About

the date was February 4, 1935.

It was midwinter in the depths of the great depression when I was born.  When I was one and a half years old, my family moved to the far northwest corner of California. There, my father built a small four-room house within walking distance of the Oregon State line and the Pacific Ocean.

It was a home surrounded by ancient, gigantic redwood trees. There was no electricity, no plumbing. As evening darkness grew deep, light came from candles and later as higher-tech became available, from kerosene lanterns. Heat to ward off the chill of winters came from a cheap wood-burning stove in the living room and a wood cookstove in the kitchen. One of my earliest memories was the sound of rain pounding against the windows and the whipping of thimbleberry brush against the outside wall as vicious storms swept in from the Pacific.

As I grew older, vague rumors of a distant war in Europe peppered conversations but brought little fear until news arrived that Japanese bombers had decimated the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Rationing was imposed. Black-out curtains blocked the feeble light from escaping our windows for fear the candle-glow might attract the enemy invaders.

As the youth of the nation went to fight a war in Europe and in the Pacific, I went off to the one-room schoolhouse a mile from home. It was an era marked by self-sufficiency, poverty, fear, and hard work.