Whenever the Washington Huskies rowing crew wins the world championship I know Gregory Heights resident Guy Harper will be dancing in the street because he was stroke for the Huskies in 1954 when they won the national trophy.

They won again last week and I asked him to send me a photo of his historic Husky triumph. He did. He sent us a picture of him in his rowing shorts. He is wearing horn rim spectacles. We were surprised since we did not realize wearing glasses was a requirement for setting the pace on a crew boat.

I have had some adventures in boats that did not garner any trophies but a lotta years ago I took three of our boys for opening day fishing at Lake Fenwick near Midway. Our 8-foot dinghy was too small for all of us so I rowed by myself while the boys stood on a big log jutting out into the lake. I made a quite a stir among the other fisherman until I got into trouble.

The kids saw the whole disaster.

I was leaning over the side of the stinking boat. It started shrinking when I was not thinking. I lost my mesh onion bag with our peanut bitter samiches when my blinking body slid overboard.

The kids were not four feet away from me and do you think they would jump in and rescue me? Fat chance. Ten-year-old Michael managed to snag the mesh lunch bag and the soggy samiches with his worm hook and a crafty cast.

The eight year old urged me to swim ashore or wade. The six year old had to go to a bathroom...bad. I was soaking wet and soon to be hungry.

Several years later, a bunch of local would-be-boater friends rented a 40-footer and set out to sea on Puget Sound to play poker. We got through the Ballard locks and headed for a place somebody knew of called Indianola. We tied up at a pier that West Seattleite Bob Pickrell knew about. We all dove head first into a goofy poker game about four in the afternoon. We were prepared to stay tied up and play all night.

I was ahead about ten bucks when I noticed a light moving outside a window. Wow!, it was a guy wading. The tide had gone out and he was crabbing in two feet of water. Suddenly the big boat lurched and the table took a sudden list. The chips and cards hit the floor. We all clambered to the upper deck where we spent the next ten hours sleeping on our feet while lying down. How were we to know the tide had a plan of its own.

They don't have to worry about tide changing on Lake Burien but they have other hazards.

It was on a hot summer day. I asked Ed Fancher if I could take the kids swimming in front of his home on the lake. He said sure, so we hustled over from our house in White Center. Mike was about 14, Ken was 12 and Tim was 10. The minute we got there Mike spotted a fried chicken bucket floating about 100 yards off shore and wanted permission to swim out and get it. I feared it was too far for him so only after he bugged me about being able to swim that far and then using the bucket as a float to hang onto that I foolishly let him do it.

As he started out from shore I checked for boats on the dock and saw a small dinghy tied up.

When he got there easily he grabbed the bucket to rest. The water logged chicken holder collapsed.

I was yelling..."tread water" and racing for the dinghy. I was instantly in the oar-less boat paddling my hands like crazy. Praying aloud he could stay afloat till I got there just in time for him to get a hand on the transom. Luckily I was able to get him to the dock.

Thanking God for his help sure worked. Even if he did forget the oars.

I was not so lucky fishing a Canadian lake with Reid Hale, at that time editor of the Highline Times. As the boat boy pushed us away from the dock we had gone about twenty yards when my wallet slipped out of my back pocket.

Kerplunk....it sank to the bottom in five feet of dark and weedy bottom.

All the king's horses plus several boat boys groped the lake bottom for a few hours and never found hide nor four hundred dollars in Canadian bills.