The sweep of time, the crests and the troughs, the patterns of the
weather and the patterns of a life. The way in which small incidents
can unexpectedly lead one on a nostalgic journey into the distant
past. The ring of a bell, and a voice excitedly telling about plans
for a new road across the desert, telling about a large resort that
will soon be built.
Then their surprise and bewilderment as they discover I do not
share their enthusiasm. That I was not looking forward with joy to
the new influx of people and development the resort would bring to the
area. Or the boost it would give to the local economy.
Finally I was told, somewhat smugly, "You can't stop progress."
And they were right.
I
Long ago, in another life, I used to live in Alaska. My nature
being what it was, I made my home -- like others who enjoy the beauty
and the peace of the mountains -- in the remote wilderness far from
roads and cities. In those days, to get to where my wife and I lived,
one had to fly in with a small airplane and land on a gravel bar or
whatever else nature at the moment provided. To me this was of no
concern, for I have long felt that the only proper way for a man to
travel was on foot or by small airplane.
So paint yourself a valley (as Thomas De Quincey might have
written) far from the hustle and bustle of civilization. And show a
small cabin by the edge of a wide river flowing from a towering
glacier, with a natural spring that remained open all winter and fed a
series of beaver dams. Don't forget to include the rock face of the
mountains carved by the river over the aeons, and down on the gravel
bar in front of the cabin (for this was one of those periods when the
river, in its ceaseless rise and fall, had left 300 feet of usable
runway) paint a small airplane, a Super Cub of course, for what else
could handle the constantly changing terrain? And while you are at
it, paint the silence of the gently falling snow. Then, when it
clears, paint the stars, almost washed out by the moon, and the pale
shimmering green curtains of the aurora borealis as they dance across
the sky. Paint, if you can, paradise.
Now we move forward in time a number of years, and it is summer
once again. The river has risen, and in the process taken out the 300
feet of gravel bar in front of our cabin, so we are now using a gravel
bar a half-mile away whose major attraction is the trail that leads to
it. This trail, narrow and winding, moves through the willow along
the river, through clearings and areas of thick brush and fields of
purple flowers to where we now keep our airplanes, But this day we
are walking down to our airstrip not for some purpose of our own, but
because of an unusual event: a number of military helicopters,
strangers to the area, have landed on our gravel bar.
When we get there, we find a politician, a bureaucrat, the head of
the Department of the Interior, in fact, looking around at the
mountains and saying, "This place is the most beautiful place I have
ever seen. We must build a road into here and turn it into a National
park so we can save it for future generations."
Echoes of De Quincey, indeed, in his cottage in Grasmere, before
the dreaded post road was built that destroyed the peace and calm of
the valley forever.
* * *
Once again we move forward in time, and now the bridge across the
river sixty miles away has become a reality, as has the long-promised
road. The old abandoned copper mine in the next valley has been taken
over by speculators, and there is a brisk tourist business. During
the summer they drive their pick-up trucks and recreational vehicles
to the end of the road twenty miles from our cabin, unload their dirt
bikes and little, fat-tired ATVs, and spread out over the countryside,
leaving a stream of trash and vandalism behind them. During the
winter, packs of snowmachines roam the area, filling the valleys with
smoke and noise and leaving their tracks in swirling circles across
the newly-fallen snow.
But this winter I am not there to see this, for my wife and I have
decided to spend the winter in a small town outside Anchorage so I can
have electricity and music and do a little writing. She tells me she
no longer wants to live in the bush, that the way of life we had there
for so many years is now no longer viable. But I resist, for my love
of the wilderness, the quiet and the beauty, is almost more than I can
bear, and so I escape into my writing and dream of when I can go
home.
Finally spring arrives and the initial draft of my manuscript is
now complete, so I tell my wife I am going out to our cabin for a few
days, shake the sense of estrangement from the natural world and the
intense case of cabin-fever that cities always give me. And so on a
cold and rainy morning I put a few necessities in my pack and she gave
me a ride down to the public airport where I have been keeping my
plane.
It was not a good day for flying. The pass through the mountains
was marginal in low-lying clouds, and the ride was rough, but finally
I arrived at my place and, in a strong, gusty crosswind, rain blowing
in sheets across the windshield, I landed and tied the plane down.
Then, strapping on my old, scarred .44 and putting my pack on my back,
I headed up the trail to my cabin, cold, tired, hungry and wet.
The trail was beautiful, as it always was, and the mountains
soothed my spirit, the strange imaginary faces that looked down at me
from its heights, the flowing creeks and the beaver dams. And, as I
walked, I couldn't help but reflect on how good it was to be alive,
how good it was to be back home.
