Emergency Rooms

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Kids can say the darndest things. Especially with bones sticking out of their skin from compound fractures. My daughter Sage was about seven years old when she experienced her first run to emergency. Having bought all the kids new bikes for Christmas, naturally, they all wanted to ride them. I tell all the older kids to watch out for her. They ditch her. She was, “too slow.” Trying to keep up, she crashes on the dirt trail across the way. Hard. Off to emergency. Nothing like an emergency room on Christmas day. I’ve spent a couple there. So Sage has severe facial lacerations on her forehead, chin, inside her mouth, and lots of scrapes and rocks rolled under her skin. Daddy gets to hold her as two docs stitch her up and do clean up to ascertain any other injuries. With seventy two stitches going in, it took awhile. As the one doc stitches the inside of Sage’s mouth, he’s patering away on how, “It’s not that bad now, stay still!” The other doc is doing his thing inbetween the other doc swabbing blood of Sage’s lower face between long passes with the stitches. He has a stretecher deal in her mouth to gain access and see better. Sage’s eyes are rolling around like a great white shark’s. When they occasionally stop and look into mine, I whisper, “Tons of ice cream in your future, as soon as were out of here kid!” Finally, the doc is taking off the nibs of all the sutures and removing the mouth expander cage. All of the other inhabitants of emergency had been watching the proceedings. An expectant mom, a skate board kid with a broken knee. The usual. As the cage comes out, the doc says to Sage in a condescending tone, “Now, that wasn’t so bad!” Sage stands up and screams at him, “FUCK YOU ASSHOLE, YOUR ONE GIANT PRICK!” I get a stunned look on my face proclaiming I had no idea where she had heard such language. All the nurses were biting their arms to stop from laughing out loud… It’s cold and drizzily. We had a long, two inch around rope I’d brought back from my Uncle Wimpy’s dry dock for the kids to Tarzan on off tower one. I tell all the kids, mine and the neighbors, to stay off the rope. As the sun was going down, ice was forming. Once again, as I take off my boots to relax, a wild eyed Tegan runs into the house, screaming that her brother Tejas had done a flip off the rope and hit some rocks. Adding for effect, “His bones are sticking out of his arm!” Hmm. Might have to take him to the doc pops into my head. First I had to catch him. He had a theory that if he ran long and hard, the pain wouldn’t catch up to him. We chase him down about a mile away, following the blood trail. That compound fracture was one of those gifts that just keep on giving. Ended up having to have it reset, THREE TIMES, over the years. On the ride to emergency, I’m in the back of a Jeep Cherokee, holding a struggling Tejas in a head lock to keep him from running off again at the red lights. I shout to the driver to go around the backed up traffic and get to emergency. Some guy gets pissed and trys to road rage us. He chases us down the side of the road to teach us a lesson. As he catchs up at another red light, he gets out to confront me. I had the back window up so Tejas wouldn’t kick it out with all his struggling. The tattooed guy sees me covered with blood and a screaming kid going out of his mind. I say a calm, “You really want some of this pal?” He got back in his truck… I’m dead tired. Just did a rock garden and pond for a side job on a Sunday. I fall asleep on our outside swing. A bunch of dirt bikes roar to a stop in front of my gate. Frantic boys are tossing off helmets while they run towards the house. I almost didn’t say anything as they ran past me. I’m informed that David Phillips had just rolled his Blazer with the brand new giant tires and custom paint job, off the side of Kirpsies mountain. Oh, and they can’t find Tejas in the wreckage. It’s now pitch black. Up into the wild rolling hills we go. A fog comes slinking in. It kept getting better and better. The kids find the wrecked truck. Oh man. Look up ‘wrecked truck’ in the dictionary. There’s a picture of Phillips’ truck. All the other guys from the truck are already rolling in pain waiting for the pills to kick in. No one could go to the hospital because of warrants and such. Fine. We go back, once again to find Tejas. Now the Sheriff’s search and rescue arrives. Horse teams arrive. I head home around midnight to get another flashlight. I see a light on in Tejas’s house off bridge tower two. I shout out, “HEY, ANYONE UP THERE”? Tejas’s head pops out his door, he yells back, “THERE’S LIGHTS ALL OVER KIRPSIES MOUNTAIN, SOMTHING IS GOING ON!”…He was never in the truck.

