Odyssey

Some forty years ago prolific hiker John Fayhee wrote a guide to Mexico’s - unknown to me - Copper Canyon. Actually a series of interconnecting canyons, some deeper and some wider than the Grand Canyon, Barrancas del Cobre is home to the Tarahumara people. Aligning with a desire to visit the vast metropolitan arroyos of Mexico City I read his guide.

Most tourists visit Copper Canyon by train, El Chepe, a ten-hour fancy excursion running every other day east from the Pacific Ocean to Creel, a town a few hours east of Chihuahua, and then returning on the alternate days to the Pacific. It’s the only railroad in Mexico, although a high-speed train nears completion in the Yucatan. El Chepe affords dramatic views but most of the journey is atop the canyons.

I set my heart on visiting the depths of the canyons, led in by Fayhee’s description of the Tarahumara. They are ultra-marathoners, running hours on end in Huaraches sandals. Their team sport, Rarájipari, is played using a cupped stick to advance a wooden bola up and down the canyons. It can last days, and may cover one hundred miles.

When the Spanish arrived, these people retreated into the canyons. They sustained their Sonoran language and traditions albeit infused with what suited them of Catholicism. Barrancas del Cobre are not suited for agriculture, but the Tarahumara tend to small, scattered orchards and fields growing fruits, maize, beans, squash, and potatoes. Families have several remote ranchos to steward various locations where crops will grow. Hence the need for mobility and speed.

Accomplished Fayhee was outclassed. Families with toddlers would pass him uphill and down. He had difficulty discerning where paths led within a widespread network of trails. He hired groups of Tarahumara youngsters as porters and guides but was never certain if a guide wanted to take him where he hoped to hike. Not for folly of the guide but that Fayhee could not see what the guide knew. As for the porters, they would race ahead with all the packs. When Fayhee and his group caught up they would discover that the teens had eaten most of the provisions even though days of hiking and camping remained. He remained an outsider, a chabochis.

When my kids were teens one of my jobs was to get them to school on time. Back then Carmel had a extensive network of streets often clogged by traffic. I did not yet know the word algorithm, but I did have an internal logic of if-then statements. If Shelbourne was backed up, then I headed across 126th Street. If Main, then 131st. And so on and so on and scooby dooby doo-bee. I made poor choices. Other fathers beat me to school. Different strokes for different folks.

However, I was not on the bottom-most rung. My kids and I took pride in not being an Odyssey family. You know - that minivan family. The habits of Odyssey drivers are the same. Without fail, they drive five miles an hour under the speed limit. They also share a defective set of traffic rules, a faulty space-time fiat. Odyssey drivers blindly pull out from driveways and streets causing oncoming traffic (me) to brake. That Odyssey driver will then make a quick turn across traffic on to another street or store. Their space-time logic is warped by a justification other drivers cannot see. They perpetually do the same trip and have invented a rule to expedite that trip to the market or library, or coffee shop, or yoga studio. There is no mens rea. Other drivers may take no volition of their offense. These days my internal logic has been supplanted by Carmel roundabouts, One Hundred Forty-two of them. Driving there is effortless. Except, the habits of Odyssey drivers remain.

Which brings me to Mexico City. Its transportation grid is chaotic. I never got the feel for it. I could not discern where streets led within the wider grid. I surrendered to walking, fifteen miles over three days. And Ubers. Inexpensive, but ubering pushed the problem to others. Not that I did not try. Returning from the Teotihuacan pyramids I realized I was close to The Basilica of Santa María de Guadalupe one day after an enormous festival centered there. The bus pulled over at a regional transit center. I hopped off the bus in the same way Forest Gump walked off his shrimp boat when he saw Lt. Dan. Splash. I landed in a wild soup of buses, commuters, and street vendors.

Women with toddlers outpaced me. I could not figure it out. A sleek multi-story glassy structure with ramps stood out. It was a familiar counterpart to my Indianapolis world. I walked up the ramps. It led to a high-speed gondola headed in the wrong direction. I needed a guide. As an outsider, I surrendered and summoned an Uber to take me ten blocks to the basilica.

John Fayhee returned to Copper Canyon time and time again. It tested him. Mexico City had the same effect on me. I want to go back. Its grid is formidable but a worthy opponent for the chance to experience all that is CDMX. There I saw history, culture, and architecture. I also saw its people. I enjoyed hearty Pozole with work friends. I also decided to rent a car to drive through Copper Canyon so I might see the ups and downs of that place.

Railroaded

Shelby and Havre are stops in the high barren plains of Montana along the Hi-Line segment of the Empire Builder railroad. There are one hundred miles and a lot of failure between the two. Canada is just thirty miles north. One train heads west from Chicago every day at 7:05 a.m. Its cohort heads east every day from Portland at 4:45 p.m. Where do the east and westbound trains meet? You might think to make it a math question. Please don’t. Oh this tale has a train wreck, but of a second kind.

