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starfleetdoesntfirefirst · 4 years

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(Discovery Season 3 Episode 4 “Forget Me Not” Spoilers)

Greetings disco friends, here is my attempt at a fix-it fic.

What I mind most of all was them showing his graphic death scene, whether it’s partially-temporary or completely-temporary, after doing the same with Hugh and Michael’s then-death scenes. As far as the future of Gray's plotline goes (this season and into the next, since we know the actor is filming Season 4), I think there's a chance (especially given that GLAAD was helping them write the storyline) that he'll be completely brought back from the dead like Hugh and a chance that he won't be brought back fully but rather will continue to hang around noncorporeally like he's doing now. But either way, as with Hugh and Michael's graphic then-death scenes, that doesn't change the fact that they showed that in this episode.

I think I've reached the point of hard 'no’ on continuing to watch the show myself. (Though of course I completely support y’all in watching or not watching the show, as works for you!) And I’ll still be around here, writing fic based on Season 1 through to this episode.

Also, I’m currently brainstorming ways to put something affirming into the fandom this season while not watching, since I won't be writing fix-it ficlets and…obviously I know no one ~depends~ on my fix-it ficlets, but this community means a lot to me and I guess I want to feel like I'm putting something into the fandom even as I'm (aside from continuing to make content for older season stuff) walking away, if that makes sense? (Maybe some book giveaways of sci-fi books with trans characters, tho that may or may not work logistically/financially, or something like that.) Please let me know if you have suggestions! <3

Dreampt Of More Things

Other, F/F, M/M | Teen And Up | Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings | 2,600 words

ao3 link in a reblog since Tumblr still seems unpredictable about when posts with links are allowed in the tags

and/or, full fic + tags here:

Tags – Jett Reno, Jett Reno’s Wife, Michael Burnham, Hugh Culber, Ellen Landry, Philippa Georgiou (original Captain version), Adira Tal, Paul Stamets, Gray Tal, Sylvia Tilly, Tracy Pollard Adira Tal/Gray Tal, Jett Reno/Jett Reno’s Wife, Ellen Landry/Amna Patel, Hugh Culber/Paul Stamets Grief (Ellen’s) and mentions of Lorca, no serious injury since again we are sidestepping that but very brief description of Adira’s joining surgery, Gray Tal Lives, Jett Reno’s Wife Lives, Philippa Georgiou Lives

Note: This is not an Amna Patel Lives universe (Ellen Landry’s fiancée from Star Trek Online), as I am Making A Point about how no, it’s not that queer stories about loss and grief are bad or that I personally don’t want to write/read them; it’s about context, and how many characters have died over the course of your franchise, and the nature of your franchise, and what to portray versus not portray onscreen (in the context of your show), and how you’ve advertised your characters, and reading the room.

***

“Burning the midnight oil, huh?”

Jett looks up as Michael steps closer to her workbench in the corner of Engineering, raising an eyebrow, as Michael had known she would.

“Here to check my work on your outfit, Commander?” she asks, laconically, before bending her safety-goggled face back to her work.

Michael grins despite herself as she pulls out a chair opposite Jett. “I’m entirely confident in your work, Commander.”

“So you’re here to pester me because…?”

“Because I’m curious to see the work-in-progress. And, more importantly, because I ran into your wife on her way to turn in for the night, and she told me to tell you that she’s taking you out on a fantastic date when all this is over.”

“Where’s she think she’s gonna scare up a place to go out on any kind of date in the ass-middle of the 32nd century?”

Michael grins again. “I think it was a ‘looking for a way to take my wife on a fantastic date and if I cannot find one I will create one’ kind of thing.”

“Yeah, that tracks.” Michael can hear the smirk in Jett’s voice as she fiddles with the wiring on the angel suit’s chestplate.

“Don’t stay up too late, Commander,” she says as she stands. “We’re still gonna need you on shift tomorrow.”

Jett grunts in acknowledgement, and Michael smiles as she walks past the spore cube and towards her quarters for the night.

***

“How are you doing with all this, Landry?” Hugh ventures, after a few days of deliberation, when he and Ellen have a quiet moment alone together at the end of a meeting.

Ellen takes a minute before answering, dropping a PADD into her bag. “One of my security lieutenants said it seemed implausible that we’d be able to find a way to send Burnham back in time, once again, especially with the way the Burn affected ability of the time crystals on Boreth to interface with the suit even if we are granted one.”

Hugh raises an eyebrow and waits, silent.

“I told her that if she thought implausible was going to stop this crew, she must've not been paying attention to half the weird shenanigans they’ve pulled off.”

Hugh smiles wryly. “‘More things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’” he quotes.

Ellen gives him a look, and he holds up his hands in surrender. “Maybe I’ve been spending too much time around this ship’s surprisingly high number of Shakespeare fans.”

“And we’ve already dreamt of more things, haven’t we?” Ellen asks simply, pausing and leaning a hip against the table. “At this point, it’s just a matter of choosing philosophies.”

High raises an eyebrow again. “That's an interesting way of looking at it, Commander.”

Ellen folds her arms. “Yes, thank you, I am a font of excellent observations, at least when I’m not busy misreading dipshit captains and making the worst choices in the universe. You can stop giving me the sympathy look, by the way.”

Hugh watches her, silent.

“Yes," she tells him in a sing-song voice, "I have in fact experienced one or two emotions while helping prepare for a mission to bring someone back from the dead and knowing I can never bring my own fiancée back.” Her tone drops back to a flat command. “The only person in my, this, situation who actually deserves your sympathy is Amna, and she’s not here to receive it. You’re a busy man; you’re needed all over the place. Go do something clever and medical somewhere.”

Hugh watches her for a moment longer before he says simply, “I’m so sorry. For your loss.”

“Don’t. No.” Ellen’s voice is firm, though without rancor. “Those words are not for me. I am not a good widow. Do you understand that? Instead of honoring my fiancée in any substantive way, I went off and got manipulated by some dipshit. And what’s worse, if it hadn’t been for the manipulation and the secretly evil part, I might not have ever figured out to regret it. Do you understand that? Can you understand that? You’re a good person. Your partner is a good person. Do you know what it is to not just not be able to save her but to get even grieving wrong?”

For a long moment, Hugh considers what to say.

“I think your actions in helping Lorca were wrong,” he says. “I don’t think it’s possible to grieve wrong.”

Ellen, eyes dubious, grunts in a way that could be dismissal, acknowledgement, or something in between.

“Take care, Commander,” Hugh says quietly, heading for the door.

He is nearly in the hallway when Ellen speaks.

“This is part of hers.”

Hugh pauses, turning to face her again. “Hers--?”

“Amna. This mission would have been part of her philosophy.” Ellen’s lip twitches in what could be the shadow of an exhausted smile, voice still blunt and the expression in her eyes still characteristically direct. “Without question.”

***

When Georgiou returns from Boreth, she discovers that Adira has slipped down to the shuttle bay to meet her.

“How did it go?” they ask, hesitantly, eyes wide with some unknown emotion.

“Successful,” she tells them, as the two of them make their way out of the bay together. She pats one strap of her pack. “We now have a time crystal.” Given that Gray’s life rests on having a crystal to power the suit, it’s unsurprising that Adira has been worried.

“No, I mean—I knew you’d be able to do it,” Adira tells her, as if this is obvious, a trust and confidence in their eyes that makes Georgiou’s heart ache. “But, I just, I do talk with the rest of the crew, and they talked about how Pike was so f—messed up by whatever he had to go through to get the crystal, like it was really really…bad. And I just—” They stare at their feet as they walk, sneaking a quick glance sideways at Georgiou. Georgiou knows she probably looks like shit. “If I’d never come to this ship, you wouldn’t have done that for Gray. For us.”

Georgiou stops walking, turning to face Adira, and Adira watches her, their face pinched and anxious.

“Listen to me, Adira.”

Adira nods.

