Salinas: Part Three

I know, I know, it took me forever to post this last part (and I promise it's the last part), but I've been busy reading amazing books (In the Country of Women, News of the World) and watching the Gilmore Girls and having my heart broken a bit (don't even ask; it involves a dog). But I'm back. So here's what happened on my last day at the Steinbeck Festival in Salinas:

I met two wonderful men. Not one. Two.

The first being John Steinbeck himself:

Okay, that's not really John Steinbeck, obviously. (Look closely in the background and you'll see a photo of the real Steinbeck.) But there he was in the bookstore as a dozen or so attendees showed up early on Saturday morning for an event billed as "Coffee with Steinbeck." As we assembled, finding chairs and nodding to one another, he introduced himself to each one of us, asking for our names and where we were from, shaking our hands and saying, "I'm John." 

When everyone was settled, he began his talk by telling us that he couldn't stay long, that he had come from "literary heaven" and would have to return soon, but in his time with us, he wanted to answer any questions we might have about his books. He remembered our names and asked us, one at a time, why we had come to "his" center. The charming thing is, everyone played along.

"I came to see you, Mr. Steinbeck," I told him. "I read The Grapes of Wrath as a teenager, and over the years, I read the rest of your books because I love your writing. I couldn't wait to meet you." Everyone else gave similar responses, how a particular book of his had changed their life or made them see the world in a different light. He thanked us, humbly, sharing small pieces about how or why he wrote each book as we mentioned them. It was a magical hour that flew by and then he was escorted away quickly by staff because he had promised to give tours of "his" truck, Rocinante. (See previous post.)

Then I walked across the hall to hear another amazing man speak. If you read this blog often, you know how much I love dogs, so you can assume I would be drawn in by this recipe: writer + rescue dog + trip across America tracing Steinbeck's journey in Travels With Charley.

Peter Zheutlin (journalist and author of Rescue Road, a book about the long haul rescue work of Greg Mahle who drives dogs from the deep South to their new families in the North) decided to take his rescue pup, Albie, on a tour of America much like Steinbeck had with Charley. The book is titled The Dog Went Over the Mountain, and it is a memoir recounting Zheutlin's journey.

That morning in the Salinas Room of the Steinbeck Center, Zheutlin shared a PowerPoint presentation of his photos from the trip. Of course, he had me at "rescue dog," but seeing all those pictures of places I've been to and places I'm still longing to see, sweet Albie feartured in each one, made me envious of his trip. Everyone should take such a trip across this big, beautiful country, a good dog alongside as companion.

Afterward, Zheutlin did a signing in the bookstore--and sold out the limited number of early-release copies of the book his publisher had given him. (Did I mention that he is donating a percentage of the sales to animal rescue?) I hovered around until his wife began to look at me askance, and I had to explain that I was trying to get the perfect picture with Steinbeck's photo in the background to post on Instagram, at which point she jumped in ardently to do the same.

A dog show had been planned to follow Zheutlin's presentation, but only one dog--a glamorous white standard poodle--showed up to participate, so that dog walked off with a blue ribbon after performing several tricks for the small but enthusiastic crowd that had gathered.

After that, it was a beer and a quesadilla made with freshly grilled (while I watched), locally grown vegetables and a homemade (dear heavens, thank you) tortilla for me. Then I wandered back to my room to do some writing and plan my drive home the next day.

I'm already excited about attending the Steinbeck Festival next year. Who's with me?

Salinas: Part Two

Photo courtesy of the National Steinbeck Center, Salinas, California

(You will find Part One of this narrative below this one.)

I arrived in Salinas on Friday afternoon and easily found the old Victorian home I would be staying in. I chose an AirBNB room because it cost me half of what I would have paid at a hotel, and it was located a half mile from the National Steinbeck Center. You know that old saying, “You get what you pay for?” It was exactly true in this situation. Enough said about that.

I met my hostess, dumped my stuff in my room, took a quick shower and changed into jeans, t-shirt and sneaks for my walk downtown. The Steinbeck Center is perfectly located at the far west end of Main Street. There’s a Starbucks across the street (there ya go, tourists), and it’s a classic Main street, with broad sidewalks, shops and restaurants.

