EXPO '74 -- 50 YEARS LATER

 

I attended Expo ’74 (aka the Spokane World’s Fair) three times. The first was in June 1974 when I met my parents there as I returned to the Pacific Northwest from a stay of several years in Boston.

Our Spokane accommodations were at the newly renovated Davenport Hotel. I remember that I flushed the toilet in our room – and it flushed and flushed and kept flushing. Maintenance came and fixed it.

I don’t remember much at all about touring the fair except for watching the glassblower at work. My dad loved blown glass and bought several pieces.

We also attended a Lawrence Welk Concert, and I think that was at the Spokane Coliseum. I can’t tell you a thing about the concert, but I do remember an incident prior to it. As we returned to the hotel from our day at the fair, the Welk performers, who were also staying at the Davenport, were loading their bus at the entrance. As we waited for the elevator, Lawrence’s tall (6’5”), good-looking male vocalist, Tom Netherton, nearly ran me down as he exited the elevator, apparently running late. He and I did a little this-way-and-that dance, and he was clearly impatient with the situation. He didn’t say, “Excuse me.”

Later in the summer, Mother decided that she and I should take a group of her grandchildren to Expo. I don’t remember much about that either except that we briefly lost Christi. We were just about to panic when we found her. We were never sure exactly what happened. Suffice it to say, she wandered off somehow and no one else was involved.

The third visit was in September, a first date for Mike and me. We talked about it the other day. Neither one of us can remember anything about the fair. Did we see the IMAX movie? Probably.

But here’s what I do remember. I had a chance meeting with a young man (Bob) who worked in my building in Boston. He was cycling back home to Boise through Canada and by happenstance our paths crossed at Expo.

“Wouldn’t you know it?” I thought to myself. “Here I am with one guy and another one shows up. Why now, Bob?”

Of course, I didn’t know at that time that Mike and I would marry or that Bob would reach out again, but sometimes you just have a feeling about things. Sure enough, in April, I received a note from Bob asking if he could write to me. I sent him a short note explaining that I was marrying the man with whom he saw me at Expo. My wedding was just weeks away. My life worked out for the best, I assure you.

And that’s what I remember about Expo ’74 – in other words, not much. The other day I noticed a program on PBS about the 50^th anniversary of Expo ’74 and suggested we watch it. Maybe it would spark our memories, I said. We watched about half of it before giving up. It was more about how Spokane managed to finance and coordinate Expo – it wasn’t easy – than about the fair itself. Perhaps it just wasn’t all that memorable. KW