to California. I could move somewhere new. I could back to Boulder. I could spend another year in Nashville under a separate roof.
Within minutes of reaching home and settling into misery, glancing with new eyes at the prints and photographs of Marilyn on my walls, the phone rings. My wife has no money and needs a ride home. I am not so heartless as to leave her stranded in the Nashville night. I hop in Sally and find my way back to the scene of the crime. I find her in the parking lot and she picks up where she left off. Now she knows it’s true. She’d only wondered before. I am in love with Marilyn.
The irony hits me like a sledgehammer. In the relationships I’d been through since my wife and I first parted, I had often confronted a similar accusation but it was not Marilyn’s name they spoke of; it was hers.
Half way home and I’ve had enough. I can take no more of this lunacy. I pull over and ask her to get out of my car. She relents just enough to get a ride home. She makes a vow of silence and keeps it. We arrive and I close the door of my room behind me. It is over. There is no more forgiveness. There is only rage and jealousy and remorse.
We gas up one last time, giving Sally a good pat on the dash for a job well done. Wiz takes the wheel and drives the back roads out to his secluded little house in Williamson County, some twenty miles from the heart of Nashville. His live-in girlfriend Rhonda, a wonderful person and talented singer who has been in various states of war with Wiz since I’ve known them, is naturally asleep. As he circles the house to rouse her or find a way inside I can’t help wondering what kind of greeting he’ll receive.
They were not on the best of terms when we departed. Then again, even when they were on good terms they were often at odds. I’ve often wondered why two people who find it easy to get along with the world find it so difficult to get along with each other. Both have strong wills. Both have strong egos and independent senses of identity, destiny and everything else that goes along with being human. I hope the soothsayers are right when they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Rhonda makes a brief appearance on the porch, clothed in a robe and a fluffy pair of slippers. With a smile and a hug, she wishes me a happy birthday and welcomes us back home. She offers no hit of the whirlwind that awaits me. Wiz unpacks in a matter of minutes and we exchange our so-longs. We’ll talk tomorrow.
I don’t know what I expected. Whatever it was it wasn’t what I got. I had promised my wife that I would be back on this day. Given the volatility of our relationship over the last year, maybe I had hoped that my birthday would set the tone of our reunion. But in the early hours of a still dark morning it made little difference. The celebration ended the moment I walked in the door.
Stumbling on the porch with a handful of belongings and fumbling for my keys, I make enough sound to awaken her. I am surprised when she doesn’t come to greet me. I lower my things on the living room floor and look in on the bedroom. She raises her head and offers the sort of greeting one would expect after a night on the town: What time is it? Late. How are you? She is not fine. She’s hung over and sick. She tells me she’s built up her defenses by playing the If game. If he doesn’t call, he doesn’t care. If he doesn’t call, I’ll stop caring. If he doesn’t call, he doesn’t love me. If he doesn’t call, I’ll stop loving him.
I explain the best I can. I wanted to live the moment. I wanted my mind focused on the journey. I wanted to leave Nashville and all that goes with it, the struggles of daily life and an uncertain marriage, behind. I needed to breathe the air of open country. I needed to live free. I wanted to find the center of my being independent of all bonds and responsibilities. I wanted to be sure that the life I choose is the life that chooses me.
I tell her I’m sorry and I mean it. I had called her once on the westward journey but she wasn’t home or she wasn’t answering. I’d left a message of love. When I’d intended to call again, she beat me to the punch. I should have called. I know it. Blame me or forgive me. It is the past and nothing I can do or say will change what has been done.
I wonder if this is karmic payback for the dreams of Boulder and the Kansas highway. I wonder if the struggles of a Kansas golf course were meant to prepare me for this. I try to summon the lessons of the journey to show me the way forward but I feel anger and disappointment growing within. When I last talked to her she was in good spirits. All was well. I have not been here. Am I the cause of her despair or is there something else? My anger blinds me to the lesson that would otherwise calm and guide me: Welcome adversity.
I gently remind her it is my birthday and an uneasy truce is declared in silence. The gloom is so thick it would make the muddy waters of the Mississippi seem sparkling clear. The journey is over. The nightmare has begun.
It is a recurring nightmare and one that has shadowed us for twenty years. Born of jealousy and heartbreak, it erupts without warning. It follows us like the shadow of death, discoloring all it touches, leaving us devoid of hope and wandering aimlessly in the valley of doom. Love is not enough to fight it. Respect and admiration are not enough. It feeds on itself until it devours our bonded souls. Even the angels appear to have abandoned us.
It is an uneasy sleep yet one that I hold onto until I can no longer. It is well into the day when I arise. I warily move into my wife’s presence to learn what the restless night has wrought. To my relief she has tempered her anger, softened her hard edges and found enough warmth and affection to withhold accusations and treat me with civility. All seems well yet beneath the surface, in a place I dare not look, lingers a foreboding wind. The conflict is unresolved and the battle still looms.
