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ACROSS NINE STATES IN NINE DAYS
Day Five - August 14, 1986
New Mexico
Breakfast at Fort Courage
Leaving the KOA Campground at 9 a.m., I travelled the sixty-three miles to the Arizona border heading west. Here I stopped at an Indian village to look at the arts and crafts.
At 11:33 a.m. I stpped at Fort Courage where I had a good breakfast for only $ 1.98. While eating breakfast my thoughts were absorbed with the wonder and excitement and sometimes mild fear of contacting all these people.
Then suddenly I overheard a little girl in another booth in the restaurant talking to her mother.
"Mama, why is it called Fort Courage?"
Suddenly I realized I was receiving the courage to continue, the ability to respond, to be able to carry out this responsibility. Then I thought of a line from a meditation tape which goes, 'Courage is the capacity to carry on despite obstacles, setbacks and fears'.
Bound For Glory
"Pick him up," I was told.
Will, age 33, was one of the most interesting and unbelievable persons I had ever met picked up on the highway. He was coming from his hometown of Wewoka, (which means Barking Water) Oklahoma on his way to Fresno, California, to stay with an uncle and aunt and to seek employment. He had worked in the oilfields of Oklahoma as a 'roughneck' and had worked as a photo-journalist for several months.
Will was part Seminole Indian. He told me about how Andrew Jackson took all the Indains from the east and set them up on reservations in Oklahoma. This resulted in many different Indians residing there. Will left his wife and his nine year old son, Starr, behind in Oklahoma. He named his son Starr after a rich Indian in his home town.
"I was named after Will Rogers," he told me. "My mother and father idolized him", he went on. "He was nothing to bark about."
Will admitted to being "something of a library freak", reading everything he could get his hands on.
"I used to go to the library every chance I could. I have a high I.Q.", he told me.
As we travelled along I was beginning to become somewhat overwhelmed by my friend. One moment he was quoting Shakespeare and then talking of Philosophy. He was also a songwriter and a singer and was travelling lightly, yet carrying a guitar.
During the conversation I happened to mention Ralph Waldo Emerson and Will told me that Emerson was one of his favorite writers and began to quote Emerson.
We were travelling west along Highway 40 which used to be Highway 66 during the depression. Will told me that the 'Okies' from Oklahoma travelled that same highway to get to California during the depression of the 30's to seek work.
We began to talk of the film 'Bound For Glory' which told of the life of Woody Guthrie travelling from Oklahoma during the depression to look for work in California.
"That's you," I suddenly blurted out. "You are bound for glory".
David Carradine portrayed Guthrie in the film. Will told me that Carradine came to his home town before making the film to interview Guthrie's aunt who still lives there.
Will spoke of his father being a deputy sheriff and a typical southern sheriff. He described his father as being physically like Jackie Gleason and emotionally/mentally like John Wayne. However, he said that his father was "out of character because he liked classical music".
"My mother was a singer," he went on. "At one time, she was the best singer in the state."
Will described to me his belief that a triangle has four points. He said that "when the physical, emotional and mental are in balance, that's what I call the spiritual". He talked of oneness and said that all human behavior is "alienation and identification" or "fear and trust". He talked of Dunne writing that no man is an island and wrote a poem himself which he titled, "Every Man is an Island".
Will told me that he was well educated but self educated and was "a couple of courses short of having a degree in the social sciences".
He was not free of physical problems. He presently had arthritis and had a busted ear drum. He was born allergic to milk and his fingers had been broken many times because of a lack of calcium.
Will told me that he had tried suicide several times and showed me the scars on his wrists.
"I don't believe in life after death," he siad. "I may only live to be 40. I don't know."
"You are to talk to him," the guides suddenly informed me. So I began to talk to him.
"You have one decision to make," I told him waiting for my words to sink in.
"Whats's that?" he replied.
"Whether you want to live or not," I told him.
He was quiet for a few moments and I remained quiet to let him think about what I had just said to him. Then he looked over at me.
I went on. "I give you a prophecy, depending on that one decision. My prophecy for you is. You are going to California to seek work, but there is a greater reason why you are going there. Because of your going there, there will be a great change in your life. This trip will result in a new beginning for you. Several opportunities will be presented to you. Opportunities will come your way. You will meet people who will become close friends to you; one will be a female. Your work in the future will take you into doing something which you will enjoy very much. Think about that one decision."
I let Will off at Flagstaff, Arizona and headed south toward Pheonix. .
To Be Continued!!!!!
.
As I pulled onto the highway he was there hitchhiking.
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