Greylocks

Greylocks - by MRM

April 15th & 16th, 2024

I remember reading a book about Greylocks when I was a young child running barefoot and tanned through the Sonoran Desert. Greylocks was a cool cat protagonist who spent some time trying to catch a fat robin.  

I was learning about local birds - using a paperback Golden bird guide my mother had loaned me. I knew the mocking birds and the mourning doves, the pigeons and the house wrens. We didn’t have robins in Yuma. Greylocks’ color pencil-sketched robins on fibrous pages were vivid and alive in my imagination. 

We had roadrunners in Yuma; we’d see them running across the tops of houses. They’d jump from one roof to the next, scurrying so fast - they looked like a long dark streak with sharp eyes and a beak. They zipped along as if their feet were burning; maybe they were. 

I knew what a cactus wren looked like, though I hadn’t seen one. But we didn’t have robins, and I wished that we did. Robins lived where there were tall green trees and thick, woodsy undergrowth - where vines climbed tree trucks like I did back then. Robins were a sign of a place that was more alive. 

My sister and I kept lists of all the birds we spotted and heard, early mornings when we went walking before the desert sun rose. We made lists of pre-dawn birds, insects spotted under street-lamps,  secret places to hide, the names and occupations of stuffed animals and Little People. 

Bishop Blocks and Lincoln Logs could build and destroy whole worlds in a day. Some of those towns lasted for weeks, or even years, rebuilt by the victors and the victims from memories made in the good times and the bad. 

The sun scorched its way through orange groves and alfalfa fields we ran without a single thought about the future or the past. Its cycles etched cracked earth the Colorado River-fed canals flooded daily with a richness we could scarcely fathom - without a care in the world. Always there. Never ending. 

Robins are a fixture in our yard and at the city park in the town where my wife and I live now. They hop and peck, often seem plump and happy, more contented in appearance than many of the other birds that scurry more, fight more, seem desperate more. Many robins have rich, perfect feathers like the ones in that old book did, but not all do. Some are much more tattered and worn - those tend to be thinner - not as contented - yet here they are being their best robin selves just like all the rest, each one happy to find a worm. 

This afternoon while I was sitting on a park bench, a mourning dove cooed from somewhere not far away as a woodpecker climbed and darted, pecking its way up a tall, dying tree trunk. There is something new here to see when you’re looking for it. I see robins everyday now. They’re everywhere. They were a symbol of all that I wanted but could not have. 

A brother and sister walked through the sand cliffs at sunrise, to see a burrowing owl mama with babies in a hole. As vivid as if it were just this morning, golden sun rays spill over the bluff and bathe that memory in a soft, warm glow. A child spirit visited me in a whisper of the wind - he said that perhaps I should cherish these robins - and that desert - more.

Morning Walk in Grand Junction

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Going back to Grand Junction, Colorado this weekend brought back more than just memories of that particular locale. The air is different here. It is a "dry" desert air, which is immediately reminiscent to me of the few trips I took back to Yuma, Arizona after joining the Air Force. Everyone in Yuma will try to explain the difference in the air by calling it a "dry heat." A phrase which explains much more than the words alone to people who have called the desert home for a while. I would find my way back there for visits home to see my family. The desert has a certain inexplicable appeal to me. It feels like home. Its essence feeds my soul, and brings me back to the earliest roots that I recognize in my soul as being a part of something distinctly "me."

The birdsong was the next distinctive difference that I noticed. In Grand Junction, I was hearing more doves and magpies and mockingbirds than what are usually heard on the other side of the Rockies. The morning air was crisp and cool, but noticeably warmer than in FOCO. The light was more vivid than what the wintery air in Fort Collins has been, and though the town of Fort Collins has so much more to offer than GJ, there is something about the light and the quality of the air in the high desert that still gives me nostalgic pangs of homesickness that perhaps only a true desert rat would understand.