What remains of the day passes uneventfully. There is small talk and reserved conversation. I sketch the journey and relate the happenings in California. I did not visit her mother or family. Time was short and I chose to honor those I am close to rather than any sense of obligation. She relates what news there is in Nashville. While Wiz and I have squeezed a lifetime of experience into the last four weeks, Nashville has been frozen in time. Nothing is new.
We make plans for a birthday dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant. It is grounds for hope. A little romance may be all that is needed to rekindle the flames. We are seated in the patio area and my wife informs the waitress that it’s my birthday. Sensing my discomfort, the waitress promises not to sing and I am relieved. The lighting is too bright and there are other parties within our view, dampening the spirit of romance. We order and continue a pattern of small talk, this time revolving around her conversations with the girls. Somehow she has decided that this is the time to bring it up: my collection of Marilyn Monroe memorabilia has to go. They all agree.
It’s strange. I’m really not sure how it started. Long before I wrote a play called Heroes as a tribute to the forgotten heroes within us all and a lament of the hero’s fall, I had begun a collection of memorabilia. It started with Humphrey Bogart and then spread to include The Beatles, Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Einstein, the Kennedy’s, James Dean, Billie Holliday, Samuel Beckett, DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe. The Marilyn thing got out of hand. Whenever a gift was called for, Marilyn was an easy solution. I had to put a stop to it when I realized not only that the cost was substantial but that the real pleasure of collecting was in discovery, not possession. It was not as if I wanted everything with Marilyn’s image imprinted on it. There was an art to it. Some works captured her essence, her mystique, while others did not.
I confess that I along with a generation of romantics was a little in love with the mystery of Marilyn and Norma Jean. I found in her the same qualities I found in my wife. She embodies a strange mix of innocence and worldliness, vulnerability and strength. The absence of a father figure in Norma Jean’s life and the delicate balance she maintained with her mother were both features that ran parallel with my wife. Her transformation from an orphaned child to the most appealing woman of her generation and beyond was and is one of the most intriguing stories of our times. I honored her remembrance in the same way I honored Bogie and Bacall and all the others in my pantheon of heroes.
In her jealously inspired gloom, my wife had decided that Marilyn was at the heart of our problem. None of her friends approved. None of them would put up with it. In my play I had argued that when a man abandons his heroes, he gives up a part of himself. The absence of heroes was symptomatic of a social pathology that made life less meaningful.
I am not willing to part with Marilyn on my fortieth birthday but she is insistent. She is determined to have it out. I ask her to stop but she persists. I tell her in anger that my life has been reduced to the confines of one room and now she wants to take that away.
She walks out of the restaurant. Happy birthday.
I pay the bill and walk out into the Nashville night. My wife is nowhere to be found. I figure she’s in one of the bars within walking distance, drowning her sorrow or feeding her rage. I decide she can find her own way home. As Sally guides me back to the house where I reside my mind is already sifting through my options: I could return to California. I could move somewhere new. I could back to Boulder. I could spend another year in Nashville under a separate roof.
Within minutes of reaching home and settling into misery, glancing with new eyes at the prints and photographs of Marilyn on my walls, the phone rings. My wife has no money and needs a ride home. I am not so heartless as to leave her stranded in the Nashville night. I hop in Sally and find my way back to the scene of the crime. I find her in the parking lot and she picks up where she left off. Now she knows it’s true. She’d only wondered before. I am in love with Marilyn.
The irony hits me like a sledgehammer. In the relationships I’d been through since my wife and I first parted, I had often confronted a similar accusation but it was not Marilyn’s name they spoke of; it was hers.
Half way home and I’ve had enough. I can take no more of this lunacy. I pull over and ask her to get out of my car. She relents just enough to get a ride home. She makes a vow of silence and keeps it. We arrive and I close the door of my room behind me. It is over. There is no more forgiveness. There is only rage and jealousy and remorse.
GRAND CANYON: THE HOMELESS ANGEL
Who can say what form an angel may take? On a late July morning, in the shadow of the Parthenon in Centennial Park, an angel came in the form of a tough merchant marine down on his luck.
I got out early that morning, determined not to encounter my wife. I wanted no part of her and wished with all my heart that I’d never laid eyes on this city. It felt like death. It was strange how I came to be there in the park that morning, my newspaper spread out before me and a large cup of coffee doubling as a paperweight to keep the paper from blowing away. It was my habit in times like this to take long walks but it was not my habit to hang out anywhere unless to catch the bongo players and the whirling rainbow dancers on summer Sundays. I avoided contact with other people. If a homeless man approached me I would endure it for no more than a few minutes before moving on. I’d give him a dollar or a pocket of change and be on my way.
