When I first met my friend Kay in 1995, she had jus’ started down the long road of recovery from a having a brain tumor surgically removed. I was working as a driver for CitiLift and she was a reservationist for Reno Air.

By the time I’d pick her up from her work place to transport her home, she would be physically exhausted and nearly unable to speak. She’d be talking to me, but I’d be unable to understand some of the words she was saying.

Later on as we got to know one another better, she confided in me that she did a lot of writing after getting home. She told me it was the only way she could express her thoughts and feelings after a long day on the telephones.

In fact she became so compulsive about writing, she would use most anything available from a napkin to post-it-note. And all this material, she wrote was kept in a set of boxes she purchased through Avon.

About five years later, she became involved in a religious sect that invited her to give up all of her worldly possessions, which she did. This not only included her house-trailer and car, but all of her writing as well.

These days she refuses to write anything even though we’ve bought her a couple of journals. However she will spend 15 to 20 minutes a day texting her daughter in Las Vegas.

So go figure.

We had jus’ moved the KHIT studios from Neil Road to South Virginia. At the time I was working as the overnight jock.

As normal, I came in about half-an-hour early jus’ so I could get a pot of coffee on and so the person I was taking over for would not have to worry about whether I’d be on time or not. Plus it gave me a chance to relax prior to air time.

This particular evening I came in to find I had a piece of mail. It wasn’t often that got mail so it was kind of nice.

The woman who was on the air at the time knew I had this mail and appeared jus’ as curious as me to know what I had been sent. The medium-sized envelop didn’t have a return address, which piqued our curiousity even more.

So, I ripped it open in the control room, where we could both see what I had gotten. Out fell a pair of royal blue panties and a brassiere.

I was instantly red-faced as I picked the items up and stuffed them back in the envelope.

Two days later, and having forgotten about the incident, I was called at home to come to the station to discuss a matter. My boss at the time was hesitant to tell me what that matter was and so I drove to their with a ton of worry on my mind.

Once inside I foundI was being counselled and written up for sexual harassment. The woman I opened the package up in front off was offended and reported me.

She must have never seen a bra or a pair of pants before.

When I left my barracks room, my bed was perfectly made. There were no bumps or wrinkles in it.

The same couldn’t be said by the time I returned from class. There was a fairly large lump in the center of the mattress.

At first I thought someone had jus’ stuffed something under the top blanket, but I discovered differently once I pulled back the covers. The lump turned out to be a rattlesnake.

My heart nearly jumped out of my chest the moment I saw it. I must have looked funny plastered against the far wall of my room with my eyes as wide as saucers.

It took me less than a minute to figure out the reptile wasn’t alive. Rather it was made of plaster and painted to look like a rattlesnake.

I took it out into the hallway —  where everyone was snickering and giggling — but where no one was confessing to putting it in my bed.

One of the smaller military bases in the U.S. is located in the Nevada desert, north of Las Vegas. It also plays one of the biggest roles in the nation’s war on terror.

The airfield that now bears General Wilbur L. “Bill” Creech’s name was originally built by the Army in the early 1940s to support the war effort during World War II . A month after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Army began building the training camp.

Known as Indian Springs Auxiliary Army Airfield, the base was used as a “divert” field and for air-to-air gunnery training, supporting the Western Flying Training Command Gunnery School at Las Vegas Army Airfield. The post also serviced B-17s and T-6s until March 1945 when the Army put the base in stand-by status.

When Las Vegas AAF deactivated in January 1947, Indian Springs also closed down. However the base found new life when it re-opened in January 1948, receiving its first permanently assigned Air Force unit two years later.

Come August 1951 the base became an auxiliary field once again and by July 1952 was transferred from Air Training Command to the Air Research and Development Command. The base now reported to the Air Force Special Weapons Center at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The base transferred to the Tactical Air Command in 1961, where it officially became known as Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field. It was also the remote training site for the USAF Thunderbirds.

Wile practicing on January 18,1982, the Thunderbirds crashed at Indian Springs. The four pilots were performing a line abreast loop when all aircraft had a controlled flight into terrain impact along the runway in front of the base Fire Station.

By 1992, the base had become a component of Air Combat Command and remained such until June 20, 2005, when Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field officially changed its name to Creech Air Force Base. The name was selected to honor Creech, a former commander of Tactical Air Command and who was also known as the “father of the Thunderbirds.”

Creech was born in Argyle, Missouri, March 30, 1927. He was commission in September 1949 rising to the rank of General being promoted May 1, 1978.  Creech retired from the service December 31, 1984, and died August 26, 2003.

