The Last Spotted Owl - Installment Three

My 16th birthday and the associated party had been announced to the entire Sophomore class for weeks in advance.  It was to be held in a banquet room of the local convention center.  It was to be catered.  A stereo system would be in place and every girl in school had been invited to bring along her favorite records.

My twelve closest buddies were invited and my cousin, Dave was not.  It would be the perfect 16th birthday party.  There would be fun and food and a cake and most importantly of all, girls with presents!  The icing on the cake would be, no cousin Dave!

I spent the last afternoon of my 15th year masturbating with a Fredericks of Hollywood catalog that I had stolen from my mother.  Cousin Dave had shown me the technique a couple of years earlier when we were left alone at his house on New Years Eve.  He didn't appear to be very good at it and in the interim I had spent many hours perfecting a routine that would serve me for my entire adolescent life.

Cousin Dave was a hack with his dirty sock, one arm strained to hold up an entire centerfold.  I was an innovator!  I was imaginative!  Employing exotic lotions and even more exotic fantasies, there was no such thing as an idle hour in my day.   I had a regular cast of characters comprised of the females of my 8th, 9th, and 10th grade classes, and sometimes for variety I would invite select movie stars to join in.  The penultimate was, of course, Barbara Eden; Jeannie of "I Dream of Jeannie."  With Barbara at hand, whatever I could imagine she could blink into existence.  That took careful planning and determined execution.

I was closing out my 15th year with a marathon session with Barbara Eden and a chorus of regulars from Fredericks of Hollywood, a place I imagined that was staffed by ingénues in "Naughty Nighties."  With them I had a harem of the mind, my crotchless, cupless, concubines that I could freely sample like a box of Whitman's.

So immersed was I in my rich and fulfilling fantasy life that I did not see Cousin Dave standing outside my living room window staring in at me.  Dave let himself in through the kitchen, it was his Grandmother's house too.  Dave was chubby as a child but started punching his weight in the 9th grade and had gained quite a reputation as a tough.  At this moment he was laughing as deeply as I was angered.

I would never know the fruition of the complexities of that fantasy; Dave had robbed me of it.  He would remain my enemy for life for this act of intrusion.

Then it got worse.

Cousin Dave blackmailed me.

If I didn't invite him to my 16th birthday party he was going to tell the whole school of my afternoon foray.  My face turned red then white then slowly back to red as I realized that he had me.  "Fine," I said, and the deal was struck.  He would keep his mouth closed and I would have my day in the sun.

I awoke on my 16th birthday full of the spirit of someone having been released from prison after being falsely incarcerated.  The chains of my youth had been cut.  I was a young man now.  I could drive at night and without a licensed adult in the car.  I could smoke cigarettes in public.  The city curfew no longer applied to me.  There was a perfect sunrise over the mountains on a perfect new Spring day, and I was a living expression of that perfection.  I was 16!

En route to nicotine knoll, the little hill behind the school where all the cool guys went to smoke, I walked through the breezeway past all the jocks, all the spirits (girl jocks), and all the trophies for jock excellence.  As I walked past I was greeted with jeers, sneers, blank stares and whispers.  The head cheerleader choked out, “Pew! Ick!” as I walked by.

Exiting the building I had to pass the gauntlet of toughs that leaned on their cars just outside the door.  Through the cacophony I heard snippets of "jerk off" and "ladies underwear magazine" and "pages stuck together," among the usual epithets.  The sort of moronic banter one expects of, well, of morons.

If it was not yet clear that Cousin Dave had not kept his end of the bargain, that he had in fact cast darkness on this, my day of divine light, clarity would come and right soon from my closest friends.

My "closest friends" were The Mob.  The Mob was made up of twelve core members myself included.  We smoked cigarettes and listened to rock and roll.  Our hair was grown to the absolute longest we could wear it without being thrown out of our homes, our school, or both.  We were the usual suspects when any act of malfeasance was committed around town.  Half the time we were guilty and 99% of the time we got away with it.  We wore clothes purchased from the La Eleganza catalog and were decidedly not welcome in most of the better homes in town.

Being the smallest in stature I was subject to the abuses they all suffered routinely at the hands of their fathers.  This was the trickle down theory of the cycle of abuse we would all be subject to break as adults.  My closest friends made me eat dirt, routinely pantsed me in front of the girls, stuffed me in garbage cans and threw me on the roof of the bookstore where they threw ice balls at me and dared me to jump down where I would "Really get it!"

One crisp Autumn night, just for their amusement, they stripped me naked in the woods and made me dance on a tree stump by flashlight.  Then they disappeared into the forest and hid my clothes.  They left me there like that.  They would steal from me and steal from the school then plant the booty at my home so I would get busted.

One time the closest of my closest friends, a fellow named Phil Dickenson, whose father was particularly cruel in his abuse, choked me to the point of unconsciousness.

They did these things and more, for years, because they made them laugh.

In their defense I was needy beyond reason.  I was so desperate for friends that I was the only guy in town who would hang around "Stinky" Dougall.  Darrell Dougall came from a welfare family of seven kids all of whom wet the bed into their teen years. 

Darrell slept on a concrete floor in the storage area of his basement where every night he climbed into the same sleeping bag he had wet in the night before.  I went to his home every day as we grew up, I'd awaken him and we would walk to school together.  The smell was horrific.

As a member of The Mob, Darrell too rejected my friendship and even resorted to punching me in the face to get rid of me.

The Mob was, however, the only group in school that would tolerate me at all.  The other groups rejected me on sight.  I had a reputation.  I tried too hard to be liked, I was a "show off," I didn't fit in, etc.

When I finally made my way to nicotine knoll The Mob was already snickering at me.  Cousin Dave was with them although they were not his group, he was a tough.  That was it then, the whole school knew.  I had been caught doing what they all did but I had been caught doing it.  Pariah is a kind word for their perspective of me.

The Mob was actually a little easy on me.  They offered advice on how not to get caught and such.

A bell rang in the school and it was time for first period.

Now, it bears worth stating that being smart in an environment such as this was not good and did not help my situation at all.  My I.Q. was higher than all my teachers' and my test scores shot the bell curve to hell for all the students.  One teacher said she wanted to cut off my head and give my brain to someone who would use it. 

