Canyon Cabin

Le Moi au Shack

"Cabin" was something of a misnomer; shack would be more like it.  The place would need a lot of work before its charm got teased out.   I worked on fixing the place up for a solid six months from October 1990 through February 1991. º1

When Tom Geyer came to visit in the middle of that month, the place was more or less finished, although there were always smaller "finishing" projects to work on.   

These fotographs were taken in April or more likely May 1992.  The sconces, the gold cat, the silver candle holders on the CD shelves and the pictures in the office were all items obtained from Marguerite after she died in October 1991. Various grocery items in the shelf can be dated from February 1992 but the first batch of blue hanging folders was purchased on April 7th and the spray paint and latex paint cans seen on the porch were bought on May 5th and 10th. º2

One roll contains night-time pictures; the other contains morning pictures.  Five frames of a third roll contain night time pictures of the bedroom.  It is likely that the morning roll was shot first, but for presentation purposes I've reversed that order. º3  For some reason I have a "sense" that the morning pictures were taken on a Monday but this could be just the fooling of memory, the real "sense" remembered being that they were taken on a fresh Spring day when work on the cabin was finally "done." 

====================
º1  There are lots of receipts for wood trim, wire shelving, paint and hardware in February and into March of 1991.  Although there are additional receipts for May and June, most of the work seems to have gotten done in February and March.

º2  The spray paint and (black) vinyl were bought to paint the weights and recover the weight bench.   This was a several day project.  I can't recall precisely what the latex was bought for.  I surmise for painting the cassette and tape deck shelves i put up over the window (they had been bare wood for some period of time).   It is possible I painted the cabinet-pantry divider at this time; however one picture shows Hobbs's rubbing on the edge and this mark would not have developed in a few days. 

º3  Based on the paint cans, these two rolls are datable as mid-May; however N24 of the night time roll shows two Contico "work boxes" stacked in the kitchen.  These were purchased on July 3rd and 8th.  Both rolls processed on July 10th.   It really is not possible that I kept a porch mess of paint cans in place for two months. This is especially the case since Mikey's friends came to visit in late May or June.   Thus, to fully account for all the appearances, I would have to suppose that the day pictures were the first roll shot, the night pictures second and some portion of the second roll  (certainly frame N24) was actually shot two months later, to use up the roll and finish up the record.   This in turn would mean that the third roll was also shot shortly after July 10th.

 

Pinehurst-Skyline Bike Loop

=========================

Canyon and the environs offered decent places to bike-ride. Receipts for taping and other accessories in February 1991 indicate that I most probably did some bicycling at that time.  I recall biking to Moraga, to St. Mary’s College and to Lafayette on at least several occasions (usually in the later afternoon).  I don’t think I biked to the track.   I also took a few rides up through the Redwood-Chabot watersheds.  I’m pretty sure that on two occasions I did a full circuit up along the San Leandro Reservoir, down to the Chabot Equestrian Centre up again to Skyline and then back down to Canyon on Pinehurst Road.   (The Pinehurst-Skyline Loop.)  These pictures were probably taken on the second trip, assuming that the first was more exploratory.

Given the lush green grass and blooming wildflowers, these fotos had to have been taken in “California Spring”; that is, between early March and mid May. The February receipts for bike accessories pointed to March 1991 but that year is not possible given the cleaned up condition of the porch in the last frame.  (Note, that in a picture of me taken either in February 1991 by Tom Geyer or in February 1992 by Mikey, the clothes dryer is still on the porch.)  Assuming a Spring 1992 date, the question is whether this roll was shot before or after the three rolls containing pictures of the cabin and its interior.

The cabin-path pictures (N01-N16) were the last ones shot in Canyon because negative number 17 is of the Lakeshore entryway. This was an obvious continuation of the first two rolls of cabin-fotos. 

The difficulty with placing the bike-loop fotos before the cabin fotos is the condition of the porch. The presence of paint cans on the porch (purchsed 5/5 and 5/10) indicates that the cabin pictures as a whole were probably taken in mid May.   I had always assumed that the cleanest condition of the the porch was the latest.  But this does not follow.  The porch could have been cleaned up in March (after getting rid of the dryer and other junk) and then messed up again during the painting projects in May. (There is no evidence of the dryer in the longest of these shots.)   Given the near fresh green of the scenery and the bright bloom of wild flowers, the bike loop fotos simply could not have been taken anytime after the third week in May.   By then the hills turn yellow.  Mid April is thus the most likely date 

The Shack

The shot of the porch was taken by Mikey either in February or March 1992.  It was still wintry and wet.   The second time he came he brought Bronte who is shown here in a picture taken at Mike's place in the Southland.

Path to the Shack

The path to the shack began down at a landing area to the side of the road.  It rose up and wound to the left

 

(where I had a stand off with Mr. Skunk)

 

the path dipped and rose and dipped and rose

 

before some last shallow turns before the "straigthway" into the cabin

 

-----------------------------------------

These trail pictures are at the beginning of a roll of film that includes the first pictures taken at Lakeshore in Oakland, which was therefore the last roll of film I shot in Canyon.  I estimate that the trail pictures were taken in mid-July, certainly no earlier than June, given the yellowing of the grass.    The last photograph was taken by Mikey and could have been taken in February 92. I'd ask him if he were speaking to me.

Its amazing how much the cats hewed to their self-defined "home-area."  When I first moved in I worried that the cats might get loose wander wide and get lost.   But they never did.  Hobbes would sometimes follow me down to the landing, and on a few occasions be there  when I returned but he never ventured further. ... At least as far as I know.  What they did at night, I have no idea.

Canyon II

In October 1991, I moved to Canyon, an exempt community of ramshackle structures that had been grandfathered into the East Bay / San Leandro water shed.

While in San Diego, I had accumulated a lot of junk not the least of which was a Baldwin 5A church organ (with full pedal board).  In addition I had two trucks (Bucky and Ranger) and good ol’ Dotty which still ran believe it or not.  Moving all this stuff back to the Bay Area required a 27 foot moving truck a car dolly for Dotty and the help of two drivers, Rick Walker and a friend of his.

Rick and I had discussed sharing a place.  One place we considered was a 1960’s moderne, 1,300 square foot two storey, two bedroom, shoe box on Twin Peaks (Burnette Ave) with a spectacular view of the city.  The other place was a rickety cabin, perilously anchored to the side of a hill in the Dogpatch of Canyon.

Canyon was too out-of-the-way for what Rick wanted to be doing and the Twin Peaks place was too non-descript for my tastes, although the view was tempting.  I was ambivalent about resuming San Francisco city life and was allured the call of the wild. In the end, even though I gave Bucky to Rick, the lack of a place to park Dotty probably tipped the scales.

So I returned to the place where I had first landed in California 21 years before.

Other than pictures of the cabin, there are virtually no fotos of the year and a half I spent in Canyon.  This is apt given that most of what I did during my stay consisted in fixing up the place. 

There were visits from Marguerite at Christmas (90), from  Tom Geyer (Feb. 91), Donald & Ellin (pork roast), Charles & Regina (twice), my sister and Mark (once), Gerry Bratcher, Howard Baker and of course from Mikey I think four times: by himself, with his adoptive dog (Bronte), with his biker friend Gary and with his friend Lothar Franke & Chilean boyfriend.  I’m not sure if Rick Silva visited before he died.

As usual, I was more interested in the moment than in memorializing it and so there is nothing to more show.

Hobbes Under and Up

Hobbes Doing Cat