Pauline and Bill Kombol, summer 1972, photo by Barry Kombol
Mom died 15 years ago today. A few days later, a good friend placed his hand on my shoulder and told me, “You just lost the best friend you’ll ever have.” Truer words have rarely been spoken.
We knew it was coming. She had COPD – Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Like many of her generation, Pauline smoked. For years, make that decades, she tried to quit, and for the most part did, limiting herself to just a few smokes a day. In fact, for the longest time, even I didn’t know she still smoked. She hid it that well.
In her last year, grandchildren from far away came to visit. Thanksgiving weekend 2010, Mom wished to take a ride around Enumclaw and point out her old family homes. And that of her grandfather, Joshua Morris, whom she never really knew, as he died before she was two years old. She packed her oxygen tank, and though experiencing discomfort, we completed the several-hour trip around town and out to Osceola. A few weeks later, she called me at work first thing in the morning. For thirty minutes, she shared her Christian faith journey and how proud she was to have passed it down to her children, in different iterations.
A week before Christmas, she fell. How many times have falls lead to death in older adults? First stop was Enumclaw Hospital, then a Federal Way rehab center, where we visited her on Christmas Day. She seemed to be getting better, but a setback landed her in Swedish Hospital. On New Year’s Day, many of the family visited. Mom convinced the doctors to pump her up on steroids, then put on makeup, so that when we visited, she was sparkling and appeared to be years younger. I was amazed by her remarkable recovery – right before my eyes. She was vibrant, almost perky. She held a great-grandchild in her arms, looking angelic. I imagined she’d somehow been cured. Foolish me, for I didn’t know of the doctor’s trick.
At Swedish Hospital, Pauline and her great-granddaughter, Nina Marie Clooke, age two months, January 1, 2011.
Pauline left Swedish for the Kline Galland nursing home near Seward Park. It’s a lovely place in a forested setting. And for the next three weeks, she slowly proceeded to die, under the gentle care of hospice personnel who calibrated the precise dose of morphine to keep her both conscious and free of pain. On the last few nights, we rotated sleeping beside her.
The fateful call came Monday afternoon, January 24, 2011. We were in Auburn at the Celebration of Life for Jill Alverson, Cal Bashaw’s daughter. Mom and Cal had joined their lives in partnership a decade earlier. Cal and his family became a part of our family. Were two daggers purposely thrown that day?
The following week was a whirlwind. We organized the funeral at Sacred Heart Catholic Church and coordinated with Enumclaw Funeral Home, just like we did for Dad, 32 years earlier. Father Bill Hausmann, one of Mom’s best friends and the priest who married Jennifer and me, came to perform the service. Mom wanted to be buried, so I chose a coffin, the simplest, bare pine box available, like those of earlier generations. Mom was never showy; she always practiced modesty but never pretension.
Our job was made easy as Mom had written down most of what she wanted after life. Father Hausmann graciously guided us through assembling the funeral service. Old family friends filled the pews. “How Great Thou Art” and “Amazing Grace” were sung. The 23rd Psalm was read, as were Corinthians 15:51-57 and Luke 12:48-49. Each of her four children delivered remembrances, as did two grandchildren. Following the Celebration of Life in the Parish Hall, the immediate family journeyed to the cemetery where Pauline was buried next to her husband, Jack. Flowers were tossed on her pinewood coffin. Her gravestone read, ‘Morte in Vitam,’ Latin for ‘death into life.’
Pauline (Morris) Kombol’s funeral program.
Thirty-two years earlier, Dad’s end came fast, dying a little over three weeks after his pancreatic cancer diagnosis. One night before he died, he called me to his bedside and set forth a task: “I want you to take care of your mother.” Both daughters lived far away, while Barry and Cathy had three toddlers and a fourth on the way next year.
That was the easiest job I ever had. There was one simple way to take care of Mom – I let her take care of me. I was single, unattached, and living in their Lake Sawyer summer cabin, a mere 10 miles away. I came frequently for dinner. She hemmed my pants and sewed buttons on my shirts. And always sent me home with food: casseroles, lentil soup, scones, and blackberry pie.
We became pals, going to concerts and plays. With Danica, we drove to Pasadena and attended the 1981 Rose Bowl. I encouraged her to purchase a condo in downtown Seattle and joined as a 20% partner. We jointly managed Dad’s affairs, sharing the bookwork and undertaking investments. Each summer, she joined me at her lake house until I moved out after purchasing a Maple Valley condo. Even then, we accomplished a remodel that doubled the size of her lake home while maintaining its chalet character and style.
Together, we undertook projects. We sorted through piles of family photos, identifying faces whose names I wrote on the back. She guided me through family genealogies, from which I published several Morris and Kombol family histories. Those endeavors inspired me and led to a second-act writing hobby. Mom remained an essential part of my life until the end.
Knowing she was gone, I conjured ways to keep her alive. During the first nine months of my life, in utero, I shared everything with her. After leaving the womb, a baby carries maternal cells for decades, possibly for life. It’s called maternal micro-chimerism. There was my hook, my hold – deep down in the cavity of my soul, a few of Mom’s cells may still reside in me. On a molecular level, she was still with me. Just as during her life, I was still part of her, as mothers continue to carry cells of their infants for years, even decades after birth. Maybe I was grasping at straws, a drowning man trying to save a sense of self by clutching the DNA of flimsy reeds. But it worked.
Memory is a curious sort of history. The past in your head becomes the present. You step through its walls to the days and months of yesteryear – the way it used to be. We conjure snippets of recall from faraway events, hoping to make them real again. And then we’ll see each other and speak as we did before. There’s an element of magic at work. Like the alchemists, trying to change one element into another, we hope against hope that our leaden memories might somehow be turned to gold.
Some questions remain long after their owners have died, lingering like ghosts searching for answers never found in life. On this side of heaven, all we possess is the present. But the present endlessly dissolves into the past. There I am, a little boy of three or four. One of my earliest memories, in Elk Coal, with Barry. We’ve planned a performance to show off our skills to an audience of one – Mom.
On the edge of the yard where the tall trees grow, there’s a vine maple tree with a branch growing horizontally from the ground. Barry, two and one-half years older than me, flips upside down, hanging by his knees, grinning broadly. I jump and grab the branch and hang by my arms. Mom claps wildly, as if it’s the most incredible show she’s ever seen. Barry continues to hang. I drop from the branch and run into her outstretched arms as she squeezes me tightly. I’d never felt so proud.
That’s what Gary Habenicht meant when he advised, I just lost the best friend I’ve ever had.
Grandma Pauline with 13 of her 14 grandchildren on the occasion of her 80th birthday celebration in Arizona, March 31, 2007.
After receiving several of my CD compilations, a fraternity brother, Brad Caldart, suggested creating one with my top ten songs. I took his challenge to heart and began compiling lists of possible entries. That was well over a year ago. I’ve promised several times to quit producing CD collections, only to do so again and again.
So, I beg forgetfulness and share my latest anthology. To no surprise, it’s more than ten songs. The profundity of the occasion demanded no less than XIII. And like the Super Bowl, I chose Roman numerals to convey their renown. I searched for songs that say something, and to no surprise, many have appeared on previous compilations. There are several new ones. As is my custom, what the songs mean to me, and why they matter, is explained below. They carry one common theme – nostalgia.
I. Big River (1995) – This song first came to my attention in October 2021. On an early Saturday morning, I prepared to watch the Tottenham soccer match played at Newcastle. The home team celebrated their new Saudi owners by playing over the stadium loudspeakers Jimmy Nail’s wistful remembrance about growing up in Newcastle. It’s focused on the collapse of the Newcastle shipbuilding industry on the River Tyne where his father worked. The Neptune shipyard was the last to go, Jimmy heard on the radio, and then they played the latest No. 1.
It took several listenings, before I heard the line, “that was when coal was king,” the name of my newspaper column since 2007. Sting grew up nearby and expressed similar sentiments in his 2013 album, The Last Ship, which spawned a 2014 musical of the same name with Sting in the starring role. Through blind luck, we caught his performance in L.A., a month before Covid shut down the nation.
II. Tambourine Man (1965)– I listened to this song continuously during college. Why – the poetic lyrics, the storytelling parable, and conclusive end, “let me forget about today until tomorrow.” This song appeared on my first cassette compilation, The Best of December 6, 1978.
III. Superman’s Ghost (1987)– Growing up, I was a huge fan of Superman, the comic books, the TV show, and all things to do with superpowers. After school, found me planted at home or with a friend in front of a TV watching Adventures of. Though George Reeves’ death by suicide came in 1959, my innocent ears didn’t hear about it until several years later – in the school yard when this silly joke was offered, “Do you know why George Reeves shot himself? – He thought he was Superman.” Don McLean captures more than just his death in his poignant song.
IV. Questions (1976) – I was so enraptured by Mannfred Mann and Chris Slade’s lyrics that my sister, Danica inscribed them for me in calligraphy on old-fashioned parchment paper. I’ve kept it in my Webster’s Third International Dictionary under the letter Q. Another song from the collection of Dec. 6, 1978.
V. The Last Campaign Trilogy (1974) – Several years back, upon asking Siri to play John Stewart songs, this tune from his live double-album Phoenix Concertscame on. From its opening lyrics (“It was more than Indiana, more than South Dakota, more than California, More than Oregon”), I immediately understood the reference to Bobby Kennedy’ ill-fated run for president. Stewart traveled with the campaign playing songs before Kennedy took the stage.
A political junkie in the 9th grade, I followed each primary and was fascinated by the three-way races in both parties: D’s – McCarthy, Humphrey, Kennedy; R’s – Rockefeller, Reagan, Nixon. Stewart’s allegorical song is about much more. Our family was in Vienna that fateful morning, where the newspapers’ front pages showed a Hispanic waiter by his side, offering comfort to the fallen senator. In the hotel lobby, an old Austrian woman, her greying hair wrapped in a black scarf, hissed, “Johnson, Johnson!”
VI. A Winter’s Tale (1982) – This song was written for David Essex and spent ten weeks on the British charts peaking at No. 2. I discovered it on the Moody Blues’ 2003 album, Tim Rice, famous for Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita wrote the lyrics. Great lyricists invest heartfelt meaning into a mere 156 words.
VII. I Was Only Joking (1978) – Rod Stewart released this song as a double-A single. Its flip side, Hot Legs was played heavily the U.S. I spent most of the first six months of 1978 traveling in Europe, where this introspective side was regularly played. I fell in love with his autobiographical lyrics and confessional delivery.
VIII. ‘39 (1975) –Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen’s mammoth hit from A Night at the Opera, is a song that might just as well been included here. Brian May, the group’s lead guitarist, wrote ‘39. The song is about space travel and the dilation of time in Einstein’s theory of relativity. A century has passed when the explorers return, but they are but a year older. Their contemporaries are dead, and the space travelers encounter only their aging grandchildren. May achieved his doctorate in Astrophysics in 2007.
IX. The Way Life’s Meant To Be (1981) – Another time travel song, where ELO’s Jeff Lynne discovers a disappointing future world, filled with ivory towers and plastic flowers. It’s not the utopia he imagined, symbolized by a wish to be back in 1981. I had never heard this song until 35 years after its release, when Spencer used it as the fadeaway in a short film project at Chapman University.
X. Going All the Way –A Song in 6 Movements (2016) – This song appeared on Meat Loaf’s final album, Braver Than We Are. While Meat Loaf was the front-man, all his best songs were by Jim Steinman, who also wrote and produced No. 1 songs for Bonny Tyler – Total Eclipse of the Sun; Air Supply – Making Love Out of Nothing at All; Boyzone – No Matter What; and Barry Manilow- Read ‘Em and Weep. Steinman joined Andrew Lloyd Webber and wrote the lyrics for their 1996 musical, Whistle Down the Wind. Meat Loaf and Steinman died within months of each other during Covid.
XI. God Only Knows (1966) – Opens side 2 of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album. Paul McCartney summed it up best, when he described it as, “The greatest song ever written.”
XII. See Me Through (Part II) Just a Closer Walk (1991) – Van Morrison takes this 1941 gospel-jazz standard way back to Hyndford Street, where he grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Morrison reflects back on his childhood memories about 80 seconds in with a spoken-word poem that describes a Sunday afternoon in winter . . .
And the tuning in of stations in Europe on the wireless, Before, yes before this was the way it was, More silence, more breathing together, Not rushing, being, Before rock `n’ roll, before television, Previous, previous, previous.
