In the mid 1950s, before bulldozers stripped the decades-old grape vineyards from the land across the street from our Altadena house, and developers filled the denuded property with a sea of modern, stucco-covered tract houses, my baby brother, Cliff and I idled away our childhood days as inseparable playmates. When the tract houses began to fill with families bringing new kids to the neighborhood, lots of kids, kids in our own age groups, my brother and I seldom kept company with each other any more. But as preschoolers, before the onslaught of the newcomers, Cliff and I were content to pedal our toy tractors and tricycles up and down the driveway or roam our parents' dusty acre in the foothills of California's San Gabriel Mountains, our cap pistols strapped to our hips, our air rifles cocked and ready to take on the armies of imaginary bank robbers, law men, and marauding Indians.

When we weren't chasing the bad guys, we loved to build things. We built club houses and tree houses and forts. We even built a river boat and, later, a World War II bomber, which we made by adding wings to the river boat. We built things incessantly.

Dad got us started on our very first construction project when he brought home an old packing crate from his job at Western Electric, a major supplier for the phone company. Overjoyed, we quickly borrowed hand saws and cut through a piece of the diagonal side-bracing on the well-ventilated crate to provide a door. Then we constructed shelves out of 1" x 12" pine boards which served alternately as our table or as our bed.

But we didn't stop there. Our new clubhouse had to have a fireplace to ward of the effects of the cool Southern California nights, so we erected a chimney on the roof. I don't think the chimney connected to anything inside, but it looked good from the outside.

When Cliff and I had completed the construction part, we begged some paint from Dad and set about 'sprucing up' our new home. All these years later, I don't remember what color we chose, but I bet it was red.

Some time later, Cliff and I decided to build a clubhouse on our driveway, a wonderful concrete expanse which ran beside the house and up toward the backyard. We reasoned that Dad would be able to squeeze by with his pickup truck if we didn't make it too wide. So, we rounded up a collection of concrete blocks and five-foot boards and went to work.

Since we didn't have Dad's permission, we also didn't have any nails. He always handed out the nails before each project. No problem. We set about building our club house just like you would a stack of playing cards, with one piece resting on another.

A concrete block wall, standing some five feet high, bordered the driveway. About four feet out from the wall we placed a double row of our concrete blocks. Then we sandwiched our boards between the blocks, which effectively held them vertical and in a straight row. We did the same on the four-foot ends of our new hideout, leaving the necessary opening for a door. With the walls held in place by the heavy concrete blocks, we set about roofing the gap between the concrete block wall and our newly erected wooden wall with more of the same boards. The whole thing stood miraculously solid, held in place by nothing but friction.

Though Dad always encouraged our building projects, when he got home from work this time he vetoed our clever driveway construction and we had to tear it down.

Dad liked to build things too. Behind our new clubhouse, just visible through the branches of the Peach tree, Dad built his own clubhouse. He called it his 'shop.' But just like our clubhouse, that's where he did the things he wanted to do. That's where he drilled and arc-welded and grinded and took engines out of cars. That's where he collected millions of nuts and bolts and unidentifiable parts in glass jars. And that's where he hid out when neighbors and relatives came to call.

Curiously, the shop looked like an old house from the 1930s with its gray clapboard siding and white wooden windows. I'm not sure why it looked like that, since it didn't match the color or construction style of our concrete block house. Still, the shop had a permanent, always-been-there feeling to it and I never questioned its origins.

Dad divided the shop into several work areas. A two-car garage took up the largest area. In this roofed-but-not-sided space, Dad overhauled engines and welded things - and collected all sorts of 'treasures.' These 'treasures' prevented Dad from ever getting more than one car in the two car garage.

Separated by a wall from the garage, lay some three hundred square feet of 'tool room,' a sanctuary smelling of undisturbed dust, motor oil, and aging leather. The tool room held his most valuable possessions, like his electric hand tools, his table saw, and his torque wrench, as well as the trappings of his horse-riding days, saddles and bridles and such. Dad religiously kept his tool room locked and he never allowed Cliff and me to wander unsupervised, which made us all the more certain that exciting stuff waited to be discovered there.

In one small corner of the tool room, Dad constructed a different kind of sanctuary: a photographic darkroom. It had fallen into disuse by the time I became fully aware of it and he seldom showed it to anyone. But before Dad moved on to other hobbies, he used that darkroom to turn out dozens of 5"x7" and 8"x10" black and white photographs of some pretty memorable events. And what could be more memorable than a packing-crate clubhouse and two little boys with paint brushes?

Whenever I travel to the Los Angeles basin, I feel compelled to drive by our old house in Altadena to see how the new owners are caring for my childhood home. Usually I just drive by and keep going. But this time I stop, get out of the car, and cross the street with my camera. Suddenly, it feels very important that I record the changes that have occurred since my parents sold the house in 1970 and moved to Nevada. the lush green ivy and the half-dozen tall Jeffery pines that used to dominate the front yard are gone, replaced by much smaller pines amidst a flowery ground cover. I wonder if some of those little pine seedlings that used to pop up where the ivy left a vacant spot, obliged with a new generation of Jefferys.

The yard looks different without the ivy -- not bad, just softer, less formal. That fast growing, tenacious plant used to cover much of the center portion of our circular concrete drive, except for a brick-lined path and carefully-trimmed circles around the base of each pine.

The path wended its way through the ocean of ivy and down to the mailbox at the street. Mom laid out red bricks on either side of the path to mark its course, then tilted each brick at a forty-five degree angle, which made the path look like a curvy double row of teeth. Around each of the lofty pines, mom trimmed the ivy back for a distance of four or five feet to provide a little breathing room for the trees.

Now those trees are gone, the ivy is gone, and the double row of toothy bricks have, no doubt, been recycled into some other use.

I put the camera's viewfinder to my eye and snap a picture. I don't remember the Jeffery Pines in our yard as anything but huge. Though the trees couldn't have been in the ground more than a few years when I started playing beneath them, they always seemed to tower above me. Mom said they were only twelve inches tall when she planted them. I've seen the photographs, and I know she's right. I guess they must have grown several feet a year in the mild Southern California climate.

When I was seven or eight years old, and my brother two years younger, we loved to climb those trees. Finding a path to the top took a lot of skill because the branches grew so thick, but Cliff and I would race each other to see who could climb faster. Of course, we had to be careful and not get pitch on our clothes or Mom would know. But climbing so high, balanced on those supple gray-white branches, felt exhilarating, and we couldn't resist. We loved the smell of the fragrant new growth at the top of the tree and the way the branches gently swayed in the balmy southern California breeze.

Sometimes we'd stay up in the tree until Mom came looking for us. We loved to let her call and call and wonder out loud where we'd gone. Then we'd laugh and yell down to her, and she'd strain to see us, demanding that we, "come down this instant." We'd laugh some more and start down, but we took our time and savored the feeling of doing something Mom thought dangerous.

When I got a little older, Mom would pay me fifty cents to trim the ivy at the base of trees and around the driveway. Dad had edged the driveway with four-inch-high concrete blocks, and I had to trim the ivy back so that it stayed behind the inner rim of the blocks. It was hard work for a ten-year-old, and the big shears often blistered my hand. But fifty cents bought lots of things in the late 1950s. And besides, I liked squishing the snails whose hiding places I uncovered while I trimmed.

Once, a huge wind toppled our largest pine, the one nearest the house. I remember staring at my fallen friend in dismay, feeling that an important part of my world had died. Dad surveyed the problem as he always did, then rounded up several friends. They hooked a tractor and a couple of their trucks together, tied a cable from the trucks to the tree, and pulled the giant upright. Miraculously, the tree didn't die, and for several years it stood its ground against the Santa Anna winds that ferociously swept across our property at the foot of the San Gabriel mountains. Years later the magnificent tree lost its battle with the wind and toppled again. This time, sadly, dad cut it up, pulled the stump, and filled in the hole. I don't think he ever replanted a tree in that spot, and in less than a year the verdant ivy grew together and covered the scar.

I keep my eye to the viewfinder and pan the camera over to the west side of the property. Here, the steepest part of the driveway descends to the street (photo left). Smaller, darker pines always closely lined that patch of ground between the driveway and our neighbor's yard, the shade from their branches so dense that nothing much grew underneath but weeds.

On this cool stretch of driveway we often tested our plywood coasters before venturing out onto the street, making sure that the brakes worked and the wheels stayed on the axles.

After we had tested our machines, we made the half-mile trek to the top of Loma Alta with our homemade "cars" in tow. Once there, we piled in, sometimes two to a car, and coasted the full mile-long length of our street, though it meant running a couple of stop signs in the process.

I pan back to the east side of the yard, where Mom always grew a variety of colorful flowers. This small garden, the only area in the front yard not shaded by pine trees, was bordered by a stately blue Spruce, which sat well back from the flower bed, and, for many years, a fragrant orchard of fruit trees, including peaches, plums and cumquats, which lined the adjacent neighbor's property.

I lower the camera and try to see the Spruce, but without success. Mom's carefully-tended flowers have given way to more easy-care ground cover. And next door, the colorful fruit trees long ago fell before the bulldozer and the coming of a new home.

I walk back to the car and put the camera away in its case. Then, for a while I just sit there, looking at my old house, and thinking how much I miss climbing those Jeffery pines, feeling those supple pine branches sway in the breeze, and trying not to get pitch on my clothes.

Throughout most of my childhood, before the coming of cars and girlfriends and other "grown-up" distractions, the library in my hometown of Altadena, California, was my best friend. Mom would often drop me there on her way to the grocery store and I would spend an idyllic hour or more exploring the stacks and paging through my favorite books.

I loved books about American history best. By the time Mom returned for me, I'd have my reading table piled high with volumes on the Civil War, the California gold rush, or the building of the transcontinental railroad.

And when I wasn't reading about history, I was reading about people who spent their lives in search of history, people like Mel Fisher, who devoted his life to the hunt for sunken Spanish Galleons off the coasts of Florida and Texas.

I sought out local history as well. I enjoyed reading stories about the California missions, the Spanish land Grants and the settling of Southern California. I especially liked stories about the rugged pioneers who ventured into our local San Gabriel mountains in search of timber, gold, and primitive recreation.

In those days, I thought our library building with its cream-colored stucco walls, red-tiled roof, and arched wooden entrance doors a perfect example of how a library should look: solid; imposing; old world.

I loved the library's honey-colored hardwood floors, two-story vaulted ceilings with slowly-turning fans, and slender, arch-topped windows on the perimeter walls, windows that lent just enough light to brighten the ceiling shadows but not enough to interfere with your reading. I loved the glossy wooden book shelves that circled the walls under those windows and extended out in parallel rows from the rear of the room. There's something about old books and wooden book shelves that just feels right.

I loved the crescent-shaped wooden checkout desk near the front entrance that probably contained enough Philippine mahogany to build a small sailing vessel. In those days, only the librarian at the front desk ever spoke loud enough for anyone to hear, and then only when a patron asked a question. If you wanted to find a book, the librarian would lead you back to the stacks and get the book for you, speaking low so that silently-reading patrons nearby wouldn't be disturbed. Most of the time, only the occasional scrape of chair legs on the hardwood floor marred the silence in the room.

I loved the newspapers on wooden rods, the heavy oak reading tables lit by soft incandescent lamps, and the wonderful wooden card catalogues that allowed you to stumble upon a book quite by accident while looking for something completely different. I loved the earthy smell of furniture polish on aging wood.

I loved books, so often read, that the librarian had recovered them in a rugged blue or green pebbly material and placed sturdy cloth tape on their spines. Books didn't grow obsolete quite as fast back then and I could often find patron names and check-out dates on the flyleaf from before I was born. How I loved to ponder those names and wonder what part that book had played in their lives.

Thankfully, I had left Altadena for my tour of duty in the Navy before the unthinkable happened. That wonderful old library building, my intimate friend and frame of reference for what all libraries should look like, was deemed too small by the city fathers at the close of the 1960s. A few blocks away, on a lovely wooded acre, they erected a new library, a big glass box full of citrus-colored furniture, cold metal bookshelves, and confetti-colored, wall-to-wall carpeting.

Today, with its flourescent lights, floor-to-ceiling windows, and glowing computer screens, the new library looks more like an airline terminal or space port than my fondly-remembered childhood friend. Unlike the old library, where the librarian would shush the occasional noisemaker by silently peering at him over the top of her glasses, patrons in the new library seem to think nothing of making all sorts of racket. New books, with vivid, four-color dust jackets, seldom stay popular long enough to need recovering. And computer bar codes have taken the place of those wonderfully evocative patron names and checkout dates.

I still drive by the old library every time I visit my hometown of Altadena. Thankfully, someone, probably a loving ex-patron, purchased the building and turned it into a private residence. Whomever they are, they have my eternal thanks for saving my old friend. Someday, if I feel extra brave, I think I'll just knock on the door and ask if I can come in and visit. I know that the books and wonderful wooden old book shelves are gone. But I bet you can still stand near that slender north-facing window, with the rugged San Gabriel Mountains visible in the distance, and savor the smell of that handcrafted, mellowing wood and those lovely old books.

The city keeps me awake. I lie there in the big double bed with my mother and brother sleeping silently beside me and listen. Dogs bark. Cars rush by in the narrow street beyond the front lawn. And somewhere, I don't know where, a freight train rumbles by in the night making click-clack sounds as the hundreds of steel wheels find the tiny gaps between each rail.

I love the sound of a train in the night. It makes me think of traveling to far-off places. Where we live, in the sage-covered foothills of Altadena, I never hear trains. In fact, except for the occasional lonely coyote, I never hear anything at night. Neighbors are few and a vineyard covers much of the land to the south of our house.

But at Grandma's, the city lies just outside her door. Neighborhood houses line both sides of the street with only a driveway in between. Only the tall hedges that line Grandma's property keep the neighborhood from spilling into her yard.

I don't know how often Mom and my younger brother, Clifford, and I stayed at Grandma's house in those days. Mom tells me we slept overnight there sometimes when the paint fumes in our own house drove us out. Perhaps she found other reasons, too, since my Grandma was sixty nine years old when I was born.

Even though my Grandma gave up her house before my tenth birthday, I can still picture the white clapboard structure nestled on its tiny lot at 412 Ralph Street in San Gabriel, California. Mom tells me that Grandma bought the three-bedroom, California-style bungalow in 1944 after my Grandpa's death in 1943. She and Grandma and my cousin Ray lived there together while her future husband, my future dad, fought the war in the Pacific aboard a U.S. Navy Destroyer.

From the street, Grandma's house looked like thousands of others built before World War II. Depression-era designers kept things simple. Twin ribbons of concrete, separated by a grassy strip, led from the street past the steps of the front porch, serving as both a driveway and a front walk. The front steps, as well as the porch, were constructed of concrete, dressed up with white, wooden posts, railings and decorative cris-cross bracing.

As you entered the house from the porch, you found yourself in the living room, a space roughly twelve feet deep and sixteen feet wide with a door to the kitchen in the far right corner of the back wall. I don't remember any of the furniture there except Aunt Flora's desk, which occupied the wall to the left of the front door. The desk, called a Secretary I believe, always fascinated me for its multitude of nooks and crannies and potential secret hiding places. If you happened to be around when Aunt Flora lowered the hinged lid to expose the writing surface, a wonderful smell of fountain pens and liquid ink filled your head. I longed to be free to explore that desk, but I don't believe Mom allowed me near it until after Aunt Flora's death in l957.

My mom's bedroom, also at the front of the house and next to the living room, lay through a door just to the right of the front door as you entered from the porch. This roughly twelve by twelve foot room shared a bathroom with my Grandma's adjacent bedroom.

The kitchen formed the last room of the original square house, with the livingroom through one door and my Grandma's bedroom through another. Here, I remember the old-fashioned cupboard and drainboard with an open area underneath the sink concealed by a hanging curtain. To the left of the sink, along the wall shared with the living room, sat an old painted table with ladder-back chairs. I remember sitting at that table, eating hot breakfast cereal, as my Grandma and Mom worked at the sink. The water heater and refrigerator were located on the west wall next to my Grandma's bedroom door. Though I don't remember what they looked like, I think storage cupboards for groceries must have occupied the back wall of the kitchen.

My mom tells me that the house had originally belonged to her brother Fred's mother-in-law. Sometime before his mother-in-law moved out and Grandma and Mom moved in, Fred built an addition behind the house containing a third bedroom and a laundry-utility room. During World War II, my mother's teenage cousin Ray lived in the addition and could still be found there when I came on the scene in 1949.

Behind the house, on the west side of the property, stood a grand old avocado tree which spread its glossy-leafed limbs over half the back yard. I don't remember much else about the back yard, except for the garage, more of a barn really, that I remember nudged the property lines on both sides. I think it probably started out life as a thirties-era, single-car affair and had grown over the years into a storage complex with room for several cars. The driveway, without its grass center strip, ran past the house and expanded to fill half the yard in front of the large garage. When not accommodating kids on tricycles like me, Grandma used this concrete expanse for her clotheslines, which stretched from the rear of the house to the front of the garage.

In 1958, at the age of seventy-eight, my Grandma had a stroke and had to give up her beloved house of fourteen years. No longer could she tend the flowers in the front yard, hang the laundry on the clothesline, or pick the ripe avocados. My Mom had long since married and moved away, though she visited as often as she could. After her stroke, Grandma moved in with Mom's sister, Margaret, and they sold the house at 412 Ralph Street. I don't think I ever saw the little white house again, though it will always live firmly in my memory.

Now I wonder what happened to that wonderful old desk?

As a young boy, I lived on an acre in the foothill community of Altadena, California, just a five-minute walk from the rugged slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains. My parents purchased the property just after World War II using Dad's saved-up Navy wages as a down payment. At that time, the northern part of Altadena had changed little from its days as part of the original Rancho San Pascual, a thirteen thousand acre ranch dating back to the breakup of the San Gabriel Mission properties in 1834.

When I came along in 1949, only a few scattered houses occupied the still largely undeveloped land surrounding my parents' property. Across our street of Loma Alta, row upon row of grape vines stretched away to the south. To the west of us, a dozen weed-covered acres held only one cabin-sized dwelling. And to the east of us, our only close neighbor, the Nielsens, had constructed a pink stucco house on the very northern edge of an acre of plowed pasture and bordering fruit trees.

The Nielsen family consisted of an older couple and their college-aged son, J.R. The Nielsen parents lived on the main floor of the pink stucco house. J.R. lived in the daylight basement underneath.

By the mid nineteen fifties, when my brother Cliff and I began to venture outside the confines of our own property, it didn't take us long to discover J.R.'s basement retreat. That's because J.R. loved to build airplanes. He had a magnificent desk/workbench that ran nearly the entire length of his room. There he built everything from the simplest balsa wood gliders, to the most complex remote-controlled beauties. Airplanes in all stages of construction occupied every available surface in J.R.'s room. He had even suspended several from the ceiling.

I remember that J.R. had decorated his room in a sort of island theme, with a wall-to-wall coco mat on the floor, travel posters on the walls, and a host of lush green plants. I liked his room because it always felt cool and tropical there, like a beach house in Hawaii might feel.

But even more than the tropical feel, I liked the smells of airplane building. Fresh sawdust and airplane glue and paint dope, things that I had never smelled before, seemed to hang in the air like some exotic perfume.

Noting that Cliff and I seemed enthralled with his many airplanes, J.R. offered to teach us to build our own. He even offered to furnish the necessary kits. Now, that sounded like a deal no kid could pass up. The airplane that J.R. gave us to build was the Thermic 20 (photo above). The Thermic 20 was an entry-level glider with a wingspan of some twenty inches and a similar overall length. The kit was comprised of rough sheets and blocks of balsa wood that you had to cut, sculpt, sand, and glue together using the included set of plans as a guide (see copy below).

Building the Thermic 20 took lots of skill. You had to cut the various pieces precisely. You had to sculpt the body so that it was rounded and aerodynamic. And, you had to craft the wings so that they each weighed the same and, when glued together, were angled exactly right.

I remember we had to pin the fuselage-end of the wing to a cutting board so that the wing tip was elevated exactly three inches above the level surface. Then we'd sand the edge of the wing so that the bevel matched the vertical edge of the cutting board. When we finished with the first wing, we'd repeat the process with the second.

When we were ready to glue the two wing halves together, we'd pin one wing section flat on the cutting board. Then we'd place a small amount of glue on the beveled surfaces to be joined, prop the second wing a full six inches above the cutting board to produce the correct angle, and then press the second wing to the first.

Once the wings had glued, we took the added precaution of gluing a small piece of surgical gauze in the upper angle where the two wings joined. We'd glue more gauze on each side of the fuselage where the wings attached. We used the same technique on the rear wing and tail. That way, the wings would not part company with the fuselage of the plane when it crashed.

When we had glued all the balsa wood parts together, the only thing left to do was affix a lump of blue clay to the nose. The clay was used to fine-tune the airplane. Too much clay, and the plane would nose-dive. Too little, and the plane would fly in loops. Just the right amount of clay made the plane fly straight and level.

If you built it right, the airplane turned out to be sturdy and fast and capable of staying aloft for many minutes at a time. I don't think it was uncommon for our gliders to reach an altitude of one hundred feet when J.R. threw them, and travel several hundred feet away or more.

The three of us would hike out to the center of the Nielsen's plowed field. There, J.R. would take the plane, cock his arm as far back as he could, and launch the glider skyward with all his might.

Cliff and I watched open-mouthed as the plane climbed straight into the heavens, leveled out, and then lofted away toward the distant grape vineyards or mountains. At that point, we'd take off running, trying to keep the tiny plane in sight, hoping it would eventually come down where we might easily retrieve it. J.R. would always wait patiently in the field until we had retrieved our airplane and returned, breathless, wanting him to throw yet again.

I don't remember when Cliff and I quit going over to J.R.'s. Probably when our future friends, the Green brothers - all four of them - moved into the neighborhood. After that, spending time with J.R. and flying the Thermic 20 gave way to baseball games, bicycle and skateboard riding, and swimming in the Green's wonderful backyard pool.

But I never forgot the exhilaration I felt from watching that tiny balsa wood airplane flying high over that freshly-ploughed field, nor the image of two noisy brothers chasing after it. Years later, as an adult, I tried to recapture the magic for my younger son, Robbie. I bought a whole sack of balsa wood from the local hobby store and set about building a Thermic 20 from memory. Alas, my finished product might have looked like my old Thermic 20, but it certainly didn't fly like one. Robbie gave me one of those, 'it's okay, Dad' looks, then beat a hasty retreat back to the house and the video game he'd been playing.

I'm not giving up, though. Recently, I found one of the old Thermic 20 kits for sale on the internet. So, one of these days, when I feel brave, I'm going to try building it. That way, when grand kids come along, I'll be ready. And if I get just the right angle on those wings, and add just the right amount of clay on the nose, well then, those grand kids better be good runners.

As a When I think back to the most exciting Christmas presents Santa brought me in the first decade of my life, three things come to mind: my powder-blue bicycle with the fat tires and coaster brakes; my Fanner 50 six-gun with the simulated ivory grips and leather gun belt; and my Lionel electric train with the smoke belching steam locomotive and string of realistic-looking freight cars. Each of these presents became a prized possession, granting me countless hours of exciting play. But each gave me something more.

The bike meant mobility, the expansion of my world. No longer was I confined to my yard, but could roam the neighborhood in search of adventure. The six gun was my ticket to the storied past, to the realm of the western hero where the good guys usually won, and a kid was bound only by the limits of his imagination.

And the electric train gave me an appreciation for the world beyond my world, the vastness of America, and the romance of traveling to distant cities. The Baltimore and Ohio. The Atcheson, Topeka, and Santa Fe. The Illinois Central. Names like these, emblazoned on the sides of my Lionel freight cars, first awoke a thirst for travel in me that would one day carry me to these cities and beyond.

I loved to run my trains in the dark. In the dark you could easily pretend you were looking at a real train, rushing through the night to some exiting and far-off destination. My brother and I would turn out all the room lights and lie down on the floor with our faces at track level. Then we'd set the trains in motion. All over the layout the tiny lights from the switches and houses and crossing gates would glimmer, making it look like a real town at night. Then, every couple of seconds, the engine's headlight would come roaring out of the dark and the train would flash past. We'd quickly swivel our heads and watch as the caboose lights receded into the night.

I think it was Christmas of 1955 when Santa brought electric trains for Cliff and me. I remember tumbling out of bed Christmas morning and rushing to the living room to find that the jolly fellow had somehow performed a miracle during the night. Though he needed a major portion of the room to accomplish his task, Santa had constructed a complete Lionel metropolis in a four by fourteen foot space that had lately held much of the living room furniture. Cliff and I whooped with joy and raced to the trains, while Dad and Mom tried valiantly to hold us back, at least long enough to explain how everything worked.

The layout was actually comprised of two separate layouts, each complete with a transformer, steam engine, set of freight cars, and operating accessories. The two layouts lay end to end on the living room floor and Santa had hooked them together with a removable cross over section. The cross-over permitted my brother's train to travel to my layout and my train to his. Santa had hit on an ingenious idea that allowed us to share our trains when we preferred and to operate on our own separate layout when we wanted to play by ourselves.

Young people today would probably find it difficult to believe that in the early nineteen-fifties, operating toys didn't exist in the lives of most kids. I remember being three or four years old and making most of my toys out of empty cereal boxes, milk bottle caps, and glue. I had seen electric trains in store windows, but never dreamed I might actually own one.

Santa changed all that when he gave us trains. Trains did things. Not only did they chug around the layout with the merest twist of the transformer control, but fixtures on the layout did things, too. Red and green-lighted switches rerouted trains in the blink of an eye. Couplers uncoupled at the touch of a button. Crossing gates lowered. Whistles blew. Lights blinked on and off. Just about everything did something.

My train, for instance, had an operating milk car. You flipped open a small hatch in the roof of the pristine white car and inserted tiny metal milk cans. Then, when the car stopped opposite the unloading platform, you could push a remote button and the center doors of the car would fly open and a miniature milkman would busily begin pushing the milk cans onto the platform. I loved that car and never tired of watching it perform.

My brother's set had an equally exciting car, one that would load and unload cattle. This amber-colored cattle car held nine black rubber cows that would, when you pushed a remote button, exit through a door at the forward end of the car. If you held the button down, the cows would, one by one, travel around the adjacent stockyard platform and then re-enter the car at the rear. The whole operation worked through vibration. Pushing the remote button caused both the platform and the interior of the car to vibrate and the cows to move. Lionel engineers had designed ridges on the cow's feet to cause them to always move in a forward direction. If you wanted to keep the cows on the platform until the train pulled in next time, you could manually close a gate and the cows wouldn't be able to re-enter the car.

But even though there was a lot happening on the layout, Cliff and I soon grew bored watching our trains race round and round our miniature cities. So we got creative. We discovered that we could simultaneously throw our switches and send our locomotives through the cross-over to the opposite layout, just missing the other brother's locomotive. What a thrill!

Of course, sometimes we cut it too fine and the steal jacketed engines would crash into one another. I'm sure today's train collectors would shrink in horror to hear me say that, but at the time Cliff and I didn't know any better. The locomotives seemed indestructible. Even when they flew off the track on a curve and landed on the concrete floor they seemed to suffer no noticeable harm.

Years later I asked my mother what happened to my trains. She couldn't remember. I suppose she probably passed them on to a younger cousin or gave them to the Salvation Army. Unfortunately, I hadn't noticed when they disappeared, having long before grown bored with them. I'm sure that at the time, the trains seemed hopelessly mired in my childish past. And besides, by then I had entered the second decade of my life and more exciting things had captured my imagination; things like my lipstick-red electric guitar, girls, and the ultimate symbol of teenage freedom, my first car.

It wasn't until I entered the third decade of my life that I began to think again about my beloved Lionel trains. That's when I discovered Mom couldn't remember what happened to them. When I realized that the trains were gone forever, I felt a tremendous sense of loss, like I had allowed an important part of my childhood to slip away.

I decided that I needed to look around for a similar vintage set to buy. Luckily, I soon stumbled over a 1940s-era, American Flyer Blue Comet set at a local garage sale. Though the Comet didn't look much like my childhood trains, owning it made me feel a little better about letting my trains get away.

It didn't end there, of course. I began attending train shows and watching for vintage train sets at flea markets. I fell in with other 'train people,' joined the Carson City Railroad Association, and branched out into other railroading activities. I drove to distant cities to ride on historic trains, helped build a two-foot-gauge railroad in Carson City's Mills Park, and published a railroad newsletter for nearly four years. During that third decade of my life, I collected quite a few electric train sets, several just exactly like the ones I had as a kid. Though I didn't have any place in my house to set them up, I'd run them at Christmastime in the local mall and enjoy all the adoring looks from the youngsters who came to stand and stare.

But by the time I reached the fourth decade of my life, other things had begun to capture my interest; things like antique automobiles, fiction writing, and Internet collectibles auctions.

As members of the Sagebrush Chapter of the Model A Ford Club, Concetta and I spent many happy weekends roaming Nevada's rural byways in our '28 Ford Business Coupe.

I started writing the great American mystery novel.

And Ebay's antiques and collectibles auctions took most of my spending money.

I'm in the fifth decade of my life now and have continued to discover new things to be fascinated with; things like digital photography, memoir writing, and exploring my family history.

Still, sometimes, I think about those old electric trains packed away in the garage. Sometimes I even think about building a layout so I could watch them run again. But I'll probably never get around to it. There are just too many new things to explore. One of these days, though, I'm going to break open those boxes and set up those old trains in my living room. Then I'm going to turn out all the lights, lie down on the floor, and wait for that locomotive headlight to rush toward me out of the dark. And when that caboose light has receded in the distance, I'll think about all the fascinating cities I've explored in my life and all those yet to come.

As far as I can tell, two types of people inhabit this planet: those who collect things and those who think that people who collect things are just a little bit nuts. Through no fault of my own, I find myself in the former group. I collect everything from antique camping equipment to ice tools, teens-era chrome thermoses to century-old printing equipment, vintage cars to books on the English language, 1920s hats to 1950s milk bottles. I could go on, but you get the picture. Collecting is my passion.

It all started innocently enough when I was ten. Our next door neighbor, Thelma Mehl, seeking to find an activity that would keep my brother and me quietly occupied and out of her hair, invited us to look through her collection of old pennies. She kept them in a large jar in her kitchen. What I didn't know at the time was, that in addition to those old pennies, that jar held something of far greater import: it held the Genie of Collections. Once I removed the lid from that penny jar and the Genie escaped, there was no coaxing him back inside.

Until then, pennies were just something I received in trade for empty soda pop bottles at the local mom and pop market. With them, I bought Baby Ruths or Necco Wafers to eat on my bike rides around my Altadena neighborhood. But as I sorted through Mrs. Mehl's jar of old Lincoln-head cents, I began to realize that the tarnished copper disks I held in my hands were actually small pieces of history. Even as a child of ten, I knew that a penny nearly as old as my grandparents had significance. Though my eight-year-old brother seemed less excited by the opportunity, I eagerly sorted out the very oldest of Mrs. Mehl's pennies and then headed home to show my mom.

Mom played right into the Genie's hands. She suggested that we go right out and buy a special book for my pennies to organize them and keep them protected (photo right). So, off we went to the local hobby store to buy a blue Whitman coin folder for my new-found treasures. We selected the folder for pennies 1909 to 1940. As soon as we got home, I sat down and inserted each penny into the proper slot in the book. When I had finished, I sat back to review my work.

"What's the matter?" my mother asked when she noticed my long face.

"Look at all the missing ones," I said.

"It's okay," Mom said. "Every time you trade in your pop bottles at the market, you can check your change for the pennies you still need."

The Genie must have smiled.

In those days, as now, people always had a few pennies in their pockets or purses. Once I started collecting, friends and family eagerly gave me whatever pennies they had to help me build my collection. I started the next penny folder in the series, the one that began with 1941. Soon, I had filled that folder and had accumulated several hundred duplicates. I began putting the extra pennies in paper rolls and trading them in at the bank for other rolls. Before long, I had filled most of the slots in both penny books and had started on nickels and dimes. But that proved tougher, as people weren't quite as eager to let me pick through their change for nickels and dimes. With no affordable way to fill my nickel and dime books, my enthusiasm for coins began to wane.

No matter, I found something else to collect - baseball cards. Baseball cards were easy and fun to collect since the Good Humor ice cream truck delivered them right to my neighborhood every day. Right away I saw the benefit as two-fold: not only did I get a card for my collection, or one to trade, I got the gum to chew as well. That made it seem like the baseball card people were practically giving them away.

But when my interests began to evolve away from sports and toward academic pursuits, I lost interest in the baseball cards as well. To fill the collecting void, I turned to the Hardy Boys. Collecting Hardy Boys mysteries had an even bigger payoff than the baseball cards and gum: the books made a nice collection, and they provided several hours of reading entertainment.

By now I was older and had an allowance. The allowance combined with birthday presents, gifts from relatives, and pay for small jobs around the house, made it possible for me to collect the entire Hardy Boys series. I was never more happy than when Mom said I had to stay home from school to nurse a cold. This allowed me to read an entire Hardy Boys book in one sitting. Once, I managed to read two of them in a single day, a feat that still counts as my personal best.

In 1960 my parents started vacationing in the southwest. My brother and I rode on an old Studebaker seat in the back of Dad's '56 Chevy pickup under an open-sided, aluminum canopy. To wile away the hours as we rode, I started buying western history magazines and reading them cover to cover. I was delighted to find that some of the stories actually took place in the towns we intended to visit. Soon, the colorful stories had hooked me. For a couple of years I read the magazines voraciously, on vacation and at home, and haunted the magazine rack at Webster's pharmacy looking for the newest issues. By then my stack of magazines had turned into a collection and I didn't want to miss a single issue.

When I was in my early teens, we stopped vacationing in the southwest and my passion for reading western history cooled. Still, I went right on buying the magazines just to make sure there was no break in my collection. Thankfully, when I noticed that I had an entire year's worth of four different magazines piled on my desk unread, I finally quit.

You see, at this point in my life, I had not formed any particular long-term allegiance to my collections. Coins, baseball cards, Hardy Boys mysteries, and western history magazines each enjoyed their period of popularity and then found themselves banished to the top shelf of my closet, never to be collected again.

But that was about to change. You see, the Genie is never happy with short-term collecting commitments. His job is to produce collectors with passion and dedication, men like J. Paul Getty, William Randolph Hearst, and Henry Huntington. These men didn't amass their huge collections by being tentative or wishy-washy about what they liked. Whether it be million-dollar paintings, Gutenberg bibles, or priceless antique furniture, real collectors never stop collecting.

The Genie meant to awaken that passion in me.

And awaken it he did when I discovered the Mount Lowe Railway, a turn-of-the-century tourist trolley line that had once existed in the mountains near my home (above photo). When I began to explore and photograph the old trolley line in 1962, it had been abandoned for nearly a quarter of a century. But since bits and pieces of the railway's history could still be turned up with a shovel (see photo right), collecting suddenly became more immediate and personal. No longer did I merely read history, or view history from a distance, I walked in the footsteps of history. My passion for collecting suddenly knew no bounds.

The Genie, seeing that his work was finished, quietly slipped away.

Forty years later, I still collect anything to do with the Mount Lowe Railway. Along the way, a host of other "fascinations" have blossomed into collecting obsessions, enough to keep me entertained for a lifetime. Sometimes I might be tempted to agree with all those non-collectors who think it all seems a little nuts. But collecting has taught me one very important lesson: there's no better way to grow a life-long appreciation for history than to hold that history in your hands.

Looking back, I thank goodness for Mrs. Mehl and her penny jar. My many collections have transported me to times and places that no school textbook ever could, places where the sights and smells of history seemed as close as the walls around me, places where you can still hear the clickity-clack of the trolley wheels on long-vanished steel rails.

And the Genie? Well, if I had to guess, I'd say he's just waiting patiently for the next budding collector to spin the lid off that penny jar.

The infamous Mike Green stood ten paces from me, his hand poised above the butt of a pearl-handled pistol holstered low on his right hip. His gang stood back, ready. No one spoke.

"Make your play," he said through clenched teeth.

Overhead, the merciless southern California sun beat down on my lucky black cowboy hat. Cool and confident that I could beat him, I reached up, pulled the hat low, and stole a glance at my own chrome-plated revolver in the fringed leather holster at my side. Then I returned his slit-eyed stare. "Go for it," I said.

A bead of sweat rolled down Mike's cheek and dropped onto the red bandana at his neck. I could tell he wanted to wipe his forehead, but he didn't dare.

"Well?" I said.

His fingers flexed at his side as if he wanted to make sure they still worked. I wondered if he had lost his nerve.

"You shot my brother," Mike said, his voice hoarse. "Now I'm gonna make you pay."

"That's right," I said, "I shot Kenny. Better get ready to join him."

Both of us slapped leather at the same time, but my pistol cleared the holster a fraction of a second ahead of his. I fired two shots before his pistol's hammer fell on its own deadly cylinder. Mike's left hand clutched at his chest and his pistol slipped out of his grasp as he staggered and fell to the ground. He lay there not moving as the echo of the shots drifted away on the morning air.

The smell of gunpowder lay thick around me. I closed my eyes and savored the familiar acrid aroma, then I lifted the barrel of my trusty Fanner 50 and blew the smoke remnants away. I twirled the revolver a couple of times for effect and slid it back into my holster. My luck had held one more time.Mike opened one eye and looked up at me. "Pretty good, hey? Let's do it again." He retrieved his pistol from where it lay in the dirt and jumped up. "This time I'll beat you."

And sometimes he did. Back in 1958, when the west was won on a daily basis by the kids in our neighborhood, you had to have your leather-holstered Fanner 50 (photo left) and your cowboy hat to have a life - a play life - that amounted to anything.

Of course you needed one more ingredient to be authentic: caps. Everyone knew that cap guns without caps just didn't get the job done. If fortune truly smiled on you, your mom and dad understood this and bought them for you. If not, you had to save your pennies and buy your own. Caps didn't cost much, maybe five or ten cents. But that might be your total allowance for the week.

Sure, some kids learned to fake the sound of gunfire. But most just never mastered it. Their gunfire came out sounding like somebody trying to cough up a chicken bone. Other kids 'wimped out' and ran around yelling 'pow-pow-pow.' I'm not sure how they escaped dying from embarrassment.

Not me. I knew how to make gunfire sounds, even ricochet sounds of the bullets bouncing off walls and floors. I could even imitate large-bore weapons like shotguns and rifles. And later, as the march of technology caught up with our play, I learned to mimic the sound of machine gun fire.

To make authentic gunfire noises, you had to start way back in your throat and push the sound out, let it gurgle in your mouth until it echoed in your brain, then spit it out like you meant for it to land twenty feet away.

No, most kids just never mastered it. But caps leveled the playing field.No matter how anemic your 'pow-pow-pow' sounded, you got your point across with caps. I don't remember exactly when individual stick-on caps, applied to individually-loaded bullets, came on the scene. In 1958, everyone I knew used roll caps. Though hardly realistic when compared with individual caps, you just couldn't beat firing a hundred shots without reloading. In the heat of battle, that could mean the difference. That could turn the tide. You might not have to reload until lunchtime.

My Fanner 50 had a small chamber that held the caps (photo right). You flipped open a hinged door and inserted your roll, fed the lead end onto the revolving spiked wheel so that it exited the slot in the side of the gun, and then closed the chamber. Unlike sticking on the individual caps, loading roll caps took only moments. Best of all, opening the firing chamber exposed you to the wonderful smell of old burned gunpowder.

The Mattel company made my pistol. In those days the company's motto was, 'You can tell it's Mattel, it's swell.' Boy, did they have that right.

I never knew what my parents paid for my 'rig,' probably less than ten dollars. But nowadays you can spend several hundred dollars for an old Fanner 50 and gun belt in original condition. I lucked out several years ago and picked up one exactly like the one I owned as a kid for less than twenty-five bucks, including holster. I've had it hanging on my office wall ever since.

But what about caps? Well, I just went on Ebay and paid twenty-seven dollars for a half dozen bright orange and yellow boxes. For some reason, once I started writing this account, I decided I just had to hear that magic crack-crack-crack of those caps again and inhale that wonderful gunpowder-smell.

Now I wonder if that gun belt will fit.

I was probably eleven or twelve years old when I began to notice that womens' clothes seemed to serve a different purpose than men's. Specifically, I wondered, Why do men wear underwear, while women wear lingerie, intimate apparel, play clothes or a host of other items with names ending in'ie' that seemingly accomplish the same thing as underwear? What was there about womens' underwear that required a whole sub-category of English to describe it?

It was the early 1960s, the very beginning of the sexual revolution, and I was pretty uninformed about women. Luckily, I had the country's foremost authority to educate me: Hugh Hefner. All I had to do was consult Dad's collection of Playboy magazines that he kept carefully hidden in his workshop.

I think I understood the need for describing female underwear in special terms from my very first visit to Dad's collection. All the models in Playboy were dressed in the most exotic examples of, well, underwear that I had ever seen. Better than that, the models were most often depicted removing their fancy underwear. By the time you got to the last page of the pictorial, the women usually wore nothing, at least from the waist up. Breathlessly, I realized that I had discovered the secret of female underwear: it wasn't the putting on that required the exotic names, it was the taking off.

In the process of answering my questions about underwear, I discovered breasts. Playboy always focused on breasts since in those days more revealing photos didn't make it past the censors. That was certainly okay with me, I wasn't ready for anything more explicit anyway.

So, whenever the opportunity presented itself, I'd visit Dad's library. Before long, I became a connoisseur of breast sizes and shapes. Cup sizes rattled off my tongue as easily as baseball batting scores. Though Mike Green once traded me some of his granddad's civil war coin collection for a couple of Playboys, none of my chums had access to similar collections. I became the resident authority on breasts.

Throughout my childhood my dad was fond of saying, "It's what's up front that counts, though he never smoked a day in his life. After I discovered breasts, I realized what dad had been talking about. Conical, forward-thrusting breasts, upturned, ski-jump breasts, rounded, melon-like breasts, I loved them all.

And if you loved breasts, the late 1960s was a good time to be alive. As the Age of Aquarius dawned, teenage girls took to wearing only the bare essentials. Soon after, legions of older women discarded their bras and adopted the 'au natural' look. I couldn't have been happier. At the time, I considered the halter top to be the greatest invention since the advent of the zipper. You could always tell when a woman had discarded her bra, because her breasts would move hypnotically from side to side under her halter top as she approached. I think a whole generation of my peers were permanently mesmerized by such physiological events.

All things considered, I never really cared much about size. "Are they big enough for you?" was my high school girlfriend, Deanna's favorite question every time I unsnapped her bra in the front seat of my '59 Plymouth wagon. She'd always be arching her back and thrusting them out as far as she could while posing the question. Since Deanna was the first girl to ever show me her chest, I had no intention of quibbling over size. In fact, I cared for neither quantity nor quality. Proximity was my thing. Though Deanna never adopted the braless look, I didn't care. Over the course of our three-year relationship, I became an expert at the one-handed bra-unsnapping technique.

