Perspicacity

Ray Purcell

Prologue

I was sitting at work minding my own business. It was a Monday, of all days, when a colleague nonchalantly commented that I looked happy. Just that I looked happy, that was all. Yet I wasn’t aware of it. Any more than I was aware of how I might have been projecting such an air of bliss. The preceding Wednesday someone might just as well have commented, in just as off handed a way, that I looked as if I had a stick up my ass. Where in retrospect they’d have almost certainly been right, I would have been no more aware. So closely approximated my nose tends to be to the chalkboard.

I realize that my metaphor about the chalkboard is both cultural and to a certain extent generation dependent. Dependent that is on whether or not you attended parochial school in the Sixties. It’s also a metaphor that should just as well be lost on my antecedents lest they be subject to the same humiliation and indignity as my cohort. Because, with ones nose to the chalkboard is where you stood, before your classmates, if you just didn’t see the intended point or adequately grasp the concept.

Not to be confused with the commendable diligence that accompanies the commitment to a task where one’s nose is to the grindstone, and certainly not related to the drama of standing before the mast. Standing with your nose to the chalkboard was supposed to precipitate vision, clarity. Yet as many times as I stood with my own nose to the chalkboard as penance for my own behavioral and intellectual myopia, I never experienced a single perspicuous spark, though I still can’t get the smell of chalk dust out of my nose.

The chalkboards in life continue to have a certain affinity for my nose, a gravitational force perhaps as great if not greater than a celestial singularity. Though, unless there’s some ruler wielding, knuckle rapping cosmic force this metaphor now has nothing to do with old parochial school discipline. The image has become reduced to representing life’s distractions and obstructions. It’s a metaphor that reflects what I see as a dysfunction of an over stimulated society. A malady that has resulted in a syndrome of social apathy and discontent. Not necessarily out of individual callousness but self-defense. At least this is one hypothesis for what I see as a collective ethical nearsightedness, confusion, disenfranchisement, and impotence. In an ironic way I suppose we penalize ourselves to come to the front of the class and stand nose to the chalkboard.

Fortunately though, and it has taken some years to learn this, there are no chalkboards on adventures and wanderings. When I explore, I am free to experience wondrous flashes of perspicacious relevance, a veritable Tesla Coil like discharge of perspective- I think.

Unfortunately, my view of the world around me doesn’t broaden right away with the onset of an adventure. No, it’s a gradual progression. You see, that’s because very few therapies work that fast, it’s a process of healing. A process not unlike the following experience.

One evening, having just set out on a journey, I was propped up and reclining comfortably against my bouldering pad, alternately sipping a Guinness Stout and taking bites of Pad Thai Noodles. The ground around me was the burnt orange of the Martian landscape with large smooth alluvial cobbles strewn about. Stones that had surely dropped out of the current of some itinerant river an epoch or so ago. Virtually nothing grew in this seemingly sterile and seared soil. Clouds of dust blew up and swirled in the buffeting wind. Various mongrel dogs that were running wildly about in an enthusiastic add-game of chase kicked up even more dirt.

Where I was camped was slightly more protected from the elements, and the dogs, by virtue of its orientation and elevation on a terrace inside a scooped out pit. In fact the whole campground was set up in what, until not too long ago, was a working quarry. As the Sun began to set on The Pit an eclection of sounds began to emanate from various and sundry drums, guitars, wooden flutes, not to mention car stereos. A cacophony of sounds that, perhaps because of acoustics of this scooped out bit of earth, seemed to find an odd peace with each other in improbable and disparate harmony.

An assortment of cars bumped and rattled past my camp, scuttering over the cobbles and rills of the road that lead down into the quarry pit. I suppose to set up camp for the night. People milled about talking, socializing, and playing games. These comings and goings would be of little note on the average street corner or public park. But for some reason I’m fascinated by their endeavors, their comings and goings. I’ve been camping on the ground in places like The Pit for years. Camps defined by a critical mass of climbers, skiers, and all manner of wanderers who congregate thus out of thrift, or necessity, and/or the attraction to some communal aura of eminent adventure.

The vehicles have changed with time; naturally there are fewer Volvos and VW Buses. These days, it’s fascinating to see young men in dreadlocks piloting passé family vans, the kind their mothers might just have taken them to kindergarten in. The difference is that these rides have been allowed just a modicum of shabbiness, they are road worn with the proper amount of neglect as befits the respect due a reverse status symbol. Some of them even sport creative and ingenious homemade camper conversions-very Sixties. But, the travelers themselves haven’t changed. By and large they are still young, tanned, and seem to be covered by a veneer of magic road dust. They wear the bright expectant expressions of one always alert for the next awesome thing, the advent of a wondrous experience. I suppose you could say places like these are a Never-Never Land, where each new day the Peter’s and the Wendy’s journey toward “...the second star on the right...”

I expanded my perspective and looked out across the desert to where the Sun had just set over Mt. Tom. The sadly retreating and thinning snows in the fabled ski descent down Elderberry Canyon reminded me that had this even been an average snow year, I would by now be on the Sierra High Route. We’d have been at least four days into the classic traverse of the Sierra Nevada pioneered by David Beck. A ski tour that transects a high crossing between Shepard’s Pass, north of Mt. Williamson on the east, and Wolverton, in Sequoia National Park on the west.

I won’t say that I was cursing what ever fates govern winter storms and the spring snow pack, but I was still obsessing, and lamenting. It’s not that the yield of storms that crossed the Sierra this winter were particularly fecund, but the frequency seemed to be promising, and so my partner John and I planned for an April crossing of the High Route. Usually an auspicious time of relatively stable weather and low avalanche risk, this April followed a March with three weeks of unseasonably warm weather. A high pressure ridge perched over California like a great ugly road-kill eating bird, one who’s carrion stink repelled the steady parade of cleansing late winter and early spring storms that regularly wash over the West Coast from the Gulf of Alaska.

Much to our credit, as the snow conditions on the High Route dwindled, from a snowgasmic crossing of spectacular high passes and cols, to a hike occasionally requiring skis, we made an alternate plan. To go on an equally coveted ski tour that crosses Piute Pass from the Bishop Creek Drainage into Piute Canyon. The route passes south of Humphreys Basin, and then crosses 12,000-foot Alpine Col between Mt. Goethe and Muriel Peak. Then it descends into the upper Evolution Valley, before the route finally ascends over Lamark Col and back to North Lake. Despite our adaptability, at the last minute our back up plan was threatened by a piddley assed little storm with just enough punch to significantly increase the avalanche risk by wind loading the slopes.

I’d proposed to John that we leave the wind loaded snow to settle a few days and give the Piute Pass trip another go, but John had understandably had enough of this winter and moved on to umpiring spring softball. As for me, instead of resigning myself to my classroom seat where I could gaze out the window and on into summer, I was melancholy. I wanted one last ski tour. A trip highlighted by snow-covered peaks with spring corn descents, and I wanted it with the ardor of a young man with a new girlfriend.

Perhaps I really believe good luck favors the foolish given the snow conditions, but the next morning before Sunrise I was off to Happy Jacks for a heart attack breakfast. Once sated with eggs, sausage, and hash browns, side of toast with those grape and strawberry jellies that come in the little one-serving plastic containers, I headed up Highway 168 west of Bishop toward the Piute Pass Trailhead at North Lake. The blustery wind of the day before had died just as capriciously as it had started. The morning was already warming as I loaded lunch, a few extra clothes, and my skis into my pack.

The road was closed at the turn off to North Lake. So, I walked the mile and a half up to the lake, crossing only a few niggardly and utterly hopeless discontinuous patches of snow. I noticed the snow that punctuated the route gradually got deeper as I approached the trailhead, and I was teased on by the continuous cover on the north facing snowfields that I had seen above the brilliant orange of Piute Crags. Fortunately the patches of snow were firm and easily trod without the dreaded “postholing”, so I continued to hike. I cleared the forest and there was no skiable snow, I climbed the rockband below Loch Levin Lake and still no skiable snow.

At last I gained Loch Levin Lake and could begin to ski. Sizing up the potential avalanche paths I began skiing up the valley toward Piute Pass. I’ve crossed many a Sierra Pass but never approached one so... well approachable. It was a leisurely ski, given I was only carrying a daypack with a can of sardines, some crackers, and a few extra clothes. My legs moved with a reassuring if not soothing rhythm. One that imparted a sense of well-being, the kind of succor that accompanies a mother singing, or the memory of cuddling up to be told a story.

The climbing skins on the bottoms of my skis made a soft, almost blowing sound with each measured advance. The kind of subtle whoosh that’s like a heart murmur. I began to wonder if part of the attraction of the ski itself wasn’t the opportunity to immerse myself in the rhythms of ascent and descent, to regain a time when my whole sentient universe was defined by a rhythmic heartbeat- and of course was so much simpler.

