Bishop, California
It was late afternoon when I came down off the pass into the Owens Valley. I was marveling at the High Sierras backlit by the sun. Last year I'd driven up the western side of the mountains, and hardly seen any of the high peaks, but here, along US 395, they seemed to come up right out of the valley floor into the towering craggy sawtooth formations that made the Spanish give them that name.
It was the kind of perfect day of driving that I rarely have. Every mile was like breathing sweet fresh air. I could let my thoughts go and immerse myself into each moment that passed.
Part of it was that I was in no hurry---at least not anymore. The night before in my motel room in South Lake Tahoe, via a garbled phone call, I had somewhat pledged to rendezvous some of the new friends I had met at Burning Man. They were going to be in Las Vegas tonight before heading to their houseboat on Lake Powell, and then back to Aspen. I had said that I didn't want to go to Lake Powell, since I was now out of the west coast and didn't want to return back that way right away, but the idea of spending more time with my new friends had me agreeing to Las Vegas.
But I didn't get on the road this morning until nearly checkout time. I had spent most of the evening shuttling my possessions into my room, and showering my gear off to try to rid my things of the notorious coat of "playa dust" that is one of the downsides of spending the week at Black Rock City.
By early afternoon, it was clear that Las Vegas was not in the cards. I was way behind schedule, and moreover, I simply wanted to move more slowly than it would take to get there in time to meet my friends. I wanted to lose myself in the road, after so much hectic activity. I wanted to let the miles just go by.
At Mammoth Lakes, when I got into cell phone range, I sent a text to my friends, sending my regrets and suggesting I would see them in Aspen when I got back that way. It was a weight off my shoulders to suddenly free myself from all commitments. I looked at the map and decided that I could push on to Bishop, where the prospect of a nice soft bed in a motel room---without having to do any cleaning of dust for a night---seemed like a bit of heaven at the end of the day.
As I approached town, it hit me all of a sudden that I knew someone from Bishop, someone who had grown up there---Randy J. He and I had gone to Willamette together. Among other things, he was a race walker. As I drove into town, the
mountains looming high around me, I tried to fit my experience of his
hometown into my remembrance and image of him.
He was an English major and we took a few classes together, I think. We both aspired towards creative writing, and he was one of the people most supportive of me in those efforts, back when I was capable of producing the most juvenile prose. It was fun to remember a time when my main ambition was to be a writer.
Bishop is a small town, but is a decent-sized population center for this side of the Sierras in California. It felt bustling with business activity, and with plenty of motels. In the middle of town, I parked at a McDonalds and used their wi-fi to look up motel rates on my laptop. I selected what appeared to be a modestly priced one on the edge of town that was not the cheapest one, but still a good rate.
I tried to book the room online, but the page wouldn't come up, so I drove over to the motel, which looked decent enough. The woman at the desk gave me the same rate as online for a king-sized bed.
Once in the room, I flipped on the AC and, as usual, turned on the television to see if they had Turner Classic Movies, which is pretty much the only channel I like to watch. It turns out they had it, but tonight they were showing a whole slate of "prison biography" movies---not quite the genre I was hoping for.
After the first feature, I decided I had enough of prison and went out for a walk in the dark looking for a bite to eat. As I came out of the room, I noticed from that across the street there appeared to be a high school football game in progress, lit by giant lights. When I couldn't find a place to eat, I looped back around I decided on a whim to go to the football game. I walked along the fence of the stadium until I got to the entrance, where I bought a ticket for five bucks.
Inside the gates, I bought a cheeseburger and chips with a drink for five more bucks and took a seat at the top of the very-crowded metal stands with the home team, right in back of the home team band.
I had arrived right as halftime began. The cheerleaders took to the field and performed several dance numbers. All of them were the typical lewd spectacles of gyrating hips, hypersexualized come-ons, performed to lyrics of female singers that were angrily demanding to their would-be lovers that they had better be-this or do-this if they "want to get with me."
It was not much revolting as tiring. Here was the prospective flower of American womanhood performing and dancing as if they were angry prostitutes. It seemed yet another worn-out symptom of just how much in decay our country and culture is. How much much more can this go on? How could everyone be clapping for this horrible spectacle?
It occurred to me, of course, how much I shared in that moment with Sayid Qutb, who famously in 1948 was revolted by the cheerleaders at a football game in Greeley, Colorado---at a school that was a rival to my own high school.
After the cheerleaders left the field, the home team mascot---a blue Bronco wearing a rainbow speedo---came out onto the field. To the delight of the crowd, the mascot did another gryating dance, thrusting its crotch back and forth to a song about "being sexy." So this is high school in America in 2012.
I was relieved at the end of halftime when the cheerleaders lapsed into a normal traditional cheer---no gyrating hooker-hips.
I watched most of the third quarter before heading home. The home team was up by six touchdowns by the time I left. The other team---the Huskies---couldn't even move the ball at all.
As I left I looked into the crowd of students and I tried to picture my friend Randy in there, as a teenager, with all his college experience in Salem ahead of him. How did he wind up there anyway, from a place like this?
Of course I was really just projecting my own self into him. But I wonder what became of him.
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