Twenty-Four Hours
One AM. I'm sitting in bed with my laptop, next to my sleeping wife, Karen. Twenty-four hours ago, I was also using the computer. I had been home from work just over an hour and was unwinding. I had given up solving a technical problem (no sound) and was busy smashing bricks with an ill-behaved ball, trying to rack up more points than my teenage son, Justin (the All Knowledgeable Master, as he likes to remind me). Justin, who is thirteen, was snoring quietly in his room. His sister, Rachel, is sleeping on her floor and not snoring--wish I'd been home early enough to know why she's on the floor! By two AM I had unwound enough to be falling asleep in bed, snuggling up with Karen.
Midst a forgotten dream, the telephone importunes. "Hello B____," I answer, the speech centers of my brain popping up from sleep long before higher thought processes can kick in. B_____ and I have breakfast at Coco's most Friday mornings. We've been doing this for five years, since he first got sober. At first, we just met to read the Big Book together. Since we finished that, we've been meeting for breakfast to just talk about life.
He's an early riser--one of those disgusting people who appreciates mornings--and calls to make certain that I haven't overslept my alarm. Today he calls late! My alarm says 6:18. That would make it 6:11 in the real world. Do I have time for the gym? Dunno. By 6:35 I'm spinning a Lifecycle and by 6:50 shoving weights around with my legs. Nope! Not time for a full workout, but I can work my quads--and that will protect my knees, which is the whole purpose of being here in a gym when decent people should be asleep!
B_____ and I have a nice breakfast. We discuss the economy, our respective workplaces, hallucinogens, the after life, and his days in Alaska. Then it's home in rush-hour traffic. I roust Justin; he hasn't taken all the trashcans out. He's grateful. Last night I told him I'd get him up at 6:00! After he comes in from his chores, we play computer games until Karen harangues us about packing. No work for me today, no school for the kids! We're off to the Sierra foothills. Saturday, Karen's great-aunt Bonnie will celebrate her 90th birthday up in the Sacramento valley. We'll be staying with Karen's brother Bill in some bucolic gold-rush town where there are no streetlights, people drill their own wells, and the crickets nearly drown out conversation at night.
Finally, we're ready to go. It's 10:15. This is the maiden voyage for the good ship Hildegard ("Hildy" from those for whom familiarity does not breed contempt), our Mazda MPV. We hit the road to the sounds of Phish navigating inner highways. Karen and I converse while wading through 405 traffic. Justin is in the way-back playing on Karen's laptop. Rachel, sitting in the second row, keeps chattering about stuff and interrupting us. It feels good to be spending time together, even if it's a long drive. We finally clear LA traffic, and Karen begins reading The Monkey Wrench Gang, a book we started on the way to Mammoth back in August. We while away the miles to a yarn about a bunch of heroic maladapted psychopaths pulling up survey stakes and destroying bulldozers to save the South West from civilization. (But, I ask you, when society is insane enough to destroy it's own matrix, isn't maladaptive behavior more sane than conformity?)
Hildy is a pleasure to drive. No more squabbling from the children about space. Unlike our poor Subaru that died six weeks ago, our Hildy can actually climb hills fully loaded while running the air conditioner. Each time she drops out of overdrive, I set the cruise control a little lower. Now I'm being passed by Suburbans and Grand Cherokees on the Grapevine. So? I haven't had to slow to below 68 MPH nor have I had to open the windows for cooling. Consumer Reports called the MPV "underpowered". What do they know? I say, let the editors spend eight years ferrying a family around in a Subaru Loyale! Let them try to climb a grade without resorting to surplus JATO packs. Hildy has plenty of power. This engine is 50% bigger than the Subaru's, it has double the horsepower, and only uses 10% more fuel while pushing a bigger and heavier car!
By noon we've evaded traffic and arrive at the Fort Tejon safety rest area. All the drinks that we have consumed scream to be released, so I pull over. When I get back from the bathroom, Justin is upset beyond tears. Karen is pretty shaken up too. Rachel is talking about a kitty in a trashcan. Some guy "who looks like a politician" has gotten out of his car, picked up a stray kitten and thrown it into one of the trash cans.
Justin wants to "kick his fu(|<ing ^ss" No, we won't have any of that. I'm about to chide Justin for his language and violent ranting when I realize how upset he is. I go on over to the trashcan and see the sweetest little black, longhaired kitty mewing inside. Slowly I ease the trash bag up, and with it the kitten. His right eye is bulging out of his head. This cat needs a vet.
