The Green, Green Grass Of Home

Saturday, June 14, 2008

I was sitting here thinking of all the twists and turns there are in life and how far I have come from that little boy growing up in New Hampshire. In my mind I still see that little boy playing with the animals my Dad had and a beautiful horse in particular. In reality I see a man, with a beautiful, loving wife, children and grandchildren, living in a beautiful home in a beautiful area, but passed his prime with a wealth of knowledge attained from the experiences of life and no way to use it and now that I’m retired it seems there is no one who remembers I ever existed. Thirty days retired from the county and no one remembers your name, I guess it is like that everywhere. It does hurt a mans pride to be so easily placed on the back shelf, to take his place in the dustbin of history, never to be looked upon again for guidance from all the knowledge, wisdom and common sense stored up in all those pages of life.

I remember back in the beginning how I had to recreate the job I was hired to do as a Public Works Investigator. There wasn’t even an Ordinance. I had to write the Ordinance to enforce law over the entire county in a way that was fair and just for all, get it passed through the Board of Supervisors, the D.A. and the State High Way Patrol Department, then I had to have it published in all the local and surrounding newspapers throughout the county for thirty days.

I remember back at all the places I had to go and thank God I am still here, God was with me at all times. I remember when I was encircled by a gang in Castroville and all the people in the surrounding homes did was look out their windows, not one cared enough to call the Sheriff or the Highway Patrol to come to my aid. Thanks to God I was able to walk away from that, head held high as I resumed my duties.

I remember when working in south county I was approached by some big o’l boys who worked at some of the local ranches and I was asked just what I would do if they brought out a large front loader and dug a very deep hole and placed me in my car and pushed it into the hole and buried it. They asked how long I thought it would take for someone to actually find me way out in the middle of nowhere. God was with me that day, big time.

There was a man who walked around the hills of Cachagua brandishing a machete; he threatened my life if I ever stepped foot in his area again. Naturally when that happens it is absolutely necessary to return forthwith. Then there are the labor camps throughout the county that I had to check out.

I tried in everything I did to be as fair and just as humanly possible, not treating one person better then the other but each fairly, with common sense and sound judgment. I used the law as the foundation from which I started each case, but as each person is different with different circumstances I approached the ultimate goal of compliance a little differently based on those circumstances with the end result always being the same, compliance.

I guess I may have made a few enemies in my career as an Investigator but I also made a lot of friends as well. I remember the case that involved a man and his family that lived in a small trailer with boarded up windows in Moss Landing. The first time I went on this property I couldn’t find anyone about, I didn’t believe there was anyone in the trailer as all the windows were boarded but to my surprise out comes this man, a little wild looking, wanting to know just what I thought I was doing on his property. The county vehicle caused him to brace his back because, as I found out, he had had encounters with other county officials in the past and it wasn’t pleasant. I introduced myself and explained what I was doing there but instead of barging forward I chose to spend time getting to know the man and visited with him for awhile. We must have spent forty minutes just conversing, me listening mostly. A big mistake a lot of officials make is they allow their authority to go to their head and they develop an overblown opinion of themselves and they become little Hitler’s, having no regard for the person they are speaking with or respect for his property. After our visit the man was OK with me following through with the reason I came there. As years went by I often had to return to this mans property for one thing or another and was always warmly welcomed and never interfered with. One day I received a call on my radio that the County Sheriff, Planning and Environmental Health Departments were out to this mans property and he wouldn’t allow entrance to anyone but me and I had to be present while they were there. I have no idea whatever happened to that man and his family, I’ll have to make a trip out to find out and maybe bring a couple of cold beers for us to enjoy while we are talking.

There are a lot of occurrences like that, each handled in a different, special and sometimes delicate way. Now that I am on the back shelf gathering dust as I become part of the dustbin of history I still wonder if at sometime someone with a desire to learn might, just might mind you, drag me down from that back shelf, open the covers and take a look.

As a little boy in the back hills of New Hampshire I could never have imagined doing the kind of things I did. I remember hating school, for the life of me I couldn’t see any use for it, it constantly interfered with me digging worms and going fishing. I was, after all, helping Dad put food on the table and those brook trout sure did taste good. The fact that our home was situated near a pond and river on one side and a brook on the other kept my mind pretty much occupied with catching that big, shinny rainbow trout that liked to jump out of the water in front of my hook, as though teasing me, I never did catch that fish.

I remember when the rain clouds came and the thunder sounded like bowling pins being knocked down and lightening lit up the sky I would hurry out back with my shovel and dig up a bunch of worms that I placed in some dirt in a can that I placed next to my fishing pole, on the front porch. After it rained I would grab my pole and that can of worms and head out down to the falls, being careful for that big snapping turtle, and ever so carefully placing my line in just the right spot to catch that trophy fish.

My brother’s liked to tease that old snapper; one day they took Mom’s broom and commenced to poke at him with the wooden handle, that old turtle lunged at that handle, grabbed it in his mouth and snapped the end clean off. That was enough for my brothers who had to take the broom back to Mom and try to explain how it had been so badly damaged. They say turtles live a long life, I wonder if he is still there. There have been two hundred year floods back to back, 06 & 07, so he’s probably long gone if he even lived that long.

We had a large farm house for a home, it was painted white with green trim, a usual color scheme for back then. Instead of a two car garage as people have attached to their homes we had a large barn with a hay loft. The barn and the house were separated by a summer kitchen, as it was called back then. It was a place of storage of all the canning that was done through the summer so the family would have things to eat during the cold, harsh winters. We had chickens, ducks, pigs, farm critters like that. It was my job to collect the eggs every morning for Mom, clean out the barn area and fill the kerosene bottle for the kitchen stove. Across the road from our home was a very large field that was full of wild strawberries, the river banks thrived with blackberry, raspberry and blueberry bushes. We often went berry picking for Mom to make one of her delicious pies, I always managed to eat more then what went into the bucket, they were so sweet. There was one problem, we weren’t the only ones that enjoyed those berries, so did the bears, we had to be very watchful, you might say they had jurisdiction.

The winters were often bitterly cold but equally beautiful. To wake up to a field of untouched snow glistening is breathtaking. To walk out on the porch and yank off an icicle and eat it like it was a frozen desert was really something, try doing that today and you might get sick. The lake would freeze over and when the ice was thick enough people would take their cars out and race over it, crazy, but fun.

During the summer there was always swimming, with all the ponds and lakes finding a place to go was not a problem. One particular place had a Tarzan rope tied to one of the overhanging limbs and everyone would use that to swing out into deep water. It was not unusual to see cars going down the road with swimming trunks over the radio antenna.

Growing up there you quickly learned to tell from the scent of the air and the clouds if bad weather was approaching. It was a great place to live, it remains clear and pristine in my mind. I often return by closing my eyes and letting my mind drift slowly back over the pages of time till I see that little boy fishing under the falls, collecting eggs for Mom or cleaning the barn for Dad or, as happened on occasion, chasing after an elusive chicken to perform that ancient of all acts in order for Mom to have something for the supper table when Dad returned home from work. What a thrill to see Mom and Dad again and Grandpa, Grandma and two of my brothers who have passed away. The visits are short and sometimes bring tears to my eyes. As I slowly open my eyes I see that little boy looking back at me as he drifts away with the pages of time.