It was equally strange how this exceptional man happened to be there at this particular time. It was highly unusual that the cops hadn’t hustled him out of the park and shuffled him off to the other side of town. It felt like it was meant to be.
He looks me over and sizes me up, pausing here and there, trying to gauge my receptivity before traversing the last few yard to approach me.
“Mind if I sit here a spell?”
His voice has the twang of the Deep South.
“It’s a public park.”
I’m hoping he’ll make his plea, take a buck and shove off.
“So it is.”
He plants himself on the bench across from me.
“Nice day.”
Oh no, I tell myself, he wants to talk.
He asks me if I’ve seen a guy with a black cowboy hat, a golden Palomino or some such thing embroidered on it. He informs me: Not another like it in the world.
“Haven’t seen it or him but then I haven’t been here that long. You might want to ask the folks over there.”
He doesn’t take the hint. Maybe he’s already asked them. He seems to know everyone in the park and they know him. It reminds me of the subway station in New York. He explains that someone stole his hat during the night. He doesn’t know who but he refers to the thief as them.
He was drunk and he makes a point of admitting it. They stole a bowl of chili he’d planned for breakfast as well. He didn’t mind the chili. If they had asked, he’d have shared it with them. He understands what it’s like to be hungry. But that hat is another story. It’s a lowdown dirty deed to steal a man’s hat.
I agree with him and wish I could do something about it but I can’t.
He tells me how he’s come to be living among the Nashville homeless, sleeping in the park. He’s a merchant marine on extended leave. Call it wild oats but he hasn’t gone back. He wanted to plant his feet on the earth, get a feel of the country and mix with the common folk. Like Wiz he’s an Alabama man. His check from the merchant marines is overdue. He had it sent to a friend in Nashville but he’s had a world of trouble trying to make the connection.
I can’t help wondering what kind of friend would not offer a play to stay under the circumstances but I let it pass. He says he once had a check sent general delivery to New Orleans but it took two weeks. That was two weeks too long. He doesn’t trust the postal service and figures they stamp general delivery with Last Priority.
Here in Nashville he’s found himself in the middle of a raging controversy that has made the front page of the Tennessean and the local news broadcasts. It seems they want to ban the homeless from the parks altogether and clear the streets of them. It’s bad for business. He says he’s got a high-powered attorney from Alabama on the case and expects to meet him later in the day. He figures the lawyer will want him to get arrested and he’s willing to along with that. I embrace his cause as noble and just, wish him luck, and figure they’ll have their hands full if they tangle with this man.
His name is Reed and I believe everything he tells me. Everything about him tells me it’s true. Except for the wrinkled look that comes from sleeping off a drunk in the park, his appearance is neat, his clean white shirt worn open, his new blue jeans, an odd looking pair of high-top tennis shoes, his greased back hair combed and his hands and face washed. He has the look of a sailor, tough as nails, slim and tightly packed. His nose is flat like that of a boxer who’s taken a few blows. Put him in the ring and he could have been a contender.
After each story or commentary, told with rigor and the expression of a carnival barker or a big tent evangelist, he checks in with the same remark: I don’t mean to be preaching to you. I know you don’t need to hear this or maybe you do.
His dark eyes are piercing, gazing into mine and I surmise he’s decided he believes my sincerity just as I believe his.
Yes, my friend, I do need to hear this. We all need to hear it as often as it takes to shake us from this debilitating lethargy: It can’t happen to me. If we close our eyes, ship the homeless out of town under the cover of night, pass an ordinance that declares the homeless are no more, then somehow the problem will cease to exist. There ought to be jobs for all at any cost. As long as there aren’t jobs and shelters for everyone then the parks should be opened as a refuge and sanctuary. Tents and shelters should be put up with food, health care and clothing. Arts and crafts should be taught until the parks become a home and the pride of the civilized world.
He notices my impression of his high-top shoes and tells me his philosophy of helping a man in need: There’s always someone more needy than you are. He tells me about an old man who could hardly walk, his shoes two sizes too small. Reed had a new pair of Nikes, good walking shoes, and gave them to the old man who thanked him two or three times and shared his wine. Later a man who had witnessed the transaction gave Reed the shoes he’s now wearing.
He says: That’s how it should be, people helping people.
He pauses as if to catch his breath and gather his thoughts. Then he speaks the thought I believe I was meant to hear: Yeah, I’m down on my luck. I’m a drinking man. I’m a workingman but a drinking man and I like to fight and cuss. But I know one thing: God don’t give us no temptations we can’t handle. Says so right in the scriptures. God don’t give us no trials we can’t bear. As long as I keep my head up, I know I’ll be all right.
I take a few moments to let it sink in. Then I speak: Brother, you are a preaching man and the best I’ve ever been blessed to hear.
