White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1930-05-30
DESERT CHARLIE is
TIRED OF COLD EAST
With His Four Rurros He
Starts Back for West.

Westinghouse seemed to Desert
Charlie, back where the solitudes gave
man chance to think, that the uni
verse had been put together along fam
tastic but logical lines.
There was the burning breadth Of
the Mojave sands, distorted by up
heavals Of rock inexplicable to the
casual traveller.
There were the serrated rims of
dead volcanoes, tossed up by forces no
man could explain.
Yet all these Illogical aspects
of the desert appeared logical to
Charlie, who had slept most of his
nights upon the sand and who had
lived most of his days under the eye
of the uncovered sun.
Charlie came to understand, from
drinking water split between the
hands and from wandering the tor
tured hillsides with his head exposed
to the sun.
All Seemed Simple.
It all seemed simple, as Desert
Charlie explained. There were fires
under the earth, consuming fires which
would not be put down. Sometimes,
in ages past, they belched forth.
The fires, Charlie said, were fed by
subterranean coal oil, birthstone and
asphalt. Now and then, the wanderer
explained, sulphur must have burned,
since the broken rock of the desert
sometimes showed yellow stain.
Charlie, who had comprehended
these things, could no longer rest con-
tent upon the sand, eking out an ex-
istence by begging beyond the rim of
the desert only to return and sleep in
the sandy hollows.
These things Charlie averred, were
for the $50 old men who could not
live apart from the desert, and who
could not long survive it's exactments.
They, Charlie said, knew nothing of
the great riddle of the universe. 1t
was for Charlie to explain things, and
this he set out to do.
Last April, year ago, Charlie pro-
cured four burros-no one could ex-
plain how he saved so much money
and two days later he had packed his
worldly goods upon their backs, tied
them together in the best desert fash
ion and set out for the East.
Charlie, as he told everyone, was
fairly embarked on lecture tour, and
he felt that he could benefit both him.
self and the customers once he got to
their great cities.
Used to Hardships.
It was not for Charlie, who had
learned fortitude and reticence in his
sixty-nine years, to complain of the
hardships which beset him on the long
trek to New York city.
If the burros' hoofs split on the un-
accustomed asphalt, 1t was Charles
business, and If the populace along the
wayside was slow about paying to hear
Charles lecture, that also was Charles
business.
Last month"; about year after his
departure, Charlie drove his four bur-
ros into the city of his destination
New York. Tile traffic, as Charlie
said, was heavy and few had time to
wait for his pack train.
Later Charlie learned that few had
time to hear him explain things in
his lectures.
Recently Charlie and his four bur
ros came through Washington on their
way back to the desert.
"Since we've been over here"
Charlie said, with generous gesture
which included all the burros, IRE
porters stop us every time we start
through a city.
"Now, it's long way back to Cali
fornia and I'm in powerful hurry,
so II you want to interview me. do 1t
now, because don't aim to be stopped
when leave here going West"