MY FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH DEATH

My grandparents on my dad's side of the family came to visit us when we lived out in the county near Willows, California in 1951 or 1952.  I was six or seven years old.   My parents and grandparents were out in the kitchen enjoying a drink, probably some sort of mixed drink.   I remember it being dark outside when there was a knock on the door.  It was a telegram delivered by Western Union to my grandmother.  It was very uncommon to see an adult cry back in those days or show any emotions, except maybe anger.   After my grandmother opened the telegram she went into the living room by herself and started crying.   I walked up to her and asked what was wrong and she told me her sister in Canada has died.   Without giving it much thought, I told her we are all going to die sometime.   For some reason that brought a smile to her face.  Years later, when I was older she reminded of that and how she thought it gave her a little joy during a sad time.  

BROWN AND SERVE ROLLS

Remember brown and serve rolls?   I believe they are still available in the stores.  Originally they may have been produced by Wonder Bread back in the 1950's, just guessing on that.   I'm sure some of you remember Wonder Bread, the good old white bread with our bologna sandwiches.

My mother always had these rolls available for Sunday night dinners or during the holidays.    After she spent a good part of an afternoon preparing a big meal for whatever the occasion was she would place the rolls on a baking sheet and in the oven they went after she had  put the food on the table and trying to round up us six kids.   My dad usually had a big chunk of  beef of some sort on the barbecue and would bring it in the house as we all sat down to eat.   Soon we could smell those brown and serve rolls burning in the oven as mom ran into the kitchen to salvage what she could.    The tops of the rolls were black and mom would make the best out of what was not burnt.   This happened on a few occasions and became known as the Black and Serve Rolls.  

COUNTRY DOCTORS

 When I lived in Orleans in northwestern California from 1971 to 1977 the nearest doctor was 40 miles away in a medical clinic in Hoopa Valley on the Hoopa Indian Reservation.     

This doctor did it all from setting broken bones, stitching up cuts and digging bullets out of people.   If major surgery was required or the birthing of a child we had to drive 85 miles to the hospital in Eureka.  I do not remember any ambulance service.  If there was a medical emergency you were at the mercy of neighbors to provide first aid and get you to Hoopa.  Some vehicle accidents, usually caused by excessive drinking were fatal and it could be days before somebody noticed a vehicle down off the road near the Klamath River below the highway.   Those that survived had to crawl up to the highway in hopes somebody would stop and take them into Hoopa.  

When we lived in Gold Beach on the south coast of Oregon, there was one doctor for the town of about 1500 people.   He worked out of the hospital doing everything from emergencies to clinical work.   To see the doctor you just went to the hospital emergency room and waited your turn.   When I developed an  infection on the side of my waist that prevented me from keeping my pants up it was time to wait my turn in the emergency room.    Once I was called into the exam room the doctor had me lay down on a table where he proceeded to cut open the infection in order to drain it.   Afterwards he told the nurse to pour peroxide on it and bandage it up.   I was sent home with a prescription for antibiotics and instructions to soak in the bathtub daily with Epson salts.  During the cutting procedure I was not given any local anesthesia.  There was a water pipe on the wall adjacent to the table that I hung onto thinking I might break it while dealing with any pain.   It all reminded me of the wild west.  

CABIN FEVER

It is now the first of March of 2023 and we all have had our fair share of winter weather and confinement to the house due to snow and icy roads, better known as cabin fever.   This got me thinking back on my younger days when I worked for the Forest Service in Orleans, California living in a small house that was half trailer comprising of the bedroom and kitchen all attached to a wooden structure that made up the bathroom and a small living room.  I guess you could call it a shack, all for $70 a month.   I was a full-time employee and I think the only single employee working on the Orleans Ranger District, except for most the seasonal employees that had 180 day appointments or about six months of work before being laid off.   The winter months of 1971 to 1974 could be lonely with no seasonal employees to hang out with after work, no woman in my life while most the other permanent employees were married and had families.   The days of winter were short, the weather could be dismal and Orleans did not offer much entertainment or social events, except sitting in one of the three taverns drinking beer with the local Indian population that were not too friendly when they had a belly full of beer.   This led me to drinking at home in the evenings and usually consuming poor quality cheap wine, the kind that had no cork in the bottle.  Having consumed a good portion of this stuff sleep was not a problem.  My reading material consisted of monthly subscriptions to Mother Earth News, The Alaska magazine and a few others.   On weekends outdoor activities such as fishing or hiking were limited due to the rain and snow at the higher elevations.  I did have a dog for company by the name of Herman, a black mutt male that I found as a puppy wandering lost along the highway one weekend.   Sometimes after heavy rain storms the highway out of town would be closed due to landslides up to a week or more.  This would prevent the delivery of the basic essentials to the local market, including beer and wine.  Sometimes panic would set in after going to the market and seeing very little available on the shelves, especially beer and that cheap wine.  