Checking in at the Center was easy, and a minute later I was donning my Steinbeck Festival 2019 lanyard which would be my ID for the weekend. Six feet inside the door of the Center is the bookstore, and before I had even completed checking in, I’d seen something I wanted to get for my son-in-law (who loves Steinbeck, too, and I’m going to say “nearly” as much as I do), so that twenty minutes after checking in I was back at the front desk to pay for all the merchandise I’d purchased.

To kick off the festival, the organizers had planned a panel discussion (“Did Americans Ever Get Along?”) with some fancy folks (a Stanford prof, a Cambridge University prof, and Patricia Limerick, a University of Colorado prof—who was lovely and quite a hoot). I had time before that started, so I strolled down Main Street, found a great restaurant that served farm-to-table cuisine, and ate a delicious salad of fresh greens, roasted beets and goat cheese.

Then I strolled back in time for the Big Event—which turned out to be a bust, as far as I was concerned. The Salinas Room of the Center was packed with a couple hundred people by the time I got there, and organizers were bustling around, adding more chairs. I grabbed one near the back in case I felt compelled to duck out later—which I did. If you’re confused by the topic of the discussion, you’re not alone. Each year the committee chooses one of Steinbeck’s writings as the theme for the festival. This year, it was Steinbeck’s last book, America and Americans, a work as timely today as it was in 1966 when it was first published. The book is essentially a long narrative about our social history, how we’ve treated each other (not well) and what needs to change if we are to be successful as a nation (greater inclusion, less disparity in wealth).

But here were these three distinguished persons answering ambiguous questions about an already ambiguous topic from a moderator who was clearly, blatantly, not interested in what the woman had to say. When the discussion reached the point at which she volunteered to answer a question and the moderator asked her brusquely to hold her thought because he wanted to hear what the professor from Stanford had to say in response, I was done. I slipped out, strolled across the lobby to the museum where a wine and cheese after-party had been set up, snagged a glass of wine and chatted with the vintners.

Oh, the museum!

I just can’t describe it. If you’re a lover of Steinbeck, you just must go and stroll through and look and linger and read all the exhibits and see the displays and, in doing so, remember your joy in reading Cannery Row or Sweet Thursday or the agonized journey you shared with the Joad family in Grapes of Wrath or the wisdom you gleaned from East of Eden or the wanderlust you felt while reading Travels with Charley.

Rocinante is there. She is the good old truck with a camper shell Steinbeck drove across America with his dog, Charley. Actually, it was a photograph of Rocinante in Westways Magazine that started me on this journey. I couldn’t believe the old tank was still around—and parked in the museum where everyone could see her. (Actually, during the festival, for a price, you could buy a ticket to be taken inside the camper shell.) On a road trip to Missouri some years ago, I’d listened to Travels with Charley (read by Gary Sinise). I drove my beloved Dodge Ram on that trip, stopping at small towns. The only aspect missing, I thought at the time with great yearning, was a dog.

So there I was, wine glass in hand, staring at the Rocinante, steeped in the memories of that trip to Missouri, witness to the best parts of America, as Steinbeck had been. Oh, that I would have had a good dog as companion for that trip!

To honor Steinbeck’s love of dogs, one of the festival events this year was a dog show, entries open to the public, with the SPCA of Monterey County bringing adoptable dogs to the Center. But all that was scheduled for Saturday, and by the time I’d finished my half-glass of wine and sampled the cheese, grapes and crackers, I was ready to walk the half mile back to my room and fall in bed exhausted.

"I shall take my dog, and that is another reassurance that I am neither dangerous nor insane." --John Steinbeck

Salinas: Part One

Photo courtesy of the Los Padres ForestWatch website

If you are a lover of good books + Nature + solid, suspenseful writing + birds of prey (or a combination of any of those), you might consider reading John Moir’s brilliant narrative, Return of the Condor. It’s educational (Moir is also a teacher of science in addition to being a fine writer), but it’s also tremendously engrossing.

