the trip: Feb 2002

There is a spirit who stands beside each of us when we are born, to light our way--the mouse in Balto-Wolf Quest

Hello everyone! Thought I'd bore you with my latest adventures.

I've been planning this for a while, trying to get in contact with old friends from Fullerton High School. I haven't done a class reunion in the 30 years since I graduated, unless you count a brief flurry of communications from the 20 year reunion. We of the Class of '72 all seem to be at a time of life where despair is nipping at the heels of our existence. People are losing their parents, they are suffering empty nest syndrome, health issues are galloping rampant. Don't tell me the "Mid life crisis" doesn't exist!!!!

So the problem is posed: what to do about it?

Well, around Christmas time in 2001, I got a wild hair, and started tracing people's email addresses on line. Some I found, but some (mostly those I would love to chat with again) I *didn't* find. So (being a compulsive organizer) I started my own web page for a hoped-for reunion. Odd, that no one had gotten started with this yet, out of 414 graduates!!!

Spring is in the air. It was a long cold winter, and the Fall before that had been very depressing. I was going on vacation, no matter what! Too many people don't allow themselves to get outside of the box, and traveling is one way to do that. Birute Galdikas*, noted expert on orangutan research, was doing a guest lecture in San Diego, on Feb 18, and it was something I wanted to see.

So, as I had been emailing classmate Scott for two months, we made arrangements to meet, and celebrate our birthdays; that expanded into a meeting of classmates to arrange some sort of reunion party!

There was a time, that I would have driven straight through from Bremerton, WA to Fullerton, CA without stopping except for gas. I guess by age 47, it's time to slow down a little, so I did, and got a room 12 hours down the line in Willows, CA. That was on Feb 16, a Saturday. Every motel on the face of the earth has a window facing the highway, and I always get that room. This night it didn't matter. I listened to Amazing Caves right as I was hitting the 11 hour mark, and the rain came down in a very weird, windy and spooky storm: it was dark...I pulled into the motel, got a room, and turned on the telly. There (of all things) was a cartoon of a little bitch wolf in a cave, and there is a little mouse, sitting in the middle of the cave, surrounded by crystals, and singing the most beautiful music. Really. Thinking "I'm hallucinating" I sat down and stared at this children's movie, finishing it...."Balto Wolf Quest" with the voices of David Carradine and Mark Hamill. Much Native American mythology in it. Check it out if you run across it or have kids. The music really was wonderful.

The next day (after little sleep) I charged onward, enjoying greatly the upper San Juaquin Valley. The rain came down.....I found the San Juaquin valley rather pretty, gorgeous even. (For some reason, I like California river bottoms better than the Portland area, even though they are similar climates). Since the bad old polluted days when I was a child, Mother Nature has been allowed to thrive and return in the form of wildlife sanctuaries, in the Sacramento River deltas and estuaries. (Swamps full of ducks and cranes, if you will). Crows darted through wheat fields hoping some latter day Van Gogh would catch them in the act. Hawks (both red tail and peregrine) roosted on every fence post, scanning the weeds for poor little mousies. An occasional road kill coyote lay on the shoulder, tongue lolling out most unpleasantly. It was a very scenic drive. The Upper Sacramento River is really nice in the winter. Crows roosted on the side of the road, waiting for cars to tenderize their road kill. Red winged blackbirds were everywhere.

I went through Turlock CA (turkey capitol of the world, BTW) to drop off some quilts at our quilter. Dang, they were closed on Sunday, which no one had told me about.

Those who know LA know that you drop down into the Basin via the Grapevine. The closer I got to LA, the ruder the drivers became. They all passed me like I was tied (I was doing 65/70 mph) in new sports cars, whipping into tight places. I assume many of these young bucks are Enron pirates, or people abusing their credit cards, as there can't be that many wealthy people on the roads, with balls that big. Wealthy people are more cautious! It was pretty scary. Makes you wonder where our world is headed.

Got to a place in Orange County called Diamond Bar, which oddly enough, my Dad helped develop back in the 60's. (It was sage brush before the Shanahans speculated it, and made a fortune in construction). Called Scott at a pay phone, he gave me directions. There were a bunch of guys from my High School, none of whom I would have recognized on the streets. As the evening wore on, more showed up. I was delighted that a good friend, Liz decided to come over, and was excited that she hasn't changed a drop, except, for being older (as am I).

Me and Liz that night, photo by Scott Schroeder

The really weird thing was that as we all talked, I could see that they were all the same people they had been when I knew them 30 years ago. Deep down inside, we all retain that "core" personality. We get into better or worse places as our lives go on, some of our external features change, but we are still the same person down deep underneath. I still liked, or didn't like, or felt neutral about all the people I have talked to from our class. Nothing changes, nothing stays the same.

The really neat thing too is, that even though we have very different ideas about things, everyone at the meeting really felt we needed to stick together, and keep it going the same way. People wanted to work together, and wanted only the best. So I think it is going to work out just fine.

