On May 26, 1985, I gave up alcohol forever. I drank my last drink and never looked back. As a drug, alcohol is a depressant. Yet, alcohol induces depression in a sly manner – by disguising its psychoactive effects within the soft glow of frivolity. Life without booze invigorated me. After quitting, many asked why? My short answer: I’d already seen life saturated with booze – I wanted to experience something new and better and different. For thirty plus years, I have. It’s the second best decision I ever made.
Allow me to explain. I had no serious issues with alcohol. There were no DUIs, no courtroom appearances, no family interventions, no passing out, no automobile accidents, no slobbering drunken episodes. Sure, there were morning hangovers cured by drinking copious amounts of water to work the poison out.
Though I sometimes drank alone, it was never to excess. I enjoyed the camaraderie of friends when imbibing. Wine accompanied a good meal, just as a cold glass of ale enhanced a steak or sausage. A night of drinking beer over a card game or sporting event, were times to enjoy. I even pursued finer beverages such as cognac and bourbon. Sweet drinks were fine for the right occasion.
Keith Hamilton and I serving champagne on the day of my sister, Jeanmarie’s wedding, June 18, 1977
My final night of “feeling no pain” included a couple neighborhood friends during a Saturday evening of merriment fueled by strawberry daiquiris. Before stumbling home there was talk of getting together for breakfast the next morning. It was Memorial Day weekend. I awoke with a hangover, worse than previous but nothing debilitating. I drank lots of water and went for a jog. Back then I didn’t take the coffee cure.
Through the day I began thinking about life: where was I bound and towards what purpose. Life seemed to be going nowhere. I tried imagining a new age, a new direction to change the story I’d been living. On previous occasions, I’d given up alcohol for short periods of time; one particular three-month calendar season came to mind.
Thoughts began to grow. Memories fancied a youth – those carefree days before alcohol and mind-altering substances. There stood a fit young adult, filled with vim and vigor, ready to embrace challenges and explore the world. Instead the mirror offered a man imprisoned by conventions of social drinking; leaning on alcohol like a cripple leans on a crutch. I’d studied drugs and knew alcohol was a depressant, fully interchangeable with barbiturates for those addicted to either. The logic was inescapable. This drug known as alcohol – chemically a depressant – was depressing me.
I decided to change. My first calculus was to give up drinking for a while, or at least until the damn hangover ended. The more I thought about possibilities the more an idea of significant change grew – I would give up alcohol until its impact was fully reckoned. I’d never know what that life might be, if I never tried it.
There would be no A.A. meetings for me. The one meeting I’d been to (as part of a self-awareness class) involved lots of depressing individuals smoking cigarettes in a dumpy Auburn union hall. There would be no support groups, no grand announcements. I’d just stop drinking and experience life on the other side of the bottle. So, I did.
Summer was approaching and opportunities arose for new beginnings. I started riding my bike again and did more exercising, but nothing terribly radical. The first big social event of the season was Maple Valley Days in early June . . . for which alcohol was standard issue. I’d been part of the Cedar River boat races with cousin, Bob Morris several years previous and was friendly with the social circle following the sport. I saw old friends and when offered a beer politely declined. Drinking was an expected element of the weekend celebration so declining the proffered libation only heightened attention of the clique. I answered casually, “Just quitting for a couple of weeks. Drying out, you know.”
Two weeks later I joined my Enumclaw buddies at the monthly incarnation of the DGA (Duffers’ Golf Association). There I made similar gestures to downplay any importance of “Bill’s not drinking.” I observed others became uncomfortable if I were no longer part of the drinking fraternity.
To promote a relaxed atmosphere it was important to have some kind of drink in hand, anything would do. The best prop I found to be non-alcoholic beer. It allowed those who thought alcohol de rigueur for group dynamics, to more easily accept that my abstinence violated no rule of group etiquette. They saw me holding a drink and felt at ease.
DGA dudes: unknown, Jay Carbon, Tom Cerne, Mike Wickre.
The weeks turned to a month and a more formidable test emerged. Bob was marrying Jill and I would be his best man. I’d also be part of the close-knit group of friends for his weekend bachelor party. Eight of us would fly to Reno, rent a van, and tour Lake Tahoe and environs – a four-day, summer bash. I knew Bob’s friends pretty well from previous Maple Valley socializing much of which involved drinking. They would be my party-mates during our weekend safari. Only one of our gang, Keith Timm Jr. was a teetotaler. Make that two.
In any group setting, every person serves a role. I could easily take a break from abstinence and join the partying in Reno and Tahoe. Multiple opportunities to cut loose were available. Not everyone knew of my new sensibility, so the easy route suggested a reversion to the days of wine and roses.
But, a better plan was hatched – I would serve as designated driver. The others could fully enjoy drinking and carousing, all under the capable hand of a sober chauffeur. I’d safely guide the caravan. Peer pressure melted like a daiquiri in the Nevada sun. I became the indispensable cog whose sobriety allowed their intemperance; the driver of the bus who piloted the fun. They admired my sobriety and I reveled in their esteem. My avenue of abstinence was beginning to look like a freeway to self-fulfillment.
The summer months stretched towards autumn and fewer people noticed, “Bill isn’t drinking anymore.” In time my sobriety became a non-event. Most people who drink pay little attention to those who don’t – they’re too affected to notice the person who doesn’t. Eventually, I gave up the ruse that teetotalism was a temporary phenomenon. I would never drink again. I was happy. It was the second best decision I ever made.
I won’t leave you dangling. About a month after my drinking stopped, I attended a cocktail party at the Smith Tower in downtown Seattle. It was a political fundraiser for a King County Councilmember from the south end. His daughter was there. We shared a pleasant conversation. She lived on Lake Sawyer. Yes, she liked volleyball at the annual Fourth of July celebration. We’d be on opposite teams for the East – West volleyball match played on the court near Mom’s home on the lake. I’d probably see her there. She came. They won.
When leaving, the motor on her dad’s 10-foot dinghy caught fire. She jumped into the lake. Bob, Tom Cerne, and I flipped the boat upside down putting out the fire. Mom comforted the water-soaked girl up at the lake house. She called her parents to have someone pick her up. No one was available . . . though her uncle had seen a fire across the lake. I gave her a ride home in Terry’s outboard. I knew I wanted to see her again.
Jennifer and I at Seafair, Aug. 1985, one of our early group dates.
My mind was no longer clouded by booze. I was free to pursue the life I needed to live.
Before Vern Cole, Lake Sawyer lacked a dam, also known as a weir to control the level of the lake. Lake Sawyer is the third largest public lake in King County, Washington.
Over the years a number of stories were written about the outlet dam controlling the level of Lake Sawyer. Most previous versions were steeped in oral history but light on facts. Many portrayed Vern Cole as a renegade developer and defendant in a lawsuit he lost to Mary Burnett. Quite the opposite is true. It’s time to set the record straight on that dam outlet weir where Covington Creek leaves Lake Sawyer.
Like most lakes of the Puget Sound basin, Lake Sawyer was formed about 10,000 years ago near the end of the last glacial period. Sheets of ice covered the region with heights reaching 3,000 feet at their thickest. Retreating glaciers carved the landscape as melting ice deposited thick layers of sand and gravel, including areas around Black Diamond. This barren landscape gradually supported primeval forests dominated by Douglas fir. Low areas became ponds and lakes filled with water from meandering creek channels. Lake Sawyer was fed by two: Ravensdale Creek and Rock Creek.
Water leaving the lake naturally gravitated to its lowest point, the Covington Creek channel located midway along the lake’s western shore. By the time white settlers homesteaded Lake Sawyer, that channel was filled with several thousand years of logs, trees, roots, branches, and debris all of which clogged the natural outlet. Busy beavers no doubt added their contribution to the morass of detritus. The situation remained unchanged until the 1950s.
Aerial photo of the north and west shores of Lake Sawyer in Aug. 1937, the earliest aerial photograph of the area.
During the 1920s, most land surrounding Lake Sawyer was still held by a few large owners including Oscar Weisart, the Lochow family, the Neukirchen brothers, Lake Sawyer Lumber Co., Northwest Improvement Co., Pacific Coast Coal Co., and the lake’s first family, the Hansons. They later operated Enumclaw’s White River Lumber Co. whose prominence became a defining feature of that town. Carl Hanson’s original 160-acre land grant also boasted the lake’s first home, a log cabin built around 1884.
In 1884, the first cabin was built on Lake Sawyer upon Carl M. Hanson’s 16- acre homestead. This photo dates to 1887. The two girls standing in front are Anna Elizabeth Hanson (age 12 years), Olga Olivia Hanson (10), while standing in the doorway are Ellen Thyra Maria Hanson (8), and Selma Victoria Hanson (6).
By the mid-1930s, many owners began platting their land into small lots. Most are now occupied by lakefront homes. The plat names included Campbell’s Lake Sawyer Campsite; Lochow’s Lake Sawyer Tracts; Lake Sawyer East Shore Tracts; and Lake Sawyer Grove Park (currently the RV resort). However the biggest of all was approved in 1939 – the North Shore of Lake Sawyer comprising 139 lots stretching from Hanson Point down to and including a two-acre park dedicated to King County (docks #104 to 189). The North Shore Plat was owned by the Hanson, Smith and Olson families, descendants of Carl Hanson, and contained a low spot which periodically flooded. That area is now referred to as the Boot, owing to its boot-like shape as seen on the plat map. The Hanson family’s summer home (docks #102 & 103) was built in 1926 in the steeped-roof, gabled-style of the day, complete with caretaker’s cottage next door. Both home and cottage still grace Hanson Point named for that pioneer family. By 1947, the lake hosted 70 families in permanent residences and three times that many with summer homes.
The Hanson family’s 1939 plat map of the North Shore’s 139 lots, with the Boot anticipated as potential lake frontage. The park deeded by the Hanson family is now the public boat launch.
Further south, the area around the outlet channel remained un-platted and owned by the Lochow family. In 1950, Ludwig & Mabel Lochow, William & Marjorie Lochow, together with William & Gladys Gordon filed the West Shore of Lake Sawyer plat. Their platted tract encompassed 36 acres stretching from the Hanson-donated park (now called Lake Sawyer Boat Launch) all the way south to the present site of the Lake Sawyer RV Resort (docks #191 to 258). New roads were constructed to service the 73 platted lots including S.E. 298th Street, S.E. 300th Street, S.E. 302nd Street, and 225th Ave. S.E. Lot sizes were restricted to a minimum of 6,000 square feet, but most were between 15,000 and 25,000 sf. The West Shore plat involved extensive surveying of the outlet channel designated as Covington Creek on the map. Each lot’s frontage on the canal extended to the centerline of the creek.
The Gordon-Lochow 1950 plat map of the West Shore’s 73 lots. The channel was fully surveyed before any dredging took place, most likely in 1951.
However, nature’s ad hoc dam which governed the lake’s level remained the same choked Covington Creek channel, resulting in periodic episodes of severe flooding. As seen nearby, the Speery cabin located near the old Neukirchen mill site was inundated during winter floods of 1946. In his August 5, 1952 findings of fact from King County Case No. 443504, Superior Court Judge Ward Roney declared “the residents and property owners abutting Lake Sawyer have been subjected to severe damage and expense during the past flood seasons.” Roney further ruled “that said Lake constitutes a flood control problem within the meaning of the statutes of the State.”
The north and west shores of Lake Sawyer in 1942, showing a clogged Covington Creek outlet and ponded water in the Boot area.
