It strikes like a bolt of lightning in a summer storm
Invades the solar plexus like an omen
Spreading like a cancer like a hellish nightmare
On a sleepless night
Wolves howl at a clouded blue moon
Owls take flight and the air stills
To a hollow silence
I don’t know what we did that day. I tried to piece it together after the fact. It evaded me like an intricate puzzle. I believe it began with something mundane like taking care of some car business, an oil change for Sally.
We then played the front nine at Dryden Park, an eighteen-hole course on the Tuolumne River. I played well, birdied the par-three fifth, scored par on the sixth, the toughest hole on the course. It is a long dogleg left and would be hard enough without a tall branching oak in the center of the fairway about two hundred yards down. I hit a solid drive to the left of the oak and stiff a five iron to the back of the green. I finished the nine two over par. I can’t recall how Wiz played except that our hotshot playing partner, who was dying to give us a few tips on the game, complimented him as the most relaxed player he had ever seen.
We have a couple of the famous Dryden cheeseburgers and kill some time driving around town. We read jazz poetry accompanied by flute at Mancini Bowl in Graceada Park. It is ironic that this prominent park in this conservative town is actually named after a couple reputed to be lesbian. The amphitheater is name after Henry Mancini of the famous marching bands, another local legend.
As I near the conclusion of the first chorus of Dark Underground a drunk Latino in ragged clothes rises from his park bench and grumbles his displeasure. He throws the word Satin at us like a dagger to the throat. It gains my attention and raises my ire. The piece is in fact the story of Joan of Arc. The charge of Satanism should not surprise me by now but it does. It startles me and settles in my gut. I will not to be censored in my own hometown. I finish the chorus and flip to the Demands of the Underground:
We demand food for hunger free of charge!
We demand jobs for all who call and ones that suit our make and model not our soles!
We demand the laser stun be drop and done or access free to all!
We demand the opening of the boundaries, free travel, an end to border stops and crossing!
We demand the closing of the righteous guard! Let them work to feed the poor!
We demand access to the stars! Let all behold the heavens and scope the upper maze!
We demand a home for all and not a hole to shovel dirt in!
We finish our performance to the silence of our former critic. It hits home. He doesn’t say a word but he knows he has judged us harshly. Maybe he will think twice before he accuses someone of Satanism again. We are in fact his advocates yet he would have cut our throats had he had the chance.
We drive over to Charlie’s place on Paradise Road for an early dinner. This is where the drag races were in the bee-bop early sixties when the Wolf Man was growling on the AM radio and crew cuts glistened with the glow of Dixie Peach. It was also where my second crush lived. We were at Mark Twain Junior High. She was a cheerleader and I was vice president of the student body. We were both thin but she was a good six inches taller and I thought she was a queen. We danced all night in the age of innocence to Johnny Mathis, the Four Seasons and the Supremes. The end of that sweet and tender romance at the beginning of our freshman year was the effect of miscommunication and my initiation to the mixed blessing of relationships. It was an experience I would always treasure.
My first crush was a pretty blonde in elementary school. It ended much the same way: an awkward miscommunication gone out of control, brought on by the betrayal of a jealous friend. Funny how it stays with you, shaping how you approach relationships for much of your life.
In contrast to Deva, Charlie is a basic meat and potatoes man. His dinners are down home affairs. There is always a parade of visitors and they are always good people. Wiz entertains the kids with improvisational flute and piano. They are inspired. There will be music in their lives. We move outside to the patio and Charlie puts on our recording of Dark Underground: A Jazz Poetry Play in Fifteen Choruses. I suggest turning it off after the first chorus but Charlie insists on playing it in its entirety. It runs two hours and draws both encouraging and insightful comments.
It is the first time anyone has listened to the work beside us and the response means a lot. It has been a long and winding road in the jazz poetry business and I for one am in need of some encouraging words. We are reluctant to leave this place of warmth but the obligations of time press on.
We return to Robert and Sue’s house where we find an old friend of Robert is entertaining them. He’s a good musician with the mind of a businessman and the ambition of Julius Caesar. He has found tough times. His band in the bay area, featuring an old Chicago blues man, recently broke up. He has been diagnosed with kidney failure and his health is faltering. Wiz joins him on flute but his guitar falls oddly silent when Wiz plays and he engages in distracting conversation.
I am suddenly aware that Wiz is despondent, struggling and weak. It is a state I have not seen in him. I am only vaguely aware of the cause but a sense of discomfort settles in my soul. We are due to visit some close friends twenty miles down the road in Turlock. They are rehearsing for a production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, which has prevented me from seeing them until now. I suggest it is time to go and the Wiz is more than ready. In the car he informs me he is having trouble breathing. Some strange spell has taken hold of him and he feels threatened. I wait to allow him to catch his breath before telling him what he cannot know: That old friend and jealous musician is a dying man.
It is the shadow of death that follows us even now.
Adding to my own discomfort is a growing sense of anxiety. I feel vulnerable. There is a hole in my aura and I feel it. My vision is discolored, shrouded and awry. Something is happening and something must happen to relieve us of this cloud that hovers above us like the pall of a funeral procession. Wiz begins to chant in the tongue of another world. It has a calming effect like the ocean at twilight. I join in the chant but the ghost is still with us.
As we approach Turlock, Sally checks and sputters. We glide to a stop out of gas. After 2,500 miles of journey, traversing land of every description from Nevada’s desolation row to the tower peaks of Donner Summit, here by the familiar Turlock off ramp, we run out of gas. Something has happened. It could have been so much worse. I take it as a strange blessing and a warning of renewed caution.
Wiz stays with Sally as I walk the short distance to a nearby gas station. It is a time for reflection. There has been too much recklessness, too much late night partying, too much blowing with the wind, too much trust where it does not belong, too little grounding and self-control. A man must learn to play the safe shot when the safe shot is appropriate. Grip it and rip it may work for John Daly but its bound to lead you astray.
We struggle into town and the company of friends, the darkness subsiding but still hovering over us, the weight still bearing down on our shoulders. At last we arrive and the spell is broken. We have found sanctuary. The shadow has vanished. We could not outrun it but we could banish by entering a sacred circle of unconditional trust. Wiz will refer to the Jere and Patty O’Donnell as saints. They serve on this night as our guardian angels like the crow of Grand Canyon.
Heart and soul, angels above
Circle in unconditional love
Diffuse the darkness
Dry the fear from wetted brow
Smooth the furrowed woe
Blessed friendship, sacred light
Like the first beacon on a jagged shore
Like the first breath of spring
If an individual is born as I was into a warm and loving family, it is a blessing of chance or fate beyond our control or comprehension. The friends we find thereafter, those with whom we choose to share our lives with mutual respect and understanding is a blessing of choice. It is something we all search for and when we find it we instinctively embrace it. We value it highly. We must take care not to abuse it by holding too tightly or leaning on it too heavily. When I moved to Nashville it was more than difficult to leave behind this family of friends, just as it was to leave my bloodline.
Liberated from the shadow of death, we are welcomed by a warm embrace. Wiz plays more freely than he has since our journey began. Patty is entranced. She has become a politician of sorts, having been appointed to the chair of the local arts council. After years of raising a child (now eight) she is asserting herself as a major force of the local theater. It is her calling and her eyes, already brilliant, shine with enthusiasm and purpose.
Jere has become the first tenured acting instructor in the history of the local university. He speaks of playing a part in Uncle Vanya that is the kind of part he always avoided. He is playing a romantic idealist. I consider it a positive development. He has long fought that side of himself that is as natural as honey to a bee. What he perceived as a weakness has opened a door. He will become the stronger for it.
Our old friend Gary is also here. He has a calm about him that is rare. Having quit a job as a cook due to a back condition that will not allow him to stand for long periods of time, he is jobless. His situation is little changed but he is being paid for the part he is acting in Vanya and he treasures working with the O’Donnell’s.
Gary should be an acting instructor in a high school or college. He has the talent, the experience and the acquired wisdom of a natural teacher but he is haunted by a mistake he made in the distant past. While working as an elementary school teacher he was busted for importing hashish. It was decades ago at a time when it was far less shocking than it would be today and it should be expunged from his record. But in the small town mentality of the central valley, records are never expunged. Still he is well. He offers Wiz and I a reading from the I Ching and a quote that came to him from some external voice:
At last the wanderer understood
It was the cup, not the water
It was the journey, not the spring
It was the search, not the drinking
There is a feeling of peace, contentment, a mood of calm reflection and joy. It is unusual in the days preceding opening night. It is late and time to move on. We will see them again and thank them for an inspired performance on the opening of Uncle Vanya. We make a golf date with Jere and Patty though it will keep us here longer than we originally intended.
It is difficult to let go.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
GRAND CANYON: BAY AREA POETRY SCENE
Since we arrived in Modesto we have had little time to sit back, relax and reflect. The commitment of family and friends is gratifying but we have a yen to continue the adventure of the road. We have a day open and decide to make a sojourn to San Francisco and an appointment with the king of the Bay Area poetry scene. Wiz has made a connection through Jake Berry, a Florence Alabama poet of underground notoriety, a poet of poets. He is convinced that San Francisco will embrace our cutting edge style and content.
We get an early start and ascend from the valley of agriculture, past the windmills of Altamont Pass, where the Rolling Stones hosted the concert that became the film Gimme Shelter, and veer north to the city that gave birth to most of the dreams of my youth: Berkeley, California. I tell Wiz about the changes I have witnessed here since the days I used to thumb a ride, hang out in the square listening to the conga line, roam Telegraph Avenue in search of a new nation, study the hipsters in the cafes, and crash by a creek that runs through the campus of the university.
I remember the beautiful beaded woman in layered dress and painted face who gave me a smile and a kiss of promise. It was the dawning of a new age. I remember the charge that ran through this chosen place like an electric current of hope. I remember radical speech, political pamphlets, a sitar harmonizing with Jimi Hendrix electric lady land, the spirit of love and the sensation of being infallible.
I also remember the cops and People’s Park and the time they formed a line with their blue helmets and black riot sticks. I remember when they cleared the courtyard in front of the library with tear gas and a march of terror. It was all here: the entire history of what is now referred to as the sixties movement.
Everything has changed.
We walk down Telegraph toward the university. The street people who once roamed freely and unobstructed are now a homeless problem. The sidewalk venders are far more stylish, commercial and hip. There is no music, no buzz of political discourse and no charge of electric energy. My memories have become mythology.
We make our way to the square and the library steps where I once watched Mario Salvo address a throng of student activists. The students now are studious and more politically correct. Their issues now are more practical: the cost of tuition, public housing and parking, smoking in public places. There is a scattering of musicians but Wiz senses they would not welcome his accompaniment. They have staked claim to their turfs so we stake our claim to ours. We find our spot and the Wiz pulls out his magic flute, letting loose a kaleidoscope of sound that lingers in the air before drifting into wistful memory. I allow the enchantment to capture me before weighing in.
The karmic debt is mounting like an ancient den of thieves
With each tick of the cosmic clock like a chill in a gentle breeze
The karmic debt is mounting like a river overrun
With each lie in a soulful sorrow like a story almost done
The karmic debt is mounting with each I where we belongs
Like a river dammed and clogged like an old familiar song
The karmic debt is mounting with avarice and deceit
Each thump of the collective heartbeat and every all begins with me
The karmic debt is mounting like a storm that threatens all
And I am chained to the floodgates to suffer the karmic fall
Set me free so I may rise or die a free and noble man
On the train of the Wiz’s melody my mood carries me from politics and philosophy to ethereal dreams to the jazz underground and back again. The people around us take note and offer unspoken approval. A man with writer’s eyes sits to our side as listens as if to read our intentions. We have made a mark. It is enough.
We walk back down Telegraph, stopping at a familiar café for a bite to eat, pick up a copy of Zen and the Art of Golf at Powell’s Bookstore and put Berkeley in the mirror. The transition from a hotbed of political thought and activism to a progressive university metropolis is difficult to accept for those of us who remember what was before but these are good people and worthy of their legacy in their way.
The times are a changing and we better make way.
We drive from Berkeley to Oakland and the home of Jack Foley, king of the bay area poetry scene. He greets us as if we are long lost brothers. He speaks with an enthusiasm that belies his age, dropping names like a politician on the move: Shepard, Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg, McClure and Ray Manzarek of The Doors. He hosts a weekly radio show and offers up samples of his recordings. He hands us scores of poetry magazines. His theory is that poetry has its roots in the oral tradition of Homer, the original poet of the western world.
We are fascinated by his exuberance. He’s like a child showing off his toys the day after Christmas. He looks the part of a poet with long frazzled hair, loose fitting clothes and sandals. His wife is clearly devoted to her husband’s artistic lifestyle but she strikes a contrast, straight and proper. Their home in the Oakland hills is beautiful but they are worried about money. Their teenage son is not interested in poetry or poets. He likes baseball and rock and roll.
We continue our conversation at a charming little Chinese restaurant where he engages an unknown couple in a discussion of the origins of pot stickers. Jack has something to say about virtually everything. He is a man of knowledge, literature and culture.
I put the meal on my credit card as he recommends a club in San Francisco where we might try out our jazz poetry. Wiz slips him a copy of Dark Underground as the three of us share a hug of brotherhood.
Crossing the Bay Bridge I realize that we have spent over four hours in the company of whirlwind mind. It is the approximate time of a round of golf. It is a rare pleasure to listen to a man so eager to share his remarkable life and experience. I wonder at the breadth of his knowledge and the passion that sustains his sense of adventure. He has found his bliss. His bliss has found him. It is not chosen but chooses.
Nothing is happening at the poetry joint. The scheduled readings are over. A bearded man plays a younger man in chess. No one else is here. I sneak a peak at the stage in the back where the readings take place. There is a naked podium on the floor and a single bleacher in front of it. I am struck by how very small the poetry universe is. Poetry is dead. There is no future. Not here in San Francisco, not across the bay, not in Nashville or Albuquerque, New York or Chicago. Poetry is for poets with large dreams but small ambitions. The devotees have large hearts. They are driven not by success, which is measured in humility, but by the thing itself, the Zen of poetry. If poetry is an oral tradition it is enough to stand before a handful of fellow poets. Let the words be heard. Let them roar like a stampede of buffalo on the open plains, or let them rattle and quiver like a lover’s lips in the embrace of ecstasy. Poetry is dead, long live poetry.
Maybe we are too ambitious. We have not yet come to understand the Zen of poetry as we intuitively understand the Zen of golf. We are too dependent on the response of our audience. We want too much to please, to be accepted and embraced. Wiz is a phenomenal musician. He has often played for hours in the isolation of a forest or in a secluded corner of a busy park. I am a writer. Though I fear I may never be published, my plays never destined for the professional stage, I continue to write. I will always write. It is not chosen but chooses. Just as the music itself is enough to spur the Wiz on a quest for musical or creative growth, the act of committing words to paper is my calling. Even if no more than a handful of friends or acquaintances will ever read them, even if they are not read at all, the act of writing itself speaks to me in a language that pulls at my heart.
Every writer wants his words to live on, just as every composer and musician wants his music to be heard beyond his time on earth, but the desired outcome is the reason we write, compose or play. Wiz plays because it fulfills a need and because it speaks to the center of his being. As it is with music so it is with writing. As it is with writing so it is with golf. As it is with golf so it is with life and the living of it.
We walk out of the poetry joint and perform our piece on the street. We gather a few curious glances but nothing more. No one is listening but it no longer matters. We read and play for our own fulfillment. It is enough.
We drive down Van Ness to the heart of San Francisco but nothing captures our interest. We decide to head south to Santa Cruz. It is late when we arrive and I suggest staying over to ride the roller coaster in the morning. The Santa Cruz roller coaster is famous as the largest wooden structure of its kind. Wiz declines. He wants no part of it. We are both in a strange reflective mood. We drive on without aim, finally laying out our sleeping bags at a small beach along Highway 1. The smell of the Pacific and the sound of ocean wildlife have a calming effect. The ocean has always spoken to me in times of sorrow or upheaval. It has never failed to soothe my soul.
We awake just after sunrise to the hustle of farm workers on their way to work in the fields. We shake off sleep and the restlessness of the last twenty-four hours, pack our bags and drive into Monterey.
Dollar for dollar, Pacific Grove on Monterey Bay is among the most beautiful courses in the world. Nine holes of tree-lined fairways in typical municipal course style give way to a back nine of ocean side links. Wide open to the elements of the coast, the links nine features no more than a scattering of windswept cypress, evergreen bushes and tall grass no taller than a man, and ice plant over sand where golf balls go to die. If you’ve never hit out of ice plant you would be well advised to use nothing more than a wedge. The course with its narrow fairways, punishing rough and small greens places a premium on accuracy and the ability to hit the ball on a low trajectory.
The back nine has earned Pacific Grove the name: a poor man’s Pebble Beach. Its more famous namesake is just down the coast. The story goes that the land was donated to the city on the condition that the course should always be affordable to the common man. It is a tale that is repeated most every time I come here. Today is no exception.
We arrive early and are paired with a twosome of retired gentlemen. It is reminiscent of our round in Truckee by Donner Pass. We play well enough on the front side to settle in for some inspired golf on the back nine. There are dozens of deer wandering the course along with scores of sea gulls, crows, squirrels and jackrabbits. It is a spectacle of nature rivaling the Grand Canyon. It is a place to forget your troubles and your game and allow yourself to soar with the wind. The sight of the eleventh hole, gazing out over the Pacific, a family of deer grazing below an elevated tee, brings out the best in me. A solid three wood, a stiff wedge and ten-foot putt for birdie. It is the peak of my round but it hardly matters.
On the twelfth, a sweeping par five alongside the coastline, Wiz unloads a drive and a fairway wood that charges the imagination and extends the limits of his game. The ball kicks left into the rough but it doesn’t matter. Here, amidst the grandeur of the California coast, the game takes on a new dimension. We play well, score decently and depart with newfound sense of wonder and admiration for the world around us.
We head on to Carmel on a natural high, a mixture of joy and a sense of infallibility riding with us. Nothing can stop us. Nothing can bring us down. Not even a suicide pigeon that dives into the grill beneath Sally’s hood at the exit ramp can dampen our spirits. Its timing is unfathomable. It leaves me a little dazed, perplexed and without explanation. Maybe we are in need of grounding. Maybe we are too high, too centered on ourselves. Pigeons have long been attracted to Sally’s Mustang orange exterior and have pelted her with droppings at every opportunity. Maybe it’s Sally’s revenge.
I believe in life in all its forms and would not take it lightly. I know only that I don’t know. The why is beyond my comprehension. I only understand that I do not understand. Like the mesmerizing magnitude of the sea, it is a mystery and a mystery it will remain.
In all my life I have seen nothing more beautiful than the cypress of Monterey and Carmel beach. The home of the immortal John Steinbeck it is a living tribute to man’s fascination and devotion to the sea. When I was a younger man it was my habit to come here whenever my mind was clouded with trouble and despair. I would sit for hours, my feet buried in the fine sand or above on a cliff or overhang, where the gulls would trace the shoreline. The gentle but all-powerful waves of the Pacific would empty my mind, cleanse my soul and send me back to the world reborn.
It has the same effect now. Wiz has supplied me with a trumpet and a mute. We stand in the sand, him with his magic flute, me with my muted horn, sending sweet sounds into the endless sea. The crow is here. Of all the times I have spent on this beach I can only remember gulls. It is as mystifying as the sea itself.
Wiz gives me a lesson on looking cool while playing the trumpet. My tendency is to point the horn downward. He wants me to raise it up. We eventually walk back to Sally and deposit our instruments, suddenly aware of the human beauty that surrounds us. She is young enough to be his daughter but old enough to hunger for experience. A bronzed beauty, breasts like golden delicious apples, she moves in a manner that defies the laws of physics. I look down and see a golden anklet. It is the gift I have sought for my wife two thousand miles away. The signs are all around us.
