The Diary Of A Dogface

August 12, 1970 Dear Hippy Chick,      You're not going to believe what I saw last night, or maybe you will if your blond boyfriend affected you that first time you were out here.      I was lying out on the iris watching the thin stretch of night sky between the trees lining the gorge. The Milky Way was splayed across that gap like it was splattered on with silver glow-in-the-dark paint. Cutting across the swath of stars were five brighter ones in the shape of an M from my vantage, a W if flipped. I was thinking I'd never forget that stunning display when roused by loud slurps. I turned my head toward the sound and there, squatting at water's edge, was a dark form.       It must have sensed me because it froze, hands still cupped below chin. Then it swiveled toward my rock, eyes glowing yellowish in the faint starlight. I'm not exactly sure what happened next since I rolled in and splashed away. I might be imagining it, but I can see th...

  August 5, 1970 Dear Mom,      I'm breaking the silence of my concealment because I need your help. Please don't tell Dad.      Yesterday afternoon a red-bearded guy arrived at the campsite with his young child. The boy played in the swimming hole for an hour while the man threw out a fishing line, all the while smiling at his son's aquarian antics. When the sun dropped below the western rim of the gorge they started a fire and cooked up three little brookies. It was dark when they rinsed their plates in the creek and crawled into a little tent.       I watched from my rock ledge behind the rhododendrons until the flashlight went dark and their soft voices faded. Then I snuck down in the moonless night to see what they'd left at the firepit, my best source of supplies on this sojourn. I was squatting beside the smoldering ashes opposite their shelter when the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I turned to find wild eyes shi...

July 29, 1970     Dear Hippy Chick,      Today I heard a little gasp as you were swimming toward the rock at the center of Cat Eye. Your two followers never caught on, but I'm happy that you now know about the copperhead who suns out there. I've no doubt your henchmen would smash the snake and her three bulges. You just swam downstream to the next boulder below the hole. Predictably and thankfully, the guys followed.      If I could show myself I would have warned you that I've seen the snakes coiled around each other in the fissure of your new slab. It's not just the stench of the stream that made one of your minions hold his nose when he climbed up there. I've dropped a few fingerlings into that crack when my willow branch seine snagged one too small to fry - you know, share and share alike!      I don't dare show myself to your lackeys because of the shape I'm in after a month out here. At Lexington High School I always kept...

July 22, 1970 Dear Hippy Chick,      It's Sunday night again and your absence leaves me lonely even when I know you might not be coming back.  If you knew I existed you might be wondering how a man like me got to be in this remote place. The short answer I'd share with your guy friends is that I hitchhiked west on a moonless night to where the highway ended.      The long answer for my Sunday night missive to you is not so straight. The seven-mile trek I took down from Big Draft after I-64 West ended at White Sulphur had two tough hill climbs and some unmarked intersecting trails. Only a backpacker with good map and compass or a veteran barefoot walker like me would come that way to this remote swimming hole.        I've heard the day trippers prattle on about two other trails. Three teenagers bragged about wading rushing springs and scrambling through downed trees on their four-mile hike from a place called Blue Bend. They moa...

July 15, 1970 Dear Hippy Chick,      Thank you for dropping this book on your way out of Cat Eye. Maybe my writing in your cardboard journal with a peace sign looped on the cover will make it a little less lonely at my summer hideout. I thought I was enjoying this sojourn until I caught the reddish gleam in your long brown hair against a lovely back. You were sitting cross-legged on the tumbled boulder that forms the iris of the blue hole at a bend of Anthony Creek. I was tucked up behind the rhododendrons that hide my rock overhang on the ledge that made this creek carve out a deep pool.      I love the rainbow colors circling the bird foot you drew on the cover of this book, but did you know this symbol first stood for nuclear disarmament? Same difference as peace, I suppose, but I wish we could have discussed this beside the fire you and your friends left smoldering beside my natural bathtub. I'd tell you that it was an aversion to fighting that drove me...