I assess the situation. Abandoned cat needing medical treatment. Chances of adoption, slim to none. If he stays here at the rest stop, coyotes will get him. It would be kindest to break his neck right here and now--put him back in the trash can. He's so cute, but cute has nothing to do with it, he cannot survive on his own and we're not set to bring him with us.
I can't do this thing today, not in front of the children. Over to the pay phone. I can't believe I just dialed 911 about a stray cat. Animal control will be sent. They're coming from Bakersfield, a mere hour away. Can somebody stay with the animal until they arrive?
That's a poser. We need to hit the road. The other people who have stopped to help have a schedule to keep, too. Karen and I try to figure out where to put the cat where it can't get lost before animal control arrives. As I'm looking for a box or something to put the cute little guy into, Justin comes back over to us.
That black Grand Cherokee that just drove off is in the hands of the guy who threw the kitten in the trash. Justin had gone over and stood behind his car. When the guy and his friends returned from the bathrooms, Justin confronted him about the kitten: "How can you throw a kitten in the trash?"
"I broke its neck and killed it" the guy said, before blowing Justin off and getting back in his car. The kitten was obviously not dead. Just then, two CHP officers showed up. When they heard the story, they asked for the guy's license number. We didn't have it. Too bad, we could have sworn out a complaint and they would have had him picked up.
I was so proud of Justin. He didn't wait for somebody to tell him what to do--he exercised his power to confront what he saw as a grave injustice. He stood behind the guy's car and waited. Then he used his words and he used them properly, not provoking a fight, not name calling, but properly challenging his behavior. Justin acted with great integrity, standing up for his beliefs.
On the road again, comforting Justin. Helping him work through the I-shoulda's. "I wanna be a cop . . . then I can arrest people like that!"
From Karen, "You know, for a couple years when you were a little boy, you used to want to be a policeman, so that doesn't surprise me at all."
Then I took leave of my senses: "You know, Son, as an attorney (Goddess! I actually suggested that my son consider the legal profession, something he claims he wants to do from time to time, just to bug Karen and me), you can really stick it to people like that. As a policeman you'd only get to arrest this guy, then have to watch--helplessly--as the courts set him free over some technicality. The only satisfaction you would find would be if you beat him up yourself--and then you'd be a Bad Cop! As an attorney, you'd have the chance to examine him in court and embarrass him in front of a lot of people. You could make certain there would be not technicalities. You'd be able to threaten his money supply or his freedom. He'd be truly afraid of you." Later I discuss it some more with Justin. I tell him how I thought that perhaps killing the cat quickly might be the kindest thing. That man could have been trying to help the kitty by putting it out of its misery. There are many ways to read the situation, many different stories that could be told. Nevertheless, I am glowing with pride--grateful that Justin has the courage to act on his convictions, and I tell him so. That is my story.
We keep an eye out for the black Grand Cherokee, but don't see it. Karen returns to reading The Monkey Wrench Gang and I stay entertained, dodging the occasional truck and ducking back into the right lane for that seemingly endless motorcade of people who find 79 MPH just to darn slow for I5.
As we approach Harris Ranch (halfway to San Fran, where the 198 crosses I5 on its winding way to Coalinga), automated signs foretell an accident and traffic delays. I pray to all the traffic gods that it will be beyond Harris Ranch—we are all feeling urgent needs in our bodies. Too much fluid to retain much longer!
Nope! The accident is before Harris Ranch by about five miles ("and you can't get a refund, if you overpray", Phish intones from the CD player). It takes us fifteen minutes to get to the accident. The left lane is blocked for fuel clean up. We wonder why three vehicles would collide in the middle of Route 5.
Drivers seem content to slowly accelerate to 45 or 50 MPH after the accident scene. I gun the engine and start weaving through traffic. Harris Ranch is only a mile or so distant. We can see it dancing in a mirage. Traffic is stopping again. I barely reign in Hildy fast enough to avoid rear-ending the car in front of us. Ah, that's how the accident happened! CalTrans has closed the right lane for as far as my eyes can see. Traffic flow resembles the 405 on a rainy Friday afternoon (For those of you who've never had this experience, imagine cars locked bumper to bumper, travelling slowly enough that a toddler could keep up--when they're fortunate enough to move at all). We can endure for another mile or two. What does that sign say? RAMP CLOSED!?!
