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 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 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. 

Crime, Punishment & Vocabulary

 

I attended Montlake Elementary School in Seattle from 1957 - 1961.  It is a classic mid-1920’s Floyd Narramore design that, back then, served the children from the middle-class neighborhood. 

Third and fourth grade at Montlake were years marked by good classroom behavior on my part.  Being new to the neighborhood and the school I was focused on fitting in and my classmates helped me with that.  My third grade teacher, Mrs. Parsons, doted on me so I was very comfortable and really well behaved in class.  My report cards testified to that fact with notes such as: “Jon is a good citizen in class”.

Fourth grade introduced me to Miss Wolcott who was former WAC or some other branch of the military and she didn’t suffer fools gladly.  “Fear” would best describe my memories of her. She was severe and when someone acted up in class the whole classroom would have to go out on the playground and march military-style.  Girls learned to “dress-right-dress” along with the boys and nobody wanted to be the one whose horsing around caused the whole class to march in the rain. I behaved and while I never fit in to Scouting, I could sure look sharp standing at attention and marching on orders.

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.

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. 

The Last of the Portage Bay Log Booms

Written May 14, 2022 

Sofie Sarah Frye Bass was born in 1867 and was witness to much of Seattle’s earliest days.  Since she was a granddaughter of Seattle Founder, Arthur Denny, she was well connected, knew everyone in town worth knowing and probably was all up in everybody’s business.  By recording her observations, she brought to us some of the most revealing yet brief vignettes of life in early Seattle.  Her descriptions of growing up in the places we grew up in and where we walk today sometimes tell of great change and other times paint pictures of folks doing the same things that we did at the same places. 

In her book “When Seattle Was a Village” she talks about picnicking at the log canal at The Portage.  She says…….”Logs were then run through this channel.  We liked to picnic at the canal and watch logs float into the booms at Portage Bay, and when no one was looking, we ran and played tag on the logs”.  

1895 – MOHAI – Sophie and Her Sisters

Shirts and Skins

 

Behold the Montlake Pennant.  I bought this at one of the last Montlake Carnival I attended (1962 or ’63?) but lost the staff that came with it.  The staff was simple wooden dowel with a dark green ball on top.  Note the school colors of Hunter Green and Grey. 

The word pennant or pennon came from the Latin word penna meaning “feather” or “wing”.  It originated in the Middle Ages when they were carried on the lances of warriors.  Various colors were used to denote who’s side a warrior was fighting for and that concept has carried over to this day as seen on sport team’s uniforms.  Makes it hard to confuse a Cincinnati Bengal for a Los Angeles Ram or a Flying A from a Longacre Colt.  

n.d. - Stategikon

At Montlake in the early ‘60’s our basketball team had no Hunter Green and Grey uniforms.  Heck, we had no uniform of any color and our league schedule pitted us against just two rivals, Bryant and Stevens Schools.  They also were without uniforms.  

n.d. - Craig Daily Press

 But, we didn’t need no stinking uniforms because we had Shirts and Skins!

Search for the Good Road Lunch Room

Courtesy of Gordon Macdougall

While Interlaken Blvd may “officially” be just outside of the Montlake Historic District you would be hard pressed to convince any Montlake Free Range Kid that Interlaken, Louisa Boren Park or any part of “The Ravine” was not their turf.  With that mindset I began trying to find the site where a Montlake icon, the Good Road Lunch Room, had stood. 

It’s well known that Interlaken Blvd follows the general route of the Seattle Bicycle Path that was laid out during the 1890’s.  Many have reported on that so I will leave you to sort through those resources.  The Good Road Lunch Room is mentioned in all of those narratives but the exact location has never been located to my satisfaction.  We know that it was somewhere between Roanoke and 24^th, but where? 

Birthdays, Baseballs and Goose Eggs

 

I celebrated my 9th trip around the sun by gorging on cake and ice cream followed by a roller-skating party at Ridge Roller Rink in Greenwood with my Montlake School buddies Pip M, Scott M, Jeff W, Mike S, Ray B, Marc G, Bobby A and Lester R.  Being fairly new to the neighborhood I didn’t realize how blessed I was to have been accepted by such a solid crew of Montlake kids whose parents had raised them right.  I'm still in touch with two of those "kids" today. 

