Fishing on the salmon purse seine boats was an enormous part of my life experince which benefited me the most. The lessons learned, the relationship to men, most of whom were much older and poor at English and being involved in a clean life on the sea will always be a huge part of who I am. I've written about this more then once. I referred to Brent Lunsford wonderful book about te Croation fishing families, including my own, of…
I'm writing this about my late mother in law, Elizabeth (Betty) Catherine Devitt, who was born December 5, 1910 in Butte,Montana and died December 20, 1995 in Puyallup. Her children included my wife, Lita, Devitt (deceased) Hollis, Barbara and Monica. She was a very remarkable woman in so many respects. She was also someone for whom I had a great deal of admiration, respect and love. Betty's parents were Merritt John Devitt and Elizabeth McCarthy Devitt. She was baptized at…
My grandmother on dad's side of the family, Phyllis Filippa Luvera died in Anacortes, Washington on December 20, 1946. By coincidence, that is also the day my wife's mother died. Nonna Luvera was born in Italy May 26, 1870 and spoke little English. Since dad believed the children should speak English we never learned Italian and could only communicated with her through dad. She was typical Italian grandmother, an excellent cook and who was always feeding us something. She had…
Nick Petrish died this morning at his home in Anacortes. Nick and I were friends since our days as grade school students at the Whitney Grade school in Anacortes over 70 years ago. We also went through Junior High and High School together. At Anacortes, we played on the same football and basketball teams (although he was younger and a better athlete than I was). Our lives remained joined since that time. In fact, we ended up spending the majority…
I’m just reporting in so you’ll know I am alive yet. We have been away from work for months and there is a slight concern to learn the office seems to run just fine without us. The rule is you should never go on vacation because the rest of the office will find out you aren’t needed.These past 7 months haven’t been a vacation however. Four surgeries later, I have a new knee joint. We are hopeful the joint is…
My wife's dad, Hollis Barnett loved poetry and had memorized a number of poems. I wrote about that https://paulluverajournalonline.com/weblog/2010/03/i-write-this-in-memory-of-my-wifes-father-hollis-hall-barnett-whodied-in-puyallup-washington-on-march-22-1990-at-the-a.html and mentioned of the poems was Sugar Toothed Dick. I could not locate the full poem until my friend Dennis Donnelly located it. Here it is SUGAR-TOOTHED DICK O For dainties was sick, So he slyly stole into the kitchen, Snatched a cup from the pantry, And darted out quick, Unnoticed by mother or Gretchen. Whispered he, "There s no cake, For to-morrow…
On this day,December 7, 1941 the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor Hawaii and America entered World War II. I remember the day very well. It was a Sunday and I was in grade school. It seemed like time stopped that Sunday morning because all of the adults were in shock. If you remember President Kennedy being shot in Dallas and the reaction of people, you know what the reaction was back in 1941 to the news. It came to us not…
World War II ended some sixty five years ago, but there are so many bombs that were dropped that didn’t explode they have been named UXO. It stands for unexploded air dropped ordinances. The allies alone dropped 1,000,000 bombs during that war and it is estimated that ten percent, some 100,000, didn’t explode. On top of that there are the bombs dropped by the Axis that didn’t explode. Experts say about eight percent of the UXO bombs could go off…
Today is the anniversary of the death of one of my personal hero's, Dorothy Day, who was born in Brooklyn, NY and died November 29, 1980 at age 84 years. If ever there was the common person’s saint, Dorothy is it. Unlike plastic saints this is a woman who struggled through life trying to find her purpose and making a lot of mistakes on the way. She is someone all of us sinners can relate to. She was raised in…
In the 15th Century it was accepted by navigators and ship captains that it was impossible to sail any further South than Cape Bojador off the coast of Africa. The winds and tidal currents off the cape were dangerous and resulted in numerous expeditions being sent from Portuguese ports to attempt the passage only to have them never return. It was also accepted that this represented the end of the world. Even if a ship got past the Cape the…
