Episode 5: Roger Mason

What does it mean to grow up—and stay—in the Santa Cruz Mountains?

Cameron sits down with Roger Mason—Santa Cruz Mountains native, owner of Mason-Taylor Ranch, and chairman of the Loma Prieta Museum. Roger shares stories of growing up in the mountains, working the land, and preserving the history of a community shaped by resilience, tradition, and faith.

A grounded conversation about legacy, land, and life in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Generations with Cameron Riese is a podcast about wisdom passed down, stories worth sharing, and faith lived out across generations. New episodes feature honest conversations between kids and elders about life, purpose, and following God’s lead.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Do you want to sit down?

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Um yeah, maybe maybe I'll sit down on the corner of the gate. That's fine. If that's okay with you, I'll do that. No.

SPEAKER_02 0:45

Can you introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Yes, thank you, Kevin. Um I'm Roger Mason and I grew up in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I've been here as fourth generation uh family, and I started off um you know going to school up here at Loma Prieta. And I think um you probably have gone to Loma Prieta.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Yeah. It's a good school. And so I went there all eight years, and then I went to Las Gatas High, and then I went on to Cabrillo College, and then San Jose State University, and graduated there. So I really enjoyed living on the mountain and the history all about it, too. So um I'll tell you more later, but just to give a brief introduction, that um I grew up as a young boy down on Stetson Road off a so-called San Jose Road on a hundred acres, that my great-grandparents came in the 1800s and purchased that 100 acres for a $20 gold piece. If you can believe that, they got 100 acres back then for a $20 gold piece. That's in the deed, it's hard to believe. But anyway, um on the farm, I used to help my grandfather as he would work the orchard. He had about 50 acres of orchard out of that hundred acres. And there were five of us kids. I was one of five, and we would have to go over and help my grandfather when we were growing up. And about your age, you say you're about eight, Cameron. Um, I remember very well carrying the boxes through the orchard of prunes and pears and apples and whatever, and putting them on a sled. He had a horse. The horse would pull the sled through the orchard. He didn't have a tractor. Back then, when I was growing up, he couldn't afford a tractor. Okay. So he had one horse by the name of Queenie, and Queenie, that horse, uh, would pull the sled, so we'd throw the fruit on the sled.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Wait, you she had a sled?

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Well, my grandfather had a sled, just a flat sled that we would put fruit on. Oh, I thought Oh, not not a not a not a snow shed.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Wait.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

I was thinking like a cart.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Well, it wasn't even a cart, it was just uh some some wood that had a hitch on it, and the horse Queenie would pull that through the orchard. Smart. Yeah. It's amazing. He'd had no tractor back then. He couldn't afford a tractor. He would work six days a week. On Sunday, he would rest. My grandfather and grandmother both. But growing up, we we used to work on the farm a lot. So um when we're not in school, we'd be working helping my grandparents uh do things on the farm. So um just that's a brief introduction. Uh so what about what about you? You're uh interested in what kind of history?

SPEAKER_02 3:48

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Local local history, probably, right? Anything that's around you here.

SPEAKER_02 3:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

And that's the way I grew up was that I had history all around me. Uh for example, when we when my grandfather used to plow the orchard with uh with the horses, okay? He had he before tractor. As a young kid, I remember him going through there. We used to follow that plow looking for Indian arrowheads uh and obsidian. And we'd find it oftentimes, not full, not full arrowheads very often, but we'd find broken ones, we'd find obsidian that was left there from the Ohlone Indian tribes. And then also when my great-grandparents settled there in the 1800s, they found, you know what a mortar and pestle is? Well, the Indians used a mortar like a big bowl and a pestle, uh, a rock to grind their acorns. And we found a couple of those on the other, I didn't, but my great-grandparents found a couple of those on the property when they bought it in the 1800s. So, so a lot of artifacts from the early American Indians. And so that not only fascinated me, but you know, it was really neat.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

I have Native American obsidian from Yosemite.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Oh, really? Well, that's cool. That's nice, really nice. Yeah, and you know, besides besides finding some of the artifacts on the property, we would find places where there were piles of clamshells, where they had evidently bought these clamshells up from the coast and carried them, I guess, somehow, some way, but there were piles where they had uh where they were settled and they had left after they ate the clams out of those. So, you know, it's it's really fascinating not just to see mortar and pestles and arrowheads, but some of the grinding rocks. Also, there was a grinding rock. You know what a grinding rock is? Yeah. Where the Indians would use that big rock with holes in it to grind their acorns. So we have a grinding rock on the property over on Stetson, too. Uh so uh there was a lot of natural history around us, and um I got interested in that growing up with it all around me, but also when I went to Lima Prieta school, there was a teacher by the name of Olga Brecki, and she was my third and fourth grade teacher, and and she would teach us about the local history all around us. She would not only talk about the Ohlone Indian tribes, but she would talk about the Spanish, the Mexican people that came in here after that, and then about the early settlers. So she made made history very interesting. She didn't just say, hey, this is the name and this is the date, and but she would say, What happened and why? And she would give us that information, and it was fascinating for us.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

