Foxes for Neighbors

Up until around 1948 we had no neighbors in sight of our home in Auburn.  Then Ken and Georgia Fox bought the three lots just around the bend in the street to the west of us.

Dr. Kenneth Fox was a young dentist who had grown up locally, the son of a music teacher, as I recall.

Ken was a man to be taken seriously when he applied himself to a task.  He showed up with a war surplus jeep, and proceeded to literally beat down the trees and brush on the property with that jeep.  When he couldn’t move something with four wheel drive, he hooked a line to the offending tree and hooked his front end wench to whatever was available and started the process of moving two immovable objects toward each other.  Things almost got out of hand when he hooked the wench to a fire hydrant across the street.  On second thought, he found a less risky anchor after my father pointed out the potential consequences.

With the property cleared and graded, he and Georgia began the process of building their house out of huge rocks that they somehow managed to heft into place using light scaffolding.

As part of the overall ambience, Ken built a kennel in which he kept several foxes.  I guess we were upwind of the site, because we didn’t find their smell objectionable as some of the neighbors apparently did.

When the Korean War started, Ken was called into the service, and only could come home on weekends.  I was just out of the 8th grade, and he hired me to water the property.  What with the many lawns, flower beds, and a huge vegetable garden, it was almost a full time job for a young boy.  I enjoyed working for Ken for several summers until we moved to Grass Valley.

The Foxes were never people to take on something half-heartedly. They got involved in competitive water skiing for a few years, and won a number of State titles.  One of their most notorious episodes was when they blew up their ski boat.  Apparently, gasoline fumes had accumulated in the bilge when they started the engine.  Fortunately, nobody was hurt.

Ken’s greatest, grandest achievement, however, was in the medium of gigantic concrete statuary.  The story goes that he started creating these statues in the 1960’s as a protest statement concerning the Vietnam War.  Indeed, one of his most dramatic pieces is a depiction of an American soldier from this era which is located near the current Placer County administrative building in Auburn.

Most of his statues, however, depict characters form the Gold Rush era, as the Chinese Cooley shown below.

This statue is located by the former railroad station at the head of Lincoln Way in Auburn.

The above picture of an Amazon lady resides next door to Dr. Fox’s dental office, also know as “the Foxonian Institute.”  My favorite work, which is near the Amazon lady is the forty plus foot nude man breaking chains which are fixed to his wrists.  (see below)  Some wag knocked a piece off of his privates some years ago.  To my knowledge, the poor fellow never got his equipment fixed.

The above picture of an Amazon lady resides next door to Dr. Fox’s dental office, also know as “the Foxonian Institute.”  My favorite work, which is near the Amazon lady is the forty plus foot nude man breaking chains which are fixed to his wrists.  (see below)  Some wag knocked off a piece off of his “privates” some years ago.  To my knowledge, the poor fellow never got his equipment fixed.

Who would have known when the Foxes moved next door that we had celebrities for neighbors.