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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, AUGUST 10, 2018
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IN ONE EAR • ELLEDA WILSON
FISHING AT THE FALLS
I
t’s that time of year again: The Alaska Katmai National Park
and Preserve’s Brooks Falls brown bears are out fishing for
sockeye salmon again, and you can watch their antics, thanks to
the National Parks Service’s live webcams at Explore.org (bit.ly/
bearfalls). A screenshot is shown.
If you’re wondering just how much one bear can eat, the web-
site says that on days when there are scads of salmon migrating
upstream to spawn, a large, dominant male can munch his way
through more than 30 fish a day.
SOMETHING OF BEAUTY
A
storian LaRee Johnson wants everyone “to take notice of
the beautiful floral hillside garden up 11th Street by the
Astoria Senior Center. There are a growing variety of flow-
ers from tall stately sunflowers, to dahlias, poppies, nasturtiums,
glads and sweet peas, plus many more to beautify our walk up the
hill.” The garden is shown.
“This display of natural beauty is compliments of Mr. Larry
Miller,” she explained. He is pictured, courtesy of astoriase-
niorcenter.org. “You’ll see him working almost daily planting,
or watering or weeding. Stop by and thank him for this gift to
the community. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone took such
pride, and planted something of beauty” for all to enjoy?
“Another reason Astoria is a real community,” she added,
“people like Mr. Larry.”
DISLOCATED DELIVERY
J
ust for fun, a rerun from August 2103: The Astoria
Clown Car was stuck in the desert out in Shaniko for
decades, and Jeff Daly was on a mission to bring it home.
Jeff’s sister, Molly, was sent to live at the Fairview Hos-
pital and Training Center when she was not quite 3 years
old (wheresmolly.net). “One of the reasons the Astoria
Clowns were formed,” Jeff said, “(was) so my dad could
go to the Salem institution to visit her in clown disguise,
since he was forbidden to see his daughter as a father …
This car took them on that trip in 1957.”
The 1948 Chrysler was originally a mortuary limo. “The
clowns bought it for $250 (in 1955) and painted it orange,
top to bottom,” Jeff explained. “They traveled thousands
of miles throughout the Northwest and Canada promoting
the building of the bridge to nowhere, the Megler.”
The car wound up in Shaniko when town developer Ed
Martin bought it for $700. For four years, no one responded
to Jeff’s calls about the vehicle. Finally, he reached Mar-
tin’s widow, Joan, who was willing to sell it for $500.
Wolfie (aka Greg Smith, pictured inset), owner of the
Dancing Wolf Ranch in Wamic, offered to deliver the car
to Astoria. All he wanted in return was a shot at some clam
digging. But first, he had to cut his hay. Then there weren’t
any clam tides.
Then the hay was still wet. Then Wolfie fell off his trac-
tor and dislocated his shoulder. Then Wolfie’s ranch caught
fire, and two helicopters and 14 fighting units were trying
to put it out.
The next projected delivery date was on a Sunday. This
time Wolfie had been startled by two rattlesnakes while
loading the car on the trailer, and he slipped and fell and
dislocated his shoulder. Again.
But … he banged his shoulder into a nearby barn wall
to fix it, and delivered the car as promised. You can see it
jauntily tooling around Astoria, home again at last.
ngee Hunt, who lives in rural Astoria, initially had a hard
time believing her own eyes when she looked out the win-
dow last Thursday. Two bobcats were playing in her back yard,
about 15 yards from the house. Her first thought was, “Oh,
they’re super beautiful!” followed almost immediately by, “Oh!
They’ll eat our cats!”
She called the game warden, who told her it was very rare for
bobcats to be seen during the day, especially since they are nor-
mally scared of people — and that’s when more folks are out and
about. He figured they were probably youngsters, and just curi-
ous. As long as they weren’t being aggressive (and they weren’t),
there wasn’t a problem. Naturally, he advised Angee to keep her
pets safe inside, especially at night.
Between humpback whales, deer, elk and even cougars and
coyotes, and now bobcats, you never know what kind of crit-
ter you’re going to see around Astoria. “It was quite shocking,”
Angee recalled.
