Lost Books of Childhood

One of the unexpected pleasures of this internet age has been rediscovering the books of my childhood. Like many people in the fifties and sixties, our family relied on the public library for books. Until recently, I thought many of those books had disappeared. Now, however, through sites like AbeBooks.com and even Amazon, it’s possible to find a dog-eared copy and have it delivered to my own door. How can these small booksellers afford to sell books for a penny, or even a dollar? Do they gain that much on the $3.99 shipping fee? Or are they just book lovers who can’t bear to destroy a book, happy to send it instead to a loving home?

A number of those books have made it to my home lately. It’s interesting which ones I’ve sought out. Sometimes it’s a concept I remember. My sister and brother and I were fascinated by The Upside-Down Boy. Amazingly, one day a set of footprints appeared on the sloped ceiling above our beds – just like in the book! Fifty years later, I found a copy of the original Dorothy Ivens book (from 1958) and gave it to my mom, who remembered my dad stenciling the prints above our heads as we slept.

Often it’s the story and characters that matter the most. Carol Ryrie Brink is best known for Caddie Woodlawn, a pioneer story that’s stayed in print for years. But I have much stronger memories of two other very different books. In Baby Island, two young girls are shipwrecked with four babies. It’s the ultimate girls’ adventure story, a parody of desert island books – there’s even a footprint with a missing toe. We read this to Rhiannon when she was five, her first chapter book. (As it happens, we started it in a hut by Lake Oku in Africa, drawing in various biologists, but that’s another story.) I’ve since given copies to several other five-year-olds.

The other Brink book, The Headland (checked out more than once from the library), is quite different. It’s a long 1955 novel about five children who find themselves in northern France as World War II begins. The story of how the war changed their relationships stayed with me for years, becoming part of my frame of reference about how men and women might live in the world. When I recently rediscovered the book, I found it still just as compelling as an adult – as all the best teen novels are. My daughter Emily, now doing a PhD in English, found it a satisfying read as well.

It’s the place that’s drawn me back to High Trail, by Vivian Breck. When I first read this book as a child in Oregon, I hoped one day to try something called “backpacking.” Breck’s books were among the few adventure stories for girls. There were some about horses, and one about a river trip, but High Trail – published in 1948 – was the one I remembered best. When I tracked it down, I found it was set in my own back yard, in Sequoia National Park.

As World War II ends, Chloe and her father finally go on a long-delayed backpacking trip. But west of Mt. Whitney, her father breaks a leg, and it’s up to Chloe to go for help. As Chloe struggles east over the flank of the mountain, an early storm comes in. Luckily, she encounters two young men, recently back from the war, and for the rest of the book, the three work together to survive the storm and find help for Chloe’s dad.

The book appealed to me because it was about a young girl in the wilderness. From what my maps show, it’s geographically accurate. Breck writes of birds and plants I know. While I haven’t traveled the specific trails in the book – Chloe, unlike me, is young and slim and long-legged – I’ve been nearby. So in one sense, I’m still fascinated by this book because it’s set near a place I know and love.

I’m interested both in what’s changed and what’s stayed the same since 1948. I suspect new trails have been added; a Sequoia historian would know. Chloe and her dad gather wood to build a giant fire against a rock; these days we rely on little stoves. When Chloe needs to rappel down a ledge, the men help her wrap the rope around her body, and down she goes – no harness or special rappelling devices. In fact, that’s how I first rappelled myself, in a local quarry; as I read the book, I could still feel the rope sliding roughly along my body.

As an English teacher, I’m also interested in feminist issues. The fact that Chloe is out on the trail at all was unusual for the times. Most teen girls’ books then – and even now – don’t involve wilderness. Chloe is adventurous, but she’s hiking with her dad. Mom stays home doing whatever moms do – she doesn’t merit much mention. What were the forces affecting both Chloe and her mom in those days, and how did mothers affect their daughters?

It may seem surprising that a man in his late twenties would be a suitable romantic interest for a teenager. These days, that would be odd in a teen novel. But when I look at my parents’ generation, many of those marriages involve age differences of at least seven or eight years.

