Porky-pines

Western Porcupines

Rose wrote that she had a pet Porcupine, and it thought that she was it’s mother.

Rose if you want to write anything about raising a Porcupine I would dearly like to hear the story. I’ve probably had every kind of a wild pet that a person could have, but I’ve never raised a porcupine.

Back in the early sixties, when I lived at Eel rock, we were coming home late, and in the middle of the dirt road was a Porky-pine waddling along. My dad stopped the car, jumped out, grabbed a limb from the side of the road, and herded the slow clumsy appearing porky-pine into the headlights. The animal seemed to be content to stand still in the road. We got out to look at it. When you got close, he would ball up and stick his soft fuzzy nose between his front legs where you couldn’t get to it. My dad got down on one knee and was looking at his face peering upside down at him. He got his knee just a little too close, and in the blink of an eye his knee had five quills in it. They seem like slow clumsy animals, but they can sure flinch fast. It almost seemed like he shot his quills. That is probably how the thought that they can “shoot their quills” got started.

When we got home we cut the quills in two, and pulled them out with pliers, The quills have barbs on them like microscopic fish-hooks. The old wives tale is that if you cut them in the middle it releases the pressure on the barbs and they pull out easier.

Most dogs on the ranch learned to leave porky’s alone. Some of the dumber dogs couldn’t resist trying to get even. They would come home with quill in their nose every time.

You can usually tell when you have porky-pines living in your neighborhood. The maple trees will have dead limbs on them. With closer inspection you will find that the fresh young bark in the treetops has been eaten. Porkys love maple bark.

Oregon, have you ever trapped a porky? I’ll bet you didn’t get much for the pelt.

What is the point of a chain letter? ? ?

We've all gotten them.

Most of the E-mails that I get anymore are the kind that tells some heartwarming story about how God is kind to us, or how rough our troops have it compared to us. I agree that they do. My beef is not with them. I honor America's soldiers as much as anyone. I even enjoy some of the oddball stories that people e-mail me.

What I just don't get is why that I have to forward them to at least five or ten other people or I will go bald... Well that explains how I got bald, but it doesn't explain why anyone should hate me enough to make me turn bald just because I didn't forward their stupid e-mail. But, the joke’s on them I kinda like being bald. Whenever Someone tells a bald joke, my wife gets very protective, and she feels like she has to make it up to me for being picked on. I can even make my lower lip quiver if she looks sympathetic enough.

I've gotten e-mails that have told me to that I should forward them to at least twenty-five people. If I followed their instructions, my computer would show me something remarkable, something that I've never seen before. I've never done that, so I don't know what it would do. I'm not sure that I have twenty-five people in my e-mail address book, so I would have to add some. So, if you want to be one of the lucky ones to see your computer do something fantastic, just leave your e-mail address in the comments below, and I will forward you a bunch of these good luck charms.

I got an e-mail from my ex-wife the other day. It was a bad luck e-mail that had numerous testimonies about how some foolish people had not forwarded it, and all kinds of bad luck had befallen them. Everything from their dog dying, to their daughter getting pregnant by the neighbor kid that they hate. One whole family was actually killed on a plane that crashed. So I really worried about that one, I don’t need anymore bad luck. But, it did tell me something about my ex-wife. She always said that we have been wonderful friends since we got divorced, and our daughter never suffered at all. If she is so happy, why is she sending me bad luck e-mails??? It just goes to show you that there is no such thing as a forgiving woman!

Myself, I’ve always treated her very nicely, BUT as you recall, I‘ve always said “a grudge worth having is worth holding”. In the back of my sick evil mind, I’ve always thought that some day I would have the chance to get even. Get even so subtlety that she wouldn't even know it, and it wouldn’t hurt her at all, but I could spend the rest of my life gloating and knowing that I got even. Vengeance would be mine! But, she nailed me first with the evil e-mail thing. Damn she’s good!

So, if anybody out there knows why people send these chain e-mails, and what ever purpose they might have, you might let me know otherwise I’m going to forward my ex-wife’s e-mail to you.

Please forward this to as many blogsites as you can, and you will become gloriously wealthy. (I’m feeling generous)

P.S. I was going to embed "Fleetwood Macs, Never Break the Chain", but it was to darn long on the leadup and I got bored, so being that I'm in a good mood I'm not going to do that to you!

Babies!

