Preserving the Future

Published in edited form Sept. 20, 2017 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette


     While in Dunsmuir two weeks ago, I overheard something wise from an acquaintance, who’d been told “You can drag the past around with you like a dead horse, but you can never bring it back to life.”  I was struck by the truth of the imagery, and put it in my mental pocket for future use.

           

     But something else I brought home from Dunsmuir convinced me that the past is an ineradicable part of the present, as well as necessary for the future.  It is a small book on Dunsmuir, one of the “Images of America” series published by Arcadia Publishing Co.  I fell in love with these books when I worked at the Book Garden in Exeter ten years ago, and exactly for this reason:  they show us – literally, in photographs with captions - the connections between our past and our present.  They help us understand what might be possible in the future.

           

     As a carpenter’s daughter, I have a natural fascination for how things are built.  My father builds houses, and I have watched the process from building forms for pouring the concrete foundation to the last row of shingles along the roof’s peak.  I watched him build community, too, from co-operatively constructing a boat-launch/clubhouse on an edge of Puget Sound to forming a sewer district intended to keep us from polluting that body of water.  I watched as our primitive roads lined with wooded lots became neighborhoods during the post-war 1950’s.  My fascination with how things are built now extends to towns.

           

     Like many towns, Dunsmuir’s development was defined by the railroad, which was spurred by outside corporate interests to convey coal from British Columbia to San Francisco.  In turn, the railroad promoted Dunsmuir as a tourist resort, as well as carrying the products of surrounding forests to distant markets.  But it was the development of the automobile that brought prosperity to the little town, which seemed to thrive when Highway 99 ran down its main street.  Despite fires, heavy snows and avalanches, and flooding of the Sacramento River repeatedly reshaping the facts of Dunsmuir’s life, the little town has re-built on its past, retaining a sense of authenticity.

           

     And of course it’s the people who make that possible.  Ron McCloud, who co-authored the book with Deborah Harton, owns the True Value hardware store on the main street, which is part museum, with shining wood floors as well as inventory to supply everything you’d need to live there (visit www.dunsmuirhardware.com to see for yourself!)  Across the street, wedged between cafes, is a thrift store run by third- and fourth-generation Dunsmuirites whose profits support single mothers in need.   There’s a record shop/book store aimed at us Boomers, multiple shops featuring artists’ and craftspersons’ wares, and a storefront for the local watershed preservation organization.  There’s a dispensary for medical marijuana across from the Amtrak station.  And there’s a noon signal horn every day that becomes an emergency warning when it blows 5 times in succession.

           

     When I mentioned Ron McCloud to a friend here, he said “Oh, he’s like our Chris Brewer.”  Having worked for Chris and Sally at the Book Garden, I can say “yes.”  Chris has managed to bring the powerhouse of history into the preservation of the future in Exeter.  I think the example of both men is worth noting. But it takes a host of people dedicated to the community’s well-being to connect the past to the present – and that’s what preserves the future of our small towns.  Let us join hands.

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Trudy Wischemann is a community development researcher who writes.  You can send her your town development stories c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.

Leaving Dunsmuir

Published Sept. 13, 2017 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette


     It wasn’t easy leaving Dunsmuir, but it was time.  The crisis in my brother’s life had downgraded to a tropical storm and my own life was calling me back.  Respectful of the distance yet mindful of the responsibilities I’d left behind, I said my goodbyes, packed the car and started home.

     For days now, scraps of Dunsmuir’s scenery have floated through my mind: the historic railroad yard perched on a half-moon disk of floodplain along the upper Sacramento; the late sunrises and early sunsets over steep mountains confining the canyon; the curving main street and laterals contouring town.  The sweet stores and the people running them, working to make a living by creating a community where people can enjoy each other.  I barely had time to tap that fountain.

     One potential benefit of living in Dunsmuir is that the landscape makes you humble.  My sense of self-importance, often overblown, was diminished by the scale of the landscape.  I came to understand the value of mountain-man culture there as a way to keep at bay the constant reminder of human insignificance.  Once you adjust to it, though, there’s a kind of freedom in that, permission to operate in the present without trying to exert too much control over the future.