I’ve often wondered about the women of my father’s age. They watched their classmates go off to die in the war, some of them keeping the offices and shipyards going as Rosie the Riveter – and then the survivors came home to marry young girls just out of their teens. What happened to those older women? I suppose they were the spinster teachers of my childhood, the single ladies doing good works. But what were they really thinking? Where would I find their stories?

And what was the effect on all those young women of marrying men so much older and more experienced? Did it reinforce the man’s traditional privileged role? My mother, with just a Bachelor’s degree, was a faculty wife at age twenty-three. It was only when I hit my teens that she started library school – having first ensured the future of the local library by helping to orchestrate a funding campaign.

High Trail is a teen novel that’s made me ask questions on various levels. I was always a voracious reader; in eighth grade, I read 123 books (which shows how exciting life was). Along with all those stories, I absorbed ideas about men and women and how they were to behave. I was liberated enough, even then, to appreciate books where girls resisted expectations.

I also learned about places – among them, the Sierra Range. Before applying for my current job, I knew nothing of Visalia. But when the rangers bring Chloe’s father out on a stretcher, they take him down through Mineral King to the Visalia hospital. Apparently, I have been here, at least through stories – I just didn’t remember. It makes me wonder what else I’ve forgotten, and how my early reading was affecting me even before I even knew it.

A Week on the East Side: Exploring the Eastern Sierra

The week didn’t start so well. I’d planned to hike every day, getting used to the altitude. But as I drove through Yosemite on Monday, the 4th of July, I couldn’t find any trails. My first choice was blocked by a chilly arm of Tenaya Lake; when the water reached my shorts, I gave up. The next trailhead had simply disappeared, lost in a maze of blocked-off “Closed for the Season” roads (last season, presumably). The third started off across deep snow.
In the end, I just wandered on Tioga Pass – nearly 10,000 feet – and headed down the east side. A photogenic surprise: Tioga Lake was still covered in ice, pieces of mountains reflected between the chunks.

At the first campground, Lake Mary – reserved in the last minute through Recreation.gov – my site was surrounded by other campers. That didn’t stop a bear from investigating my bear box. Sitting by the fire just fifteen feet away, I’d foolishly failed to lock it. I shouted, and she went away. A bit more shouting, and her cub in the tree above my table was gone as well. I locked the box, and then locked myself in the car to sleep.

The next morning, I rejected two more snow-covered trails. A third was blocked off: “Carbon dioxide hazard area” – at least that made a change from high water and snow. I gave up on the Mammoth Lakes area and headed south to Rock Creek, recommended by the woman who’d sold me my boots at REI.

This was an easy hike, not too steep, starting above 10,000 feet and rising gently past picturesque little lakes. But the day was overcast – dull pictures – and my feet and knees ached. Maybe this wasn’t going to work. Maybe at sixty I’m simply too old to hike. I tried to believe I was having fun, but I wasn’t convinced.

But that evening, heading up the White Mountain road, things felt different. I like deserts. I like them a lot – but Joshua Tree and Death Valley are too hot by summer. Yet here was a desert – sage brush, junipers, pinyon pines – on top of a mountain. The flowers were only beginning to bloom. At the Grandview Campground (8,500 feet; free, but a $5 donation), we few campers encircled a sage flat, talking when we met. That evening, driving up a rocky track to chase the sunset, I felt in my element again.

I spent Wednesday exploring. Beyond the first Bristlecone Pine Grove at around 10,000 feet, the road continues toward the Patriarch Grove at 11,000. Snow blocked car access, so the road became a hiking trail. A loop trail took me up the Cottonwood Overlook.

Maybe I was a bit affected by the altitude – it was only afterwards, seeing my pictures, that I realized just how other-worldly that landscape had been: white dolomite rocks, golden tree trunks, black storm clouds.

Later, I drove north across tundra-like landscape to the locked gate. Beyond, a seven-mile track led to the top of White Mountain at 14,246 feet – less than 250 feet lower than Mt. Whitney. I didn’t follow it. Instead, I drove back to my campground, where the rain attacked just after dinner. The passenger seat was as comfy as my easy chair at home, and I was content downloading pictures and catching up on the day.

