Toasting Golden Mice

Toasting Golden Mice

Noel Laflin

1-6-20

I just opened a new box of sugar cubes in order to make another round of Irish Coffee - a winter staple around my house- and it reminded me of the time, back in grade school, when I constructed a miniature Mayan temple made of sugar cubes. We were studying South American history that year. I bet some of you recall similar projects.

I carefully glued the foundation row of sugar cubes to a two foot by two foot piece of plywood, and then glued one small cube to another in order to create the pyramid. When done, I spray painted it gold, and got a decent grade on the project - or so I like to think.

Not wanting to toss my masterpiece of several hundred golden sugar cubes, my dad dutifully stored it in the garage rafters.

Several years later, in need of something up there, I retrieved a two by two foot piece of plywood, which contained a few grains of sugar.

I'm picturing the mice that did in my project were in sore need of a dentist - and probably a rodent MD as well, in order to deal with the ingestion of all that paint.

Nowadays I put sugar cubes to better use - namely with strong black coffee, fine Irish whiskey, and heavy whipping cream.

And in that spirit I think I'll have another and proudly proclaim, ‘Cheers to the lost race of golden mice!’

Span in Time

Span in Time

Noel Laflin

1-5-20

Fifty-one years ago,come this March, the Crawford brothers and I stood on the other side of this ravine, the one not so well seen behind the chain-link fence pictured here, and stared in both wonder and confusion at the connection that no longer linked the two sides of the road. The old Santiago Creek Bridge had either been blown up by the Army Corps of Engineers in order to release massive amounts of water and debris built up behind it in a last ditch effort to save homes from being washed away, or it just went on it’s own, due to the terrific flow of water and trees washed down stream. Reports vary. Regardless, it was gone. The usually dry - or at best, gently flowing creek - had become a raging river of destruction during the unprecedented winter storms of 1969.

The brothers and I, who had been on our way to Irvine Park, via old Santiago Road, dropped our bikes and clambered down the embankment to investigate the giant broken concrete pillars, asphalt, and jutting rebar scattered downstream. We then had to figure out a detour to the park, and were eventually on our way.

And although I have lived only a couple of miles from this very site for the past thirty-six years, and have been to Irvine Park a few hundred times since the day three teenage boys on bikes discovered the loss of the old bridge that connected Villa Park and Orange, it was not until this afternoon that I went to revisit the site.

This time I came by car and stood on the opposite side of where the bridge once spanned the creek, noting the old asphalt that led to the edge of the precipice. I also noted the many homes on the other side of the creek. I recall few houses in the area back then, as it was still mostly orange and lemon groves.

I tried to picture the three boys on the opposite side of the creek, their discarded bikes, and sense of adventure as they clamored down the steep embankment to get a firsthand look at what both Mother Nature and man had wrought that winter.

I sought no such urge to venture further as I had once done so long ago. Instead, I took pictures of the span, and was about to leave when a pretty little kestrel landed at the top of a dead eucalyptus tree branch, not far from where I parked.

So, I thanked him for his timely visit, took its portrait, and asked him to scout the area in my stead. He did so a moment later, diving off the dead branch from where he perched, and disappeared over the edge of a ravine that once anchored a mighty bridge.

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.

Nesting

Nesting

Noel Laflin

11-30-19

Not so much as a single twig of the giant hawk nest remains in a high crook of yonder sycamore tree. It had taken a pair of red-shouldered hawks many days, if not weeks, to construct the nest last winter, and then, in the time it takes to say, Santa Ana Wind Event, it was blown away last month.

I bet those two hawks are even more bummed than I am over the loss of that nursery in the sky as it took so long to build, and served them well when it came to successfully raising four kids there.

That same pair is probably grumbling over their string of recent bad luck as the other magnificent nest they constructed just a stone’s throw away from this one, three years ago, was burned to a crisp when fire swept through their neck of the woods two years back. That particular batch of kids (three, if memory serves me right) had flown the coup several months prior to that, but still, it was a hell of a nice home, high and away in a canopy of thick sycamore limbs and leaves that could have made a comfortable home for years to come. Hawks often return to the same nest again and again, as do many birds.

And so I feel for their loss, of course, but have faith that they will return to the same area, if not the same tree, and start building anew – perhaps as early as the first of the New Year.

I would even lend a hand if called upon. Not likely, naturally, as I do not fly, but I would do my best to be of service in return for one more session of baby hawking portraits next spring.

Come Back to Me

Come Back to Me

Noel Laflin

9-8-19

My old friend Sue Scott once told me, as we sipped cheap Scotch whisky one lazy autumn afternoon (some forty years ago), how her mother liked to write on the upper margins of dollar bills. In oh-so-fine penmanship, according to Sue, it was always the same wording: Come back to me.

Not a single one of those autographed George Washington's ever made its way back to her mother during her lifetime, or so Sue said, taking another sip of Scotch and a long, thoughtful drag on her cigarette.

But on the one-year anniversary of her mother’s death, and on Halloween at that, Sue was given back change at a local market. As she was putting the singles in her purse, one caught her eye.

In the upper margin, in oh-so-fine (and ever so recognizable) penmanship, were familiar words: Come back to me.

Cannonballs

Cannonballs

Noel Laflin

8-4-19

I look at the kids running about the hotel pool, splashing, jumping, hollering, and in general, having the time of their life. Pools and warm summer days can do that to you.

As a kid I would silently, but fervently, pray that our folks would land us a motel with a pool as we made long road trips across the west. Dad’s idea of a good motel was an inexpensive one. But occasionally prayers were answered and no matter the hour, I was performing my very best cannonball.

Kids have it better nowadays, at least when it comes to pools. And most motels have been replaced by nicer hotels as well, so there is that. And despite the cultural change regarding things like electronic devices and access to social media - concepts foreign to a generation reared back in the Eisenhower administration - pools will usually win out over a cellphone every time.

I am thinking of joining the crowd over there, but alas, I have forgotten the swim trunks. I can picture them back home sitting on the dresser feeling quite bitter for the oversight.

Just as well, I suppose, as I would not want to show up the kids of today what a cannonball of yesteryear really looks like.