****
****
****
****
****
There is the light we read by.
And there is the Light that animates all things high and low.
A sometimes ungracious host am I,
Forgetting the lodging I have to offer
Is but temporary and too often over protected.
Yet the guest does not notice such smallness and shines without judgement,
Brightly witnessing the come and go of its own ephemeral density.
****
I was searching through my archives this afternoon, looking for a specific photo to send to a friend. During the exploration of an external hard drive I ran across this photo from 2009.
Everything passes. All elements return to the earth. Nothing left but the ash. Live fully and lead with your heart.
I was doing some backpacking equipment research on the net today and ran across quite a good site called SectionHiker.com. Amongst their many articles they offered was a contest to win a tent. All you had to do was compose a haiku poem about hiking, and the word hiking had to be in the poem ( and of course it had to be selected as the best poem). Great idea, sounds easy but really not so easy once you start to do it. I mean, you can put some words together but to express yourself in three lines consisting of words composed of five syllables on the first line, seven on the second and five on the third- it becomes a bit of a challenge. But an entertaining one. Since I would love a new tent I submitted a few words.
The offshoot of this is you poor LIP readers will now be subjected to haiku abuse. Sorry but the literary muses have been on vacation lately as has my sense of humor so beggars can’t be choosers as my mom used to say. Have some unfiltered sake and enjoy these clumsy attempts……….
We are all hiking
First sun last light all the same
No difference found
You can grow up now
Weeds and flowers and grasses
Get along just fine
******
Feel, breathe, step
We all hike under one sky
Feel, breathe, step
***************
Oh friend look clearly
One moment then another
The past is the past
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Heavy legs long climb up
Some coffee would be nice now
Or at least a cloud
*********
Hard ground to sleep on
The full moon looks much softer
But it is too far
************
Thanks for taking some LIP from me,
Bruce,
Highlights of my whirlwind biz trip to Los Angeles:
1) Meeting Godzilla right next to Elvis in the Reno Airport. ( If it wasn’t so over the top cheesy and therefore good for a laugh, I would recommend that the City of Reno change its name to protect its innocent citizens from potential never-ending national embarrassment)
2) Butterscotch tapioca pudding.
3) The Getty Museum. In particular ( por moire) was the architecture and the grounds and the incredible amount of feeling-consideration put into this grand esthetic accomplishment.
Low points of my whirlwind biz trip to Los Angeles:
1) The traffic……of course. What ever you think it will take to get somewhere, tack on an hour.
2) Indigestion from butterscotch tapioca pudding.
3) Not having my own camera while at the Getty. Had to settle for few snaps from BP Bryan’s phone. (I am quite grateful for those, though.) BP by the way = biz partner.
And you thought there was no culture in Nevada.
The main part of the gardens at the Getty.
Lunch.
We went down to research and talk over potentially designing and manufacturing a custom hand painted wall covering line. We’ll see.
We returned late last night on a surprisingly full flight. It never ceases to amaze me that there are full flights to Reno. I mean- I know why I live here, but why do all these people want to visit or live here? It’s Reno. It’s got Godzilla AND Elvis slot machines in the airport for Chrissake. Perhaps next time I will do a survey of my fellow travellers and publish it in the New England Journal of Psychiatric Medicine. Maybe entitle it something like “Habits of Irrational Thinking in the American West.” Maybe. I don’t want to step on anyones toes, you know. Especially Godzillas.
Personally, one reason I would find it hard to leave here is the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There is no need to wax eloquent about that as most of you already know my love affair with them.
And so like a dog that just has to shake off the clinging moisture of a fresh bath or a jump in the lake, I need to shake off the the last few days psychic submersion into millions of people and cars, endless buildings, billboards, tailpipes and cellphones. Guess where I am going.
Thanks for taking some LIP from me,
Bruce
They really do have something in common. Really? Really. Allow me to explain.
Many years ago, I spent six weeks in Kashmir . (https://bruceczopek.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/photos-of-kashmir-1975/)
Currently I am in the midst of “REAMDE” a fiction novel by Neal Stephenson.
