[attachment 74784 Watsonville.jpg]
Back in the summer of '63 my family could usually be found at our summer cabin on 5 acres in the Santa Cruz mountains nearly every weekend. It's probably the most beautiful setting in the whole canyon. Royal, the address is: 2015 Eureka Canyon Road, Watsonville, CA. The whole 5 acres is set in a mini canyon with steep and barely climbable slopes on the 2 sides bordered by the county road at the top. Very private. Huge redwood trees and oak, alder and madrone rule the whole thing with a huge flat clearing of about an acre for the cabin & campsite. The year round creek flows down from the point of the "V" and around one side of the flat opposite the cabin. My dad and I built the 20' X 30' cabin when I was about 12. After I graduated from HS, left home and became a lettuce tramp, dad had a 2 bedroom home built, and utilized the cabin for the living room. Naturally, we had wild "pets" like deer, raccoons and other critters that would visit our campground day and night. However, we had no idea that mountain lions were getting used to our presence and wandering very close to us without our knowing it, usually at night.
Back to the summer of '63 - It could have been labor day weekend, because we had probably 30 guests there - some with camp trailers, some just there for the day and evening. The local Honda shop owner was there, a couple of HS teachers, the local RV dealer, a general contractor and many more friends having a grand time. Most of the men were sucking on suds, playing horseshoes, riding the hondas ( that was when those little Honda '50s, 55s & '90s were the rage), and enjoying the usual steak barbecues my parents served up all summer. We had an old iron tar pot with the big iron spoke wheels (used to seal cracks in the roads long ago), made into a huge barbecue pit with an adjustable grate. Late on a saturday night about 10:30 PM, us teenagers (6 or 7 of us) decided to play hide and seek. Of course, one of the girls had to be "it" to start out the game. All of the parents were in the cabin playing Pinocle and whooping it up.
Well, after slipping by the first round I was going to make darned sure I wasn't caught this next time either. So, I sneaked over to the edge of the creek bank and hopped off the edge to a spot I knew I could land safely in soft sand. It was only about 4 feet to the creek bed, but an alarming thing happened on the way down. Between the time I hopped and landed, something rendered me 100% paralyzed. I can't stress this enough. I landed the same way a stone statue would land if dropped off feet first. couldn't move a finger, a toe, my eyes, and worse, I couldn't make a single sound of any kind. All I could do was strain against my muscles which were completely frozen solid. My first thought was that I had injured my spine resulting in total paralyzation, but there was zero pain. Next, I thought maybe I had just died and was witnessing my last precious seconds here on earth. Then I got mad as hell and threw a raging fit! All in my mind, because nothing would move at all, even a tiny bit. I was straining so hard sweat was running down my face. You have to know I was trying to yell and scream the whole time (when I wasn't trying to cuss!)
About this time I was beginning to notice a change in my ability to see in the dark. It was pitch black in the creekbed, and yet I was beginning to see like looking through a night vision instrument of today. Of course that technology wasn't around then, or if it was, us civilians didn't have access to it. As my eyes gained night vision, they began to turn very slowly as though smothered in cold molasses. I couldn't speed them up or slow them down. I wasn't in control at all. Then I saw them across the creek from me less than 20 feet from where I was planted. There was a large mountain lion and what appeared to be a juvenile. At this point my rage subsided and turned to fear. I instantly realized that these carnivores could hop across the stream and slowly reach out with a paw, push me over and casually dine on my immobile carcass. I continued to try to yell and scream, but absolutely nothing. Then the lions began what I thought was a ritual or victory dance prior to the feast. The large one was corralling the smaller one in a continuing circling motion. I later realized that the big and MUCH SMARTER kitty was restraining the smaller and much friskier one from jumping me.
