The Great Northern Adventure

The Great Northern Adventure

By Dave Teifel

The day seemed brighter than yesterday. Spring was nearly at an end, the College semester completed, and the summer begging for all awaiting its adventures. Dave and Mark had a general plan – were mostly going to wing this summer’s trek to the north, but still needed to finish up with their last minute purchases of supplies and equipment before day one of summer arrived.

Dave had been thinking this summer through, having traveled to the cold and wet for the whole summer the year before. The weather actually varied quite a bit, depending on altitude and latitude. Rain and grey skies were the norm when it wasn’t raining. He had learned from his previous summer’s experience that waterproofing was a must, and that an extra rain fly for his tent would be wise. A sunny blue sky was rare, but when one occurred, it was always a time of celebration and frenzied activity.

He had researched backpacks to ensure a problem free trek, as nothing would be worse than a malfunctioning pack while hiking through wilderness uninhabited by human beings. There were other people that resided in the two Countries that comprised the destination, but mostly towns dotted throughout each country’s region, with just a few larger cities. The countries were neighboring each other which meant that the regions Dave and Mark were going to be calling home were contiguous.

Dave had only recently convinced Mark to travel along with him for the summer which meant that Mark was not prepared or studied for this undertaking. Dave persuaded Mark to purchase the exact same supplies and equipment as him to speed along the process of getting ready for the first day of summer that was quickly approaching.

They went shopping together with Dave explaining why he chose the equipment he selected. The backpack had to be sturdy, comfortable, and waterproof as it would be the norm to be packing during rain showers, mist, and snow. The packs needed to be able to stand up on their own, outside the tent in the rain as well. This required that the backpack have its own waterproof rain fly that would fit he pack.

The two would each have their own two man tent that could accommodate their pack and a sleeping bag, but each day’s experience and ever changing situations would inevitably cause them to rethink their approach in the great outdoors.

Mark did select a different fishing pole and reel than Dave, as well as sturdy hiking boots that fit his fancy. Dave had already broken in his hiking boots the summer before, during his contemplations of the summer just ready to begin.

The trip started with a piercing whistle and a call for all to board. They started their trek aboard a train that would take them two days north. The views they took in for most of the distance were mountainous and breath-taking. The passes were still covered in snow and the lower elevations still moist, extolling the remnants of spring. It was a good start to the adventure, allowing them to acclimatize to the environment they would be assuming for the next three months. They spend much of the time hanging out in the open air between the train cars so they wouldn’t miss out on the scents of their travel. This also allowed them time for an occasional snowball fight during times when the train paused on side tracks to allow another to pass.

The train gave them their first sense of complete independence without life’s obligation or interruption. Thoughts of College and family gave way to freedom, investigation, and self actualization. This also gave them time to share their idealistic thoughts and to contemplate their futures. They were both young… uninhibited... fearless… the world was theirs to take like so many before them.

The train moved them to their destination, Bellingham Washington, more quickly than they realized, and blew its whistle for them one last time. They exited the train wearing only a one day’s change of clothes, hulking their backpacks that contained the sparse remainder of their clothes, as well as their food, supplies, poles, and tents they would calling home for the weeks ahead. It would be a short 5 mile walk along Washington’s Sound to the Alaska Ferry Terminal.

... to be continued

When you thought you were only 58

When you thought you were only 58

By Dave Teifel

Now you may wonder how I determined you are 60 when you may have mistakenly thought you just turned 58. I can only conclude that you were thinking what I was thinking, when I was thinking wrong.

That you are in your 6th decade and that clearly implies you are 60... and given that the year zero never occurred, this technicality actually pushes you one year ahead of where you thought you were, making you 59. But had the year zero occurred, and had you been 60, then you would lose a year, making you 59. But since you are technically 59 and the year zero had not ever occurred, then clearly you have just turned 60.

Theory On How Many Days Remain Before Your Trip

Theory On How Many Days Remain Before Your Trip
by Dave Teifel

Well, at first I perceived that days remaining to be one of those trick questions.

When I first contemplated this question I had 28 days to go, but upon thinking further, maybe came up with only 27 days. Or maybe 29 days.

Each answer only raised more questions. Do you count the current day? How about the day you wake up to go on your vacation? Do you count part of that day if you have not left to the airport yet? Do you add this partial day to the remainder of the current day to come up with whole days?

So I thought about it off and on for another 18 days, at which time I decisively decided that there was now only 10 days left before my Maui trip. But I still thought it was only fair to say that the correct answer was 9, and loosely speaking there were really 11 more days.

