Memoirs

UT-OH! Chapter 17: A Pear Picker’s Guide to Happiness

/ Curt Mekemson / 4 Comments
Ladder beneath ripe pears hanging from branches in a pear orchard
This is what you see when you are 5-6 steps down on a 12 or 14 foot pear ladder. Now, imagine climbing up and balancing one step from the top to reach pears in the top of the tree. UT-OH! (I’ve gone over to the dark side here. This is an AI generated picture. My challenge, as always when writing about my youth, is that the photos were few and far between. That’s hard to fathom in the digital age, when I can easily take more photos in one day that I have from the first 20 years of my life. When I pushed the key that asked WP to produce an AI photo for this post, it read my blog and came up with three good suggestions. That may be scarier than standing on the second step! It didn’t catch, however, that the ladder only had three legs. Maybe there is hope.

A number of things combined to pull me out of the puberty blues. For one, I ceased being a freshman. Hormones slowed down, my voice abandoned octave leaps, and I bought a pair of contact lenses. Academics were a plus, even during my freshman year. Lacking a social life, I studied full-time and managed to pull straight A’s. If I couldn’t be ‘ruler of everything,’ ‘sex symbol’ or ‘sports hero,’ maybe I could at least be ‘the brain.’ Was I driven or what?

I also believe that having a job helped. I began working in the pear orchards around Placerville starting the summer of my eighth-grade graduation and continuing through high school. It was a nine hour a day job of hard physical work, one more fit for an adult than a 14-year-old. Dealing with the 90-105° F summer heat of the Sierra foothills didn’t help. But I actually enjoyed the work. And the money. The general rule in our cash poor family was that the basics were covered. We were responsible for the extras, such as dates.

In addition to being hard, there was also an element of danger. Pear picking consisted of hazardous duty without hazardous pay. We were each given a 12-foot ladder, a sizing ring, and as many boxes as we could fill. The pears we plucked from the trees were placed in a canvas bag that fit around our front like a pregnant belly and carried up to 50 pounds. We had the option of working by the hour at $.90 per hour or by the box at $.20 per box. I opted for the per box under the assumption I could earn more.

The ladder was a suicidal three-legged device with two legs playing standard ladder while the third served as the balancing arm we threw out to provide ‘stability.’ I use the quote marks here because the stability was questionable. There was always a chance that you, your bag of pears, and the ladder would come crashing down. The first few rungs were solid; it was on the top four that life became interesting. Even here it was tolerably safe, assuming you focused on easily reachable pears.

The problem was that the best pears had a way of hiding away in the highest, most unreachable part of the tree.  Such premium fruit couldn’t be left hanging, even if it meant taking risks. At least that’s how my ut-oh mind functioned. It was nothing that the boss required. Success meant performing a one-legged-ballet-balancing act. I became quite proficient at the move. Only once did I reach beyond the imagination of my ladder and follow a rapid descent path straight to the ground. Fortunately, the only limbs broken belonged to the tree. I wrote the experience off as a lesson in Newtonian physics.

A greater challenge was entertaining myself for nine hours a day. Reaching out and picking a pear requires a minimum number of brain cells and very few of those are located in the frontal lobes. My favorite ploy was singing at the top of my voice. Harry Bellefonte’s tune about picking bananas was a natural. I adapted it to picking pears. But I also belted out many other popular tunes of the day.  “Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight” was a mistake. I couldn’t get it out of my mind; I would wake up in the middle of the night humming it. To this day I have to be careful in bringing it up or it is right back there on the tip of my tongue, waiting to escape. Like now:

“Does your chewing gum lose its flavor
On the bedpost overnight?
If your mother says don’t chew it,
Do you swallow it in spite?
Can you catch it on your tonsils,
Can you heave it left & right?
Does your chewing gum lose its flavor
On the bedpost overnight?”

A more productive form of amusement was challenging myself to pear picking contests. The more I picked the more money I made. When the fruit was plentiful and well sized, I could pick 60-80 boxes a day and earn big money, $12-$16. By the way, that seemingly measly sum is the equivalent of $130 to $180 today. Once I even reached a magical 100 boxes. My goal was to try to match the professional pickers, the folks who made a living helping harvest crops. On really good days, I could. 

Over my five-year career in the pear orchards I worked with Filipino crews, Braceros, and the usual contingent of semi-nomadic types who followed the various crops as they ripened from state to state. Most were good, even excellent workers. Of course, there was also the occasional guy who worked just long enough to buy a gallon of Red Mountain Wine and then disappear.

After my first year of working in the fruit orchards, I graduated to swamper status, which meant I delivered empty boxes to the pear pickers and took out their full boxes. I also learned such fine skills as tractor driving, tree trimming, sprinkler changing, post hole digging and crew bossing. And, I might add, enjoyed most of it. There is a certain satisfaction that comes from doing hard work, challenging your body, and being dead-tired at night. 

I also gained a farmer’s satisfaction that comes from seeing a crop evolve from spring bloom to fall harvest. And finally, as my pear orchard responsibilities increased, the work helped me overcome the puberty blues and regain my confidence. Becoming buff and tanned didn’t hurt either. Working in the orchard with my shirt off, picking pears and stacking 50-pound boxes above my head on a truck guaranteed a tan to die for and muscles from my big toes to my hair follicles. 

Almost on cue, girls reappeared in my life, with Paula being an example. Admittedly it was a slow process, in fact far too slow for my hormone driven fantasies. But there the girls were, tentatively giving me the eye and practicing a wiggle or two to see if anyone was home. There was. Down boy.

Next Monday’s Post: A jay by any other name is still a jay, plus 7 other interesting and fun birds of Costa Rica. This is Costa Rica’s Grey Headed Jay suggesting I don’t interfere with its breakfast.
Grand Tetons National Park: Next Wednesday, April 22 is special. It’s Earth Day 56. Please join me as I take you back to April 22, 1970 where I participated in Earth Day 1 on the Davis Campus of the University of California. Earth Day 1 changed my life and helped to change the world. Its message today is as relevant as ever, and possibly even more so, as so many of the gains we have made are now under threat.

UT-OH! Chapter 16: On First Dates and Squashed Skunks

/ Curt Mekemson / 6 Comments
At this point, just beyond the speed limit sign, I ran over a skunk in the summer of 1958, undoubtably impressing the young woman I was on a date with.

As I suggested in Chapter 14, my freshman year of high school was something of a disaster. My social life tanked, dance class sucked, my political aspirations were reduced to running a friend’s campaign for class president, and my success in sports was mediocre, at best. My short legs and I suffered through a season of cross country running where I was lucky to finish in the middle of the pack. 

