Up Bear Creek / 11aug50011

Bioregionalist visionary passes

PETER BERG … One of my San Francisco heroes, Peter Berg died last month, surrounded by his family. He was one of the Haight-Ashbury’s original Diggers who did street theater and handed out free food in the Sixties, along with Peter Coyote and Emmett Grogan. Peter’s Planet Drum Foundation played a big part in exposing me to the concepts of Bioregionalism and Reinhabitation – two big picture ideas that have been guiding factors in my own life path ever since … His Listening to the Earth Conference in 1976 was seminal in leading me to Earth First!, the Green Party and Deep Ecology … I was delighted to bring Peter to Telluride for Mountainfilm in 2006. He gave a talk in Telluride, and then led a workshop for many interested participants in Norwood … He was a visionary and both a gifted writer and speaker … Our condolences go out to his wife Judy Goldhaft and his daughter Ocean.

ELLEN ROBERTS … Glad she’s getting to make it around to the communities in the 6^th State Senatorial district, as she writes in her most recent legislative report. I still haven’t met the woman, though I’ve heard good reports about her reasonable stands as a Western Slope Rancher Republican … We haven’t met yet. So, I hesitate to say too much. But I can’t help feeling a bit disappointed, given that Sen. Bruce Whitehead accomplished so much in the legislature in a brief year, and came to so many meetings in our county. There’s never been a state pol since Dan Noble who’s spent that much time along the San Miguel River as Whitehead … I sure hope Sen. Roberts can help Telluride, Norwood, Ophir and Egnar in these tough economic times, when unfunded mandates from the state require county and municipal taxpayers to backfill costs, or give up some essential public function.

POST OFFICE … I think we’re between worlds … The U.S. Postal Service was once an essential government function. It served as the handmaid of capitalism, allowing private business to flourish. It wasn’t supposed to pay its own way, but rather be one of those services subsidized for the public good … Cyberspace has changed all that. Invisible megabytes pulse through our bodies & appear on our screen, as if by magic … An anachronism, nevertheless the mail still fills an advertising niche, dropped into the lap of your home. And for the romantic, snail mail correspondence is a bottle spin on a sea of stamp collections … Losing Ophir, Egnar and Rico signals, for me, the start of service cutbacks -- as the downturn turns runaway … Perhaps the future primitive era Dolores LaChapelle saw coming is here.

ELINOFF GALLERY … Great to see interesting sculpture like the bronze mushroom table set and bigger-than-life-size frog on the Main St. sidewalk in front of the Elinoff Gallery … Wish that Telluride had more public street art.

RADIATION … It was an eye-opener to visit the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and measure my estimated radiation burden … OMSI put things into an interesting perspective. Millirems are thousands of a rem, which is the unit of measurement of Roentgen Equivalents in Man. Under 50 rems is considered subclinical, and usually produces only changes in one’s blood. 50 to 200 is “may cause illness but is rarely fatal.” Most exposures are measured in millirems, thousands of rems … X-rays are a big dose, about 50 millirems. Dental x-rays are small, averaging one millirem. Living at high altitudes, like we do, is another big dose. I found I probably had a millirem dose of about 450 millirems per year, given where I live and my lifestyle and health choices … Of course, given what’s happening (unseen) in our atmosphere from Fukushima, who knows what the real exposure is?

ADDICTED TO DEBT … Sen. Michael Bennet sent out an email a couple weeks back titled “The Courage to Solve our Debt Problem the Right Way” and agreed that entitlements and revenue both have to be addressed -- unless our political leaders want to duck the obvious drivers to the national debt crisis. To say that social programs and new taxes are off the table is just partisan gamesmanship … And yet, it’s illustrative to view a graph Jaime Dunn of New Mexico posted on his Facebook page (and I on mine). The graph shows the debt (and the debt ceiling) increasing on ALL the last Repub presidents (including Reagan) and decreasing under each Dem prez since Carter (until Obama) … Don’t trust Repub rhetoric. They talk fiscal responsibility and consistently fail to practice it. And then promise us working class folks trickle-down jobs for refusing to tax the rich, while corporations and CEOs make record profits, including the very banks that got us into this current mess. The only trickledown I’m seeing are the ruling elites pissing on the poor,

