Bill, William, Dr Seese my father passed away this AM in Tucson after a long struggle with Coronary Artery Disease. I can say that he had a full and exciting life and had touched many in his decades as a teacher in many countries and parts with little regret aside from the sad loss of memory due to Alzheimer’s.
Born 1932 in Southwestern PA to Florence and Carmen he began a journey with his parents through The Great Depression and WWII landing in Albuquerque where he attended Albuquerque High, University of New Mexico and married my mother Ann. After receiving a Bachelors in Chemistry they moved on to get a Masters in Pharmacology and a Phd in Organic Chemistry, having touched down in many places for research, education and teaching including: Salt Lake, Boulder, Wasco, Durango, Pullman and Corvallis eventually becoming Chair of Chemistry in Casper, Wyoming. 1970 he along with co-author and Professor Guido Daub wrote the textbook Basic Chemistry. Taking a sabbatical in 1972 to teach at The University of Petroleum and Minerals in Daharan, Saudi Arabia after 4 years including a one year assignment at UNM Gallup returning to Casper College. After early retirement in Casper he received teaching Fulbright grants to teach in Khartoum and The Sultanate of Oman in addition to a two year position at Alice Lloyd College in Pippa Passes Kentucky. He and my mother spent almost all time off traveling the world returning many times to New Zealand. He is survived by his Wife Ann, Sons David and Steven, David’s wife Nadine, Grandson’s Avery and Cooper, Jude and Eva Banahene their children Francisca, Patricia and William.

I’m making rice, right now, as I’m rinsing out the pan I’m noticing the seasoned pattern of cooked rice past on it’s surface. I guess this is my rice pan now, it’s not a great pan maybe picked up with supermarket coupons but it works sufficiently, it has a thick bottom. I used to have a pan I loved for rice, a beautiful consistently thick all way round stainless and aluminum beauty, that made perfect rice every time and would be great for the new Persian technique I’ve learned since it’s loss. But this new somewhat sufficient pan is my rice pan now, sad I almost forgot Mr perfect existed. If Mr perfect never had existed, sufficient might be my idea of perfection, maybe I’m better off forgetting. 

Recently I applied to a juried show, didn’t get in, but here’s the 5 photos I processed for the application.

It feels as if I’m starting to settle here, Tucson, I’ve been here off and on for a while now. My nature and my history, more my history, make it hard for me to feel comfortable with a place or perhaps comfortable with my self. Though I’m also good at making dystopias livable, even if it takes a while, having lived in a few shitholes in my life. I find qualities of a place that make it bearable and develop habits around those qualities and sooner or later I find, myself comfortable. Still, I might be living in a shithole but at least I’m comfortable or is this life?  That being said I currently find myself wanting to settle permanently in the first shithole I remember living, because I love it so much and I know what to expect from the familiar.

Not that Tucson is a shithole, it definitely has is qualities that contribute to shit holiness. We drive a lot here. Doing a bit of wiki research pointedly looking at expansion rates of Tucson from 1890 to 1940 Tucson’s population doubled every decade. There are a few reasons for that, what I want to look at is why I have to drive so much; which is more connected to sprawl than population, which connects to sprawl. This is frustrating, I’m creeping towards where I would like to go; travelling down a six lane street with awkward untimed lights and barely enough traffic to fill one lane.

Tucson’s first known occupation dates backs to 2100 B.C. a farming village of unknown to us indigenous people on the Santa Cruz River, Hohokam Indians 600-1450 A.D., Jesuits around 1692. Hugo O’conor an Irish officer of Spain moved in, in 1792, and built a fort to protect Jesuits from The Apaches, Mexico took over after independence of Spain in 1821. The Mexicans ceded Tucson briefly in 1846 when Philip St. George Cooke and his Mormon Brigade stop in Tucson after fighting Apaches east of town on their way to California. George brings us back from my divergence but doesn’t quite get me where I want to be, the road to California, Cooke’s Wagon Road. The Gold Rush of 1849 begins the establishment of Tucson as a major parking lot on the Butterfield Overland Route from St Louis to San Diego.

Edson Joseph Reeves, my uncle, was born July 6, 1944, not so exceptional, not in time to be in the grouping of baby boomers, just a bit early. The Trinity test (detonation of the first atomic bomb) occurred a year and ten days later on July 16, 1945 making Joseph’s life, one intertwined with the age of atomic aggression, most likely along with a lot of other people. What makes Joe’s birth exceptional to me and hopefully to you also, is that he was born in Oak Ridge Tennessee, one of two top secret cities built by the U.S. government, specifically to be engaged in developing and producing fissionable material for the bomb. Considering there were around 7100 families living there at the time, he wasn’t alone in that fact either or in the fact that his father, the chief design engineer at Oak Ridge, knew about the Trinity test and was invited to be there, but couldn’t, he had more pressing business. I’m not trying to impress you with my families lineage but as my story fuddles on maybe to impress upon you some of the nature of my uncles personality and on the purest of my own speculation, how my uncles paranoia of the American establishment and hence my own, might be tied to the circumstances of his birth.

Joe’s name was often uttered in the same sentences sharing the word crazy, although never really in his presence, as I’m sure mine has shared the same company, not that I’d think either of us would care. Both of us are or were, Joe died in 2010, understanding of our own situations enough not to really care how others would judge. Since my youngest days I had often been told how much I shared of Joe in my self. A few times in my life I found it quite hard to maintain the calm it takes to make through the days without attracting what I perceive as odd looks from others and a few years ago I came to realize that because of our similar natures Joe must of gone through the same, as many others I’m sure to lesser or greater extents. Crazy is just an adjective isn’t it, used to describe someone or something out of control, maybe more importantly out of order. Whose order? Somewhere along the line a classification has to take place. Doesn’t it? Absolutely, and thank god our society has an authority who is completely in control to make those decisions for us poor souls. What would become of the world with a bunch people running around outside of normal, questioning: what is? Aren’t the people making these decisions representative of the same people who established these secret cities, which created a fear of annihilation lasting how long? One day Joe and I were standing in the Las Vegas heat, leaning on his ’72 International Harvester, Scout and he explained that because his Scout had no solid state electronics, when the bombs were exploded in the atmosphere, see neutron bomb, his truck would still run.

