Blue Highways: Viola, California

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapWe're tired, hungry and thinking that we are lost with William Least Heat-Moon, and hoping to find a place to stop in Viola.  Boy, are we going to be disappointed, but that disappointment is going to make for some more reflection in this blog post.  Be sure to click on the thumbnail to the right to find Viola on the map.

Book Quote

"Travelers are supposed to ask directions, but I believed, as usual, that I could find the way.  Encouraged by a sign pointing to Viola, I tried another road.  I had only to follow.  Sunset vanished as the pavement again went into the woods; it narrowed progressively to a pair of wet troughs, and pine boughs screeched against Ghost Dancing.  Having backed away from two roads already that day, I wasn't retreating again...If a tree lay across the trail, I'd be locked in this blackness - this home of Sasquatch - for the night...Why did I get into things like this?  I wasn't going to get to Viola - give up on that.  Maybe I wasn't even going to escape the woods unless I walked out.

"But things got no worse...Ten minutes later, I reached what must have been Viola, a few darkened houses.  (Note to mapmakers: without a gas station, cafe, water tower, and stoplight, you don't have a town.)"

Blue Highways: Part 5, Chapter 11

Photo of Lassen Peak from Viola, California by Marcel Marchon (lazytom) at Flickr. Click on photo to go to Marchon's photostream.

Viola, California

When the realization of a goal doesn't quite live up to expectations, it can certainly be a letdown.

LHM, tired from being on the road and just wanting to find a place to settle down, has his hopes set on Viola.  After all, the map says that there is a town there.  Certainly there has to be a motel or a campground or someplace where he can park, get a bite to eat, and go to sleep for the night.  He is traversing on back roads, and in the darkness he's worried he won't make it through.  He even mentions Sasquatch as a fear lurking out there somewhere in the blackness.

I can relate to the Sasquatch fear.  Back in my youth, when my family used to go out to a piece of property we own in the Northern California wilderness to camp for weekends, at night after the generator ran out of gas, the forest would be strangely quiet for just a moment after the loud motor shut off, and then a cacophany of crickets and other insects would break out, as if they had only been waiting for the generator to stop so that they could get their voices in.  Sometime in the night, occasionally the crickets would go quiet for some moments, and in my imagination, something large lurking about in the darkness was to blame.  I imagined Sasquatch, or Bigfoot as I knew him from TV and various reading materials, was watching me in my sleeping bag out there, waiting for an opportune moment to grab me.  It didn't even have to be night for me to be scared.  In the dusk, when the trees went from green to gray, I often imagined seeing a large figure moving about just beyond my vision.  Even in the daytime, a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye in the woods might set my heart to pounding.  Secretly, I hope that one day they discover that Sasquatch exists, so that I can say that I had a reason all those years to be afraid.

Along with his fear, when LHM finds Viola, his expectations don't match up to reality, and then he gets angry and frustrated.  Why did they put the goddamn place on the map if it doesn't have a "gas station, cafe, water tower, and stoplight"?  How I've been in that place.  Every one of us has faced times where our expectations exceeded the reality.  As a kid, I ordered the x-ray glasses that would allow me to see through walls, and more importantly, through girls' clothes.  How disappointed was I!  I still have an expectation that there will be flying cars before I die, but I'm not holding my breath.  I've been to restaurants that have been hyped, and gone away feeling cheated.  I've seen movies and productions where I was truly excited (think of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace) and afterward verbalized "what the hell was that?"

It's worse when people don't match up to the expectations you have of them.  You meet someone, and in that initial encounter they seem interesting, witty and fun, and then, either quickly or slowly, they are revealed to be at best boring, at worst people who have problems or people who are downright malicious and cruel.  If you get pulled into such relationships, it's hard to get out of them especially after you've invested emotionally.

I suppose disappointment is a facet of human life we can't escape.  One probably can't find a person who has never been disappointed.  Perhaps disappointment is needed so that we can contrast it with those times when we have been genuinely brought to joy and happiness because our expectations have been met and exceeded.  Again, to use the Stars Wars story, the first time I saw Star Wars (Episode IV, A New Hope) back in 1977, I was so blown away by the movie that I don't think I'll ever have such a moviegoing experience again.  If I'm out in nature, and I wander across an amazing vista, or if I am visiting a place and find something completely unexpected, the joy that I experience is genuine and more than makes up for those times where I have been disappointed.  I may have been disappointed by people who can't live up to their hype, but I also have met people who live up to everything that they appear to be, and I have met people who didn't seem like much at first but who have astounded me with their honesty, caring and generosity to me over long periods of time.