THE TALKING GOURD

Solstice Solo

(for Lew Welch)

climb alone red rocks

pristine hill top

above bay downtown buildings

pull conch shell from bag

blast to find sweet spot

sunset fires spreading

in office windows

how to play for people

from before, are now or to come

uninstructed in chill Pacific wind

on longest summer day

gold dome sparks rose sky

plaintive toots raise heads

quick shakes Amazon rattle

Mediterranean tambourine elbow smacks

look crazy keeping balance

-Peter Berg

San Francisco

June 21, 2003

Up Bear Creek / 4aug50011

Up Bear Creek

by Art Goodtimes

Locals join civil disobedience protest

for Eco-hero Tim DeChristopher

WE SHOULD BE PROUD … It’s heartening in these difficult times to see Chris Myers and Skip Edwards stand up for one of the new heroes of the environmental movement in the West. I had the pleasure of introducing Tim at Mountainfilm this year, and his words were both stirring and true. His is a generation out of time. He and others refuse to sit back and watch natural resource extraction trash what’s left of the wild West -- all in the pursuit of cheap energy and export profit … Let’s start a defense fund for Myers and Edwards. They acted on behalf of all of us. We ought to support them as well.

SHROOMFEST31 HELP … It’s getting closer to Telluride’s most unique and quirky event, the annual Telluride Mushroom Festival, Aug. 18-21. A great lineup, with Paul Stamets and Gary Lincoff returning, Paul’s teacher at Evergreen College Dr. Michael Beug coming for the first time, an expanded program on seven tracks – Identification, Culinary, Cultural, Cultivation, Entheogenic, Medicinal and Remediation, and a move to three venues – the Palm Theatre, the Wilkinson Library, and the Miramonte Building Meeting Room … But we need a bit of help with lodging, getting speakers to and from the Telluride and Montrose airports, and possibly a Telluride backyard to do our oyster mushroom cultivation workshop. We’ll be happy to trade some festival passes and workshop tickets for those tasks. If you have an extra bedroom, or can drive for us on Wednesday or Sunday of that weekend, or have a backyard big enough to host 20-40 people, a couple 55-gallon drums, and kid’s swimming pool (for inoculation), give me a call at 327-4767 or email me at <shroompa@paleohippie.com>

SHEEP MOUNTAIN … Finally climbed our local iconic environmental symbol last week with my two boys, Rio Coyotl and Gorio Oshá. Been trying for several years and kept running into lightning and thunder, bad schedules or weak knees … But we made it this time. The wildflowers were divine, the views spectacular and I remember why I love living in the mountains so much … Find me on Facebook for photos.

GORDON GLOCKSON … It took three years but we finally got the County building in Norwood named after our deceased Finance Director. A fitting tribute. Gordon spent his career keeping the County in sound fiscal shape – building up a multi-million dollar operating reserve that’s helped buffer the current economic nosedive and allowed the County to keep minimum levels of service. Eagle County laid off 80 workers. Towns of Telluride and Mountain Village had to let a dozen folks go between them (a small part of the 1000 jobs lost in the county this past year) … But thanks to Gordon and his policies, San Miguel County laid off no one. And we just got a clean bill of health from our annual audit, as well as praise for our fiscal responsibility (thanks also to the efficiencies and dedication of our County employees in every department) … Gordon was a visionary. His son Chris pointed out that Gordon couldn’t have done anything less. That was his nature. Finance was just his job, and he did it well … Next time you’re in Norwood, stop by the Gordon Glockson Building and admire the bronze plaque that Gordon’s son Michael helped design. Jan Glockson wasn’t the only proud person with a tear in their eye at the dedication ceremony last week.

NON-STANDARD … I don’t know about you, but I’ve been loving former Tellurider Jeri McAndrews’ self-published memoir, Runaway Dancer … “Non-standard” in English means stepping outside the proper language box, or in JMA’s case leaping out, into reminiscence, story, gossip, diary and all manner of uninhibited conversational English inspired by Kerouac’s free-flow spigot mind – straight from the source, without complete regard for laws or grammar or accepted convention and free of stuffiness or artifice, Iowa writer guidelines or New Yorker polish (although more than one metaphor threw this poet for a loop & some of JMA’s word inventions tied the knot) … Highly recommended.

