Cultivate and Harvest: January 2009

My Momma always used t'say I was rough on things. And after awhile, my Daddy started saying the same thing. They called me by my middle name, and said “Dudley, you’re rough on things!” Well, I was a very energetic little boy. Things had a tendency to break around me.

I grew up on a dairy farm in South-central Virginia. I lived in a house built in the middle of what used to be a big pig pen. “Hogs,” they called ’em back then. When pigs got big they called ’em hogs. “Hawgs.” You could even see the straight line of trees where the old woven wire fence used to run to keep the hogs in the pen. Otherwise it was all green grass, daffodils, shade trees, pansies, irises, and vegetable gardens. It grossed me out a few years later, though, when I got my hands on a couple of Daddy's college textbooks on parasitic worms and other nauseating diseases. The books showed the most graphic and horrible pictures, and I found them quite fascinating - until I realized I lived inside of an old pig pen.

My house back then was small. I could run from one end to the other, and often did. The front door opened from a small, cozy front porch into the living room on the almost-east side of the house. That flowed through a big wide walk-through into a dining room, which opened into the kitchen, which opened onto an enclosed back porch where the washing machine was. All the bedrooms, closets, bathroom, and the den were on the sorta-west side of the house. I could run all the way from the front door to the back door and back again. The full length of the house. As hard as I could. Fast!

Drove my Momma crazy. “Dudley,” she would yell, “Stop slamming the front door! Either go out and play or stay inside.”

“OK!” I shouted and deciding to stay inside, charged through the house as fast as I could, my little feet drumming across the floors. And that drove my Momma crazy, too.

“Dudley!” she scolded again. “Stop running in the house! Go outside and run.”

Oh, boy, but I was having too much fun.

The back door was all glass, one huge pane of glass set in a cheap aluminum frame. There was no outside back porch. Years later my father would add on to the house here and our house expanded several sizes. Now, however, the back door opened onto a long, steep flight of concrete steps. My mother had planted little shrubs ringed by flowers on both sides. On the right side of the cliff-like steps, right as you go out of the house down the steps, was a huge oval cylinder shaped tank for heating oil. A round, metal-ridged faucet handle on a spout controlled the flow of heating oil through a copper tube that fed into the furnace hidden in the crawlspace. The oil tank was mounted high up on a four-legged metal frame, high enough so an adult could stand on the steep steps and crank the faucet. Wedged between the tank/frame and the steps was a mangy old boxwood bush. Another bush sprouted on the other side of the oil tank, too. I would play in there under the oil tank a lot with my friends and siblings. We pretended to fly in a space ship, prowl in a submarine, zoom around in a UFO, or drive an army tank into battle, command a giant robot.

One time when I was a small boy I got to roughhousing around on those steps, fell, and crashed into the boxwood bush. On the way down I slammed my face on the hard, metal handle. Hung my eyebrow on the rim of it. The round, sharp-rimmed handle tore a gash right through the chunk of flesh and muscle and hair that composed my eyebrow. A flap of hairy skin hung over my eye. Blood poured everywhere and began to thicken. I bet I killed quite a few Demodex parasitic eyebrow mites, too. Parasites are fascinating little buggas…hate ’em too.

I was stunned, but Momma freaked. And that is all I remember. I don’t recall if it got stitched up, but I think I got another tetanus shot. I still have a scar faintly visible inside the hair of my eyebrows. I wonder if Demodex mites can burrow into scar tissue.

It just made my mother more determined than ever to stop my running and horsin’ around. Except there wasn’t much if any good training back then in how to be an effective parent, so yelling and spankings from a stand of angry love was what I got. And I kept charging pell mell through the house.

One day, I think it was a chilly spring day; I started racing myself from the front door.

“Slow down!” Momma yelled.

I ran faster.

“Stop that running!” Momma shouted.

I ran even faster!

"I SAID STOP THAT RUNNING!"

I raced through the house so fast I couldn’t even stop. I slammed into the glass door.

