SILENCE

Sometimes silence can be my best friend.   One of the first things I do in the morning is turn the radio on to get the latest news and weather report.   After about an hour of hearing all the negative things humanity is inflicting upon it's self it's time to turn it off.    Just the sound of the wind, rain, birds and the frogs at night can be enough for me.   A trip to the city with all the traffic, construction, and other noises makes me just want to get back home ASAP.   

I will never forget when Celia and I were in Costco years ago when she was getting a hearing test when an older man left his hearing aids off to have them cleaned.   As he walked off to do some shopping he said out loud--SILENCE AT LAST!

GARDENING 2024

With the recent warm weather and a break from all the rain the urge to dig in the dirt and plant a few seeds takes a hold of me.   Something in my DNA I guess that always kicks in this time of year.   In my younger years I always planned to have the perfect garden or at least better than what I had the year before--weed free, perfect rows and a bumper crop of veggies, which was usually zucchinis.    Not anymore as perfect is no longer in my vocabulary, now I just take a shovel, turn over the muddy ground, weeds and all, put seeds in the ground hoping for the best.   Peas are the first seeds I stick in the ground as the Stellar Jays sit in the nearby tree looking down on me.  I know what they saying to each other, "hay, look at the human down there sticking those seeds in the ground for us to go dig up for our dinner later when he is gone."    Even putting chicken wire over the newly planted seeds for protection is no deterrent as the next day I see it has been removed.    Maybe they get together with their rat friends during the night to help remove the wire and share in the bounty.   One year I noticed something was eating my climbing string beans.  I placed a motion camera out one night to see what varmint was guilty.   The next day it showed a mouse up the bean stock chewing on a green bean.   At the end of the day my back hurts, my hands are dirty, my boots muddy and best of all, I will have the opportunity to do it all again tomorrow if the weather permits.   

MOHS SURGERY

 My appointment was at 9 am on Monday to have skin cancer, the size of a dime removed from my lower right leg.  The biopsy, taken a month earlier, showed it to be basal cell cancer.   After checking in at the front desk of the Advanced Skin Center in Roseburg, I was instructed to wait in the second waiting room until my name was called.   Most the patients in the waiting room were old men, some with bandages on their noses, faces, arms and God knows where else.   It looked like a room filled with the walking wounded.   Mohs surgery involves cutting out the tissue with cancer, having it examined by the pathologist and if the edges of the tissue is free of cancer cells they stitch you up.   If it is not clear of cancer cells more cutting is performed until it become clear.  Some people could be in here all day.   I have been through this procedure before and never had to go back for a second cutting.  Medical staff personnel walked through the waiting room carrying towels, garments and other medical supplies.  Soon a young woman, who was a  medical assistant appeared calling out a name.   Not getting a response she yelled out the name and an elderly man responded and off he went following the young woman.   I got the impression some of these gentlemen had a hearing problem in addition to skin cancer.   After waiting a half hour my name Mike was called out, and off I went to an examination room where the medical assistant introduced herself, asked a few question and proceeded to injecting a numbing substance around the area that would be removed.  After a couple minutes she poked around the area asking if I could feel anything?   It was totally numbed and off she went to get the surgeon.   The surgeon looked like a man that had been up most the night, in desperate need of coffee with those big telescope lenses fasten to his glasses, like the ones a dentist wears.   He was a man of few words as he put on rubber gloves, picked up a scalpel and quickly did his business placing the chunk of flesh in a glass container the medical assistant was holding.   As he left the room he told me it would be an hour before he would have the pathology results done.   I asked the medical assistant if he was the pathologist too, and she replied yes.   He was a busy man and no wonder he looked tired.    The medical assistant applied a pressure bandage to my wound after cauterizing it to stop the bleeding and took me back out to the waiting room.  

