more pictures, less words #2...

~~~

“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
~~~

Another Sunday morn. Foggy at first, but now that it is afternoon the fog is lifting and it looks to be another nice day.

The elections are calming down. Many folks are flush with excitement, some filled with dread. And my mind moves on to other things. Time and money have pretty much kept me close to home. Creative thinking and my camera haven't connected lately. Which is ok... having a lover fills part of that void. And what a good lover I've found. Way smart (the word geek comes up often), absolutely gorgeous, a sense of humor that compliments mine... and a physical match that is, well, ecstatic. Electric... zzzt!

I have several photos not shared from a few outings so I'll maybe comment as I post (I'm cooking breakfast) and load photos.

I'll start off w/ some people pics, from the recent Eugene Celebration Parade:



Euegene Mayor Kitty Piercy. She won her re-election in a squeeker...



Congressman Peter DeFazio. He won his race with over 80% support. And a few faces from the parade...









This next one is a self portrait. I shot this one day in my kitchen when I was deep-thinking about losing my job. Does it show?



~~~
This post is taking a few days... sorry about that. Such is life when things get hectic and there is an economic crisis looming nationally and personally.

This next pic is from Pablo's wake, held up at Jawbone Flats that sad fall of 2004 (Paul died in September, my mom died in October and Grampa Semu passed in November... sigh...). There is more coming on Pablo and when this September rolled by I thought of my old buddy a lot. With the elections and the climate of the country, Paul would have been thrilled with all the action. Plus... I've been out to a couple of bars and I can't go to a bar or tavern where I don't see that ubiquitous sign:



Many times when we came down off the mountain (and yes, there are at least a couple of ways to take that...) and we'd stop for a beer there would be that sign, No Minors. Which of course would launch Paul and I into a whole lamentation... a stand-up comedic dirge on the woes faced by a couple of guys, fresh out of the mines and come-to-town. Gravelly voices and all, the miner's gruff voice being pretty close to that of a pirate but without the aarrrrs thrown in. We were ready to launch into our bits almost instantly... about stuffing George Atiyeh and putting him and Cody (the Dobie wonderdog) in the lodge... on how a miner is like a miner's donkey. I'm not sure how many hikers ever returned to their cars thinking that their packs had gotten heavier along the way only to discover that someone (or someones had placed a few rocks in those packs. That one cracked us up the most. We never took things out of packs, we put things in! Jawbone's miners weren't thieves. Comedians maybe... cranky for sure... but folks were mostly in a state of shock and we were just part of the Opal Creek experience. Those miners at Jawbone... a fine legacy we were handed and a fine one we passed on.

This pic is of (l to r) Julio, Hoos and Ken, sitting on the Bunkhouse steps:



~~~
This next set of images comes from Oregon's arid east side. Most folks (even some Oregonians) think of Oregon and think of mountains and forests but most of the state is dry. The largest portion of these are from a 3 day trip I took this summer over that-a-ways:


looking northeast from Painted Rock pass on Hwy 31 travelling between LaPine and Lakeview


Hwy 31 south of Summer Lake, looking east at sunset


Coglan Buttes southeast of Paisley, Hwy 31


Deep Creek


Deep Creek canyon, west of Adel on the south side of Hwy 140


the view north (towards Hart Mountain) from Fisher Hot Springs (Lane family property) on the east side of Crump Lake


the view from the "hot tub" (some years the cattle graze these grasses down and the view is of the whole valley)


local petroglyph, Crump Lake


the view north towards Hart Mtn from The Nature Conservancy's now abandoned Crump Lake Preserve


self portrait, Crump Lake Preserve


Canada Geese and Sandhill Cranes north of Valley Falls (the intersection of Hwy 395 and Hwy 31)


Davis Lake and Davis Mountain
~~~

“The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.”

~ John Muir

... a baker's dozen... more or less...

~~~

"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."

~ Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
~~~

What a beautiful fall... November so far is a mix of wet and dry, nice and not-so-nice but with snow falling in the Cascades this weekend its all pretty normal. When Halloween comes up at Jawbone Flats, odds are in favor of at least a modest dusting of snow. Some years tho'... the first snow may be a few days late, but generally... within 2 - 3 days of Halloween.




I love my Oregon...

Here at the farm the rain has turned the browned pastures back to green... trees in the copses and yards and streets have been ablaze in color for the last few weeks, the autumn sun is lowering to the south and the light and clean air make for beautiful days and give some great sunsets. Sunrises can be pretty cool too, especially when the fog lies low at dawn:



~~~

And in about 2 months and 2 weeks the US will have a new President. I'll have much more to say about Mr Obama as we get closer to coronation day. ... rrrr... I mean the inauguration. One of the strongest sets of images from the hours and days after Obama's win has been those of our nation's black citizens. There is such a visible shine of pride, of relief... at last, at last...



And while I remain a doubter, I sincerely hope that President-elect Obama is at least part that which so many hope him to be... because it was not just the blacks that celebrated what is truly, truly an historic moment in our nation's history. Obama created a voting coalition that covered the spectrum. Looking at the voter percentages it is interesting to note that all the independent candidates combined garnered only about 2% of the vote. Ross Perot, when he ran as an independent garnered what, about 15% of the popular vote? There is quite a mandate on our next President's plate. Not to mention a major quagmire (and no, not Family Guy's Glenn Quagmire) or two. A couple of wars (I can count a handful without any effort) and an economy that oughta wake everybody up... if he shows himself to be some of what many hope him to be we may find a way to solve many problems. If he conducts business like just another Party shill... I see not much good ahead in these next four years.

But for our nation to actually elect a black man as Prez... wow. I'm proud of my country. To think that it has been but a mere 2 generations since our nation's black citizens were treated like this:



And all in a struggle waged over and over and over throughout human history. But these days are different. No longer are we a world of distant and relatively isolated societies. We are truly at a critical pivoting point in mankind's time here on earth.
~~~

Because I am out of the closet -- so to speak -- about my cannabis use I thought I'd share this picture of the truck I used to drive when I worked for Bill Conde at his Redwood Lumberyard outside of Harrisburg, OR.



I put tens of thousands of miles on this truck, delivering redwood lumber throughout the western half of Oregon. And even tho' the truck is quite obviously covered in cannabis leaves I never was pulled over. In fact in all those miles I received one negative response. Driving north on I-5 one day I actually got flipped off... but that was the only time. Usually it was honks and waves, peace signs and lots of gaping. And the occasional offer to stop for a smoke (which I politely always declined). Even had folks asking to take a picture of the truck.

For such a benign and multi-faceted plant cannabis sure receives its share of grief. And of course I must note that President-elect Obama admits that when he was a young man he actually inhaled. A black man and a cannabis consumer... but ya know... he never would have gotten here if he had been arrested for possession of pot, back in da day... so, while smoking pot doesn't disqualify him for our nation's highest office it is important to make that connection that a conviction would have. And these days? We arrest almost 100 people every hour for pot here in the US. Isn't it time to drop that charade? Is it any of our business what our neighbors smoke? Pot has never killed anybody on its own while tobacco deaths (just in the US) number about 400,000 a year. Isn't that a bit incongruous? How many hours of police time do that many arrests take? How much court time? And the occasional jail time? Aren't there better allocations of our police and criminal justice system's resources?

Prohibition II will become an issue that garners this nation's attention as we look at ways and places where we can start not-spending money. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy directs most drug policy moves and comes up for reauthorization in 2010. I say axe it completely. How does a free nation -- a democratic republic -- even think that naming a bureaucrat a czar (as in Drug Czar) is acceptable? Especially when he directs and advocates policies that are repressive and grow ever more intrusive of Constitutional protections. We cannot protect our precious liberties by allowing the government to declare a "drugs exception" to the Constitution...

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) head guy Jack Cole estimates that we now spend roughly $70 billion a year on Prohibition II. Well... in 10 years we would get back the initial $700 billion we (our government) just threw at this "bailout" of our financial institutions. And that $70 billion a year is just the basics of enforcing Prohibition...

A point my friend Kirk often makes -- quite concisely -- is that it was not the efforts of G-Man Elliot Ness and his Untouchables that took away Al Capone's power in the booze trade. It was the ending of Prohibition, the re-legalizing of alcohol that in one fell swoop put booze back in the hands of legitimate tax-paying companies and their tax-paying employees... and eliminated the very rampant corruption and public violence of the syndicates who ran the booze trade.
~~~

“Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.”

