Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Grandma Harper's ring


The best part of being in the Humboldt Bay Area is visiting with my cousin Barby, daughter of Aunt Zella, who I have written about earlier. Barby lives up in Westhaven above Trinidad and Moonstone Beach and usually has sun in her yard with the fog drifting down below. This year nobody escapes the gray mist unless they are several miles inland. It is thick and relentless. Yesterday at Pebble, where Zella's son Marc lives and where I grew up living next door, we had about 15 minutes of burn off from the East creating a false sense of summer only to have the fog not creep but blow in from the West to end all hopes of seeing a sunset off Castle Rock.
Anyway, I was at my cousin's and she gifted me with my Grandma Harper's ring that Aunt Zella had worn for many years. It was a rectangular black band with diamonds encrusted and it fit me nicely on my right ring finger. I was delighted to have a family heirloom. Mabel Harper grew up in Eastern Montana and I will be visiting that area later on in the trip.
From Barby's I headed for Crescent City in what I will simply label a Humboldt state of mind. I stopped at Dry Lagoon State Park near Orick because I had never been to that beach before and I have been trying to hit the beach at least once a day while I am on the coast. I pulled on a sweatshirt, grabbed my camera, took off my shoes and headed for the water. It proved to be a nice beach - pebbly, a lot of miner's lettuce which turns out to have a bloom like a petunia and Dry Lagoon was not necessarily dry. I tramped for awhile and then headed back to the car.
Back on Hwy 101 north, I noticed a very nice young man walking whom I had seen earlier before I had turned off so I stopped and offered him a ride which he was most happy to accept. He had a guitar on his back so he couldn't be too bad, eh? Turned out he was going to Crescent City and only a few blocks from my destination, the mother of the family he was visiting worked with my cousin's girlfriend, he was from Richmond, VA and we had a splendid time visiting along the way. Synchronistic, we both thought. Blessed was the word he used for the ride. Not many black men hitch the North Coast.
I was excited to get to 148 Pebble Beach Drive and to tell Marc and Connie about this adventure. However, in the middle of telling them I looked at my right hand and realized that the ring was gone. So gone. Tragedy! I went through all pockets and bags that I might have used, I looked around the car but I knew where the ring was. In the sand at Dry Lagoon, probably as I pulled that sweatshirt on or off. The ring was just loose enough that it fell off and I wasn't used to it being on my hand anyway and I did not notice until it was so too late. I am bereft and still have not told Barby. Did Grandma Harper deem me not worthy?
I am going to chase sun with my friend, Louise, today and see if that will cheer me up. I would rather have lost the key to the car, the iTouch, the phone (but definitely not the camera) than this beautiful ring. Woe is me.

2 comments:

Lee Howe said...

Janet,
If in 1967 I knew what I know about Del Norte County and it's sister Curry County in Oregon my life would have taken a different course. Keep up the blog and sorry about the ring.
Lee

Vava said...

Hi Janet!
reading your blog is almost as good as being on vacation with you! Great photos and wonderful experiences. Looking forward to seeing you here in Eugene, soon!
Kris