Farewell to Old Momma

     I was going through some old media, winnowing out the stuff that was obsolete; cassette tapes, video tapes and CD roms with names like "Windows '98 Operating System".  As I was putting this stuff in a box to be disposed of, I came upon a cassette labeled "Gone with the Wind".  It was a recording my dad had made sixty years ago.  My mom played Scarlett O'Hara and my dad played Rhett Butler.  Our Hawaiian maid played Mammie and my dad's secretary and best friend, Polly, played Melanie, Scarlett's best friend and her rival for her true love, Ashley.  Our older sister played one of Scarlett's sisters.  I and my brother (ages 5 and 7) had bit parts where, on cue from our dad, we would yell out in our pipsqueak voices, "Miss Scarlett!  Miss Scarlett!  I think that's Colonel Butler riding up!"  My favorite part of that little family recording was when my father drummed his fingers on the glass table that held the microphone.  He meant to simulate galloping horse hooves.  At the time he did it I remember thinking it was going to sound silly and unrealistic but I was wrong.  When we heard the tape played back, it sounded thrilling and life-like; not that I had heard had a lot of galloping horse hooves in my young life living on the beach in Hawaii.

Mary Nai'ole Alapahi our maid and family companion; proud of her pure Hawaiian ancestry.

     The recording was made in 1953 on a wire recorder as tape recorders were still a thing of the future for the average consumer.  A couple of years after that recording was made and our dear mother, old momma, as she came to be known to my brother and me, had passed on, I was sitting with my dad one day in the living room when he pulled out that old wire recorder and hit the play button.  Out came the tinny but very recognizable voice of our mother saying her lines as Scarlett.  Years later someone had that old wire recording transfered to cassette and I had one of the copies here with me.  When our dad heard old momma's voice on that recording, he leaned back in his chair and started sobbing.  I watched in awe and heartbreak as my father's chest started heaving.  I had never seen my father in such a state.  I started crying too.  I cried for my father's loss and for my own.  I cried as if my little heart was breaking.

While momma's home sick in bed, dad takes us boys and sister Mary Lynn to our favorite restaurant; Fisherman's Wharf.  I'll have the Mahi Mahi with extra lemons and tartar sauce, please; as usual.

Momma rallies from bed to join us in the living room for an impromptu jam session on New Year's Eve, 1953.  While brother Tom, in the foreground concentrates on his fingering of the ukulele, I'm staring dreamily off into space, wool gathering in my own little world.

     This little recording project had been made in our parent's master bedroom as my mother, by that time, was too sick to get out of bed.   A year or two earlier our mother had a large black mole removed from the nape of her neck.  It was a melanoma.  By the time we had moved to Hawaii, our mom had breast cancer.  She had already had one breast removed but the cancer had metastasized.  My father, who was a doctor, probably knew that the condition was terminal for our mother.  But all my brother and I were told was that momma was sick and had to stay in bed.  

     In retrospect, I should have known things were more serious than what we had been told because our sister was with us.  Our sister, who was actually our half sister, had taken the vows of a Dominican nun and was living in a convent in Spokane at the time.  As a novitiate, she was only allowed to leave the convent for dire family emergencies.  Mary Lynn, known to the convent by her new name, Sister Miriam, had been raised apart from our family in Hawaii.  Our mom had been formerly married to a fellow she grew up with on the northern plains of Montana, Joe Richie.  They had a daughter, Mary Lynn.  World War II offered a chance for them to get away from the desolate life that they had known in Shelby Montana.  

     Shelby was a little farm town about fifty miles south of the Canadian border.  The land was flat as far as the eye could see.  Because of its location the area was best known for growing winter wheat and the prevalence of a large clan of Hutterites, a hearty breed of farmers who were first cousins to the Amish and the Mennonites.  Words can't begin to describe the winters in Shelby.  Most days the temperature was well below zero.  Snow storms and howling winds would come barreling down from the arctic for months.  Our maternal grandmother was a fervent, God-fearing Catholic.  She had been a teacher in Shelby for many years and had struck the fear of God in many a young sinner.  Years later, my brother Tom and I visited our ancestral home of Shelby.  When the local townspeople heard that Mrs. Pettigrew's grandsons were visiting from San Franciso, we couldn't buy a drink in that town.  Wherever we went; and there really weren't that many places, grizzled old ranchers and farmers would buy us drinks and regale us of how they had had the holy hell scared out of them by their school marm, our grandma.  Woe to the young miscreant who was late or absent from school.  Mrs. Pettigrew would hunt them down and march them back to school by the ear informing them of the eternal damnation in hell that awaited them if they didn't straighten up; going to mass and confessing their sins would help a lot too.


Grandmother Pettigrew; the terror of Shelby, Montana

Four generations in Montana.  Our mother Eileen is the young mother on the left.  Our sister Mary Lynn is the young blond in the foreground.  Grandmother at the top.  Great grandmother on the right.

    Our mother, Eileen, was a bohemian, although she didn't know it yet.  All she knew was that the life of Catholic fear and sorrow that her mother had mapped out for her was not what she wanted.  Bright lights, big cities and cocktail bars was where Eileen wanted to be.  When the war came along, she saw her chance to get away.  Eileen and her husband and their young daughter got in the car and headed off to find their fortunes in the war effort.  They had heard that they were hiring in defense plants in some faraway city called Long Beach, California.  California, here we come!  They made it to Long Beach not much the worse for wear, however, our mom's husband had been hiding a secret from her and Mary Lynn.  He had a bad heart.  One day, they were driving around the gritty industrial heart of war-time Long Beach, checking out prospective employers.  Eileen, our future mother, was driving, her husband, Joe, was in the passenger seat and little Mary Lynn was seated between them.  All of a sudden her dad pitched over in her lap, dead of a massive heart attack.

Our mom with her first husband Joe Richie as newlyweds before the war.  Happier healthier times.

     They took the body back to Shelby for burial.  Eileen had already made up her mind to continue to seek her fortune elsewhere, but now she was a single mother.  A tough life decision had to be made.  Eileen's chances of escaping Shelby and making it on her own were going to be a lot easier without a young daughter in tow.  Grandma Pettigrew insisted that Mary Lynn stay with her in Shelby.  Grandma knew she had struck out with Eileen in terms of molding her into a God fearing Catholic but it wasn't too late to do so with her granddaughter.  After many heated discussions around the kitchen table our grandmother prevailed and Eileen reluctantly accepted the fact.  She left Shelby and her daughter and joined the war effort as a member of WAC, the Women's Air Corp. where she met and married our father who, at the time, was a newly minted MD and a dashing Captain and pilot in the US Army Air Corp.  After their wedding they drove up to Shelby to collect Mary Lynn.  The plan was for the three of them to drive across country, stay in motels and get to know each other as a newly minted family.  

     Grandma Pettigrew was devastated at the thought of losing her grandchild.  She didn't trust our "hard partying" mom and this new husband of hers to bring up her grandchild in a proper Christian tradition.  Granny followed the newly minted Mr. and Mrs. Stevens and their young daughter to the motel that night and pounded on the door demanding her grandchild be relinquished to her.  This went on for several nights as Stevens family continued to drive south, away from the northern plains of Montana and its stern God-fearing matriarch.  By about the third night my dad had had enough.  He and our mom decided to leave it up to Mary Lynn; stay with her mom and her new husband or go back to Shelby with Grandma Pettigrew.

