When this whole mess began, I had gone to a lawyer, had him draw up a very balanced plan, then told him to sit on it. That lawyer was very surprised. He had never had that experience before. I was not about to be caught as a victim and I was not going to be the driver of the action. Until now. Now I was tired of the game and ready to move on.

Michael and I had a credo. Don’t turn around, don’t go back. We’d be in the woods and a bit confused about the map. Of course, the sensible thing is to back track. Michael and Mary don’t back track so forward we would go, and like the jungle in the Philippines, it would pay off. Back packing trips, though, we would plan as an out and back. We would head for a place to set up camp then ray out in our explorations from that home base. It made for better cooking. We rarely if ever ate the freeze-dried prepared foods. We had a wide array of foods we could pack in, cook over a campfire, and feel sustained. My brother Marty loved the loop trail, but in my experiences packing with him there was always a section of trail that was a slog, not fun, overlong, sometimes even boring if you can imagine that. With the out and back practice, you would think that the trail already traveled would be a drag. Not so. Seeing the trail from the reverse was always new and delightful.

Maybe trying to put the marriage back together was like turning back because we were confused by the map. It was a breaking of our credo. It wouldn’t work for us. I met with Michael in a little café. With me, I had the Native American woven blanket that had been in his family, it had a history and a story. He looked delighted that we were meeting in a café. I, however had the course set and that look of his could not fool me again. When I presented him with the blanket, announced I was ready to set out the terms of a divorce, his look changed, not at all anger, crestfallen. I suggested he head out to a lawyer and present me with the plan. I did not reveal that I already had mine in place and had for some time.

Around this time, Michael was scheduled for some routine follow up scans. We are so easily fooled. We think we are in charge of our lives, our futures. Ha, the joke is on us. We do need to have forward motion, that is our job, but we need to let go of the idea that where we land is of our making. The Universe has a plan for you. Be ready.

The Melanoma road trip was adventurous indeed. Scans found tumors in Michaels’ lung and in his brain. Radiation and Chemo treatment would start on Halloween. Michael asked and I complied; I took him to his first treatment. Dr Fletcher did not flinch. And, of course after that brutal first course of radiation, I kept him at the house. But when he asked me what side of the bed I wanted (which was a weird question that he had never asked in 23 years) I told him I was taking the top bunk in Amanda’s room.

Michael never left. Marty came down for Thanksgiving. He now lived in Seattle, no longer at Hanford. I coerced everyone into heading out to the Gorge to visit She Who Watches. The weather was horrendous, but I wanted Michael to see this marvel one more time. We couldn’t get to the petroglyphs because someone had defaced the ancient site. Michael could barely get back to the car; he was too beat by the hike to even get close to the wall of the ancient carvings.

Michael’s mother, father and brother came for Christmas. His mother had never been in an airplane before. I hosted the whole crew. By now Michael had been radiated, blasted with chemo and he literally glowed. However, Christmas dinner was the last meal he was able to keep down. Michael had made a vow to himself; he would stop treatment when he could no longer walk into the appointment on his own. It was a brave decision. Now, he could no longer walk into the appointment on his own.

**************

It snowed shortly after Christmas. The road in front of the house was the best place to sled, just like good old Washington Park. The whole neighborhood would break out and we’d race each other down the hill. We had Michael’s original flexible flyer from the 1950s. I made Michael take a ride down that hill. He flew down there and man there was no stopping him. Then we had to get him back up. I ran all the way down and helped him with the struggle. He made it.

The lung tumor was at the bifurcation of the main pipe and one of the smaller tubes into his lung. As the tumor blocked the windpipe, Michael would go into a spasm of choking. Sometimes I could help him relax enough to quiet the gasping. We had always practiced synced breathing and that could often help, but sometimes at the end of the day it was just too hard to settle it down. At those times I would be lying in bed with him (I ended up opting for the left side) just trying to relax and breathe with the hope that he would also be able to do so. If he stopped choking, I was never sure if he had relaxed or had died. Most nights toward the end I didn’t know whether I was sleeping next to a dead body or not, but I couldn’t take the chance to check and risk waking him and putting him back into a spasm.

The cold snap in the weather was freakish. One day, I grabbed my ice skates, abandoned Michael to his own devices, passed through the blueberry field, and trespassed onto a neighbor’s property where there was a significant wetland. As I passed through the blueberry field, my kids and I with our skates, Joan, the owner of the blueberry farm, and her kids soon joined us to play on the ice. The neighbor’s horses came down to see what was going on. Before long half the neighborhood had joined in, skating round and round between the bushes that stuck up out of the solid ice. This included Bruce. Bruce felt some level of guilt at the trespass and hiked up to get permission. By the time he got back down to tell us we were not welcome, I was satisfied and headed home. I still hold it against Bruce, nevertheless.

The morning of the first of February, the day started springlike. Sunny, warm. The kids and I went out to shoot hoops in the driveway, a raucous game of HORSE, likely. When we scrambled in to grab lunch, we found Dad struggling for breath with the spasms of the blocked airway. Michael could not relax into this one, close to panic. A few weeks back he had gotten into a struggle and asked to go to the hospital. Then, the ambulance couldn’t find our house. This time they came straight for the door, swooped Michael off to the hospital. I let them know I would follow with the car. I asked how they found the house so easily this time. The EMT told me they had met with all personnel to staff the next call because they knew there would be a next call.

I called friend Barb to pick up the kids and headed off to the hospital. Dr Fletcher was out of town. None of the Fellows covering this case would order morphine. This predated any work on death with dignity. Morphine damps down the lung function and there is a fine line of dosing levels. None of the Fellows were willing to have the possibility that they had killed the patient with the morphine dose, so early in their medical careers. Eight hours of choking on a tumor at the entry to the lung, and Dr Fletcher arrived on the scene. He took one look at Michael, with me about ready to expire myself, having sat with him all this time. He ordered the morphine drip. “Get that man on morphine.” No one questioned it. Barb had brought the kids to say goodbye a few hours earlier. Finally with the morphine on board, Michael could settle down and shortly thereafter, all quieted down. I called the nurse in. She was new to this floor. She began to cry. Her colleague kindly chastised her “this is what is supposed to happen.”

Michael was dead. I was not divorced. I drove home. I climbed into the top bunk in Amanda’s room.

Thanks folks for stopping by. Stay tuned for the next episode in a week.

Mary E Joyce

Melanoma. This is a tricky little entity. Most cancers grab onto a cell type in an organ and go to town. Only after doing its job in that organ, does it look for an advancement in the company, metastasis. Melanoma loves his little entryway, the skin. With Melanoma, it’s a coin toss, a fifty/fifty chance that metastasis will occur at the beginning. This little anomaly, much like Michael and I did over and over again, found an alluring adventure. For Melanoma in Michael, it was the lymph system. A superhighway, running like the blood system, to every part of the body. Woohoo, road trip!

Amanda was in kindergarten with the move, so switched to the Cedar Mill School. Young Michael was in his last year in middle school before heading off to high school. I set up an opportunity for him to finish his year with his longtime friends, allowing for the fresh start at the high school. Michael, Jr. chose to jump right in, transferring to Cedar Park Middle School with just a few weeks until the end. A very brave choice.

Amanda and I were out exploring the new neighborhood one day. There were big homes being built everywhere around us. Creeks and wetlands wove all through the new developments and we were explorers. As we headed down the hill in the new territory, we heard “Who.” It was not a question, for sure. It was an explanation. We searched the treetops, and there, at the top of a towering fir, a Great Horned Owl, talking directly to us.

Again, for me, the memory fails. Michael was quickly back on the mend and back to work. Portland Police Department was very supportive. I can’t really put a finger on when I was feeling uneasy or what were the triggers for that feeling. I have blotches of memories much like that blotch on his ankle which was the entry for the melanoma. I remember hearing from an old friend from the Hillsboro force. He called to find out what Michael was doing in that town so late the night before, curious as to what party he had missed. Michael was adamant that the cop was mistaken. Things were weird enough that I arranged for marriage therapy. I was very thoughtful in choosing a therapist that would help Michael feel comfortable. I was assuming that the source of the changes in Michael’s demeanor was about the curse of cancer that was hanging over his head. I found a therapist that worked at the V.A., I thought that was a good fit. She was in the practice of interviewing each member of the dyad separately. At the end of the two interviews, she announced that she saw no problems with getting us back in line with the connection. Shortly after that announcement I discovered Michael had a mistress. Michael had told the therapist about the other woman. I hunted that professional down with a “What the Hell?” “Well, I didn’t think you were going to drop out of therapy!” That was the first of a few malpractices I endured in the falling apart of this long running episode, our marriage.

Prior to learning about Michael’s paramour, I had found someone better than a therapist to help me through this mess. My Great Horned Owl friend had followed me home that day. I’d step outside my door and would hear “Who.” I’d be delighted to hear the owl. Then Michael would fail to come home or some other weirdness. It took me two episodes to pick up on the pattern, but it was undeniable and happened too many times. Then Michael and I would talk it out and a screech owl would announce “wo wowowowo.” And we would be back on track. But Michael was getting pressure on the other end to make a move. It was clear he was not going to take a definitive step. He was sure he could keep me very well in my little beautiful pumpkin shell while he pursued the excitement of the new relationship.

We sought out another therapist, this time I thought maybe a man would be more effective. After the first session, the therapist told Michael treatment could not continue if he insisted on keeping the other woman. That therapist kept me on as the client. I was devastated by the state of affairs, the affair as it were. In my head I pictured going to that office. My vision of myself was climbing his stairs to his office, crawling on hands and knees on the staircase. I couldn’t have felt more broken if the melanoma had eaten my bones to powder. Michael still tried to keep me on the hook, right up to the moment when I, at the end of my rope, picked up his fully loaded bar of weights and threw it across the garage. I have never seen Michael’s eyes get that big. Without another word he turned and left the house.

He came and packed his stuff and went, moving in with Other Woman. I somehow knew she lived in Hillsboro and worked in downtown Portland. That is all I knew, and I can’t remember how I knew that. When I noticed he had left his coffee maker I packed that thing up, jumped in my car and somehow drove straight to where I found his vehicle, now an Isuzu Trooper. I took the coffee maker, placed it on the doorstep and turned to leave it there where he would find it. He, however, saw me out the window and came flying out of the house to find out what I was doing there. We had a saying in Chester: “You can take the girl out of Chester but ya can’t take Chester out the girl.” I’m sure Michael was afraid I would “go Chester on her ass.” I was just trying to leave. He was trying to engage me in some kind of discussion, turn around, I guess, is fair play. However, just at that moment I heard “who”. Michael and I looked up in the tree. Michael looked at me with such a start, I looked at him in complete power and said, “I’m out of here.”

I never asked about the woman, and I burned all of Michael’s journals without reading them. Over all our years, we had a running joke about “the honeymoon is over.” It usually was related to pooping or farting, or other bodily functions that early daters are embarrassed by. For us, the honeymoon was over related to this shit show. Michael hung in there with Other Woman for a while longer but any time he had some family duty they seemed to have conflict. He would be apologetic for showing up late for kid related celebrations. I know Amanda met her and announced she liked her. I think they went to the movies. It wasn’t long, though, before their honeymoon was over. Jack had moved to Portland from Los Angeles. He had bought a bunch of rental properties up here. Michael stayed in Jack’s basement until one of the rentals opened up.

Michael continued to see his doctors up at OHSU for his follow up appointments. Dr Fletcher would stop me in the hallway, my workplace, and give me updates. I would tell him I was no longer involved; he would ignore me and continue to fill me in. I loved that guy anyway, the doctor I’m referring to. I was laid off from my position at the heart research lab, but not before I received the advice “don’t divorce him, he will be dead soon.” Cold advice. Sage advice. I kept it in mind. I was hired by the osteoporosis group there. One role I found myself doing was reviewing medical records to be sure we had pulled all the data we needed. The job included reading through the psycho/social notes. Strange, I thought, when I read a case where, early in a cancer diagnosis the marriage had fallen apart. Then the couple came back together as the illness advanced. I read it again in another patient. Then again and again. I knew I was reading my future, not in the cards but in the medical records. Probably something that Fletcher had seen a time or two as well.

What had gotten into Michael? What made him throw away everything we had? Relationships are hard. They take a lot of work. Back in high school, there was a tv show called Run For Your Life. Ben Gazzara. Man, my friends and I loved that show. The character had received a cancer diagnosis with two years to live, so he quit everything and hit the road. He traveled all around the country saving people and solving crimes. I always embraced the Run For Your Life theory, for Michael. But man, regardless of the explanation, as much as I loved Michael, that is exactly how much I hated him now. However, we shared children, so I tried to behave.

Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned for the next episode coming up in a week.

Mary E Joyce

By the time we were at the Brogden house, Dunbar was just shy of 13 years old when he laid down one day and did not get up. I attended to his needs throughout the day. I brought the kids to him for their farewell. I laid next to him and felt good about having bid him farewell for his final journey, then I climbed in bed. Michael came home from work to find him breathing his last. He came in and bade me come out to say goodbye. I had/have the feeling Michael was surprised, maybe dismayed, when I told him “I said my goodbyes” and did not, could not, get up for another.

It was not too long after that, when Odie, way past a reasonable age for a dog that big but still following his nose relentlessly, ended up in the ditch along the front field, unable to get up. I somehow got him back to the house or maybe took the truck to the street and loaded him up. I was working at a vet clinic, taking care of the kids, volunteering at the schools when I could. Michael had the opportunity to head up to the San Juan Islands to get his certification for scuba diving. He was communing with an octopus that was climbing around on his hand when I took Odie to the vet. He was hardly able to get around. Without further question the vet put him to sleep. Michael came home to a house empty of pets. The octopus had put a triangle shaped bite in his hand, and I had put a wound in his heart with the taking of Odie’s life. I had done the deed without his ability to say goodbye.

************

Here’s another intrusive thought trying to get my attention. Presents. Michael was a genius at buying me presents. Marty liked to punk the kids with presents. For Michael’s part I have memories of showing up at a gathering of friends with a wrist corsage because he saw one and decided to get it for me. The best and most memorable was the time when everyone had opened their goods. Michael, who had been holding back, handed me a wrapped box. I opened it to find a great lounge pullover made of sweatshirt material, cotton of course, hooded. It came down to the ankles. Perfect for a mom of a toddler with too much going on in her life. I loved it. Next, he handed me a box. I opened it to find an assortment of chocolates. Have I mentioned, I’m a total chocaholic? Then came the slippers for putting my feet up while lounging and eating chocolates. He handed me another wrapped present, oddly shaped, this time a jump rope. Apparently, he was afraid I might be lounging around too much and eating too many chocolates and would need to work off the pounds. Hahaha. Great treat. Finally, one more present. A tiny little container, obviously shaped like a perfume bottle. Awww. He must have been feeling self-conscious that his presents were all part of a joke and was following it up with a more girly choice. I don’t wear perfume so as I was unwrapping, I was practicing a gracious response, when out of the Christmas paper came Dental Floss. Gotta keep those teeth clean with all that chocolate eating!

Christmas on Brogden Street, Marty came schlepping a giant box for Amanda. Amanda had seen the ads for a giant mechanical dinosaur that she was sure she needed. She hadn’t found it yet in the presents she had unwrapped. As a matter of fact, she had gotten a Cabbage Patch Doll, of all things, from her Nanna, Rook. I can just picture the number of Moms and Grandmas Rookie had elbowed out of the way to come by that prize at the height of the Cabbage Patch rage. Amanda was scandalized that someone would think she wanted a doll and roundly rejected the thing. On she went to the big box. Strange, the first layer was newspaper, then layer upon layer of phone books. At the bottom was this very cool little mechanical apparatus to tie from tree to tree with a zip line contraption for an Army figure to travel between the two trees. No Dinosaur. Amanda was furious at the prank. It was a good thing we had baked a ton of her favorite goodies to make up for the rest of the Christmas fail. When she got up the next morning the Cabbage Patch doll was hanging from a well-designed noose on the mantle (thanks to Uncle Marty.) Neither the Cabbage Patch Doll nor the zip line toy got another second of attention from Amanda. Fortunately, she had gotten some GI Joe toys that pleased her. Uncle Marty never lived down the telling of those Christmas memories.

Michael was several years into his position with Washington County when he was assigned a new sergeant. I knew Michael was a ‘go with the flow’ kind of guy, easy going, easy to get along with, well respected by his fellows. I also knew he was a ‘don’t mess with me’ kind of guy for those types whose ego needs to one down a subordinate. In an unusual move, Michael complained about his supervisor. It was unusual enough that it caught me off guard. I thought maybe he had been caught in one of his bending of the rules, so I was ready to point that out in all fairness. He showed me the paper work he was being reprimanded for, handwritten notes. Any Nun at St Michael’s elementary school would have agreed to retire the ruler she used to slap hands if she had seen these notes. Clean, concise, neat, measured. I was proud of those notes the minute I looked at them. I looked at Michael for understanding. “The trouble is that the loops on my y’s and g’s touch the words below on the next line.” I knew this was not the first, nor would it be the last from this supervisor. OK, time to move on. Michael reached out to the Portland Police Bureau. This time they snatched him up. Maybe this time, when given the Rorschach Test, he didn’t identify every image as a vulva. But whatever went well this time, he was preparing for the switch to Portland.

Before that would happen however, Michael was assigned patrol of Hagg Lake. His job was to patrol the Lake in a motorboat. Poor Michael. What drudgery. The kids and I would load up the canoe on the roof of our car and head over to the lake with lunch. Paddle around. Have lunch with Dad. Head out on the official motorboat. In an incident, early in the summer, a drug deal gone bad, a guy named Daryl had gone missing. The police boat had a depth finder, so every boat ride we took, we spent a good bit of the time scouring the bottom of the lake for Daryl. Michael was pretty sure that Daryl had ducked out of town and was somewhere lying low from the folks who had been betrayed in the deal. Under the radar as it were rather than under the waters of Hagg Lake. Still, it was a great thrill for the kids to be involved in the police work. We weren’t the only ones who got rides on the police boat. One time, Michael and I arrived at a party together and I hear a chorus of female voices singing out “Hello Michael.” It was Lila and Linda, the ride of the day. They became good friends of mine.

