The phone rang in Red Lodge.  The sun had already faded behind the mountain, and the street outside where the bike was parked was covered in darkness. Only the glow from the quarter moon allowed the bike to be visible from my vantage point inside the Pollard’s Lobby.  The hotel manager told me I had a call coming in and it was from Cooke City.  By the time I got to the phone at the front desk, they had hung up. All that the manager had heard from the caller was that I was needed in Cooke City just before the line had gone dead.  Because of the weather, my cell phone reception was spotty, and the hotel’s phone had no caller I.D.

Cooke City was 69 miles to the West, a little more than an hour’s drive under normal circumstances.  The problem is that you can never apply the word normal to crossing Beartooth Pass even under the best of conditions, and certainly not this early in the season.  I wondered about the call and the caller, and what was summoning me to the other side.  There was 11,000 feet of mountain in between the towns of Red Lodge and Cooke City, and with a low front moving in from the West, all signals from the mountain were to stay put.

Beartooth Pass is the highest and most formidable mountain crossing in the lower 48 States.  It is a series of high switchback turns that crisscross the Montana and Wyoming borders, rising to an elevation of 10,947 ft.  If distance can normally be measured in time, this is one of nature’s timeless events.  This road is its own lord and master. It allows you across only with permission and demands your total respect as you travel its jagged heights either East or West.  Snow and rockslides are just two of the deadly hazards here, with the road itself trumping both of these dangers when traveled at night.

The Beartooth Highway, as gorgeous as it is during most summer days, is particularly treacherous in the dark.  Many times, and without warning, it will be totally covered in fog. Even worse, during the late spring and early fall, there is ice, and often black ice when you rise above 7000 feet. Black ice is hard enough to see during the daytime, but impossible to see at night and especially so when the mountain is covered in fog. At night, this road has gremlins and monsters hiding in its corners and along its periphery, ready to swallow you up with the first mistake or indiscretion that a momentary lack of attention can cause.

The word impossible is part of this mountains DNA.

: Impossible- Like the dreams I had been recently having.

: Impossible- Like all of the things I still had not done.

: Impossible- As the excuses ran like an electric current
                         through all that I hated.

: Impossible- Only in the failure of that yet to be conquered.

: Impossible- For only as long as I kept repeating the word.

Now it was my time to make a call.  I dialed the cell number of my friend Mitch who worked for the U.S. Forest Service in Cooke City. Mitch told me what I already knew and feared. There was snow on both sides of the road from Red Lodge to Cooke City, and with the dropping temperatures probably ice, and possibly black ice, at elevations above 7500 feet.

Mitch lived in Red Lodge and had just traveled the road two hours earlier on his way home.  He said there had been sporadic icy conditions on the Red Lodge side of the mountain, causing his Jeep Wagoneer to lose traction and his tires to spin when applying his brakes in the sharpest turns.  The sharpest corners were the most dangerous parts of this road, both going up and even more so when coming down. Mitch warned me against going at night and said: “Be sure to call me back if you decide to leave.”

The Red Lodge side of the mountain would be where I would begin my trip if I decided to go, with no telling how bad the Cooke City descent would be on the Western side.  This is assuming I was even able to make it over the top, before then starting the long downward spiral into Cooke City Montana.

The phone rang again!  This time I was able to get to the front desk before the caller got away.  In just ten seconds I was left with the words ringing in my ears — “Everything is ready, and we implore you to come, please come to Cooke City, and please come tonight.”  

Now, it was my time to choose.  I had to decide between staying where it was safe and dry, or answering the call and making the journey through the dark to where fate was now crying out to me. I put the phone down and walked out the front doors of the Pollard Hotel and into the dim moonlight that was shining through the clouds and onto the street.  The ‘Venture’ sat in its soft glow, parked horizontally to the sidewalk, with its back tire pressed up against the curb and its front tire pointed due North.  The bike was not showing any bias either East or West and was not going to help with this decision.  If I decided to go, this choice would have to be all mine.

The original plan had been to stay in Red Lodge for two more days, awaiting friends who still had not arrived from a trip to Mount Rushmore. Then together we had planned a short stopover in Cody, which was not more than ninety-minutes away. From there we planned to take the ‘Chief Joseph Highway’ to Cooke City, which is both a beautiful and safe way around Beartooth Pass. Safety drifted out of my consciousness like a distant mistress, and I looked North and heard the mountain call out to me again.

As much as I wanted to see my friends, the voice that was calling from inside was getting harder and harder to ignore.  With the second phone call, my time in Red Lodge grew short in its importance, and I knew in the next two minutes I would have to choose.

I also knew that if I stood in the clouded moonlight for more than two more minutes I would never decide.  Never deciding is the hallmark of all cowardly thought, and I hoped on this night that I would not be caught in its web as victim once again.  

                                         My Decision Was To Go

In ten short minutes, I emptied my room at the Pollard, checked out, and had the bike loaded and ready at the curb.  I put my warmest and most reflective riding gear on, all the while knowing that there was probably no one to see me. No one on that lonely road, except for the deer, coyote, or elk, that would undoubtedly question my sanity as they watched me ride by in the cold dark silence.  I stopped at the gas station at the end of town and topped off the tank --- just in case.  Just in case was something I hoped I wouldn’t have to deal with, as the ride would at most take less than a half a tank of gas. It made me feel better though, so I topped off, paid the attendant, and rode slowly out towards U.S. Highway # 212.  

As I headed West toward the pass, I noticed one thing conspicuous in its absence. In fifteen minutes of travel, I had not passed one other vehicle of any kind going in either direction.  I was really alone tonight and not only in my thoughts.  It was going to be a solitary ride as I tried to cross the mountain. I would be alone with only my trusted bike as my companion which in all honesty — I knew in my heart before leaving the hotel.  

Alone, meant there would be no help if I got into trouble and no one to find me until probably morning at the earliest.  Surviving exposed on the mountain for at least twelve hours is a gamble I hoped I wouldn’t have to take.

I kept moving West. As I arrived at the base of the pass I stopped, put the kickstand down and looked up.  What was visible of the mountain in the clouded moonlight was only the bottom third of the Beartooth Highway. The top two thirds disappeared into a clouded mist, not giving up what it might contain or what future it may have hidden inside of itself for me.  With the kickstand back up and my high beam on, I slowly started my ascent up Beartooth Pass.

For the first six or seven miles the road surface was clear with snow lining both sides of the highway.  The mountain above, and the ones off to my right and to the North were almost impossible to see.  What I could make out though, was that they were totally snow covered making this part of southern Montana look more like December or January, instead of early June.  The road had only opened a month ago and it was still closing at least three out of every seven days.  I remembered to myself how in years past this road never really opened permanently until almost the 4th of July.

When the road was closed, it made the trip from Red Lodge to Cooke City a long one for those who had to go around the mountain.  Many people who worked in Cooke City actually lived in Red Lodge.  They would ‘brave’ the pass every night when it was open, but usually only during the summer months. They would do this in trucks with 4-wheel drive and S.U.V.’s but never on a motorcycle with only two wheels.  Trying to cross this pass on a motorcycle with high performance tires, in the fog, and at night, was a horse of an entirely different color.  

At about the seven-mile mark in my ascent I again stopped the bike and looked behind me. I was about to enter the cloud barrier.  The sight below from where I had just come was breathtakingly beautiful.  If this was to be the last thing I would ever see before   entering the cloud, it would be a fitting photograph on my passport into eternity.

I looked East again, and it was as if the lights from Red Lodge were calling me back, saying “Not tonight Kurt, this trip is to be made another time and for a better reason.” I paused, but could think of no better reason, as I heard the voice on the phone say inside my mind, “Please come,” so I retracted the kickstand and entered the approaching fog.

There was nothing inviting as I entered the cloud.  The dampness and the moisture were immediate and all enveloping, as the visibility dropped to less than fifty feet.  It was so thick I could actually see rain droplets as it passed over my headlight.  The road was still clear though and although it was hard to see, its surface was still good.  The animals that would normally concern me at this time of night were a distant memory to me now. The road stayed like this for what seemed to be another two or three miles, while it trapped me in its continuing time warp of what I still had to overcome.

It then turned sharply right, and I heard a loud ‘wail’ from inside the bike’s motor.  My heart immediately started racing as I thought to myself, ‘What a place to have the engine break down.’  It only took a few more seconds though to see that what I thought was engine failure was actually the tachometer revving off the scale on the dash.  The rear tire had lost traction, and in an involuntary and automated response I had given it more throttle to maintain my speed. I now had the engine turning at over 5000 r.p.m.’s in an attempt to get the rear tire to again make contact with the road.  Slowing my speed helped a little, but I was now down to 10 MPH, and it was barely fast enough to allow me to continue my ascent without the rear tire spinning again.

                                  I Could Still Turn Around And Go Back    

I was now at an elevation above 8,000 ft, and it was here that I had to make my last decision.  I could still turn around and go back.

While the road surface was only semi-good, I could turn around and head back in the direction from which I had just come.  I could go back safely, but to what and to whom? I knew my spirit and my heart would not go with me, both choosing to stay on this hill tonight regardless of the cost.  “If I turn around and go back, my fear is that in my lack of commitment, I will lose both of them forever. The mountain will have then claimed what my soul cannot afford to lose.”  I looked away from Red Lodge for the last time, and once again my eyes were pointed toward the mountain’s top.

It was three more miles to the summit based on my best estimation.

From there it would be all down hill.  The fear grew deeper inside of me that the descent would be even more treacherous as I crested the top and pushed on to the mountain town of Cooke City below.  Cooke City and Red Lodge were both in Montana, but the crest of this mountain was in Wyoming, and it looked down on both towns as if to say … ‘All passage comes only through me.’      

This time I did not stop and look over my shoulder. Instead, I said a short prayer to the gods that protect and watch over this place and asked for only one dispensation — and just one pass through the dark.  My back wheel continued to spin but then somehow it would always regain traction, and I continued to pray as I slowly approached the top.  

As I arrived at the summit, the road flattened out, but the cloud cover grew even more dense with visibility now falling to less than ten feet.  I now couldn’t see past my front fender, as the light from my headlamp bounced off the water particles with most of its illumination reflected back onto me and not on the road ahead.

In conditions like this it is very hard to maintain equilibrium and balance. Balance is the most essential component of any two-wheeled form of travel. Without at least two fixed reference points, it’s hard to stay straight upright and vertical.  I’ve only experienced this once before when going through a mountain tunnel whose lights had been turned off. When you can’t see the road beneath you, your inner sense of stability becomes compromised, and it’s easier than you might think to get off track and crash.

This situation has caused many motorcyclists to fall over while seemingly doing nothing wrong. It creates a strange combination of panic and vertigo and is not something you would ever want to experience or deal with on even a dry road at sea level.  On an icy road at this elevation however, it could spell the end of everything!

My cure for this has always been to put both feet down and literally drag them on top of the road surface below. This allows my legs to act as two tripods, warning me of when the bike is leaning either too far to the left or to the right.  It’s also dangerous. If either leg comes in contact with something on the road or gets hung up, it could cause the very thing it’s trying to avoid. I’ve actually run over my own foot with the rear wheel and it’s not something you want to do twice.

                     Often Causing What It’s Trying To Avoid

At the top of the pass, the road is flat for at least a mile and gently twists and turns from left to right.  It is a giant plateau,10,000 feet above sea level. The mountain then starts to descend westward as it delivers its melting snow and rain to the Western States. Through mighty rivers, it carries its drainage to the Pacific Ocean far beyond.  As I got to the end of its level plain, a passing thought entered my consciousness.  With the temperature here at the top having risen a little, and only just below freezing, my Kevlar foul-weather gear would probably allow me to survive the night.  On this mountaintop, there is a lot of open space to get off the road, if I could then only find a place to get out of the wind.  

I let that thought exit my mind as quickly as it entered. The bike was easily handling the flat icy areas, and I knew that the both of us wanted to push on.  I tried to use my cell phone at the top to call Mitch at home.  I was sure that by now he would be sitting by the fire and drinking something warm.  This is something I should have done before I made the final decision to leave.  I didn’t, because I was sure he would have tried to talk me out of it, or worse, have forbidden me to go. This was well within his right and purview as the Superintendent of all who passed over this mountain.

My phone didn’t work!  This was strange because it had worked from the top last spring when I called my family and also sent cell-phone pictures from the great mountain’s summit.  I actually placed three calls from the top that day, two to Pennsylvania and one to suburban Boston.

                                         But Not Tonight!

As I started my descent down the western *****, I knew it would be in first gear only.  In first gear the engine would act as a brake or limiter affecting my speed, hopefully without causing my back tire to lose traction and break loose. With almost zero visibility, and both feet down and dragging in the wet snow and ice, I struggled to stay in the middle of the road.  It had been over an hour since leaving Red Lodge, and I still had seen no other travelers going either East or West. I had seen no animals either, and tonight I was at least thankful for that.

The drop off to my right (North) was several thousand feet straight down to the valley below and usually visible even at night when not covered in such cloud and mist.  To my left was the mountain’s face interspersed with open areas which also dropped several thousands of feet to the southern valley below.  Everything was uncertain as I left the summit, and any clear scenery had disappeared in the clouds. What was certain though was my death if I got too close to the edge and was unable to recover and get back on the road.

There were guardrails along many of the turns and that helped, because it told me that the direction of the road was changing.  In the straight flat areas however it was open on both sides with nothing but a several thousand-foot fall into the oblivion below.

Twice I ran over onto the apron and felt my foot lose contact with the road surface meaning I was at the very edge and within two feet of my doom.  Twice, I was sure that my time on this earth had ended, and that I was headed for a different and hopefully better place. Twice, I counter steered the bike to the left and both feet regained contact with the road as the front tire weaved back and forth with only the back tire digging in and allowing me to stay straight up.

As I continued my descent, I noticed something strange and peculiar.  After a minute or two it felt like I was going faster than you could ever go in first gear.  It took only another instant to realize what was happening.  The traction to the rear tire was gone, and my bike and I were now sliding down the Western ***** of Beartooth pass.  The weight of the bike and myself, combined with the gravity of the mountain’s descent, was causing us to go faster than we could ever go by gearing alone.  Trying to go straight seemed like my only option as the bike felt like it had lost any ability to control where it was going.  This was the next to last thing I could have feared happening on this hill.

The thing I feared most was having to use either the front or rear brakes in a situation like this.  That would only ensure that the bike would go out of control totally, causing the rear wheel to come around broadside and result in the bike falling over on its opposite side. Not good!  Not good at all!

Thoughts of sliding off the side of the mountain and into the canyons below started running through my mind.  Either falling off the mountain or being trapped under the bike while waiting for the next semi-truck to run over me as it crossed the summit in the darkened fog was not something I welcomed. Like I said before, not good, not good at all!

My mind flashed back to when I was a kid and how fast it seemed we were going when sledding down the hill in front of the local hospital.  I also remembered my disappointment when one of the fathers told me that although it seemed fast, we were really only going about ten or fifteen miles an hour.  I wondered to myself how fast the bike was really going now, as it slid down this tallest of all Montana mountains? It seemed very, very fast.  I reminded myself over and over, to keep my feet down and my hand off the brakes.

If I was going to crash, I was going to try and do it in the middle of the road. Wherever that was now though, I couldn’t be sure.  It was finally the time to find out what I had really learned after riding a motorcycle for over forty years.  I hoped and prayed that what I had learned in those many years of riding would tonight be enough.

As we continued down, the road had many more sharp turns, swerving from right to left and then back right again.  Many times, I was right at the edge of my strength. My legs battled to keep the bike upright, as I fought it as it wanted to lean deeper into the turns.  I almost thought I had the knack of all this down, when I instantaneously came out of the cloud.  I couldn’t believe, and more accurately didn’t want to believe, what I was seeing less than a half mile ahead.

The road in front of me was totally covered in black ice.  Black ice look’s almost like cinders at night and can sometimes deceive you into thinking it holds traction when exactly the opposite is true. This trail of black ice led a half mile down the mountain to where it looked like it ended under a guardrail at the end.  What I thought was the end was actually a switchback turn of at least 120 degrees.

It turned sharply to the right before going completely out of my sight into the descending blackness up ahead.

