Garth's Words

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.

Mon. 6-7-10:

Not a one responsibility today expect for basic stuff like breathing, which is not much of a hassle at all unless you force yourself to think about each breath. I didn’t think about a single one(until writing this sentence). As for optional small tasks, we did do a few of these, like charging in the camera, phone and computer outside the red church.

Sarah emailed a seething letter to the editor of a free weekly publication, which has been a successful, but unintentional, job application method for her in the past. That’s exactly how she got her last writing gig in a weekly publication. Just before we met she sent a seething letter to the editor of a Duluth publication tearing apart another writer’s article. This current problem article is a cover story about the local race for district attorney. All cover stories are compensated $500, which is what got her seething to the point of written criticism. This writer simply cut and pasted information from publicly available campaign finance reports, in which some candidates were listed to have spent in excess of $100,000 on their campaigns. A truly horrible piece of writing.

Speaking of the district attorney race, the major players have taken to outright attacks of the social intelligence level found on elementary school playgrounds. To prove that she supports victims rights, Allison Jackson has printed a photograph and letter from recent victims whose case was handled by the current district attorney, Paul Gallegos. This couple’s daughter was killed and they are outraged that the current DA gave the offender a plea bargain. The way I see this, Allison Jackson is scratching at somebody else’s old wounds for personal gain  She cares enough about the victims to request that they publicly relive the whole tragedy again. Just because somebody will agree to something doesn’t always mean that it’s a good idea to ask.

I was improving the dirt stairway from the hut down to the firepit when coming across an especially heavy chunk of wood buried a few inches down. About the size of an adult hand, I scraped off the dirt to reveals that the wood was indeed filled with something heavy and rock hard. This may be a calcium deposit, which I’ve been told that redwood root systems can generate in the event that their main trunk is chopped down.

Tue. 6-8-10:

Volunteered with Bob the Tuesday chef at the Mateel Center. His regular Tuesday helper Ion was also present. Later came Cisco to grill the stir fry. A man with a name something like Ior set up the tables and took them down. A few others helped for a moment or two but the overall volunteer level was half of what is has been. Bob says that in the event nobody helps he must do everything himself, including the cleaning, which can result in his not getting to leave until after 4PM. With help his departure time is before 2PM.

A radio show played in the kitchen in which the hosts discussed the current local issue of bad acid. Someone has apparently castrated themselves now because they believed their testicles to be possessed by evil. And on the subject of terrible mutilation, a car plunged into a canyon near Redway on the road that leads to Shelter Cove this afternoon. A driver who happened to be on the scene told of legs out one window and guts out the other. T-shirts are sold in Shelter Cove shops reading, “I survived Shelter Cove Rd.”. Not being one who thinks funerals should be conducted as purely sad events, I think the victim’s family should have the mortician dress their loved one in one of those shirts.

We don’t socialize with our fellow local bums on a daily basic because we usually have other things to do like update this website or work on our camp. But, we hang with some of them for an hour this afternoon in the overgrown downtown lot. The group of 4 includes Doc Emmit Brown and the clean hippie met some weeks ago in Garberville. The Doc is silent now but I’d heard him earlier at the Mateel lunch talking about computers, which seems to be the only subject he’s willing to talk about.

The group assumes we don’t smoke weed. The other day in this very same spot the Doc had assumed we were European, asking, “Are you guys just here to entertain yourselves?”. The clean hippie loads loads a pipe as an apparent test of authenticity. A dirty brown dog repeatedly drops sticks at our feet, returning with a log when the stick is lost.

Back at camp, dug a dirt stairway down to the creek in order to more easily obtain non-potable water. The creek banks are so steep that this had been a very difficult, somewhat dangerous task.

Sat. 6-5-10:

Nearly $8 for recyclables, which include the old electric motor and cast aluminum found near our camp some days ago. Board a retired school bus, the free shuttle to the Mateel Summer Arts and Music Festival at Benbow Lake State Park in Garberville, just a few minutes drive. Having signed up for volunteer work at the festival tomorrow, today was our free day to enjoy the show.

The crowd is diverse- hippies, families, hippie families. Big bellies protrude from sports bras. Twenty-five percent sport dreadlocks. The vendors and music are plentiful- over 150 booths and 4 stages, lining both sides of a fairway along to the rushing Eel River.

We sit under redwoods on sandbags chatting with familiar faces. Duke is outraged at the oil leak, “It’s a terrorist attack, plain and simple. It’s a foreign-owned company that won’t let anybody else near the leak to help. They hope a Category 5 rains oil all the way to Ohio.”