Things had to improve. 

Do you remember your first date in high school? Was it a roaring success, so-so, or an unmitigated disaster? How about off-the-scale weird? That describes mine. I had a double date with Paula, Mom and Boyfriend. And I ran over a skunk. It happened during the summer between my freshman and sophomore year.

It started with Paula calling me. There was no way I would have called her. Girls still left me quaking in my tennis shoes. ‘Curt, would you like to go to dinner with me in Sutter Creek?’ Sutter creek was a town in Amador County, about 20 miles away from Diamond Springs over curvy Highway 49. It would be a double date with her mother and her boyfriend. That seemed strange, but somebody had to drive. How could I say no…

I remember very little about the drive or dinner— other than it was at an Italian restaurant. After we had our fill of spaghetti and conversation, we returned to the car. I had visions of sitting in the back and snuggling up with Paula on the way back to Diamond.

Mom and Boyfriend had another idea. They hopped into the back seat and promptly told me, “You can drive home, Curt!” Like they were offering me the opportunity of a life time. It did away with my bold plans. But there was more… 

“Um,” I noted nervously, “I only have a learner’s permit.”

“That’s okay, it will be good practice,” Mom jumped in before I could add that I had only obtained it four days before.

Paula, meanwhile, was waiting for me to open the door for her on the passenger side of the car. It was a plot. She gave me a dazzling smile— and my options dropped to zero. Any further hesitation would be ‘unmanly.’ After doing the gentlemanly thing for Paula, I dutifully climbed into the driver’s seat and miraculously found the keyhole and lights. Gear grinding got us out of town and onto the open road. I breathed an audible sigh of relief. It was short lived. We had just made it past the small town of Plymouth and were on our way down to the Consumnes River when I ran over the skunk.

If you drive a lot on country roads in skunk country, you’ve probably noticed that dead skunks are a significant part of road kill. It goes beyond the fact that they are easily recognized by their smell. There really are lots of them. The primary reason for this is that they believe they are omnipotent. Who in his right mind will hassle a skunk? It’s like petting a porcupine or teasing a rhino.

Unfortunately, skunks fail to recognize the damage a 3000-pound vehicle can do, and how difficult it is to stop, or even swerve when traveling 60 miles per hour or more. Last, but far from least, they don’t realize how easily drivers become distracted. A teenage boy just learning how to drive with an attractive girl sitting next to him is an excellent example.

While my encounter with the skunk was in the summer, the most likely time to find them crossing the road is in late winter or early spring. This is when the males come out of hibernation and go in search of true love, or, at least, sex. The Loony Tunes cartoon character of yore, Pepé Le Pew comes to mind. Skunks are willing to travel 4-6 miles to find a hot date. This often means crossing a road with a focus that has nothing to do with fast moving vehicles. Not being able to see clearly beyond 10 feet doesn’t help either. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. And it may all be for naught. Females often reject would-be suitors as poor material for contributing sperm for future generations, or for some other skunk-ish reason. The rejection is brutal. They have a particularly potent form of spray they reserve for the purpose. “Try to climb on me. Ha. Take that you skunk!”

The skunk I ran over had a similar reaction. He reeked revenge in his final seconds by becoming a virtuoso of glandular activity.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Boyfriend said as the first powerful whiffs of eau de skunk came blasting through the air vents. “It happens all of the time.”

“Yeah, sure,” I mumbled to myself through tongue-biting teeth, “young men always run down skunks on first dates, especially first dates with Mom and Boyfriend along.”

Fortunately, I made it home without further incident.

One might assume that running over the skunk would have ended my relationship with Paula. But there was one more date. It was a testimony to how much Paula’s mother was committed to the relationship that she loaned us her car. I drove it illegally on my learner’s permit. Paula and I went on an old-fashioned picnic to Buck’s Bar, a 49er-mining site on the Consumnes River. I actually had a young woman, out in the woods, alone. Talk about fantasy. As far as I can recall though, and I would recall otherwise, I behaved myself disgustingly well. So did Paula.

Fridays Post: A Pear Pickers Guide to Happiness.

Crested Guams and Chachalacas: Here’s Looking at you… The Birds of Costa Rica

/ Curt Mekemson / 6 Comments
When Peggy opened the drapes on our first morning in Nuevo Arenal, Costa Rica a few weeks ago, this is what greeted her: A hungry Crested Guam demanding an apple, an orange, or a pineapple. We immediately noticed the Guam’s bright red wattle, eyes and long tails. The ‘laidback’ feathers on its head can stand straight up when the Guam is excited. Thus the description ‘crested.’
Actually, there were three of them. (They hung out together the whole time we were in Nuevo Arena.) Peggy immediately grabbed her camera and caught this photo of them backlit by the sun.
I must say, they were quite polite, just standing there, staring at us.
But we couldn’t escape the hungry look. It’s sort of like ‘Feed me or else…’
We were soon sharing apples, pineapple, oranges…
And even watermelon with our new ‘companions.’
Even when they weren’t on our walkway, the Guams monitored our behavior from the lawn and picnic table in front of our Villa.
From the lawn. Note its raised wings. I think it was about to chase a Grey-headed Chachalaca that was chowing down on a bite of pineapple the Guam considered its lunch. (See the two videos at the end of today’s post.)
They also watched us from the trees behind the villa. Note the long tails.
They could see in our back window…
A close up.
We met this Guam on a hike by Lake Arenal. It was preparing to show off its crest.
In full display! “Aren’t I beautiful/handsome.”
Some grooming is required. For birds, it’s called primping and is used for feather maintenance.
Even down to keeping them oiled! Is the other Guam massaging its legs with its tail feathers? It’s obvious that these big birds like each other, in fact they are monogamous. But I doubt that includes tail-feather leg massages. (Any Guam experts out there that would know?)
The primary dining room for the Guams and all of the other fruit eating birds in our neighborhood was a bird feeding table that we and our neighbors kept supplied. Fortunately, it was right in front of our villa. We could sit inside or on our porch and take bird photos all day if we wanted to. You’ll be seeing a few…

Normally, the crested Guams (Penelope purpurascens) are not as tame as the ones that have found an endless supply of food at the Lakeview Villas where we were staying. Nor are they ground dwellers, preferring to live high up in the forest canopy and feed off of fruit they find up there, like the figs from the ficus trees we featured in our post last Monday. Similar to the Gray-headed Chachalacas (Ortalis cinereiceps) that you will meet next, they are members of the long-tailed family, Cracidae. Above them on the animal classification system they are also related to chickens, turkeys and other Galliformes, which is hardly surprising, given their body shape. They range from Mexico in the north to Ecuador and Venezuela in the south. 

