My Deepest Passion by Ricky

Forward: I wrote this memory in response to the topic "My Deepest Passions" while I was visiting my brother at South Lake Tahoe in the summer of 2011. He was a terminal cancer patient. I emailed it to our story group leader who read it to the group.

          Prior to these past weeks my deepest passions were reserved for politics and undoing the damages done to America since the passage of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments.  At this point in my life, having lived at South Lake Tahoe these past several weeks, my deepest passion is for my youthful memories of my life at the lake.  Perhaps you can tell from the four postcards you should be viewing today and over the next two weeks, if Phillip and Stephen keep bringing them, as I asked them to share the photos with you all.

          This morning around 8:30AM, I arrived at Emerald Bay and spent the next 2 hours taking some photos (none as nice as the post card photos) and reliving my memories from when I was 10-years old living at the bay and serving as the deckhand on my parent's 38-foot cabin cruiser tour boat; the Skipalong.  I walked the very short trail to the top of Eagle Falls (photo op) and then down the steep1-mile trail to Vikingsholm (photo op) and an additional 3/10 mile trail to the bottom of the falls for another photo op.  After all that, I walked the same 1-mile trail back to the parking lot.  The uphill trek seemed like 3 miles instead of the actual one mile.  I had to take baby steps to make it in reasonable time and to keep my heart from pounding. 

          I was surprised at how strong the feelings of regret, past happiness, and longing that filled me.  Regret for not returning and staying after my first enlistment in the military; past happiness over the memories of a 10-year old; and longing for the intervening lost years of residency.  I visited all the homes I lived at while I did live at Lake Tahoe (all three of them).  The last one is vacant and amazingly the entire side of the block my home was on is still exactly as it was when I left.  It is like living in Central Park in New York City as the house is the only one on the block and is all open in a few places and wooded in the remaining).

          Memories of elementary and high school; working at the county campground; my boy scout troop activities and campouts; my original desire to be buried in the top of the mountains to the south at Star Lake; and the time a few of us uninvited scouts went to Idaho and “crashed” the Boy Scouts’ World Jamboree, are just a few of the memories that resurfaced.

          The result of all this is that I really don’t want to return to Lakewood, but I will when my business with my brother is completed.

I wish you all a great life and lots of creativity in writing or telling your stories. – Ricky

My parent's tour boat.

Vikingsholm, Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe, CA

Eagle Falls, Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe, CA

My first home at South Lake Tahoe on Lapham Street.

My second home at South Lake Tahoe on Birch Street.

My last home at South Lake Tahoe on Red Lake Road.

© 29 August 2011

About the Author

Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe, CA

Ricky was born in 1948 in downtown Los Angeles.  He lived first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach both suburbs of LA.  Just days prior to turning 8 years old, he was sent to live with his grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years while his parents obtained a divorce (unknown to him).

When reunited with his mother and new stepfather, he lived one summer at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force, he moved to Denver, Colorado where he lived with his wife of 27 years and their four children.  His wife passed away from complications of breast cancer four days after 9-11.

He came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.  He says, “I find writing these memories to be very therapeutic.”

Ricky's story blog is “TheTahoeBoy.blogspot.com”.