Author: Tom Darby

(July 1976)

The parade.
Decorated cars.
Fire trucks.
Clowns.
The Crowd.

Cheering
And the laughter.
The fire cracker
A smoke bomb.
The children.

Flags
And soldiers.
Games to play.
The booths.
A logging show.

Fireworks.
Red.
White.
Blue.
And other colors too.

Like a clap of thunder;
The sound of rockets,
In flight.
O can you see
By the dawns early light.

A nation.
Newly formed.
A struggle to survive.
And the flag,
Still flying.

(July 1975)

Crane the neck.
Look up.
Over the fence.
The eye’s see,
As the nose pops over the edge.

Look there!
Someone comes.
A trailer Dweller.
The neighbor walking the dog.
The dog does its thing.

Laughter.
Nosiness.
Jus’ gawking.
Seeing nothing important.
Feeling dumb.

Again the neck cranes.
Look up;
Look over the fence.
It’s a couple of girls.
Nothing important?!

But the walk off.
Never noticing.
Passing by.
Jus’ visiting.
Oh well…

While at work it has occurred to me that I am lacking in leadership skills. With that in mind decided to sit down with my bible and start compiling a guide of what makes a great leader.

1. “…If anyone wants to be first , he must be last, and the servant of all.” (Mark 9:35) Learn to serve to become a great leader. One . key element to any successful leader, whether it is a person of the church, a company or a household, is that they must learn how to serve the people they work with. Many times a CEO will look at his or her position as the head of the company, they cannot see themselves as the main service provider for their employee. Serve with humility .

2. “Simply, let your ‘Yes ‘be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No,’  ‘No ‘…” (Matthew 5:37) ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ is a complete sentence and requires no explanation. It is a natural to justify why a decision has been made, yet it is completely unneeded. If you say ‘No’ and keep moving them or return to your work if you are stuck behind a desk, then the answer is sufficient.  Parents with children take note: You are the parent and your word is law, period you say ‘No’ and keep moving them or return to your work if you are stuck behind a desk, then the answer is sufficient.

3. “No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead he nuts it on the stand, so that those who come in may see the light.” (Luke 11:33) Be the light that shines. When you come to work and you have a spring in your step and you’ are whistling a happy tune and you are doing the same when you leave, it is infectious. Pretty soon everyone wants some of the same.

4. “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” (Luke 12:15) Be aware of individuals, companies and corporations that place profit ahead of people or principles. It has been said time and again, ‘The customer is always right. ‘ Outwardly this may appear to be good customer service, however customer service is both internal and external. Employees are the internal customers that a strong personal leader serves. In the long run though, the ‘Customer is always right’ theory fails because it considers only the profit margin, the bottom-line, and the greed factor.

5. “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that “every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” (Matthew 18:15) Conflict resolution is an overlooked communication process that can provide both individuals and companies with employees that trust one another. Yet it is often avoided because is appears to too difficult a process to develop and follow through on.

6. “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” (Proverbs 15:1)Whisper if you wish to make a point. Time and a again, co-workers, husbands and wives, friends find themselves angry over something and before he or she realize it, that anger has turned into words that cannot be taken back. A smile and good manners will help over come the possibility of a real disagreement.

7. “The Lord abhors dishonest scales, but accurate weights are his delight.” (Proverbs 11:1) Setting aside the rules for one person or a group of people is not only unfair but it is deceitful. Some corporate owners or company managers expect better customer service for their ‘preferred ‘ client list. This is the same a stealing from one person to prosper another person . In home life, Little Johnny gets a dollar bill for doing his home work and Little Janie gets nothing for doing the same homework assignment, teaches a child that it is okay to cheat your neighbor.

8. “…That all of them may be one…” (John 17:21) Teamwork. It is essential to the function of all workplace activity. Owners, managers, supervisors and labors should be shoulder-to-shoulder and elbow-to-elbow working to complete the task at hand. It is demoralizing to see one of the essential elements listed above standing around the work environment with his or her hands idle.

9. “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into the harvest field.” (Matthew 9:38)  Creating a work force is a challenge. Search for people who are like­ minded but with varying talents. Do not be afraid to hire someone who has better credentials than you. Talk with your co-workers and search out their likes and dislikes, looking for the weaknesses and their strengths. Look to assist him or her using your talents. The same came be applied at home. Trade off if a husband hates to mow the lawn but doesn’t ‘t mind cleaning the house.

