At six-years-old, I had no idea one day the world would commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. In fact, at the time, it was hard for me to even grasp the magnitude of the disaster. One evening, Mom and I were in the kitchen. She was cooking dinner and I…

April 14th, 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the day the British passenger liner RMS Titanic struck an iceberg about 375 miles south of Newfoundland and sank jus’ two and a half hours later.  The Titanic was on her maiden voyage, having disembarked from Southhampton, England April 10th. The ship was bound for New York and…

Services for life-long Del Norte resident Eric Epperson will be Saturday, April 14th, at 1 p.m. at the Cornerstone Assembly of God, in Crescent City, California. Eric died suddenly April 5th in Medford, Oregon after an illness. He’d been the PE teacher at Crescent Elk Middle School for 15 years, coaching boys basketball .  He also spent…

The first time I met Don Balliette, I knew I was in the presence of someone special. By this time he was already in a wheelchair, having been left a quadriplegic after the pick up truck he was driving rolled several times. At the time I was a driver for CitiLift in Reno and Don…

In my wife’s business of Port of Subs, making sandwiches, they offer 18 different cold subs. My favorite is the Number 1; ham, salami, capicolla, pepperoni and provolone on sourdough. After 20-years of doing the same thing, she’s got the process down to a science. She also has certain phrases she uses when directing her…

Often referred to as “The Crown Jewel of the Sierra,” at a depth of 1,645 feet, Lake Tahoe’s clarity is unmatched by other Alpine freshwater lake. It’s also the second deepest lake in the U.S., behind Oregon’s Crater Lake and 7th over-all in the world. When Lt. John Fremont first laid eyes on it in February 1844,…

Cain knew he was a two-bit crook. That was jus’ the way it was and he accepted it. “Besides,” he thought, “The bosses keep asking me to finish one job or another, so they gotta like how I get things done.” Cain had been questioning his life-style the last couple of weeks. It all started…

Spring’s arrived in my neck of the woods – or more appropriately – the high desert. The crocuses are budding and the reptiles are coming out of their long-time’s burrows. The latter wouldn’t have been known to me if it hadn’t been for my black lab, Yaeger. He was kind enough to bring me the…

For the most part, Japanese submarines operated off the west coast of the U.S. freely in the early months of World War II. As plans were made for the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Japanese Navy’s 6th Fleet submarines were directed to “make reconnaissance of American Fleet in Hawaii and West Coast area, and, by surprise…

President Obama’s making a pitch for his national energy strategy.  Speaking in Boulder City, Nevada, at the Copper Mountain Solar I plant, he says the strategy must include an aggressive pursuit of clean, alternative energy sources. The President also says the solar energy industry’s increasing, adding the U.S. must continue efforts to lessen dependency on foreign oil. …