by Jason Caselli

Whenever someone asks me about my childhood, I find myself easily tapping into my most precious resource – my memory. Granted, at 61, it’s not quite as easy as it used to be – to parachute myself back into my formative years – but once I do, I’m there with both bare feet planted into it. I read somewhere that recalling memories is not a static replay of the past, but an active process that can alter the memory itself. Each time a memory is recalled, it's brought into our working memory, potentially changing the original neural pathways and leading to distortions or inaccuracies in recall. This means our memories are constantly being updated and reshaped, rather than being fixed records of the past. Because of this, I work hard at remembering how things actually were and what truly transpired. My older brother, Chris, is also good at being the family historian. In fact, Chris started drawing Caselli family “incident books” which I still have today and cherish as much as I do our old photos; his artistic undertaking alone helped to keep things accurate. All of these wonderful stories/incidents/anecdotes take place in what was my wonderful childhood world of Bennett Valley.

My siblings and I didn’t know how good things were in this kid-land we ran around in. We were unaware of the reality of the world beyond Bennett Peak, Mount Taylor and Sonoma Mountain. Our parents allowed us to thrive happily in our beautiful valley by sheltering us from political assassinations, protests, and a growing war on the other side of the Pacific.

The reason we even landed and rooted into Bennett Valley was my mom’s fault. She wanted a farm. How pure-hearted was that? She thought that her kids would benefit from fresh, country air, raising animals and growing vegetables. So, she convinced my pop to try and buy that cute two-story on Batesole Drive off Sonoma Mountain Road. Eventually he did, over a handshake on a fishing trip with the seller. So, on pop’s teaching salary, they bought our home and got a dachshund puppy they named Sigmund (after Freud). I was about a month old. Siggy and I were inseparable.

Soon enough, goats popped up like wildflowers at our place. Although our first goat was an Alpine named Jenny, we grew up caring for sweet, friendly Nubians, mostly. And we raised rabbits, chickens, and a clowder of rambunctious Siamese cats. Oh, and that one year Pop had the crazy idea to try and raise pigeons. That sure backfired! They ended up roosting in the garage rafters and pooping all over the cars. Mom grew a big, bountiful, organic garden every year.

But human kids seemed to appear faster than goat kids on Batesole! We had kids EV-erywhere back in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Woodside, Hidden Acres, all along Sonoma Mountain and Grange roads – KIDS, KIDS, KIDS! Halloween was a large annual neighborhood event. We were always building makeshift forts on a hill behind someone’s house, or playing whiffle ball in teams in a side field, buying bottled sodas at the fire station, or down searching for obsidian arrowheads in Matanzas Creek.

During summer hikes, the older siblings discovered and named the “Islands of Trees” which were basically three, small oak-covered hills on the valley floor between Sonoma Mountain Road and Bennett Valley Road. The older kids would create scary stories for the little ones while watching their eyes grow big in fear – the first Island of Trees was pretty mild and fairly safe for hiking kids; the second Island of Trees had some pretty dangerous animals around it, like skunks, coyotes and possibly a mountain lion; but that THIRD Island of Trees, whew… look out! The older kids swore they spotted a saber-toothed tiger, wolves, dinosaurs and pterodactyls flying over it. And they made us little kids promise to never go there. For a few years after first hearing that story, I’d cup my ear and strain hard to hear dino roars at dusk before bed. Did I hear something once?

A popular thing to do, especially in the summers, was to sneak over to Walker’s lake or Beck’s pond to go fishing for bluegill and, if you were lucky, bass. What was the bigger thrill – catching fish or sneaking onto private property? Hard to say. My oldest brother Randy swears that he and some friends got shot at with rock salt by a farmer. Yikes! Fortunately, no one was hurt.

And we made up stories about the ol’ Beck brothers who lived in what we described as “the old haunted house” on Grange Road. If we were to be sneaking onto the lower edge of their property to fish in their pond, what terror was in store for us if we were to get caught? Well, I do have a specific memory of visiting the Beck’s house with my mom (she was buying chickens from them or something), and I recall standing in the kitchen with all of them, thinking, “Waaaait, this is supposed to be a haunted house.” I never did get chased by a ghost or zombie. And how I loved seeing their gorgeous peacocks up close!

For some reason lot of things seemed to have transpired in 1969. My memory of the Earthquake of ‘69 is crystal clear. Us kids had been tucked into bed pretty recently prior to the first quake hitting at almost 10:00 pm on October 1st, a Wednesday. My older brother, Marty, and I were asleep in bunk beds. My brother flew out of the top bunk due to the hard shaking – unhurt, but terrified. And then the power cut off, leaving us in darkness. We could hear our parents calling up to all of us boys from downstairs, to come down to them. Marty yelled for me to follow him, but I was so scared as a 6-year-old I closed my eyes tightly and fumbled around the room, feeling for the door. Mistaking the closet door for our room door, I got lost, tripping over shoes and boxes, until mom found me and scooped me up. Next thing I know, we’re all outside on our front lawn with my pop yelling to our neighbors out on their lawns and checking if everyone was safe and accounted for. I specifically remember looking up at the beautiful starry sky and thinking how odd it was to note the stark difference between the beauty above the scary emergency taking place all around me.

By 1975, my parents had divorced and they sold the house to our beloved friends, the O’Donnells. I moved away with my mom and my younger brother and sister, to central California, near Oakdale. We worked extremely hard on a large dairy goat operation. I remember the summer of ‘76 being one of constant hard work, milking close to 100 goats! By the end of that summer I was almost a teenager and feeling lost, uprooted, disillusioned and burnt out. I finally told mom, “Mom, I want to go home.” She replied, “But we are home, honey.” I said, “No, I mean I want to go HOME.” She knew exactly what I meant. By that autumn, we’d moved back to our beloved Bennett Valley, temporarily living in Hidden Acres until mom bought a small farm along Bennett Valley Road, where we continued to raise dairy goats and create even more wonderful Bennett Valley memories.

I still can remember the sights, sounds and even the scents of my childhood in our valley. I still smell the strong eucalyptus as the school bus would pass by the grove on Bennett Valley Road on the long trip to school. I still hear the beautifully haunting call of the Beck brother’s peacocks at dusk. Thinking back, I feel a grounding peace inside.

I’ll always know where home is.