2014/05/18

the lane the streak the lining the hour





That video shot yesterday, we're walking across the Appalachian Trail footbridge over I-70 on South Mountain in Maryland, downhill left towards Frederick, downhill right towards Hagerstown. We parked on 40 and climbed over Knob Hill to the cliffs at Annapolis and Black Rocks, seven good hard miles to and from. My legs are rounding, my knees are rounding, my hips, lungs, and heart are rounding into hiking shape, my fucking ankles, they are fragile motherfucking castanets. Which reminds me of a song:







This is true (and my apologies to those who've heard this before, but Serendipity demands): forty years ago this Spring (in Spring 1974 I would have been fourteen, I didn't do the math until last night, this isn't a planned gag; or rather, it was a planned gag once I saw the bridge, I did the video with this gag in mind though I didn't start the hike with this gag in mind) I and seven other members of Troop 1097's Senior Patrol were on a training hike for a summer trip to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. In Spring 1974 the hottest craze was Roger Miller's The Streak. Five of eight of us did, back and forth, across the AT footbridge over 70. Three split before we streaked, asking for ten minutes to get across the bridge before we streaked so they weren't implicated, we gave it to them, they waahed back to camp. In the video, when the camera nods up and down, that's where we stopped to wave to honking cars. One car didn't honk, a State Trooper, he bloop-blooped his siren, sped south to next exit. We made it almost back to camp thinking we'd won, dopes, but up the trail walks the Trooper and the Scout leaders. The three ratted us. I'll not pig latin their names: Mark Albright and Marshall Dobbins and Richard Bachmann, I hope you did not have the life of hell I wished upon you then, you collaborating motherfucking cowardly leader-worshiping future Fascist future Eagle Scouts, you.

I was going to quit after Philmont anyway. When asked to apologize for disgracing the Scout uniform, I said, how was I disgracing the Scout uniform by streaking?







FLAME

C.D. Wright

the breath               the trees               the bridge

the road                  the rain                the sheen

the breath               the line                  the skin

the vineyard            the fences             the leg

the water                the breath             the shift

the hair                  the wheels             the shoulder

the breath               the lane                the streak

the lining                the hour                the reasons

the name                the distance          the breath

the scent                the dogs                the blear

the lungs                the breath             the glove

the signal               the turn                  the need

the steps                the lights               the door

the mouth               the tongue             the eyes

the burn                  the burned            the burning