Summer 2011

“All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”  Tolstoy

There exist so many ways to go with your yearly trip report when you start with a quote like that.  I suppose Tolstoy would follow the unhappy family, they do sound more interesting.  All I know is that this year’s blog is late and my editors are constantly bugging me to get it done, so maybe I don’t have time to contemplate which perspective to take on the modern social family structure.  But haven’t I read before that cliques and social groups are quickly replacing our traditional family and religious affiliation groups?  Because I choose my kayaking social group, the act of choosing should make it a happy family group.  And since my editors are entirely figments of my imagination, shouldn’t their insistent prodding and suggestions make me happy?  But my lawyer is telling me to stop playing philosopher and start writing a record of this year’s kayaking.

“It is said, once Tolstoy had said it first, that all happy families are alike, and there is really little more to say about them.  It would seem that the same is true of happy elephants.”  Jose Saramago

As I write this entry it is Spring Break 2012 and I’m at the coast, so it makes sense to start last year’s journal entry at Spring Break 2011.  Niki, Jesus John, and I drove to Port Orford to visit our friend Roger.  We did a long scouting mission on a roadless class 2 section of a tributary of the Alsea River called Drift Creek.  I’m sure it was good to go and we would have made the take out before dark, but it would have been pretty embarrassing to have to accidentally camp overnight on class 2. 

John and I looked at the lower run on the Elk River, but it looked too high for my taste of low water runs.  We had never run the upper section and decided to give it a go, finding it a surprisingly nice section of river on a cold, cold spring break.  (We both portaged the biggest rapid).  Our real plan had been to run the North Fork of the Smith, but the weather didn’t cooperate.  If you could hear the wind outside the window at the moment, you would understand why I have decided to sit in front of this computer and write instead of boat over spring break 2012. 

While we are on the topic of the beautifully cold Oregon Coast, Spring 2011 also included a trip down the North fork of the Trask and the Salmonberry.  Jason Boyok, mixologist at the Mint, and recently parodied on Portlandia, was our guide down the North Fork Trask.  The only problem is when he guided us to the put-in; I started reading the description of the run in Soggy Sneakers and realized that we were actually at the take-out.  Turns out Boyok had mistakenly done the wrong run the last time he did the north fork (“Dude, I thought it was a bit mellower then the book mentioned”).  After several hours of driving down logging roads we had it all figured out and did both runs this time.  A surprising good run that is very isolated and hence spectacular, we just recently tried to hit it again, but the road was washed out and we ended up on what we shall call the Boyok (IE lower) run. Just talked to the forest service and the road shall be fixed for the 2013 season, as long as the Mayan Calendar is wrong.

While we are on the theme of washouts and coastal runs, we also hit the Salmonberry last spring.  I hadn’t run it since the railroad was washed out, but it really is a classic class 4 wilderness run.  I traded Niki shuttle bunny status for help with dirt and bark dust in her garden: quite the hard bargain.  The run was great as always and a little extra eerie with the old railroad tracks overhanging and “crashing into” the river.  The old put-in bridge acted as a log choke and kept the rest of the run pretty log free.  But be careful out there.

“I could blame this on the constant state of rivalry we lived in, but I suspect that on the Final Day of Judgment, when my good and bad actions are placed in the balance, it will be the weight of that ear of corn that sends me down to hell…”  Saramago

My favorite author, a person who I consider a family friend since I’m always reading his books at family functions, has passed away.  You will have to forgive me if the quality of Saramago quotes that I now use are a little less average; since he has passed away I only have a finite number of words to choose from.  I have read all his works except one. I almost feel like leaving it so that it may someday entertain me as a new work of art.

A group of 8 of us drove to the classic Smith Rivers in the northern corner of California in April.  I have been known to say that I want my white water heaven to include a run down the North Fork of the Smith on a bluebird day, and that is what we got. (And so much more).  While scouting a non-mission of the Oregon Hole Gorge I found a broken DVD titled Red Neck Porn Volume 8.  Boyok tried to super glue it back together.  In our search for soggy firewood in the rain forest, we ended up buying some from the guy who carves bears with a chain saw.  Our shuttle driver told us a story about when Big Foot ate one of the local’s chickens overnight and she is sure she will get to see one soon. 

My favorite bar in Crescent City is currently closed for problems with the California Liquor Commission.  So many stories lost and now there aren’t any hard liquor bars in Crescent City.  Hope they get that fixed soon.  Finally we got to do the class 1 Mill Creek run through the redwoods. 

