Category: Senior Fiction

When a recently retired, top Silicon Valley engineer, Adam Borodagay, sets out to find San Diego’s legendary Lost Frenchman Mine, he comes face to face with far more than he’d bargained for. Instead of rediscovering the richest silver deposit ever assayed, he unearths strange containers filled with silver ore mixed with other strange materials.  Finding the ore is hard enough, but it only lead to the problems of determining what the odd materials are, how they behave, and how best to apply them.  The three dead men who came before him, a crooked border agent, a Mexican drug czar, the director of an obscure government agency, and to top it all off, the guard, compound Adam’s difficulties.

[toggle title_open=”Close Excerpt 1″ title_closed=”Excerpt 1″ hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]

“Listen to this,” Adam didn’t wait for a response from his wife curled up in the matching overstuffed chair alongside his.

“According to local lore, the mother of all California lost mines contains not gold, but extremely high-grade silver. It is not of Spanish origin, but French. And, it is located in San Diego.”

“You’re kidding,” his wife Barbara said.

“No, listen,” Adam said.

“The lost Frenchman Mine is believed to be somewhere at the base of El Capitan Mountain, east of San Diego, near the city of El Cajon. The mine was excavated by a fellow named Pierre Hausenberger in the middle 1800s, according to accounts.

“But if discovering a rich deposit of silver ore was a high point for Hausenberger, a low point was soon to follow. To have his ore assayed, Hausenberger was forced to leave his mine and travel to northern California. The Frenchman left San Diego on the steam side-wheeler Senator with five sacks of ore bound for the assayer’s office in San Francisco. But along the way, Hausenberger became ill and died.

“When the Senator tied up in San Francisco, the ship’s purser found one of the dead man’s five sacks had torn open. Thinking nothing of the seemingly worthless dirt and rocks from the torn sack, the purser gave it to an unidentified fellow and unceremoniously pushed the other four sacks off the pier and into the water.

“Samples of the first sack ultimately made their way to the assaying office, and the results showed the ore worth an incredible $20,000 per ton. But with Hausenberger dead, there was no way to connect the silver with any particular source.”

Barbara cocked her head quizzically at her husband. “What are you reading?”

“A book entitled San Diego Legends, the Events, People and Places that Made History,” by Jack Innis.

“This one sure sounds like a bona fide legend to me,” she said.

“There’s more, listen.” Adam continued reading aloud.

“Several years later, the mystery sparked the interest of San Diego pioneer Ephraim W. Morse. On a trip to San Francisco, Morse interviewed several sources and ultimately learned about the four sacks that had been dumped off the pier.

“When Morse arrived at the pier, he discovered that the site had been covered over with dirt. The stubborn treasure seeker embarked upon an all-out excavation of the area – and as luck seems to reward hard work – found the four sacks. The ore in those sacks assayed out as did the first.

“Having verified at least the first part of the story, Morse gleefully returned to San Diego and gave a speech at the San Diego Lyceum in December 1879, requesting information from anyone who had known the Frenchman.

“One notable San Diegan, Don Luis Estudillo, said he remembered the man well, and even recalled him showing up in town, San Francisco bound, with five sacks of ore. Morse hired a scout and led an expedition around the back country, but could not pinpoint the mine. Morse dropped his quest and gave up on the Lost Frenchman Mine.”

Barbara said, “Undoubtedly for very good reason, the mine being a legend and all.”

“Ah, there’s more. Listen to this.” Adam read on.

“A few years later a story circulated in the press that a man who lived on the slopes of El Capitan showed up in Los Angeles with a huge chunk of nearly pure silver, which he sold for a hefty sum before going on a drinking binge.

“About a month later, the man returned to Los Angeles with several bags of the nearly pure silver, sold them all, and set out drinking again. Unfortunately, the man was stabbed to death in a bar fight, and what is believed to be the secret location of the Lost Frenchman Mine was buried with him.”
Barbara said, “Of course, otherwise it wouldn’t be lost, nor would it be a legend.”

“The story finishes in one more paragraph,” Adam said.

“Unfortunately for modern-day treasure hunters, uncertainty exists as to which mountain was called El Capitan in the early days. According to most, the El Capitan of yore is now called El Cajon Peak. But others insist that El Capitan is a shortened version of El Capitan Grande de Cullamac Mountain named after Francisco, grand chief of the Cuyamaca Indians. If El Capitan was actually present day Mount Cuyamaca, those who search for the Lost Frenchman Mine near El Cajon would be a few dozen miles south of the real find.”

