One Winter.....

 

There are times in our lives that stick with us and other times that just slip away.  Today I’m thinking about the time when I failed my draft physical and, with $124 in my pocket, ran off to Hawaii to visit friends.  It was the winter of 1971 - 1972 and I still remember what we did, what we ate, what we drank, what we listened to and who we hung out with.  Here are a few of those memories.

My friends Irv and Emma were living in a 3-story cinder block apartment in Waipahu shared with a guy named Dave and a few geckos.  The geckos had the run of the place and chirped at night but were seldom seen.  When I expressed concern about sleeping with a bunch of lizards they told me that in Hawaii I could either sleep with Geckos or with cockroaches and scorpions.  The apartment was located just a block off the Farrington Highway on the corner of Leonui and Leokane.  It could be said that we weren’t in one of Oahu’s garden spots.  Low metal buildings, barb wire topped fences, wrecked and abandoned cars everywhere.  Irv and Dave were in the Navy and about to be discharged, Emma had a part-time job at a natural food store across the highway and I had a roof over my head until I ran out of money. 

My Descent Into a Life of Crime

I suspect that even the most hardened life-long serial criminal looks back and regrets some choices that they made, people that they hurt and costs that they incurred.  Maybe they think about the circumstances that led them to commit their first crime.  Did it happen by accident or intent?    Were there social, economic, educational, parental or peer influences driving them?  What about drugs and alcohol?  Were they simply fated to live outside of the law? 

It was different for me. 

None of those things drove me to commit my first of many crimes.  Had I been born a century earlier criminologists of the time might have struggled to understand my behaviors.  How was it that this semi wholesome-looking freckled-face boy with a normal sized head with right-sized jaw and ears had been compelled to such behaviors.  It’s true that I was small for my age and, given nothing else to go on, they might have been left with that to explain my miscreant tendencies.  But there was something else.

I don’t think that anybody ever figured it out, but I could have told them if they had asked because I can clearly remember the exact moment when I formed the intent of transforming myself into a lawbreaking malefactor and menace to society.  Overnight I became a juvenile delinquent with a determination to break the law, inconvenience, disappoint and hurt loved ones, be a bad influence on friends and lose the respect of peers.  I became “that kid” that parents warned their children to stay away from.  I became known to the Seattle Police Department who seemingly watched for me to commit my next crime.

The Almost Famous Collection

Originally published 12/22/22

Leslie Conway Bangs

Courtesy of San Diego Reader 

If you read rock journalism during the ‘70’s you were probably equal-parts delighted, astounded and repulsed by the writings of Lester Bangs.  His opinionated demeanor was established as a child when his Mother pushed him to become a Jehovah’s Witness and bolstered by his successful campaign to refuse to dress for PE class.  Being much smarter than the average bear and a pushy bastard to boot he was described by some as America’s Greatest Rock Critic while others considered him a drunken buffoon.  The man spoke his own truth no matter how badly it hurt to read and though he spoke his truths of others he kept his insecurities and self-truths to himself. 

In the 2000 movie, “Almost Famous”, Cameron Crowe gives his own semi-autobiographical account of his life as an aspiring 15 year old rock journalist on assignment for Rolling Stone Magazine and we are introduced to Lester who is masterfully played by Philip Seymour Hoffman.  As Lester mentors young William (Cameron) he breaks character and shares some of his insecurities when he says:

“We are uncool and though uncool people don’t tend to get the girl, being uncool can help you develop a little spine.  It’s too easy out there for the handsome and the hip. —Their work almost never lasts.  The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you are uncool.”

Those words rang out to me and I realized that many of my stories share self-deprecating accounts of my own uncoolness or attempts to cast my truths in a more favorable light making me, in the words of Lester Bangs, a very wealthy man.  With that said, I welcome you to explore this collection of short (and some not-so-short) vignettes which I have called the Almost Famous Collection. 

Go ahead and click on the “Almost Famous” tab above.  I have lots of material to add.  

