John Augustine

John Augustine
August 11, 1945 - February 2020
My friend John was a great reader and a great storyteller too. His favorite books were westerns by Louis L'Amour. During the five years I knew him, he read nearly all of L'Amour's 150 books and many by other western authors as well.
He married Sharon Erickson when they were both teenagers. They had two daughters together. But they were too young for the marriage to last.
He remarried Barbara Munday and together they raised chukar partridges on their property near Ukiah. John liked to talk about the time they had 200 baby birds, each about one-inch tall, hatched from jellybean-size eggs. The little birds began to peck at each others and many lost their toes. Finally John learned that the light they used to keep the birds warm was causing the fighting. White light was too harsh—it had to be blue or green.
One little toeless bird would not fly and attached himself to John who named him Crazy Charley. He followed John everywhere. Once he climbed into John's beard and Barbara had to cut him out with scissors.
Barbara and John never realized a profit from their chukar business. One day they decided they should let them all go. John gathered their cages into his truck and drove them to a park. It was important to John to release them in an area that didn't allow hunting. When they all flew away, John said, "If I were a bird that's where I'd want to be—up in the sunny blue sky."
His grandmother was part Portuguese, part Italian and part Miwok. She was teaching him Portuguese when he was in grade school but his dad heard about it and put a stop to it. "We're Americans now," he said.
John told me about being put in jail for non-payment of alimony. He couldn't see the logic of that because he couldn't work while he was in jail. In jail he made friends with a young guy, probably twenty years his junior at the time. The reason his new pal was in jail was he had stolen a train. He was in Napa and found an unattended train engine, started it up, and was joyriding it around on tracks that were out of use. The engine didn't have lights and eventually he crossed a road and ran into a car.
The guy said he wanted to get out of jail just to see if escape was possible. John had taken a volunteer job as the inmate who wheeled out big garbage bins and dumped them beyond the jail. John took the job on purpose so he could see a tree, some grass and hear birds sing. He suggested to his new friend that he could conceal him in a garbage can after he washed it and wheel him out past the guards who just waved him through.
John took the guy out in a bin, let him out beyond the jail and they stood around together smoking and chatting. John expected the guy to take off running, but, no, he just wanted to see whether it could be done. He got back in the garbage can and John wheeled him back to the jail and the guy went back to his cell.
The train escapade won John's friend some notoriety and he got a few letters from train companies offering him a job when he got out. John read the letters. He doesn't know what the fellow decided. Still, John laughed and laughed about this. I often told him he should write a book.
Throughout the years I knew John, he was in a wheelchair begging with a sign, "Homeless, Please Help." He'd been in a wheelchair since about 2008. He managed to rent a motel room by the week with his Social Security income and handouts. Sadly, between macular degeneration and increasing deafness, his quality of life deteriorated. The day came when he told me he could no longer read.
He didn't know where his children were or his grandchildren. He thought he still had a sister but he wasn't sure. It was a sad day when John was found passed away in his room. My life has been enhanced by his friendship. My hope is that another friend or family connection will read this and contact me to share memories
Judy Watten
RayJudyW@aol.com