Sometime in 1945 my mom’s, Joe’s sister of course, family moved to Greece. WWII having just ended Grandpa Jim had been tasked with rebuilding bridges and other civil infrastructure for the Greeks. They lived in a beautiful old hotel in the northern mountains; I was lucky enough to see it and meet the Bell Man some 28 years later, 1973, he was Desk Manager when I met him, after all that time he still recognized mom. The mezzanine of the hotel comprised a circular balcony overlooking the ground floor and enclosing the balcony from the rest of the floor were multiple glass doors. Among the other devious acts the Reeves siblings got involved in, was Joe’s deal, which would follow him his whole life; although I don’t think devious thought was involved. Joe at age two or three was a pretty stout little fire plug, while on the mezzanine he would build up a head of steam with his short little legs and burst through the glass doors leading to the balcony, by burst through the glass doors I mean burst through the glass in the doors leading to the balcony.

While having Chicken Korma with my parents yesterday I engaged my mom in a discussion about Greece. Turns out they were actually there in 1948, same deal though, Marshall Plan. Joe didn’t actually run through the windows, he would walk by and punch out the individual panes. Apparently the staff there actually enjoyed the Reeves children compared to the other American children; a pair of twins, belonging to a doctor, who had a tendency to scream a lot and one had stabbed a waiter with a fork, I guess my mom and her brothers’ shenanigans were deemed more favorable. Other discrepancies existed between her recollections and mine, her version is probably correct but in the sake of making the story better I might stick with my version, or not, I haven’t decided yet. Just two days ago while driving my father to some doctor’s appointments we listened to a radio show on memory. Some people implanting memories in rats and using a new drug to erase the memories cool show. What struck me was a neurologist who stated our memories don’t exist between the experience and the time we remember them. Then how do we remember them if they stop existing till they come back? Also posited was the more we remember things the more they change, like entropy of a mold after multiple positives. Grandma (Fritzi) had been exchanging Christmas cards with the hotel manager for 28 years and probably continued until she or he died.

Between Oak Ridge and Greece, mom’s family lived in Panama while grandfather researched a sea level canal. After Greece they moved to Walla Walla, Washington where Jim engineered McNary Dam, then to Albuquerque to manage remote location testing for The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Remote locations meaning the tests in the Pacific, Bikini, Eniwetok and the Nevada sites, more entirely top secret stuff. Between ’53 and 1968, the year grandpa retired, 488 detonations occurred, I can’t really decipher how many James managed but am including the data as an indication of what our government was up to while keeping it pretty secret from its citizens. My mom, Ann was finishing up high School about this time and started moving off to college, marriage childbirth and such. Joe around ten at this point was most likely getting involved in Cub Scouts, Tommy the youngest sibling, unmentioned so far, was born in Panama so he was about six in ‘53. I don’t really know how long they stayed in New Mexico, I do know that eventually AEC opened another office in Las Vegas and put Gramps in charge.

The corner they moved to in Vegas was on Bock St. across from a large public park and elementary school, which my brother attended, about a mile and a half down the road from the Tropicana. Their house was a beautiful ranch style home with a cactus garden in the center of the corner driveway, a beautiful meandering layout, the back wall one long boundary to a yard filled with Oleander, the dining/living room and a another large living room with a flagstone fireplace over looked the oleander through two large sets of sliding glass doors. Legend has it, at least in my mind; Joe had walked, absent-mindedly, through these glass doors at least a couple of times. Not on purpose of course but like he hadn’t seen them or had seem them and not had the impulse control to stop. Impulse control, don’t know how many times I have to tell myself to not smash something because it’s ripe for the smash, nothing vengeful, just ripe. They put bird stickers on the sliding doors in an effort to heighten Joe’s awareness of his impulse control.

Joe was a Boy Scout he excelled at it. He became an Eagle Scout and was indoctrinated in to the Order of the Arrow, a select group based on idealized spirituality of native culture. Say what you will about scouting in the end it’s broadened the life of a lot of young boys and girls. It could also be considered a paramilitary organization, as an Eagle Scout you become eligible or recruited to the governments officer training colleges, which require your congressman’s recommendation for admission. The families military lineage being fairly illustrious, Joe might of felt obligated to join up, though he probably joined because it was an easy decision that and the fact he loved being on boats. He attended the Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut. I don’t know what really happened after school or even when he graduated what I do recall is Christmas of ’68 he brought his wife Sukanya from Thailand to the family celebration in Vegas.

Sattahip, LORAN station was commissioned 29 Aug 1966, Joe was promoted to the director in 73, info which I gleaned from a LORAN history website. Digging a bit further I see Joe was first based at LORAN, Lampang 66-67 then Sattahip 73-74 leaving six years in the Coast Guard unaccounted for. LORAN, an acronym for long-range navigation is the predecessor to GPS. Developed by the Navy in the 40s and taken over by the Coast Guard in 58, LORAN was used as
the military guidance system until 1980. A LORAN station consists of three towers close to six hundred feet tall each with three bright strobe lights, which pulse in a consistently timed sequence. These towers send out a radio pulse in milliseconds. So as a pilot if you know the locations of two separate stations and the time it takes a pulse to travel from one to the other then measure the time it takes the pulse to reach you from each station, through some simple trig you can locate your position, accurate in some cases to tens of feet. During the gestation stages of the Vietnam conflict the United States set up four or five stations in Vietnam and Thailand. Not only would LORAN be awesome for finding your way, its also perfect for dropping bombs, napalm and nuclear warheads in exactly the place you want them. Pretty much the standard for guidance systems LORAN stations were set up all over the planet by our government leaving almost no space uncovered. Check out, LORAN history. Info, full of eccentric info on the subject.

