Thank you very much for returning to this blog. Today Ann faces circumstances that force them to move up to the mountains and the gold mines.
THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapter 28...HELL
1987 was the year of the big change; so many events occurred. Walter was born to Becky, and James was born to Debby, making my grandchildren number five.
At work there was a rumor that Starnet was being sold, by Ford Aerospace, to a company based in Oregon by the name of American Network. All of us were very unhappy, we had loved working for Ford Aerospace and there had been many perks such as good health and life insurance, stock in the company, and 401Ks. American Network offered a much smaller package with fewer perks, but they were the ones who bought our company. American Network offered all of the Traffic Engineers good jobs with good salary and moving expenses to move up to Oregon. All of the Traffic Engineers refused the offers; we did not want to move up to Oregon, and we did not feel that American Network was the best company we could work for. I also got an offer from a telecommunications company in St. Louis, but again I did not take that offer, as I did not want to take the children from their schools and move them across country into the unknown. Instead, I made as even more drastic move.
The idea of actually living at the millsite in Chariot Canyon came into my mind. I rationalized that once Starnet was closed in San Diego, we could no longer afford the rent where we were and rent at the millsite was only $300 a year. I spent many months searching for a good job, but the job market was depressed in San Diego at the time and I found nothing. So I began working with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) filing papers to be able to live at the millsite. I had to show what and where we were planning on digging tunnels on the mining claims and where we were planning any buildings or sheds on the millsite or mining claims. We had to show that our operation would not harm the environment or the historicity of the canyon, also, we would not bother the lives of the cattle that had first priority for grazing, in the canyon. We had to have any outhouse set at least 100 feet from the stream, and preferably have a self-contained outhouse set up instead.
Bruce began going from one construction job in the city to another, and asking them if he could haul off any scrap lumber that they threw away. He was very successful and he took load after load of used and slightly crooked wood up to the millsite. He was also given doors that weren't quite straight, beams that had been cut too short, and other materials that they could not use on their jobs. In short, over the course of a year, we were provided with all of the materials we would need to build a little house on the millsite, all that we had to buy were nails, plywood, tarpaper, tar, and screening material.
The children were not in favor of moving to Julian, although they loved the mountains, because it would entail a change of schools and they would miss their friends in Santee and El Cajon. However, we had no choice if we wanted to give the children any good standard of living. Debby, Becky, and Belinda were all living their own lives and had little babies to care for so they would not be coming. Charlie refused to go, and since he was 18, he stayed behind and lived with Jay's parents. Kelly was also 18 and she decided to live with her boyfriend, Thomas, instead of coming up. So we only had four children that would actually be living in the mountains with us.
I began to feel overstressed and I also felt very depressed even to thoughts of suicide. Both Dr. Laurence and Dr. LaMar told me that if I could not get things together, I might have to be hospitalized; they cautioned me against taking another job in the workforce at this time because they felt that if I didn't stop working I would have a total breakdown, but I could not let up in any area of my life. American Network sent all of the Traffic Engineers to Oregon to orient their Traffic Engineers on our former network, and how our cities interrelated with theirs. In the same time frame there was also: settling Charlie and Kelly in their new lives; packing and cleaning the house in Santee; finishing the core room of the house in the mountains; and building a porch around the core building. The porch we would divide into a living room, four bedrooms, and a workshop for Bruce. My job ended in May of 1987 and we moved to the mountains two days after school let out in June.
My severance package from American Network allowed us to buy the supplies we needed to stock the cabin and pay for the rest of the material to build the whole cabin. We put most of our belongings in a storage space we rented in Santee, but we kept the books, pictures, and tools out to take to the mountains.
Bruce and I slept on a pull-out couch and the children on their beds set up around the porch which now surrounded the cabin.
We had no running water so we put an empty 55-gallon drum on the top of the cabin roof with plumbing to connect it to the cabin sink that we had salvaged from a junkyard. Then we took two more 55-gallon drums and put them into out 1956 Chevy Truck-bed and drove to a neighboring stream and pumped water into the drums. We would then return home and pump the water from the drums on the truck into the drum on the roof and a drum on the ground for later. It was a lot of work and we very quickly learned the value of conserving the water supply. To get hot water, we would fill a huge pan with water and heat the water up to boiling on the stove, then use it to wash dishes, or wash your hair, or take a bath in the big galvanized tub we had bought at the hardware store.
Tomorrow we dig an outhouse and learn to live with two hours of electricity we generated each night.