I traversed a moraine at the outlet of Piute Lake and found a solitary cabin. In the high altitude light the cedar shake roofing was an almost iridescent orange with a contrasting stain of burnt brown. The light granite masonry of the wall was buttressed to the roof to fortify the structure against the crush of more substantial snows. I skied past the cabin, and as I did I carried away with me the fantasies of a pleasant summer spent there. Fantasies of starlight and wood smoke, soft thick flannel shirts, and thick stew piled on blue enameled plates. I tucked these images away for latter use. Cashed them for future solace, for sustenance as I travel the real world wilderness.

The traverse up the pass was measured and paid for with the currency standard to all high altitude efforts. The coin of the realm is the count of thudding heartbeats and the fullest lung fulls of thin air. At the top of the pass I found an island of rock cleared of snow so that I could lunch there. As I ate Mt. Humphreys and Emmerson stood to the north, while Piute Canyon and Humphreys Basin spread out below me to the west. The snow cover at this altitude was consistent and beckoning. So I was drawn onward, and traversed above Summit Lake over a lateral moraine and then down to Muriel Lake. As I skied over the snow covered lake ice, spectacular Mt. Goethe emerged from behind Muriel Peak. I eventually got my view of Alpine Col and wished desperately that I’d come prepared to climb the col and descend into upper Evolution Valley.

I escaped the siren song of the col only with the promise to return again, and of the hope of a pleasurable ski back to the car. Regaining the pass I stripped the climbing skins from the skis, which made a sizzling sound like two steaks landing on a seasoned iron skillet. I zipped up and tucked in my clothes, then pushed off down the fall line. The descent was intermediate at best, and the snow was delightfully spring like. Snow that defied my best efforts to ski badly- ego snow they call it. I felt like my skis were divining rods that seemed to lead me down as my turns swept over moraines and through swales. I glided past the cabin at Piute Lake, and descended back to Loch Levin Lake with just enough red wax to stride skinless in snug along it’s slushy melting shore.

I’d wanted to ski back along the north facing slopes that had been icy and inhospitable to a ski ascent that morning. So, I followed the outlet of the lake until I found the head of the canyon that the creek had cut for its course through the rock band. The slot canyon was perhaps fifteen-feet at its widest and had trapped more than its fair share of the remaining snow. The Sun was angled just so and the snow was perfect. Though still not steep, I was concerned that the canyon might choke or become clogged with alders and willows. I was willing to pay the price of imprudence and started down, this just looked like too much fun.

I gained speed as I descended the slot, banking my turns off the berms of snow that cambered up against the rock walls. I grinned foolishly and only stopped to turn around and look back. A wren flew past me and I thought of Tinkerbelle. Was I Peter Pan, or Michael? I slid a turn to the right, and the creek canyon opened onto the north facing snow slopes. The remainder of the trip back was just a delightful matter of traversing across the slopes until I could descend again. At last I was at last out of snow and into the aspens. I felt giddy, like Scrooge on Christmas morning, as I took off my skis and boots. I might have looked like Pooh’s Tiger, as I bounded back to the trailhead.

By the time I’d gotten back to the car I was ravenously hungry. I was craving a five-dollar, tear apart, Bar-B-Qed chicken from Von’s and a can of Guinness Draft... well two cans. Heading out of Bishop the smell of the warm chicken permeated the car as I drove north to the hot springs at Mammoth Lakes.

The Sun was just above the horizon as I settled into the steaming hot water of Hilltop Hot Spring. As I uncoiled and began to poach in the spring, there were only the whispers of an occasional breeze, the animated calls of various marsh birds, and the soft buzz of an early hatch of insects to keep me company. I began sipping my first Guinness as the Sun set and cast almost theatrical beams of light through the gunsights and cols that dentate the Sierra horizon. By the time the sky had gone to mauve and then dusty lavender accented by white cirrus plumes I was on my way back to camp to tear into the chicken.

I devoured the remains of the day washed down with a second pint of Guinness, or was it the third, while listening to the bluesy riffs of guitar music from the camper a respectable distance away. I considered the ambient light still cast by the long since set Sun while snow grooming vehicles marched up and down the ant trails of Mammoth Mountain, their headlights like the glowing eyes of prowling rodents. As I sat I wondered if I was bold enough to ski down the Dana Couloir the next day. After bagging up he chicken bones I bagged up myself and the ensuing sleep was unhindered by what might or might not be skied, and certainly without a worldly care- those were a reality away.

