Camy Lobe

Well, I see I've been slacking and haven't posted anything for a few days, so today is the day!

I've noticed that several of the folks I've recently discovered are writers. Keeping that in mind, I decided to take the easy way out this morning and post a story I wrote many years ago. As I recall, I penned this in a college creative writing class I took with my mom one semester. Yes, with my mom, and I'd give anything for her to be alive today so we could do it again. So, here for you this morning is a funny story...at least it's supposed to be funny...and I hope you enjoy it.

How To Convert Your

Wheelchair Into A

 DUNE BUGGY

 

            “Why did I make that trip?” I wondered aloud.

             This was a question I had pondered a multitude of times in the last week.  One seems to have quite a lot of time to toss around questions like this, when one is confined to one’s bed in the traction ward of the local hospital.  Was it because I had really wanted to go see my old friend, Cammy?   Was it because the weather had turned nice enough to provide just the right amount of cure for my cabin fever?  Or was it merely a good excuse to get away from that shrew, I mean that, ah, lovely flower I’m married to?  I’m not sure really, I just know that I went - boy, did I ever!

            I well remember the start of that ill-fated day.  It was a Saturday morning, about 9:00 AM, 75 degrees with a light breeze.  I was out on the deck with my morning coffee

and enjoying the sunshine, when that soft, sweet voice came wafting to my ears,  “HEY DO-NOTHING!  Whata ya got planned for today?”

             “I’m not sure, my love, I haven’t quite finished my coffee yet.”

            “Well suck it down, slick! Ya got two choices.  You can stay here and cut the grass and trim the trees with me, or you can go to my mother’s house and cut her grass and trim her trees.  You also have to go say happy birthday to that old fart friend of yours down at the home.”

            “You mean Cammy Lobe?”

             “Well, moron, how many old fart friends do you have?  You can go before you start your work, but DO NOT piddle  around!  You have far too much work to do.”

            Being spoken to in this manner really infuriates me.  I gathered up all my energy, turned and looked right in her eyes, and as usual got in the last word,  “Yes, dear.”

             Cammy Lobe was a friend of mine who lived down at the  Sandy Dunes Rest Home.  Although Cammy was 86 and mostly confined to his wheelchair, he had no lack of energy or enthusiasm.  I suppose that’s why Cammy’s kids had chosen Sandy Dunes. After all, it did have a swimming pool, an aerobics class, and a full service machine shop.

             The head nurse looked up as I came through the doors, attempted to smile and started to shake her head.

             “Good morning, Nurse Needlestick, I’m here to wish Cammy a happy birthday.”

             “I’m sorry, Mr. Bach, Cammy isn’t in his room right now.  I’m not exactly sure where he is, but you might try the machine shop.  He’s been spending a lot of time down there lately.”

             I shuddered at the thought of some of Cammy’s other machine shop adventures.

             “He’s not still trying to develop a reinforcing mesh for Mrs. Bulgey’s corset, is he?  We almost didn’t get her out of the last one before she went from blue to purple.”

             “I know ,Mr. Bach, I know.  Thank God you had those bolt cutters with you!”

             “Well, nurse, when you’ve known Cammy as long as I have, you learn to be prepared.”

             The machine shop was empty, except for the instructor, who was sitting on the floor against the wall while rubbing the temples of his aching head, which was currently resting on his curled up knees. This appeared to be another Cammy reaction.

            “How’s it going, Oilcan?”

             “ Well, Mr. Bach, I may have had worse days, but I can’t remember when.”

            I nodded my head.

             “He’s not here, Mr. Bach.  He left just before you came in.  I tried to stop him, but you know Cammy!”

             I was afraid to ask, but I knew I had to,  “What did he do this time?”

             Oilcan slowly looked up and said, “I’m afraid he converted his wheel chair into a dune buggy!”

             “This,” I thought to myself, “is not a good thing.”

             I just prayed this wouldn’t be as bad as the time Cammy “tuned up” Mrs. Peterson’s hair dryer.  However, I was surprised at how quickly an 84 year olds hair can grow back.