We have to this place in service to my memories. We have play glorious golf in the company of wildlife at Pacific Grove. Wiz has played shots he never thought he was capable of hitting. I have played with a free and open mind. We have been absorbed in the majesty of nature. We have had communion with the sea.
All this leads me back to Nashville where my love awaits.
We have one more service to perform. We are heading to the Hog’s Breath Inn, Clint Eastwood’s place, where once I caught him dashing in and out, a beautiful blonde by his side, to check on his affairs. Wiz asks me the time and I immediately realize we are due back in Motown for a family picnic. A couple of fine looking ladies give us a glance but we are immune to temptation. We cut our visit short and head back to the valley. Clint is not in.
The ride back is thoughtful, peaceful, full of dreams and pleasant memories. I realize that it will be a year or more before I am likely to feel the Pacific breeze again. It is difficult to let go. We stop in the valley town of Los Banos for gas and call ahead to let the family know we’re on our way.
Wiz takes care of the gas and encounters a young lady with the frazzled look of methamphetamine. As we’re pulling out he tells the story. A man says it’s his birthday and she offers him a gift he will remember. She looks at Wiz and says: Hell, I’d give it to almost anyone. She looks our way as she climbs the stairs of a hotel across the way. She charges the imagination. I tell Wiz he’d better wear two condoms for that encounter. Temptation aside, we drive off with the weight of the road a little heavier and the stuff of wet dreams swirling in our minds.
We get an early start and ascend from the valley of agriculture, past the windmills of Altamont Pass, where the Rolling Stones hosted the concert that became the film Gimme Shelter, and veer north to the city that gave birth to most of the dreams of my youth: Berkeley, California. I tell Wiz about the changes I have witnessed here since the days I used to thumb a ride, hang out in the square listening to the conga line, roam Telegraph Avenue in search of a new nation, study the hipsters in the cafes, and crash by a creek that runs through the campus of the university.
I remember the beautiful beaded woman in layered dress and painted face who gave me a smile and a kiss of promise. It was the dawning of a new age. I remember the charge that ran through this chosen place like an electric current of hope. I remember radical speech, political pamphlets, a sitar harmonizing with Jimi Hendrix electric lady land, the spirit of love and the sensation of being infallible.
I also remember the cops and People’s Park and the time they formed a line with their blue helmets and black riot sticks. I remember when they cleared the courtyard in front of the library with tear gas and a march of terror. It was all here: the entire history of what is now referred to as the sixties movement.
Everything has changed.
We walk down Telegraph toward the university. The street people who once roamed freely and unobstructed are now a homeless problem. The sidewalk venders are far more stylish, commercial and hip. There is no music, no buzz of political discourse and no charge of electric energy. My memories have become mythology.
We make our way to the square and the library steps where I once watched Mario Salvo address a throng of student activists. The students now are studious and more politically correct. Their issues now are more practical: the cost of tuition, public housing and parking, smoking in public places. There is a scattering of musicians but Wiz senses they would not welcome his accompaniment. They have staked claim to their turfs so we stake our claim to ours. We find our spot and the Wiz pulls out his magic flute, letting loose a kaleidoscope of sound that lingers in the air before drifting into wistful memory. I allow the enchantment to capture me before weighing in.
The karmic debt is mounting like an ancient den of thieves
With each tick of the cosmic clock like a chill in a gentle breeze
The karmic debt is mounting like a river overrun
With each lie in a soulful sorrow like a story almost done
The karmic debt is mounting with each I where we belongs
Like a river dammed and clogged like an old familiar song
The karmic debt is mounting with avarice and deceit
Each thump of the collective heartbeat and every all begins with me
The karmic debt is mounting like a storm that threatens all
And I am chained to the floodgates to suffer the karmic fall
Set me free so I may rise or die a free and noble man
On the train of the Wiz’s melody my mood carries me from politics and philosophy to ethereal dreams to the jazz underground and back again. The people around us take note and offer unspoken approval. A man with writer’s eyes sits to our side as listens as if to read our intentions. We have made a mark. It is enough.
We walk back down Telegraph, stopping at a familiar café for a bite to eat, pick up a copy of Zen and the Art of Golf at Powell’s Bookstore and put Berkeley in the mirror. The transition from a hotbed of political thought and activism to a progressive university metropolis is difficult to accept for those of us who remember what was before but these are good people and worthy of their legacy in their way.
The times are a changing and we better make way.
We drive from Berkeley to Oakland and the home of Jack Foley, king of the bay area poetry scene. He greets us as if we are long lost brothers. He speaks with an enthusiasm that belies his age, dropping names like a politician on the move: Shepard, Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg, McClure and Ray Manzarek of The Doors. He hosts a weekly radio show and offers up samples of his recordings. He hands us scores of poetry magazines. His theory is that poetry has its roots in the oral tradition of Homer, the original poet of the western world.
We are fascinated by his exuberance. He’s like a child showing off his toys the day after Christmas. He looks the part of a poet with long frazzled hair, loose fitting clothes and sandals. His wife is clearly devoted to her husband’s artistic lifestyle but she strikes a contrast, straight and proper. Their home in the Oakland hills is beautiful but they are worried about money. Their teenage son is not interested in poetry or poets. He likes baseball and rock and roll.
We continue our conversation at a charming little Chinese restaurant where he engages an unknown couple in a discussion of the origins of pot stickers. Jack has something to say about virtually everything. He is a man of knowledge, literature and culture.
I put the meal on my credit card as he recommends a club in San Francisco where we might try out our jazz poetry. Wiz slips him a copy of Dark Underground as the three of us share a hug of brotherhood.
Crossing the Bay Bridge I realize that we have spent over four hours in the company of whirlwind mind. It is the approximate time of a round of golf. It is a rare pleasure to listen to a man so eager to share his remarkable life and experience. I wonder at the breadth of his knowledge and the passion that sustains his sense of adventure. He has found his bliss. His bliss has found him. It is not chosen but chooses.
Nothing is happening at the poetry joint. The scheduled readings are over. A bearded man plays a younger man in chess. No one else is here. I sneak a peak at the stage in the back where the readings take place. There is a naked podium on the floor and a single bleacher in front of it. I am struck by how very small the poetry universe is. Poetry is dead. There is no future. Not here in San Francisco, not across the bay, not in Nashville or Albuquerque, New York or Chicago. Poetry is for poets with large dreams but small ambitions. The devotees have large hearts. They are driven not by success, which is measured in humility, but by the thing itself, the Zen of poetry. If poetry is an oral tradition it is enough to stand before a handful of fellow poets. Let the words be heard. Let them roar like a stampede of buffalo on the open plains, or let them rattle and quiver like a lover’s lips in the embrace of ecstasy. Poetry is dead, long live poetry.
Maybe we are too ambitious. We have not yet come to understand the Zen of poetry as we intuitively understand the Zen of golf. We are too dependent on the response of our audience. We want too much to please, to be accepted and embraced. Wiz is a phenomenal musician. He has often played for hours in the isolation of a forest or in a secluded corner of a busy park. I am a writer. Though I fear I may never be published, my plays never destined for the professional stage, I continue to write. I will always write. It is not chosen but chooses. Just as the music itself is enough to spur the Wiz on a quest for musical or creative growth, the act of committing words to paper is my calling. Even if no more than a handful of friends or acquaintances will ever read them, even if they are not read at all, the act of writing itself speaks to me in a language that pulls at my heart.
Every writer wants his words to live on, just as every composer and musician wants his music to be heard beyond his time on earth, but the desired outcome is the reason we write, compose or play. Wiz plays because it fulfills a need and because it speaks to the center of his being. As it is with music so it is with writing. As it is with writing so it is with golf. As it is with golf so it is with life and the living of it.
We walk out of the poetry joint and perform our piece on the street. We gather a few curious glances but nothing more. No one is listening but it no longer matters. We read and play for our own fulfillment. It is enough.
We drive down Van Ness to the heart of San Francisco but nothing captures our interest. We decide to head south to Santa Cruz. It is late when we arrive and I suggest staying over to ride the roller coaster in the morning. The Santa Cruz roller coaster is famous as the largest wooden structure of its kind. Wiz declines. He wants no part of it. We are both in a strange reflective mood. We drive on without aim, finally laying out our sleeping bags at a small beach along Highway 1. The smell of the Pacific and the sound of ocean wildlife have a calming effect. The ocean has always spoken to me in times of sorrow or upheaval. It has never failed to soothe my soul.
We awake just after sunrise to the hustle of farm workers on their way to work in the fields. We shake off sleep and the restlessness of the last twenty-four hours, pack our bags and drive into Monterey.
Dollar for dollar, Pacific Grove on Monterey Bay is among the most beautiful courses in the world. Nine holes of tree-lined fairways in typical municipal course style give way to a back nine of ocean side links. Wide open to the elements of the coast, the links nine features no more than a scattering of windswept cypress, evergreen bushes and tall grass no taller than a man, and ice plant over sand where golf balls go to die. If you’ve never hit out of ice plant you would be well advised to use nothing more than a wedge. The course with its narrow fairways, punishing rough and small greens places a premium on accuracy and the ability to hit the ball on a low trajectory.
The back nine has earned Pacific Grove the name: a poor man’s Pebble Beach. Its more famous namesake is just down the coast. The story goes that the land was donated to the city on the condition that the course should always be affordable to the common man. It is a tale that is repeated most every time I come here. Today is no exception.
We arrive early and are paired with a twosome of retired gentlemen. It is reminiscent of our round in Truckee by Donner Pass. We play well enough on the front side to settle in for some inspired golf on the back nine. There are dozens of deer wandering the course along with scores of sea gulls, crows, squirrels and jackrabbits. It is a spectacle of nature rivaling the Grand Canyon. It is a place to forget your troubles and your game and allow yourself to soar with the wind. The sight of the eleventh hole, gazing out over the Pacific, a family of deer grazing below an elevated tee, brings out the best in me. A solid three wood, a stiff wedge and ten-foot putt for birdie. It is the peak of my round but it hardly matters.
On the twelfth, a sweeping par five alongside the coastline, Wiz unloads a drive and a fairway wood that charges the imagination and extends the limits of his game. The ball kicks left into the rough but it doesn’t matter. Here, amidst the grandeur of the California coast, the game takes on a new dimension. We play well, score decently and depart with newfound sense of wonder and admiration for the world around us.
We head on to Carmel on a natural high, a mixture of joy and a sense of infallibility riding with us. Nothing can stop us. Nothing can bring us down. Not even a suicide pigeon that dives into the grill beneath Sally’s hood at the exit ramp can dampen our spirits. Its timing is unfathomable. It leaves me a little dazed, perplexed and without explanation. Maybe we are in need of grounding. Maybe we are too high, too centered on ourselves. Pigeons have long been attracted to Sally’s Mustang orange exterior and have pelted her with droppings at every opportunity. Maybe it’s Sally’s revenge.
I believe in life in all its forms and would not take it lightly. I know only that I don’t know. The why is beyond my comprehension. I only understand that I do not understand. Like the mesmerizing magnitude of the sea, it is a mystery and a mystery it will remain.
In all my life I have seen nothing more beautiful than the cypress of Monterey and Carmel beach. The home of the immortal John Steinbeck it is a living tribute to man’s fascination and devotion to the sea. When I was a younger man it was my habit to come here whenever my mind was clouded with trouble and despair. I would sit for hours, my feet buried in the fine sand or above on a cliff or overhang, where the gulls would trace the shoreline. The gentle but all-powerful waves of the Pacific would empty my mind, cleanse my soul and send me back to the world reborn.
It has the same effect now. Wiz has supplied me with a trumpet and a mute. We stand in the sand, him with his magic flute, me with my muted horn, sending sweet sounds into the endless sea. The crow is here. Of all the times I have spent on this beach I can only remember gulls. It is as mystifying as the sea itself.
Wiz gives me a lesson on looking cool while playing the trumpet. My tendency is to point the horn downward. He wants me to raise it up. We eventually walk back to Sally and deposit our instruments, suddenly aware of the human beauty that surrounds us. She is young enough to be his daughter but old enough to hunger for experience. A bronzed beauty, breasts like golden delicious apples, she moves in a manner that defies the laws of physics. I look down and see a golden anklet. It is the gift I have sought for my wife two thousand miles away. The signs are all around us.
We have to this place in service to my memories. We have play glorious golf in the company of wildlife at Pacific Grove. Wiz has played shots he never thought he was capable of hitting. I have played with a free and open mind. We have been absorbed in the majesty of nature. We have had communion with the sea.
All this leads me back to Nashville where my love awaits.
We have one more service to perform. We are heading to the Hog’s Breath Inn, Clint Eastwood’s place, where once I caught him dashing in and out, a beautiful blonde by his side, to check on his affairs. Wiz asks me the time and I immediately realize we are due back in Motown for a family picnic. A couple of fine looking ladies give us a glance but we are immune to temptation. We cut our visit short and head back to the valley. Clint is not in.
The ride back is thoughtful, peaceful, full of dreams and pleasant memories. I realize that it will be a year or more before I am likely to feel the Pacific breeze again. It is difficult to let go. We stop in the valley town of Los Banos for gas and call ahead to let the family know we’re on our way.
Wiz takes care of the gas and encounters a young lady with the frazzled look of methamphetamine. As we’re pulling out he tells the story. A man says it’s his birthday and she offers him a gift he will remember. She looks at Wiz and says: Hell, I’d give it to almost anyone. She looks our way as she climbs the stairs of a hotel across the way. She charges the imagination. I tell Wiz he’d better wear two condoms for that encounter. Temptation aside, we drive off with the weight of the road a little heavier and the stuff of wet dreams swirling in our minds.
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.
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.
GRAND CANYON: YOSEMITE
We have stayed three days longer than intended. Once again I am reminded how difficult it is to escape the hold of this valley. Motowners are like the variety of tree ironically named Trees of Heaven. Once they take root they do not let go. They spread and swallow the land.
Our plan begins with golf at Wawona, a course at the southwestern tip of Yosemite National Park. It is a place of bountiful beauty that Jere and Patty have told us about. Our route takes us through Merced, a town smaller but strikingly similar to Modesto. In fact, it strikes me that all these valley towns are pretty much the same: Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced, Stockton, Modesto, Lodi and Sacramento. They are variations on a theme of commercial development with agricultural roots. The valley has been invaded by an army of Bay Area commuters. It is a boon to real estate but a nightmare to renters and working people who are rapidly abandoning their dreams of home ownership. Thousands of people prefer to drive up to two hundred miles a day rather than pay the high price of housing on their own turf.
As we turn east into the Sierra foothills, I am reminded of an ill-fated bicycle trip a good friend and I once took along this path. We set out for Yosemite from Turlock with packs on our backs and nothing but grit. We took no precautions such as tools, flashlights, spare tires or pumps. My compadre had neglected to sport underwear and developed a rash. I vividly remember watching him climb slowly up these rolling hills, pack swaying from side to side, as he tried to avoid contact with his seat. We slept in a cow pasture in pitch-black darkness not more than a mile from the nearest town. We made it as far as Mariposa, gateway to the national park, when a downpour of rain gave us an excuse to turn back. A flat tire in Merced allowed us to call for a ride home. It was a memorable journey despite the misfortunes and the fact that we never reached our destiny.
Our friendship was then as tight and secure as Wiz and I are now. It would end several years later. I was directing a play and recruited him as my set designer. He interrupted a rehearsal by moving set pieces on stage. When I expressed my displeasure he walked out. Within a week came the news that he had overturned his car on the freeway. He’d lost consciousness while driving, a victim of his own adventurous spirit. He was fortunate to survive but he lost control of the muscles and nerves that move the left eyelid. It was fixed in a closed position and there it would remain. He was a superb actor and a prince of a man though he would prefer the title of court jester. He took risks and that path constantly took him to the edge. When he pushed it too far he paid the price. He fell into an abyss. Some would say he jumped. The wonder is that he returned to carry on.
Would it have happened had I not chastised him for something so ultimately unimportant? Would it have happened if he had not walked out? No one can say. We would become friends again but we would never be brothers. We lost that sense of trust. I can only believe it is as it is supposed to be. I will remember this and hold on when it is my turn to take the fall. We all get a turn. Things do not happen at random. If I have learned anything on the journey it is this: There is a reason and a purpose to the events and experiences that cross our paths. We should not fear and avoid them, but rather embrace and learn from them.
We turn south at Mariposa and wind our way to Wawona. Throughout our journey we have been advised to take precautions and make reservations in advance but we prefer to take our chances. If it is meant to happen it will.
Am I a fatalist? Yes, I believe in fate. I believe in magic. I believe in karma. I believe in spirits and the soul. I believe there is infinitely more beyond our grasp than within it. Do we have a choice? Yes, we have a choice to deny it or embrace it. Deny it and you deny yourself. Embrace it and grow. Become the thing you are intended to be.
The first time I faced the charge of fatalism it was at the hand of a high school world geography teacher whom I respected. I had written what I considered an excellent essay on a subject that now escapes me. The paper came back with a grade of B and the comment: Isn’t this a bit fatalistic? It was the first time my work was criticized for the content of my theme rather than the quality of the work. It had a profound effect and sent me into a period of doubt. It would be years before I would allow myself to further explore the concept of fate. By deferring to authority I had delayed the journey of my soul.
At the entrance to Yosemite the ranger waves the fee with the statement: We’re not charging today. We have now visited two of America’s most popular national parks free of charge. This is how it should be and we accept it as a blessing.
Wawona is far from the glacier valley of Half Dome, Indian Caves, Yosemite Falls and El Capitan. It possesses a more placid beauty with tall redwood pines and open fields of tall grass and wildflowers nestled in a terrain where the gentle foothills begin their transformation to the high Sierra peaks. Wawona Lodge is a large white wooden structure of southern forties grace with its long row of elegant columns running the length of the structure and bordering its front porch. There are countless squirrels, ducks, swan and deer on its huge expanse of bright green lawn mixing with the boarders in soft white, blue and pink attire.
There is plenty of sunlight left in the day as we check in at a clubhouse that doubles as the village grocery store. We are invited to tee up whenever we like. Wiz and I are at the top of our games through the first four holes. There are curious warning signs at the first and third tees: The first tells the tale of a seven-year-old boy who lost his life to an antlered deer. The second warns of a rattlesnake without rattles. I surmise it is an effective means of keeping golfers out of the natural brush representing the rough.
The fifth hole takes my breath away. It is a long par four from an elevated tee, dropping steeply to a typically small and well-bunkered green. It is exceptionally narrow with tall redwoods on both sides. I try to control my tee shot, constricting the muscles of my arms and body and upsetting the natural rhythm of my swing. It sails off right into the woods. I am forced to take a drop, miss my next two shots on a downhill lie and end up with a triple bogey. Wiz is in a smooth and relaxed groove. He plays it like a champ, saving par with a short chip and putt.
As we walk to the next hole Wiz brings up our scores and makes a joke about the master’s fall. Suddenly, we have entered the world of competitive golf. He later says it was only meaningless patter, an expression of his sense of humor. He doesn’t seem to realize that expressions of humor often have a dark and serious side. The words we choose to let loose on the world are never without meaning. I have witnessed the cold harshness of his joking interactions with his girlfriend and watched nearly come to blows. It is a lesson he has yet to learn.
