Frisco Okie

Frisco Okie is Now Published

2013-07-29T07:29:00.001-07:00

My book Frisco Okie has finally been published! Frisco Okie is a story about a reverse migration I made along the Dust Bowl Trail in search of my Native American ancestry. A great big Route 66 holler to everyone who supported me on this great journey. Your thoughts on my first travel memoir would be greatly appreciated. Paperback copies are available on Amazon and digital e-Reader copies can be downloaded from iBookstore and LULU.

Back in California: Writing the Book in Santa Cruz

2011-07-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

For the past few days I have been hiding away at Pop's cabin in Santa Cruz. Beneath the towering redwood trees, I've been writing the first draft of the book.

Oklahoma was amazing. I got to meet the long lost Cox relatives, tour Cheyenne Arapaho Tribal Lands, and even shoot animatronic animals while wearing a coonskin cap.

My reverse migration has come to an end, but the story is just beginning. What was it E.L. Doctorow said? Oh yes, "Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia."

I hope I don't get cabin fever.

Or, maybe I hope I do. It would certainly produce a more riveting narrative.

And God knows I owe you a good story.

Thanks for following. Keep your eyes peeled for Frisco Okie, the book.

Remy Cox

Okie Land

2011-07-26T18:36:00.001-07:00

Okie Land, a set on Flickr.

I finally made it to Oklahoma! Got to Couch Surf with Sara and get a private tour of the Cheyenne Arapaho Tribal Land in Concho. I visited the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, and drove out to Okemah to meet the long lost Cox relatives.

So long Texas

2011-07-23T21:31:00.001-07:00

So long Texas, a set on Flickr.

My last days with my Godparents in Dallas. Pugs included. Fort Worth also.

Chapter 4: A Real Cherokee

2011-07-21T12:54:00.000-07:00

Tracy and I are visiting the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque. We walk into a circular room with a high ceiling.

We’re greeted by a short woman with fierce brown eyes. Though she is standing right in front of us, the hostile acoustics cause her voice to sound eerily distant.

“Are you two students? You get a discounted rate.”

I open my wallet to retrieve my school ID, but it’s not there. I must have lost it in Santa Fe. I don’t have enough cash to pay the regular entrance fee.

“I don’t have an ID, but I am a student,” I say. “San Francisco State is actually giving me class credit to write a book about my Native American heritage.”

“Great, we have all Natives sign our book here.” The woman hands me a faded black binder.

I realize my mistake. While I am doing an academic project, I’m only writing about my possible Native American heritage.

Not knowing what to do, I take the pen and sign my name.

Remy Cox. Cherokee Tribe.

Tracy, my companion, doesn’t share my predicament. She’s part Cherokee, and has traced her lineage all the way back to the Treaty Party of 1819. She is a descendant of George Rising Fawn Lowrey Jr., who was one of the first to cede sacred Cherokee land to the United States. The rest of the tribe resented him for it, but George Washington didn’t. He actually awarded Rising Fawn with a medal for his negotiation efforts.

In 1839, Lowrey was elected principal chief and president of the eastern Cherokees at the Washington meeting, and eventually merged with the western divisions to form the present Cherokee Nation. There’s a famous photograph of him in the Smithsonian. He’s got tons of ear-drooping and nose-stretching piercings. Crazy.

Tracy has done her research. I pass the black binder over to her.

“Here, do you want to sign it, too?”

She shakes her head. “Umm, no, that’s okay.” I think I see her blush.

The museum attendant has heard enough. “Alright, that will be three dollars,” she says to Tracy.

“But you don’t have to pay,” the woman tells me, smiling. “Tribal members get in for free.”

From the back of the line, I hear a complaint: “Wait a minute, he gets in free?That’s not fair.”

I turn around to see a stick-thin man. The Albuquerque heat has formed dark stains under his arms, billowing like thunderheads. His bald head gives him the profile of a vulture.

The ticket lady purses her lips. “You took our land,” she spits at him. “That’s not fair.”

The scrawny dude blinks, and casually leaves the building.

I feel thick guilt sloshing in my stomach. Did I just fraudulently claim tribal membership?

I see a transparent donation box at the base of the ticket counter. I surreptitiously empty the contents of my wallet.

***

In the museum, Tracy is my guide. She’s able to tell me about everything, from the Acoma painted pottery, in black and white, to the iconic figures of the Pueblo tribes.

