Found & Lost

Trundling along the Interstate, chomping baby carrots, dried cranberries, tangerines, crackers, salami slices, pistachios, raw string beans, and whatever other vaguely healthy snacks this Dad could find at Fred Meyer; after another huge breakfast at Golden Touch, and one last visit this trip holding baby James; with a random set of music competing with the movie, Six Days, Seven Nights playing on the computer; our rather silly little group of four (one senior, three kids) took our act south tonight.

We are a strange crew, for sure, this selection of Weirs. When I add up the ages of my travel mates, I find they are almost precisely half my biological age, collectively. Why is it that some parental commands are so blithely ignored? Here is my current top ten:

* Brush your teeth.
* Don't hit.
* Quiet down, please.
* Don't jump on the bed.
* Look both ways first.
* It's time for dinner.
* Did you finish your homework?
* Time to stop playing Runescape.
* Turn off the TV. It's bedtime.
* Please clean up this mess now.

I'll spare you my expanded list of 50 others...

On the other hand, this youthful crew can be useful in numerous ways. They have a fabulous memory to remember details, whereas I can barely remember where I parked the car. Thus, as we exited I-5, our driving done for this leg of the journey, one pointed out the route for me to follow; another had memorized my license plate number (required at sign-in at the hotel they guided me back to); the third remembered (and requested) that we again get room #310.

Mind you, the last night we stayed here was around two months ago, and we've all traveled to a bunch of places in the intervening weeks.

In fact, the last night we stayed here, and ate dinner at the spaghetti place (which they guided me back to again tonight), as well as the cafe where we will no doubt have breakfast tomorrow, was the same wintry night that James Kim and his family disappeared here in the mountains of Oregon.

Their ordeal could not be far from my mind tonight as I retraced the main route they, and we, took that stormy night. As I read through the official law enforcement report
excerpted here , again today, I again became curious how this extremely intelligent couple made such a terrible decision that night late last November.

Kati Kim had gone to college in Eugene, and she knew the area. The couple had chosen a cool resort on the coast to visit that night as the break in the long drive south to home, which is the same as our home, San Francisco.

How did they miss the brightly lit turnoff for Highway 42, which was open that night to the coast and the best route to where they wanted to go? On a clear night, such as tonight, it is so lit up and obvious as to be almost comical. There is a huge red "Love's" sign at the turnoff that almost forces your eyes to consider going for it.

Even supposing you missed this exit, the route soon begins to ascend into a far less benign environment. As you make your way skyward toward Grant's Pass and the Rogue River region, it is absolutely clear that you have entered an extremely serious wilderness area.

Warning signs that this is "snow country" are everywhere. The trucks go slow going up and have emergency "runaway" gravel pits on the down slopes. Few lights twinkle in the surrounding peaks, the road winds and twists its way over a landscape that seems tethered to a giant serpent's slippery back.

I am not a particularly fearful guy, having grown up in the woods, partially, and always having loved camping, hiking, and seeking out secret wild places, but I would never have risked driving off into this part of Oregon that particular night.

But, of course, the Kims were not fools. They were blinded, as was I, that night, by the road conditions. When it wasn't raining it was snowing. Visibility never seemed greater than ten feet or so. James Kim, like me, probably never lifted his eyes from the red tail lights in front of him, because that was the only way we could be sure we were still on the road, and this is I-5 I am talking about, the main artery in this region.

I'm quite sure the Kims never saw the Route 42 turnoff signs, or the Love's sign, because I know I didn't.

And they could not have known how forbidding the landscape was at the point where they did turn off, for the same reason -- low visibility.

I'll have more to say about this case in the future.

***

I've been reading the memoir of a killer, though he does not admit his crimes. Oh, he admits doing many nasty things and he admits his intent to murder, but he deftly sidesteps what many of us know he did, 32 years and two months ago (not to mention on other occasions as well.)

He's quite the star these days, speaking here and there, and being honored by those who would forgive unspeakable crimes in the name of a cause, albeit a romantic, politically correct cause.

But this man has revealed too much in his book. As I read it, I shudder with the knowledge that these are the words of the man who very probably murdered my friend's mother. And he no doubts think he has gotten clean away with it.

But he's not in the clear. There is no statute on murder, my friend. You were a fugitive once, and in your book you describe how awful that experience was for you. That is a pity, because the forces are gathering to force you underground once again. Have you been watching your back?

Maybe it's time to do so.

***

Two have coughs and sore throats; one has ringworm, or a good imitation. One is so unselfconscious that he could wear my extra-large Michigan sweatshirt into the restaurant tonight without a care how he appeared to others. Of course, he is also one with a Russian Red Army Cossack Hat over his bright red curls. The checkout clerks and waitresses always struggle as they look, first at him, then me. "Ah, Harry Potter, right?"

Another struts like the macho athlete he in fact is, but he has an angelic face, too sweet to be tough, and his tenderness will always win out over toughness.

The littlest one is tough as nails, and a bit of a daredevil, too. "I'm a risky person," she explains, "but I like to be safe."

That old guy in the mix would be me, but I don't honestly know how I got to be this age. Inside, I'm still a young guy, checking out the women, dreaming my own fantasies, strutting my own aging stuff.

If our true age is what we think we are, I'm what -- eleven?

Yep, we are a cluster of strangelings on the road out here. But we fit together pretty well, like a gang. As the second oldest among us blurted out in a moment of weakness today, "You know, if I have to be stuck in a car for hours with any three other people, I have to say I'm glad it's you three guys."

For a moment (and only a moment, because a fight soon broke out in the backseat), I felt maybe I was for once in my life at exactly the right place with the right people at the right time.

Enough. Whichever one of them turns out to be the writer will tell this entire story much better than I can, many years from now. After all, I may have twice the years past on them, but they more than ten times the years future on me (do the math). So, I am not the main storyteller here, but rather a character, probably a minor one, in the stories to come.

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