Andrew Letter 1 - Report from the new house 1997 (I'll transcribe and back-post it later)

 

Homebrewing in the collective

 

I dreamed I was living in a collective with some of the guys from work. For fun, someone had initiated a home brewing challenge to see who could brew the best beer. The process was more like distillation than actually brewing from scratch. The science behind it was pretty sketchy, since it relied on evaporation, and no provisions were made for collecting the vapors. Basically, we were taking bottles of beer and opening them, placing them near various heat sources and then drinking the leftover contents once a certain percentage of the liquid had boiled off.

I placed my beer bottles in a 4 cup glass Pyrex container and hung it on a nail near the door. I could tell right away that this wasn't going to work. The nail was bent and sagging in the weak drywall, and I knew it wouldn't take much to knock the container off the wall. It was just one of those things that you do, knowing full well that it will have a poor outcome.

Sure enough, after 5 minutes or so, I returned to find all my beer bottles empty and on the ground. I was dismayed. After scrounging around to rustle up a couple more beer bottles with which to start over, I gave up and went around  to see how my friends' projects were coming along. David Chanh had boiled his on the stove, as had James Reed. 

"Can try a sip of yours?" I asked James, noticing that he was drinking out of one of my Weller House coffee mugs.

He nodded and handed me a cup full of the warm brew. I took a sip and was underwhelmed. It tasted like warm water with only a hint of alcohol. It confirmed my suspicion that rather than enhancing the beer and making it more concentrated, we were actually boiling off the alcohol.

"This tastes like weak tea," I told him. 

"Tastes fine to me," he said, convinced that his project was an unqualified grade A success.

"But we all know that alcohol is the first thing to evaporate," I said, "and boiling beer with the tops off, or letting it sit out in open bottles all day, will only result in weaker beer. If you pour rubbing alcohol on the counter next to some water, the alcohol will evaporate first." I demonstrated my theory right there on the kitchen counter, and the elements behaved as I'd predicted.

"That doesn't prove anything," James said, continuing to sip from my mug.

I wasn't thrilled that he'd appropriated my mug, but I was mostly miffed that my beer had been mishandled while I was away for 5 minutes. I suspected that it was one of my other roommates who had simply taken the beers and drank them, placing the bottles on the floor to make it look like an accident. I went off in search of the offender, but nothing came of it. I woke up, and that was that.

Andrew Letter 45 -- Still dreaming, still ranting in the early 90's

 

When Arnold Buckwitz stepped into McHenry's Diner, the waitresses would put their hard earned quarters in the jukebox (quarters they likely never would receive from Grandpa) to play this song, "Sink the Bismark" by Johnny Horton. It was their revenge, a passive/aggressive, racist/ageist protest against him for being a grumpy old German, whose only crime was that he was a lousy tipper.

 

 

 

Hello!

 

Great to hear from you the other day. I got your letter and check (oh, thank you, thank you thank you!!). I am certain that I have done nothing in life to deserve such support.

Life is strange. I understand less today than yesterday. I am still a dreamer, but I am realizing that dreams are of no consequence in this world. A person must have goals. I will probably never write the 9th symphony or find a cure for cancer. Nonetheless, I still like to dream of faraway islands, jungles and beaches. Farm land, mountains and meadows are nice, too. I dream of (white man's concept coming up) owning (here it is) my own piece of land somewhere far from the Police and the Taxman. There aren't any New Frontiers opening up anywhere around here, though.

I don't mind working. It's just the selling off of a percentage of your life while doing something you hate so you can have "security" that I cannot conscience. And what for? So I can wind up like Grandpa? Or William O. Helton? Although of the two of them, I think Bill had his head a little closer to his heart. The things he enjoyed, he enjoyed. He liked to drink, and he liked to fish. In fact, he drank like a fish. Alcohol didn't kill Bill, a truck did. Although, if the truck didn't get him, the alcohol would have caught up with him.

I just can't figure. The things that people love are their undoing. Grandpa smokes like there's no tomorrow, but as much as he likes to smoke, and as much money as he has, he still smokes those cheap, cherry-fallin-out-all-the-time, foul-smelling cigarettes.

Well, who can judge? For a person who is always on a soapbox, I have little to offer. I can't even keep myself out of trouble, it seems. Growing pot in the window would have to be one of my more flagrant abuses, although I can't imagine who was hurt by my crime. To me, going out of the house without a shower is by far a worse crime. There's that soapbox again.

Anyway, I really appreciated your not coming down on me too. I know that you know that I know that you don't approve of smoking pot. Anyway, I know you aren't condoning it. It's just one of those things in life which it doesn't pay to make a family-rending issue of. When I was a Christian (what a weird way to begin a sentence ... ) I was prepared to consign to hell -- for all eternity -- anyone whose interpretation of even one Scripture verse differed from mine. Bo knows intolerance. It is a tough thing to draw lines of what is acceptable and what is not in this age of ______ (you fill in the blank).

See now, I'm so non-judgemental that I don't even want to oversimplify or caricaturize a time period (let alone another human being). So, henceforth, no more Grandpa jokes. Well, maybe a few, but harmless ones. 

----

Page Two, nearly one week later ...

I am developing an irrational (or should I say irritational) aversion to Grandpa. I used to say "live and let live" (you know I did, you know I did, you know I did). But in this ever changing world in which I be livin' in, I grow tired of bein' trampled under foot by the silent creeping of this deranged old German living out his last days in Fort Buckwitz.