“I beg you, friend, be happy.  I have the vague sense that on your capacity to be happy hangs our only hope.”  Kundera

And now let’s talk about my real non-boating family, though they boat as well, I just mean to say my real family, not my social group of kayakers that I also call family.  And my editors also boat, but that is in their (my) imagination.  This recession that we are going through really ends up hitting home.  Both of my parents are now unemployed and it is hard to find any work out there.  Oregon’s nurses are becoming more educated and Salem Hospital no longer had a need from my mom’s 2-year degree, even though 30 years of experience would seem to make up for her educational deficiencies.  On the good side of news and family, Josh and Roxanne have added a new Horner to the boating family.  I suppose it will be a few years, but we will certainly be getting Cassie out on the river soon.  She has already braved out her first flood when my brother’s house was surrounded with water from an overfilled Mill Creek.  Don’t worry, the cataraft was all filled up and ready to go should the house start to go under.  Portlanders got to see images of my brother boating the weather team around the flooded town on television.

Already has the Horner sense of humor.

Used without permission.  In my defense it is on the photographers Facebook Page.

“Perhaps it is as an infant that one first experiences the illusion of being elect, because of the maternal attentions one receives without meriting them and demands with all the more determination.  Upbringing should get rid of that illusion and make clear that everything in life has a price.  But it is often too late.”  Kundera

And speaking of great floods, some quack in Roseburg convinced a number of people that the world was going to end and plastered the area with billboards and even made national news.  Our group decided that it was time to head for the Owyhee River and have an end of the world party on our 4-day adventure.  Jesus John (our friend with a godly nickname) got too busy at work and had to cancel.  The joke was we lost Jesus before our adventure even began.  My brother’s friends Monty and Brian cooked up 17lbs of meat for 21 people and we had a regular feast and sipped often from the wine.  I seem to remember a drunk Michael Glass dressed as a catholic schoolgirl reading a pretend diary of a love affair with Christ.  I should keep some of Michael’s upbringing as a Baptist Minister’s son out of my blog/diary. 

Speaking of Baptist Minister’s sons, my best friend Mike Ross and his wife Cindi couldn’t join us this year.  But their son William did for his first overnighter without his parents.  I really don’t know how he puts up with us, but he did spend a lot of time in his tent during camping time.  At the put-in I was told by the river ranger that our group was over the 20 person limit, that we need to start bringing our own firewood down the Owyhee, and that he was leaving for a trip on the Grand Canyon and we should start following these new rules next year.  He failed to mention that a good cop and a bad cop would visit us.  I do know that the police do patrols down the river and I actually do appreciate it.  It all started when someone pulled a firearm out during a dispute over a campsite years ago.  What I forgot was to renew our Oregon Boater tags, costing us three $145 tickets, but the court did eventually reduce them back to $8 bucks each.  The best part of our talk with the cops was we eventually got good cop to wear a halo from the end of the world party.  The only reason that picture isn’t on Facebook is because we promised him we wouldn’t put it up.  We could have done without bad cop, though; unfortunately we couldn’t get him to put the devil horns on. He had a gun so we didn’t push the idea. 

I’m amazed that after all these years, 20 to be precise, of running the Owyhee, I discovered something new this year.  I found a location where Native Americans sat and chipped spears and possibly arrowheads.  The age of the artifacts in this area made it extremely special to me.

“Even Adam and Eve had to do their business in some corner of paradise.”  Saramago

Our editors would like me to remind the audience that the world didn’t end while we were on the Owyhee.  That did open us up to attend professor paddle on the Wenatchee River the following weekend.  John, Jen, and I drove out.  About half of the Portland boating community met us there this year.  I completely messed up the rafting line on Snow Blind.  Jen flew out and Jacky, Carol, and I paddled the raft in circles and endos, but didn’t flip.  By the time we cleared the hydraulic, Jen was a very long way downstream floating lazily.  Conversation between Jen and Melissa Brokenfoot who kayaked up to her:

“What are you doing in the river?”

“I fell out of the boat.”

“Where is the boat?”

“Oh, it’s still stuck up there in the rapid.”

“Oh my, are you OK?”

“Yes, just fine, thanks for asking.”

