ODYSSEY - Day Twenty One - A South Portland Tour

I had a nice day today after 7 days of fog, drizzle and rain.  Finally the sun came out for a little while anyway; long enough for me to tour the Willard Beach area of South Portland.

I made what I think is one of my better videos to show you all.  I'm getting fairly good at producing these now, so I thought I'd take the next step and add some of my music in the background.  It worked pretty well, actually.

I wanted to do another light-hearted post before delving back into some deeper ideas that have been rearing up in my mind in this last, rainy week.  It seems the one step up and two steps back of my Odyssey have returned.  It is frustrating to me as a man who once had all the equipment and resources he needed to express himself the way he wanted to be languishing in a dead pocket that only a couple hundred bucks could bridge.  Frustrating enough to talk about myself in the third person. 

My laptop needs a new hard drive.  And it isn't very much, but it is just enough to be out of reach.  The hour I spend at the library computer each day could be turned into 8 hours of uninterrupted work with my laptop back in order each day.  This means two months of writing a new business plan, finding an apartment, working at my other blogs, etc, could be condensed into about a week and a half.

And now I've found that my cat, Buddy, is not being a very good boy to his foster mom--peeing in the house, and so I will likely need to find a new place for him.

There are encouraging things on the horizon though.  I have a new friend who has really brightened these soggy days.  She is a energetic spirit and reminds me of what is was like to be a younger man.  She is married and we are just friends, but we do seem to meet on a very deep level.  I think it is because we believe in each other.  And we are both as poor as dirt, but we refuse to cave to that mindset.

I noticed today when I washed my hair that it was significantly greyer than it had been when I left my apartment 21 days ago.  And LORD, do I need a good trim of the beard.  I'm really starting to look the part.  I fantasize that it is my "Moses on the Mountain" phase, but I know in my heart it is just a "bum sleeping in the attic phase."  I don't feel old, but something is pushing me in that direction...something besides just the passage of time and the constant walking through space.

But I will save all that self-pity and the temptation to become so frustrated that I lapse into depression.  I will save them, because they certainly can't help me right now, and when I am able to finally relax and reflect I will want to take them off the shelf where they were saved and burn them at sunset, on a beach somewhere...  Maybe at the end of this summer.

So, instead I give you the little video of today's walk.

Here is the location...

For some reason I called Spring Point Ledge Light (top right above, at the end of that long breakwater) "Bug Light" in the video.  I did a time lapse of the very rough walk out on the breakwater and around the light itself.  And as usual I didn't realize my error in naming the light until the video was completed.  Residents of the area will likely cringe at the name I used, but oh well!

If you look at the image above, you can get a good idea of my wanderings.  I took Broadway (middle left) then turned right on to Breakwater Drive (middle), then left on to Fort Road (middle), until I reached the end.  After I had a little salad, nuts, some slices of summer sausage and a banana for lunch, I began the video.  I basically followed the edge of the coast all the way from the top middle of the image above to the bottom middle, at the end of the white sandy beach. 

I walked off the beach onto Willard Street (bottom) and connected with Cottage Road (see ODYSSEY - Days Two and Three, for a view of the other end of Cottage Road).  I followed Cottage Road west until I reached the Mill Creek Park, where I did a time lapse around the duck pond there.

The video shows a really good example of a nice sunny day at this eastern part of town.  There were tourists speaking some language I didn't recognize and teenagers skateboarding near the college.  A wonderful sign about peace on earth written in English, Russian, Spanish, German and Chinese (with brail in between the signs--amazingly), was filmed on the grassy hill overlooking the entrance to the bay.

I saw a loon and a seagull hanging out together on a rock.  And there was a small team of young girls learning self defense on the beach (which I thought was a great place to have a class!).  Some fool had written the name of my blog in the sand, so I had to film that.  Then there was a nice walk along some very sweet and colorful residential flower gardens.  If found "420 Cottage Ave," which happened to be a drama theater.  And by the time I got back into South Portland, the fog and drizzle was returning, but I still got a good shot of the strangest Catholic Church art in New England, at Holy Cross Church...I never really understood why there is a picture of a uterus and ovaries between Christ's human figure and His ascension, but, hey, art for God's sake I say!  And turning around after filming that enigma I found a monument to Admiral Peary.

On my final walk around the Duck pond, I looked for Gimmee, the squirrel, but he was not around.  A few days before, I saw him way up in a red maple chasing another fuzzball, who looked like she was REALLY playing hard to get.  Ah!  The rites of spring!

Below the video are the lyrics to the two background songs of mine, "Morning Star" from the album BSides (2004) and "Spring Has Come" from the album, Simple Songs (recorded 1993, released 2007).  Hope you enjoy this video.  I am really enjoying making them as I learn more about how to do it.  PLEASE, also feel free to buy the songs by themselves as downloads or download the whole albums, by clicking on the album links above.

MORNING STAR

Words and Music by Alex Wall

Morning star sleeps inside my arms

She's so far away, she's so far away from the...

Frost eyes in the sunrise

She is curled up safe, she is curled up safe, from the night

I dreamt I drove around the lake again

Between the trees the ghost stood with my friends

Though I could see extraordinary things

I couldn't bare to stay, so I turned and drove away

And now I'm melting in the Light

And she's fading from my sight

She's fading from my sight...etc.

© 2004 Omega Art and Music

* * * * * * *

SPRING HAS COME

Words and Music by Alex Wall

Across the fields of early morning

Drifts the fragrance of the sunrise

Through the waters of his shallow eyes

It invades the skies of porpoise blue

The drifting, misting ocean view

Electric shiver, bristling bright

Mornings violet drains the night

And the soul...is reborn...anew

© 1994 Omega Art and Music

ODYSSEY - Day Six - A Portland Tour

I'm posting this video to lighten things up a bit.  It is a short tour of the eastern end of Portland.  I just spent the day visiting some areas of the city I hadn't seen in a while.

I started out by hanging with my squirrel pal, Gimmee, in the Mill Creek Park of South Portland.  Then I crossed over the Casco Bay Bridge (which I always call "The South Portland Bridge" for some reason), taking a shot of Yarmouth (my hometown) over the railing way off in the distance, across the bay.

As I stepped off the bridge into Portland proper, I turned right and made my way down Fore Street, toward the East End. 

After passing all the pubs and bars on Fore Street and frankly wishing I had the money to get a burger and a beer, I remembered all the times I'd gone in to each of them with friends.  Gritty's especially, brought back memories of "twenty-five cent Wednesdays"; when back in the mid 1990's every Wednesday from 4:00 to 6:00 pm they would serve their own ale at $0.25 per mug.  I was in college then and remember walking up from the Portland campus of the University of Southern Maine (USM) with my good friends, Ed and Leisl.  There would be a line all the way around the block waiting to get into the place.  It was awesome!

When I got to India Street I decided to stop by my very first apartment at 75 Federal Street.  I had moved there after my Freshman year at the University of Maine at Farmington (UMF).  My terrible grades - due to WAY too much partying and skipping classes - had put me on academic probation.  My plan was to move back south and to transfer to and attend USM as a "special student" until I could get my grades up to re-enroll as a full-time student. 

