Schofield Creek

It was this creek that you lived on, Grandpa, for sure back in '33 when dad was born. I've been told that dad and a lot of other kids used to jump from this bridge into the creek below. They were swimming all the time.
These are the only house boats left. The last time I was out there was around the year of your death.
There used to be boards down the relics of these walkways.
Now just an echo from the past.
And it was somewhere here that dad told me of a friend who used to live on the creek. It was about to flood, and he had gotten drunk. Afraid of the flood, he piled all his furniture in the middle of the room and sat on top. Somebody, dad maybe, discovered him and couldn't get him to come down. Living on a house boat anchored to a piling gave it cause to rise with the tide and not sink like a house with a foundation. He wouldn't have gotten hurt, but he was too drunk to understand.

And it was here, around July 19, 1933, two days after dad, your second son, was born. Dad was having some serious health problems, grandma told me. An old woman showed up at your door, grandma said. "I had a dream," she told grandma. "Your son was born a blue baby."

"You didn't argue with your elders back then," grandma told me, and let the woman in.

The woman got the stove going and stuffed dad in there. And whaddya know, dad lived.

Was it around here, and I'm sorry to bring the sad memory up, but you are all together in the spirit world somewhere...Was it around here, Grandpa, that Charles and Harry, my uncles, were playing on a log raft? They must have done this a thousand times before, but this time, Uncle Charles slipped between the logs and drowned.

I couldn't find his grave.


And hunger! One of mom's relatives told me a couple of decades ago at a family picnic for that side of the family that they had known hunger. But they would always go to Violet, Grandma, and ask for food. He told me she would tell them to go get something for her to cook. They'd get birds or fish or shell fish and Grandma Violet would cook it up for them. They didn't have a lot of dairy back then, I guess it was during the big war, but Grandma made sure they didn't go hungry.
[After taking the above photos, I ran into an elderly gent walking a Corgy. I asked if he'd been around here for long, and he said only three years. He was Cherokee, a half breed, none the less, and he had family that walked their "Trail of Tears." Some of his family died on that trail. He also knew of the Siletz Trail of Tears as well. Some of his family returned back to Georgia so he had family on both Cherokee land bases.

During our conversation an Indian fellow walked by. He looked back at me and kept walking. He seemed familiar but since I was talking with an elder, I didn't want to be disrespectful and remove my attention from him.]

And you wound up on this lot, but not in this house. The old rotted house you lived in is now gone. It was here that you lived when you died. I remember your last visit. You visited us up in Portland. You had told Grandma you had to see your son one more time before you died.

Dad took me out that day, and brought me home where you hid just on the other side of the forier and jumped out and scared the living shit out of me, and then I jumped for joy for the Love I felt for you. I don't remember too much of that visit, but I remember you sitting on a dining room chair, asleep, snoring. I stared for a long time wondering how you could stay up on the thing without falling off.
Your house is at the end of the street on the right.

I remember when Aunt Alice stepped on her brakes when I was in the back of the car. I slammed my face on the floor and still have two scars on my cheek. This was before seat belt laws.

I remember dad coming home drunk one evening, parking our car on the other side of the street and passing out behind the wheel. He pressed the gas pedal to the floor sending the engine to maximum revs and scaring the shit out of everyone. They all went running out to get dad out of the car. I remember them dragging him into the house in a blanket. In his drunken stupor, passed out, there was a smile on his face.

"And so it goes."

continue...