My options now seemed pretty straightforward while bleak.  I could lay the bike down and hope the guard rail would stop us before cascading off the mountain, or I could try to ride it out with the chances of making it slim at best.  I tried digging my feet into the black ice as brakes, as a kid would do on a soapbox car, but it did no good.  The bike kept pummeling toward the guardrail, and I was sure I was now going faster than ever.  As my feet kept bouncing off the ice, it caused the bike to wobble in the middle of its slide. This was now the last thing I needed as I struggled not to fall.

As I got close to the guardrail, and where the road turned sharply to the right, I felt like I was going 100 miles an hour.  I was now out of the cloud and even in the diffused moonlight I could see clearly both sides of the road.  With some visibility I could now try and stay in the middle, as my bike and I headed towards the guardrail not more than 500 feet ahead.  The valley’s below to the North and South were still thousands of feet below me, and I knew when I tried to make the turn that there would be no guardrail to protect me from going off the opposite right, or Northern side.

                   Time Was Running Out, And A Choice Had To Be Made

The choices ran before my eyes one more time — to be trapped under a guardrail or to run off a mountain into a several thousand foot abyss.  But then all at once my soul screamed NO, and that I did have one more choice … I could decide to just make it. I would try by ‘force of will’ to make it around that blind turn.  I became reborn once again in the faith of my new decision not to go down, and I visually saw myself coming out the other side in my mind’s eye.

                                        I Will Make That Turn

I remembered during this moment of epiphany what a great motorcycle racer named **** Mann had said over forty years ago.  

**** said “When you find yourself in trouble, and in situations like this, the bike is normally smarter than you are.  Don’t try and muscle or overpower the motorcycle.  It’s basically a gyroscope and wants to stay upright.  Listen to what the bike is telling you and go with that. It’s your best chance of survival, and in more cases than not, you’ll come out OK.”  With ****’s words fresh and breathing inside of me, I entered the right-hand turn.

As I slowly leaned the bike over to the right, I could feel the rear tire break loose and start to come around.  As it did, I let the handlebars point the front tire in the same direction as the rear tire was coming.  We were now doing what flat track motorcycle racers do in a turn — a controlled slide! With the handlebars totally pressed against the left side of the tank, the bike was fully ‘locked up’ and sliding with no traction to the right.  The only control I had was the angle I would allow the bike to lean over,which was controlled by my upper body and my right leg sliding below me on the road.

Miraculously, the bike slid from the right side of the turn to the left.  It wasn’t until I was on the left apron that the back tire bit into the soft snow and regained enough traction to set me upright. I was not more than three feet from the now open edge leading to a certain drop thousands of feet below.  The traction in the soft snow ****** the bike back upright and had me now pointed in a straight line diagonally back across the road.  Fighting the tendency to grab the brakes, I sat upright again and counter steered to the left. Just before running off the right apron, I was able to get the bike turned and headed once again straight down the mountain.  It was at this time that I took my first deep breath.

In two hundred more yards the ice disappeared, and I could see the lights of Cooke City shining ten miles out in the distance. The road was partially dry when I saw the sign welcoming me to this most unique of all Montana towns.  To commemorate what had just happened, I was compelled to stop and look back just one more time.  I put the kickstand down and got off the bike.  For a long minute I looked back up at the mountain. It was still almost totally hidden in the cloud that I had just come through.  I wondered to myself if any other motorcyclists had done what I had just done tonight — and survived.  I knew the stories of the many that had run off the mountain and were now just statistics in the Forest Service’s logbook, but I still wondered about those others who may had made it and where their stories would rank with mine.

I looked up for the last time and said thank you, knowing that the mountain offered neither forgiveness nor blame, and what I had done tonight was of my own choosing. Luck and whatever riding ability I possessed were what had seen me through. But was it just that, or was it something else? Was it something beyond my power to choose, and something still beyond my power to understand?  If the answer is yes, I hope it stays that way.  Until on a night like tonight, some distant mountain high above some future valley, finally claims me as its own.

                     Was Crossing Tonight Beyond My Power To Choose?

After I parked the bike in front of the Super 8 in Cooke City, I walked into the lobby and the desk clerk greeted me. “Mr Behm,

it’s good to see you again, I’m glad we were able to reach you with that second phone call.  We received a cancellation just before nine, and the only room we had left became available for the night.”

I have heard the calling in many voices and in many forms.  Tonight, it told me that my place was to be in Cooke City and my time in Red Lodge had come to an end.  Some may need more or better reasons to cross their mountain in the dark, but for me, the only thing necessary was for it to call.

                                               …  Until It Calls Again





Gardiner Montana- May, 1996

My Heart Was Saying One Thing, My Mind Another ...

Some things you just know — like the feeling I get when looking at my children or the way I felt the first time I looked into the Grand Canyon. Some experiences are too strong for reason or words. There are some things, that even though they defy all conventional wisdom in your heart and your mind — you just know.

Never dying on a motorcycle is one of those things. I can’t explain it rationally, it’s just something that I’ve always known. It’s a feeling that has been deep inside of me since I first threw my right leg over the seat of that old powder blue moped. I knew I was never going to die as the result of a motorcycle crash. In many ways, I feel safest when I’m back on two-wheels and headed for points previously unknown.

Lately Though, I’ve Been Made To Feel Differently

I now had my daughter on the back of the bike with me. I’ve started to wonder whether my premonition covers just me, or does it also protect all who ride as co-pilot and passenger? Would the same Gods of 2-wheeled travel, who have watched over me for so long, also extend their protection to those I love and now share my adventures with?

Our flight from Philadelphia had arrived in Idaho Falls five days ago. We hurried to the dealership, picked up our beloved Yamaha Venture Royale, and then began our quest of another ten-day odyssey through the Rocky Mountain West. This was Melissa’s third tour with her dad, and we both shared the intense excitement of not knowing what the next week would hold. We had no specific destination or itinerary. This week would be more important than that. Just by casting our fate into the winds that blew across the eastern slopes of the great Rocky Mountains, we knew that all destinations would then be secure.

Then We Almost Hit Our First Deer

Three days ago, just South of Dupoyer Montana, two doe’s and a fawn appeared out of nowhere on the road directly in front of us. Melissa never saw them as I grabbed ******* the front brake. The front brake provides 80-90% of all stopping power on a motorcycle but also causes the greatest loss of control if you freeze up the front wheel. As the front wheel locked, the bike’s back tire swerved right and we moved violently into the left oncoming lane just narrowly missing the three deer.

They Never Moved

The old axiom that goes … Head right for the deer, because they won’t be there when you get there, wouldn’t have worked today. They just watched us go by as if it happened to them every day. Judging by the number of dead deer we had seen along highway #89 coming South, it probably did.

Strike One!

We pulled into Great Falls for the night and over dinner relived again how close we had actually come — so close to it all being over. Collisions with deer are tragic enough in a car or SUV, but on a motorcycle usually only one of the unfortunate participants gets up and walks away — and that’s almost always the deer. The rider is normally a statistic. We thanked the Gods of the highway for protecting us this day, and after a short walk around town we went back to the motel for a good (and thankful) night’s sleep.

The next morning was another one of those idyllic Rocky Mountain days. The skies were clear, there was no humidity, and the temperature was in the low 60’s with a horizon that stretched beyond forever. If we were ever to forget the reason why we do these trips just the memory of this morning would be enough to drive that amnesia away forever. We had breakfast at the 5th Street Diner, put our fleece vests on under our riding jackets, and headed South again.

We had a short ride to Bozeman today, and my daughter was especially excited. It was one of her all-time favorite western towns. It was western for sure, but also a college town. Being the home of Montana State University, and she being a college student herself, she felt particularly at home there. I loved it too.

We stopped mid-morning for coffee and took off our fleece vests. As I opened the travel trunk in the rear to put the vests away, I noticed that two screws had fallen out of the trunk lid. These were the screws that secured the top lid to the bottom or base of the trunk. I had to fix this pretty quickly, or we were liable to have the top blow off from the strong winds as we made our way down the road. We spent most of that afternoon at Ackley Lake, in the Lewis and Clark National Forest, before continuing South on Rt #89 towards Bozeman. I was still worried about the lid falling off and was using a big piece of duct tape as a temporary fix.

It was about 5:45 p.m. when we entered the small Montana town of White Sulphur Springs. They had a NAPA automotive store and by luck it was still open until six. I rushed inside and found the exact size screws that I needed. Melissa then watched me do my best ‘shade tree mechanic’ impersonation. I replaced the two missing screws while the bike was sitting in the parking lot to the left of the store. We then had fruit drinks, split a tuna salad sandwich from the café across the street, and were again on our way.

The sun was just starting to descend behind the mountains to our west, and we both agreed that this was truly the most beautiful time of day to ride. We were barely a mile out of town when I heard my daughter scream …

DAAAAAD !!!

At that moment, I felt the back of the bike move as if someone had their hand on just the rear tire and was shaking it back and forth. Then I saw it. An elk had just come out of the creek bed below, and to our right, and had misjudged how long it would take us to pass by. It darted across the highway a half second too soon brushing the back of the bike with its right shoulder and almost causing us to fall.

This time my daughter saw it coming before I did, and I’ll never forget the sound of her voice coming across the bike’s intercom at a decibel level I had never heard from her before. She is normally very calm and reserved.

We had actually made contact with the elk and stayed upright. If it had happened in front of the bike, we wouldn’t have had a chance. Thank God, with over forty years of experience and some luck, I didn’t lock up the front brake this time. That would have caused us to lose control of the front tire and as we had already lost control of the one in the back, it would have almost guaranteed a crash to our left.

Strike Two!

We rode slowly the rest of the way to Bozeman. We convinced each other that two near misses in less than a week would be enough for five more years of riding based on the odds. At the Best Western Motel in Bozeman, we unloaded the bike and went to my daughter’s favorite restaurant for Hummus. As the waitress took our order and then left, Melissa stared at me across the table with a very serious look in her eyes. “Dad, I don’t think we should ride anymore after about four o’clock in the afternoon. The animals all seem to drink twice a day, (the roads following the rivers and streams), and it’s early in the morning and later in the evening when we’re most at risk.” I said I agreed, and we made a pact to not leave before 9:30 in the morning and to be off the road by 4:00 in the afternoon.

This meant we wouldn’t be riding during our favorite part of the day which was dusk, but safety came first, and we would try as hard as we could to live within our new schedule. Our next stop tomorrow would be Gardiner Montana which was the small river town right at the North entrance (Mammoth Hot Springs) to Yellowstone National Park. There were colder temperatures, and possibly snow, in the forecast, so we put our fleece vests back on before leaving Bozeman. At 9:30 a.m. we were again headed South on Rt. #89 through Paradise Valley.

After a few stops to hike and sightsee, we arrived in Gardiner at 4:10, only a few minutes beyond our new maxim. It had already started to snow. It was early June, and as all regular visitors to Yellowstone know, it can snow in the park any of the 365 days of the year. We hoped it wouldn’t last. There was not much to do in Gardiner and as beautiful as it was here, we wanted to try and get to West Yellowstone if we were going to be stuck in the snow. We had dinner at the K-Bar Café and were in bed at the motel by the bridge before nine. All through the night, the snow continued to fall intermittently as the temperature dropped.

When we awoke the next morning, the snow had stopped but not before depositing a good two to three inches on the ground. The town plow had cleared the road, and the weather forecast for southern Montana said temperatures would reach into the high 40’s by mid-afternoon. The Venture was totally covered in snow and seemed to be protesting what I was about to ask it to do. I cleaned the snow off the bike and rode slowly across the street and filled it up with gas. I then came back to the motel, loaded our bags, and Melissa got on the bike behind me.

“Are we gonna be alright in the snow, Dad?” she asked. As I told her we’d be fine if it didn’t get any worse than it was right now, I had the ******* crossed on my left hand that was controlling the clutch.

We swung around the long loop through Gardiner, went through the Great Arch that Teddy Roosevelt built honoring our first National Park, and entered Yellowstone. As we approached the guard shack to buy our pass, the female park ranger said, “You’re going where? There’s four inches of snow at the top. We plowed it an hour ago, but you never know how it’s going to be until you get over it.”

‘OVER IT,’ is where we were headed, and then down toward the Madison River where we would turn right and continue on to West Yellowstone. Even though the Park is almost 100% within the state of Wyoming, two of its entrances (North and West) sit right inside the border of the great state of Montana.

“If you keep it slow and watch your brakes, you’ll probably be fine.” “Two Harley riders came through an hour ago, and I haven’t heard anything bad about them. They were headed straight to Fishing Bridge and then to the Lodge at Old Faithful.” “Well, If the Harleys can make it we certainly can” I told my daughter, as we paid the $20.00 fee and headed up the sloping, and partially snow-covered, mountain.

We made it over the top which was less than a ten-mile ride headed South through the park. This part of the trip didn’t require braking and would be easier than the descent on the backside of the mountain. As we started our way down, I noticed the road was starting to clear. Within ten minutes, the asphalt on this side of the mountain was totally dry and our confidence rose with each bend of the road. It was just then that my daughter said, “Dad, I need to stop, can you find me a restroom?” A restroom in Yellowstone, not the easiest thing to find. If I did find one, at best it would be a government issue outhouse, but I told her I’d try. “Please hurry, Dad,” Melissa said.

In another mile, there was a covered ‘lookout’ with three port-a-potties off to the right. I pulled over quickly, and my daughter headed to the closest one on the left. I then walked over to the observation stand and looked out to the East towards Cody. As most Yellowstone vistas, the beauty was beyond description, but something wasn’t quite right, and …

Something Felt Strange

I looked off in the distance at Mt. Washburn. The grand old mountain stood majestic at almost 10,000 feet, and with its snow-capped peak, it looked just like the picture postcards of itself that they sold in the lodge. I still felt strange.

Then I Understood Why

As I looked off to my right to walk back to the bike, I saw it.

Standing to the left of my motorcycle, and less than thirty yards in front of me, was the biggest silver and black coyote I had even seen. Many Park visitors mistake these larger coyotes for wolves, and this guy was looking straight at me with his head down. As I walked slowly back to the bike, he never took his eyes off me with only his head moving to follow my travel. I got to the bike and wondered if I should shout to my daughter. I knew if I did, it would probably scare the Coyote away, and this was shaping up to be another of those seminal Yellowstone moments. I wanted to see what would happen next.

I slowly opened the trunk lid on the back of the bike. We always carried two things in addition to water — and that was fig-newtons and beef jerky. The reasoning was, that no matter what happened, with those three staples we could make it through almost anything. I took a big piece of beef jerky out of the pouch and showed it to the hungry Coyote. His head immediately rose up and he pointed his nose in the air while taking in the aroma of something that he had probably never smelled before.

I don’t normally feed any of the animals in Yellowstone, but this encounter seemed different. This animal was trying to make contact and on instinct alone I reacted. As I walked slowly to the front of the bike, I ripped off a small piece of the beef jerky and threw it to the coyote. He immediately jumped backwards (coyotes are prone to jumping) while keeping his head and eyes focused on me. He then took two steps forward, sniffed the processed beef, picked it up in his jaws, and in one swallow it was gone. He now looked at me again.

This Time I Was Two-Steps Closer

He was now less than fifteen feet away with his head once again down. He was showing no signs of aggressive behavior, and as I still had my helmet and riding suit on, I felt like I was in no danger. I didn’t think a fifty-pound coyote could bite through Kevlar and fiberglass, and I was starting to feel a strange connection with this animal that was getting a little closer all the time. I threw him another piece.

Was It About The Beef Jerky, Or Was It Something More?

Again, he took two steps forward to retrieve the snack and then raised his eyes up to look at me. At this close range I started questioning myself. What if it is a Wolf I asked, and then once again I looked at his tail. Nope, it’s a Coyote, I convinced myself, as I held my ground and continued to extend my hand out in the direction of my new friend. This time he didn’t move. It was now my turn. I was down on both knees in the leftover snow from last night and started to inch my way forward by sliding one knee in his direction and then the other. He took a small step back.

I then started to talk to him in a low and hushed tone. He moved one step closer. The beef jerky at the end of my hand was now less than five feet from his mouth. We stayed in this position for the longest time until I heard a loud “DAD!!!” coming from the direction of the port-a-potties. My daughter was finished and saw me kneeling down in front of the ‘Wolf.’

