Cover
My cover letter for interested parties.
Resume
My resume online.
Writing
Samples of my professional writing.
Photography
Samples of my professional photography.
Graphics
Samples of my professional graphics work.
Extras
Odds and ends that may interest you.
The Fall Came Sudden
By Gary Lee Parker
The fall came sudden, though we should have seen it.
We were merry in the taverns, on the mall well-adorned,
toasting our lustrous future, trusting luck to bring it,
while beneath the ribboned banners our foundation crumbled, scorned.
The young man hung his head and cried, “What twisted fortune come?!”
The old man, bushed in brow and beard, stood trembling with fear
at finding feet on what he long thought sure was so long from:
a ramshackle ricket, rusted through, ‘neath a polished gold veneer.
The fall came sudden, and why she kept the smile on
and sang within the tavern halls, her body well-adorned,
while holding up the smile and song and dress was but a con,
I cannot tell, but in the telling lose again the love she scorned.
Would past, and now, and future were so clear...
toasting our lustrous future, trusting luck to bring it,
while beneath the ribboned banners our foundation crumbled, scorned.
The young man hung his head and cried, “What twisted fortune come?!”
The old man, bushed in brow and beard, stood trembling with fear
at finding feet on what he long thought sure was so long from:
a ramshackle ricket, rusted through, ‘neath a polished gold veneer.
The fall came sudden, and why she kept the smile on
and sang within the tavern halls, her body well-adorned,
while holding up the smile and song and dress was but a con,
I cannot tell, but in the telling lose again the love she scorned.
Would past, and now, and future were so clear...
Cause and Effect
By Gary Lee Parker
Cause
and effect
And the pendulum swings
Unpredictably
It seems
And I am not prepared
I suffer effect
And the change it brings
But cannot find
The cause it seems
And I am small and scared
Pummelled by rage
Then a jovial joust
A friendly refrain
And a silent house
I cannot understand
Just enough
To keep me afloat
With an open heart
In a sinking boat
Yet I still hold your hand
Just enough
To keep me in tears
Just enough
To keep me in doubt
Just enough
To keep me in fear
Of the killing effects
For which I clearly
Cannot find a cause...
And the pendulum swings
Unpredictably
It seems
And I am not prepared
I suffer effect
And the change it brings
But cannot find
The cause it seems
And I am small and scared
Pummelled by rage
Then a jovial joust
A friendly refrain
And a silent house
I cannot understand
Just enough
To keep me afloat
With an open heart
In a sinking boat
Yet I still hold your hand
Just enough
To keep me in tears
Just enough
To keep me in doubt
Just enough
To keep me in fear
Of the killing effects
For which I clearly
Cannot find a cause...
Toxic
By Gary Lee Parker
To all the legs I spread
To every life I love
Now wishing I was dead
Now wishing back the time
They wasted holding up
My bent and broken mind
While I’m pissing in their cup
For what? For love?
What is it anyway?
This feeling, this rushing
Chemical mess that holds such sway?
Was it worth it?
Oh, god no. God, no!
I hear them softly say,
I wish I didn't love you so.
I wish I could forget
Undo the missing years
Close my eyes and pass you by
And dry my empty tears.
You are toxicYou've used me up complete
And sucked the marrow from my bones
Left me in defeat
They all move on
I watch them go away
I blame them for their lack of heart
Heartless bitches never stay
But here inside I know
It’s really not them, it’s me
I am toxic to the bone
And they've just broken free.
Storm Claims One
By Gary Lee Parker
rain began, I remember
hearing, softly felt it sinking in.
glist'ning eyes, slowly drowning.
in the gale hell is crowning,
births the death of all I'd hoped to win.
'twas fools gold that kept me trying,
mops and towels for the drying
still the madness sweeping 'bout my head
finds me here, mid-December,
lost at sea. this love's ember
once shone bright but, brightly, now is dead.
Line Them Up
By Gary Lee Parker
There's
always a photograph
With
love
An
attempt at permanence
For
this thing
That
breaths change with every breath
Showing
split souls
Embracing
The
surrender of autonomy
For
this thing
That
redeems us from our daily death
They
all end the same
Hidden
away
In
boxes that contain our lives
We
add one more
And
start anew, letting go the past
There's
always a photograph
Of
love
I
line them up before me
And
add one more
And
sue, 'Please, please, let this one be the last...'
I sit in an afternoon coffee shop
By Gary Lee Parker
I sit in an afternoon coffee shop
in my mind
or, at least, my avatar does
which is me
the spirit is the body refined
we drink the digital soup
and you, or your avatar, or you
speak sublime
bare your soul
wear your heart on a digital sleeve
which flaps in a digital wind
through the glass
open
on a digital day
with the afternoon sunlight streaming in
and I take your hand for comfort
feel your warmth
against my digital skin
and you sigh
or your avatar does
which is to say, you sigh
and lean in
an invitation, so I lean in
and kiss your trembling lips
and you begin to glow
and so do I
As Planned
By Gary Lee Parker
A blade on leather
a life leaks out
a life seeps out
and saturates the sand
in a vacant desert
with no one about
but one life’s doubt
bleeding out
on the witness stand
things did not
things did not
did not
go as planned
A bear in heather
a gentle beast
from afar at least
berries in hand
a small dessert
to finish the feast
red from the priest
white from the fleeced
green from the blood-soaked sand
and things did not
things did not
did not
go as planned
Kaspian King and the Grocer's Goblin [K.K. Book 1]
[This is a sample chapter from Kaspian King and the Grocer's Goblin [Book 1 in the Kaspian King Conquests] By Boo Radley (A.K.A. Gary Lee Parker)]
Chapter
1
Kaspian
King is an ordinary boy in ordinary torn cargo shorts and an ordinary T-shirt
with an ordinary stain on its ordinary collar. He lives in an ordinary house in
an ordinary neighborhood at the end of an ordinary cul-de-sac with his ordinary
parents, two ordinary big sisters, and an ordinary cat named Fred.
His ordinary family eats ordinary meals, takes ordinary
vacations, watches ordinary shows, and listens to ordinary music on ordinary
radios and ordinary iPods.
His ordinary parents, August and
June King, drive ordinary cars to their ordinary jobs in ordinary office
buildings in the ordinary city nearby. They come home at ordinary times and do
ordinary chores, and go to bed at ordinary bedtimes.
Ordinary
birds build ordinary nests in the ordinary elm in their ordinary back yard, and
ordinary school busses haul ordinary kids along ordinary routes to an ordinary
elementary school in their ordinary suburban town.
But
Kaspian King has a not-so-ordinary secret; a secret he keeps tucked away in his
ordinary pocket and never tells a soul. Kaspian King has a very unordinary
ring.
Oh, it
looks ordinary enough, nuclear green and plastic, like something you might find
at the bottom of an ordinary box of cereal on an ordinary Saturday morning. In
fact, he got it in the most ordinary way possible, in an ordinary clear plastic
egg from an ordinary grocery store gumball machine, while his ordinary mother
was distracted, as usual, by her ordinary shopping list.
He’d hoped, as he ordinarilly did,
for an ordinary fake tattoo, or an ordinary rubber ball, and the ordinary ring
was an ordinary disappointment that he almost tossed in an ordinary nearby
garbage can.
But
then he had an ordinary whim that he might be able to use the trinket to
somehow tease his sisters in the ordinary way all ordinary boys of ordinary
habits do, so he slipped the ring on his ordinary finger. And so began a most
extraordinary adventure.