I say all that as preface to this:

When I left Cayucos on the morning of August 2^nd to head to Salinas (scroll two posts back to find that post), I made the decision to travel up the coast along Highway 1. I hadn’t done the drive in twenty years, but it had been so memorable the previous time, I wanted to do it again. [Side note: If you live in California, and you haven’t done the drive, get the hell up there. If you don’t live in Cali but are planning a visit, ya gotta go there.]

Driving up this coastal highway meant driving along the bluffs above the Pacific Ocean, looking down to see waves crashing along the rocks and seabirds flying—for three hours, with no radio reception and no cell reception. If I had remembered to bring my iPod, I could’ve plugged it into my car and listened to my music library—which would’ve had me singing for three hours. But I’d forgotten it. So it was just me and the sea. And let me tell you, I loved every glorious minute of it, over the one-hundred-plus mile trip, through the mist and fog of early morning into the bright sunshine dancing across the surface of the water, blue all the way to the horizon on my left, tall trees and rolling green hills to my right. A bit of heaven, for sure.

As I drove, I frequently saw the shadows of big birds crossing over the top of the car. Along the coast, we have gulls and huge brown pelicans and ravens and peregrine falcons—the same as most coastlines. But in California, we also have—because of the controversial but now successful captive breeding program—California Condors, the biggest bird you’ll ever see in the wild. (They have a ten-foot wingspan. Ten. feet. Go ahead. Take a moment; try to imagine it.)

Reading John Moir’s book some years ago raised my awareness of the treasure that these big ugly flying dinosaurs are. (They eat the large dead aquatic animals that wash up on shore.) And it also made me aware that (now, finally) there are places in California where we can spot them—more and more, actually, as their numbers continue to recover.

So there I was, driving along, joyfully singing some tune a cappella, when I looked up at just the right moment in just the right spot to see two young but fully feathered California Condors riding the thermals above me. Booyah! Then I wasn’t singing anymore, I was shouting. I’ve been birdwatching since I was in elementary school. To have seen two of these gigantic creatures in the wild on such a day just tipped my joy over into the jubilee zone. Oh my goodness!! I felt incredibly blessed. In fact, I felt as if my ancestors had sent them as a sign: ‘Here ya go, girl. Be safe on your travels, and know that even though mistakes have been made, and the environment has not been cared for as it should have been, and you have often grieved that, we are here behind the scenes, trying to help make things right. Keep believing. Keep spreading the word.’

And so I will.

As you go about your busy day, please be mindful that there are creatures—big and small—that have been placed in our care. It is inherent in our own gift of life that we continue to be good stewards over them. Amen and amen.

Click on the title of John Moir's book in the first paragraph if you're interested in reading it. You can pick up a used paperback copy for about five bucks.

Or, if you just want to see more pictures of California Condors and learn more about them, click here.

PSA

I'm interrupting my previously scheduled blog post (about my further adventures in Salinas) to bring you a public service announcement. It's the same one I've made before... but bear with me.

About an hour south of Salinas is a small community known as King. In it, just off Highway 101, is a fairly large truck stop, and in the middle of the truck stop is a fairly small eatery called the Wild Horse Cafe. (Thus the rearing horse in the photo above.) This was where I stopped for breakfast at 8:00 this morning. You know when you walk in the door of a cafe of this type that if you see plenty of battered trucks outside and plenty of dusty boots dragged up to the counter inside, you're going to get some mighty fine breakfast (which I did, quickly and with salsa on the side).

You also know, in a place like this, you're probably going to see signs like this:

This picture says it all: "God, Guns & Guts Made America Free/Let's Keep It That Way" over a background of our flag, a bald eagle and a man toting a long-barreled gun.

I had already become aware of the shooting in Dayton when I checked my phone at 5:30a.m. for news. Since my son now lives in Dayton, Ohio, you can imagine what reading that news did to my heart rate, which only slowed down a little after he immediately responded to my text message to say he was okay. He followed that with, "Yeah, it's crazy; I've been to that bar before." That's when the tears came. No, it wasn't my son this time. But it could've been. And certainly, it was somebody else's son, somebody else's daughter.

