Serious soldiers surround simple sins with celebrity
tickling tits left handed and tightening tourniquets.
Jumbling a bumble drunk and dark with whiskey.
Break a wall, all to fall, I am drunk.
Rye whiskey prickly and with cedar poisons
my reaction time a fog.
Avec un bon cul. Un gros cul pour moi.
All the trees leaning fees
to be paid.
My feet are hot
my head is not
take off the shoes today.
I've seen some of my best friends reduced to stammering, drooling, incoherent sacks of flesh flailing about in vain at windmills. A good dose of booze, a social environment, and voila, the previously perfectly normal human being has become unchained. Unconstrained by rationality, by the broadest possible understanding of the social contract. I've seen a young child's Halloween ruined by a stealing spree. I've seen fights. I've seen money lost. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I've had my windshield shattered.
Of course, interestingly enough, I've had my windshield shattered once before by a drunk person. But I certainly wouldn't lump that incident in with the far more pedestrian event that happened yesterday. The first time my windshield was shattered by a drunk person the projectile's path originated from the passenger seat. On a trip to Newark DE to buy oxycontin. He was a bona fide alcoholic. A destroyer of lives. An intensely sick human being. He died.
The event that took place yesterday was more annoying than it was frightening. This weekend was the annual Little 500 bicycle race at Indiana University. The race immortalized in the rather good movie Breaking Away. It's a big deal on campus. Students here think it's the be-all end-all of college experience. Of course every college think they have some event like this. For Juniata it's Pig Roast. The students use this weekend as an excuse to be stupid. They drink heavily for the entire week leading up to "Little 5". They skip class. I had five students show up for class on Thursday...at 4 fucking o'clock in the goddamn PM. I call them my Little 5. I have thirty students in my class. This is unacceptable.
But everyone accepts it. The students here are generally very bad. Of course there are a handful of good students and I'm lucky to say I have a few this semester, but for the most part, students here are unmotivated in the extreme.
But boy do they know how to get drunk and be morons. College is not very hard. You simply have to go to class and study. The ones who know how to deal with the academic environment can probably get by with 15 hours of work a week. The less well suited to structured study, perhaps 30. You just have to do it. And most of my students this semester are taking easy classes. It's their final semester. Bowling. First Aid. History of Beer. History of Rock and Roll. No joke. But they decide to fuck off and get wasted and break stuff. Generally be reckless.
And this brings us to my latest Little 5 experience. It was about 7:45pm yesterday, Saturday April 21st. Around the peak of Little 5 debauchery. The race was over. The Cutters won. Everyone was wasted. I'm driving west on 3rd St. Locusts darken the sky. A giraffe and her offspring run free from the zoo. An old lady is mugged. Just past Henderson there is a group of young people playing baseball on the sidewalk. 1st St. is a fairly busy street. Not a great spot for baseball. The ball had escaped Lamonte's grasp and rolled into the street. Blown up with braggadocio, Lamonte steps nonchalantly into the avenue. The car in front of me swerves wildly into the left lane to avoid hitting him. Traffic in that lane stops. Lamonte does not acknowledge this scene. Rather, with his left foot on the curve, his right in the street, he picks up the ball and guns it. Apparently towards the meat that stands on the sidewalk next to my car. But, unfortunately, Lamonte's an idiot. Why throw the ball so fast when my car is so close to the target? Because Lamonte is a drunk asshole. Little 5 rules!
I was pissed. I got out of the car, shaking with anger. Swearing. Lamonte told me to chill out. There's no reason to yell at him. He'll give me the money. His meat friends said he was "legit". And that it's no big deal man, not even a day in shop. I told them that was a great fucking point. Not a pain in the ass at all. In fact, I should be thanking them for breaking my windshield because it's such a fucking delight to deal with.
I hate Little 5.
Coarse, gray cement smells dusty in the sun. It rolls out unevenly in front of us blending into the sky in the shimmer at a distance. We walk for many hours. Feet sore. Throats dry and voiceless. A rusty chain link fence eight feet high runs parallel to our path, anchored in the sandy soil silently. Rusting. Slowly. Quiet.
