1976

Ok, I've been waxing nostalgic for Sanford 1976. Why? Take a look.
Kids, this was taken for our country's bicentennial, July 1976. I don't think it will see a tricentennial so take a long look. And I know I won't see 2076 so this is it. This was the future, bright and proud, leafy green and growing strong in the New England tradition. God bless America. I am proudly wearing my american flag pants that my mother probably made herself. My brother is the taller one in his Red White and Blue shirt. Please do not comment on our hair cuts but admire quietly the innocence and promise of this moment.



Another snapshot into the past. I would guess this is an Easter Egg hunt in April of 1976. We were not concerned with color coordination at that time. Maybe these were our Pajamas with red slippers and I insisted on wearing plastic cowboy boots with my lime green pants tucked in. My brother's shirt has some kind of farm equipment on it and the house which would soon be painted red and the Indian shutters black, is now a gross beige. That black bronze eagle on our front screen door is classic. Also classic is a tree directly in front of the door. The house was on a quarter acre with no neighbors. Icicles hung long from the roof.

Although I am apparently uncomfortable in the picture below I feel a tug in my heart when I view this. My mother's dark hair which is currently pure white, the multicolored afghan that smells like every moment of dreams a 5 year old boy would have. The transparent cloth lampshade, the clothing hutch in the background which is pure wood and not the Ikea atrocities that are around now. The evenly spaced and leveled pictures. The lamps. The soft and natural light by that antique wood chair. the hanging ivy in the background. The leather couch. These were my mother's hand The boy without aches and pain and scars. I can even see the corner of a bronze statue on the end table that was an Indian spearing a buffalo. And that globe with U.S.S.R on it and East Germany.

I return to Sanford searching for these moments like Charles Foster Kane returning to his storage locker looking for his wooden sled. The moose calls and dog fights and heartbreaks of the world leave me full of experiences to pass on and a persepective to share but don't they all eventually reduce down to this picture of security and essential bonding? And where is that in my life now? Non existent. I cough myself awake in a Walmart parking lot and work for 11 hours with fiber optic wire. Humanity has been banished from my life and the rainbow afghan of affection has unraveled with time and distance and resentment. I wrote a note to myself this afternoon as the wire crimping hypnotized me:

"Your children are all grown and the hippie's hair has turned as white as snow flakes on woodstock corn. Sons and daughters speed through life with their burden of resentments and regrets, their baggage propelled by energy drinks and estrogen enhancement. The promise you made when you were 30 and politicians were black and white and ball games were postponed due to popcorn was this: we got them this far. We gave our children a push and though they walk timidly, they walk nonetheless. Because one day your sons and daughters will have daughters and sons of their own and they will know the controlled chaos of youth and your resentments will dissolve into the recognition that color slides do not last forever. Opportunity is all we can bequeath to our children, their easter baskets filled with plastic eggs containing promise that only they can fulfil, their flags may change and their alliances may falter but we got them this far."

I'm merely depressed that my goals of writing can not be realized during the two hours of lucidity between work and sleep. It takes inspiration and time to write and lately I'm funding vacations in my mind while tapping S-O-S morse code to my fantasy lovers. How did Kerouac overcome his own collection of tattered travel stamps? How did he patch his fireman pants? When will these flags fly again?

What day is it?

Birds or moths use paper shreds and leaves to create a home. We really need 100 floors in a sky scraper to conduct business? really>?

Shaws Dairy Farm has BBQ that was OK. The renovations made my remembrance trip unusual. Instead, I created new memories that supplanted the old distant ones. We all renew our faith in ourselves or else chew on aged memories. The scoop girls flirted with their eyes though they had no tip jar. And when asked if I wanted anything to drink I replied, "Whiskey on the rocks," and the girl had braces younger than scars on my fingers so the joke prompted concerned looks and shame. I flirt with the wrong girls and ignore the right ones.

Duck face meets chocolate ice cream with sprinkles. I had almond crunch and was sick from the sugar that my festering kidney converted to candy corn.

For pre-Halloween I dressed up as an aging, crippled hippie for our trip to Mardsens, where a man's hat said, "Nuke their ass, take their gas." Simple and to the point. Got band aids for my hemorrhaging thumb that has bled for four consecutive days. Wonder why I'm pale and thin? Chronic internal and external bleeding. Madbury Corn eaten from the worm's mouth. 11 hours of crimping a day under a wooden slab.

