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Show The oSKountain Flower PAGE 2 irodHbmnry: Teleo IStay- We sat in the By MIKE WHITNEY I come from a long line of people that you can still find in the bazaar at Baghdad. You turn a corner and go down an alley and you come to the street of the Teller of Tales. Theyre all sitting there in the alleys. There's no TV. Theres no radio. There are no books. There are these old men, who sit around and talk to the young people and tell them these fabulous stories of the future, the past or the present. This was the brief given to me by Ray Bradbury, an author of great diversity who is probably best known to the public through his works of science fiction, such as The Martian Chronicles, fantasy such as The Illustrated Man, and speculations on the future such as Fahren-heigself-portr- . ait ht 451. Bradbury was in Park City as a guest of the Rocky Mountain Collegiate Press Association Convention in April of 1971. very little in the way of characYou as the reader, he says, are then tricked into writing part of my story tor me. I have not alien tated you by describing a character that you cant identify with. You identify with my characters because you are tricked into filling in the details of how they look and feel. Youre certainly not going to create a character that you dont identify with. of what Bradbury described at his "fake Spanish room at the Cest Bon Hotel, and as he wrapped himself around a chair and glided from one topic to another I could almost see the veneer of the room around Bradbury dissolve into a Baghdad alley as he told me of the future, the past and the present. When Ray Bradbury sits down behind a typewriter he becomes, by his own admission, a literary rapist. You may not even know youre being seduced at first," he says. And I'll probablyrape you later. But Im not going to let you know about it beforehand. The slow seduction and sudden rape technique, according to Bradbury, is one of the tricks he uses to keep people reading his trick is to stories. Another little give very description of his characters. Bradbury says he saturates the reader with how the settings in his stories look, smell, feel, taste and sound. But he does semi-darkne- ss ter description. I get my Ideas by staying open, by always being capable of surprise, by always knowing when a thing has surprised me and bidding It welcome. I sit at my typewriter sometimes and do word association. I write single nouns down: the night, the door, the attic, the old woman, the wind. Then I say to my subconcious, Why have you given me these gifts of nouns? What do they mean? Then I'll bring out some people to talk about the wind. What do I know about the winds of the world? Is Hell's Canyon Journal By FRANK ERICKSON Hells Canyon on the Snake runs 168 miles from below Hells Canybn Dam to the Snake Rivers confluence with the Clearwater near Lewiston, Idaho. In a part of the country seemingly preoccupied with building power dams (the stretch is the only part of the lower Snake since all the water up to Lewiston is either dammed or scheduled to be dammed). Hell's Canyon cuts a 5,500 foot deep gorge through the Seven Devils Mountains on Idahos boarder with Oregon and Washington. free-flowi- ng Power interests have . : then pull into camp just above the second huge rapid. Our camp is at Granite Creek, a small stream that starts eight thousand feet above where we are in the Seven Devil Mountains. Its good fishing bass, one trout catfish, (got rainbow). Cullen shows every- -' body up and rassles an salmon out of Granite Creek with is bare hands. Theres good eating that night: Four kinds of fish plus fresh apples from trees leftover from an early home18-in- ch 18-pou- nd stead. SECOND DAY: More good fishin the. jum., more .fish for ings their, eyeson theciariy6ri, While con- servationists are pushing to have it included as pvt of the proposed national wild rivers system. For the moment, its fate is unknown. a group of inIn mid-Jul- y, set out from travellers trepid what some for Clarkston, Wash., believed was to be their last journey down Hells Canyon. This is their story: DAY BEFORE: Getting food . together, building frames for rafts, patching innertubes. Load rafts onto Dave Franklin's truck at noon, after hot dogs at Murrays, we head for Hells Canyon Dam by way of Oregon. The dam is 108 river miles from Lewiston, many more miles by road. We go up and down canyons all afternoon, arriving at Idaho Powers T. E. Roach campground on the lake behind Hells Canyon Dam after dark and bed down on the manicured lawn. The guy in the adjoining camp gets up, comes out and locks his car after our raucous arrival. FIRST DAY: Up early, we use the Kirby vacuum and free camppower in the ground to inflate the five rubber All-Elect- ric boats: Wild Spinach, Welfare Cadillac, California Cadillac, the We Holey Terror and the drive to below the dam, tie frames on the boat, the gear to the frames, and bid farewell to the Franklins and head down the river. Hit a small rapid right away, but everybodys doin fine. an. The first