Los Cronófagos

He began before Time to fight,

To attack by day and by night;

To infiltrate, decay, and to break,

All that gives life and strength

To the unaware and unwary.

I flaunted my innate strength,

Ignored his puerile rant and cant.

He fell silent and at length

Took up timely weapons

Unknown to me, yet known to all.

He worked in covert and overt ways.

In heedless hauteur I grew old.

He became my anointed master,

I, a bonded servant, indentured

To my own chimerical freedom.

I tire of caring for his sagging flesh.

We dispute and redefine the term

And the terms of my servitude.

He denies my release, and

Grows ever more demanding.

My own illusions are his strength.

He relies on my lies to myself.

“The contract reads,” he says,

“that before your debt is paid,

You shall serve as my nursemaid.”

I wash his tortured feet,

Warm his rheumy joints,

Attend his phlegm clogged airways,

And suffer remembrance of a past

Which was, and was not.

We bury and mourn

Those who loved us, or not,

And view our shrinking frames

Over rheumy, crusting eyelids.

I cede him even my own name.

Shaking, I feed and dress him;

Stumbling, I wear his worn shoes,

Curse my devotion to his survival;

And fear we shall live forever

While he fears that we shall not.

Yet we are sometime civil beings,

Not altogether evil,

Or altogether free

Not altogether kind

Or altogether blind;

We mistake and take,

Each for the other self,

As Cronos dishes out

From bowls of bone and lime

The bittersweet gruel of Time.

Googling Holden Village, one finds only a curious little looping line in the Wenatchee National Forest in North central Washington. But the satellite view allows one to zoom down Copper peak to an abandoned mine, mill, and tailing pond. Holden village lies just to the North across Railroad Creek and National Forest development road 8301. Much of the Village itself still survives. There is a one room school, and the former Company Store. There are two story bunk houses where most miners lived, single men attracted by unusually high 1940 pay, upward of $1.25 daily.  Uphill are  8 family homes built for administrators and their families. After the mining company closed it sold the village to the Lutheran Church for $1.

The main Holden family housing area for miners was a half mile down the road to the West; it is gone now because the Forest Service permitted the homes to be built only on condition they be removed when the mine closed. My father built ours with material purchased through Montgomery (‘monkey’) Wards and Sears Roebuck catalogs.

There was only one newspaper available in the company town, which I delivered after school to about 100 subscribers.  The early nightfall of winter often froze my wet corduroy pants into sonorous icy clacking tubes. On Sunday, when I had to deliver the heaver papers, I hired a schoolmate to carry the second double front and back newspaper bag half a mile to the family miner homes. His pay was a five cent candy bar, purchased at the company store. Of course 5 cents bought a very large Hershey then. I netted about $8 or $10 monthly, mostly in big tin Howe Sound company coins. Even so the flimsy light money worked as well as the stuff we use today, also now all base metal. It seems likely our nation has become a company town, though the owners are  called Washington DC. My mother kept the tin coins in a sock in her bedroom. I never saw them again, there being little for a kid to buy there.

When WWII hit the US my father wanted to join the Sea-Bees and take a more active part. But he was declined because he was in a vital industry: copper. He sold the house for $800. We went to Mexico, to another copper mine.

For nine and ten year old boy in Holden it was mostly fun, freedom, food, and fancy. One more mining town. To move every year from one mine, one country, one culture, one language, to another, was normal. It wasn’t easy. But I loved the wildness of small mining towns, the changes, the excitement, the challenge.

In Holden I looked out my little Sears attic window at big soft falling flakes of crystallized Pacific moisture and thought about Flash Gordon. The average winter’s snowfall was 350 inches  with 35 inches of rain in the summer. On clear  moonlit nights I knew I would one day walk the face of the moon.

The investment in time, money, sweat, and  blood required to  find, develop, and operate a mine is huge. It takes years. It includes scouring remote areas to discover where a mineral resource is likely; drilling  hundreds of rock core samples; analyzing the cores. If there is mineral, that is only the beginning. The real cost balloons: establishing access  to the mine site through roads, conveyor belts, lift lines; providing for  housing, schooling for children, health care, entertainment. (Holden,  like many big mines in those days, had  a school,  bowling alley, dance hall, a  baseball diamond.); providing water,  sewage, electricity. Then one must add up all the costs of infrastructure and of mining, extracting, milling the ore,  dealing with waste rock and tailings, dust, toxic smoke,  possible litigation,  and complying with myriad known and unknown governmental  regulations; and selling the product…  Only then might one see the  first penny of income.  Profit, if any,  not until years later.

Holden was one of the biggest copper mines in the nation at the time.  But in the 1950′s the ore body was exhausted, the war was over, and it closed. That is the fate of all mines. Yet often the infrastructure remains in  a very remote and lovely place. Holden like many other mining towns, survived the demise of the mine; consider the upscale resorts in Colorado, and Arizona. The  old mining towns at  El Teniente and Chuquicamata  in Chile are World Heritage sites.  ( see http://lufboro.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/chuquicamata-and-el-teniente/) We  ourselves lived in a number of mining towns that still  live on as resorts: Balatoc and  Baguio, Filipinas,  and tiny Manhattan, Nevada, and Holden,Washington.

We never understood one another, my father and I.  He seemed to irritated because life came easy to me. And I was grateful that it was so. I  could always arrogantly choose the course that was most exciting, selfish, exotic, and at the same time  seemed to me most ethical, knowing that life was good and God was fair. Only later was I taught we had been poor, that our Holden house, most all our houses, should have been condemned by multiple layers of government as unfit; that my parents were neglectful and abusive to allow me so much unsupervised freedom in old mines, caves, jungles, deserts and high mountains where mines are found; that mining companies  abuse poor ignorant miners and pillage the earth.

My father never  did ‘get it’. At 88 he still consulted with remote and soon to be bankrupt mine operators who agreed to fly him to a place like Borneo to talk about their underground water problem. They would pay him off with a big party and roasted suckling pig. He was always just a conservative, always working, driving around in his old wreck of a car, never wasting, never wanting, wearing his old clothes and acting like Thoreau. But of course the generations never understand one another any better than we understand ourselves. Too bad I didn’t realize all that in Holden. I thought it was paradise. But what else could anyone expect of an ignorant  kid? Mina San José and 33 Chilean miners taught me what my father knew all along.

A tire flattened by the resentful rutted rock strewn road delayed us, but we arrived on a cloudless late summer Sunday afternoon, accompanied by Cristián’s father, who carried part of our gear.   I knocked on the door of the caretaker’s cabin where the tin roof was lashed down against future winter weather by a long 7/8 inch thick plastic rope. It stood near a long trail that wound its way about 100 meters up past a series of seven hot spring pools, each overflowing into the one below. The narrow flat valley floor was populated by several small tents to shelter visitors from the searing high altitude sun. I tried to imagine Winter when the valley would be deserted, reclaimed by white wind and  drifted snow.  But wind and weather are concerns even at the height of summer; an afternoon updraft arose as we set up camp about 50 meters away, so that  raising our bulky tent  required a great deal of  struggle and raucous banter.

The day visitors left before sunset and we found ourselves alone on the flat narrow valley floor. I considered supper, thinking to make hot soup, but found that there were no cooking pots.

“Where are the pots? Did anyone get them out of the trunk”?

“Marmota emptied the trunk.” Felipe’s nickname is ‘marmota’ (marmot); Chileans don’t fear being politically incorrect, and are never shy about nicknames.

“Marmota! “said Sebastián, you left the pots in the trunk!” Ricardo who is devoted to foul language , piled on.

“Huebón!” said Ricardo, who tries never speak without a foul word. In this case he chose a variant of ‘big egg(s)’, that I leave to the reader to interpret. “I told you to check the trunk before the car went!”  And so on to infinity; any parent knows the routine.

So I went back Homar’s cabin to ask for the loan of a pot. He was a local from the town of San José del Maipo, named after the volcano that dominates the Northeast quarter of the valley where an extensive watershed begins at the Andean crest between Chile and Argentina. Mountain people are mountain kin, and without hesitation he rummaged about and pulled out a large cast iron pot, saying, “¿Algo mas?”

“ No, ¡ gracias Homar!”