~ Thomas Jefferson

~~~

Spring(?) and miscellanies...

~~~

“When any government, or church for that matter, undertakes to say to it's subjects, this you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motive.”

~ Robert Heinlein
~~~

Wow. An historic moment. A milestone guaranteed to spawn a million conversations. An occurrence that will raise the hackles of bigots across the land... a black man will be representing his party as candidate for President. I'll be damned...

Now, do I think it will matter? Nah. Personally I think our "two party system" is but one party that likes to pretend it is two. I truly believe that the time has come for voters to -- as they did to the Republicans in 2004 -- dump the bums and prove that it is, really, we the people who hold the power in this country.

I believe that we the people have relinquished the power vested to us by our founders, in exchange for the ease of allowing government to not just govern representatively but to dictate to us the boundaries of our lives while expanding the bureaucracy's powers at our expense.

Remember the film Brazil, by Terry Gilliam? (if not... rent it)



a graphic and strangely dreamlike look at bureaucracy gone amok... well, thats my view of where we've come to today. A very strange world in which we operate under a mountain of rules and regulations which no sane man or woman could ever understand or even begin to fathom. And we've allowed our Constitution and its primary Bill of Rights to become the tool of government, open to its own bizarre definitions of the intent behind the words.

When it comes to the Bill of Rights, they are a pretty common sense group of Amendments, consisting not of language scrambled by legal twistings and fine permutations but presented in a manner easily compehended, with the intent of controlling not the people by government but of the people having a tool with which we control our government.

And while I'm sure the Supreme Court justices are ok folks



I seriously question their interpretations of a very common sense document. But what do I know? I'm just a barely educated forklift driving middle aged (...sigh...) longhaired white guy Vietnam era veteran with an opinion...

I do know that I love this country and I don't like where we've allowed ourselves to be led to... as we stand on the brink of a new depression... and it breaks my heart that every real leader who has stood for peace has fallen under an assassin's bullet... and I sincerely hope and pray that an epidemic of insight sweeps across the land and infects us all with the virus of compassion and tolerance.

But hey, thats just me.
~~~

In my posts awhile back on the Olympics I posted the picture of the "tank man"... an iconic photograph that stands in my memory. Last night I watched PBS' Frontline story on "tank man." Excellent, excellent piece. An indepth look at that 1989 peaceful protest by the Chinese people in Tiananmen Square that gave me a larger picture of that story and why people should not just boycott the Olympics but continue to expose the Chinese regime as the brutes they are. And for my Chinese visitors... I don't protest you. I protest government power that goes to excess in abuse of civilians... anywhere. Like here in the U.S. One of the points that continues to stick in my craw (not craw, CRAW!) about the U.S. drug war is that we imprison black males at a rate nearly six times greater than did South Africa at the peak of their hated and universally condemned regime of Apartheid.

It would be nice to hear the Dems young black male presidential candidate Barack Obama mention that somewhere down the campaign trail.
~~~

I went up to Opal Creek a cuppla weekends ago with son Alex. Last year at this time of year the bear grass and rhododendrons were almost done with their blooming. This year there was still snow when we got to the old mill site. And not just a dab here and there but about 2' of snow. When I told brother Marty about the snow he asked if I had seen the Opal Creek website pictures. I hadn't but then I went to the site and wow, they have had just a bit. 7' in camp. But go and look for yourself.

Alex and I didn't hike all the way into Jawbone Flats. Instead we went past the old mill and turned north into the backside of the Hewitt Grove and went stalking waterfalls. Once into the woods it was a rare sight... all the ferns and salal were pressed flat from the weight of a heavy snow pack. Nary a flower in sight. The duff was soaked, and it was like walking on a sponge. Which of course it was. Part of why we fought so hard to save that forest back in the day.

At the parking lot we saw a pair of hikers loading up their backpacks including several bottles of water. We ran into them on the road near the head of the Opal Creek Trail and I mentioned I saw their water bottles. I told them about the quality of the water in the valley and how all drinking water in camp came not from spring water but from the creek and that the forest was one of nature's best water filters.

Here are a few images from that meandering:










~~~

“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

~~~

Opal Creek, again...

