Whittoons

Not just the heat hit me, but the cost of everything was inflated. I clearly needed to get a job while I searched the docks for a sailboat to Tahiti.  Ala Moana shopping mall was looking for seasonal labor of the Christmas holidays so I managed to find a position at Liberty House.

This was not a job that taxed one’s critical thinking skills, or demanded analytical reasoning. Fill the shelves, and then restock filling again with product for all those desperate Christmas customers.  All the while I was subjected to the two Christmas songs that repeated over and over and over.  I came to hate one of them, “It’s a Small World After All” even though my intent in heading on a global trek was to become acquainted with other cultures.  I acknowledged this would take work. It would be complicated and entail risks.  Singing the refrain from It’s a Small World was not going to build fences.  The saccharine nature of the tune was unbearable. 

I had the unenviable task of restocking Playmate puzzles that were a hot item. Miniature pictures of the naked women kept disappearing from under the lids. I was not planning on tracking down the culprits. My vision of a sensual South Pacific indulgence was based on other cultural icons. As a stock boy, I was not getting anywhere closer to this romantic indulgence, skewed as it was by western misconceptions and misappropriations.

The was a real crisis at Christmas time.  The trees had not arrived.   The freighter was delayed.  Ala Moana customers were not happy.  The Christmas spirit was fraying by the minute.  When the trees finally arrived, the crowd surge looked like the mob who charged the stage at the Rolling Stones concert.  Everyone wanted Satisfaction.   The fragments of trees were strewn across the pavement like slow groupies.  Boughs too disheveled to rate for a swag or wreath, still gave a bit of seasonal joy to those of us not having a very merry Christmas.  The scent of balsam, spruce and fir was sufficient to lift our spirits.

Dinner at the hostel included turkey donated from a catering service, pancakes with coconut syrup, potatoes, Wassel and apple pies.    Some of us hostelers then headed for the community center for a second feast…and Santa Claus attended.

New Year’s eve was like a war zone, booms of explosions thundering and echoing off the high rise hotels along the bay. The bangs became so frequent that it sounded like a huge rain squall. Next day everyone headed for the Sunshine Festival at Diamond Head in the crater. Folk and rock bands blasted from several stages. One booth dispensed free condoms at a population control table, and at an anti-abortion table, one could gaze upon a fetus in a bottle.

Every few days I wandered along the marina docks to check on possible boats heading to the South Pacific. Not being a year of the Trans-Pacific race, the number of boats that might be crossing the Equator was limited.   One day I heard my name called as I strolled the dock and, amazingly enough, it was a college classmate who happened to recognize me.  His last name was Hornblower.  Now that may not mean much to many, but the Horatio Hornblower novels about sailing the high seas were an addiction for me.  My father loved them and I loved them.  It is a name that is hard to forget. 

Paul had invested in an old working schooner moored in the marina and invited me on board.  Given its wide berth, and heavy beams, this was designed for freight hauling in the South Pacific. Paul was determined to slowly renovate and take it back on the high seas. 

 I was invited to stay on board and I took him up on the offer since the hostel was packed.  Though furnishings were spare, they did have a piano below deck, beds for six, T.V. plus a stove and small oven.  It looked like this was as close as I was going to get to setting out on an ocean voyage.  I did find one sailboat that was headed to Tahiti but it had several drawbacks.  The owner wanted me to pay my way and the boat was a homemade catamaran.  It looked like the deck just might separate from the twin hulls in a storm.  Not the way I wanted to go.

My stay on board did not last long.  Paul’s fellow crew members thought I was a narc, probably because I did not smoke dope with them and my look was still pretty collegiate, not seafarer in manner or style.  I had enough money to buy a ticket south but Tahiti was a $100 more than a flight to American Samoa so I settled on the latter.  In the meantime, I hauled my backpack out of the schooner and flew to the Big Island.  My only regret in leaving was not being able to drop by the sailboat that two young beautiful women owned. I was infatuated with both…yet they were a couple.  They were my Sirens and I had to tear myself away.  This was to be forever unrequited love.

I spent a couple of nights around and up on Mauna Kea. Alone one evening before the ascent, the wild boar cries were haunting…the sound of lost souls wandering the wasteland. The hike up from the saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa was not anywhere near the arduous climb of Mt Everest. Though it is 13,796 ft above sea level, from its base it measures 32,696 feet as the tallest mountain on earth, so it was a minor accomplishment summiting. The landscape was otherworldly. It was a moonscape…except for the snow.