Many of the teachers just gave up and resorted to hitting me, to "try and beat some sense" into me.  One fellow, a P.E. teacher and former lineman for the Green Bay Packers used to give me 5 to 7 good sound whacks with a 2x4 every day at roll call.  He said it was for all the things I did for which I didn't get caught.  An immigrant, Alphonse Alt was the son of a lowly German Shepherd and her human mate.

Not five minutes into first period I was called into the vice principal's office.  That was not too terribly out of the ordinary.  As I said, I was one of the usual suspects in any local crime.

I walked into the office of the vice principal, a fat sweaty little man who had wrinkles pressed into his suits and salt stains imbued under the arms.  He had to have had it hired out, only a professional costumer could have made his suits look so shabby, cheap, and ill-fitting.

I sat in his office and waited until he finally waddled in with his rolling gait and one cock-eye.  He was blunt and to the point, "Joey, you're sixteen years old today and you can legally quit school.  I can’t throw you out because you haven't done anything to warrant it but I still think you should quit.  You're just wasting everyone's time here and you're never going to amount to anything anyway."

I didn't know if he was serious or if this was just his fat sweaty attempt at reverse psychology, a class I'm certain he failed.  I left his office and returned to Algebra class and a rather surprised looking Algebra teacher.

The humiliation of the morning wore off as the day progressed.  People were still snickering at me in the hallway but they were tiring of me and frothing for new blood by lunchtime.

I didn't care any more.  Tonight was my 16th birthday party and they'd all be jealous for years to come after they saw it.  I kept smiling at all the girls with a knowing sort of "see ya tonight" look in my eyes.

The party was to start at 7:00 and I arrived fashionably late at 7:15.  I wanted everyone to yell, "Hooray!" when I walked through the door.  That was my vision.  Then I'd have a coke, mingle a little, then go to the gift table and spend an hour unwrapping presents.  After that we could put on music, eat and dance.  That's how it would go.

When I walked into the banquet room it was better than my vision.  Since I worked at the hotel as a bus boy and dishwasher, and my Mother was the book-keeper and did the payroll, the staff had gone the extra mile and really dolled up the room.

The tables were draped as was the piano.  There were three huge platters of food; deviled eggs, little chicken legs, fruit and veggies, with five different bowls of dips.  There was a huge tub filled with ice and bottles of sodas.  They even hung a mirrored ball from the ceiling and lit it for effect.

I stood there for just a moment then looked around like the little Martian in the cartoons, "Where's the Hooray?  What happened to the earth shattering Hooray?"  There, lined up and seated against the wall were six guys, only two were in The Mob, the other four were older guys who I didn't know well and didn't particularly like.

Phil Dickenson was there along with Gary Dingman.  They were Mob.  They were invited.  Cousin Dave was there along with his older brother, George who was likewise not a welcome guest.  Mom had invited him.  Gary's older brother, Rod and a guy named Dave Bradymire were there as well.  I hardly knew them.

They just sat there with sinister smiles and demanded to know where the records were and where the girls were.  I told them the girls were supposed to bring the records.  They got threatening with me and told me I had better go call some girls.

I went to the lobby and bought a roll of dimes for the pay phone.  $5 was four hours work in those days.  I went to the phone booth to call every girl in my class.  It doesn't take too long when the whole phone book has only 26 pages.  It took less than 10 calls to figure out none of them were coming.

I went back to the banquet room to announce the news.  It was Cousin Dave's betrayal that soured the girls I surmised.  I was saved the embarrassment of sharing the bad news.  My “guests” had left.  Before they did they had thrown food and sprayed soda all over the walls and floor of the banquet room.

There were chicken wings in the piano, the tone arm of the record player was bent, the mirror ball was dented and laying on the floor.  They had ground deviled eggs and dip into the carpet and thrown them into the walls and ceiling tiles.  It took me four hours to clean it all up.  Afterward I stole a couple of beers out of the cooler in the restaurant and walked alone to the beach.  The lake was cold and black under a crisp, cloudless night.  I took solace that while I had the lake, I was not alone.

So ended my 16th birthday and began my 16th year.

The Last Spotted Owl - Installment Two

Del and I made our way to Elsie's for breakfast.  Del lived a country block down the road from me on Elm Street in Coeur d'Alene so by the time I had dropped him off and put the tent over the Fuck Truck it was time for school.

Delvan Shaw lived with his Mother, Father, a sister and a brother, three cousins, an Aunt and an Uncle, three junk yard dogs, and his Grandmother in what would generously be called a three bedroom house.  Grandma actually lived in the trailer house on the other side of the parking lot that served as Del's front yard.

Del's dad and Uncle were loggers and there were always three to five logging trucks in the yard in various states of disrepair.  Our toys growing up were peaveys, buck saws and cleats used for climbing 200 foot Idaho White Pines, aka "Lodge pole Pines," for topping. 

Jobs for 14 to 17 year olds in our world amounted to planting trees, thinning trees, pulling green chain (towing trees) or fighting forest fires.

The really cool thing about fighting forest fires when you're 15 or 16 is that after the fire was out the whole crew would go to Harrison and One-Shot Charlie’s for pool and libations.

Harrison was a village of just over 40 Christian souls and within it One-Shot Charlie’s was a sovereign nation.  Any man, no matter his age, irrespective of state laws, who put in a day's work fighting fires, was welcome at One-Shot's.  The whole crew would line up at Charlie's 25 foot bar and he would pour every one a double shot of moonshine from a jug he kept under lock and key.  You only got one shot and if you asked for a second he'd throw you out.  The shot was free but you had to pay for your beer and men under 20 couldn't have beer but you could play pool and look out the window at the splendor that was Lake Coeur d'Alene.

Charlie also had two huge boxes of photographs.  In one box Charlie kept pictures of every car he'd ever owned and he bought a new car every year starting in 1922.  In the other box were pictures of boats.  Working boats, pleasure boats, Sailboats, Sternwheelers, Steamers, etc. and every one of them right out there on our lake.  These pictures dated back to the 1860's and Charlie had written careful notes on the history and owners of each craft on the backs of the photos.