THE GOD GAMES: Heaven & Hell...Chapter 28...HELL
1987 was the year of the big change; so many events occurred. Walter was born to Becky, and James was born to Debby, making my grandchildren number five.
At work there was a rumor that Starnet was being sold, by Ford Aerospace, to a company based in Oregon by the name of American Network. All of us were very unhappy, we had loved working for Ford Aerospace and there had been many perks such as good health and life insurance, stock in the company, and 401Ks. American Network offered a much smaller package with fewer perks, but they were the ones who bought our company. American Network offered all of the Traffic Engineers good jobs with good salary and moving expenses to move up to Oregon. All of the Traffic Engineers refused the offers; we did not want to move up to Oregon, and we did not feel that American Network was the best company we could work for. I also got an offer from a telecommunications company in St. Louis, but again I did not take that offer, as I did not want to take the children from their schools and move them across country into the unknown. Instead, I made as even more drastic move.
The idea of actually living at the millsite in Chariot Canyon came into my mind. I rationalized that once Starnet was closed in San Diego, we could no longer afford the rent where we were and rent at the millsite was only $300 a year. I spent many months searching for a good job, but the job market was depressed in San Diego at the time and I found nothing. So I began working with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) filing papers to be able to live at the millsite. I had to show what and where we were planning on digging tunnels on the mining claims and where we were planning any buildings or sheds on the millsite or mining claims. We had to show that our operation would not harm the environment or the historicity of the canyon, also, we would not bother the lives of the cattle that had first priority for grazing, in the canyon. We had to have any outhouse set at least 100 feet from the stream, and preferably have a self-contained outhouse set up instead.
Bruce began going from one construction job in the city to another, and asking them if he could haul off any scrap lumber that they threw away. He was very successful and he took load after load of used and slightly crooked wood up to the millsite. He was also given doors that weren't quite straight, beams that had been cut too short, and other materials that they could not use on their jobs. In short, over the course of a year, we were provided with all of the materials we would need to build a little house on the millsite, all that we had to buy were nails, plywood, tarpaper, tar, and screening material.
The children were not in favor of moving to Julian, although they loved the mountains, because it would entail a change of schools and they would miss their friends in Santee and El Cajon. However, we had no choice if we wanted to give the children any good standard of living. Debby, Becky, and Belinda were all living their own lives and had little babies to care for so they would not be coming. Charlie refused to go, and since he was 18, he stayed behind and lived with Jay's parents. Kelly was also 18 and she decided to live with her boyfriend, Thomas, instead of coming up. So we only had four children that would actually be living in the mountains with us.
I began to feel overstressed and I also felt very depressed even to thoughts of suicide. Both Dr. Laurence and Dr. LaMar told me that if I could not get things together, I might have to be hospitalized; they cautioned me against taking another job in the workforce at this time because they felt that if I didn't stop working I would have a total breakdown, but I could not let up in any area of my life. American Network sent all of the Traffic Engineers to Oregon to orient their Traffic Engineers on our former network, and how our cities interrelated with theirs. In the same time frame there was also: settling Charlie and Kelly in their new lives; packing and cleaning the house in Santee; finishing the core room of the house in the mountains; and building a porch around the core building. The porch we would divide into a living room, four bedrooms, and a workshop for Bruce. My job ended in May of 1987 and we moved to the mountains two days after school let out in June.
My severance package from American Network allowed us to buy the supplies we needed to stock the cabin and pay for the rest of the material to build the whole cabin. We put most of our belongings in a storage space we rented in Santee, but we kept the books, pictures, and tools out to take to the mountains.
Bruce and I slept on a pull-out couch and the children on their beds set up around the porch which now surrounded the cabin.
We had no running water so we put an empty 55-gallon drum on the top of the cabin roof with plumbing to connect it to the cabin sink that we had salvaged from a junkyard. Then we took two more 55-gallon drums and put them into out 1956 Chevy Truck-bed and drove to a neighboring stream and pumped water into the drums. We would then return home and pump the water from the drums on the truck into the drum on the roof and a drum on the ground for later. It was a lot of work and we very quickly learned the value of conserving the water supply. To get hot water, we would fill a huge pan with water and heat the water up to boiling on the stove, then use it to wash dishes, or wash your hair, or take a bath in the big galvanized tub we had bought at the hardware store.
Tomorrow we dig an outhouse and learn to live with two hours of electricity we generated each night.
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