Judge Roney’s decision grew out of a petition filed in March 1952 by Mary Burnett, Perry B. Love, Wilbert Bombardier, Rebecca Miles, Frank Horne, William Gordon, Hans Sands, Perry J. Love, Leonard Cleaver, Adolph Samuelson, and David Cook, all owners of real property abutting Lake Sawyer. As plaintiffs, the 11 individuals sought a judicial order providing specific proposed relief:
To establish the maximum water level for Lake Sawyer;
To authorize construction of a dam and fish ladders;
To authorize Vern Cole Realty Company, Inc. to install the dam and fish ladder, subject to the approval of King County, Dept. of Fisheries, Dept. of Game, and Supervisor of hydraulics; and
To authorize the Supervisor of Hydraulics to thereafter regulated and control the maximum water level of the lake.
King County Superior Court Case No. 443504, with Mary Burnett as the first named plaintiff. The March 1952 petition to the court sought a judicial order to fix the level of Lake Sawyer, which led to building the dam and weir later that year.
Named in the action were each and every land and lot owners around the perimeter of Lake Sawyer, with lake frontages of each noted in lineal feet. Contrary to previous accounts Vern Cole was not a defendant. In fact, he was actually an ally and confidant of lead plaintiff, William Gordon who owned multiple lots in the just approved West Shore plat. Vern Cole was described in pleadings as the most competent individual to spearhead efforts for design and construction of an outlet dam to solve winter flood problems and low summer lake levels. As opposed to the usual formulation where every lot owner paid his or her proportionate share of design and construction costs, the plaintiffs proposed to pay all those considerable expenses.
To gain perspective we now indulge in some informed speculation guided by known facts, aerial photos, and the resulting landscape. Throughout the Puget Sound region, earthmoving operation significantly altered the course of countless rivers, creeks, lakes, and wetlands. The White River previously flowed into the Green, but was later diverted south to the Puyallup River. Lake Washington once emptied through the Black River into the Duwamish near Tukwila, but was lowered nine feet after the Ship Canal was dug, providing a connection through Lake Union to Shilshole Bay and the Puget Sound. The Cedar River was also rechanneled so it no longer left Lake Washington via the Black and Duwamish Rivers, but through Union Bay and the Chittenden locks in Ballard. Those were but a few of the large projects financed by government to sculpt local landscapes in pursuit of enhanced waterfront and economic prosperity.
White River was diverted west to the Puyallup in 1906. The Cedar River was re-channeled directly to Lake Washington in 1912. The Black River disappeared when Lake Washington was lowered nine feet and the lake’s discharge henceforth flowed through the Montlake Cut to Lake Union, then into locks at Ballard and Puget Sound. See When Coal Was King, May 4, 2021.
At Lake Sawyer the goals were modest and the means private – flood control plus fixing the lake’s level with a new dam. At the end of World War II lots of surplus earthmoving equipment including bulldozers, diesel powered shovels, and draglines were put to use in nearby mining operations. In the late 1940s, both Ravensdale and Franklin coal seams were mined for the first time by surface methods with bulldozers removing overburden while shovels excavated coal into dump trucks. Previously almost all coal had been mined underground.
A similar form of excavation likely took place in the Covington Creek channel and further north in the Boot, a part of the Hanson family’s North Shore plat. The summer of 1951 is the most likely date for both dredge operations. The Gordon-Lochow West Shore plat was approved in November 1950 and the lawsuit to fix the lake’s hydraulic problems initiated in early 1952. Interrogatories exchanged between plaintiffs and respondents indicate that Vern Cole Realty was hired by the Gordon-Lochow forces to open the channel. In those same questions and answers the Gordon-Lochow plaintiffs proposed that Vern Cole construct the dam, spillway, and fish ladder, designed to replace nature’s failing, log-choked outlet. After the channel was cleared the lake’s summer level would have been far lower allowing easy excavation of the Boot.
A trial without jury was heard on April 10, 1952 before Judge Roney. Several procedural issues were ruled upon and the trial continued to May 19 at the King County Courthouse. Plaintiffs were instructed to serve copies of the Judge’s interim order upon all parties. A notice of proceedings was published in the Auburn Globe News for a period of two weeks. A number of prominent Seattle law firms were involved including Rummens, Griffin & Short represented by Paul Cressman for the plaintiffs, and Bogle, Bogle & Gates for the respondent, John Nelson one of the lake’s largest landowners. Plaintiffs and Respondents attended the trial as did three State Departments – Game, Fisheries, and Hydraulics. King County was named in the lawsuit and served notice but didn’t appear. Unfortunately neither testimony nor oral proceedings from May 19th were preserved. But the parties must have agreed on most major points as Judge Roney’s decision mirrored the plaintiff’s requests and his order seemingly satisfied all the parties, as no appeals were filed.
On August 5, 1952, Judge Roney issued his final ruling which included Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and a Decree whose decision included the following:
That Covington Creek “is inadequate and incapable of carrying off excess water during flood seasons; that as a result thereof, the residents and property owners abutting Lake Sawyer have been subjected to severe damage and expense during past flood seasons.”
That “a maximum lake level be established to control and regulate the flow of water in Covington Creek; that the maximum water level on Lake Sawyer should not exceed 518.94 feet above mean sea level . . . that level is 16” higher, according to foot measurement, than the visible level of the Lake on the 19th of May, 1952 [and] that such a maximum lake level will not endanger or damage any property abutting the shores of Lake Sawyer.”
“That the Vern Cole Realty Co. . . . has advised the court it will bear the entire construction cost of a dam or spillway to control and regulate the flow of water from Lake Sawyer and through Covington Creek.”
That “Vern Cole has advised the court it is having plans prepared for construction of a suitable dam or spillway” . . . and that said plans be approved by the Departments of Game, Fisheries, and Hydraulics.
That the Dept. of Hydraulics provide regulation of the dam and spillway following construction.
So what did the lake look like by the end of construction? And how much variance did the lake experience before and after installation of water control structures in 1952?
The variances experienced in the pre-weir era are not known, but were certainly extreme. Evidence of severe flooding is seen in the Sperry cabin photo looking west towards the Hanson home built in 1926. Jack Sperry believes that water level was 38” to 40” (between 3 and 4 feet) above today’s typical level. The lowest pre-weir levels were likely 5 feet below today’s norms, that being the water elevation at the base of the dam. A number of intact stumps from old trees can still be seen below water level including one between the two islands in front of the RV Resort. It has a white buoy attached. Another stump in front of Eble point (Dock 12) is about 7 feet below the average level. These trees were probably Oregon ash or another specie which can tolerate long periods of inundation. These high and low data points suggests that prior to the dam and weir, Lake Sawyer experienced wide variations in water level, as much as 8 to 10 feet.
The Sperry cabin during winter flooding in 1946. The home on Hanson Point can be seen in the distance, just to the left of the cabin.
Following construction of the weir and dam, the highest recorded water levels in Lake Sawyer occurred in early February 1996. Heavy rains washed out the dike road between Frog Lake and Lake Sawyer causing a cascade of water to fill the lake and overwhelm the weir. Water levels were measured at 26” over the weir compared to a winter average of 6” above. The lowest recorded water levels occurred in late October 2015 when beaver dams up and down Ravensdale and Rock Creeks cut off almost all surface flow to the lake. Late autumn is also when groundwater flows ebb, contributing to that record low event. On Oct. 28, 2015 the water level was 39” below the weir. Thus, the maximum recorded variance in modern times between these two extremes was 65” or about 5.5 feet. The typical annual variance between the average high and low water is now about 24” or two feet.
The best evidence to further piece this puzzle together are aerial photos from 1937 and 1942 showing conditions before lake alterations, and from 1959 seven years after. In the Boot section of the North Shore plat, the August 1937 photo shows definite farming activities. Yet, the Hanson’s 1939 plat map clearly depicts that same Boot area within the high water line of the lake. A pond in the north end of the Boot can be seen in the winter 1942 photo, where summer field harvesting was practiced five years earlier.
Just as heavy rains facing a clogged Covington Creek channel resulted in severe winter flooding, it’s equally fair to assume that lack of a real dam controlling outflow allowed late summer lake levels to fall precipitously. That would explain why the Boot could be used for farming in 1937, but on the plat map and in the 1942 photo seen as a potential water basin. Oral history holds the Boot was once dredged, an event surely contemporaneous with the Gordon-Lochow dredging of the outlet channel which created optimum conditions for summer work. This makes sense given that heavy equipment necessary for one project could easily be redeployed to another. The cleared channel no doubt presented owners with an historic low-water event perfect for carving future waterfront.
The post-dam era in 1959, seven years after dredging and construction of a dam at the outlet. The wakes of motor boats can be seen on the lake.
A close-up of the west shore area in 1959 showing the dredged Covington Creek canal, the weir, and increasing development of homes within the West Shore Plat.
Despite a lawsuit just six months earlier, by late September 1952 all was peaches and honey in the neighborhood. The Seattle Times reported, “A 94-foot-long dam has been constructed on Lake Sawyer, near Kent, at the mouth of Covington Creek to establish the lake level and improve property values and fishing. The concrete structure is equipped with five-step fish ladders which will permit salmon to return to the lake to spawn.” On October 5th a joint ceremony was hosted by the Lake Sawyer Community Club and Lake Sawyer Garden Club to mark completion of the dam. That dam and weir still faithfully serve lot owners on Lake Sawyer over 68 years later.
Lake Sawyer weir and dam on Covington Creek, Jan. 1956, a few years after dredging. Photo by Frank Guidettiof Black Diamond
Aerial and plat photo labeling by Oliver Kombol.
Sources:
King County Superior Court Case No. 443504 “In the matter of fixing the level of Lake Sawyer” (1952).
King County Assessor and Dept. of Transportation aerial photos from 1937 and 1959.
U.S. Army Corp aerial photo from 1942.
King County Recorder – Plats of the North Shore and West Shore of Lake Sawyer.
Metsker’s 1926 and 1936 atlas of King County.
“History of King County” Volume II by C.B. Bagley (1929),
Renton News Record, July 17, 1947 – News of Maple Valley.
Seattle Sunday Times, Sept. 28, 1952 – page 20.
Jack Speery, lake resident – oral communication.
Bob Edelman, lake resident – email communication, July 9, 2020.
Though characterized as villain in some early and inaccurate stories about construction of the Lake Sawyer dam, Vern Cole was one of the driving forces behind designing the weir and creating the stabilized lake level residents enjoy today. Born in 1887 to a pioneer family from Baker, Oregon, they immigrated to Canada when Vern was six-years-old. After discharge from the British Navy, he joined the Vancouver, B.C. Police at age 21 serving as Constable Patrol Officer. Cole moved to Seattle during World War I and became a salesman for a motorcar company. He was later commissioned as a Washington State Patrol officer. It’s unclear when Cole first pursued real estate as an endeavor, but he ended up running a very successful business known as Vern Cole Realty Co., which specialized in lake front homes, acreage, and view tracts.
Vern Cole as Patrol Officer in Vancouver, B.C., 1908.
Cole became involved with the Lochow-Gordon plat of the West Shore of Lake Sawyer in the early 1950s. However, at the start of the 1952 legal action by Lochow, Gordon, and others, Vern’s wife of 45 years, Hazel (Downing) died. Perhaps in grief, Cole poured himself into completing the lake’s transformation he helped set in motion. A year later he remarried a widow, Edna Buckingham Raborn and the two of them lived on his 105-foot yacht moored at Shilshole Bay, just outside the Ballard Locks. Vern Alexander Cole died in 1970 at age 83. His obituary states he was an active yachtsman and member of the Elks and Masonic bodies.
