Side Roads and Dandelions

  ~~ Chapter Fourteen

  “We didn’t even get to see the mountain,” came the plaintive cry from a disappointed passenger in the rear of the bus.

  “What mountain?” asked Allison. “We’re still quite a distance away from the mountains yet.”

  “Mt. Tucumcari,” persisted Bobby. “I remember it well. It sat off to the south and you could see it for miles in the daylight.”

  “I remember that now,” responded Ernest. “I don’t think it was a mountain. I believe it was a mesa.”

  “Well, maybe you better go back there and tell those folks who bought our breakfast that they should correct their brochure because they have it marked as a mountain. Mt. Tucumcari.” Bobby shoved a brochure he had secured from the display rack in the restaurant towards Ernest.

  Ernest inspected the brochure with the help of the dim dome light and handed it back to Bobby. “I stand corrected, sir. A mountain it is.”

  As the others discussed the area geology, Sam prepared himself for a snooze. He said he had not stopped moving since he arose in a dither the previous morning, and he looked as if he could use the rest.

  “Allison, how long has it been since you last slept? The reason I’m asking is that I’m going to take a nap now, and I hope to stay alive to wake up in a couple of hours. That might not be possible unless you let someone give you a break. You’ve probably not closed your eyes in the last twenty-four hours, am I right?” asked Sam.

  After a short stop, Ernest occupied the driver’s seat with Bobby acting as his co-pilot. Allison flopped unceremoniously onto Bobby’s pallet and proceeded to rest. She agreed with everyone’s assessment that she needed a nap if for only two or three hours. Ernest had taken several naps in the past hours and said he felt fit to drive. Bobby still needed to get more of his strength back. His opportunity would come before the trip ended. They only needed to stay on the interstate and awake Allison when they arrived in Albuquerque. Surely, they could manage that.

  After what could have been a million years or mere seconds, complete disorientation greeted Allison as she began her slow emergence from the deepest level of sleep a human can descend to and still hope to return of their own accord. Consciousness first approached her tentatively bringing only the barest awareness of her physical existence. Long before she could reconnect the brain synapses that controlled the opening and closing of her eyelids or caused the movement of her fingers, she began to sort out the unrecognizable sounds. Remembering her name would have to wait awhile longer as well. First, she would determine where she was and why she was sleeping in her clothes on such a hard surface.

  The voices in the background sounded familiar but still she could not attach names. Another sound came from the opposite direction, which told her she was in the middle of whatever was happening. The sound coming from above and behind her turned out to be that of a person snoring. Who? she wondered. The mumbling from the opposite direction, she finally decided, came from two people talking so softly she barely made out the words, although parts of sentences did register.

  “Are you sure?” followed by, “I’m sure,” followed by, “You sure, you’re sure?” followed by, “I’m sure, I’m sure!”

  Briefly the notion occurred to her that she had somehow become involved with the Alice in Wonderland story. Had she unwisely followed the always-late White Rabbit and tumbled down into a hole where she couldn’t get back out? Was the mumbling she now heard part of the chatter from the residents of Alice’s world of eternal nonsense?

  Before long the words did register more clearly and the voices began sounding familiar. Ernest, she thought to herself, that’s Ernest’s voice. And Bobby, the other voice belongs to Bobby.

  Most of the numbness that perplexed her movements and her thinking started to dissipate. Awareness replaced confusion. She lay on a pile of blankets in the back of her VW bus on the way to San Francisco with her three old friends. The noise coming from behind her must be Sam snoring. Wonderful. It was coming back to her. Why were they sitting still, and where was the sound of passing trucks and cars? Using every bit of her strength, she rose off the pile of blankets into a sitting position with her back against the rear bench.

  The questions came out naturally. “What’s going on? Where are we? Why are we stopped?”

  Suddenly, things went quiet in the bus. Allison awaited a reply but none came. She saw nothing but darkness as she looked around to orient herself. There should be lights around somewhere. There are always lights coming from other vehicles or homes or businesses along the interstate. Where they presently sat yielded no signs of light. Something had happened.