When she screamed, the Coyote bounded (jumped) again and ran off in the opposite direction (East) from where I was kneeling. He ran about fifty yards and then turned around to take one more look at me. He then slowly entered the tree line that bordered the left side of the road up ahead.

“Dad, what were you doing?” my daughter asked. “Do you think you’re Kevin Costner in Dances With Wolves?” I laughed and said no, “just trying to communicate with a new friend.” My daughter continued to shake her head in my direction as she put on her helmet. I started the bike, put it in gear, and we headed again South down the park mountain road.

We had gone less than a quarter of a mile when something darted right out in front of the bike. It was that same Coyote that I had tried to feed just minutes before. He was about twenty yards in front of me and thank God I didn’t have to do any fancy maneuvering to miss him. I didn’t even have to use the brakes.

Still, this was now three encounters in less than a week. Or was it three? I convinced myself that running over a Coyote wouldn’t have been fatal. Painful maybe, but we would have survived it.

Strike Two And A Half!

We couldn’t help but laugh as we wondered if the Coyote had done it on purpose. Was he trying to scare us for not leaving the rest of the beef jerky or just saying goodbye? We’d never know for sure, but I wanted to believe that the latter was true. I will always wonder about how close he may have come.

As we got to the bottom of the long mountain descent, the sign announcing the Madison River and the road to West Yellowstone came up on the right. We made the turn and then spent what seemed like forever marveling at the beauty of the Madison River. It looked like an easy ride into West Yellowstone until it started to snow again. We crested a large hill with only ten miles left to go. At the bottom of the hill was what looked like a lake covering the entire road. The bottom of the road where the hill ended was lower than the surrounding ground and was acting like a reservoir for the melting snow from the hills that surrounded it.

This Low Spot Was Right In The Middle Of The Road

We approached slowly and stopped to survey the approaching water. We needed to decide the right thing to do next. The yellow line that divided the road was barely visible through the water, and we both guessed that it couldn’t be more than twelve to fourteen inches deep. I decided guessing wasn’t good enough and put the kickstand down on the bike. Melissa held the clutch in to allow the motor to keep idling. I then walked into the water in my waterproof riding boots. The boots were over sixteen inches high. “Yep, no more than six or eight inches,” I yelled back to Melissa. “It just looks deeper. If we go slow, we’ll be fine to go through.”

I walked back, got on the bike, and retracted the kickstand and then put it in first gear. Just as I started to approach the pool, I noticed a huge shadow to my right. Two large Moose were standing just off the apron on the right side of the road. It looked like they either wanted to cross the flooded asphalt, or drink, as they stood less than twenty-five feet away from where we now were. Every time I moved closer to the water, they did the same thing. Three times we did this, and a Broadway choreographer couldn’t have scripted it better. The two Moose moved in concert with our timing getting closer to not only the water, but to us, each time we moved.

Moose, like Grizzly’s, have no real natural enemies except man, and unlike all other members of the deer family, they have a perpetually bad disposition. They seem to be permanently in a bad mood and are not to be trifled with or approached. Even the great Grizzly gives the Moose a wide berth. I stopped the bike again unsure of what to do next.

It Was A True Mexican Standoff In The Woods Of Wyoming

“Melissa then said, “Dad; Let’s try banging on the tank and blowing the horn like we do with Buffalo. Maybe then they’ll cross in front of us, and we can get outta here.” I thought it was a good idea and worth a try. I again put the kickstand down and told Melissa that if they charged us not to run but to get down low beneath the left side of the bike. That way, the Venture would hopefully take the brunt of their charge. I started banging on the tank, as I pushed the horn button with my other hand …

Nothing, Nada!

Both Moose just held their ground stoically looking at the water. It was a true ‘Mexican standoff,’ where we were Speedy Gonzalez faced off against the great Montezuma. No matter how much noise we made, the Moose never budged an inch. After fifteen minutes of this, we decided to go for it. I put the bike back into gear, and going faster than I normally would, I entered the reservoir on top of the still visible yellow line. With a rooster tail of water shooting out from behind the bike over twenty-feet long, we crossed the flooded road.

Once across, we went fifty yards past the water and then stopped to look back. Both Moose had turned around and were headed back into the woods from where they had come. They either had no more interest in traversing the water or had been playing with us making our crossing difficult, while at the same time memorable, and another great story to tell.

Strike Three!

We pulled into West Yellowstone, and the snow was coming down in blizzard like sheets. We spent the next two days touring the shops and museums and even visited the Grizzly Bear ‘Habitat,’ which neither of us will ever do again. Grizzly Bears belong in the wild and not in some enclosure to be gawked at by accidental tourists. We also talked about our past four days ‘communing’ with the animals. We both agreed that we had been lucky and that we would continue to live within our 9:30 to 4:00 schedule as we continued our trip.

I lay in bed that night both thankful and in wonder of all that had happened. I thought about the deer, elk, coyote, and moose that had crossed over into our world. As hair-raising as it had been at the time, I wouldn’t have a changed a thing. I also thought about my over forty years of motorcycle riding. It was just then that a familiar maxim was once again forefront in my mind — as well as my heart. I repeated the familiar words over to myself as I slowly drifted off to sleep …

“When I Die, It Will Never Be On A Motorcycle”

Don't knock what you've never tried
Lock box with a heart inside
Six shots from a forty five
Punk rock makes you come alive

Black-hawks in the clear blue sky
It's ad hoc but you can just get by
On Poprocks and cyanide
Tick-tock time to decide

What made you think that you could take me down?
The method's flawed, but the strategies sound.
What made you try to hold me back?
I hope you're ready for the counter-attack.

Backhand and you feel the heat
Grandstand 'till you take a seat
Kickstand just to keep your feet
Firsthand watch you admit defeat

College: the four year roller coaster ride,
Ridden by purchasing a one-way ticket to adulthood.
Blink, and it will pass before the very eyes
That take in media-based images,
Depicting college as no work and all play.

Click,   Click,    Click,    Click,

Leaving proud and teary-eyed parents behind,
We enter *******-box bedrooms
Filling them with unbridled enthusiasm, unadulterated optimism, and a hint of unidentified angst.
Even menial tasks like eating at the cafeteria or watching television
Are made enjoyable with new friends and a sense of independence.

Click,   Click,    Click,    Click,

We are filled with energy like hot-air in balloons,
Rising in the coaster as we ascend upward.
However, we ignore an important lesson
We have learned from any ride we been on or story we've read:
Nothing stays positive forever.

Click,   Click,    Click,    Click,

They say that ACT scores are designed
To determine your success in the first year of college.
But few of us take these tests while coping with things like:
Depression, suicide, bad grades, fear of independence,
Loss of identity, or unprecedented amounts of drinking.

Click,   Click.

These factors inevitably come into play
And collapse the kickstand of optimism holding our chins up.
We find ourselves hurling toward the ground;
And as if gravity has pulled them harder,
We reach to the seat in front of us,
To retrieve our hope, our control, our breath.
As we fall, we feel hopeless, helpless, speechless,
And wonder if we will make impact.

It is perhaps at this time more than any other,
We realize the importance of friends and family.
They reach their branches out
And root us in the soil of understanding and openness.
Like the front car of the coaster,
They pull us out of the plummet.
After experiencing the highs and lows of the ride,
The rest seems a manageable imbalance of work and play.

We spend time in libraries, cataloging our actions and emotions
Into a book, self-titled but preceded by "face."
Such internet activity is the placebo
We self-prescribe for procrastination, an epidemic among our people.

Drinking from Solo cups half-full with liquids as impure as our intentions,
We end our weeks hungover from mental exertion and social immersion.
But the optimist in me sees that these cups are half empty,
Ready to be filled with future plans and dreams.
Dreams of being teachers, doctors, nurses, lawyers;
Having houses with three-car garages, guest rooms, and foyers.

You see, this is a ride where no one judges you
If your hands or feet are outside the ride,
If you scream when you're excited, cry when you're scared,
Or puke at the end.
So remove your blinders and beer goggles,
And enjoy this while it lasts,
Because it is the final ride in the amusement park of youth.

The bicycles were a forged parent-permission slip
But well-forged.
I lifted myself over the tear in the truck's seat cover, not sliding
Not perforating further for today.

The road was short, short enough to have ridden the bicycles from first start to real start.
But that would not have been exotic
Connection is exotic, and channels must be followed through an antfarm
Proper etiquette must be observed with touch-me-nots

The bicycles were easier to lift from the bed with two
I gave him that, passing a front end, and jammed the wheelspokes with a jabbed finger
So that the damp spinning would not flick his face with groundwater
I expected it to hurt. My expectation tapped lightly.

That narrow pock-marked blacktop was my windtunnel
The air stroked its thumbs over my eyelids and I ached to push, breathe, push further
He held me back with his slow handlebars,
His slow kickstand clicking.

Pedaling slowly is more difficult than flying.
One finds gladness in choosing leaves to crunch with an inch-wide tire
And high-fiving low-hanging branches is socially satisfying.
He smiles behind the white mustache, and I don't mind.

A long red light
Kick the kickstand down
Lift up your legs
Form into a lotus pose
Palms out to the sun
Meditate

Green light
Kick up the kickstand
Quick turn left
Quick turn right

Into the lane
Graced by a handpainted sign:
Welcome
Noon
AA Meeting

(for my daughter, Mary Ann, soon fourteen)

I was eleven years old when I first had something taken from me.  My parents were still married and my two younger brothers had not yet chosen to choose differently which one they’d live with.  My dog had not yet been made lame by a falling fat man who’d taken the gift of my father’s strange rage square on the nose.  And my older sister had yet to misjudge her jump from a moving train.  No, none of these things, whether they happened or not how I’ve remembered, had happened.

I was eleven years old and in love with an old red bike.  It had a license plate that obnoxiously read Go Now Mega which I’d scratched at with a fork and so became Gnome.  I would fail my whole life to accomplish a thing greater. Before school, I’d walk the bike carefully to the end of our short drive and then seat myself on it and be still.  I would often be so perfect in my stillness that I’d forego riding it and just listen for the bus and at the last possible moment walk the bike, still carefully, back into the garage and cringe at the sound the kickstand made when lowered.  If ever school didn’t go my way I’d think of the bike, alone, in the garage and be calmed.  When I did ride the bike, I did so slowly and deliberately that I could feel my soul get a bit ahead of me.  On the best mornings, I would have for company a bed sheet of fog which made me want to fake being asleep on the couch while my mother and father milled back and forth about who would carry me to bed.

The bike had come with the rental house we moved into just shy of my tenth birthday.  The house was a three bedroom one floor with one bathroom and what felt like two kitchens.  I was too close to my hands and feet to now recall any vision that might tell me how these rooms were mapped though I’ve always held aloft the word blueprint.  I should tell you that what I previously called a garage was actually our backyard and that our backyard was really the backyard of those living in the house behind ours.  I didn’t want you to know right away who took the bike.  Who’ve no imagination.

A Thanksgiving poem for all.

Morning wood

Morning wood my inconvenient friend,
Morning wood you woke me up again,
Morning wood fronting like a kickstand,
Morning wood oft held by groggy hand,
Morning wood I steady for a wee.
on the floor. on the bowl. please don't land on me!
Morning wood born from a bladder full,
Morning wood my friend, my favorite tool.

By John Kirby

My precious, captive swan

Don't do this.

And your wingspan is no more?

I was his first!

And you'll be mine last!

He stripped the skin, the kickstand was made of meat and bones. Kicked with words and meaning. But the fawn of the day would come for me.

Love, let the water guide you!

And let this rake violate you?

Let the her amber wings fly!

Not before you let her cry!

The forest queen, shall be no more!

And so? Your heart is now sore."

Day #4: Cody To Saint Mary’s

After breakfast in the Irma’s great dining hall, I left Cody in the quiet stillness of a Saturday morning. The dream I had last night about Indian summer camps now pointed the way toward things that I could once again understand. If there was another road to rival, or better, the Beartooth Highway, it would be the one that I would ride this morning.

It was 8:45 a.m., and I was headed northwest out of Cody to The Chief Joseph Highway. It is almost impossible to describe this road without having ridden or driven over it at least once. I was the first motorcyclist to ever ride its elevated curves and valleys on its inauguration over ten years ago. It opened that day, also a Saturday, at eight, and I got there two hours early to make sure the flagman would position me at the front of the line. I wanted to be the first to go through while paying homage to the great Nez Perce Chief. I will forever remember the honor of being the first motorist of any kind to have gone up and over this incredible road.

The ascent, over Dead Indian Pass at the summit, reminded me once again that the past is never truly dead if the present is to be alive. The illusion of what was, is, and will be, is captured only in the moment of their present affirmation. The magic is in living within the confirmation of what is.

The Chief Joseph Highway was, and is, the greatest road that I have ever ridden. I have always considered it a great personal gift to me — being the first one to have experienced what cannot fully be described. Ending in either Cooke City or Cody, the choice of direction was yours. The towns were not as different from each other as you would be from your previous self when you arrived at either location at the end of your ride.

It turned severely in both directions, as it rose or descended in elevation, letting you see both ends from almost anywhere you began. It was a road for sure but of all the roads in my history, both present and before, this one was a metaphor to neither the life I had led, nor the life I seek. This road was a metaphor to the life I lead.

A metaphor to the life I lead

It teased you with its false endings, always hiding just one more hairpin as you corrected and violently pulled the bike back to center while leaning as hard as you could to the other side. While footpegs were dragging on both sides of the bike your spirit and vision of yourself had never been so clear. You now realized you were going more than seventy in a turn designed for maximum speeds of forty and below.

To die on this road would make a mockery of life almost anywhere else. To live on this roadcreated a new standard where risk would be essential, and, if you dared, you gambled away all security and previous limits for what it taught.

It was noon as I entered Cooke City again wondering if that same buffalo would be standing at Tower Junction to make sure that I turned right this time, as I headed north toward Glacier National Park. Turning right at Tower Junction would take me past Druid Peak and through the north entrance of Yellowstone at Mammoth Hot Springs and the town of Gardiner Montana. Wyoming and Montana kept trading places as the road would wind and unfold. Neither state wanted to give up to the other the soul of the returning prodigal which in the end neither could win … and neither could ever lose!

From Gardiner, Rt #89 curved and wound its way through the Paradise Valley to Livingston and the great open expanse of Montana beyond. The road, through the lush farmlands of the valley, quieted and settled my spirit, as it allowed me the time to reorient and revalue all the things I had just seen.

I thought about the number of times it almost ended along this road when a deer or elk had crossed my path in either the early morning or evening hours. I continued on both thankful and secure knowing in my heart that when the end finally came, it would not be while riding on two-wheels. It was something that was made known to me in a vision that I had years ago, and an assurance that I took not for granted, as I rode grateful and alone through these magnificent hills.

The ride to Livingston along Montana Rt.# 89 was dotted with rich working farms on both sides of the road. The sun was at its highest as I entered town, and I stopped quickly for gas and some food at the first station I found. There were seven good hours of daylight left, and I still had at least three hundred miles to go.

I was now more than an hour north of Livingston, and the sign that announced White Sulphur Springs brought back memories and a old warning. It flashed my memory back to the doe elk that came up from the creek-bed almost twenty years ago, brushing the rear of the bike and almost causing us to crash. I can still hear my daughter screaming “DAAAD,”as she saw the elk before I did.

I dropped the bike down a gear as I took a long circular look around. As I passed the spot of our near impact on the south side of town, I said a prayer for forgiveness. I asked to be judged kindly by the animals that I loved and to become even more visible to the things I couldn’t see.

The ride through the Lewis and Clark National Forest was beautiful and serene, as two hawks and a lone coyote bade me farewell, and I exited the park through Monarch at its northern end. There were now less than five hours of daylight left, and the East entrance to Glacier National Park at St. Mary’s was still two hundred miles away. An easy ride under most circumstances, but the Northern Rockies were never normal, and their unpredictability was another of the many reasons as to why I loved them so. Cody, and my conflicted feelings while there, seemed only a distant memory. Distant, but connected, like the friends and loved ones I had forgotten to call.