For
when he put the ring on, his ordinary world changed.
It was
the ordinary plastic egg he noticed first. As he raised his arm to toss it in
the garbage can, he felt bumps and ridges against his hand that felt less like
an ordinary plastic egg, and more like a hand grenade. And sure enough, when he
opened his hand to take a look, there in his palm was an ugly green hand
grenade, with a trigger and a pin, just like he’d seen on t.v.
His
ordinary eyes widened in surprise, and he almost dropped the nasty thing, which
probably wouldn’t have blown up since the pin was still snugly in place. But it
still scared him when he thought about it later.
Luckily,
he recovered from his surprise and stuffed the small bomb in a pocket of his
daypack, between several pencils and a pack of gum. When he pulled the pack of
gum from the pocket to chew a piece, however, it had turned into a block of C4
“plastic” explosive, and the pencils were now “pencil detinators.”
What
was going on? And when did his daypack become an army rucksack? He didn’t know,
but as soon as he thought this he noticed that his daypack had, indeed, become
a camoflaged army backpack.
He unzipped the main zipper and pulled out two of his
schoolbooks. But as he pulled them out, they changed right before his eyes. One
moment he held English Is Your Language
in his hands, and the next he held a dirty green tin with the words Basic Survival Kit – US065719 stenciled
in gray on the front.
The
second book changed from Math for
Munchkins to a whole package of gray C4 explosive clay bricks, wrapped in
thick paper and stenciled with C4
explosives – US1122334 – Handle With Care.
Kaspian
began to panic. He opened his bag and pulled out several more items: another
grenade, a survival knife, three boxes of bullets, and a gun. His rubber ball,
ruler, the three boxes of staples he’d sneaked from the teacher’s desk drawer,
and the gnarled stick he found on the playground, were oddly missing.
Even
his big sister’s ordinary old hand-me-down cell phone was now army-green. And
it was beeping ominously.
When he
opened it, there was a text message from his mother that read, “Where r u?
Sis’s in the bathroom. Wen shes done, tellher I’m in the checckout line.” Mom
wasn’t very good at texting.
But
then even that message changed. The words blurred, and suddenly it wasn’t a
message from his mom anymore, but from someone named Grout Gregor. And now it
said, “We’re watching you and we have your sister. There’s nothing you can do
for her. She’s going to die! And you’re next! Don’t try to run to mommy. She
can’t help you now. No one can! Mwahahaha!”
Kaspian
gasped out loud and took a step back, dropping the phone in fear. What was
happening? What was going on? He couldn’t make sense of anything.
Then he
noticed his clothes. He was no longer wearing cargo shorts and a dirty T-shirt.
Now he had on full army camo, black army boots, and black leather gloves.
He
looked up to find even the store had changed. He was no longer in a bright,
cheery grocery store, with shelves full of delicious food, and happy employees.
Now he was in a dark and dingy warehouse. The rows of shelves had become rows
of dirty wooden crates stacked on dirty wooden pallets, piled so high he
couldn’t see their tops. The ceiling was lost in darkness, and the oily
concrete floor was grimy and cracked.
It was
then that he screamed.
But
screaming wouldn’t help, and he knew it. So he clamped his mouth shut and sat
down against a particulary filthy crate to think. He pulled his book bag over
and went through his supplies again, listing them out in his mind: 2 grenades,
1 survival knife, 7 blocks of C4, 1 gun, 3 boxes of bullets, 6 pencil
detonators, and 1 army phone.
He
found another grenade, a small canteen, and half of a survival meal that the
army calls an MRE stuffed into the front pocket of the bag where he’d stuffed
the leftovers from his sack lunch that afternoon, but that was it. Not much,
but it would have to do.
Now he
had to make a decision. What should he do? He didn’t know what to believe and
what not to believe. Was his sister really kidnapped? Was his mom really in
danger? Were they really coming after him next? If so, he should probably try
to rescue his sister and mom. Of course, he’d probably get killed doing it, but
what else could he do?
But
maybe none of this was real. Maybe he was just imagining it. Maybe the
extraordinary world he’d found when he put on the ring was just just a ruse.
The
ring? The ring! None of this had
happened until he put on that ring!
He
looked at it, glowing slime-green on his finger. Could it be? Could he really
have gotten such a ring from a gumball machine? A ring that could do all this,
that could turn his world topsy-turvy upside down, and turn his school bag into
a deadly arsenal of weapons and war?
But on
his finger it looked so ordinary. So plain. So ridiculously normal. It couldn’t
be, could it? He was just being silly. Of course, he wasn’t being any more
silly than to think he was now in a dark and dirty warehouse filled with rows
of crates where his sister was being held captive by evil forces and his mom
was in danger.
The
ring.
Now
that he thought it, he was afraid to touch it. He was afraid that if he took it
off, it wouldn’t do anything and he would just feel stupid. He was also afraid
that if he took it off everything would go back to normal, and he really would
have a magic ring. He didn’t know which thought scared him most.
Either
way, he didn’t have time to waste. Suddenly he grabbed the ring and pulled it
off as hard as he could. But it didn’t budge. It was stuck on his finger.
Strange, it didn’t seem too small when he’d put it on. He yanked on it again,
but it didn’t move.
He bit
it, but it wouldn’t break, and he twisted it but it didn’t bend. No matter what
he tried, the ring simply would not come off.
Something
was definitely up with that ring!
Suddenly
he heard a thought in his mind, “I’ll
come off when you rescue your sister.”
It was
quiet, and he almost didn’t notice it. But it echoed in a ghostly chatter that
caught his attention and held it. “I’ll
come off when you rescue your sister. I’ll come off when you rescue your
sister. I’ll come off when you rescue your sister.”
It was the ring, and it could talk!
“What
should I do? How can I rescue her?” he said, hoping the ring would answer. But
nothing came. The warehouse was spookily silent.
“I know
you can talk! I heard you. So, come on, help me out!” he said.
But
there was still no answer from the ring. Just a squeaking board a couple of
rows away. He was on his own, his sister was being held hostage, his mother was
in danger, and evil forces were out to get him too, and it was up to him to
save them all.
Hobb 'n Dobbs: Book 2 (Sample Chapter)
[This is a sample chapter from The Amazing Adventures of Hobb ‘n Dobbs, Book 2: The Gambler's Gambit By Kyote King (A.K.A. Gary Lee Parker)]
Chapter
1
It was the
end of his second week in high school and Jason Hobb was still frustrated.
Running his hands through his messy crop of dark hair, he growled under his
breath, then snatched up the lock hanging stubbornly from his closed locker. He
desperately spun the little blue wheel one more time, hoping against hope that
this time he’d feel the thus-far unfamiliar click of the latch letting go. No
such luck.
“Aaargh!”
he cursed at the ceiling. “Why-won’t-you-open?”
But no one
heard his plea above the chattering, crashing, jostling din that filled the
hall. For five minutes between each class the school’s hallways became a war
zone. People shoved, ran, leapt, scarfed down snacks, grabbed books, slammed
lockers, and slammed each other.
In exactly
four minutes, ten seconds, with a final swish of feet and the final click of
second period class doors, the halls would be at peace, with nothing to show
for it but a few stray scraps of wadded paper, and perhaps an errant candy
wrapper or two.
But until
then, the war was on.