From my dizzying vantage point up in the spinning raft I was really hoping that Melissa would eventually paddle Jen to shore before she had the awful experience of swimming Grannies rapid as well.  They did eventually get over the English formalities and move to shore.  That night Portland was out-partied and out-microphoned by the Seattle crew.  God, we are really getting old.  It was good to watch the fun though.  Next we ran the Chiwawa where a member of our crew had a bit of an issue with a piece of wood.  We got it all figured out though.  Then 3 of us put in below Fresh Squeezed for a run on the Peshastin on Monday.  Then it was the somewhat long trip home.

2011’s high water had also kept the Clackamas River high.  My annual student Clackamas trip had 27 boaters and at Toilet Bowl it had 14 swimmers.  I suppose that is a good math problem, but it was a mess and not usually what we like to have happen on our student trips.

The student crew with our mess of random boating gear

It is always nice when a few weeks after Memorial Day grades are entered into the computer and it really does become Summer 2011!  We had a permit for the Middle Fork of the Salmon, but the road was snowed in and the river was high with the possibility of rising higher. 

Somehow this convinced me that a high water trip on the Jarbridge-Bruneau was a good alternative plan.  It for the most part was a good idea, but we don’t ever intend to run it that high again.  The flow rose from 2400 to 2900 CFS during our trip and we were hoping for decreasing water levels.  That is another good math problem, something about range and domain that I have used in my math classes.  We spent $420 shuttling the cars to the put-in just to realize that the river was too high to realistically take a cataraft down it.  I did think at the time that a $420 dollar shuttle is an odd number for something that is too high.  The visible eddies from the road were tiny.  Mike Glass, Alex Dey, Christy Glismire, Melissa DeCarlo and I decided to give it a go.  It was fast down to the first camp with no troubles.  Any misplaced piece of wood would have been dangerous. 

We lightened our boats overnight (drank all the beer and ate all the Ramen Noodles), and the first obstacle for the second day was the landslide at Sevy Falls.  It did actually pool the flooded river and make a definite difficult but doable portage for our group. Christy took the mountain goat route on the left, and the rest of us took the frog route on the right over the slide.  The rapid was intense.  Next, Christy styled Wally’s Wallows and the rest of us portaged.

In retrospect i didn't need an entire bottle of Tech-nu, but we used it

Nervously entering the river at the put-in

 

The new rapid (portage)

Carrie dropping the Tacoma off the side of a cliff

Devil's Holy Rock Pile

The real danger was the next two miles.  Nothing was all that big, but a mistake could add up quickly.  We needed to eddy out before Jarbridge Falls and we needed to be safe getting there.  If you haven’t seen it, just know that walking out of the Jarbridge really isn’t an option.  Our group was very slow and very cautious.  Melissa and I portaged part of John’s Jollies, only to launch right into the most difficult hole.  She pulled a crucial roll and within minutes we were portaging the falls.  The high water made us start our walk farther upstream and the longer portage route had its place in another adventure in Tasmania.  Carrie, Niki, and Steph Glass drove the Tacoma into the canyon at the confluence.  Sounded like my sister driving down the road (off the cliff) was as much of an adventure as ours.  Thanks to Larry the shuttle driver and ex off-road racing dude for not only letting my sister drive into the canyon, but taking a day off from his family supporting regular job as a furniture salesman to help us out. The beer and food was very much appreciated.  The next day we all continued down the river with the three recently converted Baja driving enthusiasts in a cataraft.  The Bruneau at the higher flows was doable, but much scarier and pushy big water then I like in a deep canyon.  That said we where all smiles when we finished Devil’s Holy Rock Pile, or whatever the name is for that last rapid.  Some of us then drove to the Owyhee River for another 4-day trip (Oregon Boater permits in hand).  The sun and mellow rapids were appreciated by us recently converted beer-drinking-slackers.

I worked two days a week over the summer, but it still left plenty of time for boating.  We had a large trip planned on the Middle Fork of the Salmon in Idaho, but the water levels were high and we canceled the trip.  Four of us picked up the cancellation and went on the mellowest Middle Fork trip to date.  Fourth of July was on a Monday, so all I had to do was get a substitute for Wednesday and I was boating.  The level at the put in was still 5.5 feet but it was dropping fast.  The group that launched in front of us was massive and the trip leader had a very long nearly fatal swim and was saved by a fisherman.  On these high water trips, a compact group is much safer.  Because of our group’s small size, we got campsites the first 3 nights near hot springs.  Nice and relaxing trip with Brett, Carrie, Jesus John, and I.  Because the flows had dropped so much, the last day was much mellower then I had expected.

Brett, all packed and ready for the trip.

