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  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
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Thursday, May 30, 2002
01:01 - Oh yeah: Memorial Day Weekend.

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Yeah, I know-- I'd promised to write this up on Monday night (well, I should say, I promised-- on Monday night-- to write this up on Tuesday). But I've been recovering all week, which involves more work than you might imagine. I haven't felt much like writing accounts of recent experiences, and I wouldn't be doing it now if it weren't for the nagging feeling that one more night of sleep will erase enough pieces of the narrative from my mind that the effort will become pointless. So, here goes.

Thursday night, Allison flew in to San Francisco from Boston. She's been here before, and so the oddities of this house didn't fluster her-- she had some choice things to say about the unacceptable state of our bathroom for use by persons of the female gender, but hey-- you don't like our daddy longlegs, feel free to roll the tanks and see if you can impose your multilateral political ideals on-- oh, wait. Sorry. She must have been saying "Eeeww", not "EU".

Anyway-- so we got up early on Friday, threw together our bags, I briefly pondered telling work that I wouldn't be in-- and we set out up I-280, the Most Beautiful Freeway in the World. (It says so right there on a sign.) It's the spiritual 101-- the freeway that should be 101. It parallels 101, but in the rural panorama that is the Peninsula, the undeveloped western slope-- following the San Andreas Fault-- of the same spine of hills that on their eastern side houses half the suburban population of the Bay Area. It's always amazed me that so much city population and industry could exist so close to so much wide open space and picturesque beauty, but hey-- that's the Bay for you. And anyway, for the rest of the trip we'd be on 101 in its trek north of the Bay, so I figured we should follow its coastal mountainous path for its entire environmental gradient along the 350-mile course.

So we rolled into San Francisco at about 10AM-- but not before Allison spied a Krispy Kreme perched behind a retaining wall some 30 feet above the freeway. She all but grabbed the steering wheel, and I had to cross eight lanes just to miss the last exit in the neighborhood before being shunted off to the cross-town freeway spur which doesn't have another exit for five miles. So we trundled down into the heard of The City, turned around, got off at the appropriate exit, turned onto a street adjoining the Krispy Kreme, got ready to turn left into the parking lot-- and there was a three-inch-high barricade erected specifically to prevent exactly that. Aaauugh! Okay, so I keep going straight (which takes me over the freeway). I try to turn around, but there's a NO U TURN sign. At the next light it's a one-way street going right. I have to travel three blocks before I can edge my way around the security cameras that I'm sure are watching my every move and get going in the opposite direction. (Allison told me that in Boston, one would simply ka-CHUNK-ka-THUMP over the barricade and be done with it.) So we park tiredly in the lot, go up to the big double doors facing us, and... EXIT ONLY.

I don't know what gods we angered that day, but they were assholes.

Anyway, they were pulling the ol' bait-and-switch inside-- giving out free donuts to entice customers (who are already standing in line) to buy more donuts. Allison just wanted the one, and I waved away the smiling offer of a second one with what must have been a stomach-turning grimace (my nostrils and digestive system will forever rebel against the very concept of eating pastry, and just to be inside that store was making me distinctly nauseous). But she wondered, what are you supposed to do if you just want one donut? Take the free one and leave? Naw, the lady was too nice and kindly and smiling, though her English skills seemed too rusty for her to comprehend my not wanting a donut, my GAWD get that frickin' thing away from me. So Allison bought a dozen... somethings. I have no idea what. The box stayed closed while it was in my car. That was all I cared about.

Anyway, it was 10:45 by the time we got to Taraval and John's new ticky-tacky house, which costs him and his three roommates $2100/month and involves a huge kitchen, three bedrooms (one with a view out over the city and a big patio, another with a gigantic closet bigger than a Caltech single), two big ornately tiled bathrooms, a living room, a fireplace, and a waist-high "Alice in Wonderland" door halfway up the interior staircase for God-knows-what. I want a house like that. And not just because every room had a Mac in it, either.