When I think of an outhouse, I think of Cleveland. Not the city in Ohio, but the tiny farming community that lies just east of the Wasatch Mountains in central Utah. My great grandparents lived near Cleveland in a one-room dug-out that my great grandfather crafted by burrowing into the side of a hill. Only a couple of generations separated his wife and him from their own grandparents who had immigrated west with the Mormons to settle the verdant valleys in and around Salt Lake City.

When I was twelve or thirteen years old, my mother inherited a cardboard box filled to the brim with dozens and dozens photographs of unidentified family members. In each of these ancient photos, a dour looking ancestor or group of ancestors stared back from an unknown time and place in history, most unable to communicate the slightest piece of information that might help identify them. Mother, being the fastidious person that she was, immediately made it her quest to track down the identities of all these long-dead relatives and save them from obscurity.

And that's how the family came to spend several summers in the early 1960s prowling the back roads, dusty towns, and weed-choked cemeteries of Utah and Colorado. Though most kids my age would have thrown up their hands in horror at the thought of pursuing history at such a grassroots level, I had a grand time.I got to see where my mother was born in the little coal-mining town of Clear Creek, Utah, and listen to the story about the doctor braving a blizzard to deliver her. I got to see where my grandmother Jones ran a railroad boarding house in the town of Colton, northwest of Price, where the Denver and Rio Grande tracks ran and where by the sixties only the concrete schoolhouse remained. And, I got to meet uncle Guy (photo left) and Aunt Eloise who lived in a tiny, four-room house on the outskirts of Cleveland near the creek where the tops of vintage cars grew out of the mud and the outhouse sat serenely at the edge of the dooryard.

Uncle guy had spent his youth farming and herding sheep. Already retired when I met him, he and Eloise lived modestly in the plain little red house with the white trim (photo right below), raised vegetables and kept a few sheep on their acre on the edge of town.

I still remember the four-room layout. The kitchen occupied the southwest corner and had a small window that faced west into the dooryard. There was a rough wooden table in the center of the room next to an old brown oil stove and a collection of creaky wooden chairs.

The bathroom was tucked into the northwest corner of the house and contained the usual plumbing fixtures, except I remember the porcelain as a sort of dark gray color that I thought odd at the time. The livingroom took up a large chunk of the southeast corner. There, a sofa and couple of worn overstuffed chairs (photo left below) crowded around an ancient console tv. I don't remember anything about the bedroom, which probably means my parents never let me go in there. I do remember that the same cream-colored linoleum covered the floor in every room.

Outside, I remember that Uncle Guy had covered the house in asphalt shingles, brown ones on the roof and red ones on the walls. His vegetable garden grew just beyond the front door, and on either side of the front walk. On the north side, in the direction of the creek, lay a fenced pasture for the sheep. In back, a mature pepper tree shaded the yard and effectively hid the outhouse from the kitchen window.

Having grown up in Southern California, I had never really seen, much less used, an outhouse. I thought it odd that Uncle Guy insisted on using the privy even though he had modern indoor plumbing. Then I found out that the bathroom was a fairly new addition to the house and Uncle Guy simply refused to use it. My brother and I, wanting to be rugged like Uncle Guy, took to using the outhouse like we'd been doing it all our lives.

Apart from Uncle Guy's outhouse, the other thing that really impressed me was the creek that seemed to grow auto parts. According to Uncle Guy, during World War II, when the word went out for Americans to gather up their scrap and donate it to the war effort, Cleveland's farmers came from miles around to deliver their worn-out machinery and cast-off metal to a central collection point. Even vintage automobiles showed up on the scrap heap that swiftly accumulated on the north side of the creek near Guy's property. Finally, when the scrap heap had grown to impressive proportions, the farmers contacted the government and then sat back and waited for someone to come and collect it. Of course, no one ever came, and the scrap sat rusting and forgotten on the edge of the creek for several years. Then, during one particularly wet year, heavy rains turned the creek's usual trickle of water into a raging torrent and all of the carefully-collected scrap was swept from the creek bank and washed downstream.

Except the cars. The ancient Model Ts and Studebakers and Chevys just sank to the bottom of the raging water and immediately filled up with mud. When I got there in the 1960s, you could wander down the then largely dry creek bed and you'd come upon one of these buried coupes or sedans with just the top few feet of its roof showing above the mud, like some submarine's coning tower just breaking the surface at sea.

At first I got excited about the possibility of rescuing those valuable relics of the teens and twenties. But I soon discovered that only a tissue thickness of metal remained beneath the mud line and any pressure applied to the car-top tended to separate it from the rest of the buried body.

Uncle Guy, Aunt Eloise, and their cozy little house on the outskirts of Cleveland made a profound impression on me back then. Until my visits there, I had never seen a sheep butchered and dressed out. I had never shot a rifle. I had never run my fingers over the name on a marble headstone and wondered if their blood ran in my veins. I had never really kissed a girl (a cute cousin lived just down the road). And for sure, I had never used the Sears Roebuck catalogue for such an unusual purpose.

For all of my childhood years, I lived in the tiny town of Altadena, a small, unincorporated suburb at the foot of the rugged San Gabriel Mountains of California and hiking was my favorite pastime. On many a weekend morning, the whole gang would gather in front of my house, since I lived closest to the mountains, and we'd walk east and uphill to the top of my street. There, where Loma Alta Drive makes a sharp right turn and becomes Lake Avenue, we'd catch the Sam Merrill trail and begin the three and a half mile trek to the summit of Echo Mountain, our favorite destination.

Whenever Clay showed up.

Which he never did on time.

Clay always kept us waiting. No matter what time we set for our hike, Clay didn't show. This meant we had to walk the half-mile to his house, drag him out of bed, make his lunch, pack his pack, find his boots, fill his canteens, and then drag him out the door, often with his eyes half closed.

Fortunately, we didn't have to disturb Clay's family much since he didn't sleep in the house. A small, weathered garden shed on the edge of a backyard arroyo served as his bedroom and refuge. The bunch of us would make our way around back to his shed and noisily bang on the door to wake him up. After a few moments we'd hear him groan and he'd peek out.

"Is today the day?" he'd ask, and we'd all berate him for having such a poor memory.

Though he really didn't like getting up, Clay would always be good-natured about our intrusion. And we never really got mad at him. Clay was older than the rest of us and we looked up to him, especially since he had such a cool bedroom.

Once on his feet and headed in the correct direction, Clay became a dynamo of energy. Though he insisted on carrying every piece of camping/hiking/survival gear known to man in his official World War II surplus army pack, he never complained about the shoulder-cracking weight or whined about the steepness of the trail. He'd be the first one to the top, ready to dig for bottles or hike to the next summit, whatever was required.

In 1993, I suggested to my old hiking buddies that we get together every year in the month of November and relive some of our teenage hiking adventures. Everyone readily agreed. So, to this day we gather at the foot of Echo Mountain for our annual hike to the summit.

Even Clay.

Though he never gets there on time.

Thank God we don't have to go roust him out, since he lives more than a hundred miles away now.

The hike up the mountain in the gray predawn light always took us just over two hours. As usual, it felt like the weight of my pack increased with each passing moment, almost with each step. I knew from experience that my hiking companions felt the same. But they plodded ahead without complaint, seldom stopping to rest. They kept moving, as if the loss of a few minutes might mean a wasted trip; might mean a competitor getting there first; might even mean coming up empty. So, to keep their minds off their heavy packs, they joked and laughed and tried to predict who would be the luckiest that day.

Finally, just as the sun crested the peaks of the San Bernardino mountains in the distant east, we arrived at the summit of Echo Mountain. Then, for a time, all talking ceased. Each man set about assembling his tools and picking his spot. As the thin morning sunlight illuminated the hillside, I glanced around to see if daylight would reveal others who had risen before dawn and raced for the top, but no one appeared.

My companions began to make exploratory jabs in the earth with their shovels and curved forks. We all longed to find a piece of virgin ground, but such a prize proved ever more elusive. The naked, pockmarked hillside looked as if it had been dug and re-dug a dozen times since our last visit, leaving a million multicolored shards sparkling in the early sunlight.

I moved away from the group a short distance and put my gear down next to a patch of pink wild flowers that had somehow escaped the carnage. I unstrapped my well-worn fork and selected a small depression nearby where someone had started to dig, someone who had obviously given up after several shovel-fulls. It looked like a promising spot and I started digging, careful to remove only inches of earth at a time. I used my fingers if necessary, ever mindful that one careless move could mean the destruction of something priceless.

Nearby, my companions methodically dug, discovered, examined, and discarded, only infrequently holding something up for the group to admire. Each one asked the same questions: Does it have bubbles? Has the color started to turn? Do the seams run clear to the lip? How old do you think it is?

Hours later, the sun would dip toward the hazy western horizon. Then my companions and I would gather up our tools and head down the trail toward home. We would walk slowly, our heavy packs made heavier by a dozen clinking, time-encrusted treasures. We would curse the blisters and the heat and dirt in our ears and noses and hair. When the water ran out, as it often did, we would question the sanity of our mission. Several would proclaim this trip their last. But I knew better. We would come back. Oh, yes, we would come back.

I fell in love for the first time in the third grade. Before that, as far as I can remember, girls as objects of desire did not attract my attention. Partly because, in my neighborhood, nearly every family produced boys, which worked out well when you needed a baseball team, but provided few opportunities to learn how to interact with girls.

Third grade brought me into contact with a pretty, dark-haired English girl named Loretta Packard. Loretta's warm smile and cute upturned nose melted my heart. But I didn't talk to her. From the beginning, I kept my infatuation for Loretta a closely-guarded secret, since I was much too shy to do anything but worship her from afar.

Years later, when we dated in college, I asked Loretta if she knew how I felt back in the third grade. She just nodded and smiled and didn't confirm or deny. But if I were to guess, I'd say she knew. Girls just have a way of knowing these things.

It wasn't until I reached the sixth grade that I replaced Loretta with someone else I could worship from afar. This time it was a pretty blond girl named Charlyn Ellis. Charlyn was even more beautiful than Loretta. Her blond tresses seemed to light up the room whenever she entered. Her smile turned my knees to jelly. She hooked me from the first moment I saw her.

But once again, I was way too shy to ever let her know that. In fact, I think I only spoke to her on one occasion, and that was a tongue-tied, stammering phone call that I made to ask for her school picture. I think she turned me down.

After elementary school, I entered Elliot Junior High in Pasadena. Here, though I found the academic setting more adult-like, my love life did not noticeably improve. Though I had numerous male friends, I didn't attract any serious attention from females during my entire three years at Elliot. I don't remember being bothered about it. Probably because, at the time, none of my chums had girlfriends either.

But then came John Muir High School and the tenth grade. Evidently, fate felt it high time to reward me for my abstinence, for overnight I quit being a wallflower. In the very first week of school, I met a girl, an electric guitar-playing free spirit named Coral Russell. When she learned that I, too, played the electric guitar, she immediately threw herself into planning our rock and roll future together. Good band members, in those frenetic, post-Beatle invasion days of 1965, were even harder to come by than good boyfriends.

Unfortunately, Coral and I didn't last. My new-found success with women went immediately to my head. Before Coral and I had a chance to produce beautiful music together, I fell in love with another girl. Her name was Deana (photo left) and she was the fairest creature I had ever seen. Petite and feminine, she wore skirts and form-fitting, pull-over sweaters to school nearly every day.

At first we just "noticed" each other a lot. Though my success with Coral had given me some confidence, I was still so shy I could barely speak to any female without having my tongue lodge irretrievably in my windpipe. Long years of appreciating girls from a distance had made it almost impossible for me to talk to them directly. I remember one incident during the "noticing" stage. My best friend, John and I had the following conversation while sitting in John Muir's auditorium waiting for the weekly assembly to begin:

"John," I said. "Look down over there to your left and see if Deana's looking this way."

"What?" John looked perplexed at first, but soon caught on. "Oh, okay." He craned his neck in the huge auditorium trying to see the first few rows stage left. "Yeah, she is," he said. "Sometimes. But most of the time she has the girl next to her looking up this way."

"Well," I said, keeping my eyes riveted straight ahead. "Tell me when she's looking so I can look and catch her looking."

"Oh jeez," John said. "Why don't you just leave me out of this?"

Fortunately for John, after a suitable period of "noticing" each other, Deana and I became a couple, and for the next three years we were inseparable. I came to know her as a real lady. She dressed like a lady. She spoke like a lady. She certainly smelled like a lady in her Tigress perfume. She, in turn, demanded that I act like a gentleman, which was darn hard for me at the time. As you will remember, I had spent the first sixteen years of my life in the sole company of males.

We tried to do things ladies and gentlemen would do, such as dining in nice restaurants like the Barristers in the city of Montrose, where you sat surrounded by towering shelves of legal books. But since high school students seldom had much money, our dates often consisted of going to the movies. Enter the subject of sex.

Lady or not, Deana found sex intensely interesting. This naturally caught me by surprise, since I knew next to nothing about sex. Up to that point, what I knew about females came exclusively from my dad's collection of Playboy magazines he kept carefully hidden in his workshop. Still, I embraced this new learning opportunity with tremendous enthusiasm. Our weekly dates were, of course, our only opportunity to be alone. But since the movie theater, while dark, was less than comfortable for any sort of real sexual exploration, we started slipping out of the movie before the end so we could spend a few minutes parked on our favorite secluded street before I had to take her home. Soon we were leaving before the movie was even half finished. And by the second year of our relationship, we had taken to skipping the movie altogether and going right to our favorite parking spot.

When I first started going out with Deana, she always wore the utilitarian white girdle and individual nylon stockings that you had to attach - and unattach -- with a half-dozen little hooks per leg. In the dark, this presented a substantial problem. I don't know if Deana's parents ever noticed, but once we had been going out for awhile, the girdle and stockings stayed home in the drawer never to be worn again.

Whether or not they noticed, I have to commend Deana's parents for letting us have our relationship. Though the skinny red-haired kid probably looked pretty harmless to them, I did drive a big Plymouth station wagon, which must have given them cause for some alarm. They'd no doubt be happy to learn, that we never actually used the back of the Plymouth to make out. We were both scared that someone would drive up and park behind us, thus illuminating our activities. Consequently, we always did our necking in the front seat.

Only once did Deana's parents seek to curtail our love lives. One summer, Deana got a job watching a friend's house and swimming pool while the friends were away on vacation. Deana and I, of course, took full advantage of this opportunity. Never before had we enjoyed so much privacy. After a couple of weeks though, Deana's parents must have psyched out the situation and we were henceforth forbidden to be alone there together.

By the time we became seniors, I had begun to realize that Deana was not adventuresome enough to be my permanent mate. I wanted her to learn to ski but she refused. And even though I spent many weekends skiing with her best girlfriends, Deana could never be persuaded to join us. Our relationship had been so warm and loving for so long that I couldn't conceive of being with anyone else. Still, I knew the time had probably come for us to go our separate ways. When she suddenly announced in the middle of our senior year that she would be going away to college after graduation, I think I was secretly glad. Her parents wanted her to go to Pepperdine University and find a nice religious young man to marry. I, of course, didn't fit the bill since I was neither religious nor planning to go to Pepperdine. Still, I couldn't help but make it tough on her and we began to fight. Finally, just weeks before the senior prom, we broke up. We each attended the prom with someone else. Sadly, after graduation, I never saw her again.

It would be a long time before I encountered someone who made me feel the way that Deana did. Even years later, when I would pass a woman on the street wearing Tigress perfume, I would stop, turn around, and stare after her until she disappeared from sight.

Together, Deana and I had explored committed love and sex at a time when "free love" and "indiscriminate sex" was becoming the norm among our peers. Though our relationship had run its course, I realized even then that she had given me more than I could ever thank her for. In my yearbook she wrote that I still had a lot of growing up to do, and she was right. But during those three years we'd spent together, I had grown up a lot. I still had a long way to go, but I have to thank Deana for getting me started in the right direction.

My first real job, as meat department cleanup boy for the new Albertsons supermarket in Altadena, lasted exactly two months.

"I'm afraid your position has been eliminated," store manager, Ken Stensgaard said, as I sat across the desk from him in his second-floor office.

"Eliminated? But who's going to clean-"

"Our business has dropped off some since our grand opening," he said. "I'm afraid that I just have to scale back a bit."

"But I thought you were happy with my work."

Ken shook his head. "This has nothing to do with the quality of your work. Your work has been fine. It's just, I have to cut back and you were the last one hired."

"Ah," I said, knowing he was right about my being the last one hired.

"But I wrote you a letter of recommendation." Ken opened a drawer and removed a white envelope with the familiar blue and green Albertsons logo printed on the corner. He slid it across the desktop. "Read it if you like."

I pulled the crisp piece of paper from the envelope and unfolded it. The letter was short and to the point, though I only remember the very last line. It said, "...I recommend Tom Davis to you in whatever capacity."

"This is nice," I said. "Thanks."

"Good luck in your next position." Ken stood up and held out his hand. "I've enjoyed having you here."

I rose uncertainly to my feet and took his hand. "Thanks," I said again, though I truly didn't feel very thankful.

My association with Albertsons hadn't gone well from the very beginning. When builders first broke ground for Altadena's newest supermarket, I thought I would just get a jump on the competition and send my application to the home office. I wanted to be the first one on the hiring list when the store was finished.

Unfortunately, I'd outsmarted myself. Even though Albertsons responded to my application by telling me they'd forward it to the store manager once hiring began, I never heard from anyone. So when the store looked like it might be opening soon, I went down to talk to the manager. I told him about how I had applied several months before and how he probably had my bag boy application on file.

"Sorry," he said, "I'm afraid I haven't seen it."

"Is there any way you can contact the home office and get it?" I asked.

The manager shook his head. "Wouldn't make any difference," he told me. "I've already filled all my bag boy slots."

Feeling miserable and defeated, I told him 'thanks,' and started to walk away.

"I do have one unfilled slot," he said. "How would you feel about working in the meat department?"

I thought that sounded awful, but I really needed the job. After all, I had a car now and a girlfriend and a desperate need for money. "I'll take it," I said.

"Good. My name's Ken," he said, shaking my hand. "Come up to my office and we'll get your paperwork started."

Boy, did I hate meat department cleanup. The razor-sharp knives, meat saws and rotary slicers took their toll on my fingers every single night, even though I wore gloves. Each shift, I had to clean blood and slippery slimy meat residue off of literally every surface in the shop, from ceiling to sawdust-covered floor. I even had to disassemble the various cutters, slicers and grinders and clean caked-on meat from the interior mechanisms. I washed dozens of bloody pans in a giant deep-sink. I lugged smelly garbage cans full of unspeakable things to the dumpster. I swept floors and spread new sawdust. And, I unpacked and distributed millions of little Styrofoam meat trays to the butcher's work stations.

But the worst part about working in the meat department was that I spent much of my time alone. Of course, with no distractions, I got a lot of work done fast. But I sure felt lonesome most of the time.

What I really wanted to do was bag groceries. So, whenever my work was done in the meat department, I'd dash over and help the bag boys. I thought that if I worked really hard, and learned to bag really well, the management would notice me and move me out of the nasty, slimy meat department.

Those times near the end of my shift when I worked as a bag boy, I adopted the habit of running everywhere I went. I collected carts on the run. I ran for price checks. I dashed from check stand to check stand like a madman. The checkers loved me, since they didn't have to bag any groceries when I was around. Before long, I could out-bag any of the regular bag boys.

Lot of good it did me, I thought, as I closed the door to Ken's office and made my way out of the store for the last time. It looked like all my efforts had come to nothing. I was seventeen years old and already unemployed.

But Ken had done me a tremendous favor by giving me a letter of recommendation. The letter proved that I had acquired that wonderful, magical thing that often proves elusive to a young person: experience.

Now that I had experience, it didn't take me long to find another market in need of a meat department cleanup person. Of course, I didn't really want to work in the meat department, but neither could I afford to be unemployed. I figured if I could get my foot in the door, I would try and move to the grocery department later.

So, I went to work for another new store in Altadena, the Alpha Beta supermarket. And once again, whenever my work was done in the meat department, I'd come over and help the bag boys.

This time, a marvelous thing happened. The assistant manager, Bob Merrick, evidently saw that I could out-bag his regular bag boys and called me into his office.

"I notice that you seem to have a lot of experience bagging groceries," he said. "Do you suppose that when you're not busy in the meat department, you could train some of the others?"

"Sure," I said.

But the meat department manager soon found out about my new duties. After that, no matter how thoroughly I cleaned the equipment, he'd always find fault with something and make me redo it. He began staying late, supposedly to work on little projects. But what he really did was follow me around and critique my work.

Finally, after a few weeks of this, the meat department manager decided that he'd had enough of me. "I've decided to let you go," he told me one afternoon when I came to work. "You can pick up your check in the office."

Feeling more relief than anger, I threw down my butcher's apron, and walked away without a word. I might be fired, but I vowed never again to work in a meat department.

"Where are you going?" Bob Merrick asked, when he saw me headed for the door a few minutes later.

"Meat Department manager fired me," I said.

"Good," Bob said. "Go get yourself an apron. You're working for me now."

And that's how I finally got into the grocery business.

Soon after, Bob promoted the head bag boy, Bob Goris, to apprentice clerk and me to head bag boy. This meant that it would be my responsibility to close the store at night along with the head checker.

I loved being head bag boy. Not only did I have important new responsibilities, but when things were slow, the head checker, Lois, would show me how to operate the register. Before long, I was checking groceries with the best of them.

I loved my job so much, that I'd often go down to the store on my days off and work in the back room cleaning up or organizing merchandise. Of course, Bob couldn't sanction my doing that, since it was strictly against Union rules, but he good-naturedly looked the other way.

The dairy case was my favorite. All the clerks were supposed to monitor the dairy case and stock it when necessary, but when they got stuck in the check stand for hours at a time, the dairy case would get pretty empty.

So, working in the dairy case, out of sight of everyone, became my personal contribution to the store's success. Whenever I had a free hour or two, I'd come in and fill all the empty slots and make sure the stock was rotated, the empty cases stacked for pickup, and the floor swept.

Six months went by, and Alpha Beta decided to promote our grocery manager to another store and my buddy and mentor, Bob Merrick became Manager. The very next day, Bob showed his gratitude for my dedication by promoting me to retail clerk, thus proving himself a friend as well as a good boss. I promised never to let him down.

But I've never been the easiest person to supervise, and the depth of our friendship was sometimes tested. Once, when the home office decided that they needed to check for employee shoplifting, a team of company spies set up shop behind the one-way mirrors in the back of the store. No one knew they were there, until the day came when the spies took over the manager's office and began, one by one, to interrogate every employee.

Knowing that I hadn't taken anything, I was nevertheless nervous. When my turn came, they told me that they had evidence that several employees had been taking merchandise. "We have the culprits on film," they said, "And if you admit that you've been taking things, it will go easier for you."

Somehow, I saw right away what they were up to. They had no such film, but hoped to scare the guilty parties into confessing.

"You got nothing on me," I said. I stood up and started for the door.

"If you don't want to be fired right here right now," they said, "you better sit back down in that chair."

"Shoot your best shot," I said, and walked out of the office.

Bob told me later that they had ordered him to fire me, but he had refused. Only one employee left, my good friend Lois who had so kindly taught me to run the cash register.

Another time I got myself into trouble when an older gentleman, my last customer of the day, came through my check stand with several small items. I rang up his order, accepted his twenty, and counted out his change.

Evidently, he was used to the old way of counting money where you counted the pennies, then nickels, then steadily larger denominations until you had counted out all the customer's change. Alpha Beta's registers told us exactly how much money to give the customer. We were taught to count the other direction, from the largest denomination to the smallest.

The customer told me in an icy voice that I had counted his change incorrectly.

Surprised, but knowing he was wrong, I said, "Well that's the way I count it."

With that, the customer threw his change down on the counter and angrily demanded that I count it again.

I just stared at him for a moment, then I locked my register, extracted the key, and turned and walked away.

Naturally, of all the people I had picked to insult, the surly customer turned out to be the contractor who built all the Alpha Beta Markets in all of southern California. Of course, He immediately complained to the home office about my rude behavior and once again the order came down to fire me. I thought I was history this time, but once again, Bob refused.

In due time, Bob gave me my own section, frozen food, and I quickly set out to be the best frozen food man the store had ever had. Not realizing that the carrying capacity of the freezer limited the amount of frozen food you could order, I surveyed the cases and ordered absolutely everything that looked the slightest bit low.

When the truck arrived, the driver said, "Are you crazy? I had to get an extra long trailer for this run. This has got to be the biggest load of frozen food I've ever delivered to this store."

Once we had wheeled all the stock into the freezer, there was not a single square foot not occupied by pallets of frozen food. I could barely squeeze in the door to retrieve things.

But the frozen food cases looked wonderful for weeks. The moment something sold, I put another one right back it its place. I even resorted to pushing merchandise over the store's P.A. system, something that was really against the rules. But when the monthly tallies came in from the accountant, Bob found that I had upped the store's frozen food sales by seven and a half percent in my very first month.

A short time later, I gave up my beloved position at Alpha Beta and began a tour of duty with the U.S. Navy. And, although I had once thought of returning to the grocery business, maybe even working my way up to store manager, fortune took me in other directions. Still, I think I gained some of my most valuable work experience in the company of Bob Merrick and the hard working crew of our Hill Street Alpha Beta. In just a couple of years, they took me from a fledgling bag boy who ran everywhere he went, to a professional and confident retail clerk. Though I was only seventeen or eighteen years old at the time, they always trusted me to do my job without constantly looking over my shoulder, a management technique that I value and use to this day. And they always stood behind me, even when doing so might have jeopardized their own careers.

It may be a little late coming, but I just want to say thanks, guys. I haven't forgotten.

My first car was a 1959 Plymouth Station Wagon (see front view below). Mom and Dad purchased it from some family friends, the Schneiders, when I started complaining about the 1955 Cadillac sedan that Mom drove (photo right). After all, at seventeen, I just couldn't see myself driving my friends around in some plush, fat fendered, chrome-covered Cadillac.

Not that the Plymouth constituted a big improvement. Hardly. With its boxy body and dated "space-age" fins, it could never achieve the mystique of your average GTO or Chevy hardtop. Still, the car had an aura about it, a sort of presence. Its long, low, shark-like profile looked distinctly menacing, like Christine in the Steven King story. It might resemble a family car, but it had an inherently dangerous quality about it, like a ride that might belong to a bunch of frat brothers. And, as I came to realize, the car had another great feature. The roomy wagon could haul lots vital cargo, things like girls and skis...and girls.

There was only one small problem: the previous owners had driven the car, albeit gently, into the rear of a dump truck. The truck's bed had been positioned just high enough to leave a giant crease across the hood and left front fender of the Plymouth. The damage, though noticeable, didn't seem to affect the car's operation and, indeed, seemed to add to its dangerous quality.

The best thing about the Plymouth was how fast it went. The car came equipped with a 318 cubic inch V-8 engine and would go just about as fast as you had the nerve to go. Along with the killer engine, the Plymouth had a "push-button" gear shift (see photo below), a curious feature found on Chrysler Products of the 1950s. If you wanted to race someone, you revved the engine 'till the pistons threatened to exit the block, then punched the "D" button and you were instantly off like a rocket.

Going "like hell" was easy, stopping was another matter. The Plymouth's brakes wore out a lot, especially the shoes on the right rear, which I replaced every two months. I replaced that set of shoes just about as often as I got my hair cut. Those brake shoes would wear out so fast, sometimes I'd end up with metal to-metal contact between the shoes and the brake drum. When that happened, I had to have the drum turned on a lathe to make it smooth again. I had the right rear drum turned so many times that the metal grew thin. Some time later, when I was driving down Lake Avenue from my house in the San Gabriel foothills, I applied the brakes and the part of the drum that rubbed on the shoes sheared away from the part of the drum to which the wheel was bolted. Fortunately, the wheel remained on the car until I got home.

Most of the time the Plymouth stopped okay, it just didn't sound like it would. After a few stops, the brakes would heat up and start screeching. Not just an unobtrusive squeak or growl or moan, but a genuine wounded elephant sort of howl that would emanate from the underside of the car as you pulled up to a stoplight. I saw many a fearful look in the rearview mirror of the car ahead of me. The screeching got worse on long hills, of course. When we'd go skiing in the San Gabriel Mountains and have to come down the Angeles Crest Highway, people would sometimes pull over to let me pass.

Broken vacuum lines meant your windows wouldn't go up and down or your heater controls produced no heat. I spent countless hours trying to get the various vacuum-operated accessories working on that car. Often, mere age made the vacuum lines and connections brittle, and they broke when I touched them, which meant yet another trip to the local wrecking yard for parts.

One day, as I drove up Lake Avenue from my job at Albertson's super market, the engine blew a head gasket. Thankfully, I managed to crest the top of Lake Avenue and coast to a stop just around the corner on Loma Alta Drive before the car's engine killed. I had to walk the last half mile to my house. Later, Dad and I came back with his pickup truck and towed the Plymouth home.

Sometime before this new problem, Dad had acquired a similar car, a 1958 Plymouth wagon. So, this second car was on hand to donate a replacement engine. I remember it as a lot of hard, greasy work, which my very mechanically inclined Dad loved, but about which I felt less thrilled. Dad and I went halves on the necessary expenses for the job, a sum I remember as about three hundred and fifty dollars each. After that, my parents decided they needed more reliable transportation. They gave me the old Plymouth and bought another Cadillac for themselves.

The first thing I did after I became sole owner was to replace the crunched hood and left front fender. I located a white fender and hood at a junkyard and set about installing them. The hood didn't take long to attach, since I already had experience with removing the hood on both the '58 and '59 Plymouths during our engine swap. The fender was another matter. Despite what manufacturers tell you about the interchangeability of parts, I had real trouble getting all those bolt holes in the new fender to line up with all those bolt holes in the old body. But, after many hours of skinned knuckles and cursing, I finally managed to persuade the thing into place. The powder-blue car looked pretty strange with a white front end, but I promised myself I'd paint it just as soon as I earned enough money.

But before that could happen, disaster struck. One afternoon as I sped along New York Drive in the area of Eaton Canyon with John Riise in the front passenger seat, my newly-installed white hood suddenly broke loose and came crashing backward against my windshield. As nuts and bolts and shiny trim pieces flew past the side windows, the hood molded itself over the windshield like a rubber blanket. Instantly, I couldn't see a thing, which wouldn't have been so bad, but we were going eighty-five miles an hour at the time. John and I each rolled down our side windows and thrust our heads out. Somehow, with John shouting commands about curb proximity, I managed to guide the car to the side of the road and stop without hitting anything.

When we got out to survey the damage. The hood, normally concave on the bottom side, was now concave on the top side. Though some of the connecting hardware lay back along our line of travel, enough bolts seemed to remain in place to hold the hood to the hinges. We persuaded the mangled metal back into place and managed to latch it. Then we set off for home, though at a more sedate pace. Somewhere on Altadena Drive, the hood latch gave way and once again the hood flew back and crashed across the windshield. This time, since we were going much slower, we easily guided the car to the roadside and got the hood closed and latched again. Once more on the highway, driving even more slowly, we made it home without mishap. Miraculously, the windshield came through the ordeal undamaged.

After the mishap on New York Drive, I had to scrounge the wrecking yards for yet another hood. This time, I found a faded red one which seemed to fit better than the white one and the latch held securely. Now my Plymouth looked truly patriotic, with a powder-blue body, red hood and white left fender.

Once the car was all mine, I really wanted to fix it up. I replaced all the carpeting with a wonderful shade of royal blue and I covered the seats in electric blue vinyl. Then I had the car painted at Earl Scheib, who advertised that he would paint any car any color for $29.95. Earl did a pretty good job on the Plymouth, except the prep guys didn't bother to mask off the weather stripping around the doors. After the painters skillfully applied spray paint to the rubber and closed the doors, I had a hell of a time getting them open again.

About half way through my senior year I acquired a 1957 Chevy two-door which looked a whole lot sexier and, after an engine rebuild, went just as fast. I think I listed the Plymouth in the newspaper and sold it for the grand sum of $280.00. At the time I wasn't particularly sorry to see it go. Still, if it's out there somewhere, I wouldn't mind trying out that push-button drive one more time.

"Just one speeding ticket," Dad warned me, "and you lose your license." This from a guy who once knocked the front steps off a moving streetcar while racing his dad's '28 Chevy on the back roads of rural southern California. Still, I took him seriously, for I had no doubt that he meant what he said. Though the streetcars had long since disappeared by the time I got my license at seventeen, Dad wasn't going to tolerate me driving like, well, he did. So, even though I accumulated quite a few speeding tickets by the time I went in the Navy in the fall of 1969, I never shared that information with Dad.

In the Fall of 1968, I entered Pasadena City College intent on pursuing a major in History and a minor in girls. My high school girlfriend, Deana, and I had broken up the previous Spring, just before the Senior Prom, and I had dated only sporadically since. At some point I happened to mention that situation to my cousin, Jim Mallery.

"I can fix that," Jim said. "If you want to pledge my fraternity, Phi Kappa Tau, I'll sponsor you. If you can't find a girlfriend at the Phi Kap house, you can't find one anywhere."

But you didn't just join a fraternity, you had to pledge. Pledging, a two-week-long ordeal, meant a number of things. First of all, it meant you had to dress in nice clothes, wear a tie, and look like a gentleman. Our ties had to be done up in a Windsor knot, something I'd never tried before. And just to make it extra difficult, you had to insure that the two ends of the tie finished up exactly the same length. More often than not, I retied that silly thing twenty times before it fell exactly right.

It meant you had to do 'favors' for the brothers. For instance, a brother would ask you to approach a nearby female and persuade her to come meet him. I had spoken to very few females in my life, certainly I had never been that forward. Still, I gritted my teeth and did it. To say that it embarrassed me is probably an understatement, especially if the young lady refused.

It meant we had to learn the Greek alphabet and be able to recite it on command. Failure to know the alphabet usually meant pushups in the middle of throngs of loitering students, something I found even more embarrassing than approaching girls.

Thankfully, I learned my alphabet well. During 'Hell Night,' the last night of pledging where the harassment increased several-fold, each pledge had to sit bare-assed on a block of ice while they recited the alphabet. If you goofed, if you left a letter out, you had to start over. I imagine that I can recite that alphabet to this day.

Most of the things the brothers demanded of us were naturally pretty silly. Some, like forcing us to introduce ourselves to strangers, actually helped us become more relaxed and confident around members of the opposite sex. But one thing they demanded of us would later bear even greater fruit for me. Every time a brother spoke to us, we were to begin and end our response with the word 'Sir,' much as you might in the military. For instance, a fraternity brother would say, "Tom, I'd like to meet that cute young thing over there by the drinking fountain."

I'd say, "Sir, right away, sir."

If I managed to coax the young lady back to meet the brother, I'd have to say, "Sir, I'd like you to meet Maryann, Sir."

Of course, if I failed to coax the young lady over to meet the brother, I'd be doing pushups to the tune of, "Sir, one sir. Sir, two, sir," and so on up to fifty. The pledges became so used to beginning and ended each and every sentence with the word, 'Sir,' that the habit often extended itself beyond the influence of the fraternity, a fact for which I would soon have cause to be thankful.

It was tradition during pledging to do some outrageous things to the pledges. Things like kidnaping them and leaving them in some remote spot with just a dime for a phone call. And that's exactly what happened to my pledge brother, Tim Bekins. He called me one morning around two to inform me that he had been kidnaped and dropped near the top of Mt. Baldy, some thirty or forty unfamiliar miles away.

I knew my '57 Chevy might not be the most reliable transportation to make that sort of middle-of-the-night rescue, so I did the only sensible thing I could do: I stole my mom's '55 Caddy (photo left). It might look like an old person's car, but that two-ton behemoth could really get up and move.

I decided I needed to make the round trip in no more than three hours. Otherwise, my parents, early risers most days, would likely catch me. But just to be on the safe side, I penned a short note and left it taped to my bedroom door. It said, "Mom, have gone to the top of Mt Baldy. Don't worry. Back before breakfast." I neglected to mention taking her car.

I let the big Cadillac coast backwards to the bottom of the driveway before I started the motor. This being in the days before the 210 freeway cut a wide swath through the many communities that nestle along the foot of the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains, I pushed the pedal to floor and headed for Foothill Blvd.

Since the Caddy had no problem cruising at whatever speed you had nerve for, I edged the needle on the speedometer up to eighty-five miles an hour and tore through community after sleeping community. All along Foothill, the red lights had been set to blinking orange and I blew through every light without even slowing down.

With some difficulty, since I had never been there before, I located the turnoff to Mt Baldy and went rocketing up the two-lane winding road. At one point, I took a hairpin curve so fast that the heavy chrome hubcap on the left front wheel flew off and rolled away into the darkness. It took many precious minutes to find the errant hubcap in the dark and get it replaced so I could continue.

Thankfully, I didn't need to search for Tim. As I neared Mt Baldy Village, he loomed out of the dark, walking toward me from the direction of a nearby phone booth. To my surprise, he looked fully dressed. Lucky for him. In the past, frat members had been known to drop pledges in remote spots dressed only in their underwear.

Then, with Tim riding shotgun, and still praying that I might get the Cadillac back in the garage before my parents got up, I turned the car around and made the mad dash back down the mountain. When we reached Foothill Blvd. and turned west toward Pasadena, the sun had just begun to peep over the distant mountains and reflect off my rearview mirror.

The traffic lights still winked orange as Tim and I blew into San Dimas, the speedometer once again registering eighty-five miles an hour. The not yet awake city streets looked deserted, but I knew people would begin to stir soon. Before long, I'd have to cut my speed. But until then, I intended to keep my foot to the floor.

Just as we hit the center of town, I happened to glance out the passenger-side window. There on a side street, just a car-length back from the stop sign, sat a black and white patrol car. I caught a fleeting glimpse of the two surprised cops, as they sat snacking on their morning coffee and donuts. Tim and I streaked past their windshield so fast I suspect they probably thought some air force jet jockey was trying to land his plane on main street.

Realizing that I'd only make my punishment worse if the cops had to chase me, I braked the big Cadillac and pulled up next to the curb before we'd gone another block.

"What's going on?" Tim asked.

"We're about to have company," I said. I gestured with my thumb over my shoulder. "Better hand me the registration out of the glove box." I pulled out my wallet and removed my driver's license. This was standard drill for me. I'd been pulled over countless times and gotten at least a half dozen speeding tickets in the previous year.

Seconds later, the black and white slid up behind us and stopped. Its flashing lights lit up the Cadillac's interior with an unearthly red glow. I watched in the rear-view mirror as a blue suited cop climbed out of the black and white, shoved his nightstick in the loop of his belt, and approached my side of the car.

"License and registration," the cop said in the standard cop monotone when he reached my window. I thought he sounded none too pleased that I had ruined his breakfast.

"Sir, yes, Sir," I said, automatically falling into the standard Phi Kappa Tau pledge response. I handed both documents out the window to him and he studied them with his flashlight. Finally he stopped reading and turned the flashlight on Tim and me.

"Just how fast were you going back there," he asked.

"Sir," I said, "About fifty, Sir,"

I think I saw the barest hint of a smile turn up the corners of his mouth. "Darn sight faster than fifty, I'll wager."

"Sir, no Sir,"

"Hmm," he said. He studied us for another second, then added, "Well, please remain in the vehicle while I run this." Then he turned and walked back to his patrol car.

"Great idea pulling over so he didn't have to chase you," Tim said. "I'll have to remember that one." Tim customarily drove one of the new Z28 Cameros, a car that would literally lift the front wheels off the ground when you popped the clutch. Like me, Tim was used to meeting law enforcement officers on a regular basis.

"Yeah," I said, my eyes glued to the rearview mirror. "But if he decides to write me for eighty-five in a twenty-five, I expect you and I are going to jail."

A few seconds later, the cop was back at my window.

"Okay," he said. "I'm going to write you for fifty in a twenty-five even though I know you were going way faster than that." He handed me the ticket book and a pen. "But do me a favor, take it easy from here on."

"Sir, yes sir," I said. "We'll take it real easy, sir."

"Sir, thank you sir," Tim said.

Twenty minutes later, I dropped a grateful Tim Bekins at his house and sped home. As I eased my way up the drive, my headlights carefully extinguished, I was delighted to see that no light shone in my parents' bedroom window. Hot damn, I thought. I had pulled it off. Now, they'd never know that I'd even been gone. And, as I had many times in the past, I would just send a check to the court for my ticket and nobody would ever be the wiser. Smiling, and as quietly as I could, I eased the big Cadillac into the garage and tiptoed to my room. There, exhausted but a free man, I shucked off my clothes and fell into bed.

Epilogue:

An hour or so later I awoke to a firm hand on my shoulder.

"Wake up," my mother said. "I want an explanation about this."

I looked up, bleary-eyed, to see her holding the note I'd stupidly forgotten to remove from my bedroom door.

The odd thing is, mom didn't believe that I'd been anywhere. I, of course, didn't try and convince her. Consequently, she and Dad never knew the details of my adventure that fall night. Tim and I successfully pledged Phi Kappa Tau and went on to many more adventures. I didn't get off Scott free, though. Since the San Dimas ticket was my seventh in a period of less than two years, the Department of Motor Vehicles decided I needed to go to traffic school if I wanted to keep my license.

It could have been worse, though. To this day, I believe if Tim and I hadn't been so Phi Kap pledge polite with that policeman, the two of us might have spent the next day or two as guests of the city of San Dimas. I'd have lost my license for sure. And dear old Dad, well, I expect he would have blown a gasket. Still, thinking back to that streetcar and its missing front steps, I bet in the end he would have gotten over it.

I found Nancy's phone number while surfing the internet at work one lunch hour in May of 2003. Before I had a chance to talk myself out of it, I picked up the phone and dialed. The search engine had produced only one hit on her name, a fifty-two-year-old woman living in Hermosa Beach, California.

Fifty two?

I tried to picture my cute college girlfriend as being old enough to have grand kids. Impossible, I thought. In my mind, she's still that lithe and willowy eighteen-year-old who arrived just before the final bell that first day of Algebra class at Pasadena City College.

I think she must have felt slightly unnerved when she saw the math class held mostly boys, for she found a chair right in the front row, directly in front of the professor's desk. She'd obviously just come from swim class, for her blond, shoulder-length hair lay damp against her rosy cheeks. She looked cool and pretty in her low heels, yellow plaid mini skirt, and white blouse. I was smitten from the moment she walked through the door.

I finished dialing and Nancy's phone began to ring. I found myself hoping that no one answered. Whether this Hermosa Beach woman turned out to be my Nancy or not, I'd be grateful if I could just leave a message on her answering machine. Then, if she were the right Nancy, she could call me back. I wouldn't actually have to embarrass myself by talking to the wrong person.