~~~

“See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...we need silence to be able to touch souls.”

~ Mother Teresa
~~~

Sometimes there just isn't enough time...

So much to say, so many photos to take. Anyone need a full time writer/photographer? Willing to pay about $50K a year? Let me know, ok? heh... I won't hold my breath.

So many things going on its impossible these days to keep up. So I don't. An old anachronism am I. I use to laugh at the older generation when I was young. My dad and I often had some... intense... discussions when I was a young adult. But as I got older and our philosophies began to track closer we had some great talks. Pablo got to meet my folks and enjoyed their company and they got to really like him. In fact they thought most of my adult male friends were pretty good guys. A little different than when I was a teenager.

Back then I was open to most folks and had friends who got into more than their share of trouble. I never shared that trouble but I've always been able to appreciate the good parts of people while being forgiving of their negative traits. Of course nowadays I can't say the same because rare is the politician with negative tendencies that I can stomach...

Robin's eerie short story drew some quality praise. Tuesday night because she had a choir concert she missed a chance to meet Ursula K Le Guin, one of my favorite female authors who was in Portland at Powell's Books downtown signing her new book Lavinia. As the daughter of Dr Alfred and Theodora Kroeber, the good folks who brought us the story of Ishi, a California Yahi Indian who was the last (or one of the last) people of his tribe, Le Guin grew up surrounded by academia and anthropologists and has a has a great sensibility to humans and their cultures. She is a truly gifted author. And, as I often mention, if you want to learn about some of the saddest parts of American (US) history, the treatment of indigenous tribal folks in California is pretty dismal, from the coming of the Spaniards with their mission system and its use of native slaves through to the Gold Rush and Captain Jack and the Modoc War, the last of the Indian battles of California and Oregon.

But today I'm getting back to Opal Creek and Pablo and all that that entails... which, if you've been a regular reader, you know how wide the connections are in my continuing tale of Tincup.

When I first visited Opal Creek that autumn of '89 I was housed in Cabin 4:



and it was there I fell in love with Opal Creek. Falling asleep every night reading, listening to the Little North Fork of the Santiam flowing by... sigh... it was truly a connection of fate and karma, good luck and proof of the old adage, "its not what you know, but who you know." Because it was the connection I made with Hoos and Pablo while I was in Santa Maria flinging lumber with Marty that I met them both. And they were the ones who got me hired as one of the last miners.

I remember that first visit... driving almost a thousand miles up I-5, making the right turn onto the Santiam Highway (Hwy 22) and heading east into the Cascades towards Mehama. Making a left turn onto North Fork Rd and driving until I came to the locked gate at the end of the road. That was the only time that road seemed long. Not knowing where I was going really, the drive followed the twisty two lane road deeper into the Little North Fork canyon, past small farms and catching glimpses of the Little North Fork of the Santiam River as the trees grew closer and the canopy grew thicker, hanging over the road in many places until the blacktop ran out and I hit the gravel road. Then it was another 6 miles of driving on gravel, bucking the washboard and dodging pot holes... and then coming to the crest of the road where you can see across the deep and forested canyon to Elkhorn Mountain and the cut of Cedar Creek with its rocky knobs to the right (south) and Henline Mountain rising steeply to the left. All unlogged and free of clearcuts... and then... a couple of miles further up rounding a curve in the road to the left and there straight ahead is the view up canyon of the the Little North Fork's headwaters and somewhere down in there, Jawbone Flats and my friends:



Back then Opal Creek was just getting media attention as a pivotal player in the old-growth versus logging debate, a subject I knew literally nothing about, other of course than that I liked big trees and pristine forests, clean water and lots of quiet (see Mother Theresa's quote at the top of this page).



And like I've also said before, Opal Creek began my adventurous return to the Pacific Northwest, seeming very much like I was a character in a story that could have been a part of writer Tom Robbins' psychedelic Another Roadside Attraction. But with my own personal twist...

And, because the connections are very much braided together (the great song "Braided Hair" by Speech, from the very, very wonderful album, One Giant Leap, hits this nail squarely on the head for me) it just had to be that Grampa Semu came to Opal Creek for a stay with us, with his wife Aneke Alish and his wonderful friend Amuah:



and of course we had to do a group photo (taken by Pablo, with my camera) -- probably the only pic I'll post with Hoosnahil visible -- with Jawbone's residents and the teenagers Grampa brought along:



Its funny, because when I was living there and taking my photographs I never figured they would become historic documents... So there is a word of wisdom to the photographers out there, especially you young ones, you never know when a situation or a series of photos you may deem as ordinary or insignificant (especially of people and events) can take on more importance than you give them at the time of their being taken.

I have to head to work in a bit... so I will continue this next time. Until then...

Kay sh'nuk sh'mah.
~~~

