10 years ago this week — 2014

Santa, a good part of the cast of “Scrooged in Astoria” and outgoing Mayor Willis Van Dusen hurled the magic Christmas dust in the air, and downtown around the Liberty Theatre came alight Saturday.

The Astoria Downtown Historic District Association, in partnership with the Astoria Armory, kicked off the holiday shopping season with the lighting of downtown and skating with Santa over the weekend.

Motor lifeboat crews from the U.S. Coast Guard’s Station Cape Disappointment assisted three people Friday after their vessel began taking on water 3 miles west of the Columbia River entrance.

Around 10:45 a.m. Friday, watchstanders at Coast Guard Station Cape Disappointment in Ilwaco received a mayday call via VHF-FM Channel 16 from the crew of the crab-fishing boat Hornet stating that they were disabled, taking on water and in need of assistance.

The Coast Guard launched a 47-foot motor lifeboat and the 52-foot motor lifeboat Triumph from Station Cape Disappointment, as well as an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter from Air Station Astoria, They all arrived on scene around 11 a.m.

Shortly after arriving, a Hornet crew member fell overboard but was recovered quickly by the crew of the 47-footer. A crew member from the 47-footer also boarded the Hornet with a portable dewatering pump to assist the crew in dewatering efforts before taking the vessel safely in tow.

In a development with the potential of changing the face of downtown Astoria, the conservator for Mary Louise Flavel and the Astoria City Council have reached an agreement regarding the deteriorating Flavel properties. Those include buildings that line both sides of the 900 block of Commercial Street.

SEASIDE — In addition to providing the community with two days of holiday festivities, the Providence Seaside Foundation’s 17th annual Festival of Trees also will raise funds for a future local elderly care program through the Providence Health and Services network.

Providence ElderPlace North Coast, a program designed to serve as an alternative to an assisted living facility and provide personal care for the elderly, is scheduled to start in February.

“It’s pretty exciting because it’s a different way of providing our model of care,” said Jeannie Frederick, the Providence ElderPlace marketing and enrollment manager.

Providence ElderPlace has been in Multnomah County for 24 years and expanded to Washington County last year. It encapsulates a national model of care entitled Programs of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE). Frederick said they are excited about coming to the North Coast.

The program serves individuals 55 years and older who live in a community situation, which means they need care but are not in a nursing home or assisted-living facility long term, Frederick said.

Once a person joins the program, “We become their primary doctor, their health insurance, and we manage and coordinate all their health care and social services needs, as well as their long-term care needs,” Frederick said.

50 years ago — 1974

SEASIDE — Trust, awe, bashfulness, love and even fright were among the pure emotions that lit the faces of North Coast youngsters who met Santa Claus Saturday.

The portly gentleman in the white beard sat in his gaily decorated house inside the front door of the Seaside Convention Center at the head of a long line of eager children and weary-looking adults.

With a “Ho, ho, ho” and a “How are you?” Santa scooped each youngster in his fluffy beard.

Yes, they had been good and would continue to be. And, they wished for many presents.

Flashbulbs popped; a candy cane and a fir twig were given to each, and the visit with Santa was over.

Perhaps next year, they would be too old for trust, awe, bashfulness, love and even fright.

The tug John A. Shaw, built in Astoria in 1913 and operated on the lower Columbia River for many years, returned to Astoria Friday.

She was placed on permanent display in the Columbia River Maritime Museum as a model built by Lloyd McCaffery and donated by Robert A. Burkholder of Portland.

The full-size John A. Shaw is a houseboat on the Willamette River in Portland.

Burkholder commissioned McCaffery to build the model for the museum after discovering the Shaw’s wheel in the Maritime Museum on a visit in 1970.

Burkholder spent part of his childhood on the tug, when his father, Capt. Nathan B. Burkholder, was its skipper.

The model represents the Shaw as it looked when Burkholder lived aboard, down to small details such as his mother’s potted plants.

