Tully's on Alki has its regulars, and West Seattle-born Janie Hereford Burleigh is one of them, not that many would call her "regular" with a long, colorful life and memory to match.

She often sits in an oversized chair across from the fireplace, armed with a thick book. Her quiet husband, Darrel, is usually with 10 feet of her, reading the book she'd just finished. (She recommends The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet set in Seattle's Skid Road.) But if you can get her to look up, Janie's twinkling eyes seem to light up the room, and some of her stories she might share of her West Seattle days of yore seem to distract even the most electronically plugged-in hipsters in the place.

WHERE IT BEGAN

"I was born in 1921, and lived at 5646 32nd Avenue (SW) by Juneau St. It was a safer world. My mother wasn't worried about me being out there in the woods by myself all day. I'd bring a tuna sandwich and practice performing. I'd stand on one of those big wide stumps and really let it out without anybody to hear me so I wouldn't get embarrassed.

"The woods were behind our house, before the golf course was built. If you went through the woods you'd find great big holes where people had dumped their pots and all the leftover junk from their stills. The police would knock on doors to catch people with stills in their homes and some of the neighbor kids would stop by and say, 'Hey, they're coming to check everybody.'

"There is the hill when you come down around 35th Avenue, and when it snowed one guy who was a teacher at West Seattle High School built a big long toboggan slide there starting at Juneau and you'd line up to get on that thing.

OFF TO SCHOOL

"I went to Jefferson Grade School (where the Alaska Junction Safeway is). There was a little portable on 35th near Juneau, part of Jefferson School, close to our house. I attended first and second grade there, then the main Jefferson (building).

"I attended Madison which was brand new, a beautiful school. I began to live life through school life at Madison because I got into the girl's club. Because I was a performer, and because the teachers liked to watch me imitate Mae West, ZaSu Pitts, all the old stars, - they were new then, the teachers would forgive me anything. I'd say lines like 'Peel me a grape.' I was such a twit, small, to be imitating big buxom dames."

Janie graduated WSHS class of '40, her husband, class of '39.

DURING THE WAR

"My dad was a chef for Manning's downtown. It was really well-known, like Starbucks is now. He was at the one Mr. Manning started in Seattle, at 6th and Pike. You entered into a small area, the part where they sold coffee, peanuts, and bakery stuff. Then you went down these big wide stairs to the dining room, all booths. There was also another room where banquets were catered.

My husband was away, in the war. I was by myself at the apartment and I hated going home to eat. We were married three years. I worked at Boeing then, and my dad said, 'Just stop off from Boeing at Manning's have your dinner and work about four hours. You'll feel like eating again. And I did.

THE BIG SHOW

"I was in charge of putting on a big show at the telephone company in the Cherry Avenue building where I worked. Other offices on other floors could hear all this screaming, applause and stamping feet. I wrote it like the Academy Awards and had girls come in on roller skates. I gave out 25 different awards to the salesmen and used movie themes. Like one guy with 13 kids received the 'In the Heat of the Night Award'. Another guy had two ex-wives, and a current wife, all working in the building. He got the 'Letter to Three Wives Award'. I'd hit these salesmen good, see.

LOOKING BACK

"My dad was one of 14 kids on a great big farm in Fort Scott, Kansas. He left, probably right out of high school and rode the rails to Salt Lake City. Why he went there I'll never know. These are things you should ask your parents."