By October of that same year, the 3rd Special Operations Squadron was activated at Creech joining the 11th, 15th and 17th Reconnaissance Squadrons, becoming the first MQ-1 squadron in the Air Force Special Operations Command. The Joint Unmanned Aerial Systems Center was also established at the same time.

The 42nd Attack Squadron was formed at Creech in November the following year as the first Reaper squadron. On May 1,2007 operational control of the base was moved from Nellis to the 432nd Wing  which was reactivated and assumed control of the base.

The four of us were down in what we commonly referred to as the pasture. There was John Paul Arnold, Chucky Yates, Adam and myself.

We were doing what young kids do – especially boys – roughing around, chasing each other, etc. How we all ended up together on that Saturday morning is lost to me.

What I do recall was seeing John Paul throwing rocks. I wasn’t paying much attention to what he was throwing them at as we’d been tossing rocks at trees and into High Prairie Creek all day.

Suddenly John Paul grabbed up Adam, who was only six-years old at the time, and took off running up the hill toward the neighborhood with Chucky right behind him. I watched for a couple of seconds wondering what they were doing.

“Run, Tommy!” Chucky  yelled as he continued to dash up the hill.

But it was too late. I heard a noise like a machine humming and by the time I turned to see what it was, I was engulfed in a swarm of angry wasps.

It was at that time I decided to take off running – albeit way too late. Before I knew it I was being stung in the head and neck.

Once home, I discovered I wasn’t the only one stung. Adam had been attacked and has several stingers in him, too.

I don’t know how badly Chucky or John Paul got stung as they were gone by the time I made it home.

Dad immediately took me out into the backyard and made a small mud-wallow that he started applying to my head and neck. The mud pack calmed the burning and lessened the pain.

After a few minute in this, he hosed me off and took me inside, where he and Mom proceeded to pluck the stingers from my neck and head. That was almost as bad as the initial attack.

My head and neck were swollen and covered in bumps. I refused to go outside the rest of the day or the next because I looked so funny.

Unfortunately, Dad made me go to school that following Monday – despite my misshapen head.

It was a temporary assignment to learn how to deal with life-threatening burns in a clinical setting. I was familiar with the place as I had been assigned to Brooks Air Force Base for technical school a couple of years earlier, which borders the fort.

The school was one of the most unpleasant courses I ever attended. The smell of burnt and rotting flesh seemed to follow me back to my barracks every evening and there wasn’t enough beer on the post to help drown the memories from what I’d seen.

One morning I arrived to class only to be redirected to a ward. I was told a group of Marines had arrived from Okinawa, severely burned and that I’d be part of their treatment team.

Evidently, they had been sheltered in a Quonset hut that also stored JP-4 jet fuel. One of the Jarheads forgot about the flammable materials and lit up a cigarette, which in turn engulfed the building and left 25 men fighting for their lives due to the fire.

The first thing that needed to be done for these men was to scrub the burnt, dead skin from their bodies. This is extremely painful as no one is given medication to deal the pain – after all living skin will hurt while the dead skin has no sensation – and all the dead skin has to go or infection will set in.

It’s also a slow process, one that takes a toll on both the patient and the technician doing the cleaning. I was amazed to see I wasn’t the only man in the group crying as I intentionally inflicted more and more pain to the Marine I was scrubbing.

Amid all of this horror was the bravery of these burned men. Yes, they cried and yes they cried out – but the most remarkable thing was the unity and strength they proved each other as well as us.

As we scrubbed and picked and scrubbed some more, their voices grew louder and louder as they sang over and over again the words to the Marine Corps hymn, “From the Halls of Montezuma; To the Shores of Tripoli…”

The entire week had been one snow day after another. Despite this, I decided to enjoy my time off by taking a day-trip to take photographs and see what else I could learn about Nevada.

The roads were icy and therefore slick – making driving fast a bad idea. So I took my time, stopping to snap a picture here and there.

It was jus’ before 11 o’clock that morning when I finally made it beyond Carson City and into the Valley bearing the same name. Off to my right, I saw a woman standing by the edge of the roadway — soaking wet and looking to be in a horrible panic.

As I pulled closer, I noticed a vehicle in the ditch by the freeway, it’s four tires protruding from a thin layer of broken ice. The upside down car was submerged in about four-feet of water.

I immediately stopped to help.

By the time I got out of my car and to the woman, I had a handle on the situation. She had screamed and yelled two words over and over at me: My baby!

Without waiting for any further information I pulled off my leather jacket, got the knife from my back pocket and jumped feet first into the water. Instantly I was freezing, but I couldn’t stop to think about how cold I was at the moment.

