The Eagle and the Dragon

by Chris Duffin

  Porcupines didn’t make for the best eating, but they were better than going hungry. They had to be skinned immediately, because if they sat in their skin for any length of time, their meat would become tainted. As you can imagine, skinning a porcupine was a tricky task. As I did with the rabbits’ feet, I collected the quills, claws, and teeth of porcupines.

  Friendships and Schooling

  I had a few friends in Paulina. There were a couple of other kids in town who I played with. I had a small bike that my parents had picked up used: we took it to the hills close to town and rode it down at breakneck speed, making jumps and pulling other stunts. Usually, we crashed and ended up injuring ourselves.

  This was also a time when I first immersed myself in learning. Our school consisted of two rooms. First through fourth grades were in the first room, while fifth through eighth grades were taught in the second room. I was in fifth and sixth grade while we lived in Paulina, so I was part of the second group.

  There were three people in my year, making it the most densely populated age group in the entire school. Most grades contained only one or two kids. The school only catered to children up to eighth grade, so those who were in high school took the bus into Prineville, an hour’s drive away. The bus driver collected all the students in the morning, ferried them to school, hung out in Prineville all day long, and then drove them back in the afternoon.

  All the kids between fifth and eighth grade were taught by the same teacher, although he didn’t do a lot of teaching. He was sick with cancer and was slowly dying. In the mornings, he wrote a schedule up on the board, detailing what he wanted us to do over the course of the day. For example, he might set us the task of working through an English lesson between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., followed by some math problems from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Then he sat behind his desk and fell asleep. There was a shelf in the room that contained the books pertaining to each different grade. We were expected to find the relevant books and study quietly.

  Over the course of sixth grade, I worked through every single book, in every discipline, all the way through high school. I completed every workbook, quiz, and activity, along with every available extracurricular exercise. At the end of a typical textbook was a series of multiple-choice questions, some essay topics, and some extracurricular work. I worked through every single one. It wasn’t until later, when I went to high school, that I discovered that students were expected to select from the questions on offer, rather than tackling every single one. Learning fired me up. I devoured every scrap of information I could find, just because I was interested.

  Pushing myself, in any endeavor, came naturally to me. In the evenings, if I got bored, I went behind the school and ran laps, until I couldn’t run any more.

  Summer in the Mountains

  By the beginning of our second summer in Paulina, we could no longer afford to live in the small house behind the general store. The weather was good, so we took our trailer up into the mountains, set up camp, and spent our days mining and collecting rocks. With no shower facilities, we bathed outside. We took gallon jugs down to a nearby creek, filled them, and let them sit on a rock all day to heat up in the sunlight. When the water was warm enough, we stood on the rocks and poured it over our heads to shower.

  Over the course of that summer, we got to know some of the people who regularly visited the mountains. They were hunters, fishermen, and people who came to see what they could dig out of the mining claims. Pat and my mom hung out with them, drinking and showing them some of the prettiest thunder eggs we had collected. These were the ones that had been cut up for us by our friend who worked as a miner, and which my mom or Pat had polished. Our guests were impressed, and I recall thinking that we were about to sell some of them, turning a small profit on all our hard work.

  What usually happened, however, was that my parents gave the thunder eggs away as gifts. I was perplexed. Didn’t they realize that the potential market for these minerals was small? We were dirt poor. We couldn’t afford to give away our few assets. Yet we did. I never understood how my parents could be so adamant on rejecting charity, but willing to give away minerals they could have sold to supplement our meager income.

  The summer came to a close and the new school year began. We still didn’t have a permanent place to call home and no visible source of income—the mining and selling of minerals hadn’t progressed beyond the level of a hobby. Recognizing this, my mom decided to train as a registered nursing assistant (RNA) at a college a few towns away. She also interned part time as a nursing assistant as she trained. She kept this job for a while, until she realized that it was out of alignment with her principles. At that point, she quit, a move that was also the catalyst for the family to leave Paulina.

  While my mom was training, she dropped me off early in the morning with friends in Prineville, who took me to school with their kids while she went to school and work. To me, Prineville seemed enormous. It wasn’t—even today the population is only around 9,000—but to a boy raised mainly in the wilderness, its size felt astronomical.

  This was the toughest time. At night, I froze in the back of our pickup. By day, I felt isolated and ostracized. Going to school in Prineville was a huge culture shock for me. In La Pine, I had made friends with the other local kids. There weren’t many other children my age, so perhaps it was inevitable that I would gravitate toward those who were. In Prineville, there were dozens of kids my age, but I didn’t know any of them. I remember walking through the halls of the school between classes and being disoriented by the sheer number of people.

  This feeling of alienation was exacerbated by the fact that some of the kids treated me cruelly, making fun of me because my clothes were out-of-date and not entirely clean. I sat in class listening to them, as they snickered and made verbal jabs at me. I had an Ocean Pacific-brand coat from Goodwill that, for some reason, they found particularly hilarious. I guess they saw it as out-of-date. They called me “OP” as a way of putting me down and drawing attention to it. Overall, going to school in Prineville was an unpleasant experience, one which I had to grit my teeth to get through.