Like the old man with the Nikes I thank him two or three times and tell him I’ve got to go. There’s something I’ve got to do. I pull out my wallet and give him a twenty.
“I know it doesn’t make much difference but there it is. It belongs to the world. Spend it any way you like.”
He takes it with a smile and makes it a point that he never asked for it. He tells me one more story about going to church on Sunday, where they blocked him at the door and told him he wasn’t properly attired. He blew fire and brimstone and threw the scriptures back in their stunned and self-righteous faces. They invited him in but he changed his mind.
“I can see this ain’t a house of god after all.”
With that we parted. I walked back home holding on to the one thought that had changed my water into wine. I hoped it would have the same effect on my wife as it had on me.
I walk in to find her in the same cold and bitter mood that greeted me that morning. I want desperately to speak the words that had been delivered as if by some divine or mystical voice but I can’t speak them to a face so cold. Suddenly, as I stand motionless, I see a change come over her. Her face softens and she says: Is there something you want to say to me?
I pause and speak the words: God doesn’t give us any trials we can’t bear.
She waits, looking into my eyes, and flies into my arms.
Thank you, preacher man. Thank you.
I got out early that morning, determined not to encounter my wife. I wanted no part of her and wished with all my heart that I’d never laid eyes on this city. It felt like death. It was strange how I came to be there in the park that morning, my newspaper spread out before me and a large cup of coffee doubling as a paperweight to keep the paper from blowing away. It was my habit in times like this to take long walks but it was not my habit to hang out anywhere unless to catch the bongo players and the whirling rainbow dancers on summer Sundays. I avoided contact with other people. If a homeless man approached me I would endure it for no more than a few minutes before moving on. I’d give him a dollar or a pocket of change and be on my way.
It was equally strange how this exceptional man happened to be there at this particular time. It was highly unusual that the cops hadn’t hustled him out of the park and shuffled him off to the other side of town. It felt like it was meant to be.
He looks me over and sizes me up, pausing here and there, trying to gauge my receptivity before traversing the last few yard to approach me.
“Mind if I sit here a spell?”
His voice has the twang of the Deep South.
“It’s a public park.”
I’m hoping he’ll make his plea, take a buck and shove off.
“So it is.”
He plants himself on the bench across from me.
“Nice day.”
Oh no, I tell myself, he wants to talk.
He asks me if I’ve seen a guy with a black cowboy hat, a golden Palomino or some such thing embroidered on it. He informs me: Not another like it in the world.
“Haven’t seen it or him but then I haven’t been here that long. You might want to ask the folks over there.”
He doesn’t take the hint. Maybe he’s already asked them. He seems to know everyone in the park and they know him. It reminds me of the subway station in New York. He explains that someone stole his hat during the night. He doesn’t know who but he refers to the thief as them.
He was drunk and he makes a point of admitting it. They stole a bowl of chili he’d planned for breakfast as well. He didn’t mind the chili. If they had asked, he’d have shared it with them. He understands what it’s like to be hungry. But that hat is another story. It’s a lowdown dirty deed to steal a man’s hat.
I agree with him and wish I could do something about it but I can’t.
He tells me how he’s come to be living among the Nashville homeless, sleeping in the park. He’s a merchant marine on extended leave. Call it wild oats but he hasn’t gone back. He wanted to plant his feet on the earth, get a feel of the country and mix with the common folk. Like Wiz he’s an Alabama man. His check from the merchant marines is overdue. He had it sent to a friend in Nashville but he’s had a world of trouble trying to make the connection.
I can’t help wondering what kind of friend would not offer a play to stay under the circumstances but I let it pass. He says he once had a check sent general delivery to New Orleans but it took two weeks. That was two weeks too long. He doesn’t trust the postal service and figures they stamp general delivery with Last Priority.
Here in Nashville he’s found himself in the middle of a raging controversy that has made the front page of the Tennessean and the local news broadcasts. It seems they want to ban the homeless from the parks altogether and clear the streets of them. It’s bad for business. He says he’s got a high-powered attorney from Alabama on the case and expects to meet him later in the day. He figures the lawyer will want him to get arrested and he’s willing to along with that. I embrace his cause as noble and just, wish him luck, and figure they’ll have their hands full if they tangle with this man.
His name is Reed and I believe everything he tells me. Everything about him tells me it’s true. Except for the wrinkled look that comes from sleeping off a drunk in the park, his appearance is neat, his clean white shirt worn open, his new blue jeans, an odd looking pair of high-top tennis shoes, his greased back hair combed and his hands and face washed. He has the look of a sailor, tough as nails, slim and tightly packed. His nose is flat like that of a boxer who’s taken a few blows. Put him in the ring and he could have been a contender.
