The Walk XII - Overcast, Outside and In

     Kind of a misty drizzle when I awoke.  Can't say I was thrilled but knowing my situation and whereabouts there was nothing to do be done about it.  Took care to not disturb the tarp 'til my bag and pad were stowed in the pack.  Donned my rain gear and re-rigged the tarp to allow me cooking space.  Been in similar spots before and have learned adjusting to circumstance and going about my business would perk me up.  That or crawl back in the bag and call room service.

     Today I'll travel with wet gear strapped to the outside of the pack.  Better there than soaking my sleeping bag and dirty clothes.  Carrying wet and festering drawers on my back held no appeal whatsoever.  'Til hiking time I passed my minutes with my beloved oatmeal and coffee.  Had better than a half pot left from last night.  First steam of the morning rose from the chilled aluminum.  Fogged metal cleared as the coffee warmed.  Second steam told me the brew was ready to sip while waiting on the water for the cereal.  Damnation both went down good.  Caffein and sugar does wonders for my spirit.  Better than loaves and fishes.  As did a trip uphill to the latrine.  The stomach taketh and the lower intestinal tract giveth.  Floated on the wings of angels on my return.
     Finally sloshed my way onto the trail a good three minutes later than usual and headed west toward my resupply under scudding clouds.  Don't exactly know what scudding means but I've read those words concerning cloud movement many times and at my age am past caring enough to look it up.  Might be related to Dizzy Dean's Saturday game-of-the-week baseball comment that a runner had slud into second base.  That'd make scud the same as skid and'd work just fine for the fast moving clouds passing overhead.
     The breeze kicked up with the rise of the hidden sun.  Didn't matter that the rain had stopped as each passing gust showered me from the branches above.  Crisp morning of clouded breath.  Wouldn't be long before a rain such as this morning's fell as snow.  Hopefully it'd wait 'til I could fire up the wood stove.  Not something I could count on.  Each of this morning's inhales carried tales of the frigid far north.  Manitoba and Saskatchewan.  I'm partial to the first province though I've never been to the latter.

     By camp this afternoon I figured to be five miles down the Kekekabic Trail.  Some call it the Kek.  Maybe want to sound in the know.  I like the full name exactly as it stands.  Hard striking poetry.  Also sounds more a part of it's ancient surroundings even though the trail's a recent creation.  At least that's what I've been told.  Who knows?  Could be the people who lived here before the French arrived to trap the beaver left the canoe at home once in a while and walked to the grocery store.  Maybe on the Kekekabic Trail to the Three K's Store.  Wonder what name they'd have given the path?  If any at all.  Can't say I've been looking forward to hiking its miles.  Don't know why.  Some things simply appeal more to me than others and for no explainable reason.
     Once again I passed beside a series of overlooks.  Down below, Gunflint Lake.  Some of the outcrops would have offered spectacular views had I been gutsy enough to walk out on the wet moss and lichen covered stone points.  Contented myself with a few partial glimpses to the lake, Canada and treetops hundreds of feet below.  To the west, a break in the clouds.  Come lunch I figured to ditch the rain gear.  Chilly though the air was, non-scudding rainclouds were forming under my jacket.
     Sounds like I was having a fine time but "Me and My Shadow" was still haunting my steps.  Mostly I'm content being alone but today I'd've enjoyed company if only for a few minutes.  Lena's more than any other.  Including the days of our courting, the two of us were together thirty years.  Enough time to think alike and act as one even if we were different in many ways.  Still carry her picture in my wallet and have all the letters I wrote her when I was in the war.  She kept them all.  Now I do.  They're up in the lookout tied with a light blue ribbon.  'Spose I don't need the ribbon but like the paper, it'd passed through her hands.  Carries value to me.  Not quite three dozen of them and not a one says much about the war.  Not really love letters though the subject does come up.  When I re-read them they give me a feeling of sitting at the kitchen table speaking of how our days had passed and our intentions for the future.  'Course the letters were pretty one-sided.  Don't know what happened to the ones she sent me.  Kept them 'til the day I was wounded then never saw them again.  Another casualty of the war.
     So here I walk, me and my shadow and my thoughts of the past.  Could be worse.  This mood of melancholy will pass.  Won't go away exactly but will leave me alone for a while.  Can't be up all the time nor down.  As for my peaks and valleys they're a lot like the ones peeking at me through the trees.  Not Rocky Mountain or Grand Canyon spectacular but pretty nice all the same.  Ones I can live with.

     

The Walk XI - The Horns

      Camped on the shore of Birch Lake with the Gunflint Trail less than a crow's mile away to the south.  Heard my first traffic in close to three days.  In most places a car and two pickup trucks doesn't constitute traffic but up here it's bumper-to-bumper.  Tomorrow's my resupply.  As each day passes, the sun sets a little earlier, rises later.  Dark and in the bag before eight.  I'd packed Catch 22 with intentions of finishing it on the outbound.  Too heavy to hoist at night so I unsheathed another envelop instead.  Even then the strain does me in quickly.  Light in one hand, letter in the other, head held up by my neck muscles.  Not comfortable in the least.  One letter and some thought was all I could handle,  

