Читать книгу Vignettes - Life's Tales Book Two - William M.D. Baker - Страница 7

The year is 1937. My dad is divorced and living alone in a small cabin called Colfax Springs adjacent to the Hetch-Hetchy Railroad tracks. In years past (1860—1915) the Eagle Hotel had stood where the railroad tracks, now also gone, once lay. Gone too, are the cabin and the spring where an unfailing supply of sweet cold spring water was available to thirsty travelers. Today, the wide sweeping curve of a modern highway has taken all this away. But, the memories of the cabin, the spring and the twisting road that ran down the steep slope to the Cliff House a mile away remain strong.

Colfax Springs Cabin and Spring House

As do the visions of William “Tug” Wilson and his sister, Nellie Bartlett. owners of the Cliff House (1924) and good friends of my dad. In the summer of 1938 my grandmother, “Mums”, took me to spend the summer with my dad. Mums, at the time, owned a 1924 Rickenbacker with a rumble seat in which I loved to ride. In 1938 Route 120, known as the Big Oak Flat Road, was a torturous climb for any automobile of the time. The road ran from Moccasin, up Priest Grade, to Groveland a climb of several hundred feet in a distance of about seven miles. Half-way up the grade was a cold spring that cooled many engines and cracked the block on others. Mum’s always stopped for water. On one occasion when I was riding in the rumble seat the twisting road made me sick to my stomach and I puked all over the rear of Mum’s car. She was very upset. So was I!

Mum’s 1924 Rickenbacker

Tug, Dad and I would on occasion go to Sonora to buy provisions and ammunition for the Cliff House which had become a Resort Hotel. On some evenings Dad would set a fire in the large fireplace and arrange the over-stuffed chairs in a semi-circle. Soon, the chairs would be filled with hotel guests. Dad and I would sit off to the side playing checkers until after supper when he would pull his well known stunt of throwing a couple of empty grocery boxes from off the back-porch onto the fire. The boxes would flare up, dramatically increasing the heat and driving one or more unsuspecting guests from their over-stuffed chairs. Dad would then flop down in one of the chairs and be secure for the evening. Those in-the-know would laugh or happily nudge one-another. On one night, after Dad had thrown the boxes on the fire and it had roared with renewed life there was a sudden bang, then another, then several, then all of a sudden the whole fireplace started blasting and banging with fire being thrown every way possible. Zing,, zang, zing the bullets flew as the fire erupted in an array of exploding shells. Everyone scrambled, taking cover from the flying embers and ricocheting bullets. Dad had forgotten to take the ammunition from the grocery box!!

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