Morton's Fork & The Road Less Traveled

Dodge City, Kansas - April 16, 2014

I always thought Hobson’s Choice was a no win choice between two terrible outcomes.  It is not.   Hobson’s Choice is the choice between take it or leave it.  It seems Thomas Hobson was a stable owner In England in the 1500’s.  He would rent horses out to customers who were given the choice of taking the horse in the stall nearest the door or taking none at all.

A choice between two bad options is known as Morton’s Fork.  I’m serious.  Never heard of Morton’s Fork.  I myself thought it was a utensil at a steakhouse.  Wrong!  Again back in England, John Morton the Archbishop of Canterbury, when Hobson was renting horses, had a theory about paying taxes.  If a man living modestly he must be saving money and could therefore afford taxes.  If, on the other hand, a man lived extravagantly then he was obviously rich and could afford to pay taxes as well.  You see, Morton’s Fork is actually the choice between two terrible choices.

Cadillac Ranch with
grandkids

My Morton’s Fork, when I woke up in Denver, was to make my return trip to Texas through Amarillo, Texas or to head east through Kansas.  At first glance it may appear a choice with a clear winner.  After all, Amarillo is the home of the Cadillac Ranch, that amazingly weird and wonderful public art installation in the middle of a field off Route 66 (now Interstate 40) consisting of a line of vintage Cadillac’s stuck in the ground, fins up.  Amarillo is also the home of The Big Texan Steakhouse, which features the proposition of a Free 72 oz steak. (The catch being you have to eat the entire meal consisting of the 4 ½ pound teak, plus bread roll with butter, baked potato, ranch beans, shrimp cocktail, and salad in one hour or you pay $72.00.)  The free 72 oz. steak offer is featured on billboards for miles fanning out from Amarillo.  Ya can’t miss it.  So, weird yet notable tourist attractions plus, as the crow flies, the shortest route.   Amarillo seems the hands down favorite compared to Kansas.  Kansas isn’t nicknamed the “fly over state” for nothing.  Kansas is reputed to be the flattest state in America.  There just isn’t much there.

So my choice seems clear except for the fact that I have been to Amarillo six times in the last couple of years.  It’s on its way to skiing in New Mexico and Colorado as well as the route to California.  The Cadillac Ranch is good for one visit and that visit should be with grandchildren.  Check. Did it two years ago on the way to Taos.  The Big Texan Steakhouse is not exactly Gibson’s (my favorite steakhouse in Chicago.)  It’s a sprawling WalMart size joint that from the outside is the kind of place that gives tacky a bad name.  The steaks may be great but I am tempted neither by the ambience nor the prospect of getting 4 ½ lbs of meat for free, so I have never stopped to dine.  With a little West Texas burn out from repeated visits I take a look at potential routes through Kansas to Texas and notice one passes through Dodge City. 

Dodge City home of Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and the fictitious Marshall Dillon and Kitty.  I was brought back to my days of sitting on the floor in front of the black and white television watching Hugh O’Brien, Gene Barry and James Arness.  Hugh O’Brien was the coolest one, mostly because of the

Hugh O'Brien as Wyatt Earp
and the Buntline Special

Buntline Special, his Colt revolver with the extra long barrel.  I don’t remember him shooting bad guys as much as banging them on the head with the thing.  Bat Masterson was a close second in coolness, not because of his gun but because of his derby hat and cane which made his theme song cool – “He wore a cane and derby hat, they called him Bat, Bat Masterson.”  Easily the best theme song.   Wyatt Earp’s song was OK “Wyatt Earp, Wyatt Earp brave courageous and true...” although me and my brothers converted the lyrics to “Wyatt Earp, what a jerk” which we thought was better.  Gunsmoke I didn’t care for.  No theme song.  The only guy worth watching was Chester, the sidekick to Dillon with the stiff leg.  Chester was cooler than Marshall Dillon and hotter than Miss Kitty, who never did it for me. 

That was it.  It was decided. I’d head for Dodge City and revisit the Old West. 

Before that I had to do something about my flat tire tire.  I get up early and head straight to TDK Tire, thinking I will beat the rush.   When I arrive I feel more late than early.  Moreover, I feel like I have entered another world.  Pulling into the vast chain link fenced parking lot I see two things; tires and trucks.  TDK Tire is apparently a well-known place to the true man on the road.  TDK is where blow outs come to die.  It is not your friendly Firestone Complete Auto Care Center that’s for God damn sure.  This is where guys in 18 wheelers go to get new tires when they are on the road and their steel belts get ripped to shreds and they are behind schedule and have a load of perishable fruit they are hauling.  It is a world where its still socially accepted to smoke cigarettes and actions speak stronger than words.  I park well away from the vehicles which consists of those massive 18-wheel semi’s, heavy duty tow trucks and imposing vehicles whose purpose I can only guess.  They all point towards a large garage with open oversized doors, presenting the dirty back of a long haul truck in each.   I enter the door marked service department on the far right of the building to a room that looks more like a

1950’s barbershop.  A worn linoleum floor empty except for aluminum rail chairs with cracked vinyl seats lined up against three of the four walls, filled with men in heavy jackets drinking bad free coffee from styrofoam cups, speaking only when addressed; waiting.  Waiting for when their trucks will be ready to roll again.  Behind a counter is a tall man sitting on a barstool like chair flanked by the only woman in the place.  She is young, not unattractive but the product of a hard life.  He books the orders, collects the money while she seems to be in charge of something having to do with getting men and materials in the right place.  In front of her sits an old microphone, a computer and an ash tray.   I tell the man that Camping World told me that they had my tire in stock as I hand him a slip of paper with the specifications written in pencil.  He turns to his dusty, ancient, fat computer monitor, lays my slip of paper on top of a keyboard that has survived countless coffee spills over the decades and begins to hammer on the keys.  “Nope, we don’t have that tire,” he says.

