Computer Surfing

As usual, I'm discovering so many things I don't know how to do on the computer. I plan on going to my daughter's house in Renton at Christmas and I'm taking my laptop. I'll be writing down questions for the next two weeks as they come to me on various subjects I need help learning. Tonight I used Facetime on my cell so Mary could show me how to mark on pictures on my screen. I thought I could just touch it and it would obey but she laughed and told me I need to tell it what I wanted it to do. That brought up a whole new menu area I didn't realize was there.

It's 7:15 pm. right now and I don't usually write this late in the day but I got my second wind when I started researching something online.  I saw an obit in the Leader of this woman I sorta knew who used to have SeaJ's Cafe down by the boat haven.  I had a conversaton with her years ago about her brother, Emmett, who was in my 6th grade class. Pictured below (hopefully the blue mark appears too that I made).

Oh good. There it is.  Anyhow, that's Emmett. He drove Mrs. Easton nuts but I thought he was delightful. Always getting in trouble. I remember once when she yelled at him to sit down and he sat right there on the floor.  We all laughed but she didn't. She got the jump rope out and tied him to his seat.  Another time, she grabbed him (I think he was wandering again) and she tore the boy scout badges off his shirt.  He was furious and started to cry.  She sat down and sewed them all back on. Things like that made an impression on me.  I actually remember Mrs. Easton with fondness. I liked all my teachers really. Well, until I got in high school.  Some of them I didn't care for at all.  I also didn't like my 8th grade teacher. He was a bully. But I'm getting off the subject.

Emmett was my first crush. Him and John O'Brien.  I invited Emmett to this halloween costume party we had at my girl scout house. My first date. haha  When I talked to his sister (Sis who had Sea Js) she told me he died a few years back of a heart attack. Made me sad.  When I read her obit, it said she was preceded in death by two brothers, Sonny and Bud.  I figured one of them had to be Emmett but I wasn't sure which one so I started snooping around looking for obits and on ancestry.com.  Yeah, I'm a Gladys Kravitz.

I thought I had Emmett found but then I vaguely remembered he had a brother two years older. I pulled out my '58 annual and there was Garlie.

Darn. I was really hoping the obit I found was Emmett but it was Garlie. Not sure who was Sonny and who was Bud.

Here's Garlie's obit and picture:

SNOQUALMIE – Garlie King got one last wish fulfilled this past weekend.

The wish was that when he died, all his friends and family would get together and share stories. He hoped no one would get too teary over him and wanted everyone to have a good time and a healthy laugh remembering him as a jovial and direct soul.While there were some tears shed at his memorial service at Snoqualmie Middle School on Oct. 8, there also was laughter. King, who garnered a reputation as a civic and union leader, died Oct. 1 at the age of 63. When discussing death, King told his friend Robbie Davis about his wish to be remembered with a celebration, not a dirge. Scores of people packed the gymnasium of the school to do just that.“He took care of the union, his family and this community,” Davis said.King, a lifelong Washingtonian, was born in Friday Harbor in 1941. In 1959, he married Marian Emma Larsen, with whom he would spend the rest of his life. The couple would go on to have three sons and a daughter, and many remembered King as a man who depended on his family as much as he served them.

“You [Marian] were his rock,” said Charles Peterson, former mayor of Snoqualmie, union leader and longtime friend of King. “I know it because he told me.”After living in Bellingham and Juneau, Alaska, the Kings moved to Snoqualmie in 1964, and King started working the following year at the Weyerhaeuser Mill. In 1972, the Kings moved to North Bend. In 1974, Garlie was appointed president of Lumber and Sawmill Workers Local 1845, a role he was elected to multiple times.

“He was the longest serving [union] president in all of Western Washington,” Peterson said.It was in this capacity most of the Valley got to know King. For years, the Weyerhaeuser mill was the nexus of economic and social life for many in the Valley and King was in the center of it. He helped negotiate contracts for hundreds of employees and often worked on his own time to get union work done.

Referred to as a “man’s man,” King was a large fellow who was known to speak directly and not suffer fools lightly. He loved to ride his Harley-Davidson through town and even scared potential vandals away from the home of neighbor Ken McCarty.He was my first friend [in North Bend],” McCarty said.

The man’s man also was a practical joker who hated flying and was afraid of water. He loved children and dressed up as Santa Claus every year to visit homes in the Valley.Davis and Peterson both recalled white-knuckle flights with King and the mutual joking that lasted for years. Peterson would habitually give King a hard time about him getting his truck stuck in the yard of a home he was dropping off firewood to. During a contentious strike, Davis fondly remembered King telling everyone in a bar that Davis was a “scab.” Davis also remembered King giving a shirt to a guy outside of Smoky Joe’s who’d commented on how much he liked it.

“He was the only guy I ever met who actually gave someone the shirt off his back,” Davis said.

Although the size of the mill started to wane over the years and eventually shut down last year, King remained faithful to his community. Outside of the mill, King coached the basketball team from the Church of the Nazarene to its championship and he was a trustee for the Sno-Falls Credit Union. The credit union started out accepting only mill employees as customers, but eventually expanded to serve the whole community and now has five branches throughout the Valley. King helped secure the location of the Snoqualmie office at the intersection of Meadowbrook Way and State Route 202.

“He was a giant among men,” Mayor Fuzzy Fletcher said earlier last week.

The Rev. Woodrow Morgan likened King’s life to a ship that is heading out to sea. Although the ship appears to move slowly, it keeps sailing until it is no longer visable. Those watching the ship can rest assured it is still moving on.

“It may be out of our sight, but it is heading to some distant port,” Morgan said. “Just because we don’t see Garlie King, doesn’t mean he does not exist.”

Nice write-up, wouldn't you say?  I'm still curious about Emmett, though. Maybe I'll approach one of Sis' kids someday. I think they're on FB and we may have mutual friends.

I saw one of the cooks for this place in the elevator an hour ago when I went down to check my mailbox. We're having turkey, dressing, potatoes, gravy, ambrosia, cranberries, pumpkin pie and something else that I forgot.  They're delivering at 2 pm so I'll probably nuke some of it to eat later in the day.

I finished a puzzle this morning but didn't get much else accomplished. Am working on a small knitted baby blanket and depending on my mood, I may start sewing again tomorrow. I decorated the living room with Christmas stuff yesterday afternoon. There isn't a lot but enough to keep my happy.

My oldest daughter turns 56 on Monday and my youngest grandson turns 7 in about three weeks.  Here's Sue 56 years ago and today -- and Jake about 7 years ago and today.

                            At St. John's Hospital right before it was torn down in 1964

My brother, Dana at age 14 with our dog, Mickey sitting alongside a crying Susie girl.