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When Bears Come to Visit You at Home… The Conclusion to the Bear Tales

/ Curt Mekemson / 15 Comments
Our wildlife viewing in Oregon was a two way street. The deer were as likely to be staring in the window at us as we would be staring out the window at them.

Our five acre home in Oregon backed up to a million acres of national forest lands. The Applegate River flowed by the front. It was an ideal location for wildlife viewing. Almost magical. We had front row seats. Usually, our wild visitors were a joy, but when cougars and bears stopped by, we rolled up the welcome mat.

Two fawns crossing our deck.

One night Peggy and I woke up with a start as a deer leapt onto the deck next to our bedroom. They frequently crossed the deck, but rarely at night and never at full speed. It got our attention— but nothing like the loud thump that followed. I imagined something big and thought of getting up to look. But it was a moonless, pitch black night. I wouldn’t be able to see anything and the intruder would be long gone. Or not. I decided to go back to sleep.

Our neighbor, Bryan, called the next night. “I’m shaking, Curt,” he told me. A hawk had taken out a chicken of his during the day and he had gone out after dark to check on the welfare of the flock. What he found was a pair of eyes staring out at him from one side of a large tree. A long tail stretched out from the other side. Twitching. It was a cougar! Around 7 feet long. Bryan kept his bright flashlight focused on the eyes and slowly backed away to the safety of his house. And then called me.

Suddenly, the loud thump from the night before made sense. The cougar had been in hot pursuit of the deer and jumped onto our deck. About five feet away from where we were sleeping.

I didn’t have any photos of the black bears raiding our garbage can. I was always too busy trying to run them off. So I asked AI to produce one for me. It’s perfect. The bear looks just like the one that was a frequent visitor in our neighborhood. The garbage can is an exact match to ours. And it even comes with the claw marks! Garbage is garbage.

Bears came by much more frequently than cougars. They thought of our garbage can as a gourmet restaurant. They refused to make reservations— just show up, lift off the lid, and settle in for an a multi course meal. They were messy eaters (kind of like taking a two-year-old out to dinner), and never left a tip. It was a hassle, but it went with the territory. A quick 15 minutes afterwards would clean things up. Unless they ordered take out. Then their mess would be strewn out for 50 yards up the trail.

Another neighbor, Tom, suggested fastening the lid down with a bungie cord. I had my doubts— given my experience with Yosemite bears—but tried it and was pleasantly surprised. It actually worked (most of the time). It didn’t stop them from knocking the large plastic cans over and leaving claw marks behind.

Two bear encounters stood out.

Tasha and her two sons

The first one took place when our daughter, Tasha, visited with her two boys. The day of their arrival, I’d whipped up hamburgers on my Weber Grill that lived on our porch. Afterwards, we’d had a pleasant evening entertaining the boys and chatting. Finally, we had all drifted off to bed. Tasha had the guest room that was next to the porch, the boys occupied our office next to her (it converted to a bedroom on demand), and Peggy and I were in our bedroom at the other end of the house. Everyone was tired. Sleep came immediately. Until the crash…

The smell of the cooking hamburgers had wafted up into the forest that evening and got the attention of a hungry bear. I’m pretty sure that it was sitting up on the edge of the national forest thinking, “Damn, why don’t they go to bed.” We were all sleeping happily when he came down to find the source of the enticing smell, sniffed the grill, and discovered the smell was coming from inside. Being logical, he decided to open it. Bear style. BANG! A large Weber Grill tipped over on a cement floor makes a loud noise. The bear took off at full speed. And Tasha yelled…

“Curtis!!!” Once again, bear duty called. I threw on clothes, charged out to the porch, discovered that the grill was tipped over, and the bear long gone. I assured Tasha that everything was okay. It wasn’t easy. I understood. The loud crash had me jumping out of bed at the other end of the house. Tasha was one wall away. All’s well that ends well, right. The grill disagreed. It took a fair amount of work to repair. And our hopes of having the boys experience sleeping outside at our home in the future were squelched by mom.

The next memorable bear encounter started with our patio furniture moving around in the middle of the night. Have you noticed that most of my bear encounters start with ‘middle of the night?’ It’s the nature of bears. Not mine. But who would assume patio furniture would have anything to do with a bear? Not me. Crashing grills and garbage cans, of course. I hopped out of bed to explore the phenomena, carefully opening the door and peeking outside. Nothing….

Then I heard the crash. “Garbage can!” was my immediate thought. So I dashed across the house and peeked out the backdoor. The garbage can innocently stared back at me, standing tall, with no new claw marks. “Oh no, not our grill again,” I cursed, bee-lining it for the porch. But the grill was fine. Nothing, nada, zero, zilch. I opened the door and stepped out on the porch, looking up our roadway. Again, nothing. And then I noticed that our bird feeder was swinging back and forth, bent out of shape. Mentally, as well as physically, I was pretty sure.

It’a a strange fact bears like sunflower seeds. Earlier in the day I had spilled a few seeds around our patio chairs when I was refilling one of our bird feeders. The bear had been moving the furniture to get at the seeds! And then come around the house to tackle the bird feeder. Why such a big animal would like such a small seed was beyond me. But then again, bears are quite democratic when it comes to food.

Suddenly, however, I was very nervous. The still swinging bird feeder the bear had been playing tether ball with set off an alarm bell in my mind. In response, I swung my flashlight to the left. Not there. And then to the right. There he was, a big fellow like the photo above, about 20 feet away. He wasn’t running away; he wasn’t charging. He was just staring. And staring. Disconcerting to say the least. So I yelled at him— loudly— and prepared to dash inside. He continued to stare, and finally, as if he had made up his mind about something, slowly turned around and made his way up the road back to the forest. WTF, I wondered. And then I figured it out.

He had never seen a naked man before.

So we come to the end of my bear stories. I hope you’ve enjoyed them.

Peggy and I have now returned from our two months of exploring Greece, the Scottish Highlands, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. It was a great trip and we are eager to share the highlights with you. My tentative blogging schedule will be to feature our present travel tales on Fridays and use Tuesdays for blogging my new book, UT-OH!

And now for Friday’s first travel post from our recent journey: Teaching Sheep to Fly

What? No way. Baaaad Curt.

Alaska Bear Tales: Part 1… Backpacking in Denali National Park and across the Alaska Range

/ Curt Mekemson / 17 Comments
A pair of Kodiak brown bears have a stand off on an Alaskan river. “Maybe if I pretend he isn’t here.” When our son Tony was flying helicopters for the Coast Guard on Kodiak Island, he and his wife Cammie arranged a trip for us to watch brown bears fishing.

The Alaska wilderness experience is significantly different from what you experience in the ‘Lower 48.’ One of my primary reasons for moving to Alaska in 1983 was to explore the difference. 

There is a sense of vastness when you slip on your backpack and head away from your car in Alaska, a possibility that you can hike for days and not see another person. And there is an element of danger. Few well-maintained trails and trail signs are there to guide you. The weather is always a factor. Large storm systems march across the state and bring rain and mists in the summer and biting cold and snow in the winter. Plus there are large animals out there, large animals with big teeth, big claws, big hoofs and big horns.

“The better to eat, scratch, trample or gore you, my dear.”

It isn’t that the animals are out to get you. They just don’t have the same level of tolerance their southern cousins do. Recognizing this, I always went out of my way to be polite when wandering in their territory. The number one rule with bears is no surprises. Bears weigh several hundred pounds and have suspicious minds. Their tendency is to bite first and ask questions afterwards when surprised. So, you make lots of noise when walking through dense brush. Almost all of the wilderness shops sold bells to wear, but I regarded them as dinner bells. Cows wear bells, right? And grizzly bears like to eat cows. I preferred to sing. Cows don’t sing. And believe me on this one: There is nothing like a large pile of steaming bear shit to make you sing loudly. Peggy is known to break into a rousing chorus of 99 Bottles of Beer on the wall.