TRUTH IN ADVERTISING … We all know these are hard times. Raising prices is a difficult but sometimes necessary decision for retailers. But trying to disguise a price hike is deceptive. Truth hurts. But deception angers … So, as a loyal Clark’s Market customer in Norwood, I was curious about a sign on a cash register last week suggesting management was “excited“ to announce it was offering a “senior discount!!!!” on Tuesdays only. I was a tad confused, since I already had found myself buying more locally because our Norwood market had been offering its senior citizens (like me) a 5% across-the-board discount seven days a week. A sweet little perk that never failed to bring a smile to my wrinkle-worn face … Well, it turns out the announcement was a mask for the fact that the local retailer was scrapping its across-the-board senior discount, and replacing it with a Tuesday-only discount … You know, if the market had explained that the cost of replacing a broken window somebody drove through a couple months back, the new oiling of the old gravel parking lot, gas prices, or almost anything reasonable had necessitated a dropping of the senior discount on all days but Tuesday, it would have hurt. But I could have lived with it. But “excited”? I don’t think so … I plan on stocking up in Ridgway and Montrose as often as I can from now on.

THE TALKING GOURD

Green Tea Party

-for Jack Mueller

Let’s take back

the flag

& celebrate the wind

Honor the paradox

of this imperfect

union

A free-for-all

visible

but indivisible

Up Bear Creek / 28july50011

 Up Bear Creek

by Art Goodtimes

Getting tired of NACo annual meetings

MINORITY VIEW… For the past 12 years I’ve been representing San Miguel County and Colorado’s state association of counties (CCI) at two or three annual meetings of the National Association of Counties – one in D.C. and two around the country, this July in Portland. It’s an honor to be in leadership on these larger levels, but it’s a huge drain of time and energy… Support for Payment-In-Lieu-of-Taxes (PILT) paid by the Feds to local governments has brought millions of dollars into county’s coffers. I feel time spent lobbying with NACo to support PILT (which Sen. Ken Salazar was crucial in getting fully authorized for four years) has been time well spent … But battling a very conservative majority at NACo around environmental issues wears you down. Votes on NACo’s Public Lands Steering Committee that used to run 60-2, now split 25-12 (resolutions calling for uranium mining along the Grand Canyon, exemptions for industry from Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, no more wilderness, etc.) … I still get emails from colleagues questioning climate warming stats with one obtuse data fact that doesn’t trend with the prevailing science. They’re good people. They care about their communities. But they’re not convinced that more laws and limitations on private enterprise is in the public good … Vacationing along the coastal range of Oregon and Washington before and after NACo, I got a first-hand glimpse of the now almost-vanished old growth as well as some impressive uneven-aged re-growth. The few old growth parks and preserves I saw seemed more like arboreal sanctuaries then merely standing timber harvests. I just wish we as a nation had been more sustainable in approaching old growth, so that there’d be more of it, slowly, to harvest and to enjoy… When I was 12-turning-13, my family left California and took a trip to British Columbia along the coastal highways of the late ‘50s. Past tourist redwoods and dune buggy shops into vast intact forests and tree farms of old growth and second growth doug fir, pine, and spruce … Traveling the coast with Gorio these last three weeks reminded me of those times, and were a kind of Time Traveler glasses that I wore (memory as a quantum string theory wormhole) as the boy and I made our way along amid meals of baked quahogs and raw oysters. Sea-kayaking Discovery Bay in a morning mist, heavy with the cries of a tree-top eagle… But I was talking about NACo, and the miserable few changes we got in the wording of one or two resolutions this time round. Resolutions that will be used by NACo’s conservative-leaning lobbyists to battle environmental laws in the House and Senate, where (as I write the column) Extinction Riders are being tacked on to various Budget Deals … It’s an insane world out there beyond the San Miguel watershed. The older I get the more I think it’s time to pay more attention to what’s happening in my own county. I’ve tried to work through regional, state and national county advocacy groups (Club 20, NACo, CCI) and, both as a Green and a San Miguel County citizen, I’ve not been impressed … Times are hard and going to get harder, and I think I need to focus my own energies on helping us find local strategies to adapt to the coming changes.

