The Cost of Avoiding Business

Cape Blanco State Park, Oregon

I've been fooling around with Quicken. Ooops. Just paid my credit card bill for August. Ouch. Some of you may be interested in my gas expenses to Alaska and back. Some of you may rather not hear about it, if you're headed that way anyhow.

Please cover your screen. What follows may scare the kids.

I left on May 20th. For the 3 month period, May 20- August 19, my gas bill was $2513, an average of 837 bucks a month. This got me to Alaska, and down the Kenai Peninsula to Ninilchik, where I spent a couple of weeks doing very little, as slowly as possible.

Highest gas I bought in Alaska was $3.50/gal, highest gas in Canada was $1.28/litre (currently translates to about $3.90/US gallon, in US currency). Airline tickets are starting to look pretty good.

I won't know the whole story until about a month after I get back to TX. But I'll bet I'm looking at a total of 15K miles, and 5 or 6 Grand. Just for gas. No meals, campground fees, trinkets, or psychiatric assistance included. Just gas.

Gulp. Thank God for credit cards.

Same period in 2004, traveling in Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, -- $993, an average of $331/ mo. Less linear distance covered daily, lots more running around in circles.

Go back another year. Same period in 2003, constant travel up through BC and down the left coast, -- $1112, average of $312/mo. That trip was quite similar to this year's trip, in terms of movement.

Note the consistency 2003-2004. Staying put in the SW didn't seem to slow me down any. But I'm spending nearly 3 times as much this year.

Whatcha gonna do?

My baseline average at home, Jan-Mar, 2005, was $145/mo. In the past I have gotten about 8 miles a gallon pulling the trailer, in all conditions. From these figures you may be able to extrapolate your own likely figures. Poor things.

Make what you will of all this. Lots of variables. But any way you look at it, RV travel is getting to be a sight more spendy. And in a dingdang hurry, too.

You could call it the cost of doing business. But durn it, I'm supposed to be avoiding business. I'm retired.

The time is creeping up on us when "full-timing" may involve turning into semi-permanent site-bound trailer park trash. Well. It might not take much turning. But it was easier to maintain my clever disguise when I moved right along every day.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My brother wrote to say he was planning to take his wife someplace really expensive for their anniversary. He was considering the Phillips station.

Ba-dump bump.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am seriously considering truly downsizing my next RV. I will at least put off the decision to upgrade for a while. This one's paid for, which makes it a something of a pearl beyond price.

My philosophy about this RV stuff has always been to identify the essence of it, get in cheap, and spend as little as possible on extraneous stuff. I think the main thing is to know your own mind about what you want to do. That's what I mean by "the essence of it." I've seen some very specialized RVs on this trip. There's a picture of one of them to the right.

But, but, but... moving around and using gas IS the essence of it, or near enough, and it's getting to where there is no 'cheap' way to do that.

And (whine) to make a real difference means DRASTIC downsizing, like a Casita or a Scamp hauled by a little pickup. Or even, God help us all, a minivan and a tent trailer. That might triple my mileage. Double it anyway.

Might put me almost back to where I was last year. Just in time for the next round of price hikes.

Problems, problems. For me to fit in a Casita may require amputation at the knee. Or the neck. Ah. That's the answer. I don't need a big ole clunky RV. I just need to stunt my growth a bit. Or maybe I could live fast and die young. No, wait... it's too late for that, too, darn it.

I'll think of something.

But could you really call the emerging prospect RVing? Am I back to camping? Would that be all bad? Or just commuting? Bob, the weekend wonder, pedaling out to Lake Georgetown to set up a tent?

Sic transit gloria mundi. At 8 miles to the gallon.

What I really need is a suitcase trailer. All of us do, at least those of us who are not already movie stars, or wealthy real estate maggots. I think I saw a trailer like that in a Porky Pig cartoon once. Take the bulging suitcase out of the back seat. Lay it on the ground. Stutter a little, and whistle a happy tune. Unlatch, doc. Just lift that lid a bit, and Sproinnng! Aaahhh. Jacuzzi. Roaring fireplace. Easy chair. Home Sweet Home.

Quicken be damned. Man cannot bear too much reality.

So merry melodies, y'all. And maybe th-th-that's all, f-f-folks!


Bob

Ents Along The Ocean

Port Orford, Oregon

Dang it. I must have kicked the wall again the other night. Must have. Gout is possible, I suppose, though I'm holding out hope that is one of the few things I am still too young for. I started limping yesterday as I got out at the Cape Blanco lighthouse, and last night it got worse. Point pain, top of the foot, outside, as from a blow. No bruise, though.

