The brick building at the corner of Front and F Streets was one of the first permanent structures in the city. The two story building was built to house a store on the ground floor, but was never used for that purpose.

Instead it served as a Wells Fargo Express Office and the Darby and Saville Saloon. On the second floor was theater that could seat 200 people, with a number of performances held there, including those starring a young Lotta Crabtree in 1857 and 58.

In 1906 the building was sold to John Childs. While he owned it, the place became the headquarters for the local paper, known than as the Crescent City News.

Nearly 62 years later the old building was part of a redevelopment area. It was surrounded by water when the 1964 tsunami struck the city, however it remained mostly undamaged.

Three years later, in September 1967, the building was destroyed by fire. Authorities were certian it was arson, but were never able to find the culpret or culprets who started the blaze.

At one point prior to the fire, it had been proposed that the Darby building be used as the home of the Del Norte Historical Society.  Still preserved on the grounds of an apartment complex constructed after much of the building was demolished is a stone wall. Near it reads a plaque: “Stone Refuge. In the interior of this block stands a relic of a stone building, which was once used by women and children during some Indian trouble in 1857.”

For some reason Dad allowed me to take the week off from school so I could go with him as he completed a temporary duty assignment. It would be a very exciting week.

We arrived at the base in the early evening of Sunday, having driven all day long from about the time the sun came up. He and I quickly ate and hit the hay for the night.

The following day, Dad went to work and I stayed closed by the barracks. I do recall going to the base exchange and having to leave the soda and comic book I was going to buy at the check-out stand because I didn’t have my dependent ID card on me.

I was bored to death to say the least.

My Tuesday morning and afternoon was pretty much a repeat of the day before. I was happy to see my old man as I knew we would be going to get something to eat and then to check out a movie at the base theater; we talked of seeing “Raid on Rommel.”

I fell asleep quickly after getting back to our barracks room while Dad watched the local news.

Jus’ after six the next morning a magnitude 6.6 earthquake rattled through the San Fernando Valley.  Dad and I were practically rattled right out of our racks.

For nearly 12-hours, I helped by bandaging and splinting the injured Dad and other Air Force personnel pulled from damaged buildings on base and later at a hospital in the near-by town of Sylmar. It was life-lesson I never forgot — as it helped put me on the road to becoming a survival and first aid instructor and finally securing my paramedics certificate.

Needless to say — I was a very happy kid when Dad was released early from TDY to head home by Wednesday evening.

Since the tidal gauge was installed in Crescent City’s harbor in 1934, the town has been hit by 34 tsunamis. This time, the waves raced into the boat basin, ripping up docks, sinking 11 boats, damaging 47 others, killing one man and causing millions of dollars in damage.

Tsunamis are different from stormy seas. A storm wave is generated by the wind, moving only the top of the water.

A tsunami, however, is generated by an upheaval on the ocean floor. To a ship at sea, it’s not even noticeable — three to four feet high — a bump in the ocean.

This tsunami was generated by one tectonic plate slipping violently underneath the other in a zone 350 miles long and 150 miles wide. The wave raced across the ocean at the speed of 500 to 600 mph.

A factor that saved the harbor from even more damage was the surge hit at low tide, keeping it within the breakwater. Plus a network of deep-sea warning sensors alerted the entire West Coast hours in advance of the surges from the magnitude 9.0 earthquake in Japan.

The town wasn’t forewarned on Good Friday, 1964, however when a magnitude 9.2 earthquake in Alaska’s Prince William Sound sent bigger surges down the coast. Crescent City bore the brunt, due to its offshore geography, position relative to the earthquake’s strike-line, underwater contours such as the Cobb Seamount, and the position of rivers near the city.

Within a two hours, four waves washed over Crescent City.

When finished, 289 buildings and businesses had been destroyed; 1000 cars and 25 large fishing vessels crushed; 11 people were confirmed dead, over 100 were injured, and numbers were missing; 60 blocks had been inundated with 30 city blocks destroyed in total.

Although most of the missing were later accounted for, not all were found. Authorities estimate the city received more damage from the tsunami on a block-by-block basis than did Anchorage from the initial earthquake.

It took the city years to recover from the 1964 Tsunami, with the help of Congressman Don Clausen, who secured federal aid for the ravaged town. There are also some who claim,Crescent City has never recovered and still others who say it never will.

This a matter of person opinion on those people’s part.

Another earthquake, measuring magnitude 8.2 rumbled in the Pacific Ocean, west of Eureka, November 8, 1980. A number of Del Norte residents report being able to walk out to Whaler’s Rock, jus’ off Pebble Beach in Crescent City, as the waters had receded that far, but they didn’t  report seeing surge waves.

