THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2019 • B1
WATER UNDER
THE BRIDGE
COMPILED BY BOB DUKE
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago
this week — 2009
I
t takes brute strength and technical precision to
work on the U.S. Coast Guard’s arsenal of nav-
igational buoys. And for the second year in a
row the crew of the Astoria-based c utter Fir won
top honors in a competition that measured which
vessel’s team can best perform the rigors of buoy
tending.
The b uoy t ender Fir’s crew recently competed in
the West Coast Aids to Navigation Olympics, held
in Alameda, California , and defended their title as
ATON c hampions. The crew won all but one of
the events.
SEASIDE — Ernestine Neitzel remem-
bers when the croaking frogs on her farm
were so loud they kept her kids awake at
night.
But in recent years, nights on the Neit-
zel farm have grown strangely silent as the
Necanicum River side channel that once
cut through the pasture has all but dried
up.
“We haven’t had frogs in that stream for
years,” she said. “It would be nice to get some
frogs back in there.”
To bring the frogs back, Neitzel, 86, is
restoring the wetlands on a large section of her
35-acre farm along U.S. Highway 26.
“We just decided to go nature,” she said.
The decision earned Neitzel high praise
from U.S. Rep. David Wu, D-Ore., and a place
in the Congressional Record this summer.
“With this contribution, she leaves a legacy
of environmental conservation and dedication
to the restoration of a natural resource that is
an essential component to our way of life in the
Pacifi c Northwest,” Wu wrote in his c ongres-
sional tribute.
Samuel Johnson is grinning like a Cheshire cat this
week — and no wonder.
He has just learned that the Columbia River Mari-
time Museum has been chosen as the permanent home
for a collection of maps, books and engravings valued
at $1,228,000.
“It’s truly a national treasure,” beamed Johnson, who
became executive director of the museum earlier this
summer. “The guys at the Smithsonian would love to
have this. It is an incredible addition to our collection.”
The U.S. Coast Guard had a busy weekend,
assisting over 20 boaters with broken-down
vessels get back to shore safely.
On Saturday, a HH-60 Jayhawk helicopter
from Air Station Astoria helped rescue a kay-
aker and his dog after the two capsized in the
river near the East Mooring B asin.
At about 5 p.m., a bystander on the Riv-
erwalk heard calls from Stanford Overbay,
62, needing help. The bystander called 9 1 1,
and the Astoria police and fi re departments
responded and contacted the Coast Guard for
support.
50 years ago — 1969
The 1969 Astoria Regatta, its colorful trappings
wrapped in mothballs, its just-as-colorful events,
wrapped in memories, may have been one of the most
successful of them all, judging from comments and
re hash.
From the man in the street to Jay Shepherd, presi-
dent of the Regatta Association , (who was all over the
streets of Astoria during the four-day festival), the com-
ment was that “everything went off just as planned.”
This, of course, can’t include the hydroplane races Sun-
day at Cullaby Lake, which had to be canceled due to
the strong winds that came up during the afternoon.
“This looks like the biggest day of the sea-
son” for gillnet salmon landings, one packer
said this morning.
Although no fi gures were available yet,
packers predicted deliveries today will be
“without question, double the next biggest
day.”
Packers and fi shermen alike were pleased
with the one day extension of Columbia River
fi shing granted Friday by the Oregon Fish
Commission and Washington Department
of Fisheries. The August season will close at
6 p.m. Tuesday.
1969 — Astoria Sunsetters in the Grand Land Parade.
2009 — Boatswain’s Mate Third Class Dan Beekman, left,
and Electrician’s Mate Third Class Alex Cordova from the
U.S. Coast Guard cutter Fir, pound the pin of a shackle
during the ‘Heat and Beat’ race Aug. 13 as part of the
West Coast Aids to Navigation Olympics.
1969 — Bumble Bee Seafoods wins the grand
sweepstakes prize in the Astoria Regatta Grand Land
Parade.
A shortage of longshoremen kept two ships idle at
the Port of Astoria today as a total of six ships were in
port.