XIII. All the Love I Have (2000) – Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, The Beautiful Game(soccer) is centered on a Belfast Catholic team during the Troubles of 1969, the deadly conflict between Protestants and Catholics (watch the 2021 film “Belfast”). Ben Elton wrote the lyrics.
The star soccer player, John Kelly has joined the IRA, as his wife, Mary, pleads for him to reconsider leaving their marriage and abandoning his young son. It’s a stirring finale to this fine musical.
Note: The finale is actually two songs, All the Love I Have and Beautiful Game Finale, thus two video are shared below.
The Beautiful Game Finale:
XIII – December 2025 is also available on WJMK90 Spotify or as an Apple Playlist. Message Bill Kombol for a mailed CD version or a text of the Spotify or Apple playlists.
Bill Kombol, June 14, 1975 at the start of the annual Cedar River Boat Race. The plastic wrapped around my torso helped keep water out of our boat.
The spring quarter of college, 1975, was upon me. I needed one more credit to graduate. A new life was opening after 17 years of schooling. I had no interest in grad school, getting a job, or even thinking about one. My ambition was to embrace a newfound freedom and focus on learning outside the classroom. My immediate goal was to live the good life. Let’s call it spring fever with one foot in and one foot out.
That spring brightened my life in several ways. Being discharged from the night shift, picking table job at the coal mine opened up 45 hours each week. I supercharged my liberation by only scheduling classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, eliminating two travel days between Enumclaw and Seattle. After being laid off, I applied for unemployment, but the $93 weekly checks wouldn’t start until school ended.
In addition to a new appreciation for live drama detailed in a previous essay, “My Living Theater,” I took up tennis for an easy credit (only three P.E. credits counted toward a degree, and two were in the bag). Two finance classes and one Home Ec rounded out my schedule.
My Spring Quarter, 1975 schedule.
I also aimed to improve my vocabulary by studying the dozens of handwritten pages gifted to me the prior summer by Uncle Evan Morris. With plenty of extra time plus proficiency on my Olympia portable typewriter, I typed nearly 2,000-word definitions, plus pithy aphorisms and quotations from the notebook Evan kept by his side at Washington State during the early years of World War II. Whenever he came across an unfamiliar word or catchy phrase, he wrote it down and later looked up and copied a short dictionary definition. I set forth to assimilate all of them.
I’d been interested in healthy eating, so took a class in nutrition. During my first years of college, with little awareness of the food sciences, I experimented with different diets. After convincing myself milk was the closest thing to a perfect food, over four days straight I drank nothing but, until a constipated intestinal system convinced me otherwise. Next, I dined only on eggs with similarly baleful consequences. For the most part, I ate well enough, but needed a better understanding of dietetics.
Collaterally, a class in the Home Economics department meant a preponderance of students would be girls. I hadn’t had a girlfriend during college. And with so much extra time, I wasn’t averse to finding one. I didn’t!
The two-credit Home Econ class was right up my alley. Judging by my notes, I spent an inordinate time focused on all aspects of food – digestion, carbs, fats, proteins, calories, vitamins, minerals, additives, and metabolism. I became fixated on food quality and ordered all manner of free pamphlets and information from the Department of Agriculture.
One assignment was to record everything we ate for two consecutive days. Looking back on my food intake for May 13 and 14, 1975, it’s surprisingly similar to my eating habits five decades later – a large breakfast of fruits and cereals, then a light or skipped lunch, concluding with a hearty assortment of meats and vegetables for dinner. And even back then, I always rewarded myself with dessert.
Cedar River Boat Racing
Outside the classroom, that spring steadily became dominated by boat racing on the Cedar River. My cousin Bob Morris, whom I’d worked with at the mine for the past nine months, needed a first mate and asked me to join him.
The narrow boats he and others raced looked like two-man canoes on steroids. I was planted upfront, wielding a double-bladed paddle and scouting downstream waters, while Bob faced backward and pulled oars from a sliding seat that fully engaged his arms and legs in propulsion.
Bill Kombol in front, with paddle, and Bob Morris in back, with oars, Cedar River Boat Race, June 14, 1975.
I chose the route and barked orders back to Bob, “Left – right – steady – pull hard.” Bob knew the river well and taught me the best lanes. He’d raced the two prior years and practically knew it by heart. His former partner, Jim Thompson joined a new boat with Jim Bain, so Bob asked me to sign on as a rookie. I had lots to learn.
The Cedar River Boat Race was the biggest event of the annual Maple Valley Days celebration. It’s always held on the second Saturday in June. This year it celebrates its 75th anniversary, marking a milestone that began with its 25th commemoration in 1975.
The festivities’ origins centered around a group of Maple Valley men who built flat-bottom boats and organized a race to determine which team could post the fastest time navigating the wild Cedar River from the Landsburg Bridge to Cedar Grove. The race was conducted using staggered starts, as many currents were only wide enough for one boat to pass at a time.
This photo is from a different stretch of river and appeared in the Voice of the Valley the following week. The caption was wrong – Bob and I finished second. Our boat was sponsored by TRM Wood Products, which is still located at Four Corners.
Spring flows present the perfect challenge. Successful racers need to avoid boulders, log jams, and cross-currents while choosing the fastest navigable waters. Getting caught in the wrong eddy or whirlpool might flip your boat sideways or even capsize it. Hidden snags beneath the water’s surface are an ever-present danger. Choosing the fastest rapid is tricky and fraught with error.
Two or three days each week, Bob and I practiced by running the river. Bob was still working day shift, so our trial runs were in the late afternoon. Bob kept his boat in the mine office basement at Palmer Coking Coal. During our spare time, we patched cracks and leaks with fiberglass and applied fresh varnish for a frictionless bottom.
The boat was transported atop a homemade pickup rack. Bob’s girlfriend, Rafaela Wright rode between us to the Landsburg Bridge. After setting sail, Rafaela drove to the Cedar Grove finish line to pick us up. After practice, we’d have dinner in their tiny travel trailer off Maxwell Road or at the Four Corner’s E-Z Eatin’ café. Rafaela was one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever known.
The E-Z Eatin’ Cafe at Four Corners, though at the time of this 1973 photo it was called Grace & Eddy’s.
The 11-mile route typically took 70 to 90 minutes to navigate. It all depended on how much water Seattle Public Utilities released from Chester Morse Lake to fill their Lake Young reservoir. As water flows changed, so did currents and channels. Every river day was different. Last week’s log jam might be this week’s causeway. If the river were three inches lower, a boulder we previously passed over smoothly might slow us down or hang us up.
Maple Valley’s newspaper, Voice of the Valley provided comprehensive coverage of the race and M.V. Days activities. This photo was taken during the 1976 race.
Race day coincided with Maple Valley’s festival, which included a parade, country fair, and community picnic. That year’s event was slated for June 14, the same day as U.W. commencement ceremonies. I skipped graduation. My diploma arrived in the mail four months later. By then, I was loafing in Lincoln City and wouldn’t see the signed parchment for another month. It didn’t really interest me – I’d left that world behind.
The race started at 2 p.m., two hours after the women contested a shortened course. Many families living along the Cedar River threw parties each year to coincide with Maple Valley Days. As we paddled downstream, cheers arose from the shore as intoxicated revelers raised beers and drinks in salute.
Crowds gathered beneath the old RR trestle across the Cedar River (near SR 169) to watch the boats race by. One boat is visible. – June 14, 1975.
The 1975 race featured 13 teams. Only nine of the 13 boats crossed the finish line. The previous year’s winners, Bill Niord and Bill Furlong, broke an oar and pulled out to protect their craft. The Last Chance, manned by Terry Morris and Ted Turpin, crashed into a rock and sank under the Maple Valley Bridge. As they made their way safely to shore, chunks of the boat and gear floated haphazardly downstream.
For the 14th time in the past 15 years, brothers Bob and Ben Soushek captured the title. Bob and I finished second with an elapsed time of 1 hour, 14 minutes, and 12 seconds, a full three minutes behind the perennial winners. The trophy presentation was at Royal Arch Park at 5 p.m.
Bob Morris, left, and Bill Kombol, right, accept their trophies after the 1976 race.
I raced the following year with Bob, and in 1976, we placed third with a time of 1 hour, 17 minutes, and 21 seconds. Two weeks later, I fell 25 feet from a Douglas fir tree in front of my parents’ Lake Sawyer cabin while trimming branches. I landed in Valley General Hospital for eight days with compressed vertebrae and a digestive tract that shut down.
I spent the Bicentennial Fourth of July watching televised coverage of the historic celebration from a hospital bed. I turned 23 the next day. My back would never be the same. I gave up Cedar River boat racing, but not my friendship with Bob.
Bob Morris
If I were to name the most important role models in my life, Bob Morris would undoubtedly be in the mix. Bob was four years and four days my senior. I looked up to him. We worked together for nearly a year at the mine. During slow nights when no coal was being pulled for me to process, I’d wander down to the hoist room when Bob was working the night shift. During dinner break, we often listened to the CBS Radio Mystery Theater.
On April 30, 1975, Saigon fell, and U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War came to an end. After graduating from Tahoma in 1967, Bob worked for several months before enlisting in the Marines in January 1968. He deliberately chose the toughest corps because that’s the kind of guy Bob was and has always been. After his San Diego boot camp, Bob shipped out to Vietnam in April 1968.
He ended up about 30 miles south of Da Nang. During the first three months, he was a grunt, but soon rose to corporal and became the platoon radioman, always close to the unit’s lieutenant. He was later promoted to company radioman and assigned to the captain. Though generally out of harm’s way, a number of times Bob’s company found themselves under fire. One battle found them in extreme danger, probably the closest he came to death.
At the end of a 13-month tour of duty, Bob returned to the U.S. in June 1969, just as anti-Vietnam War demonstrations peaked. Anyone who lived through those days knows that returning servicemen were not treated with respect.
While working at the mine or later during our boat racing days, I frequently spoke with Bob about the war. When it came to an end, I asked him how he felt. To Bob, the fall of Saigon didn’t mean much. He’d served his country, done his job, and for him, “The war was in the rearview mirror.” To this day, Bob meets annually with his Marine brothers. There is much to admire about Bob Morris.
Bob Morris, left, and Bill Kombol right during their lunch break, January 1976. The photo was take in Enumclaw when the two were helping Palmer Coking Coal Co. move Stergion Cement’s storage bins to PCC’s mine yard in Black Diamond.
Three years later, in August 1978, I rejoined Palmer Coking Coal, once again. I was back at the picking table, the lowest job at the mine. I worked beside Bob, who taught me most of what I learned about operating equipment, running the mine yard, and getting jobs done.
I liked working under Bob. He was a good teacher and a practiced taskmaster who imposed a tough workload not only on others but on himself. Bob was no slouch and expected the same from those who worked with him. Yet, he usually found ways to make dull tasks competitively fun.
Though I was neither as strong as Bob nor as knowledgeable, I thrived under his exacting foremanship. He was one of the best teachers a future Manager of the company could have. Seven years later, Bob asked me to be the best man at his July 1985 wedding to Jill Kranz. For the past six years, I’d worked side-by-side with Jill as she was Palmer’s bookkeeper and all-around office gal.
Bob Morris, left, and Bill Kombol, right, at a retirement party for fellow coal miners, July 21, 1981.
In addition to boat racing, I began writing poetry. It provided a release from the blue-book blues of college midterms and finals. I also accepted an invitation from another older cousin, Dave Falk, for a 500-mile summer bicycle ride from Lincoln City north along the Oregon and Washington coasts to Canada. A few weeks after the boat race, I purchased a 10-speed Motobecane touring bike and began preparations on the backcountry roads between Enumclaw and Selleck for our big ride.
Epilogue
The day I heard news of Saigon’s impending fall, I wrote this poem. It was an early effort at verse and not particularly good. But somehow it seemed a fitting way to end this essay about spring fever, Cedar River boat racing, and how Bob Morris helped shape my life.
One Too Many Times – 4-29-1975
The last two young Americans have perished in the war
They’ve lost their lives for nothing, like fifty-six thousand before.
My heart goes out to all the dead and oh so many more.
But then, one too many times is not enough.
I hate to do it to you, but then how can we forget
You’ve almost got to brood and cry about these past events
I hate the war and every minute spent in useless argument
But, one too many times is not enough.
Sometimes I dream of the wonderful creations in this world
Of green plants flowing to the stars in some fantastic mural.
And standing in the middle, uncorrupted boys and girls
I hope, one too many times was quite enough. – WJK
The original poem in pencil from my notebook of poetry.
Adapted from a 1929 first edition of Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms."
It was a dark and stormy night. Coastal rains pounded the Oregon Coast. STOP!
Mike Wickre would have ridiculed this opening, but Mike Wickre is gone, so I’ll write it my way, mindful of his dismissive wisecracks from beyond.
With little notice, an old friend passes away. A Facebook message warned of Mike’s imminent demise. Days later, a concluding text informed his life was over. Then silence. Whoosh! Gone!! Only his Facebook page remains – that’s death in the digital world.
Word leaked out, there would be no service. Mike didn’t want one. No gathering of friends to bid adieu to an old pal. No farewells, no sharing of memories, none of those anecdotes and stories that lessen our collective loss. A fading remembrance swallowed by emptiness. As Jeff Lynne poignantly asked in the best ELO song that nobody’s heard, “Is this the way life’s meant to be?”
I regret there being no funeral or Celebration of Life. Rituals are important for saying goodbye. The world is a poorer place, if as it seems they’re going out of fashion. The deceased’s wishes are usually respected, though with Wickre, I’m tempted to disregard his desire – to poke back, as he so often poked others.
Most would agree – Mike was a difficult individual. Kristofferson described him best – a walking contradiction, partly truth, and partly fiction. Need I add: eccentric, bombastic, irreverent, nutty, sarcastic, and cynical, with an over-arching egotistical approach to life.
But he had a charm and charisma that’s hard to ignore. At the end of the day, he made me a better person. But half the time aggravated the hell out of me.
Mike Wickre’s 1973 Enumclaw High School graduation photo.
The obituary nobody else wrote, so I did
Michael Irwin Wickre was born to Marilyn (Smith) and Raymond Wickre in Bremerton, Washington on Oct. 3, 1955. His grandmother was a Lakota Sioux. Mike took pride in his Native American heritage. He said she was “white as china,” and died without a clue. Fittingly the family moved to Lakota Beach in Federal Way where Mike attended Lakota Middle School. There he became close friends with Brad Broberg, who remained one for the rest of his life.
The Wickres moved to Enumclaw in 1969 when Mike was in 8th grade. They lived on S.E. 408th Street in the foothills east of Veazie Valley. Mike’s younger brother, Alan described their small farm as “the last house before the hill. We had cows, horses, ducks, chickens, rabbits, and geese. From the creek, there was a pipe to our man-made pond. It was a great place to be a kid.”
One of Mike’s first Enumclaw friends was Joe Cerne who remembered his dry-witted humor and quick tongue. “Mike was the funniest guy around,” Joe recalled, “I never laughed louder than being with him.” Kevin Rustvold remembered how he loved playing pinball and foosball, but remained a serious germ-a-phobe all of his life. Mike’s class became the first 9th graders to attend high school since the new building opened in 1962.
Mike graduated in 1973 and found work at Weyerhaeuser, saving money to attend a four-year college. He was proud of his time in the woods and shared plenty of stories about planting trees and setting chokers. He also worked at Hygrade’s meat packing plant on the Tacoma tide flats and chronicled the time he shoveled pig guts into the grinder. He remembered the plant as “a five-story pile of filth on a site so toxic it is still uninhabitable for rats,” then added, “It got worse.”
Mike Wickre’s description of his injury while working for Weyerhaeuser: “Got caught in the bite . . . the haul-back was side-washed and stretched out of plumb . . . it snapped and the mainline caught me just below my man stuff. It sent me downhill riding the butt rigging . . . felt like getting my leg caught in a car door. Saved enough money to go back to school. Pretty fun memories and good friends . . . most loggers are very nice men underneath their Copenhagen stains. Loggers chew because it’s too danger to smoke cigs or weed while setting chokers. Plus you need a little ‘something’ out there.”
Mike labored at gritty jobs and took classes at Green River Community College. He hung out with Enumclaw classmates, Tony Pedrini, Kevin Rustvold, John Kochevar, Mike Shook, and Steve Dunning. Most were involved with the Enumclaw Soccer Club and played for the G.R.C.C. Gators. (Mike and Steve are seen photobombing the team in a nearby picture.) Mike had an entrepreneurial spirit. He started a company called Acme Hornet Hunters, whose business was to remove wasp and hornet nests while selling bees to high school biology classes. It wasn’t a stinging success.
Enumclaw Soccer Club 1972-73. 1st Row, L-R: Tony Pedrini, Ted Klahn, Ricky Thompson, unknown. 2nd Row, L-R: Pete Bowman, Kenny Cowells, John Kochevar, Paul Raine, Mike ?, Bobby Remein. 3rd Row, L-R: Kevin Rustvold, Theron ?, Mike Shook, Coach Alf Meubauer, Frank Nichols. Photobombing from behind the fence: Steve Dunning and Mike Wickre.
After earning enough money and Green River credits, Mike enrolled at Western Washington University in Bellingham. He majored in journalism and wrote for the Western Front student newspaper. Mike was always attracted to the bizarre and enjoyed his first big journalistic success with a Feb. 10, 1978 article about human cloning. It was picked up by wire services. He graduated from Western in December 1979 and moved home, throwing himself into the Enumclaw scene.
Mike joined Greg Lovell and Tony Pedrini in renting a house on Griffin Street across from where the new Four Seasons restaurant was being built. They called their bachelor pad the No-Tell Motel. He sang backup in Kevin Rustvold’s band named Sphincter.
The band Sphincter, circa 1977. 1st frame, clockwise: Les Walthers on keyboards, Mike Wickre clapping, Mike Hanson on bass, Kevin Rustvold on guitar, and Mike Shook kneeling with microphone. 2nd frame, L-R: Dave Reynolds, Kevin Rustvold, Mike Hanson, Mike Shook.
With Pedrini and Rustvold, he coached Jack’s Scrappers, an Enumclaw girls’ softball team. After-game parties at the No-Tell Motel featured Rainer beer. They collected the empty bottles until a pickup load generated enough funds to purchase a refrigerated keg tap. Celebrations typically started Thursday night after softball and often extended till Friday. The No-Tell bachelor party ended two years after it began.
Jack’s Scrappers, the women’s softball team that Tony, Kevin, and Mike coached went undefeated that season. From the July 21, 1977 Enumclaw Courier-Herald.L-R: Greg Lovell in blue shirt and white tie, and Mike Wickre pointing to the pickup load of Rainier beer bottles while carrying a BB gun.
In September 1980, he joined the Enumclaw Courier-Herald and worked under its legendary editor, Robert “Bud” Olson. Mike was the paper’s only reporter. Small-town newspapers don’t pay much, so he quit the Courier-Herald in April 1981 and joined a marketing guru who showed him the ropes for selling advertising. The job fit his journalistic background and business initiative. That training propelled Mike to a very successful career selling newspaper, TV, and radio ads.
On Sept. 18, 1982, Mike married Nancy Ann Johnson, a Dakota Indian. She was the adopted daughter of an English author, Emilie Johnson who wrote “My China Odyssey.” Mike and Nancy bought a home in Northshore between Tacoma and Federal Way. With what he learned about selling ads, Mike opened his own marketing firm, AdStrategies, LLC, which he later operated out of a condo just above the Tacoma Dome. He earned bucket loads of money as a one-man advertising agency for auto dealers, car shows, and RV sales firms like Baydo’s.
Mike and Nancy’s marriage fell apart in the 2010s when Mike moved full-time into his Tacoma condo. Nancy died in October 2015. Three years later, Mike met Jacinta Mwihaki Njeri online, a nurse who goes by the name Dee. She was attracted to his humor and found him to be a very funny guy, as almost everyone did.
The couple married on Sept. 19, 2020. Dee told me that Mike liked to cook and was a good one. He also enjoyed watching sports on TV, especially baseball, and also World War II histories. A few months before he died, Mike wrote, “In case I croak, I am on record. Greg Wasell and Steve Bunker were the funniest guys I ever met. Greg was always thinking ahead for a prank. Bunker made planting 800 trees a day fun.”
In early December 2023, Mike fell, hitting his head which caused bleeding in the brain. He lapsed into a coma and died at Tacoma General Hospital on Dec. 29, 2023, at age 68. Michael Irwin Wickre is survived by his wife, Jacinta (known as Dee), his mother, Marilyn, a sister, Marla Wickrefujimoto, and two brothers, Alan Wickre and Ryan Wickre.
Mike’s ashes are buried at the family’s Tokeland cabin with a lilac tree planted above. Really, Mike? Planted beneath a lilac tree? After the last shovel full of dirt was stomped on his remains, Wickre’s ghost whispered a snarky retort, then spit a wad of chew on the grave.
The Wickre I Knew
I first met Mike Wickre in the spring of 1975, the last quarter of my senior year of college. I was living at home and worked afternoons at a coal mining job in Ravensdale. When the job ended I found myself with lots of extra time.
It was good to be back in The Claw. I was taking a tennis class so walked the block to my elementary school, J.J. Smith, to hit balls against a cinder block wall. One day Mike stopped by and struck up a conversation. He remembered me from school. Two of his friends, Scott Veenhuizen and Jeff Wasell shared a small rental a couple blocks away. Mike invited me over to hang out and play Foosball. The evening gatherings typically consisted of beer, pot, Foos, and banter.
We became friends … sort of. With Mike, you never really knew where you stood, except you were standing beside a guy with an engaging smile and captivating personality.
In the mid-1970s, a commune-influenced, all-you-need-is-Love, whole-grain aura still burned astrologically bright within the faux hippy crowd around Enumclaw. But Mike’s bruising personality tolerated no such sentimentality. He was a tough-minded logger who worked in the woods and shoveled pig guts at a packing house. Yet behind his barking bravado lived a literary wannabe. And even deeper lurked a misfit hiding his awkwardness. Mike once confessed, “Yes I know I am socially retarded. Let me know if you can work with me – your friend, Mike.”
A college classmate, Bruce Hyland reflected on the dichotomy, “An interesting thing about Mike … he seemed to have one foot in the hard-scrabble, Enumclaw working man’s life and the other in the civilized world of writer/soccer player/college life. And he didn’t quite fit in either. He always straddled between the workingman and the effete world of journalism.”
I never grew close to Mike because, at some primal level, I feared his explosive outbursts. Still, I liked being around him. Mike was that kind of guy – a cunning sense of humor delivered with a biting tongue. Mike’s favorite quote, one by Winston Churchill captured his antagonistic personality, “He has all the virtues I dislike, and none of the vices I admire.” Wickre loved Monty Python’s skit, “The Argument Clinic.”
Like many great friendships, ours blossomed on the sporting field. Mike invited me to join the Dolezal Chiropractic slow-pitch softball team that Ken Prince captained. By the spring of 1977, I was working as a management trainee at a bank and living in Seattle. I drove an hour to Enumclaw for late afternoon games. We kicked off the season on April 23, playing a double-header on Saturday, one morning game and one in the afternoon.
The Dolezal soft-ball team, circa 1977. Mike is barely visible in the back row with a hat and shaded face. Other are Ken Prince, Tony Pedrini, Bruce Radford, Alan Wicker, Chris Coppin, and Bill Kombol, front row, second from right.
After the second game, we celebrated our loss at the Logger’s Inn in Buckley. It was Wayne Podolak’s 24th birthday which entitled him to a free 72-ounce birthday mug. We all got slowly plowed. Mike, Greg & Jeff Wasell, and I ended up at Lioce’s in Auburn for more beer and pizza. We nearly ended the night in a bar fight. Mike was the kind of guy you wanted by your side in a bar fight. That’s how you built friendships in your twenties.
A few months later I recorded our team’s lineup in a June 13 diary entry:
Catcher –Mike Ackershot and me
Pitcher – Ken Prince
1B – Chris Coppin
2B – Dan Darby
3B – Donnie Robinson
SS – Wayne Podolak
LF – Mike Wickre
LC – Dave
RC – Jeff Wasell
RF – Greg Wasell
Les Hall also played but was absent. That day we lost to the Lee Restaurant roster headed by Keith Fugate, Kim Kuro, and Stan Fornalski.
At the plate, Mike belonged to the “go big or go home” school of thought. Every swing was for the fences. The guy could hit softballs a mile and often did. Win or lose, the real team bonding started afterward at one of many local drinking dives. That night we ended up at the Alcove Tavern. Enumclaw had five or six downtown saloons within a block’s walk, all of the same ilk – neon-lit, smoke-filled, fading posters, pull tabs, pickled eggs.
