Garth's Words

Sat. 6-26-10:

According to an interview on CNN about the possibility of a hurricane hitting the Gulf oil disaster area, “It would take five days to evacuate more than 38,000 people and 6,000 vessels that are involved in the oil response as well as the two rigs that are collecting about 24,500 barrels of oil a day from the well.”

Listened to bum stories in the abandoned downtown lot while Sarah charged/used the computer outside the little red church. Everyone was happy in the warm shade, well dosed on cheap liquors. “Come to rub elbows with the grateful?”, an old man with a cane and long a white beard
asks, referring sarcastically to my regular volunteer work at the Mateel lunch. “I really want to thank you and your girlfriend”, another man says more earnestly, “I feel more comfortable coming in there to eat when you guys are there.”

A young man describes his involvement in a recent fight down by the river when a dog had clamped onto his back. The local community radio station has spent a rather absurd amount of time describing this fight, the details of which are important only to the police and a handful of homeless people.  Another young man removes his prosthetic leg, leaning back in an automobile seat propped up against the fence. “There’s actually a foot in that shoe!”, someone exclaims, prompting all to look closely at a replica wooden foot seated inside a tennis shoe. The owner of the device seems oblivious of the attention, not self-conscious in the slightest.

Sun. 6-27-10:

Prophet Mark left a voicemail this morning requesting that we attend church with him. As would be expected of a prophet, he attends a different church every week. As the voicemail was not received until nearly 10AM, we did not take him up on the offer.

Entered Redway to plug up the laptop outside the little red church, forgetting that church was in session. With too much activity there, we search elsewhere for another available outlet. All in town know, however, that working outdoor outlets draw a crowd, so no alternative was found.

The creek that runs though our camp continues to dry up one section at a time, with a majority of it now no longer flowing. Sadly, the dammed up pool that fed the sink gave way today. Oddly, some sections below that point still flow, including our “bathtub”

Chipmunks are overrunning the camp. Upon our move-in over a month ago the little creatures were too timid to even show themselves. Near-instantaneous darting black flashes were the most they were capable of, offering not even enough of a glimpse to be identified. Now they are practically domesticated. Whatever they did for food before they don’t seem to do anymore, relying completely on our crumbs for survival. When we are walking around the camp they remain weary, scurrying back into their holes, but the moment we sit the camp becomes a jungle gym again. If things continue to progress this way they will be stealing food from our hands before long.

Dinner was to include a pound of Italian sausage. That was until Sarah let the pound slide off into the dirt, a total loss. Oddly, the chipmunks did not appear to be interested in this slimy mass.

Wed. 6-23-10:

Volunteered. New chef. Every Wednesday we will now be working for Amy, a 75-year-old woman who appears 20 years younger. She lives alone deep in the mountains, completely off the grid. Dinners come from the garden, washed down with a glasses of rainwater, consumed under lights powered by solar panels. Amy spends the winters volunteering her time 900 miles south of the US border in Baja, where she maintains a small leased home.

Made special medicinal herbal green tea for Sarah tonight, who has lately been suffering light effects of asthma. She sucks from her over-the-counter inhaler often, even in the middle of the night sometimes.

Thu. 7-24-10:
Volunteered with chef Scott. Although he was “fired” last week as a chef and his keys to the building were taken, he was asked to cook today’s meal because the other chefs were not available. I do like Scott, a nice interesting guy, but he is just not functioning on a high enough level to multi-task. Rumor is that alcohol is to blame. Was this a regular job I worked for money then today would have been the last.

Scott arrived an hour and a half late, 10:30. Time was of the essence to serve by noon. Work with Scott is normally chaotic, but rush him and all goes to hell. An array of dishes was finally ready to go by 12:30. At least 30 people were lounging around the building waiting to be served. Scott made the call and a long line formed at the counter, stretching all the way to the back of the building. I began putting food on a plate. Scott said, “Wait, not yet.”, and disappeared.

I assumed that Scott had gone to get some dish of food he forgot about, something he wanted me to add to the plates before serving them. Five minutes later, still no Scott. The line grows restless. Fellow volunteer Cisco comes to the kitchen, highly annoyed. We serve the plates together. “Scott forgot all about what he was doing. He’s outside hitting a bottle and rolling a joint.”.

Fri. 7-25-10: Prophet Mark

Visit with the local prophet all day. Prophet Mark began hearing audible messages from God some years ago while working in Redway Liquor. He’d thought the voice was coming from some customer till searching through the isles and finding no customer. A string of unusual events followed in the coming days, with both the heroes and terrorists of ill-fated Flight 93 shopping in the store. The voice had told Prophet Mark to bow down in front the heroes and “Come down off the roof” on the terrorists. He didn’t fully understand this message to the terrorists, “God meant to ‘come down off the roof’ with bibles verses, not ‘FU’s’”.

Prophet Mark admits on several occasions, “These could have been visions, I can’t always tell.”

Since his days at the liquor store, Prophet Mark  has received 3 “Tests of Faith for USA Nation” from God. The first message included a series of visions on 3 consecutive nights, all of which involved the impact of a huge fireball in the Pacific Ocean. In the first vision Prophet Mark was standing atop a peak overlooking a familiar point of land not far from his home. The ocean receded past the horizon after the impact then returned as a monster tidal wave some time later, far above the elevation of the mountain top where he stood.