Medal of Honor

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Usually the word, ‘Posthumously’, goes hand in hand with it. This means the recipient didn’t make it back alive. I held a medal of honor once. A Navajo code talker let me hold his at the ceremony the Marines held near the Sepulveda basin Marine base for the surviving talkers. It was really something. President Truman, when he gave out the award, would lean forward and whisper to the man receiving it, “I would rather have such an honor then be President!” He meant it too. He fought in WW1 as an artillery man. Truman knew what war was really like…My Uncle Curly told me this story, so, it’s from him to me. I wasn’t close to being in the same league as these men, but, I hate seeing the battles they fought and the courage they showed doing their duties just fade away. This particular story of a Medal of Honor winner is about one Naval Captain, part Cherokee, part Creek, all American, named Ernest E. Evans…My Uncle met him at the ceremony where he took over the command of the D.E. Johnson. He was its only skipper. D.E. means in Naval terms, DESTROYER ESCORT. Not as big as a regular Destroyer, it had one five inch gun, .40 Bofers, .50 cal machine guns, and, its best weapons, torpedos. Tubes mounted on the fore deck. Not much in the way of armor. Its main defense was speed and maneuverability. Prior to its last fight, the Captain and crew had already received numerous battle awards. I can’t remember them all, but a plaque I saw once in a book had a long list. The Johnson’s last fight was really something. I’ll try and do my Uncle Curly’s telling of its last action justice. He was a real Navy man. I’ve only read about such things. I heard this story while sitting in the shade of the sixteen inch guns of the Battleship New Jersey as it underwent refit, prior to its last action off the coast of Viet Nam…”It was during the largest Naval action in the history of the world. The ‘Battle of Leyte Gulf’. The Japanese Imperial Navy vs The U.S. Navy. This battle was actually over three fronts, but I’m telling you about Evans and the crew of the U.S.S. Johnston and what went down with task unit, Taffy 3. There were other ships in the battle, sure, but Evans and his boys showed the Japs what a small ship could do when the chips were down and it was time to do or die. Now, the enemy had illegal sized Battleships, way larger then ours. Not only in size, but also in armament. 18 inch main guns vs our largest at 16. Longer, wider, and faster, dreadnoughts to contend with. Too bad Taffy 3 didn’t have ONE to protect her. Just four D.E.’s to protect six escort carriers. Smaller then full sized carriers, they were called, ‘Kaiser coffins’, by the men who served on them. Against Taffy 3? Several Japanese Battleships, Heavy Cruisers, Light Cruisers and ten full sized Destroyers. Their mission was to wipe out the landing crafts of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, then, retreat to help out the other actions happening at the same time in other areas off the Phillipines. As the Jap fleet hove into sight, Evans and his crew hit 35 knots, right for the entire fleet. (NOTE: I have a book written by a commanding Japanese officer on this battle. Quite illuminating) Launching a spread of torpedos at the closest Heavy Cruiser, the Johnston then went so close to one of the Battleships, they were UNDER its big guns. So small, the guns couldn’t depress that low. The gun crews of the Johnston pumped five inch fire point blank into the superstructure, along with every gun they had, killing officers and gun crews the entire length of the giant ship, then, healing right, they punched it at maximum power away, laying a smoke screen for the small carriers it was their duty to protect. Now the big guns of the Jap battleship roared for some payback. Splashes from near misses went over a hundred foot high bracketing the Johnston, making it disappear from the cascading waterfalls of water. The Johnston came out of the water curtain, firing back with its single five incher, barking defiance. Then its luck ran out. Shells slamed into the small ship, knocking it around like a puppy hit by a Mack truck. Half the crew died at their posts instantly. Evans shirt and some of his fingers were blown off. He stayed at the helm. Coming around as the other D.E.’s took up the fight, the captain of the U.S.S. Hoel, said Evans nodded at him, then followed them back in. His ship in ruins and only able to make fifteen knots, Evans and his boys did the only thing they could do, take point blank enemy fire away from the other ships, still able to fight. And take it they did. The captain was blown off the bridge, along with everyone else next to him, cartwheeling through the air. Some of the men were vaporized instantly. Now, dead in the water, sinking by its bow, a Japanese Destroyer swept in to finish the smoking hulk off. Unbelievably, the gun crew of the five incher, were still game. Firing back, then reloading so fast the Jap commanders thought we had some new type five inch auto loader, the crew pumped shells into its attacker, hitting it point blank from its bow to its stern. Then the over heated gun blew its crew apart. As another Jap Cruiser swept by, the ships captain, looking down on the carnage as the little ship washed its dead crew with water before going down, ordered his crew to hold their fire and to stand at attention and salute the brave enemy. Something almost unheard of in that war!”…That’s the story my Uncle told me. So that’s how I retell it…

