WALKING WITH GHOSTS: PART ONE

FEATURED POSTS

March 6, 2017

The story begins in 1848, when William Bodey left his wife and family in Poughkeepsie, New York, and sailed to California on the sloop Matthew Vassar to join the gold rush. At least that’s what the facts seem to indicate, the keeping of detailed records at the time being somewhat less than perfect.

BODIE HOTEL

In July of 1859, Bodey and some of his associates discovered gold in a place that became known as Taylor Gulch apparently named after his associate, a half-Cherokee Indian named E.S. “Black” Taylor. But Bodey would have little time to enjoy his new-found wealth. In March of the following year, Bodey and his cabin-mate Black Taylor were returning home from Monoville with supplies, when they were caught in a blinding blizzard. Bodey collapsed. Taylor carried Bodey as far as he could, then wrapped him in a blanket, and continued on to their cabin.

Although Taylor returned that night to get his friend, by the time he got back the snow had piled up over boulders and brush and Taylor was unable to discover exactly where Bodey lay. Bodey’s frozen body wasn’t found until May when the snow had melted. He was buried in a shallow grave in the frozen ground.

Some 156 years later, we ended up in Bodie – the town in the hills of the Eastern Sierras that is named for William Bodey. The name of the town is spelled differently – apparently the result of a mistake by a sign painter. People liked the new spelling, so that’s what the name of the settlement became.

Bodie today is a ghost town – in the real sense of the word – administered as a California State Park, which means you can visit, walk down the same dirt roads that the early pioneers used, and look in the windows of the remaining structures. You can even go into some of the buildings, although access is limited because of the weakened condition of the structures.

There are no phony gun fights in the streets or other wild-west reenactments offered; there are no snack bars or souvenir shops. And if you arrive early in the spring, as we did, you can practically have the whole town to yourself.

Just you and the ghosts of the people who once lived there.

You may not believe in ghosts, but I do. I don’t mean ghosts like in the movies, floating around, causing trouble. But people leave their mark on their world, in the things they build, in the deeds they do. Those actions – their legacies both good and bad – are with us still, as our actions will be for the generations to come.

Orville and Wilbur, Hitler and Stalin, Lincoln and Roosevelt, and the people of Bodie.

As the pioneers of their day dug gold and silver out of the hills around Bodie, the new town prospered and grew – at one point to almost 10,000 people. There were miners, and store keepers, gunmen, gamblers, prostitutes, barkeeps and other characters of the Old West. There was a school for the children, two churches, regular stage service, and freight wagons bringing in supplies and carrying out gold ingots.

In 1879 – 19 years after Bodey’s death – the townspeople found his body where it had been buried, dug it up, and brought his bones back to Bodie to give him a proper burial. The prominent people of Bodie even initiated a fund that would pay for a monument to mark Bodey’s grave. But when President James A. Garfield was assassinated 22 months later, that money was redirected to erect a monument to the fallen chief executive instead.

By today’s standards, life in Bodie was both primitive and hard. Babies were born, people worked long days to put food on their tables and to build their town. They lived their lives and they died – sometimes violently. That was the case with Thomas Treloar and Joseph DeRoche, who clashed during a dance at the Miners’ Union Hall on January 15, 1881.

DeRoche danced with Treloar’s wife, and Treloar objected. When Treloar and his wife left the dance to walk home, they were ambushed by DeRoche, who shot Treloar in the head and killed him. DeRoche was soon arrested and put in jail, but it wasn’t long before the 601 vigilante group showed up, took him from his cell and hanged him at the scene of his crime. The 601 name reportedly signified: six feet under, zero trial, one rope.

DeRoche’s last words, according to reports, were “Oh God.” It was a little late for that.

A more humorous quote that made headlines in the frontier papers of the time concerned a young girl, who according to a Truckee newspaper, ended her prayers with the words: “Goodbye, God. We’re going to Bodie.” The Bodie newspaper responded that the youngster had been misquoted. What she actually said was: “Good! By God, we’re going to Bodie.”