Lord of the Flies / King of the Carp

 1/1/2006

The Plan

The plan was hatched in Donnie Carlson’s storage area. 

His house sat at the corner of Boyer and Everett Ave. E.  Everett Avenue sloped about 75 yards down to Portage Bay where it dead ended at the remains of a rickety dock surrounded by cattails and Lilly Pads.  The dock had been the sidewalk for a houseboat community that was displaced by the building of the 520 viaduct. 

Donnie’s house was built on the hillside with the main floor at ground level on one side and the exterior basement door at ground level on the opposite.  A deck off of the living room extended over the basement door and the deck supports provided the main framing and footprint for the storage area.  The walls were enclosed using translucent corrugated fiberglass panels.  Access from outside was through a light wooden door that was held shut with a screen door hook.

The area was used for storing outboard motors, oars, life jackets, seat cushions, fishing poles, reels, nets, tackle boxes, lawn mowers, rakes, garden tools, large mysterious olive drab canvas things of unknown purpose.  Interesting artifacts were stacked, slung and hung everywhere in this 8’ x 10’ space and emitted intriguing smells that really got the juices stirring in this young boy.  The mingling scents emitted by jars of salmon eggs, cheese bait, vinyl seat cushions, well-aged fishing creels, air-dried kapok life jackets, motor oil, gasoline, dried grass, army surplus pup tents with just a hint of rodent pee filled me with wonder.  My God, what a magnificent smell.  The light that filtered through the fiberglass paneling played across salmon flashers, trout lures, odd floats and old jackets that were suspended from the rafters.  This was a cathedral and any boy who entered was overwhelmed by the possibilities.  It was in this temple that Donnie unveiled the prize given to him by his Grandpa. 

In his hand he held a green trident spear tip.  Four sharp prongs, each finished with a barb, all set into an elongated cap designed to fit over the end of a shaft.  He held it out to me and smiled.  It was beautiful, dangerous, wicked, perfect!  I was transfixed.  What more could a boy want?  Without any idea of how I would use it I knew that I had to possess one and it had to be soon.

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.  

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. 

Montlake - The Real Birthplace of REI

Most of us know something about REI.  Some of us may know a bit of the history, or think that we do.  Some of us have heard about how it all started with an ice axe, etc. 

Some of us have been members for years, can recite our membership number (203xxx), bought our first backpack and hiking boots from Jim Whittaker above the Green Apple Pie and delight in regaling the cashiers who ring us up about our long association with the Co-op.  Some of us have been employees (#14xx).  Some of us may complain about the changes over the years or high prices, or Yuppie-gear, blah, blah, blah.  This post isn’t about any of that so no need to go there. 

It is about a critical bit of REI history that I bet you don’t know.  It’s about how the Co-op almost never came to be.  It’s about how 85 years ago a Montlake business deal-gone-bad set everything in motion so that today, in spite of Covid-19, REI is serving 5.5 million active members and how those members and guests open the doors to the stores by grasping handles made of ice axes.    

That’s right.  It all started with an ice axe in Montlake.

Symbolic Door Handles

What is well-known and undisputed is that Lloyd Anderson and his wife, Mary, were members of “The Climbers Group”, an offshoot of the “Mountaineers”.  In 1938 they founded Recreational Equipment Cooperative using the Rochdale Principles.  The purpose of the co-op was to provide a source of quality outdoor gear for their friends and fellow climbers.   

Mary and Lloyd Anderson 

A Lotta Milk for $0.03

  It began as a typical lunch period at Montlake Elementary School.  We filed into the lunchroom and lined up to buy milk from the Milk Lady at her little table situated at the north end of the building in the aisle that ran the length of the room and separated the girls from the boys.  Rows of long tables extended out from both walls.  An 8 ounce carton of milk cost $.03.  I sat down with the rest of the guys on the west side of the room.  Dave Sadick was across the table from me.  He was eating his usual salami with mustard sandwich.  Pip Meyerson and Lester Rosenthal sat next to us. 

I think it started when a little pudding accidentally flipped from someone’s cup and landed on their neighbor’s sleeve.  A witness commented and a minor form of retaliation was enacted.  Laughter!  I took a sip of milk.