NEVADA CITY: Stories told in Pete's Place THE 70's

Logging was jamming in the 70's loader at Brunswick Mill now gone
A happening place in the 70's Robinson Timber truck yard-still active in 2008
Dolley loader Brunswick Mill site now gone

Wiley Dog and Sparky are racing across the desert in an attempt to save their friend Mic. The Ford Edsel is careening at speeds close to one hundred miles an hour. The top is down and the radio is blasting the Door's " Rider in the Storm". " Life is so grand !" shouts out Sparky. Wiley Dog pulls his head in from the blasting warm desert wind and gives the so true sign. He relates to how long the two of them have felt this way. Wiley Dog's thoughts return to their early day's bull shitting in Pete's Place in downtown Nevada City. Isn't that what your neighborhood bar should be. A good one should seem like an extension of your living room, filled with familiar sights, smells and of course good friends. Pete's Place was the home of ice cold Bud in the can and cheap whiskey. All which were consumed for the enjoyment and at times at a record pace. Being amazed the Sparky was actually working in the woods much less fighting fires ! Here was a man who only real time in the woods was when he had gone on vacation with his parents to Yosemite. Now that trip was taken many times and Sparky had become to think Yosemite as his spiritual compass. That's funny because over the years of their adventures he had began to think the same thing. What fun the two of them had there. But back to the woods. Nevada County in the 1970's and beyond had a lot of trees and the demand was high for wood products. The mills and the logging trucks were running at peak production. This was the period that most of the old growth forests would be taken away." One stick at a time" , as Sparky would say. It seemed after working in the "working woods" for some time Sparky had a whole different concept about the forest. He could not identify all the species, but he could tell you how they would burn. Wiley Dog was never sure if that was a good overall thing or not. While it may not be ,if you were going to try to prevent or stop them from burning it mightily was. Sparky was told that a new crew needed some manpower. Although there is a mix of the genders later but those days there were at this time no women fighting fires. So off he goes to the Nevada City District office, which as you remember is next door to Pete's Place. He enters the office and tells the receptionist that he had heard they were hiring. Speaking of hiring, this was the good ole days with the Forest Service way before all those darn computers changed everything. You COULD actually get hired off the street. It could have been his hippie long hair, his handlebar mustache, who knows! The response was "sorry we are not". Remembering that he was told from a good source that they where. He preceded to pound on the counter and in a ever increasing loud voice demand to see someone, hell, anyone who was in charge here. Suddenly a head popped out of the office down the hall and a uniformed official came to the counter. " Why don't you come back after lunch", he said. The noon siren then began to wail as it did for so many years. And this was the US Government and yes it was lunch time. Returning later Sparky was ushered into an office and introduced to the district's top fire guy Chuck Welch. After a brief who are you session ,Chuck hired him on the spot. It seemed there was a new program that was floating in money, you remember the woods were a happening place. Monies from logging sales were pouring in to this program which in it's simplest form was called Brush Disposal or as we would all soon call it; the BD Crew. The downed slash from a logging site was tremendous and to prevent further damage from fires there was a need to reduce this hazard. There are many ways but the main way then was as became to be known as "picking up sticks" putting in a pile to be burned after fire season was over. That's it...picking up sticks ! That is how Sparky got into the woods....or shall we say the "working woods". His guard station was White Cloud some 13 miles east of Nevada City on California Highway 20. Nestled on the ridge top that separates Deer Creek from the South Fork of the Yuba River it had seen deer, Indians, early pioneers and modern travelers all pass this way. The old Emigirant Trail goes right through White Cloud. The then camp site, it is still active to this day, was built in the 1930's by the CCC. Located at just over the 4,000 feet level it proved to be a great place to work with soft breezes and much cooler temperatures than the lower Nevada City. As the story goes the reason that it is called White Cloud is that is where the clouds form during the summer. Sparky said that they did and that was good enough for him. SCREECH went the tires as the Edsel slammed to a halt. Wiley Dog's quickly returned to the present.........