Busted Flat in Ruby

When Dan tried to ride past Toothless, the old man's bony hand gripped Dan’s elbow like a tail hook stopping a fighter jet.


“Where do you think you’re going?” he spat. Holding tight onto Dan, who was now off his bike, Toothless kicked into high gear. He all but dragged Dan to the gate and closed it with a flourish on the latch.

“Call the Sheriff. Let him know we got some trespassers here,” he barked to another man who was wearing a cowboy hat and sitting in a one-ton, dually-wheeled Chevy pick-up truck. The tobacco stains on Toothless’s chin traced the path of saliva as it streamed out of his gummy grin.

About this time my bowels felt like they were ready to drop through my shorts. I looked at the gate, looked at Toothless, who was moving toward his truck with the gun plainly visible in the rear window rack, and looked behind me to see the other bikers pulling up to the gate, tired and guilty.

Toothless was shaking with rage and fear now. It looked bad and he looked desperate. The other cowboy wasn’t alone, and a few of them were out of the other truck now, waiting for further directions from Toothless.

                                                      ***

Let's back up a bit. A moment before we had been grinding up steeps, splashing through streams, and flying along jackhammer down-hills on our fancy mountain bikes. We were on Forest Road 217, down by the ghost-town of Ruby in deep Southern Arizona – drug and human smuggling country. Now we were stopped, wings clipped, surrounded.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. This ride was part of a tradition that had started years before. Every year, as close to New Year’s Day as possible, the Geriatrics United Mountain Bike Association (GUMBA) makes its way to Ruby. Ruby is a ghost town in the Atascosas Mountains west of Nogales and famous for its wild life as a mining town and its wildlife after the mine shut down. The mountains surrounding Ruby are still famous for drug smuggling and the attendant execution style violence. Of course, Ruby had its share of wild life before the mine shut down, with murders, brothels, bank robberies -- the usual signs of progress. Post-mine, ghost town Ruby is getting known for other wild life and was featured in a Nature documentary that examined how the native fauna are moving back in: scorpions, skunks, bobcats, mountain lions, jaguars, ocelots, trogons, and coatimundi now run the town.

It is the natural beauty that draws us to Ruby. Our road leading there treats us to some of the best views in southern Arizona, winding through climbs and deep canyons, and drops us into the perennially running water of California Gulch. We have ridden here every January since the years we first started mountain biking. We did birthday rides and bachelor rides and bachelorette rides and good bye rides, but the New Year’s ride was the best. Usually because it was the most unpredictable. Sometimes the weather was good and sometimes it got nasty. January, even though it’s in Arizona, can turn from sunny shorts riding into an exercise in hypothermia. Also, the route keeps accumulating new barriers and restrictions. Where once we followed a Forest Service road in a long horseshoe, we now ride over barriers intended to keep four-wheel drives from tearing the place up. A new and rather boring road has taken the place of our original Forest Road 217.

                                                      ***

So, this morning, the first Sunday in January, we assemble at the giant concrete cow skull in Amado. Lee, who finished well in the Leadville 100, is waiting in his old Suburban. Tom from Green Valley, Dave down from Colorado, and Mark, a serious expert racer are all milling around the parking lot when we Tucsonans arrive. There’s Chris “Caution” Gans, a local mountain bike entrepreneur, Dan “Danimal” Meyer, who used to work for Vermont Bicycle Tours, Gary who just got in from Spain, and the rest of us middle-aged weirdos. After some introductions and reunions we head for the trail via Arivaca. We only lose one bike off the rack as we cross one of the many dry stream crossings.

We park at the west leg of the horseshoe and begin the long ritual of suiting up. We have to decide whether or not we need raingear, leggings, fleece, Goretex, Ultrex, or Triple Point Ceramic. It’s always a tough call. Fully suited, we round up the ponies for final inspection. The tension is building. A final group photo and we’re off.

