Category Archives: Personal

A 1968 Christmas storm revisited

Several years ago, I found a contact sheet containing photos taken at the end of 1968 when a winter storm stranded us in Portland, Oregon after spending several days visiting friends in Seattle. Here’s the story originally posted here three years ago.

Meda and I were in our senior year at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. We had been spending time together during the fall semester, and as the holidays approach, made plans to visit friends in Seattle, then drive down to Portland and spend Christmas with her family.

It wasn’t a bad plan, but we hadn’t counted on the snow storm that moved in as we were on a freeway somewhere between Seattle and Portland. It sticks in my mind as a Christmas storm, but I don’t recall if it was on Christmas, or sometime during that Christmas-New Year week.

Neither of us had much experience with winter driving. We reached the outskirts of Portland and thought we would make it to her family’s home, but then the car, well, kind of just kind of sputtered and froze up. We coasted to a stop, not knowing where we were. Surveying our situation, we saw a doctor’s office nearby and walked there for help and just to escape the cold. The staff were not happy, since they wanted to get back to their own homes, but they let Meda use the phone. She reached her mom, who was able to get a neighbor, Len Hufford, a contractor with a pickup truck, to come to our rescue.

Safely at Meda’s house, it wasn’t too long before the storm knocked the power out, and with it went the electric heating system. As it got colder, Meda’s mother went into action. Bit by bit, the christmas tree was dismantled and fed into the fireplace, piece by piece, as we all huddled nearby. It got us through the night. Somewhere I have a photo of the tree in the middle of the process. I hope that picture turns up one of these days.

We had left the car where it stopped, figuring we could come back to pick it up when the weather cleared. Unfortunately, thieves got there first, broke the driver’s side fly window and made off with most of our possessions. That was a pain, but we were mostly happy to have survived the blizzard, and we got our first lesson in dealing with insurance companies.

All things considered, we must have enjoyed the experience. We were married eight months later.

Just click below to scroll through this batch of found photos.

Returning to Woodward

Answering my own questions about 44-year old photos

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Sunday morning. A bit of time on my hands, so I pulled out an old drive and started looking through scanned photos from the 1980s.

Two photos caught my attention. I had no direct memory, but a stirring way back in my mind suggesting I should know who this was. That niggle of memory led me to upload the photos to a private Facebook group of alumni of the American Friends Service Committee along with a request for assistance in identifying the person and the location.

I served on the AFSC staff here in Hawaii in the 1970s, and then served on regional and national committees until I was hired as a reporter for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 1993.

Here’s my original post to the Alumni group.

I just ran across these two old photos, and am trying to identify who this is and where her AFSC office was. I am guessing the photos were taken somewhere between the early 1980s and early 1990s, but it could have been earlier. I have a vague recollection that it might have been in western Massachusetts, but my wife draws a blank, so that may be my hallucination.

I told Meda that I have a vague memory of driving from Boston to one of the small colleges in Western Massachusetts, but it didn’t ring any bells for her, and I couldn’t dredge up anything more specific.

But then I turned to one of her long lists of professional academic accomplishments that luckily included a list of papers presented at conferences.

And there it was!

Chesney-Lind, Meda. “From Benign Neglect to Malign Attention: A Critical Review of Research Trends in Female Delinquency.” Paper presented at “Who Speaks for Young Girls Today?” A National Seminar on the Needs of Young Women, Smith College, July, 1981.

Smith is a private liberal arts women’s college located in Northampton, Massachusetts,

I knew that the answer to my own question was very near.

My next search used the search terms “Northampton,” “American Friends Service Committee,” and the year, 1981.

And that sealed the deal.

It led me to the AFSC Quaker Service Bulletin, Fall 1981 issue, and a photo of Frances Crowe, easily recognized as the woman in my photos.

AFSC Northampton

I had answered my own question about the person and the location.

And it took only about 15 minutes from posting the original request for help, and finding the answers myself.

Smith College also proved to be the location of several photos of Meda that we hadn’t been able to identify previously, including this one outside a building with part of th name showing, “Franklin King.”

A quick search for Smith College and Franklin King determined that this is Franklin King House, a well-known dormitory on the college campus.

Still unanswered: Who are the other two women with Meda in this photo, taken during the same few days at Smith College in 1981.

Say “Happy Birthday, Mr. Ian”

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My birthday got off to an early start with a breakfast with friends (human and canine) at Plumeria Beach House in the Kahala Hotel and Resort, just a 2 minute drive from our house. We walk by here most mornings at dawn, but actually coming in and sitting down for breakfast is a very special occasion!