Bobblog: The Creative Memoir

Fourty years ago

2009-09-20T07:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.life.com/image/50461297/in-gallery/31192/woodstock-lifes-best-photos
If Time/Life will let me post this, Thats me age 15 in the army jacket fresh out of military school one of the Mary Pranksters in the center and Jerry Garcia on the far right.

Click on the link above.

Fay and Ginny's most excelent adventure

2009-09-20T07:20:00.000-07:00

“If you remember it, you weren’t really there.” So the saying goes. If you could have planned it, it wouldn’t have been Woodstock.
The oldest of our foursome was seventeen. I was fifteen. We rode quietly in the back of a Ford station wagon expecting Fay, the oldest boy’s mom, to pull the plug on the whole thing any moment.
Fay and Ginny were going antique hunting up in New York and didn’t mind dropping us off to do some camping at a little music festival up by White Plains NY. The closer we got the more concentrated and outlandish the stream of kids walking along the road became.
After a gasp or two from Ginny, “They look like those people out in San Francisco,” we were glad to get out and join the torrent of walkers in the sun.
“We’ll meet you back here at this intersection Sunday at 1:00.” Fay said as she kissed Stevie on the cheek and sent us on our merry way.
Over the next hot dusty hill the gate came into view but the chain link fences leading up to it were unfinished in many places and smashed down in others.
We were veterans of last years Atlantic City Pop Festival and this was bigger, much bigger. Caught up in a torrent of youth and inhibition that would flood to become the third largest city in New York State for three days, we sensed that this thing was out of control.
A traveler coming from that direction called out, “You don’t need a ticket man. The festival is free.”
He was right. Free, exactly right. Beyond the extra money in our pockets for not having to buy a ticket Free from parents, effective police force, free from government influence of any kind. There were just hippies, lots and lots of youthful “Beautiful People.” At fifteen, freedom without responsibility, well that’s intoxicating in its self.

Sea of people

2009-09-20T07:19:00.001-07:00

Through what would have been a ticket gate, up a gentle rise in the road with a wooded area to our left we weaved our way off to the right to reach the highest point of what was still, almost, a grassy, knoll. The grass was beaten down and already becoming dirt. Some concessions were located at the highest point from which we peered down through the crowds.
The gentle sloping pastureland making up the natural amphitheater was alive with wall to wall people. Beyond the hundred or so acres of open field I saw other fields. There were people in those fields too. On closer inspection the wooded areas between the fields were also moving with people. The more people we saw the more excited we became, if that was possible. It brought to mind some great civil war campaign.

Groovey Way

2009-09-20T07:11:00.000-07:00

We retreated back the road and found a path into the woods.
Another cool, emerald, fragrance filled universe existed in there. Like some kind of third world bazaar with dozens of Head Shops, selling posters, pipes, rugs and all things counter culture. The paths were traced through the woods with strings of lights in the trees and designated with signs like “Groovy Way,” and “High Way”.
Beyond the domination of the main stages 70 foot speaker towers, speakers in the trees played what is now called classic rock. The smells of strange incense ever changing like some kind of familiar spirit moving, hovering through the forest. Even today a shop with one of those scents takes me instantly there through time and space.
A rock wall bisected one of these paths where several people were selling various drugs of all kinds. They shouted out what they offered like newsies on a street corner in the city or hot dog venders at a ball game.

Camp site

2009-09-20T07:05:00.000-07:00

Back in the woods between the concert area and the Hog Farm we found a likely spot. One of the guys had brought an American flag. He hung it from two tree branches and that became our spot.
Later in the day a shaft of light came down through the trees onto the flag and a Life photographer captured two of my illuminated buddies enjoying a rare quiet moment. The picture showed up in the Life special edition.

"Who's Jerry Garcia?"

2009-09-20T07:00:00.000-07:00

When we got the life magazine I disappointingly was not in the photo.
Leafing through the magazine weeks later probably for the hundredth time one of the guys pointed out a picture of me.
I was standing with an awe struck/spaced out look, mouth open, short hair, wire rimmed glasses, hand on the army jacket I had midnight requisitioned at military school.
I think the photographer couldn’t pass up the contrast because right next to me, on the main road between the stage and forest where we camped was a tallish,
long haired, bearded guy in a clown suit with a black top hat onto which he had fastened a pair of white doves wings. He was holding an extended tape measure the very image of one of Keasy’s Merry Pranksters.
I talked to another ‘very initiated’ looking hipster about that time, frizzy hair and glasses similar to mine and headed back to camp. As I turned away another kid excitedly asked me if I knew who it was I was speaking to.
“No idea.”
“That was Jerry Garcia man.”
“Who’s Jerry Garcia?”
(Jerry Garcia was cropped out of the published magazine but shows up in the on line version.)

Faithful Blue Beast bringing me home

2009-09-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

A thousand or so miles in 5 days was a breeze. The 1100 RT is a faithful beast with a throaty note ala aftermarket muffler and a comfortable if somewhat slick Corbin saddle.

