Redwoods Near Oakland - remembrances of Joseph Lamson

From "The Knave", Oakland Tribune, 08 Dec 1929, Sun Page 77

Redwoods Near Oakland Lamson Sun, Dec 8, 1929 – Page 77 · Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California) · Newspapers.com

Redwoods Near Oakland 

OF THE BIG REDWOODS in Redwood canyon behind Oakland, trees which fell under the ax in the days when their beauty was unappreciated, the diary of J. Lamson (1854) dwells with interest and regret. As forwarded by Albert Wheelan some excerpts are here quoted: Fuel was in demand in San Francisco in the fifties. Timber surrounding the town, scrub oak and other trees had succumbed to the ax. Yerba Buena and Angel Islands had contributed their growths to the woodsmen. The Contra Costa plains were cut off, and the woodsmen were cutting timber down the peninsula. Finally the trees in Redwood canyon commenced to yield a supply. Lumber was in demand and the big redwoods of the San Mateo and Santa Cruz hills were levied upon to supply this demand, as well as the redwoods on the Rancho Palos Colorados, as Redwood canyon was then called. The shipping point for this timber was San Antone, afterwards called Brooklyn, and now a part of Oakland. The diary of J. Lamson gives an interesting account of the work in the redwoods on the last mentioned rancho: "January 30th, 1854. On an excursion today I stopped on the way to see two trees felled. When the reader is told that I passed more than six months in the redwoods, and had seen trees fall around me almost every day, he would suppose that such scenes would lose their novelty for me. It is, however, a scene of no ordinary sublimity to behold one of these monster trees, nearly as high as the Bunker Hill Monument, fall to the ground, and it is a sight that I never tire of seeing. I speak of them as being nearly as high as the Bunker Hill Monument, because I have seen some of the largest and tallest trees, they having been felled, before I arrived here. But a comparison with the monument will give a better idea of their great height rather than, figures. Imagine then, one of them, such as have grown here, and such as are still standing in other forests - imagine one placed inside the monument and towering fifty or even seventy-five feet above it, and you will have a conception of the grandeur of those magnificent trees. The two trees whose fall I was about to witness stood side by side up a steep declivity. One of them had been cut off, and stood leaning against the other."

My review of Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, by William Styron

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a long essay, sold as a book, describing his experiences with depression. Styron's style and storytelling make this painful subject an engaging read. The telling is the right size; he leaves nothing out and his stories are on point. His creativity is not blanketed and stilled in this essay, written after surviving a black period. He is honest and open, describing how the illness developed, what it ia like to be in the grips of depression - or melancholia as he sometimes refers to it - as a mental illness. He makes it clear that what he, and many others experience is in fact a change in the body / mind, and not just sad feelings, or "the blues", and he tries to put into words what a brain inside a storm of activity that is destructive to its own feedback and self-consciousness feels like. I think the real value in this book is the way he's able to put his experiences into words, and to recognize the signs of depression in others, relate it to his own and try to verbalize their experiences. Suicide is a necessary associate in this story, it is obvious that this unrelenting storm of confusion and misery can settle in and exist for years, and that the loss of hope and the need for a way out causes many to take this exit. Styron describes some of the types of depression; manic, unipolar, and he's also forthright about the causes. Having read the DSM - the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association - he speaks with a very solid grasp of our current medical understanding of the disease, and he is candid about his triggers; entering the later years of his life, having quit an alcoholic pattern cold-turkey, relying on fairly massive doses of a kind of sleeping pill later shown to be a trigger for depression, and having experienced a parent's - his mother's - death at an early age. He also talks about his experience with doctors, psychiatrists and a mental health hospital. It's very clear that he put himself in the hands of professionals, and trusted in them, while being very self-aware and himself well-read on medical technology. He describes how he felt led astray, but then finds the right path after spending a period contemplating his own suicide. It becomes clear (spoiler) that getting off of those specific sleeping pills was the inflection point, as well as entering a hospital that put him in an entirely other environment, where his convalescence and healing are explicitly the top priority.

My take; consciousness makes possible self-consciousness. We are not a finished product, but an organism on a point of evolutionary continuum. Self-consciousness has flaws. A person's own brain can become caught, entrapped and lost in a storm of thoughts and feelings all trending toward destruction, with no hope of a rational version of themselves coming to the rescue. Only other people with a clear intent to help, and explicit communication about the real danger felt by the sufferer make help possible. Many survive depression, and most have experienced it. A lot of this essay rang bells, for me. I found myself thinking "If only he rode a bicycle, or got more exercise, or got out in nature more." I have my own way of putting my brain right. Honest and forthright read.

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My review of Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967 (Gonzo Letters), Hunter S. Thompson

The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967 by Hunter S. Thompson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this, after reading Hell's Angels, which I enjoyed. He saved every letter. Passionate, intelligent and impulsive, his letter writing is up there with his best published writing. I highlighted a lot of quotes in it. A complex person, not easily categorized, he was a member of the NRA, a fierce opponent of the Vietnam war, a friend of Ginsberg, an Air Force vet, able and willing to offend with language, afraid of a fascist future, in the form of Reagan and Nixon. He loved and hated. He probably suffered from manic depression. He'd land big publishing contracts and then stop writing. He was terrible at the business of writing, losing money and struggling to find publishers, agents and editors with whom he could work. He really, really liked guns. He wore his heart on his sleeve, as they say. He was really funny. I would have liked to have met the guy. I saved quite a few to-read books that he mentioned, and immediately jumped to one of his favorite authors after this, William Styron, but a book that was published after Thompson died, _Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness_. They had a bit in common; self-destructive tendencies, a cessation of passion when the darkness came. There are singular people in the world. I liked this quote, in response to a 14-year-old boy who read Hells Angels and wanted to join the gang as soon as he could; "When I was 14 I was a wild, half-wit punk who caused a lot of trouble and wanted to tear the world in half if for no other reason than it didn’t seem to fit me too well. Now, looking back on it, I don’t think I’d change much of what I did in those days … but I’ve also learned at least one crucially important thing since then. And that’s the idea of making your own pattern, not falling into grooves that other people made. Remember that if you can do one thing better than anybody it’ll make life a hell of a lot easier for you in this world—which is a pretty mean world, when you get to know it, and a lot of people in it can ride big Harleys … especially in California. The best of the Angels—the guys you might want to sit down and talk to—have almost all played that game for a while and then quit for something better. The ones who are left are almost all the kind who can’t do anything else, and they’re not much fun to talk to. They’re not smart, or funny, or brave, or even original. They’re just Old Punks, and that’s a lot worse than being a Young Punk. They’re not even happy; most of them hate the lives they lead, but they can’t afford to admit it because they don’t know where else to go, or what else to do. That’s what makes them mean … and it also makes them useless, because there’s already a big oversupply of mean bastards in this world."

Thompson, Hunter S.. Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967 (Gonzo Letters) (pp. 627-628). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

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