The War Years

This is more reverie stirred up by my visit last week to my childhood haunts. Again, so far as memory serves, this is true.

World War II is a backdrop to all my earliest memories. I'm told my brother and I were at Fleishhacker Zoo in San Francisco with my parents, Bud and Ruthanne Blair, and my aunt and uncle, Helen and Bill Millward, on Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1941, while the Japanese were dropping bombs on Hawaii.  I see no traces of war worries in our Christmas photo. I see my beautiful mother who hung tinfoil icicles on the tree one strand at a time so that they would hang gracefully. My talented father had graduated from UC Berkeley a year and a half previously with a degree in architecture and was working as a draftsman for Owens-Illinois Glass Company. My brother, Mickey was fifteen months old.

Christmas 1941, just 18 days after Pearl Harbor.

 Our 1944 Victory Garden

Among his many talents, my father was a wonderful gardener. He mixed sand into the adobe soil, fertilized with compost he carefully tended, and watered religiously when he got home from work. Several of our neighbors benefited from his green thumb.  

Summer of 1944. My Grandmother, Minnie Blair, holds Ricky while I stick out my tongue and Mickey prepares to spit.

Grandma visited to see her new grandson, Ricky, and to say good-bye to her youngest son as he went off to war. I cannot begin to grasp the agony of her conflicted feelings as she sits with new life in her lap and contemplates the dangers and possibility of the death of her own dear son, but I think it is written on her face. That year marks the beginning of the time she seemed like an old woman to me. 

My father, me, and my father's brother, Bill Blair, Summer 1944

Uncle Bill came to visit just before leaving for his assignment in the South Pacific as an Army Air Corps B-24 co-pilot. He returned safely after flying 49 missions in the "Red-Headed Woman." As of this writing, he is still living in Pasadena, California and now enjoys WWII memories with many of his fellow WWII vets who meet together regularly. 

In the picture above, my father patriotically smoked a Lucky Strike from a package adorned with a red circle instead of the older-style pack with a green circle, because, according to the slogan, "Lucky green has gone to war." In front of the fence grew asters, zinnias, and cosmos, while behind the fence were dahlias, more products of my father's prodigious gardening skills. 

My father never went to war for reasons that remain vague to me. I remember hearing something about "flat feet" and "too many kids," His contribution was serving as the neighborhood Air Raid Warden, which as nearly as I can recall, meant when the sirens sounded and there was a blackout, he patrolled the neighborhood, wearing a special vest and a helmet, pulling a canister of water mounted on wheels while checking to make sure everyone had drawn their blackout curtains. It was never clear to me what he was supposed to do with the water, but I knew it was important.

My parents made another contribution by hanging out in bars (Oscar's down on Park Boulevard), drinking with war wounded, and bringing maimed service men home for a meal. They all seemed to be missing a limb. I remember one with a black glove over a useless rigid prosthetic hand, another had a claw he could hold a cigarette with. One who was missing a leg walked with crutches while his pinned-up empty pant leg swung back and forth. Some of the intact service men were mess cooks stationed at Camp Shoemaker. They were a convenient source of scarce and rationed food. Butter, sugar, and eggs were available in our home while the corner grocery shelves were empty.

Ice skating is all mixed up in my memories of the war years. I know my parents were both good skaters and enjoyed ice dancing. My mother was particularly fond of a sailor named Matt who was a wonderful skater. In later years, my father, perhaps after having had too much to drink, told me more about Matt. Apparently, he and my mother intended to run away together, taking my brother Mickey and leaving me behind. The rent money was missing around that time, I don't know if it was part of the runaway scheme, or if any one our guests had stolen it. My mother also revealed a dark secret years later while under the influence. She told me she had an abortion after the birth of Mickey and before Ricky. That would have placed it around 1942-1943, the same time she was planning to run away. I don't know how to connect the dots in these scant pieces of information, but I do know they cast a long shadow over their marriage.