 

Test Pattern

 Originally published 7/12/21

We weren’t the first of families to own a TV set.  They were novelties then and whenever relatives were together, if a TV was available, we would gather and watch.  There wasn’t much in the way of programming at the time.  Whatever the programming was it was in black and white and I don’t recall channel choices during the ‘50’s in Kansas. 

I do recall sitting on the floor in front of the TV before the Saturday broadcasting began staring at the test pattern that featured the Indian Chief and listening to that test tone.  My God, the anticipation of staring at that image while having that unwavering low fidelity tone blast through my head.  It was divine in such an unacceptable way by today’s standards.  In order to distract kids during the pre-programming test pattern period some crafty entrepreneur packaged up a clear vinyl film with a few crayons and sold them to frazzled Mom’s.  We had one.  The film was pressed onto the screen where we would “color” the test pattern.  The crayon could be wiped off of the vinyl with toilet paper so every day the Indian chief could be a different color.  Of course, you couldn’t get too imaginative because there were only 5 color crayons. 

The Lagoon

 

This image of Duck Bay is dated c1953 by the University of Washington Botanical Gardens.  I’m thinking it’s March because the first leaves are fleshing out on the Willows but the other deciduous trees are still bare.  There are no leaves on the ground and the invasive Blackberry bushes are dried and bare.  That one guy with the incredibly ugly short sleeve shirt is carrying his coat so I assume that the temperature isn’t too cool.  He was probably a UW jock with no sense of style.  

2021 – Same View 70 Years Later

Welcome to “The Lagoon”.  Located near the north end of the University of Washington Arboretum it is part of a series of connected bays and waterways that were envisioned by the Olmsted Brothers in the early 1900’s and constructed through filling, grading and dredging in 1939. 

1939 - MOHAI - 7375

In the mid-‘50’s through the early-‘70’s the shoreline was clear and the grass was finely coiffed by the Arboretum Maintenance Team.  

The original image predates my Montlake arrival but only by a few years.  The shoreline of “The Lagoon” near the Broadmoor North Gate looked like that in my first Montlake memories and up into the early 1970’s.  As kids, we didn’t know or care that this space between “Duck” and “Willow Bays” had been mostly created by garbage landfill and the deposit of spoils from dredging, grading and compacting that had shaped the lagoons and made this garden for us. 

It was just a very cool part of our territory that we used year-round and valued a great deal.  It didn’t matter about the season.  Ice skating (falling through the ice), rafting, rowing, paddling, swimming, fishing or just hanging out.  We could and did do it all.  It was our paradise.  We were kings and queens of the realm. 

Looking back, one of the experiences of Montlake that I love is shown in this photo and it is the men of color who are fishing and remembering the time I spent with them.  I had come from a place that was totally segregated and, while Montlake wasn’t the perfect melting pot, I could still choose to be with other races and religions.  

c1953 - University of Washington Botanical Gardens - crop

Do you see that man in the lawn chair?  He’s the guy that I would sit down next to and talk about fishing, bait, seasons, etc..  I could have probably talked to him about anything, but I didn’t know how to.  Still, we would sit together for hours and talk or not.  Maybe I was being tolerated because I was just an entitled white kid, but I really learned from him and enjoyed his company. 

It was a man like him who I trusted to teach my young niece (Sue Ann) how to catch Night Crawlers.  On summer nights he would be out at West Montlake Park after the sprinklers had shut off catching worms to fish with in the morning.  Those worms were fast and hard to pull out of the ground without damaging.  He showed us how to sneak up on them.  He coached us to use a drop of airplane glue and a touch of sand on our thumb and index fingers so that we could increase our grip while applying less pressure on the worm.  He said that we should try to find two worms mating and grab them both.  He taught us that we might have to hang onto them for five minutes or more until they contracted and then pull a bit more of them out of the ground.  Little by little until they could no longer grip the soil.  He said that landing great bait was like landing a great fish.  It took patience, practice, time and tools, in that order. 