“This might not be something you fully, truly understand until you’re an adult yourself, but when kids are hurt or in danger, it’s us adults' job to protect you. That’s one of the most important parts of being a caring adult Human. Caring adult person,” she corrects herself. “Maybe the most important thing.”

Adira nods uncertainly.

“Saving Gray is the most important thing right now,” Georgiou says gently, as the two of them resume walking. “To all of us. You arriving on this ship was a very, very good thing for so many reasons, Adira. Saving him is one of them.”

“And that’s a go, Burnham!” comes Paul’s voice in Michael’s ear, and she launches herself upwards from Discovery’s stationary hull, the soft interior padding of the red angel suit once again surrounding her as she hovers in space, programming her coordinates.

“Jump commencing in thirty seconds,” she reports.

“Take good care, Commander,” Paul says, his voice gentle in her ear against the silent cushion of the vacuum around her.

“I will.”

A pause of a few seconds. “Adira says ‘good luck.’”

Michael can picture the two of them as they were when she flew out of the shuttle bay, Paul standing at his portable console in the shuttle bay's cobbled-together mission control, one arm around Adira.

“Tell them—” Michael swallows. “Tell them thank you. Tell them that I’ll—tell them that we’ll be back soon.”

“I will.”

The countdown completes, and Michael falls forward into a bright shower of instants.

***

Outside the generation ship, Michael shifts reality out of the timeline with a wave of one Jett-Reno-enhanced suit hand, glancing at the two figures inside the viewport in front of her before tractoring the asteroid off its course. After confirming its trajectory away from the ship, she punches the personal transporter on her chest, materializing inside.

Gray and Adira startle, each making as though to stand protectively in front of the other.

“I mean you no harm,” Michael says quickly. “And you’re both going to be safe. I am going to make sure of that. My name is Michael Burnham, and the next year is going to be very difficult for you, Adira,” she continues, feeling the words tumble from her lips as quickly as she can say them, “but I want you to know that when that year is over, you’re going to see Gray again. Gray,” she says, holding out the unpowered exoskeleton of a second timesuit, “I need you to put this on and come with me.”

Gray steps closer to Adira. “What? No, I—”

“Your name is Gray Tal, and your last name was Senna Tal, and when he was a child his favorite thing to do was to read books to his collection of plush tribble toys,” Michael says.

Gray’s eyes widen. “That’s—“

Michael continues, rattling off former Tal host facts as quickly as she can, before explaining, also as quickly as she can, about the asteroid they’ve just seen her deflect, and the symbiont, and the Discovery.

“Adira needs to have the symbiont,” she explains, “in order not to cause a time paradox. But the modified time crystal in my suit will allow me to shift you—” she nods at Adira—“back into the real timeline in time for the medbots to give you the symbiont. I just need to do it at exactly the right time, so that Gray doesn’t actually die, and you snap back just as the medbots are holding the symbiont.” Do medbots hold things? Hover them? Whatever; she’s getting the point across. And Gray is putting the suit on.

“Luckily, my amazing crewmates have worked out all the timing,” she continues, “so I just need to transport us back outside and then snap the timeline back to the right instant. And, yes, there will be two Tals in the galaxy when you see each other again and I’m sure that will make things very interesting. Ready to go?”

She holds out a hand, and Gray takes it. “I love you, Adira,” he says, as Michael reaches for the transporter.

“I love you too—” Adira says, and Michael and Gray reappear meters away in space. Adira is standing watching them, and standing watching them, and then with a motion of her hand Michael slams them back into the timeline and Gray puts a hand to his mouth over his suit visor as he watches the medbots complete the surgery and place a blanket over Adira, flying the newly-joined Human slowly away down the hallways and out of sight.

“You’ll see them again,” Michael whispers, “in just a minute.”

“Them?” Gray sounds puzzled.

Oh, right. Well, in just moments, there will be ample time for explanations. “Adira. You’ll see Adira, who’s going to be so very, very happy to see you. It will have been a year,” Michael adds, as she pulls up the angel suit controls, “and Adira is going to be so glad to see you again.”

They fall forward into sparking and sparkling time together, and all at once they’re dropping back into the timeline, floating easily in the vacuum in front of Discovery’s shuttle bay.

“Ready?” Michael asks.

Gray nods. “Yeah. I mean—of course I’m ready. I’m ready.”

Michael smiles, floating them into the bay as the forcefield ripples obligingly to let them enter and landing them both on the smooth floor, steadying Gray as his feet make contact.

“Gray?”

Adira is pressing their own hand to their mouth as Michael and Gray release the visors on their suits, and then they take a step toward him, staring as though they don’t quite believe he’s real.

“It’s me,” Gray says quietly, smiling nervously at them. “I’m here.”

This appears to be all the encouragement Adira needs to dash forward, wrapping their arms around him. He hugs them back, eyes closed as he buries his head against their shoulder. Adira is smiling and crying at the same time.

“I’m here,” he whispers to them again.

Michael steps away from the two of them, leaving them to it, and Sylvia hurries forward to wrap her arms around her. “Welcome back, Michael,” she says.

Michael hugs her for several long seconds before releasing her to accept a hug from Philippa and then a pat on the back from Paul as Tracy steps forward to scan her with a medical tricorder. “No adverse effects of the jump,” she reports, smiling.

Hugh is stepping over to do the same for Gray as Gray and Adira finally—though, Michael suspects, temporarily—pull apart. Paul echoes his motion, heading for Adira and rubbing their back before wrapping a supportive arm around their shoulder as Hugh reports that Gray is fine as well and the two teenagers grin exhaustedly at each other.

Michael watches the four of them for another moment, smiling, before turning to glance at the place where Ellen stands at her own console, studiously powering it down. Her eyes flick up just briefly toward the reunion in front of her before she lowers her gaze again, turning and slipping out the doors of the shuttle bay. Michael catches Tracy’s eye, and the two of them walk after her as Sylvia steps over to power her and Paul’s consoles down in turn and Philippa begins the process of packing the rest of mission control up.

***

At 20:00 hours in an undisclosed location on the starship Discovery, Jett’s wife leads her, eyes closed and complaining happily, into a room that has been decorated to a degree that resembles an explosion in a paper snowflake factory, while a few decks up on the bridge, Philippa settles into the captain’s chair for the night shift. Tilly climbs into bed, pulling out her PADD with its book on 30th century Earth, and at the table next to the viewport in Discovery’s rec room, Michael and Tracy sit beside Ellen in silence, keeping her company in her complicated grief. Hugh hums to himself while he brushes his teeth, and Paul yawns as he finishes slipping on his pajamas, stepping forward as Hugh sets his toothbrush back in its holder and wrapping his arms around him, humming deliberately off-key. He garners an eye-roll for his trouble, and two decks down, Gray and Adira sit in Discovery’s mess hall, gazing into each others’ eyes as Adira lapses into silence after explaining how Paul found them in the Jefferies tubes in orbit over Earth.

“You’ve had so many adventures all this time,” Gray says, grinning. “Adira Tal.”

Adira half laughs, shrugging one shoulder. “I guess so.” They look up at him. “I think my adventures are about to get even weirder, Gray Tal.”

Gray grins again. “You know, I didn’t think I or anyone I know was ever going to have the chance to visit the pools. What was it like?”

“Yes, I suppose you would have to ask me what it’s like, since it’s one of the memories we don’t share,” Adira comments with a mischievous grin of their own.

Gray laughs, shaking his head, and they beam at each other in shared exhaustion and confusion and joy as Adira begins their story and the Discovery floats onward through the night.

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tlatollotl · 7 years

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Matthew Des Lauriers got the first inkling that he had stumbled on something special when he pulled over on a dirt road here, seeking a place for his team to use the bathroom. While waiting for everyone to return to the car, Des Lauriers, then a graduate student at the University of California, Riverside, meandered across the landscape, scanning for stone tools and shell fragments left by the people who had lived on the island in the past 1500 years.

