Okay…we’re all unique individuals. Sure. Of course. But “Lucky Lorenzo” Stowell was somehow uniquer and individualer, a once-in-a-lifetime happening. And for those of us he happened to—we were, not “blessed.” We were enriched, in the truest sense of the word. ◦◦◦◦◦ I wrote this sketch, in part, with his friends as target audience. So there’s not a lot here in the way of graphically describing the man, though there’s plenty enough to give a sense of who he was. If you don’t know who Lorenzo was, read this and find your curiosity piqued, I’ve written a few pieces that would help. One has quite a bit of dialog—talk, bringing out his true essence. And therein lies the difficulty of trying to put Lorenzo on the printed page: to even begin to pull it off entails the use of different fonts up to about thirty points, italics, underlining, plus serial abuse of the exclamation point. Then, there’s all the different voices and accents he’d use…facial expressions…full-body expressions…gesticulations and window-rattling laughter. For L. Stowell, storytelling was dance. But check out The Lunch Was Not: https://timforsellstories.blogspot.com/2013/04/-the-lunch-was-not.html. Then, there’s Letter to Lorenzo https://timforsellstories.blogspot.com/2015/05/letter-to-friend-2015.html, written on the occasion of his eightieth birthday—the best gift I could come up with for the man who had no use for presents: (This, a slightly sanitized version, fit for semi-public consumption.) Finally, there’s the tribute I wrote for his memorial celebration, never delivered. When it came my turn and I was standing in front of the tribe, it was obvious that reading a prepared speech wasn’t an option. So just wung it. And have no memory whatever spilled out; I was in a trance. But parts of it were based on my aborted Homage to “Lucky” L. Stowell: https://timforsellstories.blogspot.com/2020/08/homage-to-lucky-lorenzo-stowell-2018.html
Not long ago, in a spasm of pandemic-lockdown-induced decluttering, I decided to go through some boxes of old papers and photos. In a thick file labeled YOSEMITE there was an item that made me glad I hang on to shoeboxes filled with old papers. It was a trip journal, a record of daily events scribbled on four or five sheets of lined paper during one of my month-long stays in Yosemite, circa 1989. Just glancing at it sparked a mad rush of memories and mental images—smells!—all in a tangled swirl; things long tucked away, vestiges of a particularly joyous and carefree time. At the bottom of page one, a hastily scrawled sentence enclosed in quotes leapt out at me, igniting another everything-at-once sunburst of mental imagery. Here we have a truly wondrous phenomenon: of somehow recreating, in an instant, in your mind, the way a specific interval of time felt. This alongside a sweet-sad hyperawareness of what it was like to be that person, how that felt…of how much things have changed and haven’t changed. You.
Those few words on paper resurrected an incident not forgotten—it simply disappeared under a mounting pile of human experience. One fine mid-April Yosemite morning…Foresta…Laurel Munson’s cabin in the pines. I was there. And hearing the madman’s laugh and ravings inside my skull as if he were standing right in front of me. It was breathtakingly vivid.
The sentence in question was one of our friend’s artful utterances, an original, never repeated so far as I know. A proclamation, a declaration, a saying for the ages. Nothing terribly profound—merely a spontaneous, heartfelt paean to Cookies; a salute to tasty oven-baked treats and their capacity to bring gladness and deep satisfaction into our humdrum lives, even if fleeting. Aphoristic in form, spoken in an easily recognizable tone of mock-profundity, it was also a subtle Stowellian send-up of the faint air of pretense hovering around aphorisms in general, in keeping with Lorenzo’s penchant for poking fun at anything taken too seriously or of the hoity-toity persuasion. (“Oi say, Schmedly!”) Such was the multilayered sophistication of his humor. For years I’ve had this vague memory of jotting the one-liner down somewhere…that I had the foresight to copy this one verbatim before the exact phrasing got away. And have long hoped it might resurface some day. Why? Because on fitting occasions I’ve tried to quote his line without ever getting it right. Not even close. No surprise there—like translated poetry, Lorenzo’s witicisms in print lack a certain zest they had coming from the horse’s mouth.
As we all know, he had a thing for cookies. Doesn’t everybody? But in Lorenzo’s case, fresh-baked goodies with a high sugar&butter&egg-to-flour ratio roused unabashed glee in a manner he otherwise seldom put on display. Pure gusto. Cookies seemed to stir something in him that pie or cake didn’t quite match. I might be mistaken here—he adored fresh-baked bread. Did not spurn pie. And this may be 100% pure bunkum but it seemed to me that there was more going on than simple tummy-gratification, aesthetics of flavor and texture—it was about something that cookies represented…cookies as an idealized platonic form that exists in the universe solely to bring joy.