The road climbs to the south and begins a long series of rolling grades through canyon country. We pass some cattle tanks and some abandoned mines on our way to the Gulch. The pace is fast as Lee and Mark start burning up the road. Down a rutted, loose, rock strewn descent, though, Lee flats. While waiting for him to repair his tire, we find the chimney of an old furnace, probably used for refining silver. It’s just close enough to hit with medium sized rocks, so we begin the chucking. It’s a contest to see who can “score” first. Michael Jordan we are not and the tire is fixed long before we admit defeat and move on down to the Gulch. We pass some trailers, some working mines, and notice the many twin tracks that head for Mexico. This is not a place to travel at night. In the distance we can see one of the spy balloons watching the border.

The views are almost as breathtaking as the hills we have to climb, but we get our downhill reward of a waterfall and flat rock perfect for a snack. Someone wonders aloud if Toothless will come by. We’ve seen him before and want to make a point of avoiding him if we can. He’s not so much scary as he is tenacious. He is a legend, a toothless driver of a bald-tired, ancient Ford pick-up. Now Toothless isn’t a bad guy, but once he starts talking, he doesn’t want to stop. And now that our route is barred to cars, we doubt we’ll see him.

We review the various endos in mid stream that defined the previous Ruby rides: Gary’s double twister, Dan’s big splash, my weed wipe out. We know what we’re up against. We re-mount to begin the string of crossings that lead to heart attack hill and then on to Ruby.

Because no one goes over the bars we think we have it made and on the long grinds out of California Gulch and up to the Ruby turnoff we feel smug, victorious. The side road to Ruby has grown over even more than the Gulch road, but we follow it anyway. We ride through tall grass, mud, and even up a tailings slope to a fence clearly signed against trespassers. We deliberate. Chris says we’ve done this before.

“You think it’s alright?” Lee asks. He hasn’t done it before.

We consider our options. One is to retrace our steps through all that grass and mud. The other is to go ahead, take a chance, and get to the main road within a couple of miles by going straight through Ruby. We continue forward, but take on something of a burden of knowing we are not in the right.

We pass a huge pile of tailings that looks like something off the moon. Chris can’t resist. The rest of us follow. The place is filled with whoop–de-doos. We regain some of our bravado.

Then Ruby spreads out before us. It’s a ghost town all right. There’s a school, a bank, some houses, even a jail. We stop, sensing some danger. We all watch as Dan pushes off and drops into town. He rolls across an intersection and swoops into the center with no obvious consequence. The rest of us move as one. Something just doesn’t feel right. My legs feel heavy, reluctant, as I climb up to the gate, where, for the first time, I see Toothless and his truck, blocking the gate.

He doesn’t yet see us and is letting another pick-up out. We roll and try to find our way through the closing gap. No such luck. He grabs Dan and soon has the rest of us herded together between two pick up trucks.

                                           ***

“You’re going to jail,” he says. “You’re on private property.”

“What do you mean? We’ve done this before.” Implores Dan, using the wrong line of reasoning.

“How’d you like it if’n I went into your living room driving my truck?” Toothless sputtered. “This is a tour town now and you’re trespassing plain and simple.”

We looked at each other and knew he was right. We had broken the law and needed to accept the consequences. I felt like I did the first time I saw flashing police lights in my rear view mirror. Busted.

“I know your type,” Toothless chimes in. “You come in here and pick up anything you can carry and cart it off. Thieves!”

Things were getting a little shrill and Chris was getting testy. “I’m gonna bolt,” he muttered. “What’s he going to do?” Toothless made move for his gun and settled the matter for us. We were stuck. Chris gave up his plan to push past Toothless and make a run for it.

“As I say, you’re going off to jail if you don’t pay.”

“Pay what?”

“The eight dollar entry fee. Groups over six pay eight dollars a head. The way I see it, you, (he counts) I count eight of you (we were nine), and the whole lot of you owe me sixty eight dollars.”

