of old deaf coots, and store bought breakfasts, and shooters of bears ...

and the tapestry of life in small towns that you might not appreciate upon first glance.  and, why we are far stronger than we might ever suspect, as a result. 

 

i woke up late this morning, and despaired of making anything good to eat out of supplies on hand, so determined to have lunch at “a wee bit o’ heathers,” a little beanery just outside milton freewater.

 

didn’t feel like a blt, so got a veggie omelet with hash browns, a cup of coffee and english muffins.  having eaten my fill, i got up to read a poster about scottish slang, and sat down after being shooed out of the waitress’s traffic pattern in and out of the kitchen.

 

went back to my little spot at the counter, only to find this old coot sitting right next to me, nursing a cup of coffee.  i mean a really old wizened little man, bib overalls, scruffy beard, … , sort of a wisp of his former self. 

 

and, deaf as a post.  and, looking quite withdrawn.  and, wearing a pendleton wool shirt, of some vintage past, not the state of their current fabric design.  in short, a man that time had passed by, and perhaps discarded.

 

well, i am a sucker for a wayward soul, so, i shouted at him, and he ignored me, as though he had not heard.  and, he had not.  but, eventually, i got his attention, and we chatted about wool shirts, and hunting in wool, … , and exchanged the stories about being soaked to the bone, but staying more or less warm in inclimate weather because of wool’s unique properties.  (understand, friends, that a wool fabric may be totally sodden, completely soaked with water, and it retains about 60% of its ability to retain heat next to your body.  the only thing close is polar fleece, and it is not so good.)

 

well, a pretty lively chat ensued. 

 

friend fuchs will be interested to learn that wolves have been sited in the blue mountains, and it is pretty accepted around these parts that we have wolves locally, hereabouts.  the old man said so, and the waitress agreed.  no pretense in this being a private conversation, given the volume level involved, something along the line of a public address system at an n.b.a. game.

 

and jerry and i, we exchanged names, … , i wrote mine out on a napkin, in big letters, because he could not hear it very well, and when i did, he remarked in some wonder, “why, it is so simple, and here i was trying to add something on, make it sound right, couldn’t figure it out, … “ and he told me stories of going to alaska where he helped his brothers in the commercial fisheries.  so, relevant to our wildlife situation in n.e. oregon, it turned out that a brother and nephew of his did guiding for fishing and hunting in alaska, and have had a lot of experience with coastal grizzlies, commonly referred to as brown bears: in short, the nephew, especially is well qualified by experience, actual sightings, to recognize one.  (in all color phases, the brownies are found the world over.--  nicholai clemenceau, before being perforated multiple times by a romanian firing squad, shot world record european brownies/grizzlies in the forests of romania, literally hand raised for him to shoot by games keepers, … , and the russians have them on kamchatka island and other islands with salmon runs, where they rival our own alaskan bears in size and ferocity.

 

and now, it seems, we have them in milton freewater.  (the interior grizzly, that is, which is smaller because it doesn’t get to feed off the great swarms of coastal salmon in the fall, and has to work harder to grub out a living, … , quite literally subsisting off of grubs and fly larva, along with the game animals that it captures during the course of the year, … , they are quite capable of running down moose, and feast off the newly born calves, and also, will excavate tons of rock and soil to enjoy a squirrel or a marmot).  it seems that jerry’s nephew from alaska has spotted several grizzlies locally, and the theory is that they have sauntered over from the 7 devils area in idaho, just across the snake river from the north eastern most reaches of oregon.  someday, you should go see the eagle cap wilderness in north east oregon where several wonderful views of the 7 devils area may be had.

 

and, jerry told me about his neighbors, who discovered cougar tracks in a freshly toiled garden patch, literally yards from their front door.

 

from there, this old grizzled, wizened, shrunken little man told me that he had just planted 1700 prune trees in a 100 acre block, doing quite a bit of the work himself, to go along with his cheery orchard.

 

and, we spoke of the local orchid right salesman, a mr. trumbel, and talked of his hip operations, this topic coming up because jerry fell and broke a hip when his son, the contractor, fixed the front porch, and made the risers and the treads of his steps conform to code, and jerry, carrying a package of something in his arms fell when his feet didn’t “feel” the steps he’d trod for a lifetime, their view obscured by the load in his arms.

 

and, then, just out of the blue.

 

“did you know nate jay,” jerry asked, “i used to do his tax returns, when i was a licensed tax return preparer.”

 

“yes,” i said, “nathan was my brother.  he died 13 or 14 years ago, something like that.”

 

and, we talked a little more, and jerry said that he had owned a construction business with a guy named rod riggings, i think it was, and that they worked forest service roads, got their start building dikes along the walla walla river after a december flood had just about drowned the town of milton freewater.  he said they just kept getting check after check for $20-- & $30,000 from the u.s. government, and decided to stay in it.  he said they built roads along asotin creek in washington, and also roads south of pomery, washington.  he said he acquired his first d-8 cats, with cabs, hydraulic blades (some of you may not know such things were manipulated by cables, early on, so this was a real modern contrivance he had purchased) and some other features, cost his about $67,000 in those days, as delivered by braden machinery.  i asked what one would cost now, perhaps $400,000 and he smiled, pleased i had come so close (it is nice to be reassured that the person you converse with is not a complete idiot, despite his appearance), and said the last time he had talked with the cat guy this last fall, they were at about $367,000.   i said, yeah, used to be cats cost about 75-cents a pound,  and now they were up to about $4.00 a pound, as a general rule of thumb.