     As my mother had been away for several years, Mary Lynn had felt abandoned.  In letters, Eileen promised that she would be home soon.  But as the war dragged on my mother stayed away and that mother daughter reunion was put on hold.  When her mother finally showed up with her new husband in tow, Mary Lynn had to admit to herself; she didn't really like this new guy, Bill Stevens and felt uncomfortable with his over eager attempts to get close to her. After some agonizing, she decided to return to Shelby with her grandmother.  Eileen and Bill ended up in Honolulu Hawaii with their new family, my brother and I.  Our sister stayed in Montana living in the house with velvet Jesus pictures on all the walls and eventually, to our grandmother's great joy, donned a wedding dress and a gold wedding band and at a Catholic seminary in California, she knelt at the altar and married Jesus Christ.

     And now, less than a year later here she was reunited with her "other" family.  As a big sister, twelve years older than me, she assumed a sort of foster mother/baby sitter roll with my brother and me.  It was wonderful to have her with us and it helped to salve the wounds of dealing with our mother's sickness.  Then one day momma took a turn for the worse.  I heard an ambulance with siren blaring park in our driveway.  The next thing I knew two men dressed all in white were hurrying through our living room into the bedroom where our mother lay.  They were carrying a stretcher.  In a moment, as I watched from the living room couch, terrified and devastated, they carried our mother out in the stretcher and slid her into the back of the ambulance and took her to the hospital.  She would not return.  Now that our mother was gone, our sister's bereavement leave was up and she had to return to her seminary.  

     The day of her departure, I was lying on my side on the living room sofa, pretending to take a nap.  I couldn't handle losing my mother and my sister both at the same time.  As I lay there with my eyes closed I felt someone lean over me.  It was Mary Lynn saying goodbye.  I felt something warm and wet drop into my ear.  It was years later that I figured out that it was a tear. 

 Mary Lynn and her brothers.  Her last visit to see her dying mother before heading back to the convent.  We wouldn't see our sister again for many years

     Our mother was now in the cancer ward at Queen's Hospital in Honolulu.  When my father would go to the hospital to see her, Tom and I were dropped off on the big lawn in front of the building.  We would play among the huge banyan trees on the lawn waiting for our dad.  Soon we would hear his shrill whistle coming from the open third floor window of momma's room.  It was his signal to us to stand under the window.  As we stood there looking up, our mother's face would appear at the window.  She looked down at us, smiled sadly and gave us a weak wave.  I could barely hear her voice as she said, "I love you boys".

     Several evenings later Tom and I were on our parents bed while our dad read "Charlotte's Web" to us.  He had just got to the part where Charlotte was dying.  I remember crying about that when the phone rang.  Our father picked it up and had a short and quiet conversation with someone and hung up.  "Boys, I'm afraid momma's not going to make it through the night.  I'm sorry."  I lay there on that bed where my mother had lain just days before, and cried my eyes out.  First for the death of Charlotte and then for the loss of my mother.  By morning, she was gone.  Farewell, momma.

      Mickey da Mayor of Happy Acres

     

     

Matt the Cat's Improbable Musical Oddysey

     One of my housemates has one of the small bedrooms downstairs in the main house.  He works as a waiter at a very popular fish restaurant in Sausalito called, amazingly, "Fish".  He is also an ardent, and very skillful surfer.  When he's not "fishing" or surfing or wandering the aisles of our local Whole Foods Market looking for the best deals and muttering about how much the prices have gone up---behavior I have personally observed---he is in his little cloister at Happy Acres either watching the internet surf cameras or PBS TV or he is writing on his computer.  He lives a quiet, some might even say ascetic life.  He doesn't have a girlfriend, doesn't date and doesn't socialize with anyone but an old school friend who he sees maybe twice a year.

Here's Matt when he used to help with the vegetable garden and the chickens.  That's the old homestead's original dairy milking barn in the background.

     He would be considered a catch if he put himself out there as he is ruggedly handsome, has a great physique and is imbued with all the boy scout virtues.  He has also shown talent in the past in various arts.  Matt's life was not always so circumscribed, for he once was a truly swinging guy.


Here's two copies of watercolors Matt painted back in the early nineties.  They adorn the wall of one of our kitchen counters.

These are gifts to the mayor when Matt was in his paper mache period.

     When I first met Matt thirty-four years ago, he was living in the house next door with a couple of other bachelors.  Upon our first meeting, he was loading up a pick-up truck with music equipment. He explained to me that he headed up a trio of piano, stand-up bass and drums called the Matt Cassell Trio.  He played mostly swing tunes on the piano and sang.  He came off, on that first meeting, as kind of cock-sure, boasting of how he could walk into pretty much any night club in San Francisco; sit down at the piano; belt out a few tunes, and instantly get a gig for him and his music mates.

     I could tell just from listening to him talk that he had an impressive set of pipes and I could well imagine that he probably sounded very good singing and playing.  His father had been in radio here in the Bay Area back in the day and Matt had inherited his voice.  "When I was just a kid in junior high", Matt once told me, "an older girl in our school came up to me and said, "you know Matt, you're gonna break a lot of hearts with that voice of yours"".  He invited me and my lady friend to come hear him play at the Pied Piper Room at The Palace Hotel.  

     The Pied Piper Room was one of the older swanky watering holes in The City, made famous by a large Maxfield Perrish painting of The Pied Piper over the bar.  So one night my lady friend and I took him up on his offer.  We were treated to Matt's wonderful renditions of "Mack the Knife", "Heaven, I'm in Heaven", "Come Dance with Me", "Minnie the Moocher" and other popular swing tunes of a bygone era.  Matt's trio was tight and they were swinging and Matt's singing did not disappoint.

     By the late nineties, the constant hauling of gear and schlepping to various venues around the Bay Area was getting to the fellas.  The bass player had a pretty good day gig and his wife was agitating for  him to give up the band.  Soon thereafter, the band packed up their instruments and called it quits.  Matt embarked on a career as a resource teacher at the local middle school here in Mill Valley.  His job was to look after the mentally and physically challenged "special ed" kids.  The school was thrilled to have Matt's masculine presence at the school and he was instantly drafted into outdoor lunch and recess monitor duties, aided ably by his stentorian voice.  A couple of bellows from Matt, out on the playground, usually brought the miscreants quickly into line.

     Back in the late seventies Matt, sporting a lion's main of rock-star hair, had aspirations of musical stardom.  He had written a bunch of songs and recorded several albums in a local studio in the Palo Alto area where he grew up.  With a bit of self promotion and his dad's radio connections, he managed to get a decent amount of local air play.  Since his records were self produced, he only pressed about a thousand copies and they eventually all sold out in local record stores.  Then, like so many others before him, interest in his music slowly died out and Matt hired out as a singer/piano player, eventually forming his own trio.


The cover of a three song CD that Matt recorded live at a venue in Palo Alto.  He's doing his best impersonation of Frank Sinatra...

This is the back cover from Matt's second album.  Nowadays, the pipes are still there but the hair is gone.

     Around the early 2000's, Matt was renting a room in a lady's house here in Mill Valley.  Every afternoon after school he would come up to Happy Acres to hang out with me and have a smoke (strictly forbidden in his rented room) and a drink.  I had a pretty sophisticated music recording system set up on my computer and Matt recorded several of his newer tunes in my living room.