     Dear Uncle Emil,

     I'm carrying a PRC25 radio these days.  The day before it was given me, I was offered the M-79 grenade launcher but wasn't very good with it.  Honestly I haven't been any more than average with any of the weapons I've fired.  Why should the M-79 have been any different?  All us American boys think they can shot the eyes out of a turkey at a half mile.  I've learned differently.  My moment with the M-79 wasn't all that bad.  The broad side of a barn would have gone down in flames.  But not the small bush I missed twice.  So I ended up as RTO.  My mouth seems to work better than my trigger finger.  The radio's a load but I like it.  Makes me feel like quite the man carrying the heaviest rucksack in the squad.  Also makes me feel like the wettest when I break one of the skinny-assed bridges the Vietnamese build.  Done it twice and now have to be the last one to cross.  More often I simply wade across the moat or river.  Keeps both the radio and my cigarettes dry.
     The radio has many benefits.  I get first choice of watch at night.  First or last shift depending on my mood.  Six and a half uninterrupted hours of sleep is a pleasure.  However, being among the first to be shot at in an ambush is a drawback.  Also got a new name.  At the moment I'm Bravo one-two oscar, my call sign.  First platoon, second squad operator.
     Even though it's twenty-five pounds with the battery, the radio's not all that big in dimension but have learned it's big enough to hide behind.  We stumbled our way into an ambush the other day.  Our squad was walking point as usual and five of us were pinned down in a dry rice paddy.  Like laying in a parking lot and being shot at from several directions.  Right off our point man, Shorty, was shot through the head.  Coleman, our M-79 man (the job I'd been offered) to my right, was shot and unconscious.  Somehow I wiggled the frame pack off my back and used the radio as cover.  Could be what saved my life.  For a minute or two I exchanged fire with two VC.  One low to my right probably in a dike spider hole and the other higher and farther right.  Couldn't see either but they could see me.  Best they could do was nick my boot, snap eight or ten rounds past my head and crease my right shoulder.  Finally our new Platoon Leader, first day in the field, knelt up behind a protecting dike, just like he was shown in training, to shoot an azimuth and call in artillery.  He was dead before he hit the ground.  After a few exchanges with the VC I realized they only shot at me when I shot at them so I stopped.  They did also.  Wanted to shout out a thank you but figured it in bad military taste.
     Long story short, after maybe ten minutes the rest of the platoon decided to finally lend a hand.  Gave the three of us out in the bare paddy and still breathing some cover fire so we hightailed it out of there.  Was nearly head shot by Thim, our Tiger Scout, on my run to safety.  A few minutes later Bravo Six, the CO, sat down with me.  Asked to see my wound.  To that point I hadn't seen it myself.  Turned out it wasn't much.  No more than a skin and hint of flesh removal but enough for him to offer me a Purple Heart.  Sounded neat and I almost said yes.  Then thought of Shorty, Coleman and Lieutenant Olsen so I turned it down.  Bravo Six said he was going to put himself in for one since he'd puckered so much in the ambush his butt-hole bled.  Good man.
     A few minutes later Woolwine, another man in our squad went back to get Shorty.  Guess I was so happy to be out of the line of fire I'd forgotten about him.  How is that possible?  Guess I don't have an answer for that.  After twenty seconds of guilt I finally got up off my ass and gave Woolwine a hand.
     All the while I laid there exchanging fire the thought of being wounded or killed never entered my head (might have if the thought and bullet had shared the same place).  It wasn't as though I was calm but wasn't all that upset.  Excited maybe.  But boy did I sweat.  Seemed like one part of me was ready to soil my jungle pants while the other part was playing the game.  Head up.  Bang, bang, bang.  Hide.  Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.  Wait for it.  Head up.  Bang, bang, bang.  Hide.  And so on.  Never played that game before and maybe didn't realize the three of us were playing for keeps.
     Being pinned down like that gave me a new perspective on the war.  Made it feel way more personal.  Heck, a man could die over here.  But I don't dwell on that thought, can't dwell on it.  All I can do is take it one step at a time and not do anything stupid.

     Alive and kicking,
     Archie

     Sounded all too familiar.  Like we hadn't learned a thing since WWII.  Same fire fights, same dead.  I figure the point of a World War is to not have to fight another.  Get it done once and for all.  So what went wrong?  Way too many loose ends I guess.  Egos, greed and religion.  Doubt if Vietnam is the end of it either.  There'll be more wars.  Always more wars.  Doesn't seem to matter which countries are involved.  Nations seem pretty impersonal when it comes to war.  Not so the people who make up the never ending stock of grunts and dog soldiers and the never ending horns they're strung between.  Yeah, they take it pretty personally.  The battle between priorities.  So hard to decide what's the right thing to do.  I had duty to country drilled into me from the time I could understand speech.  Hard to go against that when push comes to shove.
     So when the time came I chose country over family.  Thirty-six years old and still thinking like an eighteen year kid.  Never seriously realized what it'd do to Lena and all the pain and worry she'd go through over the next two years.  Yeah, she went through her own hell not knowing from one day to the next if I was alive.  But when I signed up I was thinking more of what a wonderful man and citizen I was to do something as heroic and brave as to take part in a war I could have sat out.  A hero or a fool?  Still haven't figured the answer to that question.  Guess I'm still caught in the same trap as I was back in '43.  Had I to do it over again I honestly don't know what I'd do.
     Switched off the flashlight and laid in the dark with intentions of solving all the problems of my personal little world.  Maybe finally figure out what are the important things in this man's life.  Then I conked out faster than the flashlight beam faded.  Fatigue conquered philosophy once again.