Riots

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My first riot was when I was 14 years old. I was hitchhiking back from my Uncle Curly’s Naval Dry Dock during some vacation when school was out and got lost in the freeway systems. Heading to Newhall wasn’t a very popular destination in those days. I end up in a juvinile lockdown for pandering. It just happened to be a place called Watts. Having never been around black people before, except a couple at Hart High, I had no concept of being in any danger. I loved watching the Harlem Globetrotters on Ed Sullivan. So, why would any one bother little old me? Boy, did I learn fast. It wasn’t me. It was what I represented. Oppression and already having things in my short life most of my new pals would never have. As soon as the riot got into full swing, I was taken to a long van with bars on the windows, along with a couple of Mexican kids, and driven to Simi Valley. They let us out and took off. The Mexican kids headed for Sylmar…Me? I ended up walking the train tracks until I got to Saugus. Not having a radio, I figured the riot was spreading everywhere and didn’t want to take a chance on getting locked up again. Finally catching a ride in a ‘Bunny Love’ carrot truck with a kid I knew from Hart High’s teen work program, I was stunned he had no idea of the giant upheaval happening not sixty miles away…Segue to about six years ago. When we first took in our Russian kid Leo, one of the requirements was that he attend Russian language school to “keep his heritage.” So, every other weekend, we would schlep down to North Hollywood for his classes. He hated them. Said he was now an ‘American’, he didn’t want to speak Russian anymore. Told him too bad, it was something we had to do for the court. Anyhow, I end up playing chess with an old Russian guy who was bringing two of his grand daughters to the school because they wanted to attend. He was also a former Soviet Navy Sub Commander. After getting bored with kicking my ass three times in a row in lighting fast games, we ended up sitting outside, watching the kids on a recess, running around having some fun. He told me an interesting story. After one of his cruises, playing ‘find me’ with the American Navy, he comes to port to find it’s Anarchy. The Soviet Union was no more. Since his crew was from all the various states that made up the Union, they just took what they wanted off the sub, then walked away. He told me he didn’t have fresh bread for a year. It was back to the old mind set, Blood Feuds. Russians being treated bad by Slav’s two hundred years ago, so, they have to die. Ditto for Ukraninians vs their neighbors. On and on across the country, old hatreds flared up. He also told me another thing. “You Americans will have a much harder time when your revolution comes. Russians are brought up having hard times. Not so your people. It will be a lot tougher. From plenty to nothing can be tough to take!”…Segue to the Rodney King riot. It’s about ten in the morning. I’m in my A.T.&T. phone van with the ladders on the roof, fixing a phone at a black barber shop off Jefferson. As I let the owner know he was all set, he said something to me in a half whisper, leaning towards me as he said it. “You better head above Wilshire, white boy!” I stared at him not understanding, then, heard the gunshots going off all around us. Near and far. The white jury had cut loose the cops that played ‘Wipe out’ on King on video. They weren’t going to take a bite out of this giant shit sandwich. Some black kids started to run across the now crazy streets towards me, the short, stocky barber yelled for them to leave me alone, then waved me off. All the streets were now backing up. No one knew what to do. Neither did I. So, I headed to my next repair ticket. I could then call my dispatch for orders. You see, Pacific Telephone had formerly been military. We were the Signal Corp. That’s why the dark olive green trucks back in the old days with the bell insignia on the doors. I was also Civil Defense. My ID allowed me though any emergency line. I had my duties to perform, just like a mail man. Until I was in contact with dispatch, I went NOWHERE until given orders to do so. Using a pay phone was out of the question. Open up a facility point or climb a pole? Yeah, right. I make it five blocks away to my next repair, a Korean market. As I drove in front, I had no where to pull into their parking lot. All access had been blocked by cars and trucks. An elderly Korean woman shouts some orders in Korean to a man in a truck. He backs up, lets me on the lot, then blocks it again as I park. I glance up on the roof. AK47s wth banana clips are popped out, all along the edges. I go right to the phone protector box on the side of the store, call my dispatcher. I’m told I’m number 14. It’s sort of a party line when a dispatcher says this to you. If you try and talk, your unplugged instantly. Now your number zero. You can listen in though as he talks to all the guys ahead of you. I hear him tell two other repairmen, “GET BACK TO YOUR GARAGES, NOW!” I jump back into my van, the truck backs up, I start to pull out. Two black men and a young black girl run out of the store, ask if I can take them with me. I cram them all in the front seat, putting one on the engine cover. The other man put the girl on his lap. I punch it North towards the Hollywood sign…Not one cop anywhere. I drive right by where they dragged and half beat to death the truck driver. I speed side streets, going right through stop signs and red lights, barely slowing. I drop off my passengers and head up Vermont. Automatic gunfire is coming from the roof top of ‘LEN JACK’ stereo. Lenny had been a door gunner on a B-17. Shot down over Germany, he broke both legs hitting their ground after his plane was shot down. He spent two years in a German Stalag. I knew his store wasn’t going up in flames. Hundreds more did though. I can’t get to my garage on MYRA. I head for my last repair ticket up off of Mulholland to call my dispatch again. Its for the director of the ‘Superman’, movies. He had an industial styled front entrance that you walked into then it spun around, like you were going into Macys dept store. He had an office in his backyard. I go through the house and see all of his employees looking at the view from his overlook. I head over. No one is saying anything. The entire sky is full of smoke from the hundreds of fires pluming up across L.A. and Hollywood…It only took FOUR HOURS. For months after, I had a National Guard escort while replaciing all the Aerial cables that burned along with the buildings…