Hobb
stepped back and kicked the locker as hard as he could, but he only managed to
dent the door slightly and hurt his foot in the process. Throwing a fit seldom
solves a problem. But sometimes it’s all you can do.
“Nice
technique,” said the girl to his right, standing on her tiptoes while
attempting to extract an oversized textbook from the top shelf of her own
locker. “Not very effective, but the yelp at the end was a delightful touch.”
Hobb
glowered at her through hooded eyes, but she just smiled brightly back as
though she’d paid him a genuine complement.
“You’re one
to talk, Addie. I’m surprised you can even reach your lock. Or do you have to
jump up and hang on while you spin the dial?”
At just
five feet tall, Addie Aymes had heard every short joke in the book, and most of
them twice. They rarely fazed her. She just flipped her straight black hair and
grinned, filling her face with those big puppy-dog eyes and those cute little
dimples that no one could resist.
“That’s a
new one, Hobb. First new short joke of the school year. You get a kiss.” And
she popped up on her toes and planted a quick kiss on his cheek. “Now, tell me
your combination and I’ll solve all your problems.”
She pushed
him aside and took hold of his lock, waiting for the numbers. There was nothing
for it, she wasn’t going away, so Hobb gave in and rattled off the numbers under
his breath, looking furtively around to make sure nobody else had heard. As
though he kept some great treasure in his locker others were greedy to steal,
and not just a stack of schoolbooks his classmates would like nothing more than
to avoid forever.
“17-32-12.”
She spun
the lock and it almost immediately sprung open.
“There you
go,” she said, “problem solved. Now you owe me a favor. Hmmm, I’ll have to
think of something good.”
She winked
at him, turned on her heels and pranced away through the thick crowd of
students, threading her way through her classmates as though the halls were
empty and she were simply, happily, dancing. Addie was his favorite
cheerleader, cute and punchy like a cheerleader should be, but also smart as a
whip, with a dry wit that both amused and impressed him. He smiled in spite of
himself.
Then he
turned and pulled open his locker door, and a cascade of books, papers, and
notes promptly came crashing out around his feet.
“Ow!” he
yelped, as a particularly large tome smacked his shin hard. “Crap.”
The hall
filled instantly with laughter, and a tall boy with a short crop of fiery red
hair and a face full of freckles pushed through the crowd and bent to help,
chortling as he handed a stack of books to Hobb.
Justin
Dobbs, Hobbs’ best friend since the first grade, was tall and lean, and strong
as an ox. A rising star on the football team, the Jovial Dobbs couldn’t have
been more opposite from Hobb if he’d tried. Hobb was wiry, Dobbs was muscled;
Hobb had dark, straight, messy hair, and Dobbs had curly red hair; Hobb liked
science, debate, and reading, and Dobbs liked cars, sports, and eating.
But best
friends they were anyway, and they were rarely seen apart. Which is why no one
called them Jason and Justin. They were Hobb ‘n Dobbs, and had been forever.
“What are
you tryin’ to do, Jason? Get out of class for a paper cut?”
“Shut up,
Justin,” said Hobb, grinning and shoving a jumbled mass of books back in the
locker. “Hey, I’ve been thinkin’...”
“Not
again,” said Dobbs.
“Whatever.
You’ll like this. I think we need to buy a generator and put it in the creek
below the treehouse. That way we can put in a couple of lights, and maybe a
plug for a computer or something.”
The two
friends had spent the final weeks of their summer building an elaborate
clubhouse high in a massive oak tree above the creek that divided their two
properties. Since then they’d spent every spare moment at the clubhouse,
avoiding Dobbs’ little sisters and other responsibilities. Improving the place
had become a priority.
“And a
heater wouldn’t be a bad idea either,” said Dobbs. “It’s gonna get cold this
winter.”
“Exactly,”
said Hobb, and his voice rang loudly through a suddenly silent hall.
The place
was still crowded with teens, but where before there’d been a raucous madhouse,
now it was more like a morgue. All was still, but for one lanky boy with
stringy dark hair, a worn gray tee shirt, and faded jeans, who walked
purposefully through the mess. Blushing through acne scars, and keeping his
focus straight ahead, he ignored the shocked looks on the faces of classmates
as he strode to a locker at the end of the hall and began stowing books and
other supplies.
Suddenly
the air was full with whispers. What’s he
doing here? Why would they let him out? I heard he went crazy. I heard he
killed his cat. I heard he killed himself. No, he was too stupid for that. He
should’ve though.
“Seth
Jenkins?” mouthed Dobbs.
Hobb
shrugged and said, “Looks like it.”
“Wow. I
can’t believe the principle let him back in.”
Two years
before, Seth Jenkins had gone crazy. Loudly, and publicly, crazy. At first it
was just the normal bad attitude and after school fighting. But then he
suddenly started wearing long sleeved shirts, even on hot days, and the rumor
he’d become a cutter slipped through the school like ink in water.
Soon he was
spending more time in detention for fighting than he was spending in class.
Everyone said he was doing drugs, and everyone knew it was true. And everyone
hated him, even his teachers, and said so out loud.
He was
finally pulled out of school for good after beating a classmate so severely the
classmate spent three weeks in intensive care and nearly died. No one had seen
him since, and no one wanted to.
Apparently
he had come back.
The
one-minute warning bell clanged through the school like an alarm clock in the
middle of a hard dream, and the hall again burst into a frenzy of life. Hobb
grabbed his math book and slammed his locker shut, but left the lock hanging
unlatched from door. It had become more bother than it was worth.
Then he and
Dobbs rushed off to Mrs. Haney’s class, where, like all of Mrs. Haney’s male
students, they planned on spending fifty minutes dreaming they were each named
Mr. Haney.
*****
The massive
yacht plied the heavy gray waters of the Puget Sound like an alien war machine,
splitting them in a jagged seam, leaving a wide open wound gaping behind as it
crushed its way along. An early autumn chill, intensified by sea-spray and
conspiracy, bit the skin and mind of the gray-eyed man in the business suit
standing on the prow, and he shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded his
head.
He was
desperate. He knew he was desperate. And in desperation he hung on every word
said. His marriage, his position in the community, maybe even his life; it all
hung in the balance. So he listened as the tall, lean, athletic man with the
long, droopy face of an ex-fighter and the pitbull eyes, outlined the plan,
throwing words like daggers above a colorful, blustering silk tie.
If they
could pull this off, the gray-eyed man thought, all his troubles would end. If
they could win this one, this one last gamble, he could save himself. Maybe he
could save it all. Maybe he could even keep his position on the school board.
Hell, why not? Who was to know?
It was the
perfect plan. It couldn’t go wrong. It would plow through his troubles like the
yacht plowed through the bay, inexorably cutting a way out for the man at the
helm; inexorably cutting a breach for his escape.
And soon it would also plow through the lives
of Jason Hobb and Justin Dobbs.
Hobb 'n Dobbs: Book 1 (Sample Chapter)
[This is a sample chapter from The Amazing
Adventures of Hobb ‘n Dobbs, Book 1: The Mysterious Submariners By Kyote King (A.K.A. Gary Lee Parker)]
Chapter
1
Jason Hobb
and Justin Dobbs. The two are inseparable. Have been ever since the first grade
when Miss Clarissa, the elegantly bewitching music teacher at Creekside
Elementary School, kept the boys after class for tutoring. It seems the boys
had fallen behind in their fidicinal education after losing a recent boxing
match with the Chicken Pox.
