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I’m probably certifiable…

Monday, June 5th, 2023

Our House and Contents in Six Albums? Really?

Some years ago — maybe five or six — I went from room to room in our house photographing EVERYthing — furniture, paintings, knick-knacks, even the contents of some of the drawers and cupboards.  Then I printed out the photos, labeled them with identifications and explanations and placed them into scrapbooks — six of them.

My “labels” included the history of the house and how it had changed in the years since it was built in 1869.  My explanations also included the provenance of the furniture (much of which had been in the house for three generations) as well as what I knew of the paintings and photographs on the walls, the ‘collectibles’ and the tchotchkes and the things of no value to anyone except family members.

Every pink sticky note represents a correction. There are a gazillion of them.

When Charlie and Marta came the next summer, I shared the albums with them — probably proudly which was a bit of a downer as we found about a gazillion mistakes.  It undoubtedly comes as no surprise to anyone but me that I am just now getting around to “correcting” them.  Maybe I’ll have made inroads into the task by the time Marta and Charlie arrive this year — about three weeks from now.

“Why?” I ask myself,  “Who will really care?”  There will be no fourth generation in the house.  There will be no fifth generation grandchildren in my line.  But… somehow, the need to document (for posterity?) seems urgent.  So… wot the hell?  I’m on it!

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Here we go meeting and greeting in May!

Saturday, May 27th, 2023

1964 H.A. Espy Family Reunion

I don’t know whether to celebrate our togetherness or to lament the burgeoning burden of bureaucracy here in our little village of Oysterville.  Time was when families got together on Memorial Day weekend to celebrate the end of winter, the beginning of sunshine and flowers, and just plain getting out of their long underwear for a while.

That was before my time, of course, but we still use our three-day holiday to get together.  Nowadays, the focus is meetings more than families — at least that has become the Saturday tradition on the Memorial Day weekend here in Oysterville. Those meetings began in 1977 or ’78 — soon after Oysterville was declared a National Historic District in 1976.  It was felt that the nuts and bolts of an organization to oversee the restoration of the church could best be worked out by the town at large.  And so the Memorial Day Saturday meetings of the Oysterville Restoration Foundation (ORF) were begun and have continued ever since — albeit by zoom during the Pandemic.

 When electricity came to Oysterville in 1936, our old hand pump became yard art.

When the Water Board was formed in the 1990s, it seemed natural that they, too, should report the year’s activities to their membership on Memorial Day Saturday.  Sometimes they went first (at 9:00 a.m.) and sometimes ORF went first.

And today, we added yet another meeting!  Tucker Wachsmuth held the first ever (that I know of) Annual Memorial Day Meeting of the Oysterville Cemetery Association.  A fitting date, I thought.  Like the other two meetings, it was well attended and the project described for the coming months was of great interest — locating boundaries and burials in the Pioneer Section of the Cemetery.

All-in-all, it was a full morning and another year of Oysterville business got underway!

Kerosene Lamp, Oysterville Church

 

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Some things don’t change much, thankfully!

Thursday, May 25th, 2023

Memorial Day 1917

Oysterville is gearing up for Memorial Day Weekend — the biggest weekend of the year here in our little village.  Traditionally, it has been when families gather together to clean up the cemetery and decorate the graves of our forebears.  “Decoration Day” it was called from its earliest beginnings… until 1971.

Though the grave cleaning and decorating tradition goes back to our earliest settlements, it was during the years following the end of the Civil War in 1865, that so many American communities were tending to the remains and graves of an unprecedented number of war dead.

2014 Memorial Day, Oysterville Cemetery

Soon, the idea for an official, nation-wide holiday occurred on May 30, 1868 when Ohio Rep. James A Garfield, a former general and future U.S. president, addressed a crowd of 5,000 gathered at Arlington National Cemetery.  After his speech the 5,000 visitors made their way into the cemetery to visit the tens of thousands of graves in the newly formed cemetery.