Memorial Day weekend last year I wandered away from Indiana and auto racing spectators to spend thirty-four hours on the sixty mile per hour west bound Empire Builder to debark at Glacier National Park so I might bike up and down Going-To-The-Sun Road. On a train you see the other side of the tracks. You view missteps and misdeeds by taking the back way through town.

Shelby’s 1892 origin traces to where workers for the Great Northern Railroad threw off a boxcar near a gulley and called it a station. By 1922 Shelby, like Speedway, Indiana, was a town of 500, though people not miles. Oil was just discovered nearby. To entice fortune seekers eager to head west, a misguided promotor built a 40,000 seat arena where Jack Dempsey fought Tommy Gibbons for the world heavyweight title. Dempsey took $200,000 in guaranteed money and Gibbons $150,000, all put up by Shelby bankers eager to build a book of business on the promise of oil revenues. Dempsey retained his title after fifteen rounds by a unanimous decision. Only 7,702 fans paid. Another thirteen thousand got in for free once all the ticket sellers and security abandoned their posts to get good seats for the fight. It was a financial disaster. The arena was rebranded as the 'largest in the world' Shelby Stampede rodeo. That failed too. Four Shelby banks went bankrupt and the town's dreams of prosperity with them.

The protagonist of this story, whom you will soon meet, once owned the Oil Can Saloon in Shelby. It’s named not after the oil fizzle, but a 1960’s era gas station repurposed as that bar. It’s now closed. Jay Flynn did point out his Oil Can to all aboard during our stop in Shelby, though no one paid attention. By then he had run out of currency. Again, of a second kind.

Traveling in either direction, there is lots to do on an Empire Builder journey. It’s a two level cultural experience with fancy and plain dining, several observation cars, as well as other nooks to explore. Throughout, all the passengers mingle and feast on scenery – meandering out of Great Lake cities and suburbs, through long ribbons of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, across endless vistas of large scale agriculture in the high plains, and then for me, the majestic climax of arriving at the Crown of the Continent – Glacier National Park.

Except Jay Flynn. He never moved from his seat across the aisle from me the entire trip. I first took note of Jay was as he chased off a twenty-something assigned the seat next him. In hindsight that guy was lucky. The rouse Jay used, “I have a vitamin B3 deficiency. It makes me irritable. You might not want to sit here.” A good part of the time Jay took notes on a legal pad. From time to time he would search about a canvas rucksack for food and water. Discarded food wrappers and plastic bottles mounded around him.

Jay is from Havre. Two millennia ago indigenous Americans drove bison over the edge of the Wahkpa Chu'gn cliffs, preserved the meat, and fashioned the hides into robes. Nowadays those cliffs are just behind the Holiday Village Shopping Center on the outskirts of Havre.

Shorty Young did not have squat when he arrived in Havre in 1894. Shorty built an enduring empire of gambling and prostitution, said to rival that of Al Capone, despite a 1904 fire lit by a couple of drunks intent on burning down one of Shorty’s bars from which they’d been booted. The Chinook winds took hold and burned four blocks of Havre and sixty businesses to the ground. Well almost. The hardwood floors survived as did the basements below. So, the opium dens, laundromats, dentists, bordellos, drug stores, and salons moved underground. This cover was ideal for smuggling alcohol in from Canada during Prohibition. You can tour “Havre Beneath the Streets” today.

Havre also is home to Fort Assinniboine. In 1895, just after Shorty tumble-weeded in, John 'Blackjack' Pershing, six star commander of all American Expeditionary Forces in Europe during World War One, was mustered to Havre and placed in command of the Black 10th Cavalry troops - the famed Buffalo Soldiers. Winters and attitudes in the high plains of Montana were harsh for these southern inductees. They soldiered on.

Three years before I sat near him on a train, in his only Tweet ever, Kenneth 'Jay' Flynn proclaimed: “I am a forth (sic) generation Montana Farmer. My great great grandfather fought in the revolutionary war Chauncey Marcelus, French. Youngest realtor at 18.” A month later Flynn v. Koepke was decided by the United States District Court for the District of Montana, Missoula Division. In that action Jay proceeded pro se against nine defendants consisting of attorneys, prosecutors, assistant attorney generals, and judges. Missoula is some three hundred miles southwest of Havre. Without home court advantage he took on those with credentials.

