Last Post

These are the last two posts to this blog. Day 358 is the day we got home to The Dalles and Day 365 is what it is.

DAY 358 Saturday 1 Aug 2009: The Dalles

Over breakfast at the Villaume’s in Portland we have a discussion about living in other countries and at one point John asks Johan if there’s much prejudice in Sweden; I interrupt, “You don’t have to ask him that, of course there’s prejudice in Sweden.” John is taken aback and says, “Well, that’s very Hobbesian of you.” I recall Thomas Hobbes the 16th century philosopher who is most famous for his political philosophy as revealed in The Leviathan, but I’m unsure of what exactly John meant so I say nothing. Later I refresh my Hobbes online; he thought people are inherently selfish and they struggle to survive in a “state of nature” and they must submit to a sovereign power if they are to survive. “The life of a man,” he wrote, “is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” But I wasn’t thinking of a state of nature; my remark was prompted by recalling what the young Swedes we met in the Galapagos said about many longtime Swedes not being welcoming to the recent large influx of immigrants from Africa because the immigrants are so different in their world view. “I don’t mean they’re prejudiced,” the young men said, “but Swedes are for the most part very honest and open and the new immigrants are not.”

Teri and I manage to get all our stuff in Duncan’s Escort when he arrives at 10:30 after spending the night with Will & Bridget. We’re in The Dalles at noon and it is 90-degrees inside the house; I walk straight to the thermostat and turn on the AC—man I love the US. The house looks pretty good except for two chairs and the rug in front of our entertainment center which are filthy (like the furniture in the G’s house in Piura)—and there’s the unmistakable stench of mold throughout the house. We quickly find the malodorous source is the bathroom—I wonder what that’s about. I set the AC at 80-degrees and it’s on the rest of the day and stays on until bedtime. For dinner we buy cold beers at Freddies (Fred Meyers) and stop at Burgerville on the way home for burgers and fries—oh no, oh no, Pako’s hamburguesas in Piura are better. The new stove in the kitchen is white and shiny and looks great. The new wood floor I installed a few years ago throughout the living and dining area seems to have survived the kids’ assault—I’m relieved. (I worried most about it while in Peru because of the Gs three children, the likely suspects for the furniture and rug filth.)

Duncan spends the evening cleaning up my HP desktop computer so it’s more user-friendly for me; he eliminates most of the stuff Jorge added in Spanish except for a folder with 100+ photos that I ask Teri about and she suggests we ask Jorge about them before we put them in the recycle bin. I sit by Duncan while he rapidly changes settings and I’m flabbergasted by how good he is on the infernal machine. I ask him what he knows about HD TV because I want to replace our old CRT TV; I ask him to speak quietly because I’ve yet to convince Teri of the necessity of HD. Duncan tells me I should use the following criteria: LCD, HD, 1080p, 120 Hz, with built-in HD-tuner. “OK,” I say after I write it down, “I’ll look into it.”

Duncan asks me what I want to do with the Magic Jack which is a gadget that plugs into a USB port on the computer and connects to our phone. Jorge told us about it while in Lima and Teri and I decide to keep it for a while and see how it works. I mean the cost is 25 bucks a year for unlimited calls in the US and Canada, so why not? I check the phone/fax machine next to the computer and it works; all I have to do now is figure out how to connect the portable phone in the hallway, the wall phone in the basement, and the desk phone in Teri’s office—should be no problema for Leroy “Manos Mágicas” Coppedge—ha!



DAY 365 Saturday 8 Aug 2009: Get Busy

Today is the end of this journal, this written record of my one full year as a partner in adventure with my wife of nearly 40 years. We arrived in the USA from Peru on Day 357, eight days ago—I don’t suppose there’s any meaning in the fact that today’s also the eighth day of August. I feel like my adventurous year is closing with a whimper and not a bang—we’re busy having a garage sale today! Is there anything in civilized society more whimper-like than a garage sale? I want money for my junk; what a fine example of capitalism is a garage sale.

At 7:00 AM I get busy. I get in the car and drive up to a major intersection in The Dalles, West 10th and Trevitt Streets. 10th Street is one of four east/west thoroughfares in River City paralleling the Columbia River’s path to the Pacific Ocean; 2nd and 3rd downtown are one-way streets each way and 6th Street, a few blocks west of our home turns into the fourth thoroughfare. There are four garage-sale signs already placed so people in cars on 10th who arrive at the four-way stop sign have a chance to glance at them. I tape our sign on the side of a cardboard box and place a nearby rock in the bottom of the box to resist the ever-present wind. The sign reads: “Garage Sale - 8 August - 8:00 until ? - 307 West 6th Street.”

When I get home Teri is busy placing price-stickers on ALL (a garage-sale guide axiom) items for sale with a few exceptions; we arrange a row of 85 books on the borrowed conference table and place an index card on top of the row saying 10c-paperback and 25c-hardback, we have a table of miscellaneous items with a sign saying 10c each; for the clothes and shoes we have a sign saying 25c for child and 50c for adult items, and we have our few big ticket items. We get our first customer about 7:15 while we’re still putting things in order. All big-ticket items are gone in a flood of customers before we’re officially open at 8:00 and by 10:00 we’re down to a trickle, but we hold out anyway. Steve and Cindy walk over, but they don’t buy anything—like most of our customers. We call a young woman with two small children our last customer a few minutes after 1:00; we tell the kids to take what they want, but they don’t—odd how someone refusing your junk offends. By 1:30 I’ve gathered our signs and we close our doors. We net $112 with $80 coming from the new canopy ($35), old canopy ($10), electric-scooter ($10), two bikes ($10 each), and the file cabinet ($5). We made 32 bucks off junk and we still have a lot left. Tomorrow I’ll take most of it to Saint Vincent de Paul’s Thrift Store at the corner of West 10th and Trevitt Street and I won’t ask for a receipt for tax purposes—we’re glad to be rid of it.

I can’t say that being a partner in adventure changed me in a dramatic way, but I feel like it did change me in at least one way—I like Peru even more than I did before 9 Aug 2008. I know I would have changed if I hadn’t lived in Peru for a year, in the same way I would have if I had not gone to Viet Nam or if I had not been diagnosed with prostate cancer or if . . . . I can’t possibly know the many mundane choices that would have drastically changed my life if I had chosen otherwise, if I’d stepped left instead of right, if I’d had another drink, if I’d—the list is likely infinite. Living entails change; one’s life story is dependent upon chance and choice. Life is a crap shoot—whoohoo! We choose by not choosing—la-di-dah!

I think of Andy’s advice to Red in Shawshank Redemption: “It usually comes down to a simple choice really. Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

I was a partner in adventure. Now it’s time to get busy.