The ancient ABS clanged like someone dropping a trailer off the ball hitch a block or two away when ever it did it's self test and engaged. I even looked around to see what was happening nearby and how it might affect me when I heard the sound. Don't under stand what mechanically was taking place in the servos and solenoids to make that sound and it bugs me.

I found myself looking for 6th gear that wasn't there occasionally but totally enjoyed my ride. A weeks worth of smashing bugs and enjoying the cool fall air and warm sun of Penn, NY and Maryland, what fun. Lesters grilled NY strip stakes and famous monster salad now just minutes away made even the Baltimore city traffic palatable.

Life changer

2009-09-03T05:19:00.000-07:00

"...living well. living in robust sanity." So Euguene Peterson characterizes the wisdom message of The Message. "Wisdom is the biblical term for this on-earth-as-it-is-in-heaven every day living."
I had a wonderful conversion experience in Jacksonville Florida thirty five years ago. The change in my life, feeling and thinking was palpable. But it was when I was traveling cross country, crammed in the back of a fifteen passenger dodge van with ten other people and all our luggage reading the Proverbs that I came to know deep in my soul that the ideas in the Bible were the absolute unchanging standard for truth. Reading the King James Version was largely an act of faith in it's self. It was like reading a foreign dialect, but I knew I had found the truth. If the National Bureau of weights and measures had a category for truth right along side the atomic clock I would expect to find Proverbs.
In his introduction to Proverbs Peterson continues: "Wisdom has to do with becoming skillful in honoring our parents and raising our children, handling our money and conducting our sexual lives, going to work and exercising leadership, using words well and treating friends kindly, eating and drinking healthily, cultivating emotions within ourselves and attitudes towards others that make for peace."

Unknown

2009-08-23T08:27:00.000-07:00

When God wants to drill a man,

And thrill a man,

And skill a man

When God wants to mold a man

To play the noblest part;

When He yearns with all His heart

To create so great and bold a man

That all the world shall be amazed,

Watch His methods, watch His ways!

How He ruthlessly perfects

Whom He royally elects!

How He hammers him and hurts him,

And with mighty blows converts him

Into trial shapes of clay which

Only God understands;

While his tortured heart is crying

And he lifts beseeching hands!

How He bends but never breaks

When his good He undertakes;

How He uses whom He chooses,

And which every purpose fuses him;

By every act induces him

To try His splendor out-

God knows what He's about.

2009-07-12T12:01:00.001-07:00

Dan Horan and I could have been great friends. Unfortunately a sister had the temerity to walk away from her pineapple upside down cake at U St. Dan and I looked at it for about 30 seconds, chopped it in half and divvied it up. At about this time she came back, promptly scraped all of Dan’s cake and his portion of her half on to her tray and stomped off. Things were never the same between us after that.

The Enforcer

2009-07-12T11:59:00.001-07:00

Fred was the enforcer at the study Center during a time “the Ministry” AKA Shiloh was trying to lose a folksier school name, “The Land.” The leader ship had a more religious title for him, I think it was Head Deacon but Fred was the muscle needed to deal with the this eclectic collection of street people and disaffected hippies who showed up there on a bus or in vans like clock work every few months.
He laid claim to having been a professional baseball player how true or not that was and how ever successful he may have been in that life the only thing that mattered was that Fred was the biggest baddest ass in that fire district as far as I could tell. He had a way of showing up when ever some one was living out some iteration of disobedience or false doctrine. He’d just say it was the anointing. His eyes grew large nostrils flared and people generally did what he said. I remember the huge portions he would get at dinner.
Chick, Chick, Chickin piiiiiiiicken. The Lamby Pies took on the daunting task of a Chicken poop baptism of Fred one night. It wasn't a pretty sight.
I'm sure some kind of rebuke came down from on high. We were feeling too badly about the ass kickin we got to care much.

