My baby, all cleaned and polished....this was taken in the parking lot of the Autozone in Washougal on March 17th, one day after cleaning it. You can't tell, bu tthe tires are gleaming with polish. The rims I spent an hour cleaning, but they need major restoration, which you can't tell from these pictures.
These pictures are from last Sunday, on a beach of Riffe Lake, just outside of Norton.
The lake is absolutely beautiful, and it's changed a bit since I was last there in October of 2004. I didn't take more pictures than that for a few reasons:
1) I was very much lost in thought (more on that in a minute)
2) I was a bit annoyed by a fat old woman who picked 20 feet away from me to chill out and fuck around with a stick and some rocks when she had the entire beach to herself, after wandering aimlessly around in my line of sight while I was sitting on a log deep in thought.
3) The drive up there was chaotic, and not the relaxing drive I wanted to have. I-5 was a packed madhouse for being a Sunday.
4) I had just come from Mossy Rock, and didn't find closure with what I went there to do.
And on that note, here's an abridged version of my connection with Riffe Lake, Dog Mountain, and the town of Mossy Rock:
View attachment 25401
That's the only surviving picture I have of myself, back when I was a hunky 21 year old guy in October of 2004 (October 12th, I believe); in much better shape than I am now. I was hiking with two friends up to the top of an 800 foot mountain called Dog Mountain to watch some para-gliders fly off the crest of this mountain and down to the beach below.
I had a Ruger P89DC on my hip in case there was a place that I and my then-friend could safely shoot (he had a Taurus PT-92). There wasn't, so we kept them holstered. Open carry in this area is legal....or was at the time; I don't know if that's changed since then.
It was absolutely beautiful. Clear, sunny Fall day, and the lake from high-up was gorgeous. If you had told me at the moment this picture was taken that I would be sitting in the back of a police car that evening, I would have called you crazy.
And speaking of "crazy"....I was with two people, Shawn and Billie Olinger, who were married in a happy relationship. I had gone up there that day after Shawn called me the day-before and invited me to visit. They were both older than I....I want to say late-20s. I met Shawn when I was working in Private Security as a contractor at a BNSF rail yard at Terminal 6 in Portland. We were in charge of security at the Ford and Nissan new car lot. It was an incredibly boring, extremely tedious job, and when I look back at it now I get angry that I wasted so much time at this damn job when I could have done something far far better. I knew people at BNSF at the time, and at two trucking companies that worked out of the Terminal, so I had connections to get a better career, but I didn't take it. That in itself is a topic for another time.....
Anyways, Shawn and I hit it off because we both enjoyed shooting, and we both had a mutual dislike of our boss. So we became pretty good friends. At the time, I had a lot of personal issues going on, mainly related to my work schedule (I worked graveyard and traveled around to different sites, which took a massive toll on my health) and my awful relationship with my parents (also a lovely topic for another time....), so I was happy to have a friend whom I could relate to, to kill the loneliness and bitterness of everyday life.
Shawn had told me, during prior visits, about his juvenile criminal history, and the fact that he and Billie lived out of a 5th wheel trailer towed by an old F-150 should have been big red flags for me, that perhaps he wasn't someone I wanted to associate with. Adding to this at the time was the fact that I had just made Civilian Adviser to the Vancouver Police Explorer Post after 6.5 years as an Explorer Scout. I thought, at the time, that I could read people pretty well.
Boy was I wrong. Shawn was an absolute psycho, and I never even saw it coming.
Later that night, (I'm skipping ahead a bit here and leaving out details, sorry....this story is difficult for me), Shawn and I were in a shooting with two local teens. Shawn came close to killing them, while I tried to talk him out of it while trying not to faint of fright at the same time. Fucking A, it was terrifying. Far and away the scariest experience of my life.
I sat in the back of a police car for 2 hours while an investigation was conducted. I was initially charged, but not cuffed, for two counts of Felony Assault, which I did not commit. Thankfully, using the skills I had developed while studying in the Explorer Post, I was able to talk to the officer somewhat on his level, and convinced him that it was actually Shawn who had shot at these teens. He called the teens, and they both agreed with me. But Shawn would have let me take that charge to save his own ass.
