I wonder if Bud and Doug are having a chat…

Espy Family Archive

I was delighted to see the very attractive layout for the late Doug Allen’s story, “SHOALWATER’S HEART; Oysterville in its glory days” in Wednesday’s paper.  I loved seeing the familiar photographs of the Swan Restaurant and the old stagecoach that ran along the Peninsula’s only highway back then — the hard sands of the ocean beach.

Robert Hamilton Espy, Co-founder of Oysterville

As I read, I made mental notes of the questions I’d have liked to ask Doug, if only I could.  I doubt that I asked him even twenty years ago when his article was first published.  He was a difficult man to get a hold of and I found that it worked best to write out my questions for him and keep the list handy.  Eventually, he would call me with questions of his own.  How I wish that could still happen!

One part of his story made me think of Bud Goulter who died just a week ago today, and I almost wondered if Bud and I would have yet another argument about the founding of Oysterville.  He always insisted that Oysterville was here long before Espy and Clark came along — never mind the written statements to the contrary by both of those men who lived and died many years before Bud was born.  I missed seeing Bud at the Post Office and tried to imagine if he would give Historian Allen his due.  Probably not.  In fact, I imagine he’s up in the Great Beyond carrying on the same argument with Doug Allen and probably with Espy and Clark as well!

Isaac Alonzo Clark, Co-founder of Oysterville

One thing about getting older — there are more and more people and places to miss, more and more arguments to lose or win, and more and more occasions to realize that in the great scheme of things, most of it probably doesn’t matter.  Except to teachers and historians and to the people who actually DO things.

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