10. “Warn a divisive person once, and then you warn him a second time . After that, have nothing to do with him.” (Titus 3:10) First you ask the employee to change his or her behavior, next you tell the employee to change the behavior. If they still don’t change it, discharge them from your employment. With each step you must inform the employee what the next step of action and. final outcome will be. It is that simple. In the family setting, the actions are the same. Make certain that the discipline is greater than the offense.

Again, this is by no means a definitive list. Leadership by nature is as personal a choice as what kind of ice cream you might like after dinner.

(April 1996)

Poor Billy Baggens —
He saw many men a-hangin’
But the one that was the worst,
Was the one that he came to curse,
When it was his own heels draggin’.

(February 1975)

The rocky road.
Brown with oil,
Caused by the trucks.
Passing trucks,
Rolling onward.

Into the yards.
All flat;
The logs stacked up
On the cold deck.
Waiting to be barked.

The fork loader comes.
Menacing jaws
And fanged teeth.
Looking very hungry
The logs are its food.

It attacks.
Biting the first log.
Then the next.
The last one.
A full stomach.

It leaves’ Truck now barren.
The load is gone.
Put up the trailer;
Time to go home.

(February 1975)

The spider stops;
Sensing another being.
It raises its legs.
Move onward.
Changing directions.

It stops again.
Still.
Resting upon its web.
Forward.
Swiftly crawling.

The black fly.
Reckless.
Buzzing wildly.
Into the sticky net.
Trapped.

Down drops the spider.
Dangling.
Viewing its quarry.
Moving gracefully.
Void of hurry.

The attack.
The Panic.
The thrashing.
Struggling to the end.
Finish.

Death.
And victory.
Hunger satisfied.
The spider pauses,
Then moves on.

(April 1980)

“Let me out!”
She screamed and cried
As she put on her pretty little pout
Then sighed.

I was sad for this little gal
As cute as a bugs.
She needed a lift in morale
This I could plainly see

For days I went to see
To Cheer and make laugh
For this little bug’s ear
Till she had a day and a half.

Soon she’ll be out
And jus’ as feisty as ever.
Will she never quit running about?
Never!

“I’ve been couped up to long!”
Says she
And she’s not far from wrong,’
For I work here, so what about me?

Newspapers in Del Norte County date back to 1854, and top honors go to the Crescent City Herald for being the first to publish in northwestern California. The Herald was hot off the press in June of that year.

The Herald’s initial run beat the Humboldt Times off the press by a few months. Its run lasted only until 1861, when the Herald’s owners discontinued publishing here due to lack of interest, and moved their operation to Jacksonville, Ore.

The county was without a paper until 1872, according to many historical sources. But Frances McBeth identifies a publication called the Del Norte Investigator, which existed in 1868 and was connected with the Lyceum.

The next publication to spring up was the Crescent City Courier, which published from September 1872 until March 1875 and again from November 1879 to February 1881, when the Del Norte Record purchased it to augment its publication that had begun in 1879. Northwestern California Newspaper Project’s Website quotes Ralph Hughes, who worked for Crescent City News in 1908 at the age of 14.

The paper’s reading room, he remembered, served as a library that was “Mecca for a lot of people who wanted to know what was going on in the world.”

Crescent City News started about 1892, merged with the Del Norte Record, then the Coast Times in 1910-1912 and the Del Norte Argus in 1912 to form the Del Norte Triplicate. A second iteration of the Crescent City Courier began publishing at about the same time, lasting until 1930.

It competed with the Crescent City News and also the Crescent City American, which began in 1926 and became the Crescent City Sunday American in its last year of publication. In 1969, Crescent City Sunday American merged with the Triplicate.

Renamed The Daily Triplicate, Del Norte County’s newspaper is one of the longest running newspapers in Northwest California.

A few short-lived newspapers within the county are the Smith River Herald, which published in 1925, Klamath Chinook in 1932, Gasquet Gazette, published by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1935, and Pelican Bay News in 1945. One of the former owners of Crescent City News started life in Del Norte County as an invalid with $3 in his pockets, but went into local history as one of the State of Jefferson movement organizers.

Judge John L. Childs, an immigrant of Irish parents, became self-supporting at the young age of 14. He began toiling on a New York farm, later eking out a living as a teacher.

Childs went on to graduate from Starkey Seminary and became principal of Greenville Academy in New York. His life there changed when he developed pneumonia and was advised to seek a climate change.

Childs found a job tutoring in San Diego, but moved to Gold Beach, Ore., to teach school. From there he came to Crescent City to take his teacher’s exam.

He apparently liked Del Norte County so well that he decided to make it his home.

