Combat Fishing
A number of years ago, Wynn and I took the canoe up on one of those lakes behind Mesa Lakes Resort, Jumbo I think. We usually went to more remote and less crowded places, but on this day there must have been time considerations or something that compelled us to give Jumbo a try. We didn’t know that the lake had just been stocked with all sizes of rainbow trout including some big brood hens. (The hatcheries put these big females out into some selected put-and-take fisheries when they reach the end of their useful lives as egg producers, with rainbows it is usually about 4-5 years.) We also didn’t know that word of the stocking had just hit the streets. The place was an absolute comedy fest.
There were all manner of vehicles pulled right up to the side of the lake. Some were those short bed pick-ups with the giant tires and KC lights on top of the chrome roll bar. They would be pulled up with two wheels in the water and some shaven head, tattooed, and shirtless dude in baggy camo pants would be fishing right out of the seat. There were jalopies and sports cars. There were old station wagons with the cracked plastic dash and the hula girl on there. The thing would be full of beer and soda cans among the musty sleeping bags with some dirty laundry tossed in the corner.
There was competing music blaring out of the rigs with the biggest stereo systems. We had a blend of Mariachi, CW, Heavy Metal and Pop. There were teenage girls who screamed like banshees when they hooked a fish, and old people in assorted patio furniture who looked like they might crack if they smiled. The rig of choice was big lead weights, snelled hooks, and Power Bait, smelly dough in bright colors like chartreuse or hot pink. People in john boats trolled up and down the lake dragging ford fenders and cowbells so they could really dredge the bottom. The lake isn’t big enough for this kind of fishing so the boats were maneuvering in a confused tangle of crossed lines and snagged hooks.
We were kind of drifting around in amused awe, but steadily catching more fish than anyone else on the lake. We knew that those fish that just fell out of the hatchery truck tasted like mud, so we put them back anyway. (The pellets they feed them are made at the rendering plant.) Releasing the fish drew disgusted glances and muffled comments from people who saw us do it. Our awe changed to fear when we discovered we were under attack.
A white service van with ladders on top came screeching up to the side of the lake in a cloud of dust and a cacophony of rattles and bangs from whatever was in the van. The door flew open and huge man—325 pounds easy—jumped out. There was some shuffling around the back door while he rigged up. It took about 25 seconds then KERPLOP!!! There was a giant splash right by the canoe. This guy had taken his two-handed surf casting rod and launched about a half-pound of lead weight, Power Bait, and night crawlers right at the boat. He missed by 18 inches at the most. He waited for the gob to hit bottom, reeled the slack out of his line, lit a cigar, and sat in the seat of the van. It would take a blue fin tuna to exert enough pull on that line to bend the rod. We glanced at each other and paddled like racers for the shore. We loaded up and shagged in about the same amount of time it took the guy to set up the artillery. This was my first encounter in the fishing wars.
The salmon have returned to Puget Sound and started running up the rivers to spawn. The first to arrive are the Pinks or humpies. They are called humpies because they are the ones that develop the distended humps on their backs when they enter fresh water. They are on a two-year cycle and only show up in odd-numbered years. There have been attempts to plant stocks that will come in the other years, but they just haven’t worked. The short lifespan keeps their size to a maximum of 4-5 lbs.
Some months ago, I read a report in the paper that estimated this year’s return of various species to various watersheds. The prediction was that there would be a near record return of humpies to some of the rivers at the north end of the sound, but the return up the Puyallup River (less than ½ mile from our house) would be 770,000 fish. This is somewhat less than the return up the Puyallup two years ago, but an impressive number by today’s standards none the less. (I have no idea how they make these predictions unless all salmon must check in at a station in the Strait of Juan De Fuca where the Pacific Ocean enters the Puget Sound.) It is a good thing that each female salmon yields hundreds of eggs, because I don’t see how more than 3 or 4 will make it past the gauntlet near the mouth of the Puyallup.
Cars and trucks are parked in a solid line along roads paralleling both sides of the river. A glance up or down the stream from one of the bridges reveals shoulder-to-shoulder fisherpersons for as far as you can see in both directions. These are all equipped with big spinning rod and reel combinations. They catch huge numbers of fish since the limit on humpies is 4 per day. Guys get wives and girlfriends involved so that they can bag more fish per family unit. Last week I stopped by at a local discount sporting goods store and saw people carrying out spinning outfits and waders by the cart-full. You will see no fly fishers here. To them these are derisively dubbed “gear fishermen”, or worse, “meat fishermen” and it is suspected that they are more snagging fish than enticing the fish to take lure or bait.
There is a parking area near our house where the Puyallup police have put up a sign warning people not to leave stuff in sight in their cars because of the likelihood of a “smash and grab”. One day as I passed, there were policemen cuffing couple of young ruffians “assuming the position” over the hoods of their cars. These were the shirtless, tattooed, baggy-camo-pants sort we had encountered that day on Jumbo. I don’t know if they were breaking into cars or if they had shot someone over disputed position in the gauntlet line. There was a salmon flopping around on the asphalt near a guardrail that people have to climb over enroute to and fro’ the river. It obviously slipped out of a trash bag or off a makeshift stringer.
Before the fish enter the river at its mouth in Commencement Bay, they swim near the shore in the sound itself past an old lighthouse on Brown’s Point. There is more honor in catching the fish here because you can’t snag them and because they are livelier and tastier when they are “bright”. Bright refers to the fact that the fish have yet to turn dark like they do shortly after entering fresh water. Brown’s Point is the beginning of the gauntlet, but a place where you will actually see a few fly fishers. I fished here a couple of weeks ago on a week day when I was able to find enough room to cast. I landed a couple of smallish Pinks and turned them loose, much to the dismay of the audience of gear fishermen. The last fish I hooked was easily 5 lbs. and, according to a local who witnessed the battle, “about as big as they get.” Landing this strong bright fish on a 5 weight rod and a reel with no drag was a challenge. (The drag was frozen up from the corrosive effects of saltwater.) She made several runs and caused people on either side to courteously get their lines out of the water so that I could fight the fish. Still, I had to hold the fish steady while a guy took his treble hooked lure off the end of my rod. My instinct on landing the fish was to release it, but I could tell that I would have been tarred and feathered by the people who had to stop fishing while I landed the thing. I had read that the Pinks aren’t much good to eat because their flesh is less firm and not as red in color as some of the species that spend more time eating shrimp and plankton in the ocean. The article said that if you do keep one, you should bleed it immediately (cut the gills), and get it on ice a.s.a.p. I bled the fish and bolted for the nearest convenience store to get it on a bag of ice. We grilled it that evening, and it was pretty good—not as rich as a Chinook or Coho but a lot like a good wild trout.
The Brown’s Point experience deserves some attention. On my first trip there this season, I got a good exposure to fishing in combat conditions. Since the fish swim close to shore, but sometimes just out of casting range, the gauntlet consists of shoulder to shoulder fishers wading and casting out. At the same time there are fishers floating in boats and casting in. I often had lures landing within a few feet of me from both directions—from the boats in front and from the kids behind who couldn’t wade out far enough to get right in the fray. There was one older gentleman who didn’t have waders, so he was casting from the shore. As I approached my spot in the line, I made it a point to walk behind and well clear of this nice fellow, and left him plenty of room to cast between me and the next guy in the line. We got along just fine so long as I was able to ignore the occasional errant cast that landed just off my port side. Before long, a dazed looking old hippie guy with a gray pony tail came wading along and unconsciously took up position right in front of the poor fellow on the shore. The old boy just shook his head with a dejected look, and headed home.
While this was going on, a confrontation took place between a wading fisherman and a guy in a boat. They were both casting to the same spot and sometimes got their lines crossed. The wading guy made a comment about the boat guy’s lineage and about the fact that he had the whole ____ing sound to fish in but had to be right there casting at us. It was one of those battles with little chance of escalating to violence because wading guy had the sympathy of the crowd, and boat guy had mobility on his side. Apparently neither was armed. There was a bemused seal out there watching all of this. He would dive every now and then, and come up 50 or so yards down the beach to watch another group of yahoos sling treble hooks at one another.
Combat fishing got so out of hand on a stretch of the Skykomish River that officials had to close it due to the disgusting behavior of the fishers. Aside from the rude behavior already discussed, apparently people were so afraid of loosing their spot in the gauntlet that they would just go the shore, drop trou, and shit right on the bank. The Pink run is about over now and will give way to the silvers (Coho). I expect the circus to continue with one species after the other well into December with the Chums. I have found places to fish where there is little if any competition, and the experience is much more enjoyable. I landed a bright 22 inch Coho the other night with only Kristin and two young men watching. They said they had been fishing that area for four years and had never caught a fish like that. They damned sure had not seen one caught on a fly rod. If I hadn’t fixed that pesky drag, I would never have landed that fish, and for those of you who think I might be one of those purist catch-and release snobs, we ate that bugger too. It is unlikely that I will kill another fish this year. I think the fishing gods might punish a fish murderer who knows better. I might get sent to a Hell where all fishing is in the combat mode.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Click here to see Jonah's and Auden's Best Camping Trip Ever
http://picasaweb.google.com/m.grant.71/Rainier#slideshow/5374077487014093042
http://picasaweb.google.com/m.grant.71/Rainier#slideshow/5374077487014093042
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Health Care
The Seminal Comprehensive Absolute Last Word on Health Care Reform
Some of you will note that I have not contributed to this blog for some time. I think this deserves some explanation. First, we had a spell of hot weather here that made sitting in this room so miserable that I just couldn’t do it. We had record temperatures for a record number of consecutive days throughout the Northwest. I spent a few days in Portland and ended up doing a job in the blazing sun because the technician to whom it was assigned couldn’t handle the heat beyond the first 5 minutes. I ruined a pair of khaki pants with grease and hydraulic oil, and ruined about a gallon of water and two quarts of Gator Aid. It was 106° F. Public buildings in the Northwest have air conditioning. Houses, for the most part, do not. We found ourselves hanging around the mall more than at Christmas time. We also spent extra time in the local brewpubs—only because they are air conditioned mind you.
At about the same time it was starting to cool off in the Northwest, I went to Northern California for week. It was really pleasant weather-wise in both Sacramento and Oakland which is in stark contrast to my visit there in June when that area was blazing hot. When I got back to Seattle, I had a day or so of work to do for the store in Kent and quickly reverted to my old routine of listening to Public Radio on the way to the shop in the morning. This began a string of non-events that have made my neglect of the blog longer than it should have been. The topic of the NPR discussion that morning was the health care reform measures currently before Congress. By the time I was finished hearing the opponents’ platitudinous sound bite arguments, and the proponents’ ineffectual attempts to counter them, I was so pissed I could have spit nails. I was too disturbed to even be driving, let alone driving in Puget Sound area morning traffic. I immediately thought I should write something about it—right after I shot the asshole who just passed me on the right and then cut left in front of me. But several attempts at composition yielded no fruit. Each time I started to formulate some coherent ideas, I had a recurrence of the flushed-face, vein-in-the-neck-popping, spittle-spewing, anger that overcame me that first morning. I simply couldn’t make a cogent argument. This went on for well over a week. I discussed this frustration during a family gathering the other night and someone astutely noted that this sounded like just the sort of thing one should blog about. It was in fact the essence of blogging. I thought, “Hmm”, and then, “Screw it, here goes.”
