Kent, Washington in the news

By Jack Brummet, Green River Valley Editor

My home town makes the news once again.  The caption reads:  "Dave Anthony toasts his achievement after driving his truck onto the roof of a friend's soon-to-be demolished Kent home on the West Valley Highway."

Thanks to our favorite contributor, Jeff Clinton, for passing this along.

click to enlarge

---o0o---

Teething on my Grandpa Dell's hook arm, 1954

Yes, I did teethe on my Grandfather Dell Galvin's hook arm. Dell was my maternal Grandmother's third, and final husband.

This was a different world--my Uncle Guy had a wooden leg, and I don't think anyone over about 38 on either side of my family had their original teeth. . .body parts, joints and giblets were not easy to come by for poor folk (nor are they now).

---o0o---

Five Years ago today, on All This Is That: My Grandma's Tavern In Carnation, Washington

click to enlarge - my Grandpa Del (his hook arm is hidden) and Grandma Galvin

By Jack Brummet - Originally published here on January 26, 2005

Not long ago, I wrote here about my Great Uncle Guy Huber, his visits to Kent, Washington, and, of course, his wooden leg. I also wrote about my Grandpa Dell, last year, and how I teethed on his hook arm when I was a baby...

Grandma Vera Galvin was Uncle Guy's sister, and Grandpa Dell was my Grandma's third, and final, husband. Alas, I don't have many tales to tell of my Grandma. She died in either 1961 or 1962. My mother is not all that forthcoming about her exploits, and wouldn't answer several questions I posed (or said "please don't write about that"), sticking mainly to the bare biographical facts. This was much different than when I pumped her for information on Uncle Guy. In fact, I don't have a lot of memories of her either.

Grandma Galvin is pictured in this photograph at a bar she owned in Carnation, Washington. Carnation was a small village in 1949, when she bought the bar on the town's main street. She owned it for about ten years. Also in the picture, with his one hand on the register, is Grandpa Dell Galvin. They must have been about my age in the photo.

All my life, I've been fascinated by her owing a bar. When I was a kid, women seemed to rarely even go to bars, let alone own one. But then again, most grandmothers didn't get married three times either, or drink beer 'round the clock. There must have been some vein of iconoclasm in the family, since my mom ended up being a Rosie The Riveter during WW II, and eventually a U.S. Marine.

The bar is a little spooky. . .but that's mainly the taxidermy I think. . .there is definitely a stuffed owl, and I'm not sure if the other birds are pheasants or wild turkeys. . .or what? They look too small for grouse. Another critter at the left end of the bar could be a porcupine, a marmot, a wild baby boar?

When I knew her, Grandma drove a pearl grey 1948 Plymouth. I remember several occasions sitting next to her driving somewhere. I also remember there was a "church key" for opening beer cans on her dashboard. I don't remember ever seeing her without a can of beer wrapped in a paper bag. She lived in a cottage (my mom calls it a shack) in Carnation.

She started the coal stove every morning--fat lumps of greasy coal kindled with tissues. The house had plumbing; I well remember the houses that didn't--and the cold treks to fantastically rank outhouses. One of my only other memories of visiting her in Carnation was having breakfast with one of Del's daughters, who also lived in Carnation. She gave me half a grapefruit. I don't think I'd ever seen one before. I know I hadn't eaten one. They squirted. I liked it.

Dell died of a brain tumor in the late '50s, and Grandma sold her bar. Or maybe she went broke. Grandma Galvin was now retired, and was just about to move in with my family in Kent, when she went into a diabetic coma and died in about 1961. I remember my dad telling me one morning that she had passed away.

It was years before I could really tell the difference between passing away and passing out. Passing out from drink was not unheard of in my circles and yet even then, at say, the age of nine, I could smell a whiff of it--you sense the people passing out are treading an tenuous chasm between being numb and being gone.

