Herlong part 2

Herlong was heaven for a kindergartener. Lillian and Richard came up in the late summer '44 on the train that came from Oroville, passed under the long tunnel around Table Mountain and then steamed up the Feather River Canyon to Portola where they stayed with Lillian's sister for the time it took for Lillian to line up the soda jerk job and find base housing.

Richard loved everything about Herlong, the fact that he could wear dungarees and striped T-shirts, the school, the other kids, living with Lillian, and the desert with its mysterious horned toads, blue bellied lizards, and busy black beetles. He loved the sudden dust devils and torrential showers. The sage brush and rabbit brush. The moptoped sage hens. And the mountains that surrounded Herlong like a bowl, especially Turtle mountain that looked close enough to walk to with its strange towers and crenellations.

By the fall of '44 Richard had started kindergarten. He felt so secure that he wasn't even flustered when one afternoon Lillian did not arrive to pick him up. He just sat at his desk watching the light fade and the school building empty. His teacher sat at her desk paying him no great attention. Richard remembers just sitting there quietly feeling somewhat amazed at his being there with nothing to do but sit at his desk. It is the first time he can remember experiencing pure existential peace.

Another night he remembers just sitting on the steps outside the flattop with Lillian listening to the coyotes just barking and barking to each other across Honey Lake Valley, once a giant bathtub to an ancient lake.