CREEK ROAD GANG
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Seasoned Lumber
Patricia Zita Krischcopyright 2008
My parents had decided they really needed to expand our house. Home was a two-bedroom, one bath English cottage-style house, loaded with charm--if not with space. My father’s mother had died a couple of years earlier and Grandpa had soon after retired as an engineer for the Southern Pacific Railroad. My father’s sister, Aunt Rita, still lived in Roseville where they had grown up and now she and her husband and young son moved into her parents house there so she could keep house for Grandpa. But my parents had wanted Grandpa to spend some of his time living with us in Sacramento. The only space we had for visitor was a little nook off the kitchen, suitable for a few days but not for weeks at a time.
There was another compelling reason for more space. After being on the waiting list to adopt a baby with one agency for two years, my parents had recently moved their application to the Catholic Welfare Bureau’s newly formed adoption agency. They were hopeful about getting a baby boy soon.
Not only were babies to adopt in short supply, but also in l946, competition for seasoned wood was intense. Dad worried aloud over and over about how he was ever going to get his hands on some so we could add an addition to our house. Once World War II ended it seemed half of the country, or at least those in the Midwest, were moving en masse to California. Houses and housing developments were sprouting up all over. Dad tut-tutted that houses were going up so fast that the builders couldn’t all be using seasoned lumber. He said that the people who bought those houses would be sorry down the line.
Then one day he came home and excitedly announced that his good friend, Van, had located a great source of seasoned lumber that they could share. The Army was scaling back the large training camp, Camp Beale, upcountry near Marysville, about forty miles north of Sacramento. (I read later that Beale had been used to train the 13th armored and 81st and 96th infantry divisions, and during World War II it had housed 60,000 soldiers plus some German prisoners of war.) Van said they could buy the lumber from a WACs barracks that was being torn down.
Roland Van de Griff, quite a few years older than Dad, was one of my father’s best friends. While I was used to people looking up to Dad, who was already a successful corporate lawyer and business community leader, Dad looked up to Van. In today’s language, one might call him Dad’s mentor.
Governor Earl Warren had appointed Van to the newly created position of legislative auditor, a powerful post. Dad, as general counsel of California Western States Life Insurance Company, did their lobbying when the state legislature was in session, which then was for only part of the year. I assume it was through that connection that they met. My first memory of Van was when he and his wife, Rawley, invited our family for a weekend visit to their rustic vacation place near Paradise in the foothills of the Sierras. I have a photograph from that visit of three-year-old me on top of a large horse. I don’t remember the horse but I do remember falling in love, or at least having a crush, on one of Van’s college-aged sons. For years Dad loved to tell the story of how when we were leaving, I commanded him to stop the car. Then I rolled down the window, leaned out and asked the young man, “And when will I see you again?” Dad was sure it presaged that I would have a lot of boyfriends.
While Dad often reported conversations he had had with Van to my mother at the dinner table, I mostly remember Van from occasional visits to their sheep ranch somewhere in farm country outside Sacramento. I should explain that almost anywhere else, a place this size would be called a farm, but in California it was called a ranch. The ranch was far enough from the city that Van, who had many evenings meetings to attend, often stayed weeknights in a small apartment in town, and Rawley, Van’s second wife, lived on the ranch with only the ranch manager and cowboys for company. I always had mixed feelings about these visits. Rawley, a dignified former dean of women at Chico State College, was an excellent cook and gracious hostess. I loved the ranch house, but usually before the early dinner, Van would take Dad and my sister, Anna Rita, and me on a tour of the ranch. Mother always found an excuse to bow out by staying behind to help with dinner.
While I loved cats and some dogs, the Van de Griff dogs always seemed over-eager to greet us, especially it seemed, me. When we went for a walk to the barn and pasture a couple of sheep dogs would accompany us. At the time I didn’t know about breed characteristics, but it did seem clear that the dogs must be mistaking me for a sheep, because they would keep pushing me. Van would correct them, but it didn’t last long and besides he was usually distracted explaining things about the ranch or sheep or current legislation to Dad. When we got to the pasture enclosures the sheep would crowd around. I hated that as I was only the size of a small sheep and was greatly outnumbered by big sheep. Then the dogs would start herding the sheep and me. If I started to cry, Dad would rescue me by picking me up, but he would usually admonish me for being a crybaby. It was always a relief to get back to the house, to good food smells and dinner.
In 1946, with the war over, Van wanted seasoned lumber to do some building on the ranch, and my parents wanted to add a wing to our house. Van and Dad bought the lumber from the WAC barracks. They puzzled for a while over how to transport the lumber, but Van hit on a plan to hire a day laborer and have him drive Van’s farm truck up to Camp Beale, load it up and transport the lumber to his ranch, then go back to Beale, load up ours and drive to Sacramento with it. There was one hitch to this plan. The farm truck was only licensed for use on the farm, but Van didn’t think anyone would notice.