---o0o---

All This Is That reheated: Hillbilly tales and stories of growing up

Jack, and John Newton Brummet II, camping on the Bumping River
on Mount Rainier - click to enlarge

Articles, posts, and screeds, on Jack Brummet Growing Up:
The Greyhound Bus Depot in Kent, Washinton: Going To Red's
Square Dance At Valley Elementary
Foot Washing Baptists & The Catholic Devils
Cruising the Renton loop with a keg of nails
My Worst Jobs: McGoo
My Pathetic Political Career
The Month They Tried To Kill Me
My Worst Jobs - Brewburger
Stopping By Richard Nixon's
Defensive Daydreaming
My Worst Jobs - Design Insanity - Hype, Shuck, and Jive In The Dot-Com Years
My Worst Jobs - SALSA
Jerry Melin, still missing, still missed
18,906 Days On Turtle Island
The Day I went Bald
My Jobs (List Number 9)
My Favorite Rock and Jazz Shows More Shows I've seen over the years
Growing Up In Kent, Washington: Tarheels, Hayseeds, Hillbillies, and Crackers
Uncle Guy, more hillbilly cred, and living a good life
Jerry Melin, Master Forger
My Worst job ever!:::::McGoo
Jerry Melin, still missing and still missed
Fishing With The Old Man
Uncle Romey
The Time I Got Drunk With Roy Rogers
Kent, Washington
It Can Happen Here: Japanese Relocation Camps, 1942-1946
More on the El Rancho Drive-in in Kent, Washington
Snack bar ads, intermission countdowns, and the El Rancho drive-in
A Blog for Phil Kendall
Four more images of Kent, Washington in the 40's and 50's
Kent, Washington's Meeker Street 1946
Too good to leave in the comments: Scooter and the Hell's Angel Heavy chug-a-lug
Scooter and $2 all you can drink beer day at the Sundowner circa 1973
My Grandma's tavern in Carnation, Wash.
My Dog Slugger
Hucking Eggs in Kent, Washington
Home-made Hillbilly Toys
Square Dance At Valley Elementary
Foot Washing Baptists & The Catholic Devils
How I came to be named Jack
Hillbilly Cred
Cruising the Renton loop with a keg of nails
My Worst Jobs: 50 Tons of Sand
My Pathetic Political Career
Defensive Daydreaming (the second poem in these links, and one of my favorites)
"Chicken Thieves Busy in Kent And Vicinity"
---o0o---

Remembering the Vale Theatre (and the floods) in Kent, Washington

This is the theatre where I learned to love movies.  It was built in about 1946, roughly when this photograph was taken.  The only photo I could find was not snapped to show the theatre, but the annual flooding in the waterlogged valley where I grew up.

We went there most weekends. I remember that a ticket was thirty-five cents. It was not a first run theatre, but I remember seeing I Saw What You Did And I Know Who You Are, House of Wax, lots of bad comedy, The Thing, Gorgo, tons of Godzilla, Frankenstein, Three Stooges, The Birds, Night of the Living Dead, and many more.

 
When I was young, the Kent Valley flooded almost every winter...until the Howard Hanson dam was build far upstream on the Green River.  The dam was completed in about 1942.  Its completion led to the transformation of Kent from a fertile farming area to industrial use, and it eventually became one of the largest concentrations of warehouses in the world.  Historylink.org writes "the dam has changed South King County from flooded farmlands to a sea of warehouses, industrial plants, condominiums, and shopping centers."

The White River and the Green River flowed down from the mountains in the east into the valley and formed a confluence near downtown Auburn.  From there, the river traveled north and was met by the Black River (an outflow from Lake Washington that no longer exists) near Tukwila, where the combined rivers become the Duwamish River which flow into Elliott Bay in southwest Seattle.

As it turns out, the earthen dam was not built for the ages and has shown signs of deterioration.  Over the last few years, the Army Corps of Engineers has been frantically reinforcing the dam to prevent a breach and a King-Hell sudden flood of the valley.  My mom still lives there, and the last two winters were spent in a flood watch, and with the residents all buying flood insurance against the deluge they were assured would never happen again.