After several rings, the answering machine kicked in and I breathed a sign of relief. No one home. As soon as the recorded message quit, I launched into an explanation for my call. I hoped I would be able to tell my story before the tape ran out. "Hi, this is Tom Davis. If this is the Nancy Narcowich who went to PCC from 1968 to 1972, I'm calling to-"

"Hello."

I caught my breath. Somehow, without my knowing it, I had stepped into a time machine. Thirty four years fell away in an instant. It was the fall of 1969. I was nineteen again and calling to ask for a date.

"Who is this?" she asked.

"Ah, Tom Davis. Do you remember me?"

She hesitated, didn't say anything.

"Do you remember getting our car towed away when we went dancing at the Whisky-A-Go-Go in Hollywood?"

"Oh my God! Yes! How've you been?"

She sounded like she really wanted to know. I quit holding my breath. "I'm good," I said.

"Where are you? Are you here in Southern California?"

"No. I'm calling from Nevada. I'm taking a class in memoir writing and I thought I'd call and ask you what you remembered about that night in Hollywood." Realizing how dumb that sounded, I trailed off.

But she laughed and I could sense her relaxing. "Guess I don't remember much," She said, "except my parents were really, really mad at me for getting home at three in the morning."

I laughed, too. "Still counts as my most memorable date," I said.

It happened just a few days before I was set to go on active duty with the Naval Air Force in October of 1969. I called Nancy and asked her to go dancing with me. It was to be my final fling as a free man. Though at nineteen, we were both too young to drink, we danced and listened to Van Morrison at Hollywood's Whisky-A-Go-Go on the Sunset Strip until well past midnight.

Finally, at nearly 1:00 A.M., Nancy said she'd better be getting home. But when we came out of the club, we discovered that my '65 Chevelle hardtop was no longer parked at the curb where we'd left it. For several minutes, both of us stood and stared openmouthed at the vacant parking spot.

But then, after the initial shock subsided, I noticed a panhandler sitting on the sidewalk nearby. I walked over to him. "You didn't see what happened to the green Chevelle that was parked over there, did you?" I pointed to the empty stretch of asphalt opposite the Whisky's front door.

"Ah, yeah, man," he said.

When he didn't elaborate, I said, "Well, what happened to it?"

"Uh, they towed it, man."

"Towed it? Who towed it?"

"Un, I guess the city did, man. You parked it in a no-parking zone." He gestured toward a nearby sign, conspicuous for its bright red lettering which said, 'No Parking, Any Time.'

"Guess I didn't see it," I said.

"It's okay, man." The panhandler shook his head and looked sad. "Lottsa folks don't."

"You don't happen to know where they take the cars when they tow them, do you?"

"Ah, no man," he said, "I don't."

So, not knowing what else to do, Nancy and I set off on foot down Sunset Blvd. in hopes of finding a cop who could tell us where to find the tow garage. We finally located one several blocks away.

"It's about, oh, twenty-five blocks east of here." The cop turned and pointed back the way we had just come. "Take Sunset here to San Vicente. Vere right onto Holloway Drive and left onto Santa Monica Boulevard. In a mile or so, take a right onto North Fuller Avenue. You're looking for 1033."

Wishing that I were brave enough to ask him to find us a ride, I said, "Ah, well, thanks."

"You're welcome." He started to walk away. Then he stopped and turned back. "Gonna take some money to get it out of hock," he said. "I don't know exactly how much. But I think it's a lot."

I thought about the few dollars that I had in my wallet. "Thanks," I said.

So, there we were, standing on Sunset Blvd. at past one in the morning, and we had to find a way to get twenty-five blocks to get my car. This would have been no problem if we could have taken a cab. But Nancy and I had about fifteen or twenty dollars between us. If we spent the money on the cab ride, we wouldn't have any money to pay the ransom on the Chevy.

So, we started walking. After we had walked for a half dozen blocks, we decided to try hitchhiking. Nancy's patent leather dancing shoes hadn't been designed with long-distance walking in mind.

Each of us had been warned repeatedly by our parents never to hitchhike. Still, we were in a fix. We stuck out our thumbs. Soon after, an old cowboy in a dilapidated pickup with a rude, homemade camper on the back stopped and we walked over to the window.

He dragged what looked like a hand-rolled cigarette out of his mouth and nodded toward us. "Evenin.' Where you youngsters headed?"

We told him our sad story and he nodded again. "Seen this before," he said. "I expect the city makes a pile of dough out of towing folk's cars. Ain't right, though. Just ain't right."

Half hoping that he'd turn us down, I said, "Think you can take us to the tow garage?"

He thought a moment. "Outta my way some, but I expect I can get you close. Hop in."

"Thanks," I said, though I certainly felt less than thankful. I'd heard stories about kids like us hitchhiking and being picked up by some harmless-looking guy in an old dusty pickup truck and never being heard from again.

Nevertheless, Nancy slid in next to the cowboy and I sat next to the door. I think I kept one hand on the door handle and one hand on Nancy's arm the whole time we rode with him. If he tried anything, I intended to throw open the door and yank Nancy out no matter how fast we were going.

But in the end, the old guy turned out to be friendly and harmless. He drove us most of the way to our destination and let us out.

"You kids be darn careful, now," he said. Then he disappeared into the night trailing a cloud of exhaust smoke.

Finally, around 2:00 A.M., we managed to find the impound yard where we discovered that the cops wanted forty-five dollars to let us have the Chevelle. The only person I knew who might have that much cash at that time of the morning was my good friend Clay Hammett (photo left). Clay worked with his dad in construction part time and usually had plenty of money. I dialed his number, knowing that usually it took half a stick of dynamite to rouse him out of bed.

But that particular night I lucked out. Clay agreed to come rescue us and loan me the money I needed.

Nancy broke into my reverie. "You know," she said, "you were the first one to get me to dance."

"I remember," I said. "At the fraternity house."

Nancy had never danced before I took her to the Phi Kappa Tau frat house one Saturday night in the fall of '68. Actually, I'm not sure it was I who got her to dance. After I gave up trying to coax her onto the dance floor, I asked another girl. When I looked up, Nancy was dancing with one of my frat brothers. After that, I never had to coax her again.

"You know," I said. "I come down to Southern California every November to hike in the San Gabriel mountains. Maybe we could get together and have lunch."

"I'd love that," she said. "Maybe I could even go hiking with you."

"It's a date," I said. "I'll see you in November."

After I put down the phone, I sat staring at Nancy's name on my computer, her eighteen-year-old-voice still lingering in my head. "Amazing," I said to the glowing screen. "Just ten minutes ago I didn't even believe in time machines."

"You're one of those people who has music going on in your head all the time, aren't you?" my date said, looking a little annoyed.

I stopped humming the latest Eagles hit, "Hotel California," and looked at her. "Ah, yeah, I guess so." It was our first date and I really wanted to make a good impression. I told her I was sorry, that I really couldn't help it. I was, indeed, one of those people who's constantly humming or snapping their fingers to some imaginary beat. I don't need a radio or other outside source, the music's in my head.

It's been there since 1955. At least, that's when, as a six-year-old, I remember learning "The Ballad of Davy Crockett," a song that burst on the scene along with the popular Disney TV series that profiled America's favorite frontiersman. Hard to believe, but in those giddy, post-war days of the mid 1950s, the "Ballad of Davy Crockett" not only entertained a whole generation of kids like me, but became a top forty hit that year, which probably meant an awful lot of adults were listening along with us kids.

I happily learned the lyrics and would sing several stanzas as I strapped on my fringed leather gun belt and cap gun and set off to tame my parents'rural California acre, my genuine frontiersman's air rifle cradled in the crook of my arm. Yes sir, that homespun song made me feel as though I could have been "Born on a mountain top in Tennessee."

At the time, Davy's theme song just whet my whistle for western music. Though I don't remember ever owning a copy of the "Ballad of Davy Crockett," in 1959 my parents bought me a copy of Marty Robbins' hit song, El Paso. Oh, how the mental images flowed: "Out in the west Texas town of El Paso, I fell I love with a Mexican girl. Nighttime would find me in Rosa's Cantina. Music would play and Felina would whirl." I might have been only ten years old, but my imagination was a lot older.

It helps to have a good imagination when you discover girls. By the sixth grade, I had begun to notice girls a lot. The song that made the biggest impression on me at the time was, "Johnny Angel," by Shelly Fabres. Shelly, whom I simply adored, played the ultra-cute TV daughter on the Donna Reed show. I remember wishing that some girl would sing about me like Shelly sang about Johnny Angel. "Johnny Angel, how I love him, He's got something that I can't resist." Boy, I could just image that guy being me.

From that point on, the musical images came fast and furious. Think about that summer of 1962: Bobby Vinton wrote "Roses are Red." Ray Charles sang "I Can't Stop Loving You." And Neil Sedaka crooned about "Breaking Up is Hard to Do." For most of the country, it was a great time to be thinking about romance. Though it would be several years before romance found me, I still loved the music.

I come by my appreciation for music honestly. My great, great grandfather Thomas Davies, while living in England, made his living as a music teacher, and my great grandfather George Davis once played for the president. Grandfather Thomas Davis must have felt bad about not learning to play an instrument, for he insisted that his three children learn to play. Unfortunately, he picked the saxophone for my dad, which was nothing like the guitar that dad wanted to play, so dad never learned to play either one. Later in life, a work-related accident claimed a finger on dad's left hand, and he never realized his dream of learning to play the guitar.

Naturally feeling the need to keep the family's musical heritage alive, and egged on by Ricky Nelson's guitar-plucking weekly finales on the Ozzie and Harriet TV show, my dad and mother encouraged me to learn to play the guitar. I don't remember being very excited about it at the time, but learn the guitar I did. Starting in the sixth grade, around 1962, I began taking lessons from a curmudgeonly, Lawrence Welk-style guitarist named Fred Bredice. Along with several other fumble-fingered boys and girls, and though my enthusiasm sometimes waned, I did manage to hold my own strumming my way through such classics as, "Stranger on a Shore."

But things were about to change. Ricky Nelson still belted out, "Hello Mary Lou" with his usual sparkle-eyed sincerity, as the whole Nelson clan looked on in adoration. And the Kingston Trio still wanted to know, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" But a new type of sound had begun to seep into the teenage consciousness. Songs like Dylan's, "House of the Rising Sun" and the fancy fret-work on any one of several songs by the Ventures seemed to be hinting at a new musical direction. Those particular songs sounded harder, more serious, and my friends and I began to pay attention. We would often gather at John Riise's house, just to listen to records and try to follow along with our guitars. Though artists would continue to write songs like "Big Girls Don't Cry" or "Chapel of Love" for several more years, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, the times they were a changing.

At that point, "Beatle mania" descended on the country and swept most of us into a musical maelstrom from which we baby-boomers have never fully recovered. Suddenly, everyone wanted to play the guitar. If you already knew how to play, you found yourself in great demand. I practiced with several beginning bands that never quite coalesced into serious music. Some of them never even reached the naming stage. Though one band, "The Red Barons," seemed to be headed for success. We even had business cards printed. I began to think that the long years of guitar lessons and practice might actually pay off. There I was, standing at fame's door, ready to walk through and claim my musical future, much as my ancestors had done before me.

I would have, too, if many long years of wishing for romance hadn't suddenly produced results. Just weeks after arriving at John Muir High School, I met Deana and my future took a different fork in the road. The sexy red electric guitar went back into the purple velvet case along with my desires for musical fame and fortune.

Still, I don't regret my choice. Together, Deana and I learned first-hand what all those romantic crooners from our childhoods had been singing about. Given the choice again, I know I wouldn't do it any different. You don't always get a second chance for romance. And after all, I still have the music in my head.

In 1968, the year I graduated from John Muir High School in Pasadena, California, over sixteen thousand guys came home from southeast Asia in body bags. Though I didn't have a clue what I wanted to be when I grew up, I recognized from watching the nightly news that if you wanted to grow up at all, you had to stay out of the U.S. Army.

One problem: to stay out of the Army you needed to stay in school, and my enthusiasm for school had ebbed considerably by graduation. What I really wanted to do was travel, see the world -- at least the parts not immediately occupied by war zones. I wanted to go to college eventually, just not right away. But Vietnam made enrollment in some institution of higher learning an immediate necessity.

In High School I usually managed to get grades of 'B' or better without much studying. So, I reasoned that I could attend Community College, take easy classes, and still have a good time. With any luck, by the time I had obtained a degree in something or other, the Vietnam War would be a fading memory.

It sounded good at the time.

But the tough realities of college life landed on me like a falling piano. I soon discovered that in College no one much cared what you did. You were expected to discipline yourself. You could show up for class, or you could stay in the student union and play cards. No one came looking for you. If you passed the tests and turned in the required work, you were home free. So, I attended classes when I felt like it, played cards in the Student Union when I didn't. Nights and weekends I gravitated to the frat house where I drank beer, danced to the jukebox, and chased coeds, though not necessarily in that order.

Very early in the semester, my grades began to reflect my lackadaisical attitude. Instead of 'B's, I started getting 'C's. I simply quit going to a couple of classes, though I knew I'd eventually get an 'F' if I didn't officially drop them. Did I worry? Some. But like all youngsters who think they live a charmed life, not enough to cause me to change my behavior.

Friends would shake their heads and tell me that I was on a crash course with the Draft Board. I knew they were right, I just didn't seem to be able to muster the enthusiasm to do anything about it.

Then, sometime in the fall of 1968, my best friend and card-playing partner, John Riise, whose grades often mirrored my own, provided a solution to my dilemma: he signed up for the Naval Reserve.

"Hey," he said one day over a game of Gin Rummy. "All you have to do is attend a bunch of weekend drills, spend a couple of years floating around the Pacific on some nice, safe supply ship, and then you're out. After that, Uncle Sam can't touch you."

I told him that the travel sounded interesting, but wouldn't floating around in the middle of the Pacific be a bit boring?

"Beats bullets and rice paddies any day," John said.

He definitely had a point.

With uncharacteristic speed, I hurried down to sign up too. Except, you couldn't actually sign up for the Naval Reserve. John hadn't made that clear. You put your name on a very long waiting list. Then, sometime in the distant future, hopefully before some shaved-headed guy started measuring you for olive drab underwear, they'd call.

It sounded like one of those 'don't call us, we'll call you' scenarios, but I put my name on the waiting list anyway.

Weeks went by. Meanwhile, I played more cards, got steadily worse grades, and tried not to think about the graphic images on the nightly news.

One day John came to me all excited. The Navy had called and he'd been down to the Reserve Center to take his physical.

"No kidding?" I didn't know whether to feel jealous or not. "That's great."

"But." John looked like he was about to explode. "I have good news."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," he said. "We're going to be shipmates. I saw your name on the scheduling board for a physical next Wednesday at 8:00 A.M. Looks like you're in too."

"But," I protested, "they haven't called me."

"I'd show up anyway, just in case," John sagely advised.

Of course, I could have called the Reserve Center and confirmed my appointment. But my usual malaise prevailed, and I put off making the call.

By this point in my college career I was nearing the realm of 'academic probation,' which meant that my deteriorating grade point average hovered just above the 2.0 mark. Not a good milestone if you didn't favor a wardrobe that blended well with jungle foliage.

The morning of the physical arrived and I still hadn't called to confirm my appointment. Neither had I heard from anyone. I guess part of me really didn't want to join any branch of the service, which I knew would bring an end to my carefree lifestyle. Still, if I had to go, I knew the Navy would probably suit me best. Both my father and my grandfather had been Navy men. At least I likely wouldn't end up in Southeast Asia.

So, at the appointed hour, I showed up at the Reserve Center, Social Security card and birth certificate in hand. Then, for the next several hours, I took a battery of aptitude tests, filled out a blizzard of forms, and got poked and prodded and simultaneously stuck with a couple of hypodermic needles, one in each arm. That afternoon, all the new recruits, dazed but happy to have survived the ordeal, gathered in the recruiter's office for the official signing of the enlistment papers.

"Strange," the recruiter said, when we had all settled into our chairs. "I could have sworn that I called just five guys to come in today. But there's six of you sitting here."

We six exchanged glances.

Then, one by one, he had us 'answer up' as he checked our names against the sheet on his clipboard. I knew right away what had happened when two of us answered 'here' to Davis.

He turned to me.

"First name?"

"Ah...Tom, Thomas...sir."

He looked at his clipboard, then back at me, his brows drawn together. "I see no 'Tom' or 'Thomas' on my list here." He pinioned me with an icy stare. "So, where the hell did you come from?"

"Me? Well I..."

He flipped his clipboard around to show me. "Do you see your name here?"

I didn't, of course, which made we wonder if they could court martial you before you actually enlisted. I tried to explain. "My buddy came here for his physical last week. He told me he saw my name on the schedule. I, ah, guess he...must have...got it wrong."

His eyebrows climbed to new heights on his forehead. "Certainly seems that way, doesn't it?"

I didn't know at that point if I had actually broken any laws, but I thought it best to quietly exit before they decided to arrest me. I flashed him a weak smile and began to ease out of the chair.

The recruiter held up his hand. "Where do you think you're going?"

I opened my mouth to answer but nothing came out. I sank back into the chair.

The recruiter waved his clipboard at me. "The captain would have my ass if I let you get out of here now that we've done all the damn paperwork."

I held my breath and nodded.

"Stand up, sailor."

I stood up.

Then the recruiter's face relaxed into a smile and he thrust out his hand. "Son, now that the hard work's behind us, you can just consider yourself property of the U.S. Navy. Welcome aboard."

When you join the Navy, the first thing they do is send you to boot camp. I suppose it allows them to weed out the misfits and slackers so they don't waste any sailor training on them. Fortunately, since I was a Naval Reservist and not regular Navy, I didn't have to attend the month-long, regular Navy boot camp. Reservists did just fourteen days, pretty short by anyone's standards. But to this day, I still remember it for being the longest fourteen days of my life.

For sailors joining on the west coast, the Navy held its boot camp in San Diego, California. I seem to remember them collecting us from our reserve center in Pasadena in a big, blue Navy bus for the trip.

Once we arrived, they escorted us to one of a collection of tired old barracks buildings obviously left over from WWII. Something like sixty of us were packed into a single room of upper and lower bunks. The barracks held no other amenities save a long, narrow table which ran down the middle of the room. That's where we sat when we did our homework, wrote letters, or shined our shoes.

Over the next two weeks we did a lot of shoe shining. One of the recruits taught us how to apply our polish in a sort of semi-liquid state. To do that, you had to light the polish on fire. Then, when the once waxy substance had liquified, you smothered the can with a writing tablet. You applied the hot polish to your shoes with an old sock or something, and finished by buffing the shoes with a nylon stocking. If you did the job right, you ended up with shoes that shone like two black mirrors.

Our days began early, around 3:30 A.M. 'Lights out' came at 10:00 P.M. In between, we attended a multitude of classes on things like Navy discipline, seamanship, and survival techniques.

When we weren't in class, we were usually in the chow line at the mess hall. We stood in the chow line for an hour three times a day. Then, once we'd finally made it inside the mess hall and grabbed whatever food items we wanted, we had exactly ten minutes to eat it before they kicked us out again.

If we had any time left after going to class or standing in the chow line, we marched. I remember marching quite a bit. In fact, we marched everywhere we went. If we screwed up in our marching, we had to do pushups. And if you screwed up badly enough, you got to carry buckets of sand as you jogged continuously around the base perimeter. Other 'bad boys' got to stand at rigid attention, their rifles at 'present arms' for hours at a time.

But the one thing I remember best about boot camp was the day we practiced damage control. This is where you learn how to put out fires and stop water from flooding the interior your ship. While I don't remember us doing any firefighting, I vividly remember the 'flooded compartment' training.

It began when they ushered about twenty of us into a big steel box about the size of a standard living room. The box looked just like those compartments on a Navy Ship that you see in the old war movies, and had dozens of gray painted pipes and valves and other oddities covering the walls and cris crossing the ceiling, called the overhead in Navy lingo. A third class Petty officer stood waiting for us inside.

"Okay, listen up," the petty officer yelled, when we had assembled inside the steel room. "This is damage control training. My name is Petty Officer Schmidt. In a few moments we're going to be flooding this compartment. Anyone here not been through damage control classes?"

No one raised their hand.

"Okay. Everyone know how to use a bucket patch and a Jubilee Clamp?"

A few mummers of ascent issued from our group.

We'd learned in damage control class that bucket patches are used to fix small holes in a bulkhead or the hull of a ship. You punch a hole in the bottom of a galvanized bucket, insert a long bolt which is attached at right angles to a metal bar. You stick the bar through the hole in the ship's hull, then tighten the nut on the bucket end, effectively snugging the bucket over the hole.

A Jubilee Clamp is two half-round pieces of metal held together by a row of nuts and bolts on each side. You put the two half-round pieces of metal around a punctured pipe, hopefully of the same diameter, along with some gasket material. Then, when you tighten down the nuts, the two pieces are squeezed together, effectively stopping the leak in the pipe.

Since we hadn't spoken loudly enough, Petty Officer Schmidt yelled, "I can't hear you."

A few people goofed and said, "yes sir," as load as they could.

"Who said, 'yes sir?' Don't you people know how to address a petty officer?"

"Yes, Petty Officer, Schmidt," we chorused.

"That's better. Okay, you there on the end." Schmidt pointed toward the endmost sailor in our group. "Let's close that hatch."

The sailor quickly stepped over to the opening where we had entered the room and swung the hatch door closed. Using the metal levers around the perimeter of the hatch, he sealed it shut.

"Dog 'er down good," Petty Officer Schmidt said. "We don't want any leaks." He said this last with a distinct glint in his eye.

Almost immediately water began to pour out of a dozen different holes in the bulkheads and pipes. In just seconds, water covered the tops of our shoes.

"All right," Petty Officer Schmidt yelled. "You know what to do. Let's get those leaks fixed."

And so we did.

I think I was working with a small group of sailors trying to apply a Jubilee Clamp to a leaking overhead pipe. All over the compartment, teams of sailors, few of which had met each other before that day, worked together to stem the flow of water. Of course, the more you tried to stem the flow, the more spray you created. It didn't take long before everyone in the room was soaking wet. And still the water rose. Pretty soon we were knee-deep.

Schmidt moved from group to group giving us pointers and encouragement. Then, after perhaps twenty minutes of this miserable activity, when all the leaks had been more or less patched, he called a halt. Soon after, some unseen person turned off the flow of incoming water and only the sound of a hundred different drips punctuated the silence in the room.

Schmidt looked around at the wet and miserable sailors. "Okay," he said, "you did pretty good. Now its time to escape from this flooded compartment."

Thinking that we would just be exiting the same way we entered, I felt a little pang of uneasiness. What was Schmidt talking about?

"Here's the thing," Petty Officer Schmidt said. "The compartment above us is flooded just like this one."

Almost as one, every head in the room tilted upward. Every set of eyes fastened on the cold, gray steel of the overhead. The thought of a couple of feet of cold water on the other side of that thin piece of steel made me feel even more uneasy.

"Yes." Schmidt said. "Up there is another group of sailors just like yourselves who've been busy patching leaks of their own. And it's a good thing they're up there, because our ship is sinking and we have to get out of here. And that," He pointed to the ladder in the middle of the room that disappeared into a round hatch in the overhead, "is our only escape route."

"Oh, no," someone said.

Petty officer Schmidt grinned. "That's right. Those guys in the compartment above us are going to help rescue us. You people are going to climb that ladder and exit through that hatch. Up above, a couple of sailors will grab you under the arms and lift you out. As each sailor is lifted out, the next one will move quickly into position on the ladder. Does everyone understand?"

"Yes, Petty Officer Schmidt," we all said, but without much enthusiasm.

"And you only have one problem." Schmidt was grinning again. "There's going to be ten thousand gallons of water pouring through that hatch in the opposite direction."

The guy next to me said, "I knew they weren't going to be happy until I was as wrinkled as a prune."

"Now I need a volunteer," Schmidt said, with tremendous satisfaction. "A real hard charger. He's the guy who's going to be first on the ladder and take the brunt of that water when the sailors above open the hatch. The rest of you will man that ladder as close behind him as you can."

No one among us said a word.

"And you can't stop," Schmidt continued. "You can't even hesitate. If one of you breaks the chain, the rest won't make it out of here. So, I don't want to any see daylight between you."

I could feel every sailor in the room holding his breath.

"So, who's it going to be." Slowly, Schmidt began to scan the faces in the room. One by one, he stopped at each breath-holding sailor and studied his face. Then he moved on. Finally he came to me and his face lit up. "Ah," he said. "Here's my volunteer. You look like a real hard charger."

My heart sank. "Me?" I said.

"Let's get up on that ladder, sailor."

Feeling a little shaky, I ascended the ladder until the top of my head rested against the concave surface of the hatch. I perched there, struggling to control my fear, and tried to imagine what hundreds of pounds of water would feel like when it hit me on the head. I couldn't move an inch up or down. I figured if the guys above didn't yank me through the hatch in a timely fashion, I was probably just going drown. At least it would be over quick, I thought.

Soon, each rung of the ladder below me held a sailor. And when the rungs ran out, the sailors lined up across the floor of the flooded compartment like a blue-suited, soggy caterpillar. Each knew, I'm sure, that there would be no retreat, no second chance.

"Everybody ready?" Schmidt called. "Remember, no matter what happens you have to keep moving forward and up the ladder. Keep pushing against the guy ahead you. Don't let there be a gap. Understand?"

"Yes, Petty Officer Schmidt," we choked out.

"Okay. Everybody take a deep breath. Here we go."

The whole thing was over so quickly, I don't remember what went through my mind. One second I was perched on that ladder, holding my breath, and the next I was engulfed in an onrushing tidal wave. A second after that, two brawny arms had snagged me by the arm pits and yanked me into the realm of breathable air again.

Then, one by one, my shipmates emerged out of the cascading water like salmon fighting their way upstream. Each one in turn came to stand beside me, sputtering and dripping and gasping for air.

Finally, when all twenty of us stood like a row of drowned rats on the now completely drained upper compartment, Petty Officer Schmidt emerged from the empty hatch and took up his position in front of us.

"Okay," he said, "you did good. Your company commander will march you back to the barracks now. Get yourselves some dry clothes. This afternoon, after chow, we've got something even more fun in store for you."

"What's that, Petty Officer Schmidt?" I asked, not sure really I wanted to hear the answer.

"Why, tear gas training," he said. "Don't worry, you're going to love it."

Probably everyone members his first experience with a car salesman. My encounter came in the spring of 1971 when I decided to sell the '65 Chevy Chevelle I'd been driving and buy one of the relative newcomers on the American auto scene, a Japanese-made Datsun. I was twenty-one years old, living in Chicago at the Glenview Naval Air station, and the Datsun would be my first new car.

Before that, I'd always owned American cars.

I owned a '59 Plymouth station wagon, a fast yet diabolical car designed by experts in the field of planned obsolescence. These experts determined that my Plymouth should last a maximum of five years before it began to fall to pieces. Since I didn't acquire the car until it had already passed its seventh birthday, I spent nearly as much time replacing those pieces as I spent driving it.

My second car was a '57 Chevy two-door which I purchased for $35.00 from my Cousin Bobby Jones in Covina, California. I don't think the Chevy had much wrong with it, but I decided to completely redo it anyway. I literally tore the car apart right down to the tire tracks on the concrete and refurbished everything. Oddly enough, since I seldom actually finish most projects, the Chevy did manage to become roadworthy again, though it did lack certain key components - like bumpers - for the rest of it's life.

My third car was a '62 Chevy hardtop which I received in trade from my baby brother for car number two. I thought that my brother's more modern Chevy might be a bigger hit with my girlfriends. It was sleek and fast and sexy. I owned the '62 until sometime after the brakes failed as I sped up to the stoplight at Lake Avenue and Altadena Drive in Altadena. I narrowly missed becoming a statistic that day.

I traded in the '62 for car number four, a '65 Chevelle (see photo right), just before I reported for active duty in the Navy. The Navy had assigned me to an air base in Chicago and I wanted a car I could count on to carry me the two thousand plus miles from California to Illinois. It was this car that I hoped to sell and buy my new Datsun.

The first thing I did was sweet-talk my parents into lending me the money. New Datsun 510 sedans cost just over $2,200 in '71, less than most American cars, but still not an insignificant sum for a sailor making just $130.00 a month.

The next thing I did was go to the dealership and ask for a test drive. I was surprised when they agreed to let me drive one of the new Datsuns unchaperoned. I had a grand time racing the brand-new demonstrator around the neighborhood. I even put the car into a roadside ditch at one point just to see how well it would climb out. The car was fast and nimble and would burn rubber in both first and second gears. Just my kind of transportation.

Satisfied that I had found the car of my dreams, I returned the demonstrator to the salesman, a guy about five years older than me named Earl, and prepared to make my deal.

"So, Mr. Davis," he said, when I handed him the keys, "how'd you like it?"

"I loved it," I said.

"Everybody does," Earl said. "You know, the 510 has a twin overhead cam engine."

"I know," I said, just then imagining myself road-racing the little Datsun up Chicago's Lake Shore drive.

"So, what do I have to do to get you into one of these babies today, Mr. Davis?"

"I don't want it today," I said. "I'd like to order it now and come back in thirty days to pick it up."

"Ah, I see." Earl looked disappointed. "Well, I guess that would be okay."

"I want a green one," I said. "Just like those over there." I pointed at a nearby trio of 510s, each one painted Datsun's version of British racing green. I had wanted a sports car of that wonderful green color for years. Now it looked like I was going to realize my dream.

But evidently Earl hadn't heard me. "You sure I can't put you in one of those babies today, Mr. Davis," he said. "I could have it washed and waxed and ready to go in an hour. I'll even give you one of the demos to go have lunch. I'll have your car ready when you get back."

"No thanks," I said. "I have to sell my present car first. In fact, I'm going to be driving it to California to sell. That's why I have to come back at the end of the month to pick up the 510."

"Hey, no problem on the trade-in, Mr. Davis," Earl said. "What kind of car are you driving?"

I shook my head vigorously in the negative. "I don't want to trade my car in," I said. "I'm driving it to California in two weeks."

"Ah, I see."

"So, if you'll just have my green 510 ready in thirty days when I get back from California..."

"Sure, sure," Earl said. "Piece of cake. We'll have it ready when you come back."

And so it went. After I signed the contract and paid them a deposit (photo left), the dealership agreed to have my green 510 sedan gassed up and ready to go on the last weekend of the month. Like most people who haven't ever dealt with a car salesman before, I left feeling that Earl and I had come to a firm understanding.

Thirty days later, now lacking transportation since I had, indeed, sold the Chevelle in California as planned, I hitchhiked from my apartment in Des Plaines to the Datsun dealership a half dozen miles away. I found Earl out on the lot.

"Hi," I said. "I'm here to pick up my 510."

Earl looked at me quizzically.

"Remember?" I said. "I was here a month ago and ordered the green 510 sedan. I was driving to California to sell my Chevy."

A look of recognition began to spread over his face. "Ah, of course," he said. "You're mister, ah . . . "

"Davis," I said.

"Right. Mr. Davis. And you ordered the, um . . . "

"Green 510," I said.

"Right. Of course. I remember now." He turned and scanned the lot.

I looked, too. Not a single green 510 was to be seen anywhere.

"Ah, just a minute," Earl said. "Let me go check with the prep guys. Your car is probably in the back getting detailed."

He hurried off at that point and I watched him go, feeling just the tiniest bit uneasy.

Ten minutes later he was back.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Davis"

"No problem," I said. "So how soon can I have my car?"

"Well... "

I hate it when car salesmen say 'well' in that tone of voice.

"Well, what?" I said.

"Well, there seems to be a problem with the color."

"What sort of problem?"

"Well, Mr. Davis, it's the darnedest thing. We don't seem to have any green 510s on the lot at the moment."

"But that's impossible," I said, trying to keep my composure. "You had a whole row of them earlier this month. I gave you a deposit to have one ready for me today."

"You know, I'm just as upset as you are, Mr. Davis. I can't imagine what happened."

"So what colors do you have available?" I asked.

"Well..."

There was that word again. "You do have a car I can have, don't you?"

"Yes, certainly," Earl said. "If you'd like one of the other colors... "

I looked at the lineup of 510 sedans. Other than green, in '71 they came in a couple of boring colors like dead white and navy blue, two colors that any sailor would try to avoid for obvious reasons. They also came in a couple of colors not seen on cars until then. One, a rather odd shade of yellow, vaguely reminiscent of cooked crookneck squash, did absolutely nothing for me. The other, a vibrant shade of orange normally reserved for life preservers was not my favorite either. Being the type of guy who never drove the speed limit, I was rather hesitant to drive an orange car.

But in the end, if I didn't want a white, blue, or squashy yellow one, orange was about the only color left (see photo left). Guess I was the only person in town who didn't want an orange one. The dealership had precisely one left. And if I wanted that one, I had to take it with a twelve-inch diagonal scratch on the trunk lid.

"Just call and schedule an appointment when you want us to fix that scratch," Earl said (see pink invoice above). "Any time you can leave it with us for a couple of days, we'll get it repainted and buffed out and you'll never know it was there."

Right. Needless to say, I wasn't eager to see Earl or the dealership any time soon, and I never took the Datsun back for its free paint job. In time, when the car had accumulated a few other dings and scratches, I quit noticing the one on the trunk lid.

For a while I felt bad about not getting the green car. But then I began to notice something strange. Normally a conservative person, I found myself trying to live up to the image of someone who drove an orange car. I installed the newest in sound technology, an eight-track tape player, and began buying tapes by artists like Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, and the Grateful Dead. I started dating girls with nicknames like 'luscious Marla.' In fact, I tried romancing as many as five girls at once and even managed - most of the time - to keep them separate.

I began to pursue the 'orange side' of my personality with a vengeance. I grew a beard, drank cheap wine out of the bottle, and went to Chicago rock concerts where we sat on the floor and puffed on marijuana joints concert-goers passed from hand to hand down the rows. I took to wearing army surplus jackets, grew my hair as long as I could get away with, and hung out in bars with my largely underage girlfriends. In short, I had been seduced by the 'Orange Side.' Nothing would ever be the same again.

In March of 1972, I clipped an article from Life magazine that I hoped would change my life. The article detailed the exploits of the world-renowned adventurer, explorer, and lecturer, John Goddard. John, then forty-seven, had spent his entire adult life pursuing a set of goals he had established for himself as a teenager. In the process, John had traveled to every corner of the planet, and exposed himself to every sort of danger.

The story actually began in 1939, when fifteen-year-old John overheard a conversation between his parents and an adult friend of the family in the next room. The friend was saying, 'I wish I were John's age again, I'd really do things differently.'

Realizing that he'd heard that same comment from adults in the past, young John put aside his homework and took out a blank sheet of paper. At the top he wrote, 'My Life List.' Under the title, John began to write down all the things he wanted to accomplish in his life. When he had finished, John had listed 127 separate challenges for himself. Some of these challenges were academic, like reading an entire set of encyclopedias. Others were physical, like learning to ride an elephant or pilot a hot-air balloon. Still others fell somewhere in between, things like building his own telescope or writing a book.

At this point, most of us would have gone back to doing our homework, our list put aside and forgotten. But not John. He immediately set out to accomplish his newly-acquired goals. In fact, by the time Life magazine wrote about his exploits, John had accomplished 103 of the127 items on his list. Among a host of other adventures, he had kayaked the length of several of the world's major rivers, including the Amazon and the Nile. He had climbed some of the world's tallest mountains, including Mt. Everest, Mt. McKinley, and the Matterhorn. He had visited all but thirty of the countries in the world, retraced the travels of Marco Polo, and explored the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. In his spare time, he had taught himself to fly, play several instruments, and speak three languages.

John Goddard's story left me stunned. In my mind, and at that point in my life, I felt like I hadn't accomplished much of anything. When I clipped the article, I was twenty-two years old and I had just a few months left on my three-year Naval Air Corp. enlistment. But unlike most guys who joined the Navy and saw the world, I had spent much of my enlistment in Chicago, Illinois, where my excitement had been limited to attending evening college classes and skiing the tiny hills of Wisconsin on my days off.

Hoping that John had shown me the path to true adventure, I sat down to compose a list of my own - and I immediately encountered a problem. It turned out I wasn't as brave as John, which meant I stopped short of putting actual death-defying activities on my list. While John wanted to live with primitive cultures in Africa and South American, I decided I would try living in that wild and wooly part of North America known as the east coast. Where John listed learning to fly a glider as a goal, I thought perhaps learning to drive a sports car might suit me better. And where John wrote that he wanted to ship aboard a freighter as an ordinary seaman and roam the world's oceans, well, I imagined that taking a river raft trip might be more my style.

Oh, I did set some tougher goals for myself. Maybe not John-Goddard tough, but I included on my list things like hiking the length of the John Muir Trail, teaching a college course, and studying law. I also challenged myself to learn to sky dive, speak Russian, and catch a ride on a moving freight train. I never actually attempted any of these harder things, but at the time they sure looked good on my list.

Which is not to say I didn't take my goals seriously. Item number 72 on my list said, simply, 'vote intelligently.' I took this particular item quite seriously. Since my very first presidential election occurred in November of 1972 while I was attending Cal State Los Angeles, I spent many long hours in the university library studying the candidates and their platforms. Then, after weeks and weeks of careful research and deliberation, I made the most intelligent choice I could - and voted for that infamous candidate who helped add a whole new category of nouns to the English language ending in the letters 'G-A-T-E.'

So, now you're probably wondering if I accomplished any of my goals. Well, sure, a few. I did design and build my own house, learn to speak at least some German, and wrote a book. I've searched for treasure with a metal detector, scuba-dived in the ancient waters of the Mediterranean, and taken a ride in a wonderful 1930s biplane. I've also composed music, visited the British Isles, and dabbled in the stock market, all items on my list.

Perhaps one of my most memorable adventures involved item number 64, flying in a helicopter. In the summer of 1974, I was offered the chance to serve as ground crew for the 'fire spotter' helicopter based at the Carson City airport. An ex-Vietnam chopper pilot named Offie Max (photo left) offered to give me and my friend Janie rides in the helicopter if we'd keep his bright yellow Bell Jet craft washed and waxed. Sounded like an unbeatable deal to us.

My first flight in a helicopter turned out to be one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. After lifting gently from the airport tarmac, we zoomed north into Washoe Valley north of Carson City. I watched enthralled as Offie would gently nudge the control stick and the machine would rise, sink, or dart off in a new direction. Then, with just a flick of his wrist, Offie sent us hurtling to the crest of the Sierra in full view of the grandeur of Lake Tahoe. Clearing the tree tops by scant feet, we swooped in and out of heavily wooded valleys and threaded our way along rocky stream channels. Playfully, Offie would sometimes flip the helicopter on its side and I'd find myself looking out the side window at the ground.

Later, as we soared above the Carson Valley on our way back to the airport, I remembered something I'd read many years before: that a person should always live his life half on the edge of danger, half on the edge of achievement. Right then, as I watched the tiny houses slip by beneath the helicopter's plexiglass window, I knew exactly what that writer meant.

Sixty-five years after John Goddard penned his incredible list at his parents' kitchen table, he has only eighteen goals left to accomplish, and one of those is to walk on the moon. Four years ago he was able to realize one goal when he lived to see the dawn of the 21st century, no small feat considering the dangerous life he's led. Now that he's over eighty, I suppose John could slow down a little, but I doubt that he will. I suspect he intends to complete every one of his 127 goals.

As for me, well, I'll probably never accomplish many of the things on my list. I'm long past wanting to ski the European Alps, drive a race car, or fly in a jet fighter. And I don't think I'll ever own my own sail boat, run for public office, or take up the art of fencing. I would like to accomplish item number 41 on my list and get my college degree someday. After all, I've been attending college classes since the fall of 1968. I should be close to having enough credits by now.

As for the rest of the list, well, I expect I may have to wait until I retire to tackle some of those things. But one thing's for sure, I'm going to keep that list handy from now on to remind me that, while I may not be John Goddard, there's still time to learn to speak Russian. Da?

I stood beside my beat-up MG convertible and gazed at the empty expanse of desert surrounding Wendover, Nevada. More than two hours had passed since I'd seen my best friend John Riise (photo right). I couldn't help but imagine him lying dead in a ditch somewhere, murdered for his meager possessions by some demented hitchhiker. Or, injured and bleeding at the bottom of a cliff after he'd fallen asleep and drifted off the highway.

I turned and looked back toward the western horizon where I knew the sun would be setting in just a few hours. Where had he gone? How had I missed him? I had covered the entire highway between Wells and Wendover, yet had seen no sign of John or the beloved red van he'd nicknamed, Flash.

We had started that morning in Salt Lake City after camping for the night amongst the fruit-laden trees of a cherry orchard. We'd reached the final day of our glorious thirty-day driving adventure and were anxious to get to my parents' home in Carson City, Nevada.

John's van was a mid-fifties Ford that he had lovingly patched together and kept running since High School. The faded red truck had carried us to most of the Northeast, including Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York, as well as Canada. When we reached Chicago, where I'd recently spent three years of my life as a Naval Airman, we picked up my dilapidated '63 MGB (photo left) convertible for the trip home. From then on we'd been a caravan.

Most times we drove in pretty tight formation. However, when we reached the mountains, we had to employ a different strategy. The problem was that the MG liked to overheat on hills, but only if I drove slow enough to allow John to keep up. If I sped up and drove as fast as the car would go, it wouldn't overheat, but I'd inevitably leave John far behind.

And so it was this day. Climbing out of the desert west of Wendover, I pulled a considerable distance ahead of John. But true to our agreement, I stopped at the first Shell station in Wells, Nevada, some fifty miles from Wendover. Usually, I waited by the highway so John would easily see me as he approached, but this time I decided to top up the tank and check the oil. I pulled in under the canopy and popped the hood.

Evidently, John hadn't been as far behind me as I thought. For while I busied myself with checking the oil, John and Flash reached Wells. Not seeing me at the edge of the Shell station lot, and missing the MG sitting behind the gas pumps, he drove on past without stopping.

Meanwhile, I finished servicing the MG and then moved to the edge of the station lot to wait. Fifteen minutes later I was surprised to see that John hadn't arrived. Thirty minutes later I had begun to worry. Forty five minutes later, certain that John had experienced some sort of emergency, I jumped in the MG and headed back in the direction of Wendover.

By this time, John had covered most of the distance between Wells and Elko and still hadn't seen any sign of me or the MG. He knew that something had to be wrong since I never went this long without stopping to allow him to catch up. He glanced at the gas gauge and saw that he had less than a half a tank. Enough, he thought, to get to Elko, maybe to Battle Mountain. But what then? He realized he had no money on him. If he didn't find me soon, he definitely had a big problem.

