Meeting People

Lives Alone, Grows Chocolate

2012-02-15T08:05:00.000-08:00

note: This and the following three people go together. They come out of one trip to find the tiny Venezuelan village that grows arguably the world's best cacao. I met these people there or along the way...

To see more photos, go to Michael Hanson's blog at michaelhansonphotography.com/blog and scroll down...

VICENTE FUENTES, 63

LIVES IN: Choroní, Venezuela (born in Caracas)

PROFESSION: Agricultural Economist

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The natural world, the independence. TO be in contact with nature. I was born in a city and I grew up in the city and learned there. But I like the countryside. It's different. I love this hacienda and the cacao. That's why I studied agronomy - to be here. It's my destiny.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The injustice for the agricultural producers. They don't pay the right prices and they don't help with any of the technical aspects.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Read, play the piano.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: To all the world. Russia, Hawaii, India, China. It all fascinates me.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Perhaps about my little experience in the world because what else is there. My mom was a composer and dad was a poet and writer and agriculturalist.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Rice with chicken, salad. Water

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Catholic. I think God has a power for everything. The man is insignificant in the world in front of nature and God.

ANY REGRET: Yes, of course, I think we all do.

Somewhere in Switzerland, right now, someone is biting into an Idioli Origins dark chocolate bar. It won the Best Dark Bar award from the Academy of Chocolate in 2011. The label even talks about Vicente Fuentes, so maybe that person eating the bar right now is idly eyeing the package, reading about Vicente, too.

Vicente is not easy to find. He lives in a crumbling hacienda built in the 1730s to house a cacao plantation family and operation. The jungle of Venezuela's central coast mountains seems more in charge now, lending a spooky, abandoned, Kertz-ish feel to the place. To find it, you take the paved road west out of Caracas, through the agricultural valley near La Victoria where massive greenhouses and crop fields proclaim the glory of Socialismo from giant highway-side billboards. You reach the industrial town of Maracay and then head north up the steep Coastal Mountains, into the cloud forest at their crest, and down the other side through the vast and biodiverse Henry Pittier National Park, Venezuela's oldest.

The narrow road might be shut down if a landslide has occurred. They slide often in heavy rains, which are often. The road eventually descends into a lush valley that ends at the brightly-colored and bustling fishing village of Puerto Columbia. A few tiny towns dot the valley, Choroni being the most attractive with its faded pastel walls lining a cobblestone street that curves easily and is barely wide enough for a full-size car, much less the ancient relics that Venezuelans drive - old vans and hybrid bus-trucks with bench seats that act as public transportation, shuttling flip-flopped locals between the small towns.
Gas in Venezuela costs .25 cents a gallon, one of many perversions of the economy brought on by Chavez, whom, it appears no one likes.

You will hear about that when you find Vicente. There's a paved road that crosses the creek that runs down the valley and parallel to the road. Townspeople bath and play and cook-out beside the creek. At Vicente's, you cross the ankle-deep water and pass through a gate onto a banana-leaf shrouded trail. The trail wanders through the dark forest's shade and soon the cacao appears, its bulbous, knobby fruit like some pink and magenta and purple and sea-green abnormality on the trunks and branches of the small cacao trees that seem fragile compared to the towering canopy above.

Then Vicente's faded white, red-tiled-roof hacienda sits in a rapidly diminishing clearing. Vicente comes down to meet us in his stark white Havana shirt. He shows us around and tells us how the plantation was built in the 1730s when Spaniards were growing cacao all over the Venezuelan coastal valleys. The climate and soil allowed for a wonderful "criollo" strain of cacao, sweeter than most. It was shipped to Europe and devoured by chocolatiers and their customers.

The criollo strand, however, was slowly replaced by more resilient hybrid strands after diseases wiped out much of the cacao in nearby Trinidad in the early 1800s. The valleys of Choroni and nearby Chuao retain some of the old-world cacao, making them unique outposts for the heirloom plants.

Vicente's father, an agronomist and poet from Isla Margarita, bought the old hacienda in 1948. So Vicente grew up on the land. He went to Caracas to be educated and work for years but in 1990 Vicente returned to his family land with a commitment to grow the cacao as it had been grown for so many centuries.

Despite his cacao being the heart of the world's best dark chocolate bar, Vicente barely makes a living. And it's getting worse. Chavez's government has taken a hard-line stance on cacao production, a commodity they feel is a relic of colonialism and exploitation. In the Choroni valley alone, the government has encouraged farmers to evict two hacienda owners from their land. The farmers then take plots of the land for themselves and the government manages the cacao production. Only, in both cases in Choroni, the farm goes untended and nothing is harvested.

Vicente manages to fly under that radar, maybe because his plantation is small enough. Or maybe because he's Venezuelan, unlike Willie Harcourt-Cooze, a Brit who bought Hacienda el Tesoro in 1996 from a Venezuelan man who was getting old and whose children did not want to inherit the cacao business. Willie kept the farm staff largely in place and produced great cacao. But in a frenzy to nationalize the cacao industry and bring all the product to Caracas for centralized distribution, the government confiscated Willie's land without payment.

The same happened to the Hacienda Monterosa, another Choroni Valley plantation and one of the most prolific in Venezuela. Its rightful owner, German-born, (but Venezuelan resident since age 18) Kai Rosenberg was shot by intruders (he survived), basically insurgents, on his plantation.

So don't get Vicente started on Chavez. In fact, don't get most people in Venezuela that I met, rural or urban, young or old, started on Chavez. There is little love and little hope that Chavez' tactics can actually improve the situation of the poor and the pueblo.

Vicente didn't produce any cacao for sale this year - too much rain. But he keeps on, hiring some workers during the biannual harvest and hopefully maintaining the sweetness of the relic criollo strain and sending the fermented, dried cacao almonds to more international award ceremonies.

Gardener + Mechanic

2012-02-13T08:23:00.003-08:00

ANGEL ZAMBRANO, 72

LIVES IN: Choroní, Venezuela (born in La Victoria, Venezuela)

PROFESSION: Mechanic

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Working on autos

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: A job poorly done

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Contemplate the natural world and cultivate plants and flowers.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Spain

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: My favorite book is by Cervantes. Mine would be about the natural world.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Comida criolla: Mojo (tomato, onion, garlic, pepper, cilantro) with rice and ham. Rum to drink. I like rum.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Catholic

ANY REGRET: No. Thank God.

Angel is Jesús' right-hand man at the Hacienda Aljorra near the village of Choroní. Jesús runs the old cacao plantation that his greatx4 grandfather completed in February of 1783. The man had moved over from Spain, the old colonialists. They built the plantation and grew the major crop of the day, cacao.

Now Jesús, Angél, and Angél's mom are often the only people at the hacienda. They've converted it into a comfortable B&B. It's authentic and beautiful and quiet. The grounds are well-maintained. Jesús is passionate about the place and about tourism in Choroní. He grew up and was educated in Caracas, and he now takes classes in tourism. Mainly, he's a tireless advocate of tourism in these communities. They have the beach access and the raw, historic architecture that can't be replicated by new vacation spots.

But no one comes here anymore. Only some hard-drinking beach goers from nearby Maracay. No more Europeans or Americans. They are scared of the violence they hear about in the country, especially in Caracas. Jesús doesn't downplay it. Like all Venezuelans we've met, from all walks of life, they say Caracas is hard-core dangerous. Jesús grew up in an educated, upper-middle-class part of town and four of his friends have been shot in the streets this year.

Jesús takes me in the early evening to his family's other property, a courtyard home on the town square of Choroní. From the street you can see that the tile roof has completely collapsed. We enter through a dark, concrete-dusted hallway and Jesús unlocks the tightly wound chain from the double door handle. Inside, an open patio has been conquered by banana trees and palms. But the grandeur remains in the flaking columns and the tiled walkway. The U-shaped house opens in back to a wooden lot leading down to the river.

Jesús sees a renovation that converts the corner, riverside rooms into suites and the courtyard into a breakfast and lunch cafe. On the way out he opens the doors to a side room. The fading light from the open courtyard illuminates an elaborate casket with glass paneling facing out. It's the kind they use in the religious parades, not for an actual deceased. And it's like Jesús and Angél, all optimistic and contemplative in light of such lovely decay.

Jesus and greatx4 grandfather

Cacao in Chuao

2012-02-13T08:04:00.003-08:00

LISBETH BACALAO, 30

LIVES IN: Chuao, Venezuela (born there)

PROFESSION: Farmer at the Hacienda de Chuao Cooperative (for 9 years)

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Working out in the countryside.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: I like everything. Sometimes I don't like collecting the cacao.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: To sleep, to rest, hang out at home

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Mexico

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: My life. The day that my father died. I learned to take advantage of life at that point. That's also when I started to work like a dog.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Boiled plantains, fried fish, lemon juice

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Catholic

ANY REGRET: No. The day that I die, I'll regret that.

Chuao is pronounced Chew-WOW! It produces the world's best cacao (Cuh-COW!). The rhymey, Willy Wonkiness of it all seems appropriate for rural Venezuela. People speak in a sing-songy dialect here. Everything, at one time or another, seems to have had a bright coat of paint on it. Trees are giant and a thousand shades of green. And there are so many birds.

1,500 people live in the town that is surrounded by 740 acres of shady cacao trees. They have been growing, fermenting, and drying an heirloom, criollo strand of cacao since the 16th Century.

Chocolate’s scientific name, Theobroma cacao, means “Food of the Gods.” The Aztecs, who drank a cacao drink, used the beans as currency and to strengthen their warriors. Then Hernán Cortez tasted it in 1529, took trunk-loads of it back to Spain, and everyone went bonkers.

Now, at the Cathedral of Chuao, a handful of workers from the 125-member Chuao farmer’s cooperative spread cacao “almonds” in neat circles on the polished concrete patio. The cacao first sits in a heap under banana leaves so it can ferment for a week. It’s then dried for a few hours a day over one week. Chuao’s hot sun, this unique strand of cacao, the people of Chuao, and the cathedral’s patio have been working together like this since the 16th Century.

It's hard to tell who runs the show with the cacao of Chuao. I heard three different stories from locals - that Amadei, the award-winning Italian chocolatier bought half the chocolate and a French distributor the other half. I heard Amadei bought it all. I heard that the Venezuelan government now took all the Chuao cacao and distributed it from Caracas. I think the latter is true, but only very recently. For now, the operation seems to run smoothly and the workers seem happy. They've grown cacao here like this for almost 500 years so I imagine it can survive a corrupt dictator or two.

Tarzan boy

2012-02-13T08:02:00.004-08:00

JUSE MANUEL ACHE MIJALE, 13

LIVES IN: Chuao, Venezuela (born there)

PROFESSION: Student

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Studying tourism and baseball

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Nothing

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Play with my buddies, soccer, baseball

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Maracay (the nearest town in Venezuela, where the Maracay Tigers play baseball)

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Nothing

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Fried chicken, rice, melon juice

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes, Catholic

ANY REGRET: No, nothing

Jose and his dad guided us to the massive waterfall that pours off the end of Venezuela's Coastal Mountains, a few miles from where the river enters the Caribbean Sea. You get there via a rooted trail that parallels and criss-crosses the river for four miles.

We asked at the last little store in Chuao if we could get a guide to take us to the waterfall. It was after noon and most hikes leave earlier in the morning since it takes a while for people to clamber over the slick rocks and through the trail's many stream crossings. A few young men closer to town had refused to guide us, even though we would, of course, pay them.

But at the last store in town, the owner's brother behind the counter said he'd take us. He came out from the side door of the house six seconds later, shirtless, in board shorts, and flip-flops. He carried only a bottle of rum wrapped in a collared golf shirt. We headed out.

Twelve steps later Jose appeared out of nowhere, behind us, carrying a machete as long as his bare torso. Jose had no shoes and he wore an orange strap around his upper arm where he tucked a few Boliviares bills so they wouldn't float out of his pocket during the stream swims.

I am convinced that if jungle boys like Jose were not relegated to the jungle, they would rule the world. I've hung out with kids like this in the Amazon, in the Andes, and in Ethiopia. They are the "country boys" that Hank Williams Jr. says will survive, only the country boys in America are busy riding in cars and playing computer games. Jose moved through the forest more like an animal than a human. And he had a bright smile. His dad probably was the same way, but now he moved a little slower, partially due to the rum nourishment and the sausage-sized cigar he lit up halfway to the waterfall.

We made it to the dramatic falls with plenty of time to spare. While we took a dip, the dad and Jose stood in the clearing at the edge of vines and root wads, the machete held diagonal across Jose's chest like the most badass Boy Scout badge in the world.

To see more photos from Chuao and Choroni, go to Michael Hanson's blog here...

Recycle tree

2012-02-06T08:48:00.000-08:00

Evelyn Delerme Camacho, 40

LIVES IN: Rural part of Vieques Island (born on Vieques)

PROFESSION: Mayor of Vieques since 2009

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: I like everything. There's a lot of sacrifice - 24 hours/day, 365 days/year

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Not having the money to do jobs. Having a big deficit like every other government. For example, there isn't a system of transportation on the island and I wish we could develop one.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I like to work to protect animals. I volunteer in the animal refuge.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Spain

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I'm writing one, about the protection of animals and the poor treatment of animals, from domestic animals, circus animals to animals in the wild. It will be a sort of manual for quality of life of all animals.
It's almost finished but there's so much work with the mayor's office.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Only coffee this morning.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Catholic

ANY REGRETS: I don't think so. It's complicated when you're the mayor because there are so many things you want to do.

Evelyn had her recycle facility employees build the forty-foot-tall Christmas tree in the town place of Isabel Segunda, the main town on Puerto Rico's Vieques Island. Thousands of plastic bottles and glued-on geraniums make the tree. She wants people in her community to see that recycling is important and that they are capable of doing great things on the island.

Vieques sits off the east coast of Puerto Rico, about twenty-one miles long and five miles wide. Up until 2003 the US military used the eastern half of the island as a bombing range. The islanders, naturally, did not like that. They wanted the military and the booms gone and so they finally left over ten years ago. Now two-thirds of the island, the eastern half and a big chunk of the western tip, are National Wildlife Refuges. You can drive a Jeep or ride a scooter or bike down the paved and gravel road that parallels the coast.

Calm coves and long white-sand beaches carve into the island's south side shoreline. At Blue Beach (the military name), little numbered signs beside the road mark where visitors can drive in and park under the mangrove shade. Then you walk a short trail to the beach. Even in the busy winter months only a dozen or so people will be spread out along the mile of beach. It's almost an unwritten rule that if a car is parked at a pullout, you keep going and almost always you find your own private chunk of sand and sea.

The island is full of wild horses. They wander the streets, the sidewalks, the big fields between patches of forests and rural homes. People "own" them but most of those people don't have the land to keep them in. So landowners build fences to keep the horses out. Farmers will gather a few and use them if they need to, then leave them again. Kids will throw a rope bridle over the heads and a blanket over their backs and climb aboard to ride somewhere on the island. Then they'll leave them again. Vieques Zip Cars.

You can bike all of Vieques Island in a long day or two relaxed days. Other than the W Resort and Spa, there's no ridiculous developments on the island. Just empty beaches, some shady bars and grills, a few really good restaurants, semi-wild horses, a bioluminescent bay to swim in, and a giant, glowing plastic tree.

The Rubes

2012-01-23T16:39:00.000-08:00

SEE AND HEAR THE RUBES PLAY BY CLICKING HERE...

In early 2007 Ben Rube owed more than double what his central Michigan farm was worth. Ben was not a farmer. It was worse. He and a partner ran a mortgage broker business. They ran mortgages on houses with loans of $130,000 that were worth $5000 in the newly shattered market and that cost homeowners $4000/year in taxes. This was Michigan and everyone just began to walk away. What else could they do? Even Ben’s hyperbole sounds mild: “That’s when the sky started falling.”

Ben had bought the twenty-five acre farm in 2002. He wanted his growing family to experience a more real version of life than the suburbs of Lansing could offer. They ran Texas Longhorn cattle, raised goats, chickens, and vegetables. They had mules and horses. Ben had grown up on a farm so he knew the routine. His livelihood, however, depended on the housing market.

“We knew this whole thing would crash,” he says. “And we thought we’d get out before it did. But is just hit so fast.”

Ben tells me this in the parlor of his modest home that sits above Mexico 1, the only paved road on the west side of the Baja Peninsula’s southern cape. His six boys, ages 3 to 17, sit in the adjoining rooms on a futon or folding picnic chairs. His wife, Greta, sits at the kitchen table with the two youngest – Vinnie and Georgie. All of them eat a late breakfast of eggs, homemade sausage, and toast.

Ben wears slacks and a loose button-up shirt like you’d see on a cruise-ship passenger who just stepped off the van into Cabo San Lucas. But, in contrast, Ben’s shirt is worn and it fits his lean 6’2” frame properly. He can pull it off because it looks loose and comfortable and practical, all characteristics that exude from him. Same with the flip-flops. He has an easy smile that seems to flow downward, beginning first in his eyes. And he appears to completely understand why I’ve invited myself into his house with a notepad to record his life story.

No one would say it, but the Rube family is striking for an obvious reason: they are a family of eight gorgeous black mid-westerners living in a tiny farming town whose residents are either white ex-pat surfer types from California, Oregon, and Canada or Mexicans who have lived and farmed here for generations. But the Rubes are much more than a racial anomaly.

Before the housing market’s sky began falling, Ben and his partner got involved in the Cabo real estate boom. Things moved fast down here. Ben got American dollars loaned on house buys in the area and people lined up to buy at that time. He remembers houses selling for $300,000 and being turned around for $350,000 before the title could even be transferred. It acted like the Wild West with buyers being carted to properties by phony salesmen who’d close deals on the spot and walk away with a full-blown scam sale. Ben and his partner saw amazing financing possibilities because they could be clean and legit and work with the American dollar.

Then the market blew up in Michigan. Ben and his partner lost sight of Cabo deals as they sorted through the rubble around them back home. After cutting his losses as best he could, Ben dabbled with a job as a debt collector then considered a lucrative position with John Deere as a salesman. But he saw the newly inflated farm market as another bubble ready to burst so he passed on the job. “I figured I might find myself asking the same question in another year that I’m asking now, ‘What next?’”

So he looked back at Cabo and it became the “next” for him. Ben and his partner blew fresh air into their connections in Cabo, a market that had only a little mold around the edges thanks to Chinese and Euro investment. It seemed resilient relative to the full-blown rot pervading the housing market in most of America and all of Michigan.

Ben landed in Cabo and soon realized the rot had actually spread and the real estate sales weren’t getting serious. He and his partner dove into time-share sales because that’s what they could do, sell.

In the first weekend Ben made a sale and by the end of the first month he’d made $10,000. That was October, 2007. He stayed for three more months and by the end of January he foreclosed on the Michigan farm and moved the family down.

The family rented an apartment in Cabo for seven months, but the time-share sales dried up when the swine flu dessimated Mexican travel. The cruise ships stopped coming and airplanes that used to be full now unloaded a dozen passengers into the San Jose del Cabo airport. Ben began realtoring houses in the Pescadero – Todos Santos – Cerritos area, a quieter, more off-the-grid scene than the glitz and tacky glam of Cabo. The family moved into a house on Pedritos beach near one of the best surf breaks in Baja. Ben sold a few properties, but he kept getting stiffed on the commissions.

Meanwhile, while watching his boys learn to surf at Pedritos, Ben heard of a family looking for someone to run their generations-old ranch in the foothills of the Sierra la Laguna mountains, a striking range of 7,000-foot peaks that dominate the eastern horizon as seen from Pescadero. He and his second oldest son, Ob, spent weeks on the ranch building corrals and running fence so that they ranch could start raising livestock again. (The owner had died and his kids didn’t want to deal with the land’s management.)

Ben saw a chance to make some profit off sales of beef, lamb, and pork (split with the family owners), and he also imagined a viable eco-tourism operation with mountain biking, hiking, hunting, and rustic lodging on the pristine property. They even made some money planting trees via a Mexican government initiative to rehabilitate natural parks and preserves.

But as soon as the cattle were running, the family started selling them at beef auction and Ben saw none of the money. So he began to back away from that dodgy situation like he had from the real estate market. He and Greta raised vegetables on vacant lots in the area near their Pedritos home.

The Pescadero valley is a fertile zone of sandy alluvial soils with a surprising amount of water from the aquifers supplied by rainfall generated by the Sierra la Laguna mountain range. They sold the produce at small markets like the one in La Paz, and they sold beef and lamb and pork that Ben slaughtered and butchered off another ranch. The Rubes even tried their hand at a simple palapa restaurant outside the house. But no one except the locals surfing the Pedritos break could find it since it sat a mile from the Mexico 1 down a maze of rough sandy farm roads.

I did not meet Ben and his family because of any of the aforementioned activities – real estate, farming, produce sales, surfing. I first saw Ben and the Men in the dark as they shuffled band equipment down the short sandy walk from the parking lot beside Mexico 1, into the sand-floored, thatch-roofed roadside Pescadero bar, The Sandbar. A large tree with broad, muscular branches grows in the middle of The Sandbar. It was a Wednesday night. The four oldest boys and Ben wore black t-shirts with a white outline of a Michael Jackson rendering: the hat tipped slightly over one eye, the outline of glasses, and the one white-gloved hand open, palm-to-face below the chin.

As they set up I asked what they played. It must have been Ob who told me: blues, funk, jazz, soul. Ob, age 15, plays the keyboards. Ben Jr, 17, plays the bass and sings vocals. Ricky, 14, plays percussions, and Marty, 11, plays drums. Ben Sr. plays the electric guitar.

Ben and the Men, the band, started a year ago when they played a wedding near Pedritos beach and the venue became the de facto community jam session every week from then on. People started talking about Ben and the Men and bars asked for them to perform. The high-end, secluded yoga retreat a few miles down the coast had them play each month when the clients returned from their silent meditations in the desert. The happening coffee shop in Pescadero, Baja Beans, brought them in for the popular Sunday market and brunch. They play at the wine and tapas bar in Todos Santos most weeks and they had a gig at Hotel California, Todos Santos’ marquee tourist destination, on New Years Eve.

Ben has been playing music all his life. When he was younger and more flush with cash back in Michigan, he’d buy extra instruments so his less-fortunate buddies could jam with him. The kids came into the picture and they began picking up the instruments themselves.

Ben says he’s the only member of the band who was forced into an instrument. He used to play bass and drums, but Ben Jr took to the bass in his Dad’s lap as a toddler. Marty started wailing around age two when his dad would sit behind the drums. The only way to calm Marty was to sit him in Dad’s lap and give him the sticks. Ob had a two-week lesson on the keyboards and he took off running, teaching himself with internet tutorials. Ben thinks Ricky will eventually move into the saxophone.

But they aren’t savants. Ben knows music, like most things, can be a tedious chore when learning. It can take years to get to the point where it’s enjoyable to jam. Ben and the Men practice often, and Ben has seen tears. It’s easy to make the Jackson Five comparison. But Ben has no interest in fame and fortune. He lives in Pescadero, Baja, the last place on earth to launch a music group. His boys list "student, butcher, and musician" as their professions. They surf, skate, play music and are home-schooled by Greta. They appear to be the most polite, well-adjusted, multi-talented kids in the universe. They are boys, but, again, it doesn't seem exaggerated for Ben to call them Men. They must be one of the best things to fall out of America's crashing sky.

Ben

2012-01-11T17:35:00.001-08:00

Ben Rube

PROFESSION: Guitar player, butcher

FAVORITE PART OF YOUR WORK: playing music and watching the audience get into it.

LEAST FAVORITE: Roadie work, loading and unloading the equipment

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Play more guitar, free-dive and spear-fish, body-surf, ride the ATV or dirt bike in the desert

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Pasa Flores, Argentina

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I'd call it, What is success?!. A book about the life of Benjamin M Rube. An autobiography

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY? A "boarito" : our own wild boar sausage, potatoes, onions, poblanos, eggs, queso fresco rolled into a huge homemade flour tortilla served with salsa

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: No. I believe in God

ANY REGRETS: Not sure. Hind sight is 20/20 so I would do many things differently. However, I am not sure that's a reason to regret things. Life is lived forward and understood backward.

Greta

2012-01-11T17:26:00.000-08:00

Greta Rube, 38

LIVES IN: Pescadero, Baja California Sur

PROFESSION: Fashion model, homeschool teacher, jewelry sales, house cleaning (other peoples)

FAVORITE PART OF YOUR WORK: Modeling

LEAST FAVORITE: The fact that I have to do so many different jobs to make ends meet.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I would love to write a book, but there is no free time to be had.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: back to Michigan to see my mom. We haven’t been able to afford that.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: About my experience living in Mexico with my family.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Vegetarian spaghetti and tossed salad for dinner.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: I am not religious.

ANY REGRET: We didn’t buy property down here in Mexico when we actually had money. But we live and we learn.

Ben Jr.

2012-01-11T17:10:00.001-08:00

Ben Rube, Jr., 17

LIVES IN: Pescadero, Baja California Sur

PROFESSION: Bassist, singer

FAVORITE PART OF YOUR WORK: When I can get the crowd going and have them dancing and singing along.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I like to go surf and/or skateboard at the skate park in town. I love that place. It’s like the biggest skatepark in Mexico! Also, I like to practice my bass.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Bali, for sure. I am traveling to Norway this summer. I can’t wait.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: It would be about the small town I live in because it’s split into two sides: the beach gringos and the Mexican locals inland. And there’s lots of characters for the story.

LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Eggs, roasted potatoes, and sausage

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Well, I’m not really a religious person, but I am a Christian.

ANY REGRET: I honestly have no regrets in my life. It’s run pretty smoothly so far.