By spring time it was a relief to see some of the seasonal employees return, people to go to the tavern with or into Eureka or Arcata on the weekends.  In  January of 1975 a new receptionist was hired by the name of Christine, we were married in August of 1975 bringing an end to those lonely winters.

 

A COLD MORNING

So far this is the coldest morning this winter at 22 degrees.    The coldest I have recorded here is 9 degrees.   The coldest place I have ever been was at Fall River Mills in northern California in the winter of 1972 when it was minus 25.  A few of us went over there from Orleans to go duck hunting and stayed in an old ranch house with a gas heater.    When we went outside to hunt we could only stay outside for 20 minutes before our noses started to go numb.   By noon we called it a day and went in to Fall River Mills to get something to eat at a restaurant.  The high for the day was zero as we started the long drive back to Orleans with no ducks.     

GUNS, PICKUP TRUCKS AND TEENAGE COUNTRY LIFE

The culture for most teenage boys living in small farming towns across the country was and might still be all the same involving driving pickup trucks, hunting and fishing during their free time.  The small northern California town of Willows, where I was raised was no exception.   Hunting pheasants and geese was common in the fall and winter.  Fishing and swimming in the creeks and the Sacramento River were the favorite past time in the summer.   To get to all these places required a pick up truck, since we were beyond the age of riding our bikes.   With a learners permit at the age of 15 and half I learned to drive our 1951 Ford Pickup with a three speed stick shift.   My mother supervised and would let me drive it to the dump whenever our garbage cans were full, usually every two weeks.    After I got my driver license at the age of 16, I was on my own with driving, whenever the pickup truck was available.   On one occasion my friend Alan and I drove out in the hills with our .22 rifles in the truck.  We were driving up the Clark Valley Road and stopped to shot at something from the truck.   All of sudden a California Highway Patrol car pulled up along the side of the pickup and the officers told us not to shot from the truck and drove off ahead of us.   We were so stunned and relieved that we were not issued a citation.  We continued our drive and never touched the guns again until we got home.     

DRY LAND FARMING

There were a few crops raised in the Sacramento Valley of northern California without the need for irrigation.   Barely, safflower and wheat were generally the crops that were planted in the late fall and early spring that were totally dependent on winter and spring rains.    Many of these crops were raised in the foothills along the westside of the Sacramento Valley.   Ground preparation took place in the spring when the soil was easy to turn over with a moldboard plow and left fallow through the summer months.   In the fall the plowed fields were disked, harrowed and planted with barely or wheat during November and December.   Safflower was planted in the spring and only required a couple inches of rain.   Safflower is used for its oil, both in the pharmaceutical business and for cooking oil.   Barley was mostly used as a feed grain for livestock and some for brewing of beer.  Most of the wheat was exported.   In the summer of 1962, I worked for a couple of weeks for Joe Stutz, who was farming on the Holmes Ranch west of  Willows, in northern California.  It was my first farm job driving a D-4 Caterpillar tractor that pulled a grain cart that followed two combines that were harvesting barley on a large field (maybe 200 acres) next to the foothills.   When the combines were full of barley they would empty into the grain cart that would be emptied into a truck that transport the barley to metal bins for storage until taken to market later.  We worked 10 hours days and I was paid $1.50 per hour.   It was hot and dusty work, not to speak of the noise.   At the end of the day and when sleeping at night I could still hear the clanging of the tracks on the Caterpillar tractor.  