At Portland, many of the officers were switching from Donald Duck hats to official ball caps. Michael stayed with the old-style police issue. He took a lot of ribbing, but he was always the one that the civilians approached at the scene. Another point that was subject to ridicule by his Portland colleagues, Michael, in fifteen years as a cop, never drew his gun in the line of duty. When it was the yearly requirement to qualify for firearm proficiency, Michael would rip off a fast round of fire. His mate would say “take your time and get the better score.” Michael’s reply, “when we need to use that gun, we do not have the luxury of taking the time.”

One time while still at Washington County, the Sherriff’s department asked Michael to carry the torch for the Special Olympics, picking it up at the Multnomah County line and running with it to the Tillamook County line. He took his son along on the run. Can a person swell with as much pride as I felt? I dropped them at the first station for the exchange of the torch. They had an escort in a patrol car all along the route, then passed it to the deputy at the next county line, Michael and our son running along together carrying the torch. I stopped at a store to, maybe, pick up snacks for the hero runners. I heard a woman say, “I don’t know what was going on but there was a man and a little boy running along the road and a police car rolling along side of them.” “That was the Special Olympics Torch being carried to the next county. It was my husband and my son.” I bragged.

It was somewhere around this time that Michael noticed a big brown spot on his ankle. It was flat. It was new or had expanded. Michael was a playground of freckles, so it’s hard to tell when a new one shows up. This one was definitely ABCD. Appearance – big, new, mottled. Borders - grandma’s doilies didn’t have this much frill to the edges. Color - mottled, darks and lights. Diameter - big. A silver dollar could fit in that thing with the frilly edges sticking out on all sides. We took it to a dermatologist. He brushed past it without much concern and instead zeroed in on a spot on Michael’s face. He ordered a MOHs procedure. The biopsy confirmed basal cell carcinoma, and each new slice around the original biopsy was examined under a microscope until all the edges in the excised tissue showed cancer free skin.

It was also around this time that Michael and I were looking to celebrate our anniversary. We counted the years from that first marriage date, May 17^th 1969, as the marker for the count. I certainly didn’t remember the church wedding date, I don’t know whether Michael did, but the year of the church wedding would have been 1976 based on the baby’s birthday. For our anniversary celebration we made plans for a room at the Cliff Top Motel in Oceanside. It sat on top of the cliff overlooking our favorite beach. Well, really, any beach we are on at the moment is our favorite beach, but this is one we frequented. It was the one Michael had found on his early visit for the job search.

I went out and bought some fancy undies. Michael was the best lover, easy, gentle, sweet, satisfying. I always thanked those prostitutes all along the way in the patrol of the oceans off Asia. We had a good, matched appetite. We were frequent flyers. Saturday morning cartoons were tailor made for making love. However, that weekend at the beach, Michael spiked a wicked fever. It didn’t stop him from making love though. Looking back, like the other unexplained episode of illness, I see it as a foreboding.

We knew the stay in The Troll’s Forest was limited, the property was for sale. I was busy picking up experience to build my resume and interviewing for job after job at Oregon Health Sciences University (that was the name at that time.) I gave up on the Primate Research Center when I was out interviewed for a job washing glassware by a gentleman with a master’s degree. I was volunteering at the zoo and at the Audubon Center, working for a veterinarian or two, while I pushed for a research position. The kids were at school and preschool or on the weekends Amanda was with a babysitter if Michael was working. We were keeping an eye out for a house. Now that Michael would be working in Portland, we abandoned searching in western Washington County and set the sights closer to Multnomah County. The owner of The Troll’s Forest was sure we would buy his property. The main part of the house was solid, but any add on was cheaply built and black mold heaven. It was Tom Doc who came to visit and pointed out that he could run his hand down the wall in The Dude’s room and come up soaking wet.

We found a house. Completely by chance, if you believe in that kind of thing. We were more of a gifts from the Universe kind of believers in the years we stumbled through life. And you might have noticed that place and home had a full-on different meaning for us throughout our adventures. Somehow, I had stumbled across a listing, that when I tried to visit online again, had disappeared. I headed out to check out the address, expecting to see a sold sign. It was in the school district I was targeting, Cedar Mill. At the address location there was no house, but up on a hill above the location sat a house, the entrance somewhere else. I poked around until I found the front door. There was no sign, the house looked abandoned. A beautiful, almost unbelievable split-level treasure, built into the side of a hill. Winding driveway, vaulted windows, big yard with a couple little outbuildings. Woods across the little gravel road that led to the entrance to the property.

We turned back to Judy Close, the realtor who had been so important to us in relocating to Brogden. She looked a bit deeper and found that the house had been pulled off the market as the owner was about to have the house snatched back by the bank. Through Judy, we made the owner the offer of exactly what she had been asking, thinking that could rescue her from foreclosure. Her realtor, though, seemed to throw her under the bus and before we could move forward, the bank moved in. We resubmitted the offer to the bank and before that could go through, the bank was bought out by another bank. We resubmitted to the next bank and that bank was bought out by a bigger bank. This was now six months on from the first offer and we finally made settlement.

1990, the housing market and the banking industry were in a whirlwind. When we arrived in Oregon back in 1981, we looked at the housing prices with a sinking stomach. Our lovely little house in Chester was selling for half of what humble little houses were selling for in Oregon. We had sat on that money biding our time. This house was well over our heads but now I had a good job at OHSU, an exciting job in The Heart Research Lab. I had an amazing teacher as a boss, doing kick ass work looking at ischemic heart disease using pigs as models, measuring results using radio isotopes. Michael and I were both in the habit of living frugally. Michael was more in the habit of the big expenditure, but it was rare and it was well thought out. I had grown up in hand-me-downs and tight budgets, so I continued that practice.

Throughout the time we lived on Brogden, that house was for sale. I kept the place show-ready and stayed out of the way when folks were paraded through the place for their look see. I had two gentlemen with whom I walked the dogs in the fairgrounds; Odie and Dunbar when they were the resident dogs or Mattie (Hakuna Matata), when she became part of the family. One of the guys was in the habit of dressing in a pair of shorts and a tee shirt, throwing on a backpack and heading to Tonga where he had made friends with the King of that nation. The other was a real estate agent. They were good walking friends with lots of good stories to tell. I was not thrilled the day I had the flu and Michael paraded potential buyers through the house, everywhere but the bedroom where I was out for the count. I found out from my dog walker friend that he was the agent with clients for the show.

One day, while we were playing hide and seek with the banking industry, Michael was working second shift, so at the house until midday. The landlord was hovering about, chatting Michael up, nothing in particular that I know of. Shortly after Michael left for work, the landlord knocked on the door. When I answered it, he presented me with the notice to vacate the premises in 30 days. That coward was too afraid to present that notice to Michael. That idiot didn’t know that Michael would have taken the notice and not said a thing in push back. Now I have painted the picture clearly of Michael as the go with the flow kind of guy. He would have taken that notice without much of a fight, then likely ignored it until he was good and ready to move on. My demeanor at any conflict was more of an Indy 500, where the pit crew vacates for their own safety. Zero to one hundred in a second’s time. I glared at the guy for, I’m sure, the longest minute in his life, snatched the notice from his hands and said, “You want me out, you’re gonna have to throw my furniture out on the street. Let me show this to my lawyer.” I didn’t have a lawyer and we ignored the notice and never heard from the landlord again until we were ready to move, which with all the maneuvering of the banks was six months hence. The owner of The Troll’s Forest never had an offer on the place for the time we were there.

Thanks for stopping by. Stay tuned for the next episode in a week.

Mary E Joyce

We found a little house on Main Street in Hillsboro. We had wonderful next-door neighbors, a native couple but I can’t remember of what people. Behind the house and to the right was a hazelnut orchard. We learned from the neighbors that the house had been gutted by fire and was just recently refurbished. Our furniture hadn’t arrived yet, so we were just camping out in a house. Two bedrooms, Michael and I slept on the floor of one, the Dude slept on the floor of the other. The Dude had started school and Michael had started work. Sound asleep one night early into our move, we were jolted awake by young Michael’s screams. We jumped up as one. We were frozen in our bedroom doorway; young Michael was frozen in his doorway. He, however, was in a forward leaning position, the shirt of his pajama was sticking out behind him, as if caught on something. There was no something there. He defied gravity like that for endless seconds while Michael and I were caught in freeze mode. Nothing made sense. We all broke the spell and Michael scooped our son up into his arms. We just stared at each other. What the Hell just happened? The scenario cannot be explained. There were three witnesses all supporting the other’s impression of what happened. All the stories we tell match the others’.

And now in Oregon. There is much to tell and again I ask how well can I tell it? I still felt as connected to Michael as always. I’m not sure when things came apart at the seams. I very shortly became pregnant with The Little Woman, Amanda. I was attending classes, still trying to get that bio degree which had been interrupted upon leaving the east coast. By the time I got to the genetics class at Portland State University, I couldn’t fit behind a desk. One of my classmates was as pregnant as I. We would walk up and down the hallway because it was too difficult to sit. We would pick up as much of the lecture as we could with the door open, then help each other to be sure we had it. It was by far the best class of all the classes I took at that school.

Marty was in Tri-Cities in Washington state. He was several hours drive down the gorge. He would see the burrowing owls along the way: the dip net fishers as in days long ago; the beauty of the gorge. It was a delight to have Marty join us for the holidays or for our exploring adventures.

The little house did not fit us long. We found a family who needed a house sitter while they were away building the pipeline for the oil tankers in Mexico. We made the move a couple of blocks over. Michael could stop by during his shift to say hello, as he did each night. Amanda came along to join the little family. Just like in Pennsylvania, I found a place to deliver the baby that allowed Dad to join the birthing, as well as young Michael. The Dude was very excited to have a play mate come along. As usual for me the birthing was a long, painful, drawn-out routine. Father and son hung in there for the 13 hours which didn’t feel like much of a reprieve from the 17 hours with young Michael’s entry into the world. When Amanda finally showed up, The Dude was less excited about baby sister and immediately drawn to the after birth.

We made easy friends in the neighborhood. One day I commented on a neighbor’s acquisition of roller skates. A little later I found them on my doorstep. That night I put the children to bed and met Michael with the skates on, out front on the street. I was no roller skater, and the asphalt was no frozen creek. When a car came along, I tried to duck out of sight from any neighbor noticing I was skating in the street at midnight. Down I went and foolishly reached out my hand to catch myself in the fall. I tried to ignore it but by the next morning it was clear. I had broken my arm, a crack at the elbow. That summer when we headed up to the Olympic Rain Forest for some camping, I did so with a nine-month-old and my arm in a cast.

However, the most memorable part of the adventure to the Olympic Rain Forest was on the way home. We stopped at a café on the Washington side of the Astoria Bridge. An amazing span over the Columbia as it empties into the Pacific. As soon as we sat down and the waitress came over to hand us some menus, Michael requested liquid sustenance “I’ll have some wooder”. “Pardon me?” “Wooder.” Had Michael grown two heads? She looked to me for a rescue, she had no clue as to what language he was speaking. “He’ll have a glass of water please” I rescued. Michael’s household was many generations Delaware County. My mother was born in New England and grew up in Upstate, NY. She was having none of this Delco speak. She would school me “How now brown cow.” “Heow neow breown ceow. I’m heading to the crick.” And with that I would leave my mother to ruminate on her utter failure to raise a proper child. I never, however, picked up the wooder pronunciation. And, to my mother’s relief, never picked up Y’ins from my father’s tribe.

The year before we headed west Mt St Helens blew her top. We were fascinated with the idea and next thing we knew that volcano was fairly well in our back yard. We wasted no time getting up there to explore. At first, we could barely get past the Toutle River all clogged with ash and debris. Each year, more of the area would open for further exploration. We were able to see the recovery of the devastation year by year. Unfortunately, we never realized our ambition to climb to the caldera.

It was so much fun having Marty, now Uncle Marty, with us on holidays. Marty was ready for Christmas. Heading down the Gorge, he picked up a hitchhiker around Umatilla. Christmas Eve. Marty didn’t want to drop the guy off at the shelter, so he brought him home. The hitcher was a bit freaked out by the two big black dogs, but we brought the two wayfarers in and fed them. Michael showed up in the middle of his shift to say goodnight to the kids before heading back out on his beat. That guy took one look at the cop who just walked in the door without knocking, and he lost all color. Michael and I caught each other’s eye, we both noticed it. We played it cool. Marty still did not seem to think it was time to take the guy to the shelter, after all what’s Christmas about anyway. I made beds up for both, keeping the dogs at hand.

After the kids were asleep, I brought out the presents for under the tree. I had bought a pair of long johns for Michael and too late noticed they were 50/50 polyester/cotton. Not acceptable for Michael. Back East we used to buy long johns from the Amish Folks in Intercourse where we bought our honey supply. As you may have heard, the drive from Philadelphia to Amish Country takes one through Blue Ball, Bird in Hand, Intercourse, before you get to Paradise. We just headed straight to Intercourse. There we bought our honey from Amos Lapp. There was no problem with finding 100% cotton long johns at the general store in town, so I didn’t think to look at the label in Oregon until too late. I intended to take them back to the store after Christmas, but instead wrapped them up, put Hitch Hiker’s name on them and tucked them under the tree. The next morning, I fed everyone breakfast and we broke out the gifts. Young Michael had gotten a football. Hitch Hiker was delighted. All the packages were opened and making a big hit when I pointed out one last present. Hitch Hiker was shocked and moved, you have never seen such a wonderful face when he saw his name on the wrapped box. I sent him in to take a shower and put on his new duds. Then he went out to toss the ball around. I’m always sure to invite strays over for Christmas dinner so one of the bachelor cops showed up for the big feast. He had no idea this was a hitch hiker and likely an escapee from the Umatilla jail until we told him at some later time. Finally, late afternoon, I announced that Marty needed to take Hitch Hiker to the shelter to be sure there would be a room for the night. A Christmas delight to always remember. However, Marty’s dementia, that showed up thirty years later probably negated that memory for him.

We paid rent and lived in that house long enough to find out the owners had stopped paying their mortgage shortly after we moved in. The house was foreclosed on, and we were booted out. The real estate agent for the bank, however, was wonderful and found us a place another two blocks north, this one The Troll’s Forest. The one hundred year old house was situated under huge old oak trees that were the homes of Acorn Woodpeckers. Once a year during the annual Audubon bird count, volunteers would show up to count the woodpeckers, one of two places in the state where they were found. The back of the property butted up to the railroad tracks that were no longer in use. On the other side of the tracks, the county fairgrounds. Across the street from the fairgrounds, a small airport.

The kids, the dogs and I got in the habit of heading down the tracks. At the trestle, not too far along, we could look over into the wetlands and see a beaver or two, always busy indeed. We could scramble over the trestle (not without notable anxiety that my kids would fall through) to the fields beyond just before the Intel Corporation Campus, or we could scramble down beside the trestle and follow game trails along the edge of the waterway.

On the Fourth of July we could sit comfortably in our back yard and watch the fireworks display. Then we could head to the front yard and watch the traffic jam. In July, I believe, The Airshow would arrive for the weekend. The first night we would climb up on the roof and watch the planes arrive. The second day we would actually pay admission and see the show. Then we would watch the planes leave. Usually, The Blue Angels were the feature show, but we loved both the vintage craft and the futuristic models like the hoover craft. Woo that was fun. Our friends in the Hillsboro Police force were running security for the event so Michael got to head out with his friends to rub elbows with the pilots. I stayed home with the kids, that was fine, I loved the airshow and seeing it with Michael was perfect. His enthusiasm for the show was contagious. OK! Much to my surprise I was as excited about it as he was.

Then comes August, the Fair and Rodeo. Ride the rides, see the displays, none of which I have any memory of except the 4H animals. Bulls, calves, pigs, chickens, rabbits, oh my. To the dairy farmer’s wives’ booth for milkshakes. And the rodeo! I loved the rodeo.

In the front field in summer, we played soccer, blew bubbles, but most notably we would play with the bats who were sure to come around at the end of day and swoop around our heads. The landlord was obsessive in his grass cutting practices so there were always bunches of grass. We would throw a ball of grass up in the air and a bat would swoop down at it. We could play with our bat friends for hours until it got too dark, and we were ready for bed.

**********

Just as Michael was settling in with the dogs, I gathered the children up and flew east. No matter how I did the math, finishing my degree at Portland State did not make sense. Matriculating into their program would have added almost three years of classes and all I would get was a piece of paper. I took as many of the science classes as I still needed to graduate from Neumann, transferred them back and headed for the final semester and an internship which I set up with Smith Kline Pharmaceuticals, the Philadelphia campus. I enrolled my son in fourth grade at my old elementary school, Stetser, for the last half of the year. It was right across the street from Washington Park. My daughter stayed with Rookie during the day, and I got down to business, leaving Michael to his own devices in Hillsboro, OR.

I had picked up a sturdy little Datsun B210 for my commute to the college and up to Philly for the internship. Michael didn’t make it back for my graduation, but my mom and sister came down. That’s when I got the notion to drive across the US with my little car, this time with a driver’s license. My mom, always ready for an adventure, was game to join us. Graduation all tied up, degree in hand, the four of us headed out. We targeted a green space to stop each day for play mid-morning, a green space for after lunch, then a motel to spend the night. The first night on the road we pulled over at a Best Western which had sliding boards into the pool. Young Michael thought that was so cool that he brokered for Best Westerns every night. None had the great accommodations that the first one had but he was always hopeful. We played along the Mississippi River, at the St Louis Zoo, in The Wind River canyon. We toured the Mormon Tabernacle, saw The Great Salt Lake at a record low level. We passed into Yellowstone. As we were approaching the entrance to Yellowstone my mother said, “there’s a horse in among the trees.” It took me a minute, but I pulled a u’y and headed back to show the kids a moose. As we climbed up a rise in our route we looked off to the left and watched a bear climb along next to us near the road, it was not a hallucination. One of the days the kids decided they wanted pizza, so we kept our eyes out for a sign for a pizza place. I saw the sign, Mann Pizza, and headed into the parking lot. In reality, it said Mann Plaza and there was no pizza shop. This has been a lifelong joke on Mom; I will never live it down. I have no idea what we ate instead.

