Friday, February 21, 2014
FRIENDS CONTINUED FROM A1
went for the war efforts,” Singer said. “So these guns were really something special to have.” Singer said one of his favorite memories was when he and Harold would sneak into the kitchen at Harold’s house, just after Harold’s mom had pulled fresh homemade bread from the oven. “We’d slice off the ends and put butter and jam on them and run off,” Singer said. “His mom would be yelling, ‘Stop Harold and Eddie.’ ” They all recalled when several of them were “talked in to” dressing in hula skirts and dancing on stage for the entire high school. And they remembered, too, that Singer was always the boy
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that all the girls wanted to date. “Look at him,” said Dahl. “He looks like he could be Tony Bennett’s brother. He’s always been the best looking of us.” Even Mary Lou Sampson Dahl agreed. “In high school, he was hitting on me all the time,” she said. “And then he’d dump me for the new girl.” Meanwhile, Harold said he sat in-waiting, reading comic books, ready to pick up the pieces. He and Mary Lou ended up dating, got married and have been together ever since. They all spent time in military service, most of them were in the Air Force during the Korean War era. They all married and had families. Their careers took them various places in Washington. Singer worked many years for Boeing and also sold cars with Jim.
Page A9
Contributed photo
Friends for life celebrate their 80th birthdays together last week in Silverdale. In front are Harold Dahl, left, and Jim Hajek. Back row are Ed Singer, left, and Glen Pearson. Jim owned the Bremerton Datsun dealership at Sixth and Naval in Bremerton. Harold took over his father’s
business which became Dahl Glass and is now run by his son. Glenn has his own business and was a
helicopter pilot. But throughout the celebration of their 80th birthdays (Jim will be 80
popular. At least one member of the Kitsap Transit board, Poulsbo Mayor Becky Erickson, remained skeptical. “It’s no secret that I have not been a supporter of passenger only ferries because they are way too expensive for the amount of customers they serve,” Erickson said. “If Bremerton, Port Orchard and South Kitsap wanna move forward, that’s great.” Erickson said that the creation of ferry tax districts could affect some purchasing decisions, especially when it comes to big ticket items like cars and homes. “I’m extremely torn,” she
said. “Folks in South Kitsap have been pushing this for years. The subsidies that are required are enormous. Where do they come from? If we do districting, there are huge portions of this county that absolutely do not support this because they don’t see a benefit.” During a transit board meeting Tuesday in Bremerton, Clauson talked about the possibility of eventually teaming up with King County to operate a passen-
ger only ferry system. “We should definitely look at working with them if it makes sense,” he said. “I’ve also talked to them about operating the service for us. Would it make more sense for King County to step up and operate the service for us?” Clauson also noted the “interesting wrinkle” that would be created if Kitsap Transit establishes three routes with three boats for each of those routes — two
in September and Glen will be 80 in October), they kept coming back to their friendship. Although they all played sports and competed against each other, they claim they’ve never had a time when they weren’t talking to each other. Harold thinks it’s because they bonded so well when they were young. “It was war time,” he said. “We were all scared. We all had to go through bomb drills and blackouts and somehow, that just made our friendship stronger. There were no iPads or computers. Our lives were about being together and sharing time.” As it is today, he said. “I make sure to get on the phone and call each of these guys regularly,” he said, “because when you’re 80, you really don’t know how much more time you have.”
Kitsap Transit seeks passenger only ferry plan BY KEVAN MOORE KMOORE@SOUNDPUBLISHING.COM
Kitsap Transit is putting out a request for proposals this week in hopes of hiring a consultant to develop a longrange plan for cross Sound passenger only ferry service. Kitsap Transit Executive Director John Clauson says that bids should come back by March 19 and will then be reviewed by a special committee. He said he hopes to see a final report by the end of August. The agency is poised to spend up to $300,000 for the plan. The request for proposals comes at a time when the state Legislature is considering a pair of bills that would
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allow for the creation of special ferry districts in counties with less than 1 million people that could establish up to a three-tenths of one percent sales tax. When the bills were first introduced, the taxing rate was set at sixtenths of one percent. Two prior efforts to create a ferry district have failed in Kitsap County. The first attempt failed in 2003 with 61.3 of voters saying “no.” A second effort to create a ferry district in 2007 was rejected by 54.5 percent of voters. The new legislation, though, would allow for the creation of smaller, more targeted districts where passenger ferries would presumably be more
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boats operating with one boat as backup. “We’d assume it would be a lot larger operation than (King County’s) with the two vessels they have now,” he said. The report will look at the feasibility of various routes, docking and maintenance facilities, environment considerations, the history of passenger only ferry service in Puget Sound and many other factors.
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