Terry Mosher’s journey on Earth ended ??????? . Born on June 9, 1940 to Jessie (Van Dyke) Mosher and L.H. Mosher, the fifth and last child they had together.
A side note: I, Terry Mosher, is writing this. It is my journey and will be told as it occurred. You should know my mother was five-foot-two (my dad was 6-3 and 225 pounds) and I weighed 11 pounds and 10 ounces at birth at Olean General Hospital in Olean, NY.
My dad was a democrat. Mom was a republican and was a Wendell Wilkie fan. Wilkie ran against FDR in 1940. So guess what, my middle name is: Wendell.
Apparently, my dad had little influence with mom or my middle name would have been Franklin.
I leave behind wife Mary and 57 years of marriage, sons Toby, Todd and Michael and daughters Wendy Maki and husband Craig and Caitlin Dunbar and husband Seth.
There also is five grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
I had an idyllic childhood. We lived beside the Allegheny river and in a valley between Allegheny foothills.(they are now called Enchanted Mountains) in Portville, NY and I waded, fished and swam in the river and hiked the hills often, sometimes bare foot. I had two favorite spots in the hills, one was old baldy besides the Linn Farm, where we played basketball in the barn and skied on the hill, and the hill behind my sister Minerva’s house. We neighborhood guys would climb it and down the other side where there were rocks as big as houses a glacier deposited. We would play on those rocks for hours.
I used to find arrowheads and fossils in those hills, along with chipmunks, squirrels, an occasional deer, and once a black panther.
We were a very good athletic family. My older brothers – Ray, Ron and David – all had storied athletic careers at Portville Central School. Ron was all-county four consecutive years in four sports ‑football, basketball, baseball and track and field and is in the school’s Wall of Fame (David should be, but despite my best efforts is not).
It’s funny, but a woman recently posted on facebook that she went to school in Portville during the Mosher era.
The Mosher era should have included me. I was going to be better athletically than all my brothers, solid in classroom and as a citizen. Tragically, mom died May 26 1953 of a bad heart valve, my dad remarried a year later and we moved west to Ferndale, WA to open the new Mobil Refinery on Cherry Pt.
I fought my dad for months. I didn’t to go. My brothers blazed a path for me and all I had to do was walk it. I wanted to say with my sister, who was married with four children. Dad tricked me, He got David to go, knowing I would follow him. He promised David he could go back to Portville if he didn’t’ like it.
David was never going to stay. It was his senior year and he wanted to graduate in Portville with his class. So after three weeks he went back and I was left behind. That started my dark years.
My dad’s new wife didn’t like me, and I didn’t like her. It was an untenable situation and I suffered quietly, became a victim and dropped out of everything. I didn’t do sports at Ferndale, and barely opened a book during my school years. I didn’t realized I became a victim until a hospice nurse pointed at me and said, “You are a victim.”
Bering a victim allowed me not to be hurt. I was already hurt and carried that hurt for nearly 70 years so I couldn’t be hurt more.
It was stupid of me and kept me from reaching the potential I had in me.
There are many more stories I can tell, but I will tell you I went to college for two years at Alfred Tech (Alfred State in NY) and five more years at Western Washington, getting an education in political science. economies and history.
I had jobs as office manager, business manager/estimator before I found sportswriting for the Bremerton Sun.. I was awful starting out and when the sports editor who hired me left for another job he warned me I was about to be fired.
I was fired 24 years later by new editor and sports editor who conspired to get rid of me because I was leader of an effort that bought the union to the paper.
Officially, I retired from the paper. Then I started my own paper –Sportspaper – which ruined my health. I was virtually a one-man band and it eventually became too much for me.
I went back to the Sun and now I leave it for good. I never considered writing work. I loved all my time doing it. All regional high schools, Washington Husky basketball and football and Seattle Mariners, which also included being the official Major League Scorer for Mariners games, special features and columns were my beat.
One of the most important part of my life involved the spiritual world. I believe God has directed my life. I hope I have done enough good things to be let into the Pearly Gates.
Comedian Tom Papa did a riff on losing passwords and user names. Then near the end of a hour-long stand-up he said as he approached the gates, the gatekeeper welcomed him. Then he added, “What are your user name and password.”
I need to leave you with this: I was 9 years old and sitting in my fifth grade classroom when a voice telepathy told me, “You will marry Mary.”
Sixteen years later I was in a roadhouse between Ferndale and Bellingham when two girls walked in. I immediately knew one was Mary even though I had never seen her before. We were married seven months later.
Sitting in a café at Longacres I was trying to figure out the 7th race. All of a sudden a voice told me telepathy, “Summer Sunshine.” I looked at the Racing Form and Summer Sunshine was listed. I rushed to the betting window just before the race started and bet $2 and won $36. Years later I asked myself why I didn’t bet $20. Probably because I didn’t have $20.
In 2009 I was sitting in our living room watching the Belmont Stakes. I loved watching the Triple Crown races. The race was getting near and all the talking heads were picking who they thought would win. Again, a voice telepathy told me, “Summer Bird.” I began yelling at the TV. “Summer Bird, you stupid idiots.”
Knowing who was going to win ruined the race for me. I watched as Summer Bird, a 12-1 longshot, rallied down the stretch to win.
Then there was the accident that killed our first grandaughter, Sarah Maryann, who I called Junior because she had my wife’s name.
Junior was killed in 1989 when she was runover by a truck putting a boat in the water in Idaho. She was 3.5 years old.
Mary, our second son, Todd, and I rushed to Sea-Tac to pick up our daughter, who was flying from Spokane.
As we went down the long escalator to the undergrown train at the airport, Amazing Grace began playing loud and clear. There never has been music there, not then, not now. But we heard it as we descended the escalator. As we got to the end of the escalator, telepathy Junior told me this: “Don’t worry about me, I walk with the Grace of God.”
The train instantly arrived. It was packed and as the glass doors slid open, the first person off was our daughter. She fell into Mary’s arms.
I spent the next year investigating the reason for Junior’s death. With the help of C.S. Lewis, I finally knew the answer. Junior was an Angel sent to fix our family. She did the job as all but Todd joined church Wendy and Craig started their own church.
Todd, devastated, disappeared and I was able to track him with the help of a friend in the Bremerton police department. He first went into the Olympics, then turned and drove to Alaska, He stopped in Juneau where he met the woman he would marry (they still in Juneau and still married).
My year-long search for a reason for Junior ended with me experiencing six days of defensive mechanisms coming out of the top of my head and a voice explaining why and how I used them.
On the seventh day, I was driving my car on the ferry on the Bremerton side when all of a sudden I was overcome with love and peace. All the colors around me changed. I had read of people who have had near death experiences and they all describe how brilliant the colors were, and they omitted love. That is what happened to me.
The feeling lasted until I drove off he ferry on the Seattle side.Then everything went back to normal, disappointing me. I loved the experience and wished it would continue on.
Years later I met a social worker at Costco who had brokered our adoption of Michael and Caitlin. I told him what had happened to me and he said,” You were in the presence of God.”
Now I am again in the presence of God. I hope so, at least.
Take care.
You are loved.