Joe signed up in 64 after spending a year in college he felt the education wasn’t relevant enough; Tommy also tried college for a year and felt it wasn’t rigorous to his standards and dropped out also. Tommy signed up for the Navy in 66, I think. My brother and I were talking about this the other day and concurred that they had both signed up in the forces they did to avoid the draft sending them into combat positions. Tommy trained for two years for the position of assistant reactor machinist spent some time on USS Valley Forge and at a large nuclear research facility in Idaho Before receiving his assignment on USS Puffer; a defensive nuclear powered submarine. He spent four years on that ship up to 2 months underwater at a stint with a nuclear reactor as a companion. Tommy told my brother that he knew the environment was bad when came to the understanding cockroaches wouldn’t survive down there after watching them die off.

I understand completely how I became obsessed about the atomic age and when I finish this idea I’ll get you back to the story of Joe’s life. Having seen quite a bit of the world and being educated in the arts and design I come across a lot of mistakes in planning of the whole; mistakes often similar to ones seen in projects completed by freshmen art students. Things that seemed like really great ideas at the time but when the critique comes around and some deeper perspective is realized those great ideas start to look not so great. Aside from creating new landfill these mistakes aren’t so horrible, some would claim it’s what art school is for. Society is a little more permanent then art school. Trickle down theory, housing projects, the highway act, etc, and so on: I could take pages to explain why these are all bad ideas but it’s not my point. The point is that these things were all sold as solutions to make everyone’s life better, quick solutions to complicated problems and as the critique comes around it becomes apparent that they weren’t great ideas at all. But the damage is much more serious than a little landfill. The nuclear solution in the space of 20 years was sold as the answer, although a choice was never offered, our fate was discussed and decided in secretive back rooms; celebrating sweet government contracts to various constituencies’ of congressmen.

Joe left for Thailand some time in 64 and came to the families Christmas gathering in 68 with his newborn son Jamesy and his Thai wife Sukanya. Men in our family are not very apt in socialization skills or mating rituals. Grandpa’s relationship with Fritzi started while she was holding a woman’s hair out of a toilet. We’re all kind of amazed when a women shows any interest, is it genetic or a product of travel at such a young age and not really understanding rituals. We had no idea of how Joe and Sue got together. I can’t imagine what it was like for her; coming from rural Thailand and its culture to the culture and space of Las Vegas. She was cool and we accepted her, we had all lived in a variety of cultures. Still in the same way our minds were blown by new places, I perceive her experience was the same. During that unknown period of six years I spoke of earlier Joe was stationed in Bremerton Washington, where his other two children Amy and Tommy were born. Then back to Thailand in 72 and when America was forced to pull out of Vietnam his time there had no more purpose. Joe got posted in DC and the family moved to Maryland.

We visited Joe and his family in Sattahip 1974 after dropping my brother at his boarding school in India on our way to Florida. Students in Bangkok were planning to riot against the American occupation in Thailand. We: mom, dad and I caught a Baht bus to Sattahip and met Joe at the base. We got another Baht bus and headed down south and got rooms at some beachside resort. I went swimming while young Tommy held on round my neck in the elaborate pool, he loved it and wouldn’t let me stop. The first thing Joe did when got to our rooms was open the sliding glass door.

The next phase of this story is a little hazy for me, as I had been sent far away from the family to engage in my own series of treatments, I’ll recollect best I can. Sukanya left Joe sometime in the mid-eighties, to pursue professional bowling, professional bowling, word from my mom living 2000 miles away. Maybe the phone conversation was garbled but that’s what I heard. Joe went into rehab. The kids Jamesy, Amy and Tommy all moved in with my grandparents in Vegas. Joe quit drinking got discharged from the Coast Guard and Sue disappeared. After rehab Joe moved back home to Vegas got an Apartment for himself and the kids and went to meetings. I had a few chances to visit during the eighties; my own life was a little weird, learning how to be on my own in Wisconsin, not drinking, going to meetings, 19 years old. So Joe and I had something in common and maybe more than we knew, what we did know is that we learned how to label ourselves alcoholics. This is the first real time I spent with Joe as an adult, although Joe never really treated me as a kid, but now I felt as an equal. I mean yeah, I thought Joe was a little weird but who was I to judge, really in reflection his life was huge shit sandwich and it wouldn’t disappear until he took quite a few bit bites if ever. It took me another decade or so to really realize the depth of how big a shit sandwich could get. We got to hang out, go to meetings, talk about that one day at a time thing, shitting all over today, nuclear war, his Harvester Scout, fucked up things about the American government and it’s clandestine policies. We also delivered the papers together with the kids.

Joe and I would go get the papers, pick up the kids at school and we’d all sit in the back yard folding papers, Sundays issue was fun. That completed we’d all load up, three of us in back with the hatch open, drive around the neighborhood tossing papers on peoples stoops. Late winter of 87 was Grandpa Jim and Fritzi’s fiftieth anniversary, the whole family showed up. Mom and dad, Uncle Tommy was married, had a newborn son, adopted daughter and wife of course, Joe and the kids, minus Jamesy he had just left for boy scout camp, my brother and me. The largest family gathering since the early seventies and we kept it secret from the grandparents, grandma was elated as people just kept showing up. We reserved a big table at good Italian restaurant and everyone had a great time. I ate the Shrimp Diablo. Afterwards Uncle Tommy and his family went back to Reno, Mom and Dad to Casper, Dave to Montana, me to Wisconsin, Joe and his kids stayed in Vegas.

