An Open Letter to the Supermarket Industry Upon My Retirement

 

When I first walked in the door of a small chain of family grocery stores in Sedona, Arizona in the fall of 1984, I wasn't looking for a career. I was looking for a part-time job to survive until I figured myself out. Even then, supermarket work was not a glamorous profession, but, at the time, it did offer a respectable, solid, middle-class job. There was not only opportunity for a living wage, but a chance to learn a skill and opportunity for advancement. It was certainly nothing to be ashamed of. I started in a meat department that still processed hanging beef. The crew was a rough-edged bunch of men who possessed both a fierce competency and a craftsman's pride in their work. The bakery had real scratch bakers, the deli cooked actual meals and was run by a former owner of a catering business. The produce manger was volunteer fireman and paramedic. It was a fun and extremely proficient and professional crew. Management was store-directed. The store director and grocery manager were extremely competent people and they were pretty much left to handle business as they saw fit. Technology, per se, did not exist. We still priced all items by hand with a sticker gun. The wrapping machine was completely mechanical with slugs and paper labels, and large paper signs in the storefront windows was our major means of promotion. Oh yeah, we also had trading stamps.

The benefits were great. We had better healthcare than the building trades. We had a pension that accrued annually. We had outstanding perks. Once you're sick time maxed out, you were paid out the extra week every year. Great incentive for not using your sick time. We got an extra paid day off every year we did not have an accident. You got your birthday paid off . You got your workplace anniversary paid off. We got first dibs on any steaks that didn't sell. We had store picnics in the summer. Christmas parties in the winter. We were given gifts or gift cards for the holidays.

It was, in short, an okay job. And, every time I got ready to move on, they gave me a significant pay bump.

The “glory days” did not last long. Beginning around 1990, we transitioned to box beef. I remember the old cutters bemoaning the change and saying that was the end of the line for the trade. Us young guys rolled our eyes. Cutting box beef would save time—but it wasn't any easier. The craft wasn't in the breaking—it was in the merchandising of the cuts. It was easy to cut top rounds steaks—but that used only 70 percent of the primal. It was what you did with the ends and scraps that made money. That is the real art of meat-cutting and surely that would never go away.

But it did. Slowly, surely, they were right. Justifying that our job was now easier, the labor budget started shrinking. Then they started adding technology—again saying our job has now easier-- and shrinking the labor budget. Then with the rise of big box stores like Walmart, they claimed they had to shrink to compete. What followed was a steady loss of benefits, perks, labor and wages. The real turning point was the California labor strike of the early 2000s. The unions settled for a two-tier wage and benefit structure grandfathering in the old wage and benefits (but freezing them in perpetuity) while subjecting the new hires to a new minimum wage structure. I had a feeling then that it was time to get out. If only I'd had an inkling what going the next 20 years without even a cost-of-living raise was going to feel like... I would've, should've, have run screaming out of the store. Alas, what they say about frogs in a pot of water slowly coming to boil is true.

Since then, the grocery industry's race to the bottom (lowest prices, lowest wages, lowest benefits, lowest quality, lowest service) was on and continues to this day. Just when I think it cannot possibly get worse, it does.

They tell us our work is not “skilled.” The justification for paying us basically minimum wage is that anybody can do it. Take any able-bodied person off the street, give them a couple days training and they can do our job. Fair enough. But can they do it well, can they do it efficiently and, most importantly, can they keep doing it day-in and day-out, year after year?

It takes a certain personality, a mixture of patience and emotional grit, to survive for long in this industry. We are always “on.” The customer service is ongoing and endless. The schedule is unrelenting and often cruel. I have had a handful of weekends off in my 42 year career. I want you to take a moment and think about that. Most people take weekends for granted. Two days off (together!) with the majority of everyone else is not only time to catch up on chores but time to bond with friends and family and even your co-workers. Retail workers don't have that. They have a constantly juggled and haphazard schedule that is not at all family friendly and often impossible. For many years my wife and I worked different schedules. I usually had an early morning shift. She had an evening shift and we joked that we were “tag-team parents.” We were proud of the fact, but when I look back, I can only see the cost in parenting. Just the lack of a family meal. The lack of family together days. I'm sure it had a profound effect on our parenting and our family.

Holidays? The time for family gathering and celebration? Ha! The time for grueling overtime, stress and exhaustion. It became a recurring meme in my house that I would spend Christmas Eve lying on the floor, trying to stretch my back out, and would eventually fall asleep next to the Christmas tree. While other people enjoy the week off, we were lucky to get just Christmas day off which was usually spent in an exhausted stupor. Summer holidays? Family camp outs and water-skiing at the lake?. Backyard parties and BBQing with a group of friends? Nope, nope and nope.

