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True Stories by Steve Keeley
Hobo Memoirs
06/28/2004
Baptism by Sun
A journal of forty-five days in Sand Valley with advice for aspiring converts
I often enjoy a challenge until it transpires and this, the first day in Sand
Valley after three straight months before a computer under air conditioning,
stacks up as another. I was raised in a cold swath across the northern United
States and never really knew heat until four years ago on buying these ten acres
of clean sand under blue sky at the tri-junction of California, Arizona and old
Mexico. I call the digs Scorpions Crotch. General George Patton called the area
The land that God forgot on surveying it from a small plane in 1942 as the
eventual Desert Training Center for tens of thousands of troops that would be
sent to the WWII Sahara.
It was, and is, a vast and empty moonscape under an eternal sun that s in your
face in July and August. Numerous hill chains form interlocking basins like a
honeycomb of 100-square mile sandboxes reaching all horizons. Locals call these
valleys to raise the spirits. Sand Valley is one adjacent to another, the Cocoa
Mt. Gunnery Range, where today not 1940 s crafts but jets and copters swoop and
drop daily loads in flashes and booms of military storms. Most of the area is
open sand crisscrossed by washes that funnel water during twice yearly
cloudbursts.
A smart person could settle here, I thought on purchasing the flat acres dirt
cheap: By catching rain or trapping it in a wash, sticking up solar panels,
digging a burrow, and applying science. I moved here for comfort. The other ten
Sand Valleyites are crusty, proud sociopaths who rub elbows at an average ten
miles apart. I told them on arrival to accept me not until I had spent a full
summer, and today, four years later, is the beginning.
June 29
A perimeter drive bedsprings weighted with rocks drag a road encloses two
property sections: Living and Working. The Living acres border a forest or
half-mile wide wash tumbling from the well-pocked bombing range. A wash is a
green strip in winter, but pale lime in summer that nonetheless abounds with
creatures for which I m grateful. The Living section is flat sand that offers
the kitchen (16 camp trailer), office (28 semi-truck trailer with a loft and
waterbed), storage (35 gutted trailer), a tremendous (400-square feet) central
shader of corrugated tin, and the outlying burrow where I write. These
structures form a U with a windbreak fence to block fierce westerners, but it s
open country to all other points and the only neighbor, T.J and wife Laura, live
a mile away. The Working acres at the property south end boast a drive-through
garage (metal roof on scavenged steel posts), work shed, small materials yard,
and outhouse. I enjoy the five-minute stroll from north to south, or back, along
the circle drive any time. The Crotch is ongoing work much as a ranch requires
constant tinkering and fresh projects.
The daily routine revolves around those activities. I arise with the chipmunk
clan of six already sprawled outside the kitchen rodent door waiting for it to
swing open to enter and clean. This is the maid service that is paid for with
dear water. I slide into work boots under the shader - the early sun burns - and
silently greet various lizards that are as pets. The day starts with a few
handfuls of shredded wheat and a pint of soymilk, then a hat on the head and I m
off. Invariably, I head for the first project but am interrupted en route by a
dozen others, and finally reach the original at sunset. Today s priority is a
pantry extension, but on the way I erect a shade cloth over the sleeping couch,
make wheel covers, shelving, etc.
The pantry is a 10-square feet hut that s airy with open slats. It originated
with a hand-dug hole my height into which I dropped a small refrigerator
figuring to abet cooling, but quickly learned that a propane frig requires
ventilation. So, there was a pre-cooling pit for the fridge on the surface. I
spent the first year without a fridge, and now it s a treasure chest. Soon, I ll
acquire another in a trade with T.J., for which the pantry requires expansion.
Tonight, I finish that having easily knocked out one wood wall, planting two
more posts in ready-mix concrete at 5 feet distance, and extending the wall.
June 30
The new fridge sits pretty in the pantry, a bargain for some paint and dog food.
I plan to order ex-soldier T.J. to salute it as General Electric. I m enthused
because the more fluid I drink, the more I work to shape up the property.
Deliberately, there is no thermometer, radio, TV or other outside contact on the
theory that it gets truly hot only when you hear about it. A liquid course is
one of the scientific methods I ll use to acclimate. I drink on average a quart
of liquid every 45 minutes in working 9 hours a day. My dad recently sent an
article warning in an elaborate formula based on body weight and calorie
expenditure to drink three quarts of water during warm weather, but I easily
take three gallons daily. It s nearly iced and
includes: V-8, Kern s juices, Gatorade, Soy milk, an occasional designer
electrolyte replacement, and water. I ve claimed that V-8 chilled to slush is
the finest electrolyte replacement drink, and recently heard that Michigan
wrestlers prefer it to Gatorade. I also take Monster brand diluted one-to-one
with water to stay off the walls. In fact, I try to chase every can or bottle
with a quart of water.
Drinks are the day s exclamation points! I fill the freezer compartments of both
3 x 3 refrigerators with four quart bottles each; the rest of the fridge is
useless in summer and is blocked off with wood. Each morning begins with a stock
of two cold gallons, and by mid-afternoon a second course is chilled to slush.
In wintertime, the compartments freeze and I transfer the ice jugs to the rest
of the space for an icebox effect that uses only $.25 of propane per fridge-day;
but in summertime the freezers don t freeze and it costs double.