The smaller Chachalacas look a lot like the Guams minus the wattles and crests. At first we thought they might be their kids, especially given their obvious love of fruit. Closer inspection and a little research quickly defined them as a different species. Beyond looks, another defining characteristic is that they travel in groups ranging in size from 6 all the way up to 20. Ours was around 12. When these large birds make their way through trees, they sound like a herd of marauding elephants (slight exaggeration, but they are noisy.) It’s said that their name, Chachalacas, is derived from a sound they make early in the morning and late in the evening. We didn’t hear it in Nuevo Arenal, but I did one evening in Monteverde. I love the name.

The ‘here’s looking at you’ pose of a Chachalaca. Impressive nose hairs.
Another perspective.
They would arrive at the food station en masse. Any fruit was quickly disposed of…
Tails down and looking around, at half mast and breaking fast, fully up and having sup. (A little humor for my poet friends who follow this blog.)
Grooming/primping Chachalaca style. Were they getting ready for a group photo?
Maybe. Grin. You may wonder what the Crested Guams felt about the Chachalacas showing up and gulping down all of the fruit. The following videos will give you an idea. The first demonstrates the greed of the Chachalacas at the food table and the Guams’ response. The second shows what Peggy and I found to be a rather hilarious chase scene where the Guam kept losing track of the Chachalaca it was supposed to be chasing! (Click on the photos.)

BTW: Wednesday’s UT-OH! Post is on “first dates and squashed skunks!”

As you might have expected the Guams had little tolerance for the Chachalacas scarfing down the fruit!

UT-OH! Chapter 15: Puberty Blues and the Dance Class from Hell

/ Curt Mekemson / 16 Comments
The teacher had a large diagram with a pattern that looked something like this.

Something happened between the eighth grade and high school. Here I was a happy, well-adjusted and relatively successful young man one day and a serious candidate for a strait jacket the next. Pimples popped out on my face overnight and my voice became dedicated to practicing random octave jumps. Teenage-hood, which had promised to be a mild adventure, arrived with a vengeance. I was being hormonally challenged; I had a terminal case of puberty blues.

Things started out fine. I left the eighth grade behind with great expectations. After all, I’d become a jock, had top grades, was student body president, and had a girlfriend. Damn, I was even president of the Mother Lode Twirlers, the square dance club. What could possibly go wrong? Everything…?

Take girlfriends, for instance. I expected to lose a little ground in the field of romance when I became a freshman in high school. Sophomore, junior, and even senior boys cruised the hallways in a mad scramble to check out the new crop of freshmen girls. And the older girls weren’t about to date a freshman boy, that lowest of lowly creatures. 

But I didn’t expect to bomb the way I did. I became intensely, almost painfully shy. I would walk down the hallways staring at my feet in fear that some young woman would look me in the eye. If a girl tried to talk to me, any girl, I would mutter inanities and make a run for it. The strangest statements came out of my mouth. As for asking a girl out, the odds were a little less than being struck by lightning, and the latter seemed like a less painful alternative.

It wasn’t that I didn’t notice girls. My body was one huge hormone. I just couldn’t bring myself to do anything about it. I pined for a young woman who sat in front of me in Mr. Crump’s Geography class. She was gorgeous. I was in deep lust. My knee and her butt were mere inches apart and her butt was like a magnet. I had the most intense fantasies of moving my knee forward until it made contact. In my fantasy she would, of course, turn around, smile at me and suggest we get together after school. In reality, she would have turned around and bashed me with her geography book (rightfully so), or worse, told Mr. Crump. I would have died. I kept my knee where it belonged. It is a strong testament to my love for geography that I didn’t flunk the class under the circumstances.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, however, and I was a desperate man. I signed up to master dancing in PE. I would become a combination of Arthur Murray and Elvis Presley. Step, step, slide and swivel your hips. Girls would flock to me. It wasn’t until the day of the class that I learned the magnitude of my mistake. I would have to dance with girls to learn how to dance and there they were, lined up on the opposite side of the gymnasium floor, staring at me.

“God, why did I do this to myself,” I thought as I stared across the distance at twenty females who I knew were thinking, “anybody but Curtis.” 

“Okay, boys,” the female P.E. teacher announced in a stern voice, “I want you to walk across the room now and politely ask a girl to dance with you.” Wow, that sounded like fun.

Reluctantly, I began that long walk across the gymnasium floor. I was a condemned man and the gallows were looming. I walked slower. Maybe an earthquake would strike. Maybe the Russians would shoot off an IBM missile. Maybe one of the surly seniors would throw a match in a wastebasket and the fire alarm would go off.

Maybe nothing.

I approached the line and looked for a sign. One of the girls would smile at me and crook her finger. But the girls looked exceedingly grim. A few looked desperate, like deer caught in the headlights of the proverbial 18-wheeler rushing toward them at 90 miles per hour. I picked out the one who looked most frightened on the theory that she would be the least likely to reject me.

“Uh, would you care to dance,” I managed to blurt out.

“Uh, okay,” she responded with about the same level of enthusiasm she would have if I had offered her a large plate of raw liver. It was P.E. Dance Ground Zero after all, and she wasn’t allowed to say no. We were destined to be a great couple.

“You will put your left hand in the middle of the back five inches above the waist line.” The teacher, who was now sounding more and more like a drill sergeant, carefully described what we would do with our hands. It was quite clear that there would be minimal contact and no contact with behinds. “With your right hand and arm, you will hold the girl away from you.” There would be no accidental brushing of breasts either. What fun was that? I assumed the correct position with marine-like precision. I was going to get this right. I studied the chart the teacher had put up to show us what we were supposed to do with our feet. I listened carefully to the lecture on rhythm and down beats. I watched with intensity as she demonstrated.

All too soon it was our turn. A scratchy record blasted out a long-since-dead composer’s waltz. I didn’t know who it was, but it wasn’t Elvis. With one sweaty palm in the middle of the girl’s back and the other sweaty hand holding her a proper distance away, I moved out on the floor. Step, step, slide, step, step, slide. One, two, and slide the coach barked out. My feet more or less followed the prescribed pattern. More importantly, I avoided stepping on the girl’s toes. I tried a turn and managed to avoid running into another couple. Ever so slightly I relaxed. Maybe things would be okay. Maybe I would have fun. Maybe Hell would freeze over.

“Stop, class!” the teacher yelled as she blew her whistle and yanked the needle across the record, adding another scratch. We dutifully came to a halt. What now?

“I want everyone to watch Curtis and his partner,” she announced.