             “ I’m afraid, Mr. Bach, that I don’t know how in the world it could get any worse.”

             I thought of this morning’s conversation, and said,  “You want to go cut some grass?”

             Upon my arrival, the sand dunes just behind the ‘home’ were nearly empty.  I say nearly because there, right out in the open, just to the left of the his-and-hers port-a-potties, was Cammy Lobe.  Cammy was smiling at me from beneath his World War II Flying Ace helmet when I stopped about five feet from him and his... his... dune buggy?

             “Cammy, what is this?”

             “Speak up son, you know I’m hard of hearing!”

             “WHAT IS THIS!”

             “This, Buckwheat, is the only V8 powered, supercharged, twin paddle tire wheelchair in existence!”

             “But Cammy, why?”

             “You bet it flies! Does 0-60 in 5 seconds!”

             “No, no Cammy, just look at this thing!  Do your kids know?”

             “I just told you it goes!  Didn’t you listen?”

             “Yeah Cammy I listened, but you’re too old for this.  You need to get out of that thing before you get hurt.  You better listen to me!”

                         “What’s that son?  You wanta see?”

             Before I could say anything else, my voice was completely drowned out by the roar of 650 horses of wheelchair mounted V8.  At this point my brain was screaming at me to run, but my feet refused to respond.  The next thing I saw was the huge roostertail of sand as the wheelchair, buggy, dune thing rocketed into motion.

             Had the wheels of Cammy’s buggy been pointed straight ahead, things may have gone alright.  However, they were turned just enough to send Cammy and his invention on a collision course with the , thankfully vacant, port-a-potties.  Cammy and his fire-breathing monster dead centered John and Jill at about 80 miles an hour.  This caused the port-a-potties to shoot up in the air, and slightly back, toward  me.  The crash had also not straightened the buggy’s wheels. It’s course had changed,  just a bit.  The circle had widened,  just a bit.  To the best of my calculations this put the buggy on a direct pathway, to me.

            I’m not sure what hit me first, Cammy, Jill or John, but I do know that I felt three distinct  ‘contacts.’  The last thing I remember seeing  was the face of a wild, crazy, smiling old man, a whole lot of roll bars, a very large sand roostertail and long, streaming trails of toilet paper.

             I’ve not found out for sure what happened to Cammy.  Rumor has it that after hitting me, the wheels of the buggy straightened and the whole combuberation headed east, running out of fuel somewhere south of North Dakota.

             Oh well, it is nice and peaceful here at ‘traction city.’  The nurses are nice, I don’t have to cut the grass, and ....

             “HEY DO-NOTHING! What are you doing lying around while the grass gets taller?”

            Oh no......

---

 [GSB1]

 Edenfield Picking Party, 3-22-2026

We had our second bluegrass/old time jam here at the house last Sunday, the 22nd. I didn't pay attention, but my wife kept track, and she said between pickers and grinners we had nearly 40 folks here during the afternoon. The day started out fairly nippy, with the early morning temperature around 39 degrees, but by the time the first musical note drifted through the trees it was 67 degrees and blue skies. We figured that was about as perfect weather as we could have hoped for, and everyone seemed to have a good time. In April we'll move the jam to the first Saturday of every month, as that seems to be the day with the least amount of other things going on. Eventually we're hoping folks from out of town will pull RVs up and just stay for the weekend. That will take time, so for now we'll just keep working on building the local attendance. 

Sometimes beginning musicians feel intimidated about playing in a jam setting, but

what they need to realize is that every single good musician started out as a bad musician, but they worked on it and improved. You can only get to a certain level playing by yourself, and if you really want to step up your game it's vital for you to play around/with others. Things such as keeping rhythm with a group, starting off a song, getting in and out of a song, and improvising lead breaks on the fly to songs you've never heard before can only be accomplished by jumping into the pond and learning to swim. You also have to get over the fear of making mistakes...every one of us has crashed and burned at some point, and we're all still alive, so you have to "just do it". 

Remember, this is all for fun. 

