A Brief Guide To These Stories

My 60th birthday gift from Krysten.  That's me eying my brother's bike -1956.



Not all of the tales are about Camp Ahwahnee.  It started out that way...but later turned into one site that could host more of my writing, even if it had nothing to do with a forgotten summer camp.  But, in the back of my mind, memories of the ten years spent at the old Scout camp (now long gone unfortunately) are seldom far away.  Our youth magnifies everything, doesn't it?  Ah, nostalgia...whether it be for beloved friends, lovers, family, old neighbors, teachers, pets or the sweet aroma of butterscotch and vanilla cast about the forest by giant Jeffrey pines on a warm summer day - well, it all blends and blurs the past quite nicely for me.  And thus the stories evolve over time.  Some tales you just have to try and put into words.

And then there are all of the other personal remembrances - dusted off and parked here as I did not know where else to put them - the earliest pieces were written in the Fall of 2000. I suppose I could have started another blog site to keep things separated...but I was lazy.  And, in retrospect, I like all of my words in one place - one place that friends can visit over time, in the event that they want to know just a little bit more about me and what makes me tick.

Finally, these tales are also for my family - David, Krysten, Brenda, Bob, Susi, Matt, Cory and Nicole.  I thought you'd like to know a little more about why I am the way I am - what makes me laugh - what makes me cry - what keeps me awake at night.  Perhaps a brief glimpse into the old man's past, at least the way I've colored it, will bring a knowing smile to your lips or maybe even an unexpected wince.  Who knows?  I will let you all be the judge of that.

OK, that's it.  Enough explanation.  Go ahead and explore if you like.  Welcome to my world - my family - my friends - my stories of a summer camp that once was and childhood memories that forever keep me company.



With David and Krys - June 2013



October Stillness

October Stillness

Noel Laflin

                    October 2000                            

 

           

I get a queasy feeling as the calendar flips from September to October each autumn.  It has only been for the last few years that I have felt this way.  Prior to that I had always looked forward to the wonderfully spooky month.  Halloween loomed in the air, leaves changed color and the nights cooled down; lovely memories of a lovely month.  That all changed for me in mid October of 1995 when Jeremy died. 

His untimely demise actually began ten months earlier; at least this is when I first noticed the changes taking place with his body mass.  Meeting him for breakfast one day, after not having seen him for a month, gave me quite a shock as I realized just how thin he had become.  Clothes were hanging on the boy.  The skin on his face looked tight.  His arms had become bony

During the eight years that he and I had been together no one could ever say that either of us was anything but lean.  We were blessed with good genes and youth.  We never watched what we ate, always ate plenty and still never gained a pound.  The young man that I saw before me now, however, was dangerously thin.  I hoped that the concern I felt twisting in my gut was not evident in my smile when we embraced that morning.

As it turned out we were also meeting friends whom we had not seen in some time. It was a good get-together.  After breakfast, Jeremy was the first to cut out and leave.  My two friends and I sat for a bit longer.  I don’t remember who first brought up the subject, but Jeremy’s appearance was obviously on all of our minds.  These two had not seen him for a number of months. One tentatively broached the subject.  I do remember telling her that I was as shocked as she.  It had only been a matter of weeks since I had last seen him.  I had a really bad feeling about it.  This was December, 1994.

In early January of the New Year Jeremy and I saw the doctor together.  I was still the interpreter, a role I thought I had relinquished when we broke up.  I made an exception this time, however, as Jeremy had asked me to please meet with him and the physician both, in order to get the conversation right in his mind.

The young man was frightened, he signed.  His appetite was slipping and his bowels were always loose, he continued.  He felt pains across his back. The list of ailments grew longer - I interpreted slowly and as accurately as I could.  I told our doctor everything.  After the examination, out of eyesight of Jeremy, the doctor told me he was very concerned.  Both Jeremy and I had been under his care for the past three years.  Although I was healthy, Jeremy was suddenly wasting away.  Somehow, our doctor stressed, he needed to keep the weight on. T-Cell counts were slipping.  Jeremy had suddenly dropped below the one- hundred-point level.  This was not good.  As I signed all of this to Jeremy later outside, I could see the fear coming over him.  It’s only temporary, I tried to assure him; he saw through me.  We both drove away depressed.

Within the month, Jeremy was hospitalized for a gall stone attack.  They went in and removed both his gall bladder as well as the appendix.  Years of AZT, DDI and DDC may have led to the internal damage.  I kept waiting for my own ailments, but blessedly, none were happening.  My cell count was still in the three- hundred range; not great, but three times higher than Jeremy’s rapidly dwindling cells.  I was feeling guilty.  I lied and told him that my count was much lower than it really was.  I don’t think he believed me.

I reassured him that his numbers would rise again as we had both gone through slumps before.  But his count soon dropped to forty.  When I told him the latest figures, he cried.  I hugged him tightly, stroked his hair and kissed the back of his neck.  With my fingers I kept spelling “It’s OK, honey.  It’s OK.”

