The truth about Fort Rock

Only one of the Fort Rock homesteaders is alive for the annual reunion this year. Her name is Vivian Stratton, and she was nine when her family moved to the valley in 1913. Almost overnight, sixteen towns appeared, and the number of homesteaders exceeded 2,500. Many were from back East, some from Europe. All were drawn by the promise of free land in an area with rich soil, plenty of water, and a soon to be built railroad. They read of rich black loam that would grow sixty bushels of wheat per acre along with,

“…all varieties of fruit such as apples, pears, plums, cherries, and all other kinds of berries,” of, “…good fields of grain waving to and fro…good level land…many miles of lanes with well-tilled fields on either side, good houses and barns…”

The truth was that the Fort Rock Valley averages eight inches of rain and 345 days of frost annually—and it still doesn’t have a railroad. It doesn’t even have rivers for irrigation. Realtors made money showing the land to homesteaders, lawyers made money filing their claims, railroads made money moving them, teamsters made money transporting their belongings from the railhead, and merchants made money selling them supplies; all while local ranchers watched and laughed.

Many of the homesteaders suspected the worst, but by then they were thousands of miles from home and lacked the money to return. Louise Godon, the fourteen-year-old daughter of a French father and an Irish mother wrote of her mother Bridget’s reaction.

“At the sight of it all, Mother burst into tears. My how the tears flowed! Mom remembered back to her lovely home in Philadelphia—the maple-lined streets, the neat lawns, front and back, of the solidly built house. She remembered her collection of fine china, glassware, and silverware, which we had sold—in fact, nearly given away—just for this God-forsaken land. And she cried some more.”

Crop after crop was blown away, and what the winds missed, the rabbits took. If a family moved before five years passed, or if they failed to make certain improvements, their land was forfeited, so fathers looked for work in other places—often in other states—while wives and children hung on, hoping that next year would be better. As it turned out, the weather had been milder than average early on, and took a turn for the worse in the 1920s. As quickly as they had come, the homesteaders moved away, leaving the laughing ranchers to pay their taxes and swallow up their acreage. Of the many towns, only Fort Rock remains, and it with a population of 25.

Ironically, Bridget Godon was one of the handful who stuck it out. When her husband died of a stroke at age 54, she and her five daughters stayed on to raise cattle, work the land, and earn money in every other honest way they could. When they lost their savings in the bank failure of 1927, they started saving again. They grew wealthier, and when other homesteaders left, they took title to still more land. From 320 acres, their holdings grew to over 5,000. One of the daughters, Alice, was mechanically gifted, so she repaired the machinery and learned to drive. The matriarch, Bridget, died at age 93.

No landscape touches me so deeply as the desert. I look upon it with unrelenting wonder that anyplace can be so beautiful. Like Bridget Godon, I cry and cry but for a different reason.

I suggested to Peggy that we buy a cabin in the desert for vacationing, but she wouldn’t consider it. She admits that the desert is pretty, but she objects to the wind and the dust, to the winters that are too cold and the summers that are too hot. She complains that there is no shade, and she laments the skin-cracking aridity and the extreme isolation. In all of this, she is right, yet for me the desert’s beauty outweighs them all. The stark nakedness of the air, the sky that never ends, the clarity of mountains a hundred miles distant, the smell of dust mixed with juniper and sage after a storm…other landscapes are trivialized by comparison.

I know that the forest and seashore are equally a part of nature, and that they are equally beautiful in their own way, yet they do not cause me to kneel in awe. When I come home from the desert, I feel as if I have come home from a dreamscape. I know it exists, and that I saw it, yet it seems unreal. But then I loved deserts long before I ever saw one. When I finally did visit the Southwest, it was one of the few times when my expectation was inferior to reality.

It might seem ironic then that I feel happier now that I am home. I can best compare the two environments to being tickled. When I was a boy, my cousins would tickle me until I couldn’t breathe. The desert is that way. I try to cope, but the feelings keep growing even while I keep diminishing.

