winterletter

For some time now I have considered starting a new letter and have as easily put it off, hopelessly emmeshed in a soup of manana-time and a vacuum of ambition. If procrastination were some great good, then I would be a saint in the Church of Tommorow. I spin excuses out of the thin air of 6,000 feet and long high-desert views, and no matter how poorly spun they effectively block me from putting my fingers to the keyboard and my mind to the words. It escapes me that I actually do enjoy writing. Instead, I find myself puzzling over just what I am doing here, and mulling the seemingly absolutely changlessness of this place. Finally, the motivation arrives by way of friends writing to ask what the hell is going on with me - us, and why I don't write, and when am I coming home. The winter letter emerges by popular demand. Home sounds intriguing: if I could just recall where I left it.

It has been almost five months since we returned to Stitzel, and I believe we both might say "a very long five months at that." The weather has lived up to expectations and been, in general, fabulous. 'Too good to be true,' it is called and then the irony of realized dreams must be savored. Oh yes, lots of sun-baked 70 degree days here, while others are seen facing the polar pig head on in squinty-eyed determination - experiencing the sort of cold that freezes the snot on your upper lip as your nose runs freely. Count me out, I said, and stand staring at the motionless hills.

A moaning on the wires; more news coming from the outside world: bombs and bullets arriving soon in a city near you, but here the 'yotes sing about house cats for dinner, and the overt violence of life rarely exceeds that. Were I to confess that we drown in the silence and take long naps to pass our way softly thru the overwhelming peace, it might sound like another whining definition of boredom, and your tolerance for me would grow thin. Let me say, rather, that I hate that word: boredom. Such nasty implications of wasted time there, self-pity even. Let me assure you that we are not bored. We are just generally too-thru with all this grand solitude and ready to move on along to something else. Somewhere between spiritual awareness and thrill-seeking, we lie upon the curve of human endeavor. And who is wasting time? I have spent my winter well-occupied in reading 17th Century European history, and if my memory weren't as porous as a drunk's good intentions I would be able to tell you who the Jacobites were, and why Louie was called the Sun King.

Some things do stay with me. I recollect the immediacy of a fox calling out one evening for several minutes. We call him Ralph, as that is what he calls himself. Louie was just a different time and place and less memorable.

That is what we shall do here, in about four weeks, become memories to our co-tenants. Pat says even late March is too early to head for Maine, but wonders why we didn't leave last week; some are not easily pleased. I trust that the turning of the Vernal Equinox will offer us safe passage south, to the Gulf Coast, and we may then camp our way east, tent trailer in tow, Boxers aboard, dieties large and small willing. Our thinking is that somewhere, maybe near Savannah, or Charleston, spring's green and golden window will open and we can dash madly north. We do greatly look forward to being back in Maine; it is a place we haved truly missed.

All of this brings up the obvious questions: what about Stitzel? Don't you love it there? Isn't the high-desert in your blood? Hmmmmm.... "Well, yes," I say, "of course." But you are talking to a born vagabond. I was raised in the back seat of an Oldsmobile by Gypsies. Tires on blacktop sang me to sleep all thru my childhood. Countless nights I stared out the back window of the car into trailing headlights, wondering who was following us and where 'they' were going. And now, Stitzel's time may just be winding down. Some of you have roots that run from your core to the deepest bedrock beneath you. Mine are so loose as to almost have wings.

We came to Stitzel Canyon to stay in '96, and I said at that time that I could see this being our home for 10 or 15 years, and then we would do something else; I was trying to picture myself approaching 70, trying to gauge what my remaining resources might be. (If any of you were around and also heard a fellow who looks a lot like me saying that he would die here in 40 years, a desert rat to the bone, well, he was an impostor given to wild enthusiams. I must warn you to take his pronouncements, should you run into him again, with a a large grain of salt. He has often posed as me and caused serious misunderstandings.) My proposed time limits here were based only on the consideration of the inroads of age. Stitzel would not be a place for the infirm; I could fathom that from the start. Not that I see myself getting infirm any time soon, but I am not sure how much longer I want to sling a chainsaw and dance the 'pick and shovel' up a dirt road. As far as my health goes, the arthritis in my knees was a very limiting factor for me at 52, when I retired, and now I rarely even think of it - can you say Glucosamine and Chondroitin in the same breath?

