Strong as an Oak

Strong as an Oak

Noel Laflin

10-9-15

Mature Coast Live Oak, Orange, Ca.

It was only in the last month that I learned that our country has a national tree – the oak.

But, I bet many of you already knew this.

I feel a little dumb for not knowing it sooner, as it was so designated by congress nearly eleven years ago after The National Arbor Day Foundation held a popular vote back in 2001.  The steadfast oak won hands down with over a hundred thousand votes, while the stately redwood placed second - some twenty thousand notches behind. Altogether, nearly half a million ballots were cast.

“People were invited to vote for one of 21 candidate trees,” the Arbor Day press release read back in April 2001, “based on broad tree categories (general) that included the state trees of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, or to write in any other tree selection.  The redwood, maple, pine, and dogwood rounded out the top five choices.”

It was the first time in our nation’s history where a popular vote of the people decided the outcome of a national symbol.

Finally … a vote of importance.

And I missed it.

But I probably would have voted for the redwood anyway.

Young Coast Live Oak, Orange, Ca.

Nuts

Nuts

Noel Laflin

10-7-15

I have recently learned not to stand directly beneath any squirrel once he finds a new hiding place for his winter supply of nuts.

  

Let me tell you why.

Tarzan-like, the red, bushy-tailed guy that I found so amusing yesterday leapt from oak branch to oak branch, tree to tree, top of block wall to the rounded metal highway of a chain link fence - all the while clutching a golden acorn between his teeth.  It was about a fifty foot run and I was shooting photos as I followed.

He soon reached his ancient pepper tree home, jumped aboard and scampered to a broad bough some ten feet up.   Pawing about, the furry fellow searched for the secret safe of a hole, dialed in the correct combination apparently, and quickly stashed away the golden treasure – hoarding against the winter to come.

 

Then he liberally sprayed the branch to mark his territory before leaping higher up, eventually stretching out, yawning, and falling asleep.

Glad I was wearing a baseball cap, and always close the eye that is not sighting through the camera.

Magic Trick

Magic Trick

Noel Laflin

10-4-15

Sometime around three in the morning some fifty-odd years ago, a kid rolled out of a top bunk, fell, and hit the cement floor below with a thud – a thud loud enough to wake the rest of us.

Flashlights lit the way to a switch that, once turned on by someone’s quick thinking father, soon illuminated the small Idyllwild mountain bunk room and the dazed boy sitting upon that cold, hard floor, moaning as he held a hand to his head. 

“Jeez, would you look at the size of that goose egg,” one of the Cub Scout fathers remarked, after a hasty examination of the lad settled the issue that no bones were broken.  The other half dozen ten-year-olds and their dads were also transfixed by the scene. The only damage from the fall appeared to be a nasty bump on the forehead that was quickly growing to the size of a plump purple plum.

My dad located his trousers and fumbled about in a pocket or two until he found the small oval plastic squeeze purse that he habitually carried.  He used to hold it out and shake it sometimes, challenging my sister and I to guess how much change he had.  It we were within three cents of the contents, the treasure was ours to split.

 

“Good,” I heard him mumble as he dumped an assortment of change into the palm of his hand, scanned its contents, and latched onto one large silver coin.

“I’ve got Mr. Franklin’s fix,” he told the bruised boy now sitting up on the lower bunk.  “I want you to hold this coin against that big old bump and see what happens,” he said, handing over the half dollar.  “That silver’s got some magic in it – you’ll see,” he said.

The boy took the coin and pressed it to the bump.  The rest of us, including myself, wondered just what the hell my father was doing.  But, as no one else had another remedy close at hand, we kept pretty quiet.

After a few minutes, the boy’s father removed the coin to have a look at the damage.

 

“Well, I’ll be damned!” he said, gently touching the flat purple spot on his son’s forehead.

“The bump’s gone,” he marveled, pulling in the rest of us to take a gander for ourselves.

“Jesus,” kids and adults muttered alike as we approached and looked more closely, some of us reaching out to touch the tender skin just to be sure that it was no trick of the poor lighting overhead.

“I’ll want that back, when you’re feeling better,” my father said, as he stretched back down on his own bunk.  “Magical coins are hard to come by nowadays,” he concluded, rolling over as he zipped up his sleeping bag.

“Actually, it’s just an old fashioned remedy,” he added, to no one in particular.  “Silver has some amazing healing qualities that folks figured out long ago.  And since that half dollar is ninety percent silver it did the trick.”