Today there is no dry land farming on these lands due to a drier climate.   Some of these crops are raised with irrigation throughout the Sacramento Valley.  

WORKING IN THE POISON OAK

In the summer of 1972 the seasonal fire crew of four people were put to work clearing the roadside brush leading into the Bluff Creek Guard Station on the Orleans Ranger District of the Six Rivers National Forest.   This work was done with hand tools and the brush was piled in a Forest Service pickup to be hauled off to a burn pile.   Most of the brush was blackberries mixed with poison oak.    Nobody on the crew was familiar with poison oak.    It was a hot day and some members of the crew had taken their shirts off as they gathered up the brush and put in the bed of the truck stomping it down.   The next day these people were human blisters in need of medical attention.  

HOOPA BLUFFS

 Of all the highways and roads I have traveled the most dangerous I can recall is California State Highway 96 between Hoopa Valley and Weitchpec, where the Trinity River meets the Klamath River.   A section of this portion is called the Hoopa Bluffs where there is a vertical rock face above the highway and a vertical drop of a few hundred feet straight down to the Trinity River.  There was a series of curves through this section with a few guard rails in some spots.   Beyond the guard rails it was straight down to the river.

When I lived and worked for Forest Service in Orleans between 1971 to 1977 it was necessary to travel this highway to seek medical attention at a clinic in Hoopa Valley or do serious shopping in the big cities of Arcata and Eureka, or just to get away to enjoy the civilized world.   On many return trips it was dark and without knowledge of this section could prove to be fatal.   If you missed a curve here there was no time for prayer as you plunged toward the river below.  

THE DUMP

The other day I made a trip to the Oakland transfer station or as many of us call it "The Dump".  My memories drift back to my younger days growing up in Willows, California in the 1950's and 60's.   We used to load up the old pick up truck and make the drive to the county dump once or twice a month.   The dump was a series of pits where the county had dug up gravel over the years to rock and pave the many miles of county roads.  Afterwards the gravel pits, maybe an acre or two in size and 40 to 50 feet deep were used as a place to dump trash.   As we would back up to the edge of the pit along with other county residents we could see all kinds of debris thrown in the pit, including tires, appliances, furniture and God knows what else in addition to household garbage.   Fires smoldered in the pit as a toxic smell of smoke was in the air.  There was a man that looked like he had been raised in the pit that started the fires and rummaged through the debris.   He was small man in dirty clothes and with very dark skin.  There was a shack off to the side where I always thought he lived.   Not sure if he was paid by the county or what?   There were no fees for dumping there and nobody ever questioned us on what we were putting in the pit.   

Some time in the late 1970's open pit burning was banned nationwide and landfills came into existence.  The word recycling was not part of our vocabulary until the 1980's.  

14 HOUR DAYS

 This song brings back memories of farm life back in the 1960's operating some of those old combines in northern California harvesting barley, rice, safflower and milo corn.   Then in my later years working on a grass seed farm near Harrisburg, Oregon operating modern combines in the 1990's.  The one thing that never changed was the long days, many were 14 hour days.   

DANGERIOUS WILDLIFE ENCOUNTERS

My only encounter with any dangerous wildlife in the years I worked for the Forest Service was my first summer of 1969 on the Modoc National Forest.    A badger ran along side my pickup truck trying to bite the front tire as I was driving slowly on a forest road.   In all my remaining years until my retirement in 1995 nothing, not even with the bears of Alaska.   

Since living on this forested property for the last 16 years, I've had a close encounter with a cougar and a mad mother hen turkey.   