Wiz has the honor of shooting first at the next tee. He fires the ball into the tall grass. He refuses to take a mulligan. I step to the tee and send a three-iron sailing two hundred yards and slightly left of the target. It fades and settles gently on the center of the green. The gods of golf have spoken. I save par on the next hole with a nice sand wedge while Wiz continues to struggle. He drops seven strokes in two holes. The golf gods have delivered a stern lesson. Golf is a game of ultimate humility. Wiz will have his day. As I have often told him, though I have been his mentor, he will better me as a matter of course. It will happen but it will not happen on a day when he is brash and cocky. It will not happen when he raises the red flag of competition. It will not happen today.
We finish the round in good spirits and head off to Yosemite Valley as the sun sets in the west. Night has fallen by the time we arrive. We are surprised to find the village store still open and a nightlife happening. As I wander off to find an open restroom Wiz purchases a small flashlight, two pints of Sam Adams lager, a fifth of cognac and a couple of microwave Mexican food platters. He starts up a conversation with a wild-eyed teenager. The thought that runs through our minds is little short of absurd. We have been on the road too long.
We find a picnic table outside in front of the village snack bar and position ourselves to view the young ladies who seem everywhere on this scene. Except for the tamales, which are passable, the Mexican platters are by far the worst excuse for a meal we have taken on the journey. It doesn’t matter. The beer is great. We wander back toward the parking lot, scouting for a place to sleep, when I spot a couple of rangers approaching in the sparse light. I wonder aloud if it’s cool to have an open beer on the park grounds. Wiz replies: If he stops us we’ll have to kill him. It is a joke that will not seem funny as time rolls on.
I stay with Sally as Wiz take the flashlight and explores the surroundings. He spots a place to lay out our bags on the backside of park headquarters and off we go. Again he jokes: If they catch us we’ll just have to kill them. We settle down for the night and reflect on the journey behind us as well as the journey ahead. We are pleased. We had discussed crossing Tioga Pass during the night but fatigue and hunger have held us back. It is the path that has chosen us. Wiz observes that we could easily have come to hate each other by now. That is one of the dangers of the journey. We agree that our friendship is secure and count our blessings. It is the first time we have allowed ourselves to look back and reflect with satisfaction the distance we have traveled. Now we speak at length, retelling the stories and recounting our own versions on the events of the last two weeks. We finish off the liquor and settle in for sweet dreams and visions of tomorrow.
Tomorrow greets us at the crack of dawn with a world of beauty and grace. It seems frozen in time. We leave our empty bottles at the front of the building where they are sure to be spotted and discarded properly. Wiz does not want to risk being discovered carrying them to the nearest garbage can. I make a vow to balance our karma by picking up someone else’s trash down the line.
We can find no coffee and must be content with cans of coke from a vending machine. We set out for Tioga Pass but are soon overtaken by Yosemite’s mystical pull. We opt for a hike to Yosemite Falls and I recount the story of my first drunk. It was a sixth grade field trip and one of my friends turned me on to a strange wine concoction known as Bali Hai. Beneath the majesty of Yosemite Falls I fell as sick as I had ever been in my young life. I have always it seems been attracted to friends who were driven by risk and adventure.
It is early and we are alone in the splendor of John Muir’s valley. We linger longer than we should, long enough to collect our thoughts, becoming one with the animal and Indian spirits that still rule this sacred kingdom, and then we resume the journey.
Our plan begins with golf at Wawona, a course at the southwestern tip of Yosemite National Park. It is a place of bountiful beauty that Jere and Patty have told us about. Our route takes us through Merced, a town smaller but strikingly similar to Modesto. In fact, it strikes me that all these valley towns are pretty much the same: Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced, Stockton, Modesto, Lodi and Sacramento. They are variations on a theme of commercial development with agricultural roots. The valley has been invaded by an army of Bay Area commuters. It is a boon to real estate but a nightmare to renters and working people who are rapidly abandoning their dreams of home ownership. Thousands of people prefer to drive up to two hundred miles a day rather than pay the high price of housing on their own turf.
As we turn east into the Sierra foothills, I am reminded of an ill-fated bicycle trip a good friend and I once took along this path. We set out for Yosemite from Turlock with packs on our backs and nothing but grit. We took no precautions such as tools, flashlights, spare tires or pumps. My compadre had neglected to sport underwear and developed a rash. I vividly remember watching him climb slowly up these rolling hills, pack swaying from side to side, as he tried to avoid contact with his seat. We slept in a cow pasture in pitch-black darkness not more than a mile from the nearest town. We made it as far as Mariposa, gateway to the national park, when a downpour of rain gave us an excuse to turn back. A flat tire in Merced allowed us to call for a ride home. It was a memorable journey despite the misfortunes and the fact that we never reached our destiny.
Our friendship was then as tight and secure as Wiz and I are now. It would end several years later. I was directing a play and recruited him as my set designer. He interrupted a rehearsal by moving set pieces on stage. When I expressed my displeasure he walked out. Within a week came the news that he had overturned his car on the freeway. He’d lost consciousness while driving, a victim of his own adventurous spirit. He was fortunate to survive but he lost control of the muscles and nerves that move the left eyelid. It was fixed in a closed position and there it would remain. He was a superb actor and a prince of a man though he would prefer the title of court jester. He took risks and that path constantly took him to the edge. When he pushed it too far he paid the price. He fell into an abyss. Some would say he jumped. The wonder is that he returned to carry on.
Would it have happened had I not chastised him for something so ultimately unimportant? Would it have happened if he had not walked out? No one can say. We would become friends again but we would never be brothers. We lost that sense of trust. I can only believe it is as it is supposed to be. I will remember this and hold on when it is my turn to take the fall. We all get a turn. Things do not happen at random. If I have learned anything on the journey it is this: There is a reason and a purpose to the events and experiences that cross our paths. We should not fear and avoid them, but rather embrace and learn from them.
We turn south at Mariposa and wind our way to Wawona. Throughout our journey we have been advised to take precautions and make reservations in advance but we prefer to take our chances. If it is meant to happen it will.
Am I a fatalist? Yes, I believe in fate. I believe in magic. I believe in karma. I believe in spirits and the soul. I believe there is infinitely more beyond our grasp than within it. Do we have a choice? Yes, we have a choice to deny it or embrace it. Deny it and you deny yourself. Embrace it and grow. Become the thing you are intended to be.
The first time I faced the charge of fatalism it was at the hand of a high school world geography teacher whom I respected. I had written what I considered an excellent essay on a subject that now escapes me. The paper came back with a grade of B and the comment: Isn’t this a bit fatalistic? It was the first time my work was criticized for the content of my theme rather than the quality of the work. It had a profound effect and sent me into a period of doubt. It would be years before I would allow myself to further explore the concept of fate. By deferring to authority I had delayed the journey of my soul.
At the entrance to Yosemite the ranger waves the fee with the statement: We’re not charging today. We have now visited two of America’s most popular national parks free of charge. This is how it should be and we accept it as a blessing.
Wawona is far from the glacier valley of Half Dome, Indian Caves, Yosemite Falls and El Capitan. It possesses a more placid beauty with tall redwood pines and open fields of tall grass and wildflowers nestled in a terrain where the gentle foothills begin their transformation to the high Sierra peaks. Wawona Lodge is a large white wooden structure of southern forties grace with its long row of elegant columns running the length of the structure and bordering its front porch. There are countless squirrels, ducks, swan and deer on its huge expanse of bright green lawn mixing with the boarders in soft white, blue and pink attire.
There is plenty of sunlight left in the day as we check in at a clubhouse that doubles as the village grocery store. We are invited to tee up whenever we like. Wiz and I are at the top of our games through the first four holes. There are curious warning signs at the first and third tees: The first tells the tale of a seven-year-old boy who lost his life to an antlered deer. The second warns of a rattlesnake without rattles. I surmise it is an effective means of keeping golfers out of the natural brush representing the rough.
The fifth hole takes my breath away. It is a long par four from an elevated tee, dropping steeply to a typically small and well-bunkered green. It is exceptionally narrow with tall redwoods on both sides. I try to control my tee shot, constricting the muscles of my arms and body and upsetting the natural rhythm of my swing. It sails off right into the woods. I am forced to take a drop, miss my next two shots on a downhill lie and end up with a triple bogey. Wiz is in a smooth and relaxed groove. He plays it like a champ, saving par with a short chip and putt.
As we walk to the next hole Wiz brings up our scores and makes a joke about the master’s fall. Suddenly, we have entered the world of competitive golf. He later says it was only meaningless patter, an expression of his sense of humor. He doesn’t seem to realize that expressions of humor often have a dark and serious side. The words we choose to let loose on the world are never without meaning. I have witnessed the cold harshness of his joking interactions with his girlfriend and watched nearly come to blows. It is a lesson he has yet to learn.
Wiz has the honor of shooting first at the next tee. He fires the ball into the tall grass. He refuses to take a mulligan. I step to the tee and send a three-iron sailing two hundred yards and slightly left of the target. It fades and settles gently on the center of the green. The gods of golf have spoken. I save par on the next hole with a nice sand wedge while Wiz continues to struggle. He drops seven strokes in two holes. The golf gods have delivered a stern lesson. Golf is a game of ultimate humility. Wiz will have his day. As I have often told him, though I have been his mentor, he will better me as a matter of course. It will happen but it will not happen on a day when he is brash and cocky. It will not happen when he raises the red flag of competition. It will not happen today.
We finish the round in good spirits and head off to Yosemite Valley as the sun sets in the west. Night has fallen by the time we arrive. We are surprised to find the village store still open and a nightlife happening. As I wander off to find an open restroom Wiz purchases a small flashlight, two pints of Sam Adams lager, a fifth of cognac and a couple of microwave Mexican food platters. He starts up a conversation with a wild-eyed teenager. The thought that runs through our minds is little short of absurd. We have been on the road too long.
We find a picnic table outside in front of the village snack bar and position ourselves to view the young ladies who seem everywhere on this scene. Except for the tamales, which are passable, the Mexican platters are by far the worst excuse for a meal we have taken on the journey. It doesn’t matter. The beer is great. We wander back toward the parking lot, scouting for a place to sleep, when I spot a couple of rangers approaching in the sparse light. I wonder aloud if it’s cool to have an open beer on the park grounds. Wiz replies: If he stops us we’ll have to kill him. It is a joke that will not seem funny as time rolls on.
I stay with Sally as Wiz take the flashlight and explores the surroundings. He spots a place to lay out our bags on the backside of park headquarters and off we go. Again he jokes: If they catch us we’ll just have to kill them. We settle down for the night and reflect on the journey behind us as well as the journey ahead. We are pleased. We had discussed crossing Tioga Pass during the night but fatigue and hunger have held us back. It is the path that has chosen us. Wiz observes that we could easily have come to hate each other by now. That is one of the dangers of the journey. We agree that our friendship is secure and count our blessings. It is the first time we have allowed ourselves to look back and reflect with satisfaction the distance we have traveled. Now we speak at length, retelling the stories and recounting our own versions on the events of the last two weeks. We finish off the liquor and settle in for sweet dreams and visions of tomorrow.
Tomorrow greets us at the crack of dawn with a world of beauty and grace. It seems frozen in time. We leave our empty bottles at the front of the building where they are sure to be spotted and discarded properly. Wiz does not want to risk being discovered carrying them to the nearest garbage can. I make a vow to balance our karma by picking up someone else’s trash down the line.
We can find no coffee and must be content with cans of coke from a vending machine. We set out for Tioga Pass but are soon overtaken by Yosemite’s mystical pull. We opt for a hike to Yosemite Falls and I recount the story of my first drunk. It was a sixth grade field trip and one of my friends turned me on to a strange wine concoction known as Bali Hai. Beneath the majesty of Yosemite Falls I fell as sick as I had ever been in my young life. I have always it seems been attracted to friends who were driven by risk and adventure.
It is early and we are alone in the splendor of John Muir’s valley. We linger longer than we should, long enough to collect our thoughts, becoming one with the animal and Indian spirits that still rule this sacred kingdom, and then we resume the journey.
GRAND CANYON: TIOGA PASS
The highway that runs through Tioga Pass is a long two-lane road that cuts through the heart of Yosemite and climbs to an elevation of nearly 10,000 feet. The glare of the morning sun on a winding road makes the going tough, slow and treacherous. I remark off-hand that if for any reason the pass were closed it would cost us literally hundreds of miles and a full day’s travel. We are grateful we did not attempt the pass last night.
Soon enough the road opens up and the going is easy. We are about thirty miles from the village when we are flagged to a stop by a park ranger. He informs us that a fellow ranger has been shot during the night. Tioga Pass is closed until they find the shooter. He tells it might be an hour or two or it might be a few days. No one knows. We ask if there’s a place to wait it out and he directs us to the lodge at Wolf Creek. We thank him but before we can turn around he asks for the second time: Are you sure you don’t have a gun in the car? Not even a little one? Wiz has joked about carrying a gun and I give him a glance before answering: No, not even a little one.
We will hear several versions of the shooting but the one that sticks is: The ranger came upon a man walking down the road and stopped to ask him if he needed help. The man said no but inexplicably took off running into the woods. When the ranger followed, he fired two bullets from a 22-caliber pistol. That’s a little gun. The ranger is still alive and presumably will be able to identify the gunman.
It occurs to me that we are suspects and I begin to think about prophetic remarks, given and taken so lightly at the time. First there was Wiz with his: Well, we’ll just have to kill him. Then there was my comment about the closing of Tioga Pass. Wiz’s mind has begun to spin the same yarn. He tells me that the empty bottles we left at the park headquarters would collaborate our story. I tell him that if they decide to search Sally the first thing they would see upon opening the trunk would be the word Killer on the strap of my golf bag. It was a gift from my father and the inscription was his nickname from his fighting days. Never mind, it would a long time before they would allow us to leave this place.
At the Wolf Creek lodge we are greeted by a small gathering of stranded travelers waiting for the restaurant to open for breakfast. A line is forming when a lady emerges from inside to explain that the lodgers have first priority. We step aside and allow the lodgers to move to the front. As the hours drag on, the gathering of fellow travelers grows. They relate their varied stories of the shooting and speculate on the identity of the suspect. He could be miles away in the desolate country or he could have doubled back to find a car. He could be right here at Wolf Creek. He might be one of us. Suddenly all single men begin to look suspicious. Some make the difficult decision to turn back and replan their vacations. We are content for now to wait. We have a wonderful breakfast and enjoy the interchange with the waiters. They are surprisingly joyful and upbeat despite the chaos descending on them.
We pull our instruments from Sally and Wiz decides to give me a lesson on the trumpet. He teaches me a simple jazz scale. Before long the practice gives way to improvisational jazz and space music. The sounds are sweet to these ears and seem to blend with our rustic surroundings. We are joined on the rocks by two fellow travelers and invite them to play but they are content to listen.
A dark complexioned man with a large pack and a very noticeable limp draws all eyes as he walks into camp. He is an American Indian who is walking a trail that will take him from the Mexican border to Canada. A fire walking experience that left a large blister on his right foot has slowed his progress. He was detained for carrying a weapon in the park. It was a bow and arrow he carried for hunting. The local Indian group came to his defense and gave him shelter. Their defense was successful but he was unable to retrieve his bow. He wears a medicine pouch around his neck, army surplus pants, coat and boots. In the eyes of the predominantly white encampment he is suspect number one. Naturally he finds his way to our gathering on the rocks.
He is pleased to join us on guitar and shows an affinity for Jimi Hendrix. Between songs and interludes we exchange stories. Though he is on foot the rangers will not allow him to continue his journey until the shooter is caught. He has been through the desert. I ask him if has seen Don Juan. Without a smile he replies: I am Don Juan.
An elderly couple emerges from the cabin adjacent to our circle and the man is clearly incensed. He makes it to his car before he erupts. He explains that he and his wife were trying to meditate in their cabin when the noise of our trumpet session broke their concentration, disturbing their peace. Wiz wonders why they didn’t say something at the time. The woman explains that they anticipated how they would be greeted: A couple of old fogies. Don Juan offers to play them a song and that only infuriates the man: Now you’re being smart. He storms off to the lodge as we continue our discussion with the woman. We apologize but suggest that they should not presume us to be devoid of manners and common decency. Had they said something we would surely have stopped. They are not aware of what has transpired in the night. We make our peace but we have lost the feel for music. The mood has shifted.
I surmise that the old man is in grave danger. To feel such rage and to be unable even to conceive another way of diffusing it. What is the purpose of his meditation? The Zen masters would welcome the distraction of a practicing trumpet as a challenge to their practice of the meditative art. Embrace it and focus ever deeper on the center of your being. Or if you cannot, seek remedy. Do not allow your rage to envelop you. Do not give yourself to rage. Or if you must then embrace the rage and understand it as your own so that you may learn from it and find another way.
We pack away our instruments and begin to discuss our options. We study the atlas for an alternative route that might have escaped us. There is none. Wiz opens the Zen of Golf at random and reads a passage: Be still and take in the breadth and depth of your surroundings. The message is clear. I had been leaning the other way. The thought that keeps circling through my mind is one that I have not allowed myself to speak for fear of the power of the self fulfilling prophecy: If we don’t get out of California today, we will never get out.
Wiz suggests that we take our sand wedges, a couple of balls and shoot our way along the hiking trail to Luben’s Lake. The hike is about three miles. Wiz has only recently purchased his wedge at a second hand store in Motown. He is anxious to give it workout. It’s too bizarre to take a pass. Before we embark Don Juan offers us some sage. He explains that he offers it to all musicians that cross his path. I am pleased with the designation as a musician though it is not a title I claim. Who am I to deny the offering of Don Juan? As is his habit, Wiz gives him a CD of his girlfriend Rhonda’s album. It is a labor of love that he has produced. I offer some road kill jerky. It is the best I can do. It later occurs to me that I should have given him the manuscript of a recent play: The Ringed Women of the Sacred and Forbidden Forest. It is a Joseph Campbell inspired tale of a hero’s journey. Maybe it would have been presumptuous. Don Juan needs no lessons that I can deliver. Knowing we will never see him again, we bid him farewell. I believe we have formed a brotherhood and that he will remember and speak of us just as we will of him.
We begin the hike, laying down our balls at the foot of the trail. We each have two balls and are determined to play all the way to the lake. I am not aware that Wiz has stored away a third ball. The lower part of the trail is relatively wide and flat, allowing us to swing freely, blasting away at fifty to seventy yards a shot. As we cross a creek with shots over the water, the trail narrows, becoming rocky and climbing steeply. Soon we take on the characters of Dufus McGhee and Sivas MacDuff, Irish masters of the ancient and royal art. We begin to count strokes. I build a sizable lead but begin taking drops at the cost of a stroke, concerned that the rocky terrain will damage my wedge.
At some point we both hit into the woods. After a long search we decide to exchange roles. He looks for my ball and I look for his. Our reasoning is that since we have not focused on the other’s ball, we will be forced to employ a sixth sense. Within minutes we find both balls. Wiz loses one in the thick grass and I abandon the search when I discover water on the ground below. It is then he reveals his third ball. I am convinced that that is the reason he has lost a ball. I have advised many a beginning golfer not to carry an extra ball in his pocket, particularly when water is in play. It invites doubt and even the smallest measure of doubt can break down the golf swing. The gods of golf can smell a weakness and the water will draw the ball in like a magnet.
We are near the lake as a couple of amazed hikers as they descended the trail. Wiz is reluctant to give up his search. He is determined to play the same ball the length of the trail. It is hard to give up your goals. Finally we resume the climb and Wiz overtakes me by two strokes when the lake appears before us. We are observing etiquette and I am away. If my shot makes the lake through the trees, he will have two shots to win. I hit a beautiful shot that finds an opening and sails into the middle of the lake. Wiz plays a setup shot to position himself for the win. We agree that the next shot must enter the water on the fly rather than rolling in for his victory to be pure. He sets up, takes his backswing and lets loose a glorious, soaring shot deep into the lake. I shake his hand and congratulate him. We have played the game in its best tradition and I have discovered there is as much joy in playing well and falling short as there is in winning.