Fritzi died within the year, diabetes, after losing both legs.

It was a little weird visiting Grandpa after that; I went twice. The alcoholism thing with Joe and I made drinking strange for the rest of the family or maybe it was just strange for me. Dependency awareness was all the rage in the Eighties, Grandpa had quit a couple of times or at least he told mom he had, my dad quit for a while. Tommy was having gambling problems and was on and off the dependency wagon I don’t remember if his wife had left him by then. That stretch of sobriety was good for me, but if I could go back, I would get shitcanned with grandpa and my uncles and we would have a hoot of a time. Drunkenness is something we all do quite well and have a great time doing. That didn’t happen and it was weird. Young Tommy had started getting in legal trouble; Jamsey and Amy were also having problems. I felt some kinship with young Tommy seeing I had gotten in my own share of legal trouble. At 25 I thought I that had some experience in life, there’s no way I could’ve understood what he had been through. The last time I saw them, my brother, his wife and I flew out from Phoenix, we spent the day at the water park by The Luxor.

Grandpa had his first heart attack after Grandma died, he said Fritzi’s hospital bills caused it and soon after my last visit he had his final heart attack.
Joe got quite lit at the funeral; I didn’t make it. A lot of people came, Joe and my brother stood next to each other in the receiving line. A young man in an official looking suit caught my uncle’s focus; grandpa wouldn’t have associated with anyone that young except us. The suited man greeted my brother with condolences, said that he had known and respected grandfather, as he moved on to Joe, Joe stared him down and said, “You’re a little young to know my father aren’t you? You’re from the government.” The man walked away.

Little Tommy got sent to Juvie for burglary, talk is he got involved in the gangs. Amy moved away to live with Sue and go to cosmetology school; I don’t know when she got handed her bipolar diagnosis. She’s on meds now and lives in a group home. Jamsey married a much older woman, who said she wouldn’t marry him unless he took her to Disneyland. Jamsey called Joe for money, Joe called my mom for money for Jamsey, mom and Joe didn’t talk for a few years; I guess mom was pissed Joe spent all his inheritance. Uncle Tom bought a condo in Reno, Joe moved in and they probably went on a bender.

Somewhere in all of this Joe got a diagnosis of schizophrenia and was put on meds.

An agency of the government sent someone out to interview grandfather before he died. Remember Jim had supervised many atomic tests and some had exposed soldiers and workers to lethal amounts of radiation and various class action suits had been filed over the years. I don’t know that the two are related but seeing they, the government, wouldn’t release the interview until fifteen years after his death could lead some to suspicion. The interviewer asked grandpa many specific questions about specific projects he had worked on for the Atomic Energy Commission and grandfather told the man stories about having to jump out of airplanes and having a hole drilled in his head but in the end didn’t really answer to any of the man’s specifics. Exasperated, the man asked if Jim would answer any of his questions and Jim responded to the man that his security clearance just wasn’t high enough.

Joe died in his sleep June 20, 2010 no autopsy, his heart just stopped, they say. Amy choose a star of David to place on his vault, because it was a symbol on Joe’s coexist bumper sticker he kept on his truck. My brother put an Eagle Scout medal in the vault with his ashes and Uncle Tommy appreciated that. On tributes.com under the announcement of Joe’s death Jamsey left a message, “I love you dad” and a phone number, under the post it was identified from Cleveland. I didn’t make the funeral.

History

Lately, I’ve been lucky enough to get some steady work in Salida, Colorado. Salida is a quaint and charming place with beautiful, wonderful people and vistas abound. Known by the slogan “The heart of the Rockies” or its literal Spanish translation, exit, as named by some conquistador of old times, the Arkansas river exits the Rockies here to make its journey to the gulf. Salida is surrounded by glamorous mountains and the highest concentration of 14,000 ft peaks in North America for me and many others I am sure this is the prime reason for spending time here. As cute as Salida can be, my main purpose in settling here for a minute is to enjoy the vast vistas and wilds of Colorado.

As a kid I was lucky enough to spend a couple of summers at an amazing camp called Bear Pole Ranch just outside of Steamboat Springs CO, I was young at the time 7 and 8 so the experience made some impressions. First, it exposed me to the mountain wilderness of the Rockies and second, taught me about camping. I live my life recalling all these idealizations of my life and in Salida I am hoping to rediscover my fond memories and experiences of the Colorado wilds.

Having recently arrived in Salida, I found my self milling through maps at the local outdoor store considering the hiking options of CO. Admittedly, I have a thing about maps and tend to accumulate them at an alarming rate, I don’t see it as an issue and maybe being able to clarify where I am at any moment enriches my feelings of security. As I mill, a conversation is struck up with a salesperson looking to help me out of course. Our discussion leads through the changes in Colorado over the past decades, the rising populations and the ever greater influx of tourists into the wilds. I relate my sentimental feelings about the mountains, the ideal CO trail and my desire to be alone in the wilderness. He looks at me and asks, “Have you ever heard of the Weminuche Wilderness?”

“Nope” My response, as he reaches for a map of southern CO.

There it is, a vast area of south central CO west of Creede and Pagosa Springs east of Silverton and Durango. The Weminuche Wilderness, I’m hooked, line and sinker.

