The Pond: Where I Learned How to Amputate Legs…

May 3, 2021 / Curt Mekemson / 32 Comments

Here I am with Tickle and my mother, sitting on the edge of the Graveyard. Tickle was my constant companion when I wasn’t at school. In this story about the Pond, I learn to swim by copying his skill at dog paddling.

There came a time when the Graveyard no longer met my wandering needs. I started traveling farther and farther afield, 15 minutes at a time. That’s how far the Pond and the Woods were away. They were where I played and where I begin to learn about nature. As such, they earned a capital P and capital W— and are the subject of my next two Monday posts. First up is the Pond.

There were a number of ponds in the area. Oscar ‘Ot’ Jones had one on his ranch for cattle; Caldor had one where logs waited for their appointment with the buzz saw; Forni had one over the hill from his slaughterhouse, and Tony Pavy had one that was supposedly off-limits. But there was only one capital P Pond, the one next to the Community Hall. If I told Marshall, my parents or my friends I was going to the Pond, they knew immediately where I would be.

It was a magical place filled with catfish, mud turtles, bullfrogs and pirates. Although the Pond was small, it had a peninsula, island, deep channel, cattails and shallows. In spring, redwing blackbirds nested in the cattails and filled the air with melodic sound. Mallards took advantage of the island’s safety to set up housekeeping. Catfish used holes in the bank of the peninsula to deposit hundreds of eggs that eventually turned into large schools of small black torpedoes dashing about in frenetic unison. Momma bullfrogs laid eggs in strings that grew into chubby pollywogs. When they reached walnut size, tiny legs sprouted in one of nature’s miracles of transformation. Water snakes slithered though the water with the sole purpose of thinning out the burgeoning frog population and I quickly learned to recognize the piteous cry of a frog being consumed whole. Turtles liked to hang out in the shallows where any log or board provided a convenient sunning spot. They always slid off at our appearance but a few quiet minutes would find them surfacing to reclaim lost territory.

By mid-summer the Pond would start to evaporate. The shallow areas surrendered first, sopped up by the burning sun. Life became concentrated in a few square yards of thick, tepid water, only inches deep and supported by a foot of squishy mud. All too soon the Pond was bone-dry with mud cracked and curled. Turtles, snakes and frogs crawled, slithered and hopped away to other nearby water. Catfish dug their way into the mud and entered a deep sleep, waiting for the princely kiss of winter rains. Ducks flew away quacking loudly, leaving only silence behind. Fall and winter rains found the pond refilling and then brimming. Cloudy, gray, wind-swept days rippled the water and created a sense of melancholy that even an eight-year-old could feel.

But melancholy was a rare emotion for the Pond. To us, it was a playground with more options than an amusement park. A few railroad ties borrowed from Caldor and nailed together with varying sized boards made great rafts for exploring the furthest, most secret corners of the Pond. Imagination turned the rafts into ferocious pirate ships that ravaged and pillaged the far shores or primitive bumper cars guaranteed to dunk someone, usually me. In late spring, the Pond became a swimming hole, inviting us to test still cold waters. One spring, thin ice required a double and then triple-dare before we plunged in. It was a short swim. Swimsuits were always optional and rarely worn. I took my first swimming lessons there and mastered dog paddling with my Cocker Spaniel, Tickle, providing instructions. More sophisticated strokes would wait for more sophisticated lakes.

Frogs and catfish were for catching and adding to the family larder. During the day, a long pole with fishing line attached to a three-pronged hook and decorated with red cloth became irresistible bait for bullfrogs. At night, a flashlight and a spear-like gig provided an even more primitive means of earning dinner. The deep chug-a-rums so prominent from a distance became silent as we approached. Both patience and stealth were required. A splash signified failure as our quarry decided that sitting on the bottom of the Pond was preferable to joining us for dinner. Victory meant a gourmet treat, frog legs. Preparation involved amputating the frog’s hind legs at the hips and then pealing the skin off like tights. It was a lesson I learned early: if you catch it, you clean it. We were required to chop off the big feet as well. Mother didn’t like being reminded that a happy frog had been attached hours earlier. She also insisted on delayed gratification. Cooking the frog legs on the same day they were caught encouraged them to jump around in the frying pan. “Too creepy!” she declared.

Catching catfish required nerves of steel. We caught them by hand as they lurked with heads protruding from their holes in the banks. Nerves were required because the catfish had serious weapons, needle sharp fins tipped with stingers that packed a wallop. They had to be caught exactly right and held firmly, which was not easy when dealing with a slimy fish trying to avoid the frying pan. But their taste was out of this world and had the slightly exotic quality of something that ate anything that couldn’t eat them.

The Woods were an equally magical place to go, and they are the subject of of next Monday’s post.

Wednesday’s Blog-A-Book Post from The Bush Devil Ate Sam: I join the 1964 Free Speech Movement at Berkeley and cross the border between concern over what was happening on campus to actively promoting change through civil disobedience.

The Death-Defying Great Tree Race… Graveyard Tales

April 26, 2021April 25, 2021 / Curt Mekemson / 31 Comments

Incense Cedar tree in Diamond Springs California graveyard — Now looking old and spooky, this is a photo of the 75 foot tall incense cedar in the Graveyard that I first climbed in the early 1950s. Pop built us a tree house on the lower limbs. It has been long since removed.

Two incense cedars dominated the Graveyard that was out our backdoor in Diamond Springs. From an under five-foot perspective, they were gigantic, stretching some 75 feet skyward. The limbs of the largest tree started 20 feet up and provided scant hope for climbing. As usual, Marshall found a risky way around the problem.

Several of the huge limbs came tantalizingly close to the ground at their tips and one could be reached by standing on a convenient tombstone. But only Marshall could reach it; I was frustratingly short by several inches. Marsh would make a leap, grab the limb, and shimmy up it hanging butt down until the limb became large enough for him to work his way around to the top. Then he would crawl up to the tree trunk, four to five Curtis lengths off the ground. After that, he would climb to wonderfully mysterious heights I could only dream about.

Eventually I grew tall enough to make my first triumphant journey up the limb. Then, very carefully, I climbed to the heart-stopping top, limb by limb. All of Diamond spread out before me. I could see our school, and the mill where my father worked, and the woods, and the hill with a Cross where I had shivered my way through an Easter Sunrise Service. I could see the whole world. Except for a slight wind that made the tree top sway and stirred my imagination about the far away ground, I figured I was as close to Heaven as I would ever get.

I could see the whole world. All of Diamond spread out before me. A few years after my first ascent up the tree, I borrowed my father’s camera and climbed up the tree and took photographs of the surrounding country. I think this might have been the first photo I ever took.