The hike to Loon Creek, the site of many a story about horses.  We didn't see Mary this year.

We don't always eat this good, but damn it was good.

Carrie, posing for the picture.

Um, yeah.

Writing this year's blog and thinking about what my editors might be up to.

Over the next few weeks we finished painting my mom’s new house.  The garden and lawn were in and we were done with the 2-year project!  That left time for Niki, South African Dave, and I to head to Shambala, a 4-day rave near Nelson British Columbia.  The festival has grown a lot since Brett and I visited it ten years ago.  We had fun nights dancing and people watching, with mellow days in the sun near the river, ogling the inappropriate nudity and people.  The festival has grown so big that you can no longer realistically leave during the day to go boating and have any chance of getting back into the festival before nightfall.  On our way home on Sunday, Dave and I did a new class 3 run down the local Little Slocan River.  Well worth the side trip to bag a new-to-us river.

Gave finals for summer term and headed to the Lower Salmon River in Idaho for the kid’s trip.  Four new kids joined us this year: Reid, Aida, Kadance, and Sandra brought Timothy for his first trip.  Somehow during the first night Reid hurt his foot and was limping for the rest of the trip.  Made for some funny stories including him crawling up to Cindi very early in the trip to ask for help getting to the river to go pee, and a very last minute downstream paddle to get him to a toilet at a campground.  “I have to pee and I can’t walk.”  The rest of the trip had the usual kid’s trip themes, jumping rock, glow sticks, frog beach, theme night, kids cook and clean night, etc.  The theme this year was children’s book characters.  Some good Harry Potter and some great Dr. Seuss costumes.  At one point Timothy had fallen asleep and fell into the river from the back of a cataraft.  Sandra immediately jumped from the boat and rode out the rapid with him, a bit scary but funny in the end.  Ah, my editors are pushing me to move on to more adventures.  Who wants to hear about a kid’s trip anyway?  I do promise that we still have some of the same old drinking and fun times as always.

Maurice Sendak would be proud.

I’m not quite sure how a fishing trip can end up in these journals, but this year included two fishing trips.  The first was a guy’s get-away weekend while my sister-in-law had a traditional baby shower.  I’m not sure my sister Carrie knows how to plan a women’s only shower, but the rumor is, things went fine.  My brother, our uncles, and friends spent some quality time out at the Oregon coast.  Highlights include, Tony from the farm making the camp host pick up leftover dog-poo from our site and a B.Y.O.B. chartered fishing trip with crab nets.  The quote of the trip, “I paid to live here.”  The second trip was to the newly purchased Homfray Lodge that our friends, the Macey’s, picked up at a well below market steal that is located off the B.C. sunshine coast. 

Check it out at http://www.homfraylodge.com/

The original Montana owner lost his shirt on the place spending millions on the infrastructure.  We got to hang out and feel like the elite Bill-Gates-With-A-Sailing-Boat type, and all we had to do was some minor chores.  The rumor is the entire place has been booked out for all the biggest parts of next summer.  While sitting on the deck one afternoon we saw a medium sized whale swimming up the channel. 

It is apparent when you hang out in the area for a while why some of the strongest and most sophisticated Native Americans called the area home.  You can still see pictographs on the walls from your boat just a half-mile from the lodge.

Niki, Sara Pool, and I and fit in a nice weekend on the Rogue River.  I need to remember to do more small trips, especially to the Rogue, because it was very relaxing.  On the drive home we visited Niki’s friends in Roseburg, and learned the fine art of Jell-O shots.  The mint julep from scratch is amazing.

“When the mind wanders, when it carries us off on the wings of daydreams, we do not notice the distances traveled, especially when the feet carrying us are not our own.”  Saramago

And so let it be said that Niki and I hopped in a car to meet Audrey and Brian for a 6-day trip on the Selway River.  The season for the Selway River this year was ridiculously long.  My sister and friends had run the river three weeks prior, but Niki and I had to work.  So we pieced together a crew at inflatable kayak flows.  It was a great trip and the 6 days were needed to really enjoy it. Even though it was work dragging the boats at times, it was actually not all that bad.  Brian did some excellent catch and release fishing.  On the last day we paddled next to an active slow burning forest fire = pretty cool.

Niki's self support tent

Our only portage, Wolf Creek

A little carnage.

Double Drop is a completely different rapid.