The next two Test of Faith Messages discuss the underlying issues of contention and depression in American society, which as God told his Prophet Mark, are the roots of this country’s problems. At times, Prophet Mark has the ability to explain these issues with the precision of a sociologist but in the common words of an ordinary man, a very effective method at conveying his message. Reminiscing on the messages is at times emotionally overwhelming for him, though, with tears and long pauses. There is one thing that nobody who meets Prophet Mark will doubt. Both skeptic and believer will agree that this prophet truly believes everything that comes out of his mouth.

Utilizing the services of a webmaster, Prophet Mark has shared his messages from God on a website called Prophetmark.com. He checks email from followers regularly inside the cramped trailer he shares with his wife Alice at the dead end of a dirt road. His computer is an aging laptop with the screen missing, hooked up to an external monitor on the coffee table.

……..

Prophet Mark is standing at the end of his road, long wooden staff in hand, waiting for our arrival. We sit talking in the trailer for some hours. The worn living room furniture includes a full-sized bed, as the bedroom is completely filled with bird cages. Tweets and chirps fill the air incessantly. Wife Alice works in the kitchen, “Sorry, I’m not going to turn around because I lost my teeth.” She is thin, 50-something, about the same age as Prophet Mark. She prepares a lunch of ranch dressing on bread, topped with sprouts, a large pickle for a side dish. Dessert is frozen juice boxes served with a knife and instructions to cut the tops off; push-up popsickles. I recognize everything but the pickles as food given away at the Mateel Center lunch over the previous days.

Alice becomes very agitated and depressed after a phone call. The insurance only covers one set of teeth every five years, meaning she has 3 more years to wait. Prophet Mark’s encouraging statement of, “You’ll have something to look forward to”, does not improve her mood. Baking a chocolate cake does enlighten her. The saga of the teeth falls to the back of her mind and she even speaks to us face-to-face.

Prophet Mark asks for help. He needs a cut-and-paste lesson on the computer and assistance repairing a garden structure. Tools and supplies are few. I improvise by dismantling a wooden pallet, using the lumber and nails to construct a long post to prop up the leaning structure.

…..

During my conversations with Prophet Mark today I kept thinking of recent reading, the book about UFO contactees titled “Messengers of Deception”. While the book focuses on those who claim to communicate with aliens, it also makes clear that the same theory it proposes may involve many other people, including those receiving messages from sources other than aliens.

The author’s theory is:
Up until now, people have mainly viewed UFO’s in one or two ways, either as alien ships or hoaxes, but the truth may be that they are neither alien ships nor hoaxes. The writer proposes that the UFO phenomenon is a complex deliberate attempt at changing human society. The experiences of contactees are examined closely and compared to the known strategies of mass deception used by international intelligence agencies. And no, the writer is not proposing that the intelligence agencies are manipulating the UFO phenomenon. Quite to the contrary, actually.

While this very educated writer does not always write in a smooth way, his ideas are quite profound. The UFO problem is mostly forgotten by the mainstream today, but just have a quick look into the news archives of the mid-70‘s, when the problem had become so widespread and bizarre as to regularly make the headlines. Something happened and I’m tempted to believe this author is on to it.

Sun. 6-20-10:

The ocean casts off big wind gusts overnight, thundering the tent from time to time. The group slowly emerges one-by-one from their slumbers, beginning the long hike back towards the Jeep late morning.

A sick young seal lays beached, unable or unwilling to return to the water. The sleek ailing creature tries in vain to find a comfortable final resting position for its head, repositioning constantly as the sun warms the black sand to uncomfortable levels. It views me with sad eyes, only staring, chin on the ground as I move in close to take photos.

What looks like huge tan-colored coral boulders protrude from the sand in one place and one place only. They had somehow gone unnoticed on the walk in, the distraction probably due to popular barking seal hangout nearby. The largest of these boulders is seven feet high, 12-feet long, appearing to be made of one single coral piece. Justin however destroys this fantasy, informing me that the boulder is probably just an exposed layer of volcanic rock.

All are exhausted upon our late afternoon return to the Jeep, so much of our step energy having been stolen by the soft sand. Emily, with the shortest legs in the group, shows her weariness not at all, nor does Dax. They both however admit feeling very tired. Justin had been observed bending down for mini breaks many times towards the end. Sarah is on the verge of being pissed off, “I hate walking on sand”. Some years ago before I met her, she had walked the entire 37-mile Lost Coast trail with a group similar to this one; three guys, two girls. One of the guys was her boyfriend at the beginning of the trip and the other girl’s boyfriend by the end of the trip. This Lost Coast round two, although exhausting, turned out to be much less dramatic for her.

Lunch from Shelter Cove RV and Campground, the same business where Sarah and I attempted to get the job of camp ground host a month ago. “So, got a campground host yet?”, I ask the cashier. “No”, she replies, calling the owner out from his office in the back, who tells nearly the same story he did a month ago, “I think somebody who had the job before is going to take it again. They’re supposed to decide this week.”

Knowing how hungry we must be, Justin voluntarily hands over a $20 bill so Sarah and I can join the group for lunch the at an outdoor picnic table. All the camping food had been consumed and the heavily fried foods and burgers on this menu screamed to us. Probably the best hamburger of the year although it was in fact very average.