Counting the current day I got 10. Counting the day you wake up to leave on vacation puts me at 11, unless, of course, I didn't count the current day in which I still come up with 10 days remaining.

Now, if I don't count the current day I only have 9 days left before I leave for Maui. But I still have to take into consideration that the day you leave for Maui counts as well as the hours remaining in the current day, which really left me with 10 days before I leave for Maui.

Exhausted, I decided to take what sounded like a very easy question, but in reality, a very difficult question to answer, and mull it over some more.

I woke up today thinking that I only had 3 days remaining but it really felt like I had about 14 days left. How could that be?

I now think that an algorithm needs to be built that takes into account days remaining relative to emotional state of mind, measurable electric energy in the air, and possibly how much coffee you have consumed. Throw into the mix the fluctuation in airline prices, the fact that your vacation will cost more than the person next to you on the plane yet they will be staying a week longer, and whether you perceive that AC will be an important must have item or not. This is an algorithm of relativity.

Days remaining = the difference of today’s Julian date and the departure Julian date summed by the relative base 10 values, not to exceed 10 or but greater than zero, of emotional state of mind, measurable electric energy in the air, amount of coffee consumed, airline price fluctuations, vacation price-point bragging rights, and AC needs -- all divided by perceived days remaining.

Graphing this shows that, relatively speaking, when you are 60 days away, your approach to your departure days shows a downward trend in the graph as you get closer and closer to that date. But something interesting starts to happen once you are about 7 days away. The graph of the days remaining starts to move back up. Each approaching day the upward slope becomes steeper and steeper. If you were to plot out to the very second the plane departed, it would look as though the days remaining had approached infinity -- that it appeared that your trip to Maui would never come... that if you had to wait one second longer, you would explode into a ball of atomic reaction. Only when the wheels of the plane starts moving does the graph plunge down in nearly a straight line and lands firmly on the number of days remaining... zero.

In Memory of Pappy

Hey Pappy...

If I asked how your doing, I'm sure you'd just give me some line about watching NASCAR while walking the treadmill and sipping Cabbage soup through a straw… that Jack in the Box is the furthest thing from your mind. However, you now have my Lovely Bride on me... watching my every move.

She's been smelling Jack in the Box on my breath for the past year... and I've been doing my best to deny there is any affair going on between Jack and me. Well, the jig is now up between Jack and I. My lovely Bride has now resorted to checking my mileage on short around town excursions… and smelling my breath for my affair with Jack.

I always wanted to SCUBA dive with you... meet up somewhere in Maui and do a day or two of dives. I’d have liked you to show me your out-of-the-way dive spots. I've hesitated because you once mentioned that you have a very hard time growing a mustache, so you let the ol' nose hair and ear hair grow, and then braided it together under your nose. Between that and your merkin… I thought for sure that we’d get eaten by a Tiger Shark or a Great White.

I’m truly hoping that it was not my ownership of only one pair of underwear that kept us from meeting up. If I could manage to hold a straight face during my BBQ with Jeeper in Maui, with his red slipp'as, knee-high socks, Jammer Speedo swim suit, and his duct taped coke bottle glasses… then certainly you could hold your breath for a minute or more. Or you could just slyly push me in the pool as we walked by… hoping the quick rinse would push me back a day or two.

Most of us think of hanging out as moments in time that we spend together. You, my friend have redefined what it is to hang out. Some people travel to the moon, but only your wit and charm could bring the moon to Maui.

While it may be some time before we ever get the chance to meet, you will forever hold a place in my heart until we do.

I will always keep in touch.

Your friend always,

Venture

A Bewilderment

A Bewilderment
By Dave Teifel

He said he wanted – no, needed my help. Bob was disturbed when I talked to him on the phone. His soft, hollow, unsure tone urged me to come.

I caught the old train that would take me to Bob’s house. It was foggy out. A building in the distance became more visible as the train approached. A sign in the distance, softly lit up by a small light that produced a ring from the fog covered bulb, confirmed my destination. I stepped down from the train, opened the sweaty slip of paper I had been holding in my hand, and read the directions to Bob’s house one last time.

It was a short trip down the moon lit road; unpaved and damp – about a mile. The road darkened at times, the clouds moving randomly past the moon. Appearing in the distance was his house, the yellow light making its way through the living room window, only to slowly dissolve in the night’s fog filled air. I headed for the door.

