House Calls runs every other Saturday. Today’s column is written by Karen Chapman, a certified phlebotomy technician at Sutter Coast Hospital.

Before any blood draw your doctor might have ordered for your child, please explain to him or her in simple terms what is going to happen.

Children have a right to know what to expect, even if they are not going to like it. Explain why the doctor wants their blood drawn, “to see if you are sick,” etc.

It can be very frightening for children. If you stay calm and matter of fact, the child is usually calmer.

Some don’ts are, don’t tell children if they are not good, we will stick them twice. Threats make everything so much worse. We might miss and have to try twice!

The north end of China Beach, a mile-long stretch of secluded coastline in Oregon’s Boardman State Park north of Brookings.

Every time we came close, we’d already felt satisfied with our journey. From the north, we were stopped short by the sight of Natural Bridges, a textbook final destination. From the south, well, we never were moved to walk across the high-in-the-sky Thomas Creek Bridge.

Finally we made getting to China Beach the whole point of a trip north, timed it with the help of a tide chart, and discovered a secluded coastline that was pretty easy to get to and well worth the effort.

From the pages of the Crescent City American, March 1928.

A visit to New Klamath will prove to one that it is already more than a wide place in the road and that it is fast becoming a city.

O.A. “Dad” Dale is building a 20-room rooming house for Mrs. Mary Wright, just above the road at the end of the bridge. Vern Flashman has the lumber on the ground and will soon start to erect a new building on the lot next to the chamber of commerce building.

Many new buildings have gone up in the past year and it would be a revelation to one who had not been there for several months to see the change that industry and building has made. 

1856 letter arrives here

A letter that was written in the year 1856 was received by Mayor O.B. Lauff last week that was written by the city clerk to Miss A.M. Lewis and is as follows:

“Crescent City, July 15, 1856

“Miss A.M. Lewis

“Dear Miss,

“The members of the Crestonian, feeling desirous of expressing to you in a substantial manner the appreciation of your efforts on their behalf and anxious to present you with a memorial of their sincere friendship, beg of your acceptance of the accompanying ring.

“With sentiment of request, I am

“D.W. McComb, in behalf of all the members

The letter accompanying the message was from the Queen Insurance Company of Portland, Ore., and was signed by B. Lee Paget, Resident Agent for that company, stated that the recipient of the letter later became Anna M.E. Mann of that city, who founded and endowed the Old People’s Home.

People could succeed at overthrowing government

Supervisors, thanks for supporting our Second Amendment! (Board backs gun rights,” Feb. 28.) Supervisor Martha McClure apparently abstained, stating that it made no sense “cherry-picking amendments.”

Under normal circumstances I could agree with her, but looking at page A7 of the same newspaper reveals why it really does make sense: over a third of the entire page was filled with proposed California bills limiting guns and ammunition.

Additionally, many more similar bills have been introduced in the U.S. Congress and the United Nations and the president has threatened to use executive orders to achieve similar goals. Never before has the Second Amendment been under such intense attack.

Our freedoms, which limit governmental overreach, are based on four boxes.

First is the soapbox: Our freedom of speech, which enables us to influence the second box, the ballot box. If unjust laws are nonetheless enacted, the citizens may still prevail via the jury box, but if even that fails, our final line of defense against tyranny is the cartridge box.

Our Second Amendment makes us unique in the world. It’s the right that secures all other rights. Tyrannical governments often display the trappings of freedom such as constitutions and elections without actually being free since rights there are not secured. For obvious reasons, not a single tyrannical government allows its subjects to “keep and bear arms.”

Who decides when the government has gotten tyrannical enough to justify shooting its agents? The answer is clearly “we the people.” There is no way we can divest ourselves of this responsibility if indeed we are to have a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Last week, I was exiting the market and heading toward my vehicle when I heard someone calling out, “Excuse me, sir…” I turned around and saw a man who I did not know wanting to ask me a question. Surprise! He wanted some money.

I make a practice of never ignoring anyone, especially if the person wants to talk to me. He asked me for some spare change; I politely declined. I asked him if he was hungry. He said, “Yes, I’m hungry.”

I offered to buy him a cheeseburger. He declined. When he realized he wasn’t going to collect anything from me but some conversation, he walked away. 

It should surprise no one that I do not believe in giving money to panhandlers. For the obvious reasons it sets a practice that can only worsen the condition, stimulate more begging (because it works), and most certainly not solve the endemic problem.

If I was to give this man some money, would I be helping or hurting him? Are begging and homelessness related?

To better understand this issue, I called Crescent City Police Chief Doug Plack. He was cautious to advise me there are homeless people and there are beggars and often they are not the same people. I accept that premise.

When I returned to my office, I placed a call to Rural Human Services for some data. Here are the figures I learned from RHS: In February 2013, 78 people received some services. Twenty-six received  bags of essentials, which included eating utensils, can opener,  canned goods, and assorted other food products.

Build over ocean to solve Last Chance Grade issue

After reading the recent article about Caltrans finishing the latest round of repairs for the Last Chance Grade (“Highway’s trouble spot is costly,” March 5), I dug into my box of uncompleted letters to the editor and found one related to a similar Triplicate article from Feb. 14, 2009.

That article stated, “Officials are resigned to the fact that Last Chance Grade will fall into the ocean. They say it’s not a question of if it will happen, but when.”

Since moving here in 1985, I have made friends with many people that grew up here in the 1930s and ’40s. Several of these folks lost family members on both the old highway and the current one.

There were plans researched at one time for going deeper inland: What happened? Geology? Opposition Groups? My point, or question, is this: Please, will someone at Caltrans tell me if the obvious (to me) third option for dealing with the problems associated with the construction and maintenance of a highway through the unstable terrain between Crescent City and the Klamath area has been studied in the past and found to be unworkable or cost prohibitive.