I’m still too pissed to make any attempt at rational argument. This puts me on equal footing with the planted shouters who have been showing up at the “town meetings”. These are not “town” at all, but rather nationally broadcast forums being used for organized dissent. I have no problem with organized dissent, but don’t try to call it something else. It’s like the old ploy of waging all out war while engaging in peace talks. This is one of the most effective tools of war; kick their asses before they know they are in a fight. Righties use the tactic with finesse. Any time there is a suggestion that working people might have a different agenda than the privileged; someone is accused of “trying to create class warfare.” News flash! It is a war, has been for decades, and working and middle class people are getting whooped while they are in denial. The opposition deftly uses emotionally driven arguments to counter reason. This is a remarkable skill. But why bother? Emotion wins out over reason every time, so I will try to keep reason to a minimum despite constant temptation from facts and logic.
Should the government even be involved in healthcare?
You bet. The government, often with the approval and encouragement of the right, is involved in protecting us from everything under the sun. The government has taken it upon itself to protect us from communists, Corvairs, mythical WMDs, pot smokers, prostitutes, profanity, monopolies, gay marriage, pesticides, misleading advertising, hydrogenated oil, sodomy, and the list goes on. Why should it not then protect us from cancer, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and malaria? Oops! It already does that by subsidizing spraying programs and draining swamps. If you think there is any aspect of your life that is not already regulated, subsidized, or otherwise affected by the government, you are living in a fantasy. You want to live in a society without government involvement? I’ll bet most likely you don’t, not really.
[The subject of subsidy is a topic in itself. If the government spends one penny to subsidize anything from agriculture to space exploration (it does), it should subsidize medical research (it does). If it spends one penny of taxpayer money to subsidize that research, the fruits of the research should be available to every person who ever paid a penny of tax. I say, “No taxation without free bowel resection!”]
Will the proposed reform somehow limit my freedom to choose healthcare options?
I don’t really know, but I doubt it, and if it does, I really don’t care. Money talks. If I can afford choice, I’m damned sure going to get some. Meanwhile, people who don’t have insurance can’t even get into a hospital unless they go to the emergency room. They have zero choice. Now this is the place where I should introduce statistics, expert testimony, etc. Sorry, heard ‘em all, don’t care, you ain’t changing my mind. Sound familiar?
Will the proposed reform create a huge expensive bureaucracy?
Probably. So what? A bloated bureaucracy is what the government already is. There is no bigger bureaucracy in the world than the U.S. military and we’re all in favor of that. They are protecting us from a whole bunch of stuff. This bill may cost (How do the right-wing radio dipshits put it?), a thousand-billion dollars over ten years. (Only a liberal would mask the dire reality and trivialize the figure to a mere one trillion.) That’s only 200 billion more than we just gave to the bloated bureaucratic banking industry over what—a millisecond? Actually, we would just be replacing a private bureaucracy we already fund through subsidy but without oversight. Maybe if there are enough government jobs out there, we all might get one. I hear they come with insurance.
What about the fact that xyz% of Americans are happy with their current coverage?
Hooray! This presupposes that they have coverage to begin with, and I congratulate them. Aren’t they the lucky ducks? “I have mine and I could give a rat’s ass about yours.” Now that’s the kind of thinking a strong society is built on. At the internet urging of a sibling, I was recently directed to a website: Defend Your Health Care.croc. Well, I guess if I had some that was worth a shit and that I could afford, I’d defend the hell out of it. The site has some great examples of fear mongering and carefully crafted rhetoric. To counter the argument that covering preventative care will help contain increasing health care costs, the website has this to say. “…., virtually all studies show that prevention saves lives but not money.” Well hell, that’s disappointing—wouldn’t want to save many of those.
It goes on to say, “Most people who take cholesterol lowering drugs or get mammograms wouldn’t get sick anyway.” Isn’t that kind of the point? Just saying.
For a few more laughs, check out the website poll:
Who do you think will be hurt most by the Obama health care plan?
1. Small business.
2. Families.
3. The elderly.
4. Veterans.
5. Children.
6. Terminally disabled.
This is so obviously shaded; we don’t even need to change the question, just the answers:
Who do you think will be hurt most by the Obama health care plan?
1. Drug companies.
2. Drug company lobbyists.
3. Insurance companies.
4. Insurance company lobbyists.
5. Right wing commentators.
6. Fat assed Republican Senators.
Will there be some sort of panel or process for evaluating expenditures in end-of-life circumstances?
Absolutely not; but would it be so horrible if there was? Hey! We’re all laissez-faire survival of the fittest types, and let’s face it, skeleton Granny ain’t never gittin’ up, and if she does, she ain’t goin’ far and likely won’t know where she is when she gets there. And we are told every day that it’s all about the $$$$, and “hard choices,” and that kind of crap. If a grieving family needs some help while facing this extremely difficult situation, I would hope that counseling would be available. In fact, that’s all the bill does. It simply proposes to add counseling to the list of covered services. It doesn’t create any death squads or panels of liberal intelligencia to decide who lives and who dies. The notion of the “death panels” is a prime example of the opposition’s use of fear as a weapon. Plenty of fear can be generated around this topic because we well know that as our society ages; we will have to deal with this dilemma increasingly often. Right now it’s more comfortable to just ignore it and hope it goes away. Using it to make political capital is despicable. How about mandated living wills? At least then we would only be prolonging the existence of people who actually want it. I'll bet there wouldn't be very many. Is that intrusive enough for you?
Should universal coverage even be a matter of debate in this country? In this century?
Hell no! That’s what got me so riled in the first place. It wasn’t the inane arguments or the imbeciles who were delivering them; they are old and tired. It was the very idea that we are still spending time and intellectual effort in arguing something that almost every other civilized country put to bed shortly after World War II. OOH! We don’t want any European style system in this country. Fine, have another style, but for the love of Pete, have something. If the legislation that comes out has flaws, fix them later. The problem now is that we don’t even have a base from which to begin repairs. The status quo is unacceptable, and in your heart you know it.
Hold on! I feel some facts coming on. I have to go now. These are my opinions, my thoughts. I would love to hear some of yours, but please don’t send me any FWs or cut and pastes of politicians’, experts’, or columnists’ statistics, polls, opinions, or other tired drivel. I don’t care.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Flowers @ Coldwater Lake, Toutle River Yeti
From Mt. St. Helens
Last February, Kristin and I happened to pick a clear, sunny day to travel down I-5 to Portland. We were on our way to Colorado to visit “the sisters”, and decided to take a route that is different than the usual. I hadn’t been to Portland since the early 1970s, a time frame that is even cloudier in my mind now than it was then. The cloudless day allowed some glimpses of Mt. St. Helens through breaks in the trees. Even though it is some 50 miles east of the interstate, it looked like it was right by the road. We mentioned that it looks a lot like Rainier, except the top is missing. It is a classic Cascades Range volcano mountain with evergreen covered slopes that give way rather abruptly at about 4000 ft., and then BOOM! –snow covered, steep-sided mountain. I decided at that moment that I had to go there. I’ve been drawn to it like Richard Dreyfus was to Devil’s Tower in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We finally made it week before last. We had two days, and I wished we had about three more. It was worth the trip.
At about 8:30 a.m. on May 18, 1980 the northeast side of the mountain slid off, belched forth, puked out, and generally vented several decades of pent up pressure. The last previous noteworthy activity was some minor steam venting in 1898, 1903, and 1921. All of this is well documented in journals much more erudite and comprehensive than this one. The short version is that 57 people were killed and thousands of acres were devastated. Mud flows (lahars) reached all the way to the Columbia River. Smoke and ash climbed into the upper atmosphere and eventually encircled the globe. This was a little less than 30 years ago, and now it seems like everything is okey dokey and just as it should be, which it is.
The most striking thing about going to the mountain is experiencing nature’s awesome ability to heal her self from natural disasters. This is in stark juxtaposition to our awesome ability to screw it up, try to fix it, and screw that up too—unnatural disasters. Adjacent to Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument is a huge plot of evergreen forest that has been clear cut and reseeded in the manner that results in expanses of forest all the same age, size, and species, and so dense that each plant is locked in a struggle with its neighbor for every ray of sunshine, and every gram of nutrient. In this area, the species is the indigenous Noble Fir. Its boughs are arranged in a way so that with all the trees the same size and so closely packed, there is an illusion making the stand look like the screen on one of those pictures that shows one thing at this angle and another thing from a different angle. Kristin said it was “creepy”. I thought about my trip to the Northwest is 1971, and how it would have been “trippy”. The forest is striated, wavy, and artificial looking. There’s not a twig in there worth hugging. There are some isolated pockets of huggable trees, and the dead trees that were all laid down in the same direction from the volcano blast are nearly as trippy. In case you need more education about 20th Century forestry, there is the Forest Learning Center brought to you by Weyerhaeuser.
I just couldn’t get my mind off the image that came to me while visiting a stand of old growth forest a few weeks ago. I’m talking about the balls on the first couple of guys who walked up to a Douglas Fir or Western Red Cedar about 60 ft. in circumference and decided to cut that sucker down with a two-man hand saw. They had to have been scared shitless, and then really tired. They found the work so satisfying that they went to the shop and made more sophisticated tools so they could just go ahead and cut ‘em all down. They made boards out of some, paper out of the bulk, and shipped the rest to Asia. It is truly a testament to human resourcefulness and persistence.
The Forest Learning Center is on the same road as the Johnston Ridge Observatory which is a National Park Service administered visitor’s center dedicated to the Mt. St. Helens eruption. This place is really cool. They have displays that chronicle the personal stories of some of the people who survived, and some of the people who did not. There are of course displays about volcanoes in general and Mt. St. Helens in particular. They run a film in the auditorium about every 20 minutes. It is not an endless tape, but a series of films; some are dedicated to the eruption, some to the immediate aftermath, and some to the recovery of the land. After the film, the screen goes up, curtains open, and the cone is visible through a giant picture window. Everyone oohs and ahhs, and rightfully so. The center also has several seismographs where you can watch the needle register every little vibration in the earth’s crust. Some readouts show the seismic history on the mountain in the several months after the eruption, a period in which there were something like 2 million quakes of varying strength.
There is another great vantage point from Windy Ridge about two drainages to the northeast. It seems like a guy with a good arm could throw a rock from one ridge to the other. The drive from one point to the other is well over 100 miles. The drainages are steep and deep. It is striking that when you see country like this covered with trees, it looks much less abrupt, gentler. The countryside covered with the skeletons of scorched trees and new grass and small shrubs is at once stark and beautiful. During our visit, there was such a bloom of yellow flowers (Yellow Parentucellia) that the whole scene had a yellow tint to it—kind of an eerie, pervasive yellowness. Creepy.
We took the route from Johnston Ridge to Windy Ridge via the south side of the mountain. There was a young Park Service kid at the Johnston Ridge visitor’s center who was bubbling with enthusiasm about Ape Cave and the Trail of Two Forests. While pointing out Ape Cave on the map, he said, “I don’t want to ruin it for you, but this is really cool.” He said Trail of Two Forests has, “these tube things you can crawl through if you’re into crawling through stuff.” Then he looked at us like he doubted if we were. I looked at him like he was right.
Ape Cave is a lava tube created about 2000 years ago when a lava flow hardened on the outside, remained fluid on the inside, and left a tube much as running water would cut through rock. It was discovered by a logger and initially explored by a youth group from Portland who called themselves the Apes. Sorry, no Sasquatch connection here, even though there are plenty of references throughout the area, leaving tourists no doubt they are in Yeti country. The Forest Service has a visitor center here. A couple of young rangers in training led us on a tour into the cave. Some of us carried gas lanterns you can rent for $5.00, while the rest of us carried flashlights or headlamps. The cave is a constant 42 degrees F. We were introduced to “cave slime”, a living coating on the rock created by some exotic bacteria and water. There is also an insect that is a holdover from the last ice age. Sightings are rare, but it is neat to know that such things do exist.
