LETTERS FROM HOME: A LONG, LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY

Dear Mom and Dad,

My friend Julie lives now in a gray saltbox house perched part way up the cliff above Trinidad Harbor. She inherited the house when her father died two years ago. He was a revered musician Humboldt State University named its recital hall for. At his memorial service at the Trinidad Town Hall, people brought their instruments and played music together. Julie and her younger brother served them banana splits. Playing music and eating banana splits were two of the things their father loved most about being alive.

After arriving in California last week, I went north to see Julie and DC stayed in the Bay area to see her old friends. The first time I made that drive to the north coast was 23 years ago, heading to my new job in Eureka. It was exciting and scary and so dark by the time I passed into what is known as the Redwood Curtain that I didn't comprehend the magnificence of the new world I was entering. Now these trees are like old friends, loved and cherished.

Julie used to be the mayor of nearby Arcata and a Humboldt County Supervisor. Now she is concentrating on the two home design stores she owns. Previously her life was outwardly directed to progressive political causes. Now her direction seems more inward, toward establishing a beautiful refuge there on the cliff above Trinidad Harbor.

When she first moved in, at night she sometimes dreamed that the house was sliding into the Pacific. It's not an impossibility. She worries about some shifting tectonic plates under the ocean and participates in the neighborhood emergency preparedness plans. But most of all she spends her time transforming this house that contains so many memories of her parents into a house that is her own home.

She and her mate, Lynn, have two cats -- Sligo and Lottie -- two dogs -- Sadie and Clio -- and a 7-week-old goose named Ruby Foo. The goose was brought in to help control the banana slugs in the garden but so far hasn't developed a taste for them. The amazement is that she and the dogs seem quite friendly.

The evening I arrived, Julie and I sat on the deck with margaritas while Lynn cooked ahi and sweet potatoes on the grill. Moored boats played in the gentle surf on the tiny harbor. The view was no less stunning from the dining room table as the sun dropped below the harbor.

Lynn made a tartly sweet papaya-coconut sauce for the fish, and we dined while listening to exotic music on the stereo. Afterward, there was orange-flavored liqueur and the heroic voice of June Tabor singing of all things, "It's a long, long way to Tipperary."

It was a movie I was glad to be in. We talked into the night. Julie, who became a vegetarian with a weakness for fish since we saw each other last, seemed a bit shocked that I have developed a taste for barbecue and golf. Being married to DC, I'm used to defending the game I love to play.

I think of it as a spiritual discipline, I said. "Ram Dass played golf." She didn't look convinced.

The farmers market was in Arcata the next day. The busy plaza was encircled by people selling organic strawberries redder than rubies, a kaleidoscope of cut flowers, herbs, vegetables, woven alpaca hats and much more. A band played in the center of the plaza, and people sitting on the lawn sometimes stood up and danced. This was the Arcata I remembered. There are more dreadlocks now, but the spirit is the same alive, vibrating. The sun shines on Arcata, even when it's foggy.

Julie says the plaza merchants and the dreadlocked kids with no place to go since Jerry Garcia died haven't always been happy with each other lately. A sign on the plaza prohibits skateboarding, but the city built a skating park elsewhere.

The plaza is a land unto itself. After California outlawed smoking in bars, Arcata outlawed outdoor smoking within eight blocks of the plaza. A walk through Arcata is guaranteed smoke-free.

I peeked in the window at the Jambalaya, the smoky old hangout where I once heard musicians who opened my ears to new music and poets who opened my eyes to new ways of self-expression. The old Jambalaya didn't even have a window but it had character, a soul imprinted by all the owners and bartenders and patrons who ever shared a drink and a conversation. The new Jambalaya is a trattoria, an upscale restaurant with ferns and, Julie points out, no soul.

People and places change, and eventually they disappear. It's spirit that goes on and on.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.