I was sitting on my couch with my partner last night. He was known here in the past as "the boyfriend", but after 22 years together and well into middle age, "boyfriend" seems too silly, so "partner" it is. I heard him laughing and looked to see him reading a book. "What are you reading?" I asked.
"Your blog" he replied.
See, back in the Before Times, pre-Covid, I had decided to have the blog printed and bound. Whatever my feelings toward our time in Bako, I was still quite fond of the blog and didn't want to leave its existence up to the Tech Lords at Google. It got me through some terrible times and I didn't want to discover one day it had just vanished into the ether. I found an online service and it seemed pretty pricey but went ahead and ordered it. Imagine my surprise when a 20lb package arrived on my doorstep containing the blog in hardcover... all THREE volumes. Did I really write that much? At any rate, after thumbing through them revisiting some highlights (or lowlights as the case may be) they went up on the bookcase and there they have sat, gathering dust like an outdated encyclopedia, for years.
Until last night.
It's been 12 years since we left Bako. Honestly, our two and a half years in exile could have easily broken us, but in the end it made us stronger and made our love deeper and enduring. I never would've survived this experience without him, and I know he feels the same. His new career took off fairly quickly and soon I had a new path as well. Together, we've become somewhat prosperous and respectable, which is why I ultimately decided against outing myself in this final post. A friend once told me I should try and sell this blog to Netflix or HBO, and while I was flattered, and as entertaining as people have found this adventure, "The Sopranos" it's not. Besides, my employer would most likely be aghast if they read this blog.
My partner still refuses to use the "B word". Like Voldemort, it is The Place That Shall Not Be Named. If it must be referred to, and he really wishes I wouldn't, we usually just euphemistically allude to the time we lived "up north". With the passage of time, and some artful fudging of the dates we left LA and arrived in Orange County, we have effectively memory-holed Bako.
We spent sometime last night reliving some of the foibles of our time in Bako, misty watercolored memories of the way we were. But looking over the blog, one thing bothered me and that was the final post. I always aimed for snarky and frequently crossed over into spite, but the final post in retrospect seemed especially heartless. So I decided to try and log in and rectify the situation, deleting that final post and giving this blog a proper epilogue. God bless Apple - this blog was created four computers ago but I still had the login credentials stored in memory. So here we go...
Several years ago we were attending an extended family reunion in Lake Tahoe. We decided to drive, which left us with two options. We could travel north on highway 99 right through the heart of Bakersfield, possibly triggering underlying PTSD. Or we could take the backroad, traveling up Highway 395 on the backside of the Sierras through the "Valley of Meth", the no man's land between Victorville and Lone Pine. We ultimately chose the 99 - it was the fastest route and we figured enough time had passed and the highway is mostly below grade as it passes through Bako, so other that the ridiculously tall sign for "Buck Owens' Crystal Palace", there would be little to see to remind of us of our time in exile. Just throw on some club music and focus on the road ahead and we'd be in Shafter before we knew it.
As we approached the "Bako metro area", maybe around Pumpkin Center, the 99 ground to a complete halt. After inching ahead for about 20 minutes, we decided to, God help us, turn on a local AM station to see if we could find any information on the what the problem was. That's when we learned that the CHP had shut down the highway in both directions because some poor soul was clinging to the railing of an overpass, threatening to jump.
Totally relatable - been there.
Without even thinking or consulting a map, I blithely said "Lets just hop off at Panama, cut over to Stine and then cutback on Ming..."
My partner looked at me as if he had seen a ghost. What was wrong with me? Why did I still know that? After YEARS?
Just goes to show you that while you can leave Bako, Bako never really ever leaves you.
And you know, I'm OK with that.
