It was late in that January afternoon in 2002, and darker than normal from gathering rain clouds. I walked south on the Dunsmuir Avenue, and up a small hill, to visit the Dunsmuir cemetery for the first time.

My wife and had just moved into our apartment in the basement of the pink house on Wood and Dunsmuir Avenue. She was out and I was alone, so I set off on an exploratory stroll around the new neighborhood.

I planned to start from the farthest corner of the graveyard, the southeast. I would march up and down the rows, northward and southward, notching westerly at each turn, until I returned to the road home, hopefully before it started raining.

And I stuck to the plan, holding to sidewalk to the creek, then cutting eastward, not entering the graveyard until I reached the farthest tombstone in the southeast corner.

The darkness was coming soon now, so I set a brisk pace, moving up and down the rows of stone and crosses. Now and then I'd see something that stood out, like the grave of the little girl who died of typhoid in the late 1800's, who I had read about in the library on my first day in Dunsmuir.

Then another monument caught my attention and I stopped. I saw a wide, double plot with a ground-level lid of concrete. A small headstone lay on the side furthest from me, and I had a little difficulty making out names and dates engraved in marble there.

They were Roy and Zora Emmick. They both died in 1953.

Togther? I wondered.

I felt a drop of rain, and picked up the pace again. I watched stones and crosses flow by and caught when I could glimpse of a memorial to a soldier, a sad, tiny tomb of an infant, and what looked like Abner Weed's entire family, protected from the living by a thin iron fence.

I was not far from my goal, well over halfway, and the raindrops were coming more quickly now. I moved more quickly as well, coming to the end of a row, turning, walking, turning, walking, almost done, then I stopped hard.

At my feet I saw a wide, double plot with a ground-level lid of concrete. A small headstone lay on the side furthest from me, and I knew without looking hard at all what names were engraved in marble there.

They were Roy and Zora Emmick. They both died in 1953.

I spun around and glared at the far southeast corner of the graveyard. I tried to wonder if there could be two Emmick crypts, but threw the thought away. In the absence of that thought, I didn't know what to think.

It was too dark to go back there. I was getting wet and cold, though not all my shivers could be attributed to the temperature.

It was two years before I crept back into the southeast corner of the Dunsmuir Cemetery to see what I knew would be there: nothing. No Roy. No Zora. No double-wide concrete slab with marble headstone.

No, today they still lie where I saw them the second time, up near the street. Near the northwest corner.

In the two years that passed before I ventured back to the graveyard, I could come up with nothing that could explain my first encounter with the Emmicks. To this day, I have no idea what happened to me among the stones and crosses that dark afternoon nearly ten years ago.

It seemed like a simple enough story. One that would strum your heartstrings, yes, but no one could have foreseen how far it ended up going.

Dunsmuir Code Enforcement Officer Tony Congi called me over one Friday at Manfredi's and told me he was heading south for Easter to deliver a ring he'd found to its owner in Vallejo. I took a few notes. Looked good.

He gave me the ring to photograph. I ran home, shot it on a set I use for eBay offerings, and ran back to Manfredi's to return it. Took all of a half hour.

I knocked the piece out in about 400 words.

After he returned, Tony provided me with a photo his wife Eileen had taken of him returning the ring to 90-year-old Jesse Mattos. I submitted it to the paper with everything else and, job finished, moved on.

Maybe a month later, I caught word from out there from somewhere on the Dunsmuir grapevine that my story about Tony returning a 1938 class ring had aired on television.

I did a quick search on Google, and my jaw dropped.

Apparently, local television network affilates for ABC, CBS and NBC sent correspondents to Jesse's home to cover and rewrite the story. Their printed works replaced my words with their own, but kept Tony's quotes.

This story reprinted all over the web. Read, world.

A few weeks ago, a news photo service company called Ikonic Pix contacted me by email and asked if it could use the story's photos. Since Tony owned one, I asked him if he wanted a cut of the syndication fee they were offering.

He declined. I, too, had no problem giving up the rights to my picture of the lost ring found.

Next thing I know, Tony's waving a copy of the supermarket tabloid National Examiner in my face. Sandwiched between Doris Day's Dying Wish! and Aretha Franklin's Secret Love! was a remnant of the story I had turned in to the Dunmsuir News three months before.

