Chapter Seven. Jackie mentioned marriage. I responded “I don’t see us getting married, Jackie. I see us as friends, growing old and hanging out occasionally.”

“Really” she replied. “You know, I’ve been thinking. You come down here and stay at my house every weekend. I think you should start paying something.”

I laughed.

“I’m serious. You should pay for the utilities you use.”

“I don’t have any money right now. Things’ll pick up. I’ll get you some money.”

I then bought a houseboat named the Ship Canal Queen, a thirty six foot steel hulled converted WWII lifeboat complete with fireplace, kitchen, bathroom, shower, stateroom… a floating one bedroom apartment.

“I thought you didn’t have any money.” Jackie said.

“I guess I mis-calculated.”

“This relationship is going nowhere. It’s over between you and me. I’ve found somebody else.”

This didn’t surprise me. “Jackie please. It’s as if you want us to own each other. I don’t want to be owned or to own anyone. Why can’t we just borrow each other from time to time.”

“Borrow? You want to borrow me?”

“Each other. From time to time.”

“You are such an ass. I can’t believe I’ve allowed myself to even hang out with such an ass.”

I felt like a tank of pressurized air. Each time I opened the valve some pressure had gone out of it. What might have once been a loud hissing sound was now just a sigh.

I craved being in a family with kids. These women, Karen, Annette, Jackie, were ready made families. I could be a next chapter in their story. Karen in particular with her two daughters frequently came to mind. The only bigger fool than me was the girls’ father. What kind of an imbecile would leave that behind? I’d surely never have such an opportunity. There was a growing probability that I would remain a bachelor.

I was informed that I would be laid off from Peninsula Lodge when they restructured the program. It was a perfect way out because I would qualify for unemployment benefits. If I quit, no such luck. But it was a painfully slow process. “Stay one more week” they kept telling me.

Jerry, one of my coworkers, was a veteran of World War Two. He was within retirement age but here he was. Some people work for reasons other than money. Jerry lamented my situation. “Reminds me of when I was going to be discharged from the army on December 8th 1941. December 7th the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and all discharges were cancelled. Next thing I knew I was on my way to Guadalcanal”.

“Some guys have all the luck”.

“The ship was torpedoed. We spent a week on an atoll before we were rescued, by a ship heading to Guadalcanal. Well, you know the rest. The next three years I went all the way through the Pacific to Okinawa. Sitting on bloating corpses eating canned luncheon meat”. Jerry wasn’t a bad looking fellow for his age. Someone once accused him of having an affair with a married co-worker. “What’s the concern” he replied. “Who’s gonna miss a slice off a loaf of bread like that?”

“Jerry I just wish they’d do it. Lay me off. It’s been my last day three times. Then one more week. How can I make plans?”

“No respect. You have the same problem I do. People are all jealous of your good looks”.

Ultimately, I did get laid off, moved aboard the Ship Canal Queen and settled in. It was the perfect liveaboard. West Bay Marina was a friendly wild place. Looking out the Ship Canal’s windshield, the Seawulff, a large sailboat belonging to The Evergreen State College sat alone at night, beckoning.

One of my neighbors was a young woman named Barb Graham who lived on a boat named The Snog, a converted WWII lifeboat much like the Ship Canal Queen but about a third the size. Barb’s hair was cut and shaped into a mohawk that stood up eight inches on top of her head. She wore rhinestone encrusted cat-eye glasses and rode a mountain bike.

“Snarky” she said. “Every time I encounter that guy he wants to know why I look like I do”. Barb’s sources of income were a bit of a mystery. She sang in a punk rock band on weekends and raised beer money shooting rats with a small crossbow. The marina paid her a dollar per rat. Barb had been in Army Special Forces and had later worked for the National Security Agency. She had a photo of herself taken during those times. It was quite a transition, army camouflage to mohawk.

At one of Barb’s concerts a large man kept trying to get on stage. She’d push him off and keep singing. At one point though he did get on stage and was coming for the mike. Barb kicked the man in the solar plexus sending him to the floor gasping for breath. After a few minutes he could be heard yelling “You tried to kill me”.

Barb worked the words into her song: “If I’d tried to kill you, you’d be dead”.

Rudy Wagner owned a German bakery in Olympia. While Rudy baked, his sister Louis ran the delicatessen. Rudy and Louis grew up in Dachau Germany during WWII. I was waiting at the door almost every day when they opened at eight. One raised donut and a cup of coffee. Louis referred to me as Larry. The German equivalent of Harry is more like Gerry. Whatever. Louis was a very sweet person.

Among the employees at the bakery there were a couple of young women, Irene and Trish. Irene was appealing. Trish was too but appeared to be younger, perhaps just out of high school, way too young to be dating this burned out human wreckage.

One morning Trish came to the counter. “May I help you?”

“Yes. I’d like that sugar coated raised donut right there and a cup of coffee please.”

“I understand your name is Larry?”

“Harry.”

“Oh” Trish replied blushing. “Louise told me your name is Larry.”

“Either works.” I considered what had just happened. What was this young woman’s interest in me?

Soon Trish was meeting me at the side door and letting me in prior to opening for the day. She was tall with a narrow face and straight brown hair and thin lips that turned up slightly. She rode a bicycle ten miles every day, from her place in Lacey to the bakery and back.

