Poet/friend Dawn Trook, now living in Merced, CA, sent this in about her background:
I cling to the edge of a creek in California’s Central Valley, staring at the water, wanting it to take me back home the way my ancestors came.
Before America was invaded by my family, we lived in Europe. Our name, Trook, digs us back to Germany or Holland, but no one can tell me for sure. I know before we came to America, on a boat not the Mayflower, but way back that far, we lived in England. We made our marks on the new country. Not famous, but almost. Always just missing fame. A relative ran a pre-Lewis and Clark expedition down the same rivers. Other relatives came west down a Southern river route. My grandfather was born in Nebraska. But there was then, even a need to be near bigger waters, and his parents took him to San Diego, where they could stand on the ocean and wonder their way back home. I don’t think anyone knew what they were getting into when they boarded those boats, the wreckage they would cause, the journeys ahead, the Southern California lemons they would grow, or me standing at a creek, trying to see my reflection, waiting to find the source of my longing.
- Santa Fe Railroad Crossing the Central Valley in California
Tags: California. Central Valley, England, Germany, Merced