Doin the Damage

2008-12-07T13:03:00.000-08:00

If you understand Shiloh at work and Shiloh at food you have an eighty percent lock on the goinz on.
I’d like to offer two fairly unique idioms that may shed some light on each.
For the first please allow me a riddle. Two Shiloh brothers are walking down the street. One has two spoons in his pocket the other a sixteen inch butcher knife stuck through his belt like a kid with a wooden sword. What are they going to do?
A. Join a jug band in a violent part of town.
B. Rob a convenience store of it’s yogurt
C. “Do the damage”
D. None of the above.
The correct answer is C. “Do the Damage.” These guys however appear to be pikers and so probably won’t be doin the damage in the classical sense. They will head to the corner grocery, buy a half gallon of melorine, cut it in half with the butcher knife and eat it out of the carton. To, properly do the damage a hot tub or better yet hot springs must be sat in while consuming the dairy. Is melorine considered dairy? At any rate, Bryers ice cream is the preferred choice of discerning brethren.
To fully understand the second idiom we must travel high in the cascades to a tree planting site or unit. This several hundred acres of freshly logged mountainside has a dozen ragged Shiloh-ites each with a largish hoe type tool called a hoedad in one hand and a bag of 75 or so Douglas Fir seedlings strapped around his waist.
These Shiloh-ites are rummaging through the brush like demoniacs jumping, grunting, exhorting, the occasional rebel yell is herd. Most are fully clothed.
Since it’s a sunny day, some aren’t fully clothed. Some aren’t clothed at all, by the way, except for boots and gloves of course. This latter style was referred to by the Weyerhaeuser inspectors in their amazement, as “bare root planting.”
Behind these wild men is a more civilized individual with a shovel. He has expensive corked boots. Corked boots are the lace up boots that have small metal spikes like studded stow tires, imbedded in the soles to help them grip fallen trees. He wares a vest with pockets containing tree tape, colorful vinyl ribbon used for marking trees and boundaries and such. He is wearing a yellow hardhat with the green Weyerhaeuser tree logo emblazoned on the front. He is the Weyerhaeuser inspector for those tree planters on that particular day.
After a few hours he marks off an area about one-eighth acre with tape and florescent orange spray paint. He then counts the trees planted in that area, makes some notes in a journal or clipboard. He is very quiet, methodical and focused while he carefully digs up several trees to inspect the roots, their depth, and the quality of soil they are planted in and if the root system was planted straight down, balled up or in a J fashion.
What he has just done is called, “Taking a Plot.”
If the inspector likes what he sees, the Shiloh-ite tree planters continue on planting. If he doesn’t like what he sees he tells the Shiloh foreman hovering nearby or planting with the rest of the Shiloh-ites and the foreman shouts, “Replant!”
The planters must then dig up each tree they have planted, plant it again making sure it is planted correctly and in the proper quality of soil till the inspector is satisfied.
The important idea here is the contrast between the Shiloh-ite tree planters crashing through the brush with complete abandon and the quiet focus of the inspector as he “Takes a plot.”
Now back to our two friends heading out to “Do the damage.” Before they stealthily go to the silverware bin in the kitchen, or quietly push open the swinging door to find a suitable knife, one says to the other, “Wanna do the damage?” The second responds, “I might wanna, ‘take a plot on it,” Grinning ear to ear. There is no ambivalence here. The wheels are set in motion. They are off toward their blissful if somewhat gluttonous rendezvous.
Finally there is what I call the Farrel inflection to this idiom.
I met Farrel in Denver during an over night stop on my first trip from Savannah to the Study Center in Dexter Oregon. I was approached by a fellow with a beard down his chest. Since John Higgins the leader of Shiloh sported a Luden Brothers style full beard, the “elders,” the oldest of which may have been in his late twenties, followed suite. I felt sure this must be an elder and prepared myself for a meaningful moment of encouragement or rebuke. Instead the bearded fellow gave me a hand drawn picture of Jesus which appeared to have been made by an elementary school child and said, “I might think to say that Jesus loves you.” Then he abruptly walked away.
After I sat down another brother came over and explained that that was Farrel and he apparently liked me as not everyone received one of his hand drawn pictures.
Shiloh truly was a haven for the emotionally damaged and feeble. After the demise of “The ministry” I heard that this brother got an apartment and brought Farrel with him continuing to take care of him for some years to come.
So to the question “Wanna do the damage?” The reply with the Farrel inflection would be, “I might wanna think to take a plot in it.” A very definite yes.

Royalty

2006-12-21T10:52:00.000-08:00

Robert Web stood as a king among men. If you grew up black around Albemarle Sound you probably worked for him. A leader in the Baptist church and successful businessman with two lovely daughters who adorned themselves with the grace of beautiful spirit.
When I met Mr. Web I knew he meant “bidness.” Please understand that my respect for Mr. Web and his family is unflinching.
I don’t remember any real exchanges with Mr. Web, only his firm hand shake from his secure, dominate, unmistakably powerful yet kind demeanor where his person sat behind those eyes looking out saying he meant “bidness.” Robert was the type of Christ-like man, who gave hope to many around the sound like Sharon, her family and members of the Baptist church in which he was an elder.

Hooking Up

2006-12-21T10:50:00.000-08:00

I had hooked up with Gary Grab and the South Eastern Work crew shortly after a crushing rebuke from the leadership of the Savannah house. It was a rebuke that came out of their arrogance. I took quiet satisfaction the elders showed up after I left and rebuked the entire leadership for a perfectionist doctrine what ever that meant. There was a shake up in Savannah after I left and I was glad to be gone.
Planting in the South east was a different kind of sport. In the west we planted with hodads and a thousand trees a day was considered good.
“Did you notch today?”
“Yea, I planted one thousand fifty. We planted out about two o’clock.
Shiloh Forestry introduced hodads to Georgia Pacific in the South and in the plowed and furrowed level fields some guys planted up to thirty five hundred trees a day.
Jump seven feet, land with a tree in hand held like a pencil by the tiny trunk above the root. The hodad sinks effortlessly into the lose soil as you land and pry open an eighteen inch deep four inch wide hole with the right hand. With a flip of the left wrist the roots snap straight down. Hodad comes out of the hole and packs the loose dirt with one push of the blade. The right foot comes up and stomps the loose ground as it lands beside the freshly planted seedling launching the planter with another jump stride tree in hand hodad coming down seven feet from the last and four feet from the row of seedlings to the left. Do that thirty five hundred times a day and be a Shiloh mighty man of valor.

