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 The Hole into Nowhere

There is a sense of anticipation when a 5-year-old goes to work with his dad, especially when dad is a farmer. It matters not at all that many tasks required of a farmer are repetitive, like driving a tractor all day in ever decreasing circles on a large piece of land. A five can find ways to entertain himself. There are also many other days during which there are smaller objectives (a “Jillion” things to do, as my father would say). In that case, one of the main jobs of the day is usually to stop at the hardware store or the local grain co-op office and visit with other farmers.

In 1959 Waitsburg, a little wheat town in the foothills of the Blue Mountains of Southeastern Washington State, the local hardware store had a potbellied stove and coffee pot up near the counter, a natural gathering place for locals to swap comments on weather, debate recent news and generally maintain community awareness. A kid my age was pretty much left to his own devices during this kind of visit, and a hardware store can be a really fascinating place, especially at the visual level of an inquisitive five. The old building on the corner of Highway 124 and Main Street had a marvelous, creaking wooden floor, and there were seemingly endless aisles of curious “things” easily inspected and handled by nimble fingers.

I began one particular morning’s story time by sitting for a while next to dad near the cookie plate, but as that source of interest quickly emptied, the latest brag stories about deer hunting exceeded my attention span. I slipped off my chair and began a tour of the store by tip-toeing carefully along the narrow wooden plank lines in the floor like a tight-rope or walking along on train track rail. The floor didn’t creak under my weight like it did for an adult. I was quickly and quietly absorbed several aisles away from the coffee area. It was warm in the store, and cold outside. It felt good to be moving along as my ears warmed up and there were so many things to examine. Presently I noticed something unusual on the floor along the back wall. It was a dark spot, about 2 inches or so across, square in shape and with the deepest, darkest black in the middle. There was no sound or light coming from it, and it seemed very odd to my understanding of how a floor should be. I had never encountered anything like it in other floors at home or in Mrs. Moore’s kindergarten classroom in the basement of the high school building, nor in any other house I could recall. My attention was focused entirely on this strangeness!

What is this silent blackness? What would happen if I put something into it? Immediately I began to cast about for an experimental object suitable for a test. I found a small bolt on the floor not 5 feet away. Retrieving it, I then squatted near enough to reach the oddness in front of the toes of my Redwings. I held the bolt briefly about an inch above the hole and released it. Eureka! It disappeared instantly, silently and completely! It was as if there was never any such bolt in existence. This was truly magical! It demanded further research. I became intensely focused on locating additional objects of the proper size and shape to launch into…where! No-where! How could this be? It was fortunate that I was in such a place that had so very many things that could be pressed into service in the name of science! Bolts, nuts and washers, electrical connectors, fishing lures, a small screwdriver, copper plumbing parts, pencils…as quickly as I could locate each item, return to the Hole-Into-Nowhere and apply it, I was off in search of another piece.

The thing most curious was that there was never any indication that this hole had any limits. There was no sound, no air movement, nothing at all. Just this instantaneous flash into nothing. It was so consistent that it began to be monotonous. Then, I heard dad’s voice calling my name. It was time to get back to the chores of the day. The group was breaking up and heading out. I trotted back to the front of the store and we quickly emerged back into the crisp fall day. Kim, our German Shepard was waiting impatiently in the back of the blue Chevy pickup to be underway.

I never did go back to find the secret of that hole, and in the way of a five-year-old, my mind was occupied with other things that day, so I never asked dad about it. Much later I did learn that there is a basement under that old building, where old display fixtures and other store items were stored. I now have a theory that at some time, in that dimly lit room under the store the proprietor must have come upon a small pile of various objects on the floor along the back wall, all of which would fit through about a two-inch hole. I would give a fair amount to have seen and heard his reaction to that discovery. Still, there was such a powerful magic at work that day, I wonder if those things ever really did reappear after they vanished in the Hole-Into-Nowhere.

 ©2020, MarketBullets, LLC

Throwing Rocks at Things

There is a satisfaction that comes from tactile things. Maybe it is a residual of babyhood’s drive to explore by tasting and touching everything, but the experience of holding a cool smooth rock, about the size of a chicken’s egg with just enough rough edge for a fingertip to feel, makes a deep sensation. For a 10-year-old on a warm spring afternoon, that sensation is an almost compelling urge to throw it, usually at something, hopefully not something made of glass. There are millions of targets; fence posts, mud banks, puddles, sticks floating in the water, pigeons, tin cans…whenever there is a moment in any given day without focus, especially when waiting for something or someone. It is an ancient ritual; “Throwing Rocks at Things While Waiting” is a sanctioned activity, with an unofficial Hall of Fame (Remember that time waiting for our ride when we were throwing rocks at the pigeons on the shed roof and you hit the big white one in the butt?). Heck! Adam probably threw rocks at the apples on the tree while waiting for Eve.

