'Just One Big Fomily' Aboord Al Peirce Co. Coos Boy Gorrier

The captain and crew of the good ship Coos Bay arrived from Oregon last month with more than 2,500,000 board feet of Douglas Fir to unload at Los Angeles Harbor. More than a million feet was stowed below decks and the balance was stacked topside in long rows and high piles from the bow to the stern of this 350-foot vessel.

This was, of course, just one of the three round trips made monthly by the Coos Bay, which is owned and operated by the Al Peirce Co., distributors of Pacific Coast forest products to retail lumber dealers in Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Arkansas and Texas.

This high volume of lumber sales is made through the Long Beach offices under the capable management of Bill lfanen, a veteran in the industry, who is assisted by Tom Duncan and Anne Vantusko. secretarv to the sales staff.

The lumber transport vessel and crew are in command of Captain Ernest Bliss, a veteran in the trans-Pacific service, Orient and around the world. The 2l seagoing lumberjacks really live "high on the hog" while at sea, and also at dockside. Meals fit for a king, with several entree selections at.every sitting, make these jobs run at a premium in the rnclustry.

The officers are also permitted to have their wives aboard on frequent trips coastwise and, at the time this coverage was made, Babs Bliss, wife of the skipper, and Dickie Stenbro, wife of the chief engineer, were passengers aboard this floating industrial hotel. Everybody is a member of the family and the social hall midships sports a 21" TY lor both officers and crew alike.

Skipper Ernest Bliss is ably assisted in his navigation of the lumber cargo ship by Chief Officer Fred Blibingat. The executive officers are assisted by two watch officers who are holders of masters and chief papers. In addition to the lumber workers and crane operators aboard ship, the Coos Bay staffs five deckhands, a kitchen crew of four and an engineer staff of four. It requires 72 hotrs to make the voyage from Coos Bay, Oregon, to Los Angeles Harbor at Wilmington.

A "switch" was made when the vessel completed discharge at Pier 123 and moved to the Sun Lumber Company main yard docking facility. Later Captain Bliss moved to the Consolidated Lumber Co. docks for further discharge of cargo.

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Washington's birthday is February 22nd', and patriotic Americans pay tribute on that date to that wondrous man.

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Washington was, and will always be, the "father of his country": "first in peace, first in war and first in the hearts of his countrymen," as "Light-horse llarry" Lee (the father of Robert E. Lee) so wondrously said.

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IIe was a great man, a truly great man, and we can keep right on saying that over and over. When his country needed him he gave every ounce of his strength, devotion and magnificent leadership.

BY JACK DIONNE

And when the emergency ended he went back to his people and his home, denying all declarations that he was an "irreplaceable" man. He knew this to be a great nation, even in its infancy; and he knew that God would provide men of wisdom and devotion to take up where he left off.

Which was one of the chief proofs of his greatness. No man is truly great in whom the power-lust holds sway.

Washington had much of the personal modesty that marked the character of Lincoln, although he lacked Lincoln's magic gift of self-expression.

When he left his beloved Mount Vernon to take up the great cause of the Presidency, he wrote: "With the best ' disposition to render service to my country in obedience to its call, but with less hope of answering its expectations."

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Wrote John Richard Green: "No nobler figure ever stood in the forefront of a nation's life. Washington was grave and courteous in address; his manners were simple and unpretentious; his silence and the serene calmness of his temper spoke of a perfect self-mastery. {. {< {.

"But there was little in his outer bearing to reveal the grandeur of soul which lifts his figure, with all the simple majesty of an ancient statue, out of the smaller passions, the meaner impulses, of the world around him.

"rt was only as the weJry J*n, i""rra on that the colonists discovered, however slowly and imperfectly, the greatness of their leader; his clear judgment, his heroic endurance, his silence under difficulties. his calmness in the hour of danger and defeat; the patience with which he waited, the quickness and hardness with which he struck; the lofty and serene sense of duty that never swerved from its task through resentment or jealousy; that never through war or peace felt the touch of a mean ambition; that knew no aim save guarding the freedom of his fellow countrymen,

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