Category: random

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 was more than likely getting in her way.

We were talking about the Titanic and why it sank, when I asked, “What does ‘women and children first,’ mean?”

She explained the men on the Titanic gave up their seats in the lifeboats to the women and children in order to save their lives. And because of this, the men died when the ship sank.

I was impressed with their bravery.

Her simple explanation awakened an ideal in me that remains to this day, as I told her, “I’d give up my seat for you and Adam.”

Mom looked at me sort of strange for a second or two and then her eyes teared up. I was sure that I’d done something wrong as she left the kitchen to go to the bathroom.

Later that night, when I was supposed to be asleep, I over heard Mom telling Dad what I’d said and how proud of me she felt.  Then she added, “I know he’s jus’ a little boy, but I think he actually meant it.”

That long overheard-conversation has stuck with me ever since.

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 had made stops in France and Ireland before heading west towards the United States East Coast.  The Titanic carried two-thousand-224 people and the sinking caused the deaths of one-thousand-514.

At the time of the voyage, she was the largest ship afloat.

The Titanic was jus’ four days into its crossing when it hit the iceberg at 11:40 p.m. local time.  Just before 2:20 a.m., the ship broke up and sank.

People thrown into the icy waters of the North Atlantic died within minutes from hypothermia.  The 710 people who survived in lifeboats were taken aboard the RMS Carpathia some hours later.

The catastrophe was met with shock and anger around the world because of the massive loss of life and the operational failures which led to what took place.  The wreck of the Titanic still sits on the seabed, more than 12-thousand feet below the surface.

Since it was re-discovered back in 1984, thousands of items have been recovered and put in museums around the globe.  Countless books, memorials and exhibits help keep her memory alive along with the movies which have been made.

Now thousands of records on the passengers and crew are available to the public.  With the simple click of a mouse, historians and genealogists can search for the names of those who were on board the ship or who helped rescue survivors.

All the data is available in a single location and is temporarily free of charge to access at www.ancestry.com/titanic.

The wreckage of the Titanic will go under United Nations protection April 15th, 2012. The UN Protection will prevent unethical or non-scientific exploration of the wreck.

The RMS Titanic company claimed the wreckage nearly 20 years ago. Since then, more than five-thousand items have been pulled from the ship’s remains.

Many of those are in exhibits around the United States.  The company hopes to possibly auction all of the items off in one lot.

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 six years working in the Warrior football program — two years with the junior varsity and four years working as an assistant coach for with varsity team.

Retired Del Norte High School coach, Dick Trone writes of Eric in his January 15, 2010 edition of ‘Warrior Memories,’ from the Daily Triplicate: “Through the years Del Norte has had a number of outstanding linebackers, and Eric rates with the very best. He was part of a group that featured Dennis Hintz, Lee Musholt, Marc Slayton and Shawn Lesina that was very stingy giving up yards or points.”

Eric graduated from Del Norte High in 1986, where he was not only an outstanding linebacker and fullback, but a skilled varsity basketball player and golfer.  He later played football at College of the Redwoods before graduating from Humboldt State University.

As my friend, Collen Rankin-Wheeler reminds me, “If you want a beer — have two — one for Eric.”

He was 44 years-old, having been born November 5th, 1967. Eric leaves behind a wife and daughter.

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 was a passenger. He told me he’d been a cowboy before getting injured.

Don often told me about working as a horse shoeing assistant, a packer and guide and as a farm and ranch hand.  From that time on, I called him “Cowboy.”

He spent his “wheelchair years” volunteering for victim impact panels, the Reno Rodeo, at the Marvin Picollo School, Mothers against Drunk Driving and Sparks Christian Fellowship Church and painting western scenes.  Unfortunately, Don passed away after a long illness, March 11^th 2012.

During his memorial service the 29^th, a number of folks could be heard saying, “Now Don’s in Heaven with a perfect body — running and jumping.”  But as Pastor Scott Parker noted,  “No way — Don’s riding a horse — at a full gallop.”

I’m going to miss his smiling face and sunny disposition.

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 employees or assisting customers.

One noontime lunch rush, a Reno police officer handed her a note. She quickly read it, laughed, then shoved the note into her work pants’ pocket.

That evening she came home and placed the note on the refrigerator. She told me I ought to read it as she headed for the bedroom to change clothes.

“Men are so sensitive,” she said as she disappeared down the hallway.

Without waiting I walked over and started reading it. I couldn’t help laughing aloud.

In the note, the officer suggests she find something different to say besides, “He has a small one.”

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 7^th over-all in the world.

