Big Basin State Park in California. San Lorenzo Valley. The redwoods.
Open my mother’s photo album, there will be dozens of black and white photos of picnics and hikes among old-growth redwoods, edges ragged in the style of the day. A few pages deeper, the photos are in faded, bluish color of me and my friends with our proudly fashioned hiking sticks, or of hands outstretched with offerings of oats to not-very-timid deer. When I lived in Santa Cruz County as a young man, guests were always offered a few hours, at least, in Big Basin. It is one of my favorite spots, anywhere – a lush haven, a forest retreat, a living link with an unimaginably distant past.
Fires are burning now, up and down the San Lorenzo Valley. The houses of many friends are in danger. The fires have consumed me. I check for news far more often than it can be reported. It is a disaster for tens of thousands, and a heartbreak for thousands more whose loving memories are rooted in those mountains.
My mother’s memories included regular trips to the Park. Her father would hitch the horse to their buggy, and they would set off on a full day’s journey – five kids, a few neighbors, and supplies for a week’s stay. They reserved cottages, met up with friends from other areas, hiked, waded in ponds, and picked huckleberries. My grandmother brought her portable oven to put over a campfire so she could turn the berries into berry pie. Later, when the family was able to afford an automobile, jaunts became shorter and more frequent, but even as my grandparents grew frail, they continued to make day trips to the splendid wood.
Sometime in my infancy, my journeys blended with theirs. I don’t recall my earliest times there, but I know that by the age of seven I had memorized the official map of hiking trails – Waddell Creek, Redwood Loop, Sempervirens Trail – and every visit was planned for the walks I would coax my relatives into conquering. Sometimes we’d rent cottages, sometimes we’d leave just before dawn and hike until a half hour before sunset. The smells, textures, the presence of the trees, were wonderful, the hot sun, the tangled roots, the fungi, rotting wood, small wildlife, and flowing waters were my beloved teachers.
The day when the morning news on the car radio was obsessed with Marylin Monroe’s passing – Norma Jean – we were on our way to Big Basin. Green mosses, huge ferns, and the smell of laurel acted as counterpoint to a strangely personal grief that sprung not from the death of an icon, rather more from the sadness of her life. Of her victimhood. Yes, we knew, even then. Even at that age.
Looking back, it seems that every other summer week was punctuated by a trip to Big Basin or further south, into San Lorenzo Valley. My mother discovered an excursion railway called Roaring Camp, just shy of Felton, and was convinced by the charming conductor with the white mustache to buy a couple of thousand shares of stock. They had big dreams – a frontier village at the depot end, and a climb up Bear Mountain where a nineteenth century style resort hotel would await, all traditions of that picturesque era firmly in place. It captured my love of history and histrionics, and I encouraged the investment.
Friends of the family had weekend cottages in Boulder Creek, Brackney, Felton, and Brookdale. We were frequently invited. My uncle bought a lot near Bear Creek and intended to build a cottage there, but found out too late that the lots were zoned by the association for proper houses, not cottages. He was a master carpenter whose intention it was to build himself, and his regular job only allowed time for a cottage. Still, we’d go to his empty lot for picnics several times a summer, just for the air. That is where he taught me how to safely scale a muddy incline.
In my senior year of college I traveled north from Tucson with friends to audition for American Conservatory’s summer program. Somehow, we met up with other students and I convinced them to spend a day hiking the redwoods. Grounded in musical theatre, the grove rang with their renditions of show tunes. After college I lived for an off-season in a vacation hut near Felton, and later in a former vacation lodge in neighboring Mount Herman. All during my dozen or so years in the area, there were friends and activities to draw me into the redwoods. They capture you, make you promise to return.
About ten years ago, two of my dearest friends sold their townhouse in foggy Aptos and bought a rather typical split-level in chaparral-surrounded Ben Lomond. They turned the bland house into a California classic, and coaxed a lush garden to grow on the sandhill of their backyard. I was there when they moved in, and they have been gracious in their hospitality ever since. I can explore the shapes and feelings of their home in my mind, like the house I grew up in; thick with good memories.
This morning I woke to a post that my Ben Lomond friends had been evacuated. The twenty thousand acres ablaze yesterday had turned into forty thousand overnight.
Memories on hold, I pray for rain, no wind, and skilled firefighters.