I hitched a ride down thanks to a resident scientist. He said they never give rides to those climbing up, but going down is another story.

My next camp site was on Kealakekua Bay nor far from where Captain Cook met his end in a scuffle with locals.  Swimming in that bay is surreal as you float over the abyss of the old volcano. I am a strong swimmer yet the feeling is unsettling as you move from lapis blue green water with crystal clear views of the sandy floor, to a dark blue pool and a bottomless pit.  I saw a beautiful 118’ ketch that has anchored in the bay.  From my campsite, I looked closer and there appeared to be a crew of men and women…all naked.   A sailor making a supply run invited to come aboard, so I swam out and hauled myself up.   This was the Zaca previously owned by Erroll Flynn and acquired by one of the still surviving Pranksters.   I kept my swim trunks on but most everyone else on board wandered around naked and brown as the teak deck.  It was an awesome moment.  They were heading out to Honolulu for the Rolling Stones concert.  I also had tickets and so requested passage.   To clinch the deal, the crew said I would need to locate a brick of dope on arrival in Honolulu.  Now I knew some guys in the marina that could probably provide the connection but I was not about to put them in jeopardy.   The Sirens once again called, but I jumped ship and swam to shore.   It was shame, since I found out later that after they arrived in Honolulu, they gave the Rolling Stones a ride. 

In an instant, Mom transformed into Calamity Jane and went after the drunken Zombies. There was no stopping her. I was startled to watch my mother in action defending the homestead. They were dumbstruck and did not hesitate to leave the scene.

I had the suspicion that we must have had some back-up to cause such a reversal of fortune, and scare the living daylights out of Zombies. And then I looked behind us.

Now you might conclude that all I saw in the dark fir forest behind us were the sparks from the fireworks, but to my eyes (and ears) Suzette’s call of the wild had brought out ferocious defenders of our shared territory.

We reclaimed our campsite and settled down. Snug in my sleeping bag, I thanked the still and now quiet night for the magnificent, scary and magical time…and howled in my dreams.

Oh…DAMN!  Was I just too gullible?  Was this a “stick-up”?  Was he after my gear?  I had nowhere to go.  I had to just await what fate had instore.  I certainly was not going to wrestle “Lenny” for the weapon on a flatcar. 

He held up the gun. The end of the barrel was pointed my way, but then he swiveled and set his sights towards the Colulmbia…and took a shot at the geese floating just off the shoreline.   I took a huge gulp of the fresh air sweeping over us and felt the sweat of fear evaporate into the drafts.

That evening my companion decided not to continue to the City of Roses. As we passed over the I-5 northbound lanes, Lenny jumped off into the darkness to hitch the rest of the way to Seattle.  On arrival in the Portland yard, I must have looked lost because an engineer up in the engine cabin asked where I was going.  Once I confessed that I was looking for a ride to Seattle, he told me to hop on one of the cars on his train.   I finally felt I might now have gained some legitimacy as a hobo.

Now my plan was to seek some ship-board adventure across the Pacific, starting from Seattle.  After wandering down from the Seattle freight yard to the working waterfront, I stood for long while watching the longshoremen going in and out of the pier gates…and I realized I was not going to find easy passage anytime soon.  I was totally intimidated by the looks of the hardened workers.  They all were huge with fierce looks of determination.  They looked like they could grind me to a pulp. No way I was going to fit in or have access to maritime employment without connections.

Plan B – I pulled out some cash from my money belt and took the cheapest flight to Honolulu.  My hope was to find a sailboat that would take me on for the next leg to the South Pacific. 

HAWAII

The rush of warm tropical air on arrival was intoxicating. I had grown to love a tropical climate after the several monkey-research trips in the Caribbean and down to Colombia.  My down jacket got squished into the backpack and I headed for the Honolulu backpacker’s hideaway, the Waikiki Youth Hostel, right off the beach. 

The Zombie Apocalypse was here. The inebriated undead attempted to move right into our campsite. Well OK, they might not have been quite undead, but they were in a drunken stupor as they crept towards us. With mush for brains, they were zombies as far as I could tell…and we might just be their next meal. Mom was having none of it.