While immersed in both these places a similar event has occurred: Culture shock. This is one of those things you just have to experience to truly relate to the words. Letters on a page or a verbal enunciation of consonants and vowels just does not begin to communicate the visceral experience of it – that split second un-grounding, where the foundation of your normal orientation shatters because suddenly where you just were is not the place you are right now. The mind disjoints, seeing and hearing things that make no sense, frying neurons and synapses in the process.
In Kashmir that happened twice. Once of course after stepping off the plane from the U.S. That’s understandable, first time out of one’s familiar country and into a vastly different environment. Somewhat anticipating it though, softened that particular collision.
The other time, it was much more potent. I had settled into a routine there and after a month or so decided to go the Wednesday night “American Movies” in Srinigar. I caught the bus into town, made it to the theatre just as the sun was going down and eagerly settled in for a first run viewing of “The French Connection”. Completely captivating. Fast paced, exciting, New York, drama, gritty, even a pair of nice breasts thrown in. Two hours worth of utter distraction.
Movie’s over. The lights go up. I shuffle out with the crowd, my psyche still meshed with the streets of New York, half expecting to see Popeye Doyle on the curb waiting to go have a drink with me- and suddenly, as if jumping into a frigid lake from a sauna, I went from daytime Brooklyn to a nighttime cacophonous beehive of humanity, taxis, busses, merchants, sandals, saris, and Srinigar. Whoa. Major sensory overload. Maha confusion.
A completely arresting moment. I stopped short in my tracks, frozen. And for the split second that seemed like an hour, I had absolutely no clue where I was. Once the perceptual dust had settled and compass bearings re-cognized, all the pieces still weren’t 100% collected, so there was no way I could handle a crowded bus ride home. Feeling surprisingly vulnerable, I decided to spend what at that time was a big chunk of my daily budget on a taxi.
This last Saturday morning a similar space-time dislocation occurred. On a three day weekend that consisted of camping, driving, visiting friends , and meditation retreating, I was en route from the highlands of the Sierra Nevadas via the foothills to insert my Subaru into the grey vein of Interstate 5 as runs up the middle of California and beyond.
Stopping for breakfast I grabbed Stephenson’s “REAMDE” to enjoy during the time the meal was being prepared. Better than reading the menu ten times, pretending to be interested. Read the book all through the meal, too- something I rarely do.
If you haven’t had the pleasure of reading Neal Stephenson, I highly recommend him. He is a true wordsmith. Like a master weaver using a computer keyboard instead of a loom, he creates intricately detailed descriptions and scenarios. His characters are vivid, his humor sharp and irreverent, the plots elaborate and believable although often delightfully improbable. If you want to plain just laugh at loud with a book read “Cryptonomicon”, an earlier work of his. It’s big but who cares. That one is all about the journey, not the goal.
He manages to do all this without being boring. It is just the opposite- when you open his books you enter into the world of Mr. Neal and his friends. Deeply.
And so for all the world it seemed I was sitting in a restaurant booth in a small town in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where in reality, I was thousands of miles away with vastly different people, embroiled with Chinese hackers, ex dope smugglers who are now rich video game moguls, MI-6 agents, Russian mafia bozos, Seattle computer geeks, international terrorists and on and on. Remarkably, he makes this literary smorgasborg work. Don’t ask me how. He just does.
I shuffle to the cash register to pay the bill. The young lady takes my money, exchanges well rehearsed pleasantries and wishes me a wonderful holiday weekend. Exiting the overly air-conditioned eatery, it was like slamming into an incendiary wall of hot air. The temp was in the high 80’s at just eleven in the morning and climbing.
