Mendocino National Forest

"I'm never going to die."

$10 scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy at the Grange every other Sunday, so we pull in. Bill’s already at the counter. The ladies in the kitchen inform us we’ve gotta salt our own gravy. They started making it from scratch but received complaints it was too salty. Salt your own, they told us. And tell us if you like it. Bill turns towards us and says, “They say you shrink when you get older. Either that’s a lie or I’m never going to die.” He’s 89 and 6’10”. We shake his hand. Later Romie says she nearly drowned in his palms, “just like Bill Russell.” We all get scrambled eggs. We sit down with Bill, an unconscious obligation after he broached the subject of his own demise. Nicho gets tight around strangers, starts getting all pious over his eggs. He mutters, “feels like I’m back in Kinston.” Bill tells us he has a grandson. He’s on the rodeo team at Cal Poly. He got bucked once and said “that’s enough of the rough stuff,” so now he just ropes. Bill and his wife head to Vegas for the national rodeo championships every year: “I don’t know why, we just do. It’s a tradition I guess.” He tells us he moved out here in the ‘60s, and was a senior technician at Chevron. He soon quit to try his hand at business. He bought the Stonyford General Store. Today the store sells plastic travel mugs for $7, free coffee thrown-in, that read, “it’s not the end of the world but you can see it from here.” Now Bill drives trucks. We are flabbergasted. “You drive trucks?” So he claims. All up and down Northern California. Mt. Shasta, Sacramento, Redding, Klamath. Bill returns to rodeos. We ask about Snow Mountain. He says the road’s washed out and the forest’s burned through. “The Forest Service isn’t too popular in these parts.” He instructs us to ask in the General Store. We’ve about finished our breakfast. Nicho and I are mopping up the last of the gravy that Romie has long abandoned. We shake Bill’s hand again and clear his plate. The ladies are pleased we enjoyed their cooking. “Every other weekend,” they remind us, “spread the word.” Romie drives to Bill’s old store. A sermon is playing on a hand-held radio. The attendant, an elderly white woman, listens intently. I peruse the literature they’ve got on a small display case near the counter. Among the religious tracts are Charlie Kirk’s thoughts on the World Economic Forum. The day before, the ranch we’re camping on handed us a sheet of quiet hours and trash cleanup instructions appended to the ABC’s of salvation through Jesus. I come to the counter. There’s a change jar with “donations for Ukraine” written on it. A small flag too. I interrupt the sermon and she hands me a map. Tells us Bill was right. The road up to Stonyford is washed out but we can try a back entrance to the Wilderness area. We set off and nothing goes right. We’re taking Romie’s leased Mazda off-roading. The GPS is going squirrelly. Everything is perfect. We abandon the car alongside an alpine meadow created by the proscribed burn gone wrong. It’s all tree bones and wild flowers. We’re here to hike so we do. Bushwhacking the remnant of a trail, we crest a ridge. Dirt bikes whine through the valley. I look at my sister and brother and see they’re grown.