I knocked on the old wood screen door. I heard Bob yell distantly from inside the house for me to come in. I entered, only noticing the familiar face of my friend in the corner across the badly lighted room. The rest of him was hidden, shadowed by the silhouette of the furniture. The place was a shambles. It looked as though it had not been cleaned in weeks.

Instead of a greeting, Bob just stared at me. I stared back in bewilderment. He spoke.

"Something is happening. I can’t explain it. I mean, it’s too bizarre, strange; something not easy to explain."

"Come out of the corner so I can talk to you."

"I don’t feel – that is, I – I can’t, I shouldn’t. I don’t feel comfortable out there in the… that is…"
Bob crawled toward me on his hands and knees, his body covered in a robe. He was very slow, hesitant, moving only inches at a time. His body looked wider, not really fatter, but much more wide. His movements were odd – too fluent, smooth, concise. As he neared, I saw something black and shinny beneath his robe. I reached over to a table, took a lamp from it, and held it above Bob. One glance at the light and he shot smoothly across the room, squeezing into a crevice between a table and a chair. Again, in the dark.

It was horrible, inhuman! I could hardly believe what I was seeing! I bolted toward him and the lamplight showed me what I did not want to see.

Bob’s robe, slightly lifted now, showed a hard and shinny black shell. A shell somehow attached to him. His whole body seemed to be breathing; very shallow, very fast. He was staring back at me. I took a couple of steps forward, approaching. He squeezed back further, his face timid, scared. I reached for his robe. He sprawled out flat, dodging my touch. Wondering, needing to know, I reached down further and lifted his robe. I jumped back, half in horror, half in sympathy. I just stared. A giant insect – a cockroach!

I stared bewildered with blurred eyes. A tear ran from his eyes.

A Dream Within A Dream

A Dream Within A Dream
By Dave Teifel

Walking in her room with unorthodox movements, he notices her sitting on the perimeter of the bed opening a letter.

"It has no return address", she quietly says to herself.

She puts the letter down on the Lavender material covering her lap and looks up at him. She smiles at first. The smile then changes to confusion. She reaches out to touch him but he pulls away inches before contact. She likes him – is almost fascinated by him. She has never met an individual like him before. She imagines herself with him.

When together in a room or on the streets, they giggle, tease, and think of each other as being weird, fun, enticing. He sits upside-down on a sofa; She’s doing a nonsensical jig, the music produced in her head, in a silent room. His face lit up by a smile produced by her presence, is content, happy, sad; the same as a face on a puppy. She sees this and says with a tease, "you crack me up." They talk, serious, then with no sense of normality. They laugh.

Gaining a perspective on reality, her dazed look returns to confusion as she’s with him once again. She reaches out again, hesitates, and again withdrawals her touch. Picking up her letter and opening it, joy glows in her eyes. She recognizes her boyfriend’s handwriting. She looks back up at him. The glow turns dim in his presence. She need only reach out and take him before he fades from her life.

Etourdi

Etourdi
By Dave Teifel

Sitting in Love Library at SDSU thinking about topics to write for my creative writing class, I noticed the disturbed and confused face of a girl whom I recognized as a classmate doing the same assignment.

At the table next to her sat a guy asleep using a copy of War and Peace as a pillow. He is my roommate. He says it’s too long to read but the thickness keeps his head and neck from getting sore.

From behind I hear the last of a drink traveling through a straw. I turn to see who is slurping, only to notice a "No Eating or Drinking" sign attached to the booth hiding the person. My cousin George slurped a lot.

I noticed a Japanese guy with short legs and a long torso, swiftly walk by taking a seat next to my roommate. Withdrawing computer readouts from his pack, he scrawled on them using a Pascal manual for reference. He is an exchange student from Japan who lives in my dorm, Toltec Hall. I’ve tried to teach him to say broom. He say boom.

A blonde male wearing Top-Siders, Bermuda shorts, and a La Coste shirt is talking to a large breasted, dark haired, 4 foot 10 inch Jewish girl between a row of shelved books. He talks, she giggles. She talks, he laughs. They continue looking. My roommate is sleeping on the book they need.

Looking at my classmate again, she is writing in a hurry keeping her train of thought. She doesn’t blink. I look at my blank notebook paper in front of me. I don’t blink. The clock shows two hours before closing time. The paper is due early the next morning and I haven’t picked a topic to write about. The girl looks up from her paper to notice a disturbed and confused face of a guy she recognized from her creative writing class. That guy is me.