The story you are about to read is false. The names were changed anyway.
In the summer of 1969 my father threw the whole gang into our 1968 Chevrolet BelAir Station wagon, hooked up a rented camping trailer, and hauled us some 500 miles from our hot, stucco home in Fresno, California to the cool redwood rainforest of the far northern reaches of the state. Before we got home again, he had dispatched an ax murderer, out shown Neil Armstrong, and proved his manhood in combat with the Old West justice, no-holds-barred highways and points of interest of late sixties vacation travel, and a particularly vicious trailer hitch.
The car and trailer were parked in the driveway facing out. All of our luggage, folding lawn chairs, food, ice chest, beach toys, and other assorted vacation tackle were packed into the trailer, leaving so little space that my dad had to have my two oldest brothers, Carl and Danny, put their combined teenage weight against the door while he threw the latch over and put the pad lock on, just to get it closed. He said to his first born who he had graced with the honor of starting the car for this biggest of vacations, “Carl, give me the car keys so I can lock this padlock.”
Carl very helpfully replied, “There on the table in the trailer.”
My dad took off his glasses and holding them up with his right hand, pinched his temples with the thumb and index finger of his left hand, and kneaded them across his closed eyes until they met at the bridge of his nose. He muttered “God almighty,” and then proceeded to unlock, unlatch, and open the trailer door. Most of what he had spent the good part of the very early morning packing into that trailer came tumbling out like when someone opens a closet in a cartoon. All that was missing to complete the transition to animation was a bowling ball falling from the top and bonking him on his head. He got the keys and the three of them repeated latching of the trailer door like desperate men on a submarine shoring up a seam in their hull that split during a depth charge attack.
Dad looked at his Timex and said, “God almighty, it’s nearly 6:45.” He wanted to be on the road by 6:00 AM, but the act of waking six children, getting them dressed and out of the house, making sure everything from the house that needed to be taken on the trip was in the car or trailer, mostly trailer, and everything that needed to be shut off, closed, watered, put away, and otherwise seen to, had been shut off, closed, watered, put away and seen to, had taken far longer that he had allowed in his rigid timetable. He shoved Carl and Danny into the second seat of the Chevy, with my sister Dawn between them, checked to see that my brother Byron, my brother Sam, and I were secure in the third seat, facing backwards, and then went off in search of my mother.
He found my mother talking to the next door neighbor, Mrs. Washington. The elderly Mrs. Washington had agreed to watch over our house while we were away and my mother was going over the list of instructions she planned to leave with her. Mrs. Washington, to her credit, was keeping a brave demeanor in the face of the revelation, to her, that we were not only going somewhere and would be gone for awhile, but that she was expected to water plants, pick up mail and newspapers, and generally keep the marauding hordes from our front door. My mom said, “Now here is the list of the plants in pots, then need to be watered every other day, unless it gets over a hundred, then they need to be watered daily. The sprinklers in the front are automatic so you don’t need to worry about them, but there are no sprinklers in the back so you’ll need to move the one on the hose.”
Mrs. Washington, in hair curlers and robe said, “Can’t you water them dear?”
My mother, ever the diplomat, said, “No, we won’t be able to as we’ll be at San Antonio Cabins and Camping Resort in Molting, California.”
“Oh, you must take the Alamo tour. It’s fantastic.”
“We’re not going to that San Antonio Mrs. Washington. We’re going to see the redwoods.”
Mrs. Washington just said, “That’s nice.”
“Anyway, we will be coming back Monday afternoon. So you’ll only be watching things for five days. That doesn’t sound too bad now does it Mrs. Washington?”
At this point my dad strode up, snatched the list out of my mother’s hand, slapped it in Mrs. Washington’s and said to her, “Just don’t burn the place down.” He then walked my mother to the car, held the door for her as she got in, and then went around and threw himself in the driver’s seat.
The Chevy roared to life and he was just about to put it into gear when Carl said, “Dad. You said I could start the car.”
Dad turned around and said to my brother, “It’s hardly necessary now. She’s running.”
Carl pouted toward my mother, and my mother said to my father, “You did promise dear.”
My father got out. He held the door for my brother like I imagine a royal footman might hold a carriage door for King Louie of France, and bowing with great flourish said with as much pomp that he could muster, “Your majesty.” Carl slid in behind the wheel, adjusted the seat, put on the seatbelt, adjusted the mirrors, adjusted the seat again and then promptly turned the key in the already running car. The screech that emanated from under the hood was probably only slightly louder and more teeth shattering than an oil tanker trading paint with an aircraft carrier. My dad said, “God almighty.”
When we pulled out of the driveway my mom announced, “We’re off.” We all cheered.
We made the eight mile drive from our house, across Fresno, to Highway 99 in 45 minutes. I know that seems long to you but it was even longer to us with my dad yelling, “Damn rush hour traffic, damn red lights, and we should have been to Modesto by now,” every few minutes.
My mom simply asked, “Where are all these people going?”
Once we got on 99 we moved along pretty good for about 30 minutes, until my dad realized that in all his careful planning, he neglected to put gas in the car. With Modesto 60 miles in front of us and Fresno 30 miles behind, we turned around and went back to Fresno to get gas. We filled up at a Texaco by the freeway with my dad complaining the whole time about how expensive gas was by the freeway. He said to my little brother Sam who was seated closest to him while he pumped the gas, “That’s how they get you, ya know. You pull off in some town you don’t know anything about so you have to by gas by the freeway, and they jack up the prices.”
