My husband and I moved to Del Norte County a year and a half ago from San Jose.  I had previously worked as a deputy district attorney both in San Joaquin County and San Benito County, and budget cuts seemed to follow me wherever I went. We came to Del Norte County because I was offered the chance to continue my career as a deputy district attorney. 

We were not sure what to expect moving to a rural city, so far north from everyone we knew. We need not have worried, for Del Norte County embraced us with open arms. Through my work and community service, I truly learned what it meant to live in a small town.

People may say there is nothing to do in a small town, but I disagree. In a small community there is everything to do. I became a board member for the North Coast Marine Mammal Center and worked on several of its fundraising events.

In addition, I became a member of Sunrise Rotary, and just last month was elected to the Board of Directors.  Through Rotary, I became a volunteer for the Schools of Hope. As a volunteer for the Schools of Hope, I dedicate my lunch hour once a week to helping two first grade students learn how to read. The two students always manage to put a smile on my face, and I look forward every week to seeing their progress.

Through Rotary, I met wonderful leaders in our community who serve in many difference capacities. I started attending public meetings. In attending the City Council meetings and Harbor Commission meetings, I saw elected members and volunteers of the community dedicate their time to make Del Norte County a wonderful place to live in.

Memories of Bobby Rice at Relay for Life event

Sometimes a brief snapshot can give you a measure of the color and depth of a life and how it shined.  So it was with me and Bobby Rice on a Saturday night last July.

I was hobbling the high school track at the annual Relay For Life celebration on crutches with a torn MCL. It was several hours after sundown and the evening chill had set in. As I tried to knock out a few miles in my Mom’s memory, somewhere between my knee, missing my Mom and dwelling on some recent bumps in the road of my life, I got into one of those places where the rags of time are weighing kind of heavy.

It was in that frame of mind I found myself when all of a sudden I heard, “You better slow down Hopalong, you’re gonna burn up the track,” and turned to see Bobby Rice. He came up and put his hand on my shoulder, looked me in the eye and asked how I was doing. I told him I was managing and was having a talk with my Mom, who I mentioned had brought me to this place seven years before, when she was passing up in Brookings. Bobby pointed out at all the people walking the track, silhouetted by the light and spirit of the luminaria, and asked me if I knew what kind of gift my Mom had given me in bringing me to this place. I told him I did.

He told me what a great place this was, how the people looked out for each other and what a “sense of community,” his words, there was in this small county. He talked a while longer about how much he loved this place and its people and then said he was going to leave me with Mom and go up around the bend.

It was one of those times when you needed a shot in the arm and a reason to believe, and Bobby Rice gave them to me that night.

Let’s talk, you and me, about other drivers. I feel sorry for them. I really do. They’re so much dumber than us.

They can’t remember to use the turn signal because they’re too busy trying to remember where they were supposed to go. 

They think the “three-second rule” refers not to following distance but to how much time it takes to fish a french fry out of their crotch before it leaves a grease spot.

Not even counting themselves, other drivers have to deal with a lot of mental challenges on the road.

One of the worst is clearly the stop sign, which compels the more observant among them to look up from their text messages.

Every time you meet other drivers at an intersection, you can see them struggle with its permutations:

“Hmm. Pedestrians. If they don’t get out of my way, is there a height requirement for the ones I can run over?”

“How far over the stop line do I have to go before I can stop?”

“I know what the Go pedal does, but I’m not sure what the other one’s for.”

Tribe shouldn't gamble away money with casino

I write this with a heavy heart. No, I am not distinguished to be a member of the Yurok Tribe, and with that said, sadly, many will dismiss my thoughts solely for that matter alone.

How can anyone of Yurok heritage actually believe the consultants who painted a rosy portrait of a hotel and casino in downtown Klamath, are giving them the real deal?

The region is already saturated with casinos in Elk Valley and Smith River. Why would someone drive to a remote area? The get-rich-now approach rather than sow the seeds to the future appears to command the money.