I used to think his little habits and his lack of social graces were kind of cute. I envisioned running an ad campaign, with posters and video clips -- "Arnold for President." That was before he started using my life as entertainment. Nothing to do today, guess I'll see what's up in Andrew's room. No mail today, let's see what Andrew got. Andrew's not home from school yet, better go down to Steve's and sit around for 4 hours and ask "where's Andrew?" every five minutes.

I am drawing on all my reserves to just be civil, and I believe I am doing a good job. I had those five years of training in turning the other cheek.

Actually, I have considerably more freedom under this monarchy than I did under that psycho-cultic pseudo-theocracy (church-­thing) I was going to. There, I would be subject to the same search and seizure, and I used to have to report all my activities. If the pastor believed anyone was spending too much time doing any one thing (including taking their kid to the park to play ball for cryin' out loud) they would be castigated. Punishments ranged from open rebuke to complete shunning by the whole congregation.

Why draw the comparison? Why not? I got nothin' better to do on this Saturday morning at 8:28 than compare my life now (boring and oppressive) to my life then (boring and oppressive). But I am keeping a positive attitude (ha). I am positive that I made a big mistake giving up my autonomy for the promise of a future security blessed by the fruits of education.

This nice little town (L.A. is so bad) has more than its share of bigotry, good-­ol-boyism and out and out crime. Don't leave your bike unattended for more than five minutes, don’t walk down this particular street alone after dark. There's rape, murder and even pizza delivery beatings. Oh, and the rice farmers burn their fields, and it produces a thick brown layer of soot which frequently clouds the skies. Traffic around here is worse than L.A. for the reason that these streets were built to accommodate considerably less people.

The only thing I miss are the gangs (I never really saw any Crips or Bloods in Downey). Fortunately for me, there must be others who miss it too because there is graffiti sporting the names of all those wonderful urban organizations you thought you had to live in the big city to see. Gee, what a fun town.

Nice tirade, huh? Well, I dunno. I like hanging out with Steve and his friends, but the question is how long, Mr. Scott, how -- long? Steve already has enough friends without jobs and children (70 year olds). 

----

So, Page Three, what do I want to do with the rest of my life, besides just be left alone? I mean, in the working-for­-a-living sense? Anything. I think I'd like to travel. You know, see the world. A traveling sales-hiker would be nice. Or a traveling music/movie critic (ha). At this point, I'm willing to work graveyard at a filling station.

I just want to have my own space. The final frontier. These are the voyages I mentally go through every night when I come home to old cigarette-smokin'-in-the-dark-TV-chair (you know who). Get me out of here. I'd rather have a turkey pot pie now, than a chance to own my own turkey in 5 years. Maybe I'm not being fair to the educational system. You and Paul both took out student loans, and look at you, just look at you, both now. You aren't still paying that loan off by any chance are you? I thought not.

See? It can work. I am pretty cynical, mainly because, in this town, you need a Masters Degree to work at Taco Bell. A forest ranger. That's it. I'll combat picnic basket thefts and report to Smokey the Bear on a daily basis.

Really now, I've been thinking of emigrating to Australia. I hear they have miles of land out there that a person could just get lost in. That'd be just great. Take a few friends, some utensils and set up shop in the Outback. I can do without television, taxes, Telly Savalas, Terminator Ten, toxic train-wrecked rivers and rigidly ruling reactionary Reagan rednecks.

I believe in freedom, I just don't think it's possible to achieve while there are other people around who don't: A. mind their own business and B. abide by the Golden Rule (sometimes refereed to as the Golding Rule - treat Andrew Golding the way you would want to be treated).

I stopped saying "Hi" to everybody I saw when I noticed a less than 50% response rate, which led me to the conclusion that a lot of people would rather be left in their own little world than have you invade it with a greeting. Pretty sad, huh?

I just got a call from Steve. It seems I can make myself useful today. He needs a ride to Paradise. So I’m going to take him. It's only about 10 miles, but due to the weather you can no longer ride a motorcycle to Paradise. Alas.

Well, see you later.

Ask me some pointed questions, and I'll try to answer them (instead of rambling on and on. Until I see you.

 

Love, Andrew.

Quotes of the day - The Sopranos on existentialism

 

"When some people realize that they are solely responsible for their decisions, actions and beliefs, and that death waits at the end of every road, they can become overcome with intense dread. A dull, aching anger that leads them to conclude that leads them to conclude that the only absolute truth is death." ~ Dr. Melfi

"I think the kid's onto something." ~ Tony Soprano

----

"What's the purpose? Of being? Here on our planet? Earth...whats the purpose? ~ AJ Soprano

"Why does everything have to have a purpose? The world is a jungle. And if you want my advice... don't expect happiness. You won't get it. People let you down...in the end, you die in your own arms." ~ Livia Soprano

AJ: "You mean -- alone?"

Liv: "It's all a big nothing. What makes you think you're so special?"

Andrew Letter 41 -- Greetings from GrandpaWorld, August 1991 (partial scan)

 

Hello there!

 

Greetings and salutations from GrandpaWorld in Chico, California, Butte County's mecca for students, seniors and screen­printers of the world. Time is measured here by the heat of the day (6am -- the only cool time of day -- time to turn off the fan).

The day's activities hinge around three critical daily rituals: the morning and evening diner runs and the 3pm nap. I am currently taking 9 units of GE required courses at Butte college on M-W-F. This has fit in perfectly with the diner and nap schedule and also allowed for some time helping Steve in his shop.

Uncle Steve. Steverino. The Big Unk. Working at the Print Shop. Helping the old Stevo. Printing posters. Hanging around the old shopperino. I envy his lifestyle. He's got to be the most laid back dude I know. And I always thought I had the corner on that. He has his little niche in the local screenprinting world and has never had to go out looking for work. He waits for it to come to him. Which it does. He does good work and his customers do all his advertising for him.