CHALLENGING THE POPE … Australia’s Bishop William Morris of the Diocese of Toowoomba has incurred the wrath of pontiff Benedict the Umpteenth and his Vatican-barbed brand of Swiss Guard Catholicism … Imagine fashioning a religion based on faith, a tiny nation-state, one man’s infallibility and the Italian Curia -- a private Roman Legion of clerics hell-bent on enforcing two millennia of orthodoxy? The faith part is hard enough. … Okay, I mean no disrespect to practicing Catholics. I hold in highest regard the American Catholicism of Dorothy Day and the Latin American Catholicism of Bishop Óscar Romero. I’ve been deeply inspired by the trials and sufferings of Sister Diana Ortiz and the pacifist activism of the Berrigan Brothers. That to me is the real Church. But there’s a whole ‘nother column … Suffice to say that Bishop Morris was dismissed from his bishopric (as it’s called – I’m not making this up) for comments in an Advent Pastoral Letter in 2006. In that message to his faithful Bishop Morris noted that, at the rate of deaths and advancing age in the ranks of his diocesan priests, there wouldn’t be enough of them to staff all the parishes in the diocese in a dozen years. So, he suggested that the Holy See ought to reconsider its ban on ordaining married priests, women priests or recognizing Anglican and Lutheran priests as legitimately ordained… According to the National Catholic Reporter, while Bishop Morris admitted he may have “stepped on the toes” of some higher-ups with his supply & demand pastoral remarks, he insisted, “You’ve got to stand in your truth.”

HABOOB … I had no idea what it meant until it appeared in a recent issue of The Week, a newsmag that I almost like (when I’m not hating its myopic American exceptionalism) – “a bad dust storm” … And that’s what my trip to the Northwest seemed like at times. An overwhelm, clouding one’s memory … Talking about the banking meltdown with a savvy business owner at the South Bend Coffee Company along the banks of the Willapa River, where Ekone Oyster Company sells some of the best shucked yearlings I’ve ever ate (almost sweet!) … Buying Scow Bay’s fresh San Juan oysters-in-the-shell (our favorites) on the honor system … Eating Hama Hama oysters and smoked Chilean sea-bass at their roadside picnic table as the low tide mudflats swarm with pickers and shuckers … Watching a brave seagull abandon a gutted salmon head moments before an immature Bald snatched the prize with its quick talons on the Beckett Point spit beach where we were staying … Traveling gets sand into your shoes, grains into your polish and builds all around grit. It’s great. Stuff to spend the rest of the year smoothing into meaning.

THE TALKING GOURD

Luna

On the porch the big dog thumps

when the moon

slides up phantom twin cedars.

A line from my notebook,

twenty-five years old,

floats off parched summer trails—

“rises a lady

with a candle in her hand.”

Memory rushes from the litter

with just one pup bloody

and squirming

in her cupped gloved hands.

I saw the birth of fog—

out beyond the argument of

garbage and property.

A wave along the tops of poplar,

cottonwood went silver

as the moon breathed the shape of a lake,

tears in its sheer fabric

wafting upward

in slightest evening breezes.

Past midnight,

the fog draped over a willow

smeared the bedroom window,

hung from bird pecked barn rafters,

and veiled all

but the eyes of the moon.

She shall not be gazed upon

 by all men.

She is the bride of one master,

not one of us.

A voice, keening “oo-la-loo”

through the fog.

-Michael F. Daley

Mt. Vernon, WA

Paleohippie

Prepping for Shroomfest

At Cloud Acre

-for Ty Allchin

Got back this late July weekend

Mowed the fallow field weeds

Have yet to mound the spuds

though watering daily

Not sure I can promise

a rainbow for our parade

But home from the gathering

the boy and I appear to be

rained out of an early

morning climb of Sheep

Mountain big brother Rio

& I had planned for months

& first reports from the San Juans

say some chanterelles already

& maybe a few boletes

(Leccinum, for sure)

Capt. Barefoot Broadside                                          Union of Street Poets

Vincent St. John Local / Colorado Plateau / Aztlán

 Kuksu Brigade (Ret.) / San Francisco

50011

Pandora's Box #2

Pandora’s Box

v. 1 #2  

a Monthly Column on Poetry from the Western Slope's Poet Laureate

by Art Goodtimes

On the Road

Traveling socks sand

into shoes

Grain into cedar

Builds all around grit

Great stuff

to spend the rest of

the year

smoothing into meaning

polishing into ink

POEM OF MY OWN … Summer is a bad time to start things. I started this column as a monthly in May, but June was travel prep and July vacation. I was on the road until just this evening  (actually got to hear Canned Heat’s version of “On the Road Again” on the radio when we were driving through Hoquiam) …The intent is to begin with a poem of my own, chat about various poetry items, and end with a featured poet … So, let’s take it from the top here at the end of July, with an August version to come soon.