     One day, Matt came bounding up the back stairs to the living room at Happy Acres, where I held court, and breathlessly exclaimed, "Dude!  You're never gonna believe what happened to me today!"  Because Matt had enjoyed some air time back in the day with his self-produced albums, he had an account with ASCAP, one of the groups who monitor the airwaves for their client's music.  They bill the radio stations and send a check to the artist.  Matt, who hadn't heard from ASCAP in some time, was holding a letter that had been forwarded to him by ASCAP.  It read, and I liberally paraphrase here:  "Dear Mr. Cassell, I am a young hip-hop producer down in Hollywood.  Me and my music buddies down here and back in New York think that you are the bomb!  A buddy of mine out in Phoenix was going through his old records out in the garage and he found your first album "Heaven". He sent me some MP-3s of your tunes and I was knocked out with your great tracks and your bitchen voice.  I sent it around to some other producers and DJs and they agreed.  I don't know if you are still playing.  Heck, I don't even know if you're still alive but if by chance you get this letter, I would be thrilled to hear from you."  

     So Matt called the phone number in the letter and talked to the letter writer.  "Hello, this is Matt Cassell.  Is Dwayne there?" (arbitrary name).  "Matt Cassell?  Matthew Larkin Cassell?" said the breathless voice on the other end of line.  "You got my letter!  I'm so stoked!  What are you doing these days?  Are you still into music?  I would love to use some of your tracks as samples under some hip-hop tunes I'm producing."   Matt was genuinely touched by this young man's enthusiasm and said he'd be interested to hear how his old tunes were going to be utilized in this new musical genre that was so different from the tunes' original jazz-rock format.

     Within weeks, Matt started hearing from old music buddies that they had heard tunes on the radio with his old song "Heaven" sampled underneath some rap songs.  Eventually Matt hired a local entertainment lawyer to pursue royalties and penalties for using his music, (which had been copyrighted), without his permission.  One rap duo in Southern California called "The People Under the Stairs" had had some success with a tune using Matt's material.  He got the name of the record company that had put out the group's single and was finally able to locate and talk to one of the duo's rap artists.

     They sounded very apologetic on the phone and professed to ignorance about the provenance of the sampled tracks.  When Matt asked them where they had found his old record they told an amazing story.  The two guys had been traveling down in Mexico with a camera planning on shooting stuff they might be able to use in a music video.  One day, they found themselves at a small flea market outside of Mexico City.  The flea market was being held in front of a women's prison where the purveyor's were trying to raise funds for the incarcerated.  In most Mexican jails, you have to pay the jailer's to provide food for the inmates.  While going through the merchandise for sale, they spotted an old album with a black and white picture of a cat called "Matt the Cat".  They were intrigued enough to buy the record, thinking it was some local Mexican wanna-be rocker.  

     When they got home and played the record what they heard instead were the dulcet tones of our very own Matt Cassell.  They loved what they heard and  promptly "borrowed" one of Matt's old tracks to sample under their rapping.  Matt also contacted some other rap producers that had sampled his tracks without his permission and had his lawyer write them to try and collect for "damages".  The official fine for using someone's copyrighted music  without permission is $ 150K.  None of these struggling little labels had that kind of scratch so Matt had to, mostly, settle for the comfort of knowing that several current rap artists thought enough of his music to sample it.  Though not credited or compensated, Matt was getting air play again after all these years.

     One of the record producers was a fairly stand-up guy and, though he couldn't pay Matt for his transgressions, he offered to re-release all Matt's old music along with some of his modern tunes.  Eventually a double CD of Matt's music was released and was subsequently picked up for air-play in various far flung places all over the world, including a college radio station in Sydney, Australia.  He was the featured track on an album called "The Kings of Digging" which was comprised of obscure but quality tracks from the past.  A trio of Japanese girls calling themselves the Nubian Slaves featured his music on a radio show they had.  Eventually a Japanese label called Pea Vine put out a CD of Matt's music.  Today, if you Google "Matthew Larkin Cassell" you will get over 150,000 hits.  A rap and hip-hop producer of some note back in New York wanted to re-record some of Matt's old music and even had evoked some interest from Jay-Z, avowedly the biggest fish in the hip-hop world.

     Although nothing ever came of those connections, a different phenomena regarding Matt's music came about.  There is a group of music aficionados who look for buried treasure in the bins of old albums in used record stores.  Through word of mouth, Matt's old records quickly became valuable collector's items.  One day Matt came bounding up the back stairs, kind of like the last time, with more breathless news.  One of his original records had just sold on e-bay for $ 1,325!  Soon, several copies of his first two albums started showing up on e-bay and none of them sold for less than $ 700.  Matt still had some of his old records and he was able to cash in on the collector's craze.

     By this time word of this implausible musical odyssey of Matt's had gotten to the editor of the entertainment section of Marin County's local paper, The Independent Journal.  Paul Liboratore, the long-time music critic for the paper, came out to Happy Acres to interview him.  He also took some pictures of Matt with his piano keyboard and one of him crossing the street carrying his surfboard.  Soon after the article came out (he was headlined on the front page of the entertainment section with several color pictures), one day while he was walking into our local Whole Foods, a late model black BMW pulled up alongside Matt.  The driver rolled down his window and exclaimed, "Hey, aren't you that guy who was in the IJ the other day?"  Matt had been briefly plucked from obscurity for another fifteen minutes of fame.  Although his old songs had become popular all over the world, the songs were being passed from fan to fan via MP-3 format with nothing in it for Matt.  Like so many others, Matt found fame but not fortune on the internet.  Although he does get the odd and very modest royalty check from his re-releases.

Here's one of the pictures featured in our local newspaper.

Matt, at one of our parties a few years ago, in the process of saying goodbye to his hair...

Matt, with his shaved head proudly shining in the sun, playing his guitar on the back stairs outside his bedroom at Happy Acres.

     Matt's story eventually caught the attention of the long-time music critic for the SF Chronicle, Joel Selvin.  For decades, Joel had been chronicling the music of people like Santana, Journey, the Grateful Dead, Boz Scaggs and the like.  Joel called Matt, who by now was living here at Happy Acres.  "Hey Matt, this is Joel Selvin from the Chronicle.  Is this really true what I've been hearing about your music?"  Matt responded that, yes, it was all true.  "Fuck" said Mr. Selvin, "Looks like I'm gonna have to come out to Mill Valley and interview you."  Joel made it clear that the only reason he was interested in such a small musical fish like Matt was because of the back story.  So one day Joel Selvin and a Chronicle photographer came out to Happy Acres, interviewed Matt and took some pictures.  A few weeks later Matt got the same treatment in the SF Chronicle that he had in the Marin County IJ.

     Since then, Matt has recorded some of his new tunes at a music buddies local studio.  He put together a little ad hoc band and performed a couple of times at one of our local watering holes here in Sausalito called "The No Name Bar".  However, it was a one time deal and Matt had no aspirations of trying to resurrect his music career.  Every now and then someone will stop him and say, "Hey!  Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"

     Here are some lush vocal stylings from Matt, the cat, Cassell.  Enjoy!  I sure do.  

