Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 05:11:48 -0700
From: Charlie Ford <cford@altamaha.net>
To: type2@bigkitty.azaccess.com
Subject: Part 2...Preps, Departure, Oklahoma City

On December 30, 1997, I moved my stuff from Atlanta where I had been
living, down to Hazlehurst, Georgia, my hometown.  This was sort of a sweet
and sour move in that I had not lived in this small south Georgia town for
any length of time since I had graduated from high school.  I looked
forward to it simply because it was slower and quieter.  I dreaded it
because of basically the same reason.  Atlanta was a barrel of fun when you
needed it, but my hometown would be my jump off point, either way.

I arrived in Hazlehurst with my bus loaded to the gills with my belongings.
On the way from Atlanta to Lyons, Georgia, just a few miles from Hazlehurst
I had the first problems with the bus I had had since I became her owner.
The alternator light came on.

I camped that night at my sisters home and left out the next day, New Years
Eve, to drive the last 25 miles to Hazlehurst.  On the way there the bus
just quit running.  The battery had sung its last tune of power.  I coasted
off to the side of the road and stopped in front of a house.

I went up, knocked on the door and who comes to the door but an old friend
of mine from a few years ago.  Actually it was the wife of an old friend.
Harry Anderson is one of the best carpenters I have ever known.  No...let
me put it like this, he was an artist that built houses.

Harry is also a person with more problems in life than most.  He had been
to prison a couple times, had snorted, smoked, and drank his way through
most of his life, and success was not something that Harry had ever really
seen a lot of.  After talking with him for a few, he filled me in on all of
the events of the past few years.

It seems that Harry had just recently been released from his second prison
term.  In Georgia we have the three strikes your out policy.  Basically
this means that after the second time in the joint you are considered a
menace to society.  If you get caught being a criminal again, you go to
jail for life.  Needless to say, Harry was walking a chalk line these days.

I called AAA and they sent a wrecker out for me.  Harry and I said our
good-byes and made promises to get up with one another one of these days.
I will have to admit, even though Harry is not the most legitimate, he is a
good fellow.  I hope he stays clean, he deserves it.  He is an artist.

As the wrecker driver and I drove off down the road I remember thinking how
blessed I was to not be in that bad a shape.  Don't get me wrong, I have a
few problems of my own, but I haven't ever been in prison, and drugs are
pretty much all in the past for me.  I am very thankful.  Be good Harry.

The next ten days were spent getting The Mothership right for travel.  I
fixed the alternator and had a good time doing it.  This was my first
experience delving into the running gear of my bus, and I was in desperate
need of more knowledge in this area.  I got the unit rebuilt by a shop here
in town and re-installed it all back the way I took it out.  It worked fine.

Chris Chubb had sent me a set of brake rotors from his home in Washington,
DC and I had them installed.  I could have done it myself, but at the time
I just didn;t have that much confidence in my VW abilities.  Jimmy Ryles
Service Center was happy to do it for me.  He is also a great old friend of
my family so he charged me a minimal cost, $25.00.

I sorted through all of my clothes and got them ready.  That final week I
must have packed and repacked my bus about ten or fifteen times.  I was
anxious but at the same time I was to busy to be nervous.  By January 9th I
had all of my gear ready, my bus ready, and my mind ready.

On that evening I was laying in my bus and thinking about things.  I
reviewed everything in my mind and decided that the ship was in order.  I
decided I would cut out that night.

I went over to my Mothers house and told her I was going to leave tonight.
She said that she kind of thought I might.  In the past ten days she and I
had become aquatinted again.  Of anyone I have ever said good-bye to, she
was the hardest.  Her health is not so great anymore and you never know
what could happen in the coming year.  I cried and she cried and I pulled
out about 7:00 PM.

I drove over to Lyons to pick up some things I had left at my sisters
house.  I left there and drove toward Athens, Georgia where the University
of Georgia is located.  I had some friends there that wanted to take me to
lunch for my Birthday.  Ironically enough, "The Search for the Beginning of
Wind" began with about 40 mile an hour headwind hitting me head on and
hard.  Maybe it didn't want me to find it, I kept driving forward.

I camped that first night on the road in a free campground near Lake
Oconee.  It was cold as all get out, the temperature dropping to about 20
degrees.  I lay there and tried to fall asleep but I couldn;t because my
head was racing through thoughts like water over a falls.  Sleep finally
did come, but it took a while.

Dawn and Gene took me to lunch.  Dawn is my best friend and a
colleague.  She is an industrial Psychologist that works for the Institute
for Community and Area Development at UGA.  Gene is her secretary and a
young lady I have seen a little of over the past year, but don't tell
anyone.  She is married and it probably wouldn't help her out any.  Most of
the time we just talked anyway.  I was nice to have lunch with two women on
your 40th birthday.  Made me feel pretty special.  I pulled out of Athens
and hit the highway.

Now mind you this all sounds like it was a cake walk, but it was quite the
opposite.  I was scared to death!.  I drove and listened to my engine
wondering if I was going to make it to the west coast.  The engine was the
only thing I could listen too because from Georgia to California I didn't
have a radio in my bus.

Actually that was not that bad.  I needed to be alone with my thoughts and
it was easier without music or news or all the other media we seem to rely
on to tell us what we need to think.

That night I made it to Birmingham, Alabama.  I set up camp in a shoddy
little interstate campground and huddled in for the night.  A cold front
was moving down from Canada and snow was on the way.  the temperature had
dropped to well below freezing, but it was predicted to warm up to 30 over
night and moisture was due the next day.  I slept comfortable.

