The Rucksack Letters

By Steve McAllister

In 2001, Steve McAllister decided to leave behind the life that he knew and follow the footsteps of Kerouac down the road less traveled. Filled with colorful characters, blazing humor, and somber soul-searching through the vivid tapestry of America’s underbelly, The Rucksack Letters is a pivotal first step at a time when the world is seeking a new path.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve McAllister
• Release date: Dec 12, 2009

Book preview

THE RUCKSACK LETTERS

A Prodigal Fool on a Hero’s Journey

by

Steve McAllister

Copyright 2006

Published by InkenSoul Press

www.inkensoul.com

[e-mail]

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

PREFACE

This book began a few years before it was actually lived and written. After college, I wandered from job to job for awhile before my friend Matt Corbin invited me on a surefire Alaskan fishing expedition that would wipe out all of the financial debts that had accrued during our reckless youth and early adulthood. The five month journey found the worst fishing season in eighteen years, a substantial break with my religious tradition, and an all-consuming infatuation with wanderlust.

A few years later, shortly after I scoffed at Matt’s newfound diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder, I met with him to discuss its implications. My job jumping had only intensified, and I found myself at the end of my proverbial rope. Of the twenty diagnostic criteria, seventeen of them succinctly defined my standard operating procedure. Researching it more and finding a therapist to make the official diagnosis, I decided to make a documentary on the subject of ADD. After filming ten hours’ worth of material, my appetite for creative stimulation was still nowhere near satiated. And so, I decided to use the malady to my advantage and took to the road to write the book that you hold in your hands.

While it was largely my goal to simply travel for the sake of travel, I was also imbued with a yen to explore the deeper meanings of spirituality, society, community, and the American Dream. Before I left on my sojourn, I contacted a number of intentional communities from monasteries to hippie communes to at least give me a rough outline of what the journey would entail. And though the road often curved more than I imagined it would, every corner brought me new insights and a greater understanding of life on this rolling clump of dirt I call home.

When I began delivering these letters via email to the number of addresses I’d collected over the years, the fact that I addressed them with the epithet Dear Jack was a bit confusing to many. But I was deeply indebted to Jack Kerouac for the limelight that he brought to wanderlust, and the free flowing verse that enraptured a generation and has echoed throughout those that followed.

The title of this book was inspired by Jack’s book The Dharma Bums, from a passage where Ray Smith and Japhy Ryder discuss The Rucksack Revolution.

"…see the whole thing is a world of rucksack wanderers, Dharma Bums refusing to subscribe to the general demand that they consume production and therefore have to work for the privilege of consuming, all that crap they didn’t really want anyway such as refrigerators, TV sets, cars, at least new fancy cars, certain hair oils and deodorants and general junk you finally always see a week later in the garbage anyway, all of them imprisoned in a system of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume, I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of ‘em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also being kind and also by strange unexpected acts keep giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures…"

It wasn’t until I reached the end of my road that I realized Jack’s folly, the self destructive lifestyle that eventually led to his death at the age of 49. And though I adopted many of his more reckless traits as my own, I also managed to adopt some of his strengths.

Though you may find a large measure of folly in the words that follow, it is my hope that your eyes will also be opened to a greater understanding of your fellow man. Though we each must make our own individual journeys, at the end of the road we are all one.

THE FIRST STEP

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them.

-George Bernard Shaw

July 5, 2001 - Sarasota, Florida

I spent the last several years trying to find my place in life. I began searching for it through the Church; in allegiance to God, I sought to be a servant. I searched for it in other people, entertaining them, serving them, and knowing them. And I searched for it in myself, only to find that one of the reasons I couldn't find my place was due to what this society deems a neurological disorder. I was damaged, unfruitful, and unable to function properly in society without continuous medication and treatment.

I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder earlier this year. I took this diagnosis as an opportunity to integrate and put to use the two varied degrees I struggled to get, Psychology and Film. My recent goal has been to create a documentary about ADD in order to educate others, and more importantly, to educate myself. My hope was to create something informative, as well as interesting. Not enough art is bleeding into the human condition. My dream was to show how ADD had affected my life and how I had overcome it. My motive was to be appreciated for something I actually followed through on, not generally a strength for those of us walking around with ADD.

