Don Russell’s Last Message

In my last conversation with Don, a phone call made to check on his welfare last month, his quiet but succinct words, “I’ve had a good run,” were spoken without irony, more with a tone, a sense of gratitude for a life containing rich experiences.

He might have been counting the day in October 1967 when he joined the tribunes of the anti-Vietnam war in Washington, D.C., to “levitate” the Pentagon and exorcise the demons residing at the home of the military-industry complex.

He could also have been considering the night when he was tear-gassed at Chicago’s Grant Park, along with thousands of “Yippies” gathered to protest LBJ’s war during the 1968 Democratic Convention.

Getting paid a thousand dollars to write some feature stories about rebellious students at Eastern campuses for the Detroit Free Press in 1968 was another point of pride for Don. The money was great, and he enjoyed saving this treasure by hitchhiking between the universities.

What about ignoring Uncle Sam’s call to join the U.S. Army and never again hearing anything from his Uncle about being drafted? That’s rich, for sure.

And, after migrating to California with his childhood friends from Detroit, the thrills of surviving for two winters in a wooded, off-grid wilderness at Relief Hill - a ghost town located several miles northeast of Nevada City, where he slept in a deserted chicken coop after the snow had melted - were certainly the source of good stories for Don.

I can easily imagine Don’s tone being a reflection of the many years he spent mastering the currents, tides, and fishing strategies needed to support his boat(s) and make a living in the Puget Sound and eastern Pacific. Plus, there were all the good friends he made and kept from both sides of the border with Canada during his time in Blaine, WA.

But knowing the wisdom of selling his third boat and leaving the dangerous, barely profitable, and increasingly strenuous waterborne occupation when he was almost 40 years old, also has to be a part of his ability to be satisfied with a life well lived.

When Don returned to California, he met Irene and began a three-decade union, during which she resided in Grass Valley, taught at Nevada Union High School, and he resided in Downieville, the editor of The Mountain Messenger.

In the course of Don assembling and delivering 1,551 consecutive editions of “The Mess” to the world between April 1991 and January 2020, Don had very good reasons to look back and be proud. Not only had he been the longest-serving editor since the paper’s inception in 1853, he had done so by writing with integrity.

Sure, he was prone to saying (with his tongue in his cheek?), “Don’t spoil a good story with a stupid fact.” However, he had no problem “calling them as you see them” - as in the famous “Chicken Shit” headline - while inviting all the enemies he’d made the previous year to the annual, often somewhat riotous, New Year’s Day party he and Irene held in his backyard or house, even if the weather was bad or the sun had gone down. Don loved to be a contrarian, and being the editor, he was free to be as contrary as he felt the situation warranted. So, this, too, would help to explain his satisfaction.

Simply being able to live in Downieville and cover the doings in Sierra County for more than thirty years was also part of Don’s “good run”.He loved knowing and being known by, it seemed like, almost everyone in the county. He loved the fact that, for most of those years, at least, he never locked his doors and all his friends knew they were always welcome to draft a beer from the keg he kept refrigerated in his garage.

Don loved knowing as much as he did about what was happening in the area’s nooks and crannies. Hell, he loved making the always beautiful, weekly drive through the TNF and PNF to Quincy to collect a new edition of the paper. And, he was proud of the fact he only fell asleep once on the route and survived unscathed when his venerated Volvo crashed into a big cedar just east of Sierra City.

Oh, there is so much more I suspect affected Don’s backward-looking perspective. Being Chairman of Sierra County’s Republican Central Committee for several years, until the party deserted him by falling victim to Trump, was certainly something he enjoyed. Yes, he prized being privy to intra-party scuttlebutt.

Anyway, whatever Don’s last words to me meant to himself, I know, for sure, I will dearly miss our delightful arguments. When Don was losing one of our disputes about politics or, say, the essential nature of humans, he would always increase the volume of his position. With me, he found his opponent capable of matching or raising him. He liked this.

Being born only eight months after me, both of our coming-of-age periods were etched by the war in Vietnam, racial unrest across the nation, and antipathy towards the forces suppressing dissent by citizens who disagreed with the government's policies and actions. So, this had forged a good, solid foundation between us, and we could disagree vehemently with each other and remain the best of friends. In fact, basically brothers, on permanently good terms.

As it happens, I will always regret Don’s refusal to consider the two of us creating a podcast featuring our often opposing opinions. It would have been full of laughs and incisive analysis of current world events.

Meanwhile, though, I am just happy to have been Don’s confidant and the benefactor of his unique, rich persona. He made a difference in the history of the world, and he will forever remain alive and inspirational in my universe.