Derek

Thursday, March 19, 2009


Derek (my husband) was raised in the isolated mountains of northern California, about one hour out of a small reservation town called Hoopa. To be exact he lived three miles north of mile marker 2141, he had no real “address.” His mother somehow bought 40 acres of land on the side of a mountain within the Hoopa Indian reservation. How she managed to do that is a long story and one I do not fully understand. Derek grew up without a telephone, sewage, piped in water, electricity or gas. They got their water from an uphill spring on the property, paid a truck to come out with propane, owned a small wood burning stove and owned a generator. He had his own gun at a young age, killed small animals, then cooked and ate them himself, including squirrel. Derek, can tell entertaining stories about his run-ins with the small black bears they shared the mountains with, getting ran over by a truck as a young boy, then getting driven on dirt roads through the mountains over an hour to get to the nearest hospital, hooking his own ear while fishing and getting snowed into their tiny trailer for almost two weeks. Honestly I do not know how he or his sisters survived. His mother gave birth to one other son, but he was still born, she buried him on top of the mountain with a rock for a grave marker. When he was three his Dad took the only car they had then deserted his mother, in the woods, for another woman, then raised the other woman's children. When Derek was 18 he went off to college with high hopes, he had a full scholarship Humboldt State University in Arcada, Ca. his grandparents were proud, they made him a deal that as long as he was in school they would send him money every month to help him out with living expenses. After less than two months, Derek had spent all his money on drugs; he took too many hits of acid and had a really bad trip. After that he quit school, enlisted in the Marine Corps, then went back home to sober up while he waited to be shippe to boot camp.Once he was out of boot camp he got stationed in Twenty-Nine palms California. A place who’s ugliness is a dead tie with Desert Hot Springs, only. He got into a little trouble in the marines and was assigned to mandatory anger management therapy. While he was in Twenty-Nine palms, a kind and elderly Christian man by the name of Ralph Porter befriended Derek, told him about Jesus and took him to chapel on occasion. Unfortunately, it was the young, fellow marine, informal “recruiter” for the church/cult who got his hands on Derek more firmly than Ralph. Within a short time Derek was a fully locked in member of the church, if you want to call it that. He was told to take his marine training, you know, "Semper Fidelis" and apply it to the church along with all his military training in obedience and to apply it unquestioningly to the pastor.To be continued…