---o0o---

I'm Skookum

When I was growing up in the Green River Valley, south of Seattle, I often heard the word "skookum."  I remember hearing my Uncle Gould and a few other adults use the term in conversation.  It always felt like a word from the Pacific Northwest, like it may have sprung from our neck of the woods--because there were a couple of places named Skookumchuck).  I grew up hearing the word all the time, but it has fallen into disuse.  What a great word!  Misuse would be better than disuse.  The word was often used as a synonym for copacetic--a word you might hear Cab Calloway or some other hepcat use, and a word I associate with the 1920's to 1950's era.  World Wide Words seems to confirm that: 

COPACETIC/kəʊpəˈsɛtɪk/  - Fine, excellent, going just right.

The Wikipedia says "Skookum is a Chinook jargon word that has come into general use in British Columbia and Yukon Territory in Canada, and in the U.S. Pacific Northwest."  And that it has three meanings: 

1.  a word in regional English that has a variety of positive connotations;

2.  a monster; similar to the Sasquatch, or Bigfoot, often seen in these parts (the NW);

3.  a souvenir doll once common in the United States in tourist areas.

It has a wide range of positive meanings, and that is how I always remember it being used.  I never heard it used to refer to a Sasquatch or kachina dolls.  

 

A Frequently Asked Questions list from Skookum Tools Ltd. says the word has "meanings from 'good,' to 'strong,' 'best,' 'powerful,' 'ultimate,' 'brave' and 'first rate.' Something can be skookum meaning 'really good' or 'right on! 'excellent!', or it can be skookum meaning 'tough' or 'durable'. A skookum burger is either a big or a really tasty hamburger, or both, but when your Mom's food is skookum, it's delicious but also hearty. When you are skookum, you've got a purpose and you're on solid ground, in good health/spirits etc. When used in reference to another person, e.g. "he's skookum", it's used in respect with connotations of trustworthiness, reliability and honesty as well as (possibly but not necessarily) strength and size."

The same FAQ also claims that skookum house means jail or prison, or, "the big house."

I have been to at least three places--two in Washington (the river, and Skookum inlet on Puget Sound)and one in British Columbia--named Skookumchuck, most notably including the river you drive over on a road trip to California.  Skookum can mean "turbulent water or rapids"  and Chuck is Chinook for river or lake.

 

A quick internet search turns up a brewery, a social service agency, a "bay trading" company, a clothing manufacturer, and a few other businesses that have appropriated the name, including most appropriately one business that makes gear for steelhead fishing (that should be another post probably--the story of the singularly northwest fish known as steelhead).  There seems also to be a breed of cat known as skookum, and at least one rock band.  And how could I forget--Skookum Inlet on Puget Sound produces some of the best oysters I have ever eaten...

 ---o0o---

Five Years Ago Today On All This Is That: Hillbilly Cred - A photo of Jack that he says proves his claims of "Hillbilly Cred." It is a photograph of him at one year of age, teething on his Grandpa Dell's hook arm

Click to enlarge - Jack and Dell Galvin, 1953

To prove that I do have Hillbilly cred, I submit this photo. It's 1953 and I am teething on my step-grandfather Dell's hook arm. He lost his hand at a sawmill or on the railroad (there was another missing limb in the family and I can't remember which was which).  [published on All This Is That, April, 2005]
---o0o---

All This Is That Reheated: Square Dance At Kent Elementary

Valley Elementary held two or three square dances a year and they were the coolest thing in town, but the Lettuce Festival, Puyallup Fair (for which we got half a day off school), Kris Kringle Days, and Hydroplane Races were all right up there.

A semi-pro called the steps over a record player or Wollensak tape recorder. Kent was a natural for square dancing; the town was still full of Okies, Clodhoppers, Tarheels, Hayseeds, Rednecks, Yokels, and Hillbillies: my people.

One of the vocals sounded like Tommy Duncan singing. I haven't heard the tune in 40 years. Its lyrics are seared into my brain:

Now you all join hands as you circle the ring
Stop where you are, give your partner a swing.

Now swing that girl behind you.
Swing your own, if you have time to.

Allemande left with the sweet corner maid.
Do-si-do your own.

They we'll all promenade with the sweet corner maid
Singing Oh Johnny Oh Johnny Oh.

Girls wore floofy dresses and boys wore button down shirts with cords or jeans. The adults wore bolo ties and gingham dresses. A couple bales of hay and some other countrified accoutrements were scattered around the gym, along with "refreshments" of soda pop, doughnuts and maple bars.

