The Treasure of Sierra Keller

 

We have demented friends, John Keller and Leslie Harrison, who live on a pristine Sierra ridgeback. Leslie is a renown, pastel artist specializing in unique portraits of animals. John, on the other hand, is harder to describe. I first met John when he was a talented marketing professional in Monterey, CA; his side passions were music and sculpting. He created the first and still successfull Dixieland Festival, played country music on the side and loved horses and fine wine.

I believe, like all artists, they needed to get closer to the ground so moved to the clean panoramas of the Sierra Nevada mountains of northeastern CA and a place to let chickens control their lives. So, I get this email from John saying I need to show up for good wine and Merle Haggard... how could I resist? So I packed my old Tele, met artists from the Californios tradition and ate BBQ. Hey, I definitely needed to forget this recession and recharge my batteries.

They live in Volcano, above Sutter Creek where gold was discovered and thus created California. If one looks behind the tourism of any such community, you find the true characters. I met old ropers, storytellers, liars and thieves (myself included). At least they were honest.

So John set up a trailer with amps and Xmas tree lighting and invited all the neighbors in order to validate his true insanity. Luckily, wine cures all ills. At the end of the day, if you are excited in this life and invite all your friends to get together and tell stories... life doesn't get much better.