What's "Grosser Than" Old Poetry?

Recent postings on SFK by well known (to some) authors, besides proving you can take the girls out of the country song but you can't take the country song out of the girls, have inspired my competiveness. This poem we Kennydale kids used to recite back in the early 50's possibly is a well-UNknown classic by now. We thought it was pretty funny then and its still not bad. As far as I know it never had a title. I'll call it "One Bright Morning..."

One bright morning in the middle of the night two dead boys got
up to fight.
Back-to-back, they faced each other;
Drew their swords and shot one another.
A deaf policeman heard the noise,
Pulled his gun
And stabbed the boys!

That's All, Folks. At least for now. I'll save the naughty 60 + year old Johnny F.....faster and Harry Bawls jokes for another time. Also the scatological "cherry pie" stuff. Mostly, these
have NOT aged well, especially given our sensitive, politically correct socio-political circumstances these days. There is, however, this one that has a great punchline....

Meal Deals on Wheels

I'm in the midst of negotiating a deal for a new Ford pick-up with a dealer in Bellevue and one of the issues that has come up is paying transportation costs for moving the vehicle up from Oregon. In stating my objection to paying this fee I pointed out that their marketing costs dealing with me via e-mail on the internet were very low and they should reflect that in their pricing. After all, it's not like they're trying to sell my father!

In 1968 Pa "had a few" of a miserable Saturday afternoon and decided to attend an on-site sales promotion at Lowes Motors, a truck outfit on Rainier Ave. in Seattle at that time, not a hardware store in Renton. They were handing out free hot dogs to all comers, no purchase required, of course; just looking was just fine. When he finally came home he announced that he had eaten 5 hotdogs before they had finally sold him a new 3 quarter ton Ford Ranger, eventually to be aka "Freddie" around here. Freddie's price new was $3800 so Pa figured he ate four $750 hot dogs and one especially good one at $800. He told this amusing story with various elaborations and exaggerations pretty regularly when "he'd had a few". It was a good fable and well presented, so we didn't object much, even after ...oh, about the hundredth telling.

Well "Freddie" , after a couple of fall hunting trips, miscellaneous light hauling, maybe a bit of driving to work and the bowling alley in the Hilands, saw pretty minimal use over the years as Pa "had a few more" and lost his license. When I took it over it actually got more of a workout in a few years than it did all the time he had had it. In fact, you could say he got more mileage out of his truck buying story than he ever did out of the truck.

Down at the Crick

"Down at the crick!" That would have been a frequent answer to the question, "Where's Waldo?" (or anybody else) during the springs and summers of the late 40's and 50's. We kids spent a LOT of time on the reach of May Creek between the Kennydale School trail and the stream's outfall into Lake Washington. We fished, waded, grubbed periwinkles for bait and just messed around.

In those pre I-405 days there were several easy ways to get to the creek. We could drop down 100 or so yards directly below Kennydale school on a trail that started about where the ARCO station is now and ended at an old bridge. I haven't looked recently, but that trail may still be there. When fishing season opened in the spring (May Creek was a "juvenile fishing only" stream that opened when lowland lakes did in April rather than May with the rivers and beaver ponds; it's closed entirely year around now) I would take fishing gear to school and "fish my way home" downstream after school. After (often ) catching a few small trout I'd claw my way up the bank from the creek to the old washed out May Valley road that exited on the Vergello property (the east stub of 38th No. is all that now remains of this road ), cross 106th (Meadow) into to our back pasture, acrobatically navigate the electric fence and gates, usually without a major shock, and finally, emerge into the back yard.

Besides the school or Vergello property routes we could, depending upon what our purpose was, go down or up the bank at the Roger's place, also across from our back field, or the Fawcett's (northeast corner of Meadow and 40th now). To reach the very lowest portion of May Creek we would go to the mouth at Bar B mill or the crossing at Lk. Wash. Blvd.

It's interesting that most of this reach of May Creek still appears pretty much like it was 60 years ago, at least in terms of streamside development. A typical coho stream with small pools, riffles, and woody debris, salmon still run in it, though probably not in their former numbers. The mouth HAS changed a lot, though. There's a CSO outlet at Lake Wash. Blvd. now and the channel has been straightened and "improved" through the mill property (Connor Homes). One of these Tuesdays Ranger and I are going to go down to the Blvd. and wade upstream to get a first hand look at what's going on in these modern times on the mighty May. If you want to get in touch with us that day, we'll be down at the crick.

