Thunder and Flames on the Lake! Free Strawberries and Ice Cream On the Beach!

Recently, the Seattle Times featured a photo of Slo-Mo-Shun IV being moved to a new maritime museum. As I looked at that image, my head was filled with the sound of the hydroplanes of my youth screaming in one ear from the grainy black and white TV screen in my grandparents' living room. In my other ear the explosions of sound reached from Lake Washington, across Elliot Bay to Eagle Harbor. It was 1952 - the Gold Cup Race - Slo-Mo-Shun-IV. My grandfather teetered on his chair, head almost touching the little screen. It was science fiction - an airplane made of wood to fly on water. It was the fastest boat ever. Its rocket, three-point shape - crouched low, prow soaring above the waves, bouncing like a tennis ball. Only the helmet of the pilot could be spotted - reckless daredevil - our new hero - Stan Sayres - Seattle and the Pacific NW on the radar of the sporting world for the first time.

"Slo-Mo", the name on everyone's lips. She proudly spouted her thirty foot rooster tail across the Times front page. Over the next years, the "Thunder Boats" were the stars of Seafair culminating with the Gold Cup Race. World records, world-famous boats and their drivers vied for the coveted trophy. When a Thriftway supermarket opened on the Island, the glamorous celebrity was the racing star "Miss Thriftway" and her pilot, Bill Muncey. The red and yellow striped vision seemed to roar off her flat-bed truck platform in the parking lot. Spectators, some in "Davey Crockett Coonskin Caps", walked mesmerized around and around the truck.

In the same era, the Island's "Strawberry Festival" brightened up the summer. A group of Islanders volunteered to pass out free ice cream and strawberries in a little area behind the main street of Winslow. In the yard of Lincoln Elementary School the carnival was set up. It was pretty rickety but regulations were loose at best. There was a ferris wheel and lots of booths festooned with rewards of stuffed animals, celluloid dolls, pennants, and the like to tempt the unwitting to break a balloon with a dart or shoot down old bowling pins. We paid a nickel to toss a baseball through the mouth of "Old Wooden Face" (It was plywood with a painted face and big open mouth. And it lasted through many years of Island events) to dunk some tolerant target in a tub of water.

Of course, there was a parade. All the kids took part. Bicycle wheels with playing cards clipped to spokes for the flup flup flupping noise were favorite chariots. Wagons for the littlest pulled by the bigger kids and sometimes a dog or a goat. Always the first to pedal down Winslow Way was Ernesto the Magician in top hat and tails on his mono-cycle. He was at every Island event. Following Ernesto, came an antique car carrying Island pioneers. Every Islander wore the Festival's green or red paper felt fedora and sported the round pin with the symbolic strawberry image. There was a Queen and her court riding on the back of - of course - another flat bed truck adorned with greenery and a throne. The Queen won that title by selling the most Festival pins and tickets. The local newspaper editor once chided "Queenie" for perhaps not selling tickets on her very own and knowing she won before the winner was announced.

One year my little sister was a junior princess. My mother made her dress - and fingerless gloves - and her partner princess' dress. The dresses and matching gloves were white dotted Swiss with emerald green ribbon sashes. I still have the Review's front page picture of the two girls. In that same parade my girlfriend and I marched wearing home-made green circle skirts. My mother made a giant strawberry stencil that we colored with crayons. Then, using wax paper, Mom ironed over the strawberries making them waxy and bright. We thought we looked pretty grand.

Of course, there was the Boy and Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. Where the small wooden race cars made by the boys (with some help I'm sure) were set to whizzing down a tilted course. One time, a girl standing amongst the spectators - who all were lined up shoulder to shoulder alongside the race ramp - was hit by a flying car. She was taken to the Winslow Clinic and treated and admonished to be careful standing so close. The same sort of nonchalant attitude persisted about nearly all kids activities. We played on the beach and in the woods, rode bicycles all over, walked wherever. All the dangers of childhood were taken for granted. Afterall, our forbears lived through the pitfalls of youth, why couldn't we?

At the same time, all us younger folks were expected to behave responsibly and shoulder our chores before heading out to play. Even though we thought we knew more than any adult, we weren't given special status - "teenager" was just a word; not a separate tribe designation. I doubt demographics and market niche were as important than as now.

But - back to the Strawberry Festival. My friend and classmate, Nina (Paynter) Head, has some memories too. Here are her thoughts.

"Yes, I have lots of memories of the Strawberry Festival and of the hydroplane races. We watched the races on Lake Washington avidly on early TV. There was some comedian named Bjorn Borg or something who came on with a thick Swedish accent who was a commentator. He had a dog he named Slo Mo. I think if we saw this today we would think it was so corny to be almost unbelievable but we liked it.

(Editorial comment: That was Stan Boreson and his basset hounds, Slo-Mo-Shun and No-Mo-Shun noted for just sitting - that's it - just sitting - which at the time seemed to be pretty funny. Stan was a popular performer on stage and TV. Several eccentric personalities entertained us in those years. Next post will be about them - they cannot be left out in the cold!)

