Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 05:11:48 -0700 From: Charlie Ford To: type2@bigkitty.azaccess.com Subject: Part 2...Preps, Departure, Oklahoma City On December 30, 1997, I moved my stuff from Atlanta where I had been living, down to Hazlehurst, Georgia, my hometown. This was sort of a sweet and sour move in that I had not lived in this small south Georgia town for any length of time since I had graduated from high school. I looked forward to it simply because it was slower and quieter. I dreaded it because of basically the same reason. Atlanta was a barrel of fun when you needed it, but my hometown would be my jump off point, either way. I arrived in Hazlehurst with my bus loaded to the gills with my belongings. On the way from Atlanta to Lyons, Georgia, just a few miles from Hazlehurst I had the first problems with the bus I had had since I became her owner. The alternator light came on. I camped that night at my sisters home and left out the next day, New Years Eve, to drive the last 25 miles to Hazlehurst. On the way there the bus just quit running. The battery had sung its last tune of power. I coasted off to the side of the road and stopped in front of a house. I went up, knocked on the door and who comes to the door but an old friend of mine from a few years ago. Actually it was the wife of an old friend. Harry Anderson is one of the best carpenters I have ever known. No...let me put it like this, he was an artist that built houses. Harry is also a person with more problems in life than most. He had been to prison a couple times, had snorted, smoked, and drank his way through most of his life, and success was not something that Harry had ever really seen a lot of. After talking with him for a few, he filled me in on all of the events of the past few years. It seems that Harry had just recently been released from his second prison term. In Georgia we have the three strikes your out policy. Basically this means that after the second time in the joint you are considered a menace to society. If you get caught being a criminal again, you go to jail for life. Needless to say, Harry was walking a chalk line these days. I called AAA and they sent a wrecker out for me. Harry and I said our good-byes and made promises to get up with one another one of these days. I will have to admit, even though Harry is not the most legitimate, he is a good fellow. I hope he stays clean, he deserves it. He is an artist. As the wrecker driver and I drove off down the road I remember thinking how blessed I was to not be in that bad a shape. Don't get me wrong, I have a few problems of my own, but I haven't ever been in prison, and drugs are pretty much all in the past for me. I am very thankful. Be good Harry. The next ten days were spent getting The Mothership right for travel. I fixed the alternator and had a good time doing it. This was my first experience delving into the running gear of my bus, and I was in desperate need of more knowledge in this area. I got the unit rebuilt by a shop here in town and re-installed it all back the way I took it out. It worked fine. Chris Chubb had sent me a set of brake rotors from his home in Washington, DC and I had them installed. I could have done it myself, but at the time I just didn;t have that much confidence in my VW abilities. Jimmy Ryles Service Center was happy to do it for me. He is also a great old friend of my family so he charged me a minimal cost, $25.00. I sorted through all of my clothes and got them ready. That final week I must have packed and repacked my bus about ten or fifteen times. I was anxious but at the same time I was to busy to be nervous. By January 9th I had all of my gear ready, my bus ready, and my mind ready. On that evening I was laying in my bus and thinking about things. I reviewed everything in my mind and decided that the ship was in order. I decided I would cut out that night. I went over to my Mothers house and told her I was going to leave tonight. She said that she kind of thought I might. In the past ten days she and I had become aquatinted again. Of anyone I have ever said good-bye to, she was the hardest. Her health is not so great anymore and you never know what could happen in the coming year. I cried and she cried and I pulled out about 7:00 PM. I drove over to Lyons to pick up some things I had left at my sisters house. I left there and drove toward Athens, Georgia where the University of Georgia is located. I had some friends there that wanted to take me to lunch for my Birthday. Ironically enough, "The Search for the Beginning of Wind" began with about 40 mile an hour headwind hitting me head on and hard. Maybe it didn't want me to find it, I kept driving forward. I camped that first night on the road in a free campground near Lake Oconee. It was cold as all get out, the temperature dropping to about 20 degrees. I lay there and tried to fall asleep but I couldn;t because my head was racing through thoughts like water over a falls. Sleep finally did come, but it took a while. Dawn and Gene took me to lunch. Dawn is my best friend and a colleague. She is an industrial Psychologist that works for the Institute for Community and Area Development at UGA. Gene is her secretary and a young lady I have seen a little of over the past year, but don't tell anyone. She is married and it probably wouldn't help her out any. Most of the time we just talked anyway. I was nice to have lunch with two women on your 40th birthday. Made me feel pretty special. I pulled out of Athens and hit the highway. Now mind you this all sounds like it was a cake walk, but it was quite the opposite. I was scared to death!. I drove and listened to my engine wondering if I was going to make it to the west coast. The engine was the only thing I could listen too because from Georgia to California I didn't have a radio in my bus. Actually that was not that bad. I needed to be alone with my thoughts and it was easier without music or news or all the other media we seem to rely on to tell us what we need to think. That night I made it to Birmingham, Alabama. I set up camp in a shoddy little interstate campground and huddled in for the night. A cold front was moving down from Canada and snow was on the way. the temperature had dropped to well below freezing, but it was predicted to warm up to 30 over night and moisture was due the next day. I slept comfortable. The next day when I awoke, there were flurries starting to fall. I got myself a shower and headed on down the road. That day I saw an awful accident caused by fast driving and the ice. The lady driving the BMW was going way to fast. She and her husband, strangely enough, were from Lithonia, Georgia, where I had lived in the metro Atlanta area. I saw there car go airborne and