“ Bueno, avisenme, cualquier cosa. Su casa.”, an abbreviated old saying  ‘My house is your house.’

In the mountains twilight is long and luxurious. A clear moonless night sky slowly rolled down from the surrounding peaks. The wind abated.  As the darkness thickened a myriad stars appeared and to the west, the faint outlines of two galactic clusters, the Magellanic Clouds. The Southern Cross began to tick off the hours as it rotated about the void that is celestial South.   From the east, we began to see intermittent flashes of light.

“¿Que es eso, Tío?”

“Maybe lightening. An electrical storm over the pampas of Argentina.” But there was no distant thunder, and I soon realized: We were seeing light from eruptions of the earth dragon who heated the hot springs; the caldera of San José del Maipo volcano.

A person can get a reputation, may try to live up to it, or live it down, instead of quietly outliving it. Most every year, during more than 30 years, I have taken two or three teenagers, usually relatives, backpacking in the Chilean Andes. These adventures have become greatly exaggerated in the telling and re –telling, morphing into beautiful lies, or rites of passage. New volunteers hope to be tested, and to be accepted into the Order of Tío Jhon.

In the ‘70s most of my Chilean relatives were scandalized by the idea of anyone going into the mountains, let alone their own children.

“What for? And no horse! There’s  the  puna,  and wind that burns, and smugglers. The whole place should be off limits, like the unknown oceans of 15^th century maps: Hic Sunt Dracones’”.   But Chile was a different country then, among the poorest in the hemisphere by almost every standard measure.  It has changed radically, even in regard to the way people think of mountains. Now Patagonia and the Andes are encrusted with foreign and native backpackers, as well as Chilean teens. Seeping bags, and back packs, like blue jeans, are part of many active youngster’s standard gear. Now those who want to be introduced to the mountain are no longer only nephews, but nieces. None of them will believe that Tío Jhon is no longer young or strong, even though objectively the packing involves less back and more internal combustion engine.

This year I went again, partly to keep the faith, but also because my own spiritual home is still somewhere in the dry high air under a black cobalt sky. There were ten volunteers, among them my two youngest daughters. Yet I have always limited the group to three, because the Andes can be treacherous; how could I keep more than two or three safe from the mountain and from themselves?  I asked my youngest daughter, Sandi, and her three cousins to wait for another time. She felt terribly abused.

“You took Rodrigo and Álvaro when they were 11 and 12;  and 13 and 14!”

“Yes, but…” No explanation was sufficient. I would be a condemned father. At least until next year. That left five, still too many for a real backpack.  I decided to take them to this  remote natural hot spring, accessible by car. Though there were still six, Pablo, son of a Santiago psychiatrist, and my daughter Lilí were both 18, and reliably mature. That left Cristián, 13, Ricardo and Felipe, 15, and Sebastián, 14. I could almost  meet the standard of three adolescents. Pablo’s parent’s contributed the large Brazilian canvas tent, a  3×4 meter old style external aluminum tube frame affair with three 1×2 meter ‘rooms’ at one end for privacy, and sturdy enough to withstand the high valley summer updrafts.

The hot springs are at about 11,000 ft elevation in the Cajon Del Maipo, to the Southeast of Santiago in a narrow mountain valley on sparsely vegetated private land otherwise occupied in summer mainly by the occasional goatherd family. Translation: Possibly For Sale: day-fresh hot bread, goat cheese and milk, some simple staples, wine,  or  sometimes barbecued kid.

If you have ever organized a camping trip for a group like this, you know the problems: Do they have appropriate clothes, shoes, socks, sleeping bags, rain gear, hats, and personal items for hygiene and protection from the elements? Is the food and equipment adequate? Does any one have health or related limitations? But by the time we left things were triple checked and I was confident we would establish a comfortable and well provisioned base camp from which to explore the surrounding area.  I would be better acclimated to the altitude than my charges, giving  felt the altitude giving me an advantage, at least until  they adapted.

Chile is a several thousand long volcanic land, with the longest north-south length  of any country in the world, yet one of the narrowest.  People live at the battle line in an eon’s long war between continental plates. Off the Chilean coast lies an abyss which is deeper than the Andean Heights. The entire country lies  between the Andes and the Abyss, clinging to an unstable piece of continental shelf.  The Maipo is just one of many fast rivers intent on moving the Andes back down into the Abyss, its icy waters made mud brown by eroded material during spring and early summer snow melts.

The termas, thermal baths, are five open air oval 5×4 meter palisade pools, each cooler than the one above. In the daylight they are milky blue unless muddied by bathers; in the cold night air they are steaming India ink black. The rims of the pools are merely accreted mineral salts, where water has long flowed over a man made rim, gradually building up walls of salt. There is so much mineral in the hot water that after bathing, one must wash off in fresh water, otherwise the skin remains slightly plastered, and swim suits crust so as to almost stand alone.

As dark invaded the valley, much to our surprise, a generator kicked in at the caretaker cabin, and the trail leading to the uppermost hot pool was low voltage lighted.  We labored, short of breath, up to the pools, joining  about six locals, including Homar.

“¡Bienvenidos! This is the best time. No tourists. La copucha.” -, tall tales, gossip, lies and news.- “ The early morning is good  too.  Big contrast, cold, hot, steam subrightening  air. Try it. ”

“What time, about?”

“ Oh. Early. 5 AM or so.”

“Liar!  Nice try! You won’t catch me up here all alone at five!”

Despite a prolonged soaking under the cold stars we remained unwrinkled because of  hot spring’s high mineral content,

The next afternoon was devoted to light walking and adapting to the thin air.  After a light snack we headed for a ridge of black where Homar said there were fossils.  In hiking with children I insist that we stay together and that I lead. It was a stunningly perfect afternoon, with light cool updrafts. The area was rocky, dry, and relatively barren, populated only by sedges, chartreuse colonies of woody plants called llareta, low thick leaved alpine shrubs, and low clusters of  flowers.  There was occasionally some light  puna (altitude sickness sometimes called soroche) relieved by rest. We  found some flat shell fossils in black slate, explored a limestone cave, and  a gypsum mine where the entrances were still partly filled with last winter’s snow. In the distance were occasional condors and a lone guanaco, a small camelid like a delicate llama. Though guanacos are herd animals, there is only one male to a herd, and the young live alone until they can whip some dominant male or steal some females.  Late in the afternoon summer cumulus darkened the sky, threatening rain, so we returned to camp, ready for supper and another hot soak.

The third day I pushed our acclimation to the altitude and exercise a bit further. The geologically young Andes are very porous in this area so snowmelt disappears into the ground immediately. Yet I believed there should be stream or a lake or a meadow beneath a large south facing cirque. We were rewarded by a long narrow meadow with five small lakes, a perfect string of crystal blue aquatic pearls threaded on a  tiny silver stream. Arriving back at the tent, I was aware that I was quite tired while my charges were still full of energy.  When youth is physically stressed it quickly becomes stronger while when age is stressed it doesn’t; this third day at altitude had made them guanacos though I was still just an old man.

Six teens in a tent is an unforgettable experience, not limited to mere continuous crudity and farting. You may imagine what the tent looked like on the third day: Cosmic disorder wrapped in 90 to 100 decibels of undecipherable debate punctuated by bouts of uncontrollable mirth. In my adult ignorance I perceived that as noise. I thought of calling for order, but desisted. Wha?  In the end I’d have to make order myself.   After supper and spa, they were sent off into the weeds to brush their teeth, possibly with toothpaste, though soap would have been quite appropriate.

I like to sleep in the open whenever I can, and set up about 20 meters away; but Homar called out  “Vengan a jugar Pimpó”. (Pingpong!)

¡Tío! ¡ Vamos con el Homar! I declined, preferring the peaceful sleep of the innocent under quiet curious southern stars, while the dragon in the caldera, unseen and unheard, spit occasional defiant flashes at the night.

The fourth morning my charges slept late, thanks to the ping pong fest; we breakfasted, went to a late morning hot bath, and lunched in the shade of the big tent until 2 PM.