The Weminuche is the largest wilderness in CO at 488,000 acres or about the size of Rhode Island. Additionally it is one of the only Wildernesses with no bisecting roads, the only way to cross it is by foot or horse. I’ve been throwing this wilderness term around a bit; maybe it’s time to explain just what that means:

In 1964, our nation’s leaders formally acknowledged the immediate and lasting benefits of wild places to the human spirit and fabric of our nation. That year, in a nearly unanimous vote, Congress enacted landmark legislation that permanently protected some of the most natural and undisturbed places in America. The Wilderness Act established the National Wilderness Preservation System ” … to secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness.

From the US Forest service website (I want to mention but wont go into detail about how most of these lands were taken or bought at bargain rates from native tribes or indigenous people) just saying. That quote sheds a little light on things and I’d like to expand on that premise a bit. If you would like to go somewhere and not be affected by the precepts of what humanity is, go into a US wilderness. Granted you might have to go a few miles, my experience is that not many people go more than one day in. After that mark provided your not on one of the popular trails or in high season you should be pretty good and the people who venture beyond that seem to understand what this wilderness is about and how to respect it. Once that far in you’ll stop seeing the marks of uneducated trekkers, scraps of litter, undistributed fire rings and my personal pet peeve the used wet wipe. Which will be the subject of a torrid and rage full sidebar about how to shit in the woods. I’m feeling a little cumbersome here looking for a statement which encapsulates what going into the wilderness means, so bear with me. Ya know what this is gonna be a long essay and I am sure I’ll come across some brilliant encapsulation later.

Here, I have discovered the Weminuche or the idea of it at least and now have a focus to direct my energy and a goal. Let’s get to work Seese.

Day 0 Prep

Still in Salida I woke up round 8:30 felling kind of anxious, I wanted to get going. I’d procrastinated a couple of days already, I don’t want to admit it but it is kind of a big deal to pull the trigger on a 9 day camping trip into a wild place. So yeah, I was kinda freaking out, which happens to me pretty much before I start any journey. Tim the barista at sacred grounds talked me off the edge. I am going out in the woods to get away from all this anxiety anyway, right! I took a breath and chilled.

100 feet of cotton clothesline, a small like 4×8 tarp and something orange, bow hunting season had just started, my errand list, once taken care of I could get rolling. At the local Ace hardware I found the clothesline, an orange vest and some intel about a sporting goods store on the way out of town. Said sporting goods store, closed. Shit, I didn’t really want to drive into town to Mountain Sports but I did and that outrageously overpriced $99 dollar tarp (we will have a little essay later about outrageous camping gear) which at the store last week, gone now. What a waste of time, I’m over it at this point. Not happy about going to wall mart though, every thing that place represents makes my skin crawl. And of course they have everything I need the tarp, orange duct tape and an orange ball cap. Lets go.

285 south through Poncha Pass for like 70 miles, a weird right turn in Del Norte onto 149 west, which follows the Rio Grande river, up to Creede, 20 minutes past Creede left onto some county dirt road towards Rio Grande reservoir and about 15 miles past the lake I arrive at thirty mile campground. It’s around 4:30. The campground is empty, it was closed on Sept 15^th doesn’t mean you, I, can’t camp there, they just shut off the water and lock the outhouses, except for one. I get my tent set up and cook some dinner. Brown rice, kale, andouille sausage and white beans I cooked up a batch last night and froze it in meal size portions, enough for three nights, delicious. Although boiling it in a ziplock bag didn’t work out to well. Cracking a beer I start going through food and sorting stuff for my trip.

Food, backpacking, heavy food, light food, the good food heavy, light food bleah, yep that’s the deal. Those Campbell soups that come in a bag taste great with instant mashed potatoes they weigh almost a pound. Dehydrated food, even though I am not that experienced with it had some Mexican something or other while in Devil’s Staircase, not good, crunchy rice and corn but light. Hesitant as I am about the dry stuff I will give it another chance. Going out for 10 nights so just in case I will take 14 days of food. Perhaps a blizzard will roll through and bury me in. Three oatmeal packets get me two breakfasts, fruity flavored drinks mixes, two bags of dried fruit and nuts, aka gorp. l jam it into the backpack along all with the other stuff I think I might need, it’s a tight fit. I climb into my tent for bed and t morrow I hit the trail.

Just a couple of weeks ago I pulled onto an empty barstool at the Olympian Bar in Portland, Oregon. I sat down next to the only woman sitting at the bar. Really given the choice I could of sat next to one of the many similar looking dudes who had empty seats next to them, no. Even if I wasn’t going to talk to anyone, I did though; I asked my neighbor if she was from Portland. I was curious about the town and wanted an opinion, I also wanted to see where it might go with my new bar mate. Considering, I was thinking about planting some roots there and still might, undecided you could say. Well, she was not from Portland, Brooklyn, she told me. The conversation carried on smoothly and yes, she was from Brooklyn, but actually grew up in Fargo, North Dakota.

Nikki and I actually shared many coincidences, one being Fargo, the inspiration for writing this. I find towns like Fargo intriguing, desolate out of the way places that meant something to the world at one point and mean less now, this and the fact I’ve been abandoned there three times. Honestly, my experience with Fargo doesn’t extend far beyond the Greyhound station. Bus terminals in the Midwest can reflect a lot about a town; I spend a lot of time reflecting upon the meaning of architecture and design. Interestingly enough when I Google images of Fargo’s station the only pics are of the station built in 1942, which was replaced in 1972 with the station whose images are ingrained in my mind. After more distraction, research, on Google maps it looks like the 1972 station doesn’t exist anymore on the Internet at least. So you are stuck with my memory of the place. As I recall the architecture was almost constructivist, concrete with external ribs like modern buttresses supporting a shed style roof under which a window wall exposed a view of a desolate empty street and a dusty patina covering every surface.

