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THE ASTORIAN • THuRSdAy, AuguST 5, 2021
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IN ONE EAR • ELLEDA WILSON
LOCAL BREVITIES
FINDING MISS DAISY
‘M
y grandson, 20 minutes after birth, was given his
nickname, ‘Turtle,’ in 2012,” Paige Marie, of
Seaside, wrote. “He’s lived in Utah most of his life and, at
the age of 5, we purchased ‘Daisy’ for him, with the agree-
ment that she is his turtle, and grandma is taking care of
her.”
Two weeks ago, Paige had her patio door open, mak-
ing sure there were no gaps Daisy could get through. But
Daisy got out anyway, and disappeared.
“Panic set in, and the search was on!” she wrote. She
looked everywhere, to no avail.
“… With no sign of her, my hope lost, I tore down her
habitat, and let go of all of it but the tank. I FaceTimed my
grandson, and told him I’d made a mistake.
“I added that maybe, just maybe, she could smell the
water and dirt in the river by me, and she found her way
there and was living happily. Needless to say, the sadness
showed through on his tiny face, anyway.”
On July 29, Paige received a message from her land-
lord: “Your turtle is in your house.”
“I raced home, and looked everywhere, to find her eat-
ing the cat’s food.” Daisy was fine. “I looked on my secu-
rity camera for the delivery, and there she was, in this
man’s hands.” The man turned out to be Rye Gardner.
When Paige thanked him, he replied, “I was next door
at the blue house doing some yard work, and spotted her
heading into the yard, coming under the fence … No big
deal, really!”
Well, it was a very big deal to Paige, Turtle and, of
course, Daisy. “For me, children are the world,” she
replied to Rye, “and to see you bring him such joy was
heartwarming, and melting to my soul. Thank you for your
kindness.” Welcome home, Miss Daisy.
TO THE BEACH
T
idbits from The Daily Morning Astorian, Aug. 5,
1884:
• A. P. Ankeny has found some white larch in some
of his timber tracts in this county, supposed to be the first
specimens of white larch ever found on the banks of the
lower Columbia.
Note: White larch is rare, since they shed needles
(which turn yellow before falling off) and produce
cones. They normally grow in the north-central and east-
ern Oregon mountain ranges.
• … Unless the Clatsop Road is build to enable funer-
als to go to Clatsop cemetery in other style than by water,
a crematory will become one of the economical necessi-
ties of life in Astoria.
Note: The reference is likely to Greenwood Cemetery
in Olney, which faces Youngs Bay. In 1884, there was no
highway, and the only way to reach the place from Asto-
ria was by boat. Pilings from the old boat dock are still
visible.
The cemetery wasn’t incorporated until 1891, but had
been a graveyard long before that; thousands are buried
there. Also, a story in The Daily Astorian says “some of
Astoria’s founders, previously buried in Astoria ceme-
teries, now rest in Greenwood.”
• Four Nootka Sound men were poisoned by eating
raw clams … Their tongues became frightfully swollen
and protruded from their mouths, while the lower jaws
dropped and their bodies were affected by violent ten-
sions to the nerves. They narrowly escaped death. The
remedy used by them was the bark of cedar … which
was chewed, and the juice swallowed.
Note: The men probably had paralytic shellfish poi-
soning, likely caused by red tides, when clams absorb
toxic algae. Old rule: Only eat shellfish in months that
end with “R” — probably because red tides mainly
happen in the summer. (Photo courtesy of Greenwood
Cemetery)
WHO’S GOT THE GARGOYLES?
I
n June, this column mentioned the theft of “Vern,” a
large gargoyle, stolen from Erik Forrey’s porch in
Astoria, even though Vern was held in place by zip ties
and a chain.
Another gargoyle, “Fred,” was stolen from Erik in Feb-
ruary 2019. Both thefts were reported to the police.
Now the thieves have struck on the Long Beach Pen-
insula, pilfering one of Alana Ramstein’s two large
gate-guarding gargoyles. The remaining one is shown.
“I’m sick to my stomach this morning!” Alana posted
July 28 on Facebook. “Our gargoyle was stolen last night!
And the other damaged … They were even cemented in
the ground with rebar.” Incidentally, one of the post com-
menters said her gargoyle had been stolen, as well.
“They’re irreplaceable,” Alana added. “I bought them in
California, after my son was murdered, as a special birth-
day gift for my daughter, they were for our future home.
“I came here, and left all my stuff in storage for sev-
eral years. I thought I escaped all the ugliness when I came
here, to what I thought was my safe haven, and little piece
of paradise. I stand corrected.”
If you know where any, or all, of these well-loved gar-
goyles are, please contact the police.
GOOGLY EYES
un rerun from the Believe It or Not file: A fish mar-
ket in Kuwait was closed down recently for trying to
make their fish look flipping fresh by putting plastic goo-
gly eyes over their not-so-fresh looking real peepers, BBC.
com reports.
