The story of Bruce Morton

Bruce and CC, July 2003



Portland, June 3^rd, 2014

We first met Bruce eleven years ago in 2003 aboard the MV Lady Rose (she has been retired since 2009). This vessel served as a cargo as well as a whole day excursion ship, it serves the community along the Barkley Sound all the way to Bamfiled and the Broken Group Island. I witnessed the ship was carrying lumbers, lawn mower etc and the best cargo of all was booze! Yes, this ship hauls the precious alcohol, the consumption of this fine spirit increases during the winter months.

I noticed that Bruce sits with a fine woman, so we introduced ourselves to him and his “wife” as I first thought. I did ask him as how long they have been married. Bruce smiled and he told me that Cece (the name of the woman, later I found out) was just his girlfriend.  The story was just started to get interesting.

“How so?” I asked him pressing for more details. So he slowly explained to me. Before World War II, Bruce and Cece went out together and fell in love as a boyfriend and a girlfriend. As you know, war is a terrible thing. During the war, Bruce enlisted and managed to lose contact with his love. Years gone by, Bruce got married and Cece got married to different persons.

Years have gone by, their respective spouses passed away, in short they managed to find each other again and they became boyfriend and girlfriend again. This was in the year of 2003; Bruce was 86 years young at that time.

Eleven years later in 2014.

After watching the Sunday morning show segment where this guy was phoning his friends wishing them “happy Birthday”, we got an inspiration and motivation to call Bruce again, we have to say that we were afraid that he is no longer with us, a short search in the old rolodex, I found his phone number.

I called and ask when the other party answered if this is the residence of Bruce Morton, to my delight he said, “Speaking!” He is 97 years young now and he still drives the car and best of all, his entire mind is still very sharp. I told Pokie we should visit him again and divert our planned vacation from Olympic Peninsula to Vancouver Island. We are making plan to see him in a month and I am so excited.

He also told me to see him before he turns 100.