After more than 30 years grounded, happily, by a family and a
career in science, John Carey’s late-blooming passion for
far-fetched imagination tells only one small story of his
many-sided tale.
After more than 30 years grounded, happily, by a family and a career in science, John Carey’s late-blooming passion for far-fetched imagination tells only one small story of his many-sided tale.
On Wednesday, Carey drove his recreational vehicle, alone, from the Morgan Hill Thousand Trails Preserve to begin the first leg of his annual seven-month journey throughout the country. Now in retirement from a career researching the basic structure of matter, the 76-year-old has come to remain predictable in only one sense: He never stops entertaining or traveling, and likely never will.
Even throughout the winter months – when Carey stays in the area to be close to his four kids, grandchildren and great grandchildren – he migrates back and forth between preserves in Hollister and Morgan Hill. Carey has led the RV lifestyle since leaving a long career in research at Stanford University 12 years ago.
“Home is in the trailer. There is nothing else,” Carey says. “That is home. That’s it.”
Carey, otherwise known as Pack Saddle Jack, is also a professional storyteller – a throwback to entertainers of the past, which shows in his chest-brushing gray beard and “G-rated” performance style. The craft he began in 1994 “turned commercial” only two months ago, and some preserves along the journey have already committed to paying Carey for his campfire entertainment.
“I don’t dwell too much on stories which have been told and told and told. I’ll dwell more on stories like ‘Windwagon Smith in Kansas.’ If you can find a place in Kansas that has a trailer park,” he says with a chuckle. “They’re scarce!”
But even in simple conversation – when he isn’t reciting one of his 60 most-frequented narratives – he carries himself with a dramatic charisma, a passion for spoken words; a “vitality,” according to friends.
Those stories, which are mostly targeted at other retirees, fall into one of three categories:
“Tall stories, very tall stories; California history, which is ridiculous history; and Bible stories from unusual points of view.”
He has adapted many tall stories on the list – which continues to grow – from old, but never dated folklore. His backlog of fiction – both adapted and original – includes such titles as “The Fur-Bearing Trout,” “Eating Oysters Alive” and “The Bull Race.”
“‘The Bull Race’ goes back to the Texas Stockmen’s Journal of 1872,” he says. “Until I moved it out here to the Bo-la-do Park.”
The stories about California history, he says, “don’t need any embellishment.”
“California Gold Rush history,” he says and pauses for dramatic effect. “It’s wild. It’s ludicrous and it’s ridiculous. And most of it is bloody.”
And when telling a story from the Bible, he recounts “strictly out of scriptures” – but not in Bible language. “Serious can be enjoyable,” he says. But modern language will “make the stories living.”
Carey hit the road this week with plans to camp at preserves throughout the Midwest before reaching Maine. From there, he will travel the Atlantic Coast before driving across Texas. He plans a return to Central California eight days before Thanksgiving, a “habit” that allows him to spend winter holidays with family.
As a member of Thousand Trails, Inc. – Carey pays $5 per night at any of its 59 preserves. At each, he has access to an electrical hookup, water, laundry facilities and swimming pools. Thousand Trails also owns affiliate parks, and Carey has access to those as well.
The audiences around the campfires usually vary from two to 30 listeners. If no one shows, “I’ll sit around the campfire. But I won’t say anything because I’ve heard all the stories already,” he says.
And even though Carey will be paid for his entertainment, on average, one weekend per month, those who encounter him, if only briefly, realize, instantly, his dramatic flair is a constant.
Carey remembers mailing stories to a cousin in England, and her reaction.
“Her comment was, it ‘brought tears to her eyes.’
“I was heart broken when I read that. Then I read the rest of the sentence. And it said she ‘was laughing so hard…’ But you know what I just realized I had done? I got sad. My demeanor, I got sad. I was heartbroken.”
Life on the other side
Carey hasn’t always displayed the outgoing vigor he now personifies. For most of his life, he considered himself a quiet person and was primarily focused on career and family. He worked at Harvard University before moving to Stanford University in 1963, where he worked for 28 years in a federally funded research program.
During that time, Carey cultivated his interest for California history. Stanford sponsored an “Armchair Traveler” series of 90-minute videos, and Carey grew curious about producing an episode. Yet, while holding stable employment in Palo Alto, he knew he couldn’t travel far to research or produce for the show.
“What could I do, which is California, which is accessible to me, which nobody else has done?”
“The mining history of California,” he says with a stage whisper. “Rivers of Gold!”
Carey became entrenched in research at libraries in Sunnyvale, Mountain View, San Jose and Santa Clara. Every librarian he would encounter came to know him by first name, he says. “It became an absorbing interest. I read and read and read.”
Carey says two “major changing points” occurred in the years that followed, which ultimately altered his lifestyle and contributed to his transformed persona. First, he says, “I met the Lord.”
In 1977, as a fly buzzed over his head, he peered studiously, and the bug illuminated. While his fascination of the moment escalated, Carey suddenly heard a voice say “Make one.” Thereafter, Carey has had a “passion for the Lord,” according to Hollister’s Della Smith, a close friend.
The second event occurred in 1994 when his wife died.
“And in order to get me out of the great doldrums that people fall into when traumatic changes happen,” Carey says, “the Lord took me and put me in certain jobs.”
Carey volunteered as a ranger at the Morgan Hill preserve, where weekly contact with hundreds of campers, listening to many of their problems and pleasures, he says, “brought me out of a lifelong shell.”
A co-worker encouraged Carey to begin telling stories at the campfire. He hasn’t stopped since.
“The stories grew… They grew in wildness. They grew in tallness. And they grew in number.”
There’s the story of the “Sidehill Cow” – about a cow with long legs on the downhill side and short legs on the uphill side. There’s his “Arlo Guthrie the Cat” series of stories – his originals based on a family cat, which was also named Arlo Guthrie. And he maintains his inventory of Bible anecdotes and historical accounts, many of which “don’t need embellishment.”
The stories are all committed to memory. Although he records them, for safety’s sake, on his computer.
“It’s like a Christmas tree… Remember the thread. Trace the red thread throughout the story. Then you can trace the green thread and hang all kinds of decorations on them.
“This is the joy. This is the fun part. This is why it doesn’t get old. Because, what’s going to happen next?”
Carey will stop someday, he says, “when I’m old and decrepit and won’t have any voice.”
He hopes for strength to continue storytelling for another 20 to 30 years. And so do his family and friends, who are defenseless to the felt inspiration from Carey’s “passion for life” at 76.
“He’s the kind of person I want to be – vital, still experiencing life, constantly interacting with people,” says Emery Smith, Della’s husband.
Della added, “When he would leave, last year especially, I just really missed him.”
Carey, for now, remains free of “stress or strain.” His next major goal is earning induction into the National Liars Hall of Fame in Dannebrog, Neb. Formerly housed in the back of a saloon, the Hall of Fame has recently moved to a gift shop in Dannebrog.
“I will be an inductee when I send my entry.”
