Author: Tom Darby

North of Redwood Drive is the Trees of Mystery. Mom worked there for a number of years, in both the gift shop and in the ticket booth at the entrance of the trail.

At the time my best friend was Diana Webster. Her mom was married to Bill Thompson, the son of Trees owner, Mary Lee Thompson.

I used to venture up the highway to Diana’s house so we could play together.

She and I used to ride horse in the clearing jus’ south of the Blue Ox Café, which was next to the Trees Motel. Other times we ran around the woods jus’ being kids.

One day I went over to her house and discovered that she and her sister Sharon had a new toy; a light blue mini-scooter. They were racing it along the road from their home to the end of the street and around the caretaker’s house and back to their house.

They let me have a turn at it, even though I had never ridden one in my entire life. It kept it at a slow pace the first few times as I was worried I’d crash or something as I made the corners.

Soon we were each taking turns zooming down the road and back again. However I was still going the slowest as I was still unsure of myself.

That’s when Diana called me a sissy for “putt-putting” around the corners like I did. I couldn’t let her get away with that.

So my next turn, I revved up the scooter and took off. I flew down the road for all that little bike would go.

As I came into the first corner, I realized I was traveling way too fast. So I cut back on the power and tried to brake.

It wasn’t enough as the rear wheel hit the edge of the asphalt and dropped into the grass edge of the caretaker’s yard. The shift in the back-end of the scooter caused me to juice the gas and I took off straight, completely missing the second corner.

Next thing I know, I was flying through the bushes and tumbling down the hill, over the flowers that spelled out the first “s” in Trees of Mystery. Behind me was the scooter.

Both the scooter and I landed in heap at the bottom of the hill near the bumper of a car. And while we were both okay, Mrs. Thompson forbid me from riding the scooter any more as she was afraid I get myself killed.

Rememberin’ the olden days of my Grand Pappy’s youth,
Before the Super Highway and its Silicon Toll Booths,
When information was shared by word of mouth,
From neighbor to neighbor and house to house.

This seems worse than my hoss throwin’ a shoe.
With that, I’d know just what to do.
But this here ranchless work they call computin’
Stacks up hard with their brand of cowless commutin’.

And the only forkin’ I can do while hackin’ at this key-pad,
Is on my straight backed chair that pains my seat so bad.
How I long to toss my loop and take a twist and dally
While ridin’ all day long anywhere but here in this Silicon Valley.

It didn’t happen very often that I can recall, but Dad came home having had one too many. Worse yet he drove home like this.

He had called Mom to let her know he was at the Three-7’s NCO Club at Requa Air Station, drinking with the guys. This caused Mom to get her mad-on and she set about finding a way to “fix his wagon.”

By the time Dad pulled into the driveway, she had a stew dinner prepared for him. She was absolutely calm, so calm I was afraid to be in the kitchen near her, even though I had the chore of loading the dishwasher.

Dad sat down to his hot meal and he ended up eating two entire bowlfuls.

When he got up from the table, I took his bowl to the dishwasher to load it. It was this time that I noticed the empty can of Alpo Dog Food in the bottom of the kitchen garbage can.

The week before, I had been out of school, sick, so I didn’t know that playing marbles was no longer allowed since it was considered a form of gambling. However, I still had a large bag of marbles in my desk when I returned to school the following week.

Designed into the bottom of our desks at the time was a quarter-sized hole. It was there to help clean the desk out as tiny pieces of paper, broken pencil lead, staples and other garbage accumulated in the bottom of the desk.

As I was digging in my desk for a book, I moved the bag of marbles from one side to the other. I picked the bag up wrong and the little glass balls started falling out of the bag, into the bottom of my desk, and through the hole, bouncing off the floor.

It was complete disruption of the class and Mr. Kirby decided that I should go to the principal’s office after I picked the marbles up off the floor. He felt that I had disobeyed the new ruling that no one was to have marbles at school.

As was the rule, he called down to tell Mrs. Zwierlein I was on my way. That prompted Mr. Fizer to meet me in the hallway, jus’ outside our classroom door.

It was obvious that Mr. Fizer was angry. He yelled at me for disobeying him.

And as I started to respond that I had been out sick and didn’t know he had changed the rules, he grabbed me by the neck and shook me violently.

It was so rough that it caused the window by the classroom door to vibrate. Mr. Fizer let go of me, jus’ in time for me to see Jon Larson peering over the built in screen on the window to see what was going on.

He was standing on a chair, demonstrating to the class what the principal had done to me.

By the time I was seated in the office, Mrs. Zwierlein had called Dad. She told me that he was on his way and that she had explained to him what had happened.

A few minutes later he came into the school and asked to see Mr. Fizer. However Mr. Fizer refused to see Dad.

Dad yelled, “Bob, open the door now — or I’ll kick it in!”

Mr. Fizer still refused to answer, so Dad kicked the door as hard as he could. The blow caused the door to not only open, it popped the thing off its hinges and it crashed to the floor.

This frightened me so bad that ran out to the car. A few minutes later Dad came out to the car and he took me home for the day.

Jeff Morgan’s home was located jus’ east of my home. Inside, he had a World War II German helmet and my friend, Robin Kohse wanted that helmet. I agreed to get it for him because our life-long friendship was falling apart and I was willing to do most anything to save it.

Watching a friendship fade is hard on the heart and isn’t necessarily guided by common sense.

Getting into the Morgan’s home turned out to be more difficult than I thought it would be. I smashed a large rock against the sliding glass door, only to watch as the rock exploded into a thousand pieces.

While hiding in the nearby woods, I studied the situation. I noticed a window that wasn’t fully closed.

