...now Get Back In There

While the page loads on my blog continue to pile up I still really have no idea who is following along with my jabbering. I receive very few comments from the readers of my rants. My mom has left several comments throughout my postings, correcting, reminding me or telling the rest of some story I was trying to relay to you Ka’mya. My family is quite odd in some ways, for example. I have had more correspondence with my own mother since I started this blogging adventure this past May then say, in our whole life together. The next story that I am going to dive into has some potential to upset your Great Grandma Charlie, again, but I hope she has the ability to read the whole story before making any judgments. Of course this chronicle is going to be about when I went and hunted down my biological father Bernard Van Wormer. I will have to tell the tale in at least a couple installments due to its complexity and length…


… I never knew that I didn’t have a real dad when I was younger growing up because my Grandpa Buster played the role so well I never was looking for one. My mom remarried when I was about 5ish to Myrl Hickerson. He seamlessly took over the parenting duties really till I graduated from high school. It wasn’t till I was actually attending high school before I started wondering about my real father. Where did he live? What did he do? Did he think about me? I do recall what brought this new curiosity on though. When I played football, after one of my teammates had punched the pigs skin over our goal line for a touchdown there would be a brief moment when I would stand on the field of play and watch as his parents would jump up and down in the grandstands and celebrate with their son. My mom and dad always had jobs that allowed them to attend very few of my sporting events. I don’t recall a single time that my step dad (Myrl) was even at a football game of mine, though I know he must have been there because the ambulance he helped operate was most often stationed on the sidelines. I only remember one time in which my mom was at one of my games because she was yelling at me, not for me.

The high school I attended was quite small. It was hard for us to even acquire enough players to make up an offensive and defensive team so we could run our plays during practice. I was not a star player by any means but was able to hold my own because I had grit. I played middle line backer on defense and center on offense. My job was to stop whatever was trying to come through the line in front of me and to get the other team’s star player thrown out of the game as soon as possible.  I would taunt, degrade, and talk about his younger sister till he would finally break. On one such occasion, the other team’s star player had me on my back while he sat on my chest with my arms trapped under his legs. Because of all the thick pads we wore, to make us look bigger then we really were, he wasn’t able to subject me to enough pain, so he began pounding my helmeted head on the ground right under my own teams bench. I basically am getting the crap beat out of me. I can remember lying on my back looking up from the ground and seeing my mom standing over both of us. She is adamantly yelling at me to, God damn-it STOP FIGHTING Billy. In between the times the other player was slamming the back of my head against the ground I was trying to get out, JUST… GET… HIMMM… OFF…ME… MOM. The ref finally got over there to save me, the other teams star player got thrown out of the game and we went on to lose the game anyway.

I.V. News Picture:

Yep that's me holding the flowers.  Homecoming Team Captain Bill before the Blaze, getting ready to plant a kiss on the prettiest cheerleader in the world during my senior year in high school.  Debbie

On a few occasions I too made some big plays. I can remember standing on the football field hearing other people yell atta-boys towards me but never did I see a dad in the stands hooting and hollering for me. I often wondered, if maybe my real dad was in the grandstands somewhere watching me play in the big game but not wanting to upset the balance of my young life. I can distinctly remember intercepting a pass one time during an important game. I had never scored a touchdown before but I was within striking distance this time. I took off running towards my goal line on a dead run. I wasn’t the fastest guy on my team but I was still twice as fast as I am today. I could almost reach out and touch the white chalked goal line with my foot when my vision turned red then went blurry.

Next thing I remember was someone shaking my shoulder pad while I lay face down in the grass along the far sideline, the someone was asking “young man, are you ok”? It was Ken Mann, our local hometown barber; he always ran the field chains on the sidelines during our home football games. Still reeling from the hard hit I had taken, he helps me to my feet, and tells me “young man that was a hell of a hit you just took, now get back in there” just before he pops me on my butt and shoves me stumbling back towards the huddle. That’s the closest dad thing I ever had offered to me when I played high school football…

They Came to Move a Mountain

Of all my aunts and uncles my Aunt Dorothy is the relative that I am least familiar with. To some extent Aunt Dorothy reminds me of your own mom, Ka’mya. Once they both graduated from our local high schools they left “the home place” for bigger towns affording more excitement for themselves…

I hold memories of Aunt Dorothy when she used to work at Safeway as a cashier. I of course remember the Christmas we spent with her and Uncle Ed before his untimely death. I recall when I was older traveling to Prineville to visit and meet her new husband Russ. I wish I could have lived closer to him because Russ was a talented carpenter. He had built them a beautiful log home over in eastern Oregon. I think I could have learned many things from Russ, like I did while working with my Uncle Jack from time to time. The single story that I remember most about my Aunt Dorothy began a short time after Uncle Ed passed away…

…Uncle Ed and Aunt Dorothy had just built a huge home in the lush rural community of Ruch, just outside the old historic gold mining town of Jacksonville. The rain had been falling for many days when the small terminal building Uncle Ed and his fellow phone company workers were working in was swept down the mountainside by a huge mudslide. As a small child I never have forgotten the dark rainy night my brothers and I were bundled up in blankets and put in the back seat of the old Willies Jeep. As we neared the location of the accident I can still see the amber flashing lights on what seemed like hundreds of lowboys parked along the freeway edge carrying every kind of earth moving equipment imaginable. After hearing of the mudslide, loggers responded spontaneously with their heavy equipment from far and near, from all across Oregon.

The woodsmen’s plan was quite simple. They were going to move the mountain that fell on their friends and hopefully find them cocooned but still alive in the building that was crushed deep in the mud. It was soon determined to be too dangerous even for these mountain men and all their equipment to start digging for their hunting buddies because the mountain was still slowly moving. Not wanting any more deaths that evening the heavy equipment was left on the running lowboys as the warm air swirled around the bright flashing lights guarding the semis. All the phone company men working there that winter afternoon were killed in the disaster.

