What thrilling heroics

     No time for incredulity, the seconds are ticking away and the space pirates are closing in. My converted freighter has broken out of the atmosphere, but must achieve light speed in 60 seconds, that’s how long before the enemy ship will intercept. The passengers are counting on me. Escape is their only hope. Already, a shot from the pirate's directed energy weapon has damaged my ship, and that’s why I’m crawling along the outside of it wearing magnetic grips on my hands and feet.

     The ship’s hull shudders, a result of the damage and I hold my breath inside the space helmet, but the grips hold and I keep moving. The pirate ship, closer now, fires another energy bolt that lights everything around me. Even though it misses, the proximity of the flash darkens my visor momentarily. I hate not seeing where I’m going, but creep along anyway, the seconds are ticking.

     Finally, I reach the primary buffer panel, rattling loose from the enemy fire. Only a quick fix for now, I begin to bolt it back down. The visor goes dark again as a directed energy bolt hits the ship. The deflector shields absorb the blast, but for just a moment, my magnetic grips lose touch. I grab at the loose panel and feel my body tossed up and then slam back into the ship. Pain stings up my left leg, but I keep up the repair until the panel is fixed.

          It takes four rivets to secure it, but I feel the ship stop shuddering. I make my way back. As soon as I’m in, I throw the lever that closes the airlock. When the door clicks and the air begins to fill the chamber, I feel the ship accelerate to light speed. I’ve done it, the orphans are safe. I feel something else too, my foot is injured from being tossed around out there. Well, at least it was for the greater good.

     At least that’s what I’d like to say when people ask me what I did to my foot.

     Waiting at the Grand Canyon for the train to take us back to Williams, a little boy looked at me with amazement and concern as I walked by on my crutches. “What happened?” he asked.

     I did not want to tell him that I had been hanging my foot out of a golf cart, like I did every day, when I drove up against a fence post, unnaturally pointing my foot down, spraining it. So I just told the boy, “I wasn’t being careful.”

His mom seemed to like that answer, she looked at her son, the dad too, with a look of “you see what can happen?”

     So I did the vacation on crutches and I managed. At meals, my family would help me with my food. Most places we went had ramps and the steps weren’t too difficult. There were limitations. Doors were sometimes a challenge, heavy restroom doors especially. And on the train ride, I didn’t try to get up and move around. I still enjoyed it all.

     And I enjoyed the vacation too. It was everything I hoped it would be. And I was really just hoping for one thing, that it would be a good time with the family.

     I used to abhor the idea of settling down with a family. I thought I was destined to be a free spirit, out on the road in a retrofitted muscle car like Mad Max, or better still, out in space executing some thrilling heroics. I dreaded the thought of domestication and a mini-van.

     But all of that changed when I actually became a husband and father. And last week, we as a family took a righteous road trip, saw The Grand Canyon, Route 66, Meteor Crater and The Petrified Forrest. We drove through Winslow, Arizona where I stood on the corner. We took a scenic drive down through Sedona and went through the town where I lived as a young kid.

     Friday night I drove from Phoenix to Yucaipa with only one stop. It was about a 5 hour drive and I loved it. There were no space pirates in pursuit. My passengers were my family and it was interstate 10, not hyperspace. But it was better.

     Even though I wish that I had sprained my foot in a less embarrassing way, or better still, not sprained it at all, I can live with the injury knowing that the thrilling space heroics are nothing compared to what last week really was. Like I said, it was what I hoped it would be, a time that will create memories that last a lifetime. The family together in a van, a hotel suite, a lookout point, or gathered together for a photo. All of that was better than any fiction I could ever compose. Reality, sprained foot and all, at its best.

Back in the Saddle

     Climbing the hill, I sat behind the wheel and pondered with amazement everything that had happened over the past three quarters of a year. It was well into August. And I looked back with clarity over the past nine months.

In mid-October of last year I was short way into a much-anticipated road trip, or what I like to call, a sabbatical. I had spent a long time planning and even longer looking forward to this getaway. I had not been able to take a sabbatical the year before. I was aching for this. Looking forward to it strengthened me.

