MORE TO PONDER

Personally I experienced the death of my mother from cancer in 1994 and witnessed her last exhaling gasp.  To me it was like her spirit being freed from her physical body.   The same is true when Celia collapsed on the bathroom floor and I heard her last gasp.    It makes me believe we are all spirits having a human experience.   What is life without hope? 

The following is from the book 'Healing After Loss' by Martha W. Hickman:

There is a way in which reason fights against the possibility of life beyond death.  We see the body suddenly devoid of life, of spirit.   Where has it gone?  We do not want to be duped, even for our own comfort.  How can a spirit live without its lifetime clothing?

And yet...we want so badly to believe there is more, and that we shall know one another again.   The religions of humankind have described a frame for us on which we can hang belief.   We have stories, hunches, hopes.   We have visitations and dreams, and we know of lives made over by the force of what cannot be seen or measured.  

So to be on the safe side, we express our uncertainty, our skepticism, and then from somewhere comes the intuitive flash of faith, and the stories, and we are lifted up on wings...and we fly!   

NOVEMBER RAINFALL 2021

 Only 4 inches of rain for November at my CoCoRaHS station (OR-DG-22) where the average for this month is 6.83 inches.  This puts the total for this water year starting 10/1/21 at 7.62 inches, giving me a deficit of 1.94 inches so far based on an average of 9.56 inches for October and November.

With a La Nina forecast this winter there should be more rain and winter like weather in the Pacific Northwest, but last winter was also a La Nina that turned out to be a mild winter.     The average here for December is 7.88 inches.     Maybe some rain next week.   

SOMETHING TO PONDER

 The following is taken from a daily meditation book, titled Night Light by Amy E. Dean.

It is easy to see the profit in what we gain, but it is not so easy to see the profit in what we lose.   Projects that take shape and collections that expand show the gains we have made.  But how can we see profits from the end of a relationship, the loss of a job, or the estrangement from family?

Each loss represents a step we need to take toward maturity and growth.   Throughout our lifetimes we will walk up many steps.  Sometimes it may seem like we have a never-ending stairway in front of us.  Our gains are the level parts of each stair, but the real progress is made when we climb the stairs of our losses.

 Although we may feel as though we have nothing when we go through a loss, what we do have is the experience of the loss.   We learn to deal with a different lesson.   Our profits from a loss may not show up immediately, but we will discover the rich rewards as we learn to accept life on its term--not on ours.

CURRY FRENCH

This story was told to me by my dad sometime in the 1960's.   When he was working as a loan agent in 1947- 48 for the Production Credit Association, a farm loan agency, he would drive around the county meeting farmers that were in need of a farm loan.   Somehow he was referred to the French Ranch up in the western foothills of the Coast Range.  It was a 3 to 4000 acre sheep ranch owned by Curry French, who was related to Peter French, who had the big cattle ranch in eastern Oregon, where the Malheur Wildlife Refuge is today.  Curry may have been a nephew to Peter French, but not sure.    When my dad found his way onto the ranch through some closed gates, he knocked on the door of a cabin surrounded by sheep barns and corrals.   He was greeted by Curry holding a shotgun wanting to know what my dad was doing.  He introduced himself wanting to know if Curry needed a loan.   His reply was a flat no and get the hell out of here.   Whoever referred my dad to seeking out Curry may have done it as a joke knowing how Curry did not care for unannounced visitors on his ranch.   

Curry was a small man always in dirty overalls, wearing a full brim hat and driving an old Willy's jeep pickup.   His wife lived in a  three story Victorian house in Willows and drove a Cadillac.  Rumors' were that Curry preferred living on the ranch and would occasionally visit his wife in town..   At the time Curry was probably 60 years of age, plus or minus a few years.   On one occasion Curry's wife was driving the Cadillac with a woman friend in the front seat with her and Curry in the back seat in his old overalls on their way to San Francisco.   In route Curry noticed a man with a sack of his belongings hitch hiking and asked his wife to pull over and pick him up in order to have some company in the back seat.    Once the hitch hiker was in the car he turned to Curry and said, "Man we got lucky."

