I skipped the canyon today, where the Big Rock Candy Mountain Spring City
My friend from up north, Joni Hatch, sent me some artificial lamb’s wool for my crutch tops. It is amazing the difference it makes! I can walk further with a lot more comfort. Thank you Joni!
I am still using the first pair of crutches I left with, and the same crutch tips. I lost a crutch top pad, but was able to replace it due to Jenny Livingston’s gift of a pair of crutches a few weeks ago. My crutches are uneven. Sometimes people ask me about that, and I usually don’t give much of an explanation. Truth is, most roads are uneven. Just like life. We can pretend everything is even and just how it should be, and struggle with the inequities that confront us, or we can make adjustments. Sometimes, we are uneven, and the adjustments we need to make can compensate somewhat for that, but unlike the road, occasionally we can level some of our own unevenness out.
I started walking today on the other side of the canyon, near Beaver Creek. I was soon confronted by a small barking dog, jumping up and down along the fence line. He followed me for a while until I came up even with the house set back some distance from the road, where he was joined by four other dogs of various mixes and sizes. I was feeling grateful for the fence when one of the smallest dogs simply walked through it and out to the road. Soon a man emerged from the house, followed by another four dogs. He hollered at the dogs as he walked out to the fence, then he hollered at me, “What the heck you doing?” So I told him. He reached into his pocket and gave me everything he had - $1.50. One of his dogs was a greyhound he called Yang, because of the Yin – Yang shape on his back. Yang was missing his right back leg at the hip due to an unfortunate encounter with a trap. Mo, the owner of all of these dogs, bragged, “Yang can still run 34 mile an hour, even on three legs”, and he added he could easily clear the four foot fence that surrounded Mo’s property. Adjustments, I thought. Yang may not be as fast as he used to be, but he had made adjustments and seemed to getting along fine.
Marysvale is a pretty short blip along Hwy 89, but it has an RV park, and tomorrow we will move the trailer here. There are a few cool looking buildings, the Pioneer Restaurant, the Pine Hotel, and the Trading Post by the RV park, but not much else.
I had a class to teach in the morning and started walking late in the day. We had driven the road, dropping water bottles off at every other mile marker, and then Kara had left me at the starting point so she could go back to the trailer to work. After the sun went down, things started getting chilly. Occasionally a lone car would drive by. Sometimes large trucks would pass in sets of three or four. I marveled at how much stronger the wind got with each passing truck when they are lined up one behind the other. Sometimes it was hard to stay standing. Once I lost my hat.
It is a strange experience walking alone in the dark on a deserted highway with not much more than bugs to keep you company. Strains of Hotel California kept running through my head. I wondered what colitis smelled like. I remembered stories of people being abducted from gas stations and then getting dumped somewhere beside a desert road. I started thinking they wouldn’t have to take me anywhere – I was already there. About this time I saw a meat truck pass by, slow down on a distant hill and then park. They sat there for a few minutes before turning around and slowly driving back towards me. I considered how easy it would be to throw me in the back of the meat truck – that is if they had a large enough crane. They came to stop beside me and they guy on the passenger side asked what I was doing walking around by myself at night. I gave him the usual response. He then asked, “Aint nobody followin’ you?” I made it clear that my wife would be by any minute to pick me up. He asked what “Walking for kids who can’t” meant. When I explained, he asked, “Can you take donations?”
“My name’s Tyrone”, he said, “this here is Dodge. Dodge, like the truck.” They were genuinely nice guys, wanting to make sure some lone person walking on the highway at night didn’t go without help if they needed it. He gave me two dollars and off they went, leaving me feeling silly for all of my paranoia.
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