That summer we waterskied at Lake Sawyer where Mike was witness to a bee flying up my nose and stinging me. As Mom applied meat tenderizer to my nostril, Mike lost control laughing. He never let me forget it. That same afternoon Mike got sick after drinking too much beer and vomited on the deck. Afterward, he marveled at how nice my mother was, “She didn’t even yell at me. She was always smiling.”
A week or so later, I wrote in my diary, “Friendship is nothing more than shared experience.” Mike was a shared experience.
He began joining other events with our gang of friends. We played poker with a longstanding circle of my pals. Here’s how Mike described us:
“I played with you old bastards – Keith Hanson, Jim Clem, Pode, Lester, Wheels – smart guys, smart asses. I don’t know if I ever laughed so hard. I had just started a business, scared stiff, no income, playing poker. And for about three hours, an escape for me, it meant a lot. Old Rugged Cross, high-low split – best game ever. I sure would like a rematch with those guys.”
It was Mike who introduced us to Old Rugged Cross, a card game we still play to this day. In a February 2021 message, Mike continued with memories from high school:
“Nothing but respect for all of them. I had to hit Jim Ewalt in the balls in high school choir, but he respected my authority. In the bass section, those guys were big – Ewalt, good ol’ Bill Tuk, and Randy Verhoeve took turns punching me in the seeds during breathing exercises. And it always hurt. But within a week I had hit them all in their egg bags. I lived to talk about it. That’s why I respect those guys because they respected a coward like me.”
Wickre also joined our last two beer smorgasbords in 1978 and ‘79. What’s a beer smorgasbord? When a bunch of guys bring assigned half racks of beer to a party whose purpose is to blind taste test the most popular brands until everyone’s blind drunk. Mike was proud to be there and later bragged:
“It’s important to note my early successes amongst you old bastards. That night I was ‘Rookie of the Year’ and ‘MVP’ for identifying three of 15 beers. We ate saltines, and Podolak, Copperman, and you danced on the balcony in your underwear to celebrate Dale Troy going ‘In the Navy.’ It was also the night my incredibly rich, hot fiancé left me on the Veazie Flats, and that was that.”
Mike Wickre, left and Lester Hall opposite in yellow shirt at the 1979 Beer Smorgasbord at Lake Sawyer.
He added a concluding coda: “Les Hall drank a pitcher of beer through his jockstrap, which he proudly never washed – for several years judging by the stains.”
In February 1980, Mike called me from the Courier-Herald. The nation was in one of its periodic freak-out moments with 53 Americans held hostage in Iran and energy costs soaring. I worked for Palmer Coking Coal Company in Black Diamond. We were experiencing a surge in demand selling coal for home heating. Wickre came to our sales yard and interviewed my uncle Carl Falk and me. Mike was a sharp reporter who quickly grasped our market position and wrote a fitting article. He even doubled as the Courier-Herald’s photographer and took several photos he used in a story appearing on the front page of their Feb. 28, 1980 issue.
In time Mike joined our golf group, the Duffers’ Golf Association (DGA) winning the four-round summer tournament in 1988. The winner was awarded a passed-along Green Jacket that he kept in the trunk of his car that winter, where it was ruined by battery acid.
A mid-1980s DGA foursome. L-R: Tom Noltenmeyer, Jay Carbon, Tom Cerne, Mike Wickre.
Most of the golfers attended the Mariner home opener. Before carpooling to the Kingdome, we assembled at a convenient south-side tavern for pre-game warm-ups. Mike drove that night, joined by my cousin-in-law, Ron Thompson, and me. Mike proudly wore a new Mariner hat. From the backseat, Ron snatched the cap from his head. Mike sternly asked for its prompt return as a drunken Ron Thompson mocked him. Mistake!
Tensions flared. Ron raced from the car with Mike in fast pursuit. He chased him with a ferocity that scared the living daylights out of me. Wickre’s primal anger gave me the chills. I interceded with a patient pleading and Ron was spared a thrashing. You could give Mike the business, but crossed a line at your own risk. I never came close to crossing it.
Mike’s sporting life
Mike often reminisced about his high school years. In order to tell a coherent story, I’ve parsed through his blather and bluster in various Facebook missives and private messages. Let’s call it Wickre lore.
The school yearbook lists his 9th-grade activities as choir and French club, but he also joined the baseball squad under Coach Ron Miller. Mike told the story of having to give his up uniform mid-season to Mark Vannatter, a classmate and son of school administrator Don Vannatter. Wickre growled, “I like baseball. I just don’t like baseball coaches.”
As a sophomore in 1970, Mike turned out for both basketball and baseball, and continued with choir. On the baseball diamond, he bristled under head coach Frank Osborne’s dictatorial style, but was mesmerized by his instruction. Like most players, Mike called him by his initials, “My mentor, F.O. taught me life lessons, and how to hit. He turned me into a varsity pitcher. But he didn’t understand that I won’t back down. You could have made a movie of me and Frank.”
Mike called Osborne his Oedipal coach, a Freudian reference to jealous feelings a son has towards his father. As a sophomore, Mike was the team’s fourth pitcher which meant Fungo bats and shagging balls. He recalled Coach Osborne’s superstitious nature, “If you shagged infield balls and the team won . . . guess what? Wickre’s shagging balls for the rest of the season.”
One of Mike’s true joys was being around that year’s top pitcher and Hornet team leader, Jim Clem. Wickre called Clem “his all-time mentor.” Mike laid it out in a private message:
“I have a little manic attack going on. I have to tell someone this tale to stop laughing. I was a gangling sophomore. I played baseball in the 4th grade and said ‘No mas.’ So here I am, geekier than geek, and I sit down next to Jim Clem. Like sitting next to one of the Apostles. He talks to me. I think he was wearing an ascot. I am having a legend speak to me – my eyes wider than my ears. When I found out Clem was going to be my coach, I did three somersaults. Then he leans over and lets me in on a secret, ‘F.O. is the biggest prick you’ll ever meet.’”
“My two finest coaches were Doug Baldwin, wrestling at Lakota Jr. High, and Jim Clem, baseball at Enumclaw High. Both encouraged … not a negative word. Blessings to both for turning a boy into a man. I hope I can pass it along. And actually try to be like Clem who told me his simple mantra, ‘Wick, I get better and better every day.’”
His senior year Mike joined the baseball team but didn’t finish the season. Here’s how he described that truncated experience. “Irony is fun when you play along. F.O. kicked me off the Varsity Hornet baseball squad because I had long hair. Now, I have no hair. Karma’s . . . a bitch.”
Which Mike Wickre
Bruce Hyland, a friend from college made a number of acute observations about Mike.
“We met at Western in the journalism program. I had moved from upstate New York after the service and was going to school on the G.I. Bill. Most everybody else seemed young and soft … Wick, on the other hand, was clearly more worldly wise … audacious, witty, with no B.S. We clicked from Day One.”
Three decades and a whole lot of changes passed before Bruce reunited with his college friend.
“When I finally came out for a visit after some 30 years, Mike put me up at his place, gave me a car to use, fed me, and lost to me at Cribbage (just like in college). We went to a college newspaper gang reunion at a Tacoma night spot that some alums organized because I was visiting. We had a great time. Played a round of golf the following day. He was seeing (and I met) an assortment of sketchy women who knew that old saw about God giving men two heads, but only enough blood to run one at a time. A good friend in every way.”
By autumn 2016, some six years later, when he returned for a college newspaper gang reunion, Bruce encountered a changed Wickre:
“He’d been on meds for some kind of operation plus he was taking something to help him sleep. He’s virtually medicated all the time. And weed was legal so he was always tokin’ up. Lives a very isolated life … seems to be getting more irrational. He was wary and even paranoid … accusing me of screwing up his seriously screwed-up car. A very different personality.”
Two of Mike’s favorite Facebook profile pictures. Left – Hunkpapa Lakota Chief Sitting Bull, circa 1885. Right – Mike Ring-a-ling, March 2015.
Mike made me a better writer
I hadn’t seen Mike for over a decade. We last crossed paths around 2010 at Gold Mountain and made plans to connect on the golf course. Instead, we connected on Facebook. Mike discovered my interest in writing, which I practice on that illiterate social medium called Fakebook.
Now I could enjoy the fullness of Mike’s wickedness. As the Prince of putdowns berates me publicly for overusing personal pronouns – I, me, my. And says my sentences are too long. “Keep your sentences short, like Hemingway.” And my paragraphs needed to be shorter. “Let the words breathe,” Mike counseled.
This typical Wickre response came after reading one of my essays:
“As you know, I usually embarrass you worldwide. So this is just us boys. I consider you a great friend, and an easy target. Put Billsie on the tee, and I will give him a proper whack.
“I like tightened copy. Reporters in the type era were paid by the published inch. Copy editors were paid to cut words. See last sentence. So these idiots that worked for newspapers had to get to the point, tout suite (French for immediately).”
Then a few weeks later:
“Look at you improving your writing. Paragraphs are fun, every 30 words, just easier to read. I like when you reach out a bit more in your descriptive – you are on the right track – push the edges and you will get there. I want to see fire … rage … laughter, tears, and resolution … 1,000 words, no plagiarism or misspelled words. Lean into this manifesto … don’t let me down.”
And more encouragement:
“I like your tighter writing. You might enjoy the down-to-bones approach of Hunter Thompson and Mark Twain. Avoid Faulkner, who is verbose. Flowery puff is just not good. Capote wrote tight. Condense. Hemingway wrote some books I am told. Use short sentences with vigorous language. You have the skills but your writing is generally weak and in the passive voice. Your facts can’t be questioned. Use active verbs, and avoid the word ‘I’. You are smart enough to do better. I have hope.”
Plus advice on what to read and why:
“If you haven’t read it, try Ken Kesey’s “Sometimes a Great Notion” – about loggers. Best book I have read outside the Bible. Read both three times. Some of it stuck. You will get lost in it. It’s set in Oregon, but could have been Enumclaw. But, a crappy movie.”
You’re on my bucket list
For the last five years of his life, I tried to set up a dinner to reconnect. My efforts began in 2019 with offers to host a restaurant meal with two close friends, Jim Clem and Tom Cerne. Then came Covid, which tanked plans for nearly two years, much of it due to Mike’s germ-a-phobe consternation. He kept dodging my efforts with outrageous requests and changing demands. By the fall of 2024, we made progress toward our long-planned get-together which I thought was getting close. It didn’t happen – my sad regret.
One of Mike’s last messages to me: “You’re on my bucket list.” Now I’m left with the loneliest words in the English language, “If only.” Our dinner reunion will never be realized. If you have plans to meet an old friend someday, remember John Fogerty’s fateful song, “Someday Never Comes.”
A Farewell to Mike
It was a dark and stormy night. Coastal rains pounded the Oregon Coast. My wife and I made our way to Kyllo’s, a seafood grill in Lincoln City where the D River flows into the ocean. When guided to our table, we passed a nautical display featuring an Ernest Hemingway quote. I snapped this photo knowing Hemingway was Mike’s favorite writer.
The Ernest Hemingway display in Kyllo’s on the D River in Lincoln City.
Later that Saturday night I sent it to Mike via Facebook Messenger. He replied within a minute, “Listen to Ernest …” On Sunday afternoon, Dec. 10, 2023, Mike wrote his final Facebook post, “Thanks to Bill Kombol.” I didn’t see that post until after he died.
Mike Wickre’s last Facebook post, Dec. 10, 2023.
The title photo standing atop this essay came from “A Farewell to Arms.” At our Lincoln City home, we have accumulated a nice collection of decades-old books, among them a first-edition hardcover of Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 novel. Its binding is secured with black tape and the inside cover is stamped ‘Discard.’ The imprint of Enumclaw Public Library is scratched over by a black crayon.
I researched the quote from the restaurant display hoping it might be from “A Farewell to Arms.”
“Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”
Here’s an irony Mike would fully enjoy, it isn’t a Hemingway quote. It’s by William Saroyan, a novelist, playwright, and short story writer of the same era.
Sometimes a Great Notion
On numerous occasions, Mike urged me to read Ken Kesey’s “Sometimes a Great Notion.” I’ll be honest – he practically bludgeoned me. Mike read it three times. The best book he ever read besides the Bible.
Several years before he died, I bought the Audible version of Kesey’s second novel. Many critics consider it his greatest. Tom Wolfe, who later chronicled Kesey’s exploits with the Merry Prankster, took note of its brilliance. After seeing its 28-hour length, I promptly lost interest and the recording collected digital dust. When Mike died, I knew what must be done.