THE CAMPER EXPERIENCE

When we lived in Cottage Grove, Celia had a friend by the name of Uele (not sure of the spelling) that moved to a ranch in eastern Oregon as a caretaker.  The ranch was located above the Snake River.   A few months after Uele moved, she contacted Celia asking if we would be interested in helping her prune a walnut orchard.   Uele said she would do all the cooking and provide us with living quarters in exchange for our labor.    After considering the offer, we committed ourselves to the adventure not knowing what to expect.   Our vision was an old fashion ranch house, barns and other outbuildings with a scenic view of the river below.   After spending a good part of a day driving to the ranch, located on the Snake River Road between Huntington and Richland, it turned out not to be the scenic vision we had.    It was dry rolling hills separated by ravines going down toward the river.    Following the directions Uele provided, we came to a dirt road leading up a dry gulch to a single wide trailer where Uele lived.    There was no view of the river below and no barns or other outbuildings, just some old farm equipment scattered around the place.  The walnut orchard was in a flat field behind her trailer, overgrown with brush between the trees that had been neglected for years.   We had our work cut out for us over the next week.  After eating dinner with Uele, she directed us to an old pickup camper located further up the dry gulch road that would be our living quarters.  The camper was mounted on jack stands with a rear door, some appliances and lights powered by a battery.   The bed was located on the upper portion that went over the cab of a pickup with very little clearance from the ceiling.    It was definitely tight living quarters.   At night it was a romantic setting as we would sit in our camp chairs outside in the dark looking up at all the stars.   Once we called it a day and climbed into bed with not much wiggle room it was hard to control ourselves after getting in a romantic mood watching the stars.  

It was an experience we would never forget, and worth all our labor.    

 

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

My first exposure to the world was looking through the National Geographic magazines at my grandparent's house in the 1950's.    At the age of 9 or 10 my parents gave me a Rand McNally World Atlas for Christmas, which I had until it fell apart.   Geography and both U.S. and world history were the only classes in high school that I actually got a B grade in, while most the other classes were C's and D's.    National Geographic is the only magazine that I still maintain a yearly subscription to and it gives me a look into the many issues confronting the world, especially climate change.   Lately I have been reviewing a special edition that came out in April of 2020 on how life on Earth will be in the year 2070.   It gives two scenarios--How We Save the World and How We Lost the Planet.  I have faith in the younger generation to do what it takes to save the planet.   By 2070 I will be 125 years of age and doubt if I will be here to see what the world looks like, but hope the younger generations can do what needs to be done, and that the National Geographic magazine is still around to enlighten future generations.  

CHRISTMAS TREES

 As we approach the holiday season my memory drifts back to Christmas trees that we had once upon a time.   In my childhood days in the 1950's, my dad would load us all into the family station wagon and we would drive up into the Mendocino National Forest west of  the Sacramento Valley to cut a tree.    One year another family joined us in their car.    Once up in the mountains, my dad lead the way up a single lane gravel forest road to about the 4000 foot elevation.     We ran into snow at some point as we continued our journey with no tire chains, no shovel, no food, maybe some jackets and a hand saw for cutting the trees.  We ended up at the Board Tree Campground, where the depth of snow prevented us from going any further.   We may have been 45 miles from home.   After cutting a couple of trees and strapping them to the roof of both cars we started our trip back home.   Shortly after leaving the campground we became stuck trying to go uphill in 4 to 6 inches of snow.    Sticks were utilized to clear snow from the tires in hopes of gaining some traction.     Soon some of us were out pushing the cars as we became wet and cold.   How long it took us to finally get home I don't recall, but it was way after dark.   I believe that was our last outing for cutting a Christmas tree and they were all purchased from a lot after that adventure.

In the 1990's, while living in Eugene I put up a Christmas tree in the living room of my small house on 26th Avenue.   At the time there were half a dozen cats and my dog Jack in the house and they all seem to want to play with the tree or the ornaments on it.    My solution to this problem was cut off the bottom 3 feet and hang the upper portion from the ceiling.   From the outside people could not tell that it was hanging from the ceiling.  It worked, the animals no longer fooled with it.