My girlfriend at the time, Dawna, and I were pretty sick of having to stay with our parents and found this Federal Street apartment--I was only 20.  We briefly got jobs at Webber Oil as telemarketing surveyors.  Neither of us took the job seriously.  We just faked our numbers and drank large amounts of coffee there, until we both decided to quit.  I put together a promotion pack for my band, ICE, and we did a fairly successful tour of high school dances for the next school year.  I did some of my very early recordings in that apartment, to be published someday.  But Dawna and I never really made enough to pay the bills and were doomed to giving up our apartment.

Eventually, with the separation of my parents, we decided to move back to my childhood house in Yarmouth to keep my mom company...not that that was HER desire.  We pretty much used it as an excuse to live for free for a while there, until we finally broke up.  And then a house fire destroyed nearly all of my things in 1991.  This is a tale for a future post.

Moving on from that first apartment, I made my way down Congress Street, then down Washington Ave, taking a right and heading up hill onto Cumberland Ave (where I took a picture of the gas prices at the 7-11), until I reached Sheridan Street.  I took a left on Sheridan, walking west to Walnut Street.  When I reached Walnut I took a good shot of my old apartment there.  I rented it with my college roommate and best friend from UMF, Jim (the "Catman"), a guy I had stayed in touch with through those early years.  The apartment at 89 Walnut looked like the present owner had really let it go.  I remeber having some really good times in that house, which we affectionately called "The Funhouse."  Someday I'll tell some stories about that too.

I took a right onto Walnut and headed up and over the hill (that whole part of the city is called "Munjoy Hill" or just "The Hill") and worked my way south east along the Eastern Promenade, turning back on my direction by taking a left and walking down Cutler Street to take a good shot of Casco Bay.  Then it was back on to the southern direction, hugging the coast on the Easter Promenade Trail, where I found a sailboat race right off shore.  Further on I ran across the now-still narrow gage railroad and train. 

Finally coming back to Commercial Street I stopped through the Casco Bay Line Ferry terminal where I passed the "Whaling Wall" and was privileged to use the singular worst-kept public bathroom in the city.  Interestingly, when I used to live at the Walnut Street apartment I was a job coach working for The Pine Tree Society, with a mentally disabled Korean guy who had the unfortunate name, Suck Ho Kim. His job (and to some extent mine) WAS washing windows and emptying trash at the Portland Jetport.  This wasn't a bad gig.  When we took breaks we could sit on the seats facing the runway.  I would read the Wall Street Journal and he would say, "Prane rand!  Prane fry!" over and over.  This constant air traffic never failed to entrance him. 

He was a good guy I really liked him.  He didn't "look" disabled (whatever that means) so people often didn't understand why I would be telling him what to do all the time.  One woman at the food court, while selling us extremely over-priced sandwiches, muttered to me, while Suck Ho was throwing something away, "Your friend is kind of 'odd.'"  When I told her the situation, she felt very embarrassed.  This kind of thing happened a lot.

Unfortunately, after the terrorists used this airport on their way to commit the atrocities of 9/11, Suck Ho and I were moved across the city and assigned the new job of cleaning the bathrooms and sweeping the terminals of the Casco Bay Line building.  That was a major demotion, for sure.  And I was experiencing a nasty bit of sciatica at the time, heaping pain upon misery.  This all came back to me last week, as I stood on the sticky floor of the smelly, disgusting bathroom that I used to clean with Suck Ho, and remembered our first day there. 

We got the mop and cleaning supplies from the closet and entered the men's room.  We cleaned most of it until we reached the last stall, where we noticed that someone had gotten very creative by taking their own shit and smearing it all over the inside of the stall, concluded with a rather well-drawn smiley face.  I refused to let him do anything in that stall and we just left it.  Then we did the women's room which was only slightly less gross. 

As we were sweeping up the floor of the waiting room later in the afternoon, near the ticket window, the maintenance man walked up and asked us to follow him into the bathroom.  We entered the bathroom and the three of us walked over to the last stall where he pushed open the door.  He said, "What's this?" 

I looked him straight in the eyes and said, "Well... it looks like shit to me."

He turned just a little bit red, and trying to restrain himself, stammered out, "I want this cleaned before you leave."

I then felt that characteristic rage that has gotten me in trouble so many times in my life.  But I kept it back as best I could as I replied, "We don't clean shit."  Then I looked at Suck Ho and said, "It's time to leave, buddy."  We turned and left the maintenance dude fuming in a toilet stall, staring at a shitty smiley face.  I wrote up the entire incident in the day's report.  The next day I got a call from my boss who said that the maintenance guy had called her to complain.  But, as with the woman at the airport, he hadn't taken Suck Ho to be a "special" case, and finally understood why I said what I said.  The next time we went to clean, the maintenance guy did everything he could do to avoid us.  Just as well, I thought.

From there my tour took me up Commercial Street a little way further, then up to Fore Street, where I finally got back the Casco Bay Bridge, crossed over to South Portland, and took a rest in the Mill Creek Park, on the bench where I had begun the day's adventure.  I was hoping to see Gimmee again, but he must have been curled up in his little evening nest somewhere.  The sun was going down and apparently it was bedtime for squirrels.  The fog crept in from the waterfront and the temp dropped dramatically; meaning it was time to head back to my nest...a sleeping bag in an attic.  It was a fine day though--a good trip down memory lane and a way to take on a few new memories. 

Enjoy the video!

Take the Longest Road

People; if you can, go outside for at least an hour every day. It resets the mental and spiritual clock.  I know it is a cliche.  I am aware that you just don't have the time.  Modern life is intentionally filled with distractions.  Society (meaning all of us through our complacency) tries to keep you from taking in any new perspectives.  If you were to just step outside, you might have an original thought or two.  That is unacceptable.  Why?  Because it makes you question just what the hell you are doing.

Speed up the actions of your days and they would be seen as tight little circles.  The commute alone is just a fossil fuel squandering feedback loop.  The widgets you're screwing onto the rim rams at work is just an endless circular conveyor belt, designed to make the three people at the top as much money as they can grab.  And the culturally sanctioned drugs of the work place written into every labor law for two 15 minute breaks are either cigarettes or coffee or both.  They keep you "stimulated" enough to conquer the longest most hellish parts of the work day.  And this lifestyle is so cleverly designed to feed the largest money-making companies in the world.

All this circling (the drain?) eats up material that must be replaced.  Plus what would a Saturday afternoon be without a stroll down the flourescent-lit isles of your local box store--just for the shear heck of it?  It is a sick kind-of entertainment for the middle classes of America; buying useless imported crap.  I mean how many storage bins, scissors sets, tacky jewelry and plastic cups can each of us stand?

Fortunately the largest money-maker in the world is there waiting in every major town and city on earth, ready to sell you more chintzy junk next Saturday: Walmart, with $418.95 BILLION in annual revenue.  (That's ONE company pulling in nearly half a trillion dollars each year.)