We said hello to Mic (a former fellow Mole who seems to be part of this crew in the post-Tech world) and took our leave, after hearing John demonstrate his dexterity on the harpsichord he has. (Yeah.) Off we flew, northward, through the City, over the Golden Gate in the clear sunlight, through Marin, through Sonoma, through Cloverdale and the Russian River canyon, and through Ukiah and down into Redwood Valley, where (at my old house) we stopped for taquitos and the grand tour of the walls and possessions that defined my childhood.

I applaud Allison and John for having the superhuman patience to withstand it all.

Leaving the Wine Country behind, we headed up into the mountains, where (after Willits) the landscape suddenly changes to Coast Redwoods mode-- lofty rolling ridges covered with dark woodsy robes, and the winding Eel River cleaving a deep canyon through them. Three hours of driving, past Laytonville and Garberville and Leggett and Myers Flat, into increasingly dense hippie country (the coastline-hugging Highway 1 ducks inward at Leggett to avoid the Lost Coast, a jumble of 4,000-foot mountains that vault out of the sea so steeply that even Hwy 1 can't cling to the face-- but in the canyons of which reside the densest pockets of hippie culture that survive today, happily swapping tales and evolving into their own sub-species), to finally emerge into the flat expanse of Humboldt Bay.

Past the pulp-mill smells of Eureka, which has always seemed to me to be rather like an abandoned fishing village that was frozen in the 50s and was repopulated by a band of Biosphere scientists determined to make a go of it, and up through the strictly monitored 50mph Safety Corridor that skirts the harbor's edge, you get to Arcata. This little hamlet is what you get if you take San Francisco, import it into iPhoto, and jam the little scaling slider about 3/4 of the way to the left. The town is all built on hills, and parking involves lots of wheel-turning-- but the houses are tiny little carriage-bungalows surrounded by lush greenery, laid out on a grid of number-streets-versus-letter-streets in blocks no more than two or three houses long. Something that's "two blocks away" really means "shouting distance". And fortunately, that includes everything a 21st-century hippie needs: a strict organic supermarket (with a superb deli counter), the center of subsistence known as the CO-OP, a Mexican bagel place called "Los Bagels", an outstanding Japanese restaurant, lots and lots of bookstores, hippie supply stores, folk-singing coffee shops, and the Town Square with its statue of William McKinley. All of it is two blocks away from everything else. Shouting distance.

We found our way to the inclined doorstep of Branden, a gangly friend of John's with a gigantic orange beard and a BSD Daemon hat. He was a gracious host, and showed us into his house-- which consisted of two sparsely furnished existence rooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom. The front room had a giant shapeless aluminum-foil sculpture over the light fixture, made from the wrappers from pieces of pizza from the Pizza Deli two blocks away. There were letter-size pieces of blue paper pasted all over the ceiling, and in the corner was a hook with a glass jug hanging from it, inside which was a bone. When pressed for explanation, Branden explained that the paper on the ceiling was "Pieces of blue paper on the ceiling, in a carefully random pattern", and that the story with the hook was "There's a glass jug hanging from it. There's a bone in it."

He also had a number of plants growing in his kitchen-- none of which, indeed, was a controlled substance. And there were bizarre photos of worldly items of interest coating the walls, many of which somehow involved squids, and a lonely futon in the corner.

After we set up an impromptu network involving my iBook, Branden's iBook, John's Linux Vaio, and the single-IP-address 802.11 network being beamed from an antenna at the top of a building in the Town Square two blocks away, we went down to the Pizza Deli for dinner. (We'd picked up Edward, another friend of John's, along the way-- a pleasant chap with many engaging stories about his piratical travels on the Seven Seas in a 50-foot sailboat with his parents during his teen years.) After downing our enormous sandwiches (they make a mean roast-beef-and-cheddar up there in Fog Town), we went for a wander about the town. I noticed the charming epithetical nickname for Arcata espoused by so many storefronts: Northtown. It sounds like a town from some 80s Squaresoft video game, doesn't it? Welcome to Empire Northtown. Eyes of skull has a secret!