I booked a ticket on a greyhound from Minneapolis, Minnesota to Casper, Wyoming sometime in the eighties. I was eager to take a journey, even one at 38 hours duration, that and the fact I hadn’t been home for 5 years or so. Busses are a medium of transportation available to people on a budget, poor people, not exclusively, it’s a good way to examine a section of American culture and class. Additionally busses don’t travel on the stereotypical routes, partly because of their relationship to the economic strata. Busses tend to stick to the smaller state routes and pass through some towns that barely merit on maps or interstate roadways. This relates to some ideas I have about the creation of paths and routes I’ll get to some other day. Anyway it is the very essence of a journey, you sign on for your destination otherwise you don’t have a choice about how you get there or where you stop along the way. Your path is chosen.

The first leg of my trip, a nine hour journey through the hinterlands of Minnesota; Brainerd, Bemidji and Grand Forks ended in Fargo, I presume the bus looped back to St. Paul from there. I arrived sometime in the mid afternoon two hours ahead of the next leg to Billings. Two hours is a bit of time, not enough to wander around some desolate town like Fargo. I did scour a two block radius, didn’t see a soul, I could of lugged my bag around to find a meal or something, though a trek into unknown territory didn’t real seem like a risk worth taking. So I sat. The arrangement of this public space bewildered me, none of the chairs faced the windows, the view outside, tumbleweed as it was, was not nearly as stark as the block concrete and vending machines inside. Eventually, a few other passengers came, the bus pulled in, we loaded up and pulled away.

A few years later my buddy Eric was headed to the Winnipeg Folk Festival and asked if I wanted to go along. Why not, I had a long weekend off and am not one to say no to a road trip. We packed up the 70 Duster in Minneapolis and took off. The radiator sprung a leak around Grand Forks and after about four hours we found a replacement from this guy who lived near a golf course. The corrugated steel covering his shed was textured in dimples caused by multiple impacts of errant golf balls. This became the subject of conversation which led to him revealing a compartment of his shed stacked 3 ft deep with buckets of golf balls. We got to the Canadian border at 11pm or so. I would have never imagined it could be so tough to get into Canada. Granted we looked like a couple of dirty hippies, we were going to a folk fest, I had hair over my shoulders and we both were wearing tattered straw cowboy hats. The Duster had a spray painted blue finish, some flowery weed hanging from the mirror, Eric had a National Steel Guitar in the trunk and we were in remote northern North Dakota. Judging us trouble couldn’t of been that hard. Oh naivety, during questioning I admitted to some legal matters from adolescence, they were no longer on record; honesty is the best policy, right? No. They emptied the car and searched our cavities and told me I would not be welcome in Canada, Eric was allowed. If I didn’t like it, I could contest the decision with the Consul who showed up at 7. We parked in a nearby field and tried to get a nights rest. Stinking of road sweat and covered with mosquito bites I pleaded my case with a uniformed Canadian Mountie and in essence he told me that I could go fuck my self, Canada did not want my type in their righteous land. After some consternated discussion Eric and I decided he would drop me at the truck stop in Pembina and I would buy a bus ticket back to St Paul, Eric had a ticket to the show and was meeting a girl there, I never wanted to be that guy who held someone back. The bus from Pembina led to Fargo then transferred to St Paul, a four-hour wait. Fargo’s greyhound station hadn’t changed, chairs still faced the wall and from all appearances I wouldn’t believe anyone lived in that town. The bus came and it took another nine hours to get back to the Twin Cities. I slept most of the ride and occasionally scratched mosquito bites.

During grad school I was involved with a woman, whom I choose to leave anonymous, I don’t really know how to describe the relationship. It was pretty important to me but there was definitely some distance. I think we both knew it was destined to end; personally, I was in denial of that fact or even delusional because my mind didn’t acknowledge the possibility of it ending, not because of who we were or what we meant to each other, more of where we were and where we had to go. It was her last year in grad school and my first. Summer had come and she had some business to take of for her parents in the Midwest and asked if I would help. Of course, sounded like fun. It took a month and it was time to move on. She was headed to the west coast for a teaching assistantship and was to drop me in St. Paul where I would visit my old roommate, Annie, then take the train back east. When we arrived at the bus station In St Paul, my road mate announced plans to kidnap me and steal me away to places unknown. This made me happy; it’s kind of nice to know someone is willing to misbehave in order to show their affection. Off we drove, after spending the night in some small midwestern hotel reality sank in and we made a plan to part ways, yep Fargo. We said our goodbyes in the street and she drove away. There I was on that dusty street standing with the knowledge that this was all very familiar to me and now to you. My last bus from the Fargo Greyhound station left 19 years ago, I haven’t seen her or that station since.

Nikki and I got along fabulously that night, yet our timing was off and we never finished drinks at the same time so we just kept ordering more. When she mentioned the ring on her finger was there to keep hounds away, really I asked about it, it did cross my mind that our encounter might carry past conversation. Not that it mattered, her conversational skills were excellent and that was fine. Our banter proceeded for hours and we carried over to another bar and maybe a snack. “Steve I think your great but…” I didn’t need this line and I actually felt quite disrespected by it. Why after such fun and conversation did she feel the need to let me down easy? Had there been some unspoken obligation? Just say good night and leave.

A few years ago I found my self living in Hartford, Ct, Newington to be exact. My wife at the time, whom I won’t mention by name (just S__) because I am sure she would be pissed I am telling this story, and I had just moved there. Life sends me signals and sometimes they accumulate, this accumulation seemed designed to tell me, I was making a mistake. It sucked, we fell broke in Toledo Ohio, a certain source of income fell through, a check wasn’t sent and calls not returned. We were stuck in a motel 6 with a full 26 ft moving truck, a four door Camry in tow and two quite large Iguanas, nasty fucking animals. We wrangled some cash and drove non-stop to Hartford, Newington to be exact.