Scott, the regular Wednesday chef at the Mateel, walks like a long-stride zombie, arms flailing, eyes barely open. His appearance reminds me of a story told of a previous year by another volunteer, when all the security crew had dropped acid together. His state is a result of too much work, though, too little sleep. “Could you please do me a huge favor”, he asks, on his knees in front of my sand bag, “Please take my place at the organic juice stand for 30 minutes while I go home and take a shower.”

I oblige, squeezing lemons in a press for one hour, at times barely able to keep up with the demand for $4 lemonades. Bob, the regular Tuesday chef at the Mateel, has hung a sign on the booth, “Lemonade with insults add 25 cents”. Multiple customers demand this additional service. Working across the table from me on the orange juice press is Duke, Ion serves as the cashier. Both are fellow Mateel meal volunteers.

Sarah browses the booths, finding a coat that she insists that I see. As she is very rarely impressed by clothing, I’m quite curios  Her beloved coat appears like something a pirate would wear to a fancy ball, totally unique, and $950. The designer is a woman named Samiah, who has a clothing line of the same name, www.samiah.com. She insists that Sarah tries the coat on again even though I insist we can’t buy it.

Sun. 6-6-10:

Our volunteer shift at the music festival start mid-afternoon, both assigned to security, worst job at the event. The staff area is behind the main stage among redwoods and picnic tables. Food is provided but only with a meal ticket, one meal per shift. Starving and without a meal ticket, I beg the chefs, who provide an apple and a bowl of chip crumbs.

Scott needs help at the juice booth again. He’s on his knees begging again, looking even worse than yesterday. With an hour to kill before my shift starts, I oblige, squeezing oranges and lemons once again. A girl of about 7 years old assists me on the presses, learning quickly then noticing on her own when tasks needs to be done.

The security booth provides me with a green “Security” shirt. The radio booth provides me with a radio and a corded transceiver. My assigned position is the worst of the worst, the area in front of the main beer tent. Saturday is the family day, Sunday is the drunk day. Choosing to stand right in the middle of the traffic flow, I take the approach that the sight of a security guard with a radio will be all the policing that’s necessary.

As for violations, I only react to complaints. A blonde woman approaches, “I’m trying to eat ice cream with my kids and some guy is puking all over the place.” I radio the security booth, “What do you want to do about a puker?” A volunteer-in-charge appears shortly, whom I direct to a young man in an Army hat, the puker. He agrees not to puke in public anymore. Walking away from him, the volunteer-in-charge says, “You can cut him off if you want to. You can do that.” Volunteer security, what a concept.

The next complaint is about the same group, a bunch of street kids hanging out under a tree right in the middle of the festival. They openly drink their own smuggled beer and pet their smuggled puppy. I radio the volunteer-in-charge again. “It’s a service dog”, the owner insists. The group calmly pours out their canned Natural Ice. An hour later, the same complaint about the same group, more Natural Ice. This time the volunteer-in-charge just so happens to be there when the complaint comes in. “No, I haven’t seen them with any more beer”, I lie. “If you do then you can have the rangers kick them out. You can do that.”, she replies. I approach the violators when the boss departs, telling the girl with the puppy, “Hide your beers for real this time or you’re about to get kicked out.”

Natural Ice disappears for some hours then reappears everywhere, but by that time there are so many violations that nobody even cares anymore. Dogs are everywhere, glass bottles, people on bicycles, kids having food fight, throwing chopsticks. Even the rangers just small talk with one another as teenagers pass bowls and joints around them. By nightfall the smell of pot is unavoidable. “You’re working too hard”, a festivalgoer says, handing me a fireball.

“Are you Garth Kiser from Murphsyboro, Illinois?”, a familiar face asks. It’s Stephanie, who went to the same high school as me! Wow, I’ve heard that everybody sees everybody from everywhere at these Northern California summer festivals, but wow! Stephanie is a good friend of my brother whom I had not seen for quite some years.

Strange occurances happen in 3′s. Number two is Sleepy from Wisteria Island, the guy with the full facial tattoo! Over the winter in Key West, Sarah and I had spoken with him on several occasions. His girlfriend just single-handedly piloted their 30-foot sailboat from Key West to the Yucatan.  Strange occurance number 3 is a woman whom a sheriff had just come by looking for. The strange part is that the woman walked up to me and introduced herself for no particular reason. Of course I am not a snitch, though, not unless you cross me!