blockbuster rapid is the Wild Sheep. There's a long still pool behind it which gives ns the opportunity to site it up before shooting it. Experts had .advised us to portage around it. But its to much work to portage the boats so down we go first Kayo Robertson and Phil Murray in tiny Wild Spinach. We. others watch them bob Into view as they hit the crests of the rapids and drop out of sight into the deep troughs. Everybody makes it okay. We oat a couple of miles more, 25-fo- ot SEPTEMBER 1972 breakfast. We repack rafts and shoot the Granite Creek rapids. Cullen and I almost upset the Welfare lac. Everybody else does okay, except for Wild Spinach, which gets its frame all busted up. So we discard the frame. We figure we're hot stuff by now, having shot the two big rapids without a mishap. So after lunch, a couple of us get sloppy and dont tie our gear down. A half hour later, Welfare Cadillac and Wild Spinach upset and send fishing lures, tennis shoes and one fishing pole to the bottom of the Sndke. Kayo gets damped from Spinach, not wearing his life jacket, and swims through three sets of rapids. He disappears underseconds at a water for SI-4- 9 time. Several times I figure hes gone to join his tennis shoes on the bottom, bat we finally get a raft to him. The afternoon is set after set of rapids. Almost everyone gets dumped. Camp is pitched on Johnson Bar, an old sheep camp (the same one that supplied the Rocky Mountain oysters on our last trip down the canyon) but that was in the spring and this time the sheep are gone.) THIRD DAY: We come to the realization that we have only come 17 miles of 108 In the first two days. The suggestion is made that we make tracks if we figure on getting back to Clarkston by Sunday. Smoky the Bear arrives at camp and warns of fires. He tells ns he came in by helicopter and gets paid to backpack np and down Hells Canyon. Some . months water. At noon, we land at Floyd Har veys Willow Creek camp. Harvey isnt there so the kid tending the place buys beer for one and all. Nice. Back to the river: The water is calmer now and we have to row and paddle through huge still pools. We push on and on and on. Sure would like to stop -- and camp but we have to make up for short mileage on the previous two days. After sundown, we pull into Spider Beach. Theres not much light left, but it looks like a good fishing spot. Murray and Cullen catch grasshoppers while I rig up a pole with a hook and split shot. Dont have much faith in using hoppers, but all the lures are lost. I hook a hopper through the belly and toss him out and then troll him back in. Ill be damned, sez I, he spins just like a lure. Second cast in, a lunker follows it in, and on the third cast, the lunker is on! We get eight bass in a.half'hour,. FOURTH DAY: Most of us are awake but Kayo is already up and about cooking breakfast, playing the harmonica and observing the morning coming on. It's another long day with many miles to cover, traveling through many deep pools and hitting an occasional set of rapids. One huge set lies just below the mouth of the Salmon River. The first four boats skirt around them but Cullen and Kayo hit it dead center and clip the Welvery-early- , fare Cadillac over again. Cu- llens last shirt is washed away. But were nearing civilization. Just below the Salmon, we run into the Coast Guard and an old couple camped along the shore. We camp at the Holiday Inn of Hell's Canyon: Two picnic tables (chained to trees) and a first-class outhouse. FIFTH DAY: We have nearly a third of the trip (mileagewise) left to, go, so we push off before sunrise. After running a couple of small rapids, we pass a middle-age- d n beach. couple camped on a Hes pouring a eup of coffee, and calls out, This is life, isn't Itr It sure is. We reach the Grande Ronde River at noon, 30 miles from Clarkston. This part of the Snake has a road paralleling it. Its also the day of the annual Jaycee raft race. The river is lined with people and full of motorboats towing water skiers. We cant smell the river any more, just the exhaust. We cant hear the river, just the boats. And we cant look any direction without seeing hol'd es of people. Some fat freakshaving a beach party call out, Wanna beer? Sure! Come and get it! I dive off the raft and swim ashore. Cullen brings the raft in and we trade dry matches for cold beers. By 6 p.m., were at the Asotin Boat Landing and back in the unreal world of Clarkston, tf foil either good or it isnt good. If its no good I throw it away.' If its good I continue to revise and jure with this. I may put down a word like polish it and then get it off in the the nursery. And I say, What, mail, bid it goodby and hope that kind of nursery am I thinking it, sells. about? The past? No. The presBradbury lives his stories as ent? No. The future? Yes. What he writes them. He says, I never would a nursery be like in the know whats going to happen in future? Well, it would have wall any short story. Its got to be that to wall TV in every wall and the way or its no good as a story. I must be as Ignorant when Im ceiling. You