It’s not unusual to walk into the 99-Cent Store in Seaside and find out people know your name. It was even easier than usual this summer for Jim Smith – all three of him. James Lee Smith reported to the Ear that he, another customer and a checker all discovered they had the same name one summer day. The other customer’s wife was very amused. Smith said her attitude was “Oh, no, not another one!”

Larry Perkins of Clatsop Distributing tells the Ear that the company has donated $2,000 to the Katrina Hurricane Relief Fund, which will be combined with donations from other independent wholesalers and Anheuser-Busch will match up to $1 million. Anheuser-Busch also donated 895,000 cases of water, as well as $1 million to the Red Cross.

Astoria’s Ernest Alne took a trip down memory lane this weekend while celebrating his 96th birthday.

Family members brought Alne to his childhood home near Harrison and 34th streets, where longtime friend Eric Hauke, 94, was there to greet him, along with Tom Potter, who brought his 1931 Ford Model-A.

Alne’s nephew, Seaside Mayor Don Larson, said Hauke and Alne’s friendship dates back to the 1920s, when they bought a fishing boat together.

After Alne and Hauke reminisced about old times, Potter drove Alne around in the 74-year-old car, which was constructed more than two decades after he was born.

The car only seats three passengers, which required Potter to make several trips to accommodate all of Alne’s family members. “They called back and said the ones that liked it the most were the teenage kids,” he said.

NORTH COAST FAMILY FELLOWSHIP passed the collection for Hurricane Katrina Sunday and raised $20,580. It has been donated to Northwest Medical Teams, a Christian group that is helping local church-based groups provide lodging and food for refugees, shipping emergency health supplies, dispatching mobile health vans to address public health needs and sending staff and volunteers to help medical relief efforts.

Willis Van DusenWill the real mayor please stand up? There were two of them at the Astoria City Council meeting Tuesday. Spotting Warrenton Mayor GIL GRAMSON, pictured on right, in the audience, Astoria Mayor WILLIS VAN DUSEN, pictured on left, graciously invited him to stand up and be recognized. Gramson received a round of applause.Gilbert Gramson He was at the council meeting to see his granddaughter, Warrenton High School student JENESSA GRAMSON, publicly thanked for helping out at the Astoria Library’s Summer Reading Program. “Who’s your favorite mayor,” Van Dusen jokingly asked Jenessa. (She diplomatically declined to answer.)

Lincoln City resident David Gomberg has been inducted into the World Kite Museum Hall of Fame in Long Beach, Wash. Citing Gomberg’s three-time receipt of the Checkeley Award for the most significant contribution to the kite industry, his eight-year tenure as president of the American Kitefliers Association and his attendance at 250 international kite festivals, the committee concluded that “No one has done more to promote kiting as a sport and an industry than Dave Gomberg.”

Other inductees have included Benjamin Franklin, Lawrence Hargraves (inventor of the box kite), Domina Jalbert (inventor of the parafoil kite) and Paul Garber (who developed the two line “stunt” kite for Navy target practice during World War II).

Gomberg and his wife, Susan, are accomplished fliers known for their big kite displays. They own Gomberg Kite Productions International, a kite product distributor and event management partnership. In 2005, his accomplishments include hosting the World Sport Kite Championships in June in Lincoln City and partnering to create a 10,000 square-foot kite in the shape of the American flag – the largest kite made and worthy of recognition in the Guinness Book of World Records. Gomberg can be seen and heard again at a festival Oct. 8 and 9 at the D-River Wayside in Lincoln City.

Send us your ears! If you have an item for In One Ear, send it to Patrick Webb, Managing Editor, The Daily Astorian, P.O. Box 210, Astoria OR 97103 or e-mail pwebb@dailyastorian.com. Include a daytime phone number for follow-up calls.