Trail of Two Forests is an area where a short loop through the forest gives information about, and examples of, “tree molds”. Tree molds are left when a lava flow hardens around trees that are not incinerated. The wood burns and rots away after the lava hardens leaving a mold or impression of the tree trunk in the stone matrix. There are vertical ones and some horizontal ones from trees that were knocked down. These deadfalls created stone tubes that nimble visitors can shinny through if they choose. It would be great for kids, not so much for grand parents. The other forest is an example of old growth, a little patch of huggable trees spared because they share space with the volcanic artifacts.
When the lahar ran down the North Fork Toutle River, part of it ran about a mile up Coldwater Creek. The flow solidified in the face of the cold water and dammed the creek creating Coldwater Lake. The guide book I read about it must have been written before the recovery was very far along because it made the lake sound like a windswept reservoir in a desert landscape. When we got there the lake and surrounding countryside were beautiful. The lake has some dead tree stubs near one shore and there are rocky volcanic mounds that make islands. These match the gray tree trunks that cover the surrounding countryside (trees scorched in the volcanic blast) and offer a terrific contrast to the vivid wildflowers that have taken hold in the new volcanic soil. There are lupine and paintbrush of various colors along with different species of sunflowers with goldenweed and fleabane. They grow right down to the edge of the water. The fishing here is under special regulations with a one or two fish limit and size restrictions and no gasoline motors are allowed. There is a trail here with plenty of signage asking that you stay on the trail to keep from disturbing the recovering ecosystem which is a subject of interest to science.
We camped at one of several campgrounds on the shores of a string of impoundments on the Lewis River. These are nicely administered by PacifiCorp who generates power at the dams. This is a shining example of good corporate citizenship. The campgrounds are clean and maintained better than many Forest Service installations. The upper Lewis River above the dams is a pretty freestone stream with some attractive water and special regulations. I’m looking forward to going back and ignoring the volcano in favor of trying the fishing on the Lewis River and Coldwater and Merrill lakes. The lower Lewis below the dams and near the Columbia is reportedly great steelhead water for the fisherman with enough finesse to deal with the extra clear water and spooky fish in the fall. There are plenty of reasons to visit the Mt. St. Helens area including the fact that Portland is an attractive bicycle friendly city with an interesting combination of contemporary granola heads and erstwhile hippies—enough to bring back memories of 1971.
Last February, Kristin and I happened to pick a clear, sunny day to travel down I-5 to Portland. We were on our way to Colorado to visit “the sisters”, and decided to take a route that is different than the usual. I hadn’t been to Portland since the early 1970s, a time frame that is even cloudier in my mind now than it was then. The cloudless day allowed some glimpses of Mt. St. Helens through breaks in the trees. Even though it is some 50 miles east of the interstate, it looked like it was right by the road. We mentioned that it looks a lot like Rainier, except the top is missing. It is a classic Cascades Range volcano mountain with evergreen covered slopes that give way rather abruptly at about 4000 ft., and then BOOM! –snow covered, steep-sided mountain. I decided at that moment that I had to go there. I’ve been drawn to it like Richard Dreyfus was to Devil’s Tower in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We finally made it week before last. We had two days, and I wished we had about three more. It was worth the trip.
At about 8:30 a.m. on May 18, 1980 the northeast side of the mountain slid off, belched forth, puked out, and generally vented several decades of pent up pressure. The last previous noteworthy activity was some minor steam venting in 1898, 1903, and 1921. All of this is well documented in journals much more erudite and comprehensive than this one. The short version is that 57 people were killed and thousands of acres were devastated. Mud flows (lahars) reached all the way to the Columbia River. Smoke and ash climbed into the upper atmosphere and eventually encircled the globe. This was a little less than 30 years ago, and now it seems like everything is okey dokey and just as it should be, which it is.
The most striking thing about going to the mountain is experiencing nature’s awesome ability to heal her self from natural disasters. This is in stark juxtaposition to our awesome ability to screw it up, try to fix it, and screw that up too—unnatural disasters. Adjacent to Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument is a huge plot of evergreen forest that has been clear cut and reseeded in the manner that results in expanses of forest all the same age, size, and species, and so dense that each plant is locked in a struggle with its neighbor for every ray of sunshine, and every gram of nutrient. In this area, the species is the indigenous Noble Fir. Its boughs are arranged in a way so that with all the trees the same size and so closely packed, there is an illusion making the stand look like the screen on one of those pictures that shows one thing at this angle and another thing from a different angle. Kristin said it was “creepy”. I thought about my trip to the Northwest is 1971, and how it would have been “trippy”. The forest is striated, wavy, and artificial looking. There’s not a twig in there worth hugging. There are some isolated pockets of huggable trees, and the dead trees that were all laid down in the same direction from the volcano blast are nearly as trippy. In case you need more education about 20th Century forestry, there is the Forest Learning Center brought to you by Weyerhaeuser.
I just couldn’t get my mind off the image that came to me while visiting a stand of old growth forest a few weeks ago. I’m talking about the balls on the first couple of guys who walked up to a Douglas Fir or Western Red Cedar about 60 ft. in circumference and decided to cut that sucker down with a two-man hand saw. They had to have been scared shitless, and then really tired. They found the work so satisfying that they went to the shop and made more sophisticated tools so they could just go ahead and cut ‘em all down. They made boards out of some, paper out of the bulk, and shipped the rest to Asia. It is truly a testament to human resourcefulness and persistence.
The Forest Learning Center is on the same road as the Johnston Ridge Observatory which is a National Park Service administered visitor’s center dedicated to the Mt. St. Helens eruption. This place is really cool. They have displays that chronicle the personal stories of some of the people who survived, and some of the people who did not. There are of course displays about volcanoes in general and Mt. St. Helens in particular. They run a film in the auditorium about every 20 minutes. It is not an endless tape, but a series of films; some are dedicated to the eruption, some to the immediate aftermath, and some to the recovery of the land. After the film, the screen goes up, curtains open, and the cone is visible through a giant picture window. Everyone oohs and ahhs, and rightfully so. The center also has several seismographs where you can watch the needle register every little vibration in the earth’s crust. Some readouts show the seismic history on the mountain in the several months after the eruption, a period in which there were something like 2 million quakes of varying strength.
There is another great vantage point from Windy Ridge about two drainages to the northeast. It seems like a guy with a good arm could throw a rock from one ridge to the other. The drive from one point to the other is well over 100 miles. The drainages are steep and deep. It is striking that when you see country like this covered with trees, it looks much less abrupt, gentler. The countryside covered with the skeletons of scorched trees and new grass and small shrubs is at once stark and beautiful. During our visit, there was such a bloom of yellow flowers (Yellow Parentucellia) that the whole scene had a yellow tint to it—kind of an eerie, pervasive yellowness. Creepy.
We took the route from Johnston Ridge to Windy Ridge via the south side of the mountain. There was a young Park Service kid at the Johnston Ridge visitor’s center who was bubbling with enthusiasm about Ape Cave and the Trail of Two Forests. While pointing out Ape Cave on the map, he said, “I don’t want to ruin it for you, but this is really cool.” He said Trail of Two Forests has, “these tube things you can crawl through if you’re into crawling through stuff.” Then he looked at us like he doubted if we were. I looked at him like he was right.
Ape Cave is a lava tube created about 2000 years ago when a lava flow hardened on the outside, remained fluid on the inside, and left a tube much as running water would cut through rock. It was discovered by a logger and initially explored by a youth group from Portland who called themselves the Apes. Sorry, no Sasquatch connection here, even though there are plenty of references throughout the area, leaving tourists no doubt they are in Yeti country. The Forest Service has a visitor center here. A couple of young rangers in training led us on a tour into the cave. Some of us carried gas lanterns you can rent for $5.00, while the rest of us carried flashlights or headlamps. The cave is a constant 42 degrees F. We were introduced to “cave slime”, a living coating on the rock created by some exotic bacteria and water. There is also an insect that is a holdover from the last ice age. Sightings are rare, but it is neat to know that such things do exist.
Trail of Two Forests is an area where a short loop through the forest gives information about, and examples of, “tree molds”. Tree molds are left when a lava flow hardens around trees that are not incinerated. The wood burns and rots away after the lava hardens leaving a mold or impression of the tree trunk in the stone matrix. There are vertical ones and some horizontal ones from trees that were knocked down. These deadfalls created stone tubes that nimble visitors can shinny through if they choose. It would be great for kids, not so much for grand parents. The other forest is an example of old growth, a little patch of huggable trees spared because they share space with the volcanic artifacts.
When the lahar ran down the North Fork Toutle River, part of it ran about a mile up Coldwater Creek. The flow solidified in the face of the cold water and dammed the creek creating Coldwater Lake. The guide book I read about it must have been written before the recovery was very far along because it made the lake sound like a windswept reservoir in a desert landscape. When we got there the lake and surrounding countryside were beautiful. The lake has some dead tree stubs near one shore and there are rocky volcanic mounds that make islands. These match the gray tree trunks that cover the surrounding countryside (trees scorched in the volcanic blast) and offer a terrific contrast to the vivid wildflowers that have taken hold in the new volcanic soil. There are lupine and paintbrush of various colors along with different species of sunflowers with goldenweed and fleabane. They grow right down to the edge of the water. The fishing here is under special regulations with a one or two fish limit and size restrictions and no gasoline motors are allowed. There is a trail here with plenty of signage asking that you stay on the trail to keep from disturbing the recovering ecosystem which is a subject of interest to science.
We camped at one of several campgrounds on the shores of a string of impoundments on the Lewis River. These are nicely administered by PacifiCorp who generates power at the dams. This is a shining example of good corporate citizenship. The campgrounds are clean and maintained better than many Forest Service installations. The upper Lewis River above the dams is a pretty freestone stream with some attractive water and special regulations. I’m looking forward to going back and ignoring the volcano in favor of trying the fishing on the Lewis River and Coldwater and Merrill lakes. The lower Lewis below the dams and near the Columbia is reportedly great steelhead water for the fisherman with enough finesse to deal with the extra clear water and spooky fish in the fall. There are plenty of reasons to visit the Mt. St. Helens area including the fact that Portland is an attractive bicycle friendly city with an interesting combination of contemporary granola heads and erstwhile hippies—enough to bring back memories of 1971.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Memorial Day Weekend 2008
Here are some observations and ramblings as a result of my expeditions over Memorial Day weekend.
I had my first “spring creek experience” on this weekend. Spring creek fishing is one of the touchstones in the career of one who seeks to fool the wily trout with the artificial fly. Fly fishing seems to have a bunch of touchstones, and one can only try to touch them all. I’ll never come close, and I suspect that those who make a living fly fishing, or travel the world in the quest just for entertainment, are disappointed (or encouraged) to discover that touchstones just keep multiplying anyway. I can only imagine being one who, upon touching what he thinks is the last one, like catching Arctic char in the former Soviet Union, opens a magazine or reads a classic journal only to discover that there is something else he is supposed to do before he dies.
