The Disappearance of Lee Farnworth

  When I was just a baby my parents lived in Prosser. They had rented a house on a hill. I can’t remember the house or every living in Prosser but I have heard this story many times. My brother Lee came up missing one day.
  My mother was busy with housework and didn’t noticed when her 5 year old disappeared.  She looked into the closets and into each room calling his name, “Lee Vern Farnworth, where are you.”
  She had moved to the outside of the house, looking into the bushes and under the boards from the work my dad was doing on the place. This was the 1970’s in a small town in America. Which meant my mom didn’t have a way of contacted my father, once he left for work. To make matters worse she didn’t call the police because you never thought something bad happened to your children. Unlike today when they call in a Amber alert and everyone gets a message on their phone about the missing child.

  After an hour of looking she had enlisted the help of the neighbors and the police.  They were calling for Lee up and down the sidewalks of that little street.
  Dad pulled into the driveway and park beside the Black and white police car. “
  “What is going on?” he asked.
  “You son is missing,” said the police officer.
  Walked into the house and quickly changed his cloths. Stepping out on to the porch he asked, “Have you checked the house.”
  “Yes,” yelled Pearl franticly.
  “Where did you look?” he asked.
  “Called for him all over the house and checked the closets and all the rooms.”
  My father slipped back into the house and went upstairs and checked the rooms again.  He called my brothers name and stopped to listen before moved on. He checked the attic, he checked the dirty crawl space, before giving up and washing his hands.

  As he stood there looking out over the back yard with the water rushing over his hands he thought about all the other places, Lee could be, before dismissing them out of hand. He stopped and moved back, “No can’t be,” he said before kneeling he opened the cupboard under the sink and nothing was there. His head slowly turned and looked at the draws next to the sink.  Two large draws stacked on top of each other. The top was for pots and the bottom was for linen.
  He moved over and slowly pulled the draw out to find his boy curled up fast asleep. He pushed the draw closed and went and go my mother.
  When she saw him she screamed, “Lee Verne Farnworth, what are you doing.”
  “I wanted to scare you, but I fell asleep,” he answered.
  “You sure did a good job at that,” answered my Dad.
  I once lost my child for just a few minutes inside the Sundome during the Central Washington State fair.  I was freaking out, so I know what my parents were going through.

Ocean Shores

  In 1989 my parents, Lee and myself went on a trip to Ocean Shores, Washington. It is on the north spit of the opening to Greys harbor.  If you look at a map of Washington State, Greys harbor is the big mouth looking inlet on the coast.

   Now that you know where we were, maybe you can understand just how cold the weather is out on the coast. Washington’s coast isn't like California’s warm beaches or the sandy shores of the gulf coast off Florida. It is cold almost year round. Oh, sometimes you might get lucky and find a day the sun breaks free of the clouds and the sandy shore will warm up to 75, but those days are far between.
   We ended up there finding most of the motels booked. We had gotten a wild notion to vacation and wanted to get away. This trip was special. We had no idea life was going to change in just the next year.
   My brother would get into a long term relationship and they would have a child. Within a year I would be married and divorced and back at CWU. We had no idea how hard it was going to be to get away by the time the next summer came round again.

   We had brought fishing gear. Not sure why, we ended up fishing in the surf, it was cold from what I remember. My mother was a real trooper; she got in right with us and fished like a professional. We had fished lakes, rivers and streams. This was new for us all, the waves every once in a while would flow over the top of us and we would run back in. The rip tide tried to pull me out more than once, a long with the crabs pitching my toes under the waves. Mom and Lee caught a Sea Bass. All I caught was a cold.
   That day wasn't long enough soon we had to come in and drink not chocolate to get our core temperatures back to normal. We sat under the blankets in that little motel room shivering for hours. Now that I think about it, I wish I was back there. Mom and Dad are gone now and I find myself missing them more and more each day.

   I have been writing these articles for a while now and I sometimes I share a moral or an ethical point, but this time I only have this; treat everyday like it is your last, live life to the fullest. No one knows what tomorrow will bring.