Hey Karen, unroll your window and ask that road worker how we're supposed to get to the gas station. What? Drive down the freeway several miles, take the next off-ramp, make my way back via a winding country road? Doesn't this yokel realize that bladder pressures are reaching critical? "We desperately need gas, can't we use the ramp, real quickly?"
"I'm sorry sir, the ramp is closed." He turns back to leaning on his shovel with an air of final dismissal. We agonize past the 198 over crossing. Hey, the southbound ramp is open! We wait for a break in southbound traffic, then cowboy across the median (We're not the first to do this, look at all these tire tracks!), and pull into an oasis called Taco Bell.
Twenty minutes, much relieved, 375 calories, 13 gallons and one map later (we decided the $6.99 Indian blankets weren't necessary on this trip), we navigate down the 198, away from the 5. Even country roads can't be worse than the traffic clot formed around CalTrans work. This was our attempt at a coronary by-pass. Sure enough, we make good progress, 50 - 60 MPH, slowing only occasionally for the many curves.
Phish is on the stereo, playing their melodic juju and transforming this surreal tangent into an interesting trip. "Hey, what are you doing!?!" Karen shouts as I slow and pull over. I am risking her ire, stopping to read a historical marker. Here they hung Juaquin Murrieta, the infamous bandit who robbed stage and mining town. If Mexico had managed to hang onto Alto California, would we be stopped at a memorial, reading in Espanol of a Robin Hood martyr who gringos murdered here? I ponder this as Karen tries to patch through a cell call to her brother. Soon we double back to the freeway and find that traffic is flowing again.
Did we save time? Who knows! We did trade the boring sameness of a traffic jam (beware of clicking the hyperlink) for novelty, experiencing a road we had never even seen on a map before. With the ingression of novelty, information expands. But, we did not cause entropy to increase! Thus, the ingression of novelty is a contra-entropic process . . . (I have been reading too much Terrence McKenna!)
The trip continues relatively uneventfully. Justin's bladder gives out first and we stop at some roadside oasis for his comfort and to dose Karen with a Diet Coke (against her doctor's orders). I return from the filling station having been snared by product placement marketing. I have a sign to hang on the rear window of Hildy--"Cats, the other white meat". My neck is sore so I read while Karen drives.
This is fun, too. Hildy is a comfortable car. We hit Stockton and I switch from prose to music so Karen can navigate. No, I don't sing! I pop in a Claude Bolling CD, Suite for Violin and Jazz Piano Trio. That works. Soothing enough to enable Karen's mind to navigate (She's quite clever. She wrote the directions on a large post-it note before we left. Now she's stuck to the steering wheel!), upbeat enough so nobody falls asleep. Rachel and I chomp on bubblegum, seeing who can blow big bubbles. Rachel gets some truly impressive ones. My biggest one pops all over my glasses and beard. I stay entertained grooming myself while we cruise through apple orchards and grape vineyards and Rachel giggles at my misfortune. We begin to climb; the orchards give way to oak grassland and finally pine forest.
Before too much longer we're arriving at Bill's home at Mount Aukum in the Sierra foothills, 3,800 feet above sea level. After unloading Hildy, I quickly discover three different species of oak trees in Bill's back yard. There are the "black" oaks, just starting to turn to gold; the "robles," live-oaks that keep their leaves all Winter; and another shrub with leaves that resemble willow leaves (they're a little too short for willow, and they totally lack the "fjords" and serrations typical of all the other oak leaves I've seen), but it has wonderful big acorns, so it must be an oak! There are plenty of pine trees and many grand manzanita bushes (I'll have to take some pictures of those to encourage our little manzanitas at home).
As the sun sets, I sit down in a lounger and listen to the crickets. They are loud! Watching the last violet glow of the terminator fade to a velvety black that even an Elvis painting would envy, black I start obsessing:
Evening at 3800 Feet
Deafening crickets,
purple sky indigoes to black,
timid stars peak around
a ponderosa apron.Why do I live in the city?
Wow! (Hang on, there's gonna be a bunch more "wows" to come.) There's the crescent moon, the Hunter's Moon (third day after the new moon, named for the bow of Diana, the Virgin (not virgin in the sense of "untouched by man", but virgin in the sense of "unowned by any man", accountable to neither husband nor father.) Huntress), setting just over the ridge, silhouetting the pines and oaks. I call for Karen, she can't come, she's setting the table. Nonsense! This is important! What is it?! Come here! Oh. Ooooh. Uh hunh. Yeah. Mmmm. And there's Venus, too. A moment of magic shared, Karen goes back to set the table and I try to snap a picture. Too late! I traded a photo op for magic with my honey. A bargain even at twice the price!