When I awoke in my Subaru on Thursday, the sky was clear. Without waiting, I drove up to the Sierra View Vista Point. Once I’d photographed the mountains, I heated a kettle and fried my egg and sausage – breakfast at the viewpoint! And then I re-visited the first Bristlecone grove and charged up the Discovery Trail, knees and lungs and feet all working just fine.

“I’m ready for backpacking!” I told Rhiannon a bit later, calling from the Sierra View overlook. (“If you can see Bishop, your phone should work,” someone had told me.)

But that afternoon, I wasn’t so sure. My trail in the Sierra Range above Big Pine started at around 7,200 feet – much too low for an afternoon hike. Despite stunning views of red paintbrush and yellow Lomatium, it was hot, and I felt just as slow as ever.

By Saturday morning – after meetings near Mammoth Lakes, where I was told at the motel to empty my car of food because of bears – I was ready for another hike: Piute Pass, up from North Lake above Bishop.

This trail started at 9,300 feet, rising gently through aspen forest to switchbacks below the first lake. This time I had perfect weather; the lakes were a brilliant blue. Yellow columbine and rosy sedum lined the path.

I talked with everyone. “Follow the dirty snow,” someone said – that was the trail. The pass was do-able, others reassured me: “Lots of snow, but there’s nothing sketchy about it.” “You’re almost there,” a young couple with a Sheltie dog told me. “Don’t turn back now.”

And so I continued. As passes go, it was pretty easy, even at 11,400 feet. I worked my way from rock outcrop to outcrop, crossing pocketed snowfields, following footprints up to the pass itself.

And from the top? – it was the view I’d seen from the plane so long ago: white-sheeted mountains, a frozen lake. I admired it, eating peanuts and cheese, and then started back down. The late-afternoon light inspired more and more pictures. As I trudged east down the trail, the sun seemed to hang without moving over the pass; the moon moved closer and closer to the golden-lit rocks.

It was a long day – eleven hours. Somewhere I’d gained a second wind. Maybe it was the practice hikes in the White Mountains. Or maybe I was inspired and rejuvenated by the mountain light itself.

For the last part of the trip, I used my headlamp (“Do you have a headlamp?” someone had asked me – Yes, always). And as I came down through the trees, the headlamp and the half moon shone on the aspen trunks. The bark gleamed white ahead of me, lighting the way to my car.

Yosemite: In Praise of Danger

I’m not usually afraid of heights. Normally, I relish the view from an exposed cliff. I’ve climbed 280-foot Douglas-fir trees and swayed in the breeze.

But this Saturday, standing 3,500 feet above Yosemite Valley at Taft Point, I found myself a little bit nervous. Actually, it was just about the scariest place I’ve ever been.

No ranger reminded me to step back from the edge. No fence defined a safety zone along the cliff. For the first few minutes, I had the place entirely to myself – just me, a raven, El Capitan, Yosemite Falls, and one of the most amazing drop-offs in the world. A bit shaky, I stepped up to the one short span of railing and tested its solidity. When the next hiker appeared, she did the same.

Earlier that day, I’d stood surprisingly unmoved with a whole crowd of others at Glacier Point, each of us taking identical pictures of Half Dome. It wasn’t until I walked up Sentinel Dome that I really enjoyed the place. Apparently, I need to hike to a view to properly appreciate it.

To reach Taft Point, we hikers had floundered through snowfields and downed trees, comparing notes along the way: “Is that a trail over there?” Yosemite has had 178% of normal snowpack this year; many of the routes at 8,000 feet are still buried under dirty snow, pocked with pine needles and mud. Only the adventurous – from babies to grandmothers – make it to the cliffs and fissures of Taft Point.

Someone once asked why I value bringing young people to the wilderness. Besides the obvious – it’s beautiful, it’s educational – I keep coming back to one answer: “The dangers are real.”

I’ve driven students to Six Flags (with its fake sequoia trees), where they’re happy to spin upside down above the crowds below. When the same students visit the real Sequoia National Park, they’re just as fearless: they’ll jump to a rock in the middle of a swirling torrent (drowning is Sequoia’s number one cause of death), or climb over the railings on a fogged-in Moro Rock, unconvinced of invisible drop-offs. They have guts – useful on roller coasters – but no sense of real danger.

