Flying snakes and blasting caps.

Seems an odd time to tell a story of summer. I don't even know why this memory came into my head, but as it did, I thought I would share. If you follow this blog you are going to hear a lot about the place where my cousins and I spent most of our summers growing up. It was a little piece of heaven, in hindsight anyway. And in some ways it was a bit Norman Rockwell-esque, especially if I purposely forget the Tim Burtonian (did you see Corpse Bride?) dysfunctional moments from which every family suffers, at least occasionally.

Fall River Mills is a bucolic agricultural town in northeast California that has achieved some prominence in certain circles for its particularly good fly fishing. My grandparents bought their property as a result of my grandfather no longer being able to spend summers in the altitude of the high Sierras. He and my grandmother found this parcel; 2.3 acres of river front property, with a square house located on the up-river half. The place belonged to Bing Crosby's mother-in-law and was, in its time, probably a nice house. By 1971, however, it had become dingy and dated. The property, though, was amazing, It was located in a small subdivision and was special because it included two parcels, which meant space. The next five years my grandparents (and their daughters and their families) spent the summers fixing up the house, and surrounding land and vacationing.

This place was a kid's dream; deer came in the yard at night to munch on apples off the trees right next to the screen porch where we slept, ospreys hunted the river in front of the house for wild rainbow trout, and huge flocks of swallows built their mud nests on the supports of the bridge that crossed the river adjacent to the property. Fall River itself is a slow-moving, wide, dark green river that shows a sapphire blue when the sun hits it. The wind makes dappling little waves that  try in vain to return to their spring origins twenty or so miles upstream. My grandparents' house was directly across a huge field that was used, variously over the years, for growing alfalfa and wild rice. The beauty of this land was that it fell under what was called the Williamson Act, which required applications for use of the land for anything but agriculture (such as subdivisions) to wait ten years from the application date, after which time the application would be reviewed. The land was thus, for all intents and purposes, safe from development. So, my grandparents' view was always the unobstructed beauty of the valley and  the surrounding mountains.

My grandfather was first generation American, his family having emigrated from Sweden. He was my hero. He worked for the city of Los Angeles and retired in 1976. He and my grandmother, who was originally from Washington state, raised three girls in a suburb of Los Angeles called South Pasadena. By the time I came around they had moved into a large house that sat across the street from the junior high school (now called middle school? whatever) field. That house deserves a post of its own but suffice for this reading to say that if I had endless resources, I would buy it, for whatever the owners wanted; it still holds so many memories for me. But back to Fall River. My grandfather moved my (not so thrilled to be leaving Los Angeles) grandmother up to the country full time in 1977.

Fall River - facing upstream -Mt. Shasta in the background. - Fall River Chamber of Commerce photo.

 My cousins (two out of five in this case) are one year older than me, and two years younger; both "boys." They are my Mom's elder sister's sons. We were raised more like siblings than cousins and spent almost every summer vacationing together at my grandparents'. Like most kids we went through various stages of liking and loathing each other; at one moment sharing a common purpose while another going at each other like wildcats. We rough-housed, took sides, laughed at each other, worked hard together, and generally enjoyed (though we might not admit it then) each other's company. One thing we all shared, though, was a love, admiration and endless affection for our grandfather. A brief word now about my grandmother. She was strong, smart, independent and managed a household of three daughters and a husband on one salary. I have no doubt that she was largely responsible for them being able to retire where and when they did. At the same time, she and I did not get along very well when I was young. She always seemed rather "harsh" from my perspective. My preference for working with "the boys" disappointed her as we all would go outside after breakfast and not return until lunch. I had no interest in the "domestic arts" and would typically only see her if she came out to work in the garden or give my grandfather direction. After my grandfather and then my mother died, she lost much of the self-consciousness that I had grown up knowing. Maybe they called it dementia, but in the end she was the sweetest, kindest and purest of souls. I cried more than I expected when she passed away.

We worked with my grandparents  as they remodeled the small box house. They enlarged the kitchen, added a music room (for a player piano, a baby grand and tons of plants), added a second story that was intended to be the master suite, and built a giant garage/shop complete with enough room for three cars, tons of storage, a pot-bellied stove and all my grandfathers tools (in a word, ginormous). The property had, decades before, been part of a dairy farm and the out-buildings that remained were the remnants of the bunkhouses for the workers. My "grampa" moved one of these buildings next to the river, put down a new vinyl floor, placed some bunk beds and a twin and it became, once again, a bunkhouse. Yes, it was as good as it sounds. The downstream half of the property was the location of the orchard. My grandparents planted fruit and nut trees. Peach, plum, pie cherry, quince and almond all ended up producing. Next to the fence line on the property they planted raspberries (one year my grandfather weighed each of our every-other-day harvests and by the end of summer we had picked 55 pounds!). My grandparents expected us to pitch in, so the rule was that we worked until noon and the remainder of the day was our own. This work could include tearing off the old roof, pulling the endlessly long hose to each sapling and hand-watering, or splitting and stacking wood. We helped dig the trenches and lay the pvc pipe for the irrigation system (no more hose!), mowed the lawn (we loved it when they had a little riding mower), and helped build a new swimming dock. Certainly, we were invested in this place; it was a part of us and we loved it.