  Lesson: The Difference between Dreams and Visions

  When I talk about the distinction between visions and dreams, people sometimes get confused. They think I’m suggesting that they should know exactly where they’re going to be thirty years from now. That’s not how vision works. Life is unpredictable. It’s not possible to plan exactly where we’re going with certainty. What we can do is hold our desired outcomes in mind, move toward them, and be willing to adapt as circumstances alter.

  One of my enduring frustrations in life is hearing teachers and authority figures exalt the power of dreaming. While they are aiming to inspire, I believe that they’re leading people astray. It’s easy to dream. What’s hard is turning a dream into reality.

  I know dozens of people who have grand dreams of what they wish to accomplish in life. Over the course of twenty to thirty years, however, I’ve seen too few of these dreams come to fruition, because the people in question have shown themselves unwilling to work for their success.

  This is not to say that overnight success never happens. In my experience, however, overnight success is a consequence of years of work. It may take decades before results become apparent. Then, all of a sudden, everything falls into place, with great rewards. If you’re putting one foot in front of the other, if you’re consistently doing the work, it doesn’t matter where you are now. You’re moving in the right direction. If you’re dreaming, but not doing, how will you get to where you want to go?

  Imagine that you’re climbing a tall tree. You can’t see the top of the tree, but you keep taking the next step, moving a little further up the trunk. As you progress, you may only be able to see a few steps in front of you. Even if your visibility is hampered, however, you keep moving forward. Your final destination may be any one of the branches, even if you can’t tell which one when you
start. Keep moving upwards and the path will gradually become clearer. Sitting on the ground, dreaming about the end of each branch and imagining which one you want to reach, will get you nowhere. You need to take action.

  Don’t waste your precious time playing on your phone or watching television. I’m not saying that you need to cut these activities out of your life completely. Watching a movie with a partner, for example, can be an enjoyable way to build your relationship. I’m saying don’t fill your life with these kinds of low-impact behaviors. Don’t allow them to be the focus of your evenings and weekends. Don’t turn them into habits. Focus on the activities that add value.

  Remember, too, that distractions come in many forms. You may be going to work every day and engaging in seemingly productive activities. The question is whether those activities are taking you in the direction you want to go. Many of us become so caught up in the day-to-day treadmill of life that we forget to ask ourselves whether we’re consistently doing work that moves us forward. Sometimes we may not see the fruits of our actions for a year, two years, or perhaps even five years. Yet, we know that we’re laying the groundwork for future success. On many occasions in the business world, I have been hired to replace individuals who wore their workaholism as a badge of honor. They put in huge numbers of hours and ran around constantly as though their hair was on fire. Their approach, however, was ineffectual. Busyness does not equal productivity. If you want to become an agent of change, workaholism won’t cut it.

  This is why I encourage you to work persistently at your goals, rather than settling for dreams. I admire people who can craft a vision and take steps to move toward the fulfillment of that vision, not those with big dreams who never take action. There is a big distinction between a vision and a dream: a vision includes all the hard work that adds value and, ultimately, turns the dream into reality.

  My mom’s experiences in Paulina are a good example of the challenges of realizing a vision. She became fascinated by minerals and loved the idea of building a business to sell the minerals we gathered from the hills near the town. At the same time, she needed to focus on the day-to-day survival of her family, a task made that much harder by Pat’s illness and incapacitation.

  During this period of her life, my mom was beset by competing priorities. Her interest in mining, and the belief that she could find a way to make an acceptable living from that interest, was a driving force. She saw people who lived out in the woods, ran small-scale operations similar to the one she envisaged, and made a living. Not everyone would view the way those people lived as a success, but it appealed to my mom. It looked like a way she could develop a certain degree of financial stability without making too many compromises with the world.

  At the same time, she knew she needed to work to afford mining tools and to feed me and my sisters. She had a vision of keeping the family together and ensuring that we were provided for, and that led her to go back to school and get a job.

  No matter how tough things became, my mom continued to put one foot in front of the other. She did what she could to move toward a greater reality, while at the same time accepting that there were practical constraints on her ability to manifest her vision. Everything I knew of life told me that it was a constant struggle to get by, with little time for fun and games. Yet my mom was constantly working to give us a better future. She was a model of perseverance.

  If you know that you want to move your life in a specific direction—and I believe that’s true of anyone who’s growing—an element of challenge is indispensable. As soon as we accept our current situation, we fall into the trap of allowing life to live us, instead of living life. It’s easy, safe, and comforting to fall into a routine and to live for the weekend. The next thing you know, you’re a year older and you’ve accomplished nothing more than working during the week and hanging out on the couch on the weekend.