All is nearly silent inside the Jeep as it makes the long winding trip back to Redway. Emily had mentioned more than once over the weekend that she wanted to hug one of the giant redwood trees by the Eel River, but not even enough energy left for that. The Jeep passes on by the redwood grove as nobody says a word.

Mon. 6-21-10: Happy Vernal Equinox

We meet a rough but fit 40-something bum named Coloni while charging the computer outside the little red church. A larger less fit man and a big black dog sleep soundly on the sidewalk next to us. Coloni sharess numerous “nigger” jokes and other obscenities, shows off a huge scar on his lower leg. “I was dosed”, he says of the scar, “my dog woke me up and my leg was on fire.” The story is that he “dosed” himself then passed with his feet near a candle. He had large boots on. The candle tipped over. The boot rubber burned for over an hour. “My dog was barking and the whole leg was burning. I put it out and took the boot off. The bone was showing.”

Coloni says that all the oil taken from the Gulf of Mexico will leave the tectonic plates “unlubricated”. Instead of sliding past each other they will break and a big hole will form. All the oil under the Gulf will be released at once and spread all over the globe. The Pacific Ring of Fire will ignite the oil. The earth will burn. “See you around if I’m not in jail”, Coloni says upon departure.

Listening to a radio interview in our camp later, the Mendocino County Sherrif shares the following information with the general public:

The sheriff’s department is currently conducting a joint flight training operation with the Civil Air Patrol and the Drug Enforcement Agency. Pilots will be familiarized with the local terrain and how to spot marijuana grows from the air. The county allows 25 plants per taxable parcel of land. The exception is marijuana cooperatives, which are allowed 99 plants. Cooperatives must pay an application fee of $1050 to the sheriff’s department. Each of a cooperative’s plants must display a Mendocino County tax tag, which cost $25 each. Cooperative’s plants must be inspected 3 times per year. The inspections may be done by a third party for those who do not wish for law enforcement to enter their property. The sherrif’s department licenses three private companies to do inspections.

$3500 in total fees for each cooperative. The sheriff did not share detailed information on the licensing fees paid by the private inspection companies or how much these companies charge for inspections.

Tue. 6-22-10:

Starting to get bored with the volunteer work, making the same dishes and doing the same cleanup tasks each day. Still no paid work in close sight. However, the people definitely need the food we help to prepare. Also, our fellow volunteers and the Mateel Center manager April are very appreciative, so we will stick around for now.

Busiest lunch day yet, apparently due to some nearby music festival. At least 40 plates served, ran out of most foods.

Volunteer Ior shares more of an accident story that he had described only briefly before. On his birthday some years ago he was hiking and fell off a 55-foot cliff, landing on the very top of his head into sand. Instead of shattering the spine into a million pieces, the pressure of the fall compacted his jaw bone to the point that it ripped through the flesh and up over his face. The Coast Guard responded, assuming on sight that the patient was dead. No breathing was visible but movement was noticed. Jaw damage was too severe to allow for mouth to mouth so the rescuers cut holes through the chest into each lung, inserting breathing tubes. Today, this hard working man walks and talks! Although, he did today scrub each individual piece of silverware a bit too long.

Listening to the radio news tonight, I think of class struggle, and how it has evolved in my lifetime from just a topic of historical study into a popular subject of daily discussion. I overheard a man say just the other day, “I can’t wait to see the day in America that a CEO is executed.” It is true, the new class war is firing up thanks to the series of outrageous events that has plagued the world in the few past years. Sometimes it seems to be on every channel and every mouth every hour of every day. Never do I remember this being the case before, never were the rich and powerful scrutinized so irately. Anger is boiling everywhere and any world history textbook can tell you what could happen next. Opportunity is wide open for a new leader of change to sweep the globe. The question always is……will this position be filled by good, or evil..

Continued reading the book about UFO cults, “Messengers of Deception”. The man who killed Robert Kennedy in L.A. was a member of a popular international occult group. The group’s leader claims to have attended meetings of “The High Council”, a secret elite society that controls the world.

Fri. 6-18-20:

Recycle $3.81 of cans and bottles to do laundry. A street lady walks by with a small container of butter pecan ice cream, asking, “Do you want half? It’s too much for me.” We accept the offer. She promptly produces a knife, cutting the entire container perfectly in half.

Meet Justin at the supermarket just before sunset.Remember Justin, the cool young owl counter we rode out to California with some weeks ago? He and two of his coworkers of roughly the same age, Dax and Emily, made the six-hour drive from Quincy to spend the weekend hiking the Lost Coast. Sarah and I pack tightly into Dax’s worn old white Jeep. Water leaks from a radiator hose and the brakes nearly fail on infamous Shelter Cove Road. Arrival to Black Sands Beach just as nighttime blackness sets in.

I had been a bit weary of trying to find a campsite at night, but what a surprise! The half-moon shining through the clear sky made for the most wonderful nocturnal beach hike, the best scene one could hope for on this undeveloped 37-mile stretch of coastline known for dreariness as much as beauty.

An hour’s walk. Strong winds cut to half their strength as we proceed deeper into a wide cove. The roar of the waves lessens with the shallowing of the waters. Rocks and shoals hundreds of feet out, a boater’s nightmare crash scene but a most peaceful campsite. Tamed waves allow for the ability to walk right up to the ocean’s edge, viewing the reflections of the moonlight across the tidal pools.