In addition to the night visits by deer, this place had an abundance of snakes, frogs, waterfowl (ducks, greebs, loons, geese and, yes, pelicans-don't ask), raccoon, muskrats, pack rats (who decorated their massive nests on the hill behind the house with stolen pink and orange survey flags),owls, hawks and even bald eagles. This story, though, finally, is about a bullfrog and a snake whose destinies we changed (if only for a day) one lazy summer afternoon when I was, I think, about twelve.

After the morning's work, my younger cousin and I were doing goodness knows what down by the water on the far end of the property. We had long ago proven to my grandparents that we could safely play in or around the river when we could swim from the lower doc to the upper (maybe 75 ft?) while carrying a milk jug full of water (arbitrary, sure, but it certainly showed determination and strength). Anyway, along the river we heard the unmistakable sound of a bullfrog. They made this loud ROOOONK sound and we would hear them mostly at night. On this day we followed that sound and sneaked up to the tall grass along the water's edge. Then we saw it; a large, light green amphibian sitting on a rock on the shallow shelf of the shore (say THAT five times fast). We stared at it quietly for a moment and then one of us had the bright idea to try and catch it (frogs were no big deal after we brought pockets-full of little garter snakes to my aunt and uncle's house in Rainier, OR). He and I went to the cellar and brought up the long-handled fishing net. We went back to the space hoping the frog would still be there.

Now, of course just because we stopped working at noon, didn't mean that my grandfather did too (unless it was very hot out). At that time he had a handyman/helper named Pete. Pete was one of two Pete's who worked occasionally with Grampa and this one we called "Pete-Pete" (we were kids!). Pete-Pete was a small, wiry old man (he was probably only in his fifties, but it's not the years, it's the mileage) who had spent his life in the valley. As a young man, he had lost one finger on his right hand and two and a half on his left while working with blasting caps as a logger for one of the local companies. His loss of digits didn't seem to hinder him and he always had great stories about the area in its earlier days. He was scruffy and wore thick glasses. He worked hard and had a quick smile and was very patient with us and our significantly lower skill level at...well, just about everything. He and Grampa were working on something at the front side of the house when we caught the frog.

Being the older cousin, I held the net when we crept up to the frog. We slowly moved the tall grass out of the way and I swung the net down over the amphibian. We were thrilled! We got him! Then we noticed something; he didn't move. We had tried to catch frogs before (with varying degrees of success) and every single time, they jumped, whether into the net or out to freedom. This fellow (assumption) just sat there. I reached in under the net to grab him. I gently wrapped my hand around his body and raised him up. he was really heavy. Wait, what? Heavy? He was heavy, and as I raised him up to bring him through the grass and onto land, I saw why; attached to his right leg, up to his body, was a HUGE GARTER SNAKE. My cousin yelled, "SHIT!" and I nearly fell over. We had no idea what to do. We had interrupted this reptile's lunch! Do we put it back and let nature take its course? Oh hell no. We moved as quickly as possible, me holding the garter-frog (bull-snake? no, that's not it) as far from my body as I could, all the while screaming, "Graaaaaaaampa!" We caused so much commotion that my older cousin came to see what was up and my grandmother came out wondering (rightfully) what we had done this time. Grampa and Pete-Pete came around the house and I heard, "Oh for Heaven's sake," and then we asked what to do. Pete-Pete didn't hesitate. He took the frog-snake from me, put one of his shortened fingers between the mouth of the snake and its intended victim's leg and said, "Now, you don't wanna eat that ol' frog now do ya?" and proceeded to pry the snake from the frog's leg. We watched in horrified fascination. Then all sorts of things seemed to happen at once. My grandmother yelled not to release the snake near the house. Pete-Pete got the snake off the frog. The snake bit Pete-Pete's already abused digit. Pete-Pete reflexively flung the snake away from him. Towards the house. The snake went flying towards my grandmother. My grandmother started screaming and we went off to try and steer the snake towards the river, all the while trying to contain the laughter that was bursting out of our bellies.

We herded that poor harried snake towards the river while my grandfather calmed "the room". Pete-Pete suffered no permanent damage and we let the frog go, up-river. We put him on a log that rested against some water-level willow branches. Over the next few hours we would go down to the river to see if the frog had gone or was perhaps back in the snake's mouth. Finally, during one of these visits, the frog made a huge jump and disappeared in the now darkening water.

