"That's the way it was…" and Colorful Fungus Among US

THE LAST '15

     Fewer of us write checks or letters so there is less need to annotate the date. Artificial intelligence via phones and computers do it for us.  But there is always that hump of getting over the correct last digit. 

      As you slide into acceptance that we've reached the midway point of the second decade of the 21st century, consider our blue marble 100 years ago.

       World War I raged. The British ocean liner Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine. 1,195 died. Woodrow Wilson was President, the New York Yankees wore pinstripes for the first time, the Boston Red Sox won the world series, "Typhoid Mary" was finally arrested, Lassen Peak in California, seen here, exploded in a volcanic eruption with debris still evident, 

Ralph DePalma won the Indianapolis 500, fire destroyed most of Santa Catalina Island, the one millionth Ford came off the assembly line in Detroit, a court in Georgia accepted the official formation of the new Ku Klux Klan, City Hall in

San Francisco was dedicated, Cornell was the NCAA Football Champion with a 9-0-0 record, Wimbledon was cancelled due to WWI, Regret won the Kentucky Derby, William Jennings Bryan resigned as Secretary of State, a mob lynched a Jewish man in Georgia, unemployment was 8.5%, the Germans first used poison gas as a battle field weapon, DW Griffiths The Birth of a Nation was released and created the foundation of modern film making, Audrey Munson, portraying a model, became the first actress to appear nude on screen, the Nobel Prize for Literature went to Romain Rolland of France, the Vancouver Millionaires won the Stanley Cup, 600,000 to 1 Million Armenians were slaughtered by Turkish soldiers and the cost of a first class stamp was 2 cents. 

     Do you wonder what this new year will be remembered for 100 years from now?

SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE

   Welcomed rain, warm days and more recently cool evenings have prompted the local variety of mushrooms, toad stools and fungus to arrive.

THE LESS COLORFUL COUSINS

AND THE WEE TINY LAD
These are growing out of a pine cone-notice the thumb?

   Wishing you well being, mindfulness, celebration of the moment, light, happy adventures, and good hours in the blogosphere in 2015.

2014 THROWBACK

"1-9-6-4-We're the class of '64" fifty years later.  Warren Central High School Class Reunion-Milano Inn, Indianapolis, June, 2014.   

    See you down the trail.

"BUT YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE" and A WALK IN HARMONY

A PIECE OF HARMONY

    A long lens from Gail and David's captures the panorama of Cayucos and Morro Bay framed by the iconic Morro Rock, Hollister Peak and some of the other "Seven Sisters" peaks that spine the Central Coast toward San Luis Obispo.

      It was one of those spectacular days for a walk along the coast. 

     Hidden away on a quiet cove is a "Chinaman's house," a remnant of local history.

     There was a time when Chinese settlers lived in homes on the shore, often hanging over bluffs.  They harvested and dried kelp for export to China. Historical accounts say George Hearst, father of William Randolph Hearst, forced many of the Chinese to leave by pushing their homes into the sea after he purchased property where they had resided. 

      The current owner has improved the historical building as an isolated get away cabin.

       This stretch of coast offers pristine nature.

  There is a simple joy in an invigorating and mind clearing walk.

     Selfie ops for our eldest Kristin and her fiancé Richard.

  Or a quiet meditation and breather as evidenced by "Ducky," Gail's trusty companion.

THE FIRST NEW YEAR IN CALIFORNIA

Ours that is.

     It was our first Christmas season after being married in April. It was also my first trip to California. We arrived on the 29th or 30th, enough time to get in the swing of the "pickin" New Year's eve party. 

       

Photo Courtesy of Jim Cahill

On the Strand in Manhattan Beach California

      Setting the Scene:  We were lodged at the above house in Manhattan Beach, occupied by our friend Jim, who shared it with a few other guys. We got a room made empty by the travel of one of the musicians who lived there.

     It was directly on the beach and the sidewalk strand. This Indiana boy had never seen anything like it.  Bicyclists, skateboarders, runners, walkers, roller skaters, people on stilts, hand walkers and more and all in a continual parade.  The beach was a show unto itself.  Volleyball players, Frisbee fliers, boogie boarders, picnickers, and all of this in the glory and full tilt life you'd expect of 1969 California beach life. I was indeed a long way from home Toto!