The Walk X - The Tedium of Ecstasy

     Rained most of the night.  Not much wind, just wet and cold.  Laid in the dark for a good half hour after waking up, thinking things over and trying not to fall back asleep.  Not easy when the desire to rise is on the ebb.  The tarp did its job.  The ground was wet near the opening and the nylon ceiling above me was bedewed but the gear stayed dry.  Me too.  Knew for certain I'd get wet today even if the rain was done.  The brush would consecrate me like a first time voyageur.  Different from the little Frenchmen, I didn't feel the need to vow I'd leave the ladies alone.  Mine has grown to be a quiet life though there's no telling what might happen should urge and opportunity run into each other.  I'm no longer young but sure ain't old no matter what I've said in the past.
     Finally fired up the stove under battleship gray clouds slowly steaming their way toward an enlightened pearl shade.  No need to move 'til the tarp's dry.  Should today's miles be similar to the last two, tonight I'll sleep no more than a half day's walk from my resupply.  Like most mornings I took my time preparing the oatmeal.  The texture had to be just so.  Soft but not runny.  Next I stirred in the brown sugar.  Just enough to add a few brown-gold swirls to the color.  Last came a palmful of raisins sprinkled with care to evenly distribute them.  Properly done, two per spoonful.  Three's a little decadent but doesn't raise the guilt hackles on the back of my neck.  Not sick of oatmeal to this point in my life.  I'm German, pattern eating is what I do.  Hmmm, let's see.  I had oatmeal for breakfast yesterday and most every morning since they added sound to movies.  Oatmeal tomorrow?  Mmmm-mmm!  Sounds like a plan.  And I do like the flavor almost as much as the ritual.  Consider that a plus.
     Yeah, I have my rituals. Lots of them.  They give me something to lean on when facing fear.  And believe me, I also have my share of fears.  Inborn, innate, inbred, all the way down to my genes, fears.  Had my fears of school when I wasn't prepared.  Had 'em when I was.  The old man when he was in a mood.  Had 'em back in the days when I was a kid running hooch over the border.  The Depression, the war, startin' a business, selling the business, Lena's cancer, investments, draggin' a fourteen year old kid off the map just to see a lake without a name, screwing up big time when building the cabin, spilling this oatmeal before I can eat it and tah-dah, death.  And every one of those were fears that made sense.  All my life, down underneath that calm, wise-cracking exterior, there's always lived a feeling of unease.  Like something's waiting around the corner to scuff the toe of my spit shined shoes.  I know it's not supposed to matter.  Put your faith in God, let the Almighty handle the tough stuff.  But I don't see it that way.  I figure if we were put here for a reason, part of that reason is to figure things out on our own.  And if there's no reason, there's also no choice but to figure it out on your own.  Kind of like Archie says about being in the Army, I got myself into this mess, it's up to me to figure my way out.  Time and time again 'til at the end, I turn into something else.  Then, who knows?  For now, I'll add three or four more raisins, lean back against this log bench facing the lake and enjoy the moment.  Fear I'll get a wet backside on the damp ground but it'll dry when I hit the trail.
     Always feels good to be on the trail.  Walking's the easy part, packing takes care.  Can't miss a thing.  I carry only what I need, nothing more, nothing less.  When the time comes to load, the check list's always based on food, clothing and shelter.  Mentally check each off before leaving camp.  Even scuff the fallen leaves around camp with a sneaker toe to see what might turn up.  By noon my pack'll be well under forty pounds.  Ate and drank seven of those pounds.  Hope the wind doesn't blow me off my feet.  Turned out I did a good job getting my body in shape for this stroll.  Out here the miles are only tiring, not hike-ending.  Sore toes, that's about it.  All the sleep I'm getting helps a lot.  Lights out around eight-thirty.  By five-thirty I'm ready to get up.  The dark says wait a few minutes, stretch a bit on top of the bag, warm your way into the day.  Once up I run in place for a minute, do a few dozen jumping jacks.  Might even do some pushups but don't like getting my nails any dirtier than they already are.  Yup, I'm a regular mister fancy.  Next I wash up at the lake as best I can.  Odd thing is the lake water feels almost warm.  Another one of those relative things.  Sixty degree water, forty degree air.
     My feet have always appreciated the feel of the earth.  Soil, sand, duff, rock.  Like them all but am partial to soil 'specially when it's packed and bare.  Low ground cover's okay so long as it doesn't wet my footgear.  Trail's like the one I'm meandering are treasures made by hand and foot with a little help from steel.  Pretty basic stuff for a pretty basic use, walking from here to there just 'cause you feel like walking.
     And I do feel like walking.  When I set off from the cabin the idea was twenty miles a day.  Less than a mile up the McFarland Road I realized there was no need.  I'd walk 'til I felt like resting.  Shoulder the pack when ready.  Fifteen, sixteen miles a day's plenty.  To this point 'bout the only change I'd make is having a slab of cherry pie waiting for me when I make camp.
     Mine's a simple life, here and back at home.  Missed the moon landing but so did a lot of soldiers in Vietnam.  Guess I had good company.  I won't say landing on the moon's not important just that it didn't matter much to me one way or the other.  Probably didn't to a platoon in a fire fight either.  Not saying it didn't matter at all just that there's better ways to direct our efforts.  Don't know if I'm getting my point across or even if I have a point.  But it strikes me as odd that we can find a way to get to the moon but can't when it comes to ending a war.
     While I'm at it, I've learned to shy away from any 'isms'.  No Communism, Socialism, Capitalism, Buddhism, Islam(ism), Judaism, Christianity(ism), any of 'em.  Yeah, they all have their good points.  That's why they exist.  But they also have their bad points.  Points where they won't bend.  Our way or the highway.  You know, when push comes to shove it's all about people and the planet.  Work together, share and don't foul the nest.  We're here 'cause the world's the way it is.  We'll remain here so long as we don't mess it up too much.  Time for me to climb down from the pulpit.  Once in a while the pressures start to take over and I have to spit 'em out.  Here on the trail with no one in sight's as good a place as any.
     Yeah, I work things out while on my feet.  The grumbles that arise irritate me for a reason.  The ones that keep coming back are those I haven't worked my way through.  Most of them I probably never will.  Questions without answers floating around like black flies in a bad spring.  They're there for a reason.  No doubt about it.  Maybe nothing more than to spawn more black flies.  And it's not only me they're out to suck blood from.  Could be all a man can do is accept that they're there, button up his shirt and move on (good luck with that Emil).
     Began the day's hike rising from camp to regain the trail on the high ground above.  Still overcast but the clouds didn't stop a few old tunes from dancing through my head.  A few moments later they were drifting on the air.  'Me and My Shadow.'  Not sure why.  No shadows that I could see.  Came to a little stream my map said was draining Mucker Lake.  Could be they misspelled the name.  Beside me hung a blue ribbon.  Five yards away, across the stream, hung another.  Must be trying to tell me something.  Gave it some thought, pulled my shoes and socks, rolled my cuffs and eased my way across.  It was my foulmouthed toes in the icy flow that told me of the possible misspell.  Oh well, better wet feet than wet shoes.
     Took a morning break on a south facing slab of basalt jutting into Topper Lake.  Those slabs give me a feeling of ground zero.  Bedrock of the world exposed naked to the day.  On the smoothed black, glacier carvings dragging southwest to northeast told of another age.  I ran my finger along one of the scratches.  Partly to even a jagged nail, partly to increase the imprint just a tad.  Yup, me and the glaciers, changing the continent a little at a time.  A loam filled crack interrupted the drag marks.  In it a miniature lawn, a dandelion and a cedar seedling.  Hit me this might be the very place the world splits in two as the tree's roots slowly cleave the planet from pole to pole.  Almost made me trot back toward the cabin so I could be at home when it happened.  Save me from being numbered among the homeless.
     A break in the clouds exposed the blue above and for a few minutes I sat in sunshine.  Then laid in sunshine.  My thoughts traveled back to our camp on the unnamed lake.  Me and Archie spent quite a few hours on that slab.  Ate, slept, read, talked, built a cairn and nearly died.  Odd that what once spewed from volcanoes could come to feel welcoming.  Probably nothing like this in the rice paddies of the Mekong Delta.  'Spose there's more I could say about that but I won't.  Arose, shouldered my pack and moved on.
     According to the map my view of the border lakes was done for a while as the trail'd strike a bee line toward Gunflint Lake.  Gunflint's about the center point of the trail by the same name.  Never been there before and never expected my first visit to be on foot.  There's a lodge on the south shore of some fame run by the Kerfoot family.  Ran into Justine a time or two in Grand Marais. She's easy to spot.  Not many women dress like forest rangers.  Our conversation was never more than a howdy.  She was usually in town on business 'bout the same as me only her business was much more than buying bananas and coffee.  Even was County Commissioner in '68.  To this point I hadn't given a thought to anything beyond hiking the trail but began to consider the possibility of a lodge breakfast in the morning.  The temptation lasted no more than twenty yards.  I knew I wouldn't.  Didn't feel the need for a break from what I'm doing.  There's a comfort and ease to solitude.  Feels right, feels good.  Nothing between me and … God?  Kind of embarrassing and uppity to say it that way but can't think of a way to say it better.  I'll let you be the judge.  Me?  I'll put one foot in front of the other.  Just another moving part of the woods.
     Took my lunch below the trail alongside Bridal Vail Falls.  Don't know how these things form.  Above the falls the stream is a narrow, rushing sluice.  Then the wash smashes into a boulder field, gets busted up, tumbles head over heals to the edge of a fifteen foot high cliff and pulverizes into a thin, wide curtain of wall hugging, mist and water.  Bet the stream never saw that coming.  One moment heading full bore downhill laughing and having a fine time, then, bam!, all bruised up, screaming in terror, tumbling to its death over a billion year year old escarpment of volcanic rock.  Knocked senseless.  Then, voila!, gets reborn below and rejoining up with its buddies on their merry way to the lake.  No, that's not what I was thinking while eating.  Then it was more like, "Damn.  Almost out of dark chocolate.  Should I do this again I'll pack an extra pound."  A man has to work at being profound, enjoying chocolate just comes natural.
     The afternoon was another set of majestic overlooks.  So much beauty was becoming tedious, a burden and downright exhausting.  Rubbed my steadfast Germanic soul raw.  Decided atop a perch hundreds of feet above the lake with views to the horizon in a hundred directions, to trim my toenails that evening even if they didn't need it.  Even more so if they didn't.  Didn't care how they felt, I simply had to have a strong dose of the mundane.  Bring me down to earth.  Spent the remainder of the afternoon on my way to camp alongside Birch Lake contemplating oatmeal.

