Part one: The hurt

“I’m done! I’m done with it!” That’s what Michael Dunbar thought, as he picked himself up from a subway platform in New York.

He had heard that the Navy didn’t go to Viet Nam, and he definitely did not want to go to Viet Nam. He had spent a year in preparatory seminary, planning to become a priest, but it didn’t work out, he wasn’t ready for it. Nor was he ready for war. The draft was coming for him, so he enlisted in the Navy at age 17. It was 1969; while some were tripping at Woodstock, and others were protesting in the streets, Michael boarded a U.S. Navy carrier headed to . . .

Viet Nam, of course. “They were going to put you wherever they needed you, and they needed me on that carrier and in-country. They just threw me in.”

He became a Machinist’s Mate, also known as a Snipe. It wasn’t a good experience, but at least he never saw combat. Michael was a man of peace, and – although he didn’t have it all figured out quite yet – he was a man of God.

After two and a half years in Viet Nam, Michael was a changed man. Freshly discharged and 19 years old, he found himself flat on his back on that subway platform in New York. “I’d only been back for a week or two, and I was on my way to a Donovan concert. I looked like a GI, with the short hair and all, and I was near the Brooklyn Navy Yard.”

He never got to see Donovan. “There were some anti-war people on the platform too, men and women, who started shouting ‘baby-killer.’ They pushed me down and spit on me. Some other Navy guys jumped in to defend me, and it ended up a brawl – 15 or 16 people involved. By the time the police broke it up, I was cut up and badly bruised.”

And done. Done with it. He went back to his parents house in New Jersey, where he drank hard and burnt everything he had from the military. Michael was not all right.

Some friends stopped by to check on him. They were about to head west in a green and white VW bus. “Hey man, we’re going to California, do you want to go?” the driver asked. Michael grabbed a few things and jumped in.

They took the backroads to see the country, a route that took them through Boulder and up Boulder Canyon. There was a neat little town up there, Nederland, where they camped for a few days. It had two bars – the Pioneer Inn (now the Covered Wagon) on 1st Street, which was a dirt road back then. It was the hippy bar. The other bar, Michael doesn’t remember the name, was on the paved road. It was the redneck bar. “We all got along, we just played different music, that’s all.”

When it was time to move on, Michael had a change of heart. “I had just a backpack and some clothes, I didn’t know what I was going to do. But I knew I was staying.”

Part two: The heal

Michael spent his first winter here as caretaker for Camp Shoshoni. It’s a yoga retreat now, between Ned and Rollinsville. Back in 1971, it was a kids’ camp.

“My job was to keep the place maintained. There was no one else there, I stayed in a little cabin and I got $50 a month.” After a quick trip back east for his truck and his dog - a white Samoyed called Kayo – Michael hunkered down.

They rode out the winter by themselves. The snow fell hard, Michael’s hair grew long. There may have been some herb. “My frame of mind was lousy, I felt better being by myself. I needed to heal, and this little cabin was the perfect place.” It was a healing place.

There was a frozen pond not far from the cabin. Michael carved a stick and a puck out of wood, fashioned a net, and played hockey with Kayo. He built a bunk bed out of pine, only to find out the wood was beetle-infested. “I had to listen to the chewing all night long, it drove me crazy.” He saw an old pair of cross-country skis ,poles and all, mounted on the wall of the camp’s mess hall. He took them down, strapped them to his shoes, and learned to ski.

From his cabin, Michael could hear the train passing through Rollinsville. If he hiked through the woods, he could see the train, and watch it disappear into a tunnel. “I began to time the train, to see how long it would take to get through. I wondered if I could walk through the tunnel before the train came, and eventually I did. I was working through things, working through fears.”

Michael was a music guy, yet there was no music in the cabin, no stereo, no radio. But he had plenty of music in his head. “That’s what kept me going.”

Winter passed, and he was hired to stay through the summer. Michael began to venture out. That’s when he made his way to the Pioneer Inn, becoming a regular at its open mic night.

“Everyone at the PI was very nice, very sweet. One night a young man in a gorilla mask and trench coat walked in with a guitar. He played for the crowd, and he had their full attention. In spite of the disguise, most of the regulars knew he was Stephen Stills.” It wasn’t his first or last time there.

