My friend John Osborne and I have known each other for 43 years. Fondly known as John O. He moved back here to Seattle to take a job with the FAA for a couple years so we have had a few opportunities to get together. Soon he will return to Pittsburgh where he co-parents his two teenage daughters.
Yesterday we met on Bainbridge Island. Only a ferry ride away for him and a nearly two hour drive for me, but it was about revisiting some old memories for both of us.
Although we didn't even know each other as kids, we discovered that we had both spent time on the island. Mom and I lived there off and on in the late 60's because my sister JoDee and her family lived there. My brother in law was the high school math teacher.
John had friends he spent summers with in the mid 60's.
So I hadn't been to the island since 2005 and he went in 2010, but we still felt like so much had changed, mostly based on our childhood memories. The place has of course grown hugely to accommodate the influx of people and jobs in Seattle.
I took this photo mostly for my sister JoDee because it is the same store that has been there since the 60's! It's just a grocery store, but there it is, still going. This is downtown Winslow.
This is the Lynnwood Center, located just a few miles from town. This building with theater has also been here forever. John recalled first seeing A Love Story here for 50 cents, and I remember Mom and I going often when we lived on that side of the island.
And of course a token "selfie" of us in front of it.
This part of the trip was especially why we came to the island. This is Fort Ward. Built in the 20's I believe by the Army, with officer's housing, and large concrete gun installations along the water that protected the Bremerton Navy base.
The second house was where my friend Lori Kingery lived in 1969.
These homes have been well preserved and are on the historic registry.
This is one of the officer's quarters built of wood. Originally a duplex. This is where John's friends lived and where he spent his summers.
This is what's known to locals as Frances Nash, something to do with Nash guns, anyway, it's really big, about two or three stories, built into the side of the hill facing the water. It's where the gun installations were. We all played here as kids. This photo doesn't do it justice, but this is as close as we could get as it is all private property now. I have some old photos on film I could dig out when I last was able to actually go there. Back then you had to hike in on a trail and it was mostly overgrown. You can read some history about Fort Ward on Wikipedia.
This is the old jail. Back in the 60's they gutted it and remodeled it into two or three apartments. Mom and I lived on the right side, there was a lovely view of the water from the living room. It's actually prettier today than it was then! Good for them for keeping it up. I imagine it too is on the historic registry.
This place was haunted too, by the way. When we lived there, there was a ceiling light that used to come on at will and glow with a very low wattage. There was also an odd breeze that would blow through that room.
This building is next door. Still unoccupied. I think it was originally the gymnasium. There was a sign out front that they were going to renovate it into something for the community there.
And lastly, the pier, where Mom and I fished from. Now it is a fish hatchery and you can't go out there. So I got a photo from here. Many fond memories of enjoying the outdoors, sitting on the pier with our drop lines.
Next door to this was a huge night club for the officers which later became some kind of amusement park and then burned down in the 70's I read. We knew the people that owned it, they had converted the whole place into a home.
There are other gun placement structures along the water down here, but were grown over with blackberries.
I remember getting to see the USS Nimitz leaving Bremerton back then, passing a super ferry - which was half the size of the ship!
Someplace I have some photos of when we lived here. If I can find them I'll add to this post later.