I don't think that anybody appreciates what kind of sacrifice just the schedule causes. Forty two years without a real holiday or a weekend. It alters your life. It affects your ability to make and keep friends. It affects your relationships with just about everything. I was kind of lucky in that I am something of a loner and I learned early on to enjoy hiking and doing things alone. But not everyone is like me. And often I wonder if I would have been that extreme of a loner if I'd had a normal lifestyle.

The work itself, while technically easy, is one of constant conflict resolution. Being on the front lines, we are the ones interacting with the customers, we are the ones taking the punishment for understaffed stores, rookie mistakes and increasingly unpopular corporate policies. Hate the digital coupons? Don't want to download the app? Sick of price discrepancies and inaccurate product descriptions? Misleading ads? Long lines? Empty shelves? We get to hear it all from the customers while getting heat from the corporate people to keep enforcing their inefficient bullshit policies.

Besides the poor pay and the crazy schedules, that might be one of the hardest thing we grapple with on a daily basis. The absurd level of corporate bureaucracy and the subsequent compliancies and mandates and the often dysfunctional technology that is crammed down our throats is mind numbing. Even as they cut labor hours, they are constantly adding new bureaucratic and compliance initiatives until you feel like you are living in a sci-fi dystopia. Temperature logs, cleaning logs, policy sign offs, grind tracking, fat tests, inventory checks, production planner printouts and adjustments, firm orders, HR videos... There are so many rules now that it is quite impossible to do them all. In fact the union, when it is upset with a company instructs their members to “work to rule” also known as malicious compliance. Knowing that if every single rule was followed to the letter, nothing would ever get done. Whenever you get a group of retail workers together, I guarantee you they will start telling stories about being stuck in a Catch 22 of no-win corporate bullshit, a labyrinth of idiocy..

We see you're not following the production planner! It's not accurate nor logical Well it would be accurate if you made the proper adjustments. If I have to make the adjustments why do I need a production planner? Because it's a very expensive program that makes your job easier..

Your shrink is too high. Because you send me a pallet of yogurt I didn't order. It's your responsibility to adjust the pre-books. I was told not to adjust the pre-books. You're not allowed to adjust the pre-books unless it's necessary to adjust the pre-books..

You missed a sweep log last week. I was short four people that day. I had customers lined up to the back of the store. It's absolutely vital we have 100% compliance on the sweep logs.

That's the thing about daily life in a grocery store. It's not just the low pay. It's not just the angry customers. It's not just the clueless corporate stooges. It's not just the schedule. It's everything. All of it. All the time. Morale is always low and getting lower. Employee turnover is ridiculously high. Absenteeism and employees who've given up or quit trying are the norm. And who can blame them? Positions, even department management positions, go unfilled for months at a time. We are always, always, always working short-handed. And always training someone new with no allowance for the extra time that takes. It is impossible to do the job right with any sort of pride or competence. Worse, there is no incentive to do so. The few good people that are left get worked into the ground with absolutely no mercy or gratitude.

Utter Corporate Bullshit

There is no longer any dignity or honor in the job. It's a no-win dead end. And that is the worst fucking thing of all.

It didn't have to be that way. Briefly, during the pandemic, the working dynamics changed. Suddenly we were essential workers. We were supermarket heroes. Customers were thanking us for being there for them. Supervisors came in every 6-8 weeks with gift card bonuses. A congressman even proposed legislation giving us a $40K bonus. (we laughed and laughed about that one). The thing is-- we weren't doing anything we didn't do on a regular basis day-in and day-out, year after year. I guess there was a risk involved—but there is every day in retail. We are on the front lines of societal crazy, very flu bug, every infectious disease and every drug-induced maniac that comes around. At least then we were being recognized for it. For a brief time, people recognized that we were essential—and it seemed like the grocery business had an opportunity to change. To value its workforce.

During the pandemic we cut everything we could get our hands on

Nope. As soon as the pandemic was over the companies went back to squeezing the payroll budget and treating us like vermin . Look, I know the supermarket industry is an extremely competitive one—one that works on laser thin margins. I get that. But the way they treat their front line people is completely dysfunctional, self-sabotaging and morally wrong. Some companies have bucked the trend and succeeded brilliantly. Costco pays their hourly workers and average of $26 an hour—compared to $17 for the rest of their industry. Their turnover rate is 8%--compared to 60%. And the efficiency, I'm not sure how to measure it, but if you've ever been in a busy Costco you know those workers are motivated and productive and, imagine this, fucking competent at their job.