Wiz figures we have played some three thousand shots during the four hours it has taken us to hike the trail. It has been an adventure. We begin the descent, wedges tucked under our arms, with the same self-satisfied feeling one has after a round of golf well played. At some point Wiz breaks into a trot that gives way to a run and becomes a mad dash down the mountain. I stay with him about ten yards behind and find the going surprisingly easy, effortless and free of restraint. We are approaching the creek and I wonder what Wiz has in mind. I place myself in his hands. I follow his lead. He decides to fly through the maze with a blindfold. He accelerates, taking great leaping strides. It is an amazing sight, man becoming bird, but the log he has chosen to plant his foot gives way. Crack! The Wiz is down, sprawled out on a small boulder with one foot in the creek. I manage to pull up before I come down on top of him.
He looks up with an expression that tells me his ego is bruised more than his body. He was protected by blind faith and his natural relaxation at the moment of impact. That the log gave way is like the distraction of the trumpet scales. His fall is triumphant, a beautiful and inspired event, but my smile does nothing to comfort him. He proposes a deal and I agree: I will not mention his fall if he does not mention his victory in golf. I agree though I see only glory in both events. I admit I have not completely conquered my competitive spirit but I feel no shame in losing a round of golf and hope I never will.
We are back on the trail and like Castaneda and Don Juan in the desert of New Mexico we are soon trotting at a comfortable pace. We reach the lodge to discover that little has changed. The shooter is still at large. The authorities have evacuated a village down the road. We decide it is time to move on.
We wish Don Juan well, crank up Sally and head for the pass, hoping against hope that it will open before us. To my surprise the road is open for miles and miles, climbing to an elevation of 9,000 feet before we are pulled over at a lookout station by Fairview Dome and Tuolumne Meadows. The view is spectacular. It is a clear day and the sky calls to the imagination the blues of Maxfield Parrish. El Capitan towers in the distance. Surrounded by the enormous granite mountains that dominate this land, I cannot imagine a manhunt on this terrain. The hopelessness of the pursued is rivaled only by the hopelessness of the pursuers. We linger in the glory and the beauty and the majesty and the grace of mother earth, trying to communicate our gratitude with sweet sounds of music.
A park ranger about our age breaks from our station to join us. He is a musician. We talk, he plays a song and he repeats the news of the hour. It might be a matter of minutes or it might be days. We are no more than twenty or thirty miles from conquering the pass and resuming our eastward journey but it is it not to be. We are not defeated but we turn back, resolved that our path has been chosen for us. I am grateful that we are in agreement. He later confesses that he has been visited by the same haunting thought that has trailed me since our detainment at Wolf Creek: Though it runs counter to the philosophy of the journey, we must get out of California tonight.
Soon enough the road opens up and the going is easy. We are about thirty miles from the village when we are flagged to a stop by a park ranger. He informs us that a fellow ranger has been shot during the night. Tioga Pass is closed until they find the shooter. He tells it might be an hour or two or it might be a few days. No one knows. We ask if there’s a place to wait it out and he directs us to the lodge at Wolf Creek. We thank him but before we can turn around he asks for the second time: Are you sure you don’t have a gun in the car? Not even a little one? Wiz has joked about carrying a gun and I give him a glance before answering: No, not even a little one.
We will hear several versions of the shooting but the one that sticks is: The ranger came upon a man walking down the road and stopped to ask him if he needed help. The man said no but inexplicably took off running into the woods. When the ranger followed, he fired two bullets from a 22-caliber pistol. That’s a little gun. The ranger is still alive and presumably will be able to identify the gunman.
It occurs to me that we are suspects and I begin to think about prophetic remarks, given and taken so lightly at the time. First there was Wiz with his: Well, we’ll just have to kill him. Then there was my comment about the closing of Tioga Pass. Wiz’s mind has begun to spin the same yarn. He tells me that the empty bottles we left at the park headquarters would collaborate our story. I tell him that if they decide to search Sally the first thing they would see upon opening the trunk would be the word Killer on the strap of my golf bag. It was a gift from my father and the inscription was his nickname from his fighting days. Never mind, it would a long time before they would allow us to leave this place.
At the Wolf Creek lodge we are greeted by a small gathering of stranded travelers waiting for the restaurant to open for breakfast. A line is forming when a lady emerges from inside to explain that the lodgers have first priority. We step aside and allow the lodgers to move to the front. As the hours drag on, the gathering of fellow travelers grows. They relate their varied stories of the shooting and speculate on the identity of the suspect. He could be miles away in the desolate country or he could have doubled back to find a car. He could be right here at Wolf Creek. He might be one of us. Suddenly all single men begin to look suspicious. Some make the difficult decision to turn back and replan their vacations. We are content for now to wait. We have a wonderful breakfast and enjoy the interchange with the waiters. They are surprisingly joyful and upbeat despite the chaos descending on them.
We pull our instruments from Sally and Wiz decides to give me a lesson on the trumpet. He teaches me a simple jazz scale. Before long the practice gives way to improvisational jazz and space music. The sounds are sweet to these ears and seem to blend with our rustic surroundings. We are joined on the rocks by two fellow travelers and invite them to play but they are content to listen.
A dark complexioned man with a large pack and a very noticeable limp draws all eyes as he walks into camp. He is an American Indian who is walking a trail that will take him from the Mexican border to Canada. A fire walking experience that left a large blister on his right foot has slowed his progress. He was detained for carrying a weapon in the park. It was a bow and arrow he carried for hunting. The local Indian group came to his defense and gave him shelter. Their defense was successful but he was unable to retrieve his bow. He wears a medicine pouch around his neck, army surplus pants, coat and boots. In the eyes of the predominantly white encampment he is suspect number one. Naturally he finds his way to our gathering on the rocks.
He is pleased to join us on guitar and shows an affinity for Jimi Hendrix. Between songs and interludes we exchange stories. Though he is on foot the rangers will not allow him to continue his journey until the shooter is caught. He has been through the desert. I ask him if has seen Don Juan. Without a smile he replies: I am Don Juan.
An elderly couple emerges from the cabin adjacent to our circle and the man is clearly incensed. He makes it to his car before he erupts. He explains that he and his wife were trying to meditate in their cabin when the noise of our trumpet session broke their concentration, disturbing their peace. Wiz wonders why they didn’t say something at the time. The woman explains that they anticipated how they would be greeted: A couple of old fogies. Don Juan offers to play them a song and that only infuriates the man: Now you’re being smart. He storms off to the lodge as we continue our discussion with the woman. We apologize but suggest that they should not presume us to be devoid of manners and common decency. Had they said something we would surely have stopped. They are not aware of what has transpired in the night. We make our peace but we have lost the feel for music. The mood has shifted.
I surmise that the old man is in grave danger. To feel such rage and to be unable even to conceive another way of diffusing it. What is the purpose of his meditation? The Zen masters would welcome the distraction of a practicing trumpet as a challenge to their practice of the meditative art. Embrace it and focus ever deeper on the center of your being. Or if you cannot, seek remedy. Do not allow your rage to envelop you. Do not give yourself to rage. Or if you must then embrace the rage and understand it as your own so that you may learn from it and find another way.
We pack away our instruments and begin to discuss our options. We study the atlas for an alternative route that might have escaped us. There is none. Wiz opens the Zen of Golf at random and reads a passage: Be still and take in the breadth and depth of your surroundings. The message is clear. I had been leaning the other way. The thought that keeps circling through my mind is one that I have not allowed myself to speak for fear of the power of the self fulfilling prophecy: If we don’t get out of California today, we will never get out.
Wiz suggests that we take our sand wedges, a couple of balls and shoot our way along the hiking trail to Luben’s Lake. The hike is about three miles. Wiz has only recently purchased his wedge at a second hand store in Motown. He is anxious to give it workout. It’s too bizarre to take a pass. Before we embark Don Juan offers us some sage. He explains that he offers it to all musicians that cross his path. I am pleased with the designation as a musician though it is not a title I claim. Who am I to deny the offering of Don Juan? As is his habit, Wiz gives him a CD of his girlfriend Rhonda’s album. It is a labor of love that he has produced. I offer some road kill jerky. It is the best I can do. It later occurs to me that I should have given him the manuscript of a recent play: The Ringed Women of the Sacred and Forbidden Forest. It is a Joseph Campbell inspired tale of a hero’s journey. Maybe it would have been presumptuous. Don Juan needs no lessons that I can deliver. Knowing we will never see him again, we bid him farewell. I believe we have formed a brotherhood and that he will remember and speak of us just as we will of him.
We begin the hike, laying down our balls at the foot of the trail. We each have two balls and are determined to play all the way to the lake. I am not aware that Wiz has stored away a third ball. The lower part of the trail is relatively wide and flat, allowing us to swing freely, blasting away at fifty to seventy yards a shot. As we cross a creek with shots over the water, the trail narrows, becoming rocky and climbing steeply. Soon we take on the characters of Dufus McGhee and Sivas MacDuff, Irish masters of the ancient and royal art. We begin to count strokes. I build a sizable lead but begin taking drops at the cost of a stroke, concerned that the rocky terrain will damage my wedge.
At some point we both hit into the woods. After a long search we decide to exchange roles. He looks for my ball and I look for his. Our reasoning is that since we have not focused on the other’s ball, we will be forced to employ a sixth sense. Within minutes we find both balls. Wiz loses one in the thick grass and I abandon the search when I discover water on the ground below. It is then he reveals his third ball. I am convinced that that is the reason he has lost a ball. I have advised many a beginning golfer not to carry an extra ball in his pocket, particularly when water is in play. It invites doubt and even the smallest measure of doubt can break down the golf swing. The gods of golf can smell a weakness and the water will draw the ball in like a magnet.
We are near the lake as a couple of amazed hikers as they descended the trail. Wiz is reluctant to give up his search. He is determined to play the same ball the length of the trail. It is hard to give up your goals. Finally we resume the climb and Wiz overtakes me by two strokes when the lake appears before us. We are observing etiquette and I am away. If my shot makes the lake through the trees, he will have two shots to win. I hit a beautiful shot that finds an opening and sails into the middle of the lake. Wiz plays a setup shot to position himself for the win. We agree that the next shot must enter the water on the fly rather than rolling in for his victory to be pure. He sets up, takes his backswing and lets loose a glorious, soaring shot deep into the lake. I shake his hand and congratulate him. We have played the game in its best tradition and I have discovered there is as much joy in playing well and falling short as there is in winning.
Wiz figures we have played some three thousand shots during the four hours it has taken us to hike the trail. It has been an adventure. We begin the descent, wedges tucked under our arms, with the same self-satisfied feeling one has after a round of golf well played. At some point Wiz breaks into a trot that gives way to a run and becomes a mad dash down the mountain. I stay with him about ten yards behind and find the going surprisingly easy, effortless and free of restraint. We are approaching the creek and I wonder what Wiz has in mind. I place myself in his hands. I follow his lead. He decides to fly through the maze with a blindfold. He accelerates, taking great leaping strides. It is an amazing sight, man becoming bird, but the log he has chosen to plant his foot gives way. Crack! The Wiz is down, sprawled out on a small boulder with one foot in the creek. I manage to pull up before I come down on top of him.
He looks up with an expression that tells me his ego is bruised more than his body. He was protected by blind faith and his natural relaxation at the moment of impact. That the log gave way is like the distraction of the trumpet scales. His fall is triumphant, a beautiful and inspired event, but my smile does nothing to comfort him. He proposes a deal and I agree: I will not mention his fall if he does not mention his victory in golf. I agree though I see only glory in both events. I admit I have not completely conquered my competitive spirit but I feel no shame in losing a round of golf and hope I never will.
We are back on the trail and like Castaneda and Don Juan in the desert of New Mexico we are soon trotting at a comfortable pace. We reach the lodge to discover that little has changed. The shooter is still at large. The authorities have evacuated a village down the road. We decide it is time to move on.
We wish Don Juan well, crank up Sally and head for the pass, hoping against hope that it will open before us. To my surprise the road is open for miles and miles, climbing to an elevation of 9,000 feet before we are pulled over at a lookout station by Fairview Dome and Tuolumne Meadows. The view is spectacular. It is a clear day and the sky calls to the imagination the blues of Maxfield Parrish. El Capitan towers in the distance. Surrounded by the enormous granite mountains that dominate this land, I cannot imagine a manhunt on this terrain. The hopelessness of the pursued is rivaled only by the hopelessness of the pursuers. We linger in the glory and the beauty and the majesty and the grace of mother earth, trying to communicate our gratitude with sweet sounds of music.
A park ranger about our age breaks from our station to join us. He is a musician. We talk, he plays a song and he repeats the news of the hour. It might be a matter of minutes or it might be days. We are no more than twenty or thirty miles from conquering the pass and resuming our eastward journey but it is it not to be. We are not defeated but we turn back, resolved that our path has been chosen for us. I am grateful that we are in agreement. He later confesses that he has been visited by the same haunting thought that has trailed me since our detainment at Wolf Creek: Though it runs counter to the philosophy of the journey, we must get out of California tonight.
GRAND CANYON: SKY OF A MILLION STARS
We retrace our path down Tioga Pass into the foothills, a sense of urgency crawling over us. It is a strange feeling moving once again toward the setting sun. The grade grows steeper, the road narrows and winds around the mountains of purple hued bushes as we reach Groveland where the mountains yield gradually to rolling hills. Groveland is the home to one of my favorite golf course: Pine Mountain Golf and Country Club. It is laid out around a lake, using the natural lay of the land, where elevated tees and greens are the rule and the greens are as slick and smooth as pool tables, with slope and undulations to challenge the finest putter.
It is a course I have walked once and never will again. The grade is too steep and the beauty far too great for labor. The golf at Pine Mountain has long since given way to the country club. The privatization of such places of beauty is a process that began at the peak of golf’s popularity. It will run its course but probably not here in my lifetime. I’ve never felt comfortable in the company of the privileged class and they’ve never seemed comfortable in mine. People are people so I suppose it is a failing I must some day learn to conquer.
The sun has lowered in the western sky by the time we reach the turn around near Chinese Camp. It was here in the land of Joaquin Murrieta that the indentured Chinese nationals were stationed when they were called upon to cut their way through the granite mountains of the high Sierras to pave the way for the westward migration. Anyone who has traveled these mountain roads cannot but be awed by their accomplishment. It is comparable to any of the Seven Wonders of the World. To us it brings a startling reality that we are now no more than forty miles from where we began thirty-six hours ago. We might have walked as far. Wiz suggests that we return to Motown just for the look on the faces of friends and family members. I am too driven to take the bait, not completely sure he is joking.
We’ve got to get out of this place.
We begin again the ascent to the high Sierras, Sonora Pass to the Devil’s Gate. The darkness brings a fresh chill as we roll into Sonora, dead tired but not beaten. We pull up at a restaurant on the far side of town. It is surprisingly nice with its white tablecloths, folded linen napkins and spacious dining room. The waitress is about the age of Wiz’s mom. She’s a country music fan and assumes we are the same when we tell her we live in Nashville. We order steak and enjoy the most gratifying meal of our journey. We are no longer in a hurry. We gulp down as much coffee as we can hold and engage the waitress in a discussion of her favorite country music stars. We leave her a healthy tip, including one of Wiz’s CDs, hitting the highway fresh and renewed.
It is late and there is no moon. The sky is without clouds. We crawl to the top of Sonora Pass and there we are compelled to stop. I have been in these mountains a thousand nights but never have I seen a sky so closes and so teeming with stars and shining planets bursting with cosmic energy. It is the sky of a million stars. The power is so immense that it tempts my soul to walk the stairway to heaven. The sky sings to us in a chorus of infinite voices. I know now the wonder of the muses and the graces in perfect harmony. Breathless, mesmerized, enthralled, there are no words. This glorious view is the reason there is music in the universe of humankind. There are no words.
We can’t stay long. We must embrace the moment with all our beings. This image must last a lifetime. Linger too long in this heavenly perfection and we will never return to our earthly stations. We will wonder like blind men in the valley of desolation. We will find no peace or consolation. Linger too long and we will go over the edge. We are ready for such a final destiny. It is not our time. It is a moment of inspiration, not of attainment. Our journey remains before us.
We descend with all the caution and respect the mountain commands. It is the pinnacle of danger yet our spirits are light and free. We have been to the mountaintop and seen the playground of the gods. Now my human drive returns to press on. We come to a fork known as the Devil’s Gate and veer south still on the California side of the Sierras. We enter a strange land where the human spirit is not welcome. It is a land of military installations, one after another without end. It is a land without hope and a land where death reigns. We press onward with the high of Sonora Pass sill fresh in our minds, still holding us in its arms and pushing back despair.
Wiz soon falls asleep. He senses that I will soon need relief at the wheel. At any other time on our journey I would pull over and rest. Driving these mountain roads, twisting and turning and the relentless climb, has sapped my strength and clouded my vision. The road now appears as if in a tunnel, its periphery blurred beyond recognition. There is a fog where there is no fog. There is a cloud on a cloudless horizon.
Finally we turn east and head toward Highway 6 across Nevada. If it were daylight we would be able to see the granite peaks of Tioga Pass. As it is I am too tired to think or to appreciate the irony. Wiz is awakened by the change in direction and senses the disparity between my spirits and the state of my physical being. He takes the wheel and we drive on through the night.
I am unable to sleep or rest. I am beyond fatigue. I am in a state of suspended consciousness where no thoughts or visions outside the moment are allowed. The road now seems heartless, cold and unforgiving. Wiz is driving Sally hard. She seems to be flying as we hit a long series of pronounced undulations in the road. They are too small to be described as hills but too large to be called bumps. Wiz wonders at a strange sound like scraping metal that follows the passing of each rise. He is far-gone. I explain that Sally is hitting bottom on each landing and he slows down. It is an eternity before we reach the state line. We are at last free to exchange our fears of never escaping the grip of California. The high plains are barren and strange but we have finally made it to Nevada. Within a few miles we pull over and fall into a deep, deep sleep.
I dream of dark places where only rattlesnakes, lizards and scorpions thrive, where faces appear and submerge in shades of gray. I am lost and unsettled.
We awake at dawn, the chill of the night still with us in the morning light. It is a bold new world. It is astonishing how radically the land changes on the Nevada side of the Sierras. Each state is so distinctive, their boundaries laid more by nature than by political divide. Nevada is a desolate state, a land of sage and coyotes, a land of crow and vultures on the barren highland plains. Having escaped California we must now traverse the desperate stretch of highway before us.
Our first destiny is Boulder Colorado. Our path will take us through Nevada and Utah. It is something of a mirror image of our westward journey, beginning on Highway 6 and crossing over to the north in St. Louis Missouri. The paths intersect at only one point: Eli Nevada. The town that first appeared to us as an oasis in a land of desperation now appears as a crossroad where the highways converge in all directions. It is a fitting place for a round of golf.
We pay a visit to the local Burger King for coffee and breakfast. The pickup in front of us bizarrely has the number 666 on its license plate. I can’t imagine being so immune to humanity’s obsession with numbers and symbolism that you would be willing to drive a vehicle with the mark of the beast. It is a company truck and a curiosity. Is it an omen, a warning or a sign? We don’t know what to make of it.
An attractive young Hispanic woman at the Burger King is unusually friendly. She notices the instruments in the back of the car and delivers extra sugar and cream with a smile. I admit I enjoy sharing the image of traveling musicians with the Wiz, who suggests facetiously that this might not be such a bad place to settle down. It leads me to wonder what life would be like in a place like this. It leads me to wonder why anyone would choose this place over all the places of beauty we have witnessed on our journey. Heaven is where the heart is and I suppose that even Eli could be heaven with the right person and the right state of mind. Still, I can think of no attraction but the promise of employment.
