Both. Agerville is my Lake Wobegon, the former Garrison Keillor fictional location from the Prairie Home Companion radio show. I don't presume to have his literary skills, but I admit to always wanting to be a writer. The closest I came was with a few serious attempts at novel writing, until I lost all I had accumulated in a computer failure. I was too disappointed to start over. As a psychologist I wrote evaluation reports every day, sometimes voluminously when the symptoms warranted it. I'm sure I wrote two or three thousand reports over 30 years, often a hundred or more each year. For the last two years I have been writing about AGERville and hope to have some final editing done soon so I can begin to share this story with you. Because of the scope of this project I believe it will go on for many years to come. So what is AGERville all about?
AGERville, The Series, is a story about life and death from the earliest inhabitants fighting mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers to the planetary settlements in space that may be needed for humans to survive if Earth is not saved. And in between these eras are people coping with aging and life's challenges in a small Riverside, California community.
AGERville is a geograpic location. I frequently drive by and can see where my characters live. I visit abandoned Native American sites from centuries past and those that still thrive and drive the local economy. I can find remnants of the Mexican Period and the early settlement by the Americans. These influences are interwoven into the current drama that envelops the lives of my characters. Fact and fiction are inseparable in AGERville and I dig deeply into both. Underlying the stories I will tell about real and fictional people who settled the area is how they managed their health and survival. From Native Ameran dependence on plants and chants to modern and future medical practices, I will trace the methods used, successfully and not, to keep people alive.
This section of Riverside County is home to many underground springs. Around these springs people lived and crops grew. Advertised as health producing and cure-all centers these springs attracted visitors and new settlers in the last quarter of the 19th Century. Trainloads of eastern travelers hoping for better health and longevity flocked to the area. Palm Springs, Gilman Springs, and further south, Murrieta Hot Springs grew and flourished, among many others, including Alter Springs, the center of our story. The central family in AGERville are the Alter's, descendants of a pair of German brothers who bought the spring in the 1870's. It has since dried up and is the domain of Johnny Alter, who is facing financial challenges to keep hold of the property. He has several schemes to stay afloat, including a cattle feed lot he inherited from his father, two workout gyms, plans for a restaurant, and hopes he can revive his Hollywood and TV career with a reality show. He has two teenage children who disdain him and his lifestyle, and his marriage has been failing for years. More of that later, a lot more!
There are many other characters, a psychologist and her building contracter husband, a physician couple, a pharmacist, a scammer, and many more you will meet. Those familiar with this part of Riverside County are aware of the numerous venues for gambling. The three Agua Caliente casinos in Palm Srings, Morongo further west towards Banning, Soboba in Hemet, Yamavaa in San Bernardino, and the huge Pachanga in Temecula. Not to mention Pala, Harrah's and others further south in San Diego County. Some of our characters spend a little too much time and money in them, including Johnny's wife, Bonny.
Then there is Scientology, one of the world centers of this movement is in this area. It was built on the site of the former Gilman Springs and is a highly secure facility with a history of abusive control of members. It also has a hold on some of our AGERville residents. These are real people and many have real problems, physical and mental, but all wanting to survive. This is their story.
So where is it located? AGERville is to be west of Warren Road, which is thewestern bounday of Hemet, and up against the foothills. It will be on the site of the original Alter Springs. At the time this story begins it does not yet exist and won't for a number of years. For that reason I am not going to provide many details. I will give you one hint. In German "Alter" means "age". That's all for now. Hopefully, the first episode will be out by the summer of 2025. Stay tuned!