Oak Canyon Nature Center - GoPro Black Hero (4k)

The Oak Canyon Nature Center is a terrific place to expose your kids to some easy hiking trails.  There's enough to see, what with it's rabbits, lizards and red-tailed hawks.  Visit and make sure to donate when you go to any local park.

https://www.anaheim.net/comm_svc/parks/

http://www.anaheimcf.org/donate/

Tara Hills, Anaheim, Brookhurst and Crescent Ave

     One of the first largesse apartment complexes in north-west Anaheim is called Tara Hills.  Brookhurst Junior High is diagonally located from a gas station that had been there for as long as I can remember.  All the other buildings on the east side of Brookhurst grew over the years.  Next to the gas station, there was a large dirt lot.  The neighborhood kids and I would pull our off-road bikes out to the poorly designed track.  It was a lack of vision on everyone's part, although I blamed the older kids, the one with any strength, for not doing more.  There was one jumping hill.  The rest was a winding dirt track.  After it rained there were puddles that would last for days.  It was a mess and mud would fling up our backs if we rode it.

     In the brown angular complex, with plateau upon plateau of steps and stairwells and courtyards, there was a day care.  These were the days before 'pre-school' (right behind the Rental Office).  There was no learning here.  Shit, even kindergarten, what little exposure I had to it (I was skipped to 1st), was barely enough to be called learning.  The pre-school was loosely structured.  (Apparently it has changed into a Montessori since.)  We were fenced in high gates, surrounded by the tallest complex structures.  Sunlight came in, but there was barely any nature in our small court.  Cities often fail at the natural touch.

     There was a playground with play sand that was infinitely moist.  It was hard packed because of it.  It didn't drain.  If you hit it the wrong way, it was as bad as hitting the meandering sidewalks that flowed around the grounds.  The kids wandered around it aimlessly.  There was simply not a lot to do.  The sand was wet and stinky.  The playground equipment was wet and not fun.  We felt like Clarence did in Richard III.  Our reprieve was outdoors, but only somewhat.  Children's faces were a blur, the earliest memories do that.  We see the macro.

     ...
     Famously remembered after a weekend, we found a hole in the middle of play sand.  I walked around it.  It had to have been three feet down.  We all speculated why it came to be.  More than likely it was to be the base for some new set.  I walked around the hole, dying to jump in.  I walked away, the the periphery of the fences and turned back.  The dark shadow circle feet from me, calling to me.   There was magic in there, surely.  I walked back, but didn't leap.  The hole was daunting enough because of the play monitor.  I lay on the side and looked down.  It would prove difficult to get out.

     There was a blur next to me.  One of the larger boys had the same idea, although he didn't have the same measure of reserve.  He jumped right in.  I flew back from the edge and smiled.  He went in.

Seconds went by and I did not see him.  He found the magic portal to another place.  He was riding rainbows on roller skates, eating Fun Dip on the way to the candy slash pizza parlor.  The grey sky cast over all of this.

     Then, out of the hole came an arm, straight up to the sky, then landing in front of me.  Then the other arm.  The top of his dark blond hair barely crested the edge.  "Get me out," he said, "Get me out."  Then as I saw his fingers claw at the wet play sand, not able to get traction to move out, he barely made it out, "Ants."

     By the time I stood up to help, he was kicking and screaming.  I looked down into the hole and he was covered in ants.  Black ants.  Ants that bite.  I can see them, wrapping their mandibles into his cheek.  I tried to help him, but he weighed twice as me.  The monitor saw us and jumped to my side and we pulled him out.  He was crying by now.  "Crap," said the 20 year old monitor as they brushed away the ants.  I didn't see the boy for a week.
     ...
     I didn't like to take naps.  They pulled out this awfully uncomfortable leatherette blue mat.  We laid them out and was in awe at the kids that actually went for it.  I took a nap once, and even then it was for no more than five minutes.  Boring.

     "Just be quiet," the indoor monitor would say.  She was an old woman and not many of the lighter shade of skin went for a brown Filipino kid.  I made squirmy motions on the mat, but tried to stay quiet.  There was no sheet to get comfy with.  It was damn hot on the mat.

     One day, as everyone slept, I turned toward the door that led to the playground.  I saw a new girl walking with her father toward the office.  She had a white blouse and a blue skirt with straps.  She had black Buster Browns and white socks.  And, one of the few times in my life, I was seeing an albino.

     She was pretty.  She had to wear dark glasses, so I never saw her eyes.  She had white curly hair that fluffed above her head.  She looked like Annie.

     Her father held her as they came to the office.  I can see on his face that the decision was already made.  He didn't like what he saw.  I had no idea of the propriety of the day, but he saw something he didn't like.  I took offense, but not exactly sure why.  There was a dissonance from what he saw and what I saw.  What I saw was fine.  What did he see?

     I tried to get her eye line, but, with the glasses, I had no idea where she was looking.  The father spoke with the indoor monitor for some time.  I just stared, laying still.  The father spoke conditionally, the monitor was growing tired of it and her answers became increasingly curt.

     They walked off and I never saw her again.  I learned of disdain.  I recognize it quickly today.

...knocking around baseballs at Brookhurst in early spring...