As I was taking the dogs for their initial walk of the morning, looking out towards the lovely and unique topography that makes up Junction's distinctive horizon, I was reminded of many mornings back in the mid-80's when I had first returned to Yuma from Virginia, when would go for an early morning bike-ride hoping to meet up with my childhood mentor and 4-H leader, Dr. Don Tuttle. He would often be out riding his own bike, picking up cans along the way, as he headed over to what would, years later become the riverside park in Yuma. He would work there on cleaning up the trash from what used to be a dumping ground, or to plant some plants that would be attractive in the years to come, when the same site would become a popular destination for locals and visitors alike. Dr. Tuttle was a solid man among what I saw as otherwise crazy and unpredictable men, a calm in the midst of a storm that was my childhood in Yuma, a rock in a sunlit sea of dust and sand.

As the dogs and I continued walking, I saw an older gentleman out in his front yard spraying the weeds in the cracks of his walkway with a small hand-pump sprayer that reminded me of my grandfather's little sprayer in Virginia; he would often be found, at the crack of dawn, out in the back yard, working on his small garden. He loved that little garden, and it showed. He was usually quiet and thoughtful on those early mornings, but he always had a welcoming smile to share, and some humorous observation or another to break the ice, as I found my way to whatever rock, piece of wood, or his dog house that I was about to overturn in my never-ending search for the next exciting insect that would cross my path. He was another wonderful man who I was blessed to have as part of my life as a teenager. He would save his great bits of insight for our many walks to the banks of the James River, and the docks near Appomattox Manor in Hopewell, Virginia. He shared those tidbits of wisdom willingly and readily. I miss that man.

Along the sidewalk, the random appearance of a paper airplane, tumbling over and over in the grass in the morning breeze, brought back vivid memories of my years at Fourth Avenue Junior High School, when I was completely socially inept (not that much has changed...) where I practiced making the most aerodynamic paper airplanes that I could manage, and then would test the different designs by flying them in the perfect breezes that blew across the main courtyard out front along Fourth Avenue. Those planes would often soar to amazing heights for what were, to my 12 year old self, impressive distances.

Funny the random thoughts that find their way into your brain on a simple walk through a neighborhood, in a place where you haven't been for a while. Funny how memories come unbidden, but not unwelcome, to an open mind devoid of worry, when the desert smells, the singing of the birds, and folded bits of paper travel upon the breeze, and land lightly upon the consciousness, decorating the present with little, tiny, colorful fragments of the past.

***

"Wintery Things" Fact # 1

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Wintery Things that Really Do Happen: 
A Primer for Yuman Children. 

Fact # 1:

Snow really does slide off of roofs in giant clumps that will break apart on your head and leave you covered in snow. This occurrence isn't just some exaggerational fiction depicted in holiday programs (that have nothing to do with your desert reality) to make you laugh, such as Charlie Brown and South Park. Go somewhere with a lot of snow. You will see that it is so.

***

Luke Tucker - A Pearl Harbor Day Tribute

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Luke Tucker was a wrinkled, loose skinned man with scraggly, white hair when I met him in 1980. His arms were hairy and covered with dark tattoos. He drank way too much, and I could smell the alcohol wafting from his Airstream trailer before sunrise on Sunday mornings. He had a quick wit, and would spout out one-liners whenever I delivered his newspaper. Over time we developed a friendship.

For the first few months, I delivered my papers from a baby stroller, often pushing the stroller with one hand while playing a broken harmonica (which my dad had given to me when I was four) with the other. One day Luke gave me a sturdy, new Western Flyer wagon with high slatted wooden sides. It was waiting at his doorstep when I came by. He said that if I was going to be delivering papers, I needed a good wagon or a bike to do it right. For Christmas the next year, he bought me a chromatic harmonica. It was exactly like the one my dad had given me, except that this one was shiny and new, and all of its reeds were in tune. I was 10 years old, and life was good.

