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International Bill Wheeler Appreciation Day
Not often enough does one realize how high Bill Wheeler once leaped. He’s shown here in the Chuck Smith gym 55 years ago during a game his Enumclaw Hornets basketball team lost to Fife. But Wheels as he later came to be known kept winning the hearts of those who knew him well. Following graduation,…
Our Greatest Team Ever
On Thursday evening of Leap Day, 1968, I played my last game of school sports. It was the greatest team I ever played on. Also my last. There were no epic come-from-behind victories or marquee moments. No half-time speeches to inspired victories with movie-perfect moments that we remember for the rest of our lives. It…
A Single Moment Captured
In September 1975, I moved to the Oregon Coast. I was fresh out of college, grew a beard, long hair, and bought a motorcycle. I wasn’t looking for work, just loafing. I collected weekly unemployment checks of $93 from a coal mining job I’d quit six months earlier, then dodged Employment Security rules by only…
Tony and Lulu’s Story
Their stories began in 1885. That January, a baby boy was born in Fuzine, Croatia. His name was Anton Kombol, the same as his father. When baby Anton was born, Croatia was a provincial kingdom within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Fuzine is a village in the Primorje-Gorski-Kotar region about six miles from the coast, but 2,400…
July 5, 1953
July 5, 1953 – Baby Billy’s Birth Seventy years ago today, Pauline Kombol bore her second son. Twelve months earlier, she buried her first daughter. Paula Jean lived for but two days. Paula’s father, Jack was sad. Pauline was devastated. Just over a year later, the Kombol family gathered at Lake Retreat for their annual…
The Last Day of June 1934
Al Stewart writes songs, many with a historical bent. In 1974, Stewart released his breakout album, “Past, Present, and Future” with two songs that sealed his reputation, “Nostradamus” and “Roads to Moscow.” The tracts were eight and nearly ten minutes long, but FM radio stations were increasingly featuring songs of extended length, so both grew in…
MLK Distinguished Service Award
Chair Upthegrove and Members of the Council – Way back in the fall of 1970, before several of our Councilmembers were even born, I was a high school senior in my hometown of Enumclaw. I’d enrolled in the Humanities course taught by Mr. Worthington. He provided a good introduction to higher education. During our section…
Living London’s Life – 1978
While traveling through Europe that year I’d set a tight budget: $10 per day, excluding travel. In London, this tiny allowance would be tested. The first night I tramped about Kings Cross station looking for economical accommodations. Most were at prices that fully consumed my budget goal. I chose the cheapest of the lot and…
Another Saturday Night
This story is from a diary I sporadically kept in 1983. It’s a another Saturday night with friends (Bill Wheeler, Keith Hanson, Jay Carbon, Wayne Podolak, and Mike Hanson), this time at a hockey game. Lucky me! Saturday night (Jan. 22, 1983): Wheels and I drove into Dez’s to meet Keith, Jay, Wayne, Mike,…
I wrote this letter to Mom & Dad
Forty-five years ago, I wrote this letter to Mom & Dad. I was in Paris near the end of my first of five months in Europe. My sister Danica (then known as Dana) was studying at the Sorbonne for a year so my parents decided to visit her during an extended vacation. I quit my…
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