KILLER AT THE MALL

Here’s a little secret: I usually carry a gun. Like more than 100,000 other Oregonians, I have a concealed handgun license. That means every day I ask myself – carry or not carry?

If I’m hiking in mountain lion country it’s a no-brainer. Of course a gun makes sense. But the Valley River Mall, which was where I was headed the other day? Then I thought: mall shootings, Christmas craziness, foreclosures, guys out of money out of work out of luck out of hope. So on my one-day Christmas shopping marathon I holstered the Glock 9mm under my belt. OK, the odds are really low but what if...?

As I hustled out the mall’s exit, ignoring displays of Christmas sausage, special holiday deals and a cosmos of bright shiny objects, I bragged to myself, That may have been the fastest successful Christmas shopping trip in this mall’s history. Plus, just ten days before Christmas at high noon and I was parked in the first space right in front of the mall entrance. Timing!

Actually, my mall visit, stop number three on my excursion, wasn’t really “shopping” at all. It was “buying.” I had to buy one trinket that I had seen in an ad and I walked straight to the mall directory, found the store, went there, bought the little doodad for my wife’s Christmas stocking and walked straight out to my car.

I took a few minutes to study my shopping plan. Next stop: Home Depot. Thinking of the heavy lunch-hour traffic I decided to exit via the back of the mall parking lot. Past the JC Penney, across the parking lot, past the Firestone tire place and then on my way. 12:20 p.m. La de da.

Police shoot suspect after gunfire at mall, blared the next morning’s newspaper headline.

Police chased down the man after he reportedly fired a number of shots from a handgun as he stood in a packed Valley River Center parking lot at 12:26 p.m. Police said the man was between JC Penney and a Firestone tire outlet when he fired several gunshots.

Six minutes? Is that how close I came to crossing paths with this nut with a gun? What if I had stopped to look at a window display? What if I hadn’t parked so close to the entrance? What would I have done if I had been right there six minutes later when the guy was shooting at his demons?

No one was injured by the gunshots outside the mall, but at least one vehicle in the mall parking lot was struck, Eugene Policy Chief Kerns said.

What if that one vehicle had been mine? What would I have done? Sure, I’d have floored it if that was an option. But what if…?

A SWAT team caught the guy a few miles away and shot him sitting in his SUV “after he ignored their instructions and made constant, unpredictable motions.”

As for me, I may have narrowly missed my first gunfight. Some days it’s all about timing.

***

I went for a morning run in rare winter Oregon sunshine. I put Handel’s “Messiah” on my headphones. I wondered about the man I thought of as “the nut with a gun.” Turns out he was a professional killer – I’m glad we didn’t cross paths. Trained by experts in the U.S. Army, his name is Michael Thomas Mason, 27, a veteran who served combat tours in Afghanistan doing God knows what awful things. Mason confided to a former neighbor that his experience in Afghanistan was “very extreme.” And now this. He’s lying in a hospital near death.

Handel’s soaring oratorio praising an omniscient God didn’t fit the mood. I stopped and put on some early Harry Connick, Jr. I wonder what was the last music that Michael Thomas Mason heard.

Near the end of my run I found a penny in the street. You know, “See a penny, pick it up, and all day you’ll have good luck.” I carried it home and tossed it in my little pond, wishing Michael Thomas Mason happy dreams. The penny bounced on some ice and just laid there. Was that God’s way of saying “no”?

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AND YOU THINK YOU HAVE TROUBLES?

If you think life has dealt you troubles, compare them to this account by Marie Dorion with her two young boys, ages five and seven, from the winter of 1813-14 in the snowy wilderness of northeast Oregon and Idaho:

“About the middle of August we reached the Great Snake River, and soon afterwards, following up a branch to the right hand, where there were plenty of beaver, we encamped; and there Mr. Reed built a house to winter in. After the house was built, the people spent their time trapping beaver. About the latter end of September, Hoback, Robinson, and Rezner came to us; but they were very poor, the Indians having robbed them of everything they had about fifteen days before. Mr. Reed gave them some clothing and traps, and they went to hunt with my husband [Pierre Dorion II]. Landrie got a fall from his horse, lingered a while, and died of it. Delaunay was killed, when trapping: my husband told me that he saw his scalp with the Indians, and knew it from the colour of his hair.

“The Indians about the place were very friendly to us; but when strange tribes visited us, they were troublesome, and always asked Mr. Reed for guns and ammunition: on one occasion, they drove an arrow into one of our horses, and took a [cape] from La Chapelle. Mr. Reed not liking the place where we first built, we left it, and built farther up the river, on the other side. After the second house was built, the people went to trap as usual, sometimes coming home every night, sometimes sleeping out for several nights together at a time. Mr. Reed and one man generally stayed at the house.