Thanks to numerous creeks flowing from the mountains to the ocean, the supply of driftwood is plentiful. Previous campers have constructed a fire ring of 75-pound boulders and drug massive logs in around it as benches. Home sweet home. The fire is roaring within minutes of our arrival. Shooting stars streak among the million stationary ones, with the edge of the Milky Way being the dominant feature.

We share ales around the fire, out feet dug into the soft black sand. Unlike Justin, Dax and Emily have already finished their university studies. Dax is from Reno, Emily from Loisville, both thoughtful, soft spoken and well-kempt. All three are on a team studying spotted owls for the US Forest Service. They hoot out a few sample calls, tell of a colleague who recently took talons to the back of the head, causing much bleeding. “Owls are very territorial”, Emily explains, “He had white hair and the owl probably thought he was another owl.”

Sarah hears an odd noise. It’s Justin’s tent rolling away towards the water. He gives chase, catching his fleeing sleeping quarters not a second too soon. The ocean is jealous. It wants a tent like that. Wants to show it off in Hawaii or Japan, but Sarah’s keen hearing ruins its day. The ocean, though, known for persistence, is not yet done. Its second attempt is foiled because I decide to take a bathroom break at the exact right moment. The tent blows into me as I’m staring at the sky. On both of these attempts, the odds had been greatly in favor of the ocean getting Justin’s tent. We dissuaded further attempts by piling boulders on the stakes.

The moon turns to orange as it nears descent over the horizon. Distant clouds cut through it in the moments of departure.

Sat. 6-19-10:

Best tent sleep ever, thanks to the soft sand and ocean sounds. I only briefly awoke on a couple occasions during the highest tide when a wave or two had crashed a bit too close for comfort. All but Emily described just as peaceful of a sleep. She, as it turns out, does not sleep well in new places, which must make Forest Service life a bit rough at times.

Still a perfectly clear sky! The drizzle forecast had been defied. I grill flatbread salami sandwiches on a flat rock angled towards a small fire, sharing them with all. Numerous fellow hikers pass by, with one such group having secretly resided all night on a hillside just feet away. An apparent family, father, daughter, son and dog, had surely been awakened by our late-night fireside chat, yet they claim not having realized our presence till morning.

The huge one-gallon bag of trail mix that Sarah and I had packed is gone by mid-day. The winds again begin to roar as we follow the curvature of the coastline towards a more westerly heading, out of the cove that had provided some overnight protection. The mountains rise at nearly vertical angles from sea level upwards of 500 feet. The drop is almost entirely vertical where complete halves of mountains have slid off into the ocean.

All vertical drops, high or low, contain no vegetation, very dangerous places to hang out. Stand at the bottom of such a place and experience a sound like rain, which is countless grains of sand falling all around you, an endless ongoing landslide. Stand at the bottom of such a place for a considerable length of time and surely experience a nasty bump on the head. In an attempt to take shelter from the wind, Sarah and I last all of about sixty seconds at the bottom of a relatively small cliff, until the earth releases a torrent of pea-sized pebbles.

An octopus of over ten pounds, one of its tentacles ripped off, lies upside down, gently heaving on the beach, its movements only visible under close inspection. Fields of boulders protrude from the water at points in the land. White and brown seals have taken over one such boulder field, barking from the tops of the largest rocks. Sarah and a baby seal surprise each other at close proximity, with the frightened creature frantically slithering back off into the water.

Waterfalls are ever-present, dozens of them, flowing right out of solid rock in the mountainsides. Some fall from hundreds of feet, others appear at near sea level. These are rather tame flows in most instances, no more than the volume of a bathtub tap. Due to the extremely rocky nature of this beach, the water flows underneath the surface, disappearing at the base of the falls and reappearing near the ocean’s edge. There are only a handful of exceptions, where the volume of water is sufficient to cut a channel through the beach. However, these flows are all quite shallow, possible to boulder hop across without wet shoes.

The beach narrows, becomes much more treacherous with larger boulders, a section impassible during high tide. Some four hours of hiking and we come to a vast flat grassland no more than 20 feet in elevation, a wonderfully hard and flat reprieve for our feet. Some half-mile later across this grassy terrain we come to the largest flowing body of water encountered yet. Here marks our campsite for the evening, among a sandy grove of short scraggly trees just 100 feet from the ocean shore.

Fields of driftwood and softball-sized rocks extend a quarter-mile inland to the base of the mountain range, showing that the waves crash there regularly in times of severe winter weather. Massive driftwood trunks of up to 6-feet in diameter, 40 feet in length, lie scattered about. Among the natural sea litter are a few man-made objects, apparently sections of large steel ships that have been torn apart. Nearly tame deer forage among this strange landscape, not bothering to move unless directly approached.

Sarah and I sit with Justin on a huge log that rests in a deep portion of the creek. The whole group has a tea party together in the campsite. We share a dinner of pasta and tomato sauce with two bottles of wine by firelight.