Had they
known they were to have the musical beauty all to themselves for a whole hour,
three days in a row, they may have been tempted to intentionally catch the
nasty little virus themselves. Some of us still wonder if they didn't.
Anyway,
both agreed (from beneath a thick layer of calamine lotion) it was worth it.
And both still play the violin. Just the electric variety.
*****
On Dobbs'
thirteenth birthday Hobb burst through the heavily worn oak door of the Dobbs
residence like a hurricane, his dog, Jack, fast on his heels. The sudden shift
in air pressure ruffled the curtains over the windows scattering shafts of
morning sunlight across the room like the hazy light-show at a Madd Hadder
concert.
“Justin,
I've got an idea!” he said, like this was some novel event in his day. Truth be
told, if there was anything Hobb could always be counted on, it was an idea.
The dreamer beneath his short, dark mess of hair kept churning out new schemes
and fantastic ideas at a frightening pace. Sometimes when Dobbs was bored he
would pick a subject at random from the objects lying about – an old magazine,
or an item on a shelf – and sneak the thought into conversation just to watch
the brilliance of Hobb's brooding mind unfold. Entertainment.
“Whatcha
got?” said Dobbs, half in question and half in statement. Slumped sideways in
an oversized easy-chair, his legs dangled in the air like stumps bent by a
strong wind, proving too much a temptation for the border collie who
immediately began nipping at the wiggling toes and licking the ticklish space
in the hollows of his feet.
Laughing
and kicking harmlessly at the mutt, Dobbs pulled himself up and tucked his
besieged feet into the deep folds in the corner of the chair for safety,
setting his book – his favorite author's latest adventure novel – on the
family's wide driftwood coffee table.
“You know
how we can't hang out anywhere without somebody,”
here Hobb threw a sideways sneer in the general direction of Dobbs' sisters'
rooms, “interrupting us?”
“Yeah?”
said Dobbs. It had been a burr under the boy's saddles all summer long, and the
pair frequently ranted about the constant irritation, but had as yet done
nothing about it but complain.
“Well, I
think we need to build a clubhouse!” he said, then added hurriedly, “A real clubhouse,
in a tree, with a retractable ladder and electricity and wi-fi and everything.”
The Madd
Hadder was the boy's favorite band and Dobbs had their latest album playing on
his MP3 docking station on the mantle. The band's trademark drumbeat and lush
guitar sounds washed through the room like an insistence, reinforcing the
urgency in Hobb's voice.
“Oh, happy
birthday, by the way,” he added, tossing a small wrapped package at his best
friend's fiery red head.
Dobbs
easily snagged the projectile out of the air just before impact. He'd been the
receiver on their middle school's football team for the last two years, and was
good. Very good.
“Thanks,
Jason,” he said, tearing at the perfectly folded paper to get at the gift
inside.
Opening the
small box under the paper, he pulled out a fancy pair of orange swimming
goggles and held them up to the light for inspection. It was a nice pair, and
probably set his friend back a full month's allowance. He looked up
quizzically.
“That's
part one,” said Hobb. “Part two is where we head out to the hole for a swim;
see if we can't find us some pirate's treasure under the waves.”
By “the
hole” Hobb meant the small inlet in the deep woods on the black waters of the
Pacific Northwest's Puget Sound where the boys had been sneaking off for summer
swimming as long as they could recall.
Two weeks
out from the new school year they were both feeling the familiar pressure to
cram as much summer fun into their final few days of freedom as possible, and a
swim in the hole fit that bill nicely. At its mention Dobbs bounded from his
easy chair and disappeared down the hallway.
When he
emerged a moment later his frayed orange hand-me-down swim trunks were hanging
out of his shorts and he had a towel draped lackadaisically over his stout
shoulders. Somewhere in the mess he'd found a pair of running shoes and a
mostly-clean pair of blue ankle socks which he quickly crammed his feet into,
then said, “Ready when you are.”
“Ready for
what?” came a squeaky high-pitched and insistent voice. The boys looked up to
find one of Dobbs' two little sisters, Jessie, standing in the doorway with her
fists locked to her hips like a tense mother on the verge of losing a fraying
temper. Her cropped bright-red curls blazed, adding to the effect. She was
nothing if not precocious.
Jessica was
the older of his sisters, and Dobbs had a close bond with the little upstart.
He had protected her for years, to her constant consternation. But she admired
him for it, though she'd never admit as much to Dobbs.
“Going
swimming?” She eyed the towel and trunks suspiciously, like a budding Sherlock
Holmes.
“Maybe,”
said Dobbs. He loved his little sis, and wouldn't lie to her. But he didn't
want her tagging along either. She was an adorable pest, but at ten years old
she was still a pest. “Does it matter?”
“Yes,” she
said sternly, turning her nose toward the ceiling with a haughty snub. “I'm trying to watch tee-vee, and your music
is interrupting me.” She sneered the word music, as though exasperated by the
notion anyone would deign to classify such noise with the term.
Dobbs
snatched the music player from it's stand and wound the ear-buds around it,
then shoved it in one of his pockets.
“Problem
solved, and the house is all yours,” he said with an exaggerated smile and a
low bow. He was just glad he didn't have to figure out a way to ditch the girl
without hurting her feelings.
Hearing the
pronouncement, Jessie twirled on her heels and stalked down the hallway toward
the cluttered family room, never taking her hands from her little swaggering
hips. Harrumph.
Hobb's dog,
Jack, disappeared down the hall behind her, apparently opting for an afternoon
of cuddling and relaxation in the cool house with the young girl over a hot day
tromping through the woods.
That's loyalty for you, thought Hobb,
laughing to himself.
“You got
grub?” asked Dobbs a few moments later as they slipped through the hole in the
back fence and into the dark woods beyond.
“I've got
better than that,” said Hobb. “I've got birthday cake! And I got you a bottle
of a new cola I found on the peninsula the other day. I tried it; you'll love
it.”
“Sweet!”
said Dobbs. Dobbs’ love of specialty colas was only outdone by his love of
football, and he was always on the lookout for new varieties to add to his
collection of empties.
He would
never get to eat the cake, though he had to admit later, the cola was delicious.
*****
Listening to Desert Voices
By Gary Lee Parker
Outdoor Columnist
Note: This is the latest in a series of first-person
articles by Vernal resident Gary Lee Parker who writes about the outdoors and
the area's rich history. There are
lizards everywhere. Scampering about on their tiny legs like miniature
all-terrain vehicles who've lost their riders and are loose on the dunes; Scaly
little cold-blooded snakes with legs, warming themselves in dappled sunspots
across the rocky slope.
A large and lethargic patriarch breaks away from the herd, craning his plump head over a nearby ledge for a good, long look at me, curiously cautious.
His tan scales glisten in the sunlight with a silvery sheen, and he looks to be slyly smiling, as if he knows.
I'm certain he does.
The sandy floor of the little cavern I stand before is pocked with the conical depressions of the ant lion; hundreds of them, each the private hunting ground of the next creature up the food chain from the lowly ant.
But the ants seem unaware, and dozens of six-legged multi-noded creatures scurry among the traps as though they simply don't exist. None are captured as I watch, but the ant lions must feed well, considering their numbers.
I look up, and my lizard friend is still there, still watching. Silently.
Autumn is in the air, and a cool breeze blows up from the Green River and through the arroyo I'm ascending, chilling me pleasantly.
The turning leaves speckle the ground with golden pools of shimmering light, and I dance among them in a winding arc up the wash, watching for life, and listening.
