[Wait! -- is that a knock at the door?]
In spite of the outrageous wind that had blown my heavy aluminum extension ladden down from the side of the house three times in one day, I decided to take a walk. It was around four o’clock in the afternoon.
Oh, that wind… I’ve been here 10 years and it’s never been that bad. The forecast was for gusts to 55 mph and I think we beat that all to hell. I’d say the wind blew my chimney cap into the next county like I used to do in Maryland, but Taos County is just a little smaller than the state of Connecticut. The gale didn’t blow it that far, in other words, but I still couldn’t find it.
So I bundled up and took off up the mesa. It was cold, with a wind chill in the teens. I had a lot of things on my mind, and the punishing wind felt like something I deserved or ought to tolerate. At least there wouldn’t be anyone else out here under these conditions, I thought to myself, and I could hike along in peace while I worked it all out. The sun was shining. After a short while, I began to warm up from the exertion. My mood improved dramatically as I gazed out on the incredibly beautiful panorama of the mountains, dusted with fresh snow, and pretty soon the wind was just another part of living in the West.
This is usually a private walk, but sometimes I encounter raging weirdness.
At the top of the trail I take is a solitary electrical pole (a “telephone” pole), and when I have it in nearly full view, I know I’m almost at my turnaround. This time, though, as I rounded the last curve, there was another person — male, medium height, maybe in his 30s — and I did the rachet thing you do when meeting a strange human on the trail: OMIGOD ANOTHER HUMAN, watch out; no wait, relax and stand up straight; keep walking; hey he’s shorter than I am; be cool; oh good, he’s smiling; nothing to worry about here, etc. etc. And then I recognized him!
We shook hands and exchanged names again. It must have been three years since I’d seen him, and the last time was in this exact spot at the top of the hill (he lives nearby).
“See that electrical pole?” he asked, and of course I did. “I want to make it go away.”
Oh no. Had I blundered into an Earth First operation? Was my acquaintance just about to light the fuse on the dynamite? Or worse, had he gone over to the dark side and started working for the man? Was this gentle, harmless soul really an FBI informant wearing a wire? Tell me this isn’t Ed Abbey’s ghost, I thought. (Ed had launched the chainsaw raids on offending billboards from right here in Taos, back in the day.) Warily, I danced around the question, fudging my loyalties lest either cops or hippie zealots ambush me from behind the junipers.
“Uh…sure. I kinda like it here, on top of the hill. A few more days like this, though, and it’ll come down of its own accord!”
We went back and forth a few more times like that, and I still wasn’t sure if I’d be shot or busted. Finally he said something about building a house close by, and it hit me that this was a hypothetical insurrection. Ohhhh, building a house!
“Yeah, and I really don’t want to live next to a power line, you know?”
“Oh, I hear you, all right. I wouldn’t want to, either. I have, though… ”
“Yeah…”
“And look at what I am today!”
Heh. And so it goes.
Tonight it’s supposed to snow, and then be almost 70 degrees by Tuesday. You never know whether you’re coming or going around here, might as well just have one suit of clothes and never take them off.
Be right half the time, at least.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I was in ABQ all day yesterday, so missed the wind party. Sounds like I missed a doozy!
As for the pole, well, at least if he takes it down you can start using his house as your turnaround.
He won’t be taking it down.
It carries the power to where he lives now.