Knowledge of these secrets reinforced feelings that had been developing all my life. I saw my mother as flawed, weak, and flighty: my father as a long-suffering noble hero. And I felt unloved by my mother, thought she saw me as competition and perhaps, I was. My father understood me at a level she could not. I held these feelings for most of my adult life and have only recently come to challenge and change them. In my later years my mother emerges in my mind as something of a martyred heroine.

This Old House

These reflections on my childhood are true, subject to the frailty of memory.

Before setting out on my great adventure, I took a trip to Oakland to revisit some scenes from my childhood. 

This old house, built in 1914 at 570 Athol Avenue, Oakland, California is the warehouse for many of my childhood memories. I lived there from 1944 until 1952, from when I was five years old until the summer I was thirteen.

I slept in the house during the night, but most of my memories are outside in the backyard, in the streets, on the sidewalks, roaming the neighborhood, and beyond. We were free-range children. I don't know if that was the norm for the day, or if it was because my mother was always busy with the baby -- I was the oldest of five children, so there was always a baby. Perhaps she was settling into her alcoholism, or just, as she said, "Too nervous to have us underfoot." But, as nearly as I can recall, unless we were at school, it was raining, or we were sick, we were turned out to play.

Sometimes we played in the backyard. My father was very clever at all kinds of building, and made our backyard into a great playground. There was a nice lawn, beautiful flower beds, a 15 x 20 foot playhouse constructed as soundly as any house with cement foundations, wood framing on 16" centers, solid wood sub floors over sturdy beams, an eight foot ceiling and a pitched roof with exposed rafters. It served later residents as a studio, He had constructed a swing set from salvaged pipes, and an enormous sandbox filled with sand liberated from the glass factory where he worked as an architectural engineer. When glass furnaces were rebuilt, used bricks became available for reuse and showed up in our backyard as a barbecue pit on our patio (pronounced PAH-tee-oh, by him).

But, the front yard, the streets, the neighborhood and beyond were also part of our range. In the front yard, we played jacks, or rock school on the front steps. In rock school, one kid was chosen to be teacher and stood in front of the students who sat on the steps. The teacher hid a small rock in one of her closed fists. The students started in Kindergarten on the bottom step and if they guessed which hand held the rock they would be promoted. The first kid to the top of the steps became the teacher and the game started over. I loved rock school.

The street was great for jump rope, kite-flying, hide-and-seek, kick the can, Red Rover, Mother May I, Simon Says, and an infinite variety of tag games, like freeze tag, blind man's bluff, and stoop tag. On really hot days, we liked to squat down in the middle of the street and pop the tar bubbles that formed. We would also pull up a patch of the sticky stuff and chew it like gum. If we were really lucky, someone in the neighborhood would be having a roof repaired and there would be a truck pulling a tar pot parked in front of their house. We could then get a fresh, "clean," chunk of tar to chew on. If we got thirsty, we drank from the hose, anybody's hose, in the front yard and we might accidentally squirt one of our friends.

We knew all the neighbors, if not by name, by ethnicity: the Brazilians on the corner, the Filipinos next door, the Jews on the other corner, the Chinese on the other side of the block, the Greeks who ran the grocery down the street. Mrs. McCarthy could always be depended on for a cookie if we knocked on her door and asked; Mr. Green always called his car his "machine." The Amundsen's across the street still had an ice box and had ice delivered twice a week. If we were out front when the ice man came, we could get a chunk of ice to suck on. And the Lukes had the first television on the block, making their live-in granddaughters, Sandra and Claudia, very popular.

Large Queen Anne style Victorian -- missing witches hat tower roof

The architecture of the neighborhood was eclectic. Older Victorians stood next to Maybeckian shingled houses, Craftsmen-style cottages, '30s deco and Spanish-style houses filled in some of the gaps and a '50s moderne occupied the last-to-be-built corner lot.

Maybeck-style

More on the old neighborhood tomorrow.

A Tomb With a View

This installment of my saga is true.

When my big trip is under way, I will have lots of time for reflection and meditative thought while driving. I love the way my mind takes off while the car follows the open road. Wanting to shore up the foundation for my musings, I drove to Oakland yesterday to visit places that loom large in my thoughts and to clarify some cloudy memories of my first twenty years. The grave site of my grandparents was my first stop. 