Playing Detective With Miss Benson

Paloma starting school; Ina soon to arrive; and a "Forensic Files" TV episode which featured "old school" and "new approach" teachers across the aisle as defendant and victim in court probably combined to bring to my mind this snippet of experience from my Kennydale Elementary days.

Miss Benson was a rookie teacher for my 5th grade homeroom. We all thought she was nice, but too dolled up, maybe, and definitely overperfumed. Otherwise ok. At the time, of course, I had no idea there was such a thing as workplace politics, but in hindsight I can see that there might have been a bit of tension between her and our stalwarts, Miss McMillan and Mrs Rose. Maybe Mr. Ogden, that jerk, figured in there, too, though in a different way. Miss Benson used some teaching techniques we kids hadn't seen before and one of them led to.... dum de dum dum...trouble.

For getting us involved in math and showing how it applied to our lives Miss Benson decided to set up a classroom "store". We all were to bring some stuff for the store and she supplied real money for us to use in transactions, making change and so forth. Two things ensued from this scenario, both of which could have been predicted, and no doubt were by our vet teachers: 1.) Most kids were bored, having long since been experienced in real store dealings at the mom and pop establishment across the street from Kennydale in those days. 2.) Crime occurred.

It wasn't long, of course, before some of the money disappeared and Miss Benson was faced with the thorny problem of figuring out what to do about it. She consulted with Principal Cooper and their decided approach was to have us visit Miss Benson for individual interrogation. Now, in an amazing feat of pedantic multi-tasking, we were going to get lessons in civics and criminal justice to go along with the arithmetic. We all crowded into the hall and went into the room one at a time for brief face time with the teach. My own interview was brief and to the point: I ratted, "Look no further. Jack Rog..." No, I'm kidding. She said, "I know you didn't do this, did you Mike?" "Nope" and I was outta there. Looking back, I'm sure they knew the villain (obviously Jack Rogers little brother, right?) but needed to demonstrate fairness and due process. Students were never told the final outcome of this, but after a few days the store was liquidated and we moved on.

Clearly Miss Benson learned more from all this than the kids did. She went on to work at Kennydale for several more years, a respected member of the staff, and a good teacher. The last time I spoke to her I was then in high school. She was Mrs. somebody by then, but still a bit dolled up and perfumy. If I didn't mean that in a good way in fifth grade, I did then.

Mr. Sensitivity, the Early Years

Without a lot of explanation as to what brings about these self-reflective and "converstions with" thoughts it's clear to me now that my approach to trouble is pretty clinical. Figure it out; be useful; leave that touch-freely crap to the girls.

It knew me early. Mrs. Crotts lived in what is now the Robbins place and when I was 5 or 6 I used to visit over there, scurrying through the hedge almost daily. My mother worked at Longacres Cafe in Renton in those late 40's days so Mrs. Crotts also babysat us at our house from time to time. Mrs. Crotts had three sons: Boo, Kenny (who was my uncle, married to my dad's sister Ruby) and a soldier son who had been killed in WWII. One day, after I and some friends had been enthusiastically conducting mock battles as US Marines, complete with Army surplus canteens and helmets I visited Mrs. Crotts and noticed and asked about the portrait of the uniformed fellow on a shelf above her dining room table.

Who was he ? Her son. Where was he? He died in the war. Was he shot? Yes. WHERE was he shot? Oh, in the heart, I suppose.

My mother was appalled when she heard about this "conversation with Mikey", the early Mr. Sensitivity.

Talk is Cheap

Stuff my father used to say:

- "If you've got 'em, bet 'em; if you don't, bluff."

- "You get busy and find that hammer (pliers, screwdriver, whatever)."

- "Well, I'm gonna have to call you a liar, then."

- "Eat your mush first; THEN you can have some bacon and eggs."

- "No use going out 'til you can see; can't see 'em, can't shoot 'em" (this was probably so for the kind of hunting he did, but not for most of that I've been exposed to since).

- "Shoot them between the eyes or in the neck!"

- "Stop that WHINING!"

- "You're good when you can do the job with bad tools."

