My daughter and I were Oregon bound in the used Plymouth I had purchased several months before. I had only driven the car around the San Francisco peninsula from Palo Alto to San Jose and this was the first trip of any consequence in it.
I had received a phone call from my brother, Jerry, asking me if I could meet him in Portland when he started his two weeks leave from his job. Jerry worked as a cook on an oil rig off the coast of Alaska and his work schedule allowed him to work three weeks and be off two weeks.
It was a rare opportunity to spend a few days vacation with my brother and my daughter and I were in high spirits as we drove north. There was no rush and we took our time enjoying the scenes along the highway. Jerry had given us instructions about place and time for meeting him and we gauged our trip accordingly.
Following his instructions, we passed thru various checkpoints at the port reaching a spot on the dock that was as close to the big ships as one could park a vehicle. Jerry had stressed the meeting time of 5 o’clock in the afternoon, but as we parked the car and got out to look around, we didn’t see him.
We stood there for some time watching men walking back and forth to activities in the area, and wondered if I had misunderstood Jerry’s instructions. Suddenly we heard Jerry calling from the railing of a ship and waving to get our attention. What a relief to know we were in the right place at the right time.
When Jerry joined us, there were hugs all around and he told us about an antique anchor he wanted to put in the trunk of the car. He explained that I would have to move the car into a position so the anchor could be lowered by a winch from the ship over the back of the car, then pushed into the trunk without effort. I maneuvered the vehicle until Jerry was satisfied, then I got out of the car to watch.
That was when I saw the size of the anchor. It was huge! Obviously it was too big to fit in the trunk, and I told Jerry so, but Jerry continued calling out instructions to the man working the winch. As it was lowered closer to the back of the car, Jerry gently pushed it this way and that as it hung in the air. Jerry kept assuring me the anchor would fit and ignored my comments to the contrary. I was concerned about the weight as well as the size.
To my surprise, Jerry was able to maneuver the anchor into the trunk so that the lid closed properly. Fortunately, the weight didn’t seem to cause any problems. My only worry at that point was how we were going to remove it when we reached Elbert’s house on the San Francisco peninsula where it would be stored until it could be moved to Texas in the future.
After the anchor had been stowed in the car trunk, we started the trip back to California. I have adventures whenever and wherever I travel and the adventures on the trip home I'll reserve for a future telling.
But meeting Jerry in Portland rates high on my list of adventures and I can still hear his laugh as he succeeded in stowing the anchor. Jerry always had a twinkle in his eye and was a delightful traveling companion. I was a very lucky sister when he got bunched in with me and my other brothers and sisters as the baby of the family.
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