What about building a small sawmill and market “certified, sustainable” lumber? What about building a salmon aquaculture “fish factory” up in Terwer along the banks of the Klamath alongside a Yurok heritage “living museum”?

Many persons of foreign nations would love to see such sites on a tour of the redwood region.

How about building a mussel aquaculture “shellfish factory” near the mouth of the Klamath River? Tourists passing through would love to see such industry.

I was up on Vancouver Island where First Nations people have built time-share vacation rentals.

Elections matter, one reason for the immigration reform proposals coming from President Obama and a bipartisan panel of U.S. senators.

Here are a few facts behind those moves: Republican Mitt Romney won among white voters, rich and poor, male and female, by an overall 59-39 percent last November. Because Obama had far larger margins among Latinos, blacks and Asian-Americans, Romney’s strong showing among whites wasn't enough.

Meanwhile, voting by Latinos is on an upswing in many currently safe GOP states like Texas and Georgia, causing freshman Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas to observe that unless the GOP does something to win them over, Texas will become Democratic in a decade.

But that’s only part of the picture. It turns out the strong anti-illegal immigrant feeling behind GOP platforms, state and federal, for most of the last 20 years was on the wane long before the fall election.

Before the spring of 2012, legislative action in Arizona and Utah, two states whose governments are firmly controlled by Republicans, saw an uninterrupted flow of precedent-setting moves against illegal immigrants.

Police in Arizona now must stop anyone they so much as suspect of being in this country illegally, and demand documents. All employers there are required to use the national E-Verify system to determine whether any new hire was undocumented.

The results for Arizona have been decidedly mixed so far. The state lost a few conventions to boycotts by liberal-leaning organizations. Thousands of illegal immigrants moved to other states, including an estimated 20,000 coming to California.

Michele, granddaughter Kayla, and the Guava Chiffon wedding cake. Del Norte Triplicate / Richard Wiens

But sometimes I tend to be outspoken about other people’s choices — carcinogenic hot dogs for instance. I want to rip them out of mustard-stained hands every time I see someone eating one. Karen says that’s going beyond the boundaries of what’s acceptable. I can’t, she says, change the world one donut-eater at a time. She says I need to lighten up.

So this column is my attempt to lighten up — with a light and airy chiffon cake. What follows is the recipe for classic Guava Chiffon Cake created by Hawaiian baker Herbert Matsuba in the 1960s and shared by Honolulu Star Bulletin features editor Betty Shimabukuro in her 2006 book “By Request — The Search for Hawaii’s Greatest Recipes.”

‘Call of Crescent City’ in warmth of the people

“The call of Crescent City,” Jan. 19, got me thinking. When my second husband died a year ago, I was living in Wilton, south of Sacramento. After a couple of months of successfully putting one foot in front of the other, I decided I would try to sell our four-bedroom home on five acres with a pond.

With divine intervention it sold for cash in a week for almost my asking price! Even though I thought I’d have a year before my home sold, I knew exactly where I’d go next — back to Crescent City!

I had moved to Del Norte County fresh out of college in Sacramento to begin my teaching career in 1976 at the age of 21. I drove along Pebble Beach Drive and said, “I can’t believe people are so lucky as to actually live here!” I knew not a soul, but my fellow teachers at Redwood School soon became family.

I met and married a wonderful man who was the father of my three sons. As years passed, we Redwood teachers taught each other’s children and loved them as our own.

Dave died in 1998, after we had been married 20 years. I was devastated, but being back in the classroom helped. I spent many recesses crying in the bathroom the rest of that school year.

I moved with my youngest son back to Sacramento, where my father and siblings still lived. I remarried, but for years, whenever we returned to Crescent City to visit, I’d cry as soon as I saw the ocean.

I was very disappointed to see the results of the Triplicate’s online poll regarding whether or not walking onto the jetty should be illegal.

