irst Encounter:
Beginning in 1957, Chelan, WA, held annual Unlimited Apple Cup Hydroplane Races.
1959 was the first year that I and my family, including Jim, my fiancé, attended. Jim drove me and my brothers to Chelan while
daddy and mom drove the ‘camper.’ The camper was in the trailer of an old semi truck that daddy had converted
into a roomy, six-bunk hunting camper – the kind of thing that in later years would be called a motor home. Ours was
pretty primitive, but quite wonderful.
We were all agog with excitement that May weekend. It was chilly,
overcast, and windy weather so we were pretty uncomfortable outside, but the generator kept us warm inside and we had first
rate front row seats for the races on the lakeside lot of a friend.
The miserable weather in normally sunny Chelan didn’t deter
our spirits as we were escorted around the ‘pits’ Thursday afternoon meeting some of the famous hydroplane drivers:
Bill Muncey of Miss Thriftway fame; Dick Short in Fascination; Jack Regas jockey of Miss Bardahl; we also met Bill O'Mara the KING broadcasting sports announcer whose face and voice were known to all of us from radio and
TV. Seeing those, larger than had been thought sleek boats up close and personal had each of us selecting a different favorite
to win.
The unusual winds gusted to 30 mph on Friday and up to 50 mph on
Saturday with high and turbulent whitecaps; the course was closed early Saturday. The officials made an adjustment by advancing
the starting time by two hours for the first heat on Sunday.
Saturday afternoon, Jim and I decided to drive the
two-and-a-half miles into town. We wanted to spend a few moments with just each other and we needed to stretch our legs; after
parking, we began walking along East Woodin Avenue, the main street of the small town, chatting and window shopping. Chelan was full of people;
I had never seen it like that before. There were a lot of young people on the streets and sidewalks, young men – drunken
young men. As we walked, we were constantly jostled by these young men and some of the comments they made wafted back to us.
The comments were about me and what they would like to do to me, but they were making the same lewd comments about any young
woman they met and passed so I took it in stride. Little did I know – Jim was my shield.
After a few blocks, we reached the end of town. We crossed the street
and turned back into town and our car parked near the church. A couple of blocks
before the north end of town as we neared a tavern Jim excused himself to go in and use the men’s room. I was too young
to go into a tavern so he left me outside standing with my back against the tavern window to wait. A couple of moments later
I heard a group of young men coming from my right. I turned and looked; they were loud and boisterous and clearly in their
cups. Pretty soon the leaders of the group had passed by me and then they turned back toward me edging me away from my place
by the window and into the center of the sidewalk as the rest of the group closed in a circle of drunken young men around
me. A couple of the boldest reached out and stroked my bare arms and the circle grew tighter and tighter around me as the
young sots jeeringly, laughingly, loudly told me what they wanted to do to and with me. I began to tremble, but telling them,
“Go away. Please leave me alone. Let me go,” only increased their mirth and the physical and verbal aggression.
Suddenly, I heard a familiar voice raised in a loud
command from the back of the crowd; Jim demanded that they step aside and leave his fiancé alone. Never was that voice so welcome and never before or after did I hear that voice so loud or authoritative.
Those drunken young men parted as though they were the Red Sea and Jim was Moses commanding
the sea with God’s staff. Jim was not a large man, but when I looked up those young men had melted away into the tavern.
I must have been as white as a sheet that has been hung out in the bright sunshine to dry for a month and a day when Jim put
his warm comforting arms around me whispering apologies in my ear.
Postscript: Chelan was a small summer vacation town with a year round population of only
a few more in 1959 than the estimated 250 when the hydroplane races had begun two years earlier. The crowds that came to attend
the Apple Cup Hydroplane Races at Lake Chelan gradually became so rowdy during the budding hippie years that the town was
quite literally being destroyed by their physical damage, broken windows, graffiti, looting, etc. [Of note, was the near total
destruction of the interior of the small and lovely St. Andrews Episcopal Church, a 1890s landmark log structure.]
After the races in 1960, the town canceled the hydroplane races forevermore. The increased revenue wasn’t worth
the cost of physical repair of the damage or the damage to the reputation of the small quiet town.
irst Near Encounter:
Mid-April 1965 found me on the road from Kirkland, WA to Wenatchee, WA.
The purpose of the trip was two-fold; my grandfather was in the hospital and my ‘little’ brother wanted me to
meet ‘his girl.’
It was nearing midnight before I got a start. My friend Bill had taken us out to dinner and then home to his house where we prepared the
back seat of his car so Sean would be as safe as possible by packing the knee area between front and back seats full of sleeping
bags, thus making a wide flat area for his bed. Bill’s car was a 1962 T-Bird. He thought it would be much more reliable
for my trip than ‘George,’ my 1950 Chevy coupe.