We headed to Tri Cities to visit Marty before the final leg of the trip. Then over the bridge we went, onto the Columbia Gorge Highway. This time the sun was at our back with our early start on the day. We had arranged with Michael to meet at the Columbia Gorge Hotel for lunch. There I laid my head against his pecks, and he enveloped me in his biceps. Home again, at last. We had a highfalutin lunch then headed to the house on Brogden Street, The Troll’s Forest.

Thanks for coming along on my adventures. Stay tuned for the next episode.

Mary E Joyce

Grieving works that way. In our culture, grief is something we want to get over. That ain’t going to happen, but we love to pretend. My colleagues in the Psychology field love to talk about the onion as a metaphor for the grieving process, you peel back layers and maybe get to the middle. I prefer talking about phyllo dough, peeling back those fragile, delicate sheets, layer after layer. You think of the sweetness of those thin dough flakes, and just when you think you have made it, you hit the rich filling, then you are in for a ride. Grief is also cumulative. Each new loss stirs up past losses. They all come gushing forward in a king tide.

Michael did the work to earn his Bachelor of Arts in History from Widener University. When Michael Jr was old enough, I was accepted to the biology program at Neumann College. The early childhood education department had a preschool, and I could drop my son off there while I attended classes. When I started at the school it was Our Lady of Angels. Almost immediately upon my attendance it was changed to Neumann College. I like to take the name change personally.

One night, in Chester, there was an all-alarm fire. Every engine company, neighboring fire stations, all the cops were called out to a fire under the Commadore Barry Bridge. That was Michael’s beat, so he knew that mountain of old tires, or thought he did. Scarred on my brain was what Michael told me when he finally came home. “I don’t know what was in that fire, but firemen’s boots were melting off their feet.” The fire burned for weeks. After the full action of the fire, Michael still patrolled the area to keep neighborhood kids from playing near the smoldering remains of the blaze. You can and should read about this and the horrible aftermath of sick and dying firemen and policemen. It was The Wade Dump Fire. But at this time, we didn’t know what three dedicated Philadelphia Inquire reporters dug up about that fire. Because shortly after the fire, before men began showing the signs of illness, Michael was laid off from the Chester Police force.

After five years in Chester, the next thing we knew, we were headed for the West Coast again. We loaded up the pickup truck, now a big ass Ford with a backseat for the kid. With dogs, goods, and a canoe on top, we headed across the United States, not for the first time. Portland, Oregon. We would arrive there just as kindergarten would start for little Michael, The Dude as we called him. Marty was moving to the other side of the country too. His employer, The Hanford Nuclear Reservation, would move Marty’s stuff across for him. He would be the civil engineer, specializing in rock and soil stress, that would be keeping us all safe from nuclear disaster. He moved our stuff instead of his since his bachelor abode furnishings were not worth moving.

Michael had sent out a fair number of resumes and got picked up by Washington County Sheriff’s office just west of Portland. Michael had headed out prior to the move to interview with the three departments that were interested, and he nailed the county one. He also scoped out a new favorite beach and a swimming hole while there.

Living in Chester, we had not given up on long haul adventuring. Friends had hunting cabins in western Pennsylvania we loved to visit. Sometimes Michael went hunting with these guys. By hunting, I mean he found a place to be on the lookout for deer so he could sit there with his firearm in his lap as he watched the prey travel by unmolested. We didn’t mind eating game. We were not going to be the ones to take a life. We were scavengers. We ate what was put in front of us, we were as happy enough to eat vegetarian as anything.

We had headed up to the Allagash Wilderness in Maine, The Laurentides in Quebec, the upper reaches of Ontario. For these trips we needed at least two weeks. Michael was only allowed to have a week at a time for vacation. To get the extra week for these longer trips, Michael’s grandmother died three times. Math. Who bothers using it after high school.

In Maine we encountered the other civil engineers, beavers. Maps of logging roads could never be trusted because the beavers would redesign the landscape, create new lakes; new roads would be developed to accommodate. There were moose. One time I tracked a pair of prints, what I knew was momma and baby. I came to the wetlands that she positioned herself in, with baby behind her as she confronted me. I put a substantial tree between us as we checked each other out. Michael came up on us with The Dude in the baby backpack. When he realized what I was up to he abandoned me as fool hardy and left me to momma.

In Canada, it was a practice to have mountains of landfill near camping spots. Bears would rummage through the trash. We could always hear bears but didn’t see them often. We always stopped to see my mother and sister in Glens Falls on the way up and the way back from all our trips. One trip, coming out of our camp in Maine, we saw a young man close to where the Appalachian Trail was crossing the road. I mentioned to Michael that I thought the guy was coming off the trail. We offered him a ride. He needed to get closer to New York City. He was from Germany, his visa had expired, he was broke. He thought he might be able to wrangle some work in the city. We took him to my mother’s where we spent the night then dropped him off close to the city. He was good company with tales as a through hiker on The Appalachian Trail.

*********

But East Coast adventuring for us had hit a crossroad and we took the one heading west. Michael was happy again to do the driving. Little Michael and I spent the time singing and telling stories. I made up stories about his favorite stuffed animal Flippo the Frog. Thinking back from this perspective I have no idea of Michael’s emotional landscape for the move. I seem to remember discussing the strategy of where. But I don’t feel confident that I know the driver of the move, me or Michael. I think there was a part of Michael that just wanted to wait around for Chester to decide to rehire. I know I suggested a number of options for staying in the east coast. As I remember it, though, Michael expended more energy toward the west coast. I seem to recall discussing, and coming to the conclusion that, moving to California was an economic folly. We weighed the options of Portland, OR vs Seattle, WA, and we both agreed that we wanted to be closer to the ocean than to the sound. I don’t think he sent out any queries to the Seattle, WA region. I don’t recall feeling anything but connected to Michael and our wonderful little family.

As we were making our way across country, I noticed one school full of kids in the playground; then another. It was a kick in the stomach. In the west do they start school before Labor Day? Oh My God. Have I ruined my son’s future? I am not at all exaggerating the sinking feeling that we had scheduled our move poorly. I was wholly focused on getting The Dude settled into his school from the start and now look!

However, here we were at the Snake River so, worry about school be damned. We needed to jump in the Snake. We were very focused on making sure having children would not impinge on our swimming, so the little Dude was dipped into wild waters at age 3 months, which was about as early as we could, related to the weather options. The first dip was Brandywine Creek, the site of historical turning points in the history of the United States and critical good start on another Joyce swimmer. We would dip the little guy into cold waters with a cry of Dippity Do! He took right to it. I got him into swimming lessons at the earliest possibility, which was the YWCA Mother and Child lessons at the Chester Y. We mothers would get in a circle in the pool and send our kids around the circle until they got back to the correct mom. Here at the Snake, we got down to the river and found an eddy that allowed us to swim out of the current.

Response to a stress event triggers the brain to release neurotransmitters that signal the body to respond in fight or flight, or that’s what we most often hear. However, there are a bunch of other f types of responses. Freeze is my big go to. When I saw my son push the boundaries of the eddy edge and saw him sweeping further out than was safe, I froze, couldn’t move. My thoughts were racing but my body was not, exactly when it needed to. Then suddenly the words came to me: “kick, kick, kick. Come to me. Don’t fight the current, come to me. Kick, kick, kick.” I got out as far as was safe, reached out my hand and he kicked and grabbed on. I scooped him up out of the water and scrambled onto the shore. I have no memory of where Michael was during this fright.

****

And then, when we hit the Oregon border, not a minute sooner, not a minute later, Michael got sick. Looking back on it, I have always felt it was foreboding. Michael took to the back seat with our son, and I took over the driving just as we hit the Columbia River Gorge, heading west with the sun finding its way to the horizon. Both of us, the sun and me, following the river. To the left, to the right, behind me, in front of me were the most spectacular sights possible. All rolling by while a laser beam of sunlight drilled into my eyes. Roll on Columbia, roll on indeed. I was in awe. That awe has never diminished.

Into Portland and then Washington County, I made my way along Canyon Road, through Aloha and into Hillsboro. We checked into The Dunes Motel and that was the beginning of the next leg of our adventure. And guess what we were doing then? House hunting of course. The critical part of this house hunting adventure was that where we found the house would tie us to the school where my son would find home. I think you may have picked up my angst that our, up until now, crazy behaviors would surely ruin my son for life. I suddenly better identified with momma bear.

Another point I want to make: Michael and I had no qualms about bending rules, but we always had our eyes on where the lines were and where to draw ours. Michael was a great cop. He was an old-fashioned flat foot. He got out of the police car and walked among and talked to the people. When Michael started his first day on the beat in Chester, I handed him a piece of paper with a list of phone numbers for support services. He continued the practice of always carrying it with him. Michael was always the best social worker. One favorite tale of mine was in the kitchen in Chester. I answered the phone and recognized that the caller, who was asking for Michael, was a black woman. They had a long conversation, and I tried my best to not listen. When he hung up there was a period of silence. He finally explained that this was a prostitute from town. He had told her that she was worth more than this. She was calling to tell him that she listened to what he had to say and was calling to thank him. She wanted him to know, thanks to him, she had moved on up to Atlantic City. Neither of us laughed, we both agreed it was a new start. It is still a sweet memory for me.

Michael, for his colleagues, as he was for me, steady as he goes. He was loved and respected by almost all. Because he was an immoveable force when he knew his grounds, that could be intimidating for someone who was not so confident but wanted to display confidence. That was not such a good fit around Michael. It is also a perpetual problem of mine.

Thanks folks, for stopping by. Stay tuned for the next episode in a week.

Mary E Joyce

The home is a little two-story row house with a tiny glassed-in porch that has a small antique school desk, the kind where the seat is attached to the wooden work surface. Just to the right of the front door is a Rose of Sharon that blooms beautiful pink flowers. Up the street, Pennsylvania Military College has given way to Widener University. Old Main with the stately dome is still there. Once when Michael was a teen, he, and a few others of the old Washington Park gang decided they would scale the dome. When they actually succeeded in doing that, much to their surprise, they found they could get into the building by slipping through a gap in the dome shaped roof. Slipping in that way, took them straight into the museum. Michael decided he needed a souvenir of the adventure. Embarrassingly enough, I am still the not so proud possessor of the museum piece, a statue of Anubis. Now Widener is busy gobbling up what used to be our wild lands and turning them into sports venues. Behind the house, Interstate 95 roars without mercy round the clock. Years after Michael’s, Rook’s and Big Jim’s deaths, I was a passenger in a car on Interstate 95. I was craning my neck to see if I could recognize the old Joyce house. On the highway side of a cyclone fence that divides the neighborhood from the traffic, there, in full bloom was the Rose of Sharon. Someone had uprooted her and tossed her over the fence. Undaunted, she rerooted and went on blooming. Mitey Bitey Perhaps?

****

It didn’t take long to reconnect with old acquaintances. Michael had picked up some work while he awaited the official timing of his hire to the police force. I picked up a job managing an off track race horse stable; looking after the brood mares, horses recovering from the racing season, and a couple stallions. Through old friends we found a little rental. It used to be a strip of garages but had been converted to a row of apartments. It worked for the time being, not far from Chester Park. I haven’t talked much about Chester Park.

Chester Park was where you went to branch out from the old neighborhood. Back in the day you could swim in that part of Ridley Creek just above the falls. It was the first place I learned to dive, off the rock at the top of the falls. I did a belly flop that every one of the onlookers felt full on. Everyone held their breath as I dug in and swam all the way across to where they were all standing. Man, I won some kudos that day.

You could fish at Chester Park but mostly my attempts brought up crawdads, crayfish I think most folks called them. In the snow you could sled down long wonderful hills all over the park. And you could ice skate there above the falls. One of my favorite adventures as kids was following the boys, my brothers, Mike and Marty, and Michael Joyce. We jumped the gap in our tidal end of the crick to get to the solid ice. Then we set off up the waterway, climbing out at Irvington Falls and back on to follow the crick where there were no paths along the woods. Then at Chester Park Falls, we climbed around to get to the spot where people drove in from all over town to skate. To this day, one of my favorite Chester memories. We only had our skates, no shoes to change into. I think maybe my mother came and drove us home. How did she know where to find us? We must have called from someone’s house nearby.

At the entry to the park proper are two sets of fancy concrete arches. Then a cobblestone road led down to the crick where a beautiful old bridge carries you across and out of Chester by a winding road. The other side of the park was Tyler Arboretum. I think it is forty acres in all. The cobblestone road or any number of hills are for sledding. There was a band stand where summer concerts were held, just local bands. And on the Fourth of July there were fireworks.

From my little garage, converted to a homey little living quarter, it was an easy walk to the park, so Dunbar and Odie did not miss out on much in the move to Chester. It wasn’t long before I became pregnant and quit my horse job. The dogs and I rambled all over those forty acres.

At the row of garages there was a substantial yard which I turned over for a big, wonderful garden with corn, tomatoes, spinach, and chard. I connected quite quickly with a group of earth mothers and tree huggers. My longtime friend Tom Sullivan was caretaker at the Quaker House just down the street. There was a great yoga instructor teaching classes there. Tom’s wife got pregnant shortly after I did.

I found a natural childbirth practitioner working with the local Obstetrician; strangely enough, a nun. Michael and I called her Little Sister. Little Sister and I were very much in alignment in our practice of yogic type breathing techniques. Little Michael was born in the hospital, but Michael could attend the birthing, it was a long haul. It was March though, so Michael and the doc kept busy watching the basketball playoffs. It was really annoying to them to be interrupted by this baby crowning thing. Michael Jr arrived, and Temple University won the crown that year. Madness.

We shared our living quarters with innumerable cock roaches. In the redecorating of the place, the owner had put in a styrofoam beam to make it look like a cool wood beamed ceiling. The roaches found it a wonderful superhighway to traverse. More traffic noise than Interstate 95. I would go to work diligently cleaning the house sterile. Then my neighbor would comment on the bloom of roach population in his place. He would then get to work and clean, and I would have my roommates back. One night Michael had the boys over for a card game. I was minding my own business when a wild roach came flying at me for no reason at all and ricocheted off my forehead. The dudes watched the battle I carried on with this roach bouncing off my forehead in a forward, full frontal attack. They carried on with their bet placing.

*****

Shortly after Michael Junior was born, Michael and I got married in the church. Michael had picked up a side gig escorting the priest with his bingo haul back to the rectory. He bonded with the priest who started winning Michael back to the church. We were supposed to be counseled on being good Catholics as part of the marriage preparation. The priest and I locked horns at the idea that only Catholics go to heaven. The priest gave up and we walked down the aisle accompanied by Michael’s brother and his wife carrying the baby. Michael wore an appropriate three piece suit and I wore some flowing hippie skirt and a blouse perfectly appropriate for noodle arming in a meadow in the high Sierras.

Michael was settling in as a cop. I heard more times than I could count “you don’t look like a cop’s wife” until I finally asked, “what does a cop’s wife look like?” It stopped the questioner cold for a minute, then they replied, “I don’t know, overweight and polyester pants.” I joined the other police wives in a group to support the men (there were no women on the force.) Few of the wives were over weight. They all wore polyester pants. At one point the women decided they wanted to be more comfortable with guns in the house. We took a weapons class, learned to load and shoot, and became card carrying members of the NRA.

The two Michael’s and I found a house to buy on the other side of Chester Park. It was at the corner of Avon Road and Blossom Avenue, a short block and a half to the park. We bid adieu to our cockroach friends and moved into our wonderful new house. Red wall to wall carpeting and all. Upon moving in we found in the attic a pair of French Doors that would have fit in a doorway between the living room and the dining room were it not for that newly installed red carpet. The idea of pulling up perfectly good carpeting is against every cell in my body, but every time I vacuumed that rug, I focused on that one little corner of the dining room where the carpet had a little gap in its attachment. That little gap got bigger and bigger until I could see under that carpet was a lovely hardwood floor. Finally, I couldn’t hold myself back, I started pulling that stuff up by the yard. The hardwood floor had a lovely inlay all around the perimeter. Better yet, our friend wanted the carpeting for his mountain home. And in went the French doors. A very homey home indeed.

The back yard was the size of a tiny little postage stamp. Michael and I had been in the habit of buying the Farmer’s Almanac and The Whole Earth Catalogue and I was excited to put companion planting and French intensive planting to the test. The old Chester High School Chemistry teacher who used to walk past the house on his way to the park couldn’t help but comment on the folly of planting my vegetables too close together. When he walked past late in the summer and my garden was brimming over in tomatoes, eggplants, and zucchini he had not a thing to say. We found ourselves in abundance, a beautiful home, vegetables, friends new and renewed, vectors with promise.

The winter came on with a deep freeze. Michael was on second shift, due home close to midnight. I headed across the street to that big beautiful old ship captain’s type house made of quarry stone. There was a teenage boy who lived there. I checked to see if he could babysit for me that night. When Michael arrived home from his shift, I greeted him with ice skates in hand. We headed down to the frozen crick, under the full moon. We skated. Twirling around in utter freedom, our way lighted as if daytime. We glided across the ice like pros, the entire world all to ourselves, kept warm by the moon.

This memoir thing. Maybe I have been wrong all along. Perhaps it is not a memoir. Perhaps it is a love letter.

Thanks for sharing in my memories. Stay tuned for next week’s episode.

Mary E Joyce

Very few people talk about hygiene in these tales of adventure. I have made it clear that Michael and I love jumping into water. We have been Leave No Trace practitioners from the very beginning. Our fire rings are small. Even if there is a big ring there already we make our own then break it up upon our departure, scattering the rocks and ashes as if we are being tracked. No soap gets into water ways. No toothpaste gets into stream or river without filtering through the soils at the water’s edge. We had perfected the practice. No shampoo, no shaving cream.

There were times when we needed to hit the shower. At those times, if we did not have a normal living situation, we would stop by a state park that had the accommodations. We would say we wanted to check out the camping sites, head in, take our showers, then head to the exit and say we didn’t find a site that interested us. One time I left my hiking boots in the bathroom. Fortunately, I had already bought a replacement pair, so we didn’t go back to retrieve them. I can’t imagine what story we would have woven.

I have a favorite picture that Michael had taken of me. We were on the edge of Jasper National Park in Canada. I was washing off in the glacier green, lovely flowing river, while looking off at the amazing scenery all around me. On one trip along the Kern River in California, the sun was shining. It was beautiful. Of course we needed to get in the water. We broke the ice and jumped in.

