“A Sense of Place” writing prompt from Tony Evans’s writing class -Summer Solstice 2007

One Rich Pilgrimage over Dollarhide Summit

It’s the perfect distance from town. A destination place to go and see the forest for the trees. I’m just sitting here watching the trees breeze by; I really love to watch them turn. The cell phone sinks around where that Cottonwood is that must be on plant steroids or something. Tony himself wrote about it, saying how a beaver probably chomped on it for practice –to keep its teeth up to snuff.

First June here, I got the bug to get up thar. ‘Straight to the top’ –as Tom Waits sang some drunken Frank Sinatra. Rolled up a bend with radio id on full blast and found hundreds of trees had brokeback down the avalanche. Shoot. Never made it up there that first year.

But made it up most years since.

Last summer went camping in Dollarhide’s sparse foothills. I didn’t even have to drive, just rode shotgun daydreaming up peace-frogs, R.C. Colas and moonpies - stuff like Jim Morrison used to, as Steve piloted the windy warshboard road to our pinnacle.

The sign said altitude 8715. Fifteen feet higher than Galena Summit. Only a foul shot taller, but the road stays closed in foul territory til June -Junebug. Every summer some eccentric cousin gets Spring fever, tries to shake off their winter Brrrrhs, drives up there and high- grounds in the northside path snow. Best to pack a spare spare and that full ambulance of stuff those cowboys always require for their wild ways.

There’s an old mining claim up there, where somebody probably went broke, just like me, destined for poverty, sending a short sad morse code back to ma. Yet strangely some days, things simple and nice, simply happen, And we’ll notice them if we meditate close enough; a kind word, a genuine smile, a connected eye contact enough so much that I begin to feel like the richest man in Sun Valley now and again.

I find myself daydreaming about Dollarhide Summit for hours sometimes. More time invested daydreaming than I have actually spent there in reality.

The cell phone works very sketchily from the top. Etch-a-sketch Morris code. May have to make several calls to get yr mssg across. This July One I was going to call her. The girl I had been seeing. I looked up at the sky and the sign there said, it was not a good time. Storm clouds were gathering too. The year was perfectly split in two.

Didn’t call her back, til we returned from our camp trip. Then called four times, never heard back. I guess we were playing softball that summer. Four strikes and you’re out. Later when I ran into her, she mentioned that her investment house down by the Fairfield crossroads had been lightning struck that stormy first of July. Baked half her house. No ‘surance either. I said, “You never told me your house was struck by lightning."

That day July 1, kept crawling in my craw. I felt there was something significant there, but couldn’t pinpoint it. Weeks later, I discovered my Grandmother’s recent passing notice. I was reminded that my Grandfather had passed from this earth on July 1, in Pennsylvania, exactly twenty-seven years before.

~ ~ ~

Last week, I went to a birthday party for Maddie Mackenzie. You may have seen him traipsing around town with the large toy dog he carries and talks with. Even though he has Down’s syndrome, he is a savant level curly impersonator. Soitenly Idaho’s greatest Stooge impersonator. In some ways, Matthew and I are much alike with our level balancing challenges. Mathew was turning 27. For a gift, I gave him three stooges CDs –mostly with Curly’s imbedded -naturally.

He responded by saying, "I really love you, Jimmy" as I placed my arm around his shoulder in the living room, right before the special occasion dinner.

After we expressed our thankfulness, for this opportunity for us all to congregate, we partook of Mary's sumptious servings. Soon the occasion formed into a ceremonious opportunity for us to hand Maddie his remaining gifts.

Maddie’s brother Joe, gave him a radio controlled Dukes of Hazard Racecar. It makes perfect horse sense that someone made a kind remark about Daisy, saying he wished she could have popped out of the cake for the party. On the package of the racecar, it was splashed in large lettering 27 MHZ. Seeing this made my heart run like the General Lee. I reminded everybody that it was Maddie’s 27^th birthday. As they inserted the dozen batteries, and honked General Lee’s horn, I wondered if on some level the 27-splashed number subliminally attracted Maddie’s brother into buying the toy.

After all “Real Job in MHZ” is an anagram for my name, “Jim Banholzer”

Later, I found out that as I got to the top of this Smoky Mountain, that there is an even higher hill .

to conquer

Isn’t there always?