Sounds like Loma used to be good back then.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Yeah. Well, hopefully you get more of that history because right now we're working with Loma Praeta School and the uh uh uh Loma Praeta Community Foundation to present local history in the building next to building blocks. So we'll have that displayed there so that people like yourself can walk over the bridge and see some of that local history displayed in pictures, small artifacts, maybe Indian arrowheads, maybe some mortar and pestils, whatever. But we'll have those small artifacts there so you can see what's all around you and appreciate the history. So that's something that you know I I I take it you you you like history. This is good because it's important for for growing up to realize what's around you and to respect it and appreciate it. And so we're trying to make sure that people growing up, especially growing up, uh once they're once they're adults, it's kind of too late, okay? We can't teach them much, but but growing up, they're usually very interested in what's around them. So we're gonna be doing that later this year. And then also uh we've had a lot of should I say, um antique uh farm equipment, uh as well as household equipment donated over the last ten years to the Lumer Prieta Museum so that they could be displayed to show people what it was like when you grew up in the 1800s. And and there's some recordings that we've recorded from some of the early settlers and they talked about growing up in the mountains early as as they're very young, and they they now have gone and uh and passed on. So we can't talk to them anymore. So it's important that we record that and we've got that videotaped on our web page. Okay. So um you have any other questions?

SPEAKER_02 9:07

What's one story from when you were young that really stuck with you?

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Uh we would go down early in the morning just with a a willow stick and some line. We wouldn't we couldn't afford a a fishing pole, just uh a willow stick. We cut we cut a willow stick and and some fishing line, and and and we dig for nightcrawlers. You know what nightcrawler is? The big worms, usually pretty good size. We put those on our hooks and let them float down the stream, and those rainbow fish would go for that fish, and then we get we get the rainbows. And so that was that was exciting because you know, we'd take them home and have them for breakfast, and they were so sweet, good to eat, rainbow trout. Now, you get a bigger fish, they're not so sweet, you know, the big steel head. But the little ones uh maybe eight to twelve inches long, and um so that was one thing that my brother Gary and I used to love to do is we go down early in the morning and catch fish and then come back and enjoy them. Great to eat. But um but let me tell you another thing is that uh when I was a little older, I had an experience of of going over into the which is which is now the Nasine Mark State Park. You know where that is. It's up here not too far away, and um we're gonna be doing a presentation and a hike on that pretty soon through the to the museum. Uh but when I was young, we would go over there hiking through the forest, and it it it it adjoined the lumberland, which is now so-called demonstration forest. But we go over there just hiking and looking for the old sulfur springs. They they used to when when the wagons would come up, should I say the train, the trains would come up, people would take a wagon from the train up, Wright Station or Laurel, and go out through Comstock Road to the sulfur springs. And these are springs that still exist, but they were developed back then. People would come from the city to take sulfur baths, okay? They thought this was going to cure all their ills. They would go soak in the sulfur baths that were up there in the mountains. So we would go find them and realize that uh what those people did and what they went through. It was pretty amazing back then. But with just wagon time, that they would take a wagon and go all that distance after they rode a train here, take a wagon up the canyon and take a sulfur bath. Have you ever had a sulfur bath? You know, I haven't either. I haven't. But uh, but I tell you, um, yeah, okay. I I could tell you a good good story about. But are they still in use? Pardon? Are they still in use? No, no, but but I tell you, uh in the 1940s they stopped coming because the highways were developed and they had trucks, and so the trains were no longer uh uh economical to to run, to maintain. The trucks were a lot less money and they would haul produce. But let me tell you, in the 1870s, they built five tunnels through the Santa Cruz Mountains, hand-dug. Underneath Summit Road, there's one that goes from Wright Station over into Laurel Canyon and comes out of Burns Creek. Uh and we have we have documented some of the history on our webpage about those tunnels. So you can go on there and you can you can listen about it or you know and see pictures as well. But what what I'm gonna tell you about the trains is that my my my grandfather and great-grandfather used to walk through the tunnels when they were young. And they would tell me they would walk through from Laurel to Wrights to over Wright Station to play baseball with the people on the mountain. They would go all that distance just to play baseball. Do you play baseball?

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Oh, I thought so. Yeah. And can you imagine walking about three or four miles just to go play baseball?

