Trail Wood Photo Album: The Indoors
I recently completed six separate entries for my time as writer-in-residence at Trail Wood, the former home of Edwin and Nellie Teale. I took several more photographs than what has appeared in previous posts, so I wanted to share some of those images. Hopefully, the photos will give the reader a deeper feel for the environs of Trail Wood.
First, some images from inside the house.
This is the kitchen. You can see that it’s had some recent updates; I think you can also get a sense of how much of it remains from when the Teale’s cooked and at here.
This is the area I set up as my workspace. As I said before, it appears to be a dining room, but it is not adjacent to the kitchen, so I am unsure.
The bookshelf in the corner contains many of Teale’s books; they are filled with his marginalia. I always love finding marginalia in a book; it feels like I am dialoguing with a previous reader.
These shots are of the living room, which was a comfortable spot to read, and hand write into my journal.
The fireplace is usable, but as it was July, it stayed dormant during my visit.
Also in the living room was this guitar and drum. I don’t know if they belonged to the Teales (the instruments seemed a bit too recent), but I like to imagine them wiling away a Saturday night plucking and pounding away…
These shots are of Teale’s office, which was left exactly as Edwin left it when he passed away in 1980. When Nellie agreed to leave the house and lands to the Audubon Society, her only requirement was that his office remain untouched.
For the next entry, I will share some more photos of the outside.
Trail Wood Journal, Day Six
Hard to believe this is my last full day. And it’s nearly 6pm, so it is almost over. I’m writing from the summer house–I wanted my last entry to be written from there, because it really was my favorite place to sit and write. It started to rain as we walked down here. This was a perfect place to watch the rain hit the pond.
I never noticed a bird’s nest that sits right at the entrance to the summer house. I’m glad I spotted it, and the chicks don’t seem to mind me. No sign of Gil Scott, sadly.
Today, I completed the rewrite of the screenplay–another fifty pages. It still needs a lot of work, but at least it’s a coherent story. I feel better about it for sure.
A view of the Teale house
I also wrote another poem today–so excited to have hit that goal. And I have ideas for several more. I will have plenty of work to share at the reception this fall. And even though it was kind of lonely (this is not a place for someone who struggles with isolation and depression) and the bedroom reeked vaguely of mouse urine, it was a successful residency.
Going to put some effort into getting more poetry published upon my return, particularly if I’m going to self publish a collection. It’s been a very long time since I published a poem. I’ve been emphasizing script writing, so it’s nice to be doing poems again.
So that’s about it. The only thing left to write is my message to the other residents in the guest book. Tomorrow, I will pack up and head home.
Postscript: I have several more photos to share. The next post will be a photo album, with my descriptions, to hopefully provide a deeper picture of my experience this week,
Trail Wood Journal, Day Five
Hard to believe tomorrow is my last full day. The time here has gone by quickly. I am a bit sad to be leaving. It’s beautiful and serene here. But, I am also looking forward to being home. I love the country and I love it’s beauty, but do you know what else I love? Civilization. Dishwashers. Wi-fi. Bathtubs. Comfy chairs. I can’t deny that about me. You can take the boy out of the city…
Today was fucking hot! 95 with the heat index. That meant two things: ice cream and an evening walk. It’s 8:30 p.m. now so it’s quite pleasant. I thought the walk would still be tough, but the tree canopy really keeps the sun out. Ended up walking three miles tonight, when I was initially planning to do about half of that.
For part of the walk, we did part of the Airline Trail, which separates Trail Wood from the Natchaug State Forest. Attached to one of the trees in the forest was a bear shaped sign with the word “BEN” painted on it. I am thus able to induct two possibilities for the existence of this sign: there is a bear in the area the locals have named Ben, and this is how they let hikers know; or, the bears in this area are so intelligent this is how they mark their territory. I, of course, prefer the second explanation.
When we returned from our stroll tonight there were four rabbits in the grass around the house. I think it’s a mother and her three offspring. That was a real joy to find. Did not bother or come across Gil Scott Heron, today, nor did a snake block our path. With the heat I stayed inside a lot. I rewrote 51 pages of a screenplay today–I wanted to get halfway through, and it appears I did. The structure still isn’t where I want it, but it’s getting there.