I packed up my truck the day before but had been planning for weeks. I had my route planned as well as a menu of what I would cook for myself. I even had a book I was going to read. And I also planned on spending a lot of my time at my campsite planning the novel I wanted to write for National Novel Writing Month. I was going to sit at a little picnic table and write in a spiral notebook. There would be mojo there. The campsite is only accessible to four-wheel drive vehicles and closes in the winter. The air conditioning in my truck doesn’t work so I planned the trip to be just a few weeks before the campsite closed.

After getting gas at the Costco in Victorville I headed up Highway 395 going north towards Ridgecrest. Less than 40 miles from Victorville the rear differential on my truck began to grind itself up. I got to the side of the road and saw smoke curling off of the rear end. My road trip was over.

Broken down on the side of Highway 395

The truck being loaded on along with my camping gear... and hopes for a sabbatical

Ready to unload at my house where it will sit for 9 months.

I had the truck towed home and tried not to wallow too hard in misery. I was going to skip blogging the next day but then went ahead and wrote what happened. It took months for me to even get up the courage to try to diagnose exactly what was wrong with it. I don’t know what held me back from trying to get it fixed. I don’t know if I was afraid of it being broken beyond repair or if I felt so miserable that I began to have self-esteem issues and thought I ought to never get it fixed and just be miserable.

I finally pulled myself together and had the truck towed to my mechanic. He diagnosed the problem and told me I would need a new gear assembly for my rear differential and he told me about a wrecking yard to get in touch with. All this initiative was exhausting. But I managed to contact Liberty Auto Dismantlers and play email tag with them regarding exactly what kind of drop-out I needed. I ended up taking them the old part. In less than a week they had my replacement. I took it right to my mechanic. The part was about the size of a human head and weighed about 70 pounds.

Last Thursday I was feeling sorry for myself again because I wanted to meet my friend for coffee like we try to every Thursday. Prajna and I have managed to get along with only one car most of the time. But now there was a scheduling snag and rather than try to solve it I contacted my friend and told him never mind.

I don’t know if I enjoy sulking or not. It kind of seems that way.

Then a few minutes after noon, my mechanic called me. The truck was ready. I felt giddy. I didn’t care that I needed to be a work in less than an hour. Prajna was happy to drive me to the shop. I got the keys and thanked my mechanic several times.

I wondered for a moment if I would remember how to drive a manual transmission. I did. I took the truck across the street and hosed it down. I ejected the Mark Knopfler CD of calm guitar-driven music that I had been listening to when I heard the sound of my differential failing. I put in one of my old favorites, Born in the USA. Then I headed home the back way. It still had a full tank of gas. As I drove I reflected on everything that happened over the past nine months.

I had taken the spiral notebook to Starbucks one Sunday afternoon shortly after the breakdown. I had planned my and then went on to an epic win at National Novel Writing Month. I had celebrated my 20^th anniversary and turned 46 years old. I had gotten my thumb snapped in a rat trap. I had started writing my memoir and made a few significant choices in life. I had learned I would be an uncle again. A lot had happened without me driving my truck anywhere. 

I stopped at the top of the hill and took one picture to post on Facebook. 

 With the caption "I'm back." I left it up to others to decide if that was the truck saying it or me.

That Thursday was the first time I had driven my truck with eyeglasses. I took it gently over the hill, all the while breathing sighs of relief. It perhaps felt like a bitter thirst had been slaked, but that’s too bombastic. Because while I did feel like a part of me that had been missing was finally back, I couldn’t help the other feeling I had. Reflecting on all that had happened without my truck, I realized that a lot of good stuff happened. The mojo I thought would be at the campsite had been with me all along. I didn’t have to click my heals together. I just had to act on the desire to work hard at something. It was there when I planned out my November novel and it waited on me until I finally took some initiative and got the truck fixed. I don’t know why I waited so long.

So if there is another catastrophic failure, worse than the last, of course I will be disappointed and upset, especially if I don’t get a chance for a sabbatical. But it won’t be the end of the world. I proved to myself that I can manage without it. I also showed myself that if I want to accomplish something I can’t wait for the wind to blow everything into place.