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

That's a long while. But they would walk through over a mile-long tunnel from Laurel to Wrights to do that. And they would play with some of the other neighbors up here on the mountain. There were, you know, other people, but they lived far away. Not too many people lived up here then. But uh my my grandfather told me when I was helping on the farm, he said, you know, we had to be really careful when we walked through the tunnel that the train wouldn't be coming. Because there wasn't much room left. When the train came through, you might get hit by the train because you couldn't get out of its way. So he said, we were very careful and make to sure we understood the schedule of the train coming from Las Gatas to Santa Cruz or Santa Cruz back to Las Gatas. And also, uh my dad, he uh he took the train when he was when he was eight and about your age, yeah, eight, eight, eight to ten years old, or eight to twelve, probably. My dad would meet his aunt at Laurel Station. Um, this is about 1930, late 30s, okay? Uh it was after the 1800s, but still the train was going up until 1940. And so his aunt, um his aunt Eva would come down from San Francisco where she lived, because his my um uh my dad's dad, my my grandpa passed away when my dad was eight years old. And so his his sister, Aunt Eva, uh my my that is my my dad's father's sister, okay, um, would come down on the weekend and meet him at Laurel, and they would go off to the boardwalk in Santa Cruz on a Saturday. So she wasn't working on Saturday, so she would come down from San Francisco, pick up my my dad, and they would go by train into the boardwalk. And then they come back. He'd get off at Laurel, she continue on to the tunnels and go back to San Francisco. And that was called the Suntan Special. And that was really I I asked my dad about that. I said, What was it like? He said, Well, it was pretty smoky and dirty going through those tunnels. Because he says, you know, they didn't have any air conditioning, they did not, and you you get uh choked up a little bit, even though they had vents in the tunnels, it helps some get the methane gas out that came in there when they had methane gas is still in those tunnels. Did you know that? You have to be careful, you don't blow up in there, okay?

unknown 15:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Oh no. Have you been to some of the in the ends of the tunnels?

SPEAKER_02 15:52

No.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

You know, camera, you should do that. It's it's fascinating, it's amazing. You can look and see what they hand-dug, just hand-dug, no tractors back in the 1800s. They did that in the 1870s, and just hard to believe. They did such amazing things back then. Uh they didn't have any OSHA or some other uh uh controls back then, but uh it's really, really something. But the trains, um we also have a a couple train talks on our webpage by Brian Liticotte, who's a railroad historian out of um out of Corlitas, and he has uh given a lot of neat history and talked about what happened and and what happened during the railroad. Now the other thing is not only my great-grandfather Clayton Jones, who lived on Stetson Road, but also people here on the summit would take their fruit down to Wright Station or to Laurel Station, but mostly Wright Station was where they would take their produce. And and they would pick, you know, a lot of prunes because uh they would dry in September. They would I used to help my grandfather do this too, pick prunes. Um and um then we put them on trays and we dry them and then put them in boxes and ship them. But what they did, they didn't have refrigerators on the trains back then. No refrigerators. So you couldn't just put fruit that was gonna spoil. So that's one reason they sent dried fruit. So not only my great-grandfather, but also um here at the Taylor Ranch, um, we could all call it Mason Taylor because of uh we we purchased it, but um the uh yeah, I'm just trying to think. Um the Schulteis family also they shipped uh French and German plums after right into prunes, and they would ship them down to Wright Station. They would take them by wagon down to the train. So that we have pictures of what they call market day. And I'll have to get some of those pictures for you, Cameron, because it shows all the wagons coming in from the mountains with their produce, whether it be prunes or plums or whatever it was, coming down and the grapes too. The other thing, you know, there were vineyards up here back in the tenures. A lot of people had vineyards, and including my great-grandparents, and then in the 20s, during probation, they tore all that out. They didn't um they didn't bootleg, they they tore it out and changed to other other kinds of fruits. So in the 20s, it wasn't, they couldn't sell uh their their grapes for for wine. They couldn't do that. They were wine grapes, they weren't just juice grapes, but they were made for wine. So in the 20s, they couldn't they couldn't sell them. So my grandfather always told me, he says, you know, when you plant something, he says, don't just depend upon one crop. Because his family experienced the fact that they almost starved up here trying to change from the vineyards to different types of fruit. So they planted chestnuts, walnuts, they planted apples, pears, peaches, apricots, all different kinds of fruits, knowing that if one crop wasn't so good, another crop would be okay. And that's the same thing that happens here at the Mason Taylor Ranch, is that we do the same thing. We diversify and um we have different crops so that if one crop isn't so good, hopefully another one will be. Because they change from year to year. Like uh, so so just so you know. Okay, any other questions about history?

SPEAKER_02 19:47

Um uh when you didn't have refrigerators, didn't people use salt?

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Salt?

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Well, they used salt to, excuse me, uh for drying things and preserving things, okay? But the refrigerators were more like ice boxes. You would have to get a big cube of ice you'd picked up down at one of the Goodworth uh places in town where they where they had I don't know how they you know, before refrigerators though, before even ice boxes, uh they had no way in the trains back in the 1800s to keep things cold. Okay, so they didn't have any way uh and I I don't know that other than preserving some of the food food, they used uh the salt for that.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Yeah, that's what and and it was known as white gold.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Pardon?

