This is the Land of Water and Trees

This is Six Rivers’ country, crisscrossed by wild and scenic rivers that sometimes flood and fill in huge valleys. There are signs next to the highway going south marking the height of the water in the ’64 flood. If you stand with your back to the sign looking straight out across to the other side far, far away, it is unimaginable that the tidy little river below could have ever spilled over with that much water, that its banks could have extended that far and that high..

That’s the river where we went again to swim. Hot enough there to sunburn if you’re not careful. After a childhood and adolescence spent exposing my redhead skin to way too much blistering sun – and being forever blistered and peeling – I throw my towel down in the shade, and baste myself at regular intervals with industrial strength sunscreen. Again we make our way gingerly along the rocky beach to the water. It’s warmer than it was on our first visit, the river is lower and already has some bits of algae floating around on top of the water. But it is still like a wonderful baptism – the holiest water I know, surrounded by the cathedral of trees.

“They” keep trying to buy up our water and ship it away – to central California – or on down to Los Angeles. The last attempt was by a company that proposed to fill up huge plastic containers that would be towed down south behind some sort of big barge – like pulling giant water balloons. They were blown out of the water by a storm of protest and opposition. That was followed by the usual cries of “you stupid, reactionary, anti-progressive, backwater imbeciles!” from our local business visionaries. The same thing happened when WalMart proposed to build here. Even the mighty Wally decided it had run up against an immovable objection, or at least too problematic for the time being. We like our backwater too.