Date: Tue, 2 Dec 1997 14:31:41 -0700 From: Charlie Ford <cford@mindspring.com> To: type2@bigkitty.azaccess.com Subject: Meeting Jack Kerouac On yesterday, December 1, 1997, just to mark my date, I departed Portsmouth, NH and headed south in the even more populated New England States. Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire had all been rather kind, relative to the Boston experience of course. Now I was heading in the direction of New York City. It will be a couple of days before I reach it, but it is growing closer with every mile I travel. This reputedly overwhelming metropolis makes one think that giants do exist. The aprehension and fear that comes from approaching it in 79 VW bus named the Motherhsip, that has traveled a little over 20,000 miles on this trip so far, makes one feel a little bit of a pucker factor. My heart flutters when I think of it, I get a slight excited rush from the thought. Still I will see it, I must face that fact. I move on forward with a fervor, at a cool 60-65 miles and hour of course. I head sort of south west so as to first visit the Grave of Jack Kerouac in Lowell, Massachusetts, a city just northwest of Boston. But not before saying good-bye to my new friends in Portsmouth. I had met some new 'brothers' in this city of New Hampshire. Folks I hope I can be aquainted with the rest of my life. Good people they are. I eased out of Portsmouth at around 8:00 AM after saying good-bye. We all had a great time. Scott is a brewer for RedHook Beer in Portsmouth, Jim is a Ph.D.. Scientist doing breast cancer research, and Todd is a teacher/ski bum. On Friday Ned, Todd, Mark (another of their buddies), Sarah and Amy (some chicks they know), and myself all returned skiing at Sunday River Maine. As before it was a low cost outing with much potential for adventure and a few bruises to remind you that you are human over the next few days. I know I have certainly felt 'very' human after bouncing down the slope on my ass more than my feet, which just happened to be locked in stiff uncomfortable boots that were three and a half feet long. There is something quite dangerous about skiing I believe. It is just too much fun to try and do it though. I chose the pain. I suffered only a few minor sore spots. The most severe was my butt and my shoulder, which I threw out when I was trying to stop myself from falling on my butt again. You know you need to spread the "black and blue" around if you can. It gives you that quality "all-over-sore" feeling. I did my best. Over the weekend these fellows fixed up some groceries now. Scott, who is the gourmet cook of the household put on the dog with baked bread, a Chili that would last you, with evidence of it being released, of course in mannerly fashion, over the next 24 hours, flatulence is a wonderful thing. Gus and I about couldn't stand one another that evening. It was a smelly competition and this night he had to wake me up three times to get me to roll over. It was about time I got even with him. Anyway I left those guys on yesterday morning and headed for Lowell. I took I-95 to I-495 and got off at Highway #3. That dropped me right into Lowell. I looked for a place to gather some directions. I chose a travel agency and stepped inside. The first thing I see is this very frail, maybe 90 year old, elderly woman sitting behind a desk putting in her false teeth. It was early in the morning and seeing as how I am from the south, where folks teeth can be seen in mid day, anywhere, at any time this didn't strike me as necessarily strange. In the south, old men in overalls are constantly wanting something to whittle with their pocket knife while their wife buys the groceries or shops, sometime it is their teeth. All the while they are whittlin' they are complaining about the "damn dentist that made 'em". Till the dentist walks by, then they just greet him and invite him to join in. At that point he pulls out his blade and commences to complain about the "damn Doctor treatin' his gout. It is a vicious circle at times. But a lot gets whittled. I did find it strange though when I walked over to her and said "Pardon me, do where you know where I can find Jack Kerouac's grave. She smiled really big in her aged face, looked at me and spoke a foreign language that was extremely foreign to me. it sounded nothing like Spanish, German, French, or anything I had ever heard. The only thing I could do was look at her, smile and southerly say "Mamm....I didn't understand a single word you said." Not realizing that she also had not understood a single word I had just said. We just sort of stood and stared at one another for a brief but slow moment. Communication, good word. About that time another lady walked into the room. She was approximately 60 years of age, she started talking with an accent but at least it was English. I passed the question on to her. She responded by calling yet another older woman out from the back room. This woman of about 50 spoke perfectly good English but didn't know where Jack's grave was. She made a call to the parks service, found out for me, and gave me some directions. It was at the Edson Cemetery in South Lowell. I smiled, said good-bye to all of them and departed for my appointed round. When you get close to the area you will see a long mile of cemeteries. All of the gigantic ancient type with headstones the size of small houses. I am sure that marble would get a bit cool in the winter though. I found the right one and stopped to ask a gravedigger where I might find his grave specific. he told me to go down two blocks, yes, graveyard blocks, and turn right. Go down two more blocks till I came to 7th and Lincoln, yes graveyard blacks have street names, and there I would find it. I did as he instructed and I arrived at the stomped out section of muddy dirt that held a small stone at the head. Jack was born in 1918 and died in 1990. The epitaph on his simple gravestone reads, "He Honored Life". His wife Stella had the stone laid. Around the grave there were the items folks had left there. There was a small tattered American flag stuck in the dirt high in the left hand corner, a bouquet of withered flowers laying on their side at the top. A picture in a cheap gold frame that had scribbled on it an inscription that I did not read. I figured it was personal between them and Jack. I stood a minute and thought about this guy that moved so many people with his writing. Not only did he move them in mind, but he moved them in personal action. He was the