Port Manager C.E. Hodges said the Rondeggen,
here to discharge 2,000 tons of newsprint and 5,350
tons of wood pulp for Crown Zellerbach, and the
Marne Lloyd, loading 850 tons of wood pulp from
Crown for South Africa, would have longshore gangs
Wednesday following schedule departure tonight of
the Calmar, which is loading 6.5 million board feet of
lumber for the E ast C oast. The Rondeggen and Marne
Lloyd arrived Sunday.
Situation was similar all along the Columbia River,
he said. “This is not an abnormal situation,” Hodges
noted.
Grading crews at Northwest Aluminum
Co. ’s plant site near Warrenton continued to
fi ght “very liquid” mud despite a virtually
rainless August, according to Harold Hare,
resident engineer for Parsons-Jurden Co.
Hare said the clay is “not drying at all” and
grading of the 200-acre tract is being accom-
plished most of the time by having one scraper
pushed by two C aterpillar tractors to keep it
from sinking into the much.
The assistant manager of an American furniture
store gets a lift on a sailing vessel of the Canadian
Navy. How does he like it?
“It was educational and it was fun, said Omer Ste-
phens Jr., of Astoria.
Stephens, who was president of the Astoria Regatta
Association last year, spent quite a bit of time aboard
the ketch-rigged HMCS Oriole during last week’s
Regatta, getting to know the skipper and crew quite
well.
“I saw the skipper (Lt. Cmdr. Peter Cox) at the
Admiral’s reception Saturday and he said, “Why don’t
you ship out with us Monday and your wife can drive
up and pick you up?” Stephens said he thought at fi rst
that it was a joke. “It was a joke at fi rst with me, but not
with them,” said Stephens, “So I went.”
“I learned to sleep on a bed while hanging on all
night,” said Stephens. He said the sailing was some-
what rough, even to the extent that crew members had
to take the roast beef from their plates and make beef
sandwiches because the plates kept sliding off the table.
Beer and a few ounces of rum are parts of the Cana-
dian sailor’s daily ration, the Astorian said. He said a
bar on board is apparently open 24 hours a day. If the
crewmen abuse the privileged of drinking, it’s cut off,
but Stephens said he saw no such abuse.
He said crew members of the O riole, which is a
training vessel for the Canadian Navy, appeared fairly
young, but he learned that each man had at least 11
years service behind him.
75 years ago — 1944
There were several large live-bait boat albacore
deliveries here over the weekend, most of the larger
deliveries going to the Van Camp cannery, which has
stepped up operations in recent weeks and is joining
other canneries now in an appeal of cannery labor.
The Van Camp company received the Washington
with about 24,000 pounds, the Seattle boat Soupfi n with
more then 45,000 pounds and the Spitfi re with 30,000
pounds. The Thelma H, with more than 15,000 pounds,
went to the Columbia River Packers’ A ssociation. Tuna
receipts over the weekend were generally heavy.
HEADQUARTERS, 13th AAF, Southwest
Pacifi c. — Second Lt. Norman O. Saarheim
of Astoria, bombardier in the famed veteran
Bomber Barons group of B-24 Liberators,
took part in a recent 13th AAF strike at pin-
point targets on the island fortress of Yap in
the western Carolines.
Termed by the offi cials as “strictly a bom-
bardier’s show,” the raid was part of an aerial
campaign against the important enemy base
by knocking out the principal power plant
on the island, scoring direct hits on barracks,
destroying the important causeway across the
inlet by Yap town and directly hitting huge
underground fuel storage tanks.
Sports fi shing on the Columbia River opened Sun-
day with a rush, but with not too much success for
some of the Waltonians who hauled their gear through
the sharp tides of the weekend. Several boats made
seven-fi sh hauls, including John Classen’s Alert with
a Portland party aboard and a Yakima group in another.
Angling conditions later this week are predicted to
improve.
The temperature here soared to a new
year’s high Tuesday, reaching a maximum of
93 degrees at 4:30 p.m. And exceeding by 8
degrees the year’s previous high mark of 84
registered on June 3.
Tuesday’s temperature was higher than the
hottest day of 1943, when on Sept. 8, it reached
90 degrees. The all-time high temperature was
scored in 1942, when on July 1 the tempera-
ture climbed to 104 and the humidity reached
the unprecedented and dangerous low of 10.
The situation in Clatsop woods was
described as dangerous today.