News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area
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It used to be that if you wanted to get the government’s help all you had to do was call U.S. Senators Warren Magnuson or Scoop Jackson. I did on numerous occasions, and they came through. A lawyer friend in Bothell had sponsored a Chinese couple and the man’s wife developed problems with her immigration status. She was born in Mainland China and fell under a different quota status. When my lawyer friend learned that I was going to be in Hong Kong, he asked me to check at the U.S. Consulate there and see what I could learn about her cur...
People that fly complain about how much time it takes to get to and clear security at the airport. Just getting to the airport can be just as difficult. I was staying at the Mandarin Hotel, which is located on Hong Kong Island. I had a fairly near flight departure and asked the guy at the desk to call a taxi for me. He explained that there were no taxis at that time, but the bicycle taxi people gathered at dawn at a location nearby, he said. Maybe I could get one there. You would think that one of the world’s prime hotels would have a better h...
I thought for most of my life that I would be a lumber grader. My training was initially at Potlatch Forests Inc., in Potlatch, Idaho, just nine miles from my home in Palouse. I had been there for four years and decided after I met my wife to leave PFI and move to southern Idaho. Dorothy was from Buhl, about 120 miles east of Boise. Of course, I needed work, so I found a job grading lumber in Gooding. The mill owners had a second mill in Fairfield, so I split some of my time there. If you know Idaho at all, you know how bad winters can be. The...
As a lad I had my heroes, and as time went on, I changed how I picked them. Golfer Ben Hogan was one of the early ones. He was severely injured in a car wreck. There was a question if he would walk again, and certainly he would never play tour golf again. About a year later, not only was he playing golf again, but winning. Joe Louis was another early hero. I listened to many of his fights along with my dad and mom, who tuned in to all his fights. Along with most boys, I saw Babe Ruth as a hero. He was out of baseball before I was old enough to...
I’ve mentioned before that cows are not my favorite animal. When I was just in my teens I lived on a farm. My Dad had some work horses and a cow. Had to handle the cow but not milk her. I couldn’t then, nor now, get a cow to give milk. I would take her down the road and stake her out so she could get fresh, green grass. That’s when I learned that cows have a mind of their own. Flash forwards a number of years to when I met my wife and would drive to southern Idaho to visit her. I would get off work at 5 on Friday and then drive the 500 miles...
When our youngest daughter was about 10, we bought her a horse. A real old cowboy lived about four blocks from us, and I got acquainted with him. His name was Homer. He lived in a small house on the edge of Bothell and had a two- to three-acre pasture that on occasion was home to a horse or two. While visiting with him one day, he suggested that I ought to buy Kim a horse. He said he would rent the pasture to me real cheap. I explained that I didn’t know anything about horses, only that they had four legs and a mane. He said he would help me p...
I have had a lot of odd jobs, spread out over the years. I don’t think I was in my teens yet when I took my first official job. I set pins in the Palouse bowling alley. I got 5 cents a line, not something I could get rich doing. A line of bowling took about 30 minutes, so you can see it wasn’t a great deal.This was before they got the racks you put the pins in. There were black circles painted and you were supposed to put the pins right on the painted circles. First you had to clear the down pins and then jump up on the retaining wall so the...
Palouse Pottery Company, founded in 1904, produced a ton of crock pots during the short time it was in operation. Currently, I am looking for my fourth Palouse Pottery piece so I can give it away. I don’t remember when or where I got my first piece, a gallon crock. Since I am from Palouse, I decided to try to find pieces of Palouse Pottery for each of our four children. I gave my first piece away, and while visiting Palouse a couple of years ago found my second piece. This one was a 10-gallon crock, and I bought it at a secondhand store on P...
This is about places I’ve been that would make my bucket list if I hadn’t. 1 - First would have to be my favorite vacation spot, Grand Teton National Park. Place to stay: Jackson Lake Lodge, on Jackson Lake. It has always been the top spot for moose watching, but it also is a hiker’s paradise. We took a boat across the lake and it dropped us off at a trailhead that wound its way between two of the mountain peaks. We had walked about a mile and when turning a corner in the path we ran into two bull moose that cautiously eyed us as if we shouldn...
I well remember the feeling when I heard the clang of the prison door at Walla Walla closing behind me. This needs some explanation. When I was with the newspaper in Bothell, I heard of some of the reforms at the state prison at Walla Walla. A call to the prison eventually led to a visit with warden Bobby Rhay. I told him I was interested in pursuing the reforms with a story, particularly the elected prison inmate council. He said if I wanted to come over, I could visit with him about the reforms and also meet with the prisoner council members....
We have had great luck with neighbors. Thinking back to our earliest days together, and up to the present time, we have always had good neighbors. Just recently, and after our latest snowfall, is a good example of good neighbors. I heard noise from outside and went to the door to look out, and there was Gasry Norris plowing out the end of my driveway. Gary is former owner of H&H Grocery and has a blade on the front of his pickup. Not only was Gary cleaning up our driveway but proceeded to go down the street and do other driveways. At the...
Long periods of open time have allowed me to get back to my stamp collection. I had a small collection as a child and then put it all behind me until later in life. My collection had been collecting dust until about six months ago when I pulled my albums out and took over the dining room table. The urge came on as I talked with our oldest son, Paul, who has a substantial collection. He was lucky enough to be able to purchase a large collection from a former postmaster. Stamps can be much more than something to lick and drop off at the post offi...
