37 The Leavens

To escape the rat race of southern California, Garth Leavens and his family arrived in our world and took up residence at Taylor’s Edenic quarters.  It seems that Taylor had placed an ad in a California magazine extolling the beauty of Read Island as a paradise and Garth had fallen for it.  It wasn’t that Read Island would not be considered a paradise by many people, but to live with Taylor and his goats in such a primitive shack would test the fortitude and finer senses of most anyone, especially someone used to the conveniences of Ventura California.

Garth drove up from Southern California in a 49 Packard, with his new wife Hermie, a 2-year-old baby, and his son Gary from his first marriage, and a milk cow.  To get to our island Garth bought an old tub of a fish boat in Campbell and loaded family, cow and all on board chugged his way around Cape Mudge and on up to Read Island.  It wasn’t long before Hermie was beside her self and close to despair and a few tears.  To salvage the situation and prevent Hermie from heading back to California with the baby, Garth was willing to do just about anything.

News travels fast in a small community and it was not long before we knew all about the new family from California and Garth’s big problem. To help Garth out and delay Hermie’s departure and that of the family, we offered them our old shake shack, which was a notch or two above what Taylor lived in.  Hermie was happy for the chance to escape from Taylor’s place and jumped at the chance to escape the fleas.

As a kid of 15 I thought it was really great to have someone my age to chum around with, so Gary and I got along famously.  We all enjoyed having a new family to live by but Garth was still looking at ways to lower Hermie’s stress level so she would not take off. 

She was into the natural way of living and I am not sure if feeding raw eggs and hamburger to her baby was the way to go but poor little baby Jane was made to eat it.  And of course having a cow was part of going natural.  To put up with mosquitoes though was pushing natural to the limit and mosquitoes drove Hermie to distraction. This was even carried over into her concern for the milk cow.  Hermie had Garth plaster the cow with Citronella to prevent it from being bitten.  This may have saved the cow from the mosquitoes but it prevented anyone from drinking the milk because of the Citronella flavor. 

Don’t get me wrong Hermie was OK and I can’t blame her for not being happy on Read Island, as it was quite a change for her.  She was a nurse down in Ventura, CA and island life with an outhouse for a toilet, and a wood stove to heat and cook with, were a long way from the city way of life that she new.  She did have hot and cold running water and electricity but the fridge they brought with them only had power in the evening.  It worked this way, fill the generator tank at dark, start the engine and when it ran dry and the engine stopped, so did the lights and the fridge. Night everyone.