PORT TOWNSEND CONTINUED.

In yesterday’s blog, I kind of jumped around because I walked the waterfront then doubled back with cousin Bob. He is fun to be with, very talkative, and he likes to learn everything about a subject before he goes on to another.

For instance, I spotted a yarn tree in its early stages; intrigued because I’d run into the original yarn tree in Turkey, so we stopped.

By the time we left the yarn shop, I could have taught a class in natural dyes. I tried dying wool for rugs in the early 1970’s and found out what I did wrong. Naturally dyed yarns are really big now according to this proprietor.

At a yacht riggers, I expected to see them with a yacht in the warehouse and rigging the sails. Nope!  You take classes here and learn to rig your sales yourself. Christian Toss and her husband Brian have books and videos and classes. They were beastly busy with the upcoming boat show. And since we’d already had lunch and we wanted to see a museum and a bit of an art fix for me, Bob left for his house and we continued around town.

Jim often says I make my pictures tell a story. So I’m going to let them do that.

On the waterfront is a huge patio of concrete with many panels. We guess the panels were set in as a fundraiser. No information about them.

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I’m going to let the museum tell a story, too. This picture of a poor original picture I include because it shows what I was seeing in the huge red cedar stumps at cousin Davids get-away camp a couple of blogs back. Wood boards inserted into the tree allowed them to cut the tree with a cross-cut saw.

There was child labor, prostitution and men shanghaied in this community. All under the knowing eye of the powers that be.

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You can double click on any of these pictures to get an enlarged view. Then back arrow to the blog again.

Prostitution was a dead-end street. Few walked away with a grand new life or pocketfuls of money except a madam and she didn’t have a free ride either.

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The “good old days” were full of horror and hardship for many. But, we got from there to here and no one can change history. It helps to know where we come from and to learn from the past.

But, back to the waterfront. I got a kick out of this little boy and his dog being helpful to dad in the boat.

I laughed at this shirt.

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A bit of an art fix at the Williams Gallery.

Nice place.

This painting was in the museum. So typical here, the windblown trees. Winds can be fierce her.

My cousin told us John Steinbeck’s boat was at the other Marina. We couldn’t find out much about it, except that a guy from Salinas was willing to pay 700 thousand dollars to fix it up so he could put it in his men’s clothing store in Salinas. Why it is here?  Don’t know. Men on the dock said it was underwater for 90 days. Online, it claims 30 days. Who knows.

We drove to Cousin Bob’s house. He has let loose his farmer instincts and has a huge garden. He claims the vegetables just jump out of the ground.

He is building higher boxes for his garden out of beautiful red cedar.

I picked the last of his french beans, he picked me some tomatoes and a kohlrabi. One apple on the ground was ripe, out of three types. A nice little taste of home.

DISCOVERING CHINOOK, BLAINE CO. MONTANA

Jim looks on Google Earth and tries to decide where we will park for the night. He chose Chinook, MT. because it had  potential places to park and the Blaine County Museum, for something to do. On the way in, we passed the Lohman building with two bars that have big neon signs. I walked to Finley’s Grocery store for milk, but I knew there had to be a story here.

The Mint was open. The friendly bartender there told me the bar opened in 1911, closed briefly during prohibition and became a dress shop. It reopened after prohibition as a bar and has been one ever since. The front part of the bar was divided, with a barber shop open to the street at one time. The barber fixed a light to his door. He sat at the bar and when the light flashed on, he knew he had a customer and would dash out and take care of his customer.  (Hmm. I wonder how sober he was by the end of the day.)

She also told me that a movie scene was filmed in the bar, in the alley behind the bar,  and places around town. After a book of the same name, the movie is  Blood In Winter, based on Native American James Welsh’s life in Montana. The book is available on Amazon, she told me.

Then, she turned on the Neon sign for me to take a picture.

The Elk Bar was closed, but I shot their sign and learned later, from Jude Shepherd, the Curator of the Blaine Co. Museum, that the business was sold and the new owner took the sign to another location.The townspeople were incensed and raised enough money to buy it back, and now they own it and here, by God, it stays!!

At the museum, is the poignant story of the Bears Paw Battle.  Chief Joseph’s four-month run for safety is named the “Forty Miles From Freedom”. He staved off the United States Calvary on the run with women and children for 4 months and was only 40 miles from the Canadian border and freedom when they were finally cornered and nearly annihilated.   East of Chinook is the Bears Paw Battle State Park. Chief Josephs path took them just a few miles south of Chinook in Blaine County. The museum has a beautiful mural by Lorenzo Ghiglieri, several  bronzes, and a film about the battle and some artifacts, mostly bullets.

Chief Joseph and other tribal members wanted to live in peace, but they were savaged and their treaties were disregarded. When he surrendered he said, “I will fight no more forever.”

Homesteading on the Montana Plains was hard. This family of 15 lived in a renovated chicken coup because it was bigger than their house.

Life could be lonely, remote. Long winters and cold. This is a one room school-house.

Churches here seemed to spring up on the plains in the middle of nowhere.

Children had to pitch in and help with the endless family chores.

Eight year old Peggy.

This family grew sugar beets.

Sugar was King then.

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The diseases the doctor treated in the old days reminds us of how lucky we are.

Sheep were also a big part of the economy.

Angora sheep chaps.

Among items I’ve never seen before was this sheepherder’s tin dog. I asked Jude how it worked. She explained that sheep are easily frightened. And if the dog wasn’t near by, the herder would shake the cans filled with rocks at them, and throw it in their midst and they’d get moving.

Another item I’d never seen before is a clothes fork. It didn’t take me long to remember how it was used.  My mother never had a clothes fork, but she used a straight wooden stick to the same purpose. To pull sheets out of the boiling hot water and transfer them to a cold rinse tub. Oh, my.

I loved this decorated desk from a photography studio.

And, the matching chair.  How sweet is that!

From that photo studio came this wedding picture, under glass. The glare was such I couldn’t get them both, but I thought his hairstyle was worth working to capture. Wow! I’d marry him in a New York minute. Blaine County has a wonderful museum, Chinook is right on Highway 2. Great place.  Jude took me to another museum in town that is very special. I’ll get to that tomorrow.