We lived in Happy Camp from 1977 to 1981 and again in 1987 but have always gone back several times a year to visit friends and family and to do a little hiking, swimming, and yes, a little gold dredging. My first job there was with the Forest Service. Part of it required our crew go out into the woods and set fire to illegally built cabins, constructed by individuals who just wanted to live in peace in a beautiful place but who had no right to do so because the land “belonged to all of us”. They were forced to move and all evidence of them had to be eradicated and so we did, cabin by cabin. OMG I can just hear the “back to the lander’s” in Humboldt County shuddering at the very thought that some of THEIR illegally built homes might suffer the same fate! (Oh, and by the way, guess where I currently reside.) I was very young and totally clueless but I’ve grown up since then and (hopefully) learned a thing or two along the way. Such as nothing is black and white, it’s all complicated and that we are all in this together no matter where we call home. And that in HC, especially when the rain and snow start to fall and the rock slides take out 96 South, 96 East and Grayback, you have no one to depend on except your neighbors. So someone put a sign in the window of the only grocery store in town and it offended you. What do you do? You beat cheeks down to where you truly feel at home, Arcata, so you can spend your hard earned dollars at the Coop (which you probably were going to do anyway, we all did the drive to Eureka or Medford to shop, and most still do) and whine loudly enough that the North Coast Journal, decides you are worthy of inclusion in its latest offering. Grow up and get a clue, the rainy season has just begun.
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Posted by
JDV
on 10/26/2010 at 6:07 PM
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Re: “Unhappy Camp”
We lived in Happy Camp from 1977 to 1981 and again in 1987 but have always gone back several times a year to visit friends and family and to do a little hiking, swimming, and yes, a little gold dredging. My first job there was with the Forest Service. Part of it required our crew go out into the woods and set fire to illegally built cabins, constructed by individuals who just wanted to live in peace in a beautiful place but who had no right to do so because the land “belonged to all of us”. They were forced to move and all evidence of them had to be eradicated and so we did, cabin by cabin. OMG I can just hear the “back to the lander’s” in Humboldt County shuddering at the very thought that some of THEIR illegally built homes might suffer the same fate! (Oh, and by the way, guess where I currently reside.) I was very young and totally clueless but I’ve grown up since then and (hopefully) learned a thing or two along the way. Such as nothing is black and white, it’s all complicated and that we are all in this together no matter where we call home. And that in HC, especially when the rain and snow start to fall and the rock slides take out 96 South, 96 East and Grayback, you have no one to depend on except your neighbors. So someone put a sign in the window of the only grocery store in town and it offended you. What do you do? You beat cheeks down to where you truly feel at home, Arcata, so you can spend your hard earned dollars at the Coop (which you probably were going to do anyway, we all did the drive to Eureka or Medford to shop, and most still do) and whine loudly enough that the North Coast Journal, decides you are worthy of inclusion in its latest offering. Grow up and get a clue, the rainy season has just begun.