Some o' this, some o' that...

~~~

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

~ Mark Twain
~~~

aaah... phooey. Another bad week. More work lost.

...sigh...

So today I'm just doing some misc posting. A bit befuddled Iyam, but I know that as they say, "this too shall pass."

I've been meaning to share a website that my longtime friend, Greg Burke, shared with me. This link goes to the galleries of Manuel Libres Librodo Jr. Wow. This guy is outstanding. Cruise his galleries, there are many to choose from and his work... well, I'm shooting for this level of quality and proficiency. Let me know what you think of Manny's photography.

I received an email from young Bill Buck, he of Perfix Beach and Muhu Tasen fame. Bill is the young man I met many years ago at Grampa Semu's last foundation, Muhu Tasen. I talked about Bill in this post, beach bound... the Perfix place.

One of the really good parts of getting older is when I get to see someone who is much younger, that I knew when I was much younger and they were really young, and witness the work they are doing, knowing I may have played a part in their growth. How could I have known that some teenager sitting in the sweatlodge at Muhu Tasen watching those red hot stones come inside carried on a pitchfork by me some 20 years ago would touch on my life this far down the road? And that his interests are another example of how the earthbound traditional native America continues to slowly touch the hearts and minds of many Americans. I have no doubt that as much as the hippies were a monumental influence on the '60s and '70s so were the injuns. Tribes like the Hopi embraced the appearance of these headband wearing longhairs as part of their tradition's prophecies.

This world, on a personal level, is quite often incredibly small. I was talking to a close friend today about just that. We agreed that co-incidently this world is but a mote of dust in an incomprehensibly large universe... the scale of difference between the smallest and the largest is truly infinite. That line of thought gets me thinking about Tom Robbins' clockworks... Living in this immensity I really don't grasp boredom. There is just sooo much to do, always... and to know about the clockworks... reality is always stranger than fiction.

I digress. Again.

Bill Buck...

Bill sent me a link to his new website:

Bay Wild - Wildlife in Urban Areas

Here is the text from Bill's email:

Dear friends,

It’s been a long time coming and now BAY WILD, our website exploring wildlife in the Bay Area with videos and multimedia, is live on the web.

You may or may not know that since I was a lad, I’ve had a powerful commitment to ecology and this project fuses my background in environmental activism with my career in communications -- all converging on my home of 20 years, the San Franciscio Bay Area.

Our Bay Area has one million acres of open space and wildlife preserves, yet 490,000 acres are under threat of “suburbanization” -- the size of 16 San Franciscos. While there are good examples of healthy wildlife habitat, the threats of development, existing economic challenges and uncertainties of climate change will be putting new pressure on wildlife populations here and all over the world.

So we will bear witness to what’s really going on out there -- to provide insight into what’s working, examples that may assist urban areas around the world facing similar issues. And all with an entertaining style.

We’ve started the non-profit organization BAY WILD to administer these efforts and we'll continue to cover stories that highlight wildlife/human interactions -- with a focus on positive solutions.

So I hope you enjoy this beginning. Please take a look around the site and help us spread the word!

With just under 5 weeks left until the election I sure hope everyone living in the US who is of age is registered to vote. I know here in Eugene we get around 90% voter turnout for a national presidential election. How does your community do?

Use it or lose it.

Which of course leads to this statement I've become scarily fond of recently:

"Only (fill in number) days left to cancel the election. Emergency, emergency, emergency..."

My political trust level is running low these days...
~~~

“There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”

~ Will Rogers

~~~

Dear friends...

“Friends are God's way of apologizing to us for our families.”

~ unknown
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That quote made me laugh because it is funny... and for me not true. I have a great and wonderful family and mostly they're family and friends. But for many I've known family was... well... a boil on their backside.

I've been blessed with some great friends. Some go back decades and a few have been steadfast over these many years. Some have become as close or closer than my blood relatives. Some, like Pablo, the bond goes beyond explanation. But Lord, thankee for my good friends!

One of my best all time buddies, legendary among my closest friends and family was my dog Lance.



Lance was with me for about 13 years... he was a fixture when I was working with Grampa Semu and the folks out at Muhu Tasen. He went with me to Opal Creek and down to southern Oregon for my year at Crump Lake, working for The Nature Conservancy. A great watchdog, a funny guy who wasn't big (he weighed in at about 35 - 40 pounds) he behaved like a King of Hounds. He understood a lot of English, could speak none, and was a great judge of character. As handsome as a dog can get Lance carried himself like a champion and was a true canine athlete.