 

i told him that nathan had got his start as a machine operator building forest service roads.

 

jerry said, maybe he worked for me?  i said, i don’t think so, so far you’ve only mentioned cats, and he operated a little paddle wheel scraper for this guy building these roads.  and, i cannot remember the contractor’s name, just that it wasn’t yours or your partners.

 

jerry said, “saul herschberg, saul had a couple paddlewheels.”

 

i laughed, and said, “yes, that’s it, and mr. herschberg fired him for getting a couple flat tires on one of the scrapers.”

 

jerry said, “saul was building a road between walla walla and waitsburg, and nate got out of the soft soil onto some hard rocky ground that saul told him to stay off of, and he punctured the tire, putting some holes through the sidewall.  they cost about $3500 apiece in those days,  and saul got mad and fired him.  i remember that when it happened.”

 

friends, as near as i can remember or figure out, just sitting here, there have been about 45 years intervening between now, and those events.

 

45 years.

 

and, this old wizened, deaf as a post, scraggily old man remembered the events and circumstances of my brother getting fired from his first real construction job with a clarity and precision that was amazing.  he pulled it out of the blue, like i said, this poor old dilapidated man who was showing that he wasn’t as dilapidated as my sensitive discerning soul had presumed.

 

well, sometimes when the joke is on you, it is even more delectable, and friends, this was an enjoyable chat with a nice old coot, and a pretty lively one at that, even if he was deaf, or “deef” as we say out n.e. oregon way, as a fucking post.  don’t mean to be vulgar, but that is just the way of it: accurate is accurate, after all.

 

“yeah,” he said, “i talked to nate and to saul about that, and they looked at it a bit differently.”  and he laughed, and did not elaborate, for no elaboration was necessary.

 

upon reflection, and if i remember accurately, i think nathan went back to work for saul herschberg the opening of the next construction season, and all saul said about it to nathan was, “don’t drive thin tires on the rocks.”  and, “we’ll have better rubber this year.”

 

jerry’s phone rang.

 

he picked it out of his pocket, as though it were a foreign object from another universe, gingerly opened it, and placed it to his ear, … , and the voice of his son boomed forth, “dad, where you at.”  this, right into jerry’s hearing aid, … , it must have sounded as though a fog horn gave forth speech spontaneously at full volume.

 

jerry pulled the hearing aid from his hear, and put the phone back to it, … , and, of course, could not hear it with it next to his ear, even though every other person at heather’s could, including the cook and the waitress behind the counter, who laughed an smiled, as jerry’s son would say something, and i would yell a translation to jerry as he sat next to me & then spoke to his son.

 

everybody in the place was smiling.

 

well, jerry agreed to finish his coffee, and meet his son at another place, where they could have a beer for lunch.  and, leaving a dollar by his cup on the counter, he shuffled out the door.   anyone meeting him on the way in would have excused him for just another … , well, you had the full paint by numbers picture already, so it doesn’t bear any further elaboration.

 

a little bent stooped wizened man wearing a baseball cap, a quizzical look, and a pair of ratty old coveralls.  the owner of a thriving orchard, a house along the river where the dear come to eat his fledgling prune trees, and the cougars visit the fields of his neighbors where they have been recently spotted.

 

oh, yes, i forgot to mention that at one time he flew airplanes, and likes now to go over to a neighbors to chat about flying, as that fellow flew commercial leer jets, while he only qualified as high as a cessna 180.  i wonder what in the hell else he has up his sleeve, … , i don’t recall that he was ever governor of oregon, that i recollect, but i am not ruling out some other obscure political post, such as u.s. congressman or the like.  maybe lieutenant governor.  who knows?  i will check on it.

 

a guy sitting in a both a little removed from this said to the waitress, how come my sandwich doesn’t have potato salad with it, and she replied, familiar with this old routine, because, knot head, the special is the sandwich with coleslaw or potato salad or _________.  he smiled at me, winked, and said to her without looking up from his plate, “but you said coleslaw and potato salad, and if you didn’t, you should have.”

 

and, without looking up from mopping the floor and freshening up, she said, “don’t think so, and didn’t yesterday, either.”

 

he just laughed, and dug in.  it is refreshing to see a man eat with relish, and not pick indifferently at his food.  says he’s got another 40 pounds to go.

 

by the way, as to eats.  three egg vegetable omelet, hash browns, large glass of iced tea, coffee and english muffin with a little packet of jam, and tabasco, as much as i wanted, … , $7.75.  with tip, $9.75.