When Lt. John Fremont first laid eyes on it in February 1844, he marveled at its size and breadth.  He decided it required a distinguishing name, something fitting and well-known.

Fremont named the huge body of water: Lake Bonpland.

At the time Aime’ Bonpland was a famous French botanist and explorer. He was also the author of several works on plant life throughout America.

However, Bonpland’s name failed to stick to the lake. Instead settlers along its shores preferred the Native American’s name for the massive waters: Tahoe.

“What’s now called Tahoe Lake, I named Lake Bonpland upon my first crossing of the Sierra and put it on the map of that expedition,” he wrote in later years. “I suppose Tahoe to be an Indian name, though I’ve not visited the head of the American River since I first crossed it in ’44.”

As for Bonpland, a number of years before having the lake named for him, he left the U.S. for Paraguay. There he found himself in trouble with the county’s dictator, Dr. José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia.

Bonpland was tossed in jail for 11-years after being accused of spying, eventually dying in 1858 in Santa Ana, Paraguay.  But don’t worry – though Lake Tahoe no longer bears his name several other places do — including the lunar crater, Bonpland.

I wonder what Fremont would have to say about that.

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 when he met Rosie.

She was a show-girl and Cain was smitten. He also felt certain Rosie liked him back.

Unfortunately, she was tied up with Mick, who was also a penny-ante criminal, though Mick had no idea how small-time he was. To Cain’s way of thinking — that made Mick a purely dangerous man.

It was mid-afternoon when Cain’s phone rang.

“Yeah,” he answered.

It was Mick, “Meet me on the Mape’s side of the Lincoln Tunnel.”

“Okay, give me twenty minutes,” he responded as he hung up the receiver.

“Dumb fuck,” Cain mumbled as he picked up his car keys, “its Lincoln Alley — not tunnel.”

It wasn’t the first time Mick had called the alley-way downtown the tunnel. He was from back east originally and often screwed shit like that up.

Cain wheeled the old Buick into the alley and immediately saw Mick standing at the end, across the street from Reno’s newest hotel-casino. Next to him was a large rolled up piece of carpet.

“Son of a bitch,” Cain muttered as he pulled up to Mick.

He’d seen this before and while he didn’t know for a certain fact what was inside the rolled of carpet, he felt he knew it had been alive at one time. Cain knew it wasn’t a good thing to be too curious.

“Same place?” he asked as he got out of the car.

“Yup,” answered Mick as the two stuffed the roll into the sedan’s trunk.

They headed eastbound out of Reno and through the nicer part of Sparks. Highway 40 ran though both and out into the middle of Nevada’s wide open desert.

They were headed to a small place they nicknamed, “Hell Hole.” It was jus’ this side of the Nev-Mass Tungsten mine, on a dirt road, little used anymore and obscure to most anyone, unless they knew where to look.

Cain had been there before.

As usual Mick was shooting his mouth off – talking about one job after another. This was one of the reasons Cain thought of him as dangerous – should the syndicate discover how god-damned mouthy Mick was, he and who ever he was around, would end up dead.

Then Mick said something that caught Cain’s attention.

“Cock sucking whore was trouble,” Mick commented, hiking his left thumb over his shoulder, indicating the roll in the trunk, “So I did the Boss a favor. Besides I was tired of her shit anyways.”

Cain felt his grip on the steering-wheel tighten as he thought about Rosie.

It was the longest 45 minutes Cain could ever recall as he turned onto the dirt road that led to “Hell Hole.” And by the time he stopped the car, he wanted to cut the fucking Irishman’s tongue out and slice his throat.

As he turned the key in the trunks lock, he wanted to ask, “Is this Rosie?”

He fought off the urge, and lifted his end of the roll from the car. Cain tried not to think – only act – like he’d learned to do killing Nips in the Pacific a few years ago.

The pair moved over to the opening of the abandoned mine shaft, the one they labeled, “Hell Hole,” and in a back-and-forth rocking motion launched the roll of carpet and its content into the opening.

The roll slipped into the darkness of the maw with no difficulty. Both men stood there for a second as if listening for it to make a sound – which it didn’t.

Mick leaned over and laughingly called down into the hole, “Kiss my lily-white ass, Rosie darling.”

Cain, who’d already started back to the Buick, spun around. Again he didn’t think — he  jus’ acted.

He smashed his right foot into Mick’s leaning body. The blow sent the Irishman off-balance and into the hole.

However, Mick managed to jump forward a bit and was now clinging to the opposite-side of the smooth-edged mine shaft, struggling and clawing to gain a hand-hold. But he couldn’t, and instead slid into the black chasm and unlike the carpet roll, Cain heard his screaming as it faded away into nothingness.

