Grandpa’s Bus, Part 6
Mid-summer update from the banks of the Little Dry Fork (and the Brule)
24 July
For those of you just joining us (and for those Incorrigibles who are memory-challenged), let me offer a recap. In one of his best stories, When the White-Throats Sing, Mac introduced us to an unnamed character who brought his trailer to the end of a narrow road on the banks of the Brule River and lived there from springtime until September. I have given this man a name, Joe - from Dave’s Me and Joe Went Fishing-type of superficial and largely unremarkable stories of the outdoor press in Mac’s time.
So, Mac’s Joe, after suffering a nervous breakdown due to business upsets - Sound familiar today? - restored himself by experiencing his second boyhood tramping up and down the Brule, living on the trout he caught that summer.
I experienced a similar episode in my life and am spending an imaginary summer retreat in my grandfather’s permanent fishing cabin which began life as a city bus. Grandpa towed that hulk over terrain that would have been comparable to the two-rut road to Joe’s trailer. Then Grandpa set his bus up on blocks and railroad ties, removed the seats, fitted it with gas lanterns, gas stove, and gas refrigerator. That was the total list of the amenities. Pretty primitive but in a remote, beautiful, peaceful spot on the banks of the Little Dry Fork Creek.
That was in the late 1960s. After using that bus for many years as a periodic retreat from Life (and Grandma), Grandpa passed away in the 1990s. His bus was unused and unmaintained since then. In my imagination, however, it managed to survive the occasional spring flood and was still there when I desperately needed my own retreat from a life that had become too filled with over-work, over-stimulation, over-uncertainty, and, definitely, over-thinking.
As you can imagine, the inside of the bus was a mess after years of neglect when I arrived. Yet, somehow, enough stuff worked - This is a fantasy trip, remember? - that I could make coffee, set up my computer on that rickety old card table to write these journal entries, and use Grandpa’s jon boat to cruise the LDF, throwing early-morning topwaters or popping bugs. As Mac said, alone but not lonely.
Please, Incorrigibles, allow me a couple of insights:
1) Did Joe keep a journal? Nothing really is known about the real man or his life before or after that seminal summer which he called his second boyhood. (Is this a matter to challenge Dave “Sherlock” Evenson with?) What would Joe’s journal say? Or, perhaps Joe was not the type with an urge to set his thoughts into discrete words on paper. It would be interesting, though, to read such a journal. Especially interesting would be to follow the progression that Mac wrote of several times: the restorative power of Nature, where the character goes down and down until he finally starts upward again.
2) I hope that I am not wasting time and valuable electrons in sending this drivel. I am doing the best I can to be honest and relevant because I suspect that I am not the only one who is dealing with issues of over-work, over-stimulation, over-uncertainty, and, definitely, over-thinking. In my own retreat, I chose to follow the same path Mac described. I went back to a place and time where the daily activities of living took up much of the day and were largely composed of, as Mac wrote, chores that “please the hands and rest the brain” - plus fishing on the LDF and an occasional cold Champagne Velvet to complete the list of the day’s activities. And, again like Joe, time for reading some good books.
Why am I keeping this journal and sending occasional updates of my progress to the outside, current world? Character flaw, I guess. A desire to put my feelings into discrete words. Long ago, John Waller Hills offered a glimpse into the soul of a writer when he penned (literally with pen and ink, in his case) the words that lurk unbidden in the breast of every writer, “I hope there are some readers whom this book will interest. As I have written it, and still more as I have read over what I have written, I have been appalled at the thought that it was of no interest to anyone.” Mr. Hills, long deceased, can rest assured that he still speaks for most writers. Storytellers, as far back as spinning tales around the fire in prehistoric times, have always had the same fear and doubt.
Anyway, I hope I am not boring anyone. If you have read this far, thank you for the company. Sometimes it can get a little lonely down at the creek, even though this self-exile is by choice and for only as long as I wish.
Insights and updates: Yes, we are already beginning the downward slide toward September and cooler autumn weather although it sure doesn’t feel like it on these hot July afternoons. The days are noticeably shorter, though. Wonderfully peaceful and quiet but hot and muggy down at the creek. Makes you appreciate how people lived before air conditioning became available.
Drinking is an issue that Mac mentioned only obliquely in his stories. Partly because Mac began writing in the Prohibition era and partly because, as Keith pointed out, newspapermen already had a reputation for heavy drinking and Mac didn’t want to add to it. Still, alcohol was mentioned several times and implied in other stories. My current question is about when something goes from being a genuine pleasure to a lifestyle to a habit to an addiction.
In my case, since I allowed myself to bring a computer and an electric kettle for instantly boiling water for my blessed first cup of coffee in the morning - both requiring electricity, something Grandpa’s bus never had - and running water for cooking, shower, and toilet, I will also allow a cold beer to magically appear in that gas refrigerator. And while I am fantasizing, there may be an occasional bottle of my lovely Jack Daniel’s. But the question remains about the wisdom of drinking as a pleasure and a lifestyle - especially at my age.
