53 Workin at the Door Factory With Olga

Boarding school was not cheap and the $800 a year to keep me in school was more then my dad could afford back in the 50’s.  This meant that I had to work 20 hours a week to help cover the cost of tuition.  Back in the 50’s most of the students were expected to work to help pay their tuition.  Because of that the school provided work for anyone that needed a job to help the family cover the cost of tuition. The going rate was forty cents an hour if you worked anywhere else but the Door Factory.   They made a beautiful bi-fold door out of red cedar at the factory, but the reason everyone wanted to work there was because the pay was a whopping 60 cents more at one dollar an hour.

It was my second year at Laurelwood and I was disappointed not to get a job at the factory but even 40 cents an hour was better then nothing so I was asked to work with the grounds crew.

Life has its many twists and turns and not all of them are pleasant to deal with but leave us with a greater capacity to embrace life if we are able to accept them and continue on.  It was only weeks into the school year when an event happened that I benefited from in a way that caused me much pain.

It was time for the annual campout to the Oregon coast and all of the boys were expected to participate, no exceptions.  This was supposed to be a fun time on the beautiful Oregon coast where the fog rolls in at night and the skies are hopefully blue during the daytime.  Many wanted to jump into the ice-cold water as soon as we hit the beach.  Richard Leigh was one of the first to go for a swim.   It was far to cold to really stay in very long but he and quite a few others were having fun playing in the huge surf that was rolling in.  The supper call sounded to soon but everyone gathered for the roll call and Richard Leigh was nowhere to be found.  We all went out and looked and looked but we couldn’t find him anywhere. This put quite a damper on the weekend and everybody was more them happy when we finally packed up and left for Laurelwood Sunday morning.  It wasn’t until weeks later that his body was found washed up farther down the beach.

Monday morning I was asked by one of the managers at the Door Factory to report to work if I wanted a job.  When I arrived I found it was because of the vacancy left by the death of Richard Leigh.  This bothered me quite a bit but it would not bring Richard back by not taking the position and I needed it.

Events like this occur from time to time and are sometimes hard to deal with.  I do not believe that God causes the misfortunes of others to bless His children but I do believe that He makes plain the opportunities that arise and lets us make the choice.

Working at the Door Factory turned out to be a fun experience and I quite enjoyed the challenge that it presented.  I found on arriving that I was to work with Olga Covarrubias a cute little girl from Mexico.  She had flashing eyes and a quick temper and was a good worker and fun to work with.

The doors were made of two cedar panels glued flat-wise with a strip of vinyl joining them to any number of similar panels depending on the width of the door.  Olga ran the panels through a glue machine and it was my job to take the glued door from her and place it in a big high voltage press to dry the glue. The press could only do one end of a door at a time.

This about led to my demise, as the factory was very noisy and I had to rely on a red warning light that went off when each half of the door was glued.  This particular morning was no different then any other morning as were flying along trying to break the other crew’s record of the most footage per shift.  With my eye on the red light I worked continuously while waiting for it to go off.  Suddenly it blinked off and I immediately grabbed the lever to release the pressure blocks and open the electrical plate to move the door forward.

All at once there was a blinding flash with a loud buzzing and then a thunk as the entire factory went dark.  In pushing the door through my hand had inadvertently touched both sides of the grid and because there was a short in the warning light it had erroneously gone off but the power had not.  With my heart pounding I pulled my hand out of the press to see it all scorched white from the powerful surge of electricity that had flashed across from my thumb to my little finger.  I hate to think what might have happened if the floor had been wet.

I was very fortunate as the voltage was so high it only traveled on the surface and caused little damage.  I went to first-aid and had it dressed and them came back and finished my shift.  After the warning light was fixed of course.

I know the book of Job says that “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away,” but I believe that giving was in His heart on this particular day as without His intervention I might not be here today.

52 John Philip Sousa One More Time

Laurelwood was a great school and I enjoyed my three years there but I suspect that it was in spite of and not because of my adherence to its social rules that I maintained my virtue as a young man.  Not only were we housed in separate dorms which was probably a good thing but I did wonder why the need for the white line that ran across the sidewalk dividing the boys side of the campus from the girls side and the need for separate entrances to the Administration building where most of the classes were held.  God forbid that anyone should step across that line except on official business.

It wasn’t that you couldn’t talk to the opposite sex it just had to be real casual, and for a very good reason and not related to what most teens have on their minds.  For this reason everyone enjoyed the Saturday night social.  Unless it was a movie, which was held in the chapel, most social activities were held in the gym, and the big event was sanitized dancing, known as marching, with a lot of John Philip Sousa.  I marched miles while at academy to the beat of John Philip and particularly to the beat of El Capitan.  The main incentive to join in the marching was that you might even get to briefly hold your girl friend’s hand during some of the marching drills as you crossed through in one of the hand shaking routines.  Back and forth, around and around, crisscrossing this way, crisscrossing that way, up and then back, single file, then by two, then by four and maybe even by eight or even more.  And finally at the last the always looked for hand shake routine, and them it was over for the night with a carefully guarded look to that someone special and then back to the dorm until next week.

51 Put Me On Social If You Must

I think that my dad regretted the fact that he did not have more then 9 grades.  His decision to quite school came after he saw many men with a PhD during the great depression digging ditches.  After the war however when things began to boom he realized to late that it was a bad decision.  I think because of this it was always assumed that I was going to college to get a degree.  So with that in mind I was never given another option, but was sent off to boarding school along with my sister and Gary Leavens to complete high school as college was next in line.

It was the fall of 1955 when my dad took the three of us to Laurelwood Academy where my Uncle Gig lived with his family.  Why to Laurelwood Academy when there were many boarding schools much closer?  The short answer was that my sister and I would attend an Adventist School, and secondly, my Uncle lived by the school.  As it was a boarding school we just about never saw my Uncle Gig and Aunt Laura but my mom slept easier knowing he and his family lived close by.

Being raised in the bush and naturally a shy person I felt a bit out of water so I was not inclined to raise cane, but to follow the rules, and there were plenty.  It seemed that without trying I would invariably break some rule just because some idiot had overstepped and had forced the powers that be to create another needles rule.

