[Note: In the middle of August 2003,
Joe and his wife, Kate, quit their jobs, moved out of
their apartment, and hit the road for a three-month trip.
What follows are letters Joe has mailed into WatershedCentral
HQ.]
08/28/2003, Boulder, CO
My traveling companion (TC) and I bolted
for Parts West right after the Watershed show at Little
Brother's. All my stuff is in storage. My mailing address
is a PO Box. I'm like a shadowy offshore corporation.
I have no job and no apartment. I'm running away from
home at age 34. Pretty sweet.
The last time I ran away from home when
I was 6. My Mom let me go. I'd seen enough cartoons to
know that I was supposed to bundle my stuff in a bandanna
and tie it to the end of a stick. Straight-up hobo style.
I said my goodbyes, stepped off the porch, and walked
around to the backyard to hide in the bushes. I suppose
I wanted my Mom to come looking for me. She, however,
was intent on granting me the independence that I said
I wanted, so she never came out. She didn't call the bus
stations or train stations or police or anything. She
just stayed in the kitchen washing the dishes right where
I could see her through the window. This kind of pissed
me off. Couldn't she at least do me the favor of pretending
to take me seriously? Not a single tear? Just wash-rinse-dry?
It became a standoff, a test of wills.
Me pretending to run-away and she pretending to not care.
I sat in that bush for a good 15 minutes, while she buffed
some pan to a high gloss shine (possibly a "sheen",
but maybe bowling balls are the only things able to achieve
"sheen" status). Ultimately, I had no patience
for this détente, so I decided to up the stakes. The biggest
weapon in my first grade arsenal: Ding, Dong, Ditch.
I hunched at the ready waiting for her
to momentarily leave the dishes, so I could emerge from
the bushes. She finally disappeared, probably to go check
on my sister, and I raced to the side of the house. I
peeked across the front porch and saw that the coast was
clear, so I made a dash for the doorbell. I hit that thing
a good 5 times and scampered back to the side of the house,
cracking myself up. My mom came to the door, and as she
opened it, I could hear my sister crying from the living
room. My mom looked around, slammed the door and went
back inside.
Even at 6 I knew that the key to comedy
lies in repetition, past the point of awkwardness, to
full-blown hilarity. You stick your hand in your underarm
and make a fart sound once, and it's mildly amusing. Three
or four times and it's just stupid. But three or four
times past when your Mom/Dad/Sister (especially Sister)
told you to cut it out? That's comedy.
So, being a budding student of the comic
arts, I went back to the doorbell. Again. And Again. And
Again. And just when I was approaching comic perfection,
my Mom grabbed me from behind. She must have run out the
back door after my last ditch. Wow was she pissed.
That was the only time I was ever spanked,
and as I recall, I was spanked a good one. But after the
"whuppin" (luckily my mom did not subscribe
to the "repetition past the point of awkwardness"
theory with regard to doling out blows), she sat me down
at the kitchen table, poured me a glass a milk and fixed
up a PB and J, saying that I must surely be starved after
traveling for so long, so far from home. She then asked
all about my adventures as an elementary school runaway,
the places I'd seen, the people I'd met.
There have been many grand statements
that attempt to define "home" as something more
meaningful than the place where you live ("where
the heart is", "where they have to take you
back", "wherever you lay your hat", etc),
and for the moment I have no desire to weigh in on the
subject. I'm much more concerned with what is not home.
I've seen the backyard bushes, now I'm moving down the
block with, as the mighty Foghat once sang, "my home
in my hand".
Here is where we've been so far:
Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis, The Badlands (SD), The
Black Hills (SD), Devil's Tower (WY), Ft. Collins (CO),
Boulder.
I'll keep you posted.
Your Pal,
Joe
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