Used to be, the newspapers from the Chehalis/ Centralia area had correspondents out our way.  This resulted in somewhat better coverage than we have today.  In addition to the news of the week, one such fellow - using the name Simon Pure - added a little extra color to his account of an incident in March 1911.

           Did you hear about our wind?  No?  Well now I tell you it was some wind.  The night had just gin up the ghost and faded clean away into broad daylight when the sun peeped over the ridge and poked his long forefinger into Charlie's eye.  About that time the neighbors begun to be cognizant of a almighty uproar in the matter of things general and special.  That wuz on the 27th of last month.  Well to continer as I wuz saying, there upstarted a terrific commotion in motion along the firing line of the whole universe, and space began to look skeered like and seemed to be flying for life and wuz about to leave this mundane asteroid by itself and alone way back intew nowhere, without any emptiness around and no stars to shine or moon for the dog to bark at, as George Washington was heard to observe.  The whole sky looked kinder swept off and deserted like and the wind wuz hummin around the mountain corners like an hornet on tanglefoot while the trees wuz a tettering and flinging branches like a juggler in a circus.  There wuz trees fell that never fell down before and for ten miles our formerly and previously and immaculate roads was continously and uninterruptedly strewed with the pillage and leaves of atmospheric pandemoniacs.  Well that's the whole thing in a nut shell but as a sequel to the story one of the neighbors cows had the switch broken from off its tail by a tree branch and one of the primeval denizens of the forest smote a corner from this same neighbor's house.

This story takes place in the fall of 1942 after we had came back from a short stay in Cleveland, Ohio, visiting Dad’s folks.  Dad worked for about a year at different jobs, but found out he could do better out here so we came back.  We stayed at Uncle Hi and Margie’s place on Smith Road until we got a place of our own over town.

Well just behind Hi’s shop and a little to the right was a real tall fir tree.  It was maybe hundred and twenty tall at least and the limbs were all the way down to about twenty feet up from the ground.

I was coming back from over town and the wind was blowing hard enough to make the trees go back and forth and in big circles at the top.

 As I was walking down Smith the trees at the end were just going nuts.  I stopped and watched them for a few minutes and thought, “What a lot of fun it would be if you could ride in the top of one.”

Well that’s when the idea came to me. “Why not, there was that big tree in back of Hi’s shop”.  Now all I had to do was figure out how to get to the top.  If I could just get to the limbs the rest would be easy.  Then I remembered that Hi had a big box of bridge spikes in his shop.  They were about sixteen inches long; they would make a fine ladder.

Now I had to find the right time to get the spikes and make the ladder up to the limbs.  It wasn’t long until they all went to town and I stayed home.  Now was the time to make the ladder.

I found a piece of rope for a climbing belt, got a shop hammer and the spikes from the shop and started making the ladder.  I didn’t want them to see the ladder so I drove the spikes in on the one side facing the house and worked my way up to the limbs.  I started with the first spike about two feet from the ground, the next one went on the opposite side and another two feet up.  I did this until I couldn’t reach the next one up, then I put on my climbing rope and went until I reached the limbs.

Then I climbed to the top and I could see clear all over town.  “What a view!”  This was nice, but I had to stand on a limb and hang onto the tree.

It would be nicer if I could sit down.  Now if I cut the top out, I could nail a board on the top for a sit.  Not a bad idea, so I went down and got Hi’s hand saw and cut the top out.  Then I nailed a board on the top so I could sit down.  Then I went down and cleaned up the top and put it on the back side of an old brush pile.  Now all I had to do was wait for the wind to blow like it did that day I got the idea.  I went up the tree lots of times when nobody was looking and watched people over town.

I had to wait for quite a while before the wind blew like it did that day.  Then I had to wait for my chance to get out of the house, but it finally came.  I ran quickly to the tree and climbed to the top and sit down on the board. “WHAT A RIDE!”  I had to hang on like mad.  That old tree was really going to town.

I rode it for about five minutes.  It was so much fun I got carried away and started to whopping it up.  It was about then that Aunt Margie walked out on the back porch and heard all this commotion.  Now she knew that the voice she heard coming from above wasn’t God.  She didn’t know what God’s voice sounded like, but this voice sounded like a Bud.

She looked up and seen me in the top of that tree.  Now I’m not going to write down all of what she yelled up, because it might set the paper on fire.  I just knew they could hear her clear over town. It went something like this, “GET TO HELL DOWN OUT OF THAT TREE, RIGHT NOW!!!  WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?  DO YOU WANT TO KILL YOURSELF?  NOW!!.” Boy, I came down out of that tree faster than any squirrel could.

The next day Hi cut the tree down, pulled out all his bridge spikes, and cut the tree up into firewood, and I had to pile all the limbs.  Well I can say it was fun while it lasted, but it wasn’t the smartest thing I ever did.  And to this day, if I listen close, I can still hear Margie’s voice. Did this really and truly happen? You had better believe it did!

LaVonne Sparkman, longtime Morton resident and author of local history books, including “From Homestead to Lakebed,” contributed this article which was printed some years ago in the Morton Journal.  We sincerely appreciate her letting us use it.

The early morning blast echoed between the hills of Glenoma.  All over the valley, house lights flicked on as neighbors awoke to hearing their dishes and windows rattle.  Alarmed, neighbors ran to their doors to see if they could find out the cause of the thunderous noise.

Questions flew around, “Was that an earthquake?  I heard the windows rattle!”

“Did Mt. Rainier erupt?  Was it a thunderstorm?”

But no one could figure out what caused the extremely loud noise that disturbed their rest and brought them out of bed at 3 o’clock in the morning.