JOHN NIZALOWSKI … My good buddy, poet, professor, book reviewer and biographer (whose youngest, Isadora, is my goddaughter), John Nizalowski of Grand Junction has published a new chapbook of poetry, The Last Matinée (Turkey Buzzard Press, Kittredge CO 80457, 2011). And he’s holding a free poetry reading in celebration of the book, along with publisher and poet Padma Jared Thornlyre, at Planet Earth & the Four DirectionsGallery in Grand Junction, Friday, July 29^th at 7 p.m. … Highly recommended. 

POWELL’S … No visit to Portland would be fitting without at least one stop in Powell’s – one of the biggest and most successful independent bookstores in the nation … Checked the used poetry stacks and found lots of great titles. Almost got a couple books about legendary SF poet Jack Spicer, but settled for a staff pick: Apropos of Nothing by Richard Jones (Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, 2006). Brilliant work. Simple, clear, metaphoric and with what the book jacket rightly calls “luminous interiority”.

MALPAÍS REVIEW … Just got my block-buster copy of this litzine’s summer issue -- the Malpaís Review, where “the Badlands are everywhere.” Into its second year, MR is edited by Gary L. Brower with help from Dale Harris – both fine New Mexico poets in their own right ... This issue features a mini-anthology of Latvian poetry in translation; featured sections on the poetry of Mario Benedetti, Sy Hoahwah, Lawson Inada and Wayne Crawford; and lots of good work by names I know (Don McIver, Don Levering, Ann Valley-Fox) and names I don’t (Kale Baldock, Dee Cohen, Juan Antonio Masóliver) … Highly recommended.

RACHEL KELLUM … I first met this excellent poet from Brush, out on the eastern plains, this past winter. An ivory black scarf around her neck, as daring as any avant-garde Isadora, Rachel read her powerful poems at the Karen Chamberland Poetry Festival in Carbondale, while centered in a Tai Chi stance --

calm, quiet but deeply inviting … We’ve been exchanging poems via email, and it’s been a delight to find such a powerful new voice. She also paints, raises children, and teaches at Fort Morgan Community College. A super-woman for sure.

RED BIRD … For years G. Leonard Bird was my inspiration for poetry on the Western Slope. He taught at Ft. Lewis College and had been an editor for the Rocky Mountain Literary Review when I came to Colorado in ’79. His book, River of Lost Souls from John Brandi’s Santa Fe-based Tooth of Time Press, was powerful good medicine … We became friends. I lectured in his class. He brought students to my Talking Gourds poetry events. In the last years of his life, this fine teacher/writer/peace activist and his wife Jane alternated between Michigan and San Miguel de Allende … He passed away last fall, and this summer a memorial was held June 4^th at Ft. Lewis, with poetry and music. I was unable to attend, but sent a poem … Many of us will long remember a wonderful man who gave his all to his students and inspired a whole generation of poets and activists.

 

WAY OF THE MOUNTAIN … Mountain Gazette is archiving the Way of the Mountain poetry page that I started this spring in their publication – inheriting the MG poetry editor mantle from the late Karen Chamberlain of the Roaring Fork Valley and before that Peter Anderson of Crestone.