There were a couple of other jobs to be had in Idaho at age 15.  You could plant tulip bulbs in the Spring, move sprinklers for farmers in the Summer, buck bales in the Fall, shovel snow in the Winter, or you could lay mining claims.  To lay a mining claim you had to hike trails with this ancient Hungarian geologist to the middle of some part of the Bitterroot Range and dynamite a hole 10'x10'x10' in the ground then mark it on a map.

Laying mining claims was fun, you just had to carry a 60 lb. pack for 10 hours a day.  The pack got lighter as the day progressed and you used up the dynamite.  It was a good job.  You got to blow shit up and invariably there were leftover blasting caps and sticks of dynamite for the 4th of July. 

In the 50's and 60's, the 4th of July in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho was just about as American as you can get.  From the time I was 12, as a member of Boy Scout Troop 220, sponsored by the Fire Department, my 4th began atop the fire engine, in full dress uniform, carrying the American flag in a parade through downtown.

Following the parade there was a giant picnic in the city park with Bar-B-Cue served up by the Hydromaniacs, a community service group made up of local businessmen.  My Uncle, who owned the local gun club and rifle range, was the master chef.

Then, The Diamond Cup Unlimited Hydroplane races on the lake.  Finally, to top off a perfect 4^th of July, after sunset there would be an hour of fireworks.

Things were a lot different in the years prior to 1968.  In the 6th grade, for example, on the day all the girls were taken to see the movie "Molly Grows Up" the NRA would take all the boys out in the field for a hunter safety course.  Then we'd all go to my Uncles rifle range to shoot shotguns at clay pigeons.

In our town if you brought a gun to school it was because you didn't want it to get stolen from your car in the parking lot.  There was a good chance the vice-principal would want to see it and then bring his out for comparison.  If you did get a Deer or an Elk before class it would be tied to the fender or roof of your car in the lot.

The rules were simple; rifles and shotguns had to be kept in lockers and if you had a handgun it had to be in a shoulder holster and you had to keep your coat zipped up. 

Handguns were pretty rare in school.  You really needed a .44 to bring down an Elk or a bear and not a lot of guys wanted to pack a cannon around all day with their coat zipped up.  Too heavy and too hot.

Things got hot in Vietnam in the Spring of 1968.  "Escalation" was the buzz word the media threw around.  The My Lai Massacre took place but along with a nerve gas leak in Utah would be covered up until the following year.  General Lewis Hershey was shouted down in an address at Howard University to cries of "America is the Black man's battleground!"

A troubled election year lay ahead with names like, Rusk, Fulbright, McCarthy, Nixon, Kennedy, and Rockefeller being thrown around the ring in anticipation of being thrown in.  France was on the brink of Revolution. Ho Chi Minh (He Who Enlightens) and Mai Van Bo, who was the chief North Vietnamese spokesman, had their positions in the nightly news along side Kosygin and Gromeko of the USSR.  U Thant and Nguyen Duy Trinh were known as "Peace Feelers" along with the U.S.' William Bundy.

There was even disclosure of a "Peace Hoax" perpetrated by the Hungarian foreign minister.  Janos Peter pretended for two years to be speaking for Hanoi and the Vietcong, proving that to be a major player in global politics all you had to do was engage the, "Because I said so," argument.

Meanwhile, the civil rights movement had made great strides since 1964.  Black people could vote in every state in the Union.  Communities in the South cut off water and electrical services to the Black neighborhoods if the citizens therein dared to register, but every American was entitled now.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and the riots in American cities lasted for days afterward.

David Frost, a British stand-up comic, was the big deal on TV in the Spring of '68.  He had an interview show where he would hold court with everyone from Eric Hoffer to Richard Nixon.  In theater you could get hung for your hang-ups in "Your Own Thing."  Nudity and hit songs punctuated "Hair," and on college campuses you could see Euripides' tragedy "The Bacchae" performed with electric guitars and scantily clad co-eds singing, "When shall I dance once more with bare feet the all-night dance tossing my head for joy!"  As Dylan was singing, "The times they are a-changin'" they in fact were.

1968 was a pivotal time in the history of the world.  On March 21st, 1968, the first day of Spring and the last day of my 15th year, my life was about to change permanently and inextricably.

The Last Spotted Owl - Installment One

"Stop or I'll shoot," yelled Otis.

When Otis Fensel yelled, "Stop or I'll shoot," every teenage boy in town knew to stop running.  If he yelled it the second time, Otis felt more or less obliged to go on ahead and shoot you.  Otis was a fair shot, putting three boys in the hospital while on the force.

Since Otis had only yelled, and had not yet taken the shot, John kept running.

John Mack looked like that bulldog hood ornament you see on the trucks that bear his name.  Running down an alley while carrying a 1957 Chevy transmission, and his tools, was testament to both his genetics and growing up in North Idaho.

The second warning and the first shot hit John simultaneously.  Evidently Otis felt threatened by this young man running away in the dark.  The boy was after all carrying a transmission and might well have thrown it at him causing a nasty bump.  So, lethal force was demanded and right soon.

John kept running.

Otis got pissed!  Guys are supposed to stop when he yells, "Stop."  He's the police!  They're sure as heck supposed to stop when he shoots 'em!  So, he shot him again!  Then he yelled, "Halt or I'll shoot you again, you sombitch!"

John kept running.  He slowed down considerably but he kept running just the same.

Otis drew a fine bead on John's back.  There were 75 feet between them now, maybe 85.  John dropped his tools but kept moving and clutching the transmission.  Otis let out one more, "Stop, or by God I'll shoot you dead!"  A short pause, a deep breath, a loud crack, and John dropped the transmission.

John stopped running.

It took four days for John to get the transmission back into the 57 Chevy.  Three of those days he was in the hospital though.  Day five he was back in school.  He was pretty embarrassed by the whole episode.  Now he'd have to go to court with his Dad.

The owner of the 57 Chevy was not pressing charges since John put the transmission back.  Still, John had done some damage to three of Otis Fensel's bullets, and the bullets were city property after all, so John would have to face the consequences in a court of law.

Otis' girlfriend was a waitress at the restaurant where I washed dishes.  Whenever he came in through the kitchen for a visit I would dive under the prep sink and yell, "Don't shoot me, Otis!"  It was always good for a laugh and better yet on those occasions when Otis would pull his gun on me.  We'd laugh; he'd help me up, and then give his gal a smooch.