Barbara said, before turning back to the book she was reading, “It’s no wonder no one’s found it. Who would ever say exactly where the treasure was? Even the old timers knew to hide their finds. I’ll bet this Pierre fellow never even filed a claim. Of course, it is hard to file a claim on a legend.”
Adam said, “I think it’s pretty exciting to have a lost mine and treasure right near to where we’ve moved. Besides it must be more than a coincidence that Julie teaches at Morse High, and my grandfather immigrated to California from France.”

“You’re hallucinating, Adam Borodagay.”

“You just watch, something will turn up soon that’ll be the clincher for all of this,” Adam said.

“Like what? A treasure map?” Barbara asked.

“I don’t know what, but it will, you just wait and see,” Adam said.[/toggle]

[toggle title_open=”Close Excerpt 2″ title_closed=”Excerpt 2″ hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]The winter sun had begun to warm the La Mesa hills before Paul arrived for his day’s stay at his grandparent’s house. Barbara fed him, changed him, and had him happily playing on the kitchen floor before setting down to breakfast. The usual weekday routine had Adam finished with the sports page and onto the comics before Barbara sat down at the table. Today the morning paper remained unopened on the table between them. Instead of the newspaper, Adam had the East San Diego county map spread out in front of him. Barbara raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

After breakfast Adam cleared the table, put the juice and milk back in the refrigerator, bent over and picked Paul up from the floor. “Are you ready for a ride, Paul boy? You look like it.”

“What about his morning nap?” Barbara asked.

“We’ll be in the car for quite awhile, he’ll get plenty of sleep.”

Barbara sighed. “You really are anxious to go look for the legendary mine, aren’t you?”

“Yes, aren’t you?” Adam asked.

“I guess it’s better than pushing the vacuum,” Barbara said.

The first few times Adam tried to put Paul into his car seat took several minutes. They’d both gotten better at it once the baby discovered how to assist his grandpa in the process. On this morning the entire operation took less than a minute. Once the diaper bag and stroller were stowed in the trunk, they backed out of the driveway and headed down the hill toward the freeway. Paul was asleep before they turned up the on-ramp.

The trip on the freeway to the east side of El Cajon took less than ten minutes. Adam took the off-ramp nearest to the area he’d circled on the map, and headed north toward the house and apartment covered foothills. Adam stopped the car by the curb at the base of the first hill. The houses on either side of the street all had iron bars covering the windows and doors. A few of the yards showed signs of care; others were filled with parked cars.

“I see a problem here,” Adam said.

“Yes. It looks like a tough neighborhood,” Barbara said.

“Not that. This kind of neighborhood isn’t bad this early in the morning,” Adam said.

“What then?”

“Look at the way these houses were built,” Adam said. “Whoever developed this area simply bulldozed the hillside into terraced lots. Whatever the original contour of the land may have once been, has been totally obliterated.”

Adam turned onto the street that ran along the base of the hill. Barbara navigated while they drove slowly through the neighborhood of cul-de-sacs and looping streets. When they saw nothing that looked like a headland between two small arroyos, they moved to the next neighborhood, then to the next, and then to the next. Only when Paul awoke and let them know he needed attention did they find a Starbucks and stop. Adam got them each a non-fat Latte while Barbara dug Paul’s bottle out of the diaper bag. When Adam returned to the table he found a policeman standing over his wife and grandson.

“Yes sir,” Barbara said. “We were driving slowly through the neighborhood, several of them in fact.”

Adam put the Lattes on the table and sat down.

“What were you doing there?” the policeman asked. The girth of his upper body indicated he was wearing a vest under his blue uniform shirt.
Adam said, “We were looking, and intend to continue to look, for a small headland bounded by two small arroyos. So far, all we’ve seen is developments where any trace of any geological feature has been bulldozed over.”

“Why are you doing that?” The tone of the man’s voice had softened a little.

“We’re looking for the legendary Lost Frenchman Mine. We have reason to believe it’s nearby,” Adam said.

“You’re looking for what?”

“The Lost Frenchman Mine.” Adam took the Legends book out of the diaper bag and handed it to the policeman. “Here. Read about it.”

The policeman read the account of the mine, and then handed the book back to Adam. “I’ve lived here all my life, and I have never heard of this mine. I guess you’re free to look for it all you’d like, but be careful. People cruising these streets might give the wrong people the wrong idea. I’d hate to find you lying in the street somewhere.”

