THE USUAL NOTE FROM LB: From the summer of 2002 to the spring of 2010, Gwen the Beautiful and I were the proud and often exhausted owners of a beautiful Ozarks property we called Cloud Creek Ranch.
In many ways, the ranch was paradise. But it was a paradise with a price that started going up before we even knew it existed. Here’s another Monday musing about our adventure and the lessons we learned.
Oh, and if y’all detect any irony, please believe me when I say it comes straight from the universe and not your kindly Uncle Larry B.
by Larry Brody
Four months after the Navajo Dog and her playmate the red-tailed hawk came into my life, everything changed for me geographically.
The powers that be decided that the TV series I was producing wouldn’t be shot in L.A. but in Florida.
Orlando, to be precise.
Home of Disney World and Universal Studios East.
The first thing I noticed when I got off the plane in Spring of 1990 was that every adult male in Orlando looked like Dwight Yoakum at one age or another, past, present, or future.
The second thing I noticed was that every adult woman looked like Donna Reed.
Too young to remember Donna Reed? She was a 1940s film star who recycled herself into the perfect TV housewife during the ‘50s. Polka dot dresses. Hair shellacked into an immovable flip. A smile that would soothe even the most savage Mr. Yoakum.
I spent almost a year working at Universal Orlando and never figured out if that particular part of the world, with its both clear-and-clean-cut weather, geography, population, and values was The Most Wonderful Place On Earth or a Hell that I’d been exiled to because the plane had crashed somewhere after leaving L.A.
The kids and the Navajo Dog were with me in Florida, which contributed to the Wonderful side of things, but the hawk was nowhere to be seen. I’d spot hawks now and then. (You could distinguish them from the turkey buzzards at altitude because the hawks would be flying straight and the buzzards would be circling.) But never the hawk. Dineh’s friend was part of the past instead of the present.
But not forever. Oh no.
The TV show I was supposed to be in charge of failed. Miserably. On all levels it was the worst professional experience I’d ever had. All creative and practical decisions involved huge, meaningless battles. Meaningless because no matter how anyone tried to twist what was happening it was obvious that neither art nor finance were at stake in the conflicts.
Only ego.
Executive ego. Creative ego.
My ego.
I realized how futile everything I did was. How empty of redeeming value.
I realized that not only did I no longer love putting on a show, I actively despised it.
At last the day came when we packed up our car and drove out of Dodge, heading toward its total climatic opposite—Santa Fe, New Mexico. Hey, when I go for a change I go all the way!
I still remember our last day in Florida. I was walking Dineh near a small lake (AKA a large sinkhole).
“Don’t go so close to the water,” she said.
“It’s the last time we’ll see one of these,” I said. “Why not take advantage of that?”
From the center of the lake came a rhythmic sound.
Swish. Swish….
The pace of the sound picked up. It came faster and faster.
Closer and closer.
“That’s why,” said the Navajo Dog, and she nodded toward the gator that was coming our way.
I ran the fastest I ever have. Discovered that the back door of the hotel was locked. Dineh yanked me away, and we hightailed ourselves around and slipped in via the main entrance just in time.
I also still remember the first day I was alone in Santa Fe, after the kids had gone back to L.A. to stay with their mother. Again, the Navajo Dog and I were taking a walk, this time through the desert scrub. From the sky came another rhythmic sound.
Skree. Skree….
The pace of the sound picked up. Came faster and faster.
Closer and closer.
“He’s here!” Dineh yapped with delight, and soon I saw why.
A red-tailed hawk flew overhead.
Swooped down. Flew back up.
Down again. Vanishing behind a rocky outcropping.
The Navajo Dog and I raced to the rocks As we reached them, a young man wearing a backpack came around from the other side. Dark-skinned. Tightening a red rope the held up his jeans.
He hunkered down and hugged Dineh, and then they both sprang up, patting and bumping and bobbing around each other. Finally, they stopped, and the young man young man scratched Dineh’s ears and looked at me closely.
“I know you,” he said. “You’re Larry Brody, right?” And, before I could answer: “I’m Gilbert Red Hawk.”
“You’re Lakota, from the Pine Ridge Rez,” the Navajo Dog said. “You’re a filmmaker.”
Gilbert peered into her eyes. I’d been hearing Dineh talk for awhile but had never given it much thought. Now he was hearing her too.
“Yes, yes, I am,” he said. “How’d you know?”
“I never forget a friend,” she said.
Gilbert laughed. It didn’t sound like any laugh I’d heard before. It sounded like–
“Skree. Skree….”
It sure felt great to see our buddy Gilbert again.