I am thinking about taking the road trip that I wanted to take again this coming October. I want to take the same route I had planned the previous year and sit up at Mahogany Flats and write outlines and character descriptions. And here is the odd thing I realized. I am looking forward to National Novel Writing Month more than the Sabbatical. Planning out my Novel will combine the two though. Pretty soon it may turn into all I think about. And it will be a good thing to meditate on after months of blogging aboutloss.

Like in life, sometimes one just has to get their own rear-end in gear.

Glorious Noise Going Nowhere

     My broken Toyota pickup truck has been sitting in our yard for over half a year. I see it each day and think, my poor truck. It’s not my truck that’s feeling bad at all through. It’s just a motor vehicle with no feelings. Pathetically sitting there, covered with cobwebs and leaves that shows blatant age and stagnation, it’s going no-where and has no reason to go anywhere anyway. When I think how sad the truck looks, I might be thinking of myself. I feel like I’m just sitting still doing little more than whining.

     I haven’t exactly had a stagnant past 7 months. It’s only lately that I’ve felt burned out, like a car running on vapors sputtering and coasting. It has started to show in my blog. If you read last week’s lame entry, you know.

     And I just think, if only my truck was working… if I could just get out on the road in it, everything would be alright. I’ve been feeling bugged, burned out and bilious for awhile now, not all the time, but more frequently and for no apparent reason. I keep thinking that it’s because I need a sabbatical. That’s when I wish my truck was working. If only…

     I reminds me of a story where the prevailing thought was “If only the car was working” and “I just can’t wait until that car is done and then…”

     Back in 1985 my good friend Eddie had a car in the works. Works, meaning it was having a lot of restoration and body work done. It was supposed to be a stock 1967 Mustang Fastback. But the bored out 302 motor replaced the stock 289. It was rumored to have a limited slip differential too, not stock. Eddie and I dreamed of the day the car would finally be done. What frustrated us was how the shops doing bodywork and paint seemed to be taking their time.

Eddie had a road nemesis named Martin with a blue Dodge Dart. Martin provoked Eddie with his own souped-up hot rod acting like he was king of the road. We knew the Mustang would blow the doors off of anything existing on the road. Whenever I saw Martin in his Dodge all I could do was think, if only that car was working. And the months went by.

The summer of ’85 was young. The whole summer was. I was at the beach with a group of friends one morning. Then one friend’s eyes widened and he pointed. Pulling up in the parking lot was a dark metallic red 1967 Mustang Fastback. The engine sounded like artillery. Eddie was usually as cool as the other side of the pillow. Today was no exception as he casually stepped out.

We all were at the car in moments. The car’s vanity place said: 1Trick. Eddie drove me around the parking lot playing George Thorogood’s Bad to the Bone. The inside of the car was clean and white. There were turn signal indicators in the reverse-facing hood scoops. Built in a year before they were the law, it had no seat belts.

Eddie let me out and took two girls for a ride. I followed in my dad’s Mazda sedan. At a shopping center parking lot, Eddie got out and I saw one of the girls bounce into the driver’s seat. They tooled around the parking lot and then headed out toward the avenue.

The universe, time, and space did a magic twitch of the hand at that moment and things came together. Looking right at the stop sign, I saw Martin in his blue Dodge. My first thought came automatically. I wish Eddie had his Mustang… Then like a hard dope-slap to the back of my head, the next thought came. Eddie does have his Mustang.

Eddie saw Martin too. His head was out the passenger window and he was calling Martin’s name in a long noise like a roaring volcano. Martin gunned the Dodge engine, answering the challenge.

No-one got out of Eddie’s car. The girls both tumbled backwards into the rear seat and Eddie dove into the driver’s seat. The One Trick vanished after him in a cloud of tire smoke. I figured they were headed to an empty stretch of highway to officially have it out. I didn’t bother to try to follow.

The center of our universe back then was the Ihop, so we waited there. Eddie pulled up in the Mustang a little later. The girls were quiet and dazed and went to the ladies room. Eddie sat and filled his coffee cup.

“Did you win?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Eddie didn’t sound that thrilled. He wasn’t being his usual cool self either. He looked a little disappointed.

