San Anselmo, California, July 24 2003: Today I have a great big truck. It is mighty and it is bright yellow. Tomorrow I’m packing Megatars, shop tools, voicemail equipment, many computers, and a ton or two of books into the great big truck.

On Saturday, I am driving the great big truck, up to the great big mountains, where Adrienne and I will be living in our new house on the side of Mount Shasta. Hanging out with a volcano always seemed like a good idea to me, where the pines are thick, and the air is clean.

In about a month, I will take the rest of our belongings, beds and sofas, remaining shop tools, and the files and working office for the voicemail companies.

Our new house is gray with white trim, a corner lot, with a board fence in the back for Tulip our border collie. There is a nice office and workshop for me, and at 3500 feet altitude, it’s cooler in the summer, and snow to shovel in the winter. Adrienns says she’s going cross-country skiing.

I heard about a woman who did this for a mile a day during the winter, and she then walked for a mile a day in the summer. After a few months, her family had no idea where she was. Hopefully this will not be a problem with Adrienne.

Why are we moving? For several reasons.

First, we want to buy a home, and houses there are affordable compared to here. Next, we’d like a little quieter life, as it’s grown hectic around us where we now live. Third, the place is really, really pretty.

I’m going to be bustling from dawn to dusk through the weekend. I’ll return to posting next week. If you want to help unload the truck then meet me in Mount Shasta.

Near Hurnville, Texas, 1954: At my grandparents’ farm, I had firecrackers, because in town there was an old hardware and general store run by Grover Thaxton. An ancient holdover from the 1800’s, the store had a dirt floor, and glass-topped cases in a long, narrow U-shape running from the front into the dimness inside. Along the side walls, cabinets reached to the ceiling, and the goods were retrieved with a ladder.

Grover Thaxton’s store was already old when my mother’s generation was young. One Halloween long before I was born, my young mother and her pals Billie Jane and Sara Moyer sat with beers and friends in Grover’s kitchen, waiting for the annual attempt on Grover’s outhouse. “Here they come, Grover!” they whisper as they spied the hooligans creeping near.

They’d wait till the boys turned over the outhouse, and were running away, and then Grover would burst from the back door with his shotgun.

“You go**amned hooligans!” screamed Grover. He fired the shotgun over the boys heads, one barrell, then the other. It was actually loaded with rock salt, for safety, but Grover put on a great display. Terrified, the boys ran like hell.

Somewhere beyond the danger, they’d laugh and congratulate themselves. Back inside the kitchen, mom and Sara rolled on the floor with laughter. Grover was pounded on the back. Beers were opened. Every year, just the same.

“Thaxton Hardware” read the faded sign, across from the Methodist Church. I suppose once upon a time, farmers bought from this general store. The store hadn’t changed since that time. And, from one of the bins, any time of the year, we boys could buy firecrackers.

My grandmother’s front porch was about two feet above the ground, of poured concrete, with four brick and timber pillars which held the roof above. Looking out, to the right a huge Oak tree grew up from within the huge metal rim of a tractor wheel. Beyond, the wire fence to keep chickens, guineas, and coyotes out of the yard and the flower beds. And beyond, the land fell away to the creek and the wandering line of trees stretching as far as I could see.

I had firecrackers, and we boys were playing with matches. We’d light a fuse, throw the firecracker, and then thrill to the report. These were small firecrackers, woven into a package. I now know they were designed to be set off as a package, popping and jumping, but we didn’t know that. We unwove them and lit and threw them one by one.

I thought I’d scare my cousin Bobby, so I pulled a fuse off one of the firecrackers. I lit the fuse and threw it toward him. Reasonably, he panicked, and tried to roll away, but in his haste placed his hand upon the burning fuse and got a nasty gunpower burn. My trickery turned sour.

Scolded properly and with firecrackers confiscated, we boys lolled around the summer day. Evening drew closer. It was the habit of our elders that they brought us presents when they’d been away, and Uncle Esty and Aunt Rosemary were returning to reclaim Bobby and Danny. They brought fireworks.

In the dark, sparklers flashing sparks, we drew pictures in the night, spelled out words, ran like the wind with sparks trailing behind.

With roman candles, each took a turn holding the tube upright, with the colorful balls of fire blasting into the sky with a loud whooshing sound. One, then another, then two together, of red, yellow, green. Another and another and another.

And, best of all, the tiny rockets on a long red stick. Held upright by an empty Royal Crown bottle, the fuse lit by Uncle Esty, after a moment’s pause, up they soared, trailing a tail of fire, and then they burst with a clap of thunder, spreading a flower of soaring, colorful petals.

Year after year. Just like magic.

Near Hurnville, Texas, 1949: My mother’s birthday came in the summertime, and we drove to my Grandparents’ farm, eight miles north of town, for cake and a visit. I was playing on the piano in the parlor, when I heard the sound of cars arriving out front.

Peeking through the window, I saw Uncle Dick and Uncle Eugene unfolding from their cars, and my mother greeting them with a kiss. But then Uncle Eugene called out, “Say! You know that today is Maggie’s birthday?”

