Category Archives: Places

Passing the Bota

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Have you ever tried drinking out of a bota bag? The Basques make it look easy, but believe me, it’s harder than it looks. My brother and I had botas when we were kids. They weren’t the “real” ones made of goat skin sealed with pitch but a modern version with a plastic liner. We mostly used them to carry water on hikes but sometimes Mom would let us fill them up with grape juice and practice drinking Basque style. There were rules, though. We had to wear our worn out clothes and take the botas outside — yeah, we got grape juice stains everywhere.

This weathered painting on the side of the famous (or infamous) Winnemucca Hotel shows the basic technique for drinking from a bota. At arm’s length, you squeeze wine from the bag into your mouth without spilling. With wine, there probably comes a point where the longer you practice, the harder it gets!

Once you master drinking from a bota, you can attend any traditional Basque affair with confidence. In case you haven’t experienced one firsthand, Basques really know how to party. There’ll be eating, drinking, and dancing with gusto. And everyone is super friendly. It might be helpful to know a few Basque phrases, like Zer moduz? (How are you?), or Zatoa pasatzen? (Can I have a pull off your bota bag?) With practice and luck, you’ll fit right in. And if someone tells you, Nire amumak zuk baino mila aldiz hobeto dantzatzen du, (My grandma could dance you under the table,) don’t take it as an insult. Considering the Basque grandmas I know, it would just be a statement of fact.

Shopping with the Madame

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Brothels are legal in most rural Nevada counties. The bordellos are fairly discrete, often tucked away on a dead end street. Even in a small town you may not notice the red light district. But I’ve run into the madame at the grocery store a few times — even sporting girls have to eat.

You might wonder how to tell an off-duty madame from any other shapely middle-aged woman. The most obvious clue is if she looks vaguely like her picture in the local yellow pages. No kidding. A few years back the full-page ads under “Brothels” were hard to miss in our phonebook. Of course, in real life, a madame’s face might look a decade older than the picture. In fact, even under generous make-up, her face might look a decade older than the rest of her body. No one ever claimed the world’s oldest profession was easy on a gal.

The next clue might be if she’s dressed to show off her well-proportioned figure in ways that seem a bit racy for a rural town. We’re not talking Las Vegas-over-the-top-glamor. Just boots with a heel a little thinner and higher than most women would wear to go grocery shopping. Or jeans a size tighter than a real cowgirl could tolerate astride a horse. And of course there’s the cleavage.

But the indicator I find the most interesting is how the experienced checkers act around the madame. This is a dead giveaway. The checkers treat a madame with an uncharacteristic formal distance. Their interaction is all business. They don’t joke around with the madame, or chit-chat, or ask her how her day’s been going. None of the usual friendly banter. This change in their manner is enough to alert the next person in line that something is up. And there’s a quality about the interaction that seems timeless, as if this is the way that the working women have been treated in small Western towns since the Gold Rush. Or at least it’s one of the ways they’ve been treated — I’m sure there’s been far worse.

The madame pays for her groceries and heads out the door as the sun sets. Almost time to go to work. I watch her walk across the parking lot, curious about what kind of car she drives. Curious about how a life lived so differently can intertwine with mine and it doesn’t seem so strange — and then it does seem very strange.

I’m relieved when the checker turns to me with a smile, starts unloading my shopping cart and asks how my day’s been. I can stop thinking about the madame and her next shift. But later that night, under a sleepless moon, I wonder if I’m cut out to be a Nevadan. My feminine soul has a tough time making peace with this economic need for sacrificial lambs.

Bustin’ Loose

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This metal sculpture stands on a bluff overlooking Highway 20 a little west of Burns, Oregon. The BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro corrals are just out of sight behind the hill. I always watch for this spot every time we visit family for the holidays. Last week, I snapped this picture through the truck window. (No way I was rolling down that window — it was about 14 degrees out there!)

