El Mo Flow

El Mo Flow

Noel Laflin

7-17-15

Folks out in my neck of suburbia – specifically the El Modena and unincorporated county land - live in the shadow of ancient volcanoes. My home, for example, sits at the base of Panorama Heights – a steep hill whose summit is crowded with expensive houses basking in glorious views of Catalina - all long documented by geologists and volcanologists as an area where various types of old lava flows are still quite evident.

Head north a mile over and one can climb up and hike along the El Modena Open Space Trail and see even more clear evidence of our molten past.  The students at Santiago Middle School, whose campus sits at the western base of the old volcano, have been doing so for years.  The trail straight up from the back of the school is well-trodden - as are trails on the eastern side of the hill off of Cannon Street.

It must have been quite a sight some twenty-three to five million years ago when vents of steam first burst through the ocean floor, of what would eventually become the furthest reaches of East Orange, sending up plumes of gas and molten rock.  Although the dinosaurs may have already been long gone, giant camels and strange looking horses bore witness no doubt to the rising of our future foothills. We were all under water way back when, as the sea was still lapping at what would eventually become the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountain Ranges.  We were semi-tropical and actually sitting about hundred and fifty miles southeast of our current location.   But what a time it must have been.

It all makes sense now, as I still uncover the occasional piece of basaltic scoria in my small garden.  The frothy, bubble-encrusted rocks stand out quite distinctly from all of the other smoother stones unearthed while planting a new fruit tree or laying out the parameters of a small fish pond. I have always marveled at their discovery and used to wonder just how the hell they got here.  

But, I wonder no more.   

Ghost Trails

Ghost Trails

Noel Laflin

7-6-15

When I was a kid we often played a lingering-twilight game called ghost trails.  It used to be big for a while in our neighborhood, back in the summer of 1964.  I suppose there were dozens of variations to the game being played throughout America - when it wasn’t considered unsafe for children to be out after dark - when a well-known sharp, distinctive whistle of a parent or the chiming of the nine o’clock church bells from downtown Anaheim were all that was needed to bring youngsters scurrying back to a well-lit home on a warm summer night.

And even though it’s been fifty years since we last crept around neighbors’ moonlit homes, giving wide berth to dark corners, peeking cautiously into dense shrubs, or nervously looking up into trees – listening for the soft rustle of windblown leaves, the screech of an owl or the cawing of an old crow - always on the lookout for the kid chosen to be the ghost - I have never forgotten that feeling of edgy anticipation as we followed the trail just waiting to have the bejesus scared right out of us by one of our own.

Lingering summer twilight and a couple of chance conversations with neighborhood friends this past week have got me thinking about our old childhood game on this warm July evening.

It all started when my friend Sam, a native of El Modena – and our old barrio of Paloma, in particular - made mention of the ancient Mexican legend of ‘La Llorona’ – The Weeping Woman.

I had met up with Sam last Wednesday as he was feeding the ducks at the neighborhood pond down in the ancient tree-lined ravine. As we kibitzed, I made mention of the fact that I was going on a ‘Ghost Tour’ of old downtown come Friday.   Pointing at the pond, Sam reminisced how his parents, along with other elders in the old community, would scare their kids from sneaking out after dark with the creepy tale of The Weeping Woman – the story of a demented mother who drowned her own two children in a river, died of guilt, and was forced to seek her children – or replacement children - along any old waterway forever after.

 

“Now, that scared the bejesus out of us,” Sam concluded.  We never came down here after dark.  We soon parted under the glow of the warming day.

On Thursday I met up with another friend and local of the neighborhood. She walks her dog along the pond’s pathway every day of the week.  I asked her whether her parents used to tell the legend of “La Llorona.”

“No,” Vickie said, “Although I do know the story,” she conceded.  “But my father was the caretaker of the old Santa Ana Cemetery and he had plenty of other tales that made us think twice before creeping out at night, especially into this old dark ravine.”  I dwelled on that a bit as we walked the path under a bright, sunny sky.

The following evening, beginning precisely at the nine o’clock chiming of the old church bells, a small group of us wandered the still-warm summer sidewalks of the plaza.  Occasionally we would stop and strain to catch every gruesome detail being bandied about by Charles, our ghost tour guide.  There seem to be quite a few spirits still lurking about old downtown Orange.  And unlike the childhood game of yore, this ninety minute ghost trail seemed all too real - despite being creepily fun.

On the drive home later that night, I glanced at our dark neighborhood pond – and the deep, quiet, old tree-lined, moonlit ravine in which it rests.

