I’ve never eaten at the Ding Ho Chinese restaurant in Yakima, but I have fond memories of it from my childhood. We’ll get back to the Ding Ho.

             I did have dinner and cocktails with Mary Hemmingway and her entourage once at a neighbor’s house in Troutdale, Oregon. It was so memorable I had forgotten all about it ‘till I started this column. I believe it was the first time I had eaten artichokes with a vodka chaser. My people are not artichoke folk. But I digress.   

            I was watching the news a few month’s back and came across a piece about Ernest Hemmingway’s birthday. Sitting in a bar in Key West were at least fifty guys with white beards looking like Papa himself in his classic “Old Man and the Sea” look, the handsome man and  fine fisherman. Some newsperson interviewed one of the fake Hemmingway’s, who said that his life time goal was to fish all the waters of the Florida Gulf and Cuba as the Old Man had done. Obviously these Hemmingway’s have hero issues with Papa, but better him than Hitler.

            I know what you’re thinking: is there a point to this?  Bear with me we will get back to the Ding Ho.

            When I was a kid we lived in a G.I. housing development just outside Offutt Air force Base in Nebraska, where my father “The Chief” was assigned for four long years. I guess as a career move for a professional soldier during the Cuban missile crisis, this was the place to be, except if any missiles had actually been fired.  His advice to me: “Don’t sweat it, you’ll be playing football one minute and vaporized the next”.  Ok, Dad I feel much better now. 

            The Chief had a month’s leave every year and we would pile into the Oldsmobile with the dog for a trip to Yakima, where my mother’s family lived. The trips were epic, and I think we all enjoyed them at some gypsy level. Even our nasty dog Hans seemed to get his wiener dog groove on.  I will never know what the relatives thought of our G.I. lifestyle, but they were wonderful hosts and Yakima was a very special destination. There was trout fishing everywhere!

            This column is not about me or Earnest or the Chief, though. It’s about a kid and fisherman that grew up in Yakima and changed the landscape of American literature forever. Raymond Carver.

             In his book “Were I’m calling from,” Carver describes a trip down 16^th Ave. past the Chinese restaurant (Ding Ho )to fish in a creek behind the airport he called Birch Creek. Actually it was called Bachelors Creek, and that is where I started trout fishing on those vacations from Omaha. It wasn’t much of a piece of water but it was connected to a fish hatchery so there were always a few huge brood trout that cruised just under the surface like a trout mirage.

              I remember the first time I read Ray’s story “, Nobody Said Anything,” and realized that I had been on that same journey to go fishing when I was a kid.

            Of course if you’re a product of public education as I am you may not be all that familiar with the world of American letters. Trust me Ray Carver is worth the read.

            Ray Carver is the most important artist to ever come out of Yakima, but is there a Ray Carver Boulevard? Ray Carver Park? Ray Carver festival? No and no and no.

            I think maybe we should a have a Raymond Carver night where we celebrate his life and work. For the venue, the Ding Ho would be perfect. Hold the artichokes.

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