I felt like a cornered rat.  I had no place to hide so I just froze in place in my mummy bag and sneaked a peek. A flashlight beam moved over the interior yet never moved in my direction. I heard the steps head towards the door, and then the door opened.  Just as the door was about to close, I heard a deep, gravelly voice quietly state, “I never seen ya.”  And my guardian angel disappeared into the night. 

Next day I did get rousted by a Bull but with kind words.  He felt I should not occupy the caboose since hobos had been known to destroy company property,  but I was welcome to find a freight car further up the train.  I was surprised at his consideration. Somewhere I had heard that since the hobos helped build this line, so the company let them ride.  Whether apocryphal or not, I appreciated his approach to this novice hobo.

I had plenty of time to choose my car since I did not have to worry that security would be targeting me. I found a brand-new car.   Wood floors were smooth without stains. Paint job sparkled. No stench from previous occupants.   And both doors slid with the slightest of tugs.   As we moved across the Montana plains and Charles Russell landscape, the Rockies started to emerge along the western horizon.  I had vistas both north and south with bright sun dazzling my eyes.  Certain motions of the train would send one door closing and opening the other. Other motions sent both open. My giant camera obscura shutters were opening and closing on magnificent images.   A chill set in as we climbed into the mountains.  The peaks were staggering, after so many miles of flat or rolling ground.   My two doors remained open for the climb, and I sat in the center of the car like some wandering Sadhu, seeking enlightenment.  When we hit a rough section of railbed, the bounce set me levitating. 

Lucky enough to make a pit spot in Spokane with friends, I returned to the rail yard to find a train headed for Seattle or Portland.  One box car offered good views.  As I was about to hop on, a tall swarthy guy with swag inquired where I was headed. He had seen me scrutinizing my map and made the assumption that I knew what I was doing and where I was going. Huh.  He asked if he could join me. I was not sure if the question was rhetorical or not, but I accepted his company.

Once on the car I had a chance to stare into his face which had a most prominent feature- a nose that clearly had been fractured a couple of times. With a prominent brow ridge, and square jaw with a couple days growth of stubble, he looked forbidding.  I wondered if he possessed any Neanderthal genes.  Our conversation was limited given the wind and sound along the route.  When we reached a junction to a line headed south, we hopped off to find a direct route to Portland. 

There along the side of the track lay about 50 hobos complete with gear. I was more that glad to have this huge companion as an escort as we walked past the crowd.  This was an Of Mice and Men moment.    They were all waiting to climb aboard the next train headed south. Like geese, these guys were seeking warm weather for the winter.  No one questioned my crashing the party.

We left the guys behind when we found our train to Portland and a flatcar with great views of the Columbia River. The ride was risky. Moving around was not advised. One good bump and I would be in the dirt. Yet it was a rush.

In the sunny afternoon, my companion started to search through his bag and out came a single shot pistol that he proceeded to load.  Oh…DAMN! 

The campground was total mayhem. Drunken revelry exceeded all expectations. And then some Paul Bunyan penis-envy rabble rousers started throwing double bladed axes at a nearby tree. We had entered some level of the Inferno without Virgil or Dad.

The accuracy of the “woodsmen” was deteriorating as they sucked down more beer. A smart thing to do would have been to run for cover…but our car was gone and the tents did not really offer much protection. So the best strategy seemed to be to track the flight of each deadly weapon and duck if necessary.

The train came to a screeching stop.  I was too comfortable in my warm bag to take a look outside, so I just settled in to wait it out.  Soon the crunching of gravel grew louder and I just knew my next nightmare was becoming a reality. A Bull was approaching, moving from car to car.  A flashlight beam sliced through the darkness.  I just tucked myself into my nylon and down cocoon, pulled the drawstring in around my nose and hoped to look like a heap of detritus.  The beam moved across the car.  I held my breath.  But the beam never settled on me.  The crunching gravel of his footsteps faded down the line.  

I exhaled slowly.  I was not going to be arrested on my first night riding the rails.  Being yanked off the railroad in St Paul/Minneapolis would have been ironic.  My great grandfather, Oliver Crosby, was fired by James J Hill (Great Northern Railway Railroad Baron) when he left his desk after hearing his wife had given birth.  When he returned, a note from Hill said, “No one leaves work without my permission. You are fired.”  Oliver Crosby went on to start a construction company. His cranes helped build railroads and helped with the Panama Canal construction.   