We were not vegetarians but eating like a vegetarian is easier when you find yourself on the road. We ate lots of legumes. Lentils cook quickly over an open fire, are wonderful fried up with onions, sweet peppers, soy sauce. Pinto bean chili. Split pea soup. One campground we stayed in for a time had bay laurel trees growing there. The most wonderful thing is to stretch up, pluck a couple bay leaves and pop them into a pea soup.

I did not grow up eating out in restaurants except Ho Jos along the Pennsylvania Turnpike on the yearly trip to visit Grandmother McCabe in Lilly, PA. Michael’s family was known to eat at restaurants once a week. For our purposes, truck stops called to us if there were enough big rigs parked in the lot. According to Michael, truckers always knew the best places to eat. They had to serve breakfast all day or it was out. Eggs over easy, three for Michael, hash browns, a side of meat; those were the most important options. However, I could do a great job of eggs over easy over an open fire. The dogs were especially happy if we had a meat choice on the cooking menu. Home fries were the choice if we were cooking outside. I didn’t shy away from the gifts from the Universe that were all around us, a lovely pine needle tea to boost our vitamin C, chamomile tea if that European invader had found its way along a well-worn path, mint if we were lucky enough to find any. Thimble berries and salmon berries in the early fruiting season. I passed early on dandelion because it is a diuretic, it’s not always convenient to have to pee a lot. But don’t forget the apple cider vinegar. Mary Oldham had left several books in our old apartment in Manhattan Beach. One was New England Folk Medicine. Michael and I both fell right into step with those preachings. We kept with healthy options. I still take apple cider vinegar to this day. Michael, of course does not, he’s dead.

Getting to this point, I have left out so many adventures: the first bear sighting, in Big Bear National Forest; the time the women in Manhattan Beach pushed me forward when I was hanging back at the end of the wedding and sure enough the bouquet flew right into my hands, I had never told anyone that we were married, I’m not sure when I planned to ever do that; our magical hike into The Grand Canyon on the unmaintained Hance Trail; many trips to the Kern River, our favorite place for a quick camp trip; Joshua Tree National Monument and all that went along with that crazy adventure; getting banned from Disneyland.

We were doing exactly what we wanted to do, live it to the full and no one was expecting anything else from us. My dad seemed very proud of us and our crazy adventures. My brother Marty was inspired to start back packing. Where we last left off in this tale though, we were lost. We had failed in all our attempts to get to school with an actual place to live. We were back in Humboldt County with little likelihood that we would find anything better than we had already tried to find.

We heard that there was a guy in Willow Creek hiring hippies to work in the woods. We followed that lead and headed east over the pass. There was a campground on the edge of town. Michael hired on with the Brocks. Ray Brock. He had one arm missing from a logging mishap. His son had one leg missing. Michael was working with the two youngest sons, Kenny and Donny, tree planting in the national forests at first. Most of the campground was full of others who were just living there out of their camping gear. I headed into town and picked up a motel maid job at the Bigfoot Motel. Michael’s job would take him away for several days to a week at a time. We had the two dogs. I can’t remember how we managed the dogs while we both worked.

Ray liked Michael because he worked hard. For Michael it was just about trying to outdo himself. That worked for Ray. Usually, the crew would be let go after a job was done at which time Donny and Kenny would beat the shit out of the help and send them on their way. Ray told the boys not to mess with Michael. Instead, he offered us a trailer on the 100-acre ranch and kept him on. At the same time, Ray decided hiring hippies was a losing proposition. Instead, set Michael to take one of his crummies, what they called the big SUVs of the time, and sent him south with Kenny to lure a group of itinerant agricultural workers away with top pay and a place to live on the ranch. We had the small trailer, the other workers all lived in the large trailer. Michael became the manager of the crew, all of whom spoke Spanish. Remember what kept Michael from graduating from high school? Life is funny like that.

My head is telling me to talk about Mary Lou, the horse that Michael brought home one day, and all the amazing stuff I did with that horse. How I rode her to work at the motel. I could tell about adding the other motel to my duties. The time I dodged the truck driver who saw me duck into an abandoned apple orchard. He planned on following me in there, you can guess what he had in mind. I’m not as stupid as he hoped I would be and I was out of there with no trouble. I could tell about riding Mary Lou deep into the national forest where I would tie her up while I swam in the Trinity River. How I trained my dogs to heal at my stirrup. They knew I would call them back after giving them the lead for several yards so they started herding the deer back to me knowing they would have to head back my way anyway. How I followed logging roads, not sure that they would come out where I needed them to for my ride up to where Melanie and Ed were, now house sitting on the South Fork of the Trinity. How Mel and I went riding out into the BLM lands, found abandoned orchards of fig trees and ate to our hearts content, found a crazy old foot bridge across a deep ravine, and ventured across the damn thing not knowing when the last time a human had crossed it. But that would be about my adventures while Michael was out in the forest planting trees and thinning trees with the Brocks and a team of the most wonderful Mexican folks you will ever want to meet. Except for Jose. Jose was a scallywag, no doubt. Jose’s name was clearly not Jose and he was dodging more than just being illegal in the US. Those guys loved Michael, even Jose. We had invitations to visit all over the country of Mexico.

Planting season had passed, and the time had moved on to thinning. But also, the time for our big adventure was wearing thinner by the day. The final shovel of dirt on the coffin, Odie and Dunbar killed Kenny Brock’s little dog. That little dog harried my two big dogs every chance he got. I called them back and held them back time after time as that little guy came yapping at their heels. One day I was not close enough to intervene and Dunbar and Odie, who had developed an amazing skill for working together, got the chance they had been waiting for. Without question and without further word, Michael and I packed up and left the Brock ranch behind. We moved with the horse into a campground on the South Fork of the Trinity on BLM land. We found a lead for someone who wanted to buy Mary Lou. I watched as the new owner disappeared on my trusty horse, up the road to her new pasture.

***

Michael and Steve Frye headed up to Oregon and bought a Datsun pickup truck while I stayed in the campground with the dogs. Now, again, for me comes some confusion in terms of sequence. I know we camped along the Smith River in Del Norte County at some point. I know we hiked into the Kalmiopsis Wilderness. Our takeoff point was a campsite along The Illinois River, in Oregon. We spent the night there with the intention of starting to backpack in the morning toward the head waters of the Chetco River. The plan was, cross the river and summit Chetco Peak. While at the campsite along The Illinois, preparing for the hike, we were visited by an older gentleman who lived nearby. Turns out he had a stake for panning gold in that region. We had quite a conversation with him about gold mining. In the end, the take away, according to this fellow, was that the guy whose stake was next to his was raking in the dough. We watched a pair of deer careen through our camp, slide down the canyon, jump into the Illinois River. They were carried away in the current for a distance, before getting out on the far side. Dramatic and beautiful.

We started out early in the morning for the backpack. The beginning of the trail starts by crossing a deep ravine on a narrow suspension bridge. Odie had a deep phobia of bridges. Even in the back of the pick-up he would duck down upon any crossing. Odie was not having anything to do with the crossing of this bridge. At first we ignored him, figuring that he would decide on a way across. He was a big black dog who looked like he might have Great Dane in him but the reality of the several breeds of hound in his genes resulted in a mighty voice. Awoof. Awoof, echoed through the woods. Odie was relentless. Michael finally gave up, headed back across the bridge. He took him by the collar and dragged him to our side. From where we were, Dunbar and I, we could see a very thin line of pee along the entire length of that bridge.

I called this hike The Topsy Turvy Wilderness hike. We climbed a steep rise. On top was an iconic weather-beaten tree I have seen in photos from prominent outdoor photographers. Along the way we saw the Darlingtonia Flycatcher Plant, a flower only found in that part of the world. There was also supposed to be the Brewers Pine only found there but I was never sure we found that tree or not. We came upon a ghost town of huts and shacks that were left over from the mining of uranium during World War II. As we were hiking, we looked up on a ridge off to our right, and there, looking very bleary eyed and confused, was a bear, likely just emerging from hibernation. She posed no threat to us, didn’t even acknowledge our existence. The dogs paid her little attention as I remember it.

The trail was to cross the headwaters of the Chetco River. We got to a spot where the trail disappeared into the water. The river was raging. There was no crossing that river at this time of year. We were early into the wilderness as the snows were receding, but the receding snows had filled the river to the max. This was the end of the line for this trip. There was a lovely little spot on the edge of the river for us to pitch our tent and we would head back to the car and the campsite along the Illinois River in the morning. We slept to the sound of The Chetco River rushing along.

We woke to rain, a steady downpour. We packed up our gear and started the trek back. The hike in had felt like a steady uphill climb. The hike out felt like a steady uphill climb. I don’t know what it was about that hike, but it always felt uphill. We were drenched when we reached the ghost town, and it seemed like that would be a good place to find refuge from the rain. It wasn’t. The huts and shacks felt colder than hiking through the rain. There was no sheltered place safe to build a fire, so off we set again. By the time we got to the bridge we were ready to leave Odie to his own devices, the campsite was not far off. He may have been contemplating his return trip because he did not hesitate to climb down into the steep ravine and cross the divide that way.

By this time, I was clearly hypothermic. I left Michael to set up the tent on his own, I climbed inside my bag and only emerged to shit my brains out and this was quite frequently through the night and throughout the next day. Michael and the dogs kept themselves busy in the campground while I was recovering from my ailments. I noticed they had a visitor, not the same guy who came before we left. Turned out it was the other miner. He told Michael he had not made much money in his endeavors but the guy with the stake next to him was rolling in the dough.

I recovered and we moved our campsite further down the Chetco River as it flowed its way to the Pacific. The spot we found was OK, but looking across the river, well, it just looked more inviting. A lovely stretch of sandy beach. There was a rise to the beach that was just calling out for a tent to be erected. The river was still flowing swiftly this far out of the mountains but wider and shallower. Michael figured he could negotiate it. He stripped down, loaded his pack on his back and headed across the river, working his way with the flow of the current but not losing site of the beach. When he got over to the other side, he tied the rope we always carried with us to an anchor point, then made his way back across to get me. I then had the rope to ensure I would not get swept away. I landed a bit down the river but easily made it back along the bank to our ideal camp spot. The words Michael used to coach me along have become words that I have used over and over again since then, sometimes in quite critical circumstances. “Come toward the bank, don’t fight the current.”

We made our campfire and cooked our dinner. Somewhere along the way, Michael’s frustration welled up. Frustration with where we were in our…what? Situation? Life? Michael was still harboring resentment about the loss of the BMW. After all this time this is what came up. Tired, the adventures played out, Michael was at the end of the rope. Since I was the one who directed us to Montana, I was to blame. This is how I remember it. I don’t know how the discussion went, how we got to this point, why then, at that time. Michael and I were not bickerers. We rarely disagreed on things. We certainly had put on many a mile and much time but here we were to this point of exasperation.

The brain is a nasty little entity. You can trust it with the fight and flight, sometimes, but in holding onto frustration, it should not be trusted. What I do remember is the words I spoke that night, before I climbed into the tent and curled up in my bag: “I can’t live with the blame.” My heart was broken. I don’t remember another time in our relationship to that point when I felt our connection was so broken, when I felt so broken. When our partnership felt fractured.

Where does one go from here. If you’re me, you start strategizing on what the hell you’re going to do, including where do you go. What is home? It hadn’t mattered for five years now. Home was where Michael and I found ourselves, under a big fir tree, on a beach, at a riverside, in a school bus. Without Michael, what would be home? I could go back to Willow Creek; I had made friends there that were not really Michael/Mary friends. They were Mary friends. I could make a go of it with a job at the motel until I figured out how to get back to school.

Michael was sitting at the fireside. He came and poked his head into the tent. “Come out and see the moon.” “No, it’s too cold.” “The moon will keep you warm.” Somehow this was convincing. I climbed out of my sleeping bag, out of the tent. I was naked. The full moon was stunning. It warmed me. Michael folded me in his arms. His words were “I need to get real. It’s time. I’m going back to Chester to become a cop. Please come with me.”

I no longer had family in Chester. My mother had packed what she could carry in an overnight bag and escaped her life in Chester taking my sister with her. My father had died. Brother Mike was in Glens Falls, New York which is where my mother and sister targeted. Marty was in Philly, the only one close by.

Chester was a better example of a political machine than even Chicago. Michael knew he could walk into a job there with his political connections and his resume from his service days. Suddenly we had a vector. Suddenly the frustration had dissolved and along with that, the blame.

We called that night The Healing Moon. The scene on that sandy hillock is seared on my brain. My brain works in windows, not reels. I see scenes. Maybe short reels. My brain can put together excerpts not full-length movies.

At some point around this time, we traveled to Portland. Somehow, we heard that Jack was there. Jack had an uncanny way of finding us no matter what remote campsite. This time though, we heard he was in Portland, so we went up to touch base. I hated every minute of our time in Portland and did not like any of the folks we met there. I think it was on the way home from that visit, our attempt to figure out our next step, that we headed up into the Kalmiopsis, after that, The Healing Moon. I do remember we took a southward route back to the east coast. We must have had stuff stashed with Steve Frye to pick up. Because another seared memory was a little red Datsun truck, filled, and two big dogs, wedged between our stuff in the bed of that truck.

Another scene I remember is Michael sitting in a campground, probably on some log, while I cut his hair. A new start. Onward toward a southward route we went. I only know this because we passed for a short time through the very northern part of Texas. The little red Datsun pickup bed, packed to gills, two big black dogs wedged, peeking out between the belongings. Odie and Bigs (Dunbar) were good pickup truck puppies. They knew to stay in the bed of the truck. By the time we got to Texas, Michael needed a reprieve from driving. That was unusual. Michael was a chronic sufferer of white line fever. Maybe it was the vehicle, it wasn’t the beamer. It was a good little work horse just not as much fun. I, however, never did well with the BMW clutch. The old Ford (Al) that we bought to make things work for a while was fine except toward the end when the clutch was slipping. The Datsun I mastered.

As soon as we crossed the border into Texas, a state trooper picked us up. He stayed on our tail for the entire stretch of the Texas highway. That highway had a maximum speed limit and, strangely enough, a minimum posted speed. The highway was a series of climbs and dips. The packed pickup needed a maximum downhill speed in order to make it up the inclines. I had to do some fancy foot work to stay at the maximum so that I could make the minimum on the uphill slog. Did I mention I didn’t have a driver’s license? Brother Michael was a great driving teacher, but I never got around to getting the permit or the license. Public transportation in the Delaware County/Philadelphia area was perfect for getting you where you needed to go. I didn’t have a car to drive so I never bothered with the license. In So Cal I walked, hitched a ride, or biked. In Humboldt County I didn’t go many places without Michael. In Willow Creek I rode the horse.

I passed the grueling test. We crossed the state line and the Statie dropped out of site. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if I hadn’t cut Michael’s hair. The only other aspect of the trip I remember was stopping in Missouri to explore some caves there. The next thing I remember, we’re home. Well, Michael’s home on the Sun Hill side of Washington Park. Brother Marty was there at Rook and Jim’s house to greet us. He hugged me. That surprised me. Hugging was never anything we did in our family. I had gotten into the habit of hugging, what with hanging around the dope smokers, peaceniks, and tree huggers, but my brother’s hug surprised me.

Here I was in Sun Hill. Sun Hill and Sun Village were built by Sun Ship Building as housing for its workers. What a brilliant idea. The two neighborhoods were a wonderful array of blue-collar families with nearby Jeffries Elementary School, not too far from St Michael’s Catholic School. Right across Melrose Avenue was what once was Pennsylvania Military College. What I was thinking was “How am I ever going to survive this concrete jungle?” At that moment, with that thought in my head, I looked down. There, pushing its way up through the crack between two cement squares in the sidewalk was a tiny little yellow flower. Ha. I looked up and there flying overhead was a red-tailed hawk. I’ll be fine.

Thanks for stopping by. Stay tunes for next week’s episode.

Mary E Joyce

The dream of studying oceanography is what took Michael to California very soon after his discharge from the Marines. He headed right back to Southern California where he had spent time on the USS Long Beach. This time around, he was driving the BMW across country with our friend Tom Doc. Tom had seen some major action in Vietnam. I don’t know how it came about that they were both going to California. Tom knew some guys in Manhattan Beach, so they headed there. Michael, always thinking of the financial end of things, knew he could get his first two years for free in the California community college system, while earning his service related financial aid. He knew eventually he would want to head north to Humboldt State University or back to New York for Woods Hole for the best education toward his goal.

I had three more months of school to go before I even thought about getting out to Cali. Neither Michael nor I were stellar scholars in the school systems through high school. I had to sneak in the back door of Temple University with my sad SAT scores. Michael had failed to graduate due to a poor grade in Spanish. I really was interested in Biology but had settled for Sociology thinking that I would not be able to make the grade in the sciences. In my own words, “dummies don’t major in science”. Michael had gone to a business college out of high school before he jumped that ship and signed up for the Marine Corps when everyone else was running for the hills from the prospect of Vietnam.

When my friends were getting shipped out, I was in the habit of baking cookies and sending the fresh face recruits off with batches of chocolate chips. I know I sent Tom Doc off that way. I can’t remember if I went down to see Michael off. It is likely since he ended up writing to me. But that was around 1966 or 67; now here we are in 1970, married, Michael back in Southern California after his four years in the service having managed to avoid ever setting foot in Viet Nam. Tom Doc had spent lots of time in Nam, working with Navy Seals in all kinds of adventures. He came home with a good bit of his stomach removed and some significant post trauma behaviors.

I was bored in my studies at Temple. Nature vs Nurture was the argument at the time, as if there had to be a choice, one over the other. Duh. In my smart ass nineteen-year-old mind it was both you goof balls. Turns out I was right, but that’s a story for another time. At the end of that semester in May 1970, Pennsylvania announced my need based scholarship was going away. I had no intention of returning to school on my own dime to study something I had no interest in. I was heading off to Cali to try on some other subjects to see where I would go with my life. It was not going to be sociology, that was for sure. Strangely enough, I loved Economics, but also wanted to try Geology on for size, and Biology.

I took my savings and bought a plane ticket to LA leaving one week after the end of the semester. I still had time to attend an anti-war demonstration in Philly. I’ll never forget the sight of more cops piling out of buses than there were demonstrators. Good old Frank Rizzo. He had it under control.