“It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.”

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

~~~

Of water and trees...

Whenever, in the course of the daily hunt the red hunter comes upon a scene that is strikingly beautiful or sublime - a black thundercloud with the rainbow's glowing arch about the mountains, a white waterfall in the heart of a green gorge; a vast prairie tinged with the blood-red of sunset - he pauses for an instant in the attitude of worship. He sees no need for setting apart one day in seven as a holy day, since to him all days are God's.

- Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa) (The Soul of the Indian, Houghton Mifflin, Boston & New York, 1911)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At Opal Creek folks often mention the sound of voices especially down close to the water. Some hear kids laughing, others hear song, some hear music. Always muted, never quite clear enough to catch the words, I know that sound that scratches at the psyche, that makes a person strain to hear more.

Never less alone than when alone...

When I arrived at Jawbone that spring of '90 I embarked on a journey that was a whole greater than the sum of the parts. We worked surrounded by rock and tree and water, all relatively unchanged since the last ice age. The giant trees here, some standing when Columbus stumbled into the isles of the Caribbean and brought death and mayhem to the Arawak, have grown on the bodies of their ancestors, who themselves grew upon the fallen before them, and so on, back thousands of years.

Some people think of an old-growth forest as all ancient trees but a forest is a successsional process. Fire, blowdown from high winds and wind bursts, rock slides... whatever the cause, the forest changes, is born anew and grows ancient again.

We hosted a lot of students, from grade school on up to university level. We relished the kids. Paul and I would put on our best miner voices for the young ones. I mean we looked the part, we were gruff and often a tad scruffy. Put a bit of pirate gravel into the voice and entertain 'em a bit while delivering an educational schtick. One of the most asked questions was a basic one: "what do you mine?"

The answer of course, should be academic. But oh no. The answer was a simple one, tried and true...

"Our own business," Paul would exclaim and the kids would laugh and Paul would laugh... and then we'd go into the truth. The lesson wasn't ever as funny but we had the kids attention. Back then, before formal protection we advocated for people to drink the water right out of the streams. Because you could. Drink the water right out of the steams. Still can, but now they can't "recommend" it. Even though they still drink it...

And that water is pure because of the forest. Filtered thru a canopy of bark, limb, leaf and needle; past moss and lichen and dashed on rocks, aerated and chilled... water that should be recognized for its quality. Among the early supporters of Opal Creek was the city of Salem, Oregon's capitol. The Little North Fork of the Santiam (its headwaters being Opal Creek and Battle Axe Creek) provides Salem with 20% of its drinking water.

Many hikers, familiar with Jawbone's neighbor over the mountain, Breitenbush Hot Springs would ask us if there were any hot springs. And we'd have to tell them that no, we didn't. But we did have lots of cold water. And cold was an understatement. 10 second water is what I called it...

And there were those who would devastate it all for the timber. Opal Creek was not a place well loved by the local communities; Detroit, Idanha, Gates, Lyons, Mill City, Mehama... This was logging country and no ragtag band of enviroh-mentalists was going to stop those chainsaws. Folks like Rob Freres of Freres Lumber swore to log the area. And there were others like Tom Hirons, old friends with George Atiyeh and one of the previous miners that resided in my cabin # 6. Tom was a logger and owned a small logging company and opposed the saving of Opal Creek.

I met Tom and we got along well. His wife ran the video store in Mill City. In talking to George just a couple of weeks ago I learned Tom had recently passed on. Sigh... Like the water, like the trees, we all move on. Some are blessed, some are cursed, some go unnoticed but few have a legacy that includes a gem like Opal Creek. RIP Tom...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When time comes for us to again rejoin the infinite stream of water flowing to and from the great timeless ocean, our little droplet of soulful water will once again flow with the endless stream.

