People we remember…….My Grandpa Bob (Robert) was a big tall man that always wore a three piece suite with a gold chain coming out of his vest pocket. I was named after him. When going out on the town, like so many men of his time, he also wore a hat, a fedora. Grandpa Bob would even dress up for a backyard barbeque, you could always pick him out in a crowd, not because of his height of 6’4 but because of his clothes; he was always the best dressed one in the bunch. He lived down town in Longview and never had need for a car. Sometimes when we came up for a visit Grandpa Bob and I would go for a walk up town.

He would always light up a big cigar and point to the stuff in the windows. I had no idea what the stuff did, but I had fun. At the end of our walks we always stopped under the local movie theater billboard; I’m not sure which theater it was, and look at photos of all the professional wrestlers; he would always tell me about each of the wrestlers.

I didn’t know then, but Grandpa Bob was already retired. I always assumed for some unknown reason that Grandpa Bob was rich. I never saw him go to work. I never really new what his profession was. I just thought he must have been in upper management or maybe a banker. It must have been his clothes. I just never new! And if he did tell me, I wasn’t listening or didn’t remember. Through the years I would overhear bits and pieces of his life and Long-Bell would come up in some of the conversations.

Next thing I new Grandpa Bob moved to California to live with one of his five daughters. I only saw him one time after that, and that was just before he died.

It wasn’t until 50 years later, by chance, that I found out what Grandpa Bob did for a living. I was going through my parents’ things after they had passed away and found a card in an envelope. Thinking that it may have been my parents’ wedding invitation I opened it and found out that it was a funeral notice of Grandpa Bobs funeral. Inside the card was an arbitrary notice, an article from the Oregonian news paper. It read: Death Claims Noted Sawyer; Longview Wash. ( Special ) Robert F Malone born in Arkansas in 1883 who rates as one of the lumber industry’s great sawyers, died in Los Angeles Saturday. Malone had been living in Las Angeles with daughter for the past two years. Malone gained five years of sawing experience in the Southern Pine Country of Texas before starting to saw logs for Long-Bell at the Woodworth, La. Mill in 1910. He remained at the mill 17 years and then was transferred to the Long-Bell mill at Ludington, La. After a few months he then transferred to the Longview mill in 1927 until 1950 . In the 41 years with Long-Bell it was estimated that he had converted enough logs into lumber to fill a train 192 miles long or approximately 760,000,000 board feet. Although many claims have been made on behalf of other sawyers in regard to the industries record, it was established that Malone’s record would rate at least close to the best.

I was shocked; I had no idea! That old saying. “You cant judge a book by its cover,” is very true.
Another person that left an impression on me was my Uncle Ed. I only saw him a couple of times but he was always fun to be with. He always had a lot of people around him too. Maybe because he was a big sports nut, and a big fan of the Pacific Coast league. He liked the San Diego Padres the most. Uncle Ed was a man of average height but for some reason stood hunched over a bit and that made him look shorter than he actually was, he wore his trousers pulled up to his chest and his ears were bigger than normal. To me, Uncle Ed hunching over like that, with his big ears, sort of looked like a monkey. Uncle Ed would always say, “Did you know that Willie Mays lives right down the street?” Also, Uncle Ed always had his pockets full of peanuts. You always knew where he had been by the trail of peanut shells he left behind. I heard that most of the time he was at the ball park.
The car Uncle Ed drove was a beat up black VW Bug.

Back then most people drove bigger cars like his wife, Aunt Audrey, she drove a big new white 4 door Cadillac.

Back then or now I would have never guessed that Uncle Ed and Aunt Audrey owned their own secretarial collage for girls.

Grandpa Bob dressed like a professional and was a sawyer and Uncle Ed dressed like an everyday Joe and ran a college.

Grandpa Tom

I was looking at my calendar the other day and saw it was almost Columbus day …. Now that brought back some memories. It was 1962 and I was sitting in my class room in Portland Oregon when I noticed it was getting windy; sometimes the wind would kick up and throw stuff at the window. Before long there was a constant tapping of debris. Soon my teacher’s phone buzzed and the next thing I knew it was early dismissal. A friend of mine and I shared a bike ride from time to time and it was his turn to pedal while I sat on the seat. We got about half way home when he said that he couldn’t pedal any more because of the strong wind so we walked the bike the rest of the way……… I should say ……. more like pushing the bike home. The wind was so strong that we had to lean forward just to keep going. After getting home from school I did my chores and went back out into the wind. By now it was getting dark and my parents would be home soon. I noticed all the lights in the house were flickering but I never thought it was because of the wind. As my dad backed the car up the drive way I could see they both had a funny look on there face. I found out what their look was when they got out of the car, the look was for me, and they had words that went with the look too. They made it known to me very fast that I shouldn’t be in the storm….. ‘Storm!” I said. “I didn’t know it was a storm I thought it was just windy.”

My dad was always in some way or form in scouting. For a number of years he even taught first aid to the explorers and it seemed to me that he was always prepared. As soon as we went into the house he explained to me that this wind has now turned into a big storm and that we should go into the basement to be safe. He also told me that the lights might go out but that we had candles and flashlights. We also had food and wood for the fireplace in the basement. We could hear the storm even in the basement. The wind howled. I kept my ear to the transistor radio until I fell asleep.

By the next morning the storm had ended and seemed very quiet. Mom said we had no electricity, Dad said it was a good thing it was Saturday! There’s no way they could have driven to work because of all the downed trees on the roads. I was told to stay in the house because of the downed wires; Dad said that some of the wires may give me a shock or even kill me. When I went upstairs and looked out the window I couldn’t believe what I saw. The streets were a big mess. There were fallen trees all over the place, some had fallen on houses, over the roads, on cars, one of two trees on our parking strip had fallen . It seemed that the only tree that was left standing was our giant weeping willow in our backyard. As I looked out the window I could see the older boys and men cleaning up the debris in their yards, soon you could hear the sounds of chain saws cutting through the fallen trees up and down the streets.

Some of the trees were cleared from the streets to allow the power trucks with their crews to start working on the power lines. Some big trucks were now driving up and down our street picking up debris……… It was pretty exciting! The next day Dad finally said it was ok for me to go out . I got dressed, and out the door I went. I went over to my friends’ to check out their streets and to hear their stories. We shared our adventure stories while we climbed all over the trees that were blown down.

The storm’s path went through parts of California, Oregon and Washington; 46 people died, the wind was a steady 66 mph with gusts of 100+; thousands of homes and businesses had no power for days, and property damage loss was in the millions.

Hold on, it’s windy!

Grandpa Tom