One year Celia bought a fake tree from the Sutherlin Good Will and we set it up in our living room.    We liked it so much we kept it there for the entire year until she took it back to Good Will after it served its purpose for two Christmas seasons.  .  

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

POWER OUTAGE

One item that has been on my list of things to do is prepare the generator for any power outages this winter.    This afternoon the power went out as the sun was starting to go behind the hill, so I thought this would be a good time to get the generator going before it turned dark.    I poured some gas treatment fluid in the tank, since it has been a year or more since the generator was operated.  After pulling on the starting rope 40 or 50 times with no luck, I blew into the gas tank and it started right up.    About that time the power came back on.    After putting the generator away in the shop, I proceed into the house to prepare dinner.   While doing my cooking the power goes out again and it is totally dark by now.   I stumble around in search of the flashlight and make my way back out to the shop to bring the generator up on the front porch.   After putting an extension cord through the front window to power a lamp and a few other appliances the power comes back on with no further interruptions.  Looks like I can scratch that item off my to do list.  

COTTAGE GROVE RD

                                             Cottage Grove Ranger District

                                                  Umpqua National Forest

                                                               1988-1995

In the spring of 1988 I took a transfer to Cottage Grove to be closer to my children, who were living with their mother in University of Oregon housing in Eugene.   This transfer came about by an agreement between the District Ranger of Gold Beach and the District Ranger of the Cottage Grove District.  It is a transfer I will always be grateful for.   The previous sale administrator was burned out on doing sale administration work and was given a job in silviculture doing mapping under the geographic information system (GIS) and his position of lead sale administrator was given to me.  

During the first month I lived in motels until a lady in the office informed me of a small house for rent on Lynx Hollow Road, north of Cottage Grove.   I lived there for three years until I bought a house in Eugene, where my children could live with me part-time.    In some ways I was hoping to get back together with my wife after moving to Cottage Grove, but it did not happen and we mutually agreed to divorce in 1990.  

All District personnel were in one big office building east of Cottage Grove, whereas in Gold Beach people were in four different buildings.  It was the smallest District I had worked on and seem to have the most people, maybe 30 to 40 permanent positions.   It was one big happy family under one roof.   There were seven or eight permanent people in the timber department and all under the supervision of Wayne, the Timber Management Assistant (TMA),  he was also the Forest Service Representative (FSR) for timber sale contracts.   We had the biggest room on the south end of the building with its own door by my desk, where loggers could enter the building without going through the front office.   The annual timber cut (ASQ) was about 40 million board feet, I think, much smaller than other Districts I had worked on.   There was another contract administrator, by the name of Jerry, who was financed part-time in sale administration and sale planning.    The District takes in the Layng Creek and Brice Creek watersheds that are part of the Coast Fork of the Willamette River system.    The south end of the District includes the Bohemia Mining District, where much mining took place in the 1860's to the early 1900's.   The only access was by trail to the mining town of Bohemia City at over 5000 feet in elevation, where an estimated 10,000 people lived at one time, and survive the cold winters.   

For the most part timber operations functioned like a well-oiled machine with presale and sale administration in the same department.    There were more commercial thinning sales here than what I experienced on other Districts.   A portion of the north end of the District had been logged in the early 1900's using a railroad system up Prather Creek and much of this area was ready for thinning.   Now roads replaced the the old train system.  When I arrived on the District there were three commercial thinning sales in progress up Prather Creek.   Much of my time was spent on these sales agreeing to tractor skid trails, skyline corridors, landings and spur roads.   Most logging south of Prather Creek was clearcut logging.  The biggest clearcut sale I remember was the Jumbo Sale with an estimated 12 million board feet of timber on the Noon Day Road in the Brice Creek drainage.    The Noon Day Road is located near what was the trail to Bohemia City.   The Jumbo Sale was purchased by the Bohemia Lumber Company, that had a large mill at Culp Creek, a saw mill at Saginaw with a laminated beam plant adjacent to it.   Bohemia was sold to Willamette Industries, which was bought out by the Weyerhaeuser Company.   The Bohemia mills are gone now.  The only remaining mills are the Starfire Mill in Cottage Grove and the large Weyerhaeuser Mill south of Cottage Grove.  