Soon afterwards Aunt Dorothy invited me to come help her finish the landscaping project around her new home in Ruch, during my Spring Break from school. The landscaping had not been completed before the tragedy had struck. I felt a bit uncomfortable going to her new home. I did not know what I could say or do to help during her time of sadness but I decided that I would go help at least move that mountain of bark she had delivered. When I first saw the enormous amount of bark mulch I needed to move I flashed back to some of that heavy equipment I saw wanting to desperately go to work a few months ago, but with only a shovel, wheel barrow and rake I began. When I was with Aunt Dorothy that week I felt like I was almost famous. She drove a brand new Cadillac and we ate dinner out at some place new every night. Never before in my life had I been treated to such overwhelming luxury. To top it off, at the end of the week, after I finished moving the bark mulch mountain, she awarded me with $500 for my efforts. Back then $500 was like a million dollars to me. I could have worked for one of my old lady friends pulling weeds in their gardens and never made $500 in a summer. Aunt Dorothy made it possible for me to buy a new ten speed bike so I could ride to Effie Smith’s more easily.

A Toast to Living

My mom's recent comment did remind me of the time that my Forest Service buddy David did try to get me soused at a going away party for one of our co-workers.  Even by that early time in my life, my non drinking habits had already formed.  I didn't drink liquor because I thought drinking was evil, nor because of some religious notion I had at the time.  I don't drink simply because I don't like the stinging, or fruity, or awful taste of brew. 

Ever since the smoking adventure with my Aunt Jackie's brothers I have never really let peer pressure dictate how or what I was going to do in my life.  My mom probably doesn't realize I went too so many parties while I was in high school but one time I was at a party where some drinking was going on.  One of the pretty, popular girls in my class came up to me and tried to hand me a beer.  I told her "no thank you" in which she replied " if you don't drink this beer with me your not my friend".  I told her "Well I guess were not friends then" and I walked away. 

It felt surreal for me the night several years later when I helped remove her, not so pretty anymore, lifeless body from the vehicle she had been driving just before it slammed into a great big Pine tree.  She had been drinking.   

I hope that I am not coming across as some kind of prude who thinks he's perfect because smoking, drinking and drugs have not been a part of my life.  Because I'm far from perfect.  I have often thought if I wasn't so afraid of doctors and needles I would let some scientist scrape some of my DNA off a bone and see if they could figure out why those vices never attracted me.  Maybe if they could find the DNA strand that naturally kept people away from wanting those crutches they could implant it in those folks whom struggle with the desires.

I clearly remember when I was going through my divorce.  I struggled a bit with depression for a while.  One day when I was setting in my dark house, alone and I thought to myself, I'm going to go get drunk.  Maybe if I passed out for awhile it would help me forget about the trouble I was going through at the time.  I stood straight up and drove down to the local liquor store in town and bought a fifth of Canadian  Club.  Why Canadian Club?  That's the only kind of whiskey I ever saw my step dad drink so I thought how bad could it be.  Getting back home I tore the paper seal off the neck of the bottle, removed the cap, took a big whiff with my nose.  Just before I was about to tip the bottle backwards and empty the contents down my gullet I remembered that if I was inebriated I couldn't  "respond to routine emergencies".  Several years earlier I had signed a document that stated that I would not help at a fire department emergency if I was drunk. 

Not wanting to miss out on any potential upcoming adventures I screwed the lid back on the bottle that afternoon and I still have that full bottle in my fire museum collection today. 

When I finally kick the bucket and somebody is digging through my personal belongings they are going to stumble across some fine aged brew too enjoy, and I hope they do enjoy it...

I Never Again Tried to be Cool

The story I have to tell about Aunt Jackie actually isn't about Aunt Jackie herself but her ruffian brothers.  During just one adventure with them, they left a lasting impression that has lasted a life time for me...

...when I was growing up every summer I would get to spend at least one week down at the home place staying with Grandma Gray.  I would tootle around grandma's during the daytime while Uncle Jack was working at the plywood plant but when he got home we normally went off and worked on some project together.  One summer when I was middle school age, as normal I was spending my week down in the flat.  I remember one evening Jackie's brothers were visiting her but decided to drive into Grants Pass real quick to pick up something and Jackie invited me to ride along with them.  The three of them climbed in the front seat of their car which left the back seat to myself.  When I was young I always had a tough time coming from and going to grandma's house because I got car sick pretty easily.  I knew I was going to be in trouble on this trip because of the high rate of speed we were driving when we left the flat and we hadn't hit the curvy part of the county road yet.  With the help of a little pregnant breathing to assist me in not getting car sick I made it into Grants Pass not feeling to under the weather.  The boys picked up what ever they were after and we headed back down to Aunt Jackie's house even faster then when we had left.  About when the driver topped over the Sexton Mountain summit doing ninety miles per hour one of the boys in the passenger seat turned around and offered me a cigarette. They had been smoking them the whole time we were driving, which wasn't helping to control my car sickness any.  With a simple flick of his wrist a cigarette popped half way out of the pack and I took it.  My whole family smoked back in those days so I knew I was suppose to stick it in my mouth, so I did.  He carefully leaned over the back of the front seat and lit it for me and boy did the trouble begin then.  

At that age I wanted to be cool too so I began taking small puffs from the fire stick.  They'd shout back to me periodically "how ya doing back there", as I was trying not to gag loud enough to where they could hear me.  Tears were running from my eyes, my lungs burned, my throat felt like it was on fire and that was before I dropped hot ashes in my lap and really was on fire.  By the time we hit where the small town of Leland was I was done.  Done smoking the cigarette but not done with being sick, ohhh no, not by a long shot.  Now here I am riding in a car with three high school aged boys and even I knew it would not be cool to throw-up in their car.  Sweat is pouring from my brow, I am on the verge of spewing about the time we pull into Aunt Jackie's house.  Leaping from the car, still not wanting to actually throw-up in front of them I head towards grandma's outhouse.  I didn't make it inside, unloading my dinner out behind Grandpa Busters old shop.  I have never again felt so sick and green as I did at that very moment in my life.  I never again have lifted another cigarette to my lips since that sobering day, probably saving me thousands of dollars over the years, and of coarse that pesky thing called lung cancer.  Thank you Aunt Jackie for the invite.

