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I called the bluff above Magnolia beach Magic Mountain. Others referred to it as Hamster Hill and it had all the prerequisites for a good time. A steep incline that had to be scaled on all fours, dirt and gravel being kicked onto those coming up behind. My brothers and I would race each other to the top.
Once at the summit the reward appeared. An incredible view over looking Puget Sound with freighters, tugs, ferries etc. The fear of getting too close to the edge was very real as this bluff is prone to slides and the landing wouldn’t be soft at all. Other features on top of this precipice were few, scrub bushes and various trails all leading back to the same spot.
Transfixed, we would stay longer than we were supposed to, pretending we didn’t hear my father’s call. Then we would crouch down and scoot to the bottom of the trail on our rear ends.
Years later, one of my favorite things to do would be to get to the beach at low tide, find a stick and draw an immense image of a person, bird or whatever. From ground level there wasn’t much to see, but by climbing to the top of Magic Mountain and looking down the picture revealed itself. Many times I did this, like an incredible chalkboard. The surf would come and clean the slate for the next drawing.
Walking the beach was always a joy unless the tide was up. Then in order to get from one side to the other, one was obligated to traverse a series of wooden planks perched along the hillside.
Not many houses remained along this stretch of beach. All on pilings, they were particularly prone to the shifting hillside above them. One by one the effects of winter storms took their toll, leaving many of these homes in various stages of destruction.
One house referred to simply as the White House was larger than most and hadn’t been wiped out too badly as it slipped off its foundation. Whoever owned it tried to shore it up by constructing an enormous rock wall platform for it to sit on. Other complications obviously followed, for by the time of my arrival it was completely abandoned, left to the rats and vagabonds who would occupy an upstairs bedroom for a night or two before shifting on to the next place.
I relished the time there on the beach and some of the smaller shacks seemed to be up for grabs. No one lived in a few of these, so I took up a fantasy residence. Sometimes staying all day beach-combing, reading or just listening to surf on sand, allowing the easy flow of nature to transport me.
By the time my mid-teens were upon me, I had come to look at the beach as my special place. So had many of my close friends. We were all in various stages of striking out on our own. The half dilapidated building provided the magic opportunity to realize our own quarters.
The first to actually live in one of the bona fide houses was John, a rock and blues drummer par excellence, whose driving rhythms could be heard way down the beach. Initially, he played as a way to strengthen a fractured wrist and now took it up as a vocation. He was and is a genuine and open person and though older than the rest of us, would invite us in to relax and introduce us to selections from his vast record collection. Heavy on the blues, it featured some genuine gems too.
I recall one time walking along the beach by his place in the mid 60’s, around the time of the Summer of Love (1967). Ravi Shankar’s sitar music transported me to some place completely foreign yet at the same time somehow familiar.
John’s next door neighbor, Rich, was a beatnik poet. His place, which I think he claimed more than rented, since I don’t recall utilities of any kind, was absolutely spartan, a couple of chairs, an old grass woven carpet, some Indian sheets on the walls and an ancient victrola that he would play old scratchy 78’s on. He would stay there year round, though during winter months he may have moved elsewhere since we rarely went to the beach in the cold.
Summer, Spring and Fall were our seasons and they were glorious. Starting at the top of Beach Road, an asphalt street that was not kept up very well, we would descend under a bridge that on some occasions would have a rope swing attached to it. Past a few houses, other homes and mansions could be seen on Magnolia Boulevard above. One friend, Bob, also a drummer, lived in one of these and his practicing could easily be heard on Beach Road.
At the bottom of the road, it veered off to the left where other homes were and a trail wound its way up to Magnolia Park with its swings and barbecue stand. We would go straight to the water’s edge. If the tide was out we might hike along the sewer pipe, then begin walking north towards Fort Lawton. We almost never went the whole way to the fort though, it was just too long of a hike.
Usually, I would get to 5 Mile Rock, a huge boulder with a warning light on top. During high tide, I would row my small rowboat to it, which was a serious workout.
This was the beginning of Perkin’s Lane, a stretch of million dollar homes that some owners took so much pride in that they felt their property extended to the shoreline and maybe it did. I know I was made to feel as though I was trespassing by the inhabitants and didn’t linger long there long.