The Nuclear Family

  When my brother and I were little we had races to see who could take my dad’s Boots off first. Okay, I know now this competition was fueled by my dads desire to have his boots removed as quickly as possible. Dad worked at Hanford nuclear plant back then, he would come home dirty from a day’s hard labor. He was tired, dusty and short tempered.
  He would sit in his chair and point to the boots and then once they would off he would raise his hand in a peace sign. Which meant he wanted two non-aspirin for the pain.
   The loser went in to the kitchen and fetched two non aspirin and a glass of water along with the paper that was always the next thing to be asked for before he leaned back.
   I was thinking about this a few days ago. My dad worked at a nuclear plant. He was exposed to radioactive material. This is not an assumption, it is a fact. In fact it probably killed him.
  I wonder how much radiation my brother and I absorbed over the years. I would never sue, because it happen in the past, but it does bring up a point. Things that parents do affect the child, excess drinking, drug habits and Domestic violence are just a few of those things. Even the environment can harm your child be it radioactive dust, high voltage power lines, or cans of solvent long ago buried beneath your backyard.
   So what do we as parents with this information? We do our best to protect our children for what we can control and take sleep aids so we can gets some rest from all the worrying we do in the day.

Moon Over Seattle

  A few days ago I talked about my father and how he walked across Yakima to get a car for his family. That wasn't the only time he did something like that.
  There was this time my mom forgot to pack my and brother’s swim suits when we went to Seattle for the weekend. I must have been eight or nine.
  We had paid extra for a hotel with a swimming pool. This was completely out of character for my family. It was a few blocks from the space needle and downtown.
  After we got back from a day of site seeing dad said to get our swimming suits on.
  “No suits,” my mom yelled.
  I remember being upset.
  Dad wouldn't have it and went off looking for a clothing store. We waited three hours until dad came back mad at the fact he couldn't find a store that was open but he was able find a set of white boxer shorts that didn't fit either one of us. Mine had to be pinned to my side but I didn't care, I was going swimming.
  We jumped into the pool and played for a while. My brother stepped out first to the laughter of all the sat around the pool. Dad who had been stewing about his evening looked up with the biggest smile on his face.
  My brother's shorts were now wet and see through. He ran for his towel and left for the room. Soon the laughter stopped and people settled down. I had stopped laughing way before this because I realized at that point, I sported the same shorts.

The Spaghetti Incident

  How old is this Child in this picture? Post your guesses as comments.
  I as a parent, make the mistake of thinking my 6 year old is older than he is, I make statements, such as, “why wouldn’t you act your age?” What I was really asking is why you don’t act older than you are capable of acting. We want the child that is running around already acting his age to act more like an adult.
   Sometimes we take it for granted that they seem older than they are when we catch them being quiet.
  The other day, my brother reminded me of a trip to Seattle we took with our parents. We went over on one of those trips where we rushed around to the zoo, the aquarium, the space needle, and let's not forget, Pike Place Market. We made the most of our day, but it was soon time to find a restaurant and head back to the motel.
   We went to the spaghetti factory on the Seattle waterfront. It was my mom's favorite place to eat and we always ate there at least once when visiting the city.
   My brother and I we’re exhausted. We sat at our table waiting for the meal for what must have been an hour. The Mariners’ game had just let out and the fans were crowding into the restaurant.
   Once we received our food, Lee and I sat there quietly eating. When my brother in the middle of taking a bite closed his eyes and fell asleep, which would have been okay, if it went for the plate of spaghetti his face fell into.
  I hadn't known that it was an option to sleep in a restaurant, so I closed my eyes and joined him.
  My parents sat there having a quiet meal with two very quiet children for the rest of the evening. They had made the mistake of thinking we could do all activities and have the energy to stay quiet for more than a few minutes without falling asleep.
   When they were finished, my dad lifted Lee and my mom carries me to the door. Dad pays the check and as he is putting his wallet away he felt this warm sensation running down his leg. My older brother wet his pants and his father. I woke up to see my dad's shoe wet from the accident. Dad kept quiet for the most part and slipped back to the motel for a change of clothes.
   So whether my child is acting two or twenty-two, I always try to remember that he is just a child and I really don't want to get peed on.
   The answer to the above question is four years old. No software was used in the making of the photo, we just caught him being quiet and looking older than what he really was.