I said "Come Ahead Easy"

Out of all my relatives I by far have had most of my interaction with my Uncle Jack (Gray).  He got me a job with the mill he worked at when I stumbled back home after a college try.  He tried to kill me once when we were logging together and I wasn't paying attention to the theory of angles and taught winch cables.  Everytime I forgot to bring something down to Beaver Hollow when we were working on building the campground, we would go up and pillage through Uncle Jack's messy shop till we found what we needed to fix what ever we were working on at the time.

All of Grandma Grays kids helped around the home place from time to time after your great great Grandma Mary got older.  Aunt Jill and Jack North took turns along with your great Grandma Charlie keeping the lawns and weeds mowed down around Grandma Gray's house.  Mom can chime in here about the time she tried to burn the home place down while trying to hack the brambles back one time. Uncle Jack was the only one who stayed down on the home place, built a house, and raised his family, all the while keeping a close eye on Grandma Gray's needs.  Making sure she always had plenty of firewood on hand at all times because Grandma Mary had to keep her house at 98 degrees even during the summer months it seemed.  Uncle Jack would stop in after work every afternoon and check on grandma and bring her more cigarettes.  It's a wonder grandma didn't petrify herself from all the smoking she did.

Yep, now and then my Aunts and Uncle would have spats with each other about this or that but from someone standing on the outside looking in, I am so proud of all of them.  In America we don't do a very good job taking care of our elderly parents in my opinion.  I go on call after call with the fire department where some elderly person is down, laying on their living room floor or better yet lodged between the toilet and wall in their bathroom with their pants down around their knees.  No guardian around keeping an eye on their frail condition.  A lot of times families simply throw the old folks in... yep an old folks home and come and visit them on Christmas.  Towards the end of Grandma Grays life she got a little dingy in the head and it was hard for her to get around in her old house.  Uncle Jack and I came in one weekend and tore a wall out and built a indoor bathroom so grandma wouldn't have to totter down the slick trail leading to the barn board outhouse she had used all her life.  Our family members would take turns staying with grandma especially right at the end when she had to be admitted to a elderly care facility for specialized care.  The afternoon that grandma passed away there was half a dozen relatives standing beside her bed when she went home to be with Grandpa Buster.

My favorite Uncle Jack story...  ... Uncle Jack had this beat up old Jeep, dents everywhere, no hard top on it just a roll bar.  We must have been having some kind of family reunion because I think Aunt Dorothy was even there.  Aunt Dorothy didn't hang around at grandma's as much as her sisters did but I digress.  Uncle Jack decides we all needed to go on our customary rattle snake hunt just as dusk begins to fall over the "home place" that humid summer evening.  The Jeep looked like one of those buses you see pictures of in India where half the people in it are hanging on the outside of the bus and so off we go, dragging bottom at every pothole in the dirt road.  We come to a place where we needed to make a creek crossing so Uncle Jack tells me to crawl out on the hood and make sure the water is not too deep to swamp us.  I crawl out on the overly hot dented hood and tell him looks good, "come ahead easy", that's right before I see the headlights dip under water.  I look back into the cab area of the Jeep just in time to see people scrambling to hand babies up to higher people straddling the roll bar by now.  The engine quickly sputters to a halt as Uncle Jack calmly pulls his wet wallet out of his back pants pocket and hands it to Aunt Jackie as Graves Creek flows through his lap.  We finally carry everybody that needed rescuing to the opposite shore.  In the mean time the guys float the Jeep over to the creek bank and push the front tires up out of the water.  Dirty water is leaking out of every possible hole in the floorboards.  There is no way this machine is going to run again tonight, as real darkness creeps over us but Uncle Jack tries to turn the engine over anyways.  I'll be darn if the motor didn't cough, smoking to a start as Uncle Jack quickly orders us all back aboard so we can try and limp back home before the motor dies for real. 

I don't know why everybody blamed me for the calamity, I told Uncle Jack to "come ahead easy".  Later we found out that some rogue gold miner had dredged a deep hole right where we had to forge Graves Creek that unforgettable rattle snake hunt.  Times like this are the fondess of all my memories I have of being a part of the Gray family.

Not as Young as I used to be

I made an important discovery this past weekend during my much anticipated "Waterfall Weekend" with Larrieann...  

With the old van not being that reliable when it comes to running these days we decided to drive my pickup instead.  We'll sleep in the bed of it under the stars, it'll be so romantic.  Ahhh... maybe not so romantic since the wonderful blowup mattress we brought to sleep on needed electricity for it to get blown up.  The part of the forest we chose to sleep in Friday night didn't have electrical plug-ins to run the blow-up mattress inflater so we slept on my rubber bed liner instead.  We were plenty warm snuggled up in our sleeping bags but oh God were we uncomfortable laying in the bed of the truck.  To make things worse Stryker was on full alert for any danger.  With every little noise in the darkness, a flutter of a birds wing, a barometric change in the weather he was standing up in between Larrieann and I where we were trying to sleep.  After each danger would subside he would lay back down between us, ok not really lay down, more like flop down with a clunk.  I think we all got maybe two hours of semi-sleep that first night.  The next morning, to say the least, Larrieann and I were stiff.

We had a wonderful time hiking into several waterfalls we had visited before in past years and we explored a few we hadn't seen before.  We hiked the short distance into the North Umpqua Hot Springs which was interesting due to the naked people bathing in the mineral laden water.  Several natural occurring pools of hot tub quality water burbles out of the ground on a cliff that over looks the river flowing a short distance below. 

Ending up Saturday afternoon at Diamond Lake we had a early dinner at the lodge there.  With a quick nap afterwards and storm clouds brewing overhead we decided to drive back home and our comfortable bed at home.  Neither of us could stand another night in the back of my truck, let alone if it would start raining.

