really big stump

We just returned from four days in Dorrington CA which lies 7 hours north and east of L.A. somewhere in the mountains (I think...i've always been directionally challenged.) It felt reminiscent of Maine with its big pine trees and clean air. (Of course, wrapping ones lips around the tailpipe of a diesel bus in central america and inhaling deeply is cleaner than breathing L.A. air). At 7000 feet we visited a pristene lake with crystal waters. We biked around and put our feet in the very cold lake water. K went swimming. He started playing with another boy and said, in order to have friends you need to talk to people." Whereboy the other boy answered, "I don't need any more friends. I have so many friends at school. I'm like the famous kid there. Well not truely famous, but famous because everyone knows who I am. .." I evily thought under my breath, "you're a pasty redhead AND bratty, how cool can you be." This also follows my interaction with a 5 year old girl a week ago who I caught calling K "Fat." I went up to her and said, "That's not nice. You should never call people names. That's mean.." i went on and on. Before K and I left later on in the afternoon I went up to her and said again, "Please don't call people fat, nobody likes the mean girl." And i walked off feeling oddly good having just told off a kid 1/6th my age...How mature am I? SO back to the lake. K, becoming bored with this apparent famous pasty kid engaged his dad in conversation where I overheard him saying, "My dad used to be my mom's boyfriend, but he broke up with her because she smokes and says bad words and my dad doesn't like smoking or bad words." I found this remarkably amusing. It isn't often that K talks of his parents when they were together, mainly because he was months old when they separated. I can only wonder what he has picked up from us and his mom to lead him to this simplistic view of their break up. And why he chose to divulge his family history to a complete stranger of pasty-famous-boy, I have no idea.


We took an afternoon and visited Big Trees state Park which was 10 minutes away from where we were staying. We started out in the vistor center and watched a brief movie about the park's history at K's prompting. I had to control my cynicism and disgust when the movie told the time old story of pristene land inhabited by Indians until the gold rush began. I don't know why I was so surprised by the greed that contributed to land's demise and Indian dispersion. Greed is as old as the few years following the creation of the universe. My stomach continued to twist as the story unfolded about some yahoo who goes hunting in the woods and discovers a really big tree. So he brings more people to the tree and they decided to cut it down and make a profit by showing it around the world. Their business endeavor failed, the tree died. The same thing happend repeated times throughout history until someone deamed it a national forest.

I'm not a tree hugger. I'm not ready to chain my neck to a tree or live on a 2x2 piece of plywood nailed precariously to a tree in protest against logging. It is merely this type of historical occurrence that displaced people in the name of personal gain that happens again and again and again. The gold rush was not people seeking to merely subsist, rather it was financial gain at the expense of others. It is a story that continues today.

Anyway, inspite of that obnoxcious interlude, the redwoods were quite amazing to witness in person. It's not every day you see trees that are 1200 years old.