Michael opened up to people in the PI. He talked to them, usually about music. This was a music town back then, and the PI was a big part of that. A local (a graduate of Juilliard School of Music) told him about a man in Ned who was really good with a guitar. “I met the guy, he had such a sweet spirit about him. He played his acoustic guitar beautifully.” The guy was Dan Fogelberg.

Some of the PI regulars invited Michael and Kayo to a party, on the east side of the Barker Reservoir. “There was only one policeman in town, a real nice guy, he never bothered anybody, he was there partying with us.”

There was also a young man who hung out with the policeman, kind of a cop wannabe. He showed up at the party with his dog, in his Jeep ragtop. He didn’t like Kayo running loose, so he wrestled him into the Jeep.

“This young man had his dog and my dog in the back of that Jeep. Those dogs didn’t like each other, they caused such a fuss he drove right into the water. It was the best thing in the world, watching him and the two dogs swim out of the res.”

Michael stayed in Ned for a few years, until 1974. “I had to go back east. I was young, directionless. I loved Nederland, but I had family back east that needed help. It was time.” He thought he was leaving for good.

Part three: The home

Michael and his daughter Lindsey stopped at the Nederland Visitors Center, “we spoke to a real sweet lady there.” He bought a Nedhead t-shirt. They had lunch at Crosscut, then walked across the pavement on 1st Street, toward Nature’s Own, the rock shop. He didn’t see anything he recognized, the town looked different.

“But it felt the same. A little touristy in a way, but not bad. I didn’t see any hamburger places, I was happy with that. I had been hesitant, scared, worried about retracing those steps. But it felt the same, and I knew it was okay for me to be back.”

Michael’s wife of 45 years is a retired science teacher. He and Lindsey went into Nature’s Own to buy her some gems. While he shopped, Lindsey chatted with a woman there. When a cashier began to ring Michael up, the woman approached and said to the cashier, “No, he’s a local, half price on everything.” Michael realized, “It’s the same.”

This was in April of this year, 2023. Michael finally came back, because of Lindsey. She knew he needed to. She asked him to join her on a cross-country ride, to show her where he used to live.

Michael fought it. He didn’t want to be away from his wife, his grandkids, his house and barn at the dead end of a dusty Alabama road. And it wasn’t the best time for a trip. He was only one month from retirement, after 28 years as a minister and disaster relief leader with the United Methodist Church, responding to wherever people were hurting and in need of help.

Lindsey is persistent, and she had a pair of Rockies tickets to seal the deal.

Returning to Nederland was one thing, Michael was adamant that he did not want to go back to Camp Shoshoni. He thought it would be too much; Lindsey convinced him to try. He drove south, away from town. “I saw the Kelly Dahl Campground sign, I remembered that. But the surroundings looked different, and I told Lindsey this wasn’t it. We had a nice little hike and drove out, intending to head to Boulder.”

That’s when he spotted the Camp Shoshoni sign - it hit him like a brick. He wanted to drive by, Lindsey insisted they stop. “We pulled in and she knocked on the door of the mess hall. I thought, Oh Lord, stop! A young girl came out, Lindsey told her why we were there. She offered to show us around.”

Show them around she did, the entire camp. Including Michael’s little cabin. He was overwhelmed.

“There it was! The old rickety porch and door. I stood there, frozen.” The girl pulled out the keys and invited them in. Lindsey went in, not Michael; he just could not walk back into that cabin. Until Lindsey coaxed him in.

“This was where I lived, with Kayo. I stood at the window, and cried. I lost it. That’s what I was afraid I’d do by going back. I fought my demons there, and I didn’t want to go back, in case they were still there.”

Michael gathered himself, then walked back out and sat down on the porch. “I looked around, lost it again, and had a good cry. A cleansing.” There were no demons anymore. Instead, a white Samoyed came out of the woods and up onto the porch. “He sat right next to me, just like Kayo used to, and looked up into my eyes.” This was the moment when Michael knew.

Lindsey walked him back to their rental car. Before Michael would get in, he told her “Wait, I’m not ready, I’ve got to change my shirt.” He pulled off the one he was wearing, and put on his new Nedhead shirt.

He was home.

Epilogue

Michael Dunbar

Piedmont, Alabama

If any of your readers get anything from my story, I hope it is that the town of Nederland is a beautiful place, with a “peaceful easy feeling.” We may never know why someone comes to visit, but hopefully they will always find a welcome mat. I pray that Ned will always be a healing place, and that people will always take the time to listen to their own story, because that is where the healing begins.