Typical.  Camping World assured me that TDK had them in stock.  Before I can even respond he says, “We got something just as good we can put on there.  Different make, same size.” 

“Sounds good,” I reply.

“Sit down.  We’ll let you know.”

He never mentions what he will let me know nor how much they cost yet I feel I am in good hands.  This is a guy who has been fitting tires on trucks for years.  He does not need from me a lecture about how I gotta get on the road.  He has heard it all.  Nor is price much of a factor for me or any of my fellow roadmen.  I gotta have a tire just like them.  This is not a place to haggle over price.  I am certainly confident that TDK is not squandering money on their office furnishings.  I sit down with my new peer group, an almost even mixture of Hispanic and white men who like me are here at TDK Tire by necessity not choice.  They are mostly unshaven with layers of clothes on.  Men who are accustom to getting up early when it is dark and cold and shedding layers as the day wears on.  I feel a strange yet secure bond with this group.  We are all sons of the highway as well as victims.  We all need to make time but we all know there is nothing that will hurry the process, so we might as well shut up and have a cup of muddy, free coffee, which is exactly what I do.

“Thomas” is shouted in 15 minutes.

“Take ‘er up around to the open bay on the far side and we’ll fix ‘er up,” says the man as I approach the desk.  I have no idea what an open bay is or what fix ‘er up means.  He hands me an old computer sheet that came out of one of those old printers where you rip the edges off that guided the printer.  “Pay around the corner.”

I turn the corner and here sits yet another woman, a not unattractive Hispanic woman who takes my credit card, has me sign the paper, rips the perforated edges so we both have a copy with a spare copy for the file and repeats the phrase, “Open bay on the far side.”  She smiles and adds, “You’ll see it.  It’s on the side of the building,” sensing, I am certain, that she is dealing with a rookie.

I leave and walk to the area I am guessing is correct and see the open bay.  I was assuming that open meant, “not filled with a truck”.   No, it meant, “not in the building but open to the air.”   I am relieved that I can drive in and right through this little area and won’t have to back up the trailer.

As I pull in a skinny young man in a greasy outfit that he most certainly didn’t put on clean this morning comes out a door to the garage and greets me like I am long lost relative.  “What are you doing, man?  Getting a flat on this baby so early in the camping season?   You got a bad break right off the bat.”  He doesn’t wait for a reply.

“Love these Airstreams.  Pull real nice.  Great machines,” he continues shoving a long jack under the Airstream.  “Had a buddy who had one.  Used to take it up in the mountains.”  He proceeds to tell me about hunting trips with locations, animals shot, locations, all the details, never taking a breadth or waiting for a response even when he asks a question.  “Ever use this baby when it get below zero?  Man, we did that one time and let me tell ya’…”  All this monologue is takes place as a cigarette dangles from his lips.  The only time he doesn’t speak is when the air is filled with the high-pitched metallic screech of his pneumatic lug wrench as it does it work, effortlessly removing the lugs from the tire.  

“Yea, we had a lot of good times in that Airstream.  Real good times,” he says as he pulls the old tire off, put the new one in place, then falls silent as the wrench repeats the process.  In two minutes he does what took me 50 to accomplish up in the mountains.

“OK, you can just back ‘er up.”

“Back ‘er up? Why can’t I drive straight through?” I think to myself. 

I turn and notice for that while I was listening to my lug master’s monologue a huge semi has backed up to get a new tire, blocking my straight through exit.  I obviously flashed a look of distress because, once again before I can reply says, “I’ll guide ya’ back.”

Having no choice.  I jump into the truck, take a deep breadth and begin to back up.  My guy is standing behind waving me back with the confidence that I have plenty of room.  As I start to back up a fellow traveler or maybe a co-worker, or a total stranger for all I know passes close to him and the son-of-a-bitch begins to talk to guy, looking at him as he waves me back.  Even though his head is turned towards his new best friend I figure I gotta be doing alright and continue to back up.  I keep creeping backwards.

“HO!” The shout was authoritative and coming from a source I could not see behind me.  It was the unmistakable voice of a person who has yelled, “HO!’ many times and never without a reason.  When you are in a truck yard, surrounded by big machines and the men who drive them and someone yells, “HO!”, trust me, you HO!  I hit the brakes.  In the regular world, I am accustomed to the fact that after you hear “HO!” you are generally confronted by some jerk who comes up to you and shouts, “What the hell do you think you are doing.  You could of killed someone.”  But this is not the regular world.  This is the world of working truckers where “HO!” means exactly that “HO!”

