1973 — David Dickson, bottom right, steadies a guy line as rescuers on the Astoria Bridge deck hoist bridge inspector Gerald “Butch” Parker up from a concrete ledge on which he fell.

10 years ago this week — 2013

SEASIDE — For Doug Esau and friends, last year’s bad timing turned into this year’s great trip.

Last year, Esau and friends stopped in Seaside on the way home to British Columbia after a trip to California. It was late at night Sunday and they needed a place to stay. The desk clerk at a hotel said, “oh, you just missed the show,” and went on to tell them about the Wheels ‘N’ Waves car show.

The group are members of the British Columbia Hot Rod Association.

“We made reservations for this year on the spot,” Esau said. Six of his buddies from the British Columbia Hot Rod Association had their cars parked together on Franklin Street at this weekend’s show and shine. They drove 5 1/2 hours, arriving Thursday for the four-day event.

About 245 builders and street cars from 1962 and older took over Broadway and side streets downtown for the annual end of summer event. Participants came from as far away as Florida, Washington, Idaho, California and across Canada.

GRAYS HARBOR, Wash. — The U.S. Coast Guard, working closely with the Washington Department of Ecology, safely coordinated the refloating of the 44-foot fishing vessel Adriana, which went aground approximately 1/2-mile south of the entrance to Grays Harbor, Washington, Friday morning.

It was reported by the vessel master that a crew member fell asleep at the wheel.

“Fatigue continues to be a major problem in the commercial fishing fleet,” said Capt. Bruce Jones, commander of U.S. Coast Guard Sector Columbia River. “We’ve had numerous cases of people running aground due to fatigue over the last year.

“In the Pacific Northwest, there’s little margin for error. It’s absolutely critical that mariners always remain diligent and place sufficient emphasis on safety in order to protect life and our sensitive environment.”

Former U.S. Coast Guard Cmdr. Bruce Toney and Tongue Point Job Corps seamanship student Darryl McFadden stood less than 50 feet from each other.

They looked on as a rotating cast of notables from the city of Astoria, U.S. Coast Guard and Job Corps took a podium and laid honors on the vessel Ironwood, celebrating its 70th birthday. Toney was the former commander of the Ironwood and McFadden is training to be an able-bodied seaman.

The 180-foot Ironwood, christened after construction in Curtis Bay, Maryland, on March 16, 1943, saw eight homeports, 34 commanding officers, more than 1,200 crew members and more than 500,000 nautical miles as a U.S. Coast Guard Buoy tender until it was decommissioned on Oct. 6, 2000, in Kodiak, Alaska.

Since the 1940s, the Astoria Armory has been a place for rollerskating, sock hops and shooting hoops for the local youth, as well as citywide Halloween parties and other events in the building once owned by the Oregon National Guard.

A group of locals with fond memories of the place on 17th and Duane streets hopes to bring back the nostalgia to both young and old with a plan to purchase it.

But a small snag in their plan has halted the purchase of the building from the Columbia River Maritime Museum — the attached parking lot is not of interest to the group, but the museum wants to sell the lot as a whole. That’s why Astoria has stepped in, with a proposal to purchase it all.

“It’s what we call a win-win,” Astoria Mayor Willis Van Dusen said.

50 years ago — 1973

The Dilkara, a modern vessel that allows cargo to be rolled on and rolled off on a stern ramp that is two highway lanes wide, will dock in the Port of Astoria on Wednesday.

It will mark the first time a so-called ro-ro ship has come to Astoria.

The Dilkara, one of a fleet of three ro-ro ships operated by Pacific Australia Direct Lines, is expected to take on 500 tons of containerized general cargo and lumber bound for Australia when it stops here.

Port of Astoria officials are optimistic about the possibility of more ro-ro ships docking here in the future and indicate marketing efforts will be made to attract such cargo movements.

“That’s what we’re trained to do,” said Donald Dickson, modestly.