After each story or commentary, told with rigor and the expression of a carnival barker or a big tent evangelist, he checks in with the same remark: I don’t mean to be preaching to you. I know you don’t need to hear this or maybe you do.
His dark eyes are piercing, gazing into mine and I surmise he’s decided he believes my sincerity just as I believe his.
Yes, my friend, I do need to hear this. We all need to hear it as often as it takes to shake us from this debilitating lethargy: It can’t happen to me. If we close our eyes, ship the homeless out of town under the cover of night, pass an ordinance that declares the homeless are no more, then somehow the problem will cease to exist. There ought to be jobs for all at any cost. As long as there aren’t jobs and shelters for everyone then the parks should be opened as a refuge and sanctuary. Tents and shelters should be put up with food, health care and clothing. Arts and crafts should be taught until the parks become a home and the pride of the civilized world.
He notices my impression of his high-top shoes and tells me his philosophy of helping a man in need: There’s always someone more needy than you are. He tells me about an old man who could hardly walk, his shoes two sizes too small. Reed had a new pair of Nikes, good walking shoes, and gave them to the old man who thanked him two or three times and shared his wine. Later a man who had witnessed the transaction gave Reed the shoes he’s now wearing.
He says: That’s how it should be, people helping people.
He pauses as if to catch his breath and gather his thoughts. Then he speaks the thought I believe I was meant to hear: Yeah, I’m down on my luck. I’m a drinking man. I’m a workingman but a drinking man and I like to fight and cuss. But I know one thing: God don’t give us no temptations we can’t handle. Says so right in the scriptures. God don’t give us no trials we can’t bear. As long as I keep my head up, I know I’ll be all right.
I take a few moments to let it sink in. Then I speak: Brother, you are a preaching man and the best I’ve ever been blessed to hear.
Like the old man with the Nikes I thank him two or three times and tell him I’ve got to go. There’s something I’ve got to do. I pull out my wallet and give him a twenty.
“I know it doesn’t make much difference but there it is. It belongs to the world. Spend it any way you like.”
He takes it with a smile and makes it a point that he never asked for it. He tells me one more story about going to church on Sunday, where they blocked him at the door and told him he wasn’t properly attired. He blew fire and brimstone and threw the scriptures back in their stunned and self-righteous faces. They invited him in but he changed his mind.
“I can see this ain’t a house of god after all.”
With that we parted. I walked back home holding on to the one thought that had changed my water into wine. I hoped it would have the same effect on my wife as it had on me.
I walk in to find her in the same cold and bitter mood that greeted me that morning. I want desperately to speak the words that had been delivered as if by some divine or mystical voice but I can’t speak them to a face so cold. Suddenly, as I stand motionless, I see a change come over her. Her face softens and she says: Is there something you want to say to me?
I pause and speak the words: God doesn’t give us any trials we can’t bear.
She waits, looking into my eyes, and flies into my arms.
Thank you, preacher man. Thank you.
GRAND CANYON: THE JOURNEY CONTINUED
After a few days of rest we are on the road once more. We will return to a place of beauty my wife has discovered in my absence. Like Ponce de Leon she was seeking magic waters of enchantment and eternal youth. Hot Springs in North Carolina is as close as she’s likely to get. Nestled in the Smokey Mountains, amongst the white bark birch and deciduous brush, it is accessible only to those who know its secret. We are reminded by a mining operation, halting traffic in both directions, that nothing lasts forever.
We set up camp at the side of a gurgling creek by day and walk leisurely down the trail to the hot springs at sunset. There in a world of torchlight and canopies we are as removed from civilization as we would be in Outer Mongolia. A storm brewing as we are escorted to our private spa. It is a magical night. I cannot imagine a more enchanted setting for renewing the bonds of love.
From the deep bowels of the earth spring the waters of heaven. The sight of my love’s silken skin, the joy of her touch, the gleam of her eyes under blue moonlight, combine with the earth’s splendor to form a feeling of well being so profound that death itself could not disturb the peace. Even the crack of thunder from the ever closing storm and the collapse of a nearby tree limb under the force of a strong wind only heightens my sense of wonder and delight.
My wife holds on to earthly reason and rouses me to dress before the storm hits. An escort is on her way as she speaks. Electrified customers would not serve their plans as a great escape for the rich and famous. We are promised time tomorrow to complete our allotment of time. To me it is perfect. A full hour of this indescribable beauty and we would be in danger of no return. At it is we prepare ourselves for a drive to the coast with a relaxing soak in the cool air of morning.
We are scheduled to meet a friend in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where he is hoping to start a new life. From there we will follow the stars north or south to an Oceanside paradise.