Thur. 6-17-10:

The parking lot gate of the Mateel is closed upon our 9AM arrival. With wait with a group of four bums who happen to be sitting there, three of which are familiar. The unknown is a young man with a prosthetic left leg and scratches on his face. Doc Emmit Brown says, “Women…once they get what they want from you they throw you away like a used colostomy bag.” The dirty guy with the brown dog, the same guy that moved a crock pot into the church lawn some days ago, is there with his stick-obsessed brown dog.

A car pulls up. A clean thin bearded man opens the Mateel gate. The brown dog walks up behind him. “Get THAT dog out of here!”, he screams, directly at the dog, pointing at it fiercely. The owner jumps up, screaming a string of profanity at the man in defense of the brown dog. “THAT DOG IS A KILLER!”, the Mateel man screams back. The dog owner continues his tirade while walking away at the same time, ending with, “I’LL KILL YOU!” The screaming finally over, the Mateel man explains with a hurt face, “That dog killed the Mateel’s cat two weeks ago, ran up and started shaking the cat in its jaws before we could rescue it. The cat lived for 30 minutes. So I have no patience for that dog.”

Volunteered. Chef Babette arrives very late but more people than usual show up to volunteer. Quite chaotic. It would seem that the system worked in this case, but horror stories have been told by many. There have been occasions when the system has not worked, when volunteers have not manifested in times of great need. Each of the experienced Mateel chefs has at one time or the other over the years had to clean up the entire building all by themselves. Tuesday chef Bob once mentioned of not getting out till 4PM some day years ago when everybody simply left him all alone after eating all his food.

The Mateel Center board of directors has a kind of “lease” with this free lunch program that we volunteer for. The board asks that the lunch program pay $30 per day for “utilities”. The politics are rearing their heads! Those in charge of the program, Bob and Babette would seem to be involved in a very heated debate with the board. Bob’s voice is heard aggressively while Babette takes the passive-aggressive approach.

Bob:

Says that the lunch program often looses valuable kitchenwares during the Mateel’s annual shows, primarily Summer Arts and Reggae on the River. The lunch program has been forced on multiple occasions to replace the lost wares with their own funds

When the board discussed eliminating the lunch program Bob had suggested they change the name of the Mateel Community Center to the Mateel Entertainment Center. “That got their attention.”

Says that the lunch program has been allowed to offset it expenses with a garden in the past, but not anymore. The former garden caretaker was despised by the board for spending far more time than necessary on the Mateel grounds

Babette:

Yesterday in the office, within obvious earshot of board members, she talked to me about helping to create a new logo to replace the current one that mentions the word “Mateel”.

Says the board wants the lunch program to be out of the building to 2PM each day.
—-

Several people arrived for lunch very late, and that was after we hadn’t even starting serving till 30 minutes late. Then on top of that the last lady to arrive simply would not leave! Every other table had been removed from around her. We mopped all around her. The entire basketball-court size dining area was empty except for her but she just kept sitting there! I finally helped her carry her things out the door but she wedged back in when it was about to close. She spent another 20 minutes in the bathroom cleaning and drying individual grapes!

My dad has most likely solved the mystery of the rock I discovered yesterday afternoon. He claims iron carbonate, a kind of mineral deposit commonly found in mines. Such deposits can in some cases weigh hundreds of pounds. In instances when miners unknowingly tunnel underneath them they can fall through the ceiling, killing many a miner.

Capture chipmunk, approximately eight inches long from tip of nose to tip of tail, total weight no more than 2.5 ounces. The little creature runs through the camp as I’m sitting on a bench listening to the radio. It darts into a paper grocery sack for cover. I grab the sack, putting it underneath a plastic grocery basket. Trapped!

The chipmunk refuses to emerge from the sack so I slowly pull shreds out through the slits in the grocery basket until the sack is entirely gone. The creature climbs madly around the basket, frantically chewing and scraping as I slowly shred the sack. It becomes oddly calm the moment my shredding task is finished, though, just staring at me intently, not moving.

For two hours the chipmunk remains almost entirely motionless, just briefly climbing around in a calm exploratory fashion. It moves its head to follow my conversation with Sarah, looking at whomever does the speaking. It eats the end of a grilled turkey frank, all but the skin.

At dark I slowly lift the “cage”, but the chipmunk just stares at me, not even a twitch towards escape! Had it already been domesticated by one single bit of turkey frank? What do they put in that stuff anyway? I lower the cage back down atop the chipmunk, which is still motionless. I put on a leather glove, remove the cage again. A slight twitch as I begin to pet it, but no escape attempt. I pick the chipmunk up. It sits in my palm until I start to walk, at which time it jumps to the ground. After sitting at my feet for a moment, escape is finally made, although very slowly.

Tue. 6-15-10:

Volunteered at Mateel Center. The free lunch crew has been shaken up. Scott the Wednesday cook was “fired” for excessive drinking. What a concept, firing volunteers, although Scott had been quite under the influence during his work at the Summer Arts and Music Festival. The Thursday chef, who only made sandwiches, quit due to an argument with the Center’s board of directors.

A person who regularly gives away sandwiches and marijuana has gained the attention of local police and media. The sandwich line was extensively photographed  in Garberville by the authorities last week. It would seem that an arrest of the giver may be planned. The giver’s extreme charity is a legend here, so lots of people will hopefully be available to provide bail money and legal support. Much criticism has fallen on the police for this very public method of investigation, as many people consider it extremely disrespectful to draw so much attention to homeless people standing in a food line. Strange place, this Humbolt County.