                         

Ruth H. Anderson was my maternal grandmother. John J. was her husband, but not my blood grandfather. My paternal grandfather, Franklin Howard Hatch and Ruth were divorced in 1920, she became Ruth H. Anderson the next year when my mother, Ruthanne, was around two years old. He was the only father my mother knew and my grandfather in every way but blood.

The grave of my grandparents (Mimi and Bobo to me) sits at the highest point in St. Mary's cemetery in Oakland, California, literally beyond the pale of the adjoining and more beautifully kept Mountain View Cemetery. In fourteenth century Ireland, the pale was a line of fences that separated the part of Ireland that fell under English rule.  In Ireland, it was pickets that followed the contours of the land. Here, in the cemetery, an unattractive cyclone fence ranges up and down the hilly landscape. The ghosts of the Catholics stick to their own kind in Oakland, while the interdenominational, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, and atheistic remains lie in integrated society.

                                     

On a clear day, you can see San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate through that break in the trees. During the course of their stormy, passionate marriage, Mimi and Bobo lived in a house with a similar view. Their first home was built for them in the '30s and was located on Cochrane Avenue on a steep and sparsely populated hillside. The astounding view from their living room and dining room looked out on the unbridged San Francisco Bay. Later, they watched as construction of the Golden Gate and Bay bridges added a new dimension to the vista.

They sold the house during a tempestuous passage in their marriage and then lived in a series of rental duplexes, a tract home in Concord, and finally in another home they built on Wilding Lane just off Broadway Terrace. And I know they always mourned their Cochrane Avenue home and the beautiful view.

He was an Irish immigrant, one of the middle children in a large brood who had fled poverty to make better lives for themselves. I believe fear of poverty was a driving force throughout his life. She was a flirtatious woman, strongly influenced by the glamour of Hollywood. They were always either passionately in love or on the brink of homicide.

When Mimi died in 1970, he continued to live in their home on Wilding Lane until it was destroyed in the Oakland firestorm, October 19, 1991. He and his girlfriend came to live with me from then until his death February 3, 1993. At the time of his death, he was worth just about a million dollars; thrift and prudent investment had lifted him out of poverty. I was the executor of his estate, most of which he left to various Catholic charities, but there was one very interesting and revealing bequest. He left a sum of money to "Kenneth Nielsen, the son of Kathryn Nielsen, a former secretary at P G & E." To distribute the estate, the attorney located Kenneth Nielsen. Kenneth in turn contacted me and we had an interesting, but not altogether surprising, conversation where Kenneth revealed that he was the illegitimate son of my grandfather. We further agreed to meet for lunch.

Kenneth wanted information about who he was. I brought about twenty photos of Bobo through the years and a copy of a brief biography my brother had written about him.

Kenneth was very pleased with my offerings and with any information I could provide. Then I asked him to tell me his side of the story.

He told me he had experienced "Uncle Jack" being a part of his life from his earliest memories until he was about twelve years old. Then he abruptly vanished and except for one brief conversation, was not heard from again until the will, about twenty eight years later, . When Kenneth was in his early 20's, he and his mother were drinking wine together and truth was revealed. Kenneth was told Uncle Jack was his father. Apparently during Kenneth's younger years, Uncle Jack was a regular in his life: often bringing toys, clothing, taking him to ball games, and just hanging out with him. However, one day Kenneth complained to his mother that he didn't like Uncle Jack's sloppy kisses: they made him feel uncomfortable. I could understand this. All my siblings and I shared a horror of those wet kisses (they weren't salacious, just gross). Kenneth's mother, in turn, reported this to Uncle Jack who apparently got his very tender feelings so deeply wounded that he abruptly ended all contact with the boy.

So, years passed, and when Kenneth learned the truth about the identity of his biological father, he confronted him via telephone, saying, "I understand you're my father." This occurred just about the time my grandmother was hopelessly ill from a heart attack and stoke. My grandfather was consumed by his love for her, fear of losing her, and the burden of her care.

 His response to Kenneth was,"I don't know what you're talking about. That's the craziest thing I ever heard." And he hung up on him.