I like how the mustang looks to be bustin’ out of captivity. I hope you do the same in the New Year.

 

Christmas in the Great Basin

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In December, the Great Basin makes do with a meager palette. I often drive the better part of a day across the frigid “sagebrush ocean” to be with family in Central Oregon for the holidays. Hundreds of miles go by with only a wintry blue sky, the dark brown of volcanic rocks and dormant trees, faint suggestions of green on sage and juniper, wistful tan on the occasional wind-blasted building, and white skiffs of drifted snow. But every so often there’s a settlement — and the color red.

A few years ago, I came across this cheery wreath in Crane, Oregon.

 

Turkeys in the Holy Land

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Our family had an unconventional Thanksgiving this year. We hauled our travel trailer to southern Utah in search of longer days and warmer weather. The day before Thanksgiving we went to Zion National Park. We ate a picnic lunch along the Virgin River, then climbed to Angel’s Landing. The sun set before we got back to the valley floor and dusk found us resting at The Grotto.

In the twilight, a flock of turkeys scurried around us. They dashed between the picnic tables, around the parking lot, along the paths, between parked cars. They were everywhere — and in a hurry.

I tried to photograph them but all my pictures came out blurry. Low light, fast birds. At first I was disappointed, but then I thought about Alfred Stieglitz’s idea behind his series of cloud photographs, Equivalents. Stieglitz’s goal in these images was “to record something so completely, that all who see [the picture of it] will relive an equivalent of what has been expressed.” In his case, he introduced the world to the idea of abstract photography. Heady stuff. In my case, I introduced the world to what it’s like being around edgy turkeys at this particular moment. My equivalents, such as they are.

After a half hour of dashing around, the agitated birds began to launch themselves in long low trajectories across the road into the towering cottonwood trees along the river. Bulky forms flapped wildly in the air in front of startled motorhome drivers. Traffic backed up as Japanese tourists tried to capture the turkeys’ awkward ascensions on their camcorders.

One after another, the birds made their way into the lowest branches of the trees and clambered, hopped, climbed, and flapped toward the tops. As darkness settled, the flock roosted above the valley floor — safe in Zion.

Remembering Paradise

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Why did I leave Paradise? Well, after Adam and I split the sheets, I couldn’t afford the rent by myself.

Actually, it had nothing to do with Adam. I left Paradise for greener pastures. (Or so I thought at the time.) But a few weeks ago, I returned to my old college town of Santa Barbara after nearly a twenty year absence. I’d forgotten how pleasant life was in Paradise. Strolling the city streets on a warm autumn evening, listening to guitar music wafting from an outdoor café; wandering an uncrowded beach as seals watch from the surf; feasting on fruits and vegetables picked fresh from the garden — it’s not half bad.

But let’s get real — even Paradise has its problems. I remember a few. Things grow well here, maybe too well. Take the humungous avocado tree that loomed over one friend’s tiny bungalow, for instance. We’d pick all the fruit we could reach, but eventually the overripe avos at the top would plummet to the ground. It was dangerous just getting to the front door. We made a helmet for the cat from an empty cottage cheese container but she stubbornly refused to wear it. (She must have had plenty of lives left.) Green slimy goo coated the brick walk until the winter rains finally came. Still, considering how much I love fresh guacamole, I wish I had this nasty avocado problem now.

And what about beach tar? It gets on your shoes, your feet, your swimsuit, your towel, in your hair. (Yuck!) But watching a line of Brown pelicans elegantly surfing the updraft from a breaking wave, while the Channel Islands drift on the horizon, can almost make beach tar inconsequential.

For a few blissful days, I overlooked any trouble in Paradise. I appreciated Santa Barbara more than I had as a college student. Before I left town, I walked along the streets of my old neighborhood, gulping in the scent of jasmine and savoring every colorful bloom, hoarding this sensory candy against the bleak Great Basin winter yet to come. Remembering Paradise still exists might get me through to April.