My next RV is definitely going to have a longer bedroom. If I have to take a chainsaw to it.

The foot is better this morning, though still swollen. I gimped on down to the bluff anyway, out of sheer stubbornness, and caught sight of a whale spouting, out by the seastacks. I don't know what kind of whale it was. First one I've seen in the lower 48, though there were lots in Alaska.

Of course I had neither camera nor field glasses with me. Only my coffee, clutched fiercely in a my fingers like the precious stuff it is.

I remember an old movie with Matt Dillon. "Drugstore Cowboy", I believe. His character raided drug stores for a variety of designer pharmaceuticals, and his defense of drug abuse was as charming as any I ever heard:

"Most people don't know how they are going to feel in the morning. With the right pills, I know exactly how I'm going to feel."

And that, my friends, is my attitude toward coffee. My drug of choice. I may fall over a root and die back here, but I probably won't spill the coffee. Grrrr.

Cape Blanco is a bargain, as these things go. $16 a night for water and electric. 50 amp service for motorhomes. Open year round. And a sign warning us not to sign up past October 1st, as the price will then drop to $12. The campground is in a grove of spruce, backed up to the ocean. The trees are really a blessing, up here on the cliff , as they rip the constant roaring wind off the so-called Pacific into intermittent vagrant teasing breezes.

There's a road down to the beach a short walk away, and trails behind the trailer to the edge of the bluff, with tables where you can have a sunset sandwich or two, if you like.

It was a little cold last night to sit out alone, without stars or a fire. These trees get a little spooky without conversation, or something to keep the shadows at bay. Instead I watched the rest of Scorsese's Bob Dylan special on PBS.

It's a tough life, out here in the wilderness. But fear not. I come from pioneer stock.

This morning was magical. Parked deep in a gloomy forest shot with brilliant angled beams and scattered speckles of sunlight. A wisp of mist among the ferns. I looked to see if entrapping tendrils had grown round the tires, but not yet. It did seem like there might be an Ent asleep back in there somewhere. All those high dim green trunks with multiple ragged moldy upraised arms.


But no, not even a hobbit. Only one hobbler, and that was me. Well, if I do fall down, there's a thick bed of needles to fall into. Maybe I'll fall asleep for twenty years, like old Rip, and wake to the sound of bulldozers.

As I came out of the park on the way to town, a small doe crossed the road like a lean shadow in front of me. Then clumpf... it plunged and disappeared into the thick foliage, and was swallowed up.

Not even a quivering leaf to prove it happened. But I'm pretty sure it was real. Or was, anyway. While it lasted.

Speaking of swallowing, it's time for lunch. An panfried oyster sandwich and a cup of chowder awaits in Orford, 5 miles away. Maybe even a piece of pie.

Not to mention an Internet connection. More than one kind of magic along this coast.


Bob

Champoeg Peggy

Champoeg State Park
Oregon

Champoeg State Park is a reasonably pretty place along the Williamette River, south of Portland. The campground has no view of the river, however. It is divided equally between a grove of golden yellow cottonwoods and an open field where the satellite dishes work.

I went straight for the trees.

A 34 foot Itasca Sunrider backed in next to me, containing Peggy and her mother Bertha. Peggy is a fulltimer with a broad Texas accent, but Bertha has a little more Cajun in her cadences. Peggy had just picked Bertha up at the Portland airport, for a cruise down the coast. This was their first stop.

Peggy was not happy. She was having problems with her slide, and the sofa bed her mother was supposed to sleep on would not unfold with the slide closed.

"Do you have any tools?" she asked.

"Tools? Of course. I'm a guy. Stand back. We live for this."

"Ooooo." She cooed. "So strong. So masterful."

Hmmm. Could it be that I was being mocked? Well, no matter. This ain't my first rodeo. I cautiously peered in the darkened door of the motorhome, screwdriver at the ready.

"What's the matter with it?"

"I don't know. It just started making a grinding noise, and then it sort of popped."

She was just too short. From six feet up it was pretty easy to see the problem. But not at all clear why it happened. The metal along the top leading edge of the slide had caught a piece of trim and ripped it out of the wall. The metal edge was bent back in the process. I beat it flat again with a hammer.

Hammers are fun. Hammers I can handle.

We worked the slide back and forth a few times. The slide appeared to just be a little too high on one side for the hole it was in. It caught every time.