     Scraps of scenery from the trip home have also run through my mind.  The descent through dense forest to Lake Shasta, nearly full again, ended quickly, followed by a brief run through foothill oaks to Redding.  From there to Red Bluff on I-5, the beautiful views of the river valley were intermingled with hills of grass- and oak-covered volcanic rock.  I took Hwy 99, still two-lane, through Los Molinos, where small farms predominate and Lassen’s plateaus extend in the distance, to Chico, where the dominance of  historically large farms is interlaced with newer sustainable efforts to produce food.  Tree fruit orchards took over around Yuba City, followed by miles of rice fields waiting for harvest.  From Sacramento through Modesto, the urgency of traffic congestion clogged the view, but from Turlock onward, the old familiarity of 99 was comforting.

     Being in Dunsmuir made me homesick for Lindsay and Exeter.  My first few days here, however, have been complicated by mental exhaustion and the clear evidence of domestic neglect I left behind mentally as well as physically.  Home is where you make it, and my home in Lindsay is in serious need of reconstruction.

     But I think I’ve come to recognize a kind of homelessness in myself as well.  My family used to take Sunday drives to go “househunting,” an activity that got serious when my mother got pregnant.  It seemed my father was always looking for a nice place to live, even after he settled in Sebastopol, certainly as close to heaven as it gets on this planet.  My eyes were searching the landscape for potential homesteads all the way up and all the way back, and that made it harder when I pulled into my driveway.

     Some of Dunsmuir’s beauty is that it is a place to call home.  Lindsay and Exeter have that beauty, too, but it’s not until you apply that name to an address that you can learn all the work – and sometimes the hardship - that goes with it.  May we, by enjoying each other, remind ourselves of the beauty as well.

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Trudy Wischemann is a semi-retired nomad who writes.  You can send her your longings for home c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.

 

 

Away from Home

Published in slightly edited form Sept. 6, 2017 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette


     I’ve been away from home for a week, visiting my brother in Dunsmuir, pop. 1,600.  My memories of this place are few, mostly as a stopover between Washington and California.  I’ve driven by it many times, and seen it once from an Amtrak window at night, draped in snow.  But Dunsmuir looks different this time, a place my brother calls home.

     The upper Sacramento River cuts through the town, having shaped the canyon whose steep sides are laced with curvy streets and antique buildings.   The main north-south railroad tracks also cut through town, bearing mostly freight trains.  Amtrak’s Coast Starlight slips through quietly twice a day, southbound then northbound, stopping briefly in the wee hours of the morning.

     My brother’s home is an old cabin on the far side of the river, nestled against the steep hillside on a small strip of flood plain.  It is also on the “wrong side of the tracks,” an expression from our mother’s era and place of birth.  Fires have taken some of the older homes; some have been replaced with expensive, upscale new construction.  But most of the houses are modest, built a few steps off the ground with steep-pitched metal roofs to shed snow, and sweet garden-wire or picket fences around tidy gardens.  It is an unadorned picture of simpler times.

     Life is simpler here in many ways, more difficult in others.  Things we take for granted in more populous parts of the state are indulgences here, like stores open after 5 pm or all-night gas stations.  Most medical services are located elsewhere and police cars are rare.  Neighbors have to look out for each other because there’s no one else.  

     From my brother’s porch, the sound of the river overrides most else.  It can be punctuated by a dog barking or the train horns blasting, followed by the ding-ding-ding of the crossing signal, the metallic whine of steel wheels on steel rails and gigantic diesel engines roaring.  But the rushing river always takes back the silence, more unrelenting than desert winds.

     Dunsmuir instantly felt like home to my brother when he arrived 12 years ago, and it did to me, too, when I got here last week.  Surrounded by green vegetation and abundant water, our memories of home in western Washington were tapped and revived.  The constant sense of urgency about desiccation, which I’ve had since I moved into the Central Valley, evaporated.  And the people here, who my brother instantly perceived as “real,” are also like those we lived among, making livings and homes from what’s locally available more than from corporate offerings and long-distance commutes.

      What Dunsmuir shares, unfortunately, with many of our valley towns, is its disconnection from its founding purpose:  to serve the people in primary production from the surrounding lands.  I’ve seen no logs on passing trains or trucks on I-5 as in the past, only milled lumber coming south from Canada.  The trains rarely stop.  Traffic from the highway pulls off to shop for antiques and artists’ wares, but leaves with groceries from the little IGA.   The money earned from logging the forests is long gone, and what comes from the land now is thinly spread.  What is left is a degree of priceless beauty that only the rich – and the poor – can afford.

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Trudy Wischemann is a homesick Valley writer on assignment in Heaven.  You can send her your ideas about home c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.