Typically, after working 45 minutes, I stumble into the pantry to nurse a drink
for fifteen minutes. Then I take a quart of cold water wrapped in a little
blanket out to the job. Other Valleyites assert that one can toil under the sun
for no more than 30 minutes, but it may be lengthened by using cold fluids. They
also say to cool a drink in a wet sock, which I ve used, yet the sock supply
(132 at four-per-day) is the limiting factor before leaving for town. It would
be a life of desert Riley to sit and drink cold, sweet beverages all day, but
there s work at hand.
July 2
This morning, I squat in the pantry hut with a V8 in hand and glance between my
heels. Had anyone said, In one second a large snake will appear , then
I would have adjusted. Instead, it flicks a tongue and I m walled in. The head
resembles a western diamondback (most common rattler) with a Long Ranger eye
mask. It advances foot-by-foot to a slender, faded tail without rattles that
tags it a harmless 5 Glossy snake. (It s also called the Faded snake due to a
bleached appearance, and eats lizards and mice.) Abruptly, it coils into a high
S with a worried face on sensing that it s trapped with me blocking the thin
door. I step aside. After it passes, I examine a row of four-gallon water jugs
set out the night before. One is squashed all around without bursting, and the
only explanation is the snake, a thirsty constrictor, smelled water.
July 4
The single day (besides Christmas) that offers no July Fourth fireworks on the
range is this date. It s unearthly quiet, and that cues T.J., the scavenger
king, to search the range all day for aluminum bomb fins and brass shells. On
all other days he s restricted to the graveyard shift. He calls it recycling,
and it s rumored they re stinking rich.
July 6
Continuing projects fill each day, not unpleasantly. I celebrate a progressive
acclimation to heat, but must take 15-minute breaks per hour. Otherwise, a mild
heat stroke (rapid pulse under a hot skin, disorientation, headache, nausea and
finger/toe cramps) comes on, and I must lay up in the shade for 30 minutes. This
happens once every couple days with mild symptoms only, but my heartening
acclimation theory is that with time these symptoms will attack more
reluctantly, be lessened, and disappear faster.
A small victory for technology over Mother Nature occurs this evening with the
finish of a vented sitting room on the interior loft of the semi-trailer.
Earlier, I d carved a ceiling vent and screened window in the side for
ventilation. Now a 9 -diameter stovepipe shunts cool air up to the loft from a 4
crawlspace under the semi with 1000-gallons of stored water in 100-gallon
containers that create a swamp cooler effect. The air rises five feet up the
stovepipe due to the negative pressure of the warmer above and breezes under the
chair at 2-5 mph. Wire mesh covers the flue floor opening and a heavy book
regulates the breeze, however on overheated days my face does the trick. One
could play Chinese checkers on my cheeks after those days, and the vent is a
major development.
In the magic hour just shy of sunset as the light departs the air, I move
quickly while thinking clearly. I march the property with a pencil, notepad and
tape measure to size plans and materials for tomorrow s projects. Tonight, I
labor resolutely into the dark with a flashlight in mouth, and after plop on the
elevated couch smiling like a desert Cheshire.
There is no nightly dinner since there s no appetite in the heat. Beyond the
morning shredded wheat, I force feed myself pasta every third evening. It s
shocking that 90 percent of the calories come from a daily three gallons of
liquids. I m losing a couple pounds per week that should be gone anyway, and
feel healthy. The two best diets I ve ever found are the Hobo Diet where one s
trapped in a boxcar for days, and this Desert Diet where the gut feels full of
heat calories.
Nearly everyone in Sand Valley sleeps the summer outdoors, and likewise with
many beds choices (loft waterbed, semi roof, burrow, or kitchen bunk), my
favorite is a couch on a platform raised five feet above the desert floor.
Otherwise, night visitors snakes, scorpions, coyotes, badgers and rodents
- are tedious. A ceiling shade cloth (material that blocks 70% of sunlight)
extends the sleep well past sunrise.
July 10
More projects. The secret is to move at half-speed from job to job while
drinking all day like a good machine. Besides the couch shade cloth, I drape the
material on guy lines around the semi office and the kitchen. The extra cooling
is dramatic. I also erect a soundless 4 wind chime of wood on string that
provides shades. Dragonflies arrive in minutes on paint days or when an aerosol
foot spray hits the air. One steps onto my finger, and perhaps one day I ll
become a totem.
The rodent wars are on! There are three types: The common desert mouse, the
slightly larger kangaroo rat that is said not to require drinking water, and the
desert pack rat that reaches a foot (including tail) in length. Today s
customized rodent doors are inset into the three trailers entrances. Each is 3
high (4 elsewhere for pack rats), painted plywood to prevent climbing, with
WD-40 sprayed on the hinges and corner caulking for the same reason. They are as
gates inset within the door frames so that the regular doors can remain open 24
hours for air, or close. This is the front line of defense against the
ubiquitous brats behind which food must be stored in plastic bins, predator
snakes should be encouraged, and water should be transferred from the store-jugs
to thicker-walled Gatorade bottles that aren t chewed. The rodents that get
through become POWs trapped in Hav-a-Hart cages and are rapidly transported to
the wash for release. The world should work so easily.
August 11
The three keys to the comfy desert life are propane, solar panels and shade. The
propane fires the fridge, the heater in winter, and the stove. The panels atop
the semi with a capacity to power a small home use no fancy battery bank or
backup generator. Instead, a second 12-volt battery (marine deep- cycle)
installed on the car passenger floor connects in parallel to the regular
battery. The solar panels charge both batteries in the car parked under the
shader, but on a rare cloudy day the motor can be run a short time. A small
inverter ($80 at Radio Shack) provides AC power for hand tools such as a drill
and jigsaw, and laptop. The auto is moved to a work area if the extension cord
doesn t reach. This system is simple, efficient and cheaper than other methods
for my purposes.