A spring creek is just what it says. It is a creek that emanates from a spring rather than from melted snow or cool rain. Their current is languid, they are typically fairly shallow, maintain a constant temperature, and don’t have the cobble bottom usually encountered in freestone streams. Spring creek trout are notoriously selective, healthy, and beautiful. Montana has the Paradise Valley, Idaho has Silver Creek, Wyoming has Flat Creek, and I think there are number of them in the East, Pennsylvania, New York, etc. Washington has Rocky Ford Creek which is not as famous as the others mentioned, but a spring creek none the less. I would guess that the spring comes from the fact that the Columbia River is dammed up so tight, it just oozes out of the ground here and there.
One reason it is not as famous might be because it is in the middle of the flippin’ desert, wedged between a couple of huge impoundments on the Columbia River system in Central Washington. The desert locale makes the place particularly intriguing. You would think the banks of such an oasis would be choked with cottonwoods, alders, and what not, but Rocky Ford Creek has only some reeds and small willows. There is no impediment to the back cast; a false cast over the water might snag one of the many impervious ducks that paddle along on the placid and extraordinarily clear water. Wading is not allowed, and catch and release regulations apply. The fish are all rainbows, and you can easily see them cruising at their selected depths, occasionally sipping unseen miniscule invertebrates. You can learn a lot about the behavior of trout just by watching them. You can see why many takes of the artificial go undetected even by the best fly fishers because sipping is a literal description of what they do. I even saw one right at my feet take a mouth full of detritus off the bottom, sort out the morsel he wanted, probably a scud, and spit out the rest. You can bet your ass they will spit out a morsel with a hook in it in a microsecond.
The fishing was great. I didn’t fool many trout, but the ones I hooked were large and powerful, and the challenge made for what a spring creek experience is supposed to be. I camped by pitching a tent at the edge of the gravel parking area the evening before I fished. I didn’t fish more than about three hours because the place started to get loaded up with people (yuk) and the wind turned into a good ol’ western desert gale (more yuk). There were four big assed cigar butts on the ground near where I pitched my tent. They looked like big turds with gold bands around ‘em.
This brings up notions of things that are supposed to comprise the complete fly fishing experience, be it on a spring creek in the stinking desert or on a Maine brook trout stream (Uh-oh! Another unattained touchstone). After testing his skill against the aforementioned wily trout, the fisher is obliged to sit on a rock, log, or even a camp chair, preferably a Maine Lounger from L.L. Beane, and smoke a fine cigar and drink some single malt Scotch made with water from the River Spey. He should do this while wearing a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. I figure the dorks who left the banded turds never heard of the River Spey.
I spent a day and a half in the Central Washington desert before the wind and heat reminded me the I didn’t move to the Northwest to sweat my ass off in country just like that I left. Don’t get me wrong. I have a love for all the varied terrain and climates of our great country and the West especially. I’ll be heading for Rocky Ford Creek next winter when I get the urge to stretch my eyeballs after several weeks under Western Washington’s interminable winter cloud cover. There is no doubt that the lee side desert is an integral part of the Northwest ecosystem and so on. But, like I said dammit; it was bloody hot and the wind had 5 ft. whitecaps and aluminum framed lawn chairs blowing across whatever lake that is you cross on I-90. That lake used to be the Columbia River, but that subject is for another diatribe on another day.
I went south to Yakima and then over the mountains at the edge of Mt. Rainier National Park. The route took me over Chinook Pass which is a seasonal road like Independence Pass or Trail Ridge Road in Colorado. It was white, and green, and lush, and cold enough to. . . .
Oh well, diversity, that’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.
See y’all later,
Here are some observations and ramblings as a result of my expeditions over Memorial Day weekend.
I had my first “spring creek experience” on this weekend. Spring creek fishing is one of the touchstones in the career of one who seeks to fool the wily trout with the artificial fly. Fly fishing seems to have a bunch of touchstones, and one can only try to touch them all. I’ll never come close, and I suspect that those who make a living fly fishing, or travel the world in the quest just for entertainment, are disappointed (or encouraged) to discover that touchstones just keep multiplying anyway. I can only imagine being one who, upon touching what he thinks is the last one, like catching Arctic char in the former Soviet Union, opens a magazine or reads a classic journal only to discover that there is something else he is supposed to do before he dies.
A spring creek is just what it says. It is a creek that emanates from a spring rather than from melted snow or cool rain. Their current is languid, they are typically fairly shallow, maintain a constant temperature, and don’t have the cobble bottom usually encountered in freestone streams. Spring creek trout are notoriously selective, healthy, and beautiful. Montana has the Paradise Valley, Idaho has Silver Creek, Wyoming has Flat Creek, and I think there are number of them in the East, Pennsylvania, New York, etc. Washington has Rocky Ford Creek which is not as famous as the others mentioned, but a spring creek none the less. I would guess that the spring comes from the fact that the Columbia River is dammed up so tight, it just oozes out of the ground here and there.
One reason it is not as famous might be because it is in the middle of the flippin’ desert, wedged between a couple of huge impoundments on the Columbia River system in Central Washington. The desert locale makes the place particularly intriguing. You would think the banks of such an oasis would be choked with cottonwoods, alders, and what not, but Rocky Ford Creek has only some reeds and small willows. There is no impediment to the back cast; a false cast over the water might snag one of the many impervious ducks that paddle along on the placid and extraordinarily clear water. Wading is not allowed, and catch and release regulations apply. The fish are all rainbows, and you can easily see them cruising at their selected depths, occasionally sipping unseen miniscule invertebrates. You can learn a lot about the behavior of trout just by watching them. You can see why many takes of the artificial go undetected even by the best fly fishers because sipping is a literal description of what they do. I even saw one right at my feet take a mouth full of detritus off the bottom, sort out the morsel he wanted, probably a scud, and spit out the rest. You can bet your ass they will spit out a morsel with a hook in it in a microsecond.
The fishing was great. I didn’t fool many trout, but the ones I hooked were large and powerful, and the challenge made for what a spring creek experience is supposed to be. I camped by pitching a tent at the edge of the gravel parking area the evening before I fished. I didn’t fish more than about three hours because the place started to get loaded up with people (yuk) and the wind turned into a good ol’ western desert gale (more yuk). There were four big assed cigar butts on the ground near where I pitched my tent. They looked like big turds with gold bands around ‘em.
This brings up notions of things that are supposed to comprise the complete fly fishing experience, be it on a spring creek in the stinking desert or on a Maine brook trout stream (Uh-oh! Another unattained touchstone). After testing his skill against the aforementioned wily trout, the fisher is obliged to sit on a rock, log, or even a camp chair, preferably a Maine Lounger from L.L. Beane, and smoke a fine cigar and drink some single malt Scotch made with water from the River Spey. He should do this while wearing a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. I figure the dorks who left the banded turds never heard of the River Spey.
I spent a day and a half in the Central Washington desert before the wind and heat reminded me the I didn’t move to the Northwest to sweat my ass off in country just like that I left. Don’t get me wrong. I have a love for all the varied terrain and climates of our great country and the West especially. I’ll be heading for Rocky Ford Creek next winter when I get the urge to stretch my eyeballs after several weeks under Western Washington’s interminable winter cloud cover. There is no doubt that the lee side desert is an integral part of the Northwest ecosystem and so on. But, like I said dammit; it was bloody hot and the wind had 5 ft. whitecaps and aluminum framed lawn chairs blowing across whatever lake that is you cross on I-90. That lake used to be the Columbia River, but that subject is for another diatribe on another day.
I went south to Yakima and then over the mountains at the edge of Mt. Rainier National Park. The route took me over Chinook Pass which is a seasonal road like Independence Pass or Trail Ridge Road in Colorado. It was white, and green, and lush, and cold enough to. . . .
Oh well, diversity, that’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.
See y’all later,
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Geezer Basketball
I had a friend was a big baseball player
back in high school
He could throw that speedball by you
Make you look like a fool boy
Saw him the other night at this roadside bar
I was walking in, he was walking out
We went back inside sat down had a few drinks
but all he kept talking about was
_[Glory Days]__________________________________________
Bruce Springsteen from "Glory Days"
Bruce and his buddy were about to rehash some tales—practice for passing them on to their progeny. What is the point of having memories if we can’t use them to aggravate the youngsters in our lives? They are probably just jealous anyway. Frankly, I was edified by “back in the day” tales from my parents and their peers. They gave me anchor.
Back in the day, I was a pretty decent basketball player. In college, I literally played everyday in pick up games and intramurals, and got to be one of the guys everyone wanted to have on their team. By playing everyday, a guy should get pretty good even if his intrinsic nature is to stink. This is one reason I get irritated at NBA players who play basketball everyday, and still can’t make a damn free throw. Any pro shooting less than 80% from the line should be summarily executed. Okay, maybe docked a million bucks for every percentage point under 80.
My signature abilities included a nifty hesitation move with a cross-over if needed, a sweet turnaround jumper, a gym rat’s quick first step reminiscent of Kiki Vandeweigh, and a no-look reverse layup from either side. It was a Chris Paul drive the baseline and toss it up and see what…whoop, it went in type shot. On defense, I had great anticipation: could lay off and bait a guy into a risky pass, and then pick it off for a breakaway.
Some noteworthy occasions were a couple of intramural games against a team that had Conrad Dobler. He was, at the time, diligently building a reputation as the NFL’s dirtiest player. I assumed Conie was on campus in the off season to take remedial gum chewing. He was there getting PhD for all I really know. There were a couple of Wyo. football players on my team. They were happy to measure their manhoods by getting under the basket and mixing it up with Dobler. I was quick enough and smart enough to stay clear of the whole lot. Let them have at it.
(Note: Since this time, Dobler has become a case study in the costs of a career in the trenches in the NFL--physical disability, and finacial hardship.)
I played a little with the kids a few weeks ago and stunk so badly; I determined to practice enough to get better, or give it up all together. Going down to the outdoor court at the rec center mixes up the workout routine, which has recently been 30 minutes on the elliptical while listening to classic rock on 102.5. (I have not, thank you very much, resorted to Sweatin’ with the Oldies with Richard Simmons). So here is the current state of the geezer game:
The hesitation move—if I hesitated any more, I might be taken for dead. One has to be moving in order to hesitate. The most noticeable hesitation is in getting off the couch. Once I do get moving, any attempt to slow down too fast i.e., “hesitate”, results in the knees buckling and me falling down.
The quick first step—forget about it. Any sudden movement can result in a sprain or pull.
The turnaround jumper is coming back, except there is no jump involved. “Why do you take a hiking stick to the basketball court?” you ask. Okay wise guy, it’s because when the ball gets stuck in the net, I can’t jump high enough to get it out. Poking the ball with a stick is less humiliating and draws fewer chuckles from the shirtless young studs on the next court than repeatedly throwing my hat at it.
The reverse lay up from the left side will get me out of a deficit in a game of H.O.R.S.E. if I’m playing against some kid who is about eight. In a game situation, it just gets swatted, sometimes violently. I have, however, developed a knack for getting my face out of the way, or I’d have to give up the shot once and for all.
The anticipation is still there. I just can’t do anything with it. My defense consists of fouling. Even that is ineffective except against girls.
The good news is that I still have bladder control—a good thing because the latrine at the rec center park is 200 yards (or twelve minutes) away.
I have heard rumors that there are leagues and similar opportunities for geezers to team up and play against each other. I think I saw a reference to such a game in a Celebrex or Ensure commercial. I have never seen an actual geezer game, but I can guess that it must be funnier than wino fighting or tortoise sex.
