Monday, March 11, 2024

VW LUST

 One of many air-cooled remembrances

 

My first real car was a ’71 VW Super Beetle.  Clementine orange.  I purchased it new after an ill-fated six week ownership of a Triumph Spitfire into which I could barely fit.  My new Volksie was the perfect car for the college-aged me: economical and dependable. But what I really lusted after was a Karmann Ghia: the poor man’s Porsche.  Smooth European lines.  Coachwork by Karmann ~ whoever the hell that was ~ and as reliable as my Beetle.  But like that Spitfire, with my six-foot-four-inch frame I knew I could only lust after one.


One evening around dusk, heading home from the wholesale house where I worked late and approaching the Southern Pacific tracks on First Street in Chico, I saw a cluster of college students milling about excitedly.  In those days, Chico State was thought to offer class credit for beer consumption, and it might have been that these kids had been studying, because about 100 feet north of the crossing, a beautiful forest green Karmann Ghia was high centered across the tracks. Several young men were trying to lift the rear end and boost the thing over the rails ~ Hey! Fellas! The front end is lighter!  

 

Several hundred yards north, the bobbing headlight of a southbound EsPee diesel foretold of impending disaster.  Brakes screaming, it became clear the train wasn’t going to be able to stop in time and, at the last second, the crowd split like the Red Sea parting.  

 

The impact was brutal.  The beautiful little Ghia was bent and crushed and emitting sparks as the locomotive skidded the little coupe’s carcass across First Street right in front of me, coming to a halt about a block away.

 

I was sure no one was hurt and I was sure I had nothing to offer Chico’s finest when they arrived, so wide-eyed and sullen, I hung a U-ee and drove to the rented mobile home I shared with a roommate.

 

As a connoisseur of hopped up Chevelles, 442s and GTOs, my roomie often made fun of my spanking new VW.  I opened the door and moped in.  Shortly, he asked why I appeared so down.  Had I lost my wallet?  Did I get fired?  Was I still pining over the lack of a girlfriend?   

 

I didn’t tell him.  I knew he wouldn’t understand.

© 2024

Church of the Open Road Press

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

A DIFFERENT KIND OF BIKE

 …or is it the same?

 


So I went in for my annual physical  and my doctor said, “You should look at losing ten pounds.”   Immediately, the choice was clear: Either exercise more (in my case, exercise at all) or get a new doctor.

 

 

Back in the 70s, I bought myself the ultimate ten speed bicycle: a lovely black Peugeot with a lightweight frame, gum wall tires and drop handlebars.  A real looker!  The envy of the velo crowd before there was a velo crowd.  Except for a short period when it lived in my brother’s barn, I’ve had the beauty the whole time.  



         A couple of years ago, I decided to use the old Peugeot as a means of developing some stamina and toning some muscles, but the drop handle bars and the out-of-sync derailleur made riding the classic a pain in my butt, as did the narrow seat.  So into the garage it went.  Its new mission was to simply gather dust.



         Fast forward to the other day after that consult with the doc. I resolved to get back on the French masterpiece and crank through the neighborhood until my thighs burned.  Problem number one was that the front tire no longer held air.  Problem two was that damned seat and the race-mentality geometry.  

         A viable alternative would be the gym.

         Working on the stationary bike there, ten minutes was about all I could take.  Not of the exercise.  Of Fox and Friends. (Actually, any news/talk yammering, for that matter.)  I quit attending the gym knowing definitively that the only available option left for my particular circumstance was: Get a new doctor.

 

 

About 100 years ago, I pedaled from home to Rosedale School along a winding road that traced a creek.  My mode of transportation was a Schwinn “Racer” with a three-speed Sturmey-Archer shift mechanism buried in the rear hub.  



Dad had one of these bikes, also, and so did brother Beebo.
  Not cool or sexy, the seating was upright and I never got a crick in my neck trying to look forward while bending over swooped-down handlebars.  The bike was perfect for that commute to school or a casual ride through Bidwell Park or out to the Sacramento River.  But I had to improve on perfection and after a succession of two wheelers, I ended up with the Peugeot.

         The old ten speed served me well.  Fast.  Elegant. Relatively light.  For some reason, however, I gave up using it regularly.  Perhaps this had something to do with a yellow Honda Trail 90 motorbike.

 

 

The bicycle vs new doctor set of options was not the full set of options.  A bike better suited to my aging, 70-plus-year-old frame might be a good choice.  Better scenery than Fox and Friends.  Fresher air than the gym.  And, frankly, I like my doctor.