With daylight, I was able to watch life flashing before my eyes through the open car door.  Riding in passenger cars was always intriguing since I could peer out the windows into people’s lives in their backyards and even sometimes through their back door.  It is a vulnerable perspective where less is hidden. It is the casual view rather than the formal entry way with trim hedges and mowed lawn.   On a freight car, the drop-by visit is more intimate.  I could hear the dogs barking, and smell the leaves burning.   I startled a few kids, waving to them as they ran to their fences to see the train go by.

My Hot Shot came to a dead stop in Minot, North Dakota.  We were not moving so I checked in with a section worker at his shack in the yard.  While bringing me up to speed, he let me heat up my pork and beans can on his electric burner.  The Hot Shot was not going anywhere soon, so he advised me to jump on the nearby freight train with three cabooses.  There would be no harm in taking the last caboose since the engineers would not use it.

Too Cool!   I could ride in a Caboose!  I did not hesitate and climbed the steps to the rear door.  The space was palatial, complete with leather couch.  Once rolling I moved up into the viewing area.  Though previous tenants had scratched up the windows a bit, it was still a grand 360-degree vista.  Wheat fields undulated in waves with the passing wind. I could imagine the vast bison herds that used to roam this territory until the railroad brought hundreds of hunters to slaughter the beasts, starve out the Indians and permit settlement by the white intruders.   I munched on peanut butter and jam sandwiches and stared out onto the vast horizons.

Compared to the previous nights bed of hard wood planks, the leather couch was sublime.  I was sound asleep in no time. 

 The train stopped somewhere in the plains. All was quiet. Then the door opened.

Suzette was dumped back at home. The dog was not pleased. She was still manic and howled into the night. Dad got on the road, and headed back to the family.

Meanwhile all hell was breaking loose at the campground.

Thank god or vishnu or whomever for the 2×4 bouncing around the interior of the car. I jammed it between the door and the frame and waited to see if I was doomed or saved.   The next big jolt and the door stayed in position.  I waited through a few more rough rail sections to confirm I was safe and curled back up in my warm bag in the corner of the empty car.  It took a while to go back to sleep. The clickity-clack of the wheels, engine blasts and the RR crossing bells kept a percussive rhythm through the night. 

Blame it on William Golding and Joseph Conrad, but often during the more beleaguered days of my formal education, I drifted off into day dreams of tropical lands, vast oceans and thrilling adventure.  At the same age as the kids in the Lord of the Flies film, and having read the book as required at the all-boys Horace Mann Preparatory School in New York City, I was intrigued with the social dynamics of those thrust into isolation, severed from society and dependent on innovative survival strategies while developing adaptive cultural norms and …the thrill and fun of a great Adventure.  I recognized the light and dark side of my personality, and wondered if tested, I had it in me to be a Ralph in the face of adversity, holding a moral compass under pressure of the irrational world, or was there a fascist Jack lurking in me willing to meet chaos with irrational ferocity.  The chant of “Kill The Pig! Spill His Blood!  Bash Him In!” vied with “Kyrie Eleison” as a soundtrack to day dreams.

Another factor that stimulated wanderlust was the immensity and density of New York City, the place selected as our new home by my parents.  The hostile space gradually seemed to be wearing down my bearings, inhibiting my childhood drive to find wonder in the outdoors, a drive fed by early years living in Washington State.  A certain innocence was losing out to urban cynicism.

For my English assignment in High School, when we were to concentrate on the works of one author, I chose Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim and other books by Joseph Conrad.   My teachers were probably wondering what was with this introverted, quiet, brown haired kid who explored the dark side.   Jungle fever, that was my excuse.  

At college, I had deliberately sought out a specialty that would offer the rare opportunity to participate in research projects in wild places. I signed up for projects that led me into the jungle studying monkeys in Puerto Rico, Panama, Colombia and St Kitts.  Two studies placed me on an island with four guys and groups of rhesus macaques.  Though the 300-acre rugged island offered warm weather and forest full of gumbo limbo trees, this was not my island dream.  The Atomic Energy Commission had control of the space (we asked no questions as to why). The island had been used for target practice by the Air Force during some previous war and old bombs (perhaps duds but who wanted to find out) could be found scattered in the forest floor.  Once while trekking in the hills, I spotted a puff of smoke down at the valley mouth and assumed some monkey had become collateral damage.  Though isolated, with rare supply replenishments by the AEC ship, we humans only reverted to a few odd tribal patterns, but no one went completely bonkers.  Each participant found some reason to take a break off the island, to relieve the tensions from isolation.   I made a false start, getting sick right away and being flown by helicopter back to San Juan, along with three goat hunters whose skiff had sunk when they tried to help us move gear around the island.  The government suspected them of being Independistas and smuggling guns.  Once back on Desecheo, these guys shared their goat with us on the beach and after feasting on meat and fish around the fire, one drunk hunter put a gun to my head…in jest.   The laughs were nerve-wracking.

