Unabomber : the secret life of Ted Kaczynski

by Waits, Chris

  July 31 (if it exists—otherwise August 1) [1974; written at different campsite from above entry]

  ...I hadn't previously been troubled by rats around here, but I just discovered that my pack has been chewed up so badly that it is nearly ruined, though I guess I can patch it up well enough to get my gear home....This means some deadfalls are going to be set. I hope I catch one of those [expletive] alive—I will torture it to death in the most fiendish manner I can devise.

  Ted's shoes were of several different styles. He usually wore sneakers, work boots or hiking boots, but I often saw him wearing armylike laced dress shoes, black, short-topped, but usually without socks, especially when riding his bike. The low shoes always looked too large.

  His hats were for all seasons, usually a pullover stocking cap or wool face mask for winter. My favorite, though, was a wide-brimmed summer straw hat. It was originally white, but most of the paint had worn off, allowing the natural straw color to show through the faded white. The hat brim was weakened from age and use and didn't have much of a curl, especially on the left side. Originally, the hat had a lanyard cord that could be pulled tightly under his chin to keep the hat

  from tl inii; otTw hen he was ridin^^ his bicycle in the w ind. The original li^hr, white cord .i;ae way after a couple of summers to one that was darker, probably a shoelace cord.

  Ted had sceral pairs of o;lasses; all protectixe in nature, needed to keep w ind, rain, dust, sleet or snow—dependin
  One of his favorites, though, was a solid-plastic pair of sunglasses. They w ere dark-green, the one-piece wrap-around protective type that might come with a brazing or soldering kit purchased in a hardware store. There wasn't anything fancy about these glasses with their horizontal front and a small nose indentation. The bows, part of the same piece of plastic and bent off the frame at ninety degrees, tapered from lens height to about a half inch at the ear pieces.

  He often w ore those when he rode his bike, especially on hot days while his unruly nest of hair was capped by the straw hat. Then, to make this summer outfit complete, he'd wear a classic western red neckerchief tied around his neck. The neckerchief was tied just loosely enough so it could be pulled up over his face and nose w hen a vehicle approached on the dustx; gravel road. He looked like a kid on his broom horse playing cowboy, or a masked bandit, depending on whether the neckerchief was up or down.

  Ted always tried to steer his bike to the upwind side of the road when a ehicle approached, to avoid the dust. When there was rain or snow, though, he couldn't escape the mud or ice.

  His bicycle, which evolved over the course of time, was a dirt road machine, stripped down for efficiency and maneuverability on the primitive roads where it was always used. He removed all the unnec-essan' weight—fenders front and back, chain guard—allowing a ver' fit Ted to peddle this one-speed custom mountain bike all the way to the top of Stemple Pass and beyond, even in the mud. He tried several different handlebars over the years, the last ones extending up and back similar to the high handlebars of a Harley. Occasionally, the frame would need welding repairs because of the extremely rough

  places Ted rode. It was a far cry from the modern mountain bike, with ten speeds or more, knobby tires, and a comfortable seat.

  The last winter before Ted was arrested, Betty and I were talking about Ted's bike and its poor condition. Betty said we should give Ted her old three-speed, which was just sitting in the shed anyway. We decided to surprise him with a reconditioned, cleaned-up three-speed. But Ted surprised us before we could surprise him.

  Ted's one-speed favorite had its advantages, and its disadvantages.

  Its major disadvantage was most apparent in rain, sleet or snow, when the lack of fenders, especially a rear fender, would mean Ted would be plastered across his back and his head with every drop of rain in a puddle and each glob of mud on the road. I saw Ted many times with a mud streak up his back, clear over his head; large mud balls would hang from his hair, swinging back and forth as he pedaled down the road. Often in bad weather he'd have to stop to clean the mud, rain or snow off his glasses. Ted rode his bike year around, in all types of weather, except on the foulest days.