Sunday morning late we woke up an went down and bought this travel trailer.  A 2008, 27' Jayco Jflight.  It's nothing fancy but it will have to do till our ship comes in and we can afford a nicer one. We had been thinking about buying a trailer for a few years now but after our last overnight adventure it made our minds up.  We are both getting too old to sleep in the bed of a truck.  If anyone knows someone who would like a van that runs 95% of the time?  $600.00

Our Family Tree Begins to Sprout

As I have mentioned a couple times before one of the main reasons for me taking the time and making the effort to create this blog is for my granddaughter Ka'mya's benefit later on in her life. I don't expect her to really appreciate any of my ramblings till she becomes a young adult.  I know it wasn't till then that I myself started wondering about some of the relatives I did not know very well, mainly my biological dad.  Telling that single story about traveling to find my dad alone will take at least a couple of postings, but I am going to save it for a bit later on...

Ka'mya with you living all the way out on the east coast and myself living on almost the opposite shoreline, I figured it would be hard for you to know much about your family which lived out west.  I am not made from the same cloth as your other Grandma whom will come live with your family from time to time so you can know her better. I have watched as other people go about living their lives and I can see I have lived by an unusual life style then almost anyone else I know. It is true I am acquainted with hundreds of people in my local community but in the same breath I can say I have merely a small handful of folks I would truly call my friend.  Being removed from people has it's ups and downs like anything else in ones life.  When someone you know is trapped badly in a car accident your emotions do not overwhelm you to the point where it is hard to concentrate on the life saving task at hand.  Unfortunately when someone you love and care about deeply doesn't see or hear from you very often it makes them feel like I don't care about them, which is the farthest from the truth, (aka son and daughter).  In these next few postings I am going to try and help you know a bit about the other west coast relatives you  most likely will never get to meet, but many in some small way played a part in whom I became as an adult...

...I only knew my Great Grandparents names by Ma and Pa, which I think would make them be your great, great, great grandparents, I was too small to remember them before they both passed away.  My mom or your great Grandma Charlie will have to chime in here a bit for you to get much story about them. I have a vague picture in my mind of Ma but I think it is from old pictures I have seen of her.

This was their house seen many years after Ma and Pa had passed away

You are going to get a very lopsided ancestral lesson about your west coast family because I never new my real dad and was never close to my step dads (Lyle's) family. (deep breath) The family I remember starts with your great great Grandpa and Grandma Gray.  They had four children, Dorothy whom was married to Uncle Ed Waldren before he was killed in a notable landslide while working during a big rain storm.  My mom, your great grandma Charlene was born then a few years later.  The twins Jack and Jill were both born before Grandpa and Grandma Gray put a stop to having more children.  Over the next few days my goal is to give you, Ka'mya, a quick look at each of these family members.  I had written a request on my blog for members of our family to let me know a bit about themselves so I could include their thoughts to you.  After your great grandma Charlie's piece months earlier, Aunt Jill is the second person in the family to make contact with me about her life and here is the paragraph she e-mailed to me...

My goodness did we not feed you right as a child, now you need to know what relative to blame. Or, do you really not know us, as to our life and again your Mother did not teach you to ask a women her B. date. I don't think the limb on your family tree can hold me up.      Love Aunt Jill

...hummm LOL  ooook, Ka'mya my Aunt Jill, believe it or not married a guy whose first name was Jack.  Funny thing is Aunt Jill's twin brother Jack, married a lady called Jackie.  So I had my Uncle Jack Gray and Aunt Jackie, and my Uncle Jack North and Aunt Jill in my life while I was growing up.  Aunt Jill was a nurse much of her life and her husband Jack worked for the Wonder Bread Company I think as a bread truck mechanic.  The most notable things I remember about Aunt Jill is her loud laugh when at family parties.  From across the room you would be able to hear Aunt Jill scream and start laughing loudly about something.  Anybody else in the room would look at each other an exclaim "sounds like Aunt Jill is here".  The other notable thing about Aunt Jill is she always wrapped all her presents in the newspaper comics.  Aunt Jill never had any children of her own but her generosity towards poorer families in her community of Medford is well known.  Aunt Jill came down with some kind of cancer and managed to struggle through that low time in her life.  Her husband and her are now both retired and travel back and forth between Arizona and Oregon as the weather dictates for both their health.

front row

Cousin Karen  

Grandma Gray

 Aunt Jill in the green

back row

Cousin Arnie blue shirt  

Cousin Lonnie 

 Aunt Dorothy

A young billy blaze with the hat on

 your great Grandma Charlie in white

Uncle Jack and his two children

Jason and

Sheri

A picture of middle America living on the west coast...

Time is Drawing Short

In July I mentioned that I had a...  

Family Assignment to write a couple paragraphs about yourself. When you were born, where you’ve lived, what you did or still do for a living. Do you have any hobbies?  You can e-mail me at waiting4fire@hotmail.com  and I will compile a family tree of sorts to place on my blog. Unless you are under the Witness Protection Program I will expect something from you all, eventually. If you don’t send me something I’ll start making things up about you. I would like my grand kids to also know a little bit about who their distant relatives are also. I’m sure there are things I don’t know about you that I would enjoy hearing about too.

...unfortunately I have not heard back from any member of my family not even my own mom.  This leaves me no choice but to start making things up about each of my family members.  If they would like to correct the official record later with more pertinent information please do so. 

 Larrieann and I are off on our "Waterfall Weekend" tomorrow after work but come Monday I'm going to let the stories fly... good luck.

Relatives do Leave a Mark

By now many of you who are following my ramblings know that the outdoorsy adventuresome side of my life came because I didn't want to have grown old and not be able to say I visited Crater Lake, like my Grandma Mary.  I don't know if any of my relatives realized they were leaving a marked impression on my life as I was growing up...

...when I was a youngster of 6 or 7 years old my families finances were nip and tuck.  No as kids we never went to bed hungry or didn't have a new pair of jeans for the first day of school but mom had to be frugal with the money she had so she could make ends meat.  Christmas time was always a challenge money wise because children expect a couple presents from Santa Claus, even if the money was not there for the gifts.  Also about the age of 6 or 7 is when the older kids are trying to steal the wonder of St. Nick from you for some reason.  I have never understood why people try to rob that magical time from children.