It was the first time he’d killed a man since the war. He wandered back to the car and leaned against it, fishing out the half-full pack of Lucky Strikes from his jacket pocket.

He watched his hand tremble as he held the match to the tip of his smoke, marveling at the sensation. Cain couldn’t tell if he was more frightened at what he’d jus’ done or if it was the excitement of killing.

Cain rested against the car and smoked his cigarette until it was nearly burned down to his fingers. He flicked it away, reached back and slammed the truck of the Buick shut.

He then climbed behind the wheel.  It was a less-than-ten-minute drive back to the highway.

“Fucking asshole,” Cain stated as he turned onto 40 heading to Reno.

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 gift of a snake — indoors.

The thing is – the snake was still alive. In fact while Yaeger had a toothy grip of the serpent, it had his head wrapped in its coils.

When I saw what he had in his jaws, I was able to chase the other three dogs from the house and drop the doggie door. I then proceeded to examine the snake – albeit — from a safe distance.

At first I thought the snake was a rather large Diamondback Rattler. It had all the tell-tale markings of this highly venomous reptile.

But I quickly noted it was missing a set of rattlers and the shape of its head was longer than it was triangle-shaped. Therefore, I concluded it was simply a Gopher Snake.

As a rule Gopher snakes are harmless. They won’t bite unless they’re threatened.

This one was obviously threatened.

So calmly and as gently as I could, I tried to get Yaeger to let go of the snake. Instead, he wanted to “play a game of keep away.” After four or perhaps five times around the kitchen island, I grew frustrated and yelled, “Damn it, Yaeger!”

His lab-brain must have heard something different – like, maybe – “Drop it, Yaeger!” because that’s exactly what he did. Now, I had no idea how fast a snake could move across a hard wood floor.

The reptile came directly at me and I was compelled to jump on the kitchen island to escape. Meantime, Yaeger simply walked over and climbed in my easy chair to watch as the games begin.

The snake, I estimate, was about four and half to 5-feet in length and was able to clear the couch within seconds of me gathering my wits and giving chase. After going up and over the couch, as opposed to under it, the snake headed for the sliding glass door.

It slapped into the glass three times at full-tilt, trying to get outside, but didn’t slow down to allow me enough time to open the door. Instead it zipped around the corner and down our hallway towards the bedrooms.

Fortunately, all three bedroom doors were closed. Had it gotten in one of them, I’d possibly still be on the hunt for it.

Instead it lay, coiled up at the end of the hallway and displayed the behavior of the snake I first believed it to be. It was trapped and like most wild animal’s, it was willing to battle its way free.

Slowly, I walked towards the snake, removing my zip-up sweat-shirt and sat down a couple of feet from it. I didn’t reach for it or anything – I jus’ sat quietly.

About fifteen to 20 minutes later, I Gopher snake had relaxed from it defensive posturing and started to flick its tongue about — tasting the air and exploring its unfamiliar environment. A few more minutes and it moved away from the wall, coming to where I was seated.

It took me only seconds to bundle it in my sweat shirt and head for the front door. I jumped in my truck and drove to the end of our road, to where we have a huge undeveloped field — and I release the Gopher snake.

When I got home, I checked Yaeger for possible bites and found none – so no blood, no foul in my book. I’m still concerned though – if a Gopher snake was in our yard this early in the year– are we about to get a mischief of mice?

I should’ve asked the Golfer snake before letting him go.

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 attacks on shipping, destroy lines of communication.”

After participating in the operations directed against Pearl Harbor, the 6th Fleet dispatched nine submarines to attack shipping along the coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington. These submarines began arriving off the coast about December 17th.

The submarine flotilla had orders to engage in simultaneous shelling of coastal cities Christmas Eve. However at the last moment, Japanese naval command directed the submarines to abandon the attack and to return to their base at Kwajalein.

Only four of the nine attacked any shipping. The tanker Agwi-World was shelled by a submarine off Santa Cruz, California, December 19th, but escaped. Four other vessels, the Emidio, Samoa, Larry Doheny, and Montebello were also attacked off the California coast before Christmas.

One of the vessels attacked was the General Petroleum Tanker S.S. Emidio. The attacking submarine was the I-17 and would become the first enemy to shell the continental United States in World War II by attacking the Ellwood Oil Company refinery, near Santa Barbara, in February 1942.

Saturday, December 20th, Emidio was running down the coast, when at one in the afternoon, the lookout sighted a submarine bearing down. Captain A. C. Farrow, in an effort to escape started a standard zigzagging maneuver, which took the 7,000-ton tanker near to the coast.