Kenneth was crushed, but did nothing about it and just lived with his wound for the next 23 years until contacted by the attorney and meeting with me.

When I heard Kenneth's story, I was enraged. It took me a long time to come to terms with the terrible behavior of my grandfather. I could not believe this dimension existed in a man I loved, respected, and grieved: the man I had taken care of in his terminal illness. I too, felt betrayed. And yet, of all the adults in my life, he's the only one I ever heard tell me, "I'm proud of you." He made me feel beautiful and smart. I struggled to balance this out. All I have been able to do is realize we all have a dark side and we can only know the part of a person that is presented to us. I knew a different facet of a smart, loving (to me, anyway) accomplished man. That is still imprinted on me.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Here's a recent Facebook post in which Dianna Genteman says she would like to read an example of something I consider good writing and something bad. I thought I'd throw in something ugly, just for good measure and because I think I have something that fills the bill.

The Good: This little piece was written in 2002 as part of an application for a residency at Norcroft, a Writer's Retreat on the north shore of Lake Superior, near Grand Marais. I like it because it feels so true. It may not be of great general interest, but it worked, I was granted a two-week residency at a time in my life when it was desparately needed. I reread the piece today as I contemplate applying for a residency at Hedgebrook, also a retreat for women writers, I see that little has changed, little has been accomplished and I still write beneath the portraits of my female ancestors in a sunny south-facing room.

Pianisssimo, Please

     I write for illumination. I come closer to seeing what I know and what life has taught me when I try to express it. I write to be clever. I write to record something I know that someone else might want to know sometime in the future. I write to repay the written gifts of my predecessors. And most often, I don't know why I write, I just do; it's part of my biology. I've always done it.

     I've collected two bookshelves of my journals. These take the form of written and photographic essays, diaries or travelogs, depending on the year and my mood. They are bound, loose-leaf, or on scraps of paper in manila envelopes. In the past five years, I've felt compelled to bring some of this material together in a way others would want to read. Struggling to determine what would make my life seem interesting to others, I investigated other interesting lives. Hundreds of wonderful women writers including Patricia Hampl, Barbara Kingsolver, Amy tan, Anne Lamott, and Sylvia Plath inspire me. Motivated by great teachers like Lisa Schlesinger at the University of Iowa Summer Workshop and Margo Perin at the University of California at Santa Cruz, I am combining pieces of my life with pieces of my great-grandmother's life.

     But, because of the exigencies of daily life, it is difficult to focus and go into the deep places I must visit. As a 63-year-old single woman raising her orphaned grandsons, my writing time is perforated by the demands of the boys. Meals, chauffeuring, errands, refereeing, and time to love them lend a staccato rhythm to my writing time. I crave largo and pianissimo. My physical energy is exhausted while my mind races. 

     Time at Norcroft will allow me to focus my energy on my work. I can review the material I have written, make some determinations about what is worth incorporating, and decide where I need to go deeper. I will have the solitude necessary to get at those deeper places. Much of what I have written resembles a prose outline I must flesh out.

     I will continue working on my project whether or not I go to Norcroft. I will write for at least a small part of each day in my sunny south-facing room while the portraits of my female ancestors supervise from their posts on the wall. I will shut the French doors and pray that my need for solitude will be honored. My writing may not reach the depth I aim for, and it may take a lot longer to complete. Because of my age, I fear that competing demands for my time and energy will jeopardize completing my work. I worry that I won't finish it vbefore I die. But, I will write, because there is more to tell.

The Bad: Just silly and pointlesss.

Flying - Don’t Tell Mom

      I learned to fly at around six, I can’t remember exactly when, but I know my top front teeth 

had already fallen out and the news ones had just come in. It started kind of gradual, on the stairs in front of the house, the ones made out of railroad ties that ran alongside the steep driveway and led up the hill to our curvy street. 