Sep 22, 2022

THE LOSS OF AN OLD FRIEND

I received an email from Judy Barceloux, the wife of my old friend Alan Barceloux, informing me he passed away August 12th. Alan had been fighting stage 4 lung cancer for the last five or six months. Alan and I had known each other going back to our days as Boy Scouts in Willows, California in the late 1950's. We had many adventures together exploring the Mendocino National Forest during the summers in our high school years, including backpacking through the Middle Eel Yolla Bolly Wilderness Area. We spent some early mornings hunting ducks and geese in the rice fields south of town during the winter months. In 1966 Alan enlisted in the Air Force for three years during the Vietnam war at the same time I was drafted into the Army for two years. In the Fall of 1969 Alan and I shared an apartment together while we both attended Lassen College in Susanville, California under the GI Bill. Later he attended Chico State University then took over the family auto parts business of Baceloux Brothers Auto Supply in Willows and worked at the NAPA Auto parts store in Orland until he retired. No doubt we drank our fair share of beer together over the years. We kept in touch by email and in many ways Alan was like a brother to me. Whenever Celia and I were visiting family in Chico we would enjoy a meal and have a few beers with Alan and his wife Judy. RIP old friend!

8/16/2022

A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT

Baker Brothers Land & Stock Company was a large family farming and ranching enterprise in Glenn County, California.   They raised rice, alfalfa, barley, sheep and cattle.   The three brothers that owned and operated the business were John, who was the general manager, Deak, the rice dryer and storage manager and Willis, who supervised the labor force of about 12 full-time and 10 seasonal employees.   John had two sons that managed the livestock, Deak had a son, who was the lead mechanic and Willis had a son, who was a pilot. 

In the summer of 1962 John Baker and his son Jack were returning from their sheep ranch in the western foothills of the Sacramento Valley.   John was in his Cadillac car and Jack was following in his pickup truck on their way back to the company headquarters east of the small community of Artois, north of Willows along Highway 99w.   They were traveling on County Road 35 going east and John stopped before crossing Highway 99w with Jack right behind him.   Just beyond the highway going north and south is the Southern Pacific rail road going parallel with the highway with no warning lights or cross arm to stop traffic.   There was only the railroad crossing X sign.   According to Jack, who saw it all, said his dad crossed the highway and looked away from the direction he was driving to wave at somebody he knew in a passing car and ran directly into a passing freight train killing him instantly.   His car was carried down the track a few hundred feet and was a total wreck.   I believe John Baker was 60 years old at the time of his death.   His son Jack eventually took over as general manger at the age of  33 or 34.   

In the summer of 1964 I worked seasonally for Baker Brothers under the direction of Willis Baker doing tractor work, harvesting barley and rice in the fall of 1965 before being drafted into the Army in February of 1966 at the age of 20.    

THE MENDOCINO NATIONAL FOREST

This is the only national forest in California without a major paved road entering it and no year-around highway crossing over it.   There is Forest Highway 7, a Forest Service gravel road crossing over Mendocino Pass from east to west, but is not open in the winter due to snow.   This road connects state Highway 162 from Willows to Highway 162 in Covelo, a two and half hour drive over 85 miles.   Willows is the Forest Headquarters and known as the Gateway to the Mendocino National Forest.   Hard to believe when Willows is located in the Sacramento Valley with only a view of the Coast Range Mountain to the west some 40 miles away.    One of the most tragic incidents was the loss of 15 firefighters on the Rattlesnake Wildfire in July of 1953 in Grindstone Canyon.  The scar on the landscape from that fire was visible from Willows.   

As a kid I spent many hours looking west at these mountains from our house west of town and wondering what it would be like to see what is over that ridge or up that canyon.   The Willows Ranger District winter office was up stairs in the Willows Post Office, where I got my first  Forest Service map dated 1956.    The District had a summer ranger station at Alder Springs about 45 miles up in the mountains from Willows.    I studied that map until I almost had it memorized.  There were place names on the map that I wanted to explore--Hokey Pokey Ridge, Snow Mountain, Hays Place, Plaskett Meadows, Keller Lake, Jenks Place, Log Springs Guard Station and many more.  