By the time I finally made it to the top, Marshall had more grandiose plans for the tree. We would build a tree house on the upper branches. Off we went to Caldor, the lumber mill where my dad worked as an electrician, to liberate some two by fours. Then we raided Pop’s tool shed for a hammer, nails, and rope. My job was to be the ground man while Marshall climbed up close to the top. He would then lower the rope and I would tie on a board that he would hoist up and nail in. It was a good plan, or so we thought.

Along about the third board, Pop showed up. It wasn’t so much that we wanted to build a tree fort in the Graveyard that bothered him, or even that we had borrowed his tools and nails without asking. He even seemed to ignore the liberated lumber. His concern was that we were building our fort 60-feet up in the air on thin limbs that would easily break with nails that barely reached through the boards. After he graphically described the potential results, even Marshall had second thoughts. Pop had a solution though. He would build us a proper tree house on the massive limbs that were only 20 feet off the ground. He would also add a ladder so we could avoid our tombstone-shimmy-up-the-limb route.

And he did. It was a magnificent open tree house of Swiss Family Robinson proportions that easily accommodated our buddies and us with room to spare. It was more like a pirate hideout than a Robinson family home, however. Hidden in the tree and hidden in the middle of the Graveyard, it became our special retreat where we could escape everything except the call to dinner. It also became my center for daydreaming and Marshall’s center for planning mischief. He, along with our friends Allen and Lee, would scope out our forays into Diamond and the surrounding country-side.

A view of the tree today taken from near the house where we lived. Now, imagine 8-10 year old boys racing up and down this tree as fast as they could go.

And finally, the treehouse became the starting point for the Great Tree Race. We would scramble to the top and back down in one-on-one competition as quickly as we could. Death-defying is an appropriate description. Slips were a common hazard. Unfortunately, the other boys always beat me; they were two to three years older and I was the one most susceptible to losing my grip. My steady diet of Tarzan comic books sustained me though, and I refused to give up. Eventually, several years later, I would triumph.

Marshall was taking a teenage time-out with Mother’s parents who had moved to Watsonville, down on the Central Coast of California. Each day I went to the Graveyard and took several practice-runs up the tree. I became half monkey. Each limb was memorized and an optimum route chosen. Tree climbing muscles bulged; my grip became iron and my nerves steel. Finally, the big day arrived and Marshall came home. He was every bit the big brother who had been away at high school while little brother stayed at home and finished the eighth grade. He talked of cars and girls and wild parties and of his friend Dwight who could knock people out with one punch. I casually mentioned the possibility of a race to the top of the tree. What a set up. As a two pack-a-day, sixteen-year-old, cigarette smoker he wasn’t into tree climbing, but how could he resist a challenge from his little brother.

Off we went. Marsh didn’t stand a chance. It was payback time for years of big brother hassles. I flew up and down the tree. I hardly touched the limbs. Slip? So what, I would catch the next limb. Marsh was about half way up the tree when I passed him on my way down. I showed no mercy and greeted him with a grin when he arrived, huffing and puffing, at the tree house. His sense of humor was minimal. Back on the ground, his bruised ego demanded that he challenge me to a wrestling match and I quickly pinned him to the ground. It was the end of the Great Tree Race, the end of big brother dominance, and a fitting end to my years of associating with dead people.

Next Monday, I leave the Graveyard and head out to explore the Pond and the Woods. Both were magical places that deserved their capital letters and added to my love of nature.

Wednesday’s Blog-A-Book from my Peace Corp Memoir: In the fall of 1964, I return to UC Berkeley and find the campus on the edge of revolution.

On a Pitch-Black Night, Something Stalked Us in the Graveyard…

March 15, 2021March 14, 2021 / Curt Mekemson / 36 Comments

A bit older than five, I find that the Graveyard next to where I was raised no longer holds the terror it did for me as a child. Plus they have cut down all of the heavenly trees and ripped out the myrtle. It is no longer a jungle playground for local kids. What’s the fun in that?

My first ‘wilderness’ was the Graveyard. It was out the backdoor and across the alley. We lived with its ghostly white reminders of our mortality day and night. Ancient tombstones with fading epitaphs whispered of those who had come to seek their fortune in California’s Gold Rush and stayed for eternity. Time had given their resting place a sense of permanence and even peace. But not all of the graves were old. Occasionally a fresh body was planted on the opposite side of the cemetery. I stayed far away; the newly dead are restless.

At some time in the past, heavenly trees, an import from China, had been planted to shade aging bones. They behaved like weeds. Chop them down and they sprang back up, twice as thick. Since clearing the trees provided Diamond Springs Boy Scout Troop 95 with a community project every few years, the trees retaliated by forming a visually impenetrable mass of green in summer and an army of sticks in winter. Trailing Myrtle, a cover plant with Jurassic aspirations, hid the ground in deep, leafy foliage.

The thick growing heavenly trees and trailing myrtle gave the Graveyard the appearance of a jungle when I was growing up. Compare this with the photo above!

During the day, it took little imagination to change this lush growth into a jungle playground populated with ferocious tigers, bone crushing boas, and half-starved cannibals. My brother Marshall and I considered the Graveyard an extension of our backyard. Since it was within easy calling distance of the house, our parents had a similar perspective. Either that or they were glad to get rid of us. The skinny heavenly trees made great spears for fending off the beasts, or throwing at each other. At least they did until we put one through a playmate’s hand. Neither he nor his parents were happy. Spear throwing was crossed off our play schedule. We turned to hurling black walnuts at each other instead. They grew in abundance on the trees in our front yard. Plus, we could toss them at passing cars on Highway 49. Screeching brakes and one really pissed-off guy brought that activity to a halt.

Night was different in the Graveyard— it became a place of mystery and danger. Dead people abandoned their underground chambers and slithered up through the ground. A local test of boyhood bravery was to go into the Graveyard after dark and walk over myrtle-hidden graves, taunting the inhabitants. Slight depressions announced where they lived. Marshall persuaded me to accompany him there on a moonless night. I entered with foreboding: fearing the dark, fearing the tombstones and fearing the ghosts. Halfway through I heard a muzzled sound. Someone, or thing, was stalking us.

“Hey Marsh, what was that?” I whispered urgently.

“Your imagination, Curt,” was the disdainful reply.

Crunch! Something was behind a tombstone and it was not my imagination. Marshall heard it too. We went crashing out of the Graveyard with the creature of the night in swift pursuit, wagging her tail.

“I knew it was the dog all of the time,” Marsh claimed. Yeah, sure you did.

By the time I was five, I had made my first tentative trips into the Graveyard. One of my early memories was spying on Mr. Fitzgerald, a neighbor who lived across the alley. He’s dead now— and has been for decades— but at the time he was a bent old man who liked to putter around outside. A black locust tree perched on the edge of the Graveyard provided an excellent lookout to watch him while he worked. One particular incident stands out in my mind. I had climbed into the tree and was staring down into his yard. It was a fall day. Dark clouds heavy with rain were marching in from the Pacific while distant thunder announced their approach. A stiff, cool breeze had sent yellow leaves dancing across the ground.