The argument that they simply, can't possibly, pay better is bullshit. The fact that I, an experienced, highly proficient tradesman, end my career making marginally more than a new hire clerk, is ridiculous and a large part of the problem. People want jobs to aspire to. When I first hired in, I busted my ass to get a shot at a meat-cutting apprenticeship. It taught me to work and set the foundation for the rest of my career. Now, when you are hired in at basically the ceiling, then what's the motivation?

The truth is we, the front line workers, the people that are the face of their franchise, are simply an afterthought, an unfortunate but controllable expense. It is not only the dismal pay but the general culture of passive neglect. One of the famous retail memes is: we posted record profits last quarter and all we got was a pizza party! To which more than half of us responded: WTF? You get pizza? For the last many years there has been no effort to encourage, reward or motivate the store level workers--unless you count the biannual anti-union propaganda meetings we are forced to sit through. It is this mindset that has made the job so thankless, so grim, so insufferable. There are no standards anymore. They are just happy to fill the positions with any foolish warm body they can lure in. Misfits and miscreants, rejects and reprobates, they could care less who wears their company's logo and represent their ideals. So self-defeating, short-sighted and clueless.

So yeah, I'm tired, fed-up, bitter and extremely disappointed in my workplace (and myself for sticking it out this long). Doesn't matter anymore. I've put in my time and, through a combination of some old benefits that no longer exist, some aggressive wrangling with one of the few new ones and a lifetime of scrimping and saving, I'm able to retire. You have no idea the relief and joy. No fucking idea.

To my fellow front line comrades-in-arms, I would like to say thank you. Thank you for your steadfast work ethic, your effort in the face of overwhelming odds, your black fucking humor, and, most of all, your friendship. We will be brothers always.

To corporate leadership and, yes, the folks that signed my checks for 42 years?

Fuck you. Rot in Hell.

For reference:

www.goodjobsinstitute.org

https://www.forbes.com/sites/errolschweizer/2025/05/12/how-underinvestment-is-starving-grocery-stores-and-feeding-wall-street/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5OQeUwXlV4&t=50s

Mistakes Were Made

 

Omens. Signs. Portents. Normally I don't believe in such things. But two things happen as we pack up the car camp at the trailhead and shoulder into our packs. First, Sean goes to roll up his thermarest and discovers that his dog has chewed off the nozzle. We laugh but sleeping on a tiny mat is bad enough. Sleeping on the ground is ten times worse. Then Ari buckles his pack and the plastic buckle snaps. Not good. Cinching the hip belt tight is the only way to make that weight ride on your hips instead of your shoulders. Luckily I find a substitute from my day bag. As we start hiking up the trail, thunder rumbles in the distance.

Energy low. Light fading. Storm moving in. The trail veers away from the creek and starts to switchback up the mountainside. Not good. Haven't seen a good campsite in a while. But maybe if we push on, we'll get lucky.

I push on ahead of the rest, eager to stake a spot for the night. But the creek below slowly becomes a chasm and the trail drifts upwards. It's getting even more rocky. When the trail switchbacks across a huge talus slope, I stop. Take off the pack. And boot up the mapping software on my phone. The news is not good. The trail will not meet back up with the creek for quite some time. And we will need the water. Thunder rumbles close by.

I wait for my two hiking companions and break the news to them. We have to make a decision. Ari votes to push on. Do the extra miles. Sean wants to bushwhack down the bottom of the chasm and scramble up to an open spot on the other side. I think we should just backtrack a little to the last bit of level ground. We spend too much precious time debating. The thunder rumbles closer. We're all beat so, in the end, the easiest choice was the sellable one. We backtrack to a marginal little campsite in the spruce.

But what to do first. It's beginning to sprinkle but there's a lot of work to be done. Tents need to be set up, clothes need to be changed, fire built, fish cleaned and dinner prepped. Since everyone is completely out of water, I decide that is my first priority. I take everyone's water bottles and water filter and blaze a path to the bottom of the chasm. Following game trails, I come to a wonderful little spot between two little waterfalls that has a flat ledge of rock sticking out into current.

“This is perfect!” Ari exclaims as he follows and finds me with more water containers. Indeed it would be on a sunny day. But the little hollow is dark and chilled and cold mist from the waterfalls and the rock walls makes the place like a little refrigerator. I am still in my hiking clothes—shorts and a t-shirt and, post exertion, in a vulnerable state. I am immediately chilled. Filtering water is a kind of slow and tedious process. It begins to rain. By the time we are three quarters done, I am shaking uncontrollably. “We should go get our rain gear,” Ari suggests. “Let's just get this done,” I chatter.

By the time, we finish and climb back to camp, it is raining heavily. And I am in a bad state. The cold has taken over. Not only am I shaking so bad that I have no motor coordination but my mind is freezing up too. All I can think about is getting into my warm dry sleeping bag, but I can't quite seem to remember how to put my tent together. I am on the verge of panic. I am in serious trouble. I scream in frustration. That brings Sean over to help me pitch my tent.