Instead I searched the passenger side of the car for the door handle. It was easy to find, but opening the door was difficult because of the mud and debris that held it in place.

Unable to open it, I waded around to the driver’s side and found it to be part way open. I ducked beneath the water’s surface and squeezed inside the vehicle.

By this time my hands and arms were so numb that I could hardly feel anything I touched. Instead I had to look for more than feel my way around until I located what I was hoping to find.

The baby carrier was upside down and resting on the ceiling of the car’s roof. I felt inside it – but there was no baby.

My mind was growing foggy from the ice-water and my lungs started to burn. So I started to back out of the vehicle.

That’s when I felt something brush the side of my head. I reached up and realized I was holding the leg of an infant.

With the baby in my arms, I scrambled out of the car and up the bank to a waiting crowd. I handed the infant to a bystander, who started CPR on the limb little body.

Someone else grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around me. I watched as the man I had handed the bay too worked to warm it up, with chest compressions and puffs of breath.

In what seemed like hours – but was more like minutes – an ambulance with its siren wailing pulled up to the scene. They didn’t remain long as they loaded up the infant and the mother and sped off to the hospital.

It took me more than two-hours to finally warm up enough to fill out the police report. Back home that evening, I learned from the local news that the infant survived — and her mother was okay.

That made the bone-numbing cold, worth it.

We should have never been inside the old, abandon house, but then again the back door should have been locked. It was reportedly haunted, but I wouldn’t stick around long enough to find out.

The DeMartin’s house sat vacant for years facing the beach that also carries the same name. And while I won’t tattle on who was with me that afternoon, I come out the loser on a bet I should have never taken.

Not only was it old smelling inside, the floor creaked as I walked across it. Worse yet, up stairs it was dark and drafty – which set the stage for what would happen next.

As I came down the stairs that lead towards the front door and the large open living room to the side, I heard a noise behind me. I turned jus’ in time to see my friend racing towards me.

Needless to say I nearly jumped out of my skin as I screamed and took off running towards the back door. That’s when I saw the figure in front of me – my reaction was to lash out with a punch.

The ensuing noise led to more confusion and to more fright as I raced out of the house and back to the trail I had jus’ hiked. Once I stopped and gathered myself, I realized it wasn’t a ghost I had jus’ tried to hit.

Rather there was a more earthly explanation; I had seen my own reflection in a piece of glass. I felt really stupid when my buddy finally came outside to check on me – laughing because he had never seen anyone so scared before.

The swirling, blowing snow made for a confusing pattern as the Bluebird headed west out of Nebraska and back to the Air Base. The sun had already set and the darkness seemed to add to that confusion.

Everyone aboard the bus knew the trip home would be long and boring. Many had drifted off to sleep as the vehicle crept up one rise and eased its way down another in the rolling plains of the Cornhusker state.

It was somewhere before 11 p.m., headlights cutting through a heavy snowfall, the driver slowing for every turn, every dip and every hill, taking care not to allow the bus to slide; Deanna was leaning against me, sleeping as well as she could.

On the other hand, I was unable to sleep. It was a force of habit from childhood, having never been able to sleep in a moving vehicle.

Instead, I simply watched out the window. There was nothing to see, but the quick flashes of white flakes as they flew by my face.

Off to my left I noticed something different in the pattern of the snow as it fell. It was ghostly apparition that seemed to appear out of the darkness and fade as quick as it had come forth.

It took a few seconds for the shape of the figure to register in my brain. When it did, I shouted for the bus to stop.

Senior Airman Toller looked up into the mirror above his head at me as I struggle to get from my seat to the front of the vehicle. As the driver, Toller worked the pedals and gears to slow the bus down even further.

“What the hell?” he asked.

“I think I saw someone trying to flag us down,” I responded.

Toller has a puzzled look on his face as he said, “I didn’t see anyone.”

He eased the shift stick into first gear and glided the bus to the shoulder of the road. It came to a stop with a hiss as the brakes grabbed firmly at the wheels.

Within seconds I was out of the bus and trotting back to where I thought I had seen the mysterious figure. At first the swirling snow caused me to feel confused and I started to doubt myself.

But jus’ as I was prepared to give up and return to the bus, ready to admit I was simply seeing things, something ahead of me moved side ways. The movement was slight — but enough to cause my eye to follow it.

By this time others aboard the old Bluebird had clamored from the bus in an effort to both stretch their legs and to see what it was I was looking for. They milled around in the tail lights of the vehicle.

The movement I had seen drew closer until I could see it was man. The figure was clothed in a short sleeve shirt and light pants and looked to be terribly cold.

“Hey!” I yelled.