There is a convention of golfers at a large local motel. The sign out front reads: Welcome Golfers! That is a sign we know what to do with. We stop for gas and Wiz opens the hood to give the engine a quick check. He finds a problem. The bolt that holds the alternator in place is broken. Left unattended it will drain the battery and leave us stranded by the roadside. It is only a matter of when. The man at the station is unable to deal with it and gives us directions to a shop on the outside of town. We decide to let it ride for now. It is early in the day so there is plenty of time.
We look up the local golf course and sign on for nine holes. It is a flat course with few trees and the ground is nearly as hard as stone off its grass fairways. We hit a bucket of balls on the practice range and I begin to realize how weary I am. This will be a round about balance, the first principle of Zen golf.
We play well on a course that is as simple and uninspired as a landfill. The holes are so similar that we get lost in the middle of the round and tee off on the wrong hole. It is not until we are walking to our balls that we realize we have played this hole before. Ironically, it is my best drive of the day, a scorching 300 yards down the right side of the fairway. No matter that it is lost on the scorecard, we right our selves and allow a twosome to play through. They appear to be businessmen, one of whom is a very large man with an extra long, graphite shaft driver with an oversized head. It is designed for maximum distance. I admit I find these new drivers bothersome. I understand the role of technology in golf. I have no real desire to go back to the days of wooden shafts, the knobby and the baffle but there is something unsavory about a club that allows a man to simulate the power of a professional golfer. They do not encourage the beauty of the swing. The extended shaft forces a flat trajectory that generally carries a hitch in the backswing. It is an ugly swing and the golfer who gets caught up in the power game will soon be lost.
The large man hits a solid drive down the middle and struts off with a satisfied grin, without a word in response to our compliments. He has demonstrated his superior manhood. I answer in their wake with a rocket down the middle. They look back with a silent acknowledgement: It is not the club so much as the golfer. The skinny guy with a persimmons wood has out-driven the beast. My momentary flirtation with the power game as well as a competitive challenge has a predictable impact. I have forgotten the day’s lesson and the principle of balance, focus, and finding the center. We finish the round, grinding against the wind and head out once again for the highway.
It is close to five o’clock and we decide to check out the shop outside of town for repair work. As before, Wiz takes the lead. He is teaching me a lot about making connections with people of all kinds. When dealing with mechanics it is advantageous to have a background of knowledge and a working vocabulary. He never begins with business. He makes small talk as if he only stopped here for a little human interaction. The manager explains that this is the first day in some time that the wind had settled down. He talks on about the Midwest where a relentless storm has overloaded the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers to record depths. Here in Eli the winds whip the dry land into a dust bowl.
It is closing time and the manager passes on an offer to go golfing. Wiz inquires about a good course and the manager is familiar with one. It is clear he has taken a liking to Wiz. He asks a mechanic if he’d be willing to put in some overtime to help us out and the mechanic agrees. Turns out it’s a tricky job but the man is up to it. It takes about a half an hour and the charge is very reasonable. Wiz leaves a couple of CD’s and all is well.
We head out across Utah with its towering rock monuments. They resemble Stonehenge or some ancient carvings. Utah has no particular attraction to us. We drive straight through and watch the land undergo changes in texture, in color and feel. We observe the appearance of crows in groups of five and seven. It seems they have mastered this territory and seem to rule over it. It is a place for silent contemplation, communion with the spirit world and oneness with the earth.
We reach Colorado by nightfall and drive on to Glenwood Springs. There we give up the push to reach Boulder and settle in for the night. We check in to a motel, shower and shake the road from our bones. For the first time in weeks it seems we have a little time to kill. I watch a little baseball on TV. The Giants are in first in their division. The other division leaders are Philadelphia, Toronto and the White Sox. The Yanks and the Rangers are hanging tough. Baseball is a game I love as much as I do golf. I sometimes wonder how far I might have gone if my path led in that direction. I suppose I could never have hit the curveball.
I have a surge of energy and suggest we hit the streets. Wiz is reluctant but agrees at my urging. We stop at the liquor store down the road and pick up a fifth of brandy, a couple of ales and two samplers of Mescal con Dos Gusanos. Somewhere we will consume the worms. We check out a place that advertises live music but there is none to be found. Nothing is happening in this town. We take it as a sign. We don’t need action enough to go looking for it. We have dinner at a 24-hour restaurant, head back to the motel, click on the tube and try to make a dent in our fresh stash of booze. One hit of brandy, half an ale and we’re both out for the night. The spirit is willing but the body is in need of rest. So be it.
We are awakened in the morning by a knock at the door. It startles us. Our plans for an early start are gone. It’s closing in on half past ten and the maid wants to finish her rounds. We plead for time and she gives us a little. We are not in a mood to hurry. We click the tube back on and go through our morning routines, which include my running over to the office for coffee, doughnuts and a newspaper. When I return a movie called Buffy the Vampire Slayer is playing. It’s a kick in the ass. Wiz rearranges the packing in Sally while we extend our stay beyond checkout time. The maid will have to wait. Buffy has captured our attention and we stay to the finish, Paul Ruben’s death scene milked to the hilt. We burst into fits of laughter. It’s a great feeling.
Whatever divinity rules over us, it is smiling upon us today. It’s a great day for driving, for sitting in the sun, for laughing and playing music, for singing or just being alive. We are last car to leave the lot. The maid gives a smile. She thinks we must be high. We have a good breakfast and hit the road, bound for glory and a place called Boulder in the shadow of the Great Rocky Mountains.
Beyond Grand Junction there is a stretch of highway that extols the meeting of the Rockies and the Colorado River. To the first roaming tribes of North American hunters or the first European explorers this land must have seemed a Mecca, the promised land, the land of the gods and goddesses, a landed of blessed enchantment. Now it is a tourist Mecca. The smell of avarice is rich and bittersweet like pure natural chocolate. Vail is down the road and Aspen is due south. Somewhere around Grand Junction the highway is under construction and the remains of deer and wildlife are common along the side of the road. There is a sign warning that the eagle lands on this strip of highway. I wonder what in god’s creation would lead the great bird of the North American continent to land on a busy interstate? Is this their sacred land? Is it a protest of human encroachment? It occurs to me that tourism is to the natural inhabitants of the land what the invasion of the Jesuits was to the Native Americans. Though it promises the blessings of prosperity what it brings is ruin. In the end nothing will be spared the onslaught.
We resist the temptation to mingle with the wealthy, driving past the first roadside golf course, beautifully manicured and fitted at the base of the Rockies in this narrow interstate valley. I confide to Wiz that I know their kind and I know they don’t want our kind around. He is not convinced. We approach a second course and my resistance weakens. Wiz wants to check it out. What have we got to lose? I have to admit he’s right so we pull off the highway and enter tourist land. It is a maze of social activity. Summer vacation condos are the center of it all with a bar at its base overlooking the golf course. Outside the yuppie adolescents are playing mud volleyball to the tune of rock and roll. There is something very odd and almost humorous about this crowd’s willingness to get down and dirty. Some are less adapted than others. They take the pose and look the part but are willing to go no further than a step in any direction. Their less restrained comrades are in it from head to toe, the mud people of Gypsum.
They are of the same make as we are. The only thing that separates us from them is their parents’ bank accounts. We are of the working class and there is no mistaking their fear of us. They believe we want what they have. We do not. We desire something of far greater worth. We want what they desire and what money cannot attain. We want freedom, peace and wisdom. We have more in common than they realize.
Or first stop is the driving range where a lesson is in progress. They may be among the worst golfers I have seen. The lesson is the antithesis of Zen. It is all nuts and bolts. Keep the left arm straight, right elbow in, shoulder under the chin, head down. It is the golf of restraint. Avoid errors and all will be well. A left hander stands apart from the crowd and strikes a contrast, sending shots that rise and soar like a glider and land like a ball of cotton. He is a Zen golfer. They take no notice of him. He is not one of them but he is adapted to their presence. It is a private lesson. We are given directions to the clubhouse.
We arrive and I know at a glance the cost will exceed our comfort level. It smells of it. We engage a uniformed employee outside the clubhouse in conversation. It is her job to take care of the carts and customers. Se gives us the information we need. The tee times are booked and the price is high but it includes mandatory carts. Walking is not allowed. We politely explain our conviction that walking is a part of the game. She’s sure we’re right but she is not a golfer.
It seems clear that this is not our kind of place. We hang a while, have a beer and observe the yuppie gathering. It is not our kind of place. We return to Sally and give her a crank but she stutters and stalls. At length Wiz pulls the air filter and she struggles but turns over. It turns out the combination of thin air and low octane gas has deprived her of required oxygen. She is choking. I promise her a jump in octane at the first opportunity and we go our way with a vague longing to return to where we belong. We need to be welcome. We seek a place with familiar signs and warm memories and a place that feels something like home. We want to be surrounded by our kind of people.
It is a course I have walked once and never will again. The grade is too steep and the beauty far too great for labor. The golf at Pine Mountain has long since given way to the country club. The privatization of such places of beauty is a process that began at the peak of golf’s popularity. It will run its course but probably not here in my lifetime. I’ve never felt comfortable in the company of the privileged class and they’ve never seemed comfortable in mine. People are people so I suppose it is a failing I must some day learn to conquer.
The sun has lowered in the western sky by the time we reach the turn around near Chinese Camp. It was here in the land of Joaquin Murrieta that the indentured Chinese nationals were stationed when they were called upon to cut their way through the granite mountains of the high Sierras to pave the way for the westward migration. Anyone who has traveled these mountain roads cannot but be awed by their accomplishment. It is comparable to any of the Seven Wonders of the World. To us it brings a startling reality that we are now no more than forty miles from where we began thirty-six hours ago. We might have walked as far. Wiz suggests that we return to Motown just for the look on the faces of friends and family members. I am too driven to take the bait, not completely sure he is joking.
We’ve got to get out of this place.
We begin again the ascent to the high Sierras, Sonora Pass to the Devil’s Gate. The darkness brings a fresh chill as we roll into Sonora, dead tired but not beaten. We pull up at a restaurant on the far side of town. It is surprisingly nice with its white tablecloths, folded linen napkins and spacious dining room. The waitress is about the age of Wiz’s mom. She’s a country music fan and assumes we are the same when we tell her we live in Nashville. We order steak and enjoy the most gratifying meal of our journey. We are no longer in a hurry. We gulp down as much coffee as we can hold and engage the waitress in a discussion of her favorite country music stars. We leave her a healthy tip, including one of Wiz’s CDs, hitting the highway fresh and renewed.
It is late and there is no moon. The sky is without clouds. We crawl to the top of Sonora Pass and there we are compelled to stop. I have been in these mountains a thousand nights but never have I seen a sky so closes and so teeming with stars and shining planets bursting with cosmic energy. It is the sky of a million stars. The power is so immense that it tempts my soul to walk the stairway to heaven. The sky sings to us in a chorus of infinite voices. I know now the wonder of the muses and the graces in perfect harmony. Breathless, mesmerized, enthralled, there are no words. This glorious view is the reason there is music in the universe of humankind. There are no words.
We can’t stay long. We must embrace the moment with all our beings. This image must last a lifetime. Linger too long in this heavenly perfection and we will never return to our earthly stations. We will wonder like blind men in the valley of desolation. We will find no peace or consolation. Linger too long and we will go over the edge. We are ready for such a final destiny. It is not our time. It is a moment of inspiration, not of attainment. Our journey remains before us.
We descend with all the caution and respect the mountain commands. It is the pinnacle of danger yet our spirits are light and free. We have been to the mountaintop and seen the playground of the gods. Now my human drive returns to press on. We come to a fork known as the Devil’s Gate and veer south still on the California side of the Sierras. We enter a strange land where the human spirit is not welcome. It is a land of military installations, one after another without end. It is a land without hope and a land where death reigns. We press onward with the high of Sonora Pass sill fresh in our minds, still holding us in its arms and pushing back despair.
Wiz soon falls asleep. He senses that I will soon need relief at the wheel. At any other time on our journey I would pull over and rest. Driving these mountain roads, twisting and turning and the relentless climb, has sapped my strength and clouded my vision. The road now appears as if in a tunnel, its periphery blurred beyond recognition. There is a fog where there is no fog. There is a cloud on a cloudless horizon.
Finally we turn east and head toward Highway 6 across Nevada. If it were daylight we would be able to see the granite peaks of Tioga Pass. As it is I am too tired to think or to appreciate the irony. Wiz is awakened by the change in direction and senses the disparity between my spirits and the state of my physical being. He takes the wheel and we drive on through the night.
I am unable to sleep or rest. I am beyond fatigue. I am in a state of suspended consciousness where no thoughts or visions outside the moment are allowed. The road now seems heartless, cold and unforgiving. Wiz is driving Sally hard. She seems to be flying as we hit a long series of pronounced undulations in the road. They are too small to be described as hills but too large to be called bumps. Wiz wonders at a strange sound like scraping metal that follows the passing of each rise. He is far-gone. I explain that Sally is hitting bottom on each landing and he slows down. It is an eternity before we reach the state line. We are at last free to exchange our fears of never escaping the grip of California. The high plains are barren and strange but we have finally made it to Nevada. Within a few miles we pull over and fall into a deep, deep sleep.
I dream of dark places where only rattlesnakes, lizards and scorpions thrive, where faces appear and submerge in shades of gray. I am lost and unsettled.
We awake at dawn, the chill of the night still with us in the morning light. It is a bold new world. It is astonishing how radically the land changes on the Nevada side of the Sierras. Each state is so distinctive, their boundaries laid more by nature than by political divide. Nevada is a desolate state, a land of sage and coyotes, a land of crow and vultures on the barren highland plains. Having escaped California we must now traverse the desperate stretch of highway before us.
Our first destiny is Boulder Colorado. Our path will take us through Nevada and Utah. It is something of a mirror image of our westward journey, beginning on Highway 6 and crossing over to the north in St. Louis Missouri. The paths intersect at only one point: Eli Nevada. The town that first appeared to us as an oasis in a land of desperation now appears as a crossroad where the highways converge in all directions. It is a fitting place for a round of golf.
We pay a visit to the local Burger King for coffee and breakfast. The pickup in front of us bizarrely has the number 666 on its license plate. I can’t imagine being so immune to humanity’s obsession with numbers and symbolism that you would be willing to drive a vehicle with the mark of the beast. It is a company truck and a curiosity. Is it an omen, a warning or a sign? We don’t know what to make of it.
An attractive young Hispanic woman at the Burger King is unusually friendly. She notices the instruments in the back of the car and delivers extra sugar and cream with a smile. I admit I enjoy sharing the image of traveling musicians with the Wiz, who suggests facetiously that this might not be such a bad place to settle down. It leads me to wonder what life would be like in a place like this. It leads me to wonder why anyone would choose this place over all the places of beauty we have witnessed on our journey. Heaven is where the heart is and I suppose that even Eli could be heaven with the right person and the right state of mind. Still, I can think of no attraction but the promise of employment.
There is a convention of golfers at a large local motel. The sign out front reads: Welcome Golfers! That is a sign we know what to do with. We stop for gas and Wiz opens the hood to give the engine a quick check. He finds a problem. The bolt that holds the alternator in place is broken. Left unattended it will drain the battery and leave us stranded by the roadside. It is only a matter of when. The man at the station is unable to deal with it and gives us directions to a shop on the outside of town. We decide to let it ride for now. It is early in the day so there is plenty of time.
We look up the local golf course and sign on for nine holes. It is a flat course with few trees and the ground is nearly as hard as stone off its grass fairways. We hit a bucket of balls on the practice range and I begin to realize how weary I am. This will be a round about balance, the first principle of Zen golf.
We play well on a course that is as simple and uninspired as a landfill. The holes are so similar that we get lost in the middle of the round and tee off on the wrong hole. It is not until we are walking to our balls that we realize we have played this hole before. Ironically, it is my best drive of the day, a scorching 300 yards down the right side of the fairway. No matter that it is lost on the scorecard, we right our selves and allow a twosome to play through. They appear to be businessmen, one of whom is a very large man with an extra long, graphite shaft driver with an oversized head. It is designed for maximum distance. I admit I find these new drivers bothersome. I understand the role of technology in golf. I have no real desire to go back to the days of wooden shafts, the knobby and the baffle but there is something unsavory about a club that allows a man to simulate the power of a professional golfer. They do not encourage the beauty of the swing. The extended shaft forces a flat trajectory that generally carries a hitch in the backswing. It is an ugly swing and the golfer who gets caught up in the power game will soon be lost.
The large man hits a solid drive down the middle and struts off with a satisfied grin, without a word in response to our compliments. He has demonstrated his superior manhood. I answer in their wake with a rocket down the middle. They look back with a silent acknowledgement: It is not the club so much as the golfer. The skinny guy with a persimmons wood has out-driven the beast. My momentary flirtation with the power game as well as a competitive challenge has a predictable impact. I have forgotten the day’s lesson and the principle of balance, focus, and finding the center. We finish the round, grinding against the wind and head out once again for the highway.
It is close to five o’clock and we decide to check out the shop outside of town for repair work. As before, Wiz takes the lead. He is teaching me a lot about making connections with people of all kinds. When dealing with mechanics it is advantageous to have a background of knowledge and a working vocabulary. He never begins with business. He makes small talk as if he only stopped here for a little human interaction. The manager explains that this is the first day in some time that the wind had settled down. He talks on about the Midwest where a relentless storm has overloaded the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers to record depths. Here in Eli the winds whip the dry land into a dust bowl.
It is closing time and the manager passes on an offer to go golfing. Wiz inquires about a good course and the manager is familiar with one. It is clear he has taken a liking to Wiz. He asks a mechanic if he’d be willing to put in some overtime to help us out and the mechanic agrees. Turns out it’s a tricky job but the man is up to it. It takes about a half an hour and the charge is very reasonable. Wiz leaves a couple of CD’s and all is well.
We head out across Utah with its towering rock monuments. They resemble Stonehenge or some ancient carvings. Utah has no particular attraction to us. We drive straight through and watch the land undergo changes in texture, in color and feel. We observe the appearance of crows in groups of five and seven. It seems they have mastered this territory and seem to rule over it. It is a place for silent contemplation, communion with the spirit world and oneness with the earth.
We reach Colorado by nightfall and drive on to Glenwood Springs. There we give up the push to reach Boulder and settle in for the night. We check in to a motel, shower and shake the road from our bones. For the first time in weeks it seems we have a little time to kill. I watch a little baseball on TV. The Giants are in first in their division. The other division leaders are Philadelphia, Toronto and the White Sox. The Yanks and the Rangers are hanging tough. Baseball is a game I love as much as I do golf. I sometimes wonder how far I might have gone if my path led in that direction. I suppose I could never have hit the curveball.
I have a surge of energy and suggest we hit the streets. Wiz is reluctant but agrees at my urging. We stop at the liquor store down the road and pick up a fifth of brandy, a couple of ales and two samplers of Mescal con Dos Gusanos. Somewhere we will consume the worms. We check out a place that advertises live music but there is none to be found. Nothing is happening in this town. We take it as a sign. We don’t need action enough to go looking for it. We have dinner at a 24-hour restaurant, head back to the motel, click on the tube and try to make a dent in our fresh stash of booze. One hit of brandy, half an ale and we’re both out for the night. The spirit is willing but the body is in need of rest. So be it.