CRASH! And glass exploded. The back door shattered. And I fell forward and tumbled down the steps into the yard.

Momma screamed. Now she came running.

"DUDLEY!" she screamed again as screams turned into mad shrieks and angry, mile-a-minute babble.

I got up and stood there at the bottom of the steps in an altered state. All around me lay a sea of broken glass glittering dark and dirty in the sunshine and dirt. When my little boy body smashed into the big glass pane of the back door the glass burst outwards. Shards of glass covered the steps, the boxwood bushes, the flowers, and lay strewn far out into the yard. It was amazing.

And I knew I had to be dead.

To my amazement I still breathed. I looked down. I’m hard-of-hearing in both ears but I could still hear my mother scream. There was an ocean of bright red blood everywhere…but there wasn’t. I felt my face, patted my self all over, and stood there in some kind of mystical daze. There weren’t any marks on me at all. Not a single scratch. No blood at all. Wow! I had blasted through a pane of glass, broke a door, and fell down concrete steps over glass. And it wasn’t safety glass either, but the deadly, old-fashioned kind.

Daddy came running down the path from the cow barn. He’d heard Momma’s piercing scream all the way up there. His eyes got real big when he saw me standing in the yard with all that busted up glass scattered across the grass. The broken door hung open toward the oil tank.

My parents quickly checked me over to make sure I was all right. I had all my eyeballs. No arteries gashed. No slivers embedded in my liver. It was a miracle. A miracle from God. Some guardian angel was watching over me, and I bet I kept him or her pretty darn busy. Nor did I get into trouble. My parents were quite upset about the broken door, and all that glass had to be picked up, and it was. They were just grateful I was still alive. I really could have been dead.

“You could’ve cut your damn fool head off!” Daddy said.

No one understood how I tumbled down the steps over all the glass and landed in the yard with barely even a bruise. Word of this miracle got around the neighborhood. Folks would come visit me and just marvel. And they all warned me to be careful, too, as they nodded their heads.

Divine intervention or just plain luck, it proved to be one of a number of close calls I got myself into. Sometimes I gaze up into space, at nothing in particular, and go “Thank you, O Guardian Angel!”

The sharp edge of death brings clarity to life.

William Dudley Bass
January 29, 2009
Seattle, Washington

Labels: Tales of Childhood

Our Blended Family Bike Excursion on the "Iron Horsie Trail"

Well, guys 'n' gals, we pulled it off. Sort of. Originally Kristina & I planned a 3-day family bike ride with all 3 kids along 40+ miles of the John Wayne Pioneer Trail thru Iron Horse State Park in the Cascade Mountains, carrying all our gear & camping along the way. We were unable to work out the logistics to our satisfaction, however, as we didn't want to take 2 cars. So we turned it into a different sort of trip and just took off in early-mid August 2006. By then all the campgrounds were full. We whimsically drove up winding National Forest Service roads, passed an old man living out of a rusty car who tied plastic bags up in the bushes, and wild-camped near the top of Amabilis Mountain. Arid conditions and clear skies greeted us. Big, wide-open skies. The milky way seemed to cleave the heavens in half like some incandescent sword. A meteor shower was in progress. Several spectacular shooting stars and flurries of little ones blazed across the night skies. Friday night there we slept.

The next day we parked the car at the Hyak trailhead for what we preferred to call the "Iron Horsie Trail." Got a late start, common with camping with kids, biking away after lunch at 1:00. I hauled Talia on an Adams Trail-a-Bike with a little gear. Kristina pedaled with fully loaded rear panniers, trying not to do wheelies, and Morgan & Kate each had their own geared bikes.

Each kid was different. Morgan, age 12, is quite the speedy beedy, yet graceful and goes with the flow. For her endurance is grace. She's a lot like me with a weird, goofy sense of humor. Kate, almost 8, however, is intense and frenetic. For her everything is like downhill skiing at full tilt. She tore thru the gravel, crashed off the trail, spun up the banks, and flew over the handlebars. We had to doctor her hands a couple of times. At first she didn't want to bike. Refused to go. Then we couldn't stop her. Go, Kate, go! Then she got tired. Then she blasted ahead.

