SEPT 8, 1817: A FOOTPATH

Maribel traversed the lightly trod road, turning right and left in search of a well. She recognized a grove of fig trees in the distance. There it stood, looming above the trees, white stone supported by eight large pillars: a citadel, cropped by a large bell, the San Gabriel Mountains providing a towering backdrop.

“La misión.” Maribel sprinted along the dirt road, kicking up dust in her excitement. She paused. An arroyo bordered by red and yellow clay lay ahead. “¿Dónde está El Camino?” she murmured. She wandered to the edge of the hollow, gazing at what appeared to be another portion of the footpath far to her right. She tramped through underbrush, straining to find the new trail.

Maribel remembered her father’s warning concerning this tenuous stretch of road. At age twenty-one, she cared little; being a second generation Alta Californian, she felt distant from her Spanish forefathers. She crossed the remainder of the creek bed, trotting onto her new found path: El Camino Real. The mission bell clanged into the hot afternoon breeze. “Uno, dos, tres, cuatro,” she counted. The sun bore down on her light brown shoulders. Thirst clenched her throat. She plodded on until reaching the cooling shade of the fig trees.

Maribel glanced ahead. The mission had vanished. Then, so did she.

CHAPTER 1

WHY THIS NIGHT?

I wouldn’t have had it any other way, but my mother disagreed wholeheartedly that night. It was January 10 after all, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

“Honey, the contractions are coming every five minutes,” Rose groaned. Sweat moistened her forehead. Her husband stared at her, paralyzed with icy fear.

“I don’t care what the doctor said about the thirty-first. I hear a baby crying in there, crying to get out,” she said. She hunched over the sofa. “Call him, now, unless you’d like to deliver him.” Jim rose from his chair and raced toward the phone.

“I’ve got Doc Haines on the phone. He says he can be there in half an hour. He’s calling the hospital so they’ll be ready for you.”

“I think they had better be ready for us! Oh, my heavens, another one! It hasn’t even been five minutes since the last. Let’s get going!”

Rose Marie heard Jim shut and lock the doors as she waited along the entryway to their icy, cobblestone walk. Jim glanced back at the wooden framed house as they approached the car. Then, he eased his wife’s swollen body into the back seat.

“How cold is it, Jimmy?”

“It’s well below zero. That’s all you need to know at this point.”

“It’s colder than all hell froze over is what it is! Close the door, quickly!”

Jim lingered outside his vehicle a moment as Rose Marie huddled under a blanket. Her slender torso bulged at its middle, but she still didn’t have any additional protection from the cold.

Her husband had not entered the vehicle. “Just what are you looking at out there?”

“It’s the lights, Rose, the Northern Lights. They’re dancing up a storm!”

“Get in the car this instant!”

Jim jumped onto the driver’s seat and turned the key, all in a motion, starting the ’57 Plymouth. He heard the engine chug with the cold. “It’s a good thing she started up, Rose.” Rose Marie rolled her eyes and grunted her disapproval.

Jim stared to the north as the vehicle skipped over the icy road on the short drive to the hospital. A white hue rimmed the northern sky. Above it, a ribbon of red and green lines unfurled across a black, star-filled background. The car veered and Rose Marie felt another surge of pain.

“Please, Jimmy! Watch where you’re going.”

“I am, Honey. I am.”

The hospital came into view and he stopped the Plymouth near the front door where a nurse waited with a wheelchair. “Hello, I’m Nurse Rollings.”

Nurse Rollings was a perfect nurse as far as Rose Marie was concerned. She had worked at the hospital for over ten years. She had short blonde hair and carried a

fair amount of muscle in her slender body. Rose was relieved to see her waiting there.

“I hope you’re comfortable enough for now,” Nurse Rollings cooed, soothing Rose Marie’s nerves. She patted Jim on the back.

“Thank you,” Jim said, in awe of the event about to unfold.

Rose Marie vanished from sight as the nurse wheeled her down the hallway and into the delivery room.

“Roll her in over there, gents,” Dr. Haines said. The orderlies eased Rose Marie onto the operating table.

“I take it that’s the tower,” Teddie remarked. Mount San Bruno was in their view as they wound around it. The panorama opened allowing Teddie to see the full grandeur of the tower. She peered at the structure, standing upon a low set of hills. She examined its long hourglass shape as they drove nearer.

“The tower has a semblance to the shape of a woman,” she remarked with amazement.

Ted glanced at Teddie, then to the tower as if for the first time, viewing it from this woman’s perspective as the van curved nearer to the base. Three long steel legs emanated from a triangular base toward an apex hundreds of feet above the hills. Three upper extensions continued outward beyond the lower, extending still hundreds of feet above, a metal platform positioned near the top of the structure.

“We’re going to climb this?” Teddie motioned toward the tower.

“No, an elevator does that. It runs up the front leg, then through the back. That’s where our work is. We’ll have lunch on the grid-iron, the platform.” Ted glanced over to her and noticed her look of puzzlement. She pointed her fingers out the window and tilted her head to keep the top of the tower in view.
On their walk to the tower, Ted informed Teddie about his calibration procedure. He described the elevator that had been placed inside the legs of the tower and the twenty minute ride it would take to reach the platform. She looked at him skeptically until he opened a metal gate that appeared in front of one of the legs and stepped into the elevator. Teddie scampered inside.

Three buttons were located rather high along the rear of the elevator. Ted placed his hand on the middle button, and they began to move. As they slowly ascended the tilted leg, Teddie found that leaning against the elevator wall was necessary to keep her balance. They weren’t rising straight up. She rested one foot along the side of the elevator as they made their ascent inside the lower leg of the tower.

