The Trip to Deer Mountain

When we arrived out west in the mid 1970s, we had little in the way of furniture, so when Marcia’s boss, Jan, said that she had bought a new couch and wanted to get rid of the old one, we jumped at the chance. Through our secretarial work, we had become friends with a co-worker, Barb, and her husband Rich, who offered to use his pick-up truck to get the couch.

You could not meet a more lovely soul than Rich who had a big heart to match his big girth. Rich was always eager to help you. The problem was that things often went wrong when he was helping. On the way back with the couch, he saw a guy whose car had stalled in the road and the man reluctantly agreed to Rich’s idea of his pickup pushing the guy’s car off the highway and on to the side. With a bang, we made contact, afterward driving off leaving the guy crouched behind his vehicle examining his bumper. When we got to our house in Edmonds, we discovered that somewhere along our route the middle couch cushion had blown off the truck, never to be recovered. No matter. Marcia and I found a replacement cushion. It was the wrong color, fabric, and size, but I was satisfied.

That couch was the most comfortable piece of furniture that I have ever owed. The smaller middle replacement cushion nicely accommodated your ass as you reclined on the couch. It was a seafoam green color that was popular at the time. The fabric was like a soft terrycloth towel, and the arms had pillow-like pads covering them.

From this description, you can understand how at times I didn’t want to leave my couch. I admit that I hogged it, leaving Marcia to sit in a hard living room chair that we later acquired. One Sunday afternoon, she sat in that chair and said to me, “What are we going to do today?”

I glanced at her from the couch and replied, “Well, there’s a football game coming on soon. I thought that I would watch that.”

“Can’t we go somewhere?” she suggested.

“We don’t have much money.”

“We have a gas credit card and a bit of cash for the ferry. We could go for a drive somewhere,” she countered.

“I don’t know…” I replied weakly. Damn, that couch was comfortable.

“We moved thousands of miles to live somewhere near beautiful mountains and the ocean, and we’re just going to sit here inside the house on nice day….”

I could see where this conversation was going.

“Ok,” I relented. “Where should we go?”

“Some place new,” she answered.

“Ok, let’s find a scenic mountain and hike it.” At that time the park service gave out free topographical maps, and I pulled one out and unfolded it.

“Here’s a place. Deer Mountain. Look at the elevation. We should get a good view if we hike up there.”

We were not the outdoorsy type. We had hiking boots and thick socks and had hiked tourist trails up Hurricane Ridge in Washington and Mt. Katahdin in Maine, trails that rewarded your exertions by revealing evermore spectacular views as you climbed. That’s what we were expecting from Deer Mountain.

There are three other things that you should know at the beginning of this story. First, we are driving a rusted-out Ford Maverick that has already been driven cross country from Detroit. Two, in the sun, I am prone to excruciating headaches. Three, we have Washington plates and Ohio driver’s licenses, and I live in fear of being stopped by the cops.

Our first warning that Deer Mountain was not a good tourist destination should have been the road up the mountain. It was a stone strewn dirt road that jangled our jalopy and sent billows of dust up into the air so that, despite the stifling summer heat, we rolled up our windows and baked in the unair-conditioned car. But that wasn’t the worst of it. As the old car rattled about us, we heard a loud metalic chunk from beneath the vehicle. Stopping, we walked behind the car and saw our rust ravaged muffler lying on the ground. But we had come this far, so I tossed it in the trunk, and we continued up the mountainside.

We parked at the trailhead and began our hike up a small hill that did not look intimidating. At the top, though, the trail dipped, only to rise again in another steeper hill. Mounting that hilltop, we discovered another dip in the trail and another hill to climb. This roller-coaster rise and fall of the trail proved to be a characteristic of the whole trail, at least as far as we got. We hiked for a couple hours. With the rise of each hill ahead of us, our hopes rose that at the summit a panoramic view would open before us, only to find ourselves closed in still by dense forest and another hill awaiting us. Climbing in and out of each gap or notch in the mountain was exhausting. What I didn’t realize then was that, at an elevation of about 4000 feet, Deer Mountain never rose above the tree line, the demarcation line marking the point beyond which trees don’t grow. Unlike our hikes up the more elevated Mt. Katahdin and Hurricane Ridge, this hike would never give us a vista high over the treetops. In addition, I was beginning to think that Deer Mountain might get its name from the fact that its trail seemed an endless series of blinds for hunters. We never saw any deer, though, or any other forest creatures. It was just rocks, dirt, dust, and heat. Eventually, we decided to give up the hike upward. Marcia said, “I can’t go on any further.”

Under the beating sun, my head had begun to throb. “Let’s go back,” I said.

“I need to rest,” Marcia replied. Her lungs were weak from asthma.

“I can’t stand this sun anymore. My head is killing me. I just want to get home, pop a few Gelpirin and lie on the couch.” Gelpirin was an aspirin product laced with caffeine and was my pain reliever of choice.

We sat for a while before I said, “Come on. I’ll help you.”

Hiking back up each hill, I grabbed the back of her hiking shorts and pulled up to help her make it to the top.

“I guess you could say I’m hauling ass,” I wisecracked. As has been the case many times in our marriage, something that I found very funny Marcia was not amused by.

