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DON COOK
 
Don CookHome Office 253 312-7474 office/home BACKGROUND AND EXPERIENCE SPECIALIZATION AND CERTIFICATIONS
loaded with 1,000,000 board feet of lumber and bound from Coos Bay, Oregon to San Diego, California. As remembered by Don Cook from summer of 1944 The Steam Schooner Daisy Gray was a wooden vessel with steam power. I don’t remember her length, but she carried 1 million board feet of lumber on a coastwise run from Coos Bay, Oregon to California. While I was serving on her we traveled each trip to San Diego, except for my last trip in August of 1944 when we landed at Alameda, California. I don’t remember much of Captain Backman except that he was a kind man. I was only 16 when I came aboard late at night to sign on. I was escorted to his cabin and slept on a couch there until morning when paper work was completed; I was assigned a bunk, forward, in the foc’sle and put to work. Captain Backman was highly respected by the crew and mates especially because he was licensed such that we did not need a pilot when entering any of the West Coast ports. This was highly unusual and still is to this day. Most of the crew on this ship were old time seamen who had gone through the nasty 1934 waterfront strike. They were hardened seamen but turned out to be kind and helpful to the few “kids” that became part of the crew. The practice was for the crew to work the cargo in the forward hold both loading and unloading while Longshoremen worked the after hold. Lumber was all in bulk, that is, it came aboard by the sling load and we had to take each individual board or timber and place it in the hold so that the next ones would fit in as well and not shift at sea. It was very labor intensive! We would load or unload from 8 in the morning until 9 in the evening most days. Occasionally we would have to work until 11 PM and if we arrived in port early in the day we would immediately begin to work the cargo. It was always a race to see if the Longshoremen or we would finish our hold first. Good planning by management!! The crew also got extra pay for working cargo, so it was a plum job. I signed on the ship in May of 1944 at 145 pounds soaking wet and signed off in August that same year at 170 pounds and it was all muscle! We were fed like kings: Breakfast, Coffee &, Dinner, Coffee &, Supper, 9 PM snack and if necessary an 11 PM hot meal again! In addition, there was a pantry just outside the galley door on the galley deck where we could help ourselves to fresh fruit, ripe tomatoes or whatever was there at any time. When I came aboard the ship, she had just finished unloading and there were wood chips and dust everywhere! The ship was old then so the wooden bulkheads and railings were chipped and gouged and not particularly attractive. I kept a diary in those days and my comments were that it was a “tub” and I probably wouldn’t stay aboard very long. When one came into the Galley at night and turned on the light, the walls were covered with cockroaches! The same was true in the crew’s quarters. They immediately disappeared when the lights came on so everyone lived with it without a thought. I learned very quickly to love the ship and the crew even though the 2nd mate knocked me down one day when we were lowering the boom to prepare for sea. I was standing in the “bite of the line” which meant I could be caught up if the boom carried away and severely hurt. Taught me a lesson I will never forget. As a member of the deck crew it was our job to stand wheel watch for 1 hour and 20 minutes out of each 4 hour watch. On the Daisy Gray, there was no steering wheel. Instead there was a small steam engine powered by the main engine room boiler. There was a lever that one pushed to the port (left) to turn the rudder to the port, held in the center to stop, any movement of the rudder and push to the starboard (right) to move the rudder to starboard. The little engine turned a drum with chain around it that led to the rudder far in the stern of the ship. When we were steering the engine would be hot and spewing steam from the pistons. The second mate, nice as he was, had a habit of spitting his chewing tobacco on that hot steering engine and the smelly steam would come up into the helmsman’s face. He could just as well have stepped out on the lee side of the wheelhouse and spit overboard but I guess he was making a sailor out of a kid. We had many days of rough weather when we were empty going north. The ship would be like a cork in the sea and the steering engine never stopped! The Daisy Gray could make 10 knots per hour, but in those storms off the coast of Northern California we would often make no more than 2 or 3 knots for hours at a time. It was the custom when a sailor came into the wheelhouse to stand his wheel watch and relieve the sailor who was on the watch, to bring a cup of freshly brewed coffee for the mate. When I brought my first cup up to the 2nd Mate on my watch he immediately spit it out on the deck and swore a long line of colorful words. Turns out no one had told me to put salt and egg shells in the coffee when I brewed it. Another lesson well learned! Even with the long hours of work when in port, the crew managed to get to dances, bowling, roller-skating, and movies. Officers and crew mixed pretty well at these times. Sailing on the Daisy Gray was an experience I will cherish as long as I live. Wish that my son and grandson’s could experience as much. I became an "Able Bodied Seaman" with an
Inland License in 1945 and went to sea first with the Army
Transport Service on a trip to Alaska. Right after high
school, shipped on the Liberty Ship, Eric Hauser, to the
Pacific. Registered for the draft in Honolulu shortly after
my 18th birthday. We were anchored in Okinawa on VJ day.