The number two rule is don’t run away. Behaving like food implies you are. Also, as part of this rule, stand tall. Look like a human being. Such behavior suggests to the bear that you know something it doesn’t. Why would a 100-200 plus pound creature stand up to a 500-1000 pound plus creature? It makes the bear more cautious. Possibly something else would taste better.

Be particularly wary if you encounter a female with cubs. Do not approach the cubs or get between the mother and her cubs. It’s a guaranteed recipe for disaster.

These cubs were delightful little fellows, but definitely called for a telephoto lens. Mother bears are very protective of their kids. The cubs were walking across a a fish dam and ladder on Kodiak that was built to allow salmon to get around a 30-foot falls.
And Mom was nearby.

Carry bear spray. If that doesn’t work, play dead. Fortunately, I’ve never had to use bear spray or made it to rule number three. (I don’t count the bear standing on me in Yosemite as an attack. I think he was merely curious about what might happen if you stand on a human. Call it a scientific experiment.)

My first journey into grizzly bear country occurred when I went to Alaska in 1981 to help the American Lung Association set up its Trek Fund Raising Program I had created. A friend came along to go backpacking with me in Denali National Park and canoeing on the Kenai Peninsula. Before we headed out on our adventure, the Lung Association Board Member who had brought me to Alaska, took us aside for some advice. 

“You will want to carry a weapon with you, Curt, in case a grizzly bear attacks,” he warned. Now there was a comforting thought.

“I don’t have a weapon,” I told him. “And, furthermore, I would probably just piss the bear off or shoot myself.” But he was not going to let us go off unarmed. He broke out his 357 magnum pistol and handed it to me along with a handful of bullets. With that much fire power, I could at least seriously piss off a bear. I took the gun and bullets and dutifully stuffed them into different compartments in my pack.

I thought of a use for the pistol shortly after we headed off into the backcountry of Denali. My friend was walking in front and was primarily in charge of making noise.

“Here bear, here bear,” she kept repeating, “eat the one in back of me. He’s fatter.”

It was our canoe trip on the Kenai Peninsula that led me to finally break out the weapon. It was early in the evening. I was peacefully sitting back, reading a book and sipping a cup of tea when the silence of the evening was shattered.

“SCHIWISSSSH!”

“What the…” I thought, dropping my book and knocking over my tea. 

“SCHIWISSSSH!”

Loosing the tea really irritated me. It included a shot of my 151 proof rum. I made a dash for my pack, the pistol and the bullets.

“SCHIWISSSSH!”

Whatever it was, it was getting dangerously close to camp. I could dimly see a large figure through the thick trees. I fumbled through loading the pistol with eight thumbs and two fingers, took it in both hands movie style, and made a heart pounding stalk through the forest, the Great Hunter personified.

“SCHIWISSSSH!”

 A large, ungainly moose (all moose are large and ungainly) was methodically stripping the leaves off of a tree. He would grab one end of a limb in his gargantuan mouth and work his way down, ripping off leaves as he went, schiwissssh. My 457 and I high tailed it back to camp in hopes that the moose would find greener leaves elsewhere. Old timers n Alaska will tell you that the moose is more dangerous than the grizzly.

Looking ungainly but not very dangerous. A moose that Peggy and I found in Alaska.
Peggy provides some perspective with moose antlers on one of our drives up the Alaska Highway. How would you like to wear these on your head, or worse, have them charging you? This set weighed close to 50 pounds.

My actual encounter with bears waited for when I moved to Alaska. Two involved grizzlies and the third a larger Alaskan brown bear. The first happened on an off-trail trek I was planning to raise funds for the American Lung Association of Alaska. I decided going cross country would be fun and selected a section of the Alaska Range for the adventure. I invited two people, Margaret Timmerman and her friend Tracy, along to help preview the route. 

Both were experienced Alaskan outdoor people. Tracy was a glacier guide and Margaret taught mountain climbing for the local community college. She was also my travel agent. Once, when I visited her to arrange for a trip to New Orleans, she related an experience she had leading a group on an expedition up Mt. Denali. They had been caught is a serious whiteout storm on the mountain side and been tent bound for several days. Since I couldn’t imagine leading groups up Denali much less being stuffed up in a tent for that long, I recruited her to be one of my Trek leaders. 

Other than fighting off the usual hoards of insects and spending hours walking in the rain, our Trek review went smoothly. But that was before we ran into the bear.

We were hiking happily along on a rare sunny day through relatively open country when a caribou came flying out of a small valley. I mean it was moving. We had seen several earlier. They would bounce up to us, take a look, and bounce off. They weren’t worried and neither were we. But this guy had a problem. Within seconds he had disappeared over a ridge. We looked over in to the valley but didn’t see anything except some snow that hadn’t quite succeeded in melting. I could see tracks in the snow, though, and persuaded Margaret and Tracy to climb down with me and take a look. The story of what had happened was obvious, at least to me.

“Do you guys see what happened here?” I asked. They replied “no,” so I gave them a quick lesson in animal tracks 1a.

“Look over there,” I suggested, pointing down the valley. “See the Caribou’s tracks. He is strolling along without a care in the world. Now look up on the hillside coming out from the brush. See the snow thrown every which way. Something big came barreling out of there heading straight for the caribou. Now look at the caribou tracks here.” The caribou’s nice little stroll has turned into huge bounds. It had gone from 3 to 30 mph in 3 seconds. 

“Guess what?” I asked with a nervous grin.

 “What?” came the mutual query.

“Somewhere close to here is a hungry, irate grizzly bear.” Three pairs of eyes suddenly got very busy searching the surrounding area. We spotted him almost immediately. He was sniffing around on a hillside looking for marmots to crunch. I pitied the poor marmot he found, but figured better the marmot than us. Besides, I knew that marmots are pretty good at taking care of themselves.

I once watched a grizzly try to catch one in the Canadian Rockies. I had backpacked into a remote area with a geologist from the University of Arizona in Tucson who was doing a study on the origin of the Rockies. The bear provided after dinner entertainment one evening.

He had chased a marmot down its hole about 50 yards away from our camp and was pursuing it with all the passion of a 300 pound NFL lineman pounding after a skinny quarterback behind the line of scrimmage. Dirt and rocks were flying everywhere. After about five minutes, the marmot poked its head up out of another hole a few feet behind the frenzied bear, watched with interest for a minute or so, and then whistled. The grizzly whirled and leapt in one blinding motion but the marmot was faster. Once again the air was clouded with flying debris as the frustrated bear doubled its efforts. Three minutes later the marmot poked his head out from yet another hole and whistled again. I swear it was playing with the bear. “Come on over here big boy.” 

Tracy, Margaret and I didn’t wait to see whether our irate friend found its marmot. We quietly exited stage left.

My next post will involve two more encounters. Both were much more close and personal than the one described above. In the first, I am stalked by a grizzly bear. In the second I work to persuade an Alaska brown bear I am not a menu item.

Peggy and I are now exploring Northern Ireland as part of our two month jaunt through Greece, Scotland and Ireland. This is a photo from one of the beautiful, glacier created nine valleys coming down from the Antrim Plateau to the Irish Sea. The one we chose to hike up is known as The Queen of the Glens for its tumbling waterfalls. There were several in the section we explored. This coming week, we will be in a remote farm house, apparently without wi-fi or phone service!

UT-OH Tales: The Beaver’s Revenge

/ Curt Mekemson / 13 Comments

Peggy and I are off journeying through Greece, Scotland and Ireland over the next several weeks, so there won’t be much time for blogging. I’ve decided to republish some of my favorite posts from the past 15 years that will eventually make it into UT-OH!.

Today’s post is about a solo backpacking trip I took in 1986 into the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming. After three years of intense work in Alaska, I was taking six months off to go on solo adventures throughout the West. Several involved backpacking trips. This week, I am going to feature trips into the Wind River Mountains, the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico, and the Grand Canyon of Arizona. All involved worthy Ut-Oh experiences. A beaver stars in today’s tale.