Should you be worried that the automobile you think you NEED or your furnace require gas or oil?  Fear not!  The second, third, forth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth largest money makers on earth are oil and gas providers, with get this, 1.96 TRILLION (just for those eight--keep in mind that a trillion is a thousand billions) in annual revenue.  And there are another 26 further down the list just in case the big eight (as happened with tiny little BP, at a mere number 24) have their oil rigs blow up.  It's a good thing that the biggest one of all - Exxon/Mobile - is funneled a constant supply of subsidies from the US government, oops, sorry I mean from our back pockets.  The total amount of money that one of the typical widget screwers makes in an entire lifetime wouldn't even buy the proper polish for the typical oil executive's hood ornament.

Thankfully, when all the legal drugs - TV (AT&T is number 28) red meat, sugar (Nestle is number 39), transfat, cigarettes and alcohol - finally do their job on you, there are the bloated American industries of Healthcare Insurance (McKesson Corporation is number 47) Pharmaceutical Industries (Pfizer is number 151) to take care of you.  If you're lucky they'll just pick your pockets and/or run you into personal bankruptcy.  If you're unlucky they'll deny coverage.  Most bankruptcies are healthcare related.  And you thought the credit card and financial industries (Allianz is number 19) were bad!

Now I'm not naive enough to think that people are going to rise up and introduce brand new, sweeping models that will transform all of capitalistic (as opposed to free enterprise--they are different animals) schemes into democratic, life-affirming entities that genuinely care about each individual.  But it is still important to THINK about the big picture.  Frankly most people don't think about anything at all.  There are too many other people and mechanisms to do our thinking for us.  But, this is poison to the soul.  This reliance on the flimsy hope that some "expert" has it all figured out, thinking that if we could just find the "right" expert the answers would come flowing in, is raping the natural world and sucking the potential of the human will out of its ability to make major changes--en-toto.

I guess this is my desperate way of making you stop, even for a second, to think.  What IS it really all about.  We say family is the most important thing in our lives.  But our actions speak otherwise.  More than 50% of marriages end in divorce.  This statistic leads one to wish that gays and lesbians would be allowed to marry so we could see what lasting marriage actually looks like.  We say we want to spend time with our kids.  But they warehoused in daycare centers for the first years of their lives, then we force them to fill every waking, non-school hour with sports, violin lessons, tutoring and homework.  That is all just daycare for bigger kids. 

Let's face it the widget screwing job is at the top of the priority list, and in some kind of twisted non-logic the premise becomes one where parents must do nothing but continuously work ("ideally" for 40 years), so that they can pay for daycare for the younger kids and "extra curricular activity" daycare for the older kids; which will then allow the parents to continue their slavish work schedule until their kids are fully brainwashed with twelve years of rote memorization (methodically killing all creative thought) and readying them for college; where, instead of the classic notion of a culturally relevant, liberal arts education filled with literature, history, philosophy, science and art, INSTEAD, business, economics, financing and accounting will be stressed.  Why?  So that the kids can get widget screwing jobs for themselves, marry partners they too will never really see and thence inevitably divorce, all of which will allow them to have kids of their own to heap upon the new generation the same satanic abuse their parents heaped upon them.  Is it a wonder that we are socially insane?  It doesn't need to be this way.

For people older than 30, I'm afraid it is probably too late.  You are falling into the trap.  Those social outcasts like me, who have delayed marriage have a little bit better chance, but not much.  Eventually - if you are paying attention - you WILL wake up to the fact that culture has been screwing you and your parents, priests, teachers and bosses were the ones handing it the screws.  If you are fortunate enough to reach this rarified realization, and you have managed to wiggle your way over into the soft shoulder of society every now and then, you MIGHT find a way to escape...even if you are married with children.  This post WWII American Nightmare that was supposed to be a "dream," will eventually be conquered by our children's children.

People shit all over the so-called "Millenial Generation," sometimes called, "Genration Why."  But they are not fools.  They are learning from the fringe, just exactly what must be brought into the mainstream.  They don't see it as such yet.  But they will by the time their own children are reaching adulthood.  And then THOSE children....will Wallk.

Still, we older idiots could make things a bit easier for them.  We don't have to punish them for being right, where we were wrong.  We can lead by example, though we might be covered with the scars of our own parents mistakes.  We can Wallk too.  Start by just going outside and staying there for a few hours.  I know what being forced to be outside has given me: HOPE.  Hope that the world is changing, turning itself inside out.

The breeze, the temperature, the patches of rain, the blazing sun, the buds-turning into leaves, the birds (and squirrels!), other people walking by and saying hello, teenagers peeling out from intersections, clouds, grass, flowers, trees... It's the REAL real world. How could I have ever forgotten its profound beauty? How could I have ever been isolated from mother nature? NEVER AGAIN!! Even if I break my back or become paralyzed, put me out on the lawn. No hell or death would be more horrible then to be trapped inside the sterile confines of a hospital. I'd rather starve to death on the front lawn. Anything, but to be force-fed the world of synthetic, rubberized, tube-filled, isopropyl-alcohol stench. Let me die in nature's full embrace than to merely survive in mankind's labyrinth of white coats and beige walls; beeping monitors and lukewarm care.

The destiny of our species will be found among the rivers, grassy plains and forests of our world, not among the extracted and purified metals and glass stolen from it. We are on a one-way ride into destruction because we have separated ourselves from our Mother. The future will be filled with the internalization of the positive effects of our technology and the externalization or our SOULS. So *I* choose to shoulder the heap of criticism required - even at this primitive stage of human evolution - to proudly display my soul as garment, the finest there ever was. Let the others throw scorn and kick me out the door for breaking through the bubble of conventional assumptions. Yes, let them kick me out the door. There is no more beautiful mansion than the out-doors anyway. I'll take it all for myself.........and YOU too, if you dare to follow me...

Somewhere in the cobwebs and dust bin-graves where my broken songs lie buried, there is a chorus worth ressurecting...

Take the longest road

And pave it

With the finest gold

To save it...

It is not the efficiency of your mobility. It is not the speed at which you travel between points. It is not the choosing of the present pathway over the past. It is not the frequency of your trips. It is not short stays and briefly-viewed vistas. None of that lasts. It is the everlasting movement, the slow appreciation, the whole story, the whole journey, the view from above...THOSE are the things that last. Choose to take the longest road, and no matter how long it takes, pound it with the finest gold of your life experiences, carefully, with intention. For it the last steps of life each of us must take alone. What could be better at the end than to look back over your shoulder and see that beautiful road that you cared enough to construct?

Yes...

There were times when you walked until your feet were swollen, but you didn't stop. You slept on the ground in the cold air of uncertainty, but wished to still dream. You found the energy to rise back up each day, even when it seemed that the whole world wanted you to just lay down and die. You hungered while you passed those who were eating until they were filled, but your small meal was still enough. You were lonely and watched families play together, but you remained friendly towards other people. You were told that you weren't necessary anymore, and still you fought to be counted. You were expected to give up but you would not rest. You were the target of cruelty and injustice, people walked on you, struck you, hit you from behind, but you silently stood up straight; weathering every blow.  No you are the goldsmith.

Each of these is a nugget of gold, pounded into your pavement.  Each is a patch of colored light stitched into your spirit.  And when you fly on to the next life the memories of this one with be exquisitely preserved for the rest of eternity.  You were awake and walked through the world while others slept.  And I think I will be there too. 