All that stood in my way was a window screen. After struggling with the screen, I finally got it off the window frame. Unfortunately I bent the screen so badly out of shape that it was unusable from then on.

Within a few minutes I had the helmet in hand and rather than going back out the window, I left through the front door. I also collected the damaged screen and left the scene of the crime.

That screen eventually found its way into a small pond in the middle of the pasture. It was the only thing I could think to do with it, even though there were acres and acres of forest surrounding me.

On my way home I was stopped by my next door neighbor, Marilyn Coke. She saw the helmet and wanted to know where I had gotten it.

Being put on the spot, I lied, telling her it was a mail-order item. Her husband, Bill would later ban me from coming over to his home or even speaking to his wife without first being addressed.

Two days later I still had the helmet in my possession when the dreaded knock on the front door came. It was Deputy Walt Woodstock and Jeff’s dad, Earl.

They knew I had the helmet as several neighbors watched me as I crawled into the Morgan’s home. Mrs. Coke also confirmed this since she had seen me with the helmet.

Mr. Morgan had with him the crumpled up screen as well. He was very angry with me and rightly so.

Never have I felt so low in all my life.

Adam and I were in the pasture picking black berries when we discovered a square-shaped hole dug into the ground. It was about 3 feet by 3 feet at the opening and around five feet deep.

It was located near the left field fence of the old baseball diamond, partially covered by brambles and other brush. We quickly turned it into our secret hiding place, dragging a piece of discarded plywood over to create a lean-too roof.

All the rest of the summer, we played combat and cowboy and Indians using the hole as a fort or fighting hole. Later we found a stack of old bricks and painted them gold in order to make them look like gold bars.

We stashed them in an old metal box in the bottom of our hiding place. Because of this, we started calling our hide-out, “Fort Knocks.”

Then one day, as summer was fading, an older neighbor boy named Steve Wolcott found us playing there. He ruined our fun by informing us what the hole really was and if we cleared back the rest of the brush behind the hole we’d know he was telling the truth.

After poking through the tangle of blackberry vines, tall weeds and grass, we found what he was talking about. In the vegetation, laying on its side, were the weathered and broken remains of an old outhouse.

Mom had jus’ purchased six lugs of apples from the traveling fruits and vegetables salesman. They were neatly stacked up in what had been our garage, but renovated into a family rumpus room.

Both Mom and Dad were gone to Eureka as it was a few weeks before Christmas. They left Adam and me alone while they were gone.

It was a mistake. We were bored as it was raining and we weren’t allowed to go out in it—even though we had already.

So, looking for something fun to do, we decided to take a green tomato stake and some fishing line and make ourselves a bow. The remaining stakes became our arrows.

Next we needed to find ourselves a suitable target. It turned out to be easier than we thought it would be.

When our folks got home and saw how badly we had shot up the apple boxes, we got one butt-whipping each. Then we spent most of the night peeling apples for Mom to turn into pies and sauce.

The sun had dropped behind the Sages Riddles by the time I came to the last deliveries in my paper route. They were down a steep, gravel road, 100 yards south of Redwood Drive.

Once finished and knowing I had to climb back uphill, I shifted to the lowest gear on my 10-speed. Then I stood up on my pedals and pumped as hard as I could.

A few seconds after reaching 101 and turning up the hill, a speeding pickup truck came over the rise. Leaning from the truck’s bed was a large cream-colored dog.

The dog and I had jus’ enough time to make eye contact, before our heads clacked together. The dog yelped, my jaw clicked shut and over the side of the hill I rolled.

My eyes were black, nose bloodied, lips like hamburger and my ears ringing. It took me a while to retrieve my bike and limp home.

And after explaining what happened and why I was later than normal, Mom responded, “Good thing you have a hard head.”

Both of my sisters, first Deirdre in 1967 and then Marcy two-years later, were born at Seaside Hospital in Crescent City. In order to pay for their births and Mom’s hospital stay afterward, Dad paid Dr. Kasper with a whole cow for each child he traded for with my Grandpa and Uncle.

What did our dad trade? Child labor — in the form of my brother and me.

The building at Redwood Drive and Highway 101, next to the former Yurok Volunteer Fire Department was originally used by Judge Hopper. But the good Judge had retired a few years earlier so the building was left unused for a while.

After a couple of years it became the business office for Bob White Realty.

However in the interim it was the community center for the small neighborhood. The center had a pool table, two or three pinball machines and a juke-box with all the current music in it.

My friend, Robin Kohse and I used to cop a few coins from my Dad’s cuss-jar and go down the street to the center to play pool and listen to tunes. Robin had even figured out how to turn the juke-box up so we could really enjoy the sound.

One late afternoon, the two of us were shooting a few rounds of pool and playing 45s from the juke-box. One of those 45’s was “Black Water,” by The Doobie Brothers.

It was one of my favorite songs and the only time I was able to hear “rock music,” besides at school or on the school bus. My parents only allowed two-kinds of music in the house: country and western.

When the song came on, the game of pool stopped and Robin and I started using our pool cues as guitars. As we strummed and sang the song at the top of our lungs, we also started dancing around the pool table.

We were so caught up in the music that we didn’t notice the figure standing in the doorway of the center. However as the music started to fade, I looked over to see Deputy Walt Woodstock watching us.

He had his arms folded across his chest, trying real hard to look tough.

Walt couldn’t hold himself back from smiling though as he started laughing. Then without a word, he turned and walked back to his patrol car.

Robin and I stood there watching out the windows of the center as Walt drove away. Then we looked at each other and started laughing until we couldn’t laugh anymore.

Evidently we didn’t have sense enough to be embarrassed about getting caught dancing around, playing air guitar.