The Home on Hanson Point
One of the oldest homes on Lake Sawyer was built by the pioneering Hanson family on a peninsula of land that was part of their original homestead claim. The patriarch, Carl M. Hanson owned a sawmill in his native Sweden before immigrating to the U.S. in 1883, after hearing of Washington’s vast timber tracts. For a year he cleared land in Seattle before moving to Lake Sawyer where he filed for ownership of 160 acres under the 1862 Homestead Act. Carl built a log cabin, proved up his claim, and in 1891 was issued a deed personally signed by President Benjamin Harrison.
For several years, Carl and members of the extended family worked at the coal mines in Black Diamond and Franklin before building sawmills, first at Summit (Four Corners) and later Lake Wilderness. Both were operated in association with his three sons, Axel, Charles, and Frank. The Wilderness mill was owned until 1897 when the family moved operations to Enumclaw following purchase of the White River Mill. That enterprise was renamed White River Lumber Company and thrived under Hanson family management. Within a decade the firm employed over 500 men, by far the biggest employer in Enumclaw. The company increased its land holding to 50,000 acres and later initiated a cooperative agreement with Weyerhaeuser. In 1900, Frederick Weyerhaeuser purchased 900,000 acres of timber from railway magnate, James J. Hill. The two companies, White River Lumber and Weyerhaeuser fully merged operations in 1949.
King County Assessor photo taken Dec. 20, 1939. The home still looks remarkably the same.
The Hanson family built this summer home on Lake Sawyer in 1926 and next to it a caretaker’s cottage. In 1939, Rufus Smith and L.G. Olson, grandsons of Carl Hanson filed a plat named the North Shore of Lake Sawyer. The lake front portion of the family’s 160-acre homestead was platted into 139 lots and included dedication of the two-acre park now owned by Black Diamond and called Lake Sawyer Boat Launch. Their summer home which sits on 17-acres (docks #102 & 103), was not part of the plat but remained with the extended Hanson family until 1997 when it was sold to David & Maryanne Tagney Jones for $2.2 million. A recreational guest house was added to the estate in 2007. This December 20, 1939 photo of tax parcel 042106-9001 comes courtesy of the King County Assessor held at the Puget Sound Regional Archives in Eastgate.
This history of the dam was originally published in the Lake Sawyer Community Club Newsletter, Spring 2021. Additional photos have been added to this version.
How many walks do you even remember? Walks to school as a child? Your walk at graduation? Strolling home from campus late at night? Walking down the aisle towards your life of marriage? The solemn pace of the pallbearer when that dear uncle passes?
Some of life’s most memorable moments are seemingly mundane. So it was with my walk in Wales in the spring of 1978. I was 24-years-old and spending four weeks of my five-month pilgrimage to Europe, living with a friend in a tiny village of western Wales. Scott Hamilton was in the service, stationed at a nearby U.S. Naval base. Scott was something of a loner and rented a stone cottage far off the beaten path. He lived there with his English sheepdog named Gretchen.
Middle Mille was no more than six homes and an abandoned mill. A small creek that once powered the mils flowed through the town. Remnant water wheels of rotting wood and rusting iron dotted a maze of surviving channels and canals. A portion of the old woolen mill had been converted to a home.
Middle Mille, Wales, April 1978. The old mill is to the left and Scott’s stone cottage is center. The stream is seen below.
A family lived there with two young boys, perhaps five and seven. Most days I was at loose ends so made the acquaintance of their mother. She was in her thirties and glad for the company in this isolated place. On occasion, I’d share a cup of tea with Mrs. King. The King family traded woolen goods from their storefront which doubled as the front room of their rambling stone house.
The King boys (whose names I’ve forgotten) were game for an adventure so one day, with their mom’s approval, I proposed a stroll up the creek as far as we might go. It was a typical spring day in western Wales with light breezes and sunlight broken by passing clouds. The valley was mostly unkempt fields and broken-down fences. It was a vestige of Wales that time and prosperity left behind. Without plan, map, or lunch we began our trek with the creek as our guide. We hopped fences as necessary and crossed stone bridges where sheep once roamed. The stream grew smaller as we pressed further up the valley.
The King boys reveled in discoveries and played imaginary games, while my mind drifted back to a childhood hike some two decades before. The summer of my fifth year, we climbed the mountain just east of my grandparent’s house. They lived in what was left of a coal mining outpost once called Hiawatha. Only three homes remained identical miners’ cottages on the Kanaskat-Kangley Road. My dad was born in the middle house 35 years earlier. The St. Clairs lived next door. My climbing partners were Barry, age seven, and Billy and Dickie St. Clair, ages nine and ten.
The Kombol kids the summer Barry and I climbed the mountain: Billy, Jean, Danica, and Barry at our home in Elk Coal, August 1958.
We crossed over the old railroad tracks and followed a creek up the forested hillside. Our first stop was a primitive dam where Pa Kombol maintained the water system which fed the three homes. We played near the pooled reservoir then continued our climb through dense stands of fir, hemlock, and cedar covered with moss. There was a trail of sorts but the path was steep. Determined as only the youngest really knows, I struggled to keep up yet never admitted weakness.
The creek became a trickle but we climbed still higher. When the creek was no more we determined the summit was reached. A view appeared within a narrow clearing. The sun shone down upon us which added to our sense of glory. To memorialize the accomplishment a knife was produced from which shirt buttons and shards of cloth were cut. We attached theses badges to the stump of a fallen tree. The four of us stood in solemn camaraderie. Our sacrificed tokens echoed a hope that one day we’d return to find proof of the ascent and reclaim our hidden treasures. Little did I realize that future treasures will one day be found in memories.
Exploring the graveyard with the boys.
Back in Wales, I pondered, “Might these boys one day experience a similar feeling?” Several hours into our hike the creek forked. Neither branch provided sufficient flow to keep our interest. Clouds gathered behind us and it was time to head home. We left the valley floor climbing the upper ridge. A trail led us back to the village. By the time we reached Middle Mille, we’d rambled maybe five or six miles. I deposited the boys with their mother with promises to explore again. The King boys and I undertook several more adventures during my stay. We examined a nearby church and graveyard. We found an old water wheel where I tried coaching the older lad to snap my photo. He fumbled with the camera asking, “Which button do I push?” As I leaned forward the shutter clicked.
At the old water wheel in my trusted pea coat.
My time in Wales was coming to an end. There was only so much to learn in Middle Mille. My visits to the nearby market town of Haverfordwest began to grow stale. London was calling, but I yearned for a piece of this green valley to take home. Mrs. King helped me choose a Welsh-made woolen blanket. It cost a pretty penny and I shipped it home in time for Mother’s Day. Both of my Mom’s parents were children of Welsh immigrants, making her almost pure Welsh. When she died the red plaid blanket came back to me. It reminds me of my walk in Wales.
The Welsh blanket given to her for Mother’s Day, now is available to keep me warm.
In October 2015 after visiting our son Oliver at Cardiff University, Jennifer and I spent a night in Haverfordwest before boarding a ferry to Ireland. We drove along a narrow path barely wide enough for our car to reach Middle Mille. I wanted to show her the place I’d stayed 37 years earlier. There were a few new buildings but the village was mostly unchanged. Scott’s stone cottage looked the same. The old mill complex still sold woolen goods. The Solva Woollen Mill is now the oldest working wool mill in Pembrokeshire – one of only two remaining in the county. We wandered about the grounds. Jennifer snapped my picture standing beside a restored water wheel. We hadn’t time for a walk, for there was a ferry to catch.
I found myself back in Middle Mille ,37 years later standing by a water wheel where the King boy once snapped my photo.
I returned to Maui in the spring of 2011, almost 35 years to the day I’d left. In March 1976, Wayne and I embarked on an epic journey to Hawaii – epic at least in the minds of two 22-year-olds. We’d just graduated: Wayne, a Cougar and me, a Husky. Both of us were odd-jobbing, goofing off, and living at home. That winter we’d played a bit of tennis at the old junior high and hatched a trip to Hawaii in spring. Some details of this account are sketchy, primarily because I’ve forgotten much of what happened. Some memories are firmly embedded.
Figuring it would be hot and unruly, I’d cut my shoulder-length hair a couple of days before we left. We packed the little gear we needed and flew to Oahu. In the classic fashion of first-time Hawaiian tourists, we laid on the beach in the blazing sun most of our first day. That night we were lobsters. Our next three days would be fully clothed, so we decided to explore Oahu.
White boy Wayne (soon to be red), with double thumbs up, on our first day in Hawaii.
First stop – the bars of Waikiki. Back then these drinking establishments were open-air bamboo huts. Midday, they were filled with the drifters, drunks, and pseudo-adventurers, the kind of story-telling guys from whom you rarely hear a good story. While these Tiki bars were a pleasant diversion for a day, the drinks were expensive, and anyway, Wayne and I were in Hawaii for an adventure.
We decided to rent a car and explore the North Shore. We chose a cheap sporty rig and headed north from Honolulu. It was about when plastic garbage cans began replacing metal ones. And the garbage had just been collected, meaning every driveway had an empty plastic garbage can, on the edge of the road. Meaning we couldn’t resist smashing into empty plastic garbage cans along the way. We had lots of fun bashing cans, changing drivers every couple of miles until we’d left the populated areas and there were no more garbage cans left to bash. Is it any wonder car companies no longer rent to drivers younger than 25? We made it to the North Shore, saw monster waves, and finished circumnavigating the island. The rental car was returned, no worse for the wear. I don’t remember what we did over the next couple of days, but it wasn’t in the sun. By then, it was time to fly to Maui.
Bill and Wayne, ready for adventure . . . with our transistor radio in hand.
My Uncle Jack had recently bought a condo in Kihei. He told me the name of the nice Asian gal who managed it for him and the address for his rental management company. Uncle Jack had led me to believe that if we showed up at this certain rental agency, that this certain Asian girl could certainly do something for us. The bus ride from the airport was filled with dreams of the sweet condo and sleek ride all courtesy of Uncle Jack, or something resembling it. While Wayne waited in the park, I walked across South Kihei Road to the agency, and sure enough, there was a very attractive Asian gal, about thirty, who knew my Uncle Jack and yes, wasn’t Jack Morris a very nice client, but no she didn’t have any condos and no, there wasn’t any car, but thank you very much for stopping by, and if you’re ever back in Maui be sure to stop in and say “Aloha.”
Well, it wasn’t the easiest conversation to have with Wayne. I stuttered to explained, “No, I didn’t score a condo in Kihei,” and “No, they don’t have a car for us either.” Wayne didn’t say much, just an exasperated look as if to say, “What in the #%@&* are we going to do now, Kombol?”
The rental management agency was across the street from Kama’ole Beach Park and within this patch of green was a parking lot and there to the far side were two hippies sitting at a picnic bench, near a faded yellow 1956 Ford station wagon with a “for sale” sign hanging in the window. The girl was quite attractive in a mid-seventies, hippie sort of way. Wayne sat impassively. I went to investigate. The hippie guy and gal were heading to New Zealand and willing to sell this gem of a rig, which included a 3” thick mattress laid across folded down back seats, with window curtains made from sheets, plus a 14” screwdriver in the glove compartment, in the event we might need a screwdriver.
Wayne, in the park with our 1956 Ford station wagon. Note the For Sale sign in the window.