  I could always tell when he was out on his bike. Winter, summer, wet or dry, I could see his tracks along Stemple Road, weaving all over the place like a child who was just learning to ride. I knew he was an experienced rider and it was never clear to me why he rode that way; he must have gone to any extreme to miss a pothole or bump.

  Ted nearly always wore a pack when he was on a ride, usually an army-green canvas one that he'd either carry frameless or attached to an altered aluminum tubing frame with white cord criss-crossing the bottom. He also carried a small pack when traveling out of Lincoln.

  Ted always guarded his pack, as if it held something precious. There were a few times I saw the inside, almost exclusively at the store when he had emptied it so he could load his groceries. When I gave him a ride, he would sometimes put his pack in the back of the pickup, but usually he'd hold it on his lap; he'd never put it on the seat between us. It was usually loaded with something.

  In the early years, he'd prepare for winter by laying in a large supply of groceries, mostly canned foods. After his gardens developed and he built his root cellar, Ted relied less on store-bought groceries and more on his own crops and game. When he went to town for groceries, he wouldn't ever buy junk food. He loved graham crackers,

  though. One time he h()ii<2;ht six boxes of generie graham eraekers, loaded them into his pack and rode home.

  Among his favorite foods were canned fish, sardines, and kippered snacks, all high in protein. Ted enjoyed the tins offish, plus they supplied much needed fat calories. As health conscious as he was, led had a real problem getting enough fat calories, just the opposite of most Americans. Wild game—rabbits, grouse, deer, elk, even porcupines—which Ted ate along with home-grown, wild or canned vegetables—has very little fat. Ted would eat canned fish or use cooking oil, which not only helped with his cooking, but boosted his fat intake as well. He also liked peanut butter, but only the natural types.

  He'd buy only whole-wheat flour without preservatives. He also ate rice and took vitamins. He kept track of how much salt he used and kept his teeth as clean as possible.

  Ted ran on the nearby inclined Humbug Counter Road on a regular basis just to stay in shape, as if he didn't get enough exercise in his daily routines of hiking and pedaling all over the country, cutting all of his wood by hand with either a bow saw or hatchet, and packing water uphill to his garden in buckets.

  Ted and his bike are forever interwoven in the folklore of this small mountain community and the surrounding countrv^. Some of his episodes of bike travel are almost epic in the mere distance covered, other incidents are just plain humorous.

  I remember one midsummer afternoon in the '80s when I was driving up the road in my pickup. Ted was pulled off at a wide spot, crouched over his bike in a strange position. As I pulled up, I could see his dilemma: the right leg of his too-large jeans was caught in his chain. With no chain guard and pants too long and big, it was obvious what had happened. He was stuck. He couldn't go forward or back.

  As funny as this scene appeared before I got out to help, I became serious because the predicament was no laughing matter to Ted. I helped him free his pant leg from the jaws of the sprocket teeth and chain. He thanked me and we both went our separate ways.

  A few days later I saw Ted riding along, and wearing the same pair of pants. The right cuff was quite shredded, so I knew he had caught his pant leg several times since I last saw him. I passed him and waved,

  and the tattered pant leg whipped around in the wind as he pedaled to
ward Lincoln. He waved back.

  Perhaps a week later, I spotted Ted riding toward Lincoln again, still wearing the same pair of pants. This time a red rubber band held the now extremely tattered right pant leg above his right calf just below the knee. He was wearing the black army dress shoes, partially laced, and no socks. The rest of his dress included a light-colored shirt under his dark blue hooded sweatshirt, his straw hat, wrap-around dark plastic sunglasses, and his red neckerchief pulled up over his face.

  As he pedaled along, his squeaky chain sang a high-pitched rhythmic song. At times Ted's bike chain would squeak so loudly I don't know how he could stand it. Whenever he rode up Stemple past my home and I was out in the yard, I could hear him coming long before Ld see him. Since he was afraid of our dogs, his pedaling, speed and squeaking would pick up tempo as he neared my driveway, until it reached a frenzied pace.