Armed with careful verbal instructions on how to get
to Fall City, via back roads,
I set off. I drove and I drove and I drove. I made all of the turns when and where I had been instructed, I thought, but I
had begun to fear that I had gotten lost when I finally found Fall City on that dark and narrow, lonely, twisty, unknown road
with overhanging trees and brush reaching in from the sides. From Fall City to Snoqualmie Pass, it was just a few
short miles. I have always been one who likes a bit of speed when I drive and that T-Bird effortlessly ate up the miles over
Snoqualmie Pass; soon I was through the tiny town of Cle Elum and had started up Blewett Pass; the last long leg of the journey.
Just as I crested the first long upward slope out
of Cle Elum I saw an eastbound car in the distance. As I closed the distance between us and passed the car I recognized it
as a 1958 blue and white Pontiac. Pretty soon I saw in my rearview mirror that that car was racing to
catch up with me; it passed me. Then it slowed to about 40 mph. Huh? I like driving at a pretty steady pace. In this case,
about 60 mph for the entire pass. I passed them. Once again they sped up and passed me and then slowed down again. My heart
thumped. By the third time this happened, I realized that there were four men in the car and that all they could see in mine
was me, a lone female. My heart began to seriously thump in my chest and my hands grew damp with sweat on the steering wheel.
I knew that it hadn’t been too long before that a man had chased a woman in her car and ran her off the road on Blewett Pass because she had passed him; she died. This game of cat-and-mouse continued
to the top of the pass; with them shortening the distances between each pass and re-pass. I had tried to lay back and let
them go on ahead, but they slowed so much that not passing wasn’t an option; the last time they passed me they slowed
to about 10 mph before I passed them. I knew Blewett pass well so as I crested the top of the pass I gave the T-Bird its head.
We flew down the east side of the pass at between 80 and 100 mph with my heart thumping at about the same speed, my sweaty
hands clinging to the steering wheel, and my eyes frequently looking in the rearview mirror afraid to believe that I had outrun
their pursuit.
When I came to the “Y” I hadn’t
seen any tail lights for quite some time, but I didn’t know if the blue and white Pontiac was going to turn left for Leavenworth or right for Wenatchee.
As I turned right, I kept my foot heavy on the accelerator. When I came to the top of the hill going down into Cashmere, I saw that there was a state patrol a speed trap below. I didn’t know that they couldn’t ticket me unless
they could actually clock my speed. So instead of stomping hard on the brake to reduce my speed I tried to coast it down.
That didn’t work. I got stopped. The young state patrol officer got upset with me when he saw Sean sleeping peacefully
in the back seat area of a car going in excess of 90 mph. He wanted to know where I was going in such a hurry with my defenseless
baby in the back. I explained that my grandfather was in the hospital, but I did not tell him, and I believe I should have,
about the blue and white 1958 Pontiac whose license plate I had not gotten.
I found out that that weekend was the opening of fishing
season. The men in the 1958 blue and white Pontiac had probably gotten a late start too. I paid for my fishing license with
a $27.00 speeding ticket (the speed limit there was 80 mph.). Were those men just having fun playing cat-and-mouse?
econd Encounter:
March 26,
1966, the Saturday before daylight savings time
began, I had gone to the Laundromat and washed and dried our clothes. It took about four hours to do the whole thing: sort
our laundry into plastic laundry baskets; load the car, including getting Sean settled; drive to the Laundromat. Once at the
Laundromat, the first thing I did was put the diapers in for a pre-wash; then I unloaded the rest of the car. Sean followed
my every footstep. I got $3.00 worth of quarters and dimes from the attendant and loaded the washers with whites, coloreds,
darks, and sheets – a quarter per load. I always folded the dried laundry on one of the large convenient Laundromat
tables and then put them back into the newly washed and dried laundry baskets to take home. By the time we got back home,
it was just about four hours on the dot and time for Sean’s lunch.
I decided that the warm and sunny day was a perfect day for mowing
the grass for the first time that year. So, while Sean napped, I got out the old push reel mower and cut the overly long grass.
I stayed up late that night ironing our clothes; I was so tired when I finished that I didn’t even put the iron and
ironing board away or pick up Sean’s toys.
I awoke with a start in the dark of night as someone
put his hot, rough, scratchy hand over my mouth. I was so frightened that I couldn’t scream; all that came out of me
was a pitifully tiny squeak. The next effort at a scream was a bit better squeak, good enough at least that he took a swing
at my chin that barely grazed it; that got a good scream out of me! He went pounding out of the room and across the living
room tripping over Sean’s purple, hard plastic, riding Easter rabbit. He never said a word. I never heard him leave.
My digital alarm clock said it was 2:06 a.m.
I fumbled my way into my floor length, quilted, blue and white floral
patterned robe and on wobbling, shaking legs I went to the phone in the living room. In the dark, by feel, I dialed ‘O’
for operator and connection with the police. It seemed like it took forever to get an operator and be connected to the police.
After I put the phone down, I crept into the kitchen and grabbed a butcher knife off the countertop and then, with the butcher
knife clasped in my quivering hand, I cowered in the dark bathroom to wait and wait and wait for the police. I hadn’t
turned on any lights. I hadn’t checked on Sean. I wasn’t even sure if the intruder had left although I had told
the police I thought he had. After I spoke with the police, it was over half-an-hour before they arrived – the Queen
Anne Hill unit had had to come from all the way from Magnolia which they were also covering because they were short a unit
that night.
