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UT-OH! Chapter 22: The Pick-Ax Caper Where a Beaver Loses Its Head (sort of)

/ Curt Mekemson / 4 Comments

My college education consisted of two very different experiences. The first was at Sierra Community College, which had a student population of around 1600 students in 1961. The second was at UC Berkeley with a population of over 30,000 plus. I’m glad I went to Sierra first. Berkeley was complicated. It was easy for a country boy to get lost. 

I knew all of my professors at Sierra and a significant portion of the students. I even ended up as Student Body President my sophomore year. There were a variety of projects I undertook. The weirdest was responsibility for a pick-ax. Our cross-town rival was American River College in Sacramento. Like most such rivalries, ours was consummated in an annual football game. The winner received undying glory— and the coveted Pick-ax.

“Why a pick-ax?” I had asked. Who wouldn’t? I was told it was because of the area’s 49er heritage. Northern California is steeped in history of the 1849 Gold Rush. Picks, along with shovels and gold pans, were the go-to tools that miners wielded in their endless search for gold. The gold discovery site at Sutter’s Mill, Coloma was a mere 30 miles from campus.

The day before a football game with A.R., a bonfire rally was held on campus. A local lumber company in Auburn, Cal-Ida, provided the lumber and a truck to haul it. One of my jobs as president was to drive it. “You will have to post a guard at the bonfire site, Curt,” the Dean of the college told me. “American River might try to light the wood in advance of the rally.” The two women who appear to be beating back the crowd are actually cheerleaders setting the mood for the game. (Photo from the 1963 Annual of Sierra College.)
The 1962 Executive Council at Sierra College. I’m in the upper row second from left. (Photo from the 1963 Annual of Sierra College.)

We had won the previous year’s game so we had the Pick-ax. It was my sacred responsibility to carry it to the game. A special ceremony would be held during A.R.’s Homecoming Dance where we would formally give up or retain the Ax depending on who won. One more thing: In addition to possibly lighting our bonfire early, there was a good chance that A.R. would try to steal the Ax. It was a tradition between the two colleges: Whoever lost it tried to steal it back. My job was to protect it— with my life if necessary, I was informed.

I recruited a few guys to help with the protection detail including my friend Hunt Warner. He’s on the lower right. Hunt, with my encouragement, had run for and won the Freshman Class Presidency. These were his fellow officers. In the small world category, it was Hunt who had hosted the beer party the night I was called away to fight the forest fire. Brian Morris, sitting next to him, was stepson of Mike DeNatly, Placerville’s Chief of Police who had threatened me with arrest the day of my graduation from high school. (Photo from the 1963 Annual of Sierra College.)

To reduce the possibility of theft, we arrived a few minutes before the game was supposed to start, and moved watchfully along the walkway in front of the stands. I was surrounded by muscle power and carried the Ax firmly in my hands. About half way down walkway, my former girlfriend from high school, D, was sitting in the front row. After graduating from high school, she had come to Sierra, too, and was a freshman. 

“Hi, Curt,” she greeted me with a large smile. I swear she was purring. Instant regrets of lost opportunities and more than a little guilt played tag among my memory cells. “Can I see the Pick-ax?” she asked.

“No, sorry D,” I responded. “I am supposed to protect it with my life.”

“Oh come on,” she urged, “what possible harm can it do?”

I gave in. What harm could it do? UT-OH!

I must admit the theft was neatly planned. The guy sitting next to her grabbed the Pick-ax, leapt over the railing, and handed it off to another guy who was waiting. That guy dashed across the field with a burst of speed that almost guaranteed he was the anchor on A.R.’s championship relay team.

My security team jumped the rail in hot pursuit, but they didn’t stand a chance. They were recruited for their size, not speed. By the time they reached the opposite bleachers, the Pick-ax had disappeared into an ocean of A.R. supporters. A thousand voices roared approval. Pursuing the ax would have been suicidal.

Well, needless to say, I felt terrible. I had failed in my duty, been done in by a pretty smile.

At half time, the A.R. mascot, who happened to be a diminutive woman dressed up as a beaver, came prancing over to our side of the stands, taunting us with the fact A.R. had stolen the Ax. She strolled by and flipped me off with her tail.

“Grab the Beaver.” I ordered my muscle men in a moment of sheer inspiration. And they did— gently.

“Let go of me you son-of-a-bitching goons,” she screamed in un-lady like beaver prose. The air turned blue.

“Gnaw on it, Beaver,” I growled as I took hold of her papier-mâché head and lifted it off. The invective level increased tenfold. The little Beaverette had an incredible vocabulary.