Sam, who was all of seven said, “I like cats.”
When we pulled out of the gas station it was 8:30. My dad just grumbled, my mom said, “We’re off,” and we all cheered.
This time we moved along 99 for a much longer stretch. But my dad grumbled about the traffic. Once he blurted out, “Look at all these trucks clogging up the road. There should be special roads just for trucks.”
When my mother said, “Then how would they get all the things on those trucks to the stores and such?” my dad just hunkered down a little and pretended to find something fascinating on the highway ahead. I’m not sure why he was complaining about those trucks though. Most of them seemed to be passing us.
Now you may think that I would have been very excited about taking a trip to the redwood forests as an eight-year-old, but I wasn’t. You see this was Thursday, July 17th 1969. On July 20th, the following Sunday, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were going to land on the moon, and every boy in my school who wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up, which was every boy in my school, would be glued to the TV watching. While they were watching the most important event in their and my young life, I would probably be hunkered down in a rented trailer, with seven other people, most likely in the pouring rain. If I was especially lucky, we’d be playing Hearts.
I sulked in the backseat, facing backwards, with nothing but the front of a trailer with “Fresno Al’s U-Drive Trailers, Campers, and Septic Pump Truck Rentals” plastered across it for a view. My brothers Sam and Byron were playing the license plate game. Byron had 7 so far; California, Oregon, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Colorado, and somehow Hawaii. Sam on the other hand had 18, all California.
In the middle seat Carl and Danny talked non-stop about how they were going to catch enough fish during this trip that we’d be eating fish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. Dawn, my only sister just sang John Denver songs trying desperately to get the rest of us to join in.
The plan for the first night was to stop at a campground on the far north coast called Bigfoot’s Secret Tree Grove. Dad turned to my mother and said, “Get that paper out of the glove compartment that I wrote the route on, we’re coming to our first turn.” My mother, ever confident that her husband knew what he was doing, opened the glove compartment to find…nothing.
“It’s not in here.”
My dad said, “What do you mean it’s not in there?”
My mom said, “I meant that there is no paper upon which you wrote directions in here.”
My dad leaned over, sending the car and trailer onto the shoulder, and reached into the open glove compartment, and to everyone’s surprise, pulled out a pair of gloves. I think that I can honestly say that except for that day, I’ve never actually seen a pair of gloves in a glove compartment of any car I’ve ever owned or ridden in. He tossed the gloves over his shoulder where they landed on Sam’s neck, making him yelp, before he pointed at a car that shot past us and said, “California, nineteen.” He put the gloves on and mimicked a cat pawing. Dad managed to get most of the car and trailer back on the highway, as he fumbled the rest of the glove compartment clean. There was no paper with any route information on it. Dad sat back up straight and said, “God almighty.” Then he quickly said, “Doesn’t matter. It’s pretty easy; it’s highway 20, to 25, to 80, to 880, to 101. Piece of cake.” As it turned out it was 120, to 205, to 580, to 80, but he did get 101 right.
The latter route would have taken us around the East Bay, across a single bridge, and to Petaluma. From Petaluma we would just head west to Bodega Bay. The former route, dad’s imagined route, took us across three bridges and dropped us in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Since it was now 4:00 –crossing three bridges takes a long time- and none of us had eaten since 6:00 that morning, my mother decided that we would stay there for the night.
“But darling,” my dad said, “there are no campgrounds in San Francisco. We’d have to stay in a motel.”
My mother crossed her arms and looked out the front window, seeing nothing, even though several men in white coats, and for some reason hardhats, were unloading pig carcasses from a truck, occasionally setting one on our hood for a few moments. Finally my dad surrendered and we all piled out to look for a motel. We found one at the top of California Street called The Pagoda Chateau. It looked like a cross between Grauman's Chinese Theater and the Disneyland Skyway Station in Fantasyland.
My dad checked us in, with my brothers Carl, Danny, Byron, Sam and I in one room, and my mom and dad and my sister Dawn in a second room. He said something about two rooms being how they get you as he walked back to the car to bring it to the underground parking garage provided by the motel. My mother said to me, “Matt, go with your dad. You can be the navigator.” I caught up with him just as he was turning at the first intersection and let him know our car was parked the other way.
Through a series of one way streets, construction detours, directions from a Chinese gentleman who after giving them admitted he wasn’t from San Francisco but lived in Fresno, and a cop that told my dad if he didn’t turn left at a particular intersection he’d impound both our car and our septic tank pumping trailer, we ended up at the bottom of California Street instead of the top. We could just make out the flying buttresses and pagodas of our motel at the top of what looked like a ski jump. When the light turned green my dad lit a cigarette, stuck his elbow out the window, and sat there smoking and watching. The horns of the car behind us started before he exhaled his first drag.
I asked him, “What are you doing dad?”
He said, “I’m timing the lights. I think if I hit them just right, I won’t have to stop this rolling hotdog stand on this hill.”
