by Gwagwagwe
We met Eddie on our first drive deep into the northern California mountains. We had been driving for hours along one-lane cliff top roads, and we we're low on water and sunlight. At last, the big flat campground came into view. We hadn't seen a person for many miles. At camp site number one was a guy and a dog. Eddie and daisy were the "camphosts", and the lived part time in a van, and part time in crescent city where Eddie cared for a comatose patient (in home health care). Eddie was the king of storytelling. He had spent six years in these mountains, and knew each trail like his own hairline. Over the next moon we spent many nights around his campfire hearing stories of his adventures as an EMT in those super fast helicopters for trauma patients, as a forest fire fighter, as a dope junky, as a wino, as a Jah-bless harvester for the natives high in the mountains. Many stories were told, and our trust and bonding continued until we left for the winter migration. Eddie helped us by including us in his close group of friends, his Yurok/Tolowa "nephews", his fellow in home health care workers, the park rangers. All were as trusting of Eddie, and his companion daisy as we were. We all planned out the Bison tribal venture and were ready to invite tribes, clans, and fellow travelers out to these mountains to enjoy the majesty that is this place. We left on our migration, while Eddie and daisy held up for the winter.
At the end of the return migration they were still alive, still tramping through the trails, entertaining friends on hiking trips. All seemed well as we awaited the rangers to open the gates to the high country. about one-half moon after our return we drive into town for showers and supper at Eddie. No-one home? We go to the house where he worked, and we were told he was taken away by the police. Oh-no a tribesman in trouble, time to act!! We took daisy home and called the sheriff to find out the charges and bail. We're told the charges are "contributing to a minor" and "statutory rape". Here is where the story gets weird, here's the kicker. We assumed that Eddie was drinking with some of his friends, and he got lucky. Although we live in a culture that creates thirty year old children, the evolutionary expectation must assume adulthood at reproductive maturity. You're an adult when you can reproduce, period. So we set out to set things straight. We contacted his friends and family to get bail money, and at each conversation we learned a little more about the one called dream-twitcher (because he never stopped moving , even in his sleep). Everyone except us had heard rumors, and each kept those misgiving to themselves. To bad! After a week we had the whole truth, and what a truth it was.
Eddie Thurman Lawson, aka Robin Lawson, Eddie Potter, Dream-twitcher is one of Oregon's most wanted sex offenders, convicted previously of molesting over 20 boys and handicapped adults and fugitive from "justice". He will be going to prison for the rest of his life, and many of those who trusted him are cheering on the court system in it's pursuit for vengeance. Not us, we're crushed, not only were we so gullible, but we were denied tribal justice. A chance for those of us who he betrayed, those of us who loved him, to kill him quickly. Daisy found a home with Eddie’s brother on a 150 acre ranch in Oregon, and we were left with an empty feeling, and even more loneliness. Live and learn, but we will not fall back into the meme of never trusting anyone, we need to trust, we need to be trusted. We'll just continue to trust our instincts and feelings while laying our lives into the hands of the gods.