- William E. Marks The Holy Order Of Water

Another Offroad Attraction...

This photo is just inside the locked Forest Service gate and is the entryway to the Opal Creek area. Even to this day I feel a sense of relief when I cross inside that gate. The feeling of security, of being away, at least temporarily, from the crazy and bizarre happenings outside the gate in the crazy world of human affairs, is a sensation I've felt only here. I have plenty of beautiful spots in the west to spend time in nature but at Opal Creek there is something else... something that many others feel.

That gate has had plenty of reincarnations. It has been slammed by trucks trying to break through and been shot with shotguns and rifles but it has managed to stand firm against all such assaults. Much like the forest itself.

When I arrived with my old truck and all my worldly belongings I really was clueless. I had no idea of the intensity of the conflict that I was stepping into. I didn't know that I would become a voice for the trees, for the spotted owl... that once again I would be sharing sweatlodges with many people from many places. I didn't know I would work for a wild eyed en-viroh-mentalist or be host to politicians, scientists, students of all ages and just ordinary folks discovering for the first time the beauty of the Cascade's temperate rain forest. Sure, I knew I was lucky, that I was going to be able to live in splendid isolation but I had no clue how intense a ride I had signed up for...

Have you ever read Tom Robbins' Another Roadside Attraction? A psychedelic, larger than life adventure in the Northwest, its a great read and I believe it was actually prophetic for me and my life here in Oregon. In fact... well... never mind... thats another tale for another day.

I suppose I should begin to introduce some of the characters in this very interactive adventure. And naturally, I have to start with the boss, the big Kahuna (for veteran and military types the HMFWBIC), George Atiyeh. When I first met George he had a gorilla mask on and his Doberman Cody tangled with my dog Lance.

Amazingly, for someone who at one time had a very high profile (which is not good when you are a target for lots of people unhappy with you), you won't find a whole lot out about George by surfing the wwweb. A few quotes from reviews of David Seideman's Showdown at Opal Creek, mentions in newsletters, in government documents pertaining to Opal Creek, mentions in Time Magazine, High Country News... but nothing substantial about the man himself. George was the lightning rod for Opal Creek. He was the key player in a very heated controversy, orchestrating the original defense and organizing the initial group of supporters into the Friends of Opal Creek. He always reminded me of Gary Larson's "Bummer of a birthmark Hal" cartoon...

Unfortunately for George, for those of us living in camp he was our target too. Always trying to do too much in too little time, George was endlesly moving, always talking... I mean always talking... but to his credit, there was a lot of talking that needed to be done.

One day George made mention that like Roy Rogers had done with his horse Trigger and dog Bullet, he was thinking of having Cody mounted and put in the lodge. After some "creative" thinking Paul and I turned this into one of our schticks that we'd use on guests and hikers (the following conversation is a paraphrasing, simple because any of the lies... rrr... stories Paul and I would tell were always changing just a bit, being tweeked for whatever group we were dealing with, or by adding some creative, fantastical detail):

A:"Hey Paul."

P: "Yeah Allan."

A: "Do you remember George talking about having Cody mounted and put in the lodge?"

P: (laughing) "How could I forget."

A: "Well, that inspired a fund raising idea for Opal Creek."

P: "Really?

A: "When George dies we have him stuffed and put in the lodge, standing next to Cody. We install a voice recording of George giving his schpiel on old growth and saving the forest. We put in a coin operated switch that lets them hear George in his own voice and words. For 50 cents they get the real deal from an icon in the environmental movement about one of the flagships in the fight to save big trees."

P: "Wow. Thats a good idea..."

A: "Thanks."

P: "I do see a small problem though."

A: "Whats that?"

P: "Well, now that I think about it, its really not too much of a problem because we can make even more money."

A: "How so?"

P: "You know how much George talks right? We need to put in another 50 cent slot so they can turn him off! Har har har!"