While sitting in the waiting room for the results, an older couple sat down next to me.  The man told me they had come all way that morning from Port Orford on the Oregon Coast.   We got to talking as he told me they lived up Elk River, which I was very familiar with when I worked for the Forest Service in Gold Beach back in the 1980's.   He mentioned a few names of people that I had known including some loggers.   Soon his name was called and off he went.  Then another man sat next to me asking if he was in the right room.  I asked what he was here for and he did not seem to know.   He had come from Cottage Grove and said he had been here before to have something on his face looked at.   As we were talking I heard a man call out William, my first name which I usually don't respond too.  Everybody looked around as nobody responded, until I asked what is the last name and he said Burke, and off we went to another section of the facility where I was told to my relief the tissue was clear of cancer.  Here I was stitched up and a large compression bandage was applied from my knee down to my foot to keep the leg from swelling.  I was instructed to keep the leg elevated for a few days and not to get the bandage wet for week.   A real challenge for taking a shower.   After going to the front desk for scheduling appointments for the bandage removal in a week and in two weeks for the stitches to be removed, I walked out the front door with a new lease on life or at least until next July, when I'm scheduled for my six month full body exam.   I still wonder if that man from Cottage Grove ever found out what he was there for?     

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.    

Excitement at Brightman Flat 1970

 Brightman Flat is an area along the North Fork of the Stanislaus River before going up the grade on highway 108 over Sonora Pass at over 9000 feet in elevation.    This highway is closed in the winter just above Pinecrest.   A recent wildfire has destroyed most of the campgrounds, the Dardanelle Resort, including most of the cabins and the Brightman Guard Station.   I believe the original lodge at Kennedy Meadows is gone too.

Some of this may have been rebuilt?   It was a very picturesque setting just below the tree line of the high Sierras in California when I worked there in the summer of 1970. 

EXCITEMENT AT BRIGHTMAN FLAT

 

In the summer of 1970 the Forest Service hired a local contractor with a backhoe to dig new holes for the outhouses at the Brightman Flat Campground and cover the remains of the old holes.   Bob and I were seasonal employees working on the recreation maintenance crew on the Summit Ranger District of the Stanislaus National Forest.    Our assignment for this day was to assist the contractor by making sure nobody was using the outhouses as they were moved from their old location to the new holes.   The procedure was simple:  Bob and I would make sure nobody was in the outhouses before we would tip them over onto the bucket of the backhoe tractor and set them up over the new hole and use a shovel to cleanup around each outhouse.   (Today this practice has been replaced with vault toilets and are pumped out when the need arises).

Bob and I seemed to get all the dirty jobs from hauling garbage from the back country campgrounds during the week and maintaining the restrooms at the Pinecrest Campgrounds on weekends.   This day we were in for a break from our usual routine.   In the afternoon while working in the campground we noticed smoke coming from the forest up the hill across highway 108, the Sonora Pass highway.    The fire patrolman, who was stationed at the nearby Brightman Guard Station, drove into the campground and requested we help him suppress the fire.    We followed him in our work truck to a point where we had to walk up hill to the fire.   It was burning through a ground cover of mostly pine needles and duff.    The fire area was less than a quarter of an acre in size.   As we started scraping a fire line we noticed articles of clothing in the center of the burned area.   Some of the clothing had been partially burnt, including a pair of jeans, t-shirts and women’s underwear.  The fire patrolman suspected the people who own the clothing were responsible for the fire and might be making their escape to the parking lot downhill near the Dardanelle Resort.  He instructed us to remain on the fire as he left.   A short time later the fire crew from the Ranger station at Pinecrest arrived and took over mopping up the fire.   Bob and I returned to the campground as we saw the District Fire Management Officer drive by in his truck with red lights flashing.   Later we learned a young couple had been found in the parking lot nude trying to retrieve clothing from their car.    The Fire Management Officer wrote them up a citation as they stood there with only their shoes on.    The story goes that they had been smoking marijuana, fell asleep after engaging in love making to awake to fire and smoke all around them that was probably caused from dropping the joint on the ground.   In a panic and confusion, or maybe just stoned the couple made a run for it.     Bob and I continued cleaning up around the outhouses, wondering why we hadn’t had the good luck to help out in finding them, but somebody has to do the dirty work.    