This event was followed years later by a magnitude 6.5 and 6.6 aftershock April 25, 1992 off Cape Mendocino. Again the ocean recede into itself, and again there was lack of surge waves.

Then the city’s preparedness was tested June 14, 2005 when an earthquake measuring magnitude 7.0 occured 90 miles offshore. Reportedly, much of the city was evacuated in a matter of 20 minutes when a tsunami warning was issued, but no waves were reported.

Then on November 15, 2006, a magnitude 8.3 earthquake struck off Simushir Island in the Kuril Islands, in the western Pacific. A tsunami warning was issued but rescinded hours later. However, a surge from that quake did hit the harbor at Crescent City causing damage to three docks and several boats.

As this recent tsunami moved east, the wave’s energy bounced off a huge underwater ridge extending out from Mendocino, deflecting part of its energy toward Crescent City.

The deflection slowed the wave, but made it grow higher. And by moving into shallower water, its energy built even more. 

The first surges to hit the shore were small. But by bouncing back, they made the next surge bigger and so on.

When the biggest of the surges hit the tidal gauge, it measured 8.1 feet.

That bouncing amplification is what caught Dustin Weber at the mouth of the Klamath River. He and two friends thought the tsunami
was over after the first surge.

Weber was caught in the bigger surge that hit a couple of hours later. His body has not yet been found.

This is the second part of a two-part series which began with the story, “Karma.”

A friend, who shall remain nameless, and I were up to no good. It wasn’t all that unusual as we were always looking for new ways to get into trouble.

We were in a group of tree situated near the entrance to the Baptist church, jus’ south of the Trees of Mystery. It was in these trees that we decided to set up our little prank.

Together, we had climbed out into the branches of the trees as they overhung Highway 101. We tethered a scarecrow in among the branches and designed a release line using fishing string.

We didn’t have time to test to see if the scarecrow would work as we wanted. Instead we decided to climb down from the trees and hide and wait in some bushes at the base of one those trees.

Our wait wasn’t long, as heading northbound come a set of headlights. We had to guess when to yank on the fish line.

Too early and it wouldn’t be a surprise; to late and the driver of the car wouldn’t see the scarecrow at all. Our estimate, it turned out was perfect.

The scarecrow dropped in front of the car, sending the vehicle off the side of the road underneath where we were hidden. That’s when we saw it wasn’t some ordinary passenger car – but rather a sheriff’s cruiser.

Me and my nameless friend disappeared into the woods behind the church and used a little known trail to find our way back to Redwood Drive and my home.

This is part one of a two-part series. The second part is called, “Prank.”

At first it left me angry, but about a minute or so later I started laughing. That’s because I realized as a kid I had done pretty much the same thing.

It was jus’ after 11 at night and I was on my way to the radio station, heading east on Eagle Canyon, towards Pyramid Highway. And while it doesn’t happen very often, I am usually on the look out for that random coyote which might dash across the roadway in front of me.

I glanced down to turn on my truck’s radio – than looked back at the road – and there it was.

Reacting as quick as possible, I stepped on my brakes and down shifted, hoping to slow myself enough to not hit it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough.

Fwap!

I drove right over it.

Immediately, I knew something wasn’t right about what I had struck. It didn’t sound like any other animal I’ve ever accidentally run over.

Driving slower than what I can walk at a normal pace, I allowed my truck to roll forward. That’s when I saw the cardboard cut out of a cat, with it’s back hunched upward as if in fright.

It was taped to the roadway with duct-tape and it popped right back onto place. I heard myself swearing at whoever had set thing little surprise up.

Then like I said, a minute or so later I start laughing as I thought, “Karma.”

It’s very difficult to sit at the news desk, hundreds of mile away and witness at a distance, events that effect friends and former neighbors in a place that is all too familiar to me. I don’t keep my love for all things Del Norte County, California, a secret — preferring instead to wear my upbringing like a heart on my sleeve.

To that end, and wishing to somehow emulate the late George Merriman, who spent much of his journalistic life writing of the county on a first-hand basis, I’ve pulled together as much information as I could on the recent tsunami to strike the coast of Del Norte. All I can do is imagine — for I’m feeling disconnected from the land and sea that I love as much as I do the high desert in which I now live.

Fishermen who had purposely put-out to sea before a tsunami hit Crescent City’s harbor, landed small loads of crab as the curious came to survey the damage and cleanup crews readied their gear.  And while those cleanup crews assembled, divers could not go into the water and work boats could not maneuver until the  surges were completely done.