The next day when I awoke, there were flurries starting to fall.  I got
myself a shower and headed on down the road.  That day I saw an awful
accident caused by fast driving and the ice.  The lady driving the BMW was
going way to fast.  She and her husband, strangely enough, were from
Lithonia, Georgia, where I had lived in the metro Atlanta area.  I saw
there car go airborne and turn over, as it jumped the median in the middle
of the highway.  I drove a little slower and more careful.

Over the next two days I made it to Oklahoma City.  I had a friend there
that I wanted to see, but most of all I wanted to visit the Oklahoma City
Bomb Site and pay my respects to the people that lost there lives on that
fateful day.  I was in town for about four days visiting with Debra Devine,
a woman I met on a train returning from Miami.

I had been down there working an AmeriCorps training, and she had been
there at a wedding.  Ironically enough she was planning her own trip around
the country.  We had dinner and shared some good conversation.  I got off
the train in Savannah, and she proceeded on to Virginia.  Her trip was
short and Oklahoma City is where she ended up landing to live.  She is a
really nice person.

On the last day I was in town I dropped by the bomb site.  It was a cold,
cold morning.  The radio said it was 6 degrees, but anything below 20 is
bad enough, I don't need specifics when it gets colder than that.

After thought has convinced me that it was an appropriate morning to visit
this place.  This place that in it's destruction, it's catastrophic demise,
had taken so many lives with it.  In the explosion there were children and
adults of all ages.  They lost there lives and they had not even committed
any wrong to anyone.  They were the innocent.

I stood there by the fence and felt all of the heartfelt remorse people had
left in the trinkets hanging on the fence.  I have to admit, I stood there
and cried.  Six o'clock in the morning, freezing my but off, and crying.
It was right at a year and a half after the day it happened, but it touched
me.

I remember the morning it happened so clearly.  I was in Atlanta working
for the State of Georgia.  we heard the news through word of mouth.  there
were a couple of Federal offices in the Equitable building where our
offices were, and their evacuation fed us our information.  everyone was
talking about it.  State employees were given a choice.  I stayed, I think
mostly out of honoring those dead.  They came to work that fateful morning
to "get things done", I, and several others stayed in their honor.

As I came to the end of the fence I turned around and walked back.  I got
in The Mothership and had to sit still a minute to gather myself and rest
in the comfort of not having the cold wind cut right through me.  I also
dwelled in my thoughts for just few moments.  They were solemn and sad
thoughts to say the least.

It amazes me that someone could be so ruthless, so calculating, and so
uncaring.  The first time I really hit me hard was the day it happened.  I
had stayed at the office and worked and had no problems dealing with it.
On the way home that evening I was listening to the news while sitting in
an Atlanta traffic jam.  The reporter was talking about the Daycare Center
that had taken the direct force of the blast.  He was telling about the
bodies of the children that they were freeing from the debris.

I sat there in my car and just started crying my eyes out.  I finally had
to pull off to the side to gather myself.  Why and how could this happen in
the country I love so much?  How could someone kill children that were so
innocent and were our promise for a better world to come?  How could I help
it not to happen again?  I have done service all of my life, and this
destruction must not happen again.  It was my job too make sure of it the
best I could.

I started the Mothership and pulled slowly onto the street that when the
catastrophe happened had been covered with the wounded being treated.  I
pulled around the corner and then another corner and once again approached
the building from the other side of the block from which I had parked.

I saw a police car sitting in a parking lot with an alley running beside
it.  I pulled into the alley and stopped beside him.  He rolled his window
down and asked if he could help me.  I asked him if he was around the
morning of the blast.  He told me that he was and went on to tell his story
this way.

I was about five blocks from here when I felt the percussion.  I wasn't
really sure of what it was, but I knew it was big.  The radio went crazy
with an all call muster at the Morrow building.  I flipped on my lights and
sirens and headed that way.  Traffic was everywhere and in the process of
weaving through it I was trying to pick up whatever I could from what I was
hearing on the radio.  It was coming in fast and panicky.

I finally made it to the area and people were everywhere, they were running
and screaming and crying.  I saw some with blood and some that were being
helped by others.  I wasn't yet sure of exactly what had happened..

I stopped my unit and started moving into the area on foot.  the closer I
got the more severe the panic became.  I rounded the corner of a building
across from the Morrow building and that is when I saw it.  The entire
front of the building was gone.  it was then that a muster call came for my
precinct.  I proceeded to another area and while we were waiting for our
orders I and other officers stood there and assessed the destruction.  I
had never seen anything like it.  Officers were almost in tears.

He went on to explain that I was sitting in the same alley that Tim McViegh
had parked the get away car.  That was the used car they stopped him in.  I
asked him if he thought he was guilty.  he said "Hell yeah he's guilty.  We
have witnesses that will tell you they saw him there".  I interviewed one
man right here in this building and he saw him at the car".

He and I sat and talked about it a while longer and I went on my way.  If
anyone that ever reads this is thinking of such an act, I have to beg you
to think again.  This may not be the most perfect country in the world but
you will be hard pressed to find another like us.  Argue your cause with
your mouth and heart, but please don't kill innocent people.  That is
against the rules that govern the merit of the soul itself.  Even if they
don't catch you (and if you do it, I hope they do) it will eat you up
inside and you will eventually die consumed by the guilt.

I left Oklahoma City and headed south to Austin.  On the way I had a fuel
pump go out on me.  I spent a cold night in a NAPA parking lot in Purcell,
Oklahoma but the next day I was on my way.

Thanks for tolerating the ramblings.

Part three on its way........soon.

Charlie Ford


"79" Transporter, dressed for the road
The Mothership

 The"Turning 40 Nostalgic VW Service Tour, and
Search for the Beginning of Wind".

http://www.slurpee.net/~keen/charlie/charlie.html

"Wider still and wider.....shall thy bounds be set"



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