We arrived around 7 or 8 am. S____ and my mother in law ran out to look at the apartment we were destined to live, while I attempted to sleep. The apartment stank, stank of dogs, S___ was deathly allergic. Hello Newington, we were sharing a two-bedroom condo with mom in law and wife. It was June and we were broke again, turns out the person who hired S___ got fired and didn’t tell anyone she hired her. Monkeys fucking a football, any number of animals could be fucking any kind of sports equipment it still wouldn’t change the fact we were counting pennies and bouncing checks. We were both ready to write the final chapter, the stress unbearable.

At 10 o’clock public television would show two back-to-back episodes of the Red Green Show, I had the television to my self at this hour and kept the volume at the lowest possible level I could hear. I can’t remember how loud my giggling was; I do remember how the pure stupidity of this show was such a relief. Red Green saved my life along with temp labor. Desperate to find a job I was paging through the yellow pages and stumbled across the labor section. Labor Temps was located in the old Colt factory with its blue onion dome.

I called and was told to show up tomorrow at 7. I did, the place was rough, paneled in plywood painted sky blue with two bulletproof sliding windows, crowded with burly men and even burlier women. At the window I was handed a form to fill out and return to the window. A typical application form: skills, references, education and so forth, I finished it and got back in line. I got to the window and was asked by the nice woman if I owned a vehicle, yes, I answered. She slid the window shut and disappeared with my application. She reappeared with gloves, a hard hat and a hi viz vest, and said I would receive a call. Around five the phone rang, land line, I was told to show up at some weird address at 7:30 the next morning.

Being me, I found the place by 6:30 and waited, it was a warehouse, blue. There were five other guys, we all eyed each other up and stuff, shakin’ hands and names, and got to work. Turns out my employer in this instance was a distributer for greenhouse plastics, sheet goods, and they had just received a forty eight foot container of stuff to be unloaded and shelved in the warehouse. This container was packed so tight all six of us had to nurse the first piece of plastic out of the can with our fingertips till we could grip it with our hands then we all grabbed and leaned our weight away from the container, fairly intimate for a bunch a guys you just met. Once we evacuated the first piece of 48ft by 5ft by 1inch plastic out we spaced ourselves evenly along the sheet, swung it over our heads and walked in unison to the storage bay, upon arrival the lead man would flip the edge of the sheet into the proper slot and we would walk the sheet with our hands into the bay, by walk, I mean run. If we lost momentum the plastic would just start to slide back out and we would have to start over with no momentum, our eyes searching each other resentfully for the weak link, fortunately, no one dropped the ball. Repeat for each piece of plastic. There are more painstaking details to this technique; I’ll get them another time.

In Connecticut the Hoagie is called a grinder: hot, or a sub: cold. Round about one o’clock a sales rep showed up with subs all around and a lotto ticket, winnings would be split evenly between the crew. That was nice. We finished after about ten hours and the next day I picked up a check for about forty-five bucks maybe fifty, I don’t really remember what minimum wage was back then. The boss said he’d pay us more if the temp agency didn’t charge an additional five per hour per guy. I was grateful for that check anyway, it represented a reprieve and meant things might improve.

The very same day I picked up my check I got another call, I was to appear in some rural part of Connecticut at 5 am Saturday. It was a boost in pay and overtime on Saturday and Sunday, 10-hour days on the weekend and 6 during the week, big money. I was to be a road crew worker, holding that stop and slow sign, such a position of power. Being my first living experience in New England, I hadn’t really known how affluent the suburbs of Connecticut could be. The job, as you might know, was me and this other guy who had to regulate the traffic on this two lane road down to one lane, we had no radio, so it was important we watch each other closely and keep on eye on the line of cars we were holding back so no one could sneak through and cause trouble. Now, you say; what kind of idiot would do that? We’ve all come upon road construction before, really your powerless, right; all that’s to be done is sit and wait. Wrong, inevitably some guy in a black Mercedes, red Porsche or a woman in a gold Cadillac thought they were important enough to tell you, the dude managing traffic, that because of their exclusionary status they them selves were exempt to your rule. After some experience I’d learn to spot them, they had this look on their face like I had just shit in their corn flakes. I can only assume that their lives were complete shit anyway but my position; standing in front of them with a stop sign, making my measly wage, symbolized a focal point for which to direct their pain. These types would take any chance to get one up on me, the instant I’d start to look toward oncoming traffic for the opening they would edge in on me and at times even start driving into the oncoming traffic starting a chain reaction in the line of cars behind. Then I was forced to be the asshole and step in front this vehicle stare the fucker down and coerce them to pull back over and let traffic through. The shit they would say to me, not to mention the occasional pissant who felt it appropriate to lean on their horn. Certainly it became a battle, not only a challenge of regaining lost territory all the time, but also a metaphor of class warfare. Warfare or not, these people didn’t really get to me, I had a job, making more than I was a week ago, which was nothing, and had a full tank of gas in my truck. It lasted three or four weeks, we paid off some bounced checks and had some money to spare.

I haven’t mentioned it yet, but I was waiting to start grad school at the end of August, primarily the reason why we were in Ct. My wife and I were to live a long distance relationship, her in Newington and me in Alfred NY. It made sense, if it were easy enough to go crazy in Alfred as a student, it would be so much easier if you weren’t. So at the end of August I left. Was it the right thing to do, probably not? We were divorced by the following August.

