so ultimately yes i was able to make it all work but i had to do it with the "target boot" thing in preferences.. i seems holding C or T didn't make the G4 Sawtooth let me pick a drive.. The wireless keyboard I had (less than 1-2 years old) worked as a keyboard, but the Mac (OSX at the time) didn't like my optical mouse.. maybe the high DPI or something was confusing.. what would happen is the mouse would just move down no matter if i was going up or down.. but using an old logitech wireless mouse did the trick..
I got OS9 installed thanks to the fine people at OS9Lives.com and it's doing amazing now!
Thanks for all your help!
Caleb