Years ago in the mid seventies while living in Los Angeles I took a day trip to Los Padres National Forest, an hour north of the San Fernando Valley, to see the mountain peak known as the condor lookout. Such wondrous birds. A condor has twice the weight of an eagle and a 10 foot wingspan. They live 60 years. There were an estimated six condors left in the wild around 1977. In 1987 condors were near extinct. With protection, now they number about 206. South America has more condors in the wild. In the U.S. there were only six the day I drove to see them. now in 2018 there are 446. Great flyers, they soar to a height of fifteen thousand feet.
In less than an hour I got to the area where condors lived. Parked my car and followed the signs, a short walk on a trail to the lookout. I saw families, old couples, tiny children held by their parents were there...and so were the condors. Invincible, flying in large circles, like eagles. High above the mountains, out over the valleys. Five of the near extinct birds soared for the delight of the visitors. I had a camera, but didn't take a picture. Those wonderful birds would only appear on film as dots at that distance. Seeing them gave me and everyone else a thrill. What a sight.
I walked away from the crowd assembled at the lookout and sought another subject, something close enough to photograph. The mountain peak quickly sloped gently into open fields filled with knee-high weeds, occasional wild flowers, bushes and boulders. When I was only a few minutes away from the other tourists I came upon a young man in his early twenties, crouching in a thicket. He was next to a boulder, and so well camouflaged that I nearly stepped on him before I saw him. When I realized it was a person I was taken back. I literally jumped back a few paces. The crouching young man in the brush did not move. He was alive to be sure, I could see that, but still as a statue.
He appeared nearly naked and mostly covered with what looked like dried mud. More striking, he had a wooden contraption strung on his back. He crouched at an angle to me and I could see the network of sticks strung on his back. Each stick of near equal length, I approximate each piece of wood to be two feet in length and three quarters of an inch in diameter. The wood pieces were gathered from branches, obviously selected for their straightness and uniform size. The wood sticks were striped of bark and appeared quite similar. One end of the sticks were connected to a type of leather harness, slipped over his shoulders. The free ends of the sticks pointed outward at different angles. What had I come upon?
If the the sticks formed a pattern I could not tell, although there appeared to be regularity in the distance they were spaced. The free ends of each stick had a heavy string or cord fastened to it and hung freely. Strings connected the ends of the sticks on at least two other sticks. The entire array impressed me somewhat like several box kites strung together without the paper. The entire package could have formed a geometrical design; again, I could not be sure.
The young man's hair was shoulder length, a plain brown color; and his hair, like the rest of him was caked with dried mud. He didn't look directly at me, even though I stood a few feet from him.
As I continued to stare I began to think the mud on his face was put there in deliberate streaks, similar to how I would imagine an Indian would apply war paint or a camouflage. The mud on his face was not uniform, did not appear to be in a pattern, it seemed to have been applied in large heavy swipes.
I became aware of the passage of time, long moments elapsed with him not moving to acknowledge me, and me rudely standing near by him and staring. He did not appear to exhibit the intensity or concentration of a trance. It all seemed very curious.
I couldn't wait any longer for him to make the first move. I had waited as long as I could stand. "Hello," I finally said. Now it was up to him.
He turned his head toward me casually and spoke, "Hi." His reply came in perfect English. For some reason it was startling to hear his clear, plain voice. I expected a strange, foreign sounding voice that would indicate something more about his country, his history. There was nothing irregular in his reply. His voice was like that of any other twenty-something year old in southern California.
Now he was looking at me and I felt forced to speak again. I half pointed, or somehow indicated the sticks strung on his back, "That's really something."
"Thanks," he said. "I made it myself." That about floored me.
Then he was silent again. He had no more to say. If there was more then I would have gotten the conversation rolling. But he was quiet. It took only a few seconds for me to feel awkward at the silence. This guy squatted in an empty field of brush, half naked with mud smeared all over him and sticks held by strings on his back.
I lifted my camera to show it to him. "Do you mind if I take your picture?"
"No, go ahead," he replied.
This was the time of film cameras. If there were digital cameras I would have taken fifty shots and a movie with sound. As it was, I took one shot of him ... one lousy photo that didn't do justice to the scene. After I took the photo I became more daring.
"Do you mind if I ask what you're doing?" I tried to make the question as gentle and non-interfering as possible.
"It's a personal thing." That was all he said, and it stopped me. I could ask no more. He had successfully ended the matter.
"Oh, I see," I said. What else could I have said? He could have had a spear in his hand, I wasn't going to argue with him, it was a personal thing. He did not have to explain himself to a stranger. After all, he was well off the trail alone, behaving himself in a national forest. I was the one who came up to him.
"So long," I called as cheerfully as I could. He did not look at me nor say anymore following my words of departure. He remained squatting there, motionless as I walked away.
I looked back after thirty yards or so and I could just make him out. He blended in so well with the rocks and weeks and sticks of the field.
I got to my car and drove home. It was a personal thing.
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