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Sacramento, California, United States
so salty pieces of coral from surfing Hawaii in the 60's and 70's getting reef pounded living in my body fall through my skin from time to time!

sailing to Oahu

Jimi Hendrix was playing on Oahu. I had never sailed. Surfed Mexico, California, Hawaii! Aw, how hard could it be to sail 90-110 miles from Kauai to Oahu? Piece of cake, right? Remember it was the 60's! This is so bad. We thought we were looking at Kaiena Point,Ohau, knowing we weren't going to make the concert! But at least we were in site of Oahu-wrong! Coy, who had never sailed before, me,who had never sailed before, jeff and Abbott etc. We were looking at the sleeping giant on Kauai! We had done three-sixty's in the night! We sailed on the only tri-marran I've ever sailed on ( except later ) in my life, missed the concert! It was at the Waikiki Shell Ampitheater ( Moon eclipsed . We finally made Nawilwili Harbor! The Skipper tried to give us his boat saying, " It's trying to kill me"! We watched him go stark raving mad not even realising that had we got caught in the channel current we were on our way to Japan! Remember it was the 60's and we were going to see Hendrix. I left out some of the good stuff but I will make up for it later!

Friday, August 27, 2010

Letter June 14, 1863. Sutter Creek to San Francisco, California

Dear Mother, Father and sweet sister Robyn,



Though I have sorely missed the honor of being in your gracious company, I have much to share with you in the way of experience. First, I am in need of thanking Father for surviving the trials placed before him. Know I am your most respectful son, father! Though I am but a small seed, I proclaim here and now that I have come to a great understanding of what men will do when they are faced with matters beyond their experience to forbare.

Fearsy, your loyal friend and mine, speaks little. When he speaks, I listen as did you while stolen from us, as a family for but a short while! And yet, Father, I thought never to see you again. Mother! He returned from the edge of the world for us! Wealthy? Yes. What is wealth, father? Without love? It does not exist!

Fearsy is a teacher. But father that is why you gave him to be my watcher. Mother, father did not leave me alone at his claim. I know that when we riverboated to Sacramento you knew that your husband, my father was going to wean me as a man allows his son to become what he will become. Mother, you also knew he would place me in harm's way but with a comforter or protecter! In Fearsy's silences I have learned more than all the books I have studied, read and shared and yet! I still read. Wisdom seems to be a balance between emperical knowledge and love.

Sister, this is a harsh daily existence. San Francisco is dancing, good food, balls and gala events, small talk and you. I am sure no letter can return the way this traveled to you but if possible I would take a life to not miss a moment of you and I discussing anything small or large in the way we have done from the very beginning! How we analized any society; brats or bluebloods! Scoundrols, the lot! All the same! To be dealt with in the areas of our minds, where people and ideas reside. I miss you but I am near to coming.

My man on horseback is ready to carry this writting to you all. I know the claim has added to our foundation. Father, no man knows or can know the reality of what holds our family together. I would but hope that I and Fearsy beat this letter home so that I might with family give a fare rendition of all that has transpired in this two years that I have been absent from the center of my well being!

Father, I must confess. After being land locked these two years past, if it be in the stars, may I sail on a business junkett, maybe to Hong Kong? My hands have been in the frozen, cold waters of the Mother Lode and need the warmth of the Pacific Ocean and a different kind of isolation that only Mother Ocean can provide to heal the wounds that man's greed when revealed turns a warm heart to ice.

Fearsy says, " You know"!

Respectfully, your son and servant,

R. Luke Rhodes

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