The horns blared for two more revolutions of the light, and then just as it was about to turn red, my dad stomped on the gas and the brave BelAir shot up the hill. There were four traffic lights between us and our motel. We hit the first one just as it turned green, swerving around the back of a taxi that was just exiting the intersection. We got to the second light probably in the middle of the green but had to go into oncoming traffic to get around a delivery truck that might have been the same one that was dropping off pig carcasses earlier. The third light we caught what my dad called the orange light; at the instant in time when it was changing from yellow to red. We were just about at the fourth light, and could see our motel and the entrance to the parking garage, and that the light had only recently turned green when one of San Francisco’s charming Cable Cars slid into the intersection and stopped.
Dad stood on the brakes and I flew out from under my lap belt and ended up on the floor below the glove compartment. The trailer fishtailed around and the padlock on the door kissed dad’s side view mirror before dad hit the gas again and straightened everything out. Most of the passengers on the cable car were screaming bloody murder at us and one guy in a three-piece suit chucked a loaf of sourdough bread that landed on the seat formally occupied by me. Dad flicked his cigarette back at him and yelled, “Keep the change hippie.” Somehow we didn’t hit the cable car and while I was on the floor I found the paper with the directions on it.
Dad pulled the car into the parking garage brimming with pride. He turned to me and said, “So what do you think of your old man now?” I was about to tell him how impressed I was but when the top of the trailer slammed into the roof of the parking garage I decided not to. Dad just said, “God almighty.”
We unhooked the trailer and dad paid the tow truck driver who showed up, to tow it and stow it in his yard for the night. When dad walked around the back of the car he smashed his shin into the hitch, which solicited a string of profanities that included God but not almighty.
When we got back to the hotel room where my mom everyone gathered she asked, “How’d it go?”
Dad said, “Perfect.”
“Why did it take so long?”
Dad said, “We stopped to get some dinner,” and tossed the sourdough on the bed.
My mother suggested we go out a Chinese restaurant since we were in Chinatown. My dad suggested we save some money by just getting the ice chest out of the trailer, but our excitement at the prospect of eating in a real Chinese restaurant in a real Chinatown drowned him out. Mom clapped her hands together and said, “Everyone brush their teeth and wash their hands and we’ll go.” We all cheered.
With their six children’s teeth shining and hands scrubbed pink, mom and dad marched us out onto the street and into the nearest Chinese restaurant. Dad got broccoli beef, mom got a chicken salad, and all us kids ordered hamburgers. None of us liked Chinese food.
My oldest brothers, Carl and Danny, swiped as many saltine crackers as they could from the tables around us in the restaurant. Later that night, they flipped those crackers from our sixth floor hotel room window, where they floated down California Avenue for blocks and blocks. I swear one might have made it all the way to Ferry Building, maybe even the bay.
When it was time for bed, those same two brothers told us about the Zodiac killer and how he mainly preyed on children in Chinatown motels. Preferring the higher floors. I was sharing a bed with Sam who whimpered most of the night. Carl and Danny giggled themselves to sleep.
The next morning we all piled into the BelAir and drove over to the tow yard. Tow trucks were coming and going in a busy conga line that would make a beehive look positively lazy by comparison; dropping off illegally parked cars and then heading out to get more. When we backed the car up to the trailer and my mom saw the damage she said, “What happened to our trailer?” There was a dent from the ceiling of the parking garage across the top of the trailer that looked like the eyebrows, crinkled in a manner much like Carl’s eyebrows when he is trying to work long division. Much of the decal had been scraped off and what was left just said, “Al’s U-Drive Septic Truck.” My dad said, “Let me tell you I’m certainly going to have a word with the guy at the gate when we leave.” Dad walked around the back of the car, banged his shin on the hitch again, and managed to hook up the trailer without too much profanity and to get back into the driver’s seat without too much limping.
When we pulled out of the lot the “guy” at the gate was on my mother’s side. She berated him up and down about the damage to the trailer, while all the while my dad was making that twirling-finger cuckoo motion next to his temple, unseen behind her.
We left San Francisco by way of the Golden Gate Bridge. Once across my mom suggested we pull over to the parking lot on the north side to get a picture of the whole family with the bridge in the background. My dad protested about the time schedule, but it was a weak protest at best. I think he was beginning to understand that the schedule was no longer valid. We pulled over, handed dad’s Polaroid to a guy who was selling sandals made from old tire treads and he took a picture that cut off everyone’s head except for my little brother Sam’s. We didn’t notice until we left the parking lot. Somehow the combination of my dad shaking the Polaroid, which he believed was neccessary to develop the picture, while looking at the second hand of his watch to determine if it was time to peal the cover off or not, and trying to steer the car and read road signs caused some confusion, so instead of continuing north on the highway, we went south, crossed over the bridge again, and drove through San Francisco, again, and crossed the Bay Bridge and ended up in Oakland. While looking out the side window at the freeway gutters of the East Bay I spied a saltine. I just shook my head and said, “Nah.”
Secretly using dad’s notes that I found on the floor the previous day, I suggested we take 580, cross the Richmond Bridge and catch highway 101 around San Rafael. We did and I was praised by everyone for my stellar navigation skills. I was feeling pretty good until my mom said I could use those skills to get a job at NASA someday, which reminded me of what I would be missing while on the trip.