Morgan just kept sailing along. Giggling. On the Trail-a-Bike 4 year old Talia just hunkered down and gripped the bars. Pedal, Talia! Her little legs would just spin and pump. Or she'd sit and coast. Or stand up in the pedals sticking out her tongue. I went kinda slow, afraid I'd bump her off. No bloody owies wanted here, especially with Von Willebrand's, a bleeding disorder. The trail was fairly level, being a former railroad converted to trail, yet a mix of hard dirt, rocks, gravel, sticks, potholes, horse poop, and dead garter snakes. Talia took in the scenery, a contemplative Buddha in a pink helmet, and then yelled out, "Go faster, Daddy, go faster! Let's go!" So away we went. I was impressed how well she rode.

That first day we did 19 miles. It was a gentle downhill east all the way to the Yakima River for 18 miles with an extra mile into Lake Easton State Park to the swimming beach. It was beautiful. We cruised along side Lake Keechelus and stumps evocative of the Land of Mordor from Lord of the Rings and peed in the bushes. We pumped water from creeks thru a filter to drink, and shot thru a short, fun tunnel in Stampede Pass, over numerous little bridges, a couple of big ones, and watch Kristina almost loose it on the bridge across Cabin Creek. She skidded in loose gravel right into the curb, the one bridge where there was no railing, and for a horrifying moment it seemed she might flip herself off the lip where the rocky stream lay 30-40 feet below.

"It was nothing," she turned and grinned. Right.

"Don't die yet, Mommy," Talia lectured firmly. "I need you for a little while."

We rolled down to follow the course of the Yakima River as it cleaved through the mountains toward the desert. The Iron Horsie Trail kept going toward Cle Elum and then on through the Washington Desert, crossing the mighty Columbia on the way to Spokane in the far eastern part of the state. We peeled off onto a dirt road, however, and pedaled about a mile into Lake Easton State Park.

The children were magnificent. And pooped. They were rewarded with a cool swim in Lake Easton. Meanwhile, ol' Daddy William got back on his bike and churned 19 miles back to the car. Actually, it was one of my favorite parts of the trip. It was getting late, the sun was starting to drop, and I blasted hard, relishing the workout. I loved that high, lonesome feelin'. It took me just over an hour and a half to go uphill that took us all 4 and a half hours to go downhill.

To celebrate we piled into the minivan and drove into Easton for food. We pigged out at the little cafe there. Next door was the most raucus bar I've heard in years. Lots of hootin' and hollarin' by middle-aged drunk White folks. "Yeehaw! Hot dayum! Gimme anotha!"

Back up to the high ramparts of Amabilis Mountain. No tents this time. We slept under the stars and fell asleep to a magnificent celestial display. Kate was scared of the dark and wanted to sleep in the minivan, but she came out and snuggled down and overcame her fear. No psychos with medieval weapons appeared to chase us. Our foul, rank breaths scared away bears, cougars, wild dogs, and mosquitoes. And we woke to a beautiful sunrise and condensation upon our sleeping bags. On the dusty drive back down the gleaming white crown of Mt. Rainier loomed majestic over the far ridges.

Our second day found us back at the Hyak trailhead. It's midway on this Iron Horsie bike ride. We really made this trip easy for the kids. It's all downhill both ways both days. Today we shoot for 20 miles.

At noon we left the parking lot and headed for the notorious Snoqualmie Tunnel, just under 2 and a half miles long. Cold, frigid air blasted us as we approached, but we were prepared.

"I'm freezing!" Talia shouted.

So we all bundled up and turned on headlamps and bike lights. We entered the cold, black hallway looking for dragons to slay. But only water splattered all over us from springs raining down thru holes in the walls and ceilings. It was so cool. We had concerns about not having enough light, but we had plenty of light. A few people, mostly ratty-looking young men, even dared to bike it without any lights at all. Half-way thru Kate's bike dug into the gravel and crashed. Her tire was completely flat.

