OPINION
4A
Founded in 1873
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2016
28 years inside a large
gathering of eccentrics
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
Water
under
the bridge
Compiled by Bob Duke
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago this week — 2006
More than 160 acres of beachfront property could be added to Fort
Stevens State Park depending on negotiations between Clatsop County
and the state of Oregon.
Both parties have begun talks about a possible sale of county-owned
DeLaura Beach, which borders Fort Stevens Park in Warrenton.
The head of the county’s Recreational Lands Planning Advisory
committee said the sale could put the land in the hands of an organization
with more resources to maintain it, while generating money that could
boost the rest of the county’s park and recreational holdings.
But one county commissioner, Sam Patrick, opposes the proposed
sale, questioning the state’s commitment to improving the site and
whether existing uses could be limited or blocked.
Astoria schools continue to struggle to meet standards
under the federal No Child Left Behind education law, accord-
ing to preliminary igures provided by the state Department of
Education this week.
While the overall student population across grade levels
met or exceeded federal targets for the 2005-06 school year,
economically disadvantaged and disabled students failed to
make adequate yearly progress.
After three hours of discussion at a special meeting Tuesday morn-
ing, the Warrenton City Commission voted to pay the bill for a huge cost
overrun on the Paciic Seafoods wastewater service line project.
50 years ago — 1966
C
AROLE KING SINGS:
“Doesn’t anyone stay in one
place anymore?” That refrain
from 1971 evokes wistfulness
about leeting friendship.
It turns out that I stayed in one
place for quite awhile — 28 years.
In the editor’s ofice of The Daily
Astorian. If you stay in one place for
almost three decades, you meet a lot
of people. You witness a lot of com-
ing and going — creation, destruc-
tion and renewal.
During an Astoria City Coun-
cil meeting some 15 years ago, I had
an epiphany. Everyone on the City
Council and in the audience remained
in character, just as actors are. They
never dropped the veil. It hit me that
all of us in this town are players in a
one-act play, or perhaps a multi-gen-
erational drama: Our Town, popu-
lated with characters from Northern
Exposure.
Despite one-way trafic that caused congestion and delay,
the Astoria bridge carried 4,332 cars, 207 trailers, 20 trucks
and 30 motorcycles across the Columbia river Sunday.
This is more than three times the maximum daily capacity
of the ferry service that the bridge replaced Friday morning.
Russell Smith, maintenance engineer for the Highway Depart-
ment here, estimated that 1,200 to 1,400 vehicles was the max-
imum daily capacity of the ferry service.
The bridge carried 3,091 vehicles Friday and 3,300 Sat-
urday before being inundated by the Sunday crush caused
apparently by the decision of thousands of people within a
100-mile radius to come to Astoria and drive across the bridge.
Special passenger train service will be operated over the SP&S Rail-
way from Portland to Astoria on Saturday, Aug. 27, to accommodate per-
sons wishing to attend the new bridge dedication ceremonies.
Estimates of attendance run as high as 30,000 at Astoria where the
completion of the bridge has been tied in with the annual Astoria Regatta.
Quantities of dead hake, such as were found on the beach
north of Gearhart this week, are a fairly common occurrence,
Oregon Fish Commission laboratory staff members said
today.
“This happens every year, sometimes several times a year,”
said Robert Loeffel of the laboratory. “We don’t yet know
why.”
They’re selling the queen of the Oregon navy here next week. The
M.R. Chessman and its two little cousins, the Tourist II and Tourist III,
are going on the block.
75 years ago — 1941
Hundreds of disappointed motorists sped back to Port-
land, Salem and other distant points late Sunday after being
deluded by erroneous reports in the Portland press that the
new ten-mile Cannon Beach-Neahkahnie mountain section of
the coast highway would be open temporarily for the day.
Silk and nylon hosiery was selling like hot cakes in Astoria stores
Saturday and Monday as panicked feminine shoppers rushed to stock up
for the emergency.
Nylon hosiery — of which the supply is limited by the manufacturer
— was just about gone in town Monday, but most stores reported an
ample supply of silk hosiery still available.
Some said the supply of silk stockings might be gone in a week to ten
days if the present rate of buying keeps up.
Through the Looking-glass
of Cabbages and Kings
▼▼▼
IT TURNS OUT THAT
Astoria was just the right place for
me. I am a connoisseur of eccentrics,
and this place has beckoned eccen-
trics for most of its history.
And what is an eccentric? For
me, it’s someone of vivid personal-
ity, who stands apart through appear-
ance, taste or behavior. In Astoria’s
most accessible legend, the postwar
Flavel family has been at the top of
the heap.