The drive to Bodega Bay went about as smoothly as could be expected. The two lane road to the coast had almost no trucks on it so my dad instead cursed at our fellow vacationers who, in my dad’s opinion, were either brain damaged when driving slower than us, or “gonna get someone killed” when passing us. We got to Bodega Bay and piled out of the car in front some docks where my dad announced, “You have 5 minutes to stretch your legs or pee. Your choice.” We all peed except for my little brother who was asleep, having slept little the night before.
While meandering, for 5 minutes, around the docks, Carl and Danny told my sister Dawn, my brother Byron, and I that Bodega Bay was the place where they filmed Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Then they went on to say that the reason they picked that town was because that was where the bird attacks “really happened.” When we got back in the car, just as we were leaving the parking lot, Carl took a seagull's feather he found and tickled Dawn’s ear with it, while making a squawking sound. Dawn screamed, my mom yelped, and dad slewed the car into some ice plant, stalling it out. Sam woke up and said, “I gotta pee.”
Dad just said, “God almighty.”
Dad got the car started again, and we returned to the parking lot to allow Sam to use the restroom. Mom took him. While we sat there in the idling car my sister asked my dad, “Why is there smoke coming out of our car?”
My dad looked at the hood and said, “That’s not smoke dear, that’s steam. I just means the car is overheating.” Then he yelled, “Our car is overheating!”
We all piled out and stood there as dad threw open the hood. My dad inspected everything and came to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with the car, but some foreign substance was being cooked on top of the radiator. My mom and my little brother walked up and my mom said, “Who’s cooking pork?” Dad used Sam’s gloves to wipe the pork grease, which must have dripped from the pig carcasses laid on the hood in Chinatown, off the radiator.
By the time he was done it was lunchtime time so we found a picnic table and Dad, along with Carl and Danny, wrestled the ice chest out of the trailer. When we opened it Mom made a cheese sandwich and Hawaiian Punch meal. The boiling pork grease had made us all hungry so we each had two sandwiches and three glasses of punch. When we pulled out of the parking lot, mom announced we were on our way. We all cheered.
We were near the Russian River, about 10 miles from Bodega Bay when my mother said to my father, “You didn’t seem to have as much trouble putting the ice chest back in the trailer as you had taking it out. You must be getting better at it.”
Dad said, “God almighty,” and turned the car around. When we got back to the parking lot where we ate lunch, we found that the ice chest had been knocked over and hundreds of seagulls were hovering over it, swooping down to it, waddling around it, and generally picking at the food that was supposed to last us for five days. My dad shooed them away and picking up the ice chest said, “I think if we can find a hose, we can save a lot of this food.”
Mom said, “No, we can get new food in Molting.” When he moved to put the ice chest back in the trailer she added, “We can get a new ice chest there too.” Dad put the ice chest back on the picnic table.
The birds that dad had scared off had only flown as far they needed to be out of his reach. When dad looked up from the ice chest, hundreds were gathered around us, just standing there. Dad stared at them as he passed between the car and the trailer so he forgot about the hitch and banged his shin on it again. We drove out of the parking lot like Rod Taylor slowly drove through those thousands of birds at the end of that movie. Mom said in a much more sarcastic tone then I was used to, “Well, we’re off.” Nobody cheered. I don’t think we got back up to highway speed until we passed the Russian River. My sister Dawn just stared straight ahead much like Veronica Cartwright, the little girl from Mr. Hitchcock’s movie, chanting “Rocky Mountain High, Colorado” over and over.
We took the turnoff for Bigfoot’s Secret Tree Grove and rolled up to the guard shack hours later. Dad rolled down the window and said to the man with the Smokey Bear hat, khaki shirt, and gold badge who was leaning out the window of the shack, “Are you the ranger who checks us in?”
The ranger recited, “I’m not a ranger sir. Rangers are members of National and State parks. Bigfoot’s Secret Tree Grove is a privately owned resort and as such, employs no rangers.”
Dad asked, “What do I call you then?”
The non-ranger said, “Kevin.”
“Well Kevin, are you the person who checks us in?”
Kevin said, “I am. And may I say welcome to Bigfoot’s Secret Tree Grove. While you’re here be sure to check out our ’Trees of Amazing Amazement’ self-guided tour, stroll through our gift shop, and have a conversation with Bigfoot himself.”
Kevin asked, “Do you have a reservation?”
Dad said, “Yes we do. Cartwright, party of eight for one night.”
Kevin checked a clipboard, looked a few pages back, and then a few pages forward, and then a few pages back, looked up and said, “What was that name again?”
“Cartwright. Eight. One night.”
Kevin took the tour of the clipboard again and then finally said, “I don’t see it. When did you make the reservations?”
Suddenly my mom said, “Oh my gosh! It was for last night. We stayed in San Francisco instead.”
We were all crestfallen. But dad would not be swayed. He lied, “Listen, you must have a spot for us. My kids have done nothing but beg me to take them to the ‘Trees of Astonishing Astonishment’ 24 hours a day for years now, and I can’t deny them now that we are so close.”
Kevin said, “It’s the ’Trees of Amazing Amazement.”
Dad said, “Whatever. Do you have a spot where we can put this trailer for just one night? Even in the parking lot would be okay.”
Kevin looked left and right, like he was about to impart some secret piece of information, and didn’t want foreign spies to hear, and said, “I could let you park one night in the parking lot, but if anyone asks you never heard of me.”
Dad said, “I’ve already forgotten your name. Where do I park?”
