Captain’s Entry:
We visited Historic
Fort Humboldt in Eureka today. The stories about how the Native Americans were displaced
and killed there back in the 1860’s really got to me. I should have found a
seat on a picnic table and waited while Frank toured the grounds, rather than
reading all the story signs that upset me.
In the meanwhile, Frank spent his time looking at and reading about “ancient”
logging equipment displayed on the Fort’s property.
Fort
Humboldt now overlooks Bayshore Shopping Mall, the same land where Native
Americans used to live, surviving on the bounty provided by the Pacific Ocean. There’s
blood on the earth under that mall, both Native American and Anglo. It was on that
same strip of land where working men killed each other over low wages paid in
the lumber mill that used to be there. I’m
having trouble understanding why that parcel of land was never considered hallowed
ground out of respect for those who died there.
A Happy
Note: I haven’t mentioned Anne and Charles Lindbergh in awhile because I
finished reading North to the Orient a week or more ago. However, I’ve been
looking forward to sharing with you Anne’s observations as she and Charles left
Japan on board a ship that would take them and their crippled airplane back to
the U.S.
“Our real
good-bye was not until the boat pulled out of the dock at Yokohama, when the
crowd of Japanese learning over the rails of the decks shot twirling strands of
serpentine across to those they had left behind on shore – a rain of bright
fireworks. One end of these colored paper ribbons was held in the hands of
those on deck, the other, by those on shore, until a brilliant multicolored web
was spun between ship and shore.”
Anne said she
heard Sayonara repeated over and over
as the ship pulled away and the ribbons snapped between ship and shore. The
translation of the word Sayonara,
according to Anne, is “Since it must be so.” She muses that “Sayonara says neither too much nor too
little.”
I agree with
Anne, Sayonara is the perfect way to
say good-bye.
Sayonara Anne and Charles since it must be so.
End Captain’s Entry
First Officer’s Entry:
Oh my poor,
liberal, bleeding heart, pinko, communist, wife/captain. I do love her so.
We are in
Eureka, CA, a very forgettable not so little town. Perhaps I haven’t seen the better parts. Maybe the whole town isn’t scruffy. Maybe.
Yesterday we
visited the “Joss House” in Weaverville.
“Joss” is believed to be a corruption of the Portuguese word “Deus”,
meaning “God.” So the Joss House is a
house where the Chinese gods were kept. Chinese miners built the first temple
in 1853. It burned in 1861, and that one burned in 1873. In 1874 the present
temple was built and has been in use ever since. From the outside it’s not so
impressive, just a simple gray house with some fancy wood trim on top. Boy Howdy, when you step inside it’s a whole ‘nuther
story! It is beautiful!
Everything
inside the structure is original. I was
my usual doubting self and asked the ranger specifically. She said that the
building is solid with no windows, so all the statues, banners, gongs, drums,
and costumes have always been protected from the elements. The house is the oldest continually used Joss
House in California, and although the state made it a State Park in 1956, people
still stop by to ask favors and protections from the eight gods housed there.
Today I
REALLY enjoyed Fort Humboldt. There were
about 15 steam “Donkey” engine slack-line log movers ranging from really small
prototype units to a massive 20 foot tall monster. I love these old machines and wish I had
thought to get involved in their restoration way back when I was younger.
Sigh. That’s just another road not taken.
 |
| Gold mining in this area was brutal. Miners destroyed whole mountains to get at the gold. |
End First Officer’s Entry
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