75 years ago
December 17, 1944
Sunday, no newspaper published
December 18, 1944
Sixteen members of the Aberdeen American Legion auxiliary met Thursday night in the Legion hall and completed wrapping of more than 1,000 individual gifts to make up 387 gift boxes which averaged $5 per box.
The average box contained some form of clothing such as a sleeveless sweater or pajamas or T-shirt or men’s scarf or bedroom slippers, a tobacco pouch containing pipe and tobacco, a candy bar and a book.
The boxes will be taken by truck to Tacoma and distributed to disabled veterans on Sunday, Dec. 24.
50 years ago
December 17, 1969
Pay ‘n Save, located at the corner of Broadway and Wishkah in Aberdeen, is offering a lot of LPs for $2.97 this holiday season including records by Jim Nabors, Englebert Humperdinck, Tom Jones, Led Zepplin, Creedance Clearwater, Country Joe & the Fish, Billy Joe Royal, 5th Dimension; Crosby, Stills & Nash; and Peter, Paul & Mary.
December 18, 1969
Joe Malinowski, longtime city master mechanic whose retirement was announced last night, is going to stick around Aberdeen — and he says he’ll still visit the boys in the city barn, where he spent more than 40 years of his working life.
“I feel pretty good,” Malinowski now recovering from a recent operation on his right hand. “I’ve been laying off and taking life easy. I like Aberdeen. I’m going to stay around. I’m going to go down to the shop and see the boys and help. I want them to know they can call me, and I’d love to help them out,” he said.
Malinowski actually started working for the city in 1915, tramping up the Wishkah with Ben Torpen to do a survey for the city’s Wishkah water diversion works.
25 years ago
December 17, 1994
They didn’t swim, they went under water, and now a group of Harborites who crossed the English Channel are a part of history.
They eight fellow travelers (Nadine Otremba, Geri Youmans, Dorothy Godfrey, Mary Whitehall, Janice Luce, Maggie Lockman, Kathryn Bailey and Steve Bailey) are among the first in the world — and almost certainly the first from Grays Harbor — to take the train through the newly-opened tunnel under the English Channel known as the “Chunnel.”
“It was like nothing you’ve ever been on before,” said Mrs. Otremba. “Being a train you expect it to be like a train, but to me it was like riding in a Cadillac, it’s so smooth, so quiet.”
“There was no clackety, clack,” noted her roommate Geri Youmans. She pronounced it “better than flying.”
Begun in 1986 and completed this year at a cost of $15 billion, the 31.4 mile chunnel is the world’s largest engineering project. Promoters expect the chunnel to capture much of the commuter air traffic.
December 18, 1994
Like pint-sized automatons, each Lincoln Elementary student sits perfectly still in his or her assigned school bus seat, speaking barely above a whisper about the day’s upcoming lesson.
While not an exact picture of a typical bus ride, Hoquiam and Aberdeen administrators say students are now much less likely to misbehave on school buses than in years past, thanks to six surveillance video cameras installed this year.
The cameras — which cost about $1,600 apiece — have resulted in an 80 percent decrease in misconduct reports for the Hoquiam and Aberdeen schools, according to Ron McCarty, transportation supervisor for the two districts.
Compiled from the archives of The Daily World by Karen Barkstrom