Once cleared by doctor to go home, Jeremy was frightened that the hospital staff would prevent him from leaving if they had any inkling of just how badly he really felt.   That afternoon, just before final discharge, Jeremy barely made it to the bathroom and vomited lunch.  He made me promise him that I would not tell the nurse.  He just wanted to go home.  I said nothing as we hustled out.

I helped Jeremy move into an apartment in Long Beach.  He would now be living alone, but he was closer to his brother, nephew, doctor and me. It was an old but charming apartment in the center of Long Beach’s Gay Ghetto.  Aside from staying in touch by fax and TDD (Teletype Device for the Deaf) I made frequent visits.  He grew steadily worse.

Diarrhea and severe cramping were a daily occurrence. We barely made it back to his place on more than one occasion before he threw up a meal.  Infections were racking his body.  He lost more weight.  He took to wearing bulky sweaters, regardless of weather, to hide his shrinking body mass.  His hair was thinning somewhat.  He looked much older than his thirty-three years.  We were losing him.

I was at work one early October morning when he reached me through the TDD relay operator on the phone.  He was very ill, he said.  Could I take him back to the hospital?  I knew he was in great pain if he was willing to face that again.  I arrived within the hour, picked him up and carried him to my truck.  We made the drive to Newport Beach in silence.  He shivered in the seat next to me.  I draped a blanket over him.  My thoughts were growing ever darker as we drove.

Emergency personnel took one look at Jeremy and admitted him immediately.  The next two weeks were hell.  His heart even stopped one night, but they revived him. He never knew of this.

On the morning of the sixteenth I relieved Jeremy’s brother, who had been with him most of the night.  Over Jeremy’s objections a catheter had been inserted.  He felt greatly humiliated.  I agreed with him.  The boy had only had hours to live.  Why did they do that?

A technician wheeled in a portable ultra sound machine.  I stood at the foot of the bed while Jeremy slowly signed a question my way.  He wanted to know what was going on. While signing to him what was being viewed on the screen, I watched his forehead crinkle, like a sudden thought had struck him.  His head tilted slightly on the pillow, but his eyes remained open.  The technician finished up her exam and left the room.  I moved next to Jeremy and took his wrist in my hands.  I felt for a pulse.  It was fading, barely detectable.

As I held his hand and stroked his hair, I whispered to the lad, “Let go.” There was no more need for signs.  I felt he could hear me for the first time. I silently prayed that no one would come in.  It was lunchtime and the hall was bustling with food carts.  I kept an eye on the closed door.  No one came.  Minutes passed.  I slowly closed the lids over his hazel-blue eyes, and kissed him very gently, repeatedly.  He was gone. 

Stepping back from the bed, it appeared as if Jeremy was sleeping.  He looked like a young boy.  The years had melted away.  I waited a full twenty minutes before I slowly went in search of a nurse.  They were not bringing him back this time, I swore to myself.  Enough, I whispered.  Enough.

The nurse confirmed my diagnosis.  I then lost control.  While sobbing uncontrollably, this stranger took me in her arms and held me.  She told me I had done the right thing by not getting her sooner.  She knew why I had waited.  I think she even stroked my hair. 

It was a warm October day outside.  It no longer felt like Halloween loomed in the air.  There were no trees, let alone leaves to change color in the sterile hospital parking lot.  There was just the long drive home and tough phone calls to make. 

                                                           

Family Dreams

       

Family Dreams
 Noel Laflin
November 4, 2001

"Strange as it seems,
There's been a run of crazy dreams." - Tim Rice

With Alexie - 1972

“I had the wildest dream last night,” my mother would often say at the dinner table.

These were words by which to ponder, if you had any sense of curiosity in our family.

“Well, there I was in the symphony orchestra,” my Mom began one evening.  “I was in the violin section, awaiting my solo.  Obviously I don’t play the violin,” she confessed.  “In fact, it didn’t seem to matter that I can’t read a lick of music  . . .   never have.  But there I was, nonetheless, dressed in an elegant black dress, just waiting for the spotlight to shine on me, stand and perform.”

We all shifted nervously in our chairs. 

“So,” I prompted, “what did you do?”

“I woke up  . . .  in a sweat. Be good enough to pass the rolls, please?” 

My Dad cleared his throat. 

“I had a weird dream, too, last night,” he began.  “I was sitting in the family room reading the paper when, all of a sudden, Noel came tearing through the house heading for his bed room.  What was strange,” as he looked my way, “was that you were about four-years-old again, dressed in your pajamas and hugging a teddy bear.” 

At the time of this telling I was nineteen.  I leaned in closer, elbows glued to the old wooden dinner table and nodded for my father to proceed.

“I thought this was a little odd,” he continued, “so I got up to investigate.  When I looked in your room, four-year-old Noel had jumped into bed and was giggling and wrestling with teenage Noel, trying to wake him up.  Now, can someone please tell me, just what the heck does that mean?”,  my father asked.

Dad shook the cobwebs from his mind and then inquired: “Is there any coffee left, Vi?”

My Mom poured him a cup.

And so it went, meal after meal, dream after dream.

“I had a dream about pop last night,” my mother would begin.

