Five Generations on the Corkboard

The Cabin of my memory is a wooden box built on plot of reclaimed wilderness on the edge of the national forest. It's i the vicinity of Mt. Lassen, the southern most volcano in the Cascade range. Three hours away from Sacramento, it was a usual haunt of my childhood.

Now that we have a kid, we've been more proactive about considering making trips there, trying to make it a priority among our other adventures with the Boy.

He climbed the stairs; he got to see how we feed Charlie, the name we've given to generations of blue jays that eat peanuts off of the deck's balcony's railing; he was strapped on for a hike through the meadow (now a wetland) and off into the adjoining forest.

The smells smells are the same; the sounds are the same.

We went into the national park, Mount Lassen Volcanic National, and did a spectacular hike (Cass was again strapped on in the Ergo carrier). The pictures are amazing. They're also currently buried on Corrie's lappy and will hang there for a minute.

Inside there's a corkboard where folks are asked to put pictures from visits over the years. We had the Fuji Instax with us, which is basically a Polaroid camera, and took a few and added even less to the corkboard.

It was in that moment that I realized that there were five generation of people enjoying the Cabin on that corkboard.

There were plenty of black and white pictures, some from 1962 that showed my Nana, my great-grandmother Theresa Pedrotti (nee Alamano). Nana was born in Italy in 1904 and grew up in California's Bay Area.

Also pictured in black and white were her daughter, Mary, with her family: husband Tom, two daughters Kathy and Peggy, and son Tommy. Kathy's my mom, who goes by Kate now.

In color are photos are my brother and I, and the two of us with our cousins Mike and Liz, and two with me and Cass.

From Theresa to Mary, to Kate, to Pat and on to Cass, we have five generations spread over almost sixty years, shown on that family history corkboard.