November 4, 2010 – Almost Cut My Hair

Almost cut my hair. It happened just the other day. But for fourteen bucks I decided to let the Wal-Mart hair-salon lady do it. We had left Zion with the Japanese tour bus on our tail on the downhill run into St. George, Utah. We pulled into the parking lot with the bus.

I watched the Asian horde de-bus and assemble proudly in front of the Wal-Mart sign for a group photo. They then methodically donned germ masks and rushed in for a hectic three-minute shopping spree.

Meanwhile I tried to relax under the jittery scissors and forlorn chatter of Tina, who wept openly while she clipped. Once a well-paid Vegas performer her current station in life was brought on, she said, by the mismanagement of a “no-account bum”.

Her baggy eyes and the shaky shears she brandished suggested that the concurrent ravages of booze and time may also have played a role in her fall from grace.

The dispassionate Japanese at the adjacent tills, their carts overflowing with cheap undergarments imported from China, were immune to Tina’s wailing and — thanks to their white-menace prevention masks — any disease communicable from her flowing tear ducts.

We were sick and tired of Wal-Mart tourists and national park commercialism and decided to seek out the real America. So we drove to Mesquite, Nevada and parked at the Casa Blanca Hotel, Casino and RV Park, where I received a couple of more hair cuts at the craps table over the next few nights.

Fully shorn we moved on toward Vegas but skirted Sin City in favour of its satellite community, Lake Las Vegas, where jovial friends hosted us in their lovely home located in the exclusive, gated “South Shore” housing community. Celine Dion lives a few doors down.

I golfed with a guy whose uncle often talks on the putting green to Celine’s husband Rene. This is not bullshit.

Following our celebrity near-encounter we moved on once again to more plebian neighborhoods, following our old friend Highway 93 as she crossed the newly opened bridge over the Hoover Dam. Exiting Nevada we drove into Arizona. Four hours later our eyes peered with the setting sun over the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

It was cold that night. Frost greeted us in the morning.

When I entered the biffy an older fellow was rubbing the morning’s cold from his hands. After I had concluded my business he was still vigorously moving about the washroom. Just retired after thirty-seven years at a Kamloops brick foundry, “Jacques” and his wife were camping out in the back of their Suburban.

He was either really chilled or badly in need of male companionship. He told me in great gory detail how he was looking forward to getting out of the Grand Canyon campground and back to sleeping in a Wal-Mart parking lot. I think Jacques needed to get back to baking bricks.

Meanwhile in the women’s restroom next door Florence had inadvertently interrupted Jacques’ wife who was hoisted up on the sink, cleaning her nether regions. I heard a faint scream but I’m not sure from whom.

Despite the early morning excitement we managed to complete the 12.2-mile “Bright Angel” hike that day, a trek from the south rim down to a fabulous viewpoint overlooking the Colorado River and back.

We slept soundly that night despite the load snoring sound emanating from the adjacent Suburban.

Gerry & Florence