The State of the Union

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I have no idea how its going in other necks of the wood. Around my short horizons? Something stinks. Commercial building after commercial building, block after block, every where I look, empty floors and for lease signs. Some of the gigantic furniture warehouse stores with over 100,000 sqare foot floors, have been empty now for YEARS. Who can eat those kinds of losses? I have friends who haven’t made a house payment in four years. No one has forced them out. Huh? Diesel is cheaper to produce then gas, yet they jerk us around with its cost constantly. Truckers costs go up every day, yet, their jobs are drying up like sandy creek beds after a light sprinkle. A trucker in a brand new rig can be pulled over and ticketed and fined. Yep. BRAND NEW TRUCK. Lets see, “The turn signal is too slow, or, too fast. The trailer lights are to bright or too low. Those mud flaps aren’t wide enough!”‎…I had a former neighbor who recieved a $700 fine for planting roses, “Too deep!” She needed a permit. FOR ROSES. Ditto for trees now. You have to pay for permission to plant a tree. And, only the ones they say you can, and, how many. Every time you plant one, you have to pay….Now, they have the new septic tank laws coming around. Electronic monitored septics. Inspected by the mayor’s cousin, twice a year for $500 a pop, FOREVER. Also, dual hookups are required so you can switch to the new city septic system that will come around in the year 3025. If ever…Density laws to get people off ranches and land parcels held for generations so you can live in some shit fuck condo made out of plastic and staples, then, take a nice stroll past the well dressed Section 8 gang kids waiting to beat the crap out of you for not having enough money when they rob you…High Speed Rail? What the fuck is that? How can you even attempt to call it that when it has to stop at EVERY city along the way, then, end up in San Fransisco. I don’t know ONE person who says they’ll use it. Even if the damn thing did blast straight through, what sort of job is awaiting you in Frisco for crying out loud. Hollywood fruits are way more fun then those stuck up fog haired sissys. I should know. I’ve partied with both clicks. After the last big earth quake when Frisco’s freeways pancaked, I was loaned out from A.T.&T. to do cable maintenance for two months. Loved the people, hated the city. No place to park, plus, my Cherry Picker cable truck loved to pop out of gear and take off on its own. Steep, steep streets if your unaware. Hmm, so, you jump on this train and your competition jumped on his one hour flight that cost one third the ticket cost, and, you have a variety of flights. The rail system? A JOKE! It runs to everyplace you don’t need to go, at times your never going to need. Then, they change their times at a whim. Holidays? Fah-get-about-it! Ditto for stopping for hours because of ‘suicide by train’ investigations, smash ups at crossings, or, just plain breaking down. Let’s see how high speed the bastard is after the big earthquake we’re overdue for. Maybe they can get a couple of years in to rush people even faster to the poor house…I’m no President, but I know this much. For a Thirty year loan, you need a THIRTY YEAR JOB! Oh, I know! Lets all be on the State or Federal dole, or, be a Prison guard! Yeah! That’s the ticket!…

The Swozie’s Ride

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I’m at the Acton market, years ago. I’m squatting at the magazine rack as I let the kids shop for frozen food. I was covering meals for a couple of weeks and I DON’T COOK. Screw that. I’ve told my kids many a time, if they come home and find me stirring some pot on the stove, to get my .12 gauge and blow my head off. It’s a Doppleganger, taking my life over. Kill it fast and get it over with. As I’m flipping through a ‘Country Living’, I hear some ladies in line say, “You know, up there past the murder house!” My ears perk up. Murder house? Then, the cashier adds, “The Knotts Berry place on Shannonvalley!” Huh? That was my place! I listen as another guy in line says, “Yeah, the old guy up there shot five people in a home invasion!” Now I’m really interested. I shot five people? I was sort of proud. Plus, with this kind of baloney going around, who would worry about burglars…What had actually happened was the shooting of a pack of wild dogs that had been terrorizing the neighborhood. Coming in through our front gate a sneaking home Tejas had left open, the dogs had already killed all of our geese and had worked their way down to our mules and horse corrals. A pal, Cowboy Greg, had left me in charge of three of his horses as he wooed a new sweetheart. She turned out to be a daughter of Satan, but, that’s another story. These dogs were hard to see in the dark. It was five am on a Sunday morning, so, the sun was’t up yet. I chase the dogs down the dirt drive in a nightgown and untied boots. I hit ’em with some .12 gauge from my short barrel pump. They don’t go down. DAMN! Birdshot! My son’s Noah and Ty run with flashlight carrying the double odd buckshot box. I jack out the crap rounds, then reload on the run. I nail one of the pit bull mix bastards and he still comes back up. I take him to pump city. He stays down…The cops come, tell me to just bury the dogs, the story goes around town and changes from dogs to people. I say nothing. I like the notoriety…I’m at my mailbox a few days later. Darryl Swozie stops his battered pump truck. As usual, his exhaust is making that death rattle wheeze when he takes his foot off the throttle. He waves me to his window, then informs me he knows who owns the stray dog pack. Its from a halfway house for child molestors and creeps, just over the hill towards Aqua Dulce. He also says, that for fifty bucks donation, he’ll take care of the problem. I give him the two twentys in my pocket. His clan is one to stay on good terms with. Being nocturnal, and very numerous, I always stayed on their good side…Sheriffs come by to visit me a couple of days later. Seems someone in an old septic pumper truck had chained the gate closed at a County halfway house over the hill, stuck a septic hose through a side laundry window at three am, then, filled the house with sewage. When the people ran outside, gun shots fired in the air, drove them right back in. Looked like they were going to have to close the house down. My name had come up for some reason during their investigation. I told them I hadn’t a clue on what they were talking about…From then on, when the Swozies needed some water, I filled their Sparkletts bottles gladly…

