090826 - GIG HARBOR, WASHINGTON

Monday, August 21, 2009
Gig Harbor, Washington

Gig harbor is a beautiful and quaint suburb of Tacoma. The Gig Harbor RV Park is only about 2-1/2 miles from Mort and Nancy’s home, which was very convenient.

Now I’ve been greeted by lots of different kinds of people when arriving at a new park, but today was a first. As I was hooking up the Beast to it’s lifelines, a women with a briefcase (containing a laptop computer) approached me and announced that my site had been selected for a State Census interview. It would take about 30 minutes.
The fact that I had arrived only 20 minutes prior and was not a resident of the State of Washington made no difference. She was pleasant and admitted new to the job and since I had some free time, I consented to the drill. As it progressed, we both were amazed at the silliness of the survey, but we plodded on. Questions such as “how long have you lived here?”: “how many stories is your house?”, . “How large is your property?”; “ what is the annual tax on the property?”. Linda, the census taker, laughed out loud at some of the questions which she answered without telling me what they were and when we were finished I asked her if she was paid by the hour or piece work. Fortunately, it was by the hour. Another example of our hard earned tax dollars at work for a valuable service.I wonder what the results of this interview will have on the overall findings. One can only guess.

Before Linda moved on, my friend Mort drove up and when I told him what was going on, he insisted that a photograph should be taken to commemorate the event.

Just think, had I arrived one hour later I could have missed this opportunity to participate in this important government project.

Mort and I served our surgical residencies together in San Francisco in the late 60’s. It was a great time to be single, male and straight. I was, Mort was married. One of our duties was to take night call and sleep at the hospital (about once a week). Mort’s wife (at the time) frowned on this policy, so I often took his night call so he could sleep at home. Being single it was not much of a problem, unless some sleep robbing emergency occurred, but it did save me a drive into work in the morning

Mort gave us a little guided tour of the area as we drove to his house. It was situated high on the bank of the bay with a breathtaking view of Mount Rainer from his deck.
Danny was quickly introduced to Egan, their 5-year-old white lab, and the two of them ran and played like synchronized swimmers. Nancy exclaimed that Egan was acting like a young pup trying to keep up with Danny.
Mort barbequed some great steaks and we had a wonderful dinner on the deck and reminisced.

Tuesday
Struck up a conversation with our RV neighbors and low and behold Ed grew up in the same area of Los Angeles we are from. HE and his wife now live in Oregon but we had a fun time talking about travel and the things we had in common.

Mort took us and his friend Eric to lunch at Duke’s, a Dockside restaurant on the harbor with a reputation for good food and delicious chowder. I agreed on both counts.

Wednesday
We started out with breakfast at a classic 60’s diner and I had one of the best Spanish omelets I ever tasted. Danny enjoyed his bowl of water.
We spent the rest of the day at the Naval Undersea Museum. Lots of interesting exhibits and Danny and I got to drive a submarine and sink a few ships. I hope they weren’t ours.

Thursday
It wasn’t the Mariner’s but it was close. Mort scored some tickets to a triple A baseball game and the four of us had a good old boys night out (Eric and Jim completed the quartet). We were rooting for the Raineers (the home team) against the Omaha Royals but to no avail. There was no joy in Mudville tonight, but we had a great time nevertheless.

Friday
Mort and Nancy belong Temple Beth El of Tacoma and invited us to join them for Friday night services. Since I had not attended services since leaving Los Angeles I welcomed the opportunity.
This was to be Danny’s first religious experience. The building and synagogue appeared relatively new and modern. The services were reformed and enjoyable with a very talented female cantor. It was a great evening and Danny behaved well enough to be proud of him, he was very quiet and relaxed.

This was our last time together so we said our thank you's and goodbyes and will keep warm memories of this portion of our travels.