When the police arrived with lights flashing but no siren, we were
able to trace where the intruder had gone in my home and how he had gotten in by the grass clippings he left behind. We found
a white towel by the window he had raised to climb in – the policemen said he had brought the towel to break the glass
– if I hadn’t conveniently left the window up a couple of inches the towel would have muffled the sound of breaking
glass so that it would have been nearly soundless. He had carefully pushed the super noisy plastic wheeled holder of metal
TV trays away from in front of the window – out of his way – climbed in through the window, and went directly
to my bedroom. Once in the house, he hadn’t stepped over to the door and unlocked it for easy egress – he must
have planned on staying for a while. When he left, he had to have dived head first out of the window he had used to get in
and then cut across the newly mowed lawn and ran down the street and turned the corner to the left, leaving a trail of grass
clippings with every step until they faded out about half-way down the block. Although I pretty accurately described the person
as to height and weight, I told the policemen that night that I didn’t know who it was. I also mentioned that I thought
it was weird that he hadn’t said a word, not even when he tripped over that ugly purple rabbit; that had to have hurt;
it was almost as though he was afraid I would know his voice.
About a week later I realized that I did know the owner of that hot,
dry, rough, scratchy hand (it was rough enough that it left a whisker like burn on my chin and lips where he had held me and
strong enough that it tore the inside of my lips on my teeth). He was an odd but not really unattractive young man (about
28 or so) who had started up a conversation with Jan and me on the city bus some months before:
It was about ten at night. We had taken the bus
to my bus stop after our evening banking classes. We were the last three passengers on the bus. Although he didn’t know
our full names he had learned our first names from listening to our conversation and that we worked at the main office of
Washington Mutual Savings Bank. A couple of days later he showed up at my teller’s window asking for a date –
Jan worked on the lower floor, out of public view. I remember being grateful that the bank did not put my full name on the
name plate outside of my teller’s window.
I had about four other ‘accidental’
encounters with him. One time he bumped into me in a book shop (I later wondered if he had somehow followed me). During that
encounter in an oddly bold, affectionate sort of gesture he caressed my left cheek with his right hand; thus I knew what his
hand felt like. I wondered what kind of work he did. Every time I saw him he tried to make a date with me that I managed to
elude with some rather pathetic excuses. He somehow got my phone number – I didn’t give it to him. The last time
I saw him was a couple of weeks before my home was broken into when he showed up at the Ballard Branch of Washington Mutual
where I had transferred at the first of the year.
Now, it was clear that he also knew my home address.
Knowing who the intruder was at a later date was too late to do anything
about it and I only knew him by a first name. Thankfully, I never saw or heard from him again, but I slept with a gun under
my pillow and, together with a concealed weapons permit, I carried it with me for years afterwards. Today, I think he would
be considered a stalker – or worse. How had he gotten my phone number? How had he known of my transfer to the Ballard
branch? How did he find my address? It would have been easy to follow me, or to have been on the same bus, or have followed
the bus and I would have never been noticed. I wasn’t overly aware of my surroundings or the people in those surroundings
– waiting for the bus or on the bus I usually had my nose in a book.
econd Near Encounter:
For many years, my single social outing was square
and round dancing. 1992 wasn’t any exception. I danced an average of three times a week and often four. The third Friday
in May I had gone dancing at the single’s club. After the dance, my friend Rich asked me to his home for coffee. We
spent about an hour chatting and I left around midnight. As I came to the end of Rich’s
long drive way, I stopped to look both ways for any traffic. There were headlights coming from my left about a city block
away, so I had plenty of time to pull onto 128th and turn left. Or there should have been plenty of time.
That dark blue pickup had to have been going seventy or more miles
per hour in a thirty-five mile per hour zone. As I completed my turn onto the road, they screamed by me with their horn blaring.
I was terrified when I saw, through my rear view mirror, that they had slammed on their brakes, did a fast ‘U’
turn, and were in pursuit of me. About a half-a-block before the stoplight on Waller, they passed me. At the stoplight, they
slammed on their brakes and first the passenger’s side door and then the driver’s door opened and a man stepped
out of each door onto the road and started walking back toward me and my van. I had the impression they were young. I was
too afraid to even think of trying to get a license number or think of how I was going to get away. All my stunned, frightened
brain could think was: What do they want? Where is the closest sheriff’s office?
If I try to back-up, they’ll just get back into their truck and follow me again.
From seemingly out of nowhere, a red pickup truck pulled up at the
stoplight going west on 128th. As its headlights illuminated the two men, they rushed back to their open truck
doors, climbed back into the cab, slammed the doors shut, and left. I turned right on Waller then right on Chesney and hoped
I was hidden as I drove with my lights off.
Every time I think of the possible scenarios of what
those men might have had in mind on that dark and lonely midnight road I get
a frightened chill up my spine.