I turn and still can’t see the person who HO’ed me.   I turn back to see my lug nut buddy who yells, “That’s it.  You got it.  Have a good day.”

I put the F-150 in drive and literally never look back.  Was I about to smash into another truck, or run over an orange caution cone or someone’s foot.  I’ll never know.  I turn out of the yard’s exit past rows upon row of massively big truck tires long since removed from their axils and proceed to head east toward the land of the legendary gunslingers of the part.

Driving away from the mountains and into Kansas as you might guess is a straight shot.   I love driving and love the changes in topography but I must admit Kansas and Nebraska are the tests of my love.  There is not much in the might mid-west to hold one’s attention.  Particularly on the Interstate.   It

Val Kilmer needs a Doc

doesn’t matter much to me.  The miles roll by as I cruise my 55 mph on I-70 towards Wyatt, Bat and I am hoping Doc Holliday.  The movie that featured Val Kilmore as Doc Holliday has burned into my brain to such an extent that I can’t picture anyone being Doc Holiday except Val just looking sick, pasty, ashen and on death’s door, but still faster and tougher than any healthy soul miles around.   It was either an acting tour de force or one hell of a makeup job.  

I think of a real Wyatt Earp not Kurt Russell who with his fake mustache struck me as perfectly ridiculous.  Even Huge O’Brien, with his very cool Buntline Special, left the impression, with his ultra-straight hat and overly fancy gold vest, of something of a candy ass.  Even though I was only nine years old. I could see that clearly. 

Steve McQueen and
his cool gun

On TV cowboys, here was a standard of cool.  Topping the list was Steve McQueen, in Wanted Dead or Alive.  He had it all.  First, a cool gun.  A little sawed of half rifle half gun thing that just blew my mind in 1958.  He was followed on the cool scale by The Rifleman.  Chuck Conners was the Rifleman and he had the coolest gun ever, which was a rifle but the metal loop where you cocked it was big so he could cock the rifle by whipping it around in a circle.  He could have taken the prize as the coolest except that he had a son in the series who was a complete dork.  Had to mark him down for that.  Close up there in the ranking was Clint Walker as Cheyenne Bodie.  Now, I can’t remember if Cheyenne had a cool gun or if the show, called simply Cheyenne had a good theme song.  Cheyenne was cool for one reason.  He was built like a brick shithouse.  Long before Arnold entered the scene Clint Walker was the man with the muscles.  The only other TV cowboys worth ranking – Paladin.  Paladin who should have been near number one because he had a great theme

A face that can give a kid bad dreams

song (“Have Gun will travel reads the card of a man.  A soldier of future in a savage land…” featured in the classic movie Stand By Me).  He also was the first and only cowboy with a logo (a chess knight).  He was also one kick ass, mean s.o.b.  He took no shit.    So, why not number one?  Sorry but Richard Boone was such an ugly guy that I could have had nightmares about him (remember, I was in fourth grade.) 

I gotta throw Nick Adams as The Rebel, Johnny Yuma in there too. 

I know what you are going to say.  How about Bonanza, Maverick, Rawhide?  Please!  Those series, although popular, were meant for parents to watch with their kids.   I know Clint Eastwood, but take a close look.  Known of those shows had any attitude. Swagger.  For mass consumption. Steve McQueen has more insolence in his little finger than all the Cartwright’s put together. My theory is McQueen, Conners, Boone, Nick Adams, these guys saw the sixties revolution coming back in 1958.  They were the age scouts for the rest of us – defining cool.  Even though they never played a role in the 60’s (Maybe you can count McQueen a little) these guys educated a generation they were never a part of.  We sat in front of that black and white and thought, “I’m going to be like those guys one day.”   I bet Jim Morrison liked ‘em too.

The best part of the drive, like the best part of any drive was when you get off the Interstate, about half way through my 350 mile day that is what I did to get to Dodge City.  Kansas State highway 23 is no scenic drive but it is rural Kansas at its best.  An occasional small town and a towering cluster of grain silos are the only things that break mile after mile of farmland.  Since its early spring I cannot even tell what these farmers are growing.  I suppose it is wheat or maybe soybeans. 

There is considerable majesty to Kansas.  Driving along you spot an old farmhouse off the road.  (Is there any such thing as a new farmhouse?)   Invariably the only trees in sight, planted by somebody’s grandfather, surround the home.   Along with the trees is a cluster of buildings.  If there is any new building it is the barn, which is no longer, a barn but a metal equipment shed, long and low to the ground.  It’s a structure built for holding the tools of modern farming, tractors and combines, bought on credit from J. I.Case or John Deere.  The old wooden barn designed for mules, horse and other farm animals were replaced long ago, but the old house still stands.  There is no nostalgia here.  This is a practical decision to put money in the things that make money.  Therefore the driveways are made of dirt, the house has screens not air conditioning and a coat of white paint (they all seem to be white) is decades overdue. 

This may strike some as a dismal existence, but I find it majestic, because inside that home lives a family that feeds the world.  For centuries they have produced more food in a year than they could possibly eat in a lifetime; year after year.  Food that makes a journey that the family in that house never sees.  They hauled their crop up to the grain co-op where it finds its way onto a train bound for Chicago, where it is turned into bread for New Yorkers, or loaded onto barges, floated down the Mississippi to be loaded again onto ships that make port in St. Petersburg to feed Russian children.  And the family never sees any of this and the only luxury is a satellite dish on the roof.  I find that glorious.