When I first took LSD, the woman who gave it to me warned that it would take over my mind, and that if I tried to resist, it would turn my energy against me. Likewise, it is in the desert that I touch the infinite, and the infinite takes possession. I see my nothingness, and I struggle to find that person who I call myself, that person who normally looms larger in my awareness than the rest of the world together; but all that I have to throw against the power of the desert is exactly equal to nothing. I am less than an ant before a twenty-ton truck. I am not only run over by the desert; the desert is oblivious to what it has done. It holds the truth of my insignificance hard against my face, and in doing this it comforts me. It says to me that I am worth so little that there is really no reason for me to fret about anything.

Less than two days before she died, Bridget Godon’s daughters took her to a hospital in Bend. It was the first time she had ever been to a doctor much less to a hospital. She begged to be taken back to the desert—not to her ranch or to Fort Rock, but to the desert. The nurse winked at her daughters, and her daughters told Bridget that they would be back the next day. I don’t know that the desert would have saved her, yet where better to die than in the arms of God, even if God is a being that takes not the least observance of our existence, especially if God is a being that takes not the least observance of our existence? The whole of the human race could devote itself entirely to the worship of the desert’s tiniest pebble, and neither pebble nor desert would care. In this I find my religion.

High Desert vacation

Wednesday, September 7, 2006,
the start of our vacation

We camped in the High Desert on the rim of a mile wide crater called Hole in the Ground on this, the first night of our vacation. Earlier today, a man who was old enough to know better tried to drive a one ton, extended cab Dodge into the crater on a narrow ATV road that looked like a washboard with the ridges four foot higher than the valleys. He got 500 feet before the downhill side of the road collapsed, leaving his truck stuck and in danger of rolling over. He walked to a ranch house, and the retired rancher and his wife used a tractor, an ATV, and three come-alongs to keep the Ram from flipping down the hill while they pulled it out. The job was dangerous, and the wife rolled her ATV, injuring her ribs. The rancher is losing his vision and had to be verbally guided. They refused payment.

Thursday

We drove to nearby Fort Rock, a 325-foot high volcanic ring that resembles a fort from a Tolkien novel. The town of the same name (population 25) has a museum that consists mostly of homestead era buildings from the surrounding area. It was closed until the next day, so we returned to the rancher’s house and camped in his yard. This gave us the benefit of a picnic table and a hired man’s cabin if we wanted to sleep indoors but, most of all, it allowed us the pleasure of the couple’s company.

They told us to enjoy their ranch while we could because they were selling out and moving to Prineville. The man had recently returned from the blind school at Portland, where three different black men had tried to mug him on the city’s streets. Prior to Portland, he had rarely seen a black person.He used a knife to discourage the first mugger, but carried a pistol for the others. As we visited, a herd of antelope grazed nearby. I asked how long he had lived there, and how he liked it. He said 27 years, and that he had liked it very well because he had never had an argument with a neighbor (there being none) or seen a government inspector.

I told him about my knee problems, and he said he has one knee that is “bone against bone,” but it didn’t seem to concern him much. Maybe it’s easier to put other things in perspective when you’re going blind.

I mentioned that it had been awfully cold the night before on the 5,000 foot high rim, to which the wife responded that the temperature at the ranch house (300 feet lower) had dropped to 18°.

Friday

Last night was little warmer, but Peggy would have taken the dogs to bed with us to keep Baxter warm had I not objected on account of the dirt.

When I awakened, the rancher was loading a homemade mortar and howitzer into his truck. His hobby is shooting artillery in accuracy contests (hell of a hobby for a blind man). I helped, and was amazed by how strong he was compared to me. I consoled myself with the thought that I had just woke up. It proved to be a meaningful consolation as I was later able to drag one of the guns by myself.

We spent hours touring the Fort Rock museum and visiting with the locals. A woman invited Peggy to her home to see needlework while I chatted with the men. I joined the museum foundation, and we bought two books about the history of the area. The most famous resident was Rueb Long, an author I have adored for The Oregon Desert, a book he co-authored with another rancher. Reub spent his summers at the hired man’s cabin next to which we had camped the night before—I felt as if I had slept on holy ground.