By the time I sat down to coffee, scrambled eggs and home fries, I was determined to take as many deep breaths as might be necessary to get through my breakfast without crying in a small diner surrounded by strangers. Then the gentleman sitting in the booth behind me suddenly jumped up and shouted, "There's been another mass shooting! This one's in Dayton!" He held his cell phone aloft and looked around for a response, whereupon the gentleman sitting one booth away replied loudly, "And they wanna take our guns away? Not mine they don't."

Sigh. 

Not satisfied with that response, the phone wielding gentleman then approached three weathered crop beaters sitting at the counter and showed them the news. One of them glanced at the phone, then leaned into the anxious man's side and began to tell him quietly that he could not trust at all what he saw on the news. "A lot of times they just make that stuff up," he said emphatically.

I wish, oh how I wish, that I were making this up, that this were a fictional story that just came to me while I sat in that isolated diner losing my appetite.

Nope, not a chance. It happened just like that, folks. The first man finally sat down and continued to stare at his phone, occasionally blurting out further details as he continued reading about the carnage.

And I sat. I remained anchored. Time ticked by. What I wanted to say was, "No one wants to take your guns, sir, unless you have an AK-style weapon that you're planning on using to kill people who don't look or think like you." But I didn't. Like our lawmakers, I simply sat and did nothing.

So, since we're still not going to change anything in America in regard to guns, here's my advice:

From now on, whenever you travel to a public place, whether it's a mall or a school or a nightclub or an outdoor concert or a museum, always check for exits when you arrive, as I did this weekend at the Steinbeck Festival. I found the back door of the center easily, saw that it led to an enclosed patio, and determined that, with some effort, I could go up and over the wall if need be.

If you have young children, explain to them that if someone begins shooting, they are not to wait for you, they must run as fast as they can as far as they can away from the gunshots and not stop to look at anything or anyone. You can always be reunited with them later if you manage to survive. If you don't survive, well, the sooner they adjust to someone else looking after them, the better, I suppose.

If you're still of the belief that a man with a gun can be stopped by another man with a gun, please keep in mind that yesterday's shooting occurred in Texas, an "open carry" state. The perpetrator opened fire on women and children and old people. Where were the men with guns to stop him?

Speaking of that, decide in advance if you would really risk your life to save someone or you're just going to run. You'll lose critical seconds being indecisive. I will not forget the interview with the woman in El Paso who said, 'I was trying to help a very elderly woman, but she just couldn't move fast enough, so I left her behind, because the shooter was getting closer.'

I honestly had to ask myself how I would feel if my daughter sacrificed her life to save an old woman, which, believe me, I'm pretty sure she'd do, because she has this thing for old people, and she's pretty badass and stubborn--if she didn't take out the shooter with her teacher voice--"Put that [expletive] gun down right now!"--she'd find a way to help the old woman. But at what price? If the old woman survived, her family would have her for a few more years. If my daughter were killed, she'd be lost to her husband, her children, her eventual grandchildren, and a mother who would never know joy again.

But these are the moral dilemmas we must sort through in advance. Because when the bullets start flying again--and we all know it's only a matter of time before the next mass shooting occurs, maybe in your town, maybe in mine--we will not have time to consider escape routes or reflect upon who is needed more in this life. We will have a handful of seconds to react. We'd best be ready.

Cayucos

The ocean, for me, has a healing quality just as powerful as walking in a forest among tall trees and birdsong. If you've read The Dogs Who Saved Me, you know that I grew up near the ocean, and when I was younger, in my worst times, I retreated there--first by bike, then later by car.

That didn't change when I grew into middle age. I still went to the ocean for solace, even though I lived much farther from it, and nowadays the bit of the ocean I visit isn't in Southern California, it's along the Central Coast. If you've never been there, just trust me when I say, it's a magical place. If your soul needs healing, go there.