I sometimes walk backwards with ankle weight from job to job to train for later
hiking; 1/2-mile backward per day prevents cramps forward. Today I fail to see a
3 tall Cholla cactus coming. The other name is Jumping Cholla because the joints
easily detach; touch one spine and pull the whole joint. A dozen spines
including a joint adhere to my calf, plus a few to the boot uppers and soles. I
use tweezers with an attached magnifying glass (($4 at Radio Shack) to pluck the
skin spines. The sting goes away in a minute and a red splatter shows like a
merit badge.
As cold drinks are the hourly rewards, the night dividend is an easy chair over
a vent that shunts cooled air from under the trailer. (The desert floor takes a
few hours to truly cool after sunset.) DC light is normally difficult to read
by, but I tested all the little market lamps and bolt-paired the best for
satisfaction. There are books everywhere. The open door admits a fresh moth
about every ten minutes; new species are examined with a magnifying glass. The
species and individuals, as in any extreme geography, are to be honored for
their genes, verve and quirks. I also use the glass between chapters to study my
wounds the scrapes, spines, blisters, boils, rash, jammed fingers and to
introspect.
July 12
Four years ago, I paid cash on a truck tailgate office of the real estate agent
for these apart acres that have so changed my life. Actually, the original
purchase got a different parcel ten miles away that proved by GPS to be wrongly
surveyed, so the agent upgraded to another five miles away that similarly had
been mis-surveyed, and he eventually steered me to Scorpion s Crotch. It s not
uncommon for someone to buy a piece of unmarked desert, lay an estimated
perimeter with rocks, and over time develop ownership by universal assumption.
However, my property displays in one corner a permanent 1953 USGS section marker
that I quickly lifted a leg over. I am the first in the Valley to pay outright
for land, while the other residents gave $100 down and $100 per month. (That s
cheaper than a trailer space in a park.) T.J. recently finished paying off his
place after 15 years.
I was a greenhorn coming down from the Sierras with little more than a
motorcycle and shovel to reach the pristine acres for the first time. I slept
that night in the wash listening for thunderheads for flashfloods, and was
visited by a kit fox and tarantula. There was no bombing in those days. I
acquired the scavenging art by foot at long-abandoned homesteads throughout Sand
Valley, and found sources for other used materials to be dragged one way or
another to the featureless plot. Steadily, I picked up the packrat trait that ID
s desert folks of acquiring more stuff the semi, kitchen, storage, etc. With
materials, time and exercise, I built structures that soon festooned the circle
drive. These sit on wheels, skids or measure less than 8 x8 with dirt floors to
avoid an increase in the $30 property tax. The real estate agent stopped a year
ago to remark, You wanted just a single burrow and have built a city!
Bloopers are part of the show. The first here was a lack of respect for the wind
despite having viewed other trailers and hovels that had blown about the Valley.
I lost one small camp trailer blown asunder. Be assured that the ensuing ones
were aligned east-west to avoid the westerly, guy lined and staked out. I
started out using nails in wood until someone said that the holes in a year
would be bigger than the nail diameters. The beautiful, used Malaysian lumber I
bought for a song twisted grotesquely in the first month out of the jungle from
poor piling and uneven drying. Then again, the same wood now lasts for years in
tidy stacks.
I once built a 7 long, 500-pound sink from three reclaimed ones, only to end up
using it as a seat and washing directly from a spigot to conserve water. It was
fed by a homemade water heater of 3 black PVC in 50-rrunning feet of sun-heated
loops that was a farce since outdoor containers themselves warm water in winter
and scald it in summer. Soup or tea water is ever ready. There are blessed few
dishes at my place where bowls and plates are made from recycled water jugs with
the tops lopped off, and the utensils are paint sticks that perform like hybrid
spoon-and-chopsticks. Today, I dismantled the sink and water heater for good.
The grandest slip was a shower rising like a 10 crucifix in the open desert that
held a bucket with gravity fed holes from a reservoir 50-yards away atop the
semi. The gray water recycled into a garden. In retrospect, it was laughable
since there s not enough water in the Valley to support the system, so I sawed
it down along with a 4 birdhouse that had replaced the bucket. I now bathe like
the third-world millions at a faucet with a pan. I m often proudly introduced as
the Valley s most parsimonious water user (1/2-gallon per day for washing,
bathing etc.). There s also a hot spring an hour away.
Today, I finally diagnose the cause of a week s worth of skin rash and eye
irritation it s the rainwater runoff. Rain catch is a noble idea, but a
climb with suspicion to the shader top (which gathers most of the 80 gallons
from the bi-annual rains) reveals salted bird droppings. Duh. I descend, grab
the foot spray and coat myself. Foot spray is a panacea here as one can t pause
to wash the hands, it reaches difficult places like the back, and it s a poor
man s deodorant, as well as drawing dragonflies for company.
I use it a dozen times daily, and without recommending to others mine is
pressurized ethanol and talc ($.99). I start using another barrel for cleaning.
Successes match the mistakes. I own the only underground dwelling in Sand
Valley. Vents bring cool air from underneath and into all the trailers and
double as escape hatches. The work shed and pantry are architectural victories
with one-foot open spaces between the wall side tops and the roof to allow an
inside draft in the slightest breeze; and, when there s none outside then the
internal temperature gradient from low at ground to warm at top creates an
updraft. Moving air in the desert equals coolness.
