Last year my sisters gave me a two night stay in a hotel in Sonoma, CA for a birthday present. It’s been a cold dry winter and I put off making the trip until last week, when warm weather was forecast. Sure enough, the temperature reached the high eighties last Tuesday in Sonoma, low eighties in Berkeley. We visited Jack London State Park, where we toured the author’s house and took a short hike through the redwoods which led to a “lake” formed by a reservoir London constructed for swimming. Periwinkle, vetch and California poppies were blooming in the fields around the abandoned farm buildings. London died of hard living at age 40 and basically his dream of a sustainable farm never came to fruition, although his wife and stepsister carried on. There’s a picture of him consulting with an elderly Luther Burbank: two plant guys in Sonoma. London’s wife Charmian was also a writer—her office is pictured below. She served as his typist and editor while he lived and protected his literary reputation after he died by publishing work posthumously, selling screen rights and taking trips abroad to authorize translations and secure copyrights. There was a first wife with whom London had children but he left the bulk of his estate to Charmian, who lived for forty years after the death of her younger husband. You never know.

Toni Martin Writes