Recently, I went to Disneyland with my younger daughter and her girlfriend. Despite my doubts – too many people, nothing “real” – it was fun. I enjoyed the curves on Thunder Mountain (far milder than the rides at Six Flags) and drenched my clothes on that terrifying fifty-foot Splash Mountain plunge: if millions have survived it (I told myself), it must be safe. This was at midnight, our final ride; afterwards, we dripped our way back to the motel, laughing the whole time.

The difference between that safety-inspected thrill and a national park is extreme. On the whole, most people do survive parks – they recognize the risks and remain cautious. Children who grow up with real dangers learn to move carefully, to pay attention to their surroundings. They learn responsibility for their own safety. Those who’ve been protected from all but “safe” thrills may not recognize real danger; convinced they’re invincible, they take foolish risks.

When I first approached Taft Point, its one small railing seemed intrusive. But this railing, unlike the wall at Glacier Point, is different. Instead of catching careless tourists, it reassures shaky hikers, allowing them to approach the edge and peer into the abyss – and then to explore the rest of the unguarded cliff top, pondering nature in all its breath-taking dangerousness.

It’s a danger that’s worth respecting. And long may that danger remain.

The Economy Hits Home: Takeaway Café Closes its Doors

For a while I thought the disasters had eased. Last month the government didn’t close. Apart from some major tornadoes and record river floods, the natural world seemed almost to have forgotten us.

And then I found that Takeaway Café had closed.

Even the sign is gone. All that remains is a small typed message on the door: “We must regretfully close our doors due to economic conditions.”

It was my closest place of business, my corner shop – at least, my corner-of-the-mall shop. It was the place where I could chat with the proprietors and eat a packet of Kettle Chips while waiting for a Kilkenny salad. It was the place where I bought breakfast casserole or spinach quiche for visitors, lasagna for book group, beef stew for a birthday party.

So where will I find a “home-cooked” meal? Where will I get the extra bacon bits for my weekend omelet?

It’s not that I can’t cook. I can, but living alone, I usually lack both inspiration and time. When I do suffer a fit of good intentions, my fridge fills up with moldy peppers and lettuce.

I suppose I should have seen it coming. Things aren’t going well around here. In the next block over, three of seven houses are empty, their lawns overgrown, torn curtains or blinds in the windows. (How is it that empty houses always have ragged drapes?) The news suggests that things will only get worse.

If an excellent local business like Takeaway Café can’t make it, who can? I only wish I’d known to fill my freezer before they closed.

Happy Mother’s Day: Publishing My Mom’s Haiku Book

I sometimes joke that to earn enough to retire, I’ll have to work till I’m 84. It may be possible… at 84, my own mother teaches “Write Your Life” at her community college, sits on the board for an adult day care center, and participates in at least four reading or writing groups.

She also shares her Haiku at poetry readings, and for years her friends have begged her to publish a collection. So about a year and a half ago, my sister and I helped her create a book.

My mom chose 160 of her favorite Haiku poems. Mary and I searched our computer files for pictures to complement them, pictures that would look good in black and white – no delicate fall colors or bright reds on greens. Our brother Tom and Mary’s son also contributed photos.

Ten days before Christmas, as soon as her grades were in, Mary started playing with layouts. She emailed me each new draft, and in between creating exams and grading papers, I proofed poems and suggested formatting changes. Within a week, we had a book.

If this were a traditional story, we might have sent the manuscript to a publisher, waited months for a response, and given up after a few rejections. But as my mother said, “I don’t have time to wait.” We chose to self-publish instead.

Poets have a long history of self-publishing. In this case, we took it a step further, with photographs and a professional binding – not to mention an ISBN number. Within days, we had the first copy in hand.

Writers have a disadvantage when it comes to recognition. Artists sell directly to their customers – a painting sold can feel like instant success. Writers can’t sell stories in the same way. To sell our work in a local bookstore, we first need to please a publisher in New York.