Various behavioral modification techniques were used to correct one’s aberrant behavior.  The rules fell into a number of categories.  The one area on which most of the attention was placed however, had to do with how one related to the opposite sex.  It seemed there were three stages of behavior that were strictly monitored.  Stage 1 was the preferred stage, the “looking stage.”  This stage was the safest and if one remained in this stage you were safe from retribution, the only danger being that if you looked to much, and to often, it led to an increase in hormones, which might lead one to move up to Stage 2, which was the “talking stage.”  This stage could lead to censure and certain privileges taken away, but talking, if done very discreetly could be carried on with a minimum chance of any behavioral modification methods being applied.  If it was noticed however that it was done extracurricular so to speak, the axe fell, and you were immediately put on social.  This meant no contact whatsoever of any kind, a bad situation for all intents and purposes.  Stage 3, the final and last stage was brought on by the second stage, if you weren’t already on social.  This was the “touching stage” and inevitably let to being put on social, but depending on what was touched and how compromising the touching, could lead to being expelled from the premises, or at least given the dreaded “six by six.”  That was the big one, and it was hoped, would accomplish the needed behavioral modification.  The “six by six” was as it sounds a hole in the ground six feet square that had to be dug and after inspection filled in.

For most other activity that required public censure the punishment remained rather trivial.  It varied anywhere from sanding old furniture down so it could be refinished, stripping floor tiles of wax, getting up at 4 am to wash cows tails, or memorizing scripture, which may or may not have some redeeming value but under the circumstances I doubt it.

I never found myself in the position to have to do a “six by six” but more then once I found myself the brunt of some minor behavioral modification.  Of all the times I was required to participate only once do I remember what I did to deserve it.  As my room was diagonally across from the showers I used to grab a towel and dash across without a robe or anything on, not particularly being aware of any rule to the contrary.  The main fear was to be seen by a stray girl wondering in on official business, as our room was on the main floor.  The obvious answer should one appear was to wrap your towel around your head to keep from any embarrassment and your identity being known.

This breach of behavior brought on the inconvenience of washing cow’s tails.  The biggest hope when doing cows tails was to have someone beat you to it the morning before as I am of the opinion that cows are no respecter of whether their tails are clean or not, so unless your turn came on the tail, (no pun intended) of the previous miscreant it was probably already dirty when your time came.

Four o’clock came early the morning of my inglorious duty.  On arriving at the barn I was handed a big bucket of warm soapy water.  The idea was to walk down the stalls between the rows of cows grab each poop encrusted tail as one walked by, dunking it in the soapy water, and swishing it around until clean.  Voila!  First one side and then the other, until all the tails were fluffy and clean.

Every job has its hazards and this one was no exception.  The cows were feeding on spring grass and at any moment a tail would go up and you would get sprayed with liquid cow poop.  It was my lucky day as I noticed Lose Lucy before she let fly, so finished my duty with out any mishap.  You can bet your boots that anytime I saw a tail go up I cleared the premises, or at least the immediate area.

50 Lessons on How to Survive A Trip to Spokane

It was the winter of ’42 when the Tanaka’s logging camp shut down for a few months because of a bad winter.  This was not good, so to make it through the winter dad packed up and took the family to Spokane.  Grandpa Wimer had ended up there after he and Fanny had escaped the depression in Canada.  Maybe he was right about the US being the Promised Land, he had work and hopefully dad could fine a job also.

Dad soon found a job, which was good, but being only a child of four, such things were of little concern in my small world.  The things that really mattered were to see the milk bottles that the milkman left on my Grandma’s front porch, all frosty with their long white necks of frozen milk rising above the bottles tops, still wearing their caps. To a four-year-old milk bottles wearing caps was a pretty cool thing.  And what fun to play with the firewood left in the driveway by the big truck.  And how much fun it was riding around in Grandpa’s big black Packard car.  And to watch the iceman bring in the big blocks of ice to place in the icebox.  And having Christmas that year with Grandpa and Grandma, and best of all, my favorite aunt, Aunt Florence.

Of the things that mattered in my world, not all were fun things however.  I love orange juice to day and I liked it when I was four.  But for some reason when my mother gave me a glass of fresh orange juice I remember bringing it up so fast that the living room carpet was the only thing that could catch it.  Vomiting was not something I was particularly fond of doing, then or now, and I am not sure my Grandma was big on cleaning a rug that was puked on, although she probably had plenty of practice after raising 12 kids of her own.

What really made my winter in Spokane a real downer was that my mother decided that it was a good time to remove little Bobby’s tonsils.  Of all the remedies that had been used to keep me alive so far, this was the most drastic, and probably a wise decision as I had just about died of pneumonia as a baby.

It seemed that every winter I got a chest cold so bad that my mother was in despair.  Remedy number one in her world was Vic’s Vapour Rub and my mom just loved it. But I hated it.  She used to smear it all over my chest, then wrap me in a piece of my dad’s old wool Stanfield underwear, just to make it more unpleasant.  And then it got worse.  Try putting a wet rag around your neck to draw out the poison. The clincher was to wait until you were sound asleep and pack your nose with more Vick’s Vapour Rub.  And I am not done yet there was always the really big one, the ace in the hole so to speak, “Buckley’s Mixture.”  No medicine cabinet should be without it.  One teaspoon of that would scare the bugs out of anyone, whether you survived the treatment or not was of little consequences.  It went like this, open your mouth, swallow quickly, be prepared to give your last gasp, uncross your eyes, give a big shudder and if possible continue breathing, proof that you could survive maybe even a cold.

A four year old usually thinks of doctors and nurses as nice people so I was not afraid when my parents took me into the waiting room of the hospital.  I began to get a little worried however when they wheeled me into the operating room and tried to put a smelly black rubber thing over my face.  The fear really increased when I felt like I was suffocating, and I desperately needed some air.  At last I took a big breath only to have my head start spinning round and round as I floated upside down, in what appeared to be brown poop, finally “nothing” and then I woke up in my bed with a terrible sore throat.

The nurses kept trying to get me to use the bedpan but I was to embarrassed, even though the curtain was closed, I knew the smell would give me away.   Boy was I plugged up after four days in the hospital.

What I did like very much was the ice cream that the nurses gave me in a Dixie Cup anytime I wanted it. I loved ice cream, and I still do.  I guess that made it all worth it.  But I was still glad when my mom and dad came to get me.

49 Memories of CampMeeting

The memories of the past are what give life its meaning and continuity as we seek direction into the future.  Some of the sweetest memories are of my childhood and the old fashioned camp meetings I attended.

It was no small feat to travel the two hundred miles to Hope in the 40’s.  The trip started with a day and a night on the Cardena or one of the many vessels that the Union Steamship Co of BC owned.  From Vancouver we took the train the 100 miles up the Fraser Canyon to Hope where the campground was situated.

This line was extremely busy with hardly a pause between trains, either going west to deliver things such as prairie grain to the waiting freighters in the Port of Vancouver or products and passengers going east.