You see, Jay owned Sherlock Storage there and Sherlock Storage owned mineraled land in the Rocky Mountains. Or to be specific, once owned mountain minerals. He wanted it back. And, in the proceedings Jay claimed to be disadvantaged, noting head injuries and concussions from car accidents and a ‘boots to my head' assault wherein he lost his memory for sixty days. That 'assault' was actually Jay's arrest for assault and firearms possession. The prosecution of Jay for that assault was later dismissed by Prosecutor Kirsten Papst. Feeling railroaded, Jay named Prosecutor Papst and other legal luminaries as defendants on coupled rickety boxcars of claims. It don't cost much to file a lawsuit. Maybe One Hundred Dollars payable to the Clerk of the Court in Missoula. Feelings aside, winning is another matter.

Hope I haven’t lost you. Let’s uncouple this. Becoming 'disadvantaged' by the car accidents and the 'boots on the neck' arrest, a Missoula attorney was appointed as Jay's guardian. So in the District Court proceeding, Flynn took aim not only at Prosecutor Papst but also his guardian. Flynn alleged that his guardian hid a Sherlock Storage warranty deed that included valuable mineral rights and replaced it with a void mineral deed, withheld mineral rights settlement funds from Flynn, and then as trustee of a trust that lent money to Sherlock Storage improperly foreclosed on the Sherlock Storage mineral land. Spiteful over a chronicle of uncertainties, the District Court case was dismissed. Clickety-clack, don't come back. 

Are lessons learned from missteps? A dozen years prior, Prosecutor Pabst’s otherwise happy preteen son mimicked a YouTube choking game video. He attached his belt attached to a rod in the closet of his bedroom and hung himself. Overwhelmed, she resigned as a deputy prosecutor in the Missoula County Attorney’s Office to enter private law practice with a defense attorney. They took on the high profile case of a former University of Montana quarterback investigated by the University for the rape of a student, then charged, and prosecuted criminally.

In the criminal trial, the Quarterback’s father testified calmly under both direct and cross-examination. The Quarterback “began to cry when his father, Martin – a math teacher and football coach at Sheldon High School in Eugene, Ore. – took the stand. He wiped his eyes with a tissue, then put his head down on his arms as his father praised him.” “I can say with my right hand to God I haven’t been around a more honest young man than Jordan,” said the father, adding he felt lucky to have him as a son. Since finding out a year ago that his son had been accused of rape, he’s awoken each day feeling “suffocated.”

The Missoula County Attorney’s Office lost its criminal case against the quarterback. Civil claims against UM, the Montana University System, the UM President, the UM Dean of Students, and UM legal counsel were settled for a Quarter Million Dollars. Pabst then ran for Missoula County Attorney and won promising to be tougher on rape. She has served three terms.

Our protagonist Jay, on the other hand, never learned to boiler up. On the train he talked loudly and obliviously on his cell phone. Somehow, simultaneously, he had been evicted from apartments in Washington, D.C. and Whitefish, Montana. I was also headed to Whitefish. It is the western gate to Glacier National Park. Apartments are not cheap in either venue. Turns out he boarded a train at Union Station in Washington, D.C. just after that eviction hearing. So he had been on trains twice as long as I. As is the law, his Whitefish landlord had taken all of his possessions from the apartment to a storage unit, including the keys to his Corvette. He needed the Corvette to get around Whitefish.

Upon payment of back rent Jay could regain his possessions. So every twenty minutes or so, Jay concocted new ways for cash. He called his son. His son was stern and unrelenting in saying no. He called his mom. She was happy to hear from him after such a long time, but too said ‘no’ as she must often also have said in the past. He sorted through various credit cards and made calls to claim instant increases in his credit line. Again, refused. He called the Whitefish Police Department and spun a criminal conspiracy against the ‘dangerous’ landlord. The police department knew Jay and classified it properly as a civil matter in which it would not assist. They advised him to stay away from the property. He called the Corvette dealership saying he wanted the VIN number as he wanted to trade his car and that he needed the VIN number for a spare fob. The dealer knew him and reminded him of numerous unpaid service bills. Again refused.

 Intermingled were several calls trying to set up a doctor’s appointment. I am not sure why. In the thirty hours I had been near him I saw him whither. Age comes without warning. Then it becomes a fulltime job.

The Empire Builder rose through forested mountains as it snaked along the Flathead River toward the Crown of the Continent. I had a rental car waiting at the historic train depot. It is the oldest Hertz rental location. I gave some thought to introducing myself to Jay. Offer him a ride. An entire journey together and we did not speek. The urge passed. My story of him ends here. The world has lost track of him. Maybe he has gone underground.

Full Cowling

It was not summer, when I might see high mountain meadows full of huckleberry and large flowered fringecup, but an encouraging snow laden shoulder-season afternoon in Banff National Park. Eager to capture a distinct image of Castle Mountain I had already several times pulled my rented Pacifica on to the berm of the Trans Canada Highway. Clouds, streams, and mountain were never aligned quite correctly - precluding the winning shot of my mind’s eye.