These were the kinds of people and the sorts of events that surrounded my formative years.  This is the story of the year I was 16, the most important year of my life, the greatest year of the 20th Century, 1968.

January had already seen the start of one of the bitterest fights in Vietnam at Khe Sanh.  The Marines were outnumbered and under constant siege, but held their ground.  The media sided with the Viet Cong, calling the battle "controversial."  A B-52 crashed in Greenland discharging 4 nuclear bombs.  A pivotal moment in TV occurred as "Laugh In" first aired that season.  The Tet Offensive began and the Viet Cong attacked the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.  Three college students were killed in South Carolina protesting a "White Only" Bowling Alley.  By the end of February Mister Rogers opened his neighborhood to America and Frankie Lymon was found dead from a heroin overdose in Harlem

Idaho winters can get cold.  Sometimes they'd pile the snow up in the middle of the main street, Sherman Avenue, 12 feet high; separating the East and West bound lanes.

It got particularly cold that winter over the pass of what would become I-90 between Coeur d'Alene and Wallace, Idaho.  Dry snowflakes became giants, collecting as they fell, and seemed to explode on the windshield.  Visibility was not good with all that powder reflected in the headlights so it was not uncommon to hit a roadside reflector from time to time.

On just such a night, Del Shaw and I had hit 39 reflectors in succession.  We were going for 40 when there came a thumping on the roof of the cab of the Fuck Truck.

Now, some moments must be spent on the Fuck Truck as it was a central character in many of the adventures of my 16th year.

Technically, the Fuck Truck was a 1956 Ford pickup. The bed had been chopped and the rear suspension beefed up for hauling trailers across country.  It could be outfitted with a tow-bar or with a 500 gallon barrel for spreading oil on dirt roads.  The bumpers were fabricated of railroad rails welded to the frame.  It had 7.50/15 dual tires on the rear, an 8,000 lb. PTO winch on the front, a flat-head six high-torque low-horsepower engine, and a "jimmy" that provided 12 speeds forward and 3 in reverse.  Put chains on the “dualies” and the Fuck Truck was, in a word, unstoppable.

The cab must have been red at some time and some old phone company lockers had been bolted on the rear and painted black.  One locker was the width of the truck and sufficient in depth and height to accommodate 3 kegs packed in ice with the taps running out of its top.

Every "kegger" party of distinction had been hosted by the Fuck Truck.  Parked at a campsite entrance off of some abandoned logging road, where fees of $3-$5 were collected, revelers knew the truck on sight.

There was a hand-held flagman's sign kept behind the seat in the cab.  On one side the sign read, "STOP" and on the other where it would normally read, "SLOW" it read, "FUCK."  That’s where the Fuck Truck got its name.

One time the cops showed up at a kegger hosted by the Fuck Truck.  On seeing the flashing lights, Del and I hopped in the cab and drove off into the woods, our nemesis Otis Fensel in hot pursuit.

When we came to a clearing we thought that meant we were in the clear.  About 50 yards into a farmer’s field we found ourselves axle deep in mud.  Otis got as far as the edge of the woods, knowing he could not enter the field; he ran his siren, fumbled with his spotlight and cursed at us over the loudspeaker.  We aimed the spotlight mounted the roof of the Fuck Truck at Otis, blinding him and giving him a target that was well above our heads.

In short order we had the chains on the Fuck Truck and plowed our way out of the muck while the bullets whizzed past and Otis made unkind remarks about our parentage.

The Fuck Truck did not belong to any single person as far as I can remember.  Word was that it was the property of "One-Shot" Charlie of Harrison, Idaho.  One-Shot had apparently loaned the truck to my Grandfather on the condition that it be returned if needed.  Its license plates came off of my Grampa’s Nash from 1963.  K9, the plate read.  K was the designation for Kootenai County, Idaho and 9 because Grampa was always the 9th fellow in line to buy new plates each year he was living.  It was the first vanity plate in Idaho.

The pounding on the cab roof was a predetermined signal that it was time to drain Uncle Wayne.

I stopped the truck on the shoulder of the highway just shy of reflector #40.  Del had been the designated "windshield wiper motor," working a pair of vise-grips, side to side under the dashboard that connected to the armature and drove the wipers.

We exited the cab and began to unlash a World War II vintage stretcher that was tied to the tops of the lockers.  Pivoting one end of the stretcher to the opposite side we were able to tilt one edge upward until it was nearly parallel to the side of the truck.  In short order a yellow stream emitted and landed warmly in the snow bank at the side of the road.

"How ya doin' Uncle Wayne?" I asked.  Wayne whined something agreeable.  I asked him if he needed anything.  He shook his bottle of pain pills, waved a half-empty pint of vodka in my direction and smiled his perennial smile.  We lashed him back up on top of the lockers, tucked him in and got back in the truck.  We were taking Uncle Wayne to Wallace to get him laid.

How Wayne came to break his back was not clear.  His body cast looked like a pair of plaster coveralls with shoulder straps, a functional opening to allow nature's calls, and legs to just below his calves.  Even bundled up as he was he looked like he was wearing iron plating.  With him in that cast, there was no way to get him into the cab of the truck.  Lashed to the lockers of the Fuck Truck he could be transported the necessary distance to Wallace and the comforts to be found there.

There were five brothels in downtown Wallace, all on the same street, all on the second floors, and with one exception all next door to one another on the same block.  The Lux, The Luxette, The Lucky, The Oasis, and The Arment Rooms had been open and serving the silver miners in Wallace and Kellogg, Idaho since the Civil War.  The Luxette was above the only 24 hour restaurant in town, located at the end of the street.  We were going to the Luxette.

Uncle Wayne was a short, fat, bald, myopic, long-haul trucker with a penchant for getting slit-eyed pretty much every day.  It was unknown whose uncle Wayne was but he was known to one and all as either "Uncle Wayne" or "Wayne Wino."  He was the most agreeable fellow one could hope to meet.  He even smiled in his sleep. 

When he slept it was usually on the floor of the Killian's living room with his head propped up on a 75 Lb. Bassett Hound named Amanda Jane.  Wayne would stretch out in front of the fireplace, lay his head on "Mandy," she would heave and fart and Wayne would smile.

