Our Own Outback

http://carolynhayesuber.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/our-own-outback/

My Surrogate Dad and the Book He Wrote.

When I was a kid I did some shopping around for a father-figure. My real Dad was not around. He and Mom had a big ugly falling out, furthermore he was not a good rolemodel (more on that later). So, what is a kid to do but find a surrogate Dad. I picked Richard Menzies, our neighbor.

Richard spent much of his life on the road in this 1973 (bright orange) VW bus, while working as a freelance journalist and photographer. After years of prodding, Richard has put much of his writing into a great book, “Passing Through”.

Here's the link: http://www.passingthroughnv.com/index.html

His book is about some of the colorful people he has met while on the road. I put on some Neil Young, and started reading. The book contains the details of many of the stories that Richard has told me only briefly though the years about semi-homeless artisans living their experimental lives, the denizens of the great basin, the people who inspired him, the misunderstood, etc.

Richard is good a friend, but he’s been more of a father figure to me than just a friend. He and I have camped in the desert in that classic VW (which might explain my irrational loyalty to the VW brand), developed photographs in his lab, and I even dragged him along to church father and son’s outings since my father was not around. That was a stretch for Richard, but he was a good sport. I’ve gone to him for help many times, taken his advice about girls, and played the role of the son he never had (at least until he and his wife had a son). So maybe it was more of a sentimental journey. The book is great, and I value it more than any book in my collection.

I think I was four years old when I met him. He caught me running with a pair of garden scissors behind the apartments where we lived. He scolded me and told me to point those scissors down. Being a kid who didn't like being told what to do, I didn’t like him. The next time I met Richard was when he lubricated my squeaky tricycle. He was typing in his office and probably suffered from writers block due to the infernal noise of my trike squeaking as I rode on the pavement below. I'm sure that I was driving him crazy. He came down the stairs with a can of WD-40, and took away the cool squeaky sound that I liked so much. I liked him even less after that!

During the summer when I was five years old, we shared a garden spot behind the apartment complex. One evening when my Mom was working in her part of the garden, Richard came down the stairs with the coolest thing I had ever seen, a glow-in-the-dark Frisbee! It was getting dark, but Mom let me stay out and play. Frisbee became a nightly activity that summer.

The rest is history. For the past 30 years, I have kept in contact with Richard whether he liked it or not. We go skiing now and then. Sometimes I stop by his house and we talk about a lot of nothing. All I can say is that I’m blessed to have a friend like him. Not only did he give me someone to look up to, he gave me a counter balance to the strict Mormon culture in which I was raised.

I still dream of buying an old VW bus so I can take my kids camping in the desert and maybe some of Richard will rub off on them too.

Here are a few links to other things he wrote:
http://www.spyrock.com/nadafarm/html/thunder-menzies/NEVADA4.html
http://www.spyrock.com/nadafarm/html/thnder.html
And finally, his blog:
http://www.rdmenzies.com/blog
Enjoy!

3 Bears in Search of an Author (part two)

Here would be Hemingway's version:

A Farewell to Porridge

In the late autumn of that year we lived in a house in the forest that looked across the river to the mountains, but we always thought we lived on the plain because we couldn't see the forest for the trees.

Sometimes people would come to the door and ask if we would like to subscribe to the Saturday Evening Post or buy Fuller brushes, but when we would answer the bell, they would see we were only bears and go away.

Sometimes we would go for long walks along the river and you could almost forget for a little while that you were a bear and not people.

Once when we were out strolling for a very long time, we came home and you could see that someone had broken in and the door was open.

"La port est ouverte," said Mama Bear. "The door should not be open." Mama Bear had French blood on her father's side.

"It is all right," I said. "We will close it. Then it will be good like in the old days."

"Bien," she said. "It is well."

We walked in and closed the door. There were dishes and bowls and all manner of eating utensils on the table and you could tell that someone had been eating porridge. We did not say anything for a long while.

"It is lovely here, " I said finally. "But someone has been eating my porridge."

"Mine as well," said Mama Bear.

"Darling," said Mama Bear, "do you love me?"

"Yes, I love you."

"You really love me?"

"I really love you. I'm crazy in love with you."

"And the porridge? How about the porridge?"

"That too. I really love the porridge too."

