Recently, I spent a couple of days driving aimlessly up and down Death Valley in search of whatever it is that draws tourists to that godforsaken place. I am here to report, as Gertrude Stein memorably said of Los Angeles, that “there is no there there.” What “there” is, is a vast expanse of alkaline nothingness with no signs of life save one lonely coyote standing alongside the road, who—if it had a thumb—would surely have been holding it out.
Comparing notes later with Czech-born photographer Dasja Dolan, I learned that she, too, had come across the same coyote, and also a moth, which somehow I missed. As for wild burros, we had seen none, though Dasja had discovered burro droppings amid the wreckage of a fallen casino sign in the tiny settlement of Beatty, which bills itself as “The Gateway To Death Valley.”
We were seated at a cable spool table on the patio of the Happy Burro cantina, along with Dasja’s good friends Frank and Nicole Ratelband from Holland. Frank and Nicole are frequent visitors to Death Valley, I presume because Netherlanders are just naturally drawn to low elevations. Also at our table was my old friend, the distinguished author William Childress, who recently relocated to Death Valley expecting to die there. Indeed, a memo taped to his apartment door gives a number to call for whoever should happen upon his lifeless body.
Well, it turns out that rumors of Chilly’s impending demise are premature. At the age of 87, the Korea war vet and former paratrooper is still going strong—and still serving his country as goodwill ambassador at the Happy Burro. By way of illustration, I’m sharing this email:
“Menzies: 3 am…interesting evening. We rarely get Koreans at the Happy Burro Chili & Beer, but last night a man and his young wife showed up, sans English and I do mean sans. So the bartender (gorgeous redhead) who knew I was the only Korean War veteran on earth, called me. ‘Speak some Korean, Chilly.’
“‘I don’t speak Korean, Kitty.’
“‘That’s OK. They don’t speak English.’
“So I went over, smiling, and shook hands, and said, ‘Com op soom ne da,’ which if done right means ‘Thank you beautifully.’ Some of it must have got through, because they smiled broadly and chattered briefly together. The girl spoke fragmentary English at the same level as I spoke Korean. So we were pretty well paralyzed, but kept trying—until finally we had to give up. ‘Com op soom ne da,’ I said, and they did too, and started to go.
“They had just reached the door when I said, ‘Wait, I know a Korean song.’
“For some reason, an ancient Korean ballad taught to me by a Korean worker on our engineering project came to mind and I soared into my rusty bucket best without even a guitar to mute my dulcet tones. The song was ‘Arirong’ (Ah re rong) and it’s either close to sacred, or their national anthem, or both. For some reason I remembered every word from 1952.
“Lightning could not have made a better impression. Those two broke into excited chatter (‘Arirong! Arirong!’) And grabbed my hands and laughed, and the morass in the bar were astonished that I was singing Korean. As for the Koreans, they were super-astonished that a non-Korean was singing in Korean.”
Should you find yourself in the Valley of Death, I strongly suggest you stop in at the Happy Burro. Thanks to my old friend Chilly, it’s the liveliest place around!
