Angeles National Forest

What a lovely letter and invitation.

Here’s a story about a little red cabin in the Angeles National Forest.

My mom and dad bought the cabin in 1946 when they were in their twenties right after the war.  It became my cabin when they died in 2010.  That’s 73 years in our family, a teeny 500 sq ft cabin, built in 1927 and beloved by five generations of the Kulli family.

My grand parents (Swiss and Swedish immigrants - maybe why the cabin is Falu red- then my mom and dad  my and my sister and brother (you see us all in the snow photo) and then their kids and now grandkids.

It makes me laugh to think of playing cards, having no heat, lighting Coleman lamps, hiding in sleeping bags as mice ran over our heads.  Filling our canteens and taking hikes up the creek in the day and looking at the millions and millions of stars in the Milky Way in the sky at night. Watching my dad cut off the head of a rattle snake ready to strike my little ankle, as we gardened. A swift motion with a hoe!

It makes me cry to think of all the people (and dogs) who are no longer here but whose spirits still inhabit the cabin. I miss them.

Thank you giving this gift of memory.  And a love for a place that lives as vividly today in my heart and mind as it did when I sat on that log chair in 1949.  My dad, of course, made the chair!

your question was a gift and the story I sent you I shared with my sister and my niece and it sparked joy and sorrow, both.

- SK