BIRTHDAY 89-A LIFE WELL LIVED.

I met Paul Moeller when he came to my writer's workshop in 1979. I talked him into taking one of my daughter's baby cats home. Then later, in 1980, I joined his classes in video taping. He was determined to get public access programing into Calaveras County. He was so dedicated and so hardworking, you couldn't say "no" to Paul. He's had some tough years, with two broken femurs, strokes and other injuries. Here he is with his caretaker, Pam. He seems to be kind of wondering why everyone is making such a fuss over his birthday.

After his wife died, Marilyn Pyle has taken care of his bookkeeping and his mail and most of the things Martha took care of. Indispensable to him and he feels bereft when she is missing. She quickly organized his birthday party. Just some balloons, friends and cheesecake.

Paul certainly has aging issues; he speaks very slowly but he said of his good friend and neighbor, Bill with his wife Linda, "If you want trouble, you call Bill. Then you get more trouble."  It tickled me he could make a joke.

Paul is like family and Marilyn's husband Vern, and his son, Mitch came by. They do the heavy hauling, moving furniture, dump runs-you name it, they show up.

Marilyn thought it would be nice to take a group picture, which includes Karen Phillips, his long time driver after his first accident, and on the right Audry, Marilyn's mother. I'm in the middle.

Then about that time, Sue showed up. But, we took a lot of pictures anyway.

Karen has a lot of memories of Paul and faithfully visits him every week.

Marilyn decided to put a candle on his favorite cake. Cheesecake at his request.

After we sang Happy Birthday...

He blew out the candle and we spent an hour or more just visiting. He has difficulty hearing on the phone. He rarely has his hearing aids in. But he had calls from friends and relatives in Germany. He has good days and bad days and this one was a good day. He could remember stories and bring up names from the past.

He asked me to take a picture of him with all of his cards. Many of them have cats on them. He lost his cat recently and a stray was hanging around Bill and Linda's house. They suggested he feed the cat. It is feral and now hangs around Paul's big sliding glass window. And though he can't pet it, he enjoys seeing the cat come and eat. He named her/him Roosevelt or Rosie. "I go both ways," he joshed.

I worked on 85 shows with Paul, as his anchor. It amazed me how he could remember names of past friends while I struggled. Paul is a legend in our county. The Board of Supervisor's named the studio after him as an honor. And his legacy of over 4,000 productions

FORKS, LOGGING COUNTRY.

In our quest to view the Olympic Peninsula, we landed at Bogachial State Park, about seven miles  from the town of Forks, situated on the forks of four rivers, the Bogachial, Quillayute, Callawah and Sol Duc.

Town was jumping. A drag race across the highway from the museum, a small flea market right next to the museum, a fundraiser in town next to the VFW, and a lot of friendly people around having a good time.

Those rivers are filled by the rains, a common source of jokes about the area.

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This is a small museum and what I liked about it is the human stories.

There are some great artifacts, like this camp stove. The docent told us that the surface would fit 50 plate sized flapjacks on it. The “bullcook” must have been a very adept man to work with a wood stove like this monster and keep those huge appetites well fed and happy.

Some of the first chain saws look complicated and were dangerous to use. Some early saws were steam driven, some gas driven. Seems impossible that two mean could lift and run this saw.
Which made me think, how did the Indians cut those huge red cedars down to make their boats. Here is the answer below:

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Incredible.

The people who settled here were resourceful and hard-working. They had to be strong and tough. This is Ole Boe and his family.

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John Huelsdonk doesn’t look like a big man. His story reminds me of our own “Mountain man” Monte Wolfe, who packed a stove down into the canyons of Calaveras County. Monte was not a big man but he had legs like fence posts. John is older in this photo but look at the size of his left hand.
Women were no stranger to hard work, either.  Sarah ?, (I missed her picture)  raised her six children and when they left home, she started a pack train of horses and took people into the depths of the rain forest through mud and snow and showed them the beauty of the country. She started this business in her 50’s.

I love the stories of the  loggers, trappers, hunters, farmers, homesteaders. This old logging truck carrying a full load, no jake brakes, no massive chains to hold the load.

It had to take guts to drive this thing across this log bridge over a river canyon. I quail at the thought.

A tree damaged by a hungry bear. They would come out of hibernation and damage trees, so hunters were employed to kill bears, and paid by the pelt.. They were successful and no bear range their former lands. Wolves too, have been obliterated. Re-introducing predators has been very successful and healthy in other states. I wonder if Washington will ever try?

Early homesteaders made water pipes out of bound and tarred cedar boards.

I enjoyed this museum, the people it represents, some of the fun lingo of the loggers and the equipment used to fall the huge red cedar that provided everyone a living. The area at one time was the logging capital of the world. Logging practices today, clear cutting in particular, are to me offensive.

HANGTOWN FRY.

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TORTILLA FLAT AND THE LOST DUTCHMAN MINE

This is Superstition Mountain, a range of sharp pinnacles that rises from the flat desert floor right here in Apache Junction. This is Apache territory, these mountains, and Geronimo ranged over this barely hospitable range that is now partly Tonto National Forest, and Lost Dutchman State Park. The Roosevelt dam, brought a string of lakes to the area and its a much valued recreation area, along with the privately owned town of Tortilla Flat.

We drove up the Apache Trail which is nicely paved, now. Much of the Apache Trail was inundated by the Roosevelt Dam, but we did see portions of the foot and horse paths used by the Indians. Its interesting terrain puts water and cactus in close proximity.

We enjoyed the drive to Tortilla Flat, basically a tourist town now. It was once a valuable stage stop. It served the builders of the dam with supplies and recreation in the 1940's. It has a colorful history of the  many owners who basically went broke here. Each bought the whole town. Part of that history feeds upon the stories of the Lost Dutchman Mine. Stories, plural because there are so many tales one can count on it being a fake. Yet, in the years after the identified Dutchman, a German named Jacob Waltz (an American spelling) supposedly convinced some people there was a rich mine. No one has ever found it, though thousands have searched, some losing their lives in the process, which is how legends are built.

Tortilla Flat has a population of six people and about six buildings. A saloon, gift shop with books and souvenirs, a restaurant and small general store and a small school museum. Probably not the original school. We watched a band set up on the patio of the saloon.  The area is subject to flash floods and a man named John Cline, with some people from the Tonto Basin were stranded at this spot when the flood waters cut them off from the roads. With nothing but flour and water, they made tortillas to eat and Cline Christened the place Tortilla Flat. That fact is fairly well documented unlike the Dutchman's mine.

 The restaurant and bar has wall after wall of dollar bills as wallpaper, a tradition that started in about 1950 or so. The building burned once with all of its dollars. It was robbed once of its dollars. But, the custom flourishes and it is estimated that approximately 160,000 dollars are stapled to the walls. Some get damaged as you brush by them; many have signatures or are accompanied with a business card.  

The place has a number of murals suggestive of its more notorious past.

Plenty of old rusty relics decorate the grounds and buildings.

 We drove past the town headed for Fish Camp. We got by this flooded section of road easily, but the road is under repair and closed ahead of this spot and we only ventured a few miles farther. 
On the way out, we stopped at the State Camp Grounds and got close to some of the saguaro cactus, not very big ones, but fat and healthy looking.

We drove by forests of Cholla, some in bloom making a white dotted hillside. And, at the end of the day, we stopped by Jim's home lodge of the VFW for a hamburger and a beer. Good stuff. And, here, they serve the beer COLD!

And, I always thought that indentation in the bottom of the mug was to give you the idea you had more than you actually got, kind of a "packaging" trick.