Bear Memories

The youngest baby was about three, a carbon copy of him in me, When Dad took us all to Yosemite. Not expecting it to become a calamity. The chubby baby smelled of food. He wouldn't share, which the bears thought rude, so when Donnie bopped the bear's brown nose. The bear's unpredictable anger rose. Donnie took off in high gear, wailing. The bear growled, his patience failing. The bear chased the babe. The baby ran. Dad heard him yell near the garbage can. The bear looked around and saw Dad coming But followed the child who kept on running. The forest rangers saw the bear, and saw the man running where The bear had been a moment ago. The bear was fast; the man was slow. The baby was nowhere in sight, the mother was screaming in a fright. The forest ranger growled and sneered as the baby appeared, not harmed as feared. The ranger gave Dad a warning ticket. As the bear ambled off into a thicket. "You frightened our bear, you nasty man- Now you and your family leave as fast as you can."

Terry Ross Erickson was my beloved mother Norma Theresa Ramsey, daughter of John Giovanni Spigno and Helen Lola Spigno my grandparents, who themselves were prominent historical figures of the history of San Fransisco California.

Mom passed away May 13th 2011 in Modesto, Ca. The above verses were read by myself at the family service, mom was a writer of children's stories and of her own personal life with a traveling circus, her published book "Tonight Only" is available at Amazon.

In the forthcoming future I hope to publish or make available for free to all children's libraries or on the E-book services her manuscripts. Her stories are whimsical, full of adventure and were inspired often by my own life and my personal investigations from exposing the Unification Church brainwashing camps to modern day political intrigue, events unfolding currently now that have driven myself to expose and to bring the truth to light.

But this is for my mom, for now, its just the opening verse of the Neverending Story that I have seen upon all the years of my travels to back alleys, riding the rails, hitchhiking across America and a pilgrimage to Alaska, our own real life family adventure running parallel to the Grapes of Wrath, the many years of adventure my father brought into my life and his unerring skill of honest work in some extremely interesting business dealings, a family owned junk car salvage business, a tow-a-way service in the early 70's San Jose, Ca area that make a historical mark in our families legacy and is worthy of an adventure novel in itself.

But for now this is my vanity post, I think its my third here at FR. I deserve this so shut up and read it again.

The actual event took place in the summer of 1965, Danny(me), Debbie, Donna, David and the main character of this story my brother Donald were on a family vacation to Yosemite Park in Ca.
My father John Ramsey a strapping bull of a man called “Big John” was just the same as if he were John Wayne himself to me through those youthful years of my life, mostly he was a truck driver but was also involved in many a job that would horrify todays culture of elitist liberal fathers, in essence he worked, got dirty and mad fortunes from garbage, junk cars, creative partnerships and just plain old bravado.
As children and there was a bunch of us we also rode around in a big old Cadillac, Lincoln Continental or a station wagon, my father and mother loved to travel and they would just pack all of us into the car and just drive off with no certain place in mind, we just did it for adventure every weekend.

I can spend the rest of my life writing stories and I would still probably not have enough hours to tell it all, but I must try as I feel a compelling need if not the very spirit of it yearning to be shared upon others.

And thus the stories shall begin...

I was born December 4th, 1956 in Redwood City, Ca.

My earliest memory for some odd reason was getting hit in the head by a baseball around 1960 near my home in Redwood City, nearby was the commuter rail line of the Southern Pacific railroad and I vividly remember running out to hear and see the trains roaring on by with the daily riders bound for the city life and then returning to home in the evening, and my addiction to trains was initialized and I was forever hooked.

In the recent past my own son was diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome, it is an upper level autism which is passed down from generation to generation, it also may explain why I loved the sounds of the train wheels as its been discussed in journals that children wit AS find comfort from the repetitious sound, actually to me its been the sound of diesel engines, the bigger the better!

During my 4 day trip trip to fly from Alaska to be at my mothers bedside I even amazed myself at the clarity of details of times, places and events that came to my mind as if it was digitally processed, they say those that have AS do see things differently and the best I can describe it is that its very visual and like a massive library of film clips.