“Hey, this is more like it,” I thought to myself. Not only was I surviving my first day of dance class, I was also being singled out to demonstrate. I smiled, waited for the music to start, and boldly moved out on the floor where many had trod before. Step, step, slide, step, step slide. We made it through all of three progressions when the teacher abruptly blew her whistle again.

“And that, Class,” she proclaimed triumphantly, “is not how you do it. Curtis is moving like he is late for an important date with the bathroom.”

The class roared— and I shrank. I don’t know how my partner felt, but I wanted a hole to climb in, preferably a deep hole with a steel door that I could slam shut. And I was more than embarrassed, I was mad. My normal sense of humor had galloped off into the sunset faster than a Triple Crown racehorse.

“You don’t teach someone to dance by embarrassing him,” I mumbled. An angry look crossed the teacher’s face and she started to reply. I turned my back and walked for the door.

“Where do you think you are going, Curtis? Get back here!” she demanded in a raised voice.

“I am leaving,” I replied without turning, calm now with the decision made. The class was deadly quiet. This was much more interesting than P.E. Other kids might challenge teachers, might walk out of a class, and might not even care. But not Curt. This was a guy who always did his homework, participated in class discussions, was respectful toward teachers, and aced tests.

I reached the door and put my hand on the handle.

“If you walk out that door, you may as well walk home,” the teacher barked. “I will personally see to it that you are suspended from school.”

I opened the door, walked out– and went straight to the office of the head of the P.E. Department, Steve O’Meara. Steve worked with my dad in the summer as an assistant electrician, but I knew him primarily as my science teacher.  He was a big man, gruff, and strong as a bull elephant, a jock’s jock. He demonstrated his strength by participating in the annual wheelbarrow race at the El Dorado County Fair. The race commemorated the fact that John Studebaker of automobile fame had obtained his start in Placerville manufacturing wheelbarrows for 49ers.

The County’s strongest men would line up with their wheelbarrows at the starting line and then rush to fill a gunny sack with sand at the starter’s gun. They would then push their wheelbarrows and loads at breakneck speed around an obstacle course that included mud holes, a rock-strewn path, fence barriers and other such challenges. In addition to making it across the finish line first, the winner had to have fifty plus pounds of sand in his gunny sack. Underweight and he was disqualified. Steve was always our favorite to win and rarely disappointed us. He also had a very loud voice.

“What’s up, Curt,” he roared when I entered his office. I knew Steve didn’t eat kids for lunch but you always wondered a little.

“I think you are supposed to expel me,” I replied. He started to laugh until he saw my expression. Mortification and anger on the face of a 14-year-old are never a pretty sight.

He became serious. “Sit down and tell me what’s happening,” he suggested in an almost gentle voice.

Ten minutes later I walked out of his office with a reprieve. I didn’t have to go back to the dance class and could finish out the quarter playing volleyball.  Steve would have a discussion with the dance instructor. I imagine she ended up about as unhappy as I was. At least I hoped so. I entertained a small thought that she would hesitate the next time before traumatizing some gawky kid whose only goal in attending her class was to become a little less gawky. It would be a long time before I would step onto a dance floor again.

UT-OH! Chapter 14: Surviving Baseball Bats and Dynamite Caps

/ Curt Mekemson / 26 Comments
This donkey was hardly dangerous. I was offering it a carrot. The stacks of lumber in the background, at Caldor Lumber Company’s drying yard, had potential, however. One of our sports was climbing to the top of the stacks and leaping between them.

That we survived childhood wasn’t necessarily a given. Racing up and down a 75-foot-tall tree, leaping between 20 foot high lumber stacks, joyriding on railroad push carts, avoiding being shot, playing on a 50 foot high trestle and other similar activities aren’t particularly conducive to a healthy childhood. On a scale of 1-10, I would have placed Marshall’s chances of harm at 9.9 while mine were more like 4.4. I took my share of risks, but rarely without considering consequences. Marshall rarely did. Pop provided some perspective years later.

“If Marshall screamed, I ran. When you screamed, I walked.”

Except for the dog bite and stepping on a rusty nail once, my serious injuries were more in the nature of stubbed toes. Not that I am minimizing the pain of a stubbed toe, mind you. They hurt like hell. There is a reason why flaying skin was a form of torture in ancient times. I’d have certainly been willing to confess things I had done, and lots of things I hadn’t. 

I did have a baseball bat used on me once, however. My parents were semi-serious Republicans, semi in the sense that they didn’t devote their lives to the cause but they did vote the party line. The family tradition went back to Abe Lincoln and the founding of the Party. A quote in a book written by my Great Grandfather stated, “We have always been Republicans, and we always will be.”

My indoctrination started young with the 1952 campaign of Dwight Eisenhower against Adlai Stevenson. According to Mother, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman were responsible for most of the bad things that existed in the Country, and Ike was going to right the wrongs of the previous two decades. I, of course, accepted this view whole-heartedly, and had all the makings of a fine Young Republican. Naturally I was eager to share my correct or ‘right’ perspective with fellow students and proudly wore an I Like Ike button to school.

They weren’t particularly interested. 

After all, what do nine year olds know or care about politics? One student, whose parents were avid Democrats, was ready to take me on, however. He wore a button that declared Adlai was Our Next President. Our debate started in the boys’ bathroom when we were lined up at the urinals, and continued on to the playground. Things began well. Even then I was a high verbal, and the points I didn’t win on logic, I was taking with volume. But the situation deteriorated rapidly. My fellow debater did what most politicians do when they appear to be losing ground— he started slinging mud.

“Eisenhower is a blankety, blank,” he declared with a smirk to underline his cleverness. It was his mistake; now we were talking my language.

“In that case,” I argued with glee, “Stevenson is a blankety-blank, blank, blank.” I had more blanks. Marshall, and Allen had taught me every swear word in the English language and a few in Spanish. I could go on for minutes without repeating myself. In fact Allen and I had challenged each other to a contest once to see who could swear the longest and the loudest. 

There was a vacant lot filled with tall grass down on the corner where Missouri Flat Road ran into Highway 49. We got down on our hands and knees and chased each other through the grass while shouting obscenities at the top of our lungs.  We were so engrossed in our efforts that we didn’t note that Marsh had time to run the block home and retrieve Pop to listen in on the exchange. He was not impressed with our command of the language or our volume. My thought about Marshall for telling was that he was a blankety-blank, blank, blank, blank, blank. A real asshole.

