By STAN STAPP

HAZEL WASHBURN was Head Secretary of Lincoln High School in the Wallingford district for 25 years, beginning in 1942, and was well known by thousands of students.

I knew her longer than that, some 59 years, even though I had graduated from Lincoln in 1936, before her arrival. Mostly this was because for years the Outlook, the community newspaper my family used to publish, had printed the school newspaper, The Lincoln Totem (around 1,000 issues).

We also turned out a couple hundred printing jobs, programs, tickets, window cards, etc., for the senior play, Lincolonial, opera and concerts. We also ran a column of school news in the Outlook, written by students, with the cooperation of the journalism advisor (I occasionally spoke to the journalism class).

Hazel was involved with many of these activities, and also encouraged us to place one of our newspaper racks in the main hall, so that the teachers could easily pick up a copy of the Outlook. And I often ran into her at school reunions.

Hazel was a Wallingford resident, residing for years at 3824 Bagley Ave. N. She died Jan. 13 on Vancouver Island, where she had moved shortly before. Her husband of 43 years, Wilbur Washburn, died in 1981.

Hazel wrote me from time to time. A note in 1985, for example, welcomed me and my column back to Seattle upon my return from a five-year residency in Anacortes; and another, in 1998, with ³devastating news: Stan Stapp retiring from writing in the Seattle Press.² (This was because when the Press went out of business for awhile, the Jet City Maven invited me to continue on with them. I didnıt miss a beat.)

Another letter was addressed to Kissi, the cat who belongs to my wife Dorothy and I, after Iıd reported how a new mailman, unable to find our mailbox, had slipped the mail through Kissiıs private entrance with the swinging door. Kissi was excited at first about getting some mail of her own, that is until she discovered it was mainly junk mail.

³While Iım about it,² Hazel wrote Kissi: ³Convey my best Christmas wishes to the two who take care of you. You donıt know how lucky you are to live with them.²

In another letter Hazel gave some interesting details about George R. Austin, principal of Interlake Elementary School (now the Wallingford Center shopping center), who moved to the newly-constructed Hamilton Junior High when it was completed in 1928. (I had him three years at Interlake, and three more at Hamilton.)

³Your piece about Interlake and Mr. Austin in your column brought back memories of the evening he and I spent in the office at Lincoln High, registering people for sugar rationing during World War II,² she wrote. ³Not many came so he had time to tell stories of his early days with the Seattle School District.² (Austin served one year at Latona before moving to Interlake where he spent 21 years.)

³At the time he was sent to Interlake Grade School there was a ravine between the school and a tavern across the street on N. 45th. It was a great temptation for the older boys to go there during lunch hour. Too many yielded to the temptation and were causing quite a problem when they returned to school. Mr. Austin was sent there as principal to put an end to it. And he did.

³As you know many were the complaints from parents about his rules at Hamilton Junior High and he brought up that subject that night. He told me about the many letters he had received from former pupils who were in the Service and they all wanted him to know how much they appreciated his strict rules. Of course, they hadnıt at the time, but they found they had much stricter rules in the Army and because of their experience at Hamilton they were more ready for the Army. And then, too, they went on to Lincoln High where they encountered more rules laid down by Coach Bill Nolan. He, too, told of letters he had received thanking him for preparing them for both the Service and the U of W athletics.²

Hazel also mentioned the Interlake School Open House held on the day before Interlake became Wallingford Center in 1985. Both of us attended. She recalled Harriet Farrell, music teacher, mentioning that when her Glee Club sang at a Christmas program, Hazelıs son Roger did the announcing. Later Harriet gave her a tape of the program. I recalled School Superintendent Robert Nelson, greeting me, then asking: ³Stan, did you know that I used to work for you?² No, I didnıt. It turned out that he was one of a thousand or two youngsters that were Outlook carriers over 52 years that the paper was owned by the Stapp family. (Editorıs note: the Stapps sold the Outlook in 1974.)

Another time Hazel told me: ³I know something that you donıt!² It turned out that in 1925 she had applied for a job that my Dad (a piano teacher) had advertised. He was looking for someone to help out with his ³Stapp School of Music.² But, alas, someone else got the job.

And then there was the Lincoln High School fire. In 1951, in the early evening, two youngsters playing with matches set a fire in the school office. My brother, Milton, heard the alarm on our police radio. He phoned Hazel, feeling her knowledge of the school, and the probability that she had a set of keys, might be of some help. He also called our staff photographer, Jack H. Johnson, and they all arrived at the same time. Hazel and Milton were the first to discover the source of the fire ‹ some candles in a wastebasket. The Outlook got a story out of it and a page of exclusive photos.

And Hazel got her picture in the paper.

* * *

PHIL JENSEN, owner of the University Village Burgermaster, has some advice that young people might want to consider: 11 rules for achieving success in the Real World. They are posted on the wall by the restaurantıs main entrance.

The advice originally came from Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who dished it out in a speech to highschoolers. The Richest Man in the World (who grew up in North Seattle) talked about how ³feel-good, politically correct teaching has created a full generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.²

Here are the Rules:

Jensenıs Rules

RULE 1: Life is not fair, get used to it.

RULE 2: The world wonıt care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

RULE 3: You will not make $40,000 a year right out of high school. You wonıt be a vice president with a car phone, until you earn both.

RULE 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesnıt have tenure. RULE 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping ‹ they called it opportunity.

RULE 6: If you mess up, itıs not your parentsı fault, so donıt whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

RULE 7: Before you were born, your parents werenıt as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes, and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parentsı generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

RULE 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and theyıll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesnıt bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.\

RULE 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You donıt get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

RULE 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

RULE 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are youıll end up working for one.

* * *

IT WAS IN 1943when Marie and Jack Moss stopped by the Outlook office one day and began advertising their new Realty company. Jack boasted: ³Within a year, weıll be making $50,000 annually.² That was a huge sum in those days (about six times as much as I was making) ‹ and I believe they did.

(Marie died Jan. 11 on Bainbridge Island, age 93.)

I most remember the Mosses from an incident involving the Wallingford Post Office DOORS. That is after the Fremont Post Office had moved to Wallingford, ³a more centralized location.² The Wallingford Commercial Club had wanted to get the new post office for the community, but could not come up with a site. However, that didnıt stop the Mosses from finding one ‹ at 1710 N. 45th, right next to their own office at 1716. They put it all together: buying the building, working out a lease, and remodeling the place to government specifications.

Only one problem remained: The post office doors ³swang² in the WRONG DIRECTION! At best a nuisance, at the worst hitting people where it hurt ‹ particularly when defenseless and toting an armful of packages. I editorialized on the subject in the Outlook, successfully ‹ my opportunity to SAVE THE WORLD! But, alas, the government failed to act. The Mosses, however, came through and paid to have the doors swing in the correct position. As they were being installed, we took a picture of Marie with her eye on the carpenter to see that he did it right. And then ran the photo on page one.

NOTE: The Wallingford Post Office has since moved to a larger site at 1329 N. 47th St.