After that trip I signed on to the Liberty Ship, Vitus
Bering, which carried a load of Grain from Portland, Oregon
through the Panama Canal to Marseilles, France and then
returned to Philadelphia, PA. We were in the middle of the
Atlantic on Christmas of 1945 and endured a major Atlantic
storm. After that trip I took some time off and got married.
Staying close to home alerted the draft board, so enlisted
In 1970 Sexton transferred me to the Northwest Region as Sales Manager and I chose to make my headquarters in Tacoma which was my home town. My mother passed away that same year and I lived in her apartment for about a year before finding and purchasing a waterfront home on Day Island so I could have a place to moor my 60' 1927 boat the F.W. Mulkey which had been a harbor patrol boat for the City of Portland Oregon. (another story) As Sales Manager I traveled the States of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana with the salesmen assigned to those territories. It was a very interesting job and we did well. Too well, perhaps, because the company wanted to transfer me to Cincinnati, Ohio in 1972 to take over a top region in the country. They were also going to drop the Northwest Region and combine it with another region out of San Francisco, so I had no choice. I went out and took a look at the area but couldn't bring myself to leave the Northwest (and my boat) again. This was a difficult choice and left me in Tacoma when jobs were very scarce. There was a billboard saying "The last one to leave Seattle, turn out the lights" because Boeing had laid off so many people at that time. Fortunately (in some ways) I was single by then and only had myself to support. Son Ken and daughter Renee were both married and out of state. It was an interesting time the next few years selling Electrolux Vacuum Cleaners, Wigs, falling for pyramid schemes to "make money", selling food on the road for Allen Foods and whatever else I could think of. I did get married again in 1974 and in 1975 got a job as Business Manager for Northwest Trek, a wildlife park being built by the Metropolitan Park District of Tacoma. The Park was located in Eatonville. We eventually sold the house on Day Island and purchased an unfinished home on Ohop Lake near Eatonville. I still live in that house now since early 1975. The job at Northwest Trek was very interesting and full of political intrigue. The job paid $10,000 a year! That was just over 1/3rd of what I was making with Sexton 5 years before!! For me, the job ended in 1978. I had worked some with a friend that I had purchased the Mulkey from back in 1972 and got a real estate license. Didn't do much with it in 1972, but once again out of work in 1978 it was my ticket to the future. I went to work for a firm that hired a lot of agents. Sherwood and Roberts had an big office in Puyallup and the Broker was from Eatonville. Selling a Raspberry/Rhubarb farm in Puyallup and a couple of homes got me back on my feet. Single again. In Real Estate I went from the Puyallup branch to the new Spanaway Branch, and then worked in a 'Flat Fee' office for my friend John P. Nagle. Finally opened a flat fee office in Tacoma in 1980 because by then I had a Broker's License of my own. The Tacoma office was "Don Cook Realty, Inc" and the corporation had 11 stockholders. The principal stockholder with 40% was my brother Ken Cook who then owned "Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream" in Oakland, Ca. and all the other stockholders were friends of his in California. I borrowed and worked for my 20% share of the stock. In 1981 or so, interest rates for buying real estate got as high as 20%!! It took a lot of creative financing to get property moved and even then, very little was moving. Closed the office in 1983 and I went back to work for John P Nagle Real Estate. We had lost in excess of $100,000 and had just over $1000 in the bank at the close of business, so we kept the corporation active as a corporation but no business. It was in 1985 that a good friend of mine from the Eatonville Lions Club (I had been a member since 1975) offered me his Real Estate business, Eatonville Realty with terms I could hardly refuse. I purchase as Don Cook Realty, Inc and used the $1000 to pay for his furniture and equipment. The terms were 20% of all income which was to pay for rent on his building and purchase the business. There were no agents and no listings, but a great location. By 1986 it was costing more than I wanted to pay the 20%, so made an agreement to purchase the building for $100,000 and the business would be paid for. $1,000 per month until paid off at 8% interest. We paid $20,000 down. With a lump sum payment, the building was paid off in 1994 and the rest is history. |
HISTORY
The Steam Schooner "Daisy Gray"
in the Army as was ultimately assigned to the Dental Service
and served aboard the Hospital Ship Comfort as assistant to
the Dentist.
Became a
salesman, selling to restaurants, schools, hospitals etc for
John Sexton & Co and was first assigned to Spokane,
Washington, then sent to Denver Colorado and in 1965 was
promoted to District Sales Manager for the State of Hawaii
where my family and I stayed until 1970.