I read Pablo Neruda’s “Odes to Common Things” today (all out of Billy Collins), and wrote the first draft of a new poem. One more tomorrow, and I will have my new poem goal. If I finish the screenplay rewrite, that will be all my goals hit this week. Extraordinary!
Trail Wood Journal, Day Four
According to the good people at Word Press, yesterday was my 100th blog post. Even though it’s been nearly ten years, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that number.
The forecast had rain and thunderstorms off and on all day, but have turned out to be off. It was cloudy and cool in the morning and early afternoon, but it got very humid in the afternoon. I ended up putting the air conditioner on after the evening walk.
Walking one of the trails near the large pond, we came across a large coiled black snake. A large one. Usually, when you come across snakes on a trail, they slither away. This one didn’t move, eyeing me directly. I know the snakes around here are not poisonous, but this was unusually obstinate for a snake in these parts. It could have been a sign it was hurt, it could have just given birth, it may have just eaten (I know some snakes can’t move very much after they eat) I decided to respect it and yield the trail to it.
I completed the revision of my television pilot and wrote two new poems today. I also finished reading Ballistics–that’s four Billy Collins collections in four days. I also spent some time organizing my poetry collection.
I can’t believe I have only two full days left here. It has gone by quickly. I am going to spend the next two days writing two new poems and rework one of my screenplays, which has an idea I really like, but I’ve never gotten to work. I have several new ideas for poems which I will work on as time passes. It’s been frightfully productive.
I have found that my favorite place to write is what Nellie Teale (Edwin’s wife) called the summer house. It’s a gazebo adjacent to the small pond. It has a comfortable bench and a small table, a lovely view of the pond, and screens to keep the bugs out. You can also hear all of the pond sounds–frogs jumping into the water are so loud when everything else is quiet.
I also found out from Rich during my orientation that the summer house was recently rebuilt by a young man who had been sentenced to community service by a local court, and chose to do this project to fulfill his obligation. So aside from it’s other virtues, the summer house has a lot of stories.
Trail Wood Journal, Day Three
We managed to spook the great blue heron, who turns up at both of the ponds. Since it appears I will be having frequent interactions with the heron, I have given it a name: Gil Scott. I imagine, thanks largely to my disruptions of it’s hunting process, it has written a poem entitled “Whitey’s at My Pond.”
I managed to snap a picture of Gil Scott flying away. I would have shot video, but the heron made it clear to me it would not be televised.
It’s not easy writing in a hammock, but I feel silly not trying. Can’t believe it’s been three days already. This is the level of focus I usually bring to Seascape, only one one’s around other than Lollie. I think she likes it here. Lots of new sniffs, different grass to roll in. She’s not eating much, which is typical for her in a new place. The only dog ever that had to be persuaded to eat.
There is a lovely hammock near the house, which I have made great use of. It’s not easy writing in a hammock, but I feel silly not trying. I have come to the conclusion that one cannot say they truly love napping unless they have had the experience of being tossed on the ground while trying to climb into a hammock. You really have to want it.
I can’t believe it’s been three days already. This is the level of focus I usually bring to Seascape (my annual writing retreat), only no one’s around other than Lollie. I think she likes it here. Lots of new sniffs, different grass to roll in. She’s not eating much, which is typical for her in a new place. The only dog ever that had to be persuaded to eat.
A new poem today. Billy Collins has become quite the poetry teacher for me the last few days. I’ve just about completed the third collection of his that I brought along. I got another idea for a poem while I was in the hammock, so it’s all clearly working for me.
Later today, I will be working on a revision of my television pilot. The International Screenwriters Association recently offered a free online writing class with writing guru Jennifer Grisanti. I found her class very enlightening, and I want to bring what I have learned to my pilot and make it stronger.