The summer sunset would be nine or ten hours away, offering plenty of time for an exploration of a nearby waterfall and whitewater stream spilling from the Argentine border.  With a light pack of food, some drinking water, and fruit, we set off. All my teens were enthusiastic, frisky, and competitive. We crossed the steam, and headed toward the sound of the falls.  After only 20 minutes it became necessary to climb a 40 meter rock-fall, consisting chiefly of head sized boulders cascading toward the streambed at the steep angle of repose.  The stream now had more fury, angered by the nearby falls.  Concerned that people might scramble up the rock slide too closely and dislodge a boulder on one another, I decided to send Pablo up first, to wait at the top, while I released each hiker one at a time. This took about 15 minutes.

Arriving at the top of the rock-fall, I found we were at the base of a very large fan-shaped cirque: a 200 meter high seashell like face of fine dirt and small rocks, originating from the eroded earth above,  gradually becoming steepest at the top. The surface, having been punished and polished by wind and rain, was almost like cement. The only safe ascent was to avoid it, and move laterally to find topsoil and brush. Yet all except Pablo had, immediately on arriving, started a race for the top, directly up the cirque.

“¡Bájense imbéciles! Bájenseeeee! ” I gestured frantically and called repeatedly, to no avail because of their intense focus on the race and the noise.

Every mountain lover learns that, as in life itself, the going up is almost always easier than the coming down. My charges had reached a place  of instability and  fear where they could neither safely move farther upward, nor descend without losing control.  Felipe was flattened face to face with the cirque, clutching the mountain. Lilí was perched on a big rock, secure but stuck. Ricardo and Felipe were stranded in between them, in a in a five point attachment to the packed earth, if one includes the butt.   Sebastián was frantic, clinging to a steeper area to my right. Pablo had waited for me. It was about 4 PM with 4 or 5 hours of light left.

“ ¡Oiga  Pablo! Go on up to left,  climb up where there’s topsoil and bush. Take your time.  I have to do something about Sebastián. The rest are ok.”

“When I get to the top, what?”

“I don’t know. Go get Homar. And a rope.”  I climbed up  a way to speak with the children, to prepare them for a few hours there.  As I approached they all responded quite calmly and rationally, excepting Sebastián, who was simply panicked. I felt he could not hold on the way he was; though a fall would not be fatal,  he’d likely be hurt on the rocks below, and I very much feared explaining  how that happened.  Like, Why I was still alive and unhurt.  So felt compelled to try and reach him and inch him to a safer spot.

In short order I was close enough to speak with him.  “Put your whole body belly first,  close to the mountain!  Like you can stick to it. Kick your toes into the dirt until you make  a little niche!”

“¡No, no puedo, tío!”

“Yes, you can!  Take your time. Go slow. ” And he did just that, calming down nicely. But I realized that I myself couldn’t descend safely either.  My only recourse was to reach the top of the fan shaped cirque. “You’re good now. Try to relax as much as you can because… Sorry, you will be there for a couple of hours. But there’s no rain, no snow.”

“What if I have to take a crap?”

“Enjoy! Who gives a shit?!” At least his sense of humor was back.

Slowly, laboriously kicking footholds in the stubborn earth, I made my way upward, and at last reached the overhanging layer of topsoil at the upper lip of the cirque. Dry mouthed, trembling, and exhausted, I pulled myself up over the root bound lip onto level ground, amazed that my life was still mostly my own. Pablo arrived, and I sent him to the caretaker cabin to get a rope, and help, while I stayed with the stranded climbers.

There were still four children trapped on the fan.  They had remained where they were, as instructed. Gradually accepting the absurdity and inevitability of their situation, they began to joke back and forth, to sing songs and tell tall tales under the burning alpine sun. a hot wind, one architect of the cirque, began to blow harder.    In about 40 minutes, Pablo, and a ping pong player arrived with a rawhide lariat about 10 yards long; it was not nearly long enough to reach even the nearest child.  But  they said Homar would bring a better rope, and in another hour Homar and a second man appeared with the long thick rope from the caretaker house roof. Ricardo, the most obstreperous of the teens, shouted up to the rescuers;

‘¡Si me sacai’[1] primero te chupo el pico!’ promising an explicit sexual favor to  be rescued first.  The newcomer called down to Sebastián.

“Chucha Sebastián,¡que te imagináis!” But Sebastián couldn’t hear him.

“You know him? I asked.

“Si. I came to visit just for today. He was my brother’s best friend.”

“They quarreled?”

“No. My brother was killed in an auto accident 6 months ago. I wanted to check on Sebastián, I don’t know why, just felt I should. Besides, Felipe’s mom said she’d bring lunch day after tomorrow.”

“Well. I’m glad you are here. He will be too when he realizes it. He’s the one way down to the left.”

Four of us held the rope fast, and four times Homar was let down to rescue each child one by one until they were all safely on top. They had been on the fan clutching the planet desperately for almost four hours. Ricardo was first to be rescued so he will never live down his bribe.

That evening I walked to a nearby goatherd shelter, and arranged for delivery next day of a cabrito asado, (barbecued kid) with all the trimmings. We gathered in honor of Homar, Pablo, and my remarkably cool and collected ‘teens. We were joined by locals, spa employees, the spa owners who provided red wine, and a sixty year old  great grandmother named Ximena claiming first name friendship with every radical leftist in the region. One owner tried to convince my daughter that he was some sort of movie mogul, and another hoped I’d invest in the Spa. (Actually, not a bad idea if I lived there.)  The ping pong tourney started up again at the insistence of Homar and Felipe, who both avoided alcohol in favor of the sport. I didn’t see anyone else make that sacrifice.

When I finally herded my charges to bed, it was early morning. Our hosts continued to celebrate life, the volcano, and perhaps, the numinous. I found myself again under the starry pantheon, listening to the wired children in the tent, and sounds of the party in the distance. The Earth Dragon again spit volcanic flashes intermittently at the dark. I was happy to have followed to my own rule: never take more than three children to the mountains. There are too many dragons lurking there in the earth’s crust.

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11/1/ 96 Di: Got here.   Put away groc.  Cleaned up, did laundry.          made jello

made muffins

Beef stroganoff

Carrots, broccli, tomatos, muffins.

made cole slaw[2]

The generic notation above for the first of November is followed by a recurring Di-ism:

“Dinner still in oven from last night”.

Since Melba fractured her hip two years prior, then fell again one year later fracturing the other hip, her husband Bob,  and their four children have managed the household. They all communicate by writing notes to one another in spiral notebooks, the source for this episode.  The night before caregiver Di had left a hot dish in the oven, but Bob overlooked it, serving only left-overs for supper.  He does this sort of thing rather often.

11/2/96 Di:*  We are doing an experiment.  Old hamburger.  Old salad.  If they both get ill, it was the hamburger. If only dad gets ill, it was the salad. (Here there is a happy face. Why? Because Bob now doesn’t eat meat. He has been told it is bad for prostate cancer!)

Di…. But  they say it was really good!

11/3/96 Di: * Well…no one was sick- so I guess they are tough!  Their stomachs are used to it since they use the oven as a ‘fridge!

11/5/96  6PM Di: Mom went to the toilet  in the stink of soiled Depends on the outside windowsill. I removed them.  She was pissed. (sorry!)

Di takes a dim view of men in general, having experienced abuse in her own life. This particular man, Bob, threatens to become administrator of Melba’s kitchen, bathroom, laundry, medications, and body.

Pachamama

Di  is ¼ Inca but unacquainted with Pachamama[3], female Inca deity who created the world. Earth is Pachamama’s current name, and she is very green.  But Bob was green for reasons antithetical to most green dogma.  He is green because imprinted by his parents’ family values, Thoreau’s abstemiousness, and by the great depression that drove him out of the country to find work. His various machinations to save soap and water place him at the most extreme of greenness:  he tries to limit toilet flushes to one-a-day L; he has placed bricks in the toilet tank, and  since his prostate surgery, voids in the bathroom sink (it’s convenient and saves water); he has post op incontinence and uses old pieces of cloth to catch leaking urine, rinsing them in a thread-thin stream of tap water and drying them on the towel rack or windowsill ; he objects to the use of the washer and dryer; he uses up all left-over food before  resorting to fresh cooked victuals, and  cooks up great quantities of bulk produce, serving the same dish, from the same dish,  three meals a day for many days.  Di finds these are insults to herself, to Melba, and the entire female universe.