Coworker Bob brought us a radio! Our camp has new life to it! Especially convenient, the radio is rechargeable with a hand crank. We listened to KMUD Community Radio all afternoon, broadcast just a quarter-mile away in downtown Redway. National Public Radio recently produced a piece titled “Pot Radio” about the station, which regularly broadcasts real-time reports on the movements of law enforcement personnel.

These special public service announcements must be quite common, as one was broadcast shortly after I turned the new radio on for the first time. A procession of government vehicles was reported to be heading down some specific rural road. Such drug raids are quite common, often involving Blackhawk helicopters and so many police cars that roads are jammed for hours. About one such raid, a person told us that they witnessed miles upon miles of stalled government vehicles. Instead of car pooling, each single cop had chosen to drive their own vehicle. Ha, such a classic police bungle!

While Obama addressed the nation on the Gulf Oil Spill I constructed an art project utilizing the mediums of chicken wire, a mangled tree root and colorful pebbles. Sarah promptly named this piece, “The Galaxy”.

Instead of sleeping 12 hours during the long darkness we nearly cut that time in half by spending a few hours at the local community radio station, KMUD, with our fellow Mateel volunteer Bob. The occasion was to spend an hour of Bob’s weekly 3-hour radio show, called Infinite Space, seeking new volunteers for the Mateel lunch program.

He places Sarah and I in a second studio facing the main studio though a window. His voice is broadcast through a light reverb as mysterious new age music plays in the background. We discuss the volunteer issue together after playing a short National Public Radio interview with the staff and clients of a soup kitchen in Washington DC.

Two callers phone in, both insightful and well spoken. One is a man who lives in a very rural area, too far to drive, but still wants to help. He responds very positively to my suggestion that he organize an effort with his neighbors. The other caller is Kat, a member of the Mateel board of directors. Overall, the radio experience is very positive. Not for over a decade had I been in a radio studio, having forgotten how much I enjoy it. In college at Southern Illinois University I had a show for one semester.

Upon completion of the segment Bob puts on music for the next hour. We share beers with him and Andy on the station’s back porch. Andy, whom we’d coincidentally met at the Mateel earlier today, is attempting to become this district’s next state congressional candidate. Andy knows right where my hometown of Murphysboro, Illinois is because his great great great great uncle was General John A. Logan, who was born there. Andy is a fascination guy whom I hope we may work with in some form in the near future.

Wed. 6-15-10:

Volunteer. The chef Babette gets our seal of approval. We will continue working with her.

Several of the people encountered today had heard last night’s radio show. We enjoyed the radio experience so much that I sent an email to the KMUD program director requesting a possibly available slot for a “homeless show”. The person who used to fill that position quit and the time is currently being filled by extending the shows of other DJ’s. The homeless show, which I would say we are uniquely qualified for, is meant to explore any issue relating to homelessness. I envision profiling and interviewing both those who provide services and those who use them, filling the remainder of the slot time with music produced by homeless people or about homelessness.

I spend the late afternoon rockhounding the creek bed upstream from our camp. At the intersection with another smaller creek canyon comes my most amazing find yet. Even more amazing was the fact that I actually picked this object up. At first inspection it appeared to be just yet another piece of hardened sandstone, but one with an unusual shape, sort of like a knuckle joint. I nearly threw it back in the creek but then threw it into the collection container on second though.

Only later did I just so happen to get bored and wipe away the object’s thin outer layer of algae, exposing a big surprise. What could it be? A meteorite? A fossilized egg? I am stumped and very excited to know. Picture attached. Please pass it on to anyone you may know who could help with identification.

Mon. 6-14-10:

Walk the ridge along the east side of Redway, all less than 1000 feet in elevation. The town itself is only 500 feet above sea level. Considering the regular hippie traffic through town, I expect to find old camps and trails, but no, barely even a deer path until I begin descent past the north end of town. Some long-abandoned logging roads simplify segments of the journey while complicating others. In areas where lots of sunlight hits the old roads, they tend to become thick briar patches.

I Take along a knife and pepper spray for the trip. Loose the pepper spray, which falls out of front shirt pocket. The precautions are mainly in case of angry mountain lions or bears, but these simple weapons would probably not be of much use against them, though. As for the possibility of angry pot-growing hillbillies, they probably have guns that they throw in the canyons after shooting trespassers.

Huge burned out redwood stumps and trunks along the descent, a few remains of a long-ago camp among them. The only salvageable item is a “Mateel Center” glass and a rolled up blue tarp. A well worn trail leads down the rest of the way, along which is a blue tent. Next to the tent is a discarded package of meat from the town grocer dated to expire June 16th. Not a soul in sight but evidence of much camping having taken place over the years.

Sarah sits for hours using the laptop outside the red church. Bean and cheese burritos, tuna and cheese quesadillas for dinner. I continue rockhounding the creek, half filling a garden watering pale with cool new finds. No more guns, though. Acting on a joint idea we had together, Sarah uses sticks and a piece of chicken wire to create a “rock dreamcatcher”. Finally something to do with all those patterned rocks that I’ve been piling around the camp for days.