In our case, there was a gravel driveway that curved gently along the edge of a pasture, close by the edge of a 30-foot high bluff above a small, rapidly flowing river. That driveway was traversed twice a day during school weeks, once in the morning in a big rush to catch the yellow bus that stopped at the top, and once in the afternoon, much more leisurely in the golden light of a westering sun. There were plenty of rocks on that path above the stream. In the space of half an hour, it was possible to select and throw dozens of them off the cliff; some thrown hard into the mud directly below, yielded a gratifying “thwup” and a nice impact crater to mark the spot. A few went straight into the deepest water, making a “chusst” sound if flat and “ke-ploosh” if round. Some, targeting various sticks or prominent larger stones, clattered on the opposite side of the crick, and much farther down the stream some landed with a visible splash to measure distance by (it turns out that a good flat rock thrown with just a little extra flick of the wrist will float a bit for longer flight). Occasionally there was an attempt to strike a flying cliff swallow from the colony in the bank below the driveway, but even for a skilled rockist there is really no chance of actually hitting one of these agile creatures in flight, who seem able to actually inspect the rock for details before smoothly flicking out of harm’s way to one side, only to return defiantly to the same looping flight path again and again. No cliff swallows were ever injured in the research for this essay.

Rock throwing is a sport easily made competitive among friends, with one naming a target and the rest pelting around said bullseye until it is hit, whereupon there is a brief cheer and a new objective is announced, e.g. “That stump way down there by the water”, or a tin can placed on a fence post. There is a variant of this sport using crab apples and throwing them at each other, but that is an unapproved, non-league event with a short season, and it can leave welts.

Whenever we found ourselves close to the edge of a smooth expanse of water, skipping flat rocks on the surface also emerged as a competitive skill. This is at a more intermediate-to-expert rockist level, as the spotting and selection of the properly shaped rock is as important as the throwing technique, which is a specific kind of side-arm slinging motion. In fact, when one encounters the ideal skipping rock, it is such a treasure that some have been known to hold them back for the end of the session, so as to close with the best skipping throw of the day amongst the group, or even taking them home for hoarding. (Mom or Dad, if you find a pile of smooth flat rocks about the size of the bottom of your coffee cup in the kid’s room, do not throw them out, they are pure gold) The beginning rock skipper can usually manage up to about three “skips” before the rock sinks, but the expert can cause the thing to skip many times and then finish with a wobbling hydro-plane glide on the water before vanishing. Pure poetry!   

All those afternoons throwing rocks had cumulative effects on things, particularly on the driveway. Dad wondered aloud why the gravel in that section seemed to be thinner than in other parts of the driveway, as he had carefully hauled and dumped load after load of “crick-rock” in an effort to keep that track from being just muddy. I’m pretty sure he knew what was up, though, as he was himself a highly ranked rockist.

Another effect is a really strong baseball throwing arm, capable of picking up a hot grounder in far left field and pitching it with enough speed toward home plate to make it all the way to the chain-link fence several feet to the right of the catcher…without a bounce! Notwithstanding the question of accuracy, there was a definite intake of breath among the fans in appreciation of the power of that ball when it rattled the chain-link fence directly in front of them; “Tasssh!”.

Sometimes the practice really pays. The ability to accurately and without damage toss a carefully selected tiny rock (technically a “pebble”, according to the International Rockist Union Handbook) against an upper story window to attract the attention of certain interesting persons (but not the attention of said person’s parents), is a coveted and legendary skill requiring finesse and tact, along with a certain savoir faire…

Among hoomans, some of whom actually seem to have rocks in their heads, rocks thrown as a defensive tactic have often caused more problems than they solved, but it is clear that most creatures understand what a thrown rock indicates and are likely to withdraw to a more cautious distance. It is a form of communication. A “Proven Exception” is any wasp or hornet nest! These critturs are very unreasonable about any perceived assault on their establishments, they do not negotiate and they seem to have no reverse gear. Apparently they regard a thrown rock as a missile and an act of war. Still, there is some respect in the universe for a good rock-thrower, at least as long as there are rocks around.