11/12/96 Sophie:  Came to get Melba to go to church. She wasn’t dressed yet. Dad went ahead so I think she didn’t want to go! I’ll take her to my house for a shower. (It has become very difficult for Melba to get in and out of the tub, and Bob still resists replacing the tub with a walk-in or wheel-in shower.)

Dora, 4PM: House is warm and restful. Cat here and very happy.  I reminded mom that he has a sensitive stomach and can’t eat people food or milk.  He urps it up.

11/17/96 Sophie: Here for short visit.  Dad mad because Cat won’t go out the kitchen door- thought I’d better check on it.  Dad did get into a hassle w/cat; hand is black & blue & scratched.

Without exception, Notebook caregivers are lovers and defenders of this stray tomcat; that twists Bob’s tail. Ongoing hostilities between Bob and the feline invader call to mind the hearth/ forest and male/female dichotomy of the Kipling story, ‘The Cat Who Walks By Himself’. There is no fond description of the tomcat, and color is never mentioned, because he is much larger, more transcendental than would be a mere pet; his formal and proper name is appropriately archetypical like Man; it is: Cat.

11/ 15/96 Dora:   Sunday. Good morning. Mom not going to church this morning. Nor ready.  Didn’t realize it was Sunday. Messiah tonight.  Need to be at the MB Theatre at 2:00 or 2:15.  Will meet Nick and Will there.  Both Melba and Bob seem depressed today.

Maybe it is intuition…  Yet they look forward to The Messiah. Classic Opera, Gilbert and Sullivan, symphonic, choral, and Mexican rancheros are staples of Bob and Melba’s life together.  A performance of the Messiah on a cold winter day in the north latitudes, when nightfall is in afternoon, might be passed up by many people almost ninety years old; but this old couple are unwilling to miss it.

Bob still drives his old Plymouth.  He does so now. (When I last visited, I had no heart to ask him not to drive me to and from the airport. Over the objections of those who love us both, I  reasoned that though he may not hear well, since his cataract surgery he sees better; and he is a more cautious, probably a safer driver than long ago when he drove always at the edge of speed, time, and route, relying on his reflexes, but straining the sphincters of his passengers.)

Bob and Melba leave the Church on that dark winter evening after the long performance of The Messiah. Bob steps out to find the car, leaving Melba behind to catch up. But he is pre-occupied about something; he doesn’t recall where he parked.  They walk on. And on.  At last Melba becomes cold, exhausted, and falls, fracturing her pelvis. Yet fortunately it is not severe, and this time, unlike the earlier hip fractures,  she is expected to soon begin the familiar painful and slow process of healing. Only later will a pacemaker correct the true cause of her recurring falls: dysrythmia.

11/16/96 Di:*  Sorry about Melba.  Will do whatever I can to help. Bob thinks every other day will be enough (for me to work) until Melba gets back.

Indeed he does.  In fact, when Di takes time off, Bob manages very well alone and the notebook voices fall completely silent; there is not a single word written there until Melba is brought home from the hospital; the notebooks are not about Bob.

Ever since her hip fractures, requiring many weeks in an Extended Care Facility, Melba has been very fearful of being buried alive in such a place.  She has repeatedly insisted she will die happily before living through it again.  Yet now the same future faces her.

Several days later, in the hospital, she is up in a chair with help.  Sophie, Melba’s  youngest daughter, is a nurse and tries very hard to convince Melba’s doctors to allow her to go home rather than to a Nursing Facility. Sophie has installed the hospital equipment needed for Melba’s care at home. She has requested regular home physiotherapy; yet despite the great reduction of net cost that would result, the bureaucracy, filled with fear of known or imagined danger, cannot agree.  (Regulators have at their disposal sanctions, denial of claims, and other unstated reprisals. After all regulations are thousands of pages long.  Or perhaps it is felt more important to prosecute minor  infractions of  rules by  bit players than wholesale multi million dollar fraud.)

Sophie has no power of attorney, but Melba is clear-headed and adamant. Based on Melba’s iterated wish, and many prior family conversations there is no need to consult with anyone. Therefore Sophie acts:

At 5 AM on December 24^th, the hospital halls are as quiet and as vacant as a catacomb. Sophie simply commandeers a wheelchair, and abducts Melba from her bed, taking her back to her familiar unsafe old three story home. There is where the love of Melba’s long life waits; she made a commitment to Bob in 1929, and won’t  cast it aside for the sake of  any pale fop like the law, a medical profession on cruise control,  public convention, safety, or   opinion.

12/ 25/96: 8 AM:  Di:* Warm and quiet. Cat asleep and happy on the hairloom couch. Merry Christmas all!  See you soon!

On Christmas morning Cat is warily detached as always. But Melba, her family, Di, and other caregivers are not. Sophie’s Pachamama intervention is her most transcendental act of faith, and her greatest gift to us all that Christmas in 1996.

At July 6 1992 is a note from A for father’s day:

‘This will entitle the bearer to one all expenses paid weekend scuba trip in Monterey Bay… including lodging, meals, and equipment rental. Should you feel that you are too out of practice for Scuba, a replacement gift will be arranged, you wimp!! Love, XXOO, A.’

I didn’t ever go.

At October 18th 1992 I find a letter from L, age 12…

‘Dear Mommy and Daddy,

I can’t face you or tell you all this person to person, so I will have to write. I was bitterly disappointed today with my performance, but what really makes me feel terrible is that I disappointed you, my wonderful parents. You worked so hard today to make the rep class a success and it seems inconceivable to me that I could have let you down so utterly. I will try harder, because I want to return the love you give me in every way I can. I’m so sorry, mommy and daddy; please forgive me for failing you. I’m sorry. Goodnight.

Love, signed(sic) L, your daughter who will try her best.’

I had read the letter, and saved it. But there is no evidence of my hearing that child voice.

At 23 Marzo 1993 in a journal I bought in Chile, is this:

Tío

Yo le digo tío-pero no es tío mío,

I call him uncle

Lo digo pa’ joder.

But i say it to piss him off.

Yo era forastero, solitario,

I was a stranger, alone,

Un poco amargado, resentido-

Quite bitter, resentful.

Pero me trató con sencillez,

But he treated me with openness,

Con cariño como si fuera digno de respeto,

And affection as if I merited respect.

Como si no hubiera cagado muchas veces la vida mía.

As if I hadn’t fucked up my life.

Cuando no soñaba, él me alimentó con sueños suyos.

When I couldn’t dream he fed me his own,

Sueños Gonzalez, raros, bellos,

Gonzalez dreams, strange, and beautiful,

Con vitaminas de locura.

With vitamins of insanity.

Todavía  sueño con la vida más que la muerte,

I still dream of life more than death.

Puedo dar y recibir, soy sano, fuerte.

Can give, receive, am whole, strong.

Y todavía le digo tío,

And still I call him Uncle,

Porque no tengo nombre suficientemente grande,

For there’s no word great enough,

Ni profundo, ni ancho

Or deep enough or wide,

Para este hombre que le digo tío,

For this man I call Uncle,

Pero no es tío mío.

Who is no uncle of mine.

A few years later my Tío got prostate cancer and I advised no aggressive treatment; it’s still there watching quietly. Last time we spoke, eight years after a dense stroke, he was confused, but alert, diapered, and bedridden. He usually feigned good cheer, but often professed an overwhelming sadness; yet he did not recall my assurance, after the cancer diagnosis, that I would interfere personally if he ever requested it.

Disturbed diaries can speak, accuse, or shame. Mine say I have too often ignored what was significant, focusing only on what was important. They ask aloud if a child can overcome an ambitious father’s love, suggesting the grown woman might be handicapped by 12 year old child-eyes, which may see only vanity in vulgarly powerful men.

They accuse me of overlooking the innocent love of a child while focusing on self love.  They say I made promises I cannot keep. I try to defend myself, claiming each day in life is at once smaller, less significant as a part of the whole, yet greater because we learn to know ourselves, and each other.

But I doubt. Abruptly, unwilling  to risk further injury, I close ’92 and ’94, and reinter them with their kin, at least for now; later, perhaps when I’m prepared. Digging about among old personal words should be done only with an empty stomach, a quiet mind, and a full heart.

