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.
Adam Gottstein is a native of San Francisco who relocated to the Sierra Foothills in the mid 90s. Traveling back and forth between the City and a village of 100 inhabitants, the Delta was always a midway attraction. He used to keep a boat on Vieira’s Resort Island north of Rio Vista. He might again someday. Now in his 60s, writing might occupy more of his time. Contact, criticism, praise or general confabulatory discourse can start here: adamgott44@gmail.com
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