We are awakened in the morning by a knock at the door. It startles us. Our plans for an early start are gone. It’s closing in on half past ten and the maid wants to finish her rounds. We plead for time and she gives us a little. We are not in a mood to hurry. We click the tube back on and go through our morning routines, which include my running over to the office for coffee, doughnuts and a newspaper. When I return a movie called Buffy the Vampire Slayer is playing. It’s a kick in the ass. Wiz rearranges the packing in Sally while we extend our stay beyond checkout time. The maid will have to wait. Buffy has captured our attention and we stay to the finish, Paul Ruben’s death scene milked to the hilt. We burst into fits of laughter. It’s a great feeling.
Whatever divinity rules over us, it is smiling upon us today. It’s a great day for driving, for sitting in the sun, for laughing and playing music, for singing or just being alive. We are last car to leave the lot. The maid gives a smile. She thinks we must be high. We have a good breakfast and hit the road, bound for glory and a place called Boulder in the shadow of the Great Rocky Mountains.
Beyond Grand Junction there is a stretch of highway that extols the meeting of the Rockies and the Colorado River. To the first roaming tribes of North American hunters or the first European explorers this land must have seemed a Mecca, the promised land, the land of the gods and goddesses, a landed of blessed enchantment. Now it is a tourist Mecca. The smell of avarice is rich and bittersweet like pure natural chocolate. Vail is down the road and Aspen is due south. Somewhere around Grand Junction the highway is under construction and the remains of deer and wildlife are common along the side of the road. There is a sign warning that the eagle lands on this strip of highway. I wonder what in god’s creation would lead the great bird of the North American continent to land on a busy interstate? Is this their sacred land? Is it a protest of human encroachment? It occurs to me that tourism is to the natural inhabitants of the land what the invasion of the Jesuits was to the Native Americans. Though it promises the blessings of prosperity what it brings is ruin. In the end nothing will be spared the onslaught.
We resist the temptation to mingle with the wealthy, driving past the first roadside golf course, beautifully manicured and fitted at the base of the Rockies in this narrow interstate valley. I confide to Wiz that I know their kind and I know they don’t want our kind around. He is not convinced. We approach a second course and my resistance weakens. Wiz wants to check it out. What have we got to lose? I have to admit he’s right so we pull off the highway and enter tourist land. It is a maze of social activity. Summer vacation condos are the center of it all with a bar at its base overlooking the golf course. Outside the yuppie adolescents are playing mud volleyball to the tune of rock and roll. There is something very odd and almost humorous about this crowd’s willingness to get down and dirty. Some are less adapted than others. They take the pose and look the part but are willing to go no further than a step in any direction. Their less restrained comrades are in it from head to toe, the mud people of Gypsum.
They are of the same make as we are. The only thing that separates us from them is their parents’ bank accounts. We are of the working class and there is no mistaking their fear of us. They believe we want what they have. We do not. We desire something of far greater worth. We want what they desire and what money cannot attain. We want freedom, peace and wisdom. We have more in common than they realize.
Or first stop is the driving range where a lesson is in progress. They may be among the worst golfers I have seen. The lesson is the antithesis of Zen. It is all nuts and bolts. Keep the left arm straight, right elbow in, shoulder under the chin, head down. It is the golf of restraint. Avoid errors and all will be well. A left hander stands apart from the crowd and strikes a contrast, sending shots that rise and soar like a glider and land like a ball of cotton. He is a Zen golfer. They take no notice of him. He is not one of them but he is adapted to their presence. It is a private lesson. We are given directions to the clubhouse.
We arrive and I know at a glance the cost will exceed our comfort level. It smells of it. We engage a uniformed employee outside the clubhouse in conversation. It is her job to take care of the carts and customers. Se gives us the information we need. The tee times are booked and the price is high but it includes mandatory carts. Walking is not allowed. We politely explain our conviction that walking is a part of the game. She’s sure we’re right but she is not a golfer.
It seems clear that this is not our kind of place. We hang a while, have a beer and observe the yuppie gathering. It is not our kind of place. We return to Sally and give her a crank but she stutters and stalls. At length Wiz pulls the air filter and she struggles but turns over. It turns out the combination of thin air and low octane gas has deprived her of required oxygen. She is choking. I promise her a jump in octane at the first opportunity and we go our way with a vague longing to return to where we belong. We need to be welcome. We seek a place with familiar signs and warm memories and a place that feels something like home. We want to be surrounded by our kind of people.
GRAND CANYON: BOULDER, COLORADO
The last time I came through Boulder I was eighteen, a draft fugitive and traveling by thumb. Had I known my draft status at the time I might not have enjoyed it so much. I’d just completed my first season of summer theater and linked up with a fellow actor who was returning to his home in York, Pennsylvania, on Chesapeake Bay.
We’d lost a loved one that memorable summer. She was stage-managing our production of Man of La Mancha when she walked out of the theater and was struck by a speeding car. She never regained consciousness. I still remember the smile she wore that fateful day. The charm and love of live she personified filled my soul with a warm and tender feeling that I did not completely understand. She possessed the beauty of innocence. My friend had dated her while I had only dreamed. We both mourned her passing. It was my first encounter with the shadow of death.
My buddy Jay had hitchhiked across country a few times. For some reason he despised the southern route with a passion. Having seen Easy Rider I never asked why. Though the summer was coming to an end and the fall was coming on, we took the northern route across interstate 80 through Reno, Winnemucca, Salt Lake City, Cheyenne, Omaha, Chicago and Cleveland. Our first night out we were stranded for seventeen hours on the exit ramp for Mustang Ranch just east of Reno. Some fool or sadistic bastard picked us up in Reno and dumped us there. He invited us in but we didn’t have that kind of cash so we waited alongside the narrow two-lane highway until we finally realized that no one was going to pick up a couple of guys outside a whorehouse. We decided to walk. The problem was he wanted to walk back toward Reno and I wanted to go forward. It was something I felt by instinct and retain today: Never turn back. The adventure lies ahead.
We started out walking our separate ways, a sizeable chip on both our shoulders, when he finally relented and caught up to me. Within half an hour a trucker picked us up. In those days that alone was something of a miracle. There was a hierarchy of expectations when it came to getting a ride: Volkswagen busses were top of the mark; big-rig trucks were rock bottom. It was against company policy. In all my days of hitching that was only time a trucker ever offered a ride.
He let us off in Winnemucca where we spent a long while reading the notes of desperation scribbled and scratched on the road sign. We were more fortunate than the scribes. A guy with a camper shell on the back of his pickup asked us if either of us could drive a standard transmission. He was headed for Ohio and wanted us to take the wheel. We told him we could, no problem. He rode a while and then we pulled over so he could climb in the camper and sleep. We got off the interstate and sailed down the highway at an average speed between sixty-five and seventy, sleeping in shifts. I was driving when we were forced to pass up a couple of fellow hitchers in the Cowboy State of Wyoming. We could see their spirits rise as the checked us out. We were brethren spirits but all we could do was shrug and gesture as they waved frantically and threw their signs and bags in the road as we drove on by. It seems they’d been there a while.
Like the stalled travelers on the loneliest road in America, the experience left me weak and pondering. We should have stopped but it wasn’t our place. More than likely we’d have joined them in despair when our sleeping proprietor awoke. Who can tell what might have been? It was a crossroad and we made our choice.
We crossed the Mississippi River at night and made it to Chesapeake Bay the next day. The entire crossing took only two and a half days, including the long wait at Mustang Ranch. I spent a week at Jay’s parents home. He was their only child and they were grateful for his return. I was treated as a valued member of the family. I remember clearly the most prized possession of their home: A framed photograph of Jay’s father with John Wayne, both in navy uniforms, on the mantel of their fireplace. They were working class people with basic values and a wandering son they did not understand. I connected with them and respected their ways though I was only a passing stranger.
It was not my place and they were not my people.
I headed north to New Hampshire where I fell in love with autumn. Colors more beautiful than any I have seen outside the realm of imagining. Hills covered with trees and trees covered with leaves of every color. Colors blending harmoniously in a way that reminded me of the French Impressionists. I spent two weeks communing with nature, staying at the college living quarters of a woman I had known since grade school though we had never shared time outside the classroom. I felt like Thoreau must have felt at Walden. As the northern chill set in, I left with a promise to myself that I would someday return. Twenty-two years later, though I have not kept that promise, I have returned often in my mind and in my heart.
On the return journey I was invited to join a theater company in Lincoln, Nebraska, but the strings that tied me to home were too powerful. I held an invitation to audition at the famed Guthrie Theater in Minnesota but the road was too long and cold. I moved on and fell in love with a place called Boulder where the people were open and kind to wandering strangers and seemed enlightened to young adventurous eyes. I spent only a day and a night there, sleeping in the dormitory lounge at the University of Colorado but I left its mark.
I returned home to Motown, kicking up my heels alongside the road to the amusement of passersby and discovered that I was already a month late in reporting for my physical to be drafted into the military. I had written a radical application for conscientious objector status, believing that it would not be approved in any case because my family was not the church going kind. My oldest brother had already distinguished himself in the family’s eyes by refusing to step forward at the induction ceremony. He was a convicted draft resister. I had read a book called 4F and decided my best shot was to starve myself so that I would be under the standard weight requirement. I had done so.
When I reported to the center they instructed us all to hold our clothing in our hands as we were weighed. I could not be sure if that was the usual procedure but it put me just over the limit. It was as if they knew who I was and what I intended. In the infamous bend-over room I heard a doctor comment that I was awfully skinny. Someone replied that I was above the guideline. When it was all over we were assembled in a holding room where we waited until our names were called for a final conference. I was the last to be called though all the others were in alphabetical order. I entered a smaller room and the man in charge called all of his associates into the room. I was clearly being given special attention. I was naïve enough that I did not know why I was being singled out.
“Look at this guy,” the man in charge began. “Does he look like he could make it through basic training?”
“Depends how much he wants it,” another said.
“He doesn’t want it,” said a third.
I nodded in agreement and looked around the room. They seemed to be enjoying this interplay. Finally, the man in charge confides:
“Alright, you may get a 1-A in the mail but don’t worry. You won’t be inducted.”
I don’t know why but I believed him. Maybe they figured I’d be more trouble than I was worth. Maybe they figured I really was a conscientious objector. Maybe they knew that Nixon was about to call off the draft. Or maybe they were just playing with me. I do know that I would not have gone under any circumstances and as it turned out I was never called. In some strange way I almost resented it. I wanted to take a stand. I wanted to join the army of resistance but it was not my destiny. That distinction would belong to my brother John and I will forever honor him for it.
That was my first journey. It was filled with wonders and its many crossroads had the power to change the course of my life. That I made the choices I did has led me to the place I now stand. I have returned to a place of beauty and one that has lived only in my memories for over two decades.
We drive into town, our separate memories preoccupying our minds in silence. Wiz has more recent memories and we follow his lead. We stop at a gas station near the university and I press the clerk about what’s happening in town while Wiz attends to Sally. The clerk knows nothing about golf. She doesn’t know about the Colorado Shakespeare Festival where I once applied for a position. She doesn’t know about jazz clubs. But when I ask about the poetry scene her eyes light up. She tells me where it’s happening and when. She says the Allen Ginsberg is in town, teaching a class at the Institute. Wiz locates the nearest public course through the phone book and our plan takes form. First we will golf in the shadow of the Rockies, then we will explore jazz poetry on the streets of Boulder and finally we will check out the scene at the poetry café the clerk has recommended.
The golf course is striking, more for its surroundings than for its layout. It is the new breed of course, a centerpiece for a housing development. It is long, well contoured and beautifully manicured. The greens are smooth, slick and sloping. We’re paired with an older couple, good and solid people. The man uses an iron off the tee and rarely sends it airborne. We later learn he is recovering from back surgery. His wife is a beginning golfer but she has a better swing than her husband. With a little guidance (hit down to go up) they could both be good golfers. As it is they enjoy the round despite their games.
The Wiz and I are playing our normal games. We are having a little difficulty with the read and the speed of the greens. On the sixth hole, out of the blue, I nail a three wood off the tee and stiff an eight iron to within ten feet of the pin. My putt is true to the center of the cup. I look up with a smile and immediately recall from the expression on Wiz’s face the bargain we struck back in Glenwood Springs. After the next birdie we swallow the worm! Only in this case, we swallow two worms each: Dos Gusanos.
We have placed our mescal samplers in our golf bags in preparation for this occasion. We tee off on the next hole, a three par to an elevated green and linger at the tee to allow our playing partners to move ahead. We are all but certain they would not approve. We whip them out quickly and put them down, mine in one swallow, the Wiz in two. I am amazed at how well I play under the influence of the worm. The world opens before my eyes. Don Juan, howling in the breeze, hovers over my shoulder. Suddenly our partners, unaware of our adventure, are like family to us. On the ninth hole we share stories and confidences and part with a heartfelt well wishing.
Boulder is a magical place. Our spirits are soaring as we head downtown, primed for jazz, laughter, music and poetry. Wiz points us to the square at the beginning of the pedestrian walk where neither cars nor bad tidings are allowed. We find a place to park and walk to the street where the scene is unfolding. There on the corner we come upon a couple of bongo players and a gypsy dancer. Within a sliver of a moment I know her. I have always known her. She is the dream I have always dreamed. She is the love I have always held within my heart. She is the queen of the gypsies. She is the woman I fell in love with a thousand years ago in a house of mystery. She is the woman I followed to Nashville.
I pull out my pen and begin writing, looking up only to take in the inspiration that comes with each breath. Wiz joins the musical feast, charging the dance of the gypsy with fresh muse like the first star of a clear moonless night, like the first scent of evergreen, like the first taste of ocean air, like the first glimpse of Grand Canyon. The enchanted circle grows. The words flow faster than I am able to write them down. I capture and hold them. They are as illusive as a gypsy’s love.
The music fades to silence. The mood is satisfaction. The dance gives way to the dream of glory and yields to waking motion. The players converse as actors do between scenes at rehearsal. They shake hands with Wiz. He has passed the audition. My words finally run dry as if the motion itself carried them and when the motion ceased the words emptied in its wake. I join the player circle on the corner of the square and Wiz introduces me. He tells them I am a poet of the streets and suggests that I join them in revelry. It seems to cause a split.
One of the percussionists is reluctant and skeptical which he communicates with a scowl and a sarcastic wit. He doesn’t want to share the stage. The gypsy dancer has already encroached on their territory and stolen his thunder as gypsies are inclined to do. He has not conceded to welcome Wiz with his magic flute yet already he is being asked to make room for a street poet. It is an art form he does not recognize.
I can only be amused. I have had some difficulty accepting the art of poetry myself. I have no need to recite my words on the streets. I am satisfied to have committed them to paper.
The other man is wiser. He strikes a contrasting chord with a smile that spreads good tidings to match the mood of celebration. He welcomes all artists of the street. He has recognized the enchantment of the moment and answers with a recitation of a poem he has committed to memory. It is a piece by Blake as I recall. The words rise and hang in the air like a lingering melody of strings. It is inviting and yet foreboding. It is the standard by which my words will be judged. I smile and understand. I like his style and manner. I have as yet made no decision: to read or not to read.
The next round of music and dance begins. I imagine myself a surfer waiting to catch a wave. It must be the right wave. Just as each wave requires a different style of surfing, each rhythm calls for its own style of word jazz. I don’t do country or folk, rock and roll or Irish jigs. Give me jazz or space jam.
I wait and listen but mostly I watch the dancer and the dance. Her eyes are mystical and divine forces guide her movement. Finally the spirit moves within and I spot a wave I can ride.
The karmic debt is mounting with each tick of the karmic clock
With each breath of unholy air each thump of collective shock…
The rhythm and the movement accelerates and transitions like the wind before a storm, carrying me like a dream of mystic flight among the clouds of a starlit night.
Speak no more of troubled times and days of mourning
And dawns of no tomorrow
Hear no more the winds of darkness unloading tears of sorrow
Heaven lives upon this earth what more could heaven be?
Hell is a room without doors in heaven we are free
Free to choose the darkness or the light
Free to love or hate and choose the battle we will fight
My love is my heaven here and now
Speak no more of bring me down and suffer me your truth
I love therefore I am the truth and love is my master
The dancer moves to a higher plain and touches me at the core and center of my being, like the hand of a goddess. I am moved beyond words but offer up the only gratitude I have to give: my words, my poetry.
Esmeralda on the Streets of Boulder
Spinning with the core and center of life
Her eyes dancing with fire rage desire
Her soul tempting ecstasy
Forces of an ancient peyote wind howl
Move this precious jewel beyond words
Beyond passion beyond the edge of reason
The body as an instrument of faith finely tuned
To raise the lightning rod that dwells
Within the secret soul of self
Blast me with the fuel or your undaunted devotion pure
And unpolluted by the hand of social righteousness
Fear not the wagging tongues and bulging eyes of those
Who cannot walk the streets with open shirts and hearts
You are the wind the blessed child of mother earth
The chosen of the nameless flock who follow their noses
To the maze of mindless wonder and dumbstruck awe
To settle in the circle of their own waste
Content and comfortably numb
You are the object of their desires
They dream of you and pray to meet you in another life
Dance and let the masses dream
Sweet nectar of life be yours and mine
And ours to embrace
What are words to their inspiration when the inspiration is itself inspired? They linger and hesitate as if awaiting her sacred blessing. They rise like smoke and scatter with the first breeze. They have hit their mark. They have spoken to the moment with honesty and truth. They recall the essence of the oral tradition. This is the method of the troubadour and the street poet, immediate and engaging, inspired by the unfolding of events. What greater tribute to the gift of a gypsy dancer than this?
Alas she speaks. More gratifying than eloquence, more pleasing than poetry, as if awakening from a dream, in an airy distant voice, she solves the moment’s mystery: Wow, that’s beautiful! Sweet satisfaction is mine. Sweet love of innocence is born again. Her simple words have filled my heart with joy. I have paid tribute to her grace and she has embraced my song of praise.
Her name is Rain Forest. From this time forward she will also answer to the name Esmeralda. She asks if she may have my words and stops me as I start to tear the page from my notebook. She borrows my pen and copies them in her own hand. She asks me how I pronounce Esmeralda. I do so and explain it is from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It is one of her favorite stories along with Cyrano de Bergerac. She is a romantic and so am I. We are pleased there are still some of us left in this world. We do not speak of ordinary things, our lives and our living. We know enough already. When we shake hands there is an electrical charge that seals our bond forever.
If it is true that our lives are built on prior lives then I have surely known her in another existence. Maybe I was Cyrano to her Roxanne. Maybe I was the poet suitor never to win the love of Esmeralda. There are far stranger things in this world than our dreams allow. Tonight was her debut on the streets of Boulder. Her legend is born.
She thanks me for the poem and I thank her for the inspiration. She thanks me again in the poetry of dance. This time she dances for me. My eyes are riveted to her untrained body in flowing, writhing, floating and sensual motion. She has tapped an ancient muse. She has transformed her perfect body into universal spirit. When her eyes meet mine there is a pull of energy so strong it renders me helpless. I am grateful to be sitting. Were I standing, her power would surely knock me to the ground, leaving me breathless at her command.
The time comes for her to move on, like a mermaid in an ocean mist, vanishing into the streets of Boulder. She has a return date with the wiser of the bongo players. The other has departed. I wish her well and watch her turn and walk away. She does not look back. It is unlikely we will ever see each other again but her image is burned into my consciousness. The moment is perfect and eternal.
Wiz and I linger, enjoying the company of strangers and basking in the afterglow. They play a little longer. My words are spent for now but my spirit is renewed. We make a clean break and wander down the pedestrian walkway, Wiz playing as we go, polishing his chops on a silver flute.
Everywhere we go he is greeted with smiles and compliments. They offer money, ask him to stay and play, and thank him for a moment of surreal enchantment. The Wiz is in his element. This city loves his chosen instrument and he is a master in the garb of an apprentice. Here the people recognize his gift and applaud his talent.
