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May 11th, 2003
Colorful Characters Pepper Highway
Ennis, Montana
His face and his story pop up in my mind at the damndest
times. The can guy. He just won’t leave my memory bank. We met, for the
briefest of moments, almost a month ago. Gere Smith and I were pedaling
along US Highway 26 approximately three miles east of John Day, Oregon. The
two of us were in the middle of a forty some mile uphill stretch, battling a
stiff headwind and generally feeling sorry for ourselves when he came
inching toward us on the opposite side of the highway. Our eyes couldn’t
miss the bike covered in multi-colored hues of plastic bags stretched across
the handlebars. He yelled out a greeting and needled us because we were
traveling so light. The stranger seemed to think he was putting real effort
into his ride, while Gere and I were slackers. Smiling back at the insults
and waving, the two of us continued to pedal east. Another quarter mile
down the road Gere yelled through the wind, “Let’s go back, he’d make a
great picture.” So turn around we did, crossing the highway and heading back
toward John Day. We hadn’t ridden a quarter of a mile when he appeared
again only this time he was sifting through a dumpster set back from the
road. Stopping, we got off our bikes and walked them over to where he stood
and introduced ourselves. His name was Tom. Actually, he told us his whole
name, but since it wasn’t mentioned that he could wind up in a Western
Colorado broadsheet, we’ll leave his last name out of the Sentinel.
Tom said he
kept the highways clean for fifty miles either side of John Day. It was his
way of giving back to Oregon. However, the fact that every beer and pop can
in Oregon is worth a nickel at the re-cycle center had to have a bearing on
his mission, at least that was the impression one received from his clothes,
which weren’t exactly the latest styles fresh from the pages of Bicycling
Magazine.
Tom turned
out to be a talker. “I made a real mistake”, he told us immediately. “I
retired way too early in life. Now I get bored, so I ride my bike around
eastern Oregon. It gives me something to do.” When I responded by allowing
as how I too had left the work-a-day world at an earlier juncture than the
norm and found the lifestyle most satisfying, Tom grunted and changed the
subject.
“You can’t
imagine how drugs dominate our everyday life,” he segued without batting an
eyelash, “Not only here in Eastern Oregon but all over our country.” The
words were barely out of his mouth when a Ford Escort, speeding down the
highway honked us a “hello” as the female driver waved our direction.
“You take her
for example. Cute girl. Always wants me to party with her. But I don’t do
drugs. She says to me, you think you’re too good to do meth or heroin or
crack but I tell her, that’s not how it is, it’s just that I have enough
problems with alcohol. Besides I’m seventy-one. I’m not from the druggy
generation. People my age are boozers. And now last week the county
social workers took that girl’s baby away, because they say she’s an unfit
mother doin’ drugs all the time. Where you from?” Like I said Tom could
make a conversation turn in a heartbeat.
We explained
that one of us was a Californian the other from Colorado. “Colorado? Where
‘bouts? I’m from Woodland Park. I was in real estate development. Lost 10
million dollars, everything I had, in one deal in Aspen. Boy, did they wipe
me out. Those guys, they play for keeps. And then I lost another hundred
grand in Leadville. Man, I thought they were gonna get gambling. Put the
money in as a down stroke on a casino up there. Then gambling goes to
Central City and Blackhawk and Cripple Creek? You ever go there?”
“No” I
allowed, “I’m not much for games of chance that don’t involve NASDAQ or the
New York Stock Exchange.
“Well,” Tom
interrupted, “You know that parking garage right there by the casino’s?
Well, I turned down the chance to buy that land. I said sixty-five thousand
was way too much money. Do you know it sold for over four million bucks
five years later? That’s when I really started drinking. Man, I was
thirsty. Came to Oregon to get away from all the drinkin’. But you know
what? They sell booze here too. Well, I gotta get goin’. There’s a lot of
highway that needs to be covered before dark.”
Gere asked if
he could take his picture as part of his visual record of our cross-country
trip. Tom was more than obliging.
Afterward, I
asked myself “You believe all that?” And the answer was, “No, well not
most of it.” But, facts are facts. And the facts were Tom talked like an
educated person. At least in his conversation with us, most of the
sentences contained both a subject and a predicate. He did have more than a
working knowledge of Colorado. While disheveled in appearance Tom had not
let his physical condition deteriorate. In fact, if he was as old as he
claimed Tom was one trim, good looking seventy-one year old.
We said our
goodbyes and turned the bikes to the East. But the question still haunts
me. How does one wake up one day in the autumn of life and find themselves
picking up aluminum cans along the highways and byways of eastern Oregon?
Back in the
early 80’s land speculation became almost the official sport of Grand
Junction. Exxon’s activities in Parachute were fueling an economic bubble
like our area hadn’t seen since the uranium boom of the fifties. We
Maynards were trying to scrape together enough money to start a radio
station and joined the multitudes leveraging their financial soul in the
name of profit. Then there was a phone call from a Washington attorney. He
was our legalistic point man in the effort to secure a radio frequency, the
financial cupboard was bare and he wanted another ten thousand dollar
advance. This cash call from an FCC barrister revealed yours truly to have
a real bad case of the shorts. To cover the debt, I would have to sell a
chunk of land we were speculating. The best offer the realtor brought us
offered nothing but a reasonable profit. Yours truly, of course, was looking
for the obscene margin everyone else claimed to be receiving. Deep in my
heart I knew selling this parcel of land was a mistake but I really wanted
to pursue the radio station. So sell I did. Closing was on a Friday. Nine
days later Exxon pulled out on a day that would forever be known as “Black
Sunday”. Were it not for that far-away lawyer wanting his money upfront,
yours truly would have been hung out to dry and well on the road to
bankruptcy court. By hanging on for another week, I would have been Tom.
And so the
question keeps rolling through my mind, “If not for dumb luck would today
find you sifting through a dumpster?” Pedaling east into a headwind the
lyrics to an Allison Krauss song kept running through my mind.
You’re the lucky one so I’ve been told
As free as the wind blowing down the road
Loved by many, hated by none
I’d say your lucky cause you know what you’ve
done
Care in the world, not a worry in sight
Everything’s gonna be all right
‘Cause you’re the lucky one.
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