You got to dance with girls without the potential psychic trauma of actually asking one to dance. They arranged us in a group of partners that changed frequently. However, even those chaste touches and do si dos scrambled our brains with thoughts of girls! The fleeting moments allemanding left, whirling skirts, and whiffs of dime-store perfume all fueled our overheated pre- and mid-pubescent psyches.

I remember square dancing in 3rd and 4th grades, but not so much the 5th and 6th. I do remember seeing The Beatles that year on The Ed Sullivan Show show. I don't know if The Beatles killed square dancing, but after their arrival, square dancing was never quite the same.
---o0o---

Jack Brummet at age 2 /3? with Santa Claus a/k/a Dick Cheney working his way through college

Click to enlarge Jack and Santa Claus, 1955/56

---o0o---

Growing up: Hillbilly home-made toys

click young John/Jack to enlarge

If you've read any of these growing up stories, you remember I grew up poor. That didn't necessarily mean we didn't get toys (which my parent's generation would call "store-bought"). We did get toys for birthdays and Christmas, and in between, we played with toys my dad made (he also built boats, bikes, and even campers). There are a few he made I can't quite remember, but I know they involved bobbins, and wooden thread spools. He could create dozens of objects from rope. His Navy days had left him a master knotsman, and some of my favorite toys were his ropework. Here are some of the toys he made, and we played with. This is only a small part of his toys--the others are lost somewhere in the haze floating over the Green & White River Valley.

The Paper Hat. He could fold several styles of paper hats from newspapers. One was the one below--almost a Papal hat; another was a skull-cap sort of affair; and he could also create an excellent Pirate Hat as well. E-how tells you how to make your own, if you'd like to take a crack at it.



Dad also made several varieties of bathtub or pond motorboats. The illustration below shows one of his standards.


This was no work of genius, but he also made us tin can telephones (and tin can puddle jumpers):

One of my favorites was the Monkey Fist. It wasn't that useful if you weren't climbing mountains or tossing a rope from a ship, but it had this heft and symmetrical coolness that made you want one. We always had one tied to the dinner bell on our back porch (how tarheel is that? How many of you had a "dinner bell?").

There was a very simple toy called a Buzz-toy, that John, Sr. called a "zippo." This was possibly my most beloved toy. I could even make one myself when he showed me where to find the cord. He always used a kind of hybrid thread, with cotton and some sort of synthetic like nylon. You could really get these zippos zipping! If you had a strong cord, you could really get these things moving, and it generated a great low, rumbling whirring sound:

Other growing up stories on All This Is That:

The Time I Got Drunk With Roy Rogers

Kent, Washington

It Can Happen Here: Japanese Relocation Camps, 1942-1946

More on the El Rancho Drive-in in Kent, Washington

snack bar ads, intermission countdowns, and the El Rancho drive-in

All This Is That reheated: Hucking eggs in Kent, Washington

A Blog for Phil Kendall

Four more images of Kent, Washington in the 40's and 50's

Kent, Washington's Meeker Street 1946

Too good to leave in the comments: Scooter and the Hell's Angel Heavy chug-a-lug

Scooter and $2 all you can drink beer day at the Sundowner circa 1973

Fishing With The Old Man

Uncle Romey

Uncle Guy, more hillbilly cred, and living a good life

My Grandma's tavern in Carnation, Wash.

My Dog Slugger

Hucking Eggs in Kent, Washington

Square Dance At Valley Elementary

Foot Washing Baptists & The Catholic Devils

Hillbilly Cred

Growing Up In Kent, Washington: Tarheels, Hayseeds, Hillbillies, and Crackers

Cruising the Renton loop with a keg of nails

My Worst Jobs: 50 Tons of Sand

My Pathetic Political Career

Defensive Daydreaming (the second poem in these links, and one of my favorites)

"Chicken Thieves Busy in Kent And Vicinity"

--o0o---

Backlink of the day: Uncle Guy, more hillbilly cred, and living a good life

Jack's sister, Loa, Uncle Guy, and Jack


The backlink of the day—Uncle Guy, more hillbilly cred, and living a good life—originally appeared here in January, 2006. Click here to read the story.
---o0o---

Hucking Eggs in Kent, Washington

For a couple of years, one of our favorite pastimes was hucking eggs at cars. Not that we were particularly destructive, but we were boys, and destruction was part of our makeup...whether it was instilled by nature, or nurture. Eggs were the perfect vehicle--a dozen cost fifty-three cents, they wouldn't kill anyone, didn't dent sheet metal, and did no real damage to the finish of those 50's and 60's behemoths with leaded, toxic, permanent paint.

