Category: The Applegate Trail

Follow the Applegate Trail

A Visit to Charlebois Springs

Okay, it’s tourist season. At least as far as tourism goes here in Wilbur County. Don’t get me wrong, it can be quite a big thing when the folks up north have a conference or some other kind of shindig. But usually, sleepy Wilbur is just that. But Dad asked me to visit the Walkingsticks out at Charlebois Springs to find out how the resort is going. I was actually happy to do this. Willie is a interesting guy, and the history of the springs—well, that’s interesting, too. Not to mention that six-year-old Century June is cute as a bug’s ear, to boot. Since it’s summer, and Shaherazade has been hanging around nearly every day, I asked her to accompany me. She was excited. June and her little sister, Ruth were in the same first grade class, and when she first met Century June, Shaherazade had immediately fallen in love…

Subject Minus

y meeting with Subject Minus blew away most of the preconceptions I may have had about EcoSurvival Village. I guess that I had expected the humorless, world-on-my-shoulders leftist types I had encountered as a reporter in California. But, these folks seemed to be mocking that whole depressing scene. “That’s the whole point, in a way,” said Minus, when I put the question to her, piercing me with intense, black eyes from the shadow of her hat brim. “You can’t let the world get to you like that. You have to laugh at yourself, and the circus around you. You have to laugh at God. Otherwise she will destroy you with the weight of her indifference.” Such wisdom for someone so young! I thought, although I never said so, because, almost as soon as the idea came to me, I had a concurrent thought. It was that these people were playing…

The Reject Army of Poetry

n 1994, when I was still a senior at Old Paiute High, Wilbur County experienced an initiative measure which would oblige the county government to become an advocate for appropriate technology and organic agriculture. Spearheaded by Harlan McCoy, and invoking the mythical words of little Germaine Van Bibber, the political campaign captured the imagination of many folks in the area. Due to the success of Measure 49-16, and the financial largesse of Harlan McCoy, there has been a small renaissance in the Tamarack Valley which has had the effect of drawing a lot of new folk to the county, including an assortment of kooks, charlatans and environmental activists from the city. Many Germaine old-timers can see no difference among the lot of them. One group which has recently taken up residence calls itself EcoSurvival Village Ostensibly, it is a kind of retreat for environmental activists, but they have achieved a…

Bradley

Cornbread and beer,” I said, “the all-American meal.” It wasn’t the most original thing I’ve ever said. I followed Brad into his kitchen. His house is familiar to me. When I was very young, nine or ten, my parents used to play pinochle with Tom and Lucy Bradford, Brad’s parents. They brought me along during those years between being old enough to behave and too young to stay at home alone. I don’t remember ever seeing Brad or his sister Christine. Their 8×10 glossy graduation photos always hung over the piano, facing each other, but they were grown by then and Brad was living in Montana. I don’t know anything about Christine. She was never a topic of conversation during the card games. Brad opened up a couple of beers. “Not much to see out that window.” I was looking out over the back forty across the garbage steeped pits.…