A Forty-niner Travels to California - Part 3

From Uncle George’s we headed west for a fast look at the giant Red Wood trees in Sequoia National Park and then south across the Golden Gate. The convention in San Francisco probably lasted no more that a weekend. We must have stayed in a hotel there. Other than the first night out and the cold night in Yellow Stone I have absolutely no memory of where we stayed. Some streets of San Francisco were so steep you could see nothing past the long hood of our Pontiac. Stopping at some intersections was like rolling up to the edge of a cliff - looking into an abyss. Mom was near hysterics a couple times. The only other memory of San Francisco is of us sitting at a park bench overlooking the bay. A well dressed, matronly type woman came walking by, stopped in front of us to look around, and passed gas in a very audible way. She then went on her way without revealing any awareness of her anal expletive. Mom and Grandma Frank broke up laughing, and concluded that the lady must have been deaf.

Yosemite National Park was the next one we visited. My main memory there is that I came close to dying. That is the way I remember the event as it was occurring - I was going to die. There was a pool below the great falls and large boulders lay scattered about in the vicinity. We were climbing around on them and I came to one that was a height that I could easily climb. I got to the top, swung my legs over and started to slide. I realized it was a lot further down on that side than it had been on the approach, but I was not able to stop. It was terrifying for several seconds, but I did not scream or yell out. I silently slid down the smooth surface of that rock, stopping without to much of a jarring crash when my shoes contacted another sizable rock at the bottom.

Dad’s sister Annis lived in Los Angeles. She had migrated to California in the mid-thirties. Dad said that Annis loved the movies, read movie magazines when she was a teenager, and was so captivated that she moved to L.A. to be close to the glamour of Hollywood. Annis, her husband Frank Nickolas, and their three year-old daughter, Sarah Jane, lived on top of a high hill overlooking the city. I remember the street up the hill was narrow, with cactus growing along each side. Sarah Jane was too young to enjoy our more sophisticated toys, so we had no one to play with except each other. Air pollution had already come to L.A. in 1949. My eyes stung all during our stay.

The return leg of our expedition was an arc through the southwest following Historic Route U.S, 66. We took a few side trips off it. One to gaze down into the Grand Canyon, Another to purchase a piece of petrified wood while in The Petrified Forest, and marvel at the Painted Desert. (We used the rock for years as one of our two door jams in the house. The other was a coconut my Uncle Joe brought back from the Philippines after WWII, its outer husk polished shinny.)

We drove through the grass filled prairies of Oklahoma stopping only for a visit to pay respect to the memory of Will Rogers. I think it was through Oklahoma that I remember seeing derelict houses, but in truth, I noticed them all through the trip. It seemed like there were a lot of abandoned places, and many looked to be in good shape. Most stood alone in forlorn country with tall grass clogging their yards. There was a lonely sadness about them. I wondered why anyone would want to just get up and leave such perfectly good homes. I did not know enough history when I was nine. I did not know how much the last twenty years had transformed America - the Great Depression, The War, and I did not know we were entering an era that would transform it even more.

The trip probably ended in August. I had more than a dozen new States to add to my brag list, and hundreds of memories to cherish the rest of my life. It sowed a seed of wonder and wander that yet compels me to want to look at what’s around the next bend in the road.