Tight White Pants

I am fifty entries into this blog-o-sphere story telling medium and it has been brought to my attention that I have not introduced Ka’mya to how I met her grandma Larri…


…as with almost every good story in my life it always seems to start with the fire department somehow. I had already been divorced by now for several years. I had taken on extreme bicycle riding adventures as a way to heal my heart and to keep my mind clear. There was a volunteer firemen’s convention being held in Klamath Falls and normally several of us fire guys would annually attend. I got the bright idea that I would ride my bike over to the convention this year. Only hitch was it was 135 miles over to K. Falls and uphill most of the way. I corralled the guys going to this years get-together and we hatched a plan. I would take off pedaling at first light from Cave Junction and they would use my van and drive over to the convention later that afternoon. If they saw me passed out along the road they could throw me in the van and we would keep going to our destination unless I needed to be hospitalized. If I was deemed to be ok when they caught up to me, they would continue on to our hotel room in K. Falls. The emergency back-up plan was that if I did not arrive at the motel before 9:00 that night they would drive back and retrieve my broken body along my mountainous route somewhere. With all hands clasp together, we say, READY… BREAK.  Back in the day I wasn’t fat or bald like I am today.  I was actually in pretty good shape from all the bike riding I did. At one point in my life I rode almost 400 miles every week.

That crisp June morning I pedaled out of town like I had done so many other mornings, alone. I had ridden several 100 mile bike adventures before this day, but under much less desirable weather conditions. This morning it was just cool enough I had to wear a wind breaker but I could tell it soon would be stowed away. The sky became a bright Southern Oregon blue as the sun filtered over the mountains to the east. Within an hour and a half I was skirting along the Rogue River some thirty miles from home already. I rode the old abandoned Interstate 5 highway system through the small communities of Rogue River, Gold Hill and into White City before jumping on Highway 140 for the big hump over the mountains and into Klamath Falls. The sun was at eleven-o-clock when I reached 140. My body felt good and warmed up by now. I could see the roadway stretch forward as well as skyward as I made my

approach into the mountains. No more

communities of any consequence lay between this point and K. Falls as I geared down for the steady climb ahead. I had never traveled this road before so each turn in the roadway revealed a new view and more hill. I climbed higher into the forest, for what seemed like for hours, periodically clicking down another gear because the grade steepened. I finally leveled out on top, near Lake of the Woods, exhausted from the thinner air in the higher altitudes and the last forty miles of up hill pedaling. I thought to myself, Whew, only about thirty plus miles to go. Surmising too, if I had climbed for forty miles already the rest of the journey must be down hill, right? Cumulus clouds were forming and I could see a thunder storm brewing far off in the distance, almost day dreaming to myself. I was snapped back to reality when I saw my van speed by and no break lights come on. No stopping and checking to see if I needed hospitalization yet. I think to myself “damn there goes a perfectly good plan out the window”, as I peddle forward.

Those thunder clouds that I thought were so far in the distance, weren’t, as the sky opened up on me. Quickly retrieving my wind breaker jacket from the pannier on my bike as the rain began to fall. Well not really fall, it more like pelted down on me. To the point that the drops actually stung when they hit my skin. Within a minute I was soaked to the bone and freezing cold from the ensuing wind that came with the thunderstorm. Just as I began what I thought would be my final downhill descent into my destination that late afternoon storm disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. Wanting to put as much distance between me and the unruly storm I unleashed my bike as I headed downhill. I had traveled only two miles before the road suddenly flattened out again and stretched far into the distance. My short decent did help dry my cloths but dampen my spirits, thinking I was over the hump and headed to my motel room for a shower. At this point I was simply plodding along trying to figure out why my dumb comrades didn’t stop and check on me. Stupid Fuddruckers leaving me in a storm like that, I am now instinctively pedaling onward. Up over another damn hill of significant grade but this time when I got to the top I could see K. Falls laying off in the distance, I estimated eight miles. The sun was riding the mountains far to the west of me as I gritted down for the final push into the new town.

