Letter to a friend

You guys...I've thought about that boat trip lots of times. My timing sucked, or I would have taken up the invitation so graciously offered. Ah. Well.

You said something about The sweet spot...nah, sweet spots.

In those days I was in the High Sierras, working as a packer for the Forest Service. One trip I went several days away from the headquarters at Bolsillo Creek, back up behind the Silver Divide, leading five mules, making my rounds with supplies to the two trail crews that were operating in the area. My pal, Dooley, came up from Shaver Lake to go on the trip with me.

Iva Bell Hot Springs. One night after a 30-mile ride, the horses and mules were grazing in a stock pasture at the confluence of two granite canyons, I sat in a hot pool with 24 naked Christian women who'd hiked in from above Fish Creek Canyon. Under a full moon. Total coincidence, us all being there at the same time. Dooley had shot a deer just the day before, and early on in the evening a couple of the Christian women brought some chilis, potatoes and onions to our camp when they smelled the venison we were roasting. I would have sworn to god that night if I'd not had my mouth full of fried onions, potatoes, and that deer’s tender backstraps.

But, the next night the Christian women were gone, and a couple of hippie women who were camped up the hillside brought some peyote buttons to barter for the residual venison chili. Whew. It was a huge mistake for Dooley, but fortunately for me, I had left camp that morning to transport a backpacker who'd hurt his leg—left Dooley in camp because I’d put the backpacker on his horse, put his gear and my bedroll on one of the mules. Took the backpacker to Red's meadow, so's he could use their phone to call for a ride home. He was grateful, and bought me a steak dinner at the restaurant.

Red’s Meadow was a full day's ride from the camp, so I spent the night camped out at the tourist pasture, made small twig campfire just to be cheerful, took comfort in hearing the mule and horses scuffing and fluffing in dark as they wandered around munching at the grasses. All things were shipshape. The moon was past full, and came up late, but when it did the forest glowed white from the light bouncing off the granite walls that surrounded two sides of the meadow. I smoked a bowl zowie weed and burrowed into my sleeping bag. Life can get only so good, and then the bounty just sort of spills over and evaporates back into the cosmos for someone else to use.

Back in our camp at Iva Bell Hot Spring, Dooley was howling at the moon with the hippie women. He watched the purple haze drift across the scenery for the next couple of days, eyes bugged out, hanging on to the saddle horn, letting the horse do the work, because he just wasn't in the same universe with me for a while. Dooley never did have a very well developed concept of moderation.

But you get the idea. The cosmic muffin gave us a memory so's we could have something to do when we get too old to ride 30 miles through the back country, you see. Kids don't get it. They think there is a destination.