Full Circle

It was when I injured myself on a lease site we were working on that I had returned to Red Deer. I twisted my knee and it was painful enough that I couldn't really contribute enough to warrant letting me stay. As it turned out, my time in Red Deer was beneficial enough to allow me the time I needed to find a home and get the hell out of Dodge. I found a shared accommodations advert in a small town just south of Red Deer called Springbank. It was an old military outpost turned into a private community. It even had it's own post cold war nuclear bomb shelter. I think the Hells Angels wanted to buy it for their club house. They almost made the purchase until the government stepped in. Quite an ordeal on the news. They eventually pushed it over and buried it.

   The living arrangement wasn't solo as I had hoped for, but the girl living there was about my age and quite attractive. Her fiance was a bush pilot up in northern Saskatchewan. I met him a couple of times. Nice guy. Pretty hard to compete with a bush pilot. Besides, you invite someone into your home, it would be extremely rude and grossly inappropriate to hit on your host. I at least had enough sense for that. Once that was all set up I was sent back up north. Back to the one place I had been to quite a few years earlier. Rainbow Lake.

   June 17th 97

Today, upon this
blacktop; dotted stage,
sights conjure visions that
tempt me onwards,
then leave as quickly
as they arrive,
and slip from my grasp.

How strange, I am driving to Rainbow Lake. I have
stopped to rest in Whitecourt and will continue
enroute tomorrow. It would appear that I have come 
full circle. I was in Rainbow ten years ago.
Here I go again.

June 20th 97

I have been here for four days now; what an
adventure! I have seen two black bears and a
variety of other interesting sights. I am in a land of
perpetual twilight. It is quite bright out now at 11:30 
and the sun sets around 1:00 am. A few hours later
it pops back up.

The swarms of insects here are unbelievably thick, 
to the point that I am careful when I breathe. Mosquitoes
by the billions, and horse flies as big as your thumb nail.
I am nothing more than a walking blood bank.

June 27th 97

Things have slowed down incredibly over the last few days.
My work has reached a dead halt (yet I am still being paid)
and my feelings of being content are now turning to 
restlessness. We spent 12 hours today in the woods eating
sunflower seeds and talking about the kinds of things men
only talk about in the absence of women. 

It was very cool today (15 C) so the biting hordes failed 
to come out and play. Mind you, I think I have become much
more tolerant of the environment.

I am looking forward to the 4th of July as it marks a very
important date in astrological terms; the Mars rover lands 
and beams back pictures. Pictures not seen since the Viking
missions of 1976.

Onto Tomorrow.

The next few years were spent traveling with Halliburton all over western Canada. I highly doubt that there is a road in any of the western provinces that I have not been down and any town I have not passed. Reading through my journal is like reading an encyclopedia of places out west. I never really realized how much country I covered over the next few years.

I was home for brief stints, and in those brief moments, I dated a few girls. There was Charlotte (Charlie) who I had known from my days of living with my Grandmother. I had a huge crush on her and never had the courage to ask her to dinner, or anything for that matter. Once I was a free man, I looked her up (eight years later) and found that she too had just left her husband. We dated for about a month or so, but between my lack of being around much, and her need to get horizontal with her supposed ex husband. It really didn't work. I wasn't too concerned. Let it never be said that I ever left any land unconquered.

By this time I had met Ben. He was good people. On one occasion he invited me to a friends birthday party and I happily accepted. I arrived at a mobile home belonging to one Darren S. There was six of us at this party and all hit it off amazingly well. It was like I found a group of people that all understood each other. we were friends for many years. But, as most things go in my world, one by one, the social dynamic changed and they all started to go there separate ways. To this day, the only friend I keep in touch with (now over 14 years later) is Darren. It is said, that a good friend will lie for you, a best friend will hide the body. Darren is such a friend (not that we've hidden any bodies that we know of, although we did get pretty drunk some nights).

May 17th 98

I move this week to Innisfail. My time is at an end here.
No more standing out in front of the house in Springbank
staring upward at the stars. The street lights obscure them
where I am going.

I bought Spanky's old Mazda. I can have my Suzuki LJ80 as 
a toy for camping. 

June 3rd 98

I am at home now. The jobs are few and far between. I 
suppose for what has been said and done, much has been

alone, and although I am further removed from all those I 
find familiar, my ability of self expression is more capable.
I am free

Aside from the overbearing smell of dog food (the Purina
plant is three blocks away)the town seems very pleasant.

This weekend the gang is all going out off-roading. 

Good Times.

  I had such a great time out past Cow Lake . We camped for several days and had the time of our lives. Thinking back I can hear Corb Lunds "Truck got stuck" song playing in my mind.

Sometime in June of that year I discovered the internet. It was becoming more prevalent and it seemed that everyone and their dog was getting it in their home. We had dial up BBS's from about the time I was 14 to the time I was living with Tracy in Calgary. It's truly amazing to think that it was only 14 years ago that the internet really took off in our province. Yes I know it was around long before that with Intranet, I've seen the Discovery Channel too.

While surfing online, I ended up in a chat room. I think it was called Metro City or something. Not sure. I ended up chatting with a girl from California. I had family living in Northridge, so we had something to talk about, and talk we did. For hours online, eventually it ended up on the phone, and the next thing I knew I was on a jet to LAX to meet a girl I only knew online. No one in my family knew I was going. I believe the only person that knew was Darren(Paco).

I had all sorts of thoughts going through my mind as I was on that flight. What if this was a scam. What if I ended up in a bathtub, missing a kidney? No one would know I was gone for days. I was to say at least, somewhat nervous. But I still got off of the plane in Salt Lake and boarded the stop over to L.A. She was supposed to meet at the arrival gate as I had called her from Salt Lake. She sounded as nervous as I did. To my surprise, she was not there when I landed. Crap! Now what? I had no hotel booked as she had agreed to let me stay with her on the couch? I'm not sure. Doesn't matter. I thought I was in a bit of a situation. Then I felt a tap on the shoulder.

I turned around and there she was. We hit it off like gang busters. We drove around the west coast, talked for hours about the same things we talked about over the phone and Internet. We watched some corny movie with Robin Williams. He was dead and trying to get his wife out of purgatory. Cant recall. I'll look it up later. We had a great time and after my week was up, it was time to go home. We tried to make it work, but as they say, long distance relationships never work. I think we both knew how it was going to end. One of us needed to take a leap of faith. However, I was deeply rooted and not willing to move and she had a life of her own. We still keep in touch from time to time.

“Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.” – Victoria Holt

 Well, I returned home and set about starting off on a new course. Rough seas ahead.