The annual Thanksgiving Day dinner was a highlight in the lives of the enrollees of Company 5478, Civilian Conservation Corps at Camp Gasquet as an elaborate spread of turkey and all the trimmings was served to the 150 young men and officers at the camp.

Arriving at Gasquet about two years ago, the company, originally organized in 1936, has aided in organizing and reconditioning the territory surrounding this district. In the three years that the company has been in existence, it has contained from time to time members from every state in Dixie, with only a few members actually from California.

Digging wells

When I was a junior at Del Norte High School in 1949 Doris’s husband, Mike Whalen, joined the Warrior staff as a teacher and coach. At the same time, Doris joined the teaching staff at Crescent Elk, where she taught second, fifth and sixth grade for four years.

In 1953 Doris moved to the high school. It amazes me that she was teaching here when I was in school and was still teaching here when I came back in 1980. She was still teaching at the high school in 1992 when I retired.

She went on for seven more years before retiring in 1999. During my 33 years as a teacher, coach and school administrator I never met a more dedicated, more respected teacher than Doris.

She always made her English classroom a very special place. 

In explaining his opposition to city participation in local tourism promotion, Dennis stated that “We (city government) don’t benefit the most ... I’m not in favor of it.” I would remind Dennis that this is a nation where the government is supposed to serve the people, not the other way around where “government benefits the most.”

Dennis explained in the article that if a visiting family of four spends $500 during its stay in our community, the city gets “only” about $23 in sales tax and Transient Occupancy Tax. Continuing, Dennis complained that the rest of the $500 goes to the hotel, restaurants and retail shops.

In response, I remind him that the balance goes to the businesses that earned that money, with no help from the city if it does not fund tourism promotion.

The balance goes to the business owner and his family and to desk clerks, housekeepers, gardeners, grocery checkers, baggers, produce workers, butchers, security, janitors, waiters and waitresses, dishwashers, bar tenders, cleaning crews, gas jockeys, mechanics, drivers, insurance brokers and their families.

My new Blackberry Pearl came with all sorts of bells and whistles. I mean that literally. I have not had time to read the accompanying book or watch the instructional DVD, so I can’t take any credit for setting up the phone with custom profiles.

When I receive email sent to my Triplicate address, three gongs go off. Weeknights around midnight Loree at our Smith River printing plant sends me a report that tells me how well we met our page deadlines and if there were any press problems I should be aware of. The first night I had my new phone Rick sat up in bed when the gongs went off. He said it sounded like Buddhist monks were gathering in our room. I figured out how to change the mode to vibrate only, but that makes the phone dance noisily across the nightstand, still waking us up.

When someone sends a text message my phone plays a tune. It’s “The Entertainer,” the theme song from the movie “The Sting.” It’s a snappy tune that evokes happy memories of that fun movie with handsome duo Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Can you believe that was 36 years ago?

We’ve gotten quite a bit of response, mostly positive and some amounting to high praise. While much of it arrived in the form of emails or phone calls rather than letters to the editor, I’m going to share a bit.

Gopher Gulch columnist Inez Castor copied me on a congratulatory note she sent to reporter Nick Grube and said of the series, “It was community building at its best — not to mention damned good storytelling.”

She added: “This is the sort of writing I think readers of a local paper want to see. We want to care about people, and this story makes those of us who never knew them care about Mari, Peter and their lives, as well as the Alexandres and their struggle to deal with this.”

A family friend wrote to say that she has “never once seen Mari without a smile and only God can understand why someone so amazing would have to endure this.”

My friend Claire, who lives near Sacramento and swelters miserably in crowded commuter trains all summer, bursts into joyful song as leaves fall and autumn brings a nip to the air. She says the trains and their occupants smell much better in October than in August.

I’m a summer critter, and can be found pleading with the cottonwood tree to hang onto its leaves in early September. Arms wrapped as far around his trunk as I can reach, I feel each falling leaf as if it were a wound. I try to avoid the inevitable signs of autumn, like school starting and geese heading south.

But somehow, reaching the first of November makes a big difference. Denial behind me, I settle into winter as happy as if I had sense. I make soup, stuff squash, and replace the phony summer flowers in the front room with equally phony fall leaves. Just give me bright and shiny.

Ironically, while I hate to see leaves fall, I love naked limbs. My decor includes corkscrew willow, dry grasses, cones and feathers bestowed upon me by moulting hawks, gulls and corvids.