could go in and refor create an environment yourwriting the thing as the reader is when-Jito room reads it. Bradburys e the self simply by asking wantreason that for deliver anything you working like that is that he wants to maintain an eleed. So twenty years ago I was ment of surprise, even for himsitting at my typewriter one day. self as the author. Without an element of surprise, he says, I put the words the nursery down. I brought a husband on nothing is any good. the scene. He talked to his wife, Working in this manner, Bradand she says, George I wish you bury turns out stories In a very short time, such as the two hours would investigate the nursery. Its broken. He says, My god we he mentioned for The Veldt just paid $20,000 for it. They go and The Town Where No One down the hall. I follow them. Ever Got Off The Train. All Im typing like crazy. And they good things are done quickly. go in this room and heres this Bradbury declares, Nothing that African veldt, with the vultures counts for anything is done slowcircling, and the sun blazing in . ly in the field of literature, in the sky and these lions eating play writing, what have you. If over in the distance things we you linger too long you spoil a can t see. thing. You make up, truths, you I always go with what my lie to yourself and you try to subconcious wants. Its not what please your friends. I want. Thats not important. The Bradbury is a man who does concious me is very unimportant. what he wants to do. He rides the Its what my subconcious wants train where ever he goes. It may to deliver forth. be slower and less convenient I always go with an idea imthan flying, but Bradbury likes I is. no matter what it it He likes to be able to see the mediately never doubt it. I let it have its country as he moves through it. Continued on Pare 4 say. And when its finished its there a place where all the winds begin? You see, I begin to con- . INNOCENT BYSTANDER 7he SSkspak Mm is why, the candidate cant take By ARTHUR HOPPE both roads. Dear President: I, Joe Sikspak, Look here, Joe, says Paddy. American, taken pen. in hand to Would you want a President roast this chestnut you tossed in who went around attacking his the fire. I see where you are .going to enemies as nattering nabobs of pick Spiro to be your running negativism and such? No way. mate again. Thats the most ter- .You want a President of lofty ideals and noble vision.'' rible mistake I ever heard of. Youre right on that, says I. Dont get me wrong. I like havSo the President makes a ing Spiro around. I mean now says Paddy. He says, speech, that Martha Mitchells gone, 'AH I to do is bring this want what else woud the newspapers country together.' Then he says have to write about? He brightto 'Sic, em, Spiro! And Spiro, ens my mornings. And if you a speech attacking makes Spiro should cop the gonfalon come McGovern tears the country that November, it sure would be a apart. long, dull four years without It dont seem right somehow, him. I. says But, being an Then McGovern makes a I American, speech, says Paddy. He says, think of . my .Come to peace home, America, first. and country kindness. he Then says to And you should his Sargent (thats running have too. What Sic em, Sarg! And Sar-- , shouldve ' mate), you ent makes a speech attacking done, if you ask Nixon makes everybody that me, is thought want to leave the country. about your must There be a better way, first country I. Paddy, says and not have Well, under says Paddy, named . a runthe candidates Constitution, ning mate at all. aren't supposed to have running I got the idea down at Paddys mates. They way they wrote it, Place. (You remember Paddy. the who comes in first is guy to He used be an aerospace engiPresident and the guy who comes reneer until he vocationally in second is Vice President. trained himself.) Youve got it, Paddy! says I. PadGive me a Seven-hig- h, By away with running and me tell how mates,doing dy, says I, do away with the wed come the President will pick low road. Itd be a clean camSpiro as his running mate again. paign and wed be bound to elect Why its as plain as day, Joe," both a President and Vice PresiThe candidates dent with noble purposes and says Paddy. got to take the high road, so he lofty ideals. needs somebody to take the low Well, says Paddy, polishing road. And, as the President says, the bar, at least wed think we had. Spiros done a great job. So Im calling on you and Mchold Now, on, Paddy, says I.. I saw where Spiro offered to Govern, President, to heave out make peace with all those newsyour running mates, and bring America home together. men been hes paper fighting Look at it this way. Even if with. Given the Administrations you lose, you cant sink lower track record, Joe, says Paddy, than Vice President. Of course, that means hes going to step up like Paddy says, you can't sink bombing them. But dont worry. lower than that I never knew a newspaperman Truly yours, Joe Sikspak, American to yet who wasnt bombed. being (Copyright Chronicle PublishBut what I dont get, says I, ing Co. 1972) well-adjust- ed i |