just about PCAM, but how to be an Officer, how to learn from subordinates and to accept my mistakes.
In the remaining time that I was in charge of the school Pinky and I found our relationships, he as Sergeant Cochran and me as Lieutenant Baker. But, and most importantly, we regained our friendship and bond of years before and spent many hours together working the streams of the Colorado Rocky Mountains.
From the school at Lowry Air Force Base I was transferred to Headquarters, Allied Air Forces in Central Europe in Fontainebleau, France (See Book One : “Working for Air Chief Marshall Sir Basil Embry.”) Throughout my career I often reflected on the lessons learned from Master Sergeant “Pinky” Cochran. Strange as it may seem, I do not believe I ever knew his first name.
END
VIGNETTE NO. V
The Cliff House on old Route CA-120
Oakland, California
The year is 1937. My dad is divorced and living alone in a small cabin called Colfax Springs adjacent to the Hetch-Hetchy Railroad tracks. In years past (1860—1915) the Eagle Hotel had stood where the railroad tracks, now also gone, once lay. Gone too, are the cabin and the spring where an unfailing supply of sweet cold spring water was available to thirsty travelers. Today, the wide sweeping curve of a modern highway has taken all this away. But, the memories of the cabin, the spring and the twisting road that ran down the steep slope to the Cliff House a mile away remain strong.
Colfax Springs Cabin and Spring House
As do the visions of William “Tug” Wilson and his sister, Nellie Bartlett. owners of the Cliff House (1924) and good friends of my dad. In the summer of 1938 my grandmother, “Mums”, took me to spend the summer with my dad. Mums, at the time, owned a 1924 Rickenbacker with a rumble seat in which I loved to ride. In 1938 Route 120, known as the Big Oak Flat Road, was a torturous climb for any automobile of the time. The road ran from Moccasin, up Priest Grade, to Groveland a climb of several hundred feet in a distance of about seven miles. Half-way up the grade was a cold spring that cooled many engines and cracked the block on others. Mum’s always stopped for water. On one occasion when I was riding in the rumble seat the twisting road made me sick to my stomach and I puked all over the rear of Mum’s car. She was very upset. So was I!
Mum’s 1924 Rickenbacker
Tug, Dad and I would on occasion go to Sonora to buy provisions and ammunition for the Cliff House which had become a Resort Hotel. On some evenings Dad would set a fire in the large fireplace and arrange the over-stuffed chairs in a semi-circle. Soon, the chairs would be filled with hotel guests. Dad and I would sit off to the side playing checkers until after supper when he would pull his well known stunt of throwing a couple of empty grocery boxes from off the back-porch onto the fire. The
END
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