When I started taking him out to Muhu Tasen, Grampa had a "no dogs" rule. But I was a single guy with no family and couldn't -- wouldn't -- leave Lance home alone. So Grampa made him stay in the truck and I could take him out, off the land, for his breaks. After about 2 or 3 months Grandfather recognized the quality of the dog Lance was and gave him permission to be one of "the dogs" while I was there.

Lance loved water, was a great swimmer, and never hesitated to get wet. If he had a drawback it was his tendency to chase cows (which came back to haunt him when he became a senior... we were living on 5 acres in the woods west of Eugene and had a neighbor who kept 3 cows. One day Lance took his doddering old self over, I guess, to harass the cows. I got a call from the neighbor while I was at work that Lance was in her field and that I better come and rescue him. "Rescue him?" I thought... well it was true, he needed rescuing. The 3 cows had him backed into a corner of the pasture and without his fresh legs and youthful vigor they had him buffaloed. Or cowed... a sad day I'm sure for a dog that never failed to get cows moving.)

But when he was young... he was fast, could jump and make it over a 6 foot fence... anywhere I could hike he could. Of course he was still a dog... but he had his guardian angels. On one of our many backpacking trips into the Manzana River area of the San Rafael Wilderness area of Central Cal he had managed to get a fox tail into his ear and it had worked itself deep enough to begin causing him grief. Unfortunately, it was dark and we had no tweezers and no flashlight. (OK... I know, safety first and all that...) But we used to hike into the Manzana under the full moon after the area had been closed for the season because of fire danger. At night we could see any forest rangers and hike right by 'em and get to our old Indian camp, where we would be out of sight from the trail... and heck, we were young and would never do anything like avoiding the government or its agents or agencies now...

Opal Creek tho' was Lance's home.



He fit that camp like a glove. The other camp dog, Turk, was a big old dog (probably a Bernese Mountain dog), neutered and gentle as could be and he and Lance were best buds. The only wrinkle was when George would come into camp bringing his dog Cody, a big old Doberman. Now Cody was a sweet dog in his own right... but for some reason, he and Lance just never hit it off, except with a bang. And a snarl and a major growl-a-thon and a wrestling match...

In fact those 3 dogs all died like within a year of each other. Turk was buried at camp, Lance was laid to rest on a ridge above the half-bridges and Cody... George owns a bit of property down river from camp near the Elkhorn golf course and when Cody died George took his backhoe and dug a pit that could fit Cody's favorite couch and laid Cody to rest on that couch.

Turk was Jawbone Flats' official greeter. He never failed to bark at a hiker but would usually do so while he was laying somewhere where he could see the road leading into camp. His "woof" was a "WOOF" and could be heard quite a ways away. But if we were in our cabins sometimes Turk would bark and not stop so we'd yell "Turk!" and he'd stop. When my daughter Robin was a baby in camp she grew up with Turk and Lance. Her first word came one day when Turk let out his usual "WOOF" and out of the blue Robin lets out with a "Turk!" Not "dad" or "mom"... "Turk"... heh...

Of course Lance and I shared many of the favorite spots in the west I'd acquired after years of exploration and discovery. My sidecreek in the Sierra foothills east of Fresno near Pine Flat Lake, the land east of Santa Maria off of Hwy 166 near the Cuyama Valley and of course the Guadalupe Dunes and Perfix/Paradise Beach. When I'd get dropped off at the Guad Dunes for a few days Lance of course would go too. And he loved that spot. Hiking the dunes or going down to Perfix... he was a fan of my fresh Perch, caught in the surf and cooked over an open fire skewered on a stick. When Marty and I would hike the dunes we'd generally hike to the highest dunes and take our breaks, admiring the view. Lance would inevitably fall asleep laying in the soft sand and warm sun. When he did Marty and I would sneak down the dune and hike up to the peak of the next dune and watch Lance, waiting for him to wake up. He'd wake up and look all around... then he'd see us and charge down the dune and sprint up to our new sittin' spot. It was one of our favorite Lance games.

Amazing, the bond of affection that grows between animals and humans. Lance was truly the best friend I've ever had. He is missed... but remembered with great love and gratitude for sharing his time here with me (and his many other human friends). A meeting of souls and a partnership that can never be duplicated but certainly was meant to happen... thanks Lance... I miss you my friend...

The Opal Creek adventure continues...

“Knowledge is awareness, and to it are many paths, not all of them paved with logic. But sometimes one is guided through the maze by intuition. One is led by something felt on the wind, something seen in the stars, something that calls from the wastelands to the spirit.”