As he explored, his feet crunched over shells of large Pismo clams—bivalves that he hadn't seen before on the mountainous island, 100 kilometers off the Pacific coast of Baja California. The stone tools littering the ground didn't fit, either. Unlike the finely made arrow points and razor-sharp obsidian that Des Lauriers had previously found on the island, these jagged flakes had been crudely knocked off of chunky beach cobbles.

"I had no idea what it meant," says Des Lauriers, now a professor at California State University (Cal State) in Northridge. Curiosity piqued, he returned for a test excavation and sent some shell and charcoal for radiocarbon dating. When Des Lauriers's adviser called with the results, he said, "You should probably sit down." The material dated from nearly 11,000 to more than 12,000 years ago—only a couple thousand years after the first people reached the Americas.

That discovery, in 2004, proved to be no anomaly; since then, Des Lauriers has discovered 14 other early sites and excavated two, pushing back the settlement of Cedros Island to nearly 13,000 years ago. The density of early coastal sites here "is unprecedented in North America," says archaeologist Loren Davis of Oregon State University in Corvallis, who joined the project in 2009.

The Cedros Island sites add to a small but growing list that supports a once-heretical view of the peopling of the Americas. Whereas archaeologists once thought that the earliest arrivals wandered into the continent through a gap in the ice age glaciers covering Canada, most researchers today think the first inhabitants came by sea. In this view, maritime explorers voyaged by boat out of Beringia—the ancient land now partially submerged under the waters of the Bering Strait—about 16,000 years ago and quickly moved down the Pacific coast, reaching Chile by at least 14,500 years ago.

Findings such as those on Cedros Island bolster that picture by showing that people were living along the coast practically as early as anyone was in the Americas. But these sites don't yet prove the coastal hypothesis. Some archaeologists argue that the first Americans might have entered via the continental interior and turned to a maritime way of life only after they arrived. "If they came down an interior ice-free corridor, they could have turned right, saw the beaches of California, and said, ‘To hell with this,’" says archaeologist David Meltzer of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

Matthew Des Lauriers transforms a beach cobble into a type of stone tool used by people who lived on Cedros Island nearly 13,000 years ago. These people lived near freshwater springs but relied on the sea, dining on fish, sea mammals, and seabirds.

The evidence that might settle the question has been mostly out of reach. As the glaciers melted starting about 16,500 years ago, global sea level rose by about 120 meters, drowning many coasts and any settlements they held. "We are decades into the search for coastal dispersers, and we're still waiting for solid evidence or proof," says Gary Haynes, an archaeologist at the University of Nevada in Reno, who thinks the first Americans likely took an inland route.

The hunt for that evidence is now in high gear. A dedicated cadre of archaeologists is searching for maritime sites dating to between 14,000 and 16,000 years ago, before the ice-free corridor became fully passable. They're looking at the gateway to the Americas, along stretches of the Alaskan and Canadian coasts that were spared the post–ice age flooding. They are even looking underwater. And on Cedros Island, Des Lauriers is helping fill in the picture of how early coastal people lived and what tools they made, details that link them to maritime cultures around the Pacific Rim and imply that they were not landlubbers who later turned seaward. "All eyes are on the coast," Meltzer says.

On a sunny June day, Des Lauriers crouches in a gully here, bracing himself against the wind blowing off the ocean. He leans over to examine what could be a clue to how people lived here 12,000 years ago: a delicate crescent of shell glinting in the sun. A few centimeters away, a sharply curved shell point lies broken in two pieces. Des Lauriers knows he's looking at the remains of an ancient fishhook. He has already found four others on the island. One of those, at about 11,500 years old, is the oldest fishhook discovered in the Americas, as reported this summer in American Antiquity.

Des Lauriers wasn't planning to collect artifacts on this trip, but the shell fishhook is too precious to leave to the elements. His team scrambles for anything they can use to package the delicate artifact. Someone produces a roll of toilet paper, and Des Lauriers scoops up the fragments with his trowel and eases them onto the improvised padding. Each fragment is wrapped snuggly and slipped into a plastic bag.

Twenty years ago, most archaeologists believed the first Americans were not fishermen, but rather big-game hunters who had followed mammoths and bison through the ice-free corridor in Canada. The distinctive Clovis spear points found at sites in the lower 48 states starting about 13,500 years ago were thought to be their signature. But bit by bit, the Clovis-first picture has crumbled.

The biggest blow came in 1997, when archaeologists confirmed that an inland site at Monte Verde in Chile was at least 14,500 years old—1000 years before Clovis tools appeared. Since then, several more pre-Clovis sites have come to light, and the most recent date from Monte Verde stretches back to 18,500 years ago, although not all researchers accept it. Genetic evidence from precontact South American skeletons now suggests that the earliest Americans expanded out of Beringia about 16,000 years ago.

Not only were the Clovis people not the first to arrive, but many researchers also doubt the first Americans could have made it by land. Glaciers likely covered the land route through western Canada until after 16,000 years ago, according to recent research that dated minerals in the corridor's oldest sand dunes. Another study showed that bison from Alaska and the continental United States didn't mingle in the corridor until about 13,000 years ago, implying that the passage took at least 2000 years to fully open and transform into a grassland welcoming to megafauna and their human hunters.

That makes the coastal route the first Americans' most likely—or perhaps only—path. It would have been inviting, says Knut Fladmark, a professor emeritus of archaeology at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada, one of the first to propose a coastal migration into the Americas back in 1979. "The land-sea interface is one of the richest habitats anywhere in the world," he says. Early Americans apparently knew how to take full advantage of its abundant resources. At Monte Verde, once 90 kilometers from the coast, archaeologist Tom Dillehay of Vanderbilt University in Nashville found nine species of edible and medicinal seaweed dated to about 14,000 years ago.

On Cedros Island, artifacts suggest that people found diverse ways to make a living from the sea. That isn't a given because 13,000 years ago, the island was connected to the mainland, hanging off the Baja peninsula like a hitchhiker's outstretched thumb; early sites cluster around freshwater springs that would have been several kilometers inland back then. But Des Lauriers's work reveals that the Cedros Islanders ate shellfish, sea lions, elephant seals, seabirds, and fish from all sorts of ocean environments, including deep-water trenches accessible only by boat.

In addition to making fishhooks, the island's inhabitants fashioned beach cobbles into crude scrapers and hammers—"disposable razors," as Des Lauriers, a stone tool expert, calls them. Such tools are best for scraping and cutting plant fibers, suggesting that the islanders were processing agave into fishing lines and nets. Researchers have found a similar suite of tools at other early sites along the Pacific coast, hinting that fishing technologies were widespread even though the organic nets, lines, and boats likely decayed long ago.

Certain tool types found here suggest even more distant connections. Des Lauriers often finds stemmed points, a style of spear point found from Japan to Peru and perhaps used on the island to hunt sea mammals and native pygmy deer. The shell fishhooks even resemble the world's oldest known fishhooks, which were crafted from the shells of sea snails on Okinawa in Japan about 23,000 years ago.

Although the evidence of a widespread, sophisticated maritime way of life along the ancient Pacific coast—what Meltzer calls "Hansel and Gretel leaving a trail of artifacts"—is provocative, it can't prove the coastal migration theory, he says. The oldest sites on Cedros Island are younger than the first Clovis spear points used to bring down big game on the mainland.

But older coastal sites are beginning to turn up. This year Dillehay announced the discovery of a nearly 15,000-year-old site at Huaca Prieta, about 600 kilometers north of Lima. Its earliest residents lived in an estuary 30 kilometers from the Pacific shoreline but still ate mostly shark, seabirds, marine fish, and sea lions, and their artifacts resemble those at other coastal sites. "I was stunned how similar [the tools of Huaca Prieta] were to [those of] Cedros Island," Davis says.

Still, pinning down the coastal migration theory will take a string of well-dated sites beginning before 15,000 years ago in southwestern Alaska or British Columbia in Canada and extending through time down the coast. To find them, archaeologists will have to take the plunge.

