Alright...This morning I wanted to visit the Guest page for Mark. I typed in Google "Mark Strauch guest book" because I couldn't remember the URL. So what pops up? So sure enough, a link pops up...I click on it and it takes me to a guest book for Mark Strauch, but in Oregon! Is this the time to smile? .
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NO!

So this little event this morning triggers a memory of an event about 21 years ago. I worked summers for the California Department of Forestry (CDF) and I was just finishing graduate school. I just got back to California from Arizona and went to pick up accumulated mail at my mailbox in Whiskeytown, CA. As I enter the Whiskeytown Store (which the post office is part of) there is the owner Bill with a funny look on his face. After welcomes and handshakes I ask Bill about the expression on his face. He says "Geneva Hawkins died this past weekend." Geneva Hawkins was an elderly lady who operated one of our fire lookouts (South Fork Mountain) just above Whiskeytown, and was older than dirt. So, Bill shows me the Redding newspaper and sure enough there is the obituary mentioning that Geneva had worked many years as a fire lookout. At the bottom of the obituary was a note that there would be a remembrance at the gravesite on the following Saturday. I ask Bill if he will be going and he says "No, I have to go to a meeting that I cannot miss."

So Saturday rolls around, I show up at the gravesite and there are a bunch of people there and each in turns talks about Geneva..."Grandma loved Idaho," Grandma really liked fishing," etc. I notice that not one officer in uniform is there from CDF, and I am pizzed off. I also notice that there is absolutely no one that I know at the rememberance.

So everyone speaks and the last person that speaks asks me if I have any remarks I would like to make...well, alright. I say that I have known Geneva since I started working for CDF and that she was a dependable fire lookout and...then I notice everyone's face looking queerly at me. Uhhhh...brain firing random neurons...this was a different Geneva Hawkins that had died. The newspaper got fooled and thought, like I, it was my co-worker in CDF. Embarrassed a little, no...A LOT! We all lhad a laugh and many there said they would nver forget this. I called my Geneva Hawkins and she was madder than a wet hen. Cursing (like a Teamster) the paper she said that flowers keep arriving at her house and she is "Most assuredly not DEAD.!"

On Monday I return to the Whiskeytown Store and see Bill (remember he still believes it is the Geneva Hawkins we both know). He asks how the rememberance went and I say, great! Then I told him that Geneva's son got me aside at the funeral and told me something very strange. Then I told him a BS story that her son said that Geneva had told him in the hospital, in her last words, that she would come back from the dead and she would do it at the Whiskeytown Store! I said all this with a dead straight face...Bill's eyes about bugged out of his head. He just kept asking me about it and I kept lying through my teeth. This went on for an hour as I sipped a beer and lied. I could see that it really shook old Bill up. Then I told him the truth and he chased me out of the store with the broom where I fell on the ground laughing...being hit by a broom.

 

$703.43 as of 5:15pm

 

This is very good. Its only Wednesday. I hope it keeps going and going...

 

I thought so to.. Bump..

 

Yeah, I know we would have.

 

I will be sending another donation on my wifes part. Lets keep it going guys and gals.

 

wow, i have been out of the loop for a while, i had been following the whole series and was just wondering how mark was making out. i am so sorry to hear how this all ended. i wish i could have met the man.

 

Thanks for your support Cris. Some folks just don't realize this is a dieing breed. We should cater to them.

I all seriousness, I just made my donation. Back TTT folks. I really miss those posts.

 

That is awesome Dan! Thank You for keeping track of all this!

 

Some great no#,s there, great job Dan. Bump for Mark....

 

A bump for the morning folks!

 

Tried to donate, but I get a notice that the recipient does not accept payments from non US sources. Dan, if you edit your account to allow Canadians to send money I will.

BTW, this is amazing what this community does for each other. Makes me very proud to be a part of it.

Mark, you will be missed but not forgotten.

 

Sorry about that. I don't know how to change it. I think i found it. it.. Try again please. If not i will keep digging.

 

I'm in. I wish it could be more. I was going to road trip it and go to the memorial, but I can't afford it right now, and that pizzes me off.

 

It would have been nice to have met you Jason..Still on for coffee Dan?