SPEAKER_02 20:43

It was known as white gold. Uh salt was known as white gold.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It was important. It was really important to be able to preserve food so that it wouldn't spoil so you could continue to to have food. Because it wasn't that easy to to get food. You had to work hard, and then you need to save it for a while until another crop came along. And um they used to do quite a bit of canning too. Uh I know I used to help my grandparents, uh, myself and the other ones in our family, uh uh uh we we would uh help can up pears and peaches and all kinds of fruit so that it would preserve and you could eat it later. Um so anyway, um it's important that you know that you know, early early days, settlers up here, they they also had a lot of uh problems with the wild animals around them. Do you know what kind of wild animals they had to deal with?

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Boar, bears, bears.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

Uh mostly grizzly bears like Mountain Charlie. Yeah, you know about Mount Charlie. Yeah, this is good, yeah, yeah. And in fact, um not only bears. There's but they had mountain lions like we have now as well.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Coyotes.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

And sure they had the coyotes. Um and they had a lot of things to deal with. There's a lot of history written by the different early settler families up here. They uh they almost moved on because it was so such a struggle to to fight off the bears. Even my grandparents told me that their family would have chickens, and the bears would come in and tear the chicken cages apart. They were so strong. And so they lost chickens. So they had to build a a fort, a real strong chicken house. Okay. Pretty amazing. But um what I was gonna say is that uh the uh you mentioned Mount Charlie. What I want to say about that is that we have a lot of history written about Mount Charlie and the bear and what happened. So I just uh want to make sure you know that John Martin Schulteis, who who homesteaded this property in 1851, he homesteaded this property that you you hear right now, uh, 1851, he and his wife Suzanne, who was a midwife, they helped nurse Mountain Charlie back to health. They helped bring Mountain Charlie from the other side of 17, over on the west side of 17, over here to the log cabin that still exists over here that uh Roberto and family live in. And there's accounts in history, even from John Martin Schultez, wrote this up and it went into the Santa Cruz Sentinel back in the 1800s, and he gives about a six-column account of what happened, and we're gonna have that on our webpage. We just found this recently so that we know that it's factual because we know John Martin Schultez lived here. We we still have his great-great-grandson come up here to talk about history of that family. And furthermore, we know that um John Martin Schultz uh he actually was good friends with Mountain Charlie. Or Charlie McCernan was his real name. They call him Mountain Charlie for short, but Charlie McCernan, he grew up here and he and his wife, and then and then the family continued with this property until 1943, when our family purchased it from the Schulteis family. So we're just trying to preserve it and not see it turn into a bunch of uh houses and concrete. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Didn't um Mountain Charlie didn't the bear bite Mountain Charlie's eye?

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Right above his his left eye, it took a chunk out of his head, his skull, right up here. How a bear did that, I I don't know. I wouldn't want to know about it, but but it did. And what happened then was that it uh it actually made a hole in his head. And they they called for a doctor in Las Catas to come up. And uh I'll be with you in a minute. Yeah. Uh so anyway, uh they called for a doctor in Las Catas. But it but it did it took a couple days for the doctor to get up here because by wagon it took a good part of a day to come in through the brush. There wasn't any big roads back then. And uh it was wasn't easy. But the doctor got up here and they put it out, they say, uh uh one story from uh from John Martin Schultz is it was a couple pesos, not just one, but a couple pesos to cover that hole. And after uh a few months, it got infected. So they had to redo it, had to get the doctor back up here again. And they didn't have any Novocaine or painkillers back then, okay?

SPEAKER_02 25:51

That was really hurt.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Can you imagine operating on your head with no they didn't put him out? He was still awake and feeling all the pain. So, you know, it's amazing that he survived because most people probably wouldn't have survived that attack of the bear.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

I don't know how he survived.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

How? I Well, I think somebody was watching over him, you know. It had to be, because most people wouldn't have survived a bear attack. In fact, John Taylor, who was with Mountain Charlie hunting deer, when this happened, he saw it happen. They tried to fight the bear off, but the bear got Mountain Charlie, and John ran for help because he thought Mountain Charlie was dead. He says, you know, he he's gotta be dead. They came back with help to take his body, and they realized he was still breathing. Oh my gosh, he's still alive. So even though he had a big hole in his head, he must have had an angel on his shoulder. He did, I think so.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

Because if he did it, he would be dead.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Oh, you're right. You're right.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

He would have been dead the second it punctured.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

