A7
THE ASTORIAN • THuRSdAy, SEpTEmbER 16, 2021
CONTACT US
ewilson@dailyastorian.com
(971) 704-1718
COMMUNITY
FOLLOW US
facebook.com/
DailyAstorian
IN ONE EAR • ELLEDA WILSON
GOING POSTAL
MIND BLOWING
TURKEY TOWN
W
F
all is in the air, and one of the things that comes to
mind is pumpkins. Halloween, pumpkin pies, pump-
kin bread, you name it. So it’s no wonder that a story about
Alaska’s biggest pumpkin ever in the Anchorage Daily
News was eye-catchy (bit.ly/bigsquash).
Dale Marshall, of Anchorage, hauled his 2,051 pound
pumpkin to the Alaska State Fair. He is pictured, with his
prize-winner and the Pumpkin and Cabbage Fairies, cour-
tesy of the Alaska State Fair Facebook page.
“It was mind blowing,” Marshall told the Anchorage
Daily News. “… Nobody has grown a pumpkin this size
this far north in the world.” It took 79 days to grow, and
required a minimum of 75 gallons of water a day. (Don’t
try this in Astoria.)
There is no pie in the sky, as the pumpkin is inedible.
But only for humans — it will be donated to the Alaska
Wildlife Conservation Center.
Just so you know, the largest pumpkin in U.S. history, at
2,528 pounds, was grown by Steve Geddes, of New Hamp-
shire; and, according to Guinness World Records, the
world’s biggest, at 2,624 pounds, was grown by Mathias
Willemijns, of Belgium. (bit.ly/bigsquash2) (In One Ear,
9/12/2019)
RARE SIGHT
hile researching, the Ear came across some postal
oddities in “Oregon Geographic Names: IV;
Additions since 1944” (bit.ly/weirdpo). Pictured, Asto-
ria’s first post office.
Did you know there was an Albert post office? It was
in a small community of the same name “on the upper
reaches of Blind Slough a little to the south of Aldrich
Point.”
The place was established on Sept. 11, 1901, with
Nels Haglund settled in as first postmaster, but it was
Albert Berglund, the second postmaster, that the place
is named after.
When the office closed on Sept. 15, 1913, the mail
then went to the Blind Slough post office, established
in 1910, which had four postmasters before it closed in
1924. (bit.ly/bslough).
Bet you didn’t know there was a Chadwell post office,
either. Chadwell is described as a “locality on Lewis and
Clark River, about 4 miles south of Miles Crossing and
south of Astoria.”
Early settlers William True and his wife settled there,
and named the place after their former hometown Chad-
well, England. The post office was established on Feb.
20, 1882, with True as the first postmaster.
The 1884 “Oregon, Washington and Idaho Gazet-
teer and Business Directory” describes Chadwell as fol-
lows: “It contains a steam shingle mill (probably Sackett
Bros.), and ships logs and farm produce. Population, 25.
Mail, weekly.” (bit.ly/OWIgaze). The date of the post
office’s closure is not certain.
And then there was the Wise post office, in the Tucker
Creek District, south of Miles Crossing, which opened
in June 1895, with postmaster Hugh McCormick in
charge, and closed in May 1903. This post office was
very likely named after Herman Wise, Astoria’s long-
time postmaster (bit.ly/hwise).
Wise, whose house still stands at 1064 Harrison Ave.,
was an Oregon pioneer businessman who also served as
mayor of Astoria from 1906 to 1910, as well as own-
ing a thriving clothing business: “You can’t look foolish
when you wear a Wise suit” (bit.ly/hwise01). (In One
Ear, 9/12/2019)
T
he Oregon town of Pilot Rock has a problem: It’s
being overrun by wild turkeys, the East Orego-
nian reports (tinyurl.com/turkeyville). The birds stroll
into town in a flock of about 50 to 70, then split up to
divide and conquer with turkey poop, snacking their way
through local gardens. Some of the fowl trespassers are
pictured, in a photo by E.J. Harris.
“Nothing is left,” resident Mary Ann Low com-
plained. “They dust bathe in the soil. They eat whatever
is there.”
The Pilot Rock City Council — after discussing
and discarding starting a spay and neuter program or
just plain grabbing shotguns — has called in the Ore-
gon Department of Fish and Wildlife to tackle the tur-
key issue.
“No matter what we do, we’re never going to get rid
of all of them,” state fish and wildlife biologist Greg
Rimbach observed. “We’ll always have a few turkeys.”
(In One Ear, 9/15/2017)
BEER GLUE
LOCAL BREVITIES
F
M
arine biology enthusiasts will be interested to know
that a team of Australian researchers has been send-
ing out drones to study southern right whales and their
calves, NewAtlas reports (tinyurl.com/whiteright). Conse-
quently, without disturbing them, the whales can be mea-
sured, and the team can learn more about their health and
reproduction.