I’ve seen geezer hockey on television in the run-up to the All Star Game, and it honestly isn’t that different from regular hockey. A lot of NHL guys play until they are geezers anyway, and fouling and falling down are pretty much the game in a nutshell, regardless of the age of the players. Last year Brett Favre gave us a sampling of geezer football. It appears he is likely to give us a full dose this year, for as long as he can hold up.
The only thing that might compete with geezer basketball in degree of silliness is geezer dancing. This last weekend, Kristin and I went to the Meeker Days celebration in downtown Puyallup. It is a big deal with all manner of booths for everything from time shares and insurance, to funnel cakes and glass blowing. There were a couple of bandstands, one right near the beer garden. The rock ‘n’ roll and CW was surprisingly good. During one song I said, “That guy has a really good country voice.” We later learned “that guy” was former Alabama member Jeff Cook. No more surprise, and a confirmation of my keen eye for the obvious.
When we walked up, they were doing a fantastic rendition of Johnny B. Goode, and we commented that it was odd that nobody was dancing. We heard other people say the same thing. Several of us in the crowd were rhythmically moving one leg up and down, and looking nostalgic. We looked like old hound dogs that lie down to sleep on their sides with their legs extended out. Every now and then the legs twitch, and you can tell they are dreaming about back in the day when they could chase cats.
There were bicycle police keeping an eye on the beer garden and crowd, so none of the geezers who identified with Chuck Berry hits got drunk enough to risk the humiliation of dancing in the boogie style where you don’t get to lean on each other. Any geezer attempting to swing or jitterbug on that asphalt would have experienced the “hesitation move knee buckle". I suppose the younger folks just didn’t think the music was that cool. They’ll dig it when they become geezers. Johnny B. Goode has a timeless quality I just don’t see in contemporary whatchamacallit music. And a few of us will always remember Kiki Vandeweigh.
Still chasing cats.
I had a friend was a big baseball player
back in high school
He could throw that speedball by you
Make you look like a fool boy
Saw him the other night at this roadside bar
I was walking in, he was walking out
We went back inside sat down had a few drinks
but all he kept talking about was
_[Glory Days]__________________________________________
Bruce Springsteen from "Glory Days"
Bruce and his buddy were about to rehash some tales—practice for passing them on to their progeny. What is the point of having memories if we can’t use them to aggravate the youngsters in our lives? They are probably just jealous anyway. Frankly, I was edified by “back in the day” tales from my parents and their peers. They gave me anchor.
Back in the day, I was a pretty decent basketball player. In college, I literally played everyday in pick up games and intramurals, and got to be one of the guys everyone wanted to have on their team. By playing everyday, a guy should get pretty good even if his intrinsic nature is to stink. This is one reason I get irritated at NBA players who play basketball everyday, and still can’t make a damn free throw. Any pro shooting less than 80% from the line should be summarily executed. Okay, maybe docked a million bucks for every percentage point under 80.
My signature abilities included a nifty hesitation move with a cross-over if needed, a sweet turnaround jumper, a gym rat’s quick first step reminiscent of Kiki Vandeweigh, and a no-look reverse layup from either side. It was a Chris Paul drive the baseline and toss it up and see what…whoop, it went in type shot. On defense, I had great anticipation: could lay off and bait a guy into a risky pass, and then pick it off for a breakaway.
Some noteworthy occasions were a couple of intramural games against a team that had Conrad Dobler. He was, at the time, diligently building a reputation as the NFL’s dirtiest player. I assumed Conie was on campus in the off season to take remedial gum chewing. He was there getting PhD for all I really know. There were a couple of Wyo. football players on my team. They were happy to measure their manhoods by getting under the basket and mixing it up with Dobler. I was quick enough and smart enough to stay clear of the whole lot. Let them have at it.
(Note: Since this time, Dobler has become a case study in the costs of a career in the trenches in the NFL--physical disability, and finacial hardship.)
I played a little with the kids a few weeks ago and stunk so badly; I determined to practice enough to get better, or give it up all together. Going down to the outdoor court at the rec center mixes up the workout routine, which has recently been 30 minutes on the elliptical while listening to classic rock on 102.5. (I have not, thank you very much, resorted to Sweatin’ with the Oldies with Richard Simmons). So here is the current state of the geezer game:
The hesitation move—if I hesitated any more, I might be taken for dead. One has to be moving in order to hesitate. The most noticeable hesitation is in getting off the couch. Once I do get moving, any attempt to slow down too fast i.e., “hesitate”, results in the knees buckling and me falling down.
The quick first step—forget about it. Any sudden movement can result in a sprain or pull.
The turnaround jumper is coming back, except there is no jump involved. “Why do you take a hiking stick to the basketball court?” you ask. Okay wise guy, it’s because when the ball gets stuck in the net, I can’t jump high enough to get it out. Poking the ball with a stick is less humiliating and draws fewer chuckles from the shirtless young studs on the next court than repeatedly throwing my hat at it.
The reverse lay up from the left side will get me out of a deficit in a game of H.O.R.S.E. if I’m playing against some kid who is about eight. In a game situation, it just gets swatted, sometimes violently. I have, however, developed a knack for getting my face out of the way, or I’d have to give up the shot once and for all.
The anticipation is still there. I just can’t do anything with it. My defense consists of fouling. Even that is ineffective except against girls.
The good news is that I still have bladder control—a good thing because the latrine at the rec center park is 200 yards (or twelve minutes) away.
I have heard rumors that there are leagues and similar opportunities for geezers to team up and play against each other. I think I saw a reference to such a game in a Celebrex or Ensure commercial. I have never seen an actual geezer game, but I can guess that it must be funnier than wino fighting or tortoise sex.
I’ve seen geezer hockey on television in the run-up to the All Star Game, and it honestly isn’t that different from regular hockey. A lot of NHL guys play until they are geezers anyway, and fouling and falling down are pretty much the game in a nutshell, regardless of the age of the players. Last year Brett Favre gave us a sampling of geezer football. It appears he is likely to give us a full dose this year, for as long as he can hold up.
The only thing that might compete with geezer basketball in degree of silliness is geezer dancing. This last weekend, Kristin and I went to the Meeker Days celebration in downtown Puyallup. It is a big deal with all manner of booths for everything from time shares and insurance, to funnel cakes and glass blowing. There were a couple of bandstands, one right near the beer garden. The rock ‘n’ roll and CW was surprisingly good. During one song I said, “That guy has a really good country voice.” We later learned “that guy” was former Alabama member Jeff Cook. No more surprise, and a confirmation of my keen eye for the obvious.
When we walked up, they were doing a fantastic rendition of Johnny B. Goode, and we commented that it was odd that nobody was dancing. We heard other people say the same thing. Several of us in the crowd were rhythmically moving one leg up and down, and looking nostalgic. We looked like old hound dogs that lie down to sleep on their sides with their legs extended out. Every now and then the legs twitch, and you can tell they are dreaming about back in the day when they could chase cats.
There were bicycle police keeping an eye on the beer garden and crowd, so none of the geezers who identified with Chuck Berry hits got drunk enough to risk the humiliation of dancing in the boogie style where you don’t get to lean on each other. Any geezer attempting to swing or jitterbug on that asphalt would have experienced the “hesitation move knee buckle". I suppose the younger folks just didn’t think the music was that cool. They’ll dig it when they become geezers. Johnny B. Goode has a timeless quality I just don’t see in contemporary whatchamacallit music. And a few of us will always remember Kiki Vandeweigh.
Still chasing cats.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
What does John Wayne have to do with it?
Washington has the John Wayne Pioneer Trail mentioned in the previous article. It also has John Wayne Marina near Sequim. I figured there must be some John Wayne/Washington connection, like he was born here or something. This is apparently not the case. Cursory investigation reveals that people just decided to name some stuff after The Duke.
Next: Geezer Basketball
Next: Geezer Basketball
Saturday, June 20, 2009
North Bend and the Snoqualmie Valley
An informational sign at Rattlesnake Lake near North Bend, Washington, asks the question that must be on the mind of anyone who visits here or sees it on a map for the first time: How did a lake on the west side of the Cascades, a reputed rattlesnake free zone, get Rattlesnake for a name? To paraphrase the answer, “We don’t have a clue.”
I have heard that Rattlesnake Lake is a good float tube lake, so we took advantage of Kristin’s midweek day off and checked it out. There weren’t many people there, but you can tell that it gets pretty well populated on the weekends. It is the head of the Cedar River, and the watershed that supplies Seattle with water. It was opened to special regulations fishing some years ago and is stocked annually with rainbow trout. On this day it offered proof that just because a lake is stocked does not mean the fish are competing to leap into your net. I just waded out and cast a nymph rig into a substantial wind while Kristin walked a trail in the park. I did not catch any fish, and I didn’t see the fellow in the float tube or the two guys in the boat catch any either. It is a pretty location, and I’m sure I’ll take the float tube or drift boat up there and try it again someday. It’s open until the end of October, and I suspect fall is a good time to fish it. We’ll see.
There is a neat interpretive center at the lake. It tells the story of how and why the lake is a good municipal water supply, and gives some history of the area. There is a library, the ubiquitous novelty store, and some research presence. It would be a great place for a middle school field trip. Across the road is Iron Horse State Park, which is a developed section of the John Wayne Pioneer Trail. The trail runs nearly all the way across Washington following the route of the old Chicago-Milwaukee-St. Paul Railroad. Literature says there are trestle crossings that offer fantastic views. All the tunnels are closed for safety reasons, but they are working on detours. A warning sign at the trailhead says there is a closed tunnel in 52 miles. That’s far enough for me anyway.
North Bend is a tidy little town that is essentially a bedroom community to Seattle, only 32 miles to the west. North Bend has a rich railroad, timber, agricultural (hops), and even mining history. It has the main North American manufacturing and distribution center for Nintendo whose American headquarters is in Redmond, Washington. Mainly, from what we experienced, North Bend has Twede’s Café.
Twede’s starred in David Lynch’s bizarre television series Twin Peaks which aired for two seasons starting in 1990. One of the stars was Lara Flynn Boyle whom we recognize as a very handsome cast member from The Practice, and other roles. The “complimentary collectors menu” notes the café as, “Home of Twin Peaks Cherry Pie and a “Damn fine cup of coffee.” I tried both, and they were both damn fine. The soup of the day was homemade vegetable beef; the BLT was better than average. Kristin had one of the 53 burgers on the menu—more if you count the fact that all of them are also available in garden veggie and black bean patties. She had chocolate cream pie. I stole a couple of bites, and consider it to be damn fine. The café is decorated with all imaginable examples of stuffed Twede Birds: fireman Twede, police Twede, beach Twede, and so forth.
After the late lunch at Twede’s, we went and checked on the prospects for fishing the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River. The river was still a bit high, so I didn’t fish it. We all know that fish don’t disappear during high water, and the fishing can be good in the eddies and calmer pools. After the pie, I just didn’t feel athletic enough to go out there and leap from rock to rock, and wade in the strong current. The Middle Fork is another opportunity for fishing special regulations water, and when lower, a great example of classic pocket water fishing. It is a refreshing retreat from the hustle of the city, rarely crowded, and less than an hour away. The relatively light pressure comes from the fact that the fish are small for guys who are hooked on steelhead fishing, but the resident coastal cutthroats are fun and beautiful. Snoqualmie Falls isolates this water from the cutties, steelhead, and salmon that run to the sea.