      I started learning to fly by skipping the bottom step every time I came down the stairs. It 

didn’t quite seem like I was jumping, because I landed real gentle in the leaves from the oak 

trees that covered the hillside. It was more like floating. I found I could skip two steps, then 

three and then four. Five got a little tricky. By trial and error, I learned that a little scissors kick 

in the middle of my flight got me safely to the landing, and by reaching out and catching myself 

on the tree at the bottom, I could keep my balance. Soon, I discovered that with three kicks, I 

cleared the whole flight of fourteen steps, without touching down even once. Still, I didn’t yet 

think I was flying. I just thought it was a little trick I could do, something that would probably 

come in handy, but something I had better not tell Mom about. There were some things she just 

didn’t seem to want to know. Like about the man who parked his car on the street a few houses 

away every afternoon and drank beer. She didn’t want me to talk about him.

     When I learned to fly back up the stairs, I knew I had a special secret. Because the street was 

uphill from our house, I would go up there and practice safely out of sight of Mom. I discovered 

I could fly higher by flapping my arms and faster by kicking my feet. It was a lot of work, but as 

it turned out it probably saved my life more than once.

     One time when I was just about to practice, the man drinking beer got out of his car and 

started to chase me. The way he looked at me nearly scared me to death. I started to fly away, but 

I couldn’t get high enough. He caught the heel of my black patent leather shoe with his hand, and 

he was looking up my dress. I knew it was wrong and that Mom wouldn’t like it. But I kicked 

my shoe off anyway and flew up just a little higher. Mom made me go to my room for coming 

home without my shoe.

     Another time it was real scary when there was a big fire at an empty barn near our house. I 

don’t think I started it, but it burned in a circle all around me and I had to fly over the flames to 

get away from it. Mom was real mad when I came home with the edges of my dress burned. She 

made me promise not to tell anyone what had happened.

    One evening, it was getting dark and I heard Mom call me. I didn’t think she could see me as 

she stood on the front porch calling, so as I ran down the steep driveway, I decided to fly just a 

little. I put my arms out and reached for the sky. As I ran faster and faster and jumped a little, I 

could feel the wind sweeping my hair back. I tried swinging one arm around in circles. I pulled 

my sweater up behind my shoulders like a Batman cape. And then I fell and broke my new front 

teeth. I never flew again.

 

The Ugly: This doesn't need explanation, it's just ugly.

Living in an Old Woman’s Body

Some parts don’t work;

Some have retired.

The womb is still,

No blood flows,

A blessing for sure.

Desire survives,

But few believe it.

Dried up old woman

Tits to the navel.

Wrinkles and creams,

Mirror as enemy,

Reflects my mother, not I,

Turkey as kin,

Botox is my friend.

     

The Rock, I and II

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, there was a rock, the same rock you see pictured above. A long time ago it was much smaller and it lived on a hillside west of where it now rests. It's larger now because it is covered with a painted coat of many colors somewhere between six and twelve inches thick judging by the depth of the fringe of paint drool at the bottom.

The rock, as it is eponymously known, was born on a grassy hillside just above what is now El Dorado Hills Boulevard during God-knows-what geologic era, created by some mysterious formative event. It began service as a community bulletin board sometime in the 1980's, after the opening of Oak Ridge High School in the unincorporated population center known as El Dorado Hills.

Over the years, the rock was decorated with either spray paint or by brush to celebrate holidays, birthdays, athletic competitions, and occasionally other personal events. At some point in the late 90's a decision was made to construct an apartment complex on the spot nature had for eons claimed as home for the rock. The community was advised that the rock would be smashed into pebbles and distributed on the hillside. The unincorporated, but not disorganized, community banded together and raised such a fuss that Doug VeerKamp, descendant of El Dorado County pioneers, and all around good guy, in tandem with the El Dorado Hills Bowman's Association, came to the rescue. With land donated by the archery association, and lots of heavy equipment available to Doug through his family's construction firm, the Volkswagen-sized rock was saved from what seemed like certain doom and transported across the street to a safe and convenient site. It was a fine moment for a community that wasn't even officially a city or a town.

