The new site www.yosemiteriverrat.com

Hey folks it's up and running.  I have my new Yosemite river rat website.  I will leave this up for a time so that those who come to it will see the link that I am going to put up and be able to get to the new site.  I want to say that it is still in the works of being tweaked and polished.  I am learning how to do things and change things and add things that weren't possible with this blogger site.  But be patient and I will eventually have a very nice customized site that will be full of pictures, stories and videos.  Please also feel free to go to my other tellasoul blog which will remain at blogger.  It isn't that fancy but it has a message all should hear.

So if you are ready just go to riverrat or copy and paste www.yosemiteriverrat.com into whatever you copy and paste things into.  One other thing.  When I just enter the www deal into google, it still wants to take me to this blog and I have to hit a couple more places where it says, "did you mean?"  I guess it is because I haven't had much traffic to the site or I don't have much search engine power or something.  I am getting on a webinar tonight to learn more about how all that works.  If any of you know different tricks or things that I need to do to better enable people to find the site, please, please help me and send me an email.  Which reminds me, my new email address is riverrat@yosemiteriverrat.com.

So, hope to see you on the other side.

Best wishes,
Bill

Changes

Hey Folks:

I am really intrigued to see the analytics on this blog growing every week.  I wanted to write this post to let you know that I am working right now to get a more professional blog website up and running.  It should be done by the folks putting it together for me sometime this week.  This new website should help in offering a better layout for photos and videos as well as written content.  I really appreciate all who have been visiting this blog, the numbers keep growing every week and that is so exciting.  Thank you so much and I hope you will like the new layout.
Please don't give up on me and keep checking back as I will have new content soon.

Best regards and many thanks,
Bill

The weekly trek

We would go up to the gulch every weekend from Mt. Diablo and then stay up there all summer long every summer.  It was exciting at first but it was a four hour drive one way and it quickly became the two times of the week I hated most.  Going and coming.  A four hour trip to a child can seem like a lifetime although my brother and I would fall to sleep after about two hours of driving.  I'm sure my parents heard the age old question thousands of times through the years, "Are we there yet?"  I can remember, when my brother got older, teaching him the words to 100 bottles of beer on the wall.  That song was the reason my brother knew how to count to 100, forwards and backwards, before he ever started kindergarten.  We would sing it using the words beer, cats, dogs, horses and we would sing it until my parents flat out told us, "No more, thats enough, sing something else!"   The real bummer was when we finally did get to the gulch and when we got back home to Mt. Diablo.  Usually when we were going to the gulch, we didn't leave until Bob got home from work which was, I'm guessing, around seven o'clock.  Then he and my Mom would load Bob's VW van with all the food, clothes and animals which meant we probably didn't leave till eight or nine and then drive four hours.  When we got to the gulch, it wasn't like we could hit the remote control and the garage door opened, park the van and we all went in and went to bed.  In those days we couldn't drive up to the cabin, we had to park across the river and unload everything, carry it down to the trolly, take everything across the river on the trolly.   We did have an old WWII army jeep that stayed at the cabin and my dad would have to go up, start the jeep, drive it down to the trolly, load it up with all the stuff and take it to the cabin and carry everything in.  When we went into the cabin, we didn't just flick on a light switch, we had to light the lanterns and in the winter time we had to light a fire because the cabin was freezing.  Speaking of winter, that even added to the misery of getting there.  If it was raining, we were all soaked to the bone by the time we got up to the cabin.  The trolly wheels would throw water as they turned and rolled along the cable and there was no way to stop it and if you had five loads to take across, you were sprayed with cable water as well as rained on.  It wasn't fun, especially for a kid who was just woke up cranky and tired.  My job in the earliest days was to watch my Brother while my parents did all the work, so I would sit in a dark van with my baby brother until it was our turn to go across the river.   By the time we got to the cabin, my brother had been woke up and would be crying right along with me and feeling just as miserable as I was. 
If it was winter, we would all huddle around the wood stove trying to get warm, taking our wet clothes off and putting our pajamas on for bed.  My Mother would be heating milk on the stove to feed my brother his bottle.  We had a gas refrigerator which Bob would have to light so that they could put all the perishable food in, before we went to bed, then put the non-perishable food in big cans so the mice didn't get into it. One other thing I can remember my parents doing in the summer, was checking everywhere in the cabin for rattlesnakes which included in and under the beds.  I of course could have gone to bed while they did this but as a young kid I was too afraid to go into the bedroom that had no lights.  I would hear the dogs barking outside at something and the thought of being alone in a totally dark room was just something I didn't want to do.  What if there was a rattlesnake under the bed that my parents missed seeing and where were all those mice at right now they talked about and sometimes we could hear coyotes howling in the distance.  It was just not something I was going to do.  I didn't even want to sleep in my own bed alone when we were all in the same room.  When everyone finally went to bed I would pull the covers over my head and try to tuck every loose end of the covers under me so nothing could get me and I would wish that I was my baby brother who usually got to sleep with my parents or right next to their bed.

Summer day with Puco and Ginger's puppies
and our Collie named shane.