Just so you "Fancy Photographer types" don't get to thinking that you have captured the corner on cute, take a look at these photos. Brian Sargent, the manager at RadioShack took these photos with a 3.2 megapixel Canon shirt pocket camera. He was in the Briceland area when he saw four of these little guys romping around and playing in the loose straw. He said that they were really full of themselves, jumping around and biting each other and having a great time. He only had time to take these two pictures and they were gone, off into the brush with their mom.

Baby Foxes

It has been a good year for babies. Last year had abundant fruit, berries, and nuts, and the wildlife did great last winter. They came into the spring fat and fertile.

Two years ago I saw a ground squirrel in the berry brush by the golf course. This year I have seen as many as ten little baby squirrels laying on their fat little bellies and eating fresh green clover on the golf course.

Every couple of quail that I see has babies trailing behind them. There was at least seventy-five baby quail in front of my house the other day.

One of the things that I enjoy the most is the small glimpses that I get of the baby cottontail rabbits that live in the brush around my house. They come hopping out of the brush, but when they get spooked, it is almost like a cartoon. Their hind feet get going first then their bodies catch up with them. They jump in the air and kick like they were kicking the imaginary predator that was chasing them in the nose. In the blink of an eye they are back in their beloved bramble patch.

There are baby turkeys all over the valley.

Last year the doe that lives in front of my house had twin fawns. This year those fawns are twin spike yearlings. There is another set of twin fawns this year, I not sure if it is the same doe, but they are all in the same group.

Last year was the year of the amazing fruit, this year will be the year of the amazing babies.

Totally off the wall request!

I have been put in charge of finding the Garberville Rotary Club a sound system.

Here are the details:

The president wants rechargeable, cordless, wireless, with volume knobs on each, speakers on each table. (eight tables) With one podium mike, and one cordless mike. Now if there is such a thing out there that is practical, and of superior quality, we are interested.

Deep in my chest lies the heart of a contractor, that screams; "Oh no you don't want that! Here is what you really want!". Well my heart is screaming, so I'll share with you what "I really think that I really want him to have". But, I know that there are experts out there that know the trade and I'm hoping that they will network for me and tell me what I "Really Want".

Ekovox and Huck are you listening??? Or others that would, hopefully, like to dive in.

Here's my specs:

1-@ $1500.00 Flexible with proper justification.

2-Our group is usually about fifty people that meet in a twenty by thirty foot room, but we need a sound system that would work good for a gymnasium full of people, or a large outdoor party. ( 500 Clean watts?)

3- Two speakers, possibly four.

4- Reasonable portability.

5- A priority is that we have a sound system that has a feed-back killing circuit that will NOT allow feedback, even when you are standing in front of the speakers. No feed back, never, ever, ever!

6- The microphones need to be crisp and clear, and of good quality for a speaker to be heard well with no distortion.

7- One mic has to be wireless.

8- 12 volt ability would be nice, but has low, low priority.

9- Could it be a system that a musician would be proud to plug into also?

10- I thought that I should give at least ten specs, so enter your own thoughts here!

Here is one that I looked at. what do you think? Fender mod# PD500

Pet snakes, You are about to learn somthing that you never knew!!!

Olm said...
"Eko, have you ever seen a rubber boa constrictor in the Willow Creek area - or anywhere else in Humboldt Co, for that matter?"

Ernie said...
I've only seen one, and that belonged to a park ranger that lived at Richardsons Grove. He said that it was a local snake, but I've not ever seen one in the wild. I think that maybe they might live around here, because I have read that they do. How about it Eko, have you ever seen one?

Now For The Shock. Read about the cute little Rinknecks below!
These cute little snakes grow in great abundance in my front yard. They are called "Ringneck Snakes". They are called Ringneck snakes because they have a orange/yellow ring around their necks. When you find them, and put them out in the open, they curl their tail in a cute little curl, and lay on their backs so their orange belly shows. They are so cute, timid, and sweet that even an old snake hater like me warms up to them. they are real charmers!

Every now and then I catch one, and keep in in a dry aquarium. I put worms and crickets in with it and they disappear, but I’ve never seen one eat. After I get tired of watching it I turn it loose again.



Now here is the catch! The sneaky little bastards are deadly poison.

Who knew? Did you? I'll bet that you thought, like me, that the Rattlesnake was the only poison snake in the Pacific North-West.