A friend of mine who is an out of work orchestra conductor has been trying for a couple of years to float a proposal for a new orchestra now that our established one has gone bankrupt and out of business.  He met with a businesswoman and friend of his to present his proposal to her, and went in with such high expectations that he was disappointed when she didn't simply write him a check.  In his telling of the story to me, I was clear to him from my perspective that the most significant thing was that she didn't say no to him, but she just didn't give him a commitment at this meeting.  She still might.  From our different vantage points, what was disappointment to him was a sense of hope to me.

Life is a balance.  Joy and happiness must be counterbalanced by disappointment and pain for us to truly appreciate all of them.  I think that mostly life is truly in balance, but our perceptions depend on our state of mind and we can tip the balance of what we notice toward more joy or more pain.  In other words, we see what we want to see.  If I want to live in a state of constant disappointment, I'll somehow make sure that it happens.  Sasquatch may or may not be lurking in the shadows of the forest, may or may not exist, but I will certainly convince myself that the dark patch under that far off tree in the corner of my vision is him if that's what I want to see.

Musical Interlude

This song, No Expectations by The Rolling Stones, just might capture what happens when reality just doesn't add up.  A man, disappointed.

If you want to know more about Viola

Sorry, I could literally find nothing about Viola.  LHM didn't foresee Wikipedia, but it is so small, it not only doesn't qualify as a town but it doesn't even have a Wikipedia site!

Next up: Somewhere along Hat Creek, California

Blue Highways: Manton, California

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapIn a volcanic landscape at dusk, William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) drives through a wonderland that put him into a whimsical state of mind.  If you're willing to let your mind wander, to rip off Dr. Seuss, Oh The Places You'll Go!  To see where we are located, please click on the map thumbnail over to the right of this column.

Book Quote

"I took a road not marked on my map toward Manton. Nowhere was the way straight, but the land it traversed looked like an illustration from a child's book: a whimsy of rocky shapes, a fancy of spongy bushes, a figment of trees.  Two loping deer could have been unicorns, and the fisherman under a bridge a troll.  The only reality was that somebody owned the land.  At three-hundred-yard intervals, alternating signs hung from barbed wire:  NO TRESPASSING.  PRIVATE PROPERTY.

"Wonderland stopped at Manton..."

Blue Highways: Part 5, Chapter 11

Manton general store. Photo by David O. Harrison at City Data. Click on photo to go to site.

Manton, California

Sometimes, landscapes seem almost too mystical to believe.  LHM experiences this on a rainy, dusky evening as he drives through landscape shaped by volcanic forces.  Often, landscapes that look ordinary at certain times suddenly take on magical proportions in certain lights.

Once I was with my wife and a friend, hiking on Mount Tamalpais just north of San Francisco.  It was winter, and the huge amount of rain that had been falling at the time turned the rivers coming off the mountain into cascades down the steep slopes.  Everything was wet and looked mysteriously primeval.  Huge ferns grew by the trail and put me in the mind of pictures I had seen in books about the dinosaurs, where giant dragonflies were snapped up by dinosaur predators.  Large toadstools made me think that at some point, a gnome or leprechaun would dance out into the open, laugh at me and disappear.  The gloom under the trees, the crashing water, and the almost jungle-like quality of the scene (even though it was a forest of conifers) made it possible that I wouldn't have been surprised had I rounded a corner and found King Kong eating the bark of a cypress tree while keeping an eye out for Fay Wray, or Jessica Lange, or Naomi Watts.

The wonders of Pandora in James Cameron's Avatar touched people precisely because the world was presented as a utopia where its people, noble savages, recognized their connection to their planet and had essentially become one with it.  Those scenes, as amazing as they can be on the big screen, evoke the passion about the wonders of our world which, though under assault, still manage to surprise us, especially when viewed through a slightly different perspective.  I still remember vividly, when driving for the first time into the Yosemite Valley just after graduating from college, the jaw dropping vista that appeared as the valley opened in front of me.  I still dream of that day when I climbed Half Dome and stood upon the edge, my senses filled with the grandeur of the Valley and the Sierras beyond.  Now I read that it's wonders are under strain from budget cuts and the increasing numbers of people that visit.  However, the images in my mind still linger.