Tango Bar

Floating out past the fires on the last day

Our Canadian editor has been missing so far from this story.  He decided that his wayward ways in Nelson B.C. had gone unnoticed to the world, and that it was time to find a mate and settle in a fine cabin in the Kootenay Mountains.  He is back with us of course; searching for a family on the Internet has its merits and significant downfalls.  But I’m happy that this year’s blog theme of family can magically coincide with the Arab Spring.  Please just stop and think for a minute that members of the Muslim Brotherhood were united for a moment with extreme democratic factions to stage coups and peaceful sit-ins that the governments turned violent.  In that light it sometimes seems that any peer group can be made into a family for at least a moment with powerful consequences.  But wait, we started this paragraph with our peaceful Canadian correspondent at heart, and he is back in our midst and ready to go travel, kayak, and edit poorly spelled blogs again.

Babcock at the bottom of Ranie Falls

The Halloween Two Night Trip down the Rogue was a success.  The trip is always lots of work and the weather is often starting to get cold, but we do have a good time.  The costumes on the last night always make the trip, as do the pumpkins.  I’m always happy to put the overnight gear away for the winter and start thinking of easier-to-plan day trips for the cold season, but it never takes long before I’m thinking about how nice it would be to spend an evening next to the campfire along the river.
 

William Ross turns 18 in 2012.  Soon it will be college and other dreams.  While we still have him around and now that he has a driver’s license it has been fun to start ramping up his creeking skills.  He hit the East Fork Lewis first and has since run a few other classics like Butte Creek.  Spring 2012 should really bring out some great new runs for him.

William's first waterfall.  Horse Shoe on the East Fork Lewis.

“A glance at the map is enough to make you feel tired.  And yet it looks as if everything were so close, within easy reach, so to speak.  The explanation, of course, lies in the scale.  It’s easy to accept that a centimeter on the map equals twenty kilometers in reality, but what we tend no to consider is that, in the process, we ourselves suffer an equivalent dimensional reduction, which is why, being but specks on earth’s surface, we are still smaller on maps.”  Saramago

If you bump into our editors sometime, you should ask them about the Intermediate Value Theorem, IVT for short.  So easy to state on paper, if a river is flowing at 1200 cfs on Monday and 1600 cfs on Wednesday, there exists a time that the river was flowing at 1320 cfs during the time period. The key point of the theorem is the small phrase it contains, there exists.  As a consequence of this theorem, if you take a map of Texas, crumple it up and drop it on the ground in Big Bend National Park, one of the points on the map will be directly over its correct location in the park.  While you are at it, please ask our Canadian editor and our lawyer why they devised a plan to drive all the way to Big Bend National Park over Christmas Vacation.  I suppose things always look smaller on maps, even the bats.

Long Drive, check.  Pick Jesus John up near the Mexico border, check.  Tie even more gear into and onto Niki’s Sentra, check.  Drive even more to Big Bend National Park, check.  Drive even more all the way through Big Bend National Park to find campsite, check.  See coyote, check.  See strange native pig like creature running around the campsite, check.  Get drunk as shit and imagine things about the other campers, check.  Drive to park headquarters to pick up permit to paddle upstream into St Elena Canyon on the Rio Grande, check.  Wait a minute, did you say paddle upstream?  That is correct we decided to head to Texas during a drought that is so bad that the local weather forecasters and environmentalists are comparing it to the drought that forced the Anasazi out of the Grand Canyon and forced large Native American groups to migrate from parts of the Rio Grande and Colorado area.  Why the hell did we drive all the way to Texas for a drought?  I was joking with the park ranger, “Actually, we usually paddle downstream in Oregon.”  If you saw the little crack in the limestone Canyon walls that Niki, John, and I paddled up into, you would understand our motivation.  The hiking into the side canyon at our campsite was Grand Canyon like, speaking of the Grand Canyon native Anasazi.  Stayed 2 nights and paddled back out to experience New Years with the locals.  Check.

Randomly a friend of a friend was playing at a local bar for New Years.  Had some Sotol with him.  What’s that, you’ve never heard of Sotol?  You so need to visit me soon cause I have some in dad’s liquor cabinet at my house but it is going fast.  The bar was amazing and would be quite hard to describe.  Kind of like a bunker that someone spent way too much time changing into a bar.  We finished the night of at a bar called the Starlight and I literally stumbled back to our campsite outside another bar/restaurant and fell into (onto actually) my sleeping bag.  Quite the cool town Terlingua is; in the middle of fu@##ng nowhere.  Did I mention that it is a ghost town from the mining era?