“Late on evening, about the 10th of January, a friendly Indian came running to our house, in a great fright, and told Mr. Reed that a band of the bad Snakes, called the Dog-rib tribe, had burnt the first house that we had built, and that they were coming on whooping and singing the war-song. After communicating this intelligence, the Indian went off immediately, and I took up my two children, got upon a horse, and set off to where my husband was trapping; but the night was dark, the road bad, and I lost my way. The next day being cold and stormy, I did not stir. On the second day, however, I set out again; but seeing a large smoke in the direction I had to go, and thinking it might proceed from Indians, I got into the bushes again and hid myself.


“On the third day, late in the evening, I got in sight of the hut, where my husband and the other men were hunting; but just as I was approaching the place, I observed a man coming from the opposite side, and staggering as if unwell: I stopped where I was till he came to me. Le Clerc, wounded and faint from loss of blood, was the man. He told me that La Chapelle, Rezner, and my husband had been robbed and murdered that morning. I did not go into the hut; but putting Le Clerc and one of my children on the horse I had with me, I turned round immediately, took to the woods, and I retraced my steps back again to Mr. Reed’s: Le Clerc, however, could not bear the jolting of the horse, and he fell once or twice, so that we had to remain for nearly a day in one place; but in the night he died, and I covered him over with brushwood and snow, put my children on the horse, I myself walking and leading the animal by the halter.


“The second day I got back again to the house. But sad was the sight! Mr. Reed and the men were all murdered, scalped, and cut to pieces. Desolation and horror stared me in the face. I turned from the shocking sight in agony and despair; took to the woods with my children and horse, and passed the cold and lonely night without food or fire. I was now at a loss what to do: the snow was deep, the weather cold, and we had nothing to eat. To undertake a long journey under such circumstances was inevitable death. Had I been alone I would have run all risks and proceeded; but the thought of my children perishing with hunger distracted me. At this moment a sad alternative crossed my mind: should I venture to the house among the dead to seek food for the living? I knew there was a good stock of [dried] fish there; but it might have been destroyed or carried off by the murderers; and besides, they might be still lurking about and see me: yet I thought of my children.


“Next morning, after a sleepless night, I wrapped my children in my robe, tied my horse in a thicket, and then went to a rising ground, that overlooked the house, to see if I could observe anything stirring about the place. I saw nothing; and, hard as the task was, I resolved to venture after dark: so I returned back to my children, and found them nearly frozen, and I was afraid to make a fire in the day time lest the smoke might be seen; yet I had no other alternative, I must make a fire, or let my children perish. I made a fire and warmed them. I then rolled them up again in the robe, extinguished the fire, and set off after dark to the house: went into the store and ransacked every hole and corner, and at last found plenty of fish scattered about. I gathered, hid, and slung upon my back as much as I could carry, and returned again before dawn of the day to my children. They were nearly frozen, and weak with hunger. I made a fire and warmed them, and then we shared the first food we had tasted for the last three days.


“Next night I went back again, and carried off another load; but when these efforts were over, I sank under the sense of my afflictions, and was for three days unable to move, and without hope. On recovering a little, however, I packed all up, loaded my horse, and putting my children on the top of the load, set out again on foot, leading the horse by the halter as before. In this sad and hopeless condition I travelled through deep snow among the woods, rocks and rugged paths for nine days, till I and the horse could travel no more. Here I selected a lonely spot at the foot of a rocky precipice in the Blue Mountains, intending there to pass the remainder of the winter.


“I killed my horse, and hung up the flesh on a tree for my winter food. I built a small hut with pine branches, long grass, and moss, and packed it all round with snow to keep us warm, and this was a difficult task, for I had no axe, but only a knife to cut wood. In this solitary dwelling, I passed fifty-three lonely days!


“I then left my hut and set out with my children to cross the mountains; but I became snow blind the second day, and had to remain for three days without advancing a step; and this was unfortunate, as our provisions were almost exhausted. Having recovered my sight a little, I set out again, and got clear off the mountains, and down to the plains on the fifteenth day after leaving my winter encampments; but for six days we had scarcely anything to eat, and for the last two days not a mouthful. Soon after we had reached the plains I perceived a smoke at a distance; but being unable to carry my children farther, I wrapped them up in my robe, left them concealed, and set out alone in hope of reaching the Indian camp, where I had seen the smoke; but I was so weak that I could hardly crawl, and had to sleep on the way. Next day, at noon, I got to the camp. It proved to be the Walla Wallas, and I was kindly treated by them. Immediately on my arrival the Indians set off in search of my children, and brought them to the camp the same night. here we staid for two days, and then moved on to the river, expecting to hear something of the white people on their way either up or down.”


Alexander Ross, who recorded her account, concluded, “This ended the woman’s story of hardships and woe.”