Mr. Fitzgerald wore a heavy coat to fight off the chill. I watched him shuffle around in his backyard as he sharpened his axe on a foot operated grinding wheel and then chopped kindling on an oak stump. When he had painfully bent down to pick up the pieces and carry them into his woodshed, I had scrambled down from the tree so I could continue to spy on him though a knothole. I must have made some noise, or maybe I blocked the sunlight from streaming into the shed. He stopped stacking wood and stared intently at where I was, as though he could see through the weathered boards. It frightened me.

I took off like a spooked rabbit and disappeared into the safety of our house. Mr. Fitzgerald was intriguing, but his age and frailty spoke of death— and the dead people who lived in the Graveyard.

I will continue my tales of the Graveyard next Monday and relate how I moved outside to sleep under the stars in the summer. Unfortunately, the ghost continued to hassle me and I was forced to hire the family pets for protection.

Blog-a-Book Wednesday…”The Bush Devil Ate Sam”: I complete my story on the laundry takeover at South Lake Tahoe where I was held at gunpoint. I drive my 54 Chevy toward the man holding a rifle who is standing in front of the car. Will he shoot me or get out of the way? That’s the question.

Travel Blog Friday... I return to my series on Oregon’s Harris Beach State Park where Peggy and I continue our exploration of tide pools.

A Close-Encounter with a Train… Plus

February 22, 2021February 22, 2021 / Curt Mekemson / 22 Comments

In my last post from”It’s 4 AM and a Bear Is Standing on Me,” I received a one year reprieve from attending the first grade under Mrs. Young’s ever watchful eye. In this post, my unending vacation ends. I trudge off to school, get spanked, make new friends and have a close encounter with a train.

Caldor Lumber Company was one of two major places of employment in Diamond Springs. My dad worked as an electrician for the company. Logs were brought into Caldor by train on a narrow gauge railway up into the early 50s.

I turned six on March 3, 1949. My endless vacation came to an end that fall. It was time for the first grade. Mother was delighted. Mrs. Young— not so much. A number of the little boxes on my report card that reflected good behavior were marked ‘needs improvement.’ Mrs. Young had decided I needed a lot. Is neat— needs improvement; Shares— needs improvement; Is Polite— needs improvement. The list went on…

I even got spanked. “Reading and writing and ‘rithmetic taught to the tune of a hickory stick” the old song School Days proclaimed. My classmate Joe and I had disagreed over who was top dog. We fought it out on the playground. I thought I was doing Mrs. Young a favor by clarifying the issue. Joe was even more uncivilized than I. She thought otherwise. The only justice I could see was that Joe got it in the end as well, so to speak.

First Grade was not the highlight of my school years, to say the least. Things had to get better and did. My second-grade teacher turned out to be my God-mother. There was a commandment issued on a mountain and written in stone: She had to like me. But back to first grade.

The high point of my year was that I made my first two friends who weren’t family or buddies of my older brother. Rudy and Robert were a pair of Hispanic brothers who lived in a small house out in east Diamond. We had hit it off immediately and on a Saturday toward the end of school, the boys and their parents invited me up to their house to spend the night. It was my first official play date and my first ever sleep-over. I was nervous. My mother took me up and dropped me off to a royal greeting by the boys, their parents and their siblings.

“Quick,” the boys urged, “we have to go stand by the railroad tracks.” We could hear the train’s whistle as it approached Diamond.

The tracks were part of a narrow-gauge railway Caldor Lumber Company used to bring logs from its tree-cutting operation 20 miles up in the El Dorado National Forest to its lumber mill in Diamond Springs. The company had been established in the early 1900s and, at first, used mules for hauling the logs. It had then switched to oxen followed by a giant steam tractor. The tractor made so much noise that the company was required to use outriders a quarter of a mile in front to warn people so their horses wouldn’t be spooked.

Understandably, the company switched to the narrow-gauge railway. It, in turn, would lose out to logging trucks in the 50s. But for the time being, little kids still had the joy of watching the massive engines and their long line of rail cars carrying large logs out of the forest.

My father had a close connection with the railway. The train engines had recently been converted to diesel from steam and he had overseen the project as one of Caldor’s two electricians. He was also responsible for maintaining phone service between the lumber camp and the mill. When there was a problem, off he went to check out the 20 miles of line. A hand cranked generator was necessary for creating the electricity to make calls. We inherited one when the line was updated. Marsh and I would invite our little friends over, crank up the machine, and have them touch the outlet. It was shocking.

Pop’s favorite railway task was clearing snow off the tracks each summer when the logging camp opened up for the season. “We had a diesel-powered rail car with a snow plow on it,” he explained to me later. “We’d back up and take a run at snow banks, crashing into them, and hopefully breaking through. Often our car would jump the tracks. We’d all pile out and lift it back on.” Some fun; he loved it.

While watching the train was high entertainment, the primary attraction for us was that the engineers carried an ample supply of hard candy that they would throw out to the boys and girls standing along the track. It was almost a tradition.

The train was near; we could hear it chugging along. Rudy, Robert, their brother, sisters and I sprinted the hundred or so yards over to the tracks. I laid down and put my ear one of the rails. It was a trick I had learned from the Lone Ranger and his side-kick, Tonto. You can actually hear the vibrations and supposedly judge how far away the train is. I needn’t have bothered since the train came into view when my head was still on the track. I’m sure the engineers saw me. “Get off the track!” Rudy and Robert screamed. We started waving vigorously. One of the engineers dutifully leaned out of the cab and tossed us candy, lots of it. We scrambled around picking it up and shoving it in our pockets, at least the ones that weren’t shoved into out mouths…

Next Monday I’ll continue this adventure as I teach the boys how to ‘ride’ pine trees and they teach me how to eat Habanero peppers. I find myself sharing the bed, a first for me. I don’t move. I don’t sleep. At 5 AM I hit the road on my first solo hike ever.

Blog-A-Book Wednesday… “The Bush Devil Ate Sam” : I get a job driving a laundry truck between Placerville and Lake Tahoe. And then end up working for a laundry at the Lake. The upside is I pay for my college education, enjoy beautiful scenery, and get to meet stars. The down side is that I end up on the wrong end of rifle.

Friday’s Travel Blog: It’s all about star fish. Did you know they can send their stomach out of their mouths to eat?

Born to Wander: Part 1… The Bush Devil Ate Sam

February 3, 2021February 2, 2021 / Curt Mekemson / 20 Comments

Here I am in our backyard with the family pets. The overgrown graveyard next door and the alley that led off to the woods spelled adventure for me. While the cats stayed home, I could always depend upon a dog or two along for company.

