Ole Nissen - Tailor

 

Ole Andreas Nissen was born in Ansager, Denmark in 1887.  Like so many Danes at that time he worked the family farm.  He was a diminutive boy and when he was 14 years old and finished with school his Mother gave him the kind of advice that no boy that age wants to hear. 

“Ole” she said, “I want you to learn to be a tailor.  You have skinny wrists.  You won’t cut it as a farmer”. 

Being smaller than his peers must have been something that he had dealt with for all of his short life and to have his Mom confirm what he had struggled to deny was a harsh toke.  Then, the next thing he knew was that she had swung a deal with a tailor who lived in the next town and so off he went to serve an apprenticeship.  After 3 ½ years he and his skinny wrists came away with a paying profession that he actually liked and excelled at.  It turned out that Mother knew best.  

He saved his money and at age 20 immigrated to the US where he arrived in New York City, boarded a train and headed west.  Everywhere he went, though, tailors were not in demand so he picked up whatever work was available.  Carpentry, cooking, waiting tables, whatever and after a few months he arrived in Seattle.  Nobody was hiring tailors in the Emerald City so he traveled up and down the coast, California to Vancouver, BC picking up piecework sewing and other odd jobs.  Vancouver panned out for him and he was able to get steady work sewing.  At age 27 he was back in Seattle and opened his own shop where he sold his first suit for $29.  

The last Wednesday of each month was his night to play cards at the Danish Brotherhood and one Wednesday he was playing with the VP of Washington Mutual Bank who asked him to make a blue serge suit for his wife.  The suit was a hit and soon the banker’s wealthy friends and their wives were among his clientele. 

Looking to expand and upscale his business he bought a lot at 2805 E. Madison Street in Madison Valley.  The property was long and narrow with a house towards the middle of the lot.  

It had a nice front yard facing Madison Street and a large-ish back yard on E. Arthur Pl.  In 1925 he had the house picked up, turned 180 degrees and set on E Arthur Pl.  On the Madison Street side, he had a storefront built to house his new tailor shop and a tenant who ran a barbershop.  He operated at his Madison Street shop from 1925 until he retired in 1967.  He passed away in 1986 at the ripe age of 99.  

The house that he had picked up and turned around still stands at 2832 E Arthur Pl.  It is the home of “The Music Factory”, a music school that employs professional musicians who work with students of all levels in guitar, piano and voice.  

The storefront that he rented out and where he proudly displayed his own sign is a french restaurant called “Voila! Bistrot”.

You may have eaten there.  I think he would approve.

Accidental Aviation

 

In 1980 I met up with some flying friends out at the Sod Farm next to St. Michele Winery to watch one of them fly his Kasperwing.  The “Kasper” was an ultralight aircraft built by another friend, Steve Grossruck, who I had flown hang gliders with for several years.  His gliders were always heavily modified or self-built and usually of his own design.  He took to motorized-gliders like a duck to water and was soon collaborating with other notables on the design that would incorporate the “Kasper Tip” and become the Kasperwing.  It was a beautiful creation and after a bit I was goaded into sitting in it.  

Gerry, the wing’s owner said: “Go ahead, Jon.  Fly the mother”.  

I had no interest in flying an ultralight and absolutely no intention of taking off in this or any other one but I acquiesced by agreeing to taxi around the huge field.  You know, just drive it around on the grass and make everyone happy.  So, after driving it around for 5 minutes or so I came back to the group and Gerry suggested that I go back out and just add a little speed.  “No big deal” he said.  “Just get the front wheel light and then back off on the throttle and it will settle right back down”.  

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 Belltown Boys

“When you’re a Jet

You’re a Jet all the way

From your first cigarette

To your last dying day.”

 Conceived in the late ‘40’s “West Side Story” told of conflict between racial groups living in segregated neighborhoods of New York City, and like the Jets and the Sharks, the youth of Belltown and Seattle were at odds based on geographical separation. 

After William Bell’s claim grew to become “Belltown” it was its own entity packed up tight against Denny Hill.  Denny Hill, being enough of a topographic feature as to complicate easy northern expansion from Seattle’s core, fostered a sense of community identity and separation.  Two schools, North School and Denny School, were only ½ mile apart but on opposite sides of the hill.  Word has it that they didn’t get along. 

In her book, “When Seattle Was a Village” Sofie Frye Bass tells us of this conflict between the Belltown Gang and the Mill Street Gang who would meet to fight on the sawdust near Yesler’s Mill after the Belltown Boys rowed down to the Mill Street rendezvous.  Sheriff Lewis Wyckoff would show up to break up the fights, put the Belltown Boys back in their rowboats and send them back north beyond The Hill.

 

Flying in the Great Indoors

6/17/1979 

In June 1979 a bunch of us became the first people in the world to fly indoors.  We flew on three occasions.  The first was to see if anyone would die.  The next time we did it for press coverage and the third time to perform for the Annual Paper Airplane Contest.  Pilot and Instructor, Michael Pringle showed up for the third occasion and wrote an article for “Hang Gliding Magazine” which was published in the August 1979 edition.  Michael and the United States Hang Gliding Association have the copyright on the article.  The magazine is no longer available but the article is by buying the electronic copies of every magazine ever published by USGHA and its subsidiaries.  Mike was my buddy and if he were alive today, he would heartily endorse my reformatting, providing my own photos and publishing it on my blog.

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. 

What is a Best Friend?

 

Maybe it changes as you age?  Maybe it is the friend that you spend the most time with?  Maybe it’s the friend who makes you feel the best about yourself?  Maybe it’s the friend who you have the most in common with?  Maybe it’s……..What?  

Mine left on February 1st.  We had been together for 60 years.  We hadn’t spent as much time together as some other friends we but always knew where each other were and got in touch as needed.  Sometimes it was me and sometimes it was him.  He was the guy who I could always count on to help me sort something out or let me know that I was so off base as to be totally fucked and he would say it.  “Dude.  You are so totally wrong.  You are fucked.  Think about it”.  Something that you don’t accept or tolerate from normal friends.  Hopefully, he felt the same. 

Most of us have a few key figures in our lives to grieve when they leave this Earth.  Our Parents.  Our Siblings.  Our Spouses.  Our Children.  Our Friends and Acquaintances and our Best Friends.  

 

 

RIP Mel……..