The man stopped as if he was uncertain he had actually heard a voice. This gave me a chance to get to him before the snow could obscure my vision any further than it had.

“We’ve had an accident,” the man called out as I stepped closer.

“An accident” I repeated.

“Yes,” the man said as his teeth clattered from the cold.

I turned and looked towards the Bluebird and called out against the wind, “There’s an accident!”

It took a few seconds before anyone reacted. Finally several team members trotted over towards the sound of my voice as I continued to call out to them for assistance.

Leaving the man with the first of those who responded, I headed towards the far edge of the roadway. I was trying to find the crash site.

To my surprise it wasn’t a car or truck, but another bus. I couldn’t tell whether I was looking at the front of the vehicle or the rear of the bus as it was covered in layer of snow.

Cautiously I felt my way along the side of the vehicle, looking for a way into the bus. Finding a slight gap in the vehicle as I slid his hand down the left side, I located the passenger door. 

I realized the bus was facing the roadway with its massive rear-mounted engine hanging off of a cliff face.

Prying opened the door, I could see the driver still strapped into his seat, he looked to be dead or unconscious. I felt for a pulse, learning the man was still alive.

Huddled in the first three rows were several people. Some were standing while others sat in the large backed seats.

It didn’t take me long to direct them to carefully exit the bus. I calmly reassured them there were rescuers outside waiting to help them to a waiting and warm bus.

Jus’ when I thought the bus might be empty, a beam of light cut into the dark. I gently moved towards where I had seen the light, taking care to feel for the bus if it should start to shift due to my weight.

“Hello,” I called out.

“In here,” a small elderly female voice responded.

Looking in the direction of the voice, I could see very little as I moved downward along the sloping aisle way.

“Are you hurt?” I asked.

“No,” returned the voice.

“Can you get out of your seat,” I said more than asked.

“I’m stuck,” the woman’s voice calmly stated.

“Over here,” a man’s voice cried.

“Stay put,” I directed, adding, “Help’s on its way.”

Backing out of the bus the way I had come aboard, I stepped into the night, to find the wind had stopped blowing and a light snow was falling.

“I’ve got more survivors aboard,” I called to the several figures moving along the edge of the roadway above me.

“What do you need?” someone called out.

“I need lights, blankets and first-aiders,” I responded.

Climbing back on the bus, I checked the driver once again. He was breathing and he had a good heart beat, but he had a large bump on the left side of his head and I could see the glass of the driver’s window was cracked.

Feeling for the keys as they hung in the ignition, I turned them off, then back on, discovering the battery had been drained. It told me the crash had happened sometime ago.

“Hey,” a voice said behind me. It was Technical Sergeant Ron Best.

Quickly, I told him to come on board as gently as possible, because it felt like the bus was unstable and could slide off the face of the cliff at any moment. Best followed my advice.

We concluded we should remove those closer to the door first, working their way towards the back of the bus. The driver was the first to be lifted and passed along the human chain outside the vehicle.

Slowly, but methodically, we worked our way toward the back of the bus, to find two more injured people and the woman who called out saying she was trapped. We turned our attention to the woman after evacuating the injured.

She had been in the lavatory when the crash occurred. She was unhurt and able to push the small flashlight she had in her purse under the door of the bathroom, letting me and Best know she was there.

The woman was grateful to be rescued.

She was wet from the waste that had dumped out onto her and she was cold. It didn’t take her long to start suffering from the effects of hypothermia.

Once she was free of her entrapment, Best escorted her to the doorway and off the bus. As he turned to head down the aisle towards me, the bus jerked violently.

The bus was slipping backwards, threatening to tumble off the cliff. For a moment it felt as if it would not stop.

“Get off the effing bus, Ron, now!” I shouted.

“Not without you!” he shouted back.

“No!” I shot back adding, “If she goes, better only one of us is aboard. Besides you’re closer to the friggin’ door — so get out while you can!”

Best backed his way off the vehicle. He knew I was right and besides he’d be in a better position to help if the bus did fall from the cliff.

Minutes later I appeared at the vehicles door, dragging a large, overweight man. There were a number of hands to help remove him to the waiting bus up top.

Then I worked my way back down the now steep incline of the bus aisle. I had one more man to get too and it would take all my strength to get him out of the severely angled vehicle.

Unfortunately the man was in the far right corner of the bus as I looked downward towards him. He was pinned behind what remained of a mobile bar.

Using the small legs of the bus seats, I climbed down to the man. I could feel his pulse was thready and I knew he wouldn’t last much longer without greater medical intervention.