     Mickey da Mayor of Happy Acres

Here's a link to Matt's Wikipedia page.  He is written about in the Huffington post.  If you go to the article there is a link to a YouTube recording of one of Matt's early recordings.  Just copy and paste the web sites below and paste in to your favorite search engine and you'll find more material on Matt and links to a bunch of MP3's of some of his tunes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Larkin_Cassell

Here's a link to a comprehensive discography of his double CD:

http://www.stonesthrow.com/store/album/matthewlarkincassell/the-complete-works

     

      

Brother Timmy VS The Water Spa

     Otter Views - Water Spa Too Soothing

Tom Stevens for CST

A friend’s aching back sent us on Sunday to verdant Carmel Valley, where one tennis ranch operates as a public amenity an aquatic spa called “The Refuge.” 

For $39 plus tax, any law-abiding person owning a swim suit and flip-flops can take the waters, perspire in steam rooms, and recline by fireside in comfy lounge chairs. For an additional $12, you can rent a deluxe Hugh Hefner-style white terry cloth robe.

My Hefner phase lost to recall, I eschewed the robe in favor of a loose cotton shirt and a high tuck of the complementary pool towel. Luckily, few mirrors or reflective surfaces accost spa patrons. The Refuge is all about feeling good in the body you brought, even if it differs from the one you thought you remembered.

To that end, the spa employs a near-Babylonian arsenal of body pleasing stress-reduction systems. Stream-fed hot and cold soaking pools abound, as do fire pits ringed by comfortable patio chairs. Separate benched chambers offer salutary blasts of Saharan dry heat or Amazonian steam. Yet other rooms soothe spa patrons with ergonomic sling chairs and discreetly piped-in New Age flutes.

The discreet flutes are part of a thoughtfully calibrated sonic environment designed to still the inner rabble rouser and let relaxation commence. The soft whuffling of the patio gas fires mingles with bird song. Breezes rustle in the trees overhead. From all sides comes the hypnotic thrumming of mini waterfalls splashing into hot and cold pools. 

Should this artful susurration somehow fail to induce tranquility, a picket line of posted signs reminds patrons to “Respect the Silence.” I liked that sentiment and felt moved to comment on it.

“Totally the reverse of what’s going on in Congress right now!” I began. “Outrageous! Did you read about that latest . . .”

“Shhhhh,” my friend whispered. “You’ll bring on stress.”

Actually, I should have come to The Refuge packing more stress. As the day went on, our successive immersions in hot pools, cold pools, saunas and steam rooms left me in a torpid bliss state I can only call “stress debt.” Thankfully (and probably only temporarily), my present life includes so little stress the first hot pool exhausted it all. Everything after that was stress gravy.

Lying in an ergonomic chair at one point, I gazed idly up at blue sky, puffy white clouds and sun-dappled treetops. I tried to reflect upon the many stress-wracked periods of my earlier life when I could have made better use of The Refuge, but I lacked the energy. 

“Stress is wasted on the young,” I observed. “My life has such a low aggravation metric these days, I feel like a charlatan basking in all this comfort. I should probably just stay home and take a nap.”

“Shhhh,” my friend whispered, pointing to the nearest Respect the Silence sign. “Don’t worry about it. I have enough stress for two.”

Yet as our visit lengthened, even that proved insufficient to counter the spa’s many blandishments. Among these is a regime of heat-cold-rest-and-repeat treatments which, if followed scrupulously, leaves the patron’s body tingling all over with soft electric fire.

In Finland and Siberia, sauna bathers whip themselves with birch branches and roll in the snow to achieve the same effect. In Carmel Valley, the “double cold” pool does the trick. Perhaps to avoid the stress of lawsuits related to cardio-pulmonary failure, The Refuge thoughtfully posts little pictographs at each water feature.

The icon with two yellow suns indicates a pool with hotter water than a pool with just one sun. Blue spheres – possibly ice planets? – indicate the cold pools. The pools with one ice planet are about the same temperature as the ocean hereabouts, that is, barely tolerable. The two ice planet pools are considerably more Arctic. 

The tingliest “double cold” pool greets patrons exiting at a loopy stagger from the sustained furnace blast of the spa’s sauna or steam room. Spotting the pool’s limpid waters, inviting blue tiles and helpful stair rail, the superheated spa-goer happily descends three steps before the frigid shock locks in. By then, it’s too late. You’re chest-deep in a clear, fiery, icy liquid that resembles water in fluidity only.

According to the spa’s tri-fold brochure, double cold pool immersion should last “five to 10 seconds” on average but “no more than 60 seconds.” I was about to remark on this, but I’d already been in for 10 seconds and could no longer breathe. A full minute in there would probably relieve all stress, permanently.

Near the end of our visit, The Refuge filled up with patrons who didn’t need midriff-hiding towel tucks. These were lean and sinewy marathoners who had just finished Sunday’s Big Sur race. The pools and saunas beckoned, but the runners all took seats on the patio, pointed their feet toward the fire rings, and fell gratefully asleep.

Their silence was respected.

Baby Shoes

     Even as a young girl, I knew I wanted to be a mom.  My young girl friends and I would throw elaborate tea parties in my back yard.  My parents, as my fervent Christmas wish one year, had bought me a complete children's tea set.  It consisted of a small table with folding legs, four small but tasteful chairs and a tray with a tea pot, four cups and saucers and pots for sugar and cream.  In the flush of that Christmas morning, my mother had even offered to make tea for me and my girlfriends.  I don't think that ever happened because all we were interested in was make-believe tea parties and fussing over our dolls.  To us they were our babies.  Each of us had a little baby carriage to ferry our dolls around in.  My girlfriends had girl dolls, one was a Barbie, as I remember.  The female dolls were prissy and precious with alabaster skin, long lustrous hair that could be brushed for hours, and startlingly realistic eyes that rolled back in their heads when you laid the dolls horizontal.

     Although my parents and a few other well meaning relatives had given me various dolls in my youth, the one doll that I had specifically asked for and had received was a boy doll.  Looking back on it now, I remember that his face looked like a cross between Howdy Doody and Alfred E. Newman of Mad Magazine fame.  He had reddish-brown hair, blues eyes, a smattering of big brown freckles and a lovely smile.  He came dressed in a pair of OshKosh denim overalls with a little red neckerchief around his neck.  He also had two tone brown and tan oxford shoes that actually laced up.  He was my baby boy and I loved him as much as I loved my own mother.  His name was Tom; I always referred to him as "my Tommy boy".  The girls made fun of my infatuation with my Tommy boy but I didn't care.  I knew I was practicing for the day when I would have a real live Tommy of my own.

     I didn't want him riding around in a doll carriage like my friend's girl dolls, so for my birthday the next year, I got my parents to give me a little tractor and a small plastic pony.  That way, at some tea parties my Tommy boy was a farmer, at others, he was a cowboy.  He looked equally at home on either the tractor or the pony.  I was so proud of him.  In my mind he was now developing a personality and a future.  It may seem like my parents were indulgent towards me but that would be wrong.  Once I had my Tommy boy doll and his accoutrements I was happy and content.  Looking back, I realize that I made it real easy on my parents when it was gift giving time.  Something for Tommy boy was all I wanted.  Over the several years that I was still in the doll stage, Tommy boy received a tool belt, a cowboy hat and even a little fire engine I could stuff him in, in case he wanted to be a fireman when he grew up.

