The Seedling by Bill Poindexter

 

the seedling

By Bill Poindexter

 A story inspired by Iohan, (Yo-Han), the bike wanderer and a man with kind dark eyes.

 

Far away, long ago, there was a man who traveled the Earth on his bicycle and his name was, Iohan. He was of average height, had dark hair and dark eyes that looked very kind. All he wanted to do was explore the Earth and see what it was like from atop a bike.

 To earn a living he took odd jobs, one of the jobs was planting trees in an area where old trees had been cut down.  He said he enjoyed planting trees in the summer. He would walk all over Canada planting seedlings to fund his bicycling adventures. One of the seedlings grew into a fine very tall tree.

 The young tree grew and grew. Enjoying the fresh mountain air in which it lived, loving the mild summers, colorful autumns, fresh new springs and even its harsh cold winters when it mostly slept. Even relished playing with the wind, feeling the sun, and drinking the life giving rains, and it never felt alone as there were many birds and insects, and squirrels which made their home on the tree. The tree was very happy.

 One day the tree was cut down and was sad and scared. But the tree had a soul that was spread throughout its trunk, limbs, branches, roots and the tree, no matter where it was, always had a connection to the Earth for the tree had roots underground into the soul of the Earth and the tree would always be a part of the Earth, forever.

 The tree was turned into many things: paper and pencils for school children, comfortable chairs, a table or two, a park bench, and finally some paper that was placed into blank journals. It liked the park bench best because it felt loved as people would sit and talk on it and eat their lunches, children would climb all over it, pets slept next to it, and sometimes at night someone might even sleep on it. All was wonderful.

 But the tree had no water since it was not in the ground and it became old and brittle and there was a crack in one of its legs. One day it was removed from the park and placed in a small shed. The tree became very lonely for there was no one around besides the spiders and their webs, and the sparrows that lived in the rafters and the mice that lived underneath the floor.

 One day the door to the shed opened and an old man, with gray hair and a beard came in and sat on the bench that was the tree. The tree was happy. The man slowly ran his hand all over the tree to see if there were any breaks in the legs as the tree had been without water, except from rain for many years.  The tree felt the touch of the man and remembered the side of the mountain from which it came, and the man, Iohan, who planted the seedling, who was now the tree.

 “Hello my old friend!” The old man with kind eyes said with a soft gentle voice.

  “I am glad you are here. I will fix your leg and replenish your wood with some natural oils from the Earth so as to give you strength.”

 The old man and the tree worked together over the next week. Every day the man would come by in the evening and sand off the old stain, fix the break, and apply the new coats of refreshing oils for the tree. The tree was very happy and felt loved.

 The tree, one day, was taken to the mans cabin, on the side of a mountain, and placed on the front porch. It was a good place to go as now the tree was in the woods again; with clean air, other trees, and all sorts of critters to watch as it sat on the porch.

 Over the years the tree grew to love the cabin and the old man, with kind eyes, who gave it a life again. It had been so lonely in the shed, unwanted, rotting away. But now the tree was happy again.

 Everyday the man would ride his bicycle to town and every night he would ride his bicycle home. But one day he did not come home. He was an old man, and old men die. The man had been very kind to the tree, the tree was sad.

  Then the tree had a new friend who bought the cabin. The new owner, a young woman, a writer, whom, everyday sat on the tree, on the front porch and wrote stories about what she could see from the porch and then would read the stories aloud, to see how they sounded and would rewrite them over and over, then read aloud until she was satisfied. The tree liked the stories and was very happy again.

 One day the woman brought out a dusty old box which had been the old mans, and on top of the box there was a note:

 “These are blank journals which came from a tree I planted many years ago when I was a young man. I followed the life of the tree and was there when the tree was cut down and the wood harvested. Some of it was made into paper- these journals here and a bench, the same bench on my front porch of my cabin on the side of a mountain, the same mountain I planted the seedling on that became the tree. If you find these please write about what you see for the tree energy is the bench and on the pages and the tree will take you back to the Earth if you are lost, its energy, and mine will always be alive.”

 Time moved on and the tree and woman enjoyed their time together. But as with all things, change came about and the woman grew old. But the tree is still there on the porch.

 I write this, from paper, on one of the journals Iohan had saved. It was in a box I found that was my mothers, who had lived on the side of a mountain, and who was a writer, who sat on a bench, that was once a seedling, planted by a young man with dark hair and kind dark eyes named Iohan whom traveled the world by bicycle until he satisfied his wanderlust and just wanted to sit on the porch and feel the good Earth and be with the tree, his friend, the seedling.