ODYSSEY - Days Two and Three

Rather than getting into the rather-boring comings and goings of my (lack of a) life for these two days, I thought I'd just post the little video that I made during that time.  Readers will see a relation to my past posts about Day One and slightly to my most recent post about Other Lives Other Times.

First, I need to express just how silly I see myself in these videos.  It is like watching some fool.  It couldn't possibly be me!  But because of that, I find myself laughing out loud at the weirdo doing all this crazy shit. 

You'll see the very short introduction of my new best friend, Gimmee (before I named him), the very sociable squirrel, named after the way he stands up and pats his little chest, as if to say "Give me more!" and the sound he makes when I talk to him, "Gimmee...gimmee...gimmee...bark!"  He will appear in future videos too I think.  I've been to the Mill Creek Park, South Portland, every day since leaving Gorham.  And ever since May 3rd this little guy has sought me out.

When I first saw him and filmed him for this particular video, I spread some sunflower seeds on the grass.  He really liked those.  The next time I saw him though, all I had was bread from a sandwich (something, by the way, that the gulls were practically going insane wishing they could have), but he just wasn't interested.  I tried a tiny piece of cheese too, but he wouldn't have it.  I guess I can understand about the cheese, that's just too species-specific.  I mean, he's not a mouse for godsakes!  He just stood their with his little hands on his chest as if holding the lapels of an invisible sport jacket.  He didn't seem real hungry anyway.  He was more interested in checking me out from each angle.  And as you'll see, he looks pretty well-fed.

Strangely, he seems to be either the only squirrel in that park or the only one who shows himself to me.  He's very distinctive in his appearance and behavior though.  Beside his characteristic stance, he also has a dark grey-colored saddle patch on his back, fit for a Barbie Doll to climb on and ride him up a tree.  I'll be going down there tomorrow  Maybe he'll like the roasted Edamame beans I have and I'll certainly get him some more sunflower seeds.  Either way he's gonna be a star in tomorrow's video.

You'll see my official announcement about bin Laden, then my talking bald head.  And I tried that great solo documentary-trick of filming myself walking past the camera.  Worked pretty well.

Should be back with more substantive material in a day or so.  And then a compilation video from the end of last week, when I went on a little tour of Portland to see how much it had changed since I last lived there, included will be my first two apartments, the Eastern Prom, a sailboat regatta, and the narrow gage train (now still).  But for today, here is the short video from the second and third day of my transition.  Enjoy with a laugh of your own!

I am doing better and falling into a routine now.  The uncertainly of the short term is waning.  I have a new prospect for a business with a young woman (a fellow Urantia Book reader) who I have finally gotten to know online.  She is full of energy, has a big heart and is ambitious enough to work with me to build a cash cow that hopefully we can both use to prosecute some other interests that we have, including a bit of social activism. Previously I have searched the universe for such a person to partner with.  Many times it seems that the right person had finally been discovered, only to find out that we just aren't compatible.  I truly pray this time will be different.  More on all that later.

For now - this being the 11th day of the ODYSSEY, I think it is becoming obvious that the real rough struggle (physical and psychological) is over for now.  I am set-up for sleeping in my sister's attic and successfully getting back to work with the writing and the business plan--now being tweaked.  Things are looking up.

Other Lives Other Times

As one might imagine I pass many kinds of houses and properties as I venture around this area.  Lately I've been doing something that I used to do as a kid to pass the time when traveling.  I look at a particular house and imagine that I've always lived there.  I can see myself standing on the front porch--what it would look like to be surveying the yard from many different perspectives.

I can imagine walking around the yard at different times of the day and in different seasons of the year.  I see where "we" did this or that renovation, how the trees looked when "we" first moved in and where the water pools in the yard during heavy rain storms.  Was I a child when "we" moved in there?  Was I born there?  Or, was it the house I bought with my young wife; ready to start a life in this or that town?

There is a house and yard in South Portland that reminds me of my childhood home in Yarmouth.  There are mostly pines around the house and small rose bushes, lilacs that are just budding and patchy grass, in need of attention.  No matter what we did in Yarmouth, there were spots on the lawn that simply never grew.  Then again, my parents were clueless about plants, landscaping...well, just about everything that had to do with nature--and a lot of other things too.  The front of the house in Yarmouth faced just about due east, just like this South Portland house.  In the afternoon the sun would flood into the backyard.  When I build a house it will be oriented in this way.

There are brick buildings at the university campus of USM in Gorham that remind me of my freshman year in college attending the University of Maine at Farmington.  Farmington was a much larger campus but the same kind of country college spirit permeated the town.  I recall walking around Farmington in the fall and resting in the grass; lawns covered with red, orange and yellow; maple, oak and birch leaves.  Gorham is the same way in autumn.  There is something about the sun at that time of year, the sight of large brick buildings, and the cold wind of winter making preview-appearances at night that seems to tie it all together.  I often thought of this connection when I lived in Gorham.

Along Broadway moving south out of South Portland are the little crowded neighborhoods.  Kids play, dogs bark, power tools whine.  Some have boats.  Some have old neglected cars covered by blue plastic tarps.  Some yards have gardens and some are sandy and overgrown.  For moments at a time, house to house, yard to yard, stretched out into decades - lifetimes - I've lived in each.

I pass a large house every evening that has all its lights on (I mean every single room), with the family in only one room watching TV.  It reminds me of a friend while I was growing up who's family came into money suddenly during his parents' generation.  They had been dirt poor before that for as long as any of them remembered.  These nouceau riche were still uneducated and uncultured, though they didn't realize it--and still don't.  They thought that the money that had fallen upon them was equivalent to a short-cut into upper-class culture.  They considered themselves destined to be where they were.  They left the lights on, the TV on, the radios on--even when they weren't home, because that's what "rich" people can do.  And they were right, rich people can do that.  They threw plates of food away.  And they avoided working every chance they got.  They considered that being "rich" meant a virtual obligation to waste energy, sustance and time.

Around Cape Elizabeth are the large mansions of the well-off.  These people do not "simplify."  But they don't waste either--too much.  They do not come to places that make them question what is missing in life, unless they are shaken up by some negative experience.  Generally speaking, they don't need to consider such things.  They are good people and so are the new rich, who still may be considered to be fools.  Relativity is the principle that rules the physics of social strata.  Although I haven't been there yet, there must be a new way to exist, where the accumulation of money is tempered by the desire to pair things down. 

As I said though, these mansions in Cape Elizabeth are not occupied by such fools.  It is especially satisfying to imagine myself living in one of these.  I see my three car garage off to the side--with no car of course.  Large stone walls covered in ivy and trumpet flower vines.  On the back deck is my chair and blanket.  Five feet away I could step inside the multi-paned and stained-glass french doors, where my wet bar with a granite counter top stands ready for the evening martini(s) to be shaken.  In the mornings the sun rises above the choppy sea, filled with white caps and green depth.  I eat breakfast as I watch the large tankers and cargo ships pass silently in the distance, through the mouth of the bay, on their ways to deliver the foreign items that Mainers crave, and to pick up the stuff we export.