They are such gentle little snakes that reasearchers just assumed that they weren't poison. They don't even seem to try to bite unless they are feeding.




Click on this link to learn more!
Are Ringneck Snakes Poisonous?

Critter Friends

With Thanks to Heraldo for the memories.

My Grandson used to love to collect these, they are called Black Spotted Salamanders, and they are black with varying degrees of spots from coal black to Dalmatian colored. You can find them under bark and rocks laying on the ground, in the woods in the winter. They secrete poison, but they are safe to handle if you wash your hands and don't ingest any of the poison. There is the old wives tale of the high school kid that ate one on a dare at a party and died. I doubt that happened, but if you eat one you will die, so don't eat them!

These critters must have moisture to survive, they don't have lungs, and they soak up the oxygen that they need through their moist skin. Remember that as you play with them. Don't left them dry out. A jar with damp moss in it works well. them turn them back loose exactly where you found them.


This is the Giant Pacific salamander. I never ran into many of these as a kid, but remember making one "bark". If you scare them they make a barking sound, like a small puppy.

I don't know how poisonous they are, but they secrete a nasty tasting liquid to ward off predators. They are territorial and should not be moved, because it will interfere with their breeding plans.


This photo is by Kym The Redheaded Blackbelt. I sometimes steal her great photos.



This is a "Water Dog", the newcomers call them a "Rough Skinned Newt". This little critter was one of the most collected pets that we searched for as kids. They are aquatic in the summer time, and that made them fun to catch in the old swimming hole. All the girls are terrified of them which made them twice as interesting.

They don't bark, so I don't know where they got the name "water dog". Maybe someone thought that they did at one time.

They also secrete poison through their skin, so wash after handling one. There is a tale about the cattle drive crew, where the camp cook accidentally scooped one into the coffee pot when he made the coffee in the morning and killed everyone.

When protecting themselves, they throw their heads back over their backs, and stick their tail straight in the air, or curl it over their backs. This lets their bright orange belly show, and that means that they are poison. At least that is the theory. It must work, they are quite abundant on the North-Coast.

Another thing, you can take great pride in the "Water Dog" as a local critter, they only grow in North-Western California and South-Western Oregon.

Are you Crazy?

I inadvertently stirred up a bees nest. A few posts back I made a reference to the “insane postings of Anonymous”. The commenter wrote back:
“Ernie, I like the general tenor of your comments here. But I must point out that many people who are certifiably crazy, like me, also write some damn fine comments on these and other blog pages. I will acknowledge, to be fair, that I've been diagnosed and treated, and I take my meds regularly. Maybe that's what separates the sensible posts of this particular nut from the rants and abusive screeds of those other crazy characters.”

To be honest, this person sounds more sane than me!

Once, back when I knew everything, I was absolutely certain that I was sane! But of course you know that was when I was a kid. Kids are the only ones in our society that know everything. They don’t even doubt that they know everything. That, and everything that they know is without any doubt correct.

I was very comfortable with being very sane, and knowing everything. Then one of those spoilsport “old people” came along and ruined everything for me. He would come up with things like; “If you’re sane, you should be able to prove it, so prove to me that you are sane”. Well, I’m not insane. That was proof enough for me at the time, but I did find that he had put a new dent in my armor.

So I thought; “I’ll think of a way to prove that I’m sane, then the next time the question comes up, boom, I’ll spring my sanity on him and make him look silly”.

I soon found that sanity is a difficult thing to prove, but so is insanity. If you look up “Insanity” in the dictionary it usually defines it as “The lack of sanity”. So I looked up “sanity”. Sanity is defined as: “A legal term, meaning sound of mind.” So, how do you prove sanity? Do you thump someone's head like you would a watermelon to check for ripeness? Only you check for “Soundness”? Thump, thump, yeah Ernie’s sane.

So I checked a few web sites, to see what they said about the subject of sanity. Here’s a few things that I found:

Insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. The quote has been commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, and Albert Einstein.

That’s not a definition of insanity, that’s the definition of what an insane person might do! But a sane person might have a good reason for doing those same things, and an insane person couldn’t understand why. So that definition sucks.

Insanity; “Unable to differentiate between fantasy and reality” Dictionary.

Well, some of my fantasies are better than my realities! I have to be crazy to live in “The real world” rather than in some of the great fantasies that I have.