When I decided to attend the annual Steinbeck Festival, I thought I might stay over in Cayucos on my way up to Salinas. If you're unfamiliar, Cayucos is the little town just north of Morro Bay. It's the home of the Brown Butter Cookie Company, and the beach front boasts a long, beautiful pier that stretches out into deep water.

The last time I drove to Morro Bay, up Interstate 101, it took me seven hours--a trip that should take five hours if you slow down a bit to appreciate the ocean out your driver's side window. So this time, I drove the back roads--through Palmdale, up, around, over and across on several two-lane highways, just me and the agricultural trucks rolling along. It was great. With all the meandering I did, it still only took me five hours, and I drove some beautiful country roads, especially when I got closer to the coast.

At 4:00p.m., I checked into my very clean and spacious room at the Cayucos Beach Inn, took a quick shower, then walked downtown--a half-mile stroll--for dinner.

The restaurant I had intended to patronize was closed, so I strolled another quarter mile to the Cass House. This is what I ate:

Focaccia baked on site with warm, rosemary-infused olive oil and sea salt 

Roasted cauliflower in lemon yogurt with toasted almonds, mint and pomegranate vinaigrette  

Flourless chocolate torte with sea salt

Just to be clear, I only ate half the torte. I saved the other half for the next day. Needless to say, I was a pretty happy, relaxed camper when I strolled out onto the pier after dinner. From there, I could see all the way down the coast to Morro Rock in Morro Bay.

I slept deeply and comfortably that night. The next morning, Friday, I awoke to fog shrouding the town and the beach. Hurrah! This is my favorite weather for walking the beach. I went down about 7:00, and, no surprise, on the wide expanse of beach I found dog prints right away. Through the mist, I could make out the outlines of a few canines and their humans. And then, looming up from the sand, I saw what might have been a rock... but very well could have been a sleeping dragon.

Since I am currently working on a children's series that includes a dragon and is loosely set in Cayucos, I took this sighting as a very good sign.

If--when--I return, will the dragon still be there? I do not know. I do know that I will not wait long to walk on the beach again. That hour ambling along the sand, peering into fresh tide pools, greeting the happy dogs who greeted me in return, listening to the susurration of the surf's rhythm toward me and away, healed my soul a bit and gave me as a take-home gift a basketful of tranquility.

Valet

Will someone please help me disrobe?

Okay, sorry for the racy first line. I didn’t mean it. Well, I mean, I meant it, but just… don’t volunteer until you know what it entails.

Also sorry for the title to this post, because I don’t mean “valet.” Google is telling me that my request is actually for a “lady’s maid” (because only MEN can have valets [insert angry emoji face here]), but, let’s face it, I ain’t no lady, and a “maid” (sheesh! What a term!) is certainly not what I want. Not really. I just want someone to assist me in getting ready for bed at night. Because, oh my dragons, by the time I finish with the nighttime routine for my fur crew, I’m too tired to do it myself.

At 8:00p.m., I take Thomas outside for maybe the last time of the evening. Maybe not. He may need to go out again in an hour if he’s too scared to, um, accomplish the task we set out to accomplish. That could happen if any neighbor on either side of me or behind me is in his/her/their yard doing anything (or nothing at all; he sniffs from the garage door—if the coast isn’t clear, he doesn’t advance). And by ‘taking him outside,’ I do mean going out there with him. Every time. Lucky you, all of you with dogs who can open the back door at 8:00p.m., tell your dog to get out there and get busy, then close the door and go back to watching TV or Netflix or Amazon Prime or the new political drama unfolding on Facebook.

Oops. I digress.

Anyway, since we’ve lived here (in Calimesa, in a “senior community” of “manufactured homes”), Thomas no longer has his seven-foot-tall block wall to shield him from possible intruders, so he doesn’t feel safe going outside alone (unless it’s 2:00a.m., at which time he is so happy to be outside trotting and sniffing, he’s been known to do zoomies). So I go out with him, in summertime, swatting at mosquitoes for the 15 or 20 minutes it takes him to get on task, in the winter, bundled in a jacket, hood up, staring at the stars until my neck hurts.