Paper Work

 A little humor in this story which some of you retired FS and BLM folks might understand.  If you want to read a good book with all kinds of stories of being a young forester, staff assistant and District Ranger I recommend Forest Trails and Tales by Joel Frandsen, who worked in four different states on six National Forests.

Hopefully one day I complete my memoirs of the Sixes National Forest I worked on from 1969-95.  Preface attached.  

Preface

                                  MY CAREER WITH THE FOREST SERVICE

                     A Ground View of the Forest Service from Days Gone By

 

This is a collection of memoirs from my career with the Forest Service starting in 1969 until 1995, after working on six National Forests, including the Modoc, Stanislaus, Six Rivers, Plumas, Siskiyou and Umpqua.     It started out with a few short stories about different events then grew into expanded stories of each Ranger District that I worked on with some separate events thrown in.  It probably could be revised again, including more details on outstanding issues, co-workers, forest contractors and more, but probably would never get completed.  

This is a story of a Forest Service that in many ways no longer exists.   Just like the early days when a forest ranger traveled on horseback covering hundreds of square miles doing trail work, looking for fires, or packing supplies to some remote camp, the era of the Forest Service I was part of is becoming part of history also.   The days when we drove green trucks on dusty forest roads to survey a new logging road, cruise or inspect a timber sale have almost disappeared.   Today some of these roads can longer be found, most Forest Service trucks are white, there are fewer of them, and if you come across a dusty logging road you might be on private timber lands.   Timber management, or as we called it, “get the cut out” was the primary focus in the last half of the last century on many National Forests of the west, especially the Pacific Northwest.  Ecosystem management is the name of the game today and most foresters and engineers have been replaced with biologists specializing in specific fields of science.   There are still Forest Service fire crews and field technicians doing an assortment of jobs, including recreation, wildlife habitat or restoration projects, but very little of that work deals with timber removal, except for some thinning or salvage sales.   If you see a logging truck today on a National Forest road it might be a shock, but compared to the log traffic of the last half of the last century it is hardly a fraction of what it used to be.   The spotted owl has received much blame for the decline of timber cutting on National Forests of the west.   In fact it was getting harder and harder to find the timber to cut or come up with a five to ten year timber sale plan on many Ranger Districts to keep up or maintain what was called the “Allowable Annual Cut” or the Allowable Sale Quantity (ASQ).   For funding purposes timber harvest plans were needed to appease Congress in hopes of getting the funds to keep people employed and the wheels moving to produce timber sales.  

In addition, public sentiment was against the status quo, especially the practice of clearcutting on National Forests.   With the declining timber harvest under the Northwest Forest Plan it was hard to justify and get Congress to finance the many foresters, road engineers and technicians associated with the timber management program of yesterday.  By the mid 1990’s the Forest Service was offering buy-outs and early retirements in order to downsize this personnel.   I was one that took a buy-out in March of 1995, mostly to save my sanity and do something else.

The focus of my writings is centered on the different communities, local issues, housing situations and job activities that I was involved with during my years working as a forestry technician.  At times it might get too technical with terminology and forestry practices that some might not understand.   Except for using a few first names of key individuals I was involved with, the names of most co-workers and supervisors are not mentioned, and of course no last names.    We had a job to perform, sometimes under difficult circumstances, adverse weather conditions and at times there was internal conflict about the best ways to achieve management goals, which led to heated discussions.   In my later years there was always a meeting to try to resolve the issue of the day, which usually led to another meeting.   In the early years I don’t remember any meetings, except an occasional safety or project assignment meeting before leaving the station in the morning.  