Barbara said, “We thought the morning would be the safest time.”

“It is, but that still doesn’t make it safe for you. I recommend you go back to your home and leave this part of town alone.”[/toggle]

[toggle title_open=”Close Readers Group Discussion” title_closed=”Readers Group Discussion” hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]

Readers Group Discussion Questions

1. The story takes place over a period of several years. Through it all Adam demonstrates patience and persistence. Are these traits a good thing for him, or a bad thing? Why?
2. A central premise of the story is that aliens are just like us, only a few centuries advanced. Is this reasonable? Logical?
3. Barbara is skeptical, yet supportive, throughout. What special traits does she posses to allow her to be able to do that?
4. Adam went about the things he did in a typical, engineer’s methodical fashion. Yet many times he met with totally unexpected results. Is that usual, or common? Why?
5. When Adam and Barbara first realized they’d met an alien, their reactions were calm and logical. How would you react if you realized you were talking to an alien?
6. Were John’s decisions to allow Adam and Barbara survive, and continue, rational, empathetic, or something else?
7. Adam used the materials he discovered as the basis a variety of devices and machines. What other uses can you think of besides the ones Adam made?
8. A Mexican drug cartel reacted very much faster to Adam’s experiments than the US Border patrol/Homeland Security did. Is it simply because of the “turned” agent, or was it for some other more fundamental reason(s)?
9. Dee directs the governmental investigation from a criminal technology point of view. Should he have involved others? What were his reasons for keeping the activity secret?
10. Did Adam ever find the legendary Lost Frenchman Mine? Was there ever a mine? Does an alien supply depot count as a mine?[/toggle]

The wharf is unique; a sunken concrete ship, the Palo Alto, connected to the shore by an old wooden pier. The diamonds stolen from her remain missing.  The pool of blood that encircled her cursed her to never sail again.  When Cliff and Kathy Cuyler  witnessed  the blood drifting out of Ayre Creek toward the Palo Alto that fall day 75 years later, they knew they had to unlock the secrets of that mystery of so long ago.  They found that only a few still even knew of the old events, but one that did would do anything to get the treasure for himself.

[toggle title_open=”Close Excerpt 1″ title_closed=”Excerpt 1″ hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”] “Why are you telling me this? I’m a docent, a volunteer, for the county’s state parks. I’m only concerned with beaches and coastal environments. I’m not a police officer. I don’t deal with rumors of drug factories, and I refuse to get involved with criminal activity.”

The late-afternoon fog sitting out over Monterey Bay had calmed the wind and flattened the surf. Now it seemed to blow the whispered voices of the young man and old man standing some twenty yards up the pier to where Kathy was fishing and I was working on my laptop.

“It’s in the slough, Grantham Slough. If it’s there, it’s a real danger to the whole ecosystem.”

“You should go to the police.”

“I can’t do that. I can’t guarantee that my friend isn’t involved somehow.”

The silence lasted for a minute, maybe longer. “I really can’t get involved in this sort of thing. I’m just a docent. Those people scare me. I don’t want any of them looking for me. ”

The young man turned and walked away. He passed us with a look of disappointment on his face. When I turned and looked back at the old docent he was slumped over the railing, his head buried in his hands.

Just then Kathy’s pole twitched and both of us turned our concentration to the water below us.

Kathy and I were set up about halfway out on the Ocean Cliff pier. The shore half of the pier is a standard California wood-piling type, but the bay half is unique. It is the broken and sunken hull of an old cement-ship. You can’t go out on the ship anymore, but the habitat it creates supports a variety of marine life, which makes the fishing from the rest of the pier some of the best anywhere. Someday the sea will finish breaking up the hulk. When that happens, the state park’s plan is to rebuild the rest of the pier around the habitat and give anglers even better access to its fish and shellfish.

The Ocean Cliff pier is rooted on the wide sandy beach that begins at Depot Hill and stretches all the way to Monterey. The view from the pier is of the local beaches, their cliffs, and the redwood-covered mountains behind them. The streams that flow down from the mountains often separate one beach from its neighbor. Ayre Creek, for example, separates the beach at Ocean Cliff State Park from Rio Del Pacifico, just east of the Ocean Cliff pier.
Unlike many California streams, Ayre Creek flows year-round. For three hundred days a year it is a gentle, babbling brook with barely enough force to keep its fresh water flowing through the beach at its mouth. But when the winter rains come, it changes character. After a major storm the rushing mountain run-off can rip two-hundred-foot redwoods from its banks and hurl them far out to sea. Today it was neither rushing nor babbling. It was just flowing.

A continuous paved promenade runs for over a mile along the Rio Del Pacifico and Ocean Cliff beaches. My wife Kathy and I live in one of the houses that line it. We often ride our bikes along the promenade; sometimes we do it for the exercise, sometimes to look at the people, and sometimes to haul our fishing gear to the pier.

We ride “beach cruisers,” those balloon-tired, three-speed, heavy-framed bicycles, designed for slow moving on flat roads. Kathy’s candy-apple-red “girl’s” model matches her Mustang convertible. My British racing-green one matches a Jaguar XKE convertible I once coveted in college, but never owned. Both bikes are outfitted with baskets and saddlebags that can carry an amazing amount of stuff, more than enough to support a full day of fishing.
This particular Friday afternoon in early November, Kathy reeled her line in over the pier railing just as the autumn fog bank began to move in from its offshore resting place. When we could no longer make out Contentment Point, we threw our equipment and her catch of perch on our bikes and started peddling in a race to try and beat the returning fog home.

I was moving much faster than I should have been when I hit the bump that separates the repaved promenade from the old bridge across the creek. The bike bounced, the load shifted, the tires slipped on the thin layer of sand on the pavement, and I fell against the solid concrete wall that serves as the bridge railing. Fortunately no one was around to get hit by the sliding bike. By the time Kathy noticed that I was no longer behind her, I had managed to crawl out from under the bike and its load, and was sitting with my back against the wall taking stock of my scrapes and bruises.
When Kathy had almost reached me, she screamed. I struggled to my feet when she screamed again, this time louder and longer than before. I grabbed her and held her as close as I could with the bike still between her legs.

“What! What is it?”

She pointed to the creek and screamed again.

What looked to be a huge pool of blood floated just up-stream from where we stood. Its ten-foot width covered almost half the creek. I buried Kathy’s head into my chest and stared as it moved toward us. The only other person in sight was a young woman standing up the creek next to the old roadhouse. She was staring at it too.

Kathy’s shaking had begun to slow when a pick-up truck with a surfboard in the bed slid to a stop beside the woman. The young driver rushed over to her. They exchanged high fives, embraced, kissed, jumped up and down, pointed at the pool of blood, and embraced again. They watched until the blood had started to drift under the bridge before they drove away.

“Look at it now,” I said, after it passed under the bridge. “When you look at it toward the setting sun and the fog it just looks a big oil slick. Look.”

We watched as the pool of blood moved through the channel the creek has cut through the sand and out through the surf and into the bay. Once past the surf line it held together as it drifted toward the gap between bow and stern of the cement-ship. Then it seemed to just disappear into the mist.

“What in the world was that?” I asked.

“I have no idea. I’ve never seen anything like it. I hope I don’t have nightmares.”

“It must be unique to Ayre Creek.”

“Maybe it has something to do with that drug thing we overheard back on the pier,” she said.

“I don’t think so, that was about Grantham Slough, remember?”

“Yes, now that you mention it, I do. So what do you suppose this was?”

“It’s got to be something easily explainable. We’ll have to remember to ask some of the old-timers about it.”

“Will they believe us? We’re the only ones who saw it.”

“No, I saw a young couple stop and look. They didn’t stay long.”

“Were they scared too?’

“I don’t think so. They looked more happy than scared, but they pointed at it and left, so who knows.”[/toggle]

[toggle title_open=”Close Excerpt 2″ title_closed=”Excerpt 2″ hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”] It was my turn to interrupt. “My friend Hank Miklos said that when he was a kid he’d fish it on the way home from school.”

Herb said, “Hank’s done a lot for that creek. It was his science class that first raised the fry that were used to restore the steelhead. But man alive, his father sure was a piece of work. Joe Miklos was quite a character around here. He made himself a reputation during Prohibition as the man to see. Wound up married to a gold-digger who had her sights on the bastard Perring kid and his sugar money till he was shot. Funny thing, after the war they settled down and raised a nice family.” He stopped for a moment. “Maybe calling her a gold-digger is a bit harsh, given the way it all turned out.”