Some of the neighbors never did find out that Bob Weber was behind the alarming, rolling explosion.  The story behind it began when Weber bought a barn from Tacoma City Light.  The utility was clearing ground for the reservoir behind the Mossyrock Dam that would drown the little community of Kosmos.  The time was 1967 when all the property owners in both Kosmos and Riffe had no choice about being bought out by Tacoma and causing them to leave their homes, farms and businesses.  The city utility sold the buildings to be dismantled.

Weber knew Charlie Little’s barn was built of the finest lumber and he knew when Charlie built something it was meant to last.  All those 2-by-6’s and 2-by-10’s were worth a lot of money and he paid only $75 for the barn.

A friend told him, “Board it up tight and then set off a stick or two of dynamite inside it and that will do the job; that’ll loosen all the nails then the rest of it will be easy.”

Weber followed the advice – after all as a logger, he knew how to handle dynamite.  Using sheets of plywood, he worked his way around the barn, covering each opening.  After pounding nails in the boards every six inches, he proudly surveyed his work.  To himself, he said, “That’ll do ‘er.  That barn is boarded up tight as bark on a tree.”

When the barn was sealed up tight, he brought in nine sticks of dynamite.  It was all he had on hand: 90 proof.  Setting it down in the middle of the barn, he stuck the cap in a stick and wired a long fuse.

Then he thought, “I’ll set it off very early in the morning, ‘cause it might disturb the neighbors still living around here.”

He lit a long fuse on that powder and dashed out to the old pickup, reached into his pocket for his keys and they weren’t there.  He dug into all the pockets in his jeans – no keys.  Breaking out in a sweat despite the cold morning, he suddenly remembered he had put them in his jacket pocket.  Jumping into his pickup, pouring on the gas and throwing gravel, he got out of there.

Starting up the hill, hunching forward, he willed his pickup to gain speed up the hill from Kosmos.  With his eyes swiveling between the road and the rear view mirror, he was watching the barn when the pickup rocked as the blast went off.  Immediately, he saw lights flash on in all the houses.

He smiled, “I didn’t go back to that damn barn for quite a while.  Some of my friends never did know who was responsible for the blast.”

When he did go back to see if the job was done, the only nails that were loosened were the ones that were drove into the plywood.  But it had sounded like a good idea.

This poem was written by John Kehoe, likely during the 1930’s, since it mentions the depression.  Thanks to John’s grandson, Bob Kehoe, for proving a copy of the poem to us.  The poem is also printed on page 77 of the local history book, “Where the Big Bottom Begins” by LaVonne Sparkman and Irma Boyer.  

As the Mountain Boy of former years,

I’m willing still to serve.

Though far past man’s allotted time,

I’m living on my nerve.

Now the lengthening toll of daily toil,

my faltering strength doth tax;

I still wield well my favorite tools

 – the bucksaw and the axe.

I long had roamed the western wilds,

 o’er woodland, hill and plain

‘til nature cut off further scope

 along our western main.

Then in this land of Washington,

 well pleased, I settled here.

This land with an immortal name.

  Our last and best frontier.

I love her healthful climate,

 her stately woods and hills,

 her verdant vales where rippling flows

 her snow fed sunlit rills.

I’ve seen her pass the swaddling stage

 and territorial phase.

I’ve seen her rise to wealth and fame

 from crude old pioneer ways.

Her native son now holds the helm

 and guides our ship of state.

Oft buffeted and hard beset

 with heart for every fate.

He holds our destined course,

 the foremost on commerce

buoyantly rides depression’s waves; triumphant o’er reverse.

With Washington our lot is cast

 through alternate hope and fear.

O’er threatening waves our hopes ride high:

 there’s no depression here!

I’ll go to God, the source of life;

to Him confess my faults.

Receive Him in the living bread

that humble poor exalts.

Then when grim death will call my turn,

I’ll meet him on the square.

Go prancing to my grave, will I,

with both feet in the air! 

            Packwood lake, which is a beautiful body of water in the Cascade mountains in the extreme southeastern Lewis County, 80 miles from the railroad, is a famous fishing resort.  In fact, it is believed that there is no body of water in Washington which affords such splendid sport to the angler as does Packwood Lake.  How fish came to be in such a place, and in such numbers, is a subject of wonderment to sportsmen.  The Indians have a pretty story explaining the secret.  We give the legend below as related to a lady friend with whom Lucy Tumwater, an Indian woman living in eastern Lewis county, near Vance, had become well acquainted and to whom it was told as they rode side by side through the woods: “Long time ago, ‘fore white man, ‘fore Indian, dey five sistehs, this sister (counting on her fingers) and this sisteh, and this sisteh, and this sisteh, and this sisteh; dey came awful long way over mountains and dey all carry baskets of fish.  When dey come to lake little sisteh say, “I’s tired, I wants res’.”  Oder sistehs say, “No, we don’ wan’ stop here, we goin’ on to big water.”  Little sisteh say, “I’s tired, I goin’ down in lake to res’.”  So little sisteh go down in lake and empty her basket, her back so tired carrying heavy basket, and when she go down in lake, her spread all out on top of water.  Oder sistehs see how pretty her hair look so dey all go down and empty their baskets and spread their hair out on top of the water.  Bine-by, oh awful long time, Indians come.   He hungry, nothin’ to eat, no berries, no fish, nothin’.  Indian starving.  He stand on high rock by the lake and see sisters down in water.  He call out, “Sistehs, I’s hungry.  I want fish.”  Sistehs say, “Go down where little creek comes out lake – throw leaves, as many leaves as fish, on top of water, den fish come.”  So Indian go down, he threw awful lot of leaves in little creek and den he gets fish, just as many fish as leaves.

After a moment’s silence, “I didn’ use to believe it, but my fahder and grandfahder say it’s so.  Dey been there, sistehs give dem fish.”