On a positive side there was a sense of family with co-workers.  It was hard not to be emotionally connected and share personal problems since much time was spent together traveling in a crew truck, doing field work, at social gatherings, or many days on a fire line and confined to a fire camp with each other.    For better or worse there were relationships with timber purchasers, road builders, loggers and other contractors while dealing with the timber sale contract.   Most of these people wanted to do a good job, but there was always some that wanted to cut corners.  In short it was the highest bidder that got the timber and the lowest bidder that got the job of removing that timber.  As one logging supervisor told me once, “If you were not here we would tear this place down”.   That justified my existence. 

With all the planning efforts, including watershed analysis, environmental assessments, and logging feasibility reports, there was always something that fell through the cracks, mistakes were made and finger pointing was common.  A combination of unrealistic deadlines, workloads and politics was the culprit of many management problems in my opinion.   In many ways there were too many cooks in the kitchen at times without adequate supervision and we were always at the mercy of the political climate, which was usually under the influence of the timber industry that always wanted more timber.   

Today many problems still exist with management of our National Forests.  Rural communities have suffered economic hardships from the decline of timber harvesting, many forest roads are not adequately maintained, and the threat of wildfires has increased due to dense timber stands in need of thinning and climate change.   There is insufficient personnel to perform the many jobs that need to be done these days.   In order to save money some Forests have combined under one Supervisor's office and some District Rangers oversee two or even three Districts.  Today there is too few employees to maintain all the National Forest infrastructure, including roads, trails, campgrounds and other improvements.   The greatest challenge of today is finding the right balance between resource management activities and maintaining an ecosystem that will provide forest products, clean air, clean water, wildlife habitat and recreation opportunities for a growing population.   

PAPER WORK

 

Working for the Forest Service had its fair share of paper work to keep up with.   In the early days working in the field doing silviculture and timber sale preparation work we had plantation survey reports, timber stand analysis reports, timber cruise data cards and harvest unit traverse maps to turn in.   We did not have individual decks, but there was a long wall mounted table where the field crew had their own inboxes.  Here we received memos and directives from the upper echelon to read, initial and pass on.   The most important piece of paper was our bi-weekly time sheet to turn in every other week in order to get paid.  

When I went to work in timber sale administration I had my first deck and the paper work increased.    There were the daily timber sale inspection reports, fire inspection reports, monthly financial reports, audit follow-up reports and all the management directives to keep up with.   Whenever it was necessary to write letters to a timber purchaser I was the one to draft it up for the District Ranger to sign as he was the Forest Service representative for the contract.   In later years this authority was delegated to the District Timber Management staff assistant or lead administrator better known as the Forest Service Representative or FSR. 

The timber sale inspection report was utilized on a daily basis for each timber sale visited.  There were four copies to this report.   The front page went to the office file folder for that contract, one went to the timber sale purchaser, one went to the logging supervisor on the job and one went to the Forest Supervisor’s office.    The timber sale inspection report documented any mutual agreements, acceptance of work, minor contract change agreements and notices of non-compliance with the contract.   The copy of this report that was sent to the Forest Supervisor’s office went to the timber staff assistant in charge of contract administration.   In most cases we never heard back on our reports and while working in Gold Beach I thought I would see if anybody was reading them.    I filled out a fictitious report describing a breach of contract of the worst kind, tractor logging in a stream.   A few days later the timber staff assistant called me and asked what the hell is going on.   I replied that I was just checking to see if he was reading my reports. 

 

Sometime in the 1980’s the Forest Service went to computers and we were assigned an electronic inbox to receive emails of all kinds dealing with management letters, documents and directives from the Chief of the Forest Service, the Regional Forester down to the Forest Supervisor.    Over time more and more stuff accumulated in this electronic inbox and it could take an hour a day to go through it all.  Sometimes a report requiring some kind of reply was overlooked and there would be a phone call from somebody in management wanting to know if I had read whatever or how I was going to resolve some contractual issue.   The delete button got a lot of use. 

While working on the Cottage Grove Ranger District I went out to the fire warehouse one day to replenish my supply of timber sale inspection report forms from the storage room where all kinds of forms were stored.   After looking at all the different forms I came across one called the Negative Report.   This report actually had instructions that said, “Use this Report if you have nothing to Report.”   It was an obsolete form, but I sure had a good time with it.  

