Historic Research * Heritage Marketing * Consulting * Lectures * Special Events
Updated on May 31, 2022
73 years ago, 34 Junior Officers from the Strategic Air Command's Headquarters
in Omaha, Nebraska, the "best and brightest" Special Intelligence Officers of the
544th Aerospace Reconnaissance Wing, were assigned to the worst places anyone
with their far above Special Intel clearances should ever have ever been allowed
to be stationed: in South East Asia high-threat and wartime combat zones.
Here is the story as told in 2004 by former USAF Captain Michael Hemp
of The History Company on its site www.bombardierslounge.com
— to be back online soon after a year's absence:
 The Lunar Landing of Apollo 11 and the Junior Officers Revolt at SAC Headquarters. July 20, 1969… July 19, 1969. Omaha, Nebraska—Strategic Air Force Command Headquarters. By order of SAC Commander-In-Chief, Gen. Bruce K. Holloway, 38 junior USAF Special Intelligence Officers are ordered to appear at a mandatory “Commander’s Call” in the second floor Command Staff briefing room of SAC HQ, Offutt Air Force Base, Omaha, Nebraska. As I recall it was to be on Sunday, July 20th, 1969. Apollo 11 landed on the moon, but that was not the big story. The orders required all 38 officers to assemble to account for their conduct in an embarrassing public relations bungle by the Air Force. One of the First Lieutenants at SAC’s elite and ultra-top secret 544th Reconnaissance Technical Wing, among the world’s top photo intelligence analysis units, inadvertently set off what became known in SAC command circles as the “Junior Officer’s Revolt.” Not exactly the Cain Mutiny, but it involved one of the very top Generals of the United States military. The state of Nebraska enjoyed a special relationship with SAC and its succession of “Cincs,” or commander-in-chiefs. Between 1968 and 1969, an unusually rapid succession of SAC commanders took place. General Joseph J. Nazzaro was replaced by an interim commander, Gen. Keith Compton, succeeded by Gen. Bruce K. Holloway of “Flying Tigers” fame. Part of this close military/community cooperation involved fundraising for AKSARBEN (Yep, Nebraska spelled backwards), the state’s “United Way or Community Chest.” USAF personnel were expected to support a huge, high-pressure donations campaign. To refuse to donate or virtually “tithe” through USAF payroll deductions, it was threatened, would reflect on your military service record. Officers were threatened with “derogs” (negative notations) on their OERs (Officers Effectiveness Ratings) if they did not participate—something that would effect their career advancement and promotions. A lot of minimally paid enlisted men and struggling career officers caved in and signed up. Some held out, mostly junior (lieutenant and captain) “Reserve Officers,” not generally regarded as career officer material and therefore somewhat indifferent to pressure on their military futures since almost all expected to return to civilian status at the end of their service agreements. July 16th Apollo 11 blasted off from Cape Canaveral on its epic lunar mission. Mission commander, Neil Armstrong, and lunar module pilot “Buzz” Aldrin were preparing to walk on the moon on July 20th. It seems that about the same time they were leaving their lunar footprints, the mandatory SAC commander’s call of 544th Special Reconnaissance Intel Officers to SAC Headquarters commenced. What on earth could cause all this fuss during days this historic? Junior Intel officers were not always cast in, or controlled by, the behavior protocols held dear by echelons of senior Air Force officers. A new breed, we enjoyed a certain intellectual and analytical independence beyond our rank, important to the critical thinking and analysis of everything from drone photography of the harbor at Haiphong, to SR-71 “Blackbird” multi-sensor photo and radar imagery from above 85,000 feet, to counting “Foxbat” aircraft on Soviet airfields and ICBM launch sites from space. Senior staff tolerated our certainties while chafing occasionally at our perceived impudence. But we were very good at what we did. First Lt. Nicholas King was the culprit. He had the nerve to write a scathing personal letter to the Chairman of AKSARBEN after they gifted the new SAC Commander, Gen. Holloway, with $40,000.00 of donated AKSARBEN funds to be used at the discretion of the SAC Commander-in-Chief. The gift was spent to transform the entrance and upstairs command staff offices from stark Curtis E. LeMay marble and pale green, to alternating panels of ocher wall covering and dark hardwood paneling. Thick ocher carpeting was installed at the SAC HQ Main Entrance and its upstairs command staff offices, including the CINC’s. Lt. King’s letter suggested the next time AKSARBEN had $40,000 to throw away, rather than enable the beautification of the SAC entrance with charitable donation funds, they should consider helping with the Offutt AFB airmen’s barracks, many of them brick structures built before WWI