The dogs that saved me....

Dear Followers,
I realize it has been two weeks since I’ve posted anything new here. You’ll forgive me, I hope; I’ve been working on a new book, and I’m reaching the stage with it where it becomes all-consuming. I go to sleep thinking of the next passage, wake up trying to remember what I was processing when I fell asleep, and then ruminate on it all day while I’m at work. Slowly, all my other writing work is getting pushed aside.

This book will be a memoir, as Tainted Legacy is, but the focus is a world apart from that one. In my life, some dogs have owned me, heart and soul. I never lived up to their devoted attention, affection and protection, but I tried. Some of them, at times, have saved me….

The book is being written in chronological order, beginning with the family dog we had as a child, then leading into a section on *Rufus, the dog I had as a teenager, who saved me in more ways than one. (This section has required me to write—for the first time in my life—about my wicked step-father. It has been tough going. I write about those experiences in the daylight hours, then at night, have nightmares about what I’ve written. Still, I continue. Some things need to be said.)

Just to give you a small sample of the tone of the book, here are two tiny excerpts. They are taken from the first chapter, and are separated by large amounts of text in between:

Human beings are resilient, and it has been my experience that we can find our way through some very dark times, as long as we have hope that somehow there is light just beyond the shadow of darkness. But the absence of hope will ultimately lead to despair, and from there it is a short journey to the point where we are ready to give up.
I have been to this point several times in my life, but by far the most critical time for me was at the age of fifteen. So much happened in that year that was so crushing to my young spirit, I really don’t know, looking back, how I survived it. Well, but yes, I do; the powers of the universe tossed me a life preserver in the form of a block-headed mongrel dog named Rufus.

* * *

I suppose we had expected something like the Ponderosa. What we found was anything but. Art’s property was squeezed onto a long narrow street of rundown houses—nothing like our small but neat home in Orange County. The house on his property was more empty shell than home. In the yard we saw the tiny metal travel trailer which was Art’s real home.
We were still trying to take it all in as Mom drove through an open chain link gate and up a bumpy gravel driveway. Before we could get out of the car, we were greeted by two dogs. One was a small black and white terrier. The other dog was mostly white with a couple of large brown spots, one across half his face and one on his body. He was larger than the terrier, but he was clearly a puppy, with huge feet he had yet to grow into. He jumped on us with dirty paws, wagging his tail excitedly. Art strolled out to meet us, beer can in hand.
“That’s Five,” he said, pointing to the terrier and belching. “They left her here when they moved out. That’s her pup. I gave all the rest of them away, but that one’s so ugly, no one wants him. I call him Rufus.” He kicked at the dog with his boot to make him get down, then laughed.

*Note: The dog in the photo here is not Rufus. This is Osa, my last best dog.

A moonlit adventure--of possibly dire consequences

I went for a walk this morning. And couldn’t get home. Almost.

It all started with the moonlight. Moon + snow = light at night. Bright, luminescent light. A soft glow that beckons….

So I left the cabin at 4:45a.m. to walk the loop, down to the highway, up around to the falls road, and then home by the back way, skirting behind the cabins that are north of me and emerging on my own road again. I took my headlamp, just in case, but didn’t think I’d need it. Being outside under this kind of moon is like playing outside at night in the summer after the streetlights come on.

When I got to the falls road—walking up the middle of the highway, bathed in the bluish light, no cars coming either way—I realized that someone had plowed it after the big storms of last week, clearing it all the way down to the asphalt. In the day time, an hour or so after the sun rises over the eastern ridge of this canyon, having the snow cleared makes walking easier. When the sun hits them, all those piles of snow begin to melt, and the water trickles downhill all day—until it freezes in the night. This created quite the challenge for me walking up it. Basically, I was walking uphill on black ice.

I stepped slowly and carefully, with each step looking for patches of dry pavement. Up around a corner, I was relieved to see that the plowing came to an abrupt halt, although I had to squeeze carefully around my neighbor’s truck; he’d driven as far as he could, then just parked in the middle of the road and walked the rest of the way home.

Now, walking on packed snow, the footprints of hundreds of feet still visible, I could walk at a more normal pace. It was cold—in the 20’s—and I was eager to get home to breakfast.

Far up ahead on the trail I could see lights flashing. Hikers with headlamps were coming down the trail. After a minute or so, they passed me.
“How was your walk?” I asked quietly.
“Great!” they both responded, chuckling.
I am not entirely crazy. Those guys wanted to play under the giant streetlight, too.