Directly on the heels of this super heated air, came the next explosive wave- culture shock. Where I was now was not where I was a nano second ago, and I had no idea where I now was or even which car was mine. Funny how the body-mind works. Fairly quickly though, as all the pieces came back together, I recognized the parking lot and remembered my current excursion, etc. But the very next thing that came to mind was how much all of what just occurred felt way like the Kashmir experience so many years ago. The episode in Srinigar was big time disorientation, the one just described a milder version. But like sex or chocolate or winning the lotto, you just would have had to experience it to experience it. Most likely Neal Stephenson could describe it enough for you to fully taste it and go there. I guess that’s why he makes the big bucks.
He kinda looks like a wizard- Neal Stephenson
I was here but not really, then I guess I really was
Market in Srinigar. I think I was there while taking the photo.
Thanks for taking some LIP from me,
Bruce
P.S. Clotilda, if you are reading this you absolutely must go buy a copy of “Cryptonomicon”. You will thank me.
When is going to the laundromat a life changing experience? Well- it’s not. At least not in Reno, I can tell you. Perhaps hiking in the near-by Sierras will move your soul, but taking care of a pile of dirty clothes just falls under life maintainance with a sigh.
In my cozy 1950’s duplex, located in what is called the “charming old southwest” part of town, I seem to get by okay without a washer and dryer. Here’s how- when I have procrastinated as much as is humanly possible, when I have purchased yet more new underwear and socks, when I can no longer jump up and down on the laundry hamper enough to keep the fabric overflow in check, immediate action ensues.
Gathering all vestitus dirteus in sight, I go to the Jelly Donut Coin Laundry.
Truth be told, the “Jelly Donut Coin Laundry” really isn’t the “Jelly Donut Coin Laundry”. Unfortunately, it is boringly named, “Reno Mega Laundry.” Now it just so happens that the Jelly Donut sweet bomb shop is immediately next door to the Reno Mega Laundry, so they share a sign. But the way in which they do so is wonderfully homogenizing, the layout unintentionally blending separate identities of two vastly different yet equally mundane enterprises into a pretty cool sounding name for a laundromat. So everybody calls it just that. In fact I would wager that people have come to do laundry there even if they have a washer and dryer just so they can say they have done the Jelly Donut Coin Laundry.
Everyone backs in, making it look like a used car lot, as well as a laundromat and donut shop, further confusing the City of Reno business licensing division.
It is a testimony to the improving health habits of Nevadans that I have never, ever, seen one person doing their laundry while munching on a maple bar from next door. I like my teeth as well as a balanced amount of insulin in the bod so I agree with fellow laundromatists in sticking to the business at hand.
No coin operated front loaders here. Try next door.
Don’t get me wrong, I have seen vans full of people making devoted pilgrimage to the Jelly Donut Shop. But never carrying dirty laundry. It seems 100% of them do their laundry at home before treating themselves to deep-fried sweetbread as a reward.
Meanwhile, those who are cleaning their clothes next door seem to be a surprisingly well-rounded group. For sure the largest portion of the team are Latino mothers. There are also young couples (usually at odds on just how is the best way to go about doing their newly combined laundry), dads with kids, confirmed bachelors like myself who just don’t want to haul a washer or dryer if another move is called for, construction workers, people of all ages. I saw Mitt Romney there today. But he was on TV.
Is this a dream?
Mr. Mitt often wears stone washed jeans on the campaign trail and you can make two very safe bets here:
1) He paid a heckuva lot more for those designer jeans than I did for my Levis at Wal-Mart.
2) Mitt has never been in a laundromat in his life.
He looks like he feels bad that he showed up today in a place where he has never really been but I am glad he was kinda there.
The men’s side.
The hard working women’s side.
If you have ever had the pleasure of going to a laundromat, I am sure you have noticed something obvious – people don’t really find pleasure in going to a laundromat. Like putting on a deet laden mosquito repellant before going out in the woods, most people put on this bubble of anonymity mixed with a high amount of don’t talk with me and a dash of resentment at having to be seen in a laundromat in the first place
Except for the kids.
Blessed with the capacity for play and relationship where ever they may find themselves, they are a delight. It is always an enjoyment to see bouncing, flashing tennis shoes, games of tag, someone asking for and giving back hugs.