Even as a child, I was quite aware that the world we see in the daylight changes with nightfall.  Places that meant one thing to me in the daytime often took on different meanings at night.  Our barn, a place of coolness and comfort during the day became a place to be afraid of in the dark, with many corners where bad things could hide and get me.  The ocean, roaring and often blinding as it reflected sunlight during the day became docile, placid and quieter at night, and giving my soul a soothing salve.  Redwood trees, so beautifully green during the day, became tall, dark and vaguely threatening figures at night - the forest that they sheltered, so wonderfully beautiful, alive and nurturing during the day often became a place of fear at night, where one would not want to be caught else one might be eaten by a wild animal or carried away by Bigfoot.

Of course, these feelings might have simply mirrored my life, because things were very different for me personally between day and night.  I used to dread the nightfall, because at night my father would become a different person.  The masks he wore during the day came off.  On the best nights, alcohol would make him sleepy.  On the worst nights, alcohol made him more interested in me than a father should be in his son.  I learned at a very young age that as the appearance of the world changed, so too did the appearance of many of those around me.

My wife recently showed me an old series of advertisements for the London paper The Guardian.  They made some of these very points.  In one, a skinhead is seen rushing toward a businessman from many different angles, and in conjunction with other events, it appears that he will attack the businessman.  Only from the last perspective is it revealed that the skinhead saves the businessman from getting crushed by falling bricks.  I've also read a recent article in the New Yorker by Alex Ross about Oscar Wilde and The Picture of Dorian Gray.  Wilde and his work were as much about appearances as anything else, and how we can be deceived by them if we don't question our perspective.

Yet, I love the change of appearance of the world when we see it at different times of day, or different eras, and if there is deception, I still allow myself to get lost in it.  I enjoy the wonder I feel when I step into what seems like a different world, where something has altered the perspective just enough to make it all seem new.  Perhaps that is why I like stories that present alternate realities, or fantasy worlds, or exotic places.  Maybe, it is why I like to travel, and to read, and to expose myself to different places both real and imaginary.  Ultimately, I am so small, the world is so big, and there is so much to discover.  When I can experience many different realities of the same place, it's even better.

LHM brings all of these thoughts to mind as he drives through a vista shaped by eons of violent volcanic action.  Violence can beget beauty, as twisted shapes and forms take on their own elegance and uniqueness.  Beauty can beget violence, as we endlessly have chronicled throughout human history.  The difference in how we view things may be dependent on something as simple as where we stand, and the time of day.

Musical Interlude

I heard this song by the Green Chili Jam Band the other day on The Childrens' Hour on KUNM.  The show's host, a young woman named Jena Ritchey who was hosting her last Childrens' Hour before heading off to college, played this song that really touched me.  The lyrics touch on all the things that make our world wonderful.  Thank you, Jena, for introducing me to this and other beautiful songs on your show, and have a wonderful time making new discoveries about our world in college.

If you want to know more about Manton

Monastery of St. John of San Francisco
Shasta Search: Manton
Visit Manton
Wikipeida: Manton

Next up: Viola, California

Blue Highways: Lassen Peak, California

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapWe attempt an impossible task with William Least Heat-Moon (LHM) by once again trying to scale a mountain, Mount Lassen, only to roll back down again.  If it seems pointless, it may be, or it may be a way to reach a deeper understanding of ourselves.  Either way, it's straight out of Greek mythology.  To see where this sleeping giant rumbles away in slumber, click on the thumbnail of the map at right.

Book Quote

"When I got to state 36....I took the road across Lassen Peak, a sharp ascent that disappeared in clouds.  Halfway up, snowflakes the size of nickels dropped out of the cold.  Cedar Breaks.  Then a sign saying the road was closed for winter.  I inched the van back and forth until turned around, all the while cursing a sign not at the bottom of the mountain.  Arriving again at the foot of Lassen, I started around it.

"Rain fell as I moved toward the valley, but on a ridge road between deep volcanic canyons, the showers stopped and a rainbow arched the highway canyon to canyon.  The slopes were strewn with shattered 'thunder eggs' ejected from Lassen, a volcano last violently active only sixty years before."

Blue Highways: Part 5, Chapter 11

Lassen Peak. Photo at Footloosewanderers site. Click on photo to go to site.