It is coming down. By the time we get the rainfly on, the inside of the tent is good and wet. I don't care. I hurriedly toss my sleeping bag and my sack of dry clothes into the tiny tent and crawl in. The tent is the size of a coffin. Trying to get out of my wet clothes into my dry polypropylene long underwear and into the mummy bag in my shaking state in that confined space takes a long time and requires feats of advanced yoga that seem impossible. But I finally do it. I pull the hood over my face and lay there shaking, but dry.

Slowly the sound of the rain and my chattering teeth fade and are replaced by the sounds of camp coming to life: the hiss of a camp stove, the crackle of a fire and the subdued murmur of conversation in the twilight. Someone offers me a cup of hot tea. “I still need a minute,” I tell them. Inside the sleeping back I am finally warming up. As my brain becomes fully functional again, I reflect on my mistake. I should've pitched the tent first and gotten into the warm clothes. I know better. First rule of the backcountry is always put on clothes BEFORE you need them. Alas, I haven't done this for a while. And I'm a bit rusty.

More than a little chagrined and embarrassed I finally pry myself out of my bag and join my comrades around the campfire and the evening meal.

I don't sleep well on backpacks. So I lie awake and listen to it rain. And rain. And rain. I can hear the wind come down the valley sounding like a jet airliner. Followed by a heartier downpour of rain. Some time late, I feel a drip on my forehead. Then some more. Not good. I scrunch down deeper into the tent to escape the Chinese water torture and hear the unwelcome sound of sloshing, The foot of my sleeping bag is sitting in water. Really not good. I take the garbage bag I always wrap my sleeping bag in and fit it around the foot of my bag. I curl my feet up even as I scrunch my head down. My fetal position gives me a couple of square feet of dryness in the swampy mess.

The rain continues relentlessly, endlessly, impassive and unforgiving. My dry patch shrinks. I have to pee. But I don't want to give up my tiny stake of warmth and dryness. Finally I have no choice. Into the rain I go in my stocking feet. While I'm out, I try to tighten the rain fly, tighten the stakes. I wriggle back into the tent thoroughly damp, feet wet and demoralized. I try to recreate my sanctuary to little effect. “Please stop raining,” I think. “Please, please stop raining.” A useless plea to the impassive gods. By the end of the night, the only thing keeping me out of the water is my air mattress—a raft in a pond of water. As the darkness slowly lightens and the hint of dawn fills the tent, I sense the rain begin to slacken. It's subtle at first. Then I'm sure of it. The rain is beginning to ease. I hear sounds of people moving about the camp. Ah, survival.

Turns out, Ari had a similar night. Sean approaches the “kitchen” bags under his eyes and a haunted expression on his face. “I'm not going any farther today,” he croaks. We shake our heads. “We're in trouble.” We explain the situation and agree there's no choice but to retreat. Try to hike back out to the vehicles in a day. There at least we can sleep in the trucks with the heaters on. Once the decision is made we make coffee and stand around (there's no where to sit that isn't sopping wet) and commiserate. With a hot cup of coffee in hand and a break in the rain, it's easy to laugh at our predicament. We recount our emotions during the night and laugh in astonishment as we listen to thundering sound of rockslides in the valley around us.

As we pack our soggy, heavy gear, the weather moves back in and we trudge down the trail in full retreat in a steady rain. My cheap raincoat almost immediately wets out. Gonna be a long day.

Yep, pretty much how I remember mountain backpacks....

A Mysterious Place: Reservation Lake

 

Camping. Even for old geezers such as ourselves, camping can hardly be described as an adventure. A whole industry has developed around the sole objective to make every aspect of camping comfortable and luxurious. Not only that, but every time I go online, I'm barraged by a sea of “influencers” who are there to tell me what to do, where to go and how to maximize my experience.

Bah. The only thing I watch the influencers for is to find out where NOT to go. And the only luxury item I need out there is a cooler full of beer. Case in point, I had a week off last month with nothing particular to do so I told the old lady we we going somewhere cool to camp for a few days. In the middle of monsoon season. In the middle of Nowhere, Indian Reservation. With tent and all our luxurious 30 year old camping gear.

Friends said we were crazy. They were predicting violent thunderstorms that week. It was all unknown dirt roads back in there, no cell service and the reservation has a reputation of being, well, let's say ambivalent about the safety of visitors. Whatever. The few times in my life I've canceled plans because of weather, I've mostly regretted it. And it's camping. What could go wrong?

