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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (March 24, 2017)
1B THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 24, 2017 CONTACT US ewilson@dailyastorian.com (503) 325-3211 ext. 257 COMMUNITY FOLLOW US facebook.com/ DailyAstorian IN ONE EAR • ELLEDA WILSON ASTORIA IN ‘JEOPARDY’ MAP QUEST O n Monday night, The Daily Astorian managing editor, Laura Sellers-Earl, noticed that “Astoria” was the answer to one of the questions on the ABC TV show “Jeopardy.” The question: “In 1811, the Pacific Fur Company established this fur trading post on the Columbia River.” But that’s not the first time “Jeopardy” has shown Astoria some love. On another Monday night, last Oct. 10, Laura heard another local question: “There’s a maritime museum named for this river near its mouth in Astoria, Oregon.” Answer (but you already know this): Columbia. Just for chuckles, it should also be noted that two North Coast- ers have appeared on “Jeopardy’s” sister show, “Wheel of For- tune.” Carrie Thoreson of Astoria appeared on the show in May 2012 (“I truly had the time of my life”), and Dan Campbell of Seaside had his shot at the wheel last December (“I felt privileged to be one of the chosen few”). FLY AWAY HOME ‘T his handsome male eagle (pictured) was originally found on a property not far from our Wildlife Center grounds, after sustaining injuries from a territorial battle,” the Wildlife Center of the North Coast posted on its Facebook page March 18. The Wildlife Center nursed the eagle back to health, as it has done so often with so many local critters. A WCNC photo of his release is shown. (Want to help them with their good work? Donate or volunteer. Call 503-338-0331 or go to www.coastwildlife.org) “While (the eagle) stayed with us as his wounds healed and he regained strength,” the post continued, “staff and volunteers started noticing a large female bald eagle hanging around the center, and often flying low near our hospital building. Bald eagles mate for life, so we can only assume the visiting female eagle was a wor- ried spouse checking in! Today we were thrilled to send this mag- nificent bird back to the wild skies, and hopefully to its loyal mate, who we assume was waiting patiently just beyond the trees.” ARE YOU HAPPY? O ften this column contains stories from the 1880s and 1890s with Astoria street names both famil- iar and unfamiliar. Astorian Fred White took the Ear to task, and rightly so, about the configuration of the down- town streets being different then than now. So the ques- tion became: How different? The answers are in “Whitney’s Map of Astoria” cour- tesy of the David Rumsey Map Collection online, where there is a detailed street map of 1890 Astoria (http:// tinyurl.com/Ast1890b); to see it compared to present-day Astoria, go to http://tinyurl.com/Ast1890a. A detail of the map is shown. In 1890, Astoria was composed of several districts. Working east, the westernmost district was Taylor, which went from Smith’s Point to roughly between the current Flavel and Hume streets. Next, the McClure district cov- ered about the present-day Second to 14th streets; the Shiveley district was from 14th Street to about the 32nd to 33rd street area; Adair was from about 33rd Street to around Nimitz Drive; Alderbrook was from between 46th and 47th streets to around 53rd Street; and Van Duesen & Brown covered 53rd Street to what’s now known as North Tongue Point. And those are just the north water- front areas. Each district had its own street naming system, creat- ing quite a maze of confusion. For example, Taylor has Third through Seventh streets running northwest to south- east; McClure has First through 13th streets running east and west; and Shively has numbered streets running north and south. You get the idea. Fortunately, the city grid was eventually consoli- dated and renumbered, probably after the 1922 fire. Hap- pily, there are no longer four or five (or more) different Fourth Streets, but it’s still fun to see Astoria as it was then. ALL BOTTLED UP GIVE ME LIBERTY … D id you know that Norway is now considered to be the hap- piest country in the world? In this year’s