Now off on the local 1A, I ascended and twisted my way to and then past Castle Mountain's alternating layers of glacial carved shale and harder limestone, dolomite and quartzite. In my retreat I spotted a promising campground amid stately pine, spruce and fir. Its entrance sign warned ‘closed for the winter’ but a half opened gate and fresh tire tracks invited otherwise. I once owned a Pacifica and put 300,000 miles, or 483,000 kilometers, on it. I knew it was up for the challenge.

A century back, nearby, during World War I, the tented Castle Mountain Internment Camp housed seven hundred enemy aliens; civilian Canadian immigrants from Ukraine, Austria, Hungary, and Germany. Their forced labor built park infrastructure by draining, filling, clearing, and quarrying for future tourists. As winter was too severe for tents these enemy aliens were relocated during inhospitable conditions to military barracks adjacent to the impetus for tourism, Banff’s Cave and Basin hot springs.

The paved campground drive looped back. Castle Mountain came into view. But, a parked pickup truck was not quite off the road. I was uncertain whether I could proceed until I spotting the tracks of another vehicle; evidence my left tires too could enter the snow to circle the truck. I was wrong. The undercarriage of new Pacificas are full plastic cowling. My own Pacifica had none.  I bottomed out, my left tires spinning freely. The odor of burnt tire rose.

I got out of the car to inspect and share my embarrassment as I realized not one hundred meters ahead three workers were roofing a new public restroom. A portable generator powered their nail guns as they whacked 2x4 rafter blocking into place. Classic rock from a boom box, also plugged into the generator, wafted into the silence of the moment. A short distance away was a bobcat - a skid-steer loader - not a Canadian lynx.

I stood as meek but competent as I could muster. The closest worker then spoke, not to me, but up and over to the other two working on the far pitch of the roof. “Eh, see that guy? His car looks stuck.” Silence. “Eh, see that car? Should we help?” Nail guns whacked more blocking into place. “Eh, should we do anything?” Silence. Cautiously, I walked over to the other side of the building and stood near the generator to be spotted. The workers continued to work. I saw a pile of their 2x4 blocking and asked: “Ok if I borrow this? The response: “Sure, take as many as you need.” I lifted a dozen and placed them into my snowy trench, freckled with asphalt chips and shavings of burnt tire. Nothing. I could not rock the Pacifica forward or back.

The three workers paid no interest. So, I walked back to my outpost near the generator to plead my case. At length from one worker: “Eh, how’d it go?” “Not well. I am stuck,” I replied. Him: “Eh, we are just back from lunch. You’ll need to wait until our foreman comes back. He should be here soon, maybe thirty minutes.”  

I retreated to the Pacifica, and not two minutes later the foreman drove up in his black high-clearance truck. He was the friendliest person I have ever met. Big hulk of a man, face and body weathered by sun and experience but out featured by a broad smile and gleaming eyes. “Eh? We’ll getcha right out.” His three now equally friendly workers scrambled off the roof and sized up various ways to get the Pacifica unstuck. Each was eager to present various solutions to the linear Euclidean problem. The sheathing hid all the usual tow points.  The improbable intersection of slope over rise presented by the full plastic cowling. I was an afterthought to the challenge I offered. Turned out we did not need the bobcat. They cradled webbing straps between the spokes of my right rear wheel, chained the webbing the offending pickup truck’s hitch, and pulled the Pacifica free in seconds. The reward of my thanks was a distant second to the recompense of their own satisfaction in solving my linear dilemma. 

Back on terra firma, I drove the Pacifica gently out of the campground. I never found a suitable spot for the photo I wanted of Castle Mountain. I gained something else. It is trite to characterize the nature of Canadians as friendly. In action, the friendly I saw was merely correlation to the causation from their joint effort to solve. My interaction had ripped the cowling off of my built in notions.

That night back in my lodgings, I sloshed Canadian bourbon over rocks. On the TV, a Canadian government official was being asked to account for the death of a patient who was forced to wait too long before admittance in to an emergency room. I knew the stereotypes of long waits in the free Canadian health care system. I always figured it was the shortage of doctors created by the long time and great expense to train them in quality medical schools. The government official, however, described it as a linear problem. Use the difficulty. His solution, interpreted as Cartesian coordinates of a point along a Euclidean plane, was to provide more beds. Then, for him, on to the next blockage in the critical path toward a success patient outcome would be explored. Despite my stubbornness, instilled by bourbon, I now was less able to dismiss his point. I too strive to fix what blocks me. My mind's eye took the cowling off.