Loren Davis tries to stay steady as he makes his way into a laboratory aboard the research vessel Pacific Storm. The archaeologist was desperately seasick in his cabin for 2 days in late May as the 25-meter-long ship fought rough seas more than 35 kilometers off the Oregon coast. With Davis laid low, his team members scanned the ocean floor with sound waves.

They are seeking the now-flooded landscape ancient maritime explorers would have followed on their journey south, when today's coastlines were dozens of kilometers inland. Some coastal travelers did eventually turn landward, as shown by early inland sites such as Oregon's Paisley Caves, which yielded a 14,200-year-old human coprolite. But the earliest chapters of any coastal migration are almost certainly underwater.

Sixteen thousand years later, it's tempting to envision such a migration as a race from beach to beach. But as people expanded into the uninhabited Americas, they had no destination in mind. They stopped, settled in, ventured beyond what they knew, and backtracked into what they did. So the first step for archaeologists is to figure out where, exactly, those early mariners would have chosen to stick around.

The decision likely came down to one resource: freshwater. "Water is the lifeblood of everything," Davis says. So he has been painstakingly mapping the probable courses of ancient rivers across the now-drowned coastline, hoping that those channels are still detectable, despite now being filled with sediment and covered by deep ocean.

As team members pulled up early results to show Davis during May's cruise, a black line representing the present-day sea floor squiggled horizontally across the screen. Then it diverged into two lines, a gap like a smile opening across the image: An ancient river channel lay below the modern sea floor, right where Davis's model had predicted. "If I hadn't been so sick—and if there had been alcohol on the ship—that would have been a champagne moment," he says. "We can [now] begin to visualize where the hot spots [of human occupation] are probably going to be."

This summer, Davis's colleague Amy Gusick, an archaeologist at Cal State in San Bernardino, used one of his maps to take the first sample from another probable hot spot: a drowned river off the coast of California's Channel Islands. Terrestrial sites on the islands have already yielded 13,000-year-old human bones as well as characteristically coastal stone tools. But since then, the rising sea has inundated 65% of the islands' ancient area. Gusick and her colleagues are confident that submerged sites, possibly even older than the ones on land, exist off today's coast.

In June, she used a 5-meter sampling tube to pierce what Davis's map told her was the ancient riverbank. The muck she collected will reveal whether ancient soil, perhaps including plant remains, pollen, animal bones, or human artifacts, can still be recovered from deep underwater. Eventually, Gusick hopes to understand the drowned landscape well enough to pick out anomalies on the sonar map—possible shell middens or houses—and target them for coring that might bring up artifacts and the organic material needed to date them. A date of 15,000 years or older would show that before the ice-free corridor fully opened, adept mariners had explored the Channel Islands, which were never connected to the mainland and could be reached only by boat.

"This is the biggest scientific effort to move us down the road to answering this question" of how and when people settled the Americas, says Todd Braje, an archaeologist at San Diego State University in California, one of the leaders of the coring project. "Those submerged landscapes are really the last frontier for American archaeology," says Jon Erlandson, an anthropologist at the University of Oregon in Eugene who has excavated on the Channel Islands for decades and also is part of the project.

All the same, to make a definitive case for the coastal route, researchers must find pre-Clovis coastal sites in the doorway to the Americas itself: on the shores of southwestern Alaska or British Columbia. Luckily, archaeologists working there may not even have to go underwater to do it.

Researchers tracking ancient coastal dwellers found 13,200-year-old human footprints on Calvert Island in British Columbia (left) and the Americas' oldest fishhook (right) on Cedros Island.

About 13,200 years ago, someone strolled through the intertidal zone just above the beach on Calvert Island, off the coast of British Columbia, leaving footprints in the area's wet, dense clay. When high tide rolled in, sand and gravel filled the impressions, leaving a raised outline. Layers of sediment built up over the millennia, preserving the barely eroded footprints under half a meter of earth.

Daryl Fedje, an archaeologist at the University of Victoria (UVic) and the Hakai Institute on Quadra Island in Canada, spotted that outline while excavating on the beach in 2014. Since then, he and his UVic and Hakai colleague Duncan McLaren have documented 29 of those footprints beneath Calvert's beaches. A piece of wood embedded in a footprint's fill provided the radiocarbon date. "It raises the hairs on the back of your neck," says McLaren, who in April presented the footprints at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Vancouver, Canada.

Such an intimate view of early coastal Americans is possible on Calvert Island because of a geological quirk. The melting ice sheets flooded coastlines elsewhere. But when the coasts of British Columbia and southwestern Alaska were suddenly freed from the weight of the nearby glaciers, parts of the underlying crust began to rebound, lifting some islands high enough to largely escape the flood.

To maximize their chances of finding ancient sites, McLaren, Fedje, and their UVic colleague Quentin Mackie have spent decades mapping the local sea level changes along the coast of British Columbia. On Calvert Island, where the footprints were discovered, sea level rose only 2 meters. Around nearby Quadra Island, local sea level actually fell, stranding ancient shorelines in forests high above modern beaches. There, "potentially the entire history of occupation is on dry land," Mackie says.

The painstaking work required to identify and search those ancient coastlines is paying off with a march of increasingly older dates from the British Columbia coast. The remains of an ancient bear hunt—spear points lying in a cluster of bear bones—in Gaadu Din cave on the Haida Gwaii archipelago date to 12,700 years ago. The Calvert footprints stretch back 13,200 years. And a cluster of stone tools next to a hearth on Triquet Island is 14,000 years old—the region's oldest artifact so far, according to radiocarbon dates from the hearth's charcoal. Although reports about the footprints and the Triquet tools have yet to be peer reviewed, several archaeologists say they are impressed by the British Columbia team's approach. "They're looking in exactly the right place," Erlandson says.

Despite the proliferating evidence for the coastal route, not everyone is ready to discount the ice-free corridor entirely. The region has barely been studied and is ripe for "interesting surprises," says John Ives, an archaeologist at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. For example, the corridor may not have been a welcoming grassland until 14,000 years ago, but Haynes says it is naïve to assume that people couldn't have ventured into the corridor as soon as the ice was gone. Before grass took root, "the inland corridor route would have been full of freshwater sources, seasonally migrating or resident waterfowl by the millions, and large and small mammals exploring new ranges," he says. "Eastern Beringia's inland foragers of 14,000 years ago were descendants of expert pioneers and could have traveled far south on foot."

And so the hunt continues. Before breakfast one morning on Cedros Island, Des Lauriers spreads out satellite images of the island's southern edge. Most of the land appears as brown pixels, as one would expect from a desert island. But here and there, clusters of blue pixels appear—signs of moisture in the ground. Find the springs, Des Lauriers knows, and he'll find the people.

Davis and the rest of the team pile into the back of a pickup truck, and Des Lauriers follows a dirt path to a spring he hasn't visited before. The patch of green lies at the bottom of a steep-sided arroyo, which is otherwise bone dry. Algae cover the surface of a meter-deep pool. The dark soil is rich with organic matter, unusual for arid Cedros Island and possibly indicating an ancient settlement. Stone tools characteristic of the earliest islanders dot the surface. "There's a lot of stuff here, Matt," Davis calls to Des Lauriers. "It's punching all the boxes."

Interspersed with the recognizably early tools are things neither of them has seen on the island before: large, striated scallop shells belonging to a species known as mano de león (lion's paw). Today those scallops live in lagoons east of here, on the coast of the Baja peninsula. Des Lauriers says he suspects that similar lagoons connected Cedros Island to the mainland before 13,000 years ago. Were people here early enough to visit such lagoons? Could those shells be hinting at a phase of settlement even older than the one signaled by the Pismo clams 13 years ago?

To find out, Des Lauriers will have to wait until the team excavates and takes samples for radiocarbon dating. He records the site's GPS coordinates and then, just as people have done here for millennia, sets off up the arroyo in search of the next source of freshwater.

#archaeology #native american #history #baja california #cedros island

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placesthatchangedpeople · 7 years

Text

A stay at the Thayer Learning Center

This testimony was found on the message board belonging to HEAL-online. All rights goes to the author

(Too long of an intro?) Skip down to the time I arrived and read from there.