The tracks were immediately adjacent to the camping area and each year it appeared that our tent was always one of the closest to the tracks.  It seemed that I had barely gone to sleep when the wailing of the steam whistles and the chugging of the engine with the clickety-clack of the train on the tracks would awaken me from a sound sleep with my heart pounding in terror thinking the monster was coming right through our tent.

The first thing on the agenda however once we walked through the gate was to locate our assigned spot.  This was usually a raised wooded floor with a tent top draped over the wooden roof supports and maybe a bed frame.

Once we were registered we would go to the supply shed for the needed supplies to furnish the tent.  The first ones to arrive got their pick of the tables and chairs and the luxury of a nightstand or two.  But the most important item of all for the ten-day stay was the straw tic and a bed to place it on. The tic usually did not have any filling and would have to be filled from the main supply shed.  Us kids would usually sleep together in the same bed, which may or may not have a straw tic to snuggle into.  It was a real treat if it did and one of the best things of the whole camping experience.

 Water was carried in a bucket from a common drinking area where the cooking was also done on wood stoves.  My mother however usually cooked on a Coleman camping stove in our tent, as did many others in the camp.

One of the neatest things of camp was the ringing of the big brass bell for the meeting times and other important happenings such as times to eat, and when to rise and when to go to bed.  Ernie Huff was the official bell ringer for most of the years that I remember.

Campmeeting was a special time for spiritual renewal and most folk went there to recharge their spiritual batteries.  I can remember clearly the evening meetings, which most everyone attended, and the many calls to repentance.  This was a time when many a soul was saved and began a new life style.

Missionaries were big in my life as a kid, especially at campmeeting when they came to the kid’s tent to tell adventures stories.  Without hesitation I would immediately put my hand up when ask, “All those that want to be a missionary raise your hand.” 

The missionary that I loved the most as a kid was Eric B. Hare.  He had spent countless years in Burma until he had to flee because of the war.  He was one of the greatest storytellers of all time.  Us kids would just sit there enthralled as he got into his stories with all of the sounds and gestures that the story demanded.  He was an expert at imitating animal sounds of all kinds.

One of the things that I also enjoyed at camp was the big potluck dinner after the church service on Sabbath.  This gave us a chance to could catch up on all the news with friends that we hadn’t seen all year.

Its seems that all this was so many years ago but the memories still linger and have always been a part of my life and who I am today.

47 Ripple Rock a Bit of History

Schematic of Ripple Rock

Of the known marine hazards probably the most notorious on the BC coast or anywhere for that matter would be Ripple Rock.  It was described by the explorer George Vancouver as "one of vilest stretches of water in the world."  Mention Ripple Rock to anyone in BC and they would immediately know all about it and add their two cents worth to the discussion.

To travel Seymour Narrows safely a ship’s captain could only travel through the narrows during high or low slack when the narrows was calm with no currant.  During maximum tide flow the narrows would run up to 18 nauts, with large whirl pools that could easily pull a ship onto the dreaded rock.  The whirl pools the rock created could even pull a log or a small boat down and capsize it.

With almost certain peril to crew and ship many impatient captains would try to enter the narrows when the tide was running faster then the capability of the ship and get swept upon the dreaded rock. The first ship to succumb to the rock was the side-wheel steamer the Saranac.  From 1875 to 1958 twenty large ships and 100 smaller vessels were badly damaged or sunk because of the rock. Over the next 83 years 110 people were drowned by the rock.

The first two attempts to remove the rock were unsuccessful as it was undertaken from above with the drill rigs held in place by cables that continually snapped because of the 18 nauts tide that sweep through Seymour Narrows during maximum tide flow.  It was the 1955 attempt which culminated in the April 5,1958, explosion that blew the top off the rock and lowered the reef to 14 meters clearance at low tide. This was accomplished after a study commissioned by NRC Canada recommended drilling down from Maude Island, and under the sea floor to the reef.  From there two shafts were drilled upwards into each of its twin peaks, which were filled with explosives.

This was the largest none nuclear explosion in the world up to that time, and the first live coast-to-coast television coverage of an event in Canada. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police cleared the area within 3 miles of the explosion, and the engineers and TV crews that witnessed the explosion were housed in a bunker.

One event from the Ripple Rock saga that stays with me to this day is the time I flew over Ripple Rock on my way back to boarding school. It was quite by chance that Thomas Widowson and I had caught the same plane over to Campbell River during the final construction of the tunnels leading into the rock.  As I was quite fascinated with the mystery of the rock and the process leading up to its demise this gave me a unique opportunity to view the operation from the air as the plane circled on landing to drop the workman off at the site. This small thing in a way connected me to an event that helped to define who I was and where I had come from and in my mind tied me to a part of BC history.  How trivial this might have been I nevertheless considered it my fortune.

It was then on to Campbell River and boarding school, but I continued to follow the story until the big day of the explosion and the pictures of that event made it into Life Magazine, the definitive recorder of important events during that era.

The blowing up of Ripple Rock

46 Earth Quake

When earthquakes are mentioned we usually think of southern California and the kayos that they experience there from time to time.  For those of us however who live in the southwest corner of BC and the northwestern US the threat of quakes is just as real.

Anyone who lived in BC during the June 23, ’46 quake will probably still remember the excitement that the 7.1 magnitude earthquake caused.  This was the largest onshore earthquake in Canada’s history and it took place just above Courtenay in the mountains near Forbidden Plateau.   The quake was felt as far north as Prince Rupert and as far south as Portland Oregon.  Because it was in a remote area away from most man made structures and most buildings near at hand were wooden, very little damage was done and only two people were killed, one in an overturned boat and one by a heart attack.

I was just a kid of eight when the earthquake struck and our family was away visiting relatives in the US.  I remember very well my Grandma’s account of how her front lawn at White Rock rippled like the waves on a lake.

It was not until we got home to Read Island however that some of the more dramatic damage became evident.  Most if not all of the trees on Rebecca Spit by Hariot Bay eventually died, as the quake must have lowered the Spit and exposed their roots to the sea.  Our house remained intact as we had stovepipes for chimneys, but 75 per cent of the brick chimneys in the area were damaged.

It wasn’t until a few years later after my folks moved to Bird Cove that Ron Lambert and I on one of our exploring adventures explored the damage of the earthquake first hand. 

One of the properties that suffered the most from the earthquake was the Upton’s.  The chimney in their house had fallen down but across the road from the Upton’s house, sat their barn all bent and twisted with one corner wrenched off its foundation.   What was once a grassy field between the barn and the road was now a small lake as the grassy field had dropped at least three meters below the level of the road and was now blocking the small stream that ran through it.

It was fascinating for Ron and I to wander in the wooded area back of the barn and see whole areas the size of a large house with the trees all leaning at a forty-five degree angle into the air as the ground they were growing on had been up-thrusted by the earthquake.

Ron and I were quite fascinated with the damage done by the earthquake and explored the surrounding area a number of time over the next several years. 

45 Big Storm

As Read Island is one of the discovery islands at the north end of Georgia Straight and sits central to that group’s southern edge it catches the full brunt of every winter storm. Our house was built with two giant cedar logs three feet in diameter as part of the foundation, these logs then sat above the ground on concrete blocks.  With such a foundation the wind could actually get under the house.  I can remember going to sleep at night wondering if our house would be lifted off its very foundation.  On hearing the wind howling louder and louder as each gust increased in intensity, it felt as if the house would to be literally launched into space as it rocked back and forth.

It is quite a rush to stand on the shore during a vicious storm and not get blown away while watching the waves crash on the beach in such intense fury that it seems everything will be washed away.

One of the biggest storms that I ever remember being in was during a trip home from Campbell River.  Many of us from Tanaka’s camp had gone with Forest Lambert and his family to Campbell River to shop.  Instead of going around Cape Mudge the southern tip of Quadra Island we had left the Gwen tied up at Hariot Bay and had taken the taxi over to Quathiaski Cove and then jitneyed over to Campbell River.

The excitement began when we left Hariot Bay on the final leg of our journey home.  We had barely cleared Rebecca Spit when we knew we were in for a rough ride.  I can still feel the old Gwen begin to toss and roll as we turned and headed into a roaring southeaster.  For most of the ride home I was huddled in the bow of the boat on a bunk scared to death.

I can still remember the fear in my heart as the boat headed straight into the thirty-foot waves.  Finally at the very last second the Gwen would rise just enough to not get buried as it plowed through the waves, sliding down the other side, just in time to make it through the next wave.  What a sense of terror and relief as again and again we made it through just in time.

What was even more terrifying was just about rolling over in the trough of a big wave as Forest turned aside to Breton Island to ride out the storm.  How happy I felt when at last we made it into calm waters in the lea of the little island and the boat stopped pitching.

It was with a feeling of relief and some impatience that we finally got under way five hours later and were able to make it the rest of the way home.

44The Sabbath

My parents were both Sabbath keeping Christians, and as sincere believers of the Seventh-day Adventist faith, passed on their love of that belief to me.  What caused me to accept that faith as my own as I left my childhood was their sincere belief in the bible as the word of God.  As they explained to me the bible’s answers for the dilemma the world is in, and explained the bible’s remedy, my faith was established.

My parents were far from perfect but I saw very little hypocrisy in their lives as they lived their faith and honored their fellow man.

From my earliest childhood their faith was lived in such a way that I was attracted to the man Jesus as being more then just a man, but a being whose ideals if practiced, instead of just being mouthed, would not only make the world a better place in the here and now, but also throughout eternity.

Some of the fondest memories that helped establish my faith go back to my earliest childhood days on Read Island.  I remember when my sister Dawna and I, along with mom and dad, used to get in our speedboat Sabbath morning, and head off to “Grandma Lambert’s,” for Sabbath School.  When it came time to start there might be as many as fifteen to twenty people gathered there to sing hymns and study the word.  There would be the Tanaka family and most of the Tanaka’s logging crew and all of the Lambert’s along with our family plus many of the locals from the island. The children always had someone teach them bible stories, while the adults studied the deeper things that adults like to discuss.

One of the biggest highlights of my early Sabbath experiences was Grandma Lambert’s lovely heavy black bread with thick creamery butter on each slice, which she always gave to us little ones, after Sabbath school was over.  My mouth still waters for it.

I still have beautiful memories of the summertime when the weather was warm and sunny and we would all get in our boats and travel to one of the many small islands in the vicinity and have Sabbath school.  This would be followed by a big potluck dinner after which some would just sit around and visit. 

As small kids we wanted to do the fun stuff with the older kids and adults, so off we would go to find the most unusual plant or flower, or maybe a one of a kind piece of driftwood.  Beach combing or climbing on the rocks or going on a hike was always great fun on Sabbath or anytime for that matter.

I remember one Sabbath picnic when we came upon a family of baby raccoons in a small tree.  My dad tied a shoelace to the end of a stick and lowered it over one of the little fellows head and lifted him out of the tree.  When he went to take hold of the cute little ball of fluff it bit and scratched like a wild cat, hissing and spitting the whole while as my dad slowly lowered him and wrapped him in a blanket to take home.  My dad placed him in a large cage but he was always to wild to pick up or handle. Even though he Iooked so cute and cuddly like a cute little stripped kitten he would fight like a wild cat with claws just as sharp.  I was glad when the little guy finally escaped out a hole in one of the cage’s chicken wire sides and gained his freedom.

One of my fond memories of Sabbath was when Thomas Corbett an old and very proper English gentlemen, who live by himself, would walk over to our place for Sabbath school every week. This was a number of years later when the Tanaka family and most of the Lamberts except for Jim and his family had left the island, and we met in our house for our weekly Sabbath school and bible study.

After Sabbath school each week Tom looked forward to our special Sabbath meal, which was the highlight of every Sabbath following Sabbath school.  I will never forget this particular Sabbath, when we had finished eating and Tom was getting ready to leave.  He was sitting on one of the kitchen chairs putting on his overshoes, when without warning; it suddenly pitched him off onto the floor.  Here is Tom sitting on the floor with the chair on top of him and his hat down over his eye and the most startled look on his face.  We at first were quite concerned but when we saw that he was all right we along with him had a really good laugh.

43 Ronnie and I

The Lambert’s were a family that was well established on Read Island long before my dad began his logging career.  My dad’s partner Jim Lambert’s oldest son Ronnie is one of my best friends today going back to my earliest days on Read Island.  He was just about my age and he and my sister Dawna and I used to play together from the age of four or five.

Even though I seemed to come and go a lot, Ronnie pretty much stayed on the island and was someone who I could count on  to be there as a steady friend.  Ronnie was in no way pretentious, and as an adult he has the rugged unassuming demeanor of a true outdoorsman and a regular sort of guy who accepted you for what you were.

As kids on the island, I spent quite a lot of time roaming through the woods and climbing the island’s mountains with Ronnie. The first thing I ever remember doing with Ronnie had nothing to do with roaming or mountains for that matter.  It all began one fine afternoon when Ronnie, Dawna and I were playing in the mud at the head of Evans Bay, where I lived until the summer I turned nine.  The island as I have mentioned had plenty of nice gooey black mud or gooey gray mud or if you preferred gooey brown mud.