I could have had a photo credit in a scandal rag!

Last month I wrote a story about a lost dog found in Dunsmuir after an 11-day search that involved a number of townsfolk who didn't even know the owner. At the victory party after Tinker was found, well-wishers dropped by the Burger Barn for six hours straight!

I mean, how heartwarming is that?

I shot all the pictures that ran with that article. They're mine.

Steven Spielberg, I'm waiting.

Early Wednesday, June 22, the day the dog lost in Dunsmuir was found, townsfolk were startled to see two women being towed up and down streets by three large Catahoula leopard hounds. The two ladies were Teresa Bressoud and Lisa Mora, of Hillybilly Hound Hunter.

The lost dog's owner, Rochelle Zolna, had called the professional pet detectives in after her dog, Tinker, had been missing in the Dunsmuir area for ten days. It was Tuesday evening that Zolna met the hound hunters at the Railroad Park Resort, where she had paid for their stay.

Though the pros did not actually find Tinker, their very visible contribution to the search heightened interest in it, and Bressoud remarked afterward over what a special breed of people she found in Dunsmuir.

She said that Hillbilly Hound Hunter's efforts began Tuesday evening. While meeting with Zolna, they collected scent from her car where Tinker had ridden many times. They rubbed the place where Tinker liked to sit with a 4 X 4 gauze sponge. Then they sealed it in a plastic bag to avoid contaminating it.

The next morning they started at the dry fountain on upper Pine Street where Tinker, frightened by the blast of color guard rifles at the beginning of the Railroad Days parade eleven days earlier, had bolted from her collar. Right away, the hounds picked up her scent.

The three four-legged hunters were Coon, Lucy and Rogue. They were experienced tracking hounds who had found missing pets before, including cats and dogs, a tortoise, even birds. Bressoud explained that air scent settled like dust, so a bird could indeed leave a trail her dogs could follow.

Wednesday morning, they tracked up and down the streets of Dunsmuir for hours, until heat set in and the hounds began suffering from what Bressoud called, "nose exhaustion". The search party took cover in the shade, and shortly thereafter came the cell phone call that led to Tinker's recovery.

It was during the long victory lunch at Burger Barn where Bressoud met Dunsmuir. Folks who had tried to find the dog, along with those who had just heard about the search, checked in and offered their congratulations on the find. Bressoud said that this procession of well-wishers lasted until 6 p.m, and that impressed her.

"It was a really good feeling to have all these people come together to help this stranger find her dog," she said later. "I haven't seen a community like yours in quite a while. They came out from the bottoms of their hearts. It was absolutely phenomenal."

Bressoud offered her professional opinion on why Tinker might have hiked all the way to Railroad Park, where she was found. "When Rochelle met with us Tuesday, she left air scent," mused the pet detective. "She had the windows of her car down. She left a trail. Tinker tried to track her down."

I had the privilege of meeting Vic Petrovics, father of the Dunsmuir Chamber of Commerce, a couple of years after moving here. As volunteer for the Chamber, I wrote a newsletter column on one of his visits to a members' meeting in the summer of 2004.

In observance of his passing, Saturday, June 11, at age 95, I post an excerpt below:

Our speaker had a sore throat, but he was determined to deliver his message. We watched him stride across the room and pick up a bottle of fresh spring water. He took a sip. Then he turned back to his audience, to the Chamber membership, to the guests, to the City Council members, and to the City Administrator. He resumed his talk on Dunsmuir’s neglected gold mine.

“I was in my senior year of college when we first came to Dunsmuir,” said Vic Petrovics. “We came up by train. The first thing we saw was a fountain and a sign that said, ‘The Best Water on Earth.’ It was an impressive display.” He took another drink of water. His voice rasping with the effort, he described to us how the picture that framed Sacramento Avenue for him has lingered for over sixty years now.

“After I opened my pharmacy in 1935, people would come in with those words in their mouths. They would say to me that this town has the best water on earth. I began to repeat the words.” Other merchants did as well. The town bartender would suggest to customers who ordered bourbon and soda to try instead bourbon and water. Bourbon and The-Best-Water-on-Earth water.