Ob

2012-01-11T17:08:00.001-08:00

Ob Rube, 15

LIVES IN: Pescadero, Baja California Sur

PROFESSION: keyboard player

FAVORITE PART OF YOUR WORK: Playing music

LEAST FAVORITE: Is loading the car with the instruments

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Drw, practice the keyboard, make movies, and use Adobe After-effects

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Madagascar

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: A mystery

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Eggs, sausage (that we made), and oven roasted potatoes for breakfast.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: No, I’m not religious.

ANY REGRET: That I didn’t start using Adobe After Effects months ago.

Ricky

2012-01-11T17:06:00.001-08:00

Henrick Rube (Ricky), 14

LIVES IN: Pescadero, Baja California Sur

PROFESSION: Student-percussionist-butcher

FAVORITE PART OF YOUR WORK: Wednesday (skating day)

LEAST FAVORITE: Saturday because we play music at Cerritos, weird vibe there.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Skate, surf, and play congas.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: The Caribbean

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: The hidden uses of the Nintendo DS.

LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Breakfast – eggs, sausage and potatoes

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes

ANY REGRET: No, I don’t have any regrets to speak of.

Martin

2012-01-11T17:04:00.000-08:00

Martin Rube, 11

LIVES IN: Pescadero, Baja California Sur

PROFESSION: Student-drummer-butcher

FAVORITE PART OF YOUR WORK: When we go skateboarding

LEAST FAVORITE: Slaughtering day is lots of work.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I like to practice drums, play video games, go surfing, and ride bikes.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: The bahamas

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: People who come to a party and don’t bring anything.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Breakfast - eggs, sausage and potatoes

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes, I’m religious.

ANY REGRET: I shouldn’t have caught a wave while I was in the impact zone.

Vinny

2012-01-11T17:03:00.001-08:00

Vinny is five years old. He did not complete an interview.

Georgie

2012-01-11T16:58:00.000-08:00

Georgie Rube is three years old. He did not respond to my requests for an interview. He loves his tan cowboy boots, though.

Punta Lobos

2011-12-29T12:36:00.001-08:00

ROBERTO IZAZAGA OROSCO, 18

LIVES IN: Todos Santos, Baja California Sur (born in Acapulco)

PROFESSION: Fisherman

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Cleaning and fileting the fish

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: When I cut my hands.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Skim board, surf, soccer

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Acapulco. Or maybe Long Beach, CA. I met a champion skim boarder from there and he invited me to come stay at his house.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I don't know. It'd probably be an autobiography.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Cookies and a soda

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Sort of. Normal. My family is religious. I'm typical of my 21st Century generation.

ANY REGRETS: In Acapulco I was in a gang. I got in a knife fight one time and my dad sent me here to live with my mom.

Good People

2011-12-27T12:25:00.000-08:00

Phillip and Judy Scott live in a small bungalow in the gridded, working-class neighborhood of LA’s Torrance, ten miles south of LAX. Their yard has one of the few shade trees on the block, and in the shade, this being December, stands a slump-shouldered, rail-thin Goofy character, over five feet tall. Old man’s clothes hang loosely off his skeletal limbs. He wears a Santa hat. On his right is a deer and on his left a duck, both about life-size and both nailed to wooden platforms. Fishing line tied to a screw on each platform connects back to a make-shift motor that turns quietly as it slowly spins the duck and deer from right to left. A spotlight illuminates the scene at night.

Phil and Judy have lived in the house for thirty years. Their daughter lives next door. Judy’s father was a double agent for the US government. He used to host communist meetings in their Santa Monica house and Judy’s mom would have to hide in the basement. Judy now makes jewelry out of turquoise and silver. Phil is a retired mechanic. He fixed big trucks at Mobile Oil facilities. They have great-grandkids and they like to ride the Harley Phil owns.

When flying in a plane 6,000 feet above a city like LA, you like down into a sea of houses. Each house has a story and the details of each story as innumerable as cells. I only know a few details about the Scotts because I wanted to buy a truck and drive it for 1000 miles from LA to the tip of Baja, Mexico. It seemed like the best plan.

Christine, Michael, Becca, and I flew from Seattle to LA on a one-way ticket. We had a month-long house rental in the small Southern Baja town of Pescadero. Michael and I decided we’d try to organize photo workshops out of Pescadero and the surrounding area, which we’d come to know well after a month exploring there last winter. If we bought a truck to drive us down, we could leave it there and use it for next year’s workshops.

We gave ourselves three days to find a solid used truck that we could trust to drive us to the end of Baja from LA. The Baja, like all deserts, can seem bipolar: a dusty, white-hot post-apocalypse at 2pm then, suddenly, at around 5:30pm it becomes a pastel-splashed canvas where every face looks like a masterpiece in the soft warm light – skin smoothed and glowing and whites of eyes bleached against the sun-tanned tones that reflects pink sky. And the chilly, silver and inky black desert night is something else all together.

The desolate, beautiful, and wild Baja is so rugged and so tough on vehicles that the state’s biggest event is a 1000-mile glorified dune-buggy race down the gut of it called the Baja 1000. Just trace the lone road – Mexico One – on a National Geographic map. The red line zig-zags across the empty tan landmass, and it unfolds over four different quads that add up to about seven feet of map.

Driving the length of Baja, which Michael and I did last year, is an adventure, albeit sedentary. It’s daunting and uncertain, but doable, despite the fact that the majority of Americans (basically, the ones who watch News on Television) think that stepping foot into Mexico, much less driving through it, has about the same success rate as a sea-kayaking tour of the Somali coast.

What is certain, however, in any time or place ever in the history of the industrial age, is that buying a used piece of machinery is a crapshoot. Over the course of our two-day Los Angeles-Long Beach-Orange County Craigslist search, we narrowed down to a Ford F-250 (leaky water pump, too many miles at 176,xxx), a Toyota T100 (great engine and love Toyota, but: check engine light, leaky valve gasket, and a sketchy owner who put more into his drug habit than maintaining the truck), and a Toyota Sienna mini-van (too expensive - $5400 – and being sold on slimy car dealer lot).

We kept coming back to Judy and Phil’s 1993 GMC Sierra 2500 with 96,xxx miles, a full-size bed and massive canopy top. The Scott’s bought it new off the GMC lot and had been its only owners. But it cranked slowly. We took it to Charlie, a one-man mechanic shop in Torrance, whom we found on the Internets. Charlie put in a new battery and she cranked beautifully.

So we had Charlie do a full inspection. Meanwhile, Phil, Michael, and I ate glazed donuts in a donut shop around the corner while torrential rains and wind pounded Los Angeles, one of the dreariest cities in the world when rained upon. We sat there for over an hour.

Phil asked about my work and he said he liked photography. He had a 4x4 camera and a darkroom years ago. Phil had been in a motorcycle wreck that crushed his leg. He now walks with a limp. It felt weird for both of us to be sitting at that table, genuinely interested in the other person with that curiosity that blooms out of differences – age, geographic location, job skills, hobbies.

But the impending financial negotiation and requisite haggling over money sat like a cloud over the donut shop, more heavy and dreary than the real thunderheads soaking the city. We both genuinely detested money deals. Judy had been telling us since we met how she and Phil had been swindled out of $100,000 by a Bernie Madoff cronie. And they’d been ripped off $200 on the sale of a Bowflex machine. So they were leery to sell, even though we had cash.

Eventually Charlie called. We walked back to the garage, through the half-inch of rainwater in the parking lot. I walked slowly to keep pace with Phil’s limp. Charlie confirmed the strength of the engine and said we’d found a good deal. We followed Phil back to his house to negotiate.

Phil and Judy Scott don’t keep the lights on in their home and today they didn’t have the heat on, either, though it was only 55 degrees outside. The home’s interior has dark wood paneling and a long wooden table that Phil made. He also built and stained the kitchen cabinets and the living room that was added on to the back of the house. It held some couches and a few pinball machines sandwiched between a couch and the wall. A small tiki-style bar sat on one side, its thatch roof covered in a blanket of fake Christmas snow, the light, course stuff that feels like dried old-man’s beard. In the corner, through the branches of two plastic palm trees sat a two-person, cedar, infrared sauna with a glass door. The Scotts bought it when Phil had cancer years ago.

We stood by the kitchen table and talked money. They wanted $3900 and we said $3700 since we’d have to put two new tires on the back and we’d already bought a battery. They fought hard and we held tight, Michael, flopping his wad of $100 bills in his hand. Finally they agreed on $3700, a win for everyone.

We thanked and shook hands, and everyone was content as we drove away in the big, beefy truck, back to Long Beach where we were crashing on a friend’s couch. At 5am the next morning all four of us, Christine, Michael, Becca, and I, loaded up and pulled onto I-405 South at the exact time we had hoped for months before, and in the exact type of truck we had envisioned. It felt good.

Border crossing smooth, Tijuana drive-by fine. Hit the toll road cruising south toward Ensenada. Then the power died. Suddenly we couldn’t get into third gear and had no power above 50mph. I called Phil and asked in serious terms if he knew of any transmission problems that he might want to explain since we were near break-down in Mexico. He said no. I believed him. I had always believed him. I called Charlie. He said possible fuel filter clog.

We limped into Ensenada and to a mechanic with two pit bulls chained to tires and a small office full of photos of his partner playing in a local adult baseball league. The boss drove the truck with Michael while I talked baseball with the partner and the pit bull licked my hand and pawed my leg with grease prints.

The mechanic returned and diagnosed a blown transmission. Not the fuel filter. No way. He could get a used tranny out of the junkyard and have it installed in two days. I called Charlie, he wasn’t so sure. Neither was I. We paid the men ten dollars and turned around, calling it a day-trip to Ensenada. The truck made it back to the border in two hours at 50 mph and with the rpms at around 4,000.

AAA tow truck picked us up in Chula Vista. Victor was the driver – a nice man, former surfer, from Tijuana. Michael was busy in the backseat working on plane tickets to get us to Cabo the next day. None of us had the balls or stamina to attempt the Baja drive again, especially in a vehicle we no longer trusted. We had been operating on a short leash and our plan required flawless execution from the used truck’s engine. There were no mulligans. So as Michael bought us plane tickets I called Phil.

I told Phil that we were being towed back to LA. We couldn’t let a mechanic in Ensenada try to fix the thing when we were only a few hours from our start point. I asked if he’d consider his original offer of a full warranty of the truck for its first thirty days. He had drawn up a hand-written contract and set it on the long wooden table in their kitchen. I had overlooked it since we were to be driving it 1000 miles away and the likelihood of returning it after getting it to Baja were slim. Plus, they retracted the contract when we paid Charlie to do a full inspection. But Phil said he’d think about it.

I called him back an hour later to ask if we could store the truck in his drive-way and if he could try to sell it again. We’d work out something to get our money back, or at least some of it. Phil didn’t acknowledge the offer. Rather, he just said, “I can’t buy the new tires you put on it, but I’ll give you your full money back for the truck.”

No one could believe it. He could have stopped answering his phone. Or said he’d already spent the money. Or just said, “Sorry, buddy. So it goes.”

We arrived at the Scotts after dark. The spotlight lit up Goofy, and the duck and deer slowly rotated side to side. Phil answered the metal door with a solemn face. I thought he was annoyed at this whole mess and mad that he was taking the truck back. I made a light comment about being impressed by his handiwork on the duck and deer spinning motor. He ignored my banter and just patted me on the back, saying he was so sorry about our trouble. He and Judy felt terrible.

We walked back to the kitchen and Judy had the envelope of cash on the long wooden table. She said she was sorry, too. She brought out a small black briefcase and opened it on the table. A few dozen turquoise rings and pendants and necklaces laid in silver sat in the velvet-lined case. She and Phil sell the jewelry at craft fairs. Judy insisted that we pick one out for our girlfriends. For our trouble. I resisted and offered to buy one, but she insisted.

I ran back to the car and got my handmade holiday card of four landscape photos that I’d sent to family and friends. I wrote a note on the hood of the truck: “You are good, honest people and it’s important to know that folks like you exist.”

I took a ring with a small turquoise stone. It almost looked like a globe with its tiny discolorations of dark brown like landmasses in the bright blue. I had to keep something from, otherwise the whole experience was just a vaporized money deal that might as well have never happened in the sea of houses near LAX.

Nuptial Flight

2011-12-05T19:02:00.000-08:00

DANIEL SULLIVAN, 35

LIVES IN: West Seattle, WA (born Spokane, WA)

PROFESSION: Beekeeper

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Being inside the beehive. It's the hottest, most miserable part, but it's the most amazing thing.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: It's gonna sound sappy and cliché and I'm not a sappy guy, but there's really nothing worse than seeing a languishing queen. I don't really care for that.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Avid skier. I should say snowboarder. Old-school. Hike up and pick my lines.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Jerusalem

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: There's a working title but it doesn't matter. I'm working on a book - a series of essays. A memoir of sorts. Doesn't have to mean anything, just be fun to have on the bookshelves.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Let's go with shepherd's pie. And a vodka, rocks, lemon. Absolut vodka

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yessir. Well, I don't know if I am. I grew up in a Christian home. I never know what to say. I go to a free-wheelin' big church and don't really know what it is.

ANY REGRETS: No, I do not and I hope I don't end up with any.

Soon after a queen bee hatches, she picks a clear, calm day, emits her pheromones, and flies out of the hive, straight up into the sky. She buzzes as high as she can. She is going to be pollinated.

The male bees have a single function in life, to be ready for the pheromones of the queen bee. Otherwise, they live short, brutish lives. They can't even feed themselves.

When the queen flies high, the males give chase. They are sex-seeking missiles, and they alternately mate with her. The male explodes so fiercely that his entire manhood gear breaks off into the queen. She flies on. The male plummets to earth and dies. A horny Icarus.

The queen can mate with a dozen males over the course of a fair-weather afternoon. She returns to the hive to begin laying the brood. She then proceeds, if successful, to be an egg-laying machine for over a decade, using the same sperm collected on her one afternoon foray. Of the larvae she lays, only a select few are considered by the hive to be potential queens. The female worker bees feed queen larval the extra royal jelly stored in their heads.

When the queen larval has developed, she chews through her cell, emitting a G-sharp sound in order to warn other potential queens of her arrival. Worker bees will often keep a few queens alive as backups in case the active queen does not reproduce or dies in flight. The queen does not run the hive. Rather, it is a democratic nation; the queen can be recalled and impeached at any time if she fails in her sole duty - to lay broods.

Worker bees live for 4-5 months during winter, though their life expectancy in summer is only a month. They fly their wings off and work themselves to death.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that of the 100 crop species that provide 90% of our human food supply, honey bees pollinate over 71%. Of the 20,000 bee species in the world, honey bees are thought to be the most prolific pollinators. Certain fruit, seed, and nut crops decrease their yield by 90% without honey bee pollination. In the US, bees pollinate 95 types of food plants, such as oranges, apples, avocados, almonds, and soybeans.

Honey bee populations peaked in recent history in 1950, with about 5.5 million honey-producing colonies. They are now at half that number. Some claim that our digital world and its cyber signals and electromagnetic fields confuse the innate GPS systems of honey bees, which enable them to return to their hives after leaving to pollinate plants. Honey bees, like salmon, have an ancient, inexplicable, and vital ability to return to their exact hive, even if there are ten identical hives in a row.

Other beekeepers worry about the Varroa and Tracheal mites (introduced to the US in mid-1980s), or pesticides and diesel pollutants that effect the bees' weak immune systems.

Daniel Sullivan wants to do something about all this. He wants bees to fit onto as many rooftops of downtown Seattle as possible. He taught himself to beekeep after reading a book and watching an intro YouTube video. He now has his own business and was recently hired by the high-end Salish Lodge and Spa, a favorite getaway of the Microsoft crowd, just outside Seattle. So Daniel raises bees here, on a former pickle-ball court above the lodge. The spa uses the honey in their scrub treatments. Over on Alki Beach in West Seattle, Daniel's Shipwreck Honey business lives in a small Craftsman bungalow where he has 10-12 hives at any given time.

Two weeks ago I saw another beekeeper who lives in a world that has more in common with the Amazon than with Seattle. Ben Lanier has been raising bees on the tupelo trees of the Apalachicola and Chipola Rivers since he was a boy. His grandfather immigrated to the United States in 1898 from Alsace-Lorraine, and he began raising bees in the muggy, buggy, semi-tropical lowlands and cypress swamps of Florida's panhandle.

Lanier LLC Tupelo Honey is some of the purest honey on earth. Diabetics can eat it.

Ben's worried about his bees, too. He showed me the mites attached to their backs, which he pulls off and rubs to death between his fingers. It drives him crazy. He cusses them and threatens to get out of the whole business. But he doesn't. He's the beekeeper and that means something.

So the queens keep flying straight up, and the men give the ultimate chase, as those before them. The worker bees are born and they work their little wings off to connect our food web and make the sweetest gold on earth.

Ben Lanier, 11/18/09

Chipola River

2011-11-28T11:59:00.000-08:00

SETH BLACKBURN, 15

LIVES IN: Greenwood, FL (born there)

PROFESSION: Student - 10th Grade

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: I like Photoshop class.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Teachers

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Guitar or piano

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Probably Tennessee because they've got all the stuff I like to do: snowboarding, kayaking, and music.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I don't really know.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Salami-cheese-mustard sandwich, water

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Christian

ANY REGRET: Not really

Corral reefs are millions of years of fossilized and calcified dead sea creatures. When the sea that houses the reef dries or the land gets pushed up, the reef becomes limestone rock. The limestone then becomes a swiss cheese of caves and underground rivers as millennia of water dissolve and basically manhandle the soluble material. Limestone landforms are known as karst and they make for some of the coolest landscapes in the world - Kentucky's Mammoth Cave, Puerto Rico's Mona Island, Guilin China, Mexico's Yucatan.

In northern Florida, along the panhandle, the limestone explains the hundreds of springs that emerge from the soft floor of loblolly pine and hardwood forests. The Chipola River begins in the very bottom of Alabama and flows south into Florida. A few miles north of the Jackson County seat of Marianna, the sizable river (at least five rafts wide) disappears into the ground. It flows back into its Floridan Aquifer system, leaving the forest dry. Then the clear water emerges a few miles later.

We paddled the Chipola for four days early in the week of Thanksgiving. My brother, Michael, and I went to Jackson County to see my friends Rusty and Ricky Blackburn. They've lived in Jackson County all their lives, and I met them two years ago when floating the Chattahoochee River. Their lives are wildly different from mine. Plus, they're nice and funny as hell. So we went back to see them and document their backwoods, pure country lifestyles, especially as it relates to food.

Rusty and Ricky and their families and friends are what I like to call The Other Locavores. I'd say over half of their household food comes from their backyard or the forests of Jackson County. Granted, Pizza Hut's $10 large one-toppings are a staple, as well, but the Blackburns eat things they grow or kill. On the Saturday before Thanksgiving we followed them on a deer hunt (got a small buck; got a doe the night before), a dove hunt (Ricky got six, Rusty one, their dad two), a raccoon hunt (none), and, at midnight, a hog hunt (none).

For supper, Ricky's wife cooked fried quail smothered in gravy, mashed potatoes, mustard and turnip greens, tomatoes, squash and onions, field peas, cornbread, biscuits, and pecan pie. The Blackburns killed or grew everything but the breads. We drank Budweisers all day and night.

On Sunday Michael and I put our canoe onto the Chipola River, south of Marianna. We had four days and fifty miles. Rusty drove us down to set our shuttle car at the take-out below the Dead Lakes. Seth is Rusty's son. He wants to get into kayaking and Rusty wanted him to join us. He thought it would be a good experience for him to camp and paddle and be around two guys from other parts of the country. From other worlds, really. A cultural exchange. We were happy to have him.

Seth's a quiet kid and smart as hell and obviously not like most of the Marianna High School students. For one, he doesn't give two shits about the football team. He likes music and mountains and he thinks outside the box of Jackson County, a small world that, like many small towns, can seem as densely stratified and compacted and layered in generations and mindsets as limestone. Limestone's cracks are gaping holes that absorb rivers and open into stalagmite-decorated caves and collapse into sinkholes that swallow houses. Geology as metaphor.

Seth didn't have much camping gear. But Rusty's brother, Ricky, had received a tent as a gift for good service at his Shaw Industries (carpet factory) job. It weighed 21 pounds and could sleep two families in its tri-winged design. We threw it in the canoe.

Seth stayed with us for one night. He got excited about the small rapids we descended, little ripples of current where the limestone bedrock rose to the surface and the river rushed over it. Gravity, a rare force in Florida, pulled him forward and he loved it.

We slept on a white sandbar beside the Chipola River. We explored every spring we saw coming into the river. Some bubbled through holes in the limestone banks, an audible eruption we could hear from upstream. Others flowed silently out of caves that we peered into with headlamps. Some springs, tainted in tea-colored tannins, invited us to follow them upstream, walking the channels' limestone sand floors barefoot. Sixty-three springs have been counted as tributaries to the Chipola. We probably saw a dozen. Seth would turn his kayak midstream and paddle against the current to look into each of them.

Horse ribbons

2011-11-23T19:46:00.000-08:00

CHARLES HAGLER, 67

LIVES IN: Bascom, FL (born in Dothan, AL, where the hospital is. I grew up on this farm. It's been in the family 100 years. Grandpa bought it in 1905.)

PROFESSION: Barber/redneck farmer/nothing

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Get to see a lot of people from different occupations. And I get to talk to a lot of people. Bullshit with them. Been at it 49 years almost.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Nothing bad about it. Mostly it's fun. When you work four days and get three days off, there's nothing bad about that.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Play around on the farm, mess with my horses. Aggravate my son-in-law (he's sitting next to us).

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: I'd like to go to New Zealand.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Us rednecks from the South

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Spaghetti with sauce. My wife don't feel good. And J.W. Dant (whiskey) and water

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Episcopalian. That way we can drink. My father was a Baptist preacher. He was a barber, too. Cut hair for 75 years. He started when he was fourteen, ended at 90. He lived to be 100.

ANY REGRETS: Not really. Hell, I've had a pretty good life. It was hard at times but who knows. You ride down a hard road in life, you're gonna fall off sometime and get skinned.

Charles was hanging around the barn Saturday early evening. His friend, Ricky Blackburn, a friend of mine, took me by Charles' place. Ricky and the boys around the farms and woods of Bascom seem to like Charles. He lets them hunt their land and they drink together and talk bullshit for as long as they can. Earlier in the afternoon, Ricky and the boys shot dove on Charles' peanut field.

Charles won the ribbons in horse shows. They hang over his favorite spot, the couch on the corner of his man cave, a small little room with saddles crowding one side, tackle on another, and a small kitchen beside the couch. Charles makes wine out of a scuppernong variation. It sits in reused J.W. Dant bourbon plastic bottles. The urine-colored drink has a slight carbonation to it, and it tastes like a dry cider and white wine.

Charles came back to Ricky's house with us, and we all ate the spread Ricky's wife Paula had made, almost entirely from local ingredients: fried dove smothered in gravy, mustard-turnip greens cooked for hours with ham hock, field peas, squash and onion casserole, fresh red tomatoes, mashed potatoes, cornbread, and biscuits. They said it's what they do when they aren't working - cook up big meals with the food they have around.

From the Vault: Horseback riding on the beach

2011-11-10T11:18:00.000-08:00

Henry Perez Jimenez, 31

LIVES IN: Bihagua, Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica (born in San Jose)

PROFESSION: Groundskeeper at Aguila de Osa Inn, Drake

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Working in the gardens with the flowers

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Nothing. It’s very nice.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Ride horses, work with chickens, see the wildlife, the Tucans

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Running of the Bulls in Spain

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Rice, beans, pork, juice

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: About the Osa Peninsula

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes, Catholic

11/13/08 4:30pm

Henry was waiting on the beach in this exact posture without moving for at least twenty minutes before I approached him.

Later that day I met a Costa Rican woman who works with the Metropolitan Sociometrics Research Institute. She sets up education and health programs to assist the poor, remote villages of the Osa Peninsula. She knew of Henry – had not met him, but had worked with his wife and children at their home.

She said Henry cannot read. He and his family live in a simple house with a mud floor. A creek separates the house from the road to town so when the rains hit, as they often do in the rain forest, the creek swells to dangerous flows. Henry crosses by swinging from a rope tied to an overhanging tree branch. He then rides his horse forty-five minutes to work at the four-star Aguila de Osa Inn on Drake Bay.

Straight-up

2011-11-02T09:59:00.000-07:00

JIMMY POLK, 54

LIVES IN: Franklin, TN (born here)

PROFESSION: Construction worker - blocks and bricks. Detail cars on the side.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: I like communicating with the people. It keeps me occupied and off the streets. I've been through a lot. I been to the penitentiary three or four times. It took a hard road for me to find out what life was all about. I was wild as a buck. I'm trying to talk to this younger generation about that.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Laying bricks. It's hard work. But it's good. Whatever you do, you take a interest in it and it's good.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I'm in my yard, planting flowers, staying in my backyard. That keeps me away from all the devils.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: I'd go to Hawaii.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Reaching out to the homeless and people that need help.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Two pieces of fried chicken and coffee.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Baptist. Straight-up religious.

ANY REGRETS: No. Only regret I have is... it ain't no regret. I just wish I'd had known then what I know now. I try to reach out to the kids - the white, the black, whatever. That's all I can do.

Boo

2011-10-26T15:13:00.000-07:00

LAWRENCE "BOO" MITCHELL, 40

LIVES IN: Memphis, TN (born here)

PROFESSION: Studio manager, engineer

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Man, the music, if that's not too general.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Egos

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Martial arts

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Japan

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Life in music

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Apple, green tea

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Spiritual

ANY REGRETS: Yeah, I think I wish would have started a little earlier, taking the studio more seriously when I was younger.

Boo runs Royal Studios in southside Memphis. He met us there this afternoon.

It's called Willie Mitchell's Royal Studios, and it sits in an indiscreet concrete box surrounded by empty lots, boarded up houses, a grocery with bars on the windows, and there are vines growing up and down the chain-link fences.