More of Nina's recollections:

The Strawberry Festival was closer to home. I remember one year where one of the candidates was (one of our classmates' sister). The person who got to be Queen had to sell the most raffle tickets. Somehow my Dad decided to support (the sister) and ended up selling lots of tickets to his friends at work.

We always went to the parade and later marched in it for the High School Band. My Aunt Doris marched early on in her evening gown as a Rebecca - a women's lodge. Later on my parents were in the parade for the Senior Citizens Band. One year they were on the back of a flat bed truck (flat bed again!) - my mother playing the piano and my dad playing his clarinet when there was a muddle. By this time my dad's hearing was not too great. My mother turned from the piano and said, "Let's play Daisy," but my dad didn't hear and he was off on "Sweet Georgia Brown" while the rest were playing "Daisy." My mother had to shout at him to stop.

Another year we went down below Winslow on what was then a dirt road and they gave out free ice cream and strawberries. Mom sat at a picnic bench and someone behind her dribbled melted ice cream down the back of her neck.

I loved the parade. We went in my uncle's old black Packard; parked amongst the trees at the side of the road so my grandma could sit in the car to see the parade. I especially liked the float of the Strawberry Queen. I thought she was beautiful.

(Note: the following memories are painful reminders of the prejudices of the time.)

I think the Festival was a way to end the strawberry season and an attempt to stop the Indian pickers from going bezerk and breaking the windows of businesses along Winslow Way. Don't know if this worked. There were all sorts of stories around Bainbridge about these pickers who came from British Columbia. One story was that they had gone to Seattle and gotten so drunk the ferry boat workers had to carry them up off the deck of the ferry. This was before the terminal was built and so they laid them out on the grass. People said they lay there so long the grass turned yellow under them. Then there was the story of the Indian woman who no sooner got into the medical clinic, the doctor got her up on a trolley for the impending birth but didn't quite make it and the baby slid out, along the floor to the wall on the other side. I have no idea if any of this was true or not, but those were the stories making the rounds at the time."

Editorial:
At first I was not going to relate these stories. But it is necessary to understand the minds and environment of the time to keep the perspective as clear as possible. In earlier posts, I told of other instances of extreme prejudice towards those of other ethnicities. There are no excuses to be made; it is history from which we learn valuable lessons.

Plagarize! Do Not Shade Your Eyes!

This morning as I drove to work, into my mind popped some songs from my high school days. We thought we were so ahead of the pack - singing racy songs, stealing flowers, playing pranks on teachers and boys, smoking, occasionally we even drank a beer or - heaven forbid - a drink like rum and Coke or something. There were a number of "older"(maybe a year or two)boys we coaxed into driving us around so we could further show the world how worldly we were. Delusional - that is what we were!

But, the songs we sang spoke to how naive the times were. There was a college professor (Yale, I think), Tom Lehrer by name, who got himself un-professored by publicly tinkling a piano and singing his irreverent, tongue-in-cheek ditties. I used to know all the words but now I can only recall a few - such as - "Plagarize, do not shade your eyes. Plagarize, plagarize, plagarize." urging students to cheat on exams. There was "The Old Dope Peddler" who "spread joy wherever he goes." And "The Boy Scouts' Marching Song" - "Be prepared as through life you march along. Be prepared to hide that pack of cigarettes. Don't make book if you cannot cover bets." And so on and so on. Naughty! Redd Foxx's album of dirty jokes played on an actual red vinyl platter. We mischievously asked one of the boys what "masochism" was. He ran away, his face bright red. We thought we were legendary in our feats of stealthily snatching flowers from private yards and then using the flora to decorate school events.

Embarrassing!

At the same time, the boys busied themselves with guns and cars. The "garbage dump" was the best place for target shooting. They would drive slowly up the narrow dirt road, lights off, and when they got to the trash, someone would signal and all the headlights would flash on - supposedly paralyzing the rats for a moment. Bang, bang, bang - who knew who shot how many? "Deer Flu" raged every fall when the males could only be cured by trekking into the woods in search of Bambi or his cousin. Gazzam Lake (more like a pond except in the dead of winter) was the site to practice duck hunting. The guys had a special call, sort of Whoo,Hooo, Whoo, whoo, to let buddies know their whereabouts at the same time, not scaring off any potential dinners.

Most of their cars were pretty utilitarian. A few displayed distinct California influence - flashy paint, striping, lowered chassis and the like. Nearly all the boys were novice mechanics. The engines were not yet computerized so could be fixed in the back yard. The local junk yard supplied parts. If one guy couldn't fix his automobile or truck, one of his friends could. Spit, gum, and baling wire - not even duct tape yet.