These natives of the Andes are an elegant and ecologically superior pack animal in the high Sierra, and potential companions for mature people with physical limitations who retain a love for the high mountains.

My friend Tom first introduced me to the local  llamas, immigrant camelids, or New World camels. He had been using these beautiful animals for several seasons, to carry gear, thereby converting back pack trips into luxurious excursions, something locals have heretofore only found through horse packing.

I found the baby-eyed, incredibly sweet-breathed, graceful ruminants to be sturdy, mountain-wise companions.   I found delight in the luxury of taking along all those things which make life easy above tree line, but which I could not carry by myself. At last I realized that I never did actually enjoy carrying 50 pounds on my back or being my own beast of burden.

A few years ago entrepreneurs began to import llamas from South America. Breeding animals were initially very costly, often selling for $10,000 or more.  Although alpaca or llama meat is nourishing, tasty and low in fat, llamas are apparently not great producers by comparison to other domestic animals. Neither llama nor alpaca has been commercially successful  soruce of meat or wool  North America.

Nonetheless, the immigrant llama has survived, at least in the domestic state, and is seen quite frequently, especially in the Western US.

The llama, like the potato, tomato, corn, and dozens of  other unique crops, was domesticated by pre-Columbian indigenous peoples in South America. A native to the Andes, llamas are particularly well adapted to mountain terrain, and are commonly used in the altiplano as pack animals.  Ecologically and practically, pack llamas are far superior to ungulates, or hoofed animals. They are ruminants, regurgitating and chewing like cattle. but as browsers they can generally live off the land, and do not pillage and destroy all vegetation, as do goats. Their feet are padded, and therefore much less destructive of terrain, leaving no deeply rutted and eroded trails like heavier hoofed horses or cattle. Llamas can weigh more than 350 pounds,   and carry from 60 to 100 pounds nicely, pound for pound relatively far more than a horse or mule. They are capable of defending themselves from carnivores. Endowed with extremely acute vision and smell, a male llama, raised and bonded with sheep for example, makes a very efficient and effective shepherd which will detect and react to intruders. Their strange appearance alone is frightening to many animals, and they attack aggressively.

Humanity is constrained universally, however, by preconceptions, cultural restrictions and subtle prejudice. In South America, where I visit often, I have never seen the llama used as a pack animal by other than indigenous people.  Never. The European Conquistadors were, and are, horse worshipers. The horse was historically a formidable and fearsome animal, able to carry warriors as well as considerable loads. Even the word for gentleman in Spanish is caballero, or horseman; as always, language both reflects and molds thinking and culture. No conquistador would tolerate being seen leading llama about because the conquered people’s  llamas remain stigmatized in the invader’s heart and mind.

However, the llama has been seen with new eyes in North America; eyes un-blinded by the gold driven ferocity of Cortez and Pizarro. Eyes that see mountain ranges as safe houses far from the toxic wasteland of modern living. So, seeing with new eyes, small llama herdsmen began to use llamas for pack animals in the Sierras. Light new material was adapted to make well-fitting, comfortable and practical packs, like double saddlebags. Small horse trailers, utility trailers, pickup trucks, even Volkswagen microbuses can be enlisted to move the llamas to trailheads. What has evolved is the North American Pack Llama, made even more formidable by new equipment and techniques.

The easiest way to llama pack is to contract with a professional, who will trailer the llamas to the trail head, and pack in and out, with or without full services.  Unfortunately, though   there are now thousands of llama owners and breeders, llama packers are not common for two principal reasons:  First, local llamas have been selectively  bred for  long wool, fine appearance, and docile behavior; the  comparatively unruly and plain pack llama has become scarce, so that  llama packers must often breed their own, or import genuine pack animals from the Andes.

Second, while the training and maturation of a pack llama is roughly comparable to that of a  common horse or mule, the power politics of packing puts llama packers at a significant disadvantage . There is fierce  competition for ‘turf’.  Commercial packing permits are often co-opted by  commercial horse packers who are not interested in competition from llama packers. This is particularly so in crowded states like California.

Therefore the simple and practical way to llama-pack, is to lease them and manage them as an individual with the right to use the public trails. One local llama provider charges roughly $45 daily per llama, and $1.50 per mile for trailering. My friend Tom is, to say the least, compulsive. So we  first took a four-hour course in loading, and managing llamas, then a three-day course, and finally a trial by immersion in the Eastern Sierras where we rented mature llamas that were well-trained and in good condition, accustomed to packing.  On the other hand, llamas can  often be rented with only an hour or two of training. They are reliable, mountain wise, and not aggressive.

One must  be the alpha llama, and lead with care, and thoughtfulness, so as not to erode the trust necessary for the animals to follow with confidence. They must be loaded carefully, and evenly. Llamas are very much herd animals so a  lone llama will often become agitated and squat, or will head for home. It is very hard to catch a  loose lone llama, though a llama will never leave a companion animal  behind. When  seriously distressed for any reason, they tend to simply sit down. One must figure out what the problem is.  When that is corrected they will get up and go forward.

Llamas don’t often spit, but when angry or upset can regurgitate forcefully through a locked-open mouth. They are almost never friendly, even if they look cuddly, but on the other hand neither are they treacherous or aggressive. They are usually trustworthy about browsing, though a number of plants, domestic and wild, are poisonous. A few leaves of rhododendron or oleander can be fatal. Less dangerous but common toxic plants include laurel, some ivies, bleeding heart, bracken fern, all sneeze weeds, and of course nightshade (belladonna) or foxglove (digitalis).  Part of a wise llama packer is a stomach tube and activated charcoal. However, in ten years I have never had occasion to use one.

I hope to continue to enjoy these unique alpine-wise animals and the mountain worlds they dominate so well, into an indefinite and pleasant old age.  Like all generic immigrants, llamas have uniquely enriched their new country, in ways very different from what was expected.

What follows is a doggy philosophic commentary.  The Con Con resident might even recognize the canine voice of this particular dog.

La Canina

by Alberto Eduardo Goria

We dogs are, in a general way, divided into two similar sized groups, or as the sociologists sometimes say, subcultures: Los Libres (Libertarians), and Los Conservadores (Conservatives).  There is a small third group, about three %, who prefer to appear uncommitted, hopeful thereby of becoming the object of greater attention or to be part of a noble  mindependant minority. In the end, however, this tiny group, Los Independientes (Independents) adhere to the general behavior of one of the more dominant groups. Their independence is illusory, a pretense, a self conceit that means nothing. They are non participants in society until they take a stand, a position.

Libres like me believe that only liberty gives meaning to life. We live simply, even abstemiously, in order to remain free. We refuse to work for any master other than ourselves, even if it sometimes is clear that one must be a hard master to oneself  in order to survive.  We do accept food from people even though they may look on us with pity, considering us vagrants, the equivalent of bums. We often do actually look the part, consistent with our lifestyle: rough coated, unkempt un-brushed, dirty. Most people don’t care to associate with us closely though some are saddened by our condition and proffer kind words, or looks. But they don’t touch us much unless they are children; and we like it that way. We are wary and proud. There are no formal shelters or meals provided by charitable organizations in a small town like ours; but there are informal charitable folks, so we all regularly make the rounds of places where we find hand outs, left-over’s, or  what’s called garbage; like Street People in Buenos Aires, Santiago or New York.  As you can imagine, our life is demanding; we don’t have the luxury of frittering away our time socializing with humans, unless it seems likely we can con them into giving us some food. Then, for the moment, we are as amiable, endearing and charming as a house puppy. Otherwise we pay not the slightest attention to passersby. What for?

The Conservadores exchange their liberty for food and shelter.  They become property, and are kept shut up in yards or homes. Even so, many feel the relationship between owner and owned can be more than that of slave and master; more than an exchange of this for that. It can be an enduring, close and loving interdependence. Some Roman or Old South USA, or Brazilian slaves thought the same way about theirservitude .  On the other hand one sort of  kept dog can hardly deny they are slaves, like the guard dogs who stay caged in a yard alone when their masters go… where? Who knows? They are abused, and yet, act insanely happy when their masters return.  Maybe that’s because all of us are social animals. It is vitally important to us to be a part of a group. Most Conservadores live like and with humans.  They act, and may believe, they are human. Who knows?  And indeed, the majority of kept dogs are not actually slaves, or abused in the usual sense of the word, and often seem happy, if ignorant of true freedom.  Maybe they are right.

