The Other Side of the Creek

The Other Side of the Creek

12-30-19

Here’s a favorite memory from three years ago today, as Jay and I first ventured across Santiago Creek and started to explore the more hidden treasures of Irvine Park.

We would return again and again over the next six month to watch baby hawks mature in a nest high up a sycamore tree, not far from this very spot where Jay is standing.

I became enraptured with the area and have returned a hundred times this year alone, looking for and finding some clues to its past for human and critter in-habitation. The area was once known as Camptontown, so that’s how I refer to it when sharing the sights there with friends nowadays.

Anyway, it’s a fine memory, so I thought I would now share it with you all. And it’s a great picture of Jay, too.

The pair of hawks that kept us coming back still like the area and will hopefully nest once again there in 2020. So, here’s to the next one hundred visits to the other side of the creek.

Magic Elixir

12-24-19
Old German neighbors taught us how to toast Christmas Eve and the coming new day with dark, unfiltered beer slowly poured into large glass steins. We stood in their kitchen, as the clock closed in on midnight, watching the thick foam rising to the rim, turning a reddish purple, as there was thick raspberry syrup in the bottom of each glass. Fresh raspberries simmering on the burner for an hour had created the magic elixir. With glasses full, Erik would rise, say a few words regarding the value of neighbors and friendship, his wife, Frieda, would cry, my mom and sister would smile, and my father allowed me a sip or two from his glass. It was more like a plunge than a sip - and I can still picture the reddish purple foam at the end of my nose.