Cotton Panties and Soft Drinks with Straws

Living in Europe is entirely different from living safely ensconced back in the states. There are so many different cultural and historical traditions that have withstood the test of time. Once you’ve lived abroad, it’s easy to see that the world doesn’t evolve around what Capitol Hill has to say…especially now. It’s a much bigger piece of real estate than that. In short, it’s one of life’s lessons that everyone should experience.

This was especially true in Europe during the 1960s when I lived there on several occasions. There was no Starbucks on every corner. Coffee usually meant Nestlé’s instant coffee; just add water and cream. Corner cafés served only tea and cappuccino. The latter was a solid mass of black mud served in a tiny cup under the guise of coffee. If you ordered a soft drink, it almost always came with a straw sticking out of it.

When Brian and Melanie were in college, Sharon and I insisted they do a ‘study abroad’ program. Brian traveled around the world and Melanie went to Ireland. They both came back changed individuals with a greater appreciation for their place in a world outside of Apple Valley, Minnesota.

Scandinavia, in the mid-Sixties, was a world (literally) apart from the provincial, sheltered, prudish Midwestern novitiate I had immigrated from. It was open and accepting of different social opinions, individual sexuality, fuel-inducted free thinking and a world view of themselves. The same was true for the Netherlands.

That environment of freethinking was a bit unsettling for me when I first settled in Denmark but I quickly realized that this lack of judgement to those different from the crowd wasn’t threatening to them at all. The Dane’s open-minded approach to life made examining current social, political, sexual and artistic affairs more realistic and affirming. It was mind-bending and mind opening at the same time.

About two years later, when I returned to Europe for a second time, I spent the majority of my travels in Amsterdam. I became integrated into a community of friends for several months. That city and country had embraced the free-thinking attitudes of the Danes and then pushed it even further down the road of enlightenment. It began for me in some back canal bar when I happened across a solitary guitar player serenading the pigeons gathered around him. We chatted over a couple of beers and soon became fast friends. The smoky atmosphere drifting out of the club probably sped up that process a lot.

John was a student at the local University. He was an aspiring guitar player and a budding architect. He was also struggling to find a major that mattered to his social consciousness and paid the bills at the same time. He was also desperate to move out of his parent’s flat and find his own apartment. We shared great stories of our travels, my time up in Denmark, His desire to go to the states and our collective hope for the greater world beyond the canals of Amsterdam.

One afternoon, I met one of John’s friends who was also his salon companion. I can’t remember his name but the young man was remarkable in his intellectual prowess and yet total lack of social skills. John’s friend wasn’t able to hold a steady job because of his mental and social inability to interact with people. Therefore, he spent most days, reading, writing, and interacting with his beautiful child.

John’s friend lived in subsidized housing just outside of town. His wife was from Indonesia and they had the most beautiful child I’d ever met…before my own kids and grandchildren.

I stayed with them for almost a month in an impromptu, unstructured home life full of questions and comments, pondering the possibilities and forecasting our future. I was their American guide for all their questions about Vietnam, LBJ, unrest on college campuses, current campus fashions, Hollywood movie stars, American capitalism, and our obsession with nudity and (in their mind) the timidity of Playboy magazine.

On weekends, John and I would often travel through the back alley bars and University student union in search of those ever-elusive female companions. These college students loved to interact and exchange ideas with the American traveler and his shy folksy friend.

The women we met were primarily upper class University students wise to the ways of their world and anxious to explore life beyond the canals of Amsterdam. Our conversations gave me a global perspective I’d never experienced before. Our evening socials were a series good natured intellectual fisticuffs, seductive meandering in a safe environment and mind-expanding concepts over cappuccino, coke with a straw and some of the stronger stuff. I can’t remember if the women were attractive or not. It hardly mattered. They were stimulating, engaging and attentive. It was easy to fall in love with them…if only in my imagination.

I’m sure I probably looked like a hobo with my worn jeans, hiking boots and frayed jacket. But the girls didn’t seem to mind. I remember their fashion sense bordered on the simple and practical and yet with a flare of imagination. There was very little of the Carnaby Street or Bibi fashion trends going around at that time. With winter fasting approaching, nowadays we’d probably call it the layered look.

Oh, and I never found out if they were wearing cotton. I’m just guessing on that one. Looking back, I was too engaged in slight exaggeration tempered by intimate soul searching and honest bravado to ever find out. In other words, I was probably talking too much. Some things never change.

In My Back Yard

Civilization ends not far from my home where the mountains and canyons collectively take over from putting greens and turquoise pools. There are a cluster of canyons, long revered in Indian culture and lore, that stretch for miles and miles for as far as the Raven flies. Long ago, the land twisted itself up into mountains, canyons, washes and arroyos. It provided the perfect pallet from which to paint my series of books centered in and around Palm Springs.

Tahquitz Canyon inspired my third novel (Tahquitz Dawn) in the ‘Debris’ trilogy. There’s a century old legend about an evil Indian spirit lurking back in the canyon. That was enough to form the central plot of my story. This land can do that to an over-active imagination.