On one such overflight recently, a white calf was seen,
swimming alongside an adult. The pair are pictured in a
screenshot from a Murdoch University Cetacean Research
Unit video. Apparently, a very small percentage of right
whales are born white, but they usually turn black by the
time they’re a year old — so this was a very rare sighting,
indeed. (In One Ear, 9/16/2016)
BACK IN THE GOONDOCK
T
o the delight of “The Goonies” fans everywhere, on
Sept. 10 Corey Feldman posted a selfie of a reunion
with Goonies co-stars (Jonathan) Ke Huy Quan and
Sean Astin on Facebook, Instagram (@cdogg22) and
Twitter (@Corey_Feldman).
He didn’t say about where they were, though:
“#GOONIE DINNER! HERE I AM LAST NITE
CATCHING UP W FORMER CAST M8S, @seanas-
tin & Jonathan Ke Quan. #LOVELY #NEVERSAYDIE
#30thanniversary.” However, a little sleuthing revealed
all three were in Indianapolis Sept. 8 through Sept. 10.
They were appearing at HorrorHound Weekend for
“celebrity signings” and to take part in panel discus-
sions, so it’s not surprising they got together for dinner.
(In One Ear, 9/15/2017)
F
rom the Friday, Sept. 12, 1884, edition of The Daily
Morning Astorian:
• J. O. Spencer is in the city from Clifton and was
busy shaking hands with his numerous friends last
evening.
Note: Mr. Spencer wrote to the newspaper about
goings on in Clifton. Here’s his response to the news
that Capt. John B. Morrison was looking for his son,
believed drowned in a horrific storm in May 1880,
during which several fishermen were lost:
“Donald Morrison was here from the 17th to the
20th of May and said he was pulling a boat in Astoria at
the time of the storm. His partner was drowned, and he
was saved by the (steamer) Rip Van Winkle.
“He left here on the 20th for Knappa, Oregon, expect-
ing to find work in a logging camp. He was satisfied with
his fishing experience and didn’t wish to continue. Have
not heard of him since. He may be the one Capt. Mor-
rison … is inquiring about; if so, he is alive and appar-
ently in good health.” (“River’s End,” Liisa Penner)
• Cyrus W. Field (pictured), the man who crossed the
Atlantic 187 times and finally succeeded in making the
Atlantic (telegraph) cable a success, is visiting the North
Pacific coast.
Note: Mr. Field (1819-1892), a financier and one of
the founders of the American Telegraph Co., first con-
sidered a transatlantic cable in 1854. The initial attempt
failed. An 1857 try went south when the cable split after
335 miles had been laid.
A cable laid in 1858 parted, but was spliced, and they
called it good. Which it was — long enough for Queen
Victoria to telegraph congratulations to President James
Buchanan, anyway. But it stopped working shortly
thereafter.
The Civil War interrupted the project, but Field was
back at it in 1865, laying a bigger cable this time. Six
hundred miles off Newfoundland, it split, and couldn’t
be saved. However, in 1866, he pulled it off; a cable
finally connected the two continents, and better yet, it
worked. (bit.ly/CyField) (In One Ear, 9/12/2019)
ile this one under “Why Didn’t Someone Think of This
Sooner”: Danish beer maker Carlsberg has come up
with an idea that will make both beer drinkers and envi-
ronmentalists happy: The Snap Pack, pictured courtesy of
Carlsberg (bit.ly/ecocarl).
Instead of those plastic ring holders that keep a six-pack
together, Snap Pack cans of beer are held together with a
dab of glue that is strong enough to do the job, yet it’s still
easy to pull the cans apart.
Carlsberg figures this new packaging method
will reduce the amount of plastic used in traditional
multipacks by up to 76%. And, between the Snap Pack
and other recent eco-friendly innovations they’ve
come up with, Carlsberg estimates they’ll reduce global
plastic waste by the equivalent of about 60 million plas-
tic bags a year. No small feat, indeed. (In One Ear,
9/14/2018)
SHUTTERBUG BLISS
easide Aquarium’s Tiffany Boothe has accom-
plished quite a coup, and the dream of many a pho-
tographer: She’s had one of her photos published in
National Geographic — both online at tinyurl.com/
tiff-NatGeo and in the September 2016 issue of the
magazine. Her image is one of the illustrations for the
article, “The Blob That Cooked the Pacific,” by Craig
Welch, about the effects of warm ocean water on the
West Coast.
A section of her photo is shown. The caption is: “Jel-
lyfish-like animals known as ‘by-the-wind sailors’ blan-
ket an Oregon beach near an old shipwreck. Some of the
same unusual wind patterns and currents that recently
warmed the Pacific pushed these floating creatures by
the millions onto beaches from Southern California to
British Columbia.” (In One Ear, 9/16/2016)
S