     Some how we had survived the first day and were in the mode of setting up the house for a party. Jim had given Lana and I an assignment to walk to the grocery and liquor store to pick up a few supplies. We were heading up the hill away from the beach when we were stopped in our tracks by blood curdling screams and then a series of what can best be described as whoops and growls. In a flash, from an alley way came two figures running down the street. Both were nude males, that was obvious. Their identities were not.

     One of the lads was wearing a kind of Tasmanian devil mask and he was the creator of the screams. Behind him and in apparent pursuit was a fellow in a Richard Nixon mask, carrying a kind of spear and offering the war whoops. 

     "New Year's eve in California" I said to Lana who looked entirely confused.      

       It was an era when Jim, and our artist friend C.W. spent hours a day playing. Musicians drifted in and out of the house on the strand, and some of the folks in the neighborhood have gone on to stellar careers and fame. The party was to be a gathering of many of the players from the beach community. The music was indeed wonderful, the crowd was mind boggling and the best I could manage was to sit back, lean against a wall, be amazed and enjoy the whole scene.  

       During the course of the evening we met an older fellow who had done a "little singing and little acting" and said he had been "trying to leave LA" for more than ten years.  He said "it's impossible. You just can't get away." He told us he had "left 25 times" and was "always drawn back."

       Lana and I thought a lot over the years of how we might get to LA, particularly to the beach communities where friends lived.  We visited a couple of times a year for many years, but life's flow did not include a Southern California address. Of course we've all added a few orbits around the sun and many of the crowd have dispersed. Those funky beach communities have gentrified.

     Jim is still a SOCAL resident. He's the guy who opened the door on the Central Coast to us, all of those years ago when we made the first of many trips with him to Big Sur. We stopped for coffee and a snack in a little coastal village named Cambria. The seed was planted, the bait was set, the die was cast. 

     We are closing in on 8 years as Cambria residents. I think I'm like others who sometimes take offense at how quickly it is all passing. There are times when I wish my time machine was in working order, just to go back for a visit. 

Thank God the memory file still works and there are photos that now accuse us of youth but also remind us of how rich  life has been. 
      A variation of the California dream, inspired by that first trip, has come to fruition. We come to the end of the year in a place we consider beautiful, laid back, peaceful, full of creativity, wonderful people, eclecticism and eccentricity. Who knows, those Manhattan Beach revelers in masks could be fellow retirees up here. Another escapade like that might get the locals talking, but then again….

    See you down the trail.

      

The Best of the Season and The Best Turkey Sandwich

…AND ALL THE BEST TO YOU

Sunrise on Pineridge-Cambria Ca.

    The light has broken into our dark world and for a few hours at least there is a greater sense of peace, joy and hope.

    Tiny Tim, of the Dickens Christmas Carol is my most enduringly favorite character of this season. Of all the secular players, it is the innocence, hope and purity of the little lad that best aggregates this season of Advent.

    The season is full of touchstones that connect with memories. These old village houses were already well used when Lana was born in 1946. There are newer village scenes, but few with this much soul. Krisin, our eldest and spending her first Christmas with us in almost a decade, requested that her mom "set up the village."

THE TURKEY SANDWICH

    Christmas 1967 is a particularly nice memory.  I drove home to Indianapolis from my college job in a snow storm on Christmas eve. I needed to make the 60 mile return trip before sunrise so I could be back at work to sign on a radio station. Before I ventured out into the pitch black of 4AM Christmas morning, Mom gave me a sack and told me to have it for my Christmas dinner.  It was a turkey sandwich with a side of her unique potato dressing and a piece of pecan pie.  

    The snow of the night before continued in the pre-dawn and by the time I arrived those 60 miles away, the roads were deep and so were driveways.  I was supposed to work from 7am to noon. However as the morning continued other staff members called to say they were "snowed in" and I'd need to cover for them.  Being the junior member of the staff, a college kid who needed the hours and work I restrained myself from reminding them I had just driven an uncleared state highway and then county roads to get to the rural radio studio. We were a daylight only station, meaning at sunset, I signed it off and headed home.

    Home was a pretty typical college apartment. A bedroom, small living room and tiny kitchen over a garage. A television was not in my budget. Entertainment, other than studying, was a hi fi turntable with those detachable speakers and a nice table top radio.

