by Waits, Chris
April 29, 1983
The twenty ninth of April the sky was clear and the weather was pleasant, and I transferred my [secret cabin] camp out to the next cliff [direction] from where the [cabin] is. After raising my coat and making a layer of branches to protect myself from the wet floor, I ate and went to sleep on the slope that was up higher from the camp. (This slope provided me with an abundance of herbs), [sic] The view seen from this slope is extremely beautiful. I enjoyed being there very much. After resting for a while, I walked barefoot from one side to the other of the hill and forest that borders with it, in a very silent way. I like very much to walk slowly and silently through the wild. The following day I went up the mountain at daybreak. I felt verv^ happy and energetic. I walked on top of the mountain...It was a magical morning; I was very sensitive to the silence, to the beauty, and to the mystery of the wild. I was very happy.
Ma 1983
When the sun was setting towards the w^est, I went down to the Barranca Soslaya (slanting clifO and then cliff up to the fountain [sic] to get water to drink. On the way, I stopped to dig some Lomatium roots. I got some big ones. I was tired when I arrived to camp. By the way, this camp is on a beautiful cliff, with a beautiful clear water stream. Up higher, the cliff is narrow and the slope is strong; further below,...the cliff is narrow there too and not too easy to access, so that it does not invite whoever passes through the Barranca Soslaya to go up there.
Ted caught a last glimpse of the country he loved as he rode handcuffed in the dark along the gravel Stemple Pass road toward Helena, knowing he would never again see the small cabin he had called home for twenty-five years.
He was carried over the rutted road that led across the Continental Divide he had explored so many times, into the Helena Valley and
Helena Federal District Court, then to Sacramento, and finally to federal prison. 'Inhere would be no "plan B."
'Hie freedom and personal autonomy Ted so adamantly sought \ ere the same freedom and personal autonomy he chose to take from others. 'I'he rules Ted laid out for e eryone else did not apply to himself.
But as he pleaded guilty in exchange for life in prison, society finally gained the upper hand.
The former resident of Montana's Florence Gulch boarded a small aircraft that transported him from Sacramento to the maximum security facility in Florence, Colorado, where he would be spending the rest of his life.
As he entered the prison he paused and took one last long look at the Rocky Mountains, the northern part of which he had called home for nearly half of his adult life.
The cell that was to become his home would have no window-to the surrounding mountains. A skylight to the outside world would be his only view; the small window directly overhead would offer him only a glimpse of the clouds and sky, not the mountains he had loved.
Ted had used the freedom our Constitution guarantees every citizen to carve a path of violence and hatred, a path that led him to a small cell in a facility that epitomizes the very technological society he loathed.
Jan. 21, 1978 [written at secret cabin]
Our Society allows us great freedom to do nothing or to dream or to play games. But I consider these trivial freedoms and have little interest in them. What I want is the opportunity to make the practical decisions affecting the physical conditions of my own existence. For example: consider the risk of w^orldwide famine. Probably a small risk at present, so that modern society probably gives me better assurance of food supply than I could give myself as a primitive hunter-gatherer. But that's beside the point. As a primitive I would have the right to deal with the problem myself and make my ow^n decisions regarding it.
As it is, the system makes all the decisions for me and I can do nothing about it. Another example: the system makes all the decisions influencing air pollution (and noise pollution!) and it galls me that I can do nothing to change these decisions. All practical decisions are made by the system. I want personal autonomy in making such decisions. But that is impossible in a technological society.
By his own hand, Ted destroyed his own personal autonomy— but what a wasteful wreckage he had made along the way, of himself and so many others.
^
The Authors
HlcV^^
As you turn otYStcmplc Pass Road and head up the lane that parallels Mc(>lellan (julch you see a scattering of old vehicles and parts and—most imposing—an assembly of heavy equipment that includes giant Cats, semi-tractors, road graders, draglines, and gravel conveyors. It's obvious these are tools of the trade for a man who makes his living off the land.
A pack of curious dogs greets a vis-^^^^^ ^^w ^^. _^^ itor before an official welcome is offered
TW^^^'Jia^ - »»" -^^^^^^U by Chris Waits—mechanic, road builder,
welder, well digger, logger, contractor, and hard rock miner—a man who's practiced just about every trade and skill known around Lincoln, Montana. As you enter the hand-built house of Chris and his wife Betty, it's quickly apparent that you're not visiting the typical single-minded Montanan. First to catch your eye is the massive bookcase, a 30-foot wall, ten feet high, stuffed with a library ranging from Old Testament translations to textbooks on metallurgy. Then there's the computer workstation with all the latest accouterments. Just across the room is a grand piano with classical music scores marked and dog-eared from hours of practice. "My pride and joy is the piano," Waits says. He's played since the age of three, mentored by his mother, a musician and piano teacher, who lives close by. To the musically inclined families of the greater Blackfoot Valley, W^aits is known fondly as piano teacher, church organist, and host of recitals held at his converted auto repair shop he called the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
"I don't know anything he can't do and do well," says close friend and Lincoln patriarch "Bobby" Didriksen, who serves with Waits on the local historical society board. "He can remember everything that's ever said. You can have a conversation with Chris and then he can sit down and write it out, word for word."
Waits' intellect sneaks up when you least suspect it. In a discussion about Ted Kaczynski's Spanish-written journals. Waits offhandedly mentions that he too is a student of Spanish...as w^ell as of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. As you become acquainted with Waits it becomes clearer how for twen-
Chris Waits (left) and Dave Shors.
ty-five years the brilliant, hermit math professor time and again gravitated toward the wealth of knowledge and thought that resides at the mouth of McClellan Gulch.
As an associate editor of the Independejit Record, the daily newspaper in Helena, Dave Shors coordinated coverage of the Unabomber story when it broke in April 1996. His staff's reports helped give the world its first view of the reclusive hermit.
Fascinated with Montana mining history, Shors had kicked around the Lincoln backcountry for years, photographing what's left of the gold and silver mining era. These days he spends his weekends operating, with his wife Crystal, a quaint Helena antiques store that specializes in Montana lore and historical books.
A loyal customer of old books has been a colorful character from Lincoln named Chris Waits, who shares Shors' interest in Montana history, particularly mining. In the spring of 1998, soon after Kaczynski entered his guilty plea. Waits was buying some books from Shors when their conversation turned to the Unabomber and the ordeal Waits had endured in helping the FBI with its investigation.
Talk about publishing a book ensued—Shors had just co-written and published an autobiography of a legendary Montana fly fisherman, Pat Barnes. Waits wasn't much interested in working with a big city publisher, and he and Shors seemed to hit it off
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