Once safely ensconced on its new resting place, it resumed service announcing birthdays, victories, tragic losses, and all the momentous events of life. And then 9/11 happened. The rock was beautifully outfitted with a glorious and patriotic rendition of the stars and stripes. So momentous was the event and so beautiful the work, that no one dared paint over it. It stood for many days as testimony to our shock, sorrow, and patriotism.  The muted community struggled to come to terms with the world-shattering events and secondarily, mourned the loss of use of the iconic rock as a bulletin board.

Again, Doug VeerKamp came to the rescue. Another similarly-sized rock was found and planted on the hillside a respectful distance north of Rock I. Rock I could now continue to commemorate 9/11 while Rock II took over community service. A noble concept, but it didn't last long. Before long, both rocks were painted regularly with personal messages, announcements, and declarations. Some locals were outraged, but the need for more messaging space was genuine. By this time, El Dorado Hills had grown from about 5,000 to around 20,000 people who had many things to announce, more than could be contained on a single rock.

And so, Rock I and Rock II continue to announce and celebrate special events. The community is divided into two kinds of people: those who have had their name painted on the rock and those who wish they had. And two other kinds: those who had painted the rock and those who intended to do so. I belonged in the second category in both cases. Because my Very Special Grandson, Logan, was turning 18, I seized the opportunity to join the ranks of the painters. I enlisted the help of my Very Special Grandson, Bill, and we planned to paint the rock. We learned much that is of probable interest and value to would-be rock painters. Here are some guidelines:

• Choose a simple design and simple color scheme.
• Do it in the daylight on a dry and wind-still day.
• Use spray paint, not buckets and paintbrushes.
• Plan on four cans of paint for the background and one each for any secondary colors.
• Allow two hours to complete the project, more if picnicking or drinking is involved.
• Wear old clothes. If more than two people participate, they will get overspray all over themselves.
• Take lots of progress pictures.
• Be nice when your masterpiece is painted over., 

 In the picture above, you can see the last salmon-colored remnant of the previous display. Very Special Grandson, Bill, and Doting Grandmother, Melody, have nearly finished applying a new white base coat over the earlier masterpiece.

 VSG finishes up while DG seeks shelter from the wild wind-driven overspray.

 VSG has completed the preliminary outline of the Polar Bear (never mind what it looks like, it's a POLAR BEAR!)

 VSG, Logan, AKA Polar Bear, lounges on a convenient ice-floe, and politically incorrectly enjoys global warming.

Rock II is on the left, Rock I reads HAPPY 4TH B-DAY (I didn't notice a name).

Notice the stalactites of paint formed at the bottoms of the rocks. On the right you can see weeds growing in the sheltered area near the fringe of paint. On the left you can see paint on the ground which has formed a thick solid coating. In some places you can break off chunks and see all the colored layers. I wish someone would take a core sample of both rocks so we could see just how thick the paint is.

Just in case anyone is interested, my birthday is April 18th, turquoise and purple are my favorite colors.

Note: this is my 500th blog post!

The Railroad Paper Caper

Executing Phase I of my retirement plan, I sold my Silicon Valley home and moved to El Dorado County, the land of my gold rush ancestors. I planned to telecommute until I could officially retire. On an evening late in May 1996, I was supporting local agriculture by sipping a glass of Boeger’s Zinfandel, reflecting on how satisfied I was by the move. I loved everything about the area, the landscape, the produce, the history.

From my recliner, I saw a young man approach my front door. Setting down my glass, I got up and opened the door in anticipation of his knock. Casually dressed in khakis and a plaid shirt, he carried a large envelope under his arm. “Mrs. Moore.” He said it assertively; it was not a question.

I acknowledged that I was Mrs. Moore. He handed me the package and when I had it in my hands, he identified himself as a process server for El Dorado County and told me to sign the summons he held before me.  I signed with an unsteady hand. I had never been served a summons before. Frenzied crazy thoughts began racing through my mind. Did this have something to do with the sale of my house in San Jose? Was someone suing me? Before I could ask the young man anything, he had turned and was headed back to his car. His job was done and I was on my own with whatever I held.

Retrieving my glass of wine, I moved to the dining room table. I picked up the bottle for good measure; it was a very thick envelope.