I clearly remember my mom, my two brothers and I getting to go visit my Uncle Ed's and Aunt Dorthy's house this one Christmas Eve and we even got to stay the night.  Uncle Ed and Aunt Dorthy did not seem to have the money struggles that other people I knew had.  They lived in a big house with a huge fireplace, they had a game room.  Imagine having a room just to play games in.  I think they had 3 or 4 color television sets in their home, we still didn't own a black and white one yet.  Aunt Dorthy had Christmas decorations hung everywhere and sitting on every shelf throughout her home.  The Christmas lights hanging on the outside of their house actually blinked, that was unusual for back in those days.  Their Christmas tree had so many decorations the bows hung low from the weight of the ornaments.  There was at least a hundred lively wrapped presents under their tree too, tumbling way out onto the living room carpet.  I had never seen so many presents in one place before.

We got to stay up late that eve and watched a Christmas movie on T.V.  We enjoyed popcorn and hot chocolate before Aunt Dorthy helped us kids prepare a plate of cookies for Santa and fresh carrots for his reindeer.  We then were told we needed to settle down and go to sleep because Santa was coming to town and if we were still awake when he arrived he wouldn't be able to come down the chimney and leave any presents for us.  Trying to settle down in our sleeping bags positioned on the floor of the "game room" was difficult enough but became nearly impossible when we clearly could hear sleigh bells ringing from outside from time to time.

All of my skepticism about weather Santa Claus was real or not vanished the next morning when we awoke early that Christmas morning.  Slowly making our way to the Christmas tree in the front room, my mom warned us ahead of time that we were not allowed to run in this beautiful home.  I will never forget for as long as I live the black sooty boot prints that left the hearth of the fireplace and marched right over to the Christmas tree where more presents were left.  The contrast of those black sooty boot prints leading across Aunt Dorthy's white carpet, only crumbs remained where the cookies had been placed the night before and the carrots were obviously chewed on by reindeer.

My Uncle Ed was killed in a terrible landslide while working for the phone company not many years after that Christmas we shared with him.  I can unmistakably say that I have modeled every Christmas I have enjoyed with my own children, my neighbors children and now my grandchildren, after the Christmas Uncle Ed proved to me that there really is a Santa Claus forty five years ago.

Things that go KA-BOOM

I hope you don't mind but I'm going to cheat tonight.  I have been so busy out enjoying the dwindling days of summer I have missed several days without posting any new stories.  I think most of you who follow my blog know I have a book about my firefighting adventures in the works.  I'm going to steal one story that I have worked up for my upcoming book for tonight's post...

One  afternoon, I was lounging around my house watching TV when I heard a great big KAA-BOOOOM from outside. All the windows in my house rattled hard and my dog started barking. Not being able to tell exactly which direction the noise had traveled from, but knowing something somewhere had blown up, I calmly put on my shoes and headed for the fire station. Within a few minutes, half a dozen other fire guys had shown up at the station too. Suited-up in our smelly turnout gear and ready to roll, there we all sat in the fire engine with the engine running. Not knowing where to go yet or what kind of call we would be going on, but certain that we would be flying out the door as soon as dispatch gave us directions. Sure enough, a minute later, my mom, the I.V. Fire Department dispatcher, announced over the fire radio, “Stations 1 and 4 respond to an EXPLOSION” —hmmm, that wasn't too helpful because we all knew that part already. Before she had even finished the rest of her instructions, we were racing out the bay doors and heading in the direction she had given us. Knowing the address location, we knew it was at least ten or twelve miles away, as the crow flies, from our station. None of us could resist imagining how big the hole in the ground was going to be. But we also began wondering if there was going to be anymore of the stuff that exploded still left to explode after we got there.


Our destination was the old, gold mining town site of Holland. Turning the wide corner into the big parking area in front of the rustic Holland Country Store, I saw fiberglass insulation hanging from the huge, historic, oak trees nearby. Before we had come to a full stop, I saw an older man stumbling around in the glass-strewn parking lot. His hair was frazzled-looking and his clothes appeared to be a bit singed. Near the old store we saw what was left of a travel-trailer. Each wall had been blown in different directions off the trailer a very long ways, leaving behind a trail of debris. The roof of the trailer had launched up in the branches of one of the old oak trees with scads of insulation hanging from the surrounding forest like colorful Christmas decorations. It was obvious that this travel trailer had blown up, but there was no smoke or fire upon our arrival.

Before the fire engine had even braked to a complete stop, I was out the passenger side door headed for the injured gentlemen to assess his injuries. Running up beside him, I lead him over to a nearby stump and carefully help him sit down. I asked him if he is hurt, but he couldn’t hear me because he had lost much of his hearing ability due to the explosion. So I ask him again louder,  “ARE YOU HURT?”  He sort of looks himself over and patted a smoldering spot out on one of his coat sleeves before saying, “NO.”  I assumed he had been walking around in the stores parking area when the trailer exploded. I ask him,  “WHERE WERE YOU WHEN IT WENT KA-BOOM?"  He slowly looked up and pointed to a couch still sitting on the flattened trailer house floor—the only thing left in the trailer. I said,  “YOU WERE INSIDE THAT TRAILER?  He slowly nodded, yes. I say  “DAMN, YOUR LUCKY TO STILL BE ALIVE!”  He turned to me and slowly said,  “WELL, I DIDN’T WANT TO BE.”

Come to find out, this crazy, old coot had been trying to commit suicide and he had gone to some trouble to do it. He had taken the two propane bottles off the front of his travel trailer and taken them inside with him. He then took the time to blow out the pilot lights on all the propane appliances in the trailer because of coarse he didn’t want to blow himself up, he just wanted to asphyxiate himself and peacefully die in his sleep. After opening the valves on both propane cylinders and began releasing the propane gas, he lays down on the couch he intended to be his final resting place. The escaping gas, being heavier then air began filling the inside of the trailer with the propane from the floor upwards. The propane gases slowly rose in the trailer until they reached him lying on his couch. He told me the fumes caused him to begin to gag uncontrolably—a serious miscalculation on his part. He surmised that he would just pass-out and it would all be over soon. Another problem with his ingenious plan was that he had forgotten to blow out the pilot light on the counter-top refrigerator. The explosive gases kept rising till they reached the refrigerator's pilot light flame and then, KA-BOOOOM!!! You could see where there had been concentrated heat; his hair was singed and he had no eye brows left. Some plastic items had melted, but, for the most part, the fire had blown itself out when the explosion exhausted the propane fuel. Luck, or not, he had been lying right in the eye of the firestorm.