“You’re wrong,” said Lee, and we all looked at him, drop-jawed, thinking he would correct Toothless’s count. But he just corrected the math. “We owe you sixty four.”

Toothless thought about it for a second, did some extra figurin,’ and agreed. “Sixty four then.”

While we counted up our collective burrito fund, Dan reminded Toothless of the other times we had seen him. Once he remembered, he softened up considerably. We asked about other mountain bikers in Ruby, and he admitted that he hadn’t really seen any. We declined to remind him of his stereotype.

We counted up our money, found we had enough, signed into his register with fake names, and were given free run of the town. We even got to visit the jail -- from the outside.

Don't Look Down: A Rant

You know the drill. You roll out of bed and punch the buttons. A soundtrack assaults you with music played at full volume and speed by musicians who are wide awake and pumped up by caffeine, or TV newscasters -- made up, dressed up, wired up and fired up -- who pound you with the cudgel of the latest sex scandal, blockbuster movie, or natural disaster; they wow you with smiles, wit, fashion, celebrity, and cleavage. Between sets and stories the advertisers jump in: tighten up that butt; sculpt those abs; augment those boobs; enlarge that doohickey; you aint good enough the way you are, so step up and drop that crying towel. It is Big Brother reminding you that you better get moving, get with it, that you better hurry up.

You’re not there yet and are given no quarter in time needed to get up to speed. You’re expected to be there already and to stay there – all day and into the night. No, there is no time to rest, much less time to write, in either this day or the long span of years of your working life, no time to rest until you have made equity traders rich with your stock investments drawn from a lifetime of saving and personal sacrifice. Then, in those halcyon days of arthritis and gray hair, you will be free to have a life, get out the notebook, pen that novel, and look down your nose at the rest of us, who are still under the whip of necessity to be up, to be perky, to be optimistic, at the head of the pack, urging others to do and be the same, or else.

Or else no retirement cookie for you.

You know somewhere deep inside that it’s a form of tyranny, this corporate optimism, this unceasing compulsion to be up, on, bright, better, to be an example to the rest of the slackers, doubters, malcontents, carpers, foreigners, liberals, all those losers who have yet to get with the program.

If the terminal speed and the lifestyle that goes with it (bad fast food, high stress, lack of sleep and steroid-free exercise) get you down, don’t worry. Just take a drug: the Purple Pill Prilosec for your gastric acids, the red pill Paxil for your anxiety, the black Zoloft for your depression, ivory Ambien for sleep, blue Viagra to keep you up, large, and in charge. Pfizer’s got your back.

Your secret misery, poor health, and need to be more than you are make the pharmaceutical companies rich, Madison Avenue flush, and Rupert Murdoch dizzy with his galaxy of influence. They like your need to hurry up and get ahead of everyone else, your lack of time to take care of yourself, your family, your community, your planet.

The megaphonic voices keep chiming: don’t stop; don’t look; if you’ve got so much as a sliver of doubt that this is insane, get over it. Distract yourself. Here’s a movie, a video game, some porn. Look lively and make money. Be a success. Get it up.

And, if the trappings of success mean we kill the earth, so what? At least you’ll have a split-level bungalow overlooking an over-fished, poisoned ocean and a Hummer in the garage next to your family set of matching Bush buggies.

So suck it up America. Let’s get behind this need to get ahead. Take no prisoners. This new world is for the winners. We’re gonna win the war against limitations, against nattering nabobs, and against thinking, if just for a moment, even if it kills us.

Give Teachers a Voice

Ed Burns, a long time teacher in Baltimore schools and current producer and writer for the HBO series The Wire, was interviewed on National Public Radio. In that interview, he said he doubted people “could handle going in to an inner city school.” Even “seeing it” would be more than they would believe.

I find these comments telling. Teachers I talk to lately feel that parents, lawmakers, and media have no idea what life is like inside our schools. One teacher told me she felt like she was “in a bubble” and that the rest of the world had no clue about what goes on behind school gates. They feel nobody sees the struggles, the joys, the sorrows, the challenges to teaching, nor does the society at large listen to what it is that teachers have to say.