"Have you had this thing sitting a while, with the slide out?"

"Well, yes."

"I think what we have here... is sag."

Her face stiffened. She put her fists on her hips. "A gentleman," she replied crisply, in that uncompromising Texas drawl, "would not use that word in the presence of a Lady ... of mature years."

"Oh... er... ah... well, how about 'lean'? The slide has developed a 'lean'."

"Lean is good." There was a twinkle in her eye. But it was a hard twinkle.

"No, it's not. Not really. Somehow one side of this slide has gotten a little lower than the other. And I haven't a clue how to fix that."

"Dam." she said. "Dam, dam, dam. This is just what I need."

I had not quite reached the end of my expertise, but I was close enough to see the end. I tried to position the trim higher, but it ripped out again. The slide was catching way back toward the middle, with gradually increasing contact toward the end.

I allowed as how there might be an adjustment underneath that would make it level, but I didn't know how to do that. Better take it to a pro before we really break something. It seemed to work best if I just left it the way I found it, with about a foot of the trim torn loose and moving out of the way with the action of the slide.

At least it wasn't grinding any more. I thought I better bow out in favor of someone who actually knew what he was doing. And said so.

Bertha and Peggy professed themselves not to be...too... disappointed. They even invited me to dinner. As darkness came on, I contributed a bottle of wine, and enough firewood for a roaring fire. But it soon got too chilly for Bertha, and she went in to watch TV.

Peggy and I got to talking about how we came to this RV life.

"It's one of my earliest memories," she said. "I was walking down Magazine Street in New Orleans, hand in hand with my mom. Near where we lived. Not the most elegant address."

She swirled the wine in her glass.

"Anyway, I was only 5 or 6 years old. We used to go walking around and looking in the store windows, just for entertainment. We passed by what must have been a travel agency. There were these posters, with palm trees, and sandy beaches and umbrellas and beach chairs, and beautiful sunsets over a too blue sea, and handsome people all laughing and happy.

So I came to a dead stop. 'Look, Mom.' I said. 'Look. Can we go there?'

She looked at me like I was crazy. 'Yeah, right.' she said. And then she dragged me on down the street. It was probably my first exposure to really burning sarcasm."

Peggy poured herself a little more wine. The firelight danced across the bottle. She leaned back into her chair.

" 'Yeah, right,' she said. That's my Mom.

There was a world in those words. A world where 'people like us' didn't travel. 'People like us' didn't get to go places like that, didn't get to do lots of things. 'People like us' didn't get away....

It wasn't just that we didn't have the money. There was a sense that I ought not to be even thinking about stuff like that.

I thought about it anyway.

Later on, in school, I took all these tests to see what I would be good at. There were lots of possibilities. Law. Sales. Too many things, really. But nothing really appealed to me.

Finally this counselor said, 'Okay, let's try an experiment. Sit back. Close your eyes. Now think about being happy. Just being happy. Take your time. Now. Where are you? What are you doing?'

So I told her about the palm trees and the sandy beaches on Magazine Street. And she said, 'Why don't you go there?"

Peggy fell silent for a while, staring into the fire.

I couldn't leave it. "So? Did you?"

"Oh. Yeah. It took a while. I ended up living 3 years on Maui."

"Was it what you thought it would be? Were you happy?"

"Pretty much. I had a second floor apartment, two blocks from the beach. I used to sleep out on the lanai and listen to the surf all night. And sometimes I'd go sit on the sand, and look out over the ocean, and there'd be these great red and purple clouds, maybe even a green flash around the edges now and then, and I'd think I was too happy. Too happy. Like there couldn't be anything to top this. Like I could die and it wouldn't matter."

"Why did you leave?"

"I had a grandchild. Another story. But I've had that feeling lots of times since. You know what it's like ... when you go along a quiet lake, and the sun is bright, and the air is clear, and the mountains and sky are reflected in the stillness of the water so perfectly that it's hard to tell what's real.

Sky above and sky below. That's the way it was in Maui on the beach. Only I was the lake. Peggy Lake.

Once in a while, you know, you get to see something so right that it gets inside you, becomes part of you, and you can't tell where you leave off and that begins.

I don't think you can lose it afterwards.

It's called reflection, isn't it? When you really see things? Not with your eyes, but with your mind? And then it's all so obvious, like it was always there. 'Aha,' you say. 'I see.' Of course. There it was, all along, just waiting for you to relax.

Waiting for the right moment.

Moments like that just let you become who you are. Or who you ought to be. And moments like that are why I like to travel."