I think he ended up going to the Veterans Mental Hospital in Roseburg

I still have some work to finish before I can have my book printed so keep your eye out this next winter or early spring for "I Put the Wet Stuff on the Red Stuff".

Too Stubborn to Turn Back

…my mom leaves a comment on my blog and of coarse expands on the only bike ride I wasn’t able to complete for fear of me actually dieing…

…it was early April. I didn’t normally do as much riding during the cold winter months because I hated to be cold. A nice spring weekend had finally rolled around and I thought it’s time to hit the road pedaling hard again. As mom mentioned I headed north on Highway 199 towards Hays Hill then turned west on the twisty-turny logging road headed up over Onion Mountain. This was a sweet ride that I had completed several times before. This old logging road was even paved most of the way.  I had ridden up hill for quite some distance when suddenly I run into a snow bank across the roadway. Not a gradual deepening of snow on the roadway but a bonk, a three foot snow bank. A prudent bike rider would have turned around here and strove off in some other direction mainly towards a lower elevation. I on the other hand had been trained in a different fashion. You know the “When the going gets tough the tough get going” mind set. In the fire department you don’t get to say to someone trapped in their crushed vehicle. In your girl voice,

 “Ohhh, your too stuck for us to get you out, we’ll come back later to help you if we figure out how to”. Heck, I was pretty near the top of the mountain already, so I throw my bike up on the snow drift and climb aboard and start taking my bike for a walk. It was a perfectly blue sky day, birds were chirping, plus I was on an adventure. I hadn’t walked to far when the snow suddenly went away and I climbed back on my bike and took off riding upwards again. Rounding the big corner in the road at the top of the mountain, BONK, again. Hummmm, surmising to myself, go back, keep going, go back, hell, let’s keep going, it’s beautiful out here today.

The four foot of winter accumulated snow was too soft to walk in without sinking in. By pushing my bike beside myself and leaning some of my body weight onto the bike I could keep my feet from sinking in the snow too deep. I was in pretty good shape back in those days so away I stride in the snow. A couple miles soon turn into four miles then six miles. My feet were starting to get a little cold but gosh look at the beautiful views I can see from here.

The snow covered roadway stretched along the top of a ridge where you could look straight down into Grants Pass and with the surrounding Rogue Valley on one side and the coast mountain range on the west side. Man it looked like it was a beautiful spring day down there in the valley. If I just keep moving forward I will soon walk out of this damn wet snow, I hope to myself, as six miles slowly turns into eight miles. The sun is starting to dip in the sky by now and I have to finally admit to myself, I’m wet and cold. I have come too far to turn back now, so onward I march forward.

As quickly as I found the snow bank on one side of Onion Mountain I was out of it on the other side. As soon as I stepped on the pavement, stomping my wet snow covered feet off, a jeep drives up. It is actually some people I know from Cave Junction. They ask “where did you come from?” I told them I marched over the top of the Onion Mountain Road. They said “Oh Bullshit”. I had to point out to them that there was only one set of tracks leading away from the snowy terrain. I was real cold and needed to get on the move to try and warm up. The afternoon shadows were already stretching across the roadway when I headed down Taylor Creek Road. With the extra wind I was generating riding down hill, my feet and lower pants being soaked and the sun dipping low in the sky, I was again in trouble. In dire straits enough to where I would have to dismount off my bike and run beside it trying to re-warm my body core occasionally.  How stupid did I feel running down a perfectly good hill I could normally be coasting down instead. The folks from Cave Junction drive up behind me in their new jeep and confirm what a nut I was for coming over the top of Onion Mountain the way I had, but they also offered me a ride home. I have a bit of a pride problem and foolishly turned their generous offer down, as they drove out of sight.

Finally reaching the bottom of the mountain and the Galice Road next to the Rogue River it is still quite a distance into the small community of Merlin where I could at least get something warm in my stomach. When you start slipping into hypothermia your decision making processes begin to fail. Being that I am an EMT, with quite a bit of medical training I know this. It is weird knowing your own body is in trouble, knowing what you need to do to resolve the problem but you don’t have the means to resolve the situation you have put yourself into. With my head down I put the bike in a high gear and pound the pedals forward. By now I am too cold for it to matter anymore, as I press my frozen feet hard on the pedals focusing on my blurry vision and not riding off the edge of the road. Within forty five minutes or so I reach the small town of Merlin. I weave into the small cafe barely coherent by now. Damn, they don’t except debit cards and I don’t have any cash on me but the waitress gives me a hot chocolate anyways, because she sees I’m in trouble.

I don’t remember whom mom sent to retrieve me that spring evening, but I survived. I have not always made the smartest choices in my life. But neither have I set on the couch at home and watched T.V. and played stupid video games all day long like so many people do either.  I would never choose to loose the life adventures I have experienced over being safe and warm all the time.

Isn't Being Outdoors Fun

Pulling shift today at the fire department you get to see the other side of folks using the outdoors...  Rafting down the Rogue River he decides to dive off one of the many rock outcroppings that line our famous river.  We help pull him from the water with his back broken in two spots and a huge lump on his head. At least this guy wasn't drunk like so many before him.  How I have managed to avoid serious injury while doing some of the crazy adventures I have had is beyond me.

One weekend several summers ago I decided too again ride up the Happy Camp Road but this time I planned on going all the way over the top of Page Mountain on my bike.  Turn left at the small logging community of Happy Camp and head up stream along the Klamath River.  I'd ride all the way to I-5, then take another left turn and ride north on I-5 over the Siskiyou Mountains before gliding down into the City of Ashland.  I would then follow an old highway through Medford, Jacksonville and Williams where I would hook into Highway 199 for the final round trip leg back home.  Two days, 230 miles, sounded simple to me, while maybe not too sane...

