[or-roots] Smelt run in the Sandy River

[Magbatt at aol.com]

Hi Dorothy,

Somehow missed your posting until just now, but oh the memories it brought 
back!
My dad used to come and get me and my younger brother out of school (third 
grade  Portland, about 1949) and drive us up to the Sandy in our old Studebaker. 
 People were lined up cheek to jowl, and it seems that it was always POURING 
down rain.  (What - smelt don't like sunshine?)   

The only new towels my mom ever had were from some little "general store" in 
Sandy.  Daddy would buy a couple to dry us off with and wrap us in for the 
trip home.  I can remember my mother being upset because he had taken us out of 
school, until the teacher said we'd learn a lot more going for the smelt than 
sitting in the classroom all day.  

Another time he took us out of school and up to some lake and fishing lodge 
near Sauvies Island (sp?)   There was a great big wide deck/dock that wrapped 
around the lake side of the lodge.  We walked through the big wide double 
doors, and my brother was looking off to the side, or behind him, or and just kept 
walking right off the deck and into the lake.  Only about six and couldn't 
swim, so my dad had to fish him out.  Oh well, we caught fish and had fun, so 
what the heck.  

I wonder what the smelt runs in the Sandy are like now.  It seemed the river 
used to be a solid moving mass of them fifty years ago.    MIdge