     After a few years and puberty loomed over me and my girlfriends they put away their dolls and that was the end of our afternoon tea parties.  The tea set was stashed in the attic and later, quietly given to The Goodwill by my mother.  Although the girls were now more interested in make-up, training bras and boys, I never abandoned my Tom.  He sat quietly in his overalls and oxfords on a shelf next to my bed.  When the girls came over to talk about boys and short skirts, they would tease me about still having my doll next to me.  I didn't mind taking their ribbing, they would never understand the bond that Tommy and I had.  Sometimes, even into my early teens, I would pick up Tommy boy and sit him in my lap in bed.  I would tell him my troubles (sore breasts, periods, etc.) and we would talks about his hopes and dreams for the future.

     As I progressed through high school I slowly got into other things.  I joined the glee club and I had several fairly prominent rolls in school plays.  It seemed I was a natural at acting as I had had a whole life as an imaginary mother.  I even had a few boy friends.  I really enjoyed kissing and my growing breasts were no longer sore and I enjoyed the attention they got from my boy friend's roving hands.  I was ecstatic when they finally unhooked my bra and lavished their hands and lips on my breasts.  I loved nothing more than to be making out with my boyfriend while he caressed my breasts.  It gave me a tingling feeling between my legs although I wasn't going to allow these eager beavers to get to third base.  I knew how easily that could lead to trouble.

     When I got to college I finally, and quite willingly, gave up my precious virginity.  After all, this was the next step to becoming a mom.   I liked my college boyfriends well enough and I enjoyed the physical pleasure they gave me but I never really loved them.  I never felt the way I'd felt as a young girl towards my little Tommy boy.  This caused some hurt feelings as several of these boys professed their undying love for me, usually right before they orgasmed.  I had my impending motherhood to look out for and I wasn't about to get entangled with a serious boyfriend at this stage of my life.  I had gone to the student health center when I first got to college and started taking the pill so there wouldn't be any accidents.

     After I graduated, armed with my shiny new degree in accountancy, I got a job in an office.  For several years, I applied myself gamely to the world of corporate finance and enjoyed several promotions.  In my job search I looked for a company with a very generous maternity policy because I planned to use that perquisite to its fullest extent once I became pregnant.  Sometime in my mid twenties I felt that I was ready to fulfill my ultimate destiny of motherhood.  I realized that more than another boyfriend or even a husband, what I really wanted was a sperm donor.  Several of the girls in the office tried to interest me in single guys that they knew, but I didn't want anyone too close to home.  I joined a Gym across town and started trolling for my "baby daddy".  I only went in after work and sometimes on the weekends.  My workouts consisted of walking the treadmill or bouncing up and down on the elliptical machines.  I was always on the lookout for my "special guy".  I knew what I wanted; someone big and strong with an athletic build, handsome but not to the point of vanity.  After all, I was fairly good looking with a decent figure but I was no one's idea of a runway model.  To get what I wanted I needed to find someone who would be attracted enough to want to date me.  When I spotted a potential mate I would sidle up next to them and ask them to show me how to use one of weight machines.  Over a period of about a year I managed to get several of these target males to go out with me.  During these first dates I would casually inquire about their backgrounds; were they college graduates; what kind of job did they have;  did they get along well with their parents and their siblings; was there any serious illnesses in the family like cancer, alzheimer's or alcoholism.

     Finally I settled on a guy who had all the desired prerequisites.  Like Goldilocks and her porridge, my new boyfriend was not too hot and not too cold but just right.  We settled into a comfortable relationship.  Sometimes he would stay over at my place, sometimes we would end up at his.  He had a graduate degree in engineering and had a good solid job in town.  He didn't know any of my girlfriends from work.  He had been on the rowing team and the lacrosse team in college.  He was good looking; tall and well built and had a very pleasant personality.  He loved his family, was kind and generous and had a sentimental streak that I found very lovable.  I told him that I was on the pill and we could have natural sex without worrying about consequences.  When I decided that he was to be the father of my baby I quietly stopped taking the pill.

     About six months later, I didn't get my usually regular period and took a pregnancy test.  When the little strip turned blue I was over the moon with joy.  Finally the time had come to fulfill my destiny.  I was going to be a mother.  Over the next several months, before I started to show I began to withdraw from my affair with Adam.  I feigned boredom and the occasional bouts of irritability.  When Adam asked me what was wrong I told him that I didn't really feel the love towards him that he deserved.  I explained that it wasn't him; it was me.  I wished him well in the future and assured him that he would find a good woman who would give him the love that he deserved.  Poor Adam, he really was a good man but he would never know that he was to be the father of my child.  I saw to it that we parted company amicably and I went back to the single life.  But everything had changed.  My future pride and joy was slowly growing in my womb and I was thrilled beyond words.  I loved being pregnant and the changes that it brought to me.  I went through the usual period of morning sickness but I didn't mind.  I knew that it was all for a good cause.  I was going to be a mother.

     When I was far enough along, I went to a well regarded Ob/Gyn doctor.  She was warm and welcoming and had a lovely bedside manner.  She was a mother herself and confided in me the joys and occasional tribulations of having a baby and bringing up a child.  I requested an amniocentesis to screen for any prenatal problems but secretly I was more interested in the sex of my baby.  I wanted, no, I had my heart set on, having a healthy baby boy; just like my Tommy boy had been for me in my youth.  Luckily I didn't have to contend with the idea of abortion because my fetus was a male.  There were no signs of possible genetic abnormalities and later the sonograms showed a healthy and vibrant male baby was growing in my womb.  As the months went by and I got bigger, I followed all the rules.  I had already stopped drinking my occasional glass of wine.  I maintained a healthy diet.  I was thrilled every time my Tom started kicking inside of me.  I knew that he was progressing nicely towards the day of his birth.

     At first my parents were disappointed that I chose to raise the baby by myself.  In tandem, they would talk about the importance of a nuclear family and the role model that a loving mother and father would provide for a child.  In private, my mother admitted that the love had run out of their marriage long ago and she didn't see any problem with being a single mother.  After all, I had a good job with a very generous maternity leave package and she would be around to take care of the baby when I went back to work.

     Finally the big day came and my water broke.  I called my mother and told her it was time.  She rushed over in her car and drove me to the hospital.  My pre-birth routine was pretty standard for a first time mother.  Six hours of cervical dilation and a series of painful contractions.  When the big moment arrived my doctor and the maternity nurse told me to push with all my might and don't forget to breathe.  I had taken all the usual prenatal classes but there is nothing that anybody can tell you that can describe the pain of childbirth.  When Tommy's little head appeared I gave out with one last agonizing cry and my biggest squeeze and I felt my womb empty as my baby slipped out into the nurse's waiting hands.  I was filled with joy and tears of relief when I heard Tommy's first cry.  The umbilical chord was snipped and tied, the baby was sponged off and this tiny pink bundle was handed to me, swaddled in the baby blue cashmere blanket I had chosen for him.  "Congratulations, Laurie!  You have a healthy baby boy!"

     I looked down at Tommy's formless little face with his eyes closed.  He had a smattering of brown hair plastered against his tiny little head.  I gathered him to my bosom and peppered that little head with the first of what I knew would be a billion kisses to come.  As I teased a nipple into his mouth and he began to suckle I was overcome with such deep feelings of love and joy that I knew that words could never explain them.  The next day, still sore and exhausted but wildly happy, mom drove me home to start my new life with my little Tommy boy, my pride and joy and the ultimate love of my life.