I am, therefore, not bored but as the day starts to wane I begin to wish for nothing more than a good steak in Dodge City.  My first dose of reality is when I pull into the Gunsmoke RV Camp.  All but deserted there are only a handful of trailers in the park, which sits conveniently on the corner of Wyatt Earp Blvd. and Highway 50.   Built in the 60’s the attempt was to make the camp look like a western set.  Short of initial funds the attempt feel short and now looks like it would be best suited for the backdrop for a paintball park. 

Unhooking the trailer I notice that three more travelers have arrived off the road looking as beat as I do.  This is not a day for cooking.  I check in at the front desk and ask my host where I can get the best steak in town.  When he hesitates, fear strikes my heart. 

“If he says Applebees,” I think to myself, “I’ll jump back in the truck and do the rest of the 450 miles to Fort Worth tonight. “

“Montana Mike’s right down on Wyatt Earp,” he says. 

I decide the reason for the hesitation is the guy probably hasn’t eaten out in a while.  Probably hasn’t been down Wyatt Earp Blvd. in a while either.  I thank him and hit the trail, as they say in Dodge City.   I drive down the four lane Wyatt Earp Blvd. past the Holiday Inn, Dairy Queen and O’Reilly Auto Parts.   Reality slowly dawns.  

Wyatt Earp was the assistant deputy marshall in Dodge City in 1878.  It’s true that Dodge City, Kansas was a wide-open frontier town back then.  It is also true that the cemetery was named Boot Hill because the people buried there “died with their boots on.”  What is also true, however, is Wyatt Earp didn’t get well-known until he got to Tombstone Arizona years later.   Also, fact is, Tombstone, Arizona had a

20th Century Fox or Dodge City?

Boot Hill, as did Deadwood, South Dakota.  The ugly reality is that nothing much happened in Dodge City until Norman MacDonnell and Lucy’s husband decided it did 77 years later.  Who are they?  Norman MacDonnell, a native of California produced Gunsmoke.  Lucille Ball’s husband Desi Arnez, found Desilu Studios from the profits generated by I Love Lucy, one of TV’s original sitcoms, produced Wyatt Earp at 20^th Century Fox Studios in LA.   (Gunsmoke was shot at the Spahn Ranch later made infamous as the hangout for the Manson Family.)   Regardless, MacDonnell and Arnez never got any closer to Dodge City than old Charles Manson.

Dodge City was made famous not by the actual Wyatt Earp who past through for while around 1878 but by Hollywood who stayed and stayed but never actually visited.  (Gunsmoke ran for 20 years and remains the oldest continually running primetime drama on television, tied with Law and Order!)

Dodge City or 20th Century Fox?

In 1878 Dodge City was a wild frontier town thanks to all the cattle and cowboys who traveled up from Texas on the Chisholm Trail.  Saloons and brothels, full of gunfighters and gamblers sprang up overnight.  By 1886, it was all over.  Who preserved all those wooden buildings and the history that was made inside them?  No one.  It all fell apart as fast as it was built.  Then in 1955 two westerns aired on television that caught the imagination of America including this seven year old and became part of the fabric of my youth.  People must have flocked to Dodge City in the late 50’s to see what it was like in the “Real West”.   They would have done better going to the 20^th Century Fox back lot in L.A.  That is where history was made, out of whole cloth. 

What were the citizens of Dodge City to do?  They invented their past.  For example, only 30 people are actually buried in Boot Hill.  Most are unknowns, thrown into graves not due to a famous gunfight but because they were vagrants who died.  They died with their boots on because well, they died with their boots on.    So Dodge City erected, plaques in memory of legendary western figures, known of whom are buried there.  You have to give something for the 1960’s tourist to stare at.   

Dodge City went about creating a Dodge City that looked more like the Dodge City on the 20^th Century Fox lot than it ever looked like in Dodge City.  And that is what I see as I roll along Wyatt Earp Blvd. – a vintage 1960 faux town, fashion after a movie set, that was fashioned after a town that actually existed where the faux town now stands.  

And just beyond all this is Montana Mike’s.  In my dismay I don’t even hit the brakes. Fine dining featuring your knife and fork rolled tight in a paper napkin.  No Montana Mike’s for this boy.  I continue on and spot the Central Station Sports Bar and Grill where I get my steak at the bar.  Not a bad place, considering that in lieu of the big steak knife I pictured using during dinner tonight I am instead muchin’ down on a Morton’s fork of my own making.

The choice was choose the shortest route, 750 miles from Denver to Fort Worth and cruise through Amarillo yet one more time, or drive 100 miles out of my way to Dodge City.    As I sit eating my steak I still have 450 miles ahead of me, a long day tomorrow, but still I have no regrets with my Morton’s Fork.  Dodge City didn’t turn out to be the Dodge City I was hoping for, but there is one thing I am of which I am positive.  I took the road less traveled.  When he took the road less traveled in his poem Robert Frost said, “it made all the difference.”   I find it interesting that I took the road less traveled.  I wonder, down the road, will I take the road less traveled?  If today is any indication, that is my inclination.  So, I had to think, as I finish my glass of merlot, pay the check and prepare to drive back down Wyatt Earp Blvd. to my Airstream home, in space 103 of the Gunsmoke RV Park, will I take the road less traveled as my future unfolds.