As teenagers a friend and I drove around the Forest in one of my dad's farm pickups exploring different places on that forest map.    We spent 3 or 4 days driving around on forest roads with a 50 gallon barrel of gas with a pump in the pick up bed to keep us going, along with camping gear.   I don't recall seeing many other vehicles, except a Forest Service employee checking camp fires in a campground.   We went as far west as Mendocino Pass and drove more roads than I can remember.    In the summer of 1962 we backpacked four days through the Yolla Bolly Middle Eel Wilderness Area after my dad dropped us off at a trailhead at a place called Brown's Camp.   From there we hiked to a small lake near South Yolla Bolly Mountain.   The second night was with the fire lookout on Hammerhorn Mountain, and from there down to Elk Lake for a night before hiking out of the wilderness to a Forest Service road where we caught a ride with a Forest Service road engineer to a logging camp where we spent a night.  The next day we caught a ride on a logging truck to Paskenta where one of our parents picked us up.  

Over the last few years most of this Forest has been destroyed from catastrophic wildfires, including summer home tracks, campgrounds, Forest Service guard stations, many road signs and other improvements.  The Willows Ranger District no longer exist and was combined with two other Districts of the five original Districts over the years.   Today there is only three ranger districts and the Forest I once was familiar with is gone, except for the memories.    

CABIN ON WOOLEY CREEK

A co-worker and I came across this cabin while backpacking the Wooley Creek trail into the Marble Mountain Wilderness Area in 1972.   We looked inside the cabin as it was not locked and saw beds with blankets on them and dishes in the kitchen.  It was one big room.   We assumed it was being used by a Forest Service trial crew.    Most Forest Service cabins in wilderness areas are not locked and can be used by the public in the event of foul weather or an emergency.   President Hoover was known to have fished Wooley Creek and may have stayed in this cabin.   With all the fires over the decades since 1972, I'm not sure if this cabin is still there.   Many cabins in the wilderness areas have come to disrepair, vandalism or burned down either by wildfires or the Forest Service due to liability problems or to keep squatters from taking them over.  

MY DOG HERMAN

 This was my dog Herman when I lived in Orleans from 1971-77.    He was part Chow and not sure what else, mostly All-American mutt.   I found him as a puppy walking along Highway 96 near Somes Bar.   Later I was told he my have come from a litter of dogs belonging to an Indian family living in that area.   Herman would go to work with me up until the Forest Service put an end to dogs going to work with employees, maybe in 1973-74.  When Christine and I married in 1975, Herman join the family, along with Christine's two dogs.   Herman went with me on many backpacking trips and always in my pickup on road trips.  He became a bad influence on Christine's dogs at times leading them in to trouble now and then.  

On one of our monthly shopping trips to Eureka we left the dogs in the back of the pickup, which had a camper shell on it with open screen windows.   The store we were shopping at was called Bazar's, a large department store with groceries, clothing, hardware and sporting equipment.   While we were in the center of the store we could hear people laughing and gasping as all three of our dogs were coming toward us in the aisle we were in.   The dogs had ripped open one of the screen windows, got scent of our trail, somehow entered through automatic sliding door into the store and followed our scent to the aisle we were in.   It was Herman leading the way as all three dogs were happy to have found us.    

THE TRINITY ALPS

With all the grim news lately I have resorted to getting lost in some old books I  have on places we backpacked into many years ago.   One place that stands out is the Trinity Alps Wilderness Area in northern California.   A hiking and backpacking guide book titled,  "The Trinity Alps" by Luther Linkhart describes 29 trips in to this wilderness area.   In the beginning of his book he describes the natural history and the human history of the Trinity Alps.  He gives directions from state highways to Forest Service Roads to trial heads, land marks to look for, how trails follow streams, ridges, what lakes are accessible from what trials and where side trails go.   He tells of old mining claims, provides pictures of mining equipment and cabins that remain from the gold mining days going back to the 1850's.    There is a story about George Jorstad, who built a cabin in 1937 on his claim and remained there until 1983 when he was over 80 years of age.   The cabin still remains, along with few other others.   During the 1970's the northwestern portion the wilderness area was under the control of marijuana growers that threaten hikers and Forest Service personnel.   The public was advised to stay out that area as many growers were armed and dangerous.   In the 1980's law enforcement agencies went in to clear out many of the growers.  