We looked at the impressive Snoqualmie Falls, and watched a guy on the river below the falls fight and land really nice fish. From that distance, all I could tell was that the fish was at least 24 inches, and bright silver. I’ll not hazard a guess on the species. In my ideal world, the guy would have turned it loose—no such luck. He strutted around showing it to everyone in his area, chucked it up in the rocks, and went back to fishing.
The Snoqualmie Valley has a number of golf courses including Mt. Si, and Twin Rivers. Cascade Golf Course is very close to Rattlesnake Lake, and a very attractive nine-hole public course. With the extra long summer days at this latitude, I could envision a day incorporating a round of golf, lake fishing, stream fishing, some fat tire riding, and a damn fine slice of cherry pie—all within 30 to 40 minutes of Seattle or Tacoma. We will turn in a report after we give it a try.
Our last stop was at the new Snoqualmie Casino. Kristin lost ten bucks on the nickel slots. I won about twenty on a dollar machine. We figured that paid for the gas for our adventure, and we headed for the house.
Next: What does John Wayne have to do with it?
An informational sign at Rattlesnake Lake near North Bend, Washington, asks the question that must be on the mind of anyone who visits here or sees it on a map for the first time: How did a lake on the west side of the Cascades, a reputed rattlesnake free zone, get Rattlesnake for a name? To paraphrase the answer, “We don’t have a clue.”
I have heard that Rattlesnake Lake is a good float tube lake, so we took advantage of Kristin’s midweek day off and checked it out. There weren’t many people there, but you can tell that it gets pretty well populated on the weekends. It is the head of the Cedar River, and the watershed that supplies Seattle with water. It was opened to special regulations fishing some years ago and is stocked annually with rainbow trout. On this day it offered proof that just because a lake is stocked does not mean the fish are competing to leap into your net. I just waded out and cast a nymph rig into a substantial wind while Kristin walked a trail in the park. I did not catch any fish, and I didn’t see the fellow in the float tube or the two guys in the boat catch any either. It is a pretty location, and I’m sure I’ll take the float tube or drift boat up there and try it again someday. It’s open until the end of October, and I suspect fall is a good time to fish it. We’ll see.
There is a neat interpretive center at the lake. It tells the story of how and why the lake is a good municipal water supply, and gives some history of the area. There is a library, the ubiquitous novelty store, and some research presence. It would be a great place for a middle school field trip. Across the road is Iron Horse State Park, which is a developed section of the John Wayne Pioneer Trail. The trail runs nearly all the way across Washington following the route of the old Chicago-Milwaukee-St. Paul Railroad. Literature says there are trestle crossings that offer fantastic views. All the tunnels are closed for safety reasons, but they are working on detours. A warning sign at the trailhead says there is a closed tunnel in 52 miles. That’s far enough for me anyway.
North Bend is a tidy little town that is essentially a bedroom community to Seattle, only 32 miles to the west. North Bend has a rich railroad, timber, agricultural (hops), and even mining history. It has the main North American manufacturing and distribution center for Nintendo whose American headquarters is in Redmond, Washington. Mainly, from what we experienced, North Bend has Twede’s Café.
Twede’s starred in David Lynch’s bizarre television series Twin Peaks which aired for two seasons starting in 1990. One of the stars was Lara Flynn Boyle whom we recognize as a very handsome cast member from The Practice, and other roles. The “complimentary collectors menu” notes the café as, “Home of Twin Peaks Cherry Pie and a “Damn fine cup of coffee.” I tried both, and they were both damn fine. The soup of the day was homemade vegetable beef; the BLT was better than average. Kristin had one of the 53 burgers on the menu—more if you count the fact that all of them are also available in garden veggie and black bean patties. She had chocolate cream pie. I stole a couple of bites, and consider it to be damn fine. The café is decorated with all imaginable examples of stuffed Twede Birds: fireman Twede, police Twede, beach Twede, and so forth.
After the late lunch at Twede’s, we went and checked on the prospects for fishing the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River. The river was still a bit high, so I didn’t fish it. We all know that fish don’t disappear during high water, and the fishing can be good in the eddies and calmer pools. After the pie, I just didn’t feel athletic enough to go out there and leap from rock to rock, and wade in the strong current. The Middle Fork is another opportunity for fishing special regulations water, and when lower, a great example of classic pocket water fishing. It is a refreshing retreat from the hustle of the city, rarely crowded, and less than an hour away. The relatively light pressure comes from the fact that the fish are small for guys who are hooked on steelhead fishing, but the resident coastal cutthroats are fun and beautiful. Snoqualmie Falls isolates this water from the cutties, steelhead, and salmon that run to the sea.
We looked at the impressive Snoqualmie Falls, and watched a guy on the river below the falls fight and land really nice fish. From that distance, all I could tell was that the fish was at least 24 inches, and bright silver. I’ll not hazard a guess on the species. In my ideal world, the guy would have turned it loose—no such luck. He strutted around showing it to everyone in his area, chucked it up in the rocks, and went back to fishing.
The Snoqualmie Valley has a number of golf courses including Mt. Si, and Twin Rivers. Cascade Golf Course is very close to Rattlesnake Lake, and a very attractive nine-hole public course. With the extra long summer days at this latitude, I could envision a day incorporating a round of golf, lake fishing, stream fishing, some fat tire riding, and a damn fine slice of cherry pie—all within 30 to 40 minutes of Seattle or Tacoma. We will turn in a report after we give it a try.
Our last stop was at the new Snoqualmie Casino. Kristin lost ten bucks on the nickel slots. I won about twenty on a dollar machine. We figured that paid for the gas for our adventure, and we headed for the house.
Next: What does John Wayne have to do with it?
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Addendum to Work
Shortly after my last posting, I received two opportunities. One was an offer from a big Weyerhaeuser mill on the Olympic Peninsula to tail the green chain. The other was an invitation to compete on the reality show "So You Think You Can Dance." I declined both. The decision confirms two adages--that paper never refused ink, and that discretion is indeed the better part of valor.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
"Work" Part II
An idea came up in a beer driven conversation with a former construction partner. I don’t know whether it was an original thought that Josh had, or if he got it from someone else. It seems a little deep for Josh, but beer does that. Josh’s idea was that society ought to be set up so that we all just party and have a good time until we’re, say 55, and then work our asses off until we drop dead. This idea warrants some consideration. George Bernard Shaw said, “Youth is wasted on the young.” I would agree, and add that work is imposed on the young. Think of all the youthful creativity and energy wasted on the drudgery of “making a living”, when what we are really doing is making a slow death. Think of the money that would be saved on health care for the aged. If an old fart gets senile, he just stumbles in front of a bulldozer, and that’s it. There would be no drawn-out humiliating existence in a care facility that takes up valuable resources and wastes the talent of nurses and doctors—no more images of emaciated, bed-ridden grandpas with sunken eyes and tubes going in and coming out. The possibilities for societal improvement seem endless. The economic stimulant implications are immense. The young do not take the senior discount, and are less likely to skimp on tips. Like most utopian solutions, this one has some flaws, but it should be in the conversation.
Another possible solution to the problem of work would be to increase pay based on the degree to which the work is disliked. The obvious problem with this idea is that it probably wouldn’t change things for most people. The office administrator who spends the day licking the shoes of some self-important personification of the Peter Principle would still make more than the house painter who will walk off the job and straight to the bar at the merest hint of bullshit from the boss, reeking of satisfaction all the way. An even greater problem would be the need for some device for measuring discontent. We certainly couldn’t just hand out money to the biggest whiners and starve the stoics. There would have to be a brain implant, or a periodic test similar to the personality profile questionnaire you answer when you apply at Home Depot.
“No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.”—Booker T. Washington:
This is, among other things, a paean to those who toil. Toil is strenuous labor, but not necessarily work. Work contains no dignity. Some examples differentiating work from toil are in order.
· Building fence is great sport: outside, physical, yet requires some craft—straight, square, etcetera—immediately tangible results, and can be done while having a few beers. There are many “puttering around the house” activities that are good rewarding fun. Some are not.
· Plumbing under the sink sucks, and qualifies easily as work.
· Fixing cars made before about 1980 can be fun. Working on any car that has the engine in there sideways sucks. If you look through the engine compartment and see the ground, there is potential for some entertainment. If the compartment is so packed with shit that not even light can escape, you have a black hole, which sucks in the literal and figurative sense.
· Sales, which I have done most of my life now, sucks—rejection, disappointment, catering to assholes, motels, fast food, or no food, and windshield time.
· Mining was a kick and didn’t become work until it made me sick. It was a little kid’s dream—playing with giant Tonka Toys, blowing stuff up, unrestrained cussing, and a great espirit de corps.
· Writing a poem does not suck.
One of the triumphs in my life of toil came during a summer stint at the lumber mill in Walden, Colorado. The mill superintendant was the father of a classmate. Kent was one of the class jocks, and I think looked down on me for my comparative lack of prowess in football. I suspect he and his dad thought it would be entertaining to watch me perform in exceptionally difficult circumstances. Dad put me to work “tailing the green chain.”
When a log went through the initial process after debarking, it was ripped lengthwise into flat segments that would eventually become boards. Making a round log square necessarily leaves four “slabs”, which are the ugly outside segments that have jagged limb stubs sticking out, and are often warped, hard to manage, and always pointed on the lead end. When the ripped log shot onto a chain conveyor, my job was to, by any means necessary, get the slabs the hell off the conveyor and let the future lumber go by. I stood facing the onslaught and dodged lumber while grabbing slabs and flinging them onto a conveyor going another direction. I was aided in this by a high speed roller called “the pineapple” because it had beads welded around for traction on the slabs. The pineapple would grab anything that touched it and shoot it about 20 feet. Boards get directed away from the pineapple; slabs get directed onto it, and the tender better not let his ass touch it for a microsecond. My position was on a little platform right in front of the pineapple, and I became a virtual ballerina on that deck, dodging and slinging in a rhythm matching the output of the saw, and all the time avoiding getting grabbed by that spinning pineapple.
Kent was doing a much more dignified job in the same area of the mill, and was in position to watch me all day. After about a week and a half, Kent said, “You know Grant; I’ve got to tell you I didn’t think you’d make it this long. We usually give that job to winos and bums because we know they won’t be here long. They almost always take a ride on that pineapple and don’t show up the next day.” I knew I had his respect after that, and I had mine too. I quit two days later and went to the mine for an extra 25 or 30 cents an hour.
Now that was good, wholesome, make me dog-assed tired, toil. And I’d go back to it in a heartbeat if I still had any ballerina left in me. I know some women who get turned on by the smell of pine pitch and diesel fuel.
Another possible solution to the problem of work would be to increase pay based on the degree to which the work is disliked. The obvious problem with this idea is that it probably wouldn’t change things for most people. The office administrator who spends the day licking the shoes of some self-important personification of the Peter Principle would still make more than the house painter who will walk off the job and straight to the bar at the merest hint of bullshit from the boss, reeking of satisfaction all the way. An even greater problem would be the need for some device for measuring discontent. We certainly couldn’t just hand out money to the biggest whiners and starve the stoics. There would have to be a brain implant, or a periodic test similar to the personality profile questionnaire you answer when you apply at Home Depot.
“No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.”—Booker T. Washington:
This is, among other things, a paean to those who toil. Toil is strenuous labor, but not necessarily work. Work contains no dignity. Some examples differentiating work from toil are in order.
· Building fence is great sport: outside, physical, yet requires some craft—straight, square, etcetera—immediately tangible results, and can be done while having a few beers. There are many “puttering around the house” activities that are good rewarding fun. Some are not.