Myrtle Beach is a golf town. There are stores on the main drag devoted solely to golf balls. There are at least twenty golf courses ranging from inaccessible championship quality country clubs to a high priced public course. The streets are filled with tourists and the beach itself has been cut down to thin sliver by encroaching summer homes and oceanside resorts. We find our paradise down the coast at the Barnacle Inn in Garden City. I serenade my love on a borrowed trumpet and we make sweet music before and after a moonlit walk on the sands of the Carolina coast.
There is no place I’d rather be than
On the sands of Garden City
Beneath the moonlight rays of dreams
Counting the endless waves of time
Arm in arm hand in hand heart to heart
Soul to soul, her love embracing mine
We gather seashells and ocean carved rocks and allow the waves to carry us to far away places where we recline on sheets of satin in a deep cave at the top on a crystal mountain. She speaks of making an offering to the sea as a token of our love and gratitude. At the moment she stoops to gather in a stone with sacred markings, the jewel she has long treasured slips from her necklace and is swept away. We look for it before deciding it is as it is supposed to be. She will wear the newfound beach stone in its place.
We arise at dawn, walk down to the beach and hit five irons into the Atlantic. Mine sails, rises and bends into the seventh wave. Hers skips and plops into the first. She’s new to the game. Good people of all makes and sizes walk by with smiles, seagulls soar closely overhead scavenging the shoreline and my mind drifts in fond memory to a thousand places at once: Grand Canyon and the eyes of the crow, Albuquerque and a poetry café, Graeagle and a family reunion, Motown and a sacred circle of friends, Berkeley and modern poetry sage, Monterey and golf in the kingdom, Yosemite and the Tioga Pass killer, Sonora Pass and a sky of a million stars, Boulder and the gypsy dancer, Kansas and a round of adversity, St. Louis and the bulging rivers, Nashville and a homeless angel.
This journey has no end, not for those who live each day, each hour, each moment as if it were the only moment of their lives. Not for those who embrace life in all its wonders, seeming good and seeming bad, its glories and its trials. The most fundamental lesson is simple as true thing are: all our trials are for a reason. They instruct us by leaps and bounds to what otherwise would take us centuries to absorb. Life is too short not to embrace all of its experiences. We are no stronger than our adversaries, real or imagined. Like the Native Americans and the warriors of old honored their enemies in battle, we too must embrace the trials that befall our paths. They make us worthy and strengthen our spirits. As long as we keep trying, keep listening, keep learning and remain open to the lessons of the never-ending journey, we will make it.
On the road back to Nashville we stop and make camp at Altoona Reservoir in the Red Top Mountain National Park just past Woodstock and north of Atlanta. We plan to get a good night’s rest but end up staying two nights and the better part of two days. My wife busies herself with a thousand projects, playing guitar, making a doll from found materials, improving the campsite, communing with nature. I spend most of mine studying the rocks in their rich variety of petrified wood, crystal, stones of red, white, amber and ash. On the second day, as I wash and examine the rocks by the Creekside, there is a great commotion in the sky. At least a dozen crows are gathered in the trees overhead. I make eye contact with the leader. He tells me I have found it. Nothing more or less. With a great caw he takes flight and the gathering of crows is gone.
All is well. All is as it should be. There is no journey greater than this we are living. There is neither end nor beginning greater than love.
AFTERMATH
Eighteen years later:
The author is happily married and living in central California. The marriage chronicled in this journey lasted four more years. He is still writing, still dreaming and still playing golf.
Wiz (aka wZ) is living in northern Florida. He often journeys cross-country and is a legend at the Burning Man Festival on the desert of Nevada.
We set up camp at the side of a gurgling creek by day and walk leisurely down the trail to the hot springs at sunset. There in a world of torchlight and canopies we are as removed from civilization as we would be in Outer Mongolia. A storm brewing as we are escorted to our private spa. It is a magical night. I cannot imagine a more enchanted setting for renewing the bonds of love.
From the deep bowels of the earth spring the waters of heaven. The sight of my love’s silken skin, the joy of her touch, the gleam of her eyes under blue moonlight, combine with the earth’s splendor to form a feeling of well being so profound that death itself could not disturb the peace. Even the crack of thunder from the ever closing storm and the collapse of a nearby tree limb under the force of a strong wind only heightens my sense of wonder and delight.
My wife holds on to earthly reason and rouses me to dress before the storm hits. An escort is on her way as she speaks. Electrified customers would not serve their plans as a great escape for the rich and famous. We are promised time tomorrow to complete our allotment of time. To me it is perfect. A full hour of this indescribable beauty and we would be in danger of no return. At it is we prepare ourselves for a drive to the coast with a relaxing soak in the cool air of morning.
We are scheduled to meet a friend in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where he is hoping to start a new life. From there we will follow the stars north or south to an Oceanside paradise.
