Due to his priority standing and the retirement of older senators, the big fellow who walked 150 miles to get a job at Greenwater in order to save the fare to eat on, automatically shares with two men the power to control the legislation of the state.
Hell, like gold, is where you find it—either in people or places. A lady of wealth and aristocratic background in route to Furnace Creek’s luxury inn, stopped at Shoshone for gas. Worn out by the long drive over the corduroy road, she looked about her and then at Charlie in greasy overalls. “How on earth,” she asked in genuine distress, “do you make a living in this God-forsaken-hole?”
“It’s hard ma’am,” Charlie said gloomily. “But we get a few pennies from tourists, a little flour from mesquite beans, and stay alive one way or another, hoping to get out.”
The gracious lady opened her purse, thrust a five dollar bill into Charlie’s hand and went her way.
“It really made her happy,” Charlie chuckled, “and I just didn’t have the heart to give it back.”
What is it that man wants of these “God-forsaken-holes” on the desert? I sought the answer one day when Shoshone was having a holiday. George Ishmael, as native as an Indian, was chosen to barbecue the steer. A well-to-do tourist begged the job of digging the big pit. “Want to flex my muscles....” Another cut the wood. At a depth of four feet, water was struck and rose a foot over the bottom. “That’s all right” George said. He tossed a dozen railroad ties into the hole, floated them into position, covered them with dirt, built the fire, lowered the carcass of the steer, covered it with green leaves and filled the hole. “An unforgettable feast,” agreed the scores who had come from places 100 miles away.
Sitting beside me was a prominent Los Angeles attorney, eminent in the councils of the Democratic party in both state and nation. “Why,” he asked, “will a man wear himself out in the city when he can really live in a little place like this?”
“I thought of suicide at first,” said Patsy, young matron with three healthy little stairsteps. “My husband said ‘for heaven’s sake, go out for a month and have a good time.’ I went. Back in a week.”
A Vermont girl said she had come to escape a straightlaced code that constantly reminded her sin was everywhere. “Here I’ve got an even break with the devil....”
All had found something that clicked with something inside of them which challenged something in civilization. Maybe it was expressed in the dogma of the Tennessee judge reared in the hill country of the Cumberland river. As he stepped from his plane on his annual vacation he was cornered by a reporter: “Judge, you’re 94 years old. What do you think of this modern world?”