On Growing Up in a Small, Rural Town
Even after nearly 12 years there is still a nostalgia that calls me back to my small town roots. As I’ve gotten older, moved further away, and accumulated more responsibilities in my own life, I can’t always make the trip up the entire state of California anytime I get the yearning, but I do try to make it back for certain traditions when possible. It wasn’t until I went away to college and actually left Humboldt County, and more specifically my small, white, rural town of Fortuna, that I acknowledged how antiquated and rustic it sounded to tell people that I was heading up north for the weekend to attend the Christmas Tractor Parade or the annual rodeo.
In the 1800s my father’s ancestors came over from Switzerland and Ireland to settle as dairy farmers in what is now the far northwestern Victorian Village of Ferndale, California. My dad would take me on drives past the cow fields as a child and would point out the barn that my grandfather had been born in. Dad told me that the furthest his own grandfather had ever traveled was to the slightly larger town of Eureka about 20 miles north. “He never once took a day off from the dairy because the cows never took a day off,” Father would explain. Along the narrow winding road that led to the beach he would quiz me on which of his friends growing up had lived in the various now old and dilapidated mansions lining the country road.
I, personally, did not grow up in the 1,300 person village of Ferndale. When my dad met my mom, a beautiful Bay Area transplant now living up north and raising her two young daughters, both were teaching at what would years later become my high school. In 1988 they married and bought a house together in Fortuna, which boasted a healthy population of about 9,000 at the time- it was big city life for me.
From an early age the neighborhood kids would come and go between one anothers’ houses as they pleased, but especially my house because we had the best backyard and dress-up clothes, plus there were always Dad’s grilled cheese sandwiches and Mom’s blackberry pie with berries straight from the yard. We used to dress up and play Indians (times were different), making forts in the massive pine tree behind my house. I remember once, around the fifth grade or so, I had read a book in class where a young boy surviving alone in the wilderness had used tree sap as chewing gum. But apparently I misunderstood and there was more to it than that, because when I tried chewing the pitch from the Pine Tree, I found that my jaw was glued shut. My parents had to pry my mouth open.
By the time we were in middle school, in the summertime or on weekends it wasn’t uncommon for groups of us to convene at one house or another in the morning and take off on foot for the day. We might pack a picnic of chips and grapes and head out to our fort in the woods, where we would spend the day taking turns on the tire swing and keeping lookout for the wild “white-faced cows,” which we were sure were a bad omen. Otherwise we might adventure into town, checking out the park or creek or river bar to see what other kids were up to. The day would be considered a total success if we met up with one of our crushes from school, and maybe even rendezvoused to the skating rink to hold hands and skate under the disco ball. (My first real date wouldn’t be until high school, when the guy selling fish at the fish counter in Safeway finally asked me out. I don’t remember his real name because I always thought of him as Fish Guy). Days wandering around with friends were enough back then. I miss the content of simplicity.
My favorite days, however, were spent at the river. It was a 30 minute drive or so through the giant Redwood trees from home to my favorite swimming hole. As a little kid I’d go out there for the day with my family, sometimes bringing a friend along. In later years, my parents might drive a group of us out there and drop us off for the day with just a bag of food and sunscreen, and our own company to keep us occupied.
If I close my eyes and visualize it I can still smell the distinct forest scent and maybe even taste the Barbecue Lay’s Potato Chips and Cream Soda. We would lay out towels on the sandy river bar and when we got too sweaty to lay in the sun anymore we would dash to the water’s edge and dive in, feet ablaze. We brought inflatable rafts and spent hours drifting down the riffles again and again. Sometimes we’d barbecue once the sun went down. Later, in my teen years, groups of us drove out and set up camp for the day, but instead of Cream Soda, we’d lazily sip on beers and Mike’s Hards, most people sharing joints. Plenty of other kids from school would have their own camps set up with music blasting from the backs of pick-up trucks, and the daredevils of the groups would jump off of the highest rocks to impress their friends. These were the Arcadian summers of my youth.
In a small town, everyone kind of knows everyone. You can’t expect to go to Safeway and not run into everyone you know, and you can’t expect to keep any personal drama or scandals private. Even now, living approximately 750 miles away, I know when someone cheats with their girl’s best friend or gets arrested for a DUI. There are no secrets. While often frustrating and objectively inappropriate, this also means that you don’t have to go through anything alone. When I was diagnosed with Anorexia at age 16 and sent hours away to the top children’s hospital for specialized treatment, within days flowers, cards, and sweets flooded my hospital room. When I returned, yes, everyone knew I was sick, but everyone also cared, and that helped me heal.
Another thing about a small community is that the people like their traditions. Each year the town would anticipate events like Homecoming Week, which included a parade down main street and a night rally, and culminated in the high school football game that everyone attended donning their most patriotic “Huskies” paraphernalia. At halftime under the fireworks and with the backdrop of a large burning “F” (Fortuna) giving off an orange glow, the Homecoming King and Queen would be crowned, confirming all high school stereotypes and probably often marking the proudest moments of those peoples’ lives.
For obvious reasons I no longer feel the need to return for these high school football games, but last summer I made it home for Fortuna’s “100th annual Rodeo.” It wasn’t much different from the past 99, which I think is the point. As always, the week-long string of events include the Chili Cook-Off, the arrival of the carnival folk, the Quadiators (literally people on four-wheelers hitting each other with bats), the country band performances, the parade of cop cars and fire engines throwing candy at people lined up down Main Street, the bull riders and bull fighters, and of course the Sunday morning pancake feed to which every person aged 13 to 82 shows up wretchedly hungover. I saw countless faces that I hadn’t seen in years, shared hugs and stories with old teachers and neighbors, got hammered at the town dive bar with lifelong childhood friends, and ended up losing a boot on my walk home. It was everything that a rodeo should be.
For me, though, the real highlight of Humboldt summers has always been the County Fair. The fair was held across the river in Ferndale, and though there was a Fortuna-Ferndale rivalry, I had ancestral ties to the neighboring town and valued its traditions. Father was always a VIP at the horse race track when the fair came to town. He’d been attending those same horse races ever since his own mother would take him as a little boy, and over the course of his life he had gotten good at the art of betting the odds. People came to him for tips and he knew many of the owners, trainers, and announcers. I felt important following him around as we stopped to talk person after person, and I came to love the smell of cheap beer and cigars.
Most of my time at the fair was spent at the carnival. My favorite ride was the Zipper. I could ride that thing all day long, never tiring of the rush I got when the cage flipped over as it simultaneously tumbled downward in what felt like free fall. The air smelled like deep fried corn dogs and cotton candy, then like Chinese food, and finally like hay and manure as you approached the barns where the Ag kids were auctioning off their sheep and pigs and cattle that they’d spent the summer fattening up. There were contests for the best homemade pies, the best jars of pickled vegetables, the most intricate quilts, the biggest gourds, the prettiest orchids. There were booths that sold homemade fudge and Saltwater Taffy. There was a man who shot out of a cannon and landed in a massive net, and hypnotists and fortune tellers. At night the rides would light up, and everything looked so magical from the top of the Ferris Wheel.
For miles around were pastures with dairies and old farm houses scattered throughout the landscape. In one direction was the town with its two church towers- one Catholic, one Protestant- protruding above all else. In another direction were the mountains, endless hills of giant Redwoods with the occasional bald patch where the loggers had come in. And in a third was the horizon. If you rode the Ferris Wheel at just the right time you might be lucky enough to watch the sun setting over the Pacific just a few miles away, casting a pink light onto the landscape, the strong scent of marijuana wafting into your space from the car behind you.