After dinner, I was sitting outside sipping tea and writing this as the sun was setting. I was scanning the skyline for bats, when I noticed a particular maple tree. The tree was huge and it’s foliage possessed shadow and texture that created the illusion the tree had eyes. But not just any eyes–indeed, it seemed to be giving me side-eye, like it could barely tolerate my presence.
It seemed to be asking me, “You’re not writing another fucking poem about a tree, are you?”
Trail Wood Journal, Day Two
There were bats last night! As I understand it, bats eat between 6-8,000 insects per night. So for every bat I see, that’s 8,000 fewer bugs in the world. I saw at least three last night. So that’s 24,000 bugs I never have to deal with. To paraphrase the President, I like the numbers were they are.
Today was my first full day at Trail Wood. Had some difficulty sleeping, not unusual for me in a different bed. I finally nodded off between 1-2 am. Lollie got me up at 6 to let her out. She’s a little confused by our presence here. I wonder if she thinks this is where we will live from now on? I spent the morning reading some older poems. I’d like to put together a poetry collection–I have quite a few that I like, certainly enough for a collection. Given that I will likely not be able to do a staged reading of my new play (other than on Zoom) anytime soon, I think I will put those financial resources towards a poetry collection.
I think I’ll divide it into parts–the first part will be poems on nature, and my experiences growing up a part-time Indian. The second part will involve the poems from and written about the other aspects and geographies of my life. Reservation poems, and off the reservation poems. I think it was philosopher Luce Iragaray who wrote about world traveling (not in the literal sense). I would like the two sections of the collection to describe and illustrate the different worlds, hopefully in a way that reinforces their similarities. That’s the goal at least.
So I spent most of the day reading, revising, and rewriting my poems. Some are written by a young man clearly trying to sound clever and poetic, and at this point amount to juvenile exercises of interest to only me. I stuck those in a folder called “archives.” There were a couple more that were definitely cringe-worthy, but the ideas were redeemable. So, I decided to change the perspective of the poems from me to someone else. In other words, I imagine a character very different from me, then the write the way this person would see it. That was an exercise I did very rarely when I was younger. It’s amazing how much both poems were improved by that process. I think with some more work they might be good enough to end up in the collection. One in particular I am very happy with. I’ve also set a goal to write one new poem a day, based upon a long-neglected idea list I’ve been carrying around for years. So I did write today’s new poem at breakfast.
It turned out to be a very productive day. I’m ¾ of the way through preparation for my collection. I ended up writing drafts for two new poems, wrote a synopsis for three of my plays (very helpful for submission purposes). I’m also half way through reading Billy Collins “The Art of Drowning” (already finished “The Trouble With Poetry”). To celebrate, I treated myself to We-Lik-It ice cream, which is just a few miles up the road here.
The thing about Trail Wood is that it is very isolated. I’ve only seen one other person while I’ve been here, and I am reasonably certain he was not a guest but one of the caretakers, as he was heading off on a trail with his weed-wacker. Either that, he’s a local eccentric who likes to take his power tools for a walk. Or both, perhaps. Regardless, the ice cream was delicious (a scoop of chai, a scoop of salted caramel, with hot fudge) but it was also nice to hear other human voices, if only for a short while.
The solitude, though, is intended to help the writer or artist staying here focus. Certainly, that seemed to be the case today.
Trail Wood Journal, Day One
I kept a journal during my residency at Trail Wood. Over the next six days, I will share each day’s entry.
I arrived at 8am, my car packed with food, a computer, a week’s supply of clothes, and my dog, Lollie. Rich Telford, who helps run Trail Wood and organizes the residencies, met me here. He gave me my orientation, showed me around the house and introduced me to a number of details about Edwin Way Teale’s life, many of his books on display, and his study, which has been left largely untouched since Teale’s death in 1980. Indeed, the calendars on the wall still read “October 1980.” I was twelve, living in San Diego the last time the calendar page on that wall had been turned.