She was a little older than she at first appeared, somewhere in her early twenties. Her appeal kept growing. Trish was highly capable coming from a family of cowboys, cowgirls, inventors and Rhodes scholars. She had strong looking hands.

We met up after work and wandered up to my sister’s house where my nephew Neil was shooting baskets. Neil was an all-state basketball champion. Trish dribbled the ball backing into him, pushing him backwards with her hips. She then turned and performed a “turn around jumper”, Neil’s own move. She was also a champion.

One morning I asked “Tricia, you ever been sailing?”

We drove to Stretch Island where we sailed away on a sunny day in the Scarab, Tricia wearing a blue strapless bikini. The more I saw of Trish the better she looked.

A few days later I ordered my donut and asked Trish how things were going.

“Oh fine. I’m splitting up with my boyfriend Michael. He’s moving to Seattle and I don’t want to tag along this time. Too many moves.”

“Wow. When is he going?”

“He’s gone pretty much”.

“Well that’s sad. You should come over for dinner some time. I’m not a bad cook.”

I left work, a kitchen remodel, at 2:50 and headed to the bakery where I arrived just in time to see Trish coming out the side door, wearing a set of tight fitting cycling shorts, carrying her bike on her left shoulder.

“Oh hi.” she said.

“Can I offer you a ride?”

We put her bike in the back of the truck and drove to the Ship Canal Queen where we unloaded it. She smiled and asked “Would you mind if I spend the night?” We gently kissed there in the parking lot. Then we made our way to the boat and built a fire in the wood burning stove.

Though we hit it off wonderfully, Trish and I were both coming off failed relationships and neither of us was anxious for a repeat. We got together from time to time, always then backing away.

********

********

Mom and dad spent the winters in Mexico. March of 1985 I decided to visit them and asked a travel agent friend if she might help me with a plan that didn’t involve airplanes. She came up with an adventure.

The Green Tortoise Bus pulled into the Southgate Shopping Center parking lot in Olympia. I paid cash and climbed aboard. The bus was a 1960s vintage GMC, possibly a retired greyhound. It was old and solid looking, like it had been restored. This was no junker. It was a beautiful piece of machinery, freshly painted in shades of green. The original seats were gone. The back half of the bus was all mattresses that lined the entire floor except for a bathroom and small private cabin for the off duty driver in the very back. Upper bunks lined both sides.

Folks gathered everywhere, eating, conversing and reading. Eventually most people stretched out and slept.

At dawn we watched the sun rise at the Orr Hot Springs resort surrounded by birds and squirrels. We enjoyed a big community breakfast and a splash in the hot tubs, clothing optional.

In San Francisco I started at Malvina’s with a cappuccino. I then ate a Piroski at The Cinderella Bakery. Everyone there was talking Russian. Then to Kam’s for a rice dish. And from there a slice of pizza on Haight Street. It was uncomfortably hot, the sunny, blue sky relentlessly beating down.

I walked by three of my old places. 420 32nd Ave was gone, a new house in its place. The old place was infinitely better. The Old Haight Ashbury district had changed little. People talking to themselves, trying to bum money, doctors, yuppies, students and drifters.

At 8:00 PM we departed on a different Green Tortoise bus. Trying to write a few letters while laying on my stomach in a top bunk, bouncing along, was a challenge. I could hear a conversation below. A twenty year old bank teller was trying to make time with a woman he had just met. Next to them a punk rocker with an “AP Pro” surfing championship teeshirt and a big cross around his neck was getting a massage from his girl friend who was wearing a black teeshirt with the sleeves ripped off.

Forward of them two people were listening to headphones. Forward of them three people bound for Mexico & Nicaragua were talking and a lady was sleeping. On the other side of the bus people were lined up in a row talking. The bus was continuing on to Mexico and everyone was trying to smoke up all the pot on board before reaching the boarder, everybody except the driver and some kids who periodically came through like a bunch of monkeys.

The front half of the bus was dinettes, left & right, and forward of that couches facing each other. There was sand everywhere. The driver apologized. “Just got back from Baja”. We arrived in Santa Cruz at 11:00 p.m, wide awake and parked in front of the Catalyst where most people wandered in to hear Los Lobos perform.

Some people departed in Santa Cruz and some friendly surf punks, one of whom was from England, boarded. Some Australians walking past inquired about the Green Tortoise and laughed calling out “capitalist pigs”. The Englishman came back with something about the glories of America and an animated conversation ensued about which country, England or Australia, was better.

I disembarked In Los Angeles and walked four blocks to the Greyhound Bus station where I caught a bus to Calexico. Everyone was chattering away in Spanish. Two caballeros about 60 yrs old were talking about teenagers and how they grow these short marijuana plants with fat leaves. “Demasiado fuerte. Woowoowoo” with a finger going up in a spiral.

I spent the night in a hotel in Calexico, California. Early the following morning I walked across the border to Mexicali, Mexico. A little kid came up with big sad eyes and poked at my pack. “I want to help”.

“No gracias”.

“A donde va? Quieres un taxi? Autobus?”