         I settled upon a bike that seems a throwback to that Schwinn Racer of yore.  An Electra ‘Loft’ built by Trek. Upright, comfortable seating.  Chain guard for the trouser legs.  And fenders!  I actually rode home from the shop in the rain!  And, although color doesn’t much matter to me, a gorgeous hue that is quite reminiscent of Moto Guzzi’s signature Tenni Green found on their mythical motorcycles of decades past.  



         Two minutes of test riding and the thing was mine.  I’ve been out on it all four days since I purchased it (except one.) First ride was about ten minutes.  Second one, too.  Today?  20.  Around the ‘hood and down the block to another ‘hood.  Tomorrow?  Who knows?  The sky’s the limit!  (No, it’s not. Get real!)

 

 

I have only two resolutions for 2024.  Ride that bicycle for thirty minutes four to five times a week and read one book per week to work on one of my other weaknesses: literateness.  It is now the second week of 2024 and I’m halfway through my first book.

         Wish me luck.

© 2024

Church of the Open Road Press

Thursday, December 28, 2023

2023: THE CHURCH OF THE OPEN ROAD’S YEAR IN REVIEW

 Return to the Open Road

Let’s start with the Runner-Up Shot of the Year: Mt. Shasta ~ the Queen with an exquisite collar…

 


 

In January, was the drought over?

 


 

In February, it sure seemed so…

 


 

Can Spring be far off?

 


 

Ummm… Yes, it can be far off: Unheard of snowfall in the ‘hood.

 


 

Marching on:  Havana 1 ~ Typical street scene

 


 

Havana 2 ~ Father – Son?

 


 

Havana 3 ~ Wanna see my Mitsubishi motor?

 


 

Havana 4 ~ Dance like they’re all watching!

 


 

Carrizo Plain ~ Our visit was mudded out!

 


 

Carrizo Plain ~ A fraction of what we might have seen.

 


 

April: Spring arrives back home!

 


 

… and Edward departs telling us he’ll wait for us on the other side…

 


 

May be fickle about my motor-sicle: Here’s the new V-85.

 


 

June: Sea Ranch buck asks, “What ‘chu lookin’ at?”

 


 

Tidepool

 



Snoozin’ by the sea… Shouldn't you guys be out frolicking in the surf? (Nope!)

 


 

Rockin’ on…

 


 

Stable mates at a favored haunt ~ the Eureka Inn

 


 

This is among the reasons they call it “Adventure touring…”

 


 

July: A visit to my commute route of 40 years ago…

 


 

August: Evening in Astoria

 


 

Revisiting Hurricane Ridge ~ 35 years hence...

 


 

The Oregon Outback

 


 

Perfunctory old truck ~ Diamond, OR

 


 

In September we welcome Jethro, not sure if he’ll fill the holes in our hearts.

 


 

Local slough

 


 

October: Two roads in Oregon diverged…

 


 

One goes to Crater Lake (seen here through the bug screen)

 


 

Meanwhile, back at Sea Ranch…

 


 

Future California State Senate President Pro Tempore (and all around good guy) Mike McGuire visits the Cloverdale Democratic Club (of which I am the Vice Chair.)

 


 

In November this shot of Porterfield Creek made it into the Santa Rosa paper.  (Woo!  Hoo!)

 


 

December’s Perfunctory old truck

 


 

Alien Craft in our front yard ~ YIKES!

 


 

Jethro sez: “I’m working on filling your hearts with puppy love and you do this to me???”

 


 

Favored Art of the Year – Portrait of my late mother by my kid Merritt!

 


 

Favorite Book of the Year – Not much for best sellers because so frequently they are formulaic and disappoint.  This one surely doesn’t!  If you haven’t already read “All the Light…” move it to the top of your list.

 


 

3rd Runner Up: Footsteps in the Snow

 


 

2nd Runner Up: Under the Boardwalk

 


 

Shot of the Year: Evening in Astoria

 


 

What might unfold in 2024?  Can’t wait to find out!

 

© 2023

Church of the Open Road Press

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

THE BARN COAT

 …a retelling of an actual event…

 


The green barn coat I’m wearing I’ve had through three or four moves; far longer than anything else in the closet. I’ve swaddled infant grandkids now enrolled in college in the old thing and comforted a dying black kitty in it for his last trip to the vet. I seem to recall purchasing it at an outdoor goods store adjacent to the Arcata town square. Last time I checked, the store was no longer there. 