Another engineering win is the exoskeleton for trailers. Four roof-high 3 -daimeter
pipes planted in 2 -deep holes flush with the trailer sides are cabled together
over the roof for insect-like support and stability. The trailers can be pulled
out from under the exoskeleton by quickly loosening the roof cables, and bending
the pipes slightly outward. Another improvement is the shade cloth on the tops
and sides of the trailers and huts, draped on cables and attached with bugji
cords to a foot above the ground to encourage circulation. These shades have
lowered the average daily temperature inside the kitchen, office and storage
trailers by about 20 degrees. The rain catch and storage system is another
partial success. For the fauna in the countryside, a Monkey Wrench pool two
miles to the north brings them in like an African waterhole. In the shape of a
wrench and in commemoration of Edward Abbey s novel, this is a natural stone
basin the size of a bedroom that I found once while hiking. I lined the bottom
with plastic, covered with gravel, and damned the lower end with stones. Rain
floods it twice yearly and provides water for a couple months.
Any new idea may prove a feat or flop, and time will tell. A small sandbag dam
will trap water in a plastic lined hole in the nearby wash during the biannual
cloudbursts. That water is to be raised even as it rains by pedaling a
stationary bicycle wheel attached to a paddlewheel of cans to a PVC aqueduct
that will gravity flow to a 600-gallon holding tank. That water is to be piped
to a great distiller made of a wading pool ($6 Kmart) covered with clear tilted
plastic so that the evaporated and condensed water on the plastic underside runs
to a collecting hose and on to 100-gallon storage containers. This distilled
water will not rust the metal containers, and there s no reason why - with ample
pedaling - I can t distil thousands of gallons and turn Scorpion s Crotch green.
I got the distiller idea while hiking Baja and finding a tiny stream near a
pueblo where rolls of plastic were raised on sticks for hundreds of yards over
the water and the condensed water ran along the plastic to collecting buckets.
The lessons from this homestead are: A man can always find a way to solve a
problem; it pays to be original but takes more time,; mistakes are stepping
stones to successes; take an unfamiliar turn during indecision (you can always
backtrack); and, living alone is great if you keep critters and busy.
July 14
The daily sky is a blue bowl and the sun rolls across it like a gold marble. It
rises in the northeast, casts a strong north noon shadow, and swings back to set
in the northwest. I worked long under it in recent days, and am stuck with a
temporary partial vision loss that lays me up today. It s a sun blindness with
the light brutally reflecting off the light sand. The loss is only 40% in one
eye at a time the one I don t squint with. It s normally defined as cornea
sunburn, but I believe mine relates to retinal pigment depletion. I ve had it
when hiking (also snow blindness), and the condition should reverse with a night
s sleep while wearing blinders under the shade cloth.
The peculiarity about sun or snow blindness is the agent of reflected light. A
contractor has stated that reflected sunlight off a body of water in front of a
building can nearly double the load of an air conditioner, and similarly the 8
x8 plywood deck in front of my semi reflects enormous heat to the interior
unless the entrance is cloth shaded. T.J. has at his compound two sliver
trailers parked parallel 20 apart where the heat ricochets palpably. He doesn t
do anything about it except blink. So, in sun blindness, the sun takes the shot
and the desert floor gets the assist via reflection.
July 15
I see the morning chipmunks clearly. Their funhouse ramps require navigating
boardwalks through chase and ambush spots to gain the water. Most residents keep
dogs, cats and chickens to eat scorpions, dissuade snakes and, as rumor has it,
to stay sane. My four human neighbors at this end of the Valley own a total of
24 cats, 30 dogs, and who counts chickens? These menageries deter natural desert
visitors, except owls and bobcats that take the pets. The critters at my place
are nearly tame, and affect me in the same way.
There is a pantry lizard, latrine lizard and yard lizard. The first is 18 long
with a blue head, brown body and slender black tail. He waltzes as he walks and
is unctuous. He emerges from the pantry to follow me about the yard, which I
thought odd until today when I accidentally scuff up a smaller lizard. The big
one chases it with a cannibalistic gleam into a hole. The second daily lizard is
the yard lizzie who invariably comes to my feet under the shader and sits like a
pet to watch me with tiny black eyes that can spot an ant at five feet and
gobble in a second. She s called a Zebratail for a black-and-white barber
pole-tail that s carried over the back like a scorpion s, and this one I believe
is pregnant. Larry, the large, brown latrine lizard, clings to the back of the
seat. When I sit, he strides out, puffs territorially like a terrier, and looks
for flies when I hop off.
Today, I enter the work shed to find perched on a toolbox a panting Hooded
Oriole (orange underside and cap with black back, wings and tail) - the first
summer bird. He wings past my hat and out the door. The scenario repeats ten
minutes later in the semi, and then the pantry. He desperately seeks shade, and
if only I could convey the automatic waterer. It s utilized mainly by chipmunks,
offering just 3 -square of surface with bricks that cover the rest to block
evaporation. The water level mechanically replenishes from a reservoir bottle
when lapped away.
Coyotes cruise the wash each evening with signal yelps, and sometimes there are
deer, roadrunners, tortoises, rabbits and badgers. May I become the person the
animals think I am.