But Tina Turner has recorded here naked. It's where the legendary Al Green albums were cut. (The mic behind Boo's head is the one Green used, likely in that exact spot.) Other artists who've recorded in here include Rod Stewart, Keith Richards, My Morning Jacket, Ike and Tina, John Mayer, Buddy Guy, De La Soul, The Bar-Kays, and, just last week, Cody Chesnutt.

Royal Studios is one of the oldest continually operating studios in the country, having opened in 1957. Willie Mitchell, Boo's dad, opened it in the former silent movie theater built in 1915. The floor of the recording studio slopes toward where the screen would have hung. Elvis watched movies in here since he grew up about ten minutes away on the same street, Lauderdale.

Memphis is full of musical genius. Willie Mitchell was one. He didn't like how all the guys were sounding the same in the recording studios. So he started tweaking his space in 1965. By 1969 he had it configured for what would come to be know as the "Memphis sound." The secret to the one-of-a-kind acoustics seems to be the raw, naked mineral wool insulation covering the walls and hanging in "U"s from the A-frame ceiling. It looks like an old gymnasium after a hurricane has ripped through and shaken off the ceiling covers.

Boo runs the show now. His father has passed away, and he no longer has his genius hand waiting to make just the right tweak when the mix hits a wall. The jaundice-colored, garage-like space with the same sound boards and mics from the 70s has an acoustic like nowhere else in the world. Sound ghosts live in the exposed insulation. And Tina Turner has recorded here naked.

Glade Hill Cannery

2011-10-20T08:42:00.000-07:00

DOUG BROWN, 73

LIVES IN: Rocky Mount, VA (born in Franklin County, VA)

PROFESSION: Retired from DuPont. Made nylon

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Benefits

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Shift work

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I raise a big garden, fish, hunt

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Alaska

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: About sports

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Sausage biscuit and coffee

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes, Baptist. Was Methodist until two years ago. Baptist church is closer to where I live.

ANY REGRET: No, I've had a good, happy life: Married 53 years, two sons, three grandkids.

Waffle House Singer

2011-10-13T16:18:00.000-07:00

VALERIE PERRY, 35

LIVES IN: Autaugaville, AL (born Montgomery, AL)

PROFESSION: Manager at Waffle House

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: My people. My customers. I love them.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The benefits

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I sing at nursing homes. Go around and visit people in the neighborhood where I am. I do parties with my customers. My customers are my family. We do karaoke and the singing at nursing homes. I've had 18 customers pass this year and I've sung at all of their funerals. It's rough but we all have to come and go.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Africa

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Living Life to the Fullest

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Apple Jacks and orange juice

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes, Baptist

ANY REGRET: I have no regrets. I'm happy to be here and I'm living in good health and that's a blessing in itself.

Listen

From the Vault: Lostine Tavern

2011-10-12T07:24:00.000-07:00

DIANNA GARIEPY, 49

LIVES IN: Wallowa, OR (born Moses Lake, WA)

PROFESSION: Retired nurse. Waited tables, tended bar for 30 years. Drove a tow truck – ex-husband and I owned a business in Utah. Then I owned a business in Washington – drywall, painting, etc.

FAVORITE PART OF YOUR WORK: (bartending) I love the people. I know that’s a cliché but I wouldn’t have done it for that long if I didn’t like it.

LEAST FAVORITE PART: Drunks. The clean-up.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I like to read. I like to road-trip. I play poker – I’m working to be a professional. I’m 3rd in Washington state right now. I like sports, too. I went to college on a volleyball and basketball scholarship.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: I want to go to Germany. And I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I don’t know what I’d call it but it’d be about the experiences I’ve had in this business because it’s funny and wild and honest. It’s real life. You see people when they’re tired, hungry, happy, sad, drunk. I basically grew up in this business. Started when I was 15 in Ogden, UT. We wore white nurse shoes, a white dress, orange apron, and an orange pick in our hair. I’d call the book Life in a bar.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Rib-eye. Mom cooked it for me. Broccoli salad, macaroni salad. A couple glasses of wine. That was last night, I haven’t eaten today.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yeah, in my own way. I’m Mormon, I’d say. I’m a jack Mormon – I drink caffeine, smoke, drink wine.

PAT BORDEN, 66

LIVES IN: Wallowa, OR (born in Chester, ID)

PROFESSION: Right now, I’m cooking. In the past: raised six kids, worked in the Post Office, in logging yards, as a longshoreman loading barges in Alaska. Motel maid. I’ve had good jobs and jobs not so good.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: (of cooking) I like to send out good food. I don’t like fast foods – I like home-cooked food. Favorite job? Loading those stupid barges. It was an absolutely miserable job in Alaska but I liked it. I’ve wandered around a lot. I’m a gypsy. I found this place three years ago.

LEAST FAVORITE PART: I hated management at the Post Office.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Read, camping, gardening, canning, things like that. I like to travel.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: I would like to return to Norway and go to Sweden.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: People say I should write about my life, but I don’t know. Maybe. I’d like my kids to have their history.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Orange slices, french onion chips, biscuit. I ate off the salad bar. I’m a grazer.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Do I belong to a religion? No. Do I have spiritual values? Yes. But I was raised Mormon.

Bona-fide characters drink at the Lostine Tavern. You must have a definitive, long-established personality and you need a favorite beer. It’s like a name-tag or a birth mark. John, the horsepacker, drinks Hamm’s. They cost $1.50 in a can. Peter, the British mining engineer who lives across the street, drinks Moose Drool draft. Jim, the large man who talks a lot and very quietly – an odd combination – usually doesn’t drink, but today is his birthday so he’s having a beer, red. That’s Budweiser with tomato juice.

I’ll take a Moose Drool. I’m just visiting.

Lostine is in the northeast corner of Oregon where few people go and a few distinct mountain ranges swell out of the rolling landscape of golden farms and ranchland. The Wallowa Mountains rise south of Lostine, home to the Eagle Cap Wilderness and its alpine lakes and 9,000+ foot granite peaks. Nearby Joseph gets more attention for its chalet-style buildings and postcard perch beside Lake Wallowa.

It’s also where Dianna is heading after closing down the tavern. She’s the third-ranked poker player in the state of Washington (originally from Spokane) and there’s a game in Joseph tonight.

The Lostine Tavern opened in the turn of the century as a pharmacy and creamery. It evolved into a soda fountain and deli in the 1920s before becoming a tavern in the ‘40s. The original icebox cabinets sit prominently behind the beer taps, chilling the mugs and pitchers. The tavern stays open 363 days a year, seven days a week from 7am until the last customer leaves.

Pat says folks will call from hours out and order their ribeyes for an 11pm arrival. Pat obliges. She hand-cuts the meat and the potatoes for French-frying. She has twelve great-grandchildren and has lived from Lostine up to Wasilla, Alaska. (Yes, she met Palin, when she first ran for mayor.) Dianna and Pat are not really posing too much here. When no one needs anything, they stand side-by-side, elbows on the bar, smoking cigarettes like professionals.

I eat a 16oz rib-eye and drink my Moose Drool. As the night winds down, Peter and I stack stools on the tables and help with trash clean-up. Dianna gives me another beer for my effort. The following day I wake up early in my truck parked in Peter’s driveway. I spend the day hiking a long loop in the Eagle Caps, a foot of new snow in the valleys and only deer, elk, squirrel, and cougar tracks ahead of me.

I meet John loading his horses into his truck when I make it back to the trailhead. He’s returning from two nights setting up a winter camp high in the mountains. He gives me a lift down the hill, cursing the son-of-a-bitch icy road threatening to slide us and his towed trailer full of seven horses into a mess of horizontal pain-in-the-ass shitshow at the bottom of a son-of-a-bitch ditch. That's how he describes it.

We make it down to the Lostine Tavern. Dianna welcomes me with a Moose Drool and John with a Hamm’s.

Whirlpool Galaxy

2011-10-08T15:43:00.000-07:00

Bryan Cogdell, 29

LIVES IN: Right here. Soquel, CA. I'm in the cabin on the left. (born in Santa Clara)

PROFESSION: Research and design for telescopes for the hobby/amateur astronomy industry. The company is Orion.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The change of scenery. Sometimes I get to come outside here and set up for a project. I can be outside doing what I love to do and I don't need to be behind a desk.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The deadlines. I don't want it to sound like a cliché. But that's it. The pressure, the deadlines, not having the creative liberty at times. It's probably not as bad as some people's complaints.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Mountain bike, hike. And astronomy, specifically astro-photography.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: For some reason, New Zealand has been on my mind.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: A sci-fi novel that would involve a futuristic setting with old monarchy-style government. Kings and stuff.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Skirt steak, trip-tip, salad, potatoes, cheese, corn, a couple different wines.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Not particularly

ANY REGRET: I want to do more with less time. My regret is feeling like I have so much I want to do and so little time to do it in. I guess that's a pre-regret.

Mars is Bryan's favorite. He knows it's kinda obvious and maybe predictable, but he still likes it the most. He started noticing the stars in kindergarten. He got his first telescope in 1996.

Bryan likes the wonderment involved in astronomy. Look through the glass at the moon, he says. It's a quarter-million miles away. That's a number you can understand; it's on some cars' odometers. But then you swivel the scope toward the Whirlpool Galaxy (aka Messier 51). It's 20 million light years away.

Then Bryan wonders, "What does that really mean?"

Regenerator

2011-09-22T16:50:00.000-07:00

KATE TIRION, 63

LIVES IN: Patagonia, AZ (born North Pembrokeshire, Whales)

PROFESSION: Regenerative systems designer. Do you want a definition of regenerative? Sustainability means to last or endure. As an example, if you bury a plastic bottle in a landfill, it will last and endure. But to regenerate something means to bring it to life again. There's a lot more potential in a regenerative system than in a sustainable one.

FAVORITE PART OF YOUR JOB: Inspiring others to shift what has been happening in the world. To become contributors to a new future.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF YOUR JOB: Not getting paid. Having to deal with technology that I'm not so comfortable with.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I write, make art, and I mess with plants. What I do in my free time is really my work. There's no separation between what I consider my work and what I do in my free time. Even when designing systems, it's with an eye to expressing beauty that's inspired by natural systems. We must bring beauty into resilient systems in order to shift people's perceptions. Public speaking, too. I find it terrifying and edgy and also completely rewarding. Those are opportunities to inspire people to possibility.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Africa - Botswana, Madagascar, and Tanzania

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: It would be about how the deepest challenges that life presents us are really opportunities for personal transformation. I'm speaking from my own journey.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Green salad, avocados, pickled okra, turkey, cheese, corn tortillas, melons, and dark chocolate. Watermelon juice.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: I'm spiritual, but not religious.

ANY REGRET: It's interesting because I took care of my aunt when she was 97 before passing away. She had a lot of regrets. She was a marvelous artist. Went through art school and had the opportunity to work with her art teacher, but her mother, who was almost completely deaf, needed her to be a buffer between her and her father. So she put aside her art and regretted that forever. And she was good.
What that made me do was carve out time for myself to make art and have an art show. There's always a certain level of regret. I've thought about that question a lot because of my experience with her over a number of years. Some quite terrible things that I've had to go through have really shaped me in ways that I wouldn't change. They have really shaped my becoming who I am.

Micro Business

2011-09-20T20:21:00.000-07:00

MARIA ANTONIETTA GASTELUM, 40

LIVES IN: Nogales, AZ (born in Nogales-Sonora, Mexico)

PROFESSION: Taquera, business woman

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The kitchen

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: When business is slow.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I like to cook. I cook at home in my free time.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Greece

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: About food, a cookbook

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Catholic. I go to mass every day at eight in the morning. With my husband.

ANY REGRET: I have not done my studies. And I don't speak English very well.

Janet Napolitano said, as governor of Arizona in 2005, "Show me a 50-foot wall and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder. That's how the border works."

Nogales, AZ stares at a brand new metal fence that stands eighteen feet high. Nogales-Sonora, Mexico looks back from the other side. The fence costs well over $1 million per mile. Chunks of it get washed out each year during the late summer monsoon season. They build it right back. Diligent Mexicans cut holes through it with torches to drive trucks across the border. The government pays the funds to mend the hole. Meanwhile, the state cuts holes in the budget of the Nogales school system.

I know, it's the same old predictable leftist rant. But the obvious nature of it is perhaps what makes it so damn frustrating.

The two Nogales towns used to have daily trade interactions, the towns being at a cross-roads hub amidst a vast desert and mountain landscape. Now there's a short bus that carries Mexicans across the border to the American Wal Mart, then brings them back to the south side of the fence.

So commerce has slowed in downtown Nogales, AZ where most stores sell cheap clothes, shoes, luggage, and toys from China, at both wholesale and retail prices.

Antoinetta, "Cuata", used seed money from the Nogales Community Development Corporation (CDC) to open a taco cart in the marketplace that the CDC constructed in downtown Nogales. She's the only food cart there, despite the CDC's hope for eleven truck vendors. Cuata makes a little profit selling beef (cheek, tongue) and fried shrimp tacos and soups. She misses the commerce from the open border, though the thousand-plus patrol agents in town offer some business flow.

An aside: Patrol agents make $40k in their first year, climbing steadily to $70k and beyond within just a few years. Teachers in Nogales start in the mid $20k range. Again, almost too obvious of an injustice.

Cuata also makes sweet waters from lemon and tamarind and horchatas, homemade rice milk cut with barley or cinnamon or almonds. She cooks the juices at her paleteria, a separate shop where she sells Michoacan-style popsicles (paletas), the chunky blocks of frozen fruit and water or cream that sell out of push carts all over Mexico. Her parents had a pushcart popsicle business in Guadalajara, called "Tomy."

Cuata says that the paleteria is struggling, earning about $45/day and requiring $800 in rent and $200 in utilities (to keep all those popsicles and chocolate-covered bananas cold in the antique freezer case handed down from Tomy). But she has a two-year lease.

Ideally, she'll move to a new market place in a downtown Nogales abandoned timber warehouse, which the CDC hopes to renovate into a community market. There, she believes, she'll see more traffic and sell more popsicles, another attempt at a 51-foot ladder.

Piano Man

2011-09-17T21:12:00.001-07:00

CHRISTOPHER PEACOCK, 52

LIVES IN: Orcas Island, WA (born in Philadelphia, PA)

PROFESSION: Hotel manager and musician

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The people, the stories. It's all about the experience.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Cleaning rooms and taking complaints

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I thought this was my free time. Things with my family.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: I want to go to Venice. I have a lot of friends in the cruise industry and they always say Venice.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: "Stop Whining" You're in charge of your life, make it something.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Buck Bay oysters and mussels and clams with Januik Cold Creek Chardonnay

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes, I'm probably closer to Native American in my religious beliefs and it's more spiritual than religious. I was hired to play for a theater guild in college. We did "God Spell" and churches would hire us to perform so we did all these church performances: Catholic to Jewish to Methodists.I saw a lot of hypocrisy in all of it. And yet my sister is a pastor. I tell her I don't believe in the church. She understands it as a path to a higher being. Whether it's Buddha, Jesus, etc. I learn from my native Hawaiian wife's parents about the native spirituality.

ANY REGRET: One I have is that I wish I had this opportunity at Rosario's sooner (to improve the facility, service). The old corporation didn't care, now the new owners do.

Every day at 4pm Christopher plays the 1913 Aeolian organ and the 1900 Steinway in the music room at Rosario Resort and Spa. Christopher has been working at the Orcas Island resort for 31 years. As he says, it started as a summer job and turned into his retirement job.

Christopher majored in music at UCLA, and he studied with the LA Philharmonic. He was teaching in Camas, WA when he drove up for the summer job on May 21, 1980. On his way up Interstate 5 he noticed that Mt St Helens was smoking, and he thought to himself that it looked like it was going to blow. He didn't glance in his rearview mirror to see it erupt a few hours later. Christopher says he was probably listening to music or something.

Rosario was completed in 1909 as the mansion for Seattle boat-builder and Mayor Robert Moran. It's a home on a grand scale with an industrial-baron opulence only slightly scaled back from that of the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers. Moran loved the popular Arts-and-Crafts movement, so that, in addition to his boat-building experience, explains the tight craftsmanship and thoughtful details throughout the bulky, four-story house. Wandering through the stately, serious rooms lit by round marine-style lights feels like being on the Titanic. Wide arches divide the rooms and hallways, and there are plenty of odd touches like the basement's raised lap pool and a massive tiled game room that once housed billiards and a bowling alley.

Moran sold the home to the Rheem family of southern California in 1938. Rheem of the water heater brand. Mr. Rheem, it is said, bought the place so he could deposit his alcoholic wife there. Nancy Rheem became an island entertainer, mostly, it is said, for men. It was like a hunting and fishing lodge with a good-timing matriarch. It is also said, and widely believed, that Mrs. Rheem haunts the mansion. Christopher has seen her passing shadows and heard her footsteps.

At this point, Christopher, since he basically lives in the mansion, has been in Rosario longer than any of its owners. In addition to managing the large property (numerous motel-like buildings and grounds in addition to the mansion/museum/restaurant/spa), he remains the piano man, and he has a recording label for his "new age" piano music.

He almost seems like the ghost. Like some benevolent spirit in a nice, warm version of "The Shining."

On credit

2011-09-09T13:04:00.000-07:00

Latanya Turman, 40

LIVES IN: Atlanta, GA (born in Columbus, GA)

PROFESSION: Unemployed. Was in telecommunications as Senior Software Associate.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: (of the telecommunications job) Worked from home. It's not a career choice I made. I kinda fell into it. I worked with AT&T and started taking classes because they were free through the union. I got into telecommunications and started getting promoted.
(of being unemployed) I have time with my four and five year old kids. I take them to school and pick them up.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: (of the telecommunications job) The different personalities because I was always working with teams.
(of being unemployed) Being on a budget. I'm not used to it.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I like partying, cocktails. I love men so I like to flirt. I like to shop, but I'm not a front-of-store shopper. I'm a bargain hunter. It makes me excited to get deals.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Hawaii's been my life-long goal, ever since I watched Hawaii-Five-O growing up. But the more I know about the world, the more I want to get to other places, like Australia. I want to go to an event where there are as many Aussies in one place as possible.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I would write a book to show how females got to the place where they're disheartened, how their parents' experience influences who the females become. And how the male experience is influenced by who they grow up with, too. "His Journey, Her Journey" or something.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: No breakfast. I was a little queasy about this flight. Half cup of coffee, but afraid I might have to run to the bathroom. Last night I went to a luau and had Hawaiin pork, poi, rice, Asian veggies. Pineapple upside down cake. And mai-tais.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes, I am a believer in a higher power. I pray and talk to God, but I don't go to church regularly. I was raised up in a southern Baptist house, but I went to Catholic school. They are very different. Catholic Church is very quiet and ritualized. At the Baptist Church they're up shoutin' and praisin' and runnin' through there with the Holy Ghost.

ANY REGRETS: Yeah, I have lots. The biggest thing that hinders me in life is that I let myself get really heavy. I was 355 lbs ten years ago. When you let yourself get that big, you have problems with sagging skin, and it just ages your body. You can't fully recover.
I had bypass surgery on June 12, 2002. I was in New York City a few days before 9/11, and my friend wanted to take us up the Twin Towers. I couldn't go because I was so sore from walking the days before. Then (I was already back in Atlanta) and the towers fell a few days later. I committed to having that surgery right there.

Latanya and I made a date out of our Kaua'i helicopter tour. We were the only singles in our group, so they paired us for the hour-long flight over one of the world's most dramatic landscapes.

Latanya said she was nervous at first, but not because of flying. Rather, because of the cost. She's having to put some of her vacation cruise among the Hawaiian islands on credit, but she says it's her only chance to do it so she'll figure it out later.

Her jaw remained dropped throughout the entire flight.

Bamboo is Forever

2011-09-07T19:08:00.000-07:00

TROY BRETZ, 25

LIVES IN: Houston, TX (born there)

PROFESSION: Chemical engineer

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Everything

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Everything

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Sports: football, golf, tennis

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: I'm here right now, I guess.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I never thought about writing a book.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Turkey sandwich and peanut butter crackers, water

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Catholic

ANY REGRETS: Probably should have jumped in the pool back there. It's hot.

CHELSEA BRETZ, 23

LIVES IN: Houston, TX (born in New Orleans)

PROFESSION: Civil engineer

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The environment that I'm in. The group I'm with is more like a family.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Being stuck in front of a computer all day, everyday.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Stuff like this. Anything outdoors - hiking, biking, frisbee, football. I played soccer a lot.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: We have quite the list. I've done Europe, done Hawaii, mostly. Probably Australia and New Zealand next. But, like I said, we have quite the list. But we have time.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Random stuff. Things I've experienced, learned, and want to pass on.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Turkey sandwich and peanut butter crackers, water

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Catholic

ANY REGRETS: Not yet. Actually, I take that back. I left my battery for our DSLR camera back in Texas.

The Bretz had just been up to Hanakapi'ai Falls on Kaua'i's North Shore, the Na'Pali Coast. It's a 300-foot waterfall that finally hits its big clearwater black pool in a fine spray that you can swim under, even float on your back under. You pass a few massive bamboo clusters on the way to the falls and thousands of people have carved their names into the soft wood. Some locals call this Honeymoon Falls, and I think I was the only un-coupled hiker on the trail.

526137

2011-08-29T12:14:00.001-07:00

BARB VINCENT, 45

LIVES IN: Campbell River, British Columbia (born in Toronto)

PROFESSION: Cook and a wife for 37 years. I work for 526137, a logging company that's contracted through Interfor. I cook at the logging camp for 14 or 15 guys.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The crew. Just the crew and being out here. It's nice. I see hummingbird, cougar, deer, beaver, bear.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Cleaning toilets. But it's not bad.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I go for short walks with Oliver (dog). I only get about an hour and a half to myself. I start at 3:45am and end at 8pm. I like gardening and camping.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: In the interior of BC. I can never see enough of it all.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: How females can handle the loggers. We're a little bit tougher and rougher than you think.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Yogurt shake with banana and blueberry. Coffee - this is my fourth cup since 3:$5 this morning.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: No

ANY REGRETS: Absolutely none. I live in BC and have all this. Three healthy kids, healthy grandkids. Hey!

Barb works at the logging camp beside the Quatum River. The Quatum River occupies a wide U-shaped valley that drains a chunk of British Columbia's mainland mountains, and it flows into the Ramsay Arm of Desolation Sound. The loggers have cut roads into the valley and up the broad flanks of the mountains that rise to over 6,000 feet from valley bottoms. We wanted to climb one of the peaks, Mt. Doogie Dowler.

The prominent peak sits in the back of many of the Schwager family photos shot at their cabin on Cortes Island. They've been coming to the Cortes cabin for thirty years since Steve and Annie Schwager bought the place on a whim with Steve's two brothers. The property has a stone beach and a couple rock islands that connect to "the point" at low tide. Every view looks north and gets funneled between the flooded peaks that make up the jumbled, watery topography of Desolation Sound. On a clear day, the funneled gaze ends up at Doogie's, as the peak is known to the Schwagers. The cowboy-hat-shaped summit makes an exclamation point to their favorite view on earth.

Christine, Steve and Annie's daughter, took me to Cortes for the first time in April. Doogie's appeared out of the spring fog and dense, dynamic cloud cover only once or twice.

Back in Seattle, we started looking at maps, and I emailed an inn on nearby Quadra Island to find someone who had climbed it. The nice lady at the Heriot Bay Inn suggested three locals. I emailed them and they responded, though with foggy, vague memories of hiking the west ridge, or the east ridge, and of not using a rope but maybe wanting one. They said they approached the mountain from the Quatum River.

So Christine and I, this August, paddled from her stone beach to the Quatum River. It took two days. We stuck close to the steep shoreline of the islands when we weren't crossing the open passages in between. The cliffs disappeared under the gin clear water into the dark blue spookiness. We made it to the Quatum valley, its wide delta onto the Desolation Sound the flattest thing we'd seen for two days.

As we dragged our gear up the grassy delta in front of the gravel logging camp, a middle-aged man walked to us. He was a logger and he had a can of Lucky Lager in his hand and another waiting in his back pocket. He suggested we not camp in the grassland since bears - grizz and black - come down to scavenge in the oyster beds most mornings. We could pitch our tent on the gravel, near an empty house and near the sound of the massive generator that powers the camp's bunkhouse, dining room, and bathhouse.

We asked the man about the roads up to Doogie's. He said he knew them, that he'd cut them in years ago. He said he just took out two main bridges on them this summer and that the river crossings there would be tough on foot. He also said they saw a grizzly standing five feet tall on all four legs just five km up the logging road from camp. Grizzlies all over. Cubs, too.

So we decided not to go for Doogie's. We also didn't have a map. It became a scouting mission, maybe for a return visit with a plan to catch a ride on a logging truck, and a map. In the morning we used the bathrooms that Barb had just cleaned. She told us to watch out for bear in the alders near the grass as we got our kayaks back in the water, and she insisted we take a carton of apple juice from the fridge.

Doomed Dam

2011-08-05T10:57:00.001-07:00

JON RUGH, 27

LIVES IN: Issaquah, WA (born in Johnstown, PA)

PROFESSION: Unemployed - government-sponsored kayaker. (I'm an architect.)

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: To start something at the real beginning.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Consultants, specifically LEED consultants

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Work on wooden paddles, watch sci-fi on NetFlix instant, kayak, mountain bike, telemark skiing. Researching composite technology.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: That's a hard question. La Tourette Monastery in France. It's a famous, modern architecture project that's a silent monastery. It was designed by Le Corbusier.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I want to start a short story that is sci-fi. You want to hear the plot but you can't tell anyone because I think it's a really good idea that could be stolen. In the future, in the not-too-distant future, airlines are going to have to charge per pound, including the pound of the passenger. So businesses are going to have to start hiring midgets because they'll travel cheaper. They'll have lightweight clothing, too. We'll have a fully global energy grid so instead of roaming brownouts like in California currently, we'll have an electrical bubble that will roam around like weather patterns. So the midgets will have to follow this electrical weather pattern to keep their businesses profitable. They're like conditions watchers - like surfers following the swell or boaters with the rain. copyright 2011, Jon Rugh

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Eggs, hash browns, biscuits, bacon, coffee at the Fairmont Restaurant

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: I was raised in a Lutheran Church and I used to be an altar boy. But I have not gone to church in a long time. I would say I'm more spiritual than religious.

