textfiles/fun/CAA/gecaa-16

From slcpi!govt.shearson.com!mjohnsto@uunet.UU.NET Mon Jan  7 17:19:27 1991
To: wordy@Corp
Subject: chapter-16

COMPUTING ACROSS HUMBOLDT COUNTY?



#16 in the second online CAA series



by



Steven K. Roberts, HtN (WORDY)



Eureka, CA; 1,106 miles.



December 15, 1986



     We have just spent three weeks in Humboldt County with old friends -- old

friends whom we first met three weeks ago.  Such is the time distortion of the

traveling life.  We're living as a family of four, and the time before our

arrival seems vague and distant.  Oh yeah... I remember... aren't we on some

kinda BICYCLE trip?



     But these three weeks have been a therapeutic dose of home, something that

we need now and then to temper our rootless nomadics with the illusion of

stability.  Sometimes Dataspace isn't quite enough -- especially when childhood

memories of Christmas begin to season the festivities of others with little

wistful pangs.



     Christmas persists in being a strange time to travel.  On my first journey

(solo for 500 days or so), I endured two of them.  Both were warm, yet somehow

sad -- for even with no religious interest in the holiday I have been deeply

inculturated along with everyone else. The Christmas trees of others all seem

deficient in contrast with that perfect prototype fantasy tree imprinted 30

years ago; the traditional music is somehow evocative, the non-traditional

music grating.  The season is a confusion of love and tackiness, beauty and

clutter, generosity and guilt.  I try not to participate, but still feel the

pull of behavioral quicksand, the well-intentioned brainwashing of a culture in

transition.  Christmas is mostly a habit now, a hysterical celebration of mass

obligation... and how can a present you SHOULD buy convey anything other than

emotional self-defense?



     (And besides, I don't have room on my bicycle for new toys.)



     But no matter how philosophical I try to be about this yearly commercial

bonanza, I am still drawn in, still affected.  I look at my friends' tree and

get wistful for the bubble lights of my childhood; I walk downtown and feel the

credit cards itch.  "Oh, wouldn't Duane love this?"  "Honey, do you think Ian

would like some dinosaur mugs?" What are we going to do for all of our friends

back in Ohio, out in Dataspace, and in every other place touched by my wheels

or my hands or my words or my heart?



     And so we have been torn all week.  Stay or go?  Stay or go? Lists of pros

and cons, lists of things to do.  Aw, let's wait -- they say it's gonna rain; I

have to do the Popular Science proposal and install Maggie's new drum brake...

and Duane and Micki invited us to go caroling on our bicycles.  But we've been

here too long, and it really is a pretty day and I'm restless and damn it, if

we don't get our asses south we're going to be stuck up here till April.  No...

until May.  That's when they have the Kinetic Sculpture Race.  Isn't there SOME

way to do it all?



     Understanding why I stop reveals even more about why I go, doesn't it?



     What's particularly intriguing about all this is that from the perspective

of movement, standing still is high adventure.  The little events of daily life

-- going to parties, renting movies for the VCR, cooking a fresh seafood dinner

with friends -- are all cast into sharp relief by the exquisite transience of

passing through.  Savor this... it won't last long.



     One such tableaux of modern Americana occurred last night.  We found

ourselves at a Christmas party hosted by an atypically colorful accountant and

his flawless fashion-model bride -- in a home obsessively gardened and

passionately maintained.  I kept seeing myself as if in a commercial, one of

those soft-focus testimonials to an ideal lifestyle (dependent upon a certain

brand of wine or coffee). Everything was perfect, from the thematic and

color-coordinated 10- foot tree to the roaring fire to the dizzying spread of

roasts and exotic drinks.  Fortified by the latter, we poured into the night

and climbed aboard a chartered trolley car for a caroling excursion.



     I hung crazily off the side, playing my flute in occasional synchrony with

Duane's guitar, as we clanged our way along Eurekan streets.  30-odd mouths

vented synchronized steam; we laughed in wholesome self-mockery; familiar

Christmas melodies, slightly raucous, echoed from Victorian buildings.  Cheery

waves, jingle bells, shouting kids, heavy-laden shoppers, full-moonlight on

white lazy plumes of distant millsmoke.  At a sleazy bar known locally as the

VD, we dismounted and wove our way through the pool tables, playing and singing

Jingle Bells while eyed sullenly by drunken denizens.  (The kids waited outside

for this one, and we seemed to step a bit more quickly than we had back in the

Ritz.)



     "Lifestyle sampler," I whispered into a fragrant Maggie-ear, and she

smiled -- remembering one of the motives behind all this.  We clattered on,

exhausting our repertoire of first verses, arriving again at the dream house to

overdose on hot buttered rum and increasingly incoherent conversation as jingle

bells echoed in our heads and the night grew fuzzy...



     Three weeks.  Like Bainbridge, Humboldt has held us, teased us, mocked our

plans to move on.  To the database of potential homes I add this -- for the

friends, the ambience, the undercurrent of looniness that touches daily events

with a sense of play.  Though we're broke and living a hand-to-mouth existence

based on advance book sales, life seems rich here, full of those non-financial

components in the success formula:  the four F's of fun, food, friendship, and

passion.



     But we're moving on; it's time.  Maggie's fine-tuning her new 48- spoke

wheel; I'm poring over the maps and lists of contacts with obsessive

concentration, eschewing offers of still more parties in lieu of loose-end

tying.  Christmas or not, we're getting back on the road this week -- fully

prepared for the legendary winding grades of Leggett hill and the convoluted

Highway 1 to follow.



                                * * *



Special Bonus Recipe Section:



     As we travel, we are exposed at least once a week to something tasty.

Maggie's compiling a collection of recipes for a possible book (Eating Across

America?), complete with food-related anecdotes and quotes ("I never eat

anything that once had a face," said a vegetarian friend here.)



     But this is the Christmas season, and I'd like to pass on a hot buttered

rum recipe that will have you swilling helplessly until you run out of

ingredients or consciousness.  This stuff is exceptional:



     Create the batter by mixing a pound of brown sugar, a half-pound of

butter, and a teaspoon each of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.  Add a little rum

to give it a mousse-like consistency.



     To conjure a mug of hot buttered rum, start with a generous gob of batter,

adding an equally generous dollop of rum and enough boiling water to reach the

top.  Drink.  Make murmuring sounds of ecstasy. Repeat until discretion

dictates otherwise, and drive nothing but a bicycle till the next day.



     Enjoy...



               -- Steve