Realizing he’d be unable to outrun the submarine, Farrow ordered, “full speed, and dump ballast, but we had no chance to escape. We were rapidly overtaken. The sub was making 20 knots. I tried to get behind her but she reversed course and kept after us.”

The submarine soon drew within range. Her gunners then opened fire with their 5-1/2-inch gun.

A salvo of six shells was fired, five of them striking their target. Several of the lifeboats were damaged, the tankers radio put out of action, and three sailors, R.W. Pennington, Fred Potts and Stuart McGillivray were knocked over board.

The radioman W.S. Foote, however, was able to get off an S.O.S. before his set went dead.

Then Farrow and most of the crew abandoned the Emidio. While they were searching for the men blown overboard, a U.S. Navy patrol bomber appeared, forcing the submarine to cut short its attack and submerge.

With only a skeleton crew aboard, the Emidio was beginning to list to the starboard or right side, while Farrow and his crew in the lifeboats looked, unsuccessfully for the men hurled overboard. Then as soon as the bomber disappeared, the submarine resurfaced, closed to within a quarter-mile, sending a torpedo slamming into the already stricken tanker.

The torpedo exploded in the after engine room, killing Kenneth Kimes and R.A. Winters, who were two of the eleven men remaining aboard. After the submarine had disappeared, the two lifeboats took on the nine survivors of the skeleton crew and headed for the coast.

Twelve hours later, they reached Blunts Reef Lightship.

When interviewed, Farrow called the attack, “shameful and ruthless,” and charged the Japanese with deliberately shelling their lifeboats before they could be lowered.

“If we had been armed,” he added, “we’d have had a good chance against the submarine, as she was within easy range.”

I-17 was eventually sunk August 19th, 1943, by an aircraft from the armed New Zealand trawler HMNZ Tui. Only six survivors from a compliment of 100 were pulled from the water.

As for the Emidio, it refused to sink.

It drifted north with the current, and came ashore on Steamboat Rock, near the entrance of Crescent City harbor, on the evening of December 25th. Hundreds of people crowded Battery Point the next day to view the dying ship.

The tanker’s bow was out of the water, with the after portion submerged. One person reported, “The bridge and forward deck are out of the water, the ship’s stack with the letter, G, rising out of the water at the stern, which appears to be riding on the rocky bottom. The bow moves with the rise and fall of the waves.”

Emidio drifted free Wednesday, January 14th, and wallowed in the entrance to Fish Harbor. To prevent the derelict from damaging other craft or blocking the harbor’s entrance altogether, Leo Ward was taken out to the hulk and released its anchor.

Although the vessel was in custody of the United States Coast Guard, Ward was interested in the possibility of salvaging the vessel, and he had contacted officials of General Petroleum in San Pedro. He believed the bow of Emidio was sound, and if the after portion could be raised with pontoons or cut away, the craft could be salvaged.

However, R. C. Porter of San Francisco made a better offer for the hulk than Ward, and he acquired salvage rights to Emidio.  He hired a crew of local fishermen and boats to carry out the project.

But Porter failed to notify the Coast Guard of his plan, and he and his men were fired on by the guard as they sought to board the wreck. After identifying themselves, they were allowed to proceed.

In the meantime, Ward cut the anchor chain and the sea carried the hulk toward Fauntleroy Rock. Nine years later the rusty bow was finally broken up for scrap, with a set of forward bollards and a section of the hull placed at the foot of H Street as a memorial.

The final Japanese submarine patrol off the coast of Del Norte was undertaken in reprisal for the Doolittle raid and also involved the same submarine. The submarine with its reconnaissance plane equipped for bombing, reached the coast jus’ north of the Oregon border at the end of August 1942.

September 9th the plane dropped an incendiary bomb into a heavily wooded area on a mountain slope, near Brookings, Oregon. The bomb started a forest fire, which was quickly brought under control by fire-fighters.

After evading American forces, the submarine torpedoed and sank two tankers on October 4th and 6th off the coast of southern Oregon. These attacks marked an end to Japanese submarine activity off the west coast.

I-25 was sunk less than a year later by the destroyer U.S.S. Patterson, August 25th, 1943. All 100 sailors and officers aboard the vessel perished.

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.  However, he failed to speak about the number of green jobs clean energy’s providing in the state with the nations highest unemployment rate.

That’s because at Copper Mountain Solar One, which is touted as the nation’s largest photovoltaic solar power plant, there are only five permanent full-time employees. Mind you, the cost of the plant is about $141 million with CMS II currently being built and CMS III in the planning stage.

That’s not much bang for your taxpayer buck.