Sincerely, and I mean this with all my heart, for those looking forward to the Rapture, a new body and a clean soul, I’m sorry it didn’t happen for you. However, end-of-the-world prognostication is neither an art nor a science.

The First Commandment reads:  “And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” (Exodus 20:1-3)

Thus one is prohibited from “worshipping” money, sex, success, beauty, status, or another human, etc. This is where Harold Camping falls on the God-O-Meter of faith.

Because he is “religious” leader, some people assume he has a direct line to the Almighty. He has no more a direct line than you or me.

He claims to have “found a code hidden” in the Holy Bible that showed him a specific date. And now it can be said that hidden code was a falsehood.

As a believer in Jesus Christ — I’m willing to go on record as saying  the hidden code, and it’s revelation, to Camping is nothing more than the trickery of Satan. Period.

This led Camping to spend millions of dollars on billboards across the nation, trumpeting his message. The sad thing is — not one hungry mouth was directly fed and not one homeless person was directly sheltered by that cash spent on advertising.

At least five people I know truly believed that they were about to find themselves in Heaven having been Raptured. One of those five people tell me they gave over all their worldly assets to the preachers radio network.

That smacks of a scam. Furthermore, MinistryWatch.com, which grades Christians organizations on financial transparency, Family Stations, Inc., which does business as Family Radio, which Camping founded, has a transparency grade of “C.”

I’d like to add — Camping’s actions have painted all Christian with the same brush — so look for your faith to be lampooned by the media, comedians and such.

There must be something that can be learned from this over-publicized, much laughed at and joked about event that each person can take home. I think that lesson will be different for each of us.

For me, I’m considering it a dry-rehearsal for events much ballyhooed by those infatuated with the Mayan calendar. For those believers, the world either ends December 21, 2012 or we shift into a new plane of existence within the universe. 

Sigh…

I can only deal with one belief system per life-time.

Peter Adair died in 1996, five years after releasing his independent documentary, “Absolutely Positive.” It is a film about the lives of eleven people and their experiences living with AIDS.

For some reason I was watching the local PBS station when it came on. As I sat on the couch of our little apartment living room, watching this documentary, I saw a face I knew all too well.

My reaction was to jump up and scream, “No f–king way!”

Sitting at our dining table, my bride asked me what was the matter. I told her: “I jus’ saw Mom and Del on T.V.”

“What?” she asked as if not believing me.

She then sat down next to me to watch. By this time I was shaking from fear, grief and a lot of anger.

My mind raced — how could she not say anything to me? Why didn’t she warn me about this movie? How did she get it? How long would she live?

“Holy shit! What a way to find out,” I recall thinking.

I tried calling her and Del, but there was no answer.

Later, I found out they were at a premier party for the film. That, to me, was like rubbing salt in a fresh wound.

Being head strong — I decided to not speak to Mom for a long while afterwords. I refused to make myself available to talk if she called and I failed to answer her letters.

I made it ALL about me — rather than who and what it was really all about.

It wouldn’t be until after Kyle was born in mid-1992 that I decided it was time to let “bygones-be-bygones.” After all she had a deadly disease and what time I would have with her and Del would be precious.

Del passed away in 1997, while Mom lived until 2002. Neither one of their death certificates indicate their deaths were caused by the virus.

(Ed. note — My step-dad, Del is in the upper left corner of the poster, while Mom’s picture in the lower right corner. As for the film, it can be purchased through Amazon. com or your favorite online movie retailer.)

It started out as a project for our scouting den in order to earn a merit badge. But by the time it was over — it was so much more — that it got my ass kicked.

There was a particular family which lived in the Glen. Their home had no electricity, or phone service and what running water they had, was cold.

All their meals were cooked over an open flame from the fire pit built into their front room. It’s also the place that they slept as it was also the warmest place in the house, especially during the winter months.

To many people, they were poor — and at the time I thought the same. That’s why I was excited when it was decided we should help this family by providing them with boxes of food jus’ before the Thanksgiving holiday.

It was amazing to see that every boy in our den had filled two “banana boxes,” full of non-perishable foods to be delivered a week or so ahead of the holiday. The plan was simple — we’d load up Dad’s truck and with a caravan in tow — drop the food off at their home, shake hands and leave.