"It was supposed to be a surprise. I made it as a surprise for you, but someone has eaten it all up."

"You sweet. You made it as a surprise. Oh, you're lovely," I said.

"But it is gone."

"It is all right," I said. "It will be all right."

Then I looked at my chair and you could see someone had been sitting in it and Mama bear looked at her chair and someone had been sitting in that too and Baby Bear's chair was broken. "We will go upstairs," I said and we went upstairs to the bedroom but you could see that someone had been sleeping in my bed and in Mama Bear's too although that was the same bed but you have to mention it that way because that is the story. Truly. And then we looked in Baby Bear's bed and there she was.

"I ate your porridge and sat in your chairs and I broke one of them," she said.

"It is all right," I said. "It will be all right."

"And now I am lying in Baby Bear's bed."

"Baby Bear can take care of himself."

"I mean that I am sorry. I have behaved badly and I am sorry for all of this."

"Ça ne fait rien," said Mama Bear. "It is nothing." Outside it had started to rain again.

"I will go now," she said. "I am sorry." She walked slowly down the stairs.

I tried to think of something to tell her but it wasn't any good.

"Good-by, " she said. Then she opened the door and went outside and walked all the way back to her hotel in the rain.

Dan Greenberg, "Three Bears in Search of an Author," Esquire Feb 1958, pp46-47.

3 Bears in Search of an Author

I finally found this posted on the Web, funny stuff from my college English class (years ago). Here's how the Three Bears would be if J. D. Salinger had written it.

Catch Her in the Oatmeal

If you actually want to hear about it, what I'd better do is I'd better warn you right now that you aren't going to believe it. I mean it's a true story and all, but it still sounds sort of phony.

Anyway, my name is Goldie Lox. It's sort of a boring name, but my parents said that when I was born I had this very blonde hair and all. Actually I was born bald. I mean how many babies get born with blonde hair? None. I mean I've seen them and they're all wrinkled and red and slimy and everything. And bald. And then all the phonies have to come around and tell you he's as cute as a bug's ear. A bug's ear, boy, that really kills me. You ever seen a bug's ear? What's cute about a bug's ear? For Chrissake! Nothing, that's what.

So, like I was saying, I always seem to be getting into these very stupid situations. Like this time I was telling you about. Anyway, I was walking through the forest and all when I see this very interesting house. A house. You wouldn't think anybody would be living way the hell out in the goddam forest, but they were. No one was home or anything and the door was open, so I walked in. I figured what I'd do is I'd probably horse around until the guys that lived there came home and maybe asked me to stay for dinner or something. Some people think they have to ask you to stay for dinner even if they hate you. Also I didn't exactly feel like going home and getting asked a lot of lousy questions. I mean that's all I ever seem to do.

Anyway, while I was waiting I sort of sampled some of this stuff they had on the table that tasted like oatmeal. Oatmeal. It would have made you puke, I mean it. Then something very spooky started happening. I started getting dizzier than hell. I figured I'd feel better if I could just rest for a while. Sometimes if you eat something like lousy oatmeal you can feel better if you just rest for awhile, so I sat down. That's when the goddam chair breaks in half. No kidding, you start feeling lousy and some stupid chair is going to break on you every time. I'm not kidding. Anyway I finally found the crummy bedroom and I lay down on this very tiny bed. I was really depressed.

I don't know how long I was asleep or anything but all of a sudden I hear this very strange voice say, "Someone's been sleeping in my sack, for Chrissake, and there she is!" So I open my eyes and here at the foot of the bed are these three crummy bears. Bears! I swear to God. By that time I was really feeling depressed. There's nothing more depressing than waking up and finding three bears talking to you, I mean.

So I didn't stay around and shoot the breeze with them or anything. If you want to know the truth, I sort of ran out of there like a madman or something. I do that quite a little when I'm depressed like that.

On the way home, though, I got to figuring. What probably happened is these bears wandered in when they smelled this oatmeal and all. Probably bears like oatmeal, I don't know. and the voice I heard when I woke up was probably something I dreamt.

So that's the story.

I wrote it all up once as a theme in school, but my crummy teacher said it was too whimsical. Whimsical. That killed me. You got to meet her sometime, boy. She's a real queen.

Dan Greenberg, "Three Bears in Search of an Author," Esquire, Feb 1958, pp. 46-47.