World Happi- ness Report, the Land of the Midnight Sun scored 7.53 out of 10, according to a story on CNBC.com (http://tinyurl.com/norsewins) And Scandinavia scores again, with Denmark — who was last year’s winner — squeaking in at second place (7.52), Iceland in third place (7.50) and Finland in fifth place (7.46). Sweden went awry somewhere, as they came in 10th (7.28), but the Ear is sure they will rebound. The report is produced by the Sustainable Development Solu- tions Network, in association with the United Nations, and the hap- piness ranking is calculated by combining the “economic, health and polling data on approximately 3,000 respondents in each of more than 150 countries.” DONE IN BY AN iPAD M odern technology is a useful tool in the shipping industry, but it can also cause some unanticipated problems. The U.K. Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) has issued its report about the causes of last year’s collision between a his- toric 50-foot wooden motor launch, Peggotty, and a freight ferry, Petunia Seaways, in dense fog on the Humber River in northern England. The Peggotty is pictured, in happier days, in a photo on eBay. Several safety issues on both vessels were brought to light, the Old Salt Blog reports (http://tinyurl.com/saltyblog), but one find- ing stood out: The Peggotty’s captain, an off-duty ship pilot, was using a navigation app on an iPad as his primary means of naviga- tion. All of a sudden the Wi-Fi signal dropped out, the app stopped working, there was no radar backup, and no compass. The skipper, who now had absolutely no idea where he was in the pea-soup fog, nonetheless kept on going … right into the ship- ping channel, and the Petunia. The captain on the Petunia didn’t even realize they’d hit the Peggotty at first, but as a result, the Peg- gotty sank. There were no injuries, and no pollution resulted, but both skippers were fined. In the aftermath of this iPad debacle, if you can believe it, according to gCaptain.com, the MAIB report did not make any recommendations. ‘I ‘W hat happened to our Liberty!” Jeff Daly asks. “In March 2011, a nearly 100-year-old sign from the Liberty The- ater (pictured) was uncovered from years of rubble and pulled from the depths of the building. “The sign is from the same era of the Astoria Theater sign where Clark Gable give his first public presentation as an actor. In 1923, the theater was located where Wells Fargo is today.” Jeff retro-restored the Astoria Theater sign (pictured, right), by the way, and it can be seen at Carruthers Restaurant. “The Liberty sign that had more than 200 light bulbs was on display at the Astoria Clown Museum until March 2014, and then returned to the Liberty set storage area,” Jeff explained. “There was enthusiasm to display the sign in the entrance to the McTavish Room, where it had originally hung on the 12th Street entrance for 50 years — the brackets are still there. “During a recent behind the scenes ‘spring cleaning,’ it was dis- covered that nobody knows where the 200-pound 8-foot by 4-foot sign went. When, where or why? We lost our Liberty! Contractors and scrap yards confirm they have never seen it. ‘Give me Liberty or give me death’ could be one of the Liberty’s many infamous ghosts’ response as the mystery remains unsolved.” Know where it’s hiding? Contact the Ear at ewilson@dailyasto- rian.com or 503-325-3211, ext. 257. found this bottle Saturday at Fort Stevens (near South Jetty). It clearly came from Japan,” Astorian Jennifer Nightingale wrote. “Many friends suggested that I check it for radioactivty. As we don’t have a Geiger counter in our tool box, how should we get such things checked out?” The bottle is pictured, and it still contains some clear liquid. The first call was to the Coast Guard’s local Marine Environmental Response office. Nope, they don’t have a Geiger counter, but suggested a call to Fort Stevens State Park. But Park Ranger John Koch at Fort Stevens said they don’t have one, either, and he recommended calling Ken Murphy, who is also a park ranger. “Oregon State Parks has a program in conjunction with Oregon Health Authority that includes the testing of ocean water, sand and adjacent