The monkeys themselves had been separated from their home troop, families split and taken off the island of Cayo Santiago and dropped onto Desecheo without provisions.  Forced to fend for themselves, they scavenged and survived.  One young male, NK, separated from the support of his alpha family (their family was divided in the experiment), attempted to restore the order and his position as a dominant male after having been relegated to the perimeter.  With each attempt to challenge, he was mobbed and finally injured severely.  Retreating to the shoreline, he bathed his wounds in the salt water, sitting in isolation with water up to his chest…and finally moving up off the sand to die in the shade, alone. 

His bones became sacred to our tribe, and when at one point the NK skull disappeared, accusations flew around our camp.   It was revealed later that a land crab at rolled the skull some distance from the final resting place.  The grave site was put back in order and we tried to persevere as objective observers, while each person measured how far we had drifted from sanity. 

During a second expedition, only a Navy helicopter ran supply runs. The astonished looks of the pilot on seeing the wild monkey men in ragged attire did indeed recall the final scene of Lord of the Flies.  

On St Kitts, I had my own bungalow which I shared with a co-worker/girl-friend, so my metal was not tested by tribulations…except perhaps for trepidations about performance anxiety, this being my first solid relationship.

On a dark, and stormy night and with a dead motor on a skiff, a Basseterre local and I drifted dangerously out towards open water. Since my shipmate had sighted Jack-0-Lanterns racing across the island’s hills, and since they were not to be trifled with in the dark, he declared that only with the moon showing could we safely row towards shore.  He was surprised that I did not know about these spooks.  I admitted that at least once a year Americans suspended their disbelief and got into the spirit of things.

 Unfortunately, our safe harbor was the location of the island voodoo cult. Turns out they were my nearest neighbors.  The resort owner that rented the cottage to me, a woman with brown leathered skin and sun- bleached blond hair, swore that this cult had put the hex on one of her builders, causing him to crawl into the sea until restrained and sent to the hospital.   I did not want any spells cast due to my cultural incompetence.   The voodoo folks spent the night huddled around a Coleman lantern (very Caravaggio in the central lighting effect), but I spent the night quietly some distance away (very Stephen King in effect) trying not to startle a soul.  Next morning, they escorted us to the dock and our skiff and, as if by magic, the engine started right up.

While on St Kitts, we had to battle the prevailing rave reviews of monkey meat, “Sweet Meat Mon!!”  The cravings tended to cut into, and cut down on, the subjects of a research study.   I sampled a delicious turtle stew and felt so full of remorse that I tried to raise some baby turtles, hatching them and releasing a few to make the trek into the sea. I failed at conch chowder.   The killing of the conch was a gruesome affair, the mollusk hung by a hook while the weight of the shell slowly forced the creature to loosen its grip.  Perhaps I did not have the stomach for a career traveling the globe sampling exotic foods. 

With a grant from the Smithsonian Institution, I spent some time on Barro Colorado Island in the Panama Canal observing marmosets. Each dawn, the howlers roared from the canopy. Army ants moved in waves across the leaf litter. Tarantulas hung out in holes near our cabin. And research scientists strutted around with tremendous egos.

In the San Blas Islands, while visiting a Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute station, I heard a conch shell blown with powerful bursts, its deep, resonating sound crossing the bay. Fishermen were still blowing into the shells for communication to each other.

When the Rockefeller and Marshall fund review panels failed to see my plans for exploring the Rwanda Mountains of the Moon would lead to positive world enlightenment, and the Peace Corps threatened to throw me into epidemic regions of Korea, I decided to head to the South Seas on my own, after graduation.

The shuddering of the train cars coming to a stop startled me from my sleep.  What the hell! This was a Hot Shot!  We weren’t supposed to be making stops.