Many gables and porticoes jet off in asymmetric passages in my mansion.  Potted plants that need attention candle sticks and cupboards line the hallways.  At the center of the house I stock the large fireplace in anticipation of having friends over for the evening.  We will dine on lobster and steak, fresh salads, red and white wine, and homemade bread.  We will stay up late discussing politics, religion and music.  In the dream...in the fantasy...I am somehow completed as a person and satisfied in my soul.  Somehow all that Western culture has promised made its way to me, and life is rich and warm.  But it IS a self-deception, one that even from my more enlightened standpoint I both luxuriate in and try to abolish.  I have a way to go yet, obviously to undo the training I have absorbed over more than 40 years.

Then I walk on to the next house, the next yard, the next landscape of imagination, as I make my way back to my attic, in the cold wind of an overcast afternoon; feet sore, stomach rumbling, but happy to be able to go inside every now and then. I'm not going inside a building, but rather inside the light and power of my own mind, thence to order my inner wanderings, fighting the urge to be lost in dreams of comfort, while appreciating that I still retain the ability to do such things.  That yields TRUE satisfaction.

Comments and Further Clarification

I'm going to take a break from reporting on the Odyssey while I compile some more video footage.  This last week was a good one overall and I'm adjusting to this new life fairly well.  It is nice that it is taking place in the spring I guess. 

Now for a bit of house cleaning...

Many people have misunderstood what this "Odyssey" has been about.  I want to clarify it again, just briefly, before I continue on with more important matters.

It is disappointing to me to see how a person's past accomplishments can be thrown away in favor of the image that they project temporarily at any one time.  The conventional memes and prejudices of American society are a merciless and illogical magic--but a powerful one all the same.

Even the respect and love I have always gotten from my own family is quite dissolved by how they think they are supposed to treat me now as a "homeless" person.  Pavlov was dead-on when it comes to mammalian behavior.  Lacking foresight, humans will always revert to automatic assumptions and biases.  Homeless people are lazy, drunk and foolish.  They are losers.  They are seen to CHOOSE the life they are leading.  So it is their fault if they are uncomfortable, struggling for money, unwashed.  They need to be clumped together and then pigeon-holed on a case-by-case basis.  They need "tough love."  How will they ever pull themselves up, if we give them any financial or emotional support?  They need to be "taught a lesson."  Well, for me, the only lesson I've learned is that the Christian morality that was preached down my throat as a child, is not worth practicing on me as an adult.

The homeless deserve what they are going through, because in some way or other they have refused to buy into every convention of society--and everyone knows that buying-in is the only acceptable form of participation.  In my case it makes no difference that I am not lazy, not drunk, not foolish, not a loser, not choosing this life and simply had things that happen that were not my fault.   Why would anyone want to know the story?  Knowing it would mean actually thinking.  It is the image one projects that means EVERYTHING.  So, I am to be shunned, because that's just what you do to someone who's equation has had more negative numbers than positive ones.

Except for a few people, I have not been supported at all by this once-loving family.  I guess I am an embarrassment for them...they have forgotten quickly all the times in my past that I have done things that made them exceedingly proud - things they had never seen other people do.  Yes, in my family, memories are short and thus so is their sightedness.  This is especially true with my very ignorant, presumptuous and self-righteous parents.  I say this rather deliberately, as today (yesterday now) is Mother's Day.  John Lennon knew.  Old age has made them blind.  Childhood memories are like a fiction now.  I want to look back and feel nostalgia.  Instead I only feel betrayal and emptiness.

My friends however aren't quite as tainted by the specter of my circumstances, nor are they bound by the slavery of society's out-moded expectations and labels.  They are not blind.  They still believe.  And well they should!  They know that this will not be my ultimate fate.  They see further.  I have a long way to go still in life.  I will be back on top of my game sooner rather than later, and ten times as strong for going through this hell.  My story is not written.  I am still writing it.  The people in the second half of this story will be the ones who stuck by me.  And they will participate along with me in the successes of the future.  I AM strong.  I AM confident of eventual success.  And I have an iron will.  I have another Father who is my partner in all of this, and He NEVER loses.

Let me say once and for all...

I do not want to spend every daylight hour walking the streets.  I do not want to spend every night sleeping in a dusty attic.  I want, and will get, my cats back.  I want, and will get, a new place to live in.  I want, and will get, an income source that supports these things.  This time in the wilderness is NOT for adventure.  It may BE an adventure, but that is not the point.  The point is, I have had some set-backs in my life and am going to document them, along with my triumph over them.  Most people go through these kinds of things privately.  I am simply too restless and have too much to say to just submit to the darkness that is trying to drag me down.  I want to illustrate the transition from one secure living space to another secure living space.  But why should I stay silent about what I am experiencing and the philosophical insights that arise in between?  It is my strong belief that someday this documentation will mean a great deal to someone; maybe even many people.

I believe and so should all of you.

Peace and Light will triumph.

ODYSSEY - Day One - Part 3

On the way to my sister's house in South Portland from where I spent the night in Scarborough, I noticed that the rear wheel of the bike was dragging.  Despite how many times I examined it I could not see what the problem was.  I rode it down a few hills but I could tell the friction was getting greater.

By the time I reached the border of South Portland it was just easier to push the bike.  Traffic was very heavy too, and that section of Route 1/9 has hardly any break-down lane.  Things were feeling a bit unsafe.  The sun was really beating down now and though I had left my hat out to bring, somehow I had forgotten it.  And here's a weird thing that happened:  I was working so hard to keep the bike on the road pushing it without getting hit by cars that my eyes began to tear.  But it was more like sweat.  It was like I was sweating around my eyes.  This is something I'd never experience before.  I had to constantly stop and use my sleeve to dry my eyes. 

After what seemed like an eternity I finally reached my sister's house and set about ditching the bike in her garage and consolidating only the useful items.  She came out and was very helpful finding a way to secure my sleeping bag under the backpack.  After several failed attempts we got that sucker on there.  I have a regular backpack, not a hiker's pack, so there just aren't enough hooks and straps.  But we did it anyway.  And before long I was back on the road.  As I stated in my last post, the idea now was to find a good place to sleep.  I headed down to Mill Creek Park in downtown South Portland.

Mill Creek is a nice little place.  It has a small pond that is always populated with ducks and the ever-present, squawking, screaming seagulls.  I sat for a long time on a bench just resting and eating some nuts and seeds my sister gave me (which were very satisfying by the way), I decided to spend my last $3 on a meal that would get me through to the next day - Monday - when I'd be able to withdraw some money from my bank.  I had brought with me two whole wheat hamburger buns.  I walked over to Hannaford Supermarket and was able to find a package of four pieces of ham for $0.99 and a half gallon on pomegranate-lemonade for $1.29.  I was in business!

Though I look a little bit like a bald, pudgy, gnome, I actually don't eat very much at all--two meals a day at the most.  I'm very conscious about what I eat.  I only eat high protein, natural fats and complex carbohydrates (except for juice which has simple sugars).  Also, as I've explained in past posts I've been walking several miles every day for over a year.  I must have a slow metabolism or something, although I am quite strong and can handle quite a bit of exercise each day.  My impression is that maybe someone of my physical type is more suited for hard travel of this sort.  Maybe if I was a thinner, less stocky person I would be actually harming myself by doing what I'm doing.  Thankfully I don't seem to be ill-effected by all this exertion.  My only issues in these last few days were a little mental confusion from lack of sleep and the stress of not knowing what the hell I was gonna do to get back into the human race.