The local job market, for the non-business owner, is pretty much a minimum ­wage, student-saturated, service oriented, female-dominated economy. I'm not kidding, there are females everywhere. Banks, public services, restaurants and retail stores all hire young women (pretty ones) because they are in such abundant supply. As of yet, I haven't really met any of them socially.

I have been here for almost a month, and I still don't have any friends my own age. I guess I just don't know how and where to mingle. This town is made up of the Old School (Steve's Generation), the New School (Chico State and Butte College students) and the Local Redneck Crowd (diner patrons and high school age youth). This place is just as much like Bakersfield as it is like Santa Monica. I don't know just where I'll eventually fit in. I relate pretty well with Steve's crowd (not a crowd, really, more like a web of friends). They are all pretty friendly, liberal-minded folks.

One of his Old Time artist friends (who makes huge, slow­ moving, steel-constructed, abstract statues--and restores classic European economy cars) took us windsurfing one Sunday afternoon. The lake was 68 degrees, and the wind was just right. Steve and I took turns floundering while this older fellow (a beer-bellied, grey­haired skipper-lookin' guy) sailed circles around us. He eventually had to rescue each of us by hitching a rope and towing us back to shore.

Let's see, what else? I bought a motorcycle (horrors!!) with some of the last of my worldly money. It is the only way to travel this time of year. I no longer have a demonic need to rebel against speed laws as in previous motorcycle riding days. Of course, it is still dangerous, but not much more than riding a bicycle in this town.

As long as Grandpa is on the road none of us is safe. He's a demon on wheels. On the occasions when I have ridden with him, I found myself contemplating death. Steve won't ride in the car with him at all anymore and has told him so. It's kind of sad because Grandpa likes to drive. He relishes it. He just scares the hell out of anyone riding with him. He is in his own world, and it shows.

 

 

 

(next)

Sharon buys weed from a stranger, and I get mad

 

I don't remember much of a story, just the bare bones. I was living here on Stonehedge with Sharon. We had been growing weed for several years and had quite a stockpile. Over my objections, Sharon decided to call one of those cannabis delivery guys to place an order for some dispensary quality weed.

"But we have tons of this stuff, honey," I protested. "Why would you want to insult me to my face by going to an outside source?"

"I'd like some fresh green, please," she told the person on the other end of the phone, answering my question while ignoring me at the same time.

That's about it. I woke up soon thereafter, unable to remember much else from the dream, the image of a jar of high quality pot and the sound Sharon's voice, the only scraps preserved in my memory banks.

Andrew Letter 26

****The following was transcribed from a letter I sent my mom sometime in the early 80s. She was kind enough to send me a batch of our old correspondence to aid me in the completion of my memoirs. I've done my best to preserve the original text, while correcting some typos and inserting paragraph breaks to make for easier reading. I have yet to determine an approximate date, but when I do, I will move this post to the appropriate slot in the chronology of this blog.****

 

 

Andrew Letter 26 (Early 80s)

 

Dear Mom,

 

It’s kind of hard to write in the middle of a vacation, so I sort of waited for the end to write. I got your letter and can relate, know where you’re coming from, etc. I can also say that I am happy with my own attitudes right now. It is no longer a matter of “fuck ‘em all” or “so what.” It is a matter of finding my own place or niche. I have done so many things in the last few weeks that have made me think: You know, I am in my prime, and I really am having the time of my life.

I have made some new friends and they blend right in with the old. Lesa is a very nice, sympathetic soul, and she is another person (like Cherie) who has strange powers, and who I believe has a place in my life. Steve and Denise Dennis, are both in good spirits but lack direction. Dennis seems to be interested only in getting drunk. Likewise, Steve seems to value only his own very narrow scope of punk music, something we don’t agree upon. He has shaved his whole head – otherwise, we get along fine.

Cherie and I have “broken up.” I have decided that I can’t handle that kind of relationship and that I am happy without the jealousy and paranoia. I hate head games and power trips and people into ownership. It was something that I needed to experience, though.

I have since gone out with other girls and felt myself more of a whole person (like I’m not just living for one person). Cherie was upset at the actual “breakup” but not at the events leading up to it, so I felt no pain at demoting her to less than #1 status. Oh, well, I am now realizing my friendship making capabilities and am loving it.

I met this girl Lesa at a party, and she was strung out on meth (don’t worry, mom). I talked to her and found her interesting. She plays bass, wants to get in a band and we like a lot of similar music. Anyway, I talked to her while she was shooting up – the sight sickened me – and I convinced her that she was a worthwhile person, contrary to her beliefs. I actually restored her faith in herself, and she is clean (off drugs) now. She calls me a “nice man.”

Remember my experience with Cherie? The face changing? Well, if you say I’m crazy, I’m gonna get mad because I know for a fact that people’s outward and inward appearances change through manifestations of good and evil. Just as Cherie’s face turned into the devil, Lesa’s face changed. It once became that of an old lady and had a tree-like appearance, and then it became very beautiful and vibrant.

I could tell she was tortured by her own personal demons, and wanted to help her and I did. I sat there and talked to her, and I helped her to feel good about herself again. That made me feel good. Later, we both sat down at a piano and started to play, and the most marvelous music  came from the two of us playing the piano psychically (not looking). No drugs were involved (on my part), just – I hate to use this expression – good vibes.

Well, that’s where I’m at. I’m a hippie, I’m afraid, at heart. I don’t like that fast, violent punk garbage (who does?) but I am still a (non-conformist member of society) PUNK. I guess I am just a punk that loves people.