- "A little shock never hurt anyone."

- "You go find your switch."

Things Jim and Tiny used to say:

"Ow, Ow, Owwww!

Age Crimination

When you're 67, 3 or 4 years difference in age between friends and relatives is a yawn, but when you're 6 or 7 it's a yawning class gulf. Caste lines are obvious and sometimes rigid when you're a kid. My social environment was like that and consisted of same age peers, mostly schoolmates; slightly elder mentors; younger mentorees and "the big kids." You might want to read "The Body", aka "Stand By Me", to get Stephen King's take on "big kids." This is part of mine.

The most relevant big kids in my life were my older brothers, Jim and Tiny. In many ways we lived completely separate lives both at home and out in the world. Some of the older fellows all over Kennydale, for whatever reason, seemed to devolve into a rougher crowd in the mid-fifties, the era that invented "juvenile delinquency", and Jim, Tiny, Jack Rogers, Paul Stark, Dick Madsen and others around here were caught up in that. Several of them even became semi-career criminals with multiple stays in various institutions. Our local guys were getting busted for shoplifting, car theft, bank robbery, various scams (including one having to do with ripping off paper route customers) and burglary. No murder, though. As far as you know. There was a boatload of criminal activity. It almost seemed like someone was getting caught for something new every week. Though most of them grew out of this errant behavior as they grew older, some didn't live long enough;others suffered opportunity lost in their lives.

My reaction to this state of affairs was very like the epiphany I had re smoking. It just seemed stupid and was causing a lot of grief and I decided I wasn't gonna do any of that. Pretty much became a goody two shoes, if you can imagine. No. I know you can't . Forget I said that.

Playing in Traffic Planning

Reading in the paper this morning about various coming "improvements" to I-405 (looks like some of them will be in place to show Lloyd new jams next time he visits) it occurred to me that the big highway back there has always been a concern and a routine topic for local conversations. Initially, as soon as it was a confirmed project in the early 50's, folks in the neighborhood wondered where it was going to go; whether they would have to move or not; what it would do to property values; etc. One alternative route pretty much followed 104th Ave. SE, now Park Ave. No. Mostly we just talked and worried about it. Once, however, we decided to DO something.

In those days 104th was a gravel road with all that goes with that - flying rocks; mud and puddles in the winter and dust in summer. We felt we had to pour used motor oil out front to control the dust and enrich Lake Washington. The County grader came through a couple times a year as our road maintenance and there was talk of much desired paving, but until the new highway alignment was set planners understandably didn't want to spend for current 104th improvements. They conducted some studies , though. One of them involved a rubber traffic counting hose across the street in front of the Nimtz place. We kids were in the garage there when the study crew set up the apparatus. Mr. Nimtz was working there , too, and having a beer. Or two. After the technicians left we kids went out and started jumping on the hose. We couldn't tell and didn't care if we were "counting" or not. We were just messing around. After awhile, apparently on the theory that more data was good data and a strong step in the direction of getting our street paved, Mr. Nimtz came out and gave us ball peen hammers. So, one kid on each side of the road, under Oan's dad's encouraging watchfulness, we enhanced the data collection process for traffic planners. You could say we "beat 'em daddy; four beats to the car!"

And that's how I, after putting Kennydale on the map with Clint Eastwood, collaborated with King county to get our street paved.

B...B...but I didn't mean to!

I've been communicating with a "retention specialist" at Nationwide, our homeowners and auto insurer, to review our policies and see if we need to revise anything. In their marketing materials describing liability coverage they specifically use the example of a child or guest breaking a neighbor's window as being covered. Takes me back.

When we were kids BB guns were a big deal and we had a lot of fun with them, target shooting and even playing William Tell type games (shooting tin cans off one another's legs or arms). Local birds and mothers weren't as enthralled ("you could put someones's eyes out!"). For several years I wasn't allowed to have one and had to rely on Oan and other slightly older kids for my BB fixes.

When I was about 11, my Snoqualamie cousins, Benny and Gary Duvall (also slightly older) got an upgrade of their airgun arsenal to a Daisy lever action, so at the end of a family hunting trip to Teanaway they gave me their outmoded pump type. My mother reluctantly, with lots of warnings and cautions, unfortunately allowed me to keep the thing. Alas, the VERY FIRST day of being a gun totin' dude became probably the worst in my life to that point and is still a Hall of Famer.