Our longest fire camp experience was near Prairie City, Oregon, a 21-day ordeal where our kitchen unit served 1,500 firefighters and support personnel. My wife and I worked a couple of seasons for OK Cascade, a Bothell company owned by the Keener family well known to us. The hourly pay was small, but we often got 50-60 hours of overtime a week. We would get a call from the company and immediately leave for our camp location. The workday started usually at 5 a.m. and ended between 10 and 12 p.m. Our rest break was brief, and we often had to...
As a kid, I loved the snow. In Palouse we got a lot of it. When it came down, I knew it was time to get out my Flexible Flier sled. The Fliers were the sleds of all sleds. When there was a good base, we would gather on North Hill and clear the side streets for the best sledding you could ever find. We would station someone, usually a parent, on each side street to divert traffic away from our hill run. The run from the top of North Hill was about 10 blocks, with the end being in the city’s main street. By the time the snow was packed, the r...
I have driven north and south and east and west in Kansas. I have searched over the two trips through there to see if I could remember one redeeming quality about the state. My first trip through the state was enroute to Kansas City, Missouri. It was in January and there was snow and black ice. It was a risky trip. The next time I ran through Kansas, it was summer, and I entered in the south and drove to the north on my way back home after a trip to the east coast. I have never met anyone who admitted being from Kansas. My two trips through...
I never could understand why a person in good health would choose not to work. Several times, as early as high school, I had more than one job at a time.There was a period in my junior and senior years in high school in Palouse when I had three jobs at the same time. It started by being fast at peeling potatoes at the Oasis Restaurant. A week later, the evening fry cook didn’t show up and I was made the fry cook. I already had a job six days a week running Darigold milk products to the door. Shorty Ransom was my boss, and we delivered to S...
When I lived in Bothell, I used to fly a lot in small planes. One of my friends, Phil Strathy, had a land plane, kept in Monroe. Another friend had a seaplane, kept on Lake Washington at Kenmore. About every month I would get a call from Phil wanting to know if I wanted to fly with him to someplace for lunch. The answer was always yes. Phil was the Darigold distributor for our area, and he was always interested in getting some flying time in. Usually, lunch meant about a three- or four-hour break. You can do this if you are the boss. One day...
I have only moved once in the past 55 years. When younger, we moved several times chasing college and job opportunities. We lived in Grand Coulee for a couple of years before moving on to Idaho where we spent seven years. When I told friends in Bothell that I was moving to Electric City, they asked why, as if I had done something wrong and was trying to avoid the consequences. We lived in Bothell for 25 years, all in the same house, and only a half mile from my work. It was an ideal situation, and then something happened. The roads got jammed...
A recent story of several elk being killed by motorists in Grand Teton National Park reminded me of the plight of our wild animals. I have visited the Teton area several times and recall the time that a herd of elk crossed the road in front of us, stopping traffic for a while. There were probably 100 elk, and it was a treat watching them. That motorists were careless to the point of killing several raises questions about drivers being alert when they are around our wild animals. I recall one time I was looking for moose droppings that I...
My sister Dorothy was the oldest in our family. After graduating from high school, she just stayed around home until WWII broke out. She lived to be 96 and never learned to drive. She went to Wapato to live with our aunt and worked in some related war effort job there. She met her husband, Wes, while there. They later married and, being in the army, he was reassigned to Jackson, Mississippi. He was there until the war ended and they moved on to New Jersey to live. A few years later, my sis talked her husband into driving west to see the...
We soon will celebrate Veteran’s Day. On the calendar it’s just for a day, but we celebrate our veterans 365 days a year. There’s hardly a family in the country that doesn’t have some ties to our military forces. My immediate family has ties to three military branches, army, navy, and air corps. My father was in the army during World War I, getting in as soon as he was old enough, rather late in the war. He spent most of his army time in Minneapolis, where he met and married my mother. My three brothers all served overseas in World War II. My...
Things are changing there also. Currently this restaurant in downtown Atlanta is closed to change its decor to get away from its Civil War decorations. The first thing a friend told me when he learned I was going to Atlanta for a weeklong conference: “Be sure to go to Pittypat’s Porch Restaurant.” Then, Atlanta was like stepping back into what is an era of unpleasant history. That’s why the restaurant is changing its theme and decor, going the way of most Confederate monuments. We were seated on the balcony overlooking the dining area while wai...
My brother David turned Texan on me. Of my three brothers, I was closest to Dave. He and I were both red headed when young and seemed to be more like our Norwegian mother than like our father. Shortly after he returned from serving in the air force in World War II, he moved to Texas. I visited him in Houston a number of times, but not just recently. He passed on a number of years ago. When I visited Texas it was always a relief when I left the state and entered into New Mexico. New Mexico never looked so good. I’ve heard it said that the U...
While in Thailand, I was lucky enough to pick up 3 that sell rubbings. One features two Thai women dressed in ancient Thai costumes. The other is a Thai warrior on an elephant. The two rubbings are about 17 inches square. Dennis King did the framing, his usual outstanding work. I didn’t get to see the actual rubbing, although you can catch it on the internet. My rubbings were done on rice paper, which is very flexible, but strong, and accepts ink well. They folded well and placed in my suitcase and when opened up were good as new. In Chiang Mai...
These airline incidents threaten the lives of everyone aboard. The other day a plane two hours out from a flight from Honolulu to Seattle had to turn around and go back because a passenger acted up and interfered with a flight attendant. They need to put a stop to this before there is a disaster. These people need to be on a no-fly list for all airlines, suffer a stiff fine, and look at a mandatory jail sentence. It has been a few years since I’ve been flying, but it would have been unheard of back then. It isn’t just airline passengers who bec...