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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