Skirting the mountains is a wash long favored by riders from the nearby Smoke Tree Stables. The wash is one big playground for hikers, riders, runners, mountain bikers and mountain goats. Add in the seasonal rattlesnakes, lizards, and unnamed rodents; and it’s a menagerie not to be missed.

The South Course of the Indian Canyon Golf Resort skirts the wash and hugs the foothills of these mountains.

The Henderson Trail runs parallel to the wash and leads up to the Shannon Trail, which in turn, climbs up the mountain and connects with the Garstin Trail on top.

For most of each year, the wash is quiet and serene; a great place to get lost inside your head. There’s usually a small muddy creek meandering by. The scrub brush is in full bloom in spring and nesting birds flit about endlessly. The stillness there can be deafening with only a few fleeting sounds floating by. All is peaceful until once or twice a year when the rains come and wash that complacency away with astounding fury and force in just a matter of moments.

Then after the rains, new trails have to be forged on a totally altered landscape. Aside from the occasional washout, the mountain trails remain the same.

Smoke Tree Stables has been in operation since the early '40s. Hollywood actors and celebrities used to play cowboy in the nearby canyons and mountain trails. It’s still a popular mecca today for tourists and local cowboys alike. We took the family there the last time they were in town.

Horse trails become mountain bike meccas. Hikers wander the wash, meandering back and forth as the rutted grounds give way to dry beds. Arroyos cut in the corners and debris lies crumpled up in distorted jumbled piles randomly deposited everywhere.

Fortunately for me, the wash isn’t the only place I’ve found tranquility and peace in this part of my world. As a fellow hiker commented the other day. “It really is one of the best playground for adults in the world.” I’ve also found a host of other newly discovered venues to get lost in around the Coachella Valley.

They are all magnificent escapes just steps away from my home. Places to meet and greet and at the same time go solitary if I want to. Its heaven’s confessional where I reveal my earthly sins; the good ones, the bad ones and the fun times in-between.

Digging Through the Bones

Retirement communities like those in the Coachella Valley have always been a little different than your average homestead. While most neighborhoods around any town have a reasonable number of deaths each month, here it’s a bit different. The more older folks around, the more that are likely to pass away any month of the year. Then the elephant in the room has always been: ‘What happens when?’ The reality here is that an above average number of retirees get old and die in place each month. What happens then to their lifetime of collected ‘things?’

Unique to Palm Springs and perhaps a few other retirement areas is our preponderance of consignment stores, Goodwill, thrift stores and estate sales; all meant to clean out the remnants of past residents. As a friend of mine likes to say upon hearing the sound of an ambulance. “There goes another condo for sale!”

I assume it’s the same in parts of Florida, Arizona, and other warm winter locales. The circle of life comes around and starts all over again. Newly purchased homes and condos are often furnished with the bones of sold off condos. Children of the deceased usually come into town with one goal in mind. Their objective is quite simply to empty their parent’s home, either sell off the furnishings or get them to a consignment store ASAP and leave town as quickly as they arrived.

The Coachella Valley has a wide variety of resale opportunities. Locally, a chain called ‘Revivals’ competes with other thrift stories such as Angel View and Goodwill. There are professional resale establishments like The Estate Company and (my wife’s favorite) Misty’s. There are probably dozens and dozens of smaller shops all collecting and catering to specialty items for resale. Then there are the many estate and garage sales meant to strip a house of any furnishings in as little time as possible.

In the field, the competition doesn’t stop at the door. There are professional bargain hunters who treat estate sales, garage sales and consignment stores as their full time buy and swap or resell profession. What’s left are the bargain hunters who are always on the lookout for a deal.

For some folks like myself, it’s a surreal experience scrounging through someone’s home after they have passed or gone to a nursing home. While it can sometimes border on the morbid, it is always a somber yet fascinating trip back in time. It’s like peeling away the life story of a person, revealing beneath the layer of dust and corner dust bunnies a glimpse into their daily lives. Old furnishings, paintings, appliances, records, tools, magazines, CDs and DVDs all tell a tale of their past life.

Last year, we went to the Hearst Estate sale (the grandchildren of William Randolph Hearst) and last week it was an estate sale conducted by the state of California through a broker. Both must have had fascinating tales to tell.

There can be bargains galore if you’re in the right place at the right time and the price is right. Sharon has collected, over the years, wonderful items for our home. She has found frames for her paintings and crystal and china for her collection. I’ve found old books that were ideal for research material for my novels or just a great read.

Moving amid the casual shoppers are the serious bargain hunters. These are folks on the lower end of the economic spectrum for whom garage sales and estate sales mean they can buy items they would never be able to afford otherwise. Furniture, old and comfortable, is often relegated to the poorest of shoppers.

Around here, especially in season, it’s the great circle of possessions passed on from one generation to the next. It’s digging through the bones of the deceased to build a new foundation for the living. For the serious and casual shopper alike, consignment is not a dirty word. It’s bargain hunting, great finds and surprises every time the garage door opens.