Our wanderings took us a distance of two blocks, where we found ourselves shivering in our shorts and t-shirts (having come from the heat of Silicon Valley earlier in the day-- yay, microclimates!) in front of a quaint little Finnish coffee shop. Inside the room was no bigger than a hundred square feet, but I swear two dozen people were crammed inside there, sprawling over chairs and tables, sipping mochas and lattés and reading thick paperback books and listening to a Celtic chamber group play their energetic, haunting music while surrounded by the hot crush of humanity that caused all of our glasses to fog up instantly as we came in the door.

We all got drinks of various stripes and went out back, where tables and chairs nestled under redwood trees next to a frog pond and several sauna cabins. (Apparently this place was more than just a coffee shop.) We sipped and talked and laughed and became acquainted, and it was well past midnight before we got up and hiked the two blocks back to Branden's house and sprawled in our sleeping backs on the floor.


Sometime in the night, ODie and the remainder of the crew from Caltech arrived. And in the morning, we awoke with the knowledge that the Kinetic Sculpture Race was to begin today at noon! We hopped out of bed, ate some pancakes, and headed down to the Square for a look at the early risers among the Sculptures. There were a dozen or so already there-- in among a crush of at least a hundred onlookers, at 9AM. I took in some video, and we gathered our troops together. We waited. Before we knew it, the flatbed truck had pulled up to the starting line, and the announcer was peppering out his introductory schpiel. The vehicles began their brake tests. The Rutabaga Queen gave her speech. The Nefarious Rissouli made some ominous statements. The tuxedoed officials mocked the sculptures and their ability to stop on a dime, which indeed few could. Hobart, the Glorious Founder, said a few words-- as did the winner of the first KSR, 34 years ago, who mentioned that they'd rigged up a cannon for the starting signal.

We headed back to the room to change clothes and slather ourselves with sunscreen, and we hiked the two blocks back to the starting line (a few hundred yards down it, this time, rather than in the square itself) just before noon. I was taping it all, but I managed to miss the cannon going off, more's the pity. But nonetheless, the sculptures-- ungainly, elaborate, sleek, monstrous, lithe, overbearing, artistic, uproarious-- clanked and clattered and whirred past the hundreds and hundreds of people who were gathered on the streets to see them off.

A word is in order: The KSR is such a huge event in the region that the whole year revolves around it. Three cities back it-- Arcata, Eureka, and Ferndale-- and everybody in all three towns loves it, except for a few disgruntled farmers who seem to have a problem with hundreds of Glorious Spectators tramping across their land. Reportedly, one such homesteader went out to a spectator access path and dumped about 1,000 pounds of fresh manure in the middle of it since the trail was staked out on Friday. He also reportedly threatened to shoot any spectators who set foot on his land. Also reportedly, he mouthed off to the wrong person, and the cops came and put his ass in jail for the weekend. If you live in the Eureka area, you do not dis the Race.

SO ANYWAY: You may want to review the KSR Rules or the Course Map in order to get some idea of the scope and the texture of this Race. The first order of business, after we'd all fought with the entire population of all three towns for deli sandwiches at the grocery store (every other restaurant in Arcata had a line twenty deep lined up outside the front door right after noon), was to head down to the dunes at the edge of the Bay, the first big obstacle for the Sculptures. On the way into the dunes, kids with catapults pelt the passing machines with water balloons. Hey, it's just another part of the course! And after they all trundle their way into the dunes (which we missed), you have to get to the end of the dune segment, which is Dead Man's Drop-- a long, tall dune right at the edge of solid land (and mosquitoes-as-big-as-vampire-bats country) down which all the scupltures must travel intact.

Watching all 37 machines negotiate the slope was an all-afternoon affair, but the community spirit was something else again. Hundreds of people and dozens of dogs were clustered all over the dunes, cheering and clapping and hooting and laughing all day, mosquitoes or no. And only one machine-- the first one down the hill-- took a fall. Even the giant steel Rhino made it down intact-- though it did plow into the trees at the bottom and had to be forcibly fished out.


