Paulette Goddard, Charlie’s beautiful waif girlfriend has found them a house. “It’s not Buckingham Palace,” she says. Charlie walks in and a beam falls on his head.
One of the funniest movies of all time. It’s a silent film, but made when sound was available. Charlie apparently felt that the Little Tramp wouldn’t work with sound, so this is silent. In the end the Little Tramp and Paulette walk off into the sunset, and this was the end of this character.
By Lloyd and Lesley Kahn
Saturday morning October 14th
We went to bed last Sunday night with no inkling of what was happening. About 3 AM, a fierce wind started blowing and we smelled smoke. At daybreak we learned that it came from fires some 60 miles away, mostly in neighboring Sonoma county. It’s been a grim week.
Everyone seems to know people or have relatives that have lost their homes. My brother was luckier than most with his farm in the Napa Valley: he lost a barn, tractor, Toyota Tacoma, and an accessory building, but his house was OK. He has 2,000 olive trees and they were not burned, but he’s not sure if they’ll be ruined by the smoke. It was his biggest crop ever.
A 2-bedroom apartment in San Francisco is $4300 a month (vs. $2300 in Oakland, $3300 in NYC). This is a very informative article on what is certainly a crisis:
https://calmatters.org/articles/housing-costs-high-california/
A great first day on the road. Latte at Toby’s barn + morning bun from Bovine Bakery, and thenceward on Hwy. 37, Sears Point Rd. through wetlands/nature preserve; there were maybe 100 egrets standing, flying diving. never seen so many in one place, heading for 505, then interstate 5 northwards.
The freedom of the road, good to get away from the constraints of Marin County. I get that feeling when I enter Nevada, a sense of release, it’s wide open, not every square inch analyzed and monetized.
I stopped off in Colusa, to visit my friend from 60 years ago, Jim Davison.
My dad had a rice farm 8 miles west of Colusa, and when I was 12, I helped him build a concrete block house there. My job, on weekends and holidays, was shoveling sand, gravel, and cement into the concrete mixer).
Later, in teen years, I started hanging out with Colusa kids, complete with girlfriend, Roxana. Jim played piano and we did duets with me on ukulele; it was such a different experience, hanging out with these small town kids, for a city boy. Population 3,000. We had fun! I worked in Colusa in the summer, bucking hay and driving a truck in the wheat harvest. Plus partying hearty at nights. Alcohol the only drug we knew of.
Yesterday I drove out to see the house. No one was home, but I shot a few photos. It looked as good as it did 70 years ago. When we started it was a barren piece of land.
Above: An almond orchard, with all the nuts on ground, ready to pick up
House my dad and I (plus two masons and one carpenter) built in 1947-48
This was in a large field, maybe 2 acres. It looks like it could be fixed up for living. I always look to see if the eaves are sagging in old buildings; if not, it probably means the foundation is OK. There wasn’t a “for sale” sign, but if I lived up there, I’d track it down. It could be a great home, with a lot of land for gardening, chickens, a few farm animals.
We wash dishes by hand (in a rectangular Rubbermaid dishpan), rinse and place in this drying rack/storage unit, built maybe 20 years ago by Lew Lewandowski.
When we had goats, I had installed a dishwasher, but found that we practically had to wash the dishes first (so as not to have food particles going into the septic system). Plus it used a lot of water and electricity, so I took it out and we’ve used this system ever since.
Another feature in this kitchen is a 5-gallon electric water heater right under the sink. While I’m not fond of electrically-heated water, this unit is so small, it’s energy-efficient, and we get instant hot water.
We use rubber spatulas to get food off plates, pots, and pans; edible scraps go to chickens, non-edibles (coffee grounds, avocado pits, etc.) go in a stainless step-operated trash can for the compost pile.
After I finish the book on the ’60s, I plan to do one titled The Half-Acre Homestead, all that I’ve learned abut building and raising food over 50 years.
Apropos of nothing here, the Amazon series “Sneaky Pete” is wonderful. Great story, fabulous acting all around.
I’m off for Oregon early tomorrow morning.
I was looking through one of my many filing cabinets (which contain old school file folders containing papers and photos) the other day and discovered about 15 folders on a book I started to write in the late ’70s. It was going to be called Home Work* and was about my building experiences, starting with my first building (studio with a “living roof” in 1962), then building homes over the next 17-18 years. I took them out of the filing cabinet and put them in this box:
Back then, I felt that I could offer guidance to novice builders, based on the fact that I started building from scratch. No carpentry training or previous construction experience.
I’d made a lot of mistakes that I could warn first-time builders about, and I had ideas for simple homes based on practicality and economy– and ones that felt good.
I wanted to encourage people to use their own hands to build their own homes. I’d done it, and never had a bank mortgage or paid rent.
The project got interrupted by my publishing Stretching by Bob Anderson in 1980 and then 20 years of publishing fitness books. Karma, I guess.
7 PM, Tuesday April 11th at City Lights, 261 Columbus at Broadway, North Beach, San Francisco
Details: https://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100085830