Dibble

2006-12-21T08:43:00.000-08:00

There was no hodad plating in NC. It was a team affair where one guy carried the trees and a long pair of tweezers and the other carried a dibble. The dibble made a square hole into which the tweezers after having firmly grasped the tap root by the very end thrust the root. This kept the root from being curled up at the end in the shape of a j which will eventually kill the tree.
The van trip north took us past the Ogeechee river swamps and forests we had worked in. The Georgia Pacific trees we had marked with blue paint signifying a boundary to GP property.
Soon the topography began to change to dryer farm land. Forests of wispy Loblolly pines became denser, more orderly, planted like rows of corn sixty feet high.

Chitterlins

2006-12-21T08:41:00.000-08:00

We met Robert Web or Robert met us outside our little rented farm house several miles from Plymouth NC. The house was a single story clapboard rambler thirties vintage that had been added onto over the years. The floor plan was in the shape of a J. The kitchen main entrance mail living area would be at the top of the J with a hall leading past a bedroom across from the bathroom. At the end of the hall was a living room we converted into a large bedroom. To the right of the living room was another door that led to an added on bedroom through which another bedroom and bath was located.
I bunked in the bedroom off the living room. The only one with air-conditioning.
We eventually got a cook who prided himself on southern cuisine.
Well we were trying everything southern. They say that in the south people eat every part of the pig but the squeal. Fancy restaurants in Atlanta serve pig ear sandwiches. Fried pig tails and pickled pigs feet are all fair game. We hadn’t tried chitterlings yet and our new cook was talking them up big.
“Fried up crispy with eggs over easy on grits with salt and pepper,mmmm. Only Northerners eat grits with milk and sugar or syrup, even Karo syrup.
One of the boys picked up a shrink wrapped pan of chitterlings and it was time for the cook to stand and deliver.
Usually cookie started breakfast around three thirty AM so we could be up dressed fed and at the unit by daylight and finish the bulk of our work as early in the hot humid day as possible.
Now the work we did was hard work and the sleep of a laboring man is sweet for sure. It took a major event to wake these guys early and cookie was about to deliver. Around four AM he started cooking up the chitterlings and the smell woke the guys in the living room. They it turns out weren’t to hot on the idea of chitterlings to begin with. After all the reason the pig parts smelled like pig crap when cooked was because they were partly pig crap. Pig intestines will always be pig intestines boiled, baked or fried.
My fellow connoisseurs of southern comfort slept soundly in the air-conditioned room awoke rested and ready to try a new treat. The evil smell had abated we cleaned up, dressed and chowed down on the tasty strangely lean and different chopped bacon sort of chitterlings. As a matter of fact we copped extra rations from the guys who had smelled them cooking and had spoiled their appittite.
We started working for Robert Webb because the details of our insurance and private contractor’s info hadn’t been processed yet. Robert stopped by the day before and introduced himself. He said he would like to have us over to his house sometime and that he would see us the next day out on the unit.

Together 2

2006-12-21T08:34:00.000-08:00

We worked for Robert for a few weeks then left to work as our own entity for Contenental Can. Their boundaries by the way were marked with silver paint but we continued tree planting our entire time in NC.
Weeks passed. I yielded to my obsessive compulsive need to run. Each morning when the crew got up to eat, I would dress and begin running long before daylight toward the next unit. The crew would eventually catch up. The van pulling over, door swings open and I jump in. A buddy would have a plate of food and I’d eat on my way to work.
Gary the pastor told us to clean up special good one day after work. We were invited to Robert Webb’s house for dinner.
I remember the Portland Trailblazers were winning the play offs. We drove up to his large and beautiful home with a four car garage. In the garage all the cars had been cleared out and half a dozen of those folding church tables were set up covered with every southern delicacy imaginable. Fresh caught fried shrimp by the heap, every kind of chicken imaginable and dozens of desserts. Didn’t notice any chitterlings.
It seems Roberts’s church had turned out in force to serve and visit with us. The choir would sing their songs and we’d sing some songs of Shiloh. We had put together a skit familiar to most Shilohites called The Light and preformed for Roberts fellow parishioners.
At the end of the night we all took hands in a circle and prayed amazed, Black and white just miles from five points. One Black lady praised God for as much. That here we stood together Black and white and black and white holding hands together worshiping and praying just a few miles from five points where it would not be safe for them to go after dark. Don’t know for sure but her name may have been Sharon.

Ear Worm

2006-11-18T13:23:00.000-08:00

She was one of those simple harmless people so endeared to God that could be so very irritating. Like every little sister, you had to love her but sometimes just wish she would go away.

If you watched closely, the veneer of bubbly optimism would show thin spots and her sad silent inner self could be glimpsed. We’ll call her Sally.