Luke began meeting me outside whenever I'd come around in the afternoon. He'd sit out on the shaded cement patio listening to the tinny sounds of an ancient transistor radio. He would usually offer me a cup of lemonade or a 16oz glass bottle of Coke. I would tell him about my day at school, and he always had some new joke to tell that he had heard at the auto-shop where he spent his days helping out.

Over time, that familiar Sunday morning smell of alcohol disappeared, replaced by the pleasant aromas of bacon, sausage, strong coffee and maple syrup. The Three Stooges and The Little Rascals (already old classics by then) would be playing on his portable black and white television, which was connected by a flat cable to a tall, old-fashioned metal antenna outside. Canned audience laughter slid through the crack of the thin, cold aluminum trailer door as the sun began to peek over the eastern foothills.

Luke had long since met my mom, who correctly surmised that he was a harmless, likeable old man. One day, he asked her if it would be o.k. to have me over for breakfast some mornings after my route. Those old Sunday morning programs had always been his favorites, he thought I might enjoy them, and he would be happy to have the company. Besides, he was already making breakfast anyway... She gave her permission, on the condition that I didn't stop at his place until after I had finished my morning deliveries.

From that day on, I would finish those Sunday papers by 6am. Then I would rush back to Luke's trailer park, wagon in tow, or riding the bike that I'd purchased with my paper route money. We'd sit and watch the hijinks of the Stooges and the goofy humor of the Rascals. We laughed and laughed at those corny episodes. We'd trade jokes too: the latest that I'd heard at school and his better, grittier versions from decades long past. Eventually, always - Luke would go outside and light up a cigar. He would look through the smoke, into the distance, in silence. For a few minutes he was somewhere far away, in some unreachable part of his mind. Sometimes I'd stand out in the cold with him, quietly hoping that he really didn't feel as alone in the world as he appeared.

It wasn't until a year or so later, when he was the subject of a full page write-up on Pearl Harbor Day in our local paper, that I learned that Luke Tucker, my Luke Tucker, was a Pearl Harbor vet. I was shocked. How could I not have known? I was excited to see him again, to ask about his experiences, and to hear his stories of adventure.

It was a weekday evening; Luke was on his patio. He was drinking. He had had too much. I don't remember now exactly how the conversation went, but he went off on me and called me names. I was so upset that my mother went to his place and gave him a piece of her mind. She told him that if he ever spoke that way to me again, that interaction would be our last. He was either going to treat me well, or our friendship would be over.

The next time I saw Luke, his eyes were smiling through slow, silent tears. He was so sorry for how he had acted. I said to him, "I was just surprised that you were a hero all this time and I never knew it. I just wanted to hear your side of the story. I'm proud to know someone like you." The tears began to stream, but his posture remained stoic. His gaze was fixed straight ahead, looking at nothing. Slowly and deliberately he said, "I'm no hero. You don't want to hear the stories that I have to tell, and I don't want to tell them. I lost a lot of friends in that war; they are the real heroes. It's because of them that you'll never have to know the things that I know."

His big, leathery hand clasped mine for the first and only time. He looked me straight in the eye, and told me that I deserved all the best that life had to offer. He said that he was thankful to know that a child of this generation could live with so much joy. "You are a good kid and I'm proud to be your friend." Then he asked me to please, never ask him about that war, ever again.

*

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"Haboob" Hits Phoenix

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If you haven't watched these time-lapse videos of this storm making its way across the city of Phoenix, they are definitely worth watching. This storm looks like something supernatural out of a Harry Potter movie. For another view worth watching, check out this great clip of the storm from Scott Wood Photography. Finally, from a slightly different perspective, and the video that I think is the best of all, a clip of what it looked like to drive into the storm.  

I had never heard the word "haboob" used to describe a dust storm in the U.S. before. As an Arabic linguist, I was very familiar with a similar word in Arabic which can be used to refer to grains, cereals, seeds, kernels (among other things like berries, acne, pustules and pimples). Probably the closest approximation of that word in English would be (huboob). I thought that maybe the word "haboob" had something to do with grains of sand or dust flying through the air, but that is not where this word comes from.