#

Just under an hour later, I rolled into Wendover. I hadn't seen John or Flash anywhere along the highway. I didn't know how I could have missed him. Had he taken some dirt side road? Had he gone back to Salt Lake City for some reason? That didn't seem likely. Then I began to wonder if I had somehow missed John and he was, in fact, somewhere west of me. For the second time that day, I left Wendover and headed west. I knew if he had somehow passed me, he'd be almost to Elko by now. Putting any thoughts of my car's balding tires aside, I pressed the gas pedal to the floor.

#

Just then, John rolled into Elko and started looking for the nearest Shell station. On the eastern edge of town, near the park, he found it. It didn't take him long to see that no red-headed friend and no faded yellow MG awaited his arrival. Deciding that he couldn't be more than a few minutes behind me, he tore out of town headed west, though he thought he only had enough gas to get to Battle Mountain, still more than a hundred miles away. He had no idea why I had abandoned him, but he knew if he didn't catch me soon, he'd run out of gas.

When John reached the western edge of town he took heart. Off in the distance, he could just see a light-colored car with a black top. If he hurried, he ought to be able to catch it. With renewed hope, John pushed Flash's little six-cylinder motor as hard as he could, at times reaching ninety miles an hour. Still, the light-colored sports car stayed well ahead of him. But finally, after he had traveled fifteen or twenty miles, he managed to catch up. To his dismay, he saw that it wasn't my MG after all. He'd been chasing the wrong car. Disgusted, he pulled over and stopped at the side of the road. Now what?

Finally deciding that maybe he'd missed me in Elko, he turned around and headed back. A few minutes later he pulled into the Elko Shell station and turned off the engine. He looked at his watch. It was four o'clock. He'd wait an hour. Then, if I hadn't shown up, he'd drive on to Battle Mountain. He knew he needed money. But since it was Sunday, his Dad wouldn't be able to wire him any until Monday. When five o'clock rolled around, John turned Flash toward Battle Mountain, over a hundred miles away.

#

At six o'clock I reached Elko. For every one of the last hundred odd miles I'd scanned the sides of the road looking for skid marks. I'd stared down every dirt road that meandered off the main highway. I'd watched every approaching car to see if it was an emergency vehicle. But nothing. No John. No Flash. I knew that things had now gone beyond strange to downright alarming. I also knew that I had all the money and that John had to be out of gas by now. Certainly if he wasn't behind me, he had to be west of me. But I knew it would be dark soon, and looking for John would be impossible. I decided to stay the night in Elko. One problem: John had all my personal things like my clothes and shaving kit. I could get a warm bed for the night. I could eat. But it wasn't going to be fun. I didn't even have a toothbrush.

And what about John. Where was he? I couldn't know that I had only just missed him. I went across the street to the city park and sat on a bench. For the next hour I just sat there, watching the Shell station and feeling depressed. Finally, I decided to call my folks and see if they had heard from him.

"Hello."

"Hi mom."

"Tom. Where are you?"

"Elko."

"Great, that means you'll be here tomorrow. Everything all right?"

"Ah, well, no. That's why I'm calling. I. seem to have lost John."

Of course I asked mom if she'd heard from him and she said she hadn't. I told her to call John's parents and find out if they had heard from him. A little while later I called back and Mom said that John's parents hadn't heard from him either. My heart sank even lower.

#

Something like two hours later John rolled into Battle Mountain and immediately sought out the local Shell station. Once again he saw no red-headed friend and no yellow MG. His spirits at their lowest ebb, John pulled into the "Tasty-Freeze" parking lot next door to the Shell and turned off the engine. Flash's gas gauge read dead empty. He'd come to the end of the line. Now he'd have to call home for money, something he definitely dreaded doing. But his options seemed to be few. He dug into his pocket and pulled out all the change he had - six cents. Not even enough money for a phone call. With a sigh, he got out and went around to the rear doors. He'd just have to dig around in the van and find some change, he thought. But first, he had to find something to eat. Throwing open the rear doors, he grabbed the cooler and opened the lid. There, sloshing around amid a half-thawed chunk of ice, he saw the last of the food. One half-eaten jar of peanut butter and one small jar of mayonnaise.

#

Back in Elko, my spirits had hit bottom. I had lost my best friend somewhere in the wilds of the Nevada desert. How would I ever explain it to his parents? With a sigh, I got in the MG and started looking for a cheap Motel.

#

In Battle Mountain, John finally managed to find enough loose change in the van to make a call to his Dad. After outlining the fix he was in, he asked his Dad to wire some money to Battle Mountain the next day. John's Dad told him about the phone call he'd received, which was John's first indication that I hadn't dropped off the edge of the planet.

#

John's Dad immediately called my mother back and let her know that John was okay. Unfortunately, since I didn't leave any sort of number for her to call me back, she couldn't let me know.I lay awake that night wondering if I would ever see my best friend again.

Of course the next day, I reached Battle Mountain by mid-morning and found John camped beside the Shell Station, in the parking lot of the Tasty Freeze. He had exhausted the peanut butter pretty early on, but hadn't been able to bring himself to eat the mayo. He said he'd spent his time sitting in Flash, playing his guitar, and writing a song about being busted flat in Battle Mountain with only six cents in his pocket.

That afternoon we reached Carson City, though one of my bald tires finally gave out just east of Sparks and held us up a bit. Only a year later, John and I would find ourselves in the Mediterranean aboard an ocean-going yacht on yet another adventure. But as alone as one can feel at sea, out of sight of any land, I don't think I have ever felt as alone and lost as when I thought I had lost my best friend in the middle of the Nevada desert.

When mom said John was on the phone, my heart sank. I knew there could be only one reason for his call: he wanted to back out. I gritted my teeth. In just two weeks we were set to leave for Europe on a month-long backpacking trip. But John had never been more than lukewarm on the idea. As I put down my book and headed for the phone, I just knew that he had come up with some excuse to cancel. Fearing the worst, I picked up the receiver.

"Guess what, Buds," John said when I answered. "I can't go."

"Riise." I said, trying to sound as menacing as I could.

"Wait," he said. "Let me explain."

And so he did. He told me that he had gotten a job offer to work as crew aboard a sixty-foot, ocean-going yacht based in the Mediterranean. The captain of this yacht, a friend of John's dad, had offered John a job for the summer. All expenses, including airfare to and from, were covered and John would make a small salary as well.

"I told him that you and I had other plans," John said, "but he just wouldn't take no for an answer."

"Ah huh," I said, fighting to keep the disappointment out of my voice. I couldn't imagine doing the Europe trip by myself.

"But listen," John said, "The Captain told me to bring you along."

"What?" I perked up. "What do you mean, 'bring me along?' You mean, to the Mediterranean? To a boat in the Mediterranean?"

"That's right. He wants us to meet him in Hollywood in three days so he can fill us in on the details."

"Oh my God. Three days?"

"Yeah. Can you make it?"

I thought about the book on my bedside table, the book I had been reading when the phone rang. "John," I said excitedly, "I've just been reading about this sixteen-year-old kid, Robin Lee Graham, who sailed his twenty-one foot sloop around the world. The whole time I've been reading, I've been trying to imagine myself doing something like that. And now you're saying...I am?"

"That's weird," John said.

My mind drifted to the boy in the story and all the hardships he had encountered on his round-the-world sailing adventure: storms; acute loneliness; going days without sleep. John must have sensed what I was thinking.

"I read that book, too," he said. "This boat is much bigger than the one in the book. This one is sixty feet long."

"Yeah, sure." I pictured myself, like Robin, on a storm-tossed deck with lightning flashing and tons of dark seawater crashing over me and my normally cautious nature kicked in. "But...you've grown up around boats. You can sail a catamaran like an expert. I don't know the first thing about-"

"Don't worry," John said, "you'll get the hang of it darn quick. See you in three days."

I put the phone down and stood there staring at it, unable to rid myself of the feeling that reading Robin Lee Graham's book had somehow influenced my future.

My future in that spring of 1973 had never been more uncertain. I had just finished the spring quarter at the University of California in Santa Barbara. It was my second attempt at being a full-time college student. But once again I had begun to grow restless in the academic environment and had decided I needed a change of scene. Europe sounded like a good place to clear my head. I had heard about kids backpacking around Europe using the Eurailpass system and staying in youth hostels and pensions and doing it for not too much money. That sounded like a winner to me. That's when I called my buddy John and asked him if he wanted to go with me.

"No way," he said. "I don't have that kind of money."

"It won't take that much," I argued. "And I can help you if you don't have enough."

"I don't know," John said. "I don't think I can swing it."

John was my oldest friend and the only one I knew I could travel with. "Come on," I said. "You're not doing anything exiting." At the time John made his living schlepping building materials at the local home improvement store. "It'll be fun."

John still didn't sound convinced, but he said, "Well, maybe dad will loan me some money."

"Don't worry," I said. "I'll do all the footwork. I'll get the Eurailpasses. I'll find out about passports. I'll do all the planning. All you have to do is show up."

So, when the UCSB spring quarter ended, I headed for my parents' place in Carson City, Nevada, to store my belongings and get ready for the trip. That's where John found me when he called with the bad/good news.

Neither of us could know that summer of 1973 that our summer job would turn into a year-long adventure and take us to such far-off countries as Spain, Italy, Turkey and Greece. Though most of the time we sailed in good weather, I did get to live my vision of flashing lightning and tons of sea water crashing over me on our boat's storm-battered deck. But you know, John was right, I got the hang of it pretty darn quick. I'll tell you one thing for certain though, after reading about sailing and ending up a sailor, I try to stay away from books about space travel.

Long after the sunlight had faded in the western sky and darkness had descended on the Chicago suburb of Northbrook, I sat on the front steps of the old-fashioned redbrick church across the street from Marla's house and gazed at the single lit window in her tiny bungalow. Every few minutes I'd glance at my watch and cuss myself for not calling ahead to let her know I was in town. Where would I stay, I wondered, if my one-time college buddy didn't return home that night? My meager supply of cash didn't allow for the luxury of a motel. And, since I had hitchhiked there in the first place, finding another ride after dark was going to prove difficult.

As night closed in around me, I retreated beneath the halo of light cast by the lone fixture over the church's front door and considered my situation. I could probably find a comfortable spot on Marla's front porch for the night. But what if she had moved away since her last letter and not told me? What would the present tenants think if they found a stranger asleep on their glider when they arrived home? Even if they didn't brain me with a garden rake, they would at least call the police.

Thoughts of the police prompted me to peer up and down the quiet street. Cruising patrolmen certainly weren't going to appreciate my hanging around the soon to be sleeping neighborhood. I obviously needed a better place to wait. If I couldn't sack out on Marla's front porch, maybe I could move around to the rear of the church and find a comfortable garden bench or patch of grass to stretch out for the night. After all, I did have a pillow of sorts. I glanced at the blue duffle bag containing my clothes and other worldly goods. What more did I need?

But the only place of refuge I found at the rear of the church was an unlit stairwell leading to the basement. Hoping I might find the basement door unsecured, I picked my way down the concrete steps to the landing below. There I found the door securely locked.

Resigned now to the prospect of a damp, uncomfortable night, I arranged my duffle bag pillow on the dingy concrete landing next to the basement door and stretched out amidst the soggy leaves and spider webs. For many minutes I lay there feeling cramped and just a little sorry for myself, but nevertheless grateful that I had found a place out of sight of the street. Some time later, as I gazed at the starlit sky above my impromptu sanctuary, I drifted off to sleep.

My trip to Chicago that summer of 1973 was actually only one leg of a larger adventure that would ultimately take me to New York City, London, and to the western Mediterranean island of Majorca. My best buddy, John Riise, and I had signed on as crewmen aboard the yacht MAR (photo left), a sixty-foot, ocean-going sailing vessel that had once been the prized possession of the famous author, Ernie Gann. And even though I knew next to nothing about boats, I recognized an opportunity not to be missed.

Our first assignment was to get to New York City by July 2nd. There we would rendezvous with MAR's captain, film maker and entrepreneur, Chuck Tobias. Since neither John nor I had much money, and needed to travel as cheaply as possible, we decided to hitch a ride with a girlfriend of John's named Hazel. Hazel and her two pre-school-aged children happened to be headed for Missouri that June in an ancient Ford station wagon and welcomed the company. John and I each agreed to pay a third of the cost of our gas, food, and lodging along the way in return for the ride.

I don't remember much about that trip to Missouri. I know we must have stayed in four or five different cities, eaten in a dozen restaurants, and stopped at a roadside attraction or two, but as I write this account thirty years later, only one memory sticks in my mind: Hazel's snoring. Hazel snored louder than any human I ever knew, loud enough, I suspect, to endanger fine crystal. Since all five of us shared the same motel room, I suspect that Hazel's snoring must have killed any brain cells I possessed that contained memories of that trip. Either that, or we were abducted by an alien spacecraft just east of Los Angeles and then deposited, car and all, in Missouri five days later. Since John doesn't remember anything about that trip either, I'm at a loss to think of any other explanations.

However we got there, once we reached Missouri, I parted company with the group and bought a ticket on the Greyhound for Chicago, Illinois, where just the year before I had finished a three-year enlistment in the U.S. Naval Air Corp. I wanted to visit my Navy buddies and other friends who lived near the air base at Glenview before I resumed my journey to New York City.

After the Greyhound deposited me in Chicago, I caught a ride out to the northern suburb of Wheeling where I hoped to find someone from the Navy base still living in my old apartment complex. In those days, The Glenview Naval Air Station had such limited living accommodations that almost everyone was allowed to live off base. You had to have a roommate to afford the rent, but it was much nicer than living in the barracks.

As fate would have it, Morrisey was home, still living in his ground floor apartment, and I managed to run into him in the parking lot as soon as I arrived. When I asked him if I could beg a spot on his couch for the night, he said, 'sure.'

The next morning, after leaving most of my worldly goods with Morrisey, I hit the road again. First, I wanted to see Madeline Palmisano's family in then nearby suburb of Arlington Heights. Madeline was the only woman who ever proposed to me. At the time it caught me so off guard that I told her no. A short time later, when I had time to think about it, I told her yes. But by then her feelings were hurt and she withdrew her offer.

Still pondering the significance of opportunities not taken, I stuck out my thumb on Wheeling Road and waited for a ride. I hadn't been hitchhiking long when a middle-aged lady in a Cadillac stopped and asked me where I was headed. "I only stopped because you look like my son," she said, "and I never let my son hitchhike. I'm going to give you a ride to wherever you're going so you don't have to hitchhike either."

I knew what she meant. Before arriving in Chicago that summer of 1973, I'd always considered hitchhiking foolhardy and dangerous, especially in a city like Chicago. Oh, I'd picked up a hitchhiker or two in my life, mostly females since I figured that they would be less likely to want to kill me.

Once I picked up a hippie-looking girl on a drive from Philadelphia to Chicago. At the time, I was unfamiliar with the smell of Patchouli Oil. This girl fairly reeked of Patchouli. I thought perhaps she'd probably been living outdoors for the past year and just needed a bath. Still, she was intelligent and interesting and we had a good time talking about a hundred different things on our long drive. At one point I even let her drive while I slept.

After visiting Madeline's parents in Arlington Heights, I decided to try and find a ride down to the University of Illinois campus in Champaign-Urbana to see Madeline herself. I felt a little insecure about hitchhiking the 120 miles to the university, especially since it was already midday and I didn't want to get caught halfway in between when it got dark. But once again I just stuck out my thumb and hoped for the best.

The first guy who stopped, peered out the passenger-side window of his beat-up Navy blue Datsun and said, "where ya headed?"

"Well," I said, feeling a little embarrassed to tell him how far I needed to go, "eventually I need to get down to Champagne-Urbana. But," I hurriedly added, "I'd be happy just to get somewhere in that general direction."

"Wow, what a coincidence," the driver said, "that's just where I'm headed"

Ah, the Davis luck was in full bloom that day.

That afternoon I had a nice visit with Madeline. Though she didn't seem inclined to repeat her offer of marriage, she did offer me a place on her sofa for the night. At the time, Madeline was an aspiring actress, a very talented young woman in front of the footlights, and, I thought, probably headed for stardom.

The next morning I rode the train back from Champagne-Urbana to Chicago. My allotted time in the city was growing short and I still wanted to visit Marla. Though we had never been more than college buddies, I hoped to spend the evening with her, maybe go to dinner, and afterward, beg a spot on her sofa for the night.

Marla had been living at home with her parents when we were dating, but I knew she had since moved into a place of her own. When I got off the train, it was getting well on toward dusk. But because I had corresponded with her several times during the preceding year, I knew about where she lived and didn't worry about finding her house.

You know what they say about best laid plans. Almost as soon as I stuck out my thumb, a group of teenage boys picked me up. Unbeknownst to me, they were actively chasing a carload of teenage girls at the time. So, for the next half hour, we raced around Glenview going nowhere in particular, just following the girls. After that the boys announced that they wanted to drop in on a friend of theirs who was doing cleanup at a local ice cream shop. By then I was beginning to worry about the lateness of the hour, but I didn't want to complain because they had promised to drive me right to Marla's house. The best I could do was chip in and help them clean up the ice cream shop.

Finally, when perhaps two hours had passed since I first stuck out my thumb, they said they were ready to drop me at my destination in Northbrook, which meant that when I got to Marla's neighborhood it was growing dark. And, as I've said, she wasn't home. So, there I was, sprawled at the bottom of the church stairwell, having searched in vain for a comfortable spot on the unforgiving concrete, trying to sleep.

But sometime close to midnight I woke up and, just to restore the circulation in my legs, I climbed the stairs and walked around to the front of the Church. Much to my relief, lights now shone in several of Marla's windows. Hoping that it would indeed be she who answered the door, I collected my duffle from the stairwell and dashed across the street.

Marla was perhaps the most voluptuous woman I ever dated. My Navy shipmate, and roommate at the time, Thom Cloar nicknamed her 'Luscious Marla' for her centerfold-like good looks. Though not really a love interest, Marla was always the one I called when I wanted to go drinking. Even though she was just eighteen when we were dating, she looked much older. And, since I had a beard at the time, which made me look older, she and I easily passed for twenty-one whenever we visited our favorite Chicago pubs.

Thankfully, it was Marla who answered my knock, though she was not altogether pleased to find me on her doorstep at such a late hour, especially since she had no idea I was coming. Still, she invited me inside. "I'm sorry," she said, "I don't have a guest bedroom. But I'll give you a blanket and a pillow and you can sleep on the sofa."

The sofa turned out to be a tad short, so I moved to the floor. And actually, the floor was fine - especially after the concrete stairwell - until Marla poked her head out of the bedroom and informed me that her pet boa constrictor, Fifi was loose somewhere in the house. "She's gotten out of her cage again," Marla said, "but I don't think she'll bother you."

I expected to be awake for the rest of the night just waiting for the shadows to start moving, but I was so tired I soon fell asleep and didn't know another thing until the sun came up the next morning. By then, Marla had risen and gone off to work. So, ever watchful for the boa, I got dressed and left as well.

At this point, I hitchhiked over to Morrisey's to pick up the rest of my stuff, then to the nearest 'L' station where I caught the train to downtown Chicago. Later that morning I boarded a Greyhound for New York City. I knew a host of challenges lay ahead, and I won't pretend that I wasn't just a little scared. But as I sat watching Chicago's familiar skyline roll by outside my window, I found myself smiling. After all, by then I'd survived traveling two thousand miles with two little kids and a near-lethal snorer. I'd survived hitchhiking in one of the country's quirkiest cities. And I'd survived sleeping with the snake. Hell, I was ready for anything.

Normally, when you learn to SCUBA dive, you spend several hours in the classroom learning the basics, followed by several more hours in the pool demonstrating your swimming and snorkeling skills. Only when you have shown both academic and swimming proficiency are you allowed to strap on your SCUBA gear. After that, you still must prove to the instructor that you are a safe diver by removing your mouthpiece and face mask under water and then replacing them without panicking.

When I learned to SCUBA dive, I just struggled into the wetsuit, strapped on the weight belt and tank, and jumped into thirty feet of water. Oh, it's not that I'm exceptionally brave. More like foolhardy.

It looked easy enough. Besides, I had wanted to learn SCUBA diving ever since I read about the exploits of the famous treasure hunter, Mel Fisher. Mel spent most of his life searching for, and sometimes finding, sunken Spanish Galleons in the Carribean. Even then, at the tender age of ten, I considered learning to SCUBA dive and searching for gold doubloons as perhaps the most exciting way on earth to spend one's life.

Just over a decade later, it looked like my chance had finally come, when, in the summer of 1973, my best friend, John Riise and I took a job aboard a sixty-foot sailing vessel based on the tiny Mediterranean island of Majorca. Our employer, Captain Chuck Tobias, was actively involved in making a feature-length documentary about his boat, named MAR, and would soon be setting out for exotic ports in Italy, Greece and Turkey. John and I would serve as both boat crew and film crew.

I was quick to notice that the boat came equipped with enough SCUBA gear for several divers. And, since we carried our own air compressor for filling tanks, I thought I'd have ample opportunity to learn to dive. But as it turned out, we shot most of our footage either aboard the MAR or on some picturesque landfall or island. For underwater shots, Captain Tobias hired a professional diver and cameraman named Dennis Roquet.

My buddy, John, being tall, tanned, and possessing certain Italian good looks, most often served as the star of the film. Dennis and Captain Tobias would position themselves underwater, and, with the movie cameras rolling, would film away as John explored interesting rock formations or more interesting oddities like the occasional sunken cigarette-smuggling boat.

Since I didn't fit Captain Tobias' mental image of the rugged outdoorsy type, and was, therefore unsuitable for film stardom, I most often remained topside loading cameras, which meant I never got to SCUBA dive. Weeks went by and Captain Tobias never once invited me to 'suit up.' Needless to say, I felt disappointed.

Then one day, when we had tied up at the quay on the Island of Mykonos, Captain Tobias must have decided that it was time to reward me for my faithful service.

"Wanna give it a try?" he asked.

Boy, did I! I rushed right over and began pulling on the gear.

However, now that the moment had finally arrived, I felt a certain trepidation as I stood at the gangway, my flippers extended over the murky waters of Mykonos harbor.

I learned to swim in a backyard pool when I was eight or ten years old. In those days, I could swim like a fish. I could even do two complete laps under water without coming up for air. Still, I had never considered myself a strong enough swimmer to venture into the ocean. Once, when John and I decided to try swimming from California's Newport Beach mainland to Balboa Island, a distance of perhaps seventy-five yards, I reached the halfway point and realized that I'd made a big mistake. Convinced that I was about to drown, and knowing that I was too tired to either continue on or go back, I panicked. It was the first time I'd really considered that the sun might be coming up the next day without me. Thankfully, John encouraged me to keep swimming and eventually I made it.

But as I stood on the edge of MAR's deck, waiting to take my leap of faith, I felt that same panic begin to return. I knew the water was a lot deeper than a swimming pool, deeper no doubt than that stretch of bay near Balboa Island. To make it worse, the gear felt like it weighed two hundred pounds. I just knew that as soon as I hit the water, I would sink straight to the bottom as if I had an anvil strapped to my ankle. I tried to tell myself that everybody else had done it. How hard could it be? Still, I found myself wishing I was about to jump into something a little more shallow, something like a swimming pool.

"Come on, Blue, you can do it," John said.

I reached up and removed the mouthpiece. "Yes, but this stuff feels like it weighs a ton."

John laughed. "It'll feel lighter in the water. You'll see."

"Yeah," I said, "if I live long enough to notice."

Finally, I couldn't stall any longer. I put a hand on my face mask, mentally promised to mend some of my evil ways if I were only allowed to survive just one more time, and jumped over the side. And, just as I predicted, I dropped straight to the bottom as if I had an anvil attached to my ankle.

Of course, I immediately panicked. It seemed no matter how hard I tried to inhale, I wasn't getting any air. It felt like trying to breath through a soda fountain straw. Above me, I could just see the underside of the boat through the many explosions of bubbles from my SCUBA tank. Thinking that I had only seconds left before I drowned, I began to think about jettisoning the SCUBA gear and making a desperate dash for the surface.

But suddenly, I don't know why, a strange calm came over me. I realized that I wasn't really drowning. I looked around then and saw that John and Dennis, who must have entered the water after me, were hovering nearby, anxious to see if I would be okay. Sheepishly, I waved to them and they gave me a thumbs up.

I glanced at my air gauge and was embarrassed to see that I had used fully a third of the tank in my panic-driven first moments. Still, I resolved to make the most of the air I had left. For a minute or two I floated there, just marveling at the sensation of weightlessness. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced, like discovering a whole new universe.

I was enthralled to see that SCUBA diving depended a lot on your weight belt. If you chose your weights just right, you could hover at any depth you wanted. If you had your weights tuned perfectly, when you inhaled and made yourself lighter, you rose slightly in the water. When you exhaled, and made yourself heavier, you sank ever so slightly. What a rush!!!

After that, I went SCUBA diving every chance I got. I felt exhilarated and humbled to be diving where all those seafarers of millenniums past had sailed their boats amongst the islands and harbors of the ancient world.

On one of our most memorable dives, we explored a beautiful spot near the coast of Turkey called Cleopatra's Island. There in a secluded inlet, we discovered the littered remains of ancient clay jugs called amphorae which the early Greeks and Romans used to transport precious commodities such as olive oil and wine. In the shallows, John found a stone oil lamp that may have lit the home of one of his Italian ancestors two thousand years ago.

In the three decades that have passed since those wondrous days beneath the sun drenched waters of the Mediterranean, I have learned that many things in life are like SCUBA diving. If you wait until you are absolutely ready, until you have the money and the training and the best equipment, you may in fact never realize your fondest dreams. Two hundred years ago, the German writer, Goethe wrote: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." I couldn't say it any better.

"Blue, get up. Hurry." Slinger shouted from the depths of my dream. "I think we're sinking!"

My sleep shattered, I shifted uneasily in my narrow bunk, frowned, and opened one eye. Sinking? Who's sinking? On second thought, I didn't give a damn who was sinking. I had been nearly seventy-two hours without sleep and I just wanted to get some rest. It seemed like only moments before I had turned the wheel over to Captain Tobias and, zombie-like, stumbled off to my tiny starboard-side cabin near the bow and collapsed.

Now Slinger, a nickname for my long-time buddy, John Riise, wanted to ruin my richly deserved slumber with practical jokes. "Damn you, Riise," I muttered. I rolled over to see if I could catch sight of him. What I saw made me instantly grateful that I had been too tired to get undressed. Six inches of seawater lapped at my bunk and rolled in and out of my cabin door with each movement of the boat. I knew that the deepest recesses of the engine-room bilge never accumulated more than a quart or two of water. Six inches of water in my cabin, meant a couple of feet in the lower parts of the boat.

Fully awake now, I bounded from my bunk and sloshed toward the focsle. There, I saw John clinging to the forward ladder handrail and staring at the small padded seat that doubled as the lid to one of our supply lockers. A veritable Niagara Falls of sea water cascaded from under that lid every time the bow fell off the crest of a twenty-foot wave outside and came pounding down into a trough.

For a moment I just stood there, trying to maintain my balance, too stunned to know what to say or do. Our boat, Mar, normally took heavy seas like the veteran North Sea fishing boats she resembled. She had spent the last decade plying the world's oceans and storms seldom found her in port. Since I had signed on as a member of the crew, I had come to realize that Mar and her captain reveled in heavy-weather cruising.

Ernie Gann, the famous author, had her built in Denmark in the early 1960s. Three-inch larch planking on double oak ribs made up her 60-foot hull. She was beamy, nearly 18 feet wide, and she drew 12 feet of water. Though weighing a heavy 86 tons, she could move quite respectably under sail. It took every scrap of canvas on board, but she could hold her own amongst much lighter and sleeker boats.

Still, most of the time we motored. Below decks, a 125 horsepower Caterpillar diesel commanded the engine room. The steady drone of that massive power plant was often a great comfort to me when skies over the Mediterranean were black as the inside of a sea chest and I stood my watch at the wheel, alone, on Mar's undulating deck.

Now it was November, the end of a fantastic summer of cruising the Greek Islands, and we had set our course for home. 'Home' in that summer of 1973 was our winter base on the island of Palma de Majorca, off the south-eastern coast of Spain. But we had waited too long to cut short our fun. As we pulled our hook from the sandy bottom of Heraklion harbor on the Greek island of Crete two days before, ominous gray clouds had gathered overhead portending a rough voyage ahead.

There were five of us aboard for the voyage to Palma. Beside the captain, myself and John, two English school teachers had booked passage. The captain had offered them a ride when he found out their teaching positions on Crete had ended and they were looking for an inexpensive way to begin their journey back to England. As it turned out, Angie and Angela would have a voyage they would not soon forget.

"See if you can find the leak", John commanded, bringing me back to the present. "I'll go get the captain."

As he bounded up the ladder and disappeared, I turned to the locker and began yanking out the contents to see if I could find the breach in the hull. It wasn't hard. In the back of the locker I found a gaping hole the size of my forearm. Since the flow of sea water through the hole increased every time our bow slammed into the next wave, I guessed its location as somewhere at or below the waterline. For a few moments I just stared at the flood of water, mesmerized by the gravity of my situation. Because the narrow locker provided scant room to work, I at first tried inserting pieces of clothing into the hole. But the force of the water pressure instantly shot my meager plugs back at me. Even though I sensed that the seas had calmed somewhat since I had gone off watch, I found it nearly impossible to stem the flow of water for more than a few seconds at a time.

In the cabins behind me, Angie and Angela worked frantically moving anything of value up onto the top bunks, at least temporarily out of reach of the rising water.

Down in the engine room John had an even larger problem. After reporting the flooding to the captain, the two of them had dashed to the engine room to start the main engine bilge pump. What they saw when they descended the engine room ladder was frightening indeed. A great mass of oily water rolled from one side of the engine room to the other, inundating most of the equipment. As Mar rolled, the water sloshed over the battery banks, sending tingling electric shocks into the two men. Many of the aluminum deck plates had become dislodged and now drifted aimlessly in the monstrous mass of water, clanging and banging against the machinery. From somewhere near the propeller shaft, halfway between the stern and the still thundering diesel, a great geyser of water shot straight up and ricocheted against the overhead. To John, it looked like another huge leak in the hull. Figuring that they had only minutes to escape, he offered to go untie the life raft.

Fortunately, the captain recognized that the spinning motion of the prop shaft was causing the 'geyser.' The prop shaft had a coupling just aft of the engine with a number of small indentations around its circumference. As the coupling revolved, the indentations picked up a steady stream of water and flung it against the overhead. The captain told John to work on getting the pump going while he waded over to the controls and slowed the engine. With the diesel in slow-ahead, the 'geyser' immediately vanished.

A this point our lack of preparedness really began to show. When John engaged the main engine bilge pump, nothing happened. Of course, we had never actually tested this main pump, since the little Yanmar auxiliary pump had been adequate for any minute seepage.

That was our first mistake.

Our second mistake was in not keeping the bilges free of the tiny pieces of paper, cloth, cigarette butts, and other gunk that inevitably accumulate there. When John cranked up the Yanmar, it sucked seawater for only a few minutes and then quit. At length he determined that the filtering screen over the pump's intake hose had become lost, allowing all sorts of foreign objects to pass through the intake and jam the impeller.

Meanwhile, in the forward compartment, I had managed to locate a wooden mallet used for caulking deck seams and a tapered wooden peg the correct size and diameter. I only had about eight inches to work and the influx of water was relentless. But I finally succeeded in pushing some heavy fiberglass cloth through the opening, followed by the tapered peg. For a long time I just held it there using both hands. Finally, I managed to bring the mallet to bear and hit the peg hard enough to firmly wedge it in place. Thankfully, the inflow of sea water at once slowed to a trickle.

It was then that John flew down the ladder behind me and announced that the main engine bilge pump was non operable and the auxiliary had frozen up. "We have to take the auxiliary apart and fix it," he blurted, then he turned and dashed back up the ladder.

Nothing could have prepared me for the watery hell I found in the engine room. For one frightening moment, images of all those old World War II movies of sinking warships flashed through my mind. I expected someone to shout: 'close all water tight doors', we've taken a torpedo hit.'

John, sounding impatient and a little scared, said, "here, help me get this impeller apart. The filter screen must have gotten separated from the intake." When I looked at him blankly, he added. "I think there's more gunk stuck in the impeller housing. We've got to get this pump running or we're going to sink for sure."

Shaking my head, I glanced around the engine room. It looked hopeless. A lake of black, oily seawater covered most of the key equipment. Every time the boat wallowed in the stormy seas up above, water would roll across the room and crash into us, making us grab something to keep from being knocked off our feet.

I looked at John. I wanted to tell him, 'we can't possibly do this. We've got to get out of here before it sinks and takes us with it.' But the determined look on his face told me that he didn't want to give up that easily. Behind me, I could hear the Caterpillar engine rumbling, half submerged but still running strong. I suddenly found confidence in the steady drone of that engine. I could feel it saying, 'Let's get it done boys. I'll keep the lights on and stay running as long as you need me.'

John looked at me expectantly. "It's either this or grab your life jacket," he said.

"Okay," I said, "I can't swim that well anyway. Let's do it." I waded across to the auxiliary pump, stepping where I could see a rib or other solid footing since the deck plates had washed away.

With the engine in slow ahead, Mar had begun to wallow like a drunken sailor. John told me he was pretty worried about the way the shifting water caused the boat to heel over each time she rolled. And each time she seemed to take a little longer to right herself. I had read enough from the ship's library to know that we were in danger of flipping upside down if a big enough wave caught us heeled over like that. If that happened, if we turned turtle, we would sink like a stone and John and I would have no chance of escape.

I thought about the hole I plugged. Angie was, I hoped, keeping an eye on it. But how could we be sure that it was the only hole? Maybe the anchor had punched several holes, maybe in places we couldn't even see. We were taking an awful gamble.

With trembling fingers I took the screw driver from John and started to work. John's hands were so oily from being in the engine room, that he decided that I should do the disassembly. He stood by to hold the screws and parts. As I carefully loosened each screw, I couldn't help but think about all those times working on my car that I had dropped the one of a kind bolt or screw into some dark recess of the engine compartment, never to be found again. And that was in the best of conditions. With tons of water buffeting us first one way, then another, I was afraid that dropping even one screw might mean the loss of the boat - maybe even our lives.

One at a time, each screw came out. Each time I carefully stopped short of totally removing it. Grabbing the screwdriver with my teeth, I turned the last few threads by hand and then carefully handed the tiny part to John. One at a time, five screws in all, we repeated the performance.

Finally we had the cover off. Crammed inside, we found a bewildering collection of junk. Quickly, we removed the impeller and the garbage that blocked its movement, and then replaced the impeller and its cover, carefully returning each screw to its place. When we had finished, John grabbed the hand crank and began to turn.

Hand-cranking the Yanmar was a sweaty, exhausting chore in the best of conditions. I guess John's adrenaline had hit its peak because he got the engine to fire on the first couple of turns of the crank. The little diesel exploded to life and we flashed each other a tired smile. Though I had purposefully avoided the engine room in the past for its loud, oily machinery, I was never so glad to hear that cantankerous Yanmar assault my eardrums.

But John still looked worried. "We've got to find the strainer for the intake or we'll be doing this again ten minutes from now." He waded aft and went down on his knees in the oily water, desperately groping for the intake hose. He soon found it, but still no filter. Then, sometimes submerged up to his neck in the terrible water, he settled for using his fingers as a filter. "You just keep that pump going, Blue," he said, "I'll keep the gunk out of the intake."

After a while, when it looked like the water level might actually be getting lower, I left my post at the pump and returned to the forward compartment to check on the plugged leak. Angie was at her post, mallet in hand, and the plug looked solid.

For the next several hours we assisted the pump by passing buckets of water up out of the engine room and forward compartments and emptying them on deck. Angie and Angela were a tremendous help though it was back breaking work.

Over and over again the pump would suck in some piece of gunk and the impeller would freeze up. While we disassembled it, more water would seep in, probably through weakened seams in the hull. Intermittent pumping combined with our bucket brigades eventually removed much of the water.

Just about daybreak, the Yanmar suffered a fouled injector and quit pumping. Our best efforts failed to bring it back to life. Thankfully, the wonderful little diesel waited until we were out of danger to quit for good. I had gained a whole new respect for things mechanical.

At daybreak, the Captain altered our course to reach the nearest port, which was the island of Malta off the southern coast of Sicily. All that day we bailed. Thirty minutes out of every hour we passed buckets to the women on deck. Sometimes, more of the water poured back on our heads than ended up over the side. Still, with no working pump, we had few options.

Around sunset that same day, our third at sea, we sighted the ancient battlements of Valletta, Malta's main port city. It was a wonderful sight. Once we were safely side on to the quay, we put out a call to the harbor master for a portable pump and the local fire department responded with enthusiasm. Fortunately, we found that once the boat was lying quietly beside the quay, the leaking seemed to abate anyway. Good thing. All of us were too exhausted to do anything more than collapse wherever we were standing; too tired even to find our bunks.

During the coming long weeks in dry dock, we would have lots of time for rest. Mar would eventually be made seaworthy again with seven new larch planks replacing the damaged ones in her hull. It gave us a lot of time for reflecting upon our near-disaster. We had found ourselves in a very dangerous predicament because of carelessness and inexperience. Obviously, not enough time was spent making sure Mar was in proper shape for cruising.

Our disaster started when John left the dogs off the anchor chain. Those claw like attachments, together with the friction brake on the winch, prevented the anchor from coming loose during heavy weather. In addition, John had not tightened the friction brake, which left the entire weight of the anchor resting on the clutch mechanism. As Mar plunged into each successive trough, the anchor was repeatedly lifted and dropped. Each time the anchor dropped, a little more chain played out. After two days and nights of that action, the anchor had run out a considerable length of chain and had begun to swing like a pendulum. Then, each time the anchor swung on its length of chain, the fluke of the big Danforth would pound against the hull. We never heard the hammering action as it was lost in the constant pounding of the bow, hour after hour into the heavy seas. In addition to repeatedly hammering the spot that eventually became our major leak, the anchor had peppered the entire starboard side with blows, which contributed to a general weakening of the seams and made it nearly impossible to keep the water out while we were under way.

In retrospect, we probably should have abandoned ship when we saw that the main engine bilge pump didn't work. To our credit, we did carry an inflatable life raft, a rubber Avon with a

nine horsepower motor, and a Boston Whaler with a twenty-five horsepower motor. All three were fairly easily launched and the captain had taken the trouble to break out the life jackets in case we had to go. But we were one hundred miles from the nearest land when the accident happened, a long way to go in a small open boat. It might have been the smartest thing to do, but I'm just glad we didn't have to try.

in late summer of 1974, just a few months short of my twenty-fifth birthday, I decided that my life needed to go in a new direction. Even though I had just spent the last thirteen months living an adventure many people would envy, I had begun to grow restless, to feel unproductive. I longed for a change of scene and a new challenge.

I had spent an exciting year working for entrepreneur and fledgling film-maker, Chuck Tobias, aboard his sixty foot yacht, Mar. For two summers, we had sailed the ancient waters of the Mediterranean in search of shooting locations for his documentary film, 'The Way of the Wind.' I and my best friend, John Riise, served as both film crew and boat crew on the voyage, which meant that when we weren't painting, varnishing, and keeping the machinery running, we were lugging the heavy camera equipment around.

But even though movie-making amongst the fabled islands and cities of Italy, Greece and Turkey was nothing short of incredible, I found myself growing tired of seldom having any creative input into the process. Captain Tobias literally 'called all the shots.' I needed to do something that would allow me to make some creative decisions.

So it was, that when shooting came to a close that summer of 1974, I told Captain Tobias that I would be moving on.

After flying back to California from the island of Malta, by way of London and Toronto, I picked up my car in Altadena, and set out for my parents' home in Carson City, Nevada. As I rolled out of the L.A. basin, headed north on Highways 14 and 395, I found myself feeling a little nervous about living, even for a short time, in the quiet isolation of northern Nevada. For most of my life, I'd been a city boy. I grew up in Los Angeles County, and spent my navy tour in the dynamic cities of Chicago, Memphis, and Philadelphia.

But my financial condition left me very little choice. Captain Tobias had paid us only $50.00 a month for crewing his yacht and working on his film, which meant I put virtually no money aside. I had to find a place to live cheaply until I could earn enough money to set off on a new adventure. And that meant living with Mom and Dad in Carson City.

I planned to get a job working in a grocery store. Though I hadn't done that kind of work since I quit to become a full-time student at UCSB in December of 1972, I felt that my status as a journeyman clerk would make it easy for me to find a nice position at one of Carson City's stores.

I arrived in town on the Friday before the Labor Day weekend that year. Not wanting to waste any time, I went immediately to the local employment office and asked about available grocery clerk jobs.

"Sorry," the woman behind the desk said, after she had consulted her job listings book for some minutes. "There doesn't appear to be any job openings just now for a grocery clerk."

I couldn't believe my ears. I knew Carson City only had two or three markets, but no grocery clerk jobs at all?

"Do you have any other skills?" the woman asked.

Deciding that my skills in crewing a sixty-foot yacht might impress few employers in landlocked Nevada, I said, "No, grocery work is all I've ever done."

Looking perplexed, she began to page through her book of job listings again. Finally she stopped at one page and appeared to be reading. Then she looked up. "Do you know how to type?"

"Yeeeeeah," I said tentatively. "I worked as a clerk typist in the Navy."

"Okay," she said. "Why don't you go see Jim Austin over at Sierra Nevada Printing?" She scribbled an address on a square of paper and slid it across the desk to me. "He's looking for someone who can type."

It would be all right I told myself as I walked out to the car. After all, I only needed the job for six months or so. And, I did have that couple of semesters of print shop experience in junior and senior high schools. Piece of cake, I decided.

When I got to Sierra Nevada Printing, I found a friendly-looking, gray-haired guy leaning on the front counter (photo right), an old tobacco-stained pipe stuck in his teeth. He looked up from his paperwork when I came through the door and a big smile spread across his face. "Good morning," he said.

"Are you Jim Austin?" I asked.

"That's me," he said. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm here about the job," I said. "The lady at the employment office said you needed someone who could type."

"Well, yes," he said, "among other things. How much printing experience do you have?"

"Not much, I'm afraid," I said. "A couple of printing classes in school. But I can type forty or fifty words a minute."

Jim frowned. "But what do you know about paste-up and lithographic camera work?"

I shook my head. "Nothing. I've spent most of my working career as a grocery clerk."

Jim grimaced. "Well, I don't know," he said. "Knowing how to type is just a small part of this job."

I thought about how the lady at the employment office had been unable to find anything else for me in her book. I really needed a job if I didn't want to be stuck in Carson City indefinitely. "Listen," I said. "I can learn anything. And quick. Why don't you give me a try."