Yeah, it really was a miracle that he survived that attack. Not too many people, a lot of people didn't survive up here when they were attacked. So that is a really uh uh a good thing to understand is that uh he was watched over and and also the fact that you know so many accounts uh of people what they had to do back then, and there were there were quite a few churches up here back in that in those days. Um it wasn't uh not well, probably uh a few more than now, but uh there were little communities. Instead of everybody coming to the summit road area, there were separate communities. There was one up at Highland, there was another one over on the summit, another one at Burrow, and so the people they just stayed within these communities, they didn't really talk or meet with other people that much because it was wagons. And you and you didn't have vehicles, you didn't have cars. It would take a slow, a slow uh ride to get anywhere. So I just want to make sure you you know that uh there were little communities, they had their own little post office in those little communities, they had their own little schools. In fact, I personally almost went to a one-room school uh up on Highland, um next to Skyland Church. Rural school. Highland School. It it the building's still there, and what happened was when I was growing up, I was supposed to go to that one-room school that had all eight grades. Can you imagine one teacher teaching first through eighth grade? But that's what they did. And uh Mrs. Egleston was a teacher, and I was supposed to go there, but what happened? They just opened up Loma Prieta School and said, Oh, now we got the school at Loma Prieta here finished, you're gonna come down here. So I started with a few other friends of mine, uh, and we went to Loma Prieta. And back then we didn't have a kindergarten. Uh, we had a we had four rooms. There were two two grades in each room, one teacher for two grades. So um that's why I say the third and fourth grade was Olga Brecke, and she was a great teacher, and there's a a plaque at the school recognize her for being a great teacher. Yeah. I I used to shoot too many guns and my ears don't work too good anymore.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

What's a moment out here you'll never forget, good or bad?

SPEAKER_00 29:36

A moment out here?

SPEAKER_02 29:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Oh, I'll give you a good one and a bad one, huh? Okay. Let's think about the good one first. Um you know, um, there were so many good ones. It's hard to decide which one, but I'll give you one of them, okay? Um one one of the the neat things is that no, you say when I was growing up or when I was older? Does it matter?

SPEAKER_02 30:14

No.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Okay. Good. Because what I'd like to talk about is a neat thing that happened when Barbara Taylor, who lived on this property here at Mason Taylor Ranch most of her life, when she and my dad decided to get married when they were almost 80 years old. And um they did in 2004. They got married over at my dad's uh campground in on Stetson Road. And she said about a year after they got married, she says, you know, they were both almost in their 80s. Can you imagine that? Almost in their 80s and decided to get married? Well, we said, Well, that's great. So they got married, and then about a year later she says, you know, I'm 80 something and I'm I'm tired of running the ranch, having to take care of all that fruit, etc. And and see what happened was her her husband passed away, Bob Taylor passed away in the 90s uh of of illness of and uh so she'd been managing the farm here by herself for a long time. So she said, Well, I'm gonna have to sell it. And so right away uh my wife and I said, Hey, well, Barbara, what can we do to keep this in the family? We don't want to see it turn into a bunch of houses and and we'd like to see it preserved. There's so much history there, too. And she said, Well, we we can we can talk about that. So we did for almost two years. We negotiated, but at the beginning of the two years, we said, Look, we'll lease it from you and we'll look to convert it to organic. And this was in 2008. 2008, we started the three-year process of changing it, no more chemical sprays, etc. God had to get rid of all the chemicals, and now just use organic means. And that was that was a tough one because a lot of people tell you what to do and it didn't work, okay? So, but the neat thing about it was that we were able to keep the property and not see it turn into a bunch of houses, okay? So that was one good thing. So we're we're grateful for that, we are. And and and her her wish was just to see it continue to serve the community, okay? Because she always sold things to the community, always had this fruit shed here, and uh so we said, Well, we'll do that, we'll keep it going. Now, some of the bad things, um, probably one of the one of the bad things, let me just tell you, when in the 80s, late 80s, was my mom, my mom, who was about 51 years old at that time, she uh she contacted cancer. And um after it happened pretty quick because uh we didn't know it, and then all of a sudden, after about a month or so, the doctors called all the family in and said, you know, uh we gotta let you know that she's probably only gonna live a few days, that's gonna be about it. And your your mom's gonna pass away. So my wife and I, we said, Well, you know, doctors, uh, what options do you have? He said, Well, we we give up, we can't do anything. And um we said, Well, because they had seen it, it had had developed uh so fast. So what what happened was that my wife and I, we we prayed with my mom that that evening. And we knew that she had a will to live on, and she was determined just from talking with her. And so the next morning, about five o'clock, received a call from my mom, and we were living up on Stetson at the time, and she says, I don't know what's going on, but I've got this burning sensation down inside of me. And we said, Wow, wow. Uh and she says the the fluid that we're pumping out of me has has stopped. It was a miracle, it really was. And so that was in the late 80s, and she was about 51 at that time. So the good news is, uh the bad news, the good news is she got to live for two years after that, before it came back. And when it came back, oh dur during the two years, let me say that uh myself, including the rest of my siblings, brothers and sisters there, we spent a lot of time with my mom. We got to really appreciate her appreciate her more during those two years than ever before. And so what uh after after two years, then it came back and she had by this time she pretty much had said, Well, you know, I think it's time for me to go. She realized that okay, I I I've been fighting it, I I conquered it, that initial bit, and now it's time for me to go. So she was willing to to say, Lord, I I'm ready, okay? So that was something that bad but turned into good because we knew that we spent time with her and we knew and she knew where she was going, you know. Now it's uh it's interesting how some bad things turn into better things, you know? Okay. But yeah, no, that's that's really good.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

Who were some characters around here when you were go growing up?

