Calaveras County News, Arnold News, Ebbetts Pass News, Arnold, Murphys, Angels Camp
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Randy Crutcher
LAST, BUT NOT “DEAD” LAST
September 2009
By Randy Crutcher
When last we spoke, or I wrote and you read, there were two experiments that this author was about to engage in. One, the now popular mid-July bicycle event known as The Tour “Death Ride” of the California Alps. The other experiment consisted of travels even further east and without Charlie. Sorry, I just can’t get away from the American literary canon. And the fact is, there is a dog named Charlie that figures as a minor character in at least some of my summer travels.
I take pride in having been the last of thousands this year to have completed the four toughest passes of the five pass Death Ride. That’s right, dead last. But not DEAD last. What distinction! The ride through the sweeping vistas of the Pacific Crest country not only did not kill me—though it did appear to come close in the case of some participants—I finished the ride by nearly effortlessly gliding up the west side of Ebbett’s Pass with energy and enthusiasm to spare. The Hermit Valley support station was closed when I sped to the bottom of Ebbett’s and car traffic had resumed with a few vehicles slowly making their way up the mountain in low gear.
When I finally made it back up to the Pass in the last minute of what you could still call late afternoon, I was exhilarated and triumphant. The Alford brothers were still up at the top mopping up the summit station and perhaps a little puzzled about why I had bothered since the party had already ended.
As my Ride coach and mentor Bruce Castle had pretty much said, the key to the long ride is to find the pace that carries you, not you it. My bike mates and me did just that with a start minutes before daybreak by the East Fork of the Carson River, the looming Monitor Pass towering above us and well out of view. Getting over that mountain and down to the desert of the Great Basin’s edge with a return to the river canyon was Job One. No hurries mate as the other biker’s squirted by us with a frequent but friendly, “On Your Left!” We got so use to hearing that, we began to pass each other just so we could say it too. And that boosted morale quite a bit.
In the long run, each of my trusty cycling mates who had supported and encouraged me in our spring training on the passes developed road maladies severe enough to necessitate early departures from the route. Ultimately, it was left to me alone to carry the banner of our hard earned season’s mileage into the unknown. In other words, I did not know I would go as far as I did until I did.
Therein lay my true reward. I had trained for four passes, I did four passes. There is no real glory like completion.
Don’t forget to come to the first public celebration of The Arnold Rim Trail, Saturday, Sept 12, Cedar Center. A time and a tour for everyone on foot, hoof or wheel.
Plus, stay linked for upcoming stories of the amazing Southwestern, stories complete with sidebars, sidetracks and maybe Sidewinders all in the next column.
I'm getting ready for two experiments out in the world . . .
July 2009
By Randy Crutcher
For those lucky enough to find time to navigate here, welcome. With trepidation about remaining in total obscurity—what is more terrifying, writer’s block or that no one ever knocks?— I sent my first of these columns to family and friends. The responses were overwhelming, kind of. If you by chance read the first, you know something about the origins of the column’s name. One of the first respondents was my sister. There are two things about her that could irritate nearly anyone. She has a spotless memory and is honest to a fault.
She had this to say:
“Did you know…or did you remember…that I took over your column after you laid it down? I loved getting paid…I think it was a quarter an inch…anyway I did bring in some quarters…and learned from you that all the material was in the World Book Encyclopedia…our latest new volumes in 1969.”
No, I did not remember. You see what I mean about her faults.
Now let’s fast forward back to the future. I talked about technology and “connectivity” and all the knowledge we have at our fingertips these days, from the good old yellow pages to Wikipedia. The NEED to know may well have been replaced. Isn’t it true that we are less excited about gaining something if we already have it?
Soon after I wrote the first column I was gifted with an iTouch. Admittedly, I had a few moments of feeling like a little kid with a new Christmas present—fiddling with it, turning it this way and that, watching icons magically appear and disappear. And it even came with its own batteries. Cool!
Then the rush was over, the novelty high diffused. I had to feed the thing with more files, and applications and make sure it kept its charge. I had to “synch” it with everything else in my techno-array. Admittedly, none of that was hard. I can’t say it even gave me a mild sense of accomplishment. Someone else had made this black box and I really didn’t know what was inside. Truth is, I don’t want to know. That’s someone else’s passion.
I do love some kinds of information though, that’s a fact. My categories? Plants, especially trees and flowers and how they make our lives possible and beautiful. Rock, especially the stories they tell about what our planet’s been through. I am endlessly fascinated with the complexity around how our own organism— really a vast collection of organisms— functions, from head to toe. I have done some investigating, quite haphazardly and more systematically about how these organisms get together, think together, commiserate and celebrate together. These investigations are ongoing. My cabin in the woods is no protection at all from these experiments with others as all the cables are attached and signals are being received. And I do go out into the larger world when virtual reality or the squirrel circus in my backyard is just not enough.