Ocean Adventures

 The ocean treats everybody equal, for those not prepared it shows no mercy.    In the years we lived in Gold Beach, along the southern Oregon coast we heard about a number of incidents and a few fatalities out at sea.   Two Forest Service co-workers went fishing near the mouth of the Pistol River, south of Gold Beach.    One turned his back to the ocean for a minute to discipline his dog.  A sneaker wave came in behind him taking him and his dog out to sea.  The other co-worker looked on in horror not able to do anything to save them.   Their bodies were never found. 

North of Gold Beach along the coast there are hidden coves that were used by smugglers using small boats or zodiacs to bring in drugs from larger ships out at seas.   One night law enforcement got wise to what was going on.   In a panic much of the cargo, high grade marijuana wrapped in waterproof packages, was dumped into the ocean and washed ashore near Gold Beach.  The next day the beach was filled with beach combers collecting the debris and there was much doubt how much of it was turned over to the authorities. 

My boss, Earl, had a small boat with an outboard engine and would go out over the Rogue River bar into the ocean where he would fish whenever conditions were right.   There was a seasonal Coast Guard station at the mouth of the Rogue River that would respond to any bar crossing that did not go well.    This bar was notorious for sediment building up on the south end of the opening between the jetties, and the only way was to enter on the north end which could be narrow at times.  Earl told about one time he was out at sea fishing and the fog came in, restricting his view of the jetties.   He knew to find the buoys and follow a compass course from each ocean buoy to make it to the river.    The only problem was, would the compass bearing from the last buoy take him over the south entrance or north entrance?   He put full throttle to the engine and luckily made it through the north entrance of the bar. 

Earl would invite me to go fishing with him, but I was reluctant hearing all the incidents with small crafts on the ocean.   During the fall the ocean would settle down and some days looked like a big pond with no white caps or swells.   On one of these days Earl persuaded me to go with him and off we went with a few beers for enlightenment.   Earl was a knowledgeable sailor, had been in the Navy and his boat was well equipped with all the necessary items in case of an emergency.   He had a CB radio with a base set at his home where his wife could be called about our whereabouts.   We made it over the bar with no problems and made our way out to some rocky outcrops where there was good bottom fishing for red snapper and ling cod.   These rocks were covered with sea lions.   While fishing Earl had to make sure the boat did not drift into the rocks, so he would move it out until it would drift again.   Some of those seas lions looked like they would eat us if we ended up on the rocks.   At the end of the day we made it home in one piece with all kinds of bottom fish to fill our freezers.

There was another co-worker that had bought a jet boat, which are intended to be used on the river, not the ocean.   One day he and some other Forest Service people took it out on the ocean to fish about a mile south of the mouth of the Rogue River.   They had no problems getting over the bar and the sea was fairly calm.   Within a few hours the north wind was blowing and the swells getting bigger.   They headed back toward the river with full throttle, bouncing over the swells and at times the suction pump could not take in water due to rise and fall of the boat.   It only took them 20 minutes or less to get to their fishing spot, but the return trip took two hours as they fought the wind and swells.   Some on board were tempted to jump ship and try to swim to shore, which was just beyond the breakers or less than an eighth of a mile.    All stayed with the boat and eventually made it back.  It was something they never repeated. 

When I worked for the Forest Service at Cottage Grove, I volunteered for a work detail to the Tongass National Forest in Alaska in September of 1993.   We worked out of the Rowan Bay logging camp on Kuiu Island.   There was a Forest Service boat there we used to access sections of the island where roads had not been constructed.  After work hours we were allowed to use the boat for fishing as there was not much other entertainment there and it was a dry camp—no alcohol allowed.    One evening after dinner the crew leader Don and I took the boat out to catch halibut in the channel outside the bay.   We were fishing about an eighth of mile from shore where some Orca whales were also going after fish.   They were not happy with us in their waters as they bounced against the boat and surfaced under the boat, making us fear they could overturn us.   The thought raced through me of having to swim to shore and could I make it as 20 minutes in these waters was about the limit for a human to survive.    One of the whales got snagged by Don’s hook and the fishing line, a small cable was racing off his reel as he was trying to hold on to the pole in fear of losing it all.  He told me to get my pocket knife out and try to cut the line which I was able to do.   During all this the whale was actually pulling the boat away from the shore line.    We made it back to camp with no fish, but were content with surviving the ordeal. 