The plan went off without a hitch — until the following day at school. That’s when the oldest boy, who was a grade ahead of me, singled me out and beat the crap out of me, leaving me sitting in the corner of the restroom.

He was angry that I had embarrassed him by bringing the food to his home. He knew Dad was the area scout master and thus, concluded it was my fault that his family was humiliated by such a unneccessary gift.

Until that day, it never occurred to me to look at such a situation from the eyes of the person I thought I was helping. Turns out walking a mile in someone else’s moccasins — has two meanings.

It’s a lesson I’ve never forgotten.

Working as an order-taker for a company has never been my idea of fun employment. However, this is exactly what I found myself doing shortly after the radio station I was working for sold to another company.

As a general rule, or at least every time I’ve been employed at a station that has sold, most everyone gets a pink slip. While I think it’s a piss-poor way to operate a business – that’s the way things go.

So in between radio jobs, I landed a position with the Regional Transportation Commission’s CitiLift. It is the Reno and Sparks area’s Para-transit system and at the time we were located on Hymer Avenue.

Originally, I was hired as a van washer, but because I had some radio skills, the yard manager went to the general manager and I was hired to answer phones and dispatch radio calls. It wasn’t a bad job – unless you were the only one working in the office at night.

While it didn’t often happen – it did occur to me at least once. The night it did, I was given a lesson in customer service and good manners.

While attempting to handle both the radio, responding to drivers as they completed their routes, manually insert trip-tickets for passengers, I also had to answer the telephones and make reservations for people needing a ride. Needless to say – by the time I was nearing the end of my shift – I was feeling angry at the system.

Now I don’t recall the elderly woman’s name – but I do remember what she said to me over the phone as I lost my temper at the situation: “Tommy, I am so ashamed of you.”

She didn’t yell or say it in a mean manner. No, she simply said it and let it hang there.

Immediately, I apologized and corrected my bad attitude. Her pointed statement taught me a lesson: I am dealing with a person, who has feelings too and not a statistic.

I still get an uneasy feeling in my gut every time I think about that night.

The small sailing boat’s bow raised high into the air, hanging silent against the gray sky, before dropping into the bottom of the swell. The fall caused the timber to give a loud crack as if the vessel were coming apart plank by plank.

Greg shouted at me, “Grab tight!”

As quick as he shouted, I gripped the metal cable along the side of the boat that made up part of the railing. Then for the uncounted time the sail boat rose high against the dark waves and crashed down the backside.

Time and again, I found myself coughing up the salt water that entered my nose and mouth, only to find myself taking in more as the waves roared over the deck. I turned my head away of from the rushing water but the cold liquid always managed to push its way into my nostrils and between my lips.

Greg, the Captain, was at the tiller fighting to keep the vessel into the waves. He knew that if he allowed the wooden craft to drift sideways we’d be swept from the deck and would soon die in the icy Pacific Ocean.

He shivered but held tight to the handle of the only thing keeping the boat on course. Not even our wet suits were keeping us warm or dry.

The older man was leaned his entire body against the stick as the boat rose upward yet again. I wanted to go help Greg with the steering but knew Greg had me in the bow of the craft for a reason.

Numbing cold and the constant spray slowly caused a feeling of exhaustion. It had been hours since I had slept and my mind wandered from the danger I was in, to a point before we left the safety of Crescent City’s harbor.

*******

Looking for extra work, as my reservist pay was not enough, I had been down to the docks. I needed the extra side job to fill that gap that threatened to leave me both homeless and hungry.

My most recent deployment had been a three-week jaunt half a world away and I had missed the sailing of the crab fleet by three days. I’d been promised a spot on board vessel but as it turned out, the Captain could not wait for my return as there was too much money at stake to wait even a few hours before putting out to sea.

Standing by the dock offices, I watched the horizon, hoping to see a returning boat and possibly getting a chance to help off load some newly captured cargo. At the bottom of ramp, two slips to my right was a man laboring with a sanding block along the deck of a wooden sail boat named, “Anita.”

I watched as the man aboard the 40 foot vessel pressed the sanding block back and forth. It occurred to me that I should offer to help him for some cash and then I could say that at least I had been working.

“Need any day labor?” I asked.

The man continued to sand the area as he looked up. At first he didn’t say anything, he jus’ kept working. A minute or so later he stopped and looked at me standing on the dock.

