Kenneth Marple

In 1968, a closeness came over our little south-western, Washington town in a very unexpected way. Nearly a half-mile of the road leading into our town slid down into the Columbia River. For five months the river became our “life-line.” You might say we lived by the tide. Fortunately, a little 12-car ferryboat served our town. Normally, we used the ferryboat only when we wanted to go to Oregon – because of the slide, we would use it for everything.

I was headed for the barbershop. Get it? “Headed” for the barbershop. The first time I remember getting a haircut, the barber said, “Want a haircut like mine, kid?” It was a frightening experience. He was nearly bald with a little fringe around the edge (shiny-head-bald – even polished). I thought it was a bad advertisement for a barber to be bald. I’ve always felt I could read a barber’s mind. They’re thinking, “Why don’t you get a haircut more often, cheap-skate?”

For not having Bibles, it is incredible how much theology was known to the American Indian — who knew he was part of something much larger, that he did not cause himself, that “you cannot sell the ground you walk on,” that there certainly is a “Great Spirit,” that there could only be one “Great Spirit.”

Richmond is famous for more than the Confederacy; Matthew Maury was buried there in 1873. Maury is known as the “Pathfinder of the Sea.” He is the father of modern day oceanography. How did Maury get started? Reading the Bible. In Psalm 8:8, he read that there were “paths in the sea.” Maury declared, “If God says there are paths in the sea, then I’m going to find them” – and he did. He was the first to recognize that the oceans were a circulating system. Ben Franklin was first to identify the Gulf Stream — however, he erroneously attributed it to trade winds alone.

Boys are more apt to explore and investigate than to work. So has it always been with boys, and so it was with Juma in 1947. Juma was a Bedouin boy who liked to explore caves rather than herd sheep and goats. It was on a winter day in 1947 that Juma happened upon the entrance of a cave. The cave had two entrances (one too small for Juma – one too high). But, there are ways to make up for one’s shortness; Juma found it to be a pile of rocks. A boy does not mind hauling and piling rock when he is trying to get into a cave; he dislikes it if he is building a stone wall.

There’s nothing like a cozy little fire on a chilly evening. We’ve all gathered around a “camp-fire” with family and friends; it soaks the dampness right out of our bones. It’s romantic — even magic! Flickering, flowing flames have always had a tendency to hypnotize me.

Though ‘silence is golden,’ there are times when it sends a message louder than Niagara Falls. While we may aim to ‘keep the peace’ by remaining silent, we may actually fuel the fires of frustration within the other person! Think about it... When you get home, your spouse is upset — maybe with you! What if your response is simply withdrawing into silence, reading the newspaper, watching television, or refusing to talk about it? Sometimes, evaders just walk out of the room, or out of the house.

I once lived next door to an eccentric fellow who wore a long beard – a Christian, he said he was. He was kind of a half-college and half-Bible sort of guy.

I was mighty glad to push it off the back of the pickup truck. Out of sight, out of mind. Good to see it where it belonged – the Columbia Township dump. So, there went the machine that reluctantly washed our clothes for over 10 years.

It was 1966. We were railroading east to Chicago on the B & N “Mainstreeter” out of Seattle, Wash. Some time before we started to pull the Continental Divide, we picked up a “pusher.” Even with the pusher, we came to a dead stop several times, which caused some anxiety among the more skeptical passengers. To me, it was a great way to travel – right through unspoiled wilderness and eventually into the Glacier National Park Station.