Anyway, I’m rambling.

I talked to Paul – one time in the whole visit. I’m sorry I didn’t see him more, but I was busy – always doing something fun. He said that I am sane and that I am a healthy teenager.

 

By the way, I love life and I love you,

Andrew

Jesus loves you. Bye now. I’ll write again.

Quarantined at Bob Orrick's

 

It was during the early part of the pandemic, and stay at home orders were being issued with the rapidity of an auctioneer MCing a game of musical chairs. One minute you were visiting relatives, and the next thing you knew, you were stuck there for 14 days with whatever random group of visitors happened to be there at the time. I was at my father-in-law's house in Paradise, when the music stopped and the edict crackled over the radio:

"Farn barnest, pononetrast, gom-dom, a tomma-tom tom, pen-om, pendeericast, penontium," the announcer's voice said in unintelligible Gibberish. Not even Pig-Latin, this was some kind of underwater adult-speak from the Peanut-verse. Being the only person over seventy, only Bob could understand what was being said.

"All person's regardless of age and/or religious affiliation are hereby ordered to remain in their current location for the next 14 days consecutively and without exception," Bob translated.

Well, that put a crimp in everyone's dinner plans. I guessed we'd be enduring Bob's veganism and repetitive dinner stories for the foreseeable future. We all looked around for things with which to busy ourselves as we settled in for the long haul.

Richard AC started cleaning the hallway walls with a dirty mop bucket containing red Kool-aid. His first couple of broad strokes with the mop left a bright red stripe in the white porous texture-coated paint. He left the scene, and I inspected the mess, cringing at what I knew was going to evoke a poor reaction from Bob. I found Richard AC in a side bedroom down the hall, sitting atop a shiny new John Deer lawn tractor.

"What were you thinking?" I asked him, as he fondled the controls. "Are you just going to sit there on your big boy tractor and wait for Bob to show up? You know what he's going to say, don't you? 'You know...'" I imitated the stern grandfatherly tone that always accompanied one of his lectures beginning with the phrase "you know." 

"Why don't you go back and look at it?" Richard said, nonplussed.  

I went and examined the area where the big red stripe had been and found that it was barely visible. Apparently, the Kool-Aid hadn't stained the stucco after all. It had an invisible ink-like quality and became colorless and transparent when fully dry. 

"Well, I'll be," I conceded. "I guess you saved yourself an hour long lecture after all."

----

That's about it, folks. Sorry, but you can blame the telemarketing industry for my rude awakening, and consequent poor recall of events.

Jealous me

 

I dreamed that Sharon had broken up with me, leaving me for another guy. I was jealous and couldn't let her go. I spent the whole dream stalking her and her new man, trying to weasel my way back into her life, but she wouldn't have it.

She was living in North Hollywood, in an apartment somewhere above the Sunset Strip. I had a motorcycle, and I would cruise the strip, hoping to catch a glimpse of her when she was out and about. Sometimes, I'd drive my chopper on the sidewalk, or on the wrong side of the road, looking in every store window or passing car for her face.

After a few months of searching, I finally caught up with her at her apartment. I couldn't see her, but I heard her voice coming from inside. Her new boyfriend was also there, and they were having a conversation about, of all things, me:

"He's just the wormiest guy," Sharon said, with an abrasive laugh. "I'm so glad I dumped him. He's not half the man that you are."

Intense jealousy and rage filled my body. I wanted to go in and confront her and her new boyfriend. I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't sound immature and petty. Sour grapes? No, those were the sweetest grapes I'd ever known. I just felt hurt, and I wanted her back. I thought that if I could just lay out the perfect argument, she'd come back to me. She had to. We had history.

It wasn't meant to be, however, and I spent the whole dream in a loop, repeating the process of searching for her, finding her and discovering that she'd moved on. I was heartbroken. 

----

I guess I've never gotten over losing Sharon. First, I lost her a couple of times in the beginning of our relationship, when she'd gotten cold feet and dumped me. I weaseled my way back into her life with love letters and a persistent presence at the periphery of her life. If she needed help building a barn, I was there, like a good manservant, expecting nothing, but (not so) secretly hoping for everything.

Patience and persistence paid off those first couple of times.  Once, when she stormed out of the house, declaring that it was over, and I ran down the street in my underwear, begging her to return, she laughed at the ridiculousness of it all and relented. I guess it's hard to resist that level of emotional commitment. 

When I lost her to MS, though, it was different. She was still with me, but it wasn't the Sharon I married. She'd become this incapacitated shell, full of anger and hostility, a bedridden, demanding tyrant. Or was she just reflecting my own emotions, the resentful, hateful caregiver, angry because life had taken away the joyful future we had planned? 

Deep inside, though, it was still Sharon. If I could have looked past my own selfish needs, I'd have seen the spark that still dwelt in her. Even up until the end, she'd grown immensely under the surface. Although the tree above ground, her external physical body, was dying, the root system was still intact, growing deeper and deeper, as her soul within her blossomed. 

If I could just go back and have a conversation with her, I know that she'd have words of wisdom that would help me beyond measure. She was blunt, and her simple advice was always so obvious that I routinely rejected it. But it was the soundest, most directly applicable self-help wisdom that I've ever encountered, before or since. 

I guess I am jealous if Sharon has moved on from me now, in the afterlife or whatever. The string of LEDs is dead. It had become a dangerous fire hazard. I don't know how it ever functioned for so long. All the little wires had become frayed and broken, and the LEDs were falling off onto the floor, leaving exposed wires dangling around. I unplugged it and took it down, but I can't bring myself to throw it away. It is still in my closet. 