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Characters? Okay. That's a good question. There were a lot of characters growing up. Uh one of them was uh let me think about that. Which character we're gonna talk about? Probably some of the uh the one character that when I was about your age I used to talk to, his name was Mr. Laporte. Mr. Laporte lived down at the Laurel station, and he was a bit older than me for sure. And I think he was probably in his eighties when I was about your age. But he had witnessed a lot of the railroad activity over the years, and he made up all kinds of stories. He was really a character. We didn't know what he was telling us was the truth or not. So later we we figured out some of it he made up, but but he is a character. So no, but uh he uh he would just he he wouldn't stop talking. He he keep keep going on and on and on about the railroads and and and what he did and so forth and so on and and the trains. But um there was there was also um just trying to think um some other characters up here that um didn't didn't want didn't want to be bothered. They were very wanted isolate and be by themselves. And some of those people, you tried to uh talk to them, uh they didn't want to know you. They they were just kind of hermits and really different type of characters, you know. Um but also there were the other type of characters who who grew up here that I that I I I lived with and and uh we did a lot of things together that that actually um their families grew up here in the mountains, and and one of them, their dad went to jail during prohibition, uh because uh he got caught uh selling uh grape juice for wine in the 1920s. And uh so I always talked to him about that and said, Well, uh, you know, a lot of people don't know about your dad going to jail in Santa Cruz County for six months, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:23

Why do you go to jail for selling grape juice for wine?

SPEAKER_00 38:26

Well, back in the twenties it was illegal to be selling uh any wine or things that could make wine. You're not supposed to do that. Because of prohibition, they said no alcohol, no no wine. And so his dad um went to Santa Cruz County jail for six months, and during that time it was just him and his brothers that had to run the ranch, and so they couldn't be selling any more of their crop for wine, so they had to do other things to survive. And he always told me, he said, you know, it was really tough. He said, for us, my brothers and I, to keep things going in the family during that time when my dad was in jail for six months. But uh, but what happened was the agents followed the shipment coming up the Wright station, and they thought, you know, this is kind of weird. Uh they're shipping up some stuff that it kind of goes with the juice to make wine, you know, some of the yeast and things like that. And so the agents, the the the federal agent or local agents they they followed that shipment right up to the ranch, up at Radnich Ranch.

SPEAKER_02 39:37

So what's prohibition?

SPEAKER_00 39:40

Yeah, during the 20s it was uh voted that uh, you know, because a lot of people didn't think people should be drinking any alcohol, which you know it's not good for you, especially drink too much. But there was a big movement in the 20s to stop people from drinking, but also from making and growing anything that would produce alcohol. So wine was a big thing up here in the mountains. A lot of the people that moved up here planted vineyards, and they depended upon that crop of grapes to survive. And so when they passed laws that said, hey, you can't sell this to make wine, uh it was like that went on for quite a few years. And uh so it's a lot different today, it is, but back then it affected a lot of people in surviving up here on the mountain because a lot of them had depended upon their vineyard to keep them uh alive, you know. So it's changed a lot, okay. So it was tough times back then, you know. People think, oh, the good old days. Well, they were old, but they were tough days too. And so today we we it's important for for us to appreciate how good we have it. That really is important because uh talking to my grandparents and even my parents, I I know that they went through some tough times because then in the 30s, you know, there were more troubles. So, yeah, no, it's it's uh we actually uh should be grateful for what we have, and that's so important to be grateful for for what we have. And uh just give you an example. My one daughter, you haven't met her. This is my other daughter that stopped by a little earlier, but my other daughter, who who is Ellen, she is up in Salem, Oregon, working with uh youth with a mission team, her and her husband, and they've been doing this for about 20-some years. But her first her first uh her first um uh uh outreach was in in the Philippines. She went up into the Luzon Mountains, and this was really a a place where she would um help the Philippine people, but going from village to village, they would take uh buses and then they would take jeeps, and then they would have to walk from village to village. And this was through the uh a Christian outreach where they would disciple and help the people, help the people in the Philippines. And she would say, she came back and she was a changed person. She'd say, Dad, you would not believe these people don't have hardly any food in their house in the Philippines, but they're willing to share what little bit they have. And so she really learned to appreciate much more what she had around her, and so that was good for her, you know, and uh uh it's something that you can't teach people that they have to experience it, I believe. Uh and once they experience that the other people are are happy with what little they have, it is it is so good to know that you know you don't need all this stuff, right? But to be happy with what you got. Kind of different, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:11

