369 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
369 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
From slcpi!govt.shearson.com!mjohnsto@uunet.UU.NET Mon Jan 7 17:19:47 1991
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To: wordy@Corp
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Subject: chapter-15
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HUMBOLDT COUNTY PLAY
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#15 in the second online CAA series
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by
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Steven K. Roberts, HtN (WORDY)
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Trinidad, CA; 1,076 miles.
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December 6, 1986
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I have often called this journey a lifestyle sampler. If that's true,
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then when does the wild experimention of the gourmet become the wretched excess
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of the glutton? Can there be too much? With a mighty intellectual belch I
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lean beck in this old dog-scented recliner, fight off the torpor with a sip of
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Jolt Cola ("All the sugar and twice the caffeine"), and think it over.
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There is a lot of energy in this adventure. For ten thousand miles I
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wandered alone, driven by obsession, the darkness of my solitude illuminated at
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odd intervals by flashes of romance. There were moments of magnificence,
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moments of discovery, moments of pure terror... but it wasn't enough. I wanted
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all that and home too. Exhausted, I began to yearn for my own bed; I wanted to
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know a place well enough to find the bathroom in the dark and recognize the
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nighttime creaks. The journey sputtered to a halt near San Francisco -- and I
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somehow ended up back in Ohio.
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But the torporate life, the midwestern dullness, the restlessness of my
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own spirit -- they were all there, forming an even stronger conspiracy than
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before. I had gotten a taste of the road, and could never forget it. I
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dreamed of it; I ached for it; I rebuilt the bike in a frenzy and set out once
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again with vastly improved systems.
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There are differences this time, even ignoring all the extra technology.
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I have a companion to provide stability and security, a friend who eliminates
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the old urgency that once had me ignoring grand opportunities when there was
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even a hint of female nearby. Maggie has dramatically changed the character of
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the trip, making it warmer and somehow more domestic. But there's another
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difference that has little to do with her: I have been here before.
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No, not in Humboldt County, which I'll tell you more about in a moment.
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HERE -- on the road. The sense of adventure that accompanied my first million
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pedal strokes so long ago is now muted; I spend more time worrying about
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unfinished projects than thinking hot-damn-I-
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can't-believe-I'm-really-in-California-WOW-I-wonder-what-happens- NEXT??? The
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trappings of adventure are all there, but the essence is something that only
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surfaces when I get OFF the bike and do something I've never done before.
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That's why the miles pass so slowly. I've done 33 of 'em since the last
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chapter, and they were northbound -- a backtrack to Trinidad. This is not the
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old spirit of Computing Across America, it's something else... something I
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better identify soon. It's subtle: I didn't get a hint of it until I kept
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noticing that the exuberant overview article I've been grappling with all week
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wasn't quite ringing true.
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William Least Heat Moon observed in BLUE HIGHWAYS that "the wanderer's
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danger is to find comfort." This is true, though I've always interpreted that
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in a local sense -- the difficulty of leaving is always proportional to the
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time I've stayed in one place. But perhaps comfort can be interpreted on other
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levels...
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--> There is less urgency: my travels are no longer a succession of desperate
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romantic quests which, though of dubious philandering intent, once imbued my
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nomadic lifestyle with frenetic energy.
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--> There is less sense of unknown: wandering around America no longer has
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the character of cultural exploration. There are still surprises everywhere,
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but they happen more with individuals than regions.
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--> There is less thrill in being bizarre: even though my bike still
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mystifies bystanders, I'm tired of explaining it to everyone I meet. More and
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more I prefer to spend time -- comfortable time -- with people who already know
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all that, have locked the bike in their garage, and are now more interested in
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what's inside me, inside themselves.
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This is starting to sound like I'm complaining about comfort. Hardly. But
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there's a change happening in this journey, and failing to acknowledge it would
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be more damaging to the adventure than all the logging trucks in the Great
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Northwest rolled onto a single mountain road with me in the middle.
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I'm slowing down.
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Of course, this never was the Race Across America. Those guys go further
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in a day than I do in a week. I've never been in much of a hurry, for pedaling
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to a schedule reduces the road to a mere obstacle lying in the way. I have
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seen skin-suited cyclists, loaded for touring but dressed for racing, blasting
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down mountain roads while hunched over drop handlebars... too obsessed with
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speed and mileage to be conscious of the beauty unfolding like new love around
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them. That kind of travel has the flavor of a corporate acquisition:
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aggressive, carefully mapped, no move possible without committee analysis of
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the bottom line.