Thom gets a Greenie when he comes back inside, and the girls (Purrl and Jenny, who are cats, if you’re new to the blog) get a few treats. Dry cat food bowls are topped off (because heaven help us if a cat reaches that critical point sometime in the night when she can see the bottom of her bowl). Purrl is still on a diet, so hers must be measured carefully. Jenny is remaining thin on her Cannidae and Blue Buffalo diet, so I can just dump hers in—but I have to stir it around with my fingers. Why? Because she drools while she eats, so all the crunchies on the bottom of the bowl are all stuck together.

But back to Purrl for a second: I have to stand next to her at the bathroom counter while she eats. If I leave, she stops eating, slowly descends the custom-made stairs I had built for her after she lost her sight, and sits in the doorway until I return to the bathroom, at which point she will trundle back up the stairs and sit on the counter, waiting for me to pet her. Then she resumes eating. How did this happen??? Foolish me. Her fur becomes a mess of knots when she sheds in the summer, so last year I started brushing her every evening while she was eating--because at any other time, I might just have my arm shredded or poisonous fangs sunk into my fingers. She began to associate eating with being groomed (as kittens do), and here we are. Sigh.

Water bowls are also topped off (in between encouraging Purrl to eat her food as I tiptoe away), and while I’m in the master bath, I floss and brush my teeth. (That’s right, floss. My dental hygienist loves me.)

When Thomas finishes his Greenie, if he hears me brushing my teeth, he knows it’s story time, and he runs happily to the carpet outside the bathroom door and plops himself down like a kid in kindergarten, so excited for what’s coming next.

What’s coming next is me stretching myself on the floor beside him, giving him pets and scratches and a back massage while I tell him his adoption story. It starts like this:

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, you were the most beautiful dog at the shelter. But it wasn’t always so….

I’ve told him the story so many times in five and a half years, I’m sure he has it memorized.

As you can imagine, conducting this ritual with him at the end of the day—after all the other pet work is done and I’ve cleared the sink of dishes and locked all the doors and turned off all the lights save one lamp next to the bed that I read by—can induce a certain level of relaxation (in me, if not in him). Of course, Thomas is a dog, after all, so he’s always coated with a certain minimum of grime, which means when the story is finally over, I have to find the energy to get myself up off the floor, get my hands washed, and then get ready for bed. But by that time, I just want to lie there and go to sleep.

So here’s my thought: This is the “generation of convenience,” as I recently learned on NPR. There are people who perform the service of doing things for others so they don’t have to be inconvenienced—like fetching your favorite fast food and bringing it to you or picking up your dry cleaning or, as my daughter continues to remind me, grocery shopping for you and delivering the groceries to your home. Why can’t there be an app that I can use to summon a lady’s maid? Remember all those scenes in Downton Abbey with “Anna” helping “Lady Mary” remove her clothes and jewelry and prepare for bed? That’s all I need. Just someone to pop over, untie my shoes, take out my earrings, brush my hair out, and help me get out of my jeans without falling on the floor. (Yes, it has indeed happened in the past, and I have no doubt it will again.)

Is that too much to ask?

I’m going to tag this post with “Entrepreneur.” Wait ten seconds, then look online; I’ll bet someone will be on Gofundme asking for money to start a "Lady's Maid" service.

Back East, Part II

St. Michael's parish in Mitchell Township. My ancestors helped to build this church. They are buried next to it.

(Scroll down for Part I of this thread if you haven’t read that bit yet.)

Do you know who your great-great grandparents were? Do you know their names and where they lived?

Most people don’t. In the years that I spent researching Tainted Legacy, it occurred to me more and more that I had never thought past my grandparents. (I suspect my mother was always secretly glad of that, since she didn’t want to talk about her grandmother to anyone before the family secret was laid bare by her curious and persistent daughter.) Genealogy, in the pre-discovery-of-Bertha-Gifford days, was boring to me. I mean, I knew that my ancestors had come to America from Ireland—Dad never let us forget it. But, let’s face it; those were dead people. What did they have to do with me? Sigh. What a self-absorbed little ingrate I am at times.