The listing of the Northern Spotted Owl in 1990 put the brakes on future timber sale planning on National Forests in the Pacific Northwest, especially west of the Cascades.   By 1994 the Forest Service started offering buy-outs in order to downsize personnel, especially road engineers, foresters and technicians that were working in the timber management program.   In March of 1995 I took a buyout after 27 years with the Forest Service.

Today the Cottage Grove District office is located in the Dorena Tree Improvement Center with a skeleton crew compared to what it used to be..   There is no longer any timber people on the District

GOLD BEACH RANGER DISTRICT

 

                                                GOLD BEACH RANGER DISTRICT

                                                          Siskiyou National Forest

                                                                     1979-1988

In the spring of 1979, we traveled from Greenville, in northern California to Gold Beach, on the southern Oregon coast for a job interview.   I had applied for a vacant position here in timber sale administration.  It would be a lateral transfer at my present grade of  GS-9.   The interview was with the acting District Ranger and the Timber Management Staff Assistant (TMA) by the name of Bill, who would be my supervisor.    During the interview, they informed me of two recent personnel changes involving the removal of the last District Ranger, who had been here 16 years, and my predecessor, who was transferred to a remote duty station in eastern Oregon, at Heppner, I think.   I could sense some serious management problems but did accept the job right after it was offered to me at the end of the interview.   Later I learned nobody else had applied for the job and I could see why.   It would be the greatest challenge of my career with the Forest Service.   There was a government house available with the job, where a monthly amount was deducted from my pay for rent.  I don't remember the amount.  My wife and I, with our two young children, lived in this house until 1981 when we purchased our first home south of town on two acres next to Hunter Creek.  (There is a separate story titled Living on Hunter Creek about life there) 

Most of the buildings on the ranger station were originally constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in the 1930's and the station is recognized as a historical site.   There are two large warehouses, three office buildings, and five houses.    There was a permanent staff of about 25 people with an additional seasonal workforce of 15 to 20 more people.  North of Gold Beach was the Zone II Westside Engineering office that served all three of the westside ranger districts, including Gold Beach, Powers, and the Chetco District in Brookings.   There must have been 40 to 50 people working in this office doing road survey and design, road construction administration, and road maintenance.   The Zone I Engineering office was in Grants Pass serving the Galice District and Illinois Valley District.

At the time Gold Beach had a population of about 1500 people and Highway 101 is the main street through town with motels, gas stations, and restaurants all catering mostly to tourists, that come to fish or take the jet boats up the Rogue River into the Scenic Rogue River Wilderness Area.   Compared to Orleans and Greenville, Gold Beach was a big city to us.   There was even a grocery store within walking distance of the ranger station and the ocean was just across Highway 101 from the station. 

My desk was located next to another sale administrator, by the name of Clay on the ground floor of a two-story office building.   Two ladies, the resource clerk, and a log scale clerk had their desks nearby.  They were all smokers and it was another year before smoking was not allowed in the office.   In an adjacent room was Bill, the TMA, our supervisor.   Upstairs was the presale crew of eight people, including a planning forester, a timber appraiser, NEPA coordinator, logging engineer, and three field technicians under the supervision of a lead presale technician, and it was all under the supervision of Bill, the TMA. 

During my first morning on the job, Clay went over a list of sales that had been assigned to my predecessor and now were mine.   As he went down the list of about 10 or 12 sales, he informed me of those sales that were active and those that were not active.   On some of the non-active sales, he would say to me," you will have problems with that one" and later he was right as some required contract modifications mostly for inadequate protection of fish-bearing streams.   Clay was pushing 60 years of age and was going to retire within a year after 20 years of service.  He had started work with the Forest Service as a log scaler at the age of 40 and before that had been a timber faller.   For the first week, I rode around the District with Clay learning the road system and location of some of my active sales that Clay had been watching over, in addition to his own sales.   This would be the biggest District I would work on during my career with the Forest Service.    Due to the steep terrain, most logging was done with big yarders using long-span skyline systems and there were a few sales requiring helicopters.  It was all clear-cut logging with a few salvage sales of mostly windthrown trees using small yarders.       

