I want to be a hippie again, and walk the Pacific Northwest Trail along the McKenzie River in Oregon. I want to walk in the meadows, and picnic with my wife Kathy among the blossoming wild flowers. I want to write poetry and prose. Perhaps some of it might be good. I want learn to write sonnets, and to play a guitar. Maybe I will finish The Ballad of Tom Dylan. It will be the last song in the CD entitled Living the American Dream. It is the music score for my screenplay about the history of Arapahoe Basin in Colorado. It includes a rousing remake of the song I had too much to dream last night. It will be the song that will be playing when the credits are rolling and all the movie goers are beginning to leave the theatre. They will be talking about how breathtakingly beautiful the mountain is that sits just below the Continental Divide, and how dastardly the Senator who owned Ralston Purina was that bought the mountain in 1978. They will remember what it was like to be a carefree hippie in blue jeans with long hair and a beard and to have people say things like, “Who does he think he is, Christ?”
My movie will remind everyone what it was like before you realized that nothing ever changed. The revolution of the 60’s came and went, and we fought in the streets. The Senators and Corporations had an iron tight grip on America, and the progress of it. The words of Paul Simon were true, “All the people bowed and prayed to the neon Gods they made … And the sign flashed out it’s warning, left it’s seed while it was storming … And the sign said the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, and tenement halls.”
I started the project when I was living above my musician friend Gordon Grey on Van Antwerp Rd. in Niskayuna, New York. Over the years, my interest in song writing, poetry and prose slowly faded. The glimmer of light in my soul was almost extinguished. Oh! I made the occasional rumblings, something about writing the great American Novel.
I then went to work in a wealthy Colorado ski resort where I was called upon to design expensive systems to melt snow and ice from sidewalks and driveways. The fabulously famous and wealthy individuals had endless dollars to spend on the conveniences. They didn’t want to get their Apres Ski Fur Boots wet when leaving their ski vacation home (one of their six vacation homes.) Their Range Rovers or H2 Hummers just couldn’t get close enough to the marble floors that lined the entry way.
I became very good at it (and wasting millions of BTU’s of heat doing it.) Maybe BP should have called me to solve their ice crystal problem in the containment dome. I have been a plumber for thirty years now. I can run a pipe anywhere and automatically melt anything and waste a tremendous amount of natural resources doing it. I’m that good. I might have even checked the backup battery on the "fail safe" device, had I been called upon.
President Barack Obama is a hero that I admire greatly. He has inspired me to write again. I don’t have many men-hero’s anymore. They have all been such a disappointment. The real reason I am writing again is because of something my wife Kathy said to me in passing. She was discussing writing a blog. “You know Al, you could be the next Kilroy, the face and hands on the freight trains years ago that said “Kilroy was here.” The hippie in me liked that.
Maybe I’ll be the next folk hero like Johnny Appleseed. The difference will be that I will write blogs that go viral. Then I’ll move to Oregon and hike through the Sisters Wilderness along Century Drive over the Santiam Pass. I will climb Three Fingered Jack. It reminds me a lot of the Grand Traverse. I’ll go into Eugene to The University of Oregon and have poetry readings and teach workshops and chant “Peace and Love.” I’ll invite all of the children to fill empty auditorium seats to enjoy my work. Everywhere I go I will leave people with little pieces of paper filled with poetic prose to give them all something to think about when I’m gone.
Sometimes when I’m driving in my work truck to install another incredibly expensive snowmelt system, in the shadows of my nemesis, a large Oil and Gas Company, I try not to resent them for single handedly driving us from our ranch. Natural gas was bubbling up from the creek. They installed a gas sensor near the crawl space of my house, even though there was “nothing to worry about.” And even if there was, the gas bubbling up in the creek near where my horses drank was not their fault.
If I’m really quiet, and I am meditating, I can almost hear the song. My soul wants to be a hippie again, because the beaten path is for beaten people.
Albert Bianchine