- Louis L'Amour

I have to believe that is the way of things. How else could I come to such a place; a hidden, almost secret place known to only a few, but established and loved over the decades by those whose courage has been echoed in many lands, throughout the many ages of mankind?

During my short stay in the fall of '89 I didn't have much difficulty saying "yes" to the offered job. If I had arrived earlier I may have been able to stay the winter, but to spend a winter at Jawbone a supply of 6 months food and firewood must be in place. There have been winters here with 20' of snow (call it the "winter of Indian Billy", more on this to come) and winters with no snow. To survive in safety, adequate preparation is an absolute that cannot be compromised.

So after a few weeks of hanging out in Jawbone, eating good food, sharing good company, catching the last of the sun on the cold swimming holes, that fall I returned to the sunny climes of coastal central California. I spent my days camping and fishing at Perfix beach or hiking the canyons in the Sierra Madre mountains of the Los Padres National Forest or visiting Muhu Tasen, hiking and doing sweatlodge. I even managed to get in a couple of Teepee meetings run by my brother Ken.

(Note: at this point in my writing a lot of people will only have first names until I can verify they don't mind my using their full names)

I was even able to do a bit of travelling with a band of drummers around the area that ended up with us drumming at the Earth Day celebration at Allan Hancock College. I considered my inclusion as a drummer an honor... but such was the graciousness of my (inter)tribal family. They understood that we all may come to realize our native selves and they warmly shared their homes and ceremonies. In fact, I came to understand - in indigenous terms - just how lost I was. I'm Scandinavian. A Swede/Finn/Norwegian (although Grampa Semu used to say "there's an Indian in the woodpile somewhere..."). The central coast of California is a long way from Scandinavia... so I was not just thousands of miles from the resting place of my ancestors' bones but several generations away from the intimate, symbiotic relationship with nature of indigenous peoples. The return "home" will be a journey many, many generations long. The move to Opal Creek is a major step for me on that journey of generations...

So... in the first part of May 1990 I loaded up my old 1963 ugly school-bus-yellow 1/2 ton Ford pickup with all my worldly belongings and headed north towards Oregon and Jawbone Flats. Near Sacramento I lost second gear (only 2 gears left!), the truck essentially over loaded, its nose higher than its rear but I labored on.

My first, and really one of the greatest, lasting impressions in Oregon happens on I-5 somewhere between Ashland and Medford. As I'm driving along at about 50 or 55, looking like a one-man Beverly Hillbillies episode in my beat up pick-em-up, a state police car pulls along side in the fast lane and both officers in the cruiser look over at me, laugh and pull away, shaking their heads... Welcome to Oregon... hippie...

Next stop, Opal Creek.

Jawbone

I've landed. I'm in Jawbone Flats, the center of human activity, the heart of the canyon. My friends are here and my... but this IS a gorgeous place. The "street" of Jawbone is a gravel road lined on both sides by cabins that are nearly seven decades old. Sided with board and bat, the cabins are the faded grey that all wood left outside will get after some time and all cabins have metal roofs. Heating is provided by wood burning stoves. Electricity is generated by hydro-electric with a Pelton wheel which drives a 20,000 watt Westinghouse generator. And towering above camp on all sides are the mountains; every inch covered with the green that makes the Northwest such a treat for visitors.

Pretty cool... I'm off the grid. (Thats not a first for me... in hanging out with Grandfather Semu Huaute at his inter-tribal cultural center Muhu Tasen - Red Owl - down in Central California, we cooked with propane, heat was provided by wood stoves and there was no electricity). I'm getting ahead of myself here... this initial visit is just that - a visit. I'm here to see if I actually want to live and work in this run-down, isolated, backwoods burg.

I've been given cabin #4 as my temporary home. A small building that rests close to the edge of the Little No. Fork of the Santiam River (which by the by, is the result of the combining of Opal Creek and Battle Axe Creek) with sparse furninshings and a bare bulb ceiling light it is a humble place and smells like wood (which is not a shock as it is entirely built of lumber). This time of October the days are still warm but the evenings up here in the mountains (Jawbone is at 2500' elevation) get cold. I eat with the others and after a bit of meandering settle in for the night. I'm a fair hand with woodstoves and when done getting mine started I grab a book, lay down on the bed and crawl into my sleeping bag. With the sound of the river running quietly in one ear and out the other and the book merely a distraction, I am asleep in minutes.