It was an interesting time, 1996. We came here against the grain, ignoring good advice. Experts warn that you should not wander too far from what you know when you retire. Stay close to family, they advise. Maintain a semblance of order in your lives. Remain near to the familiar. Ride this time of stress in the calm knowledge that you still are who you've always been; grip the hand of the goddess, Continuity, as your step slows and uncertainty probes your foundations. In short, I guess it's stay home, pop a beer, kick back, and enjoy your Golden Years.

Pullleeeze.... Cut the crap. My experience, as an inveterate survivor, has been that if you are suddenly exposed to enough air, and you note that it is moving past you at an ever-increasing speed, and you see that the ground looms, you stand a fair chance of growing wings - or, like me, you may just be a quick healer. So, the hell with it! We were the science experiment that escaped from the refrigerator.

Pat is a trooper; she is always there, no matter what foolishness I manage to immerse us in. I cannot speak for her deepest internal resources and processes; I know only what I observe. She is here. She is hopeful. She is obviously a fellow-survivor and well up for the rigors of the living-lab. For my own part, let me simply warn you that when you retire, no matter how much you loathed your employment and longed for release, you will find that very release to be unnerving. A guaranteed income, known as a pension, is not the panacea you had imagined: indeed, it is strangely disturbing to find yourself being paid to do whatever is in your pointy little head to try. I cannot begin to explain this strangeness of release from necessity's bonds. When it happens to you, write and tell me about your experience. I am truly interested.

I will be 60 later this year, and Pat 66. I find myself, in small measure only, weakened by decades of misuse; I am not quite the spry lad I once was. I have begun to slow for the curves. And I am truly not as driven. I find I can be lazy now; I can sit and read, and I don't feel required to go out and stack stones and move large objects to and fro. This winter I have actually had weak moments, daydreams of towns where one can walk to libraries and sidewalk cafes. This is not the 'me' who felt certain he had gotten clear of the Golden State just ahead of a sniper's crosshairs, or the E.R.-occupying malcontent with the AK47, sighing with relief at the Arizona line and moving east.

The above is offered simply as an introduction to acquaint those who might otherwise be surprised, that we may be considering new directions. Not like much we do would surprise those who have witnessed our leap from Napa Valley to Stitzel, or our sudden urge to visit Maine and buy a house. We keep our options open. Whatever we do our plans include keeping the Marston Hill house, in Maine, and living there summers. We have had an inital talk on what we might do winters, other than Stitzel. We skirt the issue of selling Stitzel to free up the cash for the pied a tierre in Havanna - dream on! Nothing is in any way settled. Further negotiations will be forthcoming. We explore. We consider. It has been our good fortune that whatever we try, the effort is rewarded often enough to keep us coming back. Are you listening and nodding, Dr. Pavlov? Is the human condition now clear?

When we arrived here from Maine, last October, I was floored by the amount of email awaiting me in the suspended gilanet.com account, our local esp. Thousands of messages, a computer-gagging mass, began downloading. Oddly, those messages seemed to fall into two major categories. One was, 'get a bigger dick,' and the other was, 'get a smaller mortgage.' Thinking these messages to be exclusive I was quite torn. What a quandry - which did I want more? (See what an awkward position we place ourselves in when we resort to 'either/or' categories of thinking?) Finally, after months of soul-searching, several thousand more email invitations, and grievous bouts of doubt, it became clear to me that I could have both! Oh, happy day!

To that end we have refinanced the Marston Hill House with a low-rate 15 year fixed mortgage; the payments aren't terribly more than the old 30 year ones. As to the other, well, I understand it is done with fat injections - a marvel of modern medicine, no? Pat has offered to be my donor. Now, that is what being a couple is all about! Maybe we can get a better rate if we schedule a liposection procedure to go with my own...

If you do not want to be inundated with the 'bigger dick' ads, which I don't receive on the Maine computer, then I would suggest you never, ever, log onto the 'shaved teen pussies' site on Yahoo. It is a death trap! I am absolutely certain that that is exactly what happened on this computer. We are not naming names, but I do recall seeing that impostor fellow having a midlife crisis in my office a few years ago.

To other issues - since finding out that the sainted F.D.R. outlawed the private ownership of gold in the country, just prior to doubling its value, around 1932, and feeling that a stricken government might not be reluctant to try what worked once one more time, I have a confession to make. I don't own any gold coins. I did, surely, but only for a short period of time, and I made no profit when I sold them. I have lied when I said I still owned gold. There will be no need to invoke the powers of the Patriot Act to send armed men to my home to confiscate my gold. There isn't any! I lied to impress others. Mendacity was in my blood. Do not take me into custody as an economic terrorist. I didn't kill the dollar; it was that guy Al.