While driving around with Clay in his Forest Service pickup, he would spend a good amount of time on the two-way radio talking to loggers about work needing to be done, non-compliance with branding of logs or how soon somebody would be moving to a new landing, and when he would be able to meet with a logger on a sale to inspect this or that.   This was the first District I worked on where administrators had multi-channel radios to communicate with loggers and other sub-contractors doing slash work, road maintenance, or constructing hand fire lines around clear-cut units.  During my travels with Clay, he filled me in on what happened to my predecessor and how the former ranger of 16 years was told to retire or be fired.  It had something to do with a timber trespass by a timber operator and how the ranger had tried to cover it up.   Clay confided in me that he had a problem with the lead presale technician telling me he would do as he pleased with getting all the timber he could get into a unit when locating cutting boundaries on the ground, especially in riparian areas that should not have been included, which I experienced later.    Clay said Bill did not spend enough time supervising the presale crew and spent more time in the sale administration end of the business.   

By my second week on the job, I was on my own without getting lost too much.   Over the next few years, there were times I was assigned sales in the Elk River drainage of the Powers Districts since this was closer to Gold Beach than to Powers.  Some days I spent more time driving from sale to sale on both Districts than being on the ground inspecting operations.  The workload was too much at times and upper management was made aware of the problems, including the presale layout problems.

By the end of my first year Clay retired, Bill resigned by request from upper management for poor supervision of the presale crew and a new District Ranger took over leadership of the District.   The presale crew was made a separate department under the supervision of a new TMA and sale administration became a separate department under the supervision of a sale administrator from the Chetco District, by the name of Earl, who was promoted to the GS-11 grade and given the authority of Forest Service Representative (FSR) under the timber sale contract.   This authority was usually held by the District Ranger.   Another sale administrator was hired to replace Clay and a year later a third administrator was brought in to help handle the workload.  In 1985 Earl had to transfer to Grants Pass in order to be closer to Medford where his wife could get treatment for cancer.    The District Ranger temporarily promoted me to acting FSR at the GS-11 grade for 90 days until the position could be filled permanently.   The ranger asked me to apply for the job, but the Regional Office in Portland filled the position with an unfunded person from a Forest in Washington.  After that, I was moved into the presale department as lead technician at the GS-9 grade to supervise the field crew.    In August of 1986, my wife and two children moved to Eugene where she was going to attend the University of Oregon.    In the spring of 1988, I was given a transfer to the Cottage Ranger District on the Umpqua National Forest to be closer to my family and our house on Hunter Creek was sold a few months later. 

Today the Siskiyou Forest is combined with the Rogue River National Forest and the Chetco and Gold Beach Districts are under one District Ranger.    There is no zone engineering offices anymore since there is very little new road construction anymore due to very little harvesting of timber.  

PS:   The following stories are included in this blog that go into more details about specific events while working on the Gold Beach District:

The Logging Fire,  Laird Logging,  Chaos in the Woods,  Turn Back Timber Sales,  The Christmas Party of 1981,  Mountain Fir Lumber Company,  The Silver Fire,  Paper Work and Living on Hunter Creek. 

The John Deere Rhythm Section

The Moron Brothers performing to the rhythm of this old John Deere tractor.   Spent many hours operating one these in my younger days cultivating beans, watching the row marker to stay inline with the furrows during the hot summer days of the 1960's.    The ending reminds me of a mechanical breakdown.

GETTING OUT ON THE LAND

When all else fails and the weather permits, I grab a tool, such as loppers, a hoe or pruning saw and go into the woods.   There is always invasive plants to cut, trails to clear or trees to prune.    There is only the sound of the wind and birds rustling in the brush.  My thoughts are about the here and now, and time seems to stop.    It is good treatment for depression, anxiety and loneliness during this time of transition.  If there is a need to talk to my neighbors all I have to do is walk down the road with a shovel to clean culverts and debris from the drainage ditches, and soon somebody will drive by, stop and talk.  When the sun starts setting or the rain drops start falling, I make my way back to the house, throw a log in the stove, feed the cats, heat up some swill for dinner and call it a day.  It sure beats going to town, getting exposed to the Covid or flu virus, or spending money on something I can live without.    