In all known history, Throwing Rocks at Things has been mostly innocent, healthy, even joyful, although it may be that in extreme cases, some of the big kids have turned the activity into a more sinister and dangerous game known as “Politics”, but that is another and darker story. Meanwhile, there is still that inexpensive and soul-soothing satisfaction one may have by calling up that 10-year-old that resides within you, walking down a path to the stream, or just along a country road, picking up a few rocks and throwing them at things. Just remember to pick targets far away from grandpa’s car, and definitely not a mailbox, and not the cat, and of course not the sunflowers over the fence, or the chickens, or the prize bull in the corral, or the lights, or your sister…Come to think of it, your Mama taught you what not to throw rocks at! So be good, practice your judgment and throw rocks at appropriate things and not at people.      

© 2020 MarketBullets LLC

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The Night Crawler and the Owl

There are patterns in our lives, everyday habits that are woven into our days because they answer a question, bring comfort, or preserve a story that bears repeating. Some of these habits reach such a level of power that they are deemed holy, and a ritual is born. The best rituals capture and nurture a spirit that lifts the ordinary toward the divine.

There is a ritual that is part of going fishing.  It is an earthy, fundamental act, not connected with that marvelously arcane art form, fly fishing. It is much closer to the ground, low-basic, ancient, even Paleolithic. When you are hungry and have no $500 fly fishing outfit, how do you catch a fish? Worms on hooks tied to a stick. No fancy, triple-haul casting, just get the bait on the hook and into the water. Such basic equipment, when combined with a little study of what a trout really wants, is enough to reliably catch fish. It is not the high sport that fly fishing can be, but it is still a great endeavor, often ending in a fresh and tasty trout breakfast or supper. Warning: There is a sacrifice that must be made in this ritual! The sacrificial critter in this effort is the worm. He has to be a tough and meaty specimen to stay on the hook in swift water, while also being attractive to virtually every fish in existence.  There is but one species that has the ideal characteristics required, known in many languages around the world as, “night crawler”, otherwise known as “big fat worm”. (An alternate definition is apparently “One who frequents multiple drinking establishments at night”). The time to collect these wary and interesting creatures (not the drunks) begins the evening before a planned fishing expedition. As I learned at a very early age, in order to have sufficient bait in the required Hills Brothers Coffee can for the next day, there is a proper sequence that must occur. Variations from this proper series of actions can disturb the fishing spirits and may prevent good fishing luck. Whatever…it works pretty well.

In this liturgy, the first thing is at about sundown, set the yard sprinkler in a nice spot with grass that is not too tall or matted, best if you can see bits of the soil in small patches between grass plants. Let the water run about 20 minutes. Then leave the area undisturbed until after bedtime, or at least completely dark. In the summer this may be considerably after bed time for four-year-olds, so it is a “VBD” Very Big Deal if you are asked to accompany your dad in the effort to catch the wily worm. Equipment required is a flashlight and the worm can with a little damp soil mixed with grass in the bottom to keep them from drying out. The flashlight must not be extremely bright, so wrapping some wax paper over the lens with rubber bands may be prudent. Then, when the four-year-old is yawning, but still excited to go, it is time to set off to “get the night crawlers”. To a very young kid’s ears, you might as well say “get the dragons”, or “capture the beasts”, or some other swashbuckling kind of talk. It is very compelling and a little scary.