Sue, being so small, would sometimes grab them with both of her tiny hands and apply the lessons learned. She would be on her knees in the wet grass hanging on for dear life while our mentor's smiling face could be seen in the glow of the flashlight, encouraging her and beaming like a proud Grandfather.

The Gerrick Residence

 

Google Earth

The Gerrick Residence is located at 2208 E McGraw.  It is somewhat unique for Montlake as it is one of only twelve American Foursquare homes in the entire neighborhood.  Built in 1909 it was the second permanent home constructed in Pikes 2^nd Addition to Union City and it might be the fifth permanent home in Montlake, period, but there were four other houses built that year.  So, it is somewhere between the fifth and nineth house in the Montlake Neighborhood.  The 2 ½ story home is listed at 3690 square feet and has 5 bedrooms. 

Copyright City of Seattle

Imagine what it was like when the house was new and McGraw Street was just a slippery dirt road.  The area was thick with second growth trees and you were living out in the sticks.  At the bottom of the hill was 24^th N where a streetcar ran and the sidewalk was partially in place.  It took you just 15 minutes to walk to the south gate of the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition.  On the way you crossed the new bridge over the Log Canal and you passed no other homes, only buildings associated with the Log Canal operations or some dilapidated buildings that sat between the canal and where Roanoke would be pressed up against the foot of Montlake Ridge.  By 1912 the only addition was a single brick house at the corner of 22^nd and Roanoke.  Any kids living in Montlake who wanted to play in the woods didn’t have to go to the Ravine or the Arboretum.  They just stepped outside of their front door and they were there.  

1909 - UWDC - SEA1402

When I was in grade school my friend Bennett Minton lived in that house and I was in it a few times.  The front porch ran across the width of the house and around the southeast corner, Under the porch was a root cellar with an earthy smell and dusty wooden shelves holding glass canning jars.  At the top of the stairs on the second floor was a landing with doors leading off in all directions to multiple bedrooms.  It was a really cool house that seemed bright and airy but I only had my own Calhoun Street house to judge by. 

Copyright City of Seattle

In the 1930’s and early 1940’s the house was owned by Ruby Burshia and five bedrooms were more than she needed so she rented them out as room and board.  My favorite ad was in the August 22, 1940 edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer where she hoped to attract male tenants with the draw being meals prepared by a French Chef.  Classy.

NewsBank

 

Memorabilia

 

Digging through a junk drawer I found a collection of old stuff that was once important to me.  Each item has a story, of sorts, and tells a tale about some part of my younger life. 

Take the Cub Scout badges, for instance….I don’t remember what each one was for but I did achieve Webelos which meant that I matriculated to the rank of Tenderfoot in Boy Scouts.  I mostly enjoyed Cub Scouts in spite of the uniform requirement.  It was fun with the exception of going door-to-door selling Clamorama tickets.  I hated that.  I was keen about advancing to Boy Scouts but that turned out to be something that I really wasn’t suited for and, though I wasn’t kicked out, I ended up leaving under a cloud due to actions and circumstances that are disagreed upon by all parties to this very day.  That little square silver box holds the Boy Scout ring that I took off my finger on the day I left.

People were always giving me pocket knives.  I have a ton of them and I can’t recall the who or why on most but that red knife is special.  When I was in the first grade I talked my parents into buying it for me at Sears Roebuck in Wichita.  I couldn’t believe that they actually did it.  Being given stuff that we didn’t need was out of the norm.  Look closely and you will see Roy Rogers and Trigger on it.  Dale didn’t make the cut and if she had I wouldn’t have wanted the knife.  I always thought that she was bogus.  In retrospect so was Roy.  I mean that pair dressed like Liberace.  I broke the end of the large blade off carving my name into our chicken coop.

