{"id":190,"date":"2020-08-27T11:39:59","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T10:39:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billstewartpaintings.co.uk\/?page_id=190"},"modified":"2026-02-17T22:50:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T22:50:40","slug":"stories","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/billstewartpaintings.co.uk\/?page_id=190","title":{"rendered":"Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Track Around the Mountain<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

I was hitch hiking from southern Oregon out to a place in northern California called Crescent City.\u00a0 I remember it was 63 miles away.\u00a0 Any luck and by late afternoon I would be meeting up there with Tony at McDonalds.\u00a0 In that distant pre-mobile world we had an \u2018infallible\u2019 meet up plan which involved the most likely place at regular intervals.\u00a0 12 noon and every 2 hours after on the hour.\u00a0 A camper van pulled over and I jumped in.\u00a0 \u201cHey where you headed\u201d? \u201c No problem\u201d, \u201c Where you from\u201d?\u00a0 After about a mile we turned left and up a track.\u00a0 Alarm bells started ringing and I asked him where he was going.\u00a0 He said he\u2019d got a back way to go, don\u2019t worry\u2026<\/p>\r\n

The ‘road’ he turned on to was a dirt road loggers track into what became endless forest.\u00a0 We went through junctions of these tracks and I wondered how he knew which way to go.\u00a0 The track was rough and we slowly bumped along like a safari jeep.\u00a0 He was pretty quiet in as much that we didn\u2019t talk about anything other than the usual “do-you-know \u2013the-Queen”? type stuff.\u00a0 \u00a0The \u2018quiet hour\u2019 followed with me looking out into the woods that formed an almost closed canopy over us leaving a pale glow from above, mildly hallucinating.\u00a0 After another couple of hours I asked, \u201cwe in California yet\u201d?\u00a0 \u201cOh yeah, about an hour ago\u201d.\u00a0 I asked him how far to go and he replied that he\u2019d drop me off \u2018somewhere good\u2019 and not to worry.\u00a0 I was\u2026 surprisingly unworried.<\/p>\r\n

I realised it was getting dark when he switched his headlights on.\u00a0 I now stared down a wood lined tunnel with a single track road appearing and disappearing as we weaved and bumped our way.\u00a0 I knew that 63 miles doesn\u2019t take this long even up this track.\u00a0 I asked him what he did for a living.\u00a0 \u201cI do what a lot of people do up here \u2013I farm\u2026 vegetables, fruit and\u2026pot\u201d.\u00a0 He pulled over and rummaged under the floor of the van (I did tense a bit sensing a shotgun) and pulled out a huge plastic sack of Sensimilla buds.\u00a0 He said that there were a lot of \u2018farmers\u2019 in Northern California and to look out for \u201chippies driving Porsches\u201d.<\/p>\r\n

2 more hours staring at the headlights…\u00a0 I did my imagining huge scythes cutting away the trees either side, the odd bouncing star glimpsed through the trees.\u00a0 Can\u2019t get much further away from home than this I thought.\u00a0 Now I wonder why I wasn\u2019t more panicked at the time\u2026maybe he was a nice guy and I thought that I could take him if necessary\u2026 Finally, after a ride that started at around 9am and ended in the dark, we joined a tarmac road and he pulled over at a lone store in the darkness saying, \u201cthat\u2019s it but don\u2019t worry – there\u2019s plenty of drunken Indians in pick-up trucks that will give you a lift\u201d. Off he went, leaving me standing in pitch darkness in the pine woods silent only as pine woods can be.\u00a0 In what seemed like almost immediately an engine and headlights roared and glowed through the woods towards me. 2 drunken “Indians” (Hoopa nation) pulled over and gave me a lift to the next town.\u00a0 We played pool and I got a deal on a cheap motel.\u00a0 In the morning I looked at the motel map.\u00a0 I was 145 miles from Crescent City.\u00a0 The first car to come by was a Porsche driven by a Hippy.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t stop.<\/p>\r\n

Timm Williams<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

During the long haul up to Crescent City I sat on my bag by the road and began reading \u2018Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee\u2019.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know why I did.\u00a0 I must have been tired because it wasn\u2019t the best way of persuading people to stop.\u00a0 I was probably hung over from my previous day\u2019s journey and drinking with the Hoopa guys.\u00a0 A car driven by a lone man did pull over and I got in.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t normally pick up hitch-hikers but I like the book you\u2019re reading\u201d.\u00a0 It has to be said that nearly all people who picked me up would either say they don\u2019t normally stop or that I was, \u201clucky\u201d as, \u201cno-one stops for hitch-hikers any more\u201d (!).<\/p>\r\n

His name was Timm Williams and he was going all the way to CC.\u00a0 He asked me about the book and told me that he was a member of the Yurok nation from the Klamath river region around CC.\u00a0 He helped me find my friend\/occasional co-hitcher and started 3 great days of walking ancient tribal grounds, hearing stories and meeting his fellow tribal friends. \u00a0He had beautiful tribal headdresses made from woodpecker scalps and similarly impressive body adornments and clothes. When his friends came to visit they would speak their native tongue but, sadly, Timm said that so few were still speakers and that life was getting lonelier with less people to talk to.<\/p>\r\n

He told us that he\u2019d once been a \u2018tribal\u2019 dancer for the Stanford Indians, the Stanford University Football team.\u00a0 He said that he used to curse the crowd in Yurok so nobody would understand.\u00a0 He told me it was along the lines of \u2018F**k off white people\u2019, but this may be something I\u2019ve since concocted as memories faded over time or his attempt at atonement*.\u00a0 Many years later I tried to contact him but had no reply.\u00a0 It turned out that he\u2019d died in a car accident in 1987.\u00a0 Now with Googling I have found out more about him. He was a controversial figure\u2026\u2026.* https:\/\/indiancountrymedianetwork.com\/education\/native-studies-tribal-colleges\/eliminating-the-stanford-indian-mascot\/<\/a><\/p>\r\n

https:\/\/stanforddailyarchive.com\/cgi-bin\/stanford?a=d&d=stanford19571122-01.2.73<\/a><\/p>\r\n

https:\/\/stanforddailyarchive.com\/cgi-bin\/stanford?a=d&d=stanford19730925-01.2.33<\/a><\/p>\r\n

https:\/\/books.google.co.uk\/books?id=nzx_CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA101&lpg=PA101&dq=timm+williams+prince+lightfoot&source=bl&ots=RM0OW_2bZX&sig=pnlfq7qARePWBFc88zaoqObRIe0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiTitCf_cHaAhVEFMAKHWlnAjA4ChDoAQg0MAM#v=onepage&q=timm%20williams%20prince%20lightfoot&f=false<\/a><\/p>\r\n

Mount Rushmore<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

I was hitching across South Dakota towards Mount Rushmore.\u00a0 It was getting late and I was trying to get there before dark.\u00a0 I ended up stuck by a road that I was told was the right one.\u00a0 The roads back then weren\u2019t so busy, not compared to now when millions of people go touring the states.\u00a0 Back then it was different.\u00a0 No cars were passing.\u00a0 It was getting dark so I decided to sleep out the night and try again first thing.\u00a0Maybe a ranger would pick me up on his way to work in the morning. I always had my emergency rations of food, wine and water in case I got stuck somewhere.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have a clue what wild animals might be there -Bears? Coyotes? Snakes? .\u00a0 I made myself comfortable in my chilly thin sleeping bag and drifted off.<\/p>\r\n

I woke later to an eerie glowing of moonlight.\u00a0 There was something bright hanging in the trees.\u00a0 I knew it wasn\u2019t the moon as that was behind me.\u00a0 I got up and walked towards it.\u00a0 I was scared shitless but there\u2019s was no point in going back to await my doom in my sleeping bag.\u00a0 I came to a clearing.\u00a0 Hanging in the sky above me was Mount Rushmore, the four dead presidents glowing white in moonlight against the sky.\u00a0 My first thought was consumed by jaw-dropping disbelief.\u00a0 My second was, \u2018if I\u2019d known I was this close I would have walked the rest\u2019.<\/p>\r\n

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Stamford Roundabout<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

After a tough day getting out of NYC my friend Tony and I had only got as far as Stamford, courtesy of an African-American guy who had taken pity on us. This was early days and we’d decided to try hitching together. Needless to say, two big men weren’t going to get lifts easy, even back then…<\/p>\r\n

We were bound for Boston. We ate at a cheap diner. It created a dilemma when you’d ended up in an urban area. On the one hand, plenty of places to stay, but limited ‘free’ options such as barns, woods etc. The former meant saving laying out our precious dosh. I was feeling a bit exposed wandering around an urban area with bags so I suggested sleeping in the middle of a roundabout we were passing. It was covered in dense bushes. Any ‘robbers\/psychopaths’ etc would have to walk across the traffic of the, albeit not very busy, roundabout and crash through the undergrowth in order to take us by surprise. I slept like a log under the orange streetlights, glowing through the bushes. How different from the glow of moon and stars in wild places to come later…<\/p>\r\n

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Arizona<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

Fred7SistersDarkStarsSatelliteVibrationWelcomeArizona<\/em><\/strong> is from a group of paintings driven (no pun intended) by memories of hitchhiking around the USA, far from home, feeling a mixture of elation, trepidation and loneliness. \u00a0While hitchhiking toward the Grand Canyon I was dropped off across the road from a huge Fred Flintstone.\u00a0 It was strange as only things could be in the USA.\u00a0 Oven-ready surrealism (in fact it was an entrance to a theme park)…\u00a0 This painting is made up of many elements drawn from what was around me or going through my head at the time.\u00a0 For example, hitchhiking meant I would sleep out a lot (I still do by the way).\u00a0 I would look at the stars and see a satellite (a rare sight back then before space became a junkyard).\u00a0 I looked up satellites of that era and put them in the painting.\u00a0 One was Cosmos 482, a failed Venus mission.\u00a0 Strangely, a couple of months after finishing the painting, Cosmos 482 hit the news as it finally fell to earth this May. Painting gives me permission to revisit significant situations in my life and permission to challenge how I work in order to explore them.\u00a0\u00a0 Maybe I’m painting lost photo opportunities of the kind that no camera can handle. \u00a0It may be that ‘Fred’ is me, dazed and confused, trying to make sense of it all, feeling out of place, a caveman under satellites, planes, flags and stars both Dark and bright, waiting beside that road in Arizona all those years ago.\u00a0 ‘Fred’ is life; he has the right mix of mystery, profundity and absurdity.<\/p>\r\n

Ohio<\/strong><\/p>\r\n

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 <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Track Around the Mountain I was hitch hiking from southern Oregon out to a place in northern California called Crescent City.\u00a0 I remember it was 63 miles away.\u00a0 Any luck and by late afternoon I would be meeting up there with Tony at McDonalds.\u00a0 In that distant pre-mobile world we had an \u2018infallible\u2019 meet up … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Stories”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-190","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/billstewartpaintings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/billstewartpaintings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/billstewartpaintings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billstewartpaintings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billstewartpaintings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/billstewartpaintings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":960,"href":"https:\/\/billstewartpaintings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/190\/revisions\/960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billstewartpaintings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}