From wikipedia; “ It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas or feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing is further from the truth... Just as there is a 'Folie à deux' ( for those of you that don’t speak Greek, folie a’ deux means "folly of two". Usually thought of as the insanity of love. Ernie) Then there is a 'folie à millions.' The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane. (in: Fromm, The Sane Society, Routledge, 1955,

I guess that the “folly of millions” would be politics or religion.

After years and years of thoughts on the subject of sanity, I had to conclude that I’m going to have to give up worrying about my sanity, because it is making me crazy!

But I have been able to tell the difference between a crazy person and a regular person… The crazy people get better meds.

How would you prove that you are sane? It should be easy to do.

Royal Visit

King Abdullah II, and Queen Rania, and the Prince Hashem bin Al Abdullah.
If you look at the picture at the top of my blog, the one that say's Ernie's Place through the middle of it. You will notice a white dot. The Dot is the Benbow Inn. In the Inn is the King Of Jordan, King Abdullah II, and his most beautiful bride, Queen Rania. I had heard several rumors that they would be here, now Cristina has semi-confirmed it, in her blog; “The Nocturnal Nomad”.

I thought about putting on a few airs, and inviting them across the street for tea. But, then it occurred to me that I should probably clean my yard first, and that I didn’t have time. Then it occurred to me that maybe they had never seen a messy yard before and that maybe it could be part of their “Humboldt Experience”, along with visiting the Redwood Trees. After all, mother nature hasn’t cleaned her yard lately, unless you count all of those lightning strikes, where she burned all of the accumulating brush that needed to be cleaned.

Anyway, I hope that all of you out there realize that I still like all of you little people, even though my valley is filled with Royalty.

A few thoughts about life in general

Once upon a time, a few years ago on a peaceful Sunday afternoon I was sitting in the living room reading a newspaper. (My natural habitat) I heard a thump at the window in front of the house. It sounded like a bird hit it, but the thump was way too small. Curious, I got up and went outside. Sitting on our front deck on its tail feathers, with its feet stretched out in front of him, and his beak stuck straight up into the air, was a Hummingbird. I picked the little guy up; he was too stunned to care. I brought it inside and showed it to my wife, Janis.

Of course she whipped right into “Mother mode”. She mixed up some sugar water. She gently held it in one hand while she drizzled sugar water down alongside its beak. I thought; “Well that should finish it off”. It acted like it was choking, but actually it was drinking the sugar water quite hungrily. After a few minutes it started looking around, and it became very alert. Janis took the bird back outside and sat with in for awhile, then she gave it some more sugar water and she opened her hand. The little bird sat there for a while then looked at her as if to say “Thanks” then it took to wing and very proficiently flew off to the South-West. And that was the very last we saw it.




The other day a friend of mine had a similar, but much more serious, experience with a Hummingbird. Some of the neighborhood kids tearfully brought her a baby Hummingbird that they said they found it in the middle of the road, and they wanted her to save it. They didn’t remember where they found it, so she couldn’t take it back. The little hummer had short little wing and tail feathers but most of the rest of her had pinfeathers. As luck would have it the lady had a Hummingbird nest it her art collection, so she put the nest and the hummer in a bowl with a plastic lid with a screen taped over the top. She made it some sugar water and started feeding it every half-hour with an eye-dropper. The bird soon revived and accepted the nice lady as her new mom.

My wife loaned her a large Parrot cage which the lady lined the outside of with gauze to keep the bird from escaping. She put a few branches and a couple of flower pots with blooming flowers in it. She put the nest with a hummingbird feeder in there also. It looked like a complete Hummingbird aviary.

She continued to feed it every half hour, by then she had added some other bird nutrients to the water. The little bird learned to squeak when it was hungry. In short order it had learned to hover, and feed itself out of the Hummingbird feeder, which must have been a huge relief to the poor tired lady.

She eventually placed the cage outside with the door open and made a feeder accessible on the outside of the cage. The bird is now living around her yard and eating out of the feeder. The lady fondly named the bird "Bitsy", probably because of it's size.

When the lady goes outside and holds up the eyedropper full of sugar water the little hummer flies right up and eats out of it. That must be an immensely rewarding feeling for the nice lady.

