10 years ago this week — 2013

Councilmember Drew Herzig called for action from the Astoria City Council Monday night on the pedestrian flags in downtown Astoria.

Reading from a prewritten statement, Herzig asked the council to create a more comprehensive pedestrian safety plan or scrap the program altogether, citing vandalism and public criticism about the efforts.

“Pedestrian safety is something that we must take very seriously,” Herzig read aloud, before submitting the written statement to The Astorian. He later added, “But the only widely publicized action currently being taken is the use of pedestrian flags on 10th Street. … If the public believes that this all that the City Council is doing to promote pedestrian safety, then it is understandable if they perceive it as inadequate, and even frivolous.”

A week ago, a wall in the upstairs of the Uppertown Net Loft was lined with paintings by Royal Nebeker, many of which were created within the iconic Astoria building.

Wednesday marked the end of a strenuous process of carefully fitting the artwork into narrow crates and preparing them for a journey.

The paintings will be part of an art exhibit entitled “Royal Nebeker: An Artist’s Journey” and will be displayed at six to eight museums in the coming years.

The crates were put together by Nebeker at the Net Loft with the help of a couple local carpenters. His wife, Sarah, admired the beauty of the crates in addition to the artwork and said she hoped the paintings would be well taken care of as they travel around the West Coast.

GEARHART — It doesn’t take special athletic skills to be member of Team Depot.

Great accuracy in pitching or throwing a touchdown isn’t necessary. It doesn’t matter how many points are score or runs batted in.

All it takes to be a member of this team is a big heart and a willing spirit.

Members of Team Depot — most of them employees of the Home Depot in Warrenton — spent time on the Gearhart Elementary School Field recently, but they weren’t playing a game. They were making improvements so the students could be safe and that parents watching their children playing baseball or football could be comfortable.

“We’re teaming up with the school to refresh the fields,” said Steven Thompson, manager of the Warrenton Home Depot. “We know this coastal environment is rough on equipment.”

50 years ago — 1973

The Thunderbird Sea Fare restaurant on the Astoria waterfront opened this morning, two weeks ahead of schedule. The Port of Astoria and the Thunderbird Corporation, of Portland, are partners in the venture.

The new restaurant is near the Thunderbird Motel and replaces the old Sea Fare restaurant at the Port’s West End Boat Basin.

The Port will receive 25% and Thunderbird will keep 75% of the profits from the restaurant, which when proposed generated considerable controversy.

Last year, prior to approval of the Port-Thunderbird contract, a number of persons voiced objections over the investment of public money in a private venture.

What started as a one-shot exchange program between Fort Stevens Junior High and Tongue Point Corpswomen grew to a program including a field day and an invitation to eighth grade graduation.

The project was initiated as an opportunity for Bob Barricks to bring his career education class to visit Tongue Point and observe the vocational training programs. A tour of the center and discussion of the film “Black and White Uptight” were part of the visit.

Then, Fort Stevens seventh and eighth graders turned the tables and invited corpswomen to visit their school in Hammond.

Fourteen corpswomen visited classes, toured the grounds, saw a student skit and played some exhausting softball games.

The woman drove the blue pickup slowly to the station, moved forward to the pumps, squinted at a “no gas” sign in the window and then drove off.

“I don’t know what she will do now,” said Dave Van Dyke, an attendant at Meldron’s Arco station in Seaside. “We have regular customers and they probably have our credit cards. They have to go someplace.”

The reported gas shortage is beginning to take its toll around the state as stations shorten hours or close completely to limit consumption.

Astoria won’t receive its full allotment of premium gasoline from Union Oil Co. during the reported gas shortage, the City Council learned Monday.

City Manager Dale Curry said he had received a letter from Union Oil Co. saying it would limit its sales to an amount equivalent to 85% of the city’s average monthly purchase during the first part of 1973.

One of the men who brought the three new helicopters to the U.S. Coast Guard’s Astoria Air Station said Monday the Clatsop facility is “one of the finest air stations in the Coast Guard.”

Lt. Cmdr. Richard Buttrick, of the Coast Guard’s Aviation Training Center in Mobile, Alabama, told members of the Rotary Club he had been impressed with the enthusiasm and cooperation of men at the Air Station.

Buttrick and three other officers have been instructing pilots here in how to operate the three Sikorsky H3F Pelican helicopters, which will be used for search and rescue missions, surveillance of foreign fishing and pollution checks up the Columbia River.

SALEM — The Senate Environment Committee voted Tuesday to ban cars from Oregon beaches.

The panel drastically amended House Bill 3071, which originally called for recreational trails along the coast, and substituted the ban on cars and recreational vehicles.

The only exception would be emergency vehicles, persons whose only access to their land is by beach and firewood collectors.

The bill goes to the Senate floor.

75 years ago — 1948

The Astoria Chinooks are living up to their name.

An average of about 10,000 miles a month has been ticked off on the combined odometers of the 34 members of the Flying Chinooks Motorcycle Club.

The group, composed of motorcycling enthusiasts, was organized in Astoria last January. Since that time, the members have been pounding around a lot of country, having a good time and establishing a safety record that has gained the hearty approval of police officials.

No reportable accidents have taken place in any of the weekly trips that have been made over Clatsop and surrounding counties. Club members are proud of having lived up to their avowed purpose of combining the pleasure and sport of motorcycling with a good safety record.

The Columbia Basin Fisheries Development Association will file a formal written protest against the authorization of a dam at Priest Rapids on the Columbia near Hanford, J.H. Cellars, an official told the chamber of commerce directors at their weekly luncheon meeting Friday.

A guinea hen that flew through the windshield of a chartered bus on the Sunset Highway near Elsie Sunday failed to disconcert Vincent Williams, driver, who kept the bus on its course.

Williams stopped the bus, which had 30 passengers aboard, at Elsie. He plucked glass from himself and from the front seats of the bus and determined that no one was hurt. He also plucked the dead guinea hen from where it fell between his feet.

The hen hit the windshield right in front of Williams’ face.

The Astoria City Council formally turned over the city owned lot at 15th and Exchange streets to the Clatsop County Historical Society for preservation as a Fort Astoria site marker.

SEASIDE — The new Seaside Elks Lodge No. 1748 was instituted at the Hotel Gearhart Saturday night in ceremonies that drew more than 600 representatives from 27 lodges in Oregon.

Judge Frank Lonergan, of Portland, a past national grand exalted ruler, and Walter Kropp, of Albany, a deputy district grand exalted ruler, were in charge of chartering ceremonies.

Sometimes the U.S. Coast Guard gets tired of being called the Navy’s “little brother.”

So it was with great delight that the Point Adams Coast Guard station answered a distress call Sunday evening.

A Navy Lieutenant from Tongue Point got his car hopelessly stuck in the beach sand near the Peter Iredale shipwreck.

“Naturally, he called us,” a poker-faced Coast Guardsman reported. “It is always a pleasure to help the U.S. Navy out of a jam.”

HAMMOND — The Warrenton drag boat Jack Junior caught its net on “something big” in 140 fathoms east of the lightship Tuesday morning and dragged it to 20 fathoms near Buoy 2.

Coast Guardsmen and local fishing skippers believe the “something” may be the steel-hulled fishing vessel Rose Ann, which disappeared near the lightship in a storm Feb. 7.