As of this writing, over 60 percent of the voters believe that being out on the jetty should be legal. That being said, I realize that many are unlikely to agree with my opinion. However, I feel that there are aspects of our community’s well-being and safety of which many are unaware.

Let me preface my statement by saying that I think all people should be able to enjoy the beauty that our area has to offer. However, I would ask Crescent City residents to consider the lives of people that have been lost or those who have been injured as a result of being swept off the jetty before you make up your mind as to whether it is worth the risk to continue to lose members of our community to the dangerous conditions (sometimes foreseeable, sometimes not) that occur on the jetty.

Another point to consider is that it is not only the lives of those who walk out onto the jetty that are at risk. We must also consider the lives of those who respond to try to save people once they have been swept into the rough waters. The boating safety deputies and civilian volunteers, the Search and Rescue volunteers, Fire Department volunteers, Coast Guard rescue swimmers and helicopter pilots also put their own lives at risk every time they respond to these types of incidents.

We also have to think about the city and county resources that are used to deploy police officers, deputies, fire rescue resources, and paramedics to the scene.

As a part-time dispatcher for the Sheriff’s Department, I am able to observe that these incidents do not occur within a bubble. They are happening at the same time that your mother is having difficulty breathing, your son gets in a car accident, or your house gets burglarized.

Many times, the resources that would ordinarily be dispatched immediately in such circumstances are delayed due to the fact that our dispatch center (staffed by one person) is trying to dispatch Search and Rescue, boating safety, etc., at the same time that we are trying to answer your 911 call for assistance.

I have been a Del Norte Warrior player, a Warrior coach, and a Warrior fan for more years that I like to count.

Playing football in 1948-50 we wore helmets that had no place to put an icon, but if we could have I would have been proud to have the Warrior head on the helmet I wore.

When I say this I mean no disrespect to our Native American community. The Indian with the full headdress, in my mind then and now, represents pride, honor and courage. These are qualities that are desirable for all our youth.

I have tremendous respect for our Native Americans and recognize that many of the Warriors’ most outstanding athletes have been of Native American heritage: Archie Thompson; the Williams brothers, Chuck and Juke; the Morgan brothers Don and Leon; Blaine Lopez and Lewis Nova. This is just a short list of those who have left their mark on Warriors athletic history.

Blaine Lopez and Lewis Nova have gone on to become outstanding Warrior coaches. I find it sad that we let something like an icon for the Warriors divide the community. 

I know that the loyal fans of Del Norte High School are going to continue their great support, no matter what symbol is finally chosen, and for this I am very thankful.

The national news just keeps getting worse — every day, there seems to be another shooting, too often with  children as the victims.

If ever there was a time to embrace our faith, it is now.  Throughout our history, we have had memorable preachers and musicians who focused on our need for faith to sustain us in hard times. Those folks back in the late 1800s and early 1900s wrote some of the most wonderful  hymns, and each one has a story.

Here’s another  of one of my favorites, one that I can never sing enough, “His Eye is on the Sparrow.”

The words were written by Civilla D. Martin, a Canadian music schoolteacher who married an evangelist. They were inspired by a visit to an older couple in upstate New York, in 1905.

The couple were both handicapped, but managed to present a happy outlook despite their situation. Civilla asked them how they were able to do so, and was told by the wife, “His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.”

Those words became the seed for the song, and after completing the words, she sent them to famous Gospel composer Charles Gabriel, who set them to music. Not only are the words inspiring, but the melody is just beautiful. Take a look in your church hymnal — you just might find it — and then sing it!

• This morning, the ladies of New Life Community Church will include a Secret Sister revealing party with their 9 a.m. monthly meeting. They will learn who their sisters have been for the past year, and draw the name of their new sister for the coming year. Small gifts and encouragement given anonymously, once a month, and attempts to guess the identity of the giver throughout the year make for fun and fellowship.