It was Mrs. Valeria Damm who first introduced me to Laura Ingalls-Wilder and “Little House on the Praire.” When I say “me,” I actually mean the entire third grade class she was reading the book too. Later on, my sister Deirdre received the book and as soon as I saw that she had finished it,…

While stationed at Brooks Air Force Base for technical school, I decided to go buy some postcards to send to family and friends. I also needed to buy some stamps since I forgot to get some at the base post office before they closed. After finding about a dozen postcards, I headed to the downtown…

“And we have splash down!” some news reporter would exclaim as the capsule dropped into the sea and bobbed about, waiting for the signal from the swimmer that it was okay to open the capsules hatch. If it was opened to soon the craft would sink. About that swimmer: Not once has the Navy sent a man out to greet the…

There was always that point in the re-entry process of a space capsule where the news reporter would say, “The capsule has entered the radio blackout zone.” It was spoken with some amount of dread in their voice. These silences are also known as ionization blackouts, or reentry blackouts. These are caused by an envelope…

One of my favorite news reporters was a guy by the name of Jules Bergman. He worked for ABC News and covered NASA’s Apollo space program for as long as I can remember. What I liked about his reporting of the rocket launches and such were the various ways he would explain what was happening…

A group of animal activists presented Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval’s office with a petition of 15,000 signatures asking him to delay Nevada’s first ever bear hunt. However NoBearHuntNV.org was met by the Governor’s staff as they claimed he was in Homewood, California for the 15th Annual Lake Tahoe Summit. The problem with this is the…

It was a typical rainy day and instead of letting us drive her crazy, Mom put Adam and me to work drawing and coloring. It was one of my favorite things to do aside from playing with all the other kids who live in the neighborhood. Mom was in the kitchen making dinner and Adam was sitting at our dining room table with me, busy doing…

Learning how the whites dealt with the native population during the early years of Del Norte County has often caused me to reflect on how I deal with people. In the case of A. French’s murder and the rushing to judgement, I have discovered other problems tend to crop up. In this case — for…

Researching family history has led me down some very interesting paths. Lately, I have been looking into Grandpa Tom Darby’s military records. While I haven’t found very much about his service, I have located the ship on which his brother, Vincent was assigned. This also led me to a second cousin, whom I had never…

Elizabeth and Duncan were married for jus’ over 14 years. He became sick from cancer and died this year. The two were deeply in love and deeply involved in all-things Celtic. That’s why Elizabeth wore a ring, given to her by Duncan as a wedding band, fashioned in the design of a Celtic knot. The Celtic knot dates back…