“I dreamed about Lake City again,” my Dad would chime in.

“Rebel came back in my dream last night,” I interjected one evening...

Eating stopped and all eyes turned my way.  Rebel, the first family dog had been dead but two years and we all missed his being under foot at the table, begging for scraps, listening to our tales.  Often, we would watch him twitch in his sleep, paws tapping the floor as if he were running in his own canine dream.  He died suddenly, one twilight evening, at the close of dinner.  His burial by flashlight in the back yard, with a makeshift cross gently pushed into the fresh turned earth and the tears we all shed as a family unit that night were seared into each of our memories.  My sister locked herself in her bedroom and cried herself to sleep, refusing to come to the hastily arranged funeral. 

Later, my brother sat in his car, pounded the steering wheel and lamented, “If we feel this way about a god damn dog, how are we supposed to feel if Mom or Dad dies?”

Finally, I drove off with tears burning my own eyes.  I am not sure how my parents coped during this time following the burial.  When I returned home, Rebel’s basket and toys were nowhere to be seen.  The reminders were hidden in the garage, I later found. The pain was too fresh - too real...

“I dreamed that Alexie dug Rebel up,” I began. 

The new puppy, Alexie, (who adopted us one Saturday afternoon and stayed for life, after Dad, the man who disliked pets, or so he said, fed the stray cold hot dogs), licked my hand under the table at the mention of her name.

“The dream started with the puppy scratching at the door to be let in,” I continued.  “Once in the house, I saw that her paws were muddy.  I had a foreboding and went to Rebel’s grave under the apricot tree.  A fresh mound of dirt was off to the side and the grave was uncovered.  It was also empty. Then, I was suddenly in downtown chasing a very dirty Rebel.  Each time I approached him, he would turn a corner and disappear. As I turned that corner, I could see him briefly, muddy from snout to tail, looking over his shoulder as he rounded the Five-and-Dime and then crossed over to the old theater and yet another and another old familiar building - only to disappear again. This went on all night, until I finally woke up.  I never did catch him.”

I paused, lost in thought.

“What’s for dessert, Mom?” I finally asked, trying to shake the dream.

My Dad shook with the heebie-jeebies.

My mother spoke of Lazarus coming forth from the tomb.

It was just another dinner at our table - another dream revealed.

As my brother, sister and I eventually left home and went our separate ways, the relating of dreams was saved for holiday family gatherings.  It did not seem to matter what guests might be in attendance; dreams were meant to be shared with all.  If no responses were forthcoming, I would egg my Mom on to tell us about the prophetic dreams her mother had.  My grandmother had some the spookiest apparitions of which I had ever heard, involving visions of sons hurt in battle thousands of miles from home and a former husband’s death foretold with uncanny accuracy.  If I could get my Mom to start in on some of these themes, then dinner dreams amongst the guests and family would soon blaze forth.  It usually worked like a charm.  I myself never tired of hearing about my grandmother’s insights.

Of course, some dreams were too disturbing to even acknowledge, let alone retell. 

How, for example, could I repeat the dream of my own death or that of a partner or parent?  With time, former loves and even the greatest dreamer of all, Mom, would die, and dreams of them would eventually follow. 

Unless it was a vision of comfort, however, some dreams were best left unremembered and least of all shared. The ghost of one former lover waited nearly a full year before following me on a trip to Africa, filling my evenings, under the watchful starry gaze of the Southern Cross with dreams of illness, sadness and eventual acceptance of a passing.  At times this ghost was as elusive as Rebel, staying one corner ahead of me at every turn.

And what about those dreams that leave you weeping at three in the morning?  So sad and overbearing, that one cannot stand to recall them to oneself, let alone share. No dinner should ever be so interrupted, nor memory rekindled with such melancholy.

But over all, ours was a family of dreamers who liked to share those nocturnal wanderings with one another at mealtime. I don’t remember at what age I was when I first tuned into these discussions.  I encourage my eight-year-old to tell me her dreams, and I in turn, relate funny and interesting ones to her. I need to ask my father if dreams were something he and my mother always shared, even before three children entered their lives.     

I will do that when next we visit.

Lately, I have this nagging feeling that there are many questions for which I need answers and Dad is the last parental provider of such information and insight.  I don’t like this premonition that time for sharing family dreams is slipping away.  Yes, I will ask him soon.  I only hope that he remembers, as the last year has been cruel to my father. Pneumonia drove him into the confines of a hospital, convalescence nursing center, home with two full time caregivers, brief hospital stay once again and eventually back to his own home once more.  He now appears to be comfortable and physically stronger, but his memory plays tricks on him.  Time, old age, disease, and recent high fevers have done irreversible harm to his short-term memory.

Hopefully some of the long-term dreams of better days still exist. 

Actually, I know they do, as he frequently dreams of his childhood in Lake City, Minnesota. He is young again, he tells me, hanging out with his best pals, now long gone.  Dad is the last.  He sees them only in pleasant nighttime excursions.

He asks me if this means something. 

I tell him, yes, old friends are calling, watching out for him, as I envision old Mark Twain, reliving boyhood days on the banks of the Mississippi, yearning to join Huck and Tom in an eternity of mischief and pre-adolescent adventure. 

