<Begin Segment 11>

AI: Now, other memories about the market?

JM: I can remember one incident that involved myself and Tok. His truck went bad, I think, one day, and we were both going to take our produce in. But his truck went bad, so I loaded all his stuff on my truck, but my load was up front, which wasn't very heavy. His stuff was pretty heavy, and I loaded it all in the back of my truck and we, at that time they had this ferry from Medina to Leschi Park. It was a side-wheeler ferry, and they carried vehicles.

But anyway, we went up, got on the ferry all right, but trying to get off the ramp, why, it was pretty steep and all the load was in the back, and the truck upended. The front end went up in the air and got hung up on a bolt. The load didn't come down until some guy came and pulled a rope, and everything went on the ferry. The whole load, everything. We had a real mixed salad, there. Strawberries, lettuce, cauliflower, everything else, and I guess the captain, he was pretty mad about it. He missed the one ferry on it, so we had to carry the stuff that was on the ferry, and put it in a tent, put it back in the truck, and went back home and repacked it. [Laughs] But personally I, I really, really felt bad because, money was not that easy, and lose a load like that... we retrieved some of it, but it was okay, but that's one of the incidents that happened.

AI: Oh, well that was one of the bad days. [Laughs] Well now, that was when you had the ferry. Before the ferry, how did you get your vegetables over to market?

JM: There always was a ferry there. As far as I can remember, there was always a ferry there, but...

TH: Sure seemed like it.

JM: Yeah. But when we lived in Yarrow, there used to be a passenger boat that'd go from point to point. Like, from Yarrow Point to Hunts Point, and then Evergreen Point and then to Seattle. And that was a passenger ferry, but boat. It wasn't a ferry. For passengers only. Because there were more walk-ons than there were vehicles. Anyway, that was it. The other two ferries, the two ferries that were off across the lake was at Medina to Leschi, Kirkland to Madison Park.

TI: They went to Roanoke, too, on Mercer Island, from Leschi. Fortuna.

JM: Oh, that was Mercer Island, because they only had one wooden bridge on the east channel. Mercer Island.

TI: Yeah, that's right.

JM: But no bridge from Mercer Island to Seattle. So Mercer Island also was really isolated, it was, there was no one there, just wild animals, and I remember one dairy farm there. He was close to the bridge so he brought his milk and stuff to the eastside.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.