Kevin said, “First you need to give me 50 bucks.”
“50 bucks? The regular camping spot with water, a fire ring, access to showers, and picnic table is only $11.”
“The parking lot is 50 bucks. Take it or leave it.”
Dad paid, and then grumbled, “Where do I go?”
Kevin said, “Just take the first stall under the fiberglass Bigfoot statue.”
We pulled in and found the Bigfoot statue at the far north end of the parking lot. Bigfoot’s statue stood 20 feet high, with a speaker for a mouth, a thousand mile stare, and for some reason his hands on the forward part of his hips which gave the impression that he was urinating. Next to Bigfoot, inexplicably, stood a 35 foot tall fiberglass Texaco man with a star on his chest, one hand balled into a fist on his hip, and the other hand saluting something far in the distance over our heads.
When we piled out of the car a voice came out of Bigfoot’s speaker/mouth that said, “Welcome to Bigfoot’s Secret Tree Grove.”
My brother Byron stepped up to Bigfoot and said, “Where’s the bathroom?”
My mom said, “Byron, mind your manners.” Then she looked up and said, “Sorry Mr. Foot.”
Bigfoot, ignoring Byron, said, “Well hello there little girl.”
My sister Dawn, who had just recovered from the The Birds incident said, “Hello?”
Bigfoot remained silent until we started to walk away when he said, “Hello young man. Where are you from?”
Byron looked at Dawn, then back and Bigfoot and shrugged and said, “We’re from Fresno.”
Bigfoot said, “A wonderful place. I’ve been there many times.”
None of us could remember every hearing anything about Bigfoot visiting Fresno, but I suppose a “big” celebrity like him kept a low profile. We waited for him to speak again, but after several minutes of silence, we went into the grove.
The entrance to Trees of Amazing Amazement was through an opening through a single rail fence, with sign on a post that read, “The self-guided tour is free to registered guests of Bigfoot’s Secret Grove. For non-guests, tickets can be purchased at the gift shop.”
We started to walk through when Kevin appeared from out of a tiny ticket booth and said, “I’ll need to see your tickets.”
My dad said, “We’re camping here. Remember us driving in about 15 minutes ago?”
Kevin said, “What is your campsite number?”
My dad said, “First slot under the pissing monkey.”
Kevin said, “If you are referring to the talking Bigfoot statue in the parking lot, there is no camping allowed there. Since you are not registered guests of the park, you’ll need to purchase tickets in the gift shop.”
My dad said, “Listen pal, we just paid 50 bucks to park for a few hours under your chimp and a gas station attendant looking for a gas station. I’ll be damned if I’m going pay more to look at some goddamned trees.”
Kevin said, “I’m sorry but only registered guests can take the tour for free. You’ll need to purchase tickets.”
My dad laughed and said, “Sure, I’ll buy tickets to look at your trees when I can walk across the highway and look at all the trees I want for free.” He was smiling when he turned to his family for support, but the smile dropped off his face when he saw us. I’ll let those of you with stronger wills than I mock all you want, but when confronted with the thought of returning to Fresno, where no trees held the title “Amazing” as far as I knew, without seeing the Amazing Trees of Amazment we failed. None of use supported Dad in his joke. We wanted to see the those trees and left no small measure of our disappointment that our dad wouldn’t pay for it hidden from him. We pressed him with pleas and promises of cleaning our rooms without being asked, doing the dishes for months at a time, and the trump card of “never asking you for anything ever again, as long as I live.”
Dad stormed over to the gift shop and returned with eight tickets, at three dollars each, and as he stuffed one into each of our hands, grumbled, “Twenty-four dollars to look at trees. God almighty.”
Each of us gleefully presented out tickets to Kevin and entered the forest, fully expecting to emerge a changed person. We didn’t.
The tour consisted of a 50 yard meandering trail through the forest area immediately west of the parking lot. There were exactly four attractions along the ’Trees of Amazing Amazement.’
First was The Octopus Tree, which was a large cedar where much of soil had been washed away from the base, exposing dozens of thick roots, which sort of looked like tentacles.
Second was the Fire Tree, which was a blackened lump about the size of a sofa, with a little plaque in front of it which read, “This tree remained standing after a forest fire in late 1939 burned 80% of it. It fell over in early 1940.”
Third was a large redwood that had been named after a Civil War officer General Jasper T. Plano. General Plano’s claim to fame was uttering his final words at the Battle of Glendale while sitting in the only tree on the Union line, to get a better look at the Confederates, while his troops suggested he might want to get down. Posted at the base of the tree were those final words, “Those lousy rebels could not hit the wide side of a barn from this dist…”
My mom said, “I didn’t know there was a Civil War battle in L.A.”
The forth “amazing” attraction was a side view of a redwood that had been cut down, with labels on the tree’s rings depicting historical events during the tree’s life. We’d all seen this before where events like the birth of Christ, the signing of the Magna Carta, and the Gettysburg Address were labeled on 2,500-year-old redwoods down in Kings Canyon National Park, not far from Fresno. Apparently at Bigfoot’s Secret Grove they chose a much younger tree because the events labeled were more recent. Some examples were The Beatles appear on the Ed Sullivan show, the 56th anniversary of New Mexico becoming a state (a year previous to our visit), and at the center, the birth of that tree.