Sun. 6-13-10:

So much for my brilliant idea to leave a roll of toilet paper in a Zip-Loc bag by the “toilet”. Overnight a small animal chewed right into the bag, enjoying an all night shredding frenzy inside it. The one-gallon Zip-Loc was discovered to be bloated to full size this morning, stuffed to capacity with tiny toilet paper shreds. That little animal had surely thought, ‘Wow, this is the easiest nest I ever made’. Well not so fast you toilet paper trespasser, go build a nest out of your own materials.

A fat 8-inch lizard covertly creeps within a few inches of me as I’m on the laptop outside the little red church, only flinching slightly when I notice and wave my hand overtop it. The lizard crawls on between my knees and does one of those little head weaving lizard dances in a beam of sunshine. Another trespasser, this time of my personal space. That deserves a capturing, photographing.

I briefly chat with a few drunken bums in the abandoned downtown lot till a fight ensues. “STOP LAUGHING AT ME!”, one slurs at another repeatedly, louder and louder each time. Moving on down the street, I photograph a creative recreational vehicle that has been parked in the same spot for the past two days. It’s an entire semi-truck sleeper cab with a full length enclosed trailer attached. The trailer has been entirely converted to living quarters, surely more space than any commercially available RV. A ‘For Sale’ sign lists the entire mid-80‘s era rig for sale at $17,000.
A 40-something woman named Katy walks up as I’m taking the photos, a member of the group I’d been speaking to before the fight ensued. Unlike the others, Katy actually has a home. Like the others, she likes to drink during the day. Wandering into the area years ago with a backpack, the energy of the coastline begged her to stay.

“Have you seen the blowholes?”, Katy asks, standing with her feet apart, “they’re like a natural douce.” She once lived on a bus converted to run on fryer grease, “We had six fifty-gallon drums on top of it and would just pull up to KFC in the middle of the night to fill up.” Katy explains the low price for this semi-truck RV, saying that new laws about to go into effect require that the engine be modified to run cleaner. “Can I hug you?”, she asks upon parting ways. I must hear more of Katy’s stories and antics this summer, something tells me this was barely the tip of the iceberg.

I find a gun. Years rusty, still in a holster, deep in a crevice of the canyon upstream from our camp…….a 9mm. I knew it! Rock hounding was only half my motive for exploring these treacherous depths. There are bound to be forgotten treasures all over rough Humbolt County terrain. The gun is obviously worthless, and more than a bit creepy, but confirms my suspicions entirely. Considering something like this was found in my first area of attempt, the odds are great for numerous other such stashes.

Fri. 6-11-10:

Nighttime animal activity seems to be increasing. All creatures had up until now been extremely sneaky, never allowing a glimpse of themselves in the beam of a flashlight. A skunk was spotted a couple nights ago walking across the fallen redwood we use as a bridge to our “bathtub”. Then last night two mice became trapped in a small trash can.

I placed two sandals over top the can with the intention of photographing the captives in daylight. Come morning, however, the can contains one living mouse and one mutilated mouse corpse. The victor appears without a scratch, the looser gutted, although both mice were nearly identical in size.

As punishment for its crime, looser is forced to swim in a 5-gallon bucket to the point of absolute exhaustion, then leashed with fishing line and tied to a tree for the day. It was so chilly this morning that I feared my mouse would die of hypothermia unless warmed it in an aluminum pan near the fire for a bit before being tied to the tree. This brought it at least back into a correct sitting position.

When it comes to both rats and mice, the five-gallon bucket method is a very effective way to get a leash on. Your rodent must be watched very carefully, though, or it will drown. Watch closely until the animal is just starting to have trouble keeping its head above water, then it will be like putty in your hands, unable to even sit correctly for at least an hour. For a small rat, my experience has been five minutes in the bucket, this small mouse however needed only a minute. In both my experiments, the water has been very cold.

Walk 2 miles to Garberville. The usual hippies are scattered about tiny Veterans Park, doing the usual things. Miles waves us over, who tells a story of meeting a “beautiful Asian chick” down by the river while volunteering at the Summer Arts and Music Festival. Middle-aged Kelly sits nearby making bead jewelry, a few of his finished goods displayed on an animal fur.

Enter used book store. Take non-fiction book from free rack, titled “Messengers of Deception”, written by one of the first scientists to publicly admit the presence of unidentified flying objects. The usual middle-aged man and woman are present in the cluttered store, whom I for some reason assume are not a couple. The woman has a son of approximately my age, also named Garth, who runs a local computer shop. I briefly met this son on Sunday evening while volunteering at the Summer Arts and Music festival. He was bartender of the main beer tent. My theory is that if Garth does volunteer work then he might also be charitable enough to allow us to sit in or around his shop someday and use the wifi.

Garth’s mom says to find the computer shop, Emerald Technologies, on the opposite end of the small town. A sign in the window, facing a sidewalk next to the business, reads, “Are you going to keep this area clean or are we going to have to put up a ‘No Loitering’ sign?” Garth is right there behind the counter when I arrive. I briefly explain the website, “How about a trade? Let me use your wifi for a day and I’ll put up a link to your business.” He agrees to next week allow me to plug in for a day, “We usually keep the wifi locked down, though.”

