Thoughts of Dave George
John “Cedar” Seeger
We’ve all been caught in one sometime or another; a thunderstorm
downpour of dangerous consequence. There are many names for this phenomenon, but
it was Dave George, in basic Salmon River lingo, who defined the ultimate.
“Run for it boys!!” He hollered off the landing, “It’s a TOAD
STRANGLER!”
With no further urging, we slipped and schlorgged our wet asses up
and out of there. Four of us crammed in the front of Dave’ red ’64 Ford
pickup; sweating, steaming; wipers flinging, defroster smoking the fuse;
Dave navigated the liquid logging road, leaving his yarder and rigging to
the mercy of the lightning gods.
Until the late ‘60’s there was no “Them and Us”. In 1970, I
arrived with the wave of “alternative-lifestyle-back-to-the-landers” locally
known as “Hippies.” Now there was a distinction, understandably so.
Most locals resented the newcomers.
Dave and Marge ran The Store in the Forks, the only place to get beer and
goodies for many miles.
At first, Dave seemed intimidating to me, this bear of a man, big round
fuzzy head, Levis, T-shirt and Wellingtons. He had a disarmingly direct way of
asking questions in an open, curious manner, just seeking an honest answer. With
Marge’s easy smile and laugh leading the way, I learned to appreciate Dave’s
grounded, plain and simple reasoning and ideas.
Dave accepted me as how I was, not how I looked (skinny and scraggly). In
time, working together in good times and bad, learning stories of the Forks and
the River, I came to know, love, and respect Dave as a true friend and pillar of
our community.
As I moved on in life, into the Salmon River community, I learned the
ropes of logging from the locals. I learned to “work hard-play hard.” I
drank my share of beers under the Beer Tree after work. Looking down the way to
Dave’s shop, there he’d be -- working on a tire off his Peterbilt, swinging
a big tire sledge, breaking the bead on that logging truck tire as if it were
nothing at all, a bear of a man. Somehow,
as I unconsciously slipped into alcoholism, Dave George stayed in the back of my
mind. He was sober, curious,
laughably mischievous, fun loving. I guess, deep down, I wanted to be like Dave
George. I’m 16 years sober now, Dave.
There’s a saying: “The only thing you take with you is who you
are.” I know I am a better person having known you. We miss you, Dave.
God Bless you, Dave George. I
love you.
May 2002
Richard Marley Richard deserves a eulogy in the Daily Worker, worthy of a great worker’s commissar. Richard deserves a eulogy in the Free Press, worthy of a visionary leader in the great communal movement of the 60's. Richard deserves a eulogy in Czechoslovakian, in the British press... Richard Marley was an omnium-gatherum, in his personal life, in his personal living space, in his collection of family. Eclectic tastes were his life's nectar. Merchant marine, longshoreman, union man, poet,
guitarist, consummate actor/raconteur, minstrel, director of plays and
lives, gold miner, local school board member, an international radio
personality, a man, a son, a father, a lover, a friend, he lived Free, with
honor. He honored his family, allowing us to be there at his death. To
paraphrase Harriet... The Black Bear family that he spawned when he swum up
Black Bear Creek gathered strength from his life and his death.
Gloria "Ol' Lady" O'Connor
Ol' Lady. That's how everyone knew her. At first hearing her
called Ol' Lady, many's a soul who has thought someone was being mean
spirited. They were soon disabused about that idea. Ol' Lady, hard to
think of her gone... Long days since she and Ol' Man brought the Irish mafia to
the Nancy Bar, on the North Fork. I once wrote about the 50th anniversary
of Merlin and Gloria, knowing darn well that almost no one would know who I was
talking about until I told 'em at the end of the paragraph.
You can't recall Tim and not see him sitting behind the wheel of a stake-side flatbed stacked high with firewood. He loved the woods. He loved the Salmon River. He died doing what he loved, working in the woods. From the stories around the graveside, he was judged a generous spirit by the many friends he left behind. Masabi Guerra How lucky I am to have had the enormous wealth of Sabi in my
life. In 1990 he wrote : “It’s not enlightenment of an intellectual or spiritual
order that I would like, but to become a Bear or a deer or heron and to be able
to retain humanity, what it is to live through those sensibilities. Sometimes I
would like to know and experience what a place in the forest or along the
River experiences. Gordon was born in 1905 at the ranch at the
mouth of Lewis Creek, on the Salmon River. He was the oldest living Karuk man at the time of
his death. Gordon worked as a fourteen year old fire fighter, a miner, a
powder monkey, worked the lumber mills, delivered mail by mule. He
operated the ferry across the Salmon and Klamath Rivers and fell his last timber
at age 76. Gordon, was a regular, during the summer, at the Beer Tree in Forks
of Salmon, where the stories flew fast and thick all around. That was back when that old Jeep Wagoneer of his was more
than just a sculpture in the yard at Lewis Creek. In 1948, at the firsts ski lodge ever built in the U.S., to entertain his friends après-ski, La Prise invented the Hokey Pokey, "Ya put your left foot in, ya put your left foot out, ya put your left foot in and you shake it all about. You do the Hokey Poke and you turn yourself around, that's what it's all about!...". He was 83.
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