I used to wonder what the poor snake was thinking during all this ruckus. It was easy to guess what the frog was thinking, "I am being eaten. So much for my bucket list...Hey! Those big pink animals! Maybe they will eat the snake; it would serve him right... Ohmygodohmygodohmygod, I am not dead...I'm hungry." But the snake had a lot more drama that day if you think about it: "Mmm, that is a big frog. I won't have to eat for a month if I snag that bad boy...Gotcha. Now just relax, we are both going to be here a while...Oh wait, this isn't right, what the hell? I don't suppose you would put your other leg next to the one in my mouth?...No?... Fine, spoilsport. How am I going to do this...What the flip?!? Aliens! We are being abducted by aliens!..We are rising into the sky and...oh jeez, one of those things again!...Does she not know how hard it is to hold on to one leg against gravity, much less with her bouncing along?!...Now what are you doing?...Oh no. I am NOT letting go of this meal, you can't make me! Fine, take THAT!... oh crap... Wow, I have had this dream, but I always wake up when I land...Oh yeah, and now you are chasing me?! Freak show! Get me out of here..." Or something like that. He probably gave up frogs.

By the time dinner came along we were examining how that incident could have gone better. We decided it couldn't have, it was perfect. Later that night, around the card table by the front sliding screen door, we heard a bullfrog calling somewhere outside. All five of us paused from playing (probably Hearts) and got quiet, then started laughing all over again.

Another night in a child's paradise.

Jacob Marley and Me

Alec Guinnes from the 1970 MUSICAL(!), Scrooge

Personally, I think Jacob Marley got a raw deal. I mean, HE didn't get visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and possible future with the idea of saving his soul; why the inequitable treatment by the ethereal gatekeepers?  Was he meaner or stingier or more of a "scrooge" than Scrooge was? Have you ever heard someone referred to as being a "Marley"? I'm just sayin'...Ok, so perhaps there wouldn't have been much to Dickens' 1843 novella had Marley actually learned his lesson while still alive. He likely would have been pushed out of the business by Ebeneezer, a la Mark Zuckerberg, and gone off to run a non-profit. Hell, he might have later been one of those men that Scrooge so rudely reminds of the usefulness of workhouses and prisons! I really don't have a point here, except that I found myself on this tangent the other day whilst thinking that I feel a large sense of "BAH! HUMBUG!" this year.

I admit that my work has been all-consuming of my physical energy, my tolerance for stress and ambiguity, and my sense of humor.. But still, IT'S CHRISTMAS! (As any one of a number of egregiously sappy characters would not hesitate to remind me). Add to that I have a seven year-old daughter who (rightfully) believes in Santa Claus and I have the possible makings of a faith-shattering, cynic-building holiday season. Frankly, I am not quite ready to see my child give up on magic, elves and the possibility that someday she might be able to "go to the North pole and HELP Santa!"

So, my self-querying begins: How to regain a spirit of joy and celebration of the season. I suppose this is where I should cue Linus Van Pelt to tell me about the real meaning of Christmas, but since I am a bit of a Buddhist/pagan/Christian-in-a-love-is-everything-do-unto-others-rather-than-literal-Bible-as-THE-word-of-God-kind-of-way, I would probably just spend time listening to Linus' adorably lispy little kid voice and humming Hark The Herald Angels Sing in the background. I know what Christmas has always meant to me before this year, but I am thinking that this year it might require a bit of a shift if I am to embrace the season and all its "accoutrements". 

First off let's get the materialism bit out of the way. Christmas is not about the gifts, although I love seeing my daughter and husband opening their presents on The Day. My daughter gets things all year because we are ridiculously blessed in our lives and because her Dad and I are softies. Besides, when asked what she wanted from Santa this year, she responded, "I don't know, I don't really need anything." I have yet to get a more than stocking-stuffer response from that question. Also, having been single for most of my adult life, I am used to getting what I need or want on my own. If I see something I like, I typically get it (realize, of course, my tastes are fairly simple, if good :), especially shoes (which, I admit is my one big consumer sickness and Zappos is my enabler-someday I will seek help). And my husband, well materially he is happy with his hobby and whatever is around him. So the put-ourselves-in-endless-debt-getting-presents is NOT what this season is about for me.

Ok, we got them home...

This year I seem to feel the need to surround myself with the lights and decorations and smells of the holidays. I came home from the store today with I don't know how many boxes of lights for outside and enough almonds, butter and confectioners sugar to feed almond cookies to a small country. So maybe it is not so much about material gifts, but trying to light my spirit from the outside in? I may be on to something here, but to that end we have two trees this year (a very small one and an eight-footer). We decided (and when I say we, I mean I) that we certainly have plenty of ornaments and lights and this way I could be near a tree whether in the front room or the living room. I know lots of people who put up multiple trees. It seems like such a great idea, but I have no idea why I never participated before. Additionally, by tomorrow night our front yard will rival the Griswold's (and our neighbors) for superfluous electrical resource usage in a single month. Today I took down the "fall" mantle decorations (seriously? yep-blown glass pumpkins, mercury glass gourds, fake leaves; which cracks me up considering we haven't even raked the real leaves up yet) to make way for the Christmas ensemble. At this point,however, that tableau consists of one glass tree, a votive holder, some twinkle lights and a greeting card advent calendar; deck the halls...

