Linda - This article was a great piece of writing and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I wanted to talk about a piece of history largely ignored in Humboldt County and that is the migration of the Okies that moved to Humboldt in the 40's and 50's.
I got here in 1952 as a one-year old and we spent the next 6 years living in Salmon Creek area next to the old Hansen mill. We brought along grandparents and uncles and aunts and nephews and cousins. We provided a lot of the labor for many of the local sawmills, including Morrison-Jackson and others I no longer remember.
We weren't particularly liked by the locals. I was called Okie in school and many a kid bigger than me went home with a bruise and a better appreciation of Okie upbringing. We were accused of being liars and thieves and drunks but almost no one accused us of being lazy. And that was a good thing.
I recall one time my family got together in Garberville for a Christmas/New Years party in an old Victorian. As was often a problem with my family, people got contentious the more they drank. My mother sent my two older brothers down to the closest pay phone to call the cops. When the oldest told the cops what was going on, he was asked, "What's your last name son?" Needless to say we never saw the police that night, although we did meet a very nice CHP on the way home. But that's a story for another time.
Also, Humboldt saw mini-migrations of Swedes and Norwegians and Mexicans. And like many of the groups that migrated here, we were dirt-poor and our labor and our minds eventually brought us a place with those who came before.
Everybody here was from some place else to begin with and that seems pretty normal to me.
Dave
Re: “My Dad”
I lived it too and I have never heard it expressed better. I am 70 years old now and the pain is never far away.