Del Paso Heights

When I was 10, we lived in Del Paso Heights about 4 blocks North of Hagginwood Creek and it was one of our favorite places to play.  Dry with a sandy bottom in the summer, the creek usually flooded in the winter.  The creek was surrounded on both sides by a levee about 20 ft. high to protect the adjoining neighborhoods.

I met a friend in our neighborhood whose name I do not remember, but I do remember the house he lived in.  Our home was a recently built wood frame & stucco home much like most California homes today, but this friend lived in an adobe house!  It was out of place in the neighborhood and was on an oversized lot with a curved driveway and, of all things, a swimming pool in the back yard!  It had obviously been built long before all the other homes around it.  The floors were covered in dark red tiles and even during the hot summers, it was cool in the adobe house

There were many very good climbing trees along the levee but one in particular had an enclosed platform high up in its branches.  We were always afraid to climb up to it because we thought it belonged to the bigger boys and we didn’t want them to catch us in their clubhouse.  Also, at the time, it looked like it was 100 ft. up, a scary climb for a young boy.

During one very wet winter, Hagginwood Creek was full almost to the top of the levees.  My friend Richard and I built a raft and used long bamboo poles to guide our craft along, but it wasn’t long before our poles wouldn’t reach the bottom and we were at the mercy of the current.  We coasted down the creek almost to where it dumps into the American River before we panicked and abandoned our vessel.  It was a scary ride and a long walk back home, but it was quite and adventure.  We always wondered if that raft ever made it to the delta or got entangled along the bank somewhere.

Looking back, it seems like everything was scary in Del Paso Heights.  To be sure, I had a lot of fun while we lived there but it was the time in my life when I wasn’t a kid any more.  It was in the Heights that I was thrown in with a lot of older kids and witnessed two boys fighting for the first time.  I think it was the first time I realized I was alone in the world and that I would be dependent on my own devices to find my way.  I was rapidly approaching my teen years and needed to grow up.  No more crying and running to mommy.  It’s funny, but I never realized where the changes in my life had taken place until I started writing this, but looking back on those days has caused me to re-live some of those experiences and I can see now that Del Paso Heights was one of those turning points.

Like most places we lived, we were only in Del Paso Heights for about a year.  Below is a map of Sacramento showing all the places we lived during my 18 years there.  What is not shown on the map is the two places we lived in during the year we spent in Lake Tahoe, a short stay in the Chico/Paradise area when I was very young, and a few places where our stay was so short I don’t even count them.

I think, if you looked up the word “Gypsy” in the dictionary, you would probably find a photo of our family.