At the end of the weekend my parents would usually try to leave early on Sunday night.  I was taught young how to haul wood in to build a fire when we came back and I would have to fill all the lanterns so they were ready for the late night drill next week.  Bob would fill all the water cans, turn off the refrigerator and start packing everything back across the river.  Many, many times though, we wouldn't get out of there till around eight or nine and get back to Mt. Diablo around twelve or one A.M.  I usually wasn't singing on the way home.  I would be one tuckered out little boy and would fall right to sleep and wake up finding my parents unloading everything and carrying me into bed.  Later, when I started school, I would just be exhausted at school on Monday morning. 
Usually though, the last thing we would do before leaving the gulch in the summer, was go down to the river and take a last swim before heading home.  I can still feel the warm afternoon breeze blowing through the canyon, the smells of the river, watching the dragonflies hover around the willows, seeing the fish lazily float in one spot gulping water and the sound of the rapids down stream.  It's one of the many memories of the gulch that I wish I could experience again!
Please visit my blog at www.tellasoul.blogspot.com

Ned's Gulch

The very first time I ever heard of, "The Gulch" was when I was three years old. We had just moved to a place called Mt. Diablo into one of about twelve houses that had originally been built for the miners of the Mt. Diablo mine.   My mother had been in the hospital, although I don't know what it was for, and had just gotten home.  She was talking to the lady who had been taking care of my baby brother and I when she mentioned going to her boyfriend's mine up near Yosemite.  I can remember hanging on her lap and just wanting to touch her because I was so happy that she was home.  I don't remember where my little brother was, probably taking a nap or in his high chair.  I don't remember everything they were talking about concerning the gulch but I do remember her mentioning a river, a gold mine and Yosemite and I would butt in and ask questions like,"Is it a deep river?, what's Yosemite?" etc.  We had just moved to Mt. Diablo which was about five to seven miles from a little town called Clayton, Calif.  We had moved from Cowell Rd. nearer still to Clayton and why, I don't know.  I came to find out just a few years ago that my Mother owned the home on Cowell Rd. and owned it for many years later, so why we moved to someplace we had to rent is a mystery to me.  I think it must have had something to do with my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Rich who owned the home next door.  In my growing up years, my Mom and Aunt Ruth never got along which always made me feel that my cousins looked down on me as well, for many years.  The only cousin that I felt comfortable with in those early years was my older cousin Laura.  She was such a beautiful soul and was always so kind to me and I just loved her.  When we moved to Mt. Diablo, I was pretty much alone most of the time and learned to occupy myself playing with our black lab, "Blacky", and riding my imaginary horse through the cattle fields along the creek and the acid ponds located in the fields.  Its amazing all the things I did and the places I explored at such an early age. 
I don't really remember the first time we went to the Gulch but my parents always said I was three years old  and my Brother was six months. When we first started going up to the gulch, it was on weekends after my Mom and Bob got off work.  Later, it was every weekend and all summer after I was out of school.  Bob would usually have to leave Sunday night and head back to work and would be gone all week.  So my Mother, Brother and I would be at the gulch all week alone.  For some reason I seem to remember the trolly and the hot cabin, a springer spaniel named ginger and being afraid to get too close to the river and the ever magnified dreaded fear of the danger of rattlesnakes.  Everything about the gulch seemed scary or dangerous as a small boy.  Everything was a rule,"Whatever you do billy, don't ever get on the trolly by yourself, you could cut your fingers off,  Whatever you do billy, keep your eyes looking at the ground for rattlesnakes, whatever you do billy, don't go down to the river by yourself, you could get swept away and drown, don't climb up there billy, those rocks could give way and crush you, Stay away from the edge of the bank billy, you could fall off the bank and get killed".  It was always something.  I usually would stick as close to my mom as I could because she was my safety net and I felt safe around her.  I felt like Bob would have been even safer to be around but he was always into his mining or with his mining friends when they would come to visit.  Plus he always made me feel like I was just kind of in the way and he would be barking orders and warnings or telling me to go see my mother.  Since my brother was still just a baby, I really didn't have anyone to play with in those days. I couldn't go down to the river by myself because I might fall in and drown or go hiking or riding my imaginary horse because I might get bit by a rattlesnake or fall off a cliff.  There wasn't any electricity or running water so I couldn't watch TV or run through sprinklers, so I was stuck with hanging on to my mothers skirt and listening to adults.  Needless to say, the gulch didn't offer much for kids those days and so I was always pretty glad to head back to Mt. Diablo to my TV with cartoons, imaginary horse and Blacky.  I don't remember whatever happened to blacky but he sure was a great dog.  One of the best dogs we ever had.  He was a black lab and I don't even remember when or where we got him.  Although I don't ever remember him ever going up to the gulch with us, I'm sure he did.  One of the greatest things about that dog was how he would protect my brother and I.  When my brother started walking, blacky would stay right with him at all times. My brother probably learned how to walk by pulling himself up on his feet hanging onto Blacky.  Our place at Mt. Diablo was also on a hill.  The road to the other houses went right past our house and on the other side of the road was a drop off to the road below which was probably 40' or so.  When my brother would head towards the bank, blacky would cut him off and gently nudge him back into the yard where he was safe.  It was the darndest thing.  We never taught him to do it, he just had that instinct of danger and knew his job was to keep my brother and I out of danger.  When I would be riding my imaginary horse through the cattle, I came too close to this bull a couple of times.  Not to worry!  Blacky was right there and showed that old bull that I was the last thing he wanted to mess with.  Through my lifetime, I have probably had close to 75 to 100 dogs.  I've hardly ever known what it was like to not own a dog.  But, I don't think there were any of them that measured up to Blacky.  Here's to you Blacky, the first best friend my brother and I ever had in life.
Please feel free to see my other blog tellasoul.blogspot.com