They’d owned the car for six weeks or so and it ran well, except for its quirks, and got them everywhere they wanted to go. And for $237 we would have both room and vehicle. (I hadn’t remembered the amount until the discovery of a postcard written to my folks with a full description of the finer points of our purchase). Plus, we could sell it when we left the island. Such a deal – I pitched the proposition to Wayne. I can’t say he enthusiastically agreed, let’s say, reluctantly. Anyway, with $237 fewer dollars in our wallets, we now owned a condo and a car. But, part of the deal was to take the hippies to the airport as they were splitting for New Zealand. When we asked about the pink slip, they said, “It’s a floating title – no one has transferred it for years, no insurance, no nothing; in that way you’re not responsible for anything. Just sell it when you’re done.” One of their last warnings was the suspension wasn’t very good, so don’t drive on rough roads.
We took the hippie couple to the airport and said goodbye. Wayne hopped behind the driver’s wheel (no doubt owing to being my senior by a couple months). As we left the airport and pulled to the stoplight at the intersection of the Hana and Haleakala highways, the motor stopped and the entire dashboard of our ‘56 Ford filled with smoke and the acrid smell of burning electrical wires. Wayne turned slowly and looked at me, shaking his head in disgust. Feeling sheepish, I watched anxiously as Wayne ducked under the dash, messed with a few wires, and in no time the engine was humming. We turned left and were back on the road. I was feeling pretty happy. Wayne kept shaking his head, in time glancing my way, this time with a grin.
We drove back to Kihei and I suggested we continue on the unpaved road to Makena beach. My cousin Bob spoke glowingly of Makena beach. I was driving and must have hit some rough bumps in this well-rutted road because the muffler fell off. The hippies turned out to be right. The suspension wasn’t very good. After chastising me with appropriate vigor, Wayne found some baling wire, crawled under the car, and tied the muffler back in place. We’d already had two significant setbacks and only owned the car for a few hours.
On the road again.
Our days passed slowly. We were now wise and brown to the sun. We explored beaches by day and slept in parks and waysides by night. We drove around a lot. I can’t remember much of what we ate, but I do remember bananas for breakfast each morning. Neither of us drank coffee back then. We spent a lot of time at Makena beaches: Big Makena most of the time and Little Makena whenever we wanted to check out the nude sunbathers. One day we drove the long and winding road to Hana. We never made it to Haleakala Crater. I suppose the station wagon’s radiator was too weak to drive 10,000 feet up a mountain and we didn’t fancy more chances with our condo on wheels. We generally kept to the drier parts of the island because during heavy rains our condo leaked. It was something of a rust bucket and after each tropical downpour; we had to drag our mattress and damp sleeping bags into the sun to dry.
Drying our gear after a tropical downpour.
We’d bought masks and fins, snorkeled a bit, and sunbathed a lot. We drove around and swam, and occasionally washed our clothes at a laundromat. I don’t remember ever meeting any girls. We played lots of cribbage, for money – a nickel a point. I’ve always prided myself at being an expert cribbage player, but Wayne was clearly my match. I’d been a long-time political junkie and had great fun following the Reagan-Ford presidential primary battle in the local newspapers that spring. I usually remember events by the music of the times, but I swear the only song I recall from our trip was “Oh, what a night, late December back in ‘63” by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
At the time there was a potent strain of antagonism from native Hawaiians, particularly those young and male, directed towards “haoles” (pronounced howl-lee). The term was derisively used for white tourists who were taking over their island. On one occasion at a state park, a gang of natives called out Wayne and me as “haoles,” with a tone and demeanor so menacing we promptly left without even a proper “aloha.”
Exploring the island, somewhere in Maui.
Did I mention we drove around a lot? One day, we found ourselves in the working-class town of Wailuku, where there were far more natives than tourists. We’d never taken down the “for sale” sign in the car window, no doubt hoping that P.T. Barnum was right about a fool born every minute. Anyway, a Wailuku police office of large build, severe crew cut, and Polynesian descent rather forcefully informed us that it was a violation of the Wailuku municipal code to drive on city streets with a “for sale” sign in the window of a licensed vehicle. I suppose we could have thanked our blue-clad public servant for providing us with such a useful bit of information, but instead, we took down the sign with perhaps a bit too much attitude. As we drove down Market Street heading out of town, I begrudgingly turned and gave the cop the old stink-eye. This was not my finest hour! Blue lights flashed and this time he exploded with the force and temper of the Marine drill sergeant he resembled. With an improper registration and perhaps half a dozen other vehicle defects he could have impounded our car and left us homeless. Wayne took charge, blamed it on me, and apologized profusely, while I humbly sulked in the passenger seat. We were allowed to leave town with a promise to never come back to Wailuku. We never did.
One late afternoon, we decided to drive as far north as we could on the Honoapiilani highway. We left Lahaina and drove past Ka’anapali, Kahana, Kapalua, and beyond Honokohau Bay. Eventually, the narrow paved road turned to hard-packed dirt. On we drove, or should I say I drove as we generally shared driving duties, and I was commanding this particular expedition. We came to a beautiful yet remote area of rolling grasslands and picturesque meadows all adjacent to a clear blue ocean. At the top of one particular hill, Wayne wondered if we shouldn’t turn back. Before the words left his mouth, I’d coasted down into the next valley.
It was about 4:00 pm. It often rains in Maui in the late afternoon. At the bottom of this low point, the roadway was rain-softened. With our semi-bald tires, we could neither drive up the hill in front nor back up the one behind. Of course Wayne took the steering wheel, but he had no more luck in the sticky red clay than me. Turning his head, he said not a word, adopting the Stoic “Wayne look” while slowly shaking his head. We prayed another vehicle would come along, but apparently, every other driver on that road had the foresight or wisdom to turn around.
This isolated dale would be our home for the night. We had no food save for a coconut we couldn’t open. We played cribbage for a couple of hours. When twilight came, there was too little light to continue, so we crawled into our sleeping bags. Giving our recent, less-than-friendly encounter with a posse of rather large and surly natives, Wayne retrieved the 14” screwdriver from the glove compartment – for protection throughout the night.
The post card I mailed to Mom and Dad telling of our $237 purchase.
Morning arrived safely. After several hours sitting around hungry and playing cribbage, a jeep came down the hill. It was driven by this hip-looking guy and his sweet-looking girlfriend. He stopped, listened to our tale of woe, and towed us back to safety. We tried to pay him, but he wouldn’t take the money. He told us of his T-shirt shop in Lahaina and we promised to stop in and buy something. We drove back to Lahaina, with a solemn promise to never leave the safety of pavement again. At the time Lahaina was a quiet, hippie-style town filled with shops selling turquoise jewelry, puka-shelled necklaces, and T-shirts. And every third long-hair you passed whispered, “Want some bud, man?”
It was there we met these two greaser-hippie-shyster dudes. They told us of their cool condo called the Whaler up in Ka’anapali and we should follow them and check it out. Back then, Ka’anapali was less than a half dozen high-rise condos and nothing like the perfected tourist oasis of today. So we navigated our rusty ‘56 Ford station wagon into the basement parking lot of the Whaler and zipped up the elevator to examine this posh 9th-floor condo with an ocean view.
Once upon a time on the 9th floor balcony at the Whaler in Ka’anapali.
Wow, what a place! Next, the greaser-hippie-shyster dudes pull out some Maui-Wowie bud and proceed to light up. The pipe was passed around. And though we’d seen a lot of sunshine and slept out in the rain, unlike the John Denver song there was no talk of poems and prayers and promises and things that we believed in. After the third hit, we stepped onto the balcony, looking straight down 150 feet. That’s when the Maui-Wowie slammed us. Wayne thought he could fly but fortunately didn’t. We crawled off the balcony, said goodbye to the greasers, stumbled to the elevator, rambled through the parking lot searching for our car, got in, looked at each other, and realized – “We’re not in Enumclaw anymore.” It was the last time Wayne ever smoked anything stronger than tobacco.
Driving in a car, sleeping in a car, changing in a car, eating in a car, and living in a car grows wearisome after three weeks. We were due for a change. Back in Kihei, we ran into this Canadian dude who had a big condo with a pool and was staying there all by himself until his friend arrived a few days later, and he wondered if we wanted to move in for a while. I can’t remember his name. He liked to drink rum and coke – for breakfast with his cereal, at poolside in the afternoon, and nightcaps in the evening. He was a lonely guy.
In my electric blue Speedo, poolside at our Canadian’s Condo.
For our condo-warming gift, Wayne and I bought a case of beer, some food, and moved right in. The second night we asked our Canadian host if he liked to play cards. We started with a few games of cribbage, but it wasn’t long till the evening turned to poker. At first, it was small stakes – nickel-dime-quarter, but soon enough the game progressed to dollars-fives-tens. When all was said and done, I was $125 richer and Wayne was up $75. A few hours earlier that $200 had been the property of our Canadian host – the lonely dude who invited us to stay in his condo; eat his food; swim in his pool; shower at his pad; and drink his rum and coke. We were feeling a bit guilty, so the next day went out and bought steaks, and all manner of fancy food (including his favorite brand of cereal), plus more beer, rum, and coke. We ended up spending most of our winnings on our host plus his two guests from Enumclaw. Over the next few days, we ate well and drank well. The Canadian’s friend finally arrived from Canada.
Back in Oahu visiting Pear Harbor.
Alas, all good things must end. Wayne and I were running out of money and the Canadians were too smart to play poker with us. Anyway, we had plans to meet Coppin on Oahu. I have no idea how we made arrangements in those pre-technology days before e-mail, cell phones, and texts; when long-distance calls cost as much as a half-rack of beer. We sold the car for $200, got a ride to the airport, and headed back to Honolulu. Chris had flown in for a few days, courtesy of George Coppin and Pan American Airways. We went to the zoo, watched a whale and dolphin show, visited Pearl Harbor, saw Don Ho, and told tales from our Maui adventures. I almost drowned, but that’s a story for another day.
It’s all happening at the zoo with Chris Coppin and Wayne.
Eventually, it was time to go home. Chris jetted back to Notre Dame while Wayne and I tried to fly home. We had standby tickets, but no flight called our names. Of one thing I’m certain – it was March 29th. That Monday night, we each sat in plastic airport chairs with small, built-in televisions costing $.50 per hour watching the Academy Awards on one channel and the 1976 NCAA basketball championship game on the other. Eventually, we found a flight to San Francisco. There was no connecting flight to Seattle so we stayed downtown at the Y.M.C.A., where clean rooms could be found for $8 per night. This was a couple years before the Village People’s hit single, “Y.M.C.A.” changed public perceptions. The next day we flew home to Seattle.
As for the meaning of our epic journey I can’t claim, we were born in the springtime of our 22nd year coming home to a place we’d never been before. But we did have quite the time and our travel dollars went the distance. We also made saved some pretty good memories.
Fittingly, I returned to Maui 35 years later on the Monday of the 2011 NCAA championship game, this time with Jennifer and our three sons. We rented a bright red, Hyundai Tucson and stayed in an ocean-front condo in Kahana. We made the drive to Haleakala Crater and skipped the drive to Hana. We snorkeled and took photos with an underwater camera. We played on boogie boards and body-surfed the shore break at D.T. Fleming beach. We ate home-cooked meals in our full-suite, kitchen condo and enjoyed fine meals at nice restaurants. We attended a Luau.
Bill and Jenn, April 2011 in Maui.Our three sons, Oliver, Henry, and Spencer – poolside in Maui, April 2011.