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But slow touring is one thing, meandering from home to home is quite
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another. I suspect THAT'S the change in the air -- a realization that movement
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is not necessarily the essence of travel. Some adventures seem to happen with
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no sweat at all.
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* * *
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I spoke last week of Humboldt County, a place that fits right into this
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discussion. We've been here for a couple of weeks now, involved enough with a
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new circle of friends to find ourselves with multiple social options every
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night and difficult decisions concerning leaving. There could be worse
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problems. (I remember grim epochs when I felt I had NO friends, no place to
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go. You'll never catch me complaining about having more than I can keep track
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of.)
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There's an interesting group here. They consider constructive PLAY to be
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inextricably entwined with constructive work -- to the point that I am unable
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to discern the boundaries. Their participation in the annual Arcata to
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Ferndale Kinetic Sculpture Race is serious enough to classify as a career
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(requiring no small measure of dedication, since machines must be designed and
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built as well as pedaled over 38 miles of land, sea, sand and mud). And our
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zany friends Duane, Ken, and Stock are the architects of a promising new sport
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called Trollo.
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These are hard-core bikies, but not in the racing tradition. They're more
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likely to spend a cycling get-together hunched over an oxy-acetylene torch than
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strutting about in skinsuits comparing derailleurs -- their machines look
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battered and functional, not sleek and aerodynamic.
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The obsession began with kinetic sculpture, which seems as much a part of
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Humboldt County as the residual 60's population and a thriving specialized
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agriculture to match. This isn't just a race, it's the annual climax of a
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lifestyle. Everyone involved works year-round on machines to take on Slimy
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Slope, Dead-man's Drop, and an assortment of other obstacles including 12 miles
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of sand, 3 miles of water, emotionally involved spectators, and an almost
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exhausting sense of profound silliness. Consider the machine names: The
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Bionic Taco. Fourplay. Artburn. The Green Marine Bovine Machine. And the
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infamous Quagmire Queen, the 4,000-pound creation of Hobart Brown himself.
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These are not the products of coldly rational minds bent on victory.
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Such dedication has spinoffs. It's impossible to put hundreds of hours
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into such work and not be profoundly affected. Our friends found themselves
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building vehicles year round: unibikes, three- wheelers, strange unridable
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experiments. But the ones that quite invaded their lives are the recumbent
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Trollo trikes.
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Wednesday afternoon. The artists are transformed, not the people I knew
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moments before. As they growl aboard their ragged machines, I soon forget
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their paintings, their sculptures, their murals, the polished works of their
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Old Town studios. This is the sport of human- powered road warriors -- a sort
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of wheeled rugby for three. In the parking lot under Eureka's Samoa Bridge
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they go at it: nearly half a ton of roiling manflesh and steel in hot pursuit
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of a crushed, taped Budweiser can -- urging it this way and that with flailing
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implements of rubber and wood. Bikes tip, spokes bend, derailleurs break,
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blood flows. Still the game continues, into the dark, the players obsessed,
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crazed men of steel. There's no surrogate Monday night football for this
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crowd... adrenalin is part of their staple diet.
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The game has a future, I think -- I helped them write up some rules the
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other night and they're discussing marketing. But the beauty of this is not
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the business but the play, the play, the thing I keep harping on. Play. Why
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is it so rare?
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There seems to be a belief that true, absorbed play is the exclusive
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province of children. But here and there are adults who'll never "grow up,"
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adults who recognize the essential nature of FUN and build a daily dose of it
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into their lives. They're always different from their peers, whether a retired
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airplane builder, a mill foreman who makes radio-controlled helicopters, a
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loony writer who lives on a bicycle, or people who took a 50% pay cut and moved
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to Crested Butte just for the mountain bike trails. This all brings back a
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theme from my first trip -- the definition of "success" as the inverse ratio of
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all you put out (sweat, pain, work, and stress) to all you get back (pleasure,
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fun, sex, humor, happiness, insight, friendship, health, and -- oh yes --
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money).
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The happiest people are those who know this, and include in their "life
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portfolio" some heavy investment in pure unadulterated play.
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Well. This chapter certainly ran the gamut, didn't it? From anguished
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introspection about the future of my travels to a rhapsodic essay on the
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playfulness of new friends... that's the difference a sunset walk on the beach
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can make. Underfoot sand frozen in textbook illustrations of wave motion, surf
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thundering white plumes against black cliffs, everything touched with sunset
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gold, Maggie's hand in mine... how could I return to the keyboard and continue
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on a theme of depression?
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It happens. It goes away. The beat goes on, and I'm smiling again.
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-- Steve
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