My whimsical moment with them passed quickly. By this time, the moon had disappeared behind the western ridge. I reached up and switched my headlamp on. The first thing I saw was a giant snowdrift that had all but obliterated the road ahead, reducing the trail to a narrow single track that proceeded determinedly up and over the drift. I’ve hiked the falls road for several winters now. I’ve never seen it like that.

Up and over I went, continuing on to find several more similar drifts. Finally, I came to the falls. I could hear the water thundering into the stream below as it cascaded down the sheer rock face, though I couldn’t see it in the darkness. I stood for long moments, listening to the quiet of the forest, the water tap dancing over rocks below. This much snow in the winter makes everything on the mountain harder—getting to and from work, bringing wood in, staying warm. No one ever complains. We know that this spring the mountain will be alive with flowers and with seeds and berries for all our furry friends. No bears wandering past the cabins in late summer, I thought, smiling. Then it was time to go.

There are three driveways that bisect the falls road. One belongs to John, my neighbor, whose cabin is closest to the waterfall. I had passed his big dually truck, completely mired in snow now. Below John’s there is another driveway that leads to the cabin of ‘Red Truck Guy.’ I have often waved to him in the early morning as he is heading out to work and I am walking along the road. I don’t know his name. His truck was the one parked where the snowplow had stopped. The third driveway leads to Cabin #54, and it is that driveway that I usually take to cut down behind the cabins to my own road. Not this morning.

When I finally found the place where the driveway should be (because I recognized the huge pine tree that stands next to it), I realized it would be impossible for me to use it; the snow that had drifted over the road had spilled down this driveway as well, creating one long beautifully rounded slope. Had it been daylight, I would have toyed with the idea of simply sliding on my butt all the way down to Cabin 54. I admit, even standing there in the dark, I was cold enough and hungry enough to think about it seriously—for a second or two. At that hour, in that place, if I were to injure myself, no one would find me for a good long time. There was nothing left to do but figure out another way.

Going back down the falls road was an option I could take, but it was the last one I would choose. Walking uphill on black ice is one thing. Walking downhill on it—for a quarter mile or so—was something I just didn’t want to think about. I turned and walked back up the road toward the falls.

I took Red Truck Guy’s driveway. I stepped in his prints carefully, and I tried to be quiet, though the crunch of each step was a resounding abuse to the otherwise quiet. If he woke, he must’ve thought a very large animal was making its way past his cabin.

Finally, I made it to the trail behind his cabin. Whew. Now all I had to do was follow the trail and I would get to my own road soon. I thought.

When I say “trail,” I really mean the area where the trail once was. Before it was covered in four feet of snow. I was now glad for the freezing temperatures of the night before, as I could walk—slowly and gingerly—along the top of the snow, making my way down in the dark with the help of my lamp, looking for landmarks, certain boulders and trees that would help me identify where I was.

Have I mentioned that the name of my road is Canyon Rim Road? It is named thus because the road was built to accommodate the cabins that were built along the rim of the canyon formed by the water streaming from the falls. What might be unclear at this point in the narrative is the fact that, if I start sliding off the (nonexistent) trail, I will no doubt keep going down, picking up speed as I fly, sans toboggan, over the edge and a hundred feet down into the bottom of the canyon. If that were to happen, most likely I would lie there until spring, when some poor hiker might stumble across whatever the coyotes left behind.

Heart pounding, I took careful step after careful step, holding onto low hanging tree branches when I could. Finally, I looked up to see Cabin 54 in the distance. I was going the right way, nearly to the road. In every other winter that I’ve lived and hiked here, someone always heads up to the falls shortly after every storm, breaking the trail, making a path. Though it has been over a week since our five consecutive days of snow, no one has been here; there was simply no place to walk. Perhaps I should say, no one was foolish enough to try….

At the last cabin before the road, a set of steep steps leads down to a driveway and then the road. The steps were buried beneath the snow, so I sat down and slid, no longer in danger of heading out of control and over the side.

Finally, at 6:15, I arrived home. From the warmth and safety of my cabin, I could appreciate the adventure. . . and the snow's promise of a beautiful spring. After all, Tuesday is Groundhog's Day.

The Wisdom in Snow

In Southern California, where I live, few people are blessed to see snow as it falls, flakes floating down slowly, as I have pictured manna raining down from heaven in Moses’ time. As it accumulates, it is so light and fluffy that snowflakes clinging to a glove can be brushed away like feathers.