Maybe I will take one or two of the LEDs and try to use them for some other application. The meters in my CB have become dark, and they could use a new set of LEDs to backlight them. I can't think of a more appropriate memorial, since the CB was where it all began with Sharon and I.

I meet Richard Ramirez in Walgreens Pharmacy, and Jose Anguiano takes the long way to work

I had another dream in which I was going to be brought back to work, in a limited capacity, at Yuba City Honda. Jose Anguiano, who by now was head of the parts department, was responsible for bringing me in. He rounded up a bunch of the guys, and we were all riding in a van together, getting high one last time before starting work. 

"Here," Ange said, "try this." He handed me a lighter and a shotglass filled with a fine powdery, greenish mixture. 

I was dubious, since I had no idea what was in the glass nor what I was supposed to do with it. He lit the lighter and began warming the bottom of the shotglass, cooking the contents until they turned the glass a dark brown. Smoke rose up from the glass, which he then inhaled, tipping the glass and tilting his head back as if he were taking a shot of whiskey. I thought he was smoking crack, and I wanted no part of it.

"Relax," he said, "it's just weed. I grew it myself."

"Come on, Spark. Don't be a big wuss," Sal Mendez, the senior Honda tech, goaded me from the front seat.

I was still dubious about the technique, and the color of the weed, which was really closer to gray than green, was a little off-putting. Ange explained that the shotglasses were less conspicuous than conventional pipes. You could drive around taking shots, he told me, without arousing suspicion from the cops. People did it all the time. As to the color, well, it just came out that way, but it wasn't moldy, he assured me. 

We went around a corner, and I spilled the contents of my shotglass on Ange's trouser leg. I scooped it back up and found that it had doubled in quantity. It now overflowed the glass. Ange just laughed. 

"That's a good sign," he said. "It means you are going to get super high."

I took the lighter and began warming the shot glass as he'd demonstrated, and that was all I remember of that van ride. 

Next, Anguiano and I were in line at Walgreens pharmacy, making a pit stop. We were casually browsing items near the back of the store when a young man who looked to be in his mid-twenties walked past us. I suddenly got a chill. The man was none other than Richard Ramirez, the 70s LA serial killer known as the Night Stalker, his signature curly hair and scowling, devilish facial features untouched by age.  

"Hey, you're Richard Ramirez!" Ange said to him, surprising me with his fearlessness and his knowledge of 70s crime trivia, both of which seemed unlikely for a millennial.

"I get that all the time," the Night Stalker replied, "because I AM Richard Ramirez! Bitches!" He flashed us the "Hail Satan" sign, made his purchase at the pharmacist's window and strode  past us, down the aisle and out the door.

Soon, Ange and I were back on the road, headed for work. This time Ange was driving, and I was alone in the back of his Jeep. We were traversing a very steep, treacherous mountain pass, a narrow one-lane road with a sheer rock wall on one side and the infinite abyss of a bottomless canyon on the other. The road was covered with a mixture of melted snow and ice, and the tires made a crinkly, sloshing sound as we made our descent. I wasn't happy with his choice of routes, and I told him so.

"This is the road we are going to die on," I said, terrified.

"No, it isn't," he said calmly, looking back at me as he proceeded down the hill, taking corners too fast on the icy, slushy pavement.

We reached the bottom, and he decided that this wasn't the way to work after all, and we had to go back up the way we came. The road was too narrow to turn around, so he backed up the hill in reverse. Looking over his shoulder, he grinned at me maniacally, driving in the same carefree, casual manner as he'd done on the way down.

Back in town, we were almost near the dealership. I was getting nervous about the time. I'd been due there by 9:00 AM, and it was now 10:30. I wondered if I could just round it out to an even eleven, and perhaps they'd overlook it. I grabbed a Pepsi from under the seat and cracked it open.

"You're going to drink THAT now?" Ange asked incredulously. After all we'd been through, the ice road, the weed shots and meeting a serial killer at the pharmacy, this was what he found shocking?

"You bet," I said. "I might as well make a complete fuck-up of my first day back at work." The effects of caffeine and weed are exponentially greater when taken concurrently, for me at least. We kept driving, but we never actually arrived at work. 

----

I woke up, having the compulsion to pee and to write this down, in that order. Now that I think about it, there was another tidbit from the night before that I may as well jot down:

I dreamed that my lady-friend Denise, had brought me a baby Christmas tree in a pot. We were in the horse pasture, looking for a place to plant it, somewhere on the east side of the property, when a giant wind came and whooshed the little tree away like a tumbleweed in a tornado. I went after it, but the wind was too strong. It picked me up off the ground and hurled me through the air like nothing. 

Fearful for my life, flying through the air with uprooted trees and pieces of wrecked homes swirling in a giant vortex that was possibly a mile wide or more, I soon woke up, panicked. Later that day, we decided to plant the tree in my front pasture. I know the difference between dreams and reality, but I wasn't going to take any chances.

I fall in the lake on a bike ride and get a job working at Darlene's bike shop

 

I dreamed I was out riding my bike along a path next to a lake. It was a deceptively treacherous narrow strip adjacent to the water, with loosely packed sand that would crumble off when you got to near to the edge. There was a four foot dropoff to a beach that was 3 feet wide made of extremely soft, plush sand. Naturally, I went off the ledge, and my bicycle and I sank into the quicksand up to the seat post.

