Oh no! Whoa, I guess I went crazy! WHEEeee.
An enraged 10.7-pound spring chinook salmon approached the boat as Betsy Jeffords, a 100-year-old WWII veteran of the U.S. Navy Air Corps, firmly grasped her joystick. The 107-pounder retaliated, turning and returning to sea.
When Jefford’s daughter Susan stepped in to assist her mother with reeling while the altimeter changed wildly, she cried, her reel screamed, everyone shouted, and chaos broke out.
Keep the kicker away from the line, move chairs aside, set up rods, fly a net, get a camera, and keep an eye out for other boats.
A few minutes and two shredding runs later, the youngest (and, at 16, possibly the best) deckhand Mason Waddle of Longview skillfully snagged the first salmon ever caught by the oldest person in the boat.
(The tenth of Jefford’s weight is estimated since the fish pushed the scale slightly over 10 pounds after bleeding, which is less than a pound extra.)
Whoa! She yelled as Waddle and his grandfather, Portland presenter John Shmilenko, gave it a high five and lifted it into the boat after making sure it was a legitimate hatchery fish.
For a little period, the energetic centenarian sat silently, gazing at her prize.
The fact that the 100-year-old became an ace may be the best metaphor for Navy Air. She would later correctly remark, “My own rod!” when the highly evasive fish approached the rod nearest to her with six rods out and pressure applied.
The fish, which was expertly netted for her by 16-year-old Mason Waddle of Longview, Washington, astounded Centenarian Betsy Jeffords.Monroe, Bill
According to Jeffords, “I initially didn’t understand why I had to get up so early.” I questioned why I would want to go fishing, but Susan, 70, and her husband, Greg Powell, 67, assured me that I would enjoy myself.
“It’s incredible,” she said. We are catching a fish less than half an hour from the house while enjoying salmon (smoked appetizers) on a boat.
Jeffords is committed to staying involved.
She is proud to be rising through the ranks of WWII survivors, pointing out that other soldiers are aging and dying.
Jeffords remarked, “I can beat that,” recalling a recent tale about one of the oldest people in the world, who was 114 years old.
In 1943, Jeffords, then eighteen and from a tiny village in eastern Pennsylvania, joined the Navy after reading about the deaths of classmates and neighbors and feeling a strong sense of patriotism.
She claimed that staying in a tiny community would not benefit anyone.
Although she frequently had the opportunity to fly at the Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida, she was not a pilot. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a program into law that included Jeffords as one of the new Waves.
“It was really strange,” she added. They weren’t entirely sure how to handle us at first.
She received her training from the Navy as a box trainer, or more precisely, a link trainer, sometimes referred to as a pilot trainer or blue box. It served as a forerunner to the contemporary flight simulators of today. Jeffords trained pilots to use the dials while they were confined in a windowless box with only gauges in front of them.
“They needed to find a way back to an aircraft carrier or a base,” she said. They required their tools because the water isn’t a very large place.
She recounted that she was occasionally taken up in fighters, bombers, and other types of planes by her students, those young men. I used to think flying was so simple! Naturally, though, it wasn’t.
As she and other Waves were drawn to the base bulletin board, painfully recognizing the names of airmen fallen in combat they’d known and trained, it was a fantastic time for a young lady in Florida, filled with parties, dancing, beaches, and touring, but it was also much too frequently sobering.
She shook her head slightly and continued, “It was very sad that some of those boys didn’t come back.”
Although she is not at the top of the chain of command, her crucial service goes mostly unnoticed by the public. President Biden and Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro both sent congratulations to Jeffords, praising her for her service to the nation and congratulating her on reaching the 100-year mark (she will launch another in September).
Following the war, Jeffords wed Thomas Watson (TW) Jeffords, a Marine pilot and combat veteran who died in 1988.
These days, Jeffords is pragmatic, irritable, and focused on winning her fight against lung cancer. She claimed that everyone smoked throughout the war, including pilots, sailors, even waves.
She declared, “I’m going to fight it.” I still have tasks to complete.
What comes next? She likes rainbow trout, so perhaps a trip to a trout farm after a jet boat tour of the Willamette River.
In the fall, Jeffords, who resides in Portland with her daughter and son-in-law, will relocate to California because she enjoys the heat. She will then return to a second residence in Bend, close to her grandson, the following spring.
She remarked, “I’d like to return to Hawaii.” And going on a safari has always been a dream of mine; Australia looks so exotic.
It was obviously a nice addition for all three Wednesday, even though catching a salmon may not have been on her bucket list. It was also a thrill for Shmilenko, Waddle, and me to see.
“I understand why you enjoy fishing,” she remarked. I feel as though I’ve moved far away and changed into a new person.
It resembles an expanse of open sea.
–Bill Monroe for OregonLive/The Oregonian