Wayne had a custom tractor trailer rigged to haul sensitive electronics across country.  During the Vietnam War he hauled bombs to Fort Lewis or McChord Air Force Base in Washington State.  Sometimes he carried nuclear warheads to the submarine base in Bangor, Washington on Hood Canal.

Wayne always stopped in Bozeman, Montana on the last leg of his trips to have a few drinks to smooth out the rest of the road.  If it was Wednesday he would call the Killians and ask if someone could pick up a bottle of white and a bottle of brown for him.  He knew he couldn't make it to Coeur d’Alene before the state liquor store closed but if he pushed it a little he could be there in time to watch Kung Fu on TV.  So, there was Wayne, driving bombs across country, a little gassed, and ‘pushing it’ across America’s highways in order to get some place where he could do his serious drinkin’.

Wayne had broken his back and could not drive.  Del and I thought, given Wayne's dilemma, that it would be proper and Christian to take him to Wallace for a tune-up.  Del and I could not ourselves get service in Wallace as we were only 16 and 15 respectively but we could drive and help Wayne navigate the stairs once we arrived.

On our arrival, Wayne said he was hungry and since we were going to the Luxette anyway we stopped in the restaurant downstairs for burgers.  Waddling Wayne up the stairs to the Cafe' gave us an indication of what was in store when we would make the final ascent to the heavenly delights waiting above.

Once inside we propped Wayne up against the wall and took our seats next to him in a booth.  The waitress was friendly and very helpful with Wayne making him a little table with a tray and some fold-up legs used for serving.

The restaurant was warm and Wayne began to thaw, his glasses fogging up along with the windows.  When the door opened again it let in a gust of wind, a gale of laughter, and four very large, very cold, snowmobilers.  Snowmobilers in Idaho are very much like Bikers anywhere else, only colder.

Beards and moustaches frozen with snot and snoose, snow caked on up to the knees, hands frozen in the shape of claws from holding handle bars, hearing and equilibrium shot from the noise and vibration of engines; these are similarities between the two groups.

The point of difference with Snowmobilers is that which is missing; usually teeth and fingers.  Playing grab-ass with formerly hibernating bears at high speeds across the frozen landscape requires copious amounts of liquor.  You can't drink beer very well on a snowmobile but a couple of pints of Peppermint Schnapps or George Dickel single malt sour mash will fit very nicely in the breast pockets of snow suits and the contents will not freeze.

Ordering three or four hamburgers each and big plates of fries necessitated the condiment of choice for such fare: Ketchup.  All would have been well if the Ketchup came in a bottle, or better, one of those plastic squirt bottles that seem to be at every diner in the country except this one.  This restaurant, tragically, served Ketchup in those little packets that you have to tear open at one end.

Missing fingers and hands frozen into claws do not permit the opening of tiny packets of anything.  It was the biggest of the four who finally smacked a packet with his fist on the counter spraying red nectar across the counter and onto a milk dispenser.  This drew guffaws that grew foreboding.  Then the wagers began for distance, particular targets, and numbers of packets spewed simultaneously.  They had plenty of ammunition as the waitress had unwittingly provided two baskets full.

Del and I overheard a bet made over who could hit the waitresses' ass.  When she entered from the kitchen all four fists hit the counter top in unison.  It wasn't her ass that was hit but her entire front.  Laughter drowned out the muzak version of "Lazy, Hazy Days of Summer" and the waitress ran back to the kitchen crying.

The cook was a stout fellow.  The kind of man you knew on sight could consume his weight in prime rib. He made an amusing sight covered in Ketchup.

Del and I started getting very nervous as it was plain we were the only living targets remaining.  Wayne smiled.

The first cop who came through the door didn't even touch the floor on his way out.  Neither did the second or third.  It was cops four through ten, with the aid of the Idaho State Patrol who finally restored harmony.  A dozen hookers with too much makeup and too little clothing stood in the sub-zero streets smoking and gawking.  They'd come downstairs to see what all the commotion was about.  They spoke freely with the cops who they seemed to know by name, or better.

The rest of our night was spent in the Wallace Police Station.  We had to give our statements then wait and see if the cops had more questions.  Wayne did not get laid but he did get sober.  Wayne was unfamiliar with the surroundings of sobriety and was therefore feeling a little lost.

We were told we could leave just before the sun came up.  Standing in the parking lot, strapping Wayne onto the lockers of the Fuck Truck, we witnessed two visions of marvel.  The first was the inspiration for the name, Idaho.  A Native-American word that meant "Sunrise over the mountains," Ee-Da-How was a sacred place.  You didn't have to be indigenous to be awestruck or need further proof of the existence of God.

The second vision was that of four partly clothed snowmobilers running break-neck from the jail to their crew-cab Dodge 4X4 and trailer laden with snowmobiles.  Yelling, "Go! Go! Go!" as they piled in, all four tires were spinning wildly as the jail keeper came running after them shouting in some foreign accent, "You come back here, you somnabiches!  You piss my beds!  You sheet my beds!  I keel you!"

There were lots of flashing lights on the road back to Coeur d'Alene that morning.  Flashing lights on top of snow plows clearing the road.  Flashing lights on top of the four cop cars stopped near an abandoned crew-cab Dodge 4X4 with no occupants and an empty snowmobile trailer, and flashing lights from the road crew vehicles repairing bent-over reflector standards along quite a lengthy stretch of highway.

Uncle Wayne was pretty drunk by the time we secured him to the floor in front of the fireplace at the Killians.  We left him with his head propped up on Amanda Jane, who heaved and farted, as Wayne smiled and drifted off fully believing he'd gotten laid in Wallace.

Funny Sonny

I didn't know why they called him, "Crazy Richard."  Richard was calm compared to the other bikers I had come to know in my association with Funny Sonny.  True, Richard carried a leather-wrapped cane made of a 3/4" steel pipe with a piece of rebar pounded through its center but he'd had trouble walking since he'd put his bike down a few years earlier.  So, the cane seemed more a durable necessity than a weapon.

I asked Mississippi Charlie once why they called him "Crazy Richard" and he answered, "Because of the way he killed that guy."

I let the subject drop and never picked it up again.

Meeting Sonny, Funny Sonny, was pure adventure.  I answered the request line at the radio station for which I worked one day and heard, "Hang on a second, Bro., the cops are here."

