Ostrich Burger

It all started with an ostrich burger.

In the high desert, amidst miles of Joshua trees, dry washes, scrub grasses and sand, streets turn into roads, roads fade into trails, sign posts become sparse, and you quickly think you are far away from home. Just in the very fact of being there, you have taken the road less traveled.

Last week, it was work that took me there, to a small town, deep in the Antelope Valley, with the charming name of Pearblossom. It was noontime now, and my afternoon was free until my return in the morning to observing classrooms and talking educational jargon with intelligent administrators.

MacDonalds reared its yellow arches up ahead on the Pearblossom Highway. No, not MacDonald’s, not today. The sky is too blue, and the snow is white on the distant mountains. No, today it must be something more authentically indigenous. Charlie Brown’s, touting fresh picked peaches, buffalo steak, date shakes, exotic game meats and . . . ostrich burgers. Within 15 minutes, I had ordered an ostrich burger and sweet potato fries, changed out of my pantsuit and pumps and into my jeans and plaid shirt, and was settling onto a sunny picnic table in the middle of a tiny, fake, wild west ghost town. I took my first bite of ostrich burger.

I don’t know how the fella at the next table knew it was an ostrich burger. It looked as tame as a burger of beef. “How’s that ostrich burger?”

“It’s quite good. Lean, mild, almost like turkey. I like it.” “It’s my first time trying one,” I added needlessly.

“I’ll have to give it a go next time. My buddy and I, looks like we had too big a breakfast up at the top.”

“At the top? Of what?”

“The mountains. We rode our bikes down. Do that every once in awhile. We live up in Wrightwood.”

“Bikes? How on earth do you get back up?” I put down the ostrich burger.

“Motorcycles, dear lady.”

“Oh, of course. How far away is it from here?”

“Just about thirty minutes.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Those mountains looked huge, and distant.

I quickly calculated a comparison to my intended drive to Palmdale for the night. Visions of pine trees danced through my head.

Within fifteen minutes, I was on the road going in the opposite direction. Within half an hour, I was at 4,000 feet, noticing patches of snow. Ten minutes later I was at 7,000 feet, in the town of Wrightwood. I reeled out of the car, drinking deep, bracing breaths of mountain air, my eyes lifting a hundred feet up to catch the tops of pines that brushed the sky blue.

I started to walk -- I didn’t know where and I didn’t care. I was in a place I didn’t expect to be, and it was glorious. An hour later, I had walked all the streets named after birds, and all the perpendicular streets named after trees. I was near the edge of town, when a fluffy little white dog tumbled off a front porch and gamboled up to me and started licking my hand. A man got up from a wicker porch chair, laughing and apologizing, and we exchanged the usual greetings that occur when one’s dog has just shared intimacies with a stranger.

We chatted on, as the shadows lengthened.

“So, where do you recommend someone stay here in Wrightwood?”

“I have the perfect place. I’ll show you.”

In another half an hour I had met his wife, written a personal check, and Iwas installed for the night in a cozy little apartment over the detached garage.

I sank into a leather couch, opened my laptop, and buried my head into curriculum analysis. When I emerged, I was ready for the meeting tomorrow and ready for something else, though I didn’t have the foggiest idea what. I hopped into the car, wrapped myself in two sweaters, and drove down the road called Pine.

Three minutes later, I was drinking a glass of Merlot at a little wooden table in a little rough-wood-paneled coffee shop. Packed into the corner were two guitar players, a bass player, a keyboard player ,dreadlock-bedecked drummer and a tambourine man.

The singer’s name was Gale and she had a clear, true voice and she smiled as she sang. She was singing all the songs I loved when I was in my twenties. One by one, the locals showed up, greeted each other and settled in. After a bit, they started introducing me, too. I was swept up by the natural friendliness and abandoned my usual reserve. Sure felt good, by golly, sure did.

At a pause in the songs, we all trooped up wooden stairs to the singer’s new studio, where sunlight shone in the daytime and moonlight shone at night, through the windows wide and high, onto the drafting tables with paintings held in suspense. Everyone mingled, and milled, and mulled over the possibilities of watercolor classes in May, acrylics classes in June, and starting life anew in a redwood loft.

Then we all trooped back down the stairs, and settled into our chairs. The drummer from Chicago, the school teacher-turned-artist, the newcomers, the old-timers, the several woman clinking glasses and proclaiming their success in forgetting their lost loves, the few men drifting on memories of youth, and the husband and the wife producing sandwiches, pouring wine, and forgetting to tally the bills.

Gale told the story behind a song she had written about her retirement from teaching, just a few months before. It was called The Time of My Life. When she sang, the story of the wild, fast ride up the mountain, on the back of a Harley, with her hair and her spirit flying, not knowing what her future was going to bring. somehow it felt like the time of my life.

The song ended, and I heard my own voice blurt out, “Oh, yeah, you go girl!” Everyone’s glass was raised with my words, and the room clinked.

“So, how long have you lived here, Pat?”

“Me? Oh, I just got here today.”

“Today? This is your first day here? Well, let’s all give Pat a big welcome to Wrightwood!“

“Where do you live?” I think they expected me to name one of those bird streets.

“Oh, I live in Manhattan Beach. I came here on a whim.” A dozen faces were looking at me with incredulity.

“Well, see, It all stared with an ostrich burger.“ And so I began to tell my story.