   

The Walk IX - Ghosts on the Trail

     I look forward to the unknown.  At least to this point in my life.  Piques the interest.  'Course that's easy to say when looking back from an age when they've all turned into knowns.  Known unknowns are good even if they seemed a misery at the time.  Lord knows I've had my screw-ups.  So many I'll know where I'll spend my eternity.  Yup, that's me standin' there at the pearly gates - truth is I think of them as made from aromatic cedar.  All gnarly and knotted deep red but aglow from sixty-nine coats of hand-rubbed tung oil, hung from live oak tree posts by seventeen inch long black, wrought iron, hammered by Thor on a subcontract, strap hinges with angels to each side having no other purpose than to keep those hinges lubed and aligned -  for eons as St. Peter reads aloud, in a voice that can be heard from here to eternity - sounds like a good name for a novel - each and every one of my mistakes.  Probably have to call in one of the other apostles when his voice gives out.  Poor souls backed up for miles all the way down to the bottom of Jacob's ladder.  Angel down there directing traffic to no effect.  Jacob stuck in the traffic jam for years in his old Buick Electra turning hot under the collar and hood.  Finally'd have enough with the mess and pick a fight with the messenger of God.  Maybe breaks a leg.  Seems I read that in the Bible.
     Across the trail rises a stand of white pines.  Always have had a thing for them.  Could be their size.  Maybe the spreading branches or soft cluster of five needles.  Maybe the way they break into my dreams once in a while.  They never talk but always have a lot to say.  Guess we're kindred spirits though I'm a little denser and loose of tongue.  At the cabin there's whites of all ages.  Smooth green bark of the babies to gnarled of the Sentinels.  About fifty feet from where I sit there's one going through puberty.  Just starting to get furrowed bark at it's base.  Should I return in a hundred fifty years or so it'll be a fine specimen.

     Ran into a party of canoe men as I was leaving the Staircase Portage.  Struck them as odd I had no canoe.  'Course I couldn't resist.  Told them the canoe was back at the Little John access.  For fun I was triple portaging across the entire Boundary Waters with the intention of eventually going back for the canoe.  Didn't intend to say that.  It just came out.  My mouth is another one of those unknown things.  'Bout the only thing I know for sure is where I am at the moment.  And that keeps changing.  Getting harder and harder to keep up with where I am as I get older.  Good for me they laughed.  I grinned a big gold-molared grin.  Better to be laughed with even when they're maybe laughing at.  Yeah, I'm one funny guy.  Two days from now they'll wonder if they might have just imagined the old guy they ran into on the trail.
     Spent the night on South Lake.  Not sure the reason for its name.  Yes, it was south of North Lake.  That makes sense.  But then, why call the other North?  Then it hit me.  North was north of South and vice versa.  Perfect sense.  Turned out to actually make sense.  A few months later I asked a ranger down in Grand Marais.  Seems the two lakes are separated by the height of land portage.  South Lake's water eventually flows into the Atlantic Ocean, which is to the east.  North's to Hudson Bay to the northeast.  Centuries back when a rookie voyageur'd pass over the carry he'd be initiated with the drippings off a cedar bough and make a promise not to dance the hanky-panky with another voyageur's wife unless she said it was okay.  Probably no worry or possibility as all of those little Frenchmen were herniated and emaciated from carrying those big loads from one lake to the next.
     Camp looked about the same as the one on Clearwater.  Level, water view, commode up the hill.  Not so the sky.  Wasn't threatening as yet but was dropping hints.  Once again tent first then water.  Once again a wood fire to save on fuel.  I knew I had plenty but feared I didn't.  Should the rain be a gully-washer and keep me off the trail, an extra meal's fuel would come in handy.  Chicken and rice tonight.  They sure didn't skimp on the seasonings when they made this stuff.  By and large it's a small step up from tolerable.  'Course I'm so hungry when the stuff finally softens it's all I can do to keep from eating the bag.  Could probably drool the stuff soft.  All the while I'm working around camp there's a pot of water over the fire.  Need it for food, drinking water for tonight and tomorrow, coffee and a dram or two to wash my spoon and bowl.  Water's so important it seems a shame to take a leak.
     Began to sprinkle before I was ready to hit the hay.  Quick brushed my teeth and crawled under the tarp.  Time to pull out Archie's second letter from Vietnam:

     Dear Uncle Emil,

     I sure do miss our time on the water.  Even miss those months when we built your cabin.  At times it was miserable work but I'd trade places in a heartbeat to be there with you now.  They were good times that'll stay with me for the rest of my life.  Got a feeling my time here will do the same but for different reasons and with different effects.  
     Odd how that works out.  Felt an obligation to volunteer for the draft.  Not that I wanted to, more that I had to.  Since that day I've not been happy being where I am and live in fear of the future and what might be waiting there for me.  Don't like it but don't regret it.  
     When I showed up at Bravo Company the unit was in the field.  Met First Sergeant Withers right off.  Seems a nice guy and looks almost as old as you.  Stowed my gear, helped load a deuce and a half then headed out to Fire Support Base Moore about the time the Company was coming in.  At the moment that's where I'm sitting and writing this letter.  Pulling night bunker guard with two men from Ohio.  No one but me seems to go by their real name around here.  I'm Pelago or simply Peg.  My fellow guards are Weasel and Papa-san.
     Spent my first couple of trips to the field walking, learning and hurting.  The hurting came from the load of crap on my back.  All of it had to be there.  Grenades, backup machinegun ammo, C-4 explosive, ammo belt, book, cigarettes, water, spoon, food and butt wipe.  First time out I carried three full c-ration meals and four canteens.  Next time it was one full meal and three canteens.  Finally I settled for two canteens, crackers and peanut butter, some canned fruit, candy (I'm partial to C-ration chocolate and coconut patties) and coffee fixings.  Learning to do without.  Also losing a few pounds.  There's no fat grunts in the delta.  We walk everywhere.  When we don't walk out of Moore on a bushmaster, we eagle-flight in helicopters to places farther away so we can walk over different ground.  Guess they don't want us trampling paths on the lawns that aren't there.
     At the moment it's dry here.  No monsoon yet but I've been told it's coming.  Might be a lot like what you went through in the Philippines.  Same with the number of troops in our company.  We're supposed to have about a hundred-fifty when we head out but usually have less than eighty.  I suppose that doesn't surprise you.  Being short of men in a field unit is probably the story of all wars.  Men go to war, men get wounded or die.  Back in training we were told one in ten of us would be killed.  Looks like they weren't kidding.  No mention was made of how many would be maimed or crippled.  Maybe they don't count unless you happen to be one of them.
     My favorite time of day is sunset.  We eat our last meal, loaf around, drink coffee and have the last cigarette of the day.  Once it starts getting dark we saddle up and head to our night position.  Usually we spread ourselves out in the center rice paddy of a large field.  Don't know what we'll do once the rains start.  Get wet?  The dikes we hide behind are about foot and a half high.  Most nights we each only pull one watch.  About an hour and a half apiece.  Being on the short end of the stick I get last pick and find myself trying to stay awake and hopefully alert, at about two in the morning.  It's not as easy as it sounds.
     This last time out it was different.  About the time we began to set up someone spotted what they figured to be a VC.  I doubt our whereabouts at night is a secret from anyone in the area but this was a little too much for Bravo Six, our CO.  So we moved.  Through a swamp we moved.  Belly button deep in the water, surrounded by shadowy trees.  It sure was dark but I could still see the vague outline of the man in front of me.  I was midway when there was a pop from up front followed a few seconds later by an explosion.  Never heard that before but knew it couldn't be good.  Turned out our point man had tripped a grenade booby trap on the way up the embankment exiting the swamp.  Both he and the man walking second were peppered with shrapnel and had to be dusted off.  Since there was no choice, the chopper had to descend in mid-swamp.  The opening in the trees was so small the medevac's prop was clipping the tree branches.  The swamp that was a moment earlier black as the ace of spaces was now lit up like a ball park by the flood lights of the huey chopper.  Both men were passed back from shoulder to shoulder to keep their wounds out of the water.  Probably didn't matter much as they were already soaked to the bone.  Me and two other men were at the skids of the chopper in chest deep water and passed both Woolwine and Smith  (one of the three in our company) to the medics above.
     Never thought about doing crap like that before.  We wade through rivers and swamps and don't think much of it.  Everyone else does it so it's shut up and move on.  We're wet and muddy most of the time.  Sleep on the ground wrapped up in rubberized ponchos to keep the mosquitoes off.  Walk from hooch to hooch asking for ID papers almost like the Gestapo in nazi Germany.  And once in a while walk into ambushes.  Hard to think of us as the good guys when I'm asking for papers from a woman nursing her baby.  No offense but this place sucks to high heaven.  Shut up and move on Archie. 
     Later that night we were on fifty percent alert and there was no problem staying awake.  None whatsoever.  Oh well.  Like I said, most of the time we just walk around and sweat a lot.  Beats tripping booby traps.

