August 25, 2018

The Porch, Pop, and O’Connor’s Cabin…..

As I write this blog, I am sitting on my porch watching the sun come up over my neighborhood houses.  There is silence, as no one else seems to be up yet on my block. I’m enjoying the cool breeze, the damp mist of a little dew and fog, and a hot cup of Irish coffee.  Life is good.

I’m reminded of the many cups of coffee, Irish and just plain hot and black, that my Pop and I used to share on his porch.  After my folks divorced when I was eleven, he raised me. I was an early riser by nature, as was he. We spent hours almost every morning and evening on the porch, rain or shine. Some mornings were crisp – but that made the hot coffee taste that much better.  Those were good times.

Although he only graduated high school, and that only because he joined the Army in 1943, his senior year, he was the wisest man I knew.  He was about as well-read as any man I have come across in my now fifty-three years on this earth. From biblical archeology and history, Irish poems and limericks, and tales of the Old West, he could tell a story and recite the adventures of the past with the best of them.  As I became an adult, and learned more about him, I discovered he lived many of the tales he recounted.

One of my favorite stories of his was that of O’Connor’s cabin. Pop was raised in a remote and desolate region in far Northern California.  His father died when he was a teenager, and he was raised by his older brothers and sisters. In the summer, he and his older brothers, Paul and Harold, would take the mules and wagons (no cars — too poor)  and drive them deep into the Warner mountain range to cut and haul winter wood back to the homestead in Fort Bidwell. It was a days-long journey. The well-worn trail took them by O’Connor’s cabin, an old log cabin that still stands to this day.  As he later told it to me, it was the sight of one of the last Indian raids on white settlers in that County. Grandma O’Connor held them off with her pistol and rifle until Old Man O’Connor returned from hunting. The Indians must have thought Grandma O’Connor was an easy target and wouldn’t give them much trouble. They were sorely mistaken.

When I left for Illinois in 1991, Pop and I took one last trip through the Warners, and again camped right in the clearing in front of the old cabin.  His then living brothers and sisters, by then in their 60s and 70s as well, joined us for a campfire. Hearing them recount the story with him once again, while sitting within eyeshot of the old cabin, was truly magical.

In addition to stories and tales of adventure, he also had little sayings to remind me of some of life’s dangers. I never left the porch for school without hearing at least one or two. One of my favorites was “The tracks”, a little limerick about the dangers of the railroad ( we lived “across the tracks” so to speak, and there were many old logging rail lines):

“Little Willie crossed the tracks, his heart was all aflutter.

Along came the 5:15, Toot-Toot!- peanut butter”

Pop’s been gone over fifteen years, but I think of that little rhyme, and my Pop,  every time I come near a track to this day.

Well, my second cup of coffee is now done, and the neighbors have awakened.  Not all of us are early risers, I guess. But I’m glad my Pop and I were, and I’m glad we had a porch.