“No gracias no puedo hablar Espanol”.

“I want to help”.

“No gracias”. We walked along and another little kid joined us. At 6:00 a.m. people were cleaning the streets and sidewalks and milling around. The kids got me a good cab. I gave one 50 cents American. With a big smile the other kid held out his hand. I could find no more change “Yo? Por favor”

“No tengo mas dinero”. I felt bad. The cab driver patted the kid and said something in Spanish like “get lost” and said to me “mi amigo” pointing at the kid. I hoped that some of the $15 cab fare American ($3000 pesos Mes.) would find its way to the kids which seemed likely. Free enterprise, I figured. If the cabby tips the kids they’ll bring him more fares.

At the airport I thanked the cabbie.

“De nada senior. A donde vas?”

“Hermosillo. Y entonces Bahia Kino”.

“Es hermoso alli”.

“Si, es en el nombre”.

“Buena suerte senior”.

“Gracias”.

The passengers including myself walked out onto the tarmac and boarded the airplane, an older 727, via a boarding ladder. We did a high speed taxi to the end of the runway and turned with such enthusiasm that the tip of the wing almost dragged on the ground. When the nose lifted for takeoff a pop can rolled out of the cockpit down the length of the isle bringing chuckles from the stewards. The flight went great and we landed on time.

I caught a bus the couple of miles into the center of town. There I walked around a large public market, wanting to find a toilet and ultimately wandered into a tavern. Being mid-morning the place was empty except for one man seated at the long bar. I walked past to the back of bar into the rest room to the far end of a long trough-like urinal. A door to the side that led to the shitter.

I stood briefly at the urinal when the fellow from the bar entered, walked the length of the bathroom and stood immediately next to me. What did he have in mind? Assault? Robbery? Why not at least unzip his pants? He just stood there looking at the trench. Then with great bravado, fists on his waist, the gentleman projectile vomited. He ran his finger down his throat and retched four more times, mumbling in Spanish between. Following the finger incursions he turned to me and putting his arm around my shoulder and doubling up his fist said “No eres de agui?”

“No. Estoy Norte Americano.” What Now? What was transpiring behind the drunk blank expression? “Perdoname senior” I said and walked into the shitter closing the door behind. The drunk stood outside for a while but didn’t try to enter. There’s something sacred about shitting. This toilet like many in Mexico had no seat so I shit yoga-style, standing on the rim of the toilet, backpack still on my back. When I emerged the drunk was gone.

My parents arrived at the Central Market and we drove fifty miles to the west to Bahia Kino. Big Harry and Mary lived winters in a beach-front condo in Kino on the Sea of Cortez. The place was an escape for a wealthy family from the summer heat of Hermosillo. They had no use for it in the winter and were happy to have someone there.

There was a tempest the first night, a full cyclonic disturbance moving over the area in predictable stages. This differs from a chubaso, a williwaw in Washington or a Santa Ana wind in Southern California, where the disturbance is generated locally blowing from land toward sea, the result of conflicting air masses. Chubsos are unpredictable; springing up suddenly from nowhere and are gone just as soon. The night was clear, Orion was directly overhead, Ursa Major almost gone over the northern horizon. The wind blew warm and by midnight it was hurricane furious. In the morning the wind continued and clouds rolled in bringing a light rain, the sun peering out occasionally.

The second morning the weather had settled down and I headed out toward town. Walking up the beach I came upon a dead pelican, dead fish, assorted clothing and wreckage. Further up the beach I came upon a crowd of fishermen and saw in their midst a human body lying on the beach, covered with a blanket down to the knees revealing Levis and bare feet, bluish white. It looked oddly normal among the wreckage and dead fish and birds. The local police had their Datsun station wagon parked on the road. They were milling around looking solemn. I walked on a ways and turned inland back through the village and passed the commotion from the inland side. Behind a small building four men were seated with their heads down.

Most days Mary wandered into town. She’d sit in the park and children would gather round. She often read to them in Spanish or in English, sometimes back and forth. A large village of motorhomes and trailers north of town, known as New Kino, was where the gringoes lived. Occasionally the bloated “grandmas and grandpas” visited Old Kino much to everyone’s fascination. Big Harry and Mary lived in Old Kino among the Mexicans where over the years they had become in effect locals. Mary would jump at any opportunity to teach anyone to read.

Big Harry on the other hand was always looking for adventure. “You know there’s an Indian village a little ways north of here. These Indians, the Seri, remained isolated until a few decades ago. I’ve been wanting to go out there but I don’t want to go alone and nobody else around here is interested. They think it’s unsafe. What do you think?”

“Let’s go”. When we departed Big Harry mentioned something about the road and something about the people not being particularly friendly or appreciative of visitors. Being to everyone’s thinking accessible only by off-road vehicle meant that Big Harry had to drive there in his Mercedes Benz. We tore off over a road of sorts, a mix of everything from dried mud down to soft sand, keeping the Mercedes diesel roaring, trying to maintain 40 mph. The car slid and slowed but always made it through the soft spots. We arrived at the village after an hour.

The nature of the area dictated that the Seri people migrated often. Their current reservation was mostly concrete structures though some preferred to live in traditional Palapa dwellings. An old woman emerged from one of these when she heard the car. She handed a wood carving of a bird toward the open window.

