By Donna Quinn–

   The Tarabochia fishing family is legendary in the lower Columbia River basin. Lisa is fourth generation fishing family on both sides. This is the foundation on which she has built her personality, her ethics, and her life. As a young girl, Lisa was always fascinated by family stories of the Tarabochia’s rich fishing history. Today, Lisa honors family tradition with wild Columbia River Salmon as she nourishes people at Clemente’s, the restaurant she and her husband Gordon opened four years ago in downtown Astoria

   Salmon brought Lisa’s great-grandfather to the Columbia River to become part of the original gillnet butterfly fleet in the late 1800s. Cannery owner Joe Megler needed fishermen, and since the Adriatic was renowned for its great gillnet fishermen, he telegraphed Yugoslavian friends, declaring “huge fish were jumping out of the river.” The Tarabochia family was one of the first to settle in Brookfield, a small town on the Washington side of the Columbia about 20 miles upriver from Astoria. Ironically, the Tarabochia family was also among the last to inhabit Brookfield.

   Lisa’s ancestors were all gillnetters who lived on the Adriatic in Yugoslavia.  “The Tarabochia’s were one of the first and oldest families on the island of Sansago (now called Susak) in the Istrian peninsula near Italy. My great grandparents came from Komiza, Vis and from Sansago. My grandmother Winifred Marincovich and my grandfather Joe Tarabochia were both born in Brookfield.”

   Brookfield became known as a Slavic community and in its heyday was home to almost 500 people. The town was situated directly across from the Tarabochia and Marincovich’s new Columbia River fishing grounds. The hard-working Slavs built boats and houses, and then they started fishing and having babies, creating a thriving and lively community.  

   Lisa’s grandparents, Winnie and Joe, had seven children-Joe, John, Katherine, Frank, Mike, Judy, and Joan. All the men fished. Lisa’s father had his own boat at the age of 12. The women cooked, cleaned, raised children, hung and pulled fishing net, and invented creative recipes to keep variety in their fish dishes. Although fish was the staple of the Tarabochia diet, they also hunted duck, deer and elk, and collected berries from the forest. Their main occupation and pre-occupation was fishing though. They would fish all day and fish all night. When they weren’t fishing, they were hanging net and they were thinking about fishing and talking about fishing.  They revered the Salmon. Spending their days in the Columbia River with these spectacular and hardy fish was their passion. 

   “In the old days my family was so grateful to the Salmon, because they knew that whatever came up in the net was creating their economic future. Our family depended upon the Salmon. My father had a tradition of always kissing the first Salmon of the season.”

   Old time Gillnetters crafted all their own nets from twine, floats, and lead lines. Lisa’s family spent hours stringing corks and laying out the nets. “Not everyone has the feel for hanging net, but my family really knew how to do it-and they still do,” says Lisa. “It was a real art.”

   Lisa’s Dad, John, was the first to marry and leave Brookfield for Astoria after he met Valeria Byrd at the Liberty Theatre, where she worked. Bumblebee Seafoods soon started providing bunkhouses for fishermen, so many of the Slavs moved to Astoria to fish for Bumblebee and the other canneries. The Slavs lived in Uppertown (the hills in the east part of Astoria), the Scandinavians and Finns lived in Uniontown (near the Astoria-Megler Bridge in the west part of Astoria). On the east side of Astoria the Slavs worked for Bumblebee while on the west side, the Scandinavians and Finns worked for Union Fishermen’s Cooperative Packing Company.  

  Lisa spent her childhood on Woody Island, located just across the river from Brookfield. She was always on the Columbia fishing with her Dad. While he was hanging net, she was playing house under their float home when the tide was out, sweeping it clean until the tide returned bringing river gifts for her to clean yet again when the tide left. “As fishermen, our lives were measured by the tides.”  

   Lisa’s Dad was movie-star handsome and he was always nearby; they enjoyed an extraordinary bond. “My father was a wonderful human being. He was also an amazing fisherman. He knew the Columbia River; every slough, every sandbar, he could navigate in any condition. Good fishermen always have a sense of the river, even in the fog. It’s a feeling. He taught me great respect for the river and for the fish. Fishing was hard work and the weather was always challenging. You really had to know what you were doing to be a successful gillnetter on the Columbia. Although my father never graduated from eighth grade, he was a Master Fisherman and he kept meticulous books and logs from every drift, which I still have today.”

   Lisa grew up surrounded by the love and acceptance of her large extended family.  Four uncles and many cousins lived on Woody Island. It was an idyllic life until her father tragically died of a heart attack when she was only 12. “Everything my Dad did was special. A family friend said that watching my father lay out a net was like poetry. I miss him every day, but I’m grateful that he had a beautiful life fishing on the Columbia, a life which doesn’t exist anymore.”