I asked for details. In the cool of the restaurant, Eddie said that he had beat Martin in the race, but probably not in a quarter-mile. He had burned out for too long and the Dodge had gotten ahead. Posi-Track or not, he must have floored it right away and just sat there making smoke. Eddie eventually moved forward and got past the Dodge, but if it had been on a regulation track, it probably wouldn’t have been soon enough.

The excitement leading up the events may have been better than the actual thing. The best part of it all for me was the slap of realization that Eddie did in fact have the Mustang.  And in the years following, it made a great story to tell. I can still hear the sound of Martin revving the Mopar motor being drowned out by Eddie’s battle call. 

The bored 302 with chrome accessories

My lower half posing at the rear of the 1 Trick 

So here I am today, thinking that all could be made right if only this little pickup truck would move. I still don’t know if it’s the differential or a U-joint. One of the tough things about this is that the truck is not an essential in my life. I can’t justify an expensive repair for it if I can take the family van places.

But even broken, the truck has helped me a least this time to recall an awesome story to share and a truth to reflect upon. If I spin my wheels in exhibition and noise, I won’t move forward. Time to quit whining about the truck being broken and move on.

Prince of the Road

     I had the opportunity to be if not a king, a prince. It’s okay, I let it pass on. I thought about it last week. I rode from church to a discovery museum in a school bus last Wednesday. I’m almost never a passenger on long trips. This time I was ¾ the way back in a big yellow bus with my own window. The kids mostly kept themselves entertained. I got to look out at the road. I was just about the same height as the truckers and RV’s. I sat and watched and tried to not feel jealous. 

Interstate 10 in Cabazon. The T-Rex is about a quarter way in from the right.

     We didn’t have long-haul trucks in Hawaii. There were trucks, but none of them had sleeper-cabs. I don’t know how it is now, but we didn’t have RV’s either. You might see an occasional camper in Hawaii, but not the massive land-yachts one sees on the freeways every day here in California and probably the rest of the U.S. Mainland.

     The freeway and road system was a little overwhelming to me after growing up on an island with just two-lane highways. At my last visit there I got to see many more four-lane roads. And Oahu has freeways. But to me, there’s something awesome about a wide stretch of freeway blazing through the great expanses of mostly empty land. The road is full of cars, trucks, RV’s and railroad tracks alongside. Billboards (never in Hawaii) announce the next place to eat or sleep as if it’s one’s last chance.

     It’s a road culture. Sitting near the back of the school bus I kind of wished I was out there. I thought back over 20 years ago when I was working at the radio station. The news man read a job announcement as a feature story, not part of the regular news. There were drivers needed on the mainland for people to deliver RV’s. The job would have meant driving RV’s either from one dealer to another or from the factory to a dealer. They were too large to fit on a carrier truck and needed to be delivered one at a time. The driver was only supposed to drive them and could not use any of the facilities like the kitchen, bathroom or even sleep in the beds. I loved the idea. The job could involve driving all over the country. I would be a bohemian with a backpack and sleeping bag. I could eat at roadside diners, sleep on the floor of the RV or pitch a small tent in a campground or even once in a while splurge on a room at Motel 6. I had fallen in love with the idea of driving across the country and even as a younger kid had wanted to be a trucker after watching TV and movies that glorified the American trucker. They were the last real cowboys, the kings of the road. Driving one of these luxury behemoths could at least qualify me as a prince of the road, right?

     I passed over the job, never followed up on it. I don’t remember why. Maybe a well-meaning friend told me how lousy it could also be. Long distance drivers have to deal with traffic, deadlines, hemorrhoids and boredom.  I thought I could handle the boredom, but not all the other stuff.

     So yesterday I took a comparatively short road trip from my home to Orange County to see my niece perform in a stage play. Our 8 year-old Chrysler mini-van is still a dream to operate. But I miss my truck. I enjoyed the drive. And what’s really nice is I enjoyed returning to place I can call home that has no wheels. I can entertain the romantic notion that the road still calls to me. I have a road trip planned for when/if I ever get my truck fixed. But I think the anticipation and idea of that may be actually better than the trip will ever be. I still can entertain the notions, and they entertain me. And I drive an electric golf cart to work each day.