Dad decided to try salmon fishing next. He had Bill Pettis,
a well known local boatbuilder, build him a twenty-six foot boat out of marine plywood. When he was on the Newport City Police force,
his closest friend was Ron Halley. My dad and Ron each had a boat built
(sister ships) and they decided to try their hands at Charter Boat fishing, taking people out, a couple of
times a day to catch salmon or bottom fish. Once Bill Pettis had the boat shell done dad had it moved into the side yard, on Lake St., so he could finish it. It still needed an engine,
propeller, shaft, rudder, keel, paint, glass,
and all the rigging neccessary to make it ready to go to work. He devoted all of his spare time
and money
to working on the boat. The season was approaching and he was trying to get
it ready as soon as possible. He worked on the boat for about three
months before our Landlord had an issue with dads boatbuilding
enterprise in the side yard. We ended up moving about six blocks away to
a large, three bedroom house, on a dead end, at
910 N.W. Cottage street.
Not long after we moved in to our new neighborhood, dad heard noises
coming from the parking area in front of the house, He went out to
investigate and heard some young people running off into the woods
surrounding the house. He looked around in the bushes and found a
five-gallon gas can, about half full of gas, and a hose. He poured the gas back into Grandmas car
and put an equal amount of water back into the can. He then put the can
back where he had found it and came back into the house. We had no idea
who had been syphoning the gas but dad saw a car, belonging to some
local trouble makers, pulled over to the side of the road, on highway 20
eastbound abot halfway between Newport and Toledo. He decided that the car belonged to the kids who had syphoned
the gas out of Grandmas car and we all had a good laugh.
Dad chose Sea Gull Charters and went
to work for them as a Charter Boat Captain. When dad applied for his
Charter Boat Captains License he had to take a vision test and because
he was color-blind he couldn't pass the test or receive his certificate
to operate a charter boat. It was too late to change plans so Dad went
ahead and went to work with his new boat as a Charter Boat Captain. He
had a couple of close calls with the Coast Guard but never got caught.
Occaisionally, the Coast Guard would set up a checkpoint in the bay,
opposite of the Coast Guard Station, and check all the Charter Boats to
make sure everybody had their paperwork together. One time, he heard
about the checkpoint on his way back into the harbor and turned around,
and headed back out for another two hours of fishing, until the Coast
Guard quit checking the Charter Boats. Instead of getting a four hour
fishing trip, the passengers got a six hour trip. The Charter Boat idea
lasted for most of one season and dad gave up on that idea. Next up, he
hauled the boat back in front of the house on Cottage St. and refitted
it for Salmon Trolling. This required installing a hydraulic pump that
was attached to the engine by a fan belt. Next, the pump had to be connected, by hydraulic hoses, to the two spool bronze girdies
located on each side at the stern of the boat. Then dad went out into
the woods, alongside the house, and picked out two jack-pine trees and
shaved all the bark and limbs off and soaked them, over and over again
with linseed oil. My brother and I had to take turns painting the
linseed oil on
the trolling poles which were layed across saw horses, in the driveway.
Once all the preliminary work was done it was time to go fishing. We
went out and learned how and where to fish for salmon. If you fished
close to home you had to compete with the charter boats and sport fishermen. One of the things that I found most amazing was
how many people could buy a boat and a truck to pull the boat and
trailer but wouldn't buy a wristwatch or a compass. Fishing out of
Newport, in the 1960's, you had to time your crossing the bar to the
tide changes. If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone on the
C.B. radio ask for a time-check I could have easily retired with plenty
of money in the bank. The sport fishermen who came out from the valley
were called trailer-sailors or weekend warriors. They were always in the
way or driving their boats a hundred miles an hour and throwing up large
wakes that would almost capsize you. They would launch their boats up at
River Bend Marina and then drive like bats out of hell to get to the fishing grounds.
There were speed limits in the bay and channel but they were pretty much
ignored. The breakwater was the only protection that we had from the
valley fisherman and their huge wakes. Otherwise your boat would be
jumping up and down and wearing itself out against the dock.
We fished out of Newport for the first season and then
Dad and his friend, Ron Halley, decided to head North and fish out of
Garibaldi. Dave would be helping Ron, on his boat, and I would be
helping Dad on our boat. We installed one 50 gallon fuel barrel, on each side of the boat
for balance, and Dad built large plywood fish boxes, one for each side
for balance. We filled the fish boxes with ice and got up early and
headed north. We fished until dark and then tried to
anchor behind Haystack rock, Pacific City, that night. Ron went into the anchorage area
first and ended up anchoring in the middle of the anchorage area and we
were left out on the edge of the surf to anchor for the night. The next
day we got up early and continued North. By noon the next day all of the
ice was melted and the fish were just stacked in the fish boxes. The
fish were cleaned as soon as we caught them but were showing signs of
being belly burned.
By the time we got to the bar, outside of Garibaldi, it was already getting dark and we were running low on fuel.
As we made our way up the channel Dad was getting concerned about how much fuel we had. As we pulled into the dock of the fish buyer
the boat ran out of gas and we bounced kind of hard off of the dock. The
guy who owned the fish company where we were delivering our fish to
couldn't believe that we had cut it so close with the fuel. We had an
instant reputation around Garibaldi for being those fearless guys from
Newport. The bar ouside of Garibaldi was even more treacherous then the
one at Newport. Timing everything. We used to drive out to the park,
opposite of the bar, and time the waves to see how safe it was to go
fishing. We took a lot of risks fishing out of Garibaldi. Ron didn't
care for the risks and went back to Newport right after we got to
Garibaldi. We finished up the season in Garibaldi and headed south.
That winter I got a call from one of my friends, Clark (Dustie)
Griffeth,asking me if I was interested in filling in for him on his paper route
while he went Elk hunting with his father in Eastern Oregon. It was an afternoon paper route and papers were delivered after school. When he got back from the Elk hunting trip he didn't
really want to go back to delivering newspapers. He really wanted to go
to work with his father who had a gas station and a car repair business. He asked me if I wanted to take the paper route on a permanent basis and after thinking it over
for a few minutes and said sure, why not? The hours were perfect and the money was good, $12.00 to $14.00 per week.
I had the Northwest area of town. I had from the Chili Bowl, on the
North end to the top of the hill on North Coast St.. David saw how easy
the money was and signed on to deliver papers also. He had from the
south end of my route to the south end of the park. We owned the whole
west side of town from the Chili Bowl to the park.
By the end of that summer Grandma asked us if we wanted to got to
Wickenburg, Arizona to live and go to school next Year? It sounded like a pretty
fun adventure so we said sure.
