4A • August 4, 2017 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com
SignalViewpoints
Celebrating the achievements
of James and Chuck Reed
regon surfi ng began in 1962,” states a recent book
on the topic.
Family members of brothers James and Chuck
Reed want to let it be known that their relatives
staked out Seaside long before legends like Dana Williams and
Dick Wald surfed the Point in the 1960s.
“Jim supervised the construction of the fi rst real Hawaiian
surfboard ever used in Oregon,” his niece Melinda Masters
said. “He introduced surfi ng to Seaside and explained to the
public how the surfboard is considerable value to lifesaving
work.
“These were the original ‘Beach Boys,’” Masters’ brother,
also named Jim Reed, said. “People here did not know what a
surfboard was.”
All this may not even match Jim Reed’s greatest athlet-
ic achievement: a 9-mile swim from Seaside to Tillamook
Lighthouse in July 1934 — Terrible Tilly, aka “The Killer
Lighthouse.”
Masters and Reed came to Seaside this summer to celebrate
the lives of two men, largely forgotten, for their incredible
string of achievements: as swimmers, surfers, lifeguards and
ultimately, in the case of James Reed, in service to their coun-
try.
‘O
Webfoots
Charles W. Reed Jr. and James Reed grew up in Hawaii
in the early 20th
century after
Charles Reed Sr.,
SEEN FROM SEASIDE
an accountant, and
R.J.
MARX
the family moved
from the North-
west.
The boys grew
up on Waikiki Beach, where the sport of he’e nalu — “wave
sliding”— was integrated into the culture.
While in Hawaii, the Reeds “surfed at the knee” of Duke
Kahanamoku, the famous competition swimmer and founder of
modern surfi ng.
The Reeds were younger, but “they were on the same
beach,” Masters said. “I’m sure they met up.”
Their early experience riding longboards stayed with them
after their return to the mainland to study at the University of
Oregon, where both were recruited for the swim team, known
as the Webfoots.
Jim Reed was a individual medley and freestyle specialist
who help lead the team to the 1936 Pacifi c Coast champion-
ship.
Chuck was 200-yard backstroke champion and several
times bettered the record mark in the 100- and 220-yard back-
stroke.
Together the brothers would help forge a program that
remained unbeaten in dual-meet competitions during their
Oregon tenure under head coach Mike Hoyman, winning three
straight Pacifi c Coast Conference Northern Division champion-
ships from 1935 through 1937.
Along with other University of Oregon swimmers, the
Reeds lifeguarded in Seaside over summers.
The Reed brothers fi rst considered bringing boards to the
Coast as a way to aid people in distress, Reed said.
If they had longboards like they grew up with in Hawaii, the
brothers reasoned, they could reach struggling swimmers more
quickly. And once they reached the victims, they could use the
board to hold onto for the return to shore.
“Surf board riding introduced here by beach life guards,”
the Signal headline. “Reed supervised the construction of the
fi rst real Hawaiian surf board ever used here … When the tide
and surf are right, Reed can ride the board for several hundred
yards to the beach.”
Swim to the lighthouse
Swimmer Julie Havelka of Eugene made headlines in July
when she swam the mouth of the Columbia.
She was following in a long tradition.
Long-distance swims were popularized in the 1920s by En-
glish Channel swims and silent star Johnny Weissmuller, better
known as the actor who played “Tarzan.”
Jim Reed undertook the crossing when he entered the fi rst
Columbia River swim as a contestant, a feature of the 1934 As-
toria Regatta. The swim was a 4 1/2-mile stretch from Megler,
Washington, on the north bank to Astoria on the south.
Jim won the race in a time of 2 hours, 34 minutes. His
performance won so much approval, wrote the Astorian’s Vera
Gault in 2011, that the race was publicized as a race called the
“trans-Columbia amateur marathon swim.”
That feat was only surpassed by Jim Reed’s 9-mile swim
from Seaside to the Tillamook Lighthouse rock in the Pacifi c
Ocean on July 20, 1934, what the Signal’s Fulton H. Travis de-
scribed as “nine miles of cold ocean and treacherous currents,”
battling the sea all the way.
Accompanied by U of O freestyle swimmer Wally Hug,
Jim Reed and Hug lubricated themselves with axle grease at
5:30 a.m., launched by a small pilot boat captained by one Bill
Hoops.
