Little kids sneak out of church, steal Oldsmobile, go drinking, driving, shoot up the countryside

This is the story that I thought of when I saw Charlie's 1962 Oldsmobile Starfire:

I suppose that it might be an exaggeration to say that we stole the Oldsmobile - after all, it was Randy who drove and his father owned the Oldsmobile. It's just that I was 11, he was 13 but looked ten - too young to drive and his dad had no idea that we had taken the car and certainly had not given his permission, so, in a sense, we had stolen it.

But if you had been with us, you would have understood. It was what Mormons call "Fast Sunday," and if you had ever been a boy forced to sit through such an ordeal as that day - and there was nothing at all fast about it - then you would have wanted to steal a car and go driving in the Montana Countryside, too.

Fast Sunday is the first Sunday of every month and the idea is that you begin the fast on Saturday evening, when you skip dinner. You continue the fast through breakfast and lunch and then break it at dinner. You take the money that you did not spend on food and donate to the church's welfare fund so that it can be used to buy food for the poor.

And when we fasted, it was a complete fast - no food, no water, no juice, no consumption of any kind.

But that wasn't the worst part of it. The worst part was Fast and Testimony Meeting, which came after Sunday School. Usually, the Bishop or one of his counselors would start off by bearing his testimony and after that it was all "open mic." As the spirit struck, people got up to bear their testimonies, and there was always a lot of weeping. There was no time limit and the meeting could last hours.

And Mom always embarrassed me, because she would get up, bear witness for an interminable length of time and at some point would single me out and tell some story that showed what a good, faithful and righteous boy I was.

No boy wants the other boys - not even the other church boys - to think that he is good, faithful and righteous. Mom had no idea about the fights that this kind of thing got me into.

I imagine that when Mom got up and told the story on this particular Sunday, she scanned the congregation, looking for my sweet face and then wondered where the hell I was.

Yep, I was with Randy. We had gotten into his father's Oldsmobile and driven off, two little kids, one of them peering over the steering wheel, trying to stay out of the sight of cops.

Randy came from a poor family, yet somehow he always had money and he was generous with it. So before we headed out of town, we stopped at Safeway and he bought Pepsi, Candy Bars and Twinkies for both of us, then we drove out into the country, drinking and eating.

We broke our fast early that Sunday. 

We drove out of Missoula and past Lolo Hot Springs, down a dirt road that crossed the railroad tracks and then Randy found a place and parked the Oldsmobile.

"I got something to show you," he said.

We got out and I followed him as he opened the trunk. Inside was a .22 rifle and two or three boxes of long-rifle bullets.

We had drank our Pepsi's by now, so we put the empty bottles atop some fence posts, shattered them with bullets, then searched about, found beer bottles - and in those days, one could always find beer bottles laying about anywhere in or near Missoula - put them on the posts and shot them, too.

Then Randy drove us back. He parked the car and we went into the chapel, just as the closing prayer was being said.

Thank God!

There there was another Fast Sunday, a year or so before that one, that also involved Randy, cars and sneaking out of testimony meeting. In this case, the cars were Ramblers, a very pathetic brand of car that was none-the-less popular and there several of them parked in the church parking lot.

The word, "Rambler" was spelled out in the grill of these cars in chrome letters about two inches high that were attached to the car only at the base.

Randy showed me how a well-aimed, swift kick, would knock a letter free of the grill. So after that, probably just as Mom was once again telling the congregation what a sweet and righteous boy I was, Randy and I kicked the R-A-M-B-L-E-R out of every car thus branded.

Afterward, we divided the letters up, he taking one half and I the other.

We stashed them until it was safe, and then each of us took our letters home.

I put mine in my middle drawer, where Mom soon found them. She wondered where I had gotten them and so I told a plausible story.

Unfortunately, the Rambler owners - one of whom happened to be the Bishop - all noticed that they had lost their letters. The next Sunday, the Bishop made an issue of it from the pulpit.

Mom instantly figured it out. For the salvation of my soul, she insisted that I go stand before the Bishop and confess my sin.

I did and it was hell.

Margie's birthday party morphs into Jacob's congrats ceremony; a football flies through the house

Continuing on from the last post, the final car that had parked in our driveway had brought Natalie and her children from Anchorage. When Melanie, Charlie, Lisa and I returned from coffee, they were just finishing up their frybread and beans, so I guess Lavina had cooked more bread, yet.

We all signed a card of congratulations for Jacob, since he is now commissioned in the Commission Corps.