This went on for at least 15 seconds ( seemed like 15 minutes!) During this time I'm wondering whether they'll go upstream, down stream, up the hillside behind them from which they obviously had come, or (heaven forbid) leap on me. Finally, they decided to go upstream. Big cat in the lead, smaller on right behind. As they went through the beams of light shining across the creek from the camping trailers just upstream from me, I could see them perfectly. They were magnificent with their long bushy tails, silently hopping effortlessly from boulder to boulder upstream. My newly acquired "night vision" lasted until they were at least 75 yards upstream, and then it began to fade away. At the point where they disappeared upstream, my body began to come back to life. very slowly at first, and I was able to slowly turn around and start to crawl up the part of the bank I had caved off to make a trail up out of the creek. Normally I could run up this part, but I was happy just to be able to crawl up right then. By the time I made it to the edge of the campground I could walk. By the time I reached the cabin I could trot at best. Regaining full mobility took almost a minute! It's sorta funny how my eyes were able to see the lions in complete darkness when I couldn't conciously see a thing, process all of the info needed to act, and paralyze my body all in a split second.
When I neared the cabin I yelled MOUNTAIN LIONS! several times. My dad and a couple of guests burst out the door, and one of the guests said "Look at his eyes!" Then they all started commenting that they had never seen anybody with pupils that huge. They said my eyes looked just like an owl's. I can't imagine just how large my pupils must have been at the point where I had night vision. I was beginning to realize that if I had moved at all after landing in the creek bed, the lions would have attacked instantly, because I would have triggered that instinct. I've had a bunch of time to ponder just why it all happened the way it did, and here's what I've settled on: Way back when man was iless intelligent and struggling to survive in a really hostile environment, something or someone must have developed and installed a program into that portion of their brain referred to as "unused". In fact, we probably have a whole mess of "programs" in there that we can't access by ourselves, but which can be activated when a certain set of circumstances arise. I now look on a newborn baby with an altogether different awareness, because probably all newborns have a very complex set of programs that have been passed down from parents to child for countless generations. After all, we have programs somewhere in our brains that keep our hearts pumping, lungs breathing and so on while we sleep. Think about spontaneous combustion of the human body. It probably happens when our program which causes a fever actually glitches, triggering the human body to continue to raise the temperature nonstop. And what about those humans wigged out on angel dust that are suddenly extremely strong. Also those stories of people suddenly being able to lift a car off of a person trapped beneath it.
Hope you liked this little escapade. I didn't at the time, but can laugh about it now.
[attachment 74785 Watsonville2.jpg]
[attachment 74786 Watsonville3.jpg]
Back in the summer of '63 my family could usually be found at our summer cabin on 5 acres in the Santa Cruz mountains nearly every weekend. It's probably the most beautiful setting in the whole canyon. Royal, the address is: 2015 Eureka Canyon Road, Watsonville, CA. The whole 5 acres is set in a mini canyon with steep and barely climbable slopes on the 2 sides bordered by the county road at the top. Very private. Huge redwood trees and oak, alder and madrone rule the whole thing with a huge flat clearing of about an acre for the cabin & campsite. The year round creek flows down from the point of the "V" and around one side of the flat opposite the cabin. My dad and I built the 20' X 30' cabin when I was about 12. After I graduated from HS, left home and became a lettuce tramp, dad had a 2 bedroom home built, and utilized the cabin for the living room. Naturally, we had wild "pets" like deer, raccoons and other critters that would visit our campground day and night. However, we had no idea that mountain lions were getting used to our presence and wandering very close to us without our knowing it, usually at night.
Back to the summer of '63 - It could have been labor day weekend, because we had probably 30 guests there - some with camp trailers, some just there for the day and evening. The local Honda shop owner was there, a couple of HS teachers, the local RV dealer, a general contractor and many more friends having a grand time. Most of the men were sucking on suds, playing horseshoes, riding the hondas ( that was when those little Honda '50s, 55s & '90s were the rage), and enjoying the usual steak barbecues my parents served up all summer. We had an old iron tar pot with the big iron spoke wheels (used to seal cracks in the roads long ago), made into a huge barbecue pit with an adjustable grate. Late on a saturday night about 10:30 PM, us teenagers (6 or 7 of us) decided to play hide and seek. Of course, one of the girls had to be "it" to start out the game. All of the parents were in the cabin playing Pinocle and whooping it up.