By 8 a.m., “the stroke of the swimmers has slowed percepti-
bly,” wrote Travis, who accompanied Hoops in the skiff. “The
strain is terrifi c. Their faces have gone dead white beneath their
tans and the lines of their faces have drawn tense. Their lips are
black with cold.”
Hug complained of seasickness and leaned against the boat
for a sip of beef broth before resuming his swim.
The pilot boat rocked “drunkenly,” according to the report,
as Hoops called out “Riptide!”
Panting and nearly exhausted, the swimmers rolled onto
their backs when the rip w crossed.
As the lighthouse grew in size, the waves “grow bigger with
every passing minute,” fi nally close enough for Reed and Hug
to board the skiff and tumble into a swinging basket and hauled
to the beacon. “Perfect manipulation of the oars is necessary to
keep from shipping a wave,” reported the Signal.
At 9:25 a.m., the swimmers reached their destination.
Their fi nal time was registered in the lighthouse log dated
July 20, 1934: “The fi rst men to make the swim from Seaside
to the Tillamook Lighthouse: 3 hours, 45 minutes.”
PUBLISHER
EDITOR
David F. Pero
R.J. Marx
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Jim and Chuck Reed and their surfboard, long before the
surfi n’ craze of the 1950s and ‘60s.
‘These were the original “Beach
Boys.” People here did not know
what a surfboard was.’
Jim Reed, son of Chuck Reed and nephew of Jim Reed
SUBMITTED PHOTO
R.J. MARX/SEASIDE SIGNAL
LEFT, Lt. James Reed was killed in 1942 fi ghting for his
country. His nephew, Jim, and niece, Melissa Masters, hope
to revive memory of his achievements. RIGHT, Jim Reed
and Melinda Masters, whose father was Chuck Reed, at the
Signal offi ce. Jim was named after his uncle.
They were treated to a hot bath and a breakfast of “fried
eggs, slabs of ham, seagoing coffee, fresh bread baked by one
of the crew,” and canned fruit for dessert.
Aftermath
Jim Reed died as he lived, Masters said, as a hero protecting
others, and giving of himself.
A test pilot, Jim’s plane went down in 1942. Even in death he
was a hero, she said. Before the crash, he ordered his crew to bail
out. Once his crew had safely left the aircraft, Jim remained with
his craft in an unsuccessful attempt to land the plane.
“My dad and my uncle were only a year apart,” Masters said.
“When we lost him in the war, it was very traumatic for my
father. It was hard for him to talk about. My grandmother was
never the same.”
Chuck Reed began a career with the phone company in 1940,
but “kept coming back” to Seaside, Masters said.
As a lifeguard in 1942, Chuck Reed fought a riptide that
carried seven swimmers to sea. Reed, with three of the distressed
swimmers on his shoulders, battled the current and the breakers
“for better than a half-an-hour,” the Oregon Journal reported.
Reed managed to get the three to a buoy, “then, almost ex-
hausted,” he swam to the shore for help.
Two of the seven swimmers caught in the undertow died as
hundreds watched the dramatic rescue at the Turnaround.
American heroes
Surfi ng on the North Coast languished for many years after
the Reeds fi rst brought the Hawaiian longboard, the younger Jim
Reed said.
It wasn’t until the popularization of the wetsuit — developed
by Jack O’Neill in the 1950s — that the sport came northward
and modern surfi ng took hold in Seaside.
Chuck Reed died in 1989 and his wife Georgette died in 2002.
In 2015, James Reed was named into the University of Ore-
gon sports Hall of Fame. Reed “helped attract national acclaim
on Oregon’s swimming program unlike any other,” the athletic
department wrote at the time of presentation.
What inspired this retelling was a box received by Masters by
the war widow of Jim Reed. She had remarried, but the impact
of her fi rst husband was so powerful she and her second husband
named their daughter Reed in his honor. The contents of the box
proved so compelling Masters later sought to revive the memo-
ries of her father and uncle.
“I’m the one that went through this box that was sent to me by
the widow of Jim Reed,” Masters said.
The American fl ag that draped his coffi n was in the personal
collection.
“I almost didn’t want to touch it, because it was so emotion-
al,” she said. “It was just amazing to fi nd out who he was.”
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What is the legend
of the painted rocks?
ou know about the quick access to the beach, don’t
you, the woman who used to live in this house
said. She was checking up, I think, on her former
front garden. A waggish friend told her we’d pulled up
everything she planted and covered it over with cement.
She seemed quite relieved to discover her friend was
pulling her leg.