There that is the end of that. I don't want to be on that 'report your suspicious neighbors' list. The one the Prez wanted to mandate with a web site and all. I know, I know, the Senate killed it, but why is it that I think that such 'good citizen' requirements will come back? Hey, the Prez has promised to create new jobs. Where will all those broke, retired folk that work as WalMart Greeters go in the depression? Employment could loom for them as a 'Block Parent Persons', the government's new assistants. Basic literacy, profficiency with binoculars, and the skill to log on are required. Good sense not necessary.

As far as the other investments go, I am still eyeball deep in gold mining stocks. (If the feds nationalize the mines, well, then it's cat food and cardboard boxes for us.) My view of this government's current state of debts, legal tender, intentions, promises, ambitions, and veractiy remains unequivocally bleak. Honestly, I don't think there is a hope in hell that we get out of this present mess - mainly the economic one, but the unfolding religious war is looking a bit nasty, too, - in anything less than battered and bloody condition. As you can see, I am stilll hanging out on Bear sites and reading Bearish investment letters, and stocking the basement with cases of tuna and bags of beans. (For anyone with similar concerns, I have found an interesting news site that offers stories not seen in the standard press: www.debka.com.)

Waldo, Shay and Sgt. Rock are doing well. The fenced ~4 acres around the house gives everyone room to roam, and it keeps the 'yotes off Rocky's back. We briefly had a really nice little Chihuahua that we found out on the highway and brought home. She was a very nice little dog, was learning to get along with the kids, came and went around the place quite happily. One day she just vanished. The kids didn't raise hell; she was just gone. Later a lady told me that she never lets her's out alone as she lost one already; 'yotes and owls love 'em. Now, sans small-dog, we find we can leave the doggy door open all the time. If we are gone the entire day the kids are fine when we come home.

We did have a nail-biter recently, when we had only been gone a couple of hours. Came home to find Waldo with a hugely swollen lower lip; rattlesnake came to mind. Off we rushed to Silver City. It was Friday afternoon and our usual vet said, 'no appointment, come back Monday.' Off we went to another vet. They take him in on an emergency basis, examine him, anesthetize him, do an a needle aspiration and determine it's an infection. A quick surgical incision and drainage follows. They pack the wound, shoot him up with antibiotics, keep him overnoc, and release him to us in the A.M with a supply of more antibiotics. Total cost? Eighty dollars. Cost of living down here is much less than in Maine.

It seems probable that something bit him. Waldo has turned into quite the apprentice hunter and has recently been found with a bunny, several rats and many mice. We postulate that one of his victims tried to kill him after the fact - kinda film noiresque. Lately the newly-hatched skinks are out sunning on the rocks, and he is entranced. Cats down here get an affliction, skink addiction, and will even starve - or so I am told. Lot like kids and video games.

Speaking of wild things, we have some wonderful new neighbors: the Hootys. A pair of Great Horned Owls have taken over the nesting spot usually used by Ravens, and it would seem that she is sitting a clutch. The nest is in a hollow spot in a bluff above the house. Frequently when I call to her she gives a return series of hoots. He is usually nearby, and often answers as well. I have never seen her off the nest, nor have I seen him at all. He is usually within a hundred yards, but quite invisible. I long to see one of them in flight, so long as it doesn't involve the Sgt. I have been reading up on owls; they are quite fascinating.

On arrival last fall I noted that a neighbor had built a dam alongside my access road, placed at the mesa's edge where the road begins its descent into the canyon. His dam, earth, stones and steel T posts, was inside my deeded 20' right of way. I was miffed. Our road down into the canyon is always a problem inasmuch as the occasionally torrential rains we suffer can wash it out in nothing flat, and then we are walking the last half mile in to the house until I get Chuckles, the Kubota tractor, saddled up, or call in something heavier to grade it out. The road from the mesa into the canyon drops 200 feet in a 1200 foot run, a decent grade. So far as I could tell the only purpose of his dam was to alter an existing drainage, which kept some water off my road, so that extra water was then forced down my road. A deep line of erosion proved this. And my road was completely washed out below, and I had to bring a large Cat in for repairs.

Having forked out almost $300 to get the road graded I took Chuckles up the hill and simply pushed his damned dam over the side and re-established the former drainage. A few days later a sheriff shows up to question me in regards to this barbaric act of mine, and then I get the summons in the mail demanding I appear at trial for criminal destruction of property. Was I ever freaked.

