Into the Wild

By Jon Krakauer Cycle 19 pg. 46-61

            Jon Krakauer had gotten a letter for his article about Chris (referred as Alex) McCandless’s fate from a man who stated that he knew Chris and that if he could get any facts about his death.  Ronald Franz met Chris when he was eighty years old in 1992 and offered Chris a lift in Salton City, which is about fifty miles away from Palm Springs.  Chris told Franz that lived by Oh-My-God-Hot springs but Franz didn't know where that was even though he lived in these parts for six years. Oh-My-God-Hot was about a two hundred person community beyond the fringe, and was a post-apocalypse vision of America.  There were hippies and other people all living out of their cars by a geothermal well that was piped into a pair of shallow steaming pools.  Franz had spent most of life in the army and on New Years Eve of 1957, while he was away, a drunk driver hilled his wife and only child in a car accident.  After that Franz felt lost and started to unofficially adopt Okinawa boys and girls, eventually having fourteen in total, and paying for two to go to schools in Japan and Philadelphia.  When Franz met McCandless his parenting instincts went into effect again.  Franz gave McCandless rides to do laundry and to grill some steaks while McCandless said he was just doing it until spring so that he could go to Alaska.  Franz taught Chris how to be a leatherworker, and Chris soon made himself a leather belt that had his initials, C.J.M., a skull and crossbones, a two lane blacktop, a no u-turn sign, a thunderstorm making a flash flood that floods a car, a hitchhiker’s thumb, an eagle, the Sierra Nevada, salmon in the Pacific, Pacific coast Highway, the Rocky Mountains, Montana wheat fields, South Dakota rattlesnake, Westberg’s house, Colorado River, a gale in the Gulf of California, a beached canoe by a tent, Las Vegas, initials T.C.D., Morro Bay, Atoria, and the letter N for North.  Early in February, McCandless said he was going to San Diego to make money, so Franz offered him a lift.  On Feb 19, McCandless called Franz and told him a happy 81^st birthday.  McCandless remembered the date because he turned 24 seven days earlier.  On February 28, he mailed a postcard to Jan Burres saying he was heading for Alaska by March 1^st.  On March 5^th, Chris sent a card to Burres and Franz saying that he was in Seattle as a hobo, and that a boxcar guard threatened to shoot Chris for catching a ride.  Chris said that he had the last laugh since he went back on it 5 minutes later.  A week later Chris came back to Franz’s place since there was no work up in the Northwest and since he was arrested for jumping on a boxcar again.  Chris’s friend Westerberg offered Chris back his job in Grand Junction, Colorado and Chris accepted.

Fringe – the outer extreme part of an area, group, or sphere of activity.

            Ronald Franz (not his real name since he wishes to remain anonymous) shows a compassion for McCandless that no other person has.  Franz’s loss of is wife and only child have left a void in his mind and heart that McCandless has seemed to fill.  Franz thinks of McCandless as his grandson and wants him to prosper and do something with his life.  He is showing great care to McCandless for everything he does.