  “What time is? Where are we?” she repeated.

  Ernest looked at his wristwatch’s glowing numerals and then turned to face Allison. “It’s about 5:30 am. How did you sleep? You were out cold for a few hours. You must have been exhausted.”

  Bobby, meanwhile, looked out into the blackness that surrounded the vehicle, which Allison realized had come to a stop. Without giving additional information, Ernest rejoined Bobby in looking out into the blackness.

  “What’s going on? Where are we?” persisted Allison.

  “We, ah, we, ah, took a little detour,” answered Ernest, “and right at this moment my trusty scout, Mr. Daniel Boone, is telling me we are very close to one of the side road locations we stopped at on our earlier trip. We both felt it would brighten your spirit to see something that had not changed over the years. Bobby says we’re real close so we’re waiting until we can see to make sure.”

  “I can hear the river about a quarter mile over that way,” said Bobby as he pointed off to his right. “We’re close. I know we are.”

  “One more time, close to where?” Allison’s tone was more insistent this time.

  “We’re close to the river where we went skinny dipping the last time,” answered Bobby calmly. “Just wait, when the sun comes up you’ll see.”

  Allison took inventory of this unexpected situation. Her brain was working by this time so she established the possible parameters of their current predicament. If her memory still served her, they were about thirty miles northeast of Albuquerque on a side road close to a river looking for the secluded spot where the male idiots in her group went skinny dipping thirty-four years ago at a restricted, yet accessible, place where they were absolutely sure that no one would come around to bother them. However, the state conservation officer showed up to observe the frolicking and made them stand freezing and naked in the ice cold water while he slowly wrote down their personal information. By the time the officer finished, none of them found it necessary to hold their hands over their private parts as they stood there knee deep in the river. Whatever each of them had been blessed with at birth had shrunk to microscopic proportions. Later they had begged her to turn on the VW heater in hopes of their individual badges of manhood returning to earlier form. That was an important occasion for her. It was the first time she forgot completely about the vicious attack. What happened to those guys was funny, and she knew it was funny. She wasn’t able to laugh then, but if these guys came all the way back here to give her another shot at it, she would certainly not pass up the opportunity.

  “I vote that this time Allison has to go in,” said a drowsy voice from behind her.

  “Absolutely,” added Ernest.

  “Right on!” said Bobby.

  “Have any of you nerds seen how big and strong my husband is?” asked Allison jokingly. “Didn’t you hear the specific instructions he gave to Sam? ‘No skinny dipping!’ Hey, if I could I would be there with you heathens, but what’s a lady to do? I’ve got my orders, you heard them, but I do have something else,” she said as she reached her hand into a bag of miscellaneous items she brought along just in case and pulled out a disposable camera. “If I get lucky and get the right shot, I may never have to work again.”

  “What are you going to do, make a horror movie?” asked Sam as he sat up rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  ??
?I hadn’t thought of it in that light but that might be an excellent idea. I suppose my initial idea had more to do with no one ever having the chance to see the pictures, if you get my drift?” Allison was alert by this time and mimicked the two front seat passengers trying to make out any recognizable forms in the surrounding darkness.

  “It’s no use,” admitted Bobby. “I can’t see a thing, but it’ll be light in another thirty minutes, then we’ll see where we are.”

  “All of you have apparently forgotten the humiliating experience of the last time you ventured this way,” said Allison with a laugh. “That’s why I brought the camera so I can show the world how depraved the three of you really are.”

  “Boy, was it cold,” said Bobby. “Boy, was it cold.”

  “I’m starting to feel the pain again,” added Ernest from behind a grimace.