Anyway, I was not to be outdone in the mudslinging department; I had a bright future as a campaign manager. I demolished my opponent. Regrettably, I was about to learn an important Hobbesian lesson in power politics: Never start political arguments with a person carrying a baseball bat, which he was. When I continued to hassle him out on the playground, he wound up and swung the bat like he was going for a home run, whacking me across my right leg. Down I went onto the playground and off I went to the hospital as my leg muscle knotted up to the size of a softball. Fortunately, he didn’t break a bone— and my man Ike won the election.

Marshall’s scariest accident happened at Caldor’s logging camp. One summer, Pop arranged for the family to use a house at the camp for a week’s vacation. It was a great opportunity. We were surrounded by El Dorado National Forest, and we could wander to our heart’s content. 

The first day out, we discovered an old miner’s shack that had long since given up any pretense of being useful. It was leaning precariously. Naturally, we had to explore it. There might be a treasure. Dark and musty comes to mind as my first impression. Floors creaked in objection on our entrance. A pack rat had set up home in one corner. A treasure for Tickle the dog, perhaps, but not for us. 

A table in the opposite corner held more promise. We found an old Phillies Cigar box on top, which was a treasure in itself. Inside there was more: Dynamite caps! Think Big Bang.  Caps contain a small amount of an explosive material that when lit by a connected electric current, cause a blast that sets off the dynamite. BOOM. My immediate reaction was to get out of the shack. Marshall’s was to take the box with us. I assumed he was going to give it to Pop so he could dispose of the caps. It was never wise to make assumptions about what my brother might do.

Mother was putting dinner on the table and Marshall was still outside when we heard a loud bang followed by a louder scream. Pop ran. Marshall had held a match down to the dynamite cap to see what would happen. He found out. The whole front of his body from his groin to his head was covered in blood. The only thing that saved his eye sight was that he was wearing shatter-proof glasses. A neighbor, who had come out at the sound of the blast and scream, immediately volunteered to take Nancy and me for the night. My parents jumped in our car and rushed off to the hospital in Placerville, 20 miles away.

 Marshall spent a couple of days in the hospital as the doctor removed brass splinters from his body. We returned home. So much for our idyllic vacation. The important thing was that Marshall survived the experience— possibly a bit wiser. Occasional splinters of brass were still making their way out of his skin when he was in his 20s.

UT-OH Chapter 13: Your Mother Chases Fire Trucks

/ Curt Mekemson / 11 Comments
While the Diamond Spring’s Firehouse has been rebuilt from when we were children, it still stands in the same location. It was about a block away from where we lived. The siren was loud. The sign at the top says Station 49. It’s appropriate. Diamond’s first firehouse was built in 1849 along what is now Highway 49.
In comparison, this is the firehouse not all that different from what it looked like when I was a child, which I featured in my last post. As I recall, they did rebuild it once when I was a child. Pop wired it.

If it sounds like parental supervision of our bad behavior was somewhat lax in my growing up years, that’s because it was. There were times when our parents, or at least Mother, provided tacit approval of our misdeeds. Returning the cherries we confiscated from Pagonni’s orchard or the frogs from Pavy’s Pond was never an issue. They were quietly added to the pantry and happily consumed by all, including Pop. No questions asked. 

Once we were even encouraged to break the law. 

Because the dirt road we lived on circled the graveyard, the County decided it should be named Graveyard Alley. No one living on the road was asked for an opinion or informed of the decision. The signs simply appeared one day. Mother was infuriated and fired off a letter to the County Board of Supervisors. She was not going to live on Graveyard Alley! Nothing happened, there wasn’t even a response. 

Marsh and I were given marching orders: Sometime around midnight go out and remove the signs. We carried out the charge with enthusiasm. No neighbors complained about this obvious act of vandalism since they weren’t particularly happy about living on Graveyard Alley either.

The County replaced the signs. We made another raid and this time the County got the point. They changed the name in honor of an old fellow, George Croft, who was an original resident. We all liked George. It became George’s Alley, which it still is today. 

I’m convinced we inherited our trouble making potential from our mother. Pop was a good man who had avoided marriage until he was 38. He was the type of guy who served on the Vestry of the Church, was a Boy Scout leader, and was always available to help out a neighbor. I am sure there were times he wished he had avoided marriage for another 38 years. A lesser man might have said bye-bye and been on his way. But he took his role seriously and pushed on, through thick and thin. 

Mother could be something of a ‘wild child,’ wilder than her wild children. Going to fires in Diamond Springs was an excellent example.

Pop was a volunteer fireman for Diamond. As an electrician, it was his job was to show up at burning houses and shut off electricity. When the siren wailed, he was off and running, as were all the other volunteer firemen in town. It was serious business. 

For Mother and for us, it was high entertainment. We also took off at the sound of the siren, jumped in whatever old car we had, and sped along behind the fire truck. The time of day and activity of the moment didn’t matter. If it were three in the morning, we would jump out of bed and throw on our clothes; if we were eating, the meal would be abandoned; if we were playing, the toys would be dropped. Nothing could compete with a good fire. Our devotion to disaster was right up there in the same league as it is with today’s news media. 

The star performer was someone’s house. There was excitement, danger and pathos. Firemen blasted away with their hoses in a desperate attempt to save the home while the unfortunate family looked on in dismay. But the climax, the Fourth of July finale, was when the roof and walls would crash down and shoot sparks and fire high into the sky. I did keep my oohs and ahhs to myself. Somewhere in the back of my mind a small voice whispered that our family outing was not totally appropriate.

“Your mother chases fire trucks,” one of my little buddies jeered at me in an argument. 

My response at the time had been, “So…,” but later in life I would ponder what the towns-people must have thought about Mother, two or three kids, and a dog always showing up. Pop must have been terribly embarrassed. I remember him telling Mother once to stay far behind the fire engine and far away from the fire. He did it under the guise of being concerned for our safety. I now suspect he hoped we wouldn’t be recognized. But he never did have much success in telling Mother what to do. The siren’s call was not to be denied— for either one of them.

Monday’s Post: It’s back to Costa Rica where Peggy and I will show you a ficus, which I would bet is unlike any ficus/banyan/fig tree you have ever seen before unless you have been in Monteverde. No photos this time, I’m keeping it as a surprise. Here is a banyan tree we visited on the Big Island of Hawaii last year, however…

UT-OH! Chapter 12: Bob Bray and the Wham-O Caper, plus Who Shot Tony Pavy’s Prize Pig

/ Curt Mekemson / 16 Comments
Bob Bray with his wife Linda and the world traveling Bone. Bob and I have been friends since the first grade. Here, he and his wife, joined in supporting me on my trek down the PCT to celebrate my 75th Birthday. (The trek ended up being 750 miles instead of 1000 because of several forest fires in 2018.) We would have been 12 at the time of the Wham-O-Caper.