Fucking UNIT Crane

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Its a micro-cosm of our society today….Originally ordered by William Mulholland in 1946. He gave it to the Cof Los Angeles after the Hollywood dam work. The city auctioned it. George Sack bought it. He loaned it to me. If I could get it to run, he would trailer it over. It’s a yard crane. Two big and gagantuan to drive on public roads. With 12 wheel drive, it’s pretty cool on a dirt lot. A BIG dirt lot. The man who brought it out of its close grave? Dick the Fuller Brush man. I used to blow him off when he stopped by in his worn out old van to try and sell me Fuller Brush stuff, and, his magical cancer elixirs he traded the Gypsies his mechanical abilities to keep their rigs one step ahead of the law. Dick was dead honest, don’t get me wrong. He just believed those Gypsies is all. He was in his seventies when I first met him. He bugged me with his visits. Until the day he fixed my Simon Seventy foot boom lift, saving my ass so huge I will NEVER forget that guy…Dick had served as mechanic for over twenty years for the U.S. Navy on aircraft carriers. Top dog for the last five. He was a tall, bent, worn out old man when I met him. But he could fix ANYTHING. Maybe not for long. But he would get its sorry ass rolling for awhile, no matter what you tossed at him. I know because I watched him fight that god damned UNIT crane back onto its flattened tires, and roll onto a trailer on its own, flat head V-8 steam. Dick once again stops by, just in time to hear me whine and cry about getting that crane, six years ago. He told me he could get it going. Five suppossedly hot shot local mechanics had tried and died. Cost me a lot of dough and all quit on me. None will return a call to me to this day. Mainly because almost all of them are dead. Dick worked on that crane for four hours and had the boom going up and down and the rig steering in a big loop. An out of control loop, but it was good enough. It was quite a feat. I couldn’t believe it. A HUGE day in my life. Dick was the man…A while later, he showed up on foot, his van had blown up on Sierra Hwy. He was soaked from walking five miles. No one would give him a ride. I dried him off then gave him the keys to an F-150 my son Tejas had turned down, free, because it had a five speed stick shift. I then had offered it to a son in law. He turned it down because he didn’t want to have to drive it home to the East coast, plus, he had a guitar lesson. I handed the keys to Dick. It was about the best feeling I’ve ever had. I’m an aloof asshole most of the time. It was nice to crack the ice for once. He snatched those keys out of my hand and ran down the Danny Devito stairs like a kid. As he started it up, I was running behind him, telling him about oil changes and other crap he could care less about. As he turned on the lights and put it in gear, I had just enough time to shout, “THE PINKS IN THE GLOVE BOX!” He was gone down my dirt drive, sliding in the rain slick mud, like he had owned that truck for a decade. He then loses it and SIDE SWIPES THE UNIT CRANE at the end of the main driveway. That truck will go to its grave with a headlight to bed, two inch gash and orange paint all over it. I could care less. It was his truck now…So, here I am back at the beggining. Except it’s just six years later. No machine shops, anywhere to fabricate parts for this 1946 PIECE OF SHIT. No Dick to work his magic. Especially after the owner of Black and White constuction, with no business license, able to get a Demo permit in one day that takes others nine months or more, then, DROPS A FUCKING BEAM onto the UNIT crane while rodeoing his track driven rig, over and over my finally knocked down tower (See front page of the LA TIMES) I can’t even find any of my old welders. All have gone belly up. Steel guys? Gone too. Engineers? Maybe for Lionel…Now, its down to the last hardcore friends I have to move this Bastard and save its life. My pal, off and on between his big CRYBABY FUCKING TANTREMS, my son Noah. His buddy Josh, and Rick the tent boy, now, Rick the Great. That’s it. Everyone else is SICK of hearing me beg. Now, in the snow, after changing belts, having to wait between test starts because BLACK AND WHITE GUY dented in radiator and fan, we still havent moved it one foot…We do have it steering. The crane boom winch spinning, and, the air brakes holding air. Back at it after the storm…I’ll be starting the new Tower and Barn February. If I’m still out of jail. Find out on the tenth. As for our country. Find me one guy that can still repair and run a UNIT crane, and I’ll sleep like a baby and never worry about my grandkids’ futures…

John Lilly

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I met him after an odd set of circumstances. While working some cable cutovers off Los Feliz in Griffith Park, just across from the Train Guy’s kiddie ride train, an elderly woman limped up to my wide open cable box. You could see she was in quite a bit of pain. She wondered if I could be so kind as to call a friend of hers to give her a ride. She had twisted her ankle while on a stroll around the train area. Since I was about to go to lunch, I offered to take her home in my Pac Bell cable manintenance cherry picker (a five ton truck with an aerial basket). She got a big kick out of riding in it. I end up at her house, a gigantic parcel, half covered by a large, two story house, obviously from the 1920’s. You can tell the eras by how large the trees surrounding the homes are. Trees are a big deal to phone men. They’re a big reason we had so many cable trucks. Big trees take out a lot of big cables and poles…We became pals. One thing I loved about that house was its large, curved driveway. I could fit my big cable truck in it, no sweat, then, park at the end of her circular drive and be completely hidden from the street traffic. Even when she wasn’t home, I could take a nap in my cab, or read away in privacy. Lots of people will rat you out to the company, so, it was pretty cool. If she was home, it was even better. She had a maid who lived with her who fixed fantastic grilled cheese sandwiches, or, anything you wanted. Even better then the cook at Jack Warner’s estate. The house was a multi-generation museum of the families past. Her husband was a world famous Archealogist. He had discovered the ruins of Machu Picchu, and a bunch of other, ‘Lost cities’, in South America. She gave me some outstanding framed photos I still have on my wall, right now. On every big marble table or huge bookshelf, were artifacts from her husband’s trips. Stone bowls, carved totems, stuff like that. In one room was a weapons collection. Some of the arrows had black on the arrowheads which was some sort of toxic poison made from colorful frogs’ skin secretions. The Indians revered these amphibians. Only using them, never harming them (I read up on them. Scientists here, tried to raise them for our military. Turned out, you had to feed them their jungle diet of poisonous insects or their mucous wouldn’t be toxic. They gave up). On one such goof off day, Caroline, the old lady, had her best friend over for lunch. I was invited to entertain her with Hollywood star stories. During lunch, I’m invited to a book signing of this friend’s husband at a local book store, ‘BOOK SOUP’, across from Tower records. I knew it well. All the clerks hated my guts for hiding books I couldn’t afford in other parts of the store until I had the money for them. It was a game, sort of. They would try to catch me in the act, I would try and hide books. I also knew its location from having the biggest head on truck wreck, just past it on Sunset Boulevard, but, another story….I attend the book signing and meet the author, John Lilly. He signs my book, then, wonders if he can have a chat with me in about 15 minutes. I hang around. Turns out, he needed a phone man. His office was up the coast a ways. It was called the ‘ISALIN’ Institute. He was a big shot there. It had all these connected buildings, filled with fellow egg heads, working on paranormal stuff and things like that. I met Robert Monroe there, but, once again, another story. I end up spending some weekends up at the complex, repairing cables and trying to pick up egg head chicks. Which never happened. Anyhow, I would stay at a cheap motel on these weekends that also fed me from their coffee shop. It was fun. One evening after doing some phone moves for an added office, I’m invited by Mr. Lilly to watch an experiment he’s been working on. Inside a large, barn sized steel shed, are two pods, connected by dozens of cables and lines. Gist of it? Inside one isolation pod, floating in a solution, was a dolphin. The other one? John Lilly. They were connected to these huge, old seventies’ style computers that had the looped tapes spinning on the fronts. From the small, slit windows, a dull red light glowed. Once in position, the inhabitants were given doses of LSD. Listening to his fellow egg heads while trying to stay out of the way, the object of the experiment was for Dr. Lilly to communicate on some other plane, with the dolphin in the other pod. With just the hum of the tapes and the egg heads in the white smocks whispering to each other over their clip boards, I got bored and headed for my room down the highway…The next day, while finishing up my phone duties, I hear what had gone down. After about ten seconds, the dolphin was as bored with Lilly, as an adult would be with a newborn. Having to keep its entire history of its race in its mind, the dolphin was light years ahead of the puny mental midget in the adjoining pod…I have a lot more on this for some other time…

Lucky

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A couple of years ago, a friend of mine, Dave Baral, went in with me to buy some calves from Lev Arklin at his ranch next to Big Rock Creek. Out of the bunch, I picked the Longhorn with the spots and attitude. Only about eighty pounds, they were still a handful. Just before loading them for transport, naturally, mine makes a break for it. Before catching it, a couple of guys at the ranch had it in their minds to just shoot the little prick. Some pretty good shots missed him four times. He ended up trotting back to his pals. I named him Lucky. Once a prick, always a prick has been my experience with troublemakers. Lucky filled that bill. He hated dogs. As he grew larger, he was able to kick a dog farther and farther. Steers can kick sideways, different from a horse. Dogs that have been used to hassling horses, find this out the hard way. He once nailed a Doberman so hard, it did two full somersaults before hitting the side of the barn…When the dog jumped up, Lucky was on top of him like Dempsey would do, nailing him with his head as the dog staggered up. Good thing for the dog he didn’t have horns yet. He literally knocked the crap out of that dog. It had lost it in midair and its own launched bowels sprayed across my freshly painted barn in an odd pattern. Dots and dashs of dog crap. It was almost as bad as the time my Bullmastiff, Dozer, nailed me with coyote waste. Dozer had him by the stomach and was shaking the coyote like it was a doll. As I ran up with a garden hose to break it up, one shake gave me a shot out ot that coyotes ass that hit me so hard and fast, I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. The spray started around my navel on my sweatshirt, then, caught me evenly all the way up to my forehead. Yep, in the mouth and one of my eyes…Lucky ends up at the Haunted Ranch, a few miles away, up a canyon with a spring that bubbles out of the ground. A rare thing in Acton. The spring is how we used to scare tourists. A friend used to give trail rides from her dude ranch in Aqua Dulce to city folks. Sometimes I would lead one. Being a kid, I would make all sorts of stuff up to make the ride more fun. I changed my stories all the time, but, the gist of it is, the horses wouldn’t go up the canyon because of all the bees covering that spring well head. There was a pipe feeding from it down to a small pond, so, the horses could water there. If you headed one up into the tight canyon, the bees would attack. All of my friend’s horses knew all about those bees, so, after one of my ‘they were all murdered’ type tales, I would add, “Go on ahead if you think I’m lying. Even the horses are spooked of what hides up there!” I would then take the closest cute girl’s halter and start to lead her horse on to the trail. The horse would toss me loose and get wild eyed, every time. It’s also why I was fired. Anyhow, the steers all loved it up there just below the spring. They grew tall and wide. Of all of them, Lucky had the horns. About forty inches wide and hooked on the ends. With Longhorns, the females have the wider rack. They bunch the calves in a circle, then put their rear ends against them, facing whatever threatens them head to head with the other cows. The bulls? Their horns are for one thing only. Killing anything that pisses them off. Longhorns fight for keeps. Especially in mating season. Their horns are stocky and hooked. Pointed on the ends. Just like the ones Lucky grew…Its time to take them to the butchers. A good butcher will quarter it, then, take a quarter for his services. You’ll have so many steaks, rips, roasts and hamburger, you won’t miss it, take my word for it. The guts alone will fill a Toyota pickup bed. Amazingly enough, coyotes and ravens can clear a pile you thought was huge in about a week. Or, backhoe and fill over. I say let the animals get a break. Lucky and his pals were going to another place to be bumped off, so, Baral hired some cowboys to load them onto a trailer for their last ride. I went along to say goodbye to Lucky. He didn’t like me after the ball removal ordeal, another story, but, he loved Leo. Leo would ride him all the time. These men who had chased him into a rounded steel pen of round rails, he didn’t like at all. Not having horses didn’t help. Also, they brought a long horse trailer for transport. Not a ‘stock’ trailer. A big mistake. Getting Lucky into the trailer was amazingly easy. He ran right in. As one of the cowboys went to swing the horse trailer door shut, Lucky did a buck into the air since the ceiling was for horses heads, spun in mid air, then, Lucky put it into gear with his head down as soon as his hoofs hit the trailer deck. As the man tried to latch the door, Lucky punched his head into it at about seventy miles an hour. It took the door right into the man, knocking him cold as it flung him backwards into the steel railings. From his straight shot out of the trailer, Lucky took leaping bounds straight for the steel railings. Putting down his head at the last second, his horns went in the gap between rails. His momentum and power, took him right through, bending the rails like they were copper. Now outside of the round pen, Lucky leaped, twisted and turned like he had an invisible rider on him, then took off in the thick brush. Nothing but the Sierra Pelonas, then Yosemite ahead of him. He did it. He got away! He sure lived up to his name…