     The first few months were exhausting and I felt the deep fatigue and sleep deprivation that only a new mother can know.  Luckily Tommy was a "good" baby and didn't cry much.  He stayed healthy and didn't develop any of the complications that can plague a newborn.  My days and nights consisted of holding my naked baby against my naked body; feeding him every several hours.  Then we would both grab a nap for several hours.  After a change of diapers the cycle would begin again.  I didn't mind cleaning up after him and I loved it when I would nurse him.  My breasts loved the feeling of his little toothless mouth hungrily sucking the life giving milk from me.  Occasionally my mother would come over and spell me while I was relieved of "mom duty" to grab a few hours of sleep.

     As the months went by I was grateful that the periods between nursings and poopings became longer and so did our sleep cycles.  After Tommy's eyes opened we could really start to bond.  After his vision strengthened he started to really see me.  He would gaze into my face and I would give him a big smile and talk baby talk to him.  When I started to talk and rock him gently in my lap a huge smile would light up his face and I knew that he was beginning to feel towards me what I felt towards him; a bottomless well of total rapture and unconditional love.  While I was pregnant, I had watched all the wonderful YouTube videos of laughing babies.  I loved seeing the mother's playing the little games that would make their babies squeal with joy.  Soon, Tommy boy and I were playing the same silly little games.  "I'm going to tickle you Tommy, here comes mommy's finger!"  As my forefinger slowly made its way towards his tummy I could see the anticipation welling up in his face.  With a cry of triumph I would gently poke his round little tummy and he would erupt in a spate of squealing laughter.  Neither of us seemed to ever tire of this game.  I mean, who doesn't want to make their baby laugh?

Here's one of the many pictures I took of Tommy laughing with his mother.

     After five months my mother and my doctor tactfully suggested that it was time to put Tom in his own room.  I agonized at the sound of his cries at the cruel separation from his mommy.  Eventually he resigned himself to this new arrangement.  As much as I missed having my baby next to me I was relieved to get a little more sleep.  Each morning I would awake to the sound of gurgles and other baby noises coming through the baby monitor.  I couldn't wait to got into his room.  Opening the door to his room I would coo; "Hi Tommy boy!  Mommas here.  Are you glad to see your momma again?"  At the sound of my voice he would let out with a joyful squeal.  When I came to his crib and bent over to look at my beautiful baby boy he would let out with more squeals and a huge toothless grin as mother and child were once again united.  The picture above is what he looked like every morning when he first saw me.

     Anticipating his development, I started buying the clothes he would wear when he outgrew his current stuff that mostly consisted of diapers and T-shirts, booties and mittens.  The first item was a little pair of OshKosh denim baby overalls like my doll had worn and was still wearing in its place on the shelf on the night stand next to my bed.  It had never left.  The last thing I bought him was pair of baby shoes.  They were ivory colored and made of the softest calf leather I had ever felt.  I looked forward to the day I would put those shoes on my Tommy boy, waiting for those first few halting steps before he collapsed into my waiting arms.  I put those beautiful little shoes on the shelf next to my Tommy doll and would gaze fondly at them knowing what fun Tommy and I had in store when we could walk together, hand in hand.

     Late in his seventh month, I woke up one morning and I didn't hear him on the baby monitor.  I immediately became alarmed because that was so unlike my Tom.  With a growing sense of dread I crept into his room.  Tommy boy was lying there but when I called his name there was no response.  I thought desperately to myself that he must really be sound asleep this morning.  I knew as I approached his crib that something was dreadfully wrong.  He was deathly still and I couldn't hear him breathing.  There was a horrible bluish pallor to his skin and it was cold to the touch.  I lifted up one of his arms and helplessly watched it fell back to his side, lifeless.  I must have fainted at that point because the next thing I remember was getting up off the ground and my head hurt where it must have struck the floor.  I got up and looked in the crib and nothing had changed.  I tried to administer CPR but it was no use.  My baby boy, my Tommy, the absolute light of my life was gone.

     The medical examiner met with me after the autopsy.  He had the sad rheumy eyes of a cocker spaniel which well suited him to his duties; examining corpses and explaining to friends and family how their loved one had died.  It's called Sudden Infant Death Syndrome--SIDS--for short, and medical science has yet to come up with an explanation.  For some reason, some babies who appear perfectly healthy, just pass away in their sleep.

     After the funeral I took to my bed with the PJ's Tommy was wearing when he died.  I would lie there in my bed, sobbing softly while I inhaled the last fragrance of my baby.  After a few days, at the gentle urging of my mother and my doctor, I got up and got myself dressed.  I knew that I would never give up this last bit of his clothing but I determined to sell or give away everything else that was baby oriented; his crib; his bathinette; his stroller and his bouncy seat.  After those were gone I started selling the outfits that I had bought for his future that now he would never wear.  After the other items I finally parted with the denim overalls.  All that was left of my baby's canceled future was his pair of baby shoes.

     As I sat down to write out the ad to sell his shoes I suddenly remembered something I had heard about when I was in college.  Ernest Hemingway and several other writers were sitting around drinking one day when one of them challenged the others to come up with the shortest sad story they could think of.  The group went silent as they thought.  After a few minutes Hemingway said; "I've got it."  He wrote down six words on a piece of paper and passed it around to the others.  I knew that would be the classified ad I would place.  I proceeded to write down those words, the saddest words I could imagine:

     For Sale
     Baby Shoes
     Never Worn

   

Brother Timmy's long-ago summer job: Selling 0 magazine subscriptions

     Here's another contribution from brother Timmy; enjoy!

     Otter Views – No Experience Necessary

Tom Stevens for CST

There are times of year I briefly wish I were a teenager again, but April isn’t one of them. When I was a teenager, April was a time of fear. That’s because if you didn’t get a good summer job lined up then, you might have to answer an ad like this in June:

“High-paying summer jobs for clean-cut, self-motivated youths. Commission sales; no experience necessary. Call Mr. Snavely for appointment.”

The smart, strong and well-connected kids all had their jobs lined up in April. For young men of my era, construction work was the most highly prized, because it paid well and built strong bodies seven ways. 

The construction jobs went fast, usually snapped up by guys who had relatives in the trades. You could recognize these guys at the start of the next school year, because they had acquired big muscles and their own cars.

They walked differently, too. They had proven their mettle to tough, leathery foremen called “Blackie” or “Bull.” They had withstood the hazing of older co-workers, learned to play Texas Hold ‘Em, and been welcomed into the lifelong sodality of labor. 

I applied for a few of those jobs the April I was 15, but it was a Catch-22. You couldn’t get hired unless you had experience, and you couldn’t get experience unless you got hired. The construction company receptionists turned up their hands: Sorry, kid. Way it is.

Aside from yard work and household chores, my only “prior work experience” had been as a hospital emergency room volunteer the previous summer. There I mainly mopped up blood and fluids, but occasionally I helped check patients in. Clipboard and pencil in hand, I would coax vital information from frightened people in pain (“How do you spell your last name?! Why are you here?!”).

Once I had watched the ER docs push some loops of small intestine back into a stabbing victim. But a year later, I didn’t figure that experience would put me in the driver’s seat of a D-9 bulldozer at the construction site of my choice. 