  

GOURD CIRCLE POET … Traveling to Portland for a political meeting, I got to visit an old friend I hadn’t seen in years, Eric Walter. A fine poet, one of the original founders of the Fire Gigglers, a gifted musician and father to a son (Jacob) the same age as my boy (Gorio) … The four of us spent a lovely day along the Willamette River visiting the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry with its WWII submarine tours, IMAX theater, dazzling science exhibits (it was the first time I’d seen an actual diorama of a fetus in a womb through each week of a pregnancy) and interactive stations that kept us all busy for hours (I learned my left hand has a stronger grip than my right) … After years in Colorado, Eric had moved back to Portland where he’d originally studied theater at Reed College, and began focusing more on his music (he and his son had just finished playing a Renaissance Faire when we came to visit). An admirer of Dolores LaChapelle, he’d let his connection to the natural world take center stage in his poetry. The poem below is from his last chapbook, Sounds from the Old Lodge (Castle Rock Publ., Prescott, AZ, 2004). He’s hoping to have a new chapbook out this year.

In the church of deep woods

old, aromatic

cedar and doug fir

pine and hemlock

stretch cool veils

of shade

over rock and rill hymns

breathing

gardens of vanilla leaf

cow parsnip and skunk cabbage

where black bear roam

etch their passing

in bark

and elk, deer

raccoon congregate

at river’s edge

in prayer

for the rare human

pilgrims that arrive

confused,

humble, and always

very tired

copyright Eric Walters

Mountain Gazette #180

Way of the Mountain #180

         Publication and performance are the twin pillars of the poetry world. Personally, I’m a fan of crossovers, but I dig reading written poems and I love hearing performance poetry – slam, hip-hop, open mike. Or the Gourd Circle – a gathering of friends for dinner and several rounds of telling stories, poetry & song.

But poetry can be more than just outreach to an audience. For some it is valuable personal practice. Valerie Haugen of Glenwood Springs falls in love with a new poet a day. Lorine Niedecker. Amy Lowell. Gerard Manley Hopkins. Their words, insights and stylistic breakthroughs inform her poetry. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer of Placerville has made a lyric practice of writing a poem a day. After going on three years of this, she’s become a master of capturing language and experience. Both great personal practices. And both poets take advantage of the Web’s blogosphere to “publish” their work and explorations.

Another bright exploratory star flames out … Gregory Greyhawk was one of those giant souls, huge-hearted, a string of his own hockey teeth pearled around his neck. Brilliant, erratic. I loved being around him. Anything could happen, and sometimes did …. Just ordered his book, Wailing Heaven, Whistling in Hell (Howling Dog Press, Berthoud, Colorado, 1996) … Gonna miss the wrap of his big arm as we caromed down a Denver sidewalk, and the wild grin of his gap-toothed smile.

-Art Goodtimes

Cloud Acre

Remembering Karen Chamberlain

lanky stalk of grass

singing in the autumn wind

your voice packed with seeds

-Carol Bell

Ft. Collins

Cool Dad

My dad, who never blows his cool

the day i left for Vietnam

sat down to a stack of homemade buttermilk pancakes

and poured vinegar on them, by mistake.

-Dennis Fritzinger

Earth First! Journal editor

Berkeley

P.S.

As for us, yes, the young still go to war,

And wars continue at the speed of darkness,

Not the world wars you expected, but the others,

Wars of despisals in our countries, in our cities, in other countries and cities.

Promises and solidarity collapsed, and in the confusion

justice circles this sweating planet, looking for somewhere to land.

-Jackie St. Joan

excerpt Letter to Muriel Rukeyser at the End of the 20^th Century

Denver

Rainforest Bedroom

(excerpt)

…jaguar has moved into the bedroom

meadowlarks are nesting in the corner

sunfish swim in the water glass on the nightstand

black widow makes a web in your shoe

the bed is a jungle

and it’s raining emeralds

-Galaxy Dancer

Durango

While Considering Demolition

I ask my teacher

about walls.

She says, Notice them.

I ask,

What´s on the other side?

 She says, You are.

-Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Placerville

Up Bear Creek / 21jul50011

Up Bear Creek

by Art Goodtimes

Travels with Gregorio Rainbow Oshá

ON THE ROAD … Each summer I look forward to traveling with my youngest son. It’s the high point of the non-school year for both of us … Of course, I rarely do anything singly. Seems like double-tasking is de rigeur for my busy life as pol, poet, poppa and spud farmer. So, rather than just a vacation, I often combine business and pleasure. This year was no different … The Rainbow Gathering at Skookum Meadows in Skamania County, Washington, was one major focus. The annual meeting of the National Association of Counties (NACo) at the Portland Convention Center was the other. Both were in the first part of July. Both were in the Pacific Northwest. Marrying the two together seemed natural, although one involved my wild hippie countercultural society and the other our shared mainstream law&order cultural matrix. Perhaps polar opposites for some. But I subscribe to the dictum, “All power to the paradox,” as my poet friend Jack Mueller would insist.