MY FIRST TIMBER SALE ADMINISTRATION ASSIGNMENT

With all the rainy days ahead I'm planning on working on a few writings that have been in drafts for some time waiting to be revised or condensed.   Many are about my career with the Forest Service, including the years I worked on the Gold Beach Ranger District from 1979-88 and Cottage Grove from 1988-95.    Just revised this one, finally!  With Celia gone, I have to do self editing--Have Mercy!

                        MY FIRST TIMBER SALE ADMINISTRATION ASSIGNMENT

The Maple Timber Sale was a joint sale between the Klamath and Six Rivers National Forests.  It originally included an estimated 50 million board feet of timber on both the Orleans and Ukonom Ranger Districts, and helped finance the construction of the Gasquet-Orleans Road, better known as the G-O Road.   This road was planned to connect the Klamath River to the Smith River drainage on Highway 199, and allow access for a timber supply to mills in Crescent City.   It was designed to be a two lane paved road.   It was never completed due to a law suit by the Indians, who were against the proposed road going through their sacred lands near the summit between both drainages.  

This sale was sold to Fortuna Plywood some time in the 1960's, which had a veneer mill in Orleans, where most the logs were hauled to and scaled by the Forest Service.   Administration of the sale  alternated every year or two between the two Ranger Districts.   In 1974 the Orleans District took over the administration of the Maple Sale.    I was asked if I would want to work in sale administration as a timber sale officer (TSO) at the GS-7 grade, under the supervision of the timber sale administrator, who answered to the District Ranger.   After agreeing to this job transfer from sale preparation, where I was a GS-7 lead forestry technician to sale administration, I was given a Forest Service handbook on the duties of working in sale administration, and asked to take it home and study it.   I don't recall much studying as it was very technical and not the most interesting reading after work hours.   I was assigned a desk next to another TSO in an office, along with the sale administrator and a log accountability clerk.  I was given the field folder for the Maple Sale, which must have been 6 inches thick, containing the contract, contract modifications, inspection reports, minor change agreements and other documentation, much of it was beyond my comprehension at the time.   The sale area map was the most important document, showing the road system, protected stream courses, some 50+ harvest units, and specific requirements for each unit.    Many of the units had been logged, there may have been 10 remaining units to be completed.  In addition, the sale administrator gave me a letter designating me as TSO with one sentence, " you will assist me in obtaining contract compliance."  A copy of this letter was sent to the Purchaser of the sale and the Forest Supervisor.  

The sale administrator drove me up to the Maple Sale where the contract logger, by the name of Johnson was logging with two highlead yarders on clear cut units and some tractors working in a overstory removal unit.  I was introduced to the brother of the contract logger, who was operating one of the yarders and was suppose to be the logging supervisor.   The sale administrator pointed out some uncompleted work that needed to be done and told me to meet a tractor operator with a bull dozer the next day on a completed tractor clearcut unit, where water bars needed to be constructed, and some landings were in need of clean up.    Basically I ended up showing the operator where to construct water bars on skid trails, spur roads and to slope the landings for drainage.  

Once a week the contract logger would meet with me and we would drive around the sale area as he would ask me what was required in the various units where logging had been completed.     He had been working on this sale longer than I had been working for the Forest Service, so I suspected he was testing my knowledge of the contract.   With logging in the overstory unit almost completed he asked what he had to do with the slash.    On the sale area map for this unit, it indicated all slash had to be cut or reduced to 30 inches of the ground, which I pointed out to him.    He had a copy of the map, but would never acknowledge what he knew, which was probably more than what I had knowledge of.  