PAYING IT FORWARD: SKÅL!
‘G
F
autical writer Peter Marsh brought an interesting tidbit to
the Ear’s attention: The last ship Norwegian explorer Roald
Amundsen used in his attempts to reach the North Pole, Maud, has
returned to Norway. And, quite the journey it’s been.
Maud, a polar ship built specifically for Amundsen’s (pictured
inset) second expedition to the Arctic, was launched in Vollen, Nor-
way, on June 7, 1917. He christened her with a block of ice, saying,
“You are made for the ice.”
In 1918, when Amundsen set off from Norway, his plan was to
deliberately get Maud stuck in the ice, and then hopefully drift across
the North Pole, doing scientific research all the while. But even after
several years of being ice-bound during two separate ventures, he
never did reach the North Pole, and left the expedition in 1921.
With Oscar Wisting now in command, Maud made more unsuc-
cessful attempts at the North Pole before arriving in Nome, Alaska,
in 1925, only to find Amundsen’s creditors wanted to take the ship.
Wisting whisked the ship away before they could, but they caught up
with him when he landed in Seattle.
Maud was seized and sold to the Hudson Bay Company. The
once-famed expedition ship was reduced to becoming a floating
warehouse and wireless radio station before sinking to the bottom in
1931, while moored in Cambridge Bay, Canada. Where she proba-
bly would have stayed, if not for the Maud Returns Home project.
They raised Maud in 2016, then this summer towed her across the
Atlantic Ocean to Norway.
She is now being towed up the Norwegian coast, and is expected
to arrive at her hometown of Vollen on Aug. 18, where she will hope-
fully be displayed at a new museum. Maud is pictured, arriving in
Norway, courtesy of Jan Wangaard leader of the project; the proj-
ect’s website provided the photo of Maud in her prime.
“It brings joy to our hearts,” Wangaard said, “to see Maud, still
proud after all these years, see her old homeland once again.”
(Maritime-Executive.com, MaudReturnsHome.no, fb.me/
maudreturnshome)
A
LOCAL BREVITIES
STILL PROUD
N
SUPER BEAUTIFUL
rom the Friday, Aug. 10, 1888 edition of The Daily
Morning Astorian:
• Street railway cars 7 and 8 arrived on the Bonita yester-
day … No. 4 of the street cars will arrive this morning. When
Nos. 7 and 8 arrived yesterday, 128 men asked Fred Newell
where Nos. 5 and 6 were. They are summer cars, and will be
here after awhile.
Note: The Astoria Street Railway Company had just
begun using horse-drawn street cars in May that year, along
three miles of track on Commercial Street. The photo inset is
courtesy of Oregon Encyclopedia. (bit.ly/Astocar)
• While digging spuds for dinner, at Wells, Benton Co.,
last Saturday, Mary A. Carter found a $10 gold piece of
date 1837, and bought some tobacco for her dear husband to
smoke while she kept right on digging.
• McMahon’s circus will exhibit at Alderbrook today and
tomorrow; two performances each day, at 2 and 8 p.m. …
Five cars and five coaches will run, and the steamer (Clara
Parker) will leave the Main street wharf every half hour.
Note: McMahon’s circus appears to have had several names
in its history. The Journal-Times of Racine, Wisconsin, has the
answer: “Joseph McMahon, for example, had to change the
name of his circus every year, so the people wouldn’t associate
him with the foul characters he brought to town the previous
year …” McMahon was accidentally shot and killed in 1897,
when a deputy sheriff thought the showman was reaching for a
gun. He wasn’t. (bit.ly/joemcm1, bit.ly/joemcm2)
• The old (Astoria) custom house square fence is being
replaced by a new one. The cow-styles at the entrances are a
thing of the past. … The Dayton council passed an ordinance
last week, prohibiting cows grazing on the streets, and now
some of the Daytonites threaten to “bust the charter.”