Using the blade on my corkscrew, I slit the envelope open and spilled its contents on the table. I quickly determined it had nothing to do with my real estate dealings, but it did have something to do with land. The State of California, Department of Transportation (DOT), had summoned me to a hearing scheduled for August 1 in Placerville. No longer worried, but increasingly intrigued, I put the wine aside and began to sift through the documents. The official complaint, property descriptions and copies of old maps were spread out on the table. Ancient handwritten property records gave the documents the appearance of a treasure map. My great-grandfather’s name, James Blair, came into focus and my interest grew.

I learned some property near Forni Road had been condemned to build a freeway overpass. The State was now trying to determine who should receive the $33,700 held in escrow. I first thought, why me? And then, why not me? Could it really be mine?

The papers spread out before me hinted at the answers. I learned the new overpass would be anchored on property that had served as a railroad bed in 1888 and for many years after. The 1887 records revealed three parcels of land had been transferred from their previous owners to the partnership of James Blair, H. S. Morey, and A. Meirson of Placerville. The partners paid each of the sellers $1 for adjoining parcels creating a long strip of land 100 feet wide. The deeds carried the condition that the land was to be used for the construction of a railroad to be completed by the first of June 1888 or else title to the land would revert to the sellers.

My first reaction was one of bemusement and mild interest. I loved hearing from my great-grandfather in this way. I knew he had owned a lot of property and was very active in the development of Placerville. As far as I knew he had founded Sportsman’s Hall and operated it during the Pony Express and Civil War Days, owned and managed a lumber business, held a partnership in a hides and tallow business, and kept a ranch in Galt. And now a railroad. Could it be that fate had protected some of his wealth from his profligate children?

I was curious about the other two men. I knew their names from Placerville’s history. Morey was a banker and Meirson was a foundry man. The partnership seemed logical: supplying lumber for ties would benefit Blair, while Meirson could provide the rails and spikes, and Morey could put the deal together.

My mind lept ahead. How long was this railroad? How many parcels were there? The DOT was only concerned with a small portion of it, but surely it was much longer than that. Frankly, $33,700 divided among God knows how many heirs wasn’t really worth going after, but the railroad probably reached all the way to Sacramento or at least Folsom. I knew it extended down through Latrobe. And how many heirs are there? If the DOT thought three parcels belonged to the heirs, then we probably owned the whole railroad line! What could it be worth? Maybe I would be able to retire soon. I needed some advice.

I calmly waited until the next day to call my friend Ralph, an attorney for CalTrans. He suggested I call the DOT right-of-way agent in Marysville and gave me her phone number. She was familiar with the situation and cheerfully provided the information I sought. She told me they found one Morey heir and three Blair heirs. No Meirsons. She also volunteered that the Morey heir was an old woman near death in Rancho Murieta. Her only child decided they would not pursue the matter. Okay, I thought, more for me.  I began to plan a second story addition to my home, and possibly a new car.

I was obliged to respond formally through an attorney if I planned to attend the August hearing. By this time, I determined to go for it. So, I contacted my Blair co-heirs, a cousin in Placerville, and an uncle in Southern California. We agreed to a partnership and planned to split attorney’s fees, up to $1,000 each, and see what we could learn.

I attended the first hearing in August in a feebly air-conditioned conference room in the El Dorado County court house on Main Street. Also attending were my cousin, our attorney, and the presiding judge. The DOT and Southern Pacific participated by telephone. SP stated they felt they had a claim to the money because they had bought the railroad. Our attorney countered his opinion that they probably had an easement on the land and that the easement expired when the railroad ceased to function and the land reverted to the heirs of the Placerville partners. That sounded logical to me.  We could hear indistinct mutterings from the Southern Pacific contingent. They then asked for an extension to get the facts together. The matter was continued to November.

In November, I showed up at the courthouse and the meeting lasted five minutes. SP asked for a continuance. My confidence and spending plans grew. Clearly we had them on the run, they were scrambling. I dreamed of a family vacation in Hawaii.