ANY REGRET: A couple, but I don't speak of them.

Jon went with me and my brother to the Elwha River. The river begins in the high alpine center of the Olympic Mountains, which is one of the most rugged, untrammeled ranges in the country. The Elwha flows 45 miles to its mouth at the Puget Sound, near the town of Port Angeles. It bisects a handful of geologic strata, making for a diverse and wild kayak paddle and a critical habitat for five species of Pacific salmon.

Near the mouth, two century-old dams back up its progress into two long, greenish-gray reservoirs. They were built in the early 1900s to provide power to the burgeoning town of Port Angeles. Now, after two decades of planning and debate and wrangling for funding, the dams will be removed via a multi-year rehabilitation and draw-down process beginning this September.

Jon, Michael, and I carried our boats to Lake Mills, the upper of the two reservoirs. A rim of driftwood - white, stripped cedars and firs - separates the forest from the old lake's high-water mark. It's like some sort of wood gasket. Since the water level has already dropped at least ten feet, we walk through a dense, sticky gray mud, just a fraction of the twenty billion cubic yards of sediment that has piled up behind the dam (enough sediment to fill the lower river's five mile, two-hundred-foot wide channel in 123 feet of sediment). One of the main concerns for the removal is what will happen to all that sediment. Hydrologists with the Bureau of Reclamation devised a mid-term plan (three years) of incremental lowering that will hopefully mitigate the harmful impacts of overwhelming sedimentation and allow for natural flushing of the river channel over time.

The receding lakeshore is another concern. The project involves growing ground cover in greenhouses so they can revegetate the exposed banks and reduce erosion. Salmon don't like muddy waters, and the Elwha is native spawning grounds for five Pacific species. That's the other major concern. Hatcheries are preparing to contribute Elwha salmon into the river when the time is right. That affects everything since salmon and their nutrients are a crucial link in the natural chain of Olympic Peninsula forests.

So we paddled the lake's green, glacier-silty water. No one was on the lake and a few orange-vest-clad contractors walked above the dam, clipboards in hand. We ate sandwiches on sun-baked, silt-covered gray stumps of trees that had been felled and flooded a few years before our grandparents were born. Then we carried our boats through salal and ferns and stinging nettles to reach the river section that flows below the upper Glines Canyon Dam and its 200-foot cascade. The paddle only took a few hours on the mellow whitewater. We drank Rainiers through the lower section and watched rafters jump off the rock bank and slide down the "waterslide" of their overturned raft.

When we took out just above the lower lake, two young locals stood on the mud bank and they asked us what we thought of their river. We said we liked it.

Famous People

2011-08-03T09:24:00.000-07:00

I've never made a portrait and interview of anyone famous, as in someone who's been photographed professionally and published in a magazine. I was on Denali for a month this June, and there were some famous mountain people lurking. Denali's 14,000' Camp is like the mountaineer's version of the Chateau Marmont for Hollywood stars; stay there long enough and some badass climber is bound to roll into camp.

We had Colin Haley for the duration of our week-plus stay at 14. He's arguably the biggest hot-shot alpinist in the world right now (aside, perhaps from this freak), pushing limits on first ascents from Pakistan to Patagonia. Haley would visit our Park Service tent and we liked his company because he's funny and smart and he doesn't ask silly questions. He was up on Denali with his climbing partner Nils Nielsen. The mission was a speed record on the famed Cassin Ridge. They acclimatized for a few weeks by skiing the Orient, skiing from the summit, and bagging some lower peaks in the Alaska Range. They did not end up making it up the Cassin because of poor snow conditions.

Toward the end of our stint up at 14 Camp, prior to moving higher, to 17,000' Camp, Conrad Anker and Jimmy Chin skied into camp. Anker is one of his generations' most accomplished mountaineers and, at his age, one of those rare climbers who's both old and bold. Chin recently had the cover shot and a spread from Yosemite's big walls in National Geographic. He shot another NG cover for a ski off Everest.

Conrad and Jimmy were basically the chaperones for their North Face big-mountain ski crew. The bunch of young stars, skiers whose posters hang in the bedrooms of teenagers across the country (Sage Cattabriga-Alosa, Ingrid Backstrom), showed up in bright Gore-Tex and fitted baseball caps with straight brims. They skied off the summit one day and put on some downhill shows for onlookers at the various camps along the mountain.

Conrad and Jimmy hung out in our tent, as well, and they make for good company. No egos or cynicism, just normal dudes who are happy to share their scotch when out and about in the big mountains.

COLIN HALEY, 26

LIVES IN: Seattle, WA (born in Seattle)

PROFESSION: Alpinist

FAVORITE PART OF YOUR WORK: Alpine climbing. The epics

LEAST FAVORITE: Airline baggage fees

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Climb and ski

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: The Gangotri Valley in Indian Himalaya

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I think I would write a book about the history of alpine climbing in the Cascades.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Granola with dried blueberries and powdered milk

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Hell no

ANY REGRET: No major ones. I’d say one time in high school I was too stoned to make a move on this girl I should have made a move on.

TRICK OF THE TRADE: Go light en route but you might as well be comfy in camp.

CONRAD ANKER, 48

LIVES IN: Bozeman, MT (born San Francisco, CA)

PROFESSION: I wish I could say I sold fire extinguishers. But I’m a professional climber.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Interacting with people. Putting a positive spin to the outdoors and encouraging people to be physically fit.

LEAST FAVORITE: Maybe interacting with people that don’t see climate change – what we as mountaineers see as obvious out here.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Rock climbing, running, reading, just about anything. Fun things.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: I’ve never been to New Zealand or Australia

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Why Violence is Useless

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Protein bars, fried muffin, coffee, juice, jerky: expedition food

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: No

ANY REGRET: Oh, just having more patience, in general.

TRICK OF THE TRADE FOR MOUNTAINEERING: Out here? Sunglasses and sunblock. A good book. This time I’ve been borrowing books.

JIMMY CHIN, 38

LIVES IN: Victor Idaho

PROFESSION: Photographer, Director, Climber/Skier

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The people

LEAST FAVORITE: Airport security

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Surf, play the guitar, read the NYT or the New Yorker

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Home / Ticla (surf spot in Mex)

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Both Sides of the Lens

THE LAST EAL YOU ATE: Gummi Bears

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Religious, no. Spiritual, yes.

ANY REGRET: None. If it's in the past, it's not worth worrying about. Learning lessons from the past though is an entirely different topic.

TRICK OF THE TRADE: Jack Black's Mint Lip Balm. Try it. You'll be bringing it along too.

From the Vault: Five Years Ago Tomorrow

2011-08-01T08:27:00.000-07:00

Mary Shope, “60” (born 1918)

Lives in: Las Vegas, NM (20+ years)

Profession: Worked at Fred Harvey, in the kitchen. But not now.

Favorite part of work: Dishwashing

Least favorite: I don’t know

What do you like to do in your free time: Sewing, cooking, cleaning, that’s all.

If you could travel anywhere: Albuquerque. Casinos, slot machines.

The last meal you ate today: Food, I guess. Soups, I guess. Vegetable soup.

Are you religious: Catholic

Sometimes it's fun to think back to where you were tomorrow, five years ago, or ten years ago, or one year ago. In my case, on August 2, 2006 I was wandering around northern New Mexico for a photography class at the Santa Fe Photo Workshops. The magazine I was working for at that time funded my week-long class in "Visual Storytelling," taught by Norman Mauskopf. He is a really good photographer and a really mediocre teacher. He seemed a little bored with teaching and mainly instructed us to be more bold in approaching subjects. We also learned about the idea of sequencing photos in a storytelling fashion, like a poem of images, I guess. Robert Frank was a master of that.

I walked by Mary's house on the fringe of downtown Las Vegas, NM, an odd little wild-west Main-Street town. Mary's house seemed to be one of those hold-outs among what was once an encroaching commercial boom, but which has since slowed to a crawl.

I noticed her in the door like this. Her mildly mentally handicapped younger brother was working in the yard. I introduced myself and asked if I could take a photo. He helped to translate for Mary since she was hard of hearing and difficult to understand. Then he invited me inside to show me his Charlie MacArthur doll.

The two-room house had two beds in the front room, blankets and clothes everywhere, and a cluttered kitchen with clothes piled on the counters and the wood stove's black soot covering the walls. Mary's brother sat on the corner of one of the overflowing beds and he sat Charlie on his knee and, with his hand stuck in the doll's back, he silently moved Charlie's mouth.

Today, the end of the day, I can guess what I'll be doing tomorrow. I was concerned to venture a guess earlier in the day out of superstition - what if I guess the normal, expected outcome (which is the only way to predict the future, as far as odds and safe bets go) and then something goes terribly wrong and I'm left regretful that I jinxed myself?

So it's now 8:34pm and unless a tree falls on the house (no wind tonight) or a malintentioned vagrant comes in through a window (I'm surrounded by three dead-end streets and woods and middle-upper-middle class families) or I suffer a young heart ailment (nailed the recent cholesterol screening), I should be ok to say that tomorrow, five years after this photo was made, I will wake in Seattle, eat fried eggs and toast, drink coffee, work in my attic office with the sloped-A-frame ceiling, one side of which holds a tacked-up, sagging map of the US, on a travel story about Anchorage, Alaska. Then I'll bike (this is the most dangerous part) to the ferry terminal, catch the ferry to Bainbridge Island to have my teeth examined by my girlfriend's dad. Then I'll ride back across the Puget Sound, on the ferry, for more work in the attic.

I don't like predicting the future.

Secret Beach

2011-07-17T22:37:00.000-07:00

Quinn Turla, 5
(I turned 5 on our first camping trip. We went to Neah Bay and the sand was really hot and we stayed up really late. And my Dad even let me play with the fire with fire sticks.)

LIVES IN: Kingston, WA (Born? I don't remember.)

PROFESSION: Going to school

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Every time I go to school they sometimes have new work for me and they sometimes don't.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Well, sometimes we do have a lot of time to play outside and sometimes we don't.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: That's my favorite part! Stay home and watch movies, go out to get ice cream, go out to eat, which we just did, and watch the fireworks at Fourth of July.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: South America

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I don't know.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Bear pancakes. What's in a bear pancake? Lots of sugar - icing and sprinkles.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: What does religious mean? My friend Christopher told me that when you die, your heart goes up to heaven, which is 100 more years above outer space.

A drizzly Sunday at Secret Beach in the Puget Sound of Washington.

From the Vault: Methow Valley, WA

2011-07-13T09:56:00.000-07:00

Cathy Upper, 55

LIVES IN: Winthrop, WA (born Germany. Moved to States at 1 year old, grew up in Seattle, lived in Methow Valley for 30 years.)

PROFESSION: Rancher/outfitter

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Being outdoors

LEAST FAVORITE: Changing sprinklers

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Horses, hiking, hunting, hockey, skiing

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: I’ve been thinking about that lately. Bhutan, maybe China, Australia. I’m a bird watcher, too. Somewhere where you can just go and sit. You just go out there and stand, really quiet. The birds move at a faster pace than humans so you can hear them moving around, doing their thing. It’s kind of like meditation.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Breakfast: Poached egg on toast with bacon. Coffee. Grapefruit.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I don’t know. There’s been quite a few books about the valley. Maybe Outdoor Karma: Meditation and Nature

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: In my own religion which is obviously outdoors. An all-God Karmic religion – the air you breathe in and out goes everywhere.

This photo was taken in February 2008 when my brother and I stayed three nights in this ski-in cabin above the Methow Valley for a magazine story. Friends were supposed to have joined us but the pass over the Cascades from Seattle got snowed in and we had to go later, mid-week, when our friends had to be at work. So it was just Michael and me. Cathy was cutting wood at another hut, and we found her as we skied around the groomed forest service roads one day.

We were just over in the Methow Valley again this weekend. My dad was visiting and we drove him over the North Cascades Highway. Dad has begun a mission to see as many national parks as possible. He has a wide-brim hat and it's filling up with park pins quickly, especially since he can retroactively apply the pins from parks he's visited before the mission began, like the Everglades, which he drove through often when traveling to banks in southern Florida when I was young and he was selling stocks and bonds. He says he crossed over the Tamiami Highway a lot and I actually remember hearing that name (Tam-mee-ammi) most of my life. It sounds like the double name of a bartender at the Flora-Bama Lounge, for instance.

Last year Dad and I took a road-trip through southern Utah. We banged out five parks in seven days. Dad loved learning about geology and especially erosion. It took a few days of traveling through the exposed, worn-down geologic textbook of Zion, Bryce, and Capitol Reef before he could put his faith in the abstract, other-worldly timeframe required by wind and water to sculpt solid rock into such chasms and domes and hoodoos, or, as Dad prefers to call them, "Hoe-Does." That sounds like a Little Debbie gas-station cream pie, something they might actually have as a snack at the Flora-Bama (Tamiami, I'll take your coldest Coors and one of them Hoe Does).

So as we drove over Washington Pass, Dad looked up the couloirs, their white collections of snow cutting sharp lines up the black-rock flanks of Liberty Bell and Early Winter Spires, a landscape enduring the same slow crumbling and decay as the deserts of southern Utah - wind, water, time - but obscured by a thick layer of fir trees and moss and soft black soil. Dad thought out loud about erosion and how young these mountains must be to remain so steep and jagged. It made him think of southern Utah, in its completely opposite climate, and he remembered the Hoe-Does.

4th of July

2011-07-07T20:14:00.001-07:00

Skip Ewing, 67

LIVES IN: Seattle, WA (born in Seattle. As well as my mother)

PROFESSION: Retired pre-school and elementary school teacher

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Watching the children grow/change. See the excitement of their learning.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Filling out paperwork. Record keeping.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Swim

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Mexico, haven't been there.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Be about baseball. It's my favorite sport. I know quite a bit about it. Might be a children's book.

LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Dinner, one and a half hours ago - sausage and macaroni and cheese

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes. Congregationalist. United Church of Christ, strong Protestants

ANY REGRETS: No, can't think of any.

Skip grew up overlooking Greenlake. He says his father saw the view over the lake when he and Skip's mother were looking for a house, and he said, "This is it, we're living here." So Skip has had a view of the west side diving platforms since he can remember. He has a photo of his dad as a teenager and he's standing in the water on the east side of the lake. It's different, Skip says, because, in the photo, the lake is mucky and was not really a swimming area back then.

I spent most of the evening of the 4th of July at Greenlake. The lifeguards patrol the diving board and swimming area until 7pm. Then they put a short white metal block that says Diving Board Closed over the two middle rungs of the high-dive ladder. And the lifeguard paddles the rowboat in and they leave the lake. Then the free-for-all begins. Jumpers remain on the dock or swim back out and they step over the metal closed sign and they jump off the high dive however they'd like - gainers, double bouncing, two-at-a-time, whatever. Creativity peaks. Everyone's an excited outlaw.

On this day, later, we were sitting on the grass on the east side of the lake, near that side's diving board. The east edge catches the last hour of sunlight so we had moved our scene there. Two men swam to the diving board platform, a large square block of concrete on pilings. One of the men dove off the low board. His partner practiced some sort of ninja taekwando. It wasn't very graceful or cool looking and everyone could see, like he was on a floating stage. He didn't care and we thought it was funny but also respectable.

Then two Ethiopian men waded toward the diving platform. But the water gets deep, at least eight feet before the diving dock. One of the men went under, arms overhead for a few seconds, then gone. His friend couldn't swim either, and had to stand looking into the black water and yelling for help to the guys on the platform. The ninja man finally understood and jumped in. He ducked under twice before pulling out the drowning man, already only semi-conscious. Onlookers then helped carry the limp body to shore. My friends know CPR and were ready, but the man was breathing and he recovered in the late sun light, soon surrounded by five firemen. The ninja man remained next to him, his arm around his shoulders. We watched it all, squinting into the sun.

Haggard

2011-06-27T12:40:00.000-07:00

Back in action. Denali patrol down off the mountain.

(Renny and Jane Jackson came down early, so not pictured here).

Denali Patrol

2011-05-26T01:24:00.000-07:00

The bloggus Meetus Peopleum will be down until late June. Please don't forget about us.

From top left to right, aka clockwise...

Brandon Latham, 39

LIVES IN: Talkeetna, AK (born in Houston, grew up in Dallas and Shreveport, LA)

PRPROFESSION: National park Service Ranger

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Being outside in the mountains

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Paperwork

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: That’s tough. Depends on where I’m at: up here I go fishing. In Yosemite, I climb.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Patagonia. Never been, always wanted to.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I don’t know.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Pizza, PBR

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: No. I have some beliefs in relation to Buddhism. I’m certainly not Buddhist but after reading about it and learning about it, I feel more in line with its teachings, but I certainly don’t claim to be Buddhist.

ANY REGRET: Nope

~ ~

Alan Feder, 41

LIVES IN: Carbondale, CO (born in Brooklyn, NY. Grew up in NJ.)

PROFESSION: Winter - ski patrol; Summer – summer ranger for Pickin County Open Space and Trails

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Being outside

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Summertime – the possibility that I might have to write somebody a ticket. Winter – having to be out there on the super cold, windy days.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Spend time in the outdoors – biking, hiking, climbing, mountaineering.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Nepal, Tibet area

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: It’d be cool to be able to write a novel… about…? I take that back. It’d be non-fiction and it’d be about how people could improve the overall quality of life of people in America. Educating people more about reduce, reuse concepts. The concept is that when you go to suburban areas, people go through the day without thinking about the consquences of what they do. So I’d like to try to address that. But I don’t have a title.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Last night – veggie tacos at Beartooth Grill in Anchorage.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: No

REGRET: No, not to this point in my life.

~ ~

Ang Tshering Lama, 39

LIVES: Kathmandu, Nepal (born in the village north of Kathmandu)

PROFESSION: Guiding, trekking in mountains

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Being out

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Winging clients (pronounced, “win-jing.” Means complaining)

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Just go out, explore more. Just like to be out all the time.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Antarctica, New Zealand, Australia

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: My autobiography

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Biscuits and gravy/reindeer sausage. They’re good. Too big, though.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Do I look like one?

TRICK OF THE TRADE FOR MOUNTAINEERING: Go light. Have the right attitude. Positive.

~ ~

Jane Jackson, 19

LIVES IN: Was in Portland, now in Jackson, WY (born in Jackson)

PROFESSION: Student – use that as long as I can

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: I can pretty much do whatever I want – not tied down.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: I guess just the transition from moving out of my home and not knowing where I’m going. And having no money.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Skiing. Being outside, reading, hanging out.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Right now, I think probably Latin America.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I don’t know.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Bagel and cream cheese, water

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: No, not really. Maybe spiritual.

ANY REGRET: I went to Spain last year and I wished I had stayed longer.

~ ~

Renny Jackson, 59

LIVES IN: Jackson, WY (born Cleveland, OH)

PROFESSION: Retired park service ranger (34 years in Tetons and Denali). Now a mountain guide with Exum in Jackson, WY

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Freedom to go into the mountains and do whatever I want.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Dealing with death over the years.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Climb, write. I love to ski and go into the mountains for fun, not for work.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Back to Nepal

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: A Climber’s Guide to the Teton Range (I need to do the revised edition, the fourth.) Renny co-wrote the third edition.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Roast beef sandwich from Mountain High. Diet Coke

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: No

TRICK OF THE TRADE: Walk and breathe

~ ~

Dan Goddard, 38

LIVES IN: Carbondale, CO (born Durango, CO)

PROFESSION: I’m a fuckin’ professional dirtbag. I don’t have a profession. What’d Ang call it yesterday? “What’s a climber without a girlfriend? Homeless.” But I’ll say paramedic. That’s how I sell myself for whatever I do – ski patrol, river guide.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Meeting new people, going to new places. I’m selfish about it. You should say, “I really like helping people in their time of need.” But I like meeting people first, then you help them if they need it.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Lack of sleep – long days.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I do the same stuff in my free time that I do in my work. I work to live.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Some place new. I don’t know where yet. Like this. This is new to me.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I hate that question. That’s an interview question.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Biscuits and gravy – that’s my favorite meal. Ohh, I love it. Stick to the ribs.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Umm, yes. Outdoors is my religion. I’m not orthodox religion. I believe in certain things and most of it involves nature.

ANY RECURRING DREAMS: I can’t think of any. Must not remember my dreams.

ANY REGRET: Nope, you gotta live your life with no regrets. That’s one of my main beliefs.

These people are climbing Denali with me. We leave tomorrow. It seems silly, to walk up a massive mountain near/in in the Arctic and be cold for four weeks. But some people like to do it, and the mountain is in a national park, so the national park wants to protect the people walking through its property. And they want to be sure they get rid of their poo in the proper places. So they send a few rangers up during the heavy climbing season, and the rangers get to take some volunteers (aka friends), and the whole gaggle of them patrol the mountain, sometimes to save lives, and more often to clean up silly people's poo.

Therefore, these are the people I'll be spending every day with for the next month.

Only Doc in Town

2011-05-20T15:47:00.000-07:00

Dr. Keith Morrow, 55

LIVES IN: Belgreen, AL (born in Red Bay, AL)

PROFESSION: Family practice physician

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Just the people. I love my patients.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The hours. I get to the hospital around 6:30 in the morning and we get out of the clinic here around 6:30 at night.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: We live on a lake. We like boating. We're huge Alabama fans.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: I've always promised my wife I'd take her to Italy. She's always wanted to go. But otherwise: Boston, San Diego, San Francisco. Realistically, though, I'm a dedicated workaholic. I'm usually always here.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: It would be kinda like the Life and Times of Primary Care Medicine because to do it a long time you've got to be really dedicated to it. I have a patient who gave me the quote that will be either the beginning or the end of the book: "Doc, one more red light and I wouldn't have made it."

THE LAST THING YOU ATE: I didn't eat today yet. Last night I had grilled bbq chicken, baked beans, special potatoes, tea.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes, Christian

REGRET: No

5/11/11 2pm

Dr. Morrow, his staff, and the town of Hackleburg, AL lost their only clinic when the April 27th tornado ripped through the center of town at 4:25pm. Dr. Morrow stands in what was his clinic, with the offices behind the exposed wood framing. His building was leveled, as was the pharmacy next door, the Piggly Wiggly grocery store next to that, and the Dollar General one stop further.

Thirty-six of thirty-eight businesses in Hackleburg were lost. They only have a sub shop and a bank now. Morrow's staff salvaged almost all of the patient records after the lid blew off the clinic and the skies returned to blue-bird, calm, and cool.

Now Morrow, the only doc in Hackleburg and neighboring Phil Campbell, AL sees his patients in two trailers - one donated by a company and outiftted by a local handyman with AC and shelving and even three curtained booths. The regular patients can at least get their insulin and high-blood-pressure meds. Dr. Morrow, at least, can keep busy.

Tornadoes and Trains

2011-05-16T11:26:00.000-07:00

Leo Kordsmeier, 65

LIVES IN: Conway, AR (born in Little Rock, Arkansas)

PROFESSION: Retired pharmacist (40 years)

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Leaving. No, I really enjoyed it but I got started in an independent drug store as the delivery boy. Back then you knew your customer, had their phone number. We really gave them their service that you don’t get at WalMart and Walgreen’s. I loved knowing the customer.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Toward the end, as they picked up in volume, it became more like the chains. You didn’t have time to know the customers. I knew there was no way I could have made it at Walgreen’s or WalMart – you just fill out prescriptions all day. You’re a robot. The customers don’t ask you questions because they see that you’re as busy as a cranberry merchant.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Build trains. And we took up cruising, recently. My wife and I’ve been on four cruises and got a fifth one coming up. The first one’s a little awkward because you’ve never been on one. But then you get used to it and the first thing you do when you get to your room is put down your wallet and your watch.
My wife worried I’d get bored on a cruise, but no. The library has tables for jigsaw puzzles and they’re open so people gather there and chat and work on the puzzle. I’d spend hours there.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Rome. I’m Catholic so it’s kinda automatic.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: English muffin from the free hotel breakfast. I’m getting sick of that.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: It’d be my experiences in pharmacy. Some guy from the Democrat interviewed me for a story but he wouldn’t put my favorite one in there:
I was a delivery boy and I got a call from a guy who wanted to know if we sold condoms by the gross. I asked the pharmacist and got a price and the guy came in two hours later. I had the condoms for him but I said, “I don’t mean to be impertinent and it’s none of my business, but we’ve never had anyone buy a gross of condoms.” He said you wouldn’t believe why. Said he and his wife had found a unique variety of corn and they couldn’t find the seeds anymore. So they’d save some seeds at the end of each harvest to replant and they’d store ears of it in their freezer, wrapped in condoms so they could eat them through the winter.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Catholic

ANY REGRETS: None. I’ve had a good life. I worked, my wife worked (in Little Rock schools as librarian for 24 years). So we put aside enough so when we retired, it was just smooth. Our income hasn’t changed.

5/9/11 12pm

The Vilonia tornado of April 25th destroyed the train set that Leo had been working on for seven years. It was a minor loss compared to the complete destruction leveled on most of the homes of Leo's Black Oak Ranch community. Leo will probably rebuild the track and have it running again - all three trains, including a New Orleans-style trolley car.

Storm Cellar

2011-05-09T21:37:00.000-07:00

Inez Coker, 95 (pictured with her son, age 77)

Lives in: Vilonia, Arkansas (born here)

Profession: I married when I was 16. I never finished high school. But I had a wonderful life. Two children, a son and a daughter

Favorite part: Of raising a family? Taking the kids places. We’d go camping a lot. That was our favorite thing. Back then, we went to the park in Conway on the Arkansas River.

