Few and Far Between

Ready for the Rods!

     We were excited at the prospect of the Rod Cruise through Oysterville yesterday afternoon.  We positioned our chairs to maximize our view.  We filled the ice bucket and made the dip.  We were ready.
     The rods were scheduled to leave Wilson Field at 4:00 o’clock, drive through Ocean Park, north through Surfside and on into Oysterville, making the cannery loop and then driving south past our house and the church.  The first spectators arrived about 3:00 and set up their chairs and coolers and other paraphernalia across the street and a little to the north.
     That was a bit worrisome.  We had heard stories of the “troubles” of past years when the Cruise went through Long Beach and Seaview.  Unruly onlookers had sometimes egged on the drivers, throwing buckets of water in their path and urging them to spin out.  Arrests were made.  We hoped that things would be calm in Oysterville.
     Maybe we hoped too hard.  Except for our ‘party of six” and the eight or ten people across the street, no one else arrived to watch.  Very few rods arrived, either.  They came in clusters of eight or nine with lengthy breaks in between.  We had been told there would be flaggers to manage traffic along their route, and we figured that the lag between groups reflected hold-ups for cross streets.  Almost every group included a couple of non-rods, too, – folks who were seriously trying to travel south or who had just joined in for the fun of it.
     Despite our disappointment in the numbers of rods, we had a lovely time.  The sun shone, the drivers waved, the refreshments were refreshing and our companions, companionable.   As a bonus, a friend from Astoria who was giving a visitor ‘The Tour’ stopped by to say “hello,” and a distant Espy cousin came by to introduce himself and show me his family tree.  I wished our current family genealogist, Cousin Ralph, had been here – especially since they are both descended from William “Kentuck” Espy, brother of my great-grandfather, Robert Hamilton Espy.  Maybe next year…

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