By this time, I had calculated the strip of land in question was probably 33 miles long and 100 feet wide. What was it really worth? A million, three million? What could be done with it? The longest strip mall in the world? Another railroad? Didn’t the Sacramento Placerville Transportation Corridor Joint Powers Authority think it was theirs? Had SP sold it to them? Would they buy us out? What about the property owners around it? How about recreational use? Bike trails, equestrian trails, skateboard parks? Now I was becoming altruistic. We would think of some noble cause to honor my great-grandfather’s memory.

February’s hearing was rescheduled till April. In April, the Southern Pacific lawyers produced a deed that appeared legitimate. It conveyed forty-six parcels to the Northern Railway Company. Following our attorney’s advice, we gave up, and I returned home to a new bottle of zinfandel and dreams of Lotto winnings.

Confessions of a Binge Reader

My friend, Jennifer D. Munro, responded to a Facebook challenge and listed books that had influenced her. Instead of passing on the challenge, Jennifer gently suggested she would like to see my list. So, I'm putting together today's version of that list.

I'm a binge reader and I tend to think of books in clumps linked by my craving at the time. Here are some of the most vivid clumps in my ever-dimming and cluttered memory;

• The Oz books. I obsessively collected, read, and wrote all over the original fourteen Oz books, in order, of course, from Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz through Glinda of Oz. Someone gave me one of the "pseudo Oz" books written by Ruth Plumly Thompson, but I wasn't taken in, only the L.Frank Baum originals make my list. When my younger brother Ken, was old enough to enjoy them, he read them and left his marks on the pages, and then younger sister Valery took her turn. As a young mother, I reclaimed the set and passed them on to my children who also read and wrote in the books. Just this year, my son Kevin asked if he could have them. I gathered those I could locate and shipped them off to him. Some of the books are missing and Valery has a couple of them she is not quite willing to part with yet. Kevin has just finished reading the first one to his foster children. 
  
  
  

• The Nancy ,Drew mysteries by Carolyn Keene, again collected and read in order from The Secret of the Old Clock through number 28, The Clue of the Black Keys. I guess I lost interest or aged out of the series by then. Nancy Drew was a wonderful role model for girls in the pre-women's lib days (if only she would dump Ned).
• Little Women, Little Men, Eight Cousins, and Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott. Oh, Jo, my hero, my role model. And why, oh why, did Beth have to die?
• Late in high school, my binge reading became even more serious. I wanted really big books that would satisfy a deep thirst for escape. In this group I lump Forever Amber, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Marjorie Morningstar, and Gone With the Wind. My mother thought Forever Amber was scandalous and nearly forbid me to read it, but I prevailed.
• Next came more Herman Wouk, James Michener, and Leon Uris. History in painless doses. 
• The holocaust. When I discovered the holocaust at about eight years old in 1947, I couldn't believe it and I still struggle to believe both the horror and how little we learned. I read everything about it I could get my hands on. And I still do. Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise, an amazing novel/memoir, written in occupied France is a recent and powerful contribution.
• English Literature -- all the usual stuff from Shakespeare, through the Brontes, Thackarey, Dickens, and Trollope, to P. D. James and Ian McEwan.
• Russian Literature -- Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Bely (Petersburg), Chekhov. Interesting how English lit. is about human nature independent of place, but Russia is always a central character in Russian Lit.
• Twentieth century American men of letters -- Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, and John Updike. More important than Steinbeck and Hemingway to me. I think American writing opened up in the second half of the twentieth century; the first half suffered from inhibition. I like John Updike's book reviews in the New Yorker even better than his novels.
• Twentieth and twenty-first century American women -- Amy Tan, Anne LaMott, Barbara Kingsolver (Poisonwood Bible should have had the Pulitzer), Diana Gabaldon (yes! literate and full of great history, albeit a bit formulaic after a while), Ann Morrow Lindbergh, and Joan Didion. I know I'm leaving many important writers.
• The Mann Booker Short List -- whenever I'm at a loss for what to read next, I check out the Mann Booker Prize Short List for the past few years, I love British writers.

I'm sure if I made a list tomorrow, it would look nothing like this. I've been blessed by having thousands of books in my reading past and an ever-diminishing memory.