My Childhood: Calico Ghost Town

One of our many weekend vacations was spent in a magical place called Calico Ghost Town. According to legend, this town was founded during the height of the California gold rush over a century ago. The hills on which the town was situated contained very large amounts of gold, and the town was established to mine this precious metal.

The trip to Calico required a long, hot drive through the desert. Not surprisingly, after reaching the town everybody was a bit irritable. I was feeling especially grouchy because I had a headache, probably caused by changes in air pressure.

Once we reached the ghost town, my parents parked and locked the car and we began exploring. We started from one end of main street (the only street in the town) and worked our way to the other side. My mother had to stop in every single store and look at everything, which was fine with me as I was very introverted, grumpy and, well, just not a happy camper.

One of the stores had a small printing press. You wrote down your name on a piece of paper and chose a poster. They’d print your name in a particular spot on the poster, which said things like "wanted - dead or alive". I had a personalized wanted poster made for $2.00, which I still own.

While we were in that store, I noticed that it carried posters of various movie personalities. One of the posters was of a big star at the time - Farrah Fawcett. She was wearing a one-piece bathing suit, and looked absolutely gorgeous. I couldn't ask my parents to purchase this for me - I was way too shy and awkward for that.

After leaving that shop, we continued walking down the street. There were several interesting things on that street, including a blacksmith working on a horseshoe, and a water faucet over a barrel. The faucet was turned on and water was pouring out at a terrible speed. However, the faucet was suspended in the air, and no pipes appeared to be leading up to it. I spent the next few minutes trying to figure out how they pulled off that trick.

We then wandered into the Calico mines, which was a long tunnel leading down into the hills just outside the town. We spent maybe an hour walking around in those tunnels, reading the signs and looking at the sights. I found it all very interesting, although my thoughts kept coming back to the Farrah Fawcett poster.

After we left the mines, it was getting late and my parents felt it was time to leave. My mother wanted to visit a few more shops, so I asked her for a few dollars and went off on my own. Of course, I went straight to the poster shop and purchased a copy of the Farrah Fawcett poster.

My parents saw that I had purchased something, but they didn’t ask what it was. My mother was almost finished shopping, and after a few minutes we made our way back to the car. We started on the long trip home, which was very dull and boring. Everybody was very tired and irritable, which made the trip seem to take even longer.

When I got home, I hid the poster. Every once in a while I’d look at it, but since I didn’t believe my parents would approve, I kept it hidden. When I finally moved out a few years later, I finally displayed that poster on the wall without shame or remorse.