tap water sources up and down the coast for any trace amounts of radiation that may have made it to our shores,” Ken wrote. “As an agency, we have also used Geiger counters on ‘suspicious debris’ for a number of years to make sure we were not receiving radioactive material from the Fukushima reactor, or any other sources. “After years of this debris testing, no instances of radi- ation have been found, so we have largely discontinued the practice of using Geiger counters (except for very spe- cific instances). At this time we have also found no trace of radiation in any of our water or sand sample testing, which is an ongoing practice on the Oregon Coast … (At) this point the greatest likelihood (99.99 percent) is that this is debris that came to our shores by way of one of the hun- dreds of vessels that enter the Columbia River from Asian origins.” So there you have it. There’s no need to worry about debris you find on the beach being contaminated with radiation, folks. Looks like the real problem, here, is ship- board littering. LOCAL BREVITIES N ewsy notes from 138 years ago taken from The Daily Astorian, Tuesday, March 25, 1879: • J.N. Reynolds, formerly of Astoria, has fallen heir to a consid- erable sum of money in Kansas. The estate wishes to hear from him through The Astorian. J.N., write to us. • Police Court: Ed. Kennedy, found in an opium den, sent up five days in default of $10 fine ($232 now) … Nellie Ramsey, ditto, ditto, forfeited her deposit of $10 … Mary McCarthy paid a fine of $2 ($46 now), it being the first offense, for the blessed fun of a drunk. • There are two sides to the Main street lamp question. Council- men tell us that there was no provision made to pay the lamp-lighter for extra duty. • Citizens should at all times be prepared to greet, with cold lead, the assassins and robbers now in our midst. Take aim, keep steady, and make a sure shot. Let us have a few corpses of that ilk. They are being driven out of the valley, and seem to hive here in Astoria. Spare none. COMMUNITY NOTES SATURDAY Angora Hiking Club — 9 a.m., Sixth Street parking lot. Willapa Bay Nature Trail hike. For information, call Arline LaMear at 503-338-6883. Columbia Northwestern Model Rail- roading Club — 1 p.m., in Hammond. Group runs trains on HO-scale layout. For informa- tion, call Don Carter at 503-325-0757. Spinning Circle — 1 to 3 p.m., Astoria Fiber Arts Academy, 1296 Duane St. Bring a spinning wheel. For information, call 503-325- 5598 or go to http://astoriafiberarts.com mation, call 503-738-5111. No cost; suggest- ed $5 tip to the instructor. Chair Exercises for Seniors — 9 to 9:45 a.m., Astoria Senior Center, 1111 Exchange St. For information, call 503-325-3231. Mothers of Preschoolers — 10 to 11:30 a.m., Crossroads Community Church, 40618 Old Highway 30, Svensen. MOPS group is a time for moms to re- lax and enjoy each others’ company. For information, call Tracy Wilson at 727-514- 1611. Scandinavian Workshop — 10 a.m., First Lutheran Church, 725 33rd St. Needle- work, hardanger, knitting, crocheting, em- broidery and quilting. All are welcome. For information, call 503-325-1364 or 503-325- 7960. Senior Lunch — 11:30 a.m., Bob Chisholm Senior Center, 1225 Avenue A, Seaside. Suggested donation $3 for those older than 60; $6.75 for those younger than 60. For information, call Michelle Lewis at 503- 861-4200. SUNDAY National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Support Group — 2 to 3:30 p.m., Seaside Public Library, 1131 Broadway. Family to Family Support Group, for anyone with friend or loved one suffering from a se- rious brain (mental) illness. For information, contact Myra Kero at 503-738-6165, or k7e- rowood@q.com, or go to www.nami.org Line Dancing — 5:30 to 8 p.m., Seaside American Legion, 1315 Broadway. For infor- MONDAY Columbia Senior Diners — 11:30 a.m., 1111 Exchange St. Cost is $6. For information, or to have a meal delivered, call 503-325- 9693. Warrenton Senior Lunch Program — noon, Warrenton Community Center, 170 S.W. Third St. Suggested donation of $5 for seniors and $7 for those younger than 60. For information, or to volunteer, call 503-861-3502 Monday or Thursday. See NOTES, Page 2B