We drove to the places I’d remembered from 35 years prior, but most everything had changed. I looked to find our yellow ‘56 Ford station wagon, but realized she was only 20-years-old when we owned her in 1976 and would now be 55-years-old. On the way to the airport, I saw a flatbed truck hauling the crushed hulks of junk cars, and Neil Young’s song came to mind . . . long may you run; long may you run.
We didn’t play cribbage, but each night I slept on a thick mattress in a king-size bed next to my wife with a cool breeze blowing in the window. Some things change, some never do, but I wouldn’t change either trip to Maui . . . for all the sand on Makena beach.
Written on our United Airlines flight home from Maui to Seattle with a layover in San Francisco, April 11, 2011
A child listens while pages turn. He studies pictures as literacy begins on his mother’s knee. He was three or four years old. It wasn’t the first book read to him, for that happened well before memory. And it wouldn’t be the last. For little did he know that as he grew older, books would grow with him.
As for children’s books, I wasn’t fond of Br’er Rabbit stories, they didn’t make sense. “Hansel and Gretel” rather frightened me—children left in a forest only to fall prey to the hands of a wretched old woman. And really, Hansel, didn’t it occur that breadcrumbs trailed behind might get eaten? “Three Little Pigs” seemed too obvious on successive readings, but we read on. I admired Goldilocks’ insistence on getting things justright. She did after all get her fill of porridge, took a nap, and escaped unharmed. “Old Mother Hubbard,” “Three Billy Goats Gruff,” and “Jack and the Beanstalk” were all fun stories to hear.
But the book I loved best was Two Little Miners. It spoke to me—most likely since both grandfathers were coal miners, as were a bunch of uncles. And so was Dad. He operated mobile equipment, like bulldozers, shovels, and loaders outside the mines. On special occasions, Mom packed an extra lunch bucket when I went to work with him. If the day was nice, I played in freshly bulldozed dirt. If it rained, I stayed in his pickup watching droplets become streams that wiggled down the windshield.
We lived in the remnant of a forgotten town called Elk Coal. Most pronounced it El-ko. Elk Coal, you ask? It’s located halfway between Kanaskat and Kangley, pressed against the foothills of the Cascades. The coal mine for which the town was named closed in 1953, the year I was born. The shabby village fell further from grace when miners left. Our family moved there from Selleck, one week before my first birthday. The next day my sister, Jeanmarie, was born. They called us Irish twins.
My earliest childhood memories belong to Elk Coal. Further north was Hiawatha, where Dad was born in the same house where his parents still lived. Sometimes my grandfather, Tony Kombol, babysat me. An errant dynamite coal mine blast 30 years prior left him nearly blind with a face freckled purple from embedded coal dust. Grandma Lulu taught school in nearby Selleck. She was Barry’s first-grade teacher and beloved by every school kid she taught.
Our home was a stone’s throw from Durham, where Mom was raised. It was once a company town. Many of its residents were her uncles who worked in the coal mines, and aunts who performed the many mundane chores that make a small town livable.
Her Uncle Jonas and Aunt Maggie managed the large brick building called the Durham hotel. It was really a boarding house for single miners. Twenty or more homes, built in rows along the hillside, housed most of Durham’s 70 to 80 residents. Some even worked at the Elk Coal mines across the street.
Durham was fully deserted by the 1950s, but Elk Coal, situated on a county road, survived. Durham’s impressive coal slag piles still dominated the landscape. Its crumbling company houses were a source of lumber salvaged by Dad. After he disassembled boards in the driveway, we scoured the gravel with horseshoe magnets picking up rusty nails.
Our Elk Coal home still stands at 28603 Kanaskat-Kangley Road (April 1940 King County Assessor photo).
We lived in a four-room home my folks bought from Benj Whitehouse in late June 1954. He’d been a coal miner in nearby Durham. He built the house in 1930. Its two bedrooms, one bath, and two porches spanned 952 square feet, and cost my folks $3,000. Our yard bordered scrub woodlands on one side and a rundown farm on the other. That’s where Anne Pearson, our babysitter, lived.
Rare was the day when kids our age visited, as none lived in Elk Coal. Sometimes cousins would drop by, or maybe the Kahne boys—for their mother, Pat Hunt, had grown up nearby. Two older kids, Billy and Dickie St. Clair, occasionally came by. They lived next door to my Kombol grandparents half a mile up the road. When Barry started school, Jeanmarie and I, a year and a day apart, became fast friends.
Two hundred feet south of our home lay the Elk Coal gas station and grocery. It was a tiny clue this village was once something more than a name. Aileen (Pearson) Gregovich ran the store which served ice cream cones, had a penny candy counter, and carried basic canned and dry grocery goods. Behind the cash register, one caught glimpse of a bedroom filled with musical instruments. A decade later, I learned the young man who studied music in that room was Aileen’s son, Bob Estby, Enumclaw’s choir director. He too was a product of Selleck and Elk Coal.
The Elk Coal store and gas station. Our home was 200 yards beyond.
In my sophomore year at Enumclaw High, a chess team was established with Mr. Estby as coach. Curiously, he didn’t play chess. Practice was hosted in his classroom each day after school. Every few weeks, he drove our five-boy team to matches played throughout the region. For three years Bob was my mentor and coach. Amazingly, he kept our chess team’s trophies for 40 years after we left school. When Mr. Estby passed away, his daughter gave me those trophies.
The secluded nature of Elk Coal made for limited social lives. The store was the brightest star on the horizon and a two-minute walk from home. With pennies found atop the dryer, Jeanmarie and I walked there for candy. We envied older kids who bought soda pop with nickels. In that innocent time, Mom didn’t mind her three and four-year-olds, pennies in hand, wandering about unattended. We napped together in separate cribs, those of a wooden-slat, jail-bar-style of the 1950s. When one awoke, we’d call across the tiny room to the other. Soon we were chattering about. Best of friends we were, for Barry was at school and Dana not yet born.
By May 1958,Jeanmarie (left) and I were too big for the old crib, as by now it belonged to Dana (right).
In the era before preschool, Jeanmarie and I played on our backyard swing set, hoping for visitors. We sometimes saw an aunt or grandmother. Desperate for excitement one day I hid on the back seat floorboard of Aunt Nola’s sedan after she visited with Mom. I figured she was headed to Grandma’s and therein lay my escape. Instead, she drove the opposite direction to Mariani’s Goat Ranch. Nola parked and went to buy eggs and visit. I emerged from her car surprised we weren’t at Grandma’s, so drifted down the road with a vague idea of waking home. I was picked by an adult who recognized me and promptly delivered me the mile and a half back to Mom. It was that kind of place.
A typical King County bookmobile, or mobile library during the 1950s. Patrons entered on the side and exited the rear.
Each month a novel source of entertainment arrived. That’s when the King County mobile library made its round to our secluded hamlet. The Bookmobile parked on the gravel strip across from our house where the road was widest. Stepping anxiously through the side door, one entered a bus filled with books, any of which you could pick up and take home. With Mom or Grandma in tow, we examined colorful covers then checked out volumes at the rear exit. Upon its returned, we exchanged our previous cache for new selections. Once checked out, Two Little Miners through purchase or gift became part of our family’s library.
The Little Golden Book had a thin hard binding. Its child-sized pages were treasured art to these young eyes. The story by Margaret Wise Brown with pictures by Richard Scarry was published in 1949. Earlier books like, Goodnight Moon and Runaway Bunny had a rhythm and style. Nearly 70 years after Brown’s tragic death at age 42, they still sold by the thousands.
The copy I bought online more than five decades after it was first read to me.
Two Little Miners was Richard Scarry’s first illustration. In subsequent years he wrote or drew more than 300 stories. His sales eventually soared to several hundred million copies worldwide. Typical of Scarry’s drawings was their emphasis on action with precise detail in depicting everyday life. Two Little Miners tells the tale of coal miners and their hard work underground. The story’s happy ending was reason enough to have it read again and again. Memories of the book are warmly juxtaposed with Sunday evenings watching the Wonderful World of Disney in our cozy living room.
We moved to Enumclaw in December 1958. Kindergarten wasn’t available in Elk Coal, so I joined Mrs. Todnam’s class in January, halfway through the school year. Many of the classmates I met that first day of school graduated with me twelve years later.
Mrs. Todnam’s kindergarten class photo on a spring day, 1959.
Enumclaw was The Land of Oz compared to Elk Coal. My eyes were opened and the world brightened. We’d left the dreary sticks and arrived in a real town. Our neighborhood had stately churches with steeples that reached towards the sky. Paved streets, grass medians, and concrete sidewalks outlined blocks of well-kept homes. Front yards boasted rhododendrons with flowers that bloomed in spring. A thriving downtown with stores, cafes, and a movie theater was but a five-minute walk from home.
Kids were everywhere—at school, in back yards, and throughout the neighborhood. Our isolated existence in Elk Coal faded in memory. Enumclaw became my town and playing with kids my passion.
While Mom still read books to us at bedtime, my interests stretched well beyond fairy tales on printed pages. There was football to be played and baseballs to be thrown; skates to be rolled and bicycles to ride. There were streets to walk and alleys to explore. But mostly there were boys everywhere.
Jeanmarie was crushed when I dumped her for their companionship. Oh, we still bathed together on Saturday night and stayed inside on rainy days playing board games or listening to records. But once I stepped outside the backdoor my focus changed. No longer was Jeannie my best friend and faithful companion with whom we would one day live together like two little miners. My world was now all about messing around with other boys. In some ways, I’m not entirely convinced she ever fully forgave me.
My walk to the clean brick school building was five blocks away. At Byron Kibler Elementary we were taught to read under the “see Dick run – look, Jane, look” method. It’s called sight-reading and its efficacy I’ll leave to others. For me it was agonizingly slow, but apparently did the trick for learn to read I did.
Billy and Barry walk to Kibler school, May 1960.
There was even a modern library four blocks from our Franklin Street home. Alas, it was largely ignored as sporting fields beckoned. Though I had a library card and could search index cards to find books, my dreams of being shortstop for the Detroit Tigers fixed reading firmly on the back burner. However, reading the newspaper’s sports section and baseball box scores advanced my skills substantially. Comic books, particularly the Archie and the Superman series became my primary sources of literature outside of school.
It wasn’t until junior high—when paperbacks like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Mysterious Island captured my imagination—that I was first drawn to printed pages without pictures or batting averages. I also became an avid reader of magazines starting with Boys Life, migrating through MAD to Sports Illustrated, before graduating to Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report. Mom’s purchase of a complete, multi-volume, Collier’s Encyclopedia provided free reign for our inquisitive spirits. It also made school reports much easier to complete, with fewer trips to the library.
More advanced volumes like All Quiet on the Western Front and Hiroshima followed. High school introduced captivating novels like A Separate Peace, The Catcher in the Rye, plus Lord of the Flies, 1984, and several others.
I’ll be forever thankful to our senior English teacher, Bill Hawk. That spring semester, he recited the entirety of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Hamlet out loud to our class. It was almost like being back on Mom’s knee. College years were consumed with textbooks and assigned readings, so pleasure reading faded. After graduation, the works of Steinbeck, Hemingway, Maugham, and Austen beckoned. Eventually, my reading tastes evolved towards nonfiction particularly history, biography, politics, and culture.
Mr. Bill Hawk (left) – his casual style and collegial manner inspired a love for literature, EHS spring 1971.
Decades passed, I married, and we raised three boys of our own. Stories at bedtime became an evening ritual. New children’s books were bought. Some of the old folk and fairy tale books were recycled from Mom to me.
