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Sacramento, California
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This place was Amazing
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We've also spent a fair amount of time in the gold country near Sacramento, where Clemens tried his luck at prospecting for a brief time. A bit of a sucker for get-rich-quick schemes, he repeatedly invested in risky business ventures that left a big hole in his pocket. These disasters ultimately led him to make the observation that 'there are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate - -when he can't afford it, and when he can.' Presumably before he learned the wisdom of his own aphorism, he holed up in an isolated cabin near the town of Angels Camp while chasing the gold. Like his other speculative quests, this one didn't pan out - at least not in the way he expected. He didn't leave Calaveras County with a pocketful of precious metal, but he did come away with a golden idea for a story about a jumping frog, a story that would become his first big break.
In the summer of 1999, we finally happened upon this cabin, on a country road named, appropriately, Jackass Trail. There's a fence surrounding the tiny shanty, but no effort has been made to restore it, or apparently even preserve it. Tourists are prevented from carrying away pieces of it as souvenirs, but Father Time is doing the same trick, and I wonder how much longer it will be standing at all. Anyway, I was inspired to write a poem (see sidebar) about my visit to this meager habitation of a writer I so much admire.
Posted
Feb 19, 2005
by DennisGoza
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