Back in the Mid eighties the Post It Note was kind of a new thing, manufactured exclusively by 3M in Saint Paul, Minnesota. During these times I was a managing chef at a restaurant in a little berg just north of St Paul. It was quaint little place, not without its downsides of course, and it did sort of become a family for the employees. Evan, the other kitchen manager and I split our shifts, one would cover days during the week then do a double shift on Sundays, brunch and dinner, the other would cover nights and have Sunday off, rotating the schedule weekly. Both of us had Mondays off, provided we avoided answering the phone when Mark, the owner, called us to cover his Monday shift. Evan and I were also roommates, quite another story, often on Mondays we would sit through twenty or thirty rings then disconnect the phone from the wall. I’ll get to the post it, eventually. Sunday nights started to become a ritual of meeting up at the restaurant around closing, eating dinner, rounding up the various closing staff and head off to the Trolley.

Usually four or five people, Mark would often come, Me, Evan, Lynnette D…ski a kinky haired polish girl from North St Paul, Carol, a kindergarten teacher who picked up weekend shifts waiting tables for pocket money, maybe one of the bus staff Dan a fresh 21, or Shelley our underage but devastatingly cute bus girl. Rog would always come, the dishwasher, descended from Japanese American stock at Two fifty plus pounds it was rumored he had Sumo in his blood. You’ll have to excuse me a bit for prattling on, I’m recollecting fresh memories as I write and of course gaining a sense of sentimentality as these memories refresh. I never really considered this that special of a time in my life, seemed like I was just doing my best to get by, too busy to recognize how we all had become connected.  Seems at that particular point in time we were all struggling, somewhere around ’87. A quick check of Wikipedia tells me Reagan had prostate surgery early in 87 tough enough after 6 years of the guy we all had to deal with his prostate also. Digression. So yeah Sunday night we would all go out, most likely the only place we would see each other outside of that strip mall restaurant.

The Trolley was a strip club in East St. Paul with as many odd eccentricities as our whacky staff. It was not sanitized, the floors were sticky and for some reason the dancers were behind glass, sure some law requiring immorality to have a barrier from the moral, which is which who knows? We would hang out, at times sliding a bill through the crack in the glass for our favorite dancers who after a time we got to know, aside from the glass it was informal, people would just hang out. The pool table was flat and lots of sharp players would swing a stick, even me a time or two, I was no match for the types that brought their own stick. Some times it was just us and the dancers maybe a bouncer and the bartender.

Is any of this that special, maybe not.  As I travel, I see a world so considered in its construction, considered in a way to not offend and to idealize. Safe. Environments so prepossessed about image and presentation that it becomes the character and personality. Much like a person who is so insecure about their faults or weaknesses they become their own presentation instead of personality. It is these various defects, idiosyncrasies, stickiness in a way that slows me down to examine what out of the ordinary, which once was ordinary. Flashing by a world of like textures, pastels and patinas, searching for something beyond the generic.

One Sunday we headed out for our ritual fun, upon entering we were greeted by three sad faces, the bartender, a dancer and the bouncer. Examination of the bar revealed an empty space and random detritus where the glass box used to be. Turns out a faction of the city council felt Jerry Mondeschien’s chain of strip clubs, three to be exact, to be a black mark on the face of St. Paul’s less desirable neighborhoods and revoked his club license. I just did a search for the trolley to confirm the owner’s name maybe some pictures of  the club. Results just showed a bunch of articles about bringing back the trolley system and revitalization of St. Paul’s eastern neighborhoods. Nothing about the place we would all hang about.

3M’s factories were dotted all over the Twin Cities area. The Post it factory, just down the street from The Trolley. On those wet winter nights we would actually park in the empty factory lots. The heavy adhesive smell of post it glue would hang in the air as we walked up the block on 7^th street. I always liked that smell.

Oh J…..

Every thing you say increases my love for you in exponential powers of three. I’ve been thinking about your letter for a couple of days now. I can only speak for myself, because you should do what you feel right about, and in the end you do what you do and whatever you do will be right. The constant in my mind these days as I put the 60 pound boxes of honey on the truck is the statement; Steve, the number of hours you work in life is a finite number.

I often get excited about learning a new skill, thinking it can’t hurt to know this, beekeeping for example, but in the end if my hearts not in it, it’s all I can manage to not be a surrly bitch most of the time. Nobody around me deserves this, really I don’t hurt others around as much as me that gets punished and I punish my self enough without having to hate my self for being bored with my work and having to stick it out. I know this might not apply to you. I had a shit load of stuff to say but I forgot.

In the end, I want you to be a fucking artist, BOOM, BOOM! What helps in my life is   looking at what I have to do and say to my self how is this art; how can I make this art. Some days it works, some not. James Whistler uttered some statement about being a true artist was to engage in making your life art not just thinking about it but living it. Something I always strive for. An old professor used to show a slide of Buddhist self immolation and talk about the commitment it takes to be an artist, dramatic I know, but the more I think about it the more it rings for me. 

The novel Lolita by Nabakov, you know the one about the 30 y.o. or so writer who falls desperately in love with a fourteen year old, I know; judge if you will. Nabakov never spoke much about his writing Lo in particular. Many claim it as one the best novels of the 20th century. Anyway most conjecture about this book is that it portrays the metaphor of the relationship between the artist and their work. Hedonistically self-indulgent and impulsive, but such a love that one cannot help themselves within, Passion.

Believe me that shit will so fuck you up. Primarily because it is so fucking beautiful and when it subsides it throws you down so fucking hard its all you can do to look up.  How many times have I told my self to just walk away, stop caring, just do the fucking job. I don’t have that capacity, its not who I am. I hope that the passion and beauty will return and it always does. The trick is I guess to handle it gently enough so it doesn’t slip away.

As usual I am afraid I must be carrying on like a madman, which I am. I hope I haven’t thrown to much at you or have sounded condescending. Just some of my thoughts.

I miss you dearly

Steve

Check out Lucian Freud he’s a bitch ass muthrfckr