Sometimes a Great Notion, audiobook by Ken Kesey.
“Sometimes a Great Notion” tells the story of an Oregon family of gypo loggers. They are led by a hard-headed patriarch, Henry Stamper who has two sons, Hank the stubborn first-born, and Leland, the sensitive half-brother, from a second and much younger wife. Leland moves east with his mother, attends Yale, but returns to the family logging show to settle scores. Conflicts between father, brothers, workers, and log mills brew in the old-growth forests as union forces seek to stamp out the family’s independent ways.
Upon finishing the book, I began to see why this novel so appealed to Mike. Resistance to authority, the life of loggers, a college man’s struggle against convention, a consciousness-raising literary style – it’s all there.
I finally understood why he so wanted me to read it. I began to glimpse the specter of the boy he was. And perhaps the man he wanted to be. Reading “Sometimes a Great Notion” became my requiem for the repose of Mike’s memory.
Rest in Peace, Mike – under that lilac tree.
Mike and his family: “Sometimes I mind my own snarky business, a hate-filled wretched old P.O.S. Then sometimes the best time of your life sneaks in and makes it all worthwhile. Pictured L-R: Tarzan the chess wizard, my love Jacinta (Dee), my brother Alan, Edith Finley, my lovely mom (Marilyn), and Beth of the beach who is my new B.F.F. I ate four Dungeness crabs, just polished off the last two.” — Mike’s Facebook post Sept. 3, 2018.
I can’t remember when I first met Keith Timm Jr. It was likely as a kid at one of the Coal Miners’ picnics typically held at Lake Retreat. They were the highlight of our summers. Free pop and ice cream, foot races for money, penny hunts, swimming, the Russian horse, baseball games, and watching coal miners and truck drivers drink too much.
And then there’s the vague memory of Keith, waiting for the bus at Enumclaw Jr. High (he was five years older than me) barking, “Hey! Aren’t you a Kombol?”
But we really got to know each other in the early 1980s when I took over as Manager of Palmer and hired Keith. He began on the picking table, the usual starting job at a coal mine. At the same time, cousin, Bob Morris was racing boats down the Cedar River, so Keith and I became his crew. Hanging out together we soon became fast friends. Maybe it was just driving around together in a pickup truck. Anyone who rode around with Keith became his friend.
Keith Timm Jr., Rob Krause, Bob Morris, and Bill Kombol, the River Hawk team and boat crew during Cedar River boat races, circa 1980.
A few years later Keith told me he needed a place to stay. He’d been living with his Mom and stepfather at their Black Diamond home. Day after day, Keith complained about how much he detested his step-father, Ray. I don’t know the exact circumstances – some say Ray hit Keith’s Mom, Lorraine. Whatever the cause, Keith proceeded to beat the crap out of Ray. When the Black Diamond Police arrived they dispensed justice the “old-fashioned” way. They told Keith to get out of town for a while.
Back then Lake Sawyer wasn’t part of town, so Keith asked if he could move in with Mom and me. Soon Keith had a new home, but more importantly, someone to wash his clothes and fix his meals. Several weeks into his stay, Mom asked me, “How do you think things are going?” I said, “Pretty good, Keith seems fine.” She replied, “There’s only one thing I can’t figure out – why is my toothbrush always wet?” “So is mine!” I added. Mom promptly bought new toothbrushes for all and wrote Keith’s name on his.
Keith Timm, Jr. and Governor Booth Gardner at the Black Diamond Museum, Nov. 1, 1985.
Keith was very proud of his sobriety. He was an avid A.A. man and could tell you to the day how long he’d been sober. I was still drinking back. One Friday night we went to a hockey game. I got pretty drunk and Keith had to drive me home then put me to bed. For the rest ofmy life, he never let me forget that night. In time I realized Keith’s wisdom, so joined him in temperance. For me, it’s been 32 years, 21 days. It was the second-best decision I’ve ever made and if it wasn’t for Keith I may not have made my best.
St. Patrick’s Day, 1985 – Gary Grant, our King County Councilman was running for re-election and held a fundraiser at the Lake Sawyer Community Club. I asked Keith to be my date. He was reluctant until I told him there’d be free food and pretty girls.
So we tooled over in my pickup and sure enough a pretty girl checked us in. We sat down and ate some food. But, I couldn’t take my eyes off the girl at the welcome table. She looked fairly young. Being the suave guy I was, I wouldn’t dream of walking up and asking her age. So, I had Keith do it for me.
Keith plops out of his seat, lumbers over to her table, and bluntly asks, “How old are you?” With answer in hand, Keith shuffles back and tells me. Well, one political fundraiser led to another, and that to a Fourth of July party, a Volleyball game, and a burning boat. Four years later I asked this pretty girl named Jennifer to marry me. It was the best decision I ever made. And, still happy she didn’t take a fancy to Keith.
Jennifer Grant and Keith Timm Jr. at Cedar River Boat Race day, June 1986.
In 1983, I was best man at Keith’s wedding to Kimberly Vaughan, a small affair in her parents’ home in Burien. The marriage didn’t survive, but Keith was unfazed and confessed, “It sure was fun while it lasted.” At times he drove me crazy. But, like a boomerang, Keith always bounced back usually with a smirk on his face. I’d ask, “What are you grinning about?” He’d snicker as his smile grew wider.
Keith smiling broadly in the Palmer Coking Coal mine office after a full day on the picking table, Dec. 1984. It was a dirty job, but Keith was never afraid of getting dirty.
Keith was famous for borrowing $2 for this or $5 for that, and usually paid you back . . . that is, if you reminded him time and again. For those of you who haven’t been repaid, we’ve filled this glass bowl with dollar bills. If Keith still owes you any money, now is your last chance to settle that debt.
There are so many more fond memories of Keith – like the time we toured the art galleries of Pioneer Square accompanied by a certified art snob – Keith in his stained overalls and plaid shirt surrounded by urbane Seattleites in snappy blazers and fashionable frocks. Or the time I asked him to join me for dinner and a Mariner game at Safeco Field. “Where do you want to eat?” I asked. Without missing a beat, Keith replied, “The Metropolitan Grill” (the most expensive steak house in Seattle). “I’m not taking you to the Metropolitan Grill,” I snarled, “I don’t even take my wife there.” We went to the ball game and out to dinner, but not to the Metropolitan Grill.
Keith kept the ticket stub to our Mariner game. I found it when cleaning out his trailer.
Or how about Keith at Alcoholics Anonymous? He’d normally attended meetings in Grange halls or church basements, but in time grew more adventuresome. Like when he started attending nude A.A. meetings held at a Jacuzzi in Bellevue of all places. Now, that’s a picture to wrap your brain about. “Hello, my name is Keith and I’m an alcoholic” . . . buck-naked in a hot tub.
But, some of my best memories of Keith are just driving around playing old-time music and joining him as we crooned to the stereo. We did it one last time – a few days before he sank into the coma. Two songs we heard that day are those I chose for his video tribute.
Keith holding my nephew, Carter Grant at our Lake Sawyer home, 2010. Keith and Carter shared the same birthday, August 6.
We hadn’t seen Keith for a few days which was unusual because he always came by the mine office for something. Shelley Arnold, my secretary of nearly three decades suggested I check up on him. I drove up to his camp trailer and saw his pickup, so knew he was home. I banged on the door and yelled his name, then made my way through his collection of everything and found him lying on the bed.
Keith was breathing faintly. I shook him, but he was unresponsive, so called 911. The operator took our location and talked me through performing CPR and continued for 10-12 minutes before medics arrived. It wasn’t easy hauling him out of those tight quarters. I followed the aid car to Valley General and checked him into the hospital.
Keith Timm Jr. in coma at Valley General hospital in Renton, May 19, 2017. Great efforts were made by the hospital staff to save his life.
The doctors and nurses hooked him up to a dozen tubes and devices, but Keith’s days were numbered in single digits. I knew he wouldn’t mind me taking his picture, and if he recovered would enjoy seeing all the efforts undertaken to save his life. Oh, what a laugh we would have had over this photo. And an even bigger laugh when I reported about all the pretty nurses who fawned over him night and day. Keith’s grin would be sparkling like the morning sun. Then he was gone.
Keith Byron Timm Jr. was one-of-a-kind and I miss him dearly. He was my buddy and I was his boss. We were best friends.
A celebration of his life was held Friday, June 16, 2017 at the Black Diamond Community Center, where I delivered the above eulogy. His obituary and two photos appear below. – Bill Kombol
Obituary:
Keith Byron Timm Jr., a lifetime resident of Black Diamond, died on May 27, 2017, at Valley General Hospital. He was 68.
Keith graduated from Enumclaw High School in 1966.
He was born on Aug. 6, 1948, to Keith Timm and Lorraine Gibson. He grew up in Black Diamond and graduated in 1966 from Enumclaw High School. At the height of the Vietnam War, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and entered boot camp before receiving a medical discharge. He worked in the paint shops at Pacific Car and Foundry for a number of years, before joining Palmer Coking Coal Co. and later Pacific Coast Coal. He was married in 1983 to Kimberly Vaughan for a short time. He was a former member of the Black Diamond Fire Department and a Thursday regular at the Black Diamond Historical Museum. He loved antique trucks and was particularly proud of his 35-plus years of sobriety.
He is survived by his sister, Donna Elaine (Timm) Snow.
Remembrances can be made to the Black Diamond Historical Society, P.O. Box 232, Black Diamond, Wash. 98010.
Keith faithfully attended the Black Diamond Museum each Thursday, where Museum’s official photographer, Bob Dobson snapped this picture one time. Whenever Keith saw him around town, he’d yell, “Hey Bob, take my picture.”
Jack Kombol stands beside the Koehring 405 dragline that he operated for Palmer Coking Coal Co. at their McKay Section 18 surface coal mine, 1977.
In this 1977 photo on Franklin Hill, east of Black Diamond, Jack Kombol stands beside the dragline he operated for Palmer Coking Coal (Palmer) at the McKay-Section 18 surface coal mine. The Koehring 405 had an excavating shovel bucket to move overburden and extract coal. The light-colored rock in the background was the sandstone bedrock laying above and below the McKay coal seam that tilted at about 45 degrees to the surface. This photo comes courtesy of Lou Corsaletti, who authored several articles about the coal industry in southeast King County.
After closing the last underground coal mine in Washington, Palmer began surface mining this seam to supply Washington State with fuel to heat institutions like the Shelton Correction Center, and Monroe Reformatory.
Jack Kombol was born at his family’s rental home in the tiny and short-lived town of Hiawatha. The homes were provided by Northwest Improvement Company (NWI) to house workers at their Hiawatha coal mine located midway between Kanaskat and Kangley. The mine was designed to replace the Ravensdale Mine, whose Nov. 16, 1915 explosion claimed the lives of 31 miners. Jack’s father, Tony Kombol, worked at the Ravensdale mine but was sent home early that dreadful Tuesday. Like many unemployed coal miners, Tony Kombol left Ravensdale and found work in Arizona and Montana copper mines. Jack’s mother, Lulu (Shircliff) Kombol, was a Ravensdale school teacher who similarly lost her job.
The growing Kombol family returned to Washington in early 1919, when Tony rejoined NWI at their new Hiawatha mine. However, the mine was riddled with problems and dangers. Two miners, Joseph Ripoli, Italian, and John Panotas, Greek, suffered fatal accidents during the mine’s brief five-year history that produced meager amounts of coal. Tony Kombol, who at age 17 emigrated to the U.S. from Croatia in 1902, soon found work at the nearby Parkin Kangley Coal Company mine. It was located less than a mile north of the Hiawatha home that the family of seven continued to rent from NWI.
On August 7, 1925, Tony Kombol was severely disabled when an errant dynamite explosion blinded him at the Parkin Kangley mine. He spent 30 days in the hospital but couldn’t return to work due to a full disability for which he received a $40 monthly pension plus a $35 monthly stipend for five children, all under the age of 10. Lulu Kombol returned to work as a school teacher in Selleck and Cumberland to support the family.
A year or so later his second son, and fourth child, Jack contracted polio at age six or seven forcing an absence from school that lasted nearly two years. After recovering, one of Jack’s legs was shorter than the other. He attended Selleck school through the 8th grade then went to Enumclaw High School. Being two years older than fellow students and not particularly academic, he dropped out during his junior year.
