Shadows On A Cloud

SHADOWS ON A CLOUD  

BY NOEL LAFLIN
October 2000/May 2012

                                                                

June 2012 - Looking westward toward the peak of the mountain.



           When I was 16 years old I was invited to climb Mt. San Jacinto, the lone granite giant looming over Palm Springs and the valley floor below.  The proposed hike would begin on the Idyllwild side of the mountain, starting at a trailhead called "Devil's Slide."  Ironically, I had broken my left leg in three places on this very same spot two years earlier while sledding down an icy slope.  The thought made me shiver that this was the kick-off point for the hike.  Nonetheless, we would start here and wind ever higher up the trail, making camp in two different locations over the weekend.  We would then reach the peak, traverse a different trail and ride the tram down the cable back to Palm Springs.   Our adventure was to begin on a Friday night, mid-October, 1969.

          I was very excited, not only at the prospect of this grand 25-mile hike, but happy to be in the company of good friends.  Chuck Bausback and his sons had become very much a part of my life.  We had met the year before at Ahwahnee.  Father, sons and I bonded immediately; they made me feel like a member of the family.   

          We drove to Idyllwild and parked at the trailhead.  It was after nine.  It was also cold with some frost on the ground.  You could see your breath.  Flashbacks of that all too recently broken leg weren't far from my thoughts.  I wanted to be away from this area.  It was pitch black as our flashlights scanned the trail ahead.  Chuck knew the area well.  In fact he knew more than any man I've ever met to this day about California history, geography, topography and trivia in general.  He charmed me at an early age and continues to amaze me with his vast knowledge, not to mention both his humor and his wit some four decades later.   

          So, off we trudged, the packs seeming to weigh twice their weight while carried up the switchbacks.  Sometime around midnight we made camp at "Skunk Cabbage." Our little party was cold and tired.  Chuck got out the gas burner and made hot chocolate.  It was down to freezing.  We were at seventy-nine hundred feet.  It was a chilly night.

          Come the morning I discovered our exquisite surroundings.  We were in a pristine meadow, far removed from the smog and grit of LA.  The sky was crystal blue, the trees majestic and the wildlife plentiful.  We shivered in the early morning light looking for patches of sunshine in which to stand and warm ourselves.  When breakfast was over we broke camp and were on our way.  We hiked that entire Saturday, stopping only for lunch and breaks.  Any excuse to rest our packs was a godsend.

          We climbed steadily, eventually making camp at a site scattered with large, strange rock formations. The day was quickly drawing to a close.  We were going to lose the light soon.  Chuck scanned the sky and told us to drop our gear and make a move for the peak.  We dropped our heavy loads and scrambled up and over large boulders, now running up the trail.  The sun was going down quickly. 

         We reached the summit of barren granite. There was a small stone cabin, used in emergencies for hikers in need of shelter.  Additionally, there was a ledger in a metal jacket cover in which to write your name, date and thoughts.  There was a US Geological marker at the very highest elevation.  All of this was interesting, but what captured my attention was the view.  Chuck spouted off several facts:  San Jacinto is unique in that it is a mountain range all unto itself, raising 10,834 feet right out of the desert floor.  It's the second highest prominent peak in Southern California, barely beaten out by San Gorgonio, now visible to us miles away in the distance.  “This is the steepest vertical rise of its kind, boys; look about you … look below!"  And, look we did.  It seemed like the entire world was laid out beneath us.  With wind blowing hard in our faces, our noses dripping, our backs aching from the all-day climb, sweat drying and chilling us to the rocks, we stared below.  A vast triangular shape loomed over the entire Palm Springs basin.  It was the shadow of the mountain.  Its length must have stretched forty miles or more across the desert.  The sun was sinking fast behind us.

          Looking eastward there was a band of pink and white clouds, somewhere in the direction of Arizona.  As the sun sank lower, a small black pyramid of a shape suddenly appeared on the bank of those eastern clouds, another state away.  We all stared intently at that small black triangle, dead center in the middle of the cloudbank.  It was a perfect silhouette.

           “Of what?” I wondered.

           "No way … that’s us," I whispered in answer.  

           Similar thoughts were erupting from the others. 

           "Wow, that shadow on the clouds ... it's this mountain!" one boy ventured. 

           We were in collective awe.  I felt as if my spirit had been transported to those far away clouds at the speed of light, which in fact, it had.  It was light that was causing this phenomenon. 

           The small shadow of our mountain lingered a bit on the cloudbank, and then began to slip away. With the final dip of the sun, so did our shadow.  The illusion was gone. 

           It was dark, beyond twilight now.  The wind was picking up, sending the nickel balsa gliders we had carried to the peak and tossed into the air (to see if they really would fly all the way to some golf course far below) back in our direction.  Their flight patterns were helter skelter as they crashed at our feet.  And it was cold.  We reluctantly gathered our broken planes and left the summit, each of us glancing over our shoulders for one last look at what had been. There were only puffy, fading clouds now. 

          "Wow," I whispered for the tenth time,

         "Wow," another echoed in quiet reply.

          We made our way back to camp.    After dinner we spoke in hushed voices of what we had seen.  ‘Awesome’ and ‘Fantastic’ were two words that kept creeping into the conversation.

          The next morning we hiked out of this wondrous spot and met our friends at the tram station. I had never been in a cable car suspended by huge fantastic wires like this.  We glided down the mountain leaving one environmental zone after another behind us; from alpine to desert in mere minutes. 

          “Unbelievable," I quietly chanted again and again.  I kept staring up the mountain as it grew further away.  I continued to stare at it as we drove down Highway 111 and onto the 10 Interstate.  I stared until it was out of sight, but never out of mind.

          There are times to this day, when I am driving within certain parts of this or a neighboring county and the air is clear and fine and the angle just right, that I catch a glimpse of San Jacinto.  Its jagged crown is very recognizable.  Each time I see it, even if for only a moment or two, I am transported back to 1969.

 I have since made the hike to the summit three more times over the course of these 40 years; once for each decade I suppose. And, I even lost the trail for a considerable amount of time on one memorable 4^th of July hike – reclimbing the damn peak by sheer accident and self-induced ineptitude.  But I've never been there again at sunset.  It would probably not be the same anyway. 

However, if there were a chance for distant clouds in the east, I might just be tempted to make that hard climb once more and linger till dark, waiting for far away shadows.

                                           



In Search Of Mr. Lincoln

“IN SEARCH OF MR. LINCOLN”
February 24, 2001
By Noel Laflin

I find that I have something in common with the late Marilyn Monroe - we both loved Abraham Lincoln.  She had a favorite portrait of the man which was always hung near her bed.  I like, in particular, one old photo of a smiling Marilyn seated behind the wheel of her convertible with the framed portrait of Mr. Lincoln propped up beside her in the passenger seat. Other old photos from several of her former residences again show the same portrait on different bedroom walls.  She is quoted as saying that the sixteenth president was a “father figure” in her life.  I believe Abraham Lincoln was perhaps the only true father she ever had.

My admiration for this gentle giant of a man began in early childhood.  Like my brother and sister, I also attended Abraham Lincoln Elementary School in Anaheim, CA.  The school was erected in 1924 - built of tan colored brick.  Tall hallways echoed with our footsteps as we moved through the well-worn corridors.  As the original structure was not up to future earthquake codes, it was demolished in the seventies.  Ironically it had withstood the Long Beach quake of 1933, whereas the city’s only high school did not and had to be rebuilt.  I’d like to think that Lincoln Elementary would have weathered the test of time just fine.  Modular classrooms soon replaced the eloquent lath and plaster and hand laid brick, however.  The charm and soul of the old school were gone.

Also gone was the statue of Mr. Lincoln, which graced its opening foyer for nearly fifty years or more.  Not quite life-sized (Lincoln was a very tall man), the late President stood erect, with a coat in hand peering out upon the flagpole and assembly area, which faced Lincoln Avenue.  Ancient pepper trees once surrounded the grounds.  Some still stood while I attended grades K-6 in the late fifties through mid-sixties.  Lincoln gazed upon all this for half a century, greeting thousands of students, faculty, parents and visitors over that span of time.  We celebrated the centennial of his election to the White House, reelection and subsequent assassination during my tenure as a student there.  Looking back on it now, I feel honored to have been a part of the school and its history.

I too was gazing out on Lincoln Avenue, near lunch time, one sunny November day when the principal quietly came into our fifth grade room and whispered something urgently to our teacher, Lloyd Armstrong.  The principal then left abruptly for more whispered conversations throughout the school.   Mr. Armstrong sighed, removed his glasses, wiped his forehead and told us that President Kennedy had just been shot in Dallas.  He mumbled that class was dismissed. I have a clear memory of him repeating over and over to himself, “I did not even vote for the man - I did not even vote for the man,” as he left the classroom, tears streaming down his face.  I believe it may have been the first time that I had seen an adult cry unabashedly.  It seemed appropriate that I should be where I was at the time.  I wonder now if I patted Mr. Lincoln, as I frequently did each day, when I left for home that lunch hour.  I don’t recall.  I hope I did.  His gaze was always Lincoln-like ... sad, yet comforting - both old and wise.

Lyndon Johnson was firmly entrenched in the White House by the time I moved on to junior high school.  But I stayed in touch with Mr. Lincoln vicariously through my mother, as she was a teacher’s aide at the old school.  Much of her day was spent in the main office, which looked out on father Abraham standing guard over the school.  She too, was quite fond of him.

My mother moved to a new teachers’ aide post at another school across town after the razing of old Lincoln Elementary.  I inquired about the statue.  According to Champ, the former school custodian and family friend, Mr. Lincoln was crated and removed to the district headquarters prior to the demolition of the old brick structure.  I worried about his fate, trapped in a dark box, stuck in a far corner of some remote warehouse, no doubt.

Mr. Lincoln was never far from memory.  Twenty years after his disappearance from public view, I would raise the issue of his whereabouts with friends or my mother.

“You know,” I frequently lamented, “if I could only find Mr. Lincoln, I’d like to buy his freedom.  I mean, he’s just standing or lying in a wooden crate somewhere in the dark catacombs of some forgotten old district building.  He needs the light of day.  I’d put him in my garden as a centerpiece for the whole yard. Or better yet, I’d stand him in the corner of the living room, greeting guests as they came into the house. Wouldn’t that be cool?”

My listeners, familiar with this insane line of reasoning, would sigh in mock agreement and gently steer the conversation in another direction.  I knew the drill.

So it happened one day in the mid ‘90's when a phone message from a good friend and former teacher from the campus caught my immediate attention.           

“Noel, I have extraordinary news.  Mr. Lincoln has been found!  He is currently residing at the Anaheim Museum.  Give him my regards.”  Freddy signed off.

Although extremely excited by the discovery, I postponed a visit to the great emancipator for some months.  I don’t know the reasons why in retrospect.  Perhaps I just figured that my old pal had found a permanent home in the city’s first library-turned museum.  There would be plenty of time for a proper visit, I reasoned.  After all, they had an honored guest on hand.  He would most likely be there for years, if not forever. 

 By the time I did make it there, he had vanished once more.

 “Why yes, the Lincoln statue was here on display for some time,” a kindly museum volunteer informed me.  “But he went back to the school district just last month.  I’m sorry you missed him.  He was from the old Lincoln Elementary School, you know.”

“Yeah,” I muttered by way of thanks to the older woman.  Cheated once more I thought.  Well, it’s my own damn fault, I should have gotten here sooner, I figured.  I had waited too long.

It was going on thirty years since I had last patted the cool, hard arm of my old school chum.  It would be another five years before we would be reunited once more.

Fast forward to February 11, 2001, the eve of Lincoln’s one hundred and ninety-second birthday.  I was browsing through an antique store in Orange.  I found an old Life magazine dated February 15, 1963.  The cover read, “Whatever Happened To Lincoln’s Body?”  The ancient black and white photo showed a coffin being raised from its grave. 

As strange as it might seem, I found myself in front of yet one more antique store just a week later. It was named, appropriately enough, Lincoln Antique Mall.  Pulling into a parking spot, I briefly looked up and stared in disbelief.  Mr. Lincoln stood outside the entrance to the store, with coat in hand, as if greeting customers.  I walked up to my old friend.  He was intact, firmly attached to his base, which was on rollers now.

"But he’s the wrong color," I said to myself, patting his cool, hard black arm.  "He used to be a bronze color, I’m sure."  I knelt and looked the statue over more carefully.  Black paint had flecked off the back of Mr. Lincoln’s left leg.  A three quarter inch patch sparkled through.  It was a dull gold-bronze color beneath.  "Yup, it’s him," I whispered.  "Hello, old friend." 

“Can you tell me about the statue out front?” I eventually asked the owner of the store.

“Well,” the woman began, “can you believe that the school district was throwing him away?  Fortunately for us, a kind-hearted custodian there couldn’t see that happening, got him in the trunk of his car somehow and drove him here.  We love him.  He’s kind of our mascot now."

I cursed the school district and city in one breath and gave silent thanks to the unknown custodian.  "They were going to throw him out,” I muttered to no one in particular.  “Those ingrates!  They were going to take Mr. Lincoln to the dump?  What insanity!"

On the drive home, I called a familiar phone number from memory.  An old friend got on the line.

“Freddy, it’s Noel.  I have wonderful news.  Mr. Lincoln has been found.”

I’ve been eyeing both the garden and living room differently lately.

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Epilogue:  January 28, 2013
     
Mr. Lincoln has been found (once again), restored and reinstated at the newly constructed Lincoln Elementary School in Anaheim.  

Through the dauntless efforts of the current principal, the statue was eventually located.  It seems that someone else had similar thoughts as mine, as they did acquire it from the Lincoln Antique Mall (now, long gone and out of business) and had the good man placed in their garden.  When word reached them that the old school was being rebuilt and that the principal was anxious to locate Mr. Lincoln so that he might be rightfully re-united once more, they donated the statue to the school.  He was fully restored (he had fallen on dreadful times, as you might recall) and preserved in a beautiful white finish.  
  
I just called Freddy with the good news.
         
The long search is over.

I can't wait for the dedication.

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Post Epilogue: February 15, 2013:

The dedication ceremony was great.  Patting Mr. Lincoln's cool arm once more was even more rewarding..

Noel Laflin
Lincoln Elementary School - Graduating Sixth Grade Class of 1965

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.