Another Broken Arrow

Over the weekend I was thinking about the fun Broken Arrows brought to this young man.  Lots of trucks, cranes, missiles, military types all over and I was always a sucker for anything destructive!

And I remembered of a little incident outside of Portland, Oregon.  I can not even begin to remember the year or even where in Portland we were - so I had to be mighty young!

Now one of the ways to go to the Portland zoo, back before they build a superhighway straight into there was to drive southwest through Portland and then take this little road that went through a small tunnel.  As we reached the tunnel, an Air Force jeep came through and blocked off the roadway.  No big deal - that meant the day was about to get more exciting.

My father got out, identified himself and asked what was up.  Before the poor MP could even answer - there came this horrendous crash and shriek of metal from the tunnel.  Yeah, something big had just made a mess.  Dad and the MP took off running - and hey, no one to stop me - I went to!  And, what a sight I saw!

Seems a tractor trailer was hauling a missile back towards Portland and had impacted the warhead with the top of the tunnel.  The missile was now ejected out of its cradle and lay half on, half off the cradle.  The nose cone was mashed horribly.  Father let lose a series of oaths you would not have believed!

Dad grabbed the radio, ran for the Portland side of the tunnel and radioed into the Base for a decontamination team, full geared inspectors, a suit for him and two cranes to be brought in from the south.  What an exciting day!

Of course, I got to go through decontamination and you know I really do not like stripping in public.  Just a modesty issue I have never overcome.

In due course of the day, they found the warhead (which was supposed to have been removed prior to transport!) was intact; very little radiation was evident in the area - other than the roof of the tunnel and ground below; and it took close to a week to extract that puppy from the tunnel and reload onto another carrier - this time with the warhead safely removed!

I never got to see if I glowed in the dark or not.  Oh yeah, good times!

Fishing

My grandfather, mother's strep-father, loved fishing.  If he was not working, then he was fishing.  I never caught anything but it was a fun activity.  Somewhere, father got the idea to take me fishing.

Now we lived on top of the bluff, on the northwest side of the Willamette River valley, overlooking Swan Island.  So, off we marched to the little road which wound its way down to the water.  Father of course was in shirt and tie, his most basic of all leisure dress.  His shoes were inappropriate for hiking on a muddy road with a steep incline.  Yes, you guessed it, he went a tumbling sliding down the length of that road!

Oh was he ever so angry over that mud bath!  I think I picked up swear words in five languages during that one!

So he ordered me back home and I had to wait at the top while he slipped and cursed his way back up to the top of the bluff.  That was to be the end of all fishing trips for him.

Luckily, two of my friends were old enough to walk with me and so we would go together.  No we never caught anything but then I am not sure that is the point of male adventures or bonding.....

Hiking

Outside of work and mathematics, father really did not have any interests.  But, he did love the out of doors.

When I was really young, we would go hiking as a family.  My earliest of the hikes being a drive up Sandia Mountain and then walking around.  I can remember father loving the view, mother fussing over my toddler sister and my thinking the dirt/sand/whatever it was, was most interesting.

Through the years in Portland, we did go on a great many hikes: on beaches, along the river, to parks, on the glacier at Mt. Hood, Mt. Bachelor area, etc.

My favorite hike was in a place we called "Mosquito Lakes", no idea what the real name was but those mosquitoes were sure memorable!  I had taught myself how to whistle and so father would be singing some opera and I would be whistling along. It was a great few days with him.

Sometimes he would see something which reminded him of hiking in the Bernese Oberland - a beautiful mountainous area of Switzerland, and then he would talk about his sister and hiking with her.  Things he thought I would never remember and yet those were the things which were the most important about him to me.  It was our one point of communication.  And to beour great point of dispute later in life.

Spooky Story

Being as we just had Halloween, it is the perfect time to tell something spooky and of course about father.

Now, something had gone terribly wrong with my sister and she was rushed off to California for surgery accompanied by my mother, so that left father and I as bachelors, and yes, we were a bit bored.  So we planned to take a Saturday and building something fun with my father's Erector Set.

The day started out normally enough: father made Rosti - a Swiss potato dish he made for us kids on Saturday mornings.  We cleaned up and set up to build something with the cool erector Set!

Only, there was this HUGE explosion which rocked the house and we ran outside.  All of the neighbors were also coming out as well.  The blast was still echoing around the Willamette River valley below us.  Dad called the police but there were no explosions they knew of.  Next he called the Portland Air Base and reported the sound.  They had heard it too and had already identified it as a super-sonic blast.  Only problem - there were no aircraft anywhere over the area on radar.....

Everyone went back to their homes scratching their heads over that one.

So, father and I returned to our construction and built an elevator which would lift a marble, drop it onto a rail, where it would run around for a while and then hit the elevator at the bottom just in time for a ride back up.  Mesmerizing.

Father took a bathroom break and I went and got some water for us.  We both walked back in just about the same time, I just a few feet ahead of him.

In the center of the room, in the corner of my eye I saw something, to this day I have no idea what it was but it went from hanging in the air to a blur of acceleration in  a fraction of a second!  I yelled at father to duck and threw myself backwards.  Father did the same and the what ever it was streaked within inches of his face was he was falling.  It then buried itself into the hallway wall.

Father was naturally quite shaken.  We both just stood and looked at the hole in the wall and eventually father reached in with a pair of pliers and pulled out a little car build out of Erector Set Parts.  We looked at each other and ran to the table where our marble carrier stood.  It was still completely assembled - only the marble carrier was missing from the elevator shaft!

A hoist engine and wheel sat directly over the elevator shaft.  There was no way the little car could have been removed - and yet IT WAS!

No question something para-normal had occurred, no question there was no natural explanation, no question it had happened, no question it could have killed father, no question about that hole in the wall either.....

On base, the police had a good laugh until they came out to the house and saw the evidence.  Of course, everyone thought I had thrown the item, but I had two cups of water and was a might small as it was.  The hole in the all looked like a bazooka had hit it.  One of the guardsmen even tried to punch a hole in the hallway wall with his gloved fist - but it was a lath-wood wall and all he did was break a bunch of fingers.  Literally!

We left the house for a few days and I think went camping.  Father was to never mention this again to anyone, even me - aside from one comment one time - "It must have been done with magnets....".  And I think we are at the point where what existed of father's religious faith had died ...

Back To Portland, Again

My father was able to calm down after moving the family back to Portland, Oregon.  From here on out he would often be gone for extended temporary duty assignments (TDY).  But, when he was home he was occasionally the man I wanted to remember but mostly the man I do not.  He absences were so pronounced that in our little town that father was believed to have abandoned the family!  And when he was around it was not pleasant on my backside, punishments were meted out whether earned or not.  Something was really wrong with him internally, I was to realize as an adult.

Every summer, I would be able to go stay with my great uncle, whom I still admire and have to give him the nod for being the major contributor in forming my inner values.  He was my real father, the man whom visited our family I no longer knew.

Of course, my great uncle was ancient and only lived until I was 10 but those were important years for me.

If from father I learned to appreciate opera and Wagner, hiking and nature, the stars and space.  Then from Leonard I learned fishing, boat building, self subsistence, dairy herd management and everything there is to know about chickens.  But, he also taught me about wealth, generosity, helping the poor and honoring the dead.

Yeah, between the two of them I was shaped to understand technology and dream, as well as, to have my boots ground in the cow-pies and how to milk a cow.  Combined, this created a bit of a challenge for my future teachers......

Return To America

It is now fall of 1953.  My mother had successfully raised the $100 to have father allowed back into the US and father, under who knows what pretense, leaves his now pregnant wife and returns to America.  (Of course, this instantly raises the thought of father being a "dirty double crosser", since he crossed the Atlantic Ocean a second time to return to America.  And, a double entandre as well it would seem.....)

Father with a customer at the Duncet

Back in Portland, he needed employment and went to work at a sandwich shop near the train station I believe.  Though this is where a bit of a conflict comes up as he claimed later in life that he had owned the sandwich shop and went bankrupt later on.  This might be true however, but no matter which - the US Government now had him pegged as to whom he was and the wheels were quietly in motion to suck him to their employment.  Very innocently, the man whom had been father's INS case worker during his deportation jail time and trial, looked father up, was to become his best friend and gently guide father in the direction the government wanted.  It was almost Machiavellian how it worked out.  And though he was a family friend, even to a small child as I was, I could plainly see that there was an agenda being played - but then again, I needed to be an adult to understand why what happened, actually happened.

So father married the now 15 year old girl he had saved two years earlier and blam! she was pregnant.  Well, now father needs to do something because there is a family coming along and lots of expenses.  His new best friend sells him on the idea of joining the US Military - free medical, good income, career training, blah, blah, and blah.

This was so contrived you will not believe what happened next and father did not suspect a thing - ".....it had to have been circumstance.....".  After all, father (like most liars) believed he was smarter than everyone else ...  Unfortunately, that was both true and his eventual undoing.

Internment, Again

So father and the surrendered German sailors were held in the Portland city jail for the mutiny.  At some point, the city attorney figured out that Portland could not charge anyone with mutiny - which comes under international sailing law.  But, the police did not want the German's released, so they turned the prisoners over to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, whom then held them for illegal entry into the United States (the act of diving off of the ship!).  Which the Oregonian had a hay day with!

It turns out that father and five others could conceivably be charged with illegal entry.  However, it was in the rescue of US citizens and a public relations nightmare for the Portland INS office.  They were besieged with calls demanding the release of the German sailors.

At some point during this internment process, the Oregonian was able to bring enough public pressure on the INS that they released my father for a photo opportunity at the request of the newspaper, for one day.  So, father was taken over to my grandmother's houseboat for a day with the Americans and the 13 year old girl he had saved (my mother).