Jim grabbed a book of paper matches off the counter top, struck one, held it over his pipe, and commenced to puff, a thoughtful look on his face. Twenty or thirty seconds later, he took the pipe out of his mouth and said, "Okay, I'll give you a try. No one else has applied anyway."

And that's how I got into the printing business.

It turned out that I would be replacing their paste-up artist, Tonda Bruce, who had also decided to move onto greener pastures. Tonda's job involved producing everything needed for the printing process prior to the printing press. In other words, she typed copy, pasted up that copy with other art work, shot the paste-up in the camera room to make a negative, stripped the negative into a rectangular piece of opaque paper, then placed the stripped negative into a manila envelope and gave it to the printing pressmen.

When she learned that Jim had offered me $2.50 an hour to do the job, she was livid. He'd only been paying her $2.00. Still, Tonda didn't seem to mind teaching me her job. We got along pretty well. In a very short two weeks, she'd taught me everything she could. And after that, I was on my own.

As it turned out, I liked my new job a lot. Most design work was left completely up to me. Sometimes customers knew exactly what they wanted. But most of the time they hoped that I would come up with a design that would be attractive and would fulfill their needs.

I designed everything from business cards to boxing posters, from sales flyers to campaign literature, and from multicolored brochures to multi-paged pamphlets. I produced menu designs for many local restaurants, including Doug's West Indies, La Table Francais, and Adele's. And, for many years, I did much of the printing design for the Ormsby House and the Carson Nugget.

I very quickly discovered that I had a natural talent for paste-up and design. And, since my co-workers were basically all printing pressmen, I had almost total control over the creative process. Since I had never done well in situations where other people told me what to do, I found the paste-artist job absolutely perfect for me.

My six-month target date quietly came and went. Though I wasn't making much money, I loved the job. It turned out that my print-shop training in junior and senior high school had taught me all the print shop basics I needed. I even remembered how to handset type using the print shop's old wooden type cases that dated back to the turn of the century and earlier.

Ultimately, I worked for Sierra Nevada Printing for nine years, though I left for a six month sabbatical in December of 1975 when the call of adventure grew too strong. That spring of 1976, I tried living in Long Beach, California, and working once again in the film industry.

But I guess the printing business didn't want to let me go. While eating at Bob's Big Boy restaurant in Long Beach one day, I ran into an old fraternity brother of mine, on vacation from his job at Carlise Printing in Reno. Hearing that I wasn't making much money in the film business, he offered to help me get a job with his employer in Reno.

That's all I needed to hear. In July of 1976, I packed the car once more and headed back to the high desert. Coincidentally, on the very day I arrived in Carson City, I discovered that Jim Austin had left an urgent message for me at Mom and Dad's.

'Please come back to work,' the message said, 'and we'll double your salary.'

Wow, five dollars! That sounded like an offer I couldn't refuse.

So, I went back to work for Sierra Nevada Printing, where I happily stayed for another seven years. By the end of my time there, in addition to my other duties, I'd also taken on the job of Production Manager. We employed nine people by then, and turned out more quality printing than any other shop in town.

Eventually, in August of 1983, I left the printing business for the last time and went to work for the State of Nevada. But I missed it terribly sometimes. The money wasn't very good, and the benefits practically nonexistent, but of all the jobs I've ever had, in all the corners of the world, working at Sierra Nevada Printing easily tops my list for being the most challenging as well as the most artistically rewarding.

Thanks, Jim Austin, for giving me a chance.

As young people, I think many of us tend to live life as close to the edge of danger as we dare. Sometimes we pay dearly for the privilege. But most of the time we seem to survive our adventurous years in one piece, despite the occasional close call. I know I've had my share of narrow escapes, including a near-sinking in the storm-tossed Mediterranean Sea when our boat's anchor broke loose and smashed its way through the hull in the middle of the night. Though few of such encounters with the Fates are funny at the time, they often gain humor in the retelling.

One such humorous close call happened to me in the sandy foothills east of Carson City. When I first moved to town and was working for Sierra Nevada Printing as a paste-up artist, I often spent my lunch hours in my little orange Datsun 510 sedan exploring the many dirt roads that seemed to meander aimlessly through the surrounding desert playas, foothills and canyons. Though the Datsun was only a two-wheel-drive car, it always proved itself a sure-footed, nimble automobile whether on the highway or off-road. Because of its dependable nature, I felt comfortable taking it anywhere.

Once, while plowing my way through a foot or more of snow on the old Kings Canyon stage road west of town, I came around a corner and encountered a four-wheel-drive Cherokee stuck in the snow. As I approached, I saw that the driver and his passengers were busily trying to dig the vehicle out of a drift. Miraculously, the Datsun had navigated the deep snow with ease. However, encountering the impromptu road block meant I had to stop and back down the narrow snowy road until I could find a place wide enough to turn around. Still, I had no difficulty getting back to civilization that day.

Then one lunch hour in 1974, I decided to explore the sage-covered foothills on the east side of town above Edmunds Drive. Today there are dozens of houses there, but in 1974 it was mostly sand and sage. I had started along a dirt road heading south and was soon enjoying the roller-coaster effect of the undulating track through the desert.

After a few moments, however, I noticed that the further south I drove, the deeper the sand seemed to become. Though the Datsun had never stranded me, I began to worry about getting stuck so far off the paved highway. When I noticed a clearing coming up on my left, I made the decision to turn around and head back the way I had come. I pulled up just beyond the clearing and stopped. Then I shifted the car into reverse and backed uphill into the open space-- and promptly buried the car to the rear axle in the soft sand.

Frantically, I threw the gear shift into low and gunned the engine. The rear tires spun wildly, sending up plumes of dust. But when I finally backed off the accelerator, I could see that I had not moved an inch. I had only succeeded in burying the car still further. Undaunted, I spent several minutes alternating between first gear and reverse trying to rock the car out of the hole, but to no avail.

A little discouraged, I turned off the engine and got out to survey the problem. My efforts to extricate the Datsun from the sand had actually made my situation worse, as now the car occupied a hole big enough in which to plant a good-sized tree. Its rear bumper had sunk nearly to the level of the desert floor. I turned and gazed back toward town. Nothing appeared to be moving as far as I could see except the eternal sage swaying in the afternoon breeze. No other vehicles in sight. With the engine off, I found the quiet unnerving. I looked at my watch. Half of my lunch hour had already passed. I had less than thirty minutes to get back to work. What to do?

Briefly, I considered leaving the car and walking back, though I suspected vehicles abandoned in the desert were probably soon stripped. Then, I had an idea. Maybe I could rock the car out of the hole myself? I put the gear shift in neutral and then moved around to the rear of the car again. Crouching down, I bent my knees, put my back against the trunk lid, and grabbed the bumper with both hands. Then I began to flex my legs and rock the thankfully small car back and forth. Each time I rocked, it would come a little closer to climbing out of the hole. Over and over I would thrust outward with my legs as hard as I could and the car would climb to the edge of the hole. And each time its momentum would fail to carry it over the top and it would roll back down again.

Finally, my strength waning, I gave the car one more tremendous push. To my delight, the Datsun crested the top of the hole and didn't fall back toward me. I was nearly delirious with joy - for about two seconds. Released from its prison in the sand, and without the parking brake to restrain it, the car immediately took off down the hill, picking up speed as it went. Like a horse that immediately heads back to the barn after throwing its rider, the car dashed across the road and bounded down through the thick stands of sagebrush in the direction of town.

A second or two before, I had been sure that I'd be stuck out there in the desert for hours. Now, as I watched the retreating Datsun flatten a desert peach in its headlong dash, I realized that I'd be lucky if I caught up to the car before it tumbled into some arroyo and smashed itself to bits. "Shit," I said to no one in particular, and took off in hot pursuit.

Fortunately, running as fast as I could, I managed to catch up to the fleeing vehicle about fifty yards downslope. Leaping sagebrush with every other stride, I lunged at the door post, grabbed it, and held on. Then, I spent several anxious moments half running, half being dragged alongside. Finally, I managed to wrench open the door, throw myself into the front seat, and positioned myself behind the wheel, too exhausted for a time to do anything but hang on.

And then, just to prove that miracles sometimes happen when no one is around to see, another dirt road suddenly appeared just ahead of me running at right angles to my line of travel. With renewed strength, I wrenched the wheel hard right and skidded the errant Datsun onto this savior of a road. I didn't even stop to start the engine, but threw the gear shift into second, popped the clutch, and cheered as the little four-banger sprang to life.

Moments later, I pulled into the print shop parking lot right on time. I hadn't missed a single minute of work. Though I quickly began to see the humor in the experience once my heart quit pounding, I never related the story to anyone. Of course, the Datsun's scratched orange paint bore silent witness for the remainder of its days. Like most such incidents on the road of life, I was content to know that by the skin of my teeth, and with not a minute to spare, I had tempted fate and won.

"Cut," Director/Cameraman, Mike Dugan yelled and for the forth time that morning and the love scene between the handsome cowboy and his pretty female co-star ground to a halt.

I sighed and lowered the sound boom. Motion picture work sure could be boring. The actors' dialogue might eventually sound romantic on the big screen, but when you stood behind the camera and watched the same 'tender' love scene done over and over again, it just made you want to gag.

"Okay, Mike said, let's take it from the top." He nodded at me, then stooped to look through the viewfinder of his rented movie camera.

That was my cue to hoist the heavy sound boom above the actors' heads again and wait for Mike to tell me when he could see the tip of the boom in the frame. Once he signaled me that it was visible, I was supposed to pull it back just a bit. The idea was to keep the boom as close to the action as possible without having it appear in the final footage.

"Quiet on the set," Mike said. "Rolling."

At that point, one of Mike's assistants stepped in front of the actors holding a two-piece slate on which he had chalked, 'Love Scene, Take Five.' He lifted the top half of the slate, then snapped it shut. The clacking sound would later provide the necessary reference point so the film editor would be able to synchronize the film and the sound track.

"Action," Mike said.

A few seconds later the male lead stumbled over yet another of his lines and Mike threw up his hands in disgust. "Cut," he said, through clenched teeth. He stood there looking tight-lipped and angry for a second or two. Finally, he said, "Okay, everyone take fifteen."

Wonderful idea, I thought. I put down the sound gear and found a nearby log to sit and rest my back against. It had been nearly two years since I'd worked in the movie business and I'd forgotten just how long the days could get. The way things were going, we'd be lucky to finish the love scene by lunchtime. I pulled the brim of my hat low, closed my eyes, and let my mind drift back to when I'd first stumbled into the movie business.

It happened in the summer of 1973. I had spent the previous six months attending college classes at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Though the campus took my breath away with its beauty, and I liked most of my classes, I had trouble focusing on my studies. For the second time in my college career, I had begun to feel restless, in need of adventure.

As the spring quarter neared its end, I decided to follow in the footsteps of many of my generation and take a backpacking trip to Europe for the summer. I'd never been to Europe, but it sounded like the perfect place to spend some time, live close to nature, and do some thinking about my future.

Since going on such a trip by myself didn't sound attractive, I asked my best friend John Riise to go along. At first, he resisted. But eventually he agreed when I told him that I'd do all the necessary footwork to make the trip possible. I even promised to loan him money if he came up short.

So, when I finished the spring quarter, I loaded all my possessions into my tiny Datsun 510 sedan and drove to Carson City to visit my parents. There I hoped to store my car and my belongings while John and I traveled to Europe. Everything looked like a go.

But just after I arrived in Carson City, John called. Knowing that he hadn't been totally sold on the trip, I held my breath when I answered the phone. Sure enough, to my disappointment, John wanted to suggest a change in plans. But my disappointment changed to amazement when John told me that he'd been contacted by a friend of his dad's, a film maker who was shooting a documentary about sailing in the Mediterranean. The film maker wanted John to come work for him for the summer. When John said that he already had plans to go to Europe with me, the film maker said, "If you'll take the job, you can bring your friend along."

And that, simply, is how I ended up in the movie business. Before I knew what had happened, I was in New York City boarding a 747 headed for London. From London we flew to the island of Majorca in the western Mediterranean. It was like a dream come true.

Soon, John and I were plying the ancient waters of the Mediterranean aboard a sixty-foot yacht, serving as both camera crew and boat crew. Our time was more or less equally divided between maintaining the boat and shooting the documentary. We painted and varnished and sanded and caulked and a million other tasks to keep the boat in top shape. And, when we weren't maintaining the boat, we were lugging camera equipment through the narrow and crowded streets of some ancient city.

Even though all the work proved to be difficult, and the pay a meager $50.00 a month, neither John nor I complained. We knew that most of our peer group would have killed for such an opportunity. But glamorous as it sounds, the job was not without its hazards. My very first experience with film making resulted in a personal disaster.

We had anchored off the island of Monte Cristo and had come ashore in our small rubber dingy to do some shooting on the beach. The island is privately owned, so you can't go inland, but the Captain still wanted to visit and shoot a few feet of film. When we had finished shooting, we loaded up our equipment and headed back to our boat, the Mar. When we pulled alongside Mar, John and the Captain climbed out of the dingy and I remained behind to hand up the equipment. Evidently, they hadn't tied off the dingy firmly enough, for as I tried to pass the heavy tripod, the little boat suddenly swung away. As the gap between the two boats widened, I was thrown off balance and a second later, I and the tripod ended up in the bay. It wouldn't have been so bad, but I was wearing my expensive 35-mm Canon camera around my neck at the time.

Being part of a camera crew can be exhausting. I learned this the hard way when we reached the Greek island of Santorini. Santorini, a town perched on the edge of an extinct volcano, is accessed by steps carved into the solid rock of the cliff face. These steps climb nearly a thousand feet from the harbor to the city above. One can take the steps on foot, but many tourists like to rent a little donkey and ride to the top.

Naturally, the Captain wanted to be filmed riding one of the little donkeys. This would have been no problem if we could have stopped the donkey long enough to allow us to hike up the steps a hundred yards and set up the equipment for the next shot. But no, this particular donkey, being Greek, didn't respond to the English command of, 'whoa.' Once he started his journey, he didn't intend to stop until he reached the top. This meant that John and I had to set up the camera, film the Captain riding by, then grab the camera and tripod and race ahead of the donkey so we could set up again further up the mountain. After several takes, we were nearly exhausted. When we finally reached the top, John and I collapsed next to the equipment, unable to move. Pretty funny, I'm sure, at least to all the tourists and Greek natives who watched our performance.

And film work can be humorous. At one point the Captain decided that he wanted to be able to film the boat under weigh. So, he had a long steel boom constructed out of two pieces of three-inch pipe. A small steel seat and footrest were welded to the end of one pipe. When bolted together and attached to the side of the boat, the boom extended some twenty feet from Mar's side. It looked something like the outriggers you see on fishing boats. The Captain intended to climb out on the end of the boom, sit in the seat facing the boat, and film us as we worked around the deck. It sounded good, anyway.

We tested the boom in port and it worked perfectly. But none of us thought about the movement of the boat under weigh. Once out at sea, each time we rolled with the swell, the end of the boom came uncomfortably close to the water. And when the Captain got out there, he immediately discovered that his additional weight caused the end of the boom to actually become submerged with each roll of the boat. Undaunted, he went about his filming as if nothing unusual was happening, though he often had seawater up to his waist.

On the boat, John and I could hardly contain our merriment. The Captain wasn't always the easiest person to get along with. Seeing him being dunked every few seconds gave us pure joy. Still, I have to hand it to him. He managed to get his footage and didn't lose the movie camera, or even get it wet, though it wasn't protected from the elements in any way.

In fact, we had only one minor mishap, when the Captain asked us to toss him some film. Naturally, he missed catching the film. It landed a few inches from him and promptly sank from sight. Then, John had to shimmy out along the pole with more film (that's John in photo left foreground).

In retrospect, I wish John and I would have set up another camera to film the Captain's valiant pole-sitting, film-making efforts. Our footage would have been much more exciting - not to mention funny - than what Chuck ultimately shot from out there on the end of the boom.

The part I liked best about film-making was visiting the islands and cities of Italy, Greece and Tukey where ancient history is so much a part of everyday life. Once, when filming on the Greek island of Delos, we used two-thousand year old amphorae, or clay jugs, as props, as they were just lying there on the ground (photo right). As the camera rolled, we lowered our modern yellow plastic bucket into the same underground cisterns continuously used by the Greeks for nearly five thousand years. After pulling up our bucket of water, we poured the contents into the ancient Greek jugs.

Another time, on the island of Rhodes, John and I explored the catacombs that lie within the ancient walls of the city. Still strewn around the dimly-lit chambers of these catacombs are the huge stone catapult balls left over from when the Ottoman Turk, Suleiman the Magnificent lay a siege to the city in 1522.

That summer of filming turned into a second summer when the Captain offered to let John and I live aboard the boat for the intervening winter. He needed someone to live aboard Mar and keep up the maintenance while he flew back to the states in search of more funding for his venture. John and I jumped at the chance to have the boat to ourselves.

Six months later, the Captain returned and once again we set out across the blue waters of the Mediterranean in search of film locations. By this time, though, my infatuation with the film business had begun to wane. I sensed that John felt the same. I think that both of us realized during our winter solitude aboard Mar that we had grown tired of the Captain's capricious, even hot-headed nature. We began talking about going home.

Sensing that John and I had begun to chaff a bit in our arrangement, the Captain came to us one day and promised - in writing - that if the documentary became a regular TV series, he'd cut us in for a piece of the action. At the time, I didn't realize that he had just made us the standard Hollywood offer, which is a sort of a carrot to keep you working for sometimes low, sometimes non-existent wages on projects that might not pay off for years, if ever.

So, John and I worked the second summer, though we didn't have quite as good a time as we did the first. Still, we had some wonderful adventures. When we finished shooting the second summer, I decided that I had had enough of the movie business and was going home. A few days later I was back in Carson City, living with my parents, and wondering if I had made the right choice.

Months later, John and the Captain arrived back in the states with Mar, having sailed across the Atlantic, the Carribean, and through the Panama Canal. Though the movie was basically in the can before we left the Mediterranean, John told me they shot some additional footage on the Atlantic voyage.

But by then, I was caught up in a new career in the printing business, though I only planned to stay in Carson City long enough to earn money for a new adventure. Eighteen months later, I'd had had enough of the rural life and packed my car and headed for the L.A. basin where John was living in Long Beach with another of our friends. They said they had a bedroom open if I wanted to live with them.

And that's where the film business found me again. The second-unit cameraman on Jaws, Lucky Lady, and the Poseidon Adventure was a friend of new my roommate, Dennis. Since he and John already had jobs and I didn't, the cameraman, Mike Dugan saw me as ready-made assistant.

So, for the next six months I worked as his equipment-schlepper, set builder and general gopher doing whatever job needed doing. Though he never seemed to have much in the way of money to give me, I didn't mind. He was making a Western and promised to cut me in on the eventual profits. Sound familiar? To sweeten the pot, Mike further promised that he would arrange admittance for me into the prestigious cinematographers union, a group that supposedly accepted less than a dozen candidates a year.

My first job was to build a saloon. Now all I knew about saloons I'd seen on Gunsmoke. But nevertheless, we threw ourselves into building a saloon, complete with a bar, tables and chairs, and a staircase that went absolutely nowhere. Mike was too poor to afford a real saloon set, so we erected our saloon in a mini-warehouse using modern wood paneling.

It was for this western that I had been pressed into service as sound man when we went out to the desert to shoot our outdoor scenes. The sound man didn't show up. I suspect now that he either never existed, or Mike had simply offered him too little for the shoot.

"Okay," Mike yelled, "Let's go everybody. We got a movie to make here."

With a sigh, I dragged myself to my feet and readied my sound equipment for yet another take of the now tired-sounding love scene. Then, as I lowered the sound boom above the actor's heads and waited for Duggan to signal me, I found myself thinking that the movie business would never be my cup of tea. My future almost certainly lay in a different direction.

When Mike and I finally got to a Hollywood studio to view our dailies for the desert shoot, he discovered that, despite his expert direction, I had somehow allowed the tip of my sound boom to enter the top of a number of the scenes. This was a cardinal sin. I don't think I have ever seen someone get so mad. He nearly levitated off his seat. Still, he didn't seem to take it out on me and our business relationship continued as before. But that incident in the studio reminded me just how little I enjoyed working with movie people. That, and the fact that I was running out of money, caused me to begin to think about seeking out a more permanent career.

But when Mike suggested that he had been thinking about shooting a WWII film and wanted to go to Costa Rica to scout locations, I dutifully went and got my shots and prepared to go, though I really wasn't happy about it. Mike's personality was so volatile that I wondered if he might get us in some scrape down in Central America and I'd end up in jail or worse.

At that critical juncture I ran into an old fraternity brother of mine in the Long Beach Bob's Big Boy restaurant. Coincidentally, he too had been working as a printer and was living, of all places, in Reno, Nevada. "Why don't you come back to Nevada and I'll get you another job in the printing business," he asked, when he learned of my situation.

Though it didn't sound like much of an adventure, I decided to take him up on it. If nothing else, it would get me away from Mike Dugan and the film business and would furnish some money so that someday I could do something more exiting. Once again, I packed the little Datsun and headed back to Carson City.

Little did I know that I would never make it to that Reno printing job. In fact, I would never make it out of Carson City. When I arrived at my parents' home, a message was waiting from my old Carson City print-shop boss. It said that if I came back to work he'd double my salary. Well, you know what they say about a bird in the hand. I went right down there the next day and went back to work.

But I never earned enough money to leave on another adventure. You see, just a few days later, I met Concetta while washing my clothes at the local Laundromat and adventure took on a whole knew meaning for me. Some day I'll tell you about that.

One summer Saturday in 1976, the earth changed its orbit, ever so slightly, just for me. It happened at the local Laundromat, and all these years later, I'm still enjoying the effects.

The story actually began the previous Saturday. On that day, I had decided to find a new place to do my laundry, since my old Laundromat had begun to attract a rather nefarious-looking clientele.

I had cruised the main streets of town until I found a likely candidate for my new laundry allegiance. The site I chose adjoined a thriving grocery store. The ultra-public setting seemed to ensure that I wouldn't be mugged for my bulging pocket of quarters. I unloaded my soiled duds, and with renewed enthusiasm, walked boldly through the front door.

Once inside, I stopped. Not only did I find no scruffy-looking characters in residence, I found no one at all in residence. Nothing greeted me but stark-white, humming appliances ringed by a veritable coral-reef of orange plastic chairs.

I decided that patrons probably deposited their laundry in the washers and then left to do their grocery shopping next door. Jubilantly, I staked out a pair of machines of my own. I threw all the nearly-white things in one pile, and the mostly-non-white things in another and inserted my quarters. Then, contented, I sat back to enjoy some quiet reading.

A few minutes later, a very pretty young woman came in and began to sort her laundry into several nearby machines. Once she had deposited her quarters and the machines began to hum, she came over and sat quite near me on the orange reef-chairs. I stole a glance at her, then quickly went back to staring at my magazine. Several times she glanced at me - I saw her out of the corner of my eye - but then she quickly looked away. I desperately wanted to say something to her - say anything to her - but the words just wouldn't come. My stomach churned in precise imitation of the washing machines a few feet away.

And then I heard the familiar voices.

"It's just you two in this whole darn Laundromat you idiot," the wild and crazy side of my personality said.

"Yes, but, someone might come in any minute and hear me making a complete fool of myself," the introverted side replied.

"So, what?" Mr. Extrovert spat. "They probably all have girlfriends. Probably more than one."

"I just can't," Mr. Introvert whispered.

"Fine, stay celibate for life you wuss," Mr. Extrovert said. "I'm going back to the apartment."

Alas, I had reached the Kyber Pass of my social life and failed. For the next two hours I sat casting furtive glances in her direction, but keeping completely silent. Through the wash cycle and into the dryer routine I remained immobile, unwilling to put my future on the line.

Mr. Extrovert had abandoned me.

Mr. Introvert had won. Two years of girlfriendless life in Carson City had not broken his resolve.

All too soon, her laundry neatly folded, the young woman gave me a sad smile and left.

Devastation set in immediately. All the way home, I chastised myself for letting a wonderful opportunity slip through my fingers. Over my TV-dinner that night I promised myself: If I ever saw that girl again in the laundromat, or, indeed, if I saw any seemingly unattached girl in the laundromat, I would speak to her even if it killed me.

You may not know it, but a Laundromat exists as just about the best place in the world to find a girlfriend. One can tell volumes about a female from her laundry. For instance, if she's not folding pairs of extra-large blue jeans and lumberjack-style flannel shirts, you may assume that she has no boyfriend. Very few boyfriends can resist the temptation to unload their dirty laundry on their girlfriends. Let's face it, most guys just hate doing laundry. And, should they try to do their own, they most often display their lack of talent in this area by throwing everything into one machine, thereby rendering all their clothes a sad sickly shade of gray reminiscent of the shroud of Turin.

I once had a roommate in the Navy who so feared this laundry process that he never washed anything white, claiming to prefer the universal yellow that his white clothes eventually adopted.

On rare occasions you may find a situation where your quarry has a boyfriend, but you can't sense his presence because he does his own laundry. Don't despair. This couple obviously hasn't reached that stage of laundry intimacy that might keep you from stealing her away from him.

Does she have children? An elderly mother she's taking care of? The laundry never lies.

So, as you can see, the Laundromat is the perfect medium for learning a potential girlfriend's availability. Furthermore, because the wash/dry cycle encompasses at least two hours, you can review her qualifications at your leisure. But, I digress.

The very next weekend, armed with my new philosophy, I sallied forth to do my laundry. Deja Vu. Once again, I found the Laundromat vacant. Incredibly, just as before, a pretty young woman soon arrived with a load of laundry and chose several machines quite near me. For the next several minutes we worked alone at our respective tasks, not saying a word. Whenever I thought she wouldn't notice, I studied her. She appeared very Mediterranean. Brown eyes. Dark brown hair. Creamy olive skin. Full lips. The stuff dreams are made of.

Two years before, my travels had taken me to the Mediterranean. For over a year I visited Spain, Italy, and the islands of Greece. During that time, I saw many such young women, usually accompanied by several of their formidable older brothers. Needless to say, I was forced to appreciate them from afar.

Now, one of these beautiful, mysterious Mediterranean women stood silently top-loading a nearby washing machine. I watched enthralled as she fed in miniature levis, miniature shirts and, into another machine, a collection of intimate, frilly items.

My heart voted for an immediate melt-down. The trumpets of heaven sounded gleefully in my ears. One child. No boyfriend. Oh, happy day! I was being given another chance.

Sweeping up every ounce of courage I possessed, I moved closer and nonchalantly leaned against the machine next to her's. I vividly remember the first words that I spoke to this exotic creature. As suavely as I could manage, I said, "Um, are you Greek?"

She turned to me, smiled, and said, "No, Italian."

I melted to the floor amongst the scattered soap particles and lint balls. It was as if a chorus of angels had answered me back. Though I don't remember what we talked about for the next two hours, I think I actually managed to carry on an intelligent conversation, for by the time we had finished our laundry, we had agreed to meet for a drink that evening. As we parted, I said, inanely, "well, maybe we'll hit it off and maybe we won't."

Oh, NO! Did that sound dumb or what?

Not too dumb, I guess. That evening Concetta and I danced, we walked in the park and we parted with a kiss. She confessed later that my 'maybe we'll hit it off and maybe we won't' comment in the Laundromat had so intrigued her, she felt compelled to make sure that we did hit it off. Lucky for me. I could have missed the girl of my dreams if I'd listened to Mr. Introvert.

By the way, if you hear from him, tell him I'm doing fine.

"You know, "my wife, Concetta said, "if it hadn't been for Governor Mike O'Callaghan, we might never have met."

I stopped typing on my laptop computer and looked up. Concetta stood at our hotel room mirror putting on her makeup. "And how's that?" I asked, knowing that in just a few minutes we would be attending the ex Governor's Las Vegas funeral.

"He's the one who asked me to move to Carson City."

That sounded like prime memoirs class material to me. I canceled out of the document I'd been typing and brought up a fresh page. "Okay," I said. "Tell me the story."

"Well, Mike O'Callaghan served two terms as governor of the State of Nevada, from 1970 to 1978. I worked in his Las Vegas office much of that time. But when the Governor's executive secretary, Jean Hanna Clark, died in January of 1976, he came to me and asked if I would be willing to transfer to Carson City."

"And that's when you became Chris Schaller's secretary?"

"Yes. Chris was Governor's Chief of Staff. Chris's secretary, Pearl Miller had left Chris to be the Governor's secretary and they wanted me to work for Chris."

"That's pretty incredible," I said. "Did you know that the same month the Governor asked you to come to Carson City, January of 1976, I had just packed my car with everything I owned and left Carson City for Los Angeles? We probably only missed each other by a few days."

It wasn't the first time that Fate had sent us in opposite directions.

In the mid 1960s, Concetta said goodbye to her family in Akron, Ohio, packed her bags, and headed for the golden west. She settled in Las Vegas, just a couple of hundred miles from where I grew up in Los Angeles County.

Our paths might have crossed, but she had a husband at the time. Besides, just a few years later, as a U.S. Naval Air Corp recruit, I packed my bags and headed in the opposite direction. Though I had picked antisubmarine warfare as my in-service speciality, the Navy had inexplicably assigned me to the Glenview Naval Air Station in, of all places, Chicago, Illinois. Though submarines turned out to be nonexistent in Lake Michigan, I would spend the next three years two thousand miles away from Las Vegas.

I imagine Fate laughed for weeks over that one.

When my tour of duty ended in 1972, I thought briefly about staying in Chicago. Even though I hated the weather there, I'd grown pretty fond of a shy Jewish girl from the near north side, and had recently been proposed to by a vivacious Italian girl from Arlington Heights. Still, I sensed that the west held the key to my future. I reluctantly decided to take my leave of both girls and head back to L.A.

Once again, Concetta and I lived within a couple of hundred miles of each other. She would soon be divorced and we might have gotten together, but just a year later, in the summer of 1973, I took off again. This time, I landed thousands of miles away in the Mediterranean where I had gotten a job working on a movie.

Fate really flexed its muscles that time.

But by the summer of 1974, I had returned to L.A. I would have liked to have stayed there, but a year of traveling had eaten up all my funds. I decided to go live temporarily with my parents in Carson City. I planned to spend no more than six months working in Carson, then take off on a new adventure.

This was the first time that Concetta and I actually lived in the same state. Who knows? We might have met. But that same summer that I moved to Nevada to live with my parents, Concetta quit her job with Governor O'Callaghan in Las Vegas and moved back to Ohio.

Once again, Fate had moved us a couple of thousand miles apart.

Fortunately for me, the call of the West proved too great. By the Fall of 1974, Concetta had returned to Las Vegas. Since Governor O'Callaghan didn't have a position open, he put her to work on his reelection campaign. Soon after, the secretary whom the Governor had hired to fill Concetta's old position was fired, and the Governor put her back in her old job. It was just a month or so later that he asked her to move to Carson City.

That same Fall of 1974, I had finally accumulated enough money for a new adventure, and by New Year's day of 1976, I had moved back to southern California.

And again, Fate had playfully sent Concetta and me in opposite directions.

For the next six months, Concetta lived and worked in Carson City. But by the summer of 1976, she had begun to realize that things weren't working out. After the excitement of living in Las Vegas, Concetta found living Carson City too quiet. She missed her friends, and especially her boyfriend.

By that same summer of 1976, I had begun to realize that I no longer enjoyed living in Los Angeles. I missed the blue skies and clean air of Northern Nevada. And I missed my friends and my job at the print shop.

Concetta decided to ask for a transfer back to the Las Vegas office.

I decided to head back to Carson City.

Then Concetta got a job offer from Sig Rogich of R&R Advertising in Las Vegas. He told her, if the Governor wouldn't transfer back to Las Vegas, he'd be happy to give her a job.

Fate was having a high old time.

Then, just days before Concetta intended to tell the Governor that she wanted to return to Las Vegas, she happened into a Laundromat next to Scolari's Market on Highway 50, a Laundromat where I had only the week before started doing my laundry. After years of moving in opposite directions, Concetta and I finally met. By the time we'd finished doing our laundry together, we'd made a date to go dancing. Later that night, after strolling amongst the midnight shadows of the old Capitol grounds, we sat on a bench beneath Governor O'Callaghan's office window, held hands, and fell in love.

It's nice to think that Concetta's beloved boss, the late Governor O'Callaghan brought us together. Of course, maybe Fate just decided to sleep late that day. Whatever the explanation, I do know that powerful forces had been at work. But no more. Ever since that magic night under the Governor's window, Concetta and I have happily set our course in the same direction.

Postscript: Governor O'Callaghan asked Concetta go come to Carson City after the death of his executive secretary, Jean Hanna Clark. Jean was the sole granddaughter of the famous naturalist, John Muir, the same John Muir for which my high school in Pasadena, California, had been named.

Perhaps my favorite job of the dozen or so I've had over the past forty years was with Sierra Nevada Printing in Carson City. Not counting a six month hiatus, during which I tried living and working in Long Beach, California, I spent a very happy nine years there, from August, 1974 to August, 1983. Though the pay was low, initially just a hundred dollars a week, my job at Sierra Nevada Printing challenged me as few have done before or since.

I loved the printing business for its fast pace, creative nature, and artistic challenge. But I especially loved Sierra Nevada Printing because the business had somehow maintained the aura of printing in a previous century. Intermixed with modern computer typesetting equipment were cabinet after cabinet of handset type once owned by the Nevada Appeal, a hundred-year-old remnant of a slower, simpler time. In the same room with modern photographic equipment sat an ancient Linotype which cast individual letters into column pieces using molten lead. And alongside the shiny new offset printing presses that could crank out thousands of copies an hour, sat several antique presses, one of which received its power via a long floppy leather drive belt, just as it had a hundred years before. An operator using this press inserted each individual piece of paper by hand, one at a time.

I was the design department. When a job came in, I would set copy on my IBM typesetter. Then, at my light table, I'd paste up the typed copy along with pieces of commercial artwork. When my design had been okayed by the customer, I'd photograph the paste-up in the darkroom to produce a negative, tape the dried negative onto a masking sheet, and put the sheet into a manila envelope for the printing pressman. He'd use the negative to burn an image onto a photo-sensitive metal plate which he would then fasten to his printing press. This plate would transfer an inked image to each individual piece of paper as it passed through the press.

In the front office, the boss, Jim Austin, had a sign which read, 'All Orders wanted for pickup yesterday must be placed by noon tomorrow.' In other words, customers usually wanted their jobs, if not yesterday, at least pretty darned quick. This meant I had to crank out jobs as fast I could.

The frenetic pace made it tough for me to go on vacation. The only way I could leave for a week or two was to ensure that every single job that had come in the front door was typeset, pasted up, photographed, and stripped up ready for printing before I left. That way, the pressmen would have a pile of jobs to work on while I was gone. I always lived in fear of finding them standing around with nothing to do when I returned.

Working with so many bits of paper everyday, in such a climate of haste, at first I found it easy to misplace things. The worst thing you could do was to misplace a customer's original artwork. Often, no other copy existed.

One such incident happened to me when I was just a fledgling paste-up artist. I had a job to do for a chemical company in Carson City. This chemical company needed to affix a sticky red label to all their products. Usually, the company used a previous label as their base artwork for a new label and simply glued changes to the old label's surface.

This particular time, a couple weeks had gone by and they hadn't heard from me. So they called to find out how I was doing on their job. To my horror, when I opened their job ticket, I found nothing inside. Not wanting to admit that I had lost their artwork, I told the person on the phone that I'd have to call them back. Then I launched a thorough search of my work area, but to no avail. The artwork was nowhere to be found.

Realizing that just the day before I had done a major cleanup in my area, I decided that I had somehow inadvertently thrown away their copy. No problem, I thought, I'd just go out to the dumpster and retrieve it. I reasoned that the bright red label with the prominent skull and crossbones should be easy to spot. And, even if I had to root around in the accumulated trash for the next hour, it would be better than admitting that I'd goofed up and lost their one-of-a-kind copy.

On my way to the door, I called to my co-workers, "Anyone know if the garbage truck has been here since yesterday afternoon?"

"Just left," Pete Blackmore, the offset pressman said.

"Maybe ten fifteen minutes ago," letter pressman, Steve Austin added.

"Ohhhhh, nooooo!" I wailed, and immediately took off running, praying that they were somehow mistaken. I dashed out the door and across the parking lot. When I got there, I threw open the steel lid with a resounding crash, boosted myself up on the edge of the cavernous green container, and peered inside.

"Darn," I said, or something like that. The trash company had indeed come and gone and now the dumpster was completely empty.

With a groan, I slid to the ground and was about to walk back to the shop when I stopped. Something nagged at my brain. Not knowing why, I turned back and boosted myself up on the edge again, and saw immediately what had failed to register the first time. There, literally stuck to the side of the dumpster, was my missing label. Somehow it was the only thing left in the dumpster and had remained there because its sticky backing had miraculously adhered to the dumpster's metal side.

I took the incident with the missing label as fair warning and never again did I carelessly misplace a customer's copy. Oh, I did make a few other mistakes over the years, like the time we printed ten thousand two-sided, two-color flyers for the Red Garter Saloon in Virginia City entitled, 'The History of the Comstock Lode.' It would have been okay if I hadn't spelled Lode 'LODGE.'

"I think you should put your house up for sale this summer," my mother said. "I have a feeling that there may never be a better time."

Twenty-eight and newly married, I rolled my eyes and sighed, my usual reaction when my mother gave me advice. Concetta and I had only been in our house for eighteen months. We planned to live there for a minimum of five years while we fixed it up. Only then, when we had completely refurbished the house and the landscaping, did we intend to put the house on the market. Our long-term goal, once we had sold the little house on Douglas Lane (photo right), was to design and build a new house on our acre in Jacks Valley.

Since our income was quite modest in the latter half of the 1970s, our refurbishing had proceeded slowly. So far, I'd only managed to paint the kitchen and one bath. Outside, I had constructed a small deck on the rear of the house. We still had a long way to go before the house would be ready to sell.

"But we're not ready." I tried to keep the impatience out of my voice. "This place needs a ton of work before we can sell it. If we sell it like it is, we won't make enough money to build our new house."

"Maybe so," Mom said, "but think about it anyway. I'm afraid if you wait, you just may miss the boat."

"Okay," I said, "I'll think about it."

In reality, I had no intention of doing so. Concetta and I liked our five-year plan. Trying to sell sooner just wouldn't make any sense. But so Mom wouldn't think I had ignored her advice, I went by the newspaper the next day and placed a two-line blurb in the "House for Sale"section of the want ads. And to make sure no one called, I picked the ridiculous asking price of $65,000. I could almost feel the want-ads clerk thinking, Dream on, turkey.

Today, that price seems low. But considering that we had just purchased the house for $37,500 only eighteen months before, it sounded like a fortune to me. I figured that the exorbitant sales price would guarantee that no one in their right mind would even answer the ad, let alone want to buy the place. I walked out of the newspaper office feeling pretty smug about the whole thing.

At the time my wife's parents happened to be visiting from Ohio. The day the ad appeared in the local newspaper, I arrived home from work to find that several people had already called. "The phone's been ringing off the hook," my mother-in-law, Joan said. "And one guy's even been here asking to see the place."

I know my eyes probably got as big as billiard balls. "See the place? You're kidding?"

"No," Joan said. "I wouldn't let him in so he's coming back in a few minutes to talk to you."

"He's coming--?"

Just then the doorbell rang. In a daze, I answered it, and found a six foot, forty-ish looking guy standing on the doorstep. He had a very determined look on his face.

"Hello," he said. "I was here earlier. Your mother-in-law told me to come back when you were home to see the inside. Okay if I come in and take a look around?"

Well, I--"

"Thanks." He opened the screen door and stepped into the foyer. "We've been visiting a lot of houses in this area and we really like the looks of this one."

"You do?" I stole a glance at the ugly avocado-green carpet in the living room.

"How come you're selling?" the tall man asked. "Anything wrong with the place?"

"Ah, no. Not really. Could use some paint." I glanced at the living room again. "But we're just in the process of--"

"Oh, don't worry," he said. "We don't care about that. My wife likes to pick out her own colors. My name's Dave." He extended his hand.

"Ah, Tom," I said, taking his hand. "But listen, you don't understand--"

"So, can we take a look around then?"

I kept trying to explain to him that I really didn't have any intention of selling the house, that the ad had been a big mistake, but he didn't seem to be listening.

He pointed down the hall "So, I guess the bedrooms are down this way." He turned and strode purposefully off in that direction.

Joan and I exchanged shrugs, then I hurried after him.

For the next fifteen minutes Dave examined every inch of the house. He paced off the dimensions of the bedrooms, checked out the holding capacity of the closets, counted the electrical outlets, and checked the age and energy efficiency of the furnace and the water heater. He even bounced a little on the floor to check for squeaks. Finally, when we had exhausted every possible nook and cranny, he turned to me and said, "Now, how about the back yard?"

I relaxed a little and smiled. I'd been spending a lot of time on the front yard. The lawn looked like a million dollars and all the plants looked well cared for. But the back yard was a different story. Our Douglas Lane lot was at that time on the southern edge of the Park Terrace subdivision, land that had only recently been part of a vast alkali flat. Just on the other side of our back fence lay several hundred acres of razor-sharp alkali grass. And despite my best efforts to keep it at bay, the alkali grass kept a persistent army of twelve-inch-deep runners burrowing into my yard. No mere fence deterred the onslaught. The nasty green invaders went precisely where they wanted, and had long ago crowded out the good grass.

And that wasn't the only problem. The dirt in Park Terrace was so poor, that when I wanted to plant several fruit trees, I dug four-foot holes and threw the dirt away. Then I trucked some sandy loam from our property in Jacks Valley to fill the holes and give the trees a fighting chance. I figured that one peek at the back yard and he would disappear faster than a teenager with unfinished chores. To try and prepare him for the disappointment, I said, "You probably won't like the back yard. It's. . .sort of rustic." I opened the living room slider and we stepped out onto the wooden deck I had only recently finished.

Off to the southwest, across the alkali flat, lay an unimpeded view of the Sierra Nevada mountains. For a moment we both stood and gazed at the cloud-covered distant peaks as they glowed a rosy orange in the luminous afternoon light. Just in front of us, the apple and cherry trees swayed hypnotically in the afternoon breeze. In the flower beds surrounding the lawn, the snowball bushes looked like a miniature light show. And the vegetable garden that we had planted that summer looked robust and vibrant with its tomatoes, beans, squash and other vegetables bursting out everywhere. Everything was so beautiful, you didn't even notice the ugly grass. I was in deep trouble.

I looked at Dave.

He stood for a time with his hands on his hips, not saying anything, just nodding as he surveyed the yard and the beautiful vista beyond. Finally, his eyes fell on the garden shed near the corner of the house.

"That staying here?"

