Week One with Family – Citrus Heights, Ca

When I think of Citrus Heights, or the surrounding towns/communities of Fair Oaks, Orangevale, Carmichael, Roseville, West Sacramento, Elk Grove, even Folsom…I just consider it all part of Sacramento.  Having been raised and lived in the area for the first 30+ years of my life, and having had addresses or associations in most of these communities, it is just how I see it.  And when I think of Sacramento, there are many landmarks which come to mind…the Capital, the new arena, the Sacramento and/or American River, Sutter’s Fort, Old Sacramento Folsom Dam…even the iconic Folsom Prison…but most of all, I think of the Tower Bridge.  The Tower Bridge spans across the Sacramento River, and opened to traffic in 1935.  It has not always been gold…that feature coming in 1976 as part of a Bicentennial project aimed at matching the gold in the dome of the Capital Building nearby.  The word “Tower” has been very important in the 20th Century Sacramento…Tower Theater, Tower Cafe, Capital Towers Apartments, and the most famous...Tower Records (founded in Sacramento in 1960)…just to name a few.  We plan to be here through July 11th, but we will be back sometime in September and will be here (except for a few short trips) through Christmas. 

Arriving a week ago, we did attend Aunt Rosie’s Celebration of Life on Saturday down in Oakdale.  When the minister ask people to say on word about Rosie, the three most common words were kindness, sweetness, and loving.  Yep, that sure was Aunt Rosie.   It was nice to see a few cousins who were there, one of whom I had not seen since the early 1980’s.  Uncle Jim and Aunt Mary (whom we have visited and written about before) were there, along with my mom and dad…four the last five of the children and their spouses of my maternal Grandmother. 

We also took mom and dad out to dinner last Friday, took dad to a few doctor appointments yesterday, got a few things done on the motorhome, got a huge laundry mess taken care of, and we have sweated out about 25 pounds from the heat…although the last few days have not been “too bad”, which is kind of like saying to a young man on a blind date, “She is not as ugly as I thought she would be….”, or to the young girl on the same date, “He is not as much of a dork as I thought he was…”

Arny’s mom, who is in her early 90’s, is doing pretty well.  I watched her last night while Sandy and Arny went to dinner…an easy task since she was already in bed for the night.  I went in shortly after they left and said, “Hello my lady…do you remember who I am?”  (Of course, she has seen me a number times this past week, but at this age you want to reinforce everything all the time.)  “Yes.” she says.  “What is my name?” I ask.  “Umm…umm…”  Seeing her bit of confusion I said, “I will make it easy on you….am I Roger of David?”   “DAVID” she replies, with a big old smile….   We sure do love that lady…

In Memory of…A Cuz and an Aunt

Just wanted to take a moment from our travel blog and talk about two people who passed away in just the past few days.  One was a “Cuz”, not a blood cousin, but close family member that we always called him Cousin.  The other was an Aunt, one who has been pictured in the blog before.  Both of these are so recent, there have been no obituaries posted yet…so what I say is just from memory and the heart.

Byron was of the generation of my oldest brother…both went to the same high school, but Byron was just a little older than Jim.  I’ll try to explain “how” he is somewhat related to us.  His mother, Cora was an orphan at a young age.  My dad’s mother’s step-father (her biologic father died falling off a hay wagon when she was around 12) and mother became the legal guardians of Cora.  Cora was younger than my grandmother, older than he brother.  Seems every time I am told this I quickly forget, so it is good to finally get it in writing.  Needless to say, he was family.  He was church family, he was blood family, he was a “Cuz”.  I just remember Byron as such a nice, friendly guy.  When dad sent out the text, I responded that “I sure liked that guy..”, and moments later my brother Roger said, “…He was a great guy!”.  Yep, that is how we remember him…wouldn’t it be nice if all the people we “remember” were truly likeable, great people?  A few quick memories….  I remember when he helped to take the youth group Christmas Caroling.  We would go from home to home of some of the older people and sing…then gather for Pizza fixed by my Uncle Red (dad’s brother).  We stopped at a stop light and he had us all jump out of the van, go around in a circle, and jump back in.  Why???  Because for young kids in the 50’s and 60’s that was “fun”.  This was long before American Graffiti came out where they did it in the movie (except they also put shaving cream all over the window of a guys car in the movie.)   I remember him taking a small group of us to a couple of Sacramento State football games.  He was a graduate of the college, attending there at the time.  Sac State did not have a fabulous team, they did not have any stars…but it was nice just to go to a College Football game.  By that time he was married to Sue, a very sweet, quiet lady.  They had a few children, I did not get to know them although I vaguely remember seeing them a few times…probably a few times at the restaurant since occasionally Uncle Mac (grandma’s brother) brought a group of church people in on Sunday every now and then.)   Well, what does all this have to do with Byron?  It is just to show how he was family…and the family lost another one…a truly good one.  He will be missed.  (Pictures taken from his Facebook page)

