The Players and Glossary

Stan: Hippie. Previously has been a living historian, homosexual, grad student, ski instructor. Chews tobacco and drinks like a fish, but insists that my ingestion of Sprite is horribly unhealthy. Terrific friend; awful drunk. My best friend on the mountain, for the most part.

Dru: Stan's unfortunate wife. Head cook at the Employee Dining Room. Everything decent I've eaten at the EDR has come directly from Dru. Sweetest girl on the mountain. From a New England fisherman family of abusive men. Dru made me a hat.

Rabbit: My roommate for most of the time on the mountain. Rabbit is from Louisiana. He's a beefy, awkward guy who is horrible in social situations and tends to talk to me in his sleep. He worked the night shift at the lodge, so I often woke up to him drinking beer early in the morning.

Captain Tim: Another very good friend. Boat captain, and retired Coast Guard/Navy man. Big bushy moustache. Tim and I first became friends while singing dirty sea shantees with NPS rangers, and made many trips to Klamath Falls for Vietnamese food. Tim lives in Portland with his wife. We remain friends.

Captain George: George is our 80-year-old boat captain, who survived as a grunt Marine in World War II and Korea. Spent most of his civillian life on fishing boats and drinking rum and Cokes. George doesn't take shit from fools. He can't swim.

Captain Roger: After my initial boss went to Eugene for bladder cancer treatment, Roger became the boss. Good-hearted man who works hard and tends to goof up a lot. Roger can't hear shit. Once a tree fell on Roger when he was younger. His skull was crushed and he lost pints of blood.

Dana: The other dockmaster at Cleetwood Cove. Considered by many to be the most beautiful girl on the mountain. I got in trouble with Dana for hijacking the skiff and spending an afternoon on Wizard Island without approval. Farmgirl from Central Oregon.

Stefanie: Pretty Midwestern blonde from Madison. Just out of college where she majored in theater, and therefore hasn't a hint of a career. Worked in the ticket shack for hours with Stefanie, where we pushed the limits of sanity. She was miserable with her living situation, and had one half-retarded roommate.

Stacey/Stacy: Good-hearted girl from Chiloquin, the worst shit-town in the United States. Also spent many hours with Stacy, listening to her depressing stories about growing up in Chiloquin and her constant double-negatives.

Greg: Bellman. Young hearthrob who spends his days off and sometimes on under the influence of random drugs and alcohol. One of my favorite guys on the mountain. Greg stayed with me in Portland for a few days before flying out to Eastern Europe.

Cory: Head Bellman. Indian from Nebraska who has hit more deer with his truck than he can count. Full of great, bloody stories about living in rural America. Cory dated Jess, a hippie girl who lived on a campground just out of the park, for most of the season.

Ben: My across the hall neighbor. Ben is from Chiloquin as well, and therefore, suspect. He plays country music with blaring bass. I think it would be pretty fair to call Ben a redneck.

Todd: Kind of a worthless dude who works at the lodge. He cleaned floors and worked front desk with me. Locked me out of my hotel room in Prospect on the night of our goodbye party.

Tom: Tom is my hero, although his appearance here is limited. I worked with him in Tucson, where he planted the seed to work in Crater Lake. When I showed up, he was there. Tom's idea of settling down would be living in an apartment of his own for a few months. He's been rambling around the world for as long as he can remember. Brilliant, well-read and friend to all who meet him. His influence has had a great deal to do with my adventures in Crater Lake and lifestyle up until today.

Places and other inside language:

EDR: Employee Dining Room. Hit or miss place where the workers get their food.

Cleetwood: The cove where the boat tours took place. Aside from government research, Cleetwood's boats are the only ones allowed on the pristine water. The dock is a 2-mile hike from the top of the rim to the bottom, and about 700 feet in altitude change. Typical days at Cleetwood last 13 hours, but were mostly spent lounging around the shore.

Caldera/Mt. Mazama: Mt. Mazama is the massive volcano that erupted thousands of years ago, collapsed in on itself, filled with snowmelt and made Crater lake. The remaining crater is called a Caldera.

Llao and Skell: The Klamath Indian gods whose battles created Crater Lake. Two opposing forces representing the chaos and violence of the underworld and the calm, civillized overworld.

Mazama and Rim dorms: Mazama is where I lived, about a 15 minute mountain drive to the lodge. Home to the older workers, who earned it the name "The Mazoleum." The Rim Dorm is where the party's at, apparently. All the college kids live there and behave like drunk monkeys. I only went to the Rim dorm once or twice, because it always appalled me how obnoxious it was. Often, Mazama folk would drive to the Rim at night hunting for ass.

Xanterra: The National Park Service can't afford to run all aspects of its parks. It provides maintenance, fire crew, tour guides, law enforcement and so on. The remainder, in all of the country's parks, is performed by "concessionaires," who run the lodges, restaurants and stores under NPS oversight. While the two entities are civil, there is underlying tension and a little resentment between the very different groups. The boat crew and the rangers work closer than any other branches of the park, and are one of the few bridges between the government and the concession. I worked for Xanterra, one of the largest park companies in the country.

425s/Interps: College kids and grad students hired by the National Park Service to act as guides within their parks. The 425s live in a set of duplexes called Sleepy Hollow. Since the company I work for often hires lowlifes and fuckups, friends and I would seek refuge at Sleepy Hollow. All very cool people who were kind enough to host me and mine every week or so.

Prospect: Tiny logging town 30 minutes from Mazama dorm. Great pizza place there. Home of the infamous Trophy Room, where firefighters wait for the call and get wasted, and locals beat up the Park workers for looking at their women. I spent a fair number of evenings here.

Klamath Falls: A dull, conservative town about 45 minutes the other direction from the park. The only reason to go to K. Falls is for the terrific Vietnamese food, but it's reason enough. K Falls is a haven for pelicans, and therefore they have become the town's unofficial mascot.

Ashland: Hipper than hip town south of the park, where I go for Sushi, good beer and comic books. Ashland has become a refuge for Northern Californians who are tired of high living costs and tourists. Wine country.