Peter Joseph describes the following incident as ironic. I think it may have been fortunate for a 67-year-old woman.

Peter and Jeanne had a recent visit from Caroline, their 25-year-old granddaughter. She is from Virginia and went to Virginia Tech and James Madison University to be trained as a physician’s assistant. A week ago last Friday, she was in town and found out that she had passed the boards exams and now could legally practice as a PA. They all decided to celebrate by going over to Snoqualmie Falls for lunch and enjoying the falls. After all, it has been raining 89 out of the past 90 days, so that water was running fast and big.

After enjoying lunch they headed back, coming through Seattle heading home via the Bainbridge Island ferry. Shortly after the ferry left the dock in Seattle, Peter noticed that the engines had suddenly stopping. He is a retired Coast Guard captain so he knows these things.

Caroline headed aft to see what the excitement might be, and it turns out a 67-year-old woman had jumped overboard in an apparent suicide attempt. The rescue crew on the ferry jumped into action and retrieved the woman. Then the call went out seeking anybody on board the ferry who might have some medical training.

On her first day of being a physician’s assistant, Caroline stepped forward and helped save the woman’s life. Ironic? I think not. Caroline is now heading to her first job as a PA in a pediatric emergency room in Loudon County, Virginia, and she is welcome back anytime.

EXCHANGE FROM CROATIA

The East Jefferson Rotary Club foreign exchange student this year is JJ Klaric from Zagreb, Croatia. We try to give each student at least two families to live with during the school year. JJ just finished the first semester with one family and moved in with a second one. It is in my neighborhood here in Port Ludlow’s North Bay, and he is surrounded by Rotarians from the club.

Within walking distance are Pete Leenhouts, Brad Martin, Tim Jablonski, Quentin Goodrich, John Erickson, Pat Cooper, Harold Brunstad and me. Poor JJ. If he so much as jaywalks, we will know. And we worry about satellites watching us.

ON SATELLITES

Speaking of satellites, I am reminded of my time in the Navy on the USS Belmont, an intelligence-gathering ship, in the late 1960s. The ship was decommissioned shortly after my tour, given that our satellites began doing all that surveillance work instead of something as obvious and susceptible as a U.S. Navy ship.

You may have heard that the 50th anniversary of the capture of the USS Pueblo by the North Koreans was last week. The Pueblo was similar to but smaller than the Belmont.

In the same vein, as I mentioned last week, BJ and were looking forward to seeing the new movie “The Post,” which deals with secret information released to the press concerning the Vietnam War. Living in Washington, D.C., and working in the intelligence community, we were again struck by how little we realized was going on and yet we were in the middle of the story.

I happened to go to a couple of breakfast meetings recently, one in Sequim and one in Port Angeles. It is really dark out on Highway 104 at 6:30 in the morning!

Ned Luce writes this column monthly from his home in Port Ludlow, where he is active in the community. He can be reached at nedluce@sbcglobal.net.