The temperature moved into the nineties as we drove south over Picture Rock Pass—where we stopped to admire a few of the dozens of pictographs that are spread through the sagebrush—and into Summer Lake Valley. Peggy wanted a motel for the night, so we paid $70 at the Summer Lake Inn. That evening, we set out for a walk, but the mosquitoes prevented it. We didn’t see or hear a one of them until we had gone a quarter mile, at which time they descended upon us by the hundreds and pursued us all the way back to our room. We smashed scores of them against the ceiling and walls, creating additional bloody spots to go with the ones that were already there.

Saturday

We had planned to go deeper into the Great Basin Desert, but the weather was getting hot, so we headed into the mountains and didn’t stop until we were at 7,200-feet. Even there, it was warm. We camped on a ridge overlooking our previous night’s lodging. Charles Fremont and Kit Carson had looked off the same ridge on December 18, 1843. For days, they had labored in fierce winds and deep snows, and were facing the possibility of starvation. The lake and valley below looked like paradise to them. Hence the names Summer Lake and Winter Ridge.

It was bow season, and we spoke with a few hunters. I detest the cruelty of hunting (and ranching for that matter), yet hunters have often been among the most generous and kindly people I’ve known. This is one of those ironies of humanity that I have never understood. My response has been to try and focus upon the good in people, and the good is easier to find in many hunters than it is in regular people.

Our ranch hosts were hunters (as evidenced by their guns, bows, and animal heads), and if they had invited us to supper and set a plate of beef or elk in front of me, I would have eaten it. This would not be easy after 23 years as a vegetarian, but I have thought about such a scenario many times over the years, and have concluded that I had rather eat meat than cause offense if I were the guest of a man who made his living raising cattle.

Sunday

Peggy and I climbed Dead Indian Mountain (7,066’) this morning. In the afternoon, she climbed Foster Butte (6,778’) with the dogs. There was no trail and, the rocks all looking pretty much the same, she marked part of her route with survey ribbons. She was as proud of summiting Foster as she was of many more formidable mountains simply because she did it alone on unmarked terrain.

I can’t say that I was entirely sanguine about her efforts, so when she had not returned by 6:00, I packed two quarts of water and two flashlights, and set out after her. I worried about my knee, but I couldn’t bear to wait any longer. Fortunately, she appeared from the other side of the mountain before I had gone a quarter of a mile. She explained that there had been false summits, and that she had spent a lot of time route finding.

Monday (Labor Day)

Peggy climbed Hager Mountain (7,195’), a prominent landmark that overlooks a hundred miles of desert, today. There was both a trail and a road to a fire lookout, but we had no good maps for the area, and I worried that the trail would give out or fork, so I asked her to take the road. It was a steep five-miles on a hot day, and she returned with blisters on both feet and dogs that were limping on burned pads. I felt bad that I had encouraged her to take the road, but at least I had not been worried. Instead, I had identified the few plants that I didn't recognize and read more about the Fort Rock homesteaders. Peggy and I had read one book aloud, and now I had finished most of another.

We hated to come down out of the mountains into the heat, but we needed water and a laundromat. Worse yet, Peggy was out of milk to go with her cookies. We drove to Silver Lake (the lake is now dry). It was the site of a Christmas Day fire in 1894 that killed a third of the 143 inhabitants. We paid $3 each for a shower at the town’s trailer park, which averaged out to be a bargain since Peggy took her usual thirty minute shower, while I was out in eight. As in most of the desert towns, there was a lot of property for sale.

We camped in a quarry from which we could see all three of the mountains Peggy had climbed. The moon was brilliant, and the scene lacked nothing to make it more beautiful.

Tuesday

We awoke to the distant smoke of forest fires, and could no longer see the mountains. As I made my coffee, I watched a large hawk circle lower and lower over Baxter who stood half asleep in the sun, probably wondering what the hell kind of a vacation it is when a dog is nearly frozen at night only to have his feet burned to stubs in the daytime. I knew I should yell at the hawk, but curiosity got the better of me.