It turns out that the term "haboob" is also from a very similar term in Arabic, but it is spelled with a different "H." While "haboob" is a term that I may have heard a couple of times to describe a very specific wind in the Sahara, I don't remember hearing it used to refer to dust storms in general before. It's always fun to find a new Arabic word being used in English. I will have to ask some of my friends who are native speakers of Arabic about the root word, which is "habb" (which has all sorts of meanings dealing with movement, one of which apparently is: "to gust," as in wind).

It's so interesting how even after so many years I can still find words that seem so basic, but which somehow haven't yet been placed into my memory banks. It seems that I often retain only the first word that I learned for a particular concept. After that, I get into the habit of using that word exclusively, and others that come up wind up being looked up in the dictionary many times before becoming a part of my repertoire.

In this case, the Arabic word that I've always used for wind is "rih, pl: riyah / arwah," which, interestingly enough, comes from same root as a common word for "soul" (not to mention the words for "fart," and conveniently enough "smell" and "odor" as well). A fascinating language indeed, and one whose nuances and connections never cease to fill me with wonder at its complexity and its beauty.

Anyway, I witnessed a dust storm very much like this Phoenix storm when I was living in Yuma, Arizona back in the late 80's / early 90's time-frame. I was probably trucking along in our family's '73 Dodge "hippy" van (that had a moonscape on the side, a 17' aluminum canoe top, and a converted interior, complete with sink, refrigerator, and a bed). I loved that van... It was fascinating to watch the valley disappear bit by bit beneath the storm as it moved from east to west. I had a great, elevated vantage point near Arizona Western College from which to watch the storm's advance down-river, across the irrigated farmlands, towards the city. It was a fantastic sight that I will never forget.

Here is a video from The Weather Channel on YouTube of the live coverage that occurred when the Phoenix storm first hit.

***

Parting Wish - A tribute to Dr. Donald M. Tuttle, Ph.D - "Doc"

Dr. Don Tuttle "Doc" was the man who showed me how to live well and to appreciate the wonders of the natural world when I was young.

From the 1940's through the 1980's he hauled groups of school-age kids, in the back of his pickup truck every Saturday, through moist alfalfa fields, along the banks of the Colorado River, and into the wilds of the beautiful and still-wild Sonoran Desert.

Doc passed away three years ago yesterday. His continuing impact on the lives of generations of young boys and girls is simply beyond measure. Thank you Doc.

Parting Wish

By: MrM

Feb 1st 2007

You walked in from the barren world,

Drew castles in the sand

Envisioned places far and strange,

Then placed them in my hands

In a fragile, clear, thin sphere of glass

Holding plants and magic things

To those mystic lands you added life

That had six legs and wings.

You gave, and gave, and never took

You always kept your word

You never left or changed you mind

You made others seem absurd

Without words, you said so much

In life you were so large

Yet modest, simple, kind, and true

You brought me safe this far.

When I was young you took the helm

And steered me from the rocks
As life's winds blew; you fashioned me

Winter clothes, thick hats, warm socks.

Through soft words and quick jabs,

Diatribes when I would hear

Wisdom shared guided my life

Through love, and truth, not fear

A boy I was when we first met

Confused I've been before

A man I am and ready now

To aim for heaven's door

So I accept your parting wish

Mentor, Teacher, Friend

I'm ready now to take the wheel

Held true until the end.

With Love,

MRM

Yuma Territorial Prison State Park

The Yuma Territorial Prison State Park is slated to close at the end of March 2010. There are various groups that are working to try to keep the prison park open. If you'd like to donate to the cause, you can find more information here:

Chain Gang Prison Fund.

Sonoran Desert Vista from the Yuma Territorial Prison Hill.

The prison cemetery is in the background down the trail.

The prison cemetery.

The main guard tower and the mission across the river where Fort Yuma once stood.

