There are No Code Nazis in Heaven

I wonder what Carl Curtis ghost is up to

I wonder what the Ghost of Carl Curtis is up to today. I want to say that generally speaking I do not believe in the concept of ghosts as disembodied spirits running about the Earth. That said, when Jeanette and I first bought our Honeymoon house that had been the bunkhouse to Carl Curtis ranch before he gave it to the Chinese cook as a wedding present, the ghost of Carl Curtis visited me one night.

Jeanette and I had just moved in and I noticed that the eastern bedroom wall had at some point in the 1950’s had it’s inner battens removed and that entire wall was covered in that weird wood fiber and asbestos board that everybody loved back then. I could move the wall about 3” inward with a light touch of my hand. That wasn’t good. The fiberboard was raw, so I painted it with three coats of KILLS oil-based primer (back before the code nazis outlawed the good stuff in Commiefornia) tinted to a craftsman era mossy green. Then I built a bookcase of 2” x 12” rough sawn redwood that I tied into the wall and made a structural unit of the wall, and rather instantly filled it with books. My brother Dave used to joke that I insulated my house with books, and functionally this was actually so.

The night after I had built and filled my bedroom bookcase, it seemed a man in a 1918 or so Pierce Arrow drove up our gravel driveway. The got out and he was wearing a belly color ten-gallon hat, a red double-breasted cowboy shirt and Levis. He had a gorgeous Russian Wolf Hound with him. The man walked around the outside of the house nodding. He and his dog walked into the kitchen, came through the dining room, the hallway in the bathroom and into the bedroom. He examined the bookcase carefully and completely. He nodded occasionally as he did, and then he turned, winked right at me and he and the dog returned out of the house, got into their Pierce Arrow and drove out of the driveway.

When I woke up I told Jeanette about the dream. I didn’t really know who the man was. I suspected he may have been a ranch hand, or he may have been Curtis. I didn’t know. Over the years I hoped he would visit again. When I put the island in the kitchen and built the breakfast nook I expected a visit, but he never came. When the arsonist burned out the studio and I rebuilt it, even though that wasn’t one of his structures, I hoped he would visit, whoever he was, but he did not. When I got rid of the 1950’s lighting in the house and replaced it with lanterns that looked like Louis Easton’s work in other homes, and hand wrought chain my father made, I expected a visit, but again he did not come. Even when I built the bookcase on the north of the dining room, the one where I spent a year collecting wood with tight grain and birdseye’s, I expected the man with the wolf hound and the Pierce Arrow to visit. He did not. When Cindy Dimmit replaced the main water line, the man did not show. I surmised he trusted me, and I had passed muster with the first visit. I felt honored to have his trust.

As time went on and I researched our honeymoon house and Carl Curtis I discovered that the pride of his life was his Pierce Arrow car that he kept till he died. I also discovered that he had introduced Russian Wolf Hounds to America, that he had converted the Ranch from growing food for Pasadena hotels to a Wolfhound breeding ranch in the 1920’s and that to this day 40% of all the Russian Wolf Hounds in America were descended from dogs born at the Carl Curtis Ranch. I am certain they are all champions.

When Michelle Zack published her book “Altadena : between Wilderness and City” there was a write up on Curtis, the Ranch and his photograph. He was indeed the fellow who drove up my driveway in my dream thirty-eight years ago tonight. In the photograph he was holding his ten-gallon hat, wearing a different double breasted cowboy shirt and the same gorgeous wolfhound was sitting at his feet.

The honeymoon house is gone. The avocado tree Pompanoe gave Curtis that Jeanette and I spent summer evenings under is gone. The 120-year-old orange trees are gone. The carob is gone. Nothing but cracked foundations, ash and devastated remnants remains.

I wonder if Carl and his Wolfhound are there in the wreckage. If they look on in deep sadness. If they hope I will someday somehow rebuild a building that honors what was within the limits of what the code nazis will allow. I wonder if they understand code Nazis. Probably not. They did not look terrorized when they visited so I suspect they are not in hell, and there are no code Nazis in heaven.

Hopefully Carl, the Pierce Arrow and the wolfhound are in a spot in Eden that is a perfect version of an Altadena before the fire. In that Eden my now lost orange trees are producing their high acid highly sweet fragrant fruits, that make the supermarket stuff seem like cardboard. I look forward to the day we all sit under the avocado tree and eat those oranges, without of course, any code nazis nearby.