The weather last Wednesday took me back.  The mix of heat and humidity, the low creep of dark clouds on the horizon, never to coalescing into anything substantial.  There were many similar days, of course, but, as I crossed over the La Palma bridge (over the 5 freeway), intersections in my mind were made.

Mom had signed me up for the Pinto League a few weeks prior to that day at Brookhurst Junior High.  And I, only playing pick-up games here and there, was thrust into the world of formalized game play.

[I begged both my parents that I wanted to play tackle football, but there were injuries from the prior summer season, and they shied from it.  I almost had my dad.  But, as he was getting serious, he took the white Monte Carlo up to a park on Orangethorpe (no longer there), and he was, as burly as he was, concerned, "I didn't think they were hitting that hard."  He made me think about with that statement - but I knew I could juke with the best of them.  I was light and fast.  My dad eyed me up and down with those light blue eyes, pulled the Carlton out of his mouth and blew out, "You're too little, guy."  It would be Anaheim Pony League for me.  The deal was sealed with an A&W float from one of the few in Anaheim, that was just across the street from the park.]

Mom dropped me off at try-outs a few weeks later.  My mom had no clue, as I wouldn't expect her to have one, on what to bone up on before showing up in my cords and a shirt I wore way too often.  There were some kids showing up that day, not a ton, but a few, that even had on glistening uniforms.  Great.  I settled in with the other obvious poor kids, they had a touch of surliness, and, like me, had the worn out shoes.  It was a warm day, and we were using the fields between Brookhurst ("Moon") Park and Mel Gauer Elementary.

I never had a glove before: why would I?  I never wore cleats.  I had never even seen a baseball uniform unless it was on a KTLA weekday game of the Angels.  But, here the coaches were, with clipboards.  I could only imagine where they put me on the scale for pitching (non-existent), throwing (weak), running (strong), catching (meh), hitting (needs work - let's put a few exclamation marks here for good measure).  The bright spot was that the ice cream stand was opened up and I, as always, knew where this was going to go.  My mom had left, so I just hung around.  I took in that there were a few girls.  I took in that there were already cliques happening.  Fun.

The coaches gave us a laundry list of items to go get.  Considering the time, I'm sure it broke the bank.  I got the glove, the oil - and went on to just oil that puppy up.  I'd take a few weeks throwing my only ball into the netting over and over again - making the crease just right.

In due time, I was assigned to the Dodgers.  It didn't take long to get gussied up for the team picture.  We hadn't played a game yet.  Looking around the team, it was obvious: we were the remainders.  The good news was, I could work with that.  Plus, there were two cute girls, including the prettiest girl in the grade at Mel Gauer - Cherie.  Mon Cherie.  My team picture had me with long hair and bright eyes - ready to take on the season.

The coaches took an interest in me for hitting.  The running, catching and hustling were all there.  So they assigned me to Center/Left, which was a smart thing to do in the long run.  In the short run, they had to whip a kid afflicted with fear at a ball being slung inches from his face.  But the older coach, a crotchety guy, had the idea that it would take an afternoon to do this.  Boy, would I disappoint.

So, on a cool, early spring day, with long hanging clouds ominously overhead, the two coaches took what seemed like four to six hours of non-stop pitching at me.  This was done directly behind the park-side of the Brookhurst Junior High gym.  The tennis courts were in front of us, and we had our batter's catch pointed in that direction.  Oy, the yelling.  Oy, the screaming.

"Keep your eyes on the ball!"
"Stop closing your eyes when you swing!"
"Wait for it!"
"If it's bad, let it go.  Don't just swing!"

Does he know, this isn't going to happen?  It took me two hours of non-stop swinging to realize that I was being detained; this wasn't going to end.  In essence, I smelled what the coach was cooking.  Ok.  I took in the last couple of hours worth of advice and put it all together.  The swinging still happened.  But, I kept the eyes open.  I kept my form.  I choked up on the bat.  I kept the bat off the shoulder.  I understood what my Angels did when they had their left foot lightly on the soil and they circled the bat slightly.

I learned to do all of this only because I hated the coach at that second.  That was one of those 'adult' moments.  Sometimes things don't change until you HATE something.  A'ight.  The clouds rolled in.  There was coolness and a bit of drizzle.  The rest of the field, which was full of kids before, had emptied out.  It was me, the two coaches, and one of my fellow players that was there to catch.  He wasn't getting any practice in at all.

I stared down the coach; the crazed look in his eyes was all I could see.  But, I stared at the ball, felt it come to me, knew exactly where in my box it was going to go through.  Crack!  That ball flew.  No finesse to the hit, mind you, but a solid, center drive that was easily caught.  Another lesson learned.  You learn, only from playing, the sound of a good hit from a bad one.

The coaches were ecstatic.  But they didn't let me off of the hook.  "Three more times, kid."

Crack!  Miss.  Miss.  Crack!  Miss. Miss. Miss. Crack!  "Time to go home.  You getting this?"  I had that drag going on - the drag you get from practicing all day.  "Yeah."  I walked away but turned again just to see the coaches pick up the equipment, the dark clouds lightening in the later afternoon beyond them.  I get it.