Hey, it's a start.

The thing is, and it is not a complaint, it is an observation (because, my goodness, I am so NOT alone in feeling this way); I am tired. I am lucky enough to have a job that pays my bills and a bit extra, but the cost of that so-called security is stress levels and exhaustion that are off the charts. When does the cost-benefit ratio shift so that the golden handcuffs are no longer worth it? And how does one  balance work commitments to maintain some sort of personal equilibrium while also taking care of family and all that goes with it? Sometimes I think I suffer from an over-developed sense of responsibility, but then I look at my shoe closet. So, my mantle may take a few days to get done because yet this weekend I still need to do laundry and house chores, get my daughter to a friend's Birthday party and then get blood sugar up in everyone so we can brave the (finally) cold evening to experience the local Winterfest. Tomorrow I will get up extra early so I can go in to work to finish some things that the work week won't allow time for and then come home for the end of the weekend which will include baking and yet more decorating.

It could be, I suppose, a matter of energy distribution. Seems to me if I can allot every night and a weekend for a week to make my daughter's Angry Birds Birthday cake, that I should be able to muster the wherewithal to lighten up and enjoy the season!

If I can do this, I should be able to do Christmas, for cryin' out loud.

And yet, I feel I can most relate to this poor guy...

Or, I could just embrace my new-found antipathy while trying to maintain an air of HO-HO-HO for my daughter's sake. Yo! Jacob M, teach me how to rattle them chains, bro! Ahem...Yup-tired.

Will our heroine pull herself out of her self-described (and likely self-induced) funk in time to make merry, wrap the packages, send the cards, bake the gingerbread and mull (?) the cider? Stay tuned....Oh wait just one second. Have you ever read such a load of TRIPE in your life? You know you are in trouble when you don't believe your own writing!

Yes, I am overwhelmed at work (who isn't?) and feel like I am not "ready" for Christmas, but this time of year is my favorite! Fall into winter, when things are still colorful, the bitter cold and doldrums of winter have not yet set in, and when you are practically told you must drink hot chocolate and eat cookies more often than usual; I love Christmas. And actually, if I think about it hard enough, I realize that I have it especially good because, since giving up TV, we are not bombarded with a constant stream of advertisements for crap we don't need or have room to keep.

You know that scene in "Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown," when Charlie Brown and Linus go looking for a tree and they are surrounded by pink and blue aluminum? I have never experienced enough commercialism during the season to push me out of the spirit. Yes, it annoys the stuffing out of me that stores bring in the Christmas gear on Nov. 1, and yes, I do put too much pressure on myself to get "just the right thing" or make the perfect meal, but hey, I do that all year long! Christmas to me is about warmth and being together and being reminded (whether you are Christian-based or not) that there is something bigger than us that we should celebrate. Whether it is the story of the star and the baby Jesus, or a celebration of the winter solstice and the evergreen that survives through winter, or remembering the miracle of one day's worth of oil lasting eight; this season is one for me to enjoy and try to let go of some of my more worldly (and transient) cares. Christmas is a time to relive old and precious memories that are saved in the myriad ornaments and decorations that are packed away gently each year. The macaroni and yarn ornament that you made in kindergarten, the glass unicorn you got on your first trip to California, the "Baby's 1st Christmas" jingle bell you bump on purpose just to hear that perfect sound; all of these are part of the season. Does your family make iced cookies, turkey or ham, latkes or boyos, as part of holiday meals? Do you eat pie for breakfast? Do you put up lights, candles in the windows, evergreen boughs in the doorways?

There are some things that make me a little wistful; I miss my Mom and my Grandparents and the glue they provided for bringing my family together. I long to spend a little quality time with my new niece and nephew (and their parents, of course!). I hate that my step-mom lives so far away. I hate that my brother likes Cool-Whip (to eat!). I wish I could decide on what to make for Christmas dinner. I wish I could get the dog to stop eating my books. I wish I could figure out what I want to do when I grow up...

But I am not far from home, deployed to a hostile country. I am not on the streets, required to be creative just to keep warm. I am not without love in my life. I am not worried for the health of my child. I am not hungry. All in all, I am joyful this season and looking forward to celebrating with my family and looking forward to 2013. My wish for you and yours is peace, health and joy this season and always.

Cheers.

number 2 (why not?) :)

That's better ;)