Almost as welcome as the kids at the Jelly Donut Coin Laundry is the fact that now you don’t have to pay a dime to dry your clothes. It’s free! I don’t know how they pulled this off. The cost of washing your clothes didn’t get raised, there aren’t any more people showing up to clean their clothes and take advantage of this bargain than there were before. And athough I’m not entirely sure, (given the track record of the current administration ) management probably did not get a green energy grant for Mr. Obama. It is indeed a laundry mystery……… as big a mystery as to why some quarters are accepted into the washing machine temple and some are rejected. Truly baffling. All quarters are round. They all have the same weight. They all have the same monetary value. Yet, while many go forward in hygienic service, others do not. Theirs is not the path of clean. They shall not pass through the slotted gates to drop into the ocean of Washington. They must go on to prove themselves elsewhere in the world of economics. Go figure.
Or just go next door and use them to pay for that chocolate eclair you’ve been lusting after all these months. Go ahead. You’ve earned it.
This is where your life flashes before your eyes.
Thanks for taking some LIP from me,
Bruce
I munched down on bunch of pistachios tonight. The impossible to have just a few type.
There is hardly an occasion of pistachio consumption that occurs without remembering a story from close friend Gene McHugh. (https://bruceczopek.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/move-over-david-hockney/)
You know what happens when you eat pistachios. They’ve been roasted to perfection, the shells popped open to such a helpful angle, making the liberation of this delicacy an oh so easy process. This keeps you coming back for more, nothing breaking your stride, your taste buds in nuciferous nirvana. Suddenly comes the nut that has refused to pop open. It is sealed shut, tightly indifferent to your precious taste buds and whatever foodular momentum you’ve got going on. You stop…. you look at it to make sure there is no point of entry…..you briefly consider if your teeth can handle blunt force tactics….. and finally, giving up all hope, you express your disappointment with an audible or internally inaudible, owhhhhh.
In the world of Gene McHugh these are called “Bummer Pistachios”.
He coined the phrase many years ago when wilder times were the norm. Exercising his artistic sense of humor, he would wait until his friends who had stopped over to visit and partake in herbal camaraderie were sufficiently “relaxed”. The he would pop into the kitchen and bring back a bowl of delicious looking pistachios. Except these were 100% renegade pistachios who had not given into the roasting process and were tighter than Scrooge’s ass before the ghosts showed up.
With a grand flourish the bowl would be placed amidst the friends. This was an exciting moment as we can all relate to (those of us that have inhaled). But as soon as someone would realize they had picked up an antisocial pistachio, he or she would inevitably say. “bummer, man”. It was always amazing to Gene how many pistachios they would pick up, look at, and repeat their mantra of disappointment before giving up on the bowl altogether.
The quintessential bummer pistachio.
Cover photo for the platinum selling album “Bite Me Baby” by the B.P. Quintet
A huge success in the Middle East.
It is a well known fact that Bummer Pistachios cannot mate. Everyone knows this except the pistachios.
And from that time forward such recalcitrant nuts have been known as Bummer Pistachios. I am considering entering this into Wikipedia. We’ll see.
Thanks for taking some LIP from me,
Bruce
P.S. Live a little- click on the photos to enlarge them.
Solar eclipse, May 20, 2012. CNN photo.
“Trilogy of Nonsense”. That title was jotted down long before any content rose up from deep inside the compost of my grey matter. I just liked the sound of it.
Well, the trilogy of nonsense – “Me, Myself and I” – just happens to be the bedrock of our perceptual world. It is we three against all comers. There is the trilogy on one side of the perceptual fence and everything else on the other. So maybe it is not nonsense. But wait…….
In the traditions of religion and spirituality, there is a common voice offering explanation about the appearance of this solid world. The Tibetans Buddhists say, “Energy can’t help but manifest”. “Brahma created the world because it could be created” comes from Hinduism. Adi Da Samraj has said, “Everything is a spontaneous modification of Consciousness”.
Spontaneous. Whoa. Stop the presses.