Uncle Dick said, “That’s right!” and grabbed my mother.

And then they spanked her!

Jittering from one foot to the other, crying in pain and fear, I ran to the porch, to see her laughing and trying to escape. They saw me and stopped. My mother told me it was just a joke, but I was inconsolable that somebody could spank my mother!

The terrible moment passed, and yet the day was not done. Was it later that day? Perhaps it was another day soon after, for I’d been at Rex and Mike’s that summer, and had my first brush with fashion.

In the summer, no youngster wore shirt and shoes. It was just too hot. In the first few days, the feet were tender from a winter of hiding in socks and shoes, but soon they grew hard and impervious to most stickers. Only the dreaded goathead stickers would penetrate our thick skin, hobbling our running into limping.

From Rex I had learned that it was very fashionable to wear blue jeans, cut off into shorts, and with no belt. I don’t recall hearing the word ‘style’ or ‘fashion’, and the word ‘cool’ hadn’t been invented yet. So how I learned I cannot fathom. But somehow I knew: the way to dress was no shoes, no shirt, in cut-off jeans with no belt.

On this later day, once again I’d come from the parlor. But on this day, for some reason, my grandmother’s yard was filled with children. I didn’t know any of them. Most were older than myself. I remember only that it was summer, I was very proud of my fashionable attire, and that I walked out onto the porch, and was standing above a yard full of others.

That is when my pants fell off.

Denton, Texas, 1964: In my latter year in college, working as night auditor at the Holiday Inn, I finished my work, then studied or dozed till the morning shift. This particular night, around two in the morning, the lobby was deserted, and I was reading a small book of ghostly stories. It was to prove a mistake.

This particular story was about a panther. I remember nothing except that the last page scared the hell out of me, and, with an oath, I threw the book across the lobby.

The panther had been a totem for me even earlier. When I was a bellman, I took to wearing sunglasses at night, and told my roommates that I was to be addressed as “I. J. Panther.” For some reason, I didn’t want people to see my eyes. Or perhaps I was just trying to find an excuse to wear them, really just trying to look cool.

At that time the Holiday Inn tried an experiment. Liquor is illegal in Denton County, so our “bar” couldn’t operate in the usual way. So they made a “private club”, to which you had to bring your own bottles, and the bartender would make up mixed drinks for you.

My roommate Pat frequented the bar. At this time, he also claimed to be nerval, and excital, and altogether schitzy. His words. To prove it, he had a prescription for Valium. On an evening not long after, off work, I visited with Pat in this bar. He offered me a Valium. Like a fool I took it.

Soon the effect of alcohol and Valium made itself felt, strangely so. Since I felt really wierd, I went home and went to bed. That night my first dream was textured like a Turkish mosque. Not just a wall, but a carven eternity. Not just a cup but an elaborate goblet. But in my second dream, the panther appeared.

In this dream, I was walking across the lawn of my Uncle Doc’s house, when I saw the panther stalking across the lawn toward me. Terrified, I edged toward the safety of the porch, and then heard a woman’s voice saying, “I will teach you how to fight a panther.”

The panther had vanished. Near at hand a tall woman with long black hair stood, dressed in a white flowing robe. She then showed me a judo move with a sidestep. As I turned around, she’d vanished, and the panther sprang!

I ducked and did the sidestep, and the panther had missed me. And had again vanished. The woman in white stood upon the lawn, and showed me another move. In judo, this is called a ‘Hip Throw,” and you grab your opponent, load your opponent on your back, then duck your shoulders and raise your hips, throwing your opponent over your head.

Just as I had the woman in white loaded onto my back, I suddenly realized that the lady in white was actually the panther!

In a shuddering fit of terror, I threw her off, and it was the panther, which crept toward me. I backed onto the porch, and reaching behind me, opened the round doorknob of the screen door. It opened.

Still reaching behind me, I opened the front door, then leapt backward into the room, slamming the door. Uncle Doc’s wife, my aunt Margaret, was there. I told her to make sure the kids were safe in the house, to close all the doors and windows.

On my knees, panting with fear, I slowly raised the windowshade of the window to my left, to peer out. And found myself looking directly into the panther’s eyes. I saw there no intelligence, but only a burning rage, a lust to destroy.

Shaken, I jerked back, and then heard a terrible sound. Something was opening the screen door. An animal couldn’t open a round door knob. The panther was supernatural.

Still on my knees, holding desperately to the doorknob of the door, I looked up. At the top of this door were three tall and narrow windows, and suddenly I realized that the uppermost had no glass, for there I saw the black paw.

The black paw stretched down, and down, and down toward the doorknob, growing longer, longer than a paw could be, and longer, and longer …

I awoke in my dark room with my eyes clamped shut. I knew it had been a dream, but terror shuddered me. For an eternity, I could not make my eyes open.

I was afraid.

In evenings that followed, when I worked the late nights at the Holiday Inn, sometimes I heard a soft patter, but nothing was there. Sometimes I saw a movement from the corner of my eye.

But nothing was there.

Nothing that I could see.