So using Google Earth (the one piece of tech I wholly embrace) I picked a spot way back in. It was a little lake called Reservation Lake. There wasn't much information on it other than it held the state record for brown trout. That was all I needed to know. After researching the unusual permit system for the White Mountain Apache rez ( $120 dollars for two nights including camping, fishing and watercraft (kayaks), and a little spousal arm twisting, we were off.

It was a long five and a half hour drive, but a pretty one along the Mogollon Rim. We were in the pines by the first hour and stayed in them the rest of the way. Strawberry, Pine, Payson, Heber, Show Low, Pinetop... The little towns finally gave way to wilderness. When we stopped in Hon-Dah to pay for permits, the sky was already lowering, distant thunder was rumbling and soon we were driving through rain. The 105 temps we left at home had suddenly turned to 70. Soon after the turnoff to Sunrise, the cell signal died away and would never be seen again. Thank God.

The forest at that elevation was thick with spruce, fir and giant aspens. We stopped and looked at looked at the carvings on some of the bigger aspens. I don't know if they were genuine or not but we found one date of 1914 and couple more dated 1938. Despite the rain, the road was not all terrible and the truck hardly got muddy on the twenty or so miles of back roads to the lake. Sigh. You can't have everything.

The lake itself was beautiful. Sitting just over 9,000 feet, it is Arizona's second highest lake. Tall trees, green meadows and swooping mountain tops made the view magnificent. Ospreys, Great Blue Herons, Bald Eagles and a rookery of Cormorants patrolled the shores. Elk (and cattle) could be heard in the distance. For three days it was our little slice of heaven. Yes, in the afternoons, we sat in our camp chairs and watched the storms build around us. Finally we'd have to dash to the tent, where we holed up through the brief downpours while playing cards. At dawn and dusk I was was out on the glassy waters fishing. Beautiful.

The campground, however, was a curious place. An old wooden sign saying “Knob Hill” led to a hilltop clearing of... Well, there was no designated sites, just old wooden picnic tables scattered here and there, primitive rock fire pits and a couple very old, falling down outhouses. There was a newer pit toilet located near the “store and marina.” Which, it turned out, was boarded up. The deck was falling in. The floating dock had been hauled up on shore years ago and the cracked and broken concrete boat ramp ended abruptly short of the water in a rather dramatic drop-off. Along the lake sat a couple of waterfront cabins, also apparently boarded up for years.

There was nobody there. Nobody in the main campground. Nobody at the dock. There was an encampment of RVs, tents, tarps and gazebos at the very end of the campground –which was maybe the seasonal camp host? Even though there was a couple vehicles there, we never saw anyone moving around. There were a couple people camped in the woods across the lake. Daily there were a few small boats and kayaks launched from a meadow at the far end of the lake. Other than that... It was us.

As the “campground” was on top of hill and little ways from the lake, we decided just to put the truck in 4X4 and drive down to the shore of the lake. There was no signs or no supervision saying we couldn't. We parked the truck and our lawn chairs on the concrete slab of a long disappeared building and pitched the tent in a grassy lawn area next to it. From there it was twenty yards or so to the lake. Ideal.

The lake shore itself was crazy too. Like walking back into time. Remember the old pull-tab beer cans? I'm pretty sure they were phased out in the early 70s. Here, the shore was littered with old pulls tabs and even a few cans. Do you remember when Powerbait came in glass jars? Me neither. But Debi picked up a couple dozen of them along the shore. What the heck? Has this trash been sitting there since 1975?

There were mysteries here. We had so many questions. Apparently this was quite the place fifty years ago. A marina, store, cabins... At one time the tribe had big plans for this place. Why did they abandon them? Why was there nobody here? Internet research at a later date provided no answers either. Most listings still included the store, marina and cabins as “amenities” even though it was obvious that none had been used in decades.

I like a good mystery and I like out of the way places. I'd go back in a heartbeat except for the biggest mystery of all.

Why wasn't there any fish?

And then the Romanians Arrived...

 

It was late afternoon and Paul and I were sitting in our camp chairs at the edge of an empty lake, little waves lapping at out toes, as we savored the first beer of the day. We were literally in the middle of nowhere, my truck parked behind us, our tents set up on the sandy beach and the kayaks beached off to the side. It had been a long and dusty ride back in to this seldom visited part of Lake Mohave, but the payoff couldn't have been better. We were all alone; had been since we pulled in two nights ago. True, the fishing had stunk but the campsite was one in a million. The star-filled skies at night complete with coyote serenade. The crystal clear water. The moon like landscape of the Mohave desert. Up on the gravel ridge above camp, a line of Gamble's quail trotted along. A ground squirrel rustled in the bushes. Vultures hovered effortless above us in the stiff breeze off of the lake. Not too many places left in the world where you can drive up to a lake and just park and be completely alone. We were feeling quite content and not just a little pleased with ourselves.