‘Busy as a beaver’ was once a common description of someone trying to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Beavers are known for their industrious ways. Peggy and I took this photo on one of our trips up and down the Alaska Highway. A colony of beavers had dammed this creek to create a pond for their home, which you can see out in the background.

The adventure started at the small town of Pinedale, Wyoming where Mountain Men once gathered for their version of a spring fling. After a winter of living alone in one room cabins covered in snow while they trapped beaver, it was time to sell the pelts they had collected and party! Think rotgut whiskey, Virginia tobacco and women. It was a wild time. One report I read had men playing poker on a deadman’s chest. Another talked of a rabid wolf that wandered into the event and bit several people before someone shot it.

From Pinedale I drove up into the mountains above the town to Fremont Lake. A trailhead to a small lake looked promising. Whether I arrived at the lake or a different one is open to debate.

To start with, I was traveling with a United States Forest Service map instead of my usual detailed topographic maps. Contour lines on topographic maps provide a preview of the route ahead and help identify prominent landmarks. You can then use the landmarks to make compass sightings and determine your location. (Today’s hikers just use their GPS. It wasn’t an option then.) Forest service maps are more oriented toward road travel. Still, my map would have been adequate except for the snow.

Whatever trail I was following quickly disappeared. Normally, I would have searched around and found it. Tree blazes, rock cairns, and patches of clear ground all help. This time I didn’t care.

I was a make-believe mountain man exploring uncharted territory in search of beaver. My route would be the one of least resistance. I did use my compass to maintain a general direction. There is a significant difference between being sort of lost and hopelessly lost.

A couple of hours later I discovered a lovely small lake free of ice and snow. I set up camp and went for a quick dip to rinse off the day’s grime. I can guarantee it was quick because the lake’s water had been snow a few hours earlier.

Warm sun and my Thermarest air mattress enticed me into taking advantage of my splendid isolation for a tad of nude sunbathing. I had drifted into a nap when a young couple walked into camp.

The woman’s surprised “Oh!” woke me up.

“Hi, how are you doing,” I said to their disappearing backs as they quickly made their way around to the opposite shore to set up camp out of sight. So much for splendid isolation…

I decided to go exploring. My camp was nestled up against the south side of a peninsula and my first action was to hike across it. Much to my delight, a beaver hut was located on the small inlet. Even more intriguing, Mother Nature had provided a tempting bridge of rocks out to the well-built stick house.

Never having stood on top of a beaver’s home, I decided why not.

The inhabitant was not pleased. He shot out of his underwater door and surfaced about ten feet out, whipping around to glare at the strange intruder roosting on top of his house. Appearing disgruntled, he paddled off around the peninsula toward my camp.

“Aha,” I fantasized, “he is going to go stand on top of my tent to show me what it is like to have someone perch on your house.” I quietly made my way over the peninsula to check out my theory.

The beaver was indeed near my tent but he was busily munching away on tender young willow shoots. A mid-afternoon snack, it seems, was more important than revenge. I strolled back to camp, retrieved a book and settled in so I could read and keep a watchful eye on my gnawing neighbor. Thirty minutes later he had made his way 20 yards down the edge of the lake and embarked on a strange project.

I watched him dive under the water and resurface with his front paws full of mud he had scooped up from the bottom of the lake. He made his way on to shore and carefully sculpted the mud into a mound.

That’s when things got really interesting. He peed on his pile.

As I watched him dive into the water for more mud, it suddenly dawned on me he was creating a scent pile, a personal want ad of the woods: “Strong young beaver with prominent buck teeth and great smelling pee seeks beaverette for long-term relationship.”

Either that or his mound served as a no trespassing sign for the competition. Maybe both.

“This,” I thought, “I have to see up close.” Using the young willows for cover, I got down on my hands and knees and carefully worked my way toward the beaver over the cold, soggy ground. The mountain men would have been proud of me. I was proud of me.

Naturally, right at this time, the young couple chose to reappear.

They couldn’t see the beaver. All they could see was the guy who had been nude an hour earlier down on his hands and knees crawling through the willows in the general direction of their camp. I waved and pointed at the beaver but they had already disappeared.

Fifteen minutes later they had packed up their gear and were hightailing it home. It was the fasted job of breaking camp I’ve ever witnessed.  It would have been interesting to hear the story they told their friends about the wild, and possibly deranged, man in the mountains. I suspect they spent their next vacation on the crowded beaches of Hawaii. I admit to feeling a tinge of guilt. One of my goals in life is to encourage folks to enjoy the wilderness, not frighten them off.

None of this stopped the beaver and me from enjoying our solitude. I continued my wandering, lost ways for another week.

Several beavers were at work at the Alaska Highway pond. This one was pushing a tree trunk to add to the dam. I watched him stop and nibble on the trunk, eating while he worked.

NEXT POST: Backpacking in the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico, I am charged by a herd of elk! But first, I had a long discussion with a cow elk.

Elk are large animals. When several decide to charge you at once, it’s an UT-OH! moment for sure. I took this photo at Pt. Reyes National Seashore. Unlike the elk I encountered in New Mexico, these guys were merely curious. Dealing with people was a daily, ho-hum, occurrence for them.

My first backpacking trip wasn’t in the Wind Rivers or Gila River, it was hiking into the Grand Canyon. It’s UT-OH! is the tale of a tail. And surviving.

There are several ways to explore the Grand Canyon. Over the years, I’ve tried most of them. My first trip in was by mule in the late 60s. I’m second from the top in this photo with a dark, plaid shirt and sunglasses. I could barely walk afterwards. The physical challenge was nothing in comparison to my solo backpack trip down in 1986. The great beauty of the Canyon, fascinating geology and close to mystical setting easily made up for difficulty, however.

UT-OH Tales… The Story of How Bone Was Found: Part 1

/ Curt Mekemson / 7 Comments

Peggy and I are off journeying through Greece, Scotland and Ireland over the next several weeks, so there won’t be much time for blogging. I’ll be sharing some of my favorite posts from the past 16 years that may eventually make it into UT-OH!.

Today’s post will kick off the tale of how Bone was originally found in a mountain meadow 49 years ago south of Lake Tahoe when he was still just a bone. For those of you who have been following Wandering through Time and Place for a while, you’ll be familiar with the slightly whacky, opinionated Bone. If you aren’t, he’s weird but fun, an antidote for our present weird but not so fun world.

Bone in his Bone Cave.
Here he is with some of his companions. They like to dress up. Bone is on the left riding on the back of his best bud, Eeyore, who once saved him from hanging in Tombstone, Arizona. Next to him is his wife, the lovely Bonetta. He found her in a Florida swamp. They were married at Burning Man. On the right is George the Bush Devil. He is featured on the front of my book about the Peace Corps, The Bush Devil Ate Sam. Bone borrowed the masks from Peggy. This assemblage looks like it is right out of a horror movie, or a voodoo ceremony. Bone loved it. (Not shown: Baby Bone.)

It was the summer of 1977 and my wife was divorcing me. Apparently I lacked in stability, or at least in the desire to pursue the Great American Dream. She was right of course. I had absolutely zero desire to live in a large house in the suburbs. None of this made the divorce easy. I had been prepared to spend my life as a happily married man. (As I am today! Thank you, Peggy.)

To keep my mind occupied, I was working on the route for the Fourth Annual Sierra Trek, a challenging, nine-day 100-mile backpack trip in the Sierra Nevada Mountains that I had created as a pledge-based fund-raiser for the American Lung Association in Sacramento.

“So what’s your problem?” my friend Tom Lovering asked over a beer at the Fox and Goose Restaurant in Sacramento. He’d been-there-done-that with divorce and dated a number of women since. Tom owned Alpine West, an outdoor/wilderness store in Sacramento, and sponsored the Sierra Trek. His store was upstairs from the restaurant.