The green things are Heinz Pickle Pins that were featured during the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair at the Heinz exhibit where you could push a little button and a pin or two dropped into a tray.  There was usually a mob of kids waiting their turn and a Pickle Pin Monitor dressed in a green blazer making sure that each kid only got to push the button once.  I went there one day and there was no mob of kids and no pickle monitor.  Out to lunch I guess so I cranked out a whole lot of those pins because I could trade them for gum, candy, a decent used Duncan Imperial, several packs of strings or cigarettes.  As you can see I only have 9 left.  What do you want to trade me?

That brass tag belonged to our dog, Ace.  It’s his rabies tag from Wichita.  Ace was a good dude and my best and only brother. 

That silver thing “north east” of Ace’s tag is one of those tiny cigarette lighters.  They were highly valued by some kids (including me) and came in gumball-type machines in a little clear round plastic case.  Seems like those machines might have cost $25 a try and I spent a few dollars before I finally got one.  It was really exciting when I finally saw it drop but it was very disappointing as a lighter.  Poor performance, no wind protection, leaked in your pocket and that irritated the skin.  Leakage meant that it was always out of fluid and wouldn’t light, you had a scab on your leg and that you always smelled of lighter fluid and Bactine.

The little knife in the scabbard was something that I purchased in a souvenir shop.  I don’t recall where but probably the Roadside Geyser, Estes Park, The Big Well, who can remember?  Some family vacation someplace.  Originally it had a white plastic pearl handle but I thought it looked a bit wussy so I colored it black with a felt pen. 

 That shiny rectangle is my dog tag from Jesse Chisolm Elementary School in Wichita.  All kids were required to wear them to aid in potential body identification after the Russians dropped the bomb.  Note that it lists religion and blood type in case you were still alive.  I wonder if Atheist was an accepted choice in those days?  We lived in fear.

Hair Sins and Punishment

 

While some may blame their male pattern baldness on genetics I can say, with a great degree of certainty, that mine is due to some twisted penance that I am serving for some of the various hair-related sins that I committed in my youth.  Perhaps my parents are to blame for being too permissive and allowing me to choose my own style and comb my own hair.  A quick review of grade school class photos suggests that my classmates hair was combed by their Mothers by confirming that nobody else  sported a “Forward-Combed Flat-Top with Fenders Boogie” hairstyle.  It sure isn’t what any Mother would have preferred if choosing.  I remember that there were at least 2 or 3 products involved in the creation of my masterpiece and I recall thinking that I had really gotten the dance started as the girls couldn’t keep their hands out of it. 

Being desperate for attention I maintained that bad idea for far too long and by the time I realized that my individuality was a joke and needed to change I was in Meany Junior High and some guys were lightening their hair with Hydrogen Peroxide.  Not to be outdone or fearing that I would rot in hell for committing another hair-sin I bleached the B-Jezzus out of mine.  Not a few streaks or a bit lighter, no.  I turned myself into a very light-colored towhead.  Just a tiny shade darker than white.  That worked for a while.

Strangely, there were no pictures taken of me during those times.  I wonder why? 

If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound? 
If there are no photos of my blonde hair-sin, did it ever happen? 
My baldness would argue that the answer to both questions is "yes".it did.

The Mark of Cain

 

You often hear folks say that they have a Love-Hate-Relationship with something or someone?  You know what I’m talking about.  Well, all of my life I have never felt the “Love-part” when it came to jockstraps.  Only hate and my hatred runs so deep that I find it difficult to refer to them by their Christian name of Athletic Supporter.  

My hatred started with confusion in the 3^rd grade when we were required to wear them to play organized baseball.  My Mom had to take me to the store to get one and I didn’t really know what we had gone to pick up.  She called it an athletic supporter so I was expecting something cool like a new baseball glove or a hat or something.  I had never heard of an athletic supporter and up until that point in my life “jock strap” was just a derogatory phrase we used when we needed something bad to call someone.  It was akin to calling somebody a butt-wipe.  Just a couple of words that, together, sounded funny and were used to describe somebody you didn’t like.   

 We started at Rhodes Department Store in University Village which was our go-to at the time for most needs but Rhodes wasn’t a giant in team sports.  They didn’t carry serious sporting goods, but they did have a Scouting Department where my Cub Scout Uniform and badges had come from.  Mother must have figured that scouts might find athletic supporters useful for their activities like selling Clamorama tickets, practicing knot tying and making plaques of the scout oath out of alphabet pasta.  Whatever it was it had something to do with playing baseball so I was all in. 

I’m the “little feller” with the tight jockstrap grimacing in the front row

We approached a dowdy sales lady who was folding scarves and Mother asked her if they carried athletic supporters.  The lady looked surprised and smiled down at me and said “Now who would be needing that?  Is this your son?  Is it for him?  How cute.  I don’t think they come that small but I’ll check with Mr. Mosley” and with that she waddled off.  I was really confused now and accustomed to taking the smallest size of everything but I was sensitive to people calling me small.  It was true that I was embarrassingly short and hated being reminded of the fact.  It had been the cause of many fights in my short life and I was toying with the idea of punching that lady out.  

Mrs. Dowdy returned with Mr. Mosley who was a gangly man dressed in brown rumpled slacks, a wrinkled, soup-stained striped shirt and a crooked necktie.  He had used one of those skinny half-knots guaranteed to crook a tie that was favored by those who couldn’t master the Windsor Knot.  I mean, I was just a third grader, but I knew how to tie a Windsor Knot and this was the father of one of my classmates, Howie, who I considered a semi-butt-wipe.  By his appearance and his offspring I took Mr. Mosley as someone who had, no doubt, been called “butt-wipe” many times in his life, but what did I know?  He looked down at me and laughed saying “What does this little feller need a jockstrap for”? 

Now bear in mind that as far as I knew a “jockstrap” was just a derogatory name and he had also called me little.  He considered me a little-jockstrap and he had said it out loud.  That took me right to the boiling point and I was figuring that I could put him down quickly by punching him squarely in his nuts which happened to be at the perfect height for me to administer a kill shot.  With him down I would turn on the “Dowdy Scarf Lady” who was snickering at me and the whole situation.  Neither one had any idea who they were messing with.  Luckily for both of them Mother knew and when I tensed and clenched my fists she put her hand firmly on my shoulder to hold me back.  Then Mr. Ass-wipe said, “Actually we do have one just his size” and with that he disappeared into the back room which saved him from a serious beating. 

When he returned, he had this small flat box with an “Ace” logo and a photo of the contents.  Since I was expecting a glove or a hat this added to my confusion.  Mr. Butt-wipe took it out of the box and held it up for all to see before handing it to me.  Working without any clues my best guess was that it was either supposed to go around my waist or over my head.  Head gear, most likely, a nose guard perhaps, but which way was it worn and for what purpose?  I had never seen a baseball player with one on his head but thought it possible that it attached to the inside of a hat, but why?  By the grace of God, I hesitated before pulling it over my head and when Mr. Mosley told me to just pull it on over my jeans that sort of answered the question about where it was worn.  It was obvious that this thing was going to be too big, but Mother nodded at me signifying that I should put it on so I went into a dressing room and pondered which way it was worn.  Guard to the front or guard to the back?  My life was so complicated.

Finally, I stepped out on the salesfloor to the accompaniment of much snickering.  We had drawn the attention of other shoppers who were now smiling at me as well.  Mr. Mosley laughed out loud.  Picture a tiny third grader with a big floppy jockstrap hanging loosely over his jeans.  At least I had gotten it on with the “guard” facing forward.  I mean, there were no instructions on the box and I really didn’t know.  I had donned it with a 50/50 chance of success and had just gotten lucky.  

The Shortcut

I suppose that it was around 1958 when Pip and Terry introduced me to “The Shortcut”.  None of us knew that the shortcut to the Yacht Club was part of a historic Native canoe portage or the remains of a log canal being reclaimed by the urban jungle.  Speaking of urban jungles, I was fresh out of Wichita and amazed at the neighborhood wilderness that surrounded my new home.  We were just kids interested in shortcuts, swamps and being where, maybe, we shouldn’t have been.  