person that drove many of them to search out there freedom and take it to another level. He, as simple and as complex as he was, as human as he was, made impact. It was not his intended purpose, but it was his appointed destiny. Now I must admit right here and now that I haven't read all of "On The Road", Kerouac's book. I have read enough to know that he was a "wanderer", and a "wonderer" and that is probably all that he and I might have had in common. He had the "Take flight" bug, but he was also, I believe, a man that thought a lot and longed for a comfortable cave in which to do that thinking. I don't mean on the surface, I mean deep thought, the kind that can drive one to depression, excessiveness, and desperation. Or it can lead to enlightenment and peace. I guess in a way I know that kind of thought. The rage of a broken heart, the pain of trying to get by, or make a living. I have lay awake at night and rolled with the thoughts that can drive one mad. Only to all of a sudden get up and have another shot of scotch and another smoke. You try to read something that might move the agony to a more tolerable place, but nothing works. Basically I was trying to find balance. That is all, just "balance". This trip, this "Search for the beginning of wind", was too assist me in answering so many of the questions that have surfaced on those long nights. I guess in many ways "balance" is still what I search for. Even on the trip you have to find a 'balance', a measuring of each of the things that can move you forward to the next point in the journey. I have driven and thought and thought and drove. As I have written before, in the reflection I will pick out my lessons. My reflection will begin when I make full circle, right now I am just living the experience. I thought about the fact that he had done, in a much more primitive and haphazard way, the same thing I have been doing for the past few months. I have driven, he hitched. The time in America when he was doing his trip, things were open and hitchers were reasonably accepted, not everyone could afford a car. I have done some hitching and it is always an adventure, I think that sets Jack apart as well. Still in either his or my situation I think there is another ingredient that drives you on. It is the search, not the mode of transport. You keep thinking that there is a pool from which knowledge and balance come from lying just around the next corner. I think when you stop thinking that you will find it in the next town or in the next county, you may as well go on to the house. I stood there at his grave on this sleeting, cold day, and introduced myself. He didn't say much but then I never expected him to. The dead only speak from the legacy they leave. Those that die and don't leave that personal legacy, never speak again. They are the coldest of the dead I believe. On his grave, I left him a ball-bearing from the Motherships CV Joints which I replaced in Seattle. Just a token of appreciation, and a promise that I will try and finish reading what he wrote down for us all to share. To me he is not a literary giant as much as he is a nobleman, or a brave. He was a guy bold enough to search for the understanding. He needed to find something, so he went out on the quest it took to find it, and faced the fears of that quest. I remember how afraid I was last January 9. He must have felt that fear and apprehension as well. I still feel it, so much mystery for the future, when I get back I have to essentially start all over again. That scares me, but fear is only realized when it is confronted, then good even pours from it. I almost look forward to the challenge. You know, Jack probably wasn't the hero so many make him out to be. He was just a young man looking for freedom, and he was a person that was not afraid to express what amount he had already found and felt comfortable with. He drank too much, popped to many pills, and was excessive in a few more things I am sure. I have gathered that much from reading the bit I have of him. Should I dare see a minimal piece of me in him, would that be sacrilegious? I must admit I do. I say that humbly of course, but do we not all see a piece of ourselves in the ones we admire? Is that not the thing that makes them "respectful" in our eyes? Are they not what we want to be because of that similarity? I left Jack's grave feeling a bit slower than I had been when I arrived. Not depressed, but somewhat blessed. I am living mine now, where he cannot. I am here and I am writing and I am living like a vagabond gypsy moth with little to do but think, eat, sleep and drive. Then I get up the next day and do it all over again and again. Nothing better than driving slow and thinking about just what you choose to think about. I left Lowell and headed down to Providence where I tried to see a buddy but no go. I drove on through Rhode Island on Highway 6 toward Hartford Connecticut where I was going to try and hook up with Terry Russell. He as I mentioned worked in DC and now works for Save the Children. The problem is that he is not in Hartford, he is in Westport, down on the coast close to New York City. I drove all the way down here and hooked up with him. He and I have shared some seriously great conversations concerning the future of Service in America. Terry is a fine fellow with a passion to make a difference as well, different method from Jacks but good product just the same. The trip was a slow and easy journey filled with the beauty of Rhode island and Connecticut. Life was fine. I will be here through tomorrow when I will decide where I am going. I will map tonight. Haven't had time to do that passed here. I didn't know I was going to be this close to NYC until about this time yesterday. I am looking forward to seeing it although I only want to enter that traffic once. Enough said. I will keep you guys posted. Thanks for tolerating the ramblings. 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" --------------- Date: Tue, 2 Dec 1997 21:58:06 -0700 From: Charlie Ford <cford@mindspring.com> To: type2@bigkitty.azaccess.com Subject: I stand corrected For some reason I remembered the dates wrong on the grave of Jack kerouac. They should be as follows: Born: March 12, 1922 Died: october 21, 1969 Please forgive my error but I didn't listen to that part of the recorded notes. I relied to much on my flimsy ass memory. Short tem is definitely gone. : ) Thanks for bringing it to my attention Harvey 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"