 ( I wrote this story  at 3am as I have trouble sleeping. I wrote it by hand in my journal.)

 Listen to the audio by Aimee Hughes 

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/william-poindexter/episodes/The-Seedling-e28p83g

Thanks for reading my story. If you like my writing please subscribe to the site. If you’re interested in supporting my writing and journalism you can find me on Venmo. 

Peace and love 

Bill 

 

 

Dispatches

 Dispatches from the Road by Bill Poindexter

August 14 

Montana vignettes 

(Authors note: I wrote originally posted this in early July, but decided might be a little too authentic too rebel rousing… Any keeping true with my authenticity in my writing I’m posting them now.

 I got fired from the saloon on the 8/2 for a number of reasons, but primarily it was because of this blog and the experiences I wrote about in it… so much for freedom of speech in America…

July 3ish

Part 1 Well, heck… suppose it’s going to get me in trouble… Again. But it’s the truth and most you know that I write the truth and write what I see and what I feel and what I hear -what I taste -I figured that’s what a good journalist does . Yesterday was kind of funny I got in to work and everything’s going just fine and then two older blonde women dressed in tight jeans and boots met my general manager in front of the saloon, and they all hugged and took a selfie. well, you know what good friends do. And then the women made their way into the saloon and I was bartender on duty, and they sat right on the stools and proceeded introduce themselves to me and wanted to know all sorts of personal information about me. You know -where I come from and what I do before and why was I there and then of course they had to tell me, how important they were and they knew my ““ boss and her mother and were good friends with the general manager and then of course why they’re telling me this I notice a handgun, placed strategically in the lower navel area and crotch area of one of the women and of course she would tell me later it was a 357 magnum, and she patted it with her hand, telling me that she just didn’t like leaving home without it -in case you needed it, and most of the time she prefers to have a 44 magnum, because she like that stopping power better. And she made mention that if none of the shots were lethal, she would save the last bullet for herself…Well, as she proceeded to have her little power-play, 

first thing out of her mouth was-give for me  a shot of fireball whiskey, so I gave her a shot of whiskey. And she seems satisfied for a moment, and the two had a couple of drinks that I don’t think they liked very much and honestly, I felt a little off myself the drinks didn’t look that good to me either. But they drank them and seem to be happy later on I offered her another kind of whiskey that I thought she might like but she said “give me a little taste of it”

and so I did… And of course she didn’t like it so she had to have the original whiskey she like, which was fireball basically just cinnamon flavored whiskey, and she said she likes the taste of the cinnamon. But they were congenial and I went about and did my duties as a bartender and then later on, she pushed back that stool, a little bit farther -looked me in the eye mischievously and proceeded to talk more about her handgun as though it were a baby of hers or maybe a pet. And I try not to say anything, but you know me -And I am an expert with firearms but I decided to be a pacifist years ago that’s another story. I shut up- but I’m just wondering if she were walking down the trail and a grizzly bear charged at her what she would do with that little 357 magnum with the 2 inch barrel, the grizzly is charging at 20-30 miles an hour or the black bear or the mountain lion in which she have the wherewithal to stand still and take aim and hope she hits a vital ?

And my other thinking is : 

what would that woman taste like to the critters …perhaps marinated steak with cinnamon whiskey?

Part two: there was a band playing the other night, can’t tell you the name, but they were fine fellows with one girl. He was at the saloon, and I had the night off so after my shift, I rode my bicycle home, took a shower did a little bit of laundry in the sink because we don’t have a washer and dryer hung up My laundry rode my bicycle back to the saloon And the lines were out the door and the music was playing. They were bluegrass band so that was a lot of fun and well. The girl they had with her with them played the banjo and I like that I don’t know there’s nothing prettier than a woman playing a banjo to me, just seems the rhyme in tune with the universe. And well I went to the saloon and ask them if they need any help and they said no it first and then I went around and cleaned off tables and took out the trash and came back in that line was still about the same so the manager let me work for a couple hours, and I was just able to help out enough to get that line down and Then, about a half hour before the band stop playing, I was off the clock and had a beer myself and went outside. Enjoy the music, and then I was talking with some of the locals who were other seasonal workers who work over at the Mercantile and I was glad to see them, it’s mostly women ranging from 20 to fortyish and we had fine time talking and then of course we had to dance a little bit and then my new friend Rachel who is the redhead who you might seen in some of the other pictures and she’s from Louisiana and likes to dance so she came and she and I did a little bit of two step -She tried to lead it first and I didn’t work out well. Well then I had to lead. But that didn’t work out well either cause I’m in dance to two-step probably 20 years, but by golly we got it done and that was a lot of fun so I’m looking forward two doing more to two stepping in Montana in the future.

Part three: I’m feeling a little edgy. You see I have this problem I’m an entrepreneur and I can look at situations and figure out what’s wrong with them pretty quickly and how to modify to make it better so I was a good executive recruiter/headhunter. I can see weaknesses and strengths and build on the strengths and try to illuminate or modify the weaknesses. Well I see that when I work for somebody else pretty quickly that’s why I usually don’t last more than three or four months. And I’ve been here a month and well I just have to keep my mouth shut and it’s hard to. There’s a lot of mistakes being made and there’s a lot of weaknesses and there’s a few people that are trying to tell me what to do that have a lot less experience than I do in business in a life. But I just need to like hunker down and keep my mouth shut, but it’s hard to keep my mouth shut because it’s like I told somebody one time for a pass company at work for that I got fired from is it if I can’t be myself then I don’t wanna work here. I have to be able to tell the truth 100% of the time I have to be able to communicate. If I can’t be my honest, true self with myself or you-then that’s just gonna go bad.

Hopefully, I can keep my mouth shut until mid September… But don’t count on it!

Part four: selling your soul to the devil.

Now the story goes that once upon a time there was a black musician named Robert Johnson, and he was so good playing a guitar, and I believe his genre was blues, the people said he was so good he, Musta sold his soul to the devil and if you remember, there was a Coen brothers movie O Brother where Art thou they had a similar character in there. Well, I don’t know much about the devil or souls but I do think sometimes that there might be something to that little story.

Part five the road less traveled: I rolled up the road less traveled the other day. It’s about a quarter mile from our camp and it heads up to cyclone lake. It’s a closed off forest service Road so there’s no access to cars actually for cars as there’s a gate, I rolled up the mountain for about an hour and 15 minutes and it was mostly switchbacks and it was beautiful ride. The road was full of wildflowers, and although it was a road, they just had two tire tracks on it. I only saw one pair of fresh tire tracks and one pair of bicycle tracks and that was a friend of mine Sam who I knew went up a bout a week before. Once you got to the top, there was lots of Bearskat… That’s bear poop for novices. :-) But it was a beautiful ride. I’m assuming it only went up 2 to 3 miles because it was up might’ve been three or four maybe five I’m not sure. I need to look at a good map and know exactly where I’m heading lysing is I don’t think I can get lost because I know it’s to the east to the north to the south and west.

Being on the road alone by myself, knowing that nobody knew I was up there just me and nature yeah was just phenomenal. Somebody asked me yesterday if I had a fear of wildlife when I’m up in remote areas by myself, Ron pass less traveled where nobody knows that you’re on except you and if something does happen, nobody’s going to find you till somebody makes her way up there. There’s no cell phone coverage I don’t have any satellite rescue. I got a whistle -that’s way used to be when I first started backpacking back in the 70s and then later on in the late 80s early 90s the days of no cell phones were you had to go out there and just be efficient in what you’re doing and self rescue when needed.

I took some good photographs, so I’ll share them here. And if I can download couple of the videos, I took.

Part six

Well, I had two days off the other day. I was back on yesterday and the owner told me that I’m gonna be on for the next eight days. Yeah I’m just gonna say right now that’s gonna be a little rough but that’s what I’m here for to work. Still having a lot of the other employees at work in the saloon bitch and moan about each other and I just tell them well I’m just happy to have a job and appreciative of it. Although I could use a little less  micromanagement bullshit. But I am happy to be here. Fourth of July is coming up next Tuesday so I’ll be fine. She still not confident enough to put me in the evening. She thinks the other bartenders are faster and I think they’re just may be a little bit better looking closer 20 or 30 years younger. And if you can hear frustration in my voice well I guess there is. All I know two things is one work is noble… So don’t forget that friends, too is that well hell I don’t remember what two is :-)

Part 7

Shooting dogs … most of you know that I am a big animal lover, and it doesn’t really matter what the animal is. I love them all. The only animal I really dislike well unfortunately it’s the wild human but luckily I like most of them but there’s a few of them I could do without. I’m sure you understand that statement. Now living in the wild, Montana is very similar living on a farm animals have their proper places. But there is a law in Montana that I don’t really agree with … And that is that anyone can shoot a dog who chases a deer. Just doesn’t make sense to me. I think if I were a wildlife biologist, I would want dogs to chase deer away from populations because they are considered ““ wildlife. In my opinion, anyone that shoots a dog chase a deer is an asshole. now let me just say this I’ve been watching the deer on the road as I commute every day I see them on the east side and the right side of the road east side and west side. And I’ll show you some pictures the other day unfortunately, though I saw a nice big blood spot in the middle of the road and to the right of the road there’s a dead deer. So I’m just wondering if the car can hit a deer and actually kill the deer then doesn’t make sense we shoot cars ..now I’m just saying…

Part eight:

Black Sabbath returns… Well last night I got off work in it was a rough day. I have to mitt more that micromanagement shit going on. I’m telling you I’m getting aggravated. I finally told them that if they don’t like it just fire me. I’m losing my patience. I’m making the place a lot of money and I’m doing a hell of a good job working harder than I ever have worked. But I digress, I wanted to talk about Black Sabbath so right by where I live in my encampment, there’s a restaurant I think I’ve talked about call home bottoms, ranch, run by Danny and Flannery. Super good folks, and they have some really good bands last night it was a Black Sabbath cover band. Can’t remember the name And it was lotta fun to go down there and have some beers and talk with locals and just sit there and listen to Black Sabbath music which reminded me of when I used to be a bar bouncer in Westport at the Lonestar in Kansas City from about 1985 to 1990. And then after the band played and most people went home, the good folks there and some other people that were camping out on the property, built a bonfire. We all sat around and listen to my right friend. Ross play his guitar and sing songs and Tom sing songs in, me try to sing songs and we had a good time occasionally a bottle whiskey was passed around and people were smoking marijuana which I ended up taking a puff of them coughing severely. Like my marijuana days are way over. :-) And we had the serenade of the moon which is almost full overhead, and it was just a lovely evening, and everybody seem to have a really good time. There is a lot of sing-along campfires in this area and everyone just seems mesh together really well.

 I ended up walking home around 12:30 AM for a good nights sleep. 

And that brings me to an opportunity to thank Maddie and Sebastien in North Carolina. I talk to them in the past when they were here on vacation about two weeks ago. They’re the ones that I wrote about that our army, active army duty Sebastian is a Green Beret and Maddie Works in special operations. Anyway, I think I wrote a post in the past where I was talking about getting some a sketchpad and also that I needed some kind of screen on my door to keep the bugs out and those two were kind enough to send me a screen for my door And a beautiful sketchpad. It’s just that type of kindness that I so appreciate and I’m very humbled by their generosity and kindness. Thank you both.

The Fourth of July is tomorrow and it’s pretty busy up here. There’s a lot of people up here hiking and camp in them a lot of tourist up here and also a lot of people on the river on the north fork river doing a lot of rafting so there’s shuttles running up and down the road at monumental speeds. Make it even me a little bit nervous on my bicycle. But I think I can handle it. I rode up from Polebridge the other day up the N. Fork Rd. again the inside N. Fork Rd. in Glacier, National Park, and it was a fine ride. I’m really enjoying seeing all the wildflowers.

Been having some good conversations with people like my friend Tom who’s a certified conspiracy theorist we can go onto that later, but I actually agree with a lot of stuff he talks about he’s full of knowledge and I’m very impressed to listen to this 35 year old talk about all the crazy stuff that’s going on in the world. Many local seem to honor him because of the fact that he spent last winter up here for the whole winter and not very many people do that and Polebridge found out the other day from my friend Dr. Bill is that there’s only about 10 people that stay up here all year round, and if you are able to you, you definitely get a badge of courage.

Some other interesting news getting ready to happen. I am going to start teaching yoga next Tuesday up here at Brooke and Clay’s place so yoga retreat. So that will be fun. I haven’t talked for a couple of years so I’m gonna be a little bit rusty. But I taught enough classes where it should be just like riding a bicycle. That’s another thing I’m itching to do between you and me for my friends. I think my days are numbered at the saloon although I really do enjoy the work and I really like the people and I think I’m doing a really good job I just think I’m too intense for them. But I’m gonna get through the next few weeks hopefully and then decide what to do but there might be a possibility that I may leave here a little bit early maybe mid August instead of mid September and do a nice long distance bike ride on the great divide mountain bike route.

If you like my words, let me know.

From D:

 

Awesome as always. The photos are fantastic.  The entries are fun to reread from the first time I read them. 

I admire and enjoy reading your truth telling and authenticity, your perspective.  Like it or don’t, that is not the point for me … it’s having the honor to stand witness to someone’s true feelings and observations, being allowed to peek inside someone’s heart.  Most writers tell a story from the third person; your first person perspective is powerful.  Love this. Looking forward to reading more.

Authors note: I’m writing a complete “tell all” of my experience in Polebridge, and working at the northern lights saloon… And it’s not gonna be pretty, but I guarantee you you’ll be very entertained