Prelude

Age 13, first rifle, Palmdale, California

Steve was born in Fargo, North Dakota, and grew up in Desert View Highlands, an unincorporated area between the Amargosa Wash and the San Andreas Fault surrounded by Palmdale, California.  Steve’s dad, a high school teacher and coach, often took the family camping and fishing the Eastern Sierras.  When I met Steve he had all the accoutrement for fishcamping:  stove, lantern, cans of Dinty Moore in a milk crate, sleeping bags, a camper shell, and a battered ’66 Dodge truck called “the Mothership”–and he often talked of fishing and camping. 

I grew up urban in Akron, Ohio, and my family had vacationed in remote Pennsylvania and Canada woods and lakes, Cabin-camping around the Great Lakes.  I had done a little fishing there, too, didn’t like to kill things.  I went to college in Tucson where I fell deeply in love with the desert, and enjoyed hiking.   More of a bird-watcher, I like to build a fire and grill a steak, and would rather watch a sunset than a television set.

Laurie in Art School, 1984

Steve and I had met in 1985 when he would often visit my boyfriend Grif’s roommate.  They were in bands that played at the local pub, where Steve had also worked as a bartender and bouncer.  Steve was a guitarist and singer with an amazing voice,  I was a novice drummer, learning to play on songs that Grif wrote.  Over the next few years Steve and I got to know each other while playing in bands and singing together.  We talked, shared a smoke, and I would give him rides home from band practice.

By 1990 Grif and I were playing music together, but drifting apart.  I had felt bold enough to invite Steve to go with me to Oregon that June of 1990, but he declined.  We were not that close yet, not a couple–and tho I visited his sister and her family in Portland, perhaps it was too weird for him to visit my Mom and Dad.  It was the last time I saw my Dad, as he died a few weeks later.

I went alone, driving my 1971 Datsun 510 station wagon up the I-5 to Portland, back along the coast, then inland to a friend’s cabin in Shasta.

On my way home, the engine blew on I-5 north of Sacramento, just at sunset.  I hitched a ride to the Denny’s in Willows–Steve answered the phone when I called, brewed a pot of coffee, and drove the Mothership to meet me. We spent that night together in a nice motel, towed the Datsun back to Berkeley, and have been tripping together ever since.