The fence posts offer tempting shade where some insects congregate in the weeds and sand. But the long, cool, shifting bands of shade are too small for humans. No other shade in sight. Perfectly endless concrete we walk.
One foot in front of the other. Plodding. Sorely. Blisters burn buried below. Lips sliced through by dryness and sun, a mosaic of scabs. Slicing pain radiates into my dry mouth. Itself cracking, caking dust. Wheezing.
The concrete crumbles slowly, giving way to sand and dirt and concrete mixed together. It crunches and shifts underneath our feet. The fence rolls up and runs away rusty. Squeaking and scared.
No concrete now, just sandy and soil and chaparral rocks. Mesquite. Up and around the corner. Cliff dwellings wall off black holes in the rock. Bushes grow to trees and shake their limbs at us. How were we to know? We had to come this way, no other way to...proceed. Promise to go.
Large forest now with real soil moist. Cool breeze blows hair and mist on dry lips. Water falling in the distance. Plunge pools and mist. Clear cold water falling. Diving. In.
Here are some pictures from the end of my spring break. I thought I had more. But I don't.
Downtown Sylva North Cackalack. Click for bigger. 
This here story ain't about no warm water fishes. Hell no. It's about Panthertown, where Brook Trout, the mighty char, rule the roost (and bears shit fifteen feet from your head while you sleep).
So Daniel and I hiked down into Panthertown and stayed in the shelter at the base of Big Green. Pretty nice accommodations. Open on all sides, just a metal roof over a wood floor, but nice compared to a tent. Except when it's pouring rain all night long and you notice the large, oval indentations in the leaves under the eaves that look about bear size. And Daniel left two days ago. It's just you and any bear that needs shelter from the storm. What was that? Was that a bear? It's hard to hear with the rain on the roof.
But when light returns to Panthertown it's one of my favorite places on this whole earth.
Complete with new bridges! These are a huge improvement over the old ones, although I'd very much prefer to not have any at all. That sure would slow down the traffic through the valley.
So Daniel and I didn't have much luck the next day. We each caught a tiny little Brookie out of Panthertown Creek above Granny Burrell Falls, but then he hiked out and the fishing started to pick up that evening. I caught a couple nicer fish, 5-7" out of the Talking Tomorrow Hole, one of my favorites in the valley. It's little, but there is a bit of a rock wall on each side and it sounds like a dinner party is happening somewhere nearby. 
Daniel at the bottom of Granny Burrell. Click for bigger.
Daniel looking in the spooky pine woods on the way to the sandbar pool with the cliffs on Blackrock in the background. Click for all the glory. 
Daniel with his women's energy bar. 
I also caught a couple nice fish out of the apparently very deep hole right at the bottom of Granny Burrell falls. There is a big log in that hole and I'd throw my orange stimulator right next to it and the fish would come up almost vertically from the deep dark depths to devour it.
Click for bigger.
The next day I hiked up over Little Green Mountain and down to my very favorite hole in Panthertown. I pulled two very nice Brookies from it and about a dozen more decent sized ones.
This is at the bottom of Granny Burrell. Click for bigger.
A healthy spec from the pool below Granny Burrell.
A wee bit of snow clinging for its life on the back side of Big Green Mountain.
On the top of Little Green.
A long brookie from my favorite pool.
Uh oh. 
Two big buddies from my favorite hole. Click both for bigger. 
The shelter.
It rained hard all Thursday night and the river was way up and kind of muddy. So I decided to head out on Friday, a day early. I drove up to Deep Creek to try my hand with big streamers in the muddy water to no avail. But there was a guy there spin fishing with a big frog lure who hooked nice 18" Brown trout.
A waterfall less than a mile up the Deep Creek Trail. 
I took a shower at Sean's and met up with him and Mark at the Tea House where much debaucherization ensued. Part three soon.
A new and heretofore completely unexpected account of Gravity Head 2007.
Click the picture of Dr. Roger Baylor to read it. 