Clearly, a 23-pound dog was too big for even a large hawk to carry, but I wondered if the hawk might plan to eat part of him on site and carry the rest off for later. The hawk finally landed fifteen feet to the rear of a still oblivious Baxter. It tilted its head this way and that, obviously in deep concentration about the advisability of attacking something that was so large yet so seemingly vulnerable. When it started hopping toward Baxter, I scared it away. As with the bobcat two years ago, Baxter never knew how close to death he had come.

We returned to the Fort Rock Cemetery (it and the rock of the same name being a mile north of the town of Fort Rock). Peggy continued on to the rock—blowing kisses as she walked—while I looked at grave markers and read about the deceased from my history books. She said she would only be gone a few minutes. She later yelled and waved at me from high on the rock, and I wondered if she was actually going to the top despite the fact that her feet were so blistered that she could only wear sandals. I remembered what she had said about “a few minutes” and returned to my history books comforted.

An hour later, an old man on a bicycle came by. I told him of my worry about Peggy, who was still on the rock, and he consoled me with stories of people who had been killed by falling. I wondered how much longer I should wait before going for help as the area was too big and too rough for me to necessarily find her if I searched all day. There was also the thought that, the sooner she got help, the better her chances of survival—assuming she was not already dead. I was contemplating selling our house and moving to a one room shack where I could pass the rest of my days within sight of Fort Rock when she returned, very pleased with herself for having summited.

That afternoon, we drove to Bend and visited Pilot Butte Cemetery to see the graves of still more of the people we had been reading about. Afterwards, we gassed up and headed back across the Cascades.

Peggy had her heart set on camping near McKenzie Pass, but the actual flames of a forest fire were visible, and the air was wretched with smoke. To my relief, she agreed to continue on a few miles down the west side. I was even a little concerned about this since a change in the wind could point the fire in our direction.

For the first time in decades, we stayed at an official campsite. No one else was there, and no fee signs were posted, so it seemed like a good idea until 2:30 a.m. when we were awakened by chewing sounds under the van. I beat on the floor, and the noise stopped, but only for a few minutes. When it started back, I got out and looked in vain for the source. As soon as I lay back down the noise resumed. We had already met one woman on the trip whose new truck had suffered $13,000 in damages from gnawing rodents, so we left. Ten miles later we pulled over and passed the rest of the night peacefully.

Wednesday

We hiked along the McKenzie River for a couple of miles and then drove home. We couldn’t have traveled more than 600 miles on our trip and probably less than that.

I turned on the radio and heard the news for the first time in a week (the only newspaper I had read was a 1915 edition of the Fort Rock Times, which reported one case of gangrene, two cases of smallpox, and the clubbing of 3,540 rabbits). The announcer said, “President Bush claimed during a speech today that progress is being made in Iraq, even while House and Senate Democrats called for the replacement of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld due to his mishandling of the war.” “I haven’t missed a thing,” I thought, but then learned of the death of Steve Irwin.

Thursday

Two neighbors died while we were away. One was in his fifties, and succumbed to prostate cancer, the other in his eighties and a victim of diabetes. The younger man was a lawyer, and I hardly knew him, so I minded his death less than that of the older man whom I regarded highly.

Our cell phone—which we bought in case Peggy’s family or the neighbor who was watching our house needed to get in touch—died the first day out, so I returned it today. I was glad for the excuse. I don’t really want to know what’s happening when I’m away. I mentioned this to Peggy, but she kept her thoughts to herself as she often does.

Avoiding hurt by anticipating it

I just called a repair shop to make an appointment for the van. When I got off the phone, I checked with another shop, and learned that I could get the van in there sooner. When I called the lady back to cancel, her demeanor changed from caring to hostile.

This was no big deal, but it came on the heels of an email to Gwen (my mentor in my Wicca group) being returned because she blocked my address. Gwen had said she wanted to correspond regardless of my status with the group. I don’t know whether to interpret her action as coming from fear or contempt, or why she would feel either. Maat, the teacher, said she would refund the $20 I paid for supplies, and that I could expect a check the first part of last week. It is now the first part of this week, and it still hasn’t come. I had thought that—despite everything—these were people of integrity.