I dismounted and quickly sank up to my chest in the soft sand. I somehow managed to get free, pulling myself horizontally across its surface. I grabbed the bike's handgrip, which was the only thing protruding out of the mire. Within seconds, I was back on my bike, pedaling along the beach, my bike and I both a sandy, soggy mess.

The sand appeared to be more stable now, but I soon fell into another trap, as I found myself being funneled into a steeper and steeper part of the shoreline. Above me, the ledge had grown taller, as the strip of beach got narrower and more slanted. I was unable to stay on the bike, and this time I went in the drink. 

My bike quickly sank into the incredibly deep water. I reached for the nearest thing I could find, a barstool, auspiciously placed just within my grasp on the sandy beach. I used the barstool as a flotation device and paddled back to shore. 

Bikeless, I walked to a nearby town, where I found part-time employment as a bicycle mechanic. The proprietor was an elderly woman, a kind of sinister version of Granny of the Beverly Hillbillies. She resembled Darlene Snell, a murderous drug dealer on the show Ozark. She had about 50 cats, and they were constantly underfoot in the crowded bike shop that was her home.

Since I didn't have a bike, I would borrow one of the store's bikes to ride home from work everyday. I tried to pick a different one each time, so as to minimize wear and tear. Some of the employees knew that I was borrowing the bikes, but the owner did not, and I wanted to keep it that way.

One of the bikes looked exactly like my alien green Stumpjumper, except that it had orange tires which kept changing color, depending on what kind of light they were in.  Looking at the tires in one light, they appeared all green, but in full sunlight they turned orange.

As I rode home, I thought my brain was playing tricks on me, like those internet pictures of a gold dress, which some people see as blue and vice versa.  The tires changed color so often that they appeared to be both colors simultaneously, with radial stripes that turned to a checkerboard pattern when you slowed down. 

Riding home was a treacherous affair. There was a criminal element to be avoided, people who would just as soon rob you of your bike and murder you as say hello. I managed to avoid them by keeping up my pace and never initiating eye contact.

One day after work, I was about to grab my favorite bike to pedal home when the owner caught me, and I had to explain my situation to the fearsome lady of the shop.

"You see, I--" I stammered, recounting my story, beginning with the lake incident where I'd lost my bike.

"No need to explain," she said. "My son lost a bike there once. I'm just glad I didn't lose a son." She was kinder than her appearance let on. "Why don't you take the station wagon?" she said. "It's raining outside, and there's a pistol in the car, in case you run into any thugs on your way home."

I gladly took the keys and thanked her. I promised to ride my own bike to work in the future. The distant future that is, I thought to myself, when I could afford to replace the bike I'd lost in the lake.

 

A thin blanket of snow and a less than satisfying vacation with the family

 

I dreamed I was with my family last night. Details are fuzzy, since I woke up before I had a chance to take notes. This usually happens when something goes wrong in the dream. I will hit the eject button, opting out of the story before its conclusion. Anyway, I dreamed I was living at home in Loma Rica with my family, the Kioski clan from Minnesota.

The first thing I remember is walking outside to find a fresh blanket of snow covering the driveway. I got a big thrill seeing the first snow in my entire 14 years in Loma Rica. The ground outside was a giant canvas of melted marshmallow, the puffy frosting of white covering any traces of green and seamlessly blending the driveway, the lawn and the street into a singular, smooth surface. I was thinking something about "Minnesota folks bringing the snow with them" as I stepped out into the yard to meet Greg.

"Perfect for sliding," Greg said.

It did look perfect. My driveway has a nice incline, and I was dying to see just how far I could slide before I crashed into a t-post or ran out of driveway. I grabbed a long, narrow tarp and waved it around to clear the snow off of it, and then got a running start down the drive. 

In mid-leap, I noticed that the frosting was a bit thin. I could see the lumps of gravel and rocks beneath its now semi-opaque, rapidly melting surface. This was going to be a bumpy ride, I thought, as I contemplated the imminent impact of my knees hitting the gravel with only a thin tarp to protect them. 

Luckily, I hit a smooth spot, so it didn't turn out to be the excruciating knee-scraping trauma that I was anticipating. But it was an embarrassingly short slide. There may as well have been no snow at all. I got up, slightly ruffled but uninjured.

"Did you see that?" I asked Greg, more of an accusation than a question. He was the snow-sliding guy, so I was holding him responsible.

"Well, it does melt kind of fast around here," he said, shifting the blame for the inadequate sliding surface back to the inferior quality of the fickle California snow. "You'd have to get up pretty early to do any sliding around here."

I looked out into my front yard and noticed that the trees, which would normally be bare or sparsely leafed at this time of year, were all well-foliated and had a lush green canopy. I made mention of it to Greg and then began making snowballs with some of the last remaining snow that had accumulated in a drift next to the garage. 

I threw one at my mom, who was standing with her back to me down the driveway, but it missed by inches, sailing harmlessly over her head. She turned around with a big smile on her face and began scraping up a handful of snow, making ready for a retaliatory strike just as I was just launching the next wave of my attack. My second snowball hit Ben squarely on the top of the head. 

"No!!" he cried in mock anguish. "Not in the head!!"

He bent down try to gather some snow, but it was too thin, and he only managed to scrape up some slushy wet rocks from the driveway. He threw the rocks in down in disgust. Even at his tender age, he was a seasoned snowball fight veteran, and these conditions were most unsatisfactory, to say the least. I was just glad that it didn't devolve into a rock fight.

<abrupt scene change>

From slushy Loma Rica winter, the scene abruptly changed to a crowded vacation resort in San Diego. The family and I were all staying at a gated mega hotel complex, which was built stack upon stack, row upon row, of neat little condo units. The bike paths and walkways were so heavily trafficked that there were security guards directing people to use specific pathways in order to ease congestion.

