Day 18: Susanville–Lessons learned so far, and Uncle Tim
We’re finding that the cellphone has been a godsend.
Also, I ask M to free associate based on my cues: A woman with 3 kids? Hit head with hammer. A woman with no kids? Running in a field, throwing flowers. So I guess 2 kids aren’t so bad.
Oh, here’s a big thing: When you drive fast, on a freeway, you’re not anywhere at all. This is very tiring and lame, but it does get you somewhere. This fast time-travel has a cost. If you drive slower on a small highway, you’re almost somewhere, you can sense the traces. If you drive slower yet on an actual backroad you’re starting to be somewhere as you drive. But driving in general shows me more than anything that it isolates me. You don’t really notice where you are. You can’t. At best you get an impression. To really be there I can tell you have to earn it. It has to be a bike. Or a hike. Or a boat.
We made it to Uncle Tim’s place, a dark, cool rancho on the edge of Susanville. We see no lights when we pull up. It’s messy and overgrown. The sweet old Citroen DS is dented and on jacks. I walk to the ol’ front porch and the door is open. The TV is on and Tim is sitting in there in lamplight. He looks up from his paper. “Well, I see you made it.”
We sit down and start chatting like we’d never left from visiting 12 years before. Then we get the kids settled.
Tim is 57, my mom’s younger brother. He left home as soon as he could to avoid the strict, nutty woodworker Grampa. He’s a mechanical genius and encyclopedically one as well. Likes hounds, livestock, sailing, movies, Jeopardy, watching sports, world affairs, reading. He went west as a kid and joined his older brother Kent out in LA. Got a job as a nurse and started partying extra hard for a few decades with some real characters. Sailed a lot to Catalina Island with pals on a little boat, then bought a big one. Then for some reason bought a town with a friend up here and moved nearby after deciding that offshore sailing was a bit too much, got an ER job. Started hanging out with ranchers, cowboys, troubled and lively fellers. The hospital closed and another job never pursued. Worked on cars and ranches. Ditched the big indebted boat to me. Never went back to Michigan. Then Tim bought the shares of the town, Seneca (it’s on every map of the US) and drives up there on weekends and bar-tends. Lives in a sty. But to me his house still feels like home. Maybe because it’s always been an open house. A welcome house. It’s a sprawling place that stays cool even in the hot summer. Many friends have come there for shelter. Food is shared. There’s just less of it now. The weather has taken it’s toll on everything. –It’s taken away quite a few of his friends, as well. Never an easy thing. There’s a great old sound system with “Voice of the Theatre” speakers about 4’x6′ that rock the neighborhood with jazz even today. And there’s Tim. He’s engaging. Can positively, insightfully and pleasantly discuss anything. And work on it in the same way. He has a slow, laconic cadence, with turns of phrases that are easy on the ears. He has a longtime lady friend who lives in town and has a nice place, so it’s not like he’s stuck hereI guess. Tim’s house still has things laying around that were there when we last visited.
It is cluttered, dusty, with thick, smoky air. M and the kids play outside in the briar-filled yard. We pick berries out back. Somehow even the smell of the house feels like home to me. It doesn’t seem smoky. I guess I’ve just had too many good times there and have found good shelter there myself.
Henry asked him why he sat in that chair all day. No reply. The kids were invisible to him. Not many kids around.
I cleaned off his bike and pumped up his tires, so we all rode off down the river trail and had lunch and a swim.
Later on, I toured Susanville after a bike ride I took up the big pass to Eagle Lake. Tim’s favorite old hang-out in town is the Pioneer bar, a well-maintained 1800’s bar which is home to the most amazing thing: a snooker table, set out front and center in the large rear gaming area. I went to look at it again. I hadn’t seen one since Tim and I last played there 15 years ago. What a sight: a huge, gorgeous billiards table with net pockets for the small balls. It is a complex, strategic and highly skilled game, involving much use of the bridge, a true joy of gaming. And any competence at it prepares one for casually clean-sweeps of dinky, obvious 8-ball tables.
Next door one way is an independent bookstore owned by a sharp lady, Margie, who Tim recommended and who bought some of my stuff. The other way down the street is the Grand Café, a mint condition early-era restaurant and soda fountain. It was closed! But a delight to peer in at, with its mahogany booths, tiling, tin ceiling and perfect tidiness.
Kids doing yardwork in Tim’s front yard
Picnic