He speaks of the flute in relation to the cities where he has plied his trade. For all its jazz and mystique, New Orleans does not embrace the sound. Though he can render it mournfully and draw tears from an angel, New Orleans is too dark for such a heavenly voice. It is a muse one would not expect in the company of voodoo queens and vampires. The jazzman flautist would starve in the Big Easy but here he would thrive.
Nashville is a strange town for the wizard of the flute. It is a city of music and musicians of all stripes find their way to its confines. In the taverns and bars some of the best jazz, rock and folk you will ever hear plays through the night but country is where the money is and country rarely embraces the flute.
We stroll down the enchanted boulevard, pausing here and there to breathe in the shops and enclaves of street entertainers. There is a strong presence of jazz, rhythm and blues. Rockers with acoustic guitars stand alone, gathering contributions in open cases. Fiddlers draw a crowd. I make a note: There are no poets on the streets of Boulder, not even here in this sanctuary of free expression. A juggler draws the largest gathering and performs to thunderous applause.
In the land of enchantment the fool is always treasured.
A woman in conservative dress and style approaches Wiz with exuberance before she draws back. Wiz beckons her and she returns. She confides that she is in love with the flute. She is a devoted follower of Ian Anderson who performs under the name of Jethro Tull. Wiz has long sworn off the style he believes is addictive to the point that it excludes all others but now he plays the patented chops that Anderson made famous. The woman is overjoyed and offers money. Wiz refuses and offers a CD with the explanation: Write to the address on the back and I’ll send you one of my own. She thanks him and we move on. His following grows and another soul is made lighter for his passing. The karma of jazz.
We grab a couple of falafels and sit before a Blues Brother trio on break between sets. The bench where we are seated has an overhang that prevents us from seeing the upper halves of their bodies. We speak of music, art, the street scene and finally, the shoes of the three musicians. They are well suited to their style but poorly matched to their feet. We realize at length that they are not prepared to play another set. Their gig is up. With a tip of the hat, we head over to the poetry café.
It is on a corner a couple of blocks from the pedestrian mall on the main drag. It’s a happening joint divided into two sections. The smaller features a plywood stage, sparsely lit, and a crowded audience area jammed with a few dozen cool blue punksters. We scope the punk rock scene and gather that poetry is not on the menu. We walk over to the larger section, at least double in size, where postcards, greeting cards and a cappuccino bar are featured. There are a few empty tables in the front. It strikes as too cool in a very stylish way. I’ve been known to collect a few postcards in tribute to the heroes and heroines of my upbringing. You can tell a lot about a community by the postcards they stock. This one has a fine collection of American Indians: Geronimo, Sarah Winnemucca, an unknown Lakota warrior and a variety of tribal shamans. It also has more traditional figures of American culture: Bessie Smith, Marilyn Monroe, Mark Twain and Andy Warhol. One features William Burroughs and Alan Ginsberg at the Democratic National Convention circa 1968.
As we browse the shop a petit woman appears to be stuck at the counter trying to carry a large square metal object out to her car. The opening is barely wide enough to squeeze it through at great peril to her seemingly delicate hands. Always a gentleman and quick on the draw, Wiz instinctively moves to help her. It triggers an immediate and forceful reprimand. Wiz steps back and with mouths agape we watch her struggle onward with her task. At the door she turns back to announce: There’s nothing I hate more than that.
It’s all I can do not to reply: How about serial killers? Instead I look to Wiz with a shrug. He shrugs back, apparently unaffected.
I select a handful of postcards and take them to the counter where a tall woman informs me they do not accept plastic. I pay cash for the cards and a latte on the side. I ask for change for the postage stamp machine and she directs me to the Quick Stop market. I realize that this is not a friendly place. What’s wrong here? Suddenly and without warning we’re being treated like lepers at a costume ball, like California tourists in Oregon, like some sub-species of a lesser god. Are they tourist weary in a tourist shop? They’ll take our money but they won’t say thanks? Come again?
We sit at the corner table in the front of the shop. I choose a magnificent wooden chair carved into the image of a grizzly bear. I generally prefer a less conspicuous perch but the rudeness of the shopkeepers emboldens me. It doesn’t matter. Here I could sit yoga style on the tabletop and no one would acknowledge my presence. I’m scoping the scene, taking it all in when the reality of the place hits me like a jolt of whiskey on a December morn. The taller woman is braless, mother earth style with a strong sexual appeal but she seems purposely detached and aloof. My vantage point allows me to take it all in and I begin to write while Wiz heads outside to create a new scene.
Slick circle of feminist dreams
She practiced too long at being hip before the mirror cracked
Her sixties dress clean lean and hanging from sharpened nipples by a thread
Don’t look she said with a scowl that would freeze a mother’s smile
Cool baby blue back off I can take you before the shock settles
And leave you breathless like a slow dance that grinds and grooves
So long it steals the light from romance
Bend baby bend shake it down and clutch the inner beast
Your soul is mine to rise or bury like an old machine
Rust and fade to dust
Smile baby blue whose eyes were meant to shine
The morning light not ground the midnight high
There is no life but this we swim together and dance the mating cry
There is no view but this we share as we walk a lonely path
Rise to the call of human kindness spare your tortured brand
I see you dancing naked under blue moon sight
In thundering rain beneath heaven star light
I see your perfect being unleashed in dreams of passion
And raw untempered desire
I see your hunger filled in rhapsodic tides
Your soul lost in the great divide
I see your body open like a broken dam
Whitewater crash again and again
I see your love and tender mercy hidden in the root and core
Emerging with Eros' raging fire radiating in sultry light
Awakening in the long lost night
You and I are lovers from a million lives before this hallowed crossing
I greet you with a kiss and praise eternal beauty
Awaken and steal the breath of moonlight
This wine will last forever
In the end I do not understand the divisive attitudes of the oppressed. The feminist left can at times appear as bigoted as the white supremacists of the old south or the rednecks on the south side of Boston or the country clubbers of Pine Mountain. Geography has no hold on bigotry. We are meant to be allies. If I open the door in courtesy open my mind, do not slam it in my face. The crimes of our culture on the individual level are as pebbles to the mountain. This discrimination and division will set back the cause. It is a strange phenomenon. It feeds the religious right who would neither open the door of courtesy nor the door of opportunity. When it all comes down, know who your friends are. It is too easy to alienate. Build the alliance and thrive! In the hour of need pray that we all find a way to forgive without judgment so that we can stand as one against the tide of oppression. Our differences are of little consequence yet the breach of trust, betrayals large and small, will so widen the gap between us that they will appear as vast and unapproachable as Grand Canyon under moonlight. When will we find the way?
I finish my scribe as a wild and writhing dancer appears before me life a vision from the dark side of a liquid dream. The gig is on. I write.
Shake it baby grind and lust the pining light
Jazz be yours in major key and chase us through the night
Snake and groove the heavens to divine the pulsing
Heat of all and ever force of life life life
Jazz be yours and couple with the fire of desire
Tap the cave dwellers and stir them to rejoice
The lava flows in mounting waves of madness
Joy and love of nature’s boundless womb
Jazz be yours and glide on streams of wanton dreams
Down and down again sinking without care
A whirlwind to the depths of ancient core desire
Sweet blue fame of gone and over edge of sane
And pain and Mary Jane in mourning
Make heat and lusty love in waterfalls of time
Jazz be yours embrace it squeeze it
And hold on for dear life
We head out across the pedestrian mall our spirits rising. The Wiz is playing as we move and I am reading verse and prose as the spirit moves me. Wiz discovers a sign that we are on the right path. There beneath the bench where we sat to the blues trio that never played are a pair of shiny patent leather shoes. They must have been left behind by one of the three musicians. They must have heard our musings and left them as an offering in lieu of their set. It seems mystical as the Wiz tries them on: a perfect fit.
We resume our stroll toward Sally with an open mind. A university student waves a five spot and asks Wiz to play before their table outside a beer joint. Wiz refuses the money but plays for his and their entertainment. We end up inside where we are engaged in conversation by another student who informs us that Boulder is a doomed city. He explains that it lies on a flood plain. It is only a matter of time before it is swept away.
I imagine being a Californian escaping the great earthquake, a Floridian or Carolinian escaping a hurricane or an inhabitant of tornado alley escaping the ruins only to be swept away on the flood plain of Colorado. Go where your bliss informs you and take your chances. There is no escape. There is no sanctuary.
He is a student of literature but he doesn’t write. He doesn’t believe he has the talent. His favorite writer is Charles Dickens and his favorite novel A Tale of Two Cities. His outward appearance is that of a typical football and Friday night college student like the elitists of Vanderbilt in Nashville. Inwardly he has world of though to offer a planet in desperate need but he lacks the confidence to deliver his message. I want to tell that of course he can write. If he can speak he can write. If he can think he can write. But no one on earth can deliver the lesson that he must learn for himself.
It is near midnight and we are content with our Boulder experience. It has renewed a bond and a sense of security. It is a place that welcomes us. We are grateful but we decide to move on. We get to within a block of Sally when a corner of activity inspires Wiz to a last improvisational performance. The enchanting sound attracts a raggedy man with wild eyes and a guitar who praises him to the heavens. He asks if he may play a few riffs on Wiz’s magnificent instrument. Wiz consents and the raggedy man plays. He asks Wiz to join him for a few songs down the road at the square. We are back to where we began. They set up a plastic bubble, the waiting station for public transportation, and commence to play. It turns out the man is a gifted Irish Indian Mexican flamenco guitarist looking to make a comeback on the local scene. He had started an Irish folk group that ran its course and broke apart despite its success. He’ looking to start again and wants Wiz to join him.
My muse is still burning and I let the music take me where it will. Writing without thought or car is a rare and special blessing. Ride it when it come and let it flow. The moment will not last forever.
City of a thousand wet dreams and visions of tomorrow
Police siren at the crack of midnight Don Juan on guitar
Soul of the magic flute scorching the Boulder skyline
City of holy sounds wise prophets and gypsy dancers
City that moves in harmony to the beat of higher minds
That cracks the upper maze and grounds angels in mid flight
Scream the stream of consciousness coyote on the run
Black crow perched on sacred ground
Thunderbird on native winds transcending the heights
Touching my secret soul with the wind of timeless sage
The music like the flight of butterflies emerges from the air
Showers me with blessings letting go without care
The rare and precious jewels for which the mind of man is meant
Muses of the gods the goddess of content
Lore of the ancient tribe of troubadours
Treatise of the philosophic mind
Rhyme of the first poet
Breath of the first wind
Beauty is in the being rising from the void
Feeding the depths of spirit nourishing harmonics
Inspiring the core wisdom of the universal soul:
We are one with all and all is one within
It seems hours have passed in minutes. The wild man has made his case for the Wiz to stay and join him in his venture. It is a crossroad and he is tempted but in the end like me he cannot shake the journey’s chosen end. We will return to Nashville. He offers a CD and asks the man to write him at the Alabama address. His message is clear: Get it together and Wiz may join him. We shake hands and I have the sense that their reunion will never happen. He needs more than a musician. He needs the man that Wiz is. It is a strangely solemn parting.
Our minds are full with thoughts and memories of all we have experienced on the journey as we drive down the highway heading east to Kansas City. No more than a few miles out of town Wiz wants to turn back. The ghost of Mustang, Nevada clouds my mind. I was prepared to stay the night. I even suggested it. Now it is too late. Don’t turn back. You can never go back. What more did we have to learn? How could we better the experience we have already enjoyed? It is time to let go. We have departed for a reason. To turn back now would fly in the face of all the journey means. Believe in the path and go forth.
Wiz finally concedes. With the ghost of regret riding with us now, we drive on. Boulder has been all we could anticipate and more. It is a place that calls us back and I have no doubt that each of us in time will return.
If ever I am stranded by the roadside abandoned
Here will I return to greet the setting of the sun
If ever I am fallen like October leaves of brown
Here will I be planted upon this sacred ground
And when the chill wind suffers me to groan
Here will I return to find paradise alone
For I will wander distant lands and glory at the sights
But never will I leave behind the wonder of this night
We’d lost a loved one that memorable summer. She was stage-managing our production of Man of La Mancha when she walked out of the theater and was struck by a speeding car. She never regained consciousness. I still remember the smile she wore that fateful day. The charm and love of live she personified filled my soul with a warm and tender feeling that I did not completely understand. She possessed the beauty of innocence. My friend had dated her while I had only dreamed. We both mourned her passing. It was my first encounter with the shadow of death.
My buddy Jay had hitchhiked across country a few times. For some reason he despised the southern route with a passion. Having seen Easy Rider I never asked why. Though the summer was coming to an end and the fall was coming on, we took the northern route across interstate 80 through Reno, Winnemucca, Salt Lake City, Cheyenne, Omaha, Chicago and Cleveland. Our first night out we were stranded for seventeen hours on the exit ramp for Mustang Ranch just east of Reno. Some fool or sadistic bastard picked us up in Reno and dumped us there. He invited us in but we didn’t have that kind of cash so we waited alongside the narrow two-lane highway until we finally realized that no one was going to pick up a couple of guys outside a whorehouse. We decided to walk. The problem was he wanted to walk back toward Reno and I wanted to go forward. It was something I felt by instinct and retain today: Never turn back. The adventure lies ahead.
We started out walking our separate ways, a sizeable chip on both our shoulders, when he finally relented and caught up to me. Within half an hour a trucker picked us up. In those days that alone was something of a miracle. There was a hierarchy of expectations when it came to getting a ride: Volkswagen busses were top of the mark; big-rig trucks were rock bottom. It was against company policy. In all my days of hitching that was only time a trucker ever offered a ride.
He let us off in Winnemucca where we spent a long while reading the notes of desperation scribbled and scratched on the road sign. We were more fortunate than the scribes. A guy with a camper shell on the back of his pickup asked us if either of us could drive a standard transmission. He was headed for Ohio and wanted us to take the wheel. We told him we could, no problem. He rode a while and then we pulled over so he could climb in the camper and sleep. We got off the interstate and sailed down the highway at an average speed between sixty-five and seventy, sleeping in shifts. I was driving when we were forced to pass up a couple of fellow hitchers in the Cowboy State of Wyoming. We could see their spirits rise as the checked us out. We were brethren spirits but all we could do was shrug and gesture as they waved frantically and threw their signs and bags in the road as we drove on by. It seems they’d been there a while.
Like the stalled travelers on the loneliest road in America, the experience left me weak and pondering. We should have stopped but it wasn’t our place. More than likely we’d have joined them in despair when our sleeping proprietor awoke. Who can tell what might have been? It was a crossroad and we made our choice.
We crossed the Mississippi River at night and made it to Chesapeake Bay the next day. The entire crossing took only two and a half days, including the long wait at Mustang Ranch. I spent a week at Jay’s parents home. He was their only child and they were grateful for his return. I was treated as a valued member of the family. I remember clearly the most prized possession of their home: A framed photograph of Jay’s father with John Wayne, both in navy uniforms, on the mantel of their fireplace. They were working class people with basic values and a wandering son they did not understand. I connected with them and respected their ways though I was only a passing stranger.
It was not my place and they were not my people.
I headed north to New Hampshire where I fell in love with autumn. Colors more beautiful than any I have seen outside the realm of imagining. Hills covered with trees and trees covered with leaves of every color. Colors blending harmoniously in a way that reminded me of the French Impressionists. I spent two weeks communing with nature, staying at the college living quarters of a woman I had known since grade school though we had never shared time outside the classroom. I felt like Thoreau must have felt at Walden. As the northern chill set in, I left with a promise to myself that I would someday return. Twenty-two years later, though I have not kept that promise, I have returned often in my mind and in my heart.
On the return journey I was invited to join a theater company in Lincoln, Nebraska, but the strings that tied me to home were too powerful. I held an invitation to audition at the famed Guthrie Theater in Minnesota but the road was too long and cold. I moved on and fell in love with a place called Boulder where the people were open and kind to wandering strangers and seemed enlightened to young adventurous eyes. I spent only a day and a night there, sleeping in the dormitory lounge at the University of Colorado but I left its mark.
I returned home to Motown, kicking up my heels alongside the road to the amusement of passersby and discovered that I was already a month late in reporting for my physical to be drafted into the military. I had written a radical application for conscientious objector status, believing that it would not be approved in any case because my family was not the church going kind. My oldest brother had already distinguished himself in the family’s eyes by refusing to step forward at the induction ceremony. He was a convicted draft resister. I had read a book called 4F and decided my best shot was to starve myself so that I would be under the standard weight requirement. I had done so.
When I reported to the center they instructed us all to hold our clothing in our hands as we were weighed. I could not be sure if that was the usual procedure but it put me just over the limit. It was as if they knew who I was and what I intended. In the infamous bend-over room I heard a doctor comment that I was awfully skinny. Someone replied that I was above the guideline. When it was all over we were assembled in a holding room where we waited until our names were called for a final conference. I was the last to be called though all the others were in alphabetical order. I entered a smaller room and the man in charge called all of his associates into the room. I was clearly being given special attention. I was naïve enough that I did not know why I was being singled out.
“Look at this guy,” the man in charge began. “Does he look like he could make it through basic training?”
“Depends how much he wants it,” another said.
“He doesn’t want it,” said a third.
I nodded in agreement and looked around the room. They seemed to be enjoying this interplay. Finally, the man in charge confides:
“Alright, you may get a 1-A in the mail but don’t worry. You won’t be inducted.”
I don’t know why but I believed him. Maybe they figured I’d be more trouble than I was worth. Maybe they figured I really was a conscientious objector. Maybe they knew that Nixon was about to call off the draft. Or maybe they were just playing with me. I do know that I would not have gone under any circumstances and as it turned out I was never called. In some strange way I almost resented it. I wanted to take a stand. I wanted to join the army of resistance but it was not my destiny. That distinction would belong to my brother John and I will forever honor him for it.
That was my first journey. It was filled with wonders and its many crossroads had the power to change the course of my life. That I made the choices I did has led me to the place I now stand. I have returned to a place of beauty and one that has lived only in my memories for over two decades.
We drive into town, our separate memories preoccupying our minds in silence. Wiz has more recent memories and we follow his lead. We stop at a gas station near the university and I press the clerk about what’s happening in town while Wiz attends to Sally. The clerk knows nothing about golf. She doesn’t know about the Colorado Shakespeare Festival where I once applied for a position. She doesn’t know about jazz clubs. But when I ask about the poetry scene her eyes light up. She tells me where it’s happening and when. She says the Allen Ginsberg is in town, teaching a class at the Institute. Wiz locates the nearest public course through the phone book and our plan takes form. First we will golf in the shadow of the Rockies, then we will explore jazz poetry on the streets of Boulder and finally we will check out the scene at the poetry café the clerk has recommended.
The golf course is striking, more for its surroundings than for its layout. It is the new breed of course, a centerpiece for a housing development. It is long, well contoured and beautifully manicured. The greens are smooth, slick and sloping. We’re paired with an older couple, good and solid people. The man uses an iron off the tee and rarely sends it airborne. We later learn he is recovering from back surgery. His wife is a beginning golfer but she has a better swing than her husband. With a little guidance (hit down to go up) they could both be good golfers. As it is they enjoy the round despite their games.
The Wiz and I are playing our normal games. We are having a little difficulty with the read and the speed of the greens. On the sixth hole, out of the blue, I nail a three wood off the tee and stiff an eight iron to within ten feet of the pin. My putt is true to the center of the cup. I look up with a smile and immediately recall from the expression on Wiz’s face the bargain we struck back in Glenwood Springs. After the next birdie we swallow the worm! Only in this case, we swallow two worms each: Dos Gusanos.