I pedaled into my motel parking lot at exactly 9 o-clock. The guys were just coming out of their rooms for the billy blaze rescue mission when I fell over on the walkway in front of them. No, “hey how was the ride”? No, “are you ok”? Nope, none of that girly boy kind of stuff from these fire comrades. First words out of their mouth, “damn that sure took you long enough to get here, we’re hungry lets go eat”. I can tell you after riding one hundred and thirty five miles; food isn’t the first thing on your mind. Your sore ass is. A shower is next thing because it might help relieve the pain in my aforementioned, sore ass. They gather my limp body up and throw me in the shower, yelling all the time “hurry up we're starved” as I try and let the warm healing water run down the crack of aforementioned sore …

I’m whipped, double dogged whipped to be exact. I actually can barely walk in fact, having no more muscle tone left in my legs from the long ride and the heat rash I have developing in the same area I have previously mentioned. We walk a couple blocks down the street to some steakhouse. Not for the steaks but for the after hours entertainment they had scooped out earlier in the evening. I normally walk bull legged but I really fit into the cattle town of Klamath Falls that night. These fire guys are ready for a big night out; I’m ready to go to bed as I force food down my empty gullet. They want to hit the dance floor and have a few drinks when I inform them it’s 10:30; I need to go back to my room before I hit the floor from exhaustion. I hear them all yelling something like “Pussy” to me as I limp out the door heading back to my soft bed. As I approached the motel we were staying at I could hear music coming from the adjoining bar. The music sounded pretty good so I thought I would crawl through the bar and go to my quiet room though the side door. As with most bars it was dimly lite inside and gagging cigarette smoke wafted around the room. As I sauntered cowboy style across the dance floor I noticed a young lady setting with some friends at a nearby table having some drinks. I thought humm, I better have some more liquid before hitting the hay so I sat down near the back doorway and ordered… dramatic pause… a 7 up; they don’t have Dr. Pepper in bars for some reason.

This young lady was dressed in tight white pants with one of her legs crossed over the other and through the dimly lite room I can see her toe keeping time to the music the band is playing. I throw back my ice cold 7 up and think to myself, I should go and ask that young lady for a dance before I head up to my room for some well deserved rest. I amble (actually kind of stumble) through the tables towards her and ask her if she would like to dance? She gives me one of those looks, up and down and I’ll be darn if she didn’t say yes. About twelve thirty the fire guys stroll into my bar and find me still dancing with the lady in tight white pants. Boy did I hear it from them. The bar closed down at two-thirty and then Larrieann and I had to go and stand in the parking lot talking for an hour and a half, with the guys chiding us from their motel balcony. Finally I had to tell her that I needed to go to bed because I had just ridden 135 miles over the mountains from Cave Junction and I was very tired. Of course I knew she didn’t believe a word I said as I stumbled off to my room. 4:00 in the morning, I knew I had a 7:00 breakfast appointment with some other fire friends and I still needed another shower. My head landed on the pillow at 4:30 in the morning. No more had I closed my eyes and my room phone rang. The voice on the other end of the line cheerfully says “billy blaze this is your 4:30 wake-up call” as I hear the guys in the adjoining rooms just howling over the cleverness of their practical joke.

So Ka’mya, that is the story of how I first met your Grandma Larrieann

Stories from the Rickshaw Diaries

A few years ago I decided to buy a rickshaw or more commonly known as a pedicab today.  I have had quite a bit of fun pedaling people all over Grants Pass during special occasions like this weekends "Back to the Fifties" celebration.  I remember one particular event that I will never forget... 

I was invited to rickshaw employees that worked at one of our local cell phone companies to their big annual awards banquet.  The motel they were staying at was a block away from the convention center and the company thought it would be nice if I could transport the ladies over to the party rather then having them walk over. Arriving a few minutes before the gig was suppose to start, I was taken aback by the number of ladies needing to be transported and also by how they were all dressed in beautiful flowing formal attire. I felt pretty out of place in my spandex biking shorts and Hawaiian shirt, but off I pedaled like a bat out of hell, with the ladies' gowns billowing in the breeze. There was some road construction going on in the city street at that time, and it was after banking hours, so I was cutting through Evergreen Bank's parking lot between the motel and their banquet destination. Jetting through the bank's back parking lot, I had to negotiate through a drive-up teller's window or ride over a speed bump on our way to their big party. On each trip I would look over my shoulder at my guests and ask, “Speed bump or jump?” —jump because the drive-up window ramp was slightly raised.