At times I had approached his brother about some contractual items needing attention, but his usual comment was, "I can't leave the yarder, so can you to take care of it?", which meant me doing his job of supervising their operation.   It was only a 10 mile log haul downhill from the sale area to the mill in Orleans and most the truckers were wrapping their log loads with just one binder.    After bringing this to the attention of the sale administrator, he contacted the mill representative and informed him this was a safety concern to the public and at least two binders needed to be applied to all loads or hauling would be suspended.   This definitely corrected the situation.    As summer progressed, so did the fire danger and a one o'clock shutdown was implemented for all operations where the relative humidity was below 30%.    On one afternoon all logging operations were shutdown by the logger, meeting this contractual requirement, but I could hear chain saws operating off in the distance.   After driving down a road, I met with two timber fallers, who had no idea of the 1 pm closure.    In fact I had no idea anybody was cutting this unit, including the sale administrator, who never pointed it out to me.   There may have been 6 to 8 sales operating on the District at the time.   It was more than this one sale administrator could oversee, plus supervising three log scalers.   A year later the other TSO and I were promoted to sale administrators at the GS-9 grade with full authority as field representatives for the Forest Service.  

 This sale was a learning process for me, and mostly by the trial and error method.   For the next 20 years I worked in sale administration on four National Forests, until I retired from the Forest Service as lead sale administrator at the GS-10 grade on the Cottage Grove Ranger District of the Umpqua National Forest in 1995.  

SCHOOL LUNCH

 The school cafeteria for the Sycamore Grammar School was located in the basement.     Lunch cost 25 cents and a girl in the upper grades would collect your money or a lunch token before you picked up a metal tray, eating utensils and proceeded to a counter where the ladies that did the cooking served you.   There were gray wooden tables to eat on with wooden benches.    The weekly menu was always the same--hot dogs on Monday, chili beans on Wednesday, fish sticks on Friday and always a small carton of milk.  Don't remember what there was on Tuesday or Thursdays, do remember sloppy joes sometimes.   Side dishes were canned fruit, canned vegetables, a chunk of cheese and some kind of dessert, such as cookies or a fruit crisp of some kind.     

When the lunch bell rang there was a mad rush to get in the line and beat the crowd.   Depending on where your classroom was determined your place in line.   Some kids would cut in line and cause a fight.  One of the girls collecting the lunch money would let me keep my quarter as I think she had a crush on me, but looking back I think she did that to some of the other boys too.  

The school had grades 4th through the 8th.   Many of the farm kids brought their own lunches, since many lived on dairy farms and had been up early milking cows and did not want to wait in line or could not afford the 25 cents.   Sometimes kids would trade food with those that had box lunches, the Hostess Cupcakes were popular as a trading item.  

I do remember a food fight once.  Some kid started throwing something, then everybody was throwing food until the school janitor ran everybody outside.   It was not a pretty scene.  

The teachers ate in the teacher's lounge where there was a glass window on the door, but the cigarette smoke clouded up the window so bad nobody could look in.  

After lunch we would retreat outside for noon recess or go use the restrooms, which were a disaster as some kids never flushed the toilets or there was a mess on the floor from plugged toilets.  It was better to use the restrooms after lunch then before not to spoil your appetite.   The poor school janitor could not keep up with it all.  

MY DAD THE SCOUT MASTER

My dad took over as scout master after no other fathers volunteered for the job.  The previous scout master had to resign due to the closure of the Sears store in Willows, where he worked and was offered a transfer to a store in another town.   My dad had never been a Boy Scout and received very little training, if any that I remember.    He was given a brief case with Boy Scout manuals, badges and keys to the Boy Scout Hall in town.  Meetings were held once a month during the school year.  The Boy Scout Hall was an old one room building with some benches, a table or two, some camping equipment and a foot locker containing boxing gloves.    My dad enjoyed boxing and watching the Friday Night fights on TV back in the 1950's.    He was known for getting in a fight or two himself  in some of the local taverns.   Except for planning the next camping trip, he usually never had a formal agenda for the monthly meetings, so he would have us put on the boxing gloves and proceed to spend the evening beating each other up.   

There is only two camping trips I remember.   One was up in the hills west of Willows at a country park next to Stony Gorge Reservoir.   The only high point of that trip I remember was crossing Stony Creek, where we all had to hang on to each others arms as we made our way across the swift current in knee deep water.   We may have been returning from the store in the small nearby community of Elk Creek.  The second camping trip was for a weekend on a ranch, I think was in the foothills of the Sierra's.  Some of the other fathers came along.   This ranch may have belong to one of them or was leased, not sure.    What I do remember, is one night the men got to playing cards and drinking whiskey in the ranch house as us Boy Scouts were out climbing around the hills with no supervision most of the night.   I remember climbing up a cliff as rocks from above were roiling down on us.   It is probably a miracle we all survived that trip.    

