I hope Jefferson County old-timers will appreciate this bit. In earlier times a larger percentage of citizens were home grown (or at least had spent most of their lives here) and everyone pretty much knew one another. A mere half a century ago, traffic was exceedingly sparse, the paper mill was held in high regard, and some elementary school children walked a mile to school.

I just ran across some old historical odds and ends I've saved from what still seems a bit like "just yesterday." Such things always seem to bring back to life close friends and other acquaintances from my youth. As I sit looking at a page-one clip from a 1966 Port Townsend Leader, it just occurred to me that it's somewhat historic, as I guess I've also become. It truly has been a few years since--as bent-nail fetcher and general inspiration--I helped my father build a new family home back around 1936.

So I will take a break from politics and return to earlier times for a bit. This article concerns one of my really good friends of those days and later. Robert L. Hansen was a living symbol of the American Way during his adulthood--fair-minded, hard-working, dedicated. During the Great Depression and World War II years, we spent our childhoods not far from one another out on San Juan Avenue--I with my younger brothers Dick, Ron and Teddy; he with sister June, brothers Chuck, Pete and Jimmy. In accordance with the Depression years of the 1930s, his father like mine utilized self-sufficiency in raising a family. Both families kept livestock, etc. My father and I on occasion led the old Camfield milk cow a quarter mile or so out San Juan and down behind the Catholic Cemetery to be bred by the Hansen bull.

All of the Hansen and Camfield children attended local schools. Bob, oldest of the Hansen boys (his sister older than he), was several years ahead of me. His brother Pete was my classmate, and we walked to and from school together beginning in first grade. Bob and I went our separate ways for a time after the school years, but were close again by the time he was elected Jefferson County Sheriff.

I remember Bob while sheriff as a live-and-let-live guy. Having grown up with a notoriously mean father and in generally difficult times, he nonetheless was heavily imbued with empathy rather than resentment. He was intensely loyal to established county families and their offspring--and did not impede the normal flow of life with dubiously justified nit-picking. He was a solid ally of the working man.

At the same time, however, he had little patience with law-breakers who might wander in to disrupt the county of which he had been placed in charge. And above all else, he took great umbrage at other authorities pompously assuming jurisdiction or otherwise impeding the Jefferson County style of law enforcement that he had fine-tuned and had purring along.

The news clipping I have before me (Leader, Sept. 29, 1966) is headlined "Court ruling on gentle treatment of criminals exasperates sheriff." In late August, logging equipment owned by Walt Kelly of Brinnon was extensively damaged by gunfire. A fire-suppression tanker truck, a Skagit loader and Caterprlllar tractor were heavily shot up and otherwise vandalized. Hansen turned up evidence implicating seven Tacoma residents, two married couples and three single men.

He went to Tacoma and contacted the police department there, and a detective was assigned to assist him. However, he was told he'd have to go easy because of the rules protecting criminal suspects. I was working at the Leader then, close to Bob and possibly wrote the story--although it also well could have been publisher Dick McCurdy. Dick sold the paper a year later but had always enjoyed covering courthouse news. The photo of Hansen accompanying the news story, read "Manacled with kid gloves."

"One man actually admitted being at the scene of the depredation, owning the weapon and purchasing the cartridges--but wouldn't admit pulling the trigger . . . others disclaimed knowledge of the actual shooting, although agreeing they had been present," Hansen said. "I was advised by the Tacoma authorities that it would be wise to lay off as far as criminal action was concerned." Adult vandalism apparently was countenanced in Tacoma--or perhaps one of the culprits was just a pampered son of that community . . . with connections.

So logger Walt Kelly was left pursuing civil action--which was a slam-dunk. The culprits readily accepted repairing damaged equipment and replacing that which couldn't be repaired.

