Serenity Porch: Stories and Reflections

Editor’s Note – At last, a compilation of Adam Gottstein’s insightful and personal short stories in print form. Several of these have been previously published here in Soundings Journal and now, these and many more, are handsomely bound in an affordable softcover book that may be purchased at Amazon. The following is a sample chapter from the book.

Howard’s Measure of Wealth

At 16, my dad moved from Chicago to San Francisco with his mom and older sister. My dad never knew his own father. Following graduation from Balboa High School in San Francisco, dad had to work because everybody had to pull their weight in order to make ends meet.

Dad married young, then was drafted and stationed in Pasadena. When he got out of the army, he and my Uncle Barney purchased and operated a dry cleaning plant at the base of Nob Hill in San Francisco in 1946.

In the 1960s, he attended the SF Sports and Boat show, and discovered packing companies that packed people who enjoyed fishing into the Sierras for extended trips by horse and mule. He initially took my older siblings, and, later, this morphed into annual backpacking trips with family and friends. 

I remember conversations with him on these trips about work, ethics, values, culture, money, women, music, food, and the “tender traps” of living in a city. These conversations frequently took place around campfires. There is something mesmerizing about having these ranging conversations accompanied by the crackling of a wood fire.

When my folks bought property in Volcano in 1964, my dad loved a roaring fire in the big room of The Brewery. He would sip a crisp Tanqueray and tonic, or glass of wine while sitting in front of the wood stove. The circle of interesting conversations in the mountains as well as in The Brewery had the connecting thread of a wood fire.

His measure of wealth was having at least a cord or two of pine and oak firewood on the property. It meant a seemingly endless supply of firewood for the fall and winter. 

Howard and his measure of wealth, 1980.
My son-in-law Morgan and myself recreating my dad’s pride and sense of wealth.

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