patpall22
Sr. Member
- Jul 4, 2006
- 436
- 174
- Detector(s) used
- CTX 3030, whites DFX, XP DEUS, etrac and sandshark
since I've allready posted a pick, I thought I would share a little about myself.
Moving can be a traumatic experience in any child’s life as it was for me. The two story white stucco home with brown trim located on the corner of a dead end road in Carmel, California held my most cherished memories. I played pine cone baseball with the other children living in the surrounding houses. I recall the smell of the pepper trees that supported the wooden structure of my tree fort.
Carmel is a town unique to most others because there were no broken down or dilapidated buildings. No slums or poverty were seen, only rustic Spanish style buildings that flowed down to the Pacific Ocean.
Life as I knew it would be shaken when I was ten years old and my mother decided to move out of our home to a place where she could be at peace. I remember the anguish I felt when my mother sat my two brothers and me around the dining room table when she announced her decision to leave. She insisted that we live with her half of the week, and the other half with dad.
I remember getting into the passenger side of my mother’s green sport utility vehicle and off we were to our new home. The drive to my mother’s house was an absolute nightmare. It was roughly thirty-five minutes from my father’s home and seemed more like a journey into a desolate forest. Giant Eucalyptus trees growing on both sides of the road joined together, creating a virtual tunnel into the darkness. The land seemed to be untamed wilderness that was dark and lonely as we continuously bobbed and weaved around the snake like contours of the road.
The final section of the drive was on a dirt road that went straight up the side of a rocky mountain. As we drove up and down the rough stretch of decomposed granite, my stomach would begin to knot up and my vision would blur. One wrong turn and our vehicle could plummet down the steep cliffs on either side to certain death.
At the top of the mountain was our new home. A brown cabin tightly tucked away in a grove of trees that was camouflaged nicely into the surroundings. There was no electricity. All of our water had to be pumped from a creek a half mile away. Walking around the property was like walking on a new planet. I felt dirty and isolated from the rest of the world. The silence made every fear I had inside myself come out and the fear of being abandoned was my main concern. Even in the sunlight, the land appeared dark damp and cold. This was a sinister place, always cold and always dark.
The first year adjusting to the many changes of living on the mountain was not memorable. Every morning on the way to school, my mother would have to stop the car and I would puke until my guts hurt. Those roadside stops became a routine for many years.
One time, my twin brother Brett and I decided to go on an exploration into the wood as we sometimes did to search for new insects. For fun we would place different bugs in a mason jar and watch them battle. Our competitive side led us all over the woods in search for bigger and stronger competitors.
Sometimes we would stop if we saw our favorite plant and pick the bright green leaves with jagged edges that clustered on a thin fibrous stock. We loved these leaves because they reminded us of maple leaves and a Japanese painting that my grandmother hung in her bedroom. It wasn’t until we were run off by two men with long greasy hair and tattered clothes carrying big black plastic bags that we learned to stay away from those special plants that needed people to tend and guard them.
By the time I entered high school, life on the ridge began to change for the better. After school, I routinely gathered and chopped wood, pumped water and prepared for the night ahead. I begin to notice the sun shining on the black oaks, producing a peppermint fragrance in the cool clean air. The hills in the distance covered with giant redwoods glowed white-green with a matted finish. The silence that once evoked many of my fears vanished and was replaced with the chirping of birds and a muffled gurgle of a creek far below. I couldn’t believe that I never noticed any of these noises or smells before. Were they always around?
Every night near sunset, I would walk a narrow path cut in the middle of a thick patch of tingly Chaparral and sharp Manzanita brush to a giant granite rock jetting out of the hillside. This rock was unique in that it was perfectly smooth and symmetrical, much like a rock from a riverbed only on a massive scale. On this rock I could sit for hours and
watch the sun fall beneath the silvery ocean turning the sky a peach-purple with magenta clouds clustered gracefully far below.
