A dark end for family friends

 

DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO.

I’m a bit weirded out right now. It’s got to do with old family friends. My parents immigrated to Canada from Germany in 1951 (mom was 17, pop was 18). They met on the boat—a converted WWII “Liberty” ship, a real deathtrap—later got married, yada yada. My sister Annie was born in ’54. I followed in ’55. (Read about my family's history here.) 

The Canada years—we made the move to the U.S.A. in 1960—were pretty wild, in part because of all the new immigrants scratching for jobs, trying to make a go of it, dealing with each other and with the Canadians. My folks made lots of friends, many of them Germans like themselves: young, ambitious, full of dreams. 

 Helmut and Brigitte Schmidt (not their real names) were among these friends. Eventually, they, too, moved to the States, and, by the mid-60s, the Bauers and the Schmidts would get together like families do. I liked Helmut and Brigitte, but I didn’t much like the Schmidt boys. They were coarse, noisy. I always figured that you shouldn't have to be with people that you don't like. I was glad when my family lost contact with this crowd in the early 70s. Twenty-five or so years later, pop and Helmut ran into each other down near Leisure World, and, well, yada yada. My folks and the Schmidts seemed to grow close again, and all was well, I suppose. (I wasn’t around for much of this. I saw Helmut and Brigitte maybe a couple of times.) Then, maybe six months ago, Brigitte suffered a stroke, and she was pretty bad off. Helmut, who is very healthy (he's into the Senior Olympics), wouldn’t leave her side. He seemed utterly devoted to her.

It was touching. So said my folks. Recently, Brigitte was allowed to return to their place in Leisure World. But she wasn’t getting better. She was a little crazy and difficult. Helmut was determined to take care of her, but it was getting harder. He evidently felt that he was not up to the task. He showed signs of depression, we heard. My dad made some efforts to contact Helmut last week, but Helmut wasn’t answering his phone. Strange. 

Last week, in his apartment, he shot his wife dead and then he shot himself. The bodies were discovered on Friday. 

Helmut and Brigitte were nice, ordinary people. People liked them; they had lots of friends. This thing caught everybody by surprise. Especially my parents. What does it all mean? My parents sit and think. They run around, trying to do things. But they don’t know what to do. Nobody does.

The Morning Reading: Behind the Hills (Rebel Girl)

.    Recent IVC alum, Bradley Beylik has excelled at UCI in their exclusive literary journalism program and is now applying for grad school (Rebel Girl is writing his recommendation letters and so she knows.) Beylik was set on law school but is now purusing that white whale, the MFA in writing. Call him Ishmael. 

     "Behind the Hills," an essay by Beylik, appears in the current issue of KIOSK, the UCI Literary Journalism magazine. In it, he explores the canyon communities of Orange County. Rebel Girl and Red Emma make cameo appearances. Rebel Girl finds that she is depicted as chirpier than she imagines she really is but it could happen. She could chirp. She probably did. 

  excerpt: 

     Old Saddleback—visible from locations throughout the Los Angeles basin, the San Gabriel, San Bernardino, and San Jacinto Mountains, Catalina Island, and the groomed suburbs of Orange County—is made up of the two tallest peaks of the Santa Ana Mountains, part of the Cleveland National Forest. Its shape looms behind all the bustle of overcrowded streets and rampant suburban sprawl like a tired old sentinel. The twin peaks have tortured, weathered sides criss-crossed with firebreaks and truck trails, mostly devoid of trees. The top of Santiago, the taller of the two, is stuck full of antennas and transmitters of all shapes and sizes, a haunting replacement for the foliage that must have covered the mountains in green long ago. 

     On Southern California’s foggy days, the dark mass is shrouded in marine layer, seeming strong and ominous in its scarred hide. It conjures Moby Dick—immense and ancient, possessing an existence that is at once brutally simple and mysterious, and decorated with the marks of many encounters with men who have sought it out. 

     The mountains seem to keep watch from their heights above the suburbs, keeping record with their scars of all the doings of humankind that unfold around their feet. Less visible than the peaks, even to most Orange County residents, is the quiet canyon-and-mountain community that has been at the base of Old Saddleback for over a century. 

     Made up of several canyons—including Silverado, perhaps the most famous—scattered with sleepy little cottages, the community seems to have resisted the tide of overdevelopment and kitsch that has ravaged the rest of once-rural Orange County. In that way, the area represents the last of its kind—a rural stronghold in a sea of apocalyptic change. 

     The issues are many: environmental degradation, disappearing wildlife populations, encroaching development, and damaged ecosystems and watersheds. And these aren’t the only concerns for residents of the canyons. Other difficulties abound: landslides, flash floods, and a special brand of political entanglements. 

     Without input from canyon dwellers, big companies and nearby city governments draw maps for future exploitation of the land. A traffic- and water-bearing tunnel connecting Riverside and Orange Counties has even been proposed to run right through historic Silverado Canyon. In the face of these struggles, Silverado, though in many ways unchanged since its days as a mining boomtown, is today tragically threatened. But more than that, this disputed landscape represents a deeply American experience of survival and change, determination and loss. 

     The rugged mountains with their shadowy canyons tell stories of weary prospectors, defiant Indians, and determined explorers. For people who spend their lives in the anonymous suburban landscape of Orange County, the canyons and mountains are a source of urban myth and local lore, deeply connected to the fading glory of the American West, and to the contradictory national narrative of frontier living and resource exploitation. 

     To read the rest, click here.