“500 pesos” she said. Then others approached with other things, poking us on the shoulders and naming the prices. They spoke a mix of Spanish and their native tongue.

Big Harry got out and began discussing a carving in a blend of broken Spanish and mime. He then lifted the Polaroid camera and said “pintura?”

“No, no foto” several people tersely replied.

“Es para usted… for you” Big Harry said.

“Tiene dulce?”

“They want sweets” I said. Big Harry got a lot of milage via the pantomime. He pulled a loaf of bread out of a large paper bag and motioned with it.

“Si bueno”.

“Pintura?”

“No”. He took a picture of the old lady anyway. It emerged from the bottom of the Polaroid and he handed it to her. At first the picture was blank. As the image materialized their eyes widened. Everyone gathered around laughing and pointing. Families then posed for pictures until the camera was empty. A tall man with a braided pony tail posed with his children.

These were beautiful people. The women svelte, the men tall and strong looking with fine, angular, navajo or apache like features. The kids all had runny noses, sand sticking to their upper lip. There were actually two combined villages of probably less than 200 people.

Tiburon Island lying a quarter mile offshore, is the largest Island in Mexico, roughly 450 square miles. It was once central to the Seri, a place where they could live in peace, hunt, land boats and clean fish. The environment held no allure to European invaders. Contact wasn’t even established until the end of the 19th century. By the mid 20th century civilization had arrived placing their survival in jeopardy. The government gave them some poor land ashore and declared the island a bird sanctuary.

We bought several small abstract carvings, all the time being poked at to buy more. We didn’t stay long wanting to complete the drive back before dark.

In the evening we went to the Pulpo Loco for dinner. Friday nights are party time there. Mariachis played until 9:00, everyone drinking, singing and dancing. One woman had a particularly beautiful voice. Some of the local fisherman danced well. People got real tanked. It was a very friendly crowd except for a red eyed crazy drunk gringo who claimed to be a doctor from Oklahoma City who staggered around wanting to fight. The Mexicans just ignored him and he left.

Dinner was a chicken soup base with jalapeño and cilantro. Then a plate with a tamale, chile relleno, beans, a tostado, and some smaller items.

The following morning an open boat pulled up onto the beach in front of the apartment. Usually they pulled ashore closer to town. Two men started drawing a net onto the beach. With great efficiency they folded it, pulling its 200 or so feet of length, one man on each side of its 100 feet of width. One of the men ran off toward town. The other brought a large fish from the “bilge” and cleaned it. A truck returned from town with six men and they dragged thirty or so thirty pound sea bass from the boat onto the beach where they washed them. The fish half filled the pickup bed and they were off up the beach. They gave Mary a 4 lb. toothed fish they called a carbacio, a mean looking animal that she baked with lemon, chilies, onion and spices.

The fishermen bypassed Kino taking their catch directly to Hermosillo where they got a better price than the local buyer would have paid. In the evening the two men returned and with another show of great seamanship folded the big net bow to stern in the open panga and headed out into a rough sea.

Saturday night the apartment building came alive with people from Hermosillo, six young women in one unit and six young men in the unit next door. Late into the night they played guitar, sang and laughed.

Looking up the beach to the north Sunday morning, I noticed a kid with a pellet gun walking with his father who was dressed in an expensive looking suit. They appeared to have just gotten out of church. Later, walking on the beach, I found a dead seagull. It had a small bullet hole in its neck. A person could walk right up to the gulls here. A nice easy shot even for a kid. The kid’s father provided the gun and encouraged him to kill the birds, something all too common especially among families of some means. Spanish culture had its ugly sides, the carnage of the bull fight in Spain, the brave matador.

Big Harry started in. “Some Catholics believe animals where put on earth for man’s enjoyment to do with as he pleases, that they are soulless creatures in Gods eyes and man has dominion over them. Saint Francis of Assisi flipped the definition of dominion. They’ve got it covered one way or the other. We create our own realities. That alone doesn’t make us evil.”

A family sold ironwood carvings out of a tarpaper covered shack where they lived near the center of town. The mother and father made carvings, mostly of local birds. Their four daughters all helped. They looked native as opposed to the wealthy people from Hermosillo who tended to look more Spanish. Though the racial divide was subtle, it was everywhere. As was the enormous disparity of incomes.

The Sea of Cortez, stretching out in front of the apartment, had been calm like a giant lake. A small Island could be seen a mile offshore. Using a neighbors boat, I rowed to the island. There was no water there. There were many birds feeding on he carcasses of dead fish that had had their fillets carved off for market. Shrimp boats anchored there during the day, leaving in the evening.

Ten or so pangas came ashore every day. The fishermen cleaned fish and rested in one of the palupas on the shore. Combined, they perpetrated mayhem among the fishes, the supply of which was endless. This was the fringe of a world of creatures spreading as far as eyesight permitted. The Sea of Cortez went to the horizon, Baha California being fifty miles away.

Sunday morning a week later we started out for Washington State at 7:30 am. While loading the car a carver came by and I bought a clay neckless. When we told him we were heading for the U.S. he said “Con Dios” and crossed himself 3 times.