I shake off the nostalgic vision.

“More coffee, Dad?” I ask him.

Although the nighttime wanderings that my mother, father and I shared with one another have lodged themselves in my memory all these many years later, I can’t recall the dreams of my brother and sister.  They both must have spoken of them also, but I failed to record them.

Having shared a room with my brother for many years, I am aware that he talked in his sleep a great deal.  Once he shook me awake and carried on a multi-part conversation, with a non-present friend and me, insisting that I partake in the discussion as well.  He had no recall of the incident in the morning. 

Upon his return from Viet Nam in 1970, I learned not to try to awaken my brother too abruptly, as he was liable to jump violently in his sleep or try and grab me, mistaking me for something better-left-behind in a jungle far away. 

But I don’t recall his dreams or those of my sister.  Do they remember the sleeping visions of our parents? 

Of this, I will need to inquire at the next family holiday gathering, which will include dinner, and then coffee with dessert, of course.

Then I know how to open the prospective floodgates of nighttime memory.

“I had the wildest dream last night,” I shall begin.

           

Family Dream Team - Aug 8, 1993

Groves, Crows and Remembered Haunts

"GROVES, CROWS AND REMEMBERED HAUNTS"

    By Noel Laflin

September 2000



As a child I grew up in a neighborhood surrounded by some of the last orange groves of Anaheim. We played endless games beneath these giants and walked their length to either school or the local market.
                                                                                               
It was in the largest of one of these old stand of trees that a friend of mine found a baby crow one day, which he took home, nourished and raised to adulthood.  They were bulldozing the grove and we were in pain over losing this splendid playground. Within a matter of years, all of our beloved trees burned before our eyes.

                                               

But back to the crow.  Apparently the nest had fallen when the tree was toppled and the mother took flight.  One baby survived, which my friend found and promptly named Poe - Poe the Crow.  Over the years neighbors knew to see Poe's adoptive daddy if some small shiny piece of jewelry or watch was missing.  If left outdoors, Poe was likely to spot it, swoop down and steal it home.  My friend kept a shoebox filled with bright shiny stolen treasures.    Poe was a legendary thief in our neighborhood for years.  I don't remember his passing.  Maybe he is still stealing bright, glittering objects from neighbors' patios, lawn chairs and poolsides.            

There is a strange and sad note regarding this friend.   I had lost track of him after high school.  Then, several years ago I read in the newspaper about a local family tragedy.  Reading about it in the paper brought home many forgotten memories for me as I stared at their family picture now printed in  grainy black and white.  I saw through the lines of age, however, and recalled the face of my boyhood companion, the former tamer of crows.  I wished for happier times, remembering when we ran through the orange groves or whooped it up in our best friend's pool skinny dipping on hot summer nights back in 1963.  I suddenly wished for a time machine, in which to throw my old friend, close the door and set the clock back thirty-some-odd years.  I would have jumped in with him.  I wanted to ease the pain, set a course for escape.  Oh, to find Poe once more.  But to quote the bird's namesake: "Nevermore.”

If it wasn't an orange grove we sought out for refuge, it was the cemetery, the old and beautiful Anaheim Cemetery.  Our street backed up against it.  Many of us had only to scale a neighbor's fence or two and jump into that wondrous spooky realm.  Daytime, twilight or dark of night - it didn't matter to us.  We loved the place.  It was old.  Graves dated back to the 1860's. Many of the founders of the city were buried here with elaborate gravestones or statues and private mausoleums.  In one small corner of the cemetery the ancient stones were all chiseled in Chinese characters.  More than seven hundred Chinese were brought to Anaheim during the last half of the nineteenth century and played a big role in the work force.  They chose not be buried with the white German settlers. I always found their markers the most curious to read or feel and puzzle over. 

We were frequently chased away by gardeners, only to return by another route.  We climbed the ancient trees - some a hundred years old, we figured.  Ticked-off crows, relatives of Poe, no doubt, would register their complaints as we re-enacted Tarzan plots and swung about.  We played hide-and-go-seek, shot arrows into the air, tossed about a football on the last stretch of unpopulated space.  But, it's all full now - our former arena.                                                                                               

Some nights we dared one another to make a run the length of the cemetery grounds beneath a bright full moon.  As we frequently slept out in one another's back yard on warm summer nights listening to the top forty on a borrowed transistor radio we told ghost stories and tried to scare one another.  Eventually we'd sneak through the dark neighborhood, silently scaling neighbors' fences and run wild through this city of the dead.    Barefoot and breathless we found our way back to our sleeping bags, listening for our parents voices quietly talking indoors, catching bits and pieces of a television show, willing our hearts to beat normally once more.  By flashlight we read the same old copies of "Mad Magazine" for the zillionth time.  We told the same corny kid jokes, the same stupid ghost tales - eventually falling off to sleep, one by one, awakening to dewy grass and stiff limbs in the morning.  Having your own private haunt to explorer was the icing on the cake.

