The Bottle Mojo

 Mojo: Noun.

1. A magical or "good luck" item, or talisman. An object of power.

I Think it was about 1986.

I went to visit my mother, who at that time lived in a tiny village in the Trinity Alps called "Hyampom"

It was about 90 miles inland from Redding, Ca. 

About 9 hours from where I lived at the time.

There was not much there. A grocery store, that also served as a small cafe and bar, 

a post office, a school, and about 200 full time residents.

Suffice to say, again, there was not a lot to do there. 

Unless you liked to hike. There was as much of that as you could ever want, and at that time I was pretty young, and could hike a fair distance. 

Now, here is the thing. I am not particularly good at being idle, but like I said, there was nothing to do there, so in some ways, it forced you to relax. 

Lay in the hammock, carve sticks into little tiki's. drink beer, throw rocks into the river...There was nothing important. Nothing that needed your imediate attention. This was before internet, before cell phones. At that time, you could let it all go, because really, there was no other choice. 

My sister was also there. One morning we decided to hike down the river. Again, there was really nothing to do, so we loaded up a backpack with beer, and wadded of down stream. 

But,  just before we left, I decided to bring some crafting supplies with me. The idea being to make a necklace from things I found along the hike. so I brought an old shoe lace, that would serve as the main string, and I brought a spool of thick thread to tie things to the shoelace, which I in fact did. 

We would hike a bit, stick a few beers in the river to chill, enjoy, and move on. 

That evening when we returned home, I had a necklace made of the bits and baubles that I had gathered on our excursion. We were sitting on the porch when my sister produced a bottle of Jameson (my favorite Irish Whiskey) And we spent the evening drinking shots and talking about life. 

I hung my "necklace" around the neck of that bottle. It has become known as the bottle Mojo. and it has graced pretty much every bottle of Jameson in my house since. 

These are things that happen, and this is how traditions are made. It seemed important at the time, 

and still does.