I am at a bit of a loss for words. I have an old tin sewing box from maybe the late 1950’s or early 1960’s, my guess. I had it out from under the dresser tonight while looking for a camera battery and charger I have lost that go to my old Nikon. While I was rooting around for it, my daughter came along and looked through some old pictures in a cardboard box, then wanted to know about the sewing box. It had been quite a while since I last peered into it at all, so I mostly forgot what was in it, apart from knowing it was to do with family history.
We started in at the top and found it to be letters and such from the Twentieth Century. By the time we got to the bottom, we had found a bank book dated in 1893. I have always thought it was something special to have my grandfather’s grandfather and grandmother’s schoolbooks, but this box had their report cards going back to their earliest years in school. I was also shocked to find a letter from one of the family that was dated on VE Day, and written from Tripoli, Libia. The writer was complaining about having recently spent five days in the hospital with diarrhea. Amazing to wonder if he fought Rommel. I’ll have to look in more detail as we were going through a lot and trying to get to the bottom of the box in one evening to get an overview of what we had. Lots of letter from the war, a suitability card from the time of WWI, and property deeds and wills going all the way through the century.
It really was a treasure. As it was from the family in West Virginia, there is a certain grace to these people in how they wrote and how they addressed one another. I’ll have to go through again and see what I can learn in depth about them, and how they were all related to each other. I appear to have gotten my first name from that family, and while I am not blood related to them, I was able to see my name gone back six generations. Four of those generations including me have it. One of my daughters does, too. So that’s something special.
One other thing that is special is that while we were looking at all these papers, and names were brought back to life going to my grandfather’s grandparents, I have met three out of four of them myself in my early life. One even survived till I was around twenty. Given they were born in the 19-aughts, I have had the privilege of knowing people who were, as it turns out, fit for duty for World War One.
The Milky Way and Aurora Borialis as seen from my back yard tonight.
Missus got a message from a friend asking if we could see the Northern Lights as well tonight from our place down in the valley as she could up in the mountains where she lives. So we all went out to check it out. It was by far the most vivid display I have ever seen.
I can remember an amazing fireworks show I once saw from the roof of the house out in Norwalk when I was five, but that would have been 1976, and the 200th Anniversary of our country, so, not the Northern Lights.
Today has been Veteran’s Day here in the US, so Rememberance Day in the UK. You know what that means? It was also our 23rd Anniversary. I don’t think either of us believe it, either. But nontheless, here we are. We had a chance to spend some time together and to have a good conversation and such, so it was really, really pleasant.
I got the tire fixed on the car today, too. Not exciting at all, I know, but it did turn out to be a fence staple. I was none to thrilled for it being there. I took it in for the fix, so that meant I had it patched on the inside, and not just plugged.
Well, it has been a week since putting new tires on the car, and today I got a nail in one. Popsitively unbelievable! I got out of the car to move some stuff so the girls could sit down on the way home from the bus stop, and when I did, I could hear the leak going strong, and could not believe what I was hearing. There it was. Hissing. It was hissing, and I went over to find it, and the tire had a nail in the tread. Anyeway, I pumped some air into it with the compressor, and it held till I got home. I will put more in tomorrow in the morning and drive it up to town for a patch, or maybe even take it off and drive it up in the truck. We’ll see.
Well, I am going to leave it at this. It is frustrating, and I am not swearing about it, though I would sure like to.
I have found my missing tablet that I was looking for two weeks ago. It was hiding in my camera bag in a little pocket that I only accidentally found. Good Hell!
So, I am going to see how I can integrate it into some plans I have now. I can not keep up at the DoorDashing, so I would like to put myself to work with my camera and offer services.
Well, the tires lost air last night. I only made a little over a hundred for the day. I will make nothing today and tomorrow. It being Sunday, I cannot get the tires fixed today apart from doing it again myself. That already proved only marginally helpful, and I was only lucky that they failed in a decent enough place that I was able to sort the spare on and pump up the other safely. I was on a run and am pretty unhappy that the food did not get delivered. DoorDash told me that I was to dispose of it in a gas station garbage can. I am unhappy with myself for the thought of someone not getting what they ordered as expected. I see that as on me, not on DoorDash’s reputation.
With today being Sunday, I have to plan out my best strategy for getting things done. I think that if I am forced to a day off, then firewood handling and chimney cleaning are my best bet. I need to get wood split and on the pile, ready to burn for winter. I have about a cord and change out there now that is left over from last year and from what our oldest has done. I don’t know how much of that he is accounting as his. But I am just going to throw on top of it and try to get the pile up big enough to cover us both. I need a lot more wood! And as to the chimney, it just needs a sweep, I hope. This would not be a good time for it to have rusted through. But I will clean and inspect it when I can today. The forecast is calling for the mid 60’s today, and more of the same for the next couple of days.
The situation with the tires cannot be fixed till Monday. I may be able to work out getting a new set, then. But it is going to take a toll on us financially. It is not going to be easy to swing, but I cannot go for days without working. I am lucky that I have no effect on my work beyond missing it. It is not like I am going to get fired for not working today, or face discipline. But I do need to keep my stats up. So I need to get this situation turned around as quickly as possible. Oh, and I need the money, obviously. The only respite I really have for today comes from the fact that I can work on wood and the chimney, as they need to be done, and I have not been able to because I have needed to work. Oh, and also from the fact my tummy is full of a lovely Indian meal I would never have ordered for myself that I had unexpectedly last night.
There is so much going on in the broader world right now. I have opinions. But I think they are best kept to myself. So, sticking with what I can control, and the things I can do that have immediate effect on my household, I am going to leave it at tires, firewood, and a chimney. They are the things that are immediate, along with my problems.
Souls for Sale poster (1923) chromolithograph by Goldwyn Pictures. Original public domain image from Wikipedia. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.
More:
Original public domain image from Wikimedia Commons
I lay there in my bed just a few minutes ago and found myself slowly arriving at consciousness, thinking that perhaps I had made it, and it was close to six in the morning. I even started to congratulate myself for it. Surely, I was not waking up slowly unless I made it to the finish line for a night’s sleep. I would not be so stupid. Would I? Usually when I wake up at three, I sort of just pop out of sleep and then try to lay there and go back to sleep, till nature calls too loudly, and I have to go downstairs to the loo. Nature was calling. Dammit! Three Anno Domini!
Now I have been down, done my business, moved laundry from the washer to the dryer, and put a log into the stove, and now I am typing, typing, typing.
I got down to the firewood supply in Logan yesterday and picked up another trailer full of wood. It was not so hard to get it filled up on my own. I think that putting that spare boat winch I have lying about would help to get the heavy ones up the ramp. That is the hard part. Once I get the logs up the ramp, there is stacking them more than a layer up. But even getting a layer on the trailer is a good start towards a warm winter.
I got a ton of wood, and as all the logs I gathered were dry, that is a pretty good total volume. Just need to get it cut and split now, but that is a lot better done here on the pile at home than having the wood down at the dump waiting to freeze to the ground and get impossible to pick up and bring home. I will get the wood sorted. I need to prioritize the gathering for now. I did not unload the trailer because I was tired. I’ll have to get that done before next Tuesday.
I put the new part on the chainsaw, and it drives the chain like new. It made a big difference, and I was sawing like crazy out at the dump. I didn’t do a lot, but what I did do went really well. I actually look forward to getting at the rest of the wood here.
I took Missus down to teacher her 4H class and took our youngest with me to go visit the kids in town. They had stopped by yesterday morning to visit, but I was on the way out to get the wood, so I could not stick around. I wanted to make up for it. It turns out they are good for our grandson to go Trick or Treating with us, so he will spend the night this weekend, and I can take him with when I take my youngest out to the city. That ought to be a fun couple of hours out.
It has been about an hour since I began waking. I need to get the last couple of hours of sleep.
While out working I came across this tree Saturday night, so I shot a quick photo of it with my cellphone, then went back and shot it again last night and got these. There are several more of course, but these are what I am happiest with on a quick review straight out of camera.
The rain and fog didn’t quite do for it what I hoped it would, but it had to be shot so soon after I found it because the autumn leaves are falling, and the color of the leaves with the light just makes the whole tree glow so! Having not seen it before and not knowing that I was going to come upon it, it was at first absolutely breathtaking.
I cannot imagine the work that went into wrapping it so thoroughly with strands of lights. And I know somewhere among you, there are those who can imagine a single lamp going out, and the whole tree going dark. Then the search is on.
I regret not bringing my telephoto lens last night and shooting much deeper into the tree. I think there is something to be had there, weather in the middle or along the periphery with more contrast between subject and a dark sky background. One wants a calmer night for such a photo anyhow. Last night’s weather was just a little rough to try it anyhow. Maybe I will bring my lens today and try. I am just having a hard time imagining being in to work so late. I am sure tired after reaching yesterday’s work goal to close the week.
When I was doing a pickup at Jersey Mike’s yesterday, a family was asked about their day and they said they had just come back from doing a family photo shoot. Missed business opportunity for me. I am happy for them, but I would love to have given it a go myself. I still don’t know if that is the type of photography that would make me happiest to do. I know a lot of photogs do it because it is a money-making opportunity. Not a huge one, but everything helps to pay the bills! Give me $250, and I could take the whole day off DoorDashing, which would be a nice break. That would cover what I would earn outright over two days, and given the ease off the gas expenses, probably repay me the better part of three to rest for. A thought I need to take more seriously!
It did rain yesterday. All day. I mean, it was pretty constant. I am sure records were set. I know I was the wettest I have been for a long time. Perhaps since leaving England. It was nice. What I would not do to have days like that once a week or two over summers. The rest of it could be our normal sunshine. Could you imagine that? Seems to me our harvests could be amazing. It’s just a thought.
Oh, I notice that most of the faces I come to know at the many restaurants across town have changed. Any efforts I have made to get to know people are basically all lost now. In just over six months! I still see a couple of the same DoorDashers around. I am not the only one giving all my time to the work. But there is certainly no opportunity to make friends in this line of work. The people I get to talk to are my daughters when they decide to take a turn and come along for the day. That’s absolutely awesome, of course! I love getting such blocks of time with my kids in what would otherwise be time thrown away to the man. But they are not the kind of people one talks to on a social basis as, you know, a sort of sound board for adult problems in life. I should just go to McDonald’s on Sunday morning for a coffee for an hour and leave an invitation in the Dasher’s Discord group and see who shows up, then make that a sort of weekly thing. 10-11 or something.
Anyway. I paid for a new bale of hay which got dropped off the night I first found the tree. I did not see it till yesterday morning, and I had to move it to the shelter because it was raining like crazy. Luckily, I was able to do that right away rolling it with the bucket, rather than having to assemble the bale spears onto the pallet frame. It rolled into place nicely. Managed to get it there just as the last flake off the old bale got served out to the animals. I’ll be cutting that open this afternoon when I come back to the farm with the girls from school. That last flake had fallen away and against the shelter, making a little hole a couple of cats have been sleeping in. Maybe the same will happen again, and they can have their little house back. I imagine it is a lovely warm place for them to sleep. It’s certainly a lot drier than most places yesterday!
This article was written in part by dictating as I went through the day working in my car. It was finished up at home between the hours of three and four in the morning. It is a bit rough in form and perhaps also in verb tense. You can blame the Midnight Oil Editorial Department for that.
The day started as any other. I got up at 6:00, had the girls to the school bus, then drove straight down to Logan via a stop at the grocery store to pick up a delicious breakfast burrito, three bananas, and a bottle of Pepsi. Then it was off to Walmart in Logan to get gas for the car. At the Walmart gas station I filled the tank, cleaned the windshield and the back window, then did a quick trip to the loo, and turned on my DoorDash app for the day.
I set the app with a finish time of 3:00 p.m., That’s my usual finish time for my first session of the day. It works out to about a six-and-a-half-hour shift with no breaks. Yesterday was a normal day and it put 249.6 miles on the trip odometer on the car. But that includes a trip back up to Idaho to pick my kids up from school and take them home, have a short break and visit with Missus, maybe eat supper, and come back down to work again. There’s a 50-mile round trip or so right there.
From Walmart as I pull away from the fuel pump and put on DoorDash, I reset the odometer, and drive towards McDonald’s in the center of Logan or Chick-fil-A as a good starting point. Chick-Fil-A tends to pay closer to $7 per run, but McDonald’s at $4 or $5 a run will keep going and going. The other reason I like McDonald’s, is it their bathrooms are just two or three steps easier to get to than Chick-Fil-A. It’s the little things make a difference. I decided to start today off by Chick-fil-A. I parked near and waited.
Yesterday’s fuel cost $40.93 out of what I earned, which was a little over $120. That left me a practical earning of about $80. Then there is whatever food I buy. On top of that there needs to be consideration for taxes and anything else such as wear and tear on the vehicle. After all that, there is my time and what I’m actually worth. By the time the day ends, that is about ten hours of work and the time to go back up and get the kids, making for more like 14 hours out of the house by the time I get back in the evenings.
First order comes in for $4.50 from Burger King, despite me being parked near Chick-Fil-A. At least their bathroom is in between the front door and the counter but their electric hand dryer wasn’t working. The first delivery was about one and a half miles from the restaurant.
The delivery was to someone who lives in some apartments. I’ve seen an eviction notice hanging on the front door of a comparable complex recently. The back rent due was over $1,600. I can’t even imagine having to come up with that kind of money just to cover a monthly rent on an income like mine with DoorDash. After the expenses I mentioned above, it does not pay well enough to cover rent and utilities and everything else. On top of that, I’ve got a tire that’s going bald on the back right of the car that’ll want replacing and I know that when I go in to get one they’re going to tell me it’s four wheel drive and they can’t replace just one because they have to be the same size and wear evenly to prevent damage to the transaxle. That’ll be a full set of tires and upwards of $1,000 right there. I also need to change the oil about once a month, which I do myself to keep the costs down. Our family qualifies for Medicaid without even taking into account my work expenses. People often ask me how DoorDash pays. I give out 14 hours of my day to make it work on school days. On the three-day weekend for Idaho kids, I will do my day differently, starting to drive for work around 10:30 in the morning and finishing at 8:30 at night. That makes for an eleven-hour day with about 30 minutes out for lunch, not including time down and back.
I went back over by Chick-Fil-A and hoped for a high-paying run. My intention is to give it about half hour or so waiting for a run, then go back by McDonald’s. I also hope to go onto Earn By Time, as that tends to be longer runs and slightly better pay than earning per delivery. It also works out that when they put a driver on Earn By Time, the delivery from the restaurant to the customer tends to be a long way away, and the fuel economy in the car is better for that.
Of course, the app makes a liar out of me. Declined.
Second run for the day was Burger King for $4.50, less than a mile from store to delivery location. As I dropped it off and was considering what else to include for this article, I wondered why I’m still in the habit of walking so fast while I work. I move as quick as I can when I have hot food in hand. I also avoid walking on people’s grass as much as possible out of courtesy. All habits I have from past work.
Third order! This time it’s from Wendy’s by Sam’s Club. It’s not very far and for not very much, but it’s something to do, and it’s money earned, so I take it. Besides, if I decline it comes up in the app as a percentage that will harm my ability to earn. So let’s not pretend I have much of a choice here as I try to keep my acceptance rate as close to 100% as possible. I lose my status with DoorDash if I go below 80%, and one does need the room to decline once in a while because there are offered deliveries that would result in paying DoorDash for the privilege.
Back onto my day.
10 minutes till 10:00AM and I can normally expect it to go quiet till 12:15 or 12:30, so I’ll go sit outside McDonald’s a while.
After a while, I’ve done a few deliveries for Crumbl Cookies and for Einstein Brothers Bagels. I’ve been delivering carbs and made $24.00 in 14 miles. I figure I can estimate out about three bucks just for gasoline.
I get a South Carl’s Jr. and I am up to $29.30. I decided afterwards to go take a short rest on Center Street because I like the vibe. It reminds me of a town I lived in for a while in California when I was going to college.
Naturally, I said above that Chick-fil-A runs tend to pay better, and on this morning they have been paying like $3 to $3.5 per run. That’s about half what it pays normally. As I lose myself in the day trying to write and make the money I need to, I arrive at $36.30 on my earnings clock, and honestly, I don’t really feel very well mostly because of a little tingly feeling I tend to get in my arms when I have worn too many layers of clothing for too long. I never did get on well with GAP’s styling, even though I always liked the look when I was younger. I park again by middle McDonald’s. I find myself feeling a bit lonely.
By 12:30PM today my running total has made it to $65.00 and I’m just on my way back from Richmond Utah, which is quite a way out there from the center of Logan where I try to work. Whenever I get up Richmond way I am always tempted to just carry on home after the delivery. Because I need more money it’s back to Logan I go on a long drive.
I carried on for the day and was about at $90 by the time I had to head up to Idaho to get the kids and meet the hay man to pay him for a large bale of hay that will last a few weeks, and for some gravel for the driveway. I made that a quick visit, though I wanted to talk a while as it has been some time since we have had the chance to catch up. But back down to Logan I went to earn more money, which in the end was only about $37. But it all adds up, and while the start of the week always feels like it is a long slog to the goal I set myself to finish the week at, I have to endure and get there little by little like this.
By the time I got home in the end, I was pretty tired and after sitting in my chair a few minutes, I was ready to crash out in bed. I got a little time in with Missus and the kids, which in the most important part of my day. It’s what I am doing this all for. Six to seven days a week. Just to scrape by. Honestly, it would be much easier if I were not carrying any debts right now. I think we could then plan to grocery shop, rather than me bringing home little by little according to what we need at the moment.
Drift off to sleep.
Awake to finish this article up at the normal time people my age wake up in the middle of the night. Then back to sleep again. It’s a Friday, and I get to start a few hours later for my sins.
3AM. Once again. But this time I woke up because of a sound, not the usual reasons of a fifty-four-year-old. This time it was the sound of rain hitting the window. A peak at the weather once I got around the broadband connection being down again, and the radar shows we are at the head of a coming rain cell heading north and looking fairly large. Even if no new weather develops and it just traverses us, we are in for hours of rain. I was really hoping to go get some wood today. But mud everywhere is going to kind of ruin it. Is it even worth going back to sleep, or should I just give in and have a cup of joe and keep on typing?
Work is just going along. I keep at it, and there is some money, though I cannot call it a career, that’s for sure. It takes hours to get enough money to call it an earning day. I have to get past the gas I put in the car, and the food I eat during the day. Those all cost around $50. So, to get ahead on a day, I need to earn more than that. But that usually takes around four hours or so. It’s not great.
I have the wax melted. There was still a thick ring around the top of the vat last night. I broke it apart using the shaft of the scissors. Once I broke through it, it was fairly easy to scrape into the depths of the hot wax to melt away. This morning things look good for a pour. I just need to get the molds wicked, and ready. I’d like to get three full pours done this week: today if possible. That’s just over a hundred candles when done. That should be enough to hold us through a little while of sales online.
I am not good with this rain. I am not happy at all. I need the firewood. I need it desperately at this point. Once the snow comes, it won’t be long before all the logs are frozen to the ground, and I cannot get more. I need it split and stacked and under a tarp. I am not sure what all this rain indicated for the rest of the season. I have heard some predictions that we can expect loads of snow this year. This steam train just needs to keep on coming. It seems to be started. But then, the spring brought a bit of rain before summer went hot and dry and forgot all about it. I cannot take chances where the firewood is concerned. I really need to get this job done come spring next year and have the wood split and stacked and seasoning before the summer begins.
5AM is coming. It is almost time to wake missus up. I am listening to a podcast. I am typing, obviously. Still have not decided on a coffee. At this rate, I will have to decide on a nap. Oh well. Thank you, rain!
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on Woke to the Rain
It is autumn now, and the season is best for certain hobbies to start up, including woodworking in the shop where the temperature in the summer is a bit much for hand planing and sawing, or other kinds of work that results in a lot of activity and heat buildup. The house is cooler, too, and that’s where I have my wax supplies for candle making. My colonial candle molds are tin, authentic to the time period, and make three-quarter inch by six-inch-tall candles. I have one inch by nine-inch-tall tapers, too, but only one mold that makes six at a time. I am far fonder of the six inch probably because of my candle stands and lanterns are made for that size, and I have a whole load of holders to make stands of my own with that are also three-quarter of an inch in size. So, for the six inches, I have half a dozen molds that make six candles each, allowing me to make 36 in a pour. I also have a few various silicon molds of various shapes for things like little beehive candles, and wax bars that I can sell to apply to hand tools and thread and the like for woodworkers and sewers and leatherworkers. And now that I have written it, I want to have a pumpkin patch next year, and I think I will sell each pumpkin with a beehive candle to put in it when it is made into a Jack-O-Lantern. Something to ratchet up the game a little.
I have a huge brewer’s vat for melting wax in. I bought it about a year ago now and left it on for something like seven months straight over last winter so I would not have to melt all the wax in it to get started at making candles on any particular day. I also used it to help keep the chill off in the room upstairs where I keep it. After all, a huge vat of melted wax ought to do something against that. And that heat is why I shut it off over the summer! I didn’t need the extra with as hot at is tends to get upstairs in our house when the summer sun shines down on our roof. So it has sat with the wax hard and cold for several months now till Saturday, when I switched it on again for the first time since spring.
It did not take the element long to come up and the display to read 142-5 on the temperature. I kept the lid on, as always, because I wanted the heat trapped inside, and I also don’t like the idea of house dust getting into it. That’s how I left it from early Saturday morning. Sunday has come and gone, and when I checked it then, it was still a hard lump of wax in a vat. It was warm at the bottom though, and the sides were warm up to about halfway up. That was Sunday morning. This morning, I was able to push through the bit of wax that was caved in at the top from when it cooled in the spring. Wax changes in density with large swings of temperature. Even in a three-quarter-inch taper candle mold, wax will shrink enough as it cools to require filling again to top off the volume of the wax poured in the mold. It cools on the outsides first and leaves a hollow in the middle which has to be filled. As the wax int he vat cooled it cracked and left a large divot in the center that was weak when the heat came up from the bottom, and with some effort and a pair of scissors I was able to break that out and drop it down into the hot wax below.
I covered the vat with its lid and left it with a sort of volcano of hot wax in the middle and several inches of colder wax still caked around the edges in the hopes that now the heat will break through and trap under the lid enough to get that cake to melt off. When I was pushing with the scissors the whole cake seemed to have given a little and the hot wax pushed up through the hole in the middle. The hole is three or four inches across, and the volume coming up only rose half an inch or so, and I did not want to keep pushing it because I did not want my hands suddenly jolting into the vat of hot wax. I had already got a splash up that covered them once.
So, as of seven o’clock on Monday morning, October 13th, I am still waiting for the wax to finish melting that I put on early on Saturday. My plan is to string the molds and pour tapered colonial candles to list on our websites. Obviously, I will make a few mistakes to keep for us. Business is business, after all.
I have a second vat that is much smaller, and the temperature does not regulate well in, and I have filled it with wax that has come out and hardened on the table at the first one. I don’t want to introduce unclean bits of wax there, and dirty up the works. Much rather keep that separate for personal use or even tool wax as it is not like it is horrible filthy when it goes in. It does have a tendency to overheat, though, and a bit of the wax can burn at the bottom. That’s also something I would rather not introduce to a candle I am going to sell.
I plan on working today. Not at the candles, but in town. I have obligations in Preston tomorrow, and will be here throughout most of the day, so I will work then. The wax should be fully melted by then, and I will even be able to use the ladle that is stuck in the hard wax on the side still. It is fully metal and should be heating up and breaking loose before the full amount of wax melts on the sides.
The kids are off school today because of parent/teacher conferences. One of them has a single B, and the rest are all A’s between them, so we think we will not be attending today. That gives me a full stretch of time to go to work. I should be okay to just start late today, as if it were a weekend. I am thinking of making a list of people in the city I might want to give a pair of candles to, to get them aware that I make them, and as a thanks for being kind to me while I have been fumbling my way back into the work-a-day world. There are a couple I can think of who greet me as a friend when I come to their shops and genuinely ask how I am doing.
Giving mind to all this, I am now thinking of the stands and the chandelier that I have made, and that I should get some more made. There is only a little over two months left till Christmas, believe it or not. Once again, I could have hand made a Christmas, but it is getting too late to do everything I would need to. But there are a few things. I really need to rework my year, and plan better. I also need to try to fit in some photography in all this, and some leatherwork. My many crafts I enjoy!
133 Leighton Drive, Ventura, CA, 93001, about 1994
My great grandparent’s house in Ventura, California was built in 1925 down the block from where it currently stands and was moved up and set up on stilts in the location it is at the corner of Leighton and Cameron. A lot appears to be different these days as the asbestos siding is gone and has been replaced with stucco, and the white picket fence is gone, too. Hooray for the siding, but I am sad it has been replaced with stucco, and I am sure sad about the fence.
My first memory of the house goes back to Easter, when I was six years old, and Cousin Frankie hid some easter eggs around the yard for some of the younger ones to go looking for. I spotted the egg brilliantly hid on the top rail of the fence on the other side of a rose bush. I was too young to know better than to go for it, so I did, and it was quite upsetting. I withdrew from the bush with legs Poka dotted in blood. It is California and I was wearing shorts, so there was nothing to protect me from the damage.
I have lots of memories of that house and the people who lived there. But to sum them up, I will say it is a place where there are smells that I associate with it. Irish Spring soap is the smell I remember from the bathroom. I cannot remember the name of the scent from the freshly washed sheets, but I remember slipping into the bed in the back bedroom when I would stay. I also remember the sound of the voices in the kitchen and breakfast room the next mornings, my great grandparents and Butch and Shirley and my grandparents were a typical sound that morn. Working class people, they were usually talking about their jobs. But topics could vary. There was always laughter. I’d get up and follow the sounds and the scent of bacon cooking on the old gas stove. Back in those days, appliances would get old. It would be bacon and eggs and toast for breakfast, and I would always marvel at my great grandfather, “Slim,” who for some reason liked to cut the white away from his egg yolk, then eat the whole yolk in one bit, leaving no sign of it on his plate. It was at that house that I came to know the taste of buttered toast in the yolk, which is to this day is one of my favorite tastes, with a slight sprinkle of salt and pepper, of course.
I spent a Christmas there, too. I don’t remember it very well, but there are pictures around the house somewhere that show Frankie, my aunt Amy, and my great-grandparents and grandparents there. It was an event that was not repeated in the years to follow, I suspect because my great-grandparents were getting too old to host such events.
My great-grandmother, Amy, had a shopping cart from one of the little local grocery stores, the kind you very seldom see anymore, and she used it to haul her laundry from the back porch where the washer was, out to the line, where she would hang it to dry in the warm California sun.
The garage faced Cameron and was situated behind the house with a little driveway between the garage and the side yard. They kept a travel trailer on that driveway, and we took it camping locally several times, including the beach, and Wheeler Gorge Campground. They also went places further way, like The Fountain of Youth out by the Salton Sea, and up to Gree River, Wyoming, Flaming Gorge, Utah, and of course to Lyman, where one of my great-grandmother’s sisters lived. I was in the bed over the table in that trailer on Rincon one night, looking out in the moonlight the first time I ever saw a wave reflect off a beach wall then return and collide with the next one coming in. It splashed straight up into the air quite away and amazed me. That was the same beach we were on when my great-grandfather gave into my plea’s and let go of me to get hit by a wave, and I discovered in it that it was hollow as I can remember looking up the tube before it crashed in. At that age, I wondered if anyone else in the whole world knew this amazing thing!
After that, grandma got the house, then sold it around the year 2,000. By then, she and Grandpa Kelsey had divorced. Frankie was dead too. A lot had changed in the family over the years, but that old house was just the same in so many ways. Sometimes it’s the places, not the people who are the steadiest things in our lives.