The damage came as a series of powerful surges pounded the harbor throughout the day and into the night.  Those waves funneled into the harbor, creating fast-moving currents that shattered docks, wrested boats from their moorings and brought possible ruin to an already struggling economy. 

And as gawker’s looked on and fishermen plied their trade, California’s Governor Jerry Brown issued a state of emergency for Del Norte, Humboldt, San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties due to the tsunami. State officials conferring with the U.S. Coast Guard say the damage is estimated to be at least $50 million along the entire coast of California.

About 80 percent of  Crescent City’s docks once sheltering 140 boats, are gone. At least eight vessels sunk, and one damaged while an unmanned sailboat sucked out of the harbor ran aground, first on the north jetty, then later further down the coast.

University of Nevada-Reno seismologists say the swells that swept into Crescent City were the highest to hit the U.S., at jus’ over eight-feet. Furthermore experts with the U.S. Geological Survey say the huge shake, caused by a shift in the tectonic plates deep underwater, has thrown the earth off its axis point by at least 10 centimeters, or 4 inches, shortening our days by about 1.26 millionths of a second.

Japan’s Meteorological Agency says it has upgraded the magnitude of the catastrophic earthquake to 9.0, up from an 8.8. However the U.S.G.S. measures the quake at magnitude 8.9, a number that has remained unchanged.

In 1964, a massive tsunami with waves estimated to be more than 20 feet in height, swept over Crescent City, taking with it 11 lives, the only people reported to have ever died directly due to a tsunami in the 48 continuous states. Unfortunately, history has a sad way of repeating itself.

Three people were swept out to sea while trying to take photos of the tsunami at the mouth of the Klamath River. Two were able to swim back to shore, however  25-year-old Dustin Weber, formerly of Bend, Oregon, remains missing and is presumed drown. Weber had jus’ moved to Klamath.

Meanwhile across the sea in Japan, the government has doubled the number of soldiers deployed in that country’s earthquake aid effort to 100,000 as it tries to help millions of survivors left without drinking water and electricity. One official says the death toll will likely exceed 10,000 in one state alone along the pulverized northeastern coast.

Finally, the threat of multiple meltdowns fuels a growing nuclear crisis in the earthquake and tsunami-devastated region in northeast Japan. A top official says one partial meltdown is probably already happening and operators are frantically trying to keep temperatures down at the power plant’s other units and prevent the disaster from growing even worse.

Clark County prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Min Chang and Keon Park, indicted in January on one count each of murder with use of a deadly weapon, armed robbery, first-degree kidnapping with use of a deadly weapon and two counts of conspiracy in the death of Young Park. Keon Park is not related to the victim.

Young Park’s body was discovered by hikers December 23 near Kingman Wash, about a mile from the O’Callaghan-Tillman Memorial Bridge. Authorities say the two men strangled and beat her with a wrench and then burned her body on the Arizona side of the Hoover Dam.

Young Park ran an escort business and brothel out of a home near Rainbow Boulevard and Desert Inn Road in Las Vegas. She reportedly owed Chang about $6,000 and Keon Park around $3,000.

Chang and Keon Park have confessed to their roles in the slaying.

We were attending the high school graduation of one of my cousins when I saw a person I knew – but never expected to see again. The ceremony had jus’ concluded and people were milling about both inside and outside the gym.

My folks were standing on the grass in front of the building talking with my aunt and uncle. I was standing, looking into the building through the large window of the gym’s foyer, people watching.

Suddenly, a girl steps up to other side of the window and smiles at me. I recognized her immediately as Barbara Billy, somebody I had gone to Margaret Keating School with earlier in the year. She had suddenly moved and no one was certain where too.

I smiled back as I placed my right hand on the window in front of me.

Barbara placed her right hand directly where my hand was located. I said, “Hi,” even though I knew she couldn’t hear me and I saw her lips move saying “Hi,” back.

Then her mom appeared from the crowd of people, took her by the hand and pulled her back into the gym. She waved at me as she vanished from sight.

Barbara would return to Margaret Keating School when we were both in 7^th grade. And while we never spoke of seeing one another that evening, I never forgot how touching that moment felt to me.

Colonel Robert “Bud” Laux and Dad served in France together while in the U.S. Air Force. My parents liked and trusted Bud so much that they asked him to be one of my God-parents.

Bud, as I knew him, flew a number of bombing missions in Europe during World War II. He was shot down by the Luftwaffe and survived with the help of the French Résistance.

