A Story About Joe

 Email from Mary Farley - April 3, 2022

Joe (Martinez) loved to feed people.  He wanted to make a business of catering, but more importantly, he wanted to have people share good food and each other's company.  He worked hard to make things fun.  

Growing his own food was a source of pride. His beans were abundant and delicious.  His Roma tomatoes tasted better than any that you could buy at the store, and they were HUGE.  He and I shared their seeds until he got his greenhouse where his early starts grew into enormous vines.  He and Jean shared the tomatoes and burpless cucumbers with the senior center and food banks.  His grass always looked better than anyone else's in the neighborhood.  He caught some incredible fish in Alaska and grilled it to perfection.

I have never seen Begonias like the ones he grew.  Jean brought a basket of the blooms to a performance at the Paramount theater when she and I and (?) Kay were seeing a performance.  I don't remember what the show was but I remember having her put the blooms on the railing of the balcony where we were sitting so we could see how big and beautiful they were.  Our seats were in the first row of the balcony and every person that came by after intermission marveled at their size and color and variety.  Walking to Joe and Jean's front door was a sensual pleasure of sight and fragrance, even in the wintertime.

We had an annual trip to the tulip fields with Joe and Jean.  The color of the blooms, the wonder of the mountains, and the fields felt like praying.  He chased a wide brimmed hat that I was wearing after a gust of wind blew it into a field.  It was not easy for him to retrieve it because he was having trouble with his back.  Ever a knight in shining armor, he bowed as he handed it back to me.

I watched him singing as a clown in The Pirates of Penzance.  He came bouncing up to my Dad and MaryAnn with the biggest grin on his face after the performance.   He had a lovely baritone voice and enjoyed singing with friends or to Jean.

Hearing his adventures as a Boeing employee were like listening to the history of Boeing.  He was a great guide at the Museum of Flight.  He was a loyal fan of the Mariners and of the Seahawks.  In fact, he was loyal to his friends, his religion, and his community

He is so proud of his children.  He told me about their triumphs, their jobs, and their children.  His trips to Denver were so important to him.  He saw his mother and cousins and told me about his boyhood memories.   

That's how I know Joe: family, friends, food and memories.

A Story for Jim's Birthday

 Email from Mary Farley - April 16, 2022

Jim loved the sea and boats. He joined the Navy hoping to see the world on great vessels.  He dreamed of sailing the seas and visiting faraway places. 

I think he was still in high school when he built a wooden dingy under the trees in Bothell following blueprint directions.  As I remember it was made of plywood.  It remained unfinished for a quite a while, and I don't think it ever got painted. But, maybe it was painted red.

The vessel was the object in the story of Kay and Jean rowing upriver on the Sammamish River against the current while the sides collapsed and it began to fill with water, "up to our thighs", according to Jean.  She said they turned it downstream and used the rope on the bow to tow it.  One person in the water doing the side stroke, usually Jean, and the other in the boat baling with a coffee can. I asked how they got it to the river, about 7 blocks from the house.  Jean tells me the boat was very light and they literally carried it through the streets of Bothell to the riverbank. She said they had asked Jim if they could use it and they had "dingy rights".   Jim never said no to his sisters, and I believe her, but he did regret the loss of the boat.  He told me once that "I worked hard on that boat!"

Dad bought a small speed boat that Jim helped him repair and maintain with epoxy coatings. They worked on it in the garage in Bothell. The process involved sticky, stinky material that required sanding after it dried.  The boat became the ski boat moored in Kenmore.  Jim was the spotter for siblings learning to water ski, and later the driver.

Jim had a small sailboat while he was married to Adele.  You have heard the story of his rescue of Kay at twilight while she learning to sail using his boat.  The sailboat got moved to the yard of the home that Jim and Adele purchased on Hood Canal.  It sat on sawhorses while it waited for the days of freedom with wind in your hair.  You have heard the story of Kay and I helping to clear the house for Jim after their divorce and me dropping my end of the boat onto my ring finger and Kay saving my finger with her letterman tool and moxie.