I continued to roam Anaheim Cemetery for the rest of my life, sometimes with old friends from my childhood, sometimes with a new love, brought home to meet the folks.  After the heavy Thanksgiving or Easter meal I'd suggest a stroll.  I always led the way.  The open gate would now seem more appealing than the neighbor's fence; age and dignity were getting in the way.   I knew and continue to know most of the graves by heart.  The memories I know by heart too.    One night I scared Ron pretty badly when I, unseen by him, tossed an orange through a large tree. The noise it made was sudden and unexpected in the dark. I swear he set a new short-distance record as he raced past me and nearly sailed over the cemetery fence.  When I fessed up to the crime, he did not speak to me for days.  My other pal, Kris, nearly killed me after I locked him in one of the ancient family mausoleums.  We were eleven or twelve, what did we know?  All I knew at the time and continue to know to this day is that this was sacred ground for both the living boys of Flower Street as well as our founding fathers sleeping soundly below us. 

I made arrangements for a piece of a plot in this old haunt years ago and am already paid up.  There are instructions for my headstone.  Part of me will one day rest in my former playground, close to the Chinese, under a hundred-year-old magnolia tree, where crows keep vigil from above.



                                            



               

               

Garden Spirits

   





Garden Spirits

By Noel Laflin

August 7, 2001

We had been scavenging firewood and medium-sized rocks from the on-going construction site for weeks before the large boulder was unearthed by a backhoe one day.  Tom was the first to spot it that night, flashlight in hand, as the two of us made our nocturnal rounds.  We searched for simple treasures to either burn in the fireplace or haul through our new condo, lug down the stairs and place in the back yard.  All of my money had gone into the down payment of this first home.  Scrap wood supplied cheap heat.  Free rocks were becoming a staple of the new garden design.  We knew the meaning of frugality. 

“Jesus, Joseph and Mary!  Will you look at the size of that guy,” Tom sighed, after spotting the rough-hewn monster.  “Shine your light over here, please.”  Doing as requested, I too stood in awe.   This was one mother-of-a-rock, compared to the dozens we had carted by wheel barrel or boxes for days prior.  The ground crew that had come across this one must have regretted their unearthing.  It had to have been a bitch to lift from the trench.

“Oh, yes, this is it,” Tom chanted to himself, as he brushed dirt away from his great find.  “I’m naming you, ‘Spirit Rock’. We’re going to need the dolly for this move.”

“Are you nuts, Tommy?  This has got to weigh a several hundred pounds.  How the hell are we getting it on the dolly, let alone get it through the house and down the freakin’ stairs?” I reasoned.

Tom wasn’t listening.  “We’ll need to secure this well,” he continued.  “Rope and bungee cords ought to hold it all right.”  He was already devising a makeshift fulcrum from a two-by-four and header board. 

“Hello?  Did you hear me, sweetie?  This is going to be a mess,” I insisted.  “We’ll break our backs.  And just why the hell do you want this particular rock anyway?  It’s too damn big!” I argued.

Tom finally seemed to hear me.  He stopped fidgeting with the lifting device and turned to me. “It’s calling to me,” he said softly.  “This rock needs a home.  The garden needs this rock.  Help me on this, OK?”  He patted the dusty giant lovingly and began to clean more dirt away. 

All of my arguments faded.  I knew the determination in his voice.  When something called to Tom, it meant business.  He would not be deterred.  I might as well help get this over with, or watch him struggle to do it on his own and break his butt trying.  Experience had taught me that Tom did not let up on issues of plants or rocks that called to him.  If this one already had a name, it was going to have a home, in Tom’s eyes.  I sauntered off across the street toward our garage to look for tie-downs and the dolly.

Spirit Rock lay like a jewel-in-the-rough amid the construction rubble of our new neighborhood still in the making.  It was in close proximity to what would soon take shape as a swimming pool, part of phase two of the overall project.  We lived in the first phase, with a handful of other recent buyers.  There weren’t many neighbors, as yet, to be witness to our boulder move.  As Tom and I wrestled with the heavy stone, trying in vain several times to find a proper fit on our undersized hand truck, a barn owl swooped by, close overhead, taking refuge in a half-framed home.  It was dark and cool.  Despite the December night, we were drenched in sweat beneath our coats from our efforts.

Once the rock was securely in place, crisscrossed with rope and cords, we each took an end of the dolly and gave a heave-ho.  I pulled while Tom pushed.  It was slow going.  Debris blocking our route had to be removed and a curb negotiated before we hit the firm asphalt street.  I am sure we looked ridiculous.  Although meant to handle small-to-medium appliances, etc., our beat up little dolly did not really know how to handle such a rough-cut chunk of earth.  But the tie-downs held.  With no neighbors in sight, we slowly crossed the short street and strained with the upward slant of the driveway.  Now the first challenge truly presented itself, pulling our load up the short step of the porch and through the front door over the threshold frame.

Clunk!  We cleared the first obstacle.   Pushing, pulling and lifting we managed to again clunk our way into the house.  We edged our way to the top of the stairs and surveyed the proposed descent like river guides charting their final entry and ultimate execution of a Class V rapid.  Once we started down, we felt there would be no going back.  The pull of gravity, like the pull of a river would not be forgiving.