Pausing again, he took a long swig from his bottle. Some of us without one felt a pang of thirst. “Just think about it. We had four fountains in town, all flowing with Dunsmuir water. We made it a talking point, with repetition. Best Water on Earth. Best Water on Earth. It was free advertising. It worked. People came to Dunsmuir just to taste our water.”

As he refreshed himself once more, another long drag, the thirst in the room grew tangible. It became more than a desire for a sip of fresh Dunsmuir water. It was a thirst for action. It was the desire to pull together City and Chamber and promote our town using a resource no economic woes could touch: our endless supply of water. We could crash back to 1929, perhaps beyond, but the water will always flow down the slopes of Dunsmuir.

In the quiet of that moment gears began to turn. You could see it in the eyes of the audience, from the pensive gaze of Chamber President Wayne Meredith to the glowing reverie of City Councilman Ivan Young. They looked individually inward, but they focused together on a common task. Together they looked at the water. The Best Water on Earth.

We began to brainstorm: restart the Pine Street fountain and hang upon it, and every other flowing monument in town, a sign or a plaque saying Best Water on Earth. Have it on every piece of advertising that leaves town. On anything associated with the City or Chamber. Our new member, Spirits, could have cocktail napkins taunting visitors with the question, “Have you tasted the Best Water on Earth?”

Vic was 88 then, and still fiercely promoting the town he loved.

The last time I saw Vic he was being helped out the door after the 2009 Citizen of the Year dinner. Though his frail and fading body lived on in Weed, his heart had always resided in Dunsmuir, Home of the Best Water on Earth.

Everyone who wasn't born here has a special story about finding Dunsmuir. Here's mine.

Late 2001 my wife, Cherie, and I didn't want to live anywhere near the L.A. anymore. She wanted a quieter lifestyle; I wanted community.

So we both quit our jobs, had a good-bye Thanksgiving dinner with her kids, then headed north, up the coast, in seach of a new home for she and I and our cat.

Ruggles was a middle-aged cat, a Turkish Van we raised from puffball. In his first five and a half years he had never stepped a paw outdoors. His world had extended no further than the second-floor balcony.

Until now. What an adventure for him.

By the time we reached Gold Beach, Oregon, we knew we didn't want to live on the coast. We, especially I, love the beach, but it seemed more like a place to visit, not to live. The beach did not feel like Home.

So we headed inland and then down. We knew about the Mt. Shasta area from internet searches, and we knew of small town called Dunsmuir. We would not decide wheree we were going to live until we visited South Siskiyou.

It was late when we pulled in at the the Cedar Lodge. The car crunched into about two feet of snow on the ground, and more was falling fast. Owner Rita Hilsenbeck said it was unsually heavy for this time of year.

We began unloading all we needed into Room 8, when I made a big mistake. I was carrying things in both arms, and was holding the cats leash . Ruggles panicked and bolted, jerking the leash out of my hand.

He disappeared into a snowy void.

We passed a miserable night.

I arose, if I slept at all, around 5 a.m, and went out into the surrounding neighborhood to spread the word of the lost cat. Finding a white cat in deep snow seemed impossible, but the fact he was dragging with him a three-foot black leather leash gave us reason for hope.

I waded out into a dark snowscape,and knocked only on doors of homes where I could see lights burning.

I was out to find my cat, but instead I found Dunsmuir.

Everyone expressed concern for the situation and listened to all I had to say. One man even offered to go out, right now, and help find my cat. I thanked him, but declined, explaining that he had been gone about seven hours by that time.

Wow, what a difference from Southern California. These people really cared.

Only one woman didn't open up for an unannounced, pre-dawn visitor, but she apologized from the other side of her closed door for not being ready for company.

Back at the motel we waited, and it wasn't long before the motel handyman came to our door with our cat in his arms. Ruggles had taken shelter near the pumphouse for the Cedar Lodge aviary.

So, trauma over, we explored out options. We soon found there weren't many. Our car was buried in snow and the freeway was closed.

We walked downtown.

We talked to the merchants. We visited the library and I paged through Steve Cuttings bound newspaper clippings dating back to the 1880's.

Then came the moment we stood on the corner of Dunsmuir Avenue and Pine Street and looked at each other and said emphatically, "This is it. This is Home."

Ten days later, we moved from Upland to Dunsmuir.

To this day, I stop and think with a sense of awe, "We live here. We really LIVE here."