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(Flume and Dam continued from page 6)
of my brothers and having meals with us.
I was too young to fully appreciate the heart wrenching affect the dam must have had on my father. Often, on a Sunday, he would drive my mother and sister and I up to whatever vantage point was available at the time and observe the construction. We made a number of trips through the valley that was his youthful stamping grounds, up to the deserted reservation where he would point out various things of interest, the grounds where the fiestas were held, where neighbors had lived. We watched the progress of the water as the lake bed gradually filled, always commenting on how far it had to go before reaching the little knoll where his parents' house had stood. It was a beautiful, productive area, with orchards and hay fields and pastures and old oak trees. For Dad it must have been more than just a boyhood home, because when he was seventeen, on the death of his father, he had taken on the role of the breadwinner for the household and manager of the ranch. I study a picture of the ranch as it looked in the ealy 1900's and wish I had been old enough to remember more about it.
The water had reached the base of the dam, was about thirty feet up the side of it, when on day my sister and I hiked up the mountain on the north side and around to the water's edge. We were with several other kids. There was a row boat pulled up on the bank, and thinking it would be fun to get in it, Ellen and I climbed in and sat down. No sooner were we seated when one of the boys who was with us pushed the boat off into the water. Ellen was nine and had the good sense to jump out before the boat had drifted very far. I, on the other hand, was struck dumb, and while Ellen kept shouting at me to jump out, all I could think of was that I still hadn't learned to swim. I was an exasperation to Ellen frequently for tagging along after her, but bless her heart, she swam out and dragged me out of the boat and hauled me to shore. We were wet and bedraggled, but we climbed to the top of the dam and found a neighbor who was just leaving the site for the day, and he volunteered to take us home. That was the firstand only time that my mother ever made me go to be without supper.
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