As we leave the house, we drop our voices to whispers, so as not to scare the worms. Tension begins to mount. The owls are talking back and forth among the treetops, some with great, deep calls, and some with higher tones, each from different directions, back and forth. We can even hear the ones clear down by the crick. As we walk over the grass to the place we watered before supper, we begin to go very slowly and quietly, almost tip-toeing. Then dad gets down on his hands and knees and tells me to climb on. I understand this action, as I have been on this horse before, but that was a much more raucous and lively approach. This time I climb carefully on and then put my head right next to his so I can see the ground in front of us, holding on with my arms around his neck and my short legs gripping on as much as I can around his sides. I can hear him breathing and his whiskers rub my cheek a bit. The owl’s parliament is in full throat as we begin. Slowly and carefully we scan the ground with the muted flashlight. Dad stops the light and whispers, “There’s one!” I can see, between the sparkling wet grasses, a small patch of a shiny brown worm body about the diameter of my big drawing pencil. Dad reaches down with his fingers in a pincher position. Slowly, slowly reaching until his hand is poised about 2 inches above the unsuspecting worm, then, pounce!  The art is gripping and lifting the worm hard enough that it cannot wriggle away, but not so hard that it is injured. There is a brief tug o’ war, as the night crawler tries desperately to pull itself back into its hole between the grass plants. With patience and steady upward pressure, dad brings the worm gently up into the air. We inspect this wonderful catch carefully. A fine specimen! Dropping it into the coffee can, we begin the hunt again. Often, as the flashlight beam slides across the ground, we see worms flash away very quickly, snapping back into their holes. They seem to see the light, or at least feel it. Even a carelessly heavy knee movement or a palm on the ground warns them to scram! There is no way to catch these, but there are many more waiting. I am really enjoying this, and would express my enthusiasm, but dad reminds me to be quiet. I strive to hold steady to his strong, warm back without choking him. I sense I must be a good hunting partner and must not disturb the adventure. Again and again I hear him whisper, “There’s one!” and I thrill each time the motions of the sacrament are repeated. Now we have 10 worms, a great can full of bait for tomorrow’s fishing effort. Tomorrow’s offering is prepared. The ritual is complete!

It is time for bed, I dismount my trusty steed and we retire from the field, leaving our worm can on the front porch in accordance with Mom’s firm instructions, and entering the seemingly very brightly lit house with the great promise before us of a fishing trip tomorrow. For me, the anticipation is huge. It is almost as sweet as Christmas! I do not remember how I was able to fall asleep, but I do recall waking up the next morning with a burst of energy, popping out of bed effortlessly with great momentum, ready to go.

As a few years passed, I became an independent worm hunter. I enjoyed the worm gathering ritual almost as much as fishing. In fact there were several times that I actually initiated a worm safari all by myself, with no intention of going fishing any time soon. Before this time, I had never been a fan of the dark, but as I developed my night crawler skills, I began to have an actual affinity for the darkness and especially for the owls. I reached the point where I thought I could tell their sonorous calls apart. They became old friends and partners on my worm expeditions. My fear of the dark dissipated as my sense of independent adventure increased. Later, when I began to camp along the Touchet River, sometimes with friends and sometimes alone, I never lost that feeling of adventure and anticipation. Even now I never forget to whisper, “There’s one!” whenever I spot a worm, as I hunt the wily night crawler, and to this day when I take a late night stroll, I commune with the owls as they debate across the moonlit meadow.

PS Don’t ever leave the worm can on a fence post in the sun.

© 2020 MarketBullets LLC

 The Wind on Reservoir Hill

The ridge is more than two miles long, and runs north-south in a part of the country famous for long, steep slopes of soft, deep volcanic soil. It’s covered with wheat now. Once it was endless bunchgrass, a hundred-fifty years ago and ten thousand years before that. And always there is the wind, gentle and sweet in the spring, soft and hot in the summer, sharp and hard-edged in the winter. Talking, crying, singing of memory, witness to sky, rain, fire, and time. When it gets hot and the wind is slow, there are many fathoms of deep silence between the hills, so deep and silent that you can hear your own heartbeat, and breathing sounds loud. It feels eerily as though you are not alone, and of course you are not. The wind is behind you, in front of you, all around you. Not a pushing, tumbling rush, just a hush, a feather on your ear.

In the deep canyon east of the ridge, shaded at the end of summer days, there is an old, empty house; a tall, once white, now gray, gothic style farmhouse, with tall and narrow, double-hung windows in the front, on the sides and below the high edges of the faded clapboards to the second story. Today, there are no curtains and only little bits of glass in some of the windows that look out like dark hollow eyes. Once those windows glowed yellow in the dark of a summer evening. Now they are open to the pigeons, owls, and bats. If you stand very still on the old wooden front porch and listen patiently and quietly, you may hear the faint echoes of people, laughing, arguing, singing, and talking.