It is interesting to retrace my travels to some of these places, some places I remember and others that don't come to mind.    Some of my early trips were on weekends when I lived and worked for the Forest Service in Orleans.    On a Friday night after work I would pack a canteen of water, sleeping bag, a cooking pot, some utensils, trail food in a pack and off we went, me and my dog, Herman.    Herman was a puppy, mostly of the mutt variety when I found him walking along Highway 96 near Somes Bar in 1971.    Herman accompanied me on many hikes both to the Trinity Alps and the Marble Mountains.  In 1993 family members and myself backpacked in from the Coffee Creek Road on the eastside of the Trinity Alps for three days.   

Many of these areas have changed due to wild fires, road closures due to a lack of maintenance and deterioration of trails over the last three decades, but I'm sure glad to have these books to escape into during the harsh reality of what is happening in our world.  

YOSEMITE

This story is condensed and revised from a 6 page story I wrote  in 1995 that had some humor in it that only the family would understand.  

 In September of 1995 two of my sisters and I, along with my son and daughter went on a backpacking trip from Tuolumne Meadows down to Yosemite Valley.   This was about a 28 mile hike.  We were over packed with enough food for a month, not well organized and behind schedule.   By 3 pm we approached the wilderness permit booth at Tuolumne Meadows and  noticed a sign saying, "all trails full for the day".  The ranger on duty took pity on us noticing how unprepared and overloaded we looked.   We were given a permit with the stipulation to be at least four miles from Tuolumne Meadows before setting up camp for the night.  In short, they wanted this motley looking bunch out of sight of the general public ASAP.   We found a place to camp before dark, ate our dinner and hung our six food bags, estimated at 75 pounds in a nearby tree in order to keep the bears away.   The next morning we were up with the sun, taking our time preparing breakfast, drinking much coffee and getting an early start by 11 am.   The plan for the day was to push ourselves another five miles to Emeric Lake.   After hiking up hill over Tuolumne Pass, it was all downhill in the Merced River drainage on trails carved out of the granite.   At our camp near Emeric Lake we dug through our 75 pounds of food, ate dinner, hung the bags up and retired for the night.   During the night some of us were awaken by the howling of coyotes.  The next morning was another early start, maybe 10:30 am. after another big breakfast and much coffee.  Our destination for this day was another 5 miles to Merced Lake.   The elevation drop on this day was 2200 feet, mostly in the last two miles.   We arrived at Merced Lake exhausted.   We were required to stay in a designated camp site and we were one of the last groups into the camp leaving us little choice of picking a secluded site.    Some of our neighbors were interesting to watch and I'm sure we were entertaining to them.  There was a man traveling by himself and had the perfect camp with all his equipment laid out just right compared to our camp with everything scattered all over the place.   After eating  dinner we were too tired to wash dishes, so we placed them in metal bear box provided near our camp along with our food bags.  During the night we were aroused by a bear banging on the metal box, probably our box with the dirty dishes.   The next morning some of our neighbors did not look upon us favorably.   Our hike for this day was short with about a 800 foot drop in elevation.   By 2 pm we asked a passing ranger where the nearest camp site might be.  He pointed to to a clump of trees across the river, which was easy to access by walking across the river on a rock out cropping.   This was the best camp site of the trip with a place to swim and good seclusion.    The next day we had a pleasant hike on mostly level trail into Little Yosemite Valley, which is 5 miles by trail from the main valley.   Here there were many people since it was a fairly easy hike up from the big Yosemite Valley, where the lodge, parking lots, and other park tourist facilities are located.   Here again camping was restricted to designated camp sites with bear boxes.   No camp fires were permitted, except at two community sites.  As night settled in, so did the multitudes of people.   The posted rule in this camp was no noise after 10 pm.   We no sooner settled in our tents and sleep started to take hold when people started banging on their pots and pans yelling BEARS!   I looked out of my tent to see flash lights moving through the trees within the camp.   This went on for most the night and I even saw a cub bear run through our camp site.   It was total madness and there were very few early risers in camp the next morning.    After getting our stuff packed up we made the final descent in to the big valley to my sister's car in a parking lot.   We drove back up to Tuolumne Meadows to retrieve my car.   I think we still had 20 pounds of food we never consumed.

It was a trip we would never forget.  

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.