There are some other chronic health issues that I deal with too, but I won't bore you with them.  And very frankly, it appears that the high amount of exercise I get has done nothing but good for these other problems.  I am on no medications.  I don't drink.  I don't smoke cigarettes and even Cannabis has been off the menu for many months now (unfortunately).  Besides the last item, I don't miss any of these other things.

I made my sandwiches and ate them as I walked back to the park.  I found a good spot and when I was done laid down with my head on my rolled up sleeping bag as a pillow.  I couldn't bear to detach it from the backpack after all the work my sister and I went in to getting it on there.  The irony that I was carrying around a 20 pound sleeping bag that I refused to use for the purpose of sleeping in was not lost on me.  And that irony would play into my decisions for the next few days.  Besides, I thought it would look pretty strange for folks visiting the park to have some dude in a sleeping bag snoring away.  Certainly parents would avoid that side of the duck pond for sure.  This notion - concerns about looking like a transient - also played in my mind for the next 24 hours.  I'll get into that more in Day 2's post.

After a very light 2 hour snooze, I decided it was time to get moving so that I could do the rest of the day's exploring in an attempt to find a more permanent place where I might be able to spend the nights.  Nighttime is the bitch.  You can't rest your head anywhere or even sit.  Police do not take kindly to strange visitors meandering around their town or holed-up in shadowy places.  One night might work out, but the cops have a good memory and they will quickly recall the gnome with the attached sleeping bag that he doesn't use, wandering their streets.

The decision was made by the holy trinity of loneliness (being: me, myself and I) to head out to Fort Williams (for some reason I have since high school called it Fort Henry, as I did in the video above--though I have no idea why).  It is a bit of a hike from South Portland (nearly 3 miles), but not as bad as the Scarborough to South Portland run, and much better than the Gorham to Scarborough run.

Here is a map of the afternoon journey...

The pink dot at the top left is Mill Creek Park

and the pink dot at the bottom right was my destination, Fort Williams.

I traveled along Cottage and then Shore.

And so I set out on this beautifully sunny afternoon to one of Southern Maine's nicest and grassiest state parks.  The rest in South Portland really helped, but about a mile into the run to Fort Williams, my feet really began to hurt.  It wasn't my ankles, but the bottoms of my feet and my toes.  My left foot particularly had the distinct feeling of a blister developing under the tough skin of the heel.  Everyone knows that feeling.  Whether you've been shoveling snow or raking leaves and a finger gets rubbed raw, or, say, walking many miles irritating the feet, the feeling is unmistakable.  My sleep-deprived and somewhat panicky mind wondered what would happen if in fact I could NOT walk any more because of an abscess or something.  I just needed more rest.  That was the key.  And I was really depending on Fort Williams itself to be that place of rest.  I knew there plenty of little areas where I might be able to spend the night.

When I finally arrived, the sun was low in the sky.  I made my way to the ocean edge, where I shot the video above.  There were families all around and tourists stumbling over the large round stones that filled the beach.  I was a little disappointed to hear how many people were arguing with each other.  One mother was screaming at her very young daughter, "You're gonna pay for that, missy!"  Another couple was yelling at each other across the parking lot so that everyone ended up being spectators to their issue; it was something important like forgetting the Diet Pepsi.

An ironic sign read "Swim at Own Risk" (seen to the right, behind me in the video).  I had to chuckle at that.  No one in their right mind would swim in that surf and be pounded against those rocks.  Even in mid summer the water would be chilllllyyy.  And because I was not quite in my right mind, the water DID look inviting.

There was a cold breeze that blew up from the water.  The grass of the large field away from the beach was VERY luscious and green already.  And the nice thing about this time of year is the lack of insects (though the black flies are just getting started).  I could imagine sleeping in that field on a soft bed of grass.  In this fantasy I would have plenty of time to detach my sleeping bag and reattach it in the morning.  But, it was not to be.  The police made more and more frequent drive-throughs around the perimeter of the park.  It was becoming obvious that there would be no rest there.  I read the sign and it said nothing about not camping.  Still, I definitely felt that it might be a mistake.  Now I wonder if I was wrong and have not had the chance yet to look it up on the web.  But at the time I went with my instincts to leave.  As I say in the video the plan was to rest as long as possible and then make my way back to Portland over night.  It wasn't until I was halfway back to South Portland that I realized I didn't need to go all the way to Portland since there was a bank branch right in South Portland.

By the time I got all the way back to South Portland, the temps were dropping fast.  I felt like I hadn't been indoors for a year.  I was weather-beaten and truly becoming exhausted.  My feet felt as though they were going to fall off and I'd just be walking on my shin bones.  By 7:30 the sun was shooting its last shards of light through the distant hilltops of Portland, across the bay...then darkness descended.

I loitered at Hannaford Supermarket as long as I could, until at 9:00 they closed up and it was time for me to find a nook somewhere in South Portland, preferably, I thought, near my sister's house. 

The reason why I wasn't staying with her inside the house is because she is very busy with two kids and a daycare business.  I didn't (and still don't) want to disturb her routine or her life.  And I want to avoid the probing questions of her two brilliant little kiddos, like, "Uncle Chuck...[their name for me]...why are you sleeping here?  Where are your kitties?" etc...  It isn't that THEY bother me.  It is more that I can't even answer those questions for myself yet, and so I will try to avoid answering them from the kids as long as possible.

On my way from my sister's house earlier in the day, I had noticed that the tennis courts of the high school were located beyond a sharp grassy drop-off.  I walked by them now at night and saw that if I were to venture over the edge of this drop-off, I might be able to be shielded from the view of traffic in both directions.  I found a dark spot that wasn't directly across from any houses and rushed over the edge.  It wasn't bad.  I was fairly well shielded.  I decided not to get the sleeping bag out just in case I had to beat a hasty retreat.

There on the grassy hill I listened to NPR's American Roots on my ipod radio and rested.  I began to slip in and out of sleep.  It seemed this was going to work.  Then suddenly I heard the gravel sound of tires and looked up to see headlights beaming across the void above me.  I hadn't taken into account that someone might pull into the parking lot.  Worst of all was that I could tell it was a police car.  I debated whether to get up and walk away while his/her light shone-out or whether to just lay there and pretend to be asleep should the officer decide to get out of the car and walk over the edge.  She/he couldn't see me yet.  I decide the best course of action was to just remain still and wait.

After some time the lights went off, with only the parking lights on now.  I carefully grabbed up my backpack and slung it over my shoulder.  I plotted out a course that would allow me to get back up to the street gradually.  Apparently he/she never saw me, because I got back up to the street and continued on to my sister's place.  In desperation, and starting to feel defeated, I figured I would just sleep between her minivan and the garage wall outside for the rest of the night.  She was already in bed and it was quite late.