One summer day I was alerted to headlights coming up the driveway, little did I know what was about to happen.

I looked out the window in my bedroom and saw headlights pulling into the driveway, this is unusual as my family at the time lived in a remote ranch area with only a few neighbors nearby also it was around 4:00 Am in the morning.

I run into the house and alert my parents that there is a vehicle pulling into the driveway (my memory is a little blurry so bear with me) my parents get up quickly and pretend to not know what's going on, I go to the back door to see who was coming up the driveway and my dad rushes to the front door of the house and blocks the entrance, as I make my way to the back room where the back door is located to my surprise, a transporter is waiting outside the door, or blocking it, (unable to remember which) then another transporter comes from the other side blocking me in (he came in the front door) They do this boxing in method just in case the subject (me) decided to try and run.

So we're all in the back room, one of the transporters tells me to put on my shoes, so I comply after asking what was going on I'm very confused at this point, but my body is in no condition to run, I literally looked like one of those Ethiopian children you see in pictures, ribs sticking out, all skin a bones.

Anyway, I am transported to their car and I am told to get in the back seat, passenger side, so I comply.

I remember looking out the door before they shut it and my mother telling me that I am going away for awhile, I think her and I both cried.

The door was shut and my parents and the transporters talk briefly and away we go to the Reno airport to catch a plane. I was mostly quiet for the trip, I do remember asking one question "Where am I going?" I got a brief "Boarding school comment" from one of the transporters, So I thought to myself, well, I guess a little adventure couldn't hurt, since I was withering away anyway. Bear in mind I had had no sleep the night before, and my adrenaline and curiosity was at peak so I was not able to sleep at all during the trip.

We arrive at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport and board a plane, so I use the restroom real quick and away we go.

Our plane departs and we land in Las Vegas to switch flights to Kansas City, MO.

We had to wait for a little while for our flight to prepare, so while we were waiting one of the transporters (shortish white guy, brown hair)starts to play some sort of video poker close to where we were sitting, I think the native guy asks me if I would like to have something to eat, a slice of pizza or something and he tells me "this is the last time for awhile that you will have an opportunity to have this kind of food" But I respectfully decline his offer as I was not hungry. (depressed people have trouble eating)

Both guys were fairly nice to me.

The time comes to board our flight, so we start heading for the terminal to board the plane, to be honest I kinda felt like a bad ass because I had two guys who looked like body guards standing around me at all times.

We board the plane and lift off to Kansas City International Airport.

We arrive, get off the plane and walk to the rent-a-car booth, we head to the rental car and start to drive out of the city to the tiny town of Kidder.

As we pull up to the facility, I see the main building and feel sort of relived "this place doesn't look so bad" I say to myself, that is until we rounded the corner to the other side of the building. Fear strikes me in my mind as we pull up to a fenced off area "The Beach" we called it, to see 3 drill Sargents in black/white camo BDU wear and big round DSGT hats on the inside of the fence.

We enter the fenced off area and immediately after entering my intake started.

I was yelled at, screamed at, billed in the face.

They started going over making me learn the 10 general orders of the program.

every time I messed up they would make me run a down and back to the end building and back. I eventually got tired of this and got a wild hair and got a little disobedient, as soon as those words left my mouth I was on the ground with 3 drill Sargents tying me into pretzel, one of them sat on my back I think it was DSGT "H1", while one of the other started to bend my legs up and backwards, DSGT "H2" bending my spine in the opposite direction it is suppose to go. Now bear in mind I am very frail due to the condition my body was in, I was so afraid they were going to break my back and I was in a lot of pain, so I pretended to have a seizure to get them to stop, I rolled my eyes into the back of my head and started jerking my body around as if I were having a seizure.

I think I scared them because they got off me immediately and let me lay there for awhile, deciding what they should do next.

They decided to wrap up my intake and took me into the building, they told me to take off all my clothes, one of the JR. Staff, A cadet that was about to finish the program turned on the shower and I was instructed to get in it, everyone still yelling at me of course, but not interacting with me physically. So after that is over, I am in a state of shock at this point so I don't remember much after that point besides going down to requisitions and getting a bin full of clothes and other items I needed as a Cadet and they placed me in Bravo bay. That day my entire bay was punished because I wasn't able to do a single pushup, due to them tearing a muscle in my elbow, also I had very little muscle mass if any at all.

That night I fell into catatonic state, I'm not sure how long I was in that state, but all I remember was looking up at the camera and the ceiling.

Eventually, I start to get stronger and learn the ropes.

A short while later my legs begin to swell like balloons, I kept putting it on my sick report, but it took about a week, maybe longer to get it looked at by an EMT, during that week I was unable to run or do the exercises properly, the Sargents kept making comments about my legs to each other "no wonder he can't run, his legs are swelled up like balloons" and laughing to each other making jokes and nasty comments, at one point one of the Sargents put his boot on my chest and let his weight down on top of me, looked me in the eyes and smiled evilly, knowing there was nothing I could do about it.

When my family rep finally took me to the hospital the doctors ran tests on my legs to see if I had any blood clots, they wanted to do more tests and keep me over night, but the EMT at the time (I'm not really sure she was even qualified to put a band-aid on an injury) threw a fit over it, so I wasn't able to get checked out further. (Which I should have because my legs were swelled up, they were huge!) They ended up putting me on no lower body P.T and called it good, basically told me to drink water and get over my drama. The Sargent that stepped on my chest, ignored the doctor sticker on my canteen and made me do lower body P.T anyway. That guy was mean.

I wanted to tell the doctors to help me and that they were abusing us, but I was so afraid of what they would have done to me when I got back to camp.

I suppose it has something to do with Stockholm syndrome. I think they actually used Stockholm syndrome and fear as a cover, they has us zombified, terrified and broken.

Eventually, I finally got stronger and was able to do all of the exercises, they became more of an annoyance when the pain tolerance built up and a fit body made the constant nonstop exercise easier. I kind of want to say I just got used to it, but I'm not sure if that would be the right words to use.

I want to go over a list here to tell what I witnessed and experienced at Thayer Learning Center

During my stay, I noticed that they broke 3 cadets wrists. They lied to parents about injuries related to abuse. One particular Sargent there who was the wrist breaker was promoted for his extreme behavior modification techniques including the breaking of bones.

One day in the blistering heat we had to bear crawl everywhere we went, so when we went to the chow hall, and gym,(all separate buildings from male boot camp) the skin on our hands literally melted off on the sidewalk, everyone got bad blisters all over their hands.

Certain Cadets were singled out by Staff and Cadets, and were bullied more often than others. One cadet in particular got restrained at least once or twice a week. That I was witness to.

Lots of Cadets developed a foot fungus due to the latrine floor being covered in bacteria, we also did not have the privilege of having toilet seats on our toilets.

We slept in a basement with bugs and spiders everywhere, the walls leaked, so when it rained the boot camp basement bays Alpha and Bravo became partially flooded and our sleeping bags, clothes would get wet.

At one point during the program I tried to break my ankle so that I could escape the torment, so I ran up the catwalk in the gym when the Sargent wasn't looking and jumped off, I landed on my feet and fell forward, as soon as one of the Sargents realized what I did, he immediately restrained me, pushing my neck into the floor, I was unable to breath and began screaming "Sir! I can't breath" through my crushed vocal cords and windpipe.

All he said was "STOP SAYING CAN'T!!" I thought I was going to die, I quit trying to breath and I was going to try and let myself slip out of consciousness, but at about the point I was passing out he got off of me. A cadet mentioned it later and said the sounds I was making sounded like I was being killed.

I was placed in isolation for a week or so I can't remember, and my neck was messed up for about a year after that, I think he did something to damage my spine, or the tendons in my neck when he restrained me.

When parents would show up, they would call "code white" over the radio, so the Sargent/Staff on duty would be aware that they were being watched, so they had us sit down and read, or do other activities in an attempt to keep the parents from knowing exactly what was going on there, to keep their horror house under wraps.