One day I found our old, crayon-riddled, torn copy of Two Little Miners. Foggy memories sifted back. The old copy was beyond redemption, but the rise of online book-buying made finding a replacement a cinch. The used copy arrived. Fingering its worn pages released unexpected emotions. The story endured: two little miners black as coal, scrubbed clean in wooden bathtubs, sit down to dinner. Arising the next morning their lives of mining coal are told in exquisite detail, concluding with baths and supper on the table. Though most pages were black and white, the ones in color are striking.
It’s funny how childhood memories seize the mind of a fully grown man. My thoughts turned to Elk Coal. I toured the world’s vast web seeking evidence to confirm youthful recollections. ‘Elk Coal’ was typed in the Google search box and up popped … nothing! I tried Elko and Elco—still zilch. I scoured all manner of keywords generating little better than Elk Plains, Elk River, or Big Elk. There were no links that even mentioned Elk Coal, Washington. It seemed like an important part of my childhood didn’t exist outside of memories.
“If it isn’t digital it didn’t happen,” is a fashionable view of today’s world. Following the French Revolution, a dramatist attributed to Napoleon the slogan, “If you want something done, do it yourself.” I felt the same way.
How could the curious people of Planet Earth enjoy full and fruitful lives knowing nothing of Elk Coal’s heritage? Being an amateur historian, the answer was easy—I’d write its history. Like any coal miner, I dug deep underground, excavated newspaper stories, and unearthed ancient mine reports. I was in the fortunate position of having access to source documents allowing the narrative to be told. I submitted “Elk Coal: Forgotten Coal Mining Town,” to HistoryLink.org where it was published in May 2010. Today, if you query Google regarding Elk Coal, several references now populate the list.
The link below tells the story of that faded outpost where four of my first five years were lived. For me it’s the place where literacy began … in Elk Coal with Two Little Miners.
Billy, the three-year-old future author, gazes intently at the camera, while Jeanmarie climbs and Barry swings, as Sugarloaf Mountain looms in the distance, July 1956.
“Our being in this world is not accidental. We all have a mission to do some special work, and it is work that will honor Him and bless those around us. If we do not find that work and do it, our life is a failure; the true end of living is not realized. We may not learn in a moment; but step-by-step, day by day, as we go on things will be made clearer. Those who do the smallest things well because they are God’s plan, are to be honored far above those who do great things for the world’s praise.” – Nancy Matilda Hembree (1837-1922)
Nancy Matilda (Hembree) Snow (1837-1922)
Thus spoke Pauline’s great-grandmother, Nancy Matilda (Hembree) Snow decades before my Mother was conceived. Pauline Lucile Morris was born to John Henry and Nina Marie, both had the last name Morris. She was as Welsh as one could be. Her father was a coal miner and her mother a school teacher. Both her grandfathers and great-grandfathers worked in the coal industry. Her great-grandmother, Nancy was a pioneer of the 1843 Oregon Trail.
Pauline grew up in the coal mining town of Durham surrounded by an extended family of aunts, uncles, and cousins most of whom worked in or around the mines. Her family moved to Enumclaw when she was six, first to a hop farm in Osceola and later a home above Newaukum Creek. At school she made life-long friends many of whom are here today. She edited the school newspaper and annual, graduating from Enumclaw in 1945, just as World War II ended. Her obituary claims she briefly attended the University of Washington. The truth . . . for about 15 minutes.
Pauline Morris, left with Shirley Stergion in front of Enumclaw High School, circa 1944.
After a short stint in Seattle, she landed back home working at the Palmer Coking Coal mine office at Four Corners. There she pumped gas and helped with bookkeeping. In 1950, she and Jack Kombol eloped to California and married. Eventually the couple made their way back to Selleck, where Barry, Jeannie and I first lived, and then to Elk Coal where Dana was born, just a quarter mile from the Durham of Mom’s childhood.
Mom had six life-changing experiences: Barry, Billy, Jeannie and Dana; but two others I’d like to tell you about. Her second baby, a daughter Paula Jean died two days after birth. Mom used to say that after the loss of that baby, she loved the rest of us so very much, so that she would never lose another child. One day years later, Jeannie and I rambunctiously raced around the living room, and Mother’s prized china cup collection crashed to the floor shattering every piece. Despite her initial sadness, Mom decided then and there that she would never value any possession more than the people in her life.
Pauline holding her second son, who 58 years later read this eulogy at her funeral, Sept. 1953.
Our family moved to Enumclaw in 1958. There Pauline joined civic life as a den mother, Camp Fire leader, election-day poll worker, raising money for the March of Dimes, helping elderly aunts, and later caring for her own mother. There she ran the home – baking cookies, canning homemade jam, making pies – always from scratch and never with a recipe or measured ingredients. Menus were traditional and set: Friday – fish or tuna noodle casserole; Saturday – hamburgers; Sunday – fried chicken or pot roast; Monday – meat loaf, and so on. We never had soda pop or potato chips, but did enjoy Kool-aid and homemade frozen popsicles. Each summer we took vacations with the Cerne’s to Grayland and Hoods Canal – I later learned that we stayed at the same Beacon Point cabins where her family vacationed when she was young.
One of the big events of our lives was the family trip to Europe in 1968. Mom researched and found our Welsh and Croatian relatives and planned our journey through ten countries in six weeks. Using her dog-eared copy of Europe on $10 a Day, Mom found cheap pensions and small family-run hotels to fit her tight budget. Jack drove us across Europe in a small station-wagon jammed with six people and 13 suitcases. We played Hearts in the backseat and listened to Radio Luxemburg with Danica stuffed back amongst the luggage.
The Kombol family portrait, 1967.
In later years we spent our summers at Lake Sawyer where Dad built a cabin. During one particularly inebriated summer party, Mom earned the nickname ‘Carrie Nation’ when she raced around the cabin pouring out booze and opening the tap of the keg refrigerator watching cold beer spill to the ground.
In early 1979 Jack was diagnosed with cancer and passed away within 3 weeks. A night before he died, he called me to his bedside and said, “I want you to take care of your mother.” Since the girls were away and Barry was married with a growing family, the primary duty of caring for Mom fell to me. So, I frequented her home where she cooked me delicious dinners. And, made sure I brought my laundry so she could wash it. And, she hemmed my pants and sewed buttons on my shirts; and, always sent me home with casseroles, lentil soup, and blackberry pies. It seemed the more I tried taking care of Mom, the more she took care of me. And who could ever forget the summer Keith Timm Jr. moved in with Mom and me. Then there were two of us . . . “to take care” of Mom.
Pauline and her three siblings, Evan Morris, Betty Falk, and Jack Morris, June 18, 1977.
During the early years after Dad’s death, she kept herself busy on the Enumclaw School Board and as a Director of Cascade Security Bank. But like a caterpillar, she spun her cocoon waiting to find the wings of the butterfly she became. And that she did. I can’t claim credit for pushing her out of the nest – I was too busy “taking care of her.” But off she flew – first to Seattle where she bought a condo and found friends through extension classes and her beloved movie group. More grandchildren were born and off she went to care for them. She enjoyed traveling and over the years took trips to Russia, China, Hungary, Italy and elsewhere. She loved her time in Lincoln City, and eventually spent her winters, first in Palm Springs and later Scottsdale.
Coal Miners’ Daughters: with Loretta Lynn at Sesame Street studios, circa 1983.
Around the turn of the century, a wonderful gentleman entered into Mom’s life. His name was Cal Bashaw. He was a widower born the same year as my Dad. Mom and Cal had known each other from their days as bank directors. Well, I have to admit that Cal and I have radically different styles. When he started to “take care of” Mom; he did things like always helping her with her coat; opening doors; helping with her chair, fixing things around the house, running errands, taking her out to dinner, and always being there to care for her needs. It seemed the more we were around Cal, the more my own lovely wife began pointing out all of Cal’s far-too-many good traits. I started hearing things like, “Why can’t you be more like Cal?” Basically, Cal’s caring manner made my previous efforts to “take care of” Mom look fairly absurd.
Cal Bashaw, Pauline, and grandson Henry, Christmas 2004.
But truly, Mom and Cal had a wonderful ten years together. And if only more people were like Cal, and like Mom, the world would be a far better place.
So, I come to the end, but also the beginning: the beginning of our lives without Pauline, without her sunshine.
Still, her light still shines – a small, bright star to guide me – to guide me through the darkness and back to life. So until that day when my light joins hers, I will rest easily, knowing that Pauline led a good life; a life worth living; a life which blessed those around her; a life of small things done well – done not for the world’s praise; but done through an honored existence, dedicated to her friends and to her family, and lived according to God’s plan.
Pauline Morris, graduation photo – Enumclaw Class of 1945.
And, if she were here today . . . I’ll let you complete the thought.
Seated in the front pew of Maple Valley Presbyterian Church on a Sunday in late November, I listened to a sermon delivered by Pastor David Diehl. It was a good one. His words were drawn from many sources but grounded in simple lessons. The Thanksgiving message was focused on the wonder of life’s blessings and how each of us has been enriched by others.
As the sermon drew to a close, he laid down a challenge – think of a person who’s touched your life, in a small way or large, then write a letter of gratitude to let them know you remember. Perhaps to a parent, or uncle, aunt, teacher, boss, friend, or some hero who has no idea you still care. Every good action demands a deadline. Pastor David suggested this week or better yet why not today?
Meditating upon the homily, I considered my life’s journey in search of a juncture when someone’s action set me on the path I followed. Several candidates no longer walked the earth, never knowing how they helped me in a time on need. It felt sad for it was no longer possible to say, “thank you.” There’s nothing like feelings of guilt as inspiration to be a better person.
A week later, I’d done little more than imagine the letter that could be written. Good intentions though admirable, produce few results. A wise uncle regularly reminded, “The longest journey begins with the first step.”
My school boy days came to mind. There were plenty of kind and thoughtful teachers at the four Enumclaw schools I’d attended. Many were influential. But which of many made a significant impact on my life? A decision was made, my letter would be to Mr. Hanson, who taught a one-semester class in economics at Enumclaw High School. It took some time to compose what I wanted to say but finally mailed it a week before Christmas.
I didn’t hear back from Mr. Hanson. Unbeknownst to me his health was failing. A few months later news reached me that Wesley A. Hanson lay dead at age 75. While golfing with one of his sons, Mike told me how my letter found a treasured place in his desk during the last months of his life. He’d read it time and again. It was a bittersweet revelation.
So, here is my sermon – far shorter than Pastor Diehl’s and lacking in eloquence. Write a letter to someone precious in your life. Let them know you’re thankful and still think of them. For this is what Thanksgiving is all about – giving thanks. Here’s what I wrote:
Mr. Hanson at his lectern listening to a student’s answer (1970 Cascadian).
December 18, 2006
Dear Mr. Hanson:
It was the autumn of 1969. The previous summer witnessed the moon landing of Apollo 11, the Tate-LaBianca murders by the Charlie Manson family, Woodstock, and my 16th birthday. I could now drive. Soon the fall semester of my junior year arrived and among my classes were English, advanced Algebra, Chemistry, Spanish 3/4, Typing, and a new offering – Economics.
The class was taught by a certain Wes Hanson, the father of a friend of my brother. Word had it that Mr. Hanson convinced the educational powers that be, allowing him to teach an informative one semester class to supplement the usual world history and contemporary problem classes. Late in my sophomore year, I signed up for Economics on the conviction that it would be a college preparatory class.