I have always liked the analogy that people are like snowflakes—no two alike. I imagine us all, floating down from heaven, soft, pure, as transparent and full of color as diamonds. Innocent, in the beginning. Where and when we fall seems to have a lot to do with how we’ll turn out.

In the chill of darkness, snow will develop a hard crust, with edges as treacherously sharp as glass.

In the heat of the glaring sun, snow crystals can no longer maintain their integrity, and they break apart.

Snow that falls near heavily populated areas will be beaten down underfoot or splashed to the side of the road where it remains in the gutter until it’s gone.

There is a place, though, where I have seen a patch of snow rest in a high green meadow until spring, still looking as soft and malleable as it did the day it fell.

Of course, the life of a snowflake is fleeting. It drifts down from heaven, a tiny glistening gift, like, but unlike, all the others around it. After a brief time, its essence returns again to the earth and sky. If only we had eyes that could appreciate each separate and individual flake, seeing the beauty there, embracing each one for its contribution.

Injustice anywhere....

The little girl and the little boy in the adjacent photo are my daughter and my son.

When I was a young girl growing up in the 1960’s, I was very aware of Martin Luther King, Jr. He was on television, on the news, in the papers and magazines of the time, because the late fifties and early sixties marked the height of the Civil Rights Movement in America. As a young person, I was astounded by his courage. I tried to imagine what it would be like to stand quietly in the street while men with clubs and vicious dogs were attacking those around me. Fear would overtake me, I knew. I would run away. The type of courage he possessed comes from a place deep, deep down in a man’s soul, a place from which a certain light emanates, and a man knows he has seen enough, heard enough, and he is willing to walk through hell in order to change the status quo.

It was not until I was in college, however, that I began to appreciate the eloquence of Dr. King. Most know him as a powerful orator, and he was, but until one has read his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” one cannot fully grasp the brilliance of this man as an articulate rhetorician. At my first reading, I was so blown away by his ability with language, I read the letter again from a writer’s point of view. It is one of the most concise yet heartfelt documents I’ve ever read.

I try to re-read King’s letter from time to time, especially around the anniversary of his birthday. Each time, I take away something different. This year, I am particularly struck by his plea to the white clergymen who criticized his arrival as a leader in Birmingham, Alabama. They characterized King as an “outside agitator,” telling the press that they would rather see ‘time and negotiation’ bring forth change instead of Blacks marching in the street as a form of nonviolent protest. In his letter, King lovingly attempts to help them see the life he lives, how difficult it is as a parent “when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: ‘Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?’”

If you think that racial discrimination ended with the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1965, ask my son to tell you some stories. Oh, I can tell you stories, too. But he was the little boy who stood on a neighbor’s front porch and was told he couldn’t play with the little girl inside because of the color of his skin. He was the little boy who was called “nigger” by grown adults.

The “Letter from Birmingham Jail” includes many now famous statements by Dr. King, such as “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” But my favorite remark, the one I memorized long ago, the one posted on my classroom wall, is this one:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Full text of the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” http://abacus.bates.edu/admin/offices/dos/mlk/letter.html

Waiting for the Light

When the December stratus clouds hover above the mountain, I love going out to walk just before dawn. By the time I get up to the waterfall, the “rosy fingers of dawn” are beginning to streak the sky with their miraculous paint. The clouds change color from light gray to the faintest pink, a huge mess of cotton candy across the morning sky. That same pink tints the snow as well, and for several moments the mountain is a quiet fantasy land. I half expect the fairies to emerge from under the huge oaks and dance until the stars twinkle out.

This morning the light show was particularly meaningful, as today is the first day of winter. The solstice! The days will grow colder, certainly, but at least they will grow a bit lighter every day. It’s the light that sustains me through the winter months. I have walked in temperatures below freezing, but if the sun is shining and there’s snow on the ground, it’s fun, especially if I walk past the campground and kids are playing. I remember those days… coming up to Mt Baldy with my next-door-neighbor, Suzy. Her dad would drive us up every Christmas Eve and we would play in the snow until our sneakers were soaked and our hands were numb. Now I wear high-tech gloves and heavy snow boots. It’s a lot more fun….

Besides the longer days (slowly but surely), I have other reasons to celebrate. Three years ago I adopted a small black cat with a chopped off tail and brought her home during Christmas break. As I write this, she sits just feet from my chair, front paws tucked neatly beneath her, watching the raccoons who have come to the French doors to beg for cookies. Sugar Plum has blessed my life in ways I don’t need to explain to those of you who love animals. She has her own Facebook page now….

