Me and Rikki

Maggie was power blue with rust!

I am driving my new truck, a 1948 Chevrolet 1/2 ton pick up. It is 1974 and we are finishing up the apple harvest in north Central Washington. I have saved enough to make the $500 payment on my new rig and also purchase a $99 Craig cassette stereo and a pair of Craig 10” speakers. During the harvest we work, under normal conditions, ten hours a day for six days and take an optional half day off on Sunday. I spent my Sabbath installing the stereo any by sunset she was ready for a test drive.  

Summers in the Washington’s Okanogan Valley are special. Hot, clear and full of life. When the sun finally dips behind the Cascades a pallet of colors brushes the blue sky in magenta, pink, saffron and burgundy. In the midst of this natural masterpiece I am cruising down a long stretch of back-road impeded only by the occasional coyote or crow. Well below me the Columbia River snakes lazily along in no huge hurry. Maggie, my newly named rig is purring right along, no signs of excessive oil burn, and I am settling into ownership and hence stewardship of her. I like the way she tracks allowing a left arm window rest as right wrist atop her helm easily keeps the tack. From out of a place I cannot fathom, I suddenly get the feeling that I am totally, completely and unabashedly happy. I can hardly take the levels of dopamine that have suddenly pulled off a joyous emotional coup d’etat. I have a job, free rent, a girlfriend, a new (to me) truck that purrs like a jaguar and maybe fifty bucks in my sawed-off Levis. And then I remember that the best is yet to come, I reach down, and unwrap Pretzel Logic, Steely Dan’s magnificent third studio album, crumbling the cellophane and tucking it into my pocket. I had mounted the unit facing up, between the bench seat and floor shift, allowing easy access and visibility to me, as pilot, while limiting the view of those seeking easily removed electronics. My security at the time was limited to a white t-shirt casually tossed over the unit when not in use. I insert the tape and prepare for the test. In those days we were limited to three knobs of equalization, the volume, balance and bass/treble controls. It was not especially great sound, but absolutely magical noise. By the time that Rikki Don’t Lose that Number came on I might as well have been swinging on a hammock just inside the Pearly Gates. I remember very clearly singing along, in the golden light of life where freedom and magic meet. It is a feeling I will never forget. 

Fast forward forty years. So many roads along this long, strange trip. A marriage, a divorce, two trips around the world, a stint with the Department of Defense, the magic of magazines and the movies, bike rides, Ironman racing, the cabin in the woods, Julie, many cars, several trucks, a couple of motos and even an RV later, I am in a brew-pub after an all-day shoot in the Poconos Mountains of Eastern Pennsylvania. I sit alone in a booth where the bartender seems to take an interest in my table-top collection of notebooks, cameras, GPS devices and assorted mounts, clamps, tripods and my laptop. I am conducting the all-important electronic debrief and have selected this lonely dive as the rendezvous point. She asks about it and I provide a thumbnail sketch version as I order a locally produced pint of IPA and a cheese pizza. She instantly recognizes that I am hungry, tired, thirsty and busy, dancing away to satisfy two of the four. 

As the video and data download to the laptop I make hand-written, detailed entries in my spiral notebook. Once this crucial task is done, with mechanical pencil still in hand, I suddenly feel the urge to write something other than the harsh objective facts of the day’s work. I want to record how I FEEL about it all, not just the time, place, distance, and GPS coordinates. As a thought pops into my head about feeling good and appreciating the opportunity to do what I really like to do, the barkeep kicks through the kitchen's double doors and finds just enough room at the center of my table to plop down a delicious looking pizza and, without asking, places another pint next to my less-than-half-done first one. I look up at her and smile. She returns mine with an angelic, sparkling, sincere one of her own. I go back to my thoughts wanting to capture the moment and its meaning. As I do the house system is playing.

Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.