My ASB card and photo from Sept. 1969.
The next four and one-half months proved most enlightening. Mr. Hanson taught in his very likable style peppering instruction with stories from his days dealing with farm products in the great American plains. Each Friday was a 25 question test in true / false or multiple choice formats. Each Monday, the test results were returned and my paper was usually found to have 24 or 25 correct answers. By the end of the semester, not only had I earned an A, but also an enduring respect for the subject and the man who taught us. It would prove to be a lifetime love.
Not only did Mr. Hanson teach Economics, I also had him for Government, 2nd semester.
Over the next several years, I read newspapers and magazines, closely following the economic issues of the day, from Milton Friedman’s proposed negative income tax for replacing welfare, to the heady days of August 1971 when President Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard and imposed wage and price controls.
During summers after my junior and senior years, I had a job selling Popsicles and ice cream bars from a three-wheel Cushman scooter in the suburban neighborhoods of east hill Kent. From my cousin, Dan Silvestri (who owned the business), I learned that long hours of selling ice cream and a sliding 20-24% commission scale would net me $25 to $30 per day. Working almost every day of the week has merit, because you never have time to spend your earnings, especially living at home during high school summers.
With my bulging bank account of a couple thousand dollars earned during two summers selling ice cream; a daily job filling the coal stoker at my dad’s downtown Enumclaw building; writing weekly newspaper stories for the Courier-Herald; and working at Palmer Coking Coal on Saturdays, I headed off to the University of Washington in September 1971.
I took typical introductory classes, not quite sure what to study. I liked the idea of making money and had my one semester background in high school economics to prove it. I also had a cousin in the Popsicle business who told me stories of his own ups and downs in the stock market.
So, as any prudent (impudent?) 18-year-old would, one day I rode a bus from the University district to downtown Seattle then marched into the local Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner and Smith office. There I opened an account with one-half the earnings from my various high school jobs. Four months earlier, Merrill Lynch became the first New York Stock Exchange brokerage firm to offer its shares to the public. It was the name I knew.
My cousin Dan provided me with a ‘tip’ so I bought 100 shares of Pan Am stock for about $10 per share. Each day, I dutifully read the stock tables in the Seattle Times or P-I. My heart jumped or sank with every 1/8th or 1/4th point movement. Several months later with Pan Am safely in the mid $14s, I sold and pocketed a nice three hundred dollar profit after commissions. I was hooked. Making $300 in the stock market was a lot easier than working 12-hour days selling Popsicles.
From the 1969 Cascadian, the year Enumclaw students were first introduced to Mr. Hanson.
It was the spring quarter of my first year of college. Among the several survey courses one took as a freshman, I selected Introduction to Economics. It was taught to 600 dozing students in a huge auditorium that college administrators called a classroom. It was a standard course for many (hence the size of the class) and a requirement for a number of majors, mainly business.
Thanks to my half semester in Mr. Hanson’s class, I excelled in Econ 200. So, of course I took Econ 201 (Microeconomics), the second of the two-part introduction to what’s often termed ‘the dismal science.’ Again, I did well.
My pragmatic nature calculated if I found a subject easy, that should be the subject for me. I continued with classes in economics and sure enough by next year was majoring in Econ. During one of those classes, students were given cut-rate subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal. It’s the newspaper I read to this day. To make a long story short, I studied hard, did well, and graduated with a B.A. in Economics, magna cum laude.
Mr. Hanson was a winner in the classroom and as coach. Here he tells Bill Wheeler what a winner looks like (from the Nov. 26, 1969 Hornet newspaper).
Some philosophers and historians believe an individual is little more than a floating cork in an ocean of tides and currents too strong to resist. They call this determinism. Others contend each individual is capable of free will and even small events in a person’s life can have profound affects, not only on one person, but upon history. Though acknowledging the former, I’ve found life much more interesting by subscribing to the latter. I believe one small event – taking a semester course in economics from a high school teacher I highly respect – had a profound influence on my life.
Another high school subject that proved fundamental was Mr. Worthington’s humanities class. There we learned that ancient Greeks thought four questions worth asking: “Who am I?” “Where did I come from?” “Where am I going?” and “What is the meaning of life? I’ve spent most time on the second question.
In trying to answer “Where I came from,” I’ve written a letter to a person who may not know how big of impact his high school class had on one student. Mr. Hanson – you are that person; your high school course was that impact; and I was that student.
Now, I can’t claim one student, taking a class and going to college to major in economics is going to change the course of human history. But what I can tell you is how very grateful I am to you for that class you taught 37 years ago. And for the energy and enthusiasm you put into a subject you loved. And for the difference you’ve made in my life.
Though, I admit that my preoccupation with all things ‘economic’ wasn’t always my smartest choice. It too often diverted my attention from more important things in life. Perhaps I took too long to fall in love. But when I did, it was with the right girl, at the right time, and our marriage has brought forth three delightful boys who are the apples of my eye. No one would suggest I owe this all to you.
But, I want to say thank you for one very small thing you did, a very long time ago. Because you might not have otherwise realized how you made such a very large impact on this person’s life.
You are one of my heroes . . . and you probably didn’t even know it!
Whilst in college a poster hung in my room. Mom gave it to me at Christmas of my freshman year. It stayed with me through those four years then hung in my bedroom at home for many more. Titled “One Solitary Life,” it was printed on aged parchment paper in a distinctive script font. Winter quarter, I copied the text to the inside page of the 3-ring binder of denim-blue fabric I lugged to and from class each day in an Army surplus backpack. I lost the poster, but never the sentiment. This isn’t the photo which adorned the poster, but it is my calligraphy in blue ink of the poster’s text presented below:
Not quite the image which adorned my poster, but something like it.
Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village. He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty and then for three years he was an itinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put his foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself. He had nothing to do with the world except the naked power of his divine manhood.
While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth when he was dying . . . and that was his coat. When he was dead, he was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone, and today he is the centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress.
I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched . . . and all the navies that were ever built . . . and all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.
On the inside cover of my 3-ring binder I copied the text of the poster.My photo a week or so before starting college.
The veil lifts slowly like summer fog from a morning beach. Memories creep back but only in fits and spurts. I still can’t piece it all together, but the puzzle recently unfolded after discovery of chronicles from his probate. Yet a teenager I was to play a bit part in the tragicomedy that became my grandfather’s final years. His Oregon Coast beach cabin was center stage and like any drama the site of my several scenes. This magical place was destined to play an ongoing role in my life.
My first stay in Lincoln City was nearly two weeks long in June 1971. There’d be more visits to that cabin on a knoll Grandpa increasingly called home. Twenty months later I was attending his funeral. This is an incomplete tale of those days, his decline, and the first stirrings of my love affair with Lincoln City. Some bits are lost through mists of time but the central story is intact. For me it all began a few days after graduating from high school.
The Lincoln City cabin on a knoll in the early 1970s.
A long bus ride from Enumclaw delivered me to the DeLake bowling alley. It’s still there just a stone’s throw past the bridge over the D River, advertised as the World’s Shortest – river that is, not bridge. DeLake was one of five merged towns rechristening themselves Lincoln City on the 100th anniversary of their namesake’s death. The place even had an amusement park of sorts built around an eatery called Pixie Kitchen. Grandpa picked me up in his Lincoln Continental. He liked big, luxury cars. My cousin Dave Falk was at his side.
My grandfather John H. Morris circa 1971, but most contemporaries called him Jack.
The man of whom I speak was John H. Morris, but most adults called him Jack. I called him Grandpa. Through my teen years he played an active part in our family’s life particularly after his wife of five decades entered a nursing home for three years of mental decline. Her room at Bethesda Manor on Jensen Street was a couple blocks from our Enumclaw home. Even as a boy I’d noticed signs of fading memory. The sweet grandmother who once bathed me and later taught me pinochle, slowly lost her ability to think. As she quietly slipped into a private prison of mindlessness, she no longer knew the people she loved. My Mom called it “hardening of the arteries.” Today we call it Alzheimer’s.
During her internment, Grandpa sought camaraderie from our family. He treated us, especially Barry and me to recurring weekend dinners at Anton’s in Puyallup, Harold’s in Enumclaw, or the Elks in Auburn. Dining out with Grandpa held few limits – anything on the menu, plus a Roy Rogers or Shirley Temple to accompany the cocktail he’d order. Life with Grandpa was all about motion: sleepovers at his big home; drives to Wilkeson as he reminisced of his youth; or trips to San Francisco to catch a few Giants’ games, ride cable cars, and feed pigeons in Union Square.
Once he took us to Carson hot springs on the Wind River in Oregon. It was a 200-mile drive to a dated resort which hadn’t changed since the 1930s. A dozen small cabins lined the road leading to a stately two-story Hotel St. Martin with a dining room featuring meat and potato dinners, served family-style at large tables to a clientele of geriatrics – except two teenagers: Barry and me.
We took hot mineral baths in cast iron tubs resting on immaculate tile floors which looked every bit the part of a bygone European spa. We gagged down sulfuric-tasting water to “help sweat the poison out,” as Grandpa put it. Occasional bouts of gout from rich food and high living no doubt contributed to his need. At age 15, I felt no particular passion for sweating poison, but went along with the ritual and succumbed to the jelly-fish induced numbness of the hot bath experience. In our sparse cabin without television or radio, we played cribbage games under a bare hundred-watt bulb and waited for old-fashioned dinners, sure to include gravy and string beans.
The Hotel St. Martin at Carson hot springs in the 1930s, though not much had changed when we paid a visit with Grandpa in the late 1960s.
Marie Morris (his wife and my grandmother) died on the last day of summer 1967. Without job or spouse Grandpa sought new horizons. He traveled south spending time in the desert with old friends and meeting new ones. He visited the homes of his four children, all living nearby. He indulged the 19 grandchildren they spawned. His grand white house on the west end of McHugh Avenue, where Jack and Marie raised four children and once hosted large family parties, was now a lonely outpost. His days there were reduced to caring for the lawn and tending dahlias.
Not much remained in that empty home and he knew it. Always on the go, he couldn’t let go. A burning drive for control thrust him towards new vistas. So he found new ways to satisfy his wanderlust. But that took money, which a lifetime of business success handsomely provided.
Grandpa Jack & Grandma Marie enjoy a night on the town in San Francisco, March 1959.
Friendly with the ladies he enjoyed the companionship of several women. Maud, an attractive descendant of Columbia River Native Americans fancied his company as he did hers. But Maud remained a friend. He fell for another named Kathleen who went by Kay, and discovered too late that business acumen doesn’t necessarily extend to second wives. What developed was an oft-told story. Rich man, lonely upon his wife’s death falls under the spell of a gold-digging widow whose chief skill consists of convincing him to spend money on her. He suspects too late her ulterior motives as she cashes tickets to wealth. As to the particularities of any of this, I was yet unaware.
Back at Lincoln City in June 1971, Grandpa found himself in the company of two grandsons and oozed the charismatic charm I’d known him for all my life. The grandfather upon whose lap I sat as a child, sipping beer from his 6-oz. glass. The grandpa I joined on enchanting trips to San Francisco with stays at the businessman’s hotel where his greatest deals were forged a decade earlier. The seasoned card player who carved a fine hand of cribbage and taught me the basic skill points, but more importantly the pace and banter of the game. The grandpa I admired, but whose fiery temper could turn on a dime.