I began to change in my thinking during long conversations with my cousin, Danny Fiocchi. We talked about Bertha a lot because I was immersed in writing the book and then I was immersed in finding a publisher. But those talks eventually led to him sharing about discoveries his brother Mick had made about the Murphy side of our family. After Tainted Legacy was finally published, I began traveling back to Missouri every summer to promote the book, give talks on Bertha, roam around in cemeteries where Bertha and others are buried, and visit all the new friends and cousins I made during the writing and research. And with every year that passed, Danny encouraged me to take a summer out and head up to Wisconsin to visit one particular graveyard up there.

Well, Danny my love, I’ve finally done it. I’m so sorry, sweetheart, that you are no longer around so that you could’ve gone with us—although I felt your presence with us every step of the way, let me tell you.

This is me, standing by the headstone--how grand it is!--for Jeremiah and Elizabeth Murphy.

My great-great grandparents, Jeremiah (Jerry) and Elizabeth (Betsy) Murphy traveled—somehow, dear lord, making that rough trip over the ocean—from Ireland to the baby country of America. After living for a time in Massachusetts, presumably to work and save their money, they made their way to Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and then set out to find land on which to homestead in Mitchell Township, walking the twenty miles out into the country to find the perfect spot. And they found it, boy howdy, they found it.

Cousin Mick was our tour guide when we drove out to Mitchell. From his careful study of plat maps and other historical information, he has been able to determine precisely where that early Murphy family built their home (which is no longer standing). Oh, the countryside there! The green rolling hills and fertile soil, the trees and trees and more trees! (Actually, the trees are so thick, they have obscured a view of where the house would have stood. Had I taken my hiking boots with me, I would’ve been game to tromp on through.)

Can you imagine it? No paved road, no electricity, no phone lines, twenty miles from town. “Yes, dear, I think you’re right; this is the perfect spot for our new home.” Of course, they had to get a house built before the winter came on. I hear Wisconsin winters can be a bit chilly….

The courage of those two! Oh, wait, did I mention that five of their six children had already been born, and that Jerry and Betsy were nearly forty by the time they booked passage on a barge to travel down the Erie Canal to Lake Erie, then travel by steamboat across the Great Lakes to Sheboygan? Yeah. And then the seven of them walked to Mitchell Township. (“Mary, keep on eye on your little brother! You know John is always running so far ahead I can’t see him!” I can just hear Betsy….)

But I know something about wanting a better life for your children… and how you just gird yourself up and then keep putting one foot in front of the other, no matter how tired you are…. But hey, I’ve always had the comforts of electricity and a car and running water and a functional indoor toilet. Well, most of the time, anyway.

Two years after homesteading, Jerry and Betsy gave birth to their youngest son, Peter Henry Murphy, my great-grandfather. My dad was named after him. He would later marry Julia O’Brien, and the two would have ten children, including my Grandpa George. George and his wife, Delia, had seven children, including my father, who was also born in Mitchell Township.

Beneath this humble stone lie Peter and Julia Murphy, my great-grands.

Knowing all this history (which has been gleaned from multiple sources and carefully set down for the family by Cousin Mick), I stood over the graves of Jerry and Betsy, Peter and Julia, with profound humility and gratitude. Our family, down through the generations, has never lacked for work ethic. We have always been less interested in amassing wealth and more interested in the values of family and home life. Well, and the value of a good Irish whiskey, let’s be honest.

I am grateful as well to Danny and Mick, who gently encouraged me over the years to take this trip until I finally did it. There is a sense of respect that is cultivated in learning of one’s ancestry, one’s own personal history. Thank you, Jerry and Betsy, for agreeing together to leave one beautiful land to come to another. It is an understatement to say that I am privileged to be here because of the sacrifices you made.

Peter and Julia Murphy, my great-grandparents, with their youngest son between them, surrounded by nine of their ten children.