that reached 120 degrees in summer (un-air conditioned, of course). Or, help the struggling facility for handicapped children of base personnel. And on…you get the idea. The letter was circulated though the super-secret subterranean labs of the HQ Intel photo interpreters, analysts, and briefing officers—almost all of whom were junior officers. Thirty seven other officers became signatory to Lt. King’s impudent pique, and off it went. I can’t honestly recall if Neil Armstrong had walked on the moon by the time we assembled for the commanders call. Phone calls between us concluded we were in for a real chewing, some had heard and were terrorized that the Commander-in-Chief, himself, was going to tear into us. What a small handful of us knew—being his Special Intel briefers on a daily basis—was that this heroic WWII air ace was particularly inarticulate with even his half dozen staff generals at our briefings and was highly unlikely to be the one “ripping into us.” General Holloway, as expected, was not present for the meeting. It turns out that chore fell to his DCI (Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence) Lt. Gen. Dacey, who took to the podium. Gen. Dacey was a good choice; many of us liked him from our duties of briefing him regularly—finding him dashing, smart, incisive, erudite, and tough. This day he was volcanic. General Dacey’s comments were angry, threatening, and for a while, effectively intimidating to most of the assembled young officers. He degraded us, railing for a while berating us for bringing dishonor on the Air Force by signing and sending the letter, breaking the chain of command, betraying our honor and duty as officers, and for conduct unbecoming an officer. It was at this time a hand shot up near the back of the room and Gen. Dacey paused to permit the question. It was not what he expected. The question asked “Why, when the Commander in Chief of the Strategic Air Command gets caught with his pants down, spending charity money donated by his troops, to decorate his offices and SAC HQ entrance, that WE are the ones guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer?” I swear I heard Dacey choke. A brief pandemonium erupted before order was restored. Several other unsolicited comments of the same nature erupted as nearly the entire group of us pushed back at the hypocrisy of this collective “spanking” for the mindless misdeeds of the Command. The intimidation had produced precisely the opposite effect it intended. Order was quickly restored but as hard as Gen. Dacey tried to continue his offensive, he was met by surreptitious shouts and comments from the assembled officers who would simply not accept his ugly, threatening comments. The assembly was clumsily broken off, with attending senior officers visibly flabbergasted and enraged at our insubordinate conduct. The Commanders Call abruptly ended and all of us were ordered back to duty. I hope this story reaches some of the other junior officers at this historic event. I would like to know their comments on this narrative, their feelings about it, and their personal consequences of having been part of what was thereafter called “The junior officers revolt at SAC Headquarters.” It seems that within a week or so, 37 of the 38 officers that signed the AKSARBEN letter had orders to some of the worst assignments at which an Intel Officer could be stationed. Only my friend, Capt. Lionel Smith, was spared out of all of us. He was simply so absolutely indispensable to the SAC satellite surveillance program he avoided similar punitive reassignment. The effect of this retaliation against the best intelligence community in the Strategic Air Command, their “best and brightest,” was to instantly strip SAC’s intelligence capability to perform daily critical intelligence analysis and procedures. And beyond that simple, blind revenge against its insubordinate junior officers was the location of our punitive assignments. They were considered the worst places they could possibly send us—all in combat zones of Viet Nam or high threat areas of Thailand. The Great SAC sin was that NONE of us, with our security clearances (far above TOP SECRET Special Intel) and working intelligence knowledge of our strategic surveillance programs, plans, platforms, capabilities, and assessments should have ever been assigned out of the continental U.S. Any of us falling into the hands of the enemy could have constituted a catastrophic setback for US military intelligence capabilities. That, however, was not a consideration in SAC’s response to intimidate and punish us. My orders were to Task Force Alpha, Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base, and after weeks of training at Ft. Walton Beach, Florida, I was on my way to the cushiest of our collective punishments, know to all as “Naked Phanny" RTAFB. A 4000’ asphalt strip cut out of the Northeast Thai jungle, it was the home of the 56th Special Operations Wing. Too short for jets, and with a Search and Rescue and