Wanderlost 2
More shots of literary tequila for the restless soul.
by
Simon Williams
Copyright © 2018 by Simon Williams
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of nonfiction. Names, places, and incidents are real except where the book notifies they have been changed due to laws prohibiting the author using the real names. Any persons or animals harmed in the making of these books either fell down a hole or were hit by a truck.
Published at Smashwords
Cover photo by Dieter Meyrl
First Printing: August 2018
ISBN - 9780463221884
Dedicated to anyone who was told while they were growing up that they were too young to know what was good for them.
There are two types of people in this world.
1. Those that understand and appreciate sarcasm
2. Idiots
CONTENTS
Wally Grout
Wally Grout - part 2
Wally Grout - part 3
Wally Grout - part 4
Stunned Mullet
Stunned Mullet - part 2
Bloody oath
Bloody oath - part 2
Bob's your uncle
Bob's your uncle - part 2
Hit the frog and toad
A bunch of hoons
A bunch of hoons - part 2
A bunch of hoons- part 3
Feeling stoked
Having a shocker
Having a shocker - part 2
Having a shocker - part 3
Bloody hell
Get stuffed the lot of you
Get stuffed the lot of you - part 2
Get stuffed the lot of you - part 3
Legless
Legless - part 2
Legless - part 3
Legless - part 4
Stone the crows
Stone the crows - part 2
How bout some tucker?
How bout some tucker? - part 2
Hard yakka
Wally Grout
When I was 20, I spent an Australian summer university break at a ski resort in Colorado. Still trying to reclaim the loss of dignity I had with my first attempt at skiing in Thredbo two years before. It was a university exchange trip. I and three others were dropped into the heartland of the USA, given a job, then told to work it all out. At 20 years of age it is easy to work things out because you know nothing. You have little to be afraid of because you don't know what to fear. Makes life a hell of a lot easier but means the surprise of being caught in a jolting situation is that much more shocking to a naïve, young brain.
One of my oldest mates, Dono, and I are out enjoying the New Year's Eve celebration in the Tugboat Saloon in Ski Times Square at the base of the Steamboat Springs mountain lifts. Even on New Year's Eve the snow cat drivers must ply their nightly trade, grooming the runs for the next day's hordes of hungover holiday makers. Watching the powerful lights of the grooming cats traverse over the mountain is always a magical sight when in the snowfields. The night air contains whispers of the far-off groans of the diesel engines, as they scurry up and down the steeper blue runs compressing the fluffy flakes of ice crystals into a firm base of powder. A solid packed base of snow is critical when skiing. This makes it easier to attain the speeds necessary to break a leg.
Closing time at Colorado bars is 2 am, I believe. I don't wear a watch and so closing time is only measured by the moment when the bouncer comes up to me and tells me to get out. So, it can be variable depending on my behavior and level of drunkenness. On the odd occasion it might be as early as six in the afternoon, after a happy hour concludes where a bar manager thought it would be a good idea to have a promotion where patrons spin a wheel to determine what the costs of shots will be for the next 10 minutes. At 10 cents a shot, of course someone is going to buy 50 of them for five dollars. That's basic math. On New Year's Eve 1998, presumably at 2 am possibly earlier, Dono and I exit the bar under the watchful eye of the bouncer and attempt to fashion a plan to get us back to our apartment.
Luckily Steamboat Springs only has one road, so any vehicle that is driving around at this time of night will be able to get us where we need to go. Provided they stop to pick us up. Eventually, as we did on the first night we ran into each other outside the same bar, we manage to secure a ride by jumping in the back of a pickup truck. We again suffer third degree frostbite to our noses, ears, and cheeks due to the wind chill as the lunatic driver tears down the road at 15 miles an hour over the posted speed limit. It is like suffering death from a thousand cuts.
In a gift from the gods, the driver can't take us the whole way home. The skin on my face is saved from the exfoliation of a deep peel that will occur if we stay one minute longer exposed to the elements in the truck's tray. Why didn't I learn my lesson the first time we hitched a ride in the back of a ute during winter? Because I am young and dumb. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, I am likely drunk and not smart enough to remember I got screwed over the first time.
Dono is famished and wants to get something to cook for when we arrive back to the apartment. We are fortuitously dropped off right beside the 24-hour Star Market and so avail ourselves of the numerous easy-to-prepare, frozen delicacies in the 'too lazy to learn how to cook' aisle of the supermarket. We return to the housing complex with a single packet of link sausages. No bread, no accompaniments. This nourishing looking treat suits both our limited budget and non-existent culinary preparation expertise. Now we face a new problem. We don't have a single cooking instrument in the kitchen. No pans, no pots, no utensils. We decide to go door to door in the building, at 2.30 am presumably, in the hope of procuring a frying pan. Either that or we eat the sausages raw, which is an option that is not completely taken off the table. We give ourselves 15 minutes to locate something.