Dickson was the ambulance driver attendant who climbed down the superstructure of the Astoria Bridge to rescue Gerald “Butch” Parker, of Salem, a bridge inspector who fell 30 feet onto a concrete ledge Monday.

Dickson and highway department bridge inspector Victor Bertrand strapped Parker onto a metal stretcher and helped hoist him to the bridge deck.

He was taken to Columbia Memorial Hospital, where he was in stable condition this morning with head injuries.

“Nobody else wanted to go down, so I did,” Dickson said, explaining the rescue as all in a day’s work.

The beef shortage is apparently over for the time being, but Astoria-area supermarkets waited this morning for an indication of what the prices would be.

A commuter airline would be welcome to Clatsop County as a replacement for Hughes Airwest only if there are guarantees it will provide long-term service, Astoria-Warrenton Area Chamber of Commerce officials said today.

Chamber President Hal Snow and Director Roy Hammond said they were worried because of the poor financial track record of many third level air carrier service operations in Oregon in the past.

Hughes Airwest told North Coast officials at an informal meeting last week it plans to ask the Civil Aeronautics Board for permission to abandon its present flight service to Clatsop Airport.

Columbia River gillnetters will boycott any lower river (zone 1) preseason opening this month if the Oregon and Washington state fishery agencies offer this fishing area to them.

Ross Lindstrom, executive secretary of the Columbia River Fishermen’s Protective Union, announced this action was taken by the union board of directors.

“We feel we deserve the whole river below Bonneville Dam and that’s what we are going to fight for Wednesday,” Lindstrom said, adding that the river is full of fish, along with a good escapement over Bonneville Dam.

75 years ago — 1948

Crowds lined Commercial Street Saturday afternoon to witness a parade held in connection with the dedication of Fort Astoria and later viewed the impressive ceremony at the fort’s site at 15th and Exchange streets.

The clouds of mystery surrounding the Rose Ann, a steel-hulled fishing vessel that disappeared during a storm last February, closed a little tighter today.

Many fishermen believed the Rose Ann had been found a few months ago when the drag boat Jack Junior snagged its nets on “something big” in coastal water about 3 miles southwest of the end of the South Jetty, where nothing had been snagged before.

Early Monday, however, the drag boat Princess Aho, skippered by George Muskovita, caught its nets on something in about the same location.

The Princess Aho tried to drag the object and members of the crew were convinced they had snagged the Rose Ann.

Moskovita called for a diver. Diver Fred Devine, of Portland, came out in another vessel, went down in about 70 feet of water and found that the nets of the Princess Aho were snagged on a huge anchor.

Forest fire dangers in Clatsop County grew graver as temperatures rose to the highest for the year and the relative humidity dropped Wednesday.

Four camps in the Elsie area, including the Oregon-American, closed logging operations Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. as the humidity reading hovered around the danger mark of 30%.

Members of the state aeronautics board made Astoria and Clatsop airports their first stop Wednesday in a tour of major Oregon airports.

The purpose of the tour is to learn local aviation problems and offer what assistance is within the board’s power in development of commercial and private aviation, Jack Bartlett, board secretary, reported.

Forest fire dangers grew even more critical today as hot east winds were forecast and temperature records continued to topple in Clatsop County.

Astoria’s record high temperature for the season was recorded Thursday at 88 degrees, topping by three degrees the previous record of the year of 85 set Wednesday.

Seaside also reported Thursday as being the hottest day of the year to date. The high unofficial reading there was a scorching 96 degrees.

Along the coastal bays of the Pacific Northwest, the last tiny babies of this year’s oyster hatch are nestling against old shells and beginning their three-year growth.

The oysters are happily unconscious of it, but the men who plant and nurture them are in a fight for their existence.

Stripped of its somewhat deceptive outer shell, the meat of the matter is a struggle between eastern oyster producers for permanent supremacy and Pacific coast oystermen for a chance to continue canning operations.