"We are experiencing an unusually . . . "

I was trying to reach a local office of a fuel business the other (week)day but kept getting routed to some national emergency hotline which, unless you pressed "1" for a fuel leak or explosion, said "We are experiencing a heavier than normal volume of calls . . . " but went on to say "We pride ourselves in providing the highest standard of customer service in the industry and your call is VERY important to us" (pause) "Your estimated waiting time is ten minutes".

I'm glad I wasn't reporting an explosion or fire.

Wrenching Decision

My 99 year-old mother-in-law is at Mercy Care Center where, once a month they do an evaluation on each patient (this is not her picture). Sally always goes to these but at the last one there was a question that was new: after listing all her meds they asked "do you wish to continue prolonging her life or stop those drugs and just continue those that prevent pain?".

Sally years ago worked out a medical power of attorney with her mom when her mind was still clear and she was adamant that her life not be prolonged. If she suffered a medical crisis there was to be no life support, no efforts at resuscitation.

But there was no crisis and it was not clear what she should answer. But Sally focused on the phrase "prolonging her life" and chose to stop those medications. Her mom is now taking only drugs for her arthritis. The heart medications are gone.

Lita (Spanish diminutive for abuleita or grandmother) does not always recognize Sally now. Or her grandchildren. But on other visits she plays a lively game of cards and jokes with the staff.

She has had a proactive and exciting life . . . a degree from Stanford, a teaching career, two husbands, three successful children, and several years as a business owner in Mexico. A strong, independent, and at times even formidable woman.

So at nearly the century mark after such a full life she would be the first to agree. Yet when the doctor called to confirm Sally's decision she was shaken. He wasn't all that gentle about telling her that she must understand that letting nature take its course with this decision could lead to stroke or heart attack and death. Did she really want this?

But after talking with him for quite a while affirming her decision he confessed that it was exactly what he would do if it were his own mother. While Sally felt relieved at that she is still feeling the enormity of the decision which many people make for their parents and loved ones. "Pull the plug".

We talked for a long time; if she did suffer a stroke because her heart meds had been taken away would it cause her suffering since no efforts would be made to revive her? Is removing life-prolonging meds really following her wishes?

And a real head-scratcher; does a person in her condition KNOW what the quality of her life is at this point? And if she does not know is it our responsibility to decide for her whether to live or to die?

The F6F Hellcat Wreck

This is Jim Gubetta (left) and Jim Nile, the first a retired timber faller and Mr. Nile a retired timber cruiser. In 1954 Mr. Nile saw the fuselage of a crashed airplane just west of his north-south cruise line in Section 11 of the Trinity Mountains. Three years later Mr. Gubetta spotted shards of metal in the same area.

Saturday June 27th, fifty plus years later they found it again. Without the incredible memories of these two men our warbird recovery group would have spent years searching for the wreckage but they led us right to it.

Jim Gubetta and I had made two previous scouting trips and on the second one we found a significant piece that established the sites authenticity . . . this section of what may be an area near one of the landing gear bays. Having spent the better part of the day on the hillside before locating this we went home, planning to bring more guys and equipment now that we had it pinned down.


So on the third visit we had the men and the tools to really do some good . . . . Terry Weathers, Jim Gubetta, Jim Nile, Ted Pfeiffer, Jason Coats, and myself. Once we reached the spot where I had found the housing we fanned out and began finding things almost immediately. We spent perhaps two hours at the site and recovered several artifacts. Some, like this assembly that Jason Coats is holding even had legible part numbers and semi-recognizable locations on the airplane. Steven Star another team member with several hundred hours of experience restoring TBM Avendgers thinks for example that this part might be the tailwheel pivot.


Other parts such as the tappet and valve spring that I'm holding here clearly came from the engine (a Pratt & Whitney R2800 radial we think). Significantly, the parts were all found in a relatively small area that surrounded a small pit. It is on a gentle north-south slope and the parts were in a broad fan-shaped pattern to the side and downhill from the depression.

At first we thought the pit which is only about four feet deep and maybe 15 feet wide was an impact crater. There was a fire scar on a nearby tree too, leading us to suspect it had been scorched in the likely fire / explosion of the crash. But this first theory didn't last long. The pit was too regular, too circular. And it looked as if some dirt had been pulled out downslope by hand. Maybe a miner was trying to find out if the area was worth digging (there were several pits like this one and a rock-mining operation lower on the slope for chrome).

We have heard a rumor that the Navy had destroyed the craft with explosives after salvaging what they could and this scenario is our best guess at this point. (I have ordered the official recovery and will report when it arrives.) The downhill fan shape of the debris field does indeed look like the signature of an explosion although, as Jim Gubetta pointed out primer cord was used a lot in those days and he would have expected a much larger scattering of debris ___ perhaps a 1,000 foot radius or even more for smaller parts.

And speaking of small parts the smallest artifact was the most touching . . . a gold cufflink. Bent, rusting around the steel pin, and missing two of its three stones it is a very moving item that will be returned to the family if we can ever find them. The pilot, Lt. jg R. A. Hopen was probably in his early 20's and not likely to have been married much less a father so we'll be lucky if we can trace his parents or siblings.

Ferry pilots (this was November of '45, after the war and the airplanes in this flight were on their way to storage in Oaklahoma) were said to sometimes wear dress clothing under their flight suits if they had a girlfriend where they were headed. A romance that never had a chance to happen . . .



Some of us will be back at the site for more poking around and GPS work and we hope to get some more data. In the meantime all the artifacts are here at my house until we can find a place in the museum. Mr. Gubetta is working on that. If anybody would like to view them and the maps and photos just give me a call.