Having made lots of trips back and forth that evening, I continued to look over my shoulder and offer, “Speed bump or jump?” On one particular run all three of the gorgeously dressed ladies said, "Speed Bump!" I will admit I probably did ride over the speed bump a bit faster then I should have.  All of a sudden I hear a bloodcurdling shriek, followed immediately by a great amount of laughter. Quickly snapping a glance back over my shoulder to see what tragedy I had bestowed upon my honored guests.  I beheld, when we hit that little old speed bump, the lady sitting in the middle had had both her ample breasts explode out the top of her tight fitting gown. The ladies sitting on either side of her were beside themselves with screaming laughter as they pried her dress top open and were trying to slug each of her bosoms back into the confines of her dress. The aghast look on the face of the exposed lady in the middle seat was unforgettable. Her two best friends cheerfully tried to reassemble her ensemble before we arrived at the convention center. Being a fairly new rickshaw operator at that time, I wasn’t sure if I should stop and personally lend a hand getting her reloaded into her dress or just keep on pedaling and pretend I didn’t see anything. Finally arriving at the convention center with my extremely perky gang, I calmly got off the rickshaw and offered each one of the fine ladies a hand out of my carriage. In as professional voice as I could muster, I reminded these new lady friends, “What happens in the Rickshaw stays in the Rickshaw.” as they went giggling off for the rest of their evening's niceties. I wondered afterwards how my insurance would have covered an accident like that.

Later I heard through the grapevine that our speed bump adventure was the highlight of conversation that evening at their banquet.

Speaking of Placentas

The rural community I volunteered in had, let’s say, a lot of people who were trying to escape the big city life and go back to nature. That included eating organic foods, the females maybe not shaving all the normally shaven body parts and of course having their babies naturally at home rather then in a hospital where there are dozens of professionals who can help them if things go awry…

Late one night, “Stations 1 and 4 respond to a woman experiencing difficulty during child birth” alerted me over my fire scanner at home. To make things even more interesting our small community only had one ambulance in it and they were already on a preceding call so the next available ambulance was thirty miles away. Luckily that evening, two of our lady volunteers and myself showed up to respond from our station to this adventure.

Arriving on scene of a dimly lit two story apartment complex and naturally the apartment where we were needed was on the second floor. The almost new dad was already waiting for us on the balcony shouting directions as we gathered our medical gear from the engine and rushed up the stairs. With me leading the charge we could hear our woman patient inside screaming in pain as I took the steps two at a time. Dad flung the front door open and I dashed inside.

Now let me set the stage a bit for you all. The lady was lying in, by now, a very messy recliner (sorry no pictures) in the front living room and naturally she was naked, facing right towards me as I come through the front door. Because she was very much in the delivery stage of giving birth she naturally had her legs spread wide apart. With her setting in this scrunched up position naturally that left the unshaven places very much exposed. I know child birth is supposed to be a wonderful time in a person’s life but I believe it is far over rated. I find nothing magical at all, in meeting a pregnant, red faced, sweating, screaming woman, with her naturally unshaven legs spread wide apart. With a new born infant beginning to show, for the first time. For the only time in my life I stumbled backwards from the gruesome sight and grabbed one of my female comrades and shoved her into the catcher’s position as I turned away from the horror. My two female firefighters immediately went to work coaching the mom, reassuring her, wiping her brow and barking out orders to me because by then I had retreated behind the safety of the front door. Periodically I would have to dive out from behind my protective door and hand the fire ladies something they needed out of the medical kit. Looking away, with one hand I would carefully lean in their direction to daintily hand them the device they had ordered. Within just a couple more minutes of extreme screaming our nurse maids were holding the new infant in their hands, as they ordered a blanket. With both of my fire lady "freak-a-zooids" crying by now at the wonder of child birth. I was left wondering what the heck they were crying about.

Now I don’t intend to be mean, but newborn babies are not cute. They are a funny red color. They have wrinkled skin, goop coming out their nose, and are crying at the top of their lungs (I’ve been told that is a good sign). But for the most part they are slimy. Now one thing most people forget about natural child birth is the placenta. If you think new born babies are ugly, one word, the placenta is… nastier. None of the movies we watch even show the placenta being delivered after a newborn child is delivered. You know why they don’t film that? Because it is too darn gross even for T.V. these days.