He also took me to Teale’s writing cabin, which was reproduced at the exact specifications of Henry David Thoreau’s at Walden. It was more pleasant than I expected. It’s kept very clean, has a new roof, and is not anywhere as dingy as it appears when gazing in through the windows. I don’t know if I will use it much this week, but I may be tempted to give it a try. It was also a surprise to learn the two ponds on the site are filled with bass–not artificially by humans, but by nature. Teale had a local fisherman come and catch 20-30 fish per week because he hated the bass. They evidently ate a lot of the insects he wished to study.
After Rich’s departure, I settled in, set up the kitchen, unpacked my clothes, made the bed and discovered there were no pillows. Evidently, I was supposed to bring them, but missed that in the instruction sheet. I brought cases, but no pillows. I set up my computer and my writing in what appeared to be the old dining room. There is a huge dining table in the center, but it’s not adjacent to the kitchen, so I’m not totally sure. I then ran home to get pillows. I was only 25 minutes away, so it was worth the trip.
I didn’t sleep well that night (or any night while I was there, unfortunately), so I worked on new ideas for poems, read Billy Collins “The Trouble With Poetry” (the trouble is that reading poetry makes you want to write poetry), in between shifts of the hammock and the living room love seat. I also did revisions to some of the poems I brought to work on and then Lollie and I went for a pre-dinner walk that introduced us to a great blue heron on the beaver pond.
After dinner, I decided to sit outside and write this. I wonder what it will be like to wake up here tomorrow. As I write this, a chorus of bird song, not all of it harmonic, is filling the air. I am hopeful to see bats this evening.
Countdown to Trail Wood
It is nearly here…my very first writing residency. I will report to Trail Wood this Sunday morning, and it will become my temporary home until the following Saturday. It is a first for me. I am nearly ready–I have selected the incomplete works I want to focus upon, brought plenty of paper for new works, and of course, selected the music I want to write to (essential to my process).
What follows is the artist statement I sent in with my application, which should give you an idea of how I will be using the time…
As a child, the beginning of the summer meant something more to me than simply the end of the school year. It meant I was going to spend the summer with my grandfather. A few days after the final bell I would be in a car or plane headed from my suburban San Diego home to the distant reaches of Duck Valley, Nevada. My grandfather lived there on the Western Shoshone reservation, a proud tribal elder. Living with him was like being transported to another world. Of the many things he taught me was how to be an “Indian”–to live “En Dios,” to live “With God.” His interpretation of this meant to live with nature.
Through his tutelage, I began to understand that truly living with nature didn’t simply mean the science of living in harmony with the environment. It also implied the concepts of respect for land rights, spiritual practice, and a sense one oneness with the sacred. If any of these were denied to a group of people, there could be no true stewardship. This notion is not only key to understanding the Native relationship with ecology; I think it is a key component for anyone striving to understand their role in the natural world.
It is my plan to explore my grandfather’s teachings at my stay in Trail Wood. Being immersed in that environment and reflecting on the works of Edwin Way Teale have reminded me so much of the discussions my grandfather and I once shared. The writings I have submitted are the beginnings of a book that will share the lessons of nature and life I absorbed from my grandfather. The book will contain poetry, prose pieces, and journal entries about both the human relationship with ecology and a boy’s affection for his grandfather.
So now I have to do it. I’m excited to see what happens.
Note: Trail Wood, by design, lacks any internet or wi-fi connection, so you will not hear from me until I return. I expect to write daily journal entries of my experiences, but they will actually appear in this blog the following week.
Storytelling Workshop: “Leviathan”
This was the story I told in my first ever story slam (a virtual one) on May 15. The topic was food. I would find out a few days later that my story won the slam, meaning I am headed to the next level of competition at the end of the year.
I had never heard a real explosion before.
Of course, you hear them on t.v. and in movies, and you think that’s what they sound like. Until you hear a real one.
It was September 25, 1978, just before 9 a.m. I was in Mr. Mikholan’s sixth grade class, sitting at my desk next to Sandra Van Den Akker doing math problems. I didn’t like math very much, but I liked Sandra–mostly because she smelled vaguely of coconut.