Through some of the trees and ferns we could see the campgrounds. There were trailers, tents, RVs, and families eating meals, sitting around campfires, and generally enjoying some time in Mr. Foot’s grove. There were also dozens of empty campsites. My dad didn’t say a thing, but the grinding of his teeth sounded like a car driving down a gravel road.
The tour ended at the back of the gift shop, but the meandering didn’t. The gift shop was set up so that the aisles were only open at alternating ends, so that to get from one end to the other we had to walk up and down every aisle. My mom spent the entire time yanking windup Bigfoot toys, novelty rubber Bigfoot galoshes, and plastic Smokey Bear hats with “Junior Ranger” printed across the band, out of our hands and putting them back on the shelf. My dad just said, “God almighty.” The car on the gravel sound intensified.
When we got to the checkout, there stood Kevin at the cash register. My dad, to his credit, didn’t assault him. Instead he said, “I see there are quite a few empty campsites. Are those for people who have reservations but haven’t arrived yet?”
Kevin said, with the unabashed ignorance of a man standing on the tracks looking south when the express train is coming from the north, “No. Those are available.”
If it was physically possible for steam to shoot out of a man’s ears, my dad could have turned that gift shop into a sauna. But again, he refrained from what would have been justified homicide and simply asked, “Why didn’t you put us in one of those camp sites?”
Kevin said, “You asked to park in the parking lot.”
Then out of nowhere my brother Byron, probably saving Kevin’s life, smartassed up, “If you don’t have rangers here, how can you sell Junior Ranger hats?”
Kevin picked up a hat and turning it around said, “I got a deal because of a misspelling on the back.” He pointed to the words “Kings Crayon National Park” on the other side of the band. My mom was so charmed that she told dad to buy us each a hat. Dad just handed his wallet to my mom, lit a cigarette, and walked out of the gift shop in the general direction of our car.
When we caught up with our dad, he was sitting on the curb, smoking a cigarette and engaged in a one way conversation with the Texaco Man. Dad said, “So Tex, how in the world did you end up standing next to a yard art monkey in a tourists trap in Northern California?” He leaned in like he was listening to fiberglass giant and then went on, “Me? Oh, I get one week of vacation a year and I have to ask for that 6 months in advance. So I’m taking the whole clan camping. Of course we haven’t actually done any camping yet. We have overpaid for a motel in San Francisco, bought a bunch of Chinese hamburgers, paid 50 bucks for permission to park under your fine visage, and 24 dollars to look at some trees and tour a gift shop, but the real camping should commence tomorrow. That’s if I’m not thrown in jail for murdering a ranger-who-isn’t-a-ranger named Kevin, or if I don’t lose my leg the next time I forget there is a trailer hitch at shin level on the back of the old Conestoga.”
Because there was no place to unload our gear from the trailer, we slept in the car. None of us got much sleep because every 10 minutes the Bigfoot statue said, “Well hello there little girl,” “Hello young man, where are you from?”, and “A wonderful place. I’ve been there many times.”
Sometime just before dawn we were awakened when the car started rocking up and down and back and forth. Mom yelled, “Earthquake!” We each jumped out of whichever door or window was most convenient and met under the protection of the Texaco Man. Maybe it was his uniform.
About the time we realized the ground wasn’t shaking, Kevin appeared from behind the car and said, “Sorry about the shaking folks. I was having more trouble than I usually do wiring on your bumper sticker.” He held up a 3-foot-long yellow bumper sticker with bright red lettering that read, I Ate and Got Gas at Bigfoot’s Secret Tree Grove. He said, “Pretty funny huh?”
My mom asked, “Do you sell gas here?”
Kevin said, “No, but there is a station about 20 minutes up the highway. Why?”
Mom said, “Well, your bumper sticker…”
Kevin took on that southbound look on the southbound tracks again. Mom gave up. Dad had enough. He strode over to Kevin, yanked the bumper sticker out of his hands and grabbing him by the scruff of his ranger-like but non-ranger shirt, lifted him off the ground and yelled, “It doesn’t make any sense. If you don’t sell gas, it’s not funny to say you got gas. It’s like you’re saying if we eat here, we’ll get indigestion.”
Kevin managed to get out of dad’s grip and said, “By the way, if you’re going to stay any longer, you’re going to need to pay another 50 bucks.”
If dad hadn’t hit the trailer hitch as he lunged for Kevin, the vacation would probably have ended right there with mom driving us home and dad in the local jail. Instead, mom put dad in the passenger seat and she drove us the rest of the way to our final camping spot. As she was trying to maneuver the car and trailer out of the stall, she managed to back into the Texaco Man and leave a vicious cut on his shin. My dad looked long and hard at it as he rubbed his own vicious cut on his own shin. I think he felt some sort of comradeship between himself and the displaced gas station attendant. As we headed out of the parking lot he was quietly singing, “Oh we’re the men of Texaco, we work from Maine to Mexico…”
The sign for San Antonio Cabins and Camping Resort in Molting, California slid into view as we rounded a bend in a road. Mom said, “We’re here.” We all cheered, even dad. Mom pulled the car up to the guard shack and rolled down the window.
An elderly gentleman who dressed nothing like a ranger leaned out and said, “Welcome to San Antonio Cabins and Camping Resort. My name is Ranger Bob. If you need anything at all while you’re here, just let me know.”
