Tag Archives: Space

I asked for a beer in a tavern on the road to Mostar from Sarajevo back in 1996.  The bartender set up a glass and a warm can of beer.  I remember touching the can and correcting him, hladno pivo molim, a cold beer please.  The young man said nothing, his forelock of greasy dark hair between his eyes, and he brought me a new can, wet from a hose behind the building, the same temperature as the first.

My friend and host, momentarily distracted, missed the transaction and asked the bartender something I did not understand.  “he said that’s the last one for you” he told me.  “What did I do?” I asked, offended  and hurt.  You want a cold beer?  He says go back to America and get one.  In a country freshly ruined from war, I blunder in mincing about beer vs. a cold beer, oblivious that to drink a beer at all, in a quiet room of strangers and smoke a cigarette, was a priceless gift from God, and that the only good response is živjeli ! 
  

I can taste the shame of that Lasko Pivo in the back of my throat as I write this 17  years later, and I would give anything to go back and drink that first warm can, and enjoy it, and buy another.

Juancho

If I could put together the ultimate ride from all of the rides I have ever done I would start with that session of bike joust where I met my friend Todd back in 1991. He hopped onto a picnic table, leaving us speechless and enamored. We would ride to the top of the hill on campus on College Avenue and roll through the gazebo on Park, clearing the impatiens. Past the fountain at Ruby Diamond auditorium, launching the drops in front of the dorms, but when we turned left towards Landis Green we would find ourselves climbing an unnamed hill in western Wyoming, where we would pause in the dusk and watch two wapiti in rut, blocking our way. When the way was clear we would continue on, cresting the hill and dropping down the back side of the Hawthorne bridge into downtown Portland where we would Pick it Up! Super-Rush! down the 5th Avenue bus mall, one hand on the side of a moving bus, tucked in the crease between the curb and death, grey grit splattering into our mouths. Package delivered we turn to the forest and make that bad decision again to circumnavigate Cedar Rock in Pisgah National Forest. We would pass that night hungry, damp, shivering, then rise at pre-dawn and grind our way up the mountain to the familiar Munson Hills trail, before the clay. We would be fat. Miserable. Broken. Determined. We would exit that loop changed and strong again, chasing a mere boy in cutoffs through obscure Mississippi single track and watching him drift ahead. Locals rule everywhere do they not!

We would catch him, but he would be J.B. and we would be at the Pole Barn, snapping into cleats for a nighttime ride of Razorback, everyone at least 3 Orange Whips in the bag. We would watch the Doctor plow through the trees, unhurt and unaware as we laughed until we couldn’t see for the tears in our eyes.

Who would be there? All of us of course.

Juancho

I saw two guys this morning, sitting on a loading dock behind a grocery store. It is cold this morning in Tallahassee. Their breath rose from laughing faces, protected deep within hoodies pulled forward against the wind, white aprons fluttering. I saw this scene in my periphery as I turned onto Lafayette street. The sun was breaking across their cardboard desk, and one of them tapped the ash off of a cigarette. Before that ash could flutter into the parking lot I was transported back to all of the places where I did not work when I was working.

At the Mar Vista Dockside Restaurant we called it “Lopez” as in, “Meet me at Lopez in 5, I just need to drop off these Mudslides.” Lopez was where the broken chairs would go, still serviceable, but unfit for the general public. A wooden slat fence separated Lopez from the restaurant deck on the bay, where tourists sat disappointed over sweaty grouper sandwiches, cold french fries, and a million dollar view. At Lopez, a server could smoke a cigarette and spy on their tables. Dishwashers could bum cigarettes from servers, and managers could tell everyone to get back to work before smoking a cigarette. A Great White Egret we called “Guapo” served as the bailiff at Lopez, and he worked for leftover calamari and sweet tea-soaked lemons.

At Little Baja, the NW UNITED STATES LARGEST TERRA COTTA IMPORTER we had two places. On rainy, cold Portland days we would sit in a 15 ft. travel trailer around a space heater, playing chess and thinking murderous thoughts about customers who summoned us out to dicker over the price of a cracked chimenea. On sunny days, we sat in a private Shangri-la hidden within a maze of strawberry pots where smoke could waft and dissipate through a thousand cupped holes before mingling with the Burnside air. They still use a slogan I coined, “WE GOTTA LOTTA TERRA COTTA.” I never see a royalty check.