Home alone while the folks were at work, I invited Jimmy Spencer up to try out my new weapon. From the upstairs bedroom by the fireplace we decided to see if we could hit a bird in the pear tree next door (Swan Vue now). We missed, but that didn't mean we couldn't do serious damage anyway. After a couple of shots at the bird we noticed Mrs. Held way across in the house at the southeast corner of Park AVe. No. and 38th No. - you, know, the one with the huge picture window? - come out into her yard and start looking around. Well, who woulda thought the thing could send a BB that far and still have enough steam to put a hole in what must have been their cheap flimsy window? Two holes, actually.

The wait for Pa to come home to tell on myself was worse than the telling. It cost the astronomical sum of $45 to replace the window. Really a lot, then. Shortly after Pa and Mr. Spencer worked something out with the Helds (they tried to keep the holed glass to cut for other uses, but broke it in the process) he upgraded the homeowners policy to cover such things. Thus, I'm happy now to relate that the NEXT time, a couple years later, some buddies and I accidentally smashed a huge window in a slightly less stupid manner (my part was just "being a McNeely") he actually came out ahead by taking full responsibilty, making an insurance claim and collecting a few bucks from my collaborators' parents.

I guess I should relate this true story to the Nationwide "retention specialist". It seems like they ought to know what they're getting into.

Basebawling

Today, returning from a morning jaunt at Newcastle Park with Ranger, I noticed a flyer on the pole by Connor's Bar B Homes. City of Renton Recreation Dept. is advertising for participants in a softball league. "Hmmm...", I thought. "Hey! They have a senior's league. But am I (heh, heh) old enough? Oh, yeah. Should I hurry and enlist? Let's see"

We played a lot of ball in Kennydale from my grade school years all the way through Jr. High. "Softball" wasn't in our vocabulary but "hardball" was; that was the organized game operated by the Little League. Some local neighborhood stars did go on to LL and, later, Renton High School teams but I never did. Even though I was a fair to middling player I chose to do fishing and paper routing for after school and weekend activity. Whatever we chose later, though, on the block almost everyone got involved in what we called "baseball" and today would probably be known as pick-up softball.

We played two places: the Budd's (aka Chapman's) vacant lot at the northeast corner of 36th No. and Park Ave. No. - this property is still vacant, overseen now by the huge ivy-covered original old growth timber stump; and our back field, across Meadow Ave. No. from the Rogers and Vergello properties. Both places had their challenges with rough terrain (also, cow pies at our place), foul ball trajectories, no backstops and acute (or obstuse) base line angles, but we were able to overcome those with little hassle. What brought our games to an end was our own growth. The fields became too small to contain our Jr. High strengths. Everyone started hitting homeruns onto adjacent properties every time up.

Our get togethers were co-ed and spontaneous with a constant revolving cast of characters fitting the game into their familial and chore schedule as best they could. Often, a game was on all day with different characters or the same ones twice or thrice at in am and pm time slots. Equipment was varied. Some of us had real mitts and a good bat or two; others, nothing. We friction taped a lot of balls to keep them intact.
Rules were always evolving and we played pretty rough. A couple of times there were broken bones and barbwire cuts. Hey, it was all for fun and learning social skills, right?

So, I'm thinking about all this and considering whether to rush right down and sign up for a senior softball team. "They probably have regulation fields, effective fences, real baselines with infield dirt, excellent equipment, and (gulp!) umpires", I say to myself. "Probably limited opportunity for 'just being a McNeely' in that kind of environment!" That's the 'decider' right there, alright. I'll pass this time and wish them well.

Pretty Purple Legs

Things my mother used to say:

"You get home from school; you get a pan of potatoes peeled and started."

"I have to do lots of things I don't want to, too."

"Everybody's got problems."

"Ohhh... look at my pretty purple legs!"

"It's not cornbread; it's Johnnycake."

"....'s just being a McNeely."

" You just get out there right now and....!"

What Would Mr. Vergello Think Now?

There were always a few black families in Kennydale and we usually had one or two kids in our classes. I went all through what is now known as K-12 with Carmen Bradshaw and knew some of the Gutter girls from a family living on the other side of Devil's Elbow - no snickers, please. We kids pretty much didn't know there was a race problem. Some of the grown-ups around us did, though.