Then comes the situation that ruined this festival volunteer experience. Alcohol can only be purchased with tickets, $2 per ticket, 3 tickets required for a beer or wine. The ticket booths remain open till minutes before the bars close. No last call warning is given and all the people in line are not served, stuck with strings of their now-worthless tickets.

Considering this was a volunteer event, rather unorganized, you would at first suggest this to simply be a matter of oversight. But no, it had the signs of orchestration. All available security personnel are called to the beer tents 30 minutes before bar closing, then asked to form a human wall in front of the bars the moment the bartenders quit serving. Caught off guard, cheated, the customers were irate. Profanities were screamed, strings of expensive tickets waved in the air. Great concept, make people wait in line twice, once for tickets the second time for beer. They’ll get so tired of waiting that they’ll buy extra tickets. Then we’ll just slam the door in their faces. No refunds. Tada.

Somebody is responsible. Hopefully that person is not a paid Mateel board member.

An hour to kill before my last task of the evening. I wander around aimlessly pondering the stupidity of what just happened. “I’m getting a good vibe from you. Sit down in the grass and smoke a bowl with me.”, a dirty street kid with a dog requests. Then comes the cleansing of the grounds, to herd the crowds down the fairway and out the main entrance. Already incensed over the ticket scam, the stragglers are rude as ever, taking it out on anyone wearing a Mateel shirt.

A woman claims her 5-foot-tall 9-year-old is missing. The police close the gates. A volunteer security leader blocks the outflowing line of traffic, then leaves me standing in front of the lead car without even a radio. The drivers all look to me for answers. Not a single cop anywhere, the line growing in frustration. “Guess you all can do whatever you want”, I tell the drivers, walking away. Turns out the huge 9-year-old had been found anyway.

I just so happen to hear a call on somebody else’s radio that the last shuttle bus will be leaving in five minutes. Sarah is in the staff area, where nobody had been warned of the shuttle departure. Despite all these oversights, I would have still volunteered for the next Mateel festival in July had it not been for the ticket scam. Shame.

Arriving on the bus back to Redway we realize, no flashlight. Nearly total darkness, only the trunks of the largest trees visible, and only when 1 foot away from them. Every so slowly we trip and stumble through the steep canyon. I wave a rolled up band poster in front of my eyes as a branch warning system. At first, I honestly didn’t think we would be able to find the way. At least know we know, it would be absolutely impossible for a stranger to find us at night.

Tue. 6-1-10:

Unknown small animals now know to visit our camp each night after dark, arriving like clockwork after we’ve been silent in bed for 30 minutes. These animals are apparently telepathic, as they scatter the moment I even think about shining a flashlight.

Cut up vegetable for salads and did dishes at the Mateel Community Center free lunch, 9AM-2PM. It’s funny how dramatically the value of simple things changes when one lives in the woods. Using the hot water tap in the bathroom to shave seems almost worth 5 hours of kitchen labor. One of today’s volunteers is a former grocery store produce department manager turned part-time security guard who also  lives in the woods. As a produce manager in this area he used to pay truffle hunters $100 per pound for the black variety, with individual hunters sometimes leaving the store with over $2000 in profits. Pigs are trained to hunt truffles. This former produce manager now has cancer and will move into a cabin on the property of a natural healer who practices the methods of American Indians. He’ll soon be heading security for an event at a marijuana dispensary. He may be able to hire Sarah and me.

Wifi at the little league ballfield. School is in session, with a P.E. class taking place on the field. The coach’s mouth never stops. Each comment is a screamed command, “PUT DOWN THAT BAT! SPIT OUT THAT GUM! WATCH THAT LANGUAGE!”. A group of girls, probably 3rd to 5th grade age, watches us from beside a dugout. The leader of the pack waits till we are departing to yell, “ARE YOU HOBOS?”. Sarah replies, “ARE YOU HOBOS?”. No response.
“BYE HOBOS!”.
I wave.
“OH LOOK, THE HOBO WAVED.”
The teacher offers no scolding for this behavior. It’s the gum chewing that’s important. What will the next generation of Redway be like? Probably unrecognizable from its current form.

Afternoon trips up and down the canyon walls, retrieving more items from the junk piles discovered yesterday. Twenty-five-pound electric motor, caked in mud but still worth 15 cents per pound. Unknown 5lb piece of cast aluminum, worth 30 cents per pound. Two more chairs, worth nothing but very comfortable.

Wed. 6-2-10:

Volunteer. All food must go to clear the kitchen, which will be used this weekend for one of the Mateel Center’s big annual fundraising events, the Summer Arts and Music Festival, held at nearby Benbow Lake State Park.