Pretty soon we all followed his lead and someone turned off the lights.  The boy with the purple bruise to the head had swapped beds with his father.  The last I saw of him he was now on the lower bunk, staring at the alternating image of Franklin and the Liberty Bell as he slowly twirled the half dollar between his fingers.  He looked like a novice magician honing in on his skills at deception. Occasionally the other hand would gently probe the top of his forehead, gently searching for a goose egg-sized bump that was no longer there.

When my father died some forty-five years later, I found a small wooden box in his sock drawer.  Amongst the few contents were three old silver dollars and an oval plastic squeeze coin purse.  There were some old Lincoln pennies, Mercury head dimes, and one smooth Franklin half dollar jingling about in there.  

I held the purse to my ear, closed my eyes, wished for magic, and shook away.  

The Boy's Fault

The Boy’s Fault

Noel Laflin

9-22-15

We were lost. 

And just to prove it, we stumbled about the damn mountain for three hours trying in vain to find the right trail that would take us to the tram, which would bring us to my truck, and eventually home.

  

We finally did find that elusive trail, albeit the hard way, so there is a happy ending here.  I thought I should tell you that right off, just in case you are prone to anxiety.   But let me tell you how we nearly spent the evening of July 4th, 1998, atop Mt. San Jacinto.

 

It was the fault of El Nino – The Boy.

The relentless rains of 1998, brought about by El Nino, had also brought unprecedented amounts of snow to the Southland that year.  It was so thick in local mountains that it had the audacity to actually stick around well into the summer months.

Case in point: Even after my good friend, Larry, and I left the scorching heat of Palm Springs at a sweltering 115 degrees, and rode the aerial tram up to the kickoff point at Long Valley, and trudged another six miles up the mountain, what was to greet us way up there near the peak?

Well, snow of course – even on the Fourth of July.

So there we were, dressed in tee-shirts and shorts and crunching thru shaded paths covered in white, while two miles below, the Coachella Valley shimmered and radiated in triple digits.

 

Despite this unexpected development we made our way to the peak, and took in the magnificent view some 10,834 feet below.

 

There were few others up there that day, which may also help explain how we ended up lost just a short time later.  You see, getting to the rocky peak was fairly easy as it was visible from the trail.  Looking back down, however, much of that trail was hidden by tall ponderosas or covered in a cool, blinding whiteness that seemed in no great hurry to melt.  So, when it was time to head back, we could make neither heads nor tails as to where the trail was exactly.

Then we saw a young fellow leapfrogging down the rocks, striding confidently into the woods.  There’s our ticket out of here, we thought.  We followed the boy.

It turns out that this kid was heading elsewhere.  By the time we realized our error, once he’d disappeared around a bend a short time later, we were off the trail and disoriented altogether.

Thus we had yet another boy, and a real one at that, to blame for our own damn foolishness.

Now, I had done this hike four times over the years and felt confident that if we just backtracked a bit, we’d be all right.  But that did little good as everything looked pretty much the same – there were tall trees, giant rocks, and icy berms in every direction.  We could not even spot our own recent tracks.

But with the help of Larry’s compass and a fortunate spotting of the Mt. Palomar Observatory glinting in the late day sun some forty miles away, we had a pretty good idea as to which way our peak lay, even hidden as it was to us from our present location.

 

And so we trudged on for the next three hours - scaling icy berm after berm, wading through thorny buck brush - all the while gaining in elevation.
 

We eventually found and climbed San Jacinto’s peak once again – from the opposite side this time - and took in the magnificent view in déjà vu fashion.  I never thought that climbing the summit from that direction was even possible.  Well, I am here to tell you, it is.

Hearing voices carrying on not far below us, we made a beeline for civilization via the crowd and the right trail this time.

We made it to the tram station by seven and to my truck a half hour later.

We drove westward bloodied, bruised and mighty hungry.  Fireworks across three counties lit the pathway home.  We made a drive thru stop at a McDonalds close to the house.  By the time we parked in the driveway and opened the doors to the truck we found that our legs had cramped considerably.  The two of us had taken on the appearance of senior citizens having a bad arthritic day as we limped into the garage clutching our burgers and fries.  

I have not attempted the hike in seventeen years.  Every time I thought about it, Larry would send me an article about some guy or couple who got lost upon that mountain and stayed lost for a considerable amount of time - some permanently.

But with the prospect of a record breaking new El Nino on its way for this winter, I suddenly have the urge to tempt fate once again.

But if I do, I’m first investing in a GPS device.

And I’ll be damn careful if I follow any kid down an unknown trail again. 

Age of Wisdom

Age of Wisdom

Noel Laflin

9-20-15

Her first trimester consisted of many great poets. The words of Frost, Dickinson, Millay, Whitman, Poe, and Cummings were among some of the opening verses to be read aloud.

With the sudden and reassuring quickening of the child’s movements, giants in literature soon took center stage. Shelley, Hugo, Verne, Melville, Austen, Dumas, Twain, Hemingway, and London all then had their moments - whether by light of day or the soft glow of incandescence.

When she hit the final home stretch and discovered that her ever swelling body was not cooperating as easily as it once did, the woman found that even the simplest task of fluffing pillows from behind was a bit of a challenge. 

But motherhood looked good upon her nonetheless.

“Fair trade,” she mused, settling in at last, all the while carefully reaching for a heavy volume perched precariously atop an untidy stack of novels and verse. The tower of hardbound classics had been threatening to topple in teetering fashion for weeks now.

“If you tumble,” the woman warned - her voice lightly chastising, “well, so be it.  I suppose that there are worse things in life other than great words and works being spilled and tossed about my bedroom floor”.

“Now, where were we,” she asked the swollen outline hiding beneath the covers as she opened the tattered volume, removing the fragile oak leaf serving as bookmark.

"Ah, yes, Mr. Dickens at his finest. Listen carefully, child:”

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope …’

--------------------------------------------------------------

The bedroom still looked remarkably the same. 

A middle-aged man sat in a chair next to the bed in which he’d been born, adjusting the glow of an old incandescent light resting atop an ancient nightstand piled high with books, most having been published a century prior.

He’d been in and out of that chair for months, reading aloud to the old woman resting comfortably in the bed.  Sometimes his children accompanied him and spelled him for a while, continuing with the stories and verses long into the quiet hours of the night as the man dozed in the chair.

Thus, they had covered many of the great poets during the first three months of his frequent comings and goings to his boyhood home.

They had then moved on to the giants in literature shortly thereafter and he brought the old woman up to speed with the likes of Tolkien, Bradbury, Lee, Irving, and Solzhenitsyn.

But tonight, the man was alone.

And although the old woman had neither eaten nor spoken for the past three days, he was certain that there was nothing wrong with her hearing.

Thus, he had been saving their favorite for last.  And they were now on the final home stretch.

“We are nearly at the end of Mr. Dickens’s fine tale, mother.  I propose we wrap this one up tonight.  But, I’ve a feeling that you and I both know how it ends. “

And with that, he opened the tattered book, carefully removing the old oak leaf still serving as bookmark, and began:

 ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done,’ the man quoted, leaning in closely – enunciating in a clear, soft voice.

‘It is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known,’ he concluded, his voice breaking ever so slightly.

The old woman smiled as the covers gently rose and then settled quite still and moved no more.

“It was the spring of hope,” the man whispered, carefully replacing the old leaf bookmark before he closed the book, and blindly placed it atop the precariously leaning tower of literature.

He was not quick enough to catch the unbalanced stack before it tumbled.

Great words and works spilled and tossed about the bedroom floor, spanning an age of wisdom.

King of the Pond

King of the Pond

Noel Laflin

9-16-15

Belted Kingfisher

Whenever a Cooper’s hawk comes swooping down to our little neighborhood pond out here in El Modena, the doves and pigeons scatter promptly, diving for the cover of oak, pepper, and sycamore trees like there’s no tomorrow.  It’s somewhat reminiscent of the scene from Blazing Saddles when the townsfolk first spot Mongo riding into Rock Ridge atop a giant ox.

 

Unlike the hapless frontier town in Mel Brooks’ movie, our pond does have a natural civil defense system in place.  It’s called the mocking bird.  His angry screech and kamikaze dive bombing maneuvers against intruding predators usually provide the other birds time to fly for shelter.  It also alerts this hapless amateur bird watcher that a battle is normally brewing just overhead.

The alarm sounded today was that of a different guy, however; although it still gave me time to note the scattered flight of doves, pigeons, blue birds and such just as a young hawk zipped across the park, taking refuge in a sycamore tree.

The new sheriff in town sounding the alarm was the resident black and white belted kingfisher – a fine feathered fellow who’d taken up residence over the summer.  He’s a quick little character and difficult to photograph.  But he’s easy to spot with his narrow sharp beak, Don King-like hairdo, and his distinctive rattle of a cry as he skips and dives above the water in search of a meal.

Well, today, that rattle was in overdrive as it seems that he was the intended dinner for the Cooper’s hawk – at least if the hawk had his druthers.

And sure enough, his intentions were made clear as the chase was soon on.  The hawk leapt from the tree and went for the smaller bird as he made a pass over the pond.  The raptor did not even come close.  Both birds landed on opposite sides of the fence glaring at one another.

The king then made a second pass over the pond, rattling his war cry as he flew, daring the young hawk – or so it would appear – to give chase once more.  The hawk obliged and dove for the swift little guy.  He missed.  It was pretty pathetic.

 

Thus, five or six attempts in all were made in vain before the hawk gave up and flew westward.  The kingfisher joyfully swooped and somersaulted across the water before making a beeline for a very tall sycamore tree of his own. You could have heard his triumphant rattle of a cry from a mile away.

And just like that, the other feathered townsfolk sheepishly flew from their own respective hiding places and resumed their perching along the fence or pecking the ground for grubs and seed.

Score one for the smart little king of a sheriff and zip for Mongo once more.

And the outcome was not even predicated on an exploding box of candy.

Cooper's Hawk

Shoes

Shoes

Noel Laflin

September 2, 2015

Should I ever return to Zambia, I am going to skip the suggested trinkets of hand mirrors and magic markers I was advised to bring as objects of trade with the back country locals.  Instead, I shall bring shoes – lots and lots of shoes – modest new running models, worn-through sneakers, or any state of footwear in between.  In fact, I’ll bring a footlocker full if customs so allows.  And, I won’t trade for them.  I’ll just give them away.

This twenty-year fantasy accelerated into full gear once again yesterday as I was cleaning out my old car.  For there, amidst all of the junk hiding in the trunk, were some cheap rubber sandals, hiking boots, and two old pairs of tennis shoes.   And just like that, as I began my sorting and tossing, my last image of Joseph popped into fresh focus once again. There he was - my apparition, as clear as the African day is long - standing quietly, staring in wonder and hoping against hope that I might give him an old pair of shoes.

The young barefoot lad who worked at our remote, small camp hidden high away in a northern Zambian national park, always greeted me with downcast eyes.  I initially thought that he was extremely shy or perhaps just politely deferential to guests.

“Joseph,” I finally asked toward the end of my stay, “why are you always staring at the ground?  You have a beautiful smile – you should let people see that more often.  But it’s hard to notice when you are always looking down.”

“It is your shoes, sir” he replied softly in beautifully clipped English, eyes still lowered.  “I like your shoes very much.  Can I have them please?”

The image of Joseph and his camp co-workers, along with nearly every other Zambian encountered throughout my three-week stay in their country suddenly came into sharp focus.  There was not a pair of shoes to be found among the entire lot.

“I would like nothing better than to give you these old Nikes, my friend,” I finally replied, finding my own eyes suddenly cast downward.  “But I’m afraid they will not let me on the plane taking me home tomorrow, should I show up barefoot.  I have no other shoes or sandals to wear.”

Joseph slowly nodded in agreement.

“I understand, sir.  Thank you for allowing me to ask.”

Before we struck camp the following day, I handed over the last of my Zambian currency to Joseph.  I told him to put it toward some shoes.  He raised his eyes level with mine and gave me a fantastic smile.

What I had not told the boy, however, was that I had come on the trip with two sets of shoes but had given away the first pair just two weeks prior.  Being old, they had split apart due to water damage while on the Zambezi River.  A young barefoot boatman by the name of Washington repaired them for me using rubber raft repair glue. They were as good as new by the time he was done. As he too had no shoes, I asked if he could use them.  After all, I had a spare pair in the duffle bag. You would have thought I’d given him a winning lottery ticket.

 

“I will trade these for a pair in my own size,” said the gentle giant with feet much larger than mine.  “I have never had a pair of shoes before.  Thank you, sir!”

 

The last I saw of the young man, he was running barefoot up a steep, rocky, cactus-strewn mountain. Washington was on his way back home, to a village some ten kilometers north.

He had a very firm grip on an ancient pair of New Balance running shoes as he ran.

British Airlines had no such obstacles in its flight path.  Maybe I should have chanced a barefoot journey of my own.