Tom, Bone and I are in front of the Fox and Goose at 10th and R Street in Sacramento in 2018, 41 years after Bone was found. Tom owned the Alpine West backpacking and wilderness specialty store at this location in 1977. Both the Goose and the Fox appear quite interested in Bone. It’s possible that the fox was thinking ‘food.’

I had persuaded Tom to go backpacking with me for six days to preview a section of the new route. Our plan was to start near Meeks Bay, Lake Tahoe and work our way southward 70 miles following the Tahoe-Yosemite Trail.

Tom had invited his girlfriend, Lynn, and Lynn was bringing along her friend Terry. Terry was nice, but not my type.

“I have a friend named April who wants to go backpacking,” Tom offered. “Why don’t I invite her to go as well? Maybe you two will hit it off.” The implication was it would help me get over the pending divorce.

A friend drove the five of us up to Meeks Bay. April was gorgeous and Tom was right. I followed her long legs and short shorts up the trail. My gloomy focus on the Soon-to-Be-Ex faded like a teenager’s blue jeans.

Hot feet and screaming fat cells were even more potent in forcing me to live, or at least suffer, in the moment. As usual, I’d done nothing to physically prepare for the first backpack trip of the season and I was paying the price.

We climbed a thousand feet and traveled six miles to reach our first night’s destination at Stony Ridge Lake. I crashed while Tom broke out some exotic concoction of potent alcohol made out of 190 proof ever-clear alcohol and Galliano Liqueur.

The Desolation Wilderness west of Lake Tahoe is filled with numerous small glacier-carved lakes and gorgeous granite peaks. This is Susie Lake.

After consuming enough of his ‘medicine’ to persuade my fat cells they had found Nirvana, I fired up my trusty Svea stove and started cooking our freeze-dried dinner. It wasn’t hard. Boil water, throw in noodles, add a packet of mystery ingredients, stir for ten minutes and pray that whatever you have created is edible. That night it didn’t matter.

Afterwards, we headed for our beds. The next day would be long. I slid into my down-filled mummy bag and looked up at what seemed like a million stars. There were no city lights or pollution to block my view and the moon had yet to appear.

I traced an imaginary line from the Big Dipper and found the North Star. It seemed far too faint for its illustrious history. A shooting star briefly captured my attention. Thoughts of divorce, short shorts, the next day’s route, a rock digging into my butt, and sore feet jostled around in my mind for attention.

Sleep finally crept into the bag and captured me.

Next Post: Tom flunks map reading 101.

UT-OH! Chapter 22: The Pick-Ax Caper Where a Beaver Loses Its Head (sort of)

/ Curt Mekemson / 7 Comments

My college education consisted of two very different experiences. The first was at Sierra Community College, which had a student population of around 1600 students in 1961. The second was at UC Berkeley with a population of over 30,000 plus. I’m glad I went to Sierra first. Berkeley was complicated. It was easy for a country boy to get lost. 

I knew all of my professors at Sierra and a significant portion of the students. I even ended up as Student Body President my sophomore year. There were a variety of projects I undertook. The weirdest was responsibility for a pick-ax. Our cross-town rival was American River College in Sacramento. Like most such rivalries, ours was consummated in an annual football game. The winner received undying glory— and the coveted Pick-ax.

“Why a pick-ax?” I had asked. Who wouldn’t? I was told it was because of the area’s 49er heritage. Northern California is steeped in history of the 1849 Gold Rush. Picks, along with shovels and gold pans, were the go-to tools that miners wielded in their endless search for gold. The gold discovery site at Sutter’s Mill, Coloma was a mere 30 miles from campus.

The day before a football game with A.R., a bonfire rally was held on campus. A local lumber company in Auburn, Cal-Ida, provided the lumber and a truck to haul it. One of my jobs as president was to drive it. “You will have to post a guard at the bonfire site, Curt,” the Dean of the college told me. “American River might try to light the wood in advance of the rally.” The two women who appear to be beating back the crowd are actually cheerleaders setting the mood for the game. (Photo from the 1963 Annual of Sierra College.)
The 1962 Executive Council at Sierra College. I’m in the upper row second from left. (Photo from the 1963 Annual of Sierra College.)

We had won the previous year’s game so we had the Pick-ax. It was my sacred responsibility to carry it to the game. A special ceremony would be held during A.R.’s Homecoming Dance where we would formally give up or retain the Ax depending on who won. One more thing: In addition to possibly lighting our bonfire early, there was a good chance that A.R. would try to steal the Ax. It was a tradition between the two colleges: Whoever lost it tried to steal it back. My job was to protect it— with my life if necessary, I was informed.

I recruited a few guys to help with the protection detail including my friend Hunt Warner. He’s on the lower right. Hunt, with my encouragement, had run for and won the Freshman Class Presidency. These were his fellow officers. In the small world category, it was Hunt who had hosted the beer party the night I was called away to fight the forest fire. Brian Morris, sitting next to him, was stepson of Mike DeNatly, Placerville’s Chief of Police who had threatened me with arrest the day of my graduation from high school. (Photo from the 1963 Annual of Sierra College.)

To reduce the possibility of theft, we arrived a few minutes before the game was supposed to start, and moved watchfully along the walkway in front of the stands. I was surrounded by muscle power and carried the Ax firmly in my hands. About half way down walkway, my former girlfriend from high school, D, was sitting in the front row. After graduating from high school, she had come to Sierra, too, and was a freshman. 

“Hi, Curt,” she greeted me with a large smile. I swear she was purring. Instant regrets of lost opportunities and more than a little guilt played tag among my memory cells. “Can I see the Pick-ax?” she asked.

“No, sorry D,” I responded. “I am supposed to protect it with my life.”

“Oh come on,” she urged, “what possible harm can it do?”

I gave in. What harm could it do? UT-OH!

I must admit the theft was neatly planned. The guy sitting next to her grabbed the Pick-ax, leapt over the railing, and handed it off to another guy who was waiting. That guy dashed across the field with a burst of speed that almost guaranteed he was the anchor on A.R.’s championship relay team.

My security team jumped the rail in hot pursuit, but they didn’t stand a chance. They were recruited for their size, not speed. By the time they reached the opposite bleachers, the Pick-ax had disappeared into an ocean of A.R. supporters. A thousand voices roared approval. Pursuing the ax would have been suicidal.

Well, needless to say, I felt terrible. I had failed in my duty, been done in by a pretty smile.

At half time, the A.R. mascot, who happened to be a diminutive woman dressed up as a beaver, came prancing over to our side of the stands, taunting us with the fact A.R. had stolen the Ax. She strolled by and flipped me off with her tail.

“Grab the Beaver.” I ordered my muscle men in a moment of sheer inspiration. And they did— gently.

“Let go of me you son-of-a-bitching goons,” she screamed in un-lady like beaver prose. The air turned blue.

“Gnaw on it, Beaver,” I growled as I took hold of her papier-mâché head and lifted it off. The invective level increased tenfold. The little Beaverette had an incredible vocabulary.

“Quick,” I urged Hunt, “make this beaver head disappear for the time being.”

We lost the game, I am not sorry to say. Had we won, my losing the Pick-ax would have been a much more serious crime, punishable by banishment from Sierra. As it was, A.R. had simply obtained the Ax an hour early. And I had the beaver head— well hidden.

I made my way through the dispersing crowd to the dance. The floor was already packed with gyrating Beavers. The bandleader willingly turned over his microphone when I looked official and said that I had an important announcement to make.

“Hello everyone, my name is Curtis Mekemson and I am President of the Student Body of Sierra College,” I jumped in. There was immediate silence. “I came here to present you with your Ax but you already have it.” (Laughter) “But,” I went on with a pregnant pause, “I have your Beaver Head.” (More laughter)

The crowd was in a good mood. They had won the game and could afford to be generous to this enemy within their midst.

“Getting it was not easy. Do you have any idea of the extended vocabulary of your Beaverette?” (Extensive laughter) “I do, however, wish to apologize to her and note that the language was justified.  Having your head ripped off is never a pleasant experience. As for my defense, she flapped her tail at me one too many times. In wrapping this up, I have a proposition for you. Do you want your beaver head back?”