In this case, self-publishing was the way to go. We’re happy with the way the book turned out, and so is my mother.

Readers have commented on how well our photos fit the poems. I found it surprisingly easy to find the right ones. A Haiku poem, like a photograph, captures a moment in time, and at its best, it reflects on that moment. Often, we’re “seeing” in the same ways.

Once the book was out, my brother created a website for it. You can see sample pages or buy the book ($14.95) from Tom’s site or through Lulu.com.

My Spirit Sings – Haiku by Betty McCauley
http://www.bettymccauley.com/

I’m glad we’ve been able to create this “legacy” while my mom is still around to enjoy it. And I hope I’m still as active at 84 as she is. Happy Mother’s Day!

Camping Alone: Spring Break at Joshua Tree

For weeks I’d dreamed of the desert. I’d drift off over a stack of grading, and the images would appear out of nowhere: red cactus, green Joshua Trees, golden rocks.

Spring Break came late this year, tied to a late-April Easter. I started for Joshua Tree on Sunday afternoon, the car full of grading and gear, and drove straight east into an orange moon that rose like a bridge over the highway ahead. I set up my tent by moonlight and spent a lazy morning in camp.

Later I drove up to Hidden Valley, remembering previous trips. The first was in 1980, when Rhiannon was a baby. In March of 1994, longing to be somewhere completely different – somewhere far from Douglas-fir trees – I put both girls in the van and drove south from Oregon, putting 2,800 miles on the car. We all climbed on the rocks.

Most memorably, I sought refuge at Joshua Tree when I learned – the morning after leaving Emily at her expensive LA college – that my editing job was ending. I trudged the Hidden Valley trail in the August heat, sand in my Birkenstocks, pondering the future. In fact, that loss pushed me to teach more classes, which eventually led to a full-time job – much closer to J-Tree, as Rhiannon and the other climbers call it. Now I could join them.

This time I knew to wear boots. I also knew where to find the first glimpse of a bright red Mojave mound cactus. Climbing a rock, I saw a distant barrel cactus with yellow flowers. But the sky was hazing over; the rocks seemed dull in the mid-day light.

By the second day, I’d figured out the rhythm. Up with the sun, and a morning of exploration while it was cool and the light was crisp. Then, as the sky bleached out and the rocks lost their texture, an afternoon of grading. Finally, more exploring as the boulders regained their golden evening glow. Or that was the theory.

In fact, the morning’s adventures tended to last till mid-afternoon, and the grading… well, yes, the grading. It’s always the same on these trips – I bring great intentions and a big stack of papers, and somehow it’s always too hot, too cold, too windy, too bright, too dark… and the same essays come back to town, unread. Maybe I should just cut the outings short and grade at home.

But this time I did fairly well. I actually worked during the afternoons, reminding myself that flat light means boring pictures. I sat at a shaded table at Cottonwood Springs, or in my own camp, or at a picnic area where foreign tourists scrambled up rocks. And I did finish one stack of essays. So that was progress, sort of.

More important were the hikes. I found cactus blooming – six kinds – and purple verbena and bright red paintbrush. I climbed Ryan Mountain and repeated the 49 Palms trail, lined with barrel cactus and chuckwalla lizards – a trail I’d once hiked with my friend Mary. This time, a talk with hikers on that trail led to a musical campfire evening. (Go where you want to go, and you’ll meet the people you want to meet.)

Sitting by my own fire on the last night, I thought about my first solo camping trip – three and a half weeks across the west in 2004. (See today’s other Blog entry.)

I haven’t done another trip that long, but since moving to California, it’s become a tradition to visit the desert over Spring Break: Death Valley, Organ Pipe in Arizona, Joshua Tree. Deserts have the earliest spring flowers, and I like camping where it’s warm. Camping alone in a wet Oregon forest just wouldn’t be the same.

Alone? “Aren’t you scared?” “Don’t you get bored?” No… it’s not scary, and I never run out of things to do. I do try to camp surrounded by friendly families. If I called for help, someone would hear me. But so far, I’ve never needed to shout.

National Park campgrounds are the best. At J-Tree’s Indian Cove, each camp backs onto its own slab of granite. The skyline fills with tiny people exploring giant boulders, as my own girls once did.