Naturally, Fort Lawton was off limits and the lighthouse equally so but the reward for the long trek was the only stretch of sandy beach on Magnolia save for a tiny area under a train bridge to the north. If conditions were just right and the sun had been out for awhile the tide pools would even be warm enough to go into. Plus, there were clay deposits nearby and it always a treat to look for unusually shaped forms of clay that would suggest something else.
In these, my younger days, when things got a little boring or I needed to recharge my spiritual batteries I would go to Magnolia Beach. My friend, Paul, had discovered a shack with a small out building that was always dark but he warmed it with a small wood burning stove. He lived there all year round and came to be known as “hermit” from those who only knew him casually.
Other friends Bill and Donna stayed with him briefly and painted a huge sun on the front of the shack which quickly became known as “Sun House”. Sun House was very different from all the other places on the beach. It was isolated and at the end of a long and tortuous trail that was even more so in the rain. It was impossible to get to it at times though Paul may have had another way to get there. I knew of only this one trail.
This day, I had prepared to spend all day in the woods by myself and I was as prepared as I needed to be. A sack had a bottle of red Almaden wine which I had persuaded someone of age to buy for me. A loaf of French bread, long and golden, and a block of Swiss cheese, something we rarely had at home.
My paperback at the time was Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietche, a volume that I understood little and went against most of my Catholic upbringing but it felt important to delve into it for just that reason.
I reached Paul’s shack but he was not in, so I continued along a hidden trail, the vines and undergrowth getting deeper at every turn. I’m above the water on an intermediate level below homes and peeking through the trees are views of Elliot Bay, its blue sparkling water reflecting light back to my view.
The trail winds a bit more before opening to a clearing. The entire floor of this area is completely covered with ivy, green, soft and smelling of fresh growth. I am immediately intoxicated without even opening my bottle and I sit down to soak up the atmosphere looking straight up through the swaying branches of poplar trees.
The universe is turning, clouds march across the sky and seagulls assume their gliding positions. In the harbor, ferries, freighters and tugs ply their trade deliberately and the echoes from their horns and engines adds to the reverie, I barely stir, letting my other world fall away, bit by bit, till the illusion of isolation becomes a reality.
A great heron launches itself from a great tree above me and I take the moment to measure independence. The hours go by as if in a twinkling. My wine and meal half finished, the wind begins to pick up. The rustling of the leaves along with chirping birds and building surf signals my departure. A regretful separation is in process as I gather my things ready to reenter the civilized world.
On another occasion, an obscure trail climbed its way into the recesses above the beach. It wove its way through leaning house, a small structure whose floor conformed to the shifting contours of the bluff and out the other side. A little farther on around a few bends in the path one came upon ivy house, a very small and dark house that probably was a tool shed or chicken coop to an earlier, larger home next to it that had slid off its foundation and tumbled into ruins leaving only a small portico that provided an excellent view as a terrace over the water.
My private cabin was next along this route and next to last, for awhile that is. Just like Gauguin, seeking Islands further and further from civilization, I searched deeper into the woods to escape my own growing civilizing to remain purer. When first I discovered the cabin, it was a dilapidated structure with a minor entry way without a roof and a rotted floor. I became resolved to resurrect this structure.
I had spent too much time visiting friends in their places to let this opportunity slip by. During the course of one summer I scrounged wood, tarpaper, windows and whatever was needed to carry out my plan. The view was magnificent and really the building of this cabin was the pretext for just being there in the woods.
I had established a sound foundation but soon the solid structure became slightly spongy underfoot from being constantly wet. I had put on a second floor that was only 3 feet high to be used as a sleeping loft but the incline of the roof was at such a slight slant that the rain poured in from all sides. Regardless, it was my first real place, a refuge from the urban blight of my everyday world and a welcome place to recover my sanity and escape a hostile and negative world of expectation and requirement.
Imagine my horror one late fall day, when I came around the bend in the trail to discover my place a pile of broken, twisted boards and shattered glass. Apparently, the house had become so unstable that a young punk was able to lift one corner of the place until the planks snapped and upended the entire place. Thus ended a joy in my life.
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