*********

I arrived at LAX the day after Tom Doc flew back to Chester. Michael picked me up dressed in his bell bottoms and a shirt that no longer fit his body built, muscled physique. That was not the look of the day for the 70’s styled hippies but Michael had gone completely over to the camp of Jack Lalanne now that he had met his responsibility to John Wayne with his Marine Corps service.

We were staying in a place barely a block from the beach. It was late May. Growing up, Michael had spent time in Cape May, NJ where one of his relatives had a house. I had only been to the shore on occasions when my grandfather had made the plans for a day trip. One of the trips included Atlantic City to see the diving horse on the Atlantic City Board Walk. As a teen I was able to connect with friends whose family invited me to join their trip to the shore. What I’m saying is being drawn to the shore was not as strong a familiar for me as it was for Michael.

I remember our first walk down to the sandy beach upon my arrival in California. We headed down early enough. As I lay on my towel soaking up the sun, I remember being curious about the fact that everyone was running as they exited the beach. Interesting. And then it was time for us to head back up to the house. Suddenly I realized why everyone had run for dear life, the sand was burning hot. I seem to have hit upon a theme here in my remembering: running for one’s life.

Never would I have imagined what we called a red tide or phosphorescent tide. But one night shortly after my arrival, as we walked along the beach at night, we noticed that the sand was a sparkling of diamonds. We couldn’t imagine what we were seeing. We were alone. It was dark. With every wave we found a shimmering wonderland. We started kicking up the sand to see what seemed like glitter rain all around us. Then we rubbed the sand all over ourselves and we became alive with sparkling marvel. We were glittering footprints, dancing to exhaustion in the sand. A fairy tale come alive.

We needed to find a place of our own. We set out one day walking around the neighborhood and lucky enough, we found a place. We were quite happy with the idea of living in Manhattan Beach. We shared a place with a couple of roommates for a short time but eventually found our delightful little place in El Porto, the slum of Manhattan Beach, as we liked to call it. The house had been owned by Joseph Tully, we were told. It was his summer home. He had been the star of The Streets of San Francisco in the fifties. But now a wonderful woman named Mary Oldham owned the house. She was living in Redwood City and rented out the place in El Porto. Our part of the house was the maid’s quarters. Our entrance was a Dutch door; I was able to keep the top of the door open. It looked out onto Highland Ave, a block and a bit down to the strand. Dickey Smothers lived on the strand at the bottom of our street, overlooking the beach. Suddenly the ocean became a draw in my life. Our quarters were attached to the main house where a stripper and an elementary school teacher roomed together. There was a constant party going on there. We were not far behind. The neighborhood was friendly, the beach was our constant backdrop, white noise, and gym.

I had arrived in So Cal just about a month after the first Earth Day. In Junior High, my assigned reading of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring held me. I fell right in step with the earth first movement, with even more conviction, perhaps, than the antiwar movement. Ahh. That is not actually accurate. Watching so many of my friends and classmates, literally in the line of fire, was gruesome. I watched the news relentlessly. I felt it was my penance, all I could do for my friends. I watched so much that the sound of helicopters was a trigger for me for years. I had faith, though, that we could affect the end of the war. The earth, however, was going to be a lifelong commitment. I’m still on it.

As soon as we found our home, I found a recycling center and was faithful in my pledge to the earth. After several visits to the center with our recyclables, the attendant asked if we owned a bar. Walking distance up the street from our home was a small market that also sold liquor. It was manned by two Jewish gentlemen who had their holocaust internment tattoos on their wrists. I saw that in Los Angeles and had never seen it anywhere before. When I was seventeen, I spent a summer living with a Jewish family as a mother’s helper in a summer community camp in the Poconos of Pennsylvania with other Jewish families. I hadn’t seen it there. It moved me. They seemed to know us, too. Depending on what alcoholic beverage we chose to celebrate the evening, those gentlemen had the next bottle set up for our second round. This was our neighborhood.

Most evenings, folks would wander out from their homes, all down the block. We would mill about, chatting superficially. Then the sun would hit the water line. Our eyes would be cast westward. With each millimeter of loss of the orb, the colors of the sky would shift and morph. Any moisture in the western realm would take on a new personality. Turns out everything in Los Angeles has a dramatic part to play. When the curtain would finally come down on the evening’s show, we would clap and cheer, then head back to our abodes.

There were great music venues not far away. One of our favorites was the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium which offered a free classical concert each month. Before Michael, my source for classical music knowledge was Bugs Bunny. Michael told the story that his neighbor across the street, in Sun Hill, would blast classical music on his radio, while he sat in his underwear smoking a cigar and relishing the sound. That neighbor influenced Michael’s commitment to orchestral performance. Michael was a bit ahead of me in his knowledge and appreciation of the classics. We tried to never miss a free concert.

Michael was a reader. He always had at least two books going at any time and read as many newspapers as he could get his hands on. The LA Times, The New York Times and when possible, the Christian Science Monitor. His reading would often include a serious endeavor like James Joyce’s Ulysses, along with one of the series in Conan the Barbarian or something of that sort. Books that guided us were Catch 22, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, books on tracking and Native American teachings.

There was a theatre in Hermosa Beach, that, once a week, showed a schlocky, bad, scary movie for the cost of fifty cents. Two Headed Transplant is still a seminal memory. Bruce Dern, forever there after, my favorite actor. Also, don’t forget, Bruce Dern was the first actor to kill John Wayne and once in real life, he ran from Los Angeles to Denver, Colorado.

Dunbar came into our home. I did not have pets growing up. Michael did not have pets growing up. There was no doubt in my mind that I needed a dog, I had waited a lifetime for this. We headed down to the Santa Monica animal shelter. There was a giant gaggle of very cute dogs, all competing for our attention. Every one of them silly, fun, adorable. It was so hard deciding. I could have done eenie meenie and would have a winner. In the end my finger, with a life of its own, pointed to the little black dog sitting off on his own, clearly having lost all hope for life. I seriously had no intention of picking that dog but there was that finger pointing at this little black guy. We took him home.

When I was at work and Dunbar was alone with Michael and at this point Steve Robinson, Michael’s partner on the ship in the Corps, Dunbar would sleep and refuse to engage in play. Early in the relationship, Steve was sure my dog was sick, but I would arrive home, and he would be up and ready to head to the beach to chase sticks into the waves. Michael loved Dunbar but had hoped for a bigger dog. Dunbar, a Lab/Shepard mix, sixty pounds, was just not impressive enough. One day as I was coming down the strand, I looked into a back yard full of puppies. There was Loadus (later Odie). This puppy was big. He had big ears hanging down to his knees. He had giant jowls. He was awesome, and they needed homes for these puppies. I snatched him up and showed up at home with a dog that certainly would meet Michael’s requirement of size and presence. Odie’s mom and dad were in that back yard. The genetic make up included Black and Tan hound, Redbone hound, English Pointer and Lab on one side, Lab and Malamute on the other. Despite that genetic confusion, Odie was driven by the nose, but he had an awesome point as well.

Later there was an expose in the LA Times about abuse at the Santa Monica Shelter, which likely explained Dunbar’s behavior. We were a two-dog family, now. Occasionally we had cats, including Ernestine, who would backpack with us.

We lived in the Mary Oldham house for three years. I took enough classes at the community college to realize I needed to figure out how to make a go of studying biology. Michael may have realized he did not want to make a go of studying biology, but he never voiced such. He did make mention of the possibility of police work from time to time. He did not put enough effort into his studies to be able to transfer to the big programs that would get him where he had earlier wanted to go.

**********

Up to now in this telling, I seem to sound like I followed around after Michael. Hardly, but in those early days, big bold moves were his creations; they were adventurous and made enough sense that I gladly joined in. Often when we were at a crossroads, I was the first to make a bold move. I usually was the one who went out and landed a job before Michael was inspired. Now, three years into our time in Manhattan Beach, a large community of friends, some great adventures under our belts and a semester of mostly failed classes for Michael, I put the squeeze on for getting out of party central. Mary Oldham had sold the house to some realty agents, the whole honeymoon of Manhattan Beach seemed to be slipping away. Two friends had moved to Humboldt County with acceptance to Humboldt State College. I pushed fairly hard for the move in that direction. Steve Frye was living in Trinidad, a pretty darn awesome place. Leftwich was not too far away. We headed up to Frye’s and began in earnest the attempt to find a place to live.

At this point we were living in a tent at Clam Beach in Humboldt County. When the local paper was hot off the press, we were sitting on the steps of the publisher to be the first to look at the rentals available. Us and a whole lot of other young people. There was a serious shortage of housing around the schools, Humboldt State and College of the Redwoods. As I recall the story, Ronnie Raygun, as he was known, was governor of the state and had given notice to the University that they needed to increase the student population. Housing in the area could not keep up. For us, we now had Dunbar and Odie, two big dogs. This added to the housing challenge.

Strangely enough, minding our own business in our campsite, a man approached us, asked if we needed a place to live. Turns out he had three school buses set up on seven acres of redwoods outside of McKinleyville and he would be happy to rent us the available school bus. We were not the only folks camping out on Clam Beach waiting for a break in housing. This guy came straight for us. We looked it over; it would work for us since we were fine with roughing it. There was another couple, students living in a bus across the way. That guy was a gymnast, blond, with a gymnast physique. His partner was also blond, busty, a figure right out of the Valkyries. Nice folks. Our landlord lived in the third bus.

It didn’t take long for our landlord to tell us his story, he could barely contain himself. He didn’t believe Hitler was serious enough. Here was Michael, a perfect Aryan specimen, as were our neighbors across the way. Me, all 5’1’ of me, brown hair, I didn’t fit the ideal, our landlord pretty much ignored my existence. For him, though, the bonus, we were driving a BMW, a perfect German invention. We learned our landlord was known for showing up at the local synagogue to harass the attendees. Here was housing that would allow us to get our schooling started. Let’s ignore the downside while we continue to look for another option. We could walk right down the road to buy goat milk from the veterinarian who lived there and raised his goats. Even a bonus brag with the ranch owned by the band members of Captain Beefheart somewhere on that road, or so we had heard.

***************

That first weekend on the bus, Frye showed up to woo us away into the Marble Mountain Wilderness, an early jump on the season before most hikers hit the trails. I was in a home for the first time in quite some months. I made a choice to stay back and let the dudes head out to explore this area we had never visited. I would take the opportunity to nest.

The entry to the bus is exactly where you would guess. The driver’s seat was reversed to face a living room with a school bus seat as a couch. A couple of seats faced each other, eating booth like. I have no memory of the cooking area which is odd because I was always cooking for visitors of all sorts and at all hours. I could always throw something together to satisfy hunger. Back from the living area there were bunk beds for visitors, then at the very back of the bus was a roomy platform bed at window level for comfort and an effective view of the surroundings.

When Michael returned from the backpack trip, he was quiet, not much to say about the hike. So, I was quite confused when Frye showed up all excited to find out what I thought about the adventure they had had. “Did he tell you?” he wanted to know. “Did he tell you about the tracks?” Frye was so jazzed, I shot a look over toward Michael, who sort of shrunk down, trying to disappear. That response told me so much more about the experience than the excitement. It takes quite a bit to throw Michael off balance, but this certainly had.

Michael finally had to confront his reluctance thanks to Frye’s response. Upon heading into back country, there is a sign-up sheet. Michael and Frye were the first names on the sheet, not a surprise this early in the season. The high-country snows were opening the passes, or you were blazing across stretches of snow, hoping you can pick up the trail on the other side of the snow field. Everything I am sharing here is a secondhand account of their events or general knowledge of hiking in the California wildernesses. I have yet to hike in Marble Mountains.

Michael and I, over the years made it a habit of learning tracking skills and recognition of a variety of tracks and signs. Michael still hiked in his military issue combat boots, he never changed that habit as long as I can remember. As I am picturing it from the telling, they came across a stretch of still wet mud. Making their way across this muck, Michael looked down and saw a humanlike barefoot track. Not only did it make no sense for someone to be walking barefoot in this part of the woods, Michael could fit his entire boot in the print with the toes still sticking out of the end. Michael was six foot tall. Tracks of unusual size, indeed. They told of the rest of the trip where they experienced their hair standing up on the back of their necks, odd smells and the feeling they were being watched, all of which could well be explained away by anxiety and paranoia. Also experiences of everyone who has reported encounters with Sasquatch. The footprint cannot be explained away. I have explored the thought of it. Sometimes the change in moisture content will cause a print to change shape. That’s a hell of a change in shape because of the size that it took on. But who was barefoot in the Marble Mountains in early spring?

Michael Joyce was the most even tempered person I had ever met. I like to put my thumb and fore finger up in measure and say this is Michael’s range of emotion. It includes “OK”, “OK” and “OK!” My father was known for laughing so hard in telling a story no one could understand what he was telling, crying full out, or his rage episodes, so I think I really appreciated the safety of “OK”. However, if you were smart you would do best to watch for this one telltale sign. Michael had a tendon that ran along his jaw, if you saw that tighten up, that was cause for concern. He hated people to slap him on the back or be too demonstrative if he was, for instance, sitting at the bar. I have few memories of that playing out in full but there was a close call or two, and a few tales over the years. For the most part people liked Michael and few were interested in testing his metal. The response to the possibility of having seen evidence of Sasquatch had an odd effect for Michael. I don’t think I had ever seen it before.

Meanwhile back at the bus. Our landlord, on occasion, emerged from his school bus with his hair standing on end. Agitated. I didn’t know about mania at the time but in my backward look I’m thinking that was likely. In short order, he got into an argument with the folks in the other bus and took a pot shot, I’m talking about a gunshot here, and the bullet went through the other bus window. We snuck out of the bus before the beginning of the next day. Running for your life? Again?

***********

This may be where we decided to take off on a road trip. We were back without a house again; we couldn’t start school until we found something. We headed east, with no real plan. It was time to get the Beamer serviced. I was supposed to find a location for a BMW dealer and maybe head out to meet up with some friends we knew were out adventuring too. We headed toward Montana, in April. Let me be clear here. There are two seasons in Montana. Winter and July, but we didn’t know that. Also, I didn’t know that the dealer I had identified was a motorcycle shop and not a car shop. Man was Michael angry. I had never experienced Michael being angry. It really set me reeling. He was aggravated when we got to the dealer and found my mistake. We continued on in the direction of the real service shop taking us further into the heart of Montana.

Here, we may as well venture into Yellowstone. There were very few roads open, but we found a place to hike in using a cross country ski trail. We dug the snow out and built a wall around the tent. We brought the dogs into the tent and created a cozy little refuge for the night. It was indeed a three dog night but we only had the two. Elk tripped over the guy wires of our tent in the night. Coyotes passed through our campsite, so unused to humans and dogs in this area at this time of the season. Pretty damn cool!

In the morning we headed back on the road with the idea of returning to Cali. There was some ice and snow coming down. I barely got the words out of my mouth “aren’t we driving a little fast for the conditions?” when the car went into a spin and tumbled over into the ditch. Michael swore we did an end over end, then a flip, landing right side up in the ditch. In subsequent years a friend had called the time lapse when you are in the middle of one of those events, when time slows down, dog minutes. We were traveling through the air in dog minutes. I just know we ended in the ditch. A pair of horses came running over to the fence to look over the wreck. Michael always carried one of his weights with him in our travels. I don’t know why that weight didn’t brain one or all of us. The car was completely staved in at the front. The headlights were cross eyed.

I don’t remember anything else except when we were at the repair shop. Did we get towed? Likely. How else would we have gotten out of the ditch, though I wouldn’t put it past the two of us doing it ourselves. The guy at the repair shop had a strong German accent. He directed us to a motel to spend the night while the car was being repaired. Both of us thought he was telling us it was the Chester Motel. We looked at each other and burst out laughing. The guy was thrown off by our response. Turned out it was the Shasta Motel but we both heard Chester.

The car repaired as best was possible, we limped back to California, unable to drive at night because we had no useable headlights. On this leg of the trip, completely defeated, we pulled over for a night’s sleep in a roadside chapel. In Montana, along the highway, are tiny chapels for travelers to stop and pray. Too beat to find a place to pitch the tent, we slept, or tried to sleep in one of those chapels. Neither of us slept a wink. We kept thinking some zealot would catch us defiling the chapel by sleeping there instead of praying.

So here we found ourselves, not running for our lives, not ice skating, but limping. Home?

Mary E Joyce

Stay tuned for the next Episode.

I can’t help but wonder, now, with this attempt to remember the history of Michael Joyce and Mary. I’m doubting every memoir and personal story I have ever read. There is no way my brain can take me in a trajectory that I see in others’ remembrances.

I do know that Michael and I dated for a short while in high school. For me, I was not very interested in the long-term high school relationship. I do remember that I ran, like I was practicing for the run from Momma Bear, when, during that high school dating episode, Michael wanted to take me to a family gathering. Yikes! Way too serious for me so I ducked out. Somehow though, we reconnected as he was leaving for his service duty. US Marine Corps. Next stop, Vietnam. Or was it?

I don’t know how these things work and I have no memory of hearing the tale of how Michael ended up as Military Police assigned to a Naval vessel, the USS Long Beach. The USS Long Beach patrolled the waters all around Vietnam. The Vietnam War was in full swing, and our friends were there in the numbers. It was unknown as to whether the war would spill out of Vietnam, so the patrol of the waters was a just in case precaution. As a result, Michael never touched down in Vietnam. The USS Long Beach was nuclear powered, so they were not allowed in Japan. They sailed from Long Beach, California, to The Philippines, Okinawa, Hong Kong, Australia, not necessarily in that order. I know these places because in every port Michael had pictures of himself looking very fired up on alcohol, giving the finger to the camera.

Michael was a genius letter writer. Completely crazy. He wrote from the perspective of a character he named Niles Findlay. He wrote like a lunatic but in his farcical rantings, he painted a stark picture of his experiences. I try not to have regrets in life, but I regret that I was unable to save those writings.

After a while of writing back and forth, Michael disappeared from the scene. I heard through the grapevine that he had met a woman who lived in Long Beach, CA. It sounded serious.

Michael spent three years (minus boot camp and training, I guess, but what do I know) on the ship. Then he was transferred (is that what they call it?) to Cherry Point, NC for the final stretch of his military days. Cherry Point is an air station for the Marine Corps. Again with the memory lapse. I have no idea how he was getting back and forth from North Carolina to Chester, but he was hanging out with the few guys who were around. There weren’t many left in town, so many were in Nam. The ones who had returned were in bits and pieces. My brother, however, was in town. I guess Marty was home, visiting from Drexel University where he lived at school.