All cooler contents spread out across tables on the Center’s rear patio, everything free for the taking, including yesterday’s plentiful leftovers. Nearly all is gone by 1PM. One of the takers is a local regular known as Prophet Mark, who always carries a wooden staff and drives a van plastered with magnetic signs reading “ProphetMark.org”. The signs also contain brief hints to impending worldwide catastrophes like “Pacific Tsunamis”. Mark explains that a webmaster maintains the site for him. He seems concerned upon hearing the name PursuingNothing, wanting to know why that title was chosen. Departing in the van he offers this advice, “Do you know what God told me about marijuana?” Thinking this is the beginning of an unusual joke, I laugh. Mark does not. “God told me there is no marijuana in heaven.”

Rain all afternoon so we volunteer for odd cleaning jobs, everything from walls to floors to windows. A Mexican-American man named Cisco has the same idea, spending hours with us. Clean, articulate and soft-spoken, no stranger would ever guess he’s a share cropper who lives in the hills out of an old beat up van. His life was forever changed some years ago by a surfing accident in which several 8-foot waves ground his body across a reef. Unconscious and about to drown, his life had miraculously been saved by a female shaman on a donkey who happened to be riding by.

The shaman kept Cisco for over two weeks. She always carried a flask of peyote-laced water, sipping from it often, sharing regularly. The worst of Cisco’s injury was a lung punctured by a broken rib, which the shaman healed by, “Sticking her hand inside my body without an incision and focusing all her energy on the rib, which produced heat that calcified the bone.” He has since obtained x-rays of the broken rib, convinced they offer proof of the shaman’s abilities. Unfortunately, he had a falling out with the shaman for some unknown reason, leaving her residence with the screamed words, “I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN.”

Having volunteered to work security this weekend at the Summer Arts and Music Festival, Sarah and I had a meeting to attend tonight. Cisco was very generous with his old van, taking us to Benbow Lake State Park and then back to Redway. The security crew meeting included about 10 volunteers, two members of the Mateel Center, and a young park ranger. “Be on the lookout for people acting strangely because bad acid has been going around. A guy cut up his buddy a few weeks ago.” And yes, I know for a fact that is a true story, read it in the paper, some guy cut out his friend’s heart and eyes. When the cops got there an eyeball rested on the center of the living room floor.

The meeting continues, “This is supposed to be a family event. There shouldn’t be any rapes like at Reggae Fest(another Mateel-sponsored event).”

“It’s OK for people to smoke pot if they have a “215“ card, but you need to ask to see it.”

“Service dogs are OK but companion dogs are not. A puppy is not a service dog. You can’t ask somebody what their disability is but you can ask what service their dog provides.” The ranger cuts in, “Actually, a puppy could be a service dog in training, which by law must also be allowed in. Service dogs in training must be wearing a vest or some other form of a label. Service dogs in service do not have to wear a vest and the owner is not required to produce any documentation.”

Service dogs have become such a big issue because there were “service” dogs everywhere at last year’s event. Every loophole will quickly be exploited. THEY LEARNED IT BY WATCHING THE GOVERNMENT!

Thur. 6-3-10:

Rain all night. Chilly showers all day. Sarah’s trend continues, everywhere she goes experiences record cold. The locals appear increasing bewildered with each passing day. Daily heat and sun should have been the norm weeks ago. Sweltering 100-degree summers are infamous here. “There’s only two seasons in Humbolt”, the locals says, “Wet and dry”.  .

The Little Hill of Terror(LHT) has become a daily annoyance, especially for Sarah, who has slid down the LHT nearly every single morning since arriving to Redway. Most of the path to our camp is very difficult, but none of it can compare to the LHT, a nearly vertical slope of about 4 feet. Low branches prohibit leaping past the Terror. The LHT must be approached very closely before a jump becomes possible, and that’s when the sliding starts. It has been the same scene every morning, with Sarah creeping up to the hill and grabbing a branch as her body suddenly takes off sliding. In an instant she ends up at the bottom of the Terror, her body rigid near the ground, still supported by the sharply-bent branch. To her great credit, only her boots have ever touched the Terror, the rest of her mud free. Still though, not a great way to start any day. Until the LHC became a running joke, the daily slide had left her pissed off each time.

No volunteer help needed at the community center, although a flurry of activity is taking place as the grounds are being used as a staging area for the Summer Arts and Music Festival.

A person walks up, “Will you help me give this marijuana away?”. They open a grocery bag filled with biodegradable dog poop sacks, each sack stuffed full with at least two ounces. .