And what the hell - one day soon he and Lavina are going to move out and take Kalib with them. As I have stated before, that's why they moved in with us in the first place, so that they could save up some money for a house while they waited for the Commission Corps to accept Jacob and assign him somewhere.

Lavina was sure hoping it would be in Arizona, near her Navajo homeland.

Margie was kind of hoping that it would be, too, because then she thought maybe Kalib could induce me to move to Arizona and be closer to her Apache homeland.

But Jacob got Anchorage.

I don't ever want to move from Alaska. Not ever, ever, ever!

I would die inside.

That sounds selfish, doesn't it, when Margie wants to be closer to her homeland?

But even she doesn't want to be there in the summertime. Too hot. She would rather be here.

Only in winter does she want to be there. She is fed up with Alaska winters.

So maybe someday we can figure out how to broker a compromise.

I love Alaska winters, except for the warm ones. They say this is going to be an El Niño winter. They are the warm ones. I do not like El Niño winters

A lot of football happened today. First, 20th ranked BYU Courgars beat the third-ranked Oklahoma Sooners, 14-13, in a game that came right down to the wire.

I was glad, because I was cheering for BYU. I may be an agnostic coffee drinker who wrestles with the weight of my Mormon upbringing every damn day of my life, but it is still a fact that my direct ancestors include a man who hung out with Joseph Smith when he was held in jail and set out with Brigham Young to cross the Great Plains and BYU is still my alma mater.

Jacob's alma mater played today, too, the Arizona State Sun Devils, who crushed Idaho State 50-3. Natalie's stepson, Cooper, not only watches but gets filled with inspiration. 

Cooper dashes into the front room, ready to play football. As you can see, Kalib is wearing his Sun Devils jersey.

Jacob throws Cooper a pass. Jacob, by the way, made varsity starting quarterback when he was just a sophomore, but then he injured his knee and that was that.

Cooper fumbles the ball!

He's just starting out. The important thing is not that he dropped it, but rather that he stood right there, again and again, as the ball bounced off his chest or head, and was always eager, excited and ready for the next pass.

Royce wanders through in search of toe pets. He gets some.

Natalie and her daughter Tiana adjust each other's hair as Tony, Tiana's twin, sits on the other side.

I'm not at all certain how it happened so fast, but very soon everyone said their goodbyes. Kalib gets a goodbye hug from his Auntie Lisa.

Then Kalib watches as his Auntie Melanie climbs into the 1962 Oldsmobile Starfire with Charlie to begin the drive back to Anchorage. Note all the leaves that have already fallen from the trees. Note, too, how dark it is even though it is only 9:15 PM.

It was a beautiful, beautiful, warm, sunny day, but summer is over. Fall has begun. There won't be many more days like this. One maybe, two perhaps. Wouldn't it be something if we got three? Dare I bid for four? 

Oh, we'll get sun, radiating down brightly upon golden leaves.

But the air will feel crisp.

Wonderful in its own right.

And then Kalib watches as Lisa drives away.

It always comes to this. I don't care what it is. It always comes to this. Every time my kids come out, they soon leave. Kalib will soon leave and move elsewhere. Very soon, I will leave Margie to go back north and I will hate to say good-bye. I will miss her every day that I am gone. And when I again leave the north to come back here, I will be sad to leave the Iñupiat community behind. When I again return here, I will miss them and their harsh, hard, sprawling, deadly, life-giving country every day, just as I missed them today, just as I also missed Sandy and all my Indian family and their hot, steamy, crowded, teeming, naturally abundant, country today - even as I reveled in the celebration of being here in what, weather and companion wise, was probably the most pleasant place on earth.

And then one day, very soon, even if I beat the odds and live to be 100, it will all be over. I will be dust, drifting in the wind. I will become the flesh of other creatures, the fiber of plants and all those whom I love will exist no more, as so many already don't, except in the hearts that loved them, but even those hearts will die.

Some that it's better after you die, that you go to a better place.

But I like this earth, this hard, beautiful place that we dwell upon, as fragile yet rugged people, destructible mortals, more precious than any indestructible immortal could ever be, fearing and fighting death yet in the end always accepting.

Nothing will ever be better. Not heaven.

And nothing will ever be worse.

Not hell.

It's all right here, the best and the worst that has ever been or ever will be.

So brief.

So precious.

It is as though it always was and then as if it had never been.

It's late. I should go to bed.

I wax ridiculous.

One day, I will state it better.