Today I feel lucky to have made it this far, and for me the ocean is there to look at and admire from a distance, while standing on solid land.

A can of Hershey's Chocolate Syrup

 During those hot summer days when we lived in the small town of Willows in northern California, my mother would occasionally buy ice cream and a can of Hershey’s Chocolate for all of us to enjoy.    This can was opened with the old style can opener that punctured the top of the can in two places, one for pouring and the other for air intake.   They were commonly used to open beer cans in those days and called church keys.  

There were six of us children, me being the oldest and having some responsibility in disciplining some of my younger siblings which could be a full-time job at times.   Of course none of us would ever get enough of that chocolate on our ice cream.   My mother would draw the line when some of us went back for seconds.   After the can had been opened it was placed in the refrigerator and there was always the temptation to indulge by sneaking into the kitchen when nobody was looking and take a swig or two directly from the can.    My mother was usually too busy with house work that she did not have the time to run herd on who was doing what.   In the heat of the afternoon when temperatures were in the triple digits and some of the younger children could no longer tolerate the heat they would retreat into the air conditioned house.   Some times while passing through the far side of the kitchen to access the garage, I would notice the refrigerator door open and somebody partaking of the chocolate.  Being caught they would quickly close the refrigerator door and run off.   I had to inspect the situation to see how much of the chocolate had been consumed by sampling a little myself.  Over the next week the contents were pretty much consumed, some on ice cream under the supervision of mom, but mostly by those taking it directly from the can.   Whoever was last to empty it always placed it back in the refrigerator due to guilt and not wanting to be accused of doing the unthinkable.   Mom would be shocked and angry when she went to the refrigerator to find the can empty and asked who had been drinking from it.  Everybody pointed the finger at the other, especially brother Pat, who was usually known for his mischievous ways.   Mom would tell us she was not going to buy anymore if we could not control ourselves, but she  would give in and buy some more in a few weeks and it all started again.   

Green Jello with Hot Dogs

 During the summers of the early 1970’s there would be potluck dinners at least once a month on the Orleans Ranger Station for the employees, including seasonal employees living in the bunk house.  Everybody was asked to bring something.  The wives of the staff, living in the family houses on the station would provide hot dishes, fried chicken, salads, deserts and other items that single people would dream of.    Seasonal employees usually brought bags of chips, can of olives, beans or a large bottle of pop.   The local market did not provide much in terms of gourmet items or even deli food.  It was pretty basic shopping there with bread, cold cuts, some dairy products, can goods, limited produce, soda and plenty of wine and beer.    Serious grocery shopping was done by most people once a month in Arcata or Eureka, about a two hour drive from Orleans.   Upper management would chip in and have a keg of beer available for all to enjoy.  Since alcohol was not allowed in the barracks, most beer drinking was done at one of three bars in the community or down at the river.   There was one fellow who lived in the bunk house that would always put together a dish of green jello with hot dogs lined up in it.   He would place it on the long row of picnic tables lined up on the lawn in the center of the compound, where all the food was served.   This dish was only popular with the young children of the families living on the station.   The adults always got a few laughs seeing it there on display with all the other dishes.   As the evening wore on and the beer consumption increased, most of the families retreated to their houses leaving the bunk house people to finish off whatever remained.   By the time the keg was empty, and all the food eaten it was well into the night, and the seasonal employees slowly made their way back to the bunk house or stumbled down the highway to wherever home was.  Even the green jello with hot dogs had been devoured.