Shawn was arrested and charged with two counts of Felony Assault, and pled guilty in Lewis County Court for a sentence of 10 years in Prison without parole. After 9 months of trial and thanks to a good lawyer, I got a gross-misdemeanor charge of Unlawful Display bargained down to a misdemeanor of Unlawful Discharge. I never did any jail time, was never arrested, and got a $600 court fine and a 1-year Deferred Sentence, since it was my first criminal offense. I kept my record clean, and it was removed from the courts after one year.
I'm not sure what happened to the two teens. They had been shooting a road sign on the edge of the road with a .22 rifle (they didn't know that their backstop was our campsite on the beach), which according to my lawyer they tried to say they were shooting at skunks with a 20 guage shotgun. I immediately called bullshit on that; I've fired both, and I knew what they were shooting (and what they were actually shooting at....and it wasn't skunks). Neither teen fired a shot at either of us though when we confronted them (Shawn later told me that he saw one of them reaching for a rifle in the bed of his pickup truck when he shot at them). I believe they were 16 and 17, respectively.
Shawn made me promise, as he was being led away in cuffs, to take care of Billie, who was an emotional wreck by this time. I tried looking after her for a brief time into 2005; she wanted a relationship (because yeah, that would have worked....), but she was absolutely batshit crazy herself, and I just couldn't deal with it and cut her out of my life. I should have done it that night.
I spoke with Shawn briefly the next day via phone from jail, and he was such an asshole. That fucker would have let me go to jail for something he did. Motherfucker. I was so fooled by his calm demeanor; his friendliness, and his maturity. But the guy was an absolute fucking psycho, and I fell for it.
I never heard from him again after that, nor have I heard from Billie since I got her out of my life. And that's just the way I want it. I did a brief google search of their names about a year ago, and they've got a Facebook page, but I have ZERO desire to connect with them whatsoever. Nor do I have a Facebook account anyways.
My life wasn't exactly peachy after this: I was terminated from the Post when I got back into Vancouver, and I briefly considered suicide the day of my termination (I was going to jump off the I-205 bridge). My company investigated me, but since I was never arrested, there was little they could do. Which didn't matter much....my boss found an excuse to fire me anyways and hired her son in my place the very next day. Good ol' office politics and corporate corruption at its finest.....
I bounced around to other security companies after that, and eventually got trained and hired as an Armed Officer with two companies. In 2007, I left the industry and got help for PTSD related to this incident, and other personal issues.
Life has gotten much, much better since then. I was in a dark place for a long time, both before and after this incident, and I still occasionally suffer to this day, but I'm much more aware of myself, I live in a much better place than I did then, and I have a much better relationship with my parents today. I'm much, much more mature than I was then, and far more responsible.
The downside being that after this incident, I became VERY mistrustful of people, and very very weary of whom I made friends with. Thankfully, I've met good people whom I've become good friends with since then.
So.....I drove up to Mossy Rock last weekend to find a couple of people and thank them for helping me that evening. One of was a Minister who helped Billie and I get Shawn's truck and 5th Wheel off of the Riffe Lake beach, the same one in the photos above. He was kind enough to store it in town at the time; I don't know what eventually happened to it. Billie couldn't drive a stick shift, so I doubt it went with her.
The other was a woman who let Billie and I stay at her house that evening, and let me use her phone to call home and let my parents know I was okay. She knew Billie and Shawn; to what extent I don't know.
I doubt the teens would still be around, but I sure would like to apologize to them as well if I ever meet them. I never actually saw them again after they drove off that night.
The worst part about it is that I don't remember either of these two people who helped me (what can I say....I had other things on my mind at the time...), and Mossy Rock has changed dramatically since then. I think I may know who the Minister is, based on one of the Church's websites, but I don't know if it's the same person, and both churches in town were closed, and so was City Hall, so I couldn't inquire there either.
So instead I drove to Riffe Lake, to the same place I was at all those years ago, and just sat there in thought for a while. It wasn't as fulfilling as I had hoped, but it did feel good to be there nevertheless. If it hadn't been for that shooting incident, the trip in 2004 would have been very happy and relaxing. The lake and the surrounding beach/mountain is utterly gorgeous.
So that's my little tale. I'm ready to close that chapter in my life permanently, and I hope I'm able to do it when I find these folks and thank them.
And yes, I can be a bit crazy on here from time to time. Forgive me.
Play your bass guitar LOUD...… Binge watch Utube vids of driver fails.....Take melatonin to help you sleep at night …..Give your anxiety to those you dislike.... Don't take being a Blazers fan seriously.