“Quick,” I urged Hunt, “make this beaver head disappear for the time being.”

We lost the game, I am not sorry to say. Had we won, my losing the Pick-ax would have been a much more serious crime, punishable by banishment from Sierra. As it was, A.R. had simply obtained the Ax an hour early. And I had the beaver head— well hidden.

I made my way through the dispersing crowd to the dance. The floor was already packed with gyrating Beavers. The bandleader willingly turned over his microphone when I looked official and said that I had an important announcement to make.

“Hello everyone, my name is Curtis Mekemson and I am President of the Student Body of Sierra College,” I jumped in. There was immediate silence. “I came here to present you with your Ax but you already have it.” (Laughter) “But,” I went on with a pregnant pause, “I have your Beaver Head.” (More laughter)

The crowd was in a good mood. They had won the game and could afford to be generous to this enemy within their midst.

“Getting it was not easy. Do you have any idea of the extended vocabulary of your Beaverette?” (Extensive laughter) “I do, however, wish to apologize to her and note that the language was justified.  Having your head ripped off is never a pleasant experience. As for my defense, she flapped her tail at me one too many times. In wrapping this up, I have a proposition for you. Do you want your beaver head back?”

“YES!” was the resounding answer.

“Okay,” I replied. “If you will send an appropriate delegation up to Sierra next Wednesday at noon, I will personally return the head.”

That was that. Arrangements were made for A.R. to appear at the Sierra College Campus Center the following week. The day came and the Center was packed. I had turned the head over to our cafeteria staff for a special presentation.

The A.R. delegation showed up at noon on the dot. I welcomed them to our campus, complimented them on their victory and encouraged them to enjoy the Pick-ax for the short year they would have it. I also urged they keep it well guarded.

“And now,” I announced, “it is time to bring out the Beaver Head.”

Out from the cafeteria came a formal procession, complete with the campus cook and her assistants. The Beaver Head had been carefully arranged on a huge platter that included all of the trimmings for a feast. The piece-de-resistance was an apple carefully inserted into the Beaver’s mouth, like a roasted pig. Needless to say, a great time was had by all, including the A.R. delegation.

D’s revenge over my dropping her in high school, and my debacle with the Pick-ax had been turned into a minor victory, for both of us.

On Monday’s post we will continue to share stories from our visit to Costa Rica in March. The focus will be on our trip over to Fortuna at the base of Mt. Arenal, a now quiet volcano, and one of the main tourist attractions in the area. The Lava Lounge, on the right, however, is a good reminder that building your town on the edge of an active volcano is something akin to keeping a live rattlesnake for a pet.

UT-OH Chapter 20: Young Love, a Forest Fire, Evel Knievel and a World-Famous Rocket Scientist… Part 1

/ Curt Mekemson / 9 Comments
Living in the forests of the Western United States is subject to a constant threat of forest fires in the summer. This is a photo from our deck when we lived in Oregon. Fires raged throughout the area a number of times while we were there, and once we had to evacuate when the one came within a mile of our home. The forest fire I fought as an 18-year old near Georgetown, California would have looked much like this.

I was a senior before “love” hit me: That starry eyed, loop de loop feeling which has little to do with rational thought and one hell of a lot to do with hormones and ancient instincts that go all the way back to the beginning of life. It had all of the subtlety of a sledge hammer. Nature has a myriad of ways to assure we pass on our genes. A mere sniff works for some. For humans it’s more complicated. We are expected to hang out and help raise kids, a process that takes 18 years, or longer— at a minimum. That takes a lot of incentive.

Falling ‘head over heels in love,’ is just the beginning.

I met D in speech class. She was blond, bright, sexy and interested in me— an irresistible combination. Somehow, she ended up sitting in my lap as a joke when the teacher was a few minutes late. And bam! I was in love. We started dating and decided to ‘go steady.’ I even gave her my class ring. We became an item in the lingo of the day, a couple to be invited out together, a future with a question mark. We even had matching shirts, the ultimate in commitment.

But my question mark was bigger than D’s, or at least it came to fruition sooner. I was graduating from high school while she had another year. There was a big world waiting out there and I wasn’t ready to limit its horizons. So, with a degree of sadness, I ended the relationship. D was not happy. She had our future planned, even down to naming the babies. 

That summer, being a ‘free man,’ several young women attracted my attention, one was Kathy Truax. She had large brown eyes that consumed and a sharp mind that challenged. She seemed sophisticated, almost exotic to me, and came from a very different world. 