The explosion hit just after nine. It was louder than a thunderclap and shook the entire school. A couple of the students in my class were actually knocked out of their seats. It was San Diego, California, and even though we were only in sixth grade, we knew what an earthquake felt like. And this wasn’t it.
Mr. Mikholan had been both my fifth and sixth grade teacher, and I knew him well enough to know that he had earned two purple hearts during the second world war. We all turned to him and he didn’t look the least bit worried, or the least bit anxious. Indeed, Mr. Mikholan did what he always did–he told a corny joke.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Someone next door just dropped their pencil.”
We laughed, nervously, not because we believed him, or because it was funny, but because we thought that if Mr. Mikholan was calm, then everything was going to be all right.
That thought didn’t last. Mrs. Lee from across the hall ran in and announced to all of us that she “Had just seen a plane crash!”
We all filed over into Mrs. Lee’s class and stared out her window at a pillar of black smoke. The window was the complete length of the classroom–and all you could see was the smoke. Later we would discover it was a mushroom cloud, but we were too close to see any shape.
Pacific Southwest Airlines flight 182 collided with a Cessna in the skies over San Diego, and the Boeing 727 crashed down to the earth taking the lives of 144 people. It landed four blocks from my elementary school.
I walked home in a daze–the whole neighborhood seemed to be in a trance. We could still see the cloud of smoke from every direction. It smelled of burned metal, plastic, and other things that did not seem familiar. We would later hear of stories about neighbors finding chunks of fuselage on their rooftops, body parts in their backyards.
When I got home, I was alone. That was unusual, because my mother was usually there. I looked around the house and the yard, but there was no sign of her. I called a couple of her friends and finally found her at Elsie’s. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t stay at the house alone. Not on a day like today. Are you all right on your own until I get back?”
I didn’t know how to reply, so I just said “Sure.” After she hung up, I tried my dad at his apartment, but there was no answer. I stood in the living room, with no idea of what else to do, where to go, or even what room I should be in.
It was then that Guy Valencic and Mike Snyder showed up with their gloves and balls and asked, ‘Hey, you want to go play double-plays?” And I said, “Sure.” I grabbed my glove, and we played in front of Guy’s house, because what else was there to do?
We played for a while, and hardly talked to each other–until we noticed cars would slow down near us, and drivers would lean out their windows and ask, “Hey, do you know where the plane crash site is?” We were so pissed off that these strangers would come into our neighborhood to be voyeurs to our grief that we started lying to the drivers and giving them false directions.
After a while, we didn’t want to play anymore, so we decided to head home. It was dinner time, and there was no sign of my mom, but I knew my father would now be at work. I called him there.
“Do you have anything to eat?”
“Sure, “ I said, “but I don’t know how to cook any of it. I’m afraid to try.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m going to try and get off early.”
Early turned out to be 11 p.m., so there we were at a fast food restaurant called Jack in the Box at 11:30 at night. I was eleven years old on a school night, and I had a chocolate shake, a burger with two patties, and a plate full of french fries–the kind of meal my father would have never let me have on a normal day.
We talked about baseball, about the new Superman movie, about Sandra Van Den Akker smelling vaguely of coconut–we talked about anything but the leviathan that had fallen from the sky that morning.
**********
A few months later, I was at my father’s apartment and we were watching the news. The newscaster announced that investigators had located the black box recording from flight 182’s cockpit. The news station plated some of the tape.
There is only one part of the tape I remember. The pilot was flying inverted, with a wing on fire, knowing he was moments from his own death. He spoke with a calmness that I imagine wasn’t much different when he ordered his breakfast from the flight attendant an hour earlier.
“That’s a school. I’m going to try to get us to the freeway. I’m not letting this thing come down on a school.”
I shut the television off and turned to my father.
“Can we go get some ice cream? Please?”
Storytelling Workshop: “Lost”
This is a written adaptation of the first story I told in the storytelling workshop.
I cannot believe he picked me.
It was Sunday morning, the last day of the camping trip. I had finished packing my gear, when I heard someone shout my name.
It was the voice of the most senior scout in the troop–an intense 17 year old Eagle named Buck. It didn’t take long for newbies like me to realize that Troop 18 was Buck’s troop. I was 12 years old, and it was my first camping trip as a boy scout. We were in the Anza Borrego desert, about 100 miles east of San Diego.
This was a real camping trip–tents with dirt floors, cooking over a fire, strange insects. I was embedded with a group of boys and adults I hardly knew. I had hoped my father would have been able to join us, but he had to work, so I met up with the other fifteen or so scouts (along with Mr. Roth, the scoutmaster) at a local church, accompanied by a sleeping bag, a couple changes of underwear, and not much else.
Of course, I brought the one thing I couldn’t leave behind if my life depended on it: my stammer.
I spent most of the camping trip using the same method of survival that propelled me relatively unscathed through elementary school: I didn’t say a word. I listened, I paid close attention, but never spoke. You learn very early not to draw attention to your stammer–it tries the patience of even those who are kind, and makes you the subject of ridicule by those who are not.
So even though it was Sunday morning, and not one of the other scouts knew what my voice sounded like, Buck at least knew my name. “We’re going to do a hike. Come along.”
The plan was this: The hikers would follow the Anza Borrego trial for twenty miles to the town of Ocotillo. The rest of the troop would break camp and drive to Ocotillo in Mr. Roth’s Chevy van. After meeting up, we’d begin our return trip to San Diego.
At 8 a.m., we began our march south. I looked around and realized that the hikers were Buck, two of the senior scouts called Paul and Tom…and me.
We crossed state route two, maneuvering past cactus, cat claw, crucifixion thorn, and creosote bush. We spotted desert cottontail, antelope squirrel, and kangaroo rat. Buck pointed out every animal, often stopping abruptly when something popped into his peripheral vision. He seemed to be an expert on every creature we encountered. “Did you know the kangaroo rat can jump six feet? They also don’t have to drink. They metabolize water from the seeds that they eat.”
After about two hours, a crossroads. We paused to devour our bag lunches. While the other scouts were packing up tents, dumping water on the campfire, and cramming into Mr. Roth’s Chevy van, we were in the shadow of the Pinyon mountains, far away from the campsite, far away from anyone, surrounded by desert agave and cool rats that could jump six feet, munching potato chips underneath a clear, blue October sky. I didn’t want to seem weird, but I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. Luckily, my companions seemed not to notice.
“So, I think we should go left,” announced Buck. “Through the badlands.”
The Badlands? That’s the place Mr. Roth described. That’s the part of the desert eroded over the years by wind and water, leaving behind a labyrinthine network of hills and rocks. The place Mr. Roth specifically told us not to hike, pointing out how disorienting the terrain can be. We could easily get lost.
“You got your compass?,” asked Tom.
“No,” replied Buck. “I don’t need a compass.”
Paul turned to me and asked, “What do you think, Kevin? Should we go to the badlands?”
No, I thought to myself, we should not! We were told not to, and none of us has a compass. This is a terrible idea! So, I scanned all three faces and I…nodded.
It would be fine, I thought to myself. These are the senior guys, the veterans. We’ll go through the badlands, reunite with the troop, and have a cool story that only I would get to share with Tom, Paul and Buck
I was going to love Boy Scouts.
We reached the badlands. We climbed the first hill, took in the painted desert scenery, before racing down to the next hill, and then back up to the top of the next. The Pinyons were still at our backs, right where they were supposed to be.
But then, as we worked our way through the badlands, the Pinyons began to shift. They fell further away as expected, but no longer behind. They moved to the left, then seemed to be almost in front of us, before shifting back again. It was my first time hiking, but even I knew geography was not supposed to behave this way.
I looked at Buck, who no longer seemed relaxed, and had long ceased commenting on the terrain and the wildlife. We climbed back up the hill before us, paused and looked around.
The only thing you could see in any direction was the badlands.
“We need to go left.” Buck tried to sound more sure than he was as he headed off. Unsure of what else to do, we followed. We were supposed to meet the rest of the troop at two–it was now 1:30. Maybe we’d still get there in time.