Picture this – whatever Consciousness is, It is very Unconditionally Happy, humming along as non separate, uncomplicated, undifferentiated, Self Awareness. No other. Okay, we can all go with that (heck, we want to go along with that. It gives us hope just imagining that possibility is out there). Suddenly, in this infinity of Consciousness there comes a movement to become something more solid. You know – like….things. All sorts of things in all kinds of density – from shimmering light to thoughts, to the most sphincter challenged bureaucrat you can imagine. Honestly, I am not sure this plan is even that detailed. It might even be safer to say there probably is no plan. Just this sudden urge and voila! It is like a moment in the opening scene from the movie, “The Magnificent Seven” when Yul Brenner asks Steve McQueen why he decided to join him on this insane, dangerous, sure to be shot at, crazy stunt. To which Steve McQueen coolly responds, “I don’t know, it seemed like a good idea at the moment.” The absolute definition of spontaneity.
Consciousness is kind of like a Cosmic Steve McQueen. Spontaneous. Nothing too thought out here. However, once that urge to modify and manifest is engaged, it is rather like falling off a cliff. No turning back. What is going to happen? Don’t know. Don’t know where we going either but we’re making good time.
But one thing does happen. And it makes things unbelievably complicated for a good long time afterwards. What happens?? Okay, you asked.
Consciousness forgets Itself.
It’s like this: You (Consciousness) have a size infinity foot. Always have. Impulsively you decide to buy a new pair of shoes. Size eight. No questions asked. That is the new size. On go the shoes. As can be imagined, this results in quite an attention grabbing, pinching sensation. All the time. And that pinching sensation is such a shock, is so damn uncomfortably persistent, you completely forget what a pair of non separate, Unconditionally Happy, size infinity shoes ever felt like. Instead, Undifferentiated Consciousness is now so aware of that pinched feeling, it gives that individuated sensation a name – “I”. Remember this is just a pinch we talking about, that’s all. But Consciousness is just a little fuzzy at this particular moment having seemingly become finite and all. So Consciousness now reacts to this individuated sensation of “I” and gets all obsessive compulsive. This reaction takes the form of actively assuming and being really convinced that “I” is a separate personality, cut off from Unconditional Happiness. This is that little problem of Self forgetting we talked about earlier. Attention is now so bound up in the discomfort of this newly believed separateness that Consciousness forgets to notice it just modified itself to something a tad more defined than Infinity and although things are now looking a bit different, Its real nature and state has not changed. This forgetting translates to: “Holy shit! I am a me and I am quite finite and alone. This is not good because I am now certain there is a someone who can get snuffed out at any moment and believe you me, this is frightening. This is stress full stuff”.
Who the “me” is having this experience of reactions piled upon reactions never seems to get questioned. This is a prime example of starting things off on the wrong foot.
The good news is that it really isn’t true, there isn’t an individual “me” just because suddenly there is awareness of something amidst many other things that now seem a little more solid. It is ( you are) the same undifferentiated Consciousness, that was there before all this silly spontaneity stuff happened. But hey, that is what amnesia is all about. In this case you might call it “Spiritual Amnesia”. A really, really serious case of amnesia. That’s the bad news.
The good news is the intuition of what it feels like to not be separate, to be Unconditionally Happy and Undifferentiated, remains. It may be forgotten but it can’t go away, because after all, it is “The State”. Therefore we do not suffer total amnesia. This is called Grace. The bad news is that as long as that unconscious re-action of assuming and actively feeling convicted of persona remains unconscious, it effectively binds attention and although you may intuit, you won’t fully recognize your true state coming fully forward to reestablish itself. However, the good news is that one can become aware of and responsible for that reaction. Amnesia can be forgotten. The bad news is this is incredibly difficult. The good news is it doesn’t matter. In the ultimate sense it just a matter of time. An inconceivably long amount of time actually, but who’s counting. Some people want to engage a little spiritual practice to speed things up. Some don’t.
In the meantime, people tend to get a little testy when told that they as an individual persona don’t really exist, so I would watch it. Don’t drop this bombshell on your fellow shoppers at Whole Foods while sharing space in the check out line.