Farming

Here at our new place I have lately been working on the gardening situation. Someplace my wife can grow lots of "stuff" has long been a dream of hers, so I am duty bound to try and provide her an opportunity to make that happen. We aren't totally starting from scratch, as when we bought this place there were a dozen fruit trees, 8 old table grape vines, 4 blueberry bushes, and 7 strawberry plants. However, rather then keeping things in pristine condition, the past owners of this house adopted a policy of neglect, thereby ensuring that I would have plenty to do when it came time to restore/expand things. 

For the last week I have been concentrating on cleaning up around the existing trees and plants, as well as starting to install fencing around new plots in order to keep the deer out. I'm hoping to finish fencing several areas this week, and at that point we can plant the additional 24 berry bushes we have waiting, as well as all the stuff my wife has started here in the house. It seems she has an entire laboratory experiment under the grow light in the utility room, just waiting to escape into the raised bed boxes. And, I might add, Mrs. Goodwrench is chomping at the bit to get stuff in the ground, so my happy butt had best not dally too long. 

"There is no rest for the wicked"...a truer statement has never been penned. 

Fruit tree and berry area

Carport planter box

First four raised beds

 The Sugarpine Candy Company 

At the base of Mt. Shasta, encased in pine, fir, and cedar trees, lies the town of McCloud. Inside the Mercantile Building, located at 241 Min St, is the Sugarpine Candy Company. These days it's somewhat a shell of what it was, but in the late 90s I help turn it into a scene straight out of Disneyland. One winter I worked with the owner of the candy store...he designed, and I built...and when it was finished it was one of the most awesome candy stores on the planet. All the cabinetry was sugarpine, which was historically correct for the area, and all the accents were as old school McCloud as possible. 

Not only were the shelves filled with every kind of commercially available items, the owners also produced a great many chocolate items prepared onsite in the kitchen in the back. Walking through the front door took you to magical places and made you forget about whatever ailed you. Years after we did all of this the ownership changed, and eventually they painted those beautiful wood cabinets white, which, as far as I'm concerned, completely ruined the atmosphere. 

But, for awhile...what a place!

The Gravel Bar 

Here is one of the stories I wrote for my book. It's about a very special place where I spent many, many hours alone, with friends, with family, and with various dogs.

 

As you slowly bump along the dirt road you will eventually come to the trestle where slow moving freight trains clack along the tracks on their way across the river. Below the ancient ties the riffled water gives way to a pool that often holds good numbers of salmon in late September and early October. As the pool tails out, the river widens and slows: the flatness of it disturbed only by boulders scattered just under the surface. There in the soft current, during the later part of the season, you will find goldeneyes, buffleheads, Canada geese, a few wigeon and once in awhile a mallard or two. A bit further downstream, the road side of the river bank is lined with large oak trees under which woodducks spend many hours searching for acorns or resting on the rocks scattered along the edge. As you continue along, the oaks give way to willows which become too thick to see through, and the side of the mountain on your left walks toward the river until the two nearly become one. Here the rocky face and the willows form a sort of tunnel that transports you into a new world and all that you brushed past fades away into a new reality. Before you the world begins to widen to the point where it would be easy to be content with the view, and for most people that would be enough. However, for those very few who know, the real treasure lies not ahead but is hidden just beyond behind the willows in a place not easily seen.

 

Each river holds its’ hidden gems close to its’ breast. These places are not freely given but instead must be discovered through a desire to see just what is beyond the horizon. Things that come easy are often underappreciated, but that which must be worked for to attain becomes treasure to the explorer. Many will wander by something forever, always wondering, “What if?’, yet never will they move past the question. Others will take the first step, but they lack the imagination to see what might be, and they return to the path of familiarity. Only a select few ever see the possibilities presented, and even less will embrace the unknown long enough to get to know it. Only those in that last group will be fortunate enough to find the gravel bar. 

 

I have hunted the gravel bar for many years. Upon arrival in the early morning
darkness the gear is dropped off on the side of the road before moving the truck a short distance down the way. With just a headlamp to shed light on the path the walk back to the drop point always seems longer than it really is. The gear is placed in plastic sleds and skidded down the embankment until it reaches the base of the willows ten feet below the road. After carefully stepping into the water the sleds are pulled into the river. Held by ropes on the sled bows they are floated along behind as you walk through forty yards of mid-calf water until reaching the gravel bar. The sleds are then drug up onto the rocks to hold them in place.