Because of a polio-shortened leg, Jack was unfit for service during World War II and moved to Seattle where he drove garbage, tanker, and tow trucks. After the war, he primarily worked in the woods where he drove log trucks and operated equipment for his brother’s logging company, Bernell Kombol & D.L. Holcomb, and at his cousin-in-law’s firm, Woodrow Gauthier of Gauthier Brothers Lumber and Logging.
Kombol found a new logging job in Northern California and relocated there in early 1950. Pauline Morris, an Enumclaw girl whose father and uncles owned Palmer Coking Coal, soon followed. The couple married in Crescent City later that year. Jack joined Palmer in 1952 and worked for the company until his death in April 1979 at age 57.
Jack and Pauline’s son, Bill Kombol began writing “When Coal Was King” in May 2007. The position evolved after his youngest son’s Cub Scout troop visited the Maple Valley newspaper, Voice of the Valley. There, Bill learned that the publisher had recently lost a columnist and volunteered for the job.
And the rest, as they say, is History.
This story originally appeared in the July 17, 2023 issue, Voice of the Valley, which would have been Jack Kombol’s 103rd birthday.
Our team photo appeared in the 1968 Chieftain yearbook.
On a Thursday night, Leap Day 1968, I played my last game of school sports. It was the greatest team I ever played on. Also my last. There were no epic come-from-behind victories or marquee moments. No half-time speeches to an inspired victory with movie-perfect moments to remember for the rest of our lives. It was just a bunch of 14-year-old boys playing basketball after school. Our team disbanded the following day, yet those 9th-grade friendships lasted over five decades. And Jake Thomas was my best coach ever.
There were 16 or 17 boys who turned out, but only 11 survived the two-cut process. A sheet of paper was posted to the gym wall and my name was written. My basketball skills didn’t save me from the cut – the coach liked me. Practice began the next day and Coach Thomas had us run ‘lines.’ That meant darting up and down the length of the court, bending to touch the baseline, then back again. We ran lines and more lines until fully exhausted, and then ran more. I thought we were here to play basketball, but all we seemed to do was race back and forth along the gym floor.
The Boys’ gym where our 9th grade team ran lines. Our school nickname was the Chieftains.
We called him Coach Thomas to his face, but Jake, behind his back. On the second day of practice, Coach suggested we all buy white, high-top Converse sneakers. Jim Clem led a short discussion afterward and we all agreed to ignore his fashion tip. The next day we showed up in black, low-top Converse, everyone of course except Del Sonneson.
Each day we worked on fundamentals – dribbling, passing, set shots, jump shots, and rebounding. On defense, we learned man-to-man and zone formations. Coach taught us how to press and how to avoid it. We had two offensive plays, cleverly disguised by holding up one finger or two.
After drills, strategy, and more drills, we’d play five-on-five. That meant I was playing against much bigger stars like the towering Jims: Clem and Ewalt; sharpshooters like Wayne and Lester; and the big-butt, box-out rebounders, Rick Barry and Del. With no special skills save a modicum of speed, I delighted in practice, relishing time spent running up and down the court with my pals.
Enumclaw Junior High – the gym was on the second floor with windows on the south and west walls. The locker room was in the basement below.
Each night before leaving, we shot 25 free throws and posted results to a clipboard hanging from the gym wall. Lester Hall was particularly good – making 21 or 22 shots most nights, and sometimes even 24. I was mediocre, my best was 17. Steve McCarty, our manager kept stats during games, picked up balls after practice, and generally cared for team needs.
Those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end. We practiced until 5 p.m., then showered for as long as we liked. In the basement shower stalls at the old junior high, we plugged drains creating mini-pools where we sloshed about. After soaking up an excessive amount of hot water, we dried off, got dressed, and walked home with heads steaming in the cool winter air.
The Boys’ locker room had communal group shower stalls with benches and baskets in the adjoining room.
On Thanksgiving weekend, Coach Thomas ordered drills for Friday and Saturday, “We’re gonna run off all that turkey.” After morning sessions, Coach left the gym open for the rest of the day. We practiced, goofed off, played pick-up games, talked on the wooden bleachers about girl, music, and life, took even longer showers, and walked to Mrs. Lofthus’ store for candy and soda. Could life get any better than this?
Mrs. Lofthus’ little store was one block north of the Junior High on the corner of Porter Street and Wilson Ave.
There was one slight problem with this perfect world – the actual basketball games. While practice was grand, real games were the worst. There I sat at the end of the bench patiently waiting through three and a half quarters while sneaking desperate glances in Coach’s direction. If games were close, my fate and butt were sealed to the bench. But, if the team were winning convincingly or losing badly, I’d be sent in for a couple minutes of ‘rat ball.’ It was pretty much a joke. But opposing coaches entertained the same drill by dispatching their lousiest players, meaning both you and your opponents competed for fumbled passes and tossed up awkward shots.
I particularly agonized whenever Mom showed up for a home game. I felt embarrassed to have her watched me not playing. But she always had kind words back home at dinner. As Monday faithfully rolled around, last week’s game was soon forgotten. We were back together doing things I loved – practice, inter-squad games, 25 free throws, and hot showers – the real stuff that builds bonds. Oh, how I loved practice!
I don’t recall how our season ended, but a surviving issue of The Chieftain newsletter told of our 5-2 win-loss record in early January. Our best players were top notch and we no doubt won more games than we lost.
A short report on our basketball team from the Feb. 1968 Chieftain newsletter.
Yet all good things must one day end. As February ended so did our season. Our last game was played on February 29, 1968, against cross-river rival, White River. It was our only night outing, a 7:30 tip-off in Buckley. That day’s school lunch menu read, “Meat in brown gravy on whipped potatoes, vegetable sticks, bread and butter, orange-coconut cookie, and milk.”
Hot lunches were served in the cafeteria, adjacent to the locker rooms.
The final seconds ticked off the clock and our season was done. Spring sports would soon begin. Baseball was another of my favorites, but I progressively lacked the required skills to compete at varsity level. Plus, our family was traveling to Europe for six weeks that spring. We’d leave in early May so I’d miss much of the season. I didn’t turn out for baseball and skipped summer league. My sporting career skidded to a fuzzy conclusion.
When Junior High ended, we left that old three-story brick building on Porter Street and moved to the modern high school built on the edge of town. It was my first experience of not walking to school. Though my buddies tried to convince me to turn out for sophomore basketball, I knew my gig was up. Short guys with no special skills were sure to be cut, an even greater humiliation than sitting on the bench.
In high school, I found a new team where I could compete and create bonds of camaraderie. But since you didn’t wear a jock strap, Chess wasn’t considered a sport. That is until a fellow player, Kris Galvin and I remade our Hornet school newspaper in the image of chess.
By its very nature, a team is a collection of comrades in pursuit of a common goal and the Chess Team took us all the way to State for two straight years. Still, no Letters Awards were presented to players on our highly successful squad.
Pleasant memories of 9th-grade basketball are as precious as the friendships cemented 55 years ago. More than half of these guys are my best friends. Only one of the eleven, Del Sonneson has passed away. Coach Thomas is still alive and just turned 90.
So, from the bottom of my heart I say thank you to Rick Barry, Jim Clem, Jim Ewalt, Lester Hall, Steve McCarty, Jim Partin, Wayne Podolak, Del Sonneson, Dale Troy, and Gary Varney.
And to Coach Thomas . . . thanks for being part of our greatest team ever.
9th Grade yearbook photos – clockwise from top left: Rick Barry, Jim Clem, Jim Ewalt, Lester Hall, Bill Kombol, Steve McCarty, Coach Jake Thomas, Gary Varney, Dale Troy, Del Sonneson, Wayne Podolak, and Jim Partin.
Post Script: In a final act of kindness and respect, Coach Jake Thomas awarded me the precious 9th-grade basketball Letter. It was signed by th principal, Fred Krueger and my greatest coach ever – Jake Thomas.
Coach Jake Thomas from the 1968 Ka-Te-Kan yearbook.My 9th grade letter award in our Enumclaw High School team colors – maroon and gold.
AFTERWORD
On Saturday, March 8, 2025, four players from his 1968 basketball teams joined Coach Jake Thomas at his 90th birthday party. Tears of joy were shared and stories told at The Claw event center by over 100 family and friends who joined the celebration.
Jake Thomas was raised in Elk Coal and Selleck before moving to Enumclaw. He earned teaching credentials at Western and returned to Enumclaw to teach, coach, administer, and become a friend and mentor to hundreds. After building a backyard swimming pool in 1968, Jake, his wife, June, and later their daughters, Jody and Jana taught swim lessons until 2024 to thousands of children spanning multiple generations at the Thomas Family Pool on Lorraine Street.
Clockwise from lower left: Les Hall, Gary Varney, Jim Clem, and Bill Kombol join Jake Thomas on his 90th birthday.
Tony Kombol and Lulu Shircliff, sometime before their 1914 wedding.
Their stories began in 1885. That January, a baby boy was born in Fuzine, Croatia. His name was Anton Kombol, the same as his father. When baby Anton was born, Croatia was a provincial kingdom within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Fuzine is a village in the Primorje-Gorski-Kotar region about six miles from the coast, but 2,400 feet above sea level, and 30 miles from the largest regional city of Rijeka.
Little is known of Anton’s early life in Fuzine. Though he was Croatian by birth, the Kombol family surname derived from French immigrants who first settled in the region during the Napoleonic era. The earliest recorded birth of a Kombol in Croatia was Ivan born to Martin and Ana Kombol about 1810 in the village of Bribir, around 20 miles southeast of Fuzine and near the coast. Ivan married Matejka Grenko, while his son, Anton married Franciska Mihaljevic, baby Anton’s mother.
A 1968 postcard photo of Fuzine, Croatia.
Through actions at the 1815 Congress of Vienna after the fall of Napoleon, this area of Croatia was absorbed into the Austrian Empire and later the combined empire jointly administered with Hungary. The primary local industries were woodworking and furniture-making. As Anton grew towards adulthood that would be his likely future if the Austrian army didn’t call first.
Over 5,000 miles west, baby Lulu’s prospects seemed bright. The Brown family was well respected and her mother, Jennie Brown at age 17, was noted as “one of our most attractive young ladies.” Walla Walla, with a population of 3,500 was the largest city in Washington Territory. Lulu’s father, William Shircliff had recently returned from expeditionary explorations in Alaska, then secured the respected paymaster position at the nearby Army fort.
The couple married on a Thursday evening in early June at the home of Jennie’s parents, Horace and Sarah Brown. The wedding announcement in the Walla Walla Journal noted that “the groom is clerk to Major D. R. Larned, paymaster, U.S.A., and is one of the finest and most promising young men in existence.” Mr. and Mrs. Shircliff began housekeeping two days later in a house at the corner of Birch and Seventh Streets. Shocking for the time, just 10 weeks later a baby girl was born and christened Lulu Mildred Shircliff.
Jennie Brown and William Shircliff, well before their wedding day when she was nearly seven months pregnant.
William Shircliff left Walla Walla the following March, seven months after his daughter’s birth. He traveled to San Francisco where he was stationed at the army garrison, with promises to soon send for his wife and baby girl – a pledge he never kept. Jennie pleaded with her husband for money so she and Lulu could move south and join him. Shircliff ignored her entreaties, so she filed divorce proceedings upon which he was ordered to pay child support. There’s no record of whether Shircliff paid or not, but within two years he moved to Washington D.C. As far as we know, Lulu never again saw her father.
Lulu Shircliff as a baby in Walla Walla, 1886.
Three years later Lulu’s mother, Jennie remarried and moved onto Ransom Holcomb’s farm on the Cowlitz River south of Toledo, Washington. Lulu remained in Walla Walla with her grandmother until age 11, when she joined her new family and two baby brothers, Ransom and Wyman, 10 and 13 years her junior. Far from the active world of the small town she’d known in Walla Walla, on the farm Lulu experienced an old-fashioned life in a remote but exciting place – a farm filled with cows, pigs, ducks, goats, and chickens. The farm produced eggs, cream, cheese, milk, and hay, all of which were used to sustain the family and farmhands with excess sold to Portland merchants downstream.
Farm life was busy with Lulu assisting her mother in making hearty breakfasts for her stepfather, uncle, and hired men. After breakfast, animals were fed and chores began. Milk was skimmed and the thick cream churned to butter. Crocks and milk pails were meticulously washed in hot soapy water and then placed on slotted shelves to dry. The remaining hours were spent baking bread, making cheese, and doing typical chores like ironing, sewing, and cleaning.