For a week one summer some of us went to Boy Scout Camp at Camp Lassen, near Butte Meadows.   This camp was operated by a well trained staff with an agenda, including swimming, canoeing, hiking, camp cooking lessons, earning merit badges and learning how to survive in the woods.   We slept in huts, ate in a formal dinning hall and were supervised from sun up to sun set.    There was no chaos in this camp.   By June of 1959 most of us were leaving grammar school and our days in the Boy Scouts came to an end.

WATCHING TRAINS

 This story was told to me by my mother and I don't remember doing it as I was four or five years of age at the time.  Must have been in 1949-50.   

According to my mother I wandered away from our home on the west side of Willows, in northern California and ended up standing along the train tracks in the middle of  town watching the trains go by.    A man driving a county dump truck noticed me, picked me up and took me back home.   He was the son of the people that owned the farm house across the street from our house.    What is amazing about this story is I must have walked 18 or 19 blocks across town on Sycamore Street, crossed highway 99 to the Southern Pacific train tracks on the other side.   Sycamore Street was the main street going east and west through town with the Post Office, movie theater, drug store and other markets before intersecting with highway 99, which was the main highway at the time going north and south through the state.   Why nobody noticed me walking that distance is puzzling or was it common for young children to be wandering the streets of a small town back then?   We sure don't see young children wandering the streets today.    I must admit I still enjoy watching trains, have even considered sitting in the little park along the train tracks in Oakland and watch the trains go by.    Wonder if anybody would notice?  

NOVEMBER 1, 1997

It was another slow Saturday afternoon as I sat on the couch in my little house on 26th Avenue in Eugene.  My dog, Jack was looking at me as if he was saying, "lets get out of here and go for a walk."  He persuaded me to get up, get his leash and get in the car to go out to Buford Park for our usual weekend hike.   It was that time of year when my little gardening and landscaping business was tapering off, and at the end of September I had been laid off from the seasonal farm job I took up with in the summer months, as a mechanic and equipment operator on a grass seed farm near Harrisburg.   

When we arrived at the park, Jack and I set out on the same old trail we always took.   As we headed up the trail we noticed a work party sign with an arrow pointing to the left.   It was a side trial I had been on before and it tied back into the main trail we were on up the hill.   Out of curiosity, I decided to take it again to see what the work party was all about.   As we rounded a corner, I noticed a red headed woman wearing jeans with her backside showing as she was slightly bent over cutting brush with loppers.    My first thought was, what a good looking woman and why is she cutting brush uphill from the trail.   There were six or seven people in the work party, cutting brush both below and above the trail.   As I approached the group, I asked what they were doing?   They told me they were cutting invasive species, such as blackberries and scotch broom.   The redheaded woman came down to get into the conversation and admired Jack.   A few minutes later Jack and I continued hiking up the trail until we came to a muddy portion and I decided to turn back.   We could have gone around the muddy portion, but the thought of the work party and the red headed woman intrigued me, especially the twinkle in her eyes.   (Later Celia told me that as Jack and I continued our hike, she thought that is probably the last we will see of him and besides, he is probably a married man or has a girl friend)   

   When we came back by the the group, I informed them I would be interested in joining them in the future.  This immediately got the attention of the red headed woman, who introduced herself as Celia and the group leader, a man by the name of Stewart, who told me about the Friends of Buford Park and Mt. Pisgah, which they were part of.    I handed my business card to Celia telling her I was available and asking her to give me a call when the next work party was.   About two weeks later she called to inform me of a work party that next weekend.   (Later she said she did not want to call me too early to avoid looking too eager)    After a few work parties and a meeting of the group that followed our initial meeting, the sparks started flying between us and a special friendship was developing.

What happened that day changed my life for almost the next 24 years, and definitely for the better.    We both looked back on it as divine intervention in bringing us together and Jack may have been responsible too.