The Old Priest Grade

It is called Old Priest Grade. The name might be as such since it recalls the last person you might call out to when you begin your ascent, or descent, of this freakish piece of road, in central California. Call it what you will, it boggles the mind to think that it was the only way to get through the area for many years.
A little research shows me that the Old Priest Grade is about 2 miles long. I know it is steep because I navigated it, with my cart threatening to pull me down the entire way. It was as awful as any experience I had on my entire trip, and in the end cost me a big toenail on my left foot, from the intense pressure caused by my foot being forcefully jammed up into the toe of my shoe for so long. A real treat, that.
For many years cars and trucks have gone over the side as their drivers and/or brakes have worn out. Finally, several years back, a new road, ironically called New Priest Grade, was built alongside the Old Priest Grade, but three times as long and a third as steep, winding all over the place, and not much faster than the old road, actually taking much longer due to the distance and the fact that because of the zillion turns and twists drivers cant drive much faster than on the old road.
As I kept descending, I wondered at the numerous small pull offs and the water bottles that were there. At one stop, I notice that there were two water jugs, full, and with a small bag of Skittles taped to the sides. One also bore a note: “FREE SKITTLES—Sorry your car broke down. Call me…” and there was a phone number. I decided that the Skittles looked too enticing, but the water was a bit too off color for my taste. I also took the note. A call to the number on the note got a voicemail box. I left a message, which was not returned, until today. It turns out that a man named Austin and three passengers broke down or overheated on their way up the hill. Apparently, at the pull-off they discovered water, which alleviated their distressed radiator. They, as a group, decided to leave the water and Skittles as a "Pay it forward" gift.
Researching online later told me that the hill was literally a killer, of both cars and people. Lowlanders who had no experience driving in the mountains would routinely and sometimes tragically burn their brakes completely off and there were a lot of deadly rear end collisions at the lower part of the hill, or cars would go off the side of the road, and fatalities occurred that way.
So, a couple hours later, I made it to the bottom. The pervasive smell of brakes burning was intense. There were no accidents, no one died, a toe-nail would eventually be the only loss, and I got a couple of free bags of Skittles. Not such a bad road after all, I’d say.

What a load of BS...

Beware of BS
Snaggletooth Becky is her name
Lying, scamming, ripping off friends is her claim to fame
Brown-nosing her way into your house
And when you're not looking she's sneaky as a mouse
Years and years she's been on the run
Stealing from friends, it's all just the same
Sooner or later she'll get her just due
No more crying or lying, conniving or snitching
Shoving in shame like it was a game
Everything's quiet now, for she's disappeared
Though this time it appears she won't reappear
Cause fake, phony Becky
Was never here.


Well, someone in San Andreas, California, has it in for a woman named Becky.
Or maybe they don't.
I saw the above printed out on a piece of paper, and stapled to a telephone pole, in a residential area near the library, where I had spent a night camped in a courtyard/patio.
I read the paper twice. Wondered aloud who the hell Becky was, and what she had done to warrant such a loving tribute. I pictured a drugged out woman, living life by moving from friend to friend, leeching from them, and then moving on when the fan got hit. It appears that Becky might have finally been arrested, or worse, and more sinister, murdered. The words,"This time it appears she wont reappear" ring mighty suspicious to me. Sounds like drastic action has been taken.
On the other hand, this might be a load of malarkey. "Fake, phony Becky was never here"? Hmmmm. Was she? Or wasn't she?

Except.

It was a typical bus ride, until the voice behind me started to become louder than the rest of the voices. It started to increase in volume, and in the number of expletives, until it became the only sound on the bus. Everyone else stopped talking and was focused on the one way conversation.
"Look, "N-word." I ain't playin'. When I see you I got something for you...Im gonna hit you right in your mouth."
It went on, and what I figured I was hearing was a street rant from one guy on the bus to another of his gang, or posse, talking trash and threatening violence and retaliation. Strong stuff indeed, and not appropriate for the situation, but in a perfect world.... The bus driver heard it and was about to make a comment over the loudspeaker, when the words, "When your grandmother tells you to take out the trash, you do it, "n-word". Do you hear me?"
The driver paused, and it became obvious that this was a parent, a caring one, despite the threats of violence, who only wanted his son to listen to his grandmother, a woman who had obviously done a lot for the boy, emotionally and financially. "When your granny tells you to take out the garbage, you take it out. You understand me? You're almost sixteen years old and almost a man, and you know better than to disrespect my mama, your grandma, when she tells you to do something."
At one point, a young man of nineteen who was seated next to me, and in front of the man on the phone, spoke up, when the expletives were at their worst, and said, "Hey, man, there are kids on this bus." The man was quickly able to change gears, focus on the young man, and in a calm voice, said, "Please dont say anything when I am talking to my son." The young man backed out of the conversation, and it wound down, with the father telling his son, not yet a man, that he loved him and that he knew what the right thing to do was.
It made me think about parenting, and of a conversation I had had with the young man next to me, a dialogue that had occurred a bit earlier. He told me he was from a city in Alabama, where he lived with his parents. He was nineteen years old, and suffered from a disease like scleroderma or Palmoplantar keratodermas, which gives his hands and feet thick callous-like skin and underlying nerve trouble. It is enough of a disorder to warrant a disability, though, and the young man's parents had filed for disability on his behalf early on. Except.
Except that they were using the money he received, for his disability, to buy drugs ("everything in the book"), as he related to me. His father is hooked on crack, his mother meth and other drugs. Sounds like an ideal situation for a young man to fall between the cracks and into a life of drugs and apathy. Except.
Except that this young man wants more out of life than a constant high and of being a money tree for addicted parents.
He put a stop to the disability checks. He struck out on the road to meet his first girlfriend. She lives in Oregon. He lives in Alabama. They have a slim chance of making it work, given the distance involved. I know that.I think he knows that too, but he is making the effort. He wants to make something out of his life. He does not want the disability albatross around his neck. Because of his situation, he never graduated school or got his GED. He could be headed for a life of destitution and despair. Except.
Except, despite all of the obstacles in his way, he has the desire. Despite being small in stature, he had the resolve to speak up against the angry dad in the seats behind us. Despite the distance involved between him and his lady in Oregon, he has made the effort. Despite the pressure from his parents to continue being their personal ATM, he has managed to do things his way, and still manages to maintain a relationship with them...maybe the blood ties will be stronger than the chemicals that are polluting their thinking. They have a special kid there, and will see that, in time. Because their son wants more. And I think he will get it. It won't be easy, but as the cliche goes, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step." This young man has taken several giant leaps, and I wish him well. It was a pleasure meeting a young man named Justin, on a long bus ride, one day in August. It also was a different type of pleasure to hear a man, a black man, whose race has been so excoriated for having male "parents" who just plain don't give a shit, actually give a shit about his son, and how he grows up. Maybe there is more hope in this world than I thought.

