Raven Jake Dawes

Goodbye, WKNTNKA

Now it was with a heavy heart that I bid farewell to the scrap iron in the driveway this week. Our landlord wanted it gone and well, it was time. So we called Pick Your Part and they took the Camry we had about 2 grand invested in - someone's gonna like the new transmission, new brakes and new power windows on that wreck - my F250 that I bought to replace the F150 and only lasted about two months before the transmission blew, but worst of all was losing my white buffalo, WKNTNKA. And the '72 Arrow camper.

Especially the camper. Man, did we have some good times in that thing. I'm not sure it is replaceable. I got it from my friend Jim, a guy I was working with, in about 2002 or so.  He and his wife had gotten a new motor home and just wanted it gone. It was immaculate. We took it on our honeymoon and a bunch of adventures since. Of course, city living hasn't been kind to it and its suffered all kinds of dings and dents since then.

I always picture it as looking just like this, though. Here's Jane and me, sittin' on the tailgate on our honeymoon back in 2003. We were doing a mostly-Arizona trip and ended up camping in a field near Walnut Canyon National Monument. It was an amazing journey, full of new discoveries and happy memories.

Now the truck it's sitting on, WKNTNKA, has had some issues, and they turned out to be terminal. Our truck doctor, Gazo, has kept it going years past its natural life expectancy, but on the last trip to see if the radiator could be replaced, he discovered that it also needed a new water pump and the engine was mostly shot.  It crapped out on me about 1,000 yards from home and I had to push it the final block. And shout out to the anonymous kids on the bus bench for helping out. I hate to admit it, but it helped put closure on a very sad day.

So now we've got a big ol' empty driveway, 'cept for my drum trailer, but now that the shock's wearin' off, there are a few perks. For one, we can now get to the woodpile. And I'm feeling like the back yard could use some raised beds...

Farewell, WKNTNKA/Arrow. Sometimes you just need to clear out some old stuff to make room for some new stuff. I can't wait.

Insider Magazine Article

Here's a special preview of my upcoming profile in Insider Magazine. Thanks, Matt!

Open publication - Free publishing - More blog

Rodent Jihad

That's right, folks - due to recent terrorist activity, I've been forced to declare a holy war against yard rodents, specifically ground squirrels. Here we are at week six and three of the corn plants were sucked underground, some of the beans have been decimated and all of the young squash have been chewed right off the vine. The tomatilos are recovering from the grasshopper predation, the radishes are coming along nicely and there are lots of tomato blossoms, but no little tomatoesyet. In the meantime, ground squirrels have overrun the yard, setting up a base of operation under the woodpile. While we were sitting out by the garden the other afternoon, a rat ran out of the garage and along the fence.

Now I've got no great love of rats, but they freak Jane right out. She sees them as scuttling plague vectors, so it doesn't take much to get her goin'. Ironically, we were reading Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitantsby Robert Sullivan at the time. It's quite a page-turner. I thought Jane might be a little too fragile to handle a whole book about rats, but she seems to be coping nicely. On the other hand, those rats better watch out. Same with the gophers and the ground squirrels. Y'all mind your own business, and we'll get along fine. Mess with my garden, and suffer primate wrath.

The Loretto Chapel 2004

Folks, I've been trying to get a little more organized, gather some of those digital files that have gotten all over the place these past years, and I can assure you that it's been a rich voyage of discovery. For example, I just came upon some pics that we took at the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe in 2004. Here's the legend:

In 1872, Jean-Baptiste Lamy the Bishop of the Santa Fe Archdiocese, commissioned the building of a convent chapel to be named Our Lady of Light Chapel, which would be in the care of the Sisters of Loretto. The chapel was designed by a French architect, Antoine Mouly, in the Gothic Revival style. Although it was built on a much smaller scale, the chapel bears an obvious resemblance to the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.

Two mysteries surround the spiral staircase in the Loretto Chapel: the identity of its builder and the physics of its construction.

When the Loretto Chapel was completed in 1878, there was no way to access the choir loft twenty-two feet above. Carpenters were called in to address the problem, but they all concluded access to the loft would have to be via ladder as a staircase would interfere with the interior space of the small Chapel.

Legend says that to find a solution to the seating problem, the Sisters of the Chapel made a novena to St. Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters. On the ninth and final day of prayer, a man appeared at the Chapel with a donkey and a toolbox looking for work. Months later, the elegant circular staircase was completed, and the carpenter disappeared without pay or thanks. After searching for the man (an ad even ran in the local newspaper) and finding no trace of him, some concluded that he was St. Joseph himself, having come in answer to the sisters' prayers.

The stairway's carpenter, whoever he was, built a magnificent structure. The design was innovative for the time and some of the design considerations still perplex experts today.

The staircase has two 360 degree turns and no visible means of support. Also, it is said that the staircase was built without nails—only wooden pegs. Questions also surround the number of stair risers relative to the height of the choir loft and about the types of wood and other materials used in the stairway's construction.

Over the years many have flocked to the Loretto Chapel to see the Miraculous Staircase. The staircase has been the subject of many articles, TV specials, and movies including "Unsolved Mysteries" and the television movie titled "The Staircase."

And here's a possible id on the builder:

The subject of rumor and legend for over a hundred years, the riddle of the carpenter's identity was claimed to have been solved in the late 1990s by Mary Jean Straw Cook, author of Loretto: The Sisters and Their Santa Fe Chapel (2002: Museum of New Mexico Press). The author claims the builder's name was Francois-Jean "Frenchy" Rochas, an expert woodworker who emigrated from France and arrived in Santa Fe around the time the staircase was built, and who may have known or at least met another French contractor who worked on the Chapel. However, at only 43 years of age, Rochas met with a violent death in December 1894. Unidentified attackers had shot him and left him to die alone in his small cottage and he was found dead in 1895. Cook found a January 5, 1895, death notice in The New Mexican which named Rochas as the builder of "the handsome staircase in the Loretto chapel". Frenchman Quintus Monier that told of Francois-Jean Rochas's death at Dog Canyon, near today's Alamogordo.

Now I don't know if Frenchy Rochas was the builder of the staircase or not, maybe it was St. Joseph - but whoever did it was a visionary. I've sure never seen anything like it. It must've looked even better in the days when it was assumed that God would keep the choir safe, negating the need for a handrail. See how one miscreant can ruin it for everybody? Anyway, that last picture is an interpretation of what it might have looked like pre-rail. I just thought those UFOs or Angels or whatever they are made the photo a little more fun.

The Loretto Chapel
207 Old Santa Fe Trail
Santa Fe, NM 87501
(505) 982-0092

LA Heritage Day April 29

Just a reminder y'all - come out to LA Heritage Day on Olvera Street on April 29.  I'll be there with the Friends of the Michael White Adobe and with the Old Spanish Trail Association.

Over here at the left, I'm surveying the wreckage from the San Francisquito Dam disaster, and if you don't know what that was, you'd better come to Heritage Day and see if one of the 200 member organizations can help you out.

http://laheritage.blogspot.com/

Upcoming Events

Folks, I'm off to visit Tecopa Tom for a couple o' days while attending the Sierra Club conference and the Old Spanish Trail Rendezvous. Here are the Facebook event pages: http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/187301418036211/

http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/330052833706236/

Should be a pretty great weekend, since everything in Tecopa / Shoshone is pretty great. (As you can see I'm waiting for Jane to finish her business, as usual. Time makes a man patient.) So if y'all are in Death Valley, come see me at the potluck on Saturday night. If you want to make a weekend of it, drive to Baker, get yourself some alien jerky, then go up that alley behind the Mad Greek for about an hour or so and you'll be in Shoshone.

Next up -  LA Heritage Day 2012 is on Sunday, April 29th from 10am to 4pm.

This year's event will take place at El Pueblo Historic Monument along
the historic Plaza in partnership with them. This is great because it
is near Olvera Street and Union Station, so it has many public transit
& parking options. It also allows for a number of museums & LAHA
members  to see increased patronage and exposure. (See the site here:
http://elpueblo.lacity.org)

I don't know if we'll be representing the Old Spanish Trail Association or the Michael White Adobe or both, but the LA Heritage Alliance has about 250 member organization from folks who are preserving buildings, to the culinary historians and the citrus industry historians to different museums, so there really is something for everyone. 

Old Spanish Trail Meeting on Saturday

Folks I'm a great believer in alternative energy, but I'm not a believer in giving huge tracts of pristine desert to power companies so they can ruin public land for a profit. This is becoming a huge problem all over the California desert and we're going to have to band together to do something about it.

Now some of the land that's supposed to get windmills and solar panels all over it is part of the Old Spanish Trail, specifically the Tecopa part of the trail, so I'm going to be at this meeting, and if you're going too, please RSVP with Paul McClure.

Here's the forwarded message:

Please join us on Saturday, January 21, 2012, for a very important meeting!

An OSTA Alert

Old Spanish Trail Faces New Threats in the Mojave. What Can OSTA Do? Help Us Find the Answers… Proposed solar energy and wind farm projects endanger the Old Spanish Trail corridor in some of the most sensitive and unspoiled areas of the Mojave. The Hidden Hills solar plant and the Silurian Valley wind farm would both require massive grading and erect huge structures (twin 750-foot high towers at Hidden Hills; more than 120 windmills from 250-400 feet high along Highway 127 in the scenic Silurian Valley near Death Valley). Both projects would impinge on the Trail and destroy unspoiled desert vistas.