The second door I come to has light showing underneath and I can hear people moving around inside. Dead giveaway. I drunkenly knock on the frame with probably more urgency than someone really should at silly o'clock. The door swings open to reveal the barrel of an UZI semi-automatic long rifle, the weapon of choice for the serious American squirrel hunter, pointed at my chest.
‘What do you want?’ The holder of the UZI says.
‘Can I borrow a frying pan and a few sheets of toilet paper,’ I stammer.
‘I thought you were one of the young kids in the building,' he says as he peers around the door. 'We have been having some trouble.’
'I understand completely,' I say while slowly nodding. Struggling to come to grips with how trouble with young kids is handled by the occupant of apartment 104.
‘Come on in and let me show you my gun collection,’ the man offers in a weird act of contrition for scaring the shit out of me with the UZI.
Even though I am someone who prides themselves on being a rule breaker, would I ever say, ‘no mate, just give me the fry pan and I'll be off,’ in this situation? Hell no, he has a gun! If he tells me to disrobe and lube up my anus, I will tell him thank you and ask him to hand me the baby oil. Is there any other action that proper etiquette can possibly demand when someone points a gun at you? The choices on offer are simple. Either, ‘piss off dickhead, I have better things to do with my time!’ Or, 'your gun collection, great! Please show me. Do you have any land mines in your collection as well?'.
Americans love guns and, for those that don’t, this guy's collection makes up for their lack of enthusiasm. He has shotguns, automatic weapons
, and semi-automatics hanging all around the living room. At a glance I estimate that I am outgunned 25 to zero. A measly frying pan to cook link sausages is all I desire, instead I am treated to a description of the killing power of each weapon in his menagerie as well as a host of other gun related facts.
'Did you know it is legal for any citizen in Arizona to carry a gun, but illegal for them to carry nun chucks?' He asks.
'No, sir. I didn't. Are you going to kidnap me to Phoenix and make me fight against a Chinese Triad gang?'
'Did you know that the recoil on the A-10 Gatling gun is equivalent to 10,000 pounds of force?'
'Should I? Am I going to be tested on this later? Do I need to write this down to help me remember?' I ask.
'No,' he laughs, ' just real interesting stuff for you to know. Do you know where to properly position yourself with a handgun if you are in a restaurant bathroom and someone is outside trying to kill you?'
Come to think of it, holy shit I don't. I don’t think that forcing myself through the toilet S-bend and escaping down the sewer system is the correct answer either.
Perhaps this line of questioning would be more interesting if I was raised to be a child soldier in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But then my life expectancy would only be 15. In the first world, at age 15 boys discover girls and then normally our attention is turned away from how quickly we can reload a 12-gauge pump action shotgun to matters more intimate. Being 20, I had long ago discovered girls. Last July if I recall. Knowing how to defeat an attacker, who for some reason is coming after me while I am trying to take a dump during a lunch visit to Burger King, is well outside my life's sphere of reference. I desire to live a safe and humble existence well into my 80's. Being generally polite to others, receiving the occasional smile from a young lady, and enjoying many more New Year's Eves where I can come home to a hearty home cooked meal of sausage links at 3 am. Pissing off people with hand guns I will leave to Colombian drug lords and inner-city youth.
Dono, suddenly appears at the door. Probably wonders, what has taken me over 25 minutes to secure a simple frying pan. He cuts and runs back to our apartment when he sees what is on display in the living room. Thanks, you bastard. I've stood in your urine and not complained about it. This is where the argument develops from gun enthusiasts that to stop school shootings in America more teachers need to have guns. More guns will intimidate the few bad elements of society to not be evil. A valid point of view. This is likely to work. In the same way that the World Health Organization should control the AIDS epidemic by encouraging more people to have unprotected sex with people infected with HIV. Then there is the opposite opinion. That banning guns because criminals have too many, is like castrating yourself because your neighbour has too many kids. If the gun debate in America does one thing well, it is to create humorous memes on Facebook.
After another five minutes, and the complete history of small firearms during the American Civil War later, I take an electric skillet back to the apartment to cook my first meal for 1989. The New Year starts well, with a full stomach. Despite being young and stupid I am learning to focus on the positives. I am still too naive to be fully aware of what I should be afraid of coming down the pipe.
Wally Grout - part 2
Do you have a defining journey in your life when everything seemed perfect? It might have been a weekend camping trip with the lads, a sports' team tour, or a month-long excursion through Europe. Where ever it was, it was something special to you and probably no one else. Nothing wrong with that. We all have different tastes. Enough people watched Joanie loves Chachi to give it a second season.