They shuffle in.....Greyhound at night....ewwwww.

They shuffle in. Big, small, fat, skinny, clean, dirty, ugly, pretty, sane, and not so sane. They are the denizens of the night---those who ride the Greyhound buses to places far and wide, being dumped and unloaded like cattle at the station in Sacramento, California. There, they will sit, or lie down, or pace the floor, or walk around outside and smoke cigarette after cigarette, waiting for their connecting bus, or their ride, or any number of other possibilities.
At three AM, few of them are wide awake. They drop clothing,food, blankets, and after a few steps further, realize it. That is when they sluggishly halt and try to muster up the energy to back up and pick up their detritus. Sometimes, they drop more items as they try to pick up the one they originally dropped. Sometimes they just say a silent, “Screw it” and keep walking.
They all have one thing in common, though. They are all going somewhere. I am one of them. I am waiting for four hours for a bus to Los Angeles, where I will get dumped for a six hour wait, then I will board a bus headed for El Paso, Texas.
Im heading home to Tampa. I walked across this big old country, from Tybee Island, Georgia, where I left on the Ides of March, and I walked, bled, crawled, and occasionally rode short distances until I finally made it to the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge in the early morning hours of July 31. It was a pilgrimage of sorts, and I had a wonderful time doing it. As physicists are fond of saying, though, for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction, and sadly that holds true for my situation: as great as the getting here was, the leaving here is a miserable and lonely existence, and it does not help that the Greyhound Bus company seems to hold their bread and butter (aka their passengers) in about as much disdain as is possible. Perhaps they know they are the only game in town for low cost cross country transportation, but it does not give them the right to mistreat people in cruel and hurtful ways. I have heard drivers be insulting to passengers, threatening to throw them off the bus for no apparent reason. I have also been treated as badly by a driver in San Francisco, who, with a wink and a nod to the baggage handler who could have placed my luggage under the bus, then turned his back to me and boarded the bus I was supposed to catch, closing the door in my face, and driving away. His actions resulted in my missing the bus, having to pay an extra fifteen bucks, and then having to wait eight hours for the next bus. There is a spot in Hell reserved for that son of a bitch, and I hope I am driving the bus on the day he is due to go there. Ill make sure he catches HIS bus. Count on it.
In the meantime, Sacramento is a sluggish and dull station….three hours to go.

The aftermath....

So, a few days later, and I am in Mammoth Lakes again. Resting as I journey back to the east coast, and the sunny climes of Tampa. The pain and swelling in my foot have not gone away and I finally had to do something that I never do without a bit of coercion---I went to seek medical attention at the E.R. There, the nice staff of Mammoth Hospital checked me out, a bit skeptical at first of a guy who claimed to have walked across the country--but who were convinced by a tough line of questioning and my answers.
X-rays revealed my foot to be broken--a small fracture, nothing too major, and with a bit of Advil and not putting too much weight on it I should be fine. The swelling will go away, and I'll be ready to do some other crazy stunt in the near future.
There remains the physical exhaustion. I do declare: the Greyhound bus service that I have railed about previously...is worse than ever. Leaving San Francisco, the bus broke down in Oakland, and we had to wait for 90 minutes for a replacement, only to be doubled up due to Oakland passengers being added to the mix. It was a nightmarish and uncomfortable 6 hour ride to Reno.
I missed my first bus--missed, they say, because my cart and luggage were not checked in properly, and while I stood there with my checked in tags in my hand, the driver turned on his heel, entered the bus and closed the door in my face, leaving me standing there, and prompting the security guard on duty to shake his head and exclaim, "Man, that was f--ked up."
Even that didnt bother me as much as the apparent disdain that the service has for their bread and butter, which is to say, their passengers.
But, in the end, it is a grimace and bear it type situation. So I do. I came too far to let a bunch of malcontents ruin my experience.