Grayson Ozias's travel diary

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===Cylinder 7=== ===Cylinder 7===
Listen: [[Media:Cylinder7_1256406819.mp3|Cylinder7 Audio]]<br> Listen: [[Media:Cylinder7_1256406819.mp3|Cylinder7 Audio]]<br>
-<blockquote>Maybe they figured my confinement with a spectre qualified as punishment enough, and I was soon+<blockquote>Maybe they figured my confinement with a spectre qualified as punishment enough, and I was soon released from the Jackson county jail. I headed west, drifting more or less without direction until I ended up in a hole in the wall town oddly dubbed "Never Sweat". <br><br>
-released from the Jackson county jail. I headed west, drifting more or less without direction until I ended+[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welty%27s_General_Store In a general store there] I came up a bit short for some sundries I aimed to purchase. The kindly owners were about to give it on credit when a jocular man with whom they were familiar payed my entire bill. Referring to himself [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy only as Robert], he said that if I'd help him load his wagon and haul his provisions back to his ranch, he'd happily put me up for as long as I needed. <br><br>
-up in a hole in the wall town oddly dubbed "Never Sweat". <br><br>+During the many fine days that followed, Robert and I occupied a great deal of time playing horseshoes, often with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elzy_Lay his friend Elzy]. Some days the three of us made perfunctory attempts to work his ranch, which was about as unproductive as any I'd seen in my life. However, the financials of the ranch seemed of little, if any, concern to Robert. And we were always soon back to horseshoes.
-In a general store there I came up a bit short for some sundries I aimed to purchase. The kindly owners were about to give it on credit when a jocular man with whom they were familiar payed my entire bill. Referring to himself only as Robert, he said that if I'd help him load his wagon and haul his provisions back to his ranch, he'd happily put me up for as long as I needed. <br><br>+
-During the many fine days that followed, Robert and I occupied a great deal of time playing horseshoes, often with +
-his friend Elzy. Some days the three of us made perfunctory attempts to work his ranch, which was about as +
-unproductive as any I'd seen in my life. However, the financials of the ranch seemed of little, if any, concern +
-to Robert. And we were always soon back to horseshoes.+
</blockquote><br> </blockquote><br>

Revision as of 20:05, 25 October 2009

Contents

Grayson Ozias's Travel Diary

Grayson Ozias kept wax cylinder records of his adventure across America. For the clues contained in the wax cylinders, see Wax Cylinders.

Intro video

I left my home and all I knew because I feared the complacency that was growing in me. I feared that I would be content to never experience anything of America beyond the city in which I was born. But after hearing Whitman, this complacency became unthinkable, and my comfort became my greatest burden.

This great man's portrait of our land emboldened me to conquer fear and go forth, and I have never regretted it, even now. Which is why it is my hope that these words may in turn inspire another to conquer fear, and abandon comfort, and seek their unknown.

Therefore, I commit the fortune I have made in my travels back to the earth from whence it came. I leave all I have to America, so that America might set out and find it.

Yours most sincerely,

Grayzon Ozias IV


"In September of 2009, Levi's verified the existence of $100,000 that Grayson Ozias IV buried.

He left it there for you.
And so did we.

Go Forth."


Cylinder 1

Listen: Cylinder1 Audio

It all starts with the memory of lights on the Hudson and a wild cacophony of voices all around me. The sing-song banter of a thousand dialects hovered about my ear, calling to me. I'd departed the day's work at my father's offices hours before, having that day learned I was set to inherit the business. The effect of the news had brought about such impatient wandering that I could hardly remember how I'd come to be at that green door by the river.

Inside Brown's Tavern, I huddled alone. Two men at the next table, one Irish, one Dutch, spoke low to each other about old gold fields played out and new finds to their south, about the Panamanian passage and malaria's fallen. About places in America that might as well have been Siam, for all I knew of them. My mind drifted to the future I'd soon be tied to. Of endless ledgers and contracts, papers and responsibilities that would turn my city into a prison that might never release me. I saw that accepting this destiny would mean never knowing or seeing anything that the wild American voices around me spoke of. I realized that this, to me, would be a kind of death.

I looked over and the two men had left without my noticing, and under the table by the Irish man's chair was a postcard he'd dropped there. I reached over and picked up the card. On it were words that, though written to another, spoke directly to me: "It is all here for us, brother, if we go forth and seek it. Tarry not a second longer."


Cylinder 2

Listen: Cylinder2 Audio

I remember my father's reaction to the news of my leaving. He looked like he'd been informed of my death, with me standing there before him. It was impossible to make him understand it. I'd wager he never did, and I guess I'm sorry for that.

But Nathan Strauss, my closest friend, understood immediately. He nodded and smiled like he'd been expecting it for years without ever saying so. Nathan was the last of my old friends that I saw before leaving. We met near the steamer on which I'd soon depart, in front of the place his forbearers had once arrived in America. He told me that the name of it had sounded to them like "Kesselgarden", a place of noise and confusion, in their native tongue, and it certainly was that.

Nathan told me that he would look forward to my correspondence, and that his letters would be with his uncle Levi in San Francisco when I arrived there. Then he handed me that book, a book I'm holding right now as I speak these words to you. We said goodbye, and I turned towards the sea.