 

Eggs were peripheral to the fun; they were the catalyst. Eggs triggered behaviors in drivers that tapped into our fight or flight response. The egged driver had one of three responses:

 

• They drove on obliviously, or tapped their brakes and kept moving.
• They stopped and maybe got out, checked the egged fender, and drove off.
• They went completely ballistic; crazy as a s**those rat; or went for their shotgun.

We aimed for Response Number 3. It was about the adrenaline. Ours and theirs.

 

Those most likely to respond were also the most likely to inflict serious damage if they actually caught you. They were big and they were dumb. The men who gave chase were brain-damaged palookas who fly off the handle, berating clerks and starting fights in taverns; the dolts who bullied anyone that bisected their arc. These knuckleheads were chronically pissed-off guys with quarter-inch fuses and were always ready for-- and, indeed, welcomed--a fight. After all, we weren't exactly innocent bystanders. This would be a righteous stomping of The Guilty.

 

We could have saved a lot of eggs if we had figured out a way to profile these guys. Any of the victims could be turned, or converted into a Number 3 if they departed the relative safety of their car. As they walked around the car, inspecting the egg on the windshield or fender, a second fusillade of eggs flew from the bushes. If you hucked five or six eggs at a stationary target at least a few would make the target...perhaps splattering on their coat, or hitting the car and doing peripheral damage when they splattered. If they actually stopped or slowed down, we always launched a second volley. A driver who was willing to turn the other cheek was suddenly pushed to the brink.

 

It was all about the chase, and the resultant adrenaline rush. When you hit the the right guy's car, he came after you. The best ones slammed on their brakes and immediately began driving around in circles, revving their V8s, screeching around corners, trying to find the perpetrators. It added an aural element to the rush.

 

We always had proximate hiding spots and a loose escape plan. There was always a vacant garage, a boxcar, an abandoned car, or a hedge to hide behind. Once in a while, 'though, we'd be walking along the street, and someone--usually Lonnie Edwards--would attack a house or car as we were walking around. With no plan, and no cover, there was chaos as we scrambled for shelter anywhere. It was almost more scary to hit a house, because you were out in the open, and you never knew when someone would open the door, jacking shells into a ten gauge shotgun. Back in the 60's, not a lot of people were packing heat in their cars. These days egg hucking could very well be fatal.

 

Some victims would comb the neighborhood relentlessly for half an hour, racing up and down the streets. Sometimes we would would end up exposed. As the car rushed up and slammed on its brakes, we played innocent. They hadn't actually seen us, after all. "We did see four, five guys were running right over there..."

 

The Police would frequently be called of course, and we'd give them a blast of eggs too. Answering a complaint, or after having an egg tossed at their prowl car, they would drive around the neighborood too, sometimes cruising with their lights off, hoping we would show our faces. If they'd pursued us on foot, they might have found us, but on foot just wasn't real big in 1965. After the police showed, we would, naturally, switch locations.

 

One night, we stumbled on a fresh delivery of eggs, sitting on the loading dock of Westland Hatchery [1]. Each case contained a gross (a dozen dozen), or 144 eggs. We spirited away several boxes, and suddenly had 600 eggs to toss. Our first attack came as we hid to the side of the hatchery in overgrown bushes. The first hundred eggs were fired as cars passed the hatchery, as if the hatchery itself were waging war on the berr-fogged drivers. Central Avenue was littered with hundreds of eggshells before the night was over.

 

We lobbed all 600 eggs that night and the beast was sated. We took the sport as far as it could go. We never hucked eggs again, and retired at the top of our game, just barely unbeaten and unarrested.

 

---o0o---