The stunning view from the Main Guard Tower, across the Colorado River, into California.

The main entrance to the prison yard.

Pearl Hart's Six-Shot Colt .45 revolver.

A view down the corridor of prison cells.

Inside one of the multiple-occupancy cells.

The "Dark Cell" (insert involuntary shudder here).

The Yuma Territorial Prison State Park is slated to close at the end of March 2010. There are various groups that are working to try to keep the prison park open. If you'd like to donate to the cause, you can find more information here:

Chain Gang Prison Fund.

The doorway to the prison library, which was the first in Arizona.

The "new prison yard" which is, in my very humble opinion, not nearly as interesting as the older stuff...

Some tools used by the prisoners.

Fort Yuma played a historic if obscure role in the American Civil War. The saddle shown here and displayed in the Yuma Territorial Prison museum belonged to Lieutenant F. Green, M.D. who served with the Union Medical Corps at Fort Yuma during the war.

Fort Yuma and the Civil War

A "dump wagon" used around 1900.

A cat on the prison grounds who was staring so intensely at this bird that he never noticed me.

The object of the cat's affection.

Prison Cat inside the main prison yard.

The view looking across the Colorado River to the California side,
where Fort Yuma originally stood.

The Yuma Territorial Prison State Park is slated to close at the end of March 2010. There are various groups that are working to try to keep the prison park open. If you'd like to donate to the cause, you can find more information here:

Chain Gang Prison Fund.

Views from the East Wetlands Park in Yuma

  
 

Sunset in the desert. Love it.

The Mustang back in 1991

Carpenter Bees

When I was a kid, I had a fascination with insects (and still do, as many of you probably already know). There was a neighbor down the street who was somewhat mysterious. I never could figure out what he did for a living, and it seemed like he was always at home. (This was strange in the working class neighborhood where I grew up.)
Sometimes he could be the nicest person ever, and other times he seemed be quite irritable (maybe he would say that my childhood self could, at times, be quite irritating). He and his wife had more tall trees in their yard than most of the other folks in our neighborhood, and this was a big deal in the town of Yuma, Arizona where I grew up. I also remember that he owned a sweet looking motorcycle, and had a red pickup truck with a camper on the back. He and his wife also owned a lot of finches.

Their driveway formed a semi-circle coming up to the front porch from the street. Just in front of the screened-in front porch, between the motorcycle and the truck, were two sections of a sawed up tree stump. Each one was a little over a foot and a half in diameter. One of them had bark and the other did not.

The stump that had the bark was home to a nest of carpenter bees. The bees lived there for years, peering cautiously out of their holes before lifting off loudly and lazily on their journeys. There were always a lot of black females around and a very few males. (The males are gold with green eyes.)

I remember trying to come up with ways to catch these guys. Usually a clear jar or a cup pressed against the sawed off trunk would work with a piece of plastic to make a flat lid once the bees were in the jar. These bees are very fierce and impressive. They are at least 4 times larger than a honeybee.

I can still feel the adrenaline rush that hit me every time I caught one of these insects, (or anything that could sting for that matter). These bees were so large that the beating of their wings would make the plastic cups vibrate like a cell phone (of course no one had cell phones back then).

Usually, especially after I turned 14, I would just watch my captured subject for a while and then let it go. After years of collecting insects to put into collections, I had decided that I didn't want to kill them anymore just to put them under glass. To this day I prefer to watch insects in the wild, doing what they do without any interference from me.

Dome Valley Sunsets

Sunsets in Dome Valley are a treasured memory. Once upon a time I lived out here, riding my bike about 30 miles per day to and from work, and paid the rent by brushing and feeding the horses. That was the life! I will always remember those days fondly.

Yuma - Fields and Mountains

Yuma Dome House

Three generations of the same family share 8 individualized living areas on 3 levels inside this 12,000 sq. ft. dome dwelling in Yuma. It gets its electricity from solar panels which were recently installed. For more information check out: http://www.yumadome.com/