The shortcut started up at Montlake Blvd. and followed a rugged dirt road down to Portage Bay where a half dozen or so houseboats were moored.  The road was rough as there weren’t many cars associated with the houseboats, hence, it wasn’t maintained.  These houseboat dwellers were typical of the time as many lived a hand-to-mouth existence so cars were a luxury that few could afford.  The road was mostly used as a foot path for the houseboat tenants.  

The dock providing access to the houseboats was adjacent to a small cove that had some wooden refuse poking up out of the water.  We skirted the cove and crossed the water where it was shallow, using wood and steel debris or scrub willows where they allowed us to clamber over.  Once past the cove we came upon a “pond” close to the Fisheries Building and crossed a “dam” that separated the pond from Portage Bay.  The pond was surrounded by Willows that flourished and provided luxurious shade.   I recall the walkway over the “dam” as being no wider than about two feet.  

When SR-520 was built through the Canal Reserve things changed dramatically.  The dirt road, houseboats, pilings, the cove and pond were removed.  Fill was added for the freeway and for additional parking at the Fisheries Building pushing the shoreline about 200 feet out into Portage Bay .  

As decades passed, I often thought about that shortcut, the houseboats, the mysterious debris and the urban Eden surrounding the pond adjacent to the Fisheries Building.  I pondered the origin of the rubble and what it had once been?  I assumed that it had been garbage fill but didn’t really know.  

Then, one day I was reading Don Sherwood’s history of West Montlake Park and it all fell into place.  I could look at old maps and photos with new eyes and parse old memories after I read:

“In 1929 the US Bureau of Commercial Fisheries was permitted to build a laboratory on the Old Canal property adjacent to the Yacht Club.  The Old Canal had never been filled in, except for Montlake Boulevard when the old bridge was removed.  So in 1932 Noble Hoggson, a landscape architect, proposed creation of an aquarium built in the “canyon” of the Old Canal adjacent to the new Fisheries laboratory.  It would have occupied the site of the old locks – by then lost in the jungle of trees and undergrowth.  Though highly endorsed, this plan never materialized”:  

Sounds of Summer

Most kids have secret places where they go to disappear and practice being themselves.  Comfortable places shared with a close friend or two but sometimes places to just be alone and take in the night air. 

During the late ‘50’s - early ‘60’s one of my places was the roof of Montlake Elementary School.  The 1924 school design was a typical Floyd Naramore (think NBBJ) design and consisted of a two story main building that housed classrooms, office, nurse’s station, etc., and a long single story western section that housed the Boy’s and Girl’s athletic courts and a large boiler room with coal bunkers.  

Floyd recognized that kids would be kids and that the southern exposure of that roof was low and a no-brainer point of assault for any curious youth.  He also acknowledged that those seriously overbuilt 2” steel pipe downspouts around the western section could be climbed by any halfway adventurous youngster so his design incorporated measures to thwart such assaults.  His drawings called for “Climbing Guards” to be mounted to protect all weak points. 

 

His Climbing Guard design consisted of 5/8” diameter downward angled spikes still visible over the Girl’s Gym.  They are daunting looking but flawed.  The scary-looking spikes were spaced to impale an adult-sized leg but a skinny athletic kid’s leg fit nicely between them.  It seemed easy and I guess that I have Floyd to thank for that or maybe the General Contractor who supplied the part. 

Duncan Comes to the Paper Shack

 

As a kid in Wichita it was a treat when the impeccably-dressed Duncan Top guy came to school to announce an upcoming contest and show us his tricks.  There was a concrete pad next to the school that faced out onto the dirt playground and this was where we all gathered to throw our tops.  He would just show up at recess and go through his tricks which were so far beyond what any of us could do.  Whoever could do the neatest trick would get his name engraved on the crown of his top.  The Duncan Guy would pull out his pocketknife and quickly carve the owner’s name in some exotic script.  He would tell us where to meet for the contest after school and it was always either outside of Tompkin’s Drug Store or Yost’s Grocery.  For the last trick he always did a version of “Walk the Tightrope” where the finale was flipping the top high into the air, opening one side of his coat and catching it in his inside pocket.  Sound familiar?   