BOULDER REDUX

BOULDER REDUX

 Boulder, CO - April 16, 2014

Golden Colorado

I manage to make it to Golden, Colorado before blowing another tire.  I am in Golden because there are no RV Parks in Boulder, which actually pleases me.  I can hardly wait to get to Boulder because it is such a great place but my biggest priority is getting a new tire and solving my dilemma with the stabilizer bar.  The RV Park is out of town in Golden, right near the mountains and The Dakota RV Park is really pretty nice and I consider myself lucky to be there.  I arrive late and use the late check-in and stumble up the hill on Colfax Ave., to a bar and grill named Wrigley’s.  It crossed my mind that this place might have something to do with Chicago, but when I walk in, it is nothing short of amazing.  So guy from Chicago started this place six years ago and it has all the requisite signs, posters and nostalgia about Chicago Sports – Cubs & Bears prominent with a smattering of items about the Bulls and scant mention of the White Sox.  “My God,” I think “No doubt this dude, is a Northsider.”

A taste of Chicago in The Heart of  the Rockies.

What is even more impressive is the atmosphere is exactly like a Chicago bar.  There is a huge square bar in the middle of the room where the bar tender operates out of the middle of the square and all the patrons can easily speak to anyone sitting at the bar, not just to the people sitting next to them.  It is the exact set up in the old McCormick’s in Lake Forest where my older brother spent his life.  Even more remarkable, it becomes obvious to me that everybody in the bar knows each other.  They may not be conversing and it is not some rip roaring party but everyone seems to have their own special spot and the conversation bounces around the bar easily.   People walk in and are greeted like “Norm” from the old TV show, Cheers. It is pretty impressive that this guy duplicated the flavor of a typical Chicago bar at the foot of the Rockies.  I am assured it was intention when I come across their slogan.  “A taste of Chicago in The Heart of the Rockies.”  I  have the special tacos (3 for $6.00) and head back for a good night’s sleep.

My return to Boulder has a broader significance than nostalgia.  As I explore options for the rest of my life, I am seriously considering is to start over where I started: to return 44 years later to Boulder and pick up where I left off.   You know, just because Thomas Wolfe said it doesn’t make it so.  Maybe you can go home again.  It’s worth exploring.  If that were at all possible to go home again, Boulder is the place to try.  As much as Boulder has changed in the last 40 years, it hasn’t changed at all.  Regardless, of who they are and what role they play, the citizens of Boulder understand they are in a special place.  The Rocky Mountains and the flatirons and the great weather all help to set the atmosphere.  But it is much more than that.  It’s the university and the people it attracts and the spirit of the Rockies personified in the act of living and working.  It is obvious that people have worked very hard to protect what is there while simultaneously progressing.  It is no longer the sleepy college town that I knew in 1968.  Boulder is a thriving city in itself and a prominent suburb of Denver.  CU is much bigger.  Corporations have relocated in Boulder.  There is a burgeoning high tech start-up community.  Yet there is still a distinctive free-spirited hippie atmosphere that has been preserved through the decades.  The pot-smoking crowd (now legal) mixes right in with the health conscious adult athletic community.  Bike riding is given a priority in the city, environmental issues are key.  Men’s Journal ranked Boulder the best city to live in in the United States. USA Today named Boulder the thinnest city in America.  Bicycling Magazine named it the third best bicycling city.  It is a vibrant, seemingly healthy and happy place, so why not explore going home again?  Screw Thomas Wolfe.

I am not the kind of guy who can just show up somewhere.  I need a purpose.  In my surfing on the internet I found an interesting thing, Naropa University.  Founded four years after I graduated, Naropa is a small liberal arts college founded by Tibetan Buddhist teacher, Oxford University scholar and father of Western Buddhism, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche along with beat poet and Hippie forerunner, Allen Ginsburg/  It is dedicated to "advancing contemplative education".   What the university tries to do is have students explore the inner resources needed to engage courageously with a complex and challenging world, to help transform that world through skill and compassion, and to attain deeper levels of happiness and meaning in their lives, to quote the literature.  Perfect for Zimbo!  I contacted Naropa by email before my trip started to schedule a tour and a meeting with an adviser in the graduate program.  