“I’ve noticed the Spreckles name around here a lot.” I said. I assume that’s somehow related to the sugar company, but I’ve never heard of Perring”

“One and the same,” he said, “well essentially one and the same. That entire bluff above Rio Del Pacifico beach used to be old man Spreckles’ private estate and exotic animal preserve, quite the thing in the latter years of the nineteenth century. The main house is gone now, but you can still find some of the outbuildings. Claus Spreckles, the great sugar king of San Francisco and Hawaii, bought it from the Castros, who had gotten it as a land grant from the Mexican government and somehow managed to get the title transferred to them during the early years of American control of California. Not many of the original grantees did that!

“Claus got himself run out of Hawaii, but not until he had gotten his hands on the patent for extracting sugar from sugar beets. He built what for years was the world’s largest sugar beet processing plant, right here in Edisonville. When Claus died in 1908 the whole estate was sold to the Perrings. They were friends of Claus’ children and also had strong ties to Hawaii and agriculture. The Perrings originally made their money in citrus in Southern California and cane sugar in Hawaii. Their children got into the Hollywood scene as soon as there was such a thing. Some say that it was through the Perrings that Hearst got introduced to the Central Coast and eventually became so deeply involved at San Simeon.

“Anyway, the elder Perrings settled in Hawaii but came over here from time to time. The only one who really stayed here was George Perring’s bastard son, Harry. He took up residence in the old Spreckles country house, ran bootleg liquor, and generally kept things together for the Perring family. Eventually Joe Miklos bought most of the land he later developed from the Perring estate.

“But old Joe didn’t think much about saving the environment; not that many people around here back then did. He built detached garages that fell into the creek and houses that had their septic tanks drain straight into the creek. You name anything bad for the creek and he did it. Killed everything that lived in it almost overnight. In fact, it was because of him that they started measuring and publishing the pollution levels of the beaches all over Santa Christina County. You can find them every day on the weather page of the Herald.

“His kids, though, seemed to feel guilty about it all and, like Hank, did things to improve and eventually restore the creek. The grandkids seem to care too. I had Hank’s son, John, in my class last spring, and he seems to really want to do more. We spent hours talking about it.”

“Herb,” Kathy said, “you obviously know all about the creek, so you must tell us what makes it turn red.”

“What makes you say that?”

“We saw it.”

“What? You saw it red? My God! When?”

“Last Friday.” Kathy described to him what we had seen.

Herb said. “I’m astonished. Let me tell you some background. In November of 1929 there was a gala party on the Palo Alto. Everyone who was anyone from Monterey to San Francisco, including everyone who just came here for the summer, was there. Johnson and Beauchamp, the two guys who had fixed the ship up and were about to run the business, had gathered every Mexican they could find who knew how to cater to the wealthy and signed them on as crew. The party was a great success.

“The next day was when all the trouble happened. Very few of that crew were educated. I doubt that any of them had ever been on an ocean-going ship before. Most of them probably never did go to sea, since the Palo Alto was closed, and then sank without ever sailing again. The crew was extremely superstitious, and they were all looking for a sign, some sort of omen, that would tell them if the future of their new jobs would be good or not. Some say that the headlines in the Monday papers about the robbery at the Perring mansion would have been all the sign they needed – “Robbery of the Century!” “A Fortune in Jewels Gone!” that sort of thing – but few of them could read, and by then they all had gone back to the fields in Edisonville or Castroville or wherever they came from. No. What did it for them was that sometime that Sunday morning a huge red spot, a few said it was bigger than the boat, floated alongside it and then drifted across the bow. Everyone who saw it said, just as you did, that it looked like an immense pool of dried blood. It couldn’t be dried blood of course. Not and float for a long time like that on the water.

“Anyway, once that crew saw it, general panic ensued. Everyone fled the ship. No one ever returned. That was it: the end. They couldn’t raise another crew for months, and by then the Depression was far enough along that they couldn’t find any clients. It was a double whammy that put an end to the enterprise.

“From that day on the red spot that flowed out of Ayre Creek has been called the Curse of the Palo Alto. Funny thing, though, until you two no one else has ever claimed to have seen it, at least no one that I ever heard about. For seventy-three years we’ve lived with the legendary curse, and then it was nearly forgotten, and now you two walk in here and bring it alive again. Amazing!”[/toggle]

Harry Maddox’s passion is to find the perfect redwood tree and  transform it into the world’s best suite of furniture, but Harry’s epilepsy precludes him from having a driver’s license and denies him access to the forest.  Then Steve, a newcomer to Kinsale, goes to the senior center, meets Harry, and becomes infected by Harry’s dedication and enthusiasm. Steve becomes Harry’s mentor.  He leads Harry on long hikes through the redwood forest in search of “Harry’s Tree,” urges him on when weary, soothes him when patience wears thin, teaches him the values of preparation and practice, and protects him when the police become suspicious.  The longer Steve and Harry search together, the more Harry contributes to other people’s passions, and the more his view on life changes.