Her father, Robert Truax, was one of America’s premier, pioneer rocket engineers. He had kicked off his career prior to World War II when a childhood interest in Robert Goddard led him to build rockets at his home in Alameda, California. He had then gone on to work with the Navy on rocket development during World War II, and later helped build both the Thor and Polaris missiles. By 1959 he had left the military and was heading up Aerojet-General’s advanced rocket development division in Sacramento, California.

Kathy had transferred to El Dorado County High School as a senior when her dad had gone to work at Aerojet. She was on her way to Occidental College in Los Angeles in the fall and I was on my way to the local community college. They were a long way apart, and miles weren’t the only measure. Still, I thought a date would be fun.

The only drawback was I had to pick up the phone and call. There was a very real chance that Kathy would say no, and I am lousy at rejection. So I practiced something I am good at, procrastination. When I finally worked up the nerve to call, she picked up the phone on the first ring. “Oh, hi Curt,” she answered cheerfully. No, she wasn’t totally tied up in getting ready for Occidental and, yes, it would be fun to go out. So much for all of the time I’d spent anguishing. Our date would be a visit the California State Fair in Sacramento the following Saturday evening. I hung up with a loud ‘YES’ to myself.  The rest should be easy.

Except it wasn’t. When is it ever. Time slowed down to thwart me. Weeks later, Friday finally arrived. Fortunately, pear season was at its height, and I had a busy nine hours swamping out 50-pound boxes of pears from the orchard and bench pressing them onto a fruit truck. That night, my friend Hunt Warner was hosting a beer party that killed several more hours not to mention brain cells.  Midnight and Saturday were thirty minutes away when the phone rang.

“Hey Curt, it’s your mom,” Hunt announced over the din.

I had a sinking feeling that there was a family emergency.  And yes, it was, just not family.  The forest around Georgetown, a small community in the Sierra foothills, was burning down. The United States Forest Service had called seeking a few good men but was willing to accept anything that walked on two legs and could swing a mattock (a heavy tool with a pick on one side and a hoe on the other). 

I had signed up to fight fires at the beginning of summer and had gone through a one-day training, which apparently qualified me to go out and risk my life. It was one of those things you do on a lark and later wonder why. I was definitely at the wondering stage when my mother gave me the phone number I was supposed to call. Normally, my better judgment would have kicked in.  The date was looming, and a good party was roaring. But I was eighteen and had three (or more?) beers down my gullet. Fighting a fire seemed exciting. It was an adventure not to be missed, an Ut-Oh moment for sure… Stay tuned: Part II of today’s post will be next Wednesday.

Monday’s Travel Post: Scenes from Costa Rica.

Chapter 19: Graduate or Go to Jail. I Was Given a Choice.

/ Curt Mekemson / 10 Comments
The Main Street of Placerville looks pretty much the same today as it did in 1961. The Chief of Police pulled our car over on the right hand side of the street here. The incident took place near the red hotel building, a block or so down the road.

If I was going to base my future on my organizational skills, I had to practice, right? So, I organized a protest my senior year. As a 60’s issue, it wasn’t a biggie. The Administration had axed our Senior Ditch Day and we wanted it back. 

I drew up a petition and Patti Foley, who had great calligraphy, made it fancy. Almost all of the seniors signed.  (I still have it.)  A student strike was organized. I’m sure it was the first time El Dorado Union High School students had even considered such an action, Mabe even the last. Some of our rowdier students even lit trash cans on fire. 

It wasn’t the issue that got me threatened with jail, however. The school administration called me in and asked if we couldn’t work out some type of compromise on Senior Ditch Day, which I readily agreed to. The strike was called off, the rowdies stopped lighting trash cans on fire, and we switched our Ditch Day to one more agreeable to the Administration. Everyone won. My civics teacher was impressed. 

My problem with the law took place on Graduation Day when I inadvertently (or is that idiotically) crossed paths with Mike De Natly, the Placerville Chief of Police. Few of my UT-OH! moments can hold a candle to this one. As one might expect, our last day of high school was a goof off day. All the tests were over, yearbooks signed, and caps and gowns fitted. There really wasn’t much to do except revel in the fact that we were through and to say goodbye to friends. Lunchtime meant a final cruise of Placerville’s Main Street to check out girls, to see and be seen.

What happened was out of character for me. I normally keep my comments on other peoples’ driving habits to myself and car-mates. The horn is for really bad infractions, and, on very rare occasions, a single digit comment is appropriate. I would never stick my head out the window and yell at someone. That can get you shot.