As my top skills fell somewhere below the middle of the pack, I never got beyond doing more than three tricks without bleeding so I always attended the contests as a spectator.  The winners would get new tops that retailed for $0.25, the runners-up got their names engraved on the crowns of their theirs and Tompkins or Yost’s would make a few bucks selling new units, strings and 5 cent Marshmallow Root-beers.  Tops were available in any drug or grocery store in Wichita.  Nobody sold Yo-yo’s.  I had heard of them but had never seen one in my life.

Folly of Youth

 

Sometimes, it’s hard to explain my choices.  Especially some of the bad ones I made when I was young.  I suppose that I can write them off as the folly of youth but I have to wonder why it was important to me to commit such folly in the first place. 

For instance, once when I was in junior high school, I chose to walk through the Battery Street Tunnel.  The same tunnel, relatively new at the time, that was constructed to serve all of the north-south highway traffic through Seattle and it offered no provision for foot traffic.  For some reason it seemed like a good thing to do. 

At the time I sat third-chair French Horn for the semi-talented All City Orchestra which was mostly composed of young nerds who were accepting of their social limitations and resulting societal roles.  Homey didn’t play that, though, and I struggled to ignore my own limitations and chafed against the norms assigned by my relationship with that Horn in F.  I wanted to be cool and be identified as such so I rationalize that some of my poor choices were the result of trying to set myself apart from reality in the eyes of my very critical peers.

Memories From The Mint

 

1968 - Seattle Municipal Archives - 191827

It’s possible that “The Corner Market” building at 1^st Ave and Pike Street has been photographed more than most Seattle landmarks and while it is a respectable place now that wasn’t always the case.  Built in 1912 it featured open storefronts along the 1^st floor perimeter while the interior featured other food specialty businesses including the Pacific Poultry Company on the 2^nd floor.  At that time it was an altogether decent place to conduct business, do your shopping and to see and be seen.  

The Corner Market went into a steep decline during the ‘60’s just as I was coming into the labor market with only 20% of the space was being utilized.  Heck, all of 1^st Ave was pretty seedy and quite sporty then and I chose the Corner Market for my first job that didn’t involve newspapers or lawnmowers.  The open storefronts along 1^st Ave had been closed in to house the “Modern Barber College” (nationally accredited), “The Taco House” (specializing in fish and chips) and “The Mint Restaurant and Dollar Room” where I first started my long climb to retirement. 

Jumping From the Montlake Bridge

 

1975 – SMA – 179771

Sometime around the 3^rd or 4^th grade I made one of my life’s ambitions to jump off the Montlake Bridge.  I would walk out to the middle of the span and pull myself up on the railing far enough so that I could look straight down and revel in the butterflies that rose in my stomach, the patterns on the water, the toy boats passing below, the sound of the car tires rolling over the metal deck grating.  It seemed impossibly high but doable.  I may have been dumb and reckless, but I knew that swimming would be involved and since that was something I didn’t know how to do I got signed up to take lessons at the YMCA in downtown Seattle. 

Backing In at Big Southern Butte

Every year at this time I think about that hang gliding trip that I went on to Utah with Roger (Black Weasel), Dan (Dangerous Dan), Robbie (Mr. Natural) and his dog Kona (Frisbee Scumbag). My moniker was Jon Boy. That trip was full of brotherhood, adventure, chills and thrills. September spurs us to get in touch to reminisce and this year we ask ourselves, “Could it really have been 41 years ago today”? 

