No! No! No! No! No!
Click to viewWatch the video first. I dont know where to start. This is THE Mountain in Flagstaff. When I talk to my students about Flagstaff I point out that that Korea is a wave of mountains and Flagstaff is ONE mountain. This is the mountain that I am talking about.
When I first came to Flag I had recently just came back form Japan in 2002 (more like had just gotten kicked out of my study abroad program in Japan in 2002.). 3 days after I came back my mother died from cancer. My uncle Bob, who was there through the worst of it, suggested that I come out to Flagstaff to visit him. It would soon become clear that my father, who financed this misadventure, and others hoped that it would be a a university scouting trip that might break me out of the mucky muck of what I like to think of now as my Communtiy College Misadventure at COD.
Weeks after my mother passed away, and after having tasted my most raw tidbit of the adventure that living abroad would be, I arrived in flagstaff expecting little. All I knew about it was that my Uncle lived there and Scuzzy Nate and another ne'erdowell that I can only remember as Keleil (or some such) come back from there to Chicagoland broke and reporting that people could wear pistols on their belts. Needless to say I was expecting very little.
Needless to say, I was expecting very little from this trip other than to get away from the ground zero that my mother's death had cause. The first benefit that became apparent was getting the chance to get to know my uncle Bob better, who I would feel became a mentor to me as the only member of my family closest to me in age and general values about life. A double edged sword was his wife (at the time) Dara whoses kindness, acceptance, and generally being an interesting person were the only things that made up for her debilitating alcoholism. I can not understate the hurt this would cause both herself and those I cared about (most of all bob) in the coming year.
It is important to put out that Dara's alcoholism was the primary concern of my mother in regards to me going out to Flag by myself. The Stengers ( or Souwers) are a lot of things but we are not drunks and junks of the caliber that Dara would bring into my life.
Anyways I flew into Phoenix to have Bob pick me up. The first then we did was go on a dive bar tour of downtown Phoenix and what I remember as at least one roadhouse on the way up to Flag. This taught me my most important lesson on geography that I have ever experienced. If you load up on tequila at sea level you will pass out in the car on the way up to 7500ish ft up. Then when the car has stopped in the drive way you will roll out of the car and vomit out your soul in the car.
The next two weeks went in a blur. Bob, getting dutifully to work at is hard won Admin job at Arizona's premiere private golf course. He had come across this job after years of playing in bands and odd jobs. Most of those jobs involved bartending. I have never seen him bartend, but reflection on the convince with which he discusses it I have no doubt that he was the finest bartender in all of Northern Arizona.
Mostly I was left to hang out with Dara at what I like to think of as her Hair Salon on the wrong side of the track. Literally on the side of the track that the Flag PD and City Hall could care less about. Later some anarchists, leftist and some people who gave a damned about their nieghborhood would start a group that would call its self the "South Side Group" and would focus on ensure that "South Track" resident had access to community gardens. Later they would buy a defunct church and open it up for seminars by leftists, community organizers, and the occasional leftist/anarchist/Under 21 concert organizers that seemed to come out of the wood work.
Next to Dara's Salon there was a "Mission" where transients of Flag could find a hot meal and a place to sleet after hours of bible study from people that we can all agree were both unbalanced and moralibly quesitonable.
On the other side of the salon, on the wrong side of the tracks was a bar. All through my time in Flag this bar was remarkable as being the front section of a strip club. A stripe club right in the middle of downtown Flag, albeit still on the wrong side of the tracks... one building away from the missionary flop house mind you.
The name of the bar at the time is irrelevant because it would change. What was important was that it had midday $1 drafts and Dara would take me there for one between clients for her morning, midday, and afternoon shot of tequila. When she was back cutting hair she was a pro. I am hardly an expert on a haircut (I still have trouble trusting Korean hairstylist) but she was damned good at way she did. She had the skill of knowing exactly what you needed to get cut or colored without simply hacking off as much as possible and sending you on your way until your next monthly haircut. I have never gotten a haircut that I have liked since.
Meanwhile I was meeting fellow misfits. Daytime drunks from the bar next door, which would eventually named "The Joint", Artists, lesbian strippers, I learned that there was a ferocious life in those 8 square blocks around the tracks. 4 of them would be condemned to be the "wrong side" of the tracks for my entire like in Flag... and I would have the most fun and learn the most.
I was learning the most important lessons about Northern AZ with Bob as he took me to Walnut Canyon, Wapacki National Park, and of course the Grand Canyon.
Imagine you are a Conquistador and you futzing this levle forest and all of a sudden the forest clears and you stumble upon the Grand Canyon. Although its face is drastically different with each angle of the sun in its different postions, the season, or the angle you are viewing it from, it is still just Grand.
After years of boy scouting and my first misadventure out of the country, I was full prepared to take all of this in and embrace it.
Japan is a mountainous country the size of California. They say the the total usuable land mass for farming, buiding, factories, and World Cup Stadiums fits in the size of portugal. Being from a very... very... very flat place like Chicago, it took me 2 weeks to realize what was impressing me. I am fond of pointing out that after two weeks I finally realized that it was the mountains. We just didnt have mountains in the suberbs of Chicago.
After I came back and he initially gotten through the loss and the mess that awaited me, I was certain of one thing.: I wanted to live amongsts mountains. Flagstaf a mountain had. This mountain is called Mount Humphresy or as the San Francsico peaks.
I fell in love with them and how they changed during the seasons. Green in the summer. Mount Mordor desolate in the winter, white when it snows, and a hell of a vision during the sunset. When I lived on Leroux I had a perfect view of them. They carried me through some of the toughest times of my life after recently moving to Flag and the "dark years" when I had parttime work at Wal-Mart. When things got tough I would spend hours look at those mountains and release those troubles.
I would confiscate Bob's Dog "Mia" and go on long walks near his house in the shadow of Humphreys peaks. I had a bedroom view from my apartment on Elleary. It became a feature of life... and death just like the sun or the moon. So it pains me to see this time lapsed video showing the mountain buring.
Northern AZ always has forests fires that get really bad. But they have never touch MY mountain before like this. This is my Dongdaemun, my 9/11. I am watching something I love that is connected to a place I love and a people that I love go up in flames. All of this on a fragile eco-system that has brought me so much joy over the years and I foundly look back on during my years in Korea. Lets hope we can get those fires under control.