We stopped in Hermosillo for a five star breakfast buffet at the Holiday Inn, papayas, pineapple, beans, beef & port stews, tortillas, sauces and cheerios. The people were friendly. The waiter talked at our table for some time.

Hermosillo had many new municipal structures, a Colosseum a new City Hall. The Old Grand Market had been renovated. There were new and partially finished fancy homes west of town. And there were half finished developments that had been abandoned. A half-finished subdivision in Kino had also been abandoned. There was no power or water, let alone windows but being better than a tarpaper shack families had set up housekeeping. The developer had raided the kitty and gone to Japan, as the story went.

I picked up a local paper and read several articles. American banks loaned Mexico money based on oil and gas discoveries. The market dropped and Mexicans were struggling to cover just the interest on loans that had been re-financed at a higher rate. If Mexicans played by U.S. rules they’d forever pay American banks for the privilege of owing them money.

The Mercedes diesel engine hummed at 72 mph, like all its internal parts were in harmony. We visited Mary’s sister May and some cousins in Phoenix for a few days and from there made our way north.

In the 1980s, the yuppie movement arrived. Young, upwardly mobile professionals. People who were intent on using skills developed in the quest for peace in Vietnam, in the pursuit of money. Socially liberal. Economically conservative.

Abbie Hoffman near the end may have been a passenger on the Penn Lodge nut bus. And yet the country may have owed its existence to Abbie Hoffman

In October of 1967 the world was coming apart at the seams. An enormous gathering in Washington DC could have gone violently downhill. One reason that it didn’t was Abbie Hoffman’s promise to levitate the Pentagon. Only a crazy person would come up with such a claim yet the introduction of humor saved the day. As time progressed he saw little hope for the world given the prevalence of apathy and materialism in the new generation.

Back in Olympia Trish was still single and interested in dating. This was new for me, to split up and get back together. There was some deep bond of trust there that defied explanation. On a lark we caught a plane to Washington D.C. and in our wanderings came upon the Vietnam War Memorial. Unlike other monuments to wars this one is a simple wall, some of it below surrounding ground levels. As one approaches thousands of names appear, carved in the dark stone. Thousand and thousands of names in the order in which they died.

How may wars has the United States instigated since? All for resources? It’s hard to even count them. How many more thousands have died. And what for? Abbie might say it’s the economy. Late stage corporate predatory capitalism in all its glory.

Abbie Hoffman was also said to be sad over the loss of his youth. Alan Ginsberg on the other hand went on for another eight years, much of it spent caring for his aging father. Both gentlemen were good jewish boys in the best jewish tradition. Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable.

Is all this a game of self deception? The cycle continues endlessly. Is it our duty to endlessly continue a hopeless struggle? Janice Joplin was starting to attend peace rallies. Jimi Hendrix played a version of the star spangled banner at Woodstock full of rockets and bombs. Jim Morrison asked, peace on earth will you die for me? He knew too much. His father was driving an aircraft carrier at the Gulf of Tonkin. The 27 club. Martin Luther King and Malcom X were bringing economics and war into their message. JFK was heading in the wrong direction. They all had to go.

In 1987 Abbie Hoffman summed up his views: “You are talking to a leftist. I believe in the redistribution of wealth and power in the world. I believe in universal hospital care for everyone. I believe that we should not have a single homeless person in the richest country in the world. And I believe that we should not have a CIA that goes around overwhelming governments and assassinating political leaders, working for tight oligarchies around the world to protect the tight oligarchy here at home.”

In 1989 his death was ruled suicide by overdose from 150 phenobarbital tablets. Fellow Chicago Seven defendant David Dellinger disputed this: “I don’t believe for one moment the suicide thing”. He claimed that Hoffman had “numerous plans for the future.”

Perhaps his death was by suicide. Perhaps he felt that we may have seen an end to the Vietnam War but the system remains in place and we will as such see endless war. One of Mussolini’s henchmen stated that corporate capitalism is the economic engine of Fascism. I don’t see any reason to believe otherwise. I also don’t see suicide as a solution. It’s our duty to live.

Trish cared about people. Every customer in the bakery was in her personal care. “Is your meal OK?” She was a helper. A healer. She had a wonderful touch. “How’d you like to meet my family?” she asked.

“I’d love to.”

We drove six hours east to a hill overlooking the ranch. Stretching out below was a long valley. Puffy white clouds dotted the clear blue sky. Wavy stacks, pillars of rock, met the horizon in the distance charging downward to undulating waves of grass joining ultimately with a tree-lined stream. A hawk was circling above the cliffs across the valley, a beautiful oasis.

“Is that it?”

“Yep.”

“What or which is the Bar U?”

“Everything you see.”

A volcano like cone was visible in the distance. “How about that mountain over there?”

“That’s Coyote Butte. Yeah, it’s part of the ranch. You want to go out there?”

“Sure.”

“You ever ride a horse?”

“Once.”

We picked up a couple of halters at the barn and made our way to the corral. From there we rode bareback, Trish on Topper and me on Princess. Two other horses followed. In open pasture across Cow Creek I got off and sat on a low mound. Trish rode at a trot some distance and picked up the pace in a wide circle and accelerated to a full gallop. As the four horses passed the ground shook.