This evening, I take off the despised sunglasses, quit work early and take a
walk. I ve fabricated a weighted hiking vest from a water-ski vest ($20) with
the foam replaced by old ankle weights. I carry 30-lbs. (adjustable up
to 50-lbs.) and it s superior to a sand pack for training. Summertime
evening walks last only an hour since it cools only slightly but the snakes come
out.
Tonight s read is one of Louis L Amour s finest, The Man from Skibbereen ,
except the author atypically repeats the phrase mopped the sweat from his brow
three times in the early chapters. Yet, I have that many brow mop stations
(towels on ropes) around the property. Something rustles under the trailer as I
read, but goes ignored.
July 16
I dreamed as a youngster of one day owning a junkyard with many rodents, and
Scorpions Crotch closes in on it. A packrat sneaked through the trailer floor
vent and chewed a beanbag even as I sat on it reading last night. Spilled the
beans all over! The intelligent fellow then took six pencils and two small
sharpeners to a corner to build a nest. That s too much. This morning, I lay a
Hav-a-Hart trap baited with peanut butter and catch him in a wink. It s the
handsome, light-furred one that I ve observed, even better now close up
twinkling eyes set in a smart skull, for a rat. He stretches at ease within the
trap but refuses to look at me, as if to say,
It s only a skirmish. I carry and release him at 100 yards where others live in
traditional holes. But this afternoon, another hill of trinkets adorns the
trailer floor. I start to think he s the culprit who chewed a Rubbermaid bin and
carried about 200 crackers one-by-one to a nearby empty bin. That cannot
continue. So, I re-trap and this time transport him 15 minutes away, sit and
open the cage door. He hops onto my lap, then to the unfamiliar sand, and back
onto my lap. It s like giving away a pet.
July 21
Old Pete, T.J. s neighbor and recycling sidekick, died sometime in the past 24
hours, and Laura found him lying in his own blood. It was poignant, and I ll
write a separate account Sun Dog .
In the hoopla surrounding the death, T.J. s pickup got left an hour away where
he awaited the coroner to provide directions. I give him a lift to it this
afternoon, a scorcher, in my Ford Contour with the heater running. It s routine
to drive with the windows up and heater on to acclimate, and a relief to step
outside the rolling sauna. How come my feet are hot? he pipes. Tell me you ain t
got the heat on! I nod, and shut it down. Quiet minutes pass until he begins in
a low voice, I moved out here cuz of too much killin For once, there are no
puzzles or jokes in a simple autobiography as we roll.
He was raised on a southern dairy farm by a family rich in the military
tradition, and at age seventeen joined the Marines. He sued them for combat
service in Southeast Asia as the only surviving male in the family. Following
three tours In Viet Nam, including seven months as a POW in a bamboo tiger cage
, he spent another fifteen years as a drill sergeant or embassy guard in twenty
countries around the world. He served the front line (without action) in Israel
and Korea, and retired from the Marines with twenty years of service credit, a
hard act to follow - which he did. He became a U.S. Marshal for two years,
followed by eight with the Justice Department including two fighting the
Columbia drug war and six as an agent type whose average career is three, and
there was more killing. It finally made him nervous and he left for Sand Valley
in 1990.
July 24
The present Cocoa Mt. Gunnery Range is a 100-square mile basin within the
original Desert Training Center, and history works down the wash over the
decades with WWII bullet shells surfacing around my property across which an old
tank track angles. I ve found dozens of shells on hikes. These days, helicopters
and jets aim for the main targets four miles from my doorstep. This afternoon,
two helicopters slide 100 over my semi-trailer, and later three jets divert to
fly at maybe 150 yards and waggle their laden wings as I wave. Pilots gravitate
toward the semi as the highest point (20 ) in the basin. At night, a fantastic
light show may cover the eastern sky with mile-long tracers from copter machine
guns, parachute flares that illuminate the land, and 1000-lb. bombs with low,
dark afterthoughts. The average daily bombing has been two hours, sometimes in
the afternoon but more often around sunset. It ceases by law at 10 pm, and no
further news is needed to know there s a war being practiced for here.
The flight pattern: Jets fly over or near Scorpion s Crotch, loop to the range
targets, dive and drop. There s thunder, the ground may shake here, and in
seconds a dark cloud some ten stories high drifts with the breeze. The largest
1000-lb. detonations leave craters the size of a suburban yard, and I must say
that this summer s explosions have more boom per bomb than before. An apparent
new design has made the blasts more compact and destructive. Some deploy
parachutes and explode just above the ground, some on contact, and others embed
in the earth with timers. For the first time, there are multiple explosions
spaced seconds apart. There are also concrete dummies and duds that don t
detonate, and it s all this guesswork that makes scavenging a dangerous line of
work. I m content to view it through binoculars from a couch atop the semi.
Three newcomer jets this summer streak by nearly daily for the range. They are
swift, black, and quiet with a striking configuration, and pass as a trio
instead of the normal pair. They re not as silent as the Stealth jets that train
here, nonetheless fly to the trailer without alerting me until right overhead.
T.J. (who later identifies them as British) is the recycle czar who, 40 years
ago, trained as a Marine recruit on this very range. Tomorrow I ll visit him on
the matter of water.
July 25
I m fixin the flats. Go away.
Nearly everything I ve ever heard T.J. say is a logic riddle, teaching puzzle or
mystery to be solved, and that s saying a lot as he cannot stop talking. I walk
from a stink and figure that last night s bounty weighted the buggy to cause the
flat tires. They must be patched before he returns tonight to claim the rest. I
ll fetch your water tomorrow, if it comes. That is, he may get blown up
while disassembling or running over a live bomb; it happens to novices.