Finally, Danielle will be posting this article along with photos as they come in to our new website www.localhistoryprojects.com. I am also writing a longer article for the Siskiyou Daily News and the editor Mike Slizewski has even hinted we might get front page. Wouldn't THAT be something?

"Stand by Me" video, you gotta see this

Warning; when you first pull this up it takes a minute for the video clip to load. At first the space below looks blank but give it a few seconds and a graphic for Vimeo (a video site where people share videos called vimeo.com) will start rotating followed by the play screen. If you click on the play button there is an extraordinary music video of the 60's tune "Stand by Me" originally composed by blues artist Ben E. King. It's about five minutes long and a real toe-tapper.

Tip: Move your curser over the screen to display the play controls. When you move your curser off the screen they disappear so you can enjoy the video better. The volume is the group of little vertical lines on the lower right. Just click to the left or right of where it is showing to reduce or increase the sound level.

Best of all though, click on the four-arrow symbol just to the right of the volume icon and it blows up the screen for really good viewing. You can press the escape key on your keyboard at any time to exit the full screen mode and there is a scaling control icon in the upper right (when you move the curser onto the screen) which says either "on" or "off" which is kind of like "minimize" and "maximize"...you can make the image a little smaller or bigger on the already-full screen.

Stand By Me | Playing For Change | Song Around The World from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

The montage below captures some of the performers. I don't know any more about how these people pulled off this audio-visual feat any more than I could explain what "embedding" is but I think you will agree that the result is amazing.





Bruce

Grassoline

I read about this subject in Scientific American while I was waiting in the doctor's office, the only place I have ever found this brainy magazine. It is very interesting to read and I used to contemplate a subscription but it is SO cerebral that I fear it will surely cause headaches or permanent damage to my head.

Anyway, the story was about the so-called second generation of biofuels ___ those that use non-food crops like switchgrass, ag waste (corn stalks, etc.), chipped logging slash, and so forth. Without getting into the details (which is just as well as I'm not sure I could) the idea is to produce cellulosic ethanol.

The article explained that cellulose is much harder to break down into sugars (or separate from the sugars, I'm not sure) than corn or sugar cane. Apparently the same molecular structure that provides strength for a blade of grass to grow upright also makes it hard to work with.

See how well I did in chemistry? Guess I'd better stick with the broader implications . . . the upshot is that cellulosic ethanol takes more work and energy to produce. And will thus cost more. And thus will not be on the table soon, at least until the technology is discovered to reduce its cost and make it competitive with the "easy" ethanol. This is like the oil produced from deep wells or oil sands in Canada versus the cheaper Arabian imported stuff.

It seems hard to sell the public on the idea of spending more on gas to help the environment. Gas is already expensive and while ethanol reduces the carbon output it does not eliminate it like a plug-in electric car might (but only if the generating plants were nuclear or solar or wind-powered).

In a depression is this the time to invest in the environment? Or, as a reader in another magazine wrote about a story on Canada's (hugely destructive) mining of oil sands: "I work in one of those mines and it lets me feed my family. Which is more important?"

CC&R Corner for July 2009

July 2009 by Will Bullington

You Called 911 but They Can’t Find You

Its four o’clock in the morning and a 911 call goes out for a person needing help with excessive bleeding. The fire rescue and ambulance are dispatched to an address in Lake Shastina. The units drive onto the street looking for the address in the dark. Volunteer fire fighters and medical personnel using spotlights can’t find the address. Finally, someone sees a porch light come on and a door open. As everyone runs up to the home you can now see the house numbers next to the garage doors. A brown house with lighter tan house numbers, which match the trim. Looks nice in the day time but you can’t see them in low light.

Living in a community with no street lights, homes with earth tone paint colors, long driveways, and lots of trees, compounds the problem with finding addresses. The County requires the house numbers are posted prior to an occupancy permit being issued, and many cities have ordinances requiring house numbers be “visible” from the street. Drive past your own home some night and look and see if a stranger not knowing where the numbers are posted, could find your home. Now think about a loved one needing a rapid response by emergency services. You know a heart attack or someone trying to kick in your back door to rob your family. Think how much adrenaline is pumping through a emergency responders body driving fast with lights and sirens on. Compounding the issue is the fact our addresses are so long: 15118, etc. “What was that address again? Was that 1511? Was it 15119. All I can see is a white reflective sign on the side of the road for a neighbor: 15116. Should be next door, but there is no numbers on the house.” The clock is ticking and those first critical minutes in a heart attack are gone. The chances of survival are destroyed by an aesthetically pleasing color scheme for house numbers.

Mellow dramatic? Talk to your local police officers and ambulance crews. Happens ALL THE TIME. “We can’t help you if we can’t find you.” The local fire department is so motivated to fix this problem that they make the white signs with reflective letters on them. They cost $12.00 and they install them for free. Do they look as nice as an earth tone wood sign? No, but who cares, it might save you or someone you loves life. All you have to do is call 938-2226, leave a message and someone will call you back to order the sign. You can also find illuminated house numbers on line or at home improvement stores. Some run on batteries, solar or low voltage.

On a lighter note, get out there and enjoy the new park during the safety day event on August 1st, jump house, games, fire engines, helicopter, bicycle safety events, etc.

Gasoline Discounts in Siskiyou County ___ Every Day

I have just learned that Siskiyou Development offers a 5 cent discount on gasoline for seniors at every one of its three locations: the Spirit station in Weed, the Chevron in Mt. Shasta, and the Texaco at the central exit in Yreka. But get this . . . it's every day of the week.

Owner Margaret Dean has made this courtesy available for some time without fanfare and hopes seniors will take advantage, especially in these hard times.

But be advised. You may be carded (wouldn't that be a treat?!?!).