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Special Investigation

Last Friday night a couple from church invited Jamie and I along with some other friends over for dinner and some games. After we had finished eating the conversation turned to camping. The host couple really enjoy camping and have lots of experience with it. Along with that experience comes stories. After one particularly humorous story our host began to share about one of his first forays into the wild.

A couple decades ago he had decided to prepare for military boot camp by taking a long backpacking trip through Yosemite. Well in those days camp food was a lot heavier, less nutritious, and the equipment just wasn't as good as we have now. By the end of the trip he was 10 pounds lighter but well accustomed to hiking.

After the story was finished our host made a trip to the garage and brought out the pack he had used. It basically a canvas sack with pockets attached to a rattan and wood frame. This was a store bought pack and apparently cutting-edge gear at the time. I was quite taken by the pack. It was light, functional, solid, and unlike any other backpack I'd seen. There was a label sewn on declaring the pack was made by "Harland Eastwood Company, Seattle. Made in USA". I took a couple pictures.

Pic1, Pic2, Pic3.

I had to find out more about this Harland Eastwood company. Were they still in business? What is a sack like that worth?

Well, of course you have to start with Google so off I went with the name "Harland Eastwood".

First hit : Three Fingers, a bit of history... This post was written by someone who was on a mission to find the owner of a an old ski found in a mountain lookout in the Cascades. Three Fingers Lookout is an amazing place. It's a cabin that was built on the tip of a mountain peak in 1931 (or at least what was left of the peak after they blew 15 feet off to make room.) Check out these pictures. It seems that our man Harland a fairly interesting guy.

Harland Eastwood was a remarkable man. As an athlete in high school he excelled in track, football and basketball. He got started in mountain rescue during the Delmar Fadden search on Mt Rainier in the winter of 1936. He was an early member of the ski patrol at Snoqualmie Pass. At the 1940 Silver Skis race, he was stationed just under McClure Rock when Sigurd Hall crashed in front of him and was killed. Eastwood was one of the first to reach Hall's body. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, he manufactured climbing equipment, including ice axes and alpenstocks, as the Harland Eastwood Company. He accomplished all these things with only one arm, the other having been lost in a hunting accident when he was a teenager.

Alright, but what about his company? Where is it now and what else did they make?

The next hit revealed there is a chapter in the book Alpine Voices by Malcolm Bates that has an interview with Harland but it doesn't look like any libraries nearby around have a copy.

The next hit had some good information too. The city of Ritzville WA has an Arts Festival and a website. The website knows of a Harland Eastwood Jr and provides a short biography of the man but no contact information was provided. I assumed this had to be Harland's son. Another search showed that at one time Harland Jr. submitted some articles to Nostalgia Magazine. They were able to provide me with an email address back to Ritzville which ended up bouncing. So I sent another email to a museum in Ritzville and they were able to forward my letter on to Harland.

This is what he said :

What an usual email and request. I certainly wasn't expecting this one. While it is an unusual email, the fact of the matter is....I do know something about the company. As you probably already know I am named for my father. He was a Sr. an I am a Jr. The back pack was made by my father's company about 1940 or 1941. Dad had about eight or ten employees. I really do not know the exact date that he started the company, but it was sometime after mid 1938. They were forced to close because of the war, perhaps sometime in late 1942. The OPA was the culprit. They regulated all the prices of the merchandise and the price was so low that dad could not even break even. Dad was always kind of bitter about it for many years afterwards. He would have loved to have continued in that line of business for many more years and was doing quite well. At one time he was even manufacturing his own one piece ice axes. The two piece tangs would often break in extreme low temperatures. Dad always thought they were better than anything else on the market. I may even have one of those left somewhere. I know that I used to at one time, but that was before we moved over from Seattle. I don't recall seeing it lately though.

I think that my mother did all of the sewing. She was an excellent seamstress. They made quite a variety of products too. Somewhere I have an old sales brochure that may have that pack listed. I too have a pack that looks almost identical to the one that Mr. Henthorn sends pictures of. Dad had representatives in Fresno, California and the pack in question may well have come from one of those distributors. Dad also had representatives in a number of foreign countries. I remember seeing lots of paperwork around the house when I was a kid. I believe he had a representative in one of two South American countries, but I am not sure which ones at this point. The only ones I remember for sure are Switzerland, Austria, Norway and Sweden. The stamps from the correspondence got me started collecting stamps many years ago. I am sure that I still have all the stamps in an album somewhere.