August 1965. Tears tracked across Jo Ann’s cheeks. We had just left her parents in San Francisco and boarded a United Airlines jet bound for New York City. We were leaving family, friends and life in the US behind. I was sympathetic with Jo but my mind was elsewhere. While she was grieving over what we had left behind, I was celebrating where we were going. Mysterious Africa, teaching, and adventure beckoned.

Except for the time when I was 15 and surrendered five hard-earned, pear picking dollars for a helicopter ride at the El Dorado County Fair, it was my first flight ever. How could I not be excited? The jet taxied out on to the runway, climbed above the Bay, and banked toward the east. For seven hours, we would be winging across America and gazing down on cotton clouds, mountain ranges, deserts, rivers, cities, towns, farms and forests.

We waved goodbye to California as the plane flew over the Sierra-Nevada Mountains. The towering granite of the Crystal Range and Pyramid Peak gave way to the deep blue of Lake Tahoe. My mind turned to how the two of us, both from small Northern California towns, had ended up as Peace Corps Volunteers on our way to the remote jungles of West Africa. Certainly, the two years we had just spent at UC Berkeley were a factor. Our time at Sierra College near Sacramento had also played an important role, but my reasons went back farther, back to my very beginning.

Family legend is that I was conceived during a moment of weakness when my mother had the flu. For the record, I delivered my first squawk of protest on March 3, 1943 in Ashland, Oregon. At the time, according to Life Magazine, American and Australian forces were duking it out with the Japanese at the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, bow ties were the hot new fashion with American women, and Westinghouse engineers were firing dead chickens 200 miles per hour at airplane windows. They went splat. Success meant the windows didn’t crack.

I grew up in the small town of Diamond Springs, California about 35 miles east of Sacramento. Sleepy is too lively a word for describing the community during the 1940s and 50s. In Old West terminology, Diamond Springs was a one and one half horse town. There was one church, one barbershop, one hardware store, and one grammar school. On the two-horse side of the equation, there were two grocery stores, two gas stations, two restaurants, two bars, two graveyards and two major places of employment: The Diamond Lime Company and Caldor, the lumber company where my father worked as an electrician.

The town hadn’t always been quiet. Located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, Diamond Springs was once a major gathering spot for the Maidu Indians, and later became a bustling Gold Rush town. To the Maidu it was Mo-lok’epakan, or, Morning Star’s Spring and a very holy place. The Indians came from miles around bearing their dead on litters to cremate on pyres. The smoke and spirits were sent wafting through the air to wherever deceased Maidu went. They had lived in the area for a thousand years.

In 1848, John Marshall found some shiny yellow baubles in the American River at Sutter’s Mill, 13 miles away. The world of the Maidu and Morning Star’s Spring was about to be shattered. “Gold!” went out the cry to Sacramento, across the nation and around the world. Instant wealth was to be had in California and the 49ers were on their way. They came by boat, wagon, horse and foot— whatever it took. And they came in the thousands from Maine to Georgia, Yankee and Southerner alike. They left behind their wives, children, mothers, fathers, and half-plowed fields. The chance of ‘striking it rich’ was a siren call not to be denied.

Seemingly overnight the once quiet foothills were alive with the sound of the miners’ picks and shovels punctuated by the occasional gunshot. Boomtowns sprouted wherever gold was to be found. In 1850, a party of 200 Missourians stopped off at Morning Stars Spring and decided to stay. Timber was plentiful, the grazing good, and a 25-pound nugget of gold was found nearby. Soon there were numerous hotels, stables, a school, churches, doctors, a newspaper, lawyers, vineyards, a blacksmith, some 8000 miners and, undoubtedly, several unrecorded whore houses. Morning Stars Spring took on a new name, Diamond Springs. The Wells Fargo Stage Company opened an office and the Pony Express made it a stop on its two-year ride to glory.

By the time the Mekemsons arrived at the end of World War II, Diamond Spring’s glory years were over. The gold had long since been mined out, the town had burned down three times, and the population had dropped to somewhere around 700. And, as far as I know, there weren’t any whore houses. In this pre-TV, pre-digital era, our entertainment depended on our imaginations. For me, this meant disappearing into the woods as soon as I could escape the not too watchful eyes of my parents. While other boys lined up for Little League batting practice, I was out doing an inventory of the local skunk, coyote and deer population.

I was born to wander, I’m convinced of this…

Why? Check this space next Wednesday.

Travel Blog Friday: Lyman Lake State Park along Highway 191 in Arizona… The backroad series.

The Great Tree Race… Blogging My Book on “MisAdventures”

January 26, 2018January 26, 2018 / Curt Mekemson / 22 Comments

Incense cedar tree in Diamond Springs graveyard

A view of the tall incense cedar in the Graveyard today.

Two incense cedars dominated the Graveyard. From an under five-foot perspective, they were gigantic, stretching some 75-feet skyward. The limbs of the largest tree started 20 feet up and provided scant hope for climbing. As usual, my brother Marshall found a risky way around the problem.

Several of the lower limbs came tantalizingly close to the ground at their tips. One could be reached by standing on a convenient flat tombstone. But only Marshall could reach it; I was frustratingly short by several inches. Marsh would make a leap, grasp the limb and shimmy up it hanging butt down until it became large enough for him to work his way around to the top. Then he would crawl up to the tree trunk, five Curtis lengths off the ground. After that, he would climb to wonderfully mysterious heights I could only dream about.

Eventually I grew tall enough to make my first triumphant journey up the limb. Then, very carefully, I climbed to the heart-stopping top, limb by limb. All of Diamond Springs spread out before me. I could see our school, and Caldor (the lumber mill where my father worked), and the woods, and the hill with a Cross where I had shivered my way through an Easter Sunrise Service. I could see my whole world. Except for a slight wind that made the tree top sway and stirred my imagination about the far away ground, I figured I was as close to Heaven as I would ever get.

View of Caldor Lumber company circa 1958

The view from the top of the incense cedar tree in the Graveyard looking toward Caldor Lumber Company circa 1958. The mill had already closed down by this time.

By the time I finally made it to the top, Marshall had more grandiose plans for the tree. We would build a tree house in the upper branches. Off we went to Caldor to liberate some two by fours. Then we raided Pop’s tool shed for a hammer, nails, and rope. My job was to be the ground man while Marshall climbed up to the top. He would then lower the rope and I would tie on a board that he would hoist up and nail in. It was a good plan, or so we thought.

