“american upbeat”(the Book)

I brought a book back to Chester County,”The Golden Years”,the story of a young man from Humbolt County. This could have been the story of my friends life, some chapters, him having yet to live, turns out, some chapters yet to be written. My first stop was out on route 52 to see my old friend. I’d be needing work, and Craig was always one to have a project going on. Despite our arguments, stubbornness, and bull headedness, we did work well together. At 6′3″ I was dwarfed by Mo. If you wanted to piss him off, just start telling basketball jokes. I had been spending time at a little coffee house at the Waldorf before I left, pretty nice digs for Venice. I had moved my darkroom into the basement, sharing the space with a painter, and a sexy young girl that played cello. Something about those sexy young girls that play cello. The Waldorf, was a happening place in Venice. A very creative place, people drifting in and out, the coffee house open 24 hours. One night I met this guy, recently released from a prison up North. He had spent his time away writing a book, maybe an elergy, the sorta story of his life to that point. Thumbing through I was amazed at how so many parts of that book read as if it were Mo. This guy and I had lots to talk about, lots of stories, and we spent hours. In the end he gave me a book. I had told him I was heading back, and he just thought Craig might like it. You see by the end of the night, after all the tales, this guy knew Mo and him were similar. As I handed the book to Craig he didn’t seem too interested, I remember him telling me, “I’m out here trying to make something of myself” said he didn’t have time for reading books, as he grabbed it from my hand, and set it on a shelf. His second Wife was pregnant. He’d been working on the nursery, and had just about finished up, he said for me to spend a few days a week working on “The House”. Murphy’s. Well a pregnant woman running the crew, Mo and I got busy. He had become a little frustrated working on Murphy’s house, problems with level and square and all. He had decided we’d do some landscaping. There was the bridge over the little river “PO”,this bridge was always washing out, cutting Mo off from his burn pile. It became, over the years, one of his lifes ambitions, to build that bridge “RIGHT”. The ultimate proclamation from Craig was it was”RIGHT”. From the beginning, as he had been researching appliances, fixtures, and stains for the barn, after hours, sometimes days,he would proclaim. Somehow he figured if he changed the flow of the “PO” he could finely get that bridge to hold. “MO’s PO FLOWED” into the Brandywine, near the bottom of the Valley. When it would rain, that creek turned into a raging torrent. The whole look of that stream, the way it cut through the pasture, had bothered Craig for some time. What he wanted was that Golf Course look, ya know, perfect! He gets a back hoe out there, he figures we could use the help. For days, that back hoe was in the PO, scratching, digging, changing the flow. Were smacking with the hoes bucket, big, 8″ thick, 3 and 4 foot random stone, into the river bank. This was looking real nice, the gaps between the stones, he figured, some type of moss growing would look sweet. Most of the week we were out there. On Friday, you know, appreciation Friday, just kicking back, admiring all you’ve gotten done over the week. Then this inspector pulls off, comes running through the pastures, waving his arms, and hollering,” you can’t have that back hoe in there” and Mo turns to him and says “that’s all right, I’m done with him.———— ——————————–Craig and I went out riding in the country, he had gone through a few cars lately, some bad luck. so were driving around in this Ford Mini Van, seeing Mo, crawl out of that tin can, was a riot. He had a lot of trouble going on in his life, and we were just driving around, talking, searching for solutions. On these country roads, as they cut across pastures, there will be rises in the land. The roads are sliced right through these rises, creating a sort of funnel. The sides are 10 or 12 feet high, with narrow shoulders. We come around a bend and there’s two deer, a Doe and a Buck, out in the middle of a foggy day. There running, a little spooked by us, right into this funnel. We were right on them, nothing we could do. At the last minute, the Doe broke off through the pasture The Buck was trapped, He had five points, he ran side by side with us, at my window, his eyes were bulging, he couldn’t jump the bank. I know he was thinking about jumping the van! I was eye to eye with him, looking, as he struggled with the panic, facing his own death. The pasture opened up, and he jumped the fence, running off to his Doe ——————————————– I never saw that book again, he threw it on the shelf, then it disappeared. I know he read it, kept it for sort of a how not to guide reference. ((( CRM47/97)))