But we were hot stuff on graduation day. When a blue car decided to stop in the middle of Placerville’s crowded, narrow downtown street right in front of us and forced us to hit our brakes, it irritated me. And then, the driver nonchalantly got out to have a conversation with the driver of the car in front of him. It pushed me over the edge. Out went my head as we edged around the two cars and I had an attack of uncontrollable Y chromosome aggression.

“You SOB,” I yelled, “get your F-ing car out of the way!”

So what if I didn’t recognize the Chief of Police out of uniform in an unmarked car. So what if he had stopped to offer help to a guy who had managed to stall his car on Placerville’s busy Main Street. So what if I had suggested he had canine parentage in a voice that half of Placerville heard. It was an innocent mistake.

“That was Mike De Natly you just cussed out,” our driver managed to stutter with mixed parts of fear and awe.

As a teenager, I had pulled some fairly dumb stunts. Teenagers have a responsibility to push the envelope. It’s the rather awkward method evolution has provided for growing up and developing unique personalities. Mistakes are bound to happen and that’s okay. But I was carrying my responsibility too far; I had gone beyond dumb and plunged into really stupid.

“Keep driving,” I uttered with all the hope of the irrevocably damned, “maybe he is too busy and will ignore us.”

Sure, like maybe the sun won’t rise tomorrow. The poor stalled guy could still be sitting in the middle of Placerville for all of the attention the police chief paid to him after my little admonition. De Natly jumped in his car, slapped his flashing light on his roof, hit his siren and sped after us. Not that he needed to speed fast or far. We were creeping up Main Street in sheer terror about one block away. I am sure my car-mates were wishing fervently that Curt Mekemson hadn’t gotten out of bed that morning, had never made their acquaintance, and was, at that very moment, facing a group of starving cannibals in some far-off jungle.

We pulled over with De Natly literally parked on our rear bumper and resigned ourselves to the firing squad. Luckily, for my friends, the Chief had no interest in them. He appeared at my window red-faced and shouting about five inches away. Under the best of circumstances, he was known for having a temper and these were not the best of circumstances.

“Get out of the car,” he yelled. “Get out right now!”

I moved fast. This was not the time for bravery and stubbornness. It was a time to be humble— it was groveling time. And I groveled with the best. I blathered out apologies and managed to work “sir” into every sentence, several times. I trotted out my friendship with his stepson, I threw in the City Treasurer who was a mentor, and I even brought in Father Baskin, the Episcopal minister, as a character reference.

“Get in my car,” he ordered. My groveling seemed to be having minimal impact. At least he hadn’t handcuffed me.

We drove up to City Hall, and I had visions of being booked and thrown into a cell with some big hulking giant who either didn’t like young men or liked them too much. I thought of having to call my parents and explain how their son had become a common criminal. But De Natly had an even more diabolical plan in mind. We slowly made a turn through the jail parking lot to give me a sense of my future fate and then, to my surprise, hopped on Highway 50 to Canal Street and drove up to the high school. 

I was going to have to explain my actions to the principal. My chances of graduating that night slipped down a notch. I doubted that he would have much of a sense of humor about one of his students cussing out the Chief of Police. But explaining my inexplicable actions to him would have been mercy in comparison to what happened.

It was a beautiful late spring day, this last day of school, and it seemed like half of the student body and a significant portion of teachers were enjoying their lunches on the expansive lawn in front of the school. De Natly pulled up to the sidewalk beside the lawn and ordered me out. The Chief of Police arriving with me in tow was enough to capture the attention of several students sitting close by. Then he made sure that everyone was aware of our presence.

“Do you want to spend the night in jail or graduate, Curtis?” he asked in a voice that was easily equivalent in volume to the one that I had used in suggesting he move his car. Conversation on the lawn came to a dead halt. Every ear in the place homed in on us with the intensity that a cat reserves for a potential mouse dinner. And I was the mouse. This was a Kodak moment, not to be missed. 

My answer was easy: Of course, I wanted to graduate, SIR. And so it went, De Natly barking questions with the voice of an army sergeant and me responding as the lowest of recruits. Finally, after a few minutes that felt like eternity, the Chief got in his car and drove away. 

I was left to deal with the not so gentle humor of the students and faculty plus a principal who wasn’t quite sure whether he should take over where De Natly left off or laugh at my predicament. At least he had the grace to wait until I left his office before he chose the latter. I could hear his laughter echoing down the empty hallways. And yes, I was allowed to graduate that night.

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

/ Curt Mekemson / 10 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 / 8 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.

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

/ Curt Mekemson / 19 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 / 28 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 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