One thing is for sure: at the mere sight of plate laden with any kind of soft, chewy morsels (or entering a room filled with sweet ovenly aromas) the reaction never varied. A crooked grin parted his raggedy beard, those arch brows arched upward and his eyes would take on a particularly roguish glint. Next: the anticipatory chuckle of delight before exclaiming, in that husky voice he used to evoke ravenous savage or perhaps cave-man, “MMMMM! COOOO-KEEES!” Followed by his patented knavish snigger—“HN-HNN!”—and then he’d make his move. Additional satisfied Mmmm!s. If humans had tails, Lorenzo’s tail would be wagging like crazy, thwapping things off shelves and knocking shit over.
A little more back-story before I finally disclose the heavily pre-hyped nugget of Stowellian wisdom. (“Wisdom is humbug!”) Bear with me.
That month of high spring went down as perhaps my best-ever Valley sojourn. In those years I’d spend up to a month in Yosemite, spring and fall both. Best climbing season yet, including doing long routes with partners and ropes (for a change). Plenty of socializing with locals (uncharacteristic) including a doomed crush on an unobtainable beauty named Bette-Ann, a YA instructor who lived at the Green House in Big Meadow. This was the year before Foresta burned in the A-Rock Fire, pulling the curtain down forever on a sweet spot in time. I was bandit-camping, parking my truck for the night at various totally illegal campsites down the road below Foresta, back when illicit camping was still something that could be pulled off in Yosemite. One of my favorite bivvies was down Crane Creek, past where the pavement ended, a short walk from Laurel’s. Lorenzo had recently returned from his winter trip (was it Argentina that year or Chile?) but still had a month to kill before starting work up in Bridgeport. Every few days I’d stop by the cabin to reclaim one of my water jugs stashed in their freezer; maybe share a bite of breakfast or/and have a safety meeting out on the deck. By this time, Laurel was Assistant Wilderness Manager for the whole park, working year-round out of the administrative offices in Yosemite Village. A sort-of-a regular nine-to-five job (but with a fantastic commute!) so she was home during the day only on weekends.
Weekends, for me, were Valley-avoidance days. Sometimes I’d take a rest day and spend it hanging out on Crane Creek, sunbathing and dipping, not drive anywhere. One leisurely Saturday, midmorning, I strolled up to Laurel’s. It so happened that she was just pulling a pan of cookies out of the oven. Chocolate chip, my fav. “Perfect timing!” Well, I’d say! Lorenzo and I hunkered at the dining table and got down to it. “COOOO-KEEEES! MMMMM!” And while we sat there Laurel told this classic story, Lorenzo chiming in on cue:
She’d baked a batch for a timber crew who were thinning trees around the cabin (Park property), whipping ‘em up early before going to work. Left a fresh-out, still-warm plateful for the guys on the crew along with stern instructions for Lorenzo to hand them off when the crew arrived. And, yes, he could have a few. A warning in her voice. At this point the maestro joined in, acting out his role, hn-hnn!-ing and yrk-yrk-yrk-ing and tossing in asides…the usual dance. The gist of the tale is that Lorenzo ate “a few” (it was obvious where this was going) then grabbed a couple more. And then, Just one more!…probably three or four more times. He kept rearranging the pile, trying to make it look bigger. Maybe…just? one? more? Finally, there was no pile left to fluff up. Later, Laurel ran into the crew boss and asked if they’d enjoyed their cookies; a formality. Yeah, thanks Laurel! Buuuuuut…his ritual thank-you went something like “Yeah, thanks, we all had one!” SO busted. Lorenzo of course had been pantomiming while she spun yarn—reaching out with twitching fingers, furtive looks behind to make sure no one was watching. When the punchline dropped, he stood there with hands clasped behind his back, that patented shit-eating crooked-toothy grin, eyes cast heavenward—the clichéd imp’s-feeble-attempt-at-feigning-innocence. We had us a good hearty laugh. Of course, one of the reasons Laurel tolerated that card-carrying rascal in the first place was because of some universal “bad boy” allure. She once told me that women are drawn to men who are “nice…but not too nice.” (Even though I was almost thirty years old when she told me this, I was still terribly naïve when it came to girls and it struck me as a pretty profound insight into female psychology.)
After Laurel went off to put another pan in the oven we had a couple more, polishing off probably a dozen between the two of us. And it was then that Lorenzo gave voice to his stirring tribute. Sated, holding aloft the surviving half of a still-warm Tollhouse, he declaimed with bogus solemnity:
“WHEN THE PUNY EFFORTS OF SMALL MEN AND
THEIR TRAVAILS HAVE BECOME LIKE DUST ON THE
ROAD, COOKIES WILL STILL DELIGHT THE SOUL.”
©2020 Tim Forsell 26 Jun 2020
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