Cylinder 3

Listen: Cylinder3 Audio

After steaming from pier three and beyond the harbor, we made south along the coast. As we traced the land that first night, I found it impossible to sleep for all my excitement. I watched the dark outline of the shore slide past, occasionally daubed by a fellow traveler's fire gleaming through the trees.

After (obscured) the time we landed at (obscured) following a night of talk and drink, I left my compatriot and headed back across the slumbering campus. In a secluded green I found a gentleman sitting alone beside a flickering votive, lost in thought. I begged pardon for the intrusion but he waved off my apology and invited me to sit.

The man was memorializing a shipwreck that happened off that very coast thirty-odd years before. The ship, traveling the reverse of my route, had been caught in a hurricane and took more than 400 souls down with it. Though he'd survived the tragedy, the man's parents had not, and he'd wandered the town distraught, sleeping in this very spot until taken in by a kindly professor. This was the beginning of his new life.

I happened to have a stub of candle among my belongings, which I lit and added to his vigil. After a time, the man checked his watch and saw that it was eleven past eleven, telling me he must get back to his wife and child. He asked if I needed shelter; I gratefully accepted.


Cylinder 4

Listen: Cylinder4 Audio

Leaving Charleston after a time, I headed west. There remained many indications of our Civil War's wreckage to be seen as I traveled through the South. Atlanta still showed the scars of the nation's feuding, and there was a weary aspect to many whom I met. But I duly saw signs of a great inventiveness, not least in the Lightning Route of Montgomery, which I rode incessantly.

But the place I had long sought, that (obscured) town on the (obscured) ...might join them to play on the street, short of funds(?) I was. They obliged, and the next day I arrived on the spot with my violin. They at first laughed at my classical, stiff-backed way of playing, but I soon learned the improvised fiddle rags they required of me. (obscured) I heard wild tales of privateers and such told between sazeracs. However our specific corner more often might have (obscured) spent my time in the pews.

"Show us the father, and that will be enough for us," I recalled, as I played.

Cylinder 5

Listen: Cylinder5 Audio

On the riverboat our band was a minor attraction compared with the many notables on the manifest. Indeed, one night I had the extravagant honor of joining Papa Jack Laine's Reliance Brass Band [1] I borrowed the horn of a member who had found himself a touch overcome by drink and then struggled mightily to keep up with Jack's prodigious players. The band and myself passed time at cards with some of our more affluent shipmates, plying tricks honed at Lafitte's and earning quite a return for our trouble.

Taking my share of the winnings, I disembarked in Davenport giving prompt (in audible)... After some time I found myself there craving I suppose a bit of the pomp of my recently departed life. And the setting was grand indeed - which surprised me for a city perched on Ojibwe's great water. I first indulged in a shave at their barbershop which I swear was tiled with silver dollars.

Then, still attired in my bandstand finery, I cut a suitable appearance in the ballroom that evening, and soon found myself dancing with a young woman of the most charming appearance and demeanor. My lips, unfastened by wine and song, I regaled her with tales of my intentions, and she admitted that she'd also long dreamt of escape and adventure. We lost ourselves in the enchantment of that evening, and that is all I'll say on the matter. Her father, the hotel's owner, was none too pleased with our dalliance, and I found myself making use of that fire-proof lodging's escape ladders earlier the next morning than was comfortable.


Cylinder 6

Listen: Cylinder6 Audio

Perhaps not knowing her father was the hotel's owner was a preventable misstep, but not knowing that a Missouri sheriff, forewarned of my arrival, was her second cousin -- that seems, even now, entirely beyond computation.

Whatever the gears of fortune, there I sat in that immense tomb, alone but for an unwakeable cellmate who showed no evidence of being more than a corpse. His presence and condition must have been unremarkable there, as the jailer who brought food and water made no gesture towards him, or even acknowledged his existence.

Late on my second night in that place, the man awoke. He told me his name was Knowles, and asked if I'd like to play a hand or two of poker. While we played, he told me of the sadness the war was causing him, turning brother against brother. Indeed, trying to disrupt such an altercation had been the cause of his imprisonment. It seemed strange that he spoke of a conflict near 30 years ended as if it were happening right outside, but I attributed this to his having just woken from such a slumber, and put it out of my mind.

I recalled that we played until I laid down a particular hand, which Knowles stared at, as if trying to remember something. "That's the last thing Hickok saw," he said, and suddenly returned to his cot without another word. The next day I awoke to my cell door being opened. Knowles was gone. I asked when he had been released, and the jailer looked at me like I was a madman.


Cylinder 7

Listen: Cylinder7 Audio

Maybe they figured my confinement with a spectre qualified as punishment enough, and I was soon released from the Jackson county jail. I headed west, drifting more or less without direction until I ended up in a hole in the wall town oddly dubbed "Never Sweat".

In a general store there I came up a bit short for some sundries I aimed to purchase. The kindly owners were about to give it on credit when a jocular man with whom they were familiar payed my entire bill. Referring to himself only as Robert, he said that if I'd help him load his wagon and haul his provisions back to his ranch, he'd happily put me up for as long as I needed.

During the many fine days that followed, Robert and I occupied a great deal of time playing horseshoes, often with his friend Elzy. Some days the three of us made perfunctory attempts to work his ranch, which was about as unproductive as any I'd seen in my life. However, the financials of the ranch seemed of little, if any, concern to Robert. And we were always soon back to horseshoes.

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