After reading one of my article’s that talked about Del Norte High School in Crescent City, California having an athletic hall-of-fame, my wife asked, “Weren’t you an athlete?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Well,” she wanted to know, “When are they going to invite you to be a member?”
I smiled, “Never.”
“I don’t understand,” she replied.
With a snicker, I shot back, “Because I was only a sprinter and the school district lost money on the track program all four-years I was in school.”
After going through every box in storage, I finally found it. This was one of my favorites that my mom used to make around Thanksgiving. I can taste it now…
Ingredients:
1 ½ cups milk
½ cup sugar
½ cup all-purpose flour
Zest of half a lemon
3 eggs
Cinnamon (enough to cover top of pie)
Directions:
Several of my friends and acquaintances have passed from this world this year. Most recently was country music artist Holly Dunn, whom I got to know more than 25 years ago when I was still doing radio.
And nearly four months ago, my friend as well as my son’s god-father, Gene Clauson passed away. It happened suddenly and came as a shock that left me more than a little rattled as I found myself looking hard at my mortality.
And in all honesty, I’m jus’ now getting beyond the grief enough to write about him, though I had written a piece of fiction about him a few years back with the hope of snapping him back to his senses. You see, Gene was an addict and his addiction had a strangle hold on him and he was in a deep depression.
It was during the height of his depression that he told me he was going to sell everything, buy a ticket to Europe, backpack around the continent for a year and then end his life with a ‘hot shot’. After hearing this, I wrote that short-story sharing my idea of what this world would be like without him.
Moved by the reality I laid out, he decided he wanted to make a change in his life. That’s when he began the long, hard journey to get clean and I was so proud of him.
His three daughters and I are still in touch with one another through Facebook, which I’m thankful for nearly everyday. Anyway, I wrote Gene’s obituary for them as a way of soothing my hurt and taking some of the pressure off them.
Though simple, I’d like to share it:
Gene Clauson passed away suddenly at his home in Hayward, California on August 26, 2016 at the age of 61. He was born to Rosa Marie Haberman and Dale Larry Clauson in Hayward, California on March 12, 1955.
Gene attended various grade and high schools in the Bay Area. He worked radio broadcasting in Reno, Nevada and later as a club DJ in Tampa, Florida, before returning to California to continue his education as a substance abuse counselor.
Gene is preceded in death by his parents and step-parents. He is survived by his daughters; Elyse (Clauson) Fryling, her husband, Dustin and granddaughters, Alyssa and Rylee of Medford, Oregon; Lauren Clauson and grand daughters Sierra, Ella, and Kand of Lake view, Colorado; and Renee Clauson, of Central Point, Oregon.
If his death hurts like hell for me, I can only image how his girls must feel.
As a kid, I knew I’d been thoroughly punished after being forced to take a bite out of the Ivory soap bar for lying or some such similar act. It is a taste that doesn’t leave your mouth for a long while – and Ivory dish soap — if they still make it — is even worse.
Two days ago, as I was preparing to get in the shower, I got out a new bar of Ivory soap. I had unwrapped it and set it on the sink while I do other stuff.
Promptly – and as I’ve found happening more often – I forgot the bar of soap and proceeded to take a shower. Lucky for me I still had the sliver of the old bar in the shower still.
Following my shower, I toweled off and got dressed. Knowing it was on the counter, I wasn’t too worried because I figured it would still be there when I used the bathroom later.
It was slightly after noon when nature called and I finally walked back into the bathroom. That’ when I found the wrapper to the soap on which the soap had been sitting – sans the soap now.
Not to worry – I looked in the shower knowing that I sometimes do things that I’ve completely forgotten about later. But there was no Ivory soap bar where it should have been.
“Hmm,” I naturally questioned, “What the hell could I’ve done with it?”
That began the search as I back tracked my movements from throughout the morning. I mean I checked everywhere including the refrigerator and the dishwasher.
Still – no soap bar. I even resorted to digging through the kitchen trash and the garbage can in our garage, without positive result.
Like other things – my favorite pen included – I had to let it go and tell myself it had dropped into that ‘black hole,’ where objects disappear only to reappear at some point later. If I don’t play this little trick on my mind – I’d go bat-shit crazy.
(By the way – who decided bat-shit was the craziest shit? Anyone ever have to re-dig a used outhouse? Okay, I’m off topic…)
Forty-eight hour later, I am no longer concerned about the bar of soap. We have more in the hallway closet and life goes on.