And then the Romanians arrived.

The silence was broken by the sound of the twin inboard motors of a 30 foot cruiser as it roared around the point of the cove and turned directly for our beach. We watched with irritation as the pilot expertly cut the engines at just the right time and the big boat cruised gently into the sandy beach. A lady in a bikini and a black lab hopped out and secured the bow while the captain, a big burly man with a healthy beer gut, surveyed the scene with his hands on his hips. He looked at us. He looked at our fishing kayaks. He looked at us again.

“HEY YOU GUYS! THERE'S A BIG BOIL OF FISH RIGHT OUT THERE! FISH EVERYWHERE MAN!” He then reached down into his live well and pulled out a massive striped bass.

We both jumped out of our camp chair in disbelief and looked at at the lake. The man started laughing uproariously. “NO MAN, I'M JUST MESSIN' WITH YOU. THERE'S NO BOILS. NOT TIL AUGUST OR SEPTEMEBR. WE CAUGHT THIS ONE EARLY MORNING. WAY UP LAKE! “HA! YOU SHOULDA SAW YOUR FACES! YOU COME TO DINNER TONIGHT. WE EAT THE FISH!””

The big man disembarked from the boat with surprising agility and strode up the beach to greet us. We shook hands and he introduced himself as Orlando. “THIS IS BEST BEACH ON THE LAKE. THE OTHERS? TOO MANY PEOPLE. YOU SHARE WITH US, WE SHARE DINNER!”

As good as his word, a couple hours later, he waved us over. “Come, my friends. Have some dinner with us!”

We followed him back up the beach to his camp and introductions and beers were exchanged. Orlando was a big burly guy with an oversize personality that reminded me of John Belushi. I capitalize his dialogue because that is how he talked—with gusto and boundless enthusiasm. Elena was his wife/girlfriend who sat aside in a chair with a book and only committed to the conversation in quips. And Sergio was a stern, tall, muscular man who had appeared out of nowhere. A quiet man with a thicker accent, he was doing all the cooking. Apparently, he had driven in on the same trail he had and had quietly made camp unobtrusively back in the shrub. They were Romanians, we quickly discovered, who were living in Las Vegas.

Ah, Romanian mafia, we thought. Orlando could've have been the big boss and Orlando was the muscle. Not that we cared at the moment as they passed out cheap beers and Sergio produced the hot fried bass with fresh pico de gallo and tortillas. If I have had better tasting fish in my life I don't remember it. And something that good is not something you would forget. “HAVE MORE! HAVE MORE. HAVE ANOTHER BEER!”

The conversation quickly turned to fishing. They say love is the universal language, but I disagree. For men it is fishing. Though for these guys fishing and love were synonymous. They were passionate. On this lake they were primarily interested in the big stripers but when we told him we were focusing on largemouth—and had been skunked so far—they proceeded to tell us what what we were doing wrong. Being what passed for locals in this place, we listened intently to their advice. Seems like we were in the wrong part of the lake. We needed to be on the other side and near the places where the lake constricts.

“WE TAKE YOU THERE TOMORROW! WE'LL PUT YOUR KAYAKS ON THE BOAT AND TAKE YOU ACROSS. OR YOU CAN DO STRIPER FISHING WITH US IN MORNING!”

As the beers flowed, the phones came out and Orlando started scrolling through his fish pictures. Bass tournaments (I CAME IN THIRD!), to ice fishing in Northern Nevada. (WE ARE FROM COLD PART OF ROMANIA. WE LIKE THE SNOW) Orlando was especially proud of his phone apps. “YOU NEED ONX OUTDOORS. BEST APP. WORTH THE PRICE. AND THIS WIND APP. LOOK. IT PREDICTS THE WIND AND THE DIRECTION. VERY HELPFUL. STARLINK! YOU NEED STARLINK. NO CELL SIGNAL OUT HERE!”

Sergio took me aside and started showing me pictures of tuna fishing in the Sea of Cortez in Mexico. I asked him if he had seen any whales down there. He then proceeded to tell me a story about hooking a whale in a twenty foot boat We talked sharks and manta rays and the current political climate in Mexico. “I no longer feel quite safe down there,” he confessed..

We started talking about where we were from, where we had fished, where we wanted to fish. Turns out they had originally settled near Vail, a place that Paul had also lived near. They started comparing notes-- talking about places they knew—Beaver Creek, Minturn... “MINTURN! NOBODY KNOWS MINTURN,” Orlando roared uproariously. He thought it was the funniest thing. Turns out they lived in similar places at similar times. It was a small world, I observed. “YES! YES! SMALL WORLD!”