Least favorite: After they got grown. When they left home.

Free time: I did crochet and embroidery and I sewed. I made all my children’s clothes. I made my clothes, too. I have two children, four grandchildren, ten great-grandchildren, eight great-great-grandchildren, and in July I’ll have ten when the twins come along.

Travel: I always loved to go to Branson, MO. I’ve been on lots of tours. My husband’s been dead for fifteen years. I’ve been to Vegas, Mississippi, lots of places.

Last meal: Fried chicken and slaw and French fries and a piece of cake. Glass of milk. I love milk. I don’t drink cold beverages. Just milk and water.

Book: Oh honey, I don’t know.

Religious: I’m not real religious, but I go to the First Methodist Church in Vilonia.

Regrets: Not that I know of. I’ve had a wonderful life.
I was so young when I ran away and got married and everybody said it wouldn’t last. But it did and we were happy sixty-some years. Married in ’31 and he died in ’95. He was a car salesman. For Chevy. Now I drive a Buick, but it’s made by GM.
I hope this (the tornado) never happens again, but if it does, I’ve got a hole to go down into.

~ ~ ~

The Vilonia sirens went off and most of the people went underground, into storm cellars. Then the weirdness started. Hearing the tales from the survivors (only five deaths in Vilonia, a minor number relative to that of Tuscaloosa, AL) explains the genesis of the Wizard of Oz. Some people couldn't get out of cellars because a tree had fallen across the door. A power line came down across one cellar exit. One family out in the demolished community of Black Oak Ranch huddled in their hallway, the only part of the one-story home that remained in tact. Two neighbors down the hill weren't so lucky. They left their trailer for the metal storage shed and it was lifted and dropped into the pond at the edge of their property where they drowned.

When the doors started opening, after the tornado had moved on, eventually to be sucked back into the nothingness from where it came, the community began.

Lendora Donham got a text from her mom before she even came out of the closet she and her husband were hiding in (they had no cellar). The text said, "If you get this, Vilonia needs chainsaws and volunteers." Lendora and her husband put their boots on, he grabbed his chainsaw, and they walked the three blocks to the fire station. Over a hundred people were already there, waiting to find out how they could help.

Lendora asked the fire chief, Keith Hillman, what she could do. He pointed across the street to the Senior Citizens Center (which is next to City Hall). He said go over there and take care of that scene. The Senior Center was already becoming the de-facto relief station and Lendora, over the course of the next four hours, became its leader. For the next two weeks she barely left the building from 4am to 10pm every day. She coordinated volunteers, meals (up to 800 meals made in one 24-hour period), and she called Pepsi, Coke, banks, and other companies for relief supplies.

She watched at one point as National Guardsmen sat at one table, a group of seniors at another, and a crowd of kids at a third. All of them were laughing and content and their bellies were full. Lendora looked at the other volunteers and said they had created a good place in that building, a community place. She told me she saw women volunteers emerge from being wallflowers accustomed to taking orders at home, to finding a purpose and a voice and a power right there in two weeks, serving people in that Senior Center relief shelter. Lendora had never done anything like this in her life. She's a tax preparer.

Sandy Towles worked in the kitchen, helping the women volunteers cook hot dogs and hamburgers with the meat supply that never ran out thanks to the thousands of pounds donated from local companies. After a few days the volunteers and displaced families asked for something other than hamburgers, so Sandy and the crew got creative, using the ground beef for lasagna, meatballs, and stroganoff. They're going to put a cookbook together for future relief efforts in other towns.

Sandy took me to find Inez. Inez had waited out the storm with fifteen others in her rather stylish-retro storm cellar twenty feet from the side door to her house. She and her son showed it to me (photo above). I told Inez and Sandy how amazed I was that so many people not only had storm cellars, but actually used them. They said their friend Lorena, who is 86, had endured the storm in her cellar with 23 other people. When Lorena and family emerged from their half-sunken room, which had flooded since there was no door and they'd had to hold a plywood board over the opening, Lorena's trailer had been completely lifted from its foundation and deposited a hundred yards away, splintered and obliterated. It took a bulldozer to unearth her purse, but she found it, along with some of the photos she'd collected from her 86 years and kept in a basket next to her recliner chair.

One photo, with Lorena seated in front of her family, landed in Inez's yard a half mile away. Inez showed it to me.

Sandy told me about Alfonso Walle and his wife Nora Ortega who own El Rancho Mexican restaurant. As soon as power resumed a few days after the storm, they opened their restaurant and served free meals for a day. They continued to deliver food and children's clothing over the next two weeks. I went in for lunch and Alfonso ran around the packed restaurant and he carried to-go sacks to people coming to the door. I heard him tell some people not to worry about paying.

In the evening, I bought sixteen tacos from Alfonso and drove them a few miles out of town where Mica and Carroll Gunter live. They manage a small home for Veterans on a pretty, quiet piece of property. Their adopted Mexican son, Pedro, learned after the storm that the family of his friend, Kevin, had lost their home in the Black Oak Ranch. Kevin's one of four kids in the Perez family, his parents from Durango, Mexico. Pedro's family is American, from Vilonia.

The Perezes had driven into town to the safe room at the elementary school, watching the tornado as they went. So the family of six was safe, but they had nothing. They are now staying in the Gunter's backyard apartment until they can rebuild on the Black Oak land they own. We ate tacos on the picnic tables behind the houses as the light faded. Spanish and English were spoken and the kids ran around on the grass. Fireflies even popped out, as if there needed to be a reminder of magic.

Skipping Mass

2011-04-19T05:55:00.000-07:00

Erin King, 17

LIVES IN: Washington, MO (born in Marthasville, MO)

PROFESSION: Student. I started working at Purina Farms this weekend. I held a bunny for the first time. I held it out and let toddlers pet it.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Having summers off. I guess that’s kinda sad.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Being in school. No, I don’t mind school all that much, really.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I hike a lot. And anything outdoors. We go kayaking. I’ve never actually been on the Missouri. I went up to the Boundary Waters for two weeks with my dad. Just us two, camping. So now I want to do that more.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Right now I’m looking at New Zealand. Not really sure why. I would go anywhere, though. Not too picky.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Well, my sister and I compiled a list of things that someday we’re probably never going to turn into a book. It’s a collection of all the stuff people do to make themselves feel better. I know a girl who volunteers at hospitals and just holds the crack babies. They cry all the time. I’ve been compiling a collection of those. I ask a lot of people about it and most people say either, “I talk to someone” or “I take a walk” or “I smoke pot.” But when you find an interesting one, it’s definitely worth it.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Crackers and an apple, some cheese. For lunch.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: I’m supposed to be at Mass right now. How’d you get out of that? I don’t know. Are you Catholic? I was raised Catholic. Then you know.

ANY REGRET: Not really. Sometimes I wish I lived somewhere cooler, but that’s not something I can really change.

4.17.11 6pm

Erin says this is the best spot in her town.

McDonald's Slayer

2011-04-17T18:41:00.000-07:00

Marvin McKinney, 72

LIVES IN: St. Peters, MO (born in St. Louis County)

PROFESSION: Operator, demolition

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: I just like tearing them apart.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: There's not really any least favorite.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Watch TV, fish

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: I don't know, really never thought about it.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Bologne sandwich, Pepsi

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: No

ANY REGRETS: No

4.15.11

I'm not a McDonald's hater. I don't think too much about it, really. We've all heard that rant. But I don't mind feeling a little jealous that Marvin got to rake his backhoe's big metal spork through that red shingle roof, across those black and red brick walls, tearing into the vents for the deep fryers, and busting right into the greasy brown-and-tan floor tiles.

(This post uploaded thanks to the strong signal picked up in the parking lot of a still-living McDonald's.)

Mud Summit

2011-04-12T11:04:00.000-07:00

Scott Mandrell, 45

LIVES IN: St. Louis, MO (born in Alton, MO)

PROFESSION: 7th – 8th grade teacher

FAVORITE PART OF YOUR WORK: Kids

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF YOUR WORK: Kids

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Paddle. Walk in the woods, really.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: The Galapagos Islands

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: It would be about traveling

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Cheese and garlic breadstick (hot dog bun)

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: I’m spiritual

ANY REGRET: Smoking

4.11.11 11pm

Scott is playing the fife, an old military wind instrument that was used as a means of communication among troops. Scott told me that, shortly after I mistakenly called it a “flute.” He’s playing it here atop the highest point in St. Louis, which overlooks downtown (miles away) and the Mississippi River (a quarter-mile away).

Scott likes old things. He teaches engineering and sciences and he knows a lot about geology and hydrology – old but real things in the St Louis world formed by the intersection of the two biggest rivers in North America, the Missouri and the Mississippi. Scott pointed from the mud summit, for instance, downstream to a place east of St Louis where he said that 750 years ago 50,000 people lived in the third most populous city in the world at the time. He said the chief wore gold from Mexico, turquoise from Arizona and shells from Florida and that it all got there by canoe. This is the center of the water universe for our continent. A mile north of here, you can make a choice to paddle to the Pacific Ocean, to the Atlantic, or to the Gulf of Mexico.

Scott was on the official Lewis & Clark re-enactment expedition. They traveled by horse from Washington, DC to the Ohio River, then up the Missouri in keelboats, overland again to the Columbia River, and west on it to the Pacific. They stayed true to the exact dates of Lewis and Clark’s mission.

Today I’ll hop into a Kevlar canoe with Mike Clark, a good friend of Scott’s but of no relation to William. Over six days we’ll paddle up the Missouri River for 68 miles, hopefully, to Washington, MO where I’ll leave the journey and make my way, via train to the St Louis airport, then economy-class rental car, to Kentucky for other work. Mike will portage the canoe eight miles overland to a creek that meets, after two long days of paddling, the Mississippi south of St Louis. Then Mike will paddle up that river for five days to return to St Louis and true the loop of his circumnavigation expedition.

At least, that’s the goal. Lots of people think Mike can’t do it, which he likes. His elementary and middle school students who will be following and “advising” us through the journey, think he can. One fifth-grader warned us about bull sharks. Many others were concerned about spiders. Most of the students I asked wanted to come with us.

So the night before we leave we got the birds-eye view from this new St Louis summit. A man named Bob built the mound of mud around his massive property that sits across the street from Mike Clark’s canoe house. Bob bought an old cement factory and started hauling in dirt from anywhere he could get it. The mounds enclose the property in a weed-and-shrub-covered barrier that looks like tailings piles from a mine, the edge of a landfill, or an actual Mississippi levee.

Inside the hills, Bob is building an “amusement” park. He calls it, "Cement Land." It’s the amusement park that Tim Burton, Gaudí, Willy Wonka, and Hunter S Thompson would sit on the board of. It’s half-finished and I’ve only seen it at night with the half-moon sky purple and its few clouds reflecting the orange glow of the city lights. We crawled in through a hole in the fence, with glass beers tinkling in a shoulder-bag cooler. We walked across long iron planks from the factory that Bob had laid down over the moat of water he coursed through the interior. A massive circular concrete block with a hole in the center sits fifteen feet over the water and Bob has placed four concrete pillars in the four directions. Wrought-iron fences line bridge-ways. An old houseboat sits in a rectangular clearing of mud near the summit. Bob lived there for a time with his Italian wife. Who knows what his plans are for the abandoned factory buildings. He wants Mike to help him put a sixty-foot tree in one, to grow through the roof.

Bob owns the City Museum in downtown St Louis. It receives over a million visitors a year and is many people’s favorite stop in town, more-so than the Arch, even, or a Cardinals game. Mike describes it as a hobbit trail of a museum with crawl spaces, chutes and ladders, and a bus cantilevered through the exterior and over the entrance. You can walk into the bus and look down.

Scott says he’s read about a pseudo diagnosis of the early 1900s called “concrete dementia.” He says he heard it associated with people who started building with concrete and could not stop, just kept adding layers and layers, driven manic by the infinite potential of it all. The possibility to continually change and mold and redo. He thinks maybe Bob has that. He also mentioned the man who built the “Garden of Eden” in Lucas, KS. It’s a rambling concrete house with concrete yard art in the middle of a residential neighborhood of a flat corn town. I’ve been to that town and I interviewed the young woman who sat at a desk in the concrete house’s living room and sold tickets to the few visitors.

We walked off the summit and down the newest mud hill in a city that sits beside the endlessly shaping and reshaping mud conveyor belts of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. The Red River was flooding thousands of miles away in the Dakotas, its water and mud heading toward us. Our steps downward sunk into the loose hill, seemed to push it lower, and the rise and fall almost felt dizzying.

Late bloomer

2011-04-04T13:44:00.000-07:00

Jeff Randhawa, 55

LIVES IN: Calgary, BC (born in Punjab, India)

PROFESSION: Permanently unemployed. I retired from home building. I was a general contractor, meaning I know nothing.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The satisfaction of doing a good job that people appreciate. About being retired, my favorite part is experiencing new things.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Dealing with assholes. Least favorite part of being retired is too many choices.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: There is none. Between skiing and the climbing and the working out, there's not much free time. A little theater. I just started that. I'd never done so thought I'd try it out. Maybe some commercials. I can play a few different characters.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Everywhere. That's what I'm trying to do. I've traveled to about twenty-five countries so far.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: People

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Bagel with meat. Water

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: No, but I'd say I'm spiritual.

ANY REGRETS: Could have experienced more, started earlier in the outdoor pursuits. I didn't start until my mid-40s. My wife read somewhere that I'm now a "senior." But I think I'm doing alright.

4/2/11 5pm

Jeff says he likes being in the mountains and going on new adventures because it makes him feel like a kid. He looks serious in this photo, but he's not really. We shared two nights in small huts with Jeff's guided crew on the Wapta ski traverse. He bounced around the cramped huts fetching snow buckets for melting water, cooking "curry in a hurry," as he called it, trying to fix the propane line, and even constructing some sort of tarp enclosure around the pee bucket that sat in the corner of the hut for nighttime emergencies.

Mayor of Bow Hut

2011-04-04T08:01:00.000-07:00

Jamie Tackman, 57

LIVES IN: Wenatchee, WA (born in Redmond, OR)

PROFESSION: Retired pilot for the Forest Service with heavy air tankers. Smoke jumper before that (16 years in both)

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Working with really professional people in really dangerous environments. Working well with people who are away from you and who have to trust you and know you aren't going to kill them. You get a pretty tight camaraderie in that type of work.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Working for the government. Being immersed in bureaucracy.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Ski, obsessively. And bicycle. And hiking. To be honest, my time was limited when I was a pilot - there was a lot of demand for flying. Fire season is almost year-round, somewhere. It would start in May and run through November. I'd start in Florida, then move to Texas and Arizona and then up the Rockies. You'd finish the season in southern Cal with the Santa Anas. It could be as late as December.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Gosh, I think I'm here. This is an awful good spot, as good as it gets.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Probably the only book I'd be interested in writing is about fires. The Forest Service had a number of fire-related fatalities and I was involved in a bunch. And there were a lot of untold facts to the stories that need to be told.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Mac and cheese and water

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: No. Anti.

ANY REGRETS: When I went from being a smoke jumper to being a pilot I left a really great community (in Twisp, WA). It's hard to look over your shoulder and know that was a good move, but I do wonder about that.

3.31.11 7:30pm

Jamie had been staying in the Bow Hut, the central hub of the Wapta Traverse, a glacial ski tour along the Alberta-British Columbia border, just north of Lake Louise. Jamie and his buddy skied in from Bow Lake and stayed in the hut for six nights. Most people come and go in one or two nights, so the two men had become the de-facto mayors of the bustling, steaming hut. They cleaned the floors, organized pots and pans, split wood, and changed out the shitter barrels. It was kinda nice to have a fatherly presence amid the chaos of a busy, cramped, Gore-Tex-decorated hut at the edge of an icefield.

Hans

2011-03-28T09:23:00.001-07:00

HANS LEE, 34

LIVES IN: Birmingham, AL (born in Atlanta, GA)

PROFESSION: Maintenance

FAVORITE PART OF YOUR WORK: Interacting with people

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF YOUR WORK: Nothing

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Check my email

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD: Australia

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: My life story

WHAT WAS THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Breakfast. Cereal and OJ

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: No

DO YOU HAVE ANY REGRETS: None

3/27/11

Hans' step-brother, Jim, is one of my best friends. We grew up together and some people used to say we looked alike. Jim is now a doctor and I asked him what, exactly, is the diagnosis for Hans because Hans is socially and mentally challenged. Jim said there is no specific diagnosis, though his condition has similarities to aspergers or autism. They think a simple head trauma occurred at birth. He has trouble with time, like he wouldn't know if he had visited me one month ago or two years ago. He also has trouble sequencing things into a progressive order, which is why he has a notebook of recipes with a page on frying an egg, for instance, that begins with "Turn stovetop burner handle to Medium," then, "Place butter in pan on burner," etc.

When I moved to Birmingham, AL for a low-paying internship after college, Hans' mom offered for me to live with Hans in his spare room. Hans had attended the University of Alabama-Birmingham's special education program so he had the basic skills to live on his own, and the school set him up with a steady job as maintenance/janitor at a church near his house.

Whether it's snowing, 100 degrees, or raining sideways, Hans leaves his house at 5:30am and walks over a mile to his job, returning at 3pm. It's not an option like it is for most of us alternative commuters. I like to think Hans is tougher than most for that reason, but he would never consider himself tough because to do so he'd have to gauge himself against others and I don't know if Hans does that. He seems to operate without the burden of an ego. I've never heard him complain about anything.

Hans pronounces his name, "hance." He loves wallets and he buys a new one roughly every month. But his crazy dog tears them up sometimes.

When I lived next to Hans for a year (years after I'd actually lived with him as roommate, I moved in with a girlfriend who happened to live in the house next to Hans - as in, we could talk to each from our decks), we'd ride our bikes down a paved trail to the Brookwood Mall. One of Hans' favorite things, along with buying a new wallet, is buying magazines. He knows as much about Hollywood and pop culture as John Tesh. And he loves the local news team. He's toured their Birmingham studios and I've been with him at the mall when he's recognized local anchors in street clothes shopping. One time, the anchor person recognized Hans and said hello. Hans responded shyly, but talked about the encounter for hours later.

Hans continues, on his own, to ride to the mall most Saturdays. He spends his discretionary income on magazines and wallets and occasionally a new ballcap or souvenir t-shirt.

When Hans recently visited my brother and me in Seattle, we went to the Museum of Aviation at Boeing Field. I had mentioned it in passing and Hans latched on to the idea. It doesn't take much to make Hans happy. We walked on a gray beach on a gray Puget Sound morning and Hans told people for the next two days about the experience and taking photos of the seagulls. But he was especially glad to go to see Boeing Field and visit the aviation museum. His dad and uncle had worked in aviation labor jobs, and his dad had even worked in Seattle's Boeing for a while.

At the Museum of Aviation we walked through the Air Force One and it smelled a little bit like a 1970s RV or any other cramped, carpeted, infrequently cleaned space from the 1970s. We walked through the Concord and read about how it makes a sonic boom in flight. Hans already knew that, but I did not. Then we spoke to the museum docent, a retired Boeing employee, outside the ramp to the plane. Hans told him that he was visiting from Alabama and that his father and uncle had worked at Boeing.

In the museum, Hans could identify many of the old fighter jets. Not with complete accuracy, but close enough. I asked him about the metal rod sticking out of the front of a jet. He said it was for mid-air fueling. He told me about bombs mounted to the bottom of one World War II model.

In the gift shop, Hans crouched to look into the bins of plastic fighter jets. He picked one out that cost $7.95. Then he got worried. He only had nine dollars left for the trip. I asked about his credit card, but he said his mom told him he could use it only for dinner that night. Apparently, he wasn't supposed to buy souvenirs with it and he'd already spent some of his alloted cash on a Hard Rock Cafe, Seattle t-shirt. He bought the jet, of course, but he continued to bring up the money dilemma a few times through the evening. He can't shake things like that too easily.

Sometimes I think that Hans is the most content person I know. It might be unfair or naive to say that. It's tempting, too, to say he makes a point for the condescending cliche, "Ignorance is bliss." Hans seems to live in a world of few complications. But that's from an outside perspective, and it makes you wonder about the nature of our personal complexities. No one is completely simple and carefree. Hans' stresses might seem minor to me, but they are major to him. Like the stresses are grains of sand that come to accumulate and settle depending on our individually specific Angle of Repose.

I knew Hans would want to buy a toy plane at the museum. I remember, from when I lived with him, Hans sitting in his chair with his toy fighter jet, an F-16 (I'd have the couch, he'd have his chair, and Braves baseball games were usually on the TV between us). He'd hold the gray jet in front of his eyes and zoom it through the air, entranced in the pretend flight. It might go on for ten minutes, me watching the game and Hans a few feet away, but in a different galaxy. He'd snap out of it eventually and there'd be a glint of embarrassment as he realized someone was there with him. It always made me feel like I was watching something very personal, complex or not.

From the Vault: Boobie Bungalow

2011-03-15T09:09:00.001-07:00

Dixie, 30

LIVES IN: Lewisburg, TN (one month) Grew up in Naples, FL

PROFESSION: Dancer, entertainer, wrestler

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Meeting different people from all around the world and country. A lot of my friends work here so we hang out.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Like a lot of the clubs you go to, you find a lot of the girls don’t get along. You gotta get rid of the odd balls in the crowd or they ruin everything.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Sleep, play with my dogs. Be a little house nanny. Shoppin’.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Cancun, Mexico. I’ve heard it’s a nice place to go.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: My Life in the Fast Lane

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Fish sandwich, sweet tea

RELIGIOUS: Baptist

10.11.06 2:30pm

When driving on I-65 from Birmingham to Nashville, TN, it's hard to not notice the enormous billboard yelling "Big Jim's Boobie Bungalow" from above the trees. On my way back from Nashville I stopped. It was early afternoon and only a few cars were parked in the giant parking lot.

Someone did a big, slow U-turn in the parking lot when I was out of my truck. He rolled up and I asked him if they were open. No, but people were cleaning inside so I could poke my head in.

I walked in with my camera. A few folks moved chairs and sprayed down the bar tables, preparing for the afternoon crowd. It smelled like cleaning chemicals, bowling alley carpet, and frying oil. No one was topless or dancing. Dixie was in the boxing ring, sweeping.

Under the zoo

2011-02-26T21:18:00.000-08:00

Joel Sartore, 48

LIVES IN: Lincoln, NE (born in Ponca City, OK)

PROFESSION: Photojournalist and conservationist

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Going home

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Leaving home

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I work. I mainly restore historic homes.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: I got to see the butterflies in Mexico recently. I'd been wanting to do that. One thing I haven't done is see the crocodiles eat the wildebeests on the Mara River. I also haven't seen Australia yet.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: "Grizzlies, Piranhas, and Flesh-Eating Pigs." It'd be about all the hell we go through to produce the work that we do.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Dick's Hamburgers: Small cheeseburger, Dick's Deluxe, chocolate shake, and a cup of water. It wasn't that good.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Agnostic. I'm on the fence. I'm happy. I'm rootin' for it. Confirmed as a Methodist. (Isn't hoping for religion kinda the same as being religious?) Well, when you need hope, you turn to religion. I said a little prayer when I found out I was in a cave full of bats, some carrying Marburg disease.

ANY REGRETS: I regret that I haven't spent more time with my kids. I missed the first two growing up, but I'm around more for the third. It's hard to be at home when you're saving the world. And it's hard to save the world when you work a nine-to-five job. How can you save the world if you never leave home? That's the rub; that's my struggle.

2.26.11 5pm

Joel has made portraits of over 1,500 different species. He has collected images of half of the snakes and turtles on the planet. Each animal has two portraits - one on a black backdrop, one on white. It's like Noah's Ark on a hard drive.

Joel calls it The Biodiversity Project, and the obvious intention is to document the world's species as the earth's biodiversity declines. Joel shoots a lot in zoos. It's easier there, but he also hears that many species that are struggling to survive in the wild will likely not last long in captivity, either. So while Joel travels around the world on assignments for National Geographic and is one of the world's best wildlife photographers (as in, wildlife in the wild; he just completed a story on Uganda's Albertine Rift Valley), he spends a lot of time in cramped rooms behind animal cages. He wanted to be a zookeeper as a kid, now he's a photographer.

At Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo, Joel had permission to shoot a dwarf crocodile, a handful of snakes (Burmese Vine Snake, a Golden Pit Viper, and Vogel's Beautiful Pit Viper, to name a few), and a Gila Monster. Zookeeper Peter Miller said the Gila Monster was the most deadly in the whole room. It will sink its teeth in and hold on with powerful jaws as it unloads its venom reservoirs into the flesh for a 100% fatal dosage. Joel said he's always heard that humans are the most dangerous animals at the zoo.

The 'Hound

2011-02-24T17:11:00.000-08:00

Alex Coyne, 23

LIVES IN: North Carolina (born Meridian, OH)

PROFESSION: Graphic designer

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Creating new designs

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF THE WORK: Dealing with the clients.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Motorcross

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Japan

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: It'd be about the history of graffiti

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Honeybun

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes, Christian

THE SECRET TO LIFE: Live everyday to its fullest.

2/24/11 1pm

While standing in the short line at Door 2 of the Birmingham Greyhound station, the guy behind me asked if I was a photographer. I had my tripod over my shoulder. I said yes, sort of. He said he's a model from Miami, and he thumbed through his smart phone to pull up a few photos of himself.

He asked if I had a card and what I charged per hour to shoot head shots and portfolio stuff. I said I didn't know because, really, I shoot more travel and, really, I'm not much of a professional photographer, more of a writer. He was wearing what looked to me like designer jeans over brand new black Nike running shoes with florescent green accents and soles. He had on a Ralph Macchio zipper sweatshirt that was bright green. His t-shirt underneath had bright green writing on black, and his scarf was black and white. His head was shaved tight as was his mustache and thin line of beard growth. He sat in front of me on the bus.