 

later, went to the local safeway, and bought two spuds, two golden delicious apples, and one perfectly ripened bartlett pear, (i know, i have eaten half of it) for $4.56.  (the whole lot, not just the pear.)  one of the potato’s, and an onion “in stock,” went into a leftover batch of bean soup, taken from the freezer last night.  a ham hock, also taken from the freezer, boils on the stove, and when the skin and meat fall from the bone, then the meat, bone and marrow in the bone will go back into the soup, and i will eat it either until i finish it, or get so sick of it that i cannot force it down my gullet.

 

by the way, jerry larson lives on east side road, on the east side of the walla walla river where it flows northerly into washington state, and before it then turns west at els crossing (not hell’s crossing, … , it was named after cushing els, a pioneer roughly the contemporary of marcus whitman, famed massacre victim, … , well, famous in these parts, one of the first pioneers into the valley, spreading the gospel of jesus christ to the “heathen” indians, who were receptive enough to it until they began contracting & dying from some sort of contagion or another from the blankets mr. whitman sold them) to confluence with the columbia river about 40 miles down the valley.

 

if you turn east on birch creek road roughly at jerry’s house, you will be high into the foothills in about 4 miles, and into the mountains proper very quickly after that, another mile or so to timber.  if you walk from my house on 8^th street, up mill street a block to 9^th, and then walk across the river and up the hill to the east and by the cemetery, in about a mile you will be where the wolf sightings have taken place.  and, in the mountains in about 5 miles, perhaps a little less.

 

i shot my first elk 12 miles from where i sit.  my first, and last, bear probably about 10 miles from here.  it wasn’t right i shot that bear, and i shot him only to redeem my pride from a botched shot at a dear the day before.  “buck fever” is the term rather ingloriously applied to my shooting that day.

 

jerry remembers the days when hunting licenses didn’t cost $175 for tags and permit applications.  where the top of the asotin creek drainage had beautiful yellow pine, 4 feet thick on the stump, before humbert logging came in and logged it off.  (it wasn’t their fault, it was a perfectly respectable business pursuit in those days, to everybody.  still is to me.)  he remembers  when his maple tree in the front yard was not twenty feet round on the stump, … , “it’s a big tree,” he allows, … .

 

and, he remembers with startling clarity when saul herschberg fired my brother nathan.  he didn’t remember when peter kiewit fired my brother steve for rolling a trencher into the bottom of cabbage hill, because he had never heard of it, but i will bet you coffee and apple pie that he remembers it now.  and, that’s another story.

 

remember this the next time you see an old geezer or two shuffling along, perhaps their stares looking a little vacate or absent.  about a half hour after taking leave of heather’s, i walked into the walla walla bi-mart, and a little old shrunken, wizened man and woman teetered down an aisle, using the shopping cart more as a walking aide, leaning heavily against it, as they went along, bent conspiratorially into some kind of conversation i could not hear: now, if jerry had been involved, i would have heard both ends of it, alright.

 

i have learned my lesson.  so don’t you compound my initial error and be too damned quick to judge, there may be a hell of a lot more going on inside those minds under those thin gray thatches than you thought, and heads rich in memories, and alive with the judgment and discernment that only vast years of experience and life can give one, may be feverishly and joyfully at work.  only g_d knows what they were up to, what they we capable of, in their earlier years, all these old doddering codgers.

 

remember jerry larson.  i sure as hell will.

 

and, remember that there is far more known and remembered about you, then you might ever suspect.  and, not forgotten.  it is as though a collective memory of things exists.

 

john jay @ 05.26.2010

 

p.s.  if you are an aspiring politician, or a current one, remember that people do not forget.  nor, do they automatically forgive.  you know, nicolai clemenceau was absolute ruler of romania, right up until the point someone snickered in a vast audience of thousands, otherwise respectful if not a little bit sullen, as he addressed a public square from a balcony.  but, until that snicker, they had been still cowed, and after that snicker they were never more to be cowed, at least not by the likes of nikolai clemenceau.

 

a minor disruption followed.  he abandoned the balcony and the speech.  disturbances erupted, and he fled the capital in vain trying to escape the country in a series of helicopter flights.  he was captured, returned to the capital, tried, and executed unceremoniously before a firing squad wielding automatic weapons.

 

all in about 3 days, which must have seemed a swirl to him.

 

potentate.  shooter of bears.  all, for naught, to a people that did not forget.  people do not forget.  remember jerry larson.  they remember things that they have not thought about for 45 years.

 

p.s.s.  the ham hock comes nicely.  the water has boiled down a couple times, and is now scummed by a shimmering layer of fat.  the meat is beginning to draw away from the bone, and the skin from the meat.  it will all go into the soup, in a bit.  the broth will be set aside in the fridge, and the fat skimmed off the top in the morning.

 

in the old days, of course, the fat was savored.  now, we have too much.  make of that what you will.  smiling.  if you think that anything is forgotten, or that somehow not everything fits into the larger picture, … , you would be wrong.

 

what’s the sausage?  that’s appropriate here, given the eastern european flavor of things?  ragout?  is it safe to say that life is a ragout sausage, full of ingredients not at all easily discerned?  some we are better off not considering too fully?  laughing, but along with you.