 

Always the first order of business was to place the decoys. When I first started hunting here, I used floating duck decoys only. Before long I started including a few full body standing duck decoys. At some point I added a few full body standing geese and later added some floating geese.  In the end I settled on two dozen floating ducks, mostly wigeon with a few divers, a dozen floating geese and a half dozen standing full body geese. I’m reasonably certain I put more thought into that setup than was necessary, but I have always been prone to experimentation. The most curious part of all of this was that each and every day I hunted that gravel bar I would first walk to the middle of it, and, using my headlight and my flashlight, I would scour the area before deciding just where to put every bird. I say curious because based on the water level, which was immediately obvious upon reaching the bar, I knew exactly where the decoys were going to go. Still, it never stopped me from examining it all as if it was the first time I had ever laid eyes on it.

 

Next it was time to set up the blind. I started by setting up, against the willows at the end of the bar, a homemade eight foot wide frame of one by four boards that was made to adjust for both height and the unevenness of the ground. Then lightweight camouflage netting was placed across the framework, one side to the other. The last order of business was to place willow branches along the front and sides. At that point the entire blind blended in with the background so well that even for me it was hard to see in the daylight once you were out fifty yards or so. The willow branches were used over and over throughout the entire season. They were cut the morning of the first trip of the year, and at the end of each day they were collected, bundled, and placed back in the willow trees where they were not easily seen. When the blind was set up the two plastic sleds were placed one inside the other, drug into the blind and set to the back. A folding camp stool was placed between the sleds and the blind and that became my throne for the day. After once again checking the decoys I would sit down in the blind, open my pack, uncase my gun, pour a cup of coffee, place my call lanyard around my neck, turn off and remove my headlamp, and quietly sit while I waited for the rising sun to transform night into day.

 

Although I could not see it in the dark, I knew exactly what surrounded me. To my front was a gravel bar about twenty-five feet wide that stretched twenty-five yards to the front before disappearing into the water. To the right of that was a slice of still water and to the right of that were tall willow trees that filled the space between the water and the cut bank leading to the road. Behind me was a thick, tangled mass of willow trees. To my left was the main channel of the river. The current here was swifter than it looked, but not overpowering, and stretched thirty-five yards until it reached the far bank. Here you were met with black berry bushes, oak trees and willows that separated the river from a field. When the air was clear you could look up and see the stars so bright and clear you thought you could reach up and touch them. When the air was cold the warmer water formed a mist that hung over the river. Some days that mist was light enough to see through while others it was so thick you could hardly recognize the end of the bar. I much preferred it to be light.

 

It's amazing what you can “see” in the dark. If you sat silently, and listened closely, you could hear the sound of the water gently rolling across the rocks as it traveled along the side of the bar. Across the river, and out into the field, there was the soft lowing of the cattle. Occasionally there was the sound of the breeze running through the trees as it traveled up or down the river. As darkness slowly gave way to light, I would search the sky above the water looking for ducks as they began to trade up and down the river. Catching glimpses of them now meant the morning would be productive while seeing nothing would mean I would have more time to enjoy uninterrupted cups of coffee. Very seldom would these river ducks ever make a sound in the air instead choosing to make their way to wherever they were going without great fanfare.

 

I killed a great many ducks and geese here: mallards, woodducks, wigeon, goldeneyes, buffleheads. I shared my paradise with others: Sarah, Aaron, Bob, Mark, Ryan…but mostly I hunted alone. I worked my dogs here: Hannah, Houli and Silas. I saw ducks, geese, salmon, otters, kingfishers, and songbirds. Yes, I shared, but in this one, single, solitary place I was given more than I ever deserved. Here I received joy and sorrow, satisfaction and frustration, excitement and boredom, plentiful bounty and empty hands. But the one thing I was given that stands above all else, was contentment.

 

When one day death overtakes me, spread some of my ashes here, for the gravel bar is a place I never want to leave.