It comes naturally for kids to play in mud.  I suspect it’s some kind of genetic thing as only men get over it at adulthood, women stay with it and it continues to manifest itself by way of mud packs and such things under the pretext of enhancing their beauty.

However back to my story, where was I, yes, as you might have already concluded, we found that nice gooey black mud, now what to do with it?   Of course, what any sane woman would do, or kid for that matter, smear it on your face, and that’s just what we did, but we didn’t stop there, we kept on smearing until our arms and our legs were all completely covered as well.

On reaching home my mother just about had a heart attack.  She couldn’t believe her eyes; we had literally covered every thing that stuck out completely with mud.  After getting over the shock my mother gasped, “What in the world do you kids think you have been doing?  You crazy kids get in the house right now and let me clean you up.” And that’s what she proceeded to do.

So after stripping off our clothes one by one she proceeded to scrub us down in the kitchen sink.  The kitchen sink was for weekday scrubs; the galvanized washtub was for our once weekly complete bath.

As Ron and I got a little older we used to like to roam through the island’s woods.   On one fine summer day Ronnie came by for a visit and my mom packed us a lunch and away we went to explore the woods behind our house and maybe a mountain or two.  Just in case we took some rope, a backpack and we always carried an axe when we went for a hike.  For Ron and I this was big adventure, as we loved to just take off walking through the forests of our island with a small backpack.  After wandering this way and that we discovered that we had left our property and were at the base of Mt William that bordered the west side of our one hundred and forty acres.   Ron and I decided that since we were there by whatever fortune of events, why not take up the challenge and climb the second highest mountain in our world, Mt. William.   A 1200 ft mountain is not much of a mountain by anybody’s standards but too, two fourteen year old boys it was a big challenge.

To make our accent of some challenge we chose the most severe terrain that the mountain could muster and that was a series of rocky slopes interspersed with the odd cliff.

The early part of the climb was just a strenuous hike over and through brush and moss covered rocks of all sizes.  It wasn’t until we reached a completely exposed area with big rocks that thing started to get tough.  We had gotten to the point that at least in my mind to turn back meant sudden disaster.  What I am really saying is that I was chicken to turn around so upward I went and Ronnie as a loyal friend stuck with me.

I remember at one point climbing over a large rock on my stomach, afraid to look down as the rock rocked back and forth, but I made it and so did Ron.

Now the situation really got scary as this put us on ledge with a sheer cliff that was too high to climb without real climbing gear.  We were between the proverbial, might I paraphrase, “wobbly rock and a high place.”  What to do?

Since our climbing gear, if you could call it that, only consisted of an axe and a rope.  We were in trouble.

As they say necessity is the mother of invention, but coupled with a dose of fear one either becomes paralyzed by it or perhaps resourceful.  We chose the latter and chopped a tree down and carried it over and leaned it against the cliff and climbed our way to freedom.

I can still feel the sense of relief as we escaped the ledge we were on.  I think God smiled down on two foolish boys that day as I am not sure what we would have done if there had been no trees growing on that ledge.

42 Thunder & Lightening!

Anyone living on the Canadian prairies or the US Midwest is quite used to the vagaries of nature as displayed through thunderstorms.  My most memorable experience of a thunderstorm as a kid was on one of our summer holidays to the states.  We were on a trip this time into Montana going over Logan Pass; one of the most incredible and spectacular passes through the Rockies, and the only one through Glacier National Park into Montana.  It was late in the evening as we drove down the east side of the pass and into one of the most spectacular sights of my growing up days.  I have seen a number of such displays over my lifetime but none fastened itself in my mind with such vividness or intensity since then.  This may be the result of an early childhood impression but I like to think otherwise.

As we dropped out of the pass and down the eastern slopes of the Glacier Range we were met with such a display of natures mighty power that I was in awe.  I remember the rain coming down in such a mighty cascade that we had to literally stop as my dad realized to keep going meant disaster.  What impressed me the most was looking to the eastern horizon with the sun at our backs and seeing dozens of forked bolts streaking toward the ground in profusion.  Not to be outdone with the thunder of Hades as bolt after bolt split the ground was the unbelievable pounding of the rain on the roof of the car and the vivid flashes of light as each bolt rent the evening sky.

The drama of that display has never really left me to this day so what happened back on Read Island one fine evening some time later had to be unique to catch my attention, and it did. This particular storm was typical for the island with a few rumbles and the odd boom or two a dozen or so flashes followed by the typical downpour and then it appeared to be all over.  Just when we were about to emerge after escaping the storm, suddenly there was an incredibly bright flash followed instantly by a crash and a thundering that would rival any good prairie storm.  And then it was over.  It seemed with that final outburst that nature had outdone itself and so the storm ended.

On going outside we looked to where the last boom and crash had come from and thought we saw smoke rising above the treetops. Grabbling a fire suppression pack we headed over to check things out.  Coming around the point a most incredible sight met our eyes.  It appeared that a tree had been hit directly by the last bold of lightening and was burning fiercely at its base.  The lightening had used the tree as a lightening rod and in the process had blown a strip of sapwood and bark off, from the top of the tree to its very base and to a thickness of at least four inches deep and a foot wide.  What made it so spectacular was that bark and sapwood were blown everywhere on that side of the tree to a distance of fifty feet or more.

After making sure the fire was out at the base of the tree we then checked the surrounding area before we left.

With nature so unpredictable it makes one aware that at any moment nature can throw one at you that will completely take you by surprise. 

My last memorable encounter with the power of nature took place one warm summer evening on Lightning Lake in the Chilcotin country.  There were three of us that tranquil evening with a clear blue sky and plenty of fish to catch.  And the mosquitoes weren’t too bad if you stayed out in the lake away from shore.  What a lovely warm evening to catch a few trout. 

This particular evening I along with Les, Henry and Doug arrived at Lightening Lake, each got out his rubber dinghy and away we went, to try our luck.  What an enjoyable way to while away a summer evening, especially since the trout weren’t biting to badly and we were having fun.  If you have ever fished trout, you know the joy of fishing small fish with very light tackle.  Big is not necessarily better.

The day had melted into the twilight of a Chilcotin evening, and we were slowly making our way to where the cars were parked. Doug and Henry had already pulled their rubber dinghies out of the lake and were deflating them while Les was just getting out of his.

In the meantime I had been slowly rowing toward shore lost in the pleasure of the moment and delaying my departure to the very end.  This was just about my undoing as I little conceived of the nature of the one black cloud that had surreptitiously floated over the lake and now sat directly overhead.