"And now ... you're headed for the coast of Oregon?"

"My mom is with me. She's 79. I want to show her the coast. I want to show her the redwoods. I want to show her what it's like to be on the open road. I want to show her that I'm not crazy."

She laughed.

"A kind of farewell tour?"

She laughed again. "No. Not at all. More of a Hello Tour. What I really want to show her is what 'people like us' can do."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I slept late this morning. Too much wine. They were gone when I got around to staggering outside.

I would like to have had at least one more campfire. Peggy can be tart. She can even be intemperate.

But she has her moments.


Bob

Oops!

Walla Walla WA

While I was in Valdez I hooked up with a guy who made welded aluminum boats for the river traffic along the Snake River, and he suggested I take a ride up Hell's Canyon in one of them. He also gave me the lowdown on taking a shotgun through Canada, for he had one in the back of his truck camper, loaded with slugs.

You hear lots of talk about how hard it is to get across the border with a weapon of any sort, and even the occasional lurid tale of nosy inquisition and hours of search and destroy forays through your vehicle by belligerent border guards with a confiscatory gleam in their eyes.

The reality turns out to be a lot more cut and dried. He just showed up at the border, declared the shotgun, filled out a form identifying it by model and serial number, and paid $25 for a 60 day permit. The permit is renewable. He did not have to show the gun, nor have it sealed and plugged, nor any of the nonsense you hear about. He was on his way in about 15 minutes.

No muss, no fuss.

If you are going to be fishing at remote streams in Canada, and worried about bears, this might be the way to go. But I've been on some of those streams, and my experience is that the bears are not interested in you. Along the Russian river in the Kenai, I saw men and bears fishing side by side, both hauling in the salmon.

My impression is that people up there deal with a bear like you'd generally deal with a drunk. Just move over a bit and give him some room. He's more trouble than he's worth to run off. Of course, if either the bear or the drunk is carrying a shotgun, that's a different kettle of salmon.

My first view of Lewiston, Idaho, coming down from the north, was from the top of Lewiston Hill. Impressive. In the hazy distance, hay stubble covered the hills like a tawny pelt, rumpling down and converging into the speckled green of Lewiston along the broad blue ribbons of the Clearwater and Snake Rivers. Lewiston is a port, connected by river and lock to the Pacific ocean. Amazing, when you think about it. It's a long way to the ocean from here.

I took a look at Hell's Canyon State Park, and some of the tour boats. Perhaps another time. It was the middle of the day, and I just wasn't in the mood. Besides, I had an appointment in Walla Walla to pick up my guns.

I got in about 3 pm, and Alan didn't get off until 5, so I decided to improve the time by washing the truck and trailer. I had accumulated a thick coating of Alaskan and Canadian mud.

I had to pick up a new little door for my electrical cord stow-hole, so I headed south a few miles to Milton-Freewater, Oregon, and Smiley's RV. Got the part, and directions to the carwash. Pulling up in front of it, I saw that I couldn't pull straight in, but there was an entrance to each side. I waited for traffic, then pulled right into the one next to the pizza joint.

Oops.

Someone had put a high curb between the two businesses. So there I was, facing into a dead end parking lot, with the traffic going zip-zip-zip behind me. Can't go forward, can't go back. Then I noticed that there was a little road around back behind the pizza joint, apparently for window pickup.

Narrow, but looks like I can make it.

Now I could have just waited for a break in the traffic. Eventually there would have been one, and I could have backed out of there. But noooo. That would have required patience.

When in doubt, panic.

You guessed it. Erk. I caught the edge of the green mansard roof with the passenger side of the trailer. Poked a hole right through the skin, and ripped the awning above the door.

Employees came boiling out, then ducked back in again, because I was turning the air pretty blue. I apologized, briefly, then let'er rip again. Just couldn't quit for a few minutes there. Not really inventive cussing, just energetic and repetitive. I wore it out after a little while.

The owner showed up with the cops, and I settled with him for a hundred bucks. Not that much damage to the building, but the figure was less than my deductible, and I didn't want any lingering long distance trouble. Then I persuaded some of those nervous employees to back me out into the road and around to the side, where I got out the ladder and duct-taped the hole.

About a foot long. Dang.

I dropped the trailer and washed the truck. I gave up cleaning the trailer. The duct tape might not hold against that much water. In fact, I've got to keep an eye out for some 70 mph test duct tape. Do they make such a thing?

