Suicidal Thoughts are rampant in young people in their 20s. They cannot get satisfaction either sexually or career wise or relationship wise long term often. Meeting the girl next door and living happily ever after doesn't usually happen just because of how expensive it is to get married and to raise kids these days.
Unless you are a doctor, a lawyer or own your own business or something you likely cannot be happy being married and having and raising children unless someone is helping you financially beyond your means like parents or grandparents.
But, it was a different world in 1980 than now. Land was still pretty cheap relatively speaking. So, when I thought about going to work in San Francisco and leaving my new wife and kids in Mt. Shasta to do this my friend said, "Don't to that. Instead take your savings and buy land and build a house instead."
He was right because we were at 10% unemployment then all over the U.S. and by not having to pay rent any more and only property taxes while I built a home for us along with my father and friends I could then not be paying rent anymore and actually have a permanent place to stay with my family and I wouldn't have to go to work in San Francisco to send money back to my family. It was a great idea! And my father agreed with me and helped me build our new home too along with several of my friends. Even my then new wife and children helped build this new home for us. The worst thing long term was that I had to build it without electricity so I used a chain saw to make the wood cuts and I didn't always have sufficient ear protection from the sound of chain saws. But, that wouldn't affect me until I was over 60 years old. But, at the time I was very happy to be the father of a family of 5. Mom and Dad and 3 kids two of which were my step children and my son from my first marriage.
I had at that time a 1974 Honda 250 XL motorcycle which was a dualsport and a Toyota Truck and we had a VW Van we called "Fig" because of it's license plate and then we sold my toyota longbed truck and our VW Camper van 1971 to buy lumber to build our home since we had already bought the land for cash. This enabled us to build an A-Frame with my father's help. I can remember us harvesting 4 lodgepole pines not to big around on our land and building two really tall ladders with them so we could put the green felt roofing on our A-Frame just my Dad and I up about 20 to 30 feet near the top of the A-Frame.
We put a pole through the center of the GReen Felt Roofing roll of roofing and then tied ropes to the pole on either end. Then we climbed the very tall ladders we built with 4 smaller lodgepole pine trees and then held onto the ropes as we climbed the ladders to the top. We then slowly drew up the rolling Green Felt up to the top of the peak of the A-Frame and then holding onto the two ropes slowly lowered the roll of green felt roofing down the other side. Then we tacked the roofing down to the roof with roofing tacks after getting it in place this way. This way we didn't have to rent a hydraulic lift or anything like that because the pitch of the roof was just too steep to stand on without falling off it if you weren't roped in somehow.
So, this is how we solved the problem at that time which was a lot of fun. I know some people are scared on a ladder that high but my father and I were electricians too (he was retired) so we were fairly comfortable up 30 feet or more on a ladder at that time. You hook one arm under the ladder usually to keep you on the ladder so you can use both hands when possible. You cannot fall if you have at least one arm hooked under the ladder if you know what you are doing. It's all a matter of practice and balance and experience doing something like this.
We bought cross country skis for all of the children and when it snowed 7 feet of snow one winter we just parked our 1974 IH Scout II 4 wheel drive a ways a way and used our toboggan for towing to our house food and other supplies by towing it with cross country skis to our A-Frame in the winter time. We home schooled our kids then for 5 years too so it was very much in a way like the book "Swiss Family Robinson". It was heaven to home school our kids and ski and ride my off road motorcycle and climb on Shasta and other mountains and take field trips with the kids then.
So, 1980 to 1985 was the physically happiest time of my life. However, though I'm older now I have been happiest in my life since I almost died at age 50 because I'm just grateful for every moment I have left to live my life with my wife and my children and my grandchildren and my friends.
But, physically when I was young enough to be in perfect physical condition all the time from about 30 to 37 when my father died was the physically happiest time of my life home schooling our children in the deep forests of Mt. Shasta with Fairydiddles chirping (flying squirrels) and deer walking by and porcupines (you had to be careful of porcupines and skunks as they aren't very intelligent so they are dangerous especially to dogs or cats. But, usually our cat would give both of these a wide berth. But our dog we had to hogtie one day to pull the porcupine quills out of her mouth to save her life.
Every day was an adventure then living in the wilds.
This began an idyllic time sort of reminding me a lot of the book "Swiss Family Robinson" of living remotely in land we paid cash for with a spring of water on the land then and of buying a big clawfoot antique Bathtub which could fit all the kids in then (they were 5 to 8 years old then).
Our longest school field trip and vacation was up into Canada to Banff and Lake Louise and to Jasper national park. I remember drinking Glacier water then that had been frozen for thousands of years. It was sort of milky and tasted very powerful at the time. Not sure it would be safe to do this now though with the world changing the way it has worldwide.
I can remember how different life was then for me than now. I had a lot less money then but in some ways I was usually happy living in the mountains with my family doing fun things and teaching them and watching them all grow up. But, when the oldest was 12 he wanted to go back to public school so we moved to the SF Bay area and bought another business. Even though this likely helped us get divorced about 10 years later because we were never as happy in the SF Bay area as we were living in the Wilds of Mt. Shasta it was likely the best for the kids because they all got college degrees and became successful each in their own way and got married and now my son is 49 and has a 9 year old son too.
One of the reasons my father and I built an A-Frame is so the roof wouldn't collapse when we got 7 feet of snow during the winter if we were not there at the time. In 1992 when Mt. Shasta city got 12 feet of snow I was there during this event visiting friends that winter. I was helping the friends we were staying with shoveling snow off their roof before it collapsed then. Many roofs collapsed then but as a visitor I found having to dig and then guard a parking place to park in was my biggest concern then. Because otherwise there was nowhere to park that was plowed of the 12 feet of snow around town.
Luckily Black Bears mostly stayed away from our property. However, my friend in Mt. Shasta on 2 1/2 acres has cherry and Apple trees and the Bears come and eat his apples and cherries and berries and he has to be careful around them. I have seen personally on his land a pile of bear poop about 1 foot high because they are pretty big creatures composed of the apples it ate there. He says mountain lions and other animals come there too.
However, on my land I never saw a mountain lion or a bear but when driving out in the boonies further from civilization we did come across a bear (my father and I and my then young son.) It stood up as we drove near on the remote 4 wheel drive road to threaten us so I backed up the truck so he wouldn't rip off one of my doors or break a window to the 4 wheel drive. But, then after we backed up so he wouldn't damage the car he realized we were not threatening him so he went down on all 4s and sauntered off the 4 wheel drive road off into the forest. Amazing Experience!
No comments:
Post a Comment