After three days of shooting, escorting my cameraman to interviews with professionals, and acting as one myself, I was exhausted. I had spent the last several months trying to use the creative skills often apparent in ADD to create, to educate, and to enlighten. I served as producer, director, writer, actor, and every other task required to make a film, except cameraman and sound technician. These roles were embodied by my good friend, David Ortkiese. Dave had worked with me on two documentaries I did in film school, and I saw him to be a great ally. In spite of the varied degrees of success on those projects, Dave still had enough faith in me to sacrifice a few days of his life to voyeurize mine. He went home Wednesday night after we finished a true test of attention, a four-hour video time lapse of the sun setting over Siesta Key Beach. When the sun melted into the sea, my project was wrapped. And after Dave left, I was able to watch my life and see how well I had conquered this disorder.

The good news is that I learned more about how ADD was affecting me than I had ever imagined. This was, incidentally, also the bad news. It wasn't exactly a pretty sight. After a few hours of watching what the experts in the field think of my current state of affairs, and a six- pack of opinions from the Plank Road Brewery, I realized that the documentary had already fulfilled its purpose.

This video, the most recent of my endeavors, will not, to keep in line with so many others, be finished. As I watched what I had filmed during those three days of trying to uncover the truth about ADD, there was little truth apparent, at least little that I agreed with. I watched myself trying to explain how this disorder is plaguing the lives of millions of people, how it is ravaging their self-esteems, and ruining their lives.

The truth is that I don't believe in ADD in its most popular form. It's not that I don't believe in it exactly, I just don't consider it a disorder. A disorder is considered to be anything that would impair the way you operate in a normal society. I guess the question has to be, what is normal? For me, normal has been considered modern American Capitalist/Consumerist society

There is little compassion in normal society. There is little fairness, justice, or peace. And I soon realized that the goals I was striving for were not ones I truly wanted to attain. I don't keep a good bankbook because I don't care that much about money. I don't organize because I prefer the journey to the destination. I don't plan well for the future because I live in the present. My desires and my methods don't blend with normal society.

This all brought me to the conclusion that the reason I haven't been as successful in my endeavors as I had hoped to be was that my goals weren't my own anymore, but the goals of whatever it was that I let influence me. I was blinded by what the general public and the advertisements that guide society told me to find important. And truth be told, on further inspection, most of what I've been striving for and occupying my mind with now seems like a complete waste of time and energy.

If I can't function properly in this society and don't mesh with society’s desires and systems, maybe there is another one in which I can. And for that, I must explore. Through all of this searching to understand God, others, and myself, I have realized that I may never find my place if I don't continue to search. The answers I've been given so far have not brought me peace.

If you ever took a Psychology class, you may remember that Maslow's hierarchy of basic human needs defines physiological needs as the most basic, followed by safety needs, belongingness and love needs, esteem needs, and finally, the need for self actualization. If you haven't heard of this before, don't feel bad. I have a degree in Psychology and even I had to look it up.

Well, I've been living in the modern American/Judeo-Christian/Capitalist/Consumerist society for thirty years now. For the most part, my safety and health have always been provided for, thanks to wonderful parents who regard me with ample faith and limitless patience. And while I've often felt love, I have found no belonging, my life subject to that of a renegade and a dreamer. Without belonging, esteem has never been fully reached and self-actualization is a distant fantasy.

I will continue to write of my journeys for as long as words can describe them. I make no promises that my language will always be sweet. I can assure you that there will be times it will be as hard for you to read my tales as it will be for me to live them. If what I write offends you, know beforehand that it is not my intent. If you disagree with me, I only ask that you examine why. If I let you down, get in line with all the others I’ve disappointed. If I challenge you, I hope that you will meet it.

This is my request to you as I make my journey: that you may make it with me. It is my hope to show you in my life when God blesses me, lessons I learn, and joys that fill my moments. And it is my prayer that you will do the same. If we meet along the road and you find a way that I can help, don't hesitate to ask. If you are a revolutionary, I want to understand your revolution. If you are a fisherman, teach me to fish. And if you serve a God, treat me as He would have you treat me, so that I may see Him in you. I'm not asking for money. I'm not asking for a handout. I'm not asking for you to save me. I'm asking you to strive to live up to your potential as I strive to live up to mine.

Rest well in the knowledge that you are not alone in your worries for me in my chosen endeavor. My parents' attempts in understanding why I have chosen to take this path, heartfelt as they may be, have offered them little solace as their youngest son sets off to see the world. You'd think they'd be used to it by now with as much wandering as I've done over the last ten years. I think they were hoping I would have accomplished something more with my life than becoming homeless.

Within the last week, I've gotten two calls from old friends wishing to meet with me before I leave; though it's been eons since we last spoke. But I met with each of them and shared my heart's intent as I have with you. And through them, as I later discovered them to be gentler versions of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, appointed by my family to question my motives and report back, my parents have found at least some ease. Nevertheless, as to why I must make such a dramatic move is as foreign to them as it often is to me. But at least I'm beginning to understand it better.