We hiked another twenty minutes, and finally had some good news. We were out of the badlands. But now where were we?
I could no longer locate the Pinyons behind us. Were they now in front of us, or was that a completely different mountain range? Even the familiar scenery seemed to change–the types of plants, the heaviness of the sand, even the wind shifted direction.
Buck continued to trudge ahead, and we followed. It was now a little after three, and I began to hope that soon we’d turn the corner, see route two, and Mr. Roth’s Chevy van. But we continued to walk.
It was 4:00, then 5, then 6. It was getting closer to 7, and we were no closer to where we were supposed to be. There were no roads, no trails, no hermits living in trailers for whom we could ask directions.
Finally at around eight, we decided to stop. It was dark, and though we had flashlights, we’d been hiking twelve hours.
I finished whatever scraps of food I had and slurped up the last bits of water at the base of my canteen. We found a spot to lay down. I tried not to think about tarantulas, scorpions, or snakes. We weren’t going to be there all night, we decided. Just a few hours to rest, then we’d head on. I closed my eyes, then heard the sound of an engine in the distance. All of us popped up to look around where it was coming from. Not on the ground, from the sky. From the east? Is that east? If we knew that, we wouldn’t be lost.
The sound got louder, and the red lights began to cut through the night sky. A cessna flew over where we laid. We jumped up and pulled out our flashlights to try and signal it. Was this our rescue? Could the plane land here on the desert floor, then whisk us off to warmth, food, and safety? The other boys screamed and yelled, desperately waving their hands. I hoped it would turn and circle around, so I frantically tried to guide it back to us.
But it flew off into the night.
I dropped my head back down, and closed my eyes. I could hear little creatures darting around in the darkness–their feet scrambling on the desert floor, the bushes rustling, the cries of the night birds.
And then, the screams. What was that? Was that a baby? Why would there be babies screaming in the middle of the desert? It’s definitely more than one. Finally, the realization: coyotes. And they seemed to be getting closer.
We decided that was plenty of rest, and it was clearly time to resume our hike.
There were other planes that flew over that we again attempted to signal, to no avail.
We spotted a light tower, several hundred feet high, and decided to head in it’s direction until we noticed that the more we moved towards it, it seemed to drift further and further away.
We returned to our previous route, because Buck said so. I was tired of Buck saying so, but Tom and Paul wouldn’t challenge them. And of course, I kept silent.
It was about an hour later that we noticed the smoke. A huge billow of white smoke, lit by red and yellow lights. My first thought was that maybe a spaceship had landed, and we would round out our sixteen hour hike with a close encounter. As we descended the hill, it turned out to be much more terrestrial: a plaster factory.
We had reached Plaster City. It was now 12:30 in the morning. We would discover later that we had hiked nearly 40 miles.
We wandered into Plaster City, which seemed to be nothing more than the factory, a parking lot, and a bar–called, very appropriately, the Plaster City Bar.
The bar had a pay phone so Buck called his home. A brief conversation with his mother, and then another dime to reach the Ocotillo Fire Department. After Buck got off the phone, he let us know that Mr. Roth was coming to get us. We would learn later that about 80 vehicles, several airplanes and a couple of hundred volunteers had scoured the desert looking for us.
A half hour later, the Chevy van pulled up in front of the bar. The rest of the troop was already home, asleep in their beds.
Behind the van was a blue impala that looked remarkably like my Dad’s car. Mr. Roth emerged from the van, and his whole body seemed to sigh in relief at the sight of us.
My Dad appeared behind Mr Roth. Normally, I would have run to my father and leapt into his arms, but I couldn’t move. I stood there like a statue, perhaps one frozen in plaster. Finally, my father approached, and pulled me into an embrace. He kissed me gently on the head and asked, “Are you done?”
We climbed into the car, and my father pulled up to an intersection. He squinted at the road signs, and seemed unsure of which way to turn.
With some effort, I managed to summon my voice–the voice I had kept silent for nearly sixty hours:
“Don’t go left.”