It is amazing that the old pack, in Mr. Henthorn's photos, looks to be in quite nice condition for its age. I had no idea that nay of them survived this long. Thanks for passing this email along.

Regards,

Harland Eastwood Jr.

He included scans from what looks like the 1941 Harland Eastwood Catalog which includes a sack that looks almost identical to the one I saw last Friday. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the No. 205 All Sports Pack.

Pic 1, Pic 2, Pic 3, Pic 4.

Thank you Mr. Eastwood for your letter which now makes this blog the best source of information on the internet about your father's former company.

US vs. Mexico

This Wednesday the US men's national soccer team will play a "friendly" game against Mexico in Huston, Texas. I think mentioned in a previous post why they're my favorite team in sports and all the times they face Mexico have been great matches. The rivalry between the two teams just makes every US win that much more satisfying. Even though there is really nothing on the line but honor for either side both coaches have called up their best players from around the world. The US has a record of 8-0-1 on home soil against Mexico and the last time they played and beat Mexico them was in the 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup final.

I'm not going to be able to watch the game since there's youth group at the same time, but I will be wearing my jersey and hoping for good news when I get home.

Here's a brief video compilation from that win against Mexico last summer featuring an incredible volley by Benny Feilhaber and Landon Donovan in the open field where he's so dangerous. Those two are going to be back for this along with Josmer Altidore and Clint Dempsey (my favorite). Final score will be 3-1 with goals from Altidore and Donovan.

Megan and Phil's Wedding

Because I was part of the wedding party I didn't get to take as many pictures as I would have liked. But the official photographer has put up a slide show with some really great pictures.

Megan and Philip's Wedding Photos

Now at the end of the reception there were a couple pictures of all the SJSU crusade people, crusade house guys, and crusade girls. I only have a photo of the second one, so if you have those photos can you please up them up on flickr or email them to me or something?

January 17th, 2008

Several weeks ago my friends Philip and Megan married each other. Weddings are very significant events and have far reaching and life changing consequences. One of those consequences was me being locked in a tube with a 150 mile per hour vertical wind.

Originally Ben wanted to do actual sky diving as the bachelor party event but that was vetoed by the bride. But then he heard about iFlySFBay which is a business that advertises itself as a sky diving simulation experience. Simulated sky diving, while relatively new, still has a better safety record that actual sky diving and so was approved by various concerned parties. After work on the evening of the 17th I picked up Cary and we fought the traffic up to Union City. The building is very uniquely designed and dictated almost entirely by its function which is to generate high velocity vertical winds. Essentially it is shaped like a horizontal number eight. The first thing you do when arriving is sign a release form and then head upstairs to watch a safety/training video. The video teaches several hand signals that the instructor will use in the tunnel to give direction in how to change your body position in order to best "fly". This video seems ridiculous as it features an overzealous flight instructor and bucktooth kids in the wind tunnel. Later it became clear that the wind sculpts everyone's face into new shapes.

Then everyone put on elbow pads, knee pads, earplugs, a jumpsuit, helmet, and goggles and entered the staging area. The air shaft is in the center of the room and is made of Plexiglas. The floor of the chamber is a mesh of aircraft cable and if you look down you can see down to the giant louvers in the basement that guide the air up. There are two openings into the main shaft from the staging area and two airtight doors that connect the staging area to the larger room where people can watch.

When it's your turn to enter the chamber you stand in the doorway and then lean in and the instructor balances you over the air. The goal is to be stable enough to float inside without needing the instructor to hold you in place. This is not very easy.



It doesn't feel at all like falling, or flying, or anything that natural. I spent most of my time inside trying to figure out how I could keep from moving around towards the walls. They keep the airspeed pretty low for beginners to keep them from flying up the 40 feet or so to the top of the tube but that means that to stay off the ground you need to catch all the air you can.

Later the instructors hopped in and they cranked up the airspeed. Check it out.

408-834-3289

408-834-3289 is my new cell phone number.

If you haven't already heard.

Terrific Fruit Crate Label

I saw this great picture on BoxOfApples.com, a website that describes itself as the "online museum (and gift shop) of fruit crate labels from the early 1900s to 1950s". It's pretty shocking how efficient this image it is at marketing produce in an art-deco/futuristic style. This would get even Buck Rogers salivating.