Twice weekly at night, he combs the target area in a road warrior vehicle to
recycle aluminum and brass ordinance. I ran the range once with him a year ago.
We began at 10 pm when assumedly the last copters flew off. We jiggled in his
buggy with lights out for a mile along a wash and into the range, then a couple
more miles to the targets (plywood tanks and buildings). He stopped to unbolt
mangled bomb fins, while I scooped brass machine gun shells from the dirt. It s
as exciting as an Easter egg hunt with a boogie man. Hours later, we pulled from
the range with a loaded buggy. After, he would clean the goods of their
non-aluminum or brass metals, and drive a secret route to the recycler.
Valley exchange is usually via barter as there s a widespread shortage of green
money, plus many denizens are on SSI that disallows receipt of cash. Today, T.J
and I trade 500-gallons of water-to-be-delivered for 5 gallons of gear box oil
for his 42 six-by truck. The source is a private well ten miles away whose water
is too alkaline to drink or wash clothes in, but is okay for dishes and body if
you don t mind a white residue. I pass for Casper the ghost. This will be my
second water delivery in four years as the Valley s stingiest user. I lost about
20 percent of the initial batch by storing it in metal containers. The salt
water oxidizes a thin inner line at water level where there s also air. The
resulting pinholes leak and the level drops as the rust line continues
concentrically to the ground until the tank s depleted. It s so sad I want to
cry. An inch-thick crust coats the outer tank, and I m the guy who couldn t grow
salt crystals in science class.
To solve the problem, yesterday I converted the storage from the regular
100-gallon metal containers to 50-gallon plastic drums ($20 used) that hold salt
water indefinitely. This necessitates building yet another hut for the 10 drums
that must be kept shaded. T.J. arrives with the water this afternoon that will
last me about two years. I give him a Gatorade from the fridge, as a gas motor
pumps the water. He finishes it with relish. Was that Gatorade too warm? I ask
as he leaves. No, it was cold, he replies. I peed in it, I add. He chuckles down
the driveway. He and Laura are the only people I ve seen in nearly a month.
August 1
Who would have guessed I could survive a month out here and grin like the rings
around my water containers? I m fit, pleased, don t mutter, and for the first
time can stand the heat. It can only get better.
I conjecture about it all that the body makes intricate yet effective
adaptations to climate extremes. Some of these changes may come faster and more
extensively if one is made aware to cultivate them. There are many examples from
observing the animals and people out here. I believe that sweating should be
delayed, and this is accomplished by volitionally shunting blood away from the
skin. Sun on skin is the major heating factor, but with less peripheral
circulation there s less heat transported to the internal aspect including the
skull and bone marrow where it s stored. Another example is respiration, which
is slightly less significant than the skin conduction of heat. Air inhaled
slowly under a shade hat or big nose cools before reaching the lungs and blood.
I remind myself that summer air is warmer than a normal body temperature.
Some people and dogs wonder why they like to chew ice, and the probable answer
is that it cools the air (hence increases the oxygen content and partial
pressure) before reaching the lungs. The result is a lower body temperature and
fresher feeling. Similarly, one holds the last swig of liquid in the mouth for
minutes on a hot day to run inhaled air over it. Another trick is moving slowly,
just under the threshold of breathing hard and perspiring. Labored breathing
raises the blood pressure and there goes the peripheral circulation. Once
sweating begins, it should be acknowledged as a chilling (from evaporation)
rather than heating experience. Of course, hydrating increases blood volume to
cool, but the water volume is more significant than its temperature. Long hair
under a hat insulates markedly better than short, and a deep tan disallows
sunlight absorption. The counter-argument that dark skin holds more heat, I
feel, is secondary. With these and dozens of other conscious and unconscious
shifts, one adjusts soon enough to temperatures anywhere in the world.
August 2
The burrow is the jewel of Scorpion s Crotch. It s a place to go under the heat,
wind and noise, to read or nap, or type reports on the solar powered laptop. It
s the hole the sub lives in that the school kids all want to hear about. To
revise the song A horse with no name : The desert is an ocean with its life
underground and a perfect disguise above. The original intent was for the burrow
to be the only property dwelling, but packrat-itis struck and now it s the final
project. It began four years ago with a 10 -deep hand-dug hole next to a path of
tires leading from a camper shell to the lip. I winched the camper like a
sweating, ancient Egyptian along the tires into the hole and covered it with a
retaining roof and dirt - except for a submarine-type 23 barrel entrance, 7 air
vent, and 3 periscope portal. Alas, in my design study of animal burrows with
dual holes for ventilation, I d overlooked the gas law whereby the intake (23
diameter barrel) is limited by the out-draft (7 vent). Under there, it was 25
degrees colder than on the surface but stagnant. I also desired more light. They
say, to make a man crazy tell him to dig a hole and fill it in, but now I m
excavating the north face to install an airy screen and to terrace the earth to
admit light. The new version should be finished in two days where I ll sit like
a happy Hobbit.
A funny thing happens as I hit the kitchen bunk tonight. I don
swim-goggles-for-blind (having electrician tape over the eyepieces to block
light better than normal blinders), and begin to drift off. A buzzing! so
incessant that I must seek it out. I raise the goggles to see the flashlight
left turned on near the bed, and a fly walks free from an eyepieces. Peeved that
the batteries would have gone dead by morning, I light a way to the pantry for a
soymilk, set aside the torch (off) and sit outside to drink and watch the great
swing of the Milky Way. It travels like a wounded clock hand across the night
sky. A BANG breaks my reverie that I trace back into the pantry where a
handsome, light-colored pack rat stands over the illuminated torch on the floor.
