Bidwell's road

"In 1863, John Bidwell and his partners ... put up $40,000 and applied to the California State Legislature for a franchise to construct a toll road between Chico and Honey Lake. ... In 1864, they incorporated as the Chico and Humboldt Wagon Road and completed road construction." Horse-drawn wagons looked like the future of transportation, and the gold rich states of California, Nevada and Idaho fueled the future.

The story of a humble roadway that eventually morphed into Highway 32 is told through a series of hundreds of black and white photographs in "The Humboldt Wagon Road" ($21.99 in paperback from Arcadia Publishing) by Marti Leicester and David Nopel.

According to an authors' note, Leicester, a retired National Park Service ranger, "lives on the Humboldt Wagon Road and sees remnants of it each time she drives to Chico and Butte Meadows." Nopel is "a descendant of pioneer families who settled along the road. ... Over 50 years, John Nopel, David's father and a noted Butte County historian, painstakingly collected thousands of historical photographs that inspired this book."

Lyon Books in Chico will be hosting the authors at a book signing this afternoon at 2:00 p.m. An interview with the authors, conducted by Nancy Wiegman for Nancy's Bookshelf on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM) is available at kchofm.podbean.com.

The book, part of Arcadia's "Images of America" series, traces the development of the roadway within three centuries, and introduces native peoples and pioneer families along the way, including Lady Mary Pullisa, a Maidu who survived the forced march from Chico "to a reservation in the Coast Range Mountains" in 1863.

Stories from pioneer descendants enrich many of the detailed captions. "The Humboldt Road summit was more than 6,000 feet in elevation between Jonesville and the Summit Hotel. Drivers would attach a log behind their wagons to provide friction and slow the descent from the summit. Several people interviewed for this book reported their mothers made them walk coming up or down the steep slope for fear the stagecoach would go off the edge of the road."

Butte Meadows hid a store's slot machine in the 1940s from the prying eyes of the law. The new road was a gamble for Bidwell, too, and the coming of the railroad changed the dream forever.

Premier guide to Table Mountain

"Table Mountain," write Albin Bills and Samantha Mackey, "is one of the premier wildflower locations in all of California. ... Drifts and swaths of yellow, blue, and orange, mixed with pinks and whites swirl over the landscape, like a huge Impressionist painting come to life."

Bills, who taught biology for many years at Butte College, and Mackey, a consulting botanist with expertise on rare and endangered plants, have written an indispensable companion for those who want to explore the area. "Wildflowers of Table Mountain: A Naturalist's Guide" ($17.95 in paperback, part of the Chico State University Herbarium series, www.csuchico.edu/herbarium), is the second edition of a work first published in 2004. Retaining the original line drawings of Larry Jansen, the book now features full-color photographs throughout and, like Table Mountain itself, is a delight to the eye.

Lyon Books in Chico is hosting a book signing this Thursday, Feb. 23 at 7:00 p.m. Look for a forthcoming interview with Albin Bills on Nancy's Bookshelf from KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM). Archives can be found at kchofm.podbean.com.

The craft of designers Carole Montgomery and Elizabeth Quivey is evident throughout. The center section presents color groups of some seventy "of the most common, showy wildflower species that occur on Table Mountain during late winter through spring"; scientific names are given in the index; and a bloom-time calendar also aids in identification.

The first part of the book mixes practical advice on how best to approach Table Mountain with narratives about its formation, the wildflower patterns, waterfalls, and more. The last section, drawing on the work of Jim Jokerst, lists all known vascular plants on "North Table Mountain." There's also an illustrated guide to common animals in the area, with pride of place going to the California Newt, Bills' special interest for many years.

The wildflower catalog is more than a bare list; each plant has a story to tell. For the grass-pink (wild carnation), "a new solitary flower is produced every day, replacing the one that came before it." The California goldfields "form vast sheets and showy rings of rich yellow color that encircle many of the rock outcrops."

The Guide, novice-friendly but detailed enough for the serious explorer, is simply superb, a colorful array blooming now at your bookstore.

Poetic meditations on Ishi

"Ishi," writes Scott Ezell, "moved from hunting and gathering to a modern industrial existence when in 1911 he emerged alone, the last of his tribe, from the westward drainages of Mount Lassen. ..." Now, a century later, Ezell has gathered a series of poems inspired by Ishi as he recalls "Karl Kroeber's assertion about Ishi's ability to live without self-pity or a sense of victimhood: 'I do not see how we can speak of his life as anything but tragic, yet I have come to feel that he himself did not so regard it.'"