· Plumbing under the sink sucks, and qualifies easily as work.
· Fixing cars made before about 1980 can be fun. Working on any car that has the engine in there sideways sucks. If you look through the engine compartment and see the ground, there is potential for some entertainment. If the compartment is so packed with shit that not even light can escape, you have a black hole, which sucks in the literal and figurative sense.
· Sales, which I have done most of my life now, sucks—rejection, disappointment, catering to assholes, motels, fast food, or no food, and windshield time.
· Mining was a kick and didn’t become work until it made me sick. It was a little kid’s dream—playing with giant Tonka Toys, blowing stuff up, unrestrained cussing, and a great espirit de corps.
· Writing a poem does not suck.
One of the triumphs in my life of toil came during a summer stint at the lumber mill in Walden, Colorado. The mill superintendant was the father of a classmate. Kent was one of the class jocks, and I think looked down on me for my comparative lack of prowess in football. I suspect he and his dad thought it would be entertaining to watch me perform in exceptionally difficult circumstances. Dad put me to work “tailing the green chain.”
When a log went through the initial process after debarking, it was ripped lengthwise into flat segments that would eventually become boards. Making a round log square necessarily leaves four “slabs”, which are the ugly outside segments that have jagged limb stubs sticking out, and are often warped, hard to manage, and always pointed on the lead end. When the ripped log shot onto a chain conveyor, my job was to, by any means necessary, get the slabs the hell off the conveyor and let the future lumber go by. I stood facing the onslaught and dodged lumber while grabbing slabs and flinging them onto a conveyor going another direction. I was aided in this by a high speed roller called “the pineapple” because it had beads welded around for traction on the slabs. The pineapple would grab anything that touched it and shoot it about 20 feet. Boards get directed away from the pineapple; slabs get directed onto it, and the tender better not let his ass touch it for a microsecond. My position was on a little platform right in front of the pineapple, and I became a virtual ballerina on that deck, dodging and slinging in a rhythm matching the output of the saw, and all the time avoiding getting grabbed by that spinning pineapple.
Kent was doing a much more dignified job in the same area of the mill, and was in position to watch me all day. After about a week and a half, Kent said, “You know Grant; I’ve got to tell you I didn’t think you’d make it this long. We usually give that job to winos and bums because we know they won’t be here long. They almost always take a ride on that pineapple and don’t show up the next day.” I knew I had his respect after that, and I had mine too. I quit two days later and went to the mine for an extra 25 or 30 cents an hour.
Now that was good, wholesome, make me dog-assed tired, toil. And I’d go back to it in a heartbeat if I still had any ballerina left in me. I know some women who get turned on by the smell of pine pitch and diesel fuel.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Bad Parts II
Bad Parts
Part II
I spent two days touring the streets of Oakland, mostly in the industrial sections. My guides were constantly telling me about a shooting on this corner, or a robbery/shooting at this store. It was not quite a source of pride, but a resignation I suppose. The experience was a source of consternation for me. All of the customers and potential customers we talked to were real nice, and didn’t act at all like they were in fear of sudden death. What the hell is going on here?
On Saturday March 21, 2009, four Oakland police officers were killed. Two motorcycle officers were shot in the initial stop of Lovelle Mixon who was wanted on a no-bail warrant for parole violations. This means he was on strike three in a three-strike state. He had nothing to lose, and subsequent reports said that he was scared of prison. He shot them down and then shot them execution style in the head. Then he went and holed up someplace and killed two SWAT officers with a high-powered rifle as they approached the door he was hiding behind. Lovelle Mixon then died in a barrage of fire from the other officers on scene. It was one of the worst days for law enforcement in California history, and the deadliest incident for US law officers since September 11, 2001. Some radical groups tried to attach a racial element to all this, but the notion didn’t fly with the population as a whole. Lewis showed me the place of the original stop, traced the pursuit route, and pointed out the apartment building where the final confrontation took place.
When I was looking for a place to stay in Oakland, everyone told me I didn’t want to stay near the shop that was my base of operations because it was in one of “the bad parts”. I took them seriously and ended up in some small town near wine country only about halfway from Sacramento. It took me an hour-and-a half to get to work the next morning. The girl at the front desk had told me it was “about 20 minutes.” The next night I stayed in a moderately priced chain motel near the airport which was about eight minutes from the shop. It had a gated parking lot with a razor wire fence. I woke up alive on both mornings! Surprised the shit out of me. What the hell is going on here? I thought about another experience in a bad place. It was in the mid ‘80s.
My employer asked me if I wanted to go to a mining industry trade show in Lexington, Kentucky. I said, “You bet.” I was thinking a nice commercial flight, expense account, and the opportunity to learn some stuff and do some networking. It turns out the invitation included a flight to Lexington in a four seat Cessna with the boss and his wife who were constantly bickering. Fred hadn’t been flying long enough to have night qualifications, so we left Centennial Airport at the crack of dawn and flew on the prayer that we could get to Lexington before dark. Thanks to the prevailing westerlies, we arrived just after the automatic street lights came on. Thanks to the prevailing westerlies, it took us three days to get back to Centennial.
We had a layover in St. Louis. The plane was missing some navigation tool, a transponder. The controllers at the big airport in St. Louis told us to stay away, so we landed in the suburbs at The Spirit of St. Louis Airport. It was early in the day, but the weather forecast showed that the headwind would make the plane fly backward. We determined to give it a try at dawn the next day. We would rent a car and go do some tourist stuff, the Arch, the Budweiser Brewery, the river front… The only rental car at The Spirit of St. Louis airport was a Lincoln Continental, white.
Fred took a wrong turn between the Arch and the brewery, and we ended up cruisin’ the main drags of East St. Louis—the home of Al Joyner, Jackie Joyner Kersee, Michael and Leon Spinks. Now the intent of this reminiscence isn’t to get into a brouhaha over the pitfalls of stereotyping, or any of that stuff. Just suffice it to say these athletes didn’t get fast and tough from hanging around the country club in shirts with little polo players embroidered on ‘em, and sipping mimosas.
I couldn’t make this up. People were breaking into cars right in plain sight and others were calmly watching as if to judge technique. The only windows that weren’t boarded over had steel bars over them. Two pudgy white dudes and a loud-mouth woman have no business driving and looking lost and bewildered in a white Lincoln in East St. Louis. We made it out alive just like I would thirty some years later in Oakland. What the hell is going on here?
I started this whole thing with the notion that Oakland was a dangerous place in comparison to Tacoma, and a whole lot of other notions mixed in. Not normally one to let facts get in the way of a good notion, I ran with it. But then the journalist in me rose up and said, “Better check this out dipshit.” So I did. I got on this website, NeighborhoodScout.com. The website is pretty neat. It has tabs for real estate values, crime statistics, school ratings, and so forth. It has satellite images of the cities all color coded to show neighborhoods in relation to one another. You can select the murder rate you want and then click on a link to a real estate agent. Handy as hell when searching for an apartment in a ghetto or a penthouse uptown.
I learned a whole lot about notions: Tacoma’s crime rate index is in the 2 percentile of cities in the US, meaning that it is safer than 2% of cities over 25,000. Oakland’s index is 3. Oakland and Tacoma have annual violent crime rates per 1000 population of 12.89, and 10.49 respectively. Property crime rates are 56.2 and 86.3. This discrepancy is how Tacoma moves ahead of Oakland overall. For comparison to communities we all may know, the indexes for Cheyenne, Boulder, and Ft. Collins are 14, 15, and 16 respectively. With an index of 100 being safest, I doubt if there are any places even close. Wrong again bucko. On the list of 100 safest cities, #1 is Jackson, NJ with an index of 99. Number 100 on the safest list is Newton, MA. with an index of 71. I don’t think I’ve been in any of the places on this list unless they are ‘burbs that I’ve blown by on the Interstate. Of the 100 most dangerous places, latte and lavender Washington has eight. They are mostly depressed working class communities, and I suspect a meth presence. Florida, California, and Texas understandably have multiple listings in both safest and most dangerous categories. On the top 100 most dangerous list, Oakland and East St. Louis don’t even show up, but perceived bastions of Southern preppydom, Athens and Gainesville GA. are respectively 18 and 49. What the hell is going on here?
If any of you know where this is going please call or e-mail me. No, the point is that preconceived notions are often inaccurate, and the “bad parts” are not so bad if you don’t get robbed, raped, or murdered there, and the “good parts” can certainly warrant keeping your guard up. It’s probably best just to be scared or drunk all the time.
Next: Work
Part II
I spent two days touring the streets of Oakland, mostly in the industrial sections. My guides were constantly telling me about a shooting on this corner, or a robbery/shooting at this store. It was not quite a source of pride, but a resignation I suppose. The experience was a source of consternation for me. All of the customers and potential customers we talked to were real nice, and didn’t act at all like they were in fear of sudden death. What the hell is going on here?
On Saturday March 21, 2009, four Oakland police officers were killed. Two motorcycle officers were shot in the initial stop of Lovelle Mixon who was wanted on a no-bail warrant for parole violations. This means he was on strike three in a three-strike state. He had nothing to lose, and subsequent reports said that he was scared of prison. He shot them down and then shot them execution style in the head. Then he went and holed up someplace and killed two SWAT officers with a high-powered rifle as they approached the door he was hiding behind. Lovelle Mixon then died in a barrage of fire from the other officers on scene. It was one of the worst days for law enforcement in California history, and the deadliest incident for US law officers since September 11, 2001. Some radical groups tried to attach a racial element to all this, but the notion didn’t fly with the population as a whole. Lewis showed me the place of the original stop, traced the pursuit route, and pointed out the apartment building where the final confrontation took place.
When I was looking for a place to stay in Oakland, everyone told me I didn’t want to stay near the shop that was my base of operations because it was in one of “the bad parts”. I took them seriously and ended up in some small town near wine country only about halfway from Sacramento. It took me an hour-and-a half to get to work the next morning. The girl at the front desk had told me it was “about 20 minutes.” The next night I stayed in a moderately priced chain motel near the airport which was about eight minutes from the shop. It had a gated parking lot with a razor wire fence. I woke up alive on both mornings! Surprised the shit out of me. What the hell is going on here? I thought about another experience in a bad place. It was in the mid ‘80s.
My employer asked me if I wanted to go to a mining industry trade show in Lexington, Kentucky. I said, “You bet.” I was thinking a nice commercial flight, expense account, and the opportunity to learn some stuff and do some networking. It turns out the invitation included a flight to Lexington in a four seat Cessna with the boss and his wife who were constantly bickering. Fred hadn’t been flying long enough to have night qualifications, so we left Centennial Airport at the crack of dawn and flew on the prayer that we could get to Lexington before dark. Thanks to the prevailing westerlies, we arrived just after the automatic street lights came on. Thanks to the prevailing westerlies, it took us three days to get back to Centennial.
We had a layover in St. Louis. The plane was missing some navigation tool, a transponder. The controllers at the big airport in St. Louis told us to stay away, so we landed in the suburbs at The Spirit of St. Louis Airport. It was early in the day, but the weather forecast showed that the headwind would make the plane fly backward. We determined to give it a try at dawn the next day. We would rent a car and go do some tourist stuff, the Arch, the Budweiser Brewery, the river front… The only rental car at The Spirit of St. Louis airport was a Lincoln Continental, white.