We were woken up in the middle of the night to exercise outside on the beach, or inside. Those were what we called "moon burns"

We had to sleep on 1/2 Inch thick green mats on top of the concrete floor.

When I finally got to residency, we were allowed one phone call per week with our parents, whenever I tried telling my mother that we were being abused, my family rep would switch off my phone, and take over the phone call (all of our calls were monitored live)

All of our letters were screened and judged according to a cadets psychological profile. whited out, or edited, not sent at all.

Every weekend we were allowed to sit on the concrete floor and watch a movie, we often had to watch the same movie over and over again as a means of psychological tactics. ("Aladdin" was favorite of the staff)

We had to listen to "Bram Stoker's Dracula" and repetitive motivational cassette tapes repeatedly over and over again, as means of psychological tactics.

Cadets who "acted up" were forced to sit in isolation for weeks at a time in a tent with a bright light, listening to the same motivational tapes over and over again, NOTE: they started putting cadets in empty bays instead of the tent for some reason.

If we were outside and a car drove by on the isolated road in front of the main building, we were instructed to face towards the building for who knows what reason.

I witnessed a Sargent punch a cadet in the face.

Whenever a cadet was restrained, the Sargent or JR. Staff would yell out grenade, which then we had to dive on the ground, and bury our face in our elbows and kick our legs as to not be witnesses to the event of the bodily assaults.

One female cadet in particular was made to stay there for years and be subject to the owners abusive drones we called Sargents.

I personally witnessed cadets urinate and a defecate themselves.

cadets who acted up, we were forced to mock them with a made up cadence all together that included their name to bully and shame them into obedience.

A cadet died there due to their neglect and abuse.

How these programs continue to flourish is anyone's guess Which is very concerning.

The only positive thing I have to say about this program is, had I not been sent, I may have died due to severe depression I was not eating and my body was withering away.

Basically, I was broken down completely, but never built back up.

These places are abusive, plain and simple.

Do not send your kids to these places.

I am a survivor and assure you that everything I have mentioned is true and correct and not exaggerated in any way to my knowledge.

You have my permission to post this on your website, I wish to remain Anonymous and am also using a VPN out of fear that the owners will retaliate against me in my adult life should they come across this posting even though the place has since shut down.

A death occured at the boot camp and the bad press coverage forced the owners to close. However, they were never prosecuted for their part in the tragic death

Sources:

Thayer Learning Center (What I saw and experienced) (The HEAL Forum)

Roberto Reyes - 2004 (Today a child died - memorial blog)

#boot camp #Missouri #death

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radioactive-park · 4 years

Text

Gregory ??? (Of Yardale) Application

IN CHARACTER:

Name: Gregory ??? (Of Yardale) - Something in headcanons’ll explain why it’s ??? rather than an actual surname Age: 23 years old Gender (pronouns): Cis male, he/him Sexuality: Panromantic demisexual Occupation/Role: Bounty hunter, but can also do some spy work for the right price. He is also up to track people/items down, if required. Location/Faction: New South Park, but often goes to Centennial City for work Personality: While he appears awfully confident (and in some cases arrogant), Gregory lacks social skills in some departments. This can make him seem impolite or rude to some, even when he means well. Despite having a lot of patience, he is also quite stubborn and ambitious, and will thus not hesitate to argue about what he strongly believes in. He isn’t afraid to get is hands dirty if the reward from it is decent, but don’t expect him to go strangle some innocent fool for calling you ugly.

When it comes to bounties, he is a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ type, unless the target has information that could be considered useful. Then it is a ’ask first, shoot, then ask again’ situation. This has caused him problems in the past, especially when the bounty specifically states to bring the target back alive. He is quite smart, and knows how to lie his way out of a lot of situations. He has also learned to not fear death, as 'fearing death’ isn’t a trait someone in his line of work should have. Especially not when living in a world where every day is a game of ’Will I get shot or stabbed by a stranger today?’.

If he has the time of day, he can be quite caring towards others. If not busy with work or getting ready to head off to do work, he’s up to help with most problems. No matter how big or small. Bio (Note - I may have gone a bit overboard with the bio. I apologise): Gregory is your typical wastelander. Brought into this world in some small, rundown town on whatever’s left of the coast of New California, with only luck keeping him alive long enough to be here now.

His parents were alright people, according to him. His mother, who he saw as the sweetest person alive, struggled with a bit of a gambling addiction, which was unfortunate, but she was getting help from a Followers of the apocalypse member who also lived in town. His dad wanted to become a boxing champion, like the ones read about in old, pre-war magazines. It’s what kept conversations at the dinner table interesting.

He was taught to read and write, properly shoot and defend himself, to track and hunt, even a little bit of first aid. All things that would prove useful when he would one day go out on his own. From what his parents told him, he was almost afraid of that - Going out on his own and into the world one day. The world was a scary place, full of dangers that could end his life in mere seconds if it didn’t torture him first. He hated even thinking about it. So, to take his mind off of it, he spent his days learning about various types of guns - How they worked, what ammo they took, what they were used for. It was a hobby of his he spent quite some time on when he wasn’t being taught certain skills, playing with the other kids in town or doing some errands for his parents.

This was until he turned 19.

A few months into 2276, he woke up to his dad telling him to gather his things as quickly as possible. Gregory thought that the town was under attack or that there were threats of some destructive storm coming. Why else would his father act the way he did? Out on the road to what seemed like nowhere, his mom explained to him that there wasn’t a threat of any kind. They were on their way to New Reno for 'New beginnings in the biggest little town in the world’. When his dad went for a drink at the town’s pub, he met and spoke to a courier that supposedly went through there for a delivery. When the courier talked about the town, everything it has and the current situation, his dad only heard partially between the ruckus going on in the pub - Talk of big casinos, working phones, the place Jet originates from and of course, the Jungle gym, a gym and boxing ring. He also spoke of 'a lot of fights’ and it was assumed that it was referring to the ring, when in reality it was not the case. New Reno might have it’s wonderous casinos and 'escorts’ as far as the eye an see, but it was also known for the violent fights and rivalries between the owners of the casinos. Anyone who wished to live there would have to join one of the 'crime families’ to survive or face the consequences. Neither Greg nor his parents knew this, of course. To them, this would be a town of opportunity, much more than the other town ever was. It felt like history was repeating itself once more. His father spent most of the day at the Jungle gym, and sometimes he would join him there to train - to be strong, flexible, fit - even when he was sure that the place was rigged to hell in favor of long-time participants against newbies. His mother spent most of her day at casinos. She said that she was over her addiction, and that it was purely to keep herself busy. That she could stop any time she wanted to easily. Gregory was thus by himself most of his days, again. Difference was, rather than playing with the other town kids, he did small, random jobs around town. From delivering mail, to convincing people to buy certain guns at New Reno Arms, to stripping cars for parts at the Chop shop. It wasn’t what he expected he would do, but he was getting paid so that’s what mattered most. One day, while out and about on a job for the pharmacy (mostly just taking a few people their medicine and drugs), he got caught up in a shootout between the Wrights and to his surprise, the Bishops. He did not want to get involved, but when his mother was dragged out of Shark club casino by one of the Wright goons, it got personal. No hesitation, no regret, no second thoughts. A clear shot from a distance ended the shootout right there. A mysterious man, who watched it all go down from the shadows, approached Gregory afterwards. He told him that he would make a perfect bounty hunter type, and that he had been looking for an apprentice for a long time. He asked him if he would work for him, and while slightly hesitant at first to trust this sketchy man, Greg eventually agreed. His parents, however (even if his mother was thankful that her son saved her life), did not. They wanted him to make a name for himself without getting killed by some lowlife in the process. Did he listen? Of course not. While his parents were out doing their thing, he went to do some work for the mysterious man. It started off with some easy, typical raider types that needed to vanish, but eventually got to the point where he had to sneak around and do quick stealth kills. This was better than any other job he took before, and definitely paid better. The year Gregory turned 22, fights started breaking out more and more between his parents for a variety of reasons, most including drug addictions or getting frisky with casino escorts. By now, he was officially considered a bounty hunter, with some tracking and spy work included. He complained to the mysterious man, his boss, about how his parents were driving him mad with their fights and that lead to him offering Greg two jobs, both a way out of New Reno. He explained that it was no surprise. It’s what happened to a lot of people, if they didn’t get shot on the first day in the casino families’ gun fights or addicted to Jet within the first week. His choices were to either go after a big, long time bounty that lead to Vegas, and where he would then work under a man with the surname Richter. Alternatively, a different bounty - A Legionary, or to be more specific, a Veteran decanus, that had fled to Colorado after a battle with the NCR in a place called Raven’s ravine went sour. If going after this particular bounty, he would be an independent bounty hunter, only working for himself and nobody else. Gregory, knowing some of the stories regarding the Mojave, decided that he would rather take the longer road and head to the last known sighting of the other target - near a small settlement by the name of New South Park.

