Lake Del Valle, Mama, and the Finest Vintage of My Young Life

Mama planned a family day at Lake Del Valle.

For a ten-year-old kid, Lake Del Valle ranked twelve steps below my birthday and ten below Christmas on the awesome scale.

Del Valle meant swimming, towels on warm ground, great food from a cooler, and hours outdoors with the grownups committed to the same glorious objective as kids. Fun.

Stephanie was coming with us, along with Andrea, Kristie, and baby Jamie.

Stephanie was Mama’s best friend. Her family lived behind us, and our backyards shared a gate. That gate saw a lot of action.

Mama packed sandwiches, chips, grapes, apples, and the drink taking over my imagination: Sunkist orange soda.

TV had already done its work on me.

Sunkist lived in sunshine. That much had been established. People drank it outside, near water, looking healthy, ecstatic and unreasonable. There were good vibrations. I had seen enough to understand that this was serious soda.

Pretty much California in a bottle.

Mama had bought some for the lake. My interest in the day rose accordingly.

We were getting ready to leave when the phone rang.

Mama answered.

Jenny and I were close enough to watch her face change.

Kids read faces.

Work wanted Mama to come in.

She stood there holding the phone while our lake day waited in the room with us.

I knew work through pieces.

Mama leaving early in the morning.

Mama coming home worn out.

Bills on the table.

Money counted carefully.

Her prayers when the house grew quiet.

Lake Del Valle belonged to another world.

Mama explained that she had plans with her kids. The day had already been arranged. Her kids were waiting. We were ready to walk out the door.

She hung up and called another woman from work.

We watched Mama.

Mama listened.

We could tell the woman said yes.

Mama jumped and smiled real big.

Del Valle lived!

Mama handled it like the queen she was.

We were going swimming!

At that point, the earth could quake, hell could surface, and I wouldn’t care.

Radar up.

Del Valle.

Swimming.

All that mattered.

That, and we were going to indulge in the world’s finest new and best orange soda.

We left Fremont and headed toward Livermore.

I always wondered, they couldn’t come up with a better name? Livermore. Why liver? Insert unhappy, contorted face here.

Neighborhoods opened into hills and stretches of land that felt enormous to me. Fremont was green hills in fall and winter, golden in summer, sidewalks, schools, backyards, fences, bikes, and streets I knew. Out toward Del Valle, the world spread in every direction.

Then the lake appeared.

Water.

Beach.

Picnic areas.

I was so ready.

My relationship with cold water has always required a brief conference.

Del Valle skipped the formalities.

The water climbed my legs, reached my knees, and seized my breathing.

Dignity entered the equation.

“Feels great.”

I said it, so I had to live with it.

A few seconds later the cold belonged to the day.

We were kids at a lake.

We swam. We splashed. We climbed out. We ran around like lunatics on the loose. We went back in. Somebody wanted something from the cooler every few minutes. The sun worked steadily across our shoulders.

Andrea and Kristie were there to ensure a good time.

Mama sat near the shore watching us. Steph was there. Baby Jamie stayed close to her with the blankets, bags, and food.

Every so often I looked back. She was there.

I loved seeing her happy.

Eventually swimming made us hungry in the way only swimming can.

Cooler opened.

Sandwiches.

Chips.

Grapes.

Apples.

Sunkist!

There it was.

Orange beyond reason.

Cold from the ice.

I took the bottle and opened it.

I gave it a proper sniff.

The bouquet was extraordinary.

Then I drank.

Carbonation struck first. Orange rushed in behind it. Sweetness, cold, fizz, citrus, all of it arrived together.

Terroir magnifique.

1979 at its finest.

Years later I would learn the actual language of wine.

Structure. Balance. Body. Finish. Vintage.

Men would swirl glasses under restaurant light and discuss bottles from places with ancient names.

At Lake Del Valle, my qualifications were simpler.

I had waited all morning.

The bottle was cold.

The first sip delivered.

Lake water dried across my shoulders. I held a sandwich in one hand and Sunkist in the other.

The day had delivered.

The afternoon kept going.

Perfect.

Kids yelled across the water. Grownups called names from shore. Towels snapped. Coolers opened and closed. Then the sound around us changed.

A voice cut across the lake.

Adults stood.

Heads turned toward the water.

A word moved through the shore.

A kid.

Mama looked toward the lake.

Stephanie gathered her girls close.

Blankets and food and towels stayed exactly where they were while every adult face changed.

People began searching. Eyes moved across the water. Bodies moved along the shore. The lake had everybody now.

Then they found him.

A kid came out of the water.

Now he was on the ground.

Still.

A man ran to him.

He went to work.

He positioned himself over the boy.

His hands pressed against his chest.

He gave breath.

He pressed again.

People watched.

The man stayed with the boy.

Press.

Breath.

Press.

Breath.

Every person around him seemed to be holding the same breath.

Then he responded.

A cry.

Voices rising.

Mama reached for us.

Stephanie held her girls.

The boy was alive!

For a while everybody stayed close.

I learned later that the man was a Marine.

All I knew was it was cool.

Very, very cool.

Kids drifted toward the water again. The sun continued across the afternoon.

Sunkist deserved another go-around.

I drank three.

The orange popped extraordinary on my tongue.

I looked back at the spot where the boy had been.

By then the sun had done its work on me.

I was red.

“Lobster red” entered the conversation.

Eventually Mama began gathering everything.

The full migration of a family day.

I headed for the car the way boys head for cars at the end of lake days.

Fast.

Then the sandy path entered.

I went down hard.

I slid on my back.

Oh, my burning hell.

I came up yelling.

Ten years old, sunburned, scraped open, betrayed by gravity in front of God and everybody.

That was the final gift Lake Del Valle had for me.

Sunkist.

A Marine hero.

And a back full of fire.

We headed home.

For years, that afternoon came back in pieces.

Cold water.

Sunkist.

A Marine working over a child.

Breath returning.

The sandy path.

My back burning all the way home.

Several nights of trying to sleep with fresh scrapes under a hard sunburn.

The incessant burn from being fried hard.

The phone came back later.

Mama’s face.

All these years later, I still see the boy with Sunkist orange soda in his hand.

Eventually, Sunkist found real estate in our fridge.

Life was good.

Fremont was my paradise.

It was home.

My Boyhood Home, Bullard Street, Fremont, California

 

I promise you ... that tree was way bigger -- ginormously bigger! Then again, maybe it's that I was smaller back then.