Houseboat Lives

Part 4

I decided not to go to Spokane for Christmas, 1963.   I was having a great time in Seattle. 

The dock where our houseboat was moored was the central path through a colorful community.  Across the dock from us was the locally infamous “Alaskan logger” in a tiny, tiny floating cabin.  Because the logs that held his home up were so water-logged, his ramshackle houseboat  listed severely, as did he.  A big-bellied, friendly man in his fifties, he was usually roaring drunk by early afternoon and passed out by early evening.   At one time he had worked as a logger in Alaska, but he didn’t work at all now.

Next to us was a youngish man who was totally nuts.  He painted his houseboat screaming purple–and this was long before the color wildness of the ’60s and ’70s.  He was ahead of his time aesthetically.  He also took a sledge hammer to his own convertible sports car one Saturday afternoon in a rage about something or the other.  He came and went and I don’t believe I ever knew what he did for a living.

A couple of houseboats beyond him was a very tidy floating home occupied by several Seattle firefighters.  They worked different shifts so one could sleep while another worked.  They saved money by renting a small houseboat.  What they really loved was boating and skiing.  They had a small boat tied up to the porch at the back of their houseboat and were often gone on ski trips for days at a time.   It was at a party at this home I met the man who I would later marry. 

At the end of the dock was a couple in their forties who gave great parties.  Interesting people.  Good music.  He played bass  in a jazz band at one point.   His wife, after she had a lot to drink,would dance on the table.  It was shocking to me then.  By the time I was in my forties I understood her eagerness to disregard societal norms.  

At one of their parties I met two young men who lived on houseboats in Vancouver B.C.  They told me about a group they had formed with several friends.  Some of them were opposed to the whaling that was going on in the north Pacific.  Others were against war and for peace–”peaceniks” they were called then.  They were planning to go out on a commercial fishing boat and confront the whalers at sea.  The name they had decided to call themselves was “Greenpeace.”

I encountered Greenpeace people again twice in my life.  Once in the late 1970s when one of them showed up in Southern California.  It was at a party with some music industry people. Greenpeace had run out of money and the Greenpeace guy was looking for help.  I wrote a fund-raising letter for him, pro bono.  I don’t know whether or not they used it. I know he received financial assistance from music biz execs.  Later, in 1986, a smarmy ad executive at an agency I worked for claimed he had worked on the Greenpeace account and told us it was started in London, England.  I told him otherwise–happy to embarrass him.  He was such a jerk.

Meanwhile back to living in the Seattle houseboat community…

One other group fascinated me: the kayakers who came paddling around on weekends when Spring sunshine finally arrived.  Some lived on houseboats, some didn’t.   It wasn’t until the 1990s that I would finally take kayaking lessons on Alamitos Bay in Long Beach, California.

Most of the other people living on these floating houses along Fairview Avenue had ordinary jobs, lived ordinary lives, and simply enjoyed living on the water.  However, in the houseboats on other side of Lake Union and further west toward the ship canal were residents more like the Alaskan logger–a fairly rough crowd.  That reputation colored all the houseboat communities for another decade or so until houseboat living became desirable. 

Next time: 1964, changes are a’comin’ including an earthquake…

(This post is part of an experimental memoir.  I teach memoir writing and will edit your memoir to make it better.  Learn more at www.onedaymemoir.com)

Living on a Seattle Houseboat in 1963-64

Part 3

My life as an adult was really beginning to m0ve along.  I landed a job at the Western regional office of TV Guide in Seattle, moved out of the YWCA and into an apartment in the University District with two girls (who could type!) I had met at the “Y’.  It was a very  temporary arrangement; I had to find some other living quarters.  Quickly.

I still loved to explore the waterways of Seattle.  During one evening walk along the ship canal between Lake Union and Lake Washington I met a woman, Durrell Whiting, who would become my first roommate. 

She was from New England, had gone to U. Connecticut, signed up for the Peace Corps–it was brand new at that time–and apparently been bounced out of training in Hawaii for rowdy behavior.  Like me she thought living on a houseboat would be terrific.  So we began to look for a houseboat to rent on Lake Union. 

Even in those days when the houseboat communities were definitely not fashionable–in fact, they were somewhat disreputable,  semi-bohemian slums–it took several weeks of daily scrutiny of the For Rent ads before we found one that was available on a dock on Fairview Avenue and in our price range.  Well, I thought it was in our price range.  (Durrell was a physical therapist and was paid much better than I was.)  

$90 a month split two ways meant my rent was $45.  Plus heating oil which was delivered by a tiny tugboat.  Plus electricity.  Plus all those other things–like pots, pans, dishes, food–that very sheltered 22 year olds in those days never thought of.  We moved in.  

Like all houseboats and many beachfront homes, the living room faced the water.  The entry from a ramp that led from the dock brought one into the “back” of the house.  We had to walk through the kitchen–such as it was–to reach the  livingroom.  There was only one bedroom, accessed by walking through the tiny bathroom and Durrell took the bedroom.  I slept on a fold out sofabed in the livingroom.   We had no TV, no radio.  The houseboat was furnished in grubby, faded furniture.  But we didn’t care–we had our houseboat!

