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WAYMAN 23 TOM WAYMAN GETTING THERE Garrison and I came down out of the hills of Oregon and drove across the flat plain of Idaho all one hot afternoon singing our way into northern Utah, gusts of the desert crosswind rocking the car. In the morning we climbed up through the rocky gorges onto the high plateau of Wyoming and moved all day across that immense horizon. About four-thirty, we turned off at Laramie and threaded down the old road into Colorado talking about the old days and pulled in about six, nervous and thirsty. BACK It was Adamson who greeted us with a note to us on his door saying where they were and an hour later we sat in the bleachers of one of the baseball diamonds in City Park watching Adamson and Lechner and some others play: Adamson on the mound in his Army pants and a T-shirt, his square chin pointed at the catcher as he winds up and throws: strike; ball; strike. And from the small crowd in the warm evening one by one old friends come up and speak: women and men, commenting on the game, and the drive down here, and the score 24 THE MINNESOTA REVIEW and the scorekeeping, and a few words about others I remember hovering around us in the dusk as die field lights go on. Adamson hits but the runner at second is tagged. That retires his side. And I think: one summer night here I am. Fort Collins, Colo. June 1975 MIKE SMILIE He wanted to try it, he said. So he scraped up some money and the help of some friends and had his picture taken: twenty-eight years old, clean-shaven with a big bush of hair on his head -and ran for mayor. He talked to every civic group he could about the core area, County co-operation, pollution and what the developments meant. "He did great," Adamson said. "Took on all kinds, argued well, made the front runners really sweat some issues at the all-candidates' meetings." And Smilie afterwards: "We keep saying the system is rigged, but just once I had to get out there. Never again, of course." He was working installing fences, on contract, days when it didn't rain and looking for another job. WAYMAN 25 HIGHWAY NARCOSIS/ILLUMINATION. I-80N And on the second day rounding a long curve somewhere on the Interstates into me once more comes the moment when the fear of the car, fear of failure goes, and instead pounding west along the valley of the Snake 40 miles from Twin Falls I want to drive forever suspended under the huge sky suspended between the usual lives behind me, and ahead Out of the ordinary but out on the earth I want to drive like this always and not stop and never arrive ...

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