The party broke up about 9:30 which was good, as we all needed our sleep and it was a work day night. (Feb 17 Sunday). (Rudy took off before that) I gave Scott a hug, and after arguing with Lizzie at the door (she was insistent on me coming to her house for the night) I begged off.........and went to my old neighborhood. I got weepy there, cruising in the night. People who live in the area don't know what a shock it is for some of us to return every 5-10 years and see how much things have changed. Whomever the jerks are who live in my old childhood home now, are letting the beautiful orchid tree in the front yard DIE due to lack of water....we planted that bush when it was about 2 feet tall. God that pisses me off.

Again I didn't sleep well in my hotel room, but then again, I wouldn't have slept very well at Lizzie's house either. I'm just weird, and I really needed some time to myself that night. The only person I saw unhappy that night was the poor Indian gal I had to wake up to get the room. I woke up, and after my shower, looked in the mirror at myself, wondering how much *I* had changed in 30 years. Some very serious raccoon eyes looked back at me, circled in black.

Wondering when I was finally going to get some good sleep, I moved on. I cruised my old neighborhood a bit more, and (taking a wrong turn) actually went by the Fullerton School District, so I got that address, and shall send them a resume (I've had enough of substitute teaching, maybe they will offer me a real job). Then I went to see my cousin in Anaheim. She arrived at the door, in her housecoat, the picture of domesticity with a feather duster at salute. We visited for a whole 1/2 hour (we talk fast), then I took off again, this time for San Diego.

It turns out it was good I went as soon as I did. The Zoo closed at 5 pm, and I got there about 1:30. Most will agree that this is barely time to take the place in, but luckily (or unluckily) a lot of critters were off exhibit. I tried to get close to the gorillas, but they were surrounded by looky loos. Another bad thing, even though this was a fairly cool day, people were out in force, taking advantage of the holiday. They all had children, who insisted on screaming for no good reason. (no wonder the animals were all hiding). I hiked around, got some exercise, and finally (exhausted) went to the car to rest before the lecture of the evening.

Standing outside in the Balboa Park dark, people were still commenting about the cold. (It was very balmy to me, having come from Puget Sound). The turn-out for Birute Galdikas was HUGE, and gentle soul that she is, she seemed a little intimidated by it all "The meeting last night was only 20 people" she commented.

Her message was simple: the world was burning up and the forests are being raped and pillaged. The orangutans have no place to live, anymore. Her talk about their adaptive coloring was really good too. I would be here all day writing about all the things she said, were I to be complete. But I did manage to buy one of her signed books :) So, it was definitely worth it.

I started the drive home, right after the lecture ended. From 8:30 to 11:30 I concentrated on clearing Los Angeles. I had enough of the rudeness and people whipping in and out. Not only the rudeness was troubling, but the basic lack of safety...I've lived this long by being cautious, and I don't plan to stop the trend now. Stopped in Castaic and got a nice room, slept well despite the semi's blaring past my window.

Feb 19 I spent chugging back up the Central Valley. Visited with Pat Fryer in Turlock "the quilt lady" http://www.californiaquiltmakers.com and found she had graduated from the same High School my cousin (whom I just visited) had. It's a small world. I loaded about 30 quilts into Strider's back end (my pick-up: it was raining and luckily I have a shell). Didn't shut it down until dark. I got as far as Shasta, when it got very scary, very dark, very cold, very rainy, and very cruel with the speeding semi's. One day I'm going to see a semi travel too fast, and flip off a bridge into one of those big lakes in Shasta county...but it wasn't this time, thank goodness. I stayed in the NICEST lodge I have ever stayed in (the Glass House, and family run!) and took pictures, I liked it so well. Watched some Olympics, slept well. The next day I ate up the rest of the distance to Bremerton without incident, landing first at the quilt store (where great howls of hosanna went up....they really were happy to get their quilts! :)

And then I came home. My email box was full, to the point of exploding. This is going to be a long, involved project to put together a reunion, I can tell already. So many neat ideas occurred to me on the road, and now I have to type them up, as well as figure my budget for the trip (the reunion is going to cost money too, and I have to deal with that somehow). The good news is I only missed 2 days of work, and the cash flow shall continue here.

So that is all for now.

* Birute Galdikas is one of "Leakey's Angels" the other two being Diane Fossey and Jane Goodall. These three girls were given grants through Louis B. Leakey's foundation to sit out in the brush, and study the Great Apes. They did so, with incredible sucess and are people of legend. Fossey's work was documented in Gorillas in the Mist, and incredible woman, began her work with special needs humans and sadly was killed by gangsters. Jane Goodall continues to pioneer primate research with Chimpanzees. And Birute....... what a neat lady! Google her on the webs! She married a local tribesman last I heard, and lives out in the jungles, rehabilitating organutan orphans, now on Animal Planet as a series. "Orangutan Island".