Some of the pranks were traditional - like the graduating class having "Senior Sneak Day." Supposedly it was a secret day all seniors knew about but no one else did. Not! Maybe the first time it happened but from then on, it was an expected perk. The year I graduated, 1958, all of us Seniors met up at Island Lake on the Olympic Peninsula. It rained - no surprise there - but we had a great time nonetheless. Each class had its own identity/motto - ours was "Zorro" - you know, the guy who wore black including a black cape and mask, rode a white horse, and pretended to be the Wild West's Robin Hood or something like that. Anyway, another tradition was that each class' motto had to be painted on the top of the water tower behind the high school. As would be the luck, when a couple of "our" guys shimmied up the tower, good ole Sheriff Burroughs just happened by and shined his spotlight on the artists. I think they were glad to have the light. Climbing that tower in the dark was not only scary but foolhardy. No arrests, no discipline, like I said, it was a tradition.

The kids who lived on a paved road got to paint their names and graduation year in front of their houses. Many of us, though, didn't get that opportunity for fame - lots of dirt roads on the Island.

About the time my class entered high school, the Island was awarded another peace officer - this time a State Patrolman assigned to watch over the State Highway No. 305 which cut through the Island from the ferry terminal in the south to the Agate Pass Bridge at the north end. The Island became part of the State's highway system at the same time the bridge attached us to the outside world. Frank Perry did not take long, however, to become just another one of the Island's favorite "parents." It wasn't in his line of duty to keep the kids in line but he did his part. And he did it with his own style of humor. One time, an important football game between two of our rivals, North and Central Kitsap, ended with the team we considered to be the least of our competitors, as the winner. Well, one of our super jocks was rolling merrily down the highway when Perry pulled him over, siren blowing, red lights glaring. Perry told Spearman, "Hey, Roy, guess what - North won!" Then he laughed, jumped in his patrol car and roared away leaving the boy still pulsing adrenalin.

We were fortunate to have lived so closely watched over.

Earthquake!!!

Third grade - lunch time on a beautiful April day. Earthquake! At the time, Pacific Northwesterners didn't think their beloved, beautiful landscape was subject to quakes of any magnitude. Of course since then, the reality of the dangers of earthquakes not only in California but all along the western coast of the U.S. is well known. Plus the documented "Ring of Fire" of the Pacific Ocean territories is also common fact. The "Ring of Fire" suggests volcanoes but is also the ring of dangerous faults subject to high-magnitude temblors. The quake of 1949 was measured as a VII or VIII on the "Mercalli scale." That was the calculation used prior to the much more accurate "Richter scale" we are more familiar with today. The Mercalli scale is based on what people "feel." The Richter scale uses modern computer computations. So on the Richter scale, the quake in 1949 is said to have measured about 7.1. All this scientific stuff aside, that quake when we were kids scared us half to death.

I reported earlier that I was headed home for lunch with a classmate when the ground started trembling. It felt like we were walking on Jello. What was happening? We started to run but couldn't help looking behind us. We saw kids on the fire escape, bricks flying, everything shaking. We were right in between Keys Garage and the drugstore. (I don't know if the streets were even named then - there were no signs - only landmarks such as "Keyes", the "drugstore", the "Post Office", etc.) The siren calling the volunteer fireman screamed through the air. It didn't take us long to get to Lavina's house where her mother scooted us into her sunny kitchen. The radio was on. The announcer was excitedly reporting about the earthquake. It sounded like Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia were all in ruins. Of course we didn't try to go back to school. The party telephone lines were jammed and the power was out. So I raced like crazy to my grandparent's house. It was only two miles from the school to Hawley so it wasn't long before my sister and my uncle were delivered home on the school bus. It didn't take long for the guys at Puget Sound Power and Light to get the power back up. Island power outtages were notoriously frequent so they lacked no experience. (Tragically, one time an Island workman was at the top of a pole right off the main Winslow street, re-attaching some wind blown wires and was electrocuted.)

Without the benefit of roving television trucks, cell phone cameras, the internet, and so on, news of the quake took on catastrophic proportions. Relatives and friends from across the country soon were planning rescue trips as if Puget Sound had become part of the ocean. There were eight lives lost, lots of brick buildings and chimneys scattered, plus other damage but essentially, life pretty much resumed as always. The fire escape at Lincoln was repaired, chimneys replaced.

Our school "bomb drills" were expanded to include the possibility of an earthquake. There was no end to the ways we could die at any moment.

Nina, too, recalls the quake of 1949.

"I was in the fifth grade at McDonald School - my class was on the third floor of the old wooden building. When the room began to sway it felt like we were up in a small tree with the wind blowing against it. We swayed back and forth. Our teacher Mrs. Wilson instructed us to get under our desks. They were the old kind which sat on long wooden runners on the floor and were bolted in. The seats folded up. All the books in the back of the room flew out of the bookshelf. The gold fish bowl sailed to the floor, breaking. (Poor fish was lost) The ceiling lights which hung on long wires began to pull loose. One crashed down sending shattered glass across the room. When it was over, we crawled from under our desks and went through the emergency exit door, down the outside, wooden staircase. We were sent home on school buses. I think that the school was made of sturdy wood, saved us that day. It gave just like a tree in the wind. Damage was minimal and no students were injured."