 I had always referred to our home as being upside- down.  When we first toured the model a few short months before, I had stood, with a hand on the stair rail and looked at my surroundings. I noted the high ceiling of the living room, the connected dinning area and kitchen, had seen a bathroom and knew there was an attached garage before I finally asked Tom, with some bafflement, just where the hell the bedrooms were.

“Look down, luv,” Tom suggested.

“Oh!” My hand seemed to jump off the railing.  “The rooms are downstairs; now I get it,” I confessed.  Tradition had always dictated that bedrooms should be above, or so I thought.  I had to think a bit differently here.  Downstairs led us to a small hall off of which was another bathroom, small bedroom as well as the master bedroom.  We spotted the back yard.  Both rooms had a view of it, but the master bedroom had entry to the yard through a sliding glass door.  Our fenced-in space was perhaps twenty-five by twenty-five feet.  The rooms were much cooler down here.  It was at least twelve to fifteen degrees hotter upstairs. The temperature factor, along with affordability, uniqueness of design and layout - as well as having some yard space (not bad for a condo) all added up to our decision to buy this unit on the spot.  Escrow closed within twenty-six days.  We moved plants first.  The garden took priority.  Furniture may have been placed without much forethought, but the garden had a plan, thanks to Tom.

“We’d better get Zane out of the way,” I suggested, as we lowered the dolly to the carpet.  The small gray kitty was just under two months old.  I’d found him in a pet supply store near my work and bought him for five dollars.  He was an early Christmas gift for Tom.  We named him Zane Gray.  The cat was located before he could escape out the front door and locked in the bathroom for safe- keeping.  The last thing I needed was a playful kitten making a game of the rocky move down the stairs.

We maneuvered the rock and dolly to the edge of the top stair and peered down once more.  The hundred-gallon aquarium at the bottom of the hallway suddenly captured my attention. 

“You know,” I said slowly, “if this sucker gets loose on any one of these steps, there’s going to be one hell of a small flood down there, not to mention unhappy fish and shards of glass blown everywhere.”  Tom was already in the garage rummaging for something.  He came back with fifty feet of three-quarter- inch rope. 

“OK, here’s my idea,” he started.  “We tie this through both handles of the dolly and then wrap the rest of the rope around the top of the banister.  You get on your butt, straddling the dolly between your legs and use your feet as brakes on each step.  I’ll play out just enough rope for each step lowering.  We’ll take it slow and safe.  It will always be tied off up here.  What do you think?”

I still thought he was a little nuts and just a bit over-optimistic in the new plan.  However, I lacked other alternatives and knew the rock would never look right here in the living room as a permanent fixture.  Reluctantly I agreed to the insane idea.  I got on my ass and readied myself for the ultimate toboggan  ride, should the rope come loose.

The rock-laden dolly teetered on the top step as I inched my way forward.  Tom let out a little rope.  The strain on my arms, legs and back was tremendous.  Fresh sweat formed under my armpits.  Thunk!  The wheels landed on the first step.  The rope held.  “Thank you, Jesus!” I cried.  One down, twelve more thunks to go.  We made our way precariously down each stair.  The aquarium loomed ever closer.  It stayed intact.  Somehow we made it to the safety of the hallway slab below.  A fresh trail of dirt lay on each successive step; a small price to pay, I thought.  That’s what vacuums are for. 

We angled our way through the hall and bedroom and over the sliding glass door jam.  We were in the garden at last.  Hallelujah!  Now, all Tom had to decide was where to place the beast.   He already had an area in mind.  We moved our heavy load the last ten feet and loosened the tie-downs.  With great effort we lifted the dolly and rolled Spirit Rock into its new resting spot.  Tom said that he was satisfied with the placement.  “That’s good,” I quipped, “because I’m not moving the son-of-a-bitch any more tonight.”  It was now ten-thirty. 

I went in to vacuum our dusty trail and to see if wheel imprints in new carpeting were only temporary.  It looked like a covered wagon had rumbled through the house and trampled the stairs.  One ticked off kitten was then finally freed from the bathroom.  A hot shower, pain relievers and bed were the plan.                

Tom played in the garden till midnight, moving plants and small rocks by flashlight and feel.  I could hear him talking to things, apologizing to a plant or stone for having to move it.   I heard him humming to himself.  He was never happier.

The garden has been a work in progress ever since.  Ponds were built over the years, new trees planted, fruit harvested and branches trimmed with the seasons.  Stepping stones and pathways were constantly being rearranged as new plant varieties were added to the yard.  Everything that the garden required came through the house, down the stairs and out the bedroom sliding glass door.  I have worn out several vacuums over the course of nearly two decades.  Throughout the years Spirit Rock always stayed in place.  Tom did not.  I became the guardian of plants and stones after his departure.  Eventually I learned how to care for the goldfish and koi as well as repair and build new ponds.  I experimented with different plants and designed new layouts.  Now I move stones about  (apologizing as I do so) as pathways change or a new fancy takes hold of me.  The really big rock has never been moved, however.  I work around it, as needed.  It has settled into place quite nicely after almost eighteen years.