“I could use a hand getting her ready,” the man finally answered.

Then he said, “I want to be underway by this Sunday.”

Then he tossed the piece of wood with the gritty sand paper wrapped around it to me. I clamored aboard the craft as the man, who called himself Greg, instructed me on what he needed done.

“It needs to be sanded down hard especially along the joints and seams,” Greg instructed, “As soon as that’s done and the dust is cleaned away, it has to be varnished.”

Greg told me that as the sanding was being done, he’d start behind me with the varnish. This would make the job go faster.

He offered me three hundred dollars if I’d stay and get the job done. I agreed to the terms.

The next four days we worked in tandem in order to get the deck sanded down and resealed in a thick coat of varnish. On Saturday the new sails were delivered and hosted into place.

This was work I wasn’t used to doing. It was both a learning situation and adventurous and we worked late that last day.

Finally the sanding and vanishing was completed and Greg, being true to his word handed me three one-hundred dollar bills. After shaking hands, I pushed the bills into my jean pocket.

I stepped off the Anita and started for the gang way that led to the dock office, feeling both a sense of pride and loss as I started on my walk home.

The gulls were crying even though it was dark and I also heard the pay phone which was bolted to the dock offices outside wall, ringing. I hurried to answer it, knowing many of the fishermen used it to get messages and talk to family members from time to time.

The voice on the other end of the phone was very serious as he asked for Greg by name calling him Captain. I shouted for the older man.

“Phone for you Greg,” I hollered.

Greg stopped what he was doing and hurried up the pay phone. I noticed that he had a worried look on his face, the wrinkles appearing deep in his forehead.

I handed the phone over and stepped back, but was slow to turn and walk away, being curious about the call and the conversation.

“Hey Tommy,” Greg shouted.

Turning around, I saw Greg walking towards me. I waited, not answering him.

“Are you interested in making a hundred bucks a day?” Greg asked.

“Sure,” I answered with some hesitation.

Then Greg explained that the boat’s owner had decided not to come up to Crescent City to help sail the vessel back to Newport Beach. Greg needed a deck hand and offered the job to me.

Both the idea of a voyage and the money appealed to me and I said yes to the offer. We agreed to meet at the boat by 4:30 the next morning.

*******

The forty foot vessel, which had felt large at one point, now seemed like a speck as it was knocked about by the waves. I felt both trapped and scared by the churning seas.

The craft lifted quickly as a swell passed beneath us, then dropped violently as we crested the huge wave. Still Greg kept his body pressed against the handle of the tiller.

Without warning the boat lifted nearly straight up, the bow pointing towards the cloudy skies. I was unprepared for the sudden vertical lift and my hands slipped from the railing.

Immediately, I found myself tumbling downward through the rigging, slamming into the main sail’s pole. I bounced off the mast as I attempted to grab a hold of it, but jus’ then the boat changed position and heaved to its right and dropping as sudden as it rose.

The unexpected movement caused me to twist around the mast and slip downward. I found myself airborne for less than a second, then crashing hard, head first through the top hatch to the cabin below deck.

The waves rushed in and over my body. I smashed into the table breaking it from its stand. Items like books and a pile of papers spread around the cabin creating an even further confusing mess as I struggled to figure out up from down.

Meanwhile Greg held tight to the tiller. He had managed to lash himself to the left side of the boats railing using a small piece of rope he had secured to the stern of the vessel for jus’ such an event.

Within seconds the vessel righted itself and I found my way to the stairs and climbed out of the galley. I tried to smile at Greg, as if to say I wasn’t worried, but it didn’t work.

The older man could see my fear and shouted, “While you were down there, did you make some coffee?”

The question caught me off guard and I found myself laughing along with Greg at the joke. It broke the tension for the moment and helped set aside the thought that I could have been swept over board and into the frigid ocean waters.

With each wave, water poured into the below deck. It was now up to me to repair the hard plastic hatch I had fallen through in order to protect the “Anita”, from taking on too much water.

Quickly as possible, I scrambled back down into the cabin and found the tool box which remained in place because it had been bolted down. I grabbed the hammer and a box of nails and hurried back up topside.

While Greg steered into the waves and bow pitched upward then fell down the mountainous swells, I went to work making emergency repairs.