George never minded our giving him a hard time... I think he actually needed it. George is an eloquent man when he hits his stride. He has a good heart, a strong backbone and is usually ready for whatever. I am really surprised he has managed to remain so private. On one level however, now that I think on it, it is kind of natural. The Santiam Canyon, with the towns of Mehama, Lyons, Gates, Mill City, Detroit... doesn't have a large population, its off the I-5 corridor by 20 miles or so and most folks travel through the canyon heading for the mountains or the east side of Oregon.

The Little North Fork of the Santiam River is even more isolated. The road is narrow, curvy, has continuous problems with washouts and slumping and really doesn't go anywhere but into the forest and mountains. In that sense, anonymity is easier to maintain. George has had over 10 years to regain his private life for himself and his family ever since federal protection for the watershed was instituted and by all that I see he is a mighty happy man about it and enjoying his life (which has never really been a problem for him).

You did good George.

We all did good.

Opal Creek is a rich inheritance that any and all that had a hand in its saving should be proud to pass on. It is a tribute to many things, most particularly for me is the example it provides of local activism being effective even when dealing with issues on the national or international level. We can make a difference, we do make a difference. No one will do it for us, least of all the government... the little guy can win.

"To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed."

- Theodore Roosevelt

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.

Timeout! How cool is this?

I've just been notified by the good folks at the Opal Creek Ancient Forest Center office in Portland that they have given me their blessing on my proposed project of producing a book as a fundraiser for them!

My idea, in fact this blog is a big part of it, is to write a book about Paul from the view of my 3 years living in Jawbone Flats with him as my neighbor, co-worker and co-conspirator.

The title I chose for the blog comes from my first day at work as one of "the last miners." We were going out for morning donuts. No powdered sugar or chocolate sprinkles... no glazed or jelly-filled, no bearclaws or maple bars... and they didn't have a hole in the middle either. Going out for donuts meant we were firing up the old flatbed and going and cutting some firewood and because the downed trees we were cutting were of such good size the rounds were shaped more like a donut than a short pole. They were heavy and it was raining... it always rains in the winter. And the spring. And in the fall... But they were donuts and they were our donuts. They would become heat for our homes. I swear there could be a book written just about cutting firewood in an old growth forest, about just having to stop working some times and watch. Watch a shaft of sunlight stab through the misty fog or a flurry of snow come sifting down through the old growth's mighty canopy. Beauty surrounded us, the quiet engulfing, inspiring... we'd look at each other and grin... and fire up the chainsaw and get back to work.

Anyway... the book. Paul kept proficient notes. He was one of the most organized men I've ever known. And he amassed pages and pages of notes, journal entries, songs and musings. My hope is to glean some gems from those for insightful (and inciteful) commentary (I'm laughing, you'll have to wait and see what about) from my late friend and couple those excerpts with my photography and a bit of my own writing.

There hasn't been a book about Opal Creek since David Seideman's Showdown at Opal Creek. As good a story as the Opal Creek forest saving is, it should be revisited once and awhile, just as once you've stayed there, you will be called back again. It is a place where the parts far outweigh the sum, where the elan vital is palpable. A place where the beauty can give you goosebumps...

Major props and gracious thanks to Katie Ryan and Tom Atiyeh at the Opal Creek office.

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.

Opal Creek... on the way...

I headed north out of California in mid October, looking forward to my drive and curious about my destination. I hardly knew anything about the place and didn't have an inkling of what I was soon going to be waste deep in...

I knew about where I was heading - east of Salem, Oregon - and I had some very basic directions... you know the kind. The "go 22 miles and turn left at the mailbox with 3 red reflectors" kind... so... I drove straight north on I-5 turned right at Salem and headed east towards the hills.