I must add that we have always had a problem with this neighbor. When we first moved here we dropped by his house with a freshly baked key lime pie, just to say 'hello', and he ordered us off his property, said he didn't need a damn thing from us, and told us never to set foot on his land again. Not too long after that we were walking on this road, it is our only access and goes right by his house, and he fired a shot across in from of us from his balcony. I pretty much steer clear of him and absolutely don't do anything that might irritate him, even to not reporting his small pot plantation.

So, completely overwhelmed with the idea of dealing with the government from an adversarial position I fired an email off to Matt P, wild and wooly lawyer, and he called me back and held my hand. He was great. I got my statement of mitigating circumstances, my documents, my maps all together and after waiting weeks went off to town to plead my cause. I was the only one there. The charges were dropped and the trial cancelled. I was very pleased with that, but why did these folk let me stew so long and never tell me it was all over? Obviously, everyone else knew ahead of time. My neighbor wasn't there. Got to say that I don't understand any of it. We had a real heavy rain last noc and I went up to check on my grading job and was pleased to see that that entire end of the mesa now drains off before it gets to my road. I hope my neighbor had a look, too.

The Mimbres is otherwise pretty calm. A few new houses as retirees drift in from the Left Coast; no new commercial ventures. Still stuck at 2 gas stations, a cafe and post office. I didn't go back to the Upper Mimbres Volunteer Fire Department. Have all my fire gear stacked up on the porch and just need to take it back; it's been there waiting to go back for 4 months. I liked being a fireman. There is nothing quite like being on the fireline and having those big bombers come in right over your head doing their pink dumps. But driving those big fire trucks always made me uneasy - I don't have any depth perception to speak of. And betweentimes I'd forget how to work all the pumping machinery on the trucks, and things would be on fire and people would be running and yelling while I pulled levers and pushed buttons and felt foolishly inept. Can't do it anymore. It's a younger guy's game, always dangerous in some way. I have decided to conserve my remaining strength to give battle to the antioxidants I am told are flooding my vascular system.

We recently spent a few days over in Scottsdale visiting with my daughter, Zoe, who had flown in with her boss, who was there to golf. She works as the private flight attendant on the family's jet. They are super-rich survivors of the dot-bombs; they sold Cheap Tickets.com when it was worth hundreds of millions and slid into the then-burgeoning ranks of the nouvea riche jetset. Things had recently gotten a bit weird around her job. These are folk who fly all over the world spending large, Zoe along to mix drinks, cheerfully converse, fix meals and fluff pillows. Money had never been in question. Suddenly they moved her and the pilots from 4 star hotels to motels, and told her not to stock this or that provision on the next flight, and then blamed her when something was lacking. Best guess I could make was that Daddy Dollar had suffered some major reverses and wasn't handling it well. I told Zoe to remain calm and see what happened next. It was looking like the trips to Bora Bora, Bangkok and Paris were history. Our visit, though, was great, the kids stayed in a rich-pooch pet resort for a couple of days, and we had a lot of fun. Zoe was looking really good. Can't say the same for stripmall-hell Scottsdale.

So, got a call from her yesterday that the couple, the bosses, had called a rep from the contract company to flly in from the Coast post haste and fire her. She lives in Honolulu and has to be ready to fly out in an instant. The family wouldn't face her and simply said they were 'going in a new direction.' The company rep told Zoe she would get full references and could still fly for the company on other planes. She has decided instead to go to Peru, to see Macchu Pichu, and then to Patagonia. She already has arrangements made for an apartment in NYC and will collect unemployment while she pursues a career as a full figure model. She cleans up pretty nice. Her portfolio pics were done in L.A. last year. I am glad we will be close by in Maine. (Just heard from her and she and her brother, Ara, are driving out to see us in early June.)

Ara is in the L.A. area, still going to school and doing very well. I could drive over there and visit him, but L.A. is just toooo weeeeird.

So, all of this in one sitting and I am butt-weary and half-blind and signing off. I want to thank those on the ol' arn site that drop me a line now and then to say hi. (One of you please remind me sometime that I owe Matt P. - was it an anvil???) If you folks were a true cross section of this country we wouldn't be in such a mess right now. I will be back in the shop shortly scaling rust off machines and fitting parts together. There is lots of scanning to catch up on, too. Many old catalogues just begging for the eyeballs-per-page count.

don