First, I pulled open the back-up sail hold and yanked on the off-white canvas. It unfurled easier than I thought it would which caused me to stumble and fall back onto my butt.

However, I didn’t slow down, instead I rolled over and laid my body on the large piece of cloth and pulling my knife from my pocket, began cutting a large square from the now useless sail. I didn’t have time to measure the piece; instead I cut out an area larger than I thought I’d need.

*******

Rolling over, I turned off my alarm. I laid there for a moment and thought about the sail boat and the voyage that was jus’ ahead of me, realizing I had done a number of things before but this was one thing I had no idea about.

Getting out of bed, I quickly dressed, jeans, tee-shirt, sweat shirt and a pair of tennis shoes. Then I went out and made a cup of instant coffee and stood by the kitchen sink drinking it.

Within half an hour I was walking down the street towards the docks. My path took me by the Catholic Church and the St. Joe’s parochial school, which I had attended at one time.

Knowing that I had long since fallen away from the church, I paused and dropped to my knees anyway. I bowed my head.

“God I don’t know what I’ve gotten myself into here, but please keep me safe and let me come home alive,” I said in a little prayer.

I got back to my feet and continued on my way to the boat dock and the “Anita.”

Greg was already there and he looked at his wrist watch, “I was afraid you had bailed on me.”

“So where do we start?” I asked feeling a little pained by Greg’s remark.

There were a couple of boxes and a large bag on the dock. Greg pointed at the boxes and told me to take them down below and stow the items inside the boxes in the cupboards.

Meanwhile Greg hauled the large bag onto the deck and unzipped it. It was filled with sailing canvass and he started placing it in a three-by-two box behind the hatch cover which I was going in and out of with food from the boxes.

As soon as the little boat was loaded, Greg called for me to untie lines that held the vessel in the slip. As I undid the ropes, the small engine coughed to life and the boat pulled smartly from between the docks and started for the harbor mouth.

It would be about three days before either of us would set foot on dry land.

The weather service reported a low pressure area was moving in along the coast but it was farther south. Greg said it would be on shore before we reached it and it would cause little concern for us and the sail craft.

*******

The deck raised the fell beneath me as I began hammering the stubby nails into place. I wanted to cover the shattered opening with the heavy canvas and prevent water from filling the cabin as much as possible.

My hands were numb from the chill of the wind, and the sting of the rain and sea water. This made it hard to hold onto the hammer and furthermore, every time I struck the head of the hammer against the tack driving it into the outer edge of the hatch, it would sting.

Still I pushed myself to complete the job.

It had taken nearly three hours and I was feeling exhausted and every bone and muscle in my right hand ached from the bitter cold. I looked at Greg again and again seeing that he too was getting exhausted.

At last, I tucked the hammer into me belt and crawled over to Greg. I moved clumsily into the padded seat to the right of the tiller and placed my hands on the stick, helping to take some of the strain off of Greg.

The weight of the rudder pressed into my body as Greg gave in to the help. It had been more than 40 hours since the storm first braced us and the sail boat.

I looked at the expressionless face of Greg, “Thought you said this was going to be an easy job?”

Greg failed to see the humor in my comment, so I decided to remain quiet.

The waves continued to heave and drop beneath the craft. But the two of us remained side by side on the tiller waiting for the storm to let up.

Another twenty hours passed before the skies showed a decrease in clouds and rain. Even the wind died down making the swells less treacherous. We had literally weathered the worse of the storm and knew it when a patch of blue skies showed itself jus’ above the horizon.

*******

Shaking Captain Greg’s hand, I prepared to board the bus home. It would be a 10- hour ride back up the coast to Crescent City, but I was looking forward to the rest as my muscles were sore from the two-day storm we encountered aboard the “Anita.”

The boat’s owner paid me a bonus for the trouble, doubling my original fee. The extra cash would come in handy and help pay my rent for the coming month.

It was good to be back on solid land and I couldn’t wait to get home. I knew I’d soon have orders to head overseas again and I was certain that they would have very little to do with storms at sea, but it would involve a storm jus’ of a different sort.

If you believe what a small group of non-denominational Christians are preaching, the rapture is coming this Saturday. If you don’t — you probably fall in those who think the prediction is nothing more than a clever advertising campaign designed to get people to listen to a certain radio program.