     Catch one for me,
     Archie

     Sounds familiar.  When I finally went to the field in the Philippines we were doing a lot of patrolling with hopes of clearing out the remaining Japanese.  By then they must have realized they weren't going to win the war.  Giving up would've made a lot more sense but I guess that wasn't in their nature.  Or the way they were raised.  I want to say we were better than that.  Maybe we were.  Maybe not.  I don't want to be the one to make that call.  Been wrong before, I'll be wrong again.  What I do want is to be right here, walking this trail for no good reason whatsoever.  I had my war and have no need for another.  Yet here I lay in the peace of a northwoods night finding myself caring about this one.  Hope Archie doesn't think his war is all that special.  Every one of them sucks to high heaven for those on the front lines. 

The Walk VIII - Overlooks

     My lights-out quickly followed Mother Nature's.  Read for a flashlit half hour serenaded by the rustle of wind through aspen and birch.  Used my clothes for a pillow.  Did that before, will do it again but can't say I recommend it.  Clothing has little effect on gravity.  Softens the pull for an hour 'til the pressure on my brain slaps me awake.  Lena came to pay me a visit while I was drifting out.  Don't care to recall her last days of cancer but they hang on with a grasp like steel.  Only way to fight off the misery is recalling the joy of our early days.  Those first moments of heated love when all my thoughts centered on seeing and being with her.  Best days of my life.  Not supposed to say things like that.  Love's supposed to grow over the years.  Bring on even better best days but those early days of heated passion, umm-umm, they sure were something.  I gave some thought to the idea Lena might be waiting for me on the other side when it's my turn to die.  Nice thought.  And probably no more than that.  But those first days and weeks, they did happen.  Decided I'd dwell on that little piece of the past for the moment.  Let the future be as it may.  Fell asleep with a smile on my face.
     The conflicted emotion of those first and last days may have had something to do with my dreams.  Dreamt of the cabin and how I was being crowded out by the constructions of others.  Cabins and houses going up all around me.  Gettin' so I could barely see Aspen Brook.  Some of the interlopers building so close they had to be on what was left of my ever narrower strip of land.  Don't know why but gave no thought to kicking them off.  Then it changed  You know how it is with dreams.  They go where they want and you're just along for the ride.  Found myself in front of the building, seeing it was coming apart at the seams (like the ownership of my land?).  Not good.  Then I was inside.  Yeah, the inner walls also showed the damage.  Cracked, sagging, nails pulling out, she was needed a full rebuild.  Next, I'm in the basement.  The real cabin's built on piers but dreams don't care much about physical reality if it gets in the way.  Beneath the front wall, the one that was coming apart, crossing from corner post to corner post, was a steel i-beam.  Big one, the size you see in skyscrapers.  Looked to me no matter how bad the damage was above ground, the foundation was solid, the building worth saving.  Good news and bad but mostly good.  Gave me the feeling there was work to be done in my life but it wouldn't be wasted effort.  So what else is new?  Spent a lifetime plugging holes only to have more appear.  Part and parcel with being alive.  Life is maintenance.  Woke up in the dark but felt fully rested.
     Not unusual for it to be cold at this time of year.  Thirty above's more likely than seventy.  Pulled on my shoes and headed into the softening black to see if my stream steamed.  Might have had there been more light.  Washing my face at the lakeshore was an act of courage but better than rain any day.  Didn't matter the weather, that dream i-beam lifted me by the sneaker straps.  Held me up like it did the dream cabin wall.
     First order of business was water.  Water is good.  Needed it for dishes, coffee and oatmeal.  Went with a fire again.  It'd warm both me and the water.  Cold enough this morning for long johns and keeping the mosquitoes down.  Did a little stretching to loosen me up in body, soul and bowel.  Headed uphill to the latrine the forest service had provided free of charge.  The little garden trowel I carry serves double duty.  Scratches out a cat hole when needed and serves as a toilet paper holder otherwise.  While meditating, a pine squirrel came to visit.  Chirruped a greeting from a cedar branch.  Seemed he'd had a sleepless night hiding from a barred owl.  Probably the same one hooting in the distance while I made my early morning pilgrimage to the underbrush.  Said she was glad to see me and wouldn't mind sharing my oatmeal but only if I used more than my usual meager dollop of brown sugar.  Sounded like a good idea to me.  A man has to keep on the friendly side of those undersized tree rats.  Cute as a button but'll chew a hole through eight inches of cinder block just to get an errant acorn stuck to the bottom of a boot.  Smile and wave Emil, smile and wave. And for darned sure leave a little oatmeal.
     I could hear the rolling boil of water while still on the descending path.  Not a breath on the lake to disturb my mood and interfere with what hearing I had left.  Bird twitter and foot scuffle.  Enough of a symphony to help brighten the wakening morning.
     My watch told me it was near eight when I shouldered the pack.  Felt a little raw up there from yesterday's chafing.  Hoped it wouldn't get more intense before the straps finally killed or at least numbed the nerves in my neck and allowed me pain free walking for the next two weeks.  Ambled off in the same clothes as yesterday save a change of socks.  New fluffy-white, wool Wigwams I'd started wearing in the last few years.  Two bucks a pair.  Always figured if I woke up one morning to find myself wealthy beyond imagination I'd wear nothing but the finest socks.  Price be damned.  Then, about five years ago I woke up one morning to find myself nearing my sixtieth birthday, realized what money I had would outlive me and began buying top of the line Wigwams.  Yeah, these days I wear socks like I'm a regular Rockefeller.  Outdoors Rockefeller that is.