   All of the Tarabochias attended Catholic Schools, so Lisa went to Star of the Sea in Astoria, and then graduated from Astoria High School. While her brothers fished, Lisa was encouraged to go to college. Arriving at the University of Oregon, she was surprised to find that she was so different from her peers. “Family was all I knew-I am deeply rooted in my family history.  It’s a lifestyle-I never had friends growing up-my cousins were my friends. My family was blissful. I have not one negative memory from my childhood. Woody Island is still a touchstone for me. I realized in college that I had a rare and unique childhood. I was extremely protected and everyone knew who I was, so I had a powerful sense of myself and my place in the world.” After earning a Bachelor of Science in Biology, Lisa started graduate school in Seattle but in a short time she began to feel the need to explore other lands and cultures. She thought about medical school and then decided on an integrated medical program in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She went there for three years and got a Masters in Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine.

   Lisa met her husband Gordon at the Whole Foods seafood counter in Santa Fe. She was commenting to a friend that the Columbia River fish being displayed for sale there could not possibly be fresh since they were so far inland. The cute guy behind the fish counter took issue with her comments, and a lively debate between Lisa Tarabochia and Gordon Clement ensued. The rest is history. Lisa, with Columbia River water in her veins and Salmon in her DNA, brought home to Astoria her biggest catch to date; and Gordon joined the highly esteemed fourth generation Tarabochia fishing clan. 

   For many years the Tarabochia men have spent their summers fishing in Alaska and before Gordon could marry into the family, it was understood that he would accompany her brother JohnnyRay to Bristol Bay for the ultimate test. Gordon was physically and mentally challenged on his initial trip, but he loved it and goes fishing with JohnnyRay whenever he can.

   Although Lisa and Gordon’s backgrounds seemed incredibly different-Gordon was from a Philadelphia family of Italian Chefs-neither realized until much later that their ancestors had actually lived virtually across the Adriatic Sea from one another. Those close ancestral ties still bond Gordon and Lisa in modern day Astoria.

   Today, Tarabochia and Marincovich fishing boats provide wild fish for Clemente’s, Lisa and Gordon’s “fresh, regional, and sustainable” restaurant. Lisa and Gordon share the title of Chef there as well as parental responsibilities to Isabella, 5, and John, 3, at home. Lisa’s mother, Val, has an active ongoing role in her grandchildren’s lives, and she also bakes desserts for the restaurant. Val is happy with her life, although she misses the old days on the river. “The best thing about that fishing lifestyle was being in the water-in the boat. Sometimes the fishing was good and sometimes it was bad, but you were still in the water. The fishermen considered their boats extensions of themselves. Once a fisherman, always a fisherman, it’s in your blood.”

   Although gillnetting still exists on the Columbia, it is extremely limited and many fishermen have other jobs to make ends meet. It’s a different world on the ‘

Great River of the West’ today. Lisa’s brother JohnnyRay continues to fish, as do all the Marincovich cousins. “Fishing gives you a feeling of independence, and our family has been really good at fishing,” says JohnnyRay. “My 80 year-old Uncle Joe still fishes and I go to Alaska every summer as we all used to do. Today it’s hard for people to sustain themselves on fishing alone. We all like the harvest of the fish, but sometimes it’s just the fishing that’s the most important.”

   Lisa says it’s difficult to explain what fishing means to her. Fishing is a “feeling in your body.” “You lose yourself in the water, the sky, the boat, the fish, the weather. You are part of nature, part of the food chain; the rewards are immediate and tangible. Fishing can be a spiritual experience.”

    The Tarabochias are continuing to feed families, nearly a century after their arrival on these shores. Lisa Tarabochia Clement, who is fiercely proud of her family history and respectful of the magic she says “still exists in this river,” will make sure her children know their family stories. “We talk to the children about what the fish went through to get to us, and who caught it and why that’s important. We eat Salmon in one form or another almost every day.” JohnnyRay says that Lisa “almost lives on Salmon, it’s like she’s connected to our Dad that way.” 

   This fall Isabella will follow in her mother’s footsteps and attend “Star of the Sea”, carrying on another Tarabochia family tradition in Astoria, Oregon.

*Lisa’s photo by Amy Morisse*

Whether you are a resident of or a visitor to the Columbia Pacific region, you know of our reputation. While many lament and curse our famed maritime weather, others are awestruck by our dramatic winter storms and envious of the moist bounty we enjoy, especially in the midst of global warming and climate change. The ongoing surprise about living here is that you never know, despite weather predictions, when you are going to get wet. Rain shapes our landscape, our culture, and the way we live our daily lives. Rain is part of our family.

   My own relationship with rain, and by this I mean our particular Northwest Coast rain, is only six years old. I had always considered myself a sagebrush-sun-loving lizard. So a move to Astoria from sunny Idaho to allow my daughter to fully realize her inner mermaid was daunting. The first year I resented the rains, all of them-whether gentle Irish mist or pounding sideways-blowing torrential.