  “Come on guys, don’t be wimps. We can do this. If we fail here this saboteur among us will tell the world how it’s true that men have become merely domesticated wimps, far removed from the time when our brave forbearers tromped the wilderness in search of adventure, and are now more suited to mowing lawns and carrying boxes packed with really dumb stuff back and forth to rented storage facilities, or worse, having to try out new and supposedly healthful, green-colored casserole recipes before they are let loose upon the public.” Sam’s attempt to rally the troops fell on deaf ears.

  “I can remember the morning we first came up this road, if in fact it’s the same road,” said Allison whose thoughts returned to that eventful day of 1969.

  “We’re close,” said Bobby assuredly. “We’re real close.”

  “What was the guy’s name who owned the little farm where we stopped to ask directions?” asked Ernest.

  “Hal Paradise and what a character he was,” said Allison. “Do you remember he told us he left a high-paying management job and started hitchhiking west from New York in 1965 with only his clothes and a copy of Kerouac’s book, On the Road. His favorite character in the book was a young writer named Sal Paradise, so he changed his last name to Paradise, too. He said Hal Paradise sounded better than Hal Miltenberger.”

  “He claimed he got as far as the town of Moriraty, New Mexico, where he first saw the mountains to the northwest for the first time in his life. That, plus a character in the book by the name of Moriarity caused him to believe it was an omen. He headed towards the mountains until he came to a dilapidated old farmhouse sitting on some acreage along a road that was offered for sale, cheap. He used most of his money to purchase it. He fixed up the house and cleared his field and started living off the earth. He had a few sheep and a couple of big old dogs to keep him company with his books and his writing and claimed he never intended to leave the place while he was alive. To this day he remains one of the most impressive human beings I have ever met. He found something that made him happy and he decided that would be enough.” added Sam.

  “That’s the place I’m looking for,” said Bobby. “I know it’s around here close.”

  “I hope it is,” said Allison. “The old farm house with the hills and the mesquite trees and shrubs in the background made a lovely picture looking down across the valley towards the river where yellow sandstone cliffs fronted by tall cottonwoods invited you to stop and breathe in the natural beauty.”

  Ernest also had recollections of that morning. “And right when you thought you’d seen everything, you looked up and way in the background with the morning sun highlighting every amazing feature -”

  “You saw the mountains,” interjected Sam. “I’ll have to admit I’ve never seen them look as beautiful as that morning. Whenever I go to the mountains, I always hold my experience of that morning up as the standard. I have traveled the world over and nothing ever has had the same effect on me. I hope you’re right, my friend,” he said to Bobby. “I hope you’re right.”

  The group remained silent as each individual reflected back on that special morning of their young lives. Could they catch lightening in a bottle again, Allison wondered.

  “Another interesting occurrence comes to mind related to the subject of dandelions which you maintained a particular interest in, I believe, Allison. Am I correct?” Sam waited for Allison’s reply.

  “Yes, if you’re talking about how we came to disagree with you regarding your disparaging comments about the dandelions that flourished in Hal’s fields. You went off on those poor plants saying how it always seemed to be the case that something or someone always came in to mess things up. After awhile you said you couldn’t see the mountains or the beautiful hills or the valley. All you could see were those ugly dandelions covering the fields,” she said.

  “The worst part of it came after you said that and then the rest of us started focusing on the dandelions, also. We forgot about the surrounding beauty that had taken our breath away moments earlier and, instead, started looking at millions of little yellow plants covering the field. If not for Bobby, we probably would have left here with a totally different attitude about the place. Do you remember doing that, Bobby? Do you remember the dandelions?” asked Allison.

  “Sure, I remember,” said Bobby. “I mostly remember being surprised at how ignorant you college boys and girls were when it came to something as common as dandelions.”

  Ernest spoke up. “He said the dandelion was brought over from Europe by immigrants and cultivated for food. I disclosed later they could be eaten cooked or raw in various forms as in soup or in salads. They have similar characteristics to mustard greens and were regularly eaten with hard boiled eggs. Ground roasted dandelion roots were used as a coffee substitute and if drank before meals stimulates the digestive function. Raw dandelions have a diuretic effect, which is good information for a physician to know. I learned that the dandelion root is sold in Canada as a drug. Finally, dandelions are a very good source for vitamins A and C.”