By the time we arrived at the car, my head was in a state where I found nothing amusing. Then there was the ride down with the jarring road and the growl of the unmufflered car.

Once down the mountain, I said, “If we drive this car without a muffler, a cop could stop us and ticket me for driving without a Washington State license.”

“We’re passing through Port Angeles,” Marcia said. “I saw a Sohio station there. Let’s see if there’s someone who would put on a muffler and if there’s a shop open to sell us one."

We were always low on money it seemed. But we did have a service station credit card for a chain then called Sohio (a company that later changed its name to BP). Back in those days, just like it was common for cars and houses not to be air conditioned, it was common for young people not to have the array of credit cards that they do today. We had our Sohio card. That’s it. Good for gas and repairs at Sohio service stations only.

A Sunday afternoon in a small town, things were pretty dead at the service station where an agreeable young man was by himself holding down the fort. “Sure,” he said, “I’ll put on a muffler for you.” He told us that there was a parts store open just down the street.

So I walk into the store and say to the middle-aged guy behind the counter, “What’s the cheapest muffler you have that will fit a Ford Maverick?”

He says, “I have one for 14 dollars, but it’s fiberglass.” Heck, I thought, I don’t care what it’s made of. I go back to the car and say to Marcia, “Do we have 14 dollars?” She was in charge of our finances.

"Yeah," she says, hesitantly. She reaches into her pocket and hands me some folded over bills. I go in and emerge carrying a small box in my hand.

I climb back in car and hear a burst of crying next to be. “That’s all the money we have,” Marcia sobbed. “We have no money for the ferry back.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I complained.

“I didn’t want to tell you because you’re so crabby!”

Going the land route down the peninsula instead of the ferry over the waterway would add an hour to our trip back home.

Then one of us – I don’t remember who – had a brainstorm. Maybe that kid at the Sohio station could overcharge for the muffler and give us some money out of the till.

Sure, he was willing to do that.

At the station, I stood and watched as the kid put the car on the lift, took the cylindrical muffler out of the box and fitted it to the exhaust pipe.

“You want the Woody Woodpecker to face out, don’t you?” he says to me.

“The Woody Woodpecker?” I say.

“Yeah,” he says, “this is a fiberglass muffler.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It’s a hot rod muffler,” he explains.

There’s a long pause as I contemplate my headache getting exponentially worse. Then, grimly, I reply, “Yeah, put the Woody Woodpecker facing out.”

He adjusts the muffler so that the emblem of a crazed red feathered bird is visible. It looks like some fierce cousin of the familiar cartoon character.

Back inside the customer area of the station, I explain to Marcia what a Woody Woodpecker muffler is. Miss Optimism says, “Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

The kid lowers the car and backs it off the lift. Well, I think to myself, sounds rough but not that loud.”

Marcia and I get in the car, back out and accelerate down the road.

Heh-heh-heh-HEHHHH-heh, the car roars.

“This is worse than having no muffler,” I lament. But, I tell myself, I only have to endure this awhile longer and then I will be home on my couch and have respite. Maybe the line won’t be long for the ferry.

No such luck. It’s the last ferry for the evening, and all the weekend vacationers are catching it to get back to the mainland. Now it’s like Woody is in my head, cackling wildly and pecking at my brain in a frenzy, again and again with each acceleration as we drive forward in the line. Kids are looking out their car windows, laughing. Old folks are scowling at us. Yes, we are the non-teenage idiots in a rusted-out Ford Maverick with a hot rod muffler!

O sweet bliss when back home on my couch with a couple of pain relievers beginning to course through my blood stream.

Marcia and I agree: we have to replace that muffler.

No problem, says Rich, when we tell him about our situation. “I can get you a muffler cheap from a junk yard, and you and me can put it on.”

Car repairs are not my favorite activity. I have memories of being forced to help my father repair his cars in what I am sure for him were viewed as educational father-son bonding experiences but for me were just eternities of waiting for Liquid Wrench to dissolve rust, hearing him say repeatedly, “No, can’t even budge it yet. Let’s put on a little more Liquid Wrench and wait.” Wait, wait, wait.

But good, old Rich can’t be dissuaded from helping. He comes around with the salvaged muffler, we jack the car up and put it on blocks, and the two of us climb underneath. It’s a tight squeeze for someone of Rich’s bulk.

Down under the car, we match the muffler up with the pipe running from the engine. Looking at the muffler and the pipe side by side, I say, “The two things here are almost the same size. The muffler thingy won’t fit over the pipe like it’s supposed to.”

“No,” says Rich in disbelief. “I was sure this would fit.” His fleshy face is only a little over a foot from me, and, in the glow of the work light, it is flushed from his exertions and discernibly troubled by disappointment. I feel sorry for him.

But then his features lighten. “Oh, we can make it fit,” he exclaims, and I worry.

We crawl out from under the car, and he reaches into his toolbox for a tin snip.

With the scissors, he makes a few cuts around the opening of the muffler pipe. “Now,” he says, smiling, “We can push it over the other pipe, crimp it and clamp it on!”

And that’s what we did. And it was quieter than no muffler at all and quieter than a Woody Woodpecker hot rod muffler and lasted for the life of the car, which quit on us about two years later.

And that, that is the end of the adventure – or misadventure- of our trip to Deer Mountain.

THE END