[From: Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813, Alexander Ross, Oregon State University Press]

Marie Dorion has been called a “lost heroine” of the West
(http://www.uintahspringspress.com/index_files/LostHeroines.htm). Two years before this nightmare she was the second woman to cross the continent (after Sacajawea). During that disastrous expedition she was pregnant. The family stopped to give birth in the eastern Oregon mountains on Dec. 30, 1811, along what became the Oregon Trail, and then caught up with their party. Her infant son died eight days later.

Like I said, and you think you have troubles?

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LAST MAN STANDING

I’m the last man standing. Once three of us stood for the picture taken nearly forty years ago. We’re looking out on a lake in the Missouri Ozarks, three butts to the camera. Me and two high school buddies on our last adventure together.

Bill – the guy with the orange towel covering his head’s blistering sunburn – is dead. Danny – the one in the center who already looks a bit chubby – died last week.

The three of us had driven to the Ozarks from Michigan where we had gone to school together. We camped and water-skied every day for a week. We dove off reservoir cliffs and once found a water moccasin curled on a sunny ledge. I learned to drink beer. Until then I couldn’t stand the taste, don’t ask me why. It was my social handicap: You don’t drink beer? – always delivered in an incredulous tone – was a conversation killer. I sat on the beach and after the first couple they started tasting pretty good. “I’m proud of you, Schmidt,” said Bill.

The reception for his funeral was at his mother’s house, a tiny box on the corner of two gravel streets in Burton Township, an auto-worker suburb of Flint. Bill was the class clown – cynical but funny. He wrote in my Senior yearbook:

We had fun in this crummy hole, never forget it. I know you will be a big success in life, maybe.

I think he was trying to get out of that crummy hole when he died in Los Angeles. I never heard the full story but Danny said he was murdered by one of LA’s infamous Freeway Killers.

At the reception Bill’s mother showed me some poetry he had written. Who knew? I wish I had a copy; I just remember it was beautiful writing. I urged her to find a way to get it published but I’m sure nothing came of it. She probably thought I was drunk, which was entirely possible thanks to Bill and our Ozarks jaunt.

Danny had the boat and car. He always had the best toys. In high school he started working as an electrician in the auto shops during that hey-day of Michigan’s car building ephemera when Flint was known as “Buick Town.” He worked long hours, made lots of money and lived alone in a mobile home. So he always could buy nice cars, boats and motorcycles.

I lost track of Danny a dozen or so years later. I tried to find him but that was before the Internet and I gave up. I did find an article in a Muskegon newspaper reporting that a “Daniel Lentz” had been killed in a motorcycle accident near Lake Michigan. Danny never called himself “Daniel” but I went a long time wondering if he was dead or alive.

Last year I finally tracked him down using the Internet. We traded emails every few weeks. He sent me pictures of his home set in the wooded hills, pastures and farmlands of central Tennessee on the Kettle Bend of the Duck River where he had moved twenty years ago. He called himself the “hermit on the hill.” He had undergone a quadruple bypass, given up drinking and smoking and been retired for nine years. “I found that being retired is what I was born for. I am really good at doing non-productive things,” he wrote me.

Danny’s gloomy streak that I remembered had darkened. He complained of “clogged arteries, arthritis, worn out joints and just being lazy.” He intended to rid himself of his “stuff,” buy a camper and travel for a few years. “I wanna chase nice weather for a while and then I will be ready for an old people’s apartment. Then I will start smoking again and that will finish me off.”

I felt sad for him and invited him to visit me in Oregon “before you check out for good.” A few months ago I tried again but he was in the middle of putting his property up for auction so couldn’t come. He promised to visit next summer.

I guess Danny found that faded Ozarks picture when he was cleaning out his things. He sent me a copy a month before he died.

I don’t really know what happened. Probably a heart attack. I thought it odd that I hadn’t heard from him since the date of his auction in mid-November. Sunday after Thanksgiving I emailed him a New Yorker cartoon that reminded me of his goal of winnowing his stuff. Two people are standing in an empty house. A bare bulb hangs from the living room ceiling, a shiny brick on the floor. One guy says: “I’ve simplified my life by converting all my possessions into one gold brick.”

A few hours later I got a message in Facebook titled “Hi, from Danny.” But it wasn’t from Danny. It was from his sister, Trudy, who was using his Facebook account to notify people that Danny had died two days earlier. No details, nor was the online obituary much help. It just said he had “passed away at the Maury Regional Medical Center in Columbia, TN.”

One by one, that seems to be how we lose our friends. Some get snatched for no apparent reason. Others check out with a chart full of bad habits. After a while you have to ask yourself: Why me? How did I survive all the accidents, booze, close calls, drugs, … zealotries. You could fill an alphabet's list with all you’ve dodged. Why me? Was it healthy living? Good genes? Luck?

Maybe it was God. I’ve always had people who said they were praying for me. Although that’s not something I do for myself, it couldn’t hurt. Good vibes can never hurt.

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