The next instruction was to turn left at the Swiss Village restaurant and drive until I came to a locked gate and then I had to walk another 3 miles to Jawbone Flats (the cabin in the first pic eventually became my home for the duration of my stay). It was hot and dusty and I didn't have a clue where the heck I was. I did manage to make my right turn and my left turn without error, which considering it was a 1,000 mile drive was pretty dang easy! But the road up the canyon of the Little North Fork of the Santiam River was a twisty sucker and when the pavement ended I hit the gravel road and bounced my way along for the next 8 miles or so on the washboard surface. And I wondered every mile of that drive up the canyon if this was really the right road and did I really want to consider moving to Oregon from my beautiful Cali central coast and damn this road goes on forever and dammmn... thats a looong way down...

I eventually arrived at the gate and parked my old truck ('63 Ford stepside, shortbed, ugly as sin but attractive in its own faded school bus yellow, scratched and rusted way. Afficianados of old functioning but ugly trucks would have loved it!), grabbed my backpack, unloaded my dog Lance (and Lance will get his own section soon enough, he was truly a dog of legend and I'm eager to give him some recognition) and started walking... not knowing, not having anything close to a clue, that I was soon to fall in love.

And I found myself in an immaculate forest with a moss carpeted floor under a canopy of massive fir and hemlock trees that reached high into a clean blue sky, and mixed in with these was an abundance of ferns and maples changing into their autumn colors, alder, wild huckleberries and plants I didn't recognize. The sound of the Little No. Fork of the Santiam River was a constant refrain, really the only sound except for my shoes crunching in the gravel...

In Memory of...

Paul "Pablo" “Tin Cup” Flores

- Last miner, First caretaker

On September 5th, 2004, Friends of Opal Creek mourned the passing of our long-time friend, dedicated employee, and inspiring mentor, Paul Flores.

Known to many as “Pablo” and a few as “Tin Cup”, Paul dedicated much of his life to Jawbone Flats, both as miner for Shiny Rock Mining Co. and caretaker for FOOC.

A memorial service was held in his beloved Jawbone Flats on Sunday, September 12th.Friends and family from all over the country gathered to share tears, stories and laughs, all reminiscent of Pablo. The service was led by Calvin Hecocta, spiritual leader and long- time friend of Opal Creek.

In the weeks preceding his passing, Paul wrote the following tune, and played it for the staff in Jawbone Flats:

….You don't know why I want to
visit the trees
You don't know why I need to go
up and be free
You don't know what I feel
when I see what I see
You don't know why I like these
big g*!?dam trees
Take me home to Jawbone
When I die bury me here
Where men are men
And the women are welcome
Take me home to Jawbone

In loving memory, Paul Flores–
July 28th, 1950—Sept. 5th, 2004

From the Fall 2004 Opal Creek Newsletter

I miss you amigo.

I'm walkin,
walkin' down the road with you

...I'm pleased to have made your acquaintance,
I know we'll see each other soon...

... we'll stop by the river,
and maybe smoke a bowl...

... take a dip and perhaps
sing a song or two...

... the dogs will start barking,
howling outa tune...

... kinda like the times
when I use'ta sing with you.

What hath I wrought?

Well... good morning or good day, good eve perhaps, after all, in the cyberwwworld it can be just whatever old time you want it to be. I'm new to this so bear with me while I figure out the mechanics of this blog-o-sphere stuff.

I've needed a place to throw my own rants and a place that I can call home for awhile now and, well, I guess this is it. I'll be adding links to my favorite haunts, discussing news and trying to drum up some new business for my new business.

"What business is that Allan?" you may well ask (and at this point I'm probably talking to myself but part of my insanity is that I don't care!).

Why, thanks for asking! I was just waiting for someone to ask that question!

I'm a photographer, at least I used to be. And I want to make it my vocation again. And that, dear friends is a large part of this donut. Hopefully, it isn't the hole in the donut. So take care, come by whenever, eat the donuts if there are any... and, thanks for stopping by...

Oh... and if you are so moved by the beauty of the images I provide here, they are for sale. Contact me!

æ