That’s when I look outside and see our newest dog, Buddy, blowing bubbles out his ass. Upon closer investigation I can see his turds — filled with flecks of white, half-digested soap.
And while I feel bad for Buddy and his indigestion problem, I must admit that I am terribly relived that I really am not losing my mind and becoming frightfully forgetful. But then again, I concluded that I ought to write this all down before it slipped my mind.
When I saw the name in a recent online edition of the Del Norte Triplicate, I had a sudden flash of memory of Dad and Pearl Harbor veteran Tom Gooch, talking about ‘Rocky’ Peterson. This is the sort of history I wish my high school teacher had taught us.
Born Roscoe Earl Peterson in Ashland, Oregon sometime during 1919, ‘Rocky,’ his parents, Arthur and Gladys and four siblings, Dorothy, James, Richard and Lyle moved to 742 2nd Street in Crescent City in 1929. Rocky graduated from Del Norte High in 1938 after being a standout athlete in both baseball and basketball.
While Peterson is best remembered for his skill on the baseball diamond, he was also a good basketball player, starting as a forward on the school’s varsity team. Peterson was so good that he drew the ire of Arcata High’s basketball coach William McKittrick.
In February 1936, McKittrick complained that Peterson was ‘too good,’ which caused him to be declared ineligible for the rest of the season. Not to be phased, Rocky picked up a job coaching the Crescent Elk Middle School’s basketball team.
Three years prior, when Rocky was 14, he joined the local semi-pro baseball team, the Crescent City Merchants. Though still in his junior year of high school, Peterson was playing professionally using his middle name with the Yakima, Washington Pippins, and after two-years, with the Lewiston, Idaho Indians.
He had plans to move to Portland, Oregon and play for the Portland Beavers, but instead joined the U.S. Navy on October 21, 1940, enlisting at San Francisco. Peterson officially reported for duty aboard the U.S.S. Arizona on December 30, 1940 and served aboard the ship for less than a year.
On December 7, 1941, he died along side 1,176 of his fellow shipmates during the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. His remains rest among the 900-plus souls still aboard the U.S.S. Arizona.
The 22-year-old Seaman Second Class was posthumously awarded several medals including the Purple Heart, the American Defense Service Medal w/Fleet Clasp, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal w/Star and the WWII Victory Medal. On Independence Day in July 1943, Crescent City, California to change the name of Plaza Park at D and Sixth Streets to Peterson Park.
In September 2016, Rocky Peterson was named to Del Norte High School’s Hall of Fame.
Let’s face it, I should have by now, learned to keep my pie-hole shut. Because I yap too much, our new neighbors have moved out even before they moved in.
The young couple was unloading furniture on Saturday and moving it into the rental next to us. The following day, the woman and I were talking about our dogs.
They have a Bull Mastiff puppy named Brutus, who at the time we were talking had crashed out on the living room floor. I offered up the fact that we have four dogs.
“In fact, we jus’ got the fourth one because the man who lived in your house passed away,” I added. “We took it in as a favor, but now he’s ours.”
She made a sad groan as she replied, “That’s so sweet of you.”
There was a slight pause as I could tell she was thinking, preparing to say something else. She grimaced, asking, “He didn’t die in the house, did he?”
My hesitation must have been too long before I answered, “Yes…but I thought you knew.”
Obviously, their landlord hadn’t told them.
She tried hard to smile as she shook her heads sideways. I could tell that the information distressed her as she fumbled for something to say.
“I’m sorry,” I told her.
She sighed, “I think were going to move.”
She and her husband, or boyfriend, or what ever he is to her, haven’t been back since that night and the house is still vacant. I really thought that they knew.
Some 37-years ago I had a friend whose wife was having a baby. He asked me to buy him lunch that morning, handing me a 20 dollar bill, which I promptly stuffed in my pants pocket.
By the time lunch rolled around, I had been so busy that I’d completely forgotten about my friend and the money. So when I stuck my hand in my pocket and pulled out that Andrew Jackson, I was pleased as punch, thinking I’d found cash that I didn’t know I had.
I promptly went to the hospital’s mini-BX and purchased a large jar of Planters’ Peanuts, a couple of Coca0Cola’s, a large Milky Way bar and a People Magazine, as I wanted to find out the low-down on Erik Estrada’s motorcycle accident.
It was evening time and I was heading out the door from a long-ass day in the office seeing patient after patient, when to my horror, I recalled the fact that the now-long spent green-back belonged to my friend. Worse than that was the knowledge that I’d forgotten to get him lunch as I’d promised.