III

Awakened again by the predawn light and the unbridled opportunity of a new day, I was quick to cast my gear higglty-pigglty into the back of the family wagon. I bumped and swayed out the dirt path to the Benton Crossing Road, and headed off to breakfast at the Tioga Mobil Mini-Mart. Still a bit bleary with sleep and no morning coffee I scanned the menu through squinty eyes. After some struggle with the choices, I returned without much real deliberation to my original choice, the Alpers smoked trout omelet, stuffed with Monterey Jack Cheese and veggies. Matt Toomey is the Chef and proprietor of this corner of culinary heaven, and he came out to greet his early morning patrons. The conversation did not linger over the food however, since Matt is a skier, and the tour or descent of the day is as essential an accompaniment of the breakfast as a fine wine is to an offered dinner.

Of course, the topic of conversation as we all sipped our coffee was whether or not the Tioga Road would open to the park entrance. One patron said. “I heard it had opened days ago.” Another added. “Tom ran the road yesterday and it was locked.” After a gulp of coffee one person said. “I could strap my skis to my bike and ride up, and who’d stop me.” Then a new contributor to the conversation. “I heard that new guy who bought Tioga Pass Resort passed out keys to all his friends.” One group leader authoritatively stated. “We’re headed over to Mt. Gibbs, before it gets too late.”

Too late indeed, time to hustle before the corn peaks. I threw my lot with the original plan and headed up toward the gate on 120 in the hopes that it would be open. Rounding the turn the gate was locked, and the shoulder of the road was lined with a variety of vehicles ranging from venerable and battered four-wheel drive camper trucks, to more contemporary road trip vehicles. It was a party atmosphere with dogs zigging and zagging, hack circles, and Frisbee. One tan young fellow with dreadlocks and a veneer of magic road dust had three snowboards lying against his car while his posse and he played Grateful Dead Tunes.

I worked the crowd inquiring of the various rumors about the opening of the road in hopes of discerning what truth or fact may lie in the middle. As I feared there was none. As I waited several conspicuously up scale SUVs containing natty fellows, dressed in the uniform of gentrified trout fisherman, opened the gate and quickly closed it behind them again while self-consciously avoiding any eye contact with us. I started to loose hope of skiing Mt. Dana.

Then I came on a cluster of vehicles, and a tribe of young, bellicose, and energetic men. The kind who I would have more likely as not to warily avoid under any other circumstances. They were listening to loud, base driven, intense music and conversing easily in phrases over the din.

I was surprised to find them very engaging. One informed me. “Those motherfuckers aren’t going to open that gate today, that guy at the resort is just letting his friends up.” Another stepped forward to address me and authoritatively said. “Were going up to Virginia Lakes.... YOU SHOULD COME WITH US!” So spoke the putative Chief, with excellent, enthusiastic, and... loud enunciation. He was charismatic. A medium height hombre with unzipped and flapping ski bibs, thick wavy hair, and Charlie Manson eye contact. A look that was intensified by the raccoon in negative effect caused by a dark tan that surrounded pale ovals where sunglasses had shielded his eyes.

All of a sudden I had a tribe, and had been given directions. To follow them to the top of Conway Summit, and to turn left to Virginia Lakes, and to park as close to the lake as I could. We convoyed north on 395, and up Conway Grade. Just beyond the grade, as ordered I turned left at Virginia Lakes. As I drove up the road the high sage desert gave way to snow and views of more accessible and quality backcountry skiing opportunities than I had seen away from a lift served area. Before the cut snow banks on either side of the road obscured my view I’d seen at least five peaks offering terrain from backcountry-moderate to outrageous, with plus or minus pucker points.

The snowplow had cleared the road shoulders and the parking lot at Virginia Lake. There were vehicles parked everywhere. I eked out an almost parking space. The rest of the tribe was somewhere else. As I had circled around the parking lot by the lake there were fisherman everywhere with their lines dropped through holes in the ice covered lake. I didn’t even know people ice fished in California, but there they were. Snowmobiles zoomed here and there careening across the frozen lake ferrying fisherman, coolers, Bar-B-Q’s, lawn chairs, and babushka wearing Michelin people presumably too large to travel under their own power.

In contrast there were also skiers and snowboarders, lots of skiers. Most of the randonee persuasion. They were either gearing up or heading out. Processions could already be seen skinning up the various bowls. The whole scene was a weird cataclysm of Minnesota ice fishing meets Chamonix. The tribe caught up with me just as I was shouldering my daypack. We stopped to talk, well I listened. They were working themselves in to froth over a choice line that looked ass if it just fell off of Red Mountain.