Mr. Vergello and his wife lived across what is now Meadow Ave. No. (then 106th Ave SE in King County) from our back field in those days when our property ran all the way from Park (104th) to Meadow. Their place is still there on the north side of the east stub of 38th No. What had been his very extensive garden is now a parking and storage area for construction equipment and fill overseen by a large , probably "volunteer", English Walnut tree. We had a basically friendly, sometimes crusty relationship with the decidedly old school Vergello's.

In the early 1950's my dad was offered, and for awhile took a position at the Weyerhaeuser Snoqualamie Falls Timber Company as Superintendent of the planing mill there. He was looking to possibly sell our Kennydale place and move on a 10 acre farm in that area the company would help him buy. When Mr. Vergello heard we might sell, he was concerned and decided to make that known.

Vergello came to our front door (a first; all neighborliness previously had occurred in the field or garden; he hadn't ever been in our house nor we in his; much later, I was invited in when collecting for the paper). He was worried about n...... moving into Kennydale and he wanted my dad's assurance that "you wouldn't sell to one would you?" Now my dad turned out not to be a perfect human being , but what with his communist friends and aquaintances and a gay nephew he really liked he was a pretty open-minded guy. As far as I ever knew he hadn't a racial attitude anywhere in his mind. He also was a McNeely, though, and "being a McNeely" according to my mother meant, among other things, he wasn't above pulling folk's chains. So when Mr. Vergello asked this insensitive question Pa replied, "Sure. I'm even going to go look for some and sell to the first one that's got any money!" History doesn't record how taken aback our neighbor was. Must have been a bit.

As it turned out, pa left the Weyerhaeuser job after a few months , mostly because he didn't like the idea of being boss over so many old buddies and relatives. Presumably they didn't want him "being a McNeely" in that role, either. Kennydale and Mr. Vergello got to keep us. Our neighborhhood has , of course, become considerably multi-hued since. I wonder if Vergello had a concern now, whose nearby door he would knock on?

You Can Call Me Mr.

Names kids use are interesting. Real young folks tend to leave off first syllables, and teens the last - "'fessor" and "prof" respectively, when referring to the college teacher, for example. They sometimes create nicknames that last a lifetime; and come up with the answer to the questuion of how to name grandma. There are challenges, too. For instance, what besides "Timmy's dad", should Timmy's dad be called? Thorny issues alright. In Kennydale we had a simple solution to some of these dilemmas: We used unadulterated first and last names a lot.

The only enduring nickname I can remember right off hand is my next older brother, Lloyd's. At some point in his pre-teens it looked like he was going to be a "tall one" (eventually got to a respectable 5' 11") so he became "Tiny", but only to family and friendlies. If he didn't know you well he wasn't shy about advising "you can call me Lloyd." My dad called me "Pokey", but no else did. Oan and I didn't become "Stupid" until we were in our 40's. Usually in our youth we just used real names. I did that, and still do with the added conceit now of usually not using contractions or short forms - Carol's brother is "Robert", not "Bob"; "Jennifer" is Jennifer and "Theodore" is Theodore. Once, in philosophical discussion I even objected to using the short form of a race horse's name as disrespectful to the animal. "Thirsty Knight" could NOT be called "Thirsty"! I wasn't that bad as a kid, but I still named names, not nicks.

This endearing formality wasn't ironclad for kids (sometimes Don Rogers was a..h...) but was fairly pervasive. Grown-ups around us, though, were ALWAYS called "Mr." or "Mrs." I cannot recall ever addressing an adult non-relative elder by their first name or in any other way. "Mr. Nimtz"; "Mr. Budd". Some teachers got "Mr." or "Mrs." dropped but, for instance, our music and PE guy was still "Shoemaker". I still refer to our long time elderly neighbors "Mr. and Mrs. Robbins" instead of "Sam and Valerie". Even the demanding Anderson guy at the end of a long driveway on my paper route who complained and never paid on time was "Mr." "Mr. A..H..."

Plank Walking

This morning I wobbled up on the sofa to execute a minor repair on our front window blind. Struggled with my footwork a bit. Amazing how something that was simple beyond thought in early Kennydale is a challenge these days.