...it was a beautiful bright blue summer day this time though.  About 4:30 in the afternoon I was pedaling upstream along the rolling Klamath River.  A nice breeze was starting to develop helping cool the afternoon making my ride even more pleasant then it already was.  Suddenly I hear something moving in the bushes down near the river.  Looking closer, it is a big brown bear facing away from me.  I pull my bike to a halt on the roadway to watch nature in action.  This big bear was setting on his haunches in a huge blackberry bush growing along the rivers edge eating ripe blackberries about 50 feet from the road.  Not like we eat berries though, one at a time.  This big bruiser was taking a whole prickly vine in his huge paws and stripping the leaves, berries, and all, pulling everything into his chomping mouth.  I stood there with one foot on the pavement and other one still hooked into my toe clip on the bike, almost Captain Morgan like.  For a few minutes I watched this Marlin Perkins moment unfold in front of me.  Suddenly without warning the bruin stands, whirls around and looks right at me.  At the same moment he lunges forward towards me and delivers an enormous grunt in my direction. Why, when your being charged by a pissed off bear, does it take so much effort to take and put your other foot back into the toe clip on your bike and quickly sprint away? (or as Erica would say, "Bounce") 

Though the bear didn't actually attack me I was a bit disconcerted by the fact I had one even lunge at me, snorting slober.  We all know, if there is one bear there might be two, or for that matter a whole herd of bears, if they come that way.  The point being, I was going to ride as far away from this bear as I could before darkness fell. Eight-o-clock quickly turned into nine-o-clock as evening began to fall over the narrow remote valley. 

By 9:30 it was dark and now I couldn't see to find a safe place to pull up for the night, so I kept riding forward.  The few cars that were driving on this deserted stretch of country road that evening were having trouble seeing me pedaling along the edge of the roadway because mountain bikes don't come with frivolous things like taillights and headlights. It's now 10:00, and it's really dark, I'm in trouble, when far off in the distance I hear music playing and see a shimmering light.  As I drew closer I determined it to be banjo and fiddle music as the lights from the approaching village obscured my night vision.  As I am slowing down to see what kind of festivity I had stumbled onto a man stepped out in front of my bike and said "Hey buddy, stop for a minute" scaring the crap out of me.  Continuing he said "I am a volunteer fireman from here and when I just drove by you on the road I almost accidentally hit you because I couldn't see you".  I jumped into his arms from my bike seat, and cried "Brother".  He couldn't stop laughing after I told him my story about being a volunteer fireman too, about the bear siting, riding as far as I could to get away, it getting dark, then being too scared to stop.  He slapped his knee and laughed some more before he told me about a good place to hold-up for the night. He pointed "ride a mile further up the road.  Cross over the bridge, then walk your bike down to the small creek that feeds into the Klamath River.  There is a nice sandy beach there where it will be safe to spend the night".  I ask, safe from bears?  He says well, I'll be driving by there in the mid morning, I'll check to see if your bike is still there when I do.  If it is I'll stop and try and find where the bears have drug you off into the woods and buried you.  I'll also notify your department back in I.V. that they lost another good fireman if I find you chewed up and dead.

Man you've got to really enjoy that fireman humor, don't you.

If your Depressed, do Something about it.

You may have wondered how a mill worker during the day and firefighter at night became a biker too…

Not too long after my divorce with my first wife, an acquaintance came over to my house and invited me to go mountain biking with his group of friends. I turned down his offer, but they threatened to kidnap me and take me anyway—and they meant it! I tried to resist, “But I don’t own a bicycle I whined.” He said, "We brought one for you."  I implored, "I don’t have any biking clothes.” He said, "What you’re wearing will do just fine." "But...but, but.." They concluded with, "It’s your choice: come willingly or we’ll take you tied up, but you are coming with us today." Begrudgingly, with my head hung low and pouting, I submitted and went with them. I hadn’t ridden a bicycle in years. I wasn’t even sure I still knew how to ride one of those two wheeled contraptions. They dragged me off into the mountains to a beautiful mountain lake where they inform me that we were all going to ride around this lake. I ask hesitantly how far that would be. They pop off with, "Ohhh… it’s only… humm, about 19 miles I guess, but we’ll have a picnic lunch for you when we get done."

Now mountain bike riding is not like riding on the edge of some paved street in town, noooo. Mountain bike riding happens.... in the mountains! The trails they ride on are narrow, loose dirt paths with brush growing along the sides that sometimes tries to rip you off your bike. The trails include switch backs (meaning very, very tight corners on a steep slope) and then there are those neat drop-offs, (aka, cliffs!)

So in the custody of my kidnappers, I wobbly pushed off and pedaled down a slot through the brush corridor that looked sort of like a narrow trail. Even though the scenery was beautiful, I couldn’t really enjoy it because I was concentrating so hard on not going over one of the aforementioned CLIFFS on this cow-path of a trail. It did feel good to feel the breeze on my face, feel my muscles working, and smell the forest as it whizzed by me. Along the way one of the kidnappers got a flat tire so I rode ahead, knowing they would easily catch up to me when the problem was resolved. Another comforting thought was that if I crashed over an embankment ahead of them, hopefully, they would hear my moans for help and come and recover my broken body. For me a defining moment in my life was when partway around the lake I heard and felt the wing filled flap of air over my shoulder. Looking toward the sound, I saw that I had startled a bald eagle who had been sitting on a branch overlooking the trail. When he took to flight, he flew right over my shoulder and I felt the air he had moved when he lifted himself into the air.

On his huge wings he flew out over the edge of the lake and then, majestically, he turned and flew along side me for several more seconds before he peeled off to go find a quieter spot to perch. Feeling his wake as he flew over me, it felt to me as though he was encouraging me onward with the slow steady beat of his wings. It was one of the most profound moments I have ever experienced.