The tribe talked, I looked at the line. I listened some more, and looked at the line again. Then I looked at the tribe. It was troubling. They were all twenty-something, and really fit. They also carried way fat randonee skis and were clearly fearless. A combination far more disconcerting than the line its self. We all parted in an agreeable suit-yourself sort of way. I decided to head off to climb the less imposing and lower altitude South Peak.

I was happy that the morning was still cool and the snow firm, perfect for skinning. To avoid overheating I dressed light but was soon unzipping, venting and delayering. In no time my body went from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism. As I leaned into the grade I gradually became lost in the hypnotic kettledrum of my heart. I was exhaling air like a subway car pistoning air into a station. I went from redlining to the verge of flat lining and stopped to rest. I wouldn’t have been so frenzied except that spring snow can go to corn in a mountain heartbeat making the skinning even more arduous, and just as quickly turn to Cream of Wheat.

From my rest I could see a party of three rapidly gaining on me, two closer together than the third. At first I almost thought them separate. Of the closer pair one was a very tan shirtless man with an enormously muscular chest who was casually speaking in Italian to his companion. The freak was, as I said casually speaking. As in, with the comfortable unlabored effort of a man who could just as easily be sitting, nonchalantly reclined, and sipping a martini in an easy chair at sea-level. As I caught myself gawking, I heard the third partner blurt out with a decently labored dyspnea, colored by a distinct Scots bur. “What are you two jabbering on about?”

Then the half man-half outbuilding said in English, with a Spanish accent, and in an amused sort of way. “You know I also speak English, and we were just talking about technique.” Soon my position was over run by the Spaniard and his distractingly beautiful Italian girlfriend, as well as the fifth wheel Scot. As it turned out the Italian and Spaniard were from the Bay Area. While the Scot was currently living in the Sovereign Republic of Berkeley. All three were avid backcountry skiers and had the sexiest and newest randonee gear, from avalanche beacons to ski crampons.

We all began to companionably resume the ascent chatting about mutual interests. In a foolish, and no doubt testosterone impaired fit of competitiveness I was loath to lag behind or let the exertion show too much. Then the Spaniard lapsed into Italian with his girlfriend, which left the Scot and I to keep each other company. Which was quite pleasant until she asked if I was camping at the lake that night, in a less than casual sort of way. Happily married and increasingly uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation, two sequential events conspired to allow me a graceful and dignified exit. First the snow suddenly softened and my skins began to slip, so, second, I had to ascent the last bit to the summit of South Peak on foot, alone, and at a much more comfortable pace.

Summiting was like climbing the stairs to the top of the slide at the water park, except that it took three hours to summit this slide. But like a giant waterslide you just have to linger a moment, take in the view, savor the coming descent. Unlike a waterslide you have to pick your line, and to varying degrees allow you heart to drop back down into your chest. Sometimes you have to apply various meditative and calming techniques that have the effect of jumping up and down on your heart to get it from your throat back into your chest. But not his time.

The descent from the eastside of South Peak was rated as Class 3, or had it been at a ski area an advanced run. I pushed off of the summit and at once felt my legs unweight as they fell away from my hips. I dropped into a genuflected, knee dropped fore and aft position without any conscious awareness. As I approached my turn I raised up slightly, planted my downhill ski pole, and again dropped my knees like a penitent addressing the Crucifix over an alter. The skis obeyed and carved their arc. Perfect spring corn snow cradled the skis and again defied my best efforts at bad telemark technique. After five or so repetitions I slid into a stop and gasped for air; I had forgotten to breathe.

The rest of the descent was a wonderful, free-falling rhythmic dance. Three hours up, 45-minutes down, and before I knew it I was spreading humus and tuna on a piece of pita bread for lunch. As I sat eating I watched as randonee skiers traversed the ridge west of the summit of South Peak, they paused at the top of the Class 4/5 descent shoots. Then they would drop down the fall line, carving serpentine lines like a sidewinder wending through the desert sand.

I was pulled out of my trance by a booming, “How was your ski?” The tribe had returned and the chief was in the lead. He swaggered just a bit, clomping along in his ski boots, skis waving over his shoulder like a standard. His legion marched in step, a cadre formed to the flanks of Cesar. They all looked like they had just pushed themselves away from the best meal of their lives. I replied. “Never skied better.” With a satisfied grin. The chief reassured me. “Yeah, this place never fails to please.” Then they marched past.