For those who believe the prediction, which was calculated by Harold Camping of Family Radio Worldwide, it’s a day that will be marked with an earthquake and ending in the “taking”  the faithful to Heaven. Camping apparently decoded verses in the Bible and did a little math to come up with the May 21st date.

Problem is, as non-believers like to point out, he miscalculated the end of the world before. However for believers like me — I mean believing in God and not rapture predictions — this Saturday could be like most Saturday’s.

Believers point out in the bible that there are clear references to the end-of-world predicts. “Therefore keep watch because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” (Matthew 24:42) and then in Matthew 24:44, Jesus says, “So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”

For me the most telling part of the biblical literature comes from Matthew 25:12-13. It reads, “But He answered, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

The “He” in the verse refers to Jesus and not Harold Camping.  To put this into context —  if Jesus couldn’t tell his disciples, how can Camping claim to have the information?

Jus’ asking.

As for this Saturday, whether the rapture comes or not — I expect to be here.  And should it occur and you’re taken up — then good-bye and pray for me.

Besides, President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will save us and the world too.

It was a story told to me more than once and which I believed for years. That is until I started digging around for some history on the person I consider to be one of the most important person with my last name.

Dad claimed William Orlando Darby was a second cousin or something along those lines. I believed it was true because the future brigadier General was raised in Fort Smith, Arkansas which is jus’ “down the road a piece” from Muskogee, Oklahoma.

Darby was a U.S. Army officer during World War II. He led the famous Darby’s Rangers which evolved into the U.S. Army’s Rangers. His father, Percy Darby, owned a print shop, and his mother, Nell, was a homemaker and he had a younger sister named Doris.

Bill Darby was born February 8, 1911 and graduated from West Point June 13, 1933, a second lieutenant. On April 30, 1945, a German shell exploded near Colonel Darby’s location and a piece shrapnel tore a dime-sized hole in his heart and he was dead within minutes.

Darby received many awards, including two Distinguished Service Crosses, a Silver Star for “Gallantry in Action,” a Purple Heart, and a Combat Infantry Badge, as well as the British Distinguished Service Order. A week later, President Truman promoted Darby to Brigadier General.

Named for him are the USNS General William O. Darby, a U.S. Army troop ship, which is now retired. Cisterna, Italy, has a Darby School, and Fort Smith, the sister city to Cisterna, the senior high school he attended is now called the William O. Darby Junior High.

Darby was originally buried in a military cemetery outside of Cisterna, Italy, but on March, 11, 1949, his body was returned to Arkansas and reinterred at the Fort Smith National Cemetery which is jus’ a few blocks from his boyhood home. I visited that boyhood home, at 311 General Darby Street (formerly East 8th Street.)

Unfortunately, the home, now a museum, was closed that day. Needless to say I was a bit disappointed in myself that I hadn’t taken better care to find out the site’s hours.

And to this day I have in my book collection, “We Led the Ways: Darby’s Rangers,” written by Darby and William Baumer and “The Spearheaders,” authored by James Altieri, a member of Darby’s original Rangers.

Unfortunately for me, Brigadier General William O. Darby is not related to my family.

“Harriet A. Darby wife of Peter Darby and mother of Mrs. Thomas Duffy and Thomas Darby, died May 9, 1891. Survivors , husband, son and daughter.” So reads a small article from a long ago newspaper from Crescent City.

As far as I can figure out Thomas Duffy was employed by his brother, James, whose listed as the proprietor of the Palace Saloon. He also worked with another brother named John.

Thomas is also listed in the 1880 census for Del Norte as a Justice of the Peace along with a Dougald S. Sartwell. I’m also unable at this time to find out what Thomas’s wife name happens to be.

This seems peculiar as Peter Darby, who was one of the original founders of Crescent City also owned a saloon. It was known as Darby and Donovan.

A fourth brother, Owen was a foreman with Hobbs, Wall and Company. I found this information in an 1885 county directory.

The business of Hobbs, Wall & Co. employed two hundred men. Their property included the mill, a shingle and box factory, four and a half miles of railroad, a large general store and a controlling interest in the principal wharf and steamship business. In 1883 their mill turned out 8,250,000 feet of lumber and 8,000,000 is about the average output.