    

Don’t Upset the Potato Cart

  I have been talking about being thrifty as of late. I guess as Christmas and bad weather gets closer I start to think about how to tighten the financial belt.
   My dad used to head out into the early Fall to pick up potatoes north of Prosser. I remember those day, it was still warm and we would get up early and make a day of it.
   We used my dad’s truck to collect 500 lbs of spuds. They weren’t the little ones either. Those were up to three time the size of the potatoes you find the supermarket. They were fresh and we loaded them into potato sacks.
   The summer when I we eleven we went out and dad asked me to take the wheel. This was a great honor; it was my first time driving a vehicle of any kind. My dad sat in the passenger’s seat and everyone else got in to the back and I started down the field.
   he asked" okay James let's go a little faster."
   I looked back and lee was riding a sack of potatoes like a surfboard.
   We were on our way to the end of the field where the machine had trouble picking up the potatoes. I driving, dad guiding, mom sitting and there was lee standing like he was in his own captain Morgan commercial.
   Well he shouts, "Stop!"
   I put both feet into that brake like I was trying to kill a rat.
The truck stopped sliding a little to the left and lee did not. He came forward at 25 or so miles an hour and over the cab he went and didn't stop until his hand and arm was touching the hood. I looked him in the eye through that windshield. He had outrage in his eyes and I quickly closed the window and locked the door. He climbed off the cab and reached for the door. It was locked and he ran to the other side where I had crawled over my dad to roll the window up and lock the door.
   "You have to come out sometime," he screamed.
   "You said stop," I yelled back through the locked door.
   Dad laughed and opened the door, baring him from killing me out right. I wonder to this day if I wouldn't have been sporting a black eye if it wasn't for my dad.

Step Up or Sit Down and Run

  
  Back in 1996 life was different at least for me. I was younger and had a jet ski and went out and partied and I had a jet ski. People thought I was cool or at least in my head I was cool.
  One of the best days from that era for me was a trip I took to Ocean shores, Washington. There were a few people on there trip, some are gone; some are people I don't talk with much anymore. But that really isn’t the point of this post.
  My brother and I both had jet skis. We had decided lakes and rivers were getting a little boring. So we made for the open waters of Ocean Shore. We dropped them into the Grays harbor and made the long run around the spit to the ocean side. Halfway around the spit we noticed that boats and a small ferry were circling around in like a cheap 60's western.
  Keeping in mind we had no clue what we were getting into we moved closer. Not entering into the circle just kind of watching from the side line or so we thought. Before long we saw the people looking back at us pointing. It turns out they weren't pointing at us exactly, they were pointing at the pod of whales swimming near our little boat.
  We had turned our skis off to watch the action turned out to be right in the middle of it. They swam by about twenty feet breaching just out of the water. We could smell there breath. It wasn’t nice. We really didn't understand the danger until one of the grey whales breached between us, just feet from my portside. The whale was very long. I can remember how its skin look cracked and slimmy. I can remember his eye looking right back at me. I remember that moment was the first time I could say that I ever saw a whale and was the first time I remember ever loving whales.
  In a blink of an eye they dropped below the surface and we were off traveling in the opposite direction at about as fast as humanly possible. I wish that had been the most dangerous thing we had done that day, but in wasn't. We had a plan to meet our friends and family around the spit as I mentioned before. We went by the beach and no family. It had turned out that they had waited for us and when we had not showed up went looking for us. Being delayed by the whales had its consequences.
  We headed around into the open ocean and the breakers as we found out in short order. I watched my brother go from twenty feet below to twenty feet above me. He said something about leaving back to the nice beach we had just been by. Honestly I didn't stick around to find out what his exact wording had been. I sat down and took off on a dead run. He caught up before long and away we went. The family was there sitting waiting for us, a little mad at our delay. I was just grateful not to have died twice.
  We played in the 6 foot waves, enjoyed the sunny day, lunch was great and the sun got low in the sky as the afternoon got away from us.

  
  Taking the skis around the spit and back to the little harbor in Ocean Shores we were stopped by the fact the tide had dropped by eight feet and three feet below the edge of the boat ramp. It stopped us in our tracks.
  It was Sunday and everyone needed to head home back to Yakima, a six hour drive. Lee stepped up and said he would stay the night and wait for the tide and we left for home.
  I guess there are several morals to this story. Know your environment, stick to the plan, and stay out of places you don't belong. Like the breakers. Oh and have a brother willing to step up and cover your ass.