  Butch Gehring told me another funny bike story. Butch's sister had pastured her mule in his grass field near the sawmill. One day as Ted rode from his home cabin down along the fence line on the south end of the field, the mule trotted over and began to chase him. Ted tried to outrun the mule, but the critter was faster and started to catch up. While looking over his shoulder to see how fast the mule was gaining, Ted hit a hole in the road and piled up his bike. Butch and a couple of friends who were watching laughed, but Ted wasn't amused.

  Ted's bike was serious transportation, and the distance he covered on it was amazing. Many times I saw him on his bike, or his bike tracks, straight up to the top of Stemple Pass and on both forest roads that led north and south along the Continental Divide, but never over the pass toward Helena. One day while Ted was parked just below the pass, an arduous eleven miles from his home, I stopped to visit him.

  We started to talk about different forest roads and trails around Stemple and where they went. At one point I said a person could go all the way to Helena, some thirty miles away, without ever touching pavement. Ted was intrigued by the thought, so I described a route: From the top of Stemple Pass head south to Granite Butte and then

  down Marsh ('reck to Little Pricklcy Pear Road. From there you ean head southwest on Little Priekley Pear Road toward Ophir Creek, turn southeast on a baek road that takes you to Marysville. From Marysville there are a couple of back ways to get to Helena, either through Birdseye or along the Mullan Pass Road where you can follow the rail line or a couple of other back roads. Either way, you end up on the west end of Helena and you probably won't see a soul along the way.

  Our discussions about back roads, trails, and out-of-the-way places were always detailed, and intriguing.

  I remember another conversation when we talked about old mines in the area and what was extracted during the glory days at the close of the nineteenth century. As I told Ted about one mining district in particular I asked if he had ever been up to the Seven-Up, Rover or Columbia mines.

  He said he didn't think he had, so I explained about the discoveries of gold and other minerals and how easy it w^as to get to the abandoned old mines from the top of Stemple Pass. You just head north on the pass road that goes toward Crater Mountain, I explained. All the mines are close to each other at the top of a basin and drainage to the north of Crater, at the head of Seven-up Gulch.

  What made this conversation so interesting to Ted, and something I of course didn't pick up on at the time, wasn't the description of the mines themselves and the riches, especially gold, taken from the area, but what was still lying around the deserted mine shafts and mills. I talked about an old assay house alongside one of the mill buildings, with roof timbers fallen and side walls of weathered lumber tilting in dangerous arrays, where sulphur sticks were still scattered in and around an old wooden box. Also, small ceramic crucibles used in the fire-assay of ore could still be found lying about the front of the building. We talked at length about these and some metal objects I had seen near the sites.

  The next time I hiked into the old mines, several months later, everything was gone: no sulphur, no crucibles, no metal objects I had described.

  I never mentioned it to Ted, nor did I ask if he was the one who went up there and took everything.

  FROM FBI INVENTORY OF ITEMS SEIZED

  AT KaCZYNSKI home CABIN L59—Container of yellow crystals with plastic bags. L60—Container of white powder. L61—Six sealed bottles labeled sulphur. MB26—One small white ceramic crucible. MB27—Two off-white colored ceramic crucible lids.

  One day when I was visiting with Ted, we got onto the subject of insect pests: ticks, mosquitoes, horse flies, deer flies that can make life in the mountains a pain. More than a nuisance, they can be truly dangerous at certain times of the year. Ticks are the first bloodsucking insects to appear in the spring. They prefer dry, brushy, warm areas instead of cool, damp, wet areas. I suggested it's better to always wear dark clothing; you'll get far fewer ticks on you.

  The next pests to appear are the mosquitoes, which hatch out after the spring thaw and high runoff water. Their eggs can last for years without hatching while waiting for the high water to reach them. They're the opposite of the ticks in that they thrive in the cool, damp, wet and shaded areas, and really come out in the late afternoon and evening.

