My Eventful Roller Coaster Life

Many years ago as a young teen I loved to draw and wanted to be an illustrator. Drawing deer bounding across logs in the forest, wolves, birds of prey and any number of other species brought me great pleasure. I thought how great it would be to pursue a career as an illustrator, since I loved the outdoors and animals. Times were tough in those days, Mom was very sick with cancer and a patient at City of Hope. I was working 30 hours a week and attending Franklin High school in Highland Park, and contributing to my room and board, since my father required my older brother and me to help out by working and paying our way. There was no time for school sports, (which he frowned on) and little time for school activities with the exception of attending a Friday night football game. My Dad was not an involved loving caring father, and was often critical of my interests, my art or my goals. In his words, “You are a bloody fool to think you could survive as an artist, you will always be poor and hungry. What a stupid thing to want to do.” Those were stinging words for a teen trying to figure out what was going to be his goal in life. That rebuke and lack of encouragement led me to look elsewhere for a goal to pursue. My Dad was a tough love kind of guy, but in his own way, I guess he cared.


Previously we had lived in Byron, Ontario, Canada, and times were tough and dad was not around for three years. My brother Michael and I did everything we could to help put food on the table for Mom and our younger brother Martin and sister Alynne. Mike was asthmatic, and couldn’t be around all that hay so he found a job at a grocery market. For my past, in the winter I shoveled snow for people, I also had a paper route during the week and during summer I worked on the local farms as a hired hand helping to bring in the wheat, barley, oats or hay. I loved the outdoors and life on the farms. I had wanted to be a farmer, but a wise caring farmer named George McCord, encouraged me to look into forestry. He gently explained that my family did not own a farm to pass on to me, and I had no wealth to buy one. He said that by that pursuing the goal of a farmer, I would be relegated to a life as a farmhand, and I was worth a lot more than that. Those were kind and wise words, and so when we left Canada, and immigrated to California, I pursed my interest in forestry once I got to College.

I was studying Wildlife Management and Forestry when I got married at the age of 21 to a girl I thought would be my life’s partner. My studies and my life were turned upside down by the call of Uncle Sam and the Vietnam War. That experience had a great impact on my view of life, it literally turned me inside out, but I was a fortunate survivor thanks to God who carried me through many life threatening experiences. A “dear John” greeted me on my return home, and my world crumbled further for awhile.

Knowing I was in charge of my life, and God had a plan for me, I struggled back on my feet and applied for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and was hired in April 1968. I enjoyed my law enforcement career and met and married an insecure only child a short time later. After a disastrous and painful rebound marriage that crumbled and fell apart after seven years I was in financial ruin, living in a 23 foot trailer at Leo Carillo State Beach. That remote location by the sea provided solitude and time to work through my goals in life. I was determined to finish University and was pursuing my BA at Redlands.

I met Cindy while working a personnel assignment in the Old Hall of Justice. I was in my final semester at the University of Redlands attending night classes held in LA. She helped me put my life back together and we fell in love over time. To hear her tell it, I was that pest that kept turning up uninvited or left silly cards on her desk, but the good thing was that she said yes, when I asked her to marry me after we had dated for several years. Cindy helped to recharge my creativity side. We once took a class together learning to make stained glass windows. For her it was not something that came easily, but for me, it would become a passion and outlet for 15 years. I designed and built many windows during that time in my studio in the detached garage of our home.

Cindy and I were married for some years before we decided to have children. We travelled to Hawaii, England , and Europe while we were young. An English cousin, Colin, was the one who told me I would make a good father and would really enjoy kids. Cindy and I discussed it at length after one of our trips to England and we made that happy decision together. We were blessed with two terrific children while I was with the Sheriff’s department. Our handsome Colin came first in 1984 and beautiful daughter Amber followed in 1987.

Assignments changed with the years and I was working Carson Sheriff’s station in south Los Angeles. After the Rodney King riots and the OJ Simpson trial, life in Los Angeles seemed so much more oppressive and dangerous. I was worried that my kids would suffer the fate of so many kids I saw gunned down on the streets of Los Angeles. Life in such a smoggy unhealthy and hostile environment weighed heavily on our desire to live in a better place. My work in Carson and life even in Whittier was getting disrupted by daily gang activity.

I had enjoyed over twenty-five years with the department but sought a change and a better place to raise our family. The answer came on an invitation and an opportunity in Sacramento. I successfully competed for a position with the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training. Cindy was alarmed at the idea of moving to Sacramento. I told her we didn’t have to live in Sacramento, we could find a place in the foothills that would be much better. I took an early retirement from LA Sheriff and moved my family to the beautiful foothills community of Auburn.

It was rather like moving to Lake-Woe-B- Gone, the Garrison Keiler magical town of so many of his laughable radio stories. We had left our pretty home in Whittier and moved out in the country on an acre of land in a larger newer home. It was such a treat to have my son come home from school on his first day there and say, Dad, Dad, there were deer on the soccer field today! The kids at this school are nicer and they don’t swear. Their campus play area in Whittier had been all cement. Life couldn’t get any better as our children thrived in this new safer environment where there were no worries about forgetting to lock your car or leaving the front door unlocked.

It was also a treat to have changing seasons, fall colors, a dusting of snow, and real spring time blush of flowers and blooms in the yard and surrounding countryside. Our children blossomed into young adults. Our son graduated high school and left to tour around the country with a Christian singing group called Primary Focus/Living Proof. He earned a scholarship while signing and went on to study Graphic Design at Liberty University. Our daughter Amber loved the outdoor environment and thrived in sports at school. After fourteen years of rewarding work, I made the decision to retire from POST. Amber was attending College at the time, studying Nutrition. Shortly after my retirement, Amber was engaged to her handsome Eric. My daughter was going to be married and soon it would be just Cindy and I at home.

After retirement, I had tackled many projects around our home that needed more attention than a weekend stab at them could accomplish. I decided to tackle rebuilding our crumbling sun rotted rear deck. I tore it out piece by piece and then completely rebuilt the structure with new treated lumber supports and low maintenance Trex boards. Fortunately for me with last minute help from my brother Michael, it was finished just in time for Amber’s wedding shower.

Our garden was seeing far more attention and was flourishing with ever more new plantings and new flower and vegetable beds. Such that it made it into the Auburn Journal s garden section two years in a row. While some of my time was filled with challenging private consulting projects, Cindy could see that I needed a new past time, besides gardening and photography. There were just too many hours in a day. While hiking with Amber when she could filled some, or working in the yard filled others, walking the dogs was not just not enough.

We had admired award winning Auburn artist Reif Erickson’s pastels and had purchased four of his prints to grace the walls in our living room. We even bought one of the Forest Hill Bridge, as a present for Eric and Amber, a shower gift to commemorate Eric’s asking Amber to marry him on the Forest Hill Bridge. I’m not sure if she would have said no, if he would have jumped over or thrown her off. Happily she said yes, and so they married on May 17, 2008. My brilliant creative spouse thought it would be great for me to learn pastel painting from Reif (Pronounced Rafe) Erickson when she learned he gave lessons. She decided to give me a birthday present of lessons with Reif.

Well that enjoyable saga began for me in November of last year. My next blog will take you on that new journey of exploration with pastels.