Air Commando mission, it was a throwback to Korea and WWII. The prop aircraft inventory consisted of retiring A-26 Intruders (twin engine attack bombers from WWII), C-19 (WWII) Flying Boxcar gunships, three squadrons of A-1 Skyraiders (Korean War), CH-3 Jolly Green helicopters for search and rescue and air commando operations, and 0-2 and OV-10 forward air control aircraft. Seven miles from the Mekong and a short hop across Laos to the Ho Chi Minh Trail. I was there as an analyst in the seismic and acoustic sensor network that monitored and targeted troop and truck traffic shuttling war supplies through Laos to South Vietnam on the dirt road network of “the trail.” It was the best of the worst duty and conditions but hard to complain about when grunts were sent from South Viet Nam to NKP for R&R. Capt. Nick King, on the other hand, had been sent to Phan Rang, South Viet Nam—a place called the armpit of Viet Nam and a really awful assignment. Reports reached us at NKP that he responded as we might have expected, with a peace symbol emblazoned on his bunker helmet; Nick also refused to salute the base commander and was reported to have responded, “What are they going to do to me? Send me to Phan Rang?” Years later, long after our military exploits, I heard he’d become an Assistant District Attorney in Louisville, Kentucky. An then a Tennassee Superme Court Judge. A closing comment on the Junior Officers Revolt. It wasn’t just the Junior Officers that were ultimately upset with the SAC command. A look at any photograph of SAC Headquarters shows a huge building with a central entrance opposite the walkway, easily identified with an ICBM missile motif, from the Officers Club to the main entrance. Well, it seems that when foul weather set in—a certainty in Omaha—the new ochre yellow carpets at the SAC HQ main entrance took to soiling heavily from the wet and slushy foot traffic from the Officers Club and main entrance arrivals. What happened next almost set off the “Senior Officers Revolt at SAC HQ.” Full “bird” Colonels without sufficient rank and clout, plus hordes of Lt. Colonels and Majors accustomed to using the direct access to their offices in the HQ Building were barred from using the main entrance! They were required to walk the considerable distance (in freezing sleet and snow) to the far left or right wing entrances at each far end of SAC HQ. Indignant is not a strong enough reaction, though insubordination on the order of the Junior Officers Revolt at SAC Headquarters was not among their options. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left their iconic footprints from Apollo 11 on the surface of the moon on the weekend of July 20th, 1969. And now, as a small footnote to history, is the true (if unknown) story of that same date. The Junior Officers revolt at SAC Headquarters. Michael K. Hemp (Capt. Monkey Hotel, NKP 1969-1970) More detail, photos, and information at www.BombardiersLounge.com  Strategic Air Command
Headquarters Building from the Offutt AFB Officers
Club.
|
VLADIMIR PUTIN IS A WAR CRIMINAL
Along with those in America who politically support him
and his enablers in our media and politics.
Donate:
WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN (Chef Jose Andres) https://wck.org
and
DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS
among many deserving supporters of Ukraine.
A special Black Sea treat on a much lighter note FROM THE HISTORY COMPANY ARCHIVE:
A 2009 video interview at Wave Street Studios, Cannery Row, Monterey, moderated by Michael Hemp,
about a Bulgarian version of Ed Ricketts' Lab ("Eastern Biophysical")
on the shores of the Black Sea in 1970–before the fall of the Iron Curtain.
Full story details near the bottom of the website scroll:
"THE STORIES ARE ALWAYS BETTER"
A Bulgarian Memoir by Dr. Alex Gochev
FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON ARCHIVES
Olympia, Washington
Click Here for
by
Cannery Row's historian
MICHAEL KENNETH HEMP
Western Flyer Update:
Chris Chase photo
The deck house is back on the Western Flyer. Click here to see it
being installed on December 4th, 2021, at the
Port Townsend Shipwright's Co-op.
$29.95 plus Free Shipping; we pay the sales tax;
plus an authentic sardine canning label
(for a bookmark or framing; label brands vary)
| Purchase by PayPal | Purchase
with check |
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to: |
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History
Company
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P.O.
Box 31, Wauna
WA98329 |
Fourth Edition (CR 4.0)
Sample Pages
“CANNERY ROW, The History of John Steinbeck’s Old Ocean View Avenue
and Its Connections to the Pacific Northwest”
Click here to buy now with PayPal
More
on the Western
Flyer
restoration:
The Western Flyer at Boat Haven, Port Townsend, 2013 • Anne Shaffer photo • Coastal Watershed Institute.org
YouTube restoration videos at the
Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-op
by Chris Chase of the Western Flyer Foundation.