         I bought the coat because Dad had a barn coat: a big blue denim garment that hung on him like a blanket. He wore his while doing chores out in the orchard in the winter: hacking suckers off almond trees or knocking down the winter grass with a disk pulled by an old Ford tractor. Never laundered, it carried the odor of everything he’d ever done in it – sweat, dust, Zerk grease from lubing the tractor, rancid pipe tobacco smoke. The aromatic essence of Dad.

         My now-forty-year-old coat has a bit less history. I used to wear it while raking leaves in our suburban back yard, until I got too hot and steamy inside the thing. I’d drape it over a rhody or a rose bush and often forget it was there. Eventually we moved to a place with fewer leaves. I remember taking it camping – back when I was still comfortable sleeping on the ground – and let sweet and pungent campfire smoke wash over it. Haven’t felt like sleeping on the ground since I can’t remember when.  Generally, it now simply hangs on a hook in the mud room to be worn only when there’s the rare outdoor winter chore and the weather’s really dank.

         Made of heavy cotton canvas and lined with some sort of wool or flannel, the thread and woven practices that were employed when it was manufactured have been replaced by all manner of lighter more insularly efficient fabrics with labels from The North Face, Hi-Tek or Gerry. I was wearing one of those recycled soda pop bottle sweaters one night when, while sitting next to the fire, a log popped and a spark landed on my belly. Within seconds, the pleasant aroma of the Cohiba Robusto I’d been enjoying was overwhelmed by the chemical-rich odor of a refinery fire on my lap. I dropped the new age wrap on the ground, stomped out the ember and went inside the house to retrieve the barn coat. 

 

 

Today was one of those last-minute-before-Christmas days when I needed to make the rounds downtown to pick up stocking stuffers that would garner a laugh and then end up in the kitchen junk drawer for eternity. I parked a block or two away from the main drag and, as I exited the car, snapped the top snap of the barn coat and pulled my felt hat down tight against my forehead. Passing through the town plaza – a meager space this time of year when the holiday lights are doused and the area is cloaked in a gray fog – one of the denizens there greeted me: “Merry Christmas, man.”

         Our homeless population is fairly small and quite benign, yet on many days, I’ll simply nod – maybe not even that – rather than further engage but, on this day, I responded, “And to yours.”


         He roused a scraggly mongrel whose head had been resting on his lap, “This here’s all the mine I got.” The gent smiled a gap-toothed smile and rubbed the dog’s ears. “Had him the whole while.”
         “The whole while?”

         “Yep. Ever since the rent went up.”

         I couldn’t help but stop.

         “Damned rent went up and up, and with the drought and the pandemic, my lawn care business – cuttin’ grass, fixin’ sprinklers, takin’ out dandelions – sorta crapped out. Had me sixteen, sometimes twenty regular customers ‘fore they turned the water off.” The little dog licked at his fingers. “The wife and the boy moved in with her mom down to Stockton, but I thought I should stick by my clients if I could.” He offered a wry grin. “Didn’t work out all that well, I ‘spoze.”

         I thought about the money I was about to waste on triviata that would occupy the junk drawer. “Need anything?” I asked, reaching into my pocket.

         “Honestly, man, nothing. Just a Merry Christmas from a passer-by.”

         His request was easy to grant and – holiday spirit and all – it made me feel good.

 

I hadn’t walked fifteen steps when the door to an office building opened and a well-dressed man stepped out. Shined shoes. Creased pants. Silk, I’m thinking, tie. “Happy holidays,” I said with a wave and a smile.

         The man quickly glanced down and grunted something as he walked past.

         As it so happened, the next business up the street was the little sundry store I’d planned on visiting. It was fronted with a plate glass window. Holiday goods were displayed on the other side of the glass, but they didn’t matter. What mattered was the reflection in the window. It was of a skinny, bearded older man in faded jeans with a slouch hat pulled low across his forehead – wrapped in a weary green barn coat. All that was missing was a scrawny little mixed breed cuddling in my arms.

         I turned back toward the square, but the homeless man and his dog were gone.

© 2023

Church of the Open Road Press

Friday, November 17, 2023

JIMMY LEE

 … a new “Eden Indeed” recollection …

 

Jimmy Lee cleaned the old downtown post office in Chico before the new one was built on Vallombrosa Avenue. Dad stayed on to deliver the mail near downtown after the old building was renamed the Mid-Town Station. Jimmy stayed on to clean.