“This is Kokopelli,” she says, pointing to a Rastafarian-like figure. He’s painted on a pot, hunched in mid-dance, playing the flute.

“He’s the mischief maker in Pueblo folklore. Always causing trouble, getting people aroused.” Her head is tilted, examining the ancient piece of art. “He’s the symbol of fertility,” she continues, pointing to his not-so-subtle phallus, which is dangling beneath the flute.

“I’ve seen him before,” I say. “Wait, I’ve actually seen him at your house.” I’m couch-surfing with Tracy on my tour of the Southwest.

She laughs. “Yeah, in our faux-dobe house.” The tasteless gentrification of the classic New Mexican architecture is pretty funny.

But my experience in New Mexico couldn’t be more authentic, thanks to my host. “Wow, you really have done a lot of research about your heritage,” I say.

“When I first moved to New Mexico, I read every book I could about it. I think it’s fascinating.”

I feel like a fraud, compared to Tracy. If anyone deserves to claim tribal membership, it’s her.

“Why didn’t you want to sign the Native American book?”

The dull museum lights are reflected in her glasses. Behind them, her eyes are ocean blue and serious. Her blonde hair makes her look more German than anything. Her last name, Brunner, completes the Anglicization.

“I never like to talk about my ancestry with real Indians,” she says. The real sounds particularly grim.

“Why not?”

“I look like the people that killed them.”

Dallas

2011-07-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

Visualizza tutte

Richiedi il tuo

Dallas

I went to Dallas to meet my godparents Jake and Kathleen. I took a helicopter ride over Dallas, went to the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, saw where former president George Bush lives and kicked it with some pugs. All in 110 degree weather.

Austin

2011-07-16T17:11:00.001-07:00

Austin, a set on Flickr.

Took a break from the Dust Bowl Trail and headed down to Southern Texas.

Chapter 3: Thumbs Up to Taos

2011-07-13T17:09:00.000-07:00

Tumbleweeds and never-ending flatness paint the background along Highway 14, the Turquoise Trail. Terry, who’s been my host for two nights outside Santa Fe, drops me off on the shoulder. Only 117 miles to Taos.

I pose with my thumb up and a cardboard sign. Terry gets his fancy camera.     “Let me take one last photo of you—with your skin still on.”

“Tell my parents I love them,” I reply, overly sentimental. It’s a joke. Sorta.

“Don’t worry, I’ve had couch surfers do this before. And besides, no epic cross- country journey is complete without a hitchhiking episode.”

He’s right. It’s the open road.

Guthrie.

Kerouac.

If name-dropping doesn’t work, I can fend off any ax murderers with the bear mace Terry gave me.

I flip the sign over. I scrawl Santa Fe, in black. I hold it up, showing off my artwork.

“A round-trip ticket,” Terry says with a smile.

***

Terry is from the Outer Banks of North Carolina. He’s like a beachcomber who got stranded in Santa Fe. He spends his days making mosaics of fish, using caps from beer bottles.

“They remind me of the ocean,” he says.

He’s got thousands of toppers, tubs and tubs of them. Even Sherlock Holmes would conclude Terry was an alcoholic.

“I was a brewer professionally for ten years, and worked in bars before that.” He sifts through the buckets, creating two separate piles of gold Newcastle and green Heineken caps. “All these are from years of collecting.”

Terry gave it all up and moved to a city full of artists. Santa Fe comes in second for sculpture sales in the United States, right after New York.

But I wonder if it was worth it. Terry gazes out his workshop window, his eyes following an imaginary shore break. No palm trees here. Just cactus. No crashing surf. Just heat waves.

“You know, Honey still hasn’t forgiven me,” he says, reaching down to pet his furry mix of Chow and Golden Retriever. Her tongue is unfurled onto the pueblo floor. The house, which is at least fifteen degrees cooler than outside, is still like a sauna. Honey stares at me, listlessly.

“But Buddy didn’t mind the move,” Terry chuckles. “A desert is just as good as a beach to him.”

I look around the workshop. “Where is he, anyway?”

“Buddddeeeyyyyyy!!” Terry bellows the name of his other dog, amplifying the sound with his hands.

I hear tap-dancing down the long hall. Suddenly, the little wiener barrels around the corner. He charges at full speed, as fast as his stumpy legs will allow.

The hot dog has too much momentum. His big ears flare like parachutes, but it’s too late. He crashes into me.

***

Do I smile when I do this? No, maybe not. That doesn’t make me look tough enough. Don’t want to look naive, either. But I don’t want to look too dangerous. Then no one will pick me up. What if I just wave? Maybe a little dance?

I continue walking backward along the highway, thumb in the air.

A chick in a red Ferrari convertible comes over the hill. Please, pick me up.

No luck. She zooms past.

A rusty Ford truck is next. Eh, maybe not. I hide my sign.

Whew. That was a close one.

I feel the noon sun cooking my skin. This is the only way I’m going to make it to Taos, the town where Pueblo Indians have lived in multi-story adobe buildings for more than 1000 years.

I turn around and walk down the desert highway, my back to the traffic. Off to my right, up a hill, I see formidable-looking walls. Barbed wire lines the tops.

I remember what Pop once told me: “Boy, I’ll never forget the day I learned how to really say ‘barbed wire.’ The Okies always pronounced it ‘Bob Wawr.’ I always wondered who that guy was, Bob Wawr!”

A laugh tumbles out of my mouth. Thanks, Pop. I’m definitely not going to get a ride if I’m cracking up like a lunatic on the side of the road.

But my real problem becomes apparent, as a big yellow sign about 100 yards ahead comes into focus:

        Danger
        State Penitentiary
        Do NOT pick up hitchhikers

So that’s what Bob Wawr is doing way out here.

My spirits sink. I drop my sign in defeat. But in front of me, I see a forest-green Toyota Camry throw on the hazards and pull over. A hand waves out the window.

The driver yells, “I’m not going to Taos, but I can take you into town where you’ll have better luck finding a ride!”

This is it. I take a chance. I run up to the car, open the door and get in.

***

The driver’s blue eyes are wise. His nose is pointed. He’s got long brown hair, which hangs flat. He looks like Gandalf, if the wizard were 100 years younger—and a weekend duffer at the golf course.

My chauffeur is wearing plaid pants that are so gaudy, they’ve become fashionable again. Plus, he’s wearing a long-sleeve shirt that offers way too much insulation for this weather.

“Thanks so much, man,” I say. “I never thought I was going to get a ride with that damn sign.”

“You don’t look like an inmate to me,” Gandalf replies thoughtfully.

Nice. Turns out smiling was a good decision.

“Didn’t want to leave you in that heat too much longer,” he continues. “It’s been so dry here, especially with the fires.” He points to a plume of white smoke rising in the distance. “At night, the mountainside glows looks like a second sunrise.”

I remember the sinister orange gleam around San Diego in 2007, during the wildfires. Coughing up smoke. Ashes clogging my nose. I know what he’s talking about.

“I’m used to dry weather in San Diego, but this New Mexico heat is something else,” I tell him.

We speed along the feeder highway toward downtown Santa Fe, where the hitchhiking will be easier. Gandalf is more than just a good driver. He’s hip to the spirits.

“I heard someone doing a rain dance last night,” he says. “No houses for miles where I live. I saw a small figure under the moon. He danced and had some kind of rattle. I tried to get closer, for a better look. But when I did, he vanished.”

Gandalf snaps his fingers like a magician. I look out across the desert and wonder where the dancer could have gone.

Santa Fe

2011-07-11T11:14:00.001-07:00

Santa Fe, a set on Flickr.

I'm couch surfing with Terry in Santa Fe. He lives off of The Turquoise Trail, where the early Pueblo people of the Rio Grande came to mine for blue-green turquoise as early as 900 A.D. Terry and I are going to explore some closed down mines today to see what we can discover.

I tried my hand at hitchhiking. Get it? Hand?? Oh god. Don't worry, I'm not chopped in bits.

I safely made it from Santa Fe to Taos, New Mexico to attend a Pueblo Indian Pow Wow.

Chapter 2: The Grand Canyon

2011-07-10T08:34:00.000-07:00

I set my pack down on a rock and gaze across eons of time. Brandon, my volunteer guide in the Grand Canyon, towers above me.

“This is one of my favorite places in the world,” he says, looking like a warrior with a reddish bandana wrapped around his forehead. The rest of his long brown hair tucks behind his ears.

“It looks like cotton candy,” I say, looking at the chimney-top cliffs in the distance. Horizontal sedimentary rock layers of brown, pink, purple and blue rise above the Inner Gorge.

Suddenly, a drop of rain. Another. Now three. My arm is quickly drenched. Sunscreen runs off like spilled milk. I’m perplexed by the sudden thunderstorm. It’s early July. We don’t get summer rain in Southern California, where I grew up.

Brandon’s head is craned up, awestruck by an angry-looking cloud to the east.     “We’ll have to find some kind of overhang so we don’t get struck by lightning,” he says nonchalantly.

“Are you serious?” People don’t really get struck by lightning, do they?

“I was hiking with an ex-girlfriend in weather like this once. We got to the summit, and her hair was standing straight up, like porcupine needles. I pointed at her and said, ‘Oh, My God, your hair!’ She looked at me and said, ‘Your hair!’ And we double-timed it down the mountain before the lightning storm hit.”

A drawn-out boom of thunder echoes throughout the canyon. The rain, like a swarm of angry bees, stings my face. Now I know why the park rangers were giving us such strange looks on our way down the Bright Angel Trail.

But Brandon remains as calm as ever. “Hey, you still got those honey-roasted peanuts?” But he’s also scouring the trail for a safety zone.

“Uh, yeah.” I hand over the crinkly bag.

“You’ll get hyponatremia if you’re not careful out here.” I picture Brandon at his real job, in baby blue scrubs, explaining the symptoms to a patient at Flagstaff Medical Center.

He continues, “You drink too much water and you dilute your sodium levels. My ex- girlfriend had an eating disorder, but I didn’t want to bring attention to it. So I decided I wasn’t going to eat, last time we hiked this trail. Problem was, I drank too much water. Got to the rim and was a little loopy.”

He crunches away on the salty snack. “Here, eat some.”

“What would I do without you?” I take a handful, feeling less manly by the minute.

“Eh, you'd do fine,” he says modestly. “You’re a tough kid.”

Compared to Brandon, I look like a Care Bear. I met him on couchsurfing.com and he’s fulfilling his promise to take me hiking. While I’m crashing at his house, it’s like living in an REI catalogue: surf boards, kayaks, canoes, snow shoes, skis, ice picks, climbing ropes, backpacks, daypacks. Helmets, mountain bikes, fishing poles, life vests. Tents, carabiners, canteens, kerosene. He’s like Bear Grylls, but with a Minnesota accent.

Another crack of thunder. Brandon picks up his pack. “Yeah, the problem with Coconino Limestone is the lightning will bounce and scatter out over the surface. It’ll get ya even if you’re far away from the strike.” I follow his lead and we head back up the winding trail.

“Hey, have you seen 127 Hours?” Maybe he’ll appreciate my knowledge of amputee mountaineer Aron Ralston.

“Nah,” he replies. “I met the guy on his tour and he was all full of himself, more in it for the book deal than anything. It seemed like he unnecessarily put himself in dangerous situations just to prove he was a macho man.”

This Brandon dude is the real deal.

“I think the monsoon is passing,” he observes. “We probably should just head to the top.”

The downpour turns into a dripping faucet. I’m not going to be electrocuted after all. The black clouds pass lazily to the west. We work our way up the trail. My shoes churn red mud with each step.

By the time we get back to the top, the sun has returned. I take a seat with my back to the cliff and soak in the view. A toad-like tourist with cactus stubble waddles down the path and stops right in front of us. With his back to the canyon, he looks thoughtfully at the cliff above our heads.

I feel irritable in the heat. “Hey, buddy, the Grand Canyon’s that way.” I point straight in front of me.

“Oh, I know,” he grumbles. “But have you looked at what’s above you?”

About ten feet above me, the cliff face juts out. Below, in a sheltered hollow, there are rust-colored images on the wall.

“No way,” I mutter. I see the fading impressions of five elk in queue. To their right, on some darker stone, a cow-like figure. Further right, a couple of tally marks hang above what looks like a DNA diagram. Three more deer figures surround it.

A park ranger approaches us. She says, “Yup, you’re in Native American territory, boys. People have been living in this region for over 12,000 years.”

She points to a cluster of trees at the bottom of the canyon. “The Bright Angel Trail was once used by the Havasupai Indians to reach their gardens way down there.”

Discovery Channel should be taping this.

“But these pictographs,” she says, moving towards the wall, “are from the ancient Anasazi. They’re about 800 years old. The Mallery Grotto is what we call this little panel here. These are painted on, but check out some petroglyphs if you can. They’re carved into the rock.” She continues down the trail.

I glare at the fat tourist, who has managed to smear his mug with chocolate. How did he spot these artifacts when I missed them? A Hershey’s wrapper takes his place as he rolls off.

I pick up his trash. Is this what we will be remembered for, 800 years from now? I stuff the discards in my pocket and look back at the cave art.

I turn to Brandon, who looks unimpressed. “What do you think, man?”

He smiles and slowly nods his head. “You want to see some petroglyphs? I’ll take you to some petroglyphs.”

Through Clear Creek to the Petroglyphs

2011-07-07T12:29:00.001-07:00

Through Clear Creek to the Petroglyphs, a set on Flickr.

Canoeing, Deep Water Soloing, and Cliff Diving through Clear Creek in search of Native American Petroglyphs.

Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon

2011-07-06T08:18:00.001-07:00

Flagstaff and the Grand Canyon, a set on Flickr.

Sunrise, Fireworks, Grand Canyon and my trip to Bedrock City with my buddy Brandon.

Chapter 1: Time is Taffy

2011-07-05T09:06:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

I will be writing parts of the manuscript as I make my reverse migration. I will be posting snippets. Consider them as movie trailers for the final product. This is chapter 1. Enjoy!

Remy
____________

Time is Taffy

I take a seat on the stoop of my pastel Victorian apartment building. My shirtless neighbor gives me a perplexed look over his Anchor Steam. “What’s in the suitcase?”

Warm weather, or mid-60s in the Bay Area, calls for two things: the shedding of clothes and the consumption of San Francisco brews.

“Headed to Columbia?” He laughs at my oversized valise.

It’s the same maroon hardshell that Johnny Depp had in Fear and Loathing, only with less nefarious contents: A tape recorder, a journal, The Grapes of Wrath, Bound for Glory and a book on Native Americans.

“I’m going to Oklahoma,” I proclaim. His face screws up in the midday sunlight. “Why the hell are you going there?” He takes a swig of his beer. I smile and consider his question.

The eucalyptus of Golden Gate Park rise above the spiracle rooftops on my street. A cool breeze rustles their twisty tops in late afternoon. Everyone in San Francisco is a refugee, even the trees transplanted from Australia,. I’ve lived here less than a year, but, like many others, consider it my home. Why would I want to leave this?

“I’m retracing my grandpa’s footsteps along the Dust Bowl Trail. There’s an old rumor in our family that we’ve got some Native American blood and I’m going to go find out if it’s true.”

He kills the last in the bottle and discards it in a growing cemetery of others. “Good luck, man.”
______

One of the many benefits of working at a Hippy Hotel on Haight Street (aside from alliteration) is the ability to hitch a ride with almost every guest headed down the coast of California. My saving grace came in the form of a co-worker and a Turkish couple.

As I wait in the hotel lobby for our departure, I notice a man slowly drawing on a napkin. What’s left of his thin white hair is pulled into a ponytail, revealing his shiny forehead. He lifts his cup of black coffee to his lips. As if aware of my gaze, he peers at me through the steam.

“Going somewhere?” His voice is from a different time, eerie and mythical. “Yeah, I’m leaving town for a month.”

I talk with Felix (not his real name) at least once a week, but I never like to tell him too much. It ruins his fun.

“Ahhh,” he continues. “Time is but taffy for you.” He takes another drink and chuckles to himself.

“I guess so,” I say as I take a seat.

“Where’s my hat?” His wild white eyebrows narrow and his gaze intensifies. “Here,” he says. He puts the coffee cup on his head.

“My name is Madame Roberta,” he tells me. “I’m here to read your fortune.” His smile is maniacal.

My heart starts to race. Felix has talked to me about everything. Once, for two hours, he talked about homoerotic undertones between Jesus and the disciples. But he’s never given me an astrological reading.

“When’s your birthday?” he says, lowering his wizard headdress.

“September 26.”

His eyes become crescents and he begins to whisper. “Uranus is going to be here for a good month and a half; it doesn’t turn retrograde until the 8th or 10th of next month.” His aura is captivating. I lean in until I’m halfway out of my seat.

He mutters something about The Charts, and The Tables, and then his eyes disappear entirely. “There’s going to be a new moon around your birthday,” he says.

“Oh, yeah?” I try to contain my enthusiasm.

Eyes still closed, he continues, “Uranus is in opposition to your sun right now.” A boy with asymmetrical blonde bangs and a rainbow painted across the bridge of his nose overhears and giggles. He blows two kisses at me. During Pride in San Francisco, a planetary double entendre is too good to pass up.

I refocus on Felix. “Umm, my sun?”

“Well, you see, the sun is you,” he says. His eyes slowly open. His gaze is magnetic. “This could mean some sort of shock or challenge to your self-definition, your foundation. A change in how you define yourself.”

I shake my head in disbelief. It’s exactly what my journey is about. How could he possibly know this?

“I’m doing the reverse Dust Bowl migration to Oklahoma,” I explain. “It’s where my grandfather came from. I’m going to find out if there really is Native American blood in our family.” I’m out of breath, like I’ve just ran a marathon.

He leans back in his chair and looks at me like he’s known all along. “There is one thing the Uranus does,” he continues. “Uranus frees us--no, forces us to let go of the things that have served their purpose.”

“You mean like old habits?”

“Dead weight. Baggage. But that’s a little colloquial. I mean structures. They are in your way. They are yours, but they are in your way.”

“Sounds like this is going to be a life-changing trip,” I say cynically, but I’m salivating to hear more.

“You could have surprises out there in Okie Land,” he says ominously. “There could be shock from the Other.”

I’m confused. “Wait, other, as in another person?”

He’s giddy with excitement. “Other, yes. The Other is opposite you. It’s very abstract. ” He squishes and stretches an invisible blob of Play-Doh with both hands. “It’s just, Other.”

A smoky Cherokee babe? I like where Felix is going. But she vanishes as he continues. “This energy is coming from the Other. And keep in mind that this is an opposition, not a harmonic tie. There is an element of challenge with your own self-definition. You may fight it or force it off. It may be kind of tough, but you may look back and see the change was for the better.”

He crosses his arms and then changes his mind, as if unblocking a dam. “Letting go of that baggage. There could be some things revealed. You are in a time of discovering how you define yourself.”

His words are coming faster now and my head is spinning. Who is the Other? What is this baggage? How far can I suspend disbelief for this guy?

But I feel the atmosphere change. Swiftly. Merlin, my wise counsel, has turned into the grim medieval executioner. He leans in. I see the dark decay between his teeth, the result of years of black-coffee prophecies.

“Ahhhh,” he continues. “Now is not a time to go pushing the limits.” His breath shakes like a bag of rattlesnakes. “With Uranus, you think everything is cool and then surprise! Uranus is the lightning bolt, the upset. The Sudden.” His face looks sallow and grim.

“Don’t take shortcuts,” he warns. “That can be for other times. Right now, stick with the established order. In some respects, playing it kind of, kind of conservative. I don’t want to say, ‘Stay away unfamiliar territory.’ But just knowing, knowing where you are. Know your situation. Know where your place is, in your situation. Not necessarily a good time for stepping out. You don’t want to cause problems with others. Now, now is a time to be conscientious about creating problems for yourself.”

The room is silent, as if someone extinguished the chatter and creaks of the hundred year old hotel lobby. The vertebrae in my neck feel like scorching coals.

A co-worker told me that Felix came in one day in March 2010 and casually announced that the Giants would win the World Series eight months later. I’m not a sports fan, but it was impossible to miss the ecstatic orange revelers of San Francisco in November, when the Giants closed out the Texas Rangers in five games. His prediction was right. This guy was able to channel some serious star wisdom, and now I’m in the hot seat. My mouth goes dry.

“And especially,” he says pounding his fist on the table, “don’t play games with legality.”

“Wait, like what? What could I possibly do?”

He leans his head back and gives a deep staccato laugh. “Be respectful to the good old boys, and the lard-belly sheriff that you run into there in one of those counties!” At that, he loses it.

I lose it, too. We laugh until our sides hurt. Was he just kidding? Have I been listening to a nutcase, or just someone who likes to spin a good yarn?

“I’ll see you in August,” he says as I head out the door. His words roll over and over in my head as I make my way down the Pacific Coast Highway. The Other. Old Structures. Uranus.

Overnight Train to Flagstaff

2011-07-04T04:52:00.000-07:00

White lightning illuminates the desert landscape. I look out from the rain streaked window of my Flagstaff bound train. The strobe of each camera like flash develops a single image. Cactus. Coyote. Canyon. An instant of light, and then dark expansive desert. It's 2 A.M. Is it 2 A.M.?
Am I dreaming?
I lean back as the train pushes through the storm, shaking and swaying. It's going to be a long night.

Earlier, I met a family on the train and played 14 letter speed scrabble. First to use all their pieces wins.
The Flagstaff sun is just coming up as my train pulls into the station. Hours later, a big 4th of July parade will march through the streets. Red. White. Blue. The band will play. But right now it's 5 A.M. and silent. The only thing I hear is the howl of my train fighting down the tracks, into the distance. I'm just a stranger here, like Pop was so many years ago. I sling on my rucksack and make my way through the predawn stillness of the mountain town. My reverse Dust Bowl migration has begun.

Check back tomorrow to read "Time is Taffy," an excerpt from chapter 1 of my Book!

Greetings from Southern California!

2011-07-02T11:46:00.000-07:00

I'm in Orange County right now, doing a rigorous puzzle with my awesome grandma.

I'm biding my time in Southern California until my train leaves for Flagstaff on Sunday July 3.

This migration wouldn't be happening without all the amazing folks who donated to my Kickstarter page. I wanted to say thank you to everyone again.

I made a few videos last month in preparation for this journey. Here are two to get you in the dusty spirit!

A mighty strange sightin' of downright ornery critters in these here Frisco parts. Can you 'dentify this desperado?

Check back tomorrow to read "Time is Taffy," an excerpt from chapter 1 of my Book!

Hittin' the Dust Bowl Trail

2011-07-01T11:42:00.001-07:00

I live on the cusp of Haight-Ashbury at Frederick and Shrader Street. My grandpa--or Pop, as the grandchildren like to call him--used to live two blocks south of me, at 144A Grattan Street. Before hippies were lounging on Haight, listening to Janis Joplin in an LSD haze, Pop was zooming up and down the hills of Cole Valley on his bike as a delivery boy for The San Francisco Chronicle. In 1942, his father had moved the family to the Bay Area, in hopes of working in the shipyards.

A decade earlier, Pop was part of the Okie migration to California in the 1930s. The Coxes moved out west in a rusted Ford flatbed along with thousands of other migrant workers. Pop and his four other brothers and sisters picked cotton along the way and slept in the Ford at night. School was a luxury, but Pop’s mom enrolled him every time the family stopped to work. At the tender age of 12, he learned two things fast. The first was that life was hard in a migrant family. The second? The only thing worse than being an Okie was having Indian blood.

I made my own migration to San Francisco from San Diego in August 2010. I prefer tofu instead of steak, blue states over red states and think Sundays are for sleeping in. I am, without a doubt, the outlier of the Cox family. Pop and the rest of my family have lived in Fresno for all or most of their lives. Pop tolerates my vegetarianism and applauds when I play his century-old ragtime piano. But other than that, we don’t agree on much. Can you imagine what our relatives back in Oklahoma might think of me? Pop has never even met them.

Everybody knows that white settlers fornicated with the indigenous people, but nobody in the Midwest liked to acknowledge it, much less discuss it. It was only rumored that there was Native American blood in the Cox family, and it has remained as mythology throughout the generations. Pop has the names of our long-lost relatives living in Oklahoma that could possibly lead me to discovering the truth about my heritage.

This July I am making my reverse migration back to Oklahoma. I will ride trains and hitchhike through the Great American West and stay with the people I meet along the way. From Baghdad by the Bay to the Bible Belt, or something clever like that.

In my skinny jeans and swooping bangs, I will knock on doors in Marshall, Muskogee or wherever my search takes me, in an attempt to prove the existence of my Indian blood.

When I return to San Francisco, I will turn my adventure into a work of creative non-fiction. In it, I will explore themes of ethnic-hybridity, economic disparity, spirituality, family bonds and racism. It will also include historical fact on Native Americans, the Dust Bowl during the 1930s and the part my family played in that history. I have relatives who are amateur genealogists, but this project will far exceed their efforts.

This blog will keep you updated as I hit the road, in the finest tradition of Steinbeck, Guthrie and Kerouac.