Well, after slipping by the first round I was going to make darned sure I wasn't caught this next time either. So, I sneaked over to the edge of the creek bank and hopped off the edge to a spot I knew I could land safely in soft sand. It was only about 4 feet to the creek bed, but an alarming thing happened on the way down. Between the time I hopped and landed, something rendered me 100% paralyzed. I can't stress this enough. I landed the same way a stone statue would land if dropped off feet first. couldn't move a finger, a toe, my eyes, and worse, I couldn't make a single sound of any kind. All I could do was strain against my muscles which were completely frozen solid. My first thought was that I had injured my spine resulting in total paralyzation, but there was zero pain. Next, I thought maybe I had just died and was witnessing my last precious seconds here on earth. Then I got mad as hell and threw a raging fit! All in my mind, because nothing would move at all, even a tiny bit. I was straining so hard sweat was running down my face. You have to know I was trying to yell and scream the whole time (when I wasn't trying to cuss!)
About this time I was beginning to notice a change in my ability to see in the dark. It was pitch black in the creekbed, and yet I was beginning to see like looking through a night vision instrument of today. Of course that technology wasn't around then, or if it was, us civilians didn't have access to it. As my eyes gained night vision, they began to turn very slowly as though smothered in cold molasses. I couldn't speed them up or slow them down. I wasn't in control at all. Then I saw them across the creek from me less than 20 feet from where I was planted. There was a large mountain lion and what appeared to be a juvenile. At this point my rage subsided and turned to fear. I instantly realized that these carnivores could hop across the stream and slowly reach out with a paw, push me over and casually dine on my immobile carcass. I continued to try to yell and scream, but absolutely nothing. Then the lions began what I thought was a ritual or victory dance prior to the feast. The large one was corralling the smaller one in a continuing circling motion. I later realized that the big and MUCH SMARTER kitty was restraining the smaller and much friskier one from jumping me.
This went on for at least 15 seconds ( seemed like 15 minutes!) During this time I'm wondering whether they'll go upstream, down stream, up the hillside behind them from which they obviously had come, or (heaven forbid) leap on me. Finally, they decided to go upstream. Big cat in the lead, smaller on right behind. As they went through the beams of light shining across the creek from the camping trailers just upstream from me, I could see them perfectly. They were magnificent with their long bushy tails, silently hopping effortlessly from boulder to boulder upstream. My newly acquired "night vision" lasted until they were at least 75 yards upstream, and then it began to fade away. At the point where they disappeared upstream, my body began to come back to life. very slowly at first, and I was able to slowly turn around and start to crawl up the part of the bank I had caved off to make a trail up out of the creek. Normally I could run up this part, but I was happy just to be able to crawl up right then. By the time I made it to the edge of the campground I could walk. By the time I reached the cabin I could trot at best. Regaining full mobility took almost a minute! It's sorta funny how my eyes were able to see the lions in complete darkness when I couldn't conciously see a thing, process all of the info needed to act, and paralyze my body all in a split second.
When I neared the cabin I yelled MOUNTAIN LIONS! several times. My dad and a couple of guests burst out the door, and one of the guests said "Look at his eyes!" Then they all started commenting that they had never seen anybody with pupils that huge. They said my eyes looked just like an owl's. I can't imagine just how large my pupils must have been at the point where I had night vision. I was beginning to realize that if I had moved at all after landing in the creek bed, the lions would have attacked instantly, because I would have triggered that instinct. I've had a bunch of time to ponder just why it all happened the way it did, and here's what I've settled on: Way back when man was iless intelligent and struggling to survive in a really hostile environment, something or someone must have developed and installed a program into that portion of their brain referred to as "unused". In fact, we probably have a whole mess of "programs" in there that we can't access by ourselves, but which can be activated when a certain set of circumstances arise. I now look on a newborn baby with an altogether different awareness, because probably all newborns have a very complex set of programs that have been passed down from parents to child for countless generations. After all, we have programs somewhere in our brains that keep our hearts pumping, lungs breathing and so on while we sleep. Think about spontaneous combustion of the human body. It probably happens when our program which causes a fever actually glitches, triggering the human body to continue to raise the temperature nonstop. And what about those humans wigged out on angel dust that are suddenly extremely strong. Also those stories of people suddenly being able to lift a car off of a person trapped beneath it.
Hope you liked this little escapade. I didn't at the time, but can laugh about it now.
[attachment 74785 Watsonville2.jpg]
[attachment 74786 Watsonville3.jpg]