Sonny had called the radio station to request "Gimme Shelter" and "Magic Bus."  No surprise as Sonny called once every week or so to request, "Gimme Shelter" and "Magic Bus."

It was not terribly surprising either that I was on hold because the cops were at Sonny's house.

Leonard Martin Selig, aka "Funny Sonny" had been a badge-wearing, dues-paying, card-carrying Hells Angel from a time as far back as the 50's.  Run a search on Google Images and you'll see him as he was in his prime.  He'd been thrown out of the club for some reason he never disclosed but he held firm in his loyalty to the "Masters of Menace."

A voice that sounded literally like tires rolling on a gravel driveway came back on the line, "It's cool, they're looking for Doc.  Hey, what're you doing for the 4th of July?"

As it happened I was hosting a party at my home on the beach and quickly invited Sonny to stop by for a formal introduction.

On July 5th, Funny Sonny, Pork Chop, Mississippi Charlie, Crazy Richard, Freaky Fred, Bear, Doc, all their Old Ladies, and an appropriate number of choppers lined up in front of my beach house for the party.  Lost weekends were regularly scheduled features at my house in those days so my 4th of July party was still in progress, luckily.

Sonny, obviously disappointed on our meeting, was expecting the 6'-5" voice he'd heard on the phone and the radio, not the 5'-6" reality.  Still, ours was a bond that transcended size and one look in each others eyes and we knew we were brothers.

Sonny got married a lot.  The year following our first meeting, one of his weddings was at my house there on the beach.  Now, Sonny was a meticulous wedding planner.  The food, the booze, the ceremonies, all were planned and laid out with careful attention to detail.  Traditionally photos taken at weddings focus on the bride and where there were plenty of those there was also a plethora of images of the food table (from different angles), the booze table (from many different angles), and the bikes (from every imaginable angle).

The night before this, his 8th wedding, was Sonny's bachelor party.  There was a little bar about 3 miles down the beach from my house where we had all agreed to meet.  The first of the party to arrive was a group of five or six of us.  This was just the core bro's.  The main body of revelers would come later.  Bikers are not always welcome at bars and we had to get a feel for the atmosphere before committing fully.

Crazy Richard, Pork Chop, Sonny and myself were the first to arrive.  There was a nice buzz about the place, friendly faces, etc.  But, there was one table occupied by what looked like some red shirts from the Varsity Defense Squad at the local University.  That's fine but they'd had a good start on consumption by the time we arrived and so, to prove themselves, they started the, "Biker...this," and "Biker...that," and "I'm gonna do this to a biker."  All that machismo crap.  We were just ignoring it, not wanting trouble, and taking turns on the video game until more folks arrived.

Finally, Richard had heard enough.  A backhand sent a nose-tackle from Minnesota ass over teakettle.  Three of his comrades stood up whereby Richard picked up a table, lifted it over his head, pulled it down hard and split the table in half in one fell swoop.  The red shirts looked at all 5'-10" of Richard then at Pork Chop and Sonny, apologized and carried their first string out between them.

We all apologized for the mess and offered to buy a new table but the bar tender just smiled and said, "Happens all the time!  Not a problem!"

By closing time there were no fewer than 40 bikes lining the curb outside the bar.  We had made the bar tender a very wealthy man via both consumption and tips.  Leaving the bar became an event.

At the exact moment Sonny exited the bar a tractor pulling a giant trailer covered with hay and piled to capacity with Christian youth was passing by at a respectable 3 miles an hour.  It was a good old fashioned Christian youth hay ride.  Sonny stood in front of the tractor, big alligator tears rolling down his face, pleading to let him on the trailer as he had never been on an honest-to-God hay ride.  The driver, looking at 40 bikers all cheering Sonny, immediately agreed.  Since Sonny's bike had never been on a hayride either it was lifted onto the back of the trailer to take them both the 3 miles down the beach to my place.

The next morning there were two puzzles facing Sonny.  First, how did all the hay get stuffed into his motorcycle, and second, how did we get the motorcycle into my living room?  I wondered how we got the motorcycle off of the trailer.

No matter, tonight was the wedding!

I had to work the graveyard shift so I could not stay for the whole of the festivities.  By the time I got home I found people sleeping in every room of the house and in my own bed I found both my girlfriend and a rather non-threatening fellow called Hobbit.

At Sonny's 9th wedding I was the ring-bearer, riding a child's tricycle and floor length leather coat up to the bride and groom then falling over and handing up the ring in the style made popular on Rowan and Martin's Laugh In.

With 30 Harleys lining the swimming pool, when they were pronounced man and wife, all the bikes were started in unison and revved up to a thunderous salute to let the gods know that the union was fixed.

One time, just for the sheer joy of it, I brought Funny Sonny, wife #8, and Freaky Fred to a party in an exclusive neighborhood, thrown by high ranking members of the Advertising Community in our town.  It was not long into the party before Sonny started taking his clothes off, revealing the flaming Harley Davidson tattoo that covered his back.  Freaky Fred, who was not house broken, pulled off his pants then pulled off the counter top on the bar.

We were asked to leave early in the evening but the allied media in attendance didn't stop talking about the bikers at their party for years to come.

In the end a friendship is measured in the hard times, not in the parties.  I was diagnosed with a rather nasty brain tumor which demanded three surgeries, two of them at the Mayo Clinic.

After the first surgery, Sonny came by the hospital every day to stand up for me.  He didn't stay long, certainly not so long as others did, to the point of discomfort, but he was there every day to make sure I was making progress.

Then, when I went to the Mayo Clinic, he called every day to check up.  The phone calls weren't long enough to be uncomfortable, just long enough to get an update and make sure I knew who cared.

It was after the third successful surgery that Sonny came to me in confidence to invite me to a surprise party for wife #9.  In typical Sonny fashion all the particulars were planned to the tenth power.  He would pick me up at 2:30 and would be driving the "cage" (biker vernacular for a car).  The party would start at 3:00 at the Glynns Cove Tavern.

When we arrived we approached from a side street and the first thing I saw was the bar-b-cues.  Sonny built these bar-b-cues out of 55 gallon barrels, cut in half, then welded along one edge with long hinges, grill inside, iron legs below.  There were three of them, end to end, filled with whole chickens.