     Today the trail will carry me beside the border.  Hiking in the U.S. and overlooking Canada.  Probably will take my breath away.  Hope the Canucks give it back.  Again I'm passing under the bluebird skies of a cold front that'll not last forever.  Wish it would but it won't.  Here and there the aspens are blossoming gold.  They're the first to turn and give these hills a feeling of the Rockies.  No mountains in Minnesota even though that's what we call a few of our high points.  The ranges out west have their appeal but I'd rather live no place more than where I am.  Mountain enough for me.
     To this point I've had no difficulty following the path.  Call that a tribute to the builders.  It's well marked in blue but not overly so.  Appears those who cleared this strip give the hiker credit for some sense of direction.  Hope they were thinking of me and my tendency to wander the paths of my mind and didn't get too cute.  Probably not.  Guess I'll have to stay in the ballgame at least some of the time.
     Warmed to my full stride in ten minutes.  About the same time as it took to wake my pores.  Light wool shirt, jacket, ball cap and work gloves.  More than enough to stave off the chill.  Gave some thought before I started this amble as to footwear.  Boots first came to mind.  Been told they do a good job of protecting the ankles.  Next thought was the two thousand steps over every one of the two hundred miles.  Figured my German sneakers would save me many tons of lifting.  Besides, those three black stripes are upliftingly spiffy against the white leather background.  Happy feet don't stumble as much as tired ones.  Brought an extra pair and figure to switch every day.
     Not sure how many miles I did yesterday.  Fifteen for sure.  Hoping for as many as today.  At sixty-three I'm on the downside of my strength but not so far as it should be a problem.  Over the years I've come to know there's a reserve of endurance in my bones that seems near endless.  Probably the same as a pike on the line has.  However, a pike'll fight 'til it's dead.  No doubt something I'd best avoid.  Being dead'd slow me down quite a bit.  Put me way behind schedule.  Better I'm a little short of my intentions each day than inert.  I'll make a note of that in my mental planner.  'Dead - not good.'
     Another ten minutes led me to my first overlook above Mountain Lake.  Couple of thousand acres of lake trout down there, a few per acre and are still better than fifty feet below the surface.  Can't help it.  I see a body of water I think fish.  Also think to put my pack down for a minute.  Ease my way into the day.  Below my feet floats the twin of yesterday's pine-spiked island.  Don't recall it being there.  Could have to do with the headwind that's part and parcel with Mountain.  Close to seven miles long and a magnet for a west wind.  Was down there two years ago with Ted.  Windbound for a day and a half.
     Yeah, the conversation flew over those thirty-six hours.  Taciturn Ojibway and a German.  Probably talked more in our sleep than we did awake.  Odd thing was, we didn't notice.  When you've got active minds like the two of us paddling genius', sometimes you don't realize the conversation you're having isn't oral.  So, I suppose we spoke in detail of everything soup to superstition, just never aloud.  After that day and a half we were so talked out in our minds we started using our voices just to quiet things down a bit.  Funny how that goes.
     The trail continued its wander from overlook to overlook.  First Mountain, then Watap, finally Rove.  Fished them all with Archie and did well with walleyes.  At least Archie did.  Don't recall the moment it happened but one day I realized my job was setting him up with good casting angles.  A half dozen practice casts into any of our later trips and he could thread a needle with a number five spinner.  Had the Bible used Archie and his rod as an example rather than a camel tryin' to fit through that needle's eye there'd be a lot more rich people in heaven.  Good thing they stuck with the camel.
     Took my lunch at the Staircase Portage rising from Rose Lake.  Nice waterfall there, or so I've been told.  At the moment I was all beautied out.  Also felt the need to simply eat and put my feet up.  There's no way a man can smell all the roses.  Too many of them.  And keep in mind the one's in your backyard.  Can't just smell 'em without pruning, fertilizing and picking the bugs off now and then.  Besides, where I sat, leaning against the moss covered, lightening-charred remains of a jack pine stump, I was surrounded by forest.  Much to see while hearing the soft, distant roar of the cascade.  Thought about pulling another letter but figured it better to wait 'til I was cozied in the bag.
     Napped in worse places than this.  Lots worse.  In combat you grab 'em where you can.  The ground's your friend so long as you're above it.  Maybe below also but I've got this thing against bugs eating my body.  Still cool out, maybe mid-fifties.  When I raised my face a ray of sun warmed it nicely.  Guess I'll move on when the sun finds another patch of earth to kiss.
     One thing's for sure, I wasn't a hero.  'Spose all combat vets say that, even think that, and it's true.  Hero's an attitude and coincidence.  Can't say exactly what that attitude might be seein' as how I never had it.  Mine was, "Don't shoot me and I won't shoot you.  Should you choose to put a bullet in my head I'll do whatever's necessary to stop you.  And, oh yeah, don't shoot my buddies either.  You do that and I'm morally obligated to help them.  And that puts me in a position of jeopardy with no appeal.  Got that?"  Might even have worked had I been able to speak Japanese.
     War's a bugger.  A damned if you do, damned if you don't bugger.  Could have stayed at home.  Lot of men my age did and for darned good reasons.  Family, crucial job, deep sense of morality.  Well, it was just me and Lena and I was no saint.  Half of me said to go, the other half said I was a fool.  Problem was I knew which half I'd have to live with when the war was over.  So I went.  Simple as that.  Don't think that's why we're on this earth but who am I to say?  A smart pea brain keeps his trap shut and mind open to all possibility.  I'm workin' on it.  Maybe someday I'll figure it out.  No matter how slim a chance, there's always hope.  One way or the other this is one of the finest places I've ever sat.  Butt in duff, back on moss and wood, head in sunshine.  Sweet joy.
     The overlooks continued through the afternoon.  String of pearls along the border.  Can't say one was any better than the other.  Some views of the bluff dotted horizon to the north.  Others down lake-floored canyons east and west.  All of that blue below heading elsewhere with intentions of seeing the ocean.  I'd say more but feel a twinge of overly-poetic nausea.  Let the poets write poems.  Me?  I'm content to piss in the woods so long as no one is looking.
   

