It was an accidental meeting in a parking lot in my small town of Paradise, California. The old man’s white hair, thick and spiky, matched his neatly trimmed goatee. It caught my attention. No, maybe it was his bright-blue eyes and that little-boy smile. His gait was strong and sure. He smiled at me, a total stranger. In that moment, Howard Johnson became my friend. That’s what he was to most everyone. Our religious beliefs, contradictory lifestyles, childhood disparities, and the generation between us made not a difference in our friendship.
He was a Christian, a husband to Maurine, a father to a blended family, a businessman, real estate broker, a mayor, but most seriously, an impassioned hunter. “I wrote a book,” he once said to me. “It’s about my life, my hunting.” It was a self-published paperback documenting a lifetime of his hunting excursions. Generations of local historical knowledge and lore took the reader on a solitary journey throughout Northern California.
Howard loved the Sacramento Valley and dreamt of seeing it in its natural state, prior to civilization. His book was about just that. Howard and I shared a love of stories and the yearning to pass them on. He wanted the story told to the world and asked me to write it. The next several years of my rewrites were filled with research on topics to which I had limited exposure. I traveled the country, in the footsteps of my protagonist, Red Johnson.
Before my story was completed, Howard passed away from Alzheimer’s disease in June 2014. One of the last fluid conversations I had with Howard was regarding how much he loved his wife and how he regretted never quite telling her enough. “With her is the only place I want to be.” Howard considered himself a simple man. He worked hard, loved his family and did business with a handshake. BEHIND PICKETWIRE is a story about how significant and precious a seemingly ordinary life can be.
When I wrote about Red, my heart saw Howard. Howard was buried in the Old Magalia cemetery, in Magalia, California, just a little above Paradise, where towering Sawmill Peak stands sentry over him.
I finished our book, Howard.
M. Day Hampton 2020