“Totally embarrassed” is how I would describe myself the next day when I saw him in order to return the twenty and tell him what I’d done. He said it was okay, that the nursing staff had fed him as waited for his daughter to come into the world.
A couple of days ago I went to the local market and bought a large Snicker’s candy bar for my friend, Kay’s birthday. She told me that she didn’t want anything, but I can’t let her go the day without a gift and a nice card.
Yesterday, as I sat in front of my computer, bored, tired and unable to think I looked over at the Snickers as it rested on my desk. Without any thought I picked it up, tore it open and took a healthy bite.
At that second, I gasped, realizing what I’d done — I was eating Kay’s birthday present and feeling stupid. When I called to wish her a ‘Happy birthday,” I informed her that I had eaten her candy bar and that I’d have to buy her another one.
This time though, my brain-fart only cost me a buck-thirty-four.
My wife and I were watching television when a promotional advertisement for a new show came on. In it, two men were in a restroom stall with an inflatable raft and one of the men pulled the handle that allowed the raft to fill with air.
It caused me to recall the fact that inflatable rafts do not fill with slowly. In fact, it happens very quickly and even quicker than one can react to it.
At the time it didn’t seem too funny, but looking back, it’s hilarious.
One of the Marines purchased a Vietnam-era ‘rubber boat’ from a local Army-Navy surplus store and to show it off, he brought it into the squad bay. Once there, we all gathered around to hear bout the grand deal he had made.
That’s when some smart-ass reached over and yanked on the handle. I had leaned over to stop him, but it was too late.
In the blink of an eye, the raft inflated, flinging me into the ceiling. And no sooner had I slammed into the ceiling — I dropped to floor with a thud.
How they managed to get the damned thing out of the barracks without getting busted, I never knew. I had to be taken to the infirmary for the night as I was suffering from a concussion and a dislocated left wrist.
Wonder where Nevada lame-duck Senator Harry Reid fits into all this cash being tossed around?
Between SolarCity, Tesla Motors Inc., and the rocket company SpaceX, Elon Musk’s interests has gotten at least $4.9 billion in taxpayer support over the past 10 years. Now, the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee have launched a probe into the tax incentives paid to SolarCity, which is set to be purchased by Tesla.
In 2013, SolarCity received $127.4 million in federal grants. The following year, in which it received only $342,000 from the same stimulus package, total revenue was just $176 million and the company posted a net loss of $375 million.
As an aside, Musk’s cousins, Lyndon and Peter Rive operate SolarCity. With such shady goings-on between family members — a favorite Harry Reid feature — it isn’t hard to believe that the soon-to-be-gone Senator is somehow benefiting from the arrangement.
It is truly a joy having people I don’t even know threaten me while on my own front porch. One of my neighbors’ dog got out of his yard and was hanging around my fence, visiting with my pups.
The escapee, a Rottweiler, whose name is Rosco, has managed this feat before. So I go out and sit with him until his human realizes he’s missing.
Today however, a large man walking a small dog, yells at me to call ‘my fucking dog’ back or else. I respond that he isn’t my dog – then I add, “Or else what?”
“Don’t get smart wise ass!” he shouts at me.
Now, to be honest, I suffer from ‘Short man’s disorder,’ and I don’t give a shit if this guy with the purse-sized dog is six-foot-four, out weighs me by at least 75 pounds and is at least 20-years my junior, I will not let that stand. So I remain seated as I mouth-off, “You’re the asshole who got stupid by demanding I call my dog — so don’t go giving me any lip, shithead.”
That stunned him as the look on his face told me that he was thinking twice about tangling with me, which is a good thing. Though my adrenaline was up, I would have more than likely gotten hurt, if not severely killed.
“Second god-damned time this has happened to me today,” he complained as he continued to walk by.
“Well,” I called back to him, “that’s not my fault now is it?”
In the mean time, Rosco, sensing he was not being appreciated by the big guy with the tiny dog, came and sat on the porch next to me and drank all the coffee from my cup. I could see him ever-so gently quaking, anticipating what might happen next.
Now, it might be my imagination, but I think Rosco was ready to pounce on the dude had he been anymore threatening towards me — and I’m not even his human. Perhaps I owe Rosco a big steak the next time he goes ‘Hogan’s Heroes,’ for keeping my name out of the obituaries.
The Old Blog in the Desert 