As a matter of fact, I am getting ready for two experiments out in the world. One will be to see if I can ride a bicycle over a 12 hour period, scaling four summits and elevating my aging body and aging two wheeler up 11,000 cumulative feet. The Tour of the California Alps (popularly but not encouragingly known as The Death Ride) will see about 3,000 bodies on bikes hurtling through space at various speeds. I’ve done part of the experiment already in sections, so there is some likelihood I can do more. It will be new for me to bike with more than a dozen people at a time. Should be colorful. I’m counting on good weather and good friends getting me through. In addition, I get to see a lot of flowers, trees and rock in this experiment and that makes me very happy.
The other experiment is traveling and working on the road for five weeks.
I’ll be touring the Southwest with my wife in our old Cherokee serving the needs of fellow travelers going through life transitions and turning crises into opportunities—we are life coaches— among other things. It will be marvelous to see that red rock, those more worn down crags of the Rockies, acres of aspens, the occasional bigger than life bull elk again. And then there are all those humans dotting and scampering about the landscape with their stories, the things they know and the things they don’t and the things they don’t want to know. It’ll be amazing. I’ll fill you in about the results in the next column.
I’ll end here with a reply by one reader when coming across the factoid I threw out about horned toads squirting blood in the June column.
“Really liked your column. I had forgotten that the horned toad lizard squirts blood as a defense when alarmed.”
This is really what makes it all worthwhile. I am so glad he remembered he liked that fact and in turn gave me the realization I was indeed providing an valuable and essential community service. I’d bet he never attacks a horned toad again.
June 2009
By Randy Crutcher
Ross Alford has been titillating readers with my introduction in these virtual pages alongside the introduction of a secret female storyteller. Let me begin this introduction with a disclaimer. I am not and never have been involved with that woman. I think.
I was probably 15 years old when I first became a columnist for the Pine Cone Press in the northern Sierra. I'll identify the era by the technology-mimeograph. This will pose a technical mystery for our younger readers now engaged 24/7 in every possible FaceSpaceTwitterLinkedInYouTubed virtual-reality permutation we interestingly label "connectivity."
Actually, I've often found their use is not exclusive to the youngest of generations. "Friends" in my cohort are finding it far cheaper and time saving to tell me to go see their photos, blog entries and listings of other "Friends" than to take me out for a beer; or, even call me on the phone for an old-fashioned "chat." I have to agree it's efficient. Now that I don' t actually see them (well maybe on skype) anymore I have lots of time to do other things.
The Pine Cone Press was interesting in several ways. For one, its publisher and editor was the daughter of "Doc," the marine biologist/therapist in John Steinbeck's books -beginning with the most familiar volume in the American literary canon, Cannery Row.
Another interesting thing about The Pine Cone was that the working journalists were all underage even though this was a town paper, and not a school paper subject to intensive state censorship. I think the editor realized that in this town, it was the teens that had the best grasp
of the gossip that fueled an other wise culturally isolated off-the-beaten-track has-been mill town. That and the fact that even though we were paid by the column inch, we came pretty cheap and had not yet learned about unions.
I was one of the sports columnists, very compromised during basketball season as I played. No one seemed to question the frequency with which my points, rebounds and passes were registered amidst all the action I attempted to capture in words. I guess its because that's the one time I could play my principal's kid card for real personal gain.
For me, one of the most memorable experiences was that of creating a regular column. I can't remember if it was the editor's idea or mine. I guess she must have sensed my tendencies to expostulate and exaggerate on paper and realized sports reporting was limiting my potential. You may remember from personal experience how adults were primarily concerned with their male teens fulfilling their potential. And though it's often used as comedic material in our smug and contemporary times, in those days this mystery they called "potential" was really serious business. One day I'll fulfill it—then what?
Why do some of the older folks in town shoveling snow over their heads to clear a path between porch and street regularly have strokes? Did you know we have these things called arteries that can actually get hardened to the point where blood doesn't flow like it should?
The things I learned writing that column were usually not as relevant to our daily lives as the examples I just cited. I remember my eyes taking great excited leaps over and through the pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. They were such hefty volumes at a time when knowledge carried its own weight. Not just a Wikipedia link away, you had to exercise. I never really knew where I'd end up in those volumes— what topic, what subject matter. It was really a crapshoot and I liked it that way. To hell with discipline, I'd let my readers determine relevancy. It was a great antidote to high school.
Did you know a horned toad squirts blood out of its eye when excited? Did you know the Great Pyramids were built by slaves that worked really hard without pay?
On and on, week after week, month after month. All of that discursive and desultory research direct from Britannica. I got paid by the column inch and at a very young age had my name in the papers over and over again in real print. Heady stuff for a 15 year old.
And Nancy Branlund, former Editor of the Pine Cone Press, where ever you are— Thanks for
the mimeo-ries! It's high time I wrote another column!