It seems like we spent half our time carefully walking or climbing on narrow precarious substrate like the boom or (sometimes) rolling logs at the millpond or the railroad tracks. We frequently tried to walk the tracks, without stepping or falling off, from Kennydale Beach to Spencer's Lake Washington lot near the Bar B and sometimes we made it. Trails to May Creek were pretty easy but fallen tree and rock crossings required varying degrees of skill; and we generally had it, for easy wheeling just about anywhere. Just about.

There were, however, the Liberty ships anchored at what is now Gene Coulon Park - the concrete shoreside anchor blocks can still be observed there just north of the canoe launch and north restroom. These ships had been towed through the Ship Canal into Lake Washington after WWII for storage and a wait for salvage. They were linked deck to deck by planks waaaay above the water. Mostly the "big kids" spent time exploring these vessels and running from one to the other. Just once, though, I was with my brother Tiny and Vince Grace when they began this, needless to say, forbidden activity. In order to participate fully and keep up I was required to cross on one of these 12 or so foot long beams. I was told I "could do it, Mike", but if I "wouldn't" I "should" just go home. It was a scary deal alright. I did make it, side step by side step, but was sufficiently impressed with the situation that I decided I didn't want any more of THAT. Those guys weren't that much fun to hang with anyway. Thereafter I limited my plank walking to figurative and metaphorical circumstances. Until I climbed on that couch this morning.

Justice! Justice?

Over the years we had a lot of dealings with the Rogers boys - Jack, Don and Jimmy - and, to a lesser degree, their older sister. The Rogers lived across Meadow from our back field so we were close neighbors as well as classmates. A lot of interaction there and some good stories to tell ( and some definitely NOT to) about our love/hate relationship with these folks. One of the first involved their dad.

While we always had hassles with the kids and were leery about their mom, who may have had substance abuse issues or other problems, we actually liked Mr. Rogers, even if being a bit afraid of him. A supervisor at Pacific Car and Foundry in Renton - the "car shops" as they were commonly called - he seemed pretty easy going . He'd had an injury that resulted in a hook hand just like those you see in urban legend representations. Pretty scary, but Oan and I , 6 and 8 or something like that, decided to approach him anyway when we were feeling particularly aggrieved about some injustice Jack and Don had done us, the nature of which I can't even come close to recalling now. So we went to him with our story and hopes he "could do something about it". I'm not sure how we rationalized that this wasn't simply tattling, but we must have done, because even at that early age we viewed "telling" with contempt. Mr. Rogers wasn't fooled, though. He considered for a moment or two, rubbed his chin and opined as to how he guessed he'd "just have to cut their bloody fingers off." Oan and I agreed that that would be going too far. Just barely, but too far.

Game Games

We see a lot of wildlife in Kennydale these days, much more of most species than when I was growing up here. Deer regularly "visit" our garden and fruit trees; neighbors have semi-serious problems with raccoons; Stellars Jays and Eastern Grey Squirrels wage warfare over the unripe filberts in August. If sheer numbers were the metric, of course, Starlings, English Sparrows and Crows would, all by themselves, win the comparison many times over. In things biological, though, numbers aren't the only thing. What you want to have is diversity - sustainable populations of a lot of different kinds of critters to fill all the niches. I believe we had that in the 40's, 50's and 60's but it was hard to tell for sure because no more would some animal show its face than it would likely get shot at.

In those days there weren't any hard and fast rules about shooting. Some folks hunted deer in the May Creek Valley and we got an occasional ring neck pheasant in the back field. Pa would shoot robins with his .22 and hang them in the strawberry patch (along with twirling strips of tin foil) to discourage their illegal harvest. The .22 got a further workout on rats in the barn. Most kids had, or wanted to have BB guns - perhaps a future post topic, but my own experience with one is almost too painful and humiliating, still, to bring to mind long enough to write of it. So, in mid-century Kennydale, between the guns and the free-ranging dogs (another future post, maybe) any species was an endangered species! That certainly isn't true today. Our guns are registered, the dogs leashed and mellowed. Wild animals now are protected and they know it!