The farm was self-sufficient except for staples such as green-bean coffee which they hand roasted. Most foodstuffs were grown on the farm: potatoes, carrots, turnips, pumpkins, oats, and wheat. The family’s orchards supplied fresh produce in season, with the majority canned to provide fruit for the rest of the year. Bee hives pollinated spring blossoms and provided honey for the family. Evening hours were short and illuminated by oil lamps. Early to bed was only occasionally delayed by card games, reading books, or singing as her mother played guitar.
During the school year, Lulu walked about a mile each way. There in a one-room schoolhouse, 15 or so students of all ages were taught. Later when attending Chehalis High School, Lulu moved away from the farm because the commuting distance was too far. She boarded with different families the first year, then rented an apartment with another farm girl her junior and senior years. The Chehalis Superintendent, Mr. Thompson encouraged her to pursue a teaching career and allowed Lulu to miss classes anytime a substitute was needed.
Lulu Shirclifff sporting a large white bow, 2nd row, 2nd from right with her 1904 graduating class.
After graduation, Lulu’s future brightened. A vacancy in grade school landed her a series of full-time jobs, albeit with limited credentials. In 1906, her stepfather traveled to Alaska where he suddenly died. Ransom Holcomb was always interested in Lulu’s education and had left her money for that purpose. The following September, Lulu enrolled at the Teacher’s College in Bellingham where she earned a teacher’s certificate.
Meanwhile, back in Croatia, Anton was anxious about life. The following year he’d turn 18 and risked being drafted into the Austrian army. Two older brothers, John and Matt had emigrated to Roslyn and found work in coal mines with good wages. So Anton decided to leave his family and village behind to join his brothers in America.
Anton traveled to the port city of Rijeka embarking on a steamer to Le Havre, France. He crossed the English Channel to Southampton where he boarded the St. Louis on a nine-day voyage across the Atlantic that landed him on New York’s Ellis Island. The next day, this 17-year-old boy who spoke no English, boarded a train for a five-day trip across the country. On Christmas Day 1902, Anton rode that train carrying a loaf of bread and a promise of what his future might hold. Within a month, he turned 18 and was working in a coal mine.
Matt, John, and Anton Kombol in the early 1900s, likely in Rosyln.
Both Tony and Lulu move to Ravensdale
Their worlds grew closer in 1908 – a pivotal year for both. After laboring six years in Roslyn’s coal mines Tony, as he came to be known moved to greener pastures in Ravensdale. There he worked for the same company as in Roslyn, the Northwest Improvement Company (NWI). It was owned by the Northern Pacific Railway whose locomotives burned millions of tons of black diamonds every year. That year, Tony also submitted his declaration to become a U.S. citizen.
Deciding a teacher’s pay in Centralia was not sufficient to her tastes, Lulu chose a job in Ravensdale where the best wages were paid. This was probably because it was an unruly mining town, lacking middle-class families and culture, so coal companies needed to pay top wages to attract the young women who increasingly filled the ranks. There she boarded at reduced rates with families who valued the literacy a teacher brought into their homes. Convenient rail access also provided Lulu with opportunities to attend top plays and musicals in Tacoma or Seattle, where she traveled on weekend excursions and stayed with friends.
Lulu Shircliff, with her class of Ravensdale school children, 1913.Tony Kombol, upper right with the Northwest Improvement Company bunker crew, 1913.
How Tony and Lulu met is lost to time. But it wouldn’t be difficult in a town of 725, according to 1913 census figures. In June 1914, Tony purchased a plot of land just north of Kent-Kangley Road and built a home for his soon-to-be bride. They exchanged wedding vows on August 4th. The newlyweds were 29 years of age, gainfully employed, and seemingly settled into a good life.
Tony Kombol in front of the home he built, 1914. The home still stands at 27521 S.E. 271st St., Ravensdale, WA 98051.
A few days before their nuptials, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Then France and Germany declared war against each other setting in motion the start of World War I. Had Tony still lived in Croatia, he would have been drafted as Austria mobilized. By the war’s end, 20 million lay dead with another 21 million wounded. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles created a new country called Yugoslavia, meaning South Slavs, formed from Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Montenegro.
Fifteen months later, on November 16, 1915, their happy home was shattered by a mine explosion that claimed 31 miners’ lives. The Ravendale tragedy was the third worst coal mine disaster in Washington state history. The mine was utterly destroyed by the deadly blast, and the company had little interest in reopening. Tony might have been lost as well if a blown fuse hadn’t crippled the hoisting machinery that brought coal to the surface, sending 100 miners home that morning.
Ravensdale mine explosion that killed 37 miners, Nov. 16, 1915.
Miners left Ravensdale in droves. With the abrupt termination of over 230 mining jobs, there was little value in the new home Tony had built for his bride. By 1920, Ravensdale’s population fell 75% to 187 residents. Most left town in search of new jobs.
To Arizona and Montana, then back to Washington
Tony left for Arizona the next month and Lulu followed a few months later, probably at the end of the school year, though enrollment had no doubt fallen precipitously. In Ray Arizona, Tony found work in the copper mines. The couple also saw the birth of their first child in June 1916, a baby boy they named Bernell. A year later Montana beckoned with yet another copper mining job and yet another baby this time a girl named Dana born in March 1918.
Looking for new opportunities Tony left for Alaska but stopped in Washington to see William Reese, the Northwest Improvement mine superintendent with whom he was friendly. NWI was the company Tony had worked for since coming to America. It was opening a new mine to be called Hiawatha, located about five miles east of Ravensdale. Tony agreed to join the effort. Since NWI had not yet moved homes to Hiawatha to house their employees, Tony took up residency in Durham. Lulu soon arrived and the following year so did their third child, Nola born in Aug. 1919.
As miners dug the tunnels and built the surface facilities to mine coal, NWI moved or built about 20 company houses in Hiawatha. Tony and Lulu’s fourth and fifth children, Jack and Nadine were born at home in July 1921 and August 1923. One of those Hiawatha dwellings became the family’s home for the next 50 years.
In a strange twist of fate, the Morris Brothers Coal Mining Company incorporated in Dec. 1921 and shortly thereafter purchased the entire town of Durham – the mines, bunkers, houses, and hotels. All of the large and extended Morris family who had lived and mined coal in the Pierce County town of Wilkeson since 1894 moved to Durham. With Durham less than a mile south of Hiawatha, it was inevitable that Morris and Kombol children would attend the same Selleck and Enumclaw schools and romp through the same neighborhoods.
A map of Durham with each Morris family home and the homes of miners identified. Some of the miners followed the Morris family from Wilkeson.
The Kombol family glided along smoothly on Tony’s wages from mining coal while Lulu, who had quit teaching after the Ravensdale disaster tended to five small children. But, 1925 threw the Kombol family a nasty curve ball. An errant dynamite shot exploded in Tony’s face blinding him completely and speckling his skin with tiny bits of coal. Though an operation partially restored his sight, he could no longer work in the coal mines but only perform chores around home. Tony became Mr. Mom to five children under the age of 10, while Lulu went back to work as a school teacher.
Times were tough but the Kombols soldiered on
Their Hiawatha home was small and located on land owned by Northern Pacific Railroad under a 99-year lease. The main floor measured just over 1,000 square feet with two bedrooms and a sleeping porch upstairs accessed through the back bedroom. There was a basement underneath with a barn in a field out back.
The seven family members shared rooms as the children grew to adulthood. They even welcomed relatives, like Rose Kombol who left Roundup, Montana, a small mining community where Tony’s brothers, John and Matt had relocated. Rose moved west at age 16 and worked at the nearby Durham Hotel, managed by Jonas and Maggie Morris, whose only son, George was a year older than Bernell Kombol. Rose later married Woodrow Gauthier, a logger and sawmill operator, whose partnership with his brother, Joe Gauthier employed Jack Kombol on numerous occasions during the 1940s and early 1950s.
Jack Kombol and Rose Kombol, planting a tree, 1939.
Times were tough as both the local coal mines and sawmills were subject to economic downturns when commodity prices fell. The 1929 stock market crash precipitated a Great Depression that persisted through most of the 1930s. Then in 1939, the Pacific States Lumber Company which owned the town of Selleck was unable to meet its financial obligations and saw all of its land, buildings, lumber, and railroad lines seized by the IRS for nonpayment of taxes.
The following year, former mill employees, Lloyd Qually Sr. and Gust Coukas bought the company out of bankruptcy for just $3,000, when no other bids were submitted. Qually and Coukas dismantled the mill buildings and salvaged the equipment. Later Lloyd Qually and his wife, Lucille, who taught school with Lulu, fixed up Selleck’s old company homes and rented them out. One of those Selleck dwellings became Jack and Pauline’s first home soon after their son, Barry was born.
Four of the five Kombol children graduated from high school, except Jack who quit during his junior year. In chronological order, Nola married Chester Fontana, Bernell married Helmie Sandberg, Dana married Frank Zapitul, Nadine married Joe Silversti, and Jack married Pauline Morris.
From which 11 grandchildren were born, all of whom were present when Tony and Lulu celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in early August 1964. Lulu, who went back to teaching after Tony’s mine accident, taught school for 44 years and didn’t retire until 1965, the year she turned 80. Tony passed away on Sept. 21, 1967, the end of a 53-year marriage. Collectively, the six Kombol couples logged 290 years of marriage.
Their 50th wedding anniversary. Seated: Dana, Tony, Lulu. Standing: Jack, Bernell. Kneeling: Nola, Nadine. Sunday, Aug. 2, 1964.
Less than a year after Tony’s death, Jack and Pauline Kombol with Barry, Bill, Jeanmarie, and Danica in tow, traveled to Europe for six weeks, including a six-day stop in Yugoslavia. The Kombols visited Jack’s relatives in Rijeka, Fuzine, and Pula, Croatia. A few weeks later, they traveled to see Pauline’s relatives in Chepstow, Abertillary, and Nant-y-moel, Wales.
Jack Kombol with his cousin, Stefica Roksandic in Pula, June 10, 1968.
Lulu survived Tony by nearly a decade. She moved out of the family home in early 1974, living her remaining years with daughter, Nola whose husband Chester Fontana died in April 1971. Barry and Cathy Kombol moved into that Hiawatha home in May 1975 with their recently born daughter, Meaghan.
To My Family
After moving to the Lake City home where Nola had lived since 1940, Lulu began writing her autobiography. “To My Family” was published on Aug. 27, 1974, her 89th birthday. Lulu passed away on January 19, 1977, at the age of 91.
Thirty-four years later in 2011, her grandson, Bill Kombol obtained the original transcript of the memoir from Nadine. On passages written about her father, Lulu scribbled out everything she’d written after receiving an official government document that William Shircliff completed where he failed to list her as his child.
Bill’s extended version was nearly twice as long as the original. It also included 61 detailed footnotes and 26 photos of Lulu. A nearly identical version (without photos) of Lulu Kombol’s “To My Family – Extended Version” appears on the Washington state history site, HistoryLink.org.
The Kombol family assemble in Renton for Bill & Jennifer’s wedding reception. Front row kneeling, L-R: Angie Beck, Brendan Kombol, Nolan Kombol, Cara Kombol. 2nd row seated: Eric Brough holding Kyle Brough, Jeanene Brough, Pauline Kombol holding Miranda Lewis, Nadine Silvestri, Dan Silvestri, Corre Kombol, Joe Silvestri holding Lindsey Brough. 3rd row standing: Nola Fontana, Meaghan Kombol, Bernell Kombol, Helmie Kombol, Todd Kombol, Karrin Kombol, Bill Kombol, Jennifer Kombol, Darlene Fontana, Jeff Kombol, David Lewis, Danica Kombol in front of Gerry Beck, Cheryl Beck, July 28, 1990.
Tony & Lulu’s Story was adapted from the eulogy I read at Aunt Nadine’s funeral in October 2019. – Bill Kombol, Sept 21, 2023
With my wife, Jennifer and son, Oliver in Reagan Dunn's office shortly after the presentation.
Chair Upthegrove and Members of the Council –
Approaching the lectern to address the King County Council.
Way back in the fall of 1970, before several of our Councilmembers were even born, I was a high school senior in my hometown of Enumclaw. I’d enrolled in the Humanities course taught by Mr. Worthington. He provided a good introduction to higher education.