According to an article from either the Crescent City News, Argus or the Del Norte Record, “Mrs. Darby had been sick for some weeks during which time she suffered greatly. Her complaint was general debility and from the first but slight expectation of her recovery were entertained.”

By the way, this is how the Del Norte Triplicate gained its name. In 1909 John Child’s owner of the Crescent City News sold the publication to Tommy Thompson, who eventually consolidated it with Argus and Del Norte Record.

As for Mrs. Darby, the article adds, she was born in New Hampshire and was 63 years old. “She was an old resident of this place, having come here in the early days with her husband,” it finishes.

So far I cannot locate any information on Thomas Darby, Peter and Harriet’s son. Also there appears to be no photographic record of any of the founding Darby family in existence.

Sometimes one piece of information can open a flood gate to a rush of facts, which can nearly drown the person looking at it. That’s what has happened in the last couple of days after I was asked to add any information I had gathered on Bridgeville, California to the town’s webpage.

It started with the last name Hufford — my Grandma Leola Olivera’s maiden name. I still haven’t gotten back to Bridgeville’s webpage.

David Hufford was born July 26, 1828 in the state of Kentucky. He was the son of Jacob Hufford Sr. and Elizabeth Ann Allen and was married twice. 

His first wife was Mary Morris, with whom he had seven children: Walter Sylvester, David, Elizabeth, Ida Rose, William, Frank L., and George Washington.

George Washington is my grandmother’s father. He died in 1950 or there about. And one of Great-grandpa George’s brothers, Frank has lengthy Humboldt County biography, which reads:

“One of the old-time settlers in the vicinity of Orick, Cal., Frank L. Hufford has made for himself a reputation there as an enterprising business man, and liberal and active in the furthering of any project for the betterment of the community where he resides. Mr. Hufford is truly a native son of California, having been born in Contra Costa county, this state, November 24, 1866, the son of David Hufford, a native of the state of Ohio, and grandson of David Hufford, a pioneer of this state who came from Ohio across the plains in 1852, and made his home in Butte county, where his death occurred.

The father of Mr. Hufford was a cooper by trade, who made the journey to California in 1849, three years earlier than his father, and followed mining in the Sierras, in which occupation he attained a good measure of success. Later he bought land and improved a farm in Contra Costa county, where he was the owner of about seven hundred acres of property whereon he raised wheat and grapes.

In 1877 he removed to Humboldt county, locating for one year at Gold Bluff, near where the town of Orick is now, going thence to Trinidad; in the same county, where he bought twenty acres of land, selling the same after four years and locating at Arcata, where he became the owner of sixty acres, which property likewise he sold, removing to Alliance and thence again to Arcata, where he died at the age of seventy-seven years. In 1888 he made butter kegs for Griffin & Swan at Gold Bluff (now Orick), for the shipping of their butter to the San Francisco market.

Of the five children by David Hufford’s first marriage, his son Frank was the fourth in age, his mother dying when he was only three years old, his brothers and sisters being: Walter, an attorney-at-law, who now lives in Oregon ; Lydia, now Mrs. Sweem, of Stockton, Cal.; Rosa, now Mrs. Ferril ; and George, who resides at Bridgeville, Cal.

By the father’s second marriage, there were four other children. Frank L. Hufford grew up on his father’s farm. He was deprived of school advantages, but by self-study and observation he has become a well-informed man, possessed of noteworthy business acumen.

At the age of eleven years he moved with his family to Humboldt county, where he assisted his father in his work, also being employed on a dairy in Orick for five years and working in the woods for four years. In 1897 Mr. Hufford started to work independently, renting a ranch from Peter Hansen where he conducted a dairy for three years.

His wife received from her father’s estate eighty acres of wild land, at the mouth of Redwood creek, two miles from Orick, which Mr. Hufford improved. He also took up a homestead of one hundred sixty acres within one-fourth miles, to which he added by a purchase, thirty-eight acres more, thus becoming the owner of two hundred seventy acres in all, upon which he engaged in the dairy business and the raising of stock.

Mr. Hufford was likewise employed for six or seven years in hauling freight from Bald Hills to Arcata with a six-horse team, and he has been for the past eighteen years overseer of roads in District No. 5, which comprised the country for fifteen miles around Orick, also being school trustee of the same town for a period of time, in all amounting to sixteen years. In his political interests he is a member of the Republican party.

