Site icon M.B. HENRY

Route 66 Series: Bottles, Cards, and Legacies

Legacy.

It’s a heavy word at times. A word I’ve been thinking a lot about in the last few days for my own reasons, of which you will read more about below. The idea of what we will leave behind when we are gone might be a bit too intense for a blog post. Because let’s face it, it’s a lot to live up to, isn’t it? Some people leave behind very big legacies, and it might put pressure on us to make an equally permanent impact on the world. Some people leave behind smaller ones, and they might feel like it’s just not enough. Then there are some of us who wonder if we will leave anything at all behind when we are gone.

See what I mean? Heavy! But what if it was a little simpler than that? What if we took the pressure off ourselves for just a second and thought about the little impacts we make on others every day, and how they can add up to something big? What if a legacy can be something as easy as a few boxes of glass bottles, left behind when an ordinary engineer departed this world for his final journey?

If that sounds like it’s not quite enough to make an impact, I invite you to come with me on a photographic tour of Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch – located in Oro Grande, California, one of the final stops when heading East to West on the famous Route 66.

Bottle Tree Ranch is just what it sounds like. A field of bottles on poles, creating a sparkly, colorful forest that stretches on across a large swath of California desert. Squeezed in with the countless bottles are random objects and artifacts, most of them found within the sandy open space that surrounds the place on all sides. Even if you don’t have much use for bottles, Bottle Tree Ranch is still an incredible stop for the sheer creativity of it all. It’s also a gem of an opportunity for honing in on the photography skills.

All things considered, Bottle Tree Ranch is an interesting and noteworthy legacy, and it all started because of Elmer Long. He was a humble aviation engineer who worked out of Manhattan Beach. A good enough ocean way to pass his days, but it was the desert sands that most captured Long’s imagination. With his son, Elmer Long Jr, he made quite the hobby of digging up lost treasures in the sand, taking a special shine to the many old-fashioned glass bottles he always found lying around.

It’s kind of a neat picture – father and son strolling through the desert, maybe hand in hand, finding junk that people tossed out at one time and turning it into their own personal treasure hoard. Which must have been a very special experience for Long Jr. Because when his father died, he kept all those bottles and decided to try and do something with them.

One morning, he tied some of them to a pole and put it outside. His first ever bottle tree. A simple piece of artwork that was nothing to fuss about really. Until the sun gleamed through the bottles and created a dazzling colorful effect on the sand. So mesmerized by the display, Long Jr. drug all the bottles up from the basement and turned them into tree after tree after tree. With that, Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch was born, and it’s been a popular stop on Route 66 ever since – only closing briefly when Elmer Long Jr. passed away in 2019 (which happened to be the same year we went through – luckily it was back open by then). Today, his own son runs the place, the legacy and love of bottles dribbling down to a third generation.

As I strolled along through the ranch, admiring all the unique takes on how one can make a bottle tree, I really got to thinking. Because there were a lot of people there with us. Smiling, pointing at the bottles. Kids were laughing. People were taking pictures. Posing for selfies. Posting on social media and sharing the joy with loads of others. All because someone decided to tie some junk to a pole and stick it in the sand. Through that, countless people have gotten to marvel at something special. Something that, like any other tree really, only needs a little bit of sunlight to show how truly magical it can be.

Five years after our amazing trip down Route 66, I still think of Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch and all the other unique stops on that road very often. Which is quite a legacy, and which puts me in mind of my grandma.

Wait, what? Why grandma? Well, before we drove down that iconic Mother Road in 2019, before we saw Bottle Tree Ranch or anything else, my husband and I made a pit-stop in Ohio to see grandma. I had always enjoyed a close relationship with Grandma Edna, and we happened to arrive in town on her birthday. She was turning 93 that year. We gathered in the kitchen at my cousin’s house. Grandma made us all laugh when she said she was afraid to blow out the candles on her cake because it might send her dentures flying. She had a way with saying silly things like that and making us laugh. I like to think that’s one of her legacies. Laughter, which she always happily partook in right until the very end.

Which came very recently, I’m afraid. Just on February 8 of this year, my Grandma Edna passed away at the ripe old age of 97. It was sudden, and although nothing should be unexpected at 97, I must admit that I wasn’t ready. When we heard that grandma had taken a bad fall, my parents and I jumped in the car and raced down to Florida, where she was living at the time. We made it in time to sit by her bedside and help her prepare for her final journey. She died surrounded by her family. Another one of her legacies.

It taught me something very important, seeing that heartbreaking situation play out. It made me see that legacy doesn’t have to be something super big. It doesn’t have to be complex. Legacy can be something little that a person finds great beauty in. For Elmer Long and his son, it was bottles. For Edna Burns, it was laughter… and maybe cards. Grandma was a hell of a Euchre player. Every Burns is, and it dribbles down from Grandma. She taught me how to play when I was a teenager, and now for every single family get together, the drinks get poured, the cards come out, and the Euchre begins. We laugh when we play. Sometimes it gets rowdy. People get competitive, but it’s all in good fun. All those good and happy memories created from something so simple as a deck of cards.

It’s people like Elmer Long, and my beautiful grandmother, who taught me that I don’t have to shake the world to make a difference. I can make a difference with something much more simple than that. Which is a lesson I will carry with me always. I miss my grandma something awful you guys. Her death broke my heart. I still cry almost every day. But the beauty is I get to think of her every time those Euchre cards come out. Every time I make a snarky joke or wild comment that makes someone laugh. It’s all her living inside me, creating magic, shining through like the sun through those bottle trees at Bottle Tree Ranch.

I will miss you very much, Grandma. I will do my best to carry your legacy forward. Although it still might be scary at times, because you did leave some big shoes to fill. You made it to 97. You never stopped having adventures. You lived. But every time I get scared, I’m going to remember how simple it really can be. As simple as a deck of cards or a glass bottle. I’m going to remember Grandma, and the many little legacies she left on me. Especially when someone trumps my ace.

SOURCES

Elmer’s Bottle Tree Ranch – 2019

Wikipedia

Trip Advisor

RIP Edna Burns. A life well lived. 

Exit mobile version