Papering Things Over

I knew it couldn't last. I was sure the Seattle Times would win the decades long competition between our two big metropolitan dailies. I suspected from the start the PI was a flash in the pan and after a hundred and thirty-some odd years, I was proved right. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer caved and its last delivery today came with a note that it had humiliatingly transferred its subscriber list to the Times, my old route paper. For the PI, papering things are over. An on-line version will continue, for awhile at least. I'll bet it's a flash in the pan.

Though I switched over to the PI for home delivery several years ago, mostly because I thought the Times wasn't playing fair when it gave up its historic afternoon edition and decided to go head to head with the PI in the morning, the Times was the McNeely's newspaper of choice. I grew up with it and my brothers and I had Times afternoon routes with varying degrees of success, excess and trauma. Those route stories are for other posts, but I recall here a vignette specific to the Times and our lifestyle that on reflection seems mildly interesting today.

In the 50's Seattle was a serious union town. Dave Beck, the notorious Teamsters boss started his rise here; crafts unions were in constant battle with employers; everyone knew what AFL-CIO was (American Federation of Labor- Congress of Industrial Organizations, a joining together of unions). Strikes of my dad's union, Machinist Local No. 79, were fairly routine and sometimes lasted quite awhile; we became somewhat resigned to them. When the Seattle Times went on strike, however, we knew a new kind of pain. We weren't able to keep up with the comics! What was going on with the many serial stories? I read them all and was VERY concerned. Here are just a few that come immediately to mind:

Terry and the Pirates
DickTracy
Mary Worth
Brenda Starr
Smilin' Jack - you never got to see anybody's face, only a profile
Li'l Abner - especially Daisy Mae (I'm pretty sure I would have like Blondie, too, but she was in the PI)
Lil' Orphan Annie
Mr. Milquetoast, The Timid Soul
Nancy
Major Hoople (Egad!)
Gasoline Alley - the characters actually aged, though I don't think anyone died

So I was wondering how we'd ever catch up on their exploits. Not to worry it turns out because when, after several weeks, the strike ended the paper published pages and pages of the missed comics completely bringing everything up to date. We could read a whole Dick Tracy story line at once! How cool was that? We had as many as a dozen pages of comics several days in a row to get things caught up. So the Times literally papered over that problem.

I still follow comics regularly. The story lines are a bit more obscure or subtle than in the old days and more socially relevant. Now that the PI is going down I need to find a way to keep up with Drabble, Sherman and his lagoon pals and the babe in 9 Chickweed Lane and her lame boyfriend. Guess I'll just have to go on line 'cuz the PI's papering is over.

Box 89, You Bet!

Before home mail delivery to xxxx Park Ave. No. Renton or , even earlier, to xxxx 104th Ave. SE in King County, there was Kennydale Post Office where you went to pick up your own damn mail. Kennydale PO was on the lower part of 33rd No. just up the street from the Salon on Lake Washington Boulevard (which used to be a local store, the root from which 7-11's sprang, I'll bet). The PO building still is there , converted now into an apartment. We were box 89.

Mail came to the Postmaster twice a day and it was a quick stop for my dad on his way home from work to pick up both deliveries. Sometimes I'd check in when going by there on my paper route to see if the afternoon mail had been late and Pa had missed it. So we had a pretty unremarkable drama free system almost all the time. Unlike with several other of our institutions in those vintage times, I can't remember doing anything criminal, humilating or disgusting in or around the Post Office. Strictly business. Except when I suspected something was coming in the post for ME! Early on, this would be stuff from the cereal box top market operated out of Battle Creek, Michigan; you know, so many box tops from Wheaties or Cheerios and a quarter for a secret de-coder ring. Later, I blush to confess now, it might be a letter (the root from which e-mail sprang, I'll bet) from a girl. On these special days, or series of days, I monitored postal activity assiduously to assure I would get first dibs. Lots of times I'd jog down to the PO (maybe 3/4 of a mile) to meet the first delivery and do it again in the afternoon for the second. Besides fulfilling my anticipation I needed to protect myself from teasing (the root from which trash talk and "ball breaking" sprang, I'll bet).

Box 89 eventually came to pass and the small town/rural culture in Kennydale was thereby diminshed some (the roots from which our engulfment by the City of Renton sprang, I'll bet).

Women's Lib 101

After my mother, in a fit of pique at a mostly innocent remark of mine, gave my hair a really nasty yank I only beat a woman once for the rest of my life. So far.