Myrtle Beach is a golf town. There are stores on the main drag devoted solely to golf balls. There are at least twenty golf courses ranging from inaccessible championship quality country clubs to a high priced public course. The streets are filled with tourists and the beach itself has been cut down to thin sliver by encroaching summer homes and oceanside resorts. We find our paradise down the coast at the Barnacle Inn in Garden City. I serenade my love on a borrowed trumpet and we make sweet music before and after a moonlit walk on the sands of the Carolina coast.
There is no place I’d rather be than
On the sands of Garden City
Beneath the moonlight rays of dreams
Counting the endless waves of time
Arm in arm hand in hand heart to heart
Soul to soul, her love embracing mine
We gather seashells and ocean carved rocks and allow the waves to carry us to far away places where we recline on sheets of satin in a deep cave at the top on a crystal mountain. She speaks of making an offering to the sea as a token of our love and gratitude. At the moment she stoops to gather in a stone with sacred markings, the jewel she has long treasured slips from her necklace and is swept away. We look for it before deciding it is as it is supposed to be. She will wear the newfound beach stone in its place.
We arise at dawn, walk down to the beach and hit five irons into the Atlantic. Mine sails, rises and bends into the seventh wave. Hers skips and plops into the first. She’s new to the game. Good people of all makes and sizes walk by with smiles, seagulls soar closely overhead scavenging the shoreline and my mind drifts in fond memory to a thousand places at once: Grand Canyon and the eyes of the crow, Albuquerque and a poetry café, Graeagle and a family reunion, Motown and a sacred circle of friends, Berkeley and modern poetry sage, Monterey and golf in the kingdom, Yosemite and the Tioga Pass killer, Sonora Pass and a sky of a million stars, Boulder and the gypsy dancer, Kansas and a round of adversity, St. Louis and the bulging rivers, Nashville and a homeless angel.
This journey has no end, not for those who live each day, each hour, each moment as if it were the only moment of their lives. Not for those who embrace life in all its wonders, seeming good and seeming bad, its glories and its trials. The most fundamental lesson is simple as true thing are: all our trials are for a reason. They instruct us by leaps and bounds to what otherwise would take us centuries to absorb. Life is too short not to embrace all of its experiences. We are no stronger than our adversaries, real or imagined. Like the Native Americans and the warriors of old honored their enemies in battle, we too must embrace the trials that befall our paths. They make us worthy and strengthen our spirits. As long as we keep trying, keep listening, keep learning and remain open to the lessons of the never-ending journey, we will make it.
On the road back to Nashville we stop and make camp at Altoona Reservoir in the Red Top Mountain National Park just past Woodstock and north of Atlanta. We plan to get a good night’s rest but end up staying two nights and the better part of two days. My wife busies herself with a thousand projects, playing guitar, making a doll from found materials, improving the campsite, communing with nature. I spend most of mine studying the rocks in their rich variety of petrified wood, crystal, stones of red, white, amber and ash. On the second day, as I wash and examine the rocks by the Creekside, there is a great commotion in the sky. At least a dozen crows are gathered in the trees overhead. I make eye contact with the leader. He tells me I have found it. Nothing more or less. With a great caw he takes flight and the gathering of crows is gone.
All is well. All is as it should be. There is no journey greater than this we are living. There is neither end nor beginning greater than love.
AFTERMATH
Eighteen years later:
The author is happily married and living in central California. The marriage chronicled in this journey lasted four more years. He is still writing, still dreaming and still playing golf.
Wiz (aka wZ) is living in northern Florida. He often journeys cross-country and is a legend at the Burning Man Festival on the desert of Nevada.