The ruse was discovered when a video of the
faulty fish made the rounds at WhatsApp. Then pho-
tos of the plastic eyes falling off turned up all over social
media, and were picked up by the newspaper Al-Bayan.
The photo shown is from Al-Bayan’s Twitter feed, @
Bayan_kw
Other Kuwaiti fish vendors taunted the
miscreant by advertising their fresh fish “without
cosmetics.” One Twitter user’s snarky reaction was, to
“never judge the freshness of fish by the googliness of
their eyes.”
Kuwait seems to be a hotbed of fishy fraud. In July,
a fishmonger put steel nails in his fish to make them
heavier, therefore more valuable. What’s next? (In One
Ear, 9/7/2018)
F
F
rom The Daily Astorian, Aug. 5, 1885, a familiar
refrain:
• Every year comes an increasing number of summer
visitors drawn hither by the charming air and the pleas-
ant surroundings. To make the seashore more attractive
would, it would seem, be a good idea, purely as a matter
of policy.
A road to Clatsop in this regard would pay the city.
Thousands go by here that are of no more benefit to Asto-
ria than if no such place existed. It is the same as Pillar
Rock, or Skamokawa (Washington Territory), or any other
“settlement” on the way to the seaside.
… There is only one way to alter existing circum-
stances, and that is to make it worthwhile for people to
stop here. This should be the true headquarters for all this
summer traffic.
Note: The mentions of a “road to Clatsop” were a con-
tinuing theme in the newspaper until it was finally built.
URSULA’S STAMP
C
annon Beach and Portland writer Ursula K. Le Guin
(1929-2018), well-known for her science fiction and
fantasy works, has been honored with the U.S. Postal Ser-
vice’s 33rd stamp in the Literary Arts series. The 3-ounce
95-cent stamp is available at the post office or bit.ly/
UPSleguin
“I loved it from the start,” Le Guin reminisced about
Cannon Beach in a 2017 interview. “Way, way back, in the
1960s, it was a little artists’ hideaway town.
“The sculptor Joe Police was mayor. There were no
mega-mansions owned by out-of-state millionaires, no big
ugly cement walls on north beach, it had its own hard-
ware stores, and indie drugstore, and Osborne’s excellent
grocery.
“It was more self-contained and a good deal, well,
gnarlier,” she added. “But it’s still pretty gnarly, thank
goodness.”
NASTY ASTY’S
FATE
T
he third USS Astoria, CA-34 aka Nasty
Asty, sank during World War II on Aug.
9, 1942, in the South Pacific during the Bat-
tle of Savo Island.
Named for the city, she entered the waters
around Guadalcanal Aug. 7, behind the Vin-
cennes and Quincy, to support Marines
landing in the area.
Astoria’s Capt. W. G. Greenman, who
was wounded in the battle, later sent reports
describing the action, which started early on
Aug. 9, when the convoy was hit with a sur-
prise attack by an “enemy force of unknown
number.”
All three ships fired back, but Vincennes
was hit and immediately exploded, then
keeled over and disappeared into the deep.
Quincy, too, was hit, and set afire from bow
to stern; she blew up and sank.
Astoria was hit repeatedly, and there were
fires raging everywhere. The ship’s controls
were destroyed, along with most of the fire-
fighting water supply mains. Just as the ship
lost power, the enemy vanished.
Personnel left on board tried to fight the
fires with bucket brigades and anything else
available. “Fierce fires raging amidships pre-
vented any communications between these
groups, and neither realized other group
existed,” the captain wrote.
The abandon ship order was given, and
the Bagley was summoned to rescue person-
nel in the water and take aboard survivors;
219 were reported as missing or killed. A sal-
vage crew arrived to put out the fires, repair
the ship and get back underway. But it was
not to be.
A 5-inch magazine exploded, blowing a
hole under the ship’s waterline. At that point,
the salvage group quickly jumped ship. A
few minutes later, the Astoria capsized and
sank to her final resting spot in Iron Bot-
tom Sound, and in history. (tinyurl.com/
USSasty, John Hamilton painting/U.S. Navy
Art Collection)
BONES TELL THE TALE
S
ince sharks do roam the North Coast: ScienceNews.
com reported that the partial skeleton of a man from
the ancient Jōmon culture, found buried in a village cem-
etery, was revealed to be the oldest known victim of a
shark attack, which occurred off the coast of Japan some
3,000 years ago.
The man was likely fishing or shellfish diving at the
time. It is assumed that his fishing companions brought
his body home for burial. Scientists documented “790
gouges, punctures and other types of bite damage” to the
skeleton.
Sharks were hunted back then, as many shark teeth
were found in Jōmon sites, “but unprovoked shark attacks
would have been incredibly rare, as sharks do not tend
to target humans as prey,” archaeologist J. Alyssa White
said.
The previously oldest known evidence of a human
and shark encounter was the 1,000-year-old skeleton of a
Puerto Rican fisherman.