But do go ahead and consider it. It is not hard to witness just how much trouble indiscriminate self-protection can and has gotten us into. In order to do my bit and help you with those first few baby steps on the road to becoming more aware of a severely deep unconscious reactivity, here is a small pamphlet you might find useful. I call it “The Consumers Guide to Compassionate Living with Someone Who Really Isn’t There”. It’s just a few sentences. Not really a pamphlet, I guess. But it’s easier to market if it’s called a pamphlet, so………
1) Breath is your friend. You may want to get to know it. Try to take more than three deep, conscious breathes a day. It doesn’t cost any more than you’ve already paid.
2) Once you have become aware of your breath, notice this very important thing: you are not guaranteed another one. That space in between two breaths can suddenly be a very long time. This kicks up the appreciation factor of the moment quite a lot. You don’t tend to sweat the small stuff as much.
3) The feeling heart is a just as much a muscle as the physical one and it must be exercised regularly. Exercises will vary from person to person but the key point to remember here is that vulnerability is not a bad thing.
4) Discipline helps offend the illusory self in a useful way.
5) Too much thinking makes you constipated.
6) Cut yourself some slack from time to time. This confuses the illusory self.
7) While you’re at it, have some compassion for the person next to you. They inhabit the same amnesia ward as you.
8) It is okay not to be in control.
9) All this can change without prior notification to the consumer. Be fluid and give things away regularly.
10) A little free attention goes a long way.
Thanks for taking some LIP from me,
Bruce
Pau Hana. I love the phrase. It is Hawaiian for ” End of the work day”, “Time for enjoyment”, “Work is done, now relax”.
It is the transitional time. The day’s labor is done. The work environment, be it physical or psychic, is washed off. It is not quite yet nighttime. What do you do? Meditate? Serve your family? Take a stroll in the soft light? Have a glass of vino? Cuddle up to your intimate partner? Yoga? Read? Gym? Puja? Listen to music? Play music?
Pau Hana. It is a nourishing time. Drink deep.
Pau Hana,
Bruce
Bodie, Ca. Elevation 8400 ft.
Remember the HBO series “Deadwood “? That would be a good fit for the high altitude mining town of Bodie. Bodie is an island in a sagebrush ocean, six miles or so south of Bridgeport, Ca. and thirteen miles in from US 395. On your right as you head down 395 you see the Sierra Nevada Range- snow, peaks, cliffs and canyons, willows, aspens, pine trees, waterfalls, roaring creeks filled with trout. Take a left at the Bodie junction and you get…….sagebrush. And sagebrush. And more sagebrush. No trees in this very dry land. Oh there are a few stands of hearty aspens within a mile or so the town, but this is a vast and lonely place without a lot of shade.
If Bodie is an island in the midst of an ocean, than gold ( or better put, the greed for gold) was its anchor. Gold was discovered here in 1859 and the town hit its heyday in 1880. At that time it had a population approaching ten thousand and was 95% larger than the current photo you see above and below.
There were several fires during the life of Bodie which is one reason so little remains. But what remains is unique. In 1963 it became a state park which served to preserve Bodie and its contents from the looters and souvenir hunters that had plagued the town prior to that.
Located at such a high elevation and with the roads into the area being brutal washboards, it is not surprising that when people left they took the minimum. The general store, the hotel, the mortuary, these buildings and others had an abundance of left behind items that made up the necessities of life in Bodie.
Inside the general store, and a few of the other buildings, the rangers have set things up that were in storage, giving the spaces more of a feeling of how it looked day-to-day back in the day. Likewise with some of the large mining equipment. Some were moved for display sake. But believe me, nothing was imported.
Looking through the window of the general store.