So um I just like guns, yeah. Explosions and violence and gory stuff. Well but not overly gory.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

Well, let me let me tell you about uh the wars. Uh when I was growing up, my my grandfather on my mom's side, my uncles and my dad were all in the marines, either my grandfather in World War I and my dad and uncles in World War II. So thank goodness they all survived and made it back. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. Okay. I wouldn't but but uh but they went through that. So when I was in high school and then to college, it was during the Vietnam War. And so I almost uh joined the Marine Corps because How old are you? How old was I? I was eighteen. Because I thought, well, you know, my grandfather, my uncles, my dad, all Marines are gonna have to do the same. So I started to do that, but then my mom says, you know, if you stay in school, it would be a good thing for you to do your education. I said, Well, okay, I'll do that. So I did, and I got a deferment from that. But um, but one thing is that I uh I did get a greeting from the the government. It said greetings, you were hereby inducted into the army. And I thought, oh my gosh. So I went to Oakland and took my my my physical and I passed my physical with flying colors. The doctor said, Oh, you're ready to go, we're gonna ship you out. I thought okay. So there was what they call a draft board back then.

SPEAKER_02 44:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

And my draft board uh said, Hey, you know what? We didn't know you were in school. I said, What? I said, I said, Well, if you're in school, you don't have to go into the army. I said, Well, that's fine. I didn't want to go to the army, I want to go to the Marines. So I talked to Marine Quarters, Marine, Marine uh uh recruiters, and um so then I started getting letters from some of my friends who were over in in the war. And they'd say, you know, it's a damn good thing I'm really small, okay? Because um I wouldn't be here otherwise. One of my good friends lived up here on uh next to me, he joined the Navy, but then he he trained as a corpsman, as a medic, and he was attached to the Marines up on the DMZ. So he was up on the front lines uh fighting and and he made it back. But you know, I uh I just am fortunate and and grateful that I didn't uh go on through and experience some of the tragedies that some of them are still suffering from, you know, from that war. But anyway, uh guns, yes, I have lots of guns. Um I hunt a lot. And um not only here, but up in the mountains of uh Shasta and Trinity Country up in Northern California. In fact, Bob Taylor, Barbara Taylor's husband, I used to go hunting with him up in the Sierras a lot. We go up into and we didn't, some people go up into the Sierras and just stay on the road. We would walk back in two or three miles back up into the canyons where the deer were. And some people would, you know, shoot the little deer along the road. It's terrible, you know. You need to go back and get the big ones.

unknown 46:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

So also hunted around this area. Uh, there was, you know where, you know where Mount Aminum is?

SPEAKER_02 46:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

Yeah. Well, there was a fellow by the name of Shelly Cosman, lived right below Mount Amminum where the radar station used to be. And Shelly owned a few hundred acres now. He used to let us go up there and hunt. And when I was in high school, I would be up there hunting with other people in the family, and we would see these trucks bringing something in, and we realized later it was missiles. They had silos up there, but they were all covered up. You couldn't tell what it was in the truck. So they would chase us. If we got too close to that station up there, they would chase us out. So, hey, they'd have their guns and tell us we couldn't couldn't be there. Yeah, so anyway, um, yeah, I I I I hunted a lot when I was growing up, as well as fished. And my grandfather gave me my first my first rifle when I was 12 years old. And that was a 22 single shot, believe it or not. That's all it was.

SPEAKER_02 47:50

That's what that's what I shot.

SPEAKER_00 47:52

Yeah, but you know, uh you you learn you learn how to hit something with the one shot. If you can't get him with one shot, you shouldn't be hunting, right? So it's important to practice with that. Make sure you know how how to get them the one shot.

SPEAKER_02 48:07

Yeah.

unknown 48:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:09

So you don't go wasting all your don't go wasting a hundred dollars worth of bullets.

SPEAKER_00 48:14

Oh yeah. It costs a lot of money now to buy bullets. My gosh, it's crazy. Yeah. No, that's smart.

SPEAKER_02 48:20

So if you just get a rapid fire and you don't know how to use a gun, you would just be wasting them.

SPEAKER_00 48:25

You spend a lot of money like that. Yeah, that's true. No, so uh so we, you know, in the family, we always we always hunted and we'd put things in the freezer. Um and uh one thing we didn't hunt was bears. We didn't go up in the Sierras and hunt bears. Some people would uh come up there and they would ask us to to go with them to hunt bear, and we said, No, we don't we don't care for that greasy meat. Uh-uh, it's not so good for us. Uh we'd rather stay with the deer. And uh we do that.

SPEAKER_02 48:54

Wait, are is bear good?