Listening to the desert voices.
And they do speak to me, though not aloud. Rather, they whisper to my soul, an inner voice of calm and reason; a voice of rustic joy.
It's not just my location. All deserts speak to those who listen. But it probably helps that I'm walking along the Desert Voices Nature Trail, a two and a half mile round-trip looping trek along a beautiful interpretive trail, near the mouth of Split Mountain, that winds up a dry wash to the west, twisting among massive slabs of sunburned slickrock and along the twisting turns of the runoff channel.
A thin stringy snake slithers out of my way a short distance into the wash, then another lizard darts into the oily brush. Massive cottonwood trees arch overhead, their leathery bark peeling away in large chunks, sloughing off entirely in places, and I linger in their gentle shade among tufts of amber flowers.
Behind me rises the massive sandstone face of Split Mountain, towering over the northeast ridge in its tawny glory, decked with puffy white fall clouds that cast mottling shadows across its craggy crest.
I stop at each interpretive signpost to read and learn, and learn I do.
I learn of waste decomposition in arid environments and the problems humans are creating for their future generations. I learn of the root-holes in the hillside and the squirrels who make them their homes.
I learn of desert evaporation rates and semi-arid climates, and of sandbars in the Green River made of silt from this very wash.
I'm reminded of the delicate nature of the cryptosoils in the area, and of desert hiking etiquette; of the mariposa lily and the berries of the juniper bush; of desert vandalism and plant adaptations.
Each stop feeds my mind and rests my feet.
Walking along this dusty red route is settling. With the onset of fall the crowds have left the Monument for other pursuits – school, work, and warmer climes – and the trail is empty. The interpretive signs, both a set for adults and a set for children, educate and inspire those who venture here. The elongated autumn shadows soften the setting and sooth the soul. And the crisp air carries on it the scent of musty earth and cooling waters.
As I turn up the hillside toward a narrow gap in the canyon wall, following the winding path through rippled slabs of ancient stone, I look back at the scene below, and sigh. The painted hills, streaked with crimson and gold, stripe the far valley.
Far below I trace the line of the wash along a narrow strip of trees until it disappears between the cliffs on its way to the mighty Green.
Miniature versions of the lizards of the valley floor scoot through the low brush at the trail's edge, their tiny tails skimming the sandy desert surface in their wake.
I'm reluctant now to give up my time here. I'm reluctant to give up the long summer days, the easy warm hours on the trails of the Uintah Basin, the afternoons spent climbing among the domed peaks of the High Uinta Mountains.
Winter brings its own trove of treasures and delights. But, for me, just for now, I think I'll hold onto summer for one more day. Then, perhaps, I'll be ready to move on...
The Road:
From Vernal, travel east on highway 40 as it turns south through Naples, then east to Jensen. In Jensen, turn north on highway 149 (S. 9500 E.) toward Dinosaur National Monument (Follow the signs). Enter Dinosaur National Monument and follow the main road past the visitor center. Approximately three miles past the visitor center and quarry entrance road, turn north (left) toward the Green River Campground. Park at the campground parking area. The trailhead is just to the west (left) of the boat-ramp, near the main road.
The Details:
Outdoor Columnist
A large and lethargic patriarch breaks away from the herd, craning his plump head over a nearby ledge for a good, long look at me, curiously cautious.
His tan scales glisten in the sunlight with a silvery sheen, and he looks to be slyly smiling, as if he knows.
I'm certain he does.
The sandy floor of the little cavern I stand before is pocked with the conical depressions of the ant lion; hundreds of them, each the private hunting ground of the next creature up the food chain from the lowly ant.
But the ants seem unaware, and dozens of six-legged multi-noded creatures scurry among the traps as though they simply don't exist. None are captured as I watch, but the ant lions must feed well, considering their numbers.
I look up, and my lizard friend is still there, still watching. Silently.
Autumn is in the air, and a cool breeze blows up from the Green River and through the arroyo I'm ascending, chilling me pleasantly.
The turning leaves speckle the ground with golden pools of shimmering light, and I dance among them in a winding arc up the wash, watching for life, and listening.
Listening to the desert voices.
And they do speak to me, though not aloud. Rather, they whisper to my soul, an inner voice of calm and reason; a voice of rustic joy.
It's not just my location. All deserts speak to those who listen. But it probably helps that I'm walking along the Desert Voices Nature Trail, a two and a half mile round-trip looping trek along a beautiful interpretive trail, near the mouth of Split Mountain, that winds up a dry wash to the west, twisting among massive slabs of sunburned slickrock and along the twisting turns of the runoff channel.
A thin stringy snake slithers out of my way a short distance into the wash, then another lizard darts into the oily brush. Massive cottonwood trees arch overhead, their leathery bark peeling away in large chunks, sloughing off entirely in places, and I linger in their gentle shade among tufts of amber flowers.
Behind me rises the massive sandstone face of Split Mountain, towering over the northeast ridge in its tawny glory, decked with puffy white fall clouds that cast mottling shadows across its craggy crest.
I stop at each interpretive signpost to read and learn, and learn I do.
I learn of waste decomposition in arid environments and the problems humans are creating for their future generations. I learn of the root-holes in the hillside and the squirrels who make them their homes.
I learn of desert evaporation rates and semi-arid climates, and of sandbars in the Green River made of silt from this very wash.
I'm reminded of the delicate nature of the cryptosoils in the area, and of desert hiking etiquette; of the mariposa lily and the berries of the juniper bush; of desert vandalism and plant adaptations.
Each stop feeds my mind and rests my feet.
Walking along this dusty red route is settling. With the onset of fall the crowds have left the Monument for other pursuits – school, work, and warmer climes – and the trail is empty. The interpretive signs, both a set for adults and a set for children, educate and inspire those who venture here. The elongated autumn shadows soften the setting and sooth the soul. And the crisp air carries on it the scent of musty earth and cooling waters.
As I turn up the hillside toward a narrow gap in the canyon wall, following the winding path through rippled slabs of ancient stone, I look back at the scene below, and sigh. The painted hills, streaked with crimson and gold, stripe the far valley.
Far below I trace the line of the wash along a narrow strip of trees until it disappears between the cliffs on its way to the mighty Green.
Miniature versions of the lizards of the valley floor scoot through the low brush at the trail's edge, their tiny tails skimming the sandy desert surface in their wake.
I'm reluctant now to give up my time here. I'm reluctant to give up the long summer days, the easy warm hours on the trails of the Uintah Basin, the afternoons spent climbing among the domed peaks of the High Uinta Mountains.
Winter brings its own trove of treasures and delights. But, for me, just for now, I think I'll hold onto summer for one more day. Then, perhaps, I'll be ready to move on...
From Vernal, travel east on highway 40 as it turns south through Naples, then east to Jensen. In Jensen, turn north on highway 149 (S. 9500 E.) toward Dinosaur National Monument (Follow the signs). Enter Dinosaur National Monument and follow the main road past the visitor center. Approximately three miles past the visitor center and quarry entrance road, turn north (left) toward the Green River Campground. Park at the campground parking area. The trailhead is just to the west (left) of the boat-ramp, near the main road.
Getting to the point: The grandeur of the Ruple Point Trail
By Gary Lee Parker
Outdoor Columnist
Note: This is the latest in a series of first-person
articles by Vernal resident Gary Lee Parker who writes about the outdoors and
the area's rich history.