And one year ago Tainted Legacy was released. Two days before Christmas, I drove up to Apple Valley to visit my mom. I spent the afternoon with her, then just before I left, I pulled a copy of the book out of my bag and put it in her hands. The look on her face was priceless indeed. She stayed up half the night reading it. In the year since the book was released, I’ve had amazing adventures with book signings, speaking engagements, and traveling back to Missouri to wander through graveyards (again) and reconnect with friends. This, too, has been a blessing in my life, and I am thankful every day that the story—as much of it as we know—has finally been told.

There’s a fire crackling in the fireplace. We’re supposed to get snow tonight. I have plenty of firewood, a warm blanket to wrap up in, and a cat who will find a spot beside me to snuggle into. Bring on the winter. I’m ready.

Tis the season

I was supposed to head off to a Christmas party on Friday night—the December meeting of my writers group becomes an opportunity to exchange gifts, desserts, and great stories. Alas, the instability of the weather required that I simply come on up the mountain after work. In anticipation of the party, I’d ordered a huge tray of Christmas cookies from the catering class at the high school, so I ended up bringing it home. Nothing to do but eat them up—oh, and share them with my neighbors, of course.

After dinner on Friday night, I pulled some of the plastic wrap off the cookie tray and wiggled my fingers inside to retrieve one of those small round cookies covered with powdered sugar. When we were kids, we called them butter balls. (If you put rum in them, they’re butter rum balls.) The first bite took me back fifty years.

When I was a kid, Grandma would catch the train in Los Angeles and ride out to Lakewood where we lived on a beautiful suburban tree-lined street. Dad would pick her up at the train station, and she always bustled in carrying bags filled with coloring books, crayons, and cinnamon raisin bread. She and Mom would spend days getting ready for Christmas, baking mincemeat pies, pumpkin pies, apple pies (all from scratch), cooking yams for candied yams, making cranberry sauce (from scratch as well). Grandma made a special Christmas treat by stuffing dates with half a walnut and rolling them in powdered sugar. Such a simple thing… yet I was reminded of how much I loved them when my daughter made something similar—but far more fancy—for Thanksgiving.

We had a real tree every year, and every year Dad would send one of the boys up the ladder in the garage to the rafters to bring down the large box of ornaments, decorations and our nativity. The only thing we bought new each year were several boxes of tinsel to cover the tree with. Oh, and glass wax. Most folks in our neighborhood would use multi-colored glass wax and a sponge to decorate their picture windows, much as the retail stores do now, with snowy scenes and holly berries. Of course, we had a long string of outdoor lights that Dad would dutifully hang around the eaves of the house every year.

Both my parents were veterans of WWII, and Dad was involved in his local VFW. One year, a few days before Christmas, we loaded up the station wagon and headed off to the VFW hall for an opportunity to meet Santa and be given a gift. I was pretty nervous about this, and truth be known would have preferred to forego the gift just so I could avoid sitting on a stranger’s knee. I was painfully shy and having to be asked by someone I didn’t know what I wanted for Christmas was torture for me. As the time approached for Santa’s arrival, I started looking around for my dad in order to seek out his protective arms. He was nowhere to be found. I finally asked Mom, who said first that Dad had gone to the bathroom, and a long time later, when I bugged her again, that I should stop asking so many questions. As soon as she said that, I knew. It was Mom’s catch phrase: “Stop being so nosy.” It always meant she was trying to hide something, and I knew right away what that meant in this case. Ha! My dad was Santa! A moment later he walked through the door and at his first “Ho Ho Ho!” I recognized his voice. When my turn came, I readily climbed into his lap and looked him straight in the eye, smiling. I didn’t give away his secret, and I never told my parents that I knew, but I was really proud that it was my dad who had the honor to be chosen for such an important job.

Yesterday when I was chatting with Mom, she mentioned that my brother had played Santa on Friday. I called him today.
“Yep,” he said, “a hundred and twenty kindergarteners.” His wife is their teacher. What a grand tradition.
“Hey Kev,” I asked, “Did you know Dad played Santa when we went to the VFW hall?”
“Was that Dad?” he replied. He never knew. Guess the secret’s out of Santa’s bag now. Sorry, Dad. But you did a great job with all those kids. Bet my brother did, too.