So many stories and new acquaintances came out of our time together and many of the pilots we met told us of amazing flights that were being had at Big Southern Butte in the Idaho desert. We had read stories about the place and knew that there had been some fatalities there but we always rationalized that pilots who died had done something stupid that we would avoid. Since Big Southern Butte wasn’t too far out of our way we decided to stop there and fly. 

Driving north beyond Pocatello we turned onto a secondary highway. It was dark and after a while we turned off onto a dirt road and followed it, dodging jack rabbits and potholes. I would guess that it took about an hour on that dirt before we came to Frenchman’s Cabin where we would crash for the night. All we could really see in the headlights was a ragged log cabin, and an even raggedier shelter for livestock, a couple of piles of junk and log fence. It had to be the place and we were beat so we grabbed our sleeping bags and started for the door. 

Pee Pee

  

September 15, 1971

So, this is a picture of me from 1971 riding a bike at the local “pit” down the street from where I grew up.  I had borrowed the bike from my friend, Gary Cook.  Take note of all of the responsible behaviors that I was modeling.  Helmets were not required so I was clearly following the law.  Skin coverings were a good idea but not required by law.  I didn’t care.  I was wearing my favorite jeans, weighing in at 155 pounds dripping wet, skinny as hell with the closest thing I would ever have resembling a “six-pack”.  But, this is where things start to unravel.  

Rock Critic Lester Bangs once said: “The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool.”  So, it’s time for me to fess up but you gotta promise not to mock me too much as I'm still scarred and sensitive.  

Winter Crucifixion

12/15/74 

Sometime in the early to mid-70’s I was skiing on a pair of 170 cm Kneissl Short Comps with Besser bindings.  It was during the market-driven short ski craze when short skis and freestyle encouraged bad technique.  If you were a type III skier you could either ski correctly (because you had a racing background or were from the East Coast) or you could try to emulate the latest freestyle weirdness.  I’m sure that there were things in-between but I wasn’t interested in them.  I was self-taught and too dumb to not be proud of that fact.  I had never raced and wasn’t good enough to overcome or accommodate the design-imposed limitations of conventional skis.  Consequently, I was drawn to the darkside.  The Siren's call included:

Royal Flying Christy

Back Scratcher

Daffy

Space Walk

Jet Turn

Slow Dog Noodle………..bad technique.  

One night at Ski Acres I came face-to-face with the co-mingling of bad gear and bad technique and lived to tell about it. 

The Government Stairs

 1/13/2006

In 1930 the city of Seattle put in a waterline that came down from Capitol Hill, through Interlaken Park, ran north under 22^nd Street to East Blaine and then up a steep 65’ ridge to the high point of the Montlake Neighborhood.  From there it continued north to serve communities beyond the ship canal.  Once the waterline was completed one of the city’s charming sets of public stairs was thoughtfully installed on that right-of-way. 

As a kid I had never heard them referred to as anything other than the Government Stairs though I guess their official name is the “Howe Street Stairs”  I still return to them and recall a cycling adventure that took place over a half a century prior. 

Kasie and I were out for a Father/Daughter bike ride sometime back when we found ourselves in the Montlake neighborhood.  She had heard most of my “Glory Days” tales before but this was the first time that we had visited this particular site where I had made my bones as a fairly major cycling stud to be reckoned with.  As we stood over our bikes looking down the Government Stairs I proudly related something that happened there about 60 years ago. 

Celebrating My Big 0-7

 Me and My Crew at My 7th Birthday

Well, mostly crew.  I’ll let you figure out which two didn’t qualify as “Crew” but who my Mom made me invite.  If you haven’t figured it out, I’ll just say that they are the only guys in the photo who were shorter than me and I’m the guy in the middle doing the Gangster Lean.  I bet that right now they are still wearing the same outfits while playing Bingo in a Florida retirement community, but I digress.

Little did I know at the time that a health crisis was unfolding in one of their homes and that my birthday party was providing a much-needed respite from worry.  You see, the non-crew attendee’s older brother was suffering from an affliction and the ultimate outcome was in the balance.