Suddenly on this empty beach in the middle of the Mohave desert, a couple meat cutters from Arizona and a couple of Romanians from Las Vegas, were all best friends. And why not? We had this beautiful place, interesting company, delicious food and cold beer.

And it was, indeed, a small world.

Precious Memory

 

I love dreams: the weirdness, the plasticity, the ethereal quality of them. Often I lie in bed in the morning and play with them in my mind. You can probe them, shape them, and sometimes even continue them.

Memories are much the same. The same plasticity. Scientists say that every time you take a memory out of long term storage and review it, you change it ever so slightly. It's easy to distrust memories for that reason. And as the years go by, sometimes you wonder if they ever happened at all.

For instance I remember riding my mountain bike through Fry Park, a backcountry meadow near Flagstaff, and from out of the trees ran a herd of elk. They actually ran along side of me for a while, before speeding away and crossing the road and disappearing into the woods on the other side. In my memory some were bugling. It is one of my favorite memories. As I've retold the story and reexamined in my mind, I had began to doubt it's authenticity. Surely it hadn't happened like that. Surely, I just saw them running close by or crossing the road in front of me and just embellished it. And of course they weren't bugling in the daytime...

But then it happened again.

I was riding my gravel bike out on Sycamore Canyon road. As I came up over a hill, I saw a herd of antelope crossing the road. Half were across the road and half not, when they noticed me coming. Both groups turned and ran down the side of the road. As I was on a downhill slope, I was moving quickly and soon had antelope running on both sides of me. For one thrilling moment, I was part of the herd! Oh to be an antelope running free through the desert! For a brief second I maintained pace with these beautiful graceful creatures and then they shifted into another gear. With jaw dropping speed the antelope on my right surged ahead, bounded across the road and both groups vanished into the desert hills without a trace.

Leaving just a memory.

It confirmed the old memory and what I already knew to be true: riding a bicycle down desert roads or forest trails, you see more wildlife than even hiking. You are on them so quickly and quietly that they are caught by surprise. (Earlier that day I had rode through a herd of range cattle who just stood in the road and stared at me—making me slow to a crawl and weave carefully in between them). I shouldn't have doubted the memory. I should have celebrated it. Even if it wasn't 100% historically accurate, it was emotionally genuine. And like all great dreams and memories, should be savored without guilt.

The Crux

 

As I near retirement, I've been thinking a lot about my place in society. Like a lot of people, I am frustrated and angered by the increasing complexity and relentless commercialization of absolutely everything. Technology is spiraling out of control and is being weaponized by the corporate profit monster as means of selling us yet more subscriptions and crap we don't need. Our very attention has been commodified. We are caught in an elaborate shell game in which we are ultimately the rubes. Knowing this and escaping it, however, are two very different propositions.

The feeling isn't exactly new. I've always felt a little out-of-step with society. As I slowly succumbed to the wage-slave rat-race, there has always been an internal itch that knew there was a better way to live. This feeling isn't unique. Many wrestle with it. And it is this complex dilemma that is explored in depth in the the new novel, Crux, by Gabriel Tallent. Crux is a story about two teenage aspiring rock climbers coming to grips with their dreams and their families and their obligations and reality. Dan is a gifted genius-level scholar while Tamma is a brash, irrepressible force of nature. They are bonded through their linked and dysfunctional families and the transformative art of rock climbing. They dream of something better. Bigger. Purer.

Dan when explaining to his high school counselor why he's considering not going to college, says:

