I spent my younger formative years in a small town called Floriston, CA. It was located on the side of a Sierra Nevada mountain between Reno and Truckee. As best as I can recall it was between my fifth and eighth year of life.
My step-dad was a trucker and my mom a homemaker. We ran free and wild and attended school in Truckee, about 14 miles away. We had to walk almost a mile every day to and from Hwy 40 (now 80) across two major railroad lines. I learned to swim in the frigid Truckee River when I fell off a homemade raft.
The reason I thought about this place today is because I was telling one of my Com School kids mom this morning about attending school with Jimmie Heuga. She’s involved with the sport of ski here and had no idea who I was talking about. He was one of the first two members of the U.S. men’s team to win an Olympic medal in downhill, in 1964. He died from MS at 66.
