Friday, January 04, 2008

Ziggy Stardust...

This is an outline...because I have no time...

Huge storm.......trees down, creeks overflow.....power out. Dig out the generator from the shed......hire the car thief to siphon gas from the few trucks that Cocksucker Phil Higgenbotham missed so that we can run the generator to save the beer and ice cream at The Store.

The car thief and the old wild boar hunter, Pete Scardina, help us organize our whole scene off The Net.....and relaxing in the warmth of our praise, behind a bunch of giant jars of Harp....start talking shit.

Our friend Rod died last week, and his ashes are going to be spread at Pine Valley....about a four hour hike in from China Camp.....miles up the Tassajara Road from Jamesburg...in the officially closed Wilderness Area.

Pete pointed out that he had been running food into the only freehold in the Pine Valley area with mules for a week recently.....

There is a guy named Jack English that has the cabin at Pine Valley, and five acres....Jack hand carried in each board in to build the cabin........a four hour hike with a board. Many boards to build a cabin.....

Jack's son got interested in bluegrass, and Jack started making bows for fiddles in all his spare time in Pine Valley......A couple of local kids played cello....and Jack made some bows for them....

Word spread....

The car thief pointed out that Jack is thinking of leaving his freehold to the Cultural Council because of the experience he had recently, making bows for some random cello player.

The Freehold is the only privately owned space in the middle of the forest of hundreds of square miles of Wilderness Area......

I will fill in later with my experiences there......

So.......

The car thief and the pig hunter were comparing notes about how tough it was to extract Jack English when his gout got so bad.......the car thief actually had to stay at the cabin to help out because Jack could not use his fingers because of the pain.

The Chinese guy hung in there.....no pun intended......

And made some bows that might work.....Abalone faced, madrone....horsehair from the local mountain horses.

I asked......"What was this guy's name?"

The car thief and the pig hunter looked at each other......"Uh......something Chinese"

"Yo Yo Mah?"

"THAT'S IT!......How did you know? You know him? He did his apprenticeship....nice guy. He spent a week there."

In Cachagua.....in the mountains.....we have a guy with a tiny piece of property in the midst of the National Forest that is an artisan good enough to have Yo Yo Mah come and spend a week with no power, no water, and food packed in on mules by criminals.....and make cello bows.

I have to take a break and think about this......

1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

Hmmmmmmm Jack didn't carry the lumber in board by board to build the cabin. He had a portable saw mill. He was putting this up in the rafters in his cabin when he slipped and fell, broken bones, etc., back 8 or 9 years ago. Survived for days drinking water he caught in a small asperin bottle - door open, snow blowing in -- till some friends decided to hike in and visit him and found him. He was lifecoptered out to the hospital. This is where the "Survival Man" story came from.

His niece,
Madeleine

6:30 PM  

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