Just one more frustration for Sheriff Robert Hansen. His usual nemesis was the Washington State Patrol. One highlight of this is covered in my second book of local history. Without coordinating with Jefferson County's top law enforcement official (Hansen), the Washington State Patrol--escorting federal revenue agents, state liquor board representatives (and a Seattle Times photographer--in 1967 mounted a surprise raid on Mel Kivley's garage moonshine distillery in Hadlock. Mel's downfall had been transporting and selling his finished project to at least one Seattle bar. The still, mash, fermenting product, etc. were gleefully scattered and smashed by the Revenuers.

Hansen was totally ignored and left in the dark. His rightful indignation was extreme. He sought audiences with the WSP chief, the governor and state liquor control board--and also wrote state legislators and contacted every sheriff in the state. All to little avail, of course. I know for sure I wrote that Leader story, with great enthusiasm.

Camera in hand, I on one occasion during the Vietnam War accompanied Sheriff Hansen to the Hood Canal Bridge where protestors had gathered to demonstrate during the passage of a ship loaded with munitions scheduled to pass through, outward bound. Both of us were halted short of mid-bridge. WSP officials scurried about, a car of FBI agents quietly showed and drove to a lower-bridge vantage point to observe and Seattle newspaper photographers had been allowed access into the top of a bridge tower. Even the Coast Guard put in a token appearance.

I, like Bob, felt the frustration. He was not even acknowledged as a local law enforcement officer of any consequence. I muttered about the preference accorded big-city photographers and turned to interviewing on the beach such dangerous protestors as the little old lady who'd spent the night there, a young girl in overhauls, etc. Oddly, all the law enforcement people pretty much totally ignored face-to-face contact with such gathered protestors, few of whom actually ventured harmlessly out onto the water in a small boat. I wrote a nice editorial-page piece about all this; it was directed mainly at unnecessary overkill. It also drew an apoplectic WSP officer into my office not long after the Leader hit the streets.

On another occasion, Bob once went down to cool things off between sports fishermen and commercial fishermen from aboard one vessel that had put into the Hudson Point haven for some purpose. He boarded the fishing boat to discuss matters, and they cast off and headed out with him aboard. He eventually was brought back to shore and everything worked out fine. That was one of those live-and-let live moments for all concerned, as diplomacy alone defused things. My news story on this occasion was tinged with the humor, respect and restraint that Bob engendered--and which we always shared.

Bob was quite handy with both the spoken and written word, whatever the occasion might be.

I photographed Bob on one occasion with moonshine that had been concocted in a jail cell by inmates. This was more humorous than anything else. It turned out later that his own daughter had assisted in supplying sugar, etc. to the culprits. However, not being an "attack journalist" of any sort during those serene Port Townsend times, I proceeded Hansen-style and didn't make any sort of pointless overblown big expose about it. Bob did pose for my news photo with the evidence he was keeping under lock and key.

A fond memory of my later years, came after I'd resigned from the Port Townsend Leader late in 1988 after a lifetime's association there. Ken Brink and the PTHS Redskin Booster Club rented a small hall and threw me a nicely-attended retirement party. Old Leader news pages from my years in harness adorned the walls (although the paper itself did not cover the event.) Old friend Bob Hansen was master of ceremonies-and it all brought tears to my eyes. I have carefully preserved for 24 years the Redskin letterman's jacket I was presented that night.

Bob served as Jefferson County Sheriff from 1959 until 1979, and even he now is losing or has lost the memories of his lifetime.

I found the other day that I had been mourning his death prematurely the past several years, having heard about 2009 that he had died. But I was told while writing this he actually is living at a local facility accommodating Alzheimer's sufferers. I was unable to confirm that at the facility involved, which declined to assure me that he actually is alive. Privacy to the extreme, I guess. However, friends at the JCHS research facility assure me that there is no local record of his death.

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And now for something completely different.--an e-mail news note from my brother related to the ongoing battle between health care and wealth disparity, as Dick Cheney was reported getting his heart transplant at age 71: " A young friend died a couple weeks ago from a heart attack. She had no health insurance. Her husband had been off work for a prolonged period because of an injury and they could not afford the cost. Consequently, she did not check into a hospital when she needed to. She was 44."