At Dupoyer Montana, I was compelled to stop. Not enticed or persuaded, not called out to or invited — but compelled! A Bar that had existed on the east side of this road, heading north, for as long as anyone could remember, Ranger Jacks, was now closed. I sat for the longest time staring at the weathered and dilapidated board siding and the real estate sign on the old front swinging door that said Commercial Opportunity. My mind harkened back to the first time I stopped into ‘Jacks,’ while heading south from Calgary and Lake Louise. My best friend, Dave Hill, had been with me, and we both sidled up to the bar, which ran down the entire left side of the interior and ordered a beer. Jack just looked at the two of us for the longest time.

It Wasn’t A Look It Was A Stare

Bearded and toothless, he had a stare that encompassed all the hate and vile within it that he held for his customers. His patrons were the locals and also those traveling to and from places unknown to him but never safe from his disgust. He neither liked the place that he was in nor any of those his customers had told him about.

Jack Was An Equal-Opportunity Hater!

He reminded both Dave and I of why we traveled to locations that took us outside and beyond what we already knew. We promised each other, as we walked back to the bike, that no matter how bad life ever got we would never turn out to be like him. Jack was both a repudiation of the past and a denial of the future with the way he constantly refused to live in the moment. He was physically and spiritually everything we were trying to escape. He did however continue to die in the moment, and it was a death he performed in front of his customers … over, and over, and over again.

As I sat on the bike, staring at the closed bar, a woman and her daughter got out of a car with Texas license plates. The mother smiled as she watched me taking one last look and said: “Are you going to buy it, it’s for sale you know?” I said “no, but I had been in it many times when it was still open.” She said: “That must have been a real experience” as she walked back to her car. It was a real experience back then for sure, and one that she, or any other accidental tourist headed north or south on Rt. #89, will never know. I will probably never regret going in there again, but I feel fortunate that I had the chance to do it those many times before.

Who Am I Kidding, I’d Do It Again In A Heartbeat

I would never pass through Dupoyer Montana, the town where Lewis and Clark had their only hostile encounter (Two Medicine Fight) with Indians, without stopping at Ranger Jacksfor a beer. It was one of those windows into the beyond that are found in the most unlikely of places, and I was profoundly changed every time that I walked in, and then out of, his crumbling front door. Jack never said hello or bid you goodbye. He just stared at you as something that offended him, and when you looked back at his dead and bloodshot eyes, and for reasons still unexplained, you felt instantly free.

In The Strangest And Clearest Of Ways … I’ll Miss Him

It was a short ride from Dupoyer to East Glacier, as the sun settled behind the Lewis Rangeshowing everything in its half-light as only twilight can. I once again thought of the Blackfeet and how defiant they remained until the very end. Being this far North, they had the least contact with white men, and were dominant against the other tribes because of their access to Canadian guns. When they learned that the U.S. Government proposed to arm their mortal enemies, the Shoshones and the Nez Perce, their animosity for all white invaders only heightened and strengthened their resolve to fight. I felt the distant heat of their blood as I crossed over Rt. #2 in Browning and said a quick prayer to all that they had seen and to a fury deep within their culture that time could not ****.

It was almost dark, as I rode the extreme curves of Glacier Park Road toward the east entrance from Browning. As I arrived in St Mary’s, I turned left into the Park and found that the gatehouse was still manned. Although being almost 9:00 p.m., the guard was still willing to let me through. She said that the road would remain open all night for its entire fifty-three-mile length, but that there was construction and mud at the very top near Logan Pass.

Construction, no guardrails, the mud and the dark, and over 6600 feet of altitude evoked the Sour Spirit Deity of the Blackfeet to come out of the lake and whisper to me in a voice that the Park guard could not hear “Not tonight Wana Hin Gle. Tonight you must remain with the lesser among us across the lake with the spirit killers — and then tomorrow you may cross.”

Dutifully I listened, because again from inside, I could feel its truth. Wana Hin Gle was the name the Oglala Sioux had given me years before, It means — He Who Happens Now.

In my many years of mountain travel I have crossed both Galena and Beartooth Passes in the dark. Both times, I was lucky to make it through unharmed. I thanked this great and lonesome Spirit who had chosen to protect me tonight and then circled back through the gatehouse and along the east side of the lake to the lodge.

The Desk Clerk Said, NO ROOMS!

As I pulled up in front of the St Mary’s Lodge & Resort, I noticed the parking lot was full. It was not a good sign for one with no reservation and for one who had not planned on staying on this side of the park for the night. The Chinese- American girl behind the desk confirmed what I was fearing most with her words … “Sorry Sir, We’re Full.”

When I asked if she expected any cancellations she emphatically said: “No chance,” and that there were three campers in the parking lot who had inquired before me, all hoping for the same thing. I was now 4th on the priority list for a potential room that might become available. Not likely on this warm summer weekend, and not surprising either, as all around me the tourists scurried in their pursuit of leisure, as tourists normally did.

I looked at the huge lobby with its two TV monitors and oversized leather sofas and chairs. I asked the clerk at the desk if I could spend the night sitting there, reading, and waiting for the sun to come back up. I reminded her that I was on a motorcycle and that it was too dangerous for me to cross Logan Pass in the dark. She said “sure,” and the restaurant stayed open until ten if I had not yet had dinner. “Try the grilled lake trout,” she said, “it’s my favorite for sure. They get them right out of St. Mary’s Lake daily, and you can watch the fishermen pull in their catch from most of our rooms that face the lake.”

I felt obligated to give the hotel some business for allowing me to freeload in their lobby, so off to the restaurant I went. There was a direct access door to the restaurant from the far corner of the main lobby where my gear was, and my waiter (from Detroit) was both terrific and fast. He told me about his depressed flooring business back in Michigan and how, with the economy so weak, he had decided a steady job for the summer was the way to go.

We talked at length about his first impressions of the Northern Rockies and about how much his life had changed since he arrived last month. He had been over the mountain at least seven times and had crossed it in both directions as recently as last night. I asked him, with the road construction, what a night-crossing was currently like? and he responded: “Pretty scary, even in a Jeep.” He then said, “I can’t even imagine crossing over on a motorcycle, in the dark, with no guardrails, and having to navigate through the construction zone for those eight miles just before the top.” I sat for another hour drinking coffee and wondered about what life on top of the Going To The Sun Road must be like at this late hour.

The Lake Trout Had Been More Than Good

After I finished dinner, I walked back into the lobby and found a large comfortable leather chair with a long rustic coffee table in front. Knowing now that I had made the right decision to stay, I pulled the coffee table up close to the chair and stretched my legs out in front. It was now almost midnight, and the only noise that could be heard in the entire hotel was the kitchen staff going home for the night. Within fifteen minutes, I was off to sleep. It had been a long ride from Cody, and I think I was more tired than I wanted to admit. I started these rides in my early twenties. And now forty years later, my memory still tried to accomplish what my body long ago abandoned.

At 2:00 a.m., a security guard came over and nudged my left shoulder. “Mr Behm, we’ve just had a room open up and we could check you in if you’re still interested.” The thought of unpacking the bike in the dark, and for just four hours of sleep in a bed, was of no interest to me at this late hour. I thanked him for his consideration but told him I was fine just where I was. He then said: “Whatever’s best for you sir,” and went on with his rounds.

My dreams that night, were strange, with that almost real quality that happens when the lines between where you have come from and where you are going become blurred. I had visions of Blackfeet women fishing in the lake out back and of their warrior husbands returning with fresh ponies from a raid upon the Nez Perce. The sounds of the conquering braves were so real that they woke me, or was it the early morning kitchen staff beginning their breakfast shift? It was 5:15 a.m., and I knew I would never know for sure — but the difference didn’t matter when the imagery remained the same.

Differences never mattered when the images were the same



Day #5 (A.M.): Glacier To Columbia Falls

As I opened my eyes and looked out from the dark corner of the lobby, I saw CNN on the monitor across the room. The sound had been muted all night, but in the copy running across the bottom of the screen it said: “Less than twenty-four hours until the U.S. defaults.”  For weeks, Congress had been debating on whether or not to raise the debt ceiling and even as remote as it was here in northwestern Montana, I still could not escape the reality of what it meant. I had a quick breakfast of eggs, biscuits, and gravy, before I headed back to the mountain. The guard station at the entrance was unattended, so I vowed to make a twenty-dollar donation to the first charity I came across — I hoped it would be Native American.

I headed west on The Going To The Sun Road and crossed Glacier at dawn. It created a memory on that Sunday morning that will live inside me forever. It was a road that embodied the qualities of all lesser roads, while it stood proudly alone because of where it could take you and the way going there would make you feel. Its standards, in addition to its altitude, were higher than most comfort zones allowed. It wasn’t so much the road itself but where it was. Human belief and ingenuity had built a road over something that before was almost impossible to even walk across. Many times, as you rounded a blind turn on Logan Pass, you experienced the sensation of flying, and you had to look beneath you to make sure that your wheels were still on the ground.

The road climbed into the clouds as I rounded the West side of the lake. It felt more like flying, or being in a jet liner, when combined with the tactile adventure of knowing I was on two-wheels. Being on two-wheels was always my first choice and had been my consummate and life affirming mode of travel since the age of sixteen.

Today would be another one of those ‘it wasn’t possible to happen’ days. But it did, and it happened in a way that even after so many blessed trips like this, I was not ready for. I felt in my soul I would never see a morning like this again, but then I also knew beyond the borders of self-limitation, and from what past experience had taught me, that I absolutely would.

So Many ‘Once In A Lifetime’ Moments Have Been Joyous Repetition

My life has been blessed because I have been given so many of these moments. Unlike anything else that has happened, these life-altering events have spoken to me directly cutting through all learned experience that has tried in vain to keep them out. The beauty of what they have shown is beyond my ability to describe, and the tears running down my face were from knowing that at least during these moments, my vision had been clear.

I knew that times like these were in a very real way a preparation to die. Life’s highest moments often exposed a new awareness for how short life was. Only by looking through these windows, into a world beyond, would we no longer fear death’s approach.

I leaned forward to pat the motorcycle’s tank as we began our ascent. In a strange but no less real way, it was only the bike that truly understood what was about to happen. It had been developed for just this purpose and now would get to perform at its highest level. The fuel Injection, and linked disk brakes, were a real comfort this close to the edge, and I couldn’t have been riding anything better for what I was about to do.

I also couldn’t have been in a better place at this stage of my life in the summer of 2011. Things had been changing very fast during this past year, and I decided to bend to that will rather than to fight what came unwanted and in many ways unknown. I knew that today would provide more answers, highlighting the new questions that I searched for, and the ones on this mountaintop seemed only a promise away.

Glaciers promise!

I thought about the many bear encounters, and attacks, that had happened in both Glacier and Yellowstone during this past summer. As I passed the entry point to Granite Park Chalet, I couldn’t help but think about the tragic deaths of Julie Helgeson and Michelle Koons on that hot August night back in 1967. They both fell prey to the fatality that nature could bring. The vagaries of chance, and a bad camping choice, led to their both being mauled and then killed by the same rogue Grizzly in different sections of the park.

They were warned against camping where they did, but bear attacks had been almost unheard of — so they went ahead. How many times had I decided to risk something, like crossing Beartooth or Galena Pass at night, when I had been warned against it, but still went ahead? How many times had coming so close to the edge brought everything else in my life into clear focus?

1967 Was The Year I Started My Exploration Of The West

The ride down the western side of The Going To the Sun Road was a mystery wrapped inside the eternal magic of this mountain highway in the sky. Even the long line of construction traffic couldn’t dampen my excitement, as I looked off to the South into the great expanse that only the Grand Canyon could rival for sheer majesty. Snow was on the upper half of Mount’s Stimson (10,142 ft.), James (9,575 ft.) and Jackson (10,052), and all progress was slow (20 mph). Out of nowhere, a bicyclist passed me on the extreme outside and exposed edge of the road. I prayed for his safety, as he skirted to within three feet of where the roadended and that other world, that the Blackfeet sing about, began. Its exposed border held no promises and separated all that we knew from what we oftentimes feared the most.

I am sure he understood what crossing Logan Pass meant, no matter the vehicle, and from the look in his eyes I could tell he was in a place that no story of mine would ever tell. He waved quickly as he passed on my left side. I waved back with the universal thumbs-upsign, and in a way that is only understood by those who cross mountains … we were brothers on that day.



Day # 5: (P.M.) Columbia Falls to Salmon Idaho

The turnaround point of the road was always hard. What was all forward and in front of me yesterday was consumed by the thought of returning today. The ride back could take you down the same path, or down a different road, but when your destination was the same place that you started from, your arrival was greeted in some ways with the anti-****** of having been there, and done that, before.

I tried everything I knew to fool my psyche into a renewed phase of discovery. All the while though, there was this knowing that surrounded my thoughts. It contained a reality that was totally hidden within the fantasy of the trip out. It was more honest I reminded myself, and once I made peace with it, the return trip would become even more intriguing than the ride up until now. When you knew you were down to just a few days and counting, each day took on a special reverence that the trip out always seemed to lack.

In truth, the route you planned for your return had more significance than the one before. Where before it was direct and one-dimensional, the return had to cover two destinations — the trip out only had to cover one. The route back also had to match the geography with the timing of what you asked for inside of yourself. The trip out only had to inspire and amuse.

The trip south on Rt.#35 along the east side of Flathead Lake was short but couldn’t be measured by its distance. It was an exquisitely gorgeous stretch of road that took less than an hour to travel but would take more than a lifetime to remember. The ripples that blew eastward across the lake in my direction created the very smallest of whitecaps, as the two cranes that sat in the middle of the lake took off for a destination unknown. I had never seen Flathead Lake from this side before and had always chosen Rt.#93 on the western side for all previous trips South. That trip took you through Elmo and was a ride I thought to be unmatched until I entered Rt.#35 this morning. This truly was the more beautiful ride, and I was thankful for its visual newness. It triggered inside of me my oldest feelings of being so connected, while at the same time, being so alone.

As I connected again with my old friend Rt.# 93, the National Bison Range sat off to my west. The most noble of wild creatures, they were now forced to live in contained wander where before they had covered, by the millions, both our country and our imagination. I thought again about their intrinsic connection to Native America and the perfection that existed within that union.

The path of the Great Bison was also the Indian’s path. The direction they chose was one and the same. It had purpose and reason — as well as the majesty of its promise. It was often unspoken except in the songs before the night of the hunt and in the stories that were told around the fire on the night after. It needed no further explanation. The beauty within its harmony was something that just worked, and words were a poor substitute for a story that only their true connection would tell.

This ‘Road’ Still Contained That Eternal Connection In Now Paved Over Hoofprints Of Dignity Lost

The Bitteroot Range called out to me in my right ear, but there would be no answer today. Today, I would head South through the college town of Missoula toward the Beaverhead Mountains and then Rt.#28 through the Targhee National Forest. I arrived in Missoula in the brightest of sunshine. The temperature was over ninety-degrees as I parked the bike in front of the Missoula Club. A fixture in this college town for many years, the Missoula Club was both a college bar and city landmark. It needed no historic certification to underline its importance. Ask any resident or traveler, past or present, have you been to the Missoula Club? and you’ll viscerally feel their answer. It’s not beloved by everyone … just by those who have always understood that places like this have fallen into the back drawer of America’s history. Often, their memory being all that’s left.

The hamburger was just like I expected, and as I ate at the bar, I limited myself to just one mug of local brew. One beer is all that I allowed myself when riding. I knew that I still had 150 more miles to go, and I was approaching that time of day when the animals came out and crossed the road to drink. In most cases, the roads had been built to follow the rivers, streams, and later railroads, and they acted as an unnatural barrier between the safety of the forest and the water that the animals living there so desperately needed. Their crossing was a nightly ritual and was as certain as the rising of the sun and then the moon. I respected its importance, and I tried to schedule my rides around the danger it often presented — but not today.

After paying the bartender, I took a slow and circuitous ride around town. Missoula was one of those western towns that I could happily live in, and I secretly hoped that before my time ran out that I would. The University of Montana was entrenched solidly and peacefully against the mountain this afternoon as I extended my greeting. It would be on my very short list of schools to teach at if I were ever lucky enough to make choices like that again.

Dying In The Classroom, After Having Lived So Strongly, Had An Appeal Of Transference That I Find Hard To Explain

The historic Wilma Theatre, by the bridge, said adieu as I re-pointed the bike South toward the Idaho border. I thought about the great traveling shows, like Hope and Crosby, that had played here before the Second World War. Embedded in the burgundy fabric of its giant curtain were stories that today few other places could tell. It sat proudly along the banks of the Clark Fork River, its past a time capsule that only the river could tell. Historic theatres have always been a favorite of mine, and like the Missoula Club, the Wilma was another example of past glory that was being replaced by banks, nail salons, and fast-food restaurants almost wherever you looked.