We ate en masse at the Japanese restaurant on the Town Square, and then retired (after a trip to the liquor store) to the house for a long evening of atmospheric music from my iPod, weird RPG/board games, reminiscence of Tech, and single-malt whiskey and mead (I'm told it was very funky). By the time we all collapsed from exhaustion, around 2AM, we had all recaptured a bonhomie that had never existed when we were all students and trying to prove our academic prowess to each other. Now we were all living life on our own terms, and there was more respect all around because of it.

Well, that's what I saw. Some others had certain problems with the interpersonal politics, but that's not what my sensors are equipped to detect.

In the morning, though, while the rest of the group was to wake up late and spend the day lounging around the house and missing the second day of the KSR altogether, I was to shift a gear. Rising at 9:00, I hopped in my car and drove the 150 miles back down through the mountains to Redwood Valley (for lunch and a rest in the air I grew up with) and to Ukiah, where an untidy clan of former Ukiahi Marching Band members was gathering.

Have you ever seen Mr. Holland's Opus? That's what my high school experience was like. Our band director, Rowland Nielson, retired after my senior year, taking with him a thirty-year career and a marching-band tradition that had upheld a standard of championship performances for decades. When Rowland retired, our black tuxedo-like uniforms with their gold overlays and our tall fur shakos went into cold storage, and a halfhearted jazz band took its place at the high school. There was no funding to support such a monstrously expensive program as a marching band, even if the director who succeeded Rowland had wanted to. But now, eight years later, the new young fiery director wants to bring the marching band back-- and so the tactic is to create an Alumni Marching Band, made up of all those band geeks who loved the fact that at Ukiahi, the band was the most admired organization on campus (hell, the football team was an embarrassment, and the marching band consistently brought home huge trophies). We would march in the Memorial Day parade, and the whole town would be stirred by a performance they hadn't seen or heard since 1994.

The rehearsal on Sunday evening went very well. The music was easy, and we all were startled to discover that we still had Wildcat Victory memorized. I hadn't touched my clarinet since 1996, and I'd had to make impromptu repairs of its disintegrated pads with rolls of taped toilet paper, but within an hour or two of practice I was playing with the same proficiency that I'd had as an 18-year-old. It'd amazing how some things never leave you.

Speaking of which, Rowland was the same as ever. His hair was a little whiter, but he still barked at us for chewing gum, and it nearly brought tears to our eyes.

Oh, and as always, we had an inordinate number of flute players-- nine or ten of them, out of about 40 alumni altogether. And they all giggled and chattered incessantly, as though they were still teenagers.

The motley group was full of 30- and 40-year olds, many of whom had become rather portly and/or motherly, and what I'd remembered as a group of kids with their whole lives ahead of them now had facial wrinkles and made Viagra jokes. But there were still tongue studs to be found, if you knew where to look. My second-grade teacher, now 51, was a majorette, twirling her battered old baton with an ease that made a mockery of the 34 years it had been. And one band member, who was now an award-winning band instructor himself, was playing the cymbals.

The following morning dawned with bright sunshine and cloying heat, and I spackled on the SPF 45 like I didn't care that I had bought it in Canada and probably wouldn't be able to get stuff of that strength here in the States. (45-- what, is that metric?) But by the time we had all gathered in front of the Ukiah Civic Center for some photos in our new purple Alumni band t-shirts and baseball caps, a thin cloud cover had rolled in and deadened the most worry-inducing of the rays. And before we knew it, we were lined up behind the California Conservation Corps van and a troop of Boy Scouts, and we were off down School Street, our two international-award-winning drum majors spinning their maces in tandem and sending them higher than the tops of the downtown 2-story storefronts, and our drum cadence-- with its intoxicating interleaved rim-taps and tri-tom exhortations and the insistent drive of the snares and the cymbals-- starting out uncertain, but gathering strength as we all remembered being there, doing that, ten or twenty years before, in city after city all over the state. It was ten years ago, twenty years ago. Our parents were all out there watching, just like before, no matter how old we were or how many Viagra we had in our pockets. By the time we turned the corner onto State Street next to the Palace Hotel and the drum cadence reached the point where the whole band had traditionally let out an unexpected whoop, many of our eyes were streaming as we let it rip.