Both McDonald and Lincoln schools were old, wooden structures. The playgrounds were dirt. Maple trees in both provided piles and piles of leaves in the fall for building fort walls - these, unlike the underground ones, were co-ed. Although the boys still took great pleasure knocking down the girls' walls. When the all-Island elementary/junior high school, named by vote as Commodore Bainbridge, was opened, all the Lincoln and McDonald kids were by default, made one big bunch of kids with no longer any geographic reason for competition. The sixth grade was split up into three classes so the competition became which teacher's class was the best. School movies and activities like the all-class spelling bee took place in the library. The "new school" (as it was referred to for years) was all on one level. The hallways seemed to stretch forever. The cafeteria/lunchroom/stage was huge. Everyone mourned the lack of a maple tree for king/queen battles. But the boys had football and baseball fields right up the hill at the high school. We girls had cement where we played jump rope and marked off squares for hopscotch and other games. Plus, there were covered areas for when it rained - which was of course, often!

Only when it snowed were girls allowed to wear trousers of any kind and then only under a skirt or dress. Jeans, T-shirts, shorts, ragged anything were strictly out of bounds as was long hair for boys and super-short hair for girls. It did not occur to us that we were perhaps being held to ridiculous rules. It's just the way it was.

And time marched on.

Simple Times Produced Simplistic Minds

It seems every December WWII stories proliferate. Or maybe I am so aware of the stories because of my interest in that history. As I reminisced with one of my high school classmates, we talked about our Japanese schoolmates and how we did not even think of them as being Japanese - that is, we did not think of them as being our former enemies. We pondered why and I posed the question to a number of our classmates. Every single one could not recall thinking of them in any negative way. Quite to the contrary, they were school leaders and officers, sports heros, popular. Their versions are undoubtedly different. But they also were too young to remember exactly what had happened. The internment of the Island's Japanese and subsequent return is very public and popular history now but our classmates remain reticent. So how I and my schoolmates did not seem to have any notion of their stories, to me, is a phenomenon. As evidenced in the Island newspaper of those years, there was vociferous opposition to the return of the Japanese. There were more than a few letters to the owner/editor of the paper not only chastising his championship of the Japanese but also openly disparaging their return. Clearly there was prejudice that could have influenced us in a negative manner.

But we were too young to be a part of the discussion. Too young to remember any part of it. My aunt who is ten years older than I, and was in junior high school, says she was too busy with school and with worrying about her gold front tooth to be interested. (Marilyn was so embarrassed by that tooth, she rarely smiled.) She remembers having Japanese classmates but remembers nothing about any challenge to their return. In fact, when I questioned her, she had to rack her memory to come up with any memories at all.

Our education was unrealistically simple in lots of ways. The decades of the 1940's and 50's could even be described as still quite Victorian. Children were to be seen and not heard - not to be spoken to or made aware of anything smacking of discord, violence, scandal, sexual, etc. In other words our environment was rather sterile; our education, stunted.

In high school - ten to twelve years after the end of the war - the man who taught World History bore a vivid scar that covered half his face. He was among those brave soldiers who stormed Normandy Beach in one of WWII's bloodiest battles. The world history curriculum made NO mention of the world's most heinous tragedy - the killing of six million Jews by the Nazis's. Shortly after I graduated from high school, the book "Exodus" came out. I spent an entire weekend mesmermized and horrified as I read - also angry that such critical information had not been taught.

In stark contrast, however, we were very aware of the Indians who came (mostly) from Canada to pick strawberries every summer. According to reports, they would attack any lone white person. (The same unfounded fear was attached to Filipino men; although Filipinos were more easily assimilated into Island life.) The Indians were accused of being drunks and completely untrustworthy. At a time when there was only one sheriff for the entire Island - population between 3 and 4 thousand, there was one man deputized to keep watch over the poor Indians numbering at most 3 or 4 hundred and confined to living in the farms' strawberry shacks. Talk about being ostracized!

Sometime in the early to mid fifties, my Aunt Carole and Uncle Hank adopted a baby boy. One evening we gathered excitedly in our grandparents' kitchen waiting for our first visit with the new baby. Carole carried the swaddled baby in her arms, Hank stood proudly behind her. Gramma reached for the tiny bundle; carefully lifted the soft blanket - and nearly DROPPED the baby as she gasped. Inside that bundle was a dark-skinned infant with a huge shock of black, straight hair.

"Oh - I forgot to tell you," Carole blurted, "he's Spanish." Good ole' Hank chuckled.

Many years later, Mark (the baby)searched for his birth mother when he reached adulthood during which time Carole and Hank both died. You guessed it - Mark is a Pacific Northwest Indian. We don't know where or how Mark is now. He joined his Indian family and stories of him reach us every once in a while - alcohol and drugs mostly. Makes my heart sick - he was a very dear member of our little gang of cousins.