Now for a few thoughts: The reason that I have to keep this lady’s identity a secret is that it is very much against the law to harbor a wild bird. However, its perfectly okay to shoot a deer and have it's heart for dinner. I think that it has something to do with the fact that you pay the state for a licence to do that. I'm sure that if enough people were willing to pay for a permit to raise Hummingbirds it would be legal also.

Some other things that you should know: The mother Hummingbird feeds the baby partially digested bugs from her stomach to the babies stomach by sticking her beak down the babies throat, and into its stomach. If you can’t do that you shouldn’t try to raise a baby hummer. The lady was lucky that the baby was mostly grown, or it would have probably died.

Some other things that I looked up: the Hummingbird heart rate can beat as often as 1020 times a minute. It’s wings flap at 4800 times per minute. Here is a video of a hummingbird in slo-mo. A Hummingbird eats five times an hour, and it eats more than it’s weight in a day.

Hummingbirds go into a deep sleep at night called a “torper”. A torpid Hummingbirds heart rate can be as slow as fifty beats per minute, and their body cools off considerably. They wake up and come out of their torper by vibrating and moving around, about twenty minutes before they fly off to eat.

Do people care?...People do!

I finally got smart... Well, smartER.

Everyone will be glad to know that any link that is posted in the "Comment" section will now open "Full-Page". I didn't know how to do that before, but other Blogspot blogs had that feature, so I searched for how to do it until I found it.

Now you can make your links full page!

Here's and example for anonymous. (Just teasing, don't get paranoid, okay?)

I need your opinion!

"Joe Blow said about the post below entitled "Where were you"...
Hey Ernie! How old are you?
You talk like you just crawled out from under a rock!
That emotional clap trap you call patriotism is best left to your parents! You think those so-called terrorist struck America just because they wanted to? They used your kind of patriotism to suck this country right into where they wanted it. Spreading death, destruction and chaos all over the earth. For sure, what goes around, comes around."

Well gee Joe, and I’ve always said nice things about you. Both of us are fifth generation native. Both are world travled. Both are life educated. Yet from your blog, and I quote; “This report is about observations and not about opinions. Opinions are mostly worthless.”

I’m am just the opposite, on my blog opinions are what counts the most. I gain a lot of wisdom from other peoples opinions, and often I am enlightened by them. Sometimes I’ve even been moved to the point of saying “I wish that I had said that”.

Yet, you say that opinions are “Mostly worthless”. You are a unique person that can make it successfully through the world on your own opinions. At the end of my post I asked; “I'd appreciate your thoughts on America on it's birthday.”. That was a perfect opportunity for you to offer your opinion on what’s right or wrong with America, yet you used your opportunity to turn your opinions on me.

Possibly what might be wrong with America is we spend to much time picking on each other and not paying attention to what’s really going on that. We end up with “sales job leaders” that we would never have voted for had we been paying attention.

Another thing; How can we expect good people to run for office if all we do is ridicule them. We need to get away from electing leaders that can raise the most money, because with that money comes corruption.

I welcome your opinion on this blog but most people know that I’m not the wisest person in the world, but some of the wisest people in the world place their opinions on this blog and I appreciate that.

You talk to me like I’m what’s wrong with America, then you go on to say; “They used your kind of patriotism to suck this country right into where they wanted it. Spreading death, destruction and chaos” . I need more details, you have too much “Inside information” that I’m just not aware of. I told you that I have difficulty understanding things. I need some clarification, what am I doing wrong, and why is it so bad to say that I was stuck dumb by the death of so many people?

I watched the whole Twin Towers thing on television, as it was happening. I watched the firefighters grab their axes and shoulder their hoses and run into the buildings. I even told my wife, “I know exactly how those guys feel. They just want to get in there, and get everybody out before it all goes to hell!” Well they didn’t make it, maybe you noticed.

Then there was the firefighter that was suiting up to go into the next tower after the first one collapsed. The people in the crowd were urging him not to do it. He was terrified, but his reply to the crowd was “It’s my job, you would do it too, if you were me”. Then he trotted off to go into the second building before it collapsed. By then I couldn’t talk even if I wanted to, and I have to concede that I have no idea how he felt. I’ve often wished to know if he made it out alive. He said that I “would do it too,” I’ve wondered a million times if I really would have. That will be my second concession, I don’t know if I would, and I agonize over it.

Your opinion is one of the most thought provoking opinions that i've had posted in a long time!