“It means opting out of the valorized status economy. Live in a vehicle. Sleep in the wilderness. Work, but only save up enough money to keep climbing. Own little, buy less, and see wild, beautiful places while there are wild beautiful places left. I love climbing. It's the only thing that's kept me alive these last few years. That and this friendship that I have. My mom is not a stable person and sometimes I think that I may not be stable, either. All my life people have called me gifted and sometimes I wonder if really what I have is anxiety and depression, if my giftedness isn't really a terror, which I carry around, all the time, and which spurs me to perform at a high level. Terror that the world is fundamentally insecure. That the bottom could drop out of it, at any time. That if I am not brilliant and high performing, my parents will stop loving me. But, also, terror at myself, at who I may become. So maybe my giftedness is not going to translate to a great life... Maybe the ordinary thing, the college and a career thing, it's not gonna work for me. So maybe I need to turn back and face it. The terror, I mean. When I look around, it's everybody living these purposeless lives they don't understand, lives they don't enjoy, forced from one thing to the next, working jobs they hate for a life in which they find no meaning, and it looks like there's nothing else, no hope or beauty anywhere, in anyone's lives, no one knows where to find it, no one knows where it went, or why its gone, everywhere you turn there's no hope, no chance, no way forward, no one I ever met sees any point in it, no one thinks anything is possible, and at the same time, they can't stop grinding for money, and I don't want that for myself, I don't want to go to school and have people tell me what things mean so I will be content and effective working whatever job comes after. I am suspicious of the well-accepted answers. I want to go out there in the desert and see for myself. I want to stay up nights in the back of the truck reading... And when I look at who's going to college, I mostly see kids that want to get a degree and be credentialed to get jobs and have things and security. I don't want that; I want to go out onto the White Rim with my friend and climb sandstone towers at the peril of our lives, swim in the Colorado River, wander slot canyons, and search out Anasazi ruins hidden in hanging valleys. It is one of the last places, maybe the very last place, where you can still dirtbag in America the way the old-school climbers did. You can sleep in canyons and washes at night with other climbers, all with campfire, beer and weed, frying up tacos beneath cottonwood trees while people play guitar and read poetry. There are risk-takers, misfits, and weirdos out there. People searching for meaning, measuring their lives not by how insulated they are from the vicissitudes of fortune, but by their incandescent proximity to the real. And my buddy and I, we would do something great, something extraordinary, we could forge a life glorious and risky, honorable even: Full of beauty, every moment, no matter how scary, how painful, how difficult, full, at least, of the gorgeousness of real places and real people, totally unlike the skid mark I see stretched out before me—if we get this chance I think we could go to the very ends of the earth and stare off the side and come back with a story to tell. My buddy, she believes that such a story might change this nation for the better, at least a little bit, and I'm not at all sure that she's wrong.”

Wow. If only I'd been that self-aware and literate at that age. Still, even he cannot break the bounds of expectation. In the end he does what everybody wants him to do:

“I wanted to go with you,” Dan said, “but I couldn't face it it. There's something wrong with me. I'm scared all the time and I'm scared of all the good things.”

His story touched home for me. I wasn't a teenager, but I was very young when I was hanging out with Mark and Joel, spending hours climbing around on little bouldering problems and debating the meaning of life, what our future should look like and just enjoying the outdoors and friendship. At the time, I was working full time in the grocery store, but I was also playing in a band, writing novels and had just secured a literary agent. The future looked limitless.

Alas, the bonds of gravity and society are strong. I never did breakthrough. We never climbed anything of note and I never sold a novel. Slowly, ever so slowly, that menial job, that at one time was going to be just a colorful footnote in my biography, became my life. Mostly I hated it. The long physical hours, the erratic schedules, , the soul-crushing weekends and holidays, the emotional demands of dealing with the public on a daily basis. I know it wasn't the ideal life. But, you know what? The truth is there a damn few “good” jobs in a rural area (and living in a city was nonnegotiable). And the easy path isn't easy. I worked my ass off. And I paid my bills. For someone like me there was no safety net, so there was no alternative. I made a home, I raised a family. I had fun when I could. I had many mini adventures. Though I have a few regrets, mostly I feel I did the best I could.

Now as I near retirement, I feel like that kid at the base of the boulder. The future, though possibly short, is wide open. I will soon be free and, this time, I'm hoping I will make the most of it.

Memos from the Mountains

 

It had been a long time since I headed into the mountains, too long, and though I am a desert rat at heart, the mountains are an important and much needed yin to the desert's yang... It's only six hours to Durango. With a good start you can be there by noon... Forgot how much I yawn at altitude... I forgot how changeable and volatile the weather is. Sunshine and blue skies one minute, thunder lightning and hail the next. The mountains create their own weather like a mad abstract painter...The trout rise in the evening when the lake is glass, but trying to anticipate that, trying to find a logical pattern in the weather, was impossible. Even the wind doesn't know which direction to come from...

The fish. Let's just say it will be a long time before I'm happy catching 10 inch stockers out of Arizona ponds again... The water. Wow. It flows, falls, rushes roars out of the mountains with infinite exuberance. It pours forth, giving itself away with selfless abandon. Sitting by a desert stream is relaxing. Standing by a raging mountain cascade is exhilarating... 

I did that Vallecito Creek hike years ago. But I remember so little of it. Walking up the first three miles, I could not believe how utterly spectacular it was. How do you forget something like that? High on a granite ledge above the raging gorge, we turned a corner and below us was a beautiful waterfall framed above by a snow-capped pyramid peak. It was so beautiful that I just started laughing out of pure joy...

Can't remember the last time I laughed out of pure joy... Waking up in the night cold, shivering. Pulling the mummy bag up over my head and face to warm up... The pine pollen coating everything in a fine yellow dust...long conversations around a campfire. It's almost impossible to be anything but content and relaxed around a campfire in the wilderness...

Probably one of the great camping sites of my life. For once, I was perfectly content to just sit in my camp chair and enjoy the view...