LETTERS FROM HOME: LOST AND FOUND AMONG THE REDWOOD GREENERY

Oct. 19, 1995

Dear Julie,

Traveling 2,000 miles to California and somehow missing you both mystifies and devastates me. I attribute these miscommunications to my own inability to find an isle of peace within the ocean of home-owning, puppy-chasing chaos our lives have become. The disorganization that rules our home -- you'd swear we just moved in -- only mirrors my mental dishevelment.

I bought a self-help book that promised relief for people in this predicament, but I can't find it. Like I couldn't find you.

We did happen upon Garberville, though not without difficulty because of the landslide to the south. Folks showed us another landslide that had just been cleared from the road north of town. A whole canyon gave way after last winter's rains, redwoods and all, isolating nearby Redway from the north for more than half a year. Some businesses were hurt but nobody thought the end was near.

Isolation makes Garberville Garberville.

As we drove into town at the end of the harvest season, KMUD was recounting the stories of peoples who had been stopped by the CHP because they looked like they might have come to town to sell or buy marijuana. The officers were looking for probable cause to bring out the drug-sniffing dog.

One woman said she was pulled over because her license plates were dirty. All who refused to allow searches of their vehicles said they were subjected to harassing questions.

Our friend Kate, who runs a pre-worn clothing store, complained that the CHP was hurting business because nobody was coming into town. She wonders about a country where people can get no time for wife beating and can have their land confiscated for smoking marijuana.

A few things have changed in town in the year since we left. One of our twice-divorced friends is trying life as a lesbian. The Cellar, a bar where DC experienced her first (and wouldn't you hope last) male strip show, burned down, no doubt in heavenly retribution for the heinous goings on. And the couple who run the Burgess House of Burgers across the street just won $15 million in the lottery. And they're still flipping burgers.

The publisher of one of the Garberville weeklies up and divorced his wife of many years to settle down with a much younger woman. The wife moved away. Not much scandalizes folks who practically invented alternative lifestyles, but they don't like this kind of thing much. Too bourgeois, maybe.

They're painting the inside of our old church and putting on a roof. Sandy, the minister, asked the townspeople to help because the church only has 54 members. A church that feeds and clothes homeless people and makes room for yoga classes and art displays can count on townspeople coming through.

We stayed with our friends Karin and John and their children Inga and Christian, all of whom have thrived since we left town. John's taking guitar lessons and Karin has been protesting against cutting down the Headwaters Forest. Thankfully, even the children remembered us.

DC and I remembered how much we love these people and this place, their idiosyncrasies and its green redwood beauty. They are a world unto themselves, overrun by tourists in the summer, drug cops in the fall and the rest of us whenever we can find our way.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.