Old friends and old times

Published 3:00 pm Saturday, November 19, 2005

Back in the Review’s old building on Winslow Way, when the newsroom still had the luxury of a back door for discreet work-hour escapes, nobody availed themselves of the portal quite like Jerry Elfendahl. Not going, but coming.

The sudden squawk of tires in the parking lot invariably heralded our favorite historian’s approach, followed moments later by his wild-eyed appearance in the newsroom and an excited, “Grab the camera and get in the car! You won’t believe it!”

That Jerry habitually barged in the way we snuck out was part of the office fabric, and however fantastic his story — we can’t recall much actual news coming out of such alarms, but there must have been some once or twice — it did add color to the day. The island was smaller then, less stuffy; afternoons were slower, and if you were the reporter on duty, well, you grabbed the camera and got into the car.

So there was something nostalgic in waking up last Saturday morning to find a waiting email saying, in essence: “Grab the camera and come to Camp Yeomalt! You won’t believe it!” And what else would a jaded and overworked editor have to do on a weekend, than waiting for Elfendahl to turn up with some new adventure? So off we went, camera in hand.

The occasion, it turned out, was the delivery by Bob Cederwall of a pick-up load of locally hewn shake shingles to be used on the roof of the camp’s old scout cabin; Jerry wanted help unloading them. A dozen or so neighbors, history buffs and former scouts dutifully showed up — among them, none other than Ralph Munro, Bainbridge native and former secretary of state. The island’s favorite son spent an hour swapping stories with Bob McCormic and Morrie Blossom, two more Eisenhower-vintage scouts who recalled their boyhood hijinks in the now tumbledown lodge. Photos from the morning can be found on today’s Scene and Heard page. (It might be noted that Ralph didn’t go out of his way to help unload shingles, but then, neither did the editor.)

The ongoing effort to restore the Depression-era cabin was not lost on Munro, a great raconteur with an encyclopedic knowledge of local lore and a personal attachment to the camp. “It was a great gathering place,” he recalled. “We went there mostly in the wintertime. It was dry inside, and you could have a bonfire. We had some tremendous Scout leaders who would tell us stories and teach us how to tie knots and all those things.” Munro described his island scouting experiences as “just stuff that we’ve used all our lives. You’d be surprised how many times I go back to my old Boy Scout handbook when I’m getting ready to go on a trip — ‘Have I forgotten anything?’ It sounds pretty crazy 50 years later, but it’s true.”

Now an Olympia denizen, Munro was already on the island that morning for dedication of the giant Rotary wheel and associated park out by the bridge; he too was summoned to the Yeomalt get-together by one of Elfendahl’s “hourly”

cabin-related dispatches. But it would be hard to begrudge Jerry his enthusiasm. The building was recently added to the state’s historic register; cleansed of the debris and grime of decades, the rustic dignity of its single room is revealed, generations of memories drawn from its walls. While much expensive restoration remains to be done, Elfendahl and his Team Yeomalt preservation group are confident enough to start hunting down the dozen or so cabin-worthy logs needed to replace those that have rotted away. Tours are being offered to raise interest among groups that might once again use the lodge for community gatherings.

Restoration of the old Camp Yeomalt scout cabin, on that Saturday morning, suddenly looked eminently doable. And for once, “Grab the camera and get in the car!” meant a lot.

Thanks, Jerry.