Then I was at my cabin, staring in shock at the open door, the
vandalism. And, once inside, it took me a moment to grasp what was
wrong, what was different. It was the wood stove, or rather its
absence. Someone had actually come all that distance from some city
and stolen an inexpensive wood stove that could be had in any hardware
store for less than $50.00. Stolen a stove from a cabin in the remote
bush, a cabin that might have represented life or death to a traveler
passing through during the winter and grounded by weather or
mechanical problems.
I stood there for a moment more, looking around at the wanton
damage, the random viciousness and stupidity of it, then turned
around, walked out the door, shut it, and returned to my airplane.
Three hours later I was back in the small town I had left that
morning, waiting for my wife to come and pick me up.
When she saw me, she just nodded, saying nothing.
I never went back.
II
The sweep of time, the crests and the troughs, the patterns of the
weather and the patterns of a life. The way in which small incidents
can unexpectedly lead one's life into a totally different direction,
create a vastly different world.
Fade in to...
...An isolated room at the end of an aircraft hangar some miles
outside a nameless city far to the south. Its walls are lined with
books, and on the coffee table in front of the couch is a large
monitor with a keyboard in front of it. Under the monitor sits what
looks like a box of pizza, and written on its front are the words
SPARCstation 10. Standing a bit out from the far wall and facing the
couch are two loudspeakers quietly playing Purcell's Fantasia a 4 No.
7 for Viols. Stacked in piles all over the room are the
manuscripts of various works in progress, and on one of them lies the
corrected galleys for a new book.
The telephone rings...
Hello?
Oh, hi, John. How's it going?
A new book, eh? What's it called?
!%@::? What a strange title. Who wrote it?
Oh, Rick Adams. Yeah, he's the guy who started UUNET a few years
ago. The name means "Unix to Unix Network".
What do you mean, both my domain names are listed in it?
Oh, I see. A worldwide directory of electronic mail networks from
'89 to '93. Interesting.
No, I didn't see Gore's speech. I don't watch TV. What did he
have to say?
Oh.
What? A consumer poll, too? Who by?
CNN/USA Today? Jesus, what now?
Interesting. They're actually willing to pay five bucks a month to
"ride the information superhighway." Made my day.
No, I gotta finish an article. Have a 5:00 PM deadline.
Well, yeah. Thanks for calling.
Fade out to a sense of déjà vu...
III
The sweep of time, the crests and the troughs,
the patterns of the weather and the patterns of a life. The way
in which a day arrives when one wakes to the realization that the
dreaded process has finally caught him again, only this time there
was no place left to go, the true frontiers were now all gone.
So, perhaps for the last time, paint another valley surrounded by
towering mountains. And show a small desert spring partially hidden
by the brush and the trees, with a modest house close by. Don't
forget to include the carport and the porch, where a number of wild
javelina (though each has a name, having known the occupants of the
house for many years) are dozing the hot summer afternoon away. Be
sure to include the birds, the quail and doves in flocks, the ravens
and the hawks and the circling turkey buzzards. And while you're at
it, also show the roadrunner, an old friend, tap tap tapping on the
kitchen window, requesting a scrap of meat. Then, to complete the
picture (for what is a person's life worth when, like some burrowing
animal, they always hide from the weather?), paint the thunderstorms
of summer and the snows of winter. Paint, if you still have the
heart, another (now seriously threatened) paradise.
* * *
And how does this story end? Well, we know the answer to that one,
don't we. It is only a matter of time.
Still, we, my wife and I and the javelina and the other
wildlife (for is that not what we are, wildlife on the surface of
a planet circling a minor star in a vast and mysterious
universe?), have a little time left. And, though the physical
frontiers are vanishing into the lost mists of memory, the mental
ones remain. The books and the music and the learning curves and
the contemplation of what this thing we call life really means.
Also, we are getting old, in these times a blessing, considering
our knowledge of what the past was like and what the future,
thanks to gross overpopulation and the increasing misuse of
technology, now holds for our species. So, finally, it becomes
just another holding action, a Custer's
last stand (though we do not share Custer's evil), as the
javelina struggle for life against their vanishing range and we
do the same. Yet, in spite of everything, we are survivors, and
in my more optimistic (or foolish) moments I sometimes get the
feeling that if they, the javelina, are somehow, with a lot of
luck, able to hold out, find a way to survive our species'
suicidal lack of responsibility, then maybe we can too. At least
for a while.
And in the end, what more can one ask?
Copyright © 2001 by F. E. Potts, all rights reserved.