We libertarians are not hermits of course; we too are social beings like all dogs.  The difference is that while kept dogs live in a human group, we libertarians live together in dog packs.   It is as though Libs are pack animals who live in the streets and the alleys while Cons are faux people who live with packs of people in homes. Cons depend on work to live; Libs avoid work to be freeñ but depend on a groups to survive.

Both, Libs and Cons share only two social imperatives: Song, and Sex. That is the main reason we never have any interest in organized warfare. No evening or night passes without a choral session; we are like our relatives, coyotes or wolves. We sing for pure joy, to lift our spirits in the face of danger, before going to sleep, and often for no reason at all. The shared call to song and sex for all dogs is so strong that even Conservatives can’t entirely resist. Their masters have to force them to abstain.  Whenever possible, both Cons and Libs often join together to sing because music wells up from the innermost recess of our nature. And whenever kept dogs can possibly do so they find unlimited joy in sex as well; when they sense the scent they will do anything to join in to obey that imperative. It is only in these things that we are without rancor. Where sex is concerned, we are most  human: its dog eat dog. Unless, of course, or castrated like many kept dogs. A purely human evil, castration; I understand they even do it to themselves in various ways. I don’t even want to think about that!

There are, of course, unwelcome aspects of a dog’s life.  Libs have no health care, and are often affected by parasites, fleas, or illness like distemper.  When we die, we are left to rot or taken to a dump. Cons not only have health care but sometimes have transplants or dialysis.  When a con dies he might have a funeral or a tomb, like a shrine. Lib’s lives are short, if sweet.  But cons are almost always abused by education. They are bowel abused, or ‘house trained’.  Can you imagine ‘holding it’ until nature’s demands are approved by a master!  Cons are voice or sign- command abused.  Libs  know that every sidewalk and lawn are the proper place to deposit stool, and every corner, weed or tree is placed  there by doG for our urine marker and sexual scent, and every single impulse is a sacred command that must be followed.   Actually, even kept dogs can’t resist greeting one another with a nose in the behind.   To nose a butt is simply irresistible to us all.

I don’t object or reject the world as it is today for us dogs.  To each his own. What really concerns me is that it appears that humanity is as abusive of the nature dogs as they are of any other natural life or natural thing that infringes on their own insatiable desire.  Of course they will soon get rid of Libs for one reason or another. We will be declared dangerous;  or a health menace; our spoor unwelcome to tourists; whatever, when we become an inconvenience. It is clearly human nature to be intolerant, arrogant, abusive and destructive of everyone and everything that gets in the way, even their own kind; like Cain and Abel. That’s why they War so much.  Some created doG in their own image no less.  Imagine!  Some think it’s integral to human nature, inborn, a stain that’s there even when invisible.  If so, I fear there is no future for the world. Nor even the universe.  And that will be a doG-damned shame.

By Charles C Mann

2005, Vintage ISBN -10:I-4000-3205-9

Based on many sources of objective evidence from the last few decades, the author makes a solid and extensively documented case that our common concept of the Americas before ‘discovery’ is hugely erroneous. For example:

• The population several areas was several times that of Europe.
• The inhabitants were usually taller, more hygienic, and healthier than the ‘discoverers’, the colonists or conquistadores.
• They actively managed their environment, the land, the animals, birds, estuaries, and forests. They burned the forests and grasslands to promote feed and to clear land for farming. They managed game aggressively over millions of acres of land.  Even in places like the Chihuahua desert, the hillsides still often show rough man made terracing to promote growth of native plants used for food, fiber, fuel, etc. After the ‘indians’ were decimated or conquered, the environment, no longer managed, changed radically.
• They developed, over centuries, many crops like corn, squash, tobacco, tomatoes, potatoes, manioc; the origin of corn, for example, and the process used to develop it, is still unknown.
• They domesticated the llama, alpaca,vicuna.
• The developed and inhabited areas are extensive over our two continents.  In the flood plane of  eastern Bolivia,  which is Serengeti like, there are hundreds of man made raised platforms presumably for farming or living during the time of flooding.
• When an area of the great mounds near modern St Louis were first  explored, the natives were many, fierce, and so haughty and hostile that the fearful conquistadores passed by quietly as possible. The next large expedition about 70 years later found the place abandoned. There was no one. Why? Very likely microbes and viruses, the real conquistadores, wiped them out.
• The same microbial conquerors made it  possible for the English colonists to subdue the natives of the East coast U S; and the story is repeated over and over and over again everywhere in the Americas. Neither gunpowder nor horses had much to do with the conquest excepting in the very beginning, when they were strange and frightening. A slow firing musket or pistol, and a steel sword and armor are no match for hundreds of bows and arrows fired from behind cover.

Mr. Mann’s allegations, to use the unfortunate legalistic patois of the modern US citizen, are in sharp contrast to what is still commonly taught in our schools; it contradicts our predominant view of the American past as a virgin land populated by primitive people  who, with few exceptions, lived a nomadic existence in a passive, reverent, and  respectful harmony with the timeless and unchanged environment. While fictional pristine world is one we tend to admire and aspire to recreate, with some justification, it is that is mistaken for the truth.

While is not the first author to present these facts, he is one who brings them together in a readable and gripping account that can be easily enjoyed by the non academic reader.  Read it if you aren’t familiar with these findings; at the least it will change your understanding about the allegation the one world is new and the other is old.

El Vecino siempre había sido un ser conflictivo, para decirlo con delicadeza. Encarcelado por intento a matar entre otras cosas. Quizás en algún entonces fue bueno, cariñoso, feliz.  Pero no lo conocí así, y por eso no me daba mucha pena lo que pasó ayer, aun que él haya sufrido a su manera. No puedo perdonar lo que el próximo es a favor de lo que  posiblemente fue. O fuera.

Lo conocí por primera vez cuando vino a vivir con la vecina. Ella había echado a su marido para abrir camino al vecino, aunque era obvio que él sabía llegar por la ruta indirecta, de hace mucho. Trabajaban juntos. Al principio me gustaba el boyfriend de turno.  Ordenó el jardín, armó una red de basquetbol, y jugaba con el hijo de la vecina.   Hicieron muchos arreglos. Aparecieron  varios autos nuevos. Durante el año, agrandaron la casa; pusieron piscina.

Mas a corto plazo, Rob, de la casa al  otro lado, recibió una carta de la ‘Junta Directiva De Vecinos’ que lo amenazaba con sanciones porque ladraba su perro. La carta no tenía firma ni nombre.  Nunca hubo  tal Junta de Vecinos. El perro  de Ron había estado ahí años, tal como el mío; ninguno ladra excepto cuando llega un perro, o  un auto extranjero. ¡Lo que es su trabajo, su tarea, anunciar esas llegadas!  Así que le dije a ron que la carta la guardara pero nada más.

Esa misma noche alguien tiró piedras a su techo. Rob es un hombre experimentado en negocios y negociaciones, que no se asusta ni actúa sin pensar hace donde vaya. Me explicó que aunque creía que la carta y las piedras eran mandadas por el Vecino, opinaba que con un imbécil de este tipo era mejor no reaccionar.  “Acusar a un loco es locura.” Y parece que tenía razón, porque se acabaron las lluvias de  cartas y piedras.

Quizás  por no obtener la reacción esperada, la ira del Vecino se dirigió a mi perro, Oliver, y por supuesto, a mí.  Al llegar un auto extraño Oliver ladraba y el Vecino ladraba al perro, los dos furibundos; el hombre gritaba garabatos; tiraba piedras. El perro ladraba de más lejos, pero ahora no solamente a los  extranjeros  sino ladraba cada vez que salía su enemigo.