Introduction

Thank you for looking at my blog.  For many years I have wanted to write about my families life on the Merced river at a place called Ned's Gulch about twelve miles from the Yosemite National Park boundary.  As of this writing, my Mother (Betty), Brother (Bobby) and myself first went to Ned's Gulch around 1954 or 1955 after my Mother met a man named Bob Metzler when we were living on Cowell Road near Clayton, Calif.  Bob first went there after getting out of the 2nd world war where he fought in the Battle of the Bulge in Germany. The only thing at Ned's Gulch (the gulch) when my Mother, brother and I first arrived was a 16'x32' two room tar paper cabin above the river and a lot of rattlesnakes.  We had no electricity or running water and had to walk up the hill behind the house to the outhouse.  This blog is the beginning of my book telling about our life and adventures on the river and will be small excerpts each week about another adventure.  Growing up at the gulch was something that everyone who came from the cities to visit and stay, thought was the greatest life anyone could ask for.  They envied us, looked forward to returning to visit and swim in the river, ride the rapids on inner tubes, hike the mountains, go in gold mines, fish, use an outhouse, barbecue under the fig tree every night, go up to Yosemite for a day, see and kill rattlesnakes, see deer, listen to cougars scream at night, ride our horses, cut firewood, fill lanterns and such.  To them it was a dream life.  To us it was a way of life that wasn't necessarily always a dream.  It was a life where each of us family members had chores to do to survive and for my Brother and I, it didn't always afford us the opportunity to just be kids when we should have been able to enjoy being kids.  I personally hated most of my life there and even ran away from home once to get away, but now looking back on it all, I am thankful for a lot of the life we had there.  Not all of it, but a lot of it.  All in all, it is now a story of what I consider to be the history of the last of the Yosemite pioneers who came to settle the area. There were many other pioneers like the Thompsons, the Laws, McClendons, Henry Emic, the Bullards, etc., but I think as far as bare bones, bloody knuckled, hardcore back to nature type pioneers, we were the last.

My goal with this blog is to end up with a book that will accomplish a two fold purpose.  One goal, and not necessarily the most important, is to record our family's Ned's Gulch history for my children and grandchildren, my niece Kylie and her children and for all of you as well.  As of this writing, Bob is still alive although he is 89 years old and then there is me.  My Mother passed away several years ago and my Brother passed away last year, since Bob is totally not into computers or able to write a book, I am the only one left to record what our life was like at the gulch. 
The second goal, which to me is the most important goal, is to be able to sell the book and raise money for the prevention of domestic violence and child abuse, to help educate and stop the American Holocaust, which is abortion, and actually legal child abuse, and to promote the gospel of Jesus Christ. 
This author believes that there are a lot of parents out there that are abusive and don't know it.  Many think that being abusive is when you hit your spouse or child or others and that if they aren't smacking the family around or others, they aren't guilty of domestic violence or child abuse.  Not much could be further from the truth.  Abuse comes in many forms and is used by many upstanding individuals and parents on a daily basis.  Physical abuse is the one type that our society focuses on the most and the type that intentionally and unintentionally kills or maims for life and lands someone in prison.  But what about other forms of abuse such as mental abuse and verbal abuse?  These are serious forms of abuse which usually end up turning physical and many are unaware that they are inflicting these forms of abuse on friends and loved ones.  I would love to have the money to be able to help families address these issues and get counseling before someone they know or love gets hurt or dies.  If you are reading this and you know you have a problem with what I'm talking about, please humble your heart and seek help.  Write me through the comments on this blog.  It will not be seen by others, but will go directly to my email and I will get back to you and see if together we can find a way to help you get help with the problem.  If you are reading this and you are a professional therapist or counselor and would be willing to donate even one hour a week of your time to helping stop abuse, again, please contact me and I will list your services and contact info as you wish to have it listed.  Thank you to those of you who have a problem for being mature enough to recognize and want to address your problems and thank you who can and are willing to help these folks tackle their demons.  To the rest of you, I ask you to pray for the victims and counselors, read your Bible and do unto others as you would have others do unto you!

I hope you enjoy this blog and the book when it comes out and please feel free to follow this link to my other blogs Barber Bill's Bull and tellasoul.blogspot.com and you can email me at lagunabarberbill@gmail.com .