MUSTANG SALLY’S MILEAGE GAUGE
MILEAGE LOCATION GALLONS
42,047 Nashville, Tennessee 3.6
42,279 Memphis 11.6
42,446 Little Rock, Arkansas 9.2
42,675 Okemah, Oklahoma 10.8
42,881 Clinton 11.3
43,098 Amarillo, Texas 11.8
43,271 Cuervo, New Mexico 8.7
43,500 Albuquerque 12.5
43,659 Gallup 8.3
43,862 Tuba City, Arizona 11.0
44,091 Page 11.5
44,202 Zion, Utah 5.6
44,312 Beaver 6.8
44,500 Ely, Nevada 11.5
44,808 Fallon 13.1
45,061 Graeagle, California 13.1
45,394 Turlock 15.0
45,423 Modesto 3.5
45,640 Santa Cruz 12.2
45,820 Los Banos 8.9
46,008 Modesto 11.5
46,149 Wawona 7.9
46,267 Yosemite Village 7.1
46,444 Bridgeport 10.2
46,624 Tonopah, Nevada 4.4
46,821 Ely 10.4
46,999 Hinckley, Utah 10.5
47,086 Salina 4.4
47,238 Crescent Junction 9.4
47,449 Glenwood Springs, Colorado 12.9
47,639 Boulder 10.0
47,795 Limon 7.0
48,062 Hayes, Kansas 13.7
48,317 Topeka 12.2
48,547 Columbia, Missouri 13.0
48,820 Carbondale, Illinois 16.3
49,070 Nashville, Tennessee 13.6
42,047 Nashville, Tennessee 3.6
42,279 Memphis 11.6
42,446 Little Rock, Arkansas 9.2
42,675 Okemah, Oklahoma 10.8
42,881 Clinton 11.3
43,098 Amarillo, Texas 11.8
43,271 Cuervo, New Mexico 8.7
43,500 Albuquerque 12.5
43,659 Gallup 8.3
43,862 Tuba City, Arizona 11.0
44,091 Page 11.5
44,202 Zion, Utah 5.6
44,312 Beaver 6.8
44,500 Ely, Nevada 11.5
44,808 Fallon 13.1
45,061 Graeagle, California 13.1
45,394 Turlock 15.0
45,423 Modesto 3.5
45,640 Santa Cruz 12.2
45,820 Los Banos 8.9
46,008 Modesto 11.5
46,149 Wawona 7.9
46,267 Yosemite Village 7.1
46,444 Bridgeport 10.2
46,624 Tonopah, Nevada 4.4
46,821 Ely 10.4
46,999 Hinckley, Utah 10.5
47,086 Salina 4.4
47,238 Crescent Junction 9.4
47,449 Glenwood Springs, Colorado 12.9
47,639 Boulder 10.0
47,795 Limon 7.0
48,062 Hayes, Kansas 13.7
48,317 Topeka 12.2
48,547 Columbia, Missouri 13.0
48,820 Carbondale, Illinois 16.3
49,070 Nashville, Tennessee 13.6
ZEN GOLF TOUR LOG
DATE LOCATION COURSE NOTES
June 30: Albuquerque, New Mexico / University of New Mexico North Course / 1st Class
June 30: Albuquerque / Puerto Del Sol / Low Flying Aircraft
July 1: Albuquerque / University of New Mexico South / Zen Golf Lesson
July 2: Page, Arizona / Glen Canyon Country Club / Woman Bartender
July 2: Kanab, Utah / Coral Cliffs Golf Course / Wind Blown Red Rock
July 2: Mount Carmel Junction / Thunderbird Golf Course / Don Juan Laughs
July 4: Graeagle, California / Feather River Inn / Family Reunion
July 5: Truckee / Ponderosa Golf Course / Traffic Jam
July 9: Pacific Grove / Pacific Grove Municipal Golf Course / Poor Man’s Pebble Beach
July 10: Modesto / Modesto Municipal Golf Course / Wiz’s Birdie
July 11: Modesto / Dryden Park Golf Course / Hot Shot Companion
July 12: Manteca / Manteca Park Golf Course / Jere and Patty
July 13: Modesto / Creekside Golf Course / Robert and Sue
July 14: Yosemite National Park / Wawona Golf Course / Rattlesnake without Rattles
July 16: East Ely, Nevada / White Pine Golf & Tennis / Welcome Golfers!
July 18: Lawrence, Kansas / Alvamar-Jayhawk Nine / Round of Adversity
July 19: Boonville, Missouri / Kemper Golf Club / Magic 2-iron 200 Holes
June 30: Albuquerque, New Mexico / University of New Mexico North Course / 1st Class
June 30: Albuquerque / Puerto Del Sol / Low Flying Aircraft
July 1: Albuquerque / University of New Mexico South / Zen Golf Lesson
July 2: Page, Arizona / Glen Canyon Country Club / Woman Bartender
July 2: Kanab, Utah / Coral Cliffs Golf Course / Wind Blown Red Rock
July 2: Mount Carmel Junction / Thunderbird Golf Course / Don Juan Laughs
July 4: Graeagle, California / Feather River Inn / Family Reunion
July 5: Truckee / Ponderosa Golf Course / Traffic Jam
July 9: Pacific Grove / Pacific Grove Municipal Golf Course / Poor Man’s Pebble Beach
July 10: Modesto / Modesto Municipal Golf Course / Wiz’s Birdie
July 11: Modesto / Dryden Park Golf Course / Hot Shot Companion
July 12: Manteca / Manteca Park Golf Course / Jere and Patty
July 13: Modesto / Creekside Golf Course / Robert and Sue
July 14: Yosemite National Park / Wawona Golf Course / Rattlesnake without Rattles
July 16: East Ely, Nevada / White Pine Golf & Tennis / Welcome Golfers!
July 18: Lawrence, Kansas / Alvamar-Jayhawk Nine / Round of Adversity
July 19: Boonville, Missouri / Kemper Golf Club / Magic 2-iron 200 Holes
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