When they finished their romp I remounted and we made our way back to the corral. “You know something Trish?” I said. “I’ve done some crazy fun things but this takes the cake. Riding a horse is a blast. You are so fortunate to have grown up here.”

The house where she grew up was a big place, actually a converted school with tall ceilings and mahogany trim. Long bookshelves lined two walls of an enormous living room. A photo on one of the shelves caught my eye. A thin girl at the beginning of her teens and an elderly gentleman, siting astride a couple of large horses. They looked weary, like they had been on those horses all day.

“That’s my grandfather” Trish said. “And me.”

“That’s an amazing photo.”

Trish’s silence said more than words. This grandfather was a special person.

We continued on to Priest Lake where her family had gathered for her parents’ anniversary. Trish’s father was a giant of a man. High heeled boots and a tall stetson hat made him even taller. He shook my hand earnestly and said “Very glad to meet you.” There were two sisters and two bothers and their husbands and wives and a bunch of kids. This was a real clan. Everyone was curious. Who’s this guy Trish brought?

“We stopped at the ranch on our way over” I said.

”What’d you think of that?” Dick, Trish’s oldest brother asked.

“Most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. We rode horses up to Coyote Butte.”

“Too bad they take so much time. We’ve pretty much switched to ATVs for work.”

We made our way back to Olympia and once again I was gone.

July 24th, 1985. Kaneohe Hawaii. We’re off, heading north aboard Valhalla, a Bristol 40, a 15 ton full keel center cockpit ketch. A boatload of friends followed along for a while, out through Kaneohe Bay, firing off rocket flares.

We had spent a leisurely month in Gerry’s condo readying the boat and provisioning. Doc and Linda who lived across the Makani Kai marina lagoon made up the other half of the crew. They brought a bean bag chair aboard to Gerry’s consternation. “Well maybe we can use it for something.”

Our last night in port some locals held a luau in honor of our departure. Gerry was repeatedly praised by local Hawaiians for his efforts on behalf of the community, especially in the creation of jobs through several smart investments. One old friend of Gerry’s recited Ogden Nash at length to lots of laughter.

The next day a small fleet of sailboats escorted us north firing off flares. Almost immediately we began to encountered 25 knot winds and eight foot waves from the northeast, the direction we wanted to head. Valhalla’s high flush deck and bow quarters hit these waves with a tremendous bang and she shuddered from bow to stern, rising, falling and rolling and crashing. In the main cabin, hams and cabbages swung in mesh bags from side to side. Trying to move around the galley, one was continually knocked off balance, bruising everything from the waist down. It was much easier to remain in bed.

July 26th. And so it goes, day and night. Winds dropped a little to 20 knots. Each person did two hour wheel watches so it was two hours on and six hours off around the clock. Since Valhalla’s wind vane worked flawlessly, a wheel watch generally consisted of lounging in the bean bag chair watching the Pacific Ocean go by. The beanbag chair formed to fit a person’s body so he or she could relax. It was continually occupied.

We continued sailing due north. The North Pacific High, lying northeast of Hawaii, is a big clockwise rotating system. Sailing east from Hawaii would be sailing into prevailing winds and currents. It’s easier to sail north first toward the Aleutians and then turn east toward North America. We were still 400 miles southwest of the center beating into winds of 15 to 20 knots and seas of about four feet.

Beat beat beat. Not much else to say. Winds 15-20, sometime 25. Seas moderate. Boat pitches, rolls and pounds. I was experiencing some nausea in the mornings, gone by the evening. Gerry a little worse. Doc taking pills of some kind. We were crawling around nibbling at crackers and sipping tea. Except Linda, who was making sandwiches and sneaking off to the forward cabin to eat so as not to embarrass the men. Gradually the nausea subsided and appetites returned.

Linda and I both vied for chief cook and decided to share the job, alternating daily. Doc had no interest in any aspect of food other the consuming it. A giant of a man, not long retired from the navy, Doc had been a medic in Vietnam – the guy in the movies who swims out into the Mekong River holding a bowie knife in his teeth to save a wounded buddy.

Doc could be heard wandering the deck during his nighttime wheel watches. Sometimes he’d dangle himself overboard from the shrouds to take a leak. Gerry asked him to show more caution but he didn’t seem to care. It’s like the man had no fear.

July 27th. There was talk on the radio of storms and dense fog to the north, the direction we were heading. We spent the day making palm frond hats.

A portable shortwave radio in the cockpit was always turned on. Usually it sat silently awaiting word from the outside world. Sometimes we’d tune in Radio Moscow or Radio Free Europe. Sometimes we’d hear a ham operator or another boat. Gerry listened for ham operators on the mainland. If he heard one he’d turn on the ham radio in the main cabin to see if he could pick up the broadcast. If so, he’d respond..

The mainmast backstay, strung between glass insulators, doubled as the antenna for the ham radio. When broadcasting a lot of power goes to the backstay “lighting it up” as Gerry joked. Broadcasting drains the batteries unless the engine is running. So that’s the order. First start the engine, then attempt to contact the ham operator on-shore. If that person responds, Gerry gives his call sign and asks them place a phone call.

