And...it all makes more sense

While helping my Mom pack up and clean the house she has lived in for almost 30 years, she gave me this scrapbook.  She said "here, you can have this, it was made for both of us".  

"To Sherry & Kerensa

In hope

That our lives may merge

for a while

That our hearts may be one 

Forever

That our dreams and Fantasies

maybe become daily fare

That the Gods smile upon the time

we share

That the memories we build together

should always warm our hearts"

-Jack the Carpenter

Monte Rio, CA (in the Redwood Forest on the Russian River)

This is the part that all makes sense!  I remember our bus breaking down in Wyoming (mainly because I cried at having to leave my toys on the side of the road) and was always told that we were on our way back to the Russian River when we ended up in Colorado instead.  I vaguely remembered a man who had built a house in the woods with a shower that was glass enclosed in a grove of Redwoods.  Whether that is from stories or real memories, I am not certain.  We ended up in Ft. Collins, CO because my Mom had picked up a hitch hiker who had a sister who lived there.  His sister came to pick him up and let us stay with her.  Real hippies were amazingly warm, generous and welcoming human beings.  My Mom has had a school bus either in her possession or wishes as long as I have known her.  Buses are not the most reliable of vehicles but not many people can say that they learned to drive a stick shift on a VW bus.  A VW bus is not the easiest stick shift to maneuver and I have been stuck in a parking lot with the inability to get the bus into reverse on more than one occasion.

In Colorado, my Mom and I lived in Pouder Canyon in a tiny cabin in the Rocky Mountain National Forest.  She worked as a waitress at the Mishawaka Inn.  I remember sitting in the kitchen and sorting silverware.  It's where I learned that silverware goes in the following order O-W-L, Spoons, Forks, Knives.  I was 4 years old.  Our cabin had a wood burning stove in the living area, a loft big enough for the bed we slept in together and a front room where Santa Claus delivered a cardboard Holly Hobby kitchen in 1977.  I left CO to live in CA with my dad when I was 7.  My Mom never left Colorado and didn't keep up with Jack the Carpenter.  She can't remember his last name.  When I asked her why she never made it back to live with Jack, she said that she fell in love with Colorado.  She was searching for a place and a home and he was "nice"- which for the women in our family is the kiss of death.  

So, even though I don't really remember Jack the Carpenter, I am grateful to find this treasure.  It is hard to find treasures from my childhood with such a vagabond life.  I am hoping that one of my Mom's friends from the Russian River days remembers him and I can tell him the joy that his book brought to me...37 years after he created it.