Along about the third board, Pop showed up. It wasn’t so much that we wanted to build a tree fort in the Graveyard that bothered him, or that we had borrowed his tools without asking. He even seemed to ignore the liberated lumber. His concern was that we were building our fort too close to the top of the tree on thin limbs that would easily break with nails that barely reached through the boards. After he graphically described the potential results, even Marshall had second thoughts. Pop had a solution though. He would build us a proper tree house on the large limbs that were only 20 feet off the ground. He would also add a ladder so we could avoid our tombstone-shimmy-up-the-limb route.

And he did. It was a magnificent open tree house of Swiss Family Robinson proportions that easily accommodated our buddies and us with room to spare. Hidden in the tree and hidden in the middle of the Graveyard, it became our special hangout where we could escape everything except the call to dinner. It became my center for daydreaming and Marshall’s center for mischief planning. He, along with our friends Allen and Lee, would plan our forays into Diamond designed to terrorize the local populace.

Cedar tree in Great Tree Race, Diamond Springs, CA

Looking up from the base of the tree today. The aging fellow is 65 years older from the days when I mastered climbing it. Pop’s tree house was built on the lower left limbs.

It also became the starting point for the Great Tree Race. We would scramble to the top and back down in one on one competition as quickly as we could. Slips were a common hazard. Unfortunately, the other boys always beat me; they were two to three years older and I was the one most susceptible to slipping. My steady diet of Tarzan comic books sustained me though and I refused to give up. Eventually, several years later, I would triumph.

Marshall was taking a teenage time-out with Mother’s parents who had moved to Watsonville, down on the Central Coast of California. Each day I went to the Graveyard and took several practice-runs up the tree. I became half monkey. Each limb was memorized and an optimum route chosen. Tree climbing muscles bulged; my grip became iron and my nerves steel. Finally, the big day arrived and Marshall came home. He was every bit the big brother who had had been away at high school while little brother stayed at home and finished grade school. He talked of cars and girls and wild parties and of his friend Dwight who could knock people out with one punch. I casually mentioned the possibility of a race to the top of the Tree. What a set up. Two pack-a-day, sixteen-year old, cigarette smokers aren’t into tree climbing, but how can you resist a challenge from your little brother.

Off we went. Marsh didn’t stand a chance. It was payback time for years of big brother hassles. I flew up and down the tree. I hardly touched the limbs. Slip? So what, I would catch the next limb. Marsh was about half way up the tree when I passed him on my way down. I showed no mercy and greeted him with a grin when he arrived, huffing and puffing, back at the tree house. His sense of humor was minimal. He challenged me to a wrestling match and I pinned him to the ground. It was the end of the Great Tree Race, the end of big brother domination, and a fitting end to my years of associating with dead people.

This spike is all that remains of our treehouse dreams. As I recall, Marshall drove it into the tree with thoughts of several more to provide a way up the tree.

Cut down incense cedar tree in Diamond Springs graveyard

The jungle of Heavenly Trees that once covered the Graveyard has long since been tamed. Imagine my dismay during my last visit to Diamond Springs when I found that the cedar tree’s twin in the Graveyard had been cut down. Could our tree be far behind?

MONDAY’S Travel Blog POST: A continuation of the trip through the Grand Canyon. How did we end up there? It’s an interesting tale.

WEDNESDAY’S Photo Essay POST: We’ll visit the ancient city of Pompeii in Italy that was buried by Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE.

FRIDAY’S Blog-a-Book POST: There’s some catching up on the education front. I’m allowed back in school and try to take over the first grade.

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A 10,000 Mile Bike Trek Begins with the First Pedal… Maybe

April 14, 2016April 14, 2016 / Curt Mekemson / 33 Comments

This would have been my first official stop sign on my bike trek. My first grade teacher, Mrs. Young, had lived across the road. She kicked me out for a year when she learned my mother had forged my birth certificate to get me out of the house.

The first official stop sign on my bike trek. My first grade teacher, Mrs. Young, had lived across the road. She kicked me out for the year when she figured out my mother had forged my birth certificate. The cut off for first grade had been March 1st. I was born on the 3rd. It was a poor forgery. I was happy to return home. My mother, not so much.

“So, you are going out beyond the clouds this morning.” –Pop

I had planned to leave on my birthday, March 3. I liked the symbolism. But it was raining, and I had a few things left to do— like buy my bike. It wasn’t a big thing; I had owned several over the years. My first had been a one speed bike with coaster brakes and handle bars that would have made a laidback Hell’s Angel jealous. It was well-used. Some kid would have been proud to call it new back before World War II. My parents paid five bucks for it. The bike provided me with the freedom to zip around my home town and the surrounding countryside for several years until impending teenagehood suggested it wasn’t cool.

My Trek 520 cost a lot more. It was designed for touring. According to the company: “If you’re a committed touring cyclist looking for the utmost in comfort and durability to carry you to familiar destinations and unexplored vistas, 520 is your ride.” The ad went on to claim that the bike was “ultra-stable even when fully loaded.” Well, I was definitely headed for ‘unexplored vistas’ and ‘fully loaded’ for my trip meant close to 60 pounds of bike gear, camping equipment and books— plus Curt. It was a lot to ask of a bike.

A funny aside on Trek Bikes. The company once threatened to sue the American Lung Association for using the name “Bike Treks,” which was silly, to say the least. When I pointed out that I had trademarked the name two years before the company was created as The Sierra Trek, it became a question of who should be suing whom. The issue was quickly and quietly dropped.

I decided to begin and end my trip in Diamond Springs where I was raised, a small community 30 miles east of Sacramento on Highway 49. Here’s the opening paragraph in my bike journal:

3/10/89

The journey starts today, where so much of who I am started. That’s why I am here. That, and because my father is here and I wanted to spend some time with him.

As I wrote, Pop was out in the kitchen of his trailer meticulously preparing eggs and grumping because he hadn’t prepared everything the night before. At 84, he liked to have things just right. In fact, he had always wanted things to be done just right, maddenly so. Maybe it had come from his training as an electrician where he had once done something wrong and come in contact with a live, 11,000-volt high power line. Those type of lessons stick with you.

Pop in his 80s

I’d been visiting and sleeping on his couch for the past three days. It had been a good visit, as we relived his youth, and mine. He’d been born back at the end of the horse and buggy age and the beginning of the horseless carriage era. He’d seen a lot, but his favorite times were still when he was growing up in Iowa. I had heard the story many, many times. It was a well warn groove in his brain, to be remembered when everything else was forgotten. He was functioning well for his age, however, even though he had suffered a minor stroke. I treasured our time together.

Finally, after breakfast, I loaded my four panniers and a day pack I would be carrying. Pop came out to wish me a safe journey and take photos. He always carried a camera and was quite disgusted I didn’t. It was one of three complaints I heard regularly. The other two were that I wasn’t happily married and making little Mekemsons (lots of them), and that I had strayed from my Christian upbringing. Of the three, I am still convinced that he believed not taking photos was my greatest sin.