The bus ride from Birmingham to Atlanta takes about three hours, mainly because it stops in the middle in Anniston, AL. The Greyhound station In Anniston is a tannish box in a parking lot. It always seems to be gray there. The sky, the pavement, the linoleum floor inside the lobby, which holds a water fountain, a desk for tickets, and a few vending machines. All but the wrappers in the machine seem gray or tan in my memory. People always lean against the outside wall to smoke cigarettes and talk on cell phones.

I asked the model in front of me if I could make his portrait outside at the smoke break. He said no, nicely. He didn't want to be associated with Greyhound. They had pissed him off - delaying his bus so that he had to get a hotel for four hours of sleep the night before. He must have thought I wanted to shoot fashion-y head shots of him. He also couldn't stand the bullshit that goes down on Greyhounds. He's seen people get drunk and his recent trip had a few vomiting passenger situations. I told him of my Oregon Greyhound trip when a stringy-haired, stringy-limbed woman in the back attracted the less confident boozers to her case of Busch cans. A drinking game started and it got rowdy. I heard her explaining to one of her new friends at a smoke break that she was on a three day release from her rehab center.

The Greyhound bus has been commented on and documented many times. I've heard This American Life pieces on it - trying to find stories in the random collection of passengers, digging for poignancy between the rows of grimy-blue, patterned seats. The Hound has that attraction of the "raw," and there's some odd sense of camaraderie that most passengers must feel since no one is truly comfortable on a Greyhound; everyone recognizes on some level that it is the basest form of legal transportation in America.

For people watchers, the Greyhound bus is like the desert southwest to a geologist. Down in the Grand Canyon, all the grass, leaves, soil, trees and other surface distractions have been stripped away or could never grow in the first place. You’re left with a raw exposure of exactly what makes up the earth’s upper crust. You can stand on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and see millions of years of geology – folds, faults, synclines, anticlines, erosion, and deposition. In other places, back in Virginia, for instance, there’s also been millions of years of sediment deposits and deformations of the layers, but you can’t see it under all the hardwoods and river bottom soils and green pastures.

A Greyhound ride can be more revealing and, arguably, more interesting than a similar environment of entrapped strangers, like an airplane. Both hold a layer of humanity, a sort of core sample. But in the airplane, there’s a polish, a vegetative layer over the inside reality whereas the Greyhound's world is bare bones and stripped down. Of the thousands of vehicles moving up and down the interstates, the Greyhound bus is the only one full of complete strangers, like a tornado had swept through the region around Birmingham, picked up the people left out on the loose, and sealed them up in a gray tube of metal with wheels and scratchy, reclining seats. There's a sense of desperation in the Greyhound's fringe world. I guess the reasons for the difference between airplane and bus passengers and atmospheres are both obvious (price) and complex (class, economics, race, urban decline). Leave that to the grad students.

Today's ride is mild in terms of drama. Only a few muddled yells to the driver to turn the AC on.

The model man suggested I ask someone else to be in the photo. Then Alex walked down the aisle to step off and have a smoke. His shoes looked interesting so I followed him from the steamy bus to the cool grey parking lot.

When we arrived to Atlanta I waited by the curb for my ride. My tripod was over my shoulder again. The Greyhound station in Atlanta is in a part of town where people aimlessly wander sidewalks, holler things at cars, tell you they need a buck for a bus ticket or to fill up their car with gas, and where bored policeman run off the same drunks and addicts every few hours.

Two men walked up to me, at separate times, and asked if I was a photographer. One then offered me drugs with, "You need anything? You cool?" The next man asked how he could be a photographer. Then he asked me for money. Everyone's watching and everything's exposed.

Hoop House

2011-02-17T20:58:00.001-08:00

Michael McNair, 48

LIVES IN: Brookhaven, MS (born there)

PROFESSION: Sustainable agriculture marketing specialist

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Marketing. Sooner or later you get the idea of sustainability but I'm a real geek for getting rid of the produce and you gotta sell it. I do workshops and trainings on how to sell at farmers markets. I do impromptu surveys to see how well markets are functioning.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: When large stores pretend they want to buy from small producers. But conglomerates like Walmart have started to try to buy from small farmers, but they have to educate them on how to grow, how much, and really tie the hands of Walmart with contracts even if it's a small contract. If their commitment was true to local producers, maybe they'd offer micro-loans or grants. They're really committed to to buying from factory farms. (You're getting the top of the line here, because you asked!)

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Fishing - catching a big smiley catfish and watching it tug the line.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: London, Africa, Alaska, Canada

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: The Sustainability of Life. That could be a whole hodge-podge of things.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Biscuit and gravy, water, coffee

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes, Christian. I do serve in the Methodist Church but I could go to any Christian church as long as the foundation is Jesus Christ.

THE SECRET TO LIFE: Treating people right. I'd be glad to share my philosophy with you, but I got a copyright on it. Ok, here it is: Change is inevitable. It will occur whether you like it or not. However, your attitude towards that change will determine your outcome.

2.17.11

Michael was part of a conference of food growers in the Mississippi Delta. They gathered in Symonds, MS on Thursday to build a "hot tunnel" in a woman's yard. A hot tunnel is a simple version of a greenhouse. It helps growers extend their season and protects from harmful chemical sprays falling from the sky out of industrial agriculture crop dusters.

The group built it in the yard of a 65 year-old woman who lives in a trailer with no running water, just a nearby well. With the hot tunnel she can grow enough produce to sell for a profit at local markets.

The thirty or so people helping were learning to build similar hoop houses, since many of them are farmers in the Delta where healthy food is scarce. Quitman County, for instance, has 10,000 residents and one grocery store. Some people think the Delta, one of the nation's poorest, most unhealthy regions (though blessed with some of the country's richest soil), is at the verge of a small food revolution.

Frank Wilbourn lives in Quitman County and he farms a few acres of his one hundred for produce to sell by the road in the tiny town of Marks. He has two hoop houses and he believes in growing good food for people. He had his first garden at age eight and he built his first house with money earned from his produce sales. He was seventeen then, back in the 50s. This is the Mississippi Delta, so I can believe it.

Frank then moved north for manufacturing jobs. He spent a career there and moved back after his mom had sold his family's hundred acres. Frank bought it back fair and square from the man who owned it. That's where he lives and grows food now. So he and others believe that simple hooped structures with plastic over the top and greens inside can change the health and the economy in the Delta, where a little goes a long way.

While the group built the hoop house, Michael hung around the edges, making everyone laugh.

From the Vault: New Orleans, 2006

2011-01-28T08:16:00.000-08:00

Matthew Thompson, 44

LIVES IN: New Orleans, LA (20 years). Grew up in Pine Bluff, AR.
It was as if I grew up in a novel, like To Kill A Mockingbird. They had an article in The New Yorker – you could basically age people by the toys they played with. I was at the end of the old toy world and the end of the old south. There were still lots of Jim Crow laws, segregation, no restaurants in town (that small of a place), everybody walked. I was just at the edge of that past – the end of the 60s, early 70s. It was odd to think that I can remember all that.

They’d throw Tide detergent off the backs of trucks, but only in white neighborhoods. So maids in nice neighborhoods would ask us poor white boys to run behind the truck and get some detergent for them. I remember this one lady, Chanetta Ford, had a full beauty salon in her house. She was a maid during the day and did hair at night.

This other lady I remember saying that her man “got his man set on,” meaning he was heavy set. I’d go into their church sometimes. They’d make me get up and introduce myself.

It was divided, but along class lines, too. It was run by large, important families that had farms forever. It was a cotton town and a mill town for a newspaper. Biggest city I ever saw in my life was Little Rock, AR.

PROFESSION: Cabinet maker. I grew up in a carpentry world, but people think of me as a cabinet maker and I like to think of myself in that way, though I do a lot of hard carpentry, trim work. We work jobs from Mobile to New Orleans.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Years ago I would have said it fit me; it was a macho thing. But today, I couldn’t really tell you. Years ago I met Andy Warhol and I asked him why he became a painter and he said he liked the smell of paint. I say to my guys, you have to like to build things, to use tools. You almost have to be tool crazy. And have to like to work outside. You don’t have to be mechanical, just a little tool crazy.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF THE WORK: The money. I hate dealing with it. I give too much (carpentry) away. The pressure of dealing with it. I have to force that killer instinct. It’s like I wish I could go up to the most beautiful girl in the place and ask her out – I just don’t have it.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Read. I love college football. Arkansas Razorbacks are my team. My daddy’s 70 and we’ve always followed it. We’d both run out there and run the ball for Houston Nutt if he called and asked. I don’t care if they win, just if they play well.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: I’ve traveled all over – 46 countries. When I was younger I traveled all the time. I love Scotland. I like isolated places. I lived in Australia a couple years and I loved it. Fell in love in Australia with a girl – almost married her, but it didn’t happen.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: It’s very popular now to write about your childhood. I don’t have anything to say that’s particularly beautiful or hasn’t been said before. I’d write specifically about the time my brother, 5, and I, 4, broke into the Boy Scout concession stand to get the Cokes. We'd spent hours looking at that trailer and figuring out how to get in. One day they left the vent open. I lowered my bro down in there with a rope. I said, ‘What’s in there?’ All he said was, ‘Get the bucket.’ We lowered it down and filled it up. Buried them in ‘Hood Woods’ and we’d go drink them down there in the winter.

I love this line from The Moviegoer, “I dream like an ancient.” That’s what I’d call the book.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Just had a turkey sandwich, chips, a Coke.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Not at all. Not anti-religious. Just have no feeling for it. My brother and dad are private about it and I like that – they go to Mass.

11/10/06 3:30pm

Being in the double-shotgun house Matthew gutted and rebuilt by hand in the Marigny District of New Orleans makes you want to be a carpenter. Listening to Matthew talk says a lot about southern literature. It makes you want to write.

Tubes

2011-01-22T08:24:00.001-08:00

Ian Harrison, 50

LIVES IN: Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada (born in North Vancouver)

PROFESSION: Carpenter and contractor

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: It’s a great mix of mental and physical. It is a craft. I’ve also owned an art gallery in my past. It’s still going: Art Works in Gabriola.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Right now I’m really liking it. When I was younger I thought I had other, better things to occupy my time. But now I’m enjoying it. I guess that’s how lots of careers go. You don’t really like it when you start and you really hate it in the middle, then you start liking it toward the end.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: A lot of sports and reading. I play tennis, soccer, surf. I also play baseball.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Maybe back to Europe. I lived in Paris for a year. I’ve been coming to Mexico for 30 years and I’m entranced with this place still. The Native Indians with the Spanish blood – it’s a wild west in the 21st Century.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I actually wanted to be a writer for the longest time but it recently dawned on me that that’s not going to happen. A lot of people I’ve met through life have been on the margins of society and the law or in the art world. So I’d like to find a way to write a book about that without getting my head blown off.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Mushroom quesadillas and a Coke

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: No. Doesn’t make sense to me. I can’t follow the logic of it.

SECRET TO LIFE: Haven’t the faintest. I don’t even know what that question means.

1/18/11 6:30pm

Baja California is a long tail of old mountains, the same chain of granite-capped peaks that make a fin into the southern Sierra Mountains of California. The mountains, though still tall in places, have eroded into a desert of quartz sand where cactus and occasional palms grow. And all of it ends at a beach. Thousands of beaches wrap the Baja like a skin.

I've been sitting on one beach almost every day for the last month. And I'm not the only one here. Cerritos Beach attracts a small crowd for its mellow-to-burly surf break (inside the rock headland on the beach's northside for beginners, further out from the point for intermediate, and south into the middle meat for the real shredders.) There is one open-air restaurant bar where football - American or Latino - plays on TV, and where two- or three-person bands play on the wooden stage that sits at the ocean-side edge of the beach tables. An American woman in a long floral dress sang jazz club standards (Moondance, The Girl from Ipanema) the other Sunday afternoon.

I watch this daily and characters naturally emerge. We name them. There's "Your Little Brother," the young teenager from British Columbia who stays in the RV with his parents and has been surfing so frequently that by his last week he's working at the Costa Azul surf trailer helping to rent boards.

When the swell comes in and the surf-movie cameramen set up on the rocks, we name the pros who have arrived to flip aerials off the lip of ten-foot waves. The nicknames are boring, almost as dull as military names for beaches (see Puerto Rico's Vieques Island for reference). There's "Tang" in his flourescent orange wetsuit. We hear he's ranked sixth in the world. On the same wave with him is "Blue Man Group," another pro who wears a blue wetsuit. And "Green Machine" is the third pro in a green-armed suit. They are gone after three days.

We name the blonde surfer girl "Fingers" after she double-hand flicks off our friend as he naively dropped in on her wave. There's Ricky, aka "Uncle Rico," an old-timer surfer who lives down here and longboards the hell out of any wave. He lent us a board and showed us his orange-and-tan Chevy RV van that could be an exact replica of the one lived in by Napoleon Dynamite's uncle.

But then we noticed the man in the white tube socks with the white shoes and the long hair. We saw him in the bar and on the beach day after day with the same apparel. And then we saw him in the water, the hair wet and hanging over his face, his white-socked feet in fins kicking himself and his boogie board into really nice waves. We saw him ride his bike across the empty sand parking lot in the fading evening light, an army-style sack strapped to his back and stretched to the limit with his boogie board. We hadn't spoken to him, but he became "Tubes," and he was by far the most fascinating character on the beach.

All the cool people in the history of the world (in my experience, at least) have wanted to be individual, to express their coolness and personality through a style of dress and a look. The coolest do it well and it rubs off on others through the easiest possible form of imitation, the clothes. Fashion ripples in this way and that can be a fascinating and valid reflection of culture. At the heart of the coolness seems to be the quest for "original," something new and arresting.

Ian looks like an original. He also has a long history at Cerritos after coming down for over fifteen years, previously with his family in an RV - his kids learned to surf on the inside whitewash at age four - and now alone, for three months a year to escape the cold and to ride waves. He was here when the Federales would come down every few weeks and round up the gang thugs and criminals hiding out or hanging out at the beach. He can say he's watched the gentrification of Cerritos.

Ian wears white tube socks at all times. And he pulls them up, proud and intentional. He also wears jean shorts and not in an ironic way. There is no irony in his look. I've known one other man like this. I do not intend to compare the two men in an intellectual sense, rather as examples of the only truly unique and original everyday fashion I have ever seen.

The other man is my good friend Hans. He is socially/mentally handicapped in a very mild, but irrefutable way. He lives alone in a nice Mediterranean style house in Birmingham, AL. He cannot drive but he walks daily 1.5 miles to the neighborhood church where he is the janitor. I lived with Hans for six months after college when I was working in Birmingham. Years later I became his next-door neighbor for a year. He has one of the best outlooks on life I've known, full of simple pleasures like his monthly purchase of a new wallet or the bi-weekly deposit of ten dollars in quarters to the coin-to-cash machine at the nearby Publix supermarket. He laughs hardest when the mascots at minor league baseball games pull their between-inning stunts.

Hans has a very specific wardrobe. His footwear varies, from running-style shoes to a pair of gray suede Velcro high tops, to an unnecessarily warm pair of Timberland snow boots. He wears only white tube socks pulled to full extension halfway up his calves. Then long jean shorts with a belt and a t-shirt tucked in. The t-shirt might have a bald eagle and American flag or an Alabama football logo. He almost always wears a crisp, new Alabama ballcap on his short-cropped blond head. I have known Hans for ten years and, until meeting Ian, have never seen anyone come close to his look. (I will interview Hans at some point here.)

Hans nor Ian would be flattered by my interest in their style. It would come across as insulting and condescending. But it's with pure respect and admiration that I analyze their choice of clothing. Maybe I'm glorifying it, but to me, it represents a complete sense of individuality and a confidence or, perhaps in Hans' case, a beautiful innocence and ignorance. Either way, how nice, and original, to not care what people think.

Fish Tacos

2011-01-04T09:50:00.000-08:00

Ricardo Barroso, 30

LIVES IN: La Paz, Baja California Sur

PROFESSION: Lawyer and candidate for governor of the state of Baja California South

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The politics

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The corruption of the political system and the abuse of it in order to enrich yourself by lying to the people in the name of serving them.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Fish, hunt, go to the country and ride horses

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: I would like to return to Canada where I studied English for a year in Ontario, near Toronto.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: A chronicle of the politics of La Paz

WHAT WAS THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Birria de rez and Coca Cola

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes, Catholic

WHAT IS THE SECRET TO LIFE: To be happy.

1/2/11 4:30pm

I was on a mission for fish when I met Ricardo Barroso. We needed fish for tacos and I’d been down to the Punta Lobos beach where the fishermen keep their pangas. The boats sit high on the beach near the dune line like they’d been fleeing some sea monster and scurried up the sand as far as their bright-yellow or blue hulls would take them. They look relaxed in the late sunlight coming in from over the water, directly west.

A Mexican family was unloading from two cars when I parked in the sandy lot. With the pangas and the little palapa hut with fish cleaning counter empty, I figured there was no fish to buy this afternoon. I asked the father of the family and he said no fishermen today, it being Sunday and the end of the New Year celebration. His brother yelled back that he’d be here tomorrow, a regular workday. They sell fresh fish for about two or three dollars a pound in the afternoons.

So I backtracked into Todos Santos, the nearest town and a tidy little desert outpost of taco stands, hot dog carts, sidewalk trees with the lower six feet of their trunks painted the same white as the stucco walls lining each individual property. There’s also a significant gringo influence in Todos, exhibited in art galleries, fine restaurants, and a few bars more nuanced and sophisticated than the Hotel California’s touristic resplendence.

But the Pescadería was closed and the guys drinking and grilling meat in the courtyard yard next door confirmed that it wasn’t open. A man in the street, however, told me he had fish. When there’s a demand for something, no matter how quietly it is stated, a supplier usually appears. It’s capitalism in its raw, most simple form and on a personal level. It can make for pestering panhandlers, but it can also solve minor problems like finding fish an hour before fish taco night, and be an obvious study in simple economics, much like watching a leaf float down a tiny creek can be a lesson in river hydrology.

I followed the man to his house and he showed me a cooler full of sierra – a long-bodied fish of moderate girth with a pointed sleekness to it. There were about twelve in his cooler, caught today during a fishing trip with tourists. They looked like little torpedos, cobalt-blue on top, silver-white in the belly, and polka-dotted in yellow. I bought five for six dollars. His daughter, about seven years old, brought the plastic grocery bag for them. Their tails pointed out by four inches.

On the way back through Todos I stopped at the park. Action flowed out of the stucco wall’s door. Indecipherably loud and muffled band music roared from over the top of the wall. A massive bus was parked beside the dirt street, bright red and emblazoned with Ricardo’s name and “gobernador.” He’s a candidate for Governor of Baja California Sur and the election is just over a month away. His face and torso, the finger giving a “Shooter, MacGavin” toward the viewer, stare down at passersby from billboards, the sides of parked tractor trailers, walls of stores, and magnets stuck to the side of cars. He has a confident look despite the boyish grin and lack of facial hair.

In person, he looks taller and more awkward, physically. He still looks young and when I saw him he was walking through the last remnants of his campaign rally in downtown Todos. By this late in the afternoon, the beer he’d provided was coursing through much of the townspeople, some of whom still sat at the white plastic tables strewn about the lawn. Most people had left. Ricardo walked around like the head of an alligator, his body weaving behind him in a flowing mass of men in red or white Ricardo golf shirts. He shook hands and signed torn pieces of paper or baseball hats.

I stopped him, and said I was a journalist from the States and would love to interview him. He agreed. It was quick but he was focused and ignored the chaos surrounding him. It was the longest I saw him stop throughout his handshaking ramble.

After the interview, he went into the dimly-lit kitchen where full cans of Tecate sat out on a concrete counter. He shook hands and kissed the cooks on the cheeks. I went to shoot some of the lingerers at the tables, and when I looked back the red and white reptile had left. I drove back to the house with the sun setting to my right and Ricardo pointing from the tractor trailer in the rearview mirror, as if to say, "Nice work, now get that fish home."

Roadside Tomatoes

2010-12-27T15:55:00.000-08:00

Ben Gravelle, 33

LIVES IN: Sebastopol, CA (born Santa Rosa, CA)
PROFESSION: Carpenter. Everything.
FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Working with my hands.
LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: When it gets stressful.
WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: All kinds of stuff: Beekeeping, surfing, skating, wakeboarding, gardening, cooking, skinny dipping.
IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Tasmania or New Zealand. South of France
IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Let me get back to you…
THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Bomb tortillas al mano, omelets, rice and beans. It’s called huevos camponeto. We ate it in a San Quentin lonchería. A lady just opened her house for us. It’s Christmas, you know.
ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: I read the Bible. I’m Christian.
SECRET TO LIFE: I don’t want to sound crazy religious, but it really is the Bible. It’s our manual. If you buy a VCR it’d come with a manual. Our bodies are way more complicated and the Bible is our owner’s manual.

12/25/10 1:15pm

Somewhere in the middle of the middle of the Baja Peninsula, a tractor trailer went over the edge of the narrow Route 1 and spilled on its side into a ditch. It happened Christmas Eve. The truck was carrying white cardboard boxes of tomatoes, some red, some green. The uncrushed ones rest in the ditch as they do on the grocery store stand, piled at the angle of repose.

The cab of the truck has already been towed out so no one knows what happened to the driver, though we assume he was OK since no one knows. Bad news sticks around in the middle of nowhere despite that old tree-falls-in-the-woods notion.

Baja’s Route 1 is a transpeninsular highway connecting Tijuana with Cabo San Lucas in a pattern that zig-zags three times from the Pacific Coast to the Sea of Cortez over its 1000+ miles. It’s mostly a narrow, two-lane slice of pavement raised above the desert. In some places in the central plateaus it looks like boulders have been dropped from the sky in piles, some of them then scattered. Other times, the tall, straight cactus rise up fifteen feet to a tapered point, giving the sense that we are driving through the stubbly face of a man in a razor commercial, just before the five-bladed Sensor sweeps across the dry, tan expanse, pulling up each individual whisker and chopping it below its base.

So we stop as two tow trucks sit backed up to the edge of the road. The drivers and workers hook chains to the underside of the trailer and sling some over the side and top. They use the tow wenches to haul the trailer back onto its rear wheels and front posts.

The first attempt fails when the hook wrapped over the side-wall rips through the flimsy siding. They wrap it around the entire body next time, and it works. As the massive rectangle groans upward toward a standing position, the lower sidewall comes apart, releasing hundreds more tomatoes into the ditch. One of the bystanders asks if anyone wants spaghetti sauce. We all laugh, and I’m fairly certain everyone, for a second, imagines adding a touch of salt and some oregano to the ditch and passing around a ladle to serve out a sun-warmed topping onto their bowl of pasta.

Ben has bright red glasses on, but I meet his father-in-law first. His name is Nick and he is driving down with a truck and a small trailer full of building materials to construct a house in Pescadero. We are also going to Pescadero so we meet our first neighbors 600 miles away at a tomato disaster. Nick’s daughters and his sons-in-law are in a three-car caravan.

When I finish interviewing Ben, he asks if I am religious, and I say no. That I was raised Catholic but I’m not religious now. I don’t get asked that question much, but when I do, by a Christian, I usually feel uncomfortable, like I’m admitting to something bad by saying I am not religious. It’s just the residual Catholic guilt, I guess. And a slight distaste for the (assumed) judgment of the Christian, which is, of course, its own judgment.

Ben might have thought I was religious since I asked if he was religious and followed the question with the Secret to Life query. He says he and his wife and the whole family are Jehovah’s Witnesses. They knock on strangers’ doors all the time and ask if they want to know about The Bible. He says he just really believes in the Bible and doesn’t like how religion can get nasty and cause conflict. I say how that must be really interesting to meet so many people in that way. How it’s not really that different from what I do with photos and the interview – just interacting with strangers on any level is interesting. Of course, I recognize a difference between a random interview and pointed questions with the objective of teaching, saving, changing someone who didn’t ask to be taught, saved, or changed. I don’t tell Ben that.

We eventually get back to more important matters, like the skinny dipping he mentioned. I assumed that meant he appreciated swimming holes. I told him of our intended missions to discover swimming holes in the canyons of the Sierra la Laguna behind Pescadero. He gets fired up, so we might make a sunny pilgrimage to granite bowls full of agua dulce.

The men haul out the truck and shift it perfectly into the opposite lane from us. The tow trucks move from our lane, and we drive past, a thumbs up to the workers who had just jerry-mandered an entire tractor trailer from a ditch, and who now had to somehow get that trailer off the road and to somewhere. The tomatoes would remain, like Christmas tree ornaments stashed in a dusty attic, overseen by rigid cacti, that now appear as desert wise-men casting a disapproving glance from the corner of their eyes.

Christmas Steer

2010-12-24T21:29:00.000-08:00

Christie Ann Moss, 50

LIVES IN: Gilroy, CA (born Palo Alto, CA)

PROFESSION: Cattle rancher and I work retail.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK WITH STEERS: A day like today. Everyday. Everyday is a vacation.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: When people don't want to pay the price for my calves, because I think my prices are always fair.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Go to the coast. It's about 48 miles to Monterey from here, and I love to be home.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Where I lived for three years, which was Paris.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Interestingly enough, I've started one and have yet to finish. It's about a successful Texas rancher. The name's "Fifth Generation."

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Bagel with margarine. And water.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes. Catholic.

SECRET TO LIFE: Being very grateful. Being grateful every day.