While I had graduated from my would-be juvenile delinquent days, I was able to pull off a couple of capers without my brother’s influence. The first involved living up to Bertha Bray’s expectations.

For some unfathomable reason, Bob’s parents bought him a Wham-O Slingshot. I mean, how in the world can you expect a kid to be good when he starts playing with his Wham-O? The fact that I owned a Wham-O as well almost guaranteed trouble. 

Bob and I agreed to meet for a clandestine hunting expedition. It had to be clandestine because I was still on Bertha Bray’s ‘do not invite’ list. Things were going great until we came upon the old abandoned hobo’s shack that was next to the Southern Pacific railroad track about a quarter of a mile from Bob’s home. Typical of such structures, it had been created out of anything that was available for free: old metal roofing, miscellaneous boards, an occasional nail, a thrown away mattress, etc.

Bob and I looked at each other and had a simultaneous thought. Out came the ammo for the Wham-Os: A shiny new marble for Bob and several BBs for me. We took careful aim, counted down, and let fly, using the derelict old building for target practice.

The Wham-O actually comes with a manual that tells you how to use it. It’s a serious slingshot!

To this day, Bob claims he saw his marble harmlessly strike the building while my BBs were smashing a window to smithereens. I of course saw Bob’s marble hit the window dead on while my BBs weren’t even close. The current occupant of the not abandoned home, who was washing dishes behind a willow bush in a small stream, saw something entirely different: two little boys smashing his pride and joy. 

He let out a bellow and came charging up the trail. As he should have. Once again, the Mekemson Gang, along with its newest recruit, was on the run. The good news is that we escaped. The bad news was that the hobo recognized Bob. He went straight to his house. Mrs. Bray’s worst fears had been realized. (For the 50thAnniversary of our Wham-O Adventure, Bob sent me a slingshot. Bertha probably rolled over in her grave. Or maybe she chuckled.)

A prize 4-H pig at the Modoc County Fair in Northern California.

Tony Pavy’s prize pig was another case where Marshall was totally innocent. Tony had a large pond with bullfrogs, a hundred or so acres of scrubland, and a wooded hillside that housed a number of gray squirrels and blackberry vines loaded with the sweet, juicy fruit. His attitude was similar to that of Jimmy Pagonni: Children were not to be heard or seen on his property. 

As with Pagonni, we didn’t allow Pavy to keep us from our appointed rounds. We would slip in at night to harvest his bullfrogs and during the day to harvest blackberries or bring down a squirrel. Tony had a very effective way of getting rid of us. In a very loud voice he would yell, “Mama, get my gun!” and we would streak out of there.

A couple of friends and I were hunting for the squirrels on his hillside when the unfortunate incident with the pig took place. But before I tell the story, I need to digress and provide some background information.

Growing up in Diamond Springs in the 50s meant having a gun and shooting things. At least it did if you were a boy. We graduated from BB guns and 22s to deer rifles and shotguns. Obtaining your first rifle was an experience similar in importance to obtaining your driver’s license, except you could get one a lot earlier. Before we were allowed to hunt, however, certain rules were pounded into our heads. We had to take a course sponsored by the National Rifle Association. These were the years when the NRA’s primary concern was about hunting and hunter safety, not promoting the use of automatic weapons.

I learned from the NRA instructor that it is important to know what you were shooting. This might seem obvious, but flat-landers out of Sacramento often had trouble making the distinction between a cow and a deer. Of a much more serious nature, every so often one would mistake another hunter for a deer. Wear red hats and bright clothes, we were taught. There were other things we weren’t supposed to shoot as well. People’s houses for example. Robins were also high on the list. They ate their weight daily in bugs. It was okay to shoot ‘vermin’ such as ground squirrels, jackrabbits, coyotes and the scrub jays that pecked away at pears. In fact there was a bounty on jays, $.25 per head. Marshall used it as a money-maker.

My usual preference was for watching wildlife, not killing it. I made an exception for gray squirrels. The thrill of the hunt combined with my appetite for a delicious squirrel and dumpling stew my mother whipped up overcame any reservations I had. All of which brings me back to the pig. 

Gray squirrels have about the same appreciation for being shot that you or I might. To avoid this unhappy circumstance, they take off leaping through the trees. The one we had marked for dinner was jumping from limb to limb in a live oak tree on the hill above Pavy’s with all three of us shooting at it when we heard a bellow from the barnyard.

“Mama, get my gun! They shot my pig! They shot my pig! Hurry, Mama!”

I don’t know how fast Mama moved but we flew. By the time Ernie Carlson, the County Sheriff, and a Diamond Springs resident, caught up with us we were far away from Pavy’s and about as innocent as newborn piglets.

“Excuse me, boys,” the Sheriff remarked when he pulled over in his car and rolled down his window, “I don’t suppose you know anything about Tony Pavy’s pig being shot.”

“No, sir,” we replied respectfully in unison. We had rehearsed.  Besides, we were technically correct. We hadn’t shot Pavy’s pig; we hadn’t even shot the squirrel. It was a ricocheting bullet that did in the pig. 

Ernie looked at us dubiously.

“Pavy told me there were three kids about your age,” the Sheriff said as he continued to build pressure, hoping that one of us would break. 

“We’ve been out in back of Ot Jone’s Pond,” I argued indignantly. And we had been. So what if we had arrived there out of breath.

“Well, you kids behave yourselves,” the Sheriff said with an ominous I know you’re lying tone. 

We breathed a joint sigh of relief as he rolled up his window and drove off. Once more we had avoided a fate we probably deserved. I suspect now that Ernie was not one hundred percent dedicated to finding the alleged pig murderers. Tony was not universally loved in the community for several reasons, of which threatening to shoot kids was one. 

For example: My father did some electrical work for him for free. As he was leaving, Tony asked, “Would you like one of my geese for dinner?”

“Sure,” Pop had replied, assuming Pavy was offering it as thanks for his four hours of work. 

“Good,” Tony had replied, “that will be five dollars.” Pop was more than a little irritated. He had a hearty laugh years later when I told him about our adventure with the pig. I wisely avoided telling him at the time, however. His perspective on our miscreant behavior softened substantially with distance and age. 

Friday’s Post: One of my classmates in grade school insults me by saying “Your Mother Chases Fire Trucks.” So what if it was true.

An early photo of the Diamond Springs Firehouse with Volunteer Firemen. The siren that called the Volunteers, including Pop, is on the right.