Conversé con el vecino; dijo que se había ‘radicado acá’ por la paz, no querría  sufrir con ladridos. La verdad es que había  llegado recién,  mientras los perros habían estado por años;  además los sitios son de media hectárea, las casas lejos uno de la otra. Pero no le contesté con mis razones, pensando en lo que había sucedido con las piedras; mejor Oliver se convirtiera en perro casa adentro durante la noche. El Vecino  podría envenenarlo o quien sabe que otra barbaridad. Los dos siguieron ladrando durante el día cuando estaban los dos caniles afuera. Pero la situación se arregló de a poco.  Reinó una paz tenue.

No duró. Mi hija menor tuvo una fiesta de cumpleaños. Habían muchos autos a lo largo del camino frente a mi casa. Todos los niños se fueron antes de las 10 de la tarde. Pero a una flamante camioneta nueva alguien la  había roto un vidrio.  Quizás un delincuente  callejero.  Mas unos meses después, tuvimos otra fiesta; música latina; no hay como los Venezolanos para cantar.  Sí, tiramos la casa por la ventana,  pero  la fiesta quedó adentro y poco se escuchaba afuera. La mañana siguiente encontré a mi camioneta con un neumático  pinchado, y al repararlo era evidente que alguien la había acuchillado. Dos huéspedes  avisaron que en camino a su casa descubrieron un neumático pinchado.  Otro vecino observó  que el vecino irracional rondaba por la calle durante la fiesta. El día siguiente lo acusé. Reaccionó con una sonrisa, se reía sin decir nada.  Imprimé unos letreros avisando que había un delincuente  que en el vecindario, y había acuchillado neumáticos a tres autos; que pongamos cámaras para vigilar la calle de noche y de día. Compré un equipo. Hasta ahora no lo he armado pero hice un gran show de hacerlo.

Sigamos con el problema del vecino irracional, violento, capaz de hacer cualquier disparate.  Supimos que el Vecino fue de camping, y salió  de su carpa a la madrugada para gritar  y correr a los pájaros porque violaron su sueño. Era alcohólico y en la tarde cuando bien curado se tornaba aún más agresivo. Lo único bueno que tenía era la cobardía; por otro lado, como cobarde, sus asaltos eran ocultos.

Un año después de que  había llegado, él y la vecina tuvieron una hija. Realmente era bellísima. En las tardes, a veces bien curado, le gustaba pasearla en brazos por la calle. Después del incidente con los neumáticos,  mi mujer, una fiera latina,  le dijo al Vecino cuando paseaba con su bebé, que sí lo encontraba borracho en la calle con la niña en brazos otra vez,  iba acusarlo de abuso.  La famosa Child Protection Services, lo investigara. Le aseguró que no viera nunca más a su bebé. El Vecino, sería malo y cobarde, pero no tonto. Se corrió; sin duda se quedó con ira. Nos quedamos inquietos; pero pasaron los meses, los años sin más riñas. Yo ya no conversaba nunca con el Vecino. Ni lo miraba, como si no existiera. De repente él y Oliver se ladraban, pero nada más.

Quizás inevitablemente aumentaron los problemas entre la pareja. El  vecino se fue.  Arrendó un departamento.  Llegaba de visita a su hija de vez en cuando; curiosamente se quedaba la noche. Perdió su trabajo. Hubo sequía de la plata misteriosa que le llovía antes.  Pero un buen día  la vecina lo aceptó de regreso, debe de haber habido algo de bueno que tenía. O  habían hipotecado la casa, firmando los dos,  y si se separaran la división de bienes costara caro a los dos.

El Vecino había vuelto  algo apagado, gordiflón, desanimado. Infrecuentemente se  veía afuera haciendo uno que otra cosa. Me daba pena. Varias veces cuando lo vi,  le hablé; le dije algo sin transcendencia, lo del tiempo, o que había arreglado el jardín. Me contestaba sin rencor, con una palabra o dos, y nada  más. No quise amistarme mas allá, simplemente quería hacerlo entender que podríamos reconocernos mutuamente como cuasi amigos, sin referirnos a lo pasado. Los días, los meses se iban acumulando en el remanzo del tiempo. Pareciera que nuestro vecindario se pacificó.

Pero no. Ayer a las 6 de la tarde estaba en mi escritorio. Sonó el timbre. Era la suegra del vecino,  que vive en un departamentito pegada a la casa. Estaba muy agitada.  Dijo que estuvo ausente todo el día, y cuando llegó, encontró una nota pegada a su puerta cerrada.

” Decía: No entren. Llamen al  911 (la emergencia). Llamé. Suelen durar de 10 a 20 minutos en llegar.  ¡Que hago!’”

Fui de inmediato. La nota era exactamente como la suegra había dicho.

“¿Desde cuando no lo ha visto nadie Sra.?”

“No sé.  De mañana. No me acurerdo exactamente.  He estado afuera todo el día. Creo que ha estado solo.”

“Tengo que entrar por si haya posibilidad de hacer algo. Pero , sabe ),estará con pistola?”

‘No. Recién, borracho, se había atropellado a un peatón, lo tomaron preso. Lo soltaron bajo fianza. Le  quitamos su pistola.’”

Entré. Lo vi  echado boca arriba en una catre frente al la puerta;  era la cama de su hijastra que estaba de visita. La cabeza la tenía  completamente envuelta en un bolso de plástico bien inflado, sellado en su cuello con un cordón para evitar el escape de gas o la entrada de aire.  Al lado de la cama, un tubo conectado a la bolsa; un balón de gas a presión. No hubo olor a gas de cocina; puede haber sido helio, ese gas inerte para los globos;  no me fijé.  La mano helada color gris. Su pulso carótida, Nada. El abdomen helada, piel de color gris ceniza.  Había  muerto por lo menos  hace varias horas.

A pesar de la tragedia frente a mí, no sabía si sentía más  fuerte la rabia o la pena. Salí. Cerré la puerta, a la espera de la ambulancia  y la policía.

Hoy conversé con una hija mía que vive en Berkeley, sacando un PhD.  Le dije,

“Más lo pienso,  más me da pena; tanto por él y por el horror, por su hija, por la vecina, por la familia.  No hay nada mas violento, mas cruel, mas atropellador, que un suicido. Después de la muerte sigue el muerto flagelando a los que se quedaron atrás.  No iré al funeral. Aun así estoy contento que hicimos,  por lo menos parcialmente, la paz antes que  muriera. Quizás fue su suicidio una de las pocas cosas que hizo con éxito.”

‘¿Estás loco? Te voy a contar un detalle que no te quise decir cuando sucedió,’ Contestó mi hija.

‘¿Como?’

‘¿Te acuerdas  hace un mes cuando vine a comprar mi autito? Lo compré. Se hizo tarde y dormí en tu casa. Habían cuatro autos frente a la casa esa noche: Tu camioneta, mi auto viejo, el de Sandi, y mi Fit nuevo.

“Me acuerdo.”

‘”uve que salir temprano; alguien había sacado la tapita de la válvula y desinflado los cuatro  neumáticos  casi totalmente.  ¿Ves?  Al Vecino siempre le daba rabia cuando habían  autos.  Le rabiaban  al máximo los autos nuevos. Pude manejar a la Shell, inflé los neumáticos, y me fui.”

Qué vergüenza. Todas mis hijas nacieron más sabias que yo; a pesar de mis años no sé nada.  Al difunto quería   mear su lápida. Pero –¿Para qué? La orina es  lágrimas del cuerpo. Las lágrimas orinan del alma. QDEP el Vecino sin  nada más mío, ni pichcí , ni  odios,  ni ladridos, ni penas.

5 Feb. 2010

The House that VIM Built

Colonet is a dreary looking strip town of a few thousand people and one Pemex gas station, stretched along the only paved road in the area, a truck-clotted, two-lane asphalt north-south highway. It’s a long drive from Sacramento, but can nicely done over two days with an evening in Ensenada. The border crossing was almost invisible going down, though it is wise to cross at near noon going back to minimize congestion.

Ten miles west of Colonet is the Pacific Ocean, and 40 miles east is a mountain range that reaches several thousand feet in places. This range is an earthy sponge that  sucks up the meager rainfall, providing enough underground water for carefully manicured drip irrigation in labor-intensive cultivated fields tucked among low, cactus-dusted hills.