SPEAKER_00 48:56

Huh? Well, it's pretty greasy. Uh you know, we tasted it once and we said, Oh, it's no thank you. It's some people like that, and they would they would tan their hide or or taxidermy a big bear into their living room, right? We didn't do that. We want to make sure if we took an animal that we were gonna eat it, use it, whatever, okay. And some people would just shoot something and leave it lay, as said, you know.

SPEAKER_02 49:22

Why?

SPEAKER_00 49:23

Well, I think they're they don't care, you know, that's part of the problem. They should. Yeah. Well, you got uh maybe a couple more and then questions, Cameron, because I should probably take a break if it's okay with you. I have my daughter here and my grandsons, and we're gonna uh get their help a little bit. It's it's been good to to meet you and understand your interests, and I hope you appreciate the history around you, including all the animals. Yeah. And um and that that is good. And that's what you know with the Lima Printed Museum, we're really trying to make sure kids appreciate and respect what's around them. And uh and and and it should be it should be fun. And we're having some hikes uh through the different areas of history as we as we you know through the years. So if you're interested in going on a hike, we're gonna be doing that in May.

SPEAKER_02 50:17

So do you have any advice that you give someone um younger than you today?

SPEAKER_00 50:24

Yeah, thank you for asking. I would say I remember when I was eight and um I I realized that I I sometimes I didn't appreciate or respect other people. Okay. And I think that was one thing that that I had some uh my parenting that helped me understand that it was important to appreciate and respect other people regardless of who they are or what they are. Because, you know, God didn't make them just like he made you and me. So it's important to make sure that you say, well, you know, I may not agree, but we can agree to disagree, right? Okay, and so that's some of the things that growing up um I learned, and it was important because there's that's what makes the world go round. There's so many different kinds of people, you know? It is and and having my uh my daughter go and experience that around the world, she's been to probably 20 some countries through YWAM over the years, she has really uh learned a lot and shared a lot with me, and it's helped me understand how how different countries are and how they survive, and and what what you know, there's still people. There's still people that were created. And uh, we just need to understand that, you know, regardless of who they are, they were created, they're here, and uh it's good to say, well, okay. Yeah, to appreciate that. Yeah, yeah. But uh sometimes it's hard.

unknown 52:06

You know.

SPEAKER_00 52:07

No, it's it's good, it's really good because um, you know, you you you go through a lot of experiences in life and you go to school, but in school they don't teach you a lot of that kind of stuff, you know? Not really. You learn about reading this and reading that, but but how to live your life, that's really important. And through through church, I know you get some of that, right? That's really important. I think you know, have a good Bible-based uh teaching and and read the scripture, that that is is so important, and it's been so important in my life that um I'm I'm glad that I had that opportunity to do that. Well, thank you, Cameron. I really appreciate talking with you, and uh hope we can talk again later. And you come to one of the events, you if you like to go hiking through the woods, we can do that. We won't be won't be hunting things on this particular hike, but but we'll be searching for the old town of Loma Prieta. There was an old town of Loma Prieta back up in the Aptos Canyon, and uh we're gonna go search for that in May. So, oh, you know, have you ever been down to the Burns Creek uh tunnel exit or entrance, whichever, and Laurel Canyon? You can walk back into that tunnel several hundred feet. It's amazing. Amazing. And you just have to be careful there's no mountain line in there, that's all.

unknown 53:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 53:33

Wait, is it pitch black in there?

SPEAKER_00 53:34

Why?

SPEAKER_02 53:35

Is it pitch black?

SPEAKER_00 53:37

Well, you go back in there, it gets kind of dark. You need to use your phone for a little light. But you can see the entrance way out there, and it keeps getting smaller as you walk back, you know. So it does get a little darker as you go back in. But part of the reason it's open is it was all wood. I'm sorry, no, it was a concrete brick. It was all brick several hundred feet back in. So when they blew it up in the 40s, so that people wouldn't get hurt going through the tunnels later, they went back past the brick where it was just wood cribbing and blew it up, where the wood was. But you go in there, you'll see probably 16 foot tall, probably 10 foot wide or so, all brick arch. Amazing what they did back in the 1800s. All that brick for a few hundred feet, it's like, oh my gosh. And it's still there. It went through uh a couple earthquakes, the 1906 quake and the 1989 quake, and it's still together. That arch is still there, it's solid. So they did a good job. And if you look at some of the reinforcing, you'll see cable that's about an inch and a half in diameter. They used not not, I'm sorry, not cable. It was rebar, steel twisted bar. You imagine they had to heat up with a forge, big forge, and twist that inch and a half rebar. You can see places where the concrete's broken away, and you'll see some of that rebar as you go back in there. So it's it's a fun thing to do. Yeah, so sometime you ought to you ought to do that. Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 55:10

I appreciate you for your time.

SPEAKER_00 55:14

Thank you for your interest because it's important that uh, especially people your age are interested in learning history. Uh it's so important. It is. And then you'll appreciate what you're running. Thank you.