"Well, I-"

"I hope it does," he said. "I have quite a few garden tools.

"You know, I don't really-"

"Great," he said. "Let's check it out." He stepped down from the deck and hurried over to the shed. I followed along behind trying desperately to think of a way I might get control of the situation.

When I caught up with him he'd already finished checking out the shed. He turned to face me. "Looks perfect, he said. What say we talk some business?"

Deciding it was probably too late to point out the alkali grass, I said, "Listen, I really didn't plan on-"

"I want to make you an offer," Dave said. But I think that $65,000 is just a little steep."

I breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God, I thought. All I have to do is tell him 'no way' when he offers me the $40,000 the house is really worth, then he'll be out of here. Tomorrow, I'd just call up the newspaper and raise the asking price even higher. I smiled. "Okay, Dave. What did you have in mind?"

"Well," Dave said. "I'm going to make you an offer of $62,500. But it's contingent on this shed being included in the deal."

I opened my mouth say 'no way,' but no sounds came out.

"Oh, and one other thing," Dave said, "I'd like you to be out in two weeks. I'm starting a law practice here in Carson City and I want to get my family settled so I can concentrate on getting the business off on the right foot. You understand."

I stared at him, dumbfounded.

Perhaps he thought that my silence was an indication that I intended to turn him down, for he quickly added, "And if you accept my offer, I'll do all the paper work for the sale. Your closing costs will be no more than a hundred dollars. Not having to go through a title company will save us both a lot of money."

For a moment I wondered if my mother had somehow hired this guy to come and prove to me that it was time to sell. I looked over at the vegetable garden I had worked so hard to plant, then at the deck that had occupied many of my weekends that summer.

"Well, what do you think," Dave said. "Have we got a deal?"

I had to be dreaming. Was he really offering me a $25,000 profit on a house I'd only just bought? I did know one thing: $25,000 would cover a lot of our new home's construction costs. For better or worse, I decided to strike while the iron was hot. I smiled at him and thrust out my hand. "We have a deal, Dave. We definitely do."

"But where are we going to live?" Concetta asked, when Dave had gone and the two of us had gathered in the kitchen with her parents. "It took us a couple of months to find this place. We can't even find an apartment in two weeks."

"We'll just have to buy a mobile home and put it on the property," I said, though I wondered if even that would be possible in the time we had to work with.

"But I thought you said that no one would be interested in the house with the ridiculous price you set."

I gave her the palms-up, what-do-I-know shrug.

"But two weeks? Even if we buy a mobile, how are we going to get it delivered to the property and get all our stuff moved into it in that length of time?"

You don't know the half of it," I said. "Not only do we need to buy a mobile to live in, we have to have a well drilled and several hundred feet of pipe run from the well to the mobile. We have to have a septic tank installed and fifty feet of leach line. We also have to have electricity run to the mobile from the power pole on the street."

"Please, that's enough." Concetta held up her hands. "There's no way we can pull this off. Call the guy and tell him the house is not for sale."

"But Dave is offering a lot of money," I said. "We might spend five years here, do a ton of work, and still not clear a profit of $25,000. Dave wants the house just as it is. He didn't even notice the ugly avocado-green carpet. He doesn't care that nearly every room needs paint. He didn't care about the alkali grass in the back yard. He just wants to move in. And he wants to give us a scandalous amount of money to do it."

"And he said he's originally from Ohio," my in-laws chimed in together.

"I think you're all crazy," Concetta said. "We're going to be homeless, I just know it."

"No we're not," I said. "We just need to move, well, sort of quickly."

And so we did. Starting the very next day we began moving as many of our possessions as we could spare to the basement of my parents' home. When the weekend arrived, we rushed out to find a used mobile home that we could buy and place on the Jack's Valley property. We found very few available and most of those were pretty shabby.

So, we changed plans. We bought a brand new mobile, a twelve by sixty-foot, two-bedroom Sand Pointe brand unit that arrived from the factory just a couple of days before we had to move out of the Douglas Lane House. There was only one problem with the new mobile: the hundreds of square feet of particle-board paneling, sub-floors, and cabinets exuded formaldehyde fumes in such quantities that our eyes teared up every time we went inside. Thankfully, we had so much work to do on the new house, that for just under two years we did little more than sleep there.

Meanwhile, I hired a well driller to start on the well and got my dad started digging a three-hundred foot trench from the well site to where the mobile home would be placed. Dad and I also set a power pole and rigged up an electrical panel.

Believe it or not, in just under two weeks, we had a new mobile home, a new well, a new septic system, and a new address in Jack's Valley. Not only that, but in the interim I finished my rough sketches for the house and hired an architect to turn my drawings into something the county would accept for a building permit.

Did Mom turn out to be right? I think she did. That summer of 1978 marked the high-water mark of home prices in the area for quite some time. Five years later, you could still buy a three-bedroom house in Park Terrace in the sixty thousands. Had we waited, we would have spent a lot of money fixing up our Douglas Lane house and ended up with a lot smaller return on our investment. Was it intuition? Did Mom somehow know something no one else did? She probably wouldn't be able to tell you.

I sometimes miss the little gray house on Douglas Lane. It had a lot of possibilities and charm. And now that the bulldozers have created other sub-divisions to the south, I suppose Dave has probably tamed the treacherous alkali grass. Sometimes, even now, I drive out of my way to visit the old neighborhood and see the place. If I look in just the right spot, I can still see that garden shed tucked in next to the back corner of the house. And best of all, I can see branches from the apple trees, just twigs when I planted them, swaying hypnotically above the roof line.

The first thing you notice when you decide to build a house is that no one ever tells you the truth. How much something will cost, when the job might be completed, or when someone might actually show up to do the work, are all things you're rarely allowed to know. As anyone who has ever built his own home will tell you, the experience can be anything from mildly annoying to downright ulcer-producing.

"I like to live with a project," our newly-hired architect, Bill Knabe said. "I'll be on the job site every day just checking to see how things are going."

That sounded good. As first-time home builders, Concetta and I needed all the help we could get. We gave him a down payment on his fifteen hundred dollar fee, and came away thinking we'd gotten off to a good start.

But a month later, when we checked to see how Bill was doing on our plans, he didn't seem to be able to locate them. Said he remembered working on them, but couldn't seem to find them just then.

That should have given us a clue.

When another week went by and we hadn't heard from Bill, we started contacting him on a daily basis.

"Soon," he'd say each day. "They're almost finished."

We started to worry that winter would arrive before Bill. Summer was quickly slipping away. But finally, when another couple of weeks had gone by, he produced a set of drawings. I never did find out whether he had really lost the plans and had to start from scratch, or whether he stumbled across them while looking under his bed for his t-square or something. At any rate, once he had delivered the plans and received the rest of his fee, we never saw Bill Knabe again. I guess he decided not to 'live with the project' after all.

After our experience with Mr. Knabe, I decided I would keep a very close eye on whomever we hired to work on our project. So it was with great trepidation that I watched our newly-hired well driller, Clarence, arrive on the property in an old ex-military Dodge Power Wagon that probably should have been left in France after D-Day. The whole outfit, including Clarence, looked dilapidated and worn out. I decided that if anyone required watching, it would be Clarence. At the very least, I expected him to charge us for twice as much well as he actually drilled.

To my surprise, Clarence appeared to install the well as prescribed. He drilled down one hundred and forty feet, installed the required eight-inch steel casing, and had us pumping delicious, crystal-clear water in just under a week. We happily paid him for a job well done and sent him on his way.

And, as you might guess, before the Jack's Valley dust had settled in the wake of Clarence's ancient Dodge, we realized that he had failed to pour the required concrete cap near the base of the exposed well pipe. Repeated telephone requests to return and finish the job went unheeded. In the end we had to threaten to go to Douglas County and file a grievance before he would return and finish his job.

But Concetta and I had only just begun to learn about home building.

Take our first roofer, for instance. Joe was a professional who worked for a regular roofing company during the week and did small side jobs on the weekend. Since we didn't feel we could afford a team of professionals, we hired Joe. Working by himself, Joe had finished the two-story part of the roof by late December 1979, and had only the single-story part of the roof to complete.

Just before Christmas he came to me and said, "Listen, I need to buy Christmas presents. Do you suppose that you could pay me for what I've done so far?"

That didn't sound unreasonable to me. "Don't see why not," I said. I gave Joe the five hundred dollars he had earned and wished him a Merry Christmas.

Joe's face lit up. "Thanks a lot," he said. "And don't worry, I'll be back right after Christmas and finish the other half of your roof."

We never saw him again.

So we hired a regular roofing company to come and finish the job. One morning in January, five motley characters showed up looking more like day-laborers hired off a downtown street corner than professional roofers. Still, they threw themselves into the task with a will.

But the more I watched them from my vantage point on the second-floor balcony, the more I began to doubt that they possessed the necessary skills to lay our Spanish tile roofing. A short time later, when one of the workers fell off the roof followed closely by the tile saw he'd been carrying, I decided to go up where they'd been working and take a closer look.

I nearly fell of the roof myself when I saw their work. Instead of straight, evenly-spaced rows of Spanish tile, I saw row upon row that seemed to drift across the roof like ships on an undulating sea. Even the distance between the rows didn't look consistent.

"That's all got to come off," I told the boss.

"No problem," he said. "What do you say we finish the rest of the roof today, then we'll come back in a day or two and redo any part you think needs redoing."

"Okay," I said, "but I'm not going to pay you until you come back and finish the job."

"Not a problem," the boss said. "I want you to be completely happy."

As you might guess, that was the last we saw of them. Not only did they fail to return to finish the job, they never bothered to bill us for any part of the worked performed. I later removed much of the tile they'd installed and reinstalled it myself.

Thankfully, the interior part of the house went pretty smoothly, since Dad and I did most of the work ourselves. But one incident stands out as being typical of what you can encounter when working with a building products supplier, in this case a store named 'Handy Helper.'

Since we constructed the entire lower floor of our house with open-beamed ceilings, all plumbing and wiring had to travel from the upper floor to the lower floor inside the walls. Nothing could penetrate the ceilings. This posed no problem until we got to the toilet in the second floor bathroom.

"How does one install a toilet without connecting a sewer pipe underneath?" I asked.

"No problem," the Handy Helper clerk said. "We can order the necessary kit to install a wall-hung toilet like the ones you see in commercial restrooms."

"That sounds good," I said.

Naturally, when the kit came, it wasn't right. We took it back, got a refund, and Handy Helper tried again. No good. The second kit wasn't right, either. Once again we took the kit back, got a refund, and Handy Helper ordered a third kit. Around this time we had also ordered and received $1,500 worth of baseboard hot water heating units, enough to do the entire house.

Soon after, the third kit for the wall-mounted toilet arrived. And once again, the kit failed to fit correctly. But this time when we attempted to return the kit to Handy Helper, they said they weren't going to take it back.

"But you have to take it back," I said, "it doesn't fit."

"Sorry," the clerk said. "Management says no more returns on this order."

"Okay," I said, but until you take this kit back and order one that works, I'm not going to pay you for the hot water heating units we just received."

The clerk shrugged. "Sorry," he said.

And that was that. Handy Helper never took the kit back and we never paid for the heating units. In the end, dear old Dad welded up a bracket out of scrap steel and, using some components from the Handy Helper kit, we managed to hang the toilet quite successfully on the wall ourselves.

Handy Helper actually got the last laugh as it turned out. Each and every one of the heating units had been designed incorrectly so that each and every one leaked when we put water in the system. So, Dad and I had to disassemble all the heating units, replace the female end on each one, then reassemble the system. Good thing they were free.

But it's not always the blue collar guys who give you sleepless nights. Sometimes it's the guys with hard hats and college degrees. Just as we were finishing the house and getting our final inspections, a Douglas County building inspector showed up and informed us that we would have to move the furnace from its present location to the garage over twenty five feet away. We had designed the furnace to go under the stairs to the second floor, a wonderfully unused space that seemed a perfect central location.

I pointed out to the inspector that moving the furnace into the garage would cause the system to use more energy keeping the water hot, since the water would have to travel a longer distance to the house.

"Sorry," Mr. Inspector said. "You can't have the furnace under the stairs, it's a health and safety issue."

"But," I protested, "it's not like I sneaked it in there when you weren't looking. The plans have shown the furnace in that location since day one."

He shook his head. "Sorry. Not up to code."

Well, to make a long story short, the furnace stayed. Douglas County, in response to my inclination to sue them, decided that maybe double dry-walling the space would provide enough fire protection for the stairs after all. Still, the fact that even Douglas County's original stamp of approval didn't mean we were home free was decidedly unnerving.

Now before you conclude that nothing ever went right on this project, let me assure you that such was not the case. We got lucky when we hired a bricklayer-friend of Dad's named Charley LeClaire . After Dad and I dug and poured the footings on which the house would ultimately sit, Charley came to lay the four rows of concrete block that would give the rectangular house a thirty-two-inch crawl space.

I never saw anyone work so expertly and so fast. It nearly killed me trying to mix enough mortar and supply him with enough concrete blocks so he could keep moving forward at a steady pace. Incredibly, by the end of the day, Charley had laid 528 linear feet of 8"x8"x16" concrete blocks in four rows and we had mixed the necessary grout to pour the wall solid. In one day, the stem wall was complete, ready for us to start our floor.

We also had good luck with the carpenter we hired to frame the house, a dynamic, fireplug-shaped guy named Harley LaRoche. Harley let us know his very first day on the job that he was no ordinary carpenter.

"I'm a thinking carpenter," he said. "I don't just build houses, I produce art."

Harley's credo turned out to be largely true, as he gave us ten weeks of dedicated artistry. Plus, he showed up when he said he would, he worked hard, and always reacted with good humor when I asked him to deviate from the plans.

Though LeClaire and LaRoche were great, our best workers turned out to be my parents. Every evening after I got home from my regular job, and every weekend morning, Dad would show up at my door, tools in hand, ready to go to work. He never failed me. Never took a day off. Together, we did nearly all the interior work, from plumbing and electrical, to sheet-rocking and installing cabinets. He never once told me he didn't know how to do something. Since Concetta and I worked eight-to-five jobs during the day, Mom coordinated nearly everything for our project, from the purchasing of building materials and supplies, to the scheduling of things like cement trucks, utility hookups, and inspections. No novice, Mom had played this same roll when she and Dad built their own houses, both in Southern California and Nevada.

Though we encountered numerous setbacks as you have seen, thanks in large part to Mom and Dad's efforts, it took us less than two years to complete the construction of our dream home. We moved in New Year's day, 1980. By then, it looked like all our bad luck was behind us. Fat chance. It snowed a good six inches that New Year's moving day and Mom, doing some last-minute painting in the kitchen, stepped down from a two-foot ladder and broke her foot.

Would we do it again? Would we endure months with plaster dust in our hair and walnut stain under our fingernails? Would we spend every single cent we could beg, borrow or steal on construction materials? Would we forego recreation, nights out, or any time off? And, would we be willing to deal once more with architects, well-drillers, roofers and the like?

You think we're crazy? Not in this lifetime!

During the latter part my enlistment in the Naval Air Force in the early 1970s, my roommate, Thom Cloar, had a favorite saying about me. "You have the most amazing tendency," he'd always say, "to fall into a pile of manure and still come up smelling like a rose."

What he meant was, I seem to have an uncanny talent for getting myself into nasty scrapes that somehow, miraculously, turn out in my favor.

I remember a typical example:

It happened when my wife, Concetta and I built our new house in Jacks Valley. Just prior to beginning construction, we purchased a twelve by sixty foot mobile home to place on the job site so that we would have a place to live during the estimated two years it would take to build our house. Though we didn't much care for mobile home living, the small mortgage payment of $142.50 a month allowed us to use our meager supply of money in more important places.

When we were just a couple of months away from moving into the new house, I decided to list the mobile for sale. I figured that we might need the two months to find a qualified buyer. But after the first week, the ad had generated only one call, that from an elderly couple wanting to upgrade from a smaller mobile home on the northeast side of Carson City.

The elderly couple said that they very much wanted our mobile, but were in no hurry to take delivery. "We'll make arrangements to take over the payments when you move out," they said. "And you can continue to live in the mobile until your house is finished."

"Perfect," I said, and we shook hands on the deal.

Two months later, on New Years Day, 1980, Concetta and I and our son Jason moved out of the mobile and into our new home. Soon after, I hired a man with a large truck to hook onto the sixty-foot-long trailer and tow it into Carson City.

Although the couple's acre already contained a small rental house in addition to the older mobile in which they lived, they said we'd have plenty of room to pull the new mobile onto the rear of their property. But when the truck driver and I arrived at their place, we immediately saw that we had a problem.

"Ain't going to fit," the driver said, shaking his head. "Least wise, not down that driveway."

I mentally gauged the width of the driveway on the north side of the little house with its adjacent trees and boundary fence and admitted I had to agree with him.

"But," he said, sounding hopeful. "There's lots of room if we come in from over there." He pointed toward the next door neighbors' property. "All we have to do is get those two owners to give us permission to drive across the rear of their acres."

I doubted that anyone in his right mind would allow a truck and sixty feet of trailer to invade his property, but I agreed to go ask.

To my surprise, both neighbors granted us permission. And after surveying the two acres to make sure that no obstructions blocked our path, we pulled the rig around and prepared to deliver the mobile to its new home.

There was only one thing we'd forgotten to think about: how marshy the soil was in that part of town. As the driver began to ease his rig across the first of the two neighboring acres, the truck immediately began to sink. Hoping, no doubt, that he might overcome the unstable nature of the soil by simply moving faster, the driver floored the truck's engine and attempted to power his way across.

For a while I thought he might make it. But as the rig approached the elderly couple's acre, the truck tires began to sink deeper and deeper into the soft mud. Then, just as the truck passed over the property line, it sank up to its axles and lugged to halt.

For a time, the driver tried rocking the truck out of its muddy prison by wildly spinning the tires, first in forward, then in reverse. But that technique succeeded only in spraying mud over everyone and everything within a fifty-foot radius. It looked like we might be there until summer when the soil dried out.

Naturally, I did what I always do when I'm in trouble, I called Dad. He usually knew how to solve any problem. Plus, since he worked for MacSween Construction, he had access to heavy equipment.

Sounding none too pleased, he nevertheless agreed to help. "Okay," he said. "I have MacSween's dump truck here. I'll bring it down and we'll see if we can use it to pull you out."

And that's exactly what he did. MacSween's ten-wheel dump truck was able to maneuver around the mired mobile and pull in ahead of the buried truck. Then dad hooked a heavy-duty chain to the truck's bumper and yanked the whole works, mobile and all, onto the elderly couple's property.

All of us were covered in mud from head to foot, but we had succeeded in reaching our goal. Once again, it looked like I had fallen into a pile of manure and come up smelling like a rose, albeit a muddy one.

Or, so I thought.

Six months went by and I received a letter from the bank where I had originally financed the mobile home. The letter said that the elderly couple had stopped making payments on the mobile several months before and that the bank considered it our responsibility, Concetta's and mine, to make up the deficit and resume regular payments.

Oops, that sounded like an even bigger pile of manure.

But when another six months had gone by and we hadn't heard anything from the bank, my curiosity finally got the best of me. I called them up.

"You and your wife are off the hook," the female loan officer informed me.

"Off the hook," I said. "What does that mean?"

"Well," the loan officer said. "when we went to repossess the mobile we discovered that it was impossible to remove it from the property."

"Impossible?" I said. "Couldn't you pull it out the same way we pulled it in? Across the neighbor's property, I mean?"

"The neighbors refused us permission to do that," the loan officer said.

I thought about the deep ruts we'd left on the rear of the neighbors' two acres and smiled. "Gee," I said. "That's too bad."

"Yes," she said. "And if we can't repossess the mobile, we can't make you be responsible for it. So, as I said, you're off the hook."

"But what are you going to do now," I asked.

"Well," she said, "we had to buy the whole piece of property, including the little house and the older mobile home, and we'll have to sell everything as a unit."

"Wow," I said, "tough break."

"Yes," she said. "Isn't it?"

We never heard from the bank again, nor did we find out if they were successful in selling the house and mobiles as a package. And we never heard what happened to the nice elderly couple who, in the end, were the only ones to respond to our ad in the newspaper.

Wouldn't surprise my old roommate, Thom Cloar, though. He had it figured from the beginning. Roses anyone?

When I purchased my 1928 business coupe in the early 1980s, the engine and chassis had been restored. The owner had been in the process of restoring the car when he evidently lost interest. The body and other sheet metal pieces still needed total restoration.

For over two years the coupe gathered dust in my garage while I searched for someone to do the body and fender work. Finally, I persuaded a fellow Sagebrush Chapter member to take on the project. Then, for a period of six months or so, my friend Everett McClelland began the tedious process of completely disassembling the body and straightening every piece. In the mean time, I tackled the woodwork and general "nuts and bolts" of assembly.

As we neared completion, we spent one weekend bolting on the steering column and radiator and adding all the miscellaneous pieces under the hood. That Sunday afternoon, the engine compartment was complete. There was only one thing left to do: start the engine.

The idea of hearing the engine run, after three years of it sitting untried in my garage and in Everett's shop left me both excited and apprehensive. What if it wouldn't run? What if the rebuilder had made a mistake? Would be soon be back to square one?

Trying to ignore my inner conflict, I set about helping Everett pour gasoline into a funnel atop the gas tank. Next, while he coaxed five quarts of oil down the distributor shaft hole, I ferried jugs of water to the newly installed radiator.

That done, we looked around for a suitable battery. Finding none the correct size, we grabbed an oversized six-volt and set it on a piece of wood on the garage floor. Using jumper cables, we hooked the battery to the starter post and block.

I held my breath. Everett gave a tentative push on the starter rod.

Nothing.

Not even a click.

Everett pulled off the distributor cover plate and groped around with his pocket screwdriver. I heard a crackling sound.

"Got spark," he said. He re-positioned the jumper cables for a better bite and gave the starter rod another push. This time the engine grunted and I saw the fan belt advance a quarter inch. Obviously, the newly-rebuilt engine was too tight for the six-volt bettery to turn over.

We tried a battery charger with no improvement

Everett disappeared for a moment and I heard his 1931 Model A coupe start up. I knew the coupe had a twelve-volt system, so I wondered what he was up to.

Pulling his "A" up to the front of the skeleton of my business coupe, he got out and left the coupe's engine running. He attached the jumper cables to the '31 as I stood wondering if this wouldn't "fry" something in the business coupe's electrical system. I held my breath, but soon discovered that my coupe seemed to suffer no ill effects.

Everett returned to the starter rod. I couldn't help feeling that the twelve volts was not going to make a big difference, but anything was worth a try. Down went the starter rod and the engine responded with a "grunt." The crankshaft visibly moved perhaps a half inch.

The hand crank lay on the floor beneath the front axle. We had been using it to time the engine and now Everett indicated I should insert it into the crank hole. I had a feeling I knew what was coming.

Everett said, "Give her a crank while I hit the starter."

Oh, man, I thought, this sure seems like a recipe for a broken arm.

I needn't have worried. Even with the starter helping, I could barely turn the handle.

Remembering the 1960s when my brother, Cliff, first tried to start the engine on his restored 1929 Model A coupe chassis, I recalled that no amount of persuasion would get the engine to turn over. He finally got Dad to tow it behind his '63 Ford pickup and got it started by "popping the clutch" on the street in front of our house (after no small amount of tire-dragging).

I didn't want to do that. First of all, my steering arm was unbolted. Second, none of the body bolts were tightened down. I decided to go on cranking.

Trying hard not to wrap my thumb around the handle, I huffed and puffed and heaved and finally managed to advance the crank a half turn. Again and again, with tremendous effort, I dragged that infernal engine through a 180 degree arc. Furiously, I attacked the crank, disregarding the possibility of kickback.

It worked! Once I started to get two or three revolutions, the engine showed unmistakable signs of coming to life. One cylinder would fire, and for a moment the handle would go slack. Soon, several cylinders fired in sequence and then lapsed back into silence.

My heart was pounding like a marathon runner, yet I felt sure that the engine was getting closer to running on its own. Each revolution of the crank felt more loose. All that turning and turning had evidently gotten oil everywhere it need to be. We just had to be close.

I grasped the handle with both hands. Planting my feet, I looked over at Everett, who was coolly manning the starter rod and choke. His expression left me no doubt that he though it would run if I could just get that crankshaft, those pistons and valves, and all those springs and rods and assorted vital parts moving fast enough.

I started pushing that hated cast-iron dogleg through the top of the arc. Down and around. Faster and faster. Passing 360 degrees. Down and around and around and around again. Then I felt it catching. I didn't care. My hands were glued to that sweaty hunk of iron.

Suddenly there was smoke everywhere. I leaped back as the car spat the crank out on the floor like it had eaten something distasteful. The engine was alive!

Everett dived for the throttle controls to calm the now roaring motor. As he frantically adjusted the choke and spark advance I knew we had done it. I was elated! In one brief instant, I understood the thrill and excitement all those early auto pioneers must have felt when they coaxed their first gasoline engines to life a century ago.

Of course, after a few moments, the engine stopped, leaving Everett and I looking quizzically at each other through a haze of exhaust smoke. But no matter. It had lived!

We soon corrected a sticking float in the carburetor. The next time, the engine caught right away. For a quarter of an hour we just stood and listened to the purring motor. It was almost like music. It WAS music!

The next time the car died, we didn't quit smiling. Everett just looked at me and said, "Well, you've heard it run. Let's go get some coffee."

"Hey, hold up a minute," my hiking buddy, Chuck Cockerill called, a definite note of uneasiness in his voice.

I stopped sidestepping through the dank, ankle-deep water and waited. I knew Chuck had to be only a couple of yards ahead of me, but the inky blackness of the railroad tunnel made his voice sound eerie, far away.

"I don't think we're going to be able to hear a train coming from in here," he said. "I know we agreed walking between the rails would be risky, but walking in this water just makes too much noise."

I held my breath.

"Drip."

"Drip."

The only sound I heard was water coursing down the tunnel sides and adding to the muck around my soggy boots.

"Maybe we can put our ear on the railroad track," I offered.

"Yeah, right," Chuck said. "I can't even see the railroad track. In fact, I can't see the side of this tunnel that's three inches from my nose."

"We better keep moving, then," I said. "It's been hours since the last train came through. One is bound to be here before long."

We picked up the pace. Unable to see even a few inches ahead, we hugged the damp granite of the tunnel wall and slid our palms along its uneven face. Each of us knew what would happen if a train's headlight suddenly appeared out of the gloom. We'd have just enough time to fling ourselves into the slimy track-side pool of water and get as low as possible as the behemoth, oblivious to our presence, rushed past on its way to Donner Summit.

Though Chuck and I hadn't gone hiking together in well over a decade, it looked like we hadn't lost any of our ability to get ourselves in the soup.

Just two weeks before, I had been sitting at my breakfast table, reading the morning paper, when I discovered Chuck's familiar face staring back at me from an inside page. Despite the fact that he had grown a beard, I had no trouble recognizing my boyhood chum, now Carson City's newest Assistant District Attorney.

Back in '62, we'd entered the seventh grade as fellow students at Eliot Junior High in Altadena, California. There, we soon discovered a mutual love of local history. When not in school, we were constant companions, either hiking the rugged slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains, or prowling local antique shops in search of vintage postcards.

In those days, Chuck and I always did our hiking in and around an abandoned 1890's-era resort in the mountains above Altadena, a place known as Mount Lowe. The resort had once boasted a string of hotels, a world-class incline railway, and a scenic narrow-gauge trolley line that wound its way back into the heavily-forested back country around Mount Lowe. Chuck and I spent many a weekend hiking the old trolley line, taking pictures, and looking for artifacts.

After junior high, Chuck and I gradually lost contact with each other. He attended Pasadena High School while I went to John Muir. He went off to the University of California at Santa Barbara, while I briefly attended Pasadena City College and then joined the Navy. By the early 1980s, I had no idea what had become of him.

Now, here we were, living in the same town once more.

Naturally, I phoned Chuck and asked him if he'd like to get together, relive some old times, and maybe do some hiking.

Chuck sounded elated. "I'd like nothing better," he said.

Casting around for an interesting place to hike in Northern Nevada, Chuck and I found that we had a mutual interest in the Donner Pass area and the railroad that had pierced the rocky crags just below the summit since the late 1860s. Specifically, we had always wanted to see the historic snow sheds. The Central Pacific had built the snow sheds as a way of keeping winter avalanches from sweeping trains off the rails and into the rugged canyons below.

When Chuck and I reached the Donner Pass area, we parked just below the summit on old Interstate Highway 40 and began the steep climb up to the snow sheds. The rocky terrain and brushy undergrowth made it tough to get a foothold, but we finally managed to climb onto the roof of the snow shed just to the east of the summit tunnel.

Then, for the next half hour, we walked around on the ancient shed roof just enjoying the view of Donner Lake and the grandeur of the surrounding Sierra. It thrilled us to think that only a handful of people had probably ever viewed the valley from our vantage point.

The roof felt solid enough, but it didn't take us long to realize why the railroad wanted to dismantle the old sheds: they'd obviously born the brunt of too many heavy winter snows over the years. Twenty feet beneath us, we could easily see the Union Pacific tracks glistening in the filtered light that leaked through ten thousand splintered gaps in the wood.

Suddenly, the snow shed began to vibrate. We looked around just in time to see diesel exhaust belch from one of the gaps in the shed roof a hundred feet to the east of us, then, gap by gap, sweep toward us at an alarming rate. We wanted to run, but there was no time. All we could do was hold on.

Wow, what a ride! As the freight rumbled by underneath our feet, the old wooden structure bucked and swayed like it had taken on a life of its own. Bits of rock and dirt danced around on the weathered planks like jumping beans. I was scared, but at the same time, exhilarated to be doing something so dangerous.

After the train had thundered by and the planks quit dancing, Chuck and I found a gap in the roof big enough to slip through and we climbed down to track level (photo left). We wanted to hike along the railroad grade for a couple of miles and maybe photograph more trains.

Once we emerged from the snow shed, we continued hiking a half mile or so until we came to the mouth of a tunnel. From the map Chuck carried in his pack, we could see that the rail line entered a crescent-shaped tunnel at that point, looped back on itself, and headed west for a time before turning south toward Stanford Bend, our ultimate destination. Worried that we might get caught in the middle of the tunnel by the next westbound freight, we decided to scale the mountain that rose several hundred feet in the middle of the loop.

Naturally, we found no trail over the mountain. We had to bushwhack all the way up the steep northern face and then slip and slide down the treacherous southern face until we reached the railroad grade on the other side.

After resting for a time, we set off to hike the couple of miles to Stanford Bend, a point where the east bound rail line emerged from another tunnel in the mountain and ran parallel with the westbound line as it headed toward Reno. Stanford Bend promised to be a great place to take pictures.

By late afternoon, after a wonderful day of hiking and picture taking, we began the trip back the way we had come. Before long, we arrived at the entrance to the crescent-shaped tunnel. For a time we just stood and gazed, first at the tunnel mouth, then at the steep slope of the mountain where earlier that morning we had expended so much energy.

"I don't think I can climb that mountain again," I said.

Chuck looked at me, then he turned and looked back down the tracks toward Stanford Bend. "You know we haven't seen another westbound train since the one that went by this morning while we were on the snow shed."

I looked up at the sun. "Going to be getting dark around here in another hour. If we're going to climb the mountain, we better get started."

Chuck looked up at the mountain again. "I'm pretty tired, too," he said. "I say we do the tunnel."

With one final look down the track, we turned and walked toward the tunnel mouth.

For a time, while sunlight still shown behind us, we walked on the ties between the rails. But as the tunnel curved into the mountain and the light that reached us from the tunnel mouth faded, we moved over next to the rough rock wall. Little by little, we inched our way further and further into the unknown abyss, feet sloshing through unseen water, hands thrust against the rough granite wall.

Every few seconds we'd stop to listen, hoping we wouldn't hear anything that might indicate a train was approaching. We knew there would probably be no whistle or other warning. The train's headlight would just suddenly appear in the blackness and the massive locomotive would be upon us before we could move another step.

Trains are a lot larger than you might imagine. Huge in fact. When I was little kid, and visiting my Aunt Margaret, I'd always run down to the nearby railroad crossing and watch the Sante Fe freights roll through. I loved how massive and powerful they looked. Still, they scared the heck out of me. I'd always move a good hundred feet away as they thundered past. Now, in the blackness of that tunnel, I couldn't even imagine what it would be like to have to lie down in that murky water, just a couple of feet from the rails, and let one of those monsters thunder by right next to me.

I wanted to run. But in what direction? In the dark, without the wall of the tunnel to guide me, I wouldn't know which direction to run.

And, I had to be careful. Who knew what sort of things the railroad maintenance gangs had left lying around on the tunnel floor? It would be my luck to take off running, trip over a half-filled bucket of railroad spikes, knock my head on the steel rail, and be out cold when the train arrived. Then what? Would Chuck even be able to find me in the dark? No, better to stay next to the tunnel wall and just keep moving.

I tried to take my mind off my predicament by thinking about all the other stupid things I'd done to risk my life in the past. In our boyhood hiking days, Chuck and I had spent many a tense moment dangling over some canyon drop-off with nothing but a spiny Yucca plant for a handhold, or sliding headfirst into some abandoned gold mine not knowing what manner of snakes or other critters might be holed up there.

All these years later, I can't remember how long it took to sidestep our way through that hundred yards of tunnel, probably no more than ten or fifteen minutes. It seemed interminable at the time. But miraculously, we managed to exit the far end without encountering a train. And as we walked into the setting sun that afternoon, back toward Donner Summit and the start of our adventure, I found myself smiling. We'd been lucky once again, not just because we'd tempted fate and won, but how in one short day, we had recaptured the essence of our youth and all those thrilling days on the slopes of Mount Lowe.

One day in February of 1988, I arrived home from work to find that members of a police SWAT team had taken up positions in my yard. Minutes later, Concetta and I stood on our balcony and watched as additional members of the heavily-armed group systematically searched every nook and cranny of our next door neighbor's yard and outbuildings. It didn't surprise us much. Neighbor, Willie B., father of six and two-time convicted rapist, was then serving life in a maximum-security Nevada prison for the crime of child molesting.

I looked at Concetta. "You think he's escaped?"

"Don't even think it," she said.

I knew what she meant. Both of us had breathed much easier since Willie's departure. Only his wife, Gloria, and the eldest daughter, Callie still lived next door. Four of the six siblings had been placed in foster homes. Their eldest son, Bart was by then old enough to live on his own.

After Willie left, we hardly ever saw Gloria. Except for her daily pilgrimage to the mailbox, she spent her solitary days watching TV inside the little one-room shack that Willie had thrown up amidst the chest-high stands of sage, desert peach, and bitterbrush which still covered most of the Bargas acre.

The little shack was, at one time, meant only as a garage for a new house that Willie planned to build. Though he had acquired a dozen stacks of lumber for the house project, much of which now lay decaying on the back of the acre, only the garage had ever been built.

Callie Bargas didn't live in the shack with her mom, but with her boyfriend, Sean, in a dilapidated motor home on the rear of the property. Though Douglas County ordinances forbid such living arrangements, no one in the neighborhood had complained. And since the family never caused us any problems, Concetta and I hadn't complained either.

There was one thing about the Bargas clan that intrigued me though: Callie, then twenty, and Sean, several years older, never seemed to work. Often, I'd come home for lunch and find them sunning themselves on lawn chairs in some dusty spot amidst the cannibalized automobiles and overgrown desert vegetation. I knew that Gloria's father actually owned the property, and probably never collected rent. But still, as I dutifully trudged off to my job each day, I would often wonder just how they all survived next door.

As it turned out, the day after the SWAT team's unexpected visit, the Nevada Appeal provided an answer to that question. But right then, as we stood on our balcony and watched the black-suited policemen systematically scouring the Bargas acre in search of we knew not what, I couldn't help but think back to my first encounter with the enigmatic family.

They had been my defacto next door neighbors since 1970 when my parents, newly emigrated from southern California, purchased an acre down the road from their own property in Jacks Valley and gave it to me. At the time, I had no intentions of ever living in Nevada or of making use of the property. I was much more interested in travel and adventure.

But just four years later, being both homeless and penniless after a year of knocking around the Mediterranean aboard a film-maker's yacht, and earning very little money, I took up temporary residence with my parents at their Jacks Valley home. My plan was to find a job and stay only long enough to fatten my bank account before heading off on a new adventure.

I knew that a family lived next door to my vacant Jacks Valley acre. But I had not actually met any of them until one frosty December morning in 1974 when I had the misfortune to hit daughter Callie Bargas with my car. Naturally, I didn't do it on purpose. I simply didn't see her and her older brother sitting cross legged in the road as I pulled up to the stop sign at Cherokee Drive and Jacks Valley Road. They had been waiting for the school bus and for some reason had decided to sit in the middle of the road instead of along the edge.

When I left my parents' house that morning, I had discovered a heavy coating of frost on my little orange Datsun. Hurrying, least I be late for work at my new job at Sierra Nevada Printing, I started the engine to get the defroster working on the windshield from the inside, then set about scraping the frost from the outside. Minutes later, thinking that I had removed the worst of it, I jumped in and drove off.

By the time I had driven the two blocks to Jacks Valley Road, I thought I could see pretty well. Still, wanting to be sure, I took the extra step of coming to a complete stop, and rolling down the side windows a couple of inches to check for oncoming traffic. Seeing none in either direction, I put the Datsun in gear, and started out - and immediately hit something.

Thinking that perhaps a passing truck had dropped construction materials or other debris on the road, I jammed on the brakes and jumped out to see what damage I had done to the front of my car. To my surprise, I found not construction materials, but a young girl sprawled on the ground beneath my bumper, holding her leg and moaning.

Just then, a young boy appeared at my side, shaking his head and saying, "Why didn't you move, Callie? Why didn't you move?"

"Is Callie your friend?" I asked him.

"My sister," he answered.

"What's your name?"

"Bart."

I asked him where he lived and he turned and pointed down Cherokee. "Over there," he said. "In the mobile home."

"Ah," I said, realizing that Bart and Callie must be part of the family who lived next door to my acre.

Thinking that maneuvering Callie into the car might further injure her leg, I carefully picked her up and carried her the several hundred feet to her house. I planned to make her comfortable, then call 9-1-1 for an ambulance.

But when we got to Bart and Callie's mobile, I discovered that my problems had only just begun. I'd never seen anything like the interior of that mobile home. It looked like it hadn't been cleaned in months, possibly years. I wrinkled my nose. The place smelled dirty, like rancid grease and unwashed bodies. Clothes lay strewn six inches deep on every level surface, including the bed where I wanted to place Callie. The kitchen sink was piled high with dishes. Empty food containers and other dirty dishes likewise covered the kitchen table where a middle aged woman sat watching a portable black and white TV. Beside her sat a pre school aged young girl.

The woman looked up as I carried Callie through the door.

"Callie's hurt, Mom." Bart yelled.

"Oh, my," Mrs. Bargas said. "What's happened?" The woman looked distressed but made no move to get up from her seat at the table.

"Accident." I was puffing from the exertion of carrying Callie. "Need to use your phone."

"Oh, my," she said. "We don't have a phone."

Reasoning that I couldn't afford to waste any more time, I settled Callie on the laundry strewn bed and ran back to the corner for my car. Then, once I had carefully placed her on the back seat, I sped off in the direction of the hospital emergency room.

Thankfully, once the doctors x-rayed Callie's leg, they assured me that, although I had definitely fractured her femur, she would ultimately be fine.

But that evening, Callie's father, Willie paid my parents and me a visit. He was mad as the proverbial wet hen about Callie's broken leg and did a fair amount of ranting and raving. At one point he even threatened to go retrieve his shotgun and really give me what for.

Dad, never one to be intimidated by anyone, said, "Go ahead, we have guns, too."

After that, Willie calmed down and soon after left.

And that was pretty much the end of it, except the Douglas County Sheriff's Department decided that I was at fault and issued me a citation for, of all things, 'Driving to left of center.' Since there was no painted center line on the dirt road, I'm not sure how they made that determination. Still, since I expected much worse, I decided not to make an issue of it.

My next door neighbor story might have ended there. Shotgun Willie thankfully never made good on this threat to shoot me. Callie was soon back at the bus stop, though from then on she was always very careful to sit at the side of the road. And sometime during her recuperation, my insurance company paid the Bargas family ten thousand dollars for her broken leg.

As for me, I stayed in northern Nevada only long enough to earn my traveling money. Then I packed my little orange Datsun and headed back to the bright lights of Los Angeles and what would turn out to be a promising -- if short -- career in the film industry. I thought had seen the last of the Bargas family.

But as you already know, Fate had other ideas. Six months later, in July of 1976, I found myself back in northern Nevada, living in one of Teddy Chew's apartments behind the Golden Dragon Chinese restaurant, and working at my old job at Sierra Nevada Printing. My timing turned out to be perfect, for the very next month I met the girl of my dreams at a local Laundromat. Two months later, I talked her into buying a house with me. And twelve months after that, in October of 1977, we were married.

By the following summer we had sold that Carson City house and were preparing to start construction on a new house on the acre my parents had given me, the acre next to the Bargas family. Shotgun Willie and I were about to become next door neighbors.

Sometime after Shotgun Willie had received Callie's settlement money from my insurance company, he evidently decided to build a house of his own. By the time Concetta and I began construction on our property next door, Willie had gotten as far as installing the foundation, floor joists, and plywood sub floor for his family's new house. Perhaps sensing that $10,000 wouldn't be enough to complete the entire project, Willie decided to just finish the garage. With the leg money exhausted, the Bargas family, by then grown to seven members, moved into the semi finished garage and abandoned their rust-stained mobile home next to our mutual property line.

Somewhere around the time we started construction on our house, Gloria had her sixth and final child, a boy named Ben. Now there were eight people living in the twenty by twenty four-foot garage.

Living next door to Shotgun Willie always made us a little nervous, especially when we discovered that he had two prior convictions for rape. But he never said a word to us or threatened us in any way. Sadly, his children always looked dirty and unkept. But other than their constant borrowing of cups of this and jars of that, the family never really caused us any problems. Still, I have to admit, that after Shotgun Willie was convicted of child molesting and became a guest of the State of Nevada, Concetta and I breathed a mutual sigh of relief.

The only run-in we ever had with the Bargas family was when their youngest son, Ben, then aged eight, got permission from his foster parents to come visit his mom. While there, he chanced upon a pellet gun that belonged to Callie's boyfriend, Sean, and decided to go rabbit hunting. Unfortunately, the first rabbit that appeared in his sights was our Volkswagen Rabbit in the driveway next door. Exit one passenger-side window.

I told Callie that I expected her to produce the $85.00 that it cost to fix the window, but she declined. So, since Ben was technically a ward of the State of Nevada, I presented a claim to the state for the $85.00. Quick as a flash, Callie came to me with the money, a whole fist-full of wadded bills in a variety of denominations.