Sally preferred to hang with the guys. The sisters were much to dull for her so she took to bugging the brothers. She became the Lamby Pies mascot for a time and her lasting legacy was a particular ear worm that she had created by herself. Of course she would say the Lord lead her. I’m sure He did.

An ear worm, according to the urban dictionary is a tune or melody that sticks in your head. They use; I hate to do this to you, the Jeopardy song. Now its there, in your head. Try to get rid of it.

The creative process was particularly painful for the guys who experienced every line of Sally’s ear worm coming to fruition. It evokes the Double-mint twins singing in the seventies. Syrupy sweet like eating a bowl of brown sugar with a spoon.

There was a revolution in music going on at the time. One of the musicians from Petra said, and I paraphrase, “Why should the un-believers have all the good music.” It was the death knell for Southern Gospel which dominated the Christian channel air waves.

Crummy

2006-11-18T13:20:00.000-08:00

Almost no one in the van headed home from tree planting would have chosen Parsons Squire singing Sweet Beulah Land, or Reba Rambo and the Rambo’s, or the Gathers, but they became the dull background melody for the long ride home from work as we tried to nap in every conceivable position. Southern Gospel was all there was on the Christian stations and the Christian stations is all there was for Shilohites.
One day like an electric shock, up beat piano music sounding like bells with angelic crisp vocals;
Here the bells ringing
they’re singing
that we can be
born again
Then came the large sweeping electric rock chords of The Second Chapter of Acts. Annie Herring, Mathew and Nelly Ward woke us from the heavy perfumed powered monotony like a deep drink from the crashing clean streams refreshing a forestry worker on a hot and dusty August.

Refreshing Sharps Creek

2006-11-18T13:18:00.000-08:00

Wow, it was great for about two minutes and twenty seconds.
Then a singer from a studio some where in the deep south returned. He no doubt earnestly pointed heavenward as he sang about God. Ten guys rustled around finding a new napping position.

We had some note worthy talent in Shiloh. After all our heritage was Calvary Chapel birth place of Love Song and Maranatha Music. The Lamby Pie jug band however never aspired to such heights. But man they were fun.

New Music

2006-11-18T13:14:00.000-08:00

There was tall Peter Wertz on the wash tub bass, Rick Erickson on guitar, Pat, aka Patty me boy, Morado on the jug with an assortment of guest stars on the spoons, Jews harp and washboard. And of course Sally, doing her little sisters part was constantly promoting the virtues of her current ear worm. Oh that the jug band would incorporate it into the repertory along with the Ol southern favorites like I’ll Fly Away or Way Down.

There was some truly beautiful music goin’ on though. I remember a line from a Dan Horan original taken from the Old Testament where the prophet referenced a name for Israel calling them Jeshurun. The hauntingly sad and beautiful melody moistened eyes as we could all personalize the message.
“He found him in a desert place and in a waste howling wilderness…”
The song followed the story as God took the battered and bruised Jeshurun in, cleaned him up and restored him.
We all felt like Jeshurun at that point of the story.

Another minor toned melody written by one of the girls went:
“When storm clouds fill the darkened sky, prayer is in my heart. Thunder and lightning. But peace is in his name. Peace is in his name.”
I remember openly weeping with twenty or so others in the living room of The Oklahoma City house as a lovely young voice sang The Outlaw:

Some say he was an outlaw
That he roamed across the land
With a band of unschooled ruffians
And a few old fisher men

Some say he was a prophet…

Some say he was a sorcerer…

Some say he was a poet…

Some say he was the Son of God
A man above all men
That he came to be a servant
And to set us free from sin…

Sally’s tune was nothing like those. She must have been frustrated at the lack of play her creation was getting.

Somewhere along the line one of the older sisters or a patroness as the female pastors were called, must have laid down the law. We didn’t see Sally any more. She just disappeared possibly to another house, who knows. But her ear worm lived on.
It wasn’t uncommon during a prayer time for someone to spontaneously lead out in a worship song. I can’t ever remember that happening out on the slopes doing forestry work except on one particular occasion.

Reforest

2006-11-18T13:12:00.000-08:00

Normally the van climbed gravel roads till we arrived at the appropriate moonscape of slash and broken trees twice burned. This day though our access to the tree planting unit was through a lush forest as only the Great Pacific North West can produce over the centuries of rain.
Our van stopped among trillium doted ferns under a canopy of green liken covered old growth Doug Firs. We were to bag up, cross a crystal flowing stream a couple of meters wide, and climb a hill where we would find the logged off area to, “reforest.”
While we were bagging up one brother went over to the stream and pulled out a clear orb about the size of a soft ball. The fresh clean mountain stream water dripping off this unadulterated clear gem left us in awe. We stood for a moment drinking in with every sense the life of the place. The life of the moment.

Theme Song

2006-11-18T13:09:00.000-08:00

Dan Horan with his sparsely bearded cherub round face started. The other eight or ten Lamby Pies chimed in:

I’m a little child of Jesus
Saved by his grace
Just a little child of Jesus
Looking at his face
Every time I go through a trial
I have a smile
Every time I go through a trial I have a smile
Saved by his grace
Saved by his grace
Saved Saved Saved Saved
Saved by His Grace

Sally’s ear worm had become the Lamby Pie’s official theme song.