The Astor Library has a display that will satisfy persons who have never seen an elephant on Commercial Street, a dome on the Clatsop County Courthouse, a passenger train in the Astoria depot or a 35-foot jet in the middle of the city reservoir.

All these things, and more, are pictures on the well-known, but now discarded, format of the penny postcard. Astoria librarian Bruce Berney said a collection of them is being developed in the Astoriana Room of the library.

More than 40 cards that recently were donated make up the library’s collection, but Berney hopes other persons will assist in expanding it.

In addition to postcards, Berney said the library is eager to receive photographs, albums, scrapbooks, souvenirs, business records and other material which preserves the history of this area.

Some 100 Boy Scouts from 10 troops in Clatsop County will set out from Fort Clatsop National Memorial Saturday to hike over a trail very similar to the one taken by the famous explorer Capt. William Clark in 1805.

The Scouts are taking the hike to publicize the trail which many Clatsop County leaders would like to see recognized as a national historic trail.

Bob Lovell, a Boy Scout official, said the hike is significant because the trail that will be followed is very similar to the one Capt. Clark charted in the explorers’ journals.

Lovell noted the trail the Scouts will follow is along a Crown Zellerbach logging road. He added those supporting the nationally recognized trail would like to see a public right of way dedicated near the logging road.

75 years ago — 1949

Hal Chase made it.

That was the word last night as the first Red Feather Filibuster concluded at midnight with the ace KAST announcer still going strong.

Backing him up through the home stretch was a street crowd of more than 50 people which had swelled beyond the hundred mark during the early evening hours.

Radio men estimate that the majority of Clatsop County receivers were turned to KAST last night as the Chest campaign for $48,702 was given a sustained 12-hour “plug” over the airwaves.

In the lower Columbia basin, there are many sources of stream pollution. Chief among these are municipal sewage from the various cities and towns in the area and industrial wastes from canneries, textile plants, creameries, pulp and paper mills, slaughterhouses and packing plants.

There is hardly a stream in the whole basin that is not polluted at least to some extent by one or more of these sources.

On some streams, the problems resulting from such pollution are, at present, still of a minor nature while on other streams such as the Willamette and localized areas of the Columbia near Camas and Longview, the conditions are critical.

With the further industrialization of the Pacific Coast and the attendant increase in population, it is obvious that the problems of waste disposal are going to multiply.

Mystery solved — Tom Lytle, skipper of the troller Al Jr., learned Thursday that he and his craft were the central figures in a radio-newspaper mystery story.

A Portland newspaper published the first chapter 10 days ago when someone reported that the Al Jr. had unexplainably hovered off Newport, then disappeared into the fog when the U.S. Coast Guard went out to query it.

Lytle said Thursday he had simply waited for smoother water before trying to come in at Newport, then had decided to make for Astoria instead. He arrived here Thanksgiving Day and has been tied alongside the Sebastian-Stuart dock ever since.

While trees were uprooted and ocean freighters huddled in port during last weekend’s storm, two Astoria shark fishermen rode out the blow in a 38-foot boat miles at sea.

Mauri Pesonen and his partner, Joe Peterson, told a story today about an 11-day fishing trip which cost them an estimated $3,000 worth of gear.

Several of Pesonen’s Uniontown friends asked the U.S. Coast Guard to search for his craft, the Cascade, when it was learned that he and Peterson had not made port before the storm struck.

Tuesday evening, after the boat returned Monday, they gave Pesonen a “welcome-home” party, and he expressed his gratitude but added:

“My friends have buried me about eight times. But I’m going to die of old age on dry land. I’m not afraid of water as long as there’s enough of it under me.”

Starting Monday, The Astorian Budget is adding five hours to its United Press wire service, giving the paper about 18,000 more words of news daily.

The extra five hours of service in the early morning will give the Astorian-Budget earlier reports of night sports events, late news breaks and daily feature stories.