Bill BBQ's some excellent steak and serves it up with marinated mushrooms, homemade pasta, and asparagus. We have an enjoyable dinner. Karen (Bill's fiancée, not mein Frau) introduces the most novelty to dinner, entertaining us with asparagus. Everybody should have an Aunt Karen who can make asparagus funny. Afterwards she whips up an incredibly decadent desert (she enriches a yellow cake mix with heroic quantities of powdered sugar, cream cheese, butter, and eggs—just looking at this delight has been known to cause mass myocardial infarctions in audiences as young as 23 years of age!). Justin makes some wise-crack and then gets to replace his mother, washing dishes with me by hand, something he's never done before (Yes, we really are negligent parents!). Novelty ingresses again and entropy is held at bay once more. Even though he doesn't like washing dishes, he learns to do a good job. I am so proud of him.
We then retire to the back yard to sit and ponder the stars and joke with each other. Bella, the bat who lives by the water heater buzzes us a few times. I scan the sky with binocs. We spot several meteors each hour. A magical night. Then I find it, just above the tall pine. A grey blot of light, that stretches nearly to the boundaries of my binocular field of vision. The blob is oval and brighter in the center. It looks like a galaxy! I check the star chart in October's Astronomy magazine--sure enough, it's the Andromeda Galaxy, M31.
People wander off to bed and I set up my telescope. (The sky is impressive, but my scope is not. It's a Meade DS-70. The chromatic aberration is significant. Even across Jupiter's tiny disk, I can see blue on one side and red on the other. I would not recommend this scope to anybody. For a little more money you can get a 6 or 8 inch reflector on an equatorial mount. Do it! The DS-70 has dime store quality optics.) Wow! No doubt, it's a galaxy now! I coax Justin back outside and he gets to see this wonder. It lies just off the Milky Way, our galaxy. The "milk" of the Milky Way resolves to gazillions of stars through my binocs. Here I am looking at an entire collection of a gazillion or so stars, umpteen light-years away! Wow! Justin's exhaustion overwhelms his wonder and he goes to bed. M31 is nearly at the zenith, so it's a real pain in the neck to view.
Time to go look at Jupiter. Problem. Jupiter and Saturn have both risen behind the tallest stand of pines. I wander around with the scope and finally discover a break in the timber. Saturn first. Last time I tried to see its rings I was sadly disappointed. All I could see was a slightly elongated star. Tonight I have some higher power objective lenses with me. I can make out the elongated shape with my binocs. Perhaps with more practice on the scope I can actually make out the rings. I fiddle with the scope. I swap lenses. I fiddle some more. OK, at high power, I think I can make out the rings as distinct from the planet. Not impressive enough to risk life and limb dragging somebody out of bed to share this blur with.
OK, now really time for Jupiter. Sure enough, Jupiter shows up as a nice little disk. I can see the four Gallilean moons, Callisto and Ganymede on one side, Europa on the other. They look like dim stars and aren't hard to distinguish at all. Wait a sec, where's Io? Ah, there it is, just barely a hair's width away from the planet. This is impressive. Who's still awake? Karen is just getting out of the shower. Once again, I prevail on her to come outside--she's never seen Jupiter's moons before. We share the magic together. Wild turkeys serenade us from the trees. Something much larger begins to rattle the bushes. I grab the scope and scramble up the hill with Karen in tow.
Bedtime.
No, not yet. Too much has happened today. Friendships and kittens, family togetherness, wonders of the universe. Which is more awesome, seeing another galaxy up close and personal, or watching my son stand up for what he believes in? No question in my mind, the galaxy does even take a close second. What's more meaningful, seeing the Gallilean moons of Jupiter, or laughing with my daughter? Still no question in my mind. What can compare with holding my wife and watching the Hunter's Moon disappear beyond the ridge? Nothing. I know the memories of today will never truly fade, but I want to capture as much as possible in writing. Make it easier to share with more people. Today I was reminded of what life is all about. Tonight I am profoundly grateful.
Tomorrow? The morrow is for editing. And celebrating Aunt Bonnie's 90th birthday. Now that's a woman who's experienced plenty of novelty—how can you not and still live 90 years?
Visitors
10/07/2001