  “The characteristic that amazed me when I began to learn about the plant,” said Sam, “was that a dandelion can have a three foot tap root. They’re survivors often surviving the most aggressive attempts to eradicate them. They are not classified as weeds, but are wild vegetables. They are more nutritious than broccoli or spinach. They are good food for horses, cows, and hogs. Besides the couple of things Ernest said about their medicinal properties, there is also evidence that they cut fats, reduce gas and help with kidney stones, cancer, diabetes, weight reduction, vision, acne, blood pressure, and cholesterol. They can grow practically anywhere in abundance without any help, and all parts of the dandelion are useable: the leaves for greens, the roots for coffee and tea, and the blossoms for jelly and wines.”

  “I know about that last one,” said Bobby. “I used to make dandelion wine and kept it around for city folk company. I always got a kick out of their responses when I told them what it was they were drinking. They usually liked it, and I often gave them a jug and the recipe to take with them. It’s about the simplest stimulating beverage I ever concocted. About all you need are some dandelion blossoms, fresh lemon juice, oranges, sugar, yeast, hot water, and a little patience. I don’t think I’m going to have any need for the stuff, but I’d sure be more than happy to make up several jugs for you guys.”

  “Well, not to be completely left out,” said Allison, “let me add that I found out the white milky sap of the lowly dandelion stem removes warts, moles, pimples, calluses, and sores and soothes bee stings and blisters. And here is one additional bit of interesting information for your future use at boring parties. To further increase productive efficiency, the plant has given up sex. The seeds can develop without cross-fertilization so a flower can fertilize itself.”

  “I’ll bet millions of lawn owners in this country expend millions of hours and billions of dollars attempting to eradicate one of the most verifiably beneficial plants in existence in this country,” said Sam, “simply because it doesn’t conform to society’s notion of good lawn maintenance. With all of the things wrong with this country and the world, we devote our time and
energy to eliminating things that are good for us.”

  “You nailed it on the head there at the end when you drew the comparison between the dandelions and our protesting generation,” Allison said. “You made the simple observation that we, too, were misunderstood like the dandelions. Society didn’t like the way we looked because like the dandelions in the middle of those lush, green lawns, we didn’t conform. They wanted us to either get the hell out of their yards or at least have the decency to turn green so as not to be noticed. Love it or leave it! They never once recognized we served an important function. We offered a healthier life without destruction and violence much like the nutritional and medicinal qualities in the dandelion, but the disease of violence and destruction is so deeply inculcated into the fabric of their society that they couldn’t imagine living in such a world, much less learning to ingest a way of life that didn’t contribute to the destruction of a person’s physical well-being. The notion that those beautiful golden petals cluttering up the precious toxic waste sites called front lawns could be converted into an elixir that would gladden the spirit, allowing them to dance and sing like the happy children they once were, terrified them. Adulthood meant responsibility, putting away the playthings of one’s youth, and taking up the burden of practicality and reality that came with maturity. Adults don’t drink wine and dance in the parks. They become religious and politically active and elect people to office who promise to make their lives better someday, even if it requires sending our young men twelve thousand miles away to teach a lesson to a bunch of poor people just trying to get ahead themselves but going about in what we considered the wrong way.”

  “I have to agree with Allison on that one, Sam,” said Ernest. “You really turned it around that day. You started out one hundred and eighty degrees out, and instead of trying to defend an indefensible position you saw the error and made the change. Not only made the change but shared your new insights in such a way that helped expand the knowledge base of the individuals who earlier opposed you. I don’t know why you didn’t go into politics. If you had, we might not be on the verge of our country getting into another big mess. I know I would vote for you if I ever got the chance. Just don’t ask me to make phone calls for you. I hate making phone calls.”