Aunt Rosie (Rosemarie) passed away earlier this week…she had lung cancer, and never smoked a single cigarette in her life. She had been fighting it for at least six years, getting special treatments at Stanford University which kept her alive long enough to see grandchildren born to her daughter Emily and her son Chris.  To the left is a picture of Rosie, Emily and Chris taken some years ago.  Rosie was the fourth wife of my Uncle Kenny, who was the seventh of eleven kids while mom was ninth of eleven…so they were close brother and sister (as she was with most all, though some were older and got married and moved away before she got to know them very well.)   Kenny had three children from his first marriage to Mary Lee, these are cousins I grew up with…Pam, Cindy and Bobby, with Cindy being the closest in age to me.  His second wife,  Nancy, died of complications from a hysterectomy…she had several young children that Kenny was going to help raise…but unfortunately, he did not get custody.  They had only been married a little over a year…I cried at her funeral, not for the loss of her, but for how that loss was going to affect that ‘family’.  Kenny’s third marriage was a total yet quick disaster…I never met her nor do I know her name.  Then sometime in the early 1970’s Rosie came into his life…what a blessing that was for all!  By this time I was an older teenager, so getting to know new Aunts was not high on my priority list…especially since I had a job cooking in the restaurant, or going to college, and then 10+ years of managing restaurants.  However, I knew she made my Uncle Kenny very happy, she loved the older kids, and Chris and Emily sure provided her and Kenny many blessings…a second family for Uncle Kenny since the other three were pretty much grown and gone by the time she married him, except for Bobby who was in high school…but lived with his mother.  Uncle Kenny died in 1999, never got to see Chris or Emily marry or got to see their kids.  Rosie was blessed to have been able to meet her latest Grandson, Lucas (pictured laying on her while she was on hospital bed), just a month before she passed.  Lucas is Chris’s son, while Emily has a set of twin girls, Elizabeth and Grace (pictured celebrating their first birthday just a few months ago), and boy was Rosie ever proud of those little girls.  I will always remember Rosie for her kind, sweet big heart.  Never heard her complain about her suffering, always had a good outlook on life, always thought of others before herself.  I thank God for the happiness she brought my Uncle, and our “family” would not be the same without her…she touched so many people’s hearts.  (Pictures from his Facebook page)

I feel compelled to attend Aunt Rosie's Celebration of Life service, which is two weeks from today.  So we have made another drastic change to our travel schedule.  We will stay in Western Colorado for a few more days, then start heading west to Salt Lake City area to visit with my daughter, then on to Sacramento, arriving early Friday.  We will stay in Sacramento for 2-3 weeks, then take off, probably north along the coast, to get away from the Valley heat...returning in mid to late September.  Our plans will then be back on schedule, we have intended to be in the Sacramento area for late September through Christmas all along.

Aunts, Uncle, Century Plant

Today we took mom and dad to the Escalon/Oakdale/Riverbank area to visit with my mom’s sister Mary, her husband Jim, and her sister-in-law Rosie.  Which to me means, Aunt Mary, Uncle Jim and Aunt Rosie.  Jim and Mary live in Escalon, Rosie in Oakdale, and the Perko's Farm Fresh Café us in Riverbank…all about 90 miles from Citrus Heights.  Mom was one of eleven kids, only her older sister Mary, and the youngest brother Paul are still living.  Sister-in-laws Rosie and Vera are still living too…we last visited Aunt Vera in the Kansas City area last year when mom and dad flew there in October and we were in the area at the same time to visit my youngest son.  From my mom’s side alone I had around 60 first cousins, and on my dad’s side I had eight from his older brother who, as a widow with four kids, married my Aunt Florence who had three…and they decided to have one together to make eight.  Yes, I come from a very large family in many ways.

     

Perko's is a nice, mainly California Central Valley restaurant chain.  I had been to a Perko’s before, but it has been a long, long time.  Glad to be back, pretty good for a Franchise style restaurant.  I think we need to go back for breakfast sometime…although Marcia and Aunt Rosie decided to have breakfast for lunch today.  

     

Uncle Jim and Aunt Mary are Almond farmers, pronounced “Amond” by them because when you harvest Almonds, you knock the “L” out of the little things to get them to drop from the tree.  When I was in my “youth” I would visit them in their old Modesto location where they also had Almonds. 

 

    

Someone got a haircut yesterday….it sure makes it easier to make those giant jumps (pretty high for a short legged little thing).  Bubba was sweating it out yesterday….but his turn is coming soon.

   

Bubba sure is Arney’s “Shop Dog”….

…and boy does he pick up “stuff” from the floor of the shop.

    

Ever since we arrived, this large, Asparagus looking thing has been looming over the shed from a next-door neighbor.

This shot (left) is from over the fence, best shot I can get.  The plant is a Agave Americana, also known as a Centuryplant.  The top will be a flower, and there will be a few shoots near the top that also flower.  The plant does this once, around the 25-30 years in age mark….and then it dies….the whole plant dies, not just the flower.  It's originally native to Mexico, Arizona, and Texas but cultivated worldwide as an ornamental plant.  The ‘flower’ can span up to thirty feet, and I would say that this one is right around 30 feet in height. With California’s current drought conditions, I expect more and more cactus and other drought resistant plants and foliage will be showing up.  As a kid, with two rivers running through the area, water was cheap and plentiful…so I was use to seeing a lot of green, a lot of flowers, a lot of colors.  I am afraid that in the future, we will be seeing more and more brown unless the heavens open up and the rain comes pouring down.