We celebrate Margie's birthday and then wind up in the ditch

The knock on the wall caused me to leave my computer and go into the house for the party, but I was surprised to find that not everybody was present. The food was ready, but people were still here and there. 

Charlie and Melanie, for example, were out in the back yard. I was a little distressed to see Charlie sitting in that chair, because last week, I saw Muzzy lift his leg and pee on it.

It rained after that, so hopefully it was okay.

Kalib peeks out to check on Charlie, Melanie and me.

I go back in and close the screen door. Kalib wants back in.

It was an Apache-Navajo kind of meal, with frybread and beans. I made mine into a classic Navajo/Apache taco, with the beans, onions, salsa, quacamole, tomotoes, peppers, grated cheddar cheese and sour cream folded into the fry bread.

I meant to photograph it so that you could see, but I got so busy eating it that I forgot.

Lavina helps Kalib draw a little heart on his grandmother's birthday card. This is what I wrote: "September 5, 1949, was the best day of my life even though I was not yet conceived..." followed by some stuff about love.

There was one piece of frybread left, so I had Margie pose with it, just so you can see what it looks. After that, I ate half of it and Charlie ate the other half.

 I stepped out for a little bit and when I stepped back in, I was surprised to see Steffers sitting there, eating an Apache/Navajo taco. Lavina must have cooked some more frybread up, so I shot this picture. Steffers, who is Iñupiat, was on her way to a Rodney Atkins concert at the Fair, but she is competing with her sister for Kalib's love, so she stopped by to see him first - and to wish Margie a happy birthday as well as congratulate Jacob for being commissioned into the Commission Corp.

Margie prepares to blow out her candle. Not only is she actually older than one, there isn't even a "1" in her age. But there was only one candle in the house and it was "1."

Margie reads her card. She was pleased.

Margie opens a present from her kids, all of whom were here except for Rex and Stephanie. Rex works seven days a week, usually, and long hours, too. We sorely missed the two of them, but Margie was pleased with the gift.

Jacob hands her the first serving of cake and ice cream.

After we ate our cake and ice cream, some of us wanted coffee. It was evening, now, just after 7:00, but Charlie, Melanie, Lisa and I went out and bought some at Little Miller's on the Park's anyway. When we returned home, more guests had arrived and there was no empty space into the driveway. So I began to pull into the ditch.

"Dad!" Melanie scolded. "What are you doing? Don't drive into the ditch! Dad! Dad! Don't do it, Dad!"

But I did. We all got out. Everything was fine.

"That's so Wasilla!" Melanie said.

Charlie shows up for Margie's birthday driving a 1962 Oldsmobile Starfire, clad in the Party-Wear shirt Melanie bought him in India

Charlie had talked about this car before, but I was still very surprised to see it in the driveway. He had first spotted it at the home of a man who lived several blocks from him. It was white, then, just like when it came from the factory. 

Charlie knocked on the door, met the owner and asked him if he wanted to sell. The owner said that he had never thought about selling it, but after giving the matter some contemplation, said he would sell it for $1200. Charlie couldn't go for it.

A couple of weeks later, he made a cheesecake (Charlie makes excellent cheese cakes) and took it to the man. "How about $800?" he asked.

"No," the man said, "but the cheescake sure is good. Thanks!."

A bit more time lapsed and then Charlie got a call. "I'll take the $800."

The engine had not been started in how many years no one knew for certain, so Charlie washed the cylinders out with oil and then got it going without too much difficulty.

He and his dad then rebuilt the engine, he painted it as you see here and today drove Melanie out here.

Royce, the orange cat, was mighty impressed.

So I was I. It reminds me of an incident from my childhood...

Well, I hear knocking on my wall. That mean's its time to go into the house and celebrate Margie's birthday.

After our Vagabond caffeine party, we happen upon some tomatoes

Melanie, Charlie and I had partied on caffeine and pastries at Vagabond Blues in Palmer and were coming home via Fishhook Road when we saw this sign. Fresh tomatoes sounded good, so I turned the Escape onto a road that led to a long driveway. When we saw what at first looked like a duplex house at the end of the driveway, we began to have some doubts that we had come to the right place.

Then we saw a magnificent garden just beyond the duplex, which is not a duplex at all, but a house. We parked, got out, and then this dog came running to us. It jumped on me, then it jumped on Charlie. As I struggled to regain my balance and before I could ready my camera, it jumped on Melanie.

I mean, really jumped, like paws to shoulder - that high. But, by the time I had my camera ready, an elder lady came and collared the dog, took it to a corner of the porch and chained it up. 