We have placed our mescal samplers in our golf bags in preparation for this occasion. We tee off on the next hole, a three par to an elevated green and linger at the tee to allow our playing partners to move ahead. We are all but certain they would not approve. We whip them out quickly and put them down, mine in one swallow, the Wiz in two. I am amazed at how well I play under the influence of the worm. The world opens before my eyes. Don Juan, howling in the breeze, hovers over my shoulder. Suddenly our partners, unaware of our adventure, are like family to us. On the ninth hole we share stories and confidences and part with a heartfelt well wishing.
Boulder is a magical place. Our spirits are soaring as we head downtown, primed for jazz, laughter, music and poetry. Wiz points us to the square at the beginning of the pedestrian walk where neither cars nor bad tidings are allowed. We find a place to park and walk to the street where the scene is unfolding. There on the corner we come upon a couple of bongo players and a gypsy dancer. Within a sliver of a moment I know her. I have always known her. She is the dream I have always dreamed. She is the love I have always held within my heart. She is the queen of the gypsies. She is the woman I fell in love with a thousand years ago in a house of mystery. She is the woman I followed to Nashville.
I pull out my pen and begin writing, looking up only to take in the inspiration that comes with each breath. Wiz joins the musical feast, charging the dance of the gypsy with fresh muse like the first star of a clear moonless night, like the first scent of evergreen, like the first taste of ocean air, like the first glimpse of Grand Canyon. The enchanted circle grows. The words flow faster than I am able to write them down. I capture and hold them. They are as illusive as a gypsy’s love.
The music fades to silence. The mood is satisfaction. The dance gives way to the dream of glory and yields to waking motion. The players converse as actors do between scenes at rehearsal. They shake hands with Wiz. He has passed the audition. My words finally run dry as if the motion itself carried them and when the motion ceased the words emptied in its wake. I join the player circle on the corner of the square and Wiz introduces me. He tells them I am a poet of the streets and suggests that I join them in revelry. It seems to cause a split.
One of the percussionists is reluctant and skeptical which he communicates with a scowl and a sarcastic wit. He doesn’t want to share the stage. The gypsy dancer has already encroached on their territory and stolen his thunder as gypsies are inclined to do. He has not conceded to welcome Wiz with his magic flute yet already he is being asked to make room for a street poet. It is an art form he does not recognize.
I can only be amused. I have had some difficulty accepting the art of poetry myself. I have no need to recite my words on the streets. I am satisfied to have committed them to paper.
The other man is wiser. He strikes a contrasting chord with a smile that spreads good tidings to match the mood of celebration. He welcomes all artists of the street. He has recognized the enchantment of the moment and answers with a recitation of a poem he has committed to memory. It is a piece by Blake as I recall. The words rise and hang in the air like a lingering melody of strings. It is inviting and yet foreboding. It is the standard by which my words will be judged. I smile and understand. I like his style and manner. I have as yet made no decision: to read or not to read.
The next round of music and dance begins. I imagine myself a surfer waiting to catch a wave. It must be the right wave. Just as each wave requires a different style of surfing, each rhythm calls for its own style of word jazz. I don’t do country or folk, rock and roll or Irish jigs. Give me jazz or space jam.
I wait and listen but mostly I watch the dancer and the dance. Her eyes are mystical and divine forces guide her movement. Finally the spirit moves within and I spot a wave I can ride.
The karmic debt is mounting with each tick of the karmic clock
With each breath of unholy air each thump of collective shock…
The rhythm and the movement accelerates and transitions like the wind before a storm, carrying me like a dream of mystic flight among the clouds of a starlit night.
Speak no more of troubled times and days of mourning
And dawns of no tomorrow
Hear no more the winds of darkness unloading tears of sorrow
Heaven lives upon this earth what more could heaven be?
Hell is a room without doors in heaven we are free
Free to choose the darkness or the light
Free to love or hate and choose the battle we will fight
My love is my heaven here and now
Speak no more of bring me down and suffer me your truth
I love therefore I am the truth and love is my master
The dancer moves to a higher plain and touches me at the core and center of my being, like the hand of a goddess. I am moved beyond words but offer up the only gratitude I have to give: my words, my poetry.
Esmeralda on the Streets of Boulder
Spinning with the core and center of life
Her eyes dancing with fire rage desire
Her soul tempting ecstasy
Forces of an ancient peyote wind howl
Move this precious jewel beyond words
Beyond passion beyond the edge of reason
The body as an instrument of faith finely tuned
To raise the lightning rod that dwells
Within the secret soul of self
Blast me with the fuel or your undaunted devotion pure
And unpolluted by the hand of social righteousness
Fear not the wagging tongues and bulging eyes of those
Who cannot walk the streets with open shirts and hearts
You are the wind the blessed child of mother earth
The chosen of the nameless flock who follow their noses
To the maze of mindless wonder and dumbstruck awe
To settle in the circle of their own waste
Content and comfortably numb
You are the object of their desires
They dream of you and pray to meet you in another life
Dance and let the masses dream
Sweet nectar of life be yours and mine
And ours to embrace
What are words to their inspiration when the inspiration is itself inspired? They linger and hesitate as if awaiting her sacred blessing. They rise like smoke and scatter with the first breeze. They have hit their mark. They have spoken to the moment with honesty and truth. They recall the essence of the oral tradition. This is the method of the troubadour and the street poet, immediate and engaging, inspired by the unfolding of events. What greater tribute to the gift of a gypsy dancer than this?
Alas she speaks. More gratifying than eloquence, more pleasing than poetry, as if awakening from a dream, in an airy distant voice, she solves the moment’s mystery: Wow, that’s beautiful! Sweet satisfaction is mine. Sweet love of innocence is born again. Her simple words have filled my heart with joy. I have paid tribute to her grace and she has embraced my song of praise.
Her name is Rain Forest. From this time forward she will also answer to the name Esmeralda. She asks if she may have my words and stops me as I start to tear the page from my notebook. She borrows my pen and copies them in her own hand. She asks me how I pronounce Esmeralda. I do so and explain it is from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It is one of her favorite stories along with Cyrano de Bergerac. She is a romantic and so am I. We are pleased there are still some of us left in this world. We do not speak of ordinary things, our lives and our living. We know enough already. When we shake hands there is an electrical charge that seals our bond forever.
If it is true that our lives are built on prior lives then I have surely known her in another existence. Maybe I was Cyrano to her Roxanne. Maybe I was the poet suitor never to win the love of Esmeralda. There are far stranger things in this world than our dreams allow. Tonight was her debut on the streets of Boulder. Her legend is born.
She thanks me for the poem and I thank her for the inspiration. She thanks me again in the poetry of dance. This time she dances for me. My eyes are riveted to her untrained body in flowing, writhing, floating and sensual motion. She has tapped an ancient muse. She has transformed her perfect body into universal spirit. When her eyes meet mine there is a pull of energy so strong it renders me helpless. I am grateful to be sitting. Were I standing, her power would surely knock me to the ground, leaving me breathless at her command.
The time comes for her to move on, like a mermaid in an ocean mist, vanishing into the streets of Boulder. She has a return date with the wiser of the bongo players. The other has departed. I wish her well and watch her turn and walk away. She does not look back. It is unlikely we will ever see each other again but her image is burned into my consciousness. The moment is perfect and eternal.
Wiz and I linger, enjoying the company of strangers and basking in the afterglow. They play a little longer. My words are spent for now but my spirit is renewed. We make a clean break and wander down the pedestrian walkway, Wiz playing as we go, polishing his chops on a silver flute.
Everywhere we go he is greeted with smiles and compliments. They offer money, ask him to stay and play, and thank him for a moment of surreal enchantment. The Wiz is in his element. This city loves his chosen instrument and he is a master in the garb of an apprentice. Here the people recognize his gift and applaud his talent.
He speaks of the flute in relation to the cities where he has plied his trade. For all its jazz and mystique, New Orleans does not embrace the sound. Though he can render it mournfully and draw tears from an angel, New Orleans is too dark for such a heavenly voice. It is a muse one would not expect in the company of voodoo queens and vampires. The jazzman flautist would starve in the Big Easy but here he would thrive.
Nashville is a strange town for the wizard of the flute. It is a city of music and musicians of all stripes find their way to its confines. In the taverns and bars some of the best jazz, rock and folk you will ever hear plays through the night but country is where the money is and country rarely embraces the flute.
We stroll down the enchanted boulevard, pausing here and there to breathe in the shops and enclaves of street entertainers. There is a strong presence of jazz, rhythm and blues. Rockers with acoustic guitars stand alone, gathering contributions in open cases. Fiddlers draw a crowd. I make a note: There are no poets on the streets of Boulder, not even here in this sanctuary of free expression. A juggler draws the largest gathering and performs to thunderous applause.
In the land of enchantment the fool is always treasured.
A woman in conservative dress and style approaches Wiz with exuberance before she draws back. Wiz beckons her and she returns. She confides that she is in love with the flute. She is a devoted follower of Ian Anderson who performs under the name of Jethro Tull. Wiz has long sworn off the style he believes is addictive to the point that it excludes all others but now he plays the patented chops that Anderson made famous. The woman is overjoyed and offers money. Wiz refuses and offers a CD with the explanation: Write to the address on the back and I’ll send you one of my own. She thanks him and we move on. His following grows and another soul is made lighter for his passing. The karma of jazz.
We grab a couple of falafels and sit before a Blues Brother trio on break between sets. The bench where we are seated has an overhang that prevents us from seeing the upper halves of their bodies. We speak of music, art, the street scene and finally, the shoes of the three musicians. They are well suited to their style but poorly matched to their feet. We realize at length that they are not prepared to play another set. Their gig is up. With a tip of the hat, we head over to the poetry café.
It is on a corner a couple of blocks from the pedestrian mall on the main drag. It’s a happening joint divided into two sections. The smaller features a plywood stage, sparsely lit, and a crowded audience area jammed with a few dozen cool blue punksters. We scope the punk rock scene and gather that poetry is not on the menu. We walk over to the larger section, at least double in size, where postcards, greeting cards and a cappuccino bar are featured. There are a few empty tables in the front. It strikes as too cool in a very stylish way. I’ve been known to collect a few postcards in tribute to the heroes and heroines of my upbringing. You can tell a lot about a community by the postcards they stock. This one has a fine collection of American Indians: Geronimo, Sarah Winnemucca, an unknown Lakota warrior and a variety of tribal shamans. It also has more traditional figures of American culture: Bessie Smith, Marilyn Monroe, Mark Twain and Andy Warhol. One features William Burroughs and Alan Ginsberg at the Democratic National Convention circa 1968.
As we browse the shop a petit woman appears to be stuck at the counter trying to carry a large square metal object out to her car. The opening is barely wide enough to squeeze it through at great peril to her seemingly delicate hands. Always a gentleman and quick on the draw, Wiz instinctively moves to help her. It triggers an immediate and forceful reprimand. Wiz steps back and with mouths agape we watch her struggle onward with her task. At the door she turns back to announce: There’s nothing I hate more than that.
It’s all I can do not to reply: How about serial killers? Instead I look to Wiz with a shrug. He shrugs back, apparently unaffected.
I select a handful of postcards and take them to the counter where a tall woman informs me they do not accept plastic. I pay cash for the cards and a latte on the side. I ask for change for the postage stamp machine and she directs me to the Quick Stop market. I realize that this is not a friendly place. What’s wrong here? Suddenly and without warning we’re being treated like lepers at a costume ball, like California tourists in Oregon, like some sub-species of a lesser god. Are they tourist weary in a tourist shop? They’ll take our money but they won’t say thanks? Come again?
We sit at the corner table in the front of the shop. I choose a magnificent wooden chair carved into the image of a grizzly bear. I generally prefer a less conspicuous perch but the rudeness of the shopkeepers emboldens me. It doesn’t matter. Here I could sit yoga style on the tabletop and no one would acknowledge my presence. I’m scoping the scene, taking it all in when the reality of the place hits me like a jolt of whiskey on a December morn. The taller woman is braless, mother earth style with a strong sexual appeal but she seems purposely detached and aloof. My vantage point allows me to take it all in and I begin to write while Wiz heads outside to create a new scene.
Slick circle of feminist dreams
She practiced too long at being hip before the mirror cracked
Her sixties dress clean lean and hanging from sharpened nipples by a thread
Don’t look she said with a scowl that would freeze a mother’s smile
Cool baby blue back off I can take you before the shock settles
And leave you breathless like a slow dance that grinds and grooves
So long it steals the light from romance
Bend baby bend shake it down and clutch the inner beast
Your soul is mine to rise or bury like an old machine
Rust and fade to dust
Smile baby blue whose eyes were meant to shine
The morning light not ground the midnight high
There is no life but this we swim together and dance the mating cry
There is no view but this we share as we walk a lonely path
Rise to the call of human kindness spare your tortured brand
I see you dancing naked under blue moon sight
In thundering rain beneath heaven star light
I see your perfect being unleashed in dreams of passion
And raw untempered desire
I see your hunger filled in rhapsodic tides
Your soul lost in the great divide
I see your body open like a broken dam
Whitewater crash again and again
I see your love and tender mercy hidden in the root and core
Emerging with Eros' raging fire radiating in sultry light
Awakening in the long lost night
You and I are lovers from a million lives before this hallowed crossing
I greet you with a kiss and praise eternal beauty
Awaken and steal the breath of moonlight
This wine will last forever
In the end I do not understand the divisive attitudes of the oppressed. The feminist left can at times appear as bigoted as the white supremacists of the old south or the rednecks on the south side of Boston or the country clubbers of Pine Mountain. Geography has no hold on bigotry. We are meant to be allies. If I open the door in courtesy open my mind, do not slam it in my face. The crimes of our culture on the individual level are as pebbles to the mountain. This discrimination and division will set back the cause. It is a strange phenomenon. It feeds the religious right who would neither open the door of courtesy nor the door of opportunity. When it all comes down, know who your friends are. It is too easy to alienate. Build the alliance and thrive! In the hour of need pray that we all find a way to forgive without judgment so that we can stand as one against the tide of oppression. Our differences are of little consequence yet the breach of trust, betrayals large and small, will so widen the gap between us that they will appear as vast and unapproachable as Grand Canyon under moonlight. When will we find the way?
I finish my scribe as a wild and writhing dancer appears before me life a vision from the dark side of a liquid dream. The gig is on. I write.
Shake it baby grind and lust the pining light
Jazz be yours in major key and chase us through the night
Snake and groove the heavens to divine the pulsing
Heat of all and ever force of life life life
Jazz be yours and couple with the fire of desire
Tap the cave dwellers and stir them to rejoice
The lava flows in mounting waves of madness
Joy and love of nature’s boundless womb
Jazz be yours and glide on streams of wanton dreams
Down and down again sinking without care
A whirlwind to the depths of ancient core desire
Sweet blue fame of gone and over edge of sane
And pain and Mary Jane in mourning
Make heat and lusty love in waterfalls of time
Jazz be yours embrace it squeeze it
And hold on for dear life
We head out across the pedestrian mall our spirits rising. The Wiz is playing as we move and I am reading verse and prose as the spirit moves me. Wiz discovers a sign that we are on the right path. There beneath the bench where we sat to the blues trio that never played are a pair of shiny patent leather shoes. They must have been left behind by one of the three musicians. They must have heard our musings and left them as an offering in lieu of their set. It seems mystical as the Wiz tries them on: a perfect fit.
We resume our stroll toward Sally with an open mind. A university student waves a five spot and asks Wiz to play before their table outside a beer joint. Wiz refuses the money but plays for his and their entertainment. We end up inside where we are engaged in conversation by another student who informs us that Boulder is a doomed city. He explains that it lies on a flood plain. It is only a matter of time before it is swept away.
I imagine being a Californian escaping the great earthquake, a Floridian or Carolinian escaping a hurricane or an inhabitant of tornado alley escaping the ruins only to be swept away on the flood plain of Colorado. Go where your bliss informs you and take your chances. There is no escape. There is no sanctuary.
He is a student of literature but he doesn’t write. He doesn’t believe he has the talent. His favorite writer is Charles Dickens and his favorite novel A Tale of Two Cities. His outward appearance is that of a typical football and Friday night college student like the elitists of Vanderbilt in Nashville. Inwardly he has world of though to offer a planet in desperate need but he lacks the confidence to deliver his message. I want to tell that of course he can write. If he can speak he can write. If he can think he can write. But no one on earth can deliver the lesson that he must learn for himself.
It is near midnight and we are content with our Boulder experience. It has renewed a bond and a sense of security. It is a place that welcomes us. We are grateful but we decide to move on. We get to within a block of Sally when a corner of activity inspires Wiz to a last improvisational performance. The enchanting sound attracts a raggedy man with wild eyes and a guitar who praises him to the heavens. He asks if he may play a few riffs on Wiz’s magnificent instrument. Wiz consents and the raggedy man plays. He asks Wiz to join him for a few songs down the road at the square. We are back to where we began. They set up a plastic bubble, the waiting station for public transportation, and commence to play. It turns out the man is a gifted Irish Indian Mexican flamenco guitarist looking to make a comeback on the local scene. He had started an Irish folk group that ran its course and broke apart despite its success. He’ looking to start again and wants Wiz to join him.
My muse is still burning and I let the music take me where it will. Writing without thought or car is a rare and special blessing. Ride it when it come and let it flow. The moment will not last forever.
City of a thousand wet dreams and visions of tomorrow
Police siren at the crack of midnight Don Juan on guitar
Soul of the magic flute scorching the Boulder skyline
City of holy sounds wise prophets and gypsy dancers
City that moves in harmony to the beat of higher minds
That cracks the upper maze and grounds angels in mid flight
Scream the stream of consciousness coyote on the run
Black crow perched on sacred ground
Thunderbird on native winds transcending the heights
Touching my secret soul with the wind of timeless sage
The music like the flight of butterflies emerges from the air
Showers me with blessings letting go without care
The rare and precious jewels for which the mind of man is meant
Muses of the gods the goddess of content
Lore of the ancient tribe of troubadours
Treatise of the philosophic mind
Rhyme of the first poet
Breath of the first wind
Beauty is in the being rising from the void
Feeding the depths of spirit nourishing harmonics
Inspiring the core wisdom of the universal soul:
We are one with all and all is one within
It seems hours have passed in minutes. The wild man has made his case for the Wiz to stay and join him in his venture. It is a crossroad and he is tempted but in the end like me he cannot shake the journey’s chosen end. We will return to Nashville. He offers a CD and asks the man to write him at the Alabama address. His message is clear: Get it together and Wiz may join him. We shake hands and I have the sense that their reunion will never happen. He needs more than a musician. He needs the man that Wiz is. It is a strangely solemn parting.
Our minds are full with thoughts and memories of all we have experienced on the journey as we drive down the highway heading east to Kansas City. No more than a few miles out of town Wiz wants to turn back. The ghost of Mustang, Nevada clouds my mind. I was prepared to stay the night. I even suggested it. Now it is too late. Don’t turn back. You can never go back. What more did we have to learn? How could we better the experience we have already enjoyed? It is time to let go. We have departed for a reason. To turn back now would fly in the face of all the journey means. Believe in the path and go forth.
Wiz finally concedes. With the ghost of regret riding with us now, we drive on. Boulder has been all we could anticipate and more. It is a place that calls us back and I have no doubt that each of us in time will return.
If ever I am stranded by the roadside abandoned
Here will I return to greet the setting of the sun
If ever I am fallen like October leaves of brown
Here will I be planted upon this sacred ground
And when the chill wind suffers me to groan
Here will I return to find paradise alone
For I will wander distant lands and glory at the sights
But never will I leave behind the wonder of this night
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