"It was getting like that all day yesterday," she whined.

No wonder she had such a hard time cycling. I tried to pump the tire. Nothing. For a long time I couldn't get any dang air in there until I noticed I had forgotten to lock the hand pump upon the stem. My rusty ol' brain bucket. It's been too long since I've last done this. We pumped the tire up tight by headlight and rode out. Morgan was waiting for us. She had blasted through in 15 minutes! But Kate's tire was flat again by the time we exited, and Morgan's valve stem had slipped too far down inside her rim. Good thing I brought my bike repair kit, as Kristina forgot hers. I just couldn't remember all the steps to fix a simple flat as it's been a while. I found a little creek and held the tire down under water as Kate and Talia watched for bubbles.

"You're supposed to let the glue dry first," Kristina laconically informed me upon reading the instructions on how to fix a flippin' flat. I'd gotten ahead of myself here and thought I was done after blowing bubbles in the creek to find the puncture but the patch slid off. I just nodded and mumbled and fiddled with my tools. Felt like a man to just hold a pair of pliers in my hand. Dang. Finally repaired the tires on both bikes. Kate's had a thorn embedded in hers.

A whole gaggle of raggedy, peirced young men rolled out the tunnel. No lights. They resembled a strange hybrid between hillybilly rednecks and gothic punks and were quite proud of coming through unilluminated.

"Daddy, where are all the bats?" Kate asked.

"Right there," I nodded at the lads pedalling with metal rings swinging from their snouts. One guy had an unusually large hatchet bungie corded to a humongous sleeping bag. Another had a battered external frame pack sticking way up over his head. At least they were happy. And who was I to talk. It's been 3 days since I've bathed.

We blasted down the mountain. It was steeper than the other side. "Dylan and his class did this uphill!" I shouted, referring to a 5 year old boy we knew. We rolled over magnificent trestles that soared over deep gorges and along rims of cliffs. The cliffside drives scared Kate, who was soon so distracted by a group of rock climbers that she almost ran off one cliff. The freeway roared in and out of view and sound. Far below we could see people playing in the river before it dove into a gorge. We rolled through beautiful green tunnels of emerald sunshine. Over one high trestle after another. Peeing along the way. Played with the digital camera. Well, we didn't take pictures of that.

I was very aware how my love handles bounced like hula hoops around my pelvis."Hey, Kristina, lookit my shuga belly!" I shouted. Hers danced around, too. Oh, we were so proud how much we squeezed into our tight little blue stretch outfits. We did get some pictures of those. Terribly embarrassing. Made my belly look like a big, blue pumpkin.

At the end, about five hours later, we rolled into Rattlesnake Lake. We had somehow put an extra mile on as we went to the end of the trail, doubled back, and then zigzagged thru the Park. We rolled right to the beach where Gwen, our shuttle driver, awaited us. Thank you, Gwen! Ex-spouses sure come in handy. Besides, I didn't really want to ride another 21 miles back up the mountain even though my ego would've love it.

Morgan, Kate, and Talia were all little warriors. They learned a few things about bike handling, nature, endurance, and hopefully their selves. They taught us a few things, too. Like it's gonna be next year before we do this again! Already, though, I'm thinking about how cool it would be to ride right out of my home to the Burke-Gilman in Seattle to the Sammanish River Trail on the Eastside and thence to the rail trail system from Duvall to North Bend and on over the pass on the John Wayne Pioneer Trail to the Columbia River Gorge. Maybe on to Tekoa on the Idaho border. Hmmn... Morgan tells me she's interested.

A still incomplete song was made up:

"Through the tunnel and over the trestles
to Rattlesnake Lake we go.
we have a fun day
the trail shows the way
twenty miles of play (like "puh...lay..eeee")

Under the stars of Amabilis Mountain we lay.

Something like that.