“Look at
this.”
“What?” says my hiking partner, a dozen yards down the hillside to the north and trudging through ten inches of crusted snow from last week's storm.
“What?” says my hiking partner, a dozen yards down the hillside to the north and trudging through ten inches of crusted snow from last week's storm.
“The trail. I told you we'd find it again once we hit the top.”
I'm grinning like the Cheshire Cat; like a trickster who just pulled a favorite stunt, as my companion stumbles up and warily eyes the faint snowy track through the sagebrush ahead.
She's just happy to be on level ground again, trail or no trail.
We'd lost the path in the snow, shortly past its start at the Island Park overlook, and trudged through a deep ravine before ascending the steep slope up the other side and onto a long plateau-like mountain top heading west.
Following a heavy trail of elk tracks, we carefully picked our way through the jumble of boulders and twisted junipers between us and our goal, finally clambering to the ridge out of breath and exhausted.
I had already shed my fleece shirt and vest in favor of a light tee-shirt, despite the 40 degree temperature registering on the miniature thermometer dangling from my zipper pull, but sweat still stung my brow at the operose effort up the hill. But the sweat and travail are lost the moment I catch sight of the main trail.
“Nice!” says my partner, smiling back as she recognizes the empty strip of white through the brush as a developed route.
Delighted, we push ahead, the worst of the trail – or lack thereof – falling behind.
We're following the Ruple Point trail, a four-mile-long well-maintained footpath that runs along one of Split Mountain's high ridges deep in the pulsing heart of Dinosaur National Monument. We were told the hike was desolate and uneventful, with the payoff coming at the end, but we look around and find fascinating details and inspiring vistas on all sides, almost from the beginning.
To the north, the ridge falls away into a broad, deep valley, eventually dropping into the beautiful Island Park. Ramparts of golden stone run like a jagged saw from the ridge beyond, sharp against the rolling red-rock that paints the distant land.
Marsh Peak and the bald domes of the eastern Uinta Mountains rise in the west, white-washed with recent snow and sparkling in the low winter sun.
And all about us stretches a vast rolling expanse of sage and juniper, fragrant and beautiful in its winter serenity.
There are rumors of native artifacts in the area, and friends have hinted at mysticism and myth, and we talk of a haunted past as we wander on, loping our way across the steppe. But we see no sign of human habitation, and little sign of humanity at all beyond the trail on which we tread. Just one very old pole fence decaying from years of neglect – abandoned – cutting the trail near the halfway point.
With its bone-gray posts jabbing at the somber sky like warding skeletal fingers, the remains remind me of a thousand movie images of skulls on stakes and cursed tombs and secret societies charged with guarding ancient treasure, and we move warily through the gates.
Soon we drop into a high forest of junipers, their small, dusky berries bright against the dark boughs.
“Pine trees!” I exclaim, as I reach for a nearby branch covered in empty cones.
I hadn't expected pines here, but the junipers have given way to a scrub pine forest with short, bristling needles and wide, squat, saddle cones that drip with creamy amber sap become solid in the cold and dry weather; a frozen honeyed dew.
The thick trees shade the snow, and a dense blanket of white slows our pace as we trudge through the wood, each step sending glittering sprays into the bracing air. I kick out the path, clearing the trail a bit for my following friend as I go.
At last we break from the weald into an open sage-covered plaza, and, following a small sign bearing the image of a hiker, descend along a low drainage toward a knobby hillock framed by the upper edge of a massive auburn cliff.
We scurry ahead, knowing our goal is in reach, crashing through the far forest like a runner in the final stretch.
But we're brought up short as we step through the trees onto a sandstone ledge as the world abruptly falls away, and I gasp.
Below and before us lays the open wound of Split Mountain, the split that earned the name, running raggedly into the distance like a massive gouge in a red layer-cake; it's crimson layers coated in a white dusting of winter's powdered sugar.
Nearly two-thousand five-hundred feet below our perch twists the snaking verdigris Green River, winding its life-giving essence through the gauntlet of scabrous rock at its shore. Its beryl waters gleam in the wispy winter light like a pastel ribbon in an Irish maiden's locks, holding back the fiery tresses of the mountain.
I step to the edge of a spit of sandstone jutting into open air and gaze at the immensity of the drop, the vastness of the view, and my mind reels, struggling to take it in. And all of the beauty of the last four miles becomes nothing, swallowed in the grandiosity of this massive gorge.
I squat, fearing my timorous balance – fearing that I too will be swallowed up – then sink to my knees before leaning forward in a vain attempt to capture the scene in the black-magic box around my neck. But what is a photo before this? Nothing.
And we are nothing, small and insignificant, reminded of our place in the world and of the bounds of humanity's meager journey on this ancient land. And yet here we stand, at the edge of the abyss, and I do not feel powerless. In fact, I feel powerful indeed, inspired and renewed.
The Road:
From Vernal, travel east on Highway 40 to Dinosaur, Colo.
Two miles past Dinosaur, turn north at the signs signifying the entrance to
Dinosaur National Monument. This is the Harpers Corner Auto Tour road. Travel
approximately 26 miles to the Island Park overlook, then park in the parking
area at the overlook. The trail starts just to the left (south) of the parking
area.
The Details:
This is high desert country. It is hot and dry in the
summer, and cold and dry in the winter. Bring plenty of water and wear sturdy
boots. Wear sunscreen, as the thin atmosphere at this altitude allows
significantly more of the sun's harsh rays to affect your skin. Sunburns are a
very real danger. Beware of cliff edges. Stay back, and keep children under
control at all times. The trail is four miles long (eight miles round trip),
and can be rugged and challenging due to the altitude and depending on the weather
and your physical condition. Most importantly, bring a camera and spend some
time enjoying this incredible piece of nature's majesty!
Why I Hike
[This article first appeared in The Vernal Express in 2009.]
By Gary Lee Parker
Sports Editor
Note: This is taken from a series of first-person articles by Gary Lee Parker who writes about the outdoors and the America's rich history.
The silent forest was magic. Light dappling through the top branches of a thick stand of pine; shooting stars hanging sprightly in purple and golden splendor; the sights and sounds of the trail captured my young mind and held it transfixed.
I was eight years old, and my legs pumped rapidly to keep up with my longer limbed, and more experienced, chaperon. Two of my steps for one of his.
Across my back stretched a small pinstriped baby blue and white hand-made day-pack with a change of clothing and a child's toothbrush slapdashedly stuffed inside. I wore only jeans and sneakers, and an old striped tee shirt.
It was early in the summer of 1979. I'd been badgering my dad for several years in a seemingly hopeless attempt to stow-away on one of his annual backpacking trips into the central Idaho wilderness. Sometime about age five he'd consented to allow me access once I turned eight. I've never looked forward to a birthday so much before or since.
Now the day had arrived, and I moved along the trail, swish, swish, swish, feeling the firmness of the earth beneath my feet and the reveling in the movement and rhythm of it all.
Our destination was Hell Roaring Lake, a dazzling high mountain lake on the eastern edge of Idaho's famed Sawtooth Wilderness Area. Heaven, and the sun's rays through the trees were a revelation.
My young mind raced, along with its body, filled with adventure and a mad desire to drink in the whole of the moment, each moment, making each step a material part of my very being.
Squirrels and chipmunks industriously secreting stores of pine nuts away against the colder days ahead; the sing-song hymnal of the streams gurgling their way toward the distant ocean; course granite tombstones grinding their determined way above the hard-packed dirt, busting past a lake of umber needles at such a cosmic pace that multi-colored lichen cover their faces like spattered paint.
