I suppose in reference to your first three questions I can offer a happening that occurred way back in time, seems like one of my first memories of the pines and has had me going back from time to time until I recently arrived for the final reward. But that’s another story.
It was Christmas Eve as I recall, unfortunately I don’t remember the year but I do know that most of us were first hearing of somebody named VeeEight Nam on the radio quite a bit. A little later we learned it was Viet Nam. So as memory recalls we were whistling down 539 trying to top 100mph on the straight sections. Windows were down and everyone was enjoying the sound of 6000 rpm echoing of the pines. It must have been the arid air of the barrens that caused everyone to have a cotton mouth. The pilot and copilot up front said we should chew on these little squares of newspaper to get rid of the dry mouth. We did but I don’t recall it doing much good but I do recall that after a short time we sort of didn’t care anymore. Pilot thought he was getting a flat so he pulled off the road onto a little two track to check it out. As it turned out everything was fine, but we couldn’t help notice a very old man with a large bundle of sticks strapped to his back further down the road. He was all bent over from the weight and he turned and gave us a look and then proceeded on. One of the guys began to follow him but he seemed to disappear in the heat waves coming up from the road. Anyway everyone started wandering off and I headed down a deer trail with toot close behind. (she was someones younger sister and my backseat co-rider) No No nothing like that..At least I don’t think..I am sort of fuzzy about that. Wasn’t until years later when she threw me a wink and a nod did I start to seriously consider the possibility. Blew my mind until the day I died.
It only seemed like moments, not hours, that we were stumbling through the short pines. Increasingly tired and thirsty we sat down in a small clearing on a rise and sort of caught our breath. Now here is where the story begins to turn bizarre. I had to have nodded off a bit because I awoke to the sound of sort of yelling somewhere off in the scrub. It was hard to tell from where because the voices seemed to come in waves. Anyway toot was gone and for the first time I was plenty anxious. Up to that point, everything had been happy go lucky but now things started coming in to focus. And I swore I was witness to a small but increasingly larger sort of gang war between the keebler elves and black leprechauns that was taking place at the clearings periphery. And at first unnoticed, our friend with the sticks on his back had returned. Only this time he was much closer than our last encounter and he did not look happy at all. It suddenly seemed that no one was happy that I was in their space. And evidently during my slumber all these green and purple mushrooms seemed to have sprouted all over the clearing. I knew a little bit about mushrooms and what the wrong ones could do but I kept convincing myself that I was ok. I mean I hadn’t eaten any or anything like that. And like in a dream or rather a series of dreams where one dream seems to melt into the next with no similarities, no rhyme or reason I found myself being shot from a cannon by the irate husband of the bearded lady. Go figure. Thrilling and terrifying at the same time, the only thing I recognized as I hurled through time and space was the Bomarc missile site and the Coyle airfield. Weird.
It was getting late on Christmas Eve and I thought to myself that what it must look like to Santa as he pays his visits to the Pineys. Around the same time I could hear the voices again only this time much closer and increased clarity. It was the crew including the toot. They all had that bedhead wild and bewildered look. At first I thought they hadn’t seen me even though I was right in front of them. Then someone from the back said “Hey Mr Leeds is back!” They meant me though I didn’t know why. The smell of salt water was strong now though none could be found and evidence of horses was everywhere. It was twilight now and we all knew we should head back to the car. As we walked down the trail, toot on point and I tail end Charlie, my cohorts seemed to vanish in the haze. And me? Well I am still walking.
This should help.