In van news (and thus news of my wolf expedition) a mechanic fixed the toe and is working on finding the adapters to fix the caster and camber. This involves straightning the twin I bean suspension. That's the only option and I will invest in this improvement as the two old mechanics marveled at the condition of the van. I'm proud and want to go to the lair of the wolf on a straight course and not swerving as I do down the road. I will mention that NTB tires is truly useless as they didn't even manage to align the toe of the tires. Nothing. I have to go back there after the I beams get straigtened and get them to replace the useless warped tires they sold me. Nothing has gone right since I brought it there proving that experience will prevail of glossy corporate marketing banners and also that a bad mechanic will do more harm than good. I knew this already but have a habit of falling into the same hole over and over.

I'm so tired my socks are falling asleep.

Alignment issues

Thoreau once said that most people hack at the branches of evil and leave the roots untouched. Here is the chicken farmer hacking at the branches of evil. But in his case I think even the branches are a good start. I have devoted 20 years to pondering the roots of evil and let me tell you it looks like another 20 will get me in the ballpark as well as alientate the remainder of humanity. I don't want to be an enemy of the people but my refusal to be brainwashed by pop culture or to reverse the brainwashing done to me by the dominant culture has permanently damaged my relationship with everyone. But is that my fault? They say devices save time but I still see a 12 hour work day being a 12 hour work day. What they mean is that devices make your more productive. But that is also a wash because of the rapid inflation of humanity. So our appetites have exactly matched our production...and that would be not such a thing if everything we made were biodegradable and wolf-friendly. BUT THAT'S NOT HOW IT IS. We are now sacrificing not our own habitat but the wolf's habitat for our appetites (which as previously mentioned are never satisfied) and this is where a mere shred of empathy would allow us to change our ways but the brainwashing has completely removed any trace of wolf-consciousness and Walmart enslaves the masses to better their profits while planting advertisments that funnel infants into their thought paradigm.
And I am the insane one?

We all walk a crooked bridge but I'm going to find the roots of evil and expose them to the light and thus add a shim to adjust the alignment of this crooked suspension that we rely on.

Was lost in a cornfield the other day and I believe we all need to open our eyes.

I have received a sign as to my immediate plans which will be to investigate my van's suspension issues/alignment problems that eat tires, possibly buy a motorcycle for the wrong reasons, and prepare myself for a wolf raising trip to Labrador. I'm almost glad I didn't quit my job when I had the chance because it was 30 degrees last night and Walmart's electric blankets aren't cheap. I hook them up to my battery and sleep warm on a trickle charge from the radiation of the sewage dumped by repulsive RV dwellers.

Wolves Save Man

"We learned from the animals, such as the wolves, to see how they took care of each other." --Victoria Hykes Steere, an Inupiaq human rights advocate describing how previous climate changes were navigated by Man.

With the wolves gone how will we learn how to live?

Baldface

While it was very nice to view from the bald slopes of the mountain, fall foliage never comes out right in pictures so here's a simple flower (my mom says it is a morning glory) near the Mt. Hope cemetery that lives up to its name. Hopeful of life and spring eternal.




Regarding the hike up South Baldface Mountain...
At what point did I know I was in trouble?
It was when I jarred my spine as I fell into a ditch for the second time.

Imagine pitch blackness in the dark Maine forest, a few star constellations far above through the foliage. Silence surrounds you except for the far off sound of a river or brook. You are on the Slippery Brook Trail, descending from the top of South Baldface, rushing because you foolishly left the seacoast too late and now have to make up time before your cell phone dies. Why is your cell phone important? Because you neglected to bring your headlamp and are on your knees searching for traces of the trail in the dark, fumbling down miles of rock and mud looking for some sign of the other trail to the parking lot.

Go ahead and get your catcalls out now because you will be eating your words in a little while. I'm an idiot but not for the reasons you think. It's a hiker's scenario that no one likes to talk about. When you find yourself nearly lost on a strange trail in the dark and you are wet from sweat from a nearly vertical climb to the top and freezing winds stealing your warmth, and you don't know where you are and you are alone...what do you do? Read on and find out.