Lamby Pies go South

2006-11-13T21:28:00.000-08:00

Deliverance started long before the sun came up each morning. In numerous secluded corners, quiet alcoves where solitary young men sat or kneeled, muttering. Or they stood silently rocking back and forth in the shadows with their arms crossed, holding themselves like a comforting friend. They grasp at fleeting moments crying out, not even praying as the word is commonly known but crying out, pleading with the almighty for deliverance.

Saddle up

2006-11-12T22:18:00.000-08:00

A half dozen, fifteen passenger Dodge vans are warming up. They whine like fighters on a flight deck behind the old mansion in the heart of Eugene's Fraternity House district. Bags are placed in coveted seats as stewards make last minute checks, tires, lights. Each van gets a cardboard box filled with PBJs or cream cheese and jelly. Pink panthers at the end of the month; beets and cream cheese between bread. A three gallon yellow igloo water cooler with red top sat in the back of each crummy.
The house is alive with the clank and murmur of sixty tree planters finishing breakfast. Their stainless steel trays rinsed, stacked and silverware tossed into a large metal bowl of soapy water. A few were going through heaps of clothes looking for a pair of sox or gloves.
Many hadn't worked a day in their lives before a few months ago. I was one of these. Now duty demanded we find our place in a designated van, buckle in and ride into the wilderness where a full day of demanding physical labor in all kinds of inclement weather would be exacted.
The weather could be fierce. Mud sucked moisture leaving hands cracked, thorny blackberry bushes ripped flesh and vine maple, a wispy rubbery plant worked like a whip raising welts.
There is a verse in the Bible about a certain demon possessed man who lived among the tombs slashing himself. We took it as our, tongue in cheek own.

Oh Lord Deliver My Soul

2006-11-12T17:13:00.000-08:00

Reprieve started for me, I'm convinced, in one of these secluded corners, or in the van somewhere between sleep and prayer rushing into the dawn on twisty gravel switchbacks. It started with a prayer to God, Lord I don't know if I can do this today, deliver me, help me, be with me.
Planting turned to spraying in late spring. Teams in echelon formation; the one to the left just slightly back following the one before and the third one following to the left on the heels of the second and so on. When the whole line turned the guy on the end was left running over huge piles of broken trees and uneven ground to catch up like the end of a bull whip.
Every Lamby Pie had a pump-up canister holding six or eight gallons of goop on a back pack frame strapped to his back. Goop was a putrid pink latex based spray we used to treat the fresh lime green buds of last seasons seedlings just beginning to pop. The deer loved them till we covered them with goop.
Grouse thundered up with a start. The line melted out of its machine like tramping and quietly, very softly, formed a circle around a white spotted brown fawn shivering. Its feminine lashed eyes looked calmly up from fern lined under brush.
First day bright and warm, one guy ran up and over a particularly large slash pile only to trip at the top falling headfirst into the middle of the pile emptying the Pepto-Bismol like contents down his back . The others rushed to right this turtle that was unable to save himself.
In the good old days the shilohites used putrefied fish and diesel fuel. A tree spraying crew picked up a hitch hiker once, so the story goes. With the rank smell of the spilt goop, the unsuspecting hitchhiker finally decided the ride was wasn't worth it and asked to be let out early.

Don't Spray My Truck

2006-11-12T17:02:00.000-08:00

"Be sure to pump up more than twenty feet from the crummys."
Our hard hatted inspector had a brand new shiny yellow company truck. Sure enough when it came time to fill and pump up, Greg filled his tank and pumped it up right next to the inspector’s truck.
On about the fifteenth pump the hose blew off the end of Greg’s tank shooting a geyser of pink goop straight up into the air and all over the inspector’s new truck. Mr. hard hat was beside himself with rage.
One quick thinking brother kicked the tank over away from the truck and blasted the rear van seat where Terry the crew foreman was sleeping with the back doors open.
In late summer it was off to Mallot WA and apple picking. Up Interstate Five to Seattle and across the cascades to the apple orchards of eastern Washington.
After forestry the lush orchards with all kinds of fruit was paradise. There was mint for making tea. Tender wild asparagus could be found in the irrigation ditches. Kinda like Adam and Eve in their little garden.
I remember running with Lenard, an Iniut Indian from Alaska. Lightning strikes from huge dark thunderheads across the high desserts vast expanse. Ahhh the majesty of God, but only a glimpse.
Running with Lenard was like running with a great dark cat, a panther or cougar, long flowing black hair, rippling muscles and not an ounce of fat. Truly one of Shiloh's mighty men of valor. His almost paternal friendship affected me more than I could possibly know at the time.
In a real way Tahoe started for me here also.
I told the Lord, I couldn't do tree planting for another season and that if he wanted me to stay in Shiloh, he would have to get me out of the fast approaching season. I never told anyone one but I had decided that if tree planting was to be my lot in the late fall early winter; I would leave "the ministry." I just couldn't do it again. I wasn't going to, period.

