A dear friend had a birthday and expressed a desire to see my Ivanhoe library mural. I thought we’d just have a little tour, ending with lunch at Super Taco in Woodlake. We barely made the trip before all the green went away. This happens when it gets hot in March. Tryna not be greedy, because we have had several long cool springs in the last handful of years. But we do NOT like it when it is hot, there is no rain, and the grasses and flowers shrivel too soon.
Sorry. Didn’t mean to complain.
First we drove around the country roads, and I showed her the two places where I grew up, along with Twin Buttes, and a different angle of Venice Hills than she is accustomed to. The orange blossoms were divine.
Then we headed to Ivanhoe proper. Not much to see there except for the library. I felt doggone proud of this mural; it is currently my favorite. Am I allowed to say that? Oh yeah, that’s right, it’s my blog.
This is a map showing the way to the Lone Oak Cemetery. I visited it in first grade, because my best friend Kelly lived next to it. I tried to find it again when I was working on the mural, but felt weird driving down someone’s driveway. With my friend in her 2007 white Mustang convertible, I didn’t feel as weird about the sense of trespassing.
Kelly’s house is gone and there is a big one in its place, and we just headed down the driveway as if we had an invitation. Boom! It was exactly right there!
The sign is a lie. The cemetery isn’t maintained. It is in sorry shape.
Here is the lone oak. Must be a good source of underground water, because the oak is a Valley Oak, a quercus lobata, and there is also an enormous cottonwood tree (those leaves at the top of the photo.)
What is this bizarro stuff? Chiseled headstones without any words, and tangerine trees in the background with the nets to prevent cross-pollination.
The wall was weird. I wonder if it was made from the stuff from when Kelly’s house got torn down. See the wind machine in the distance?
The highlight for me was seeing the poppies in bloom. When Kelly and I were poking around in the first grade, I picked a few poppies and she told me I was going to jail because it is against the law to pick poppies (the state flower) in California.
I didn’t go to jail or even get in trouble by any grownups, and the poppies have survived for 60 years despite my accidental vandalism.
We also circled around the backside of Venice Hills, and had some fantastic tacos for lunch before heading back home. I had a lot of book work to do. Gonna get it done, yeppers, I am!
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P.S. Stay hopeful–help is on the way! It’s supposed to rain next Tuesday through Thursday!
Please please please, Lord, send rain!
I have what some may call a “morbid curiosity” about graveyards. I am fascinated by headstones, and what people chose to eulogize themselves (or a loved one). I wonder why the 6-month-old died so young, admire the headstones with Bible verses (a faithful testimony even after death), glad when I see a long list of family members, and enjoy reading lasting legacies of either cute bromides or somber sayings.
What would I write for my own headstone? I guess I don’t need to worry about that, because I plan to have the ashes of my physical shell scattered in my favorite back yard (shhh!).
Sharon, I have said to my drawing students hundreds of times, “Can you see that?” and wondered about that on my headstone. Recently, I say (and think) many times over in almost every situation when a decision needs to be made, “Nobody cares”. That would be a grim epitaph, and the humor would be missed. You? “She cared tremendously about much”.
I’m always interested in old tombstones. So the way I see it, the mother Crowley died in November and apparently the baby Lee survived for 5 months and was buried in the same grave in April. Is that the way you understand it or am I confused?
Kathy, true confessions: I didn’t study dates, only how things looked. (I am SO SHALLOW!) I also sent the photos to my friend who is a descendant of the Crowley family in hopes that she will find the information useful.