Mr. Hufford’s first marriage was to Miss Ella Montgomery, a native of Humboldt county, who died leaving him two children: Floyd, of Bridgeville, this county, and Mrs. Josephine Gallon, of Clinton, Mo.

The second marriage of Mr. Hufford, to Miss Myr Griffin, took place at Eureka, June 18, 1892. Like himself, his wife is a native of California, having been born at the mouth of Redwood creek, near the present town of Orick, her father, George Griffin, having been a native of Pennsylvania, who came to this state as a pioneer.

After being engaged in gold mining at Gold Bluff for a time Mr. Griffin took up land on Redwood creek, where he also followed mining, later engaging in the dairy business upon his ranch, and afterwards taking Robert Swan into partnership, living here until his death occurred ; and here his daughter, later Mrs. Hufford, was brought up.

Mr. and Mrs. Hufford became the parents of seven children : Ida ; Blanche, wife of John Francis, a farmer living near the mouth of Redwood creek ; Vina, Walter, Leslie, Elmer and Kenneth, all of whom, with the exception of Mrs. Francis, make their home with their parents in Orick.

Mr. Hufford has built a five-thousand-foot sawmill on his property, where he engages in the manufacture of lumber, and also runs a blacksmith shop on the place. He. also engaged in mining near Gold Bluff, where he owns one hundred fifty acres, with an ocean front of three-fourths mile, and is extracting gold from the black sand on the beach.

By his business enterprises and public-spirited acts Mr. Hufford has won a high place in the esteem of all who know him. He attributes no small degree of his success to his wife, who by her aid and encouragement has been an able helpmeet in his different enterprises.”

Now back to David.

After his first wife died, he married Mary Melcher, with whom he had six more children. They are Mary, Catharine, Melvina, David Fred, Tessie, and Mantie E.

Elizabeth Ann Allen, David’s mother was born in the month of April 1803, the same year Lewis and Clark set out to explore the continent. She died in Butte County, California on October 13, 1880 and is buried in the Cherokee Cemetery in Oroville.

She and Jacob parented nine children. Their names are Sally, Surrilda, Nancy Jane, David, James, Jacob, Elizabeth, John, and Eliza

As for David Hufford, he died in Arcata on April 3, 1906. His grave can be found in the Greenwood Cemetery in Arcata.

The town is often threatened by forest fires, most recently on July 29, 2006. Much of the town was evacuated for two days, but the fire was later controlled with little damage due to the efforts of federal, state and local firefighters.

That’s about the time I was traveling along Highway 299, having been to the coast for a short visit with my sister and her family. I was forced to stop for a little while as a parade of fire engines and water tenders rolled their way north to the blaze burning up some few thousand acres of Redwood forest.

So in order to kill some time – which I hate to do – I strolled up the sidewalk to a little diner and had a plate of eggs and potatoes. After washing them down with some coffee, I started back to my truck.

Along the way I spotted a sign advertizing a “wide assortment of antiques.” I’m like a moth drawn to a flame when it comes to looking at collectibles.

The store was located in the ante-room belonging to the historic Weaverville Hotel. There were glass counters with old skeleton keys, tea cups and saucers, thimbles and such.

But at the back of the room – was a shelf full of older, hard bound books. I found myself looking at them with interest.

It didn’t take me too long to find one that really interested me. It was a personal account of the Civil War by a man who fought in it: Robert W. Patrick.

I thumbed through the first few pages gentle.

“Knapsack and Rifle,” was published in Philadelphia in 1886 by Calypso Publishing Company, which would make sense knowing more veterans of that era were easterner. So I found it intriguing to say the least that this book would be found so far west – even after so many years.

I had to buy it.

When I got home I did a little bit of research only to find little to nothing about Patrick. And there is even less noted about the illustrator, E.B. Williams.

It’s a shame there’s no history to be found directly on either of these two people. I haven’t given up though as there is a chance I’ll stumble upon that one key piece of information that’ll unlock the whole story of both the author and the artist.

Finally, I thought I had a real bargain at 30-bucks for the book. But in my excitement and haste, I discovered after looking at the small set of numbers written in pencil on the inside of the tome, I paid ten-times that amount.

Needless to say – my wife was a bit ticked off at me for not double-checking the credit card slip before signing it. Oh, how I hate expensive lessons.