OK - so we wrongfully interned the Japanese during WWII. We have done worse things to Indians. (All of this information now can be found on the Internet simply by searching Indian histories and circumstances.) Beginning in the late 1800's, our government had policies and programs specifically meant to train Indian children to be white - to forget their Indian ways. The programs for many decades included boarding schools where Indian kids were sent and essentially brain-washed. In the 1940's and 1950's the programs were changed to forcefully take Indian infants and children and put them up for adoption through churches and agencies. This is "cultural genocide." I have personally corresponded with an Indian woman who was snatched from her mother's arms and adopted along with other Indian kids, by an Island family. Mark's story is not unusual. There are hundreds, nay thousands, across the country who suffered these horrific acts and the traumas they caused.

My point in this is to gain some understanding of my own upbringing and what makes me tick. As I have said previously, the Island with its isolation, is rather like a petri dish of how our society has moved, changed, evolved, since the beginning of WWII. So much has changed for the good; so much has not.

Those Were The Days, My Friend

Mr. Hellner - he was our journalism teacher and oversaw the publication of our high school newspaper those many years ago. News that he has died at the age of 84 was shocking in so many ways. First of all, in my mind, he remained the tall, strong presence he was to me more than fifty years ago. The news is ricocheting among my classmates - Mr. Hellner was popular. Not only was he a good teacher, he was charismatic. His sense of humor was always at the ready. He was a class act.

Of course my head is bursting with memories. I can feel the warm spring breeze drifting through the open windows of the school. The original high school building, three stories including the basement, brick facade, wide staircases inside and out buttressing the east and west walls, was old and rickety even then. But it too, had presence, character, and a particular communal aura. The banging of locker doors, bells ringing, laughter, and yelling - the unique symphony that envelopes high schools bounced off those walls.

In those years, playing of pranks was fun - Mr. Hellner did not hesitate to lock the newspaper staff in the journalism room and march off to lunch. Which meant we could retaliate - and that we did! He was one of the "new" teachers - so it was up to us girls to introduce him to the wondrousness of us. Only teenagers can be so unflinchingly arrogant! A couple girls (mind you, we were honor roll students so supposedly above normal nonsense) taped down the button of his telephone and made it ring, then hid in the adjacent room to listen in as he repeatedly tried to answer his phone. So clever! There was no stopping us. At some point, he got tired of us wunderkins and meted out punishment - the abhored "making up time lost" by having to stay after school. His mistake was, he left us alone in the room - and locked the door again. It was not long until the boys were driving back and forth in front of the school, honking and yelling at the rascally girls hanging out the windows laughing and shouting back.

I'm not sure schools then or now, that house thousands of young people could maintain that feeling of home-y-ness. The same is true of all the people involved - faculties, students, bus drivers, school nurses, and even the cafeteria workers - were/are a close community - a family. Even though small and rural typically meant limited academic and athletic opportunities, we were sheltered and safe - at least in our public domain.

The confines of the Island helped make the high school the hub of Island social activity for many years. It was only after the Agate Pass Bridge was built and ownership of automobiles became widespread, that the school became less and less important to Islanders. "The bridge" allowed us to drive to the metropolis of Bremerton! On the way, we drove through Poulsbo and Silverdale - 'course we teens called Poulsbo, "North (Kitsap)" and Silverdale, "Central (Kitsap)" the allusion being they only mattered as sports competitors. All of the schools (Islanders, Norths, Centrals) were so-called "B" class - that is, each of the high schools had 300 or less students. Now the schools are "A"'s or maybe even double or triple "A".

Our hangouts were restaurants - or cafe's/drive-ins. On the Island, it was the "Cat'n'Fiddle" in the(then)new shopping center just down from the high school. But in Poulsbo, it was "Greg's Drive-in"! We drove there - so grown up! "Greg's" was owned by a member of a pioneer Island family who died in a plane crash in Alaska a few years after he opened "Greg's". It was like we lost an uncle. And to me, his death was even more unbelievable because I babysat his two kids. Their house was down the road in Hawley from my grandparents' house. Daringly, they had that house barged to the beach from Seattle. That, too, was a remarkable event viewed by lots of people. Another family built a house on the beach nearby - descendants of the ship-building family, the Hall brothers. I sat for those children, too.

Babysitting allowed me a little sense of freedom at the same time it exposed me to teeney bits of life. Vomiting children, crying children, mean children, sassy children, being hit by children - when my mother and her partner opened "Esther's Fabric Shop" I was happy to be a sales clerk even though I never took home a paycheck. Fabric was my barter and I got to sew in the back room. One of the most popular fashions included full skirts with tons of petticoats paired with a coordinated blouse. I couldn't afford the winter stuff, Pendleton skirts and matching sweater sets, but in spring, my skirts and blouses stood up to the best of them. Oh, and cinch belts (wide elastic things) made my skinny seventeen inch waist look even more little. My only claim to fame!