Carefully, I removed the cans of soda and bottles of beer and liquor from the rolling cabinet. As soon as I felt the box was light enough to be lifted, I toppled it over on its side.

A swell of panic filled my stomach as I realized what I had done. I looked for a way to escape the bus if it should start to slide.

With the jolt of the mobile bar crashing on its side, came a rocking sensation. The bus was moving but not sliding backwards.

Climbing over the seat behind my position, I violently kicked at the window. It cracked then fell away.

With its removal came a wall of snow and dirt. The exit I had hoped for was blocked.

So I moved to the other side and smashed the window with my foot. The window gave way in one huge pop and cold air-filled the bus.

It was an exit.

But rather than scrambling out of the bus, I returned to the injured man. I decided to use the window as a way to get him out of the vehicle.

It took me a couple of minutes to apply dressings to the man’s cuts and gashes. There was nothing however I could do for the man’s severely angled left leg.

“It’s an injury we’ll have to deal without side,” I said to the still unconscious man.

Slowly and with all the effort and strength I could muster, I lifted the injured man upward and onto the seat back near the window. My arms ached from the fatigue as did my legs, but I refused to stop until I was sure the man would be freed of the bus.

Once I had the man in position, I climbed through the broken out window. The cold was biting as it cooled the sweat trapped against my body.

“Down here,” I shouted.

Several lights were directed on me as I struggled to pull the man free of the window frame. Three people were by my side within moments, helping haul the man up the hillside.

Throughout the early morning hours, I helped direct first-aiders in caring for the victims of the crash. And jus’ as the sun was starting to stream its light over the far horizon behind the Bluebird, fire-rescue and ambulances arrived onto the isolated scene.

I finally got the chance to look over the edge of the cliff.

What I saw left me amazed. The terrible fall I had envisioned was nothing more than a five-foot drop.

I chuckled about it all the way back to the Bluebird.

Soon we were back on the road heading home to the Air Base. Within minutes I would fall asleep for the first time in my memory while traveling in a moving vehicle

The first sawmill in Del Norte County was established in 1853 in a gulch near the intersection of Third and C Streets in Crescent City. The machinery shipped from Pomona and it was F. E. Watson who built and operated it for R. F. Knox & Co. of San Francisco.

Much of the lumber was hauled over Howland Hill from Mill Creek. To transport the logs, loggers used “two large wheels about twelve feet in diameter, with an axle between and a long tongue, on which the logs were loaded, and partly dragged and wheeled by oxen.”

The mill was enlarged and relocated in 1855 to the corner of G and 7th Streets. It was destroyed by fire in 1856, and some of the equipment was salvaged by a Mr. Kingsland who used to build a small mill on Elk Creek.

Meanwhile, W. Bayse built a water-powered mill on Mill Creek. And while the road over Howland Hill was improved, the cost of transportation was too high and Bayse soon went bankrupt.

Finally, a horse-powered mill operated briefly near where the Elk Valley Mill subsequently stood. It was not considered a good investment and soon shut down.

There was also small sawmill at the Waukell Agency on the Klamath in 1859, but its production was reserved for the government. Jus’ a few miles away, after all, was Fort Ter-Waw which housed Company B, 4th Infantry, U.S. Army.

But it was further north, where A. M. Smith built his mill on Smith River, where it was later spanned by the bridge built by the Crescent City & Smith River Railroad. The Fairbanks Brothers also opened a small mill near Smith River Corners. Later, N. O. Armington became interested in this undertaking and a grist mill was added.

It is in the Smith River area where a number of clashes took place between settlers and indigenous peoples — namely the Tolowa. Generally, speaking, the Tolowa came out on the losing end of these battles.

Historian A. J. Bledsoe recounts in his book, “The History of Del Norte County,” about 50 Indian settlements were destroyed along the Smith River between 1855 and 1863. However, recent archaeological evidence shows his figures were off as much as 100 settlements.

He has been criticised for misrepresenting the figure — but it must be pointed out, many of the 100 settlements not listed were not know about at the time. In fact it wasn’t until the early 20th Century that archeologist rediscovered many of these places.

What’s also from missing from Bledsoe’s account are references to paying for Indian scalps. But a semi-annual Statement of Audit printed in the Crescent City News, February 16, 1894, shows the county paid out $50.20 in 1893 for bounty on scalps.

Then there’s the letter L. F. Cooper, who had served as a Del Norte county board supervisor as well as district attorney, sent his son August 26, 1895. In it he told him not to bring any scalps to Del Norte County as the county was no longer paying for scalps taken in Siskiyou County.

In fairness to Bledsoe though, his recollection is missing this information because the book he authored was printed in 1881.