Closing California

The Golden State slowly melts away

No Californians, save First Americans, are truly native born.  Although many can trace their family tree back generations, almost all our roots originate elsewhere.  My maternal roots snake over multiple ancestors through Northern California’s East Bay area and sod huts in Sheridan, Wyoming into midwestern states populated by forbears who came from Denmark and its colony in what became Norway.  My paternal roots originally took hold in St. Petersburg, Russia, but then secretly absconded their way across Siberia, China, Indonesia, and the Pacific before being allowed to come to San Francisco.  Because of Southern California’s Black Gold, I was born there.  The need to mine more of it moved our family when I was barely a toddler to Texas where I was raised.  All those years, my parents viewed themselves, one a native, the other an immigrant, as Californians.  And so, they became again when retired.  Their ashes enriched the ocean washing its storied shores. 

Since I was raised in the pen…