Yesterday was Independence Day, and I spent it alone on the roof of my house as neighbors shot bottle rockets and Roman candles in every direction I looked. And I sat up there and watched, wondering if any of us truly considered the day a celebration of our independence or just an excuse to raise the fire marshal's blood pressure.

I considered the Declaration our forefathers had made some two hundred and twenty-five years ago. I remembered learning of how many of them died violently to establish the freedoms we so take for granted today. If they saw what America would become, would they have been so willing to allow their blood to be spilt?

It seems like sometimes we forget, I know I do, just how much of a melting pot America is. There is a whole other side to America than what I see through the media. Other lifestyles, currency, desires, and methods of living. If for no other reason, I am leaving to examine our freedom. Or more accurately, to find my own.

AN INNOCENT CRIMINAL

Without changing our patterns of thought we will never be able to solve the problems we created with our current patterns of thought.

-Albert Einstein

July 12, 2001 - Tampa, Florida

So much has changed since I last wrote that I don't know where to begin explaining the current circumstances of my life without sounding like a delirious idiot. Well, to be honest, moments of delirium have truly filled my first few days since leaving home, but they have been coupled with somber introspection. I hesitate to say that it makes me balanced, but I'm working on it.

To truly understand why I'm doing what I'm doing is going to take awhile. Basically, I'm starting at the bottom again. I'm starting from the beginning. I want to learn everything again for the first time.

After a month of planning to plan, I finally took that first step on Monday. I put my rucksack in the back of my car, donated bags of slightly used clothes and dusty neckties to the Goodwill - assuring them that no receipt was necessary, and left some photos and my dog with my parents as tears of confusion and worry streamed down their faces.

And then I left.

The first leg of my journey brought me to Tampa where I wanted to visit with Kevin and Jen for a few days before abandoning my car at the lot where I had purchased it and apologizing for not being able to continue on with our contract.

I arrived at their apartment to find a note from Jen on the door. She was visiting a friend and left directions on how to find her, a page full of lefts and rights, u-turns, and counted stoplights that was slightly more intelligible than a corporate tax code. Fortunately, as I walked back to my car, still deciding if that particular trip would be worth the trouble, Kevin arrived home from work, a smile beaming on his five o'clock, Monday face. We yelled at each other across the parking lot, praising each other for perfect timing.

He dropped his briefcase by the door and popped open a couple of cold ones as we settled on the couch. He shook his head at me in wonder, still disbelieving the adventure I was taking. He asked about my plans and routes, but I could give few answers, not knowing myself where the roads would take me.

Since Kevin and Jen have been married, there have been few occasions where the two of us have been able to take part in those strictly male rituals of bonding, so Kev had made the provisions to make this one memorable. He pulled a Ziploc bag from his refrigerator and removed the Cuban cigars he had been storing in dampened paper towels.

Neither of us ever having had the occasion to smoke such a valued commodity due to our lack of finances and refinement, we stepped out to the porch, lopped off the ends, and fired the mothers up. A beer in one hand, a cigar in the other, we had freedom in the moment.

With Kevin's limited knowledge of Cuban cigars - though I must admit that it was superior to mine - he told me that while it was legal to possess a Cuban cigar in America, it was illegal to transport them into the country or to actually smoke them. I thought he might have been confusing it with Vincent Vega's laws of Amsterdam. Then I remembered that I was living in America and that many of our laws rarely make sense at face value.

Nevertheless, we continued on in our crime spree, for I am far too great a friend to allow him to travel this road to criminality alone. We puffed away at the high-priced Swishers- partners in miscreance, toking on contraband - his Sundance to my Cassidy. The smoke wafted through the patio screen and into the Florida sunset, and I had to wonder why there was a law against it, aside from the fact that smoking the rancid sticks of pure Cuban tobacco was not good for our health and made us smell like Schwarzenegger's index finger.

While Kevin and I smoke cigars about as often as the moon is full, and most of those have come in packs of five, we were able to understand that the cigars we now smoked were popular for a reason. As far as thick rolls of cancer causing agents go, these were pretty good. Unless Cubans put something else in their cigars besides tobacco, neither of us could find much reason why they should be illegal. I think I'd just like to have the freedom to smoke a Cuban cigar, wash the stink off with a nice hot shower, and not have to worry about bending over for the soap.