We entered the rear to find all the tables in the room pushed together, draped, and covered with food.  I saw 30 or more bikers I knew and all their old ladies and when i walked in the place erupted with cheers and applause.  Sonny, whose speechifying was legendary, handed me a case of beer and said, "This party is to celebrate a life!  That's why this party is for you, Owl!"  I'm still crying over that.  More cheers and bear hugs followed but by 4:30 I needed a nap before I went to work.  I was still weak from the surgery.

Sonny gave me a ride home and another hug when he dropped me off.

I only lived a block away from the radio station where I worked so when I woke up, 5 minutes before I was to be on the air, I just dashed out the door, crossed the street, grabbed my first newscast from the counter, ran in the studio, opened the microphone, hit the sounder that introduced the news and began reading the top headline.  "A shoot out between rival biker gangs has left two injured.  The Glynns Cove tavern ... "  I have no idea what the rest of the newscast sounded like as I was on complete automatic pilot until the first record started.  I was already dialing the phone before the vocals started.

Wife #9 answered Sonny's phone and told me he was at a safe house with his Winchester.  Doc had gotten shot but he was okay and already at home.  When I finally got a hold of Sonny he told me the story.

The party was going well when a couple of guys showed up wearing colors.  Sonny and Pork Chop greeted the strangers and told them though it was a private party they were welcome to come in, they just couldn't wear their "cuts," not proper biker etiquette.  The two refused the compromise in such a way that Sonny and Pork Chop were forced to show the two the sidewalk.

Minutes later Doc came running in yelling, "GUNS!  EVERYBODY DOWN!"  Doc was shot in the back from a .22 rifle and the jukebox was hit once.  The cops caught the two in their car in minutes and they were in jail where they would stay for some time to come.  Doc was fine, he was out of methadone anyway so the pain killers were a big help.  No one else was hit.

And there it is.  There are two kinds of people in the world: decent and indecent.  There were the people with whom I worked every day who didn't call me once while I was having brain surgeries left and right and Sonny who called or came by every day.  There was my family who, apart from my mother, never even said, "Welcome back." and there was Sonny who threw a party celebrating my life.  There were all the friends, from all the years, who never said, "Boo" or "How do you do" during that whole episode and there were 30 bikers and their old ladies who embraced me and made me loved when I was in need.

There was Sonny, for whom I would willingly kill or die to protect, who would willing kill or die to protect me, and there was my wife who forbade me to see him anymore, crushing both him and me, who was only my wife for a few years.  He refused to see me for the next 24 years and I don't blame him one bit.

I just read that Sonny died in July of 2010.  I didn't get to say, Goodbye.  Even in death he's teaching me what's really important, what makes the best in people, and who to trust.

Gerry Garcia once wrote that Bikers are very up front about who they are.  You can recognize a biker from a block away and you know they're potentially dangerous.  You will, on the other hand invite someone wearing a suit into your home, sign over all your money and all your possessions, and off he will run, you smiling, waving, and trusting all the way.

I hope, when the end of the world comes, I'm surrounded by bikers.  I hope when I die, that I will meet up with Sonny once again, climb on the back of that cream colored Harley, and not throw off his balance ... just ride.  Ride Free.

The First Hour I Spent In Jail

The judge gave me five days for being arrogant and not doing what I was told.  At our previous meeting he'd made a point about something, something, something ... driving a car fueled with alcohol and some demand that I attend classes in alcohol management or something.  I forget.  I was pretty drunk when we met the first time.  In any case I had failed to do what I was told so, five days in the slammer for me.


Mine was the first case on the docket so I was alone in the holding tank while waiting for a bed.  Evidently some lucky guy had to be discharged before I could be let in.

Almost literally a tank, "holding" was 25 feet square with a drain in the center of the floor.  There was a toilet in the corner and the walls were painted with gray epoxy.  I got the impression that the place could be cleaned with a hose.  A single light was fixed poetically behind bars in the center of the ceiling.  The door was four feet wide but the standard height and made of 3/4" steel.  It made a distinctive sound when it closed; a sound that meant, "Final."

Dean Vangan came in shortly.  I had not seen Dean since the 8th grade when he sat in front of me in P.E. and stole my lunch money.  He announced his presence with a hearty, "Is this where we're spending the night?"  It was 9:00 AM.  I did not renew our acquaintanceship and, frankly, this is not Dean's story.  He fell asleep on the cold floor.

Within another hour there were over 20 men in Holding and with them came less of a sense of personal space.  When Angus MacFadden entered he made a bee-line for me, plopped down uncomfortably close and said, "Gimme a cigarette."

I gave him a cigarette.

He put the cigarette behind his ear and said, "Gimme a cigarette."  Not knowing the custom of incarceration I gave him another cigarette which he placed behind his other ear.  Then he said, "Gimme a cigarette."  He was out of ears and if this kept up I would be out of cigarettes so I said warily, "I already gave you two."

Evidently satisfied, Angus asked, "What do you do?"

"I'm a disk jockey at KZO..."

"I'm a roofer!" Angus blurted.  "They keep locking me up in these minimum security mental hospitals and I keep breakin' out.  I told that shrink I gotta be in a maximum security but they keep sendin' me to minimum security so I keep walkin' out.  I just walk out of those places and I keep tellin' 'em they gotta put me in maximum security but I keep walkin' out ...  I'm Angus MacFadden, I'm Black Irish, I gotta cousin who's on the radio do you know (a name I've forgotten)?"

"Yeah, I know him.  He's my newsman at KZO..."

"He's my cousin!  I'm a roofer but they keep puttin' me in minimum security mental hospitals ... I keep tellin' 'em they gotta put me in maximum security mental hospitals but I keep walkin' away."

As if things weren't surreal enough, the door opened and I saw one of those giant paper mache' heads like they have at Mardis Gras crouch down to get through the door.  I was sober so this was more than a little ... wait, it's not paper mache', it's a ... pup tent!  The guy, wearing a pup tent as a coat, his shoulders having filled the 4-foot doorway, stood up straight to reveal his full height of somewhere around 7'-4".