But before I head off to Boulder, a stop at Camping World.  Camping World is a cross between WalMart and Cabalas for recreational vehicle buffs.  They have got everything you’d ever need (like WalMart) and it just makes RVers drool (Like Cabalas does for hunters.)  When you think about it, American free-enterprise based consumerism is an amazing mechanism. As soon as Americans get enthusiastic about an activity, enterprising companies spring up ready to serve your needs, whet your spending appetite and offer for sale something you really need,  turning what you thought was an affordable pursuit into an expensive hobby.  As I walk into Camping World I realize there are so many things that I had no idea I needed that now I can’t seem to be able to live without.  Case in point, the pipe that empties your “black water”  (aka poop chute) is this expandable accordion-like 3 inch flexible plastic pipe with a special attachments on each end.  It is called a sewer hose.  I have one.  Everyone has one.  I can’t imagine that they would ever sell an RV with a toilet but without a sewer hose included.  It is not exactly an option – We are talking standard equipment here, positively.  So what?  Well, I so learn that what I also really need is a flexible sewer hose support.  This thing is a interconnected series of little plastic supports.  You stretch it out and you put your sewer hose on it so that the whole thing look likes a miniature Bridge Over the River Kwai bridge.  Why do I need one?  The product description says it all – “Prevents unobstructed flow”.  These little supports gradually grow smaller as you travel from the RV to the sewer.  In other

A stat-of-the art flexible hose support.
Putting it on my Xmas list!

words, it points everything down hill, so whatever is in the pipe (perish the thought!) flows down and away.  Who doesn’t desire and in fact, yearn for unobstructed flow when it comes to sewers.  This is something I have to have.  I am almost embarrassed that I don’t have it.  You aren't really an expert until you have a flexible sewer support.  And they are on sales from $29.99, marked down to $25.88.  By acting now I can save $4.11.  I often think of the Chinese factory worker who spends his days assembling flexible sewer supports having never seen an RV in his life.  Does he ask his supervisor what these things are?  Even if he does, how could the supervisor explain what they are?  “You see, Deshi San, Americans have these homes on wheels which they park in their backyards 51 weeks of the year, but for one week in the summer they drive around in their home on wheels and the bathroom, of course does not have plumbing, because it is on wheels.  So when the Americans stop they plug a pipe into a sewer to empty the sewage.  The flexible sewer support makes certain that their plumbing has unobstructed flow.”

Can you imagine the follow-up questions that Deshi San would have?  “What is plumbing?” for starters.  Or “How can you put a home on wheels?  Won’t that you’re your dirt floor?”  See the problem? 

I, however, am on a mission.  All I need is a pin to hold the stabilizer bar in place…and a new tire… and get out to Boulder by 2 PM when my tour starts. I get there early to beat the rush.  The fellow behind the empty counter in the parts department gives me my first piece of bad news.  We don’t stock that tire.  “But I gotta leave for Dallas in the morning,” I skip the Boulder part.  “Your best bet is to go straight to TDK Tires.  It’s where we get our tires.  If I order it won’t get here until tomorrow.”

“They can put it on?” I ask.

“That’s all they do,” the parts guy answers as  he writes down the type of tire and the address for TDS on a little slip of paper.  Pain in the neck, but not tragic.  I can swing by there tomorrow morning.

I move on to the pin.   When I described the problem, he refers me to a Hispanic mechanic named Noah, who happens to be walking by.  “Take a look at this guy’s rig.” I soon pick up on the fact that no one in the know says, “RV.”  It’s a rig.  I grow more confident as I learn yet another idiom in the lexicon of travel trailers.

Noah, a guy my size but obviously a weight lifter in his mid-thirties in great shape in his tight “Camping World t-shirt, is a pleasant fellow who sees my Texas license plate and asks about my journey.   He takes one look at the place where the missing pin was and says, “Man, we don’t stock that.  How, old is this hitch?”

Of course, I have no idea, but answer, “Ten years old, I guess.  That’s how old the Airstream is.”

He says I need a new hitch. Noah leads me back inside to Camco Elite Weight Distributing Hitch Kit - 1000 lbs Capacity.  It is cool looking – all shiny and new.  It’s also $169.00 (at least its “on sale” Pretty much everything in the store is “on sale”.   “Much better than the one you have,” comments Noah.  I

Yes, it's a Camco Elite.  Cool, huh?

am starting to feel that I will be proud to own one.  Chalk up another score for  free-enterprise. 

Noah says now all I have to do is go back to the Parts Department guy, buy the part and then schedule to have it installed with another guy, who is with the Service Department. I pay for it and walked up to the Service Department counter to schedule having it installed.  The fellow behind the counter, a balding white guy, pushing 60, sporting that classic rim of white hair around his a hairless shining dome, looks at his computer and says, “I can schedule it for May 3^rd".

I respond, “No, you don’t understand.  I am headed to Dallas.  I need this done now.  I have to be in Boulder by 1 PM,” I instinctively add an extra hour on my 2 PM deadline to be in Boulder, sensing this is going to be a problem.

“No, you don’t understand,” he says, leaning in over the counter looking me square in the eye over his half frame reading glasses with the little chain around his neck.   Our noses now about six inches apart.  I can see the veins starting to pulse through on his temple as his face reddens.  “It’s the week before Easter.  Every body wants their rig serviced in time for spring and guess what?  It’s Spring!  We are jammed for the next month.  May 3^rd.” 

Before I can respond I notice Noah.  Our eyes meet (I am sure mine look like a scolded puppy’s.) he tilts his head sharply upwards and throw his eyeballs at an angle indicating we should rendezvous behind the Satellite Dish Display (another thing I suddenly realize I need!)  “Let’s go talk to, Wade,” he whispers to me, as if I knew you Wade is.  He starts to walk across the store.  I follow him without comment.  Noah has just assumed that the only option is to talk to Wade and I have no choice but to agree.  I do so without comment. 