Gradually over the following years, local municipalities and states adopted resolutions  to make Decoration Day an official holiday in their areas.  As time went on, “Memorial Day” began to supplant “Decoration Day” as the name of the holiday, and it soon became a day to honor all fallen American troops, not just those from the Civil War. It wasn’t until 1968 that “Memorial Day” became an official national holiday.

Here in Oysterville we’ve celebrated our loved ones at the cemetery for 150 years or more.  These days,  the weekend is replete with meetings (The Water Company, The Oysterville Restoration Foundation, The Cemetery Association) on Saturday.  Cemetery decorating occurs on Sunday.  The VFW gathering to honor the war dead occurs early on Monday followed by (since 2004) the firing of their cannon by The Honorary Oysterville Militia.

And all weekend long, it is a time for visiting and renewing old friendships, sharing meals and stories and remembering why it is we are so connected to this village  and to one another.

 

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Posted in Being Mindful, Community Spirit, Espy Family, From the Past, Springtime in Oysterville | No Comments »

And speaking of nicknames…

Monday, May 15th, 2023

Charlie, 1974

Perhaps you’ve already read Cate Gable’s “Coast Chronicles” column which will be out in print on Wednesday.  Right now, you can find it online by googling chinook observer coast chronicles the indomitable Pat Akehurst.  It’s a fun article about a wonderful woman who came to the Peninsula in the seventies and who remembers it all — the people, the places, the views and vistas, the jobs she had and the paintings she made.  She is remarkable and, if you have been here for even half that long, you will find yourself nodding about things you lost sight of long ago.

Writing Partners Gordon Bressack and Charles Howell with their first (of many) Emmys

For me, it was Pat’s fond memories of my son Charlie.  “He just shimmered,” she said!  I knew he would do something wonderful with his life!”  Just the words any mom wants to hear — especially when it has turned out to be true!

But… she remembered him as Quad or Quaddie.  That surprised me because, indeed, that was his nickname, but I thought that he became “Charlie” under the rather gimlet eye of Miss Blewitt, his Kindergarten teacher in Castro Valley, California.  By the time Pat met him, he was in high school and I can’t imagine that my mother (who Pat also remembered) was still calling him “Quad.”

He was named Charles Morgan Howell, IV after his dad and since his dad went by “Morgan” and his grandfather Howell was called “Chick,” we somehow connected the IV with the Latin for four and he became “Quad.”  Besides, he was born on May 30th of my Junior year and he and I spent many hours in and around the Stanford Quad (short for Quadrangle) during his first year.  It’s where he took his first steps.

Sydney and Quaddie in the Stanford Quad, 1957

It was such a delight that Pat remembered “Quad.”  I must remember to ask Charlie just how long Granny (and maybe Grandpa) called him by that name and how he felt about it.  (I never did have a nickname except for the butcher at the  corner grocery in Alameda who always called me “Syd, Syd, the Chinese Kid” which I didn’t get at all.)

Come to think of it, my father often called me “Syd” — but somehow I never really thought of that as a nickname.  I wonder if that’s how Charlie felt about Granny calling him “Quad.”

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Gobsmacked doesn’t quite express it!

Wednesday, April 12th, 2023

Flintlock Pistol typical of available ordnance in 1789 when the 2nd amendment was written – capable of holding one shot at a time.

That Cate is taking a much-deserved break from her “Coast Chronicles” column in the Observer did not come as a total surprise today.  After writing every single week for fifteen (!) years, it seems that a little down time is more than her due, and even though I miss reading the local news that often doesn’t make the paper in other ways, I was fine with her absence.