"Songs From A Yahi Bow: A Series Of Poems On Ishi" ($13.95 in paperback from Pleasure Boat Studio; also available in Amazon Kindle e-book format) brings together the work of Ezell, whose cover painting is called "Two Worlds," Yusef Komunyakaa and Mike O'Connor. Throughout the book paintings by Seattle-based artist Jeff Hengst remind this reader of a window slowly being opened, a shadowy figure just discernible. Ezell includes a short essay on Ishi by Trappist monk Thomas Merton, reflections on genocide written during the Vietnam conflict.

In "Quatrains For Ishi," Komunyakaa writes: "When they swoop on you hobbled there / almost naked, encircled by barking dogs / at daybreak beside a slaughterhouse / in Oroville, outside Paradise, // California, draped in a canvas scrap / matted with dung & grass seed, slack-jawed men aim rifles / at your groin. Wild Man // hums through telegraph wires, / as women from miles around / try to tame your tongue / by cooking family recipes. ..."

Ezell, a California native who lives in Seattle and Hanoi, invokes Ishi's spirit amidst the harsh industrial-sexual realities of the poet's two worlds: "photographic visions / washed in a stop bath of departure, // die at home wherever you may be."

O'Connor, in "Down from the Hills," takes Ishi's voice: "Long ago I left off hiding. / Twelve of us were a nation; / five of us were a nation-- / I alone am nothing left." The poet imagines "Ishi and the Braves": "The multimillionaire slugger / pulls a high fastball screaming / toward the left-field stands / right at Ishi, / and the hunter-gatherer of Yuna Creek, / surprised, shoots up his arm / and nails it on the fly."

A Chico family lives the reality of war

When Daniel Sagastume graduated from Marine Corps boot camp, he was not yet nineteen. Then came the unthinkable. "Four days after my son's graduation," his mother writes, "when the Towers crumbled, so did my world."

"We Also Serve: A Family Goes To War" ($17.95 in paperback from iUniverse; available in Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook and Google e-book formats) is Nanette Sagastume's riveting story. A retired nurse practitioner and founder of what is now called the Military Family Support Group, Sagastume lays bare the emotions she and her husband Mario experienced even as Mario, a Vietnam War veteran, is dealing with PTSD.

"Daniel began to seek ways to be reassigned to the same infantry unit his father had served with, the Second Battalion, First Marine Regiment of the First Marine Division (known familiarly as 2/1). More specifically, he wanted to get assigned to the same company, Fox Company, and eventually the same platoon."

She writes: "With one percent of Americans volunteering to serve, there is a gap in awareness--even a 'disconnect'--about the military family's experience. ... I did not enlist; my service is involuntary. That is not to say that Mario and I oppose Daniel's decision; rather, we had no choice in the matter. Our role was to accept his life choice, adapt to it, and support him. When we military families offer our love and emotional support--waiting and worrying while our loved ones fulfill their duties--we also are in service to our country."

Labor Day, 2004, in Fallujah, Iraq, a suicide attack. Normally Daniel rode in the first truck of a convoy; that day he was assigned the second. It saved his life; seven of his comrades died. The experience changed Daniel forever.

"Often overlooked," says Sagastume, a recent guest at Lyon Books in Chico, "is the effect on the family that has loved, suffered, and endured with him both during his combat tour as well as the aftermath of adjustment. Indeed, I feel that families are uniquely vulnerable--more than at any time in history. With instant communication and the availability of live satellite television transmission, families often are witnesses to some of the very same events their warrior has experienced. Families also serve in today's virtual war."

The mystery of William H. Warner

Some things are known about William H. Warner (though not whether the "H" stands for "Henry" or "Horace"). Born in New York on May 8, 1812, he graduated from West Point; became a Army topographical engineer; helped lay out the city of Sacramento in 1847; and, on September 26, 1849, was "killed at age 37 by nine arrows fired by California Indians while exploring Northeastern California mountain passes." He was looking "for a railroad route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast."

In 1987 the Association for Northern California Records and Research (ANCRR), in supporting the Special Collections department at Chico State University's Meriam Library, published "In Search of Captain Warner." Authored by Alturas-area resident Patricia Barry, the slim paperback presented what was then known about Warner. Now, a quarter century later, the renamed Association for Northern California Historical Research (ANCHR) has reissued the book "with new contributions by Philip D. Warner," William's cousin.

The book, edited by Jim Jessee and Barbara C. Mahler, is available in paperback for $20 from www.csuchico.edu/anchr. Philip Warner's additions make for lively reading. He and his wife, Liv, have crossed the country in search of Captain Warner's story. In 2006, one of the libraries connected with the University of Rochester put sections of Warner's diary on the Internet. Philip and Liv visited there. "What a surprise!" he writes. "As a rather unemotional, nerdy engineer, I was not ready for what happened when I picked up William's leather-bound diary. Holding the book in my hand (where his hand must have been many times) was like a handshake. I was overcome by emotion."