"If you are going to jump on people," she scolded it in a voice with a strong north Italy accent, "then you are just going to have to stay on this chain."

We told the lady that we wanted to buy some tomatoes. "I have tomatoes in the house," she said. "Come on in." So we followed her through a door that led into a big shop. Resting by the window was this two year-old male cat, "Mucho."

The lady paid no attention to Mucho, but the three of us did. When she saw that we were interested in the cat, she picked it up and put it on the cement floor and then showed us how she could hold her arms in a circle in front of Mucho and he would jump through, just like her arms were a hoop.

It was too dark to take a picture, so she brought Mucho into the house itself, where it was still pretty dark, too dark, really, for the pocket camera, and did it again. At that moment, I wished that I had my big DSlr's with me instead of just the pocket camera, but, oh well.

You can't take pictures with the camera you don't have with you, so you have to take them with the camera you do have with you.

I believe Donald Rumsfeld said that.

Then Charlie made an arm hoop. Mucho jumped right through it.

Charlie and Mucho. We picked out our tomatoes and bought them. Then we went out to take some pictures in the garden and greenhouse.

So this is Pia, with a box of tomatoes, of which she is very proud. Pia was born in California but raised in North Italy, which is why she has the accent. My dad used to fly over Italy to drop bombs on the Germans. I wondered if she had been there at the time and had ever heard his B-24 pass by?

I didn't ask, though. Why didn't I ask? Someday, I must go buy more tomatoes from her, and then I can ask her if she was there during the war and if she heard the squadrons of B-24's flying by, the sound of German anti-aircraft fire and the explosions of American bombs. 

I miss my Dad. I truly do. I will miss him until the day I die. After that, I don't know.

Pia then invited us into the greenhouse. It was surprisingly warm in there and the aroma was pleasant - a mix of tomato and the scent of birch burning in a woodstove.

I touched the woodstove and it was not hot. There was no fire in it. The scent lingered from the last time that there was.

You see how those leave stems have been clipped? Pia does that so that the nutrients that would go to the leaves go to the tomatoes instead. Of course, the plant needs leaves to survive. It must be an art to know just when and what leaves to cut.

Pia plants the tomatoes in March, in pots in the house, but waits until May to transfer them to the greenhouse. In about one month from now, it will be too cold in the greenhouse, even with the woodstove and that is when her growing season will end.

So, if you want to buy Pia's tomatoes - and if you are in Wasilla or Palmer or even Anchorage, you should want to - you've got about one month.

I'm out of order here, as I actually took this picture before we entered the greenhouse.

Oh well, life often gets out of order. I like the picture better here than where it would be if it was in order and this is my blog and I can do whatever I want with it.

She's telling us about the plant that she touches. I was unfamiliar with that plant, so I memorized the name so that I could include it here.

I have forgotten, though.

There was another plant, inside, that she had us touch. It left our hands smelling like lemon drops.

I haven't had any lemon drops in a long time. I want some.

Pia grows many things besides tomatoes. She asked if we wanted some fresh green beans. We did.

"These will be the best green beans you ever tasted," she told Melanie as she put some in her hand.

Next, Pia took us into the greenhouse where she grows peppers. "These are not hot peppers," she said. "They are banana peppers." She also had two kinds of cherry tomatoes growing in there and she gave us samples of each. One was more tart, the other more sweet. Both were superb.

There was the summer squash. It still had some growing to do. I imagined it boiled, but not too boiled, with a touch of butter, salt and pepper, on a plate beside a moose steak. Damn good, I'm sure.

Speaking of moose, see those wires with the flags on them? They are hot wires and they enclose every section of Pia's garden. I don't know what it is about hot wires, but whenever I see them, I have this terrible desire to touch them, to see just how strong of a shock they give.

"Don't do it, Dad!" Melanie said.

"No!" Charlie agreed, "Don't do it Bill."

I touched the electric fence. The power was off at the moment.

Elsewhere, there were wires that were hot.

"Don't do it, Dad!" Melanie warned.

I didn't.

Celery is a thirsty plant that needs much water. That is why Pia plants it beneath the eve of the greenhouse roof, which has no gutter - so all that extra rainwater will flow down onto it.

I asked Pia why she and her husband, who was feeling camera shy, came to Alaska. "More guts than brains," she answered. "We've been here 53 years."

After that, I drove us back to the house, where Jacob had cooked corn chowder for dinner. I added tomato slices. Melanie cooked her green beans and shared them with everybody.

It was a taste of heaven. I must go see Pia again.