I Was the Youngest

 

I was the youngest. Technically, I still am. I have an older sister, and, as for the other part of the family, I’m the youngest of my four cousins. It’s hard being the youngest of one family. It’s almost impossible being the youngest of TWO families. Being the youngest of the family does not make it easy to take any position of leadership. As the youngest, you pretty much follow. It’s either that, or you get left behind to sit with the grown-ups as they spend the day talking about things that occurred before you were born.

So, you either follow, or you get to listen to adults talk about their medicines, black and white movies, and The War.

I followed. A lot.

Here’s an example. We used to go to our relatives in the Californian San Bernadino county during August. This, I believe, was because we children needed to be taught a lesson. The lesson my parents wanted us to learn was probably something like expanding our horizons, experiencing different environments, enjoying the company of people from different histories. And other such twaddle. The real lesson was: If you decide to wander out into the midday sun in the high desert, you’ll bake your brain into a brick.

Our family called it “The Desert”, but it never really looked like a desert to me. To my overly active young mind, fueled by Looney Tunes, Lucky Charms, and Tonka trucks, a desert had humongous rolling sand dunes, camels, and the occasional oasis. There were roving caravans of merchants, people walking around in flowing bathrobes drinking coffee from itty-bitty cups, and big tents full of rugs.

And flying carpets. No self respecting desert could exist without flying carpets.

To my six year old brain, deserts had to have dunes dotted with tents, espresso drinking sheikhs, and flying carpets.

With this in mind, what my family called a desert, was NOT a desert.

The name of our destination was Morongo Valley. I’m not saying that it’s a small, and mostly unknown, community, but the spell check on my computer just threw red confetti under the word, “Morongo”.

There, it did it again.

This little community was established in the Southeastern corner of California. According to some, it was called a “high desert”. Being young as I was, I didn’t understand the term, so I asked around. I received various answers. My dad said, “It’s just like a desert, but higher.” My elder cousins, when asked about the difference between a regular desert and a desert that was high, simply giggled. I didn’t understand the humor until I was indoctrinated by Professors Cheech and Chong. I looked “High Desert” up in the dictionary, but it just rambled on and on about elevation, biospheres, and gave various examples. Me being six, however, and being a proto-ADHD poster child, all dictionaries tended to ramble on and on.

Thus lacking in formal data, I had no other option but to create my own plausible theory about Morongo Valley. He’s that theory:

When God was busy making the earth, he got the part of world that included Morongo Valley. This is when Michael the Archangel showed up.

Michael: Ah, I see You’re working on the high desert now.
God: Oh, yeah.
M: How are you going to do the plants?
G: Well, it doesn’t rain often there, so the plants will have absorbent pulp to hold water for the dry season. I shall call them succulants.
M: Oh, good thinking.
G: Then I shall cover them with painful, barbed spines that will cause pain to anyone that even gets close to them.
M: Uh…OK. That seems a bit, I don’t know, hars….
G: You know how we were talking about the lizards?
M: Right, yes. They were very nicely designed, if I remember correc….
G: I covered them in spikes. They look like terrifying. I have no idea how they’re going to mate at all. You should ask me about those land-lobsters.
M: Um…OK, what about the land-lobsters?
G: I modified them. I put stingers on their tails, and filled them with poison. I’ve called them scorpions.
M: Well, that’s pretty extrem….
G: Remember those big spiders?
M: Do I ever. Those were pretty creepy looki….
G: I modified those, too. I gave them fur coats. In that heat, they’ll be all sorts of grumpy. And what do they need, these grumpy furry spiders stuck out in the heat? FANGS! It’s brilliant! I’ll call them tarantulas.
M: You’ve been busy. What do you say we, maybe, dial it back a few notch….
G: And bats! Big ol’ canines on those! With RABIES! Oh, it’s gonna be great!
M: Hey, if I could make a suggestion….
G: Wait until I tell you about tumbleweeds. Sure, they look all innocent, but they’re actually rolling balls that are made up of thousands of poniards. Mobile Organic Spheres of Death!
M: Yeah, that’s nice. Promise me you’ll have a Snickers before we move on to Hawai’i, OK? Promise?
G: Sure, yeah, OK. Now come over here and see what I put in this snake’s mouth: retractable fangs that are pre-loaded with venom….
M: * sigh *

This is pretty much all of Morongo Valley. And this is where our parents would send us out to play. We young kids would get up at a reasonable hour, say five or six in the morning, and start playing. Soon after that, the grown-ups would wake up. We’d eat our sugary breakfast, and then continue to play in the very small house.

Eventually, as a means to prevent migraines, one of the aforementioned adults would calmly tell us to go outside and play, or they would skin us alive.

Or something like that.

This usually occurred just after sunrise.

Allow me to clarify. We lived in the San Lorenzo Valley, a very temperate environment in the Santa Cruz mountains. In August, the pre-dawn temps were around 64°F. After the sun rose, it was about 64°F. Around 9 in the morning, it was about 66°F. In the Morongo Valley, however, pre-dawn was about -80°F, then, just after sunrise, the temps might boost up to around 110°F, and by 9 that morning, well, it’s impossible to tell because the outside thermometer melted.

So, in essence, the adults were telling us hyperactive kids to go play outside in an environment very close to that which one might find on the sunny side of Mercury.

Only, here, there were plants that were actively trying to kill you.

I remember this one time we were at the “desert”, and The Robbie was there with us. It never seemed right to be at the desert without The Robbie. The term “rudderless” could best be defined as “Being stuck in a desert without a Robbie”.

We were kicked out of the house so the grown-ups could have the Hangover Hangout to themselves while sitting next to the army of high-speed fans.

The house in question here is just off the main drag, and it belonged to a husband/wife team named Walter and Jerry. I’ve no clue as to their last names. That information was given out on a Need to Know basis, and, as a young imp, I didn’t have that need. Apparently, I still don’t.

Either Walter and Jerry were related to my mom. Not sure which one, but my bet is on Jerry. Half sister, step sister, something along those lines. I have discovered over the years that Mom and my aunt Ollie have a family tree that have as yet to be discovered branches.

In the Kid Lexicon, “Jerry” was a boy’s name; e.g. Jerry Lewis, Tom and Jerry, Jerry Reed (who was featured on a Scooby Doo episode). Apparently, there was no entry into the Kid Lexicon for the shortened form of Geraldine. That’s just crazy. Because of all this, Jerry was an uncle. Her gender didn’t determine the title, her name did. Subsequently, we had Uncle “Waters” and Uncle Jerry.

It being California, we never gave it much thought.

We clamored out of the house, and into the blazing sun. I remember there was a cat there, outside, just standing there, looking stunned. Like a vampire that was caught in the first rays of the rising sun. As though the poor thing only had seconds to find a shady spot before he burst into flames. The look on that cat’s face has stuck with me for my entire life.

There were bikes. I remember that much. I have absolutely no idea why uncles Waters and Jerry had bikes. Morongo Valley is not known for its trendy, athletic community. This is because no one is keen on exercising in an area where people can succumb to heat exhaustion before the first coffee break in the morning, and the only real activity is to occasionally get up off the couch to see if the various and strategically placed fans can go any faster.

As far as I know, the bikes we had didn’t even belong to our uncles. The bikes could’ve belonged to the town. They could’ve been found next to the ashes of the last kids that tried to ride bikes out in the heat of Morongo Valley. But that fate did not wait for us. We were different. We were special. We were living in the age of polyester, the heyday of NASA, and era of corduroy short shorts. We could ride bikes on the surface of Mercury, and suffer no ill-effects.

Our first stop was the Circle K a couple of blocks down the road. This was the main store of Morongo Valley. People would dress up in their asbestos suits, run from their air-conditioned house to their air-conditioned car, and drive to get ice. During the Summer months of Morongo Valley, which extended from January 2nd to sometime just after Christmas, the main dietary staple of the town was ice. People there were connoisseurs of ice. They would have discussions about which brand of ice they preferred, and why. The Circle K offered other items in their store, but that was just all a front. They sold ice. They were the local ice bank.

My sister, The Robbie, and I pulled up to the front of the Circle K, dismounted our rolling steeds, and approached the door. It was then that I was told that I would be stationed outside to guard the bikes.

I was not a part of this decision making paradigm. I’ve often wondered how, and why, I was selected for guard duty. I wanted to go into the Circle K to peruse the famous ice selections, but I was, instead, posted on bike guard duty. There are many possible reasons, the chief of which was that I was the youngest. That makes sense because the youngest usually get relegated to do the odd job. It could’ve been because I was the fattest of the three, and was less likely to dehydrate as fast as my tall, spindly elders. Mostly obvious reason was because The Robbie said it, and I responded with, “OK.”

This is how it generally went. This is because I was the youngest. As the youngest, you’re not afforded the privilege to off an alternate course of action. It’s either “OK” or you don’t get to go. But that’s not all. To whatever The Robbie said, my response was, “OK.” It was always “OK” when it came to the Robbie. The argument could be made that I was gullible, or naïve, but most likely it was because I loved The Robbie. He was a walking storm of excitement and escapism. I always wanted to be a part of whatever was going on inside his brain.

I still do.

So, outside the Circle K I stood. Guarding the bikes from the zero demographic that would want to steal them. My sister and The Robbie were in the Circle K for some time. At that point, I had no idea why we went to the Circle K. The Robbie probably said something like, “Let’s go to the Circle K.” and I said, “OK.”

What they were NOT buying was sunblock, anything that had the letters “SPF” on it, or some sensible protective clothing. C’mon, this was the 70’s. We used coconut oil to make us sunburn faster. We were on a fast-track schedule to be the 21st century cash crop for dermatologists.

They finally came out, bearing Slurpees, which are sugar infused flavored ice drinks.

Again with the ice.

Later on, post Slurpee, The Robbie said, “Hey, let’s go outside, you and I, without water, without maps, without leaving an itinerary with anyone, and let us ride our bikes hither and yon, through the dry river beds, amidst the cacti, until our brains are baked into tiny bricks! What a lark! Yes, let us do this while wearing tank tops, no helmets, insanely short shorts, sneakers, and gym socks with flashy stripes at the top!”

OK, he didn’t really say that, but that’s pretty much what happened.

It was ridiculous. Reckless. Every year, people die out there doing things like that. Every other person would say, “Have you gone barkers? This plan is simply mad. MAD, I say! And I beseech you, Sir, to abandon this adventure until such time as the environment is more suiting for a ramble!”

I, however, being the youngest, said, “OK.”

My sister didn’t join us. She, being the eldest in our family, had the option to avoid suicide bicycle tours. The fact that she lacked the psychosis creating testosterone in her system also played a major factor.

We were riding bikes all over the place. There were dry river beds that had not seen water since the Noah Incident in Genesis 6. We had cactus needle scratches all over our legs. I had hit so many big rocks with my bike tire that the handlebars, and most of my major skeletal joints, were all wonky. It was so hot, I burned the lining in my lungs. Due to my very fashionable crew cut that Dad required, the top of my skull burst into flames ten minutes into the ride. I didn’t sweat because as soon as any liquid formed on my skin, it evaporated.

We rode for hours. At one point, The Robbie pointed to some far distant point, just before the base of the wrong side of the San Gabriels, and said, “Hey! I bet we could ride to Palm Springs! Let’s go!”

Being the youngest, I said, “OK,” even though the city was probably 428 miles away, and we would dehydrate into dust well before we even got close.

We saw trees that looked like they came out of Dr. Seuss’ nightmares. Various animals that defied description. Cars that were parked out there and left to decompose. They didn’t rust, per se, they just sort of collapsed upon themselves.

And we saw a mine shaft.

There were plenty of mining operations in the region way back when. Silver, mostly. It all pretty much played out by the mid 20th century. Most of the mining corporations just up and left, leaving behind old rail cars, tracks, winches, and abandoned shafts. They tried to block the entrances by boarding them up, but wood, no matter how green, usually dries up, deteriorates, and and rots within the first 24 hours of be left out in that territory.

The Robbie stopped his bike, looked longingly up at the old mineshaft, and said, “Let’s go up there!”

I, being the youngest, was required to say, “OK,” and off we went.

We got close, and, just as I figured, the material they used to block the entrance had long ago fallen away. Inside, just past the edge of light, it was pitch black. A stifling, yawning, impenetrable dark wherein lived every conceivable fear for a six year old boy. I was transfixed at the unseen and the unknown. A chill danced along my spine though I stood under the blistering sun.

At this point, The Robbie, with a full mischievous grin, said, “Let’s go in!”

I, as the youngest, of course said, “Oh, HECK NO! No way! Forget it! No! I don’t care if it leads to Captain Kidd’s buried treasure, the lost portal to Narnia, or gave me superhero powers! No! And furthermore, I’m tired, I think my major organs have stopped functioning after I crashed while chasing that lizard, and my sweat glands have been coughing up dust for an hour. I’m going back to the Circle K where I will purchase a bag of premium ice, then go back to Uncle Waters and Uncle Jerry’s house, fill up that kiddie pool out back with ice, and then soak my body. You may follow me if you choose, or enter this Hades Gate, but I’m done.”

I then turned around, rode my bike in a beeline to Highway 62, took a right, and went directly to Morongo Valley as the youngest of the family…who didn’t have to follow anymore….

…until the next time The Robbie said, “Hey….”