I had a couple of beers to settle my digestion. Then I drove back to Walla Walla. Alan met me in the Safeway parking lot with my package. We went out to supper.

I didn't unwrap the guns. Safer to wait till tomorrow. They aren't loaded, but given the way things were going I could probably still figure out a way to shoot myself in the foot.


Bob

I'm Baaack....

Lewiston, ID

I came back into the lower 48 through Yahk, along the Moyie River, floating on down Hwy 95 to what I thought would be a sleepy little crossing. What I found was a dozen huge cattle trucks waiting in line, along with 20 cars or so, the usual assortment of Winnebagos, and an armored truck.

Took about an hour to get through there.

The cattle trucks were from Alberta, and had their own line to the right. I guess the Great Alberta Cattle Scare is over.

Most of the trucks were empty, but a few had moos coming out of them. For once I was glad it was raining, and there was not much wind. One by one they passed by me and pulled up to a stop sign, where the driver got out and went inside with his paperwork.

The first thing you see when the door opens on one of these tractors, right at eye level, is a pair of tiny stocking feet, followed by a groping hand reaching down under the seat, feeling around for a pair of slip-on sneakers. A lot of these guys drive in their socks.

The next surprise is the burly bullet-headed man that appears next. Men with big bellies, big shoulders, and no ass at all, gimping gingerly across the parking lot on vestigial feet. They look odd out of their rigs. Unbalanced. Like birds without wings.

I suppose if you drove one of these things long enough, you'd come to resemble your cargo. All torso and a pair of hooves.

"Anything to declare?" the lady asks.

"I do declare I'm happy to see you. It makes waitin' in this line worth every minute."

She laughed, asked me if I had any Fire Department patches on me, and waved me on through.

I spent the night at the Coeur D'Alene Casino, my first experience at Casino Camping. It was convenient. The far side of the parking lot was just me, a couple of motorhomes, and a semi, all rumbling away. After I got my generator going too, I went inside.

The Casino was entirely electronic slot machines and video poker. Lots of bells and whistles and ching-ka-ching. It was built like a shopping center department store, in clumps and circles, with no straight lines, and mirrors on the eventual walls to create an infinite regression of carnival light.

Intentionally confusing. They don't want you to easily find your way out. Hang around. Have a drink. Try again.

God help you if there's a fire.

Some of these people looked anemic and rumpled in the blue glow of the slot screens, like they'd been chained there for days. Like vampires in protective custody. An illusion, no doubt.

In fact they looked much like my mental impression of many a denizen of newsnet. Minus the quarts of Dr. Pepper, if course, and the stacks of empty pizza boxes.

When I finally got my bearings in there, I found the buffet. Hmmm. All you can eat breakfast, $7.99. When I showed up again a little after 7am, there were still people ka-chinging away, heavy-lidded, propped up on their elbows.

Used to be, you got a little exercise for your money, pulling the arm down on these bandits. These days the most you can hope for is a hypertrophied index finger. Watch for the signs.

Breakfast was pretty good. Lots of fruit, sausages, bacon, waffles, biscuits and gravy, eggs to order. Just me and one older couple to eat it all. And they were sensible sorts, filling up entirely on conversation and oatmeal.

So I did what I could to put a dent in it.


Bob

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Driver

Muncho Lake, BC

Canada is in its full fall glory, here at the northern terminus of the Rocky mountains. The birches, aspens, cottonwoods, and poplars have turned the landscape into a river of gold and rust and green that flows off grandly into the roadless distance. Such sights are wasted on a man alone. Beauty always confronts the solitary with his solitude. It makes him more alone.

It needs sharing.

O, I know about the loneliness of crowds. But yesterday it was the loneliness of solitude that bedeviled me, the loneliness of being far too far from anyone. Or at least anyone I know.

It comes out in little things, like gripping the steering wheel too hard, or driving a little too fast, a little too long.

Listening to music I don't even like.

Talking to goats on the side of the road.

Accosting the occasional caribou.

Periodically I just have to pull over, get a grip on myself, as opposed to the wheel, and ask the question: what's the hurry? After all, at the beginning of the trip, this solitude was what I was seeking. It was a source of strength, and freedom, and satisfaction.

What has changed?

Well, for one thing, I am bored. Boredom is a principal component of loneliness. Sometimes it is the boredom of nothing to do. And sometimes the boredom of too much to do - - that you'd rather not do.

Humor is a help. Dragging a rattletrap trailer across the continent is an intermittent cure. Something is always falling off, or apart. Busy hands busy the mind also. But right now everything is working just fine.