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

/ Curt Mekemson / 13 Comments
This is how I felt after being bonked on the head by a baseball! Just kidding. It’s actually here because I didn’t have a photo for Chapter 11. This one is an introduction to Friday’s post on Costa Rica Butterflies.

There came a time when I grew out of my mischief making phase. Other things took precedence: school, wandering in the woods, church, girls, and even sports. Few of these earned an Ut-Oh. There were a couple of incidents that earned inclusion in this book, however. The first had to do with a girl.

Starting as far back as the third grade, I had a girlfriend, or at least believed I did. The girls didn’t have to agree. My first heart throb was Carol. She was a younger woman: cute and smart. While I appreciated those qualities, what fascinated me about Carol was that she could run like the wind. I was in love with her legs. We both lived within a couple of blocks of school and would walk home for lunch. 

The advantage of going home was we would arrive back at school before the other kids were let out for noon recess. This meant we could grab the best positions for whatever game was being played. My problem was that Carol could outrun me and this meant I was usually second in line. It seemed like a small price to pay for seeing those legs kicking up the dirt in front of me.

Next, I fell for an older woman, the fifth grade sister of one of my classmates in the fourth grade. She had quite a mouth on her and called her little brother pet names like shit-head and fuck-face. I was fascinated to hear a girl talk like that. One weekend, I found myself walking 2 ½ miles following the Southern Pacific railroad tracks to ‘visit her brother’ with my primary objective hearing her speak those ‘guy’ words. She didn’t disappoint…

The Ut-Oh, however, took place when I was in the fifth grade. Judy was a fourth grader with flaming red hair who had several boys in the fourth and fifth grade passionately pursuing her. The competition was fierce. Judy loved it. To encourage us, she cut off small locks of her hair and gave one to each of her admirers. I was surprised she had any hair left but I cherished my locket.

My main competitor for Judy was Eric. He was an up and coming fourth grader, small, but extremely athletic and an all-around nice kid. Judy let it be known that we were the chosen two. 

We had our showdown at a school movie that provided instructions on what to do when the Russians bombed us. We spent a lot of time in the 50s worrying about that. People began building bomb shelters in their backyards. The teachers would make us crawl under our desks to prepare for the explosion. We were taught to cover our faces with our arms so glass shattering in from the windows wouldn’t blind us. It is not surprising that the traumatized children of the 50’s grew up to be the anti-war advocates of the 60s and 70s. I stayed up one night to watch atomic bomb testing in the Nevada desert over 200 miles away. It lit up the whole Eastern sky and added a touch of reality to our hide-under-the-desk practice.

In the lineup for the movie, Eric aced me out and managed to get next to Judy. A half dozen other fourth graders played honor guard and I couldn’t even get close, but my luck didn’t abandon me altogether. I grabbed the seat immediately in back of her where I could at least monitor Eric’s behavior. The lights went down and the movie started. I strained to keep an eye on Eric. He reached over and grabbed Judy’s hand and she let him hold it. Damn! I could have killed him.

But then, unbelievably, Judy slipped her other hand between the chairs and grabbed my knee. My knee! It was raw sex. The ut-oh bulge in my pants proved it. 

Sports presented a totally different type of challenge. I am not a natural jock. It isn’t so much physical as mental. You have to care to be good at sports and I find other things more interesting. Part of this evolved from a lack of enthusiasm on the home front. There was little vicarious parental drive to see us excel on the playing field. 

Being as blind as a bat didn’t help much either. Like most young people in the 50s, I was not excited about wearing glasses. When Mrs. Wells, the school nurse, came to class with her eye charts, I would memorize the lines while she was setting up and then breeze through the test. As for class work, I would sit close to the black board and squint a lot. While I got away with this more or less in the classroom, it became a serious hazard on the Little League field.

I remember going out for the team. All of my friends played and social pressure suggested it was the thing to do. Nervously, I showed up on opening day and faced the usual chaos of parents signing up their stars, balls flying everywhere, coaches yelling, and kids running in a dozen different directions at once.

“Okay, Curtis,” the Coach instructed, “let’s see how you handle this fly.”

Crack! I heard him hit the ball. Fine, except where was it? The ball had disappeared. Conk. It magically reappeared out of nowhere, bounced off my glove and hit me on the head.

“What’s the matter? Can’t you see?” the Coach yelled helpfully. “Let’s try it again.” My Little League Career was short lived. I went back to carrying out my inventory of the number of skunks that lived in the Woods. This didn’t mean I was hopeless at sports. In the seventh grade I finally obtained glasses and discovered the miracle of vision: Trees had leaves, billboards were pushing drugs, and the kid waving at me from across the street was flipping me off. I could even see baseballs. It was time to become a sports hero.

It says something about your future in sports when your career peaks in the eighth grade. 

Thanks to Mrs. Young, I was slightly older than my classmate and, thanks to genetics plus an early growth spurt, slightly bigger. More importantly, I had mastered the art of leadership: Make noise, appear confident and charge the enemy. As a result I became quarterback and captain of the football team, center and captain of the basketball team and pitcher and captain of the softball team. I even went out for track and ran the 440, but they didn’t select me as captain. That honor went to a seventh grader. I was bummed.

UT-OH! Chapter 10: “Mom, the Mekemson Kids Did It.”

/ Curt Mekemson / 9 Comments
Do these kids, in any way, look like they would have a reputation as trouble makers? Marshall is on the left with Tickle. I’m on the right with one of Coaly’s offsprings. We are sitting on top of the shed our goats lived in. I was in charge of taking care of them. We also had rabbits and chickens. The Passerini’s home is behind us.

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 4th 5th and 6th 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

UT-OH Chapter 9: The Pond and the Woods… On Becoming Nature Boy Part 2— Plus More Photos from Costa Rica

/ Curt Mekemson / 16 Comments
I mentioned in my last post that there were no photos of the Pond or the Woods. They were victims of the endless march of ‘civilization.’ Fortunately, and I should add, so far, there are still wild places on earth. Costa Rica has many. Some, such as Monteverde, are attracting hordes of tourists. There’s good and bad news here. Among the good is that the tourists provide Costa Rica with a welcome source of income and the opportunity for the tourists to enjoy the beauty and wildlife of Costa Rica. The bad news is the incredible commercialization that goes along with it and the impact. It’s similar to when the large cruise ships drop thousands of people onto the small Greek Island of Santorini, or our most popular National Parks in America turn into traffic jams in the summer. But enough on that. The tree above was a new one to me, a fern tree. There are more photos below after my UT-OH chapter on the Woods.