Squaw Man

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He was just under forty. Five five tall, but broad shouldered with banty legs. From all the years on Indian ponies. His mother was Pawnee. His father, French Canadian. He was trailing some Cheyenne who had stolen his string of pack animals with an entire seasons’ pelts on them. His Shoshone wife along with them. His name. Jaque Lebec. Coming down past the Canadian border had been a huge risk. He wasn’t that familiar with the local dialects, plus, he didn’t know the lay out of the land. But that’s why he had come. To see new mountains and breathe new air. Now, he was in a real fix. He was on foot, in enemy lands. An enemy that was no one to be captured by. He never gave it a thought. He could get more pelts and plenty of horses. He couldn’t get another Two Crows. She got that name because of her hair. It was said to be blacker then black. Two times black. She was small, but tough…Her face was horribly pock marked from a white mans’ disease. That, along with her odd hobble from a broken leg that never healed right, might keep the Cheyenne off of her. Indians had odd beliefs. Seeing as the great spirit had already touched her, and she was still alive, made many shy of her. As he followed the easy to follow trail, that worried him. They seemed not to care who came across them. Jaque trailed them for six days. All the way to the Platte River. That’s where his luck ran out. It had rained the night before and his powder was damp in his flashpan. In 1835, dry powder was a real big deal. No easy reload bullets then. It was shot and powder. A brave with a good bow, could put six or seven arrows into you by the time you could reload a black powder rifle. Sad, but true. On top of that, a knife to his squaw’s neck, was the kicker. He tossed down his rifle, tomahawk and knife, and awaited what was to come…Stripping Jaque naked, three of the Cheyenne dragged him over to a slab outcropping of granite. Winter hadn’t hit yet. But it was on its way. The cold wind was the least of Jaques problems. Holding his arms, one brave forced Jaques left hand onto the black slab of rock. Suddenly lurching free, Jaque threw them off. Before an arrow could hit him, Jaque stepped forward, and put his hand back onto the rock, all on his own. He then looked the one who seemed to be the leader in the eye and signed with his right hand, ‘Dirt’. The Cheyenne all smiled and nodded at each other. He was a squaw man, but he was very brave. They would soon see just how brave. As the leader, ‘Runs his horses’, placed his knife on Lebec’s pinky, he smiled, then cut it off with a quick chop of the sharp skinning blade. Lebec said nothing. He kept his hand on the rock. Nodding his head in respect, ‘Runs his horses’, then pulled Lebec’s left ear away from his head, and slashed that off too, just to see Lebec’s response to upping the ante. Lebec spit in his face. The Cheyenne were impressed. As a couple of braves watched him, the rest had a pow wow. Lebec’s wife tried to help him but was beaten away with horse quirts. Lebec gave her a look. Two Crows sat down and began a low death song. The Cheyenne ignored her and went back to Lebec. They had made up their minds. One such as this would, ‘Run the Arrow’. Dragging Lebec out onto the plains away from the river. Some of the braves mounted their ponies. Lebec knew what he was to do. Provide sport, then die. Shivering from the wind, its only blessing was to deaden the sting of his injuries, Lebec watched as an arrow arched off a fully frawn bow, off into the rolling plains, then, over a small hill. ‘Runs his horses’, let out a loud, “WHOOP!” Lebec took off like a shot. As he went out of their view, a brave gave heels to his mount and was after him. First to count coup. To hit an enemy had for more honor then even killing him. Lebec, stopping as soon as he was out of their sight, crawled as fast as he could through the tall grass, then grabbed a stone. As the brave rode over the crest, Lebec leaped behind him, rocked his head, then heeled the horse to the right as the brave fell off, unconcious. All the braves now came for him. The fox headed his pony for the foothills, about five miles away. The Cheyenne spread out in a wide line. He wasn’t going to escape. They knew for sure as they let him stay ahead of them, hanging back just far enough to make him think he had a chance. He was going up into a dead end canyon. As his horse gave out, Lebec started to climb. He ended up on a ledge, just as the Cheyenne figured he would. It was a straight drop into a forest canopy. An easy two hundred feet. Now grinning, the Cheyenne came at him in a half circle. Lebec shouted a curse at them, then sprang off the cliff. His enemies heard him hit the tree branches, then, sprinted to the cliff edge, to see what had become of him. Just a canopy of green. Lebec dislocated his shoulder, but he reset that himself with the fork of a tree. Cuts, and scrapes from the branchs that broke his fall, but, all in all, he was lucky to be alive…Two years go by. Lebec has a new squaw. He’s leading four pack mules into a Mountain Man/Indian festival. All tribes. No fighting. For ten days, trade and music. Maybe some drinking. Break the peace, you die. As Lebec rides into the many tepees and camps spread out around the traders fort, shouts and whoops come from his left. It was the Cheyenne camp. Lebec was soon surounded by crazed braves, shouting his name. Lebec was stunned as reins were being pressed into his hands. All were giving him their best pony. He was now a legend, and had no idea. Adopted by the Cheyenne, he traded his new wife for ‘Two Crows’, plus, ten ponies. Hell, he had fifty now, he could afford it…This is a true story. Cornell Wilde made it into, ‘The Naked Prey,’ and put the story in Africa so he could star himself. Did a good job. I like the original a lot better…