“YES!” was the resounding answer.

“Okay,” I replied. “If you will send an appropriate delegation up to Sierra next Wednesday at noon, I will personally return the head.”

That was that. Arrangements were made for A.R. to appear at the Sierra College Campus Center the following week. The day came and the Center was packed. I had turned the head over to our cafeteria staff for a special presentation.

The A.R. delegation showed up at noon on the dot. I welcomed them to our campus, complimented them on their victory and encouraged them to enjoy the Pick-ax for the short year they would have it. I also urged they keep it well guarded.

“And now,” I announced, “it is time to bring out the Beaver Head.”

Out from the cafeteria came a formal procession, complete with the campus cook and her assistants. The Beaver Head had been carefully arranged on a huge platter that included all of the trimmings for a feast. The piece-de-resistance was an apple carefully inserted into the Beaver’s mouth, like a roasted pig. Needless to say, a great time was had by all, including the A.R. delegation.

D’s revenge over my dropping her in high school, and my debacle with the Pick-ax had been turned into a minor victory, for both of us.

On Monday’s post we will continue to share stories from our visit to Costa Rica in March. The focus will be on our trip over to Fortuna at the base of Mt. Arenal, a now quiet volcano, and one of the main tourist attractions in the area. The Lava Lounge, on the right, however, is a good reminder that building your town on the edge of an active volcano is something akin to keeping a live rattlesnake for a pet.

Chapter 19: Graduate or Go to Jail. I Was Given a Choice.

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The Main Street of Placerville looks pretty much the same today as it did in 1961. The Chief of Police pulled our car over on the right hand side of the street here. The incident took place near the red hotel building, a block or so down the road.

If I was going to base my future on my organizational skills, I had to practice, right? So, I organized a protest my senior year. As a 60’s issue, it wasn’t a biggie. The Administration had axed our Senior Ditch Day and we wanted it back. 

I drew up a petition and Patti Foley, who had great calligraphy, made it fancy. Almost all of the seniors signed.  (I still have it.)  A student strike was organized. I’m sure it was the first time El Dorado Union High School students had even considered such an action, Mabe even the last. Some of our rowdier students even lit trash cans on fire. 

It wasn’t the issue that got me threatened with jail, however. The school administration called me in and asked if we couldn’t work out some type of compromise on Senior Ditch Day, which I readily agreed to. The strike was called off, the rowdies stopped lighting trash cans on fire, and we switched our Ditch Day to one more agreeable to the Administration. Everyone won. My civics teacher was impressed. 

My problem with the law took place on Graduation Day when I inadvertently (or is that idiotically) crossed paths with Mike De Natly, the Placerville Chief of Police. Few of my UT-OH! moments can hold a candle to this one. As one might expect, our last day of high school was a goof off day. All the tests were over, yearbooks signed, and caps and gowns fitted. There really wasn’t much to do except revel in the fact that we were through and to say goodbye to friends. Lunchtime meant a final cruise of Placerville’s Main Street to check out girls, to see and be seen.

What happened was out of character for me. I normally keep my comments on other peoples’ driving habits to myself and car-mates. The horn is for really bad infractions, and, on very rare occasions, a single digit comment is appropriate. I would never stick my head out the window and yell at someone. That can get you shot.

But we were hot stuff on graduation day. When a blue car decided to stop in the middle of Placerville’s crowded, narrow downtown street right in front of us and forced us to hit our brakes, it irritated me. And then, the driver nonchalantly got out to have a conversation with the driver of the car in front of him. It pushed me over the edge. Out went my head as we edged around the two cars and I had an attack of uncontrollable Y chromosome aggression.

“You SOB,” I yelled, “get your F-ing car out of the way!”

So what if I didn’t recognize the Chief of Police out of uniform in an unmarked car. So what if he had stopped to offer help to a guy who had managed to stall his car on Placerville’s busy Main Street. So what if I had suggested he had canine parentage in a voice that half of Placerville heard. It was an innocent mistake.

“That was Mike De Natly you just cussed out,” our driver managed to stutter with mixed parts of fear and awe.

As a teenager, I had pulled some fairly dumb stunts. Teenagers have a responsibility to push the envelope. It’s the rather awkward method evolution has provided for growing up and developing unique personalities. Mistakes are bound to happen and that’s okay. But I was carrying my responsibility too far; I had gone beyond dumb and plunged into really stupid.

“Keep driving,” I uttered with all the hope of the irrevocably damned, “maybe he is too busy and will ignore us.”

Sure, like maybe the sun won’t rise tomorrow. The poor stalled guy could still be sitting in the middle of Placerville for all of the attention the police chief paid to him after my little admonition. De Natly jumped in his car, slapped his flashing light on his roof, hit his siren and sped after us. Not that he needed to speed fast or far. We were creeping up Main Street in sheer terror about one block away. I am sure my car-mates were wishing fervently that Curt Mekemson hadn’t gotten out of bed that morning, had never made their acquaintance, and was, at that very moment, facing a group of starving cannibals in some far-off jungle.

We pulled over with De Natly literally parked on our rear bumper and resigned ourselves to the firing squad. Luckily, for my friends, the Chief had no interest in them. He appeared at my window red-faced and shouting about five inches away. Under the best of circumstances, he was known for having a temper and these were not the best of circumstances.

“Get out of the car,” he yelled. “Get out right now!”

I moved fast. This was not the time for bravery and stubbornness. It was a time to be humble— it was groveling time. And I groveled with the best. I blathered out apologies and managed to work “sir” into every sentence, several times. I trotted out my friendship with his stepson, I threw in the City Treasurer who was a mentor, and I even brought in Father Baskin, the Episcopal minister, as a character reference.

“Get in my car,” he ordered. My groveling seemed to be having minimal impact. At least he hadn’t handcuffed me.

We drove up to City Hall, and I had visions of being booked and thrown into a cell with some big hulking giant who either didn’t like young men or liked them too much. I thought of having to call my parents and explain how their son had become a common criminal. But De Natly had an even more diabolical plan in mind. We slowly made a turn through the jail parking lot to give me a sense of my future fate and then, to my surprise, hopped on Highway 50 to Canal Street and drove up to the high school. 

I was going to have to explain my actions to the principal. My chances of graduating that night slipped down a notch. I doubted that he would have much of a sense of humor about one of his students cussing out the Chief of Police. But explaining my inexplicable actions to him would have been mercy in comparison to what happened.

It was a beautiful late spring day, this last day of school, and it seemed like half of the student body and a significant portion of teachers were enjoying their lunches on the expansive lawn in front of the school. De Natly pulled up to the sidewalk beside the lawn and ordered me out. The Chief of Police arriving with me in tow was enough to capture the attention of several students sitting close by. Then he made sure that everyone was aware of our presence.

“Do you want to spend the night in jail or graduate, Curtis?” he asked in a voice that was easily equivalent in volume to the one that I had used in suggesting he move his car. Conversation on the lawn came to a dead halt. Every ear in the place homed in on us with the intensity that a cat reserves for a potential mouse dinner. And I was the mouse. This was a Kodak moment, not to be missed. 

My answer was easy: Of course, I wanted to graduate, SIR. And so it went, De Natly barking questions with the voice of an army sergeant and me responding as the lowest of recruits. Finally, after a few minutes that felt like eternity, the Chief got in his car and drove away. 

I was left to deal with the not so gentle humor of the students and faculty plus a principal who wasn’t quite sure whether he should take over where De Natly left off or laugh at my predicament. At least he had the grace to wait until I left his office before he chose the latter. I could hear his laughter echoing down the empty hallways. And yes, I was allowed to graduate that night.

UT-OH! Chapter 18: Bleeding Like a Speared Mammoth, I Make Important Career Decisions…

/ Curt Mekemson / 27 Comments
Woolly mammoth in snow with spear in side and cavemen running behind
UT-OH! Thanks AI. Unfortunately, mammoths disappeared before I could photograph them.