Thankfully, Not In Missoula

Both my spirit and stomach were now full, as I passed through the towns of Hamilton and Darby on my way to Sula at the state line. I was forced to stop at the train crossing in Sulajust past the old and closed Sula High School on the North edge of town. The train was still half a mile away to my East, as I put the kickstand down on the bike and got off for a closer look. The bones of the old school contained stories that had never been told. Over the clanging of the oncoming train, I thought I heard the laughter of teenagers as they rushed through the locked and now darkened halls. Shadowy figures passed by the window over the front door on the second floor, and in the glare of the mid-afternoon sun it appeared that they were waving at me. Was I again the victim of too much anticipation and fresh air or was I just dreaming to myself in broad daylight again?

As I Dreamed In Broad Daylight, I Spat Into The Wind Of Another Time

I waited for twenty-minutes, counting the cars of the mighty Santa Fe Line, as it headed West into the Pacific time zone and the lands where the great Chief Joseph and Nez Perce roamed. The brakeman waved as his car slowly crossed in front of my stopped motorcycle — each of us envying the other for something neither of us truly understood.

The train now gone … a bell signaled it was safe to cross the tracks. I looked to my right one more time and saw the caboose only two hundred yards down the line. Wondering if it was occupied, and if they were looking back at me, I waved one more time. I then flipped my visor down and headed on my way happy for what the train had brought me but sad in what its short presence had taken away.

As I entered the Salmon & Challis National Forest, I was already thinking about Italian food and the great little restaurant within walking distance of my motel. I always spent my nights in Salmon at the Stagecoach Inn. It was on the left side of Rt. #93, just before the bridge, where you made a hard left turn before you entered town. The motel’s main attraction was that it was built right against the Western bank of the Salmon River. I got a room in the back on the ground floor and could see the ducks and ducklings as they walked along the bank. It was only a short walk into town from the front of the motel and less than a half a block going in the other direction for great Italian food.

The motel parking lot was full, with motorcycles, as I arrived, because this was Sturgis Week in South Dakota. As I watched the many groups of clustered riders congregate outside as they cleaned their bikes, I was reminded again of why I rode. I rode to be alone with myself and with the West that had dominated my thoughts and dreams for so many years. I wondered what they saw in their group pilgrimage toward acceptance? I wondered if they ever experienced the feeling of leaving in the morning and truly not knowing where they would end up that night. The Sturgis Rally would attract more than a million riders many of whom hauled their motorcycles thousands of miles behind pickups or in trailers. Most would never experience, because of sheer masquerade and fantasy, what they had originally set out on two-wheels to find.

I Feel Bad For Them As They Wave At Me Through Their Shared Reluctance

They seemed to feel, but not understand, what this one rider alone, and in no hurry to clean his ***** motorcycle, represented. I had always liked the way a touring bike looked when covered with road-dirt. It wore the recognition of its miles like a badge of honor. As it sat faithfully alone in some distant motel parking lot, night after night, it waited in proud silence for its rider to return. I cleaned only the windshield, lights, and turn signals, as I bedded the Goldwing down before I started out for dinner. As I left, I promised her that tomorrow would be even better than today. It was something that I always said to her at night. As she sat there in her glorified patina and watched me walk away, she already knew what tomorrow would bring.

The Veal Marsala was excellent at the tiny restaurant by the motel. It was still not quite seven o’clock, and I decided to take a slow walk through the town. It was summer and the river was quiet, its power deceptive in its passing. I watched three kayakers pass below me as I crossed the bridge and headed East into Salmon. Most everything was closed for the evening except for the few bars and restaurants that lit up the main street of this old river town. It took less than fifteen minutes to complete my visitation, and I found myself re-crossing the bridge and headed back to the motel.

There were now even more motorcycles in the parking lot than before, and I told myself that it had been a stroke of good fortune that I had arrived early. If I had been shut out for a room in Salmon, the chances of getting one in Challis, sixty miles further south, would have been much worse. As small as Salmon was, Challis was much smaller, and in all the years of trying, I had never had much luck there in securing a room.

I knew I would sleep soundly that night, as I listened to the gentle sounds of a now peaceful river running past my open sliding doors. Less than twenty-yards away, I was not at all misled by its tranquility. It cut through the darkness of a Western Idaho Sunday night like Teddy Roosevelt patrolled the great Halls of Congress.

Running Softly, But Carrying Within It A Sleeping Defiance

I had seen its fury in late Spring, as it carried the great waters from on high to the oceans below. I have rafted its white currents in late May and watched a doctor from Kalispell lose his life in its turbulence. In remembrance, I said a short prayer to his departed spirit before drifting off to sleep.

I was somewhere deep in Kansas,
  on a Triumph 69’

When your song came on the jukebox,
  and hit me from behind

I was headed for a bad place,
  and cared for nothing much

When I heard the song ‘Melissa,’
   my heart and soul were struck

Entranced, your lyrics captured me,
  like nothing had before

When you sang about ‘The Gypsy,’
  I headed for the door

But something made me turn around,
  and grab another dime

Ten more times in that diner's booth,
  still lost within your rhyme

Now back inside the bus station,
  and sleeping on the bench

I scratch your words into the wood,
  last dollar gone and spent

My bike outside against the wall,
  the kickstand now long gone

And out of gas, my hopes have dashed,
  that unrelenting song

Waking up at ten unsettled,
  across the street I pushed

The sign said Triumph-BSA,
  the owner Mister Cush

He asked, “What’s with your motor,”
   I said “nothing—out of gas,

But worse I’m out of money,
can I sell the bike for cash

Would you please just buy my Triumph,
  I know it’s old and worn

It got me here through seven states,
  runs great both cold and warm”

“I’ll pay three hundred on the spot,
  on that can we agree?”

We walked back up inside his shop,
three bills he handed me

I thought about a bus ride home,
  my thumb looked more in line

Facing East on old route #50,
  my heart in deep decline

The first big rig that came along,
  was bound for York Pa.

The driver said “If you like dogs,”
I’ll take you on your way”

In York I caught a fast ride out,
  two ‘dodgers’ going North

And got back home with hat in hand,
  your song to guide me forth

Two years then passed, I met my wife,
  four more and our first child

And we named her ‘Sweet Melissa,’
  her dad back from the wilds

Now forty years have come and gone,
  my beard and hair both gray

I owe you Gregg, and always will,
  your song, her name—that day

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)
     For Gregg Allmans- ‘Melissa’

I was somewhere deep in Kansas,
  on a Triumph 69’

When your song came on the jukebox,
   and hit me from behind

I was headed for a bad place,
  and cared for nothing much

When I heard the song ‘Melissa,’
  my heart and soul were struck

Entranced, your lyrics captured me,
  like nothing had before

When you sang about ‘The Gypsy,’
  I headed for the door

But something made me turn around,
  and grab another dime

Ten more times in that diner’s booth,
  still lost within your rhyme

Now back inside the bus station,
  and sleeping on the bench

I scratch your words into the wood,
  last dollar gone and spent

My bike outside against the wall,
  the kickstand now long gone

And out of gas, my hopes have dashed,
  that unrelenting song

Waking up at ten unsettled,
  across the street I pushed

The sign said Triumph-BSA,
  the owner Mister Cush

He asked, “What’s with your motor,”
   I said “nothing—out of gas,

“But worse I’m out of money,
   can I sell the bike for cash

“Would you please just buy my Triumph,
  I know it’s old and worn

“It got me here through seven states,
   runs great both cold and warm”

“I’ll pay three hundred on the spot,
  on that can we agree?”

We walked back up inside his shop,
  three bills he handed me

I thought about a bus ride home,
  my thumb looked more in line

Facing East on old route #50,
  my heart in deep decline

The first big rig that came along,
  was bound for York Pa.

The driver said “If you like dogs,
  I’ll take you on your way”

In York I caught a fast ride out,
  two ‘dodgers’ going North

And got back home with hat in hand,
  your song to guide me forth

Two years then passed, I met my wife,
  four more and our first child

And we named her ‘Sweet Melissa,’
  her dad back from the wilds

Now forty years have come and gone,
  my beard and hair both gray

I owe you Gregg, and always will,
  your song, her name—that day

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)
           For Gregg Allman
I Sent This To Gregg Last March,
It's on His Website. We Spent Two
Days Together In Richmond Va. In  A Blizzard In 1982

It was 1972 and my dad was sick.  Well maybe not sick in the usual sense of the word, but his hip was.  He was in Boston, it was mid-winter, and he was an orthopedic patient in the Robert Bent Brigham Hospital.

He had been selected as an early recipient of what was called back then a ‘partial hip replacement.’  It was called partial, because they only replaced the arthritic hip ball, leaving the original (and degenerative) socket in place.  Needless to say these procedures didn’t work long term, but for those unable to walk and in pain, they were all that was available at the time.

I was in State College Pennsylvania when the call came in from my mother, telling me my dad was in the hospital. He was in so much pain they had to rush him to Boston by ambulance and schedule surgery just two days from now. I was living in the small rural town of Houserville Pa. about five miles West of State College and there was at least eight inches of fresh snow on the ground outside. It was 439 miles from State College to Boston. Based on my mothers phone call, if I wanted to see my Dad before his surgery, I had less than a full day to get there.

It was now 5:30 p.m. on Monday night and my father’s operation was scheduled for first thing (7:00 a.m.) Wednesday morning.  That meant that if I wanted to see him before he went to the O.R., I really needed to get there sometime before visiting hours were over Tuesday night.  My mother had said they were going to take him to pre-op at 6:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, and we wouldn’t have a chance to see him before he went down.

My only mode of transportation sat covered outside in the snow on my small front porch.  It was a six-month old 1971 750 Honda Motorcycle that I had bought new the previous September.  Because of the snowy winter conditions in the Nittany Mountains, I hadn’t ridden it since late November.  I hadn’t even tried to start it since the day before Christmas Eve when I moved it off the stone driveway and rode it up under our semi-enclosed front porch.

My roommate Steve and I lived in a converted garage that was owned by a Penn State University professor and his wife.  They lived in the big house next door and had built this garage when they were graduate students over twenty years ago. They had lived upstairs where our bedrooms now were, while storing their old 1947 Studebaker Sedan in the garage below.  It wasn’t until 1963 that they built the big house and moved out of the garage before putting it up for rent.

The ‘garage’ had no insulation, leaked like a sieve, and was heated with a cast iron stove that we kept running with anything we could find to throw in it.  We had run out of our winter ‘allotment’ of coal last week, and neither of us could afford to buy more.  We had spent the last two days scavenging down by the creek and bringing back old dead (and wet) wood to try and keep from freezing, and to keep the pipes inside from freezing too.

After hanging up the phone, I explained to Steve what my mother had just told me. He said: You need to get to Boston, and you need to leave now.  Steve had a 1965 Dodge Dart with a slant six motor that was sitting outside on the left side of the stone drive.  He said “you’re welcome to take it, but I think the alternator is shot.  Even if we get it jump-started, I don’t think it will make it more than ten or fifteen miles.”

It was then that we weighed my other options.  I could hitchhike, but with the distance and weather, it was very ‘iffy’ that I would get there on time.  I could take the Greyhound (Bus), but the next one didn’t leave until 3:00 tomorrow afternoon.  It wouldn’t arrive in Boston until 11:20 at night.  Too late to see my dad!

We both stared for a long time at the Motorcycle. It looked so peaceful sitting there under its grey and black cover.  Without saying a word to each other we grabbed both ends of the cover and lifted it off the bike.  I then walked down the drive to the road to check the surface for ice and snow.  It had snow on both sides but had been recently plowed. There was a small **** of snow still down the middle, but the surface to both sides looked clear and almost snow free.

      I Knew That Almost Was Never Quite Good Enough

I walked back inside the house and saw Steve sitting there with an empty ‘Maxwell House Tin’ in his hands. This is where Steve kept his cash hidden, and he took out what was in there and handed it all to me. “ You can pay me back next week when you get paid by Paul Bunyan.”  Paul Bunyan was the Pizza Shop on ****** Avenue that I delivered for at night, and I was due to be paid again in just four more days. I thanked Steve and walked up the ten old wooden and rickety stairs to our bedrooms.  

The walls were still finished in rough plywood sheathing that had never been painted or otherwise finished.  I packed the one leather bag that my Mother had given me for Christmas last year, put on my Sears long underwear, threw in my Dopp Kit and headed back downstairs. I also said a silent prayer for having friends … really good friends.

                 When I Got Downstairs, Steve Was Gone

Sensing I might need a ‘moment’ to finally decide, Steve had
started to walk down to highway # 64 and then hitchhike into town.  He was the photo-editor of the Penn State Yearbook, and Monday nights were when they had their meetings to get the book out.  The staff had only ninety more days to finish what looked to me to be an almost ‘impossible’ task.

As tough as his project was, tonight I was facing a likely impossible assignment of my own. Interstate #80 had just opened, and it offered an alternative to the old local road, Rt # 322.  The entrance to Rt. # 80 was ten miles away in Bellefonte Pennsylvania, and I knew those first ten miles could possibly be the worst of the trip.  I called my sister at home, and she said the weather forecast had said snow in the mountains (where I was), and then cold temperatures throughout the rest of the Northeast corridor.  Cold temperatures would mean a high of no more than 38 degrees all through the Pocono’s and across the Delaware Water Gap into New Jersey. Then low forty-degree temperatures the rest of the way.

I put two pairs of Levi’s Jeans on over my long-johns. I then put on my Frye boots with three pairs of socks, pulled my warmest fisherman’s knit wool sweater over my head and finished with my vintage World War Two leather bomber jacket to brace against the cold.  I had an early version of a full coverage helmet, a Bell Star, to protect my head and ears.  Without that helmet to keep out the cold, I knew I wouldn’t have had any chance of making the seven and a half hour ride.  To finish, I had a lightly tanned pair of deerskin leather gloves with gauntlets that went half way up my forearms. Normally this would have been ‘overkill’ for a ride to school or into town,

                                   But Not Tonight

I strapped my leather bag on the chrome luggage rack on the rear, threw my leg over the seat, and put the key into the ignition.  This was the first ‘electric start’ motorcycle I had ever owned, and I said a quick prayer to St Christopher that it would start. As I turned the key I couldn’t help but think about my father lying there in that hospital bed over four hundred miles away.  As I turned the key to the right, I heard the bike crank over four times and then fire to life as if I had just ridden it the day before.  As much as I wanted to be with my dad, I would be less than truthful if I didn’t confess that somewhere deep inside me, I was secretly hoping that the bike wouldn’t start.

I was an experienced motorcyclist and now 23 years old. I had ridden since I was sixteen and knew that there were a few ‘inviolable’ rules that all riders shared.  Rule number one was never ride after drinking.  Rule number two was never ride on a night like tonight — a night when visibility was awful and the road surface in many places might be worse. I again thought of my father as I backed the bike off the porch, turned it around to face the side street we lived on, dropped it into first gear, and left.  I could hear Jethro Tull’s ‘Aqualung’ playing from the house across the street.  It was rented to students too, and the window over the kitchen was open wide — even on a night like this.

                  Oh, Those Carefree Days Of College Bliss

As I traveled down the mile long side street that we lived on, I saw the sign for state road #64 on my right.  It was less than 100 feet away and just visible in the cloudy mountain air.  I was now praying not for things to get better, but please God, don’t let them get any worse.  As I made the left turn onto #64 I saw the sign ‘Interstate 80 – Ten Miles,’ and by now I was in third gear and going about twenty five miles an hour.  In the conditions I was riding in on this Monday night, it felt like at least double that.

I had only ever been East on Rt #80 once before, always preferring the scenery and twisty curves of Rt #322.  Tonight, challenging roads and distracting scenery were the last thing that I wanted.  I was hoping for only one thing, and that was that PennDot, (The Pennsylvania Department Of Transportation), had done their job plowing the Interstate and that the 150 mile stretch of road from Bellefonte to the Delaware Water Gap was open and clear.  

As I approached the entrance ramp to Rt #80 East in Bellefonte, it was so far; so good.  If God does protect both drunks and fools, I was willing to be considered worse than both tonight, if he would get me safely to Boston without a crash.

