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April 10, 2017
Hello Darkness My Old Friend…
IN THE DARK OF THE NIGHT
I grew up in a low-light community. It wasn’t designed to be a low-light community and it wasn’t called a low-light community – it just was one. There was one street light on one corner of each block in my neighborhood of dirt roads and run-down houses. It was unfortunately, the longest block in the world.
I knew this because I would come home on the streetcar when I was 7- or 8-years-old after going to the movies downtown and have to walk that one dark block to get home. It was a long time ago, when nobody was undone by a boy that age being out after dark by himself. I was basically a free-range kid, back before “free-range” became a term or a controversy.
It wasn’t as though I was coming home late in the night, but in the winter, it got dark early. My problem was that I loved the horror shows – Frankenstein, Dracula, the Invisible Man, and the ever-popular Werewolf franchise. I couldn’t get my fill.
But of all the scary movie characters, the scariest of all for me was the Mummy. The Mummy was not fast, in fact he was really slow. You could easily outrun the Mummy. But he never stopped. You could run like Hell, but you couldn’t slow down. You take a nap, you wake up, and here comes the Mummy. You run into the store for a Moon Pie and a Nehi grape soda, you barely take a bite and here comes the damn Mummy. The Mummy wasn’t fast, but he was relentless.
My mom knew how the horror movies scared me, but she also knew how much I loved them, and she gave me the standard mom advice. “Remember, it’s just a movie.”
I tried to remember that. I would get off the streetcar, look down that long, dark unpaved street, take a deep breath and tell myself: “It’s just a movie.” There are no such things as vampires or werewolves or mummies.
Then I would start walking, over the creek where the alligator lived and into the darkness. At the beginning, I would be OK, but as I neared the middle point between lights, and the night got darker and more foreboding, my imagination would suddenly kick in, slap the bejesus out of my courage, and I would start running for home.
I would always arrive flush and out-of-breath. My mom would pretend she didn’t notice, and she’d ask how was the movie, and I would tell her it was good, Mom, really good.
That was obviously a long time ago. Now I live once again in a low-light community, and I like it. You tend to forget after years in the city what the stars look like on a clear night. Country folks take the darkness for granted. If you have lived for years in the city, you rediscover it, and there is a comfort in dark streets and the feel of the night.
It’s not just the darkness. There is the twilight that precedes it and the dawn that ends it. I love the neon and glitter of the city. But the nightly shift from sunshine to twilight to darkness is a joy to rediscover. And this time around, I’m not even afraid.
Mom was right. Who’s surprised?
— George Lee Cunningham
Do you have a dissenting opinion or any opinion at all on the subject? Contact me at george@georgeleecunningham.com and let me know. Meanwhile, you can always subscribe and get an email reminder of blog postings. Your name will not be shared and you may cancel at any time.
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April 5, 2017
The Badlands: Keep Your Eyes on the Road and Watch out for Falling Motorcycles
THE BADLANDS — photo by George Cunningham
There is a place between where we live and where we go to visit friends and shop, called the Badlands.
The Badlands is what folks around here refer to as the curvy-twisty part of the 60 freeway between the San Gorgonio mountain pass where our home is located and the city of Moreno Valley, Riverside, and the rest of the Los Angeles basin. It is a challenging piece of roadway – especially when you drive it for the first time – but it is also very beautiful.
Unfortunately, it’s sometimes hard for the driver to appreciate the beauty. The passenger can look around and see a vertical landscape of hilltops and canyons, but the driver needs to keep his eyes on the road. The speed limit through the Badlands is 65, but this being California, drivers tend to push that to 75 and even 80. Although the freeway has two lanes in each direction, loaded trucks have to gear down and creep up the grade in the right-hand lane at only 35 or 40 mph.
What this means is when you get a timid driver, poking along at the speed limit in the fast lane, impatient motorists have to use the truck lane as a passing lane – getting up enough speed to get around the slow-poke without running into the rear of a truck in low-gear. There are no exit roads through the Badlands, so when there is a big accident, traffic is stuck there for long time.
When we first moved to Banning and people referred to the Badlands, we thought it was just a local nickname for that 10- or 12-mile stretch of twists and turns. But we were wrong.
The Badlands covers a good-sized area of Riverside County – south and east of Redlands to north and west of Hemet and San Jacinto. The actual geographic name for the Badlands is the “Timoteo Badlands” and it has a colorful history. Back before California became part of the United States, Indian vigilantes, as a service to landowners, would chase down bandits in the Badlands and kill them. Later, after California became a state, American settlers became upset about Indians killing white people – even if the white people were bandits and robbers. The Indians ended up fleeing to the San Jacinto mountains, just west of what is now Palm Springs.
A few decades later – from 1864 to 1868 – the teen-aged Wyatt Earp lived with his family in San Timoteo Canyon up against the Badlands. This was years before Mr. Earp took part in the famous 1881 gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Ariz.
So the Badlands is not just scenic, it is also historic, which makes it an even more interesting place.
But all of this is just prologue to my story. A few weeks back, a dirt bike rider, Kyle Katsandris, jumped across the Badlands stretch of freeway, then posted his stunt on YouTube. I have to admit that it was both pretty spectacular and incredibly stupid. It is obvious from the video that drivers on the freeway at the time of his jump probably didn’t even notice it. But he put them all in danger.
No matter how skilled a dirt-bike rider is, things can always go wrong. Engines can stall, tires can go flat, carefully laid plans can be in error. Think of Evel Knievel jumping the fountains at Caesar’s Palace on New Year’s Eve in 1967. At least Evel hurt only himself.
Several hundred pounds of steel and human flesh suddenly falling out of the sky into the traffic lanes of the Badlands would be catastrophic.
So now, as I drive the 60 Freeway, looking out for traffic, making all the twists and turns, trying to enjoy the scenery, I also find myself watching the sky, on the lookout for flying motorcycles. Mr. Katsandris is obviously a skilled and daring motorcyclist, but now that he has opened the door, you know that other less skilled, yet equally daring young men will attempt to duplicate his feat.
So I find myself keeping an eye to the heavens as I navigate this challenging bit of freeway. And frankly, it makes me angry for two reasons.
First, I shouldn’t have to worry about motorcycles falling from the sky as I drive back from the mall.
And second, and most maddening, is that I know in my heart that part of the reason I keep looking up, is that if somebody does try to do it again, I sure-as-hell don’t want to miss it.
– George Lee Cunningham
POST SCRIPT: Although Mr. Katsandris made it over the freeway unhurt, he was critically injured on Sunday, April 2, when he attempted to jump over railroad tracks running through the hills in Simi Valley. The 24-year-old San Clemente biker had to jump 140 to 160 feet from one hill to another to clear the track. He was apparently injured after he overshot his landing zone.
Do you have a dissenting opinion or any opinion at all on the subject? Contact me at george@georgeleecunningham.com and let me know. Meanwhile, you can always subscribe and get an email reminder of blog postings. Your name will not be shared and you may cancel at any time.