Join with Tecopa chapter leaders and OSTA members from California and Nevada on January 21, 2012, to plan an effective response that makes sure the Trail is protected now that the U.S. is locating renewable energy in the desert. The Tecopa chapter is established with regulatory agencies as an “Intervener” and is actively engaged on these two projects, as well as ongoing research on the Trail. This is your chance to become involved. 

When: Sat., Jan. 21, 12:00 noon to 3:00 PM

Where: Gallery auditorium of the Workman-Temple Homestead Museum 
15415 East Don Julian RoadCity of Industry, California 91745 
Phone: (626) 968-8492 
Web: www.homesteadmuseum.org
Who: All OSTA members in CA and NV

Refreshments: 
Sandwiches and drinks will be available
Cost: Free to OSTA members and guests with advance registration 

The Program

OSTA’s Jan. 21 Strategy and Action Planning session will:

Review proposed projects and evaluate possible mitigation measures 

Consider proposing efficient alternatives, such as placing power generation where the population is. This can be achieved by installing rooftop on industrial and large government buildings, warehouses, and parking lots in our cities. 

Plan and organize OSTA monitoring and participation in the regulatory and environmental proceedings for each project, contacting elected officials, and coordinating with other historical and environmental organizations 

Offer you the chance to get involved with ongoing OSTA projects, including: 

Field location and recording of the 1829-1848 mule trace being conducted by the Tecopa chapter 

Archival research to document the OST in CA and NV 
Preparation of OSTA field and archival data for Geographical Information Systems (GIS) presentations. 

Register for this free event by return e-mail to Paul McClure (espabloaqui@verizon.net) or by telephone at 909-305-0505. Please include names of all in your party who plan to attend. This is so that we can prepare an attendance list and order the right amount of food and drinks.

Garth and God's Way Love

Here's a video created by Mary Lee Weir about Garth Bowles, the founder of God's Way Love in  Pioneertown/Rimrock. We were out there visiting him in his beautiful boulder garden a couple of weeks back with Barb & Rob Harris, Greg Bishop and a representative sample of the Kook Out gang - just Majik.

The ponds have some ice on them now, but everyone got around the fire for some good old-fashioned hospitality. And when the full moon rose - well, it was just one of those moments that made you glad to be out in the desert under a starry night sky, far away from "civilization."

 

 

Driftwood Coffee Table & Revivals

Y'all, it's my birthday and also the birthday of my blog. We got this started in 2007 with some poetry and some travelin,' went through a traumatic transition with hosts, and four years on I think that me and the blog are doin' fine. Havin' adventures. Writing more songs and less poetry (though I guess that comes from the same place) doin' more research and community activism than travelin,' though I guess that comes from the same place too.

Now it just so happens that we were out in the desert at the beginning of the week and naturally, finding ourselves in Cathedral City, decided to see what was on offer at Revivals. Turns out it was my old coffee table from high school.

Now you're probably thinkin' "Jake, you're a pretty observant guy, but if you think that's your old coffee table, you're higher than Mir." Not so, amigo. Every piece of driftwood is different, and I spent hours starin' at that thing. I know my table. We parted company many years ago, back in Torrance - maybe North Hollywood; sometime near the end of my beach period.

Anyway, the table - originally $350, marked down to $175 -  has been sold, and I guess it was just my fate to see it one last time before it left the shop. I sure wish it were my fate to meet a new winning lottery ticket instead of a piece of driftwood that's been stalking me for near to 40 years now, but that's the thing about fate - you don't get to pick. That's left to three blind hags with some string and a pair of scissors (much obliged, ladies). So new owner - you'd be wise to trick out that table with some Japanese fishing floats, some sparkly lights and candles. Girls love that stuff. At least they did in high school. Thanks for contributing $175 to help fight AIDS, and I hope you have as much fun starin' at that table as I did.

Revivals Thrift Store

68 California 111
Cathedral City
(760) 969-5747

Rock Corral

Y'all Jane and I were off having adventures with Barb and Rob Harris over the weekend, and we ended up at Rock Corral in Johnson Valley, a box canyon the cattlemen used to use when they drove herds down from Big Bear. The Rock Corral is believed to have been built by two brothers named Swett in the 1880s or maybe it wasn't til 1905, according to a reference in The Sun Runner. Willie Boy had a sip from the spring further on up the hill, in the course of the famous manhunt. At any rate, it's a mighty historical place to take a bath, and if somethin' isn't done about it, the whole area's gonna be covered in windmills, ruining this pristine desert forever.