Each of the Narrators, Augusta, Kaye, and Calvin have their own paths through the various Journeys.  In The Journey South, Comets in the Yard, Calvin introduces himself, shows us around his Back Yard, and tells his Backstory.

MY BACKSTORY:

My birth mother gave me up for adoption when I was a baby.  Stranded in the Jungle.

I lived with a drum roll of foster families. Home on the Range.  I wanted one family to really adopt me, so I was a good boy.  Had ten last names.

One Thing Led to Another.   Went with Just Calvin.  Then I "won" a scholarship to film school.  How this happened when I didn't apply is a mystery.  Secret friends?

Only a Lad.  I wanted to be like Fred Astaire.  But I couldn't dance, sing, or even act. What I could do was organize—props, locations, sets. Opportunity is seeing what you can do and taking the steps. It's the dance everyone can do. The movie business is that way. And, you learn things.

You learn you can't get credit  when your work isn't steady.  Doesn't matter if you make $300,000 in one month, you can't buy a car on time.  Try to live in Los Angeles on cash.  That's why, the first year I made enough money, I bought my house, cash on the barrelhead. 

You learn not  to date actresses. 

(I could write a book.)

You learn to swim the river in the direction it's going.

You believe in everything.  

If they say a movie is going to make money, it will make money.  If they say it's a dud, it will be a dud.  The times this doesn't happen, you could count on two hands.

In the rare event that someone says there is gold in them thar hills, you laugh and then go find out. Hollywood is a place where successful people are a cocktail of skeptic and pilgrim.

About four years ago, a salesman, Kramer Milton, came to the door selling shares in the Wind River Associates, a gold mining company.  I thought it was one of the groups that is always calling to test the waters—scam artists think movie people have money.  I listened to the pitch, as always, then said I wasn't interested.  But this salesman wouldn't leave—and I began to think that a steady income from gold stocks would make me credit-worthy, so I let him in.

Soon, though, I found he wasn't interested in selling Wind River Gold shares at all—he was looking for information about Jack Summerland.  His company was not mining Wind River gold, nor was he trying to hook a golden customer.  He wanted to find out if I could arrange a meeting with JackRabbit.

This week, I heard his voice on Jack's answering machine, pretending to be from WindPower.Name=Windpower1; HotwordStyle=Frame;  

As an agent of WindPower, he called himself Milton Kramer .  Just switched first and last names.  I recognized this trick from the business; actresses do it all the time.  The fact that he left a message for Augusta indicated that he knew Jack Summerland was dead.  Kramer might have been hounding Jack for years.  Once I saw Jack and Violet sneaking out the terrace door to avoid a well-dressed solicitor with a briefcase.  I have a notion it was Milton Kramer. 

I warned Augusta about this character, and she should know better, being in real estate.  But she takes her duties as executrix seriously, worries about the money (even though she can get credit).  I saw Augusta, out there, on the back hill the day after her father was buried, trying to find the coins to pay Violet's nursing bill at the Paradise HomeHotwordStyle=Frame; .  The Kruggerands are there, but no telling where Jack put them to keep Kramer off the trail. 

Just today, Kaye BeveridgeName=kaye; HotwordStyle=BookDefault;  appeared.  Her dancer's legs (yes, this got my attention) were just revealed by a loosely-wrapped, midnight blue caftan.  She was wearing Timberline hiking boots (quite a look).  She calls herself Coronado's Child
HotwordStyle=Frame; because she has a vision of gold.  She believes that her family and the Summerlands have been searching for a cache of gold, buried in a cave, for 150 years. 

I do believe that Jack Summerland may have been nudged toward death, and it's not out of the question that Milton Kramer was snooping around about the Califia GoldHotwordStyle=BookDefault; .  So I listened to Kaye when she insisted that the Summerland/Beveridge Gold still exists, buried, hidden, whatever. 

 I proposed to help Augusta and Kaye. 

They agreed.  Kaye is enthusiastic; Augusta, lukewarm, as she doesn't really want to dig any deeper than it will take to find the comets. 

My mission, then, is to organize the material as we go along, in the hope that others will be able to help us out.  

I've tried to arrange the stories of both Summerland and Beveridge families and then link them.  Kaye'sName=Kaye; HotwordStyle=BookDefault;  material is full of her cosmic consciousness;  Augusta'sName=Augusta; HotwordStyle=BookDefault;  tells how we are faring, so far.