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Showing posts with label
Betty MacDonald's and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's birthday.
Show all posts
Showing posts with label
Betty MacDonald's and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's birthday.
Show all posts
!['ღ Aisi Raif ღ
@[311491168873101:274:•*Secret Garden *•] & @[591577984208488:274:ღ Secret Heart ღ]'](https://scontent-fra.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtf1/v/t1.0-9/p526x296/10256234_917243521631193_2965738425994372239_n.jpg?oh=b9e24b73e7ca91c706c0c5300675bcc4&oe=55A3DDCA)
Betty MacDonald - and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle fan club fans,
we adore the golden childhood memories of Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Darsie Beck.
We love these wonderful birthday greetings from our unforgotten Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Monica Sone.
The Betty MacDonald and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle birthday cinnamon rolls are outstanding.
Try this outstanding recipe, please. You won't regret it.
Betty MacDonald fan club fans from 5 continents are celebrating a huge Betty MacDonald birthday party today.
You'll be able to order a special Betty MacDonald birthday DVD with new info on Wolfgang Hampel's updated Betty MacDonald biography and many more info and interviews in April.
We'll keep you posted.
It's the last day today to answer the Betty MacDonald fan club contest question:
There are several Betty MacDonald - and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle fans club contests.
Don't miss them, please. You can win the most interesting new Betty MacDonald fan club treasure items.
( see links below )
Send us your most beautiful photo of Betty MacDonald's favourite flowers, please.
Deadline: March 26, 2015
Many Betty MacDonald-, Letizia Mancino- and Mr. Tigerli fans from all over the world enjoy the fascinating Betty MacDonald Gallery by unique Betty MacDonald fan club honor member - artist and author Letizia Mancino.
As Betty MacDonald was very fond of cats she would be especially delighted of Mr. Tigerli's birthday greetings.
Best wishes,
Mats
Betty MacDonald fan club
Betty MacDonald forum
Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel
Betty MacDonald fan club items
Betty MacDonald fan club items - comments
Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD
Betty MacDonald and her garden
Betty MacDonald fan club Eurovision Song Contest
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle fan club contest
Betty MacDonald fan club fans,
Happy birthday dearest Betty MacDonald and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle!
We love you so much!
Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Darsie Beck, Betty MacDonald's favourite nephew and son of Betty MacDonald's unique sister Alison Bard Burnett shares his unique childhood memories of Vashon Island on his beloved aunt's birthday.
We are going to share several Betty MacDonald fan club surprises today.
Artist and author Darsie Beck gave us the
permission to share a special gift with you, his childhood memories of
Vashon Island.
It's beautifully written and a real treasure.
Thanks A Million, dearest
Darsie for this unique Betty MacDonald and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle Birthday gift!
Dearest Betty MacDonald and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle fan club fans from all over the world enjoy Betty MacDonald's and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's birthday today.
All our love,
Carmen
Childhood memories of Vashon Island 1943-53
Copyright by Darsie Beck
All rights reserved
I've always been fascinated by the ferry boats that serve the island
and Olympic Peninsula communities of Puget Sound. I feel particularly
fortunate to have spent my first ten years and the last thirty years
here on Vashon Island and the in between years living in water front
homes near the Fauntleroy ferry dock and on the north end of Mercer
Island near the old ferry landing that once served that island
community.
I have many fond memories of the ferry boats but one in particular
remains as clear to me today as when it occurred many years ago.
At the time I was born, my parents lived with my grandparents in a
small house on Judkins street just east of 23rd, a few blocks south of
the Lake Washington floating bridge tunnels. This area, at the time, was
the northern most end of what was called, "Garlic Gulch", the original
Italian community in Seattle. With a new baby in the house things got
pretty crowded and before long my parents moved to Vashon Island where
they purchased their first home on the bluff above Dolphin Point on the
north end of the island. My mother's sister Betty MacDonald, her husband
Don and her two daughters Anne and Joan had moved to the island a
couple years before prompting my parents to follow their lead to this
island community.
In the 1940's as now, we reached the island by ferry boat. I can't
tell you what that first ferry ride was like in the fall of 1943 or
which boat we rode on but I do know, the boats were privately operated
by Puget Sound Navigation (PSN), doing business as the Black Ball Line.
Black
Ball provided service between Vashon Island, Harper (on the Olympic
Peninsula) and Fauntleroy (West Seattle). During the 1940's the wooden
ferries Vashon and Kehloken and the steel electric Quinault saw regular
service on this run. The Quinault carried 100 cars compared to the 45
car capacity of the smaller wooden ferries and was considered a super
ferry at the time. Most of the ferries flying the Black Ball burgee were
former San Francisco Bay boats purchased by PSN after the completion of
the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges.
In early 1948, a proposed rate increase by PSN resulted in Vashon
Island suspending its service contract with Black Ball. Undeterred by
Vashon's action, Black Ball continued service between Harper and
Fauntleroy and to Vashon on an "as needed only" basis. With the help of
sympathetic state and local government agencies Vashon began developing
its own ferry service utilizing former Lake Washington and Tacoma boats
out of service since the opening of the Lake Washington floating bridge
and the Tacoma Narrows bridge. The Lincoln, Washington, City of Tacoma
and Crosline became the backbone of the new fleet.
My first ferry boat recollection is from the summer of 1948. I was
five years old, my mother was pregnant with my sister, and we were
sitting in the family car on the Vashon ferry dock on a very foggy July
morning waiting for the boat to Fauntleroy to take my mother to the
hospital.
The fog had created a stillness over the dock
broken every few minutes by the sounding of fog horns and the occasional
car driving on and off the wood planked ferry dock. Soon I heard the
sound of an approaching ferry, its engines reversing, its prop wash
splashing noisily between the pilings, the shrill screech of the ferries
wood side rails rubbing against creosote dolphins and apron wing walls
as the boat nudged itself into the slip. Chains clattered as deck hands
removed car barriers in preparation of off loading. I don't remember
which of the old ferries landed at the Vashon dock that foggy morning
but I do remember, once our car was loaded onto the boat, sitting on the
car deck, looking out the port into the fog when suddenly out of the
mist a large ferry appeared. Its propellers furiously reversing, deck
hands and passengers on both boats bracing for an impending collision.
My eyes grew big and my body grew tense as the huge ferry cleared the
fog revealing her black hull, white superstructure and the black ball
painted near the top of her red stack. It was the Quinault, Puget
Sound's first super ferry heading directly for our boat. The prop wash
of the huge ferry was buffeting the side of our boat, causing it to rock
back and forth in its slip. The Quinault was now within a car's length
of our boat when its forward motion finally came to rest and her
reversing action began to move the boat out of harms way. As stealthy as
she had appeared, she now disappeared back into the fog sending a
collective and audible sigh of relief through passengers and crew of
both boats.
The Quinault, now considered a medium sized boat compared to today's
super ferries, still ply's the waters of Puget Sound and still holds a
place in my childhood memories as the most enormous boat ever seen by a
five year old.
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