Your life must be real simple not needing anyone else’s opinions, sometimes other peoples opinions are all that sustain me.

Movies and Parking Meters.

Garberville looking North, Late 40's, note all of the utility lines overhead. click to enlarge

Back in the late 40’s there was only two lanes of traffic in Garberville, with angle parking, but Garberville being the progressive town that it was decided that they needed more room for traffic, so they made the parking along the side of the street parallel to traffic, and added an outside lane through town, and they put in parking meters. I’m not sure when they did all of that, but that was the way is was in the late 50’s. I don’t remember the speed limit, but I think that it was faster than it is now. I remember that there wasn’t any stop signs.

The road through Garberville was called the Redwood Highway, you know it better as Highway 101. In the mid 60’s, when the freeway bypassed Garberville and the traffic was reduced, they took the extra lane out, and made the center line into two double lines about four feet apart, and they could not be crossed at any time without getting a ticket. They renamed the street Redwood Drive, and they went back to angle parking. The parking meters were removed before that because of public outcry.

In the early 80’s all of the utilities on Redwood Drive were undergrounded, and the street was repaved, and the center line was changed to a double yellow line, to allow ingress and egress to driveways and service stations. It was a major accommodation to Garberville traffic. What you should know, and it seems that nobody does know, is that it is against the law to cross a double yellow line to enter a parking space.

Back in the late 50’s the parallel parking spaces had parking meters, I don’t remember the denominations of coin that the meters took, but I think that they had a slot for a penny, a slot for a nickel, and a slot for a dime. Everybody hated the meters, and cussed them endlessly. I forget how long you could park, but if you put the right amount of coin in, you could crank it up to maximum time. People would drop extra coin in the slot, and if it looked like your time was about to run out, some good citizen would turn the handle and the meter would swallow the extra coin and add minutes. I’ll bet that you are wondering why I’m telling you all of this stuff… Later.

The Garberville Theater looks, on the outside, almost exactly like it does today. The Garberville Theater used to run a Saturday Matinee for the town kids. And it was only 25 cents to get in. The kids could only sit in the general seating, they weren’t allowed in the loges. Only adults were allowed there. The theater usually showed something like cartoons, or a cowboy movie, or something spooky like “The Blob” or “The Mantis”. but it was always just for the kids.

The evening show was quite different it had feature movies, like “Casablanca“, or the “African Queen”, or a good John Wayne movie. The adults sat in the loges, and the kids sat in the general seating. The kids could sit in the loges if accompanied by an adult, be we usually wanted to sit down front with the other kids. They had a “Nursing” room in the back for moms with squeally babies. Babies were allowed in free, but they had to go to the nursing room with the mom if they made any fuss. It always seemed to me like there was a baby making noise somewhere in the theater all the time. Each isle had an usher to help you to and from your seat with a flashlight, and if you got out of line the usher would shine her flashlight at you and embarrass you in front of your friends.

You are still wondering about those parking meters aren’t you?

When we wanted to go to the Saturday matinee, we would walk down the street, look all around and when nobody was looking we would whack the back of the parking meter with the heel of our hand, and the extra coin would puke out. Almost always we could get enough coin to take two of us to the matinee. But, we had to be sneaky, if the other kids figured it out they would have beat us to it. So my cousin Jim and I almost always went to the Saturday matinee. We were the only ones in town that missed those meters when they took them out. Damn!

Where were you?

Anne Frank’s house inspires 9/11 museum
Manhattan museum puts visitors face-to-face with images of terror (LINK)
Gary Marlon Suson sits beside his photographs inside his Ground Zero Museum Workshop,Thursday, Aug. 25 in New York. As the official photographer for the Uniformed Firefighters Association, Suson spent eight months as the only full-time, all-access photographer at Ground Zero during the recovery effort following the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attacks.


The end Of innocence

second hit

Story

I can't think of Independence day without thinking about the New York fire fighters that gave it all on September eleventh.

I couldn't talk about it for a month after it happened, but in the days following we became the most fiercely patriotic country in the world. We need to get back to that feeling of being proud of who we are and what we stand for. And what we will not stand for.

I'd appreciate your thoughts on America on it's birthday.

Anonymous Asked:

" ...can you recall Tarantino's Restaurant on the NW edge of 101 through Garberville? Can you recall the name of the restaurant before it was Tarantino's? (Hint: Rotary used to meet there.)"