Finally having a use for the small bit of money he’d been saving from his various jobs,he geared up and got supplies to last him a while, and left Reno for New South Park. Not a word said to either of his parents. They probably wouldn’t even have noticed that he’s gone. This was a year ago. He has been living in the small, but homey New South Park for about a year now. He often goes out to Centennial City in search of bounties, people needing someone to track down a long lost family member or item they had lost on their travels. If not, he spends his time helping around NSP where he can. Headcanons: - He knows his way around a lot of guns, but not all of them - only the more common ones, and how to use them. He will die figuratively when handed some sort of plasma/laser weapon, because he does not know how to properly use it. - Has an alright singing voice. It’s not surprising to hear him singing to himself sometimes. - He can take a few punches if he has to. - He has decent tracking skills, thanks to his bounty hunting work. - Every time someone asks him his surname, he gives a different answer. He claims it is to prevent the “'friends”’ of targets looking him up and coming after him. It is also because he does not want to be associated with his parents (through the surname). So one day he might say that his surname is 'Walker’, and another he might say it’s 'Anderson’ or 'Jackson’ or whatever he comes up with at the time. - Has very basic first aid knowledge - Cleaning and bandaging wounds, as well as dealing with bullet wounds. - Carries an old rusted cutlass with him. A trophy off his first ever bounty. He says that he would rather carry it around and use it than to place it somewhere only for it to be stolen. - Always carries a knife, typically in his boot, for emergency purposes. - He smokes, but seldom. Would not say no if offered a cigarette, however. - Says that the reason he only does spy work 'for the right price’ is because he risks his life more than when he’s going after bounties. - He has some scars from various places - The most notable a burn scar on his left arm/hand from an incident involving a flamethrower type weapon.

#application #submission #accepted #south park #south park rp

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renegadesepiida · 7 years

Text

Something wakes you in the dark. It may be pitch black outside, but a warmth is already on its way through the light material of the tent. The soft, distant chirping of birds works its way into a song that’s being carried on the breeze. Facing the flashlight toward the path ahead, you almost ignore the ground while scanning the nature around you. The tall pine trees, the dark night sky filled with stars, the rock that you just bumped your foot against causing you to stumble and “gracefully” regain your balance (arms circling every which way). Composure recovered you continue to walk forward, still looking up and ahead, but down once every few seconds to make sure that you don’t trip on anything else.

Dirt turns to boulders and sand as you near the water’s edge, but before reaching it you turn and walk down a thin trail up the hill through scattered trees. You can feel it, the sun’s rising. The air is warming, the sky is brightening causing the stars to disappear, and the birds grow louder and more constant. Through the trees you begin to see the sun peak over the mountains. It’s blinding. While letting your eyes focus for a moment behind your hand, the sun continues to rise, chasing the night away, turning the dark into simple shadows. After a long, deep breath you have the peace of mind to continue the day. Walking back down along the trail you find yourself walking backwards in time, where daylight has not reached. Approaching the main path you take another moment to think and choose to continue to the water, to watch the sunrise again, from a different perspective.

The water lapping on the rocks creates its own rhythm. Sitting on the stones gets you close enough to the water to run your fingers through. The clear blue water is cold to the touch, but there is a sense of welcoming felt as the small wave crests shimmer in the morning light. Time seems to stand still until the entire sun has broken over the mountains. Now there is less of a feeling of calm around even though you are still sitting alone. The world is now awake, so you cherish the memory you had just experienced, turn away from the wide-open water, and walk slowly back to camp with the flashlight hanging inactive by your side.

As morning continues adventure calls; the hardest part is choosing between all of the options. That’s why you’re glad that you made a weekend plan.

Option one, Saturday, is rafting and already you can tell it’s the perfect day for it. The breeze has died down and the bright summer sun is drying the air, adding to your desire to get into the water.

It’s a decently short drive to the American River raft loading area and as you wait for the rest of the party to get situated you scoop up some water splashing it in your face and over your head before dipping in your feet. This river run is not a difficult undertaking, only reaching level III class rapids. Most of the 2-5 hours (depending on how many times you want to stop and play in the water) is spent leaning over the side of the raft, soaking your feet, splashing your friends or family, or light paddling to keep moving forward. As you pass by dozens of people and dogs enjoying each others’ company celebrating summer in their favorite ways.

Sometimes though you’ll hit a rock and your sister (or whomever) will drop their paddle in the water. It’ll float far enough away where she can’t reach it, which causes her to say f*@# it and jump in the water. You just laugh during the whole thing as she wades through 3-4 feet of cold water over to the paddle that got caught up in the branches of a bush, which she in turn gets slightly tangled in. As she attempts to climb back in the raft she shoots you a playful glare for laughing and splashes a large amount of water at you. Although it’s slightly bothersome that your clothes are wet, since the wind is picking up again, the water still feels good in the heat so you laugh it off and respond with a bow and a thank you. She’ll get cold soon enough because of her actions (karma haha).

While she shivers we all complete the run and jump back in the car to travel to our campsite. With several hours still left of daylight a decision is made to take a couple hours long hike to Vikingsholm. The large, almost palace-like building was modeled after 11th-century Scandinavian buildings complete with sod roofs, paintings on the ceilings, beams carved to look like dragons, and both antiques and reproductions; altogether creating the feeling of stepping back in time upon entering.

Hiking back you are less concerned about where you are going and instead thinking about arriving, it’s dinnertime and the mere idea of food is calling your name. A bit over half way back you realize that you are not taking these moments to heart. Slowing your pace, you take a look around, at the trees, the flowers, the ferns, the birds, and down the steep hill towards the bay, Emerald Bay. Though you can only see parts of it through the trees the relaxation hits you and, just like in the early morning, you take a long breath through your nose, causing your eyes to close for a moment before releasing the breath and all previous thoughts, if even for a moment.

Although tall pines surround camp, a slight breeze works its way through. The day is slowly coming to a close when you make it back at a perfect time for dinner. In classic camping style, thick sausages are roasted over (and in your case, in) the flames of the campfire. Warm on the inside, partially charred and all-over crispy on the inside, with the smokey smell and flavor, along with all the best fixings, it’s just perfect.

As day turns to night, the campfire keeps burning. Sweaters and jackets are donned in preparation for the final part of the day. With a nice hot drink by your side, a skewer holding a marshmallow in your hand, and the graham cracker/chocolate combo prepped on your leg you are ready to make s’mores. Just like the hot dog you like the marshmallow like you like your volcanoes, outside black and crisp with the inside molten. Dipping the marshmallow in the flame sets the sugar ablaze. Twirling the skewer between your fingers lets the flames crawl upward engulfing the parts that were not yet burning. Raising the candy torch toward your face you can feel and smell the heat. For what seems like another eternity you are watching the flames dance over the blackening marshmallow skin (this might set you up as a pyro-, might want to get yourself tested) before taking a deep breath, blowing it out, and squishing it between the crackers and chocolate. While munching on your treat you listen to your party trading ghost stories, jokes, dirty limericks, and more.