I’ve never required much help in eliminating options from my life. Chemistry was like that. Lab work and I don’t get along as a general rule. I quickly learned in high school that I am not particularly fond of cutting up long dead frogs pickled in formaldehyde or mixing chemicals that smell worse than an old dog’s fart. But there is more to it than that: I am convinced that good lab technicians enjoy putting things together, taking them apart, tinkering, and fixing things. As a general rule, I don’t. 

For example, I knew kids in high school who loved working on automobiles.  Ask them anything about carburetors, water pumps, generators, horsepower or timing and they had a ready answer. They couldn’t wait to get their hands covered in grease. I admired them for it, but my interest in carburetors was zilch. My primary interest in automobiles was that they get me from point A to point B without breaking down. Still is

My hobbies as a kid reflected this. Building model ships, airplanes, cars, trains, etc. had no interest for me. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate the results, some were mind-blowing in their detail and realistic look, but my concept of a great hobby was rock collecting. I would pick up interesting rocks on my excursions into the surrounding country until all four pockets were bulging and my pants about to fall off. I would then go home and smash them apart with a hammer to figure out what I had found. Geology became a life-long interest.

I do understand the arguments for being able to fix things: saving money, being self-sufficient, and obtaining satisfaction from a job well done, not to mention being manly. These same arguments, however, apply to going out in the pasture, shooting Elsie the Cow, skinning and gutting her, bringing home the meat, grinding it up, and throwing it on the grill. Just think of the satisfaction involved and dollars saved! Or you can go to the local fast-food joint and help employ a kid who might otherwise turn to a life of crime.

Now, back to chemistry and lab work. One day we had to shove little glass tubes through rubber stoppers. Apparently, this is an important skill for budding chemists. It’s not a difficult task if you ignore the fact that the holes in the stoppers are significantly smaller than the diameter of the glass tubes and, more importantly, have a gallon of Vaseline. I was half way through my first masterpiece when the damn tube broke and ended up jabbed into my hand. Bleeding like a speared mammoth, I was carted off to the emergency room of the local hospital and sewn up. 

My attitude toward chemistry was already iffy. With the accident, it dropped faster than it took me to hit the ground in my fall from the pear tree. Higher math created another challenge.

There’s an old adage that we are supposed to work hard at those things we find difficult, that it gives us character. My belief is that I already have plenty of character. If I had any more, little men in white coats would be chasing me with nets. I prefer to spend my energy on things I enjoy, like reading a good book or hiking in the wilderness. Or writing. I have little tolerance for doing things that I don’t do well or fail to interest me. In other words, the Protestant Ethic and I have serious compatibility problems.

But I can be stubborn. Math is a good example. In the fourth grade I discovered that long division was nasty. I got beyond that, but word problems gave me a complex. Two trains are hurtling at each other on the same track with Train A going 90 miles per hour and Train B going 70. They are 252.5296 miles apart. How long will it be before the Train A engineer says, “Ooooh shit!”

“At the same time as the Train B engineer does,” was my answer.

But not nearly as soon as I did. My own expletive arrived on my lips .0000001 seconds after seeing the problem on the blackboard. I concentrated on sending the teacher vibes. “Curt is not here today. You do not see Curt. You will not call on Curt.” But I continued plugging away at math and did fine in grade school. I even managed to ace Algebra I and Geometry. Algebra II was different. That’s when I ran head on into Miss Kaste. It was not a pleasant experience.

Miss Kaste, according to those who were seriously into math, was very good at what she did. Students leaving her class were reputed to have a solid foundation in the basics and be well prepared to move on to the ethereal worlds of calculus and trigonometry.

Basics, I quickly learned, meant that there was one way of coming up with answers and that way was chiseled in stone. One did not diverge from accepted formulas or leave out steps. Right answers obtained the wrong way were wrong answers. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

This created a problem. I had a true talent for coming up with right answers in my own way and this brought me unwanted attention. I could have lived with that except for another problem, Miss Kaste’s teaching technique. She oozed sarcasm. She made people cry. My response was to freeze up or act like a clown. I couldn’t tolerate it— or her. Math was eliminated from my future.

Once again, it speaks to the power of teachers to turn students on, or off, to various subjects. I wasn’t a total dunce at math. Ironically, I scored in the 95th percentile on the Iowa Test in math the same year. Theoretically, that placed me in the top five percent of math students. I wasn’t a genius, but I could have/should have done better.

There was plenty of time while sitting in ER bleeding to contemplate my future as a scientist. My conclusion: there wasn’t one. Even though I enjoyed botany and geology, I decided that the best way to avoid long-dead animals, smelly chemicals, labs and math would be to choose a career that depended on subjects I enjoyed, and made use of my verbal ability and organizational skills.

Looking back, (hindsight, mind you), I am not too surprised about the paths I chose to follow in my life. They were right for me. No regrets. But given I’ve always found science enjoyable from a lay perspective as an adult, I sometimes regret I didn’t obtain a better background in high school and college. My bad.

Next Post: Join us on Monday as we return to visiting with the Montezuma Oropendola and other birds of Costa Rica.

UT-OH! Chapter 17: A Pear Picker’s Guide to Happiness

/ Curt Mekemson / 10 Comments
Ladder beneath ripe pears hanging from branches in a pear orchard
This is what you see when you are 5-6 steps down on a 12 or 14 foot pear ladder. Now, imagine climbing up and balancing one step from the top to reach pears in the top of the tree. UT-OH! (I’ve gone over to the dark side here. This is an AI generated picture. My challenge, as always when writing about my youth, is that the photos were few and far between. That’s hard to fathom in the digital age, when I can easily take more photos in one day that I have from the first 20 years of my life. When I pushed the key that asked WP to produce an AI photo for this post, it read my blog and came up with three good suggestions. That may be scarier than standing on the second step! It didn’t catch, however, that the ladder only had three legs. Maybe there is hope.

A number of things combined to pull me out of the puberty blues. For one, I ceased being a freshman. Hormones slowed down, my voice abandoned octave leaps, and I bought a pair of contact lenses. Academics were a plus, even during my freshman year. Lacking a social life, I studied full-time and managed to pull straight A’s. If I couldn’t be ‘ruler of everything,’ ‘sex symbol’ or ‘sports hero,’ maybe I could at least be ‘the brain.’ Was I driven or what?

I also believe that having a job helped. I began working in the pear orchards around Placerville starting the summer of my eighth-grade graduation and continuing through high school. It was a nine hour a day job of hard physical work, one more fit for an adult than a 14-year-old. Dealing with the 90-105° F summer heat of the Sierra foothills didn’t help. But I actually enjoyed the work. And the money. The general rule in our cash poor family was that the basics were covered. We were responsible for the extras, such as dates.

In addition to being hard, there was also an element of danger. Pear picking consisted of hazardous duty without hazardous pay. We were each given a 12-foot ladder, a sizing ring, and as many boxes as we could fill. The pears we plucked from the trees were placed in a canvas bag that fit around our front like a pregnant belly and carried up to 50 pounds. We had the option of working by the hour at $.90 per hour or by the box at $.20 per box. I opted for the per box under the assumption I could earn more.

The ladder was a suicidal three-legged device with two legs playing standard ladder while the third served as the balancing arm we threw out to provide ‘stability.’ I use the quote marks here because the stability was questionable. There was always a chance that you, your bag of pears, and the ladder would come crashing down. The first few rungs were solid; it was on the top four that life became interesting. Even here it was tolerably safe, assuming you focused on easily reachable pears.

The problem was that the best pears had a way of hiding away in the highest, most unreachable part of the tree.  Such premium fruit couldn’t be left hanging, even if it meant taking risks. At least that’s how my ut-oh mind functioned. It was nothing that the boss required. Success meant performing a one-legged-ballet-balancing act. I became quite proficient at the move. Only once did I reach beyond the imagination of my ladder and follow a rapid descent path straight to the ground. Fortunately, the only limbs broken belonged to the tree. I wrote the experience off as a lesson in Newtonian physics.

