Chapter Twenty-Five

September 1997
Like Sassa, at the School of Music and Arts Geoff studied graphic design as his speciality. Unlike Sas, who chose hands on graphics illustration for film production as her media, Geoff chose CGI. It was not a surprise, for when he was sixteen he built a ham radio over the winter in the workshop, and was very happy to have news and communication from all over the world. The noise factor- a potential source of conflict with George as it was being built - was solved simply and without fuss by a pair of headphones. He had become quite the technology nerd, which we found very ironic, but his maths had always been good, and in this sphere he had no problem at all paying attention. When it came time for college, he applied to San Diego State in their computer science programme.

Geordie said, ‘I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. His whole life he has been trying to make up for lost time and experience,’ He looked at me. ‘Matt Carberry.’
I nodded.
He looked thoughtful. ‘It a fairly decent illustration of how personal karma functions, actually. What you miss in one life – in his case life itself and time – you make up for in the next.’
Their relationship had got so much better since Geoff did the Forum; there was a sense of co-operation and they went climbing together frequently, which engendered a profound camaraderie as only climbing can. When Geoff did the Stairway to Heaven and the Green Arch on Tahquitz, both classic climbs of some difficulty, he won George’s complete respect.

So our Geoff was going out into the world. On Saturday, he would finish loading up his Golf and make his way down the mountain to San Diego State. We were worried about him, for he was still only seventeen – and not completely self-controlled. At the Friday night jam towards the end of the night, Geoff, his quirky antique five-string guitar in hand, was sitting across from us next to Joe. He leaned over and whispered something to him. Joe nodded, looked at us, and picked up his bass. He and Geoff began to play a familiar tune, and Geoff sang out in his beautiful voice one of Geordie's songs,

'My name is Jamie Raeburn, in Glasgow I was born
My place and habitation I'm forced to leave with scorn
Frae my place and habitation, it's I must gang awa'
Far from the bonnie hills and dales of Caledonia

'It was early on one morning, just by the break of day
The turnkey he came to us and unto us did say
Arise you hapless convicts, arise you one and a'
This is the day you are to stray from Caledonia

'We all arose, put on our clothes, our hearts were full of grief
Our friends who stood around the coach could grant us no relief
Our parents, wives and sweethearts too, their hearts were broke in twa
To see us leave the hills and dales of Caledonia

'Farewell my dearest mother, I'm vexed for what I've done
I hope none cast up to you the race that I have run
I hope God will protect you when I am far awa'
Far from the bonnie hills and dales of Caledonia

Farewell, my honest father, you were the best of men
And likewise my own sweetheart, it's Catherine is her name
No more we'll walk by Clyde's clear stream or by the Broomielaw
For I must leave the hills and dales of Caledonia

Midsummer 1998
As Sassa and Jack had gone off in such different directions to school – he to UC Davis to study sustainable agriculture – and were moreover of diametrically opposed personalities, he being as still and silent as she was restless and voluble, we were all rather surprised when they hooked up at Wobbly in 97. They had grown up together, sure, running with the pack of kids, but never seemed any closer than the rest. But at the weekend hook up they did, and by the Sunday were sitting spooned together in the meditation, which made us smile. Sas had another semester still at UCLA, but Jack moved out there with her, gave up his job with the county and all. Joe wondered what he would do in the Big City, but we soon heard that he was working at the Odwalla plant in their development department. So all was very well indeed.

In May, Sassa graduated, with a job at Miramax ready and waiting, and in June they came home for their wedding at the Midsummer festival. They had the Unitarian Universalist minister from San Jacinto marry them, and the eclectic nature of it made us in-laws laugh. The question had gone round at the dinner at the town hall, what religion we all were, that they picked a Unitarian.
‘Reformed Baptist,’ said Joe, deadpan, but his eyes twinkled.
‘Presbyterian,’ Maggie said.
‘Roman Catholic,’ I said, ‘lapsed.’
‘How are we even friends?’ joked Maggie. ‘We should be fighting like the Hatfields and the McCoys.’
‘Anglican,’ said Geordie. ‘’Very lapsed.’ He smiled at the laughter that provoked.
‘Well, shoot, with that lot, they couldn’t have picked anything else,’ said Joe. ‘We’ve got the World Parliament of Religions right here.’

The were so adorable; Sassa in a floaty gauze dress and Jack in an Indian shirt and khaki shorts, both blond and blue-eyed – like a pair of Hunt’s angels announcing the Triumph of the Innocents. It was weird to hear ‘Asgard and John,’ because nobody had ever called them that.
‘How the time does pass,’ George murmured to me as we sat down on the lawn for the communal cider and cake-sharing.
‘Do you feel it?’
He smiled down at me with that intense, timeless gaze. ‘Not a bit…. But this does make me realise it. It’s all quite amazing, life.’ He kissed my temple.
**
Millennium Wobbly, 2000
Geoff and Gerry were both home from school all summer that year, and we knew that something was up because she came with is to the Summergrass bluegrass festival, even though she didn’t play. She also came to Strawberry. ‘His groupie,’ Geordie said, during our break, when the two darklings were getting very cosy at the concessions.
‘Ah, you have to be ware of groupies,’ I returned.
He shook his head. ‘Naughty girl, you don’t know where that leads.’
I looked up at him with mock innocence. ‘Do I not, good my lord? Tell me.’
I got him with that. ‘Claire…’ he murmured.
When we returned from our break, we launched into ‘John Barleycorn’ as a round. It was always popular, especially after lunch.

