Full Table of Contents: Surfing the Interstates: Complete Chapter Guide
Chapter Seven: Chicken Coop Days
Rolling up to 5630 Old Redwood Highway in the back of a pickup. Late afternoon, July 25th. Driver found me thumbing on 101 with a cardboard sign: "Santa Rosa."
The place matches Steve's letters. Derelict prune ranch, twenty acres of neglected trees. Mission-style house needs paint. Ramshackle garage with an actual redwood beside it—not one of those Avenue of the Giants specimens but impressive enough. Maybe twelve feet at the base, hundred fifty feet tall. Top like lightning amputated it.
The sight stops me cold. That truncated top—it's Gary's arm. It's my elbow. It's every broken thing trying to grow despite the damage. Lightning has snapped the original crown clean off, leaving maybe three feet of charred stump. But the tree hasn't died. Instead, new growth has emerged from the side like a green thumb, growing sideways at first below the break, then turning skyward, adding another tw…
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