A Southern Oregon Boyhood

My first memory is of soaring around on the desert mountain above what
was to be my childhood home. I was absolutely transported with bliss,
freedom, rush. There were these ancient pines, blue, green and very,
very tough from decades of half-drought. It was around these that I
glided athletically, releasing pure ambition. Somehow, I came to be a
child on the small red dirt road below. My childhood was rather
feverish and I don't remember too much of it. But now and then, I was
an eagle in my dreams and would again fly, now marvelously conscious of
the miracle. It was in school that eventually I came to be tamed
somewhat, to the dull conundrums of provincial life. Then, flamed with
primitive ambitions from trips to the Southwest, I dressed as an
Indian, war choker and medicine bag. I was something of the chief of a
small tribe, whose members included Randy, a merry, freckled jokester,
and Justin, something of the American ideal, an athletic, manly kid,
intelligent in practicality but not very good with ideas. But such
primitive ways were not for the modern world. I was sometimes bullied
by the older kids. Roman, a neighbordhood cowboy, would bully me on the
bus and once asked me if I were really an "environmentalist," his
version of "man" or something to that effect. I suppose really the
balancing effect, the futile lesson I learned, was "cool," which I
learned primarily from my older brother, a nutty, flashy kid with the
charm of an English "chap" and the wildness of an Indian brave. From
him, I learned the importance of faithfully wearing "Sambas" even when
lesser minds thought them to be out of fashion, of walking with a
casual swagger, ready to brawl, and of smoking pot in hidden spots in
the park. During my late afternoon hours, I would walk on the mountain
with my dog. Up there, you could forget that there was such a thing as
the city or corporations or cliques. Up there, I would eat the dry but
delicious mountain currants and let my eyes drift with the currents of
the oh-so-blue sky. There was a mountain base covered with boulders
where I would sit, reflecting and dreaming, by a grove of sequoias.
Eventually, I went to university and got by on rice and beans. Even the
reading that used to sometime take me back to ancient Rome became
graded, gradations of mediocrity. These days are too droll, without
such possibilities as flying among the pines, or being the generation Y
equivalent of a rockstar because we learn that it's really all a
business and what once was a matter of inspiration becomes accounting.
These days I dream primarily of spreadsheets. But it's my gift to
attract friends who sometimes help me again to dream of being a modern
Crazy Horse, with red fire hair charging on the Bucaphelus of the
future-vorticism perhaps?- but always I must eventually face the fact
that I have no money.