Our small home at that time was near 5th Avenue in Redwood City, there was a bar up at that intersection and the El Camino, it was an image of a Key or a Top Hat, my dad was attempting to build a swimming pool or something, actually it was probably a pond, and I went playing in it and cut my foot wide open, and so dad grabs me and hauls me to the bathtub to clean me up covered in mud much to the surprise of my teenaged older sister who was stark naked! Yes I can still see the expression on her face, it may have have shocked her as much or more so that this could have been why my parents had to put her in a literal Charm School to teach her proper mannerisms, to this day she talks and acts much like Julia Child, I’m sorry sis for them doing that to you.

Speaking of dear sis she is very much alive and is now my soulmate it appears as not only did she lose her eldest son several years ago she also lost her father (yes she is my half sister)and her husband that she married when so young all within a short time. Only through her devout christian faith has she bravely soldiered on and currently does sports therapeutic massage in Santa Rosa, CA, but more later.

Its almost 5am in Alaska and I have a busy day ahead managing a concrete batching facility.

Same channel, same time, tune in!

Your Mom is a talented writer. So is my Mom, and she has written several books, one of them is about how to market your Christian book. She is a Freeper too, Holy Scroller. http://www.amazon.com/Market-Christian-Specific-People-Procedures/dp/1880405121/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1305640445&sr=8-3

Your Bear story reminded me of our trip to Glacier National Park. We had an old Colony Park station wagon. The rear row of seats faced backwards. Little brother and I were sitting back there and our three other siblings were in the middle row.

We came upon a section of road that was blocked by a bunch of cars that were stopped while the occupants fed the bears. A bear spied us, and came up for our offering. The rear (tailgate) window was down, and was controlled only by the driver. This bear decided he wanted to get into the car with us, and that tailgate window was just his size. Baby brother and I screamed, scrambled forward over our siblings and didn’t stop until we were sitting on our parents laps in the front row.

“What are you screaming about? Get back in your seats!” We looked back and saw that Dad had rolled the window up, and there was muddy bear paw prints on the glass.

My grandmother who I remember so clearly that as I was a child paid so much more attention to me than the others that they quite literally despised me was in a situation one day in the spring of 1956.

Her only daughter (my mom) was pregnant with me, to this day my real actual father is somewhat lost, I know who he was but thats not the story here. The story is widowed mom and only daughter who was raised in a Catholic School in San Fransisco were out driving the El Camino Hwy south of San Fransisco looking for a young man to hook her up with, as the story went mother would look over which hitchhiking young man looked the best, and at that time there were many a servicemean looking for a ride. And thus a hapless 17 year old from a dirt floor shack in rural Arkansas was zeroed in on and caught.

I’m not sure if dad was in uniform but was either recently in the Army and on leave or was based somewhere nearby and was just off base.

Now I really must back track a bit in history, my grandfather basically was the executive assistant of the era at the turn of the century with a man known as Gianinni, I recently saw a history channel show about how Gianinni the day after the 1906 SF earthquake was making business reconstruction loans from the back of a truck on wooded crates as the fires that engulfed the banks were so intense that the vaults could not be opened for many days or longer.

My grandfather was his partner. So John Giovanni Spigno from Italy made his place in history and then went on to becoming a prominent person with the Bank of Italy and then the Bank of America.

My grandmother Helen Lola Owens was mostly Irish and quite possibly the most beautiful woman of her day with a resemblance to Fay Wray. My cellphone wallpaper is her glamor picture taken in the early thities with her in a mink stole.

Grandfather died from a cerebral hemorrhage while man handling a girder up the stairway of the dockyard building a Liberty ship in 1944 after losing much of his fortune afere the big crash of 1930, grandmother herself however was well taken care of mostly due to her having a sizable amount of stock from some company called Hewlit Packard.

She worked for them I believe until 1973 or so, she herself was born in june of 1897. During the days just after WW2 my mom who was born in 1930 was a night club singer in SF, her mother a famous hair stylist.

I honestly hope to write a family novel about all of this, what I do here and now I might say is me just warming up to it, already I have planned on a 2 month trip down to CA with my 14 year old grandaughter who will be my personal assistant and photographer as that is what she wants to be.

Well enough for today, another day of driving a concrete mixer lies ahead up here in Alaska.

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