The Walk VII - Camp on Clearwater

     You'd think that after sixty-three years I might be able to add.  Never did fall asleep against that aspen 'cause of the confusion of numbers.  Just leaned there runnin' the miles from the cabin to Ely through my head.  Finally settled on no more than a hundred-twenty.  One way.  Maybe.  In the last month I'd talked with several people.  Hikers and rangers figuring one of them could tell me how long the trails actually are.  One said he had relatives from Venus who told him never to talk with a glass-eyed  stranger.  Hah, stranger than what?  Anyhow, none were in agreement.  Border Route Trail estimates ran from fifty-five to seventy-five miles.  Could be the mile is no longer a standard unit of measurement.  Or the earth expands and contracts when the mood strikes it.  Finally decided to go with the average and knock off the section of trail that came before the two of us met on the Little John bridge.  Guessing on the Kekekabic Trail also.  No matter the number, mine's no epic hike.  Don't want to deal with a cyclops or brave the howling wenches of Rove Lake.  I'm just an aging booger out to smell the woods for a couple of weeks with the hope I don't break anything on the way.
      Then there's a change of plan I'm considering.  Maybe skipping the stretch from the Kekekabic trailhead to Ely.  Every one of those twenty plus miles is posted county road.  Way too civilized.  Hard to get a feeling of wilderness when you're sucking dust from a passin Eldorado.  By the time I emerge from the woods I'll be leaning toward co-habitating with bears more than people.  A change of plan sure has its appeal.  Ely be damned.  Flexibility is a fine attribute in a rigid old man.  So is bein' lazy.  Lassitude to go with my latitude and attitude.  Not going to Ely is a two birds trick.  Doesn't matter the reason, keeping to the trail and only the trail seems fitting.
     Today showed me what I'd been missing on my earlier walks.  The route above West Pike has a bunch of overlooks.  Each worth a minute's glance.  Breathtaking?  Wrong word.  Breathtaking describes the uphills.  Calming's better and didn't pass a one of the views without at least a peek across lake, valley and forest, all capped by blue.  Figured those few seconds at each vantage point would stay with me.  Stick to my mental ribs.  Maybe even bend the course of my life a little.  Never know where or when a man'll find a sight of joy that'll move his life path a half degree.  One thing's for certain, I'd rather change because of beauty than from ugly.  Yeah, there's beauty to be found in most every event.  Even found plenty in the war.  But I'm coming on the age, maybe even there already, when I don't like digging too deep to find something worth holding onto.  Those overlooks above West Pike?  Didn't take a genius to find the joy.
     My mind wanders constantly on the trail.  Or anywhere else for that matter.  Can't help it and don't know if I care to change my ways.  Read somewhere that meditation's about the same thing as awareness.  Seeing, hearing and being conscious of where you are at the moment.  Should that be true then I'm most aware when the possibility of losing fingers arises.  Best know where each of those pinkies are when ripping a board on a table saw.  Good friend of mine lost a saw flung fingertip to a barn cat.  Guess the the splatter of blood on his spectacles distracted him more than it did tabby.  Most times I drift in and out.  I appreciate that my feet have eyes of their own, have learned to lift and not slide forward when on uneven ground or I'd've spent most of this hike becoming one with the path.  Doubt that's the oneness the Buddhists have in mind.
     Today, like most days, the loves of my life are paying me a visit.  Probably had six or eight thousand of them.  A regular harem of the mind.  All but one a passing fancy.  The ladies'd pass by, I'd take notice and think to myself, "fancy that."  'Spose you couldn't call any of them true loves.  From my experience love's a lot more than a beguiling stride.  Yeah, a whole lot more.  The ladies in passing?  Not much different than the overlooks I'd just passed.  Those moments of beauty sure do come back and pay a visit now and then.  And I don't mind one bit that they do.  Got to take my happy where I find it.
     The trail strolled the brush bound shore of Gogebic Lake before heading north toward Canada.  Passed a few spots where I could've unpacked my rod but figured it not worth the effort.  Still had miles to go and didn't want to waste the time (like fishing's ever a waste of time).  That I'd passed on the chance weighed on me 'til I decided for sure to wet a spinner in West Pike.  Going that way anyhow, why not?  Turned out my recollection of the access at West Pike wasn't all that accurate.  The plummeting lake shore I pictured turned out to be no deeper than a half foot above a jagged, aluminum striped, rock strewn bottom.  Good place to scar a canoe or hang a spinner and spend a minute's misery.  Better to set the pack down on a mossy hummock a few yards up the portage and take a break.  Think of all the smallmouth I could've caught had the lake been more cooperating.  Pulled the map and found a pair of lakeside campsites over the portage on Clearwater.  Neither was assigned to us second class, trail hikers.  Seemed I'd passed into the Boundary Waters a few miles back.  Both were intended as canoe sites but I couldn't see how it mattered who slept on the tent pad.  Not sure which one I'll choose.  Guess my feet and eyes'll decide.  Mostly my feet.  Still have better than four hours of sun but can't see any reason to turn this into a death march.
     The second appealed.  Well, passing the first decided the matter.  Right on the water, fire grate and a fine view of the forested hills to the south.  Spruce, white pine and cedar bowered above.  The dead level tent site was the clincher.  Began erecting the tarp about as quick as I could find it in the pack.  She's a ten by twelve and a bugger to set up.  Good thing I played with it back at the cabin.  Tried a lot of this and that 'til I could pull the cloth fairly taut with a dozen wire pegs sunk in the ground or topped with slabs of stone.  The entry and center propped up with a pair of poles, one short and one long, I cut in the woods and pulled tight with a couple of lengths of anchored cord.  Back at the store the kid didn't like the idea of homemade poles.  Simply said, "good luck with that."  Seems he'd tried it once and nearly drowned when the whole shebang collapsed in a rain storm.  I figured it worth the chance.  Hope it works out.  Anyhow, my body said thank you for two pounds less carry weight.  Or would've had it not been so pooped out.  Come morning I'll use them as walking sticks.
     Second order was water.  Scooped from the lake and set to boil over the fire I'd started under the grate.  Would've been nice to have a gallon pot rather than a two quart but had no space for it.  No hurry to go anywhere so I was extra careful on the boil (by the way, watched pots do boil).  Had considered iodine tablets to purify my water.  Then recalled what they did to water back in the war.  Gag reflex about sums it up.  The water in Clearwater is just that, clear.  Probably wouldn't be a problem to simply dunk my head and suck away.  Yup.  Built my fire from bone dry, thumb to wrist thick aspen.  Burns hot and fast.  Also smokeless.  Keeps the pots clean.  And clean pots do the same for the pack.
     The meals I brought are called LRRP rations.  Army uses them for their reconnaissance patrols in Vietnam.  Supposed to be good.  Best part is I can cook them in the bag.  Add a pint of hot water, stir and wait a few minutes.  Eat with a spoon.  Instant gourmet.  Hope they taste better than iodine since I packed or stored sixteen of them.  Two of each kind.  Breakfasts will be instant oatmeal.  Three packets each morning with brown sugar and raisins.  Nothing else I carry or have in the stashed coolers needs cooking.  Dried fruit, chocolate, hard candy, nuts, hardtack, cheese and some sausage.  Not fancy but a lot of calories.  Anyhow, that's what I've got.  Figured I should let you know.  I'll make an effort to be more interesting in the future.
   