Snow: Day Two - The Aftermath

When I parked my truck across the highway from the inn last night, I made sure I backed it off the road by eight feet or so--far from the work of the snowplows. I woke to no new snow and a dazzling view of the twinkling lights of the valley below under clear skies. Perfect. I wouldn't have to do much shoveling to get the truck back on the road headed toward work--but just in case, I planned to leave the cabin at 5:30.

Having a routine is important; packing is critical. I have to remember to bring shoes to change into at work, dry socks, extra gloves, and so forth (and my lunch--and my keys). Finally, at 5:45, I was ready: I was wearing jeans tucked into tall rubber boots, with waterproof pants over the jeans, plus a sweater, a jacket, and another waterproof jacket with hood, my ear muffs, gloves and my headlamp. (What would I do without it??) The experience of walking through the snow with the headlamp is amazing and hard to describe. You've seen those scenes in stadiums--the Olympics is a good example--where thousands of cameras are flashing in the dark; that's what it's like. As you walk, the light hits the crystals in the snow, creating a dazzling show like light refracting in a million tiny diamonds. It's gorgeous.

The beauty took my mind off my frozen hand. I had to carry a shovel down, plus the squeegee to clear snow and ice from the windshield. I put both in one hand and stuck the other hand in my pocket, so at least only one hand was freezing at a time. It's not far, about a ten-minute walk, so it was fine, really. And when I reached the highway, I could see Sparkle, my trusty little Tacoma, looking just about ready for our slow ride down the mountain. Then I walked around to the far side of the truck. Just for fun, I'm sure, the snowplow boys had veered way off the highway, piling a nice huge berm against the tires on that side. Did I mention that temps were far below freezing last night? The chunks of snow were huge blocks of ice that I would have to break apart, then move aside in order to dig out the wheels. Ever see the movie Rainman? Remember when Tom Cruise is walking around the field kicking things, screaming SON OF A BITCH? Yeah, that was me. But only in my head; I didn't want to wake the neighbors.

There was a thick crust of ice on the windshield, so I wanted to start the truck and slowly warm it up in the cab so the ice would melt. But first, I had to get the door open, because it was frozen shut. It took me a few attempts, but I was finally able to pry it open and start the truck. I put my backpack inside on the seat, and I took off the headlamp. The sun hadn't risen, but the moon on the snow provided enough light for me to see where I was jamming the shovel.

After half an hour of shoveling, the ice on the windshield was still hard as rock--and I could no longer feel my fingers or toes. I sat in the warm cab for a few minutes, cursing the snowploy boys and laughing. After another fifteen minutes, I had the truck free of ice, and the windshield was warm enough to scrape a spot clear. Time to head out. Sparkle bucked and tossed a bit, but she finally broke free of the ice and clambored up out of her spot, rolling onto the highway. I put my flashers on while I drove at 10mph, pumping the brakes and making sure all machinery was functioning properly. Then, in low gear, I began to slowly roll down the mountain.

Along the switchbacks, I saw a young man in an F250 with emergency flashers on, so I pulled up to him and stopped, opening my door (since the window was still frozen) to ask if he was OK.

"Yeah," he shrugged. "I'm just waiting for my friends. They got stuck down the road so they're walking up." Nice guy. His friends were a quarter mile down the road, walking gingerly over the frozen pavement, slipping and sliding. I'm sure they were on their way to ski. I can smell those guys a mile away--always impatient, in a hurry, unprepared for the cold or the conditions. Hope they had a great day.

Finally to work, I walked up to my classroom still in snow gear, then did my quick-change routine as the heater began to warm up the room. (It was 46 degrees in there--not really welcoming.) After a good day with the kids, it was back up the hill--this time I parked about 30 feet up our little road, plunging through a foot of snow as I pulled into an open spot. Tomorrow morning, I'll walk down early but simply drive out--no digging.

One of my students asked me today, "If it's such a hassle, why do you live up there?" As I've said so many times, it's nearly impossible to describe the overwhelming beauty. This morning, as the sky began to lighten, I would look up from my shoveling from time to time to the summit of Mt Baldy. It was covered in snow tinted pink by the rising sun. This evening, as I locked the truck at 4:30 and began my walk up the road to the cabin, the sun had gone down over the western ridge, and the slopes on the opposite side of the canyon were aglow with the last honey-golden light before dusk. Tomorrow morning I will watch for diamonds in the snow, breathe in the clear, cold air, and feel blessed once again.