Each image hits the back of my eyes upside down, though I don't know it yet. Each sound vibrates the thin tympanic membranes at the far end of my ear canal, where my brain translates the motion into what we call noise. Each scent touches the olfactory sensory neurons in my nose and is then converted into electrical pulses that tell the computer in my skull what molecules are adrift in my local.
None of the how seems to matter though, as I stumble along in the footsteps of my father who takes care to walk slowly and mind my every step. No, I can think of nothing but the wonder of the world around me, the splendor of mountains, trees, water, wind, and life.
When we reach the lake late in the afternoon my dad sets about getting the tent in place and rolling out sleeping bags, then begins preparations for our evening meal. The sun hangs low in the sky, kissing the jagged peaks that frame the western horizon. Long streamers of snow hang in the shadows of the towering ridges and reflect tenuously in the sleepy waters of the lake.
I wander to the lake-shore and poke at its surface with a thin stick, sending tiny ripples out toward the deep center. And in that moment, that is precisely what it becomes: The deep center of my life; the reset switch I can turn to when life becomes irredeemably bent.
It was a moment only, but one that wrought a profound change in my young mind, in my young world-view, a change that is with me even now, swirling ethereally behind every thought and every action, guiding me inward toward the quiet peace that I seek.
I ate the fried luncheon meat and beans that my dad cooked on the fire, then played in the forest as the sun shrunk below the mountain rim. Then I crawled into the bowels of my sleeping bag, a bag my dad had so graciously carried on his own back so that I might have this experience, and listened to him tell a fantastic bedtime tale singing me off to a deep slumber where I dreamed of all things good.
The next morning I wandered and pestered and found and climbed and jumped and waded and explored and cajoled and generally acted like a young child while my dad attempted vainly to catch breakfast from the icy mountain waters. Then we loaded up our meager gear and turned our backs on the mountains and walked somberly into what is now my history.
Now, it's been many years, decades even, since I first walked behind the swinging shanks of my loving father along that mountain trail. But I remember it as though it were this morning. The smells and sounds, the grandeur and the simplicity, the freedom and independence: each of these breaths on my mind like a small token of truth.
But more than all this, I remember peace. And when I walk off the map and into the unknown, the unknowable, it is this that I seek above all else. Peace.And I never fail to find it.
This is why I hike.
By Gary Lee Parker
Sports Editor
Note: This is taken from a series of first-person articles by Gary Lee Parker who writes about the outdoors and the America's rich history.
The silent forest was magic. Light dappling through the top branches of a thick stand of pine; shooting stars hanging sprightly in purple and golden splendor; the sights and sounds of the trail captured my young mind and held it transfixed.
I was eight years old, and my legs pumped rapidly to keep up with my longer limbed, and more experienced, chaperon. Two of my steps for one of his.
Across my back stretched a small pinstriped baby blue and white hand-made day-pack with a change of clothing and a child's toothbrush slapdashedly stuffed inside. I wore only jeans and sneakers, and an old striped tee shirt.
It was early in the summer of 1979. I'd been badgering my dad for several years in a seemingly hopeless attempt to stow-away on one of his annual backpacking trips into the central Idaho wilderness. Sometime about age five he'd consented to allow me access once I turned eight. I've never looked forward to a birthday so much before or since.
Now the day had arrived, and I moved along the trail, swish, swish, swish, feeling the firmness of the earth beneath my feet and the reveling in the movement and rhythm of it all.
Our destination was Hell Roaring Lake, a dazzling high mountain lake on the eastern edge of Idaho's famed Sawtooth Wilderness Area. Heaven, and the sun's rays through the trees were a revelation.
My young mind raced, along with its body, filled with adventure and a mad desire to drink in the whole of the moment, each moment, making each step a material part of my very being.
Squirrels and chipmunks industriously secreting stores of pine nuts away against the colder days ahead; the sing-song hymnal of the streams gurgling their way toward the distant ocean; course granite tombstones grinding their determined way above the hard-packed dirt, busting past a lake of umber needles at such a cosmic pace that multi-colored lichen cover their faces like spattered paint.
Each image hits the back of my eyes upside down, though I don't know it yet. Each sound vibrates the thin tympanic membranes at the far end of my ear canal, where my brain translates the motion into what we call noise. Each scent touches the olfactory sensory neurons in my nose and is then converted into electrical pulses that tell the computer in my skull what molecules are adrift in my local.
None of the how seems to matter though, as I stumble along in the footsteps of my father who takes care to walk slowly and mind my every step. No, I can think of nothing but the wonder of the world around me, the splendor of mountains, trees, water, wind, and life.
When we reach the lake late in the afternoon my dad sets about getting the tent in place and rolling out sleeping bags, then begins preparations for our evening meal. The sun hangs low in the sky, kissing the jagged peaks that frame the western horizon. Long streamers of snow hang in the shadows of the towering ridges and reflect tenuously in the sleepy waters of the lake.
I wander to the lake-shore and poke at its surface with a thin stick, sending tiny ripples out toward the deep center. And in that moment, that is precisely what it becomes: The deep center of my life; the reset switch I can turn to when life becomes irredeemably bent.
It was a moment only, but one that wrought a profound change in my young mind, in my young world-view, a change that is with me even now, swirling ethereally behind every thought and every action, guiding me inward toward the quiet peace that I seek.
I ate the fried luncheon meat and beans that my dad cooked on the fire, then played in the forest as the sun shrunk below the mountain rim. Then I crawled into the bowels of my sleeping bag, a bag my dad had so graciously carried on his own back so that I might have this experience, and listened to him tell a fantastic bedtime tale singing me off to a deep slumber where I dreamed of all things good.
The next morning I wandered and pestered and found and climbed and jumped and waded and explored and cajoled and generally acted like a young child while my dad attempted vainly to catch breakfast from the icy mountain waters. Then we loaded up our meager gear and turned our backs on the mountains and walked somberly into what is now my history.
Now, it's been many years, decades even, since I first walked behind the swinging shanks of my loving father along that mountain trail. But I remember it as though it were this morning. The smells and sounds, the grandeur and the simplicity, the freedom and independence: each of these breaths on my mind like a small token of truth.
But more than all this, I remember peace. And when I walk off the map and into the unknown, the unknowable, it is this that I seek above all else. Peace.And I never fail to find it.
This is why I hike.
The wind in the water
[This article first appeared in The Vernal Express in 2009.]
By Gary Lee Parker
Express Writer
Note: This is taken from a series of first-person articles by Gary Lee Parker who writes about the outdoors and the America's rich history. “The water is crying. It doesn't want to freeze over...freezing is death,” she says, sitting on the bank with her feet on a rock piercing through the slowly thickening layer of ice. “It's angry about the coming winter.”
We sit slightly unnerved and silent for several desolate moments, feeling the motion of the earth hurtling noiselessly through the vast wasteland of a blackened cosmos. Mars and Venus are dancing low in a western sky awash in cerulean and salmon. “I think it's singing; I think it's happy,” I say without conviction. Then brightening I add, “It loves the winter as much as it loves the summer.”
A sudden rushing fills the night, like wind in a forest canopy, but low and ambiguous, within the ice, growing louder until it drowns all else away before abruptly ebbing to nothing. Then two loud pops, like weak gunshots, pass by as though they had every right to so rudely intrude. Then nothing.