A greater challenge was entertaining myself for nine hours a day. Reaching out and picking a pear requires a minimum number of brain cells and very few of those are located in the frontal lobes. My favorite ploy was singing at the top of my voice. Harry Bellefonte’s tune about picking bananas was a natural. I adapted it to picking pears. But I also belted out many other popular tunes of the day.  “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight” was a mistake. I couldn’t get it out of my mind; I would wake up in the middle of the night humming it. To this day I have to be careful in bringing it up or it is right back there on the tip of my tongue, waiting to escape. Like now:

“Does your chewing gum lose its flavor
On the bedpost overnight?
If your mother says don’t chew it,
Do you swallow it in spite?
Can you catch it on your tonsils,
Can you heave it left & right?
Does your chewing gum lose its flavor
On the bedpost overnight?”

A more productive form of amusement was challenging myself to pear picking contests. The more I picked the more money I made. When the fruit was plentiful and well sized, I could pick 60-80 boxes a day and earn big money, $12-$16. By the way, that seemingly measly sum is the equivalent of $130 to $180 today. Once I even reached a magical 100 boxes. My goal was to try to match the professional pickers, the folks who made a living helping harvest crops. On really good days, I could. 

Over my five-year career in the pear orchards I worked with Filipino crews, Braceros, and the usual contingent of semi-nomadic types who followed the various crops as they ripened from state to state. Most were good, even excellent workers. Of course, there was also the occasional guy who worked just long enough to buy a gallon of Red Mountain Wine and then disappear.

After my first year of working in the fruit orchards, I graduated to swamper status, which meant I delivered empty boxes to the pear pickers and took out their full boxes. I also learned such fine skills as tractor driving, tree trimming, sprinkler changing, post hole digging and crew bossing. And, I might add, enjoyed most of it. There is a certain satisfaction that comes from doing hard work, challenging your body, and being dead-tired at night. 

I also gained a farmer’s satisfaction that comes from seeing a crop evolve from spring bloom to fall harvest. And finally, as my pear orchard responsibilities increased, the work helped me overcome the puberty blues and regain my confidence. Becoming buff and tanned didn’t hurt either. Working in the orchard with my shirt off, picking pears and stacking 50-pound boxes above my head on a truck guaranteed a tan to die for and muscles from my big toes to my hair follicles. 

Almost on cue, girls reappeared in my life, with Paula being an example. Admittedly it was a slow process, in fact far too slow for my hormone driven fantasies. But there the girls were, tentatively giving me the eye and practicing a wiggle or two to see if anyone was home. There was. Down boy.

Next Monday’s Post: A jay by any other name is still a jay, plus 7 other interesting and fun birds of Costa Rica. This is Costa Rica’s Grey Headed Jay suggesting I don’t interfere with its breakfast.
Grand Tetons National Park: Next Wednesday, April 22 is special. It’s Earth Day 56. Please join me as I take you back to April 22, 1970 where I participated in Earth Day 1 on the Davis Campus of the University of California. Earth Day 1 changed my life and helped to change the world. Its message today is as relevant as ever, and possibly even more so, as so many of the gains we have made are now under threat.

UT-OH! Chapter 16: On First Dates and Squashed Skunks

/ Curt Mekemson / 8 Comments
At this point, just beyond the speed limit sign, I ran over a skunk in the summer of 1958, undoubtably impressing the young woman I was on a date with.

As I suggested in Chapter 14, my freshman year of high school was something of a disaster. My social life tanked, dance class sucked, my political aspirations were reduced to running a friend’s campaign for class president, and my success in sports was mediocre, at best. My short legs and I suffered through a season of cross country running where I was lucky to finish in the middle of the pack. 

Things had to improve. 

Do you remember your first date in high school? Was it a roaring success, so-so, or an unmitigated disaster? How about off-the-scale weird? That describes mine. I had a double date with Paula, Mom and Boyfriend. And I ran over a skunk. It happened during the summer between my freshman and sophomore year.

It started with Paula calling me. There was no way I would have called her. Girls still left me quaking in my tennis shoes. ‘Curt, would you like to go to dinner with me in Sutter Creek?’ Sutter creek was a town in Amador County, about 20 miles away from Diamond Springs over curvy Highway 49. It would be a double date with her mother and her boyfriend. That seemed strange, but somebody had to drive. How could I say no…

I remember very little about the drive or dinner— other than it was at an Italian restaurant. After we had our fill of spaghetti and conversation, we returned to the car. I had visions of sitting in the back and snuggling up with Paula on the way back to Diamond.

Mom and Boyfriend had another idea. They hopped into the back seat and promptly told me, “You can drive home, Curt!” Like they were offering me the opportunity of a life time. It did away with my bold plans. But there was more… 

“Um,” I noted nervously, “I only have a learner’s permit.”

“That’s okay, it will be good practice,” Mom jumped in before I could add that I had only obtained it four days before.

Paula, meanwhile, was waiting for me to open the door for her on the passenger side of the car. It was a plot. She gave me a dazzling smile— and my options dropped to zero. Any further hesitation would be ‘unmanly.’ After doing the gentlemanly thing for Paula, I dutifully climbed into the driver’s seat and miraculously found the keyhole and lights. Gear grinding got us out of town and onto the open road. I breathed an audible sigh of relief. It was short lived. We had just made it past the small town of Plymouth and were on our way down to the Consumnes River when I ran over the skunk.

If you drive a lot on country roads in skunk country, you’ve probably noticed that dead skunks are a significant part of road kill. It goes beyond the fact that they are easily recognized by their smell. There really are lots of them. The primary reason for this is that they believe they are omnipotent. Who in his right mind will hassle a skunk? It’s like petting a porcupine or teasing a rhino.

Unfortunately, skunks fail to recognize the damage a 3000-pound vehicle can do, and how difficult it is to stop, or even swerve when traveling 60 miles per hour or more. Last, but far from least, they don’t realize how easily drivers become distracted. A teenage boy just learning how to drive with an attractive girl sitting next to him is an excellent example.

While my encounter with the skunk was in the summer, the most likely time to find them crossing the road is in late winter or early spring. This is when the males come out of hibernation and go in search of true love, or, at least, sex. The Loony Tunes cartoon character of yore, Pepé Le Pew comes to mind. Skunks are willing to travel 4-6 miles to find a hot date. This often means crossing a road with a focus that has nothing to do with fast moving vehicles. Not being able to see clearly beyond 10 feet doesn’t help either. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. And it may all be for naught. Females often reject would-be suitors as poor material for contributing sperm for future generations, or for some other skunk-ish reason. The rejection is brutal. They have a particularly potent form of spray they reserve for the purpose. “Try to climb on me. Ha. Take that you skunk!”

The skunk I ran over had a similar reaction. He reeked revenge in his final seconds by becoming a virtuoso of glandular activity.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Boyfriend said as the first powerful whiffs of eau de skunk came blasting through the air vents. “It happens all of the time.”

“Yeah, sure,” I mumbled to myself through tongue-biting teeth, “young men always run down skunks on first dates, especially first dates with Mom and Boyfriend along.”

Fortunately, I made it home without further incident.

One might assume that running over the skunk would have ended my relationship with Paula. But there was one more date. It was a testimony to how much Paula’s mother was committed to the relationship that she loaned us her car. I drove it illegally on my learner’s permit. Paula and I went on an old-fashioned picnic to Buck’s Bar, a 49er-mining site on the Consumnes River. I actually had a young woman, out in the woods, alone. Talk about fantasy. As far as I can recall though, and I would recall otherwise, I behaved myself disgustingly well. So did Paula.

Fridays Post: A Pear Pickers Guide to Happiness.

UT-OH! Chapter 15: Puberty Blues and the Dance Class from Hell

/ Curt Mekemson / 19 Comments
The teacher had a large diagram with a pattern that looked something like this.