There are travels we love to recall as it brings us so much happiness. As wanderlust afflicted souls we were old enough to be free to explore the world outside our doorstep, but young enough that the responsibilities of adulthood hadn't yet circumcised the foreskin of our adventurous spirit. Normally we experience a moment like this in our early 20's. It is a crowning moment in our existence. Then we struggle for the rest of our lives trying to recapture the feelings of serenity, empowerment, and daring we felt during this snapshot of unburdened freedom. It is inevitable that our lives peak with these youthful experiences and then it is all slowly downhill afterwards. At the time we think this nirvana it is going to last forever.
There is no time more memorable to me than the three months I spent as a primed, raw 20-year-old residing in Steamboat Springs during the winter of 1988. I was a lump of clay and this small northern Colorado town was the pottery wheel. It is the first time I venture away from the security of an environment that serves to keep me in my comfort zone. It is a huge, tense step. However, when you learn to face uncertainty then the unlimited possibilities of the world open up to you.
Steamboat Springs, often shortened to just Steamboat or even the boat, lives up to its billing as a ski town with a cowboy spirit. Ten-gallon hats and boots are a common sight along the main drag of Lincoln Road. The world-famous cowboy downhill is run every January to coincide with the National Western Stock Show in Denver. Up to 100 professional rodeo riders descend on the town to demonstrate their complete inability to ski. The curved leg stance of men who have been riding horses from before full maturation of their long leg bones means it is nearly impossible for them to keep a flat edge on the snow. The Hindenburg landing was conducted in a more graceful fashion than these cowpokes hitting the slopes.
The town's name is derived from the abundance of natural, hot mineral springs in the area. Early trappers to the Yampa Valley mistakenly believed that the chugging sound, that emanated from the hot springs, was a steamboat coming down the river. Because how often do people see steamboats navigating shallow mountain creeks at an elevation of 7000 feet? Maybe they were all high? Grizzly Adams always looked high as a kite. The geothermal springs are reported to provide therapeutic results for several maladies. But this is the claim of every mineral spring in the world, and yet we still have all these medical disorders they are supposed to cure. The mineral water at Lourdes hasn't rid the world of diabetes, ingrown toenails, and stupidity.
I am here on my Australian university summer break and, apart from enjoying the snow, I am rivetted with taking in all things American. Their sports’ culture fascinates me. Americans spend 56 billion dollars a year on attending sports events. This is almost equivalent to the reported costs of asthma on their healthcare system every year. I wonder how many people are shelling out their hard-earned money to go and see their favourite sporting team instead of buying a puffer?
On Tuesday nights during my boarding school years, Australian television host Don Lane had an 11 pm show with a roundup of the week’s American football games. Watching short highlights of the best plays of the week lulls me into believing that a game in the NFL is 60 minutes of non-stop action. However, the average games last 3 hours 12 minutes with the ball in play for only 11 minutes of that time. There is more action in an English soft-core porn movie. Despite the long passages of nonaction, this sport is perfect for an asthmatic to watch as there is plenty of time for them to catch their breath again after an exciting play. When I first arrive in Steamboat, my new mate Dohers and I are excited to risk our necks to drive to Denver to watch their NFL team, the Broncos, play at Mile High Stadium.
Dohers went to another high school in the Brisbane education system that I played interschool sports competitions in. I knew of him but had never met him before we found ourselves on this university work exchange program together. Going on a work exchange is a great experience. Guaranteed to bring a shy young man out of his shell. For Dohers it would help put him back in his shell as he is already the most sociable man to have walked the planet. This guy shat charisma and pisses personality. He could convince a die-hard, liberal, progressive to vote for Trump's re-election before starting a protest for less gun control.
The U.S. work exchange students are found a job in a ski resort, that is it. We are greeted at the L.A. airport. We are given a modicum of useful advice: don't drive
on the left-hand side of the road; don't drink till you are 21; if someone tells you 'see you later' don't actually expect to see them later, then set free to navigate our own way to the mountains resorts. It just so happens Dohers is given a job in the same ski resort I am. Dohers and I are alike, but very dissimilar. We are both immature twits, except he is sure of himself, outgoing, and talkative. Everyone has angst during their teenage years. While I am still shouldering mine, heading into my 20's, Dohers bypassed his entire uncertainty phase. I have never seen anyone bullshit as much as Dohers before. His mouth never stops. He is studying to be a lawyer at university but would have been just as comfortable becoming a faith healer, infomercial spokesperson, or Ricky Gervais.
Dohers is the one who comes up with the plan to drive to Denver for an NFL game. His plan is simple. Get up early in the morning, drive four hours, watch 11 minutes of action over three hours, then drive four hours back. Child's play. I am young enough to be 100% enthusiastic but not old enough to know the meaning of the terms black ice, poor wheel alignment, and mountain switchbacks. A week before the last Denver home game of the season the cogs of our plan start turning.
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