Part 2: The Woods

The Woods, like the Pond, earned a capital letter. To get there I walked out the back door, down the alley past the Graveyard, and through a pasture Jimmy Pagonni rented for his cattle. Tackling the pasture involved crawling through a rusty barbed wire fence, avoiding fresh cow pies, climbing a hill, and jumping an irrigation ditch. The journey was fraught with danger. Hungry barbed wire consumed several of my shirts and occasionally went for my back. 

Torn clothing and bleeding scratches were a minor irritation in comparison to stepping in fresh cow poop, though. A thousand-pound, grass-eating machine produces acres of the stuff. Deep piles sneak up your foot and slosh over into your shoes. Toes hate this. Even more treacherous are the little piles that hide out in the grass. A well-placed patty can send you sliding faster than black ice. The real danger here is ending up with your butt in the pile. I did that, once. Happily, no one was around to witness my misfortune, or hear my language, except Tickle the Dog. I swore him to secrecy. He knew many of my secrets. It’s a damned good thing he couldn’t talk.

For all of its hazards, the total hike to the Woods took about 15 minutes. Digger pines with drunken windmill limbs guarded the borders while gnarly manzanita and spiked chaparral dared the casual visitor to venture off the trail. Poison oak proved more subtle but effective in discouraging exploration.

I could count on raucous California jays to announce my presence, especially if I was stalking a band of notorious outlaws. Ground squirrels were also quick to whistle their displeasure. Less talkative jackrabbits merely ambled off upon spotting me, put on a little speed for a hyper Cocker, and became bounding blurs in the presence of a hungry greyhound. Flickers, California quail and acorn woodpeckers held discussions in distinctive voices I soon learned to recognize.

From the beginning, I felt at home in the Woods, like I belonged. I quickly learned that its hidden recesses contained a multitude of secrets. I was eager to learn what they had to teach me, but the process seemed glacial. It required patience and I hardly knew how to spell the word. I did know how to sit quietly, however. This was a skill I had picked up from the hours I spent with my nose buried in books. The woodland creatures prefer their people noisy. A Curt stomping down the trail, snapping dead twigs, and talking to himself was easy to avoid, while a Curt being quiet might surprise them. 

One gray squirrel was particularly loud in his objections. He lived in the top branches of a digger pine beside the trail and maintained an observation post on an overhanging limb. When he heard me coming, he would adopt his ‘you can’t see me gray squirrel playing statue pose.’ But I knew where to look. I would find a comfortable seat and stare at him. It drove him crazy. Soon he would start to thump the limb madly with his foot and chirr loudly. He had pine nuts to gather, a stick home to remodel, and a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed lady to woo. I was blocking progress. Eventually, if I didn’t move, his irritation would bring him scrambling down the trunk for an up-close and personal scolding.

After about 10 minutes of continuous haranguing, he’d decide I was a harmless, if obnoxious aberration and go about his business. That’s when I begin to learn valuable secrets, like where he hid his pine nuts. It was also a sign for the rest of the wildlife to come out of hiding. A western fence lizard might work its way to the top of the dead log next to me and start doing push-ups. Why, I couldn’t imagine. Or perhaps a thrush would begin to scratch up the leaves under the manzanita in search of creepy tidbits. The first time I heard one, it sounded like a very large animal interested in little boy flesh. 

Occasionally there were special treats: A band of teenage gray squirrels playing tag and demonstrating their incredible acrobatics; a doe leading its shy, speckled fawn out to drink in the small stream that graced the Wood’s meadow; a coyote sneaking up on a ground squirrel hole with an intensity I could almost feel.

I also began to play at stalking animals. At some point in time between childhood and becoming a teenager, I read James Fennimore Cooper and began to think I was a reincarnation of Natty Bumppo. Looking back, I can’t say I was particularly skilled, but no one could have told me so at the time. At least I learned to avoid dry twigs, walk slowly, and stop frequently. 

Occasionally, I even managed to sneak up on some unsuspecting woodland creature. 

If the birds and the animals weren’t present, they left signs for me. There was always the helter-skelter pack rat nest to explore. Tickle liked to tear them apart, quickly sending twigs flying in all directions. There were also numerous tracks to figure out. Was it a dog or coyote that had stopped for a drink out of the stream the night before? Tickle knew instantly, but I had to piece it together. A sinuous trail left by a slithery serpent was guaranteed to catch my attention. This was rattlesnake country. Who’d been eating whom or what was another question? The dismantled pinecone was easy to figure out, but who considered the bark on a young white fir a delicacy? And what about the quail feathers scattered haphazardly beside the trail?

Scat, I learned, was the tracker’s word for shit. It offered a multitude of clues for what animals had been ambling down the trail and what they had been eating. There were deer droppings and rabbit droppings and mouse droppings descending in size. Coyotes left their distinctive dog-like scat but the presence of fur suggested that something other than dog food had been on the menu. Some scat was particularly fascinating, at least to me. Burped up owl pellets provided a treasure chest of bones— little feet, little legs and little skulls that grinned back with the vacant stare of slow mice.

While Tarzan hung out in the Graveyard and pirates infested the Pond, mountain men, cowboys, Indians, Robin Hood and various bad guys roamed the Woods. Each bush hid a potential enemy that I would indubitably vanquish. I had the fastest two fingers in the West and I could split a pine nut with an imaginary arrow at 50 yards.  I never lost. How could I? It was my fantasy. 

Daydreams were only a part of the picture. I fell in love with wandering in the Woods and playing on the Pond. There was an encyclopedia of knowledge available and a multitude of lessons about life. Learning wasn’t a conscious effort, however; it was more like absorption. The world shifted for me when I entered the Woods and time slowed down. A spider with an egg sack was worth five minutes, a gopher pushing dirt out of its hole, 20, and a deer with a fawn, a lifetime.

It isn’t surprising that I became known as Nature Boy by my classmates, given all the time I spent in the woods. I considered it a compliment. 

The hanging bridges of Monteverde gave us a unique opportunity to study both the canopy and the forest beneath. There were six bridges at Treetopia Park. At 774 feet, this was the longest. It was also more open. The canopy towered over most of the bridges.
One bridge provided us with an opportunity look down on a fern tree. The leaves were a definite clue that we were looking at a fern.
As did how the leaves unfold or unfurl known as Circinate vernation. This has always fascinated me about ferns. I have many photos of different species. But given that there are 10-12000 or more know species, I have a few to go…
Here’s a different species at Treetopia.
And another. Both tropical and temperate rainforests provide ideal conditions for ferns to grow.
Some can be giants. We spotted these down on the ground from the hanging bridge. I wish I had a person down on the ground to provide perspective. They would have made my 5 feet 11 inches appear small.

On Friday: Our total focus will be on Costa Rica.