     It took a while to get into town, across the campus and to my apartment, dark and cold.  I called my parents and spoke with them and family members who were getting ready for a second round of Christmas dinner. I wished them all the best and they all wished that I could be there.  I turned on the radio and found a Christmas special being aired on WCFL out of Chicago.  It was a creative blend of music, and hijinks of a very talented air staff, lead by Ron Britain, a master of voices and put ons. It was essentially the sort of thing that would air only on a holiday when it was assumed the only people listening to the radio where those who were shut in or who were without family or friends around. I was the perfect audience and the program was the perfect Christmas night gift.  As I listened, I opened a beer, put a paper towel on the table as my table cloth, arrayed the dressing on a paper plate, added the sandwich and pie. The wind whipped around the drafty windows, but I was warmed from the heart out.  Mom's care package was all I needed and that Turkey Sandwich may have been the best ever!

THROWBACK CHRISTMAS

     1956, Muncie Indiana and my dad's three sons show off our favorite gifts.  Little Jim liked that Drum. John is showing a view master and I couldn't wait to give that new basketball a go. This was a time when the hand me down jeans, from older cousins, had plenty of "growth room."  

Sweet memories.

NATURE'S ORNAMENT

MERRY CHRISTMAS 

AND/OR

THE VERY BEST OF THE SEASON TO YOU!

  See you down the trail.

A GOLDEN STORY AND A WILD STORY

DOWN MEMORY LANE

   This is an abandoned stretch of the famous Pacific Coast Highway-California Highway 1. It is an appropriate icon for this holiday season post. From the archive we remember the fascinating story of THE California gold mine. This was first posted in 2011.

THE EMPIRE

      The Empire Mine, outside Grass Valley, is the oldest, richest, hardrock gold mine in California.  This is where the miners started to work, the main shaft that led to more than 367 miles of underground passages.

      Today it is a state historic site and permits everyone

behind a gate, that separated world of the miner and the mine owners.

      The hard work of the mining was done primarily by Cornish miners.  Over the years 5,800,000 ounces of gold was extracted from the Empire.

       When the mine closed in 1956, the incline depth was more than 11,000 feet.  The hundreds of miles of underground shafts and caverns were fully electrified and pumps ran continuously to empty the water.  It was a massive operation and much of the equipment used in the extraordinary undertaking now basks in the California sun retired to the mine yard. It is a kind of "mechanical art."

Today, most of the mine is full of water.

There is a blacksmith shop, still in partial operation

What is also extraordinary is what sits away from the work of the mine

Down the path is the "cottage" and "club house" of William Bourn Jr. who inherited the Empire from his father in 1877.

He had schooled in England so his "cottage and club house" reflect English style.

There is a reflecting pool

A clubhouse was built for the pleasure of the Bourns and their guests, one of whom was Herbert Hoover.

The wing to the right is an indoor squash court.

There is also a bowling alley, guest rooms and a ballroom.

The walls and floor are California redwood. 

The billiard table remains, but has been covered.

each of the light fixtures is a hand crafted design of what is apparently squirrels.

The grounds also included a tennis court and a badminton and croquet green.

Apparently the miners were allowed beyond the gate and onto the green, once a year for a Miner's Picnic.

The state of California purchased the Empire surface property in 1975 for $1,250,000.  The park covers 800 acres including 750 acres of forest.

The mineral rights remain with the Newmont Mining Corporation who bought the mine from Bourn in 1929.

Some estimates claim that 80% of the gold from the Empire remain in the ground.

If you get to Grass Valley or environs, the Empire is a great visit.

WILD

    If you read Cheryl Strayed's book, WILD, you know the emotional ride you are in for when seeing the film. People are suggesting Oscar nomination for Reese Witherspoon in her portrayal of Ms. Strayed who seeks to put her troubled life back in order by undertaking the enormous challenge of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. She is marvelous. So too is Laura Dern, as her beloved but all too soon late Mother.

   If you are inclined to weep, as several folks sitting by were, this is a film that may turn on the tears, but it also a journey, both in beautiful scenery and inwardly. It is quite a trip and quite an understanding.  People are right when they say this is an important film.

See you down the trail.