“Um, yeah.”
The person hands over a doggie bag, “It’s really good stuff from Garberville.”
I walk over to bum hangout on the empty overgrown downtown lot. Doc Emmit Brown is there along with a new face. Both men have to stop and think for a moment upon hearing my offer, “Yeah, I guess so.” Still half the bag left but no more bums in sight. The giver had suggested I also give to non-bums, but not yet having adjusted to the strange ways of Humbolt, I refrain, taking the remainder back to camp.

Drink hot coffee. I improve the toilet, replacing the automobile tire with a wooden patio chair. Conveniently, a board from the center of the chair’s seat is missing. No modification needed. Above the chair I hang a tarp that had been discovered some days ago at an abandoned camp near the road.

Random Though: All types of biodegradable products are available here, one of which is disposable silverware. The prongs of the forks regularly break off in food. What a way to reduce your carbon foot print- choke to death!

Fri. 6-4-10:

Once again, non-stop rain all night, heavy this time. Not a drop fell on our bed, though, or anywhere else in the hut as far as I could tell. The little stream running next to us, normally not much more than a trickle, has tripled in decibels by daybreak.

We depart in blue rain suits before 8AM, headed some 8 miles away to visit a new friend. Hitchhiking is supposedly quite easy in these parts, but not today, not for us at least. Luckily though, the rain turns to mist the moment our journey begins, disappearing completely by mid-morning.

As our waking pace is quite brisk, the transit time is less than 3 hours, made to seem all the shorter by spectacular scenery. Even the tiniest of waterways gush. Mist creeps across the mountains, through giant redwood groves, each trunk big enough to stop a speeding freight train. The height of these trees is put into perspective by the fact that they even tower above us when growing from the base of steep canyons far below.

The only problem with this journey is the traffic, sparse but extremely hazardous on this narrow winding mountain road. Still though, even with many pullover areas available, not a single motorist cares or notices enough to stop. Money seems to have even corrupted the masses of old-school hippies who have become incredibly rich farming marijuana upon these lands. Huge fences and gates block plain narrow gravel driveways leading up into the hills. Semi trucks of potting soil roar past, stalling behind them multiple large pickup trucks loaded with the same product.

Unsure if we are still on the right course, I ask a man for directions. He is standing in the front yard of his modest home. Another big gate and fence, but this gate is open. I step inside the property just a few feet so the man can hear my voice, keeping at least 30 feet of distance between us. The man frowns, simply responds, “I don’t know.” I ask a more general question. The frown intensifies. The man just shrugs sarcastically, closing the gate as we walk away. The place we are in search of is found not even a mile further down the road. If I ever find that I’ve become something like that man then I’ll give away every dime, mark my word.

There it is atop a gleaming hill, the distinct landmark leading way to the destination. The road turns to no more than a rough path. On the backside of the hill is a wide meadow, a 360-degree mountain view for miles from the top. Down in that meadow sits the house, surrounded so tightly by junk that the passageway to the front door is nearly impossible to find.

Our new old hippie friend, whom we will call Bart, quickly answers the knock to his heavy front door. Every other step inside and out of his little home is a potential trip, each foot placement must be double checked. A most impressive collection of musical and recording equipment, racks upon racks of it many feet high, lies hidden among the clutter. Awesome guitars line the walls. Much of the home’s artwork is of Bart’s own hand.

“It’s compulsory”, Bart says, handing around a beaker pipe every few minutes all afternoon long. Each refill is lush and hairy, sometimes of a purplish color. “We don’t normally smoke this much”, I warn Bart, “The conversation may eventually start to degrade.”. He ponders this statement for a moment, “Well if that happens then I’ll slow it down a bit.”

Only one tap in the house works. We drink tea made of murky well water. “I drink it all the time”, Bart explains, “The rain just mixes in some sediment.” We watch the documentary movie “The 11th Hour”, a very dramaticized account of global warming directed and narrated by DiCaprio.

5PM. Must begin the walk home early in case of another case of no ride. A worn black Bronco stops an hour into the trip, two men and a dog in the front seat, a young girl and a puppy in the back seat. “It’s stolen”, the driver says, no trace of a smile. Of all the people to stop, these were the most unlikely of candidates, rough and not particularly sociable. Just goes to show once again, never judge anyone by their appearance. The passenger did offer some words, passing around yet another smoking object. The driver pilots the vehicle erratically, constantly reassured by his companion, “You’re driving good little bro.” The little girl we’re crowded into the back seat with seems absurdly innocent for this particular scene, soft spoken but conversational with her playful little puppy.

Mon. 5-31-10:

Standing by the Redway Recycling Center, waiting for the 11AM opening time, a familiar hippie couple informs us, “It’s Memorial Day. They’re closed.”. The woman knows because she just got a job there yesterday.

In the grocery store parking lot a young man screams at employees, “I’ll just call the deputy sheriff on you and he’ll come because he’s my brother-in-law.” Inside the store’s men’s room the sink hot water tap is running full blast, the drain closed. Looks like somebody might be pissed off about the “Employee’s Only” signs on both restroom doors. However, I have used these restrooms multiple times, even when employees were present, with no problem.
Wifi at the little league field. The elementary school bells still ring regularly although the buildings sit empty for the holiday.

Another afternoon of camp improvements, making many trips up and down the canyon walls. Much new “furniture” obtained thanks to new piles of junk discovered. At the top of the north canyon wall, just across the private gravel road, branches off a smaller dirt road, much less traveled. Without a single tire track or footprint in that area, out of sight from the main gravel road, I consider it a safe place to rummage around. Caution must still be taken though when crossing the main gravel road, because we have heard a truck slowly creep by on two occasions over the past days. Another hazard with these junk piles is biting red ants and yellow bees that make papery nests. Over the years I’ve come to be suspicious of any kind of bee that builds papery nests.

Some of today’s junk finds include:
-1 old wooden chair large enough for two people but only sturdy enough for one.
-1 silver 10×30 foot tarp with only two small holes
-1 wooden shelf, 3×4 feet
-2 aluminum baseball bats, one of them is child-sized
-1 plastic chair colored to appear as tarnished copper, back broken off
-10 hollow steel poles 3 to 4 feet each
-1 large plastic tub
-1 plastic 5-gallon bucket
-1 swimming pool ladder, plastic with heavy metal core, used in canyon “bathtub”
-approx. 50 feet of nylon rope(laundry line gauge)
-several cans and bottles for recycling

The dirt road continues, although overgrown with grass, further up the hill past the junk piles. It follows a ridge overlooking downtown Redway, becoming too overgrown to continue after a few hundred feet.

Built grilling platform thanks to a grill discovered in the creepy firing range yesterday and the stakes discovered today. This is the same type of platform we used during our Wisteria Island experience over the winter, the stakes are hammered into the ground and the grill lays atop them.The camp work continues until just before dark. Last task before dinner is to hang the tarp above the fire pit. Two strands of the nylon rope stretched between redwood trees serves as the main support. With limited trees to stretch the corners, I drive the hollow steel stakes deep into the soft sandy ground with a large rock. We consume Italian sausage burgers(1 pound each) under the new shelter, cooked atop the new grilling platform.

Sun 5-30-10:

Breakfast rations: 5 zebra cakes and one cup of coffee each.

Found tied bundle of ten 8-foot greenhouse solar panels on a wooded hillside near the camp. These are not the electricity generating type, rather the clear plastic type mounted on greenhouses. This bundle was by far my best hut-construction material scavenge ever- 80 feet of panels! Their ideal use would be to cover the hut, replacing the black plastic sheeting that lets in no light. The canyon stays so dark and cool that the hut should rarely or never get too hot for habitation. Since I have no liquid sealant to apply to the seams, however, or no clear plastic to put underneath the panels, the hut will just have to stay dark for now. I did lay six of the panels atop the black plastic at the center portion of the structure to further protect the interior from rain.

Founds years old Pepsi, unopened, the can still firm. Found 5-inch banana slug, a fat slimy creature that moves so slowly it doesn’t appear to be moving at all, except for the extendable eyes and face. As its name would suggest, the slug resembles a small black-spotted faded-yellow banana. Found two blankets in an abandoned camp, used them to make our own bed softer. Not exactly clean blankets, but that doesn’t really matter considering they are the bottom layer of the bed, underneath a tarp. I also leveled the bed using 3 more dirt bike tires. The bed is now supported by a total of 9 dirt bike tires. In all, 12 dirt bike tires have been put to use in this camp. There are still several more available in the canyon.

That pile of automobile batteries discovered yesterday- I carried a small one a quarter-mile to the Redway Recycling Center, which is just a portable shed under a carport, surrounded by various dumpsters to hold various recyclables. My efforts resulted in a whole $1 and 70 cents, or 7 cents per pound, then an old bum hippie who had seen me carrying the battery handed over an entire heaping fistful of weed, the same guy who had thrown a fistful of weed on the Mateel Center serving counter the other day. What a town! The question is- what the hell are we ever going to do with our ever-accumulating mass of weed? What a problem!