LATE START … The intent this year was to leave Cloud Acre at the end of June and get to the Rainbow Gathering for its start, July 1^st. But no such luck. It took Gorio and I two full days of packing to get ready for our trip, and to secure Cloud Acre with friends to feed the cats and tend the fifty some potato varieties that I grow each year. Shoehorning gear for both camping in the wilds and formal political meetings into a tiny Honda Civic was no easy task. We made it fit, but didn’t start our journey until the day the gathering was supposed to start … Gorio and I agreed to not rush, and enjoy our travels as much as our destinations … So, the first night was spent in Fruita, at Danny Rosen’s North 19 Straw Bale Observatory, where it just so happened three of our favorite poets in the world were having a campfire evening – Rosen, Wendy Videlock of Grand Junction and the aforementioned Mueller of Log Hill Village in Ridgway. An evening spent quoting lyrics, explicating the nature of memory and drinking fine liquids of various sorts made for a great (if late) start to our journey … And in the spirit of not rushing, Gorio slept into the afternoon before we got back on the road. Ah, the vacationing life…

GREEN RIVER … The Green River Coffee Company has become a favorite stop in a long desolate stretch of Interstate (with starkly beautiful scenery). Great coffee. Wifi (although they charge a small fee to plug in). Good sandwiches. And a relaxed, bookish atmosphere … You hardly feel like you’re in Utah. And the java is organic. 25 East Main St. And if you park down a side block, you can even find a little shade.

LA GRANDE … The second day we made a little better time, driving from a so-so motel in Salt Lake City to a must-stop eatery on any Northwest journey. A few years ago, just by chance, we stopped in La Grande and found ourselves seated for dinner at Foley Station. And what a dinner it was! Some of the tastiest, most creative food I’ve had and for a very reasonable price … Over the years, it has become a destination cafe for me. I like to plan my trips around dinner or breakfast at Foley Station in La Grande… This time we found a small very cheap (under $50 for 2) but clean motel on the outskirts of town – Quail Run Motor Inn. The sound of the rail line across the road added rural flavor. The proprietors – a lovely Indian couple – kept the grounds in excellent shape, and were very friendly … But the high point for us was dinner at Foley Station. The meal was excellent, although the male waiter was a bit slow and we were a bit cranky, so he didn’t get the big tip he could have gotten. But I’d recommend this restaurant to anyone anytime. Even with slow service … Our only regret was that they’d decided to close for the 4^th of July weekend, so we didn’t get Sunday brunch like we’d hoped.

SKOOKUM MEADOWS … Gorio’s middle name is Rainbow. It’s where his mother and I first met. And he’s been going with me every other year since he was born (the gathering is held in national forests around the county and alternates between the east coast and the west coast – with our attending only when it’s in the west) … Since we got to the gathering so late, we had to park miles from the event, and ended up walking for hours and hours, camping outside the gathering, and only making it into the site for the 4^th of July peace circle … But still it was inspiring. And other than the Forest Service Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs) from their D.C. “unified command,” it was a very peaceful gathering. I heard later from a local county commissioner in Skamania County that the LEOs failed to coordinate with the local sheriff, alienated all the local people, and made many silly and ridiculous arrests … Once again, it was the Feds out of control. Must be some sort of lesson there.

PEBBLE MINE … Poet friend Cameron Scott, whose fine poem is our Talking Gourd for this week, says that Telluriders may be familiar with this “big plain suck ass of a mine” in Alaska from the award-winning film by our local filmmakers, Red Gold.

THE TALKING GOURD

Pebble Mine

Growing up we used to throw pebbles

over power lines.

Rotation of shoulder, whip of forearm.

Our laughter scattering into the grass.

Laboring through the heat of rules

without rules, some of us took aim

at magpies and windows.

Then staring down at our dirty socks

we would ask forgiveness

for the windows.

-Cameron Scott

Basalt