3 February …
Sorry I’m late …
Last wednesday evening we got an automated phone call from the Yreka police telling us of a missing boy … providing a physical description, clothing, place last seen, and asking for help locating him. That was the first time we’d ever received such a phone call. I had heard the county was planning an Orange Alert program but hadn’t experienced it. That call was followed within an hour by an all clear … the child had been found. I guess the system works.
The event reminded me of times when we first moved out here. We were the only ones this far out. The nearest neighbor was about two miles away.
During those days, among the lost souls arriving on our doorstep, in the middle of a blizzard, was a man looking like a Yeti … trying to take food to his dogs. He was about a mile in the wrong direction. At the time we were still using space in the barn as a living room. He said he had seen the smoke from our wood stove and knew he could get warm there.
Another time it was a couple who had been hiking in the meadows northwest of us. They had waited too long to start their return and got lost. They were trying to get to Old Stage Road (which was not paved in those days) and got turned around. They had been walking away from the road toward the mountains. They spent the night in the trees and showed up at the barn when George went out to milk in the morning.
Another time the wife of the local California Highway Patrol Captain (I think that was his rank … anyway, he was the top dog) had come into our area to pick up her daughter and one of her daughter’s friends from a Brownie meeting. It was late autumn and after dark. She had her younger son with her and turned left at an intersection when she should have turned right. They ended getting stuck in a mud hole on the road which runs along the far side of our property and spending the night huddled together on the back seat of the car. The next morning they saw the barn and walked across the swampy meadow to ask if they could use our phone. We didn’t have a phone in those days, so George put them in the Jeep and took them out to the road where they met a phalanx of CHiPs and Sheriffs looking for them. Interesting follow-up is that about three years ago, when doing one of the radio club public service events, we met the wife of the now adult little boy involved in that adventure. She called him to come meet us and take pictures.
There were at least three or four similar lost people events over those early years, but that’s enough to tell now. You get the idea.
And now, post-Silicon Valley money influx, there are lots of (too many) neighbors so no more lost souls.
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During one of his BORED periods this winter, when he couldn’t get outdoors, George found a free television channel which shows old series from the 60s and 70s. As a result he got into the habit of watching “Adam 12” weekday mornings. What a trip …
It was filmed in Los Angeles and there is vista after vista of empty fields and nearly empty streets, a freeway under construction, housewives in aprons, lovely Chevrolet automobiles, and a police force the likes of which our younger son joined lo those many years ago only to have it morph out from under him into the kind of military force we see today.
Oh well …
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For those who took HomeEc in middle school … did you learn to make Sunshine Eggs?
Breakfast this morning …
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Weather has been in the if-you-don’t-like-it-wait mode. Each day a new adventure.
the 29th …
the 30th …
the 31st …
Groundhog Day dawned with a fresh layer of snow, but by 0900 the sun was out and shining. Shadows were seen … six more weeks of winter. Oh well …
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And this afternoon it is snowing and building again. Here’s the current view out the windows.
So …
Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.
…’til next week …