Videos from the beginning of restoration to its near completion: all on YouTube videos.
Subscribe to the Western Flyer Foundation Channel on YouTube.
Donate to the Western Flyer Foundation here.
(Click here)
https://www.youtube.com/c/WesternFlyerFoundationChannel
(Earlier chapters are on YouTube Western Flyer)
(Dated post)
A 4th of July, 1970, memoir...
I was Aerial Intel back-seat in an NKP OV-10 twin-turboprop
recon aircraft detached to U-Tapao RTAFB, Thailand, on the Gulf of Siam
to open up aerial reconnaissance operations of Western and Central Cambodia
to determine enemy and friendly held territory.
Some not-so high altitude...
Other than drawing small-arms fire from Angkor Wat this day
the mission was pretty uneventful, with the exception of when
we passed over a remote fortified jungle outpost...
A Cambodian voice came up on a ragged radio frequency and said,
"Happy birt-day Amereecans for your country..."
More detail on our sister site: www.bombardierslounge.com
* * *
Available at Amazon.com
Monterey's Beloved Photo Archivist-Historian
Pat Hathaway
(March 28, 1948 - January 4, 2021)
of the renowned Pat Hathaway Collection of California Views
(www.caviews.com)
suddenly passed away from mysethenia gravis (an Agent Orange cause)
at home in Pacific Grove, California, on Monday, January 4, 2021.
This GIANT of Monterey and California history and culture
will be terribly missed for the contributions of his 80,000 archival images
to the visual historical record of the development and preservation
of the history of the Pacific Coast.
His Cannery Row archival legacy lives on:
From The History Company From Amazon.com
[Archival post, 1970]
Take time out to thank a Vet on Veterans Day...
and fellow Vets: celebrate each other!
Capt. Monkey Hotel, NKP 1969-1970 last mission day.
More on Bombardier's Lounge WWII Big Band Jazz
[dated post]
The History Company invites you to
https://bit.ly/3jcbPR9
also see STEINBECK NOW for detail.
The National Steinbeck Center "Inspired Talks" Webinar Series Premier
October 8, 2020
can be seen on YouTube (1:51)
Hope you enjoyed
the Virtual
STEINBECK COUNTRY UNITED
Global Festival
Saturday, August 1, and Sunday, August 2, 2020.
For Tickets, click here!
For a full agenda of the Festival, Click here.
Cannery Row historian Michael Kenneth Hemp
is featured in a 12:00 PM Steinbeck Roundtable
with moderator Dr. David Wrobel, Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences
of the University of Oklahoma and National Visiting Steinbeck Scholar
Author, journalist and Pulitzer Prize nominee William Souder
with his new Steinbeck book "Mad at the World,"
and distinguished historian and lecturer Dr. Carol McKibben,
author and professor of Urban Studies at Stanford University
12:00 PM Steinbeck Roundtable
For more information be sure go to www.steinbeck.org:
The Answer:
New research by The History Company unveils a major
new history for Washington State's Hood Canal, already famous
historically for its timber, oysters, striking natural beauty, and tourism.
A history with many shared connections with Cannery Row, Monterey.
Hood Canal photography by George Stenberg
The "Go To" photographer for all things Hood Canal
www.georgestenbergphotography.com
The History Company now adds original research, discovery, and confirmation of
Hood Canal's major West Coast connections to its new historical cousin,
"John Steinbeck's Cannery" Row at Monterey, California.
SPECIAL OFFER HAS EXPIRED
Three special books about the importance of the Hood Canal
and its crucial role in the nearly annual 1930s marine biological
research expeditions to the maritime Pacific Northwest by pioneering
marine biologist Edward F. Ricketts (John Steinbeck's closest friend
and mentor) in his development and presentation of Ecology in
"Between Pacific Tides" published by Stanford University Press
in 1939. It still remains one of the most popular books ever published
by Stanford University Press and is studied by students becoming
marine biologist even today. Hoodsport on the Hood Canal was the base
of operations from which Ricketts researched all over the maritime
Pacific Northwest.
The Hoodsport rental cabin-site location at the Gateway Inn,
now a salmon hatchery, has been located that Ricketts and his young
family occupied almost every spring-summer of the 1930s, with
the exception of one spring-summer at Tahuya across the Canal.