The trees on the horizon streak reflections in the icy glaze that covers the lake as the pink sky turns to gray. My friend begins scribbling emotion onto the pages of a small leather-bound writing book she holds in gloved hands, and I drift off into thought, remembering other times I've heard the ice-song, let its haunting melody lick around the peripherals of my mind.
I was young the first time I heard it. Like hearing a wolf in the wild, it chilled me to the bone and stopped me in my tracks. I was sure it was a gunshot from the bowels of the earth, some daemon searching me out for vengeance, and my heart pounded deep in my little boy's chest. It came again, then again, then again, sounding slightly different each time, but eerily the same. Crack! Then a long, low howl as if a great blue whale lay suffering on some desolate seafloor. Mostly I remember the fear.
My dad had explained to me that it was just the ice expanding and contracting, and sometimes cracking, with the changing temperature – science has an answer for everything, it seems – but I couldn't shake the feeling that it was something less benign, something other-worldly. Spirits whispering to one another, perhaps, or lost souls crying out for direction.
I've heard it many times since that first unsettling encounter. Each time is different from the one before. Each time is as surreal as the last. Tonight is no exception.
A strange singing whine pulls me from my thoughts, depositing me back on the lakeshore. Browne Lake. The eastern edge of the Uintah range. And it is bitter cold and getting colder every minute. I've wrapped up in winter clothes and my friend bears a fur-lined trapper hat and gloves with the finger-tips cut away, I assume for easier writing. She winces a bit at the spectral sound and looks to me for assurance. This is her first time hearing the crying ice, and she's as unconvinced of my explanation as I was of my father's.
The unearthly song echoes up and down the lake, glancing off the mountains that dam the water in and reverberating along the shore. The ice at our feet shudders and cracks making a low pop-pop-popping sound, and then the sound of some bizarre lost and alien loon drifts across the ice. Real, but not real. I shudder.
“It's beautiful,” I venture.
“It's the old ice that's patient, singing the slow mourning song,” says my friend. “The young ice is angry and rebellious.”
“It's beautiful,” I repeat.
“Yes,” she says.
I read somewhere that the thickness of the ice, and the depth of the water below it, determine what sound it produces. On large lakes the ice can be deep and strong and the forces at play are immense. When enough pressure builds the ice gives way and a harsh crack can spread across the surface for hundreds of yards, or even miles, and the whole lake shudders with the sound of cannon-fire.
On smaller lakes, early in the days of winter when the ice is just beginning to form, like this lake today, cracks travel quickly, rushing across the surface with the sound of the seashore or a distant cheering crowd. The popping is lower, quieter, less like gun-play than like a mallet against sand. You can feel it as much as hear it. You can feel it with all your senses.
A long, enchanting lament seeps up from the depths of the lake, stealing its way along the edges of the horizon, like a shadow that has broken free of its corporeal moorings; like a wraith hunting among the unsuspecting living. It builds to a low rushing hiss, punctuated by bursts of energy, a vacillating volume and pitch that imbue the experience with the feeling of sentiment and meaning, almost of language. The apparitions speak to each other of things long since lost to mankind, and my friend an I listen, trying to understand.
“The wind is in the water,” she says.
“The wind is in the water,” I echo.
She begins writing again.
The Road:
The Details:
By Gary Lee Parker
Express Writer
Note: This is taken from a series of first-person articles by Gary Lee Parker who writes about the outdoors and the America's rich history. “The water is crying. It doesn't want to freeze over...freezing is death,” she says, sitting on the bank with her feet on a rock piercing through the slowly thickening layer of ice. “It's angry about the coming winter.”
We sit slightly unnerved and silent for several desolate moments, feeling the motion of the earth hurtling noiselessly through the vast wasteland of a blackened cosmos. Mars and Venus are dancing low in a western sky awash in cerulean and salmon. “I think it's singing; I think it's happy,” I say without conviction. Then brightening I add, “It loves the winter as much as it loves the summer.”
A sudden rushing fills the night, like wind in a forest canopy, but low and ambiguous, within the ice, growing louder until it drowns all else away before abruptly ebbing to nothing. Then two loud pops, like weak gunshots, pass by as though they had every right to so rudely intrude. Then nothing.
The trees on the horizon streak reflections in the icy glaze that covers the lake as the pink sky turns to gray. My friend begins scribbling emotion onto the pages of a small leather-bound writing book she holds in gloved hands, and I drift off into thought, remembering other times I've heard the ice-song, let its haunting melody lick around the peripherals of my mind.
I was young the first time I heard it. Like hearing a wolf in the wild, it chilled me to the bone and stopped me in my tracks. I was sure it was a gunshot from the bowels of the earth, some daemon searching me out for vengeance, and my heart pounded deep in my little boy's chest. It came again, then again, then again, sounding slightly different each time, but eerily the same. Crack! Then a long, low howl as if a great blue whale lay suffering on some desolate seafloor. Mostly I remember the fear.
My dad had explained to me that it was just the ice expanding and contracting, and sometimes cracking, with the changing temperature – science has an answer for everything, it seems – but I couldn't shake the feeling that it was something less benign, something other-worldly. Spirits whispering to one another, perhaps, or lost souls crying out for direction.
I've heard it many times since that first unsettling encounter. Each time is different from the one before. Each time is as surreal as the last. Tonight is no exception.
A strange singing whine pulls me from my thoughts, depositing me back on the lakeshore. Browne Lake. The eastern edge of the Uintah range. And it is bitter cold and getting colder every minute. I've wrapped up in winter clothes and my friend bears a fur-lined trapper hat and gloves with the finger-tips cut away, I assume for easier writing. She winces a bit at the spectral sound and looks to me for assurance. This is her first time hearing the crying ice, and she's as unconvinced of my explanation as I was of my father's.
The unearthly song echoes up and down the lake, glancing off the mountains that dam the water in and reverberating along the shore. The ice at our feet shudders and cracks making a low pop-pop-popping sound, and then the sound of some bizarre lost and alien loon drifts across the ice. Real, but not real. I shudder.
“It's beautiful,” I venture.
“It's the old ice that's patient, singing the slow mourning song,” says my friend. “The young ice is angry and rebellious.”
“It's beautiful,” I repeat.
“Yes,” she says.
I read somewhere that the thickness of the ice, and the depth of the water below it, determine what sound it produces. On large lakes the ice can be deep and strong and the forces at play are immense. When enough pressure builds the ice gives way and a harsh crack can spread across the surface for hundreds of yards, or even miles, and the whole lake shudders with the sound of cannon-fire.
On smaller lakes, early in the days of winter when the ice is just beginning to form, like this lake today, cracks travel quickly, rushing across the surface with the sound of the seashore or a distant cheering crowd. The popping is lower, quieter, less like gun-play than like a mallet against sand. You can feel it as much as hear it. You can feel it with all your senses.
A long, enchanting lament seeps up from the depths of the lake, stealing its way along the edges of the horizon, like a shadow that has broken free of its corporeal moorings; like a wraith hunting among the unsuspecting living. It builds to a low rushing hiss, punctuated by bursts of energy, a vacillating volume and pitch that imbue the experience with the feeling of sentiment and meaning, almost of language. The apparitions speak to each other of things long since lost to mankind, and my friend an I listen, trying to understand.
“The wind is in the water,” she says.
“The wind is in the water,” I echo.
She begins writing again.
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