During our section on ancient Greece, Mr. Worthington suggested that much of Greek philosophy dealt with answering four basic questions:
Who am I?
Where did I come from?
Where am I going?
What is the meaning of life?
He advised that we needn’t write these questions down as we’d be answering them for the rest of our lives. That this particular high school lecture stuck with me is no doubt part of the reason I’m standing before you today – thankful for this award to which I was nominated by Councilmember Dunn, and appreciative of our shared passion for exploring and preserving the historical past.
Studying history is always about asking questions. How did this award come to be named for Martin Luther King? Why am I standing before a council of nine rather than three or 13? When was this Courthouse built? Who owned the land beneath it before 1851?
Did you know that if you go back just 20 generations in your family tree, about 600 years, there will be over one million couples whose actions led to your creation? And if you add the 19 generations in between, your mom and dad, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so on, the total is 2.1 million humans who unwittingly conspired to see you born.
Ponder that for a moment – an unscripted series of fate and chance, dates and rejections, marriages and divorces, unplanned births and sibling deaths. Yet through it all, those 2.1 million people survived to procreate and punch their DNA ticket to the next generation. How many saints and scoundrels, peasants or princes do we count among our ancestors? Where indeed did we come from?
Malcolm Muggeridge, an English journalist once claimed that “All new news is old news happening to new people.” The teacher in Ecclesiastes put it more simply, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” What both were trying to say is that it’s all happened before. But, what makes current news so fascinating in our lives is that it’s happening to us!
And George Orwell observed that, “Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before, and wiser than the one that comes after.” So it is a remarkable time we find ourselves in with Artificial Intelligence threatening to supplant the human brain, while some speak as if they represent the wisest generation humanity’s ever known.
This is why I view the past with a healthy dose of humility. As John Stewart sang, recalling forgotten generations in his song, Mother Country, “They were just a bunch of people doing the best they could.” Maybe that’s who we are.
So, I go forward with thankfulness – for the parents who loved me, the aunts and uncles who guided me, the friends with whom I played, the teachers who taught and inspired, the mentors who encouraged, the jobs that tested me, and for those who corrected my errors. And to my wife, Jennifer for the gift of children, as we now count ourselves among those 2.1 million ancestors who came before our three sons.
And I’m thankful for a previous Council who had the wisdom to rename our county after Martin Luther King, and relegate Rufus to the historical footnote that befalls most vice presidents. And a heartfelt thanks to this body for your support to historical preservation, archive retention, the Association of King County Historical Organizations, local museums, and the 4 Culture funding that benefits them all.
I didn’t realize it when composing my remarks, but the Martin Luther King, Jr. quote I chose to conclude my remarks appeared on the back of my new medal.
In his new biography of Martin Luther King, Jonathan Eig speaks of King’s Radical Christianity upon which his dream was built. So I end with a quote from our county’s namesake, that might be the answer to the queries those ancient Greeks were looking for. Here’s how King put it, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is this: ‘What are you doing for others?’”
Below is the video of my June 13 speech before the King County Council:
And next is a short broadcast produced by Kimberly Hill and Brian Starr for King County TV, as I showcase Black Diamond, Sherrie Evans, and the rich history preserved at its museum.
And finally, links to an Enumclaw Courier-Herald news story and the column, When Coal Was King:
Translates to “Some impressions of Japan” (I think).
A short trip to a foreign county is hardly enough exposure to develop a well-informed understanding of the culture. But impressions require no such universe of knowledge. Here’s what I found remarkable during our family’s 12-day trip through the land of the rising sun. My reflections on Japan are based on a limited sample size and special purpose: five cities (Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Hofu, and plus Osaka), plus one excursion to the country (Mt. Fuji), all within the context of a family vacation for sight-seeing and pleasure.
Before discussing Japan, first I must confess the most fabulous aspect of our family’s trip – an incredible job undertaken by our travel agent, Jennifer. My lovely wife not only coordinated travels arrangements for five people from three locales (Seattle, L.A., Hofu), she also booked every hotel, obtained rails passes, secured portable Wi-Fi (a brilliant addition!), planned each day’s events, and saw that we sampled a dozen different styles of Japanese cuisine.
She even mastered some Japanese language and could navigate twisting streets of uncertain names written in characters that no one could decipher. Jennifer acted as a personal concierge to four semi-competent Kombol males, a herculean task in and of itself. Every observation I offer is only made possible because I could literally show up for each day’s pleasures. She must have been a tour guide and booking agent in a prior life . . . because she’s perfected that role in this one.
The Japanese country and its people are busy. Trains, buses, and subways run on time and with incredible frequency. Seemingly everyone is working, going somewhere, or engaged in commerce. Idleness was not apparent. Efficiency was ubiquitous. The trains and subways were a wonder. Polite and uniformed workers were everywhere carrying out their repetitive tasks with attention to detail and great respect for their job. On station platforms, rail workers bowed to each passing car. Not once or casually – but each time for every car – with genuine bows of reverence!
To me, the stations seemed a frenzied and impossible labyrinth for a blind or wheelchair-bound person to navigate. But, whenever I saw someone disabled come off a train or subway, as if by magic a Japan Rail or subway worker appeared, wheeling or walking their challenged passenger through the haze and hyperactivity to their next train or out of the station.
Japanese rail stations were always clean and efficient.
The overall transportation system was a marvel. There were no fare-jumpers or cheats as watchful station masters kept attentive eyes on turnstiles. Ticket pricing was an economist’s dream – the further you go the more you pay. There was no ‘dumbed-down’ one-fare for all nonsense. It was a bit confusing at first, but soon you figured out the system at easy-to-navigate automated ticket kiosks. Insert coin, select fare, print, and off you go.
There’s no ‘free lunch’ on Japanese trains, but tourists can get pretty close to one by purchasing a Japan Rail Pass, which of course my economical wife secured. However, you must purchase them outside the country and then produce a train full of documents (passports, etc.) before they’re validated. Japanese Rail officials won’t even allow tourists to scam their system.
Everywhere there was economic activity – factories buzzed, shops marketed, restaurants served, street vendors hawked, and entertainment venues entertained. There was even a mechanized factory in a railway station: a workshop making cheesecakes of the jiggly variety. Yes, this was a cheesecake factory, but not a chain restaurant of the same name. A staff of 10 or 12 worked behind glass walls busily producing one cheesecake after another as patrons lined up 30 or 40 deep. They sold as fast as they were baked, logo-stamped, boxed, and ready to go – about one every 30 seconds.
Putting the finishing logo touch on a jiggly cheesecake, baked in a factory in a busy Osaka rail station.
Outside one of our hotels near a rail station stood a small factory of unknown manufacturing, where each morning scores of employees punched time cards at the street entrance. I had no idea what they produced but it was a beehive of activity in an area smaller than a city block. On train rides, you saw literally hundreds of businesses just like that one. But one could only guess what they were making or creating.
Many stores had stacks of items outside their establishments in streets so busy that hundreds passed every few minutes. Yet, no shopkeepers or guards were thwarting sticky shoplifting hands. In fact, there was no evidence of theft even though it would have been impossible to catch even a slow-walking thief on those busy sidewalks. My son, Oliver said there are very high levels of honesty and trust in Japan. If you hand a shopkeeper a 10,000 yen note (about $100), there’s no worry about getting back anything except your exact change. I saw pride in almost every service worker. You could really feel it.
City streets were almost devoid of litter as were the rail stations and platforms. This has to be the cleanest and tidiest country I’ve ever visited. Yet garbage cans on street corners were rare. You were expected to carry your garbage with you until it could be disposed of properly. There was almost no graffiti anywhere, except for a few instances in the westernizing city of Osaka. Several times I saw shopkeepers wiping and polishing their garage-style doors that close each night. In most cities, such doors are uniformly gritty and dust-stained.
A little girl poses at the Hachiko statute in Shibuya district of Tokyo, one of the world’s busiest.
We didn’t see any homeless people and on only one or two occasions saw a ranting crank or psychotic. Throughout Japan people were well dressed, many exceedingly so. You’d search in vain for the slovenly clothed dude in cargo shorts and stained hoodie. In fact, almost no one was poorly dressed. The vast majority appeared sharp and refined. There was very little logo sports ware of any kind, the fan uniforms and team colors pervasive in Washington on any blue Friday or Seahawk Sunday. Many women wore skirts and heels while men, even young ones dressed with style. Certainly, in smaller cities such as Hofu, the attire was less upscale, but smartly-dress people were still the norm.
Tattoos and facial piercings were almost nowhere to be found. Pink, purple, or green hair was a rarity. Students wore uniforms on school days – typically blazers, slacks, sweaters, and ties for boys, and skirt / sweater combos for girls. Most all restaurant and store workers wore matching uniforms. Taxi drivers and service workers were outfitted in snappy uniforms. Every taxi cab driver seemed destined to play the role of English butler – polite, discrete, and reserved – without exception each was a Japanese man between the age of 50 and 70.
A typical Japanese taxi driver.
The populace looked very healthy. Skin complexions were generally clear, with abundant examples of beautiful skin. At the risk of being offensive, almost no one was overweight with trim, svelte figures the order of the day. It didn’t matter if they were young or old – most everyone favored a trim, lean body. Wondering if my observations were biased I checked obesity rates by nation and sure enough, Japan had the lowest of any developed country – one-tenth of that in the U.S. (3.7% vs. 38.2%).
Fear of germs is a big deal. And this was before Covid. Perhaps one in twelve Japanese sported a surgical face mask, particularly in crowded cities. I suppose with that many people packed tightly on subways, trains, buses, and shopping centers, it probably makes sense.
Now obviously there’s a cost for everything and Japan is not a cheap date. Our exchange rate was a little better than 100 yen to the dollar making price calculations and comparisons easy. If you didn’t get your coffee from fast food or convenience stores, prepare to pay $5 for a cup, even in tiny joints, you wouldn’t think to be expensive. Typical subway fares were $2.50 each way, but the farther you went the more you paid. Some meals were reasonable, but places such as steakhouses and sushi houses were very expensive. Overall, if one was mindful of your dining budget, there was very good food to be had at $10 to $16 per meal.
One of the more incredible things to an American hooked on credit and debit cards was how many restaurants and independent establishments accepted only cash. If you’re not packing real cash money, you may not be eating in Japan. One thing to remember if you ever visit – there’s no tipping, in fact, it’s considered rude and insulting in most situations.
There were some surprises – hotel rooms weren’t that pricey given the excellent quality and service. In fact, rooms in the smaller city of Hofu were downright cheap at $70 per night in a very pleasant, well-staffed, multistory, APA Hotel. And Kyoto was less than $115 per night at an inn with river views, kitchens, and washing machines. Plus, the hotel staff was always neatly dressed and very helpful. One interesting phenomenon during hotel stays; at each check-in, passports are demanded, processed through a scanner, and returned. I suppose it isn’t surprising Japan has one of the lowest illegal immigration rates in the industrialized world.
One special treat for travel in Japan is heated toilet seats, almost everywhere, even in public restrooms. Other bidet pleasures await the clean of bottom, but I’ll refrain from further detail in deference to propriety. Plus, almost every bathroom we encountered, both public and private was clean, tidy, and well-maintained. Once again, there was no ugly graffiti defacing stalls or walls.
The temple at Kinkaku-ji near Kyoto called the Golden temple.
They say that Japanese are Shinto at birth, Christian at marriage, and Buddhist at death. The marriage business is a very big deal with several floors at larger hotels devoted to wedding facilities, reception rooms, and assorted services for brides and grooms. Throughout the country, there are both Shinto and Buddhist temples, but it’s hard for Westerners to distinguish the differences. As best I could tell from my limited reading and studies of religion, Shinto is essentially a nationalist form of Buddhism. But, wherever we went, whether it be Shinto or Buddhist, the temples were well-cared for and revered by large numbers of visitors.
Suffice to say, we loved Japan. I liked the people, the culture, the beauty, and the experience. It’s an amazing country that seems to be prospering despite news stories that bemoan its aging population and stagnating economy. Apparently, the elderly Japanese must live out in the country, because we saw mostly young and middle-aged people, busily going about their lives in every city. Certainly, there were older Japanese (particularly taxi cab drivers), but it sure seemed like a young and vibrant country from my observations.
My overall impression of Japan is a country of proud people with much to be proud about. I suspect they’ll keep it that way.
The five Kombols: Spencer, Bill, Jennifer, Oliver, and Henry in Fujiyoshida (near Mt. Fuji) on Christmas Day, 2017.
