Rake
Member
Growing to a ripe old age of 18, I set out on the road, hitchhiking sleeping under bridges and living straight out of my backpack. It was romantic, it was free, it was everything I thought it would be. The place was Arcata a small town next to eureka and the time was the fall of 08. This town was known as a ‘passing through’ town. It was used to travelers and was a good host for them as they could camp up in the redwoods safely with out any harassment from local police. We aren’t hippies, but this made it an ideal place for travelers such as ourselves, granted we could stomach the smell of patchouli for that long. Luckily we were staying with our friend Liz who had rented a room in the areas most popular punk house. They called it ‘the fire house’ because it was adjacent to the areas local fire house. This house was also used to people staying and going, but as we found out later although our presence was minuscule our welcome was easily worn out. Breakfast, lunch and dinner was the flat watered down past blue ribbon beer, old grey looking popcorn we found in the cupboards drenched in ‘saracha’ hot sauce, occasionally we would make a couple of bucks and go down to the taco truck for a massive bean and cheese burrito. All the food I ate was a distraction from my real hunger, hunger for real food for substance and when you really get down to it, nutrience. We walked down the alleyways checking all the dumpsters for doughnuts or some pizza. Another con about living in an area with so many travelers in one place was that ‘dumpstered’ food was scarce and most of the dumpsters had pad locks on them. We would walk into the whole foods markets and steal from the bulk bins, I remember pockets full of chocolate covered cherries, cans of anchovies and cacao nibs. The market was teeming with pseudo hippies twirling their juggling sticks with ornamented, with Rastafarian hats and dreaded hair. Hoards of them laying shirtless on a nearby grassy knoll. You could hear a few scattered around playing instruments poorly, but vigorously. The local farmers market was filled with the smells of apples, pomegranates and figs being sliced open for sample. Our mouths were wet from the smells, I couldn’t remember the last time I ate anything that looked so vibrant, succulent and attractive. I remember my body was urging me to reach out and take some but I had to hold myself back. It was here that we met up with a man we liked to call ‘the dude’ because he resembled the dude from the movie The Big Lebowski. His hair was a muted brown and grey and was tied back and hung around his face he had kind wrinkled eyes and a sturdy body that only a real working farmer could have. His daughter Aliana had yellow hair and was hoola-hooping as her dad and a farm hand loaded the truck. The deal we made was that we would work for him and in exchange he would pay us 50$ a week for food and to stay in his hut. He handed us both 50$ and instructed us to go and buy food for the week. You should of seen us run to the super market. We grabbed yogurt, cheese, tea, bread, oatmeal and everything else we ever wanted. He told us that he had a couple of staples in the hut like beans and rice, in addition we could have whatever we wanted from their personal garden. that was solace for us to not buy as much as we thought we may need. We also had to keep in mind that we couldn’t buy any perishables because there was no refrigeration. the first couple of days of living at the farm were good, but soon the bread cheese yogurt ran out. We were waking up to a bowl of oatmeal with water. The mountain side farm was beautiful with dense forest surrounding us, there was a river close by and from our hut we could hear it running. We would go and skinny dip in the river as much as we could, sometimes two or three times a day. we found a place about a half mile out where the water was so deep and the rocks were high and we could jump off them into the water. I remember walking through the farm with one of the farm hands named Brice. Brice was a nice guy all around but he wreaked of a upper middle class privileged white youth who wanted to get away from it all, his face was unshaven and his hair was long and he talked an awful lot about this ‘Jah’ fellow. We walked through the apple orchard and saw that the bears had torn down the fence and had a field day with the apples. There were apples still hanging on the tree with big bear bites taken out of them and there were the most colorful and vibrantly colored bear feces everywhere. We walked over the gooseberry tree, CD’s were hanging from the trees to scare birds away from eating all the berries when I told Brice I had never eaten a gooseberry before we start combing the now bare trees for any trace of a gooseberry for me to taste. We finally find one hanging high up on the tree and with all our power combined we finally got it down. He told me to close my eyes and eat it slowly and to try to really feel the taste and flavor. It was warmed by the sun and it was the perfectly ripe sweet and tart.