I finally made it the rest of the way around Applegate Lake. I afterwards was barely able to sit down because my butt ached so badly from the narrow bike seat. I did get the promised lunch though. My leg muscles, my lower back and my arms hurt too, but for just a moment, I noticed that my divorced heart didn’t hurt at all. It was the most alive I had felt in many, many months since my divorce. I asked whose bike I had ridden that day; they said it was one of their spare bikes. "Would you be interested in selling it?" I asked. "For $1800.00." they said. I bought that bike that same afternoon after finagling on the price a bit and haven’t really stopped riding since then.

After partially recovering from my first big biking adventure around the lake, I figured that if riding cured my broken heart once, maybe more riding would do it again. I started out with twenty or thirty mile bike rides along some of our country roads after work, but they just didn’t have the same effect on me that riding in the mountains had. It became a challenge for me to find harder and harder rides that would make my whole body feel the effort. If my body pained me terribly after a ride, the better it was on my mending heart. I remember on one of my bad days (depressed) riding to the Page Mountain Snow Park.

It was snowing pretty hard that day, the wind was blowing and as I gained elevation up the Happy Camp Road the snow got deeper and deeper on the roadway. As I plodded along uphill, my pedals started leaving curved marks in the deepening snow, but I forced myself upward. The higher on the mountain I pedaled, the stronger the wind howled and the deeper the accumulating snow got. When I later saw the movie Forest Gump, I had to laugh during that scene when the army vet who'd lost both his legs in the war was up in the crow’s nest of Forest's fishing boat during a terrible storm, screaming at God, “Is that the best you’ve got?" Because I too, can remember pumping my fist in the air, screaming into the wind at God that day on the mountain, “Is that the best you fricking got?” when I finally reached my destination, the deserted parking lot at the snow park. Riding back down the mountain was actually much harder then pedaling up because my bike kept slipping out from under me in the slick snow pack. Descending the mountain that afternoon, I fell so many times that I lost count and my mind began to go blank as hypothermia began to sink in. If it hadn't been for a Forest Service worker I knew, who came along that afternoon and told me to throw my bike in the back of his Forest Service pickup, I most likely wouldn't have been found until after the spring thaw. After being dropped off at my house and crawling inside, I climbed into a hot shower. Standing there letting the hot water rain over my numb head I noticed my heart didn’t hurt at all— although every other part of me did from all the falls I had taken that day. It had become a very good day for me after all.

Johnny Quest and Dora the Explorer

I know the stories are coming slower during these beautiful summer days but I’m busy out enjoying summer. I have always been intrigued why more people don’t get out and use the natural recreation Southern Oregon offers. I have to laugh to myself when I’m out hiking some deserted trail into some high mountain lake or very seldom seen waterfall. The environmental community would make you believe that thousands of Americans would be flocking to our region if we allowed these big wilderness land grabs to occur like the Kalmiopsis Wilderness area. Sorry the mass of “starved for remote wilderness area hikers” didn’t come. It was a ruse the environmentalists used to lock our forests away from the producers of lumber.

I by no means am a Johnny Quest type but I am taking advantage of where I was fortunate enough to be born, in Southern Oregon. I believe the reason I venture into the surrounding mountains, hiking, biking and exploring is partly due to me finding out, after Grandma Mary passed away, that she never visited Crater Lake. That revelation was mind boggling for me to except, so I don’t, I take adventures. After Larrieann and I first met in K. Falls I made it clear to her that I wasn’t the “set around and watch stupid shows on T.V. kind of guy”. Larrieann by no means is the “Dora the Explorer” type either but together we have climbed Mt. McLoughlin, Mount Thielsen and the South Sister out of Bend. On top of the South Sister there was still an active glacier when she and I and my trusty dog Pep trekked to the summit. I remember Pep lying down in the small freezing cold lake fed by the melting ice slopes and slurping up his fill of water. One of our favorite hikes is into the headwaters of the Rogue River, nestled on the slopes of Mount Mazama, the birth place of Crater Lake. The famous Rogue River does not start as a small trickle of water in some unnamed ravine; it literally bursts from the heavily forested floor as a fairly large creek.

Right where the cold water of the Rogue River flows out of the ground is where Larrieann and my new hiking buddy; Stryker helped me spread Peps ashes when he got tired and needed to go back home. This too is where I am planning on having my ashes spread when it “is my time” to go home also.

Larrieann has ridden her own bike with me around Applegate Lake, Diamond Lake, and the 33 mile Crater Lake Rim loop. Together we have ridden, using our tandem bike, down through the Avenue of the Giants (Redwoods) on the Northern Californian Coast. She rode one leg, of a seven day Cycle Oregon Bike event, from Canyonville to Wolf Creek with me also. A couple years ago I got the bright idea that Larrieann and I should ride the tandem from the north entrance gate, near Diamond Lake, up to the visitor’s center at Crater Lake for lunch. Did I mention it is up hill the whole way? It took us over five hours to make the 19 mile journey from hell. I don’t remember feeling anybody pushing on the pedals on the rear seat after about the fourth mile of winding up hill. One of the funniest things about that unforgettable trip was the lunch we enjoyed once getting to the park restaurant. Twenty seven dollars for a sandwich we split, bowl of chili for me, side salad for Larrieann and a couple cold drinks. We laughed the whole time we were enjoying the high priced food. Five hours to pedal up the mountain to the Crater Lake rim road but only thirty minutes to get back down to where we had parked the van. We were flying when we tipped over the edge and headed back to our starting place. If some innocent animal would have leaped out in front of our decent we would have died in the ensuing crash for sure. Afterwards we both made a note to self, Don’t Do That One Again, while it was beautiful but in the same breath a killer.

My hands down favorite outdoorsy
thing to do with Larrieann is to go
on our nearly annual, what we call our  “Waterfall Weekend”. We pack some supplies into our dog hairy van and head off into the Cascade Mountains to leisurely hike in and visit as many waterfalls as we can find and explore in a weekend. I think we would actually go more often but the darn van isn’t reliable running anymore so we take a gamble of getting back home when we venture out these days. There is nothing better then snuggling together in the back of the van on a crisp star light evening, listening to a roaring waterfall as it lulls you off to sleep. Both Pep and Stryker thinks it is a swell time also, hence the dog hairy van part.