To the Office

2006-11-12T15:49:00.000-08:00

“Hey! Perkins wants to see you in the office, now."
Ooh no. This couldn't be good. I'd heard of rebukes and wasn't interested in participating as the object of one.
I headed across the compound at the Johnny Appleseed orchard migrant camp. I noticed some other guys in my set, folks who had come into Shiloh about the same time as me, converging on the office also. The bearer of news had told me it was ok, not to worry. But I was still apprehensive.
The overseer of preparations, John Perkins wore a beard down his chest looking like one of the Luden brothers on the cough drop box. He informed the small group that we were going to open a new house in Lake Tahoe.
We'd be working in the food services division of Harrah's casino. All the coffee you could ever possibly want and food ala smorgasbord in the employee’s kitchen.
"You'll miss the tree planting season though so pray about it first and give me your answer in the morning."
Hey, I had already prayed about it. "Count me in. When do we leave?"

Black Butte, where grown men cry.

2006-10-22T06:49:00.000-07:00

The yellow truck ahead stopped and the boys turned white. Usually when the yellow truck with the green tree painted on the side stops, ten to twelve hippy looking boy/men get out. Each straps a thirty pound bag of seedlings around his waist, picks a hodad and heads off into the barren desolation.
A hodad is an extended heavy duty hoe with a mattock handle designed to scrape away slash down to the dirt and lever out an eighteen inch deep four inch wide home for the trees.
One by one, they follow a line of trees left by the one before. One seedling punched into the ground every seven feet. He may see or hear the rest of the crew or he may find himself planting alone connected to the others by the green line ahead.
They plant one tree every seven feet or in four by four foot squares around the unplantable piles of twisted and splintered logs and limbs baked grey by the sun; slash. Dig down two feet into the debris, if you don't find soil move on.
Today however, illness real or imagined took hold of the crew. They were emotionally stuck to their seats.
If the topography was sloped enough for dirt to stick, it couldn't be seen from the fifteen passanger Dodge van called a crummy. Ground fell away at a frightening rate from the road. Blue gray mountains rushed down on the far side into a misty canyon below.
The up hill side was a sheer cliff into which the road we was cut.
Was this the unit?
Was he just checking his map?
They pondered and grew ill, unblinking eyes wide on the Weyerhaeuser inspectors yellow truck ahead.
Anxiety rose to the perfect punch line moment timed by a master comedian when a six foot long, two inch diameter cylinder rolled out from under the fearful truck.
His drive-line had broke clean off the truck and was rolling out from under it and down the hill. The fifteen passenger dodge van levitated an inch or so as the tension broke into guffaws. Deliverance, everyone out.
The Lamby Pies, as they were collectively known, stood around the landing surrounded by ghosts from last years logging operation. The toot toot of the whistle echoing before the powerful yarder tower engaged ripping up the steep earth as the workers called choker setters scrambled for a safe haven behind a root wad or cleft in the rock.
All was silent now except the quiet conversation of boys looking out at the awesome black pyramid raising above them in the mist.
Black Butte, where grown men cry.
Air pushed sweet and fresh as they wait for word from a knot of men in hard hats busily discussing papers and maps held down against the wind a top the yellow trucks hood. The quiet was occasionally interrupted by clicks and hissing from a VHF radio to which one man was connected by the toggled microphones coiled chord.
Each boy rolled his own thoughts around.
Thoughts of other days on Black butte.
Days when the wind blown sleet whipped up the mountain cutting exposed faces.
Days starting sunny and warm turning suddenly to winter leaving them stranded in tee shirts beyond the crummy's safe haven when each prayed his own little prayer of deliverance over and over and over till the day was done.
Discovering the fern lush fantasy land in ravines below untouched by the cruel machinery of industry. A chrystal jellied orb the size of a soft ball extracted from its rushing stream. Some kind of eggs, beautiful, other worldly.
Thoughts of the tree planters picnic remained close, never mentioned outside initiated circles and then in hushed tones with a grin.
Or the divergent group known to plant trees wearing only boots gloves and hat. This "bare root" planting was saved for warmer days and left Wayerhouser officials chigrined.
One wiry young man betraying his French Canadian origin struck a medative pose. His right arm was around his waist holding his left elbow in right hand and chin perched on his left fist. Looking off into the valley he proclaimed some essential wisdom shared by all but spoken by no other.
"Some dazs I hate ze tree planting, and some daze I hate ze tree planting."
Boredom set in and the inevitable fight ensued from the left over piles of spring snow.
Well the French Canadian must have been a ball player in school. Frenchie had a brutal fast ball which he squeezed into ice. Deadly accurate.
Injury seemed inevitable so the foreman stopped the fight but Frenchie hadn't finished.
Steve Cohen, six foot five two hundred fifty pounds towered over the rest of the crew like some kind of Biblical giant. A gentle giant for sure. Steve took his hodad and headed off a little ways. Then he dug the obligatory hole in which to relieve himself.
We all knew the refreshment of mountain wind blowing winter rain up uphill onto the bear behind while unloading. I'm sure Steve anticipated such relief.
What he hadn't anticipated though was that after he had dropped his drawers and was beyond the point of no return, Frenchie found him out.
We implored Frenchie to stop. The giant growled fumed and threatened but the Canadian continued.
Cohen must have been a true Christian. Frenchie lived to plant another day.