He and Michael found each other. There were a few others in my house when I arrived home from who knows where to find a bunch of guys in the dining room, as I remember it. That was weird in itself because my brothers brought very few of their friends home. Unless they were out working on a car in the driveway or it was Tom Doc, the friends did not come to the house much. But there they were.

I guess that was the catalyst for Michael reaching out to ask for a date. Or maybe he sought Marty out because he was stalking me. Who knows. But he did ask me out. Not then and there in front of all the dudes, but later. There in the dining room we exchanged some words. I guess I asked him about what he was up to now with his service commitment.

Sometime after that encounter, on a date we went. One date I remember was to see Lord Jim, but that movie came out in 1965 (I looked it up on the internet) so that must have been one of those earlier dates before he left for the service. Again, the memoir thing. I have read two memoirs by fellow Chester folks. One gentleman I don’t remember knowing, Brent Staples, one I knew well, Eddie Bufala. They wrote these wonderful stories. Brent about his life in Chester followed by life in Chicago. Eddie about the mysterious death of his brother, Buster, the boxer. They seemed to have no problem remembering things that happened and could put them together with a flow to the narrative. Are they being honest? Do I need to be less honest and pretend that I remember things in a continuum?

Back to the date. Michael was very proud in his dress, when he decided to be proud in his choice of outfits. In his travels during his time in the service, he got a custom three-piece suit made each time the ship docked in Hong Kong. I have saved most of the jackets and vests and still wear the vests when I can fit it into my ensemble for an outing. But when Michael decided he didn’t care about his dress, oh man, woo. Like, for working out or for running. Ha. What an embarrassment.

On this date, he was decked out. A spiffy pair of plaid wool pants. Mind you this is 1969, heading into 1970. Everyone was taking pride in their bell bottom jeans, so Michael stood out, proudly so. If per chance, someone might make a disparaging remark about the choice of garb, all the better. We grew up in scrappy Chester, a little fisticuffs, well, why not. However, this did not happen. We did run into an old high school friend, Art. He commented respectfully on the trousers. I don’t remember the movie, I do remember the part of the night when we were standing in line to buy the tickets, what pants Michael was wearing and running into Art. I wonder why. The brain is fascinating.

When Michael and I sealed the deal on the commitment to the relationship, Michael presented the question - what would be my role in a barroom brawl. Why, have his back of course. Perfect. My kind of man. A man who recognized, acknowledged and was proud of my qualities and history. Yes, I was in. The last thing I wanted or needed was a protector. I wanted a partner. Michael wanted a partner who could hold her own. We were a match.

Michael traveled frequently from North Carolina. He bought a car. A brand new 1969 BMW 1600. The first BMW model imported into the United States, I believe. A sweet little car. He was now mobile. He did not need an excuse to make the trek back to Chester at the drop of a hat. And he did so frequently. I suspect he was done with the whole John Wayne episode of his life. I suspect he wanted to move on to the next chapter.

On one of his travels, he was exhausted from his week’s work at the airfield. That, however, was not going to interfere with his trip north. He told about hallucinating that a bear was galloping along next to him on the highway. From that vision, his spirit animal became a bear.

Another one of his trips up to Chester was unexpected, indeed. He was tasked with buying a Christmas tree for the headquarters at the base, in North Carolina. No one, however, was specific about where to go to get the tree. I am quite confident that no one had in mind driving to Pennsylvania. No one, but Michael. He had a colleague (maybe two) with him, and they didn’t object.

When Michael et al arrived in town, their first task was not to go shopping for a tree but to find me. Where might one look for Mary on a Friday night when they hadn’t given a heads up about a pending arrival? The Woodlyn Tavern (I was underage, but never mind that, it was The Woody after all.) No one there had seen me that evening. My usual Friday night drinking buddies, Sparky, Denny and Quinny – three, six foot, 200 pound football players - hadn’t seen me. After a few other inquiries, Michael and his companions gave up. I was at home with my mother, Michael never imagined that. The guys got the tree the next day and headed back down to the base. I never saw Michael or the travelers that weekend. We both laughed at the telling of the places I was expected to be vs where I actually turned out to be. I never met Michael’s compatriots, but I can imagine my reputation in their eyes.

I think I was married at the time of that story, but I’m not sure. Does that sound strange? Of course it does. Here I should explore the use of a particular word. Rebel. I associate it with rebellion. That gives the impression that there is something to push against. I think Michael and I were pushing for or toward. I don’t think we were consciously pushing against social or family constraints. We were seekers. We were seeking personal freedom; personal freedom that the traditions of the day and of the family (Michael’s) would constrain.

With those concepts in mind, here is the story of the marriage proposal and the subsequent marriage: “We should get married.” We were exclusive at this point, not by any verbal agreement, or any ritual, or really related to any conversation whatsoever. We just fell into it, as I remember it or in keeping with earlier discussion of memory, I have no memory contrary to this conclusion. I had no real drive toward marriage. It really was the furthest thing from my mind. But, as Michael put it, “I will get a marriage adjustment to my service pay if I’m married. I can pay off the car faster.” OK, makes sense to me. I like being helpful. So, really, Michael married me for my money. Well, not actually my money. But one other thing to consider in this decision. I once asked Michael what he wanted to do when he got out of the service. “I want to grow gills and walk to Japan.” We’re in.

Michael made the arrangements and on one of his weekends home, we headed down to a magistrate in Elkton, Maryland and were married. Michael had on one of his Hong Kong tailored suits with his name embroidered on the inside of the jacket. I had an equally appropriate suit. Appropriate for most things except for a wedding. I can’t remember the suit I wore exactly. At that time in my life, I was making most of my own clothes. I was in college at Temple University, taking the train into Philly and the subway into North Philly. In making or missing my transportation connections I had time to shop. I would see what they were selling on the racks then go home and find a close enough proximity to the style and shape in a sewing pattern and make a knock off.

The marriage took place at the magistrate’s office, which happened to be attached to the magistrate’s house. I don’t remember that he had a speech impediment, but he came out of the back room with a gravy stain on his tie, still chewing his bite of supper. He said the appropriate words and we were married. I was eighteen years old, three weeks from my nineteenth birthday. I rarely advertise that fact. But we got married and didn’t tell anyone for quite some time, well, except for the Marine Corps. We told them. We didn’t cohabitate until California. We just went about our business as usual, spending our time together on the weekends he made it up from the base.

Thanks for stopping by, stay tuned for next week’s episode

Mary E Joyce

As far as place, beside the quarry, there was also the park, Washington Park. Michael lived on one side of the park, Sun Hill. I lived on the other. There were lots of characters at that park. Sea Hag, Zooch, The Professor, Stiff (my brother, Marty), Doc, Murph. Everyone had a nick name. I don’t think Michael had a nick name. I didn’t have a nick name, that I knew of.

The park was bordered by E18th Street, Melrose Avenue, and the back yards of Glen Terrace (the last street of Sun Hill). The grounds dipped down to a spring and a stream that ran down to the crick. Across the crick was Woodlyn, no longer Chester at all. I can remember at times, on the other side of the crick in the meadow there, you could see a traveler camped out. We called them bums. They were likely jumping on the trains that traveled through. The tracks ran between Sun Hill and Sun Village. Beyond Sun Village was the Delaware River.

At the park, spring water was piped out of the ground. Some families came to the spring to collect water for use in their homes. We kids just took every advantage of the piped water for our rehydration. I have no memory of anyone cutting the grass in the park, but it was always well groomed all the way down to the woods that bordered the crick, Ridley Creek.

The border of the park along 18^th street was lined with forsythia that bloomed a lovely yellow in the spring, announcing it would soon be time for school to be over and activity at the park to begin. There were swings, seesaws and a merry-go-round. If we weren’t careful, we could be caught on the merry go round and one of the older kids would set it flying until someone came sliding off or threw up. If a kid cried that would have no effect except to encourage the bully to keep it going. We played box hockey, basketball or just hung out on the picnic benches. School teachers hired on as park counselor? director? for the summer season. I don’t remember what we called them. They were there to maintain order, to pull out the board games and the hockey supplies which were locked in a shed on the park grounds.

If it was summer Mr Softee, Jack and Jill, and the water ice man showed up in their trucks to sell us goodies. Each one had his own theme song. It was always difficult to decide which one we would treat ourselves with that day. We all seemed to have the spare change.

Summer also signaled the time to head down to the crick where, in the early days, we could swim. There was always a rope swing. If it was winter, we sledded. The terrain of the park grounds was downhill toward the spring. Three sides of the park were downward draws, but the best sledding was on the 18^th street side. We would wind our way between some big trees and end up at the spring.

We were always outside. There were no parents to be seen. Life in Chester was good. Life in Chester was about the wild, the woods, the crick, the quarry. At least those were the friends I picked. There was always some way to explore the wild and if no one was around to explore with, it was not out of the realm for me to do it alone, climbing the white mountains of the quarry, or heading to the park.

*****

Michael, when he returned from his time overseas, told the story about getting lost in training in the jungle of the Philippines. He was able to lead his colleague out of the jungle when he found a creek and knew it would take him to a bigger waterway and eventually to some place of note. He was right. I always credited our childhood patterns of explorations of our woods and waterways with his later good fortune.

I think the same is true with our relentless exploring of the wild places we loved in California. We were way more outdoor savvy than any two kids who grew up in a gritty little industrial city like Chester should have been. We were also very like-minded in our interests. Get out of town and find some wild places to explore. And that we did. Wild waters. We always targeted waters.

That reminds me of a funny Michael and Mary story. We were heading out for a short backpack trip. Northern California, the New River Wilderness. Where did we get the idea for the trip? A hiking guidebook? A tip from a friend? We headed off down the trail. Wherever it was that we got the notion, there were a whole lot of others who had gotten a similar tip. Barely into the hike, we came to a meadow full of hippies, the women with their long colorful skirts and impractical pretty blouses, noodle arming around in the field in delight. I’m sure we shared some weed; I know we chatted. Our destination was a notable waterfall as was this group of folks’. And according to our chat, there was also a group splintered off from this one, likely already at the falls. Oh well, not what we were looking for in our backpacking plan but there would be good weed, community, it’ll be fine.

We continued on. Not too far into the hike, we encountered a slag field. The trail was a thin little thread running precariously across a mountainside of flat, broken rock. About halfway across, I stepped wrong and down I slid. To the bottom. I was fine. I stood there looking upward assessing my route back up, when suddenly Michael came sliding down. He had come down to save me.

Until this very moment that is how I thought of the scene. But now, from this perspective, did he see the ravine I was standing in and think ‘hmmm that looks interesting’? That is as likely as the savior scenario, maybe more so. Does it have to be an either/or rather than a combo? See how this memoir trap works?

Back to the ravine, we decided it was a perfect place for lunch and, also, because it’s us, a perfect place to dip into the creek. (It’s creek here in California rather than a crick in Chester; it’s my memoir.) We stripped down and enjoyed the cold water. Michael decided to venture past the point of land that obstructed our sight further down the ravine. So down the draw he traveled by the water route, the only route there was. By the time he came back to where I was enjoying the dip, he seemed to have decided on a change of plans. We loaded up our packs on our naked backs. I followed him to see the sandy beach on the other side, the small cave, a most inviting place to pitch a tent, build a fire and spend our time. Other than a slide down a mountain face and a venture through a creek bed, a site inaccessible by dope smoking, noodle arming humans. I was sold.

We set up camp. Dunbar, our dog, was barely 6 months old on this trip. He was loyal, true blue to me but had enough herding instinct to want to keep Michael in sight. That always caused the poor dog stress on our hikes. Michael was a forced marcher; I was always distracted by everything around me. Michael and I had an agreement, he could hike as fast as he wanted but if he came to a place on the trail where there might be any question about which way he chose, he had to wait til I caught up. In the meantime, Dunbar would run back and forth checking on each of us, thus doubling or tripling his mileage on every hike.

We cooked an early dinner over the fire and had enough light that I wanted to venture further down stream to see what wildlife would come down to the water. Michael liked his pipe at the campfire, so off Dunbar and I went to further explore.

It wasn’t hard to make our way along the water way, there were lots of game trails. I was poking around on another sandy beach, looking for tracks. I looked away to the other end of the stretch of sand and said to myself “oh, there’s Dunbar” and looked down at my side and said “Dunbar!” On second look, the other Dunbar was a baby bear. Where there is a baby bear, there is a momma, to be sure and she will be protective and consider outsiders like us as a threat. I was not going to wait to see her. I took off. Over my shoulder I called to Dunbar and was ready to leave my loyal puppy as a sacrifice, I was not looking to see if he was following. I was traveling as fast as I possibly could, and not being dainty about how much noise I was making in my progress back to a campfire.

Satisfied with his relaxing smoke, Michael decided to follow my trail. As he was making his way along, little did he know I was running for my life from Momma Bear. He heard me coming, so he hid behind a bush. Just as I came upon that bush, he jumped out to scare me. Everyone wants a dramatic response to their little tricks, but no one wants the response that Michael received. I collapsed to the ground in utter terror. Now Michael was more freaked than I was. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” “Bear” was all I was able to get out. Without another second of thought, we both high tailed it to the camp and, as one, built up the fire. Dunbar was with us; baby and momma were nowhere in sight. We spent a watchful, restless night sleeping by our fire.

I don’t remember anything else from that adventure. I have no memory of climbing out of that ravine: negotiating our way back through the water, climbing that rise of slag, hiking back the trail we came, nothing more. The details I have set down here are pretty darn vivid in my brain. In this case I can fairly trust my memory. Trauma, even the hint of trauma, like someone jumping out from a bush to scare you, sears a stronger memory on the brain. This is for our own good, supposedly, so that we will remember to avoid this in the future. However, it is this searing that is the stuff of post trauma reexperiencing and trustworthy memoir fodder. This memory I can trust.

Stay tuned for the next episode.

Mary E Joyce

We had two sons ages 9 and 12 at the time he died. I had no idea how to cope so I pretended. I knew no other widows my age. People said I was “handling it well.” I want to say to those people now, nobody ever “handles” a loved one’s death “well”. It’s not even possible. You “handle” a loved one’s death by waking up every morning, putting one foot in front of the other and doing what you need to do to keep yourself and your children living in what passes for “normalcy”.

And it’s hard. Because nothing is ever normal again. He isn’t there anymore. He’s gone. The one you loved with all your heart. Who gave you a better life than you had before him. Just because he loved you. Who was the father of your children on a daily basis, loved them, took an interest in them, helped them, was their role model for how to be a boy, grow up to be a man. A quiet presence in their lives. Providing stability and security and an income to keep them housed, fed, clothed and comfortable while they were growing up. In effect, to raise them. That was all gone and the companionship and love that man offered to us was gone with it.

It’s even hard for me now, 48 years later, to face it without breaking down. Because I never once felt like I was “facing it.” I felt I was “winging it” and still am all these years later. I don’t know how other people feel who’ve gone through the death of their husband at so young an age. The father of their children they didn’t live to raise, the love of their lives. I only know how I feel, for better or worse, and it’s been a huge struggle in everything.

How to live afterwards. All the way from the personal loss to the financial loss which hits immediately and takes nearly all your time and energy trying to solve the rest of your life for you and your children. I tried. It’s about the only thing I had time for. The Trying to Survive Without Him. I did the things I was supposed to do to look like it was working and to take up the raising of the boys without him.

I went to nursing school, got better paying jobs than I had before {but in no way easier or less stressful or even less hours.} I tried to be there for the boys. Took them where they wanted or needed to go. Provided what they needed. Tried to steer them in living within the law, or at least within the “laws” of our home. How to cook a little, do laundry, clean up, shop for basics, do yard work, homework. The everyday living skills everyone needs. But I did these mostly on a “watch and see” basis. It never worked on a “do this now” basis which caused a whole lot more stress, as did a weekly list that also failed miserably.

I was never even close to the perfect mother and never really figured it out. I needed Larry for that. He was much better at it then I was. That’s a Fact. I knew my limitations. I was “winging it.” I felt I made up for it at least a little by just being there.

And that’s what I think all kids need. Two parents who are There day in and day out for a lifetime and at least one who can figure out how to get them to do chores without bodily damage when they are growing up. Teaching responsibility. Larry did that. For them and for me, which helped make my life easier when he was here. All the ways he helped us that never were again. All those losses that go with a death that nobody really talks about. They last Forever.

This is what mourning is. It’s a Lifetime. It fades a little with time but it’s always There. The complete physical mourning of a person along with the love of that person.

What I wish for now is that nobody has to go through that at a young age. That they get to live at least through childhood to adulthood without having to endure the loss of a parent or to live at least through the raising of their children for a couple with children. It becomes a Lifetime of missing what was their “normal” to a life that always seems like it’s just “there” now.

I admire people who go on to be “handling it well.” I don’t know if they ever truly feel that way or are “winging it” like me. But if they are, I’d like to know how that’s done. Because from what I know, “handling it well” and “winging it” when it comes to grief are pretty much the exact same thing.

Joyce Oronzio

Michael, the dead guy, was from the same place as I. We grew up together, in Chester, and adventuring across the country. We left friends and acquaintances here, there and all along the way. Some in Mexico who may remember. But really, do they want to read a memoir about the tales they didn’t know or a retell of the ones they did know?

What makes someone’s story worth reading? Am I just kidding myself that my story with Michael is worth writing down? We did have fun though.

Do I start at the quarry? The first time I remember him. He was around before that, I’m sure. It’s impossible that we hadn’t met in Washington Park, but I remember the quarry. White Mountains it was called. There was a time when it was a working quarry but by the time we moved there, on 19^th street, the quarrying had long ago struck a spring and the deep hole had filled with water. Looking down from the rim, the walls of the quarry were a solid rock semi-circle. I loved to scale those walls at a variety of places. Each place presented a different challenge; scrambling up a steep wooded path, negotiating foot and hand holds on a white, rocky face.

At some point before my brothers and I discovered the quarry, the powers that be decided it was a good idea to fill the deepest part with landfill. The land fill happened to include some barrels of who knows what, but we didn’t care.