I have yet to learn enough about people that I can divine which ones are flaky or two-faced. I have often longed for some formula. For example, it would help a great deal if Democrats were invariably lying bastards and Republicans upright and consistent. Or if religious people were ethical and atheists untrustworthy. But alas, treachery and dishonesty extend equally across boundaries of gender, intelligence, education, wealth, geography, politics, and religion. That said, I have made a few useful observations.

People who are certain that Truth is on their side are unreachable when they err, as are people who blame others for their own bad behavior.

People in cohesive groups reinforce each other’s evil.

People who are lecherous, greedy, or addicted to drugs, alcohol, romance, or gambling, can be expected to put their addiction above everything else.

People who are under a physical or emotional strain are more likely to compromise their ethics.

People usually behave in the present as they have in the past, so I cannot expect them to treat me honorably if I know them to have shafted others.

People who give ethics a lot of thought are no more trustworthy than those who do not. A great deal of thought can pave the way for a great deal of rationalization.

The legal profession attracts people who enjoy finding clever ways to sidestep the consequences of evil acts, their own or others.

There is seldom a connection between legality and morality.

People who seek power over others (as through politics) are usually more interested in dominance than in service.

Those who are not invested in a person, group, neighborhood, etc. cannot be expected to act as though they are.

People who see themselves as victims can be expected to show treachery toward those whom they regard as oppressors, and few are content with getting even.

I can never trust anyone whose sacred cow I have slaughtered through evidence or rational argument. Not only will they pretend that the cow is alive, they will never forgive me for attacking it.

Unfortunately, many of the traits I mentioned are not readily identifiable, and people are capable of surprises no matter how reasonable the criteria I use to define them. I think that, when all else fails and I am treated shabbily by someone I thought I could trust, it is better to not take it personally. Maat did not say she would refund my money and then not do so because of who I am, but because of who she is. The same is true of Gwen who promised to write, but then blocked my e-mail. Seldom (if ever) does a person’s behavior toward me stand in isolation from the way they live the rest of their lives.

Footnote: Maat refunded my money after I wrote to her again asking for it.

Dog stew

Last week was a week of mishaps. One night, my bike bounced away from the edge of a steel plate in a construction zone. I hadn’t even seen the plate when the bike veered to the right. Not knowing what had happened, I turned to the left only to bounce off the plate a second time. By now, I was wobbling badly, and putting all my energy into staying upright. The next thing I saw was a rapidly approaching curb. The bike had clearly decided to end our corroboration, and it stopped abruptly at the curb’s edge, throwing me over the handlebars. I hit the ground, bounced into the air, rolled three times, and found myself dizzy but unhurt in a grove of oak trees. While I was rolling, I sensed that my lower body was turning at a different speed than my upper, and I had the thought that, if I had not been taking yoga, I would have to be carried away on a backboard. It’s funny how much time a person has to think when he’s bouncing.

Friday, we camped in the coast range. I awakened before Peggy, and thought I would hike the short distance to the top of Saddle Mountain by way of an abandoned trail. When the trail gave out, I bushwhacked, but the undergrowth was so thick that I gave up my summit attempt for fear of hurting my knee. I missed hitting the trail on the way back, so—the area qualifying as a rain forest—I spent the next ninety minutes struggling through five foot high salal and briers. The brush was so thick that the dogs couldn’t walk below it or upon it, and they cried in frustration as they writhed through it. I knew they could guide me back to the trail if they only knew what I wanted, but they did not, so it was one of those situations in which dogs could be helpful in theory but are in reality worse than useless (like when you lock yourself out of your car on a hot day, and your dog stares at you curiously as you tell him to lift the little knob with his teeth).

Baxter had trouble keeping up even at my tediously slow pace, and I knew that if I lost him, an inconvenience would become a tragedy. I protected my knee as best I could, but my feet were seldom on the ground, the brush being so thick that I was walking about a foot high except for those blessed occasions when I came upon a log that I could use as a bridge.