I forget where I was going with this monologue - it started with Mr. Hellner so I'll continue with some more of those teachers who were a part of and important in our lives. Legendary "Coach" Paski was featured in an earlier story so let me tell about his wife, Mrs. Lois Paski. She was as much integral to the girls' education as Coach was to the boys'. Her empire was the kitchen and sewing room. We learned to sew an apron and baked biscuits at the same time she exemplified what it was to be a "Lady", poised, collected, and intelligent. A lot of us probably didn't realize that then but assuredly her lessons stuck with us forever. Half times at the football and basketball games were governed by versatile Mr. Samek - he who had a hand in everything musical - individual lessons, the marching band, the orchestra, jazz ensemble, chorus - his daughter Lynnette was the majorette. There was Mrs. Daisy Sams Wilson. That woman was the target of far too many pranks. I don't recall why - maybe because she was so guileless and spoke with a soft southern accent. She was our drama coach and our French teacher. It was in her class, right before lunch, that one time a couple of girls brought Oreo cookies they had laced with cayenne pepper. Because it was right before lunch, the boys were always starved. Any lunch sack was fair game. Yes - they did - and gagged and yelled as they tore out the door. We could hear them glugging gallons of water in the boys' bathroom down the hall. The girls were laughing uproariously. Poor Mrs. Wilson could not figure out was going on. Her high-pitched scream brought the Principal from his office right above the French class. The girls weren't disciplined. The boys vowed revenge.

These are just a few of the teachers. Most stayed for many years and often taught brothers and sisters. They really were family members. Others in the community also influenced most if not all, of us. Or at least, were known figures. Like the school nurses, Snookie and Mrs. Burdess. The two of them certainly knew who would faint or cry at the sight of a hypodermic needle, who had the earliest menstrual period, which kids were in the most fights, and on and on.

There was Mr. Sarin who delivered everyone's mail on the rural box routes. Mrs. Westerlund the post mistress who every one knew, knew everyone's business. The first full-time, Island based attorney, Mr. Alpaugh was keeper of lots of secrets.

The biggest repository of secrets, however, had to be the coffers of the Island newspaper, the Review. For many years, its gossip column (anonymously (sic) authored, hinted at romances, chided those who forgot a birthday, sympathized with broken arms and legs, etc. Burying of pets, visits to and from the Island by relatives, birthday parties, and the like were weekly fillers in the paper which found its way to every home. It was, after all, the "only newspaper in the world that cared about Bainbridge Island." High schoolers were kept abreast of all things school not only by the school newspaper, "Spartan Hilites", but also by a weekly Review column about high school activities written by the school's chosen journalists.

So you see, the nature of the cocoon in which we lived. A little stifling? Perhaps. Ignorance is bliss, as is said.

I just came across a letter to the editor in the May 1958 Spartan Hilites (high school newspaper - what is it called now?) The Annual Staff (the yearbook staff, "Spartan Life")showed its affection for Mr. Hellner.

"This is an open letter to Mr. Hellner. 'We're Sorry...' we leaned out the window of the journalism room and sent signals with the window shades, put 'for sale' signs and 'leave no milk' and 'A day spent is a over with' signs in the room. We're sorry - we decorated the room with crepe paper, drawings, a tiger, rugs, and pinatas; coffee and spaghetti on the floor. We're sorry we dropped the typewriter on the pavement, and drawers and folding chairs on the floor. We're sorry for using the journalism room for a beauty parlor, dance floor, gymnasium, dressing room, and cafeteria. We're sorry you thought we stole your keys; we're sorry we didn't. We're sorry we got every multiple of the annual in late; we're sorry every photographer within 50 miles has heart palpitations at the mention of "Spartan Life." We're sorry for all of the practical jokes we played on you - the telephone incident, the teacher's annual, the letter from Hearst - We're sorry we always kept ahead of you with the practical jokes. We're sorry we never observed "proper protocol." We're sorry for giving you ulcers, high-blood pressure, the shakes, nervous frustrations, heart disease, and permanent brain injury. We're sorry we won't be here next year to pull any more practical jokes on you.

The Annual Staff." the Editor of the paper, "Spartan Hilites," added "Me, t!". It might also be interesting to note the last name of the Editor was Woodward - a name now permanently etched in the Island's history.

There are no more spirited, self-centered, clueless, giggle-infested, boundary-less groups of people than a gaggle of high school girls.

Ye Olde Curiosity Shop and Other Oddities

The first time I recall going with my grandmother to Seattle on a shopping trip I saw some amazing sights. They are still fresh images for me. Going anywhere with Gramma was more fun than going any place with my mother. Gramma was fun; Mom was not. On the ferry, I was allowed to go on the outside deck - way up front where the wind blew. Gramma just sat on the bench and watched me as she clutched her hat to her head. No hairdo-upsetting wind would be tolerated by my mother. In her defense however, I know her wildly curly hair was hard to tame under the best of circumstances. The seagulls floated on the air currents screeching their songs; the splashing of the saltwater as the bow of the boat plunged its way threw icy cold mist on my face. Above, in the wheel house, the Captain stood, his dark uniform with the gold shoulder epaulets made him look like a silent god watching over the glistening scene.