Hopi Prophecy

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First of all, they’re not completely sure how it will all turn out, since the rock drawings forecasting what’s to come, sheared off. Part of it’s missing. What’s left, isn’t good. When all is said and done, the ones left will be called, ‘The Termite People’. Since their legends say we came from the inner earth, looks like the ones that go back to their roots will make it…Now, many people think all the Southwest tribes are pretty much the same. No way. I used to travel with my Uncles Curly and Wimpy, delivering Kinnikinnick to various tribes since all used it for medicinal and spiritual purposes. Also, to show hospitality. You smoke it in special pipes, usually made by the person handing it to you. It’s sort of like wine with white people. You have your everyday blend, then, that special blend for certain occasions. Ditto for that Merlot you’ve been saving vs the sale of the month bottle from Trader Joe’s. I even had my own blend at 14 years old…My Uncle Wimpy had close friends with the Navajo. Some were code talkers, who served as radio men in WW2. Since their languages are spoken, not written, the Japanese never broke their code. John Ford, filming many of his epic westerns in Monument Valley, alway hired a lot of Navajo for his movies. They always played other tribes though, which amused them to no end. Harry Carey, Jr., used to live not far from my ranch in Sleepy Valley when he was a kid. His pop brought dozens of Navajo to their ranch to weave blankets for sale and to break horses. No one breaks horses like the Navajo. Excellent horsemen. Now, if you wanted to have some horses stolen, the Cheyenne are the guys you need. Among all the tribes of the West, they’re the best horse thieves. A mark of respect actually in their cultures. Like a good assasin in Europe. Anyhow, Harry Carey, Jr. spoke Navajo, so, Ford would use him to translate to the Indians, what they were suppossed to do for their scenes coming up. When all the Navajo laughed out loud yelling ‘Yut-tah-hey’, Ford would pull out a dirty hanky he always had in his back pocket and start chewing on a corner of it to keep his rage in check. He knew ‘Dobie’, Carey, Jr.’s nickname from his red hair, had added something extra into the translation. Usually something demeaning about Ford. It was to get even with Ford for giving him a hard time. I mean, come on, Ford deserved it. He used to kick John Wayne, right in the ass, in front of the entire crew, calling him a dimwitted moron. So, no one on the set was too upset with Ford getting some of his own medicine. Ford used the Navajo for their horse riding skills. He never used Hopis, Havasupai, or Pima. Hopi live high up on the Mesas. Sacred land to them. The Havasupai herded sheep along the rim of the Grand Canyon, then, spent the winters down in the canyon, hunkered down from the elements. Neither big horse people. The Pima? In the old days, you weren’t considered a man in their tribe until you ran down on foot, an Apache, and killed him. Of all the Indians in the West, not even a Mohawk could hold a feather to a Pima in covering ground. Let that Mohawk see how running in Death Valley goes. Pima would consider forests a Hawaiin vacation…The Hopi do have the edge over all the tribes on spiritual matters. Hands down. Their Kachina dolls and images sure look cool. If you were fully aware of what they meant, you would get an icy chill down your spine. I can’t even talk about them. It can bring the spirits around you. Who needs that. I can say, that many of their ceremonies make science fiction writers in Hollywood, half baked pansies. And their’s are all true. You going to argue with people thousands of years old? When Barringer, a rich millionaire found Meteor Crater, he made a deal with the U.S. government to steal it on a long term lease from the tribes. It was sacred for a lot of reasons, but, it was also their only source for pure metal for arrow and spear heads since it had been gouged out of the ground, three miles around the rim, by a meteor slamming into our atmosphere. Barringer took it over, running off the antelope and sheep, to dig up that meteor and make a tourist attraction out of it. He went bust after digging down, sideways and at five other angles. Too bad he didn’t talk to the Indians. Their ancestors saw it hit. They knew their was no meteor down at the bottom. They knew it had exploded, casting parts of itself over hundreds of miles of desert and mesas. Now, it’s theirs again. Has a pretty cool gift shop on the rim edge…So, to make it through the tough times ahead, do as these guys do. Find a clean water source, store forage for your animals, and get your butt into the ground…