I assume it was Van who hired a man at the day labor hiring spot near Front Street in Sacramento and sent him off in the truck. Anna Rita, my friend Mary Lou from down the street, and I waited eagerly for delivery of our lumber to break up the monotony of a hot summer afternoon. I remember Mother was excited as well. Eventually, she got a call from Rawley that the man had delivered the lumber to them and was going back to get ours. We waited and waited and waited. Eventually, Mother called Dad at work to tell him the guy hadn’t shown up. Soon there were a lot of calls going around among my parents and Rawley and Van. A call to Camp Beale confirmed that our lumber had never been picked up. Mother seemed to be viewing all this as an adventure saying, “You never know what is going to happen when your Dad gets into a project. Or Van. They’re two of a kind.”
Soon Anna Rita, Mary Lou and I were caught up in the mystery of the missing driver. I remember Mary Lou saying, “The most interesting things happen at your house.”
Van faced a dilemma. He wanted his truck back, but he was a high state official, and he had hired this man to take his truck, licensed only for the ranch, and to drive it on the highway—quite a ways on the highway. Eventually, he contacted an official at the California State Police and explained his problem. In our time, there would be serious risk of a sharp reporter finding out this juicy tidbit, but this was a simpler time, kinder to high officials. Within a few hours the state police reported back to him that they had found the truck parked in San Francisco, ninety miles southwest of Sacramento. A bit later a waiting state policeman met the driver after he left a movie theater and came back for the truck. Rawley had paid him for the Van der Griff’s load and, finding that the work had been hard and he now had money in his pocket, he had taken off to San Francisco. If he had had any long range plans, and he probably didn’t, I never heard what they were. Van got his truck back. Somehow our seasoned lumber got to Sacramento, but I think this time in a licensed truck. Certainly, with a different driver.
That fall my parents hired carpenters to build a two-room addition plus small bathroom off the end of our kitchen. It was finished in early 1947, but not by February, because I remember it wasn’t finished on the Valentine’s Dad when Sister Lucille called mother with the news that they had a baby boy for them to adopt. Eleven days later my brother, Terry, arrived home to join our family. At first he slept in our parents’ bedroom. When the new wing was finished, Mother found blue and pink plaid wallpaper for our new bedroom walls and Dad repainted our bedroom furniture pink. Terry and Grandpa moved into our room, and Anna Rita and I moved into our new suite, snug in rooms built with well-seasoned lumber.
There was another compelling reason for more space. After being on the waiting list to adopt a baby with one agency for two years, my parents had recently moved their application to the Catholic Welfare Bureau’s newly formed adoption agency. They were hopeful about getting a baby boy soon.
Not only were babies to adopt in short supply, but also in l946, competition for seasoned wood was intense. Dad worried aloud over and over about how he was ever going to get his hands on some so we could add an addition to our house. Once World War II ended it seemed half of the country, or at least those in the Midwest, were moving en masse to California. Houses and housing developments were sprouting up all over. Dad tut-tutted that houses were going up so fast that the builders couldn’t all be using seasoned lumber. He said that the people who bought those houses would be sorry down the line.
Then one day he came home and excitedly announced that his good friend, Van, had located a great source of seasoned lumber that they could share. The Army was scaling back the large training camp, Camp Beale, upcountry near Marysville, about forty miles north of Sacramento. (I read later that Beale had been used to train the 13th armored and 81st and 96th infantry divisions, and during World War II it had housed 60,000 soldiers plus some German prisoners of war.) Van said they could buy the lumber from a WACs barracks that was being torn down.
Roland Van de Griff, quite a few years older than Dad, was one of my father’s best friends. While I was used to people looking up to Dad, who was already a successful corporate lawyer and business community leader, Dad looked up to Van. In today’s language, one might call him Dad’s mentor.
Governor Earl Warren had appointed Van to the newly created position of legislative auditor, a powerful post. Dad, as general counsel of California Western States Life Insurance Company, did their lobbying when the state legislature was in session, which then was for only part of the year. I assume it was through that connection that they met. My first memory of Van was when he and his wife, Rawley, invited our family for a weekend visit to their rustic vacation place near Paradise in the foothills of the Sierras. I have a photograph from that visit of three-year-old me on top of a large horse. I don’t remember the horse but I do remember falling in love, or at least having a crush, on one of Van’s college-aged sons. For years Dad loved to tell the story of how when we were leaving, I commanded him to stop the car. Then I rolled down the window, leaned out and asked the young man, “And when will I see you again?” Dad was sure it presaged that I would have a lot of boyfriends.