It was just days after the pellet gun incident, that the Douglas County SWAT team descended on our neighborhood. The morning paper proclaimed the facts. Our next door neighbors turned out to be bank-robbers and they had tried to rob the Carson Street branch of Valley Bank, across the street from the State Capitol building. In the process they'd not only kidnaped the bank manager's family, but a family across the street who might have been potential witnesses.

The police apprehended Callie just outside the bank, money bag in hand. Her boyfriend, Sean Vasser, and another accomplice named Jami Farmer escaped and were still at large. It was rumored that they had fled back to their hideout in Jacks Valley, hence the SWAT team. Eventually, both Sean and Jami gave themselves up to the authorities. Both had, in fact, been hiding in the sage-covered desert near their motor home hideout in Jacks Valley.

In the coming weeks, the newspapers further informed us that members of the Bargas Gang had turned out to be rather accomplished bank robbers. In 1985, they had hit a bank in Stateline and successfully escaped with $110,000. They were never caught, and for the next three years Callie Bargas and Sean Vassar had evidently lived off the loot, which went a long way toward explaining their leisurely life style.

That winter of 1988, they must have finally run out of money. Maybe the $85.00 that they had been compelled to give me had been the last of their ready cash. At any rate, they decided to improve their economic situation and take on another bank, this time one closer to home.

In August of 1989, the would-be bank-robbers received two life terms apiece in the Nevada State Prison where, at this writing, they remain. Some time later, Gloria's father was compelled to sell the Jacks Valley acre to pay his personal medical bills. By then, Gloria was the only Bargas family member left. She departed soon after and we never saw her again.

When the new owners took possession of the property, they hired a man with a huge Michigan front-end loader to clear the acre. It took him fourteen trips with an eighteen wheeler to haul away all the sun bleached stacks of wood, abandoned cars, and dense vegetation. When he had finished, the only thing left on the denuded property was the forlorn little shack, which the owners had decided to refurbish and use as a workshop.

Nowadays, a modern ranch-style home occupies the Bargas acre. Where once so much ugliness and poverty existed, now beautiful trees and manicured rose gardens flourish. The acre is neatly fenced, the driveway graveled, and nary a weed can be found anywhere. Except for the little shack-turned workshop, no evidence remains of the property's once turbulent history.

It's been sixteen years since the last Bargas family member faded into obscurity, and still I sometimes wonder what part I may have played in Callie's fate. Did a chance encounter on a frosty morning somehow alter her destiny? Did the lure of sudden wealth born of an unfortunate accident bring about her ultimate destruction? Or, had her path been determined long before? We'll probably never know.

But one thing is certain: chance encounters easily blossom into life-changing events. A few seconds either way can mean the difference between deliverance and disaster. I try to remember that any time I'm tempted to shortcut common sense.

P.S. Since you're probably wondering, I'll let you in on a secret. Once the Bargas acre was cleared, my son Robert and I couldn't resist the temptation to tiptoe over and scan the back yard with our metal detector just in case Callie's gang left some of the bank loot behind. We didn't have any luck.

A vague uneasiness crept over me as I watched a battered and dusty white pickup slow, pull off the highway, then head uphill toward where Concetta, Robbie, and I sat eating our lunch around a large concrete picnic table. I took my eyes off the pickup for a moment and looked around. The picnic grounds we'd chosen for our noonday meal lay at the edge of the Hickison Petroglyph site, between the towns of Austin and Eureka, smack dab in the middle of that stretch of Nevada highway known as the 'Loneliest Road in America.' Lonely didn't quite describe it. In the hour we'd spent exploring the petroglyphs and having our lunch, no other car had stopped.

None had even slowed down.

That is, until now.

A few seconds later, the pickup reached our picnic spot and rolled to a stop a few yards away. Then the driver eased open the door, dropped down, and sauntered in our direction. He looked thirty-ish and had on boots, blue jeans and a dusty white cowboy hat. He stopped a few feet from our picnic table, pulled off his grimy Stetson, and grinned. "Having a little lunch?"

"Yes," I said, a little hesitantly, "Would you. . .like some?"

"Thanks, no," the cowboy said, grinning again. "We ate earlier."

The only thing I could think about was all those episodes of unsolved mysteries where the profiled travelers inexplicably disappear while driving through some sparsely-inhabited country. Nobody has any idea what happened to them. Nobody sees a thing. This is exactly how it happens, I thought. Lonely highway. Deserted picnic site. No witnesses. Yup, we were about to become statistics.

"Name's Bob Eddy," the cowboy said. He took a step forward and held out his hand.

I moved closer, shook with him. "Tom Davis," I said. "This is my wife, Concetta, and my son, Robbie."

"Where you folks from?"

Eight-year-old Robbie piped up. "Carson City. We've been camping in the mountains near Ely. We got to go down in the Lehman Caves yesterday."

Bob's grin grew even broader. "I've heard of those caves. Like to see'um some day."

"They're really great," Robbie said. "I wanna go back next year."

"My son's with me, too," Bob said. He motioned toward the pickup. "We gotta ranch near here. Sometimes we get a little starved for conversation."

"Oh," I said, letting myself relax a bit. I glanced over at the dusty pickup in time to see a black-hatted cowboy step down from the cab and amble toward us. "So you guys are ranchers?"

"Yes, sir," Bob said. "Dry Creek Ranch. About four mile north of here. This is my son, Link," Bob said, as the lanky, black-hatted teenager stepped up and stood beside his father. "Name's really the same as mine, Robert Lincoln Eddy, but we've always called him Link."

As it turned out, we liked the Eddys immediately. Five minutes after they arrived, I had my camera out. "Smile," I said, and Bob sort of grinned. Link just hooked his thumbs in his pants pockets and looked self conscious.

"You know," Bob said, after we'd spent a quarter hour getting acquainted, "if you like to take pictures, you ought to come visit the ranch. There's lots of old wagons and stuff to take pictures of."

It sounded great. But the idea of two strangers off the highway, the Loneliest Road in America, inviting us to leave the haven of our picnic ground and venture four miles into the back country also sounded a little foolhardy. Reluctantly, I said, "No, we better not. We have a schedule to keep."

"No problem," Bob said, though the disappointment showed in his face. "It's been real nice talking with you folks. But, I guess we better get back to work. You have a nice day, now." Robert and Link turned and headed for their pickup.

I stood there watching them leave, feeling low and cowardly.

"What's the matter?" Concetta asked. "Why didn't you take him up on his offer?"

"Yeah, Dad," Robbie said. "That sounded like fun."

"Just trying to keep from becoming a statistic," I said.

"I think they're okay," Concetta said. "They're just lonely."

The Eddys' pickup had circled the dozen picnic sites on the ring road and had almost reached us again. In another couple of seconds they'd be out on the highway and gone. I made up my mind. I dashed over to the road waving my arms.

"That offer still open?" I asked, when they stopped.

Robert grinned at me out the open window and nodded. "We'll wait for you out by the highway."

After a brief stop at their mailbox located on the south side of the highway, the pickup turned off onto a washboard road and headed north. We followed along behind at a respectful distance, trying not to eat the pickup's dust.

Twenty minutes later, we arrived at a big metal gate and Link jumped down to hold it open. In the distance, beyond the gate, we could see a small group of stone buildings and the first green trees we'd seen since the highway.

A couple of minutes later, Bob pulled his truck in next to the largest of the stone buildings and we pulled in beside him. But as we started to get out of the car, I saw Bob jump down from the pickup and dash into the house. Moments later, he emerged wearing a clean cowboy shirt. I guess he didn't think it proper to receive guests in his dirty work shirt.

The stone building proved to be the main ranch house. Nearby, a much smaller stone building served as the bunk house. The two stone buildings looked cool and inviting beneath the spreading branches of an ancient Elm, its trunk so thick that three people would have to join hands to encircle it. The scene contrasted so sharply with the dust of the road and the heat of the July day, that, for a moment, I just stood and breathed it in. Then I looked around for the coolest patch of shade that came with a comfortable patio chair.

But Bob had other ideas. "Hey, come on," he said. "I'll give you folks a tour."

We stopped first at the horse corral, where three playful 2-year-olds danced around for the camera. When Bob saw me taking pictures of the nearby stone barn with its genuine sod roof, he said, "Those stones came from the old Dry Creek Pony Express station near here."

I cringed a little, realizing that Nevadans had lost an important historic landmark. But I also realized that in the wilds of central Nevada, nothing could be allowed to go to waste, especially not building materials.

We left the corral then and went in search of more subjects for my camera.

"Other ranchers think they need fancy equipment," Bob said, as we came upon several horse-drawn wagons. "But the interest payments do them in." He patted one of the old ironclad wooden wheels. "Here, we make do."

I could see what he meant. At least half a dozen horse-drawn wagons lay scattered around the yard. Bob's favorite was a newly-restored spring wagon that glistened under a fresh coat of gray paint.

"That one's just for show," he said. "We run her in parades and such."

Bob wanted to show us a horse-drawn wagon he figured we hadn't seen before. We picked our way up the side of a small hill to the north and stopped at a couple of hay wagons that sat very close to the ground.

"Take a look here," Bob said.

We all bent down and saw that the hay wagon sat on iron-shod wooden sled runners.

"This thing'll haul four ton of hay when the snow's too deep for the wheeled wagons, or even the trucks," he said.

I never dreamed that anyone might still be hauling anything on sleds.

No doubt sensing my thoughts, Bob said, "Some ranchers like to use track vehicles or snow mobiles to deliver feed to the stock in winter time. We do just fine with these. Makes our money stretch."

Happy that he had broached the subject of money, I said, "Can you make good money raising cows and horses?"

"Well," Bob said, "last year we made about $150,000. Of course, we had about $140,000 in expenses. If I had to start in this business right now, I'd never make it, especially if I had to buy expensive equipment."

He pointed toward a battered old tractor nearby and we walked over. "This here's our new tractor," he said. He rubbed his calloused hand across the rust-colored hood. "Bought her in 1947."

I put the camera to my eye and snapped the shutter.

"We still use the old one, though." He pointed further down the hill to where an old Fordson reposed in the afternoon heat. "It's a 1941."

After I finished photographing the two tractors, Bob walked us over to see an old military-looking truck.

"Got this in forty-seven, too," Bob said. "Dodge Power wagon. First nonmilitary, four-wheel-drive truck built for civilians after the war. Still runs great." He leaped into the cab, cranked it a couple of times, and the engine sprang to life.

After a couple of minutes, he shut the engine off and jumped down. "Everything on the place runs," he said. "That one, too." He pointed toward an old red pickup nearby. "That's a '37 Chevrolet."

Some time later, our tour of the ranch complete, we once again sought out the shade of the patio next to the old stone ranch house. Bob brought us each a cool glass water from his spring-fed tap and we settled back to discuss Dry Creek Ranch.

Bob told us that the ranch had occupied its present site, near the intersection of Colby and Monitor Valleys, since just after the turn of the century. The original ranch house was constructed of logs and had been located just up the canyon from the present stone house.

"Man named Hickison bought the ranch in 1907," Bob said. "He's the one who built the stone ranch house. Walls are thirty inches thick."

"Do you own the ranch now?" Concetta asked.

Bob told us that a man named Peter Damele (pronounced Da Mall ee) purchased the ranch in 1936 with the intention of giving it to his two sons. Unfortunately, one son died, so the other son, Benny, became the sole owner of the ranch. Benny also bought the nearby Ackerman Ranch. Bob said he'd been partners with Benny Damele for only about a year.

I wanted to find out why he made so much money raising cows and ended up with so little profit.

"It's the A.U.M." Bob said. "Stands for Animal Unit Month. BLM charges us $1.37 an A.U.M. for running stock on the public land. Price can go higher if beef is doing well."

Bob said that most ranchers feared that the BLM would eventually raise the A.U.M. price in order to discourage stock-raising on the public range. Some ranchers even expected the A.U.M. to hit $4.00 someday.

"No one realizes how important the small western cow ranchers are," Bob said. "When cattle production is measured to determine where the most beef is raised, the count always seems to be done in Midwestern feed lots. Well, who do they think sells the cows to the feed lots?" Bob shook his head. "They just want us out. Someday you won't find western cattle ranches like this one."

"But why," Robbie asked.

"Some people want the cattle rancher out because they think his cows ruin the forage for the deer. Then the deer die for lack of food." Bob just kept shaking his head. "Why, when deer season opened last October, there were eighteen camps of hunters right here in this area. They shoot at everything that moves. I lost three cows. Hunters shot the mother, then cars killed the calves out on the highway."

"That's terrible," Concetta said.

"Like to have caught those fellas," Bob said. He drew an unlit stoggie from his shirt pocket and clamped it between his teeth. Then he paused for a moment, I suspect while he formed a mental image of how he'd deal with the low down bushwhackers when he caught them. Then he grinned. "No, come to think of it," he said, "I guess I wouldn't.

There's a lot more to the story, of course. Concetta, Robbie and I spent that whole July afternoon touring the ranch and talking with Bob and his son beneath the shade of that ancient elm. If I had to guess, I'd say most travelers would have passed on Bob's invitation to venture off the highway and see what lay beyond. Thank goodness we accepted. For nearly two decades later, we still count our afternoon with the Eddys as one of our family's most memorable adventures.

New Jersey's beauty took me totally by surprise. Even though I knew residents called it the 'Garden State,' I had read somewhere that you could find more toxic waste sites in New Jersey than any other state in the union. That didn't sound so garden-like to me. So, when I flew to Newark that summer of 1990, I was prepared to find a landscape filled with grimy factories, rusty railroad yards, and decaying neighborhoods. And, in Newark, I did find some of that. But as soon as I left Newark, heading south toward Atlantic City, the reason for the state's nickname became marvelously apparent. Everywhere I looked, I found a lush, green countryside filled with flowery meadows, thick forests and picturesque farms and houses. Most of the state looked like one big park.

I had come to New Jersey to buy a car, and my trip had gone off without a single hitch. No lost luggage, though I'd changed planes in Chicago. No problems with the rental car company. No miss-turns as I navigated myself out of Newark and down the highway. My luck certainly seemed to be holding.

Soon I had reached the Garden State Parkway which would carry me south toward my destination in Atlantic City. I reclined the seat-back in my little Geo Prism rental car a few more inches, and looked forward to a thoroughly pleasant drive. I hadn't gone far when I glanced in my rear-view mirror and found a big seventies era muscle car hugging my bumper. Though I was already going ten miles an hour over the speed limit, I sped up a little. But no matter how fast I went, the big car kept right on my tail. So, as soon as I found an opportunity, I moved to the right and let him charge by me.

Then, feeling the challenge, and curious to see just how fast the little Geo would go, I pressed down on the accelerator and raced to catch up with my speeding adversary. A few minutes later, I zipped right by him, and then for the next few miles we raced each other down the Parkway, weaving in and out of slower moving vehicles, first one of us ahead, then the other, paying no attention to the posted double nickle speed limit as we hit seventy-five and eighty miles an hour.

Fortunately, I was ahead of the muscle car guy when I caught a movement in my mirror and looked back to find a distant car approaching very fast. From long experience as a speeder, I've learned that such occurrences most often mean the arrival of the law. Realizing that I had only seconds before he caught up, I frantically looked around for an escape route.

A short distance ahead in the right lane, traveling the speed limit, I saw a slow-moving cement truck. As I came abreast of the behemoth, I had an idea. Braking sharply, I slid over in front of the plodding vehicle, then cut my speed to match his. For good measure, I tucked my little Geo as close to the right edge of the pavement as I could and held my breath.

The guy in the muscle car, no doubt thinking that I'd given up the contest, punched his accelerator as soon as I was out of his way and blew by me and my rolling camouflage vehicle like we were standing still. Two seconds later, a New Jersey state trooper roared by, red lights flashing. As I watched the pursued and pursuer disappear around a distant bend in the Parkway, I smiled. I'd been lucky again.

It all started when Concetta and I sat eating breakfast a couple of weeks before.

"You know what?" Concetta put down her coffee cup and looked at me. "I'd love to own a '41 Chevy just like Everett's." Our friend and neighbor, Everett McClelland, drove a pretty fawn gray '41 Chevy coupe that he had restored from a basket case. The car was the epitome of late 1930s styling with that characteristic art deco sleek look and lots of chrome.

"You would?" I said between chews of English muffin, not sure I'd heard right. Concetta had never voiced an interest in collector cars before.

"Yes," she said, "it would be neat to own a car the same age as me."

I thought her idea sounded wonderful, especially if I eventually got to purchase a car that matched my birth year, too. I'd always wanted a '49 Caddy.

Soon after that conversation, I started checking every issue of Old Cars Weekly for '41 Chevys. Occasionally I'd see one, but none seemed right. Then I saw the one we'd been looking for. The ad said, 1941 Chevrolet Special Deluxe, 5-passenger Club Coupe. An...unbelievable original car, 28,000 miles, excellent interior and upholstery (photo below right), factory radio and heater, fog lights, flying lady (hood ornament), and wheel skirts. Drives like it did in 1941...(photo left) The seller listed the car's location as New Jersey.

"Sounds perfect," Concetta said when I showed her the ad. "But I don't see a price."

"Which probably means he wants too much," I said. "But it would sure be neat to have a '41 Chevy in original condition."

"Why don't you call him, then," Concetta said.

The next morning I did just that.

"The price is $13,500," the owner, Jim Thomas said.

"Oh," I said. We hadn't been thinking about spending anywhere near that much money.

No doubt hearing the disappointment in my voice, Jim said, "You know, they had gas rationing during the war so it didn't get driven much. I inherited it back in the 60s, but never drove it much either. The car spent most of its life garaged."

"Sounds terrific." I said, my spirits sinking further.

Jim said, "I can send you photos if you like."

"Okay," I said. I didn't want to admit to him that we just couldn't afford the car.

When the photos arrived, I could easily see that the old Chevy was just as Jim had described. It truly looked like it had never been driven. On sudden inspiration, I decided to see if we could somehow finance the car. Old Cars Weekly listed several companies which loaned money to car collectors. At my request, a company called Essex sent me a letter which detailed their terms. 'Minimum purchase price had to be at least $12,500,' their letter said, and they would lend up to 80% of the car's appraised value. That sounded okay. The problem was, where to get the money until we could have the car appraised and get the loan. I mentioned that fact to my friend Everett a few days later over coffee.

"You sure you want the car?" Everett asked.

"Yes," I said, "though I think the price is probably a bit high."

Everett shrugged. "Not many original ones left, and they're certainly not making any more."

"I know," I said, "and the Club Coupe is a rare model to start out with. But I'm just not sure where I'd borrow that much money until the loan comes through."

Everett stared at me for a long moment. Then he pulled a checkbook from his shirt pocket, opened the cover, and signed the top check. Then he tossed the checkbook over to me.

"Make it out for whatever you need," he said.

I stared at him open-mouthed. No one had ever made that kind of offer to me before. My own mom and dad wouldn't loan me that kind of money. "Are you sure?" I asked. "It may be a month or more before I can pay you back."

Everett smiled. "Take as long as you need."

I called Jim back and, and with Everett's check firmly in hand, offered him two thousand under his asking price.

"No, thanks," Jim said. "But I would come down a thousand if you want to meet me half way. How about $12,500?"

I took a deep breath, then said, "Okay. But I'd like to come see the car."

"Not a problem," Jim said. "I'll hold the Chevy for thirty days for a thousand-dollar earnest money deposit. If you get here and don't like the car, I'll give you your deposit back."

That sounded fair to me. Now all I had to do was get to New Jersey for not much money. That's when another neighbor and fellow car collector, Don Kraut, came to my rescue. Don made his living as an airline pilot and each year received a dozen or so free tickets to use as he wished.

"Only one problem with these tickets," Don said, when I asked him if he had one I might use, "you have to fly standby."

"That shouldn't be a problem," I said.

"Better be sure, Don said. "Flying standby with a plane-change in Chicago means you'll have four separate flights. You'll have to be darn lucky to make all four legs without being held up somewhere.

I thought about being stranded at Chicago, O'Hare for hours or even days. "Well," I said finally, "I've been pretty lucky so far."

That turned out to be an understatement. Incredibly enough, I flew standby on the Reno flight and the Chicago connecting flight without incident. I landed in Newark in the afternoon, rented a car, and then looked up Concetta's conveniently-located nephew and his wife. Chuck and Jodi lived right in Newark and had invited me to have dinner with them and spend the night.

The next morning, with the map of New Jersey balanced on my lap, I and my little Geo Prism rental car headed for Atlantic City. Aside from my close call with the law, I had no trouble finding my destination. Almost before I knew it, I was pulling up in front of Jim's house. He lived on Ventor Ave, just like on a Monopoly board.

When he showed me the Chevy, I could see that the vintage car was everything he claimed it to be. Oh, it had a few scratches, and the mohair upholstery was faded and smelled pretty musty, but the Chevy appeared to be a genuine low mileage original car. It looked like only the tires and battery had been changed since 1941 (photo left).

That afternoon, I motored around the bottom half of New Jersey, just enjoying the scenery. And that night I stayed in Trenton with some friends of Concetta's, once again saving me the cost of a motel. The following morning I drove back to Newark and boarded the plane for Nevada. I flew standby, just as before, and just as before I easily got a seat on both planes.

Two weeks later an eighteen-wheeler showed up in our front yard in Jacks Valley, and an immaculately-dressed driver in white coveralls carefully offloaded the Chevy and handed us the keys. The car had come through without a scratch to its vintage paint, nor a scuff to its gleaming white sidewall tires.

Fourteen years later, we still have the old Chevy. It and our '28 Ford sit side by side out in the garage, just waiting for those special summer days when Nevada's two-lane country roads beckon. I still don't have my '49 Caddy. But you never know, one of these days when the luck's just right...

When you're a child, adults always tell you not to "judge a book by its cover." Most often, you ignore them. After all, any youngster knows that the nerdy-looking kid with snot dripping from his nose, mismatched socks, and one shirt tail hanging out is going to be, well, nerdy.

In my second-grade class he was a boy improbably named Gale, who, while clutching an imaginary steering wheel in both hands, would shuffle his way around the playground making a variety of motor noises and tire-squealing sounds. I recognized even in the second grade that Gale was different from the rest of us. He probably is to this day.

Fortunately, as you enter adulthood, you most often acquire a greater understanding for those people in your life who march to a different drummer. You may not invite them over for barbecues, but neither do you make an issue out of it when their shirt tail is out or their socks don't match.

By the time you have become your parents, you inevitably find yourself telling your kids that they shouldn't judge a book by its cover, even though you're certain they're not listening any better than you did.

Which brings me to my story.

It happened at the Department of Public Safety's annual Christmas party some years ago. When the call came for dinner, my wife, Concetta and I tarried a little too long in the bar. By the time we finally reached the dining room, it appeared all of my co-workers had found tables with other friends. Concetta and I looked around in dismay at what appeared to be a full house. Every single place at every table looked taken.

Fortunately, after a few anxious moments, we spotted two vacant chairs at a four-place table on the far side of the room and we started over. But as we neared the table, we stopped.

The couple seated there didn't look familiar to me. Worse, they looked exactly like the kind of folks who would spend the entire evening bringing us up to date on the underappreciated plight of the spotted owl, or maybe acquainting us with the evils of slaughtering perfectly good cows for our dinner. In short, they looked nerdy, like refugees from a Nature Conservancy meeting.

For a moment we stood rooted to the spot, uncertain what to do.

"Know them?" Concetta asked, a hopeful inference in her voice.

I shook my head. "Never saw them before."

Simultaneously, we turned and scanned the room again, hoping to find alternate seating. But we saw none. When we faced each other once more, I said, "Looks like the only two places left, unless you want to skip dinner and drive back to Burger King."

"Are you crazy?" Concetta said. "We paid a fortune for this dinner. Maybe we can just eat fast and skip dessert."

"Right," I said. "Let's do it."

We walked over like two people whose turn has come to get their flu shot.

"These seats taken?" I asked, hoping they'd say yes, that the other half of their 'Save the Snail Darter' membership committee would soon be joining them.

"Why no," the man said with a smile, and he rose politely to his feet.

"Please join us," the woman added.

Buoyed by their enthusiastic welcome, we sat down, though we suspected that we'd probably live to regret it.

Boy, were we wrong. Not only did the couple not turn out to be boring, but in the first few minutes of conversation, they had managed to make Concetta and I both feel like we'd made underachieving our life's work.

The husband worked as an airline pilot, flying mostly international routes. The wife spent her time training people in the art of disaster preparedness for Nevada's office of Emergency Management. Before that, she'd spent six years in the Navy driving an aircraft carrier around the Pacific Ocean.

I no longer remember all the exotic places the couple had visited, nor all the adventures they'd racked up. I do know that for two solid hours, the conversation left me positively breathless. Quite by chance, Concetta and I had stumbled upon the most interesting couple in the whole room.

I don't remember what the restaurant served for us dinner. I do remember that by the time the desert and coffee had arrived, the couple had invited us to accompany them the following morning in the pursuit of their favorite hobby.

It meant getting up before the sun, donning long underwear and anything else I thought might keep me from freezing to death, and tackling the unfamiliar task of helping to get the balloon airborne. Though Concetta, unfortunately, had to work that day, I jumped at the chance.

So it was, that long before the snow-covered flanks of the Virginia range turned rosy on that lovely winter morning, I found myself standing on the tarmac of the Dayton airport. Soon, I was pressed into service unfolding the balloon from its giant stuff stack, and laying it out on the runway. Then the crew chief directed me to help hold the open end of the balloon while another crew member blew frigid December air into the opening with a large fan.

Even though I had trouble feeling my fingers and toes after a while, the whole process fascinated me. Once we had enough cold air in the balloon to cause it to expand and rise slightly from the surface of the runway, the crew began to blow hot air into the envelope using an open-flame burner attached to a propane cylinder.

Then, almost before I was ready, the command came to climb aboard. The balloon, once tethered to the bumper of a nearby truck, was cast loose and we were suddenly aloft.

Flying in a balloon was like nothing I'd ever experienced. In the calmness of the icy morning air, the balloon seemed as stable as an elevator. We rose up and up and up, until I could see for a hundred miles in any direction and the buildings below looked as tiny as the plastic houses on a Monopoly board.

Our pilot, a woman, really knew her job. Though once aloft, it can be difficult to control where your balloon ultimately lands, our pilot took off, drifted a mile or so away, then came back and landed in exactly the same location.

"You have to know about prevailing air currents at various altitudes," she told me. "If you want to drift to the east, you find an altitude where the prevailing wind is moving in that direction. When you want to come back, you raise or lower your balloon until you find an air current moving in a westerly direction. It's that simple."

It may or may not be simple, but it sure was fun. And there's no better place to take pictures. Since the balloon travels with the air current, you never really get a sensation of moving. The wicker basket seems as stable a camera platform as your living room.

The balloon remains aloft because hot air is lighter than cool air. Using compressed propane gas, and an open flame, balloon crews blast hot air into the envelope when they want to go up. They vent the hot air through a flap in the envelope when they want to come down.

The envelope is constructed of nylon, which is light weight and doesn't melt easily. For added safety, the nylon at the base of the envelope, called the skirt, is coated with special fire-resistant material to keep the flame from igniting the balloon.

Our balloon used a wicker basket for the passenger compartment. It comfortably held six or seven of us. The pilot said that wicker works well because it's sturdy, flexible and relatively lightweight. The flexibility helps with balloon landings. In a basket made of more rigid material, passengers would feel the brunt of the impact of landing. Wicker flexes a little, absorbing some of the energy.

By the end of the day, I had added yet another adventure to my lifetime list, taken some wonderful photographs, and earned my wings as a genuine hot air balloon flight crewman. In the process, I'd enjoyed one of the most incredible days of my life. But even more important, I'd learned once and for all why you never, ever want to judge a book by its cover.

The last time I saw Pittsburgh, I got lost on purpose - just to see what interesting things I could discover. I often lose myself in this manner, it helps to break the monotony of traveling the interstate highways. This time I discovered the most incredible old car dealership that looked like it was right out of the 1920s. Actually, the dealership turned out to be even older. The same family had sold cars on that suburban corner since the dawn of the twentieth century. They originally sold Hupmobiles. Later they switched to Studebakers. The whole place resembled a big time capsule from the earliest days of the automobile. Several of the old Studebakers could still be found on the property. A couple of bullet-nosed models still graced the showroom floor. If I hadn't intentionally gotten lost, if I had been more organized and stuck to the main highway, I would have missed this wonderful old site.

I loved organization once. Couldn't get enough of it. Even before I graduated from the sixth grade, I had talked my parents into buying me a filing cabinet so that I could organize all my important papers. Mom rejoiced in the fact that my room looked like no one lived there. My clothes could always be found in the closets, shirts with shirts, pants with pants, never on the bed, the chair, or the floor. I kept my desk clear of clutter. I shelved my books according to subject. I organized my life and everything in it down to the last paper clip and page divider.

A few years later, my penchant for organization got a tremendous boost when I joined the U.S. Navy. Quite naturally, the Navy demanded that you fit everything you owned into a standard issue seabag, an army-green canvas duffle roughly the size of a baby hippo, and, when filled, just about as heavy. Still, I loved that sea bag. It made me feel free. Any time of the day or night, on any day of the month, I could pack my gear in ten minutes and be on an airplane to anywhere.

But a funny thing happened to me a few months into my Navy career: my love affair with organization began to wane. I think it's because the Navy put so much emphasis on neatness. Even though I was, as I mentioned, an exceptionally neat and organized person already, someone was always telling me to 'square away' my meager possessions or make my personal space 'shipshape.' It was not uncommon for Navy officers to ask us to square away things that didn't even need squaring away, just so they could keep us busy.

In response to this constant demand for shipshape, squared-away behavior, I began to rebel. Before long, when a Navy lifer insisted I be neater, I unconsciously edged in the opposite direction. Almost before I knew it, I had begun to abandon my lifelong quest for organization and embrace a whole new ethic. I began to go with the flow, savor the unexpected, let life happen to me. I drifted, slowly at first, then with increasing speed, toward a total state of...serendipity.

The first thing I did was buy a convertible, a yellow MGB sports car. I grew a beard and let my hair grow. I started smoking mini cigars and going to Grateful Dead concerts where you sat on the floor and passed hand rolled marijuana down the aisles. Where once I felt free because everything was in apple-pie order, now I dreamed of letting nature take its course. I wanted to hit the road like Ken Kesey, experience the unknown, let my spirit wander.

And so I did. About this time I took up with a group of self-described 'freaks' who spent all their free time riding around in a big Cadillac hearse complete with a coffin in the back. One of them would usually don a black tuxedo and hide in the satiny wooden box. Then, whenever we stopped for a traffic signal, the 'dead person' would suddenly throw open the mahogany lid and climb out. I'm not certain this always got the desired reaction from adjacent motorists, but it sure tickled my freaky friends.

By the end of my first year in the Navy I had completely divorced myself from my organized, orderly past and embraced the emerging 1970s counterculture. I rejected anything that resembled the old predictable me. I peppered my speech with expressions like bummer, up tight, far out and outta sight. I started dressing, at least off the Navy base, like a hippy, complete with bell bottom pants, tie-dyed shirts, and assorted leather accessories.

I wasn't much into the drug scene, but I spent many an afternoon hanging out in 'head shops' inhaling the exotic oils and incense, or in one of Chicago's 'underground' record stores where sawdust covered the floor and acid rock filled the air. There I prowled the aisles for records by my favorite song writers, emerging artists like Arlo Guthrie, Neil Young, and Steve Goodman. I even bought an acoustic guitar so I could strum along with their songs.

When I mustered out of the Navy in 1972, I briefly tried to turn back the clock in hopes of recapturing some of my long lost organizational skills. The Alpha Beta supermarket in Pasadena offered me my old job back and I went to work stocking grocery shelves, an activity that seemed the epitome of organization. And for a time I was happy. I even entertained ideas of making groceries my career, maybe working my way up to management.

But it didn't last. My childhood gift for organization had slipped away. After only a few months I quit the grocery business and became a full time college student again, first at Cal State Los Angeles, then at UC Santa Barbara. I took to wearing my hair down to my shoulders, experimenting with encounter groups, and taking classes in stage acting and environmental sciences.

But even that didn't last. After only three semesters, I began to grow restless again. My life, I felt, was still too structured. I longed to be free of the last vestiges of organization. Sometimes, as I sat atop Santa Barbara's sandy cliffs and gazed out at the Pacific, I knew that I

wanted nothing more than to experience life on my own terms. No more schedules. No more deadlines. No more organization.

Which gave me an idea: why not chuck everything and head for Europe? There I could hitchhike, ride trains, sleep in youth hostels - experience the world at my own pace without any planning or organization. Europe sounded like the perfect place to find myself.

Actually, where I found myself later that summer was on the Mediterranean island of Majorca, off the southern coast of Spain, working for fifty dollars a month aboard a sixty-foot yacht named MAR. How I got there is another story. However, quite by accident, I had unwittingly discovered the perfect environment for someone who wanted to avoid organization. I had stumbled onto a sort of unstructured paradise. Most days we worked for only three or four hours. Then, after our abbreviated workday was done, we were free to wander the teeming streets of a myriad of exciting cities in the countries of Italy, Greece, or Turkey. Aboard the yacht, parties took place nearly every night where the flow of woman and booze didn't cease until the wee hours.

Then things got even better. After the summer voyage of 1973, Captain Tobias flew back to the states and left my buddy, John Riise, and me completely alone on the yacht for what would turn out to be several months. After that, the work virtually stopped. Most days would go like this: if the weather looked threatening, we'd stay indoors and play cards, write music, or read. If the weather looked promising, we'd say it was too nice to work and we'd grab our cameras and go sightseeing. It was, to say the least, the most idyllic of lifestyles.

In my new Bohemian world, I seldom knew the time of day, nor even the day of the month. I didn't wear a watch, didn't own a calendar, didn't make any appointments. In this relaxed atmosphere I took up writing for the first time. I bought a journal and busily filled its pages. I bought a supplement to the journal and likewise filled its pages. Soon I was writing more than journal entries. I tried crafting small plays, film scripts, even opening scenes for novels. Surprisingly, I soon found myself writing about things I wanted to accomplish in my life: houses I wanted to build; antique cars I wanted to restore; academic subjects I wanted to learn.

The more I wrote, the more organization seemed to creep into my thoughts. And then it hit me: what had emerged in my writing was the feeling that I needed to have more meaning in my life.

It had taken me three years, but I had finally begun to see that an idyllic life without purpose, without challenges, indeed without organization, was not a life that was going to ultimately make me happy. It was time to grow up.

A few weeks later I quit my dream job aboard MAR and flew back to the states. Intending to ease myself back into the mainstream, I got a job in a small print shop in Carson City and signed up for a single college class. I found it hard, of course, adapting to alarm clocks and due dates and the million other pressures that normal people encounter every day. But I also found that a little organization felt good. Oh, I still refused to wear a watch at first, but for the most part I knew that I had made the right choice.

Nowadays, I still resist organization a little. I don't balance the check book, nor do I make lists of projects to accomplish. Only grudgingly do I make plans, mark calendars, or commit to long-term goals. I think more than anything, I still want life to surprise me, like when I'm traveling in a strange city and intentionally get myself lost. After all, a little organization may be fine, but finding a bunch of old Studebakers is divine.

It was over in less time than it takes to tell about it. One minute we were four wheeling our way to the top of the Pinenut Mountains east of Carson City in search of a Christmas tree, and the next, well, we were down in the bottom of Brunswick Canyon with thousand-yard stares pasted on our faces. Even now, I don't like to think about what happened in between.

For much of the nineteen eighties and nineties, my wife Concetta and I and at least one of our two boys, Jason and Robbie traveled to the Pinenuts to cut our annual Christmas tree. In the beginning, I tried to interest my kids in choosing a live tree that we could plant in the yard after Christmas. But since affordable live trees tended to be small in stature, the kids naturally objected. On the other hand, Concetta and I thought spending thirty or forty dollars on a tree that we'd just throw away in a couple of weeks was too extravagant. So, we compromised by deciding to spend the two dollars for a permit and venturing into the nearby hills to cut our own.

At first we didn't own a truck with four-wheel-drive, so we were forced to search the lower, mostly picked-over slopes. We could see the nicer trees at higher elevations, but we had no easy way to reach them.

Finally around 1990 we purchased our first four-wheel-drive vehicle, a 1979 Subaru Brat. The Brat worked wonderfully off-road and would climb the steepest of hills. After that, we were no longer confined to the canyon bottoms, but could easily power up the steep, rocky roads in search of that most elusive of quarries, the perfect Pinon pine.

A couple of years later, we purchased a nicer vehicle to make our annual pilgrimage to the high country, a ten-year-old GMC 'Jimmy.' The Jimmy was larger and more comfortable and had a more powerful engine. After that, it didn't take long for our annual Christmas tree outing to evolve into a much anticipated event where we invited neighbors, brought along homemade bakery goods, and had a sort of winter-morning picnic on the mountaintop.

Most of the time, our tree-cutting trips went smoothly. We always tried to get up extra early on tree-cutting day so we could get in and get out before the crush of other tree cutters turned the often snow-covered roads into muddy quagmires. That way, I wouldn't have to test my limited four-wheeling skills by having to back up some steep, rocky road to let the another driver pass.

Then came the winter of 1994. That year, when we set out on our tree-cutting safari, we found that a five-inch blanket of snow and ice covered the Pinenuts. I never liked climbing steep, icy roads, even with four-wheel-drive, but what was I going to do? We had to get our tree. We chose a likely road to the top of one Pinon-covered mountain and prepared to power our way to the summit.

For a time we just sat at the bottom of the incline and gazed up at what looked to be a hundred yards of the steepest, snowiest road we'd ever encountered. Finally, trying not to sound nervous, I said, "Everybody have their seatbelts on?" I glanced at my fourteen-year-old son, Robbie in the back seat, then at Concetta. Each of them sat transfixed, staring straight ahead. "Okay, I said, "here we go." I pulled the four-wheel-drive lever, shifted to low, and let out the clutch. Slowly we ground ahead and the truck's nose rose before us.

I think I actually held my breath for the first full minute. But after that, when the Jimmy seemed to have no difficulty with the steep road, I began to relax and enjoy the ride.

I looked over and saw my wife glancing nervously at the edge of the cliff and the valley floor receding below us. "Don't worry," I said, "we're doing fine."

Concetta just nodded.

"Just look straight ahead everyone," I said. "Don't look over the edge."

Concetta nodded again and pressed her head against the seat back.

"Only a little ways more to go, Rob," I called. "You doing okay?"

"Fine, Dad." came the tentative reply.

Moments later, as we neared the very top of the incline, the road grew much rougher and the truck began to buck and slide on the icy rocks beneath the snow. Automatically, I slowed down to avoid puncturing a tire.

And at that point something odd happened. Slowly the truck's forward momentum ceased, even though I could feel the wheels churning underneath. Concetta and I exchanged puzzled looks. It felt like the four-wheel-drive had just stopped working. I pushed a little harder on the accelerator. The Jimmy began to vibrate with the effort, but we still didn't move forward.

Finally, I took my foot off the accelerator and I tentatively tried the brake. Big mistake. Slowly at first, then faster and faster the truck began to slide back down the road. I tried the accelerator again, but the forward-racing drive wheels did nothing to stop our rearward plunge. The three thousand pound Jimmy had become a virtual toboggan as it headed for the bottom of Brunswick Canyon.

I threw my arm over the back of the seat, grabbed the wheel in my left hand, and tried to steer while looking out the mud-covered rear window. In the rear seat, Robbie sat transfixed, staring forward, eyes as big as billiard balls. I knew I had only the barest chance to keep the Jimmy on the road. If the truck got near the edge we were finished, for it would likely roll over and over, clear to the bottom, strewing GMC parts down the mountainside.

By now, our toboggan-like skid had reached a speed of perhaps fifteen or twenty miles an hour. In an effort to slow it down, I tried slamming the Jimmy into the rocky uphill side of the road. But this only briefly slowed our mad flight and even threatened to flip the truck on its side.

Boulders and trees flew by, though I scarcely saw them for the Jimmy's bucking and bouncing and sliding from side to side. I was too busy trying to keep us in the center of the road to chance a look at Concetta, but she later told me that she had early-on focused on my wild-eyed expression and had decided that we were certainly going to die.

The ride lasted perhaps just sixty seconds, and I will never know how I managed to keep us on the road and away from the sheer drop-off. When the Jimmy finally burst onto the canyon bottom, it did a complete one hundred and eighty degree spin and came to rest pointing the other direction, as if the truck were trying to tell me the correct way to descend a steep, mountain road. For a moment after the Jimmy came to rest, no one moved. Then, as if on queue, Robbie burst into tears in the back seat. I threw open my door, stumbled out of the truck, and sank to my knees in the snow. For a time I just closed my eyes and tried to shut out the images of that hellish ride. When I finally opened my eyes and gazed up along our tracks to the top of the mountain, I couldn't believe that we'd made it down alive.

Later, after I'd changed the rear tire that I'd ruined from slamming the truck into the uphill bank in an effort to slow it down, the three of us walked up the mountain to cut our Christmas tree; our very last Pinon Pine Christmas tree as it turned out.

The following year, when it came time to go tree-cutting, we found a nice little tree farm in Apple Hill. We talked it over and decided that tree-cutting was much too fun to give up, but from then on, maybe we'd just take the hint and leave those Pinons where Mother Nature intended them to be.

This is a story about how I turned a thousand dollars into a million dollars by investing in real estate in my spare time.

Yeah, right.

In reality, it was a guy named Nickerson who achieved millionaire status by investing in real estate in his spare time and then made even more money by writing a book about it. I stumbled onto his book at a local flea-market. Buoyed by the lucrative sale of our first home, and thinking that I could parley that success into bigger and better real estate deals, I read Nickerson's book from cover to cover. Then, I went out into the real estate world to seek my fortune. I thought if he could do it, I could do it.

Yeah, right.

Not only have my wife, Concetta and I, failed to become millionaires, but we've had to devote a lot of our spare time in the last twenty years to maintaining the three extra houses we bought. Houses might be easy to buy, but they sure aren't easy to maintain. Almost every year since 1981, Concetta and I have had to refurbish at least one rental house, sometimes two.

For much of the time we've been landlords, we've had to operate on a shoestring, which meant we couldn't afford to hire someone to do the work, nor could we afford to have the houses empty longer than a few weeks. As soon as a tenant moved out, we had to descend on the house like a two-person swarm of locusts and clean, paint, repair, and replace as fast as we could so the next tenant could move in. I think the Millionaire book neglected to mention that part.

So much for spare time.