turn over, as it jumped the median in the middle of the highway. I drove a little slower and more careful. Over the next two days I made it to Oklahoma City. I had a friend there that I wanted to see, but most of all I wanted to visit the Oklahoma City Bomb Site and pay my respects to the people that lost there lives on that fateful day. I was in town for about four days visiting with Debra Devine, a woman I met on a train returning from Miami. I had been down there working an AmeriCorps training, and she had been there at a wedding. Ironically enough she was planning her own trip around the country. We had dinner and shared some good conversation. I got off the train in Savannah, and she proceeded on to Virginia. Her trip was short and Oklahoma City is where she ended up landing to live. She is a really nice person. On the last day I was in town I dropped by the bomb site. It was a cold, cold morning. The radio said it was 6 degrees, but anything below 20 is bad enough, I don't need specifics when it gets colder than that. After thought has convinced me that it was an appropriate morning to visit this place. This place that in it's destruction, it's catastrophic demise, had taken so many lives with it. In the explosion there were children and adults of all ages. They lost there lives and they had not even committed any wrong to anyone. They were the innocent. I stood there by the fence and felt all of the heartfelt remorse people had left in the trinkets hanging on the fence. I have to admit, I stood there and cried. Six o'clock in the morning, freezing my but off, and crying. It was right at a year and a half after the day it happened, but it touched me. I remember the morning it happened so clearly. I was in Atlanta working for the State of Georgia. we heard the news through word of mouth. there were a couple of Federal offices in the Equitable building where our offices were, and their evacuation fed us our information. everyone was talking about it. State employees were given a choice. I stayed, I think mostly out of honoring those dead. They came to work that fateful morning to "get things done", I, and several others stayed in their honor. As I came to the end of the fence I turned around and walked back. I got in The Mothership and had to sit still a minute to gather myself and rest in the comfort of not having the cold wind cut right through me. I also dwelled in my thoughts for just few moments. They were solemn and sad thoughts to say the least. It amazes me that someone could be so ruthless, so calculating, and so uncaring. The first time I really hit me hard was the day it happened. I had stayed at the office and worked and had no problems dealing with it. On the way home that evening I was listening to the news while sitting in an Atlanta traffic jam. The reporter was talking about the Daycare Center that had taken the direct force of the blast. He was telling about the bodies of the children that they were freeing from the debris. I sat there in my car and just started crying my eyes out. I finally had to pull off to the side to gather myself. Why and how could this happen in the country I love so much? How could someone kill children that were so innocent and were our promise for a better world to come? How could I help it not to happen again? I have done service all of my life, and this destruction must not happen again. It was my job too make sure of it the best I could. I started the Mothership and pulled slowly onto the street that when the catastrophe happened had been covered with the wounded being treated. I pulled around the corner and then another corner and once again approached the building from the other side of the block from which I had parked. I saw a police car sitting in a parking lot with an alley running beside it. I pulled into the alley and stopped beside him. He rolled his window down and asked if he could help me. I asked him if he was around the morning of the blast. He told me that he was and went on to tell his story this way. I was about five blocks from here when I felt the percussion. I wasn't really sure of what it was, but I knew it was big. The radio went crazy with an all call muster at the Morrow building. I flipped on my lights and sirens and headed that way. Traffic was everywhere and in the process of weaving through it I was trying to pick up whatever I could from what I was hearing on the radio. It was coming in fast and panicky. I finally made it to the area and people were everywhere, they were running and screaming and crying. I saw some with blood and some that were being helped by others. I wasn't yet sure of exactly what had happened.. I stopped my unit and started moving into the area on foot. the closer I got the more severe the panic became. I rounded the corner of a building across from the Morrow building and that is when I saw it. The entire front of the building was gone. it was then that a muster call came for my precinct. I proceeded to another area and while we were waiting for our orders I and other officers stood there and assessed the destruction. I had never seen anything like it. Officers were almost in tears. He went on to explain that I was sitting in the same alley that Tim McViegh had parked the get away car. That was the used car they stopped him in. I asked him if he thought he was guilty. he said "Hell yeah he's guilty. We have witnesses that will tell you they saw him there". I interviewed one man right here in this building and he saw him at the car". He and I sat and talked about it a while longer and I went on my way. If anyone that ever reads this is thinking of such an act, I have to beg you to think again. This may not be the most perfect country in the world but you will be hard pressed to find another like us. Argue your cause with your mouth and heart, but please don't kill innocent people. That is against the rules that govern the merit of the soul itself. Even if they don't catch you (and if you do it, I hope they do) it will eat you up inside and you will eventually die consumed by the guilt. I left Oklahoma City and headed south to Austin. On the way I had a fuel pump go out on me. I spent a cold night in a NAPA parking lot in Purcell, Oklahoma but the next day I was on my way. Thanks for tolerating the ramblings. Part three on its way........soon. Charlie Ford "79" Transporter, dressed for the road The Mothership The"Turning 40 Nostalgic VW Service Tour, and Search for the Beginning of Wind". http://www.slurpee.net/~keen/charlie/charlie.html "Wider still and wider.....shall thy bounds be set" ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the list, send an UNSUBSCRIBE message to TYPE2-REQUEST@TYPE2.COM ------------------------------------------------------------------------- <>>