Mount Lassen, California

Sometimes, reading Blue Highways, it seems as if LHM's attempt to drive over mountains becomes Sisyphean.  Sisyphus was a character in Greek mythology, a king who because of his trickery, deceitfulness, and hubris was punished by Zeus with an impossible task.  Sisyphus must roll a boulder up a mountain.  However, as soon as he gets near the top of the mountain, the boulder gets away from him and rolls back down to the bottom and he must start all over again.  Accordingly, a task or an objective becomes Sisyphean if it seems pointless or impossible to complete.  If we imagine that Ghost Dancing is LHM's boulder that he continually tries to get over mountains, the analogy is appropriate.  How many times has LHM tried to cross a mountain only to be defeated or, even if he makes it, to have such a harrowing journey that it almost leaves him with scars?  He mentions one, the Cedar Breaks, but there were others in the Appalachians where he wonders if he is going to make it.  Mount Lassen is only the latest in a string of mountainous defeats that LHM endures.

We all take on impossible tasks.  We all do pointless things.  Our goals sometimes do not match up with reality.  Yet one of the amazing things about people is that we still attempt things that we may know aren't feasible.  It may be in personal relationships, where we get into those situations where we try to help someone who won't be helped.  It might be the tasks we take on at work or goals we set for ourselves that turn out too high.  Sometimes, people accept an assignment even though they know that they will not succeed.  War movies often show this dynamic in its most stark life-and-death terms - the mission that cannot succeed but must be undertaken anyway.

Even though there may not be overt deceitfulness or trickery about us, perhaps there is some.  Perhaps we trick ourselves into believing that we can change that person, or accomplish that those goals.  Perhaps in those war movies some of the characters trick themselves into believing that they can accomplish anything.  In some ways, the awful tragic truth is that we can't accomplish everything we want.  The odds are too high, the deck stacked too much in favor of the opposite conclusion.

Camus wrote a work on Sisyphus, which I've never read but heard about, which uses the myth to reflect on the absurdity of life.  LHM is certainly on that theme in this chapter as he reflects on "humbug."  If life is one big mountain that is pointless, there isn't much hope in any meaning whatsoever.  I'm not sure that I agree with Camus on this point, because I think that we create meaning - if something is meaningful to us, it orders the universe away from absurdity and pointlessness.

If we don't take on impossible tasks on occasion, we don't stretch our inner and outer frontiers.  We don't get out of our little cocoons.  It is important to take risks once in a while.  We may get hurt.  We may even (in the case of the war movies) die in our attempts to reach the goal.  But often, the rewards of attempting impossible things pay off in ways other than we expect.  We may not reach the top or cross the mountain.  Instead, we learn our limits and with that knowledge, we know how far we can push ourselves and what is realistic for us.  We become better able to serve and help others within those limits we've discovered.  We may even create the conditions that can change lives, or even change the world.  I'm convinced that there are ripple effects to our actions that affect others and eventually come around to effect us.  I am used to saying, when someone feels like they owe me for doing something nice for them, "don't worry, what goes around comes around."  Often it does.

So, LHM's labors lead at first anger and frustration as he is not able to complete the task of crossing the mountain.  He is angry about having to take an alternate route.  Eventually will come self-reflection and the idea that doing things a new way, taking another path, isn't such a bad thing after all.  That will lead self-actualization, a process of realization that allows for true growth.

Unlike Sisyphus, who is stuck for eternity obsessively pushing the boulder up the mountain toward , we don't have to be stuck in that ever occurring cycle.  If we learn something from our experience, we can break free of the need to go over the mountain and instead, feel just fine about navigating around it.

Musical Interlude

I just this song again on the radio.  I originally heard Guy Clark sing it in concert, but had forgotten about it.  Sometimes, getting where we want not only involves taking on the impossible, but also making a leap of faith.  I think that The Cape really captures the spirit of adventure that we have when we are young and would be wise to maintain a connection with even when we're older.

If you want to know more about Mount Lassen

Lassen County Times: Lasen Park delights visitors, hikers, campers
Lassen Volcanic National Park
Sunset Magazine: Lassen Peak
Volcanic Legacy Byway: Lassen Peak
Wikipedia: Lassen Peak

Next up: Manton, California

Blue Highways: Keddie, California

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapTrailing along with William Least Heat-Moon, we stop with him at a spring near Keddie, California.  It is nice to dump our city water and drink deeply.  It is deeply satisfying to stroll in the dappled sunshine underneath the trees.  To see approximately where we are located, click on the map thumbnail at right.

Book Quote

"North of Keddie, the road passed a spring spilling from the side of a broken cliff.  I emptied my jugs of city water and filed them with purity from the rocks and drank a pint to clear the pipes, then walked up into the trees to dispel the jounce of miles.  The sun, breaking through now and then, cast long slopes of light down the mists, and for a time, the vapors of humbug evaporated."