In the long growing season, the population includes many migrant workers, often non-Spanish speaking indigenous peoples from the conflicted Mexican far south. There is a bitter taste of John Steinbeck country, as well as the nourishing fare of explosive economic growth.

We found the one hectare building site after half an hour of deep dust-choked road from Colonet. It sat on a gently sloping hillside, overlooking hundreds of acres of lush crops, grown vertically, tied to posts, and surrounded by plastic sheeting against wind. A cement slab had been poured in advance, including plumbing and cesspool.

The lot owners were a family of four who lived in a nearby wrecked bus. They manage the drip irrigation system for a farming family who run multiple similar operations. The VIM group of 15 men and women of varying ages and abilities were directed by a few who knew construction. Table saws, chop saws, generators, and electrical  hand tools] were unloaded from pickups.  Incredibly, a truck from Home Depot in Tijuana appeared to dump lumber and materials. Over the next 4-1/2 days, a turnkey one-bath house was completed. It was ready for electricity and water, although the generator and the water hookup would have to await later installation.

Driving back and forth from our motel, we discovered where old yellow school buses go to die. In extremis, they freight farm workers back and forth from these fields. One late afternoon, Amy had to return to Colonet alone, and passed a broken down bus. Fifty men, women, and children were scattered about on the hot dusty road. She stopped. The vast majority didn’t speak Spanish, but when it became clear that she was offering a ride to Colonet, the men quickly filled the Tundra inside and out, leaving the children and women in the ditch. Despite explanations that the pickup was overloaded and could not travel at all unless some people got off, no one budged. Nothing was particularly threatening, yet the situation was static; so she waited about 45 minutes until another bus finally arrived. ¡Hasta la vista baby!

Scorn of religious do-gooders and missionaries is common. Yet this work had significance for us even though it didn’t sell any newspapers or Coke, or make the earth turn. This was the 18th house built by VIM in Colonet, and went smoothly, reflecting experience, organization, ingenuity, and a complex process requiring the conjoint effort of many on both sides of the border. The idea that action speaks louder than words is at the heart of John Wesley Methodism.

With another daughter,  Sandi, my youngest, to keep me in control, I worked at another house raising during Easter vacation, so that children could go. It was a family affair with few equals. People raised money; gave of themselves, and paid their own way. Sun-burned bodies and ill-trained backs and arms complained every night. But there were authentic home cooked meals, by friends in Colonet, lunches provided by the land owner and the new home owners. There was the simple pleasure of physical work with physical results.

We became more aware that Time is merely a utilitarian invention of humanity, nearly as illusory as life itself. And few would deny this was also just plain fun. One can do far worse things on earth than help build a house.

A SAMs Clinic at Los Pinos

At the end of a 3,200-foot, packed clay airstrip owned by Rancho Los Pinos, reportedly the largest tomato growing operator in the world, 11 beautifully equipped single engine planes baked in the August heat. Four were from the Mother Lode SAMS chapter; the rest from Arizona and San Diego SAMS groups, who held nearby clinics. A kamikaze crop duster intermittently sand-blasted us; powder-pale dust coated the $2 million gaggle of planes and filtered through the cracks of the adjacent weary clinic building. The airstrip and clinic were set in the midst of a huge farming operation. To the north lay an apparently endless expanse of greenhouses. A mile west was a stadium-sized packing house. Surrounding land thrust up millions of wood poles supporting drip-irrigated crops.

Curiously, the name of the ranch, Los Pinos is also the name of Mexico’s White House; and Tijuana, in (upper)³ Baja California, is the power base for Vicente Fox’s PAN political party, which broke the 70-year grip of the PRI party on the Mexican Presidency. In a vague or metaphoric way, we were at the focus of what was then happening in Mexico.

By 9 a.m., when the clinic opened, more than 150 people had been given numbers; like a Sacramento DMV office.  A Honda gas-fueled generator complained steadily. Water had been bought for the big open elevated tank. As the day progressed, patient count became meaningless; any single number often admitted four or more. Children prowled the clinic area, as did a few uninhibited adults.

Three two person teams provided general medical care, a fourth pediatric, a fifth physical medicine, and a sixth dental. Almost all patients were Spanish-speaking modern Mexicans, employed by the Rancho and Cannery Los Pinos. Some were locals; many were migrants, staying in the grower-owned housing that includes showers, plumbing and decent simple quarters.

This is familiar ground to me. In the late ’60s and early ’70s, I spent seven years establishing and operating migrant clinics in Yolo County, California. I still have, somewhere, a list of 404 Yolo migrant facilities housing from 2 to 150 people. Today there is only one left that I know of — at Madison on Highway 16 on the way to Cache Creek Casino just east of  Esparto. All except this county-operated camp are gone because agriculture changed so much that local migrant work disappeared. Nonetheless, over several years the vast majority of health problems of migrant workers were treatable, and were treated in an admirable county wide effort. By the time  politicians began to invest in votes, the migrants were gone, and only the money and opportunists remained. But that is another story.

The health of a people is most readily gauged, I think, by their children. By that measure, the people at the Los Pinos clinic in 2004 were far healthier than those I saw in Yolo County 40 years ago. These Baja kiddies often had current immunizations, including BCG, though not Hep A or B or MMR. They were often well dressed and cared for. I saw a clutch of people with scabies and another with chickenpox; but no mouths filled with remnants of yellow rotted teeth, very little chronic otitic deafness or severe anemia of parasitosis.

On the other hand, indigenous people, like those around Colonet, tend to work in smaller operations, are often employed by recruiter/contractors, and probably reflect a harsher reality. They remind me of Yolo County migrants long ago.

Was the trip worthwhile? Decidedly. Despite some well people who seemed only to want free medicine or vitamins, or to be entertained by exotic and wealthy gringos, there was much accomplished, and there is still much to be done. In addition to hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and chronic disease, untreated eye and dental problems were common. There were a few dramatic cases susceptible to intervention⁴ including provision of prosthetic devices, progressive casting for foot defects, and surgically treatable problems that require transport to Sacramento or elsewhere. It is clear that for medical people to invade another country in order to provide medical care is not so effective as working with local medical people. The problem is, that in some places, like Colonet, there are no local medical people yet, except for infrequent periodic intermittent visits from public health workers. All medical care requires people to go to a distant town. So for the time being, direct efforts are helpful and rewarding to all involved.

There is also a practical reason to offer free services in Baja: significant need with less risk. Many physicians over 65 remember when it was routine and relatively risk-free to provide free, and low-cost, medical care. The medical “system” today is much better overall by some measures; certainly it is better technically. But it is impoverished in human terms.

It is a pleasure to step back five decades into a relatively unregulated, less litigious past to work with people whose problems can often be addressed simply and directly without risking your license or economic survival. An example: In Broderick, I had taught housewives to do TB tests. In time, someone complained, and the Dept of Health descended to accuse me of an illegal practice; and of course it was illegal. So I responded by suggesting that they sanction and try me, so we could work together to change the law. They never returned because common sense, common decency, could apply then.

Rancho Los Pinos is an agricultural giant, the consequence of capitalism and free trade, without which Baja would still be… the old Baja. I’m told Los Pinos is owned by Antonio Rodriguez Hernandez and family. He is a politician, the Diputado for the XV region, yet clearly not a social activist.  Some feel that sort of “progress” is unfair, or abusive. Perhaps, though, it is inherent in the course of economic development.

I believe free trade has been and will continue to be a great benefit to all who participate. Baja California now has the highest per capita income of any Mexican state. I believe trade promotes progress and peace, and free trade does so maximally. There are those who strongly disagree.⁵ Either way, the world will yet have its way with my thinking, and that of us all. In the meanwhile, it was a privilege to build houses and to look at sore throats among the people of Baja California.               1997

1. Volunteers in Mission, of the United Methodist Church. See  the detailed Colonet article with photos  by Judith Potor at www.perfectplank.com and www.gbgm-umc.org/westernvim.

2. The Mother Lode Chapter of Flying Samaritans.

3. The clinic is situated near the border between two Mexican States on the Baja Peninsula: BC Norte, and BC Sur.

4. See www.actionla.org/border/SQ_Background.htm for an interesting if strident rejection of FTAA, and a description of indigenous migrant worker  conditions.  (click on San Quintín).