Too easy!
Terry Tarantino started his restaurant in Miranda in the location of the present-day Stones Gallery. The highway through Miranda at the time was the 101 highway. He served excellent food and he had a very popular cocktail bar. He moved his Restaurant and liquor license to shelter cove when it was first being developed. He opened his restaurant in the building that sits on the point overlooking the cove. The building belonged to the Machi’s. Terry’s wife was a Machi. The biggest reason for his move was the fact that his business dropped off when the freeway was put in.
There was an astounding land rush to buy property at Shelter Cove, but the people didn’t follow, they were buying land as speculators, or for their future retirement. People didn’t flock to Shelter Cove like everyone thought would happen, and “The Cove” was very sparsely populated for years.
The restaurant didn’t do as well as he hoped, so he moved to Garberville where his restaurant was very popular up until Terry died of a heart attack.

Now back to the question at hand: The Restaurant was called “The Silver Spurs”. It was located just north of the present day Branding Iron, where the fence is that has the sign; “Will Build To Suit”. It was ran by a Frenchman by the name of Peter, and his wife. I don’t remember his last name, but everybody called him “The Frenchman”.
The building burned down in the fifties and was rebuilt. It was spared during the Southern Humboldt Builders / Branding Iron fire, but it was burned again from bums living in the basement. This time it took The Branding Iron bar with it. Both times The Branding Iron was an innocent victim.

After Terry died, the restaurant became "The Trees Restaurant" and I believe that Roy Schmunk owned it for a while. Schmunk also ran a very popular Redwood tour bus called "The Squirrel" that did a tour of the local redwood parks and the Pacific Lumber Company in Scotia.

Steve Anderson ran the restaurant for a while, but times were tough and he didn't do well at the location. A fellow by the name of Kieth Thompson, (I spelled it wrong, but it is spelled with two s's) bought the place and catered to the newly built Humboldt House Inn across the street. He was an excellent chef and he was a supreme host. He did fabulously well.

His son Scott also worked there, and he later bought "The Emerald" and changed the name to the "707 Restaurant". Scott then sold to a famous San Francisco Chef, by the name of "Chef Robert" (Pronounced "robare") who sold to Cecil's (Pronounced Cecil's). Who also serves excellent food.

Arn't we lucky that Garberville has such great food!

Happy new stupid law day!

One way to make yourself legal. This new handy handsfree device is called "The Snake".
Why am I not confortable with that?

DON’T USE YOUR CELLPHONE IN YOUR CAR! Unless it’s hands free.

The following is written with a thanks to Lawyer Kirk for the idea.

Seatbelts and helmets rules should be optional. The main argument against not wearing a helmet is that the government has to pay for the person in a vegetative state caused from a head injury. Most of the motorcycle accidents that I’ve been to, the driver would have been killed without their helmet, so that doesn’t wash. Seatbelt laws are ridiculous. You’re not allowed to cross the roadway in your car without your seatbelt, but you can cross the road with your motorcycle without one, so what’s up with that? I think that all these laws a just a revenue generating device for law enforcement.

Cellphone distraction might involve outside victims other than yourself, so I might concede that cellphone laws might be reasonable. Is there anyone besides myself that just doesn’t like to be told what to do, and how to do it, ALL the time?

Granted, when a law enforcement officer is driving at 110 mph and reporting his progress with a microphone in his hand, he has been trained to do that, and they are involved in very few accidents, but how do they know that I’m not highly trained at cellphone use while driving normal?

“Driving while tired” is also against the law, it is considered to be a form of impairment the same as being drunk. So if you are in an accident because you are tired, it’s your fault. That sounds reasonable to me, but I’m glad that law enforcement has not been issued “Sleep-o-meters” to check for sleep deprivation, or there would be “driving while tired” enforcement. Then, I would be in big trouble if they ever invent an “Attitude-Meter”, because I’m becoming guilty of driving with a bad attitude.

Someday you are going to pick up the newspaper and read that “Ernie was convicted of spitting on the sidewalk, jumping in a car and driving across the street without a seatbelt, while talking on his cellphone, then riding his motorcycle back across the street with no helmet while tired and drunk.” and “Mr. Branscomb was convicted to a twenty year sentence, but was committed to the state mental hospital on the recommendation of his wife, lawyer, and family."