Jim and Marcia bought the sailboat of his dreams, the Bold Endeavour.  They decided to live on board and finish raising their children while they worked and waited for the day when he could sail it to the horizon, to Australia and in the Pacific, etc.  He told me it was a dream of his and it was heartbreaking when he said, "and now I know I will never get to do it".  But he loved living on the boat.  He told me he got to see and talk to the girls more than he did when they lived in their house.  They took the boat on trips to Canada and the San Juans where Marcia, Becky and Cristin learned to sail.  Their stories about those trips are awesome.  The clam shell middens, the virgin forests, the native artists they saw, and fun with Sara being with them.  The boat did not stop the trips for the soccer tournaments or Jim helping the drama club with sets for Cristin's plays. They had camping trips with their RV and the extended Farley family, but the boat was in his heart.

Candy sponsored a trip to Port Townsend every year to celebrate Father's Day.  Candy paid for the rental house at the officer's quarters, and everybody slept and cooked and ate in the house.  On other years, people camped on the beach and shared good food while watching the racoons come out at night and sailing kites in the daytime.

Jim always wanted to take his father for a sail on his boat.  One year, he brought the sailboat and his women to Port Townsend. He got all of us on the boat except for the Alaskans who were not present, and Cathy because Marvin did not swim and did not want to go, old poop. Cathy would have loved it.  Dad sat with MaryAnn in the stern of the boat, and we went into the harbor.  Jim and Becky raised the sails, and suddenly there was quiet and magic with the wind rushing in our face.  MaryAnn was thrilled and told me she wanted to sail again and again.  Jim put Jean in the Dory (don't ask me what the difference is between a dingy and a dory, but the dory seemed more solid) and shoved her out into the water with a camera and one paddle.  I don't know what happened with the idea of 2 paddles per boat.  I was frightened that Jean did not have a life jacket which was very unlike Jim, but she took a great photo of all of us standing together on the side of the boat .  Jean survived and took a great photo that I am looking for.  She did have to paddle back to the boat with one paddle.

Jim could turn that boat on a dime.  I had my camera in a hot pink polyester sack that had originally contained a hot pink wind jacket that I gave mother.  She wore it on trips with us to various places, including Vancouver, Canada.  Mother had a habit of stopping and talking to strangers and sometimes we were afraid we lost her.  Nothing to fear, just look for the lady in the hot pink jacket.  I gave the jacket to Candy after mother died, but I was very sentimental about that sack.  I traveled to various countries with my camera in that sack.  Unfortunately, a gust of wind picked it off the bench where I left it while Jean was taking the photo and I was taking a photo of her. and blew it into the water.  We were sailing with a nice wind and the sack, being buoyant and hot pink was visible but getting father away.  I was really distressed at the potential loss of one of my keepsake memories.  Jim who never said no, and I didn't ask him, swung the boat around sailed up to the spot where the bag was floating and hooked it with ??.  He caught it just as the ferry from Port Townsend was blowing it's horn on a collision course to run us down. He swung the sailboat out of danger and handed the sack to me with his big Jim grin. I don't have to wonder about the language the ferry captain might have been using. The sack is hanging on a door knob in the hall as I write this love letter to our brother, Jim.  Thanks for the memories, Jim.

* I think I already told the story that Jean told me about Jim using a surfboard, a beach towel and an oar for a mast as an improvised sailboat on Hood Canal during a family vacation when he was 16 or 17.  That was boat # 1, after the Sea Scout boat he learned to sale on.

Jim to the Rescue

Email from Mary - February 14, 2022

Jean reminded me of this story.

Kay took Jim's small sailboat out on Lake Washington.  She was gone a long time and it was getting dark.  People were worried.  Jim got the small speedboat that Dad let Candy dock in Kenmore and went out on the lake and found her.  The wind had died, and she had lost a paddle.  She told me many years later she tried rowing to shore but she was just going in circles.

There were no lights on the sailboat, and I have no idea how Jim found her.

Thank God for big brothers.