The kitchen, just inside the front door and the center of life in that house, had a big, double sink with an old-fashioned water pump handle in the middle of a long counter. To the side, there was a cabinet-style icebox that rarely had ice in it. Eventually the icebox was replaced with a fancy electric refrigerator model, but that had to wait until much, much later, when the Rural Electric Association could bring the poles and wires up the winding dirt road, five miles south from the main road. Meanwhile, there was the two-blade generator windmill mounted above the bunkhouse by the main house, but it could only charge two of the big, glass jar batteries, which were used just for lights. Through a door in the back of the kitchen was the washroom, with counters for the enameled wash basins used at the end of each day’s work to scrub hands and face, and a place to change into your “good shirt” for supper. Built into the steep flank of the ridge immediately behind the house was a root cellar, a dark and cool room with a carefully fitted door to keep hungry mice and other critturs out of the stored food, dried vegetables, and other vulnerable goodies.

Next to the washroom door, there was a big old wood stove, a fancy one with chrome claw feet, chrome corners, four burners, a generous oven to the side and a warmer above the back. From that stove, the smells of bread, roast with onions and wood smoke spoke of supper ready. Wood was precious, as the only local source was the gnarly, thorny, tough locust trees planted to “prove up” the homestead claim. Those hardy, determined trees still grow and multiply themselves to this day in the dry canyons between the ridges on just the promise of moisture to come later. They can withstand deer, fire, and drought better than any other tree, and the firewood that comes from them burns hot for a long time, which is good because it is serious work to render those wiry, cross-grained, twisted trees into pieces that fit in the stove.  

Once there was a tiny building high up on the top of the hill above the old farmhouse. The little structure gave the ridge its family name: “Reservoir Hill”. Under that simple shingled roof was a large cistern dug into the top of the hill that was filled with water from the end of a pipe. A pipe that climbed more than 1,500 feet up the steep western slope of the ridge. When the well near the house ran too low to be useful (and this was often), this ambitious project started from a windmill-driven well at the base of the next canyon to the west, where good water was struck a few hundred feet deep below the surface. That cistern at the top supplied water to the house, horses, and cattle of the homestead. If that well ran low, the water had to be hauled from many miles away in a large tank. It might as well have been called “Determination Ridge”.

It was in that little cistern shack, or what was left of it 60 years ago, where I first met the talking wind. If you sit quietly on an empty bucket in the corner, you will notice that the wind is sighing through the cracks between the wooden boxing of the walls. At first, it is only a rising and falling note, of no pattern or unusual sound, just the wind; but then you notice the barest suggestion of a song with an irregular rhythm. Perhaps a murmured prayer, of no discernable words, or sentences, but with a quiet sense of message. Every time I have come there, I have met and heard that ancient wind; the wind that may bring wisdom if I care to listen. Some folks may be made uneasy by this voice, as it may remind them of things forgotten, of things as they are, and of some things yet to be. Solitude at the ranch is different than being alone elsewhere.  You may shake your head, but until you go quietly and listen on Reservoir Hill, you may never know and learn from the wind that has no end.

Epilogue    

Frederick Hofer came there when he was young, a tall, dark-bearded Swiss. He had left his home in Langenthal, Switzerland with a fierce yearning in his heart that he did not express easily, to anyone, with a great determination that sometimes led others to feel that he was not listening to them. He wanted a place. He dreamed of earth, his own, on which he could plant, and work and live. He had travelled thousands of miles, across the ocean, and then the plains, and finally he came to the long ridges of grass. There was only his heartbeat, never enough water, his horses, the coyotes and hawks, and a little dab of cash money left over from the long ride west, including what he earned on the way. It was enough to begin, after he paced off the ground and signed the contract committing to his 160-acre homestead claim. He worked every day, all day in the dust, sun, sweat and wind. When it rained, he worked on the little house, or the leather tack that let the horses pull the plow. When it was hot, he spent a lot of time trying to get water from the well. When he slept, the wind lifted his dreams. Later, when his hard work began to show results, he brought his bride Elizabeth, a tiny, fierce woman, unafraid of the wind, of hard work, or of Frederick. There would be children, and then grandchildren. Together, their great, driving desire was to create a place for a family and a legacy. The old homestead house in the canyon between the ridges was a part of that creation.

The family that Frederick and Elizabeth built lives on in the wider world, far from Reservoir Hill, but the wind of the old place may reach them in all places. Their children and their children’s children may yet come to the old place, and marvel at the grit and determination of their ancestor. There, among the locust trees he planted and the long ridges he farmed, they may come to understand the wind on Reservoir Hill.    

 

I sing, but I am silent

I may cut, but have no knife

If you seek, I always answer

With the secrets of your life

What am I?