"You can't go that way," a sullen black female officer of fifty said to me as I tried to pedal down one particularly busy path.

She pointed to a sign at an intersection, and I noted that I was indeed taking an inappropriately longer route. All the paths led to the gates out of the community, but the one I'd chosen said 14 miles, and she directed me to a different one, whose estimated distance was only .04 miles. I took the shorter route and was quickly outside the gate.

Once outside, I got off the bicycle, which I'd borrowed from Greg for the day, and left it in some bike racks. I'd only gone a few steps when I realized that I'd forgotten to lock it. Greg hadn't mentioned anything about locking it, and I didn't think there was a lock or chain to lock it with anyway. By the time I turned back around to fetch the bike, it was gone. 

Great, I thought, it was only the first day of vacation, and already I'd have to report back to Greg that I'd lost his $500 bike. As well-policed as the gated community appeared to be, this had happened outside of the gate. I looked around for the thieves and the bicycle for a bit, but I realized that it was a hopeless cause. This kind of no-win situation always prompts me to bail out, so I woke up with a lingering feeling of guilt, the fading memories of thin snow and a crappy vacation my only souvenirs.

"I remember throwing punches around and preaching from my chair"

 

Actually, it was Edmund who was doing the preaching. I only remember being really mad and wanting to punch him. Edmund, who recently died of a drug overdose, was my friend's cousin. We'd spent a few years together in the Remnant, the cult I was in back in the 80s. In my dream, we were having a heated discussion about the afterlife as we walked in a tidily manicured suburban park with a couple of other people.

I know it's not right to speak ill of the dead, but my friend's dead cousin was really pissing me off. Something about his cocksure conversational style--the way he would bluntly interrupt, never acknowledging any of my points--just irked me.

"No one can be sure of anything," I told him, repeating my mantra.

"Wrong!" Edmund shouted in my ear. He gave me the finger and laughed. "See? I knew I was gonna do that! Just because you don't know something doesn't mean others can't."

Manic and disruptive, he was like a guru on amphetamines, alternately poking me with insults and espousing wild conspiracy theories, making statements of fact as to the nature of reality and the purposeful meaninglessness of life. His belief system was incoherent, and his theories clashed with one another, but he didn't seem to care. I couldn't get one tent peg in the ground to tether his consciousness to the here and now. 

I just wanted to make him shut up, but I couldn't manage to get a word in. I felt the anger build to the point of boiling over. I think what I hated in him was what I hated in me: He was a narcissistic blowhard, a know-it-all know-nothing, a proudly pontificating mass of contradictions, consistent only in his inconsistency. 

I talked to one of the other people who was walking with us, and he had this advice as to how to handle the Edmund situation:

"You just gotta let him wind down," said Andy. "It's really all you can do. He's all amped up right now, and arguing with him will only make it worse. Just take a step back. He'll come around."

Andy was always level-headed. As a high school vice principal, Andy had seen more than his share of jacked up, out of control youth and dealt with their drug-induced mania on many occasions. He knew his stuff, so if this was his strategy, I guessed I was going to have to take his word for it.

"So I can't punch him?" I asked, still seething.

"Correct," Andy said succinctly, "you can't punch him." 

I don't remember any more of the dream, and soon I woke up with the song "Who Are You" playing in my head. 

Grandpa Buckwitz and I drive through a rock, and Harold hydrolocks an engine

 

I dreamed that I was talking to Grandpa Buckwitz about WWII. We went to visit a site by the North Sea in Germany, a place where he'd spent a considerable amount of time doing some kind of special forced labor project for the Nazis. I listened intently as he solemnly recounted the technical details of some mechanical contraption that they'd had him working on. 

The factory, which had been built right on the shoreline, was gone, destroyed by bombing, its remnants eroded by the ocean. Nothing remained of it, just two empty holes that were now tidepools, lifeless and indifferent, reflecting the cold, ashen sky and the slate gray ocean. Something about the place and my grandfather's story placed a weight on my chest that I couldn't bear, and I began weeping uncontrollably.

In another part of the dream, my brother-in-law Harold was rebuilding an engine. He'd bought all new parts and had assembled them with the greatest of care. It gleamed with a pristine machined finish and was clean inside and out. He'd just put the finishing touches on it and was about to test it.

Somewhere along the line, though, he'd made a critical mistake. When he went to fire it up, it ran smoothly for a minute or so and then seized up. Nothing would make it budge again after that. He shook his head and puzzled over what could have gone wrong.

Grandpa and I were still at the site of the old factory when Harold called us, asking for advice about the engine. I asked him about the fuel, and that's when he told me that he'd added some water to the fuel tank to "clean the engine." It sounded like he'd somehow managed to hyrdolock the engine.

I was familiar with the practice of introducing a small amount of water into the intake of a running engine as a means of cleaning out carbon deposits on the pistons. It is done by adding a measured drip through a vacuum port for brief intervals, creating an internal combustion steam cleaner. The engine has to be at operating temperature, and the amount of water must be carefully controlled.

"What do you think, Grandpa?" I asked. "Is it possible that he could have gotten enough water into the engine to hydrolock it?" 

"This is Harold," Grandpa said flatly, "so anything is possible. He's a knucklehead."

We got in Grandpa's pickup truck and set out to to see Harold. We were driving down a country road,  cruising at a good pace, when I spotted a giant boulder in the road up ahead.

"Grandpa, you'd better slow down, or we are going to hit that rock," I stated matter-of-factly.