He also served with famed Air Force General, Curtis LeMay, who would eventually also be asked to act as god-father to me. This happen shortly after we returned from France in 1962.

As things went, I never had a relationship with General LeMay. And other than a couple of photographs of me sitting on his knee while living at Mather AFB, I didn’t have contact with the man as I grew into adulthood.

However I had a lot of contact with Bud. We wrote each other yearly, sent Christmas cards and he’d send me a birthday card each July.

One year I asked him to tell me about being shot down over occupied France. He wrote back, sending me an autographed 8 x 10 glossy black and white picture of the type of aircraft he was flying at the time.

After I joined the Air Force, Bud dropped in for a visit at Brooks AFB, where I was stationed for tech-school. He had jus’ flown in, helping piggy-back the space shuttle Columbia to Kelly AFB. Later he would surprise my commanding officer at Warren AFB, by asking for me and taking me to lunch at the Officers Club, a treat for most any enlisted man or woman.

Unfortunately, only one letter remains from the notes and cards he sent me over the years. But as fortune would have it – that’s the one letter I’ve managed to keep safe, that and the picture he sent.

Bud died in December 1980.

“You’d best take a look at the obituary,” my bride said as she held out the section of the Reno Gazette-Journal for me to read.

I looked up from sharpening my knife with a half smirk on my face and asked, “Why is my name in it?”

The look in my brides face told me she was serious. I reached up and took the extended newspaper in hand and quickly scanned each name on the page.

Suddenly my eyes stopped searching. I had discovered the recognizable name of my friend.

“Well, I’ll be a son of a ..,” my voice trailed off as I read the obituary.

“When’s the last time you spoke with Sam?” my bride asked.

I fumbled with the paper for a moment in an attempt to buy time to regain my composure.

“It’s been a couple of years,” I answered, adding, “Jus’ before he headed for Europe. I didn’t think he’d follow through with it though.”

*******

Again my voice trailed off as I re-read the obituary and faded into a memory of  KOZZ’s receptionist’s voice coming over the intercom to the always busy promotions office, “You have a call on-line seven.”

I pushed back from my computer dreading another interruption as the deadline for the proposal I was working on loomed closer and picked up the receiver and pushed the button next to the red flashing light.

“Hey, hey,” came a voice over the line.

I respond as I had hundreds of times before, “Hey.”

It was my friend Sam.

“How’re you doing?” I asked Sam.

“I’m fine,” he answered, “I’m going to go to Europe to bum around.”

“Say what?” I asked with surprise.

“Yeah,” he said, “I’m going to Europe,”

There was momentary pause.

“Are you still there?” Sam asked.

“Yeah,” I responded, “I’m jus’ surprised is all.”

Then I thought to ask, “How are you going to get there?”

Sam laughed, answering “I’m going fly.”

I knew that I had asked a dumb question or had at the very least phrased it incorrectly.

“No,” I shot back, “I mean how are you going to pay for it?”

I knew Sam always had money difficulties.

Sam answered, “I’ve got my income tax check and I’ll buy myself a one way ticket.”

“A one way ticket?” I asked.

“Yeah, I don’t plan on coming back,” Sam continued.

I thought this over for a few seconds before asking “How’ll you live?”

Sam had a smile in his voice as he replied, “I’ll be a day laborer.”

There was a long pause between the two of us.

Then Sam added; “Besides I still have a problem with junk,” he paused, “I can’t quit fixing.”

I just sat there and listened as Sam laid out his plans for his two-year European vacation as he was calling it.

“And finally,” Sam concluded, “when I’ve seen and done it all — I’ll pull a Jim Morrison.”

I recalled how Jim Morrison had died.

He was the lead singer of the group, “The Doors.” He had money and plenty of women, yet he died from a heroin overdose.

I sighed heavily as I said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Sam won’t go through with it,” I remembered thinking. After a few more minutes of conversation we said good-bye to each other and I hung up the telephone and returned to the proposal waiting for me on my computer.

*******

“That was two years ago,” I said as I continued to reflect.

“What was?” my bride asked.

“It was two years ago that he said he was going to pull a Jim Morrison,” I answered.

She frowned, “So?”

“The obituary says Sam died in his sleep while on vacation in Paris, France,” I replied as I picked up the paper again.

She shook her head, “I still don’t get it.”

“That’s how Jim Morrison of the Doors died — in Paris — in his sleep,” I said.

“I didn’t know that, “she replied.

As I got up from the table as I picked up my coffee mug and stepped outside through the sliding glass door. I looked southward towards the remnants of Wedekind City and felt the hot tears start to flow.