As soon as the ferry tooted its arrival at Coleman Dock, we bunched up with the other foot passengers and waited to get off. I've told this particular scene many times and no one seems to believe me. But it is true. As we walked off, I could see down to the beach - it was COVERED with a mass of squirming, brown rats. I am not kidding. The water that lapped at the edge of that living carpet, was littered with garbage. Gramma hurried me along. This was long before an overhead walkway was added to the dock which let passengers dash across Alaskan Way without having to dodge trains. My mother often laughed as she related when she went to work in Seattle (after the War ended)it was fun to run across the train tracks and often, through freight cars that were standing. You know, the kind with matching doors on both sides so it was not only possible but done with regularity, commuters would step up the little ladders, run across the car's floor, and descend on the other side of the tracks. Of course there were warnings against such activities by newspapers on both sides of the Sound. They were as effective as the admonition to drown tent caterpillars.

If you are familiar with trekking the steep hills of Seattle, you know the sidewalks have concrete treads built into the sidewalks. Those treads gave footholds to people walking up or down and in wet and/or icy weather, made such walkways passable. Our destination was the Pike Place Market so we only had to make our way up to First Avenue and then walk north to the Market. It was not the trendy, tourist destination location then as it is now. No fish mongers waiting to dazzle us by tossing huge fish over our heads. It was a seedy place and not one where a woman and a small girl would wend their way down dark, winding staircases in search of a good cup of coffee or a rare book. Instead, we marched up some stairs along with a lot of people to a huge room overlooking Elliot Bay. It was a second hand store - not "vintage fashion." Gramma was looking for bargain clothes. I remember it smelled old, mouldy - but with Gramma, it was fun rummaging through piles of thrown out garments. She was a practical woman, not a fashion setter or follower. My mother sewed all her clothes and my sister's and mine. She WAS fashionable and the only way we could afford style was for her to do the creating. And she did. In fact, that is the way she made money all the time we were growing up. Our dining room was her sewing room.

Anyway - here is Nina's story about going shopping in Seattle.

"After the war, we took the ferry to Seattle and visited the Army/Navy stores (they were stuffed with war's detritus). We got all sorts of things from them. I remember gray blankets on my bed with the USN logo. Also cutlery and nifty little shovels that folded back on themselves so they could be carried in a pack. We found some strange raincoats made of something new called plastic. We bought camping gear - tents, canteens, sleeping bags. Above the row of Creosote company houses there were woods and an enormous granite rock (we kids just called this place "the big rock") which we climbed up and slid down. Here we used the shovels to dig a "fox hole" (notice the Army parlance). Or rather my cousins and my brother dug the hole. It looked like a grave. Then they covered it up with fir boughs. They told me I could not come in. I was the enemy because as my cousin said, "you can't pee standing up like a boy." I did manage to get into that hole once and couldn't figure what the big deal was. We were replaying WWII with play guns, grenades.

The so-called plastic raincoats we wore to a Bainbridge Island baseball game behind the high school. It rained and the darned things sort of melted and flaked into a gooey mess. They had not quite gotten the formula right."

Across the bay, the gaggle of kids I ran with also dug a fort. The boys did and for the same reason as Nina, my sister, Old Man Taylor's granddaughter, Susan, and I were not allowed in. This fort was in the dirt backyard of one of the boys. They covered it with planks. We could see in and also couldn't understand the big secret - all they did was sit there. We stole their shoes - no shoes allowed in their precious underground fort. But we were scared they would beat us up so we tossed the shoes in a pile and ran away.

Back to the Seattle shopping trip.

On the way back to the ferry dock, we stopped at a drugstore with a soda fountain. There were a couple of tiny, round tables and wire chairs. Gramma bought us each a scoop of vanilla ice cream served in a little silver dish. The outside of the dish was frosty and cold. Never had ice cream tasted so good. Then we stopped into Ye Olde Curiosity Shop on the waterfront. Supposedly there was a mermaid in a bottle - pickled mermaid - yuck. I don't remember if there was a mermaid but there were lots of shrunken heads, arrow heads, and beads. I wanted to stay a long time but no - we had to catch a ferry. Grampa and my mother would not have tolerated any unannounced schedule changes. No cell phones nor even message machines then. Actually, having a telephone at all was still a novelty. There were strict rules regarding its use. No long calls. No interrupting anyone on the party line except for extreme emergencies, NO long distance calls (and calling almost anywhere else on the Island was long distance and cost a nickel toll). My grandparents' house in Hawley was so close we walked home.

Car Trips, Emergencies, and Other Excitement

As my friends/classmates share their stories, I find that exact chronology is impossible. So I suppose it is best just to go with it. Memories stir memories!