‘There were three men came out of the west, their fortunes for to try
And these three men made a solemn vow
John Barleycorn should die
They ploughed, they sowed, they harrowed him in
Threw clods upon his head
And these three men made a solemn vow
John Barleycorn was dead

‘They've let him lie for a very long time, 'til the rains from heaven did fall
And little Sir John sprung up his head and so amazed them all
They've let him stand 'til Midsummer's Day 'til he looked both pale and wan
And little Sir John he grew a long beard and so become a man

‘They've hired men with their scythes so sharp to cut him off at the knee
They've rolled him and tied him by the waist serving him most barbarously
They've hired men with their sharp pitchforks who've pricked him to the heart
And the loader he has served him worse than that
For he's bound him to the cart

’They've wheeled him around and around a field 'til they came unto a barn
And there they made a solemn oath on poor John Barleycorn
They've hired men with their crabtree sticks to cut him skin from bone
And the miller he has served him worse than that
For he's ground him between two stones

’And little Sir John and the nut brown bowl and his brandy in the glass
And little Sir John and the nut brown bowl proved the strongest man at last
The huntsman he can't hunt the fox nor so loudly to blow his horn
And the tinker he can't mend kettle or pots without a little of barleycorn’

Sassa and Jack came home in the middle of September, for Wobbly and to have her baby. She was due around the 18th, but Maggie and I didn’t think she would go that long, because she was little and neither she nor Jack had been late.
‘Look out for that swimmy hole,’ Maggie called, as they went across the road for the trail to the lake. ‘There’s babies in it!’ We sat in camp on the Friday night, sprawled on camp chairs in the heat. It had been a long, tiring, but fulfilling day, with jewellery and colourwork classes, spiritual attunements, a herbal workshop, Jack’s talk on sustainable agriculture, and massages; and as always, too much food, much laughter and many hugs.
Jack turned his head and waved at her in a ‘go way’ gesture, smiling.
‘I can’t believe I’m a granny with that one,’ Maggie said, shaking her head.
I laughed. ‘You already have five!’
‘Yeah.’ She stretched her arms over her head. ‘But he’s my baby.’
‘Sas said they’re having a baby party at your house,’ I said after a while.
‘Well, you’re invited!’
I smiled.’ That was the invitation. It sounds like the whole town is invited.’
‘Only our family,’ Maggie joked.
Anne came over from their tent down the opposite end of our communal camp.
‘There’s watermelon over at Betsey’s,’ she nodded her head.
‘Oh, I could use it!’ I said.

After the last puja, the men sat around in our communal camp, drinking beer and having an informal jam. Geoff was on the edge of it, half paying attention, half trying to make out with Gerry, except that it really was too hot.
Mike said, grinning 'We're a bad influence on the kid.'
George was lounging on his camp chair, bare legs stretched out, barefoot. He squinted. 'Eh?'
'You know, man,' Mike said, 'like-' And he broke into the unmistakeable chords of 'Baby, when I think about you, I think about love...'
When the song was new, it got a lot of play at Wobbly. George laughed and leaned over to pluck Geoff's five-string out of his fingers. 'Ready when you are,' he said to Mike, who startled. 'Oh come on!' They had jammed to rock and roll at Mike's since our first summer, after Mike at the Friday night jam had begun a phrase of Aerosmith and George finished it, to Mike's astonishment and delight.
Now, Mike shrugged, grinning. 'Right...' And away they went.

'Baby, when I think about you, I think about love
Darlin, I don't live without you And your love
If I had those golden dreams Of my yesterdays
I would wrap you in their heaven till I'm dyin' on the way

'Feel like makin'
Feel like makin' love
Feel like makin' love to you

'Baby, if I think about you I think about love
Darlin if I live without you I live without love
If I had the sun and moon They were shining
I would give you Both night and day love satisfyin'

'Feel like makin'
Feel like makin' love
Feel like makin' love to you

'And if I had those golden dreams Of my yesterdays
I would wrap you in their heaven til I'm dyin' on the way...'

Geoff just sat there dumbstruck as they played, watching his father jam to what he obviously considered a really raunchy song. But Geoff had only discovered love, not invented it. We could tell him a thing or two, we oldies. The riffs were awesome, Joe was cooking on his harmonica, and everyone was laughing and giving high fives at the end. George handed Geoff back his guitar, laughing. 'I'm not dead yet!' he said. When Geordie's birthday came around in March, his 50th, Geoff gave him a t-shirt with that printed on it.
I could see why Geoff was embarrassed: he had just found a girlfriend, and was over-run with all sorts of feelings; Sassa was to have her baby any day now, and it was a little weird at twenty to think of your parents – who were about to be grandparents – as still making it, or even wanting to. We certainly never thought that our parents did. George said, 'I'm very sure that mine didn't!'

**
George's 50th Birthday March 21, 2001
That was a bit of a sad day because George decided to cut his hair – or, I should say, he decided to have me cut his hair. His insistence was all the more startling as he was adamant about me not cutting mine - anything shorter than waist-length, he vetoed every time.
'I don't want to be absurd,' he said, running his hand through his loose hair. 'I don't want to look like Jerry Garcia.' He was going a bit grey in silvery threads, which I actually found rather sexy.
'Are you sure you don't want to wait until summer?' I asked, only to buy time, hoping he would change his mind. But he insisted, so he sat in the hanging chair in the common room and with great reluctance, I took my scissors to his beautiful curls.
I had never seen him with short hair, and he said it had not been since he left school when he was seventeen. He looked so... Roman or Greek that it was a shock. 'Pericles,' I said.
'You flatter me, darling.'
But he did.
When we went to the town meeting that night, there was a hush when we walked in. Maggie said, 'for a minute I thought you were stepping out, girlfriend.' She looked up at Geordie. 'You know, the first time I ever saw you I thought you were hot, but this is a whole new perspective.' She winked at me. George actually blushed.