As it gets later and later the campfire is allowed to burn itself out. But before turning in, you hike up to the crest of a nearby hill to get a clear view of the night sky. Without the interference of light the entire sky is clear, all the stars glisten and the Milky Way carries you away along its winding trail. Looking up makes you feel so small and insignificant, but on the other hand, it makes you so happy, so at ease, though you don’t understand why. The shooting stars of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower burn through the night sky. And while you don’t admit to it you close your eyes and make a wish, with all your heart, hoping it will come true.

Option two, Sunday, takes you away from the woods for a while. While Reno-Tahoe is not the most ‘hopping’ place it’s still a bit of culture shock. Buildings and streets? What’s up with that? Too much time won’t be spent wandering through shops, but it’s nice to lose yourself in the art hanging on all the walls. Including the stupidly popular 90’s-retro wolf T-shirts and knick-knacks on all the shelves. Saving on parking fees your party walks across the California-Nevada state line, passing the Pony Express statue, across a street into a world of tall, stone buildings and concrete. Entering a casino and seeing people around you constantly losing at the slots always made you wonder why anyone would throw money away like that, ‘but I guess we all have our vices’. Lunch at the Hard Rock Café is the annual tradition, but it ends and there is time to enjoy the outdoors again. If you all thought ahead and brought warm clothes then time can be spent at the lake itself, if not *sigh* you have to go back to the camp site to retrieve them.

On the Sand Harbor of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest you wait eagerly for the Shakespeare play to open. The sun is not close to setting, it was still hot, and you wished that you could be swimming, jet skiing, kayaking, or paddle boarding on the crystal blue lake in front of you. Anything to keep busy. But, as you don’t have another change of clothes, you practice your rock jumping skills and maybe take a decent picture of the downward inching sun. Once the “doors” open your “dinner” can be picked up, since you’re still full from lunch the meat and cheese plate that your party preordered is plenty for all. In the stage area chairs are set up on the sandy hill from which you can get a beautiful view of the lake and watch the sun FINALLY go down. Now the play can begin. Comedy or tragedy, it doesn’t matter, Shakespeare always wrote the most human stories and the theatre is the best way to experience it.

Even though the visuals of the play are entrancing, the sky is more so. Even with the lights of the stage the stars are still easily visible and you watch the shooting stars just as you did the night before. With wonder for the universe and having Shakespeare’s words in the background the incredible notion of how much there is under that sky enters your mind. How much have these stars seen? Billions of years in existence and you are only here for an inconsequential amount of that time. It spurs you on, if you have only this, then get as much out of it as possible.

I’ve been racking my brain trying to come up with what I want to write about, what I can share. So I am diving back into my childhood, to my family’s eventual annual tradition of summer camping in Lake Tahoe. Every camping vacation is different but if you are going to stay in Lake Tahoe there are things that have to be a part of the trip.

I just want to put out that there are many, many camping areas around the lake but my favorite is Emerald Bay. It’s secluded and perfectly woodsy, but easy to get to with any kind of car. And the camp areas are set up, and have communal flushing toilets with sinks. Now a’ days I would much rather backpack to keep away too many people, but then there are better trails for that elsewhere. Keeping to the theme though, Emerald Bay has the perfect views of the lake, the night sky, and great hiking trails. Plus, since it’s easy to get to you can easy have day trips to rivers nearby for rafting, Reno for a different kind of party, to Nevada’s Sand Harbor Theatre for the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, or anything else you could imagine!

Hiking

Campfire

Rafting

Lake Trips

Reno (for wandering and lunch)

Shakespeare Festival

*https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=506

*http://www.truckeeriverrafting.com/index.php

*https://www.visitrenotahoe.com/

*http://laketahoeshakespeare.com/

Camping Lake Tahoe Something wakes you in the dark. It may be pitch black outside, but a warmth is already on its way through the light material of the tent.

#california #camping #explore #familytrip #lakelife #laketahoe #summerlivin #theater #travel #travelblog

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placesthatchangedpeople · 6 years

Text

A testimony from a Thayer Learning Center student

This testimony was found on HEAL-onlines messageboard. Thayer Learning Center closed down years ago but not before a student died there during this stay.

One summer day I was alerted to headlights coming up the driveway, little did I know what was about to happen.

Anyway, I am transported to their car and I am told to get in the back seat, passenger side, so I comply.

I remember looking out the door before they shut it and my mother telling me that I am going away for awhile, I think her and I both cried.

We arrive at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport and board a plane, so I use the restroom real quick and away we go.

Our plane departs and we land in Las Vegas to switch flights to Kansas City, Missouri.

Both guys were fairly nice to me.

We board the plane and lift off to Kansas City International Airport.

We arrive, get off the plane and walk to the rent-a-car booth, we head to the rental car and start to drive out of the city to the tiny town of Kidder.

We enter the fenced off area and immediately after entering my intake started.

I was yelled at, screamed at, billed in the face.

They started going over making me learn the 10 general orders of the program.

Every time I messed up they would make me run a down and back to the end building and back. I eventually got tired of this and got a wild hair and got a little disobedient, as soon as those words left my mouth I was on the ground with 3 drill Sargents tying me into pretzel, one of them sat on my back I think it was DSGT "H1", while one of the other started to bend my legs up and backwards, DSGT "H2" bending my spine in the opposite direction it is suppose to go. Now bear in mind I am very frail due to the condition my body was in, I was so afraid they were going to break my back and I was in a lot of pain, so I pretended to have a seizure to get them to stop, I rolled my eyes into the back of my head and started jerking my body around as if I were having a seizure.

I think I scared them because they got off me immediately and let me lay there for awhile, deciding what they should do next.

That night I fell into catatonic state, I'm not sure how long I was in that state, but all I remember was looking up at the camera and the ceiling.

Eventually, I start to get stronger and learn the ropes.

I wanted to tell the doctors to help me and that they were abusing us, but I was so afraid of what they would have done to me when I got back to camp.

I suppose it has something to do with Stockholm syndrome. I think they actually used Stockholm syndrome and fear as a cover, they has us zombified, terrified and broken.

I want to go over a list here to tell what I witnessed and experienced at Thayer Learning Center

During my stay, I noticed that they broke 3 cadets wrists.

They lied to parents about injuries related to abuse. One particular Sargent there who was the wrist breaker was promoted for his extreme behavior modification techniques including the breaking of bones.

Certain Cadets were singled out by Staff and Cadets, and were bullied more often than others. One cadet in particular got restrained at least once or twice a week. That I was witness to.

Lots of Cadets developed a foot fungus due to the latrine floor being covered in bacteria, we also did not have the privilege of having toilet seats on our toilets.

We were woken up in the middle of the night to exercise outside on the beach, or inside. Those were what we called "moon burns"

We had to sleep on 1/2 Inch thick green mats on top of the concrete floor.

All of our letters were screened and judged according to a cadets psychological profile - whited out, or edited, not sent at all.

We had to listen to "Bram Stoker's Dracula" and repetitive motivational cassette tapes repeatedly over and over again, as means of psychological tactics.

If we were outside and a car drove by on the isolated road in front of the main building, we were instructed to face towards the building for who knows what reason.

I witnessed a Sargent punch a cadet in the face.

One female cadet in particular was made to stay there for years and be subject to the owners abusive drones we called Sargents. I personally witnessed cadets urinate and a defecate themselves.

Cadets who acted up, we were forced to mock them with a made up cadence all together that included their name to bully and shame them into obedience.

A cadet died there due to their neglect and abuse.

How these programs continue to flourish is anyone's guess - Which is very concerning.

The only positive thing I have to say about this program is, had I not been sent, I may have died due to severe depression I was not eating and my body was withering away.

Basically, I was broken down completely, but never built back up.

These places are abusive, plain and simple.

Do not send your kids to these places.

I am a survivor and assure you that everything I have mentioned is true and correct and not exaggerated in any way to my knowledge.

#Thayer Learning Center #Missouri #Boot camp #Teenager #depression

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