By DONNA STITES

It was a warm summer day and Win and I had just had lunch at Zorba’s, so we decided to walk back to the PBY Memorial office in the old gas station across from WAIF. As we walked along the old sidewalk on Pioneer, we looked out across the sloping lots toward Oak Harbor Bay. A sailboat moved slowly across the water in the gentle breeze.

We looked around at the old buildings, many of which were etched with the names of a much earlier business. I wondered who else had walked here. In the distance I saw the old theater where my husband told me they had gone to the movies in 1945 when he was 19 years old and based at the Seaplane Base. The scene exuded history from every side. I could imagine the old PBY Catalina gliding in for a landing in Oak Harbor Bay and taxiing up the ramp and up to the big hangar.

By the time we reached our PBY Memorial office, I had tears in my eyes for another segment of our history lost, not preserved. Once it’s gone it’s gone forever, and our grandchildren and great grandchildren will only be able to imagine, not reach out and touch historic old Oak Harbor. It’s our conviction that young people need to “reach out and touch,” not “experience” by merely reading about what their grandpas and their contemporaries did to preserve freedom for them to enjoy today, and also the major role Oak Harbor played, and is still playing today, to guarantee this hard-won freedom for them.

A tall building, or buildings, below Pioneer will take away that beautiful view of Oak Harbor Bay forever, as well as the view of the mountains from Old Town. (A view preserved since the first European settlers viewed this piece of paradise.)

Why not preserve history, not change it? Our grandkids will be the winners, and so will Oak Harbor and all who visit us.

Donna Stites lives in Oak Harbor.