After teaching for a number of years, Childs bought the Crescent City News. His political life began in 1892 when he was elected county clerk.

Three years later on Christmas Eve, he was admitted to the Bar. He opened his law office in April 1897 and was elected district attorney that fall.

He held the position until 1903 when he became a superior judge, a post in which he served until 1920.

Childs played an important part in the development of Del Norte County and in securing recognition from other sections of the country. Most notably was his election as governor of the then proposed 49th state – Jefferson.

Between Nov. 19 and Dec. 10, 1941, San Francisco’s newspapers, the Eureka’s Humboldt Times and Crescent City’s reporters and those representing The Oregonian in Portland covered the proposed state’s struggles to correct perceived wrongs in northern California and southern Oregon. The story was also covered by the New York Times on Dec. 5, 1941.

The village of Gasquet takes its name from French immigrant Horace Gasquet, who arrived in Crescent City from France in 1853. The village’s name, however, is not the immigrant’s only legacy.

He is in history books as having been quite the entrepreneur, one with a hotel, general store, farm, barn, blacksmith, town bar and winery to his credit. But it’s his toll road that linked California to Oregon that put Msr. Gasquet into the history books.

The Gasquet Toll Road was built mostly by Chinese labor between 1881 and 1886, after the county’s board of supervisors granted Gasquet permission to undertake the project. Until the road was completed, the town of Gasquet’s only link was overland to Crescent City and on to San Francisco by sea.

The northeast overland route was needed to help ensure the county’s continued growth and development, and Gasquet’s Toll Road provided the link so sought after in the late 1800s. Described as a “corduroy road,” it was created by laying a bed of timers across its width on a surface of dirt and gravel.

Its route was along the forks of the Smith River, up the middle fork on the “left hand bank” for about 4 miles, then across the river. From its crossing, the road went to the mouth of Patrick’s Creek, up to Shelly Creek and crossed into Oregon about 3 miles east of the Robin’s nest.

Total length? Twenty miles.

The road has retained its original composition and construction, although it may have been repaired during the years with dirt and gravel. It’s still usable, although its drawbacks are the narrow gauge and windy path.

Prior to his corduroy road, Gasquet built a mule trail, one of the first of its type, to the interior and into Oregon Territory. He later built a second mule trail to Happy Camp on the Klamath River, where he opened another mercantile store.

Horace Gasquet, a French immigrant seeking gold in northern California, arrived in Crescent City in 1855. The businessman changed his plans to instead serve miners already living in the region.

Gasquet bought 320 acres and set up a village with a hotel, bar, stores, winery and blacksmith shop more than 15 miles from Crescent City, according to historical information from the National Park Service. He also decided to build a toll road connecting Crescent City to Waldo, Ore.

Chinese Americans completed the Gasquet Toll Road between 1881 and 1886. The 23-mile road would cost a man and a horse $1 to cross.

Pedestrian and pack animals cost 25 cents each, sheep and hogs cost 6 cents and horse and cattle cost 12 cents. A one-horse vehicle paid $2.75.

One of Gasquet’s ads, included in A.J. Bledsoe’s “Del Norte County” book, touted his resort and access to it in a bid to attract tourists for the summer. It featured trout and salmon fishing, along with deer and bear hunting and quail, pigeon and pheasant shooting.

“This place can be reached from San Francisco by Railroad, via Grants Pass, Or., or by steamer, via Crescent City, Cal.,” the ad stated.

Gasquet and his wife, Madeleine, added vineyards to the village of stores, hotel, mining camps and roads that they built using Chinese immigrants for labor. Madeleine Gasquet’s cooking and hotel management business skills helped the resort become a popular health spa that attracted visitors year-round.

The spot also hosted weddings and events. Madeleine Gasquet died in 1889, and her husband died seven years later.

But part of their efforts remain.

“The altitude and sunshine still support Horace’s grape vines, growing on hillsides,” according to the Redwood Empire Association, a California marketing group.

Grandpa Bill had a ritual he looked forward to every Sunday morning. He would take my sisters out for a drive for some bonding time.

On one particular Sunday, however, Grandpa had a bad cold.. Luckily, Grandma Leola came to the rescue and said that she would take the girls out.

Upon their return, Marcy ran to see Grandfather.

‘Well, did you enjoy your ride with Grandma?’ he asked.

‘Oh, yes, Grandpa,’ Marcy replied, ‘and do you know what?”

“What?” Grandpa responded, eager to know what she was so excited about.

“We didn’t see one dumb- bastard or stupid-shithead anywhere we went today!’ she gleefully stated.