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rI C7ULI 1CBy DENNIS AUVIL Logging News Editor The son of a Baptist preacher who ministered to the loggers of Bydefwood when it w3s a thriving mill town has collected his memories of those years into a book called ‘ Stories of Western Loggers.The bock, by the lau* Ted Good a in. is a collection of writings Goodwin authored o\*r the years. 2 sensitive account of the community and its people: how they worked lived and died.The author, who lived to see his book published by Loggers World of Chehalis. died Dec. I in Sania Cruz, Calif., u hi re he suffered a heart all ack. He w as 77.’They call it a camp Goodwin said of Ry dlt; r u ood in the early 1930’s,' but it is a city, 3 far better city than many link cities of older record and no/e gradual maturity.“Situated among the hills, yet cot on the bills, the houses stand row on row. neat and orderly and peaceful. Bright flowers 3dorn many front yards, gardens of vegetables at the back, ar.d there, along ifcc edge of the hills will be two cow s. ar.d the one great with calf.“The bees have their air lines from the nectar-laden hills to the hives by the woodshed. .Vo, it is not a bad fife at all, the life in Ryderuood/’ Goodwin w rote in 1*31.Hew rote about the timber fallcrs, the backers and saw filers as well and io!dw by lhe loggers shorten the legs of lhe»r pants. They must doI catch or hang up in the brush, he said.The community’ was boom Lag when Good w in wrole in 193$, “There i$ plenty of excitement in the world's largest logging city. Action is plentiful in an operation that daily loads a train of logs more than a mile long..The men that moved the togs from the woods to market were a hardy bunch and they worked hard at a dangerous la sk_ “ Besides the mov ing lines of w ire rope singing and whirring through the woods.” Goodwin said, “there are falling trees, flying limbs and bark, sliding and rolling togs and many other dangers to a void.■‘Occasionally cars of logs behind a locomotive on those steep mountain track* over-tax the air brakes and make a spectacular runaway down the grade. The train crew jump for theirlives and think themselves lucky toescape with minor injuries.As the preacher in a bustling logging community. Good win spent a great deal of his lime in the woods, working ar.d talking with the men. He recalled one day w hen he helped rig the spar and lay the lines.“I worked just one day on rig-up with Boss Sam Olson at Ryderuood. That Swede was a genius of speed and efficiency. Good* in said.“li was work, sweaty work, grunting work but it was fun too. Every man knew his job and did it. Some of our rigging glows looked like rags hardly-fit to shine shoos when we got through a day but we felt proud “1 1 wu v wo iwywvjl.Timber!And then there was the company store. Owned by the Long Bell Company. “Any logger worthy of the pitch on his tin panis or Use tallow on his shoes has memories 0? the company store. Goodw In said.“Whether it was a big store or a small one it was a part of our lives. We bought on credit and we squawked about the high prices.“But the facts are something else.” Goodwin remembered. “Those prices were not so high after all. Tte stuff was of good quality. The manager was a gentleman and the clerks were nicepeople, at least as go-ad as the customers. And the credit was awfully handy.”There is a chapter on thelongshoremen's strike that shut down Pacific Northwest ports in 1931 and forced thousands of loggers out of work.“Our Kyderwood men wanted to work but not askiddcr was fired/' said Goodwin. Not a yarder « histled nor a cat snarled. Ou; hundred mites of logging railroad were dead quiet. Only a skeleton crew of watchmen arxi the fire guard in the woods were working ”There is also the tale of the camp robbers, who even in the 1530's were always willing to share a logger’s^ d mm ili.I.l A « ♦ Inn aL • rt ^ AaAand Spokane. And as roads improved in the late 1930s, the company built bigger and tougher trucks to carry almost anything that could be moved, including woodAccording to Goodwin, there were two kinds of loggers in early Ryder-wood...those native to the Pacific Northwest and those from the south, affection a lely called 1 a r-h eels.Pioneer blood Is hot in 'em and they aren't scared of hardship because they ha\e always been familiar with it.” Good w in said of the southern loggers.They are a goad race of Americans, generally, although some of them never did quite understand or appreciate the prohibition and game laws. They hadn't been raised by such laws and it ss hard In get a tar-beel to go back cn his raisin's.Goodwin described the Northwest logger as altogether different. “He was born and raised in the rain without benefit of turpentine, sorghum or camp mcelin's. Religiously he comes near being a heathen/'“He’s tough as a vine maple.” said Goodwin.''and really likes a fight. He is a noisy chap at work or play, and he uses altogether tco many cuss words, but he will give you the shirt off his h.ick if he thinks you need It worse then
Newspaper Details
Centralia Daily Chronicle
Centralia, Washington, US
Fri, Dec 23, 1977
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
Timberland R.
WA, USA 07 Jun 2019
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