Washington

Washington is a brief but consequential setting in Perry Smith’s recollections: his journey toward Alaska ended in a motorcycle skid near Bellingham, and the ensuing injury kept him in the area for a year. Near Bellingham, Joe James and his family gave him a home during his recovery, turning the state from a point on the route into a place of temporary refuge.

Route and Accident

After completing his Army service, Perry set out for Alaska to join his father, who was planning a hunting lodge outside Anchorage. Traveling from Fort Lewis, Washington, he got as far as Bellingham before his motorcycle skidded in the rain. The accident interrupted his journey and postponed the reunion with his father.

Recovery Near Bellingham

The skid led to surgery and hospitalization that together accounted for six months. For the rest of the year, Perry recuperated at the forest home of Joe James, a young logger and fisherman, and James’s wife. They took Perry in while he was on crutches and largely helpless, treating him like one of their children. Their household eventually included seven children.

Perry described the stay as an unusually welcome period of usefulness and companionship. To occupy himself, he began informal classes in the parlor for James’s children and their friends, teaching harmonica, guitar, drawing, and penmanship. The children also read stories aloud while he corrected them. When spring came, walking still hurt, but he could walk again, and his father was still waiting for him.

A Place of Temporary Refuge

Washington also enters the account through a later inquiry about Perry’s possible friends and whereabouts. A woman identified Joe James as someone who might know where Perry was staying, explaining that James and his family had often been generous to him. She had not met James herself; her knowledge was that his family had treated Perry kindly in the past. The recollection thus connects the Bellingham area not only to the accident that delayed Perry’s plans, but also to a household where he had been cared for during a prolonged recovery.