#81 / 2008 Tour 4 Winter: Slab City, Day Five

SLAB CITY: DAY FIVE

#81


The longest part of the day is early on the morning when I wake up two hours before sunrise. That's 5:30 Pacific Time. It's cold and dark. I broke the antennae on my crank radio - a true loss of entertainment - the NPR station. So this morning I write by candlelight a la Abe Lincoln.

We spend a lot of our time here on the Slab at the Oasis Club visiting with Mike Bright, Ron, Jim, Kenny and all the others who gather there early in the morning. Most folks don't volunteer a lot about themselves around here and I don't press but Mike is the most forthcoming. His encampment holds a lending library in an abandoned trailer, an outdoor community kitchen that will hold about 50 people, a big fire pit, and the luxury of an outdoor toilet.

There are other clubs here, two singles club, the Canadians have a pristine club where I hear they like to drink martinis at sunset, but we're most comforstable here with the low rent folks in modest setups, if they have one at all. 

Like most of the Slabbers Mike B. has a beard. A slick line of snot rides under his right nostril that he dabs at from time to time with an old handkerchief. His fingers are tobacco stained to a shade of deep orange.

Mike circles around his compound on a motorized beer color. He slows it down by extending his mocassin clad foot in the gravel. He uses the beer cup hole to hold his canister of rolling tobacco because the beer is in his hand. Mike and his entourage have fairly well accepted Joe and I around the campfire. Mike likes Beatlick News. He liked the issue we gave him with the picture of the Buckhorn Saloon in New Mexico . He said he got married there. He was very familiar with the Gila Hot Springs and most of the other locations in that issue.

It's funny how we find who we need to know. Mike has been invaluable to Joe in the discussion of obscure hot springs. I guess he used to be some sort of engineer and had something to do with water because Joe can't hardly name a hot spring he doesn't know about or hasn't been to.  

It's beer for breakfast for most of these stalwarts of the Oasis Club and Joe and I fit right in when we waltzed in yesterday morning. I extended my can of Tecate and said, "Good morning, gentlemen."

Mike said to come back for dinner. He formed a non-profit called GROG that enables him to hosts a Mexican meal on Wednesday, Italian on Fridays, and breakfast on Sunday. Three dollars if you can afford it, free if you can't. 

After the meal yesterday two beautiful Swedish girls showed up for some directions to a good campsite. Much to the chagrin of the gentlemen on site they didn't stick around to eat. Maybe they'll come back tomorrow.

We will stick around until at least Saturday for the talent show and open mike over at the Grange.

I do want to say before closing that some of the most interesting characters in town are the dogs which roam freely. For the most part they are all polite and well behaved. There is a sweet little pet cemetery out on the Slabs as well with endearing sentiments for all the pets that die out here.