While the Pond and the Woods provided an innocent and often educational escape for me, some of my outdoor time was spent getting into mischief, especially in my younger years when I roamed around Diamond and the surrounding countryside with my brother.  The primary difference between Marshal and me was that l lacked his creativity. For example, it never would have crossed my mind to put a bullet down on a rock and then smash it with another rock to see what would happen. 

What I remember most about these great adventures was that we were skating on the thin edge of trouble. Gradually, we developed a reputation. I am convinced that a whole generation of little kids in Diamond blamed their misbehavior on us. “I didn’t do it Mama, the Mekemson kids did.” And Mama probably believed them. The mother of my life-long friend, Bob Bray, did. She refused to let him play with me. I was a bad influence, guaranteed to lead her son straight into the arms of the law.

Most of our mischief was relatively harmless. Like the gunslingers of the Old West, our reputations far exceeded the reality of our actions. 

For example, Jimmy Pagonni lived across the street and had a zero-tolerance policy for us.  We lusted after his cherries. He transformed them into wine and every drop was precious. He turned his dogs loose on us if we came anywhere near his orchard. Naturally his insistence on keeping us out only guaranteed our presence.  Raids were carefully planned.

We would invite two or three friends over and make a party out of it. The cover was sleeping out in the backyard, but sleep was secondary. Somewhere around one o’clock in the morning we would slip out of our yard, cross a very lonely Highway 49, climb over Jimmy’s rickety gate, make our way up the low hill, and disappear into the trees. It was all very hush-hush and cherries have never tasted more delicious. We would stuff our little stomachs and then fill up bags for take-out. It was pure greed.

Jimmy’s dogs never caught us before we were able to scramble over the gate, but they did catch my cocker spaniel, Tickle, once, and almost kill him. Tickle had been out on the town visiting a lady friend and taken a shortcut across Pagonni’s property. We were infuriated. Marshall retaliated by shooting Jimmy’s bull in the balls with his BB gun. (If not fair to the bull, it was at least alliteration.) Jimmy never knew Marshall committed the heinous act, but I am sure he had his suspicions.

Possibly even more serious from Jimmy’s perspective, an older Marshall (eighth grade I think) helped himself to a sample of Jimmy’s wine one night. Pagonni stored the fermented cherry juice in an old Gold Rush era building that had once served as a jail. It was located right in the middle of his cherry orchard and featured a stout locked door and one barred window. I am sure Jimmy considered it impregnable, but he failed to consider just how skinny my brother was. With help from his friend Art, Marshall managed to slip through the bars one night and fill two of Mother’s empty wine bottles from one of Pagonni’s gallon jugs. Marsh then left the partially empty jug in an obvious place for Jimmy to ponder. It must have driven him crazy.

The next afternoon, Marshall and Art headed for our treehouse in the Graveyard to do some serious imbibing, each drinking a full bottle. Considering the potency of Italian Red, Marshall’s share of the booty, almost killed him, not to mention encouraging strange behavior. He described how Mrs. Ross, my 4^th 5^th and 6^th grade teacher, came upon Art and him madly peddling their bikes. This wouldn’t have been strange except they were lying on their backs holding the bikes above them in the air! “She just shook her head and moved on,” Marsh said.

I remember him slipping in the back door that evening and trying to get to our bedroom before Mother and Pop noticed. It didn’t work. In addition to stumbling and mumbling and heaving, he smelled like a three-week gutter drunk. He was one sick kid. Both parents hurried to the bedroom out of concern and I moved back outside to sleep in the cool, but fresh fall air. It was one of those crimes that incorporates its own punishment.

We weren’t really bad kids, just adventuresome with our adventures occasionally bordering on juvenile delinquency. Caldor Lumber Company was a favorite target of ours since it provided a myriad of opportunities for weekend and after-school exploration. Twenty-foot high stacks of drying lumber were made for climbing and the truly bold might leap from one to another. The appropriately named Big Shed was filled with these stacks but I was much more fascinated by the number of owls that lived there and provided burped up scat for my natural history collection. The millpond featured floating logs that Marshall ventured out on lumberjack style, but I avoided. Not even a triple dare, or worse, older brother scorn, could tempt me into a possible dunking in the pond’s dark, murky waters. 

All of these activities paled in comparison to joy riding on rail pushcarts. Caldor had narrow gauge rail lines snaking through its drying yards and used pushcarts for transporting heavy items. We quickly discovered that three or four of us could get a cart rolling. We would then jump on for a free ride. Small downhills added a thrill factor. Fortunately, hand brakes on the carts enabled us to stop the carts before running into the stacked railroad ties that marked the end of the line. Except once.

Our nemesis at Caldor was an old fellow who had been in some type of mill related accident and left with a limp. Caldor made him the night and weekend watchman so he could continue to make a living. We provided him with something to do in an otherwise uneventful job. Sneaking up on us seemed to be a true passion of his. We kept a wary eye out. It was inevitable that he would catch us on a pushcart ride and he caught us at the most exciting point, just as it was gaining speed going downhill.

“Hey you kids, get off of that pushcart!” he yelled as he hurried after us at a slow limp. 

What were we to do? We jumped off of the pushcart and high-tailed it for the Woods, which were right next door. The pushcart, meanwhile, continued to gather speed, slammed into the ties and did a spectacular flip before sliding off down a small hill. We were duly impressed and so, apparently, was the watchman, who let out a string of obscenities as we disappeared into the pines. Pop mentioned the next day that the watchman had reported to him that the kids involved in the incident looked like us. We carefully explained that some kids from Placerville had been in town and were undoubtedly responsible.

A more serious threat arrived on our doorstep in the form of a Southern Pacific Railroad detective who claimed Marshall had been pulling spikes out of the railroad trestle over Webber Creek and throwing them into the stream. Marshall put on his ‘I’m outraged act.’  Yes, he had been throwing spikes off of the trestle into the creek below. But he would never dream of doing anything that would cause physical harm to anyone (unless they deserved it). The spikes came from piles of them left over from when Caldor had switched to logging trucks. Had the detective bothered to check to see if any spikes were missing from the trestle? No. Had he contemplated the possibility of a skinny 90-pound 12 year old kid being able to physically pull out the spikes? No. The case was closed. 

While Marshall’s innocence was sustained for once, the experience had the unfortunate consequence of eliminating the trestle as a place to play. Walking across and staring down between the railroad ties at the 50-foot drop to Weber Creek was a sure cure for summer boredom, as was contemplating the arrival of a train when we were in the middle of the trestle. If that wasn’t exciting enough, we could always walk across on the narrow plank that ran under the tracks. There were no safety railings. I once stood on it as a train roared above me. That was interesting.

My next post: Raw Sex, the Nuclear Holocaust, and Being Bonked by a Baseball: UT-OH: Chapter 11