The boom and rumble that suddenly jarred me out of my reverie was so sudden and effusive as to about stop my heart and cast the fear of my immediate demise.  With my heart pounding and expecting the next boom to be the last, I threw my line into the boat and took off with extreme terror in my heart.  Les on the shore looked in amazement, as it was the only time in his memory that he ever saw a rubber dinghy actually planing like a speedboat.

It was with great relief that I made it to shore and was able to untangle my lines, deflate and stow my dinghy and leave with my friends in the cab and not in the back in a body bag.   And would you believe, that was the only sound that ever came from that black cloud.  If I was being told something I missed it, but I did learn one important truth, Mother Nature is fickle and don’t let her charm you.

41 Tragedies in the Woods

It was just after Garth Leavens and his family had left and Gary was over working for dad on the north side of Read that Akeo, the youngest, of the Tanaka boys got hit with the haul-back line.  He had to be flown out to the Campbell River hospital where he strangled to death.  Akeo was working on the rigging when the haul-back caught him in the neck.  He did not know he was in the bite of the line and it just about took his head off.  Akeo’s death affected me more than that of anybody’s that I have known accept maybe that of my parents.  I moped around for weeks just thinking about it.  Their camp was just a little way down the passage from ours and we watched as the BC Airways plane flew by to pick him up.  Our concern turned to extreme sadness when we heard what had happened.  As their logging camp was a family operation like ours, we kindly looked after their camp while they mourned their loss and worked through their grief.

It seemed that tragedy comes in clusters, as it was shortly before Akeo’s death that Andrew Jenkings a nice portly old bachelor whose place we walked by every day on our way to school, got killed.  This shook us kids up quite badly as it was a school day and we were all at school when my uncle Erwin’s brother Roy, came by with several others, and we watched as they carried poor Andrew out on a stretcher.

Andrew had asked Jim Redfern his neighbor, who lived not far away; to help him cut some trees down for firewood.  Neither was particularly skilled in the falling of trees and especially with the type of stand they were working in. The stand of trees was very thick and the trees so close together that they held the tree from falling. This caused the trees to bend until they could bend no further. Suddenly the falling tree was flung back off it’s stump with such incredible force that it pulverized poor old Andrew into pulp, bouncing up and down on him and beating him in to an unconscious state from which he never recovered.  Roy’s description of what happened and how he had to pin Andrew’s tongue to his lip to keep his tongue from falling back and chocking him, didn’t help much to console me, and it was some time before I came to grips with that reality.

Life in a gyo logger’s world was not easy, but those that survived rose to the occasion and were better for it.

40 The Only Good Varmint is a Dead Varmint

A short time later Gary and I were left at home alone.  I was supposed to be finishing up my grade 9 correspondence so I could attend Laurelwood Academy in the fall, while Gary was out in the bay working on getting another boom ready for town. It was now well into the summer and I still had not finished my correspondence courses.  But every excuse found me out on the boom helping Gary.  I had not been out that long on this particular day when I heard a terrible ruckus up in the chicken yard.  This bode poorly for the chickens so I jumped into the skiff and headed for the shore.

Even though I had a 22 I grabbed the 12-gauge shotgun the same one that I had dispensed the neighbors cat with, and took off up the hill where the chicken yard was.  Rolling along the outside of the fence was a brown ball of fur with a chicken somewhere in the middle.  It was hard to separate the one from the other as they tore down the outside of the fence with the loudest squawking you could imagine.  Getting closer I was able to take aim at the brown ball of fur.  I put the gun to my shoulder and pulled the trigger wishing I had my 22 as I figured the shotgun would finish off both the chicken and the varmint.  After the dust settled the chicken flew off badly chewed and a mink lay dead with a hole through it.  The chicken survived and was fortunate to have only black powder marks on its feathers, a very fortunate chicken indeed, and a not so fortunate mink.  I can’t blame the mink as it needed to eat, but not my chicken.

It wasn’t to long after that, when I disposed of a hawk that had the chickens in an uproar.  What I liked about the old 12-gauge shotgun was that I never missed even though I was a poor shot, because with a shotgun all you have to do is aim in the general direction and pull the trigger. That old 12-gauge shotgun was worth its weight in chickens or the neighbor’s dog or cat.

39 Not in Heat Again

Gary settled in as part of the family and life carried on but not quite where it had been before the Leavens moved into our shake shack.  We always keep a piece of whatever happens and this time it was Gary and his little dog Spunky.  She was a cute little mutt who not long after Garth took off with his family came in heat.  Gary decided that he did not want any pups but this presented a problem as the Hill’s, who owned the Read Island Store and Post Office had a big old hound dog, Thunder by name, who wanted a piece of the action.  The Hills lived about 2 miles to the south of us but not far enough to keep old Thunder from getting a whiff of something good and boy he didn’t waist any time getting to where the action was.

Gary came up with a plan to prevent the inevitable from happening and it required the old 12 gauge shot gun that I had used on the neighbors cat.  Don’t get me wrong; he wasn’t going to kill old Thunder just put some scare in him.  The plan was to remove all of the birdshot from a shell and replace it with salt.  On second thought why not add a half-dozen or so birdshot back, just to give it a bit of a bite.  Bad idea!

We are all in bed, it is 10 o’clock or later, everyone is asleep except Gary and he is waiting it out on the back porch.  The minutes tick by, more time passes, at last a rustle, Gary sits up, more rustling, he puts the gun to his shoulder, finger pressing against the trigger, then old Thunder is squarely in the sights, and he squeezes the trigger.  The noise is deafening, and we all wake up hearts pounding wildly.  The howling is incredible as old Thunder heads up the hill behind the house as fast as he can go on three legs.  And that’s the last time old Thunder ever comes courting out our way.  His wounds all healed in time and the last I heard was that any time old Thunder ever got the whiff of a dog in heat he went howling under the nearest shed. 

38 Chasing the Milk Cow

The milk cow in the meantime required considerably more management then one might believe was needed.  Once the Citronella starting to get regulated and the milk just about drinkable the cow took to running off.  This particular time I was asked to go and search for her.  As the road had very little forking and I knew the direction she had gone it was a done deal.  My downfall was the piece of rope that I found to lead her home on.  I took the first piece of rope I found which was at least 50’ long and coiled it around the bicycle seat and took off.  This was to later be a bad mistake.

After catching the cow about 3 miles down the road and not far past a very steep hill, I tied the rope about her neck and started back, pushing my bicycle.

At this point I must make a confession, the bicycle I had taken for the errand was my little sister Karen’s brand new bicycle.  I probably would not have taken it but I was home alone and why not.  This was the second bad mistake.