As a nine-year-old, I didn’t know Jimmy very well. I do recall once going over to his tiny house positioned in the middle of a peach orchard near Sandy Gulch; an area that has since been sub-divided. We’d visited because Jimmy wanted to share some of his home made peach brandy with Dad. The formula for the concoction was something he’d picked up from his formerly enslaved grandpa back when Jimmy was a tad in Arkansas. The sip I took tasted sweet and fiery all at the same time. Dad brought some home in Mason jars and stored it in the cellar, but I don’t think he ever drank the stuff.

 

When I’d visit the Mid-Town to join up with Dad after his routes, the clerk would stamp my hands and arms with those rubber stamps that said things like “First Class” or “Via Air Mail” and send me, tattooed, to the back room where mail was sorted and thrown and where kids weren’t supposed to go. As Dad headed out the back door rubbing my burr-cut noggin, Jimmy pushed and twisted a wide dry mop sweeping cigarette ash, paper scraps and dust from under the sorting stations and across the slick concrete floor. 

 

“Have a good evening, Mistah Delgardo,” Jimmy would holler as we left. “And you,” he said to me, “you bettah wash them ink marks off’n your arm or your Dad might just decide to mail you off somewhere and I’d nevah get to see you agin.”

 

His words made me glow, but I thought it odd: Nobody ever called Dad “Mister Delgardo.”

 

 

One Friday, after a week of wet and cold weather, I was snuck into the back room to discover Jimmy Lee absent.

 

“Where’s Mr. Lee?” I asked.

 

Dad explained. The Mid-Town was the place mail was left to be carried on the rural route up the Deer Creek Highway to Forest Ranch and points beyond. Occasionally the mountainous five-mile road to Butte Meadows and Jonesville was closed at Lomo Junction due to snow. The rural route carrier was stuck with mail he couldn’t deliver. 




One day Jimmy was talking with the guys about a pair of snow skis he’d fashioned out of some hardwood or other and used ‘em when it snowed in the Ozarks. Overhearing this, the postmaster asked Jimmy if he’d like to try his hand at delivering the mail to Butte Meadows when the road was closed. He jumped at the chance. 

 

Eventually – but only when the weather had turned cold and sloppy and snowy up the hill – the Mid-Town Station would not get swept out, because the “ask” had become an expectation, rather like a demand.  This had been one of those weeks.

 

Dad explained all this adding, “Jimmy Lee knows his place.”

 

 

My father was anything but racist. He adored Leontyne Price’s soprano. Dad sympathized with the famed baritone Paul Robeson as he left the country. He knew Satchel Page should have been in the majors and Willie Mays was worth every penny.  He applauded as Roger Mudd reported on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 being signed by the President – I remember there being tears in his eyes – and the voting rights act a year later. Dad, without Mom, attended the local Unitarian Church and often hosted that group’s pastor – a black man and his son – at our table for dinner.  




Mom was appalled. She more than once voiced, “What will the neighbors think?” 

 

She, a child of deep south Houston Texas in the 20s and 30s saw nothing wrong with referring to little black kids from the poorer side of town as “picaninnies.” She also called the bubbles that float atop a mud puddle “nigger babies.” As a kid growing up in the 60s, I somehow grew past thinking that such terminology okay. Maybe somebody once boxed my ears. At any rate, Mom didn’t know any better and Dad, when it came to maintaining a harmonious relationship on the home front, was wise enough – or timid enough – just to not say anything.  

 

 

Jimmy Lee was a genuine man. A good man. A friendly and honest man. From my nine-year-old point of view I thought him a man willing to accept any challenge – someone to look up to. The relationships among those at the Mid-Town Station were honed by upbringings from the era when the Civil War was still less than a life-time distant. People’s biases were sadly acceptable. Jimmy operated in that world. So did my father, I guess.

 

Reflecting many, many times on Dad’s off-handed “Jimmy Lee knows his place” comment, I’d like to think that had Dad grown up in the 60s, he never would have said such a thing as an adult. Dad wasn’t racist. He just didn’t know any better.




And reflecting back on Jimmy Lee, I’ve always sorta wondered if he carried a flask of his peach brandy on those snow-bound delivery trips to Butte Meadows.  You know – to keep himself warm.

 

© 2023

Church of the Open Road Press