The three of us made an odd party –– a 17-year-old, freshly graduated senior; a 27-year-old bachelor with no particular direction; and the 76-year-old retired businessman with a scheming second wife, from whom he alternately sought comfort or escape. Sometimes he’d secrete himself in the bedroom for long conversations. Back then I didn’t know with whom he spoke or why.
Each morning Grandpa walked uptown for coffee at the bakery. And back to the cabin relaxing with Dave, who was out of the Navy, on unemployment, and loafing. They waited patiently for me to arise for I was fully capable of sleeping till 11 am. We were frequently visited by Jimmy, a six-year-old boy who lived next door with his single mother in a crumbling 400-square foot cabin, a rental relic from the 1920s.
Grandpa bought his 1,200-square foot Lincoln City home with a stunning ocean view in August 1969 for $16,500. The purchase was made during one of many estrangements from his covetous new wife. That summer Barry cleaned out the contents from the 1926 home, filled with boxes of memories from former owners, as he helped Grandpa move in.
Jones’ Colonial Barker on Hwy 101. It’s still there but now called My Petite Sweet.
Grandpa, Dave and I led an unhurried existence – scenic drives up and down those “twenty miracle miles” of coastline in his Lincoln Continental, followed by games of cribbage, walks on the beach, and afternoon siestas. I skim-boarded the flat sandy beach and braved cold Pacific waves just to prove I could. By day, we lived on a diet of cheese, crackers, peanuts, and fresh crab from Barnacle Bill’s. Grandpa and Dave drank their afternoon beer. I drank my Pepsi’s poured into a Pilsner glass kept cold in the freezer.
By early evening we drove to classic old restaurants for dinner – those kinds of places where retirees enjoyed highballs before a steak dinner or seafood platter. We rotated our meals between a small circle of staid establishments including Mrs. Miller’s, Surf Rider, and the Spouting Horn Inn in Depot Bay. But Pixie Kitchen with its kitsch atmosphere and deep-fried seafood was my favorite, and Grandpa was happy to oblige. It was a style of living to which one could easily grow accustomed. The weather on the coast even cooperated showcasing fair skies and warm sunshine which burned the morning fog to submission.
Pixieland on Hwy 101 in the 1960s. Its main attraction was the Pixie Kitchen.
Seven years retired, Grandpa’s business drive remained. He mused of buying the storied Jones’ Colonial Bakery, the quaint corner cafe on Hwy 101 which had served the Ocean Lake district of Lincoln City since 1946. Grandpa contemplated installing his grandson as baker. His acquisitive self was certainly getting the better of his senses. Didn’t he notice a late adolescent who rather enjoyed sleeping in? Didn’t he realize his 17-year-old grandson was bound for college in three short months and held no dreams of awaking before the sun to bake bread? Whose chief interest in baking was eating the Colonial Bakery’s signature treat – Sailor Jack muffins?
As his bakery dream waned so did my senior trip. I couldn’t have ordered up a better fortnight. I said goodbye to Lincoln City, having fallen for its beach town charms. Days later I began my summer job selling popsicles from a three-wheeled Cushman scooter, and then off to my first year of college. Three more times I ventured to Lincoln City in the company of Grandpa, and once without. I was to become his part-time minder and he would be my ward. But that wasn’t apparent to me then.
A year earlier, second-wife Kay convinced Grandpa to sell his family home of 35 years and redeploy proceeds towards two new homes, one at her native Marysville and the other in Palm Springs. Fur coats, cars, and jewelry were similarly acquired as community property with Jack providing the property and Kay claiming community. She persuaded him to buy quite a few things she was destined to enjoy. A woman on her fourth husband possesses certain advantages in this sort of game.
In late summer before starting college, cousin, Dave and I headed south in his Triumph TR6. We traveled Oregon 99-West and stopped in McMinnville where I looked up Patti Sloss, an EHS classmate and college freshman at Linfield where school started early. Dave and I dined at one of those old-time Shakey’s Pizza parlors. It was dark inside as we sat on heavy wood benches eating pizza off rustic tables and watching Laurel & Hardy movies played continuously.
In Lincoln City I was anxious to join Dave at the nearby Old Oregon tavern, then a hangout for long hairs and hippies. He gifted me his old Navy identification; a worn piece of green paper which served my fake ID needs during my first year of college even though my alleged age was 28 and my hair color red.
On our next rendezvous, Grandpa was without car, having gifted his Lincoln Continental to satisfy his wife’s birthday wish. Here’s how Kay put it in a later court filing: “Nov. 21, 1971 – My birthday present was a transfer of Lincoln car title to me.” A few weeks earlier Barry and I visited Grandpa and met his new wife at their new home in Marysville. This was the first time this new wife was news to me, though they’d married in January 1968, a mere four months after Grandma’s passing. That afternoon in Marysville, I saw Grandpa quiver like a trapped bird. This wasn’t the dynamic man I’d spent a pleasant vacation with in Lincoln City five months earlier.
That Christmas, Grandpa joined our family and a plan was hatched for me to drive him to the coast for a week. He often sought sanctuary in that cherished retreat as the cabin was purchased in his name alone. Its modest furnishings suggested Kay never spent time there. I hold no memory of that trip, if not for this brief diary entry Mom produced during the ensuing legal battle following her dad’s death: “Dec. 26, 1971, Bill & Dad went to L.C. – stayed with him until Jan. 2, 1972.”
Three months later I finished my winter quarter at U.W. Grandpa had lately escaped Kay and Palm Springs when word filtered back that he might be Lincoln City bound. Less than a year away from his deathbed, a hobbling dotage was creeping in. How he found his way to Lincoln City remained unclear. Before his arrival I joined four college girls from Central led by my cousin, Robbie Falk as we traveled to the coast. They were on a planned spring break trip, while my mission was to intercept Grandpa and bring him home.
We rolled in late one night and the next morning set off for an adventure up the south side of the Siletz River on a narrow dirt road to find the river home used for filming “Sometimes a Great Notion” starring Paul Newman. A young boy, perhaps 8 or 9 gave an impromptu tour explaining which scenes were filmed where. His parents were remodeling the shell Hollywood producers had built as a backdrop for the movie and used some for interior scenes.
Early that evening as Robbie, Chris, Cathy, Janet and I relaxed in the living room, in through the front door blows Grandpa. A stern, shocked look on his face sent shivers down our spines, but following a short tense moment Grandpa smiles, invites us all to dinner, and down we traipsed to Mrs. Miller’s cozy restaurant whose featured dish was a crab, butter, and wine medley, eaten with toasted French bread.
The river home on the Siletz River used in the 1971 film, “Sometimes a Great Notion” directed by Paul Newman.
Robbie and her Central girlfriends continued south on their spring break road trip. Since Grandpa and I were without vehicle I don’t recall how we got to Portland, perhaps by bus is my best guess. What’s clearly remembered was visiting a Toyota dealership where we test drove a Celica, then in its first year of production. The Celica was a sporty model alright, but Grandpa had difficulty getting in and out of the car. Plus, he no longer drove so trying out a sports car made little sense. Lots of things were no longer making sense. It was late so we checked into the Benson Hotel. Grandpa always stayed at the Benson when in Portland.
The next morning in a hurry to Enumclaw, he directs the hotel clerk to summon a cab. We hop in and the cabbie asks, “Where ya going?” Grandpa says, “Just across the river a little past Vancouver.” North of Vancouver the same cabbie question and similar Grandpa answer, “It’s a bit further north.” With each new fib I slink lower in the back seat. Somewhere near Kelso the cabbie pulls over and demands, “Now where the hell are you two going?” Grandpa confesses, “Enumclaw, in the vicinity of Auburn.” The cabbie examines his map and shouts, “That’s another 100 miles!” A radio call is placed followed by wrangling with dispatch, until permission was granted and back on the freeway we cruised.
Two hours later the cab stops in front of our Enumclaw home. I go to get money from Mom while the cabbie keeps Grandpa for collateral. The fare ran to something like $130, which was a cab full of money back then. With cabbie dismissed, Mom snaps a blurry picture preserving the moment. Around the kitchen table Grandpa and I tell the tale of how we convinced the cab to drive us from Portland to Enumclaw. In a day or so everyone thinks it’s the funniest story ever or at least pretends to. For me, it was an erratic adventure with an eerie premonition that a chapter in his life was ending. Days later I was back in college for spring quarter of my freshman year.
Mom’s blurry photo of me right after the cab left our home at 1737 Franklin St.
In June, Kay coaxed Jack back to Palm Springs where his check book could be better put to use. Their on-again, off-again relationship reconciled for a couple weeks. But he broke and cut his toe which landed him in the Desert Hospital. The ensuing infection triggered a health decline that first slowed and finally lassoed him.
Dashing to escape, he checked out of the hospital, cleaned papers and belongings from their Palm Springs home, and retreated north. Kay followed and soon filed a court action seeking guardianship of her fleeing husband. Jack entered Seattle’s Virginia Mason for further toe treatment. A dramatic hospital showdown between Kay and his son Evan played out in soap opera fashion. Amidst allegations and recriminations Grandpa chose to go home to his family.
He spent July 1972 at the compound of waterfront lots on Lake Sawyer he’d gifted his children and a favored nephew more than a decade earlier. Our summer cabin was within that domain so he visited often. Somewhat rejuvenated, Grandpa asked to go back to Lincoln City. Again I was enlisted to drive south, this time with my 13-year-old cousin, Evan Jr. in tow.
We took rides down Hwy 101, but Grandpa soon fell asleep. We dined out, but his diabetes flared as his health faded. Many hours were spent soaking his infected toe in Epsom salts. We came back home a few days later. It proved to be his last trip to the Oregon Coast and the cabin he loved. In a week or so Grandpa was placed at a Mercer Island nursing home.
In late November, his granddaughter Roberta visited him there. Grandpa quickly asked how she liked his new apartment. Then in a conspiratorial voice, he explained a need to head north followed by a whispered suggestion that she could bring her car round and provide his getaway. Robbie knew better, for she understood he wouldn’t be leaving. But she also saw his schemes to escape that gilded cage as the only thing keeping him alive. She speculated on how hard it must be for that hard-charging businessman to resist the call of the road and attend to business that needs tending. She reflected on a pensive thought, “Will he ever let go of the reins?”
On February 15, 1973, John H. Morris let go of the reins. A large funeral was held. The coal mines he’d opened shut down for a day. Most every coal miner who ever worked for him came to pay their respects. A bitter probate battle emerged between the parasitic wife and his four children. The lawsuit featured contested Wills and was fought for years. Lawyers swallowed a fair portion of his estate before settlement was reached. Mom received his Lincoln City home in probate; as I did from her 45 years hence.
That’s me leaving Enumclaw in late summer 1975 to go and live in Lincoln City.
A few months following graduation from college, I moved to Lincoln City with my motorcycle and a backpack of belongings. I collected unemployment checks as had my cousin Dave four years earlier. I drifted aimlessly along empty beaches, and wandered through ramshackle corridors of the nearby public library. I volunteered at the hippie food co-op by day and quaffed beers at the Old Oregon by night. I ate the Colonial Bakery’s Sailor Jack muffins for breakfast and baked cheese cakes at home for dessert. I watched every inning of the 1975 Cincinnati-Boston World Series. I read novels and wrote poetry, and learned how to be alone. After several months of introspection I returned home to Enumclaw.
Upon leaving that house on a hill, overlooking the Pacific Ocean whose waves regularly crashed onto rocks below, I realized a tiny bit of home would always be waiting for me there. I still do.
The copy I bought online more than five decades after it was first read to me.