What I was NOT fine with — in fact it took me three (count ’em 1-2-3) tries to read the article by Sen. Jeff Wilson — was the mish-mash published in Cate’s usual “spot.”   First I was stopped dead in my tracks (you might say) by the illustrations of the AR-15-style rifles that dominated the top of Page A-5.  I felt personally assaulted and insulted by the images.  Why does my hometown paper need to show these as if promoting them?  Plus I have NO (read: zero, zip, nada) idea what the caption was about — receiver extension? rear takedown pin? buttstock? — and could care even less.

After those two dead stops, I finally gave my attention to Senator Jeff Wilson’s words.  At first reading, I was simply confused.  Several more tries and I realized that the man is arguing against himself.  On the one hand he says that we have seen a “breakdown of our social order” and cites “homelessness,” “weakened abilities of law enforcement agencies” and the erasure of “our drug laws from the books.”

Yep.  I agree.  Society has changed.  But THEN he wants to go back to the letter of the law of our 2nd amendment and… what?  Apply that to a totally different society?  And that will fix everything?  I don’t know about you, but I cannot wrap my head around that concept.

Muskets, like flintlock pistols, were the typical firearms when the 2nd amendment was written. They, also, could hold a single round at a time, and a skilled shooter could hope to get off three or possibly four rounds in a minute of firing.

Or… maybe I can IF we swap out every current-day gun with a weapon manufactured before 1789 when the 2nd amendment was written.  Then maybe we’d have a more even playing field in this “changed” society of ours.

Egad, Cate!  I’m sure you can use a break after all these years, but for Heaven’s sake don’t make it too long.  My old brain can’t take much more boggling like today’s!

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Posted in Chinook Observer, From the Past, Rants and Raves | 1 Comment »

Forty-four years and the counting is over!!

Thursday, April 6th, 2023

In the summer of 1978, I moved to the Peninsula full time.  I would live in Oysterville, dividing my time between my folks’ place in the H.A. Espy House across from the church and my Uncle Willard’s “Little Red Cottage” a few doors to the south.  In the fall I would begin teaching in the Ocean Beach School District and, in the meantime, I would begin the process of building a house on my acreage on the bay, about a mile south of the village.

Ossie Steiner had agreed to do the building — to begin after he  finished his part of renovating the Historic Oysterville Church.  His step-sons Guenter and Wolfgang Mack would join him.  I would act as “General Contractor” (with a LOT of guidance from Ossie!)  Meanwhile, Ollie Oman put in a 1,000 foot road from Sandridge to the building site, Bill Niemi located a good water source for my well, and the little mill at the old Martin Bog cut the framing lumber and cedar siding to my specifications.

Soon I had PUD put in a trench beside my road into which would go the electric line, the telephone line, the water line.  I called Cox Cable in Long Beach — at least my memory says “Cox” but there have been many changes over the years — to ask about getting Cable TV.  “Well, we can lay the cable from the road to the building site using the PUD trench, but we aren’t yet installed north of Joe Johns Road so there won’t be a hook-up yet.  It might be a while.”

Nyel and I lived happily for twenty years in that house with an antenna jury-rigged by one  of our ham radio operator friends.  Periodically we’d call about the progress of the cable as one company after another took over the business.  By the time we moved into the Family House in Oysterville in 1998, we were getting internet service through the PUD, later through CenturyLink, most recently through StarLink — none of whom were at all satisfactory.

TODAY, 44 YEARS LATER, SPECTRUM CAME AND HOOKED ME UP!  They had begun laying their CABLE along the right-of-way by my  house last summer.  I began calling them just after Christmas to find out what was going on.  And then today, slick as a whistle, it took Casey, Riley, Justin, and Kodi just four more hours to get my “devices” hooked up and running!

They told me that I am the first in the village to have CABLE.  Well, I should hope so.  I’ve been trying for almost half of my life for this hookup!  YAY!

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Posted in From the Past, Looking Ahead, Of Magic and Cyberspace | 2 Comments »

Kuzzin Kris and Cuzzin Ralph Weigh In

Monday, April 3rd, 2023

The Red House in Oysterville where Kris spent many a happy summer!