12.24.10 11:30am

Christie and her husband Dan were waving at the cars passing on Route 152. They've been staging their Christmas Eve roadside greeting since the early '90s. Normally they begin earlier in the morning but today they're out around noon since it took a while for the sun to burn off the fog that settles into the mountains separating Gilroy - Garlic Capital of the World - from the Central Valley to the east. The mountains here are like a moss-covered rug pushed up in folds and wrinkles and then planted with sporadic oak trees like decorative bonsais.

Christie and Dan drop hay piles in a row about twenty-five yards from the fence and road. About a dozen longhorns and their calves assume their positions at the hay piles, chewing, ten yards apart. Dan walks slowly down the line, waving at the passing cars, some of which honk. A few stop along the shoulder and a head will poke out the window, then an arm with a camera on the end. They shoot and honk and carry on. Dan and Christie wave. They hope it gives people a smile on their way toward family gatherings. They were excited to hear that we were driving to Baja. Dan said it was a good idea to do it before we had all the reasons not to do it.

We went with Christie to see her other steers in the adjacent lot. She would occasionally wave to the cars without even looking, almost unconsciously.

Citizen

2010-12-15T18:37:00.000-08:00

Murat Caglu, 27

LIVES IN: Everett, WA (born in Sivas, Turkey. Been in US since age 8)

PROFESSION: Looking for work. I just became a legalized citizen so I'm able to work. Paperwork was a mile long. I got in some trouble when I was younger so it took a little longer.

FAVORITE PART OF BEING OUT OF WORK: Being with my kids. That's part of the reason I didn't mind it taking so long. I could take care of kids while their mom worked.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF BEING OUT OF WORK: Feeling of laziness because I like to earn money by my sweat. I don't like the lack of exercise. I've been two years out of work.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Write music and I create music - beats and music. In the genre of hip-hop. I came out with a few songs under the artist name of Matthias.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Jerusalem

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I'd try to put down all my wisdom in a book for others so they don't stumble as much as I did.

LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Turkey hot dog, bbq beans, green beans and corn, an orange. Water

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes, but it's more spiritual. I came to be Christian, Jewish, and Muslim.

THE SECRET TO LIFE: God

12/15/10 3:30pm

Ferry from Bremerton to Seattle

A Family Portrait

2010-12-09T19:08:00.000-08:00

Scott Hanson, 64

LIVES IN: Atlanta, GA (born Mansfield, OH. Lived there two years)

PROFESSION: Sales. I did it in different ways: sold municipal bonds and have been selling marketing programs more recently.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Meeting people, the interactions with people

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Losing a sale. Because I always think I have the best program, the best product, but sometimes people don't buy it. Or I misread the circumstances or the people, and I didn't sell it the right way. Also, when people fail to respond to you. That frustrates the hell out of me.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Exercise. Golf, tennis, platform tennis. Or reading. Just put sports and reading. I do volunteer work, too, at state parks.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Somewhere I haven't been. Top of the list is Italy and a Baltic cruise.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK WHAT WOULD IT BE ABOUT: I have no idea. Never thought about it. I've often thought Mom and I could write a little treatise on parenting and just call it, "Common Sense."

WHAT WAS THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Sweet and sour thai chicken and rice. Tea to drink.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes, Catholic.

THE SECRET TO LIFE: Having a nice wife. That's where it all starts.

12/9/10 9pm

I interviewed my dad a day after this photo was made in Brevard, NC in a cabin we rented for our early-Christmas holiday. The cabin was nice and warm but nothing like mom and dad's home in Atlanta. The cabin was, as they say, "tacky."

For the interview we were sitting in dad and mom's living room, in the house that is the home I'd returned to for the last fourteen years, almost half my life. The smell (who can describe his family's smell? It comes at him so fast and then is gone, the olfactories adjusted to it in a few breaths), the artwork of centuries-old oil paintings, heirloom furniture reupholstered in new patterns, the antique Oriental rugs worth a little more than most other things that get walked across daily.

Dad ran through the answers, being thoughtful about them. It wasn't awkward. Hell, these questions are simple. But something blind-sided me in the middle of it, waiting quietly for his response. These questions are so simple and I've asked them to hundreds of strangers, sometimes in their homes, their places of work, random outdoor spaces, buses, rivers, snowfields. The questions have always been a portal into somewhere that, without them, without the "project," I would never have the chance to enter.

But I was talking to my dad, the person, along with mom, whom I've known longest in my life. Mom typed an email on the laptop at the kitchen counter twelve feet away. I found myself briefly wondering how I got to this living room, as if Dad was a stranger, another random interview subject. Not because of what he was saying or because of some deep estrangement between us that I had never recognized. Rather, the wonder that struck me for a second was the recognition of how deeply trained I had become from so many random interviews. The fact that I would feel the same sense of newness and access with my dad, in, basically, my living room, that I experience when asking personal questions to a stranger, surprised me. Some short circuit at the collision of my curious world that seeks the unfamiliar with this instant of the absolutely familiar.

Dad didn't pitch any curve balls in his responses. He's without a doubt the most normal, honest, and loyal person I've ever known. Not normal in a bad way, normal because he's instinctively rational and reasonable, and he lacks drama.

I did like Dad's secret to life. It was something I have never heard in other responses. I can confirm that his and mom's relationship is gold. But even though I knew it to be true, the fact that he said it with little pause, and the way he said it, surprised me. It was so simple and matter-of-fact. So certain and unselfconscious. And it had nothing to do with me. I was just there in the room, interviewing him.

Sisters on Vacation

2010-11-14T21:28:00.000-08:00

NORMA JANE JOHNSON, 67 (on right)

LIVES IN: Garnett, KS (born in Toledo, OH)

PROFESSION: Retired teacher. Taught elementary to fourth grade

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: I liked the kids and having all the different subjects all day. I just like the kids. My daughter tells me I'm 67 going on 17.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Recess duty. (Surprisingly, the food was ok.) We didn't have teachers meetings then. I hate meetings of any kind.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I played tennis for many years. And swimming. And crossword puzzles. I love crossword puzzles. I have a dictionary with a million words. That's my Bible. And watching my grandkids - I like doing that.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: I think Australia. I don't want to go where I can't understand the language.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: It'd be War & Peace. I was interviewed once at the YMCA about what my favorite book was and I said War & Peace, but I meant another book, which I forget now. It made me sound like a real intellect, and my family made it an inside joke. They still laugh about it.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Grilled fish, vegetables, rice, salad, Pepsi

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: I believe in God. I don't really attend church.

THE SECRET TO LIFE: Drink a lot, smoke a lot. I don't do either one now, but I used to. And be with family.

~

GAIL JUNE, 72

LIVES IN: Tucson, AZ (born in Toledo, OH)

PROFESSION: Retired nurse. Last 37 years as an accountant. Income tax prep so it's seasonal.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Talking to people and learning about them. You do a lot of psychology and social work with the clients because you hear their full year of happenings as you go through the earnings and losses.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The numbers

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Travel

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: We've been to most places. We're going to Russia for six weeks. We travel by ourselves a lot, my husband and I.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: How to get around Disneyworld with children. I've taken my grandkids every year since they were three. It'd be called A Grandparent's Guide to Disneyworld.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Grilled fish, vegetables, rice, salad, Modelo Light

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Lutheran

THE SECRET TO LIFE: Living each day at a time. Don't worry about the past or the future. Learning to give and take.

11.12.10 3pm

Seamstress

2010-11-11T18:04:00.000-08:00

ARTURO GERALDO BELTRAN, 66

LIVES IN: La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. (born La Paz)

PROFESSION: Seamstress

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The details and fixing the pants. Everything.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Ironing

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I don't have any free time. I work in the shop every day, even most of Sunday. I only take off the first day of the year, Good Friday, and half of Christmas Day. I've been working in this shop since 1969 though at first I worked one season a year in the cotton factory. I worked with the machines and the packaging. I stopped working there because of the injuries. I broke my foot and hand and finger at different times.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD: No idea. I've never been anywhere.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I don't know.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: A salad of scallops and a Pepsi

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Catholic but I don't go to church. I'm just Catholic because my family has been for a long time.

WHAT'S THE SECRET TO LIFE: Just stay out of trouble. Be happy. Respect other people.

11.11.10 5:40pm

One of my best buddies in the world recently commented on this blog. He observed that the people I choose for my interviews and portraits are very similar in terms of social status. Possibly too similar and homogenous. He suggested I go for a lawyer, a stock broker, someone at the more upper-end of the professional ladder.

I absolutely agree. This collection is much more full of street vendors, non-profiters, village students, gas station clerks, and modern-day gypsies in RVs in Baja or painting murals in Virginia. My friend is a scientist. So of course he'd notice the lack of controls present here, and I'm glad he did. But I don't know if I can change the method. And I don't have to; there's no scientific method because there is no hypothesis here to be proved. At least not yet. And can a hypothesis come post-research?

The portrait series has always relied on a randomness, a glint of attraction, to guide itself.

That's not to say I leave it completely up to chance. Very few things in this world happen by chance. Something might seem like chance, like this afternoon when Arturo's photo was made. I was walking down a sidewalk in La Paz, Mexico near sunset accompanied by an arranged "guide" from a local tour company. The nice man, Carlos, was hired by the Public Relations firm of the large new hotel, marina, and golf resort funded by Prudential Real Estate to show me, the visiting "press/media" representative, around the old city.

So it could be regarded as chance that, walking toward an exhibit at the La Paz Cultural Center, I glanced into a doorway to see a street-level apartment layered in three rooms with an older man sitting below a fluorescent light, his shoulders slightly crouched over a Singer sewing machine. I wasn't looking for this. Though I had my camera in a bag over my shoulder, I was not even thinking about photos or people or, really, anything. Nothing weakens brain function faster than being led by a guide, so I was content to let my muscle memory take care of breathing and walking while I followed along.

But a search image clicked in, almost as much by muscle memory as the walking and breathing. I first heard of the idea of a "search image" in reference to animals. A park ranger explained to a frightened visitor that the mountain lions in the area had no interest in the human form. The lions saw a human shape and did not think food as they did when they saw deer shape. The ranger then turned to an analogy from our human lives. He said if you are hungry and driving through a typical American town, you do not pull into a mechanic garage parking lot and expect to find food. Your search image has developed, on an even more basic level than reading signs, to instincutally interpret the shape of a restaurant versus the shape of an office building.

I believe we can train new search images into our minds with a little practice. The more nuanced the image, the more time, of course. But the search image must be created in order to not only see a thing as worth looking at, but, furthermore, to stop for a second and turn back to go toward it.

I stopped a few steps past Arturo's door. If it had been an electric sewing machine, I might not have paused. If it was the same room, dimly lit, with the pealing-paint stucco'd wall, dusty concrete floor, and an old man crouched as Arturo was over a Mac computer, I might have been stopped but more by the irony of it all. I guess it was the combo of the light and just an odd sense of a story. The search image developed over six years of portrait making and story taking worked. Thank God.

Because I was beginning to worry I had gotten callous to the whole thing. That I'd been moving around too much lately and was seeing through places and people.

My friend was right, though in a way he might not have intended. Despite a fundamental commitment to randomness, to the spark of interest that loses its magic the instant it is calculated and anticipated, I've created a limited search image. And it has its faults.

For instance, I could not sleep the other night because I knew I had missed a great portrait. I was staying in a villa at Costa Careyes, one of the most intentional and, I only use this word in dire circumstances, soulful collections of architecture and celebrations of place that I have ever seen.

Gian Franco Brignone, 84, the visionary behind the thirty-year-old development of open-aired homes layered onto the hills of the remote Jalisco, Mexico coastline lives there. He lives alone, his wife back in Europe, in his whimsical castle near a point of land that juts into the Pacific and within sight of his Copa del Sol, a massive thirty-meter radius, ten-meter deep bowl of concrete with little square windows cut into the side. The sculpture was built on a flat point 100 feet above the Pacific so that, at equinox, and when seen from a certain cave on the Careyes property, the sun sets directly into the cradle. You have to know your place very well to find that angle. Maybe you could use a map and an engineer's siting instrument, but I like to think a Brignone paused to watch the sun set on so many cliff edges and coves that he, one evening, calculated the perfect spot by simply seeing it happen. Seeing the sun angle directly toward the then-empty, flat point and disappear behind it, leaving an idea that became a concrete bowl. I have a feeling Brignone had cultivated many interesting search images by that point in his life.

Brignone's houses grow from a central palapa design, and they curve in white walls that blend into ceilings and floors so that there is a powerfully disorienting effect when you walk into the all-white, almost unlined rooms.

I know it sounds a bit hyperbolic and preening to shower such transcendent praise onto a fancy hotel for wealthy Europeans and Americans and Mexicans, but I'm not even really talking about architecture or interior design, rather the way that the man behind it, and his son, Giorgio, live daily in the remote dream of landscape and built structure. They wake in it and walk through it and play on it and eat from it. They pulse it or it pulses through them, through their Italian-French blood, and that presence alone legitimizes their vision.

So I could not sleep because, despite already knowing the story from having met Giorgio and Gian Franco, I did not see the portrait there, somewhere in the white walls with the light flooding the space and bouncing around with so few edges to make shadows.

I should have made Giorgio's portrait on some couch-bench of white, his tight white European jeans and his Michael Douglas hair. He moved fast and might not have wanted to be in a portrait, but what bothers me is that I didn't even see it. He intimidated me and maybe that explains the pattern in my series more than anything else.

Salesman

2010-10-26T17:40:00.000-07:00

Arturo Rodriguez, 48

LIVES IN: Austin, TX (born in Guanajuato, Mexico)

PROFESSION: Sell ice cream from cart in downtown Austin. I work every day except Wednesday.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The friendliness of the people who buy from me and who I get to meet.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The people that insult me, who don’t understand my job. They ask me for money. They don’t know it’s my job so I can make a living.

WHAT YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Listen to music at the cantina, drink some beers.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Peru. Maybe to see the Peruvian ladies.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: The title would be, The Lifestyles of Different People. It would be stories of all types of people, the good and bad. Like how someone changes after time in jail, for better or worse. Or about the news and the government.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes, Catholic.

SECRET TO LIFE: To be friendly with everyone. And to work with love and kindness.

10.19.10 6:45pm

Doc Davis: Marks, MS

2010-10-11T19:09:00.001-07:00

C.W. "Doc" Davis, 53

LIVES IN: Darling, MS (born there)

PROFESSION: Farmer. Retired school teacher and principal

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Everything. I love it. It grew into my bloodstream. I been doing it since I was five, when I first drove a tractor.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: I guess I don't have any complaints. You just have to be working at it. Walk with it and deal with it. Take the bitter and the sweet and stay productive.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I usually have bad habits. I love to go to Vegas, Atlantic City. Not so much for the gambling, just to get out and see the country. School activities like football and basketball games. Every once in a while I get to an NBA game in Chicago or Memphis. Most exciting thing I've done is drag racing. We got real into that.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: I would love to check out Africa. See Egypt.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I guess life in the Delta... The Good Life in the Delta. They got a lot of horror stories, but it's not as bad as they say it was. Everybody didn't suffer in Mississippi.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Breakfast, I missed dinner. I had an omelet with veggies, a cup of coffee.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: I guess indirectly. I believe in God - when it's straight, it's ok. But most religious people have different views from one another and it gets caught up in controlling people's minds. So I'm not all that excited about "religious" because of the way they control people. It's more entertainment than anything - the music, the incense - it makes people feel good. But they play with people's minds.

SECRET TO LIFE: Good health

10/10/11 5PM

Dust hangs in the Delta air, and as the sun gets softer and lower, the horizon seems to become an extension of the dry cotton and corn fields, recently harvested and turned over. It looks like it should be hot, thick, and sweaty, like some Hollywood take on Mississippi, but it's not. It's autumn.

Everything is a straight line: the rows of caked Mississippi alluvial soil, the long country roads and the single power lines that parallel them, the occasional strips of boggy wetlands that break the fields with their cypress trees, whose curved, bare branches somehow look straight against the sky.

A convict is on the loose, we hear. Broke out of a nearby prison. Dusk has taken the shadows, and silhouettes are fading fast against the darkening sky. It's hard not to wonder where he could be - anywhere out in those fields, or more likely, down in the cypress - the lowlands are mostly dry with so little rain. Do the police still take hounds out? How else do they look for an escapee?

The Delta feels so old. I like to say indigenous because the old men and women have lived here so long and carry with them that native knowledge that passes almost like genes, but that is also earned through a life lived intentionally in a place.

I also might say backward, but I don't mean it the way it's often used. I heard someone once say one step forward is not always the best thing; like when you're standing at the edge of a cliff. So I just mean they use old methods to do things: to grow their gardens, to play their music, to tell their stories. There's plenty of new convenience in those categories, too; it's partly what's causing so many health problems here with fast food and microwaves.

But the old-timers like Doc and his friend Frank Wilbourn (and even some of the younger members who are catching on to the healthy living wave) know that their old smarts from growing up on farms can be put to use. Doc and Frank are using new greenhouses to cover their gardens from the toxic dust that falls from crop spray planes. They can grow their food like they used to before everyone moved to the city or up north and started relying on grocery companies, the government, and corner bodegas to feed them. They can grow it for themselves and for their communities, and they'll be independent.

Bait Shop

2010-10-04T10:34:00.000-07:00

HEYWARD CLANTON, 77
(It don't do no good to turn my age around. I'm 77 either way you turn it.)

LIVES IN: Dadeville, AL (born in the county)

PROFESSION: Owns Clanton's Bait Shop and Upholstery Shop. I bought my first car on money earned selling minnows. I used to do electrical welding. Not anymore since I got a defibrillator put in.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: All of it. Everybody's the same - I love to see 'em coming in and buying stuff and getting upholstery.

LEAST FAVORITE PART: Woodworking now.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Make music. I play all string instruments except the fiddle.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD: I wouldn't have the least idea. Thirty years ago I'd love to have gone to Hawaii, but it's too developed now. I've only been through the southeastern states, played nightclubs all over this state.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: The nurses from east Alabama have been asking me to write a book on what all I've done. I've had heart attacks and strokes and defibrillators and pacemakers. It'd be about what all I've done. I was an aviator in the Spanish-American War. I told a woman that the other day and she believed me for a second.

WHAT WAS THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: I ate two pieces of sausage and a little jam for breakfast. I went and got me a hamburger but I only took one bite out of it. I had my arteries in my throat cleaned so I don't taste much. The first or second bite and that's all. I been in the hospital thirty-five times in the last twenty years. I had open-heart surgery in 1987. And I'm still above ground. I'm looking for a job to take care of folks so I'm gonna be the yardman at the cemetery. I'll have 200-300 folks under me.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Baptist

THE SECRET TO LIFE: I don't know what that'd be. I guess really the most interesting thing I ever done is make music.

9/30/10 4pm

VIntage Lake

2010-09-28T07:58:00.001-07:00

Ridley Williams

LIVES IN: Atlanta, GA (born in Atlanta)

PROFESSION: Owner, manufacturer's representative, auto supplies

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Relationships

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Call reports

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Lake Rabun, Lakemont, GA

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Something about growing up on the lake and life lesson learned.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Buttered popcorn

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: I am a born Presbyterian, but attend a Methodist church. I aspire to be more spiritual than religious.

THE SECRET TO LIFE: Finding peace within (my own skin), humor, and living just one day and one moment at a time.

9/25/10 6:30 pm

Ridley William's comfort level on Lake Rabun reaches geologic proportions. He seems to fit the lake's cultural setting as well as a rock fits into the steep shoreline. Lake Rabun is the last of three impounded reservoirs in northeast Georgia: Lake Burton, Lake Seed, and Lake Rabun.

Rabun sits in a nest of low mountains at the southern end of the ancient Appalachian Mountains. Firs and cedars and dogwoods fill the slopes surrounding the dark green water. Stone and wood houses poke out of the foliage but the boathouses define the lake's sense of architecture. Most boathouses have open decks on top with wood railings, one section of which opens to allow dock jumping. The lake has over eighty vintage wooden boats like the Gar Woods of the 1930s and 40s and the classic Criss Crafts. Families have passed down the homes and boats through three generations so it's understandable that people know each other out here or at least ask your last name in the likelihood that they know someone in your family.

Hall's Boathouse is the only marina and Ben owns it. Everyone knows Ben. He's a master mechanic and he's always restoring a few old woodies in his shop above the little wooden gas dock and store. On the last Saturday of September, I met Ridley at Hall's Boathouse for a day of photography on the lake. Jennifer Anniston and Paul Rudd were staying on the lake for weeks while filming a romantic comedy in nearby Clarkesville. We photographed people jumping off a diving board dock near Anniston's rental house, but we did not see her.

At noon on Saturday we went to Hall's to pick up Ridley's nephew, Pete, who was proposing to his girlfriend Lauren at the old bingo pavilion. She said yes and they drank champagne to celebrate at the Lake Rabun Hotel on the hill above Hall's. While we waited to pick the couple up for their victory lap in Ridley's Criss-Craft, we chatted with Paul Rudd and his wife as they filled up their ski boat with fuel at Hall's dock. They were nice and easy-going. Like anyone else, really.

Later on Saturday night, while watching football, drinking bourbon, and eating Oinker's barbeque at Ridley's house, Ben, the owner of Hall's, told us that he'd heard the wedding planned for that day at the Lake Rabun Hotel was cancelled. The night before, during the rehearsal dinner party, the bride and groom had a sloppy drunken fight, and the bride's father said they weren't getting married and he was not paying for anything. The wedding was cancelled and everyone left the next day, just as Pete was asking Lauren to marry him.

Thus the world spins at Hall's Boathouse on Lake Rabun.

Living Legend

2010-09-10T06:43:00.000-07:00

LAWRENCE DYE, 78

LIVES IN: Bristol, VA (born in Russell County)

PROFESSION: Retired teacher. Taught shorthand bookkeeping in high school and was state auditor

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: They worked real hard. I had no discipline problems at all. At that time, they could use short hand to get a job. How it wouldn't matter.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: DIscipline. Those who don't want to learn anything. They're just there. I never understood why they would bother.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I've never had any free time. When I taught, I traveled with the basketball and baseball teams to keep score. The rest of the time, there was so much paper work in teaching. Now I ride my bike all the time.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: With over 153,000 miles on the Creeper, I've traveled around the earth six times.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: The Creeper Trail. The article about me Blue Ridge Outdoors was titled, "King of the Creeper Trail." That's far-fetched but the town of Abingdon named me Ambassador of the Creeper Trail.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: The usual breakfast: toast and coffee, then I have a banana, orange, and apple and I cook old-fashioned oatmeal with brown sugar and butter.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: I'm a Christian

WHAT'S THE SECRET TO LIFE: I don't have any secret. I guess that the reason I'm happy is because I see so many people and a lot know me and that gives me joy. If I sit at home, I wouldn't see anybody.

8/24/10 9am

Brick window

2010-08-25T07:42:00.000-07:00

Brant, 44

LIVES IN: Abingdon, VA (born in Detroit)

PROFESSION: Right now it's muralist. I also do home improvement, carpentry, decorative finishing.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The chance for other people to see what's up in the Mt Rogers high country without actually going up there. I'm bringing kind of a window to the public and hopefully someday they'll go up and see it. Also, it's just big and lots of people see it. You can put art in a gallery and a lot of people don't see it. It's kind of a forced exhibit but in a good way.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Weather's always a factor. I may get in only one or two hours a day in real rainy season. Sometimes it's different because people want to talk to you and want to ask you questions. People don't understand that I'm thinking as I'm working so it can be disturbing.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I play music. I'm a one-man band: drums with my feet, guitar with my hands, and I sing. I love to go hike up in the Mt Rogers high country. It's one of the most beautiful countries I've been to.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Pumapunku. It's one of the most remarkable archaeological sites in the world. It's in Bolivia, near Lake Titicaca. It contains some of the largest stones cut by man in the world, bigger than those in the Pyramids. The remarkable thing about it is it looks like the stones were laid out on a picnic blanket and somewhere shook the whole thing and they all just fell out all over. They're the toughest stones in the world and the only thing that can cut them is a diamond bit, yet they have these perfect, almost routed lines.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I've had ideas for several. Some fact, some fiction. What's most interesting to me are stories of odd coincidences. There's a lot of that from hiking the Appalachian Trail.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Bag of cashews, on the go.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Umm, no. I'm spiritual.

SECRET TO LIFE: I wish we all knew. I guess everybody has a choice when they wake up in the morning to be happy or unhappy, despite outside influences. I don't think there are things or situations that can make you happy.

8/24/10 3:15pm

Hornblende and Feldspar

2010-08-22T15:22:00.000-07:00

Connor Wilkins, 18

LIVES IN: Amherst, VA (born in Charlottesville, VA)

PROFESSION: Senior in high school but I only go for two periods because I get early release to work. I work at Sweetbriar College right now. I wash dishes and cater.

FAVORITE PART OF THE WORK: It pays ten dollars an hour so as a student that's pretty good.

LEAST FAVORITE PART: You're always doing something, running around.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Swim. In rivers. I don't swim in pools.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD: I don't know. I've never really thought about it.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: About nature, rivers.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Nothing today. Last night I had fajitas. We made them at home - steak, chicken, refried beans. Water to drink.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes, Baptist

SECRET TO LIFE: Secret to life? I don't know, just have fun.

8/22/10 2:30pm

In a moving flow of water, the eddy is the slow water that hides behind rocks and logs and obstructions. The water in an eddy flows backwards relative to the main current. It swirls in the slow space like a Matchbox-car racetrack. With enough time, the swirling water (that carries tiny pieces of mountain and rock) can sculpt a bowl or deep hole like a cored apple with sides as smooth as porcelain. The rock bowl, then, is an ancient mold of the eddy.

The Pedlar River has made granite bowls at a place called Panther Falls. The river cuts down a hardwood-filled watershed that begins at the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains between Buena Vista, VA and Amherst, VA. Early in its descent toward the James River, the Pedlar hits a few house-sized granite boulders. The river falls over a ten-foot slide into a deep pool. The water then wraps around another granite slab into a lower pool.