[toggle title_open=”Close Excerpt 1″ title_closed=”Excerpt 1″ hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]The front door of the Kinsale Senior Center opens into a lobby holding a couch and a pair of overstuffed chairs. A long hallway to the left leads to what once were classrooms but are now meeting rooms. The sign under the arrow reads “ceramics, computer, quilting, studio.” To the right is an open room with an elevated stage at one end. When I arrived, the main floor was filled with perhaps twenty tables of bridge players. One man about my age was sitting in a lobby chair watching me.

I said, “Good morning. I’m Steve Terwilliger. I’ve just recently arrived from Denver. This is my first visit to the senior center.”

The man stood up and shook my hand. “Harry, Harry Maddox. Glad to meet you.” Harry was stocky and at least six inches shorter than my six foot two. What hair he had was white.

“I see you’re not a bridge player.”

“Oh I play, but all those old women say I’m crazy. What brings you to town?”

“I’ve been looking for a place to retire. This is it.”

“Congratulations. Come take a load off. Where’d you find a place to live?”

“I bought a house just down the street.”

“Those little Victorians are cute when they’re fixed up. I live just across the street. It’s a nice neighborhood.”

We sat in silence for a minute or two. I said, “So what system do you play that those women can’t handle? Surely, not American Standard.”

“Oh, my bridge is fine. It’s just that they’re tired of hearing me talk.”

“Oh?”

“Oh, yes. You see I’m a man on a mission. I’m looking for the perfect tree. Harry’s Tree. And not just any tree but a redwood. It doesn’t have to be too big or too tall, but it has to be perfect.” He stood and started to pace to and fro in front of my chair. “Harry’s Tree will be straight. There’ll be no twists, turns, lightning strikes, dead branches, or any flaws at all. The bark will be smooth and true.” He waved his hands in a quarter circle. “The bark will twist clockwise exactly a quarter circle as it goes up the tree. That’s the secret for knowing a redwood is well-bred and healthy.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You couldn’t be expected to, you being from Denver. Anyway, the heart of the Harry’s Tree will be the ideal dark red, not quite maroon, just a dark red. And the grain will be straight. Some folks like the knots and twists of the burl wood. Someone else can take that. It’s the straight grain heartwood for me.”

“What are you going to do with it when you find it?”

His speed picked up and his voice became almost a holler. “That’s the best part. You see, I’m going to take that perfect heartwood and turn Harry’s Tree into the prettiest suite of furniture you have ever seen. They’ll be enough wood to outfit the entire house. There’ll be sofas and chairs for the living room and family room, coffee tables and lamp tables, a dining room table and chairs to go with it, a hutch to put all the matching dishes in, a country-style kitchen table and chairs, and then in the bedrooms there’ll be canopy beds and dresser and chests of drawers.”

“Harry, settle down.” A stern, matronly looking iron gray-haired woman intercepted Harry’s path, grabbed him by the upper arm, and led him back to his chair.
“Please excuse Harry. He does get excited when he talks about his tree. I’m Sara Wilton, Secretary of the Kinsale Senior Center. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Steve Terwilliger. This is my first visit to your center.”

“Welcome. I apologize for Harry. He is really a very nice man who gets carried away now and then. May I help you?”

‘Yes, if you could spare a few minutes, I’d like to talk to you.”

“The bridge game will end in a few minutes. If you can wait, we can talk then.”

“That would be fine.”

I watched her stride back into the main hall and then turned to Harry. “She seems a commanding woman.”

“She keeps an eye on me. I like that. It keeps me out of trouble sometimes. She can be harsh, but she means well.”

“So, Harry, I take it you haven’t found your tree yet.”

“It’s sooo disappointing. Actually, I haven’t even begun to look.”

“Why not?”

“They took my driver’s license away. No, no, not drinking or anything like that. I’m an epileptic, though it’s been some time since anything’s happened to me. I can’t say I blame them. It might be dangerous to me and others if something happened while I was driving.”

“I agree.”