There was also, at age 15, the little matter of wheels. Employers were more likely to smile upon an applicant who had “own transportation” than on one who came to the interview with a bus transfer coupon peeping ashamedly from his shirt pocket.

Mr. Snavely was the exception. He liked to see those coupons. That meant we couldn’t just drive away from the job. I ended up in Mr. Snavely’s office one June morning in 1962 because of pride. I had been too proud to accept my parents’ help in finding a summer job. I would find my own, thank you.

Along with a dozen other obstinate or desperate teens, I sat on a folding chair in a bare green room. We all leaned forward as Mr. Snavely described how clean-cut youths could make big money selling magazine subscriptions by giving away cookbooks. We also heard from a highly motivated team leader a couple of years our senior. He wore flashy rings and a really nice watch. 

The whole subscription caper is too elaborate to get into here. But the upshot was that every morning our little sales team would be driven by van to some military housing area. There we would fan out through the streets like Jehovah’s Witnesses, toting our cookbooks and subscription packets. 

Our prey was the young, harried enlisted wife; the one with her hair in curlers, a colicky baby on her hip, and Salems smoldering in a couple of different ash trays. We were to present ourselves as students working our way through school. If we could sell enough subscriptions, we would “win a typewriter!”

Our gambit was a “readership survey” of 48 popular magazines. The free cookbook was the bait. If she answered the survey, she got the cookbook AND a year’s subscription to ANY FOUR magazines on the list, “all completely FREE!” All she had to do was pay the postage.

It seemed like a good deal to me, but what did I know? I was 15. As it turned out, nine of ten enlisted wives already had more magazines than they could read or the baby could rip. The other one out of ten already had our cookbook.

I lasted two weeks. I walked miles, knocked on hundreds of doors, and sold no subscriptions. At the end, I was giving the cookbooks away just to lighten my load.

Mr. Snavely was disappointed, but by then he was busy training new clean-cut youths to replace those in the first batch who didn’t have what it took. We who didn’t slunk away to our bus stops, transfer coupons in hand.

At length I accepted the help of my parents, who knew someone who knew someone who was building a wall. I spent the rest of the summer lifting huge rocks for an angry mason at a hot, dirty, windblown job site. It was way more fun than trying to sell magazines.

Mickey and Timmy Build a House: The Finale

     What a relief it was to get that last window into place.  The next step was to sheetrock the interior walls and ceiling.  I had a little experience with sheetrock from building the studio bathroom.  There are a couple of things to keep in mind with sheetrocking a wall.  You have to measure precisely where the cutouts are for the junction boxes for the light sockets and wall sockets.  If the cutout lands in the middle of a sheet, you use a drill and a keyhole saw to make the interior cutout.  If you do it right it's a real thrill to put up the sheet and have it fit snugly over the box.  If it's off a little, an oversize cover plate might cover your sins.  Otherwise, start over again and be more careful about your measuring.  This is another place where having everything square makes the job so much easier.  The other thing about putting up sheetrock is the screwing process.  They make special sheetrock screws that are about an inch long.  You want to make sure that when you screw, the head of the screw just breaks the paper and snugs in below level of the sheetrock.  That way when you spackle all the screw holes, nothing sticks up and you get a nice monolithic surface.

     After a few fits and starts I got the hang of it and the drill went like this.  I would measure the next section to be rocked, I would use my utility box cutter to score one side.  I would break the sheet along the scored line; turn the sheet over; score the back and take the cut piece and hand it to Timmy.  He holds it up against the stud wall while I screw it into place.   I must mention that my brother, at this period in his life, did not use power tools.  This consigned him to the exalted position of "special day laborer".  He, of course, was invaluable because there are many jobs that need two bodies.  He was also very useful in cleaning up at the end of each day so that when we started work the next morning everything was swept clean and all prior day's construction debris and had been bagged.  The reason I say "special day laborer" was not only because English was his first language---hell, he'd majored in English at Williams College; his English was impeccable!---but also because I could bounce ideas off him and he always gave me great moral support.  Once his initial skepticism had disappeared, he got really excited about the project.  More than once I would hear him talking softly to himself, "We're building a house!"  Yes Timmy, we are.  

     Actually, much of the wall sheetrocking could be done by me alone.  One time I came in to do some sheetrocking while Timmy was toiling in the soil down in the garden.  I went up to a pile of sheetrock that was leaning against the wall.  I heard a faint chirping coming from behind the sheetrock.  When I went to see what was up, I found a little bird had gotten himself (herself, whatever...) trapped behind the stack of sheetrock.  I was able to, carefully, catch the bird.  I softly cupped him in my hands and walked out to the landing overlooking the garden.  "Timmy!", I bellowed, "Joe-Bob sez check it out!"  My brother looked up from his hoeing.  I raised my arms over my head and opened my cupped hands and low, the little birdy flew away to freedom.  Timmy gave me a rousing ovation.  I took that as a good omen.  

Installing the six foot sliding glass doors.  Nice view of the garden.  Notice one of our horses walking the garden fence, looking for an opening.

                     Studio tenant, Nancy, checking out my handiwork.                                  

     Indeed things continued to go pretty smoothly.  We had been going at it for some weeks now and my construction chops were in pretty good shape.  I wired the building with the help of "The Golden Book of Electrical Wiring" or some such.  I learned all about pig-tailing and the use of junction boxes.  I wired up light sockets and power sockets and switches.  I installed overhead lights that looked like albino mushrooms; perhaps another decorating faux pas.  I also installed dimmer switches to provide various stages of lighting ambience.  Later, after hearing comments from lady friends, I realized my lighting scheme was more suitable for a high school hallway or perhaps a correctional facility.  "Mike" one friend chided me, "today, especially here in Southern Marin, people use lamps to provide lighting.  Unless you're going with recessed lighting, overhead lights like yours are not only fairly useless but kind of an insult to a living space; unless you're looking for something small that you lost and you need a huge bath of light to help find it.  Don't worry, the new tenants will probably just ignore the lights and use their own.  They'll hardly be noticeable unless they look up..."

     The installation of the plumbing also went well.  I put in the toilet, the sink and the shower stall.  I went with a large vanity with a nice counter top and drawers on both sides.  I also splurged and got a large vanity mirror with multiple light sockets for the ladies.  I also installed a large medicine cabinet and a cupboard to use as a linen closet.  The one part of the plumbing I farmed out was the instillation of the hot water pipes.  Cold water can be done with plastic PVC pipe which is easy to work with.  Hot water must be done with copper pipes and the joints must be soldered.  Proper soldering of copper pipe joints is somewhat of an art with which I had zero experience.  I found a plumber, (a real plumber) who came in to do the copper pipes.  I asked him about what he thought about the rest of the plumbing.  He looked around and made a few suggestions about strapping pipes and the like.  His final opinion was that he thought  my plumbing job should hold up for a couple of years...

The landing leading to front/kitchen door.  Open, airy and light on the inside.  That's the fridge you see through the open door.

Part of the deck; all done in redwood.  Later we had a full grown bob-cat visit the deck while he was stalking our deer.