I shut it off, and return to the Milky Way. When the milk is drained, I go for
the light that now doesn t. The torch that I deserved to lose in the first place
is dead, and the karma of my little universe restored.
August 4
I have struck a vein of precious books along my shelves this month! The first is
Leonard Clark s Rivers Ran East Former Army intelligence officer Colonel Clark
arrives in Lima in 1946 with $1000 and a secret map of El Dorado, the legendary
gold strike deep in the jungle. The most gripping exploration begins that
disturbs me so often that I must take walks. (I moved to this desert after being
lost in the same jungle.) Clark is arguably the greatest 20th century explorer,
an accurate naturalist and unique writer. He didn t question, he charged ahead
with little more than the shirt on his back hiding a secret belt.
A line from the car batteries that are charged during daylight by the solar
panels leads into the reading trailer to the best little 12V reading lamps money
can buy bolted in pair over a captain s chair next to a customized floor vent.
The trailer door is open and admits few errant winged insects, but I ve compiled
a mental species catalogue over the month that includes about ten moths and six
assorted winged insects. I examine them on the pages or my body with a
magnifying glass. One night, a giant-3 winged black beetle (possibly a Prionus
imbricornis or Air Force intelligence) zipped up, the largest I ve seen outside
the Amazon.
The second book is Simon Murray s Legionnaire , easily the top military personal
account I ve come across. The young Englishman enlists in the Foreign Legion in
the early 60 s when Algeria is a hot spot in the French umbrella. Five punishing
years in the Legion are relived in an honest, captivating diary from which one
concludes that the author is a charmed soul. This book is special because it
spans the transformation of the old brutal Legion to the more tepid modern.
Henceforth, British enlistees were referred to as SMS s (Simon Murray specials).
The reading nook is a corner of the kitchen trailer, and after tonight s read I
choose the bunk across from the captain s chair. Strangely, I feel bugs crawl my
skin, as on previous nights, as I fall asleep, but can t complain after those
books.
August 5
The early morning minutes are given to blinking at the sun and chewing shredded
wheat. I absentmindedly eat about a dozen tiny bugs that grubbed into the cereal
wrapper, no doubt the species crawling my skin. They are 1/4 reddish, comely
beetles of blunt personality. I hurry to the trailer bunk but there are none, so
check the nearby food bins. An odd scratching emits from one that I pop the
plastic lid from to view many bugs alongside thousands of meal worms the first
life stage - swimming in 4 of pancake powder. Obviously, I hadn t eaten pancakes
this summer. They sound like a poor, crazy man s brain. It s a possible starter
for a meal worm farm, but I decide to bury them in a hole.
The third book I m into is L Amour s The Man from Skibbereen . Crispin Mayo, an
Irishman who never backed away from a battle, sails to seek his youthful fortune
in the American West where he s a newcomer to the law of the gun. He stumbles
continually and funnily in derby and suspenders but always lands on his feet. I
know that soon the plea of a lady who s good in the saddle will change his tune
- for this is a L Amour novel - and at that point I shall stop reading. Every
man who crossed paths with the man from Skibbereen was sorry, but I like him. L
Amour s personal experiences enliven his novels: Seaman, lumberjack, miller,
woodcutter, WWII officer, cowboy, miner, hobo, professional boxer, lecturer,
world traveler, high school non-graduate, son of a veterinarian, and collector
of rare books. The classic L Amour themes are hard work, thrift, honor, loyalty,
problem solving, chasing girls and standing up for what s right. I can think of
no one more worthy for a young man to emulate, or to read of in the
autobiography Education of a Wandering Man .
I read these books, as the past few hundreds for twenty years, upside down.
Admittedly, this decreases top reading speed by about 20% with subsequent 10%
gain in comprehension. I was alarmed on finding this out years ago, and the best
explanation is the disparity in print vs. anatomy with the book
upside-downed: The alphabet tops differ dramatically from the bottoms, as do the
eyes abilities to move at their tops and bottoms. However, I believe a book
written in strict mirror image (and think to write one titled The Art, Science
and Benefits of Mirror Image Reading and Writing complete with a mirror
bookmark) can be read at normal top speed and comprehension. I used to practice
reading with a mirror, but gave it up as cumbersome when the book more easily is
flipped upside down. A startling event occurred years ago while I lay in a
coffin (lined in electric blankets against the northern winter) reading Lewis
Carroll s Through the Looking Glass . The passage on Tweedledee and Tweedledum
suddenly mirror reverses in the natural text, and I sat upright.
The purpose of either mirror or upside-down reading is to reverse the flow of
print. Approximately 80% of the English alphabet (unlike the more balanced
Hebrew) has letters as arrows pointed left to right, 10% go the reverse, and 10%
are neutral. The questionable original wisdom must have been to point the eye in
the direction of the words, and indeed these sweep the eyeballs across the pages
and nearly out of the sockets. I began backward reading and writing for
athletics: To increase the visual tracking of balls, gloves, birdies, etc. from
right to left, or in the same direction as a flipped book print flow. I believe
it strongly efficacious. For instance, a left handed batter appreciating a
fastball or a righty tennis player an approaching backhand each owns an edge
with a past in reading reverse print. We are bombarded daily with signs that go
left to right, so reading backwards each night is a balancing act. I teach it in
school with acceptance.