"I GOT THAT JUDGE BY THE BALLS AND I'M GONNA SQUEEZE!"  He bellered.  I'd never really heard anyone beller before and now that I had I didn't want to hear it again.  "I TOLD THAT JUDGE, JUDGE, I GOT YOU BY THE BALLS AND I'M GONNA SQUEEZE!"  Yep, that's the living definition of a beller.  "I told that judge this is the third time I been popped on a bad warrant and it ain't me!  It's some other guy who looks like me and I GOT YOU BY THE BALLS, JUDGE, AND I'M GONNA SQUEEZE!"

Okay, two things; what is it with crazy people repeating things all the time, and ... there's some other guy who looks like this guy?

Angus, not satisfied with the supernatural nature of my jail experience pipes in, "What kind of work you do?"

The question seemed to daze the giant for a moment, either he was not accustomed to being interrupted or uncomfortable with having to think for a response.  It was unclear which.

"I got me a sledge hammer!" He shouted, pleased with his standard answer which now came easily, "I can build it or I can tear it down, don't matter to me which!"  He chuckled at his own joke.

"I'm a roofer!"  Chimed Angus.

"I got no problem for roofers!" replied the giant.

"Turn around a second!"  Angus chirped.

A giant question mark flickered dimly over the giant's head.  "Wha?"

"Turn around, " Angus chided, "I wanna look at yer pooper!"

Over 20 men in a confined space and there was not a scuff, a shuffle, a chuckle, or a gasp.  Not a sound.

The question mark turned orange and radiated a bit more brightly as giant's head tipped forward, the better to hear, "Wha?"

"Turn around, I wanna look at your pooper!" demanded Angus.

Why do crazy people have to repeat things?  I'm sure he heard you the first time, Angus! But it was too late, time had already shifted into slow motion or perhaps it was just the natural movement of the mountain as he pulled off his pup tent, rolled it into a ball, and pushed the mass evenly to the floor.

"I'm here by mistake," he said in a low tone as a great single eyebrow lowered and the face of the mountain became slit-eyed, "I'm here by mistake," he said, almost sadly, as a single size-24 footfall caused the concrete floor to tremble and crack, "I'm here by mistake," loudly echoed the giant's voice, "but I will do the time to take you apart."

At that moment, as in all great fairy tales, the great steel door opened and a guard yelled, "Owl, we've got you a bed!"

When my eyes opened I was safe and sound in a jail cell, in another part of the building, with 15 other men.  I'm certain I had only blinked once.  I never heard a word about what happened after I left Holding.

Five days later I was walking home and I noticed that the air really does smell better on the outside.  Five months later I was comfortably seated in my studio, on the air, playing Led Zeppelin on the radio when the door opened with its familiar squeak and my newsman entered holding a piece of wire copy.  I had told him of meeting his cousin in jail and we had both wondered at the outcome of his brush with the giant.

"Read this," he said soberly.

All the blood rushed from my face and the wheels on my chair staggered as I read that an escaped mental patient, Angus MacFadden, was being held as a suspect in the bludgeoning murder of a sexagenarian couple in the Windermere neighborhood of Seattle.  He had been hired to do some roofing repairs on their home.  The article read that MacFadden had walked away from a minimum security mental hospital.

Online Articles and Search Engine Optimization

Articles are either responses or provocations, meant to inform or entertain.  On occasion one may see prose but largely an article is written either in response to something or to provoke a response.  Both have an opinion while either may reflect deep thought, stupidity, or neither.

An article should be conceived to make a point.  Aesop told fables to make his points about philosophy.  They were well conceived and made valuable points.  Playwrights prior to 1964 understood this and crafted poetical and symbolic characters, verbiage, and actions that made clear their points.

The last novel I read, that made a clear and provocative point, was"Rosemary's Baby."  The point of the story was, if G-d could impregnate a mortal, why couldn't Satan?  What wonderfully juicy opinions, debates, and responses were provoked by the idea of a Satanic nativity!  I have read other novels since but their points were either diluted or delusional.

Articles written for the internet are literary embarrassments.  "Five Ways To Tell If Your Boyfriend is Gay!"  "How to Tell Your Girlfriend You're Gay!"  "10 Reasons to Stop Using The Word 'Gay' in Online Articles."  No, this author is not gay but by using the word "gay" six times in a paragraph this article will rank high for "gay content" on Google.

Now, we get to the real point of online article writing; to monetize.

I'm very good at Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  This skill comes from decades of writing commercial advertisements for print, radio and television.  Getting the sponsor's name into 60 seconds as many times as possible, without sounding contrived, takes craftsmanship.  My personal best was 40 times in 60 seconds (funny, I can't remember the name of the sponsor).

There are many facets to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for internet articles but for the purposes of this article I'll only address keyword count and relevant content in online article writing.

In the previous paragraphs I used the keyword, "article" about eight times and "online article" about half that many.  This may seem like a spare use of the keywords for an article of this length but there is always a threat of the perception of spamming by search engine spiders.  In the preceding sentence for example I used "article" three times in the same sentence.  That brings the saturation of the keyword to a level that is dangerously high.  When your keyword count gets too high the search engines may perceive your article as spam and either penalize your ranking or ban your article altogether.

Content is King in online article marketing.  Writing in a way that is easily read and readily quoted takes some time to cultivate.  The information you provide has to be compelling enough that others will link back to you.  Writing in an authoritative voice is necessary but not necessarily required.  Many popular online articles are written in the vernacular of the au courant yet still manage to rank well above those on the same topic that are conventionally well written.

Here's an example of keyword count in content being King of the internet.  Run a search on "Spielberg's List."  There are numerous articles written on the list of films for which Steven Spielberg is responsible.  On page two of Google's responses you will find an actual list of Steven Spielberg's favorite movies!  It's posted on the website for an acting school in Los Angeles and nowhere else.  In the articles you will find a great many references to the director, his films, his name, and the term "Spielberg's List."  The search result with an exhaustive list of film titles is ranked relatively low because the keyword count is practically zero by comparison.

As far as online articles go this one is neither provoking nor responsive but it does have a modicum of relevant content.  Let's post it and in a couple of months (this is October 5th of 2010) we'll see where it ranks on organic searches.  It should show up well for "Gay," perhaps for "Spielberg's List," and certainly for "online articles."

Thank you for your time and interest.

TLSO

Breathe

We are quite happy to cut it into many small useful pieces