I thought the trail was shorter but it just kept going on and on as the dusk turned into night and the squirrels slept and the stars came out in their humbling millions. At this point, for the first time in many months, I did not think about my many failures as a man and mistakes with women who might have loved me or might have been loved by me or career paths that are attractive but for the ecological distaste and my father's shortcomings and mother's indifference, etc. No. I thought only of survival. So much that I didn't even think to take a picture of my sweaty, hopeless face as I blundered, yes, blundered down the trail with only the dim flicker of my cell phone illuminating merely two feet in front of me so that to find the trail markers on the tree I had to shine the light directly on the trunk of every tree I passed and then jogged to the next area where I wasn't sure it was the trail or now. Oh, this was bad. The six bars of my cell phone battery became five. Then four. I was moving too slow now after my two old man knees matched the old man of the mountain and crumbled far up on the summit like my grandfather whose knees were shorn from him and replaced with plastic.

Ok, Oggy, think. You have to make it out alive. Everyone would just love to write your obituary as being lost in the wild like that kid McCandless they always compare you with. But you are different. You have passed the extremist test and now just want to make it back to your cabin on wheels. No time to eat and carefully sipping water while walking because every second the cell phone is on brings you closer to complete darkness and absolutely no way of getting out tonight. IS that serious? The Temp was around 45-50. Maybe colder but no blanket or sweater or even a change of socks. Nothing but your damp Arcade Championship t-shirt and '70s era jeans. At least the screws in your boots are holding the soles together.

So, I blundered further and with each trail marker I felt I was defeating death because this was like finding a condom in the pitch blackness of your backseat while sucking your lover's perfumed neck and one-handed unlatching that damn double hooked bra while kicking your shoes off. This took all my skills as a navigator and trail walker and numerous times I lost the trail (remember in the fall the leaves covered the earth and made everything look untrodden) and ended up snagged on a branch and had to retrace my steps to a trail marker and continue forward.

Now, Slippery Brook trail does not go to the parking lot. Slippery brook trail crosses the trail that gets to the parking lot and I knew I would never see the signs since my cell phone only cast a half a candle worth of light in front of my left hand.
Flashback to me driving north..."Oggy, remember to put your headlamp in your backpack. It's late and as long as you have a flashlight then you can get to the summit and down. But if you forget...forget...if you could forget Elena and just hike for ten minutes then you'll be fine, but she has to always perch on the cornerstone of your mind and not give you a moment's peace. I'm insane if I think we could be together. That's her whole plan to set you up so you devote yourself to her and then she can break your heart. That's what you have to forget. Forget Elena's dark eyes and her curly hair and her love of literature and her bewitching smile...forget everything. That damn crimping factory has driven you insane...Look at those red leaves. So pretty. AS pretty as Elena's hands on your knee, her...damn it! Stop thinking of her! Ok, As soon as you get to the parking lot you need to put the sushi in the backpack and go. The day is fading fast..."

Flash forward to myself running into a tree and falling to the side into a muddy trough.
"Oh, fucking hell!" as I wipe the sweat from my eyes.

Onward through the night, would the trail never end? I couldn't hear any cars or voices, only the wheezing coming from my fiberglass lungs. But I managed to stay on the trail until the final ultimate obstacle. I was stopped in my tracks by a narrow but deep river. What the hell. My instincts told me the trail crossed this brook and continued on the other side, but where? I couldn't see the trail markers with the weak cell phone flickering (two bars of battery left!)
How the hell am I going to cross this river in the dark using a cell phone for light? Very carefully.

I kneeled closer to the river with the cell phone and could only find one or two passable areas. The sound of the water bubbling over the rocks drowned out all my thoughts as I stepped onto a rock that instantly turned and left me on my knees in the ice cold water!
"Fucking hell!"
But I raised the beacon of cell phone technology to the sky to keep it dry and stood up and jumped onto a log that was as wet as an otter's asshole. I clung to it with one hand reaching forward with the light, hoping to see a trail marker. (One bar of battery left) only to find nothing. Just trees. I scrambled over the log and onto dry land and hunted up and down for a sign of a trail. Nothing. Just leaves piled on leaves, all blue in the white light of my cell phone. I stumbled down a fox hole and over a log cutting my face on branch. Where was the trail! I didn't want to die out there in the forest! I hunted and could not find it and more importantly was becoming disoriented in the dark. Was the river on my left or right. It should be on my right facing down. But which way was down? I was in a hole. Now, where was the original trail? Fuck. I had crossed the river and could not get back to the last trail marker. Now I was very close to being seriously lost in the dark with one bar of battery left.