Philip's research is presented in a series of letters to his cousin. Among the observations: "I live in retirement in Polk County, Florida, near where you were stationed during the Florida Indian Wars, 1836 to 1838." Captain Warner's diary is laconic; the new book contains excerpts from the "long-lost journal" (along with helpful commentary) but questions abound. What was his relationship to younger Susan Moggoffin, who mentions him eleven times in her own diary? Perhaps his uniform impressed her.

Barry had called Warner "the formless, faceless man" (the only known photograph of him graces the book's cover). Now, with Philip Warner's help, some of the shadows have been dispersed.

Eerie novel of an alternate Alturas

Modesto writer Clive Riddle founded a health care business information company and the work he does is decidedly non-fiction. He grew up in Alturas, in northeastern California, and attended Shasta College for a time (his son went to Chico State University). What a setting to create a story weaving memories of a small-town boyhood with half-whispered legends, mixing in a murder mystery with hints of the supernatural.

"Dorris Bridge" ($19.95 in paperback from HealthQuest Publishers; also available for the Amazon Kindle and in formats compatible with Barnes and Noble Nook and most other e-readers) is the name of a small and dying town near Alturas in fictional Paiute County. The author explains on his website (www.dorrisbridge.com) that there was a real Dorris Bridge, renamed Alturas in 1876, but that the Dorris Bridge of the novel is not the real Alturas (since characters in the story often refer to Alturas as well as to Chico and Redding).

The aptly-named Riddle will sort things out when he is interviewed by Nancy Wiegman on Nancy's Bookshelf this Friday, January 27 at 10:00 a.m. on KCHO in Chico (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM).

The moral center of the tale is Randall Burgess, Chief of Police of Dorris Bridge. One of his sons, Kyle, is about to graduate from Paiute High School. A good kid for the most part, he is not averse to drinking with his buddies (Riddle calls it the "national pastime" in Dorris Bridge) and his practical jokes are constantly landing him in trouble. It's the mid-Seventies, and the author revels in mixing in contemporary movie and music references. To capture some of the mindset of the times, there's even sheet music for an original (off-color) song.

Then there are the Lights. An aging Paiute, Toronto Highsmith (Tornado for short) is convinced that he sees strange Lights during his benders. A sober Kyle sees them, too, but mostly from a distance. And they seem to be associated with a series of hit-and-run murders that take place near the homestead of the most powerful man in the county.

Add the mysterious disappearance of a Japanese-American decades earlier, a group of fundamentalist Mormons and Basque wanderers, season with a surprise ending, and what one has is definitely not Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

Paradise writer recalls life on a carrier

"I approached the gangway of the slumbering attack carrier, adjusted my cumbersome olive-drab sea bag, and trudged upward to salute the colors." Richard Clark, who had just turned 21, was now aboard CVA-20, the U.S.S. Bennington. It was June 17, 1953 at the New York Naval Shipyard in Brooklyn. Clark's two year stint would turn into quite a ride.

Quoting from his letters home as well as historical sources and the official Big Benn newspaper, the Jet Blast, Clark presents a series of vignettes focused on the carrier's "Mediterranean cruise" in 1953-1954. "Back to the Bennington: Tales in the Wake" ($18.95 in paperback from Merriam Press, merriam-press.com) contains dozens of black and white photographs, many from the author. There are also reminiscences from other crew members and an overview of Bennington history.

Clark will talk about his service aboard the Bennington on Tuesday, January 17 at 4:00 p.m. at the Butte County Public Library, 1820 Mitchell Avenue in Oroville. Also presenting is Ralph Clark, (no relation), the current national vice-president of the Bennington Association who also served on Big Benn (1962-1964). The public is invited.

Commissioned in 1944, the Bennington served in World War II, the Cold War and Vietnam (see www.uss-bennington.org) and only in 1994 was sold for scrap. When Richard Clark joined the crew, the carrier was on its way to the Arctic Circle to participate with NATO forces in "Operation Mariner" exercises. Then it was on to Europe for something of a goodwill tour. For the crew (Big Benn was designed for 3400) it meant only two words: "Shore leave."

Clark worked on the arresting gear crew, responsible for the cables that approaching jets had to hook onto in order to land. Sometimes pilots didn't even get a chance. "We lost a jet and a pilot yesterday," he wrote at the end of 1953. "For some reason the plane crashed while he was circling the carrier. They never did find him."

A boiler explosion took eleven lives months before Clark joined the Bennington, and soon after his tour with the carrier ended, early in 1954, a horrendous fire broke out below decks, killing 103. "It was one of the Navy's worst peacetime tragedies."

Those who gather to honor their ship will never forget.