So since the two fire ladies were drying off, weeping, cooing and bonding with new the soul, they barked for me fetch something in which to catch the placenta in. I darted into the kitchen and found a large Tupperware bowl. Looking away, leaning in; I start to hand the bowl to the new midwives. They both yell at me in their high pitched girl voices, “we’re busy, you catch it”. Ahh… have any of you ever caught a fresh placenta in a big Tupperware bowel before? First, you have to put your hands down there. Naturally it makes you want to puke from the sound as it blurbs into the bowl. The puking sensation intensifies when you start feeling the warmth of it through the bowl. Then you are forced to stand there for a few minutes while the cord is tied off and the umbilical cord is cut. Eventually I ask, “ahhh, what do you want me to do with it?” Both new parents now pop off with “go put it in the kitchen freezer” as I ask “ahhh, why?” Naturally they tell me they are going to cut it up, fry it and eat some of it so they will both have some of the babies soul in them. Naturally you all already know what I really wanted to do next.

A few weeks later this new family stopped in one evening during one of our training classes at the fire station to show off the new baby we had helped deliver. And yes, Naturally I took credit for the whole delivery.

At least mom didn't talk about the Placenta

I'm glad you realize the sacrifices your Grandparents made to acquire the property we call the Home Place.  Which later you worked to crave out a portion of it that became known as Beaver Hollow. I think you are one of the last generations that really does appreciate keeping this as a place to go and enjoy the tranquility of this camp. I'm sure your Grandpa Buster would be proud that you, his name sake, Charles William (aka billy blaze) feels so strong about this place and made an effort to nurture this single little tree into something strong and no longer deformed. Unfortunately others didn't realize the significance this tree held for you.  And "Yes", it galls me too seeing anyone leaving camp that doesn't pickup after themselves, until it grows into the mess you and Uncle Jack had to remove.

I just happen to be thinking today about what was taking place 52 years ago today (July 28th) and possibly more then you care to hear. But on that day the Doctor had told me to take 4 oz. of Castor oil and then walk up the hill out of the Home Place.  Since you were suppose to have been born around the 4th of July.   Afterwards have someone drive me the 32 miles to Grants Pass.  It was your Grandpa Buster driving, with Grandma Mary riding "Shot Gun," on the way to town.  With both constantly asking, how I felt.  I'll skip how I felt.  I did have to make several restroom stops, on one of the hottest days we had so far that year. After a quick exam the Dr. decided to go to step #2. It was called Pit shots (short for something, I don't remember) which involved more walking around blocks of the City, until it was time for the Dr. to close his office, so I was sent to the hospital. Doctors, nurses, your Grandma Mary just couldn't figure out why you wouldn't make an appearance and I was getting pretty tired of this birthing part.  Somewhere in the middle of the next day, after the Dr. had gone home to eat his dinner and I had missed mine, you decided it was time and so I finally delivered at 7:24 pm July 29th. Four or Five days later you went home to the "Home Place", which will always be special for you.

Mom

Isn't it kind of gross to hear about your own birth?  Ahhh well, at least I turned out to be a rugged good looking kid.  I'm glad I have been able to keep that same image 52 years later.

billy blaze

I Return to the Hollow

I do not remember the sacrifices and hardships that my grandparents made to be able to afford buying the “home place” property. I know they both had to work hard and lived a frugal lifestyle to get by. I do not know about the times Uncle Jack must have thought about moving away from the “home place” but instead decided to stay to help watch after Grandma Mary after Grandpa Buster pasted away. I don’t know if many of my immediate family and the friends they invite to Beaver Hollow fully appreciate the “home place”. I don’t think they realize how lucky our family is to have a wooded retreat like this that we can call our own.