Collaboration of The History Company historian Michael Hemp
and Hood Canal historian Michael Fredson now make it possible to
discover and enjoy the until now an unknown and unappreciated
history of Hoodsport and the Hood Canal that now connects it to
the world-wide fame of Monterey, Cannery Row, John Steinbeck,
the Tacoma-built "Western Flyer" and the Sea of Cortez.
THE HISTORY COMPANY
BOOK SHOP
has a Special Offer for Ed Ricketts, John Steinbeck
Cannery Row, and "Western Flyer" fans:
To begin this adventure or for more information
and to purchase any or all of these essential books.
Click here
Restoration of the Western Flyer Update:
Restoration progress on the Western Flyer at the Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-op at
Port Townsend, Washington, has been temporarily interrupted due to the COVID-19 Stay-At-Home
requirements, but work will resume when a safe pandemic re-opening is announced.
Chris Chase of the Western Flyer Foundation has released another in the YouTube series of
Western Flyer restoration videos — Number 19! — that recaps some of the highlights of the
restoration progress videos to date. Treat yourself to a viewing of it on YouTube.
Or, better yet, subscribe to the videos to be kept up to date automatically.
Western Flyer Foundation photo
This image is from Episode 17 on YouTube.
The restoration process is a magnificent sight and a tribute to rare wooden boat shipwright
skills still alive in the Pacific Northwest. Be part of this major historic achievement; make a
donation at www.WesternFlyer.org. And if you can, make another donation to the restoration
of a historic vessel under restoration wherever you live.
(May 1983)
at the creation of
The Cannery Row Foundation
"Coastings..." May 11, 1983
John Steinbeck's Birthday
(February 27, 1902 - December 20, 1968)
Monterey Herald, February 27, 1978
The Queen of Cannery Row kept the Steinbeck & Ricketts
movement alive for decades before help arrived with her
annual "Cannery Row Steinbeck's Birthday Party" at Kalisa's
La Ida Cafe. Formation of the Cannery Row Foundation
was still 5 years away. More on this amazing woman
throughout this website.
Hope you had a wonderful Steinbeck's Birthday...
and sorry Kalisa's not there on the old Row to throw another
annual Steinbeck Birthday celebration upstairs in the
old La Ida Ida Cafe.
Some of you now know you were blessed to have been there
for one...or more.
A brand new history of
Cannery Row and the Pacific Northwest...
Cover actual size is 8.5" x 11"
• The new silver foil stamped cover and trim of the expanded "CR 4.0"
• Cover design by Bridges Design Group, Los Angeles.
The Perfect New Years Gift for the Steinbeck, Ricketts, Cannery Row
and maritime Pacific Northwest history fans in your life.
$29.95 by PayPal (below) with free USPS Media Mail shipping.
Includes a free authentic 1940s sardine label as a bookmark.
Click Here for PayPal Payment Page * More purchase options below.
Speaking Engagements, News, and Events
The Western Flyer at Boat Haven, Port Townsend, 2013 • Anne Shaffer photo • Coastal Watershed Institute.org
YouTube restoration videos at the
Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-op
by Chris Chase of the Western Flyer Foundation.
Videos from the beginning of restoration to its near completion: all on YouTube videos.
Subscribe to the Western Flyer Foundation Channel on YouTube.
Donate to the Western Flyer Foundation here.
(Click here)
https://www.youtube.com/c/WesternFlyerFoundationChannel
(Earlier chapters are on YouTube Western Flyer)
(Dated post)
A 4th of July, 1970, memoir...
I was Aerial Intel back-seat in an NKP OV-10 twin-turboprop
recon aircraft detached to U-Tapao RTAFB, Thailand, on the Gulf of Siam
to open up aerial reconnaissance operations of Western and Central Cambodia
to determine enemy and friendly held territory.
Some not-so high altitude...
Other than drawing small-arms fire from Angkor Wat this day
the mission was pretty uneventful, with the exception of when
we passed over a remote fortified jungle outpost...
A Cambodian voice came up on a ragged radio frequency and said,
"Happy birt-day Amereecans for your country..."