Why was I not surprised?  Interestingly (but not at all surprisingly), the only folks to weigh in on Saturday’s Daybook entry concerning the Shoalwater Bay Yacht Club were Kuzzin Kris and Cuzzin Ralph. Perhaps they, both being connected to the history of Oysterville through kinship and historical caring, are the only ones who really “got” my concerns.

Kris, bless her heart, expressed outrage: The Very Idea! Sheesh. I am so disappointed in the establishment that hacked together this slur on the original Oysterville Yacht Club! And she went on to suggest that the local paper publish something about this heresy and then said: other old time peninsulites will agree fully and completely.  As I have often told her, she leads a rich fantasy life!!!

R.H. Espy, Co-founder of Oysterville and brother to Cuzzin Ralph’s ancestor,  William “Kentuck” Espy

Ralph, on the other hand was rather matter-of-fact and forthright as usual:   I just have to put in my two cents even though I’m a complete goddamn outsider to the local politics. This seems to be part of almost “gentrification” of the Long Beach Peninsula area. First there was the exclusive garden club, with outrageous prices for the tours that precluded many of the long established local people.  Now this group of young whippersnapper outsiders trying to horn in on the traditions without giving proper credit to the past.   I think it is just a gimmick to push their restaurant/bakery trade but the sailing part will fall flat on its ass!

I truly do love my relatives!  And I do believe that blood is thicker than water.  And it is also patently clear (to me at least) that the history of the area matters most to those with deep roots here.

Sad.  But true.

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Posted in Chinook Observer, Community History, From the Past, Relatives, Springtime in Oysterville | No Comments »

On Being Politically Correct… Or Not

Thursday, March 23rd, 2023

Gathering Oysters In “The Olden Days”

I guess it’s a given these days that historical research is automatically on a collision course with political correctness.  As I see it, though, you can’t have it both ways.  If you are trying for historical accuracy, I don’t see any way to be PC in “reporting” what you find out.  Even though my present project is mostly focussed on re-telling some of the wonderful stories about our past, I’m pretty sure I’ll run up against a sticky wicket or two.

Loggers

And then I wonder if I will get any blowback from those who would sooner erase our history than face up to the facts of how we were — of what we said or of how we behaved.  I don’t really expect that all my readers will enjoy my stories with historical perspective in mind or will rejoice that change is gradually taking place.

I thought about that a lot today as I was writing about “Old Cripple Johnson” — a beloved Oysterville character of my mother’s childhood.  His given name was George and he was crippled and there were extenuating circumstances.  Will modern readers “get” that he was beloved by the entire community and the feeling was reciprocal?

Clamming In The Days When Commercial Diggers Averaged 500 lbs. per tide

Perhaps it will help that I’m telling stories often through the eyes of people who witnessed the experience.  In my mind, using their words (no matter how non-PC they have become) gives us in the here-and-now an opportunity to understand a different point of view — one developed within a context almost completely unexperienced by most of us.

Still… I think about all that as I look for 150-year-old “facts”  to corroborate the stories I am telling or re-telling.  There is no doubt that sensibilities were different in the 1800s than they are today.  Can I honor the past without offending the present?  I hope so.

I love the old stories just as I love these old photographs.  I do so hope my readers will love them, too.  And I hope they’ll give me some feedback along the way.  (You’ll see a story each week in the Observer. So far there have been three.)

 

 

 

 

 

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Two full lifetimes ago today…

Tuesday, February 21st, 2023

Our 2023 Telephone Directory – 24 white pages; 48 yellow pages. Period.

Our latest telephone book is really a laughing matter.  When it arrived, I threw it away in the basket so kindly provided as a junk mail receptacle at our Post Office;  I really thought this skinny little excuse for a directory qualified as junk.