This is a stab in the dark - my mind-movies are flashing on our re-arrival back on the Island after a mad dash from East to West in late 1946. That cross-country road trip was not one of America's new (so-called) "love affairs with the automobile." It was a harrowing, flight for life. The infant in my mother's arms was perilously pale and lethargic. My sister was nearly four, and I, almost six. Of course we did not understand what was happening. It was a game to us. We got to color and play word games; it was an adventure to sleep in the car as it sped along. We ate peanut butter sandwiches. Gas station stops included water for all of us and "going to the bathroom." My sister would not sit on ANY public toilet - especially terrifying to her were those that emitted a blue glow around the lid - she preferred to pee at the side of the road. I have not found what the blue toilet thing was all about but it was probably some sort of hygiene hoax on an unsuspecting and trusting public. Of course that is what we all were - "all" being the new "traveling" hordes of Americans experiencing the exciting novelty of automobile ownership. As I noted previously, WWII marked the beginning of the liberation of the middle masses of America. So here we were, my unorthodox family, driving from Pennsylvania to Washington state - before the war, that trip would have been a curiosity, an adventure. To my family it was a hope for life-saving. And in the parlance of the day, "family" in our case was immoral - two adults not yet divorced from their spouses, the woman with two children from her first husband and one tiny, desperately ill infant fathered by the man who was hunched over the steering wheel; he who had not-so-recently been set free dishonorably from the U.S.Navy. No record remains why but he proved his unworthiness over the rest of my youth.

Anyway, there were no overnight stays at a motel along the way - no money for that and in those days, motels were reputed to be unsavory anyway. And no quick in and out restaurants easily in sight of the highway. Any stop for groceries or aspirin meant locating a market in whatever town where the road led. Even supermarkets were still a novelty - that is, a retail establishment where all kinds of goods were available; like foodstuffs, diapers, toothpaste, even gasoline. So each type of purchase had to be made at different stores. The two-lane highway hair-pinned through steep mountain passes, were pocked with holes and bumps; not even entirely concrete but blacktop, too, and in winter (as our trip was), treacherous with snow, ice, and pools of rainwater. No straight-through, many lane freeways yet. Needless to repeat that it was a difficult trip.

The morning after our arrival back on the Island, I stood on Grandpa and Grandma's porch watching my mother running up the hill pushing my baby brother in a buggy. At the Winslow clinic, Drs. Bourns and Wilt treated all Islanders for many years. They were venerated lifesavers and could no wrong. I don't remember Mommy returning. I just recall the feeling that something very scary was happening. And my sister and I were coughing, coughing. The suffocating dread of whooping cough fell over the house.

"They took him to Children's Orthopedic in Seattle."

My Gramma told someone on the phone. Of course, it was a party line so the news spread swiftly. The telephone operator knew everyone on the Island, listened in on all the party lines (it was a known fact), and took no time spreading news - she believed it was her job.

Clearly, medical emergencies on the Island had to be even more emergency than emergency. Today, helicopters, speedy ambulances across the Agate Pass Bridge, and a sophisticated medical community right on the Island makes yesterday look antiquated to say the least. Nina tells a story, too. Once rescued from condom contamination, her family faced another, far more dangerous situation. In her words:

"Shortly after (we were saved from those nasty condoms) my father took ill in the night. He had been working terrible hours in the bomb factory (and then, at the Creosote plant), getting very little sleep, existing on coffee and cigarettes. His stomach was giving him terrible pain. My mother called the doctor (must have been Dr. Shepard - the other doctors were off to war). He came to our little row (Creosote company) house, examined my Dad and discovered he had a burst ulcer and was in great danger. That's where Captain Brisboe came in. The doctor asked him to take my dad on a stretcher into Seattle on his tugboat. It was the middle of the night; no ferries were running. Captain Brisboe arranged with the hospital in Seattle to meet his tug. So - my Dad made it across and was taken immediately into surgery. He was in the hospital for nearly three months. My mother had to hire private nurses to care for him because all the hospitals were filled with War vets. The savings my parents had from the Illinois job dwindled quickly away to pay medical bills. My father came home weak and depressed. It was into the fall for my father's recuperation. My mother spent most days at the hospital and when he came home, took daily care of my Dad. My brother and I came under the care of my aunt (also living in one of the Creosote company's row cottages). She fed us breakfast and then dismissed us to "go outside and play." We did. Bainbridge woods, beaches, everywhere, became our hideouts and playpens. We had a ball! I honestly do not think we understood my father was very close to dying."

Today excellent and immediate medical attention is taken for granted. And it was not but a bit over hundred years ago that medicine truly came into its own as a respected, reliable, indeed venerated, profession. We are fortunate in countless ways! And it is interesting to look back to those years. Nina's story is the first time I read about the necessity of hiring private nurses.

Also I need to note that Nina's father's medical crisis took place just before the war ended. It was late 1945 when our cross-country dash took place. Do Dr. Bourns was back from war and it was he who saved my brother - at least according to family lore. Six months after he was rushed to Children's Orthopedic, Paul (who later insisted - for several years - that his name was Ole Larson) came back home, a laughing,round-faced baby in excellent health. Everyone cried and laughed at the same time.