By Karen Best

I’m first up among Community Advisory Board members to write a column for the Bremerton Patriot and Central Kitsap Reporter. The other members will follow, one by one, every Friday.

In this article, we’ll take a walk down Memory Lane, back to the 1950s when my family first came here. Those of you who were here will remember and those of you who weren’t may enjoy the experience.

Some of you may remember when the White Light Tavern sat on that triangular piece of land in the intersection of Silverdale Way and Bucklin Hill Road, now a Rotary park. It marked the end of town; beyond was rural and dotted with farms. Later, Elsie’s — now the Mexican restaurant next to McDonald’s — became the end of town. Back in those days, Hudson’s Variety Store and June’s Bakery were where Silverdale Cyclery is now. I can still see portly Mr. Hudson in my mind’s eye.

Silverdale did have a newspaper, The Silverdale Breeze, and George Harrison was mostly the whole show — owner, editor, typesetter. The current library was built by volunteers; my father-in-law, Kirk Best, was one of them.

There weren’t many restaurants — I remember the Hut Sut at Kitsap Lake and Sutton’s Café in Silverdale. Frankly, I don’t remember my family eating out; eating out was what you did when you traveled somewhere. Home cooking was where it was; casseroles were popular, with Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup almost always in the mix. Anyone remember tuna noodle casserole? And you were supposed to have liver once a week to keep from becoming anemic!

In downtown Bremerton, upscale Bremer’s Department Store had vacuum tubes to carry your money up to the office and send your change back. Credit cards? Unheard of! There were locally-owned Kahn’s Men’s Store, Booth’s Drug and Olberg’s Drug (Judge Ronald Danielson sometimes pulled people from Olberg’s lunch counter to sit on a jury), and Payless, where my mom would sometimes buy me a can of smoked oysters for 19 cents if I begged her nicely. Woolworth’s had a long lunch counter and, oh, so many wonderful things. And then, among the fixtures, there was Police Chief Art Morken, every kid’s friend. Chief Morken later served as sheriff.

Back in the 1950s, it seemed that everyone’s father worked at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (not many mothers worked outside the home, but they did belong to garden clubs and other community groups that enriched the community).

Some of you go further back than I. And some of you came later — but even 1975 was 40 years ago. We’d love to have you send in your “Remember When” memories to rwalker@soundpublishing.com and we’ll print them. It can be a memory one sentence long or it can be a short story. It would be fun to have some more “Remember When’s” for upcoming issues.

— Karen Best is a member of the Bremerton Patriot/Central Kitsap Reporter Community Advisory Board.