But then I heard that voice in my head say, “Self.  Wait!  This could be a collector’s item — the very  last- ever telephone book issued by Century Link in Pacific County!”  So I retrieved it and looked up my name.  As expected:  not there.  But… Nyel’s was!  Now that was really weird.  He had died even before I had cancelled our landline which had always been in both our names.  Go figure.

I thought of all of this a few minutes ago when I saw online that the very first telephone book was issued in New Haven, Connecticut on February 21st 1878 — 145 years ago today.   However, it was a little different from what we’ve been experiencing since then.

L Connecticut District Telephone Company List of Subscribers, February 21, 1878

According to a fascinating entry on Historyofinformation.com:  On February 21, 1878 the New Haven District Telephone Company issued its first list of subscribers–a broadside listing about 50 subscribers with no telephone numbers included. The University of Connecticut Library copy, one of two surviving,  is reproduced on the website.  Maybe not a telephone “book” exactly, but a forerunner of what was to come.

In November 1878, the company, by then renamed The Connecticut District Telephone Company of New Haven, Connecticut, issued the world’s first actual telephone book. This telephone directory booklet or pamphlet contained the names and addresses of 391 subscribers who paid $22 per year for service. There were no phone numbers, but there were advertisements and listings of businesses in the back of the book—the first, embryonic “yellow pages.” The advertisers included physicians and carriage companies. Customers were limited to three minutes per call, and no more than two calls an hour without permission from the central office.

Besides rules, this first phone book also feature tips on how to place calls:  — pick up the receiver and tell the operator whom you want — and how to talk on this gadget. Having a real conversation, for example, required rapidly transferring the telephone between mouth and ear. “When you are not speaking, you should be listening,” it says at one point. You should begin by saying, “Hulloa,” and when done talking, the book says, you should say, “That is all.” The other person should respond, “O.K.” Because anybody could be on the line at any time, customers should not pick up the telephone unless they want to make a call, and they should be careful about what others might hear. “Any person using profane or otherwise improper language should be reported at this office immediately.”

(This entry was last revised on 02-21-2018. Thanks to Laura Smith, Archivist at the University of Connecticut Library, for pointing out the existence of the February 1878 directory.)

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Maggie’s New Book – COMING SOON!

Wednesday, February 15th, 2023

In less than a week– on February 21st to be precise — Maggie Stuckey’s new book, The Container Victory Garden: A Beginner’s Guide to Growing Your Own Groceries will be in readers’ hands.  Order now (from your local bookstore, from your favorite online source, from wherever) to make sure that you are one  of those readers!

This is a book that is after my own heart.  First and  foremost:  Victory Gardens!  You have to be older than dirt to remember them during World War II, but maybe you can remember your elders talking about them or, if you were lucky, you had a part in the gardening “bug” that took hold during that time of desperate need, and “Victory Gardens” became a part of your life.

By Lee Johnston

Maggie’s book was inspired not by war but by Covid — a time when many of us stayed close to home, sheltering and staying far from grocery stores and produce stands.  Many of us didn’t really have garden space and, anyway, who would think of seriously growing a garden in containers?  Maggie, that’s who!  Once again she brings her expertise and her understanding of the limited spaces and resources of others to offer delicious solutions right to our dinner tables.  And what’s more, she brings our friends right along with her!

Farmer Nyel, 2016

Of the twenty stories Maggie includes about World War II Victory Gardens, six are told by people we know:  Margaret Staudenraus, Clay Nichols, Sandy Stonebreaker, Dobby Wiegardt. Mary Funk and my own beloved Nyel Stevens!  And in addition to the six rich original acrylic illustrations by Oregon City artist Janice Yang, are 25 detailed line-art drawings that illustrate gardening techniques and set-ups especially valuable for container gardens by — drum roll — our own Lee Johnston, one of the gardening team who keep many of our local gardens picture perfect year ’round.

I can hardly wait!  Oh boy!  Oh boy!  Oh boy!

 

 

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Posted in Books and Reading, From the Past, Garden Notes | No Comments »

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