“No one will take me into the forest. Some don’t want to go with a crazy person and others don’t want to have to deal with a fit if one comes on. I can’t blame them, and I certainly don’t want to be pushy. I’m grateful to get driven here and there as it is.”

“Would you go if someone drove you?”

Harry jumped up. “Would you?”

“I don’t see why not. I’d like to walk in the redwoods, and don’t have anything else to do until escrow closes.”

Harry was hugging me when Sara came back into the lobby. “Harry, what are you doing?”

He let me go and turned to Sara. “Steve’s going to take me into the forest. I’m going to find my tree.” He stopped and slowly turned back toward me. “What time?”

“I’ll pick you up at ten tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll be here.”

When Harry was out of sight Sara said, “Are you sure you want to do that?”

“Sure. Why not? The worse that can happen is I keep him from swallowing his tongue and have to carry him out.”

“No. The worse thing that can happen is to have to listen to him the whole time you’re with him.” She paused. “What did you wish to talk to me about?”

I waved to her to sit down. “I just bought a house right down the street.”

“In the Doll House area?”

“Yes. It’s one of the originals, a fix-it project. Please don’t think me as crazy as Harry, but I want to make it into a doll house, something apropos to the neighborhood. I’d like to talk to someone who knows something about doll houses to give me some guidance.”

“Very fatherly.”

“Huh?”

“Isn’t it traditional for a father to build a doll house for his daughter to decorate?”

“I hadn’t thought about it that way. I just thought I need some advice.”

Sara paused for a few minutes. “Let me think about it. I know the women here in the senior center, but it’s not a subject we’ve talked about. I’ll talk to a few people and see what I can come up with for you.”

“Thank you.”

She rose from the chair. “Again, welcome to the Kinsale Senior Center. Don’t forget to fill in the membership form and pay your dues.”[/toggle]

[toggle title_open=”Close Excerpt 2″ title_closed=”Excerpt 2″ hide=”yes” border=”yes” style=”default” excerpt_length=”0″ read_more_text=”Read More” read_less_text=”Read Less” include_excerpt_html=”no”]The next morning Harry was sitting on the steps of the senior center when I arrived at five-to-ten. He jumped up and got to the car before I stopped. “Thanks for coming. I was afraid you wouldn’t. Where are we going to go to look?”
“I surfed the Internet last night. There’s a lot of places right here in Santa Christina County. Here’s a short list.” I handed him a computer printout. “I’d recommend we start by walking in Naperson-Morris State Park.”
Harry got in to my car and buckled his seatbelt. “I didn’t imagine finding my tree in a park.”
“Probably not. But since neither one of us has ever looked, I thought it would be good practice.”
“Good idea. Let’s go.”
The entrance to the park was only a five-minute drive from the senior center. Harry insisted on paying the two dollar day-use fee, and then studied the trial guide until we reached the parking area at the end of the road. Neither of us had dressed for serious hiking; we both wore tennis shoes, jeans, and a T-shirt. Harry didn’t have a hat. We didn’t carry anything, not even water. Harry pointed to the trailhead and said, “This way.”

The trail was broad, flat, and gently graded. Harry looked from the trail guide and said, “This trail was one of the original logging roads. They brought Chinese labor in to build roads like this to allow the huge first-growth redwood logs to be carted out by oxen. The surrounding area was first logged in the 1870’s, but farther in it was logged in the early 1900’s. We’re walking in Ayre Canyon. Most of it was logged right after the 1906 earthquake. Ayre Creek redwood was used to rebuild most of San Francisco.”

“You knew all that?’

“Nope, it’s in the pamphlet.”

After about fifty yards we came to a stand of six redwoods. Harry looked at them and said, “These six are growing in a circle. When the old loggers worked here they couldn’t cut the trees at ground level, the burl made it far too thick for the equipment they had. So they cut them ten to twenty feet up from the ground. That didn’t kill the trees; they just sent up new shoots all around the edge of the burl. That’s why they grow in a circle, and that’s why these got so tall in such a short time.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because the little trees started with a mature root system. They didn’t have to spend a couple of hundred years growing roots. It makes for a nice forest today but none of these trees will do.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re not perfect. Look at the branch development. They don’t grow toward their cousins. The trees are lopsided. Further more, they’re not quite straight. They lean away from the others. This kind just won’t do.”

“But Harry, there are no old-growth trees anymore.”

“Old growth doesn’t matter. What matters is that the tree was grown from seed. Then it has a chance of not being misshapen by its neighbors.”