We played through Wildcat Victory over and over, and You're a Grand Old Flag, and America the Beautiful, not caring how loose and fatigued our embouchures were getting, or how sloppy our marching. The crowds on the sidelines were going nuts as we passed. We remembered how at the rehearsal the night before, we had marched further down Despina Drive than we ever had back in the day-- we'd always turned back while we were still parallel to the football field, before heading into the adjoining residential area. This time, we'd gone past those first few houses before turning around-- and the residents came out on the lawn to watch, and to express with astonished delight that they'd never been able to see the band in the earlier years, and they'd thought they'd missed us forever-- and now, look! Here we are!

We squeezed in formation into the parking lot behind the District Office, the drum major barked out a BAND! To atten-HUT! and we exploded back, SIR!... and then, BAND! ...DisMISSED!


And oh, how the whoops and the cheers did ensue.

His little speech to us all as we gathered around was clumsy and choked with sweat as much as with emotion, but we all knew what he was trying to say. We'd done what we had set out to do. And it wasn't an ending to an era that had never really resolved itself; it was a new opening to a book that should never have been closed. We all shuttled back to our cars knowing that we'd be back next year, and the next, and as long as it took.

I caught up with my parents, drove my mom home, filled up on gas, got some lunch at the Redwood Valley burrito place, and once more embarked on the road north.


I ARRIVED in Ferndale at about 3:00, just when I'd hoped I would-- just in time to catch the last five or six finishers as they huffed and puffed their way down the main street across the mobbed finish line. Lots of machines had already finished, and a light-to-moderate rain that had materialized out of the wispy cloud cover that had protected us earlier in the day was soaking the streets, but the Race was finishing itself up in fine style. I met up with John and Allison and Branden and Erik as they finished a late lunch, and we went into the KSR Museum there near the traditional finish line to see some great and legendary Kinetic Sculptures of the past. Some of them, like the Quagmire Queen, were eye-popping in their size and their engineering. I got them all on video.

After a quick run back up to Arcata to pick up the iBook power supply that I'd managed to leave under the futon, I started back southward with Allison and John and Erik in tow. We reached Redwood Valley around 8:30, as the sun was setting, and we sat around my parents' living room telling the tales of our respective weekends. I picked up my Pizza Ettica, and we trundled off to the sounds of our stomachs growling for In-N-Out, which we reached in Rohnert Park after 10:00. Another hour and we were back on Taraval, and John was returned safely to his nest, along with Erik; one hour more and we were back in San Jose, and sleep ensued soon afterwards.

I was up early one more time on Tuesday morning, to take Allison back up to SFO-- not a brief drive by any stretch, but compared to the eleven hours of driving I'd done on Monday, and the four traversals of the Ukiah-to-Eureka run and the two passages of Ukiah-to-San Jose, it was barely noteworthy at all-- except that I put off showering or even changing until after I got home. (I'd slept on the couch in my marching band clothes.) So Tuesday at work was consumed mostly in bleary hunting-and-pecking through e-mail, and I slept extremely well that night.

Now, I've just finished importing the hour of DV footage from the KSR, and I'll have it iMovied and burned onto a DVD probably by the end of the weekend. And that's all the more likely now that I've got this blog entry out of the way. You know how it feels-- once you've accomplished something that you'd considered really daunting (hey, and rightly so, I humbly submit), you feel like you can accomplish anything.

Although right now the only thing I really feel like accomplishing is breaking some kind of world record for the quickness of falling asleep while draped out a window into the cool night breeze.

Late May. Memorial Day always brings such heat to this little microclimate.

Just another day out of the year, I guess. But while we might not usually get very hung up about the actual meaning of the holiday, we certainly know how to celebrate the spirit of the ideals which it purports to defend, don't we?

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© Brian Tiemann