Calaveras Enterprise

Summertime in Angels Camp




As I drove past Utica Park the other day, a piece of my heart broke and a whole lot of memories came flooding back and spilled out the corner of my eyes.

You see, I was born in San Andreas and lived in Angels Camp for the first five years of my life. Although I was not raised in Calaveras County, I did grow up here, rather, I grew up with Calaveras County in my heart! I spent the first five years of my life in Angels Camp, and then our family moved to San Luis Obispo so my dad could complete his college classes at Cal Poly. After my dad graduated, we moved to Fresno, then Parma, Ohio, and then back to Fresno during his career with Dow Chemical Co. Through all this moving, one thing remained constant in our lives, Angels Camp, California. We came back often to visit, spend summers and holidays with family and create new and wonderful memories.

Angels Camp was a place that made a child feel very grown up. My cousins and I would traipse all over town visiting cousins, aunts, and uncles. A highlight was the Penny Candy box on the counter of Uncle Tony’s store. Another favorite place was my grandfather Petithomme’s print shop. I think my love and obsession with all things office supply related came from spending time there. My mother’s parents, Guisto and Katie Schena, lived up on Summit Avenue and we cousins would walk down to the swimming pool and spend long summer days there. Who remembers the chlorine box we all had to step in as we came out of the dressing rooms on our way to the pool deck? No parents, just the lifeguard and us, all on our own for a day at the pool! Another stop during our excursions in the summer was Utica Park. The gazebo was a favorite place and us cousins would run in circles on the built-in benches inside. Fireman’s Funday… birthday parties… picnics… all took place in Utica Park.

Oh, the adventures that I had with my cousins. We would leave right after breakfast and head to our relative’s house. The only rules we had were, stay away from the mineshafts and call when we got to one house and when leaving to head to another house. We literally walked all over this town and usually did this barefooted! The lazy hazy crazy days of summer are almost upon us again and I wonder what adventures will await me this year. I have come full circle and now live in Angels Camp, right back where I started from!

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