Then it occurred to me that I could just sleep in the passenger's seat of the minivan.  It would be warm and dry and I could tip the seat back so that the neighbors wouldn't freak out.  Slowly, carefully I crept the door open and climbed in.  I took the sleeping bag off my back pack and crawled into it while reclining in the seat.  Finally, I felt secure and able to really try to sleep.  I slipped my radio ipod back on just in time to hear the following special announcement: "We have just received word that Osama bin Laden has been killed at a compound in Pakistan, more in a moment..."  THAT was when I knew my fortune was about to change.  I didn't know how, but in some way I believed that things were going to begin to swing up again. 

Astoundingly, it had only been 24 hours since I left my apartment on the crazy bike trip the night before...and over that entire time I had journeyed 25 miles total.  That was the most I've ever traveled without a vehicle.  And only about 3 of those mile was by bicycle. 

ODYSSEY - Day One - Part 2

The wind felt cold but refreshing. I was streaming along. It was nice to finally feel like I was making progress. I passed the Gorham library - site of much work on the Internet whenever my apartment WiFi was out. Then I passed the road to the Middle School. The only other traffic light on that in-town part of the road was set to simply flash red. On and on I went occasionally reaching a hand back to feel that troublesome sleeping bag. Each streetlight that I went by gave me the chance to see my shadow and to judge whether anything was working its way loose.  I'm not sure how long it took me to reach the rotary, but it only felt like about 5 or 10 minutes since I had left the laundry mat.

All was quite in every direction. I whipped around the rotary and started up the small hill toward the intersection with Route 22. I rolled to a stop about halfway up the hill. This time I remembered to tip the bike to get off rather than lift my leg over all that crap on the back. I walked up to the intersection and crossed over it to the other side of the road. Ahead of me lay the South Gorham run, where the road veers off to the right and starts a relatively straight path to Payne Road in Scarborough. I decide to give riding another go.

Once I was up and rolling I found new energy to really get moving. I had never walked this route before and even when I had driven it by car I had not realized that it was mostly down hill. I guess that makes sense since in general topography does tend toward lower and lower elevations as one approaches the coast - at least in Maine.

The sound of my knobby tires humming along the tar and the dark woods on either side, broken up by houses that were just as dark, set me into a pattern of thinking about what it must be like to work at this time of night/morning. I heard my breathing and it sounded like I had a wheeze. I cleared my throat several times but the wheeze got louder. I realized it wasn't me, but something off in the distance. Then the wheeze began to break up into what sounded like hoots of laughter. I made a gradual turn and crossed a few intersections, and that's when I recognized the sound. It was much louder now. It was a sound I knew very very well. It was a sound that usually only occurs on relatively cold nights out in fields. And I thought to myself, Shit...coyotes!


For people who have never lived out in the country, the sound of a pack of coyotes when they're playing at night or after they have made a kill, is BEYOND haunting. It sounds like crazy witches dancing around a fire. It is a sound that reminds one of insanity. When I had been living at my apartment in Gorham, I would hear coyotes out in the back field. I recorded it many times. Some of which is already on an album that I am about 1/3 of the way through, but had to delay because of this move. When they would be out in the field I would always get up and walk around the apartment to make sure both cats were inside. Coyotes eat cats as a snack. They are intelligent and ruthless hunters. I admire them very much and always feel bad that they are so persecuted. They will even eat dogs too (even though they are half dog-half wolf themselves). With cats it is like with rabbits, the pack out maneuvers the prey until one of them can grab the cat in its teeth. There is no escape when that happens, the cat is shaken to death and the pack will eat it quickly, from the alpha male to the omega.

Dogs are a different story though. Often the pack will wait in the woods while one coyote heads up toward a the yard where a dog is running free. The coyote will then act friendly toward the dog, playing with it and letting the dog chase it etc. As this is going on the coyote slowly works all this activity further and further away from the house lot and deeper into the woods. Then without warning the dog will realize than it is surrounded by coyotes. Again, there is no escape from that situation.

Unlike wolves, coyotes are relatively small canines.  But a pack of three or more can even take down a buck.  A human would be no problem at all for three.  But coyotes like most wild animals will not attack a human unless they are being threatened or are desperate for food.  I had often wondered from the safety of my apartment what I would do if faced with two of them.  It is a survivable scenario, but it would definitely be a "bad day." 

Over the years I have learned to estimate the number of animals in a pack by listening to their individual voices.  Each is different.  And my experience with multitrack recording certainly sharpened my talent for this.  Naturally, as I rode on through the darkness, especially the stretches without street lights, all of this stuff crossed my mind more than once.  And these thoughts grew stranger and more pronounced until they became quite menacing.  The pack was close by now, and I heard them pretty clearly off my right shoulder to the west.  The other thing about coyotes is that they don't continuously yip.  They yip for a while then go completely silent.  Then they'll yip again and you can judge whether they are closer or further away.

As I had been riding, this intermittent yipping had definitely become closer with each pocket of sound.  I seemed to have been riding toward them.  They would not have intentionally be coming toward me, because my scent would have been left behind me not projected out in front.  (I'm not THAT smelly.)  Yet, I had no choice but to venture on.

Finally, there was a very long period when I couldn't hear them.  Then I caught them singing again, but they were much farther away.  Relief spread over me.  Thankfully I had made it nearly the whole way to Payne Road without having to stop and walk (about 4 miles).  As I crossed over the Turnpike bridge the sky lightened from the Maine Mall area and I knew I was almost there.  I had passed into Scarborough long before that and was happy to be finally out of Gorham.

Things were going much more smoothly now.  It seemed the debacle at the start of this journey had been a test of my will to complete it.  I drifted across Payne Road and began the last stretch toward the Oakhill area of Scarborough.  I passed by the Scarborough Public Library and saw that the side of it was very dark; nice and grassy too.  For the last mile or so something had been scraping the spokes of the rear wheel.  When I got to the paved entrance to the Library I pulled in and headed back up toward the building.  Stealthfully I drew up close to the side and stopped the bike.  I walked up until I found a nook that was fairly well-hidden.  I untied the sleeping bag and unrolled it out on the grass.  I climbed in and a dreamless sleep came quickly.

Occasionally I would open my eyes and realize I wasn't in bed anymore; that I was outside in wet grass.  But the bag was warm and I felt as though I was recharging myself enough to face the next day.

I closed my eyes...And then through my eyelids suddenly it seemed that someone had turned on a light.  It was dawn.  The sun was orange through the trees in the east but not yet above them.  I had done it.  I had reached my small goal.  I had made it through the first night.  I didn't realize at that point that I after one more night I wouldn't have to worry about finding a place to sleep again.  I rose quickly, if sorely, rolled up the sleeping bag and got it tied up on the bike. 

In short order I was on my way, moving again, walking my laden bicycle into the rising sun and toward another uncertain day.  My thoughts were on how to lighten my load.  It is all about simplifying right?  I could understand why having less in this situation was key to surviving it.  When I walked by the listing of library hours I saw that it wouldn't open until 1:00 pm.  I made the decision to wait until the next day to get online.  Instead, this day would have two major objectives: (1)  get rid of the bike and as much other stuff as I could and (2) find a good place to sleep this next night.  It was time to journey to my sister's house (about 7 miles).