In my younger days I would not think twice about taking a midnight jog along the old stony path, listening for the screech of an owl, the cawing of an old crow and the occasional rustling of dried leaves blown about by a warm summer breeze.

But after this last week, I think I will stick to daytime excursions - at least for a while; I don't suppose the Weeping Woman is going away anytime soon - being cursed for eternity and all.

After all, there are no longer parents with neither sharp, distinctive whistles nor church bells within hearing distance to remind me of the time and the reassurance of a well-lit home by which to return.

Pin-Tailed Whydah

Pin-Tailed Whydah

(it rhymes with Ida)

Noel Laflin

7-2-15

If you are ever out near the south end of the El Modena Pond, look for a magnificent pin-tailed whydah flitting about.  And he does flit – from a tall pine on Earlham to a metal fence post above the pond, to the ground nearby, up to a favorite sycamore tree, to the same spot on a phone line above Jordan Avenue and then back to the tall pine once more.  He is pretty predictable.

You can’t miss him, should your timing be right, as his plumage is black and white, he sports a scissor-like tail three times his body length, and he has a bright red beak.  In other words, he’s perfect.

Originally from Africa, these fellows were brought here as pets several decades ago.  Through either escape or intentional release, their numbers have grown throughout the Southland.  I have read that there are now flocks numbering upwards of twenty-to-fifty pin-tailed whydahs in some northern parts of Orange County; perhaps you have one or two around your home.  More folks are spotting them all the time.

Wikipedia will give you all the details regarding this species; how they lay their eggs in the nests of finches, thus letting foster parents raise their young; their gyrating mating dances; their distinctive chirp.

But I have only recently stumbled across this one graceful, playful male out near my neck of the woods.  But he is enough. 

Anapauma

Anapauma

A Place of Rest – and Surprise

Noel Laflin

6-17-15

With camera in hand, I wander the land of Anapauma almost daily, shooting dozens of photos of birds and turtles, ancient pepper, eucalyptus, sycamore and oak trees. I have been doing so for the past three decades – all the while quite ignorant of the land’s proper name.  But then I discovered an unlooked for treasure that changed all that.  Now, I am on the lookout for a ghost.

You see, up until last night, I never knew that this section of the old El Modena neighborhood in which I reside had such a moniker.  But, this ‘place of rest,’ as Anapauma is defined in Greek, was so named by a long-dead neighbor by the name of David Hewes.  And as we fast approach the hundredth anniversary of his passing, it seems fitting that I tell you a brief tale regarding this restful, enchanting place of yesteryear.

Like many unexpected treasures, it was an old map that caught my eye as I researched what I thought would be a simple piece on the community of El Modena – a place I have grown to love over the years.  But this unlooked for gift of a map/realty advertisement for a project that would never be, with its accompanying flowery prose, grabbed me by the proverbial collar and shook me to the very core as it described in detail the massive acreage involved, the amount of citrus, walnut, olive and wheat grown upon a place known as Anapauma.  It also mentioned and outlined the natural water reservoir that still sits across the street from where I live – the very ‘pond’ that I have walked about and photographed for years. In short, I was being shown my neighborhood as is once was some one hundred and thirty years ago – and called by a name by which I was quite unfamiliar.  As I said, it was an unexpected gift.

But, let’s back up a moment and put a little history into perspective. 

Native Americans were here upon this land first of course – for perhaps two thousand years or longer.  In fact, their last settlement was still in place as recently as 1870 – located not far from where we, as interloping children from Anaheim, used to swim in Hart Park on warm summer evenings back in the early 1960’s. The original settlers had been gone for nearly a century by then.

 

The Spanish eventually arrived, displacing most of the ancient ones – except those holdouts still camped off of Glassell Avenue down in Santiago Creek.  But the small agrarian and mostly Hispanic community lying a few miles east of the Orange Plaza still did not have a name until Quaker settlers landed here in the 1880's.  They named their new digs Modena – after having read a rather popular, but gruesome poem by Samuel Rogers, whose opening lines begin, ‘If thou shouldst ever come by choice or chance to Modena …’ But the U.S. Postal Service would not approve of the name as it was too similar in sound to another California town.  So, the Friends thought about it and then tried out the name, Earlham, That lasted about a year before they went back to the original idea and added the word ‘El’ as a prefix.  The postal service approved the change and the community of El Modena was born.

Now, about this same time a fellow by the name of David Hewes also came to town, buying all of the land between El Modena and the city of Tustin – all eight hundred and thirty acres to be precise.

Mr. Hewes was rich – filthy rich – having won and lost fortunes several times over the lengthy course of his life. He was known at the time as ‘the man who made San Francisco,’ amongst other distinctions.  He also provided the ‘golden spike’ at Promontory Point, Utah for the official completion of the country’s first transcontinental railroad back in 1869.  That very spike was returned to Mr. Hewes following the ceremony and resided in our very neighborhood before being donated to the University of Stanford many years later.  Despite his wealth, Hewes was also a philanthropic soul.  One writer wittingly quipped that ‘he established more churches than Saint Paul’ as he helped to fund a new school for the Catholic Sisters of Orange, along with new churches for the Congregationalists and Presbyterians of Tustin as well as providing money and a church bell for the Friends of El Modena.

And although David Hewes had a beautiful home built in the heart of downtown Tustin, his heart belonged to his ranch house in Hewes Park, and the citrus groves consisting of more than fifty thousand orange and lemon trees, which he affectionately named Anapauma – the very name that I just became familiar with last evening.

Mr. Hewes used to travel the dirt and gravel roads he’d created first by horse drawn buggy and later by automobile.  It’s reported that he frequently drove himself across Esplanade and Hewes Avenues, up La Veta and Chapman Avenues – all streets that I still drive and walk upon this very day. The old, well-dressed man continued to do so well into his ninetieth year.

He died on July 23, 1915 at the age of ninety-three. His impressive ‘place of rest’ was eventually sold piecemeal over the years.  

Over time, a family of Japanese descent bought acreage surrounding the reservoir – now known as the El Modena Pond - and farmed magnificent vegetables, which they shared with the community.  A Quaker family bought the hilly land that would one day become our complex and grew flowers that became quite renowned. A half dozen schools and churches were built, a branch library was founded, and a few thousand homes were constructed where orange, lemon, walnut, olive trees and grape vineyards once flourished.  I am certain that Mr. Hewes would have approved of the library, schools and churches.

And now, as I walk with camera in hand, I stay on the lookout for the ghost of a bearded and neatly dressed old man traveling the back roads of my neighborhood.  He should be easy to spot, should I have the good fortune of a shadowy glimpse.  The buggy or turn of the twentieth century automobile will be a dead giveaway.

And should we meet, I will be sure to tell him of how the past and present - just like two trains of old - have finally met.

I hope he doesn’t mind if I then take his picture. 

Hard as a Rock Island

Hard as a Rock Island

Noel Laflin

6-9-15

The greatest train ride of my life took place just a few days before Christmas, 1963.  If my parents were still alive, they might dispute that claim.  But they could never deny the fact that it was one of our most memorable trips – if not exactly ‘great’ in the eyes of an adult.  But hey, I was just a kid – what did I know?

Our family literally walked, suitcases in hand, from our home to the old Santa Fe train depot one mid-winter day, jumped aboard the Super Chief and traveled to Minnesota by rail. We arrived in St. Paul on Christmas Eve, spent and weary.

My parents packed a ton of homemade sandwiches, which served as breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  We slept in the comfortable upholstered chairs beneath the glass dome of our carriage and watched stars and snowflakes fly by.  The train made a brief stop somewhere around midnight in distant Lamar, Colorado.  There waiting for us were my godparents, their son and his cousin.  We had five minutes, as we stood crowded in the doorway of our car and they on the small platform below, by which to exchange presents, wish one another a Merry Christmas and shake a hand or two.  And then we were off into the frigid night once more – now bound for Kansas City, Missouri.

And that is where the comfortable portion of our journey definitely ended – once we changed trains and boarded the Rock Island line.

My sister and I spent the last leg of the trip, all four hundred miles of it, sitting atop our suitcases in the middle aisle of a 1930’s (or possibly older) Rock Island passenger train car. And we were not alone in this arrangement. Folks lucky enough to grab a seat found themselves on hard wooden benches, including the young couple with the baby sharing space with my parents. 

As it was nearly Christmas and America was migrating home in massive numbers, every available passenger car in the Kansas City rail yard was put into action – including our vintage carriage.
 

We must have looked like refugees to the woman in the mink stole who boarded somewhere in Iowa. By then, my parents had assisted the young couple with the infant by fashioning impromptu clotheslines strung across the car by which to hang damp diapers, freshly laundered by my mother in the ancient cabin lavatory.  The lines was jam-packed with small white cloth.

She too - the lady in mink - sat atop her suitcase for the remainder of the trip.  It’s an image not soon forgotten – this finely dressed woman, with elbow perched upon knee and fist placed beneath chin – despondently taking it all in as she took another drag upon a Chesterfield cigarette. 

My brother, who was sixteen at the time, disappeared in quick fashion, and took up with a group of Marines playing poker in the next car over.  Three years later, he’d be signing up for the Corps himself.

 

As my mother still had sandwiches to spare – and there was clearly no food service available for this last ten hour leg of the journey - she shared with our newest friends, including the woman in the mink stole. It was a true fishes and loaves moment.

The time spent with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins – once we reached our destination - pales in comparison to the journey getting there.  And, I have no recollection whatsoever of the train ride home.

Ernest Hemingway once said, “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters in the end.”

But then again, I don’t think that Mr. Hemingway ever traveled via the hard, Rock Island way at Christmas time; for if he had, I am certain that my parents would have been the first to point out that those seats would have gotten to him in the end. 

Side Door

Side Door

Noel Laflin

6-7-15

Like scouts of old, the two boys would stealthily approach and enter the town mortuary by way of the covert green side door each Sunday afternoon in order to collect their weekly wages.  As they were usually covered in white paint – and did not smell particularly pleasant following eight hours of hard work (and some play) - it was suggested that the embalming room side entrance door was the best way to avoid living patrons, as the painted pair could otherwise be mistaken as reeking ghosts. They could then make good with the boss, and present their progress report.  The boys would latter retrace their steps and depart in the same clandestine fashion.

Quietly paying their respects to those lying prone upon the stainless steel tables, the young men crossed themselves before creping through the small, dimly-lit room, eventually passing down the hallway to meet up with the establishment’s director.  He was also the fellow employing the pair to paint his home across the street.

 

The weekend working gig had been scored by the younger of the two buddies as the mortuary director was also his Scoutmaster. The painting of the ancient wooden craftsman, as well as the equally old and even larger apartment building adjoining the property was a two-month work in progress – strictly a weekend job as the boys were still in school. They were each paid two bucks an hour - despite the amount of paint tossed, rolled or brushed upon one another - and always in cash.  It was a princely sum by 1970 standards and worth the weekly trip through the embalming room.

 

Years later, the oldest of the pair - a man approaching his middle years – made arrangements with this very same mortuary by way of a pre-paid cremation contract.

 

So the next time he enters that place, although it will probably be by the back door and not the front, he takes comfort in the fact that he’ll avoid that green side door - and the small dimly-lit room. 

Nor does he expect to be covered in white paint upon that next trip, and potentially frighten the living patrons within. 

Spell Me

Spell Me

Noel Laflin

June 4, 2015

“Mom!” I shouted for the umpteenth time that afternoon, slumped over the old manual typewriter, stumped as to the spelling of yet another challenging word.

“Yes …,” came a pained response from my mother far down the hallway.

“How do you spell ‘inflammatory’?  Is it with an ‘i’ or an ‘e’ and is it with an ‘m’ or an ‘n’ - and how many ‘m’s’ are in this stupid word anyway?” I hollered.

“Inflammatory begins with ‘in’ and has two m’s,” came the distant, and slightly exasperated reply from another room in the house.

“Thanks,” I mumbled as I made the notation and uncapped the small correction fluid bottle once more.

Minutes later I was at it again, peppering the poor woman with another request in spelling.  It had been going on for hours – days – years.

There was silence this time.  I feared my mother might have either stepped out of hearing range or, God forbid, be stumped for a proper spelling herself.  Now, that would have been a first - and noteworthy unto itself.

But neither assumption was correct, however, as the good woman strode into the room a moment later and gently laid a giant dictionary on the small wooden desk.

“Now, how is that going to be of any help if I don’t even know the proper letter of the alphabet to start my search,” I lamented, instantly distrusting the large book now crowding my small work space.

“Process of elimination,” my mother replied.  “I’ve got work to do. Now, so do you.  You’ll do fine.” And with that, she left the room as I hefted the weighty book into my lap and began my excruciating search for enlightenment.

   

My mother always believed in the teaching of self-reliance.

And in this age of apps, laptops, desktops, mobile devices, and tablets – all of which are available to me and are in constant play – I still keep three or four versions of my old nemesis close.

 

Flipping through the pages not only reminds me of my work at hand, but of the woman who spelled me for so long.

"It's your 100th birthday tomorrow, mom," I just whispered aloud to the ghost standing behind me - the smiling woman watching my fingers move across the keyboard. 

She was proud of the fact that I spelled the word nemesis correctly.