We walk over to the far side of the store.  There, without a doubt, is Wade.  Wade weighs a cool 350 lbs. and has got to be 6’5”.  He is a huge, imposing man with a brown goatee and a flattop haircut.  He is big in a John Goodman type of big.  Not fat, as much as big.  An imposing presence, husky voice, thick necked, hitch up your pants kind of guy - The undisputed boss of Camping World.  Wade has a walkie-talkie in his hand, barking orders to someone, who replies in a crackling response I could never hope to understand.  There is no doubt in my mind or anyone else’s that Wade is the man.  He finishes and looks at us with a deep authoritative, no bullshit voice, “What can I do for you, gentlemen?”

Noah, immediately takes over.  Talks straight to Wade like I am not even there.  “This gentleman just bought a Camco Hitch.  He needs it installed now because he’s coming from Texas and has to be in Boulder by 1 pm.”

“OK,” Wade says and turns away from us as he growls another order over the walkie-talkie.

Without comment, Noah turns and walks back to the Service Counter with me in tow.  “Hey, Dudley,” he says to Mr. Grump.  Of course, this a-hole’s name is Dudley.  Noah, in the most matter-of-fact manner, as casual as can be, as if he knows nothing of what happened prior to this says, “Dudley.  This gentleman just bought a Camco Hitch.  Has to have it installed right away.  He’s gotta be in Boulder by 1 o’clock.”  Dudley turns fixes his practiced deadeye stare over the top of his glasses and the temple veins start to pulse.  Before he can open his mouth Noah adds, “Wade says bump him up.” 

For a brief second I swear Dudley’s eyes dilated fin fear or the briefest instant, but he never skips a beat as he replies, “You spoke to Wade?”

“Yeah, he says, it’s fine with him.”

Dudley’s mood changes in an instant.  He looks at me as if he never saw me before in his life.  “First name,” is all he says.  We fill out the form.  He creates his ticket and finally apologetically acknowledges the previous confrontation.  “You know how it is.  No one books ahead of time.  Then they all want their rigs ASAP.  Two days ago we were a week behind.  Now, I am scheduling a month out.” 

I resist the temptation of responding, “Sucks to be you, Dudley” and instead opt for, “I know how it is.”  I retreat for a second time, only now it is to the “customers’ lounge” to settle in, enjoy a bad cup of coffee and lounge around reading “Trailer Life” and “American RV” until over the loud speaker at 12:45, I hear, “Bruce Thomas.” As I approach the desk, Noah, who should go into investment banking, he’d make a fortune, is long gone, back to the shop.  It doesn’t matter because Dudley greets me like an old school chum.  “Fifteen minutes to spare. Pretty good. Gotta get you to Boulder on time,” he says cheerily.  “Man”, I think, “Wade must be one kick ass boss.” I know I wouldn’t want to cross him. 

The road from Golden to Boulder is unchanged from how it was forty years ago.  No new buildings.  The land, I think to myself must be protected.  From the road, which runs straight south to north, parallel to the front range of the Rockies, has no development.  The land, which is rolling and green with the coming spring, is clear of buildings or sub-divisions, which is what I feared I might run into.  The only building on the west side of the two lane highway is a old tavern.  I pull off into the driveway on impulse. 

I don’t believe it.   “The Hummer.”  Still standing.  The Hummer, as least that is what we called it, I’m not even certain it had a name back then, was a rundown roadhouse.  The only time anyone went there was Thursday night – always with the guys – to start the weekend.  They had the worst system you could ever imagine.  They served not 3.2 beer like the rest of Boulder but real booze.  It $8.00 for all you could drink.  You paid your $8.00 and got a stamp on your hand.  But you had to be 21 to get the stamp.   But if you weren’t 21 they would let you in.  So, naturally, we’d all go out to The Hummer with Baby Huey (one of our fraternity brothers who looked exactly like Baby Huey, the cartoon character) who was the ancient age of 23.  Baby Huey, his real name being Jerry Robinson, had an extended career at CU.  He hadn’t quite graduated yet.  In fact, by the time I met him, Baby Huey didn’t even go to classes.  He just hung out at the fraternity, served as impromptu historian, professional hell raiser and all around great guy.  The rumor was Baby Huey’s father was the president of Pan American Airlines.  Baby Huey was just waiting around until his trust fund kicked in.  No one bothered to verify this.  It was part of the Baby Huey legend.

The Hummer Lives On!  Still nameless.

You go out the Hummer with Baby Huey.  We’d give him the money so he could get his hand stamped and all drink off of his stamp.  ($8.00 doesn’t seem like much now, but back in the late 60’s with $5.00 you could fill up your car with gas. The bartenders all knew Baby Huey and his reputation.  So when he would order, “Give a gin and tonic no one questioned when, five minutes later he’d order a bourbon and coke, then a beer, then another gin and tonic at five minute intervals all night long. The legendary status of Baby Huey was so solid that no bartender questioned that he was capable of drinking all those drinks himself.   Nostalgia washed over me as I snapped a picture with my phone, noting with no small irony that the joint still had no visible name.  Maybe it still was The Hummer. 