The first twenty miles east on Interstate #80 were like a blur wrapped inside a time warp.  It was the worst combination
of deteriorating road conditions, glare from oncoming headlights, and spray and salt that was being kicked up from the vehicles in front of me.  Then it got worse — It started to snow again!

                                             More Snow!

What else could happen now I wondered to myself as I passed the exit for Milton on Rt #80.  It had been two hours since leaving the State College area, and at this pace I wouldn’t get to Boston until five or six in the morning. I was tucked in behind a large ‘Jones Motor Freight Peterbilt,’ and we were making steady but slow progress at about thirty miles per hour.  I stayed just far enough behind the truck so that the spray from his back tires wouldn’t hit me straight on.  It did however keep the road directly in front of me covered with a fresh and newly deposited sheet of snow, compliments of his eight rear wheels which were throwing snow in every direction, but mostly straight back at me.

I didn’t have to use the brakes in this situation, which was a real plus as far as stability and traction were concerned.  We made it almost to the Berwick exit when I noticed something strange.  Motorists coming from the other direction were rolling their windows down and shouting something at the drivers going my way.  With my helmet on, and the noise from the truck in front of me drowning everything else out, I couldn’t make out what they were trying to say.  I could tell they were serious though, by the way they leaned out their windows and shouted up at the driver in the truck I was following.

Then I saw it.  Up ahead in the distance it looked like a parade was happening in the middle of the highway. There were multi-colored flashing lights everywhere.  Traffic started to slow down until it was at a crawl, and then finally stopped.  A state police car came up the apron going the wrong way on our side and told everyone in our long line that a semi-truck had ‘jack-knifed’, and flipped over on its side, and it was now totally blocking the East bound lanes.  

The exit for Berwick was only two hundred yards ahead, and if you got over onto the apron you could make it off the highway.  Off the highway to what I wondered, but I knew I couldn’t sit out here in the cold and snow with my engine idling. It would eventually overheat (being air-cooled) even at these low temperatures which could cause mechanical problems that I’d never get fixed in time to see my dad.

I pulled over onto the apron and rode slowly up the high ramp to the right, and followed the sign at the top to Berwick.  The access road off the ramp was much worse than the highway had been, and I slipped and slid all the way into town.  I took one last look back at the menagerie of lights from the medivac ambulances and tow trucks that were now all over the scene below.  The lights were all red and blue and gold, and in a strange twisted and beautiful way, it reminded me of the ride to church for midnight mass on Christmas Eve.

                  Christmas Eve With My Mom And My Dad

In Berwick, the only thing I saw that was open was the Bulldog Lounge.  It was on the same side of the street that I was on and had a big VFW sign hanging under its front window.  I could see warm lights glowing inside and music was drifting through the brick façade and out onto the sidewalk. I stopped in front of the rural Pennsylvania tavern and parked the bike on its kickstand, unhooked my leather bag from the luggage carrier and walked in the front door.

Once inside, there was a bar directly ahead of me with a tall, sandy haired woman serving drinks.  “What can I get you,” she said as I approached the bar, but she couldn’t understand my answer.  My mouth and face were so frozen from the cold and the wind that my speech was slurred, and I’m sure it seemed like I was already drunk when I hadn’t even had a drink.  She asked again, and I was able to get the word ‘coffee’ out so she could understand it. She turned around behind her to where the remnants from what was served earlier that day were still overcooking in the ***. She put the cup in front of me, and I took it with both hands and held it close against my face.

After ten minutes of thawing out I finally took my first swallow.  It  tasted even worse than it looked, but I was glad to get it, and I then asked the bar lady where the restrooms were.  “Down that corridor to the right” she said, and I asked her if she would watch my bag until I got back.  Without saying a word, she just nodded her head. As I got to the end of the corridor, I noticed a big man in a blue coat with epaulets standing outside the men’s room door.  He had a menacing no-nonsense look on his face, and didn’t smile or nod as I walked by.  His large coat was open and as I looked at him again, I saw it – he was wearing a gun.
            
                                   He Was Wearing A Gun

As I went into the men’s room, I noticed it was dark, but there was a lot of noise and commotion coming from the far end.  I looked for the light switch and when I found it, I couldn’t believe what I saw next.  Someone was stuck in the window at the far end of the men’s room, with the lower half of their body sticking out on my side and the upper half dangling outside in the cold and the dark.  It looked like a man from where I stood, and he was making large struggling sounds as he either tried to push his way out or pull his way back in.  I wasn’t sure at this point which way he was trying to go. Something else was also strange, he had something tied or wrapped around the bottom of his legs.

It was at this point that I opened up the men’s room door again and yelled outside for help.  In an instant, the big man with the blue coat and gun ran almost right over me to the window and grabbed the mans two legs, and in one strong movement pulled him back in the window and halfway across the floor.  It was then that I could see that the man’s legs were shackled, and handcuffs were holding his arms tightly together in front of his body.  He had apparently asked to use the facility and then tried to escape once inside and alone.

The large guard said “Jimmy, I warned you about trying something like this.  I have half a mind now to make you hold it all the way back to New Hampshire.” He stood the young man up and went over and closed the window. He locked it with the hasp.  He then let the man use the toilet in the one stall, but stood right there with him until he was done.  By this time I was back inside and finishing my coffee.  The guard came in, seated his prisoner at a table by the wall, and then walked over and sat down next to me at the bar.

“You really saved me a lot of trouble tonight, son” he said, “If he had gotten out that window, I doubt I’d have found him in the dark and the snow.  I’d have been here all night, and that’s ‘if’ I caught him again.  My *** would have been in a sling back at headquarters and I owe you a debt of thanks.”  You don’t owe me anything I said, I was just trying to help, and honestly didn’t know he was a prisoner when I first saw him suspended in the window. “Well just the same, you did me a big favor, and I’d like to try and return it if I could.”

He then asked me if I lived in Berwick, and I told him no, that I was traveling to Boston to see my father in the hospital and had to get off the highway on my motorcycle because of the wreck on Interstate #80.  “You’re on a what,” he asked me!  “A motorcycle” I said again, as his eyes got even wider than the epaulets on his shoulders.  “You’re either crazy or desperate, but I guess it’s none of my business.  How are you planning on getting to Boston tonight in all this snow?”  When I told him I wasn’t sure, he told me to wait at the bar.  He went to the pay phone and made a short phone call and was back in less than three minutes.  The prisoner sat at the table by the wall and just watched.

The large man came back over to the bar and said “my names Bob and I work for the U.S. Marshals Office.  I’m escorting this fugitive back to New Hampshire where he stole a car and was picked up in West Virginia at a large truck stop on Interstate #79.  Something about going to see his father whom he had never met who was dying on some Indian reservation in Oklahoma.  He’d have made it too, except he parked next to an unmarked state trooper who was having coffee, thought he looked suspicious, and then ran his plates.”

“I’m driving that big flatbed truck outside and transporting both him and the car he stole back to New Hampshire for processing and trial.  I’ve got enough room behind the car to put your bike on the trailer too.  If you’d like, I can get you as far as the Mass. Pike, and then you’ll only be about ninety minutes from Boston and should be there for breakfast. If you don’t mind ridin with ‘ole Jimmy’ here, I can get you most of the way to where you’re going. I don’t think you’ll make it all the way on that two-wheeler alone out on that highway tonight.

The Good Lord takes many forms and usually arrives when least expected.  Tonight he looked just like a U.S. Marshal, and he was even helping me push my bike up the ramp and onto the back of his flatbed.  He then even had the right straps to help me winch it down so it wouldn’t move as we then headed North through the blinding snow in the dark.  Bob knew a back way around the accident, and after a short detour on Pa. Routes #11 and #93, we were back on the Interstate and New England bound.

The three of us, Bob, Jimmy and I, spent the first hour of the ride in almost total silence.  Bob needed to stop for gas in Stroudsburg and asked me if I would accompany Jimmy to the men’s room inside.  His hands and feet were still ‘shackled,’ and I can still see the looks on the faces of the restaurant’s patrons as we walked past the register to the rest rooms off to the left.  Jimmy still never spoke a word, and we were back outside in less than five minutes.

Once back in the truck Bob said “Jesus, it’s cold out here tonight. You warm enough kid,” as he directed his comment to Jimmy.  I still had on my heavy leather bomber jacket, but Jimmy was wearing a light ‘Members Only’ cotton jacket that looked like it had seen much better days.  Jimmy didn’t respond.  I said: “Are you warm enough kid,” and Bob nudged Jimmy slightly with his right elbow.  Jimmy looked back at Bob and said, ‘Yeah, I’m fine.”

Then Bob started to speak again.  “You know it’s a **** shame you got yourself into this mess.  In looking at your record, it’s clean, and this is your first offense.  What in God’s name possessed you to steal a car and try to make it all the way to Oklahoma in weather like this?”  Jimmy looked down at the floor for the longest time and then raised his head, looked at me first, and then over at Bob …

“My Mom got a letter last week saying that the man who is supposed to be my father was in the Choctaw Nation Indian Hospital in Talihina Oklahoma.  They also told her that he was dying of lung cancer and they didn’t expect him to last long.  His only wish before he died was to see the son that he abandoned right before he was shipped off to Seoul during the Korean War. I tried to borrow my uncle’s car, but he needed it for work.  We have neighbors down the street who have a car that just sits. They have a trailer in Florida for the winter, and I planned to have it back before anyone missed it.  The problem was that their son came over to check on the place, saw the car was missing, and reported it to the cops. I never meant to keep it, I just wanted to get down and back before anyone noticed.”

“Dumb, Dumb, Dumb, Bob said!  Don’t you know they make buses for that.”  Jimmy says he never thought that far, and given the choice again that’s what he’d do.  Bob took one more long look at Jimmy and just slowly shook his head.  Then he said to both of us, “how old are you boys?”  I said 23, as Jimmy nodded his head acknowledging that he was the same age.  Bob then said, “I got bookends here, both goin in different directions,”

Jimmy then went on to say, “My mom my little sister and I live in a public housing project in Laconia.  I never knew my dad, but my grandma, when she was alive, said that he was a pretty good guy.  My mother would never talk about why he left, and I felt like this was my last chance to not only meet him but to find all that out before he passed.”  I glanced over at Bob and it looked like his eyes were welling up behind the thick glasses he wore.  Jimmy then said: “If I got to rethink this thing, I would have stayed in New Hampshire.  It just ‘seemed’ like the right thing to do at the time.

We rode for the next hour in silence.  Bob already knew my story, and I guess he didn’t think sharing it with Jimmy would make him feel any better.  The story of an upper middle class college kid on the way to see his dad in Boston would probably only serve to make what he was feeling now even worse.  The sign up ahead said ‘Hartford, 23 miles’. Bob said, “Kurt, this is where we drop you off.  If you cut northeast on Rt # 84, it will take you to the Mass.Pike.  From where you pick up the pike, you should then be no more than an hour or so from downtown Boston.

During those last 23 miles Bob spoke to Jimmy again.  I think he wanted me to hear it too. “Jimmy,” Bob said, “I’m gonna try and help you outta this mess.  I believe you’re basically a good kid and deserve a second chance.  Somebody helped me once a long time ago and it made all the difference in my life.”  Bob looked over at me and said. “Kurt, whatta you think?”  I said I agreed, and that I was sure that if given another chance, Jimmy would never do anything like this again.  Jimmy said nothing, as his head was again pointed down toward the floor.

“I’ll testify for you at your hearing,” Bob said, “and although I don’t know who the judge will be, in most cases they listen when a federal marshal speaks up on behalf of the suspect.  It doesn’t happen real often, and that’s why they listen when it does.

    More Than Geographical Borders Had Now Been Crossed,
             Human Borders Were Being Expanded Too!

We arrived in Hartford and Bob pulled the truck over. He slid down the ramp and attached it to the back of the flat wooden bed. Jimmy even tried to help as we backed the Honda down the ramp. They both stood there as I turned the key and the bike fired up on the first try.  Bob then said, “You got enough money to make it the rest of the way, kid,” I said that I did, and as I stuck out my hand to thank him he was already on his way back to the truck with his arm around Jimmy’s shoulder.

The ride up #84 and then #90 East into Boston was cold but at least it was dry.  No snow had made it this far North.  My father’s operation would be successful, and I had been able to spend most of the night before the surgery with him in his hospital room.  He couldn’t believe that I had come so far, and through so much, just to be with him at that time. I told him about meeting Jimmy and Bob, and he said: “Son, that boys gonna do just fine.  Getting caught, and then being transferred by Bob, is the best thing that ever happened to him.”  

“I had something like that happen to me in Nebraska back in 1940, and without help my life may have taken an entirely different turn.  My options were, either go away for awhile, or join the United States Marine Corps — Thank God for the ‘Corps.”  My dad had run away from home during the depression at 13 and was headed down a very uncertain path until given that choice by someone who cared so very long ago.

“It only takes one person to make all the difference,” my dad said, and I’m so happy and grateful that you’re here with me tonight.

As they wheeled my dad into surgery the next morning, I couldn’t help but think about Jimmy, the kid who was my age and never got to see his dad before it was too late.

On that fated night, two young men ‘seemingly’ going in opposite directions had met in the driving snow. One was looking for a father he had only heard about but never knew.  The other trying to get to a father he knew so well and didn’t think he could live without.

          

      Jimmy Was Adopted That Night Through The Purity
                        Of His Misguided Intention …
                       As So Few Times In Life We Are!

My BMX was department store,
black and yellow
like a bumblebee,
and weighed a ton
compared to their
alloy framed bikes.
They made fun of the kickstand
and the chain guard.

I was the class runt
and wore hand me downs
and rolled up jeans
sometimes with patches,
more fodder for jokes.

In the summer we camped
in the Adirondacks,
and in the fall
at the bus stop
or in school
they talked about trips
to France or Spain.

I had a fist fight
with an older kid
down the block
who lived in a house
with a swimming pool
when he said my house
looked like a barn.

I think I still see the world
through the tint
of those dollar green glasses
they made me wear.

And I shout down
the echoes of those voices
that condemn others with less,
and me with them.

But I got tough taking beatings
from bigger older boys.
And my legs got strong
pedaling that heavy bike uphill.

I will not be a stain
upon the pages
of your four
cornered vile

Nor do I wither
but strain to keep
perpendicular the line
so compiled

Your broadsword words
of audacity flecks
off my shield
inconspicuously

Leave your lectern
note for note
For you cannot rage
without your kickstand support

So faberge your doting dribble
Your sculpture is cracked
saturated in strychnine
and mace

The woman in the blue Chevy said: “Just five dollars please,” as I pumped two more dollars of Sunoco 260 into the aging four door sedan.  As she paid me and then left, I looked at the Croton Chronograph Watch on my wrist that I had gone into hock for last fall.  5:15, SHOOT!!!, I only had 45 minutes to jump on my bike and make it the fifteen miles back to West Philadelphia to class.

I was taking night courses at St Joseph’s College (St Joseph’s University now), and my first class started at 6:00 p.m.  Why? I asked myself again did I always cut it so close?  Deep inside I knew the answer, but I told myself it was because I was a good employee.  I had been pumping gas and renting U-Haul Trucks at an Arco gas station in North Hills Pa. for the past two years. The station was open till 6 p.m. every day, and it seemed I never got out of there until after 5.

It was owned by a good friend of mine, Bob, whom I had met in Ocean City New Jersey while living in the rooming house that he and his wife Pat owned at 14th street and Asbury Ave.  Every day at five o’clock, Bob would yell out to me on the gas island — “time to leave!” He knew how long the ride was back to school during rush hour and that I never seemed to get out by 5.

The real answer as to why I was always late was that I liked the challenge. I loved the ride through the small section of Fairmount Park and then the river town of Manayunk always trying to get back to my apartment at 54th and Woodland Ave in the Overbrook section of Philadelphia before six.  54th and Woodland was right across the street from St Joe’s, and I would literally race into the driveway in front of my apartment house, drop the bike’s kickstand run inside to change and then head for class.  Many times, I would not even change out of my Arco jumper (uniform) before heading over to campus.  I often didn’t have the time.  I wondered what some of the other people, especially girls, must have thought of the strange aroma that I brought to the class on the nights when I didn’t change.

