The Heart, The Soul & The Guts of Victor Bidwell!
I Remember Victor (1911 - 1996)
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Victor, upon publication of The YearBook, made a formal contraction of his earlier, life-long statement about not dedicating oneself to a cause because the-powers-that-be would stamp you out and that nothing was worth that kind of effort. And, instead, he encouraged Victoria to dedicate all her talents and all her energies to this one purpose and to turn away from all distractions, regardless of how attractive.
In late 1991, Victor arranged with Roy for Victoria to relocate to The Barn and to receive 2 years of use of the property there without paying rent which amounted to a $4,800 gift from Victor Bidwell. GetWell Friends financed the relocation, and Victor and Victoria lived on the property together he in The Barn and she in an old trailer, way out behind. But their reunion was painful for both, as Victoria was so troubled with all she had taken on and her own inability to finance The Revolution Projects and her own immaturity that she succumbed to stress-related overeating for emotional comfort. Still, her move up was a happy event. And all concerned had great hopes that The Victory Wagon would go out to do its work just as soon as she could shed her overweight.
Ever since Victoria was gifted with The Victory Wagon, Victor had longed to go out in it with her and talk to The People about Natural Hygiene. His inability to understand why Victoria could not lose the weight and his impatience and resultant frustration and anger led him to ridicule and torment her his last few years at The Barn. On her 50th birthday, she had finally asked her co-worker Joseph Mellon to move out for the 4th time in 4 years once and for all and was trying to recover from those years of Nerve Energy drain. Catherine had come up to see Victor. And Victor delivered his frustration: "Look at yourself! You're old. You're fat. And you're ugly! Look in the mirror!" Later, he explained to Catherine that this was his way of trying to shock Victoria into taking control of herself. But too deep into spiritual darkness at this point, this kind of treatment only made matters much worse for Victoria.
Victoria grew up, not on nursery rhymes and fairy tales, not with dolls and teddy bears for playthings but on stories of Washington and Lincoln and on lessons of revolutions for social reform around the world and throughout history, and with real-junk cars and a real-live horse for toys. She was told never to trust what "they" had to say, to always think for herself, to avoid conformity at all costs. To share and to care for fellow humans. She heard Victor's stories of how he once marched on a grocery store in hard times and with starving citizens and cleared off the shelves. And of how young men at night would pour cement in gas meters so the gas company could not turn off the heat and freeze the poor to death. And of how Victor had led a march on the State Capitol to protest government apathy for starving, freezing, jobless Americans . And of how he also had traveled to Washington, D. C. and Chicago for similar marches. That was The Young Victor Bidwell! In her teenage years, Victoria grew up on wrecker calls in the middle of the night, picking pieces of human flesh and shattered glass off the roads, and returning to The Barn to sit in silence until Victor had an appetite for his bowl of chili and glass of buttermilk and would start yet another long lecture in the interest of helping his daughter develop the social
conscience of a revolutionist and, possibly, lead a life that would make a difference. (He just didn't know what kind of a revolutionist. That would not become apparent until 1989 when Victoria subtitled The YearBook: "A Revolutionist's HandBook for Getting Well & Staying Well without The Medicine Men" and formally declared... "The Great American Health Revolution!")
Victor Bidwell was a walking encyclopedia of history facts and, especially, of revolutions around the world. In his later years, he began studying Natural Hygiene and reached out to his circle of friends to tell them about "The Fresh Food Diet." He maintained his active, inquiring mind and never stopped studying the social and political milieu and The Hygiene, until the last few months of his life when "the things of the world had grown strangely dim" and he prepared to die. In the 1980s, Victor owned titles to probably 100 junk cars around The Barn's 5 acres. One of these vehicles was a 1974 Fleetwood Cadillac with a 472 cubic inch, V - 8 engine. Victor always loved and recommended the big cars with the huge engines, knowing full well the damage to the passengers a serious collision in a small car can wrought. And since he acquired old cars for little or nothing at his shop, he always had favorites he worked on and kept up for some unforeseen, worthy cause. When he acquired this Fleetwood, Roy Lee recalled Victor wondering: "I don't even know why I'm taking on this car. I sure don't need it!" Over the years, Cora sunk $3,000 into the engine and transmission, restoring everything and using it as her car when she would visit The Barn. She considered "The Caddy" to be "Cora's Car." When Victor died, however, he left it not to Cora but to Catherine. Outraged, Cora tried then to get it from Cat, without success. In 1997, Catherine spent another $1,000 on it, then put it in storage until 2000.
How much do you know about cars? It is seldom that anyone can take an engine and transmission from one make and year and then put it into a completely different make with 10 years in age difference! So, when Victoria picked Cat up at The Seattle Airport for their 1999 Christmas celebration and The Wilderness Wagon was bucking and backfiring and stalling and limping along and ultimately dying, Cat offered up the Caddy... to put the Caddy guts into The Wilderness Wagon! Of course, chances are it could not be done. But Victoria asked Sam, Victor's partner and friend at the shop for 40 years, anyway. And he said it could be done! Simultaneous with The Wilderness Wagon guts going out, God had provided a new guts cared for over the years by none other than Victor Bidwell! It was like God and Victor had teamed up and had reached right out of "The Wild, Blue Yonder" to reunite his 2 daughters to see them team up and to help them reach out to The People! Thanks to Cora, again, for $3,000 in previous repairs.
March 20th, 2000, Beloved Sam completed a 2 month project! He had taken the worn-out, given-out, 250 cubic inch, straight 6 out of The Wilderness Wagon and custom built in the 472, V - 8 Cadillac! A tremendous amount of work! The Wilderness Wagon is now powered with the Caddy Victor had restored and attended to for years and years! It will be rolling down the highway, a gift, powered symbolically, of course by... "The Heart, The Soul & The Guts of Victor Bidwell."
