Free On the Back Roads by Bill Graves Page B

merges into Highway 1 when it enters the Yukon.
    Its last town in California is Dorris. Traffic slows to fifteen miles per hour here. Not only is it the speed limit, the road also makes four ninety-degree turns. Since I was going so slowly anyway, I stopped in Dorris.
    A sign put up by the Lions Club solicited donations to erect America’s tallest flagpole. I wondered if they know about Calipatria, another California town that right now boasts America’s tallest flagpole at 182 feet.
    â€œYes, we know about it, but not much. It’s down by San Diego someplace, isn’t it?” Donna Burcher, the city clerk, handed me a brochure about the Dorris flagpole and a donation envelope. “Our flagpole will be 200 feet high. We think it will give a positive impression on people coming into the state here. You know we are the highest town in California, so that’s another reason.”
    I challenged her claim to the “highest town.”
    A man at a desk behind her spoke up. “She means the
highest
like on the top of the map—in
latitude,
not elevation.”
    â€œThat’s what I said. We are the highest, the furthest town north.”
    Back in the motor home, I ventured even higher, into Oregon. The next town was Klamath Falls, population 18,200. Tied to lumbering since its infancy, Klamath Falls was once the primary supplier of packing crates for fruit farmers. That all ended in the depression years of the 1930s. And from my view of the town from the highway, not much has happened here since.
    The highway and the tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad skirt the edge of Upper Klamath Lake north of town. (Lower Klamath Lake lies in California.) It’s the largest natural lake in the state, but very shallow. Today its gray, choppy surface appears about to splash out icicles. A cloud bank that could bring rain, even snow, obscures much of the other side.
    Although snow-covered ridges rise from the edge of the lake, the highway is at lake level, maybe even below it in some spots. It may be an optical illusion, but it appears that the bed of the railroad serves as a levee, keeping the lake off the road. Were it not there, things might be pretty wet where I am. It is too cold out there to stop and check it out, so I will never know for sure.

19
It’s Illegal Not to Have a Gun
Chiloquin, Oregon
    P ulling off the highway to skim the surface of the little town of Chiloquin, I crossed the railroad tracks. Westbound Amtrak trains come through here on the way to Seattle.
    In the late 1800s, trains of Pullman cars stopped here, full of anxious fishermen. The Pullmans were parked on a siding for a week while passengers fished the Williamson and other rivers. This was all Indian country then. In fact, Chiloquin claims to be the first town incorporated on an Indian reservation. That happened in 1926.
    A sign on the door of city hall said Closed, but the door was not locked. John Hall, head of public works, and Lillian Headly, city recorder, were wrapping up their day yet seemed inclined to share a little of it with a stranger.
    John told me that he never takes the keys out of his car. “Nobody steals things here. We all have guns. It’s a city ordinance.”
    â€œWhat? Never heard of such a thing.”
    â€œThat’s right! It’s the law. If you are going to live in Chiloquin, you are going to have a gun.”
    Lillian reached into a drawer of her desk and pulled out a two-page copy of the ordinance dated June 14, 1982. Sure enough, “every head of household … is required to maintain a firearm, together with ammunition therefor.” The only ones exempt are those too disabled to use a gun, those whose religion prohibits it, and convicted felons.
    â€œI suppose what’s important is that the word gets around that Chiloquin is an armed camp,” I said.
    John grinned, “I don’t think of this town as any “armed camp”, but if the bad guys want to