Living on a houseboat, working in magazine publishing– those earlier dreams of running off and traveling the world began to fade.   My life was great!

Five days a week I caught the bus downtown to the TV Guide offices.  I found out immediately that being an editorial assistant was basically a file clerk job.  What I did was pull file cards out of a massive bank of filing cabinets.  On the file cards were capsule summaries of syndicated TV shows that were showing during the week.  The information about new TV shows came over a news wire from Radner and printed out on continuous form paper.   We cut the continuous form information apart, added the file cards, made sure the times were correct then sent it all to the printer, who set the type for the listings.  The cover and the articles for each edition of TV Guide were printed elsewhere.  Our work was only involved with the listings of the 12 editions for Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia that came out of the Seattle office.  But in the Christmas edition of TV Guide in 1963 I was listed as an Editorial Assistant in the magazine.  Wow!  Even my parents, who were dismayed by my living on a houseboat, were proud of the fact that I was listed as an editor–at any level.

Meanwhile Durrell and I learned to eat creatively.  We would “shop” at the Safeway in the University District and eat all the free samples we could get our hands on.  Maybe we would buy a dozen eggs and some English muffins, which I had learned to love during my college years in New England.   Our favorite recipe was English muffin pizzas–long before they entered the wider world of American cuisine.  We would split two muffins, smear on some plain tomato paste (no herbs), toast them in the oven and call that dinner.

More tomorrow…

(This post is part of an experimental memoir.  I teach memoir writing and will edit your memoir to make it better.  Learn more at www.onedaymemoir.com)

Can You Type?

Part 1

My room at the downtown YWCA had a great view of Elliot Bay.  I could see over the office buildings stacked down to the waterfront.  The Seattle sky was blue scattered with the inevitable gray and white clouds. 

I had arrived around noon on a Sunday in mid-September, 1963 on a Greyhound bus from Spokane.  I had $187, a suitcase full of clothes, and a new college degree. 

After unpacking I headed downhill toward the docks lining the Bay ready to explore my new hometown.  The waterfront held a romantic lure for me.  The fact that the docks were nothing more than enormous gray warehouses on piers above smelly, oily water didn’t dampen by fantasies of traveling the world.  No ships were tied up; no luxury liners or even tramp freighters were in port.  In the distance I could see a ferry ploughing across the bay, but that was the extent of the boat traffic.

As I walked along Alaskan Way I came across a take-away seafood shack called Ivar’s tucked into a corner of one of the warehouses and bought myself a Welcome-to-Seattle dinner:  a basket of fried clams, french fries and a coke.  Ivar’s has since become a landmark Seattle seafood restaurant, popular with tourists.  In those days it was a place for longshoremen to grab a bite. 

Tired and full from dinner, I went back to my little room at the Y.

The next morning I put on my best job hunting clothes, a tailored brown tweed suit and pink beret.  I checked the want ads in the newspaper and saw listings for employment agencies.  Off I went.

The agency was on the second floor of an aging building on a side street.  The reception area was drab with linoleum flooring.  A couple of other girls were waiting, too.  I was the only one in a suit.  The only one with a resume.  Resume or not, I still had to fill out their employment form.

The first question out of  the interviewer’s mouth was: “How fast can you type?”

Type? I thought.  What about my college degree?

I had taken one typing class during summer school in high school and barely passed.   So I answered: “I’m not sure.”

I was sent off to another room take a typing test on an old manual Underwood typewriter.  I clacked away at it for about five minutes.  My skills had obviously not improved in the intervening 7 years.  I could type about 25 words per minute.

“Well”, said the interviewer, “maybe we can find a receptionist job for you.”

As I left the building I thought I’d better try one of the other employment agencies.  Maybe they would appreciate my college education.  But they didn’t.  I heard “How fast can you type?”  from the interviewers at two other agencies.  And my typing test results did not improve.

The instructions from all three agencies were to call in every day, early, to see if there was work for me.  So I called.  And scoured the help want ads over breakfast at a coffee shop.  And called again. 

Finally after a week or so, one agency had a temporary job for me–a receptionist job at an engineering firm way out in a very blue collar, industrial area.  It took three bus transfers to get to the one story beige building surrounded by vacant lots.  Once at the company, I sat by myself at a desk in a small reception area and answered the occasional phone call.  Almost no one came in or out. 

Then, at the end of the day I got back on the first bus, then a second bus and the third to arrive back downtown after dark.  At the end of a week, this temporary job was done.  I was out of work again.  I cannot remember how much I was paid, but it didn’t do much to slow the dwindling away of my $187.

Back to calling every morning.  Nothing today.  No.  Not today. 

Somehow I heard about a more exclusive employment service.  “That’s who I should see,” I thought.  “No doubt my English degree from Smith College will mean something there.”

More tomorrow…

(This post is part of an experimental memoir.  I teach memoir writing and will edit your memoir to make it better.  Learn more at www.onedaymemoir.com)