One of my early Astoria memo-
ries — prior to moving here — was
a Boxing Day party at the home of
the bar pilot Ken McAlpin and his
wife, Diana. Being a Canadian, Ken
donned a kilt for the occasion. Rolf
Klep — founder of the Columbia
River Maritime Museum — was
there. He left me with an indelible
impression of a born salesman. Also
there were Graham and Ann Barbey.
And Dr. Edward Harvey, the town’s
pioneering preservationist. Of that
group, only Ann Barbey remains.
She recently turned 95 and played a
round of golf not long thereafter.
All of us get a glimpse of the era
that is ending. It’s up to us to pay
attention to these images that will
soon be obituaries and dusty legend.
▼▼▼
Famed organization Astoria Clowns will be one of featured
events in August 27 Regatta parade in Astoria. Officials of Re-
gatta association Thursday reported 80 entries in the annual
parade, but noted lack of housing was outstanding problem at
the moment. Officials requested any persons with extra hous-
ing available for parade participants contact Jack Temple. This
year’s Regatta, association members maintain, will be the finest
in recent years as it will be coupled with the official opening of
the Astoria bridge. (Regatta Photo)
‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
‘To talk of many things;
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax —
Of cabbages —and kings —’
WHEN
MY
wife and I moved
here in 1987 with a
4-year-old son and
a 1-year-old daugh-
ter, one of our irst
social occasions was
Former
a Sunday afternoon
Police Chief gathering in the
Ron Louie home of Ron and Jo
Louie. Ron was the
irst Chinese-American police chief
in America. A Vietnam combat vet-
eran who studied anthropology, Ron
is never dull. At that gathering we
met City Councilor Willis and Tiah
Van Dusen.
One of my irst business calls was
on Mayor Edith Henningsgaard in
her City Hall ofice. I remember the
stunning vision of a ship moving up
the channel behind Edith’s proile.
As Christmas approached, we vis-
ited the home of Blair Hennings-
gaard and Paula Brownhill, then a
husband-wife law irm.
Bob McDonald then had irst bill-
ing in Astoria’s oldest law irm. Sign
painter Arvid Wunola, with severe
curvature of the spine, walked in
the choir processional of our church
choir. B.J. Quinn Neikes was a sunny
presence in that congregation. Jean
Anderson’s aging soprano voice
came from a pew behind us. The
ever-creative Daymon Edwards was
a parishioner as well.
Down the street from our
home lived Astoria’s longest-serv-
ing mayor, Harry Steinbock. Willis
would break Harry’s record.
▼▼▼
A LARGE MEASURE OF
Astoria’s character is a collection of
nooks and crannies. Some are gone.
The Paciic Rim Cafe, under the
bridge, produced a cheese bread that
was a meal in itself. Doug Thompson
took me there. My news editor, Tom
Jackson, said Thompson, then a city
councilor, was the one person in town
with a vision of what this place could
be.
Many in my collection of vivid
characters are associated with their
workplaces. Barbara Hansel was
perched on a stool at Parnassus
Books. Tom Zielinski was behind
the counter of Arlie’s, a kind of lunch
spot the town has lost. Michael Foster
The Daily Astorian/File Photo/2001
Mary Blake, executive director of the Sunset Empire Park and Rec-
reation District, sprinkles rose pedals on then 93-year-old center-
fold Gladys Souply, who has come to the pool for three years and
was in the arthritis water exercise class. When asked about posing
in the nude for the district’s fundraising calendar, Souply, the ef-
fort’s most mature model, said, “I didn’t mind at all.”
in the midst of the art
collection he called
home. The bespeck-
led Kermit Gimre in
his store or around
town, wearing a wool
hat and handing out
Kermit
wooden nickels.
Gimre
KMUN was a
clubhouse of people,
who may as well have been ictional,
since you never saw them. Ed David
had such halting delivery that the joke
was you could get across the Astoria
Bridge during one of Ed’s pauses. Elliot
Narr of New Jersey, a jazz host, was the
irst KMUN programmer whom this
newspaper proiled. Others would fol-
low: Ben Hunt and Chris Gilde. The
eccentric Josh Marquis could be placed
inside the District Attorney’s ofice, but
his on-air jazz persona is a more conge-
nial persona. The jazz buff Vern Barth,
who revealed to me in the Astoria Post
Ofice that he had every recording a
certain vintage jazz catalogue had ever
offered.
▼▼▼
SO MANY PLACES, SO
many characters. Corinne Ricciardi
inside her pioneering art gallery.