“Do you want to take a haul or do you want to go downtown?” the voice responds.

Gerry would “I’ll take a haul”. This means the ham on shore makes a collect call and patches Gerry through to friends and family back home.

July 29th. While on the evening wheel watch, I noticed a dim red light off the port stern. We called on the VHF radio, channel sixteen. “Vessel to the west, this is the sailboat Valhalla, over?”

After a few seconds a suave French accent responded “Sailing vessel Valhalla, this is the freighter Francois LD, over.” There was a further exchange of positions and other basics and the French gentleman asked “Are you eating well?”

“Very well thank you”

“Excellent. Have a pleasant evening and a good watch.” Are we “eating well”? French priorities I guess.

August 5th. Sunday. Twelve days out. The sea state changed. We were sailing on a glorious broad reach in 15 knot winds, three foot waves gently rolling Valhalla as she glided along through the sea reaching speeds of six knots. Gerry claimed that he’d “had her up to nine point three knots in the South Pacific” and “Dinner’s on me for anyone who can beat it.” That’s funny, given that Gerry always insisted on paying.

We’d been sailing through mile after mile of Velella velella, a small jelly fish with a membrane like sail on their back. They cover the ocean. Every square meter of sea surface is occupied by at least one, as far as the eye can see.

Occasionally we’d see a booby. Boobies resemble albatrosses, enormous birds with long wings. They’re graceful fliers, soaring effortlessly, riding small updrafts along the tops of waves. But whereas albatrosses typically pick up food from the surface, boobies dive and fly underwater like a penguin.

During the 2 AM change of wheel watch, Gerry and I were sitting in the cockpit admiring the evening when a flash of light darted underneath the boat. Having never seen anything quite like that we were both alarmed. Then three lights streaked under the hull, turned 180 degrees and charged again from the opposite direction, streaming phosphorescent tracers.

We jumped to our feet. “Porpoises! Yell. Sing. Dance.” Gerry broke into song “Ooooklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.” I joined in. The porpoises swam under the boat slower and surfaced several times close to our beam, checking us out. Then they were gone. Gerry’s concern was that they thought we were a killer whale or a big shark or something and were going to ram us.

Waves can hide things. If the boat is down in a trough you only see what’s in the trough with you. If the boat is on top of a wave and a nearby object is down in a trough, you won’t see it. Both the object and the boat need to be on the tops of waves for the object to be seen. If someone falls overboard they may be hard to find even if you immediately turn and search for them.

I spotted a round object a few hundred yards away and immediately turned toward it. We didn’t see it again until we nearly hit it, a large glass float from a fishing net covered with marine growth. We pulled it aboard as a souvenir.

Mid afternoon we sailed up next to a booby. No-one saw it before it was practically in the boat with us. “Look at that big duck” Doc announced. It did look like a duck, though three times the size of a duck. The big bird watched as we humans passed, curiously looking at each of us in turn. It then took to flight and flew back and forth across our stern examining the plastic squid that we towed. The great bird stretched its wide sailplane wings, gliding gracefully along the top of a wave, riding a moving updraft. The booby would flap its wings slowly a couple of times to gain altitude, then glide. Fortunately it didn’t go for the bait. The prevailing wind direction had changed over the previous week, first coming from the West, then from the East.

August 10th, The sub tropical high, that great clockwise rotation in the Northeastern Pacific, doesn’t stay in one place. It moves daily over hundreds of miles, divides in two and does all kinds of gyrations that we’d been tracking on the chart from short wave weather reports. Around mid-day Gerry came on deck from the navigation station and called to Linda who was at the wheel “Change course to 90 degrees. Due east.”

Everyone gave a cheer. This meant we’d now have wind and seas at our back. It also meant we were over a thousand miles from land in any direction, as far from land as one can be and still be on planet earth.

The motion of the boat improved and I made pizza. We had a party and drank some wine. I went to bed early and got up at midnight when my watch began. That’s when everyone else went to bed. As soon as I was in the beanbag I felt the wind pick up. It seemed to build quickly over the next twenty minutes and I called out “Hey Gerry, I think we need to shorten sail.” There was no response. “Hey Linda. Hey Doc.” Nothing. The wind built to about 25 knots and Valhalla was still flying a jenny and un-reefed main.

Waves don’t break in the middle of the ocean like they do near shore. Ground swells may form, the result of some distant storm, but they don’t topple like surf does on a beach. Ground swells can be big gentle rollers. Often smaller wind waves form on ground swells, little waves on big waves as it were. Somewhere far to the west a storm had generated big waves that after crossing a thousand miles of open ocean had evolved into big gentile rolling mountains of water, taller than Valhalla’s mast.

Amid this raging beauty, the steering vane quit working, having sheered a pin. I took the wheel, steering Valhalla on a broad reach down the face of a huge swell. She surfed the wave beautifully. I didn’t dare let go of the wheel and I could raise no-one to help. But the big tub of a boat was doing OK. Up on a big wave, swoosh down the face, white water boiling off both sides abeam.

Sailing doesn’t get any better. It was like a dream. It was glorious. I decided to let them all sleep. Leaning hard into the wheel I sang. “I get pushed out of shape and it’s hard to steer, when I get rubber in all four gears, she’s my little deuce coup, you don’t know what I got.” And so it went, all night long.