Here is a map showing the morning journey...

The pink dot at the bottom left is where I spent the night

and the pink dot at the top right was my destination.

I traveled along Route 1/9, to Broadway, to Evans and then Highland.



[Visit this site tomorrow for the final episode of day 1.  Then we'll take a break from the ODYSSEY and I'll get back to some walking-philosophy.]

ODYSSEY - Day One - Part 1

One thing about walking and being outside a lot is that time really slows down.  And though it can seem boring sometimes, each night when I look back upon the events of the day I realize just how many things do still occur over each day.

I left my apartment in Gorham on Saturday night, April 30, at precisely 11:59 pm.  For three days before that and up through that evening I had been packing and moving as much stuff as I could to my sister, Deb's house.  I did it all by myself (using her minivan in about 7 trips) and it was pretty physically demanding.  I don't sleep well anyway and the uncertainty about how things were going to turn out made that worse.  By the time I left I was running on 4 hours of sleep for the last 48 hours.  But I like to work hard and I knew that eventually, even if it might be days ahead, I would get a chance to relax at some point.

The evening of my departure was a sad one in some ways.  Although I was quite happy to be leaving a place that I felt had become stressful and even hostile to live in, the memories of the last 7.5 years flashed involuntarily through my mind as I secured a tent, sleeping bag, and saddle bag to the back rack of a bike and stuffed as many "survival" items as I could into my backpack .  Hours earlier I had brought my cats to the home of a wonderful woman who I used to go to high school with.  She stepped in at the last moment and volunteered to foster them for me for the next couple months.  My list of people who I want to leave my millions to someday - once I can turn my penny back into dollars - is certainly growing.  At the very least they deserve to be publically appreciated even now, when I have nothing else that I can repay them with.

So, turning off the lights and leaving a note for Landlady Linda letting her know I was gone, I slid open the glass door and wheeled the bike out on to the lawn toward the driveway.  It was really not my intention to ride the bike.  I wanted to use it as a kind of "cart."  But I figured I could ride it down hills to save some time.  I had about 60 pounds of stuff and the bike itself was poorly set up for riding.  I just knew that it would be a way to attempt to take more than I could by foot.  It was a good theory but life has a way of smashing my theories into the ground.

Immediately upon walking down the first hill the sleeping bag squished its way through my jury-rigged strap and went rolling off into a ditch.  I put the kickstand down and ran after it.  While I was running I heard a CRASH behind me and turned to see the bike on its side, now with all the other fastened items smeared across the soft shoulder.

I retrieved the sleeping bag and marched back up the embankment to the fallen bike.  Meanwhile in the dark cars were passing by, each one slowing suddenly to see what the mess was on the side of the road.  I pulled a small LED flashlight out of my back pack and set about re-tying everything back on the bike's rear rack.  Surprisingly, it didn't take long.  In short order I was down the first hill and on my way up the next one.  I made it down and up another until I finally reached downtown Gorham.

My plan was to make it all the way to Scarborough where I could find a dark place to sleep the rest of the night.  I have a library card for that library and intended to get online in the morning there.  As I crossed the the main intersection in town (I was walking south along Route 114, crossing over Route 202/25), I noticed the grade level tipped slightly downhill.  And I knew that it was a relatively level road all the way to South Gorham.  So I tipped the bike toward me and climbed aboard.  It was time to try riding.  Walking by holding the handlebars to my right was getting VERY old.  I just wanted to get to my dark spot in Scarborough and get some sleep.

Here is a map for the night journey...

The pink dot at the top is where my apartment was

and the pink dot at the bottom was my destination.

I traveled along Route 114.

Right after crossing that first intersection in downtown Gorham, I heard a voice cry out from across the road, "Hey buddy!  You lost a bag!"  I looked back and sure enough the sleeping bag had wiggled back out from its strap again and was rolling into the parking lot of the 24 hour laundry mat.  Surprisingly for me, I didn't even get angry, I was too focused on my goal.  I NEEDED to succeed with as little attention to all of my problems as possible.   I turned the bike around and headed into the laundry mat parking lot.  As I lifted my leg to get off the bike my shoe caught a strap on the tent bag and the entire bike fell over with me under it, both of us laying in the rocky tar, my sleeping bag still out of reach as if it was teasing me.  Muffled laughter was heard across the street.  "You OK?" the voice asked.

Looking up at the stars after midnight, on the rocky tar, in the cold, on my back, with 80 pounds of bicycle on top of me, I stammered out, "Ah...oh...yeah.  Never been better."  They laughed again and walked on.

After freeing myself from my bicycle-prison I pushed the bike over on to the grass beside the building, grabbing the sleeping bag and set about re-resecuring the items to the back.   I then put the kickstand up and turned the bike to begin walking again, when suddenly I heard a crunching, clinking sound coming from the rear sprockets.  I pulled out my LED flashlight and shone it on the axle of the rear wheel.  Sure enough one of the thin elastic bands had hooked its metal end on the teeth of the sprocket and very tightly wound itself all through the concentric gears.  For a moment I just looked at it.  Then I looked up at the stars; then back down again.  Still, I refused to lose my temper.  I had a goal to achieve by sunrise and I was gonna accomplish it even if I had to leave a bunch of stuff there beside the building and walk on.

Carefully I examined the situation, the technical description of which is, I believe: a "clusterfuck."  The items on the back of the bike were completely secured now and it was too heavy to stay up with just the kickstand.  Still I needed to be able roll the bike back and forth, lift the rear to rotate the wheel without moving the bike and also work with both hands to untangle the elastic.  Since these three things were not mutually compatible actions, I decided with great frustration to take everything back off the back of the bike so I could work on it.

Despite my reluctance in having to do this after spending so much time re-resecuring it all, it turned out to be the right decision and saved me a lot of even greater frustration in the end.  I worked for about 30 minutes to rotate the wheel, stretch out bits of elastic from the sprockets and untangle it, until finally the metal hook that originally attached itself was able to be removed.

Sighing, I tipped the bike back up and rolled it around the lawn a few times backward and forward until I was convinced that it was ready to be used again.  This time when I secured everything to the back rack I made sure no hooks were fastened near the sprocket.

Again I slowly rolled the bike back out on to the street.  I was sweating like a madman and stopped for a moment to take out my towel to just rub it all over my head.  It was really pretty cold now, close to freezing.  My skin was cold, but I didn't feel cold.  I wanted to just rest.  I was practically hallucinating from over-work and lack of sleep.  I had $5 in my pocket and had only had a sandwich in the last 24 hours. 


But again that feeling of accomplishing my goal over-rode all other considerations.  Surely, the worst was over now.  And to some extent the worst was over, but other more psychologically interesting things lay ahead.  Of my 8.5 mile journey I had completed 1 mile.  It was now about 2:00 am.  I decided to try to ride the bike to save time since the road was very straight and level, and the traffic was practically non-existent.  Also I really wanted to sit as much as possible rather than just trudging along pushing the bike. 

With a new energy welling up, I tipped the bike down, climbed onto the seat and shakily started off toward Scarborough.