Camping on the CA Coast — First Quarter/Nineteen Years pg47
Colorful companion to my memoir The Incompetent Psychic
The next summer the neighborhood families got it together to go on a camping trip to Half Moon Bay.
The younger kids ditched me, so I wandered over to hang with the moms cooking pots of food on dangerous little stoves — the ones where you hand pump canisters of petroleum to a high pressure and light them on fire. The women were chatting about people I didn’t know and doing that grown-up eye shift down at me to indicate the need to edit and censor with a child present. Childhood kind of sucked. In all likelihood I would be put to work as a scullery maid, so I scooted out of the picnic table kitchen area. Where were the dads hiding? — From Chapter 2
Girls have to be devious to do the fun stuff. “Sure son! Come fishing with us men!” does not get said to those of us who happen to be daughters who would do anything to go out on a boat. And we learn quickly not to ask because there is no way around NO. So I blackmailed my father and his friends early the next morning and went on my only fishing trip where I caught the only fish. It was a beaut and I did its portrait for the next blog.
This acrylic is a painting from a photo of the headlands taken during a trip to exhibit at the Mendocino Art Festival. This scene could just as easily be along the cliffs by Monterey where my fishing story from childhood is set, as most of the northern California coast is wild ocean, fog, steep cliffs and the ubiquitous seagull. A version of this 9x12 painting might be available at my ArtByMernie shop on Etsy.
Signed copies of my memoir ship quick from https://www.etsy.com/listing/839838936