  “Well, thank you, Ernest, I think. That was a compliment, wasn’t it?”

  “The best part of Sam’s whole idea was the suggestion that our little band be forevermore known as the ‘Order of the Dandelions.’ I have beautiful photographs of dandelions at home of which a couple are framed and on the wall.” Allison smiled at the thought of her home and her photos. “And, my yard’s full of dandelions.”

  “Well,” began Sam, rather embarrassed, “I can only say how very touched I am that all of you speak of that occasion with such warmth. It’s certainly nice to know that there are people who appreciate -”

  “I just thought it was kind of dumb,” interrupted Bobby before Sam could get up a full head of steam with his acceptance speech. “Even little kids in the country know about dandelions. What do they teach in those colleges anyway?”

  Bobby’s blunt criticism put the whole subject in its proper place. No need to go on about it as it was enough to be thankful they saw the light. They recognized their own faults and made the corrections. That’s what being an adult is really about -- being able to admit when you’re wrong, which is often, and making the necessary changes.

  The conversations about dandelions and Hal Paradise’s farm easily took up the extra time until the much-anticipated first light. In fact, vague images were already emerging from the last vestiges of the previous night’s waning darkness. Bobby told them the river was on the right side of the bus, so if they looked straight up the valley they would be looking in the general direction of the mountain peaks. This meant the rising sun in the east would hit the tops of the mountain peeks at any moment, and Bobby did not want them to miss it. If the peeks appeared, he was right about their location.

  “What are we looking for again?” asked Ernest.

  “We are looking for the mountains. The sun should be hitting the tops of the peaks any minute,” answered Bobby as he looked through the front windshield.

  Each person made looking for the mountain peaks their mission as if they sat in the crow’s nest high atop an old sailing vessel hoping to be the first to yell, “Land ho!” More and more, the surrounding darkness gave way to the emerging light of day and still no sign of mountain peaks or bright sunlight. Bobby’s sharp eyes made out the tall cottonwoods that lined the banks of the river to their right. The outline of hills to the left, where they were expected to be, still gave no evidence of the early day’s golden rays. Towards the front where the mountains were expected to arise in their splendor nothing but gray sky offered to greet their hopeful glances. The daylight they hoped for finally arrived, but a heavily overcast sky came with it.

  Not a good omen, thought Allison as she hoped against hope that miraculously the gray skies would part and the golden rays of the sun would reveal their beautiful valley in its entire splendor, but no such luck.

  “What now?” asked Ernest.

  “Well,” said Bobby, “I think we’re in the right place.”

  “Then where’s the farm house?” asked Allison. “If the river’s over there, then the farm house should be right up there. You guys had to cross the road and head for that row of cottonwoods to get to the stream. There’s no house in sight.”

  “You’re right,” said Bobby, “but there is a sign over there about where I think the road going up to the house used to be.”

  Everyone strained their eyes to make out the writing on the large colorful sign located some seventy-five yards ahead on the opposite side of the road. PARADISE ESTATES was the name of the development according to the sign. It informed passersby that five-acre sites were available for sale to the discriminating members of the public who would enjoy building a country retreat away from the hustle and bustle of the city. No sign of the old house or its eccentric former inhabitant could be detected. Hal Paradise had said the only way they would get him off his land was to come in and haul out his cold dead carcass, and not a single person sitting there in the bus believed that it had happened any differently. Somewhere in the recesses of Allison’s memory words from a song sang by one of her favorite sixties artists came to mind, They paved paradise and put up a parking lot. How right they were.

  “Well, looks like we’re batting zero this morning,” said Sam. He directed his attention back towards the river where an official sign off the road now informed potential interlopers that the ground they proposed to trespass upon was now a state protected preserve and trespassers would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  “No mountains, no Hal Paradise, and no skinny dipping,” observed a dejected Allison. “One more side road bites the dust. Let’s go to San Francisco. We need to make up some time.”