More detail on our sister site: www.bombardierslounge.com
* * *
 Cannery Row and Its Pacific Northwest OFFER HAS EXPIRED |
 The book for Now Click to purchase from The History Company through PayPal Click to purchase from The History Company through Amazon.com |
 Last of the Big Sur Otter Hunters (eBook) Click to purchase from Amazon Kindle |
Available at Amazon.com
Monterey's Beloved Photo Archivist-Historian
Pat Hathaway
(March 28, 1948 - January 4, 2021)
of the renowned Pat Hathaway Collection of California Views
(www.caviews.com)
suddenly passed away from mysethenia gravis (an Agent Orange cause)
at home in Pacific Grove, California, on Monday, January 4, 2021.
This GIANT of Monterey and California history and culture
will be terribly missed for the contributions of his 80,000 archival images
to the visual historical record of the development and preservation
of the history of the Pacific Coast.
His Cannery Row archival legacy lives on:
From The History Company From Amazon.com
[Archival post, 1970]
Take time out to thank a Vet on Veterans Day...
and fellow Vets: celebrate each other!
Capt. Monkey Hotel, NKP 1969-1970 last mission day.
More on Bombardier's Lounge WWII Big Band Jazz
| WESTERN
FLYER NEWS on YouTube & Chapter 29 |
 |
[dated post]
The History Company invites you to
https://bit.ly/3jcbPR9
also see STEINBECK NOW for detail.
The National Steinbeck Center "Inspired Talks" Webinar Series Premier
October 8, 2020
can be seen on YouTube (1:51)
Hope you enjoyed
the Virtual
STEINBECK COUNTRY UNITED
Global Festival
Saturday, August 1, and Sunday, August 2, 2020.
For Tickets, click here!
For a full agenda of the Festival, Click here.
Cannery Row historian Michael Kenneth Hemp
is featured in a 12:00 PM Steinbeck Roundtable
with moderator Dr. David Wrobel, Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences
of the University of Oklahoma and National Visiting Steinbeck Scholar
Author, journalist and Pulitzer Prize nominee William Souder
with his new Steinbeck book "Mad at the World,"
and distinguished historian and lecturer Dr. Carol McKibben,
author and professor of Urban Studies at Stanford University
12:00 PM Steinbeck Roundtable
For more information be sure go to www.steinbeck.org:
The Answer:
New research by The History Company unveils a major
new history for Washington State's Hood Canal, already famous
historically for its timber, oysters, striking natural beauty, and tourism.
A history with many shared connections with Cannery Row, Monterey.
Hood Canal photography by George Stenberg
The "Go To" photographer for all things Hood Canal
www.georgestenbergphotography.com
 |
 |
 |
| Hood
Canal sunrise |
Mt.Washington
& Mt. Elinor |
Hood
Canal Perfect |
The History Company now adds original research, discovery, and confirmation of
Hood Canal's major West Coast connections to its new historical cousin,
"John Steinbeck's Cannery" Row at Monterey, California.
SPECIAL OFFER HAS EXPIRED
 |
 |
 |
| By
Cannery Historian,
Michael Hemp |
By
Hood Canal
Historian, Michael
Fredson |
By Hood Canal Historian, Michael Fredson |
Three special books about the importance of the Hood Canal
and its crucial role in the nearly annual 1930s marine biological
research expeditions to the maritime Pacific Northwest by pioneering
marine biologist Edward F. Ricketts (John Steinbeck's closest friend
and mentor) in his development and presentation of Ecology in
"Between Pacific Tides" published by Stanford University Press
in 1939. It still remains one of the most popular books ever published
by Stanford University Press and is studied by students becoming
marine biologist even today. Hoodsport on the Hood Canal was the base
of operations from which Ricketts researched all over the maritime
Pacific Northwest.
The Hoodsport rental cabin-site location at the Gateway Inn,
now a salmon hatchery, has been located that Ricketts and his young
family occupied almost every spring-summer of the 1930s, with
the exception of one spring-summer at Tahuya across the Canal.
Collaboration of The History Company historian Michael Hemp
and Hood Canal historian Michael Fredson now make it possible to
discover and enjoy the until now an unknown and unappreciated
history of Hoodsport and the Hood Canal that now connects it to
the world-wide fame of Monterey, Cannery Row, John Steinbeck,
the Tacoma-built "Western Flyer" and the Sea of Cortez.
THE HISTORY COMPANY
BOOK SHOP
has a Special Offer for Ed Ricketts, John Steinbeck
Cannery Row, and "Western Flyer" fans:
To begin this adventure or for more information
and to purchase any or all of these essential books.