My brother Byron’s the smartass said, “Are you a real ranger?”
Ranger Bob said, “Nope. My first name is actually Ranger. My full name is Ranger Hunter White Crow.”
Dad said, “Where’s the Bob come in?”
“It’s my nickname.” Dad let it go.
My mom asked, “Is White Crow an Indian name?”
Ranger Bob said, “No. Why do you ask?”
Mom and dad looked at each other, and came to some silent understanding that I would probably be best to just stop asking questions.
Ranger Bob asked, “You got a reservation?”
My dad moved very slowly, like a bomb squad member opening a box that he knew had a bomb in it, likely hoping to avoid another Kevin incident said, “Yes. Cartwright and there are eight of us.”
Ranger Bob said, “Yes, I have it right here.” He grabbed a key and some paperwork that included the campground rules and a map and then he leaned out the window and pointed down the road and said, “Just take this road and stay left until you come to a burned out redwood, then hang a right. It’s the third cabin on the right.” Then he looked back at my parents and said, “That will be 30 dollars a night.”
My dad said, “Cabin?”
Ranger Bob pointed at a large wooden sign that listed the rates. We all noticed that it said that cabins were $30 and camping sites (tents only) were $15. Dad was stunned mute. It was beginning to dawn on him that he had just hauled that trailer 500 miles, up and down highway 99, across every bridge within the greater Bay Area, up California Avenue, and finally to the campgrounds where he had a “camping” reservation at a place where they didn’t accept trailers. But before he could utter a word, Ranger Bob looked at the trailer and said, “Tell you what, I’ll knock the price in half if you pump out the septic tank.”
Without missing a beat dad said, “No problem.”
Ranger Bob said, “You’ll find the septic tank cover next to the cabin. Enjoy.” I guess it didn’t strike him as odd that a family would pull a septic tank pumping trailer to a campsite.
So we entered San Antonio Cabins and Camping Resort in Molting, California and made our way to our cabin. As we moved along the road we quickly found the burned out redwood. Byron said, “Hey dad, that burned up tree looks just like the one at Bigfoot’s place.” We moved along further and saw a tree where the soil around the roots had been washed away. Again Byron spoke up, “Dad, that one looks like the Octopus Tree.” Sure enough, when we got to our cabin there was a cut down tree across from it where different rings were labeled with events during that tree’s life. My dad shot a quick and deadly look to Byron, shutting him up before he could draw the breath for his next comment. If there was a tree named for a Civil War officer, from either side, we never saw it.
Dad backed the trailer up next to the cabin. We piled out and ran in to claim our beds. The raccoon family that we startled split the screen on the back door in their haste to escape, but it worked out since that allowed an avenue by which the owls could leave. The beds, there were six of them, were empty mattresses. Mom found sheets and blankets in a closet, and got us all started in making our own beds. It was decided that since Carl and Danny were the oldest, they would sleep in the back of the car with the seats folded down.
I searched the entire cabin in the vain hope that there might be a TV where I could watch the moon landing, but there was none. Crushed, I wandered across the road a looked at the felled redwood. It was bigger than the one at Bigfoot’s Grove but the words had long ago faded from the labels. I was touching the rings and imagining what was going on in the world at each one when a voice behind me said, “We’re very close now.” I turned around to find my brothers Carl and Danny standing there. They were speaking to each other as if they didn’t notice me. Not an uncommon occurrence for them when in the company of Byron, Sam, or myself.
Carl, who had spoken already continued, “I think it was in these very woods that he went crazy.”
“Who went crazy?” I asked.
Ignoring me, Danny said, “I think he killed dozens before they realized who was doing it.”
I said, “Who was doing what? Killed dozens of what?”
Looking over my head, Carl said, “They say he was the best lumberjack in the Pacific Northwest. He could cut down cedars and pines with one swing of his ax, two swings to cut down a redwood.” He paused and then looking directly at me said, “Now he only cuts down human victims. He can cut two men in half with one swing of his huge, double-sided ax.”
I looked left and right, expecting at any moment an ax-wielding maniac to come bounding out of the woods and take out the three of us with one mighty swing. My brothers just walked away.
Sam and Byron came running out and made off down a trail through the tall blackberry. Byron yelled over his shoulder, “This trail is supposed to go to a cliff where we can throw rocks into the ocean.” The Molting Ax Murderer temporarily forgotten by the prospect of throwing rocks into the ocean, I follow them down the trail.
The halcyon days in July 1969 at the San Antonio Cabins and Camping Resort in Molting, California of idling on the cool pebbly beaches, wandering through the massive ferns and noble redwoods, and climbing the high bluffs where rocks unnumbered were dashed into the indifferent Pacific were juxtaposed by nights of sheer terror as stories of ax murderers were whispered into the younger three boys’ ears by two especially mean older brothers before they retired to their slumber and most likely their machinations on the following evenings stories to that would keep the terror level at an appropriate level.
My brother Sam and I fought over who would get the top bunk as it appeared safer than sleeping on the lower bunk where access to our young, ready for axing, bodies would be easiest. I’m not proud of it, but I used my slightly larger frame to force my little brother into harm’s way although I didn’t sleep any easier. What with Sam’s whimpering keeping me awake and all.