I kneel proudly by the newest addition to the yard, a fourth pond.  It only took a few hours to install a few Saturdays back.  I like the sound of falling water in stereo.  I constantly rearrange plants and rocks to entice its look and give it character.  Little treasures find their way around the edges of the pond; an angel with a missing wing, broken shards of a favorite clay pot, rocks brought back from far off visits.  The edge of this new pond just misses the biggest rock in the yard. 

My old gray cat saunters by, a bit stiff with arthritis these past few years, but still here despite his age.  He’ll be eighteen come Halloween.  He walks over to the big rock looking for a patch of sunlight.  Eating and sleeping are his primary concerns now.  I pet him as he slowly goes by.  His eyes are getting a little glassy with age.  Tom never took Zane with him when he left so long ago.  His care, as well as the care of the garden fell to me.  And that’s OK.  I have learned how to maintain and improve its look over time.  Tom even paid me that great compliment when last he visited nearly ten years ago.  He had not been to the house in years.  But time and shared health concerns had healed the old wounds between us.  It was good to have his company once again.  But he wasn’t quite the same boy anymore.  He was now far too thin and moved much slower then a young man of thirty-four should move.  Tom was ill.

When we got to the garden, upon that day of his last visit, he told me I had done well.  I asked him if he would paint a wall mural over the large pond closest to the house.  He was excited with the challenge.  I fronted him fifty bucks to get the supplies.  He never had time to start the painting.  The final stages of AIDS took him out of our midst forever four months later.  He hung around till Christmas Eve and then gave up the ghost.  Two months later six of us scattered his ashes beneath a giant oak tree in Ojai. We held back some of his ashes to place in three other locations of which we felt Tom would approve.  They were all in beautiful gardens.

 

I pat the large rock once more as Zane makes himself comfortable in the warm afternoon sun.  I remember how I dug a hole by hand one February night beneath this giant and placed a handful of ashes deep within the earth.  Spirit Rock welcomed an old, lost friend that evening.  

Now I talk to the garden all the time. Should I ever leave, however, that big old stone is going to stay.  It’s one son-of-a-bitch to move. 

                  

                                      

Pretty Places

 Pretty Places

By Noel Laflin

May 17, 2010

           

     “This is the tree,” Tom said, as we stopped our walk one warm August afternoon and stood beneath a majestic old oak.  “I want my ashes here, right here.”

     I glanced down at the ground and noticed that there was not much barren earth beneath this behemoth.  As it stood in the middle of this quaint old park, the oak had become a focal point of the grounds and concrete terracing now boxed in the massive roots, surrounding the tree on all four sides.  It looked to be a fine resting spot for dewy-eyed lovers, old folks wanting to take a load off or maybe for children at play. The terracing was meant to sit, jump or stretch out upon. It did not look conducive for scattering ashes, however.

     “We’ve got a lot of cement here, Tommy,” I said.  “Where exactly do we put you … between the cracks?”  I continued, “You know, this place is full of magnificent old trees; how about one a little more off the beaten path; one with some decent soil beneath it?”  I gestured in several directions to beautiful canopies all about us.

     Tom scanned the park and then placed his left hand on the trunk of his chosen shade.  “No,” he replied.  “This is the spot. I have been here many times and the feeling is always the same. This tree is calling me.  Will you make it happen?”

     I moved over to stand next to my young friend placing one hand on the tree and with the other pulled Tom close.  “Yes,” I said quietly.  “We’ll do it here … I promise.”

     Tom died four months later on Christmas Eve.  He was thirty-five years old.

     Six of us gathered outside the park on an unusually warm Saturday morning in February of the following year.  Tom’s brother, Bob, and mother, Joyce, had brought the ashes.  I had made the long drive up to Ojai with my good friend, Larry.  Two other friends of Tom had also joined us.  I had never met them before but they had gotten to know him during the last year of his life, when he had started an AIDS advocacy group in Camarillo, the first of its kind for the conservative area.  They both looked upon Tom as their fallen friend and leader and wanted to pay homage today.  After introductions and hugs all around, brother Bob reached into his car and withdrew a small brown cardboard box. 

     “Lead on,” he said.

     I steered our small contingency across the park to the appointed oak.  Our party gathered in close.

     “This is the tree,” I whispered aloud.

     The others stopped to look up and admire the gnarled old lady.  It looked like it had just been pulled from a Tolkien novel, something straight out of Rivendell perhaps, and placed here in Ojai.  I half expected to see elves sitting in the branches above.  We all took in its height and breadth of trunk. We followed the immense base to where it disappeared into the flat of cement surrounding it.  We then looked around at the numerous folks strolling about the park on this beautiful sunny morning. 

     “Are you sure this is the right tree?” someone inquired.  “This looks to be a pretty popular spot … for an illegal burial.”

     “Just where are we supposed to spread the ashes?” someone else asked in a hushed tone smiling at a couple strolling past us arm-in-arm.  “There’s no dirt around the damn thing,” they whispered.   “What’s up with all this cement anyway?”

     “Look,” I said, “I did not choose the place.  You know Tom; he said this tree called to him.  Although I did suggest otherwise, he was quite adamant about wanting to be here … right here, he said.  I gave him my word that I would honor that request.”

     We were suddenly a grim group.

     “Well,” Joyce said, “if that’s what my boy wanted then that’s what he gets.  Let’s start digging.”  And with that, we scurried about for twigs and small branches …anything that might scrape some dirt from between the cracks of the cement.  I dug out a small pocket knife, casually sat myself down on the edge of the concrete and got to work.  It was slow going. 

     The six of us must have looked a bit strange to passersby as we scattered about the old oak scratching dirt out of the cracks of the terracing.  We tried to be nonchalant but I have my doubts as to how that really must have looked.  But, no one stopped to stare, let alone inquire as to what we were doing.  Thus, we labored away.

     By the end of twenty minutes, we gathered to discuss our progress.

     “At this rate,” brother Bob said, “we’ll be here till Tuesday.” 

     “I’m getting a blister,” chimed in one of Tom’s two other pals.

     “You know,” someone said, “even if we get the ashes into these cracks, they are going to stick out like a sore thumb; the color difference and all.  We just can’t dig deep enough to properly bury them.  And if we just sweep them around this cement there is no place for them to go really.”

     We all had been thinking similar thoughts.

     “I’m getting pretty thirsty,” Joyce lamented. 

     “Let’s take a break,” I suggested.  “There’s a coffee place across the street.  We’ll get something to drink and enjoy it back here while we figure out plan B.”  So, off we traipsed in search of sustenance; hot and iced coffees, tea, lemonade and latte.

     By the time we returned with beverages in hand, a plan had surfaced. 

     We would all take small fistfuls of Tom’s remains from the brown box, go back to our tiny trenches and dissolve each handful with the help of our drinks being poured sparingly down each narrow crack.  We would then cover the muddy ash with the thin soil we had dislodged in the first place.  Brilliant! 

     And so we started round two, casually strolling over to brother Bob and the box, reaching in and returning with bits of Tom. When no park goers were nearby we once again took up various locations beneath the tree and let free from our hands small amounts of granululated ash and bone into the crevices.   We must have then looked quite mad as we proceeded to pour small amounts of coffee, tea, lemonade and latte into those narrow lanes.   We then followed that with the brushing of any convenient dirt or handy leaf over the muddy evidence.  Within thirty minutes we had parted with only about a quarter of Tom.

     Brother Bob hefted the box in one hand. 

     “We still have a ways to go,” he said.

     We dusted our hands against our trousers as we pondered our situation.

     “I think Tom would be happy with what we have accomplished so far,” I said.  “And we have kept our promise that he would rest under this tree,” I continued.  “But you know, Tommy had other favorite haunts in this world too.  I think he might be pleased if we left him in some other pretty places; say the Arboretum or the Huntington or even in my garden, a place he originally designed.  These are all beautiful locations and were dear to him.”  I let the thought linger there.

     Larry was the first to comment:  “I will take him to the first two.  I don’t live that far from either one.  I will find someplace nice to let him rest.”

     “And I will put my portion of Tom beneath the big rock in my yard.  Tom and I spent an entire evening moving it there ten years ago.  He always referred to it as Spirit Rock.  He said it ‘called to him’, much as this tree did apparently.   What do you guys say?”

     “Well, I’m all for it,” said Joyce. 

     “I think he’d take the deal if he were here,” concluded brother Bob.

     The two newest friends nodded in agreement.

     And with that, we carefully divided the remaining contents of the small brown cardboard box into three equal portions. 

     “I say we refresh our drinks and actually consume them this time,” Joyce proposed.  We nonchalantly gave one last glace about, making sure we had concealed our doings properly, picked up our empty cups along with the remains of the day and strolled across the park once more.  We toasted Tom one last time before we drove our separate ways.

     Much later that evening, as the sun was quickly setting, I dug my hand beneath the giant rock in my garden and pulled forth rich dark soil.  I took the plastic bag from my coat pocket and gently poured the few handfuls of ash into my hand and placed it far into the tunnel I had dug under the boulder.  The old cat, Zane, whom I had given to Tom one Christmas when the grey feline was but a kitten, bore witness to my labor of love.  I patted the soil back into place and gave Zane a scratch to the ear.  He lowered his head and purred his approval.

     Some weeks later, Larry called to inform me that he had seen to his end of the bargain also.   He had taken his two toddlers and wandered the grounds of two very lovely locations.  At one beautiful garden, beneath a smiling stone Buddha, he quietly took out a small plastic bag and shook the contents about the base of the statue and into the foliage.  He then moved on to another of Tom’s favorite hangouts and did likewise with the shaking of another small plastic bag.  This final resting spot was flanked by a beautiful waterfall.  Larry then strolled about the grounds, with kids in tow, taking in the beauty of the flowers, trees and rocks along with the recent memory of some other very pretty places.

                                                                           

Tom Pistulka - circa early 60's