We weathered out the windstorm of the century that night.  Actually I hear that it was a normal windstorm for the area.  Then we paddled into Boquillas canyon, again on the Rio Grande, for a three-night adventure.  We went downstream this time, but the wind and low water made if feel just like we were paddling upstream.  The wind left us alone the second day and we hiked up into Rabbit Ears canyon.  Epic hiking adventure with it all:  slot canyons, fossils, fun climbing moves, etc.  That one hike alone made the trip.  The next couple of days were nice with great scenery.  On the last day I had my dry suit only half way on me, and was lazily paddling down a class 1 rapid when I lost my balance fell out of the boat, laughing and trying to save my whiskey.  I pulled to boat over to the Mexico side of the river so I could do a quick clothing change.  I couldn’t believe it, but that is the exact moment that a border patrol helicopter buzzed over us at 20 feet as I stood there in my boxers on the Mexico side of the border.  I could see they were laughing and I didn’t get into any trouble.  Seriously my T-shirt purchase from the gift shop says, “Paddle faster, I hear border patrol.”  A small parody of the canoeing adventures of the movie Deliverance and its banjo music. The guy who owns the take out gave us a tour of his Harley collection (that he custom builds) and some cold beers.  That beer tasted so good.

Headed home, check.  Ate best Mexican food on the planet, check.  Dropped John off at the airport, check.  Visited Mesa Verde cliff dwellings and kick ass petroglyph site, check.  Drove the long ass back way home, check.  Visited Mormon Temple with big ass statue of Jesus in Salt Lake City with Niki dressed as a prostitute while we handed out fliers advertising Mitt Romney’s super pack (for a better tomorrow, tomorrow)…not this time, Niki is a college teacher, remember.

This year in review is drawing to a close, but I always need to include at least one dream.  In the dream I’m driving up to our farm and am having a hard time finding a place to park my pickup.  That isn’t unheard of at the farm, but the interesting thing is someone has painted parking strips on the gravel lot, and all the cars are parked in neat rows.  The strangest thing is, all the vehicles are cars and not the usual mix of trucks, jeeps, junkers, etc.  I finally find a place to park and start walking up to the farm shop when I notice that a lot of people are wondering around;: kids are playing fetch, couples are leaning against the rusted out combines and talking, and everyone seems much more Portland than Sublimity.  My first thought is that my uncles have made some new friends, or are maybe hosting a party for a friend.  Not an impossible scenario for the farm at all.  I’m about to open the shop’s sliding door when I look to my right. 

The old giant barn has been changed significantly.  The entire thing has been converted into a housing unit.  It still looks like a barn but it also looks like a row of skinny houses.  It is one of those trippy illusions that can only make sense in a dream.  I’m shocked and want to go check it out.  I leave the shop doors closed and head off in the direction of the barn.  When I pass the corner of the shop I recognize my dad is one of the people hanging down at the end of the walkway, and I want to ask him some questions.  I start walking straight towards him but with each step I take, he is getting farther and farther away while at the same time standing perfectly still and smoking one of his Marlboros.  I’m able to walk past things like chickens, intercity youth, a Toyota Prius, and tractors to mention a few things, but my dad slowly and passively slips farther away.

To say that we here at The Sublimity Life are happy with our family and social network is to state it bluntly, a complete understatement.  We have made a few sacrifices to be the happy family, lost jobs, felt low pay and little time for relationships, but we were handed these gifts: a love of the outdoors, vacation time, understanding friends, and mostly forgiveness.  Many of us are second-generation outdoors people that were gifted this love and didn’t need to foster it ourselves.  Those that are first-generation often had guides and peers that helped.  Our editors add a level of sarcasm, and a fear of a god they don’t believe in, but that is for the most part to add literary relevance to our writing. Let us go then you and I, let us see our most irreverent editor sitting by a hot spring pool in Canada. We shall roll our pant legs to make our skinny legs seem stout, and let us picture him in his most sarcastic face, internally dreaming of a blue bird day on the North Fork of the Smith in whitewater heaven with his happy family.

Take care, Shane

“There you were, Grandma, sitting in the sill outside your house, open to the vast, starry night, to the sky of which you knew nothing and through which you would never travel, to the silence of the fields and the shadowy trees, and you said, with all the serenity of your ninety years and the fire of an adolescence never lost: “The world is so beautiful, it makes me sad to think I have to die.”  In those exact words. I was there.”  Saramago