75 years ago
December 7, 1942
Seventeen-year-old Harbor high school youths besieged the navy’s recruiting sub-station in Aberdeen on the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack.
Most of the boys, the recruiters said, apparently were afraid the navy would stop taking 17-year-olds, and wanted to “get in under the line.” Some said they preferred navy to army life and wanted to go to sea before reaching 18 and thereby becoming subject to army draft.
December 8, 1942
Grays Harbor took a haymaker at the axis yesterday with a pocketbook smack that sounded like at least $225,000 in war bonds.
A check of banks, savings and loan institutions, theaters, stores and postoffices showed today that almost a quarter-million dollars was poured into the “whip the axis” pool by Harborites on the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack.
50 years ago
December 7, 1967
Twenty-one-year-old Greg Streifel of Aberdeen has just returned from a tour of duty in Vietnam — and he’s glad he got to go.
“I’m glad I went, and I wish everybody could go,” he said. The problem with much of America’s youth is that they’re “too weak,” and he thought that a trip to the tiny war-torn Asian country would change many a protestor’s mind about what’s going on there.
Streifel, who was trained a a cannoneer at Fort Sill, Okla., after going through basic training at Fort Ord, ended up working as a forward observer, traveling mostly with the 173rd Airborne. As part of that unit, he was in the first combat “jump” made by an American military unit since the Korean War — on Feb. 25, when the 173rd landed about a mile and three-quarters from the Cambodian border in search of a North Vietnamese regiment.
December 8, 1967
• John Karvonen, now 92 years old, came to America in 1893 to seek a fuller, more prosperous life than the family farm on the coast of Finland could provide.
And he found it — as a gillnet fisherman. And a carpenter, a logger, a shipbuilder, a cutter of lumber, a writer. The proverbial jack-of-all-trades.
And he’s still very proud of his nationality. He should be, because at his age, he’s one of the oldest members of the local Finnish Brotherhoood, and the only surviving charter member. (He’s also a 46-year member of the Aberdeen Eagles.)
• The Choker Inn on Boone Street will not be used as a dormitory for Grays Harbor College students after next Friday, when the fall quarter at the college ends.
Emery Rognlin, owner and builder of the 40-unit motel complex located near the college, said the motel will begin catering to the tourist-and commercial trade after that date.
Selling space to college students at a reduced rate is no loner economically feasible, he said, because the motel was only about half-full all during the quarter.
25 years ago
December 7, 1992
Carrying a banner that proclaimed “God has not forgotten America,” young Gerimy West saw the country’s best and worst sides during his four-month trek to “take the Gospel to the people.”
West arrived home footsore on Nov. 17 after wearing out three pairs of hiking boots walking to Savannah, Ga.
The 23-year-old Quinault-area resident intended for his banner to give people hope. It surprised him that his message wasn’t always well received. Too many people “don’t want to think or know about God,” he said.
December 8, 1992
Using its first-place punch to overcome North Thurston’s superior depth, Aberdeen edged North Thurston 89-84 in a non-league boys’ swim meet Monday in Lacey.
The Bobcats, who had only 11 swimmers on hand, won 10 of the 12 events. Aaron Watson, John Kupka and Ed Kilgore took two individual events apiece and shared in a pair of winning relay efforts. Adam Uhler was the other AHS event victor.
Compiled from the archives of The Daily World by Karen Barkstrom