Things are going just a little too well for me to be happy. Guess I could break something, just for the hell of it. Where did I put that hammer?

I could eat. That works great for an hour or so. Many a neurasthenic has found his depression lifted by a sandwich.

But no. Think I'll skip that. Too temporary. Matter of fact, I've made a recent vow not to eat until I'm truly hungry. This may seem an odd sort of diet, but it has melted away dozens of pounds in the past.

Psst. Hey, wanna hear the secret of weight control? If you don't stick things in your mouth, you lose weight. That's it. Simple, huh? There are obnoxious people in the pulp non-fiction market who have made fortunes offering no better advice than that.

Unfortunately, I am not one of them.

And you can get bored with boredom, too. Turn depression into irritation, and you might piss yourself off enough to do something about it. Entire careers have been launched by little more.

Exercise helps. It's hard to be bored once you run out of breath. How sweet life can seem, no? With the addition of just a leetle more oxygen? The right moment can make water better than beer.

But my beat-up body won't cooperate. When I try to run, my knees swell up like knobby grapefruit. I am a born walker. But three days ago I turned my left ankle, and it's been hobble, hobble, hobble ever since. It's getting better, but that pretty much limits the walking cure, at least for now.

And then there's self-pity, of course. Though whether this is a cure or just another durn disease is a matter for conjecture. Like kicking a rock real hard, to take your mind off a toothache. But certainly I could wail and gnash my teeth, cursing the risible fate that gave me mortality and consciousness on the same morning, berating the bitter drink that men were born for.

Yas, yas. Pity the poor garrulous dustbin godlet on cruise control. Ah, but pulling out my hair is problematic nowadays, and nobody likes a whiner. Least of all himself.

So then, what to do, what to do? What to do, if all these cures do not avail?

Why, there's the talking cure. Reaching out to touch someone, through a minor miracle of modern science. Like now.

Which seems to have done the trick.

Yes. I've had my ration of coffee, and then some. The sky is blue. The sun is bright. There's an open road before me. There's even a trickling breeze about this morning, with just enough winter in it to make me want to paw the ground. There's plenty of gas in the tank, and all eight tires are at just the perfect pressure.

Yesss. It worked. Thanks.


Bob

Poetaster

Haines, Alaska

I'm sitting on the beach in Haines, waiting for Mardi Gras to begin. They have their own calendar here in Haines, and Mardi Gras begins tonight. That's their story and they're sticking to it.

Yesterday I went up to Chilkat Lake and got some good pictures of Grizzlies fishing, picky devils that they are. Also the odd sight of a traffic logjam of people taking pictures of them. Nobody could get in or out, for a while. The bears left early, probably laughing too hard to concentrate on fishing. Eagles quit about the same time.

"Lookit the hairless apes! Ain't they a hoot! Clickety clickety click."

And then last night around ten somebody hammered on the trailer and told me the Aurora was out. No pictures. I don't have a tripod. So you'll have to take my word that it looked like the sky was lit up with bright green searchlights.

That about completes my list of things to see in Alaska. Except for Mardi Gras.

In between all that, I uncorked a bottle of Frontera cabernet from Sam's (a fine cheap Chilean wine), and somewhere into the second glass tried my hand at a commemorative poem. While I was at Fairbanks, I went to see Jazz Night at the Blue Loon, and had a pretty good time.

So, this is about that. Here y'go:


Jazz Night at the Blue Loon


The saxman stood, waiting for the beat.
A buzzing drummer and the organ wraith
Traded love notes. The saxman simply stood.

Waiting for the beat.

Slump-shouldered, bent, a wasted cadaver
Hung in a shiny suit, his hollow cheeks
Stretched taut and thin, like drumheads.

Waiting for the beat.

A reliquary face. A wooden face.
The face of a saint who learned too late
Love is a habit as easy to break as your nose.

Waiting for the beat.

Now he stands like a man with a mouthful of nails.
Like a marionette, eyes painted wet,
Waiting for the Hand to Move.

Waiting for the beat.

One, two, three. Like a counting horse.
A white flash of eyes as he looks to heaven.
And then the music moves, moves, moves
Like a gravel avalanche, like blazing feathers,
Like sauntering syllables of pain and pleasure,
Through the glass-clink and murmur of the crowd.

The saxman floats. The saxman flies. The saxman
Carves cool silence from the heated air,
Smoke in his heart, and in his eyes
The end of waiting.


Bob