Uncle Jack and I spent a couple hours this weekend hauling away at least five yards of trash that had been strewn around camp over the last couple years that I have been away. An old refrigerator that no longer worked, blow up toys that had long been deflated and just general trash. Five huge garbage bags were filled with pop and beer cans and delivered to the grandkids for fair money. Five yards is a lot of crap if you think about it. Fifteen foot high by fifteen foot wide by fifteen foot long, cube of garbage. Afterwards I picked up a wheelbarrow load of broken beer bottle glass, cigarette butts and hundreds of those damn plastic wrappers for the straws on those Juicy Juice drinks that had been discarded throughout the campground. Though I don’t know how grandpa and grandma acquired the property camp now sets on I want to be clear why I spent the time, energy and sweat equity to build Beaver Hollow.

I built Beaver Hollow because of a drunken party.

Not so I would have a place to hold drunken parties.

For me the “home place” where Beaver Hollow is built, exudes, for a lack of better words, a healing, regenerating power for me. My fire department hobby sometimes leaves me sadden and confused. Beaver Hollow seems to be the only place where I can truly relax and contemplate about life. Twenty five years ago when I stood in the rough lower field, before the old logging slash piles were burned away to make room for lawns. Before the tall weeds, blackberries and dry grass were hacked back to the forest edge, I knew this was going to be a magical place. No, I am not any kind of visionary but like any painter starting with a blank canvas I could see Beaver Hollow unfolding in my minds eye. No, I did not have the money to make all the features come alive at once. I had to bring them to life when I could afford too or had the time too.

I clearly remember when Lauren was helping me one afternoon clear away the brush and numerous misshapen fir trees growing around where the old pavilion now stands. There was this one little fir tree about ten feet tall that had six tops trying to grow out of it. This poor skinned up tree had been ran over so many times in its young life with a old rusty Caterpillar skidding turns of logs into the field it was a miracle it was still trying to grow at all. Lauren came at it with a chainsaw to cut it down. Almost jokingly I jumped in front of it with my arms up and proclaimed “No!!! Lauren, I can save this one”. Lauren gave me one of those looks like, hummm, ok, good luck. I picked out the most predominate top and cut the others away. Through the years I nursed that little tree back to health. Over time it became known as the "Hickerson Tree". It finally grew so big one summer we had to move the fire pit farther away because the fir bows were growing so far from the stem we were starting to singe them with my story telling bon-fires. It had grown to about forty feet tall before it was removed for a “improvement”. Keep in mind, sometimes one mans improvement is another mans decline. With that said, I thoroughly enjoyed working this past weekend at Beaver Hollow turning it back into what my minds eye saw twenty five years ago, despite that the six topped little fir tree was now missing.

Note to Self

No, the reason I have not posted in a few days is not because I have been killed in some horrific rickshaw crash.  Larrieann had the bright idea to invite all her nieces and nephews, plus throw in the west coast grand kids, to come stay with us this last week.  Rather then like we normally do, spreading all their individual visits throughout the summer. 
NOTE to SELF... don't do that again.

 When you have seven kids at one time, ranging from 6 to 16, they tend to gang up on billy blaze.  I think they even begin to plot ways to get my attention. As with any daycare situation there is always that one child who didn't get spanked enough while growing up so it then becomes my responsibility to "train them up right" in the one week we have them.  And what is it with kids screaming these days?  Hell if we screamed as much as a couple of these children, my mom would have hit us with a shovel.  Screaming in my family, growing up, was only used for rattle snake encounters or the occasional cougar attack.  I finally had too ask a couple of the little girls what they would do if they needed help for real.  They informed me, scream louder, hummm.  I'd be in to much pain to help them because my ear drums would be broken from the high pitch.  Larrieann topped the week off for the kids with a camp out at Beaver Hollow. 

I got a reprieve today because I am pulling a fire shift today. 

Already had a "wicked witch of the east" call today.  Building fell on a lady.  Lucky for her she wasn't wearing those long stripped socks and pointy red shoes when I got there.  I would have had to reconsider helping her out from under it if she was wearing that get up. Tomorrow I head back down to camp to retrieve Larrieann from the hoodlums.  At least if they try and burn Beaver Hollow down today I will be the first to know about it.