My heart resonated with the din of the running creek below and I took the time to look back to see if the demons I once saw were even real. Maybe I brought them here from deep inside of myself. Maybe all of the hardships I faced and conquered drove them away.
Moving can be a traumatic experience in any child’s life as it was for me. The two story white stucco home with brown trim located on the corner of a dead end road in Carmel, California held my most cherished memories. I played pine cone baseball with the other children living in the surrounding houses. I recall the smell of the pepper trees that supported the wooden structure of my tree fort.
Carmel is a town unique to most others because there were no broken down or dilapidated buildings. No slums or poverty were seen, only rustic Spanish style buildings that flowed down to the Pacific Ocean.
Life as I knew it would be shaken when I was ten years old and my mother decided to move out of our home to a place where she could be at peace. I remember the anguish I felt when my mother sat my two brothers and me around the dining room table when she announced her decision to leave. She insisted that we live with her half of the week, and the other half with dad.
I remember getting into the passenger side of my mother’s green sport utility vehicle and off we were to our new home. The drive to my mother’s house was an absolute nightmare. It was roughly thirty-five minutes from my father’s home and seemed more like a journey into a desolate forest. Giant Eucalyptus trees growing on both sides of the road joined together, creating a virtual tunnel into the darkness. The land seemed to be untamed wilderness that was dark and lonely as we continuously bobbed and weaved around the snake like contours of the road.
The final section of the drive was on a dirt road that went straight up the side of a rocky mountain. As we drove up and down the rough stretch of decomposed granite, my stomach would begin to knot up and my vision would blur. One wrong turn and our vehicle could plummet down the steep cliffs on either side to certain death.
At the top of the mountain was our new home. A brown cabin tightly tucked away in a grove of trees that was camouflaged nicely into the surroundings. There was no electricity. All of our water had to be pumped from a creek a half mile away. Walking around the property was like walking on a new planet. I felt dirty and isolated from the rest of the world. The silence made every fear I had inside myself come out and the fear of being abandoned was my main concern. Even in the sunlight, the land appeared dark damp and cold. This was a sinister place, always cold and always dark.
The first year adjusting to the many changes of living on the mountain was not memorable. Every morning on the way to school, my mother would have to stop the car and I would puke until my guts hurt. Those roadside stops became a routine for many years.
One time, my twin brother Brett and I decided to go on an exploration into the wood as we sometimes did to search for new insects. For fun we would place different bugs in a mason jar and watch them battle. Our competitive side led us all over the woods in search for bigger and stronger competitors.
Sometimes we would stop if we saw our favorite plant and pick the bright green leaves with jagged edges that clustered on a thin fibrous stock. We loved these leaves because they reminded us of maple leaves and a Japanese painting that my grandmother hung in her bedroom. It wasn’t until we were run off by two men with long greasy hair and tattered clothes carrying big black plastic bags that we learned to stay away from those special plants that needed people to tend and guard them.
By the time I entered high school, life on the ridge began to change for the better. After school, I routinely gathered and chopped wood, pumped water and prepared for the night ahead. I begin to notice the sun shining on the black oaks, producing a peppermint fragrance in the cool clean air. The hills in the distance covered with giant redwoods glowed white-green with a matted finish. The silence that once evoked many of my fears vanished and was replaced with the chirping of birds and a muffled gurgle of a creek far below. I couldn’t believe that I never noticed any of these noises or smells before. Were they always around?
Every night near sunset, I would walk a narrow path cut in the middle of a thick patch of tingly Chaparral and sharp Manzanita brush to a giant granite rock jetting out of the hillside. This rock was unique in that it was perfectly smooth and symmetrical, much like a rock from a riverbed only on a massive scale. On this rock I could sit for hours and
watch the sun fall beneath the silvery ocean turning the sky a peach-purple with magenta clouds clustered gracefully far below.
My heart resonated with the din of the running creek below and I took the time to look back to see if the demons I once saw were even real. Maybe I brought them here from deep inside of myself. Maybe all of the hardships I faced and conquered drove them away.
RR
