The ”bogeyman machine” was designed and built by Jørgen P. to scare trespassers away from his piece of land in El Dorado, the old gold-digger area. Jørgen and his wife Jytte moved from San Francisco to this beautiful place close to Placerville in California around 1970. At that time people would still be scared away by something that looked “nuclear”, so he put this thing on the fence. There was a small light inside that would glow scary in the dark. I saw the machine for the first time when my sister and I stayed there for more than a month in the summer of 1974. What a summer! Jørgen and Jytte were always so funny and crazy, and still you could also have a serious conversation. I visited them only a few times through the years, but Jørgen and I corresponded regularly for more than 35 years, first via audio-tape (reel-to-reel!) and later by ordinary old fashioned paper mail. I saw him the last time when we all four, Karen, Sissel, Jens Jakob and I went on our “US round trip” in 2005. On the picture below you see Jørgen and me in an intelligent discussion (OK, maybe a little staged :-)) He offered me to bring the bogeyman machine with me to Denmark, but I could imagine all the problems we would have with police and customs in the airports, so I regrettably said no thanks.
