Fire!

In 1939, my mom noticed that my hair was getting too long, gave me 75 cents and sent me downtown to get a hair cut. Haircuts were 50 cents so I would have money left over for candy or something. When I got to the barbershop, complete with a revolving red and white barbershop sign, the owner was there by himself as the other barber had called in sick. He put the apron around my neck and over my shoulders and started cutting my hair. A little while later, we heard the town fire truck coming down Broadway toward our area. We smelled smoke and wondered where it was coming from. We soon found out when flames came shooting out of the back room. We ran out the front door into the street. I was standing there with half a hair cut! He told me that I could have a free hair cut when the repair had been done.

Fast forward to 2009. My friend, Cathy Davidow, and I had decided to go from Albany, Oregon where we live to the coast at Newport. On the way over, it rained a little, hailed and snowed a little, but as we neared the coast the sun came out beautifully. We turned north toward Depoe Bay and our favorite restaurant, The Sea Hag, for a Dungeness crab with our favorite beer to go with it. It was a huge crab with lots of delicious meat and we were really enjoying it.

We heard a fire engine coming along the Coast Highway and wondered where it was going. It stopped right in front of the restaurant and we were soon escorted out the front door and had to eat our crab dinner seated on a bench in front of the restaurant. One of the firemen told us that there was a problem with the electrical wiring.

In 1939, fire interrupted a hair cut and 70 years later, fire interrupted a Dungeness crab dinner. Go figure!