• Some one has started a yarn that 30 unprotected young
women of Walla Walla (Washington Territory) have gone
over to the beach and camped there and are well armed, and
that it is certain death for a man to go or come within 200
yards of their tents. It may be so. Most anything is likely to
happen these days.
erry Swenson and I have been representing the Swedes at
meetings for the Scandinavian monument planning here
in Astoria,” Terry Arnall of Astor Lodge No. 215, Vasa Order,
wrote. Gerry is “Swedish by marriage.”
“Gerry told me she won the $1,000 raffle prize at the Asto-
ria Scandinavian Mid-Simmer Festival this year,” Terry added,
“and she is donating the prize to the Astoria Scandinavian Heri-
tage Association for the planned Scandinavian Heritage Park.
Wow! That’s nice of her!”
The park’s architectural and engineering fees have already
been covered, so now they’re fundraising for the actual construc-
tion. Details are online at astoriascanpark.org.
“I wanted to share the money with the Scandinavian commu-
nity,” Gerry explained, “and the best way to do that was to pass it
on to the Scandinavian Park project.”
A GENTLER, KINDER WAY
S
tudying fragile soft-bodied deep-sea creatures without hurting
them was a problem waiting to be solved. Now there’s a new
Poké Ball-like robot with a rather menacing-looking five-fin-
gered grabber that gently encloses the creatures in a box — so
they can be studied in their own environment — before releasing
them unharmed, ScienceNews.org reports (bit.ly/squishygrab).
The device is pictured in a screen shot, courtesy of the Monterey
Bay Aquarium Research Institute.
The robot, which has been successfully tested, is mounted on
a remotely operated vehicle, and controlled via joystick by an
operator on a nearby ship. Future plans include adding 3-D cam-
eras, DNA-swabbing, and tagging instruments.
Considering that practically zilch is known about these
soft deep-sea denizens, “almost anything we come up with,”
marine biologist George Matsumoto said, “is going to be useful
information.”
COMMUNITY NOTES
SATURDAY
Lower Columbia R/C Soci-
ety — 8:30 a.m., Jim’s Roadhouse
Grill, 1605 E. Harbor St., Warren-
ton. Local Academy of Model Aero-
nautics (AMA) chartered radio con-
trol model aircraft club meets for
breakfast and business. All model
aircraft enthusiasts are welcome.
For information, call 503-458-5196
or 503-325-0608.
Chinook Indian Nation Coun-
cil Meeting — 11 a.m, Chinook
Nation Tribal Office, 3 E. Park St.,
Bay Center, Washington. Members
are asked to arrive on time. Meet-
ing is open to all tribal members;
attendees should bring a potluck
item. For questions, call 360-875-
6670.
Sit & Stitch — 11 a.m. to 1
p.m., Homespun Quilts & Yarn, 108
10th St. Bring knitting, crochet or
other needlework projects to this
community stitching time. All skill
levels welcome.
Columbia Northwestern Mod-
el Railroading Club — 1 p.m., in
Hammond. Group runs trains on
HO-scale layout. For information,
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 astoriafiberarts.com
SUNDAY
Seniors Breakfast — 9 a.m.
to noon, Astoria Moose Lodge, 420
17th St. Cooked to order from
menu, includes coffee. Cost is $5
for seniors 62 and older, $7.50 for
those younger than 62. Breakfasts
are open to the public. Proceeds af-
ter expenses help support local and
other charities.
Metal available to experiment with;
coal provided. No charge; dona-
tions to Camp 18 Loggers Memorial
Museum welcome. For information,
contact Mark Standley at 503-434-
0148 or Herman Doty at 971-306-
1043 or ringinganvildesign@gmail.
com
Blacksmith Enthusiasts Meet
— 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Camp 18
Blacksmith Shop, 42362 U.S. High-
way 26, Seaside. Participants can
bring own forge and anvil setup.
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 suffer-
ing from a serious brain (mental)
illness. For information, contact
Myra Kero at 503-738-6165, or k7e-
rowood@q.com, or go to nami.org
Line Dancing — 5:30 to 8 p.m.,
Seaside American Legion, 1315
Broadway. For information, call
503-738-5111. No cost; suggested
$5 tip to the instructor.
See NOTES, Page 4B