The STUD

Think of it as Winnie the Pooh plopped down in the middle of the wild, wild west, where civilized conduct and courtesy sometimes go the way of vinyl LP's and cassette tapes. Like po-po, they are not to be found-not up on a remote ridge-top, on what used to be a stage coach route back in the day.

The reality is that folks who live in remote areas, don’t want to see the sheriff in the ‘hood, if you catch my drift. Maybe cannabis is an issue, maybe there are no permits, or maybe there is a deer suspended from a home-made, two-by-four frame out back, a few months out of season. Doesn’t matter the reason: Having po-po show up is never all the fun it’s cracked up to be.

Huge/tiny; show-room/scrap-heap; Mercedes/Subaru; 4WD/2WD; big-rig/quad: Many transportation options exist on Bell Springs Road, from GreyHound buses to bicycles. Similarly, the age level ranges from teens to old-timers and all points in between. We all get along, for the most part, and we've see it all. 

Double STUD salute...

I have been seeing it all since 1981, the year I originally ventured up to my twenty-acre spread and erected a small cabin, sixteen by twenty feet, which was to become our home in the earliest years. To access our spot from The 101, we have to drive just over five miles of dirt/gravel road, the first three of which climb steadily up to more than 3,000 feet in elevation.

In the infancy of my teaching career, I figured out that the five miles of dirt road and the eleven miles of highway from the ‘Ville to the bottom of the Bell took x amount of time. No matter how much faster I traveled, I could only shave y amount of time off, and it was never enough to justify the increase in speed. (And they say we never use algebra.)

In case you have never had the pleasure of navigating Bell Springs Road, it is mostly just an exercise in patience, the washboard effect limiting just how fast one can go. Naturally, there are those who want to zip right along, and those who do not want to put Duane and Shannon’s kids through college, by needing their front suspension systems replaced every year.

I wrote this passage to my sister JT Thursday morning, before I set out for Willits: “I can’t believe how hard driving has become. If there were no other people on the roads, I wold be fine. Sadly, such is not the case.” Talk about foreshadowing-I thought that only happened in novels.

The drive from Willits back to the Bell went marginally well, with the cruise being impacted by a driver who chose to go the last six miles into the ‘Ville at 45 MPH, and then headed north at all of 40 MPH, until he mercifully pulled off at Ten Mile.

No matter how slow the driver in front of me goes on the highway, I will not tail-gate. I won’t; I just won’t.

Hitting the Bell is always a huge relief because, though I will not partake of my meds while on the highway, I have no such qualms about BSR, where I don’t exceed 15-20 MPH. I mention this primarily so that the reader will know in advance, that after taking two hits off of a phattie, I was pretty relaxed and in no way stressed out.

Old Yodas are the preferred choice.

The first mile up went smoothly until just past Orange-Marker Road, when I came around the bend and spotted up ahead a truck-and-trailer rig, hauling what was undoubtedly compost to a grow site. It was preceded by a pilot truck, ostensibly “clearing the way.”

No, don’t do this to me. I’m begging you. No, no, no! 

Whether highway or byway, the law requires that slower traffic allow normal traffic to get past; it’s not just a special code for Bell Springers. 

Imagine me being referred to as “normal,” one of life’s delicious ironies.

And contrary to what the uninformed individual may think about Bell Springs Road, it is not a narrow, single track. In all but maybe a half-dozen spots on the road, two vehicles can easily pass one another. This means that if two vehicles going in opposite directions can pass, then two vehicles going in the same direction, could engage in similar activity. Duh.

In 35 years of navigating Bell Springs, there was only one other instance of a trucker who wouldn’t allow me to pass, a water delivery truck. I did pass him, eventually, after about four miles, swearing at him in both English and Spanish, while conveying his IQ and number of friends he had before his dog died, simultaneously, with the middle finger of my left hand, extended out the driver’s-side window.

Tentatively coming up behind the dust-spewing behemoth Thursday afternoon, I hung for a second before dropping back to a comfortable distance, to await a good spot to pass. Less than a minute later, such an opportunity afforded itself, but the driver of the big rig missed the memo.

OK, well, I can’t understand why he wouldn’t have taken advantage of that wide stretch there, but no biggie. I can handle a little adversity in my old age.

Again, almost around the next bend came another ideal spot; I edged up closer to the dust-monger once again, only to be ignored again. This time I tapped the horn to let him know that I had certain expectations that were not being met.

My, that is a strident sound. “Patience is a virtue-have it if you can, found seldom in a woman, never in a man.” Hell, I wasn’t asking for his first-born; he didn’t even have to stop. Just let up on the pedal there while I dash past. A little courtesy will do you no harm.

“It didn’t take,” as Gluten-Free Mama has been known to say, having heard it first from her own mama. I know I did. By that she meant that the driver of the truck had obviously not comprehended my desire to get around him. Either that, or he was a- Never mind.

We've had our quad more than ten years.

After repeating this scene several times, I tapped on the horn and forgot to untap it. Pretending I was playing Black Sabbath for the mountain, I never let up on that horn until such time as I made my move. Don’t worry-it was [probably] no more than five minutes in duration. 

I was not particularly thrilled with the way things were developing, but I was not going to let that get in the way of pouring more gasoline on the smoldering coals. I was a man on a mission. I was not asking the dude in front of me to do anything that I did not do myself every single time I ever drove the Bell. I hate having people on my tail, and I won’t do it to others, so I pull over and let them pass.

Eventually we approached one of the widest turns on the road, and as the big truck ahead of me swung wide, I hit the accelerator and almost creamed a vehicle heading toward me. No wonder the truck had swung far to the right, for once. The road was actually wide enough to accommodate all three of us, right here, so a split-second later I completed the maneuver, easily able to sally past the dust-banger.

I had removed my hand from the horn, so it was handy for the single-finger salute to jerks. If that made me a jerk too, then so be it. Never was being a jerk so rewarding. I kept that STUD (salute to unconscious drivers) extended as I passed the pilot truck, holding him equally responsible. If he had stopped, the big rig would have had to stop too.

I made reference to being Winnie the Pooh, in the opening of this sordid epistle, a moniker once assigned me by a community member, a long time ago in the late eighties. I had had a restraining order issued against me, the product of an ongoing feud our education collective had with an eccentric woman, who eventually caused our little school up here on the mountain to close. What Kat said was, “It was like seeing Winnie the Pooh get a restraining order.” 

I took it as high praise.

For anyone who thinks that the big truck and trailer had the right to continue to hog the road, simply because it was big, I would politely disagree. The bigger it is, the more the responsibility its driver has to pull over. 

In light of these events, I suspect that the subject of my bipolarism might possibly surface, and that maybe if I were on conventional Big Pharma meds, I might have been content to suck dust for a half-hour.  Yeah, sure, and I might have voted for 45, too, but I didn’t and I wouldn’t. Be content to suck dust for half an hour, that is. 

Neither would Winnie the Pooh.