Policy makers keep loading it on, increasing class size, mandating curricula, decreasing financial and professional support, and making it more difficult to teach in the schools that need it most by sanctioning schools with low test scores. Teachers have to play the role of coach, judge, counselor, cop, sometimes parent, and full time role model. Still, they are held accountable for student achievement on high stakes tests, student behavior, reporting abuse -- and all this while trying to teach.

Teachers in under-performing schools, in particular, have stated that they plan to transfer within three years. The places that NEED the best teachers are driving them away by punishing them for low student performance.

Here’s how it works right now. A good teacher with high standards teaches in a school that has low test scores, very little parental involvement, serious behavior problems, overcrowded classes, few resources, and an increasing list of responsibilities. School X then receives a score of “underperforming,” or “needs improvement.” Little thought is given as to WHY it is underperforming, nor are resources – such as supplemental instruction, time for teacher collaboration, or smaller class size – provided to address causes behind low achievement. The validity of the test is never seriously questioned, nor is it based on research, but that is another issue. The teacher, school, and principal are sanctioned with the underperforming label and told to teach more to the test. Morale drops. The school is stigmatized in the media. The teacher, who knows best what children need, likely transfers.

Every teacher knows that socio-economic level, family involvement, and planning time, as well as good teaching, contribute to success. Teachers know that current policies that focus solely on instructional fixes and narrow, punitive assessments will never work by themselves. We need to commit to improving working conditions, especially in the most difficult schools. Those schools are tied to their communities, and out-of-school issues such as economic opportunity and social welfare are prerequisites for raising achievement. . If we really want to improve education, we need to reward teachers who stick it out in the toughest schools, look beyond the test scores, and give teachers a chance to work with each other to shape thinking, feeling, creative, generous human beings.

Here and Now -- Not

The left hand turn arrow has been green for several seconds as we enter the left hand turn lane and approach the intersection. It turns yellow just as we enter, so I am in a hurry to complete the turn and exit the no man’s land between lights. A car is following closely, trimming the yellow light a bit too close. 

Then, there he is, a driver running the red, speeding through the intersection. I see him closely as I apply the brakes hard. He does not see me, but looks straight ahead. He is talking, animatedly, on his phone. I doubt he realizes he is running a red light. 

I am exasperated, lay on the horn, and hear the squeal of tires behind me as the following car almost rear-ends us. 

No one collides, this time. No one is hurt, though I am left wondering why it is that we so aggressively pursue distraction, even when we place our own and other lives in peril. The lament has become cliché: drivers are texting, CD jamming, DVDing, I-Podding, reading, crosswording, and generally running from the here-and-now task of driving. 

And this is not limited to driving. The most dangerous stretch of road in Tucson, to my eyes, is the block in front of the Memorial Union at the University of Arizona. Here, pedestrians, cyclists, long-boarders, skateboarders, roller-bladers, Frisbee throwers all walk, run, glide, stroll while wired, plugged in, tuned out, ear-budded, and generally distracted. The result is a kind of unconscious chaos of movement in which collisions are common. 

No one seems to mind. 

I think it raises a question: Why are we in such a hurry to be distracted, to flee from the reality of the here and now? Why not just focus on what are doing at any given moment and do it well? If driving, then we drive. If cutting across traffic on the mall, then we watch and move mindfully across traffic on the mall.

I am just as guilty of distracting myself as anyone. I just do so with my old-fashioned brain. It can serve up enough fantasy, worry, and fear to keep me distracted for a lifetime. I have decided to work a bit at quieting the “monkey mind,” as Buddhists like to call it, for the sake of focusing, especially writing. I am not talking about the snippets and sound-bites that pass for writing on FaceBook, etc., but the focused, sustained, attention to an idea or a question. This kind of writing seems to me oddly quaint now, if not downright incomprehensible to most readers. 