At the Tallahassee Rock Gym it was all down time, but at sunset we would step outside to lean on the rail and watch the colors spread over the oaks beyond the train tracks of Railroad Square. We had a worn-out hoop in the corner of the parking lot and there really wasn’t much to keep us inside monitoring the boulderers and nose-picking children instead of playing a heads-up, elbowing round of every man for himself twenty-one.

In Barcelona, I took breaks between explaining the difference between “make” and “do” to drink wine and eat tortilla de patata at a place across the street called Bar Michigan. They liked me. I believe they thought I legitimized their American bent. I never told them I was from the South, and had never been to Michigan.

Juancho

There are no winners on the road the Sunday after Thanksgiving, but there are some more experienced losers than others. I knew before we entered the penumbra of Disney World that we would be enjoying a long, slow ramble through old Florida on our way from the Cracker scrub of Highlands county to the Red Hills of sweet Leon.

It had been at least a decade since I drove north of I-4 on U.S. Highway 27, and as we watched the cars pour onto the interstate I knew we were making the right choice. Let me tell you what we saw along the way.

Clermont, FL is a shock to the eyes when you first see the acne of houses blistering across the hills in every direction. This once small town has been subjugated and re-purposed for the Orlando commuter set. In fitness circles it is known as a triathlon mecca for the good weather and stout hills, a rarity in central Florida. It is a community contrived and lacking in soul, much like that enduring fad of the 1980’s, the triathlon.

The Villages, FL- This conglomerate of gated communities, which spans three counties is known as a checkpoint for all conservative politicians seeking to pander to the modern-day carpetbaggers of the 50+ crowd. Billed as Disney World for Adults, snowbirds drive golf carts to the grocery store and enjoy purloining local culture through hostile takeover of county commission boards. The Villages threatens the rural and equine roots of the tri-county area where pastures that produce world class horses in all disciplines are seen as potential golf courses and subdivisions which will one day be named things like Foal Run and Mare’s Crossing. A giant arch over the highway marks the entrance to the kingdom. It is surely made of cinder block and stucco, yet painted faux brick, a testament to the impermanence of this atrocity one can hope.

North of Ocala, FL the road opens up. The traffic is local or heavily laden timber and citrus trucks. Any native Floridian knows the sight of the bobbing tips of pine trees piled and hanging from the end of a logging truck transporting these sad, scrappy pines to slaughter where they will become, what? Particle board for more country club counter-tops? Paper for more of Governor Rick Scott’s failed lawsuit attempts? It doesn’t matter to us because this stretch of highway that cuts through Suwanee River country is gorgeous. The road is as often canopied by leaning Live Oaks as not and the sun is setting through the trees like honey dripping from a fork. I feel the van, a 1998 GMC Safari, lift into the wind and gain momentum. It knows we are now entering north Florida. My mood rises with the waxing gibbous moon. I love my girl, this dog, this van, this cold clear night and this road in that order.

I talk to friends and my brother on the FL Turnpike. It is a parking lot. They are scrambling for alternate routes and soon follow behind us joining our hajj to Tallahassee.

The race against the clock was lost before we started so why not stop in High Springs, FL for dinner at the Great Outdoors? Shrimp and Grits, some ribs, a couple of beers and an acoustic duet playing blues rock to a cozy courtyard of baby boomers contently snuggled in fleece. The credit card machine is down so we take in the lush photographs and paintings of Florida’s springs and waterways, and may they flow forever clear.

Northwest towards Mayo and Perry, perhaps the darkest road in Florida. The starry night interrupted only by the paper mill and the prison, both loom ugly and yellow, a couple of dirty open secrets of Taylor County. We stop between them just to pee on the side of the road and wow at all the stars. Cars blast past and I realize the ugliness one car creates to the eye and the ear. The violence of sound and light and wind, then gone. Then nothing.

Finally, U.S. Highway 19 N from Perry, FL. My home away from home. Every inch my front porch and doorstep. The victory lap.

Then home, and cat, and bed.

Juancho