   I had to learn new ways of going about my daily life and new ways of describing weather. What did KMUN Community Radio announcers mean when they talked about a sun break? Why did Joanne Rideout’s “Ship Report” warn of Columbia River Bar dangers when it looked perfectly clear outside my window? Why did the salt in my salt shaker refuse to flow easily? Why was I always concerned about car windows being open, even on a hot sunny day? How could one predict a morning, even an hour, which could be dry when rain can appear out of nowhere while the sun is still shining? How could one ever plan for a grassy picnic without plastic being involved? And, most of all, how could people be cheery and live “normal” lives with buckets of water being thrown at them from above on a regular basis?

   The weather takes on a different meaning here because of our rain. In some organic way, this rain connects the hardy souls who live on the Northwest Coast. Recently, a local newspaper pointed out that although we have especially strong and dramatic storms, which occur mostly in the winter, we, the residents, are even stronger than the storms. Perhaps because we survive and even thrive in what others call “inclement” conditions-which we view as just our typical weather. 

   It’s well known that rain can influence moods, but it’s not just copious amounts of falling water that play a role in this. There’s the grey, the overcast, the gloom, the darkness which most often accompanies rain. A few years ago I remember being overjoyed to see a shaft of sunlight filter through layers of serious looking clouds and rest on a restaurant table for about 30 seconds. That was it, the only appearance of the bright star in our solar system for an entire week, 30 seconds. While I wasn’t fast enough to turn my face into its radiant glow, I had seen it. The sun still existed-enough for me to be happy for a few more days. This kind of thing happens more often than one might think; our rain is of the “here it comes, there it goes” variety for the most part. 

   With 191 days of rain here and an approximate annual precipitation of almost 70 inches (making us the third wettest place in the lower 48-after Mt. Washington, New Hampshire and Quillayute, Washington), we all have to deal with this liquid nourishment for Mother Earth. Rain’s life giving, revitalizing, negative-ion-filled water is available for harvesting and a whole host of other uses which we are now developing technology to utilize. The Northwest is increasingly attractive to people who are depressed by withering sun and enervating heat. Our just-washed air is fresh, clean and clear, providing us with a healthy quality of life which will only become more precious and sought after in future.  

   Local author Robert Michael Pyle addresses what he calls “Rain World” in his excellent book, Wintergreen: ”The maritime Northwest differs from other northern places in some fundamental ways. It is a soft green place where rain rules and mildness moderates the proceedings; where the grass grows in January, and the airways and waterways run together in a near-constant interchange of water and mist; where ferns and moss swaddle all surfaces left out in the weather for any length of time; and where the rivers and the sea and the clouds conspire to lend the land a verdancy that never quite runs dry-this is a wintergreen world.”

   We have happy rain, sad rain, sexy rain, comforting rain, misty rain, angry rain, peaceful rain, cleansing rain, mysterious rain, melancholy rain, and awe-inspiring rain. In short, there is no such thing as “it’s just raining” because all of our rain is different, every time. We have no precise language to deal with these various types of rain as Eskimos have for their snow, nor do we have a green language to describe the flourishing plant kingdom which our rain creates for us here. Usnea, or Old Man’s Beard, a medicinal lichen, only grows in pure ecosystems, and it still grows here. That’s a comfort in today’s polluted world. 

   I’ve learned that we adapt to living here in “waterworld”; we don’t just watch rain from a distance and wait until it’s over to be outside, to live our lives fully. We interact with rain, whether we’re fishing or bicycling, delivering mail or playing football, or even having a family picnic. How did our ancestors keep their good humor when wearing heavy oiled skins and waxed cotton with leather boots? Today we have technologically advanced rain gear for every occasion, and colorful rubber boots for splashing in puddles. Now, messing about in the rain can be fun and comfortable.  

   Some say locals never use umbrellas; I do. When I’m walking my dog late at night in my flannel pajamas and raincoat, I want that umbrella over my head-I’ve been caught in sudden downpours before, and going to sleep in dry pj’s is preferred!

   Because of our rain, sandal days are numbered (although some locals slide around in flip-flops during the winter); we always carry a raincoat in our cars; our towels never truly dry; we close our potato chip bags with special clips; we put a few grains of rice in our salt shakers; and we buy tarps. In fact, we may be the blue tarp capitol of the United States!

   Our local chain grocery store has a row of hooks by the checkout counter just behind the Fig Newtons, where bright shiny yellow slickers for employees live in case local shoppers need help out to their cars. You won’t see those in Phoenix.

   We never assume that because it is a clear starry night when we go to bed that it will be a clear morning when we awaken. Therefore, we never leave our boxes of magazines outside until the next day or ever forget that hammer we don’t want to rust (which takes about 11 minutes). We also don’t start working on our roofs or washing our cars unless we wish to trigger rain.