Fred took a wrong turn between the Arch and the brewery, and we ended up cruisin’ the main drags of East St. Louis—the home of Al Joyner, Jackie Joyner Kersee, Michael and Leon Spinks. Now the intent of this reminiscence isn’t to get into a brouhaha over the pitfalls of stereotyping, or any of that stuff. Just suffice it to say these athletes didn’t get fast and tough from hanging around the country club in shirts with little polo players embroidered on ‘em, and sipping mimosas.
I couldn’t make this up. People were breaking into cars right in plain sight and others were calmly watching as if to judge technique. The only windows that weren’t boarded over had steel bars over them. Two pudgy white dudes and a loud-mouth woman have no business driving and looking lost and bewildered in a white Lincoln in East St. Louis. We made it out alive just like I would thirty some years later in Oakland. What the hell is going on here?
I started this whole thing with the notion that Oakland was a dangerous place in comparison to Tacoma, and a whole lot of other notions mixed in. Not normally one to let facts get in the way of a good notion, I ran with it. But then the journalist in me rose up and said, “Better check this out dipshit.” So I did. I got on this website, NeighborhoodScout.com. The website is pretty neat. It has tabs for real estate values, crime statistics, school ratings, and so forth. It has satellite images of the cities all color coded to show neighborhoods in relation to one another. You can select the murder rate you want and then click on a link to a real estate agent. Handy as hell when searching for an apartment in a ghetto or a penthouse uptown.
I learned a whole lot about notions: Tacoma’s crime rate index is in the 2 percentile of cities in the US, meaning that it is safer than 2% of cities over 25,000. Oakland’s index is 3. Oakland and Tacoma have annual violent crime rates per 1000 population of 12.89, and 10.49 respectively. Property crime rates are 56.2 and 86.3. This discrepancy is how Tacoma moves ahead of Oakland overall. For comparison to communities we all may know, the indexes for Cheyenne, Boulder, and Ft. Collins are 14, 15, and 16 respectively. With an index of 100 being safest, I doubt if there are any places even close. Wrong again bucko. On the list of 100 safest cities, #1 is Jackson, NJ with an index of 99. Number 100 on the safest list is Newton, MA. with an index of 71. I don’t think I’ve been in any of the places on this list unless they are ‘burbs that I’ve blown by on the Interstate. Of the 100 most dangerous places, latte and lavender Washington has eight. They are mostly depressed working class communities, and I suspect a meth presence. Florida, California, and Texas understandably have multiple listings in both safest and most dangerous categories. On the top 100 most dangerous list, Oakland and East St. Louis don’t even show up, but perceived bastions of Southern preppydom, Athens and Gainesville GA. are respectively 18 and 49. What the hell is going on here?
If any of you know where this is going please call or e-mail me. No, the point is that preconceived notions are often inaccurate, and the “bad parts” are not so bad if you don’t get robbed, raped, or murdered there, and the “good parts” can certainly warrant keeping your guard up. It’s probably best just to be scared or drunk all the time.
Next: Work
Bad Parts
Bad Parts
Part I
My son-in-law Wynn was in the hospital last week getting a shock treatment for an unruly heart. The condition is called atrial fibrillation, but no matter what you call it, it’s just bad behavior. To fix it they stick an electrode into your heart from a vein in the leg or neck, induce the troublesome rhythm, find where the short is, and zap that spot into submission. It’s called cardiac ablation and has a real high success rate. It allows the patient to lead a normal life without the side effects from potent drugs. Everyone who has an unruly heart should get an ablation. Ask your doctor.
Wynn thought they should offer a combination plate on the hospital menu. You know, one stop shopping, volume discounting, kill two birds…, that kind of thing. He wanted the ablation, a vasectomy, and orthotic shoes. I would go for the ablation, bunion surgery, and a skin transplant. I’m scared to death of skin cancer.
Everybody except me had something to do that day, so I volunteered to spend part of the day waiting for what was supposed to be a quick procedure, then give Wynn a ride home. This in exchange for a couple hits of vicodin. Actually, I know that no matter how much a manly man might protest when people inconvenience themselves to be there when he is hospitalized, it would suck to be alone after a heart procedure, no matter how minor they say it is. The world is full of places you can go and see loneliness. A hospital is at the top of the list.
I took a walk in the late afternoon just to get out for a little exercise. St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tacoma is on top of a big hill right over downtown. I walked down the hill, strolled the downtown section, and walked back up the remarkably steep hill. Afterward, I overheard Wynn on the phone telling Allison that I had walked through the worst part of Tacoma. I said, “I was in Oakland last week. Tacoma doesn’t have any bad parts.”
It made me think of some adventures in the bad parts.
I was in Oakland working with a local sales representative trying to drum up business for the local branch of the business I work for. Lewis told me about a recent shooting. He said, “You know those wagons where the guys eat lunch?”
I said, “Hot dog stands?”
“No,” he said, “they’re like trucks.”
I said, “The roach coaches?”
He said, “That’s it, roach coaches.”
I could tell he was trying to be politically correct by skirting the roach coach term, so I wondered who might be offended—the roaches or the coaches. It turns out that the district around International Boulevard is famous for roach coaches with damned good food. Anyway, the story was that a few weeks prior, he was talking to a customer outside the shop when they heard four or five pops from the next block. Apparently a couple of robbers had told the roach coach guy to give them all his money. He said he didn’t have any, so they shot him.
Now I know squat about desperation on a personal level, but I figure these guys used the robbery as a means to an end separate from the act itself. They must have wanted to go to prison. Hell, I don’t know—but then why kill the guy? Isn’t armed robbery good for a decade or so of three squares and status as a badass?
Later we went and called on a car masher place. This was a veritable hive of activity for everyone except the two off-duty Pit Bulls laying in the shade. They would look up at the flies buzzing around them, and then look wistfully at the places where they should have tails. There were four or five trucks in space big enough for one or two. Some were loading smashed cars. Some were unloading cars to get smashed. Guys were slinging chains and binders and “f” bombs, and the diminutive dude on the forklift was darting around swearing at everything in his way whether it was a truck driver, a dead car, a live car, or a couple of salesmen in a van. Watching all this with a placid expression of bewilderment was a fat guy in a black polyester security guard uniform. He was sitting with his feet on the rungs of a wooden stool by a gate in the razor-wire fence. The guard had no hat, and the sun was just scorching his bald head and every other exposed fleshy surface. The backs of his hands were like freshly boiled lobsters. He looked like Andy Sipowicz having a stroke while interrogating a child molester in the sauna. Every now and then he would get up and point at something as though he was giving instructions. Nobody paid any attention, so he sat back down.
Lewis said the guard was a new addition to the scene and he wanted to know what the deal was, so he asked. Guard said there was enough money changing hands there that management got nervous and hired a security outfit. Understandable enough, but this guy had a fucking gun, and no hat! It scared the hell out of me to think that this guy was permitted to carry a loaded side arm, and didn’t have the sense to ask the boss for a flippin’ umbrella to strap to the razor-wire fence—maybe even one of those patio tables with a big umbrella stuck in a hole in the middle. I could see the headline:
“Baked Security Guard Shoots Two Salesmen and Forklift Operator!”
Admits,” I just wanted their shade."
Next: East St. Louis and some enlightening statistics about bad places that aren’t so bad and good places that aren’t so good.
Part I
My son-in-law Wynn was in the hospital last week getting a shock treatment for an unruly heart. The condition is called atrial fibrillation, but no matter what you call it, it’s just bad behavior. To fix it they stick an electrode into your heart from a vein in the leg or neck, induce the troublesome rhythm, find where the short is, and zap that spot into submission. It’s called cardiac ablation and has a real high success rate. It allows the patient to lead a normal life without the side effects from potent drugs. Everyone who has an unruly heart should get an ablation. Ask your doctor.
Wynn thought they should offer a combination plate on the hospital menu. You know, one stop shopping, volume discounting, kill two birds…, that kind of thing. He wanted the ablation, a vasectomy, and orthotic shoes. I would go for the ablation, bunion surgery, and a skin transplant. I’m scared to death of skin cancer.
Everybody except me had something to do that day, so I volunteered to spend part of the day waiting for what was supposed to be a quick procedure, then give Wynn a ride home. This in exchange for a couple hits of vicodin. Actually, I know that no matter how much a manly man might protest when people inconvenience themselves to be there when he is hospitalized, it would suck to be alone after a heart procedure, no matter how minor they say it is. The world is full of places you can go and see loneliness. A hospital is at the top of the list.
I took a walk in the late afternoon just to get out for a little exercise. St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tacoma is on top of a big hill right over downtown. I walked down the hill, strolled the downtown section, and walked back up the remarkably steep hill. Afterward, I overheard Wynn on the phone telling Allison that I had walked through the worst part of Tacoma. I said, “I was in Oakland last week. Tacoma doesn’t have any bad parts.”
It made me think of some adventures in the bad parts.
I was in Oakland working with a local sales representative trying to drum up business for the local branch of the business I work for. Lewis told me about a recent shooting. He said, “You know those wagons where the guys eat lunch?”
I said, “Hot dog stands?”
“No,” he said, “they’re like trucks.”
I said, “The roach coaches?”
He said, “That’s it, roach coaches.”
I could tell he was trying to be politically correct by skirting the roach coach term, so I wondered who might be offended—the roaches or the coaches. It turns out that the district around International Boulevard is famous for roach coaches with damned good food. Anyway, the story was that a few weeks prior, he was talking to a customer outside the shop when they heard four or five pops from the next block. Apparently a couple of robbers had told the roach coach guy to give them all his money. He said he didn’t have any, so they shot him.
Now I know squat about desperation on a personal level, but I figure these guys used the robbery as a means to an end separate from the act itself. They must have wanted to go to prison. Hell, I don’t know—but then why kill the guy? Isn’t armed robbery good for a decade or so of three squares and status as a badass?
Later we went and called on a car masher place. This was a veritable hive of activity for everyone except the two off-duty Pit Bulls laying in the shade. They would look up at the flies buzzing around them, and then look wistfully at the places where they should have tails. There were four or five trucks in space big enough for one or two. Some were loading smashed cars. Some were unloading cars to get smashed. Guys were slinging chains and binders and “f” bombs, and the diminutive dude on the forklift was darting around swearing at everything in his way whether it was a truck driver, a dead car, a live car, or a couple of salesmen in a van. Watching all this with a placid expression of bewilderment was a fat guy in a black polyester security guard uniform. He was sitting with his feet on the rungs of a wooden stool by a gate in the razor-wire fence. The guard had no hat, and the sun was just scorching his bald head and every other exposed fleshy surface. The backs of his hands were like freshly boiled lobsters. He looked like Andy Sipowicz having a stroke while interrogating a child molester in the sauna. Every now and then he would get up and point at something as though he was giving instructions. Nobody paid any attention, so he sat back down.
Lewis said the guard was a new addition to the scene and he wanted to know what the deal was, so he asked. Guard said there was enough money changing hands there that management got nervous and hired a security outfit. Understandable enough, but this guy had a fucking gun, and no hat! It scared the hell out of me to think that this guy was permitted to carry a loaded side arm, and didn’t have the sense to ask the boss for a flippin’ umbrella to strap to the razor-wire fence—maybe even one of those patio tables with a big umbrella stuck in a hole in the middle. I could see the headline:
“Baked Security Guard Shoots Two Salesmen and Forklift Operator!”
Admits,” I just wanted their shade."
Next: East St. Louis and some enlightening statistics about bad places that aren’t so bad and good places that aren’t so good.
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