On Sunday afternoon, Dad found me drawing circles in the ashes of our campfire with a stick and sitting down with a loud sigh, said, “So I guess you’re pretty upset that you don’t get to watch those guys landing on the moon on TV today.”
I lied, “That’s okay. I’m not really very interested.”
He lit a cigarette and exhaling a large cloud of smoke said, “Really. You know what I think? I think when those two land on the moon in there moon-lander-thing…”
“It’s called a Lunar Excursion Module.”
“Right. Anyway, I think when they land there going to go right through and come out on the other side. That thing is made up entirely of dust.”
I looked at the ash on the end of my stick, and then turned to my dad and said, “You really think so?”
He said, “There’s only one way to find out.” Then he got up and walked over to the car, reached inside, turned on the radio, and twisted the dial until some Mission Control sounding voices came out of it. After a few minutes he got in and sat behind the wheel and then nodded that I join him. There the two of us sat, father and son, side by side in the front seat of our ’68 BelAir, listening to Neal Armstrong converse with Houston as he guided his spaceship to a perfect landing on the surface of the moon. My dad would twist some of the knobs and move some of the levers on the non-running Chevy and say things to me like, “Aft thrusters engaged, landing gear extended,” and “gyros on,” while I flipped the tiny switch that controlled the passenger side window, my only control of any kind, as if he and I were Neil and Buzz, slipping through space, and trying to find a smooth spot on the boulder-strewn surface of the moon.
Outside our windows were the imagined jagged mountains and hopeless crevasses of the inhospitable world of the moon, but inside was one of the best moments I ever spent with my father. My brothers and sister were somewhere off exploring the bluffs and beaches so it was just the two of us. When Neil Armstrong finally said that the Eagle had landed, we threw up our hands and cheered. I realized at that moment that he would have loved to watch them landing on the moon on his couch at home, with me, a NASA nut, beside him, but since he had to ask for vacation far in advance, and since most of the prime days of the summer were already taken by his coworkers, he had to give up that time on his couch to take his family camping.
Feeling brave, I asked, “Dad, is there an ax murderer in the woods around here?”
He looked at me like as if I were a talking Bigfoot and said, “Where did you hear that?”
“Well, Carl and Danny…”
He said, “Say no more.”
Later that night I was awakened by my dad shaking my shoulder. He woke my brother Sam and me and just whispered, “Come with me.” We were led out to the back of the BelAir where Carl and Danny could be heard snoring away through the open rear window. My dad had taken a black plastic leaf bag with a hole in the bottom and was wearing it like a poncho, he had a Junior Ranger had that looked about three sizes too small on his head, and he had rubbed a lot of the ash from the campfire on his face. Then he lifted up an extremely rusted ax and said, “I found this behind the cabin by the septic tank cover.” He directed Sam and me to stand on the back bumper of the car and silently mouthing one, two, three pointed at us. We jumped up and down on the bumper causing the car to bounce even more violently than when Kevin was wiring that bumper sticker to the car.
Carl and Danny popped up at the exact moment Dad leaned in and brandishing the ax yelled, “Two with one swing, two with one swing.” My two oldest brothers, screamed like terrified kittens, threw themselves over the front seat, then fell butt first out the driver and passenger windows, respectively, and ran straight into a wall of blackberry bushes. Sam and I fell off the bumper and rolled around on the ground in unadulterated laughter. Dad joined in the laughter too and even kept his composure when, for the millionth time, he banged his shin on the trailer hitch.
The next morning at breakfast, Sam and I ate like men who had just experienced the most contented night of restful sleep imaginable and Carl and Danny looked like they had been in a very graphic version of the Passion Play. My mom didn’t seem to notice anything unusual so I guess Dad had explained everything beforehand. My sister said, “What were those screaming noises I heard last night?”
My dad, between bites of egg and sausage said, “I heard that too. I think it was a screech owl.”
Dawn said, “It sounded like scared kittens.”
Early that afternoon we had the car packed and were making ready to head home. Dad planned on driving the entire way so there would be no revisiting Bigfoot’s Secret Grove, or the set of The Birds, or Chinatown. This time Dad let me start the car, and even made sure it wasn’t already running so it roared to life with what I was sure was the same growl of the Saturn V rocket that took those men to the moon.
My mom said, “We’re off.” We all cheered.
As we drove past the guard shack, Ranger Bob asked, “Did you get that septic tank all pumped out?”
We all just sang, “Oh we’re the men of Texaco, we wipe your pipe, we pump your gas, we jack your back, we scrub your glass…”
I guess Ranger Bob took that as a yes because he just threw us a salute and waved us through. I asked Dad if he though Ranger Bob would get mad when he found out we didn’t pump the tank out. Dad just said, “Technically, I never said I did.”
When we pulled into our driveway thirteen hours later we saw that our front yard was flooded because, even though it had automatic sprinklers, Mrs. Washington had set out the sprinkler on the end of the hose faithfully, every day. The backyard looked like, if you’ll excuse the expression, the surface of the moon.
Sometime later I finally saw the video of Neil Armstrong stepping off the ladder of the Lunar Excursion Module to the surface of the moon. To me it looked like the video from a security camera at a bank. I thought back to the far more stylized image of the moon that I’d imagined in the car with my dad, and I realized that thanks to him I had experienced the moon landing in a unique and very special way.
Wonderful. Worthy of a trip to Me 'n' Eds.
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