Growing up in the mountains behind Santa Barbara could feel lonely, but they were full of adventure.
My earliest memories are of animals. I loved dogs, and I lost them to the road more than once. Pepper lived on in my mind long after she was gone, and Rosie, a gentle mutt, nearly died when a car hurled her into the air. I didn’t see it happen, but I saw her pain. She was the family dog, but in my heart she was mine.
Cody was another dog, a big shaggy one with a white beard. He looked mean from a distance, but up close he trembled with love. His bark was shrill, his whole body shook with excitement, and when I was small he knocked me down in his eagerness to greet me. There were animals every day in my young world. Lizards that first tried to bite would eventually bask in my hands, their blue bellies warmed by my touch. Once, I even tried to introduce Rosie to a king snake I caught. Rosie tried to lick it like she licked my hand. The snake bit me between the eyes and escaped, but I think it lived under our house after that.
Growing up in the mountains behind Santa Barbara could feel lonely, but they were full of adventure. Creepy oak-covered trails, murky ponds with frogs, old meadows, and forgotten wells all sparked my imagination. I chased frogs for hours, always convinced one giant frog was hiding from me. Even when ponds dried up in the summer, I feared for the animals and hoped they would survive.
The mountains were full of sacred, hidden places, Indian caves, orchards, and old stagecoach stops. Sometimes they were scary, haunted by monsters my imagination placed in the shadows. But when I put on cowboy boots and tied a bandana around my neck, I felt fearless. At the stagecoach stop, the old men treated me like a grandson. Surrounded by colorful mountain folk with long hair, soft eyes, and beat-up trucks, I felt a part of something bigger.