The water filled the center of the excavation. Then the landscape flattened so that you could traverse all around the deep well. The walls climbed up around two sides from there, reaching up to the level of the street, higher on one side and dipping down by way of nineteenth street. Our family lived in a little rental house and there were three other houses on that dead end street.

The wild of the quarry was abundant. There were blue jays and cardinals. Little brown birds of every kind (LBBs). Starlings and Robins of course. Red Winged Black Birds. When the water was not iced over, it was a great place for the geese and the ducks to hang out. They migrated in and out of our little world with the change of seasons.

There was often a possum climbing up out of the quarry to hang out in a tree near the house. I even seem to remember the sight of big gold carp in the water in the quarry deep. Sometimes you could see them through the ice. I don’t remember hawks or vultures.

There were plenty of wild raspberries in the summer and a big old cherry tree with the best cherries. That tree was right at the top of my most frequently used trail out of the bottom of the quarry. I’m not sure if anyone else besides me used that climb.

There was poison ivy for sure. Plenty of mosquitoes, praying mantises, and Japanese beetles. Oh, yes, and lightning bugs on a summer night. Mostly I remember the trees that were on the rim at the top. One big tree gave forth spiky covered nuts. We called them monkey balls and it was a seasonal sport to pelt each other with these, the fruit of the sycamore tree.

Trails feeding to new adventures could be found, splayed out from the quarry bottom, heading toward the crick or the bridge. Under the bridge we could climb along the concrete buttresses. Following along the trail under the bridge we could even make it to Irvington Falls which was near Irvington Mill, a fabric mill I believe. Somehow, at some point we began suspecting the crick as unsafe for swimming, so we switched to swimming above the falls at Irvington.

At the quarry, when it was iced over, my brother Marty was known for digging the barrels out of the non-frozen part of the ice. Yes, no matter how cold, there was always a part of the water that didn’t freeze. Should that be concerning? Or was it because the bushes that found footing on the edges of the deep water well created a more swamp effect. Whatever the reason for the unfrozen sections, the quarry was bottomless as far as we were concerned. Marty would line up the barrels and jump them with his skates on. He was the champ, adding length and height with the addition of those blue plastic containers. He was the champ; but I really don’t know if anyone was challenging him or if he was just challenging himself.

Though looking back as I’ve described it, there is no question, but as kids, somehow, we knew not to swim in the quarry. We swam in the crick, but we ice skated on the quarry. Maybe that was because the crick was tidal, so there were always unfrozen edges on both sides caused by the tide’s ups and downs. We would have to jump the gap to get to the part of the ice with integrity, but not overshoot the jump which would take us to the ice gap at the far side. One time, at the quarry, when I was lacing up for a skate, I needed someone to help me tie up my skates. I couldn’t get them tight enough to keep my ankles from collapsing down. Well laced by strong hands, I could skate like a pro, well, so to speak. I didn’t see either of my brothers around but there was that guy, he looked like he might do a good job.

Michael remembered this. I seem to remember it. Or do I? Is it the retelling of the story that I have recreated in my mind? I don’t know. But I see it in my mind’s eye; real or imagined. The evidence tells us we, as humans, are not very good at remembering things as they were. So, is anything I am about to set down here trustworthy? It’s true that Michael ice skated. And I ice skated. And we crossed paths that way, maybe for the first time, there.

Mary E Joyce

Stay tuned for episode two next week

There were many things I learned. I learned I didn’t much respect the publishing industry, I didn’t really want to utilize the self publishing options that I had stumbled upon. I pictured the process of promoting my hard copy, which I would have in boxes stored somewhere in my house.

Then, just in the nick of time, before I gave up on the whole idea, I discovered Substack. I, however, published the serialized memoir behind a paywall, just in case I decided to circle back around and play the publisher game again. It has sat there for quite some time.

Now I know, I am not interested in the least in playing the publisher game again. I want more people to read the story of the great fun and adventure that Michael and I had over the years, leading right up to his death by the hands of industry leaders who had no further thought of what sending toxic waste out the door, their monkey hands over their eyes, their ears and their mouths. See no evil speak no evil hear no evil.

Lest we forget! I am scheduling the episodes each Wednesday, over fourteen weeks, where my weekly stories usually show up. If you are a subscriber, it will show up in your email inbox first thing in the morning, you just need to open it and read through it, then wait through the week for the next episode of the adventure.

Thanks to the folks who signed up for paid subscriptions, I hope this does not feel like a betrayal. Thanks to all the folks who check out my write each week. I have felt so lucky to have you here with me.

Thanks,

Mary E Joyce

I can remember Michael being up for buying one of the first ones available for personal use. I don’t think we followed up on that too soon. But once I got my research gig up on The Hill as the University was called, I was moving into the regular use without much trouble. Lotus 123, no problem. I can’t remember the names of the other programs I was using. Programs came and went with the times, in quite quick succession. I seemed to take to it without much trouble. One time Marty was visiting. I showed him the calculations we were using to measure the radiation levels of the pig hearts that I needed to cipher by hand. We figured out the Basic code to create the calculation by computer, then took it in to share with my group.

What I’m laying out here is that I am no luddite. I’ve been up for learning my way around the tech world. Right up until the tipping point, which I have reached. Now I want to go backwards.

No computer, I do not want you to tell me how to word this sentence. No, N O, I don’t want you to direct me to the research page that you think I should settle for when I’m looking up an answer or an explanation. I will purposely scroll way down past what you have pulled up as the first choice. So computer, knock it the Hell off.

No! Stop asking me to talk to you. How will you manage my string of obscenities? I might be curious enough to check that out, but no, I don’t want you to even know that about me.

I use my phone for calls and, if I have to, some texting. I will take pictures, that is all. I have to hold my temper if I’m with someone and express something I am wondering about. If they pull out their phone, always close at hand and say “Siri..blah blah blah…” I have on occasion actually said, “Please don’t do that.” I have never punched anyone…yet.

What the heck are we doing? Have the changes implemented in our computer programing actually been an improvement? After a certain point, I can’t see it. Every forced update has been, for the most part an annoyance as I have to figure what the heck they have done to my phone or my laptop.

I have been part of at least five medical record shifts at health institutions. The first away from paper files, after that, shifting to different computer record programs, twice. Then at a mental health center from paper to computer. I could see the reasoning, but for a deep dive, give me the paper.

AI. Hmmm. It has me worried for sure since what I see these days is mostly slop. But when I think of the use of it in science and medicine, I’m of a mixed response. If I thought I could trust the data, I might conclude there are important ways to use the correct programing. After all, isn’t that what Marty and I did with that Basic formulation? We checked the outcome against the hand done calculations. After we showed the accuracy, we didn’t go back and check it again. But that was a straightforward equation. An isotope has a specific half-life and that is what we were calculating for. But if for instance you are reading the results of an image, or determining what is growing on a plate, it is not in the least straightforward. I want a human looking at that and perhaps another one to verify. Would an AI analysis, followed by a human satisfy my requirements, maybe. But I would be afraid that the human would just rush through the follow-up with a little too much cockiness because of the AI. Our bodies are complicated, our biology is not necessarily straight forward at best but throw in an anomaly to the evaluation and it gets tricky.

Again, I go back to the positives. Email. It’s hardly used for personal communication any more. So much crap comes into mine daily but it was really a life connection as my children emptied the nest, none very close by. And look at me now. The highest percent of my readership to this little endeavor comes by way of email delivery.

Man, I was so happy to have a cell phone when I headed off to Philly for that contract with the American College of Radiology when I couldn’t face the empty nest. I can’t say I hesitated in any way in ditching my land line. I don’t always get perfect connectivity despite the fact that I am in the middle of three giant towers. I guess being nestled in the middle of all these trees and these hills causes some trouble.

Kids in school though? What choice do they have? The computer is telling them what to write, taking away their voice, even their imagination and possibly their curiosity.

Clearly I am in a push pull about this conundrum. Amazingly I spelled conundrum correctly without the help of my computer. I guess I am just in a wait and see state of mind. It doesn’t feel that comfortable, but I can ride it out. It would be sad if I didn’t have my daily dose of Wordle and Waffle. I have fallen for the crap that these word games keep me on my toes. Solitaire? I can pull out a deck of cards. I wonder where that could be. I know there’s one around here somewhere. Can my phone locate it for me?

I wonder how old these are?

Thanks for stopping by with your friendly computer!

Mary E Joyce

That may sound creepy but it’s not really when you put it in context. We’re on Sauvie Island. Sauvie Island has the reputation as the naked beach. Those in the know look for the signage that indicates the section of the beach where the officials just gave into what was already happening, that they were unlikely to have any influence over. They marked a long stretch of beach “clothing optional”. Before you get to the clothing optional, ie the naked beach, there is a long stretch of family beach. I have run into naked people there.

I personally drive past the family beach, the naked beach and a long stretch of private property with cows, naked as the day they were born, to get to my beach. Family friendly and more remote, where there are fewer folks. From time to time, I run into naked people there. It means they really only know the island by reputation and haven’t figured out the delineation.

It was clear that the walking dude couldn’t find what seemed like the naked beach, gave up and decided to blaze his own trail. But where I saw him heading, all naked and such, was in the correct direction to run into his destination, other naked folks.

Seeing him walk that way, not naked but in that direction, made me realize that there were long stretches of the beach along Reader Road that I had never trekked. Hmmm, thought I.

Come fall, when the weather for swimming had moved on to other parts of the world, I put it out there to my hiking partners, Vanessa and Professor Bentley, let’s walk in the opposite direction. Yes, one of our favorite hikes is to Warrior Rock where the light house stands. But let’s see what the walk is like along the river as we have never seen. So, we set out on a series of walks, picking up where we could, depending on where we could park the car to scout stretches of the beach we had never examined.

We started at that spot where I saw the naked man go, that was our first section. We were not alone on that stretch. That day, there was a school science group, exploring the same portion of sand. I, of course, stopped to find out more about the program, and to hit a kid or two up for what they were finding and learning. Fun. We pushed down along the shoreline further than the kids were exploring. Then when the terrain stopped our forward progress, we doubled back, bid the kids farewell, and headed home. Not before we identified which stretch of the riverside would be our next venture.

I thought we would arrive at the naked beach that first day. I was wrong. I guess I had not realized how much further I drive after the clothing optional designation ends. Our hiking days were only once a week and I was curious about another stretch of beach which we chose for the following week. For that stretch we turned left from the parking area at a place I know as Collin’s Beach. We followed the sandy shore until a solid rock formation ended our forward movement. Then we returned to the car, talking again to all the fisher folks we passed along the way.

Then the following week we turned right from that same parking area which took us to the very beginning of the swim beaches, a beach associated with a camper compound and a store. I had driven past that more times than you can count but had never been curious about it. Along that section we joined a couple of guys walking their dogs, conversed with them about the gossip of the neighborhood such that a neighborhood along a wonderful wild stretch of water allows. Gossip is, nonetheless, part of the scene.

I think we had taken six days to explore up to now. We had finally done the naked beach stretch. We had done the popular family beach stretch on a day when I had another section in mind but decided to check out the rules which I was certain I knew but wanted to run past the Department of Fish and Wildlife before I climbed the fence marked “No Trespassing”.

The river, which always runs heavy with freighters, was only running barges, such is the economy these days. The barges are escorted along the way by tugboats. From time to time a tug will be just soloing having escorted their charge out of the river way or heading out to pick up his charge.

Blue Herons skim the top of the water. Osprey dip down for a quick catch. One section of our exploration, we were accompanied by a pair of Bald Eagles. I’m not sure what they were up to and they were not sure what we were up to. I couldn’t find a private spot to pee when one of the baldies followed me into a tangle of bushes and perched himself right over me as I whipped down my trousers. I scolded him with a “privacy is given” reminder but he wouldn’t comply.

Often there were only short stretches that were sandy beach like one thinks of for a swim. Rocky ways were one of the scapes, tangles of roots and branches were most often the alternative to bare sand. We came across evidence of the sacredness of this wonderful blessing by way of circular mazes carefully constructed. Wrecked crafts that were hard to quantify as boats of any kind I could identify were a curious find.

From time to time, we saw fish ajumpin and believe me the cottonwoods were high. We were lining up for the last stretch to explore. The plan was to park in the first parking slot of the family swim area, of course no one would be there, we were well into the chilly season of late fall. I verified with DFW that indeed we could trespass. In Oregon all waterways are accessible to citizens, OK Lake Oswego has been a challenge for the long run but even that has been successfully challenged of late.

The river was high, right up to the wire fence, so we either would have to get wet or climb over the fence. The Professor chose the water route. He is happiest when his fur coat is wet and collecting as much muck and mud as possible to bring into the car for the ride home. Just up from the waterline there is a large driftwood pinning down the wire. Not exactly an easy traverse since it takes you into a tangle of other branches that have washed up. Vanessa is successful and I swing one leg over. Just then, midway into my acrobatic endeavor, two sea lions pop their heads up out of the river, not three yards away from the shoreline. They look straight over at us. Bark their admonition of our trespass. Dive back under and are gone. I’m laughing so hard I tumble into the tangle of branches. “Look who’s talking you two. You’re Sea Lions, heading toward Portland on a river. Smart asses.”

Yup. Exploring the full length of the Sauvie Island Beaches along Reader Road was the right thing to do.

Thanks for coming along.

Mary E Joyce

Our very history is remarkable. I had seen her post on the Facebook site for Chester people. From Chester, actually Parkside to be accurate, living in Bend, OR. How about that! So, I reached out. From her maiden name I was sure that her brother had been a sports associate of my brothers. We have never nailed that one down, but in the meantime, while I was living in Central Oregon, we managed to get together a number of times. It was an easy connection, never a shortage of subject matter for discussion.

The timing for this opportunity was interesting. I wasn’t home from my Hells Canyon adventure for long, but more importantly, I was still feeling a bit off related to stopping the medication that I was sure was my savior from the nerve pain that had so thrown me what felt very much like under the bus, and the bus had not missed me with a single wheel. I have talked to a lot of folks about that medicine. More than fifty percent of the folks I talked to were unable to stay on it, their side effects were so terrible. I was feeling quite, well smug is not the right word, but lucky that I didn’t experience what they had. My pain was under control and I felt I was back to myself. I didn’t understand what was really going on until I had completely withdrawn from the last lowest dose. What I was feeling made me sure that I had actually been experiencing the high that makes the folks on the street seek that medication out. And now, without, I was feeling unable to get back to myself. Just flat.

You know me. As you can imagine, I was working overtime, doubling down on recovering myself. How was I doing that? Everything I had ever taught to any of my clients in my working days. I was getting there.

The trip north was looming, but I surprised myself, when talking to my sister about the drive, my voice broke. A tearful interlude as I described that this would be the first drive on that route north since I closed the door on Marty’s misadventure in dementia land. That route that I took so many times as my brother was falling apart. My brother, such a best friend, who then became nothing I recognized and only saw me as the enemy. The drive home from those trips, secluded in my car, included screaming at the top of my lungs, or sobbing inconsolably or a combo of both at the same time.

OK body. Brain? Cellular memory. Thanks for the heads up, I’ll be ready.

In reality, as soon as I hit the bridge over the Columbia River, my brain was highjacked by other cellular memories. Memories of work with clients where the bridge became a character in the story. On the Washington side, I was reconstructing my commute. Wait, which one was my exit to my work place. Where was that other facility where I worked a group? I was not the first choice they had in mind for that job. The supervisor in charge had wanted one of the long time employees, not an intern, he let me know. He, however had no choice when no one stepped up. In the end, he loved the work I did, enough to frame and hang the board game that the clients and I created as part of the learning endeavor. Woohoo, I love a victory over doubt!

Awww, then there was the funeral location for my friend and colleague. My cube mate and fellow trouble maker. I called her Chica J. She called me Momma Joyce. I wouldn’t let anyone move into her seat after she passed.

Before I knew it, I was approaching the turnoff to 101N. My phone often will not talk to me, but this trip she was speaking out loud with good, clear and truthful directions. Winding back roads I had never traveled before. Everything was an eyecatcher and then I was at my destination.

The wonderful little blue house with a back porch looking over the water. The water rippling in the breeze, catching every reflection in a stunning way. One minute seeing the light in this way, the next minute a different way all together.

Though we catch up in texts here and phone calls there, often there are gaps between. Here at the beach house though, there was no gap. We fell right into chatter, this and that, never an awkward moment, unless it was to just sit and feel the breeze.

Sheila was preparing the evening meal where a few other ladies were to join us. I was barred from the kitchen, no details of the night’s presentation were to be given away. I had my afternoon tea, the water, the birds, the view. Trust me, I was very happy to behave. I tried the view from this chair, then that. Each one offered a reflection of a different wonder.

The guests showed, neighbors from nearby. We all fell into easy conversation. Then as the evening fell into night, we parted company and Sheila and I retreated to our bedrooms to fall into easy sleep. And that is the way the days played out. There was a shrimp catching day. We watched the boats head out as if a superhighway. I watched the neighbors on both sides loading up their traps. And then they were returning.

We watched the neighbors two doors down, unloading. Before you knew it the barbeque was firing up. They brought down some raw shrimp and taught me the art of eating them that way. Then before long came the crisply cooked ones, heads and all. Then from the other side came the boys next door with their offering to us. Ha. Wooo. What a wonderful experience.

After several days of witnessing the shifts in light and reflection came a day long rain and wind extravaganza. That would have been a reasonable day to spend inside. However, reports were that Orcas were moving into and along the canal. I didn’t fully trust that the wall of windows was offering the best view, so I traveled in and out as I recovered my warmth and headed back out to scan the horizon until I needed to warm up again.

Early in the visit, though, something happened that has changed my life, and if I have anything to do with it, will change the Universe. I had my travel cup of tea, we were touring the house, introducing me to the features. The entrance to the house by way of the porch, the stairs down to the water and if the water levels allow to the rocky beach; along the side of the house and along the back which runs parallel to the road. Back on the porch again, I realized I had left my tea cup somewhere on the introduction tour.

“Oh, I wonder where I left my cup?” “St Anthony…” began Sheila, sending out a prayer to the Saint of lost things. Of course, the prayer was delivered in the appropriate Delco Speak, with no h and no o. Antny as it were. Before she was three words into the prayer, the picture of the cup was in my head. Before she was finished with the prayer I had retrieved and returned with my tea. I was sold. St Anthony was my man.