This photo is from the original newspaper clipping my grandmother saved.  However, the article has been lost.  It would have been interesting to know what it said they all did that day!  Other than have lunch.

In any event, this is one of the few photographs of father in his German officer's uniform and his ubiquitous pipe. Trimmed from the picture was the fact that he was wearing slippers as the INS would not allow the Germans to wear shoes since it was still thought they would run if given the opportunity.  At the end of the day, the Germans involved in the rescue were returned back to INS for holding.

After several months of being held, the agent, family friend Bill White whom was in charge, managed to negotiate a release during the daytime for the Germans.  After all, they had actually done nothing wrong and were model prisoners (compared apparently to others in the jail!).  And, then there was the whole problem of the press not letting the story die.  Father apparently spent most of his free time with grandmother's family and I have numerous pictures of him and my teenage uncles goofing off.

But, let us not forget the lawyers - whom were busy little beavers in the background.  The strike was to be broken when the courts ruled that since there was no agreement between the US and German Seaman's Unions, the US longshoremen were involved in an illegal strike and ordered back to work.  Completion of the inspection satisfied the insurance company so the ship could be released for repair and reloaded for return to India.  The courts ruled that with no physical evidence concerning the death of the German sailor, and with no evidence of lack of provisions aboard the ship, the German sailors were deemed 'dissatisfied' and the owner ordered to return the sailors to their harbor of departure, to compensate them for their wages and release them from employment.

Father, however, was to be returned to Germany in chains.

Father Meets My Mother

It is now fall.  The Portland Shipyard has been on sympathetic strike for the mutinous sailors aboard the SS Riviera for three months.  Everything is at a standstill save for the lawyers whom were busy in the background trying to break the strike and find some way to get control of the ship back from the crew.

My mother, then thirteen (13!) lived on the river in a houseboat built by my grandmother and several of her friends.  Back then, there were many houseboats in the backwater areas of the Willamette River and over on the Columbia River as well.

It was a Saturday afternoon when a Coast Guard cutter came up the Willamette River, to warn river traffic of an approaching ship and to get out of the way.  Apparently, this was standard procedure.  Also on the river, that day, was my mother and her two brothers whom had build a raft and were trying to pole their way across the river.  The raft had no chance against the hull of the cutter.

Father and several of the crew had been watching idly the progress of the raft and its impact with the cutter.  It was obvious that the kids were going to drown, so several of the crew, including my father, dove into the river to rescue them.  The kid my father reached first was to be my mother and he hauled her to shore.

Of course, the police had been on the docks and witnessed the accident, as were the press.  It took the police a little while to make it from Swan Island to where the houseboats where below the bluffs.  It took less time for the press to get the story to the Oregonian newspaper.

On the one hand, the police finally had the break they so desperately wanted - the ability to arrest the officer responsible for the stand off at the shipyards.  On the other hand, the press not only was able to sing the praises of the brave Germans whom risked their lives in the rescue of three teenagers from drowning, but also the unfair treatment of the rescuers by the police.  Anything for a story, eh?

In the end, twenty-four Germans surrendered to the police, the British crew remained on-board, the ship was allowed to empty its cargo, the captain was allowed access to his room where the crew files were to disappear (hence no murder charges could be brought against him), the required insurance inspection could occur and the lawyers were now into overtime!

Interestingly, the press went into overtime as well.  They were not going to allow this story to be hushed up or just disappear.  In fact, the Oregonian was probably the strongest reason for what was to occur did.

Seizing Control

The ship was docked at Swan Island, on the Willamette River, in Portland, Oregon.  The Captain went ashore with the ship's papers and to arrange for the cargo unload - so that the required inspection could take place.  The time to act against the Captain was now or never to the thinking of the crew and the gangplank was withdrawn from shore.

The Captain was outraged, no ship had been taken from a captain in modern history, and he called the police. The local longshoremen, of course, became interested in the police arrival and so came along to the dockside where the ship sat.  Father made the formal charges against the Captain and negotiations began.  Unfortunately, the police stance was drop the gangplank and father's demand was the arrest of the Captain.  And so, a standoff which would last for months began.

Now the story becomes convoluted as, the Longshoreman's Union became involved.  Since, this was a ship and the Seaman's Union seamen aboard were involved in a "strike"  - the longshoremen blockaded the Portland facilities in sympathy.  Now to join with them were the truckers and like dominoes eventually everyone was on strike in Portland.

The police were far from sympathetic with the entire situation, the Immigration and Naturalization Service became involved in demanding the release of the ship and the arrest of the "mutineers".  The Oregonian newspaper, was the only real voice those on the ship had - and its paper ran numerous stories concerning the voyage and particulars.

However, the stand off was to change, as a human interest story was to grip the nation and father would meet my mother because of it ...