The entire town of Garberville has suddenly come alive for tourist season on this beautiful Friday. Packs of Harley’s and Harley Wannabe’s roam the main street, arriving for some annual biker celebration. Sidewalks full of pedestrian traffic. Farmer’s market. Duke walks by, a fellow Mateel volunteer, with the head of a young puppy peering from his backpack. “A lady was giving them away at the park yesterday”, he explains, “Miles took this one then realized a few hours later that he couldn’t take care of it any more.” Lucky dog. Most road dogs won’t have it anywhere near as good as Duke.

Library, reason for our walking. The book I had been reading here two weeks ago, “The Diary of Ann Frank”, has been checked out till July. I browse current news magazines instead. A Time article details the absurdity of the federal agency tasked with policing deep water oil drilling operations. It had not only been infiltrated by “oil men” but also tasked with a major conflict of interest, leasing drilling rights. Many of those in the industry obviously knew the risks, yet no emergency plan or equipment had been put in place to stop a deep water leak. How disappointing, all the trouble that goes into collecting taxes and forming a network of agencies to protect us, then the agencies just turn out to be an elaborate farce. What a waste! If you’re unfamiliar with the details of this case then check it out, an extreme one indeed, sure to cause ripples for years.

Return to camp. Food stamps not scheduled for replenishment till tomorrow, very little left in our food storage bin. A few slices of bread, a salami, some shredded cheese, combined for a sort of pizza sandwich, served with two-day-old cooked sweet potatoes reheated on the fire. My captive mouse is full of energy, its leash tangled in a dozen sticks. Strangely, it does not run immediately upon being cut loose, in some kind of trance. I take it to the sink, drip cold water on its head. That does the trick immediately, with the mouse scurrying directly to a mouse hole in the creek bank.

Sat. 6-12-10:

Food stamps! A morning phone call to the automated line reveals $400 fresh dollars waiting. Two young boys walk down the sidewalk, no older than 7. “Hey mom”, one yells across the street, “We’re goin’ up to the liquor store to buy popsickles.” Small towns.

Strangely exhausted I sleep at camp for much of the afternoon. The same sort of unexplained exhaustion had also been felt yesterday afternoon. Recently having found some strange insects crawling on my clothes and suffering a leg rash for some days, I’m paranoid something has bitten me. A black widow visited me in bed today. Sarah and I have both been recent tick victims.

She types on the laptop next to me for hours. Awakening, the remainder of the afternoon is spent rock hounding and cleaning the finds. I retrieve a 30+ pound white and grey rock from a nearby hilliside, which looks great displayed next to the reddish one found some days ago in the creek. The best find yet turns out to be an unsuspecting little mud-covered stone that had been just feet from our hut for the past two weeks. Cleaning reveals the most distinct patterns seen yet.

Thur. 6-10-10:

Where is summer in Humbolt County? Mid-June and still chilly! Barely 60 degrees, mostly cloudy with gusting winds. The local kids were so excited about what was apparently their last day of school at Redway Elementary that they were oblivious to the cold, donning swimming attire and having a big organized water balloon fight. Maybe the teachers filled the balloons with warm water.

A bum has taken over the entryway to the little red church where everyone without a home goes to plug in their phones. All the bum’s blankets were thrown on the sidewalk yesterday, right in front of the front doors, and now a crock pot is plugged in where phones normally are! The pot is filthy, food spilled everywhere around it. Empty dog food cans litter the church lawn. The sidewalk next to the pot is littered with all the man’s random possessions, thrown in no particular order. The church is bound to put up a “No Loitering” sign soon. One of the first things one notices on the streets, there is no clear link between intelligence and cleanliness. The offending bum in this case is reasonably lucid in conversation. Some of the craziest bums here are cleaner, though.

At camp I build a full-height sink to go with the running water. Hollow metal stakes serve as the main supports, hammered deep into the ground with a rock. The basin is a large shallow plastic tub. The tip of a knife is used to drill a small drain hole in one corner, with water directed deep back down into the creek via a segment of irrigation hose.

The same rock had been used as a hammer for the past two weeks, which finally shattered into a dozen pieces today. It had until now performed its duties like a superhero, amazingly not even suffering a scratch. Contemplating this super hardness and noticing a tiny hole inside the rock, possibly a fossil, I walked a segment of the creek bed in search of other fossil-containing rocks. The creek bed is so deep, with vertical walls of up to 10 feet, and the canyon so treacherous, that few ever venture there.

A majority of the rock found in the creek and canyon is a very soft sandstone. The second most commonly found is a semi-hard stone that was apparently rounded by water some eons ago, now left behind embedded in the sandstone to decay. The third most commonly found is the interesting one, very hard and displaying patterns of whites, greens and reds.

All rocks naturally continue to roll downhill into the creek as the canyon deepens over the ages. The sandstones and soft rounded types of stones break to pieces, while those interesting hard ones just get a free polishing. The orange glow of the setting sun reveals  underwater treasures that would go unnoticed in normal light. What looks like a brain catches my attention, just a few inches under the surface. Poking it with a metal pole ensures that is actually a rock.

Grabbing the rock with one hand, it doesn’t budge, most of the mass buried in mud and sand. Two hands, it moves just a bit. Freedom in wiggling. The buried portion of the brain shows elaborate patters of dark reds. I carry the 25-pound mass into camp, cleaning the exposed mossy parts of it till after dark under the glow of a headlamp.