The day was sunny, I had found the cow, and we were well on our way home.  What could go wrong?   I was soon to find out.  We had just crested the steep hilltop and were starting down the very steep slope on the north side, too steep to ride a bicycle up, but going down could be fun, but not today.  Suddenly the cow took off because of the steepness of the hill under full Citronella power, no stopping her. The cow was the clear winner and vanished down the road dragging my sister’s bicycle at maximum warp, as I watched it disappear around a corner of the road.   Remember the excess rope was wrapped around the seat and no way in the world could I untie it. So running as hard as I could, after the bicycle and screaming at the top of my lungs for the cow to stop, I finally caught up to the cow and what was left of the bicycle.  The cow had stopped because the bicycle had tangled in some roadside debris and was wheezing to the point of exhaustion, dripping wet with sweat.

After untying the bicycle with great effort I was left in despair to lead the cow the rest of the way home and ponder my upcoming fate.

When the rest of the family got home I was busy trying to pound out and straighten Karen’s bicycle so it could be ridden again, but who would want too.  The cow was no worse for wear but the milk at the next milking looked more like cottage cheese flavored with Citronella.

It was with great reluctance that Garth finally succumbed to Hermie’s wishes and agreed to return to the US.  Gary decided to remain with us and help my dad while I completed my 9^th year of schooling by BC correspondence.

I can still hear Garth singing as he, Hermie, little Jane and the cow chugged out of Bird Cove Bay, in his old tub of a fish boat, singing at the top of his lungs, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, nobody knows my sorrow.” And them they were gone, and out of sight beyond the point, and we went back to life as before.

37 The Leavens

To escape the rat race of southern California, Garth Leavens and his family arrived in our world and took up residence at Taylor’s Edenic quarters.  It seems that Taylor had placed an ad in a California magazine extolling the beauty of Read Island as a paradise and Garth had fallen for it.  It wasn’t that Read Island would not be considered a paradise by many people, but to live with Taylor and his goats in such a primitive shack would test the fortitude and finer senses of most anyone, especially someone used to the conveniences of Ventura California.

Garth drove up from Southern California in a 49 Packard, with his new wife Hermie, a 2-year-old baby, and his son Gary from his first marriage, and a milk cow.  To get to our island Garth bought an old tub of a fish boat in Campbell and loaded family, cow and all on board chugged his way around Cape Mudge and on up to Read Island.  It wasn’t long before Hermie was beside her self and close to despair and a few tears.  To salvage the situation and prevent Hermie from heading back to California with the baby, Garth was willing to do just about anything.

News travels fast in a small community and it was not long before we knew all about the new family from California and Garth’s big problem. To help Garth out and delay Hermie’s departure and that of the family, we offered them our old shake shack, which was a notch or two above what Taylor lived in.  Hermie was happy for the chance to escape from Taylor’s place and jumped at the chance to escape the fleas.

As a kid of 15 I thought it was really great to have someone my age to chum around with, so Gary and I got along famously.  We all enjoyed having a new family to live by but Garth was still looking at ways to lower Hermie’s stress level so she would not take off. 

She was into the natural way of living and I am not sure if feeding raw eggs and hamburger to her baby was the way to go but poor little baby Jane was made to eat it.  And of course having a cow was part of going natural.  To put up with mosquitoes though was pushing natural to the limit and mosquitoes drove Hermie to distraction. This was even carried over into her concern for the milk cow.  Hermie had Garth plaster the cow with Citronella to prevent it from being bitten.  This may have saved the cow from the mosquitoes but it prevented anyone from drinking the milk because of the Citronella flavor. 

Don’t get me wrong Hermie was OK and I can’t blame her for not being happy on Read Island, as it was quite a change for her.  She was a nurse down in Ventura, CA and island life with an outhouse for a toilet, and a wood stove to heat and cook with, were a long way from the city way of life that she new.  She did have hot and cold running water and electricity but the fridge they brought with them only had power in the evening.  It worked this way, fill the generator tank at dark, start the engine and when it ran dry and the engine stopped, so did the lights and the fridge. Night everyone.

36 The Simons

I liked the Simons.  I guess it was because they were just a nice retired couple and liked us kids.  Mrs. Simons was an artist of at least local renown and went by the name of Bessie-Fry-Simons.  She was a genteel lady and I kind of looked up to her with her English accent.  My sister and I used to go over to their place every week as she gave us art lessons.  I still have one of the primitive watercolors that I painted at her knee.  Her husband Dick to my eye, even as a child seemed an unlikely match for such a genteel petit English lady, but it seemed he worshipped her.

He was a big scraggy kind of man with a gruff voice and a scruffy kind of face.  He had fought in the Boer War and had sustained a big ugly scar on his neck that was at least 6 inches long and it appeared livid white against the dark skin of his hairy neck.  It seems he even had a medal from that experience but the story he tells is this.  On diving into a trench to escape a frontal attack a bayonet from someone’s rifle slit his neck wide open severing his jugular vein.  With blood spurting everywhere and no one offering any help he was written off as dead.  This did not sit to well with him so he grabs his neck with both hands to stop the blood flow and believe it or not was able to stay alive until he received medical aid.

He was really a gentle man and I can still see him with the pen in his hand as he willed to me his old roan gelding, tack and all.  He wrote it out with a great flourish, his stiff index finger sticking straight out. The calligraphy that he used was impeccable, and the document looked very official with all of the “here with’s” and  “there of’s” in their proper places.  I left Mr. Simons that day with the deed to the horse in my pocket feeling like a man of some means.  Even though I had never ridden a horse and was not particularly crazy about horses I still felt I had won a lottery.

Water Colour of Bird Cove by Bessie-Fry-Simmons

35 The Widowson’s & Taylor

 Not all of the characters that lived on Read Island had a regular day job.  Many had come to the island to escape civilization and some at the request of their family. The Widowson’s were such a family and lived there it was said as remittance people from England.  That meant that they were paid to leave England because they were an embracement to their family.  It was said that they bathed very little and liked to sunbath in the nude.  Such behavior back in the 40’s and 50’s was considered quite scandalous.  It was also said that they had a daughter that was not right in the head but their oldest, Thomas, eventually went off to University and got his Doctorate degree.

One of the most unusual characters was a man I only knew as Taylor.  His biggest claim to fame was his dad was a retired Admiral from the US navy.  Taylor was one of those characters that escaped to Read Island from the US.  I believe the Simons had placed an ad in some US journal advertising their Edenic shack, as they were building a new house.  Taylor answered the ad and loved the place.

He liked to think of himself as an inventor.  I remember one time he had my sister Dawna and I pose for a photo to illustrate one of his inventions.