As a writing teacher, I am particularly concerned about the social lack of focus. Writing, for me, requires that I observe, or at least pay attention in order to sustain a train of thought. I see students having a harder and harder time doing this. The result is weaker problem solving ability, and shorter attention span. 

I admit that this is anecdotal, but I do count sometimes. On campus, I sometimes see 60% or more of students either on the phone, texting, or wearing ear phones as they walk to class. They seem unable to stop and continue to do so – in class. 

What is the aversion to enjoying the unmediated glory of October in the Sonoran Desert? Or at least watching for pedestrians...

Retirement Envy (Another Rant)

While driving to work the other morning I listened to a spot on National Public Radio profiling young millionaires. Most of these wunderkind had bolted from the workplace and were free now to do whatever they wanted. 

They seemed like nice enough people – A single mom, a young bachelor – and were the rank and file from Google, Facebook, or some other tech gold mine. Each seemed glad to be free from the stress and grind of 12 hour days and was now basking in the rewards of having been in the right place at the right time. They spent their days snow boarding or tinkering with an autobiography or volunteering at the Humane Society. The high point of the day for one was getting up to go have coffee at the local café before heading off the chair lift. 

The subtext of the story was that these guys had done it, won big with time to spare. They were given a kind of celebrity status, were instant icons, set up as model achievers, and, actually had the problem of too much time and money. I felt I was supposed to simultaneously pity and envy these people.

These early retirees are becoming part of the American cultural landscape, and are on the fast track to becoming an archetype of the American dream. They are the Marilyn Monroe and the James Dean of the retirement world and populate our images of youth, leisure, and investment as the path to salvation. (Think of the coddled investor dropping off to sleep in his chaise lounge as the Caribbean quietly laps at the sand in the background.) They are becoming the stuff of legends, of folk tales told during breaks at work. The story goes something like this: “I heard of this guy who retired when he was 30! Can you believe it? Man, I’d like to do that.” 

The rest of us are portrayed as working wannabes, the chumps left doing the necessary work of society while the smart and lucky ones soak up rays on the ski slopes.

Now, I like to dream about retirement and writing my memoirs as much as anyone, and I am not advocating a hair shirt denial of self-interest, nor am I trying to glorify the stress of making a living, but I think that there’s something flat and hollow about holding up retirement at 30 as the perfect outcome of a life well-lived. More than the early exit, it was what people did with the luxury of wealth and time that disturbed me. The consuming focus on self-gratification and fulfillment with no real regard for anything like a common good or a social responsibility embarrassed me. You’d think these people lived in a vacuum where the only thing worth doing was feeding personal whim. 

The premise that we can somehow be separate from the social and natural world and that we can coast doing nothing without consequence is both fallacious and dangerous. Rather, I would hope that we would look at our lives as extensions of a vast web of interdependence and that we all have a responsibility to improve the quality of that web. This is a cultural choice we are making. I wonder if it is a good one.

Tom Volgy has a new book, Politics in the Trenches, in which he talks about a growing mistrust of social involvement, of political participation. People don’t want to serve as much as before because of a growing social stigma toward people who work in the political arena. 

On a small scale, people less and less serve on PTAs or run for local office because they are perceived as liars, cheats, and parasites, when in reality, most are committed people working for the common good. He is on to something subtle and wide ranging.

Have we arrived at a point where we value more those who isolate within their own self-interest than those who opt to work and serve the common good? 

Maybe this is just me, but I see this as contrary to a democratic system in general and personal maturation in particular. If the “end” of life is to feather one’s nest and stop there, problems like class disparity, environmental degradation, decaying schools will all continue to grow into greater crises than they already are. 

If we are lucky enough to achieve independence from the workday world, it is due in part to a system that made us rich. Isn’t that reason enough to put something back? Freedom of all kinds is a responsibility as well as a blessing. Tony Morrison says “the function of freedom is to free somebody else,” and the way things are right now, there is plenty of freeing to do.