Introduction

In the year of 1998, 81 years after arriving onto this planet, it was time to change my vocation. When I learned that the eldest of my three sisters, Edith, had a grandson, Gregory, who knew how to put manuscripts into space without the need for an expensive publisher, I decided to become a writer. My first 53 years of mostly economic depression were spent looking for financial security. It was my mother, Greg's great grandmother, who started the Yale Pickle Company. Sam Lowney, Greg's grandfather, my brother Louie, and I eked out our livelihood working in that business during our prime years. At age 45 I decided to look for security with a low or no risk real estate investment; in 1968, at age 53, our income was adequate. Income from a land investment in downtown Seattle and from a parking operation on Piers 50 and 51 made being a farmer in a Jewish neighborhood on a moshav in Israel affordable. We left our son, Larry, and nephew, Mark Lowney, his wife and three small boys to look after the two piers, and left with our daughter Debby.

The young Lowney family seemed to be having a ball as operators of the Surfside, a small fish and chip café operating out of what had been my parking operation office on the Alaska Way boardwalk. This little business was established accidentally. We were stuck with a soft ice cream machine as the result of a failed restaurant venture on the old Skagit Belle stern-wheeler. The parking office was a decent structure perfectly located; it didn't take more than a day for an old pro like me to see that the ice cream machine could be put to good use. The parking attendant could easily sell ice cream cones to waterfront strollers. Cars were mostly all day parkers and so he would sit and read magazines most of the day. Well, making this long story short, we soon added fish and chips and even deep fried chicken. It was more than I had bargained for. My sister Edith's son, Mark, was and I'm sure still is a food lover; he seems to enjoy preparing the stuff as much as eating. He was a natural; the young Lowneys were happy to take over and raise their three terrorists on the Seattle waterfront.

So Jen and I took our 12 year old Debby and left the chaos on those piers. Thirty years of adventure followed. Here is some of the stuff that came out of my 81-year-old hard drive to float around in cyberspace, and be read by descendants of our family.

Thanks to Gregory.

HARRY GLICKMAN, edited by JEANNETTE, August 2001