When I go back in my memory and attempt to recall my life as it was 45 or even 40 years ago, things begin to fog up a bit around the edges. Things that once were so crystal clear, now seen dimly through time.
I have snippets of of memory. Moments frozen in the forever of my heart. Very specific moments saved like a treasure. A child's treasure. For it is the treasure of my early youth that I consider most precious.
In my mind I can stand in the front yard of my childhood home and scan it panoramically, picking out plants and trees, naming them off, remembering their scent, their feel, their spirits. We had a rather large Ponderosa Pine smack dab in the middle of the lawn that was surrounded by our circular driveway. He was magnificent. A stately gentleman that sprawled his branches sideways in ever direction.
I spent many an hour in that old tree. He was kind enough to allow me to his futherest points as he reached for the sky in his grandure. He was so strong, so sure, much as I might have imagined the arms of God might be where I to climb up in them. There was a point however, where at his furthest reaches, his main trunk began to thin out and became supple in the breeze. It was not particularly wise to climb that far up him when it was windy. But often I did it none the less as the view at his greatest height was spectacular.
So great were his branches that they were large enough to lay down and be craddled in them. There was one branch that I loved more than any other. On that branch there was this perfect craddle of smaller broken stumps of branches that you could seat yourself against. Seated against these, in front of you were even more branches that were broken stumps, perfect for holding on to and pretending they were the controls of a spaceship. I spent an inordinant amount of time being the captain of my own space ship as a child. All thanks to his generosity.
I am not sure how old he was. We bought that house in 1957. The house its self had been built in 1937, so my guess would be that he was at least 20 years old when we moved there. My guess is that he was probably 40 feet high when we arrived in 1957. When we left in 1969, he was probably 60 feet high. By then I had stopped climbing in him though. At 15 you don't much climb in trees anymore.
I went back home right after graduation for high school. I was finally free, 18 and had a car. When I drove to the old house, ther first thing I noticed was that the people who had bought our home had cut off my spaceship branch. If I had not hated them before, I seriously disliked them now. I drove home again a few years later only to see the loquat tree missing completely along with the China Berry tree and even more of Him.
Finally, on one trip up north, I swung by the old neighborhood only to discover him gone. Forever. No trace of him, grass covering the grave of his rememberance. By then it was the mid 80's and I was in my early 30's. I remember parking my car and getting out and just standing there staring at the spot where he had once dominated the house and yard. It seemed so empty without him. Barren.
Last time I was in California I didn't have the time to go see the old house. I barely gave it a thought. I spent more time driving through old neighborhoods where Debbie and I had once lived in LA. I spent 12 years in Fresno California, my formative years. I spent the rest of my life up until 1992 in Los Angeles, in the San Fernando Valley.
Somewhere in the garage is a box containing journals dating back to when I was 18 or 19 and continuing on until I got my first computer and began writing in Word Star. Funny, those computer journals are lost as even the disks I saved them on are obsolete now. I did make a hard copy, I just can't find it.
They contain much of the original lyrics to songs I wrote, even as they were being written. They contain much bad poetry, which frankly my songs were mostly very bad poetry.
Now it's time to say good night. Good night, sleep tight.
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