Click here
Restoration of the Western Flyer Update:
Restoration progress on the Western Flyer at the Port Townsend Shipwrights Co-op at
Port Townsend, Washington, has been temporarily interrupted due to the COVID-19 Stay-At-Home
requirements, but work will resume when a safe pandemic re-opening is announced.
Chris Chase of the Western Flyer Foundation has released another in the YouTube series of
Western Flyer restoration videos — Number 19! — that recaps some of the highlights of the
restoration progress videos to date. Treat yourself to a viewing of it on YouTube.
Or, better yet, subscribe to the videos to be kept up to date automatically.
Western Flyer Foundation photo
This image is from Episode 17 on YouTube.
The restoration process is a magnificent sight and a tribute to rare wooden boat shipwright
skills still alive in the Pacific Northwest. Be part of this major historic achievement; make a
donation at www.WesternFlyer.org. And if you can, make another donation to the restoration
of a historic vessel under restoration wherever you live.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
The History Company and
Cannery Row Foundation
connections to the
Western Flyer began with
the
creation of the Cannery
Row Foundation in Ed
Ricketts' Lab in 1983.
By 1984 the Cannery Row
Foundation board
announced efforts to
acquire and return the
Western Flyer to
Monterey as a working
non-profit
historical and
educational icon of
Monterey and Cannery
Row's sardine fishing
and canning heyday.
(May 1983)
at the creation of
The Cannery Row Foundation
"Coastings..." May 11, 1983
John Steinbeck's Birthday
(February 27, 1902 - December 20, 1968)
Monterey Herald, February 27, 1978
The Queen of Cannery Row kept the Steinbeck & Ricketts
movement alive for decades before help arrived with her
annual "Cannery Row Steinbeck's Birthday Party" at Kalisa's
La Ida Cafe. Formation of the Cannery Row Foundation
was still 5 years away. More on this amazing woman
throughout this website.
Hope you had a wonderful Steinbeck's Birthday...
and sorry Kalisa's not there on the old Row to throw another
annual Steinbeck Birthday celebration upstairs in the
old La Ida Ida Cafe.
Some of you now know you were blessed to have been there
for one...or more.
A brand new history of
Cannery Row and the Pacific Northwest...
Cover actual size is 8.5" x 11"
• The new silver foil stamped cover and trim of the expanded "CR 4.0"
• Cover design by Bridges Design Group, Los Angeles.
The Perfect New Years Gift for the Steinbeck, Ricketts, Cannery Row
and maritime Pacific Northwest history fans in your life.
$29.95 by PayPal (below) with free USPS Media Mail shipping.
Includes a free authentic 1940s sardine label as a bookmark.
Click Here for PayPal Payment Page * More purchase options below.
Speaking Engagements, News, and Events
|
AUGUST 1 - 2
2020
 |
Virtual
75th
Anniversary
Celebration of
John
Steinbeck''s
1945 "Cannery
Row"...
Cannery
Row historian;
Steinbeck, and
Ricketts
authority;
Featured Speaker
and Program
Consultant: Steinbeck Festival 2020 at the National
Steinbeck
Center, Salinas,
California. |
| Feb.
3 2020  |
Cascade
Club of Tacoma
luncheon at the
Tacoma Country
Club, Lakeview. "New Horizon for Pacific Northwest History" and Tacoma's role. |
| Feb.
20 2020 |
Tacoma
Yacht Club: Open
to the
Public—Admission
Free. Cannery
Row's Connection
to the Hidden
History of the
Maritime Pacific
Northwest, Ed
Ricketts'
development of
Ecology in the
PNW, John
Steinbeck &
the Western
Flyer, "The Sea
of Cortez," and
historic Tacoma
Waterfront as
the "Birthplace
of the Western
Flyer." |
| Jan.
30 2020 |
Gig Harbor Chamber of Commerce Public Affairs Forum, at the Cottesmore, 2909 14th Avenue NW, Gig Harbor. |
| Jan.
26 2020 Review: |
HOOD
CANAL'S NEW
HISTORY at the
Alderbrook Golf
& Yacht
Club, Union, WA.
Open to the
Public. Mason
County
Historical
Society Lecture.
MCHS
Newsletter event
review.
|
| Jan.
8 2020 |
"THE NEW HORIZONS FOR PACIFIC NORTHWEST HISTORY" at Gig Harbor Kiwanis International Chapter 34 at Harbor Place at Cottesmore, 1016 29th Street NW, Gig Harbor. |