We were a pair, and that mystified everyone who watched us together. Even after I went off to an ivy league school and studied esoteric nonsense, my first call upon coming home at Christmas would be to Joe, who would usually be off down by the Duwamish in his latest plunking hole, huddled around a steel barrel fire cutting bread and salami and sipping from his jug of wine. And I would be perfectly happy to spend the day down there with him talking about nothing really at all and certainly not esoteric nonsense, though we rarely caught anything. He was a simple man for whom the whirlwind had ended. I envied him his peace. And he, I suppose at some leve,l knew that for me the whirlwind was just beginning, and there was something there for him as well. At times I would see a glimpse of Joe's earlier, personal life, though he rarely talked of it. Once we were driving through Yakima on a new freeway. In an evolution so common to western towns, the original mainstreet, once they replaced the hitching posts with parking lots, was bypassed by an "alternative" road for speed. That new route would then sprout motels and gas stations and greasy spoons until, congested, it had to be bypassed with a freeway, which frequently routed ironically through the old, original neighborhoods. The new freeway into Yakima in 1962 was elevated through such a section, old gabled homes from the 20's with circumferential screened verandas, the family's hedge in the evening against summer heat and mosquitos. Suddenly Joe perked up and began craning his neck. "I know these streets". I pulled off the freeway and we took a few turns at his direction. "THERE!" "What, it's just a house." Joe sat back and was lost in his memories. And he was smiling. Eventually he said simply, "a widow lived there". Another time returning home through eastern Washington at midnight on a Sunday evening, our truck was sabotaged at a gas station by the pump attendant so that their "mechanic on duty" could fix it for a price. Once we realized what had happened, and had ruled out shooting the both of them, we limped out of the station on three cylinders with our spark plug wires scrambled. Driving any distance was out of the question. Joe, for once, was cursing. The little town of a few hundred was locked up for the night. We could have just popped up the camper and spent the night right there but the family would be worried if we weren't home by morning. "Stop at that phone booth. I know someone here."
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