Of course, we didn't follow Nickerson's plan to the letter, since we quit buying houses after the third one. To become a millionaire, Nickerson said, you had to purchase one rental property every year. Assuming you could beg, borrow or steal enough money to buy the first ten, you supposedly had it made. After that, you could begin to refinance those ten to buy more. To buy number eleven, you would refinance number one. To buy number twelve, you would refinance number two. And so on.

This sounded like a perfectly workable plan to me. It took some persuading to convince Concetta, but in the end she said okay. In 1981, we bought our first rental house. Then, in fairly quick succession, we purchased two more. By the time we had purchased number three, I thought we were well on our way to becoming real estate tycoons.

We bought our first rental house using a sagebrush-covered acre in the Carson Valley as a down payment. We purchased the acre, with the help of collateral from my parents, in 1976 from a divorcing couple. We paid them the princely sum of $4,800.

Five years later, we had paid off the acre and it had tripled in value. Just about that time, a realtor friend showed me a two-bedroom house coming on the market that had been inherited by an elderly couple. The two seniors, well into their eighties, didn't want the house and were anxious to sell it. We approached them and offered our Carson Valley acre, now worth $14,500, as down payment. Not unexpectedly, the elderly couple turned us down. Undeterred, I left my card and told them to call if they changed their minds.

Within two weeks they contacted us and said they'd take the Carson Valley acre after all. They hoped we were still interested in the little house. To sweeten the deal, they offered to serve as the mortgage holder on the property so we didn't have to qualify for a loan. Concetta and I would make payments to them for a period of seven years, then any remaining amount would be due.

I thought it sounded like a grand idea. But there was only one problem: We had no actual money for the closing costs, which would amount to several thousand dollars. Then I remembered something I'd read in the millionaire book. I asked the real estate agent if she would loan me the sales commission she would be receiving from the elderly couple. She agreed, and the deal was struck.

In the early eighties you could easily buy a house with five thousand dollars, which was precisely how much you could get on a signature loan at the credit union. You weren't supposed to borrow your down payment, but I don't think the loan companies checked very closely in those days. So, that's precisely how we bought property number two, another two-bedroom house on Adam Street near the center of town. I borrowed five thousand dollars on my signature and we bought the house. Then, when the dust had settled, we refinanced the first house for enough money to pay off the Credit Union signature loan and the elderly couple in the bargain.

When we decided to buy the third house and we wanted to refinance the second house to pay for it, we discovered that the intervening year had brought some changes in the banking business. No longer were you allowed to refinance for more than the amount of your existing mortgage. This put us in a bind. If we couldn't refinance for the extra money, we couldn't pay off the signature loan that we needed to buy house number three. And we certainly couldn't afford the payments on the signature loan and a new mortgage.

The millionaire book solved our problem again. According to Nickerson, it was easy to create a second mortgage. All you had to do was go to a title company and fill out the necessary paperwork. Then when the loan company checked to see how much was owed on the house, they'd discover that they had two mortgages to pay off instead of one.

So, I went down to the title company and had them draw up a second trust deed on the second house in the amount of five thousand dollars. I put my dad's name down as the mortgage holder. When the bank paid off both mortgages, my dad received a check for five thousand dollars, which he promptly gave back to us. So, we had our third rental house and we had the money to pay of the signature loan at the Credit Union.

It was around this time that Concetta called a halt to the whole millionaire business, saying simply, "If you buy another house, I'll kill you." She had discovered just how little she enjoyed all the cleaning and scrubbing she had to do when the tenants moved out. Reluctantly, I agreed, though I sure would have liked being a millionaire.

Despite what my wife will tell you, I don't think that our twenty years of landlording have been that bad. We've had a lot of weird, wacky, wonderful characters spend two or three years with us, but most have been pretty decent people. Oh sure, once in a while we've had the odd felon or deadbeat. But most of the time our tenants have been honest, hardworking people who've paid their rent on time and taken good care of the houses.

There have been exceptions, though: Gary, the drug dealer from Oregon, wallpapered the entire garage at the Adam Street house, and I mean the entire garage, including the ceiling, with Playboy magazine centerfolds. He let his friends pull their cars up on the front lawn to do their auto mechanic work. He cut holes in the closet ceilings to stash his drugs. And he nailed doors shut to guard against surprise visits from the local cop shop. And this while he wasn't even a paying tenant. He was the boyfriend of a tenant who had moved out. Gary, being quite comfortable and happy where he was, decided he'd just stay. Evidently, his drug empire didn't provide him with enough income to pay rent, so he simply didn't. Miraculously, though it took a month, I managed to keep my composure and sweet-talk Gary into moving out. I convinced him that the bank would repossess the house if I didn't pay the mortgage. And if he didn't pay his rent, I couldn't pay the mortgage.

And then there was Carie. Carie, her boyfriend, and a young daughter moved into our Harbin Street house in the Fall of 1993. At the time, they appeared to be just your average young family. But when I came to collect their second month's rent, the boyfriend took me aside and informed me that he didn't know what Carie would be doing, but he was moving out.

"Out?" I said.

"That's right," he said. "And I suggest that you kick her out too because she doesn't have any money and she's not working."

I glanced up at the gray December sky. "Wonderful," I said, imagining the headlines that would appear in the Nevada Appeal when I escorted this destitute young mother and her waifish daughter to the curb on some frigid winter day.

But a short time later, Carie got a job in Reno as an exotic dancer and disappeared, leaving all her worldly goods behind. After much detective work, I managed to track her down at her 'club' where she had adopted the name, Amber Fluff, or something like that. I tried to persuade her to pay her back rent and pick up her possessions, but she didn't seem inclined to do either.

Ultimately, since we needed to refurbish the house for the next tenant, I hauled her larger pieces of furniture to the dump. Then we stored her TV, clothes, and other property in our garage at home. When the legally-required year had passed, I ran an ad in the local newspaper informing Carie that she had two weeks to collect her possessions before I took them out to the landfill to join her furniture. Though she initially threatened me with all manner of terrible retribution for suggesting such a thing, she humbly thanked me when I consented to deliver her stuff to a house in Reno where she'd taken up residence with yet another boyfriend.

Of course, over the years, we've gotten much better at picking tenants. For example, the current tenant at the Harbin Street house is so fastidious that he makes me take off my shoes before I venture into his living room. He's landscaped the front yard, rewired the bathroom, and wheeled a ton of crushed rock from the driveway to the side yards for pathways. He's currently planning a complete redo in the back yard where he wants a concrete patio, a pergola with a swing, and numerous shade trees. Believe me, whatever he asks for, I just get out my check book.

A while back he lost his job and couldn't pay his rent for a time. I didn't worry, I knew he'd catch up. He's just that kind of guy. Besides, if it had meant his having to move, I'd have paid his rent just to keep him.

Still, Concetta thinks the time has come to sell the houses and spend our weekends recreating. She may be right. Climbing those ladders gets harder every year. Still, I'd miss my monthly rent-collection visits. After two or three years, I get to know each of our tenants pretty well. They may not always pay on time, and their individual needs may stretch our budget pretty thin, but I find that each one has something positive to add to my day.

Often, at the market or the hardware store, I will run into someone who used to be our tenant and they will tell me that we were the best landlords they ever had. Many, aided by our letters of recommendation, have gone on to purchase their own homes and have become permanent members of the community. One or two have become landlords themselves and confess to employing our people-oriented management techniques with their own tenants. Nothing could make me happier. We didn't get to be millionaires, but I personally wouldn't take a million for the experience.

A lot can change in forty years. If you intend to go looking for the ghosts of your past, you better be prepared for a few surprises. Even though you can't help but expect those ghosts to be right where you left them, you may be in for a surprise.

I discovered this firsthand two years ago when I tried to locate my grandparents' old house in Southern California. I knew they lived on Cogswell Road in the town of El Monte (photo below), but neither Mom nor Dad could remember the address.

Using a map, I located Cogswell Road without much difficulty. Once there, I began driving up and down for a distance of six or eight blocks hoping that I'd see something familiar, but with no luck.

Frustrated, I finally sought out a phone booth and called Carson City. I knew that Mom had been living nearby when, at the age of fourteen, she'd met Dad while playing in a neighborhood volleyball game. Certainly she'd be able to give me a clue.

"Look for Basee Street," Mom said, when I got her on the phone. "That's where we were living at the time."

"Okay," I said. "I think I saw Basee. Now, when you're standing on Basee and looking at Cogswell, which way would you turn if you wanted to walk to Dad's house?"

"Left, I think," Mom said.

"How many houses to the left?"

"I don't remember," Mom said.

"Well guess."

"Oh, let me ask your dad."

A few minutes later, she came back on the line.

"Your dad says maybe two or three."

So, I drove back down Cogswell until I reached Basee. This time I parked the truck and got out. Camera in hand, I began to walk back and fourth on the east side of the street, stopping to study each house as I came to it.

An older man, out working in his front yard, watched me for a time, then finally walked over. "Can I help you?" he asked.

I told him about how my grandparents had lived in one of the neighboring houses starting in 1938, and how I was just trying to locate the property so I could photograph it.

"Well, I've lived here for twenty-five years," the man said, "and I don't remember anyone named Davis in this neighborhood."

I studied his house, but saw nothing familiar. Then I happened to glance at the little white house just to the north and for the first time I caught sight of the roof line of the garage that sat directly behind that house. I caught my breath. "Wow," I said. "I think that may be the house right over there." I pointed to his next door neighbor. "Do you know who lives there?"

"Yes," he said, "I think I saw him just a minute ago in the back yard. I'll go tell him you want to talk to him."

"That would be great," I said. "Thanks."

While the man headed for the rear of his property, I started snapping pictures. I realized immediately why I hadn't been able to find the place sooner. All of my grandparents' beautiful landscaping had been totally removed and replaced with a sea of concrete.

When I was a child, my grandparents' front yard in El Monte looked just like a park. It sported a large manicured lawn, huge leafy trees, a six-foot hedge that separated the property from the street and from the neighbors on each side, and a forest of Camellias which grew in profusion next to the driveway and along the front walk. Granddad was retired by then, and could spend all of his time working in his yard. It showed.

My grandparents' property actually contained two houses. Granddad had constructed a second, smaller house for my dad's older brother, Burton when Burt got out of the army and married his second wife, Mildred, at the end of World War Two. I don't think I ever saw the inside of the smaller house, but outside the back door grew the most magnificent apricot tree in the world. I bet that apricot tree stood twenty-five feet high and its branches spread just as wide. I can still see myself perched precariously on the top step of a rickety wooden ladder picking baskets of apricots and handing them down to my mom. Mom sure made some delicious cobbler out of those apricots.

Once, there had been a long sweeping driveway that ran between the two houses. Instead of coming in from the street at a ninety-degree angle, the drive swept in from the south-western corner of the property in a long graceful arc. I remember Dad telling me years ago that he'd designed that driveway so that he could come racing in off Cogswell Road in his hot rod and not have to slow down 'till he reached the back yard.

I could see that the new owners had split my grandparents' acre into two parts. They replaced the graceful sweeping driveway with an ugly, gray concrete-block wall. I strained to see past the little house on the far side of the wall, hoping that the apricot tree had survived, but it, too, had been replaced with a modern two-car garage.

Just about then I looked up to see a young Hispanic man approaching. He didn't look pleased to see me.

"Hi," I said, as cheerfully as I could.

"Can I help you?" the young man asked.

From his tone, I figured I better pour on the charm. I thrust out my hand. "Tom Davis," I said.

A little reluctantly, he took my hand.

"My grandparents used to live here," I said, pointing to the house behind him. "I just wanted to take a few pictures."

"I don't know," he said.

"What?"

"I don't know if I can let you take pictures."

"But why not?"

"I don't think the owner would like it."

"Oh, so you're not the owner, then?"

"No. My in-laws rent the house. I live in the house in back."

I knew instinctively then what was wrong. He had converted the old garage back of the house into living quarters, probably illegally. No wonder picture-taking made him nervous. "Listen," I said. "I'm not from the government." I pointed across the street to my truck. "See those plates? I'm from Nevada."

He studied the truck for a moment, not saying anything.

Thinking that he might be weakening, I said, "All I want to do is walk back there and take a few pictures of the garage and the back yard."

But he shook his head. "Can't let you do that. Not without the owner's permission."

I really wanted to see the back yard. I probably had enough shots of the two houses from the front, but I desperately wanted to photograph the garage. If it hadn't of been for my recognizing the garage roof line, I might never have found the right place.

"Computers," I said. "I work for the Department of Public Safety. How about you?"

"Juvenile probation officer," he said.

Ah, now I understood. If his in-laws had converted the garage into living quarters illegally he might get into real trouble as an officer of the law. I began to appreciate the spot in which I had put him. I decided to change the subject. "Hey," I said. "Does your in-law's house still have the old fruit cellar?"

He smiled for the first time. "Yes."

I smiled, too. Boy, how I remembered that fruit cellar. It had the most incredible musty smell when you went down there, like you had left the land of the living and somehow been transported back to the ancient land of the dead. A fine coating of El Monte's mocha-colored dust always covered all the fruit jars. I was afraid to breathe down there for fear I'd inhale something too ancient for my young body to withstand.

"And the door to the fruit cellar, is it right inside the back door there?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. And for the first time, Rudy sounded like he believed I wasn't there to bust him.

"Well, that has got to be the right house, then" I said. "No mistake."

"Tell you what," Rudy said. "I'll go get you the owner's name and phone number. I don't think he's in town today, but maybe if you call him tomorrow he'll let you take pictures."

I shook my head. "I'm just here today," I said. "I have other things planned for the next couple of days, then I have to head back to Nevada."

"I'm sorry," he said, sounding like he really meant it, "but I just can't let you take pictures without his permission."

We said goodbye then, and I headed up Cogswell Road for the last time that day. I hadn't gotten to photograph everything I wanted, but I didn't hold it against Rudy. I'm sure, in his line of work, he'd long ago learned not to trust anyone.

I'm not giving up, though. In a year or two I'll go back and try again. Maybe Rudy will decide to trust me this time. Or, maybe someone new will be living in the old house, someone with nothing to hide.

Doesn't matter, though. The ghost might be sporting a new suit of clothes, but I bet I'll recognize him next time. And best of all, I don't think he's going anywhere.

"So, Dad," I said, "tell me about when you were in junior high school and you wore the same pair of corduroy pants for one entire school year."

"I don't remember that," he said, without any hesitation.

I took my eyes off the road for a second and glanced at him. "But I remember you telling me that story when I was a kid. You said they got stiff enough to stand in a corner by themselves."

"Sorry," Dad said, "I don't remember."

I looked down at the tape machine where it lay on the center console, silently recording our conversation. Good thing I had decided to start asking Dad to recount some of the events in his life. Though most of the time he could easily remember the events of his childhood, it looked like he was beginning to forget a few things.

"I don't have as a good a memory as I used to," he said, as if to confirm what I had just been thinking.

That's precisely why I had a tape machine along on our drive. Dad and I were on our way to the hospital where Mom was in for testing. She'd been experiencing a queasy stomach for a solid week and decided to find out if she just had the flu or something else was wrong. Dad wanted to bring her some clothes since it looked like she might be there for a couple of days. Since it would be just Dad and me in the car, I figured it would be a wonderful opportunity to get more of his life on tape.

Talking with Dad was a new experience for me. We'd never done it much. Oh, he'd talk to me, all right, but it wasn't real conversation. What he did most of the time was preach at me. He'd expound at length on the evils of things: things like septic tanks that didn't get pumped often enough or tiny little foreign cars that misguided people drove instead of big, safe Cadillacs. Those sorts of things.

Mostly he expounded on my brother's latest folly. My brother, Cliff, has been married five times and has generally led a life of marital discord and economic disaster. According to Dad, Cliff's beaten him out of thousands of dollars over the years. Each time Dad vows to never to loan him another nickel. Dad holds out as long as he can, but eventually he gives in. Then he goes back to expounding on the evils of people who borrow money and don't pay it back.

When I was a kid, Dad and I never had anything to talk about. We had no common ground, mutual interests, or shared hobbies. I was bookish and studious while he was rugged and manly. I was lucky if I could glue a plastic car model together and not have left-over parts. He was a mechanical genius and could weld piles of raw steel into useful things like horse trailers.

Dad practically lived in the workshop. Most of the time, he worked on other people's cars to earn extra money. The only time he came in the house was to eat and sleep. I don't remember him ever not smelling of motor oil and carburetor cleaner. Since getting greasy was my least favorite thing to do, I stayed completely away from Dad and the workshop. At the time I considered him coarse, undereducated, and antisocial. He often said I was lazy and would never amount to anything.

But over the years we've sort of warmed to each other. At some point, mostly for economic reasons, I began to work on my own cars. Dad really didn't say anything, but I got the idea he approved. I still hated getting greasy, but all through the seventies and eighties I did my own tuneups and minor repairs. Several times I even pulled the engines out of our cars and rebuilt them. Of course, when it came time to put the engine back in, Dad would have to come down and lend his advice. That didn't keep me from having parts left over, just like when I built plastic models, but it didn't seem to affect the car's operation much.

Then, in 1978, Dad and I worked together to build our house on Cherokee Drive. For nearly two years Dad came over evenings and weekends to help me. Though I hired a professional carpenter to frame the house, Dad and I did everything else. Together we dug footings and poured concrete, did framing, ran the wiring and plumbing, hung sheet rock, roofed the house, installed the doors and windows. We even did the heating system and installed the cabinetry.

By the time we'd finished the house in December of 1980, we'd grown somewhat closer. At least, I don't think he still considered me that lazy kid who never wanted to do anything but read. But "talking" still meant hearing him grumble about Cliff's newest antics or getting the usual advice on septic tanks. We had more in common now, since I had acquired some of the skills he'd always thought so valuable, but we still didn't communicate much.

All that changed this year as Dad approached his eighty-third birthday. That's when I decided that I couldn't wait any longer to start familiarizing myself with the family history. We'd recently repainted our house and were beginning to hang pictures back on the wall. As I hung a photograph of the Battleship Nebraska, with my Grandfather sitting on the forward gun, I realized that maybe I ought to see if Dad had any pictures of his World War II ship, the Flusser. Then I could hang the pictures together. I went right up and asked Mom if she had any such picture. She disappeared into the bedroom and soon emerged with a photo that had spent the last fifty plus years rolled up in her cedar chest. When we unrolled it, I could see that it was Dad's boot camp picture from 1942. There was Dad, sitting cross-legged, the only one in the entire picture with his starched white cap pushed unmilitarily to the back of his head.

I immediately took the picture and had it professionally matted and framed. From the very moment I brought that picture back to show Dad, I could feel things begin to change. All of a sudden, Dad began to talk to me. Not at me, as he has done for so many years, but to me. With shock, I realized what been wrong all along: he didn't think I cared about him or his accomplishments. Having the picture framed somehow convinced him that I really was interested in him. From that moment on our relationship changed.

Now, every Tuesday morning, I take my tape recorder up to Mom and Dad's and spend an hour letting them recount the story of their lives. More often than not, dad jumps in and does most of the talking. We pull out a photo album, and I take each picture in turn and ask him to describe the people, places and events. Most of the time, the photograph merely serves as a "jumping-off point" for a whole series of reminiscences about his life. Dad has told me more in the last two months than I heard about in the last forty years. Sure, I know he'd probably rather be out in the workshop tearing apart some engine, but you know, most of the time he sits right there until I run out of tape.

Unfortunately, learning life's valuable lessons sometimes takes a lifetime. Thank goodness I learned mine while I still have Dad to talk to. If I'm lucky, he'll be around for many more years to recount his adventures and accomplishments and I'll be there to listen and write it down.

Then someday, my son, though he doesn't seem interested right now, will want to hear about how his Grandfather wore the same pair of corduroys for an entire year in junior high.

I heard the back door bang and looked up to see my wife, Concetta, standing on the step, a troubled look on her face.

"You've got to go up to your Mom and Dad's place right away," she said "C.J. says your Dad has fainted."

Fainted? I jumped down off the scaffolding where my stone mason, Charley LeClair, and I had been cementing river rock to one of the ten-foot pillars that support the heavy timbered roof of my backyard pergola and headed for my truck.

I knew that Dad and his best friend Pat, a neighbor of Dad's, had planned to mix concrete that morning for a small slab Dad wanted for stacking his firewood. I had asked him to wait until I could help him, but he said he wanted to get it done. Dad's in pretty good shape, but at eighty-three, not good enough to be shoveling and wheeling concrete. So, when he told me he'd asked Pat to do the heavy work, I'd been relieved.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," I called to Charley.

At first I couldn't get the old Ford moving. Seconds ticked away as I repeatedly started it, put it gear, and stalled it. Finally, after four or five attempts, I managed to keep it running. I tore out of the yard and up the street, wondering just what my nephew, C.J. had meant by 'fainted.'

Dad and Mom live just two blocks away. As I drove, I couldn't help but wonder if this was it, the day that every child dreads, the day they lose one of their parents. The family had been trying for years to get Dad to slow down. Though he retired from Western Electric almost three decades ago, he has never stopped working. Most of the time, he does heavy equipment mechanics for MacSween Construction. He works on everything from pickup trucks to giant Michigan front-end loaders. In his spare time, he often does electric wiring and plumbing projects and helps maintain the mini-warehouse complex that MacSween owns. Only recently, has Dad talked about scaling back his hours a bit.

Why now, I wondered, just as I had begun to know Dad? After putting it off far longer than I should, I had recently begun to tape interviews with him. It started with me wanting to know what he knew about his Dad who served aboard the USS Nebraska just prior to World War I. From there we moved into a discussion of Dad's time in the Navy as well as his childhood. Every Tuesday morning for the past couple of months I have appeared at his breakfast table, tape recorder in hand, and we have spent a half hour talking about his life. As I accelerated up the road to his house, I felt immensely sad that those few tapes might turn out to be the sum total of what I would ever know about him.

But then, as I reached my parents'house, I was astounded to see Dad at the far end of the drive, close to where I knew he'd been pouring concrete, moving around as if nothing at all had happened. Relieved, I started to park the truck.

Mom hailed me from the breezeway door. "Park out of the way," she called. "The ambulance is coming."

Ambulance? Perplexed, I did as she asked. Then I jumped down and walked over to where she now stood looking toward the street, hand shading her eyes.

"C.J. said on the phone Dad fainted," I said. But I just saw. . ."

"It's not your Dad," she said. "It's Pat."

Pat, a seventy-three year old, ex-brick mason from Michigan, is Dad's best friend in the neighborhood. He's a short 'fireplug' of a guy with a Jimmy Cagney swagger and a ready wit. Dad and he often work together for MacSween. And when they're not working for MacSween, they're helping each other with their own home improvement projects

I hurried over to where Dad was leveling a coffee table-sized section of newly-poured concrete. I looked around, didn't see Pat. Puzzled, I said, "Well, where is he?"

Dad didn't look up. "I didn't see him go down," he said, as he pushed a chunk of two by four back and forth across the wet concrete to level it. "He brought the wheelborrow over and then walked back to start the next load. I was working here. I don't know how long he lay there."

"But where. . ."

"Over by the mixer." Dad picked up a float and began to smooth the surface.

I turned and ran toward the mixer.

I couldn't see Pat at first, but when I got closer, I saw him sprawled out on the ground between the wood pile and one of the Scotch Pines. He looked for all the world like a spilled pile of laundry. Not wanting to step over him, I circled the wood pile and came around to where I could kneel beside him.

One look, and I knew Pat was dead. His face had the same deep color of purple that my younger son Robbie had when he was born, before they spanked him and got him breathing. I could tell that Pat had already gone too long without oxygen.

Just then, the ambulance appeared at the bottom of the driveway. A second later, two paramedics hurried over with their gear. They grabbed Pat by the shoulders and ankles, moved him to a more open spot, and busily set to work.

I watched, mesmerized. It reminded me of an episode of ER on TV. While one paramedic kept up a steady rhythm on Pat's chest with his clasped hands, the other eased a white plastic tube down Pat's throat to make sure his airway was clear, then applied an oxygen mask. Moments later, when Pat hadn't responded, they began to administer the defibrillator. "Clear," the younger of the two paramedics would yell, and Pat's body would jump.

But the purple tone of Pat's face didn't change. After several minutes, I couldn't watch any more. I walked over to where Dad was still working on the concrete, smoothing it, rounding the edges, making it perfect.

"I couldn't roll him over," Dad said, not looking up. "I tried. I got him part way over but I just couldn't get him on his back."

"Dad," I said, "don't you think you ought to stop? Let's just scoop out this little bit of cement you've done so far and after I'm done at my house, I'll come back and help you pour this." I looked over at the paramedics still trying to revive Pat, wondering what they must think seeing him working that concrete while his best friend fought for his life.

"No," Dad said. "I have to finish." He stood up. "I need to start the next batch."

I couldn't believe he wanted to go on. But I knew better than to try and talk him out of it. "All right." I held up my hands. "But I'll do the mixing. I don't want you doing it."

Dad scoffed. "Nothing wrong with me," he said, though I suspect he was relieved that I would be taking Pat's place on the cement mixer. Dad might still be able to do the finish work, but he can't lift the wheelbarrow-full of concrete any more.

Just then, two Douglas County Sheriff's deputies walked up the drive and came to stand beside the paramedics. The next time I looked, one of them was down on the ground, pressed into service keeping up the rhythm on Pat's chest, spelling the paramedics whom I'm sure had begun to grow weary from the effort.

Feeling sheepish and low, I walked over to the mixer. It took every bit of resolve I possessed to flip that power switch to 'ON.' As the mixer grumbled to life, I glanced guiltily in the direction of the little knot of rescuers, but no one looked up. I picked up the shovel and began to throw sand and gravel into the mixer's spinning mouth, though each scrape of the shovel felt like a fingernail on the chalkboard of my soul.

When I had finished shoveling, and the cement, sand, water and gravel had sufficiently mixed, I tipped the drum over and let the pallid gray mixture fall into the wheelbarrow. Then I wheeled it over to Dad. Carefully, one shovel-full at a time, I scooped the newly-made concrete into the form where Dad used his length of two by four to smooth it in beside the previous pour. When I had emptied the wheelbarrow, I grabbed the handles and headed back toward the mixer.

As I passed the paramedics, I saw that they had finally given up. I stopped and watched as they unfolded a blue and white muslin sheet and gently covered Pat from head to toe. Nothing showed but the soles of his boots.

Some time later, when the paramedics had collected all their gear and returned it to their truck, the younger of the two men approached me. "We did all we could," he said.

So far, I had been keeping my emotions under control, but I came close to bursting into tears at the sound of his sad, fatigued voice. I nodded and strangled out, "I know. I saw."

"You gonna be okay?" he asked.

"Not for quite a while," I said. "But thanks for everything you did."

He nodded a couple of times, glanced over at Dad, then turned and walked toward the ambulance. Moments later, they drove away.

By the time the guys in the white van arrived to collect Pat's body, I had finished my concrete mixing and turned the offensive mixer off. Peace had properly returned to the death scene. Over on the newly-poured slab, Dad still worked methodically with float and shiny trowel. Not once had he stopped his labors, nor acknowledged any of Pat's would-be rescuers.

After I helped lift Pat's body onto the Gurney, I watched the two men in the white truck slam the rear doors and drive away. When they'd gone, I looked down and saw a pair of work-worn leather gloves lying on the vacant sand where Pat's body had lain.

One of the deputies saw the gloves, too. He walked over and picked them up, then came to stand beside me. "These his?" he asked.

I nodded, unable to speak.

"Maybe you should have them," he said, holding them out to me.

As the deputies turned and walked back down the drive, I stared at Pat's gloves, saw them without seeing them, tried to grasp the crushing finality of his being gone. Then I walked over to where Dad knelt beside the new concrete slab, relentlessly smoothing it, making it perfect, keeping the specter of death at bay.

He looked up at me for the first time. "I lost a good friend today," he said.

"You're not going to find anything down there," Charley said. "We've been over that ground a dozen times in the past forty years."

Several yards down-slope from where Charley was standing on the old trolley right-of-way, I stopped digging in the rocky ground for a moment and looked up at him. "Guess I just feel lucky today," I said. "Besides, I don't think I ever explored this exact spot."

Charley sighed. "Suit yourself. But it's getting late. I think I'll head on down the mountain. You guys can pick me up at the top of Lake Avenue when you get back to Altadena." He paused a moment, probably hoping Herb would offer to walk with him. When Herb didn't speak up, he said, "Well, See you later then." He turned and set off down the road.

For a moment I felt bad. I looked up at Herb. "If you want to go with him, I don't mind. I'll hike back to the truck on my own and pick you both up at the top of Lake Avenue.

Herb shook his head. "No thanks. I think I'll just hang around here."

"Okay. But I'd like to spend some more time on this hillside."

Herb pulled off his pack and let it drop to the ground. "Go ahead. We have lots of time. Charley will be three or four hours getting to the bottom."

"Think we should worry about him?"

"Nah. He can take care of himself."

"You're probably right." I went back to digging. A few minutes later, when I hadn't found anything interesting, I filled in the hole and started making my way further down the leafy forty-five degree slope. Seconds later, I had lost sight of Herb behind the thick stands of scrub oak and fir trees.

Charley Seims, Herb Shoebridge and I had started out that morning near Mount Wilson, in California's San Gabriel mountains. We had parked my truck at Mount Wilson Saddle, and set off on the fire road that ran from the saddle down to the site of the old Alpine Tavern. The Tavern, one of four hotels that serviced the Mount Lowe Railway for nearly four decades at the beginning of the twentieth century, burned in 1936. Nothing remained at the site now but picnic tables and a couple of outhouses. Still, it was often our destination when we hiked into the San Gabriels for a day of artifact hunting.

As Charley had said, we'd been artifact hunting in the area for nearly forty years. Both of us had been smitten with the bug back in the 1960s when the Forest Service started systematically obliterating all evidence of the old mountain trolley line. Though we didn't know each other in the beginning, we soon began to run into each other on the mountain trails near our Altadena neighborhood. Before long, we found a kinship in our desire to preserve whatever artifacts could be found before the Forest Service erased all evidences of the once world-renowned tourist destination.

The trolley line dated to the 1890s. At that time, an entrepreneur named Thaddeus Lowe decided that the San Gabriel mountains were so beautiful that tourists would pay to be transported into the rugged interior. Lowe hired an engineer, David J. MacPherson, and together they designed and built a trolley line from central Altadena to the base of the rugged San Gabriels. At a place where the precipitous slopes of Echo Mountain gave way to the boulder-strewn defile known as Rubio Canyon, they constructed a gravity-defying incline railroad to the summit, nearly fourteen-hundred feet above. At the top of the incline on Echo Mountain, tracks extended several miles further along sheer cliffs and over a dozen trestles to a secluded, tree-shaded glen known as Crystal Springs, later site of the Alpine Tavern.

It was beside this trolley line's right-of-way, which in modern times serves as a fire access road, that I had chosen to search for artifacts. Mainly, I was looking for old bottles, and had already found a couple earlier that day. Still, I always kept my eye out for the old metal signs which had once marked every point of interest along the trolley's route. These signs were highly prized by Mount Lowe Railway historians and had, therefore, largely disappeared from the right-of-way after the line was abandoned in 1938.

Now, a hundred feet down the hillside, I lifted my foot to step over a whitish piece of wood lying in the lush grass. At first it didn't look like anything I'd be interested in. But then I noticed a small hole in the center of the piece of wood. The hole suggested that the board had once been mounted on a post or tree. I stopped, shoved the toe of my hiking boot under the edge, and flipped it over. I caught my breath. There at my feet, revealed for the first time in over six decades, lay a Mount Lowe Railway sign.

Scarcely able to believe my good fortune, I quickly bent down and picked it up. I had found one of the rarest artifacts anyone could find - one made of wood. Even more miraculous, not only was the sign in decent shape, but the writing was still vivid and readable.

But then I studied the sign more closely. Something didn't look right. With a sinking feeling, I realized that I had discovered only a portion of the old wooden sign. The last line of writing on the lower edge of the sign had been severed neatly through the middle of all the letters. Obviously, I had found only half a sign. For many minutes, I frantically searched the hillside for the missing piece, but to no avail. The lower half of the sign was gone.

Discouraged, I abandoned my hillside search, and started the long climb back up to the road. When I came in sight, Herb stood up. "Find anything?"

I held up the sign, too out of breath to do anything but grin.

"Fantastic," Herb said. "Wait 'till Charley sees that. And he thought you guys had already covered this spot a dozen times."

Several hours later, when Herb and I had hiked back to the truck and then driven to Altadena to pick up Charley, I decided to have a little fun.

"Bet you didn't find anything," Charley said, when he'd settled himself inside the truck and closed the door. "I told you that we'd cleaned that hillside out years ago."

"Well," I said. "I did find one little thing."

Charley probably expected me to say I'd found yet another old Sarsparilla bottle or rusty railroad spike. Sounding bored, he said, "The usual junk, I expect."

I reached behind the seat and pulled out the old sign. "Just this."

Charley's eyes got as big as dinner plates. "You mean you found that right there where I left you?"

"Not too far from there," I said. "It was lying right on the surface of the ground."

"No way." Charley grabbed the sign. "How did we miss this?"

"Search me." Thank goodness it landed upside down so the sun couldn't fade the lettering."

Charley shook his head. "And I thought all the good stuff was long gone."

After we said goodbye to Herb, who had plans with his wife that evening, Charley and I headed back to the motel to clean up. We were so exited about the find that we decided to go someplace special for dinner.

"What about the Echo Café?" I said, knowing the owners had named the café for one of the trolley line's major features, Echo Mountain.

"Great," Charley said. "I haven't been there in years."

The Echo Café, under a variety of names, had been at the corner of Lake Avenue and Altadena Drive in our home town of Altadena since the early 1950s. The sweeping horizontal design, along with the 50s-style, slanted plate-glass front windows, definitely dated the restaurant to the era of our childhood. It seemed the logical place to go to celebrate our discovery.

When we arrived, the first thing we noticed was that the café, to honor its namesake mountain, had been decorated with photographs and artifacts from the Mount Lowe Railway. Though Charley was too foot-sore from his solitary hike down the mountain to feel like exploring the many exhibits, I couldn't resist wandering around the restaurant looking at all the treasures on display.

It didn't take me long to discover something interesting. Over the door to the kitchen, the owners had mounted a faded wooden sign. It had obviously been out in the weather for a very long time, as its lettering was barely visible. I tried to form a mental image of the sign I'd found that morning and compare its size and wording to one over the kitchen door, but without success. After puzzling over it for a some minutes, I went back to the table and suggested that Charley go take a look.

"Well, what do you think?" I said, when he got back..

"Interesting," he said.

"Yes, but don't you think that sign looks a lot like mine?"

Charley shook his head. "That sign and yours don't look anything alike."

And that's where we left it. After dinner we headed back to the motel. But as soon as we got in the door Charley and I both rushed over to take another look at my sign. It was obvious we had both been thinking about it since we saw the one in the restaurant.

Finally, Charley turned to me. "You know we've got to go back."

"I was thinking the same thing," I said. I grabbed the sign. "Let's go."

Back at the restaurant, we lost no time in asking the owners to remove their sign from over the kitchen door and lay it on the floor. Then, we set my sign above theirs and pushed the two pieces together. As if this sort of thing happens every day, the severed letters on the bottom of my sign nestled up against the severed letters on the top of the restaurant sign and, letter for letter, matched exactly. Their sign was indeed the missing lower half of my sign.

The waiter told us that the restaurant sign had been lent to the manager by someone who found it on the mountain twenty-five years ago. For twenty five years, the sign lay forgotten in the finder's garage until one day, noticing the restaurant's theme, he remembered it and offered to place it on display.

The whole group of us, Charley and I and the waiter and the cook and the hostess, all stood in a circle around the reunited signs and stared.

"I just don't believe it," the waiter said.

"It's incredible," the cook said.

"And to think you just found your half today," the hostess said.

"Yeah," Charley said. "Of all the restaurants in all the cities in southern California we could have picked for dinner, what are the odds we'd pick this one?"

Still shaking our heads, Charley and I left that night with my half of the sign.

A year later, when I once again visited Altadena, I stopped by the restaurant to take another look at the lower half of the sign, but it was gone. I did manage to track down the Echo Café's manager, now moved on to other pursuits, and learned that the sign had been returned to its owner.

"No way," he said, when I asked if he thought the owner might want to sell the lower half. He merely nodded and made no comment when I told him that I had the top half. Perhaps the café's ex-manager hoped to buy the lower half of the sign himself someday. Who knows? When he didn't invite further discussion on the topic, I let the matter rest.

So, at least for the foreseeable future, the two pieces are destined to remain apart. After all, they may have been apart for half a century or more. Someday, when I donate my Mount Lowe Railway collection to a southern California museum or historical society, perhaps the two pieces will somehow find their way back together once more. Until then, the sign has a place of honor in my writing room where, now that it's rescued from the ravages of sun and rain and snow, it shall remain for many years to come.

Most wives will tell you that their husbands don't listen very well. I think they have it all wrong. Husbands are good listeners. The problem is one of timing and arises when wives assume that the husband is listening, when in reality his mind is elsewhere.

For instance, the wife will say that she wishes to attend a certain function on the coming weekend and would like the husband to attend with her. The husband appears to be listening when she makes this announcement. He may even look up from the TV and smile.

"Okay, don't forget," she'll say.

Though his attention is riveted on the latest episode of 'This Old House,' he'll say something like, "Sure, Okay." and then he'll go back to watching Norm Abrams scrape paint off a piece of nineteenth-century clapboard siding. Unfortunately, he has no idea he just made a commitment that his wife considers crucial to their relationship.

The wife, assuming that the husband has agreed to go, proceeds to formalize plans for the function. But just to be doubly sure, she'll mention the topic a half-dozen times during the rest of the week, usually while the husband is concentrating on the Final Jeopardy question.

So, when the day of the function arrives and the wife informs the husband, usually over breakfast, that they need to get ready to go, he panics. He realizes that he has no idea what he's agreed to do. Of course, he doesn't want to let her know that he doesn't remember, so he just goes along. He may risk asking what he's supposed to wear, but unless something in his wife's reply tips him off to the nature of the function, he may get dressed and get in the car and still be uncertain of their destination.

Now he has a bigger problem: should he admit that he has no idea where they're going? Or, does he just start driving and hope that he will accidentally pick the correct direction? Sometimes he gets lucky and his wife will say something like, 'Honey, before we get to Bob and Helen's house, we need to stop by the drugstore so I can buy a birthday card.' When that happens, he's home free. He won't ever have to reveal that he was flying blind.

But if she doesn't give him any clues, and doesn't actually object to the direction he's taking, things can get complicated fast. The wife often knows where she wants to go, but has no idea how to get there. And since she's not good with directions, she may just assume he's on the right road. When that happens, they can drive for miles and miles without either person realizing that they're headed in the wrong direction.

Seem far fetched? Hardly. This very thing happened to me in the summer of 2002 when my wife decided we would attend an art show at Lake Tahoe. Though she says she reminded me several times during the week, by Saturday breakfast I was still surprised when she told me that I had agreed to attend the show. But I wasn't worried. At least I knew the general direction I needed to drive. I figured she would direct me once we got close to the Lake, so I didn't bother to ask where at Lake Tahoe we were going.

So off we went, each of us thinking that the other knew where we were headed. Finally, as we reached the outskirts of South Lake Tahoe, the time had come to admit that I didn't know where to find the art show.

"So," I said, hoping to sound nonchalant," where is the art show taking place?"

"Art show?" She scowled. "Don't you remember where we're going?"

"Ah, well I--"

"SIDEWALK PAINTING," she said. "I must have told you twenty times."

"Oh, sorry," I said, trying to sound as cheery and upbeat as possible. "So, where's the sidewalk painting taking place?"

She gave me a dark look. "I told you that too. It's at the Biltmore."

"Biltmore. Biltmore." I pronounced the name a couple of times hoping I'd get a mental image of its location, but nothing came to me. "Um." I glanced over at her. "So...where is the Biltmore?"

I could feel her blood pressure rising. "You're the driver. I don't know where the Biltmore is."

"You don't know where...." I started to say, then thought better of it. Frantically, I began scanning the skyline as we approached the casino district hoping to catch sight of a billboard or marque. But when I didn't see any signs for the Biltmore, I said, "You know, I'm not sure I know where the Biltmore is. Do you have an address?"

"Great. You've only had an entire week to figure this out."

"Sorry," I said. "Tell you what, how about if we just drive for awhile and maybe we'll see it along the way."

"Fine," she said, making it sound anything but fine.

Though I knew chances of locating the Biltmore were slim once we left the Stateline area, I drove all the way through South Shore to where the road branches toward the airport. We saw no sign of the Biltmore. By then I had begun to get a very bad feeling. "Um," I said to her, "I guess you're pretty sure this hotel is at the South Shore. Right?"

She threw up her hands. "I don't know where it is. You usually know these things."

Right then I knew if the Biltmore wasn't at the South Shore, it had to be at the North Shore. I found a place to turn around and headed back in the opposite direction.

"Well?" she said. "Do we stop and ask someone how to find it?"

"No need." I flashed her a toothy grin. "We'll be there no time."

Dear Don:

Well, I finally tracked you down. I've been trying to learn what happened to you for nearly thirty years. I guess the last time I saw you was when I got out of the Navy in 1972. You were working for the Rubio Canyon Water Company in Altadena and I was headed off to college. You and I and John Riise spent a half hour together and then went our separate ways. I'm sure none of us knew how many years would pass before we caught up with each other again.

I found you because I saw your face on the Internet (photo left and below). I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before, but one day I typed your name into an Internet search engine, and up popped your face. You definitely looked older than the last time I saw you, but I knew it was you. The caption on the picture said that you were the station manager for some outpost in the Antarctic. That struck me as predictably unpredictable. You always were unpredictable.

Unfortunately, I was too late. When I contacted the web master for the Antarctic station's web page, the guy told me you had moved on. Been gone a couple of years, I think he said. There I was, back to square one.

But then I started thinking, where would a guy like Don go? After some thought, I decided that if you weren't still in the Antarctic somewhere, you would probably come back to the states. On a hunch, I picked Oregon for your probable destination. Don't ask me why I chose Oregon, since we spent our childhoods in southern California, but Oregon just seemed to fit a lifestyle spent close to nature.

So, I started searching the Internet for anyone with your name living in Oregon. Almost immediately I came up with the town of "Sisters." I'd never heard of the place, but I found a web site for "Sisters" and emailed the web master to ask him if he knew you. I never got a response. Grudgingly, I put the search aside.

That was in the spring of 2001. In the summer of 2001 a friend and I decided to go down to Los Angeles for the annual hotrod roadster show. My friend, Charley, told me that he had a friend who lived on the desert north of Los Angeles. Charley said he needed to pick up an engine for an early Ford V-8 from this friend. Since we would be going there to pick up the engine anyway, Charley's friend, John Jefferson, offered to let us stay with him for the several days that we would be in the area. I felt a little shy about staying with someone I didn't