A solid hug sent me coasting down the hill from his trailer in the Diamond Manor Mobile Home Park, a bit teary eyed. I couldn’t be sure he would be around when I returned. My first pedal rotation at the bottom of the hill stopped halfway. “Damn,” I thought, climbing off my bike and almost falling over. I was ever so glad that no one had been present to watch. The problem was immediately apparent. I’d put my panniers on backwards, not a great start. I righted the wrong and began again— the first pedal of 10,000 miles.

Thomas Wolfe said, “You can’t go home again.” He was right, of course. The 46-year old Curtis of 1989 was a world apart from the 6-year old Curtis of 1949. And both were different from the Curtis of today. And yet you never totally escape from the home of your youth, and in ways, it always remains your ‘home.’ My first short day of bicycling was packed with memories. I’ll let photos tell the story. Pop would be tickled that Peggy and I are redriving the route— and even more pleased that we are carrying cameras.

I am rather amazed that the house I was raised in still stands, given that it's parts had been prebuilt foe a World War II army barracks. My room was on the far left.

I am rather amazed that the house I was raised in still stands, given that it was an early version of a manufactured home, prebuilt for a World War II army barracks. My room was on the far left.

Every few feet of bicycling brought back a memory. This sunken ground was once a cave that included the crystal clear springs that gave Diamond its name.

Every few feet of bicycling brought back a memory. This sunken ground off of Main Street was a cave when I grew up. It included the crystal clear spring that gave Diamond its name. It had once provided water for Native Americans and later was a watering hole for 49ers passing through town. When a group of miners found a 25 pound gold nugget nearby, they decided to hang around and the town was founded.

Now it hosted a Tea Party sign. Thinking Tea party led me to think of Alice in Wonderland and I wondered if that was where the name had come from. The Mad Hatter tea party seemed to fit a lot of politics.

Now it hosted a Tea Party sign. Thinking tea party led me to wonder if the Boston Tea Party or the Mad Hatters Tea Party in Alice and Wonderland provided the inspiration for the name. A crazy hatter who had inhaled too many mercury fumes and a March Hare who ineffectively threw tea cups willy-nilly at anyone and everyone seems to be a great model for much of today’s politics.

As I made my way down main street, I came to this barber shop. I’d had my hair cut there in the 40s and 50s! Even further back in time, it had served as a one room school house.

The old Diamond Hotel is just across the road from the barber shop. It still serves good food. Now days, like many old establishments along historic Highway 49, it claims to be haunted. Ghosts are good for business.

The old Diamond Hotel is just across the road from the barber shop. It had served good food when I was growing up and still does. Now days, like many old establishments along historic Highway 49, it claims to be haunted. Ghosts are good for business.

The Graveyard: I could write a book about it. It was just across the alley outside our back yard and dominated many of my early memories. In the day time it was an elaborate play pen. At night it became the dreaded home of dead people and ghosts.

Heavenly trees on the edge of a graveyard in Diamond Springs, CA

It was a wild place covered with Heavenly Trees like these that served to hide the tombstones when we were young. They still lurk on the edge of the Graveyard, waiting to reclaim it. I prefer the wild look to the manicured look.

This old Incense Cedar dominated the Graveyard. It was probably planted in the 1850s. it’s lower limbs held a tree fort that Pop had built for my brother and me. He built it when he caught us trying to build a fort 60 feet up in the tree. Our big sport was racing each other to the top.

Flowers burst out all over the graveyard in spring, and provided many a bouquet for Mother, picked dutifully by me. This lilac bush was still blooming away.

Flowers burst out all over the graveyard in spring, and provided many a bouquet for Mother, picked dutifully by yours truly. This lilac bush is still blooming away.

Our alley didn't have a name at first. Then the County decided to name it Graveyard Alley. Mother gave Marshall and me our orders. "Make the sign disappear. Don't tell your father." We did. The County put up another sign. It disappeared. Finally, the County decided to namer it Georges Alley after the first man who lived on the alley. We liked him. The sign stayed.

Our alley didn’t have a name at first. Then the County decided to name it Graveyard Alley. Mother gave Marshall and me our orders. “I won’t live on Graveyard Alley. Make the sign disappear. Don’t tell your father.” We did. The County put up another sign. It disappeared. Finally, the County decided to name it Georges Alley after the man who built it. We liked George. The sign stayed.

This beautiful old gold rush era building is about a 100 yards away from our house. The school was a block beyond it.

Tony Pavy lived just outside of Diamond on the road to El Dorado. As I cycled past it, I was reminded of the time he threatened to shoot me with a shotgun. We’d been hunting squirrels near his property when a bullet ricocheted and took out his pig. “Get my gun, Mama. They shot my pig!” he had screamed. We figured he wasn’t in much of a mood for an explanation and hightailed it. When the sheriff caught up with us later we had a good alibi.

Poor Red is long since dead but his Bar-B-Q restaurant lives on in Eldorado, an historic eatery from the 1940s well-known throughout Northern California.

Poor Red is long since dead but his Bar-B-Q restaurant lives on, an historic eatery from the 1940s well-known throughout Northern California. I consumed many a rib and Golden Cadillac there. I forget the ingredients of Golden Cadillacs but I do remember they tasted wonderful and after two, you didn’t care what was in them. Reds is in the small town of El Dorado, two miles outside of Diamond. I had turned left on my bike there and began making my way south.

The foothills of California are beautiful in the springtime. Shortly after this Highway 49 began its steep, curvy descent to the Consumes.

The foothills of California are beautiful in the springtime. Shortly after this, Highway 49 begins its steep, curvy descent to the Consumes River. It was my first downhill.

I once organized a student strike so we could have a ditch day as seniors. I wasn’t expelled and we got the day. We held our party on the Consumnes River a couple of miles upstream from this photo. I had stopped for lunch at a small greasy spoon restaurant along the river on my bike trip and was kept company by a cat and a drunk. “You are fucking crazy,” the drunk had told me when he learned of my journey. Maybe.

This is an historic spot. I was on my first ever official date. Mom, boyfriend, and Paula had taken me with them to dinner in Sutter Creek. On the way back, boyfriend and Mom had climbed in the back and insisted I drive home. "But I just got my learner's permit last week," I pointed out. I was just beginning to gain confidence when I ran over the skunk here.

This is an historic spot dead skunk spot. I was on my first ever official date. Mom, boyfriend, and Paula had taken me with them to dinner in Sutter Creek. On the way back, boyfriend and Mom had climbed in the back and insisted I drive home. “But I just got my learner’s permit last week,” I pointed out. Didn’t matter. I was just beginning to gain confidence when I ran over the skunk.

I made it 18.3 days on day one and stopped at Old Dry Well Motel and Cafe in Dry Creek. My plan for the next day was to make it 30 miles! The world had other plans for me.

