Grandpa’s Bus, Part 10
After-Action Report
26 August:
Well, Incorrigibles, I’m home again. So are, I presume, Joe and Bill Jones. We will miss our summer retreats. We three left them with mixed feelings - peaceful regret yet with eager anticipation of what is ahead. I will certainly miss waking up on that rickety old cot in Grandpa’s bus, under those thin, musty blankets that had warmed previous generations of my family. Warm and comfortable with never any ticks or chiggers or spiders - since, remember, this was all imaginary. But it’s good to be back at the 18th Floor Homestead.
Since I got back, CS and I baked some cornbread with yellow cornmeal. I remember Mom and Dad always disagreed on one little point. Mom preferred yellow cornmeal. Dad, for some reason, wanted white cornmeal. Never an argument, just a friendly philosophical and culinary difference. Since Mom did the baking, we almost always had yellow cornbread. A nice memory. Yesterday, we baked cornbread with yellow cornmeal. I take no sides in the cornmeal color dispute. Doesn’t matter to me; I just grab what is available, usually yellow. CS and I also whipped up a batch of sweet cream biscuits that turned out well. As Mac said of sour cream pancakes, “…the kind people often talk about but seldom can get”. I hope these vestigial skills of the country life will be part of the childhood memories of my City Boy son.
Did I learn anything this summer that might be relevant to the Incorrigibles community? Maybe… or maybe I just became more conscious of what Mac was trying to tell us in his stories. I know for sure that there’s nothing like waking up alert and peaceful after a good night’s sleep. Back to the basics - sleep, food, and exercise - to restore the balance in a life that had become too filled with desk work.
I’m home again; so are Bill and Joe. We may not hear from them again now that our various summer retreats are over. It has been a good summer, a good journey, for all three of us. But here are some of my thoughts on this hot, still August morning as I begin to mentally unpack and start my reentry, just like Joe and Bill would have done upon their returns.
This is the first week of my return to my old life. Likewise, it is the first days after Joe arrived back at his old address after towing his trailer to the city, and Bill collecting his pin-striped doublebreasted business suit from the hotel in Duluth before heading home. Would Joe keep that trailer in his backyard as a reminder of his summer on the Brule, of his second boyhood? Would Bill keep that hand-carved paddle? Would they be there like Grandpa’s bus, always available when we need a little reminder of how simple life can be if we don’t allow it to get too crazy and too busy and too intertwined with other people and their dramas? Like Mac wrote, it is amazing how little it takes to make a man happy.
Would those business upsets that Mac referred to in When The White-Throats Sing have been so severe that Joe had nothing to go back to? What changes would Bill find when he got back to his office? What about old relationships? Funny how business changes often precipitate relationship changes. Don’t ask how I know. Would Joe and Bill, with their summer tans and lean waists - leaner, anyway - have grinned and said that this had been a test to see how much of them was left? After all, as we get a little older, that platitude of, “You do what you can with what you have” is often extended with the proviso “… and with what you have left.” Well, it turns out that Joe and Bill and I still had plenty left. We just needed some alone time to realize what is important and consider how to eliminate much of the dross and interpersonal resistance in our lives.
Sometimes, of course, we need more than a three-day weekend to recharge and begin to see things clearly. Thus, we three are grateful for our summer retreats - Joe on the Brule, Bill in his solo canoe adventure, and me in Grandpa’s bus on the Little Dry Fork. For we now understand that free-floating anxiety and its converse, peace of mind, are internally generated.
Yes, there are times when the eyes need to see long distances, and views that are not all rectangular and man-made. Aldo Leopold, in his writing and lectures, said that a periodic return to the wilderness was a primal need. Clearly, there are occasions when the mind requires the solitude and simplicity of the life of our nomadic hunter/gatherer forefathers. That mood was perfectly captured in Mac’s line (from The Great Bear Hunt) that, “… it’s a nice feeling a man gets in the November woods - being on his own with a rifle”. (All these years later, I still miss my .243 Winchester - and damn the man who stole it.) I wonder if Mac was consciously inserting these eternal truths in his stories or if they just came out while expressing his feelings about what he was experiencing.
Yes, life can be simple and peaceful if we choose to look at it that way, regardless of any ripples and cascades we may encounter. I wonder what Bill and Joe were like after they returned to their old life. I’ll bet they were happier, more productive men at whatever they set their hand to doing. Probably more fun to be around, too. As I do my mental unpacking and planning for the resumption of my suspended projects, that is my intention and my hope too.
My digital projects have been restarted and keep me busy when I am at my desk. I could completely fill my days just sitting at the computer if I allow myself to slip back into that life. But I am trying to achieve a better balance of desk work (using my brain) and away work (using my hands). I thought a 50/50 balance of the two, desk work and hand word, would be optimum. But that 50/50 balance is purely theoretical. Back in the real world, my days have too many disruptions to follow any plan consistently. Always too many interruptions.
The concept of a system that is both satisfying and sustainable is intriguing. Recently, however, I modified that 50/50 ideal to become 33/33/33. I realized that desk work (digital productivity) and away work (working with my hands to honor our foraging ancestors’ legacy) was still not sufficient, not complete. Thus, I added a third segment to my ideal day: time spent in reading good books - like Joe when he wasn’t fishing. But for me, I will also include newsletters, podcasts, and online education and entertainment. Maybe even writing some letters to rebuild connections with family and friends. I am trying that new regimen now. I want to live to be 100 but I want a high quality of life on the way.
And anytime I feel a need for a momentary return to my sanctum sanctorum, all I have to do is listen to the river music audio files on my computer. Favorites? For Mac, it would probably be the call of the White-Throated Sparrow. For me, it will always, always be the Missouri whippoorwill, with the bobwhite quail a close second. They always trigger a smile and a glance at the photo on my computer’s desktop of my friend Alex fly fishing the LDF. (No trout but plenty of willing perch and largemouth bass.)
So long, Incorrigibles. It’s been a good summer. And, best of all, I can go back to Grandpa’s bus “down at the creek” any time I wish or need. All of us can; each going to their own version of Grandpa’s bus or Joe’s trailer or Mac’s cabin on the Middle Eau Claire. And, if we are a little too weary for fantasizing, we can use Mac’s stories as the vehicle to mentally carry us there. Any given evening, we can settle into bed with one of his stories and say, “Take me back, Mac”.
If any part of my journey back from the brink has resonated with you and your present situation, please let me know. Comments left online are shared with the world. (You may find, in this community, that there are other people just as strange as you.) Or, if you prefer, welcome to stop by the 18th Floor Homestead to have a cup of coffee and trade experiences. You can pay for our coffee at: