Mag 139 — The Ranch

They holed up there during the Great Depression.
"The Ranch," they called it but it was a
simple dwelling with an outhouse and tub in kitchen
where an aging woman grew a garden, kept
unnamed chickens and a cow named Molly, kept
her daughters fed and busy during a dark time, slept
in the same room with them while her husband (so adept
at sales) worked the biways for leads that led
to a dollar-here-a-dollar-there.

Decades later the oldest daughter spoke of
"The Ranch" in wistful ways, her eyes gleaming
with memories of a kerosene-lit shack, the sweetness
of nights singing together as Molly's tail
swished rhythmically in the barn and
the rooster rustled, waiting
for a new day.

Written for The Mag: Mag 139 that inspired with the above photo prompt
(Midnight Snack, 1984, by Curtis Wilson Cost). 

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Old Postcard Wednesday--Weaverville, California, in the "Trinity Alps"

(If you have arrived looking for my Mag 80 it follows this OPW post...or click it. )

I was going to scan a postcard of the rugged Pacific Ocean coastline this week, as my husband and I will be at the Oregon coast on Thursday to celebrate our 16th anniversary. Because I am tired right now my thought was to post this card of the ocean and a simple Zen poem or haiku about the sea. The site I chose has numerous poems in that genre but I wasn't finding anything about the ocean as I scrolled. Then my eyes landed on the poem below (that has absolutely nothing to do with the ocean) and I felt it was a little message from my mother to post instead the Weaverville postcard that was right behind the Pacific Ocean card in my grandmother's card box.

My grandmother waited out the Great Depression up in Trinity Canyon with my mother (who was just out of high school) and my aunt (then a little girl) on some property owned by one of my uncles. They called it "the ranch," but the house was really a shack with an outhouse down the path. My mother nearly lost her mind at first, having come from Santa Monica, California, where they left all friends behind, and perhaps would have if not for trips on the winding road down to Weaverville. There they bought necessities not grown in their garden at "the ranch," and found a semblance of a social life through the Grange nearby. She grew to love Trinity County, where Trinity Canyon in the "Trinity Alps" and Weaverville gave her a hardy outlook on life that included her survival instinct and deep respect for forested mountain areas.

In October 2009 I posted a different Weaverville postcard and told my favorite story of my mother's Trinity County experience that includes the wonderful song Red River Valley. You can find it here. And, after the death of my aunt in 2008, I wrote a post about her life, including more on the years spent at Trinity County. That post has a photo of my mother and my aunt on a hike in Trinity Canyon, and I have decided to post it again here as an introduction to the poem about Trinity Canyon.

Trinity Canyon by Mike Garafalo

Shivering rafters
pull to shore–
the river moves on.

One by one
jumping into the deep pool–
a swinging rope.

Honking horns
echo down the canyon walls–
falling rain.

zig-zag walk
along the rocky riverside–
falling pine needle

I'm sitting, still.
The chanting canyon stream
is moving mountains.


While doing research about Trinity County and Weaverville, my eyes quickly scanning the search lists, I saw two words that really made me take a deep sigh: Lost Horizon. As that 1937 film about finding the mythical Shangri-La was my mother's favorite movie of all time (I am not kidding here, it really did just come tripping into my search), I will simply post the article that a Weaverville realtor shares on her website...and will wish you all a wonderful Wednesday and a terrific Thursday.

Incidentally, my mother would have gone absolutely nuts over this article but it was published four years after her death....

Unassuming Shrangri-La in Trinity Alps Weaveville blends mystic East, Old West in Gold Rush alchemy
- John Flinn, SF Chronicle Staff Writer, Sunday, August 1, 2004

Weaverville (Trinity County) -- In 1941, James Hilton, the British author of "Lost Horizon," was on a lecture tour of the United States. Inevitable, a reporter asked him: In all your wanderings, what's the closest you've found to a real-life Shrangri-La?
 
"A little town in northern California," the writer responded, presumably with a wistful, far-away look in his eye. "A little town called Weaverville."

I thought the comparison was pushing it a bit, but I started to wonder as I drove into this pretty alpine hamlet, which is cradled by snow-tipped peaks, and found a weathered string of Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags flapping along the main street. Then a pair of saffron-robed Buddhist monks, from the nearby Chagdud Gompa, came strolling out of a natural food store.

Maybe Hilton was on to something after all.

For most visitors, though, Weaverville's chief lures are that it's a wonderfully preserved Gold Rush town and gateway to the exquisite Trinity Alps, a miniature Sierra Nevada between Redding and Eureka.

Its Old West downtown has changed hardly at all since Hilton's visit, although a new conglomeration of strip malls and fast-food outlets is metastasizing a mile to the east along Highway 299.

In the red-brick downtown, the swinging doors of saloons still open onto wood-plank sidewalks, locust trees still line Main Street, and white metal staircases still spiral upward to wrought-iron balconies. . . .

Downtown's most intriguing feature -- and something that contributes to the Shangri-La aura -- is the Taoist Joss House, the oldest Chinese temple in continuous use in the state. It was originally built in the 1850's, when Weaverville had a sizable Chinese population from Guangdong Province, with their own stores, barbershops, theaters and gambling houses. The temple was rebuilt in 1874 after a fire and hasn't changed much in appearance since then. It's now a state park. . .

Rising straight above town are the Trinity Alps, a compact and inviting mountain range filled with soaring pine forests, frothing streams, turquoise lands and castle-like granite peaks, some sporting tiny glaciers. The summits aren't nearly as lofty as the Sierra Nevada -- the highest, Thompson Peak, tops out at a mere 9,002 feet -- but because of the range's northerly latitude, its timberline high country begins at an easy-to-breathe altitude of 6,000 feet.

The Trinities are a renowned fly-fishing venue, and popular backpacking trails such as Canyon Creek get a lot of traffic on summer weekends, but it doesn't take much effort to carve out a little piece for yourself.

At the edge of town, I turned onto a dirt road that switch-backed up the side of a mountain for 9 somewhat jouncy miles -- it was fine in an all - wheel-drive Subaru Outback, and I'm told that, with a little care, normal passenger cars can make it -- to a fire lookout with 360-degree, king-of-the world views.

From a nearby turnout, I set out with my dog Tucker on a hiking trail that angled up to a little notch on a ridge and then descended sharply to a rocky amphitheater containing East Weaver Lake. Ringed with wildflowers and craggy buttresses, it was an unbeatable spot for a leisurely picnic, a long swim (Tucker)  and a siesta on  a sun-warmed granite slab (me). At an alpine lake this easy to reach in the Sierra, I would have had to elbow my way through a mob of hikers just to reach the shore. In the Trinity Alps, Tucker and I had it all to ourselves.

Back in town, I bought an ice cream and went for a stroll through the town's leafy back streets, past tidy old miner's cottages, a few of them festooned with strings of sun-bleached prayer flags. I wondered about a former colleague who had retired here years ago. Weaverville, I decided, would be a pretty great place to grow old -- or perhaps to not grow old at all.


John Flinn, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, August 1, 2004

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More about the movie Lost Horizon at imdb.

This post describes yet another in my growing collection of ICMs (Ironies and Cosmic Messages).
Others: here, and here, and here.

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JoAnn

After I posted this about a friend's depression I received comments about the poem by Kirsti A. Dyer, M.D., and the link to her website. A few days ago Dr. Dyer commented at my blog herself and left the link to her more recent website, Loss, Grief and Bereavement. During this time my Aunt JoAnn passed away, the topic of my post preceding this one, and Mike and I visited Dr. Dyer's grief website last night. We found support, a wealth of information, and peace there. This unique connection may be just a random thing, but I really don't think so. People come into and out of our lives sometimes by intent, sometimes by kismet, and, sometimes by grace.



How JoAnn came into my grandparent's home is a certain combination of the three.

She is seen here with my grandfather, JHS, soon after joining the family at around 19 months of age. He is 64 in this photo, and my grandmother, Nellie, was 56 at the time. Aging was different then than it is today, and they were considered old folks at the time (looked it, too), after having already lived full lives. JHS lost his first wife early on, leaving him with two little girls who were raised by Nellie after she and JHS married. Together, they added three sons, and then my mother.

The youngest of the boys, Richard, was only four years older than my mom, Margaret, and, as shown in this photo, they were buddies extraordinaire.
In 1927, the evening before Richard was killed in a car accident on his way to a Santa Monica High School football game, he played jacks with my mother on the kitchen floor, teasingly warning her that she'd better never tell the kids at school about it. Richard died in the hospital the evening of the accident with Nellie by his side. He was a 16-year-old beloved son and brother who left behind a completely devastated family.

The mourning was ongoing even two years later when Nellie rekindled a friendship with an old friend from their years living in Kansas City, Missouri. Now the friend lived near them in Santa Monica, California, where she had a home for homeless children. The closest equivalent today would be our foster care system. Nellie began visiting her friend weekly and she fell in love with an 18-month-old rosy-cheeked, little blond girl (JoAnn) who reminded her of Richard as a baby. Although both parents were alive JoAnn and her brother were at the home due to major concerns about the capacity of the parents to adequately care for them.

Nellie consulted JHS about bringing JoAnn into their home and my mother wrote that, "Pop said it was up to her if she wanted to accept that responsibility after having raised six of their own." Unlike today, the arrangements weren't made with the assistance of attorneys, and the agreement between my grandparents and JoAnn's mother was never legally binding. There was some provision drawn whereby her mother could take her back (with the state's approval) if she changed her mind within a certain time, something like one year. My mother recalled the angst each of them felt in the first months with JoAnn, their love for her being deeper than their panic so that they could bear it. A milestone day came and passed without any word from the birth mother, and so JoAnn was theirs. Without a formal adoption she maintained her birth name that fit her Swedish heritage and appearance. It's such a sadness to think about her brother left behind. I'm sorry I don't know his story and must one day ask my cousins to fill in the years. But I am aware that in at least the later years he has lived close enough for them to become close, for him to know his niece, nephew and great-nieces. I think that is phenomenal.

One of my uncles and his wife had purchased as an investment a large amount of land with a modest house they called "the ranch" in the wilds of Trinity County, California. It was there that Nellie, my mother, and JoAnn (all other children were grown) homesteaded their way through the Great Depression. I love this picture of my mother and JoAnn on a hike in the "Trinity Alps."

While they lived at the ranch my grandfather continued in his once-profitable career in sales of a variety of products, still getting by. He died while on the road in 1936 when JoAnn was seven. This photo is of Nellie and JoAnn at his gravesite. With the end of the Depression my grandmother moved the girls back to Chico, and eventually the Walnut Creek/Lafayette area, where my mother moved on and Nellie and JoAnn lived simply. JoAnn basically lived in that area her entire life. She was a headstrong teen who drove Nellie to distractions at times, but more often was a light in Nellie's life. They understood, respected, and loved one another.

This photo is a marvel to me. Independent photographers once positioned their cameras on the streets in Oakland, snapping pictures of passersby and arranging payment for a mailed copy. This one was called a "Metro Movie Snap" and caught JoAnn and Nellie striding happily along a busy street together in 1947.

She met Bill in the Bay Area, where he rose to Captain in the Navy. He told Nellie straight away that he was going to marry JoAnn. She told my mother that Bill was crazy. She married him. They were a remarkable and interesting couple who raised their family in a beautiful home next to a hill covered with walnut trees. She was widowed in 1994, but was not alone with my devoted cousins nearby.

My aunt JoAnn had flair and a most marvelous sense of humor. As a teen I could listen to her stories endlessly. I realize now that she was like Erma Bombeck in her witty interpretations of daily life in the suburbs. Her speaking voice and intonation were so distinctive that I can hear her easily in my memory. She was also blessed with a beautiful singing voice. And she had the most impressive handwriting I've ever seen. It appeared on cards attached to the most perfectly-wrapped, carefully-selected Christmas gifts any kid/teen could ever wish for.

JoAnn had her paradoxes. She smoked; she skied. She was giving; she was private. She was beautiful; she was self-effacing. She appeared confident; she fought depression. She was sunny; she sheltered heartbreak.

I'm remembering her sunny.