He made no sign that he'd heard me and didn't slow down at all. The rock loomed larger and larger as we sped directly toward it. By the time we reached it, it was as big as the truck, and Grandpa still hadn't taken his foot off of the accelerator. 

"Grandpa! We're going to hit the rock!" I shouted.

He remained unfazed, staring intently ahead, as if the rock wasn't there. It was now too late to stop. We were on a collision course with the massive boulder. I placed both hands on the dash, bracing for impact. 

At the moment when there should have been a crash--a grinding of metal and granite, shattered glass and a fireball of exploding truck and people parts--there was nothing. We glided through the rock as if it were a mirage. I sat in stunned silence for a moment as we continued down the road a bit, then finally regained my ability to speak.

"That was a neat trick, Grandpa," I said, looking over at the unassuming,  plainspoken wizard sitting next to me with new respect.

"I know a few things," he said cryptically.

James Reed, slacker extraordinaire

 

Let me just say that the behaviors and attitudes, actions and appearances of the people in my dreams in no way represent or reflect their actual personalities or character. My brain uses these people, or aspects of them, to play out roles in whatever drama it has cooked up, intended to teach a lesson, to fill a need lacking in my day to day life, or just for entertainment. 

In real life, James Reed is a type A, hyper-focused overachiever. He takes the Biblical injunction "whatever thy hand finds to do, do it with all thy might" seriously and will spend 24/7 obsessing about his latest fixation. Whether it's his job, his dog training enterprise, his band, his beer, his home or automotive renovation projects, or some piece of musical or computer equipment he is wanting to purchase, when something piques his interest, he is all about that thing.

When he's in, he's all in, but when he loses interest, he doesn't mess around either. The lifespan of one of his obsessions can be mercurial: short, intense flurries of activity, followed by a period of complete disinterest and neglect, as he moves on to to his next conquest. That's James in a nutshell.

---- 

In my dream, James and I were working for Joellen, one of our former bosses at YC Honda, in one of her side enterprises, a hotel chain with an automotive service department theme. The housekeeping staff wore the blue and gray Honda uniforms and cleaned rooms in teams that resembled pit crews. You'd have five people cleaning and stripping a room, and it was supposed to take a total of 5 minutes to complete the job.

It came as no surprise to me that James had mastered the art of slacking on the job. As captain of the pit crew, he set the pace for the rest of the team. He knew just how long he could get away with taking breaks before the inactivity would be noticed and logged. He spent every millisecond of that time actively engaged in non-work activities, like watching TV or lounging on the beds in guest rooms. Uncannily, he'd know exactly when Joellen would be arriving, and he'd call everyone to action, and there would be a great bustle of activity as we all took to our various jobs.

We were in a guest room honing our craft, doing one of our fake work drills, creating the illusion of activity, when I saw a fishing pole sitting in the corner of the room. I got the idea that I'd like to go fishing, since the room was only about 100 feet from the beach. I ran this idea past James.

"Not a good idea," he said. "They are sure to spot you standing out there on the beach."

"What about if just cast out from here?" I offered. There was a window that faced the beach, and I was determined to take my slackerism to the next level.

"I'll allow it," he said, "provided you can reel in at a moment's notice." He was tough, but fair.

I looked around the room for some bait to throw on the gigantic treble hook, but all I found was a hotdog and banana sandwich. I tried putting some bits of banana and bread on, but they were too flimsy and kept falling off. The hotdog stuck, though, and I managed to get one good cast in. I set the pole down in an unobtrusive spot and waited for a bite.

No bites came, however, and soon it was time to switch rooms. In order to get to the next cleaning assignment, it was necessary to walk down a short alleyway. I had to pee, so I dropped trow right there in the middle of the alley and began to urinate, squatting in such a way as to appear that I was just bending down to pick up my car keys or something. 

At that moment, mid-stream, a police officer appeared at the end of the alley accompanied by some of the hotel staff. I quickly stood up, but my pants didn't fully come with me. As the officer approached, I was still fiddling with my underwear and trying to get myself tucked in. Luckily, the officer didn't appear to notice, and he greeted us with a garbled stream of nonsense that seemed to be amiable enough, though completely incomprehensible.

"That was a close one," I told James after they had passed. 

"Close one, nothing," he said. "Did you not notice that he was completely demon possessed?"

I hadn't failed to notice that there was something off about the officer. He had one lazy eye and one partially dead eye, mostly white like a poached egg. His "good" eye was the lazy one, so it was hard to tell what he was looking at, or if he was seeing anything at all. Still, he seemed nice enough, and he hadn't busted me for peeing illegally, so I wasn't quite on board with the demon possession assessment.

Back in one of the rooms, James and I were watching a surf documentary from the 60s. The room was a wreck, and we were sprawled out on a very disheveled bed. The narrator kept droning on about this being the heyday of the white American teenager. James concurred, and although he always self-identified as red rather than white, the pride in his voice was obvious. James' hair is copper colored and his complexion is that of a beet with a sunburn, so he is anything but white.

It seemed as if hours had passed since our last drill. I had a sudden sense of urgency, an intuitive feeling that Joellen would be appearing at any minute. I nudged James, and we both sprang into action. We made the bed in a sloppy, haphazard fashion and picked up a few Doritos from the floor. I suspected that even if Joellen were to actually show up for an inspection, that somehow, like the cop, she'd fail to notice our transgression. James would likely distract her at the door and misdirect her attention to an  area of the room that had somehow remained clean.

----

It seemed like there was more to this dream, but I'm struggling to piece together the final elements, so I'll have to leave off for now. If it comes to me later on, I will revisit this post. Until then...