The money earned from the battery plus our last handful of change was just enough to wash our laundry and almost get it dry. Our entire cash savings now totals less than 25 cents. Waiting for the wash cycle we plugged our computer and phone in at an exterior electrical outlet of the Grace Lutheran Church across the street. Unlike most of the other extremely hypocritical churches to be found throughout the world, this one is generally known to be generally accepting of general bumming around.

As for those other churches, a guy named Miles recently told us a story about his experience with a church in Garberville that holds no regular services. He’d discovered a deep dry crawlspace under the building accessible through a little half-height door. The space was dug into the earth two feet, leaving almost enough room to stand. The floor and walls were of clean cement. Miles quietly inhabited the area for many weeks, keeping it very clean and tidy till a group of teenagers discovered it and got drunk there when he wasn’t home. The kids made such a disturbance that the police were called. The church members then did their own investigating of the space, noticing that the somebody was calling it home. Miles returned to find his possessions in the church dumpster. His tarp was spread out next to the dumpster, displaying a message for all to see, “The church does not want you here.” Scientologists!

So back to the Grace Lutheran Church today. I was sitting there typing on the laptop when one of my favorite local characters appeared, whom I’ve come to call the younger homeless version of “Doc” Emmit Brown, the crazy scientist from the Back to the Future series. My first meeting with the Doc was some days ago in this very same place, when we’d waited out the rains in the church breezeway together. The Doc had been carrying a tattered box of moldy encyclopedias, very excited about them. Also included in the box was a computer programming book on assembly language, which he was even more excited about, “Like….this is like…..the most basic you get before ones and zeros man!”

Today the Doc passed me with nod then suddenly stopped, his eyes growing wild and transfixed on the netbook in my lap, “Is that a computer?”, “What operating system does it run?”, “What’s the storage capacity.” The Doc leaned close towards the machine, viewing it cautiously as one would some advanced alien technology.

Late afternoon, scaled canyon wall opposite our camp, which became a bit uncomfortable near the top where there is only a thin ledge to crawl across. At the top, past another hundred feet of brush and forest were wide open fields, unmowed and showing no signs of tire tracks, small piles of junk everywhere. Thinking I smelled marijuana plants, I proceeded very cautiously, a few slow steps at a time. “Do not shoot post”, reads a sign on a post supporting a tin roof. Under the roof are three wooden units to prop guns on. It’s an old firing range.

I proceed even more cautiously, coming to a group of abandoned cars and boats. One of the vehicles is a what appears to be a nearly brand new white truck, parked among the old rusted ones with weeds growing up around it. In the distance there is an old wooden cabin, the overgrown lane leading to it showing evidence of recent tire tracks. Too wierd, I retreat back to the canyon. That private gravel road that winds above the canyon must be the driveway of this old property. The owner may not be especially unfriendly though, as there are not any “No Trespassing” signs posted anywhere on the perimeter. The only signs I’ve found are deep in the woods where squatters of previous years have attempted to grow marijuana. Around old bags of potting soil, pots and fertilizer can be found laminated plain paper signs printed on a computer, “Private Property – Do Not Camp Out”. I will now assume that all the growing paraphenelia thrown into the canyon is just the owner disposing of squatter’s operations in an attempt to save him or herself from legal problems. There was no sign of any growing, past or present, around the cabin or fields. The smell may have been imagined.

A deer acts threateningly as I’m about to ascend back down the hill. It had remained quiet and still, completely hidden right up until I was just some feet away. We locked eyes, both perfectly still. Something wasn’t right, this deer looked angry. I backed directly away until having moved a safe distance. The deer never broke its gaze.

Wed. 5-26-10:

Back to work at the community center again, an all different volunteer crew from yesterday except for one old hippie named Bob. A person doing the dishes needs to be run through the dishwasher themself. A man plays reggae on the piano during the meal. Someone walks up to the serving counter holding a grocery bag, reaches in and pulls out a fist full of sticky marijuana buds, setting the pile right there on the counter. “Share that amongst yourselves.”. Nobody makes a move for the pile, all fully stocked. The buds go into a brown paper bag, stashed on top of the microwave. Come time to leave, the bag still remains mostly untouched.

Break in the rain. We spend the afternoon moving our campsite to a wonderful little spot I’d discovered while wandering around the woods in the rain yesterday afternoon. Our previous campsite had been on an old logging road, overgrown to the point of impassibility. At the bottom of that road in the base of a steep canyon is a flatened plot of land surrounded by cliffs and steep hills on all sides, essentially a big hole in the ground.

No ordinary hole, however, everything covered in green. Moss even covers the sheer vertical cliffs. Ferns are abundant, the largest having a 5-foot spread. A group of redwood trees grows right in the middle of the new campsite, not monsters but small by now means. Unfortunately, all that’s left of the monster redwoods are monstrous stumps and portions of the trunks that were unable to be removed from the canyon. This was an extremely wasteful operation, with at least 30 feet of one trunk left to rot away. At 4 feet in diameter, that could have been alot of logs. Rumor has it that a single redwood can bring as much as $50,000.

Thur. 5-27-10:

Tried to volunteer at the community center again but were turned down! Turns out that no hot food is served on Thursdays, a woman just comes in to make sandwiches and she only uses one volunteer. The day now free, we decided to walk to the Garberville library, 2 miles away. Of course the rains began midway, pouring by the time we arrived. Dripping wet, I decided to return to the campsite and build a fire rather than spend the day sitting in the library soaked. Sarah didn’t mind that though, spending several hours there.

A fire in the rain was only possible thanks to a garbage bag and a massive downed redwood trunk. Underneath a portion of the trunk is a spot perfectly protected from all rain, but the debris underneath it was still too saturated with humidity to ignite without assistance from the garbage bag. If you’ve ever burned a garbage bag then you know, the smell is horrid, like a combination of smoke and body odor.

Very heavy rain returns. I retreat to the tent for hours. Sarah returns with food in the late afternoon, by which time I’m ready to leave this place forever. The rain does not cease all night.

Fri. 5-28-10: Home!

The sun is back and I’m not ready to leave this place after all. The next option would be the city of Arcata and I just wasn’t too psyched about city life. This little town and its wonderful community center seem to be a vastly better option.

We spent the day building a hut! Twelve feet long, ten feet wide and nearly 6 feet tall, supported by the straight flexible fallen limbs of redwood trees. Toying with the limbs this morning I’d realized they could be used like fiberglass poles are used in tents. Tied together, they can be bent into wide arches.

Then I just so happened to find a 50 foot roll of chicken wire in the woods! The evidence from dozens of marijuana grows of years past have been thrown into this canyon and left on the surrounding hillsides. Full bags of potting soil, pots, fertilizer, you name it, if it could be used to grow plants then it can be found disposed of somewhere around here. Luckily for us, some growers also utilize large sheets of black plastic.

Once our frame of redwood branches was standing we covered the structure with 36 feet of chicken wire, then shingled the black plastic sheets over the top. Next order of business- a bed! No more can we stand being stuck in that tiny tent on rainy days. A bed frame was made possible by dirt bike tires, wooden pallets and plywood, all which had to be laboriously taken down from the top of the canyon walls, at least 100 feet.

The tires were actually not so difficult at all, a lot of fun actually, as they made the entire trip down on their own. A 50 gallon drum made quite a racket, which we should be careful about because there is a private gravel road at the top of the canyon. That road is how all this stuff got here in the first place. Rarely does a vehicle ever pass, though, and our camp site is not at all visible from the road.

After the long day’s work we tried out our “bathtub” for the first time, a little pool in the creek surrounded by high moss-covered vertical cliff walls on both sides. A small waterfall feeds the pool, which drains at a small bend in the creek. The result is an entirely private little hole. Despite the day’s sun, breath was still visible in the hole, and the water was frigid. But we are clean! Home sweet home!

Sat. 5-29-10:

Another chilly night, but the dry trend persists. Continue construction on the new hut. Sarah digs a toilet behind a redwood stump, using an old automobile tire for a seat. I drag more items down from the top of the canyon, including an L-shaped section of tin that becomes a shelf. A 40-pound plate of steel serves as an outdoor table, positioned by the camp fire to aid in preparing meals.

Due to the steep canyon walls, sun does not hit our new home till after 10AM, then it’s gone again shortly after 5PM. It supposedly gets quite hot here in the summer, though, so I won’t complain quite yet.

Enter town in the afternoon to buy groceries and access wifi at the little league field. A game is about to start. Kids scream everywhere, even playing in porta potties. “I saw some kids fighting over a walkee-talkee like it was the most important thing in the world”, Sarah ponders, “Are the problems in my life just as meaningless?”

Later I explore more of the hills above the canyon, this time on the side opposite our camp. A small severely overgrown junkyard is there, which contains dozens of automobile batteries- potential recycling money. The junkyard is however quite close to the road and a private dwelling, so care must be taken. Further up the hill can be found yet more abandoned growing operations. A bag of fertilizer, at least 100 pounds of it, sits spilling open.