You mean that cut through I replied, referring to a grav-
eled, poorly identifi ed short stretch of road I’d discovered
that was a shortcut to the beach.
The place with
the painted rocks,
she said. I nodded
VIEW FROM
like I knew what
THE PORCH
she was talking
EVE MARX
about although I
didn’t. She said
something else
about painting rocks not being strictly legal and how once
they’re painted they’re considered trash, but almost as
soon as she climbed into her truck and drove off, I went
looking.
Since it is sort of a secret place, I’m not going to
divulge the precise location of the painted rocks. There
is a bench. It might be private property or at least private
property adjacent. It lets out on to a very rocky part of the
beach. The amazing part about this magical spot is that it’s
been made magical by a the dozens of handpainted rocks
humans have so carefully placed.
After my initial discovery, I returned again and again.
Mostly I go in the mornings. Mostly I’m the only person
there. Although the view is spectacular — a treacherous
expanse of dark natural rock, the sea, and the sky —it’s
the sounds that speak to me; the crashing surf, the bird
cries.
A few days ago I encountered another human, which
was a bit of a surprise. He was a 30-something man, sit-
ting on the bench. He was reading a novel. I was with my
very young dog, Lucy, who was nose to ground. I thought
I’d leave the man to it and come back another time. Then
he looked up and said hi.
Hi, I said. Do you come here often? Even as the words
were leaving my mouth, I felt silly, because they are such
an obvious pick up line.
My wife and I are renting for the third year in a row a
place just up the street, he said, waving his arm in a gener-
al southerly direction. I like to come here and sit and read
while she’s out shopping or napping. It’s my tranquility
place.
In the next few minutes he told me a bit about himself,
how he would prefer to live at the beach, if he could only
fi gure out a way to move his business from Seattle. I cau-
tioned while it was very beautiful that day, winters could
be tough at the beach. I said there’s lots of wind and rain.
There’s a lot of rain in Seattle, too, he said.
Since he’d been coming to this particular place a few
years, I asked if he’d learned any lore about the painted
rocks. He said he also was curious, but no one he’d met
could tell him anything. Together we looked at a bunch
of rocks, remarking on a color or a date or the words that
had been written on it. One said “Suzanne.” Another said,
“Life is Good.” Another said, “Road Trip 2017 L.A. to
Seattle.”
At that point I said I’d better be going. There were
more dogs to walk and stories to write and soon it would
be time to make lunch. At home I did a little sleuthing on
line. That’s how I learned my magic place is actually kind
of famous. It’s called Painted Rock Beach. Tucked away
as it may be, it is still a tourist attraction.
Luckily for me, the spot is still relatively undiscovered.
If you go, leave a painted rock behind with your name and
an inspirational quote, or perhaps just the date on it.
Y
LETTERS
Zoned for residents
I’d like to introduce some history and logic to the cur-
rent rental housing crisis in Seaside. For the past 30 years
or so, many of us tried to convince the planning commis-
sion and city council that allowing vacation rentals in res-
idential zoning would destroy the purpose of such zoning,
creating motel zones, instead. No one in either entity was
interested in the opinions of locals. Creating housing for
tourists became their priority. Many city council and plan-
ning commission members conveniently owned vacation
rentals, or sold them for a living.
Now there are 398 vacation rentals here. Of that num-
ber, no less than 200 were formerly long-term rentals that
provided housing for the people who lived and worked
here. Where is the logic in claiming that vacation rentals
and the housing shortage are two completely separate
issues (“Wanted: Long-term rentals in Seaside,” The Daily
Astorian, July 19)? Those 200-plus vacation rentals used
to be housing that is no longer available to anyone. And
now they are talking of ending all restrictions/licensing of
these properties.
Think of this: At approximately 16 residential lots per
block, Seaside has managed to divest us of residential
housing, and replace it with 25 blocks of vacation rentals
in a town of only 7,000 or so people. Wouldn’t it be nice
to have 25 full blocks of housing available for rent? The
council and planning commission are not working for the
residents. They are working for anyone who comes from
out-of-town, and couldn’t care less about those of us who
live or work here. Creating tiny increments of housing
by allowing over-retail apartments will not address the
tremendous need these people have created via their
thoughtlessness.
How about using some common sense, and stop the
proliferation of commercial-use housing in residential zon-
ing? How about encouraging use of residential zoning for
residential use? What a concept, eh?
I’m so sick of their excuses.
Sandy Rea
Seaside
Seaside Signal
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