He liked to wear buckskin shorts held up with big suspenders and big leather boots.  How often he bathed was up for debate. He was quite sociable and liked to come by around mealtime for some good home cooking and would sit by the door waiting for supper, while picking pieces of sticks and other odd artifacts out of his long scraggly beard and head.  This always bugged my mother, as there always was a small pile of debris by his chair to be cleaned up when he left.

He was kind of cool and would invite me to listen to classical music from the CBC on his battery-operated radio.  I would sit in his kitchen between his wood stove and the wheelbarrow while we intently enjoyed the music.  The wheelbarrow was always in the kitchen by the stove and he would only take it out to be refilled when the fire burned down.  He eventually acquired goats, which he took to sleeping with but the infestation of fleas got so bad the poor goats had to sleep out in the cold again.  

Taylor was just one of the many eccentrics that chose to get away from society and do their own thing on Read Island. As a kid growing up I enjoyed his uniqueness and took his eccentricities for granted even though my mother was not so charitable.  His uniqueness enriched me and it helped me to be more accepting of others as an adult.  Taylor was part of my island upbringing and a piece of the mosaic that I missed when I left the island for boarding school at 15.

34 The Night I shot A Cougar

After the cougar killed the deer by the raspberry patch and Roy got jumped it seemed that cougars were everywhere.  I guess our eyes were now open and we were even finding cougar tracks in the mud on the way to school.  In the daytime it was no big deal, but after dark it was scary to be out in the woods.  Not that the big cats had not always been around, but now I could imagine a cougar behind every tree. 

It had been years since Jim chased the cougar off with the stick but this particular dark evening I had decided to visit Jim’s son Ronnie who was my best friend. The Lamberts lived about 1mile south of where Roy had been attacked on his bicycle.

It was a Sunday evening with a light drizzle and a fog that hung close to the ground. So off I went with my 6 year old sister Karen, for moral support.  I was only 14 at the time, but with Karen by my side and my headlamp strapped to my hat, and a 12-gauge shotgun in my hand I was ready for anything.  My sister Karen and I took off at a fast walk through the dark with the headlamp casting its narrow beam through the heavy fog as I furtively looked this way and that.  We had not gone very far in fact it was just before a small creek with a wooden bridge, that I first noticed a pair of yellow eyes shining back at me in the headlamp’s beam.  I was a bit startled but we carried on.  We crossed the bridge and were climbing up a steep hill when the beam caught the eyes shining back at us again.  My fear was mounting with tingles going up and down my spine.  I was not a quitter and saying nothing to Karen continued on when again the yellow glow appeared in the light of the beam.  My nerves were now slowly starting to completely unravel.  Not wanting to run without giving this situation my best shot, that’s what I did.  I shakily raised the shotgun and with terror in my heart pulled the trigger.  The gun went off with a blast, followed with a screaming hissing sound as only a cat could make in the mortal agony of death.  I turned and took off running as if the demons of hell were about to grab me, but suddenly remembered my sister.  Looking back I saw my petrified little sister doing her best to keep up.  With terror still in my heart I realized I had to save her, or never show up at home, ever again.  Running back I grabbed her hand and literally dragged her the rest of the way home.

We arrived home completely winded and our breath coming in great gasps.  My parents had not heard the gun go off but breathlessly I told them, “I shot a cougar, I shot a cougar!” I will never know if my dad really believed me but the next day as soon as we were able my dad went with me to see what I believed would be a cougar lying dead along side of the road .  And sure enough there it was, a cat, in fact, our neighbors beloved 20 lb. tomcat, Twigs.

It wasn’t until a few days later that I learned that it was Twigs, so with a trembling heart, the remains of Twigs and I paid Mr. and Mrs. Simons a visit to apologize, and to give them an opportunity to obtain closure for the demise of poor old Twigs.

33 Rescue at Sea Part 2

 It seems that dad’s return to Heriot Bay was uneventful and he was well on his way home with the family and luggage, when he realized the Nor’wester coming down Hoskyn Channel had risen considerably to the point of causing him to cut his speed to a craw.  Even by quartering the waves the small boat was taking quite a beating as it floundered its way across the inlet, causing dad considerable concern.  The only thing to do was to maintain the same slow speed until they reached Viner Point, the southern most tip of Read Island, which would then give them shelter, as they would then be in the lee of Read Island.

Things were going well enough and dad feeling the wind and waves easing off a bit opened up the throttle as they neared Viner Point.   All seemed fine when suddenly a larger then average wave appeared without warning and catching the boats bow it flipped it over. Everyone was thrown violently into the frigid water of Hoskyn Channel.  Mom’s purse sank immediately to the bottom of the inlet as she had amassed quite a few US silver dollars, as they were quite common in the 50’s.  Most of the luggage along with the boat floated.  The boat however floated with only its bow showing.

What kept my little sister Karen and mothers from drowning was a new law that had just been passed requiring a life jacket for everyone in a boat.  Karen had insisted she wear hers as it was a new thing, but of course no one else would wear one or at least try one on.  Having the lifejackets in the boat was sufficient, why would you actually wear one?

As it was, my mother survived by hanging on to a life jacket and Dawna was doing fine as she could swim.  Remember we had taught ourselves to swim.  Dad was an excellent swimmer as well and urged them all to hang onto the bow rope so they would not get separated.

In the meantime an old fisherman who was trolling for fish near by saw the accident happen.  Old and befuddled he didn’t know what to do as the accident happened not far from shore and he was afraid his lines might run afoul of the bottom.  His pondering on what he should do increased the severity of the situation even more as the waters of the straight, even in summer never get out of the 40’s.  This meant life jacket or not, a person would only survive upwards of 20 minutes to a half hour in such frigid waters.

Dawna in the mean time had taken things into her own hands and at the urging of dad had swam over to the old fisherman’s boat and with his help, launched his skiff.  She then rowed over to where dad was helping mom and Karen stay afloat. It was more then impossible for them to get into such a small boat, so Dawna towed them over to the old fisherman’s boat while they hung on.   Once they were safe on board and with the luggage salvaged, the old fisherman was going to abandon the speedboat to the waves.  Dad not willing to lose the boat got into a big discussion with the old fisherman.  The problem however was resolved when who should come by but the Captain and Crew of a tug that towed dad’s logs to town.  They kindly pulled the speedboat up on the tug’s deck, after loading everyone on board.  Dad thanked the old fisherman for his part in the rescue, then, off they went. Once under way the captain gave them some hot coffee to drink and wrapped them all in warm blankets as they were all shaking uncontrollably from the frigid waters.

Do angels really exist?  For those that see the hand of God in such a marked way the reality of angels is very close.  To argue otherwise is left to those that would not believe if God Himself were to appear.