  Remember why you’re here on this planet and persevere toward the goals that you personally deem most important. You may not see results today, tomorrow, or even in a year. You may need to change direction at times to account for changing circumstances and priorities. But you can always persevere. You can always ask yourself what’s most important right now and take a step in the right direction.

  Going Back to La Pine

  Midway through the winter, my mom came home and announced that she had quit nursing school and her job. She explained that, in her view, some of the treatment of the elderly people in the facility was unethical. She didn’t feel comfortable working in that environment and felt that she could no longer be part of it. Between them, Pat and my mom decided that it was time to pull up stakes and return to the La Pine area.

  We didn’t go back to exactly the same place, however. We landed north of La Pine, close to a resort town named Sun River. In the summer, Sun River hosts golfers and mountain bikers. In the winter, it’s a popular venue for skiers and snowboarders.

  We parked our trailer in a little spot close to the Deschutes River, nestled between La Pine and Sun River, where we set up camp. We had minimal facilities and cooked our food on a small propane burner. It was winter when we arrived and the river was frozen over. Against the admonitions of my parents, I checked the thickness of the ice by sight and, deciding that it would support my weight, skated around the edges.

  I was excited to be back in La Pine. When we lived in Paulina, the area was so secluded that I was largely isolated. There were hardly any other kids my age. At school in Prineville, meanwhile, I was subject to a lot of ridicule, which made me glad to leave. La Pine felt much more open and friendly.

  My mom picked up a job as a housekeeper in Sun River, cleaning resorts, condos, and other holiday homes. For the second time, I enrolled in La Pine Middle School. Aside from traveling to visit my father and returning to Sue and Tom’s Mountain to see Ganya, moving back to La Pine was the first time I had left a place, then come back. In a childhood filled with new and unaccustomed experiences, I was looking forward to seeing familiar faces and places.

  Interlude #2

  6. Proactivity

  1989–1992 (Age Twelve to Fifteen), La Pine, Oregon

  I sat at what passed for our dining room table, although it was closer in size to a fold-out card table. A candle burned on the table and a wood stove smoldered in the background, warming the house and simultaneously heating a small pot of water. Using a wood-burning stove dries out the air, so we always kept a pot of water simmering to counteract that tendency and add some humidity to the air. It was a useful resource, too, for a family who didn’t have easy access to hot water. My mom also used it for hot drinks.

  On the table was a roll of silver wire and a collection of porcupine quills, claws, and teeth. I had brought these treasures with me to La Pine and I was making them into a necklace. My first task was to clip off the tip of the quill, the part that enters the skin. Porcupine quills are heavily barbed. Once they enter the flesh, they’re extremely difficult to remove. My second task was to clip off the other end, where the quill grew out of the porcupine’s body. This too was pointed, albeit not as dangerous as the quill tip.

  I threaded the teeth, claws, and quills onto the silver wire. I placed one tooth at the center of the necklace, then two quills on either side. I then added a layer of claws, followed by another layer of quills, continuing until the necklace was complete. I used a pair of needle-nose pliers to wrap the ends of the wire around each other and attach a small clamp to hold the ends together. When the necklace was finished, it was reminiscent of Native American jewelry. I made several of these necklaces and wore them to school. I liked them because they were unique, my own creation. I even sold some to classmates.

  Theme: A Burgeoning Sense of Proactivity

  Over the course of this short chapter, you’ll see how I began to take control of my life. Although I was still fairly young, I felt a strong sense that it was time to take on as much responsibility as I could, shaping my en
vironment and having a positive impact on my family.

  In my adult life, this proactivity has played an essential role in my achievements. Without the capacity to assess a situation, recognize how it could be improved, and take action to make it better, I could never have attained the success I have.

  The stories in this chapter represent the first stirrings of that active approach to life. I engaged seriously with school, took an interest in my athletic development, and took the first steps down my entrepreneurial path. I was determined to be the driver of my own life and I never wanted to feel as though I was merely along for the ride. Whatever happened, I chose to take ownership of my own development.

  From Cabin to Cabin

  Our first winter and spring back in the La Pine area we continued to live in our trailer and in tents, moving from one campsite to another. The US Forest Service in that part of the state was highly active, due to the numbers of fish and wildlife they have a responsibility to protect, so camping was only permitted for up to two weeks at a time. We stayed in each campsite until we saw a forest service ranger, who inevitably asked us whether we were camping or living. We would tell the ranger we were camping, at which point we had two weeks to stay until we were forced to move on.

  Often the location of our campsite was out of range of the bus service, so one of my parents drove me to the nearest bus stop, then picked me up after school. Sometimes, however, they went out fishing or drinking and forgot to collect me from the bus stop. I would hang out for an hour and, if nobody showed, I’d walk the couple of miles home from the bus stop. On one occasion, the bus driver asked me about my situation and drove me all the way to the beginning of the dirt road leading to the campsite where we were living. That left me with only a half-mile hike.