The buildings of Bodie are now slowly coming down, ravaged by wind and age, propped up against the elements – in some cases by outside bracing. But if you walk the dirt streets slowly or find a place to quietly sit, it’s not that hard to conjure up the spirits of the hard-working men and women who used to call the town their home.

Times change, but those folks back then, the ghosts of Bodie, were not that different than we are today. People trying to get ahead, to raise and support their families, and make the best of the world into which they were born.

– George Lee Cunningham

To get to Bodie, and commune with the spirits of its now-departed residents, take Highway 395 north past Lee Vining (or if you’re coming from Reno, south past Bridgeport) and turn east on State Road 270. The road is paved for 10 miles, then dirt for three. Bodie is a state park and there is a $7 entry fee for visitors 17 years and up; $6 for those 6-through 16; with children 5 and below admitted for free. Dogs are welcome, but they must be on a leash. Take your own water and food. Look all you want, but don’t take home souvenirs.

For more information: http://www.bodie.com/

News

April 17, 2024

Minor Character

Sometimes I feel like a minor character in one of those really long James Michener historic novels. I’m one of the guys they check in on a couple of times during the course of the book and one more time when he finally kicks the bucket. In truth, that suits me just fine. I don’t want to be one of the major players – those guys who lie, cheat, sleep around, make a lot of money, kill a lot of people, and then then suffer a tragic death on Christmas Eve. I just want to be me – plugging along, having some fun, loving the same woman for years, and then quietly passing away.

March 25, 2024

Cereal Killer

I have almost given up on cereal. As a younger man, I loved a sugary treat. As an old man, who has to watch his diet, I find myself checking labels on everything. Sugar is the enemy. For instance, Cap’n Crunch – a former favorite of my wife – contains: Corn Flour, Sugar, Oat Flour, Brown Sugar, Palm and/or Coconut Oil, Salt, Reduced Iron, Yellow 5, Niacinamide, Yellow 6, BHT, Thiamin, Mononitrate, Pridoxined Hydrochloride, Rioflavin, and Folic Acid. My choice: plain old Shredded Wheat. Ingredients: wheat and BHT (a harmless preservative). Not a taste treat, but at least I’ll live to tell about it

Highway Memorials

Driving across country nowadays, we notice a growing number of roadside displays – flowers, crosses, and ribbons – marking the sites where people apparently died in traffic accidents. I do understand mourning the passing of somebody you love, but I’m not sure I see the point of putting a display at the place along the road where they died. Even sadder is the fact that flowers wilt and highway trash piles up around the displays, making them just another sad reminder of life cut short.

December 5, 2023

Love Motives

I often tell my wife I love and adore her, mainly because I do and also because women like to hear the man in their life actually say the words. But during one conversation I had to confess that some times when I say it – especially when she is irked and giving me the deadly silent treatment – I am also reminding myself of that fact so I don’t start yelling and slamming doors. Is that so wrong?

Being Mortal

I am officially an old man. Sometimes I forget, then I look in the mirror and there it is. The truth is that life has its limits, and that is how it should be. There are new generations coming up, ready to step up and take our place. They are welcome to it. If you have reached old age, you have made some blunders in you life. If you think otherwise, then you are indeed a fool. You can warn the new generations about the mistakes you made, but they are oblivious. This too is as it should be. It’s their world, and it’s on them to screw it up for the generations to follow, just as we did for them.

Good Deeds

There is a saying that no good deed goes unpunished. It’s mostly – but not always – true. The problem with good deeds is that most people who do them expect to be appreciated. In actuality, good-deed recipients are more often resentful about it, rather than grateful. Nobody likes being the person who has to rely on the good will of others. So do good deeds for your own sake – because it makes you feel better, not because you want to be feel appreciated.

Recreational Bitching

Did you ever notice that some people – maybe more people than not – like to complain about everything? In the summertime, it’s too hot. In the wintertime it’s too cold. Health care is too expensive. Young people are too rude. Old people move too slowly. There ought to be a law against anything and everything that might make one unhappy. It’s recreational bitching, and we all do it to greater or lesser extent. Maybe once in a while, it might make sense to listen to how we talk and how we think. Most of us are just doing the best that we can.