“A true leaning tower of Pisa,” she quipped. She couldn’t believe they were ascending in this manner even as they did so. They reached the apex where the three legs met and slowed in their ascent. They stopped, and Ted eased himself methodically across the elevator and toward Teddie. She moved aside as he pressed the highest button on the elevator wall. They started up with a jerking motion, and she aligned her slight body toward the opposite wall.

“We’re in the upper leg, right?”

Ted nodded his head. He figured she should understand that much as it appeared she was an engineer. “So, you’re an engineer?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“I’ve always heard an engineer can’t tell a joke. That true?”

“You’ll have to wait and see.”

The elevator slowed again before coming to a stop. They had to lean toward the door to reach it. Ted pushed the lower button and pulled the door open. A fresh breeze welcomed them.

“Pretty typical day as far as I can tell.” Ted walked toward one of the legs as his comment faded from Teddie’s earshot.

She couldn’t see exactly where he was headed and wasn’t particularly interested. She had her own pre-defined reasons for being there and figured these reasons were more important than Ted’s “experiments”. She figured the professors had the students taking wind measurements along the tower’s legs to get a glimpse of some of the turbulent eddies and other invisible wonders of their meteorological field. All well and good; can’t these things be simulated in a lab instead of all the way up here, more than a thousand feet above the Bay? She continued out onto the meshed metal platform that Ted had called the “grid-iron”. The long, flat, metal beams comprising the platform crossed each other in such a way that, from eye-level, they appeared to form a grid.

As Teddie crossed the platform, she glimpsed San Francisco Bay. She turned to view the Golden Gate Bridge. She prepared to take another step and instincts stopped her. She froze to the platform as realization of the situation set in. She looked down. Beneath the gold and red colored metal platform was nothing, only the green tops of magnolia and eucalyptus trees waving in the breeze far below her! Chills ran up her spine. She was sure she could not make another movement as she peered at the scene below. Realizing she could not fall through the metal grating, she became accustomed to her new and most unusual setting. She took a step forward and took in her first glimpse of the view. Perched far above any nearby hills, the entire bay was evident, the hustle and bustle of San Francisco drowned out by the whistle of the sea breeze. She didn’t realize how different this view would be each day she came.

Ted walked back from a nearby beam where the wind instrument was poised. “Nice view today, huh?” Ted questioned her with no particular interest in receiving an answer.

Teddie knew she had to respond, and that her words would not give the view justice. “Yes,” she whispered.
Ted watched the breeze pick up her reddish-gold locks, and just as quickly, allow them to settle back onto her shoulders. “Just wait until the fog rolls in later today. You’ll know what it feels like to look down at the clouds.”

SUTRO SUMMARY

Sutro is a California romance that personifies the nature of the “Golden State” with its ever-changing landscapes and residents. Ted is a meteorology intern working on the Mount Sutro tower, located along the southern hills of San Francisco. Teddy, a bright, feminine engineer from a Los Angeles television station, arrives at Mount Sutro to assist in the placement of the tower’s first television antenna in the early 1980s. Ted and Teddy soon find they have more than their name in common as they work on Mount Sutro. They begin to feel a growing attraction for each other. Their time together is brief, as one must work the “odd” days on the tower while the other works the even. However, Ted and Teddy find that the elevator that runs through the lower and upper legs of the Sutro Tower is a perfect place to scratch out daily notes to each other. Ted finally asks Teddy to meet that next Sunday. Teddy procrastinates with her answer, and in so doing, will not meet Ted again except from this lofty perch for nearly twenty years.

In the ensuing years, Ted and Teddy find love of various kinds as they step along the pathway of life. There is Ted’s dark-haired working partner, Margaret. Margaret feels her love begin to grow for Ted, but refrains from pursuing it, as she knows for Ted there is only one other. Margaret hears more and more of the beauty of this lost love every time she and Ted pass the Sutro Tower. Ted discovers a passionate love for a most unlikely woman, Samantha. Samantha and Ted pursue a love so passionate, that to others, it appears their flaming romance will never end. But a flame must be fed to continue burning, and in the end, there is no fodder left to feed this once fiery love. Once the embers of Ted’s love for Samantha grow dark, there appears to be no further love along Ted’s pathway in life, except for the actions of a little lady who truly does love him. Trish works along Ted’s side more closely than any other partner, and she can feel Ted slipping off love’s pathway long before any other might guess. Trish vows to help Ted if she can, and she uses a power box and cell phone positioned atop the Mount Sutro tower to do so. She has no idea whether her efforts will succeed or fail, but she has hope, and most importantly, her continued love for her dear friend, Ted.

All the while, Teddy is living her life far away from Ted. She remembers her conversations with Ted from time to time, but she finally loses her faith in true love, as the love of her life turns out to be most untrue. Then, Teddy finds the most passionate love of all, a love that transcends from the physical state to that of the heart. She will only know this love for a brief while, but her experience will help to vault her life forward, and renew her faith in love. Yes, there is a second chance for love in Teddy’s life. Teddy does not know this chance lies still ahead and far away. It is set in a box, poised along a leg of the Sutro tower. She will finally be sent there, to walk about the platform atop the Mount Sutro Tower after so many years. She will not know how close she is to Ted’s voice, and would never know, until Mother Nature rings in with a voice of her own. Teddy nearly loses her life atop the tower that bright afternoon, but she finds reason to fight death, and searches for the wireless phone she and Ted once peered into. Yes, she is one phone call away from Ted, and just a few steps away from finding the truest love of all, her first love.