When I was in third grade we had a thing going where the guys would "bet" punches on the shoulder or upper arm. We could wager five that such an such would happen or so and so would win, for example. I remember getting hammered pretty good after the November 1952 election which my Democrat forever dad assured me Adlai Stevenson would win. These "slugs" as we called them, also generally accepted as intramural discipline, were not created equal. Some were real wallops. You sure didn't want to lose a bet to, or be punished by Jerry Creek! I always tried to deliver as good as I got (one comment on a report card was "Mike doesn't know his own strength") and hit pretty hard.

This passing frontier justice corporal punishment strategy was coincident with a popular game called "Flip Cup" which employed a wooden ball with a bored hole attached by string to a handle that had a cup at one end and a dowel slightly smaller than the hole in the ball at the other. The object, of course, was to flip the ball on string and catch it in the cup or spear it with the dowel. After a bit of practice we all were good at cupping, but catching on the dowel was much harder. So there was a competition for consecutive catches, and one day I was winning - had seven or something. Nancy Pasco didn't want me to succeed so she grabbed the string, to break my string, so to speak. As far as I was concerned she wasn't a girl; she was just a troublemaker who needed to be punished. I figured it was a bout a "four slugger" so that's what she got. After an apalled Denny Morris hit me a few times for not being a gentleman it should have been over, but.....no. Next day Nancy came to school in a dress with no sleeve, showing off a colorful bruise on her trouble making shoulder. Mrs. Blumer, otherwise one of my favorite grade school teachers, noticed, as she was of course intended to, and elicited a whispered "Mike hit me" from a tearful Nancy. Mrs Blumer administered a more traditional penalty for this episode and it didn't go beyond the third grade classroom, but I've never been able to shake the idea that it wasn't justice; it was Women's Lib 101.

Burn BarBee Burn

The Bar Bee Mill was a long time landmark in Kennydale. It was the last of many lumber mills historically on the shores of Lake Washington and was a serious operation, at one point processing up to 100,000 board feet a day - mostly fir and hemlock. A lot of local residents, including my brother Jim, found employment and walked to work there at one time or another. It was also something of a playground for me and my friends. While we never went into the mill proper we fished from the loading and dumping docks and log booms, messed around in May Creek at its mouth and walked the Burlington Northern railroad tracks skirting the property. The mill buildings were all-wood construction with corrugated sheet metal roofs, crummy looking or "picturesque" depending on ones sensibilities. We didn't have "icons" in those days, but if we had, I suppose the Bar Bee would have been one.

On September 22, 1957, a very warm clear day,when I was 15 going on 16 I was working in the back field on a 1942 Nash we'd brought home to fool around with when there was a commotion out front and Jim's announcement that "the mill's on fire!" Indeed it was. The whole lakeshore was obscured by shooting flame, billowing smoke and flying sheet metal roofing panels. Very soon it was obvious that the several fire engines in attendance would be for mop up and post conflagration activity only. The Bar Bee had burned to the ground on a sad but also exciting day.

We all wondered whether the Cugini family would rebuild. They did, and fairly quickly, too. The new "old Bar Bee Mill" which literally arose Phoenix-like from the ashes was of integrated design and modern (read: steel frame, aluminum siding) construction. Most would agree it was in many ways more aesthetically pleasing to the eye than the old, but it definitely lacked the personality. The renewed operation was successful for many more years. During the late 80's it gained some bit of fame when it was revealed to be just about the only mill in our country that was exporting finished product (pre-cut pillar and post framing) to Japan. George H W Bush visited Kennydale and the mill during his presidential campaign in 1988 touting it as one of his "1000 Points of Light". In the past ten or so years, however, realities of the forest products industry made it clear that it was on the way out and it was finally was razed a few years ago.

A lot of people didn't like the mill like I did because they thought it depressed property values around here. There have been a plethora of proposals for site "re-development" over the last 20 years and one of them finally came to fruition. That would be Connor Bar Bee Homes, now in the last stages of development on the abandoned mill grounds. Most think this is a far better use of the area. To me, though, gazing out the window of 3810 today, the lakeshore doesn't look any nicer than it did when the water tower with the _ BEE logo dominated the view. In fact, if I squint and use a bit of imagination a what I see is shooting flame, billowing smoke and flying sheet metal on a warm clear September day.