I did not panic. They tell you not to panic but advice like that is useless. Either you will panic or you won't. I did not panic. I considered my option. I was about to become completely engulfed in darkness near a strong current brook not on a trail on the side of Baldfaced Mountain. The temperature would make life misery for (I checked the clock on my cell phone) the next 11 hours. I'd probably survive based on the fact I had sushi and a scarf and my wool hat. Yes, I was wet and already shivering from sweaty shirt but I would probably live. But, the survivalist inside me wanted to find a way off the mountain as soon as possible. I didn't want to wait for dawn. Maybe the trail took an abrupt right turn at the river and didn't cross it at all. So, I recrossed the river and managed to find the original trail marker. Then I thought I found another trail marker but it turned out to be a rectangular splotch of fungus. Oh, what would become of Oggy? Here's a picture taken when I thought I had all the time in the world. It was freezing on the summit and Gordon's windbreaker was all that kept me from dying.


I hunted up and down the other side of the brook for the trail but couldn't find it. Misery! But I knew it would be on the other side so again I crossed the water with one hand holding the cell phone over the rocks I was trying to step on and my walking stick keeping me steady with the other. Man, I crossed that river three times looking for the trail but I could not find any trace of it or any trail marker. I ended up on the original side of the trail under the last trail marker as my cell phone dimmed to the point I couldn't see anything. This was the dying light of Oggy's last lunatic parade. Curses! Everyone was right, I had brought my own deadly destiny to myself, I'd run my last mile, hiked my last peak. I'd freeze to death on this trail without knowing where the next trail marker was.

My options were not attractive. I could:
1) Blunder down the river in the dark, keeping it always on my left until I found the route 113 somewhere down below...hopefully.
2) Blunder across the river again and just go in the direction of what I thought might be the trail to the parking lot. Ha~! I considered this pure insanity because I couldn't walk five feet without falling on the rocky terrain. I would have to crawl for two miles in a perfect line to my van and most likely I would crawl for 11 hours in the wrong direction.
3) Curl up in a ball and watch my breath for 11 hours.

As my cell phone died completely I decided to look in my pack for an apple or a piece of sushi and cheese and it was at that very moment that I realized something...
At the bottom of my pack, where it had stayed since I removed it from my bicycle in Venice, CA, was my bicycle headlight, an incredibly bright halogen flashlight that I'd stashed there for...emergencies! How could I have forgotten~!

Salvation!

I plunged my hand into the pack, dug past an extra pair of sneakers, an old bus card from Santa Monica, a blues harmonica, a combination lock, a forgotten emergency space blanket (that would've come in handy) and found my flashlight. Would it work after all these months?

Let there be light! I turned it on and instantly flashed it across the river and found a trail marker about seven feet up where I'd never look for it. I literally stood up with my arms raised in triumph. No McCandless destiny for me, not this time. And there was a neat row of rocks across the river that I hadn't seen before. I hoped across and began to job downhill because I knew the batteries would be my only hope. I flew like a deer possessed, like father Elk, like the elder Bison down the hill, skipping over roots, following the trail markers painted on trees like the yellow brick road to my van. It was still a long way to the trail intersection but once I found it I knew I was home. My knees were sore and my pants wet but I crossed the empty street with the sky full of constellations and felt a moment of peace as my fate once more blended into the comfortable known.

So, I'm an idiot for forgetting the headlamp. Yes. But somewhere in my mind I had forgotten it because I knew I had the best flashlight I could want already in my backpack. So I'm an idiot for forgetting that I had packed my flashlight already. The lesson is to be prepared. And if you aren't prepared at least know what you are carrying!


Visited the old homestead in Sanford. See video for more details. The van and Mt. Hope.






Somehow found time to hike Mt. Agementicus on the way south. My soul migrated with the speckled hawks to their oily home to the south. Returning to the shackles of ion implanters is a rusty stake in my heart.