With the ridge to my right and the sun to my back, I anticipated hitting the road eventually, but the distance was surprisingly long and the going tediously slow. I knew that Peggy would be awake by now. I wondered how long she would wait before seeking help. I thought of the disappointment of our friends who we were supposed to meet for a picnic at Heceta Head, and of the news crews that would seek an interview when I was finally rescued. I couldn’t decide whether to grant a humorous interview, a grateful to my rescuers interview, or no interview. I decided that nothing I could say—or not say—would make me look like anything but a fool, so I hoped fervently that Peggy wouldn’t go for help no matter how long it took me to return to the van. I hoped she would look at the map (for a change) and see that there was a powerline to the north and roads to the east, south, and west; and would remember that the weather was warm enough for me to survive without provisions. I took frequent short breaks, focused on my breathing to remain calm, and ate salal berries and huckleberries. I regretted that I had no water for the dogs because they were struggling mightily, and I could not carry them.

When I finally hit the road, I felt as if the gates of heaven had opened, but when I reached our campsite, Peggy was gone. I began walking out the way we had come (we camped at the end of the road), and met her driving back. She had been looking for me. My legs were blood-streaked from scores of scratches, some six inches long. When our friends asked me what the hell had happened, I said that Peggy was a phenomenally passionate woman with phenomenally long toe-nails. “She can climb trees like a squirrel,” I offered. Their expressions indicated that they considered her story more plausible. All this happened two days ago, and my knee is a swollen, stiff, aching mess. Eight hours of yoga a week for a solid month, and I am as bad off as when I started.

On our drive into the woods, we listened to CDs I bought at a garage sale last week. I got Bob Marley, The Doors, and Jimi Hendrix; stuff I had always wanted, but had never been able to find for 25¢ each. While I was listening to protest songs and acid rock as a young man, Peggy was tuning into Neil Diamond and Linda Ronstadt (How do people like us come together?).

“Was Jimi Hendrix black?” she asked. And then, “Was Jim Morrison in a band?” I told her about the joys of taking acid or smoking pot while listening to these guys, about how their music had been written by people on drugs for people on drugs, and how Hendrix and Morrison died from drugs. I said that their songs’ erratic lengths and variations made it even harder to keep track of time than the chemicals alone would have caused, so I wouldn’t know if the same song had been playing for three minutes or three hours. I would tell myself that it had to be three minutes because no song could last for three hours, yet my life prior to the song would seem unreal, like something out of a history book. And I wouldn’t just hear the music, I would taste it and see it. As I talked, she drove, and the sun flashed through the trees like a strobe light. The day was perfection. Foxy Lady, Hendrix sang, and I looked over to see Peggy ducking tree limbs that touched the windshield. “My old ladies high,” I thought, “and I am too.”

I cried during The Doors Spanish Caravan. “Are you crying because you’re sad that Morrison died young?” Peggy asked. “No, it’s not that. It’s the genius that it took to create such beauty that gets to me.” I considered it inevitable that these guys didn’t live to see thirty because they were cranked without crank. Some people are like tortoises, others like moths; and who is to say which can cram the most living into a lifetime?

When we got to our isolated and unofficial camping spot, we turned the music up, and opened the van’s doors. It seemed like a good time to party, and we had three beers and a bottle of wine to do it with. Half a beer later, we were asleep. The passage of two score and seventeen years has cost me my talent for dissipation, a talent that Peggy never had to begin with.

The young man who sold me the music was leaving for South Korea the next day to teach English. I wouldn’t have had the guts when I was his age. He said I should try it, that it would be easy for me to get a job in any part of the world because all I needed was to be a white man with a bachelor’s degree. “What’s your degree in?” I asked. “Romance languages and literature,” he answered. “Kinda funny isn’t it, learning all that Italian and Spanish, and then going off to live in South Korea?” He explained that South Korea was only his first stop, that his resume had received 125 hits from all around the world. At one extreme, Dubai offered $38,000 a year plus room, board, and airfare. At the other, Colombia offered spending money and a roof over his head.

“Well, you know, I’ve got a wife and dogs,” I said. “Your wife can work too,” he enthused, “but the dogs might pose a problem. They like dog soup in South Korea,” he mused, and I pictured being served a mysterious stew that turned out be marinated chunks of Baxter floating alongside shallots and potatoes.