To Uncle Charley On His Birthday Comes a day to bring us pleasure Rain or storm or any fate Will not keep us from “The Topo” Your birthday, to celebrate. Riding in a state of rapture Through the floral fields we sing There is no place so delightful As “The Topo” in the spring. Here is Nature, full and varied Blue of mountain, green of plain. And the myriad wildflower colors Bid us pause to look again. We will find you, never idle- Calm, courageous, worldly wise, And a tender smile of welcome Lightens up your eager eyes. And a merrier companion Nowhere, ever, can we find, For the years have added kindness To a heart already kind. Ever kind and understanding, I remember as of old How your generous heart expanded Every urchin to enfold. As the past transcends the present, In my musing reveries From that long ago comes drifting Sweet nostalgic memories. So we wish you “Happy Birthday”, As your fruitful autumn nears And we hail the valiant Spirit Touched so lightly by the years. Mabel E. Plaskett, March 29, 1941.
Author Mabel Plaskett
Mabel Sans Plaskett was born in Coralitas near Ben Lomond in the Santa Cruz Mountain area of California. Her father Edward Robert Sans ran a saw mill near Pacific Valley, along the Nacimiento – Ferguson road to the coast at Highway One. It was there she met Edward Abbott Plaskett, her husband. Mabel wrote about the coast and the pioneers of the 19th and 20th Centuries.