Curious Bla Bla Cult

2006-10-03T20:55:00.000-07:00

The bla bla sister cult gets curious-er and curious-er but is decidedly benign. Nothing to do with "the blas," all right? The idea here is one of talking, Lots of talking. Lots of talking on a regular basis.
A metallic red 2002 Toyota Fourunner is quietly cruising through a crisp clear moonlit October night. Inside, seven balloons, five middle age women, talking, talking a lot and laughing, an unopened bottle of wine, fancy stem glasses and generous supply of chocolate.
Five, dare I say, middle age women who are un sister sisters. No common parents unless the metaphysical is your bag, But living like sisters none the less.
It's Ten PM on a one year anniversary. One year to the hour since number five found her husband of seven years hung by the neck, dead.
Volcanic upheaval birthing the pale blue Cascade mountains glistening around them may hint at such emotion. I can not. Sisters however do not let a sister mark this moment alone and so the seven balloons, one for each year of the widow's marriage, five women, wine and chocolate.
The old horrific memory must yield. A new memory was imposing its will on them all.
What appeared as a crystal city bathed in intense white light etched itself on the westward facing bay. A bright orange eternal flame from the city serving as the oil refineries burn off vent lit the empty bay view parking.
Cork popped glasses passed around and wine flowing when the police car crunched into the gravel parking lot behind them. His spot filled the car with dread. Open bottle in a car if you get my drift.
"Yea, roger copy that," crackled from the police radio.
Number five drug her seven balloons out of the back door filling the officers field of vision with an other worldly diversion. Bla Bla sis number one took the cop head on with a charm offensive.
"You gals can't park here after dark." the twenty something officer commanded defensively stepping back out of the patrol car as Bla Bla numero uno confidently approached.
"I'm sorry officer. This is the one year anniversary of my girlfriends widowhood. She's only forty one and we came down here to help her create a new memory of this date. We came here to do a balloon release."
She spoke with authority as if everybody should know what a balloon release is, what it means and that it must be a good thing.
"Is there any place you could suggest for us to go?"
The officer stroked his rugged stubbled jaw as if he had been slapped. A full thirty seconds latter he cleared his throat.
"I'm here to enforce the law..."
He slid the badge emblazoned ball cap back on his head and crossed his arms.
"This doesn't seem like it should be against the law...
Don't see a wild party ensuing..."
Having convinced himself, the young officers blush went unnoticed in the intense moonlight.
"You go right ahead and get done what you need to do. I'm the only one on duty." he said in a pensive tone.
"ahhh, should I wish you good luck? For the...celebration? Is it a celebration? "
Number one placed her hand forward for a firm hand shake,"Officer; you are a good man!"
With a theatrical gesture, she stretched her arms out behind the red truck partly to hide the opened wine within and entreated, "Protect us from anyone who comes by."
The young officer smiled, extinguished his spot and left.
Up went the first balloon with note attached
"The departed birthday"
Wine glasses raised in salute
Second balloon
"to forever"
Wine, chocolate and huzzah following
three
"I miss your humor."
again the women cheered
Seven times they released the past and celebrated the future.
"See you in heaven."
Number five led. The others followed, "see you in heaven" they cheered.
"Love you..."
Whatever the widow said the women echoed and followed with a cheer, wine and chocolate till finally the last balloon disappeared beyond the light of the crystal city and its eternal flame into the canopy of a million million stars.

jumping into the blogosphere

2006-10-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

First post.
A first memoir. Color and creativity enhanced.
When dating my wife, our first date was wonderful. Eight hours and we both anticipated our next date.
It all happened so fast her friends were on guard. A double date with her best friend was soon in the offing.
Clothed in all the charm I could muster, we sat down at my favorite restaurant. The chef, first rate, the atmosphere romantic.
Her friend zeroed in on me with the intensity of an all pro linebacker.
Michal Singeltary's eyes come to mind. The game was on.
My mission was to impress and remain charming. The friends goal, find skeletons.
What did your parents do?
Do you like your work?
Tell me about your divorce.
What did you do last Christmas?
The last question stumped me. Total brain fart. I just couldn't remember.
She had me dead to rights.
Her husband a powerful stocky carpet layer remained silent.
"Gee I don't remember." I responded taking a sip of my diet Coke.
The friend came in for the kill.
"You know that diet is full of aspartame."
"Maybe that's what happened to my memory." I joked
"Maybe it is." she responded, not giving an inch.
Phew," padding my perspiring brow with the linen napkin.
"Thought maybe it was all the LSD I took as a teen."
The carpet layer roared