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Along the trail, there's poetry and hilarity Photo by Jim Craven Judie Bunch's Bikepath Journal provides an opportunity for walkers and bikers on the Bear Creek Greenway to express themselves. Bikepath Journal is monument to celebrating life By DANI DODGE TALENT -- In her moment of deepest despair -- after losing her mother and a daughter -- Judie Bunch reached out with a magical kind of inspiration. In January, she and her husband, Jerry, placed an ordinary spiral notebook in a mailbox on the Bear Creek Greenway bike path. Since then, hundreds of people have shared their observations, dreams and states of inebriation in the book Bunch calls the Bikepath Journal. Five notebooks have been filled with the musings of strangers. "There was life going on out there, but we couldn't feel it," Bunch said of her mourning. "We thought it would help to connect with people -- so we painted the mailbox up and stuck it out there." This isn't the first time Bunch, 60, has been struck by a lightening bolt of whimsy. She also founded Talent's Bob Day, an annual event that celebrated the Bobs of the world. She is a bubbly woman whose short blond hair is a mop of tiny braids fastened with colorful rubber bands. She lives in a bright yellow house with vibrant green trim just outside Ashland. She and her husband put the mailbox right outside their back gate -- which one entry in the journal described as something out of a Beatrix Potter book. On one side of the vivid green mailbox is printed "Bikepaht Journal," with a tiny "oops" above the misspelling. On the other side, "path" is spelled correctly. "Please open walker & all" is painted on the front. The notebook is tied to the mailbox with decorative twine, and several pens are hidden in the dark recesses of the cool steel. "What fun!!" one out-of-towner wrote in the notebook. "Thanks for the journal. "P.S. They ain't got things like this whirr (sic) I come from. "XO M!!" Bunch goes out to the path every few days to see what people have written. Most of the time, they wax rhapsodically over the beauty of nature and love. "It's a beautiful sunny afternoon for a bike ride," one cyclist wrote. "The cottonwoods smell wonderful & the red-winged blackbirds are courting." Another reads: "Steve & Jennifer celebrating 16 years of marriage today. Husband bought wife a new `Anniversary' bike. "Blessings on your day!" But then there's always the "life sucks" and !@#$%^&*-type entries. Bunch leaves in all but the most despicable, she said. And there are those who are high on more than just life. "I'm riding to Wal-Mart really really stoned. Sincerely Baked," wrote one. Bunch said she's pleased that so many people have been compelled to share in the journal. "But it didn't start out happy," she said, sadness creeping into her eyes. Her 81-year-old mother died in November. Then, in December, her 29-year-old daughter was killed when she went to bed with a gun for protection and the weapon fired. "You accept your mother's death, but you never accept your child's death," Bunch said. She said she and her husband felt so isolated and lost, they decided they had to do something. But putting the mailbox on a public walkway was still "a real leap of faith," she said. "It could have been trashed and vandalized," Bunch said. "But as it turned out, we've been delighted." The first journal was stolen from the box. But within days, it reappeared. And while turning the pages of the journals -- some spotted and lumpy from raindrops -- Bunch read her way back into the world of the living. "Knowing people are out there having a good time brings you happiness when you don't have any in your heart," she said. Her friend, artist Chris Desmit, said she believes the journal has been a large part of Bunch and her husband's healing process. "They've been willing to accept joy again," she said. And without even knowing the story behind the journal, those who have written down their thoughts have been part of the magic. "I read a thing on the side of a building yesterday that said `love sucks.' I don't think love sucks. I know that love can hurt at times, but if it didn't hurt at times it wouldn't be so precious. You are precious and you are loved. Thank you Jesus. "Anita 7/21/99" Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA