Coincidences

Coincidences

Noel Laflin

1-29-20

David and I snuck off to the county courthouse five years ago today and were married.The young lady clerking that morning served as our justice of the peace; her co-worker was a witness.

It was a very small affair, but large in memory.

Without a Supreme Court ruling in our favor, this could never have happened. And as I have heard from so many friends and strangers, none of us thought this could ever have happened in our lifetime.

So, here’s to good rulings and happy endings.

And here’s to you, Davy.

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I’m sitting in a pretty chapel waiting for a memorial service to begin in a short while. It’s noisy in here as friends greet one another - voices bouncing off the high arched ceiling - but I did overheard someone behind me remind their spouse to silence their phone.

The comment, along with the setting, reminds me of the time five of us - my immediate family, to be precise - gathered for a funeral for a beloved neighbor. That was thirty-one years ago, long before everyday mobile phones - but pagers were pretty common.

I had remembered to shut mine off, but my brother had not, And sure as shootin’, half way into the somber service, his pager went off. He scrambled to silence it, but by then we had all jumped out of our seats.

If a phone goes off today I hope it’s a musically inclined melody.

We don’t need two hundred folks leaping from their seats this morning.

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Life is full of interesting coincidences. Here’s one that struck me just now.

I wrote two short pieces this morning, one about sneaking off to the old county courthouse in Santa Ana to marry David five years ago today, and then a short while later wrote about a memorial service that I was attending. The two pieces were both penned out within thirty minutes of one another.

When I finished that second piece, I looked up from the pew in which I was seated and suddenly paid closer attention to the large photograph that was projected up in the front of the chapel. It remained in place for the next hour. It was a fine shot of the fellow for whom we all had gathered in order to pay a final tribute. The photo was of our mutual friend standing in front of the old county courthouse in Santa Ana.

Coupons

Coupons

Noel Laflin

1-13-20

I just received a Bob's Big Boy Restaurant coupon declaring they had gone retro in price for the Big Boy Combo special (burger, fries, coleslaw, and drink) for $7.95.

Now, I normally would not have given this a second thought, except that our family was a family of experts when it came to good deals at Bob’s Big Boy – especially their burgers. Well, technically, my dad (who was also a Bob) was the expert as he had a secret handle on Big Boy coupons (by the fistful, or so it seemed back in the 1960’s) and as today marks his 104th birthday – r.i.p., pop – I feel it only right to challenge this ‘retro’ claim by the folks now behind the fat little boy in checkered overalls and red suspenders.

You see, back in our Big Boy retro days, one could get the same combo for about a buck - maybe a little more. Better yet, when you had ‘buy one, get one free’ coupons, as my dad provided us, well, you can do the math. That was a deal.

Ironically enough, David showed up with a Burger King combo tonight – one for each of us. Normally, he informs me, you can get two of these combos for $10.95 – but as he had a coupon, he got two dollars off.

Not quite as good a deal as what my dad used to come up with, but he’d be proud of the kid nonetheless.

So, in your honor, father, we salute you with burgers, fries, and a coke - and all procured with a coupon, of course.

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.