Ironic in some weird sense

…on a hot afternoon I was standing in line at our local D.Q. I had ordered a ice cold fresh fruit strawberry milkshake, my absolute favorite. I could hear them blending the ingredients and could almost feel the cool creaminess melting down my throat already. Some people I knew ran through the stores door and immediately recognized me. In small rural communities everybody knows everybody else living in the surrounding area. They knowing I was a fireman, with a puzzled look on their faces, asked, Bill why aren’t you down at the big fire. Catching me off guard a bit with that statement of “Big Fire” I muttered where.

They lead me outside and pointed south down the main drag. I didn’t see any fire; I saw a huge black column of smoke billowing high into the August sky. Leaping into my van and squealing out of the parking lot I head towards where the excitement would be. Every fireman knows where there is a huge column of smoke you too will find fire to play with somewhere under it. I slid into the graveled parking lot at almost the same time the engineer activated the air brakes on the responding fire engine. Pulling my spare set of turn-outs from my van and quickly getting dressed, I wondered to myself, how did this fire, in the middle of the afternoon get so big before someone reported it? It was an old church that had been turned into a funeral home. The funeral home director’s mobile home was positioned only a few feet away from the main building. The old sanctuary was already heavily engulfed with flames. Each licking flame was launching hundreds of hot embers into the dry grass, brush, and other residences surrounding the burning structure. Pulling the chin strap on my fire helmet tight I knew we had to knock the dragon out of this one. On a cooler day we might have went into the “surround and drown” mode, but not today. It was too explosive outside on that hot afternoon to let the dragon take his time burning this landmark down. If we couldn’t take some heat out of this one, it was going to light more stuff on fire.

The engineer hands me the nozzle for the pre-connect and I start making some decisions. I didn’t want the flames to creep into the funeral home residence so I advanced with my charged hose line and positioned myself in the narrow passageway between this hot demon and the house. As with most rural volunteer fire departments across our country it sometimes takes a while for additional volunteer firefighters to muster. This was the case that day, so I was going one on one with the beast that hot afternoon. We had a luxury today that we normally don’t have at most rural fires, we had a fire hydrant to draw the “Wet Stuff” from. Knowing this, I pulled open the bale on my nozzle wide and let this unruly demon have a big drink. With the large sanctuary room on my right, it was split by a hallway of sorts.

Across the hall way was the old Sun day school rooms turned into a mortuary, ironic to me in some weird sense.  I figured I would sneak down this long hallway with my hose line spewing the way, I’d try and keep this dragon away from the already perished across the hall. Heavens knows they had already had a bad week, why let the devil have any of them early. I remember slowly advancing; the hose line was heavy, as I kept nudging the beast backwards. Gradually I fight my way to the edge of the auditorium some fifty or sixty feet inside the building, the mood inside was surreal. The high vaulted ceiling gave way to the deep blue sky today. The beast had already busted to the outside. The smoke wasn’t actually too heavy inside. Through a red hue I could clearly see the pulpit, the pews all lined up and the stained glass windows across the room. Talk about fire and brimstone. With my back pressed against the wall leading into the mortuary rooms I felt myself becoming almost spell bound. It was beautiful in there, in some thwarted way. The flames would whorl around the room and then suddenly leap out through the hole in the roof. The whole while I’m pouring hundreds of gallons of water on this amazing creature, I flash back, dang I left my strawberry shake. Looking skyward I can see the beautiful summer blue sky through the jagged burnt roof, interspersed with my now billowing white smoke. I noticed the huge wooden beams holding the sanctuary roof up seemed to almost be bouncing. I could see the accumulated dust rolling off of them and then mixing with the smoke. Under my breath I giggled to myself, boy they probably never dusted way up there before.

The next thing I remember, I was pressing hard against the skirting around the mobile home outside. With the nozzle shut down, I was holding it next to my face with my teeth gritted real tight. Every muscle in my body was tensed as I lay there in the fetal position on the ground. Just then four or five fire guys came running through the narrow passageway. Sprinting over to me they screamed, are you ok? The whole inside of the fiery sanctuary had collapsed in on itself. To this day I have no idea how I made the journey from so far inside the structure to the outside, still holding the fire hose in my hands and turning the nozzle off in the process.

Another example of “when it’s your time to go, you'll go and when it’s not, you won't”. Driving back to the D.Q. afterwards I splurged on an extra large strawberry shake that day, I had earned it.