I made it 18.3 miles on day one and stopped at Old Well Motel and Cafe in Dry Creek. Old stories report that outlaws once buried thousands of dollars here. My plan for the next day was to make it 30 miles! The world had other plans…

A photo of the well. Another relic from the Gold Rush.

Peggy has volunteered to drive the whole trip so I can take photos and write notes. What a woman! Eeyore, another of our travel companions, peers out the back window. The world famous traveling Bone is seated up front.

NEXT BLOG: I will introduce Bone. You probably already know Eeyore.

Who I Am… A Brief Bio for the Book

March 27, 2014January 24, 2015 / Curt Mekemson / 32 Comments

Peace Corps recruitment poster from 1967.

An early poster I used as a Peace Corps Recruiter after I returned from West Africa.

Since I am still receiving input on the title of the book about my Africa Peace Corps experience, I decided to put together a brief bio for the end of the book. Following recommendations from the book industry, the bio is written in the third person. It will be shortened somewhat.

Curt was raised in the small foothill town of Diamond Springs, California. He grew up wandering through the woods and communing with nature. It was a great life. But he also learned a lot about transparency. Everybody knew everything about everybody else, which was more than he wanted to know. So he escaped the confines of his small universe in the mid-60s and headed off to UC Berkeley where he learned that integration was good, war was bad, and that young people who held such views should be bashed on the head and thrown in jail.

He was waiting for his turn with the Oakland police while sitting on the floor of the UC administration building and singing protest songs with Joan Baez when he had an epiphany: he should make America a better place and leave the country; he would join the Peace Corps. Eight months later he was chopping off the head of a chicken in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California as part of his training to teach African history to high school students in Liberia, West Africa.

Berkeley and the Peace Corps ruined Curt for living the American Dream. He decided that obtaining an 8-5 job, moving to the suburbs, buying a big house, and driving a fancy car were not for him. “If you would only make babies, become a good Christian boy, and take up photography,” his father had grumbled. Instead, Curt became an environmentalist and a health advocate, happily making war on polluters and the tobacco industry.

Wanting to get back to nature, he created the American Lung Association’s long distance backpack and bike trek program. The Lung Association needed a new fundraiser; Curt needed an excuse to play in the woods. He added wilderness guide to his ever-growing resume and spent two decades leading wilderness adventures.

Every three to five years Curt quits whatever he is doing and goes on an extended break. Travelling through the South Pacific and Asia, backpacking throughout the western United States, and going on a six-month, 10,000-mile, solo bicycle trip around North America are among the highlights. This lifestyle came to a temporary halt when he climbed off his bike in Sacramento, met the lovely Peggy, and decided to get married– in about one minute. It took a while longer to persuade Peggy and her two teenage kids.

Today Curt and Peggy live on five wooded acres in Southern Oregon where he pursues yet another career, this time in writing. Visit him at his blog wandering-through-time-and-place.me. He’d love to hear from you. Or you can Email him at cvmekemson@gmail.com.

Born in Ashland, Oregon, I moved with my parents, sister Nancy, and brother Marshall to the Bay Area. I’m the little one.

Photo of Curt Mekemson as a child with pets.

I grew up wandering in the woods of the Sierra Nevada foothills of California, usually with an assortment of pets. There may be a rabbit between the dogs.

Free Speech Movement protest at UC Berkeley in 1964.

A protest at UC Berkeley in 1964 when police occupied campus. I am in the middle of the photo looking up at the camera.

My first house in Liberia when I was teaching second graders. Later I would teach high school students and move to another house.

A photo of my dad in his 80s– a good man who read the bible daily, wanted grandkids, and loved to take photographs.

In 1996, I put together an effort to increase California's tobacco tax, which would eventually lead to one of the most extensive privation campaigns in history. Today it is estimated that the effort has saved over one million lives and one hundred billion dollars in health care costs.

My focus on health and environmental issues took me from California to Alaska and back. In 1996, I put together an effort to increase California’s tobacco tax, which eventually led to one of the most extensive prevention campaigns in history. Today it is estimated that the effort has saved over one million lives and one hundred billion dollars in health care costs.

Wanting to spend more time in the woods, I set up the American Lung Association's Trek Program. The photo is of me leading a group in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California.

Wanting to spend more time in the woods, I created the American Lung Association’s Trek Program. The photo on the front of ALA’s National Bulletin is of me leading a group in the Sierras of California.

Ever wonder what it takes to bicycle 10,000 miles? One of my friends has suggested strong legs and a weak mind. I was half way through my trip bicycling up a very steep hill in Nova Scotia when this photo was taken.

Ever wonder what it takes to bicycle 10,000 miles? One of my friends has suggested strong legs and a weak mind. I was half way through my trip and bicycling up a very steep hill in Nova Scotia when this photo was taken.

It took me two years to persuade Peggy to put on a wedding dress.

The view from our sunroom, which is one of my writing locations.

The view from our sunroom in Southern Oregon, which is one of my writing locations.

The Attack of the Graveyard Ghost… Happy Halloween

October 30, 2013October 30, 2015 / Curt Mekemson / 6 Comments

It's that time of the year when my sister and I get together with my wife Peggy and Nancy's husband Jim for our annual pumpkin carving contest.

It’s that time of the year when ghoul

I had lunch with my sister Nancy and her husband Jim yesterday. With Halloween a day away, my thoughts turned to the the Graveyard we grew up next to. While my brother Marshall and I had a healthy respect for its inhabitants, my sister Nancy Jo’s fear of dead people bordered on monumental. This tale relates to her encounter with the Graveyard Ghost as a teenage girl. I trot it out every couple of years for Halloween on my blog, so you may have read it before.

My sister was seven years older than I and lived on a different planet, the mysterious world of teenage girls. Her concern about ghosts makes this story a powerful testimony to teenage hormones. It begins with Nancy falling in ‘love’ with the ‘boy’ next door, Johnny.

Johnny’s parents were good folks from a kids’ perspective. Marshall and I raided their apple trees with impunity and Mama, a big Italian lady, made great spaghetti. I was fascinated with the way she yelled “Bullll Sheeeet” in a community-wide voice when she was whipping Papa into line. He was a skinny, Old Country type of guy who thought he should be in charge.

I use the terms love and boy somewhat loosely since Nancy at 15 was a little young for love and Johnny, a 22-year-old Korean War Veteran, was a little old for the boy designation, not to mention Nancy. Our parents were not happy, a fact that only seemed to encourage my sister.

Her teenage hormones aided by a healthy dose of rebellion overcame her good sense and she pursued the budding relationship. Johnny didn’t make it easy. His idea of a special date was to drive down the alley and honk. Otherwise, he avoided our place. If Nancy wanted to see him, she had to visit his home.