Blue Highways: Part 5, Chapter 11

Old Keddie Resort gas station. Photo by Chanel M. at Flickr. Click on photo to go to site.Keddie, California

When I mapped this site I really couldn't guess where, north of Keddie, LHM would have stopped.  So, instead of trying to mark the exact site, I just put a marker in Keddie since it is the nearest place that he mentions.  The next series of posts and their corresponding map points will have some guesswork involved - for instance, where he turns around on Lassen Peak, and where exactly he stops along Hat Creek, so please bear with me.  If you happen to be a really hardcore Blue Highways fan and have found these spots AND have recorded the coordinates, feel free to send them to me if you'd like to improve my accuracy.

Two things capture me in LHM's quote, above.  First, he writes about the glories of a spring rushing from a cliff by the side of the road. Elsewhere in this blog I've written about rivers, oceans, and how water is so important to me personally.  However, most of my experience with water has been with those two manifestations of this resource.  Springs, however, were not something that I was familiar with.  I remember seeing one spring as a teenager.  We own some property out in the wilderness, and our neighbor, a German who was extremely industrious, ran a pipeline three miles to a spring halfway up the side of a mountain and used gravity flow to bring the water down to his house where it turned a Pelton Wheel, therefore providing his home with both clean water and electricity.  After that, I don't think I saw a spring until I was well into adulthood.  At least, I don't remember any other encounters.

After leaving home, I lived mostly in cities, and my experience with water was either on rivers or by lakes.  I love lakes and rivers, really any bodies of water.  But I experienced the power of the simple spring on trips into Big Bend National Park when we'd drive there from San Antonio for long weekends.  A hike with my wife along the Mule Ears trail brought us to a spring, and in the middle of the desert the spring was surrounded by an explosion of life.  The spring provided water for plants and animals.  Plants provided shelter and food for animals and insects, which in turn provided food for other animals.  In the silence of the desert, suddenly there was noise - bees buzzing and birds chirping.  It was astounding what a little bit of water could do.  On another trip, I hiked out to a large cottonwood in the middle of the desert, and found that it grew on top of another spring.  Again, the amazing proliferation of life around this little bit of water was incredible.  Underneath the boughs of the cottonwood animals and insects went about their daily routines.  The tree dripped water.  Just feet away was the sun-blasted desert, where water was scarce and succulent plants had to store it within their bodies.  But within a 25 foot radius, somewhat abundant water changed everything.

On a hike in the Sandias, we went looking for a spring and found one at the head of a rushing rill of a river during a particularly wet year.  A spring is deceptively simple.  Water flows from below the ground into a pool, where it begins its journey downhill to wherever it ends up.  However, a spring never ceases to remind one of how important water is to life.  It used to be that a spring meant purity.  But now, because of agriculture and farming, springs have become as polluted anything else in our environment.  One must purify water even from springs bubbling out of the ground before it can be drunk, lest one get giardia or some other nasty gut parasite.

The second thing that strikes me about this passage is that LHM walks up beneath the trees to stretch and clear his lungs and head.  Nothing puts me in a better mood, reflective but not melancholy, than being under trees.  The sunlight, pushing through the leaf cover of the trees, dapples on the ground creating interplays of light and shadow as the leaves move to a slight breeze.  The air is cool because trees create their own small ecosystems and environments.  For me, the feeling is one of peace and opens up the mind to oneness with the world and a reflective but positive look at past and potentialities.  There are two scenarios for me which would constitute heaven - eternity next to an ocean shore, or eternity in the dappled sunlight beneath trees.

Musical Interlude

A spring is a great example of the circle of life in motion, so today's musical interlude is Circle of Life by Robin Spielberg.

If you want to know more about Keddie

There isn't much on Keddie as it is a small place.  Unfortunately, it seems to be known more for a gruesome multiple murder, committed after LHM passed through, than anything else - though it also is along the historic Western Pacific train line.

Steam Train Stop at Keddie (video)
Wikipedia: Keddie
Wikipedia: Keddie Murders

Next up: Lassen Peak, California

Blue Highways: Quincy, California

Unfolding the Map

Click on Thumbnail for MapQuincy, California serves as a backdrop for William Least Heat-Moon's reverie on "humbug," on a Sunday where everyone is at church.  I take a look at my own relationship to to my church, and wonder if I could use a dose of "humbug."  To see where Quincy is located, click on the map thumbnail at right.

Book Quote

"Quincy was a clean mountain town, empty and quiet but for a church bell. It was Sunday with a vengeance. Sunday in the churches, yes, but also Sunday in the streets, alleys, fields, even in the heart of the pines. Sunday is the day bells toll, the day funny papers come out - and with good reason. While the citizens sat under arched ceilings and spoke with their various gods and saviors, I scuffled with humbug in the Laundromat."

Blue Highways: Part 5, Chapter 11

Photo of Quincy, California by Anne at City-Data.com. Click on photo to go to site.

Quincy, California

I still go to church.

I sometimes wonder why I go to church, but I drag myself out of bed every Sunday morning, get dressed, eat something really light, and drive with my wife down to the St. Thomas Aquinas Newman Center on the University of New Mexico campus.  We get there around 8:30 a.m. and participate in the choir practice.  Then we sing in the 9:30 mass.

A number of developments in the Catholic Church have really made me question my commitment to the institution.  I'm not really questioning my faith, which is personal.  However, I could easily stop going to Mass and walk away from the institutional Church and probably not miss it.  The Catholic Church and its leadership, some 50 years after Vatican II brought about liberalization within the Catholic Church and made it more accessible to its people, seems to be determined to revert back to a patriarchal hierarchy.  The Church has decided that women, who make up at least half its members, will not be allowed to hold many of its most meaningful positions.  It has decided to put emphasis on certain “sins,” i.e. abortion, gay marriage, and cohabitation, while putting other sins that are responsible for deaths - and I'm thinking especially of wars here - on the back burner.  It has sheltered pedophiles and made excuses about their actions and blamed the victims rather than dealing directly and meaningfully to the horrors it sheltered.  Rather than confronting its problems, it decides to dogmatically ban chalices not made of silver, and choreograph its members to bow at a appropriate times within the Mass.  All the while, it faces a shortage of men willing to fill its needs for priestly functions.  Perhaps worst of all, it has marginalized and drummed out, through silencing and excommunication, many of those who respectfully disagree and present alternative visions of what the Church could be.  My wife compares the churches actions to those in denial, like a man rearranging deck chairs on a sinking Titanic.  Yet, the Church's general attitude, especially to those that question, has been something on the order of “if you don’t like it, feel free to leave.”

And yet, I still go to church.  Maybe it’s because emotionally, and even in official Church documents, I know that MY church stands for something.  I capitalize "MY" because I still claim some little bit of ownership.  MY Church still is able to surprise me and say meaningful and relevant things.  People within it, beleaguered though they may be, still stand up for justice and empowerment of the poor.  It was because of MY Church that I was raised to believe in what is right and good.  I still know good people that have stayed within the Church and still do good works even though the Church seems to not care at best or even try to block them at worst.  The fact that they stay and continue to see and use the Church as a vehicle of hope instills that same sense of hope in me.

LHM seems almost derisive of such people who sit in buildings while bells ring, talking to their "Gods" or "saviors."  He seems to see it as little better than sitting in a Laundromat on a Sunday afternoon and coming to a clear pronouncement of “Humbug.”  Humbug on everything, including your damn religion.

I’m not sure I agree with him.  As I learn to center myself, to know myself better, I have realized that there are many vehicles toward this goal.  Psychotherapy, self-actualization, prayer and worship…they are all avenues to personal reflection on our lives, our relationships and the things that demonstrate both our malice and our love toward ourselves and others.

But sometimes, as I struggle with life’s big questions, and turn my gaze toward a Church that sometimes appears more interested in channeling my thoughts toward obedience rather than toward personal growth and a closer relationship to the spiritual side of the universe, I wish that I too could utter a word and be done with it.  I fantasize that one word could drop all the curtains concealing the truth and give me the freedom to explore without the expectations of an increasingly out-of-touch institution.  It might be too easy of a solution, but I sometimes wish that I could also just say “Humbug.”

Musical Interlude

If going to church was like this - well, I certainly would enjoy it a lot more and may even be able to do backflips down the aisle like Jake in The Blues Brothers.  Just not too early in the morning.  I often wake up on Sunday to gospel music on our local radio station and it can sometimes be too peppy for this decidedly not a morning person.  Enjoy James Brown as he tears up the pulpit!

If you want to know more about Quincy

Feather River College
High Sierra Music Festival
Plumas County Visitors Bureau
Plumas County News (newspaper)
Wikipedia: East Quincy
Wikipedia: Quincy

Next up: Keddie, California