Inside the Bodie Hotel
Though Bodie is a state park, it is still neighbored by private property. Much of it belonging to modern-day mining companies. And that is how I came to spend several years living there in the mid 1970’s. I grew up in Southern Arizona. Douglas, Arizona to be exact, which was a Phelps Dodge Mining Corporation company town. There was a large copper smelter there that processed the ore from the Lavender Pit copper mine in Bisbee, 23 miles away. Also situated in Douglas was Western Exploration, the geological and geophysical exploration center for Phelps Dodge. I knew people at Western Exploration, so when it came time for summer jobs I started working around there just after high school. After several summers of work they realized I didn’t screw up too regularly and asked me if I wanted to work seasonally as an assistant geologist. I thought about it for a couple of seconds and said yes. And off to the field office in Reno before moving a 23 foot travel trailer onto the hill above Bodie State Park. Phelps Dodge wanted to do some exploration drilling to see if there was enough gold content to warrant any further development. There wasn’t at the time, you can all breathe a sigh of relief. But it did provide me with a great job from May to October for two years in a row. There were also claims to be walked and maintained, samples to take from the drilling, assay materials to be processed and logged and a lot of beer to drink.
We got along well with the park rangers and the Conservation Corp. volunteers who worked in Bodie Park for the summer, helping to keep the town in a state of “arrested decay”. In other words, they wouldn’t allow anything to deteriorate further but would not improve on anything either.
The Standard Mill
We were a cast of characters for sure. A bunch of practical jokers, all fairly young and rambunctious, living twenty miles from Bridgeport in the middle of nowhere. The head ranger at that time was an ex serviceman by the name of Mike O’Rourke. He looked a lot like Abe Lincoln, tall and lanky. Mike sure knew his way around a case of Keystone I must admit. And he had a great way of keeping the looters out who from time to time would attempt to come into Bodie at night looking for artifacts to take home. He had wired loud speakers around the town which enabled him to tell someone to not go where they were headed for their own safety. At night when the park was closed, after the third or fourth beer he would break out the sound effects record. Sounds of “ghost locomotives” charging through the empty darkened streets of Bodie would reverberate off the surrounding hills. Coyotes would start howiling ( I believe that was track 3 on the other side of the album) followed by several discharged rounds of ammo from Mr. O’ Rourke’s service revolver. At that time people were allowed to camp just outside the park. They got the quick idea it was not wise to even consider entering the park after sunset. There were shenanigans from us all, each one trying to outdo the other and I shall refrain from great detail even though some statute of limitation must have passed by now. But let me say you haven’t lived to you see just how high a fifty gallon drum can fly when placed over a lit stick of dynamite.
For us miners, work was ten days on and four days off . It was a great schedule because it allowed ample time to take off packing in the marvelous close-by backcountry. Burro Pass, Matterhorn Peak, Green Creek, Virginia Canyon, all so inviting.
View of the Sierras looking west from one of the three roads that come and go from Bodie.
We were fortunate to have Bobbie Bell come visit from time to time. Bobby grew up in Bodie when it was still populated later in its life. Evenings were spent listening to him pass on some oral history. One of my favorite stories was when he woke up on his day off from working at the Standard Mill. He sat bolt upright from his sleep, awakened by the unbelievably loud sound of quiet. The mill had developed mechanical problems and had suddenly shut down. Otherwise it was a constant source of noise. Another tidbit was how the mining companies would take a Model T Ford underground into the mines, piece by piece and rebuild it so it could be driven from level to level in the tunnels. Bobbie also mentioned that when the Standard Mill burned down (before his time) in 1898 they recovered enough gold dust from underneath the shaker tables to rebuild the mill out of pocket.
Many people come through Bodie. While walking around I caught snippets of conversation in French, Japanese, and German. Cameras abound. The air is crisp. You halfway expect John Wayne or Clint Eastwood to stroll up to you and ask you if you’re enjoying your visit. I can just imaging John Wayne speaking German.
If you get a chance, take the trip. There’s gold in them thar hills.
Thanks for taking some LIP from me,
Bruce
P.S. Click on any of the photos to enlarge.
The old Methodist Church
Park Ranger’s residence. The old J.S Cain house.
Firehouse
What’s left of the bank.
Bruce Czopek 