Kevin and I got halfway through the contraband when Jen called to invite us to her friend Naomi's place for a swim. With no place to be and nothing better to do, we stubbed out the stogies, threw on our swimming trunks, and headed on.

Naomi and Jen were already soaking in the apartment complex hot tub when we finally got there, a little late since we had to go back for the towels we forgot on the dining room table. We splashed around awhile and busied ourselves with nothing in particular until Naomi's boyfriend Brad got home from work at eleven, and we all went inside.

Brad seemed to me to be a nice fellow, with short-cropped hair and an eager smile, despite how he spent his last several hours at work. He is a technical support consultant for a computer company. You know, the 1-800 number you get with your computer, the one that you call when you can't get the cup holder to work right? Brad is one of the guys you talk to. As he regaled me with stories of the stupidity inherent in most computer owners, I can't imagine spending eight hours of my day explaining to these people that you have to turn the computer and the monitor on in order for it to work correctly. I have a lot of respect for Brad.

So we talked about computers a little, which didn't really interest me much, but I always love to hear someone talk about something they're actually intelligent about. However, Naomi had heard it all before, Jen didn't want to hear it at all, and Kevin was feeling a bit nauseous from the Cuban. So while I nodded intently at Brad's computer lingo, Naomi broke out the water pipe, Jen raided the garden, and Kev just sat on the couch the way most forty-hour-a-weekers do on a Monday midnight with an out-of-town guest. But once the bubbles started, Brad stopped talking, Kev leaned forward, and we all got our second wind, as the room filled with blue-gray smoke that amazed us to watch as it wafted toward the ceiling.

For the second time of my first day of freedom, I was involved in criminal activity. And again, as I looked at the smiling faces in the smoke-filled room, I wondered why? Why is it illegal to simply possess marijuana? Regardless of the fact that it chemically induces euphoria, what is the danger? It's an old, often stated argument, but why outlaw this yet allow the more destructive alcohol and cigarettes? How can the criminalization of marijuana be remotely constitutional? It's a plant, for heaven's sake. It's not even a drug that people make. It's a natural thing. A seed gets placed in fertile soil, water is added, the sun shines, and a plant grows.

Now, I'm not going to try to rationalize the use of drugs - though I can attest from personal experience that marijuana has several therapeutic, recreational, and creative uses - and I would never want to put marijuana in the same class as any other drugs, like cocaine or heroin. Marijuana is a plant. It is a natural, living organism, designed by God, or Nature, or whatever you believe causes life to happen. You can grow it in your own backyard, provided you want to serve the prison time. It can be used to treat anxiety, depression, pain, and an assortment of other ailments that are affecting our culture in more ways than I could possibly name because, frankly, it gets me depressed just thinking about it. Marijuana, cultivated and used with knowledge and responsibility, could help a lot of people for the price of a seed and the patience it takes for it to grow.

I'll bet the pharmaceutical companies aren't really pushing for that to happen. If Americans are given back the right to care for themselves, pharmaceutical companies as we know them are going to be out a hell of a lot of money. The people afflicted with those anxiety disorders that they're currently paying eighty bucks a month to medicate - which only serves to increase the anxiety they are trying to cope with - probably won't be valued customers anymore. If Americans are given the right to cultivate their own pharmaceuticals, how will these companies make money? How will the government be able to tax us as we strive to make ourselves better on our own?

Yet there are still nay-sayers. There are still those who think Reefer Madness was a documentary. I've got news for you. Reefer Madness is to marijuana as Friday the 13th is to summer camp.

Along with marijuana, our country has deemed it necessary to outlaw the cultivation of hemp - the part of the plant that isn't as fun to smoke. In 1640, the Governor of Connecticut declared that every citizen should cultivate his own hemp. There are currently thousands of possible, environmentally friendly uses for hemp, from clothing to fuel. In California, Woody Harrelson’s driving around in a hemp-powered bus. Yet, for the majority of our country, hemp is illegal. Sure would have been nice if the Exxon Valdez spilled hemp instead of oil. I'm sure the fish would have been a lot happier.

In 1937, when the Marijuana Tax Act was made law, the Senate had two hearings on the subject, totaling one hour, at which time the American Medical Association representative, Dr. William C. Woodward, proclaimed that there was no evidence that marijuana was dangerous. The law passed anyway. The House of Representatives had 90 seconds of debate, and jumped on the bandwagon as well. President Roosevelt signed it, and on October 1, 1937, America banned one of the most useful resources to ever grace our soil.

There are people who use this plant in religious ceremonies to achieve spiritual harmony, to pray for peace and love for their community and world. There are people in pain who use this drug as a