Insight: Will Rogers said, when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging. My contribution: I realized finally that, when you have dug yourself into a deep, deep hole, it is going to take some time to get yourself out of it. When you get so busy working that you neglect your mind and your body, it is going to take some time - perhaps the rest of the trout season or even longer - to recover. Mere awareness does not mean all is forgiven. Resolve and implementing corrective action does not mean instant recovery from months and years of neglect. This is true for Grandpa’s bus and true for me.
Insight: Did Joe bring some of his business work with him when he settled into his trailer on the Brule that summer so long ago? Did he arrange for periodic mail service - his generation’s equivalent of email and instant messaging? I find that I keep thinking of the work that I was doing when I began this imaginary retreat to the banks of the LDF. I plan to return to those commitments at some point in the future. For the moment, my task is to find a good stopping place in each project and make written notes to remind me of the next step when I finally resume. The problem is, I keep thinking of more things to do and remember. This, then, brings me back to the original objective of getting away from the overwhelming number of things - the busyness - that pushed me to the verge. (But not, I assure all who have read this far, over the verge.)
Insight: I want and deeply need some alone time. In addition to the digital work I was overwhelmed by, my personal life was also getting overly complicated and confusing… and loud. When you have an approaching-puberty boy clashing daily with his approaching-menopause Tiger Mom, it can be enough to send one howling into the night, or seeking self-medicating relief in the company of Mr. Jack Daniel. I call Mama a homework nymphomaniac. (It’s never enough; it’s never good enough. Hmm. Homework nymphomaniac. That term may not be the desired image. Let’s call her a homework Nazi… but with good intentions.)
The blame for this noisy chaos is not entirely one-sided. My son is clever and knows how to push all Mommy’s buttons to drive her to raging incoherence. I tell him that poking the bear is high-risk behavior but, like all kids, I guess he has to learn through painful personal experience.
Yet these two people, my roommates, are the people I love most in the world. They drive me crazy but I totally depend upon them. And, I guess, it is some comfort to know that they totally depend upon me. They may drive me to distraction but they also put food on the table and fill my life with color and company and background music. (Refer back to my thoughts about quitting drinking.) At this point, I figure that I need about 80% bus time and 20% family time. However, despite my best efforts, the figures are reversed.
Insight: In Nervous Breakdown, Mac wrote that Bill Jones’ days were filled with all the things he never had time for when he was chained to his desk and living his sedentary lifestyle. As Mac wrote about that solo canoe trip, “There was always something to do - too much, in fact. The days were too short.” And almost all the stuff Bill Jones had to do involved working with his hands. Me, too, as I get Grandpa’s bus cleaned up in my imagination… and my own cluttered workspace in the 18th Floor Homestead sorted in reality. Working with your hands can also mean taking the time to cook something from long ago. I whipped up a mean batch of chili yesterday. All it needed was a couple of cold Lone Star long necks to qualify as authentic Texas Red.
In The Old Brown Mackinaw, Mac wrote, “… there is always so much to do at places like this.” Another perfect phrase; he really nailed that one. As I look around me in Grandpa’s bus, neglected for many years, or my real kitchen in the 18th Floor Homestead, also with lots of neglected stuff, I see a million things to be done, mostly puttering. Makes me grin in anticipation. Hours and hours of working with my hands, seeing things get completed or patched up, seeing things working properly again, seeing things get a thorough cleaning… none of them requiring me to be sitting in front of a computer. Wow, I just had a flashback. I remembered the unmistakable smell of Hoppe’s No. 9 solvent and cleaning my first .22 rifle. Nice.
Final insight: First, you have to realize that you have a problem. Second, you realize that you created the problem yourself with some bad choices or simply allowing your life to get out of balance. Falling back on an old Missouri truism: If you keep going the direction you’re headed, you’re gonna get there. Third, you realize that you didn’t get to this point overnight. It took lots of time for habits to fossilize and begin their destruction of your quality of life and peace of mind. Fourth, it’s going to take lots of time to establish new habits.
But I’ve got a few more weeks until the end of summer (and Joe’s trout season) to continue pulling myself out of the hole I dug. More reports, Incorrigibles, as events warrant.
P. S. It’s only 7:52 in the morning and the mother/son yelling is already starting again. Gotta be five o’clock somewhere.
I just remembered an old friend and a discussion we had long, long ago. I told Bill about a passage in a favorite book, Alas, Babylon, in which a dissipated, disappointed man added a generous dollop of whiskey and two lumps of sugar to his second cup of coffee and rationalized that it was therefore part of breakfast. Bill, who grew up in the South before leaving to see various parts of the world, told me that this was an old family tradition, a medicinal cure for what ails you. Thus, in honor of Randy Bragg (in Florida in the book) and Bill (now living in northwestern Washington state), I call it Florida coffee. Might offer a temporary respite as I occupy a ringside seat for the noisy Generation Gap clashes.
If you can relate to any of the issues or scenarios above, welcome to join me for a cup of Florida coffee. You can pay for the coffee at: