Gas costs may drive Kate Woods to debtor’s prison
Nearly every weekday for the past seven years, I have driven
that long lonely road known on state maps as simply
”
J-1.
”
To my family and I, it is the Panoche-New Idria route, and
begins at Paicines off Airline Highway (25) and traverses the
southeast length of San Benito County. It ends in dirt when it
bisects New Idria, once the bustling mercury mining capital of the
Western Hemisphere, now a defunct, faded and abandoned ghost
town.
Gas costs may drive Kate Woods to debtor’s prison
Nearly every weekday for the past seven years, I have driven that long lonely road known on state maps as simply “J-1.”
To my family and I, it is the Panoche-New Idria route, and begins at Paicines off Airline Highway (25) and traverses the southeast length of San Benito County. It ends in dirt when it bisects New Idria, once the bustling mercury mining capital of the Western Hemisphere, now a defunct, faded and abandoned ghost town.
From my home to the Pinnacle offices in Hollister, the road is 70 miles long, a 140-mile roundtrip that, because of its curvy switchbacks and miserable surface demeanor, requires about an hour and 40 minutes to drive each way.
The cost of gasoline has always been my daily gripe, an evil necessity. But at $3.19 a gallon, more than ever it has become a financial sinkhole. According to my latest calculations, my gas bill is sucking up one-third of my paycheck. The crater-sized potholes play merry hell with my alignment, and a set of new tires must be bought twice a year.
But what a ride. For me, this long, lonely road is my meditation mat. It forces me to think through problems and serves as a scenic, silent shrink. It also gives me a chance to find out what’s on my neighbors’ minds.
First, while I’m brewing my coffee-to-go, I go out to the driveway and turn on the battered 1994 Jeep because the poor heap needs to warm up for at least 10 minutes, if it’s winter. Otherwise it won’t go in reverse.
Now on the bumpy, pockmarked one-lane road, I juggle a lit cigarette and the soon-to-spill coffee while navigating the ear-busting Jeep as it rattles down the mountainous, blind-pin curves of the foot of San Benito Mountain. Many a day I’ve christened my voyage by nearly kissing the front bumper of a rip-snorting quad-hauling spanking new double-tired Dodge Ram, road-hogging from the opposite direction.
If you don’t live here, you have no respect for this road – much like a landlubber on a fishing boat bereft of respect for the unforgiving power of the sea – the out-of-towners in SUVs drive it as if they were on 101 in rush hour, afflicted with road rage because a hybrid got ahead of them.
On this day the Dodge camo-clad hunter-driver is wide-eyed in astonishment that anyone would actually be driving to … work? From here? Hope he didn’t see me chugging the Coors Light.
“You’re going the wrong way!” I chirp as I pass. He didn’t hear my perky suggestion, of course. The hard rock pounding from his car stereo had made mulch of his eardrums.
After passing the old and empty one-room mud hut adobe on the Adobe Ranch (it used to be a whorehouse for the mercury miners in the old days because their wives banned saloons and cathouses in the town proper), I splash through the San Carlos Creek washout that flows over the road. My windshield is baptized in what looks like Orange Crush soda pop mixed with cow poop. In actuality, it’s the rust-colored acid mine drainage that flows in perpetuity from the mercury mine.
I meander down the road through miles and miles of velvety green hills, meadows of purple clover dotted with portly cows. Wildflowers grace the grass-shaggy shoulders of the skinny patchwork quilt of a road, bordered with periwinkle lupin, bright yellow mustard, Monaco campaign sign, magenta owl’s feather, Monaco campaign sign, an occasional burst of golden California poppy and – oops! – the gaily thorned riot of yellow starthistle.
It’s a noxious and hateful weed that infects the mouths of cows and turns my brother into raving lunatic. It grows profusely in New Idria, and is now making its ambitious way down the road.
Who cares? I peek at the gas gauge through the cracks of my fingers, like a kid peeking at the monster in the bedroom closet. I’ve spent a quarter tank and I haven’t even hit the Griswold Pass. I continue gingerly through the Vallecitos Valley – the juvenile squirrels are thick as thieves on the road and I cringe at the thought of hitting any creature. It seems the squirrel population is exploding again. The ranchers must have hired those two federal neck-snare trappers to exterminate the coyotes, and since the wily canines eat squirrels like we do potato chips, Nature’s balance has been straight-jacketed by the divine but retarded hand of man. In turn, the cattle in the pastures will go lame stepping into a prolific mine field of hidden underground squirrel hovels.
Never mind. My environmental stories have the clout of a mouse screaming in a wind tunnel in these parts. What matters is that the gas gauge is hitting the red zone of “empty” as I forge the gauntlet through ranch country. When I pass one of the stewards of this land, I wave. The neighbor turns away sullenly, his face as sour and crinkled as a dill pickle.
Must be that “Is it 2008 yet?” bumper sticker I slapped on the back.
But ah! There’s another, friendlier neighbor, the quintessential cowboy of the world. Of course, I stop to catch up on local news.
“Did you get a notice from the County Planning Department saying they’re going to tear down yer shack?” he asked, as I rolled to a stop.
“Why, …yes. How did you know?” I said.
“Because we got one too.”
“Don’t worry,” I offered. “I heard every old timer on the road got one. They hired a paper chaser who gets paid for every suspected violation found and they’re spring cleaning their files.”
I’m not making that up.
When the county brings in the bulldozers, he said, he plans on chaining himself to the roof of his trailer, all for the lack of a paper permit. I told him that was my plan too.
“Have a nice day, Kate!”
Moving on, I see the gas gauge now flirts with the “red alert” empty gas tank mark. C’mon, baby. Don’t fail me now. When I make left curves on an upgrade the gauge goes up a tick, and it comforts me. I’ve got to make it to Tres Pinos, the closest gas station in all the land – another 40 miles away. I chain smoke, and then the coffee spills, right on cue. As the ebb tide of beige liquid swirls on the red metal floor between the backseats and the front, I hike up my pant legs to wading length.
I go to work to fill my gas tank. And I fill my gas tank to go to work. Tell me class: what’s wrong with that statement?
Now in the Panoche Valley, the view is so beautifully scenic and pastoral it almost hurts. I toot the horn as I fly by the Panoche Beer Bar and local community center. It’s the one and only zenith of civilization in a 40-mile radius.
Another campaign sign looms before my windshield as I weave through an obstacle course of heifer-sized potholes. So far, I’ve counted 16 campaign signs. Rogue birds dive and bonsai the clattering, swerving Jeep, as if in a misguided but heroic attempt to stop a drunk driver.
Through the Willow Springs subdivision, the Wiggle Tail (a curvy switchback to Summit Ranch, with cliff sides that drop straight down to a gulch some 200 feet below), and then shady Stone’s Canyon, the campaign signs become so profuse I wonder if they shouldn’t be thinned out, agriculturally, for fear they will compete with one another for precious soil, like tomato plants, and kill each other off.
Oh well. Not my problem. The gas gauge is halfway through the blaring red “empty tank” mark. If I make it to town alive it will cost $55 to fill it up again. I do that every other day.
Finally, 24 miles and 32 campaign signs later, the road graduates into two lanes, the kind that real counties have. So far, the only other vehicle I’ve seen is the utility truck of the county road crew who forever fill potholes with granulated black asphalt. I stop and ask all three to marry me.
I pass a field of corn, a Monaco sign serving as its scarecrow, and contemplate shoving an ear down the gas tank. It’s not refined, to be sure – but after all, President Bush just relaxed the clean gas requirements. My ashtray is now so full it could pass for conceptual fine art.
I coast pass the Blossom Hill winery on fumes as I approach Paicines. Hark! A tank trunk full of vino precedes me. I tailgate the rig, hoping to hitch a ride upon the centrifugal force it pulls from behind. It works, though my front bumper will now be permanently distinguished with creases.
At long last I limp into the Tres Pinos Country Store and Gas Station. But here’s the bottom line, folks: in that hour-and-a-half it took me to drive the beautiful gauntlet from New Idria to Hollister, my bank account got $15 lighter for the gas my Jeep sucked up. And in those same 90 minutes, Exxon Mobile Corp. made $7.4 million profit – more than $82,000 a second to help pay for (are you sitting down?) the $400 million retirement package it gave its former CEO Lee Raymond, according to the gas giant’s fourth quarter 2005 financial statements.
I wonder if they would take a very used left kidney in lieu of cash for a tank of gas.