  The very worst, by far, are horse flies and deer flies. They hatch out in midsummer and are most active during the hottest parts of the day, flying and sitting around the brush and trees. When you walk through the brush, they'll come at you and when bitten you'll swear they have taken a chunk right out of you, causing the bite to bleed.

  During our discussion about insects and what could be done beyond the normal swatting and swearing, I related a story told to me by an old miner from Boulder, Montana, many years ago. The miner, who had spent his whole life in the woods, explained his remedy to prevent ticks and biting insects from attaching themselves or boring into the skin. Take a teaspoon of flowers of sulphur every day, he said. It can be swallowed dry and washed dow^n, or mixed with water or another fluid as a drink. Flowers of sulphur comes in a jar or plastic bottle. It's ground sulphur with the look and consistency of pale yellow chalk.

  I ROM I'BI l\i: lOR^

  MB14(S—One white plastie jar, with white metal cap, label "Rexall Sublimed Sulfur, N.K (Flowers of Sulfur s/r), Parasitieide-Seabieide"

  MB 178—One white plastie bottle, with white plastie eap, label ''Flowers of Sulfur USR Whitevvorth Ine., CJardena, Ca. 90248, NDC 0923-3500-03," with masking tape around the base, with a small w hite scjuare priee tag "Bergums 217-6956 L5GJB $5.17"

  F e tried the old miner's remedy in the past, and it works. When parasite infestations are particularly bad, I told 'led, the treatment of ingesting flowers of sulphur can be enhanced by bathing first and then applying a dissolved solution of sulphur and hot w^ater to your skin, letting it dry and leaving it on. The dow nside is that you better be alone, because the odor emanating from your body is unpleasant, to say the least, causing you to smell like rotten eggs.

  ON WALL OF KaCZYNSKI SFXRET SHACK [Ted had penciled the old miner's instructions on a piece of plywood, which he then used to cover holes in the outside cabin wall. Part of the plywood had been ripped away, probably by an animal, so only a few words remained; they had been protected from the weather for years by an overlapping piece of wood.]

  Then drink what... keep that up,... soap baths; let on you...

  To my know ledge Ted worked only two, shortlived jobs in all the years he lived in Lincoln.

  When he first moved to Florence Gulch he cut

  posts to sell at a local post-and-pole manufacturing operation. He didn't last long. I never knew if he quit because he was against tree cutting or if the work didn't suit him. I assumed it was the latter, because his second bit of employment was peeling logs for Butch Gehring during the mid-'80s, a pretty strenuous job of skinning the bark off with a drawknife, a double-handled, sharp-edged blade that's pulled toward the worker. I remember Butch saying at the time that Ted didn't last more than a couple of hours before he walked off t
he job, saying that peeling logs wasn't for him.

  Ted made only tw^o other inquiries about employment in the Lincoln area that I am aware of, one at Garland's Town 6c Country general store and one at the Blackfoot Market. Both contacts were in his later years in Lincoln, and I was surprised when I heard Ted had applied for work that could include time at a sales counter at either store. Stocking shelves, doing inventorx; bookkeeping, or something like that might do, but I couldn't envision him working around people. At the time, I assumed he was desperate for money. It was so unlike his character to ask for employment in a public place.

  Ted and I had many conversations about our remote, wild country southwest of Lincoln. We also talked about the seasonal extremes and how the mountains could be calm and benign one day, and then ravaging and deadly the next. Ted knew the full range of each season, because he lived outside much of the time. He w^as tolerant and tough about the weather, able to adapt to almost anything. Whether he was out walking at -30° F. with his beard and moustache completely covered with icicles, hiking up a steep mountain at a hot and steamy 95° with insects biting madly after a quick rain shower, fighting his way through a mosquito-infested swampy marsh with willows so thick he had to hack his way, or trying to negotiate his way down an ice-covered talus slope after a freezing rain, he not only survived and endured, but he did so without a complaint. Whatever nature dished out he would readily accept.