August 7
I step into the work shed for a tool this morning and step back from large
western diamondback rattler tracks on my right. The huge swaths are an
unmistakable signature as no other snake here has the girth, and this could be 6
long. He likely smelled a packrat where one has dragged Cholla joints in
erecting a 5 -circle wall about its hole. The species normally nests beneath
this specific cactus for protection from predators, but this bright guy brought
the spines to the hole. The snake trail winds to the sharp wall and returns to
exit the hut. I knew upon building this shed that the architectural cooling
would draw critters, so a fine dirt parchment was placed for the record. I
smooth last night s entry, and shall watch it closely as no one but a bird
enters without my knowing.
It s not that I mind snakes; I just don t like surprises. I recall four true
first-class snake tales over the years. Once, I entered a mine shaft north of
here and was trapped at the tunnel end by a rattler echoing and blocking the
entrance a dot of light in the distance - as bats flew by my ears. Another time,
I unwittingly stepped over an upright rattler balanced on its tail like a cane,
and reached for balance to its head. On another occasion in the Mojave Desert, I
kneeled to snap a picture of a stone ruin and heard a click I thought was the
shutter, except it continued. I had framed a rattler four feet from my head in
the picture, and made it anxious.
On settling at Scorpions Crotch four years ago, I wore ankle weights while
building. For two days the iron filings in the weights were heard to fall out,
yet there was no leak. It happened again at sunset on the third day, so I stood
absolutely still as the noise continued and bent to a knee to solve the mystery.
A young (7 ) sidewinder looked up from my toe. Call it a case of imprinting gone
wrong, and I prematurely named him Sir. He turned up now and again bigger and
longer (finally15 ) over the years. I must assume it a constant serpent because
he had tamed not to rattle, even a few months ago when I felt compelled to take
him in a coffee can from the work shed to a far wash.
August 10
I inherit Sun Dog s old 12 horse trailer, boxy with a thin rail top, which T.J.
brings by today. I may convert it to a little museum/library. They re playin my
song, T.J. sings as jets soar overhead. Every young person, and surely all
Valleyites, at one time or another asks himself how to live a happy, successful
life. What am I going to do after school? the kids I sub-teach inquire.
Aristotle addressed The Good Life and is their guide. Begin with a goal. What
are the reasonable paths to that, and try each. Pursue an objective for the sake
of a higher one, such as reading a book or running a mile. Aristotle felt that
the final goal of success is if one is happy. That s what s great about America
that permits a place like Sand Valley for misanthropes. Friendship, or at least
a lack of enemies, is central to Aristotle s Good Life, so I catch a ride with
T.J. back to his compound: Past the Skull.com insignia, beyond the Freedom
Village sign, rolling by USMC scratched in hardpan 10 letters, under the
tattered Confederate flag and into the menagerie of cats, dogs and chickens
crowded under one huge shader. I want to witness him install an electric
ignition here in one of the Road Warrior distributors for he s a master, maniac
mechanic. To watch is to walk with Da Vinci into a morgue. He finishes, and
takes a putty knife to splatter grease from the oil pan to where my hat lies in
the dirt, but miraculously not a drop touches the cap. After that job, he tosses
me a universal (ignition) switch and says to put it in one of the vehicles. It s
a replacement that he knows won t work since the first didn t because they re
made in China where everybody walks . Don t know how. I grouse. Try it, he
demands. So, I fumble with the switch obverse where sundry screw-posts
stick out for leads. Let s see, I start. This is for the starter, this the
lights, and this one for your peter to turn you on. Nah, I use the kill switch!
giggles Laura. She s a VW mechanic second only to her husband, and helps me to
install the switch as T.J. goes inside for hot coffee; he drinks little else. He
returns with a .357 Magnum. If it don t work, I m gonna surprise somebody. I m
pretty sure he s going to shoot the switch, but with that incentive we connect
wires and turn the ignition - the engine kicks over. It s a miracle, but it can
t happen twice. he challenges. We crank again, and it doesn t. He grins rather
than shoots, Next time, I ll buy American! and it goes to show that the Good
Life can reach the worst in anyone.
August 12
I awaken on the raised couch, take a sweep of the myriad improvements about the
property and squint through the shade cloth at another sun. The last major
project to finish is the terracing of the burrow s north face. I throw aside the
shovel at noon, drink heavily in the pantry, and on a whim strap on a second
pair of ankle weights to walk 25 minutes to T.J. s. I pass the dirt drive lined
with dogs on tear-away leashes who feel it s too hot to bark. I discover
everyone else chickens, cats, T.J. and wife sprawled on outdoor sheets dampened
by a spray. I already lost the turkey, a chicken and cat today, squawks Laura.
It s 117 degrees in the shade, an I don t want to lose another! and she tramps
dripping sweat, water, fur and feathers to the refrigerator to get me a soda. I
wish she hadn t revealed the temperature. (I will learn that the broadcast town
daily highs for each of the past 45 days has been in excess of 100F, topping at
130F.) The animals simply died of heat exhaustion, while the turkey crawled
beneath a trailer to expire undetected for hours and avoid being eaten. Damn the
heat, damn the bird! she laments.
I m elated, and maybe Patton s spirit blows cool over the ten who survive in
Sand Valley. I hike home, jump in the car and go to town.
Even now I hear T.J. hoot the Turkey s name, Kilroy was here!
For more of Steve Keeley's writings
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