            To Their Credit, No One Ever Complained

I had always secretly wanted to road-race motorcycles, and this twenty-minute ride both to and from work every day gave me a chance to indulge my fantasy.  Tonight, I would be cutting it very close and not even have time to stop at my apartment.  I would have to park under the tree in front of my classroom building and run up the stairs to the third floor and do it all before six o’clock. It was an advanced Philosophy class, Ethics and Morality, and the professor, Dr. Larry McKinnon closed the doors promptly at six.  If you were late, you didn’t get in — no exceptions!

I raced through the park on Bells Mill Road and hit the cobblestone hills of Manayunk with 15 minutes still left on my watch.  I then raced up City Line Ave and caught only one red light as I saw the lights of 54th and City Line straight ahead. The light was yellow as I leaned over hard and made the left turn on 54th St. I raced up past the basketball arena and turned right on Woodland Ave. I would normally have gone straight a half block to my apartment, but I had cut it too close and didn’t have the time. I pulled up in front of the Villiger Building, chained my bike to the tree I always used, and ran for the stairway door around back by the track.

This building had no elevator, so it was up two flights of stairs to the top floor and then left down the hall to where my classroom was the one farthest on the right.

As I rushed through the back door of Villiger, the first flight of stairs was blocked.  An elderly man with a Gulf Oil Hat on was struggling to pull his son in a wheelchair up the 26 stairs.  He had the entire stairway blocked, and I had less than two minutes to get by him and into McKinnon’s class.   His son in the wheelchair was in really bad shape.  He was in a total body brace that went clear to his head, and as he looked down at me, I heard him say: “Hey Moose, grab the front, and we’ll both make it to McKinnon’s class before he shuts the door.”

With that, I grabbed the small front wheels and lifted, as we both carried the wheelchair up the two flights of stairs to the third floor.  We entered the hallway just as Dr. McKinnon was shutting the door.  The kid in the wheelchair yelled out, “Wait for us Doc” as we raced for the closing door.  I took the handles of the chair away from his dad and pushed the chair inside.  We had made it but not any too soon.

I wondered to myself if McKinnon would have denied entry to this kid who had been stricken with polio if he had arrived just two minutes later. It would have taken at least that long if his dad had tackled those stairs alone.  I parked his wheelchair next to my desk on the far left as the professor started his lecture.  When it was over, I pushed his wheelchair outside to where his dad was waiting.

“Ed Hudak,” his father said, “and this is my son Eddie.  Thanks so much for helping us up the stairs. I got out of work late and had to race home to the Northeast section of Philadelphia, pick Eddie up, and then race back down here to get him to class.”  Mr. Hudak worked at the Gulf Oil Refinery in South Philadelphia.  To leave work at four o’clock and get all the way up to the Northeast, pick up his crippled son, and then race back down to West Philadelphia made the little twenty-minute jaunt that I did every day seem like child’s play.

His son Eddie then asked me where my next class was. “Dr Marshall’s ‘Rational Psychology,’ I told him” as he said, “mine too, you can push me over there and my dad can go to the student union and get something to eat and rest for a while.”  School had only started last week, and somehow I had missed seeing this crippled kid in both of my classes.  He told me he had seen me though because of the strange jumper I had on and the helmet I carried into class.  When he told his father about me his dad said: “That kid must work in a gas station and be paying for school himself.  Cut him some slack if he doesn’t look real presentable on those days when he’s late.”

Eddie and I finished both classes together and I got ready to push him back outside.  As we passed the vending machines on the first floor, I told him that this was where I usually stopped to have dinner before going home.  He asked me, “What’s your favorite?” and I told him, “the Dinty Moore beef stew.”  The machine had three different varieties and that was usually all I had until breakfast the next day.  Eddie said he would like to wait while I ate and that his father would be fine outside for a few more minutes.  He seemed to know something about our new relationship that would take quite a bit longer for me to discover and sort out.

                  Eddie Always Seemed To ‘Just Know’

I asked Eddie what his major was, and he said Literature, and that he had been a student here for almost six years.  Again, I wondered, how could I have missed him in that wheelchair with someone always pushing him to where he needed to go?  I hoped I hadn’t refused to see him in his diminished condition with my eyes always looking away.  These kinds of things always bothered me, and I was squeamish around handicapped people, especially children. My mother had volunteered at the St. Edmond’s Home For Crippled Children in Rosemont for many years, but I was still uncomfortable when I saw those kids, not much younger than I was, in wheelchairs and leg braces.

                Eddie’s Condition Was Much Worse

The only thing handicapped about Eddie was his body. His mind and spirit were stronger than any five, so-called, normal people.  His father had made sure of that.  His dad had been racing from work to home and then to school for almost six years devoting whatever spare time he had to what his son wanted to accomplish.  He would drop Eddie off at class and then, most nights, go sleep in his car in the school parking lot.  Many nights, the temperature in that parking lot was below freezing, but this sixty-year-old man NEVER complained.


        Who Was Really Handicapped, Eddie Or Me?

As much as I marveled at how well Eddie did in spite of being disabled, his father amazed me even more.  He was like so many heroes that we never hear about standing off in the shadows so that someone else can thrive.  After I finished my stew, I pushed Eddie outside to where his dad was waiting.  He shook my hand and said: “Son, without your help tonight, we’d have really been in a terrible fix.”

                               He Called Me “Son”

As I watched him wheel Eddie back toward their car in the parking lot, I pushed my long hair back and pulled my helmet over my head.  The chinstrap I left unbuckled on these short rides because it always got tangled in my beard.  I rode the two short blocks back to my apartment with the sight of Eddie and his dad burned into the front of my psyche.  I knew I had witnessed something special tonight, I just didn’t know yet how special it truly was or would then become.

Now, I had an entirely new reason for getting to school on time.  I was not going to let that diminutive older man pull that wheelchair up those stairs one more time — not if I could help it.  I was never late again for the rest of that semester, as Eddie and I became fast friends with he and his dad even visiting my apartment on more than one occasion.  I became a real master at pulling that sled of his up the stairs, and we often got help from other male students as we made the climb.

Eddie told me in confidence one day that I had been good for his dad.  I thought he was referring to the physical exertion I had save him, and Eddie said: “No, it’s more than that. My dad has never liked anyone with long hair and a beard, and he told my mother the other night that you were the first.  He then went on to say that maybe it was just hair and that he shouldn’t let things like that bother him anymore.”  I was both flattered and gratified that he saw something in me, something that I still may not have seen in myself.

Mr. Hudak had been a World War 2 veteran and participated as a Chaplain’s Assistant in such major conflicts as D-Day and The Battle Of The Bulge.  His Jeep had sunk in deep water during the D-Day landing, and he and the Chaplain had to swim two hundred yards to shore amidst enemy fire.  He was a great man in the tradition of all great men who provide unselfish and heroic service while asking for nothing in return. In many ways, I secretly wished that he had been my dad too.  

My father had also been in World War 2 as a Marine and fought many engagements in the South Pacific.  He was a hero to me, but the difference between my father and Mr. Hudak was, my dad loved me, but he didn’t seem interested in my life now.  He didn’t approve of my studying Philosophy, and he couldn’t understand why I hadn’t chosen a more conventional career path like the sons of so many of his friends.

  In Ways I Couldn’t Understand, I Think I Embarrassed My Father

What my dad didn’t know was, that underneath the long hair and beard, my beliefs were a little to the right of Attila The ***. Unfortunately, we never had a serious conversation where he could have discovered that.  

The semester finally came to an end and the Christmas holidays were now upon us.  It was cold weather to be riding a motorcycle but, when that’s all you have. then that’s what you ride. On the last day of class before break, Mr. Hudak pulled me aside.  “My wife Marge and I are having a little party next Saturday night, and we’d like you to come.”  Everything inside me was trying to find an excuse not to go, but all I was capable of was shaking my head yes and thanking this great man for the kind invitation.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to meet his family. It was that I literally had nothing to wear and only the motorcycle to get me there.  My entire wardrobe consisted of two pairs of jeans, three t-shirts, and one beige fisherman’s knit sweater that I had bought at a local discount store.  I still hadn’t worn the sweater, and the tags were still on it.  I kept telling myself I was saving it for a special occasion.  Well, what could be more special than meeting Mr. Hudak’s family. The afternoon of the party I removed the tags from the sweater and ran down to the Laundromat and washed my newest jeans.

Eddie had told me that the get together would start around seven, but I could arrive anytime I wanted.  As I pulled the motorcycle up in front of their brick row house, I looked for a place to park the bike where it wouldn’t stand out. I already looked like a child of the sixties, and the motorcycle would only give them something else to focus on that might be misleading.

My fears were totally unfounded as I walked through the front door.  Mr. Hudak greeted me warmly, as Eddie yelled out in a voice all could hear: “My buddy Kurt’s here.”  My buddy Kurt! Those words have stayed with me and have provided sustenance during times when I thought my life was tough.  All I had to do in those moments was think of Eddie and what he and his family had been through, and my pity party for myself ended almost quicker than it began.

                         “My Buddy Kurt’s Here”

No sooner did I wave to Eddie than Mrs. Hudak came bouncing out of the kitchen.  Literally bouncing! This tiny woman of 5’1’’ came bounding across the dining room floor and immediately reached up and threw both of her arms around my neck.  She squeezed hard and it felt good.  It was real and she wanted me to know that.  Eddie had also explained to me how physically strong his mother was. It was the result of having to carry him up and down two flights of stairs from his bedroom to their recreation room in the basement below.  She did this several times a day.

I don’t know how high the heat was set to in their house that night, but I had never felt so warm — or accepted.  To an outsider like me it even looked like love, which I was to find out shortly is exactly what it was.  I wanted to take my heavy sweater off, but I had nothing on underneath but an old t-shirt.  Mrs. Hudak’s name was Marge, and she was from an old Irish family named McCarty. When she first saw me earlier, after I had removed my jacket, she said: “What a lovely sweater, shorin it tis.”

                                It Felt Like Love

I spent that night getting to know everyone, and in no time felt like one of the family.  At ten o’clock the guests started to leave and Marge took me into the kitchen.  “Can you stay a little while longer, because at eleven there is someone who I want you to meet?”  I said sure, as she fed me more cake and cookies telling me that they were baked special by the evening’s mystery guest.

At eleven fifteen the front door opened with an “I’m home,” coming from a young woman’s voice.  As I stood up, a flash of white turned the corner and entered the kitchen.  There in her finest nurse’s regalia, stood Eddie’s younger sister, Kathryn, who had just finished the evening shift at Nazareth Hospital in North Philadelphia.

“WOW, WAS SHE SOMETHING,” is all I could hear myself saying as she took her first look at me.  “So, this is the guy I’ve heard so much about huh,” she said as she walked to the refrigerator.  “Based on my brother’s description, I thought you would have been at least ten feet tall.”  Mildly sarcastic for sure, but I was smitten right away.

Later, I heard her on the phone with someone who sounded like her boyfriend.  They seemed to be fighting, and I sensed from the look on her dad’s face that they weren’t crazy about him either.  He said: “I hope it’s over,” and in less than a minute Kathryn came into the living room with tears in her eyes.  As she ran up the stairs to her bedroom, you could hear her say, “What A ****!” I prayed she wasn’t referring to me.  

Her mother ran up the stairs after her but before she did, she asked me not to leave.  Ten minutes later she came back downstairs and said: “You haven’t finished your cookies and cake in the kitchen.”

Marge was right, and I really wanted to finish them, but I was now starting to feel uncomfortable and in the middle of something that wasn’t for me to see or hear. Not wanting to seem rude, I followed her back to the kitchen table and sat down as she refilled my glass with milk. “So, what are your plans for the holidays,” she asked, as I wolfed down the sweets.

“Oh, nothing much,” I said, “just schoolwork and my job at the gas station.”  “And how about New Year’s Eve she asked?”  “Oh, nothing planned, probably just go see my grandparents and then watch the ball drop on TV in my apartment if I make it till twelve”.  “Why don’t you ask Kathryn out” she said, as her eyes twinkled? I thought I must have been hearing things and looked baffled, so she repeated it again…

                  Why Don’t You Ask Kathryn Out

This kindly woman, from this great family, was suggesting that I take their pride and joy daughter, Kathyrn, out for New Year’s Eve.  I didn’t know what to say. “Why don’t you think about it?  I’ll bet the two of you would have fun. I think based on tonight she is now free for New Year’s Eve too.”

I was literally in shock and not prepared for this.  I had recently broken up with a long-term girlfriend who I had dated all through high school and college.  I had convinced myself that I needed a break from girls for a while, and now here I was faced with dating Mr. Hudak’s only daughter.  In a few minutes, Marge walked out of the kitchen and Kathryn walked back in. She was now dressed in her pajamas and robe. If I had been smitten before, I was totally taken now.

I knew the first thing I said might be my last, so after a long pause I uttered: “So, I hear you’re not doing anything for New Years Eve?”  Not the best ice breaker as she yelled out to her mother: “Mommmmm, what did you tell him.”  Her mother didn’t answer.  I said again: “Kathy, please don’t take it the wrong way, I don’t have a date for New Year’s either.”  She looked at me for what seemed like an eternity, that in reality lasted for just a few seconds, before saying: “And just where do you propose we should go, Mr. Wonderful?”  Thank God I had an answer.

                           The Ice Had Broken

“Zaberers,” I said: “They’re open twenty-four hours. They have dinner and dancing and then a big show right after midnight.”  “Zaberers, huh,” she said, as she looked at me once more.  “All right, you can pick me up at eight.” With that, I didn’t want to push my luck.  I thanked her parents for the wonderful evening and wanted to say good night to Eddie, but he had already gone to bed.  That was what Marge was doing on her second trip upstairs — what a woman!!!

                          What A Woman Indeed!

Kathy and I had a great time on that first date on New Years Eve. All we really talked about was her father and about how hard he had struggled to keep the family together and how lucky he was to have found a woman like Marge who was the love of his life.

Kathy and I were engaged to be married just nine weeks later on March 5th,, and then married that fall on September 22nd 1974.  I was now a real part of the family that I had admired from afar.  Kathy and I had two children, and Marge and Ed were the best grandparents that two kids could ever have hoped for. They were lucky enough to see both of their grandchildren grow into adulthood and attend their college graduations. They were also able to proudly attend the wedding of their oldest grandchild, our daughter Melissa.

We lost Ed Hudak, my father-in-law, my guardian, and my friend, last December, and the world has been a little less bright with only the memory of him here now.  In many ways, he was the best of what we are all still trying to become, and his spirit remains inside us during the times of our greatest need.

For me though, I’ll never forget the time of our first meeting. That late September afternoon when I looked up those stairs at St Joe’s and not a word needed to be said. Here was a Saint of a man doing what real men do and doing it quietly. With humble dignity, his spirit reached out to me that day and filled an empty place inside of me with his love.

Now, forty years later, that same spirit occupies a bigger and bigger place in my life. From somewhere deep inside my soul it continues to live on, and I know for as long as I can remember — it will never let me go.

                           And I Called Him … ‘The Chief’

Royal blue floral patterns
painted in tight rings
on bone white china plates
on red and white checkered
tartan table covers.
White wild flowers growing
randomly in the dark green
grass of the lawn.
Clouds drift happy and high
in the smooth light blue
ocean of sky above the
dark brick fronted home.
A bicycle sits on its side
in the blue/gray gravel
driveway, its kickstand
never used, its front wheel
still spinning.
It would be bucolic
if not for the lifetime
of bloodshed.
It would be barncore
******* beautiful
if you could ignore all the screaming.

Day #7: Vernal to Cortez

The next morning, I was on Rt #40 and headed from Vernal Utah to Dinosaur Colorado. I wished that I had had the time to go into the dinosaur museum again.  When I was last there, over fifteen years ago, they had a fossilized dinosaur, and it was almost half uncovered from the side of the cliff where it was buried.  They had built the museum around this discovery, and its walls connected right to the cliff on both sides of the dig.  I made a bet with myself as I passed by that they had entirely uncovered it by now.  It was hard to believe in this dry arid climate that the greatest creatures to ever walk the earth once roamed here.

This Week Was Not About Museums Or Sideshows, It Was About The ‘Ride’

At Dinosaur, I took Rt. #64 East toward Rangely where I gassed up and connected with Rt. #139. I then entered the great flat regions of Western Colorado where the only towns were Loma and Fruita with Grand Junction sitting just off the interstate twelve miles farther to the East.  