Next was my Leatherman knife. I hadn’t invoked the prayer then and there but had asked and searched many times over. I knew I had tucked it into one of my packs but had failed to find it, wasn’t even able to have it with me in Hells Canyon. But there it was, hooked on the side of the pack I brought with me on this trip. Oh, man! My Leatherman. The rest of the visit, I kept Antny nearby. When I packed up, he and I walked through the house to be sure I hadn’t left anything behind. Now the treasured Saint is with me in Bonny Slope.

But, dear Saint, I think you may be selling yourself short. In this day and age, you perhaps, have a larger role in the day to day of finding lost things. Man, there are people who sign up for crazy, worthless things like Match.com. You could help them find their connection to their lost love! Indeed, there are folks who are up against endless numbers of competitors for jobs. They go where all the other folks go to look for their opportunities, when maybe you’re the one they need. You lead them right there to their best link, their career connection. College, student aid, the next vacation. Saint Anthony, man, there is no end to your value. Step it up. I’ll be watching for the signs.

Thank you Sheila. Thank you Saint Anthony. Thank you Hood Canal. Thank you kind neighbors for sharing your catch with me.

Thanks folks for stopping by to share my adventure.

Mary E Joyce

There are more jet boats, both commercial and smaller private ones. I’m not picking up on the emotions of my fellow travelers. As usual for me, I’m experiencing the urge to return to the beginning so I can see the rerun.

The boats work their way into the dock, fighting the various tricksters that the river throws our way. We jump out of the way so that the folks from OARS who have come to facilitate the end stage can do their job. The bathrooms are calling, we have no choice, no one is going to set up the groover. I want to tease “The right one’s for pooping, the left for peeing” but I hold back.

For the next stage of travel there is a truck for hauling the dory and a passenger van. I’m close to the truck, so jump into the back seat. We are heading to Lewiston airport for a flight back to Boise. I didn’t really think the adventure was over, did I?

Dylan tells us “My role as trip leader has ended. Now you follow the instructions of the pilot.” There in front of us is the funkiest little plane I have ever seen. I have two different friends who are known for building airplanes, so this is not unknown to me. The plane in front of me has square angles instead of rounded. I know that makes no sense and I didn’t take a photo. I left it to the boys with their superior cameras and skills, beside I am a Be Here Now kind of traveler and am absorbed in the moment.

Our pilot is a young guy, long locks well below the collar of his jacket. I would have thought him a native of one of the tribes of this area but I’m not so sure. He pairs us up by weight, then tells us where to sit in the plane. On our seats are headphones, meant as noise cancelling devices. Yea, well sort of.

I don’t want them on. They are supremely uncomfortable but the sound without them on is impossible as the props on the wings on each side of us rev up. And then we are in the air. I’m trying to see what is beneath us. Trying to get an idea of what I am seeing related to our travels through the Canyon. For me it is a complete fail. It’s impossible to communicate among ourselves so I just take in all that I can of what is below. Six days to get us to the takeout and in no time we have come to an amazingly smooth landing in Boise.

We had bid farewell to Caroline and Mike at the dock. Now Dylan would transport us back to the hotel. My head is completely devoid of anything resembling a reconstruction of our time back at the hotel. I do know that the folks at the front desk try to give me the second floor room again. I refuse, point down to the guys and insist on having a room near them. But first I have to know a last name for her to find their room number.

We make the plans on where to meet for dinner, a brewery near by. I have a thought I intend to run by them. They are all there when I arrive.

“Guys. Please talk this over when you have a chance, and let me know if the answer is yes. If I never hear another word about it I will know the answer is no. Do you mind if I hitch a ride home with you?” There was a resounding yes without any further talk among them.

We have a nice little meal in the restaurant and enjoy our usual chatter. We arrange for the time to meet in the morning then head to our rooms tired and satisfied. I call the airline, sure I am not going to get any compensation for giving my seat away. I could care less. The thought of spending about as much time in the airport to fly the forty-five minutes home vs driving down my favorite route along the Columbia River. Yes!

It’s an easy ride. We stop at a funky little place that Steve knows for the milkshakes, and they let me spring for the meal. The only other memory seared into my brain was at a rest stop. I had done my thing in an actual toilet then swung along behind the building to catch a good look at the river when I encounter two men who catch my attention. To me it looked like a father and son, likely Japanese. I stood listening to them talk among themselves thinking of my fellow in-law Katsuya who lives in Japan and whom I will not likely see again. I finally pulled myself away from my little emotional moment and head back to the truck. There I see three sets of eyes boring holes into my visage, my travel mates wondering what I am up to.

We need to do a little calculating on where to drop off Gary to meet up with his wife in Portland where she is attending a game with the grandkid and the best route to my place. There, at my house we bid adieu. How can this be so?

Cops by their very nature form a bond among themselves. Old school chums when they manage to get together again have a special connection of memories. Guys who work together are connected by that link. Maybe because of the way we traveled, a group, sleeping, eating, pooping, hiking. Maybe because the magic of these kind of experiences, I was allowed to see deeper. I was so taken by the closeness, the caring for and of each other. I don’t think I have ever witnessed this kind of connection, caring and knowing each other among men.

I know that I find it easy to have friendships with men. I blame it on spending my whole childhood running to keep up with my brothers that allows me to feel the connection so easily. But these guys were a unique kind of special.

Steve always helped me put my tent up and pack up in the morning. I often don’t accept that kind of help because I always want to learn to do it. Steve never made me feel anything but a partner in the task. Sometimes Jon also came and lent a hand.

Gary was a dish washer. He just took over the job and we fell in line as we could to help. When we were hiking or exploring the shoreline, he and I spent all our time together identifying flowers or birds.

John and I realized in our conversations that we had numerous close encounters over all our years. In upstate New York and In Portland. The number of possibilities was beyond uncanny.

Dan was shy, or so it seemed to me, so I bonded less with him even when we were riding side by side in a boat.

I could never have orchestrated a better group to travel through Hell even on a Snake. Who gets so lucky! Thank you, guys. I don’t want such a friendship to fall by the wayside.

One more thing. This trip was supposed to be about me finally getting to know the Owyhee. Because of the lack of water in that river, our trip was shifted over to the Snake in Hells Canyon. But I can’t despair. I got my chance to ride in a Dory. The Dory’s name? Owyhee!

Thanks for going on my adventure with me!

Mary E Joyce

Another poor night of sleep and it’s up in the morning. Down for breakfast in the buffet line, I see the boys waving to me but my attention is also grabbed by three women sitting closer to my buffet choices. “Are you a rafting outfitter?” one asks. They had seen me schlepping my dry bags to the departure place. They bought into my look better than I felt I projected. I waved to the boys but joined the ladies. Turns out they were taking off on Tuesday, so will be a couple of days behind us in their run. They are from Maine. Waterville, Maine. A name I know from my mother’s childhood. We had a great visit with our morning repast, then I was off to join the boys, load up the van and head out.

I have no memory of the drive, or even the put in. I know I want to be on the dory and position myself for that opportunity. Our dry bags are added to the gear already loaded up. Our tents, bedding, toilets, food are tied in safely on the baggage boat, to be manned by Caroline, the other female on this trip. We fit ourselves with PFDs to be worn at all times on the boat, helmets as needed depending how robust the rapids are. We have received word that there will be a dam release about the time we are to take off. We watch the river for the shift, where the water line was to where the water line is, and strangely enough that it is receding sometimes too.

The dory, with Dylan rowing, leads the way into the water. The baggage boat comes next with Caroline at the oars and Mike brings up the last raft and that’s the company for the 6 day trip. Wohooo! Off we go. It’s not long before we hit the first rapid. I remember it as the best one of the trip. I have never ridden in a dory before and I have completely elevated them to the highest status thanks to Kevin Fedarko’s The Emerald Mile. Here I am. On the Snake River. in Hell’s Canyon. Picking a route through the churning waters. IN A DORY! Haha. Woo.

Another big swell coming up. I have asked Dylan, if he can, tell me about the strategy he is eyeing to get us through. What line is he planning, what is he avoiding. God, I love this. In the meantime, we are watching the shores for critters, looking to the birds on the river. Between the big water there are riffles all along the way.

Frankly I don’t remember which days are long days on the river and which days we take the time for side hikes. Dylan loves the river, the canyon and especially the spots he has found with evidence of the folks who have come before us. Pictographs. We stop to hike to those where we can. We hike to spectacular overlooks. All along the trails, the wildflowers greet us. The poison oak and ivy try to grab us by the legs, reach out and caress a bare hand.

Sometimes the stop for lunch is the end of the river run for the day, other days we have longer runs on the water with shorter day hikes. At the stops where we are going to spend the night, we unload our dry bags and grab our tents and our bedding. Our assigned tent and bedding, numbered, is ours for the rest of the trip. We explore the beach and pick out the spot to set up our tent. We are looking for cleared space if there is plant growth. We are looking for level ground. The set up for this trip has us pitching tents closer to each other than I have experienced on my other trips. Snoring is on the agenda, for sure.

Dylan sleeps on his boat. Caroline chooses on the boat sometimes, on the shore others. Mike is always on the shore. He has a sweet little tent that I eye with some level of envy. A nice little one-man tent. When I ride with him, after the first night out, I mention that I didn’t sleep. “Yea you did, I heard you.” Ha, we get along just fine. I grew up in Chester. If someone doesn’t make fun of you, they don’t really like you. No worries about that with Mike.

At the put in, the guides set to work with their assignment for the evening. Cook or set up the groover. We pee in the river and poop in the groover. It’s called the groover related to the historic use of the metal container that leaves a heartless ring on your butt, the groove. Now though, in civilized times, the groover includes a toilet seat.

Back in my old days of adventure across the nation with The Dead Guy, we would never have peed in the river, but would have dug a little hole in the sand well back from the water to filter its way as gravity would take it. Conventional wisdom has changed so I go along with the current dictate. Though Mike, the guide, keeps me amused with the singing of the line “Keep em separated” I still suffer with my inability to not pee in the groover.

Day two, I opt to ride with Mike in the raft. It’s a different ride through the rapids. And I have as much fun watching the dory ride the current as I had riding it through. I do love the flexibility of the raft, bouncing up and down. Climbing the rise of the wave, dipping nose back down. The air holds a continual chill, one day worse than all the rest. I can’t get out of my wet clothes fast enough that day, but first I have to put up my tent, get my gear and stash it away. Dig around til I find the best replacement to warm up. Will those wet clothes even dry out hanging on that tree branch?

We do warm up. There are always snacks set out to graze on while the meal is being prepared. It doesn’t hurt that the boys all have whiskey. They are all part of a whiskey tasting group and each has brought their choice to pass around. I take a splash of each of the choices throughout the trip. Fun. These guys are serious tasters, not guzzlers. They talk about their whiskeys as seriously as any wine aficionado, which Caroline is. She has fun taking her knowledge in a bit of a different direction.

By day three I have finally gotten sleep, a good deep sleep with some REM dreaming. I awake at 5am, not light yet, but I use my flashlight to find my way to the groover for a lovely start to the morning. I get back down with the “key”, the container that holds the toilet paper and the signal that someone is at the groover. I’m back in my tent before anyone else needs the facilities.

I get my contact lenses in for the day, get my warm clothes on, with my splash gear over all. I’m ready to tuck my tent into its bag, schlep my gear down to the rafts and head to the breakfast line. Another day on the river. Today, Caroline and I have conspired to have a girl power day. There really is not much room on the baggage boat but I can squeeze behind the wall of dry bags. I wiggle this way and that depending what I want to see of the river or on shore. Caroline and I bond. It’s easy. One of the boys mentions I look like Cleopatra when I lounge stretched out on the baggage raft. Oh yea, that would be me, for sure.

In the baggage boat, I have chosen a perch facing backwards. I wiggle my way looking frontwards when I hear a rapid coming up. I watch the dory’s attack, then try to pick my route through the chaos. Fortunately what I pick does not matter, I’m only dreaming and trying to learn, learn something I will never employ. Still, it’s fun.

Talking with Caroline, I confess that the river does not seem to be talking to me. I seem to have a curtain blocking me from picking up the spirit of the water, which for me is unusual and feels sad, frustrating. Why is the river holding back? Caroline and I easily dig into the spiritual things around us, we seem to be of the same consciousness. I may be getting closer though, I feel a little brighter by the next day.

The big waters are behind us, no more need for the helmets. Every day we encounter jet boats taking folks up the river, sometimes mail deliveries to folks who have homesteads on the shores. We stop at a museum and camp there for the night. There are actual flushing toilets at that sight. The groover gets set up anyway because the trek to the flushers is quite a distance for an old bladder. There are actual picnic tables at this stop. Each night at each stop, we put up a chair circle. Dylan plays his wonderful old river guitar. He has an amazing voice. On every river trip I have done there are always musicians, guitars, ukuleles, fun. On this trip, Jon is the storyteller. He has fun stories he pulls out of his memory bank, always amusing.

Each stop along the way holds a special delight. The museum yes, but what about the clouds of butterflies, fluttering their wings as they partake of the salts on the sands to refresh from their long migration to this point. There is the Killdeer who puts on a great show of a broken wing to lure us away from her nest of four eggs. We see two flocks of pelicans along the edge of the river. Yes, white Pelicans. OK, yes there are the ticks that have attached themselves to a few of us. Up in the rocks overlooking the river there are pictures that have maintained their red dye and a few spots of green as well (a rare find that delights Dylan to no end.) A cache that Dylan has found this time after hiking along those trails a dozen times, cool! A hike to an amazing overlook where Caroline gives us a talk about the geology of the formation of the canyon. There is no shortage of wonder all along the way.

I hope you’re enjoying the ride. Thanks for stopping by.

Mary E Joyce

We will always choose each other.

Astronaut on Artemis II as they returned to Earth

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I see an agent manning an information booth and check in with her about the discrepancy. She does not instill much confidence with her answer, but I have plenty of time to make the adjustment as time goes by, I’ll check the board again in a little while. I head to a place to chill, do a little people watching, a bit of meditation, some good breathing. I hadn’t slept well which seems to be my new state of being.

As I’m wandering down the way to my so-called gate, I pass a woman who I think looks familiar but I can’t place. Probably nothing. I’m not in my seat long when I realize there is a very tall figure towering over me making snide comments. It’s my next door neighbor. He’s on his way to Budapest, the familiar woman I passed was his fiancé who is about to move in as my next door neighbor. We laugh that the international flight and the forty five minute flight to Boise are leaving from the same terminal. They climb on their flight, I move to another seat feeling quite uneasy that I’m probably in the wrong place.

No. I’m OK. They have started setting up for my flight but, oh well, yes. Our flight is delayed. Our pilot’s flight has not arrived on time. We’re not going anywhere without him.

There is a line of potted trees in the waiting area not far from where I’ve taken up my meditation. Workers are shaking the branches, trimming the branches, spraying the branches, dusting the branches. I look to the two folks in seats just across from me. We all break out in laughter at the activity that seems quite out of place.

Finally, the boarding has begun. I am, as you can imagine, in the last group. I make my way down the aisle and find I’m the only one in my row of seats and I’m on the aisle. I don’t usually do that but whatever. We barely have time for the option of water or orange juice and into Boise we land. I find my way down to the baggage claim. My bag was not lost. I lug my two bags across the way to where shuttles pick up passengers, scope out the options, see nothing that lists my hotel on it, so I dial them up. They will be coming shortly, an SUV with the name on the side. I take a seat with a mother and adult son, waiting for their shuttle. We get into a lively conversation. Another lady comes along looking for her bus, we lend a hand in directing her to the place where she will find that ride. Somewhere in all that interaction, my shuttle came and left without me. I call the hotel again. She’ll be back. This time I see her.

At the facility, I find a trolly for my heavy bags and wheel it up to the counter, get my keys and head down the long winding corroders, following the arrows that indicate which way to go. I know I am on the second floor overlooking the courtyard. No where in my wanderings do I find an elevator.

Now I am getting tired. Annoyed might be a good word to use but, no. Pissed. The guy at the front desk, saw that I was pushing a trolly with two bags, did he think I was going to drag those bags up the stairs? He didn’t know anything about where the meeting for the next day was supposed to be. He was useless and unhelpful and now had pissed off a Chester girl. I got a new room, found my way there with no problem. The window of the room faced out to the parking lot with a parking space that, when a car parks in it, directs the headlights right into my sleeping space. Are you going to tell me he didn’t do that on purpose?

When the shuttle driver was bringing me to the destination, she was great at pointing out the highlights along the way, including the spot on the river that runs through town where they have designed a wave for surfers to ride. I head that way for a nice early evening walk before I catch a bite to eat.

I grabbed my bite to eat for the night, enjoyed the music in the lounge and headed to my room for a not too great sleep. The next day I would further explore the Boise River on both sides while I sweated the idea that no one seemed to know what I was talking about as far as a meeting with the outfitter was concerned. The hotel meeting rooms were hosting Continuing Medical Education classes with booths from many venders that I recognized from my research days, so I went in and snooped around, got into some conversations. Well you know me, there never was a stranger I couldn’t get into a conversation with. On the way back to my room I came across two women, pushing a trolly with four bags on it, trying to find an elevator to their second floor room. They were giving up and fire brigading the bags up the stairs. They denied my offer to help.

By now it was day two at the hotel, still no word about a meeting of the OARS group, one hour short of when the meeting was scheduled. I was heading back to my room to grab my notebook to take notes at a meeting with an unknown location with unknown other members of a group that was more secretive than an undercover operation, when one of the folks from the front desk caught up with me to tell me a gang of men had just checked in saying they were with the OARS group. Ha. One person who was actually thinking of a concept of customer care. OK, progress. I grabbed my notebook, headed back to some chairs in the lobby and sat myself down for better or for worse. Just then a tall gentleman came in from outside and asked me if I was with the OARS group. Then came the gang of four who also knew this other guy. Turns out I was going, as a solo traveler with five guys who were best friends.

The official meeting happened when the trip leader showed up, handed out our dry bags to transfer our stuff into. We were to take off first thing in the morning, after a quick breakfast. What was I worried about?

Surf’s up on the Boise River.

Stay tuned for The Snake Takes Over

Thanks for stopping by.

Mary E Joyce