It should have been easy; his house was right behind ours. But there was a major obstacle, the dreaded Graveyard.

Nancy had to climb over the fence or walk up the alley past the Graveyard to visit. Given her feelings about dead people, the solution seemed easy… climb the fence. Marsh and I had been over many times in search of apples. Something about teenage girl dignity I didn’t understand eliminated fence climbing, however.

Nancy was left up the alley without an escort.

While she wasn’t above sneaking out of the house, Nancy asked permission to see Johnny the night of the Graveyard Ghost attack. She approached Mother around seven. It was one of those warm summer evenings where the sun is reluctant to go down and boys are granted special permission to stay up. Marshall and I listened intently.

“Mother, I think I’ll go visit Johnny,” Nancy stated and asked in the same sentence. Careful maneuvering was required. An outright statement would have triggered a parental prerogative no and an outright question may have solicited a parental concern no.

Silence. This communicated disapproval, a possible no, and a tad of punishment for raising the issue.

“Mother?” We were on the edge of an impending teenage tantrum. Nancy could throw a good one.

“OK” with weary resignation followed by, “but you have to be home by ten.”

What we heard was TEN. Translate after dark. Nancy would be coming down the alley past the Graveyard in the dark and she would be scared. Knowing Johnny’s desire to avoid my parents, we figured she would also be alone. A fiendish plot was hatched.

At 9:45 Marsh and I slipped outside and made our way up the alley to a point half way between our house and Johnny’s. Next we took a few steps into Graveyard where weed-like Heavenly Trees and deep Myrtle provided perfect cover. Hiding there at night was scary but Marshall and I were operating under inspiration.

Marsh stripped the limbs off of one of the young trees, bent it over like a catapult, and draped his white T-shirt on the trunk. We then scrunched down and waited.

At exactly ten, Nancy opened the back door and stepped outside with Johnny. Our hearts skipped a beat. Would he walk her home? No. After a perfunctory goodnight, Johnny dutifully went back inside and one very alone sister began her hesitant but fateful walk down the alley.

She approached slowly, desperately looking the other direction to avoid seeing tombstones and keeping as far from the Graveyard as the alley and fence allowed. At exactly the right moment, we struck. Marshall let go of the T-shirt and the supple Heavenly Tree whipped it into the air. It arched up over the alley and floated down in front of our already frightened sister. We started woooooing wildly.

Did Nancy streak down the alley to the safety of the House? No. Did she figure out her two little brothers were playing a trick and commit murder? No. Absolute hysteria ensued. She stood still and screamed. She was feet stuck to the ground petrified except for her lungs and mouth; they worked fine.

As her voice hit opera pitch, we realized that our prank was not going as planned. Nancy was not having fun. We leapt out to remedy the problem.

Bad idea.

Two bodies hurtling at you out of a graveyard in the dark of night is not a recommended solution for frayed nerves and intense fear of dead people. The three of us, Nancy bawling and Marshall and I worrying about consequences, proceeded to the house. As I recall, our parents were not impressed with our concept of evening entertainment. I suspect they laughed after we went to bed. Sixty years later, Nancy, Marshall and I still are.

One of many pumpkins we have carved over the years.

NEXT BLOG: Beautiful fall colors are surrounding our home on the Upper Applegate River in Southern Oregon. I will take you on a tour.

Mr. Fitzgerald Is Dead, Very Dead… Ghostly Tales

October 28, 2013January 24, 2015 / Curt Mekemson / 11 Comments

Marshall and I with the family dogs. I am on the left holding Happy. Marshall has Coalie.

Marshall and I with the family dogs in a photo taken about the time of our graveyard adventure. I am on the left holding Happy. Marshall has Coalie. The Graveyard starts about 30 feet away.

Ghosts are out and about. I saw several today. And scary things they are with their booing and disappearing and haunting and tattered sheets. I thought I better get with the season and reblog some earlier ghostly tales from my youth. Our family lived next to a graveyard. Many were the encounters we had with the creatures of the night. I would like to begin by reporting Mr. Fitzgerald is dead, very dead.

He has been for decades but I still have a clear memory of spying on him, trying to get my six-year-old mind around old age. I was perched in my favorite lookout, a Black Locust tree on the edge of the Graveyard. Dark clouds heavy with rain marched in from the Pacific while distant thunder announced the approaching storm. A stiff, cool breeze sent yellow leaves dancing across the ground.

Mr. Fitzgerald was a bent old man preparing for a future that might not arrive. He wore a heavy coat to fight off the chill. I watched him shuffle around in his backyard. He sharpened his axe on a foot operated grinding wheel and then chopped wood.

When he slowly bent over to pick up the scattered pieces and carry them into his shed, I scrambled down from the tree. I located a convenient knothole in the wall so I could continue to spy on him. He stopped stacking wood and stared intently at where I was, as though he could see through the weathered boards.

It frightened me.

I took off like a spooked rabbit. Mr. Fitzgerald was intriguing but his age and frailty spoke of death. I already knew too many dead people. They lived next door.

The Graveyard was out the backdoor and across the alley. We lived with its ghostly white reminders of our mortality day and night. Ancient tombstones with fading epitaphs whispered of those who had come to seek their fortune in California’s Gold Rush and stayed for eternity. Time had given their resting place a sense of permanence and even peace. But not all of the graves were old. Occasionally a fresh body was buried on the opposite side of the cemetery. I stayed far away; the newly dead are restless.

At some time in the past, Heavenly Trees from China had been planted to provide shade. They behaved like weeds. Cut them down and they sprang back up twice as thick. Since chopping them down provided Diamond Springs Boy Scout Troop 95 with a community project every few years, they retaliated by forming a visually impenetrable mass of green in summer and an army of sticks in winter. Trailing Myrtle, a cover plant with Jurassic aspirations, hid the ground in deep, leafy foliage.

During the day, it took little imagination to change the lush growth into a jungle playground populated with ferocious tigers, bone crushing boas and half-starved cannibals.

Night was different; the Graveyard became a place of mystery and danger. Dead people abandoned their underground chambers and slithered up through the ground.

A local test of boyhood bravery was to go into the Graveyard after dark and walk over myrtle-hidden graves, taunting the inhabitants. Slight depressions announced where they lived and tripped you up. My older brother Marshall persuaded me to accompany him there on a moonless night. I entered with foreboding: fearing the dark, fearing the tombstones and fearing the ghosts. Half way through I heard a muzzled sound. Someone, or thing, was stalking us.

“Hey Marsh, what was that?” I whispered urgently.

“Your imagination, Curt,” was the disdainful reply.

“I knew it was the dog all of the time,” Marsh claimed. Yeah, sure you did.

NEXT BLOG: The Attack of the Graveyard Ghost.