Fleet Week Seattle, 1980s

Fleet Week in Seattle, 1980s

October 1st, 2025

Fleet Week in Seattle is timed to coincide with the city’s big SeaFair weekend. This happens in late July and early August when the rain usually doesn’t fall and the skies are sunny and blue. Seattleites love this rare weather, and they kind of go nuts.

The US Navy, and some ships from Japan and Australia, sailed into Elliott Bay that hot August for SeaFair. The famous Navy Blue Angels F-18s flew their air show as well.

I was working as a seaplane mechanic at Kenmore Air Harbor at the north end of Lake Washington. Dehavilland Beavers were the company’s specialty: flying them, maintaining them, and rebuilding them.

Kenny G, the famous soft jazz saxophonist, bought a rebuilt Beaver from KAH, and he learned how to fly it. Kenny G had a big mansion on the eastern shore of Lake Washington. Bill Gates has his bunker/mansion nearby today, but not back then. Gates is so rich that he pays to have barges of white sand from the Virgin Islands shipped through the Panama Canal, up the Pacific coast, through the Ballard Ship Locks, and then down the ship canal to Lake Washington to re-sand his beach every year. Bill doesn’t like wading in mud.

Kenny G threw a party for SeaFair and Fleet Week at his mansion on Lake Washington that year in the 1980s. The pilot at Kenmore Air Harbor who taught Kenny G how to fly was invited.

It was a fancy party. Kenny G played his saxophone to entertain the crowd. Our Kenmore Beaver pilot felt like a big shot. He was chatting up a beautiful, rich socialite. The Beaver pilot was telling her all about his floatplane flying derring-do.

Up walks a handsome man. He was in excellent shape, had a military haircut, but was shorter than the Beaver pilot. The handsome man started chatting up our man’s socialite.

Beaver pilot, “Hey! Who do you think you are? I’m a Beaver floatplane pilot.”

Handsome Man, “I fly an F-18 with the Blue Angels.”

And the Beaver pilot slunk away to get another beer.

We mechanics at the hangar heard this story and laughed our asses off.

…

That SeaFair and Fleet Week weekend was a beauty. 85F with blue skies and little wind. The weather was perfect.

On Saturday afternoon, about 5 PM, I drove down to Pioneer Square, parked in the lot, and walked to the J&M Cafe on 1st Avenue about a block south of Pioneer Square. The J&M is a historical building and Cafe. In the 1800s, there was a brothel and a card room upstairs. The stained glass from back then is beautiful.

Inside, the bar, a work of art shipped over from Ireland in the late 1800s, stands in the south wall. Seattle was booming from the Klondike Gold Rush, and the city was awash in gold and money. The J&M Cafe could afford to ship a custom bar over from the Old Sod and around the Horn.

On the north wall was the kitchen. Above the kitchen was a Chinese rickshaw (no idea why). Next to the rickshaw was a four-foot by eight-foot oil painting of a naked woman reclining on a couch. It was from the 1800s.

In the middle was a long, about 40’ (13 meters), standing table where I liked to stand and drink my beer, eat free popcorn, or pay for nachos. I preferred standing to sitting.

The waitress was a pretty, perky, take-no-shit short brunette. She smoked Camel straights. I liked her. Flirted with her. And got nowhere.

It was fun standing at that long table talking to people around me. We all had a lot of fun.

The bouncer at the door was a very athletic black man. He was six foot seven inches tall and all muscle. Nice guy. Didn’t ever say a word to me.

About 6 PM, it was still daylight, in come seven Aussie sailors in their white uniforms. They were loud from the get-go. I think they’d been drinking already.

They all stand at the street end of the standing table and order their drinks. It got louder and louder at their end of the table. (My Grandma Edna called booze “Loud Soup”) I could see the black bouncer at the door eyeing them.

Suddenly, up jumps a short Aussie sailor in his whites, cap on and all. He starts running down the standing table from his end to the other. Drinks, nachos, cigarettes, purses,…everything goes flying. The running, drunk Aussie falls flat on the floor at the end of the table. No one tried to catch him.

That was it for the Black Bouncer. He picks up the short Aussie sailor like he’s a box of soggy tissue paper.

“Out you go! All of you Aussies. OUT!”

And out they went. It was the only time I had ever heard the Black Bouncer say a word (or ever would).

TJM