Just before Fruita, I passed the old farming community of Loma Colorado. Loma sat just off interstate Rt.#70 and looked like another one of those towns that time had forgotten.  I stopped to photograph the old two-story Loma School that sat in the weeds 100 yards off the road.  As I approached the front entrance, I could feel the excitement of the students who had attended there reverberate around me. I thought I heard their laughter, as I pushed on the double latch of the large front entry door.  Sadly, it was locked. As I looked in through its glass panels, I thought I saw a figure carrying books and making a left turn into one of the deserted classrooms — or were they deserted.  

I have learned to no longer question what I see but to be thankful for the gift of being able to see at all.  While closed, I was gratified that the county had not torn the old building down and had allowed it to stand. It was a living testament to all that had happened there and to what, in a passing visitors imagination, just might happen again.  I smiled realizing that I would soon be like that old building, a memory, whose retelling would overshadow any new thing that I might become.

There were two deserted schools, that sat dormant, yet vibrant, along the pathway of my discovery this week.  I had put my hands firmly on the front doors of both hoping that they would empty into me all the mystery hidden within their corridors and halls that they had been previously unwilling to share. Forever, they would remain unsettled in my thoughts because of what they once were and even more for the stories they might tell.

At Fruita, I got on the Interstate (Rt #70 East) and missed my exit for Rt.#141 South which would have taken me across the Uncompahgre Plateau.  I went twenty miles too far to the East before turning around and on the reverse trip made the same mistake again.  The exit for Rt.#141 was not marked, so I got off and followed the signs for Rt.#50 and stopped at the first gas station for better directions.  The clerk behind the desk smiled at me as I asked for her help.  She said, “Not so easy to find Rt #141, is it?” Many things in the West were not easy to find, but the ones worth keeping had been worth looking for.

After a series of three right turns, I arrived in the tiny town of Whitewater Colorado and saw the sign for Rt.#141.  I didn’t refuel back at the gas station — I had simply forgotten. The next town on Rt.#141 (Gateway Colorado), was still 43 miles further West.  I knew I could make it with what I had left in my tank but would Gateway have fuel?  If not, I would become the remote victim of an unknown fate caused by an unfortunate memory lapse.  

If the first twenty miles of this trip hadn’t been mired in road construction, the remote beauty of the canyons, and the road they stood as bookends against, were worth any chance that I might run out of gas. The manual said that the Goldwing could go over two hundred miles before running out of gas. Today would test both the veracity of that statement and my belief that the road was always there to save you when you needed it most.  

Road construction in this part of the West meant that two lanes had been reduced to one totally stopping the traffic in one of the lanes. A long line of idling vehicles waited for the pilot car to come from the other direction, turn around, and then take them through the construction zone to where the second lane opened again. Once there, the pilot car positioned itself at the head of the opposing line of stopped vehicles wanting to go the other way. It slowly began the whole process all over again going back in the direction from where it had started.

There’s an old Western joke about the West having four-seasons —Fall, Winter, Spring, and Road Construction. If you’ve traveled west of the Mississippi between Memorial Day and September, you undoubtedly have your own stories to tell about waiting in line.

If you’ve been lucky, you didn’t have to wait more than twenty or thirty minutes for the pilot car to return.  If not lucky, you could’ve waited forty-five minutes or more.  On this day, the thermometer on the bike read 103,’ so I turned off the motor, dropped the kickstand down and got off. I removed my jacket and, within sight of the bike, went for a short walk.

  The Heat Was Coming Off The ‘Road’ In Waves And Made    Standing On Its Surface Both Uncomfortable And Severe

As I anticipated, in exactly twenty minutes the pilot car emerged from around the mountain in front of me. Within three minutes more, it had turned around, positioned itself in front of the line where I was number five and, with the flagman waving back and forth in our direction, had us on our way.  It looked like it was going to be a slow dusty ride through the Grand Mesa National Forest toward Gateway for another ten miles.  

Slow and dusty yes, but it was also gorgeous in a way that only a San Juan Mountain Road knew how to be.  With all the temporary unpleasantness from the heat and the dust, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.  This was what real travel was all about. I had learned its true meaning on the many Wyoming and Montana back roads of my youth — and on a much smaller motorcycle — over thirty years ago.

It’s What You Can’t Control That Allows For The Possibility Of Greatest Change

Casting my fate again to the spirits of the road, I passed the four slower cars in front of me and was again by myself.  The awe-inspiring mountain’s drifted lower into canyons of incredible beauty.  The descent was more than just a change in elevation.  I was being passed off from one of nature’s power sources to the other. As the mountains delivered their tenant son to the canyons in waiting, the road, once again, proved to be smarter than the plans I had made to deal with it.

               The ‘Road’ Had Once Again Proved Smarter …

Typical of many small western towns, the only gas station in Gateway had a sign on the front door that read … ‘Back In 30 Minutes.’ The two pumps did not accept credit cards, so the decision was to either wait for the station manager to return or to continue south toward Nucla, and if I had no luck there then Naturita. “One of them surely had gas” I said to myself, and with still an eighth of a tank left, I decided I would rather take the risk than wait, as daylight was burning.  Betting on the uncertainty of the future was different than dealing with the uncertainty of the here and now.  One was filled with the promise of good intention, while the other only underscored what you had learned to fear.

                                I Decided To Move On

Just outside of Gateway, and like a mirage in the desert, I saw a large resort a half-mile ahead on my right. As I got closer, I realized it was no mirage at all as the sign read ‘Welcome To The Gateway Canyons Resort.’ Nothing could have stood in greater contrast to the things I had seen in the last fifty miles.  This resort looked like it should have been in Palm Springs or Sedona.  It was built totally out of red desert stucco with three upscale restaurants, a health club, and an in-house museum.  

What I cared about most was did they have gas?  Sitting right in front of their General Store were two large concrete islands with pumps on both sides.  It was a welcome sight regardless of price, $4.99 for regular, which was more than a dollar a gallon higher than I had paid anywhere else.

                                  Any Port In A Storm

After filling the Goldwing’s tank, I walked inside the General Store to get something to drink.  The manager was standing by the cash register and talking to a clerk.  She looked at me and smiled as she said: “So where are you headed?”  When I told her the Grand Canyon, and then eventually back to Las Vegas she replied: “Hey, tell all your Motorcycle friends about us, we love to service the Bike trade.”  

I told her I was a writer and would in fact be doing a story about my ride. But based on her overly inflated prices I would have to recommend filling up in either Whitewater or Naturita.  She grimaced slightly and said something about business in this remote region dictating the price.  I returned her smile as I wished her a good day. Joni’s immortal words about “repaving paradise and putting up a parking lot” rang in my ears, as I walked back outside and restarted the bike.

Sometimes We Had To Cross The line To Know What The Line Meant

This place had been recently built by John Hendricks the founder of The Discovery Channel.  He and his family discovered this valley on a vacation trip in 1995.  Instead of becoming part of the surroundings, he decided to turn his vision of the valley into an extension of what he already knew.  It was a shame really because a museum with classic Duesenberg Cars was as out of place in this remote canyon as any notion that you could then merchandise and control it to suit your own ends.

I couldn’t leave fast enough! Without even one look back through my rearview mirrors, I rounded the bend to the right that took me away from this place.  Once out of sight of the resort, I was deep in ****** canyonland again where only the hawk and the coyote affirmed my existence. I wondered … why do we do many of the things that we do? At the same time, I was grateful, as I looked up and offered a silent thank you for the gas.

Asking ‘Why’ Throws My Spirit Into Reverse Gear, And I Know Better …  

Just past Naturita, I made a right turn on Rt.#141 and headed south toward Dove Creek.  It was farther than it appeared on the map, and it was past 7:30 in the evening when I arrived where Rt.#141 dead-ended into Rt.#491.  I took the left turn toward ****** where I continued south toward the 4-Corners town of Cortez Colorado.  This time life balanced. The trip to Cortez from Dove Creek which looked at least as long, or longer, than the one I had just traveled, was only 36 more miles — and I could stop for the night.

I raced toward the 4-Corners as the sun disappeared behind the Canyons Of The Ancients. I averaged over 85 MPH again alone on the road.  My only fear was that a deer or coyote might come out of the shadows, but I traveled secure inside my vision that on two-wheels my life would never end. I knew my life would never end that way, but a serious injury was something to be avoided.  

The trip to Cortez was over in a flash, and in less than twenty minutes I saw billboards and signs that pointed to a life outside of myself lining both sides of the road.  As I pulled into the Budget Inn, the sign that directed you toward Rt. #160 west and the Grand Canyon was right in front of the motel. There were only two other cars sitting in the parking lot with a lone Harley-Davidson Road King parked in front of a room at the extreme far end.

The desk clerk told me that he was originally from Iran but had been raised in the Los Angeles area.  He had a small Chihuahua named Buddy who would perform tricks if offered a reward.  I took a small milk bone out of the box on the counter and asked Buddy if he’d like to go for a ride.  He barked loudly, as he spun and pirouetted in the middle of the lobby. I thought about my own dog Colby, who I missed terribly, waiting faithfully for me on our favorite chair back home. As I walked across the parking lot to my room, Buddy had been a proper and fitting end to a ride that left nothing more to be desired.

I splashed water on my face, left my helmet in the room, and rode back into Cortez. All I wanted now was some good food and a beer.  Lit up in all its glory, the Main Street Brewery sat in the middle of town, and its magnetic charm did everything but physically pull me inside.  It was an easy choice and one of those things that you just know, as I parked the bike against the sidewalk and walked inside.

The ribs and cole-slaw were as delicious as the waitress was delightful. It disturbed me though when I asked her about road conditions on the way to The Canyon, and she gave me that familiar blank stare.  “You know, I’ve lived up and down these San Juan’s all my life, and I’ve still never been down there.”  My heart filled with sadness as I said: “It’s only three hours away and the single greatest sight on earth that you will ever see.”

She looked at me vacuously, as she cleared my table, and promised she’d have to get down there one of these days if time and money ever permitted.  Amazing, I thought to myself! Here I was, a guy from Pennsylvania, who had visited the Canyon over thirty times, and this local person, living less than three hours away had not seen it — not even once. I cried inside myself for what she would probably never know as I got up to leave.

             Crying For What She Would Never Know …

As I turned around to take one last look at the historic bar, I was reminded that some things in life served as stepping-stones, or stairways, to all that was greater. I was in one of those places again tonight. The people who served in roadside towns like this saw the comings and goings, but never the reasons why. They were spared from feeling that outside their immediate preoccupation there could ever be anything more.  I needed to be thankful to them for having provided sustenance and shelter along my travels, but my sadness for the things that they would never see, which were many times just over the next hill, overrode any gratefulness I would feel in my heart.

         The Blessed Among Us Are The Blessed Indeed!

Three Forks Montana
                                         July 22nd, 1998

Headed south from Helena on Rt. #287, it was early on a bright sunny afternoon and I needed to stop.  The bike and I were both empty and needed a rest.  I was also that ravaged kind of hungry that only four hours of Montana scenery can create. We left Glacier National Park early this morning, and except for one quick pull-over for gas in Choteau, this little town of Winston Montana would be our first real stop.  Real stops are where the helmet and jacket come off, and the crushed soda can goes under the kickstand to keep it from sinking into the soft asphalt.

It was incredibly bright and warm and now thirty-five minutes past the lunch hour.  That’s what the hostess told me at the only Café in town as she was closing up until supper.  “We reopen at 4:30, but for now the bakery’s the only place in town that has anything at all, and they’re only open for another twenty minutes.”

It was twenty minutes till two as I hurried down the street. Just as the hostess had said, the bakery was still open. It had only one person working behind the glass cases, which were all empty as I walked in through the screen door.  Of strange interest to me was the pool table that sat in the middle of the bakery floor. It was in the middle and surrounded by eight small tables, each having two chairs apiece.  The ***** were all stacked neatly inside the rack, and there were two cues laying side by side on the green felt in the center of the table.

“All we got left is pie, and that’s only if you like blueberry,” the waitress said, as I walked toward her.” The bell on the screen door was still ringing and she had one hand on her hip.  She started to smile as she saw the look on my face. “I’m not kiddin, it’s all we got,” as she stared right into and through me as if she had known me all her life. “All you got is just about perfect I said, and can I get coffee along with it,” she not knowing that blueberry pie was a favorite of mine.  

The first time I ate it as a child I broke out with the hives, but it was so good I couldn’t help myself and I went back for more.
Aren’t many of life’s best things just like that!   The hives never happened again, but I still think about it every time I order blueberry pie. I always wonder if I’m going to leave the diner or café all swollen and red in the face, having trouble breathing and headed for the nearest E.R. for the EpiPen injection.

         From The Looks Of Things, This Town Had No E.R.

I sat there in the bright sunlight with the ceiling fan spinning slowly above me offering up a quiet thanks to whoever is in control of things like this.  With blue stains on my teeth and mouth, I went back up to the counter and asked the waitress if I could have just one more piece, and more coffee too.  She looked at me squarely and said, “I have only a quarter of a pie left.  How about if I give you this piece here and wrap up the last piece to go at no charge? If you’ve got a travel thermos, I’ll fill that up with the last of the coffee, it’ll only save me from having to pour it down the drain.  It’s pretty strong by now, but you already know that cause you’ve come back for more.”  “Strong is the way I like it” I said, and with a smile formed over a thousand miles, I thanked her again.

As I sat at the table eating my second piece of pie it reminded me that sometimes, just sometimes, the second time really is the charm.  Today, this second piece of blueberry pie was even better than the first.  I asked the waitress her name as I cleared my table, paid the check and tipped her.

“Agnes, she said, and you ride safe on that bike darlin, you hear.”

Walking back outside I still wasn’t ready to leave, so I put the pie and coffee in the bike’s trunk and started to walk around town to get a better feel for the place.

Dead still and quiet in the mid-afternoon sun, the Winston Montana shopkeepers were all safe behind their windows and doors. There was no traffic on the street.  It reminded me of those Twilight Zone episodes on T.V. from when I was a kid where everything seemed so familiar while at the same time being so strange. I walked the perimeter of the town and ended up back at my bike.  I slowly put my jacket and helmet back on, and in the glare of a south central Montana afternoon, I rode away.

The memory of that blueberry pie has stayed with me all of these years as a reminder that the best things in life are almost always honest and good.  In our daily confusion, we often get off track and forget the bounty that is right there before us — gifts that are usually just inches away from what we already know and are sometimes afraid to admit.  Afraid, because it might not meet someone else’s standard. We too often live in search of false glory — that which is often stolen from a ‘world of consensus,’ and that which is most likely now lost to us in its deception.

                       As For Me, I’ll Take The Blueberry Pie

If I could structure my life like the pie that Agnes served in her bakery in that remote Montana town, I would create an unfolding trinity of one for now, one for later, and then one for just in case.  ‘Just in case,’ is the great maybe, or mystery, contained within the possibility of our spirit. It’s in the knowing that something better is out there, and believing that that something is going to be good that allows us to hope.

The ‘now’ and the ‘later’ control our daily lives.  It is the ‘maybe, or the just in case,’ that gives us the great hope to go on when the place we now find ourselves in just doesn’t work. Like the three persons in one God, acknowledging the ‘maybe’ in our lives, provides the Holy Spirit for all vision and promise to appear.

The great Chiefs, Joseph and Crazy Horse, knew this inside them, as they led their people to strive even beyond the borders of their own beliefs.  Their pie for today and tomorrow had been taken from them, but they believed in their hearts that they would in fact eat again. In the land of the Great Spirit, and the home of their Fathers and Grandfathers, they knew they would some day feast around the Council Fires of those who had gone before.

From the mountaintops to the canyons, to the bakery in that small Montana town, people still search for that last piece of pie ‘to go.’ They wait patiently for the sweet taste of tomorrow to return, while trying desperately to hold on to the belief that — tomorrow will ultimately be good.

               And Tomorrow By Its Very Nature Will Be Good!

As I head further South on #287 the radio plays Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowin In The Wind.’ In the song Bob asks once again “How many roads must a man walk down?”  

             Just One Bob, As Long As It Leads Back To Today  



Kurt Philip Behm