     The next big step was to install a string of outside lights to illuminate the walkway from the road down to the cottage landing.  This electric line had to be a double pole jobby with a switch at the top and a switch at the bottom.  Tenant comes home from a hard day's labor and it's dark.  He turns on the switch at the top, all the outdoor spots kick in, he sashays down the series of landings which lead to the cottage and turns off the lights from the cottage.  At the time, this series of landing were "steps" that were packed earth topped with shredded redwood bark held in place by a retainer board held in place with small rebar stakes, pounded into the ground.  Real concrete steps, along with other major changes, would come much later, after I had to finally comply with the county building and zoning regulations.  But that's another story...

     Figuring out how to wire a two-pole switch with a four wire electric line took all my mental acuity.  I puzzled over the diagram and descriptions in my "Golden Book of Electrical Wiring".  "There's three hot wires and a ground wire." I mused to myself,  "One is neutral and the red one and the green one are "hot".  Now what?"  I finally figured it out and now we had outdoor lights.  This was important.  There were about forty steps that had to be navigated from our street to the cottage.  The tenant couldn't park down below because that was the horse pasture.  It was tricky enough for me to get through the gate to the horse pasture in my truck by myself.  I had to unlock the gate, bump the gate backward with my truck, drive through far enough so the gate could swing back into place before one of the horses got out.  I would get out of the truck, push the horses out of the way and lock the gate again.  This could be a tricky operation as the horses often hung around the upper gate.  It was just down a bit from our street and often the local mothers would wheel their precious cargos down to the gate in their "Aprica Strollers" to show the kiddies the nice horseys and perhaps feed them an apple or some carrots.

     I had put out a sign instructing visitors that it was OK to feed the horses:  Stay out of the pasture and feed them over the gate.  Keep your hand flat when you give them something so they don't bite your fingers.  They will try anyway but as long as your hand is flat they'll just end up gnawing on your palm, which is not an unpleasurable experience.  They'll eat pretty much anything from the produce aisles including tomatoes.  Please don't feed them sugar.  Just like humans, it's bad for their teeth.

     Given the fact that Happy Acres, being an undeveloped homestead, built in the thirties which held, in succession:  dairy cows, ducks, pigs, horses, a bull and a cow (on the premises when I first moved in) and then more horses, the place was still a touchstone to the rural past of Mill Valley from a bygone era.  Our dowdy little "dog patch" was surrounded by multi-million dollar mega McMansions.  I was always somewhat concerned what the neighbors thought of the place.  That's why I liked having them come down to commune with the horses that I boarded here.  Whenever I saw a mom with stroller or toddler in tow, I made an effort to visit with them and explain about the place and how irritating it would be for them if the place were to be sold and to be developed into more McMansions.  We would all lose this precious link to the past.  Sometimes they bought it...  All in all, I lived here with horses for over twenty-five years and I still miss not having them here now.  The horses and all their antics will have to wait for another time.  Meanwhile, WE'VE GOT A COTTAGE TO FINISH!

     The other specialist I hired was a mud and tape man.  This was another craft that required some skill.  I had done my own mud and taping in the studio bathroom and it took a lot of effort on my part; spackle, let dry, sand and repeat.  I knew that a good mud and tape man (ok, ok, or woman...) could do it quickly and with vastly superior results.  At this point I must confess to the reader that not all the sheetrock joints came out perfect.  When Greg showed up I was a little apprehensive about these little gaps.  I pointed out my worst mistakes and asked him, "Greg, buddy, because I like you and I think were going to be friends, do you think these joints will tape?"  Greg walked the walls and stared up at the ceiling.  He looked at me and smiled.  "Mike, it's not the most professional job I've ever worked, but you did really well for an amateur.  Sure!  These joints will tape, no problem!"

     Greg had a hand-held gizmo that spread the tape over the mud and because he had been doing this for years, was finished in two days.  "I'll be back day after tomorrow to do a little sanding, will float a final finish coat, wait another day, do the final touch-up then you can paint.  When he was finished, the walls looked like one big smooth monolithic surface.  Now Timmy and I could attack the painting job.  My brother may not use a power saw but he can wield a paintbrush like L. da Vinci himself.  Soon the painting was done (some kind of egg-shell off white, as I remember).  I managed to install the wall to wall carpeting in the living room and bedroom bays with not too much trouble.  I laid down the tack strips all along the walls that would hook the carpet edge.  I rented a "knee kicker" to stretch the carpet onto the tack strips and amazingly, I ended up with a smooth, flat 24 X 24 foot wall to wall rug.  The final touch was to put the cover plates over the light and electrical sockets.  As I was doing this, suddenly I heard my brother bark, "Stop!  Look what you're doing!  You've left dirty smudges around the cover plates and also where you nailed in the floor molding.  Go wash your hands."  It was true.  The place was no longer a construction project where grubby hands (and shoes) were not a problem.  While I washed my hands, my brother sponged clean my smudges.  "From now on, you've got to be more careful", my brother chided.  He was right.

In a later remodel, I turned the downstairs into another room that is now used as the master bedroom.  

A view from upstairs leading down to the master bedroom via spiral staircase.

     So finally, the big day arrived with my first perspective tenants, who had seen my ad in the local paper:  "Come live with us on our three acre homestead.  You'll enjoy the company of horses and access to a large organic vegetable garden.  Splendid hiking trials are just up the street.  Despite living in a lovely rural environment, you're only twenty minutes from San Francisco.  The cottage is cozy and completely concealed from neighboring houses.  A unique living experience in Mill Valley.  The marine breezes from the ocean that's just over the hill keep us refreshingly cool in the summer months when others are sweltering..." (or words to that effect...).  Two women showed up and I gave them my best sales pitch (see picture below).  They decided that for various reasons---I think they mentioned the horses that were kicking up dust at the time, the view of the funky barn and the problematic access to the street---the place wasn't quite right for them but thanks anyway.

     Over the years, the cottage has seen about eight or nine tenants, and many more have come to kick its tires.  Invariably if it's a hetero couple, the guy digs the place because of its rural country flavor and the woman finds fault like the women mentioned above.  One day, as I was beginning to despair, (maybe I should lower the rent) a vivacious blond woman with a blond Labrador showed up at the door.  "Hi!  I'm Kate and I'm here about the cottage."  I prepared myself for yet another disappointment.  I had included a fenced off yard below the cottage and Kate loved it.  "Do you accept dogs?" she asked, hopefully.  At that moment, I had a little epiphany.  This place was perfect for dogs and renters with dogs always had a problem finding a place that would accept their pet.  "You bet Kate!", I enthused, "This place is made for a dog owner!  You've got your own dog yard right here, below the cottage."  "Yea!" she shouted gleefully and with that she gave me a big hug.  "Oh Stevie and I love it.  We absolutely adore it.  I'll take it, I'll take it!", exclaimed Kate.  "I can tell we're going to be the bestest of friends!"

Kate, her second dog and da Mayor hanging out at a friend's place

Kate and Mickey da Mayor, just drinking and smoking and enjoying making fun of each other.

        My first and favorite tenants, Kate and Stevie Wonder Dog         

     And just like that I had my first tenant in the little cottage that Mickey and Timmy built.  Kate was right.  We became the bestest of friends.  Looking back over the twenty plus years since she first moved in, I have probably spent more time with my beloved Katie that I have with any other person, including my girlfriend at the time.  In fact, I was probably the last person to see her before she passed away, peacefully, in her sleep.  It's been awhile, but still the tears quickly well up as I type these words.  I miss her every day.  Rest In Peace, you silly. 

     I leave you sadly, Mickey da Mayor of Happy Acres