That last evening, I sat by my fire, alone but surrounded by humanity, and typed on my laptop. Nearby, the couple beyond my boulder sat by their own fire, flames lighting the rock behind them. Further away, someone beat a monotonous rhythm on a drum. At the group camp down the valley, cheers and shouts erupted at regular intervals.

I wanted to stay forever. Why go back? I had the wilderness, plus all the technology I needed: a laptop that usually worked, a good camera, a reliable Subaru full of rechargers….

But I knew it was time to deal with the rest of the semester. Still, I’m already thinking about the next trip. It’s nearly summer….

Camping Alone: The First Solo Trip, 2004 – A Journey Through Rocks

Sitting alone by the campfire at Joshua Tree this spring, I found myself remembering my first solo car camping trip.

It was 2004, and I had no money. But I did have a few weeks between summer and fall terms, and all spring I’d been thinking about joining Rhiannon in the Rockies – how else could we do the annual backpacking?


In late August, I set out in my old blue Subaru, heading east across Oregon. I was nervous, though not about being alone. I was worried the car would break down before I was out of the state, dashing the dream I’d nurtured all year: just get in the car, alone, and drive… It was hard to believe the trip could actually happen.

Late that evening I stopped at Ochoco Divide, a familiar campground – just far enough from home (about three hours) that it felt like progress. In the morning, I spread my badly organized gear across the table to sort: these things to use, those to put away for later. (And of course this reminded me of our first trip across the Sahara, in an ancient Land Rover so full of spare parts that the extra weight itself led to additional break-downs.)

That afternoon, heading toward Idaho, I found myself beginning to relax: if I could make it beyond the Oregon border, maybe nothing would stop me.

I did make it beyond the Snake River. I camped across Idaho – at a sand dunes park, and the City of Rocks – and then at several places in Utah and Colorado. Thinking ahead to the Rockies, I looked for the highest hike at each camp: the top of the Bruneau Dune, up to Delicate Arch at Arches, a breathless walk to a viewpoint at that first 10,600-foot pass on Colorado’s Interstate 70. (I wasn’t expecting that one – neither was my car.)

During our three days of backpacking at Rocky Mountain, we reached 12,420 feet – the highest I’d ever hiked, before or since. After a day huddled under the tarp in snow and rain, we arose to blue skies. At the top of Tanima Pass, we found roseroot sedum blooming in the snow.

When I started that road trip, I feared I might be bored. How would I spend my evenings? What would I think about during those long days of driving? I packed maps and travel guides and notebooks and books on tape.

But in the end, the problem was lack of time, not lack of things to do with it. By the time I’d found a campsite, put up my tent, and heated a meal, there was hardly time to scrawl a few notes before crawling into my sleeping bag. The notes are still in that notebook, barely legible; I dreamed of one day having a laptop and a way to charge it. When picture cards filled, I had to beg Rhiannon’s colleague or my nephew in Santa Fe to download the photos onto a CD.

I found I liked traveling alone – I liked it very much indeed. I learned all the tricks of living on the cheap. Gas cost less then, and along with the canned soups and mashed potato packets in my car, the cheapest meals were the Polish dogs or burritos at the gas station mini-marts. Sometimes I’d heat a kettle on the camp stove and wash my hair.

By the time I’d driven west through New Mexico and Arizona, I was ready to travel forever. “A Journey Through Rocks,” I called the trip later, sorting my pictures; everywhere, there were arches and passageways and gaps in the rocks – not to mention the ancient houses in built into the cliffs at Mesa Verde.

One of the last stops was at Santa Monica Beach, where I was joined by Emily and my brother – it seemed that everyone ended up in California. (It was just a year later that I drove my 26-foot U-Haul to the Central Valley, followed by Emily in the blue Subaru.)

Driving the long straight miles up Interstate 5, I finally resorted to entertaining myself with story tapes. School would start within days. I’d been on the road for three and a half weeks, but I didn’t want it to end. I’d found it was possible to travel alone – possible, and very enjoyable. And I’ve been doing it ever since.