The Walk VI - Rip's Fanny

     Lunch wasn't much.  And didn't change a lot from one day to the next.  Moaned my way through the first couple of bites.  Must've been hungry.  Cheese, hardtack, sausage, nuts, dried fruit and chocolate.  Already into my second canteen of water.  No low calorie stuff for me.  The more per pound, the better.  Don't carry anything that doesn't appeal but know for a certainty it'll all get old after a few days.  A little under-eating might not be a bad idea.  Be so hungry when I sit down it won't matter what's in the pack.  Tear into it while praising the Lord or whatever woods god might be hanging around, for the food I'm about to stuff in my mouth and swallow whole.  Then spread eagle on the ground all aquiver, eyes sweating, with calories coursing through my veins like Vikings out to pillage.  Mmm, mm, that's what I'd call good eatin'.
     As to food for thought I packed a half dozen letters Archie sent me from Vietnam.  Maybe of no consequence to most but to me they carry meaning.  Where he's stationed in the Mekong Delta is a lot like some of the ground I mucked in the Philippines.  Rice paddies and swamp.  Brings back memories from the safe distance of twenty-five years.  Spent most of my time as a medic in the rear echelon spit shining scalpels or walkin' lines of cots tending to those on their way out.  Each one of those unlucky men going someplace else as fast as we could dispatch them.  States, back to the line or the Promised Land.  Hope there was a Promised Land for them all.  Wasn't much uplifting about the land they were leaving.  Gut shot, sucking chest wound, none too pleasant.  Figured the Army was keeping me off the line as an act of kindness toward the wrinkles around my eyes.
     Anyhow, one afternoon I woke up after a long night shift and decided I'd had enough of the never ending misery.  Volunteered for a new misery with a line company.  Fresh air and hiking might do me some good.  Didn't last long.  By the end of the first month I was back in surgery with a hole running from my left shoulder through the right side of my neck.  Can't say being on the receiving end of the knife was much better than the giving.  Anyhow, that's enough of that.
     Kept Archie's letters stored in their envelopes.  Not a stamp to be seen.  Guess free mail's one of the benefits of combat these days and am surprised there aren't any lines of eager young men outside the recruitment offices itching to take advantage of a free six cents.  Drew the first and leaned against a big toothed aspen, dappled sunlight on the page:

     Dear Uncle Emil,

     Got my first Article 15 at Oakland Army Base.  Seemed they didn't appreciate me showing up three days late.  I figured they'd take it as though I'd given it some thought and made a moral decision, decided Vietnam was my kind of war.  Said to myself,  'Yes sir, can't wait to sink my teeth into a plateful of combat.'  They must have seen through me.  Oh well, it took the Lieutenant no more than a moment to fine me, confine me and give me a dose of extra duty.  Would've busted me a grade but that wouldn't have done any good.  Like all GIs heading to Vietnam, the moment I stepped off the plane I'd have been promoted to PFC.
     Spent the next three days cleaning, scrubbing floors, emptying ash trays, washing pots and pans plus polishing every latrine within walking distance.  Oh well, I wasn't going anywhere anyhow and needed something to pass the time.  On Easter Sunday my orders came down.  I grabbed my gear and trotted off to a warehouse to sit and wait for our plane to get ready.  It was worse than sitting in a dentist's office awaiting a root canal.  Made a couple of phone calls, free of charge, while waiting.  One to Lauren, one to my Mom.  Miserable calls.  Mom was fixing Easter dinner and a little confused that it was taking me so long to get to the other side of the world.  I blew it off with Army inefficiency.  Lauren's call was a lot harder.  The moment was so filled with meaning it overpowered me and I couldn't think of much to say.
     We took off at night.  The lights of San Francisco were the last things I saw of what I now know as The World.  Took us about a day in the air to land at Bien Hoa with a couple of stops along the way.  My war's different than yours.  Doubt you had any stewardesses on the troop ships you rode.  The way they do it these days it's almost a commuter war.  'Bye honey!  I'm off to war.  Gotta go save the free world from being crushed under falling dominos.  See you in a year.'
     Should you find any sarcasm in my words you'd be right.  My feelings on this war turned sour somewhere back in infantry training.  Seemed to go hand-in-hand with the realization of where I was actually going.  It's much easier being unhappy about a war when you're going to be in it.  I doubt I was alone in my thinking but could be wrong.  Not much a soul can do once he's in OD green except keep his feelings quiet or risk spending a couple of years in the stockade.  Stockade or combat, that's just the way it is.  Not complaining.  I got myself into this mess and with luck, will laugh about it someday.
     I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know from your days in the Pacific but it's hotter than hell in Vietnam.  About the same temperature as sweat in an armpit.  About as fragrant also.  With all the money our government is spending over here you'd think they could at least air condition the place.
     Once on the ground the few of us heading toward combat assignments grabbed our gear, hopped into a deuce and a half, headed through a dozen miles of hovel and rubble that's known as Saigon and on our way to the 90th Replacement Unit to get sorted out.  We were half way through what I took to be a dump when it dawned on me there were people living there.  Miles and miles of the worst kind of slums.  I'm not sure what's going on here but from all appearances it doesn't look good.  Spent a day and a half at the 90th Replacement Battalion awaiting orders for where I am now, the 9th Infantry Division out of Dong Tam in the Mekong Delta.  Specifically I'm in Bravo Company, 3rd of the 39th.  It's hot here also.
     While waiting for orders at the 90th I ran into a friend from training.  Earl said the rest of our company had gone off to the 101st Airborne Division.  Not good.  The war's a mess up there near the DMZ.  Large scale combat with North Vietnamese regulars.  Don't know what the delta will be like but doubt it can be as bad as up north.
     At the moment I'm going through five days of combat orientation.  Of course that includes a day of KP.  The Army doesn't skimp on KP.  Seems that's their way of saying hello.  Could be they're using pots and pans to make combat look like a glamorous alternative.  Tomorrow I'm outta here.  Will write again eventually.

     Archie

     Carefully folded the letter, slid it back in the envelop and stored it in the pack.  Remember, me and Lena had no children of our own.  Archie's as close to a son as I've got.  We spent a lot of time together.  Twenty-four hours a day time.  Nearly died together.  Laughed a lot together.  Watched him dig himself into holes and work his way out.  All in all, not a bad human being.  Seen worse.  Now he's stuck in a war he doesn't believe in, a war that seems bad for all parties involved and faces no way out save surviving.
     Sure wasn't that way in my war.  Yeah, the only way out was surviving.  But at least a man could know he was doing something right.  Even honorable.  Anyway, that's my take on that mess.
     One thing struck me about the unit he's in.  3rd of the 39th, 9th Infantry.  Had a dream back on the unnamed lake that had a lot of threes in it.  The dream answered a question I had but all the threes thrown in struck me as no more than interesting.  Probably just a coincidence but who knows?
     Closed my eyes.  An aspen's trunk's a good place to take a nap.  Combination of ground and bark's a fine alarm clock.  Don't know how Rip VanWinkle slept for all those years.  You'd think the pain in his backside wouldn't've let him snooze for more than ten minutes.  Could be mine is the product of two centuries evolution.  A refined kiester.  Haven't finished my lunch break and I'm already looking forward to camp on Clearwater.  And dinner.  And fresh water.