We walked in silence for ten minutes. I saw several rings, or partial rings, of redwoods but none standing alone until we reached an area of oak and redwood. Harry said, “Ah, this is more, like it. Redwood saplings usually don’t do well without shade, and oaks provide the most reliable source. They’re the climax tree in all the forests around here that don’t support redwoods. They might be two hundred years old before a redwood will drive them out.”

I counted sixteen redwoods mixed with the oaks; none of them reaching more than twenty feet above the tallest oak. “Do the oaks retard the redwoods? These look small.”

“Not at all. This just means that all these redwoods started growing about the same time. I’d guess they’re one hundred years old, maybe a bit more. These oaks would have been about big enough to provide the needed shade about then. I’d say about fifty years before that there was a fire here that created a clearing. Then the bay trees filled in enough to give the oaks the dappled shade they need, and then the redwoods arrived.”

“A fire?”

“Yes. The native Indians often used controlled burns to clear patches of land. I’ll bet if we dug around here we’d find some Miwak artifacts.”

“Miwak?”

“The local Indians.”

I looked carefully at the redwoods. “Do you see anything you like?”

“There are some nice looking specimens here, but they’re all too small. They wouldn’t have enough of the red heartwood. This is the kind of grove we’re looking for, but the trees have to be bigger.”

“These are pretty big.”

“Big for an eastern forest, maybe even big for a Rocky Mountain forest, but not for a redwood forest.”

“Oh.”

“It’s not the height, Steve, it’s the diameter. A redwood could be the same height as these and be twice as thick. That would be a candidate. The thing about this grove is the way the trees are distributed. They’re not in a ring. They’re scattered randomly about fifty feet apart.”

“You know a lot about the redwoods.”

“I’ve studied them, read books, looked at pictures. I’ve learned.”

We walked on for another twenty minutes before we turned back toward the car. Harry’s pace slowed noticeably. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yes, yes, don’t worry about me. I was so keyed up. I overdid it. It’s so exciting to actually start to look for what you’ve dreamed of for so long.” We walked on for another ten minutes. “You know, Steve, you were right. Being out among them really made a difference. I thought I knew all about the redwood forest, but reading books just isn’t the same. I did need to practice. Thanks for helping me. But now I’m sure I’m not going to find my tree in a park. I’m going to have to hike back into the mountains, really get deep into the forest.”

“Are you sure? It’s one thing to predict where your tree might be. It’s another to be able to hike ten miles a day. You’re no spring chicken, Harry. Are you in shape for it?”

“No, but no problem. I’ll just get in shape. How hard can it be to get in shape for a ten-mile walk?”

“Pretty hard.”

“It’s not me, Steve, I’ll do it. It’s you.”

“Me?”

“You’re going with me, aren’t you?”

I stopped and sat down on a log and thought about the prospects. Harry couldn’t go by himself. He couldn’t get to the trail head and he needed someone with him if something happened. There were trails in the mountains but most of the terrain was wild. Searching for a special tree would mean some true wilderness hiking. It wasn’t just ten miles along a flat logging-road; it was ten miles through mountain wilderness. I hadn’t been in shape to do that for forty years.
Harry said, “If you’re worried about the gear we’ll need, don’t. I’ll pay for everything. If you’re worried about getting in shape for it, if you were ever in shape for it once, you can do it again.”

“It’s been forty years.”

“Me, too. But we can do it. Just think how good you’ll feel once you’ve done it. We’ll start slowly and build up to it.”

“Harry, I’m too old to spend hours in a gym trying to get in shape. Life is too short for that. Nothing is as boring as walking on a treadmill.”

“I agree. We’ll shape up by walking in the woods. We’ll go until we get tired, and then the next time we’ll go a little further. We’ll get in shape faster that way. We’ll make it fun. And you never know, maybe we’ll get lucky and find my tree quickly.”

“You really think you can do it?”

“I can, and I’m betting you can too.”

I got up and started down the trail. Neither of us spoke until we were fastened in our seat belts. “Harry, how do you feel? Stiff? Sore? Today was just a stroll. What you’re proposing is far worse.”

“I feel great about getting started. I feel sure you and I will find the tree.”

“Physically, Harry, how do you feel?”

“Stiff, sore and tired. But hey, no pain no gain. I’ll get in shape in no time. How about you?”

“The same.”

“Will you do it, Steve?”

I started the engine and backed out of the parking spot before I answered. “I’ll try.” [/toggle]