If you can let your imagination run wild long enough, imagine a structure similar to the harbor breakwater, running between the south end of South Beach and the lagoon area just north of Trees of Mystery. Yes, out in the ocean. Imagine that this structure is more than 50 feet above sea level (30 feet higher than the harbor breakwater), running roughly parallel to the beach (500-1,000 feet off shore, making maybe a thousand acres of salt marsh/wetlands) and wide enough for two lanes in each direction, a center median, and utility right-of-ways.

If your mind is still open, the material needed for this project might be found either close by (bluffs) or from straightening out Highway 199 (literally move the mountain, in pieces of course).

Aim is to make country safer, not take rights 

I watched the Feb. 26 supervisors meeting where our Board chose to pass a resolution supporting and upholding the Second Amendment. I am unclear what this resolution accomplished because no one has taken away your Second Amendment rights nor will anyone take them away. It seemed redundant to me to even bring up a resolution like this.

The folks who spoke at the meeting, except for the first gentleman and Supervisor Martha McClure, are missing the point of what the government is trying to do with the new gun control laws. It is not trying to take away your Second Amendment rights; it is trying to make this country safer and possibly prevent more horrific mass killings.

Mrs. McClure’s example of the banning of tommy guns was excellent. These guns were being used by the mafia to kill citizens instead of using them to kill rodents, which was their original intent when they were given to farmers after the war. Thus, when they were repurposed to kill citizens, they were banned by the federal government. Who could be against banning the use of these guns in our civilized society?

That is what our government is attempting to do: Remove the dangerous, unnecessary weapons from society and keep them out of the hands of unbalanced individuals who should not have access to firearms of any kind.

Another individual at the meeting brought up drunk driving and how successful the campaign to stop drunk driving has been. He said one individual changed the laws for this heinous crime. Now look how many lives have been saved!

Maybe, by having universal background checks or changing the availability of rifles only necessary during war, we could save lives, too. The purpose of such actions is not to take away your Second Amendment rights, but to protect the right of all citizens to remain unharmed in public places. That is the goal here.

One of the real joys that came with being a high school athletic director were coaching surprises that sometimes came upon me.

It used to be that you had to be a credentialed employee to coach. At different times in my career when a season was about to start in some sport other than football and we didn’t have a coach, I got to step in and fill the gap. It was something I always enjoyed.

While I was at Yucca Valley High School before coming here, I got to coach girls basketball, boys golf, and baseball under these circumstances, but the most enjoyable one of all occurred after I came back to Del Norte.

Track season was about to start and the head coaching position was open. Principal Al Peyton said, “You’re it,” and the fun began.

The 1983 track team was made up of some of the most fun girls and boys that I ever had the pleasure of working with, especially the girls team.

They were led by senior Laura Aubell. Laura was an excellent athlete who had competed for the Warriors in track and tennis since her freshman year. She was also involved in many school activities, serving as student body secretary as a senior. She was elected homecoming princess as a junior, and she was a member of the Redwood Rockettes.

Participating in a half-marathon in Huntington Beach was a milestone in the recovery of Mary Brooks. Photo courtesy of Monica Morant

I met Mary Brooks in 1965 when she enrolled in my high school our sophomore year. She was a quiet, petite 15-year-old who had studied in Mexico her freshman year. That made her seem exotic, and those of us struggling with tenses in Spanish II envied her jumping ahead into an elite conversational Spanish class. 

After school and on weekends when the coeds from Marymount High School were liberated from our private girls’ school uniforms, Mary dressed in chic short dresses and trendy mini skirts. I remember she often wore white stockings which gave her that Mary Quant look at the exact moment in time when the “English invasion” was at the height of popularity.

In one yearbook photo, wearing a pout and long straight blonde bangs that covered her eyebrows, Mary resembles George Harrison’s first wife, fashion model Pattie Boyd. 

In a class of just 42 women, we got to know each other pretty well, but that was 50 years ago and my recollection of specific interactions with Mary are sketchy for the first two or so years. But I have vivid memories from the spring of our senior year, when Mary, two other classmates and I volunteered for Robert F. Kennedy’s campaign for the presidency.

I think this is the coldest winter I’ve experienced here in the 10 years I’ve been back — and of the five years I was here previously. But there are red tulips waving at me along my driveway, and fresh, lush growth on the miniature roses in front of the house, so there’s hope.

The seasons seemed kind of messed up to me the last couple years, so I’m anticipating that this year will be better and we’ll actually be able to grow some veggies. I had a good start last year, but all of the sudden, over a couple weeks, they just bit the dust, and someone told me it was just a bad growing year — or perhaps it was because it was just too moist due to the fog off the ocean.

The seasons of our lives tend to be like that, too. Sometimes, no matter how hard we try, finding success in our endeavors seems to be a matter of two steps forward and one step back, leaving us frustrated, and at times, even bitter.

Times like that are when we need the help and encouragement faith can give us if we just let it. Too often, folks get discouraged and turn their backs on God, refusing to believe that help is available if we just ask. And then they hold on to bitterness about things, which only hurts us, not the other guy.

Our churches and various faith-based groups are numerous here, and in great variety. Check them out!

• Today the fifth Kabalah class for temple Beth Shalom will take place at 11 a.m. at the Curry Coastal Pilot building in Brookings. The class has been well-attended, and folks are reminded to park on the street and not to block parking for the Pilot folks.

• Tuesday, there will be a great Irish Variety show in the gym at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, 3rd and E streets. Doors will open at 5:30, and the performance will begin at 7 p.m.