Epilog

I was on my way home driving south on Highway 395. A well-worn path over the years, it’s become my “recreation highway”. Even though I’d worked a season with the Forest Service and lived in Lone Pine I can’t really say it was work. Real work has to involve some degree of mental pain and suffering, and recreation is never that. It may involve physically arduous activity, but by and large it’s a good kind of hurt. And, if you’ve done it right you gain some kind of perspective, learn something new about yourself, take a fresh perspective.

I was wondering what I had taken away from this trip just as I was driving past the turn off for Manzanar, the site of the one of the ten Relocation Camps where Japanese-American citizens were interned during World War II. It to me occurred that for the past twenty-years I’ve interacted with this place on some level. When I lived in Lone Pine, Manzanar was a place to go on hot summer afternoons after work. You could skinny dip in the reservoir filled by George Creek and drink beer. Lots of afternoons I’d floated on a cheap airmatress that I’d bought from Garner’s Hardware, under the relentless Sun of the Owens Valley. I had gazed off at Mt. Williamson and been refreshed by the snowmelt off of it’s flanks as I lay lost in idle thoughts.

In retrospect, I was aware of the guard shacks that marked the entrance, the granite block ones with the oriental motif in their design that marked the turn off to my swimming hole. I was aware of the grid of roads that I drove over to get to the reservoir for a swim. A grid that I had once wandered around in until I got too hot, and that didn’t take too long. I remember the foundations, I remember the outline of garden beds, I even remember the names in the mortar written in English and Asian ideograms. I remember being aware that people of Japanese ancestry had been “relocated” here during my mother’s and my father’s war. That’s all that I remembered, and all that I remember caring.

How that perspective changed over the years I don’t know. It wasn’t that I ever believed that Executive Order 9066 was morally or ethically right, anymore than I could understand my mother’s irrational suspicion and dislike of Asian people. Nor did I connect with the stories she told of dancing at the USO with young men. Some of them before they shipped out to the Pacific Theater from the troop disembarkation piers at Fort Mason in San Francisco; the so call pier of tears. Many men she vividly remembered, and just as vividly remembered that didn’t come home.

But, over the years my perspective did change. It changed as I learned about life in the relocation camps. Learned from the exhibits in the Eastern Sierra Museum, in Independence. Learned from documentaries on life at Manzanar form Huell Hawser’s California Gold. Saw the camps through the eyes of artists like Chiura Obata. Whose watercolors of the Sierra evoked an artistically new and fresh perspective on the Range of Light, but later told of his bleak internment at the Relocation Camp at Topaz Lake Nevada. My perspective changed as my children grew, it changed each time we’d drive past the site of the Relocation Camp at Manzanar, and with each retelling the story matured.

It started out with stories of a summer jobs and the superficial perspective of youth, of swimming holes on hot July afternoons. Then as the kids got older, the stories broadened with a perspective widened by awareness. It became a story as seen through the lens of my mother, and her bitterness over wartime loss; the recollections my one time boss, who’s parents lost their property after they were relocated from their rice farm near Sacramento; from Huell Hawser’s interviews with the people who’s names are inscribed in the mortar of Manzanar. The same names inscribed in the mortar that rimmed the perimeter of that reservoir that I swam in.

In 1992 Manzanar became a National Historic Site, and came under the auspices of the National Park Service. Since then I’ve seen greater visitation at the site, restoration of the grounds, some of the camps original buildings have even been relocated back to the location and restored. The camp’s auditorium, which was for many years used by the County of Inyo as a maintenance facility, was even restored and opened to the public as a visitor center and museum.

Life in the Japanese Relocation Camps isn’t my story, it wasn’t my experience. But it’s not for only one peoples experience that we build monuments. It’s for perspective that we build them. It’s because of the experiences of the ethnically Japanese citizens of the United States of America, who’s civil liberties as guaranteed under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were suspended at the convenience of a paranoid nation at war. It’s because of the depth and intensity of pain, fear, desperation, and loss experienced by a nation at war that we build these monuments. It also so we do not forget that as a nation we once too easily accepted an Executive Decision that caused “liberty and justice for all” to be deprived, and selectively neglected. Monuments give us perspective, remind us of our direction at times when day to day maters obscure that view, are blocked by the chalkboards of life. Monuments allow perspicacity to triumph over chalkboards, but then so do adventure.

May 2004