At dawn the wind subsided slightly and Gerry poked his head out of the hatch. “What the heck time is it?”

“Looks like about six maybe.”

“How long you been on?”

“All night long” I said. “Hey Gerry. 9.8 knots. You owe me a dinner.”

The seas leveled out and we caught a small skipjack tuna. Linda filleted it and made poisson cru, raw fish with coconut.

August 11th. Beautiful weather prevailed. High pop-corn clouds dotted the sky in every direction to the horizon. A person can see about 27 miles on the surface of the earth. A person can see farther from above the surface on, say, the top of a mast. At the very horizon there’s a narrow band where the distance extends. If the clouds are a mile high they’ll be visible from much farther away. If the earth were flat we’d see the sea and clouds come together at a vanishing point within the narrow strip along the horizon. But in fact we see the clouds going over the horizon in all directions. Sailors have always known the earth is round. It’s obvious.

Linda made tuna cakes with hollandaise. There was some leftover hollandaise so the following morning I made English muffins for some Eggs Benedict. Doc joked that I’d make a good wife. I didn’t really consider that an insult but I did wonder what he meant and noticed a glance from Gerry.

Later when we were alone Gerry mentioned something about Doc’s declining restraint. I replied that I think Doc’s just feeling put out because I didn’t wake him up the other night when we turned east and all got drunk. Gerry said something about he and I experiencing some seasickness at the start and as we adjusted it went away whereas Doc was taking meds all along and never made the adjustment. Without the meds, he still got seasick. Gerry said that he got a look at the bottle and it said to discontinue use if the user developed what they refer to as “psychotic symptoms”. Doc was not psychotic and may be the nicest guy in the world but the bottle also says don’t mix with alcohol. Although Doc never drank to excess who’s to say a beer or two wouldn’t act as a catalyst.

Gerry said the trip had been like running a marathon. One step at a time. The beginning was painful. The middle was like a dream. And now with the end in sight we were full of euphoric anticipation. I agreed with the caveat “perhaps but my feet don’t hurt”. In a footrace you want to give it your all and arrive spent. Nothing left in the tank. In sailing, you never know when you’re going to want that full tank. You want to arrive rested and ready to go again if need be.

August 14th. Good weather continued though the wind came from all around the compass. We ate clam spaghetti. Vancouver Island was visible through the mist off our port side. We were running to the southeast roughly paralleling the shore. The sea had changed from deep blue to a greenish hue.

I’d expect to be wanting to set foot on land but that just wasn’t the case at all. I’d just as soon provision in Neah Bay and head back to Hawaii. That was a bit of a surprise. Perhaps this was where I belonged.

Around midnight, 22 days out of Kaneohe, we spotted the red and white rotating light on Tatoosh Island and soon were anchored in Neah Bay.

August 15th. In the morning, we pulled anchor and headed toward the fuel dock but were cut off by a small gillnetter. Neah Bay is home to the Makah Tribe of Indians. One after another the tribal fishing boats cut Valhalla off trying to get to the fuel dock. At one point we were along side one of the boats and Gerry called out “Got any fish to sell?”

“Chinook salmon, caught yesterday.” We bought a fresh, freshly cleaned salmon, fueled up and headed east up the Strait of Juan de Fuca. I poached the salmon in white wine with plenty of garlic. Usually people lose weight on an offshore voyage. On this trip everyone put weight on.

We arrived in Victoria in the early evening. It was still light and we found a spot at the commercial dock, away from the crowds. We were quite an oddity with our palm frond hats and coconut running lights.

A fellow in a cowboy hat caught our lines. “You folks look like you’ve been at sea for a while.”

I stepped ashore and introduced myself. The dock seemed to move under my feet which is always the case after a while at sea. Got to get your land legs back. I asked if the dock was moving. The cowboy just laughed and introduced himself as “Randy, Randy Daffy” as if I might recognize the name.

We talked a little more and decided to get a beer. Walking along Randy told his story. “I’m a rodeo cowboy. I ride bulls. World champion last year. This year I wrecked.”

“Wrecked?”

“Hit the wall. I was unconscious for a day. I woke up a month ago and I’m still trying to find my footing.”

We arrived at an establishment that looked inviting. It was on the lower floor of a large building, at the bottom of a long, heavily carpeted stairway. Randy and I tumbled down the length of the stairs landing at the bottom in front of the gatekeeper who pointed back up the stairs and said “Same way out you came in guys”.

“But I haven’t had a single drink yet” Randy protested to no avail. “Man. I guess I don’t need it anyway.” We parted company after a while and Randy went back to his hotel to get ready to catch a plane out to Campbell River to go fishing.

That day I took a ferry to Port Angeles where my mother and sister picked me up. Gerry’s family came to Port Townsend to sail down to Tacoma with him.

Doc and Linda were going to stay on the mainland for a while but didn’t like it and immediately caught a plane back to Kaneohe. Some time later they signed on to deliver another boat from the Marquesas to Hawaii. Doc went overboard on his night watch and though they retraced their path, they were unable to find him. I bet the big guy swam for days.