While Dad often reported conversations he had had with Van to my mother at the dinner table, I mostly remember Van from occasional visits to their sheep ranch somewhere in farm country outside Sacramento. I should explain that almost anywhere else, a place this size would be called a farm, but in California it was called a ranch. The ranch was far enough from the city that Van, who had many evenings meetings to attend, often stayed weeknights in a small apartment in town, and Rawley, Van’s second wife, lived on the ranch with only the ranch manager and cowboys for company. I always had mixed feelings about these visits. Rawley, a dignified former dean of women at Chico State College, was an excellent cook and gracious hostess. I loved the ranch house, but usually before the early dinner, Van would take Dad and my sister, Anna Rita, and me on a tour of the ranch. Mother always found an excuse to bow out by staying behind to help with dinner.
While I loved cats and some dogs, the Van de Griff dogs always seemed over-eager to greet us, especially it seemed, me. When we went for a walk to the barn and pasture a couple of sheep dogs would accompany us. At the time I didn’t know about breed characteristics, but it did seem clear that the dogs must be mistaking me for a sheep, because they would keep pushing me. Van would correct them, but it didn’t last long and besides he was usually distracted explaining things about the ranch or sheep or current legislation to Dad. When we got to the pasture enclosures the sheep would crowd around. I hated that as I was only the size of a small sheep and was greatly outnumbered by big sheep. Then the dogs would start herding the sheep and me. If I started to cry, Dad would rescue me by picking me up, but he would usually admonish me for being a crybaby. It was always a relief to get back to the house, to good food smells and dinner.
In 1946, with the war over, Van wanted seasoned lumber to do some building on the ranch, and my parents wanted to add a wing to our house. Van and Dad bought the lumber from the WAC barracks. They puzzled for a while over how to transport the lumber, but Van hit on a plan to hire a day laborer and have him drive Van’s farm truck up to Camp Beale, load it up and transport the lumber to his ranch, then go back to Beale, load up ours and drive to Sacramento with it. There was one hitch to this plan. The farm truck was only licensed for use on the farm, but Van didn’t think anyone would notice.
I assume it was Van who hired a man at the day labor hiring spot near Front Street in Sacramento and sent him off in the truck. Anna Rita, my friend Mary Lou from down the street, and I waited eagerly for delivery of our lumber to break up the monotony of a hot summer afternoon. I remember Mother was excited as well. Eventually, she got a call from Rawley that the man had delivered the lumber to them and was going back to get ours. We waited and waited and waited. Eventually, Mother called Dad at work to tell him the guy hadn’t shown up. Soon there were a lot of calls going around among my parents and Rawley and Van. A call to Camp Beale confirmed that our lumber had never been picked up. Mother seemed to be viewing all this as an adventure saying, “You never know what is going to happen when your Dad gets into a project. Or Van. They’re two of a kind.”
Soon Anna Rita, Mary Lou and I were caught up in the mystery of the missing driver. I remember Mary Lou saying, “The most interesting things happen at your house.”
Van faced a dilemma. He wanted his truck back, but he was a high state official, and he had hired this man to take his truck, licensed only for the ranch, and to drive it on the highway—quite a ways on the highway. Eventually, he contacted an official at the California State Police and explained his problem. In our time, there would be serious risk of a sharp reporter finding out this juicy tidbit, but this was a simpler time, kinder to high officials. Within a few hours the state police reported back to him that they had found the truck parked in San Francisco, ninety miles southwest of Sacramento. A bit later a waiting state policeman met the driver after he left a movie theater and came back for the truck. Rawley had paid him for the Van der Griff’s load and, finding that the work had been hard and he now had money in his pocket, he had taken off to San Francisco. If he had had any long range plans, and he probably didn’t, I never heard what they were. Van got his truck back. Somehow our seasoned lumber got to Sacramento, but I think this time in a licensed truck. Certainly, with a different driver.
That fall my parents hired carpenters to build a two-room addition plus small bathroom off the end of our kitchen. It was finished in early 1947, but not by February, because I remember it wasn’t finished on the Valentine’s Dad when Sister Lucille called mother with the news that they had a baby boy for them to adopt. Eleven days later my brother, Terry, arrived home to join our family. At first he slept in our parents’ bedroom. When the new wing was finished, Mother found blue and pink plaid wallpaper for our new bedroom walls and Dad repainted our bedroom furniture pink. Terry and Grandpa moved into our room, and Anna Rita and I moved into our new suite, snug in rooms built with well-seasoned lumber.
* * *
Biographical
Note:
Patricia (Patty) Zita Krisch grew up in Sacramento, California, and
lived for many years in Chicago and for more years in suburban
Philadelphia. She is currently completing a book, A House Alive with
Words,
about a cohort of boys living in a residential A Better Chance program
to prepare for college. In an earlier time in her life she worked as a
demographer studying metropolitan population patterns and taught
college sociology classes. She has been a member of Virginia Newlin’s
autobiographical writing workshop class for thirteen years and wrote a
memoir about her mother, The Solace of Clothes. She also
writes occasional autobiographical pieces of which this is one. For more or Patty's
stories which have appeared in our pages, see our Author Index
Prose A-K.