I first came to Panther Falls in 1996 as a freshman at Washington and Lee University. I'd enrolled in the Introduction to Geology course. Our first field trip was to Panther Falls. We looked at the minerals in the granite and learned how the igneous rock forms deep in the earth when the molten stew of feldspars (clear-tan-pink), mica (shiny), quartzes (pink-white-clear), and hornblendes (dark green, gray) cools and solidifies. I also learned about swimming holes and the idea of secret places. I continued studying geology, the story of it all, and I returned to Panther Falls often.

I was especially attracted to the lower pool with its three-quarter-circle bowl of rock, dark with lichen. From the rock lip over the pool, I used to see a native brown trout, about twelve inches. It seemed to rule that circle of green-tea-colored water that moved slowly, counter-clockwise along the rock wall, both following and forming the shape.

I do not see that trout today, ten years later, but a man beside me points to a different, smaller native brown. It's easy to spot, more calm and settled than the shiny suckerfish darting around like minnows in a bait shop tank.

Today, the teenage boys doing flips off the rock also jump into a six-foot-diameter hole at the base of the falls. They submerge completely and return a few seconds later in the adjacent pool. The rock fin that separates the two pockets has a large hole in it six feet below the surface. I never knew.

I jump in feet first and worry, as I go under, if I've remembered to get enough air. The waterfall sounds and the voices of the people swimming and lounging dissolve. I open my eyes and sink into the calm, colder water. In front and above me the dark water lightens to a faded army green - the other pocket's opening. I pause and look at my pocket's walls. They are black but not scary black (like floating belly down and looking into the darkening emptiness of a deep lake). The black surrounding me under the waterfall is solid, smooth rock, a million-year-old room of water. I grab the polished edge of the connector hole and pull myself to the green light.

Smells like cut grass

2010-08-15T11:54:00.000-07:00

DON NICHOLS, 65

LIVES IN: Georgetown, Maine (born here, Five Islands, Georgetown, Maine)

PROFESSION: I used to be a lobsterman. Now I'm part-time lobsterman.

FAVORITE PART OF THAT WORK: Used to be able to make a good livin' at it years ago. Now it's gotten to the point where you can't do it anymore.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The weather

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Travel, I guess

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD: Well, we go up to northern Maine, as far as we can. If you could go anywhere... Well, right here, I guess.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I don't have a clue on that.

WHAT WAS THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Bacon and eggs for breakfast. Tea

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Not really, I guess. Baptist.

SECRET TO LIFE: Live every day as if it's your last.

8/14/10 2:30pm

Watching water

2010-08-13T20:03:00.000-07:00

MAX ANDERSON, 21

LIVES IN: Sanford, Maine (born Framingham, NH)

PROFESSION: Lifeguard for the summer, college student

FAVORITE PART OF BEING A LIFEGUARD: The people you meet. Their stories, where they're from. It's nice and helps kill time.

LEAST FAVORITE PART: The long hours. Nothing really to do but watch the water.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Gymnastics

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Italy

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Never thought about that. I don't know.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Bagel from Bagel Basket. Coffee

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: No

DO YOU HAVE A SECRET: No, not really.

8.13.10 10:30pm

Bolivian Softball

2010-08-10T17:46:00.000-07:00

IRENE ROSALES, 15

LIVES IN: Oruro, Bolivia (born in Santa Tecla, El Salvador)

PROFESSION: Student

FAVORITE PART OF SCHOOL: Sports

LEAST FAVORITE PART: Math

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Get into trouble in the streets.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: England

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I don't know.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Chocolate cereal and milk, apple juice

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes. Catholic. But I like rock-n-roll.

SECRET TO LIFE: Find a person who understands you.

3pm 3/20/10

On the way into Oruro, Bolivia from Iquique, Chile, an Oruro man seated near me told me people played baseball in town. I had mentioned that I am a terrible soccer player and routinely embarrass myself in Latin America when I try to play. I said I liked baseball and had played it all my life. That I miss it sometimes.

He said they play every Sunday on the only baseball field in the entire city.

A few hours after our bus arrived to Oruro, I got food sickness and did not leave my hostal room for two days. The room had no windows but the television mounted to the wall had three American movie channels and the remote worked.

When my strength returned, I walked the streets of the large mining town and I ate quinoa yogurt and popcorn. By Sunday I felt better and took a cab to the baseball field. The people were very nice and let me photograph and record the practice and the games. They were excited that I might make something about Bolivian baseball. Here's something...

Video: SOFTBALL, SUNDAY

From the Vault: Like Messi

2010-08-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

VALERIO HONCA, 16

LIVES IN: Villa Alota, Potosí Department, Bolivia (born here)

PROFESSION: Student

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: I like the classes. I like the girls.

LEAST FAVORITE PART: The math

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Sports: soccer, basketball, small soccer, volleyball

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Argentina. I've already been to Chile.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: About my life

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Grilled llama, rice, tomato and onion salsa. Water

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Not much. A little.

SECRET TO LIFE: I want to play and be like Messi.

3/28/10 12pm

Top of Mt. Baker

2010-07-27T16:30:00.000-07:00

BROCK GAVERY, 33

LIVES IN: Seattle, WA (born Grayslake, IL)

PROFESSION: Attorney for Caffe Vita

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Helping people solve problems.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Dealing with people's problems.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Recreate

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: North Cascades (Washington)

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Marlboro Reds, Whiskey, Fitness, and You. Symbiotically merging vices with fitness.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Meatballs. Bourbon.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: No

SECRET TO LIFE: Recreation

7/29/10

Brock and I used synthetic "skins" that stick to the bottom of our skis to glide up a Mt. Baker glacier. Mt. Baker is a volcano in the far northwestern corner of Washington state. Sometimes you can see it from the Puget Sound ferry or from the Lake Washington bridge in Seattle.

Reaching the top took us the entire morning of Sunday, July 25, beginning at around 4:15am. We stood at the summit at around noon. There were a few other people up there. One man named Jim asked about my camera, and he said he makes a lot of pictures on his trips into the mountains. He skied with us down the mountain and it only took two hours. Jim and his wife met in Europe and they traveled around in a VW bus way back in the day. Now Jim has a new Chevy van with a built-in, fold-out bed. He shows it to us in the parking lot and it looks very cozy.

Brock has a torn shoulder and he is tired a lot from training for an upcoming adventure challenge in which he and a friend, Sam, will bike from their neighborhood in Seattle to Mt. Rainier (115 miles). They will dismount their bikes, stow them in a safe place at the Paradise Lodge that sits at 5,400 feet on the flank of the Rainier volcano. Then they will walk for eight hours or so up the volcano to the summit at 14,411 feet. They'll stand for a picture, then turn around and walk, maybe run, maybe slide back down to the lodge. From there, they will run 96 miles around the base of Mt. Rainier on the famous Wonderland Trail. Then they go back home to their wives.

BLTs

2010-07-18T10:57:00.000-07:00

JOSEPH HOLSTON, 45

LIVES IN: Waverly, AL (born in Camp Hill, AL, six miles away)

PROFESSION: Jack of all trades. Pretty much name it, I can do it. Heavy machinery, carpentry, electrician, brick mason, leatherwork. And I grow vegetables. Got 80 tomato plants over there. I cook, too.

FAVORITE PART OF THE WORK: I just like making people's taste buds react.

LEAST FAVORITE PART: Having to work to make it. I wish everything was free.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I fish or I just do a little leatherwork, make some belts.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Italy or Phillipines

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: My life history. I've had some rough times. Nine years in prison. Accessory.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Sausage dog. But earlier I had a fresh juicy hamburger, fresh tomatoes, Natural Light, Coors, Budweiser.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Baptist

SECRET TO LIFE: Smoke weed.

7/17/10 9pm

I'd heard of Joseph a few hours earlier. I was eating at the Yellow Hammer restaurant. Yellow Hammer is one of two retail buildings in Waverly, AL, if you don't count the post office. The restaurant is in a 100-year-old building that was originally the first Ford dealership in the southeast. Diners eat in the showroom atop the same motor-oil-patina'd concrete floor that held Model T's.

Alex Johnson is the chef here. He's 26, a fine art student at nearby Auburn University. He's cooked with some good chefs and he makes a bruschetta this summer with tomatoes from Joseph and another Waverly truck garden farmer, Mace Glasscock.

Later that night, when this photo happened, Joseph was under a small tent frying bacon for BLTs and sausage for homemade pimiento-cheese-and-spicy-relish dogs. He was in the grassy yard of the Standard Deluxe company. They have a press in Auburn and they make t-shirts, signs, and invitations. They also have a lot of parties in this big yard between their centuries-old houses and shops. Tonight Pine HIll Haints plays on the outdoor stage that's lit bright with yellow lights surrounded by a moving mesh of summer insects, their drone and buzz muted out by the wash-bin bass and banjo.

Waverly used to be a major stop on the cotton railroad route. Now it hides behind the pines and hardwoods, an oxbow town off Highway 280.

A Real McCoy

2010-07-15T07:15:00.000-07:00

Kellon Logsdon

LIVES IN: North side of Green River, a few miles up from ferry crossing in Mammoth Cave National Park. Lives in log house his great grandfather built with an axe and a saucer of water. The saucer of water was his level. (born here)

PROFESSION: Park Ranger, ferry captain for Green River crossing, Mammoth Cave National Park

FAVORITE PART: Good money for this country.

LEAST FAVORITE PART: I have to say, I'm a local yokel, farm-bred and raised. Hillbilly raised, however you want to call it. When I started with Park Service everybody'd pretty mnuch worked their way up, knew what was what. Since the computers have come in, they been hiring "computer-educated" people. They'll come up with big ideas without practical applications. I like the term, "educated beyond their intelligence."

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Well, I farm, but I done it all. I've played banjo all my life. If I'd gone to school for it, I could probably have been a bona-fide archaeologists. I'm a paleo flint hammerer - you know what that is? Stone tool replication. I make arrowheads.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Supposed to be Baptist but not to the degree that the rest of them do.

7/7/10 8:15pm

Mr. Langsdon operates the drift ferry across the Green River in Mammoth Cave National Park. It takes one car at a time across the 50 yard-wide river, using the slow current and cables to truly ferry the vessel over. Langsdon let me ride across to get a few photos then we talked until headlights appeared atop the north side of the crossing and he had to ride the current over to the ramp.
Listen to Kellon here...

Urban gardner #4

2010-07-04T10:45:00.000-07:00

Melvin Price, 45

LIVES IN: Chicago, IL (born in Chicago)

PROFESSION: Worked as a carpenter

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Framing

LEAST FAVORITE PART: The long, hard hours. It just beats your body down. I still do it on the side.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: With this, I've been getting into a lot of gardening now. I do a lot of drafting - floorplans and stuff.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Europe

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Life in general. I've lived in New York, Baltimore, New Jersey. Some of everywhere.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Tuna and bread and water

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yeah, I'd probably say so. I haven't been to church but I believe in God.

SECRET TO LIFE: You live your life and treat people they way you want to be treated. I think everything'll fall in place there.

7/2/10 8:45am

Urban gardner #3

2010-07-01T11:07:00.000-07:00

Ashley Rodgers, 21

LIVES IN: Detroit, MI (born in Detroit)

PROFESSION: Just graduated from high school. I'm working on the summer farm now.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK ON FARM: THe harvest - all our hard work. And the animals.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Mucking out the goat pins. It's hot and the smell gets magnified by the heat.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I like spending time with my son. I'm really into music.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: All over. I just can't say one spot. Growing up here in Detroit, I never really traveled or explored. My family would take us to the Toledo Zoo when we little or to Cedar Point but I don't really count that. We'd just drive there and come straight back, never explore.
I really want to travel the world and share that with my son so he doesn't feel limited by

Lake Erie

2010-06-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

Darlene Fahey, 58

LIVES IN: Catawba, OH (born in Port Clinton, OH)

PROFESSION: Bartender

FAVORITE PART: People. I love people.

LEAST FAVORITE PART: People who complain about stupid stuff.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Doing it right now. Looking at the water. I'm actually going to buy a kayak. I can't swim, but that's why they have life jackets.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: United States. I just want to see the entire United States.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: People. Different people I've met.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Chicken chunks dipped in garlic parmesan. Canadian Club and water.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Definitely. I'm a practicing Lutheran.

SECRET TO LIFE: Having fun and living it to its fullest.

6/27/10 7:35pm

Darlene comes out here whenever she can. Catawba makes a thin spit into Lake Erie. She grew up on one side and now lives on the other.

A few minutes after this, I met George. He also lives on Catawba. George is older and retired. He and his wife switch off duties taking photos of the sunrise. George says most tourists leave as soon as the sun sets and they miss the second show, when the clouds turn pink and purple and orange.

He says that in the summer his wife goes to the east side and makes sunrise photos, but in the winter, when the sun rises later in the morning, he goes out to make the photos. He says sometimes when the lake is iced over the whole scene glows red as the day starts, and it looks, to George, like Mars.

Urban gardner #2

2010-06-23T12:51:00.000-07:00

Karen Turner, 25

LIVES IN: Harlem, NY (born San Antonio)

PROFESSION: Student, getting MA in Food Studies at NYU. Also a farm apprentice at Eagle Street Rooftop Farms, Brooklyn, NY

FAVORITE PART OF FARM WORK: We learn different things. Like Monday I helped build the third pallet compost bin and that's the system I'll need in Texas. I'm trying to apply all this to what I'll do in Texas. Everything gets me pumped right now - like I can't wait to do that when I get home.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF FARM WORK: Well, the sun actually. We're on a rooftop and the sun reflects on things. But I gotta build my heat tolerance for when I go back home.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Rest. I work four days in the sun so I like to rest and hang with my friends. And I do research on what to grow in my zone in Texas. I'm really excited about it. I'm putting all my energy there.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: I don't know. I got to travel with my Food Studies program. We went to Hong Kong this year. But I'd like to go to a lot of places - Latin America, Europe, even Africa. Basically, I'd love to get paid to travel around to different farms.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Something food related. Maybe a food-murder-mystery, based on a restaurant or something.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yeah, I'd identify as Christian.

THE SECRET TO LIFE: Doing what makes you happy, same old cliche.

6/22/10 11:30am

Karen works on the roof of an old warehouse in Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood. She wants to learn to grow food from Annie Novak, the founder of Eagle Street Rooftop Farm and a visionary in the new urban farm and sustainable agriculture movement. Karen is the classic success story of a project like Eagle Street: she'll take her skills from the ultimate paved environment and apply them to the heartland on her family's ten acre farm near San Antonio.

Eyffel, like the tower

2010-06-19T18:38:00.000-07:00

Eyffel Bonilla, 63 ("Eyffel, like the tower")

LIVES IN: Bronx, NY (born in Puerto Rico)

PROFESSION: Sales and marketing

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Well, I'm a people person. I enjoy meeting people and I enjoy the fact that the product sells very well. We're doing really well and that makes the job a lot easier. The fact that you're not just going out there and struggling, but that the product is selling.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: The traffic jams that I sometimes get into when driving around the New York metropolitan area.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I enjoy waching sports, photography, music. And health and fitness is something I really enjoy very much.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: I probably would like to see Europe. I've never been out there, so hopefully I will.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK WHAT WOULD IT BE CALLED OR ABOUT: It probably would be a biography about my own life. And the struggles from early childhood and my marriages - plural! - and just basically the struggles and see-saw roller coaster ride that life presents, and not just to myself but to many individuals.

LAST MEAL YOU ATE TODAY: Well, I just had a few grains of popcorn. That's a snack. For breakfast, I had watermelon salad. I'm trying to lose about ten pounds so I'm kinda watching what I eat. And coffee.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yes, I'm very much a believer. I'm a Bible-believing, born-again Christian.

SECRET TO LIFE: Knowing your maker and having a relationship with him. I believe that if you can get into the scriptures and understand really what the Bible is all about, I believe that that is the secret to being happy and knowing truth and I believe that truth is what we all need to know. That's taken me out of darkness and a lot of ignorance about why I'm even in this world. It just opens up a whole new world when you get into the scriptures. It's more than a religion.

6/19/10 3:45pm

Urban gardener

2010-06-17T20:54:00.000-07:00

Hari Timsina, 39

LIVES IN: Denver, CO (born Sharbang, Bhutan)

PROFESSION: Customer service at Denver International Airport. I was in a refugee camp in Nepal for 17 years. I went in at age 19. I studied in boarding school and got my diploma.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: I meet many people from all over the country and the world. I can talk with them and learn about many parts of the world.

LEAST FAVORITE PART: It's ok, nothing really.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I'm planning to go for further education but because of some problem I can't. I'm doing volunteer community service for parents literacy team to re-evaluate how their studies are going in schools.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: China

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: About the history of myself from my born place to here.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Rice, dahl, potatoes, eggplant. Water

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Hindu

SECRET TO LIFE: When I was young the mind was filled with unnecessary things, things that seemed really bad. When I left from the refugee camp, things got better.

6/1/10 5:15pm

Fitness partner

2010-06-10T06:47:00.000-07:00

Jiavonie Burton, 9

LIVES IN: East New Orleans, LA (born here)

PROFESSION: Football and student

FAVORITE PART OF SCHOOL: Math

LEAST FAVORITE PART: Teachers

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Football

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: New York

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: Animals

WHAT WAS YOUR LAST MEAL: Hamburger, fries, cold soda. From McDonald's

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Yep. What kind of church? Big church.

THE SECRET TO LIFE: Go to church and believe in God. Don't do bad stuff.

6/9/10 7:15pm

Jiavonie ran some laps with me at a big field/parking lot in the Village de l'Est, a largely Vietnamese community in east New Orleans. Jiavonie likes to explore in the woods and he got very excited when he spied a rabbit in the grass as it ran toward the forest. We did push-ups and then we had a relay race on the basketball court, his friend Darnell and my friend Charlie versus me and Jiavonie. It was a dead tie, both the forward race and the backward race.

Lew

2010-06-04T12:13:00.000-07:00

Lew Edminster, 69

LIVES IN: Kansas City, MO (born Tulsa, OK)

PROFESSION: I really have no profession. Living is my profession and you can take that about 100 different ways.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: I get to do what I want to do and I get to tell people to fuck off if I don't like what they do to me. In a not so literal way, there's a lot of freedom in that. Part of it comes from knowing my age, part from knowing my boundaries. I'm not trying to be glib or vague. If I were to tell you all the things I've done to make a living in my life, you wouldn't believe me anyway.

So now I'm going to become a breadmaker. I've never made bread in my life.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF YOUR WORK: You never make any money, just a whole lotta hard work. But it's still better than having a job.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Think about stuff to grow. I haven't had any free time for so long. Even winter - it's all about planning for spring. There might be a couple weeks in there. I go visit friends before they die on me.

IF YOU COUD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Italy or Spain

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: It'd be about me. And I just have a working title for this book. It's about life transitions. We all have them, some of us don't recognize that we're in one or have been in one or are heading toward one.

I transitioned in my life radically when I moved to Kansas City ten years ago. No longer was I husband or a homeowner. I didn't have the slightest clue what I wanted to do but I knew this was the place. It had that vibe.

Through living here and the general evolution of myself here, I have developed this agricultural lifestyle. Which is a kick back since I grew up on a farm.

I never really knew what moving here was all about. It was all about me growing and allowing my previous personality to bloom again.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Tuna salad sandwich and it was really good. Water. Too early to drink beer.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Oh, not in a religious way. I'm a spiritual person. I haven't gone to church since I was 10 or 11.

SECRET TO LIFE: Beats the hell outta me.

6/4/10 1:15pm

Lew rehabbed a construction dump site across from his apartment into a full-production farm. He sells 13 CSA shares each season and to urbanites at a farmer's market in downtown Kansas City. He was a part of the mini-"renaissance" of the West Side neighborhood.

Hithchikers

2010-05-31T17:38:00.000-07:00

Ryan Kemp, 21

LIVES IN: Lebanon, PA (born in San Antonio, TX)

PROFESSION: Vagabond

FAVORITE PART: Freedom

LEAST FAVORITE PART: I like a lot of it, but sometimes I get really hungry.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Play video games, internet, read, listen to music. I'm a simple human being.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: India

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: It'd be called "Sojourner." It'd be about travel, philosophy, ideas.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Peanut butter and banana and honey sandwich. Water to drink.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: No

SECRET TO LIFE: Don't get too uptight.

~ ~

Felicia Wolf, 20

LIVES IN: Pine Grove, PA (born in Redding, PA)

PROFESSION: Waitress

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: I hate it, actually. But I get to make some money and then travel.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: People are rude.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: I like to make things - craft, paint, draw - just make anything.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: I really want to go to Russia.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: I have a "zine" called Sunflower Sutra. It's a poem. That's what I want the book to be about - our travels, the people we've met and will meet, quotes. Beat generation-type stuff.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Peanut butter, honey, banana sandwich. My aunt made them for us in Santa Fe.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: I'm spiritual but not religious.

THE SECRET TO LIFE: I don't know. I'm happy. I don't know if there's a secret part.

5/31/10 5pm

These Hippies in Training got the greatest hitch of their lives, thanks to Lewis Lewis.

It was just Michael and me traveling from Santa Fe to Denver and we picked them up at the on ramp in Santa Fe. They lounged in the living room of our short bus for eight hours. Sleeping, reading from the magazine rack, snacking, petting the puppy they got off craigslist.org in Texas somewhere.

Ryan said they'd always wanted to travel the country, like the beats. But not alone. So they decided to go together. They've been dating for ten months and Ryan says they know they're in love.

On the saddle

2010-05-31T12:44:00.000-07:00

Chris Kassar, 33

LIVES IN: Flagstaff, AZ (born in Jersey)

PROFESSION: Trained as a conservation biologist….currently unemployed so spend my time now as a fundraiser/grant writer, yoga teacher and champion of Chilean rivers (via an organization I helped start called Rios Libres) while pursuing dream of getting paid to be a writer.

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Making my own schedule, doing things I love and feeling like I’m making a difference.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: Being on my own schedule is awesome, but it also means it’s possible to work all of the time…. plus so far it’s all for free.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Traveling, raising money for folks in Africa, tele skiing, baking, trail running, writing, training for triathalon, backpacking, pondering the meaning of life

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: The moon

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: My Year on the Moon

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Sesame ginger tofu, broccoli, homemade chocolate chip cookie

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: No, but very spiritually grounded. I believe in the transformational power of mama nature and love (yep – I’m a hippy).

SECRET TO HAPPY LIFE: Big question. Different answer for each of us so I’m not sure…..what I do know is that I’m the happiest when I’m: Following my gut b/c my intuition is never wrong. Being fully present in each moment. Paying attention to my dreams – the ones I have while I’m asleep and the ones that inspire me while I’m awake…both have guided me in the right direction so far.

5/29/10 4pm

Full-time Farmer

2010-05-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

Paul says the farm reveals itself at the crepuscular hour, that time between day and night when everything alive is out and moving, either coming or going. Then the sky is lit evenly because the sun is just below the horizon, either coming or going. Paul can talk about this time better than anyone I've heard.

Paul Gregory Glowaski, 31

LIVES IN: Santa Cruz, CA (born Fort Wayne, IN)

PROFESSION: Farmer educator. Currently Farm Director at the Homeless Garden Project

FAVORITE PART OF WORK: I feel like it's saving my life. It's the most radical thing I've ever done and it's definitely the most honest.

LEAST FAVORITE PART OF WORK: How stinky my feet get in these boots all day. Working for a non-profit always feels like fighting an uphill battle.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: This has become my life. I like to hang out with rock stars and fish in the ocean and mushroom hunt. The more you do something, the more it becomes what you are. It never feels boring, the farming. What someone might call work has become fun. There's some nights out here when I feel like I'm crazy.

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD: Right now I really want to see my mom and dad.

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: "Memoirs of a Suburban Farmer" I'm already working on it. It's about all the people, these nights. Just like you, I hope to be able to inspire people with words on paper. Every night I write in my farmer's journal - that's my real book.

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: Lunch here at the farm with the crew: Brown rice, lentil stew, salad, spring rolls and peanut sauce, water.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: Spiritual

WHAT IS THE SECRET TO LIFE: To see God in all the people you meet.

5/21/10 8pm

Throwing Horseshoes, Gooseberry Mesa

2010-05-16T10:51:00.001-07:00

Crosby Carpenter, 30

Lives in: Seattle, WA

Profession: Carpenter/Teacher Carpentry

Favorite part: Carpentry - the creative aspect of it. Teaching – The relationships you build with kids.

Least favorite: The paperwork

Free time: Mountain bike and snow ski. Cooking

Travel: Maldive Islands or back to France to do some mountain biking. This area in France where you can ride the ski lifts up to a 50 mile loop and all the uphill’s are on the lifts.

Last meal: Turkey, salami, cheese, tomato, lettuce, mustard sandwich. Water

Book: “Coffee and Wine” Enjoying life and recreation and doing the things you love. For me, the morning is about coffee and the evening is wine and everything else is what’s in between.

Religious: No

Secret to Life: Acting on sustained impulse. Doing that, I’m much happier than I was this time last year.

4/24/10 6pm

Appalachia

2010-04-29T12:10:00.000-07:00

I'm heading to east Tennessee next week for some travel stories. I was there three years ago to the week. I know because I was paddling the Tellico River on my birthday.

Julie Koons, 15

LIVES IN: Tallassee, TN

PROFESSION: Student

FAVORITE PART: Vocationals, math

LEAST FAVORITE PART: English

WHAT DO YOU LIKE TO DO IN YOUR FREE TIME: Ride four-wheelers

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL ANYWHERE: Hawaii

THE LAST MEAL YOU ATE: S'mores Pop-Tart and lemonade

IF YOU COULD WRITE A BOOK: It'd be about the country.

ARE YOU RELIGIOUS: I'm a Christian, Primitive Baptist.

10/20/07 2pm