   Although there are Columbia Pacific residents who use SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) light lamps and participate in ritualistic sun dances, the majority of residents here appreciate the blessings our rain offers. Weather is an endless topic of conversation for us. There are even those who delight in and live for rain. It makes them happy, “singin’ in the rain” style. My daughter is one of these people.  She wishes it would rain every day. She says when it’s raining it feels like a giant breath or a big sigh. She avoids sun, delights in watery skies, takes long walks on wetly shimmering surfaces and comes home soaking wet and shining with happiness and relief, perhaps from all the negative ions. 

   Negative ions are odorless tasteless molecules that we breathe into our respiratory system. High concentrations of negative ions can be found in nature: in mountain forests, waterfalls, and beaches-places where people feel energized and invigorated. Research in the last decade has begun to support the view that negative ions have a net positive effect on health, including improved mood, circadian rhythms, enhanced recovery from physical exertion and protection for positive ion related stress and exhaustion disorders. Computer terminals, fluorescent lighting, forced air ventilation systems and modern building materials generate an overabundance of positive ions. Positive ions make us feel tired, depressed and irritable. After a storm we are left with gloriously tranquilizing overdoses of negative ions, which ease tension and pressure and leave us feeling full of energy.  That’s good, since we sometimes have a lot of clean-up to do after a powerful storm here.

   Rain comes with sidekicks, like fog, hail, wind, and rainbows. Most of us love rainbows (could there ever be anyone who dislikes a rainbow?) but many are not so keen on fog. Here, though, there are folks who view fog as a comfort and liken it to “being wrapped in a big hug.” My yoga instructor, Ute, says rain gives her permission to slow down and knit, and if the darkness becomes challenging, she simply goes to her yoga mat for a few sun salutations. Artist Jamie Boyd tells friends in dry states that she “walks between the raindrops,” so she hardly ever gets wet. 

   Rain brings jaw-dropping visual gifts, like the double rainbow arcing over the Columbia River yesterday, connecting Washington and Oregon with stunning beauty. Our rain brings fast-moving clouds and celestial entertainment on an ongoing basis. Changeable skies force us to be present and pay attention to the world beyond on own busy thought-filled minds. Rain makes us redefine what a “nice day” really means. Weather? What weather? And the rain? It’s only water. 

   Rain makes the Northwest Coast an introspective place, offering soft, gentle female Yin energy in an increasingly noisy and expanding world of jangly male Yang energy. Perhaps we have more musicians, artists, poets and craftsmen here because of that as well. And perhaps we are not completely yuppified and overrun by now because of our saving rain. 

   Rain gives our skies and days movement along with rhythmic natural sounds and refreshing smells. Rain sets a mood, much like a good play, where something mysterious and interesting could happen. Nighttime rain calls up images of Sherlock Holmes beside a roaring fire with a good book.

   Rain is immediate and sensual, and it’s a great leveler: rich and poor, young and old, all get wet. Rain ultimately teaches us that we can’t control everything. It invites us to slow down and reflect, and rain can restore and heal people just as it heals the earth. I know I feel more rooted and grounded here than anywhere I’ve ever lived-and I’m certainly more well-read than before. Almost anyone can flourish in the constant bluebird days of California. We’re different here-we’re resilient-we’ve got “sisu,” Finnish for “guts.” 

   If we are willing to surrender to rain’s elemental rhythm and flow, as well as its temporary inconvenience, with levity and a trip to sagebrush country every now and then, rain can be an endearing and familiar friend. You can always choose to have a “nice day” on the Northwest Coast. It’s just a matter of perspective.

Charlie’s lineage can be traced back to the early decades of the twentieth century. As the story goes, after waking from a sound night’s sleep in the Whatcom County clink, an inventive logger named Oscar Wirkkala had an epiphany. He noticed the neat fit of the jailer’s key into the slot in the door and recognized a solution to a problem that had bedeviled loggers for some time: how to secure a cable around a log without it coming unhooked during the skidding process. Loggers had employed many patterns of hooks, all of which proved unreliable, but Wirkkala’s “choker bell” became an instant success. Soon a new job title was created: the choker setter.

Choker setters-the men who placed heavy steel cables around logs and secured the ferrule at the end of the line into the choker socket-were on the bottom rung of the logging ladder. It was one of the most physically demanding jobs every entry-level logger had to endure. The job required athleticism, endurance, and fortitude-all the hallmarks of collegiate athletics.

In 1958, Grays Harbor College opened its current campus in south Aberdeen and two years later the first wooden statue of Charlie Choker was erected. This first statue was retired in 1975 when Louis Benanto, Jr. carved the modern Charlie from a cedar log some 8-feet in diameter. Today, Charlie still greets visitors, students, and staff at the entrance to the campus, choker in hand, ready to spring into action.