The always sunny Bobbi McAllister
inside the Gift Galleon. Ira Mittleman
— who was an enjoyable guy until he
wasn’t — inside a ground-breaking
restaurant, Ira’s. The chef Ronnie
Ma, whom the late Duncan Law
learned was a ive-star chef. The star-
crossed Lauren Arena inside her cozy
Italian restaurant, Someplace Else.
Betty Phillips playing the piano at
Cafe Uniontown. One night I said:
“Betty, you’re able to talk and play at
the same time.” Somewhat surprised
she replied: “I guess I can.”
Doug Sweet at KMUN. Michael
McCusker carried the weight of the
Vietnam War on his shoulders. Rob-
ert Striklin cultivating his cameo
garden behind wrought-iron gates
on Exchange Street. Polk Riley in
his print shop. Bob Hauke looking
out from behind the ish counter at
Hauke’s Market. Jeanne Maddox
inside her dance studio.
▼▼▼
CANNON BEACH WAS ITS
own private preserve of charac-
ters. Mayor Herb Schwab, Gainor
Minott, John Buckley, Lucille
Houston, Laurel Hood, Craig and
Pia Shepherd, Mike Morgan, Claudia
Toutain-Dorbec, Bud Kramer and,
above all, my guide to Cannon
Beach, Val Ryan, another connois-
seur of eccentricity.
Looking across the Colum-
bia to the north inds us the sage of
Gray’s River, Robert
Michael Pyle. And in
many ways the great-
est eccentric of all —
Al Venter, the South
African journalist
who joined our stage
play and had as his
Al
house guest the great
Venter
Frederick Forsyth,
author of Day of the Jackal.
▼▼▼
SOME BUILDINGS MERIT
mention. The old Safeway, in which
you could touch both sides of an
aisle with your arms outstretched.
The lobby of the Astor Hotel, when
Shanghaied in Astoria was briely
performed there. Coffee An’ in the
Liberty Theater building.
▼▼▼
SO MANY FINELY DRAWN
characters. The artists Charles
Mulvey, Noel Thomas, Harry
Bennett, Eric Weigardt and now,
Darren Orange. Peter Roscoe.
Carol Fenton. Donna Quinn. Bob
Lovell. Roger Berg, Henry Wagner.
Pat Roscoe. Janet Stevenson.
Bill Barrons. Joan David, Lillian
Johnson, Jean Dominey. Mary
Blake.
I have lost track of how many
U.S. Coast Guard commanders
I’ve known — from Tony Adams
through Daniel Travers. Who could
forget Capt. Gary Blore’s wife, the
redoubtable Vera. And the super-
intendents of Fort Clatsop, from
Frank Walker through Scott Tucker,
with Cindy Orlando having the lon-
gest tenure.
Vivid members of the clergy:
Bill Arbaugh, John Wecker, Mark
Butler, Father Nick, David Swee-
ney, who is compelling in two set-
tings, the pulpit and the stage.
The Ficks (Steve, Mark and
Cliff). Astor School’s Judy Bigby,
Brian Borton, Ernie Atkinson and
Karen Kenyon. The pool wiz-
ard Bruce Buckmaster and the
Reed-educated unassuming bil-
liards shark Howard Clarke. Shawn
Teevin. Eric Paulson. Dr. Norm
Shatto. Jon Englund. And let us not
forget the man worthy of his own
short story — Grover Utzinger
inside his amazing curiosity shop
of a hardware store. The “capital
E” eccentric carpenter, Bill Klur-
man of Seaview, Washington, made
walk-on appearances at the Shel-
burne Inn.
Joe Bakkensen, an insider
during Bumblebee’s heyday. The
late John McGowan, of Bumble-
bee. Ditto for John Supple. Gentil-
ity was deined by Jean Sandoz, the
link to Bumblebee’s origins.
Jerry Boisvert. Sheila Roley. Jim
Sayce. George Fulton. Gin Laugh-
ery, who created and ran Astoria’s
most original boutique clothing store,
Amaryllis. David Carlsen at a Stein-
way grand. Don Haskell. Ann Gol-
deen. Carol Newman. Tom Freel.
Liam Dunne. Jennifer Gooden-
berger. June Spence. Marge Bloom-
ield. Ted Bloomield. Jo Robinson.
Leena Riker. Karen Emmerling. Dale
Perkins. Floyd Holcom. Joyce Lin-
coln. The golf sage Dan Strite. Rich-
ard Natzke. Sean Fitzpatrick. Karin
Temple.
And the list goes on …
— S.A.F.