Day 71-74, Part 1: It Was the Summer of 1966

I actually have to start a little before that. I moved to Etna Green in the summer of 1965. New school. New friends. New life. Triton was a small high school with only about 65 in my graduating class. As a sophomore and the son of the new preacher (a woman!) I set out to remake my image. I was partly successful. By the end of the school year, I’d had my neck broken (almost), my arm broken, and my heart broken. Gosh, I went to school with some hot girls!

One, of course, was the Senator’s daughter. She was one of only half a dozen girls in my class who never turned me down for a date. Of course, that was because I never asked her. She was one of the first that I met when I got to Etna Green. And she was in bed when I met her. She had mono and I paid a cordial visit at the encouragement of my minister mother. God, was she cute! And way, way out of my league. She told me all about going to boarding school in New England during the summers and some of the people she met and the wild things they’d done. She painted a picture of college prep school that made it irresistible to the likes of me.

I decided I had to go to a college prep school in the summer, too. Don’t ask me how I thought I’d ever be able to afford it, but I did the research and found a dozen of these exclusive schools. It would have been much easier in the age of the Internet. I sent for, received, and read all the brochures. From this, I chose the one that seemed most like me—not on the East Coast, but in Colorado. The Colorado Rocky Mountain School (CRMS). I applied and explained that I wanted to attend the school, but had no money. In what counted as a miracle in my book, I was accepted and granted a complete scholarship. I had to arrive two weeks early, though, to work at the school to help pay for the scholarship. I helped irrigate fields, rake hay, cook breakfast, cut and haul logs, and clean the new fountain. Then the day arrived when school began.

 

What a beautiful school and what a great summer. Mount Sopris in the background was the first mountain we climbed (walked up) the first week of school. We spent three or four days in class and three or four days climbing (my sport of choice). People could choose climbing, kayaking, hiking, or horseback riding as their sports. I spent my entire summer’s allowance on a pair of climbing boots and a pair of lederhosen. Nigel Peacock, headmaster and mountaineering guide, warned at one point that my climbing career was destined to come to a spectacular conclusion. I studied anthropology with Paul Anka, sociology with Margie McNamara, took my first drama and interpretive dance classes (can still recite lines from Under Milkwood), and cooked with Steve Schantzer. Abominable spelling of the last name. I met Sue (my heartthrob for the summer), Alice, Ed, Houston, Galveston, and Montreal. I got a glimpse of a different kind of life.

Then it was time for the annual anthropological tour. The hikers and climbers were split into two groups of about 40 and one started with the cliff-dwellings of the Anasazi and worked their way to Lake Powell. The other group (mine) started rafting down Lake Powell to Rainbow Natural Bridge. From there we were to hike the ten miles across the desert to Navaho Mountain, crossing paths with the group headed the other direction. Then we would visit the cliff dwellings and head back to Carbondale, Colorado.

 

Only our fearless leader missed the turn-off in the middle of the night (hiking by the light of a full moon) and we ended up in a different part of the desert than intended. We camped for the day by a spring that dried up a little after noon. We slept and talked while we waited for our leader to backtrack until he found out where we’d gone wrong. Then he came to get us at moonrise and we all headed back to what proved to be too rugged a path for some of our group. I recall collecting backpacks from a few people who couldn’t carry theirs and make the ascent.

Disaster struck again with daylight as we realized one of our students was sick. She had diabetes and no medication as I understood it. So two teachers and the sick girl—I don’t remember all the names so I’ll say the male was a Swiss named Fritz. The female teacher was Jo, and the student was Mary. That will have to do for now. The rest of us began the long climb out of the canyons to Navaho Mountain. Fearless leader had hiked with half a dozen of the strongest boys, out of the canyon to the trailhead, collected supplies, and started back down into the canyon. When we met up on the trail, he was nearing exhaustion. As I figured it, he hadn’t slept in at least 48 hours or longer. I volunteered to exchange packs and take the supplies back down to Mary, Fritz, and Jo.

And thus we spent another night in the canyon.

I told Fritz that I’d seen water up the trail when we came through in the night and I was going to hike back to see if I could refill canteens. He agreed. What I found wasn’t just water. We’d hiked right through a park service campground with water, restrooms, picnic tables, and rustic signs with yellow lettering pointing the direction. We just hadn’t seen it in the night. While the others slept, I absently gathered twigs from around the juniper where we rested. I started putting them together in an elaborate sculpture, balancing one twig on another and building from a small base to a large top like an inverted pyramid. Fritz or Jo rolled over in their sleep and kicked it down. It didn’t matter. It was temporal.

Early the next afternoon, we watched as five horses and three horsemen came down the long steep trail into the canyon. We loaded our packs on one horse and Mary on the other and the other three of us walked out. Fritz stayed with Mary and Jo and I walked out ahead, being much faster than loaded horses going uphill. Once we crested the canyon ridge, it was a downhill romp all the way to the trailhead and we raced. I had to keep my hands in my pockets as we ran down the trail to keep my pants from falling down.

We were two days late getting out of the canyon, so we never made it to the Anasazi ruins. We did stop at a trading post somewhere along the line before we crossed back into Colorado and up to Carbondale.

I’ve often wondered about the people I met that summer. Did Ed become a politician? Did Sue get together with Frenchy? I’ve thought of Paul’s explanations to the dreams I’d had that came true. I’ve thought of Nigel’s warning and tempered some of my recklessness. And I’ve thought of emerging from the canyon.

I was changed that summer. It wasn’t radical—at least in my way of thinking. I still fantasized about the Senator’s daughter. I still pursued the thought of becoming a minister, in spite of the fact that by college I was so involved in theatre that I never intended to do anything else, except perhaps write. I started writing poetry that fall. Volumes and volumes of it. Well, if you don’t write poetry when you’re a teenager, you have no heart. And then I quit football. I’ll never forget Frank Hole’s expression when I said, “Coach, I just don’t think there should be a game like this.” I became progressively more and more a pacifist.

And what does all this have to do with my travels?

I finished the trip today. I drove up Indian Road 16 in Arizona to Navaho Mountain. As soon as you first see the mountain, they drop the speed limit to 45 mph. For thirty miles you watch as this incredible hulking mountain fills more and more of your field of vision. I drove on up into Utah past the mountain and onto Trailhead Rd. That’s a sand track, and since I was alone, I decided against navigating it all the way to the Trailhead. If Nigel hadn’t been sitting beside me reminding me of my anticipated demise, I might have continued, or if one of my classmates or climbing buddies had been with me then I’m sure we’d have gone out there. But I’d already made that hike.

Instead, I found a high promontory that I could hike to. I brought my spiritual tools with me and cast a circle where I could see down into what the AP referred to in ’66 as “the airless canyons.” I told the wind, the fire, the rain, and the earth that I was here and it was beautiful.

As I meditated in my circle, I met my younger self emerging from the canyons, whooping up a storm. I found, oddly, that I had no advice for him. It’s his journey. I’ve already been there.

But I did finish the trip. I camped at Navaho National Monument and hiked out to see Betetakin cliff dwellings of the Anasazi Indians.

 

 

I stayed at Navajo National Monument for three days. Tomorrow, I’ll talk about some of the other things I saw.

The road goes ever on.