Something happened between the eighth grade and high school. Here I was a happy, well-adjusted and relatively successful young man one day and a serious candidate for a strait jacket the next. Pimples popped out on my face overnight and my voice became dedicated to practicing random octave jumps. Teenage-hood, which had promised to be a mild adventure, arrived with a vengeance. I was being hormonally challenged; I had a terminal case of puberty blues.

Things started out fine. I left the eighth grade behind with great expectations. After all, I’d become a jock, had top grades, was student body president, and had a girlfriend. Damn, I was even president of the Mother Lode Twirlers, the square dance club. What could possibly go wrong? Everything…?

Take girlfriends, for instance. I expected to lose a little ground in the field of romance when I became a freshman in high school. Sophomore, junior, and even senior boys cruised the hallways in a mad scramble to check out the new crop of freshmen girls. And the older girls weren’t about to date a freshman boy, that lowest of lowly creatures. 

But I didn’t expect to bomb the way I did. I became intensely, almost painfully shy. I would walk down the hallways staring at my feet in fear that some young woman would look me in the eye. If a girl tried to talk to me, any girl, I would mutter inanities and make a run for it. The strangest statements came out of my mouth. As for asking a girl out, the odds were a little less than being struck by lightning, and the latter seemed like a less painful alternative.

It wasn’t that I didn’t notice girls. My body was one huge hormone. I just couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it. I pined for a young woman who sat in front of me in Mr. Crump’s Geography class. She was gorgeous. I was in deep lust. My knee and her butt were mere inches apart and her butt was like a magnet. I had the most intense fantasies of moving my knee forward until it made contact. In my fantasy she would, of course, turn around, smile at me and suggest we get together after school. In reality, she would have turned around and bashed me with her geography book (rightfully so), or worse, told Mr. Crump. I would have died. I kept my knee where it belonged. It is a strong testament to my love for geography that I didn’t flunk the class under the circumstances.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, however, and I was a desperate man. I signed up to master dancing in PE. I would become a combination of Arthur Murray and Elvis Presley. Step, step, slide and swivel your hips. Girls would flock to me. It wasn’t until the day of the class that I learned the magnitude of my mistake. I would have to dance with girls to learn how to dance and there they were, lined up on the opposite side of the gymnasium floor, staring at me.

“God, why did I do this to myself,” I thought as I stared across the distance at twenty females who I knew were thinking, “anybody but Curtis.” 

“Okay, boys,” the female P.E. teacher announced in a stern voice, “I want you to walk across the room now and politely ask a girl to dance with you.” Wow, that sounded like fun.

Reluctantly, I began that long walk across the gymnasium floor. I was a condemned man and the gallows were looming. I walked slower. Maybe an earthquake would strike. Maybe the Russians would shoot off an IBM missile. Maybe one of the surly seniors would throw a match in a wastebasket and the fire alarm would go off.

Maybe nothing.

I approached the line and looked for a sign. One of the girls would smile at me and crook her finger. But the girls looked exceedingly grim. A few looked desperate, like deer caught in the headlights of the proverbial 18-wheeler rushing toward them at 90 miles per hour. I picked out the one who looked most frightened on the theory that she would be the least likely to reject me.

“Uh, would you care to dance,” I managed to blurt out.

“Uh, okay,” she responded with about the same level of enthusiasm she would have if I had offered her a large plate of raw liver. It was P.E. Dance Ground Zero after all, and she wasn’t allowed to say no. We were destined to be a great couple.

“You will put your left hand in the middle of the back five inches above the waist line.” The teacher, who was now sounding more and more like a drill sergeant, carefully described what we would do with our hands. It was quite clear that there would be minimal contact and no contact with behinds. “With your right hand and arm, you will hold the girl away from you.” There would be no accidental brushing of breasts either. What fun was that? I assumed the correct position with marine-like precision. I was going to get this right. I studied the chart the teacher had put up to show us what we were supposed to do with our feet. I listened carefully to the lecture on rhythm and down beats. I watched with intensity as she demonstrated.

All too soon it was our turn. A scratchy record blasted out a long-since-dead composer’s waltz. I didn’t know who it was, but it wasn’t Elvis. With one sweaty palm in the middle of the girl’s back and the other sweaty hand holding her a proper distance away, I moved out on the floor. Step, step, slide, step, step, slide. One, two, and slide the coach barked out. My feet more or less followed the prescribed pattern. More importantly, I avoided stepping on the girl’s toes. I tried a turn and managed to avoid running into another couple. Ever so slightly I relaxed. Maybe things would be okay. Maybe I would have fun. Maybe Hell would freeze over.

“Stop, class!” the teacher yelled as she blew her whistle and yanked the needle across the record, adding another scratch. We dutifully came to a halt. What now?

“I want everyone to watch Curtis and his partner,” she announced.

“Hey, this is more like it,” I thought to myself. Not only was I surviving my first day of dance class, I was also being singled out to demonstrate. I smiled, waited for the music to start, and boldly moved out on the floor where many had trod before. Step, step, slide, step, step slide. We made it through all of three progressions when the teacher abruptly blew her whistle again.

“And that, Class,” she proclaimed triumphantly, “is not how you do it. Curtis is moving like he is late for an important date with the bathroom.”

The class roared— and I shrank. I don’t know how my partner felt, but I wanted a hole to climb in, preferably a deep hole with a steel door that I could slam shut. And I was more than embarrassed, I was mad. My normal sense of humor had galloped off into the sunset faster than a Triple Crown racehorse.

“You don’t teach someone to dance by embarrassing him,” I mumbled. An angry look crossed the teacher’s face and she started to reply. I turned my back and walked for the door.

“Where do you think you are going, Curtis? Get back here!” she demanded in a raised voice.

“I am leaving,” I replied without turning, calm now with the decision made. The class was deadly quiet. This was much more interesting than P.E. Other kids might challenge teachers, might walk out of a class, and might not even care. But not Curt. This was a guy who always did his homework, participated in class discussions, was respectful toward teachers, and aced tests.

I reached the door and put my hand on the handle.

“If you walk out that door, you may as well walk home,” the teacher barked. “I will personally see to it that you are suspended from school.”

I opened the door, walked out– and went straight to the office of the head of the P.E. Department, Steve O’Meara. Steve worked with my dad in the summer as an assistant electrician, but I knew him primarily as my science teacher.  He was a big man, gruff, and strong as a bull elephant, a jock’s jock. He demonstrated his strength by participating in the annual wheelbarrow race at the El Dorado County Fair. The race commemorated the fact that John Studebaker of automobile fame had obtained his start in Placerville manufacturing wheelbarrows for 49ers.

The County’s strongest men would line up with their wheelbarrows at the starting line and then rush to fill a gunny sack with sand at the starter’s gun. They would then push their wheelbarrows and loads at breakneck speed around an obstacle course that included mud holes, a rock-strewn path, fence barriers and other such challenges. In addition to making it across the finish line first, the winner had to have fifty plus pounds of sand in his gunny sack. Underweight and he was disqualified. Steve was always our favorite to win and rarely disappointed us. He also had a very loud voice.

“What’s up, Curt,” he roared when I entered his office. I knew Steve didn’t eat kids for lunch but you always wondered a little.

“I think you are supposed to expel me,” I replied. He started to laugh until he saw my expression. Mortification and anger on the face of a 14-year-old are never a pretty sight.

He became serious. “Sit down and tell me what’s happening,” he suggested in an almost gentle voice.

Ten minutes later I walked out of his office with a reprieve. I didn’t have to go back to the dance class and could finish out the quarter playing volleyball.  Steve would have a discussion with the dance instructor. I imagine she ended up about as unhappy as I was. At least I hoped so. I entertained a small thought that she would hesitate the next time before traumatizing some gawky kid whose only goal in attending her class was to become a little less gawky. It would be a long time before I would step onto a dance floor again.