I arrive in Boulder and Naropa University with more than a little trepidation.  Not only would I be older than my fellow graduate students, I would be older than my professors.  Plus, this is a Buddhist University.  Buddhist University.  How weird is that.  It seemed like a great idea, but now I feel more than a little foolish.  I fall into the typical tour with a group of kids, parents with kids and, one 65 year old man (me!)  Thankfully, no one says, “What the hell are you doing, here?”  I sense that would be very un-Buddhist.  I am safe I my anonymity, standing in the back of the group as it wanders from the administration building, to various classroom buildings, the café, the art room, typical college tour.  Naropa is small. 400 hundred students we are told by the smiling tour guide who is very un-Buddhist in her high heels and black business suit.  She is superficially cheery.  The group giggles nervously yet politely at her practiced jokes. Typical college tour.  She begins to talk about the history of Naropa and it’s founder, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche who is thought of as the father of modern American Buddhism.  I am curious if she will mention that he was also a notorious womanizer, drinker and drug user who drank himself to death at the age of 45.  (I did my cyber homework.)  She fails to mention this but speaks with such reverence, like they talk about Jefferson at University of Virginia that I begin to wonder if she even knows.  On second thought, the tour guide at University of Virginia probably skips over the fact that old T.J. fathered a child with his live-in slave.  Although both facts would liven up the tour they are both probably best unspoken.  We move on to the graduation green.  The entire tour, with full explanations takes maybe twenty minutes.  By the end I am pretty much convinced that this is no place for me.  I feel ridiculous, but keep my appointment with the advisor.

 

Naropa U.  Home of the Bodhi Cheetahs

Her name is Meghan Schardt.  She is an energetic, bright eyed, sandy redhead in her early thirties, from Connecticut, dressed in a style conscious modified hippie, granola style with a scarf wrapped several times around her neck, a present type dress and Dr. Martin boots.  She greets me with complete enthusiasm and a quick, bright smile.  She asks if we might sit outside rather than her office.  I agree and she finds a table where we can talk.  I had decided, regardless of her age, I was going to hit her with my complete story.  This marks the first time I have laid out the Triple Whammy to anyone.

I start with, “My story starts here in Boulder, four years before Naropa was founded…”  She listens intently.  She winces in polite sympathy at the cancer and divorce elements of the Triple Whammy,” but just enough to indicate feeling.  Otherwise she listens intently.  When I finish she does not ask a single question but launches into her recommendation.  It is candid and concise.  I should apply for a low residency MA in Ecopysychology, starting this summer.  She absorbed that my life is in flux and says that the low-residency program will give me two weeks in Boulder this summer and then online courses wherever I am, be it Boulder or somewhere else.  She further recommends I tack on a week of the summer writer’s series they hold just to give me an idea of the program.  The program continues the same summer/online format for two years.  I have no earthy idea of what Ecopsychology is.  Meghan immediately responds that it is mans’ relationship to the earth but adds quickly that it doesn’t matter.  The important thing, she says, is it will give me a two-week exposure to Naropa (three week if I tack on the writer’s series.) and time in Boulder.  I am surprised how insightful she is and how easily she found what seems like a good fit for me.  Perhaps it is my wishing for a little kismet.  Haven’t had a lot of kismet and truthfully have been looking for something to break my way.  Whether self-delusion or providence I am glad to be feeling better about the place.

I leave Meghan and go visit Kristin Daly who lives in Boulder with her growing family.  She is at the Boulder Recreation Center (something that didn’t exist when I went to school.) sitting through day long session with her kids.  She is doing gymnastics, swimming and tennis all in one day.  I am shocked that Kristin is such a Mom – organized lessons.  It just kills me.  Well, hardly organized when I find her along with Morrissey her four year old and Roman who is approaching two.  Morrissey is wearing a sun dress and sandals for her tennis lesson, if you call it a lesson.  Her group out on the court can barely keep her interest.  She would rather draw with chalk on the sidewalk.  Roman meanwhile is spending his time trying to squeeze his body through the gate of the chain link fence that encircles the tennis court.  He was locked out by the tennis teacher and is not happy about it.  But he does not cry or complain about his situation.  He just tries to break back onto the court.  Being two head size is a problem otherwise he could make it.  Rather than repeatedly smashing his head against the steel pole of the door frame as he tries to squeeze through he goes for a feet first approach.  Smart kid.  He could have made it too if it hadn’t been for the head issue.

Kristin takes all this in, occasionally laughing while she chats with another Mom and me.  Kristin is familiar with Naropa as is her friend.  When I mention the dates Kristin days, “You are kidding.  That’s when we are going on vacation.  You can have the house.”  I am thrilled, until I realize the catch is I will probably be asked to take care of their killer dog, Millhouse.  When Millhouse was young he was as dangerous as Charles Mansion on Halloween in Laurel Canyon.  I hope against hope that Boulder and advanced age have calmed him down some.  The last time I saw Millhouse, he, Kristin and, husband, C. C. were living in a townhouse in the East Village in Manhattan.  How Millhouse survived an urban existence I have no idea.  I brush it aside at the prospect of three weeks in Boulder in Kristin’s great home that is an old house in a great neighborhood walking distance from all the Pearl Street restaurants in one direction and the mountains in the other.

We chat a while longer but I am anxious to get back to Golden and solve my tire problem.  Driving 800 more miles without a spare tire is not a possibility.