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The first thing you need to know about me is that I am no longer among the living. I died May 17th, 2007 at the age of 86. The surgery I had some hours earlier, for cancer of the pancreas, proved too much for me, and I went into shock and bled out. That hadn't been my idea. I'd wanted to live longer. But when it comes to dying, I didn't want one of these long drawn-out deals either. You pays your money and you takes your chances, and nobody's hopes and expectations are right 100% of the time.

But all that is not the most important thing about me. You just ought to know it, for the sake of clarity.

I left behind a partial autobiography, and when the kids saw it, some of them thought it was good enough to share with others. Was I surprised! Well, my daughter Dorothy (she's in my "friends" list) took it into her head to make this post-humous blog for me. I discovered blogs in my later years and enjoyed reading some of them -- she doesn't know whether I ever wrote one myself, and I'm not telling. So she'll be posting excerpts from my autobiography in this blog of mine.

I didn't finish the thing, though. I only got up to a bit past the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. But I started with my childhood in the Pacific Northwest -- some of you might find my descriptions of that area in the 1920s and 1930s to be interesting. Due to life and family circumstances, I lived in, and therefore described a lot of other places as well -- as they were when I was there early in the 20th century . My daughter Dorothy really got a kick out of what I had to say about hunting in the bayous of Louisiana, for example. I went back to a few of these places later in life -- much later -- and sometimes comment on how they had changed.

And then there is the War. There are fewer and fewer of us left who were there, fighting in WWII. Come to think of it, I guess I'm not left now either, am I? But I wrote it from my living memory of the experience, and that might be interesting to some.

Throughout this very personal account, I included my own personal musings about what I experienced. You don't have to agree with me, of course.


They wrote this obituary for me, just in case you need any more details:

Samuel Boyd Knapp was born to Walter Eugene Knapp and Verna Mabel
Boyd Knapp on April 26, 1921 in Dallas, Oregon. He died in the early
morning hours of May 17, 2007 following surgery for Pancreatic Cancer
at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tacoma, Washington.

He spent his childhood in Longview, Washington, where he built his
first boat.

Sam married Nellie Bridwell Wallace in Ruston, Louisiana on March 14,
1942.

During World War II, Sam Knapp reported for duty in the Army Air Corp
the day after Nellie bore their first child. He received training in
Radar and Electrical Engineering at Yale, Harvard and MIT, and served
from 1942 to 1945 in Great Britain and Holland as a Second
Lieutenant, manning a radar beacon near Nijmegen.

After the War, he earned a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering
at Louisiana State University. Upon his graduation, the Knapp family
moved to Washougal, Washington, where Sam built the 21' sailboat
"Venture", while working in the paper industry in Washington and
Hawaii. During this time he obtained a pilot’s license. He attended
Oregon State University, where he earned a Ph.D. in Chemical
Engineering in 1965. He joined the teaching faculty at Olympic
College in Bremerton in 1965, where he was head of the Department of
Engineering until his retirement in 1986. He and his wife have made
their home on Hood Canal north of Silverdale since 1965.

Throughout his life, Sam was a very bright, active man with many
interests and talents. Since childhood, he did photography, fished
and built boats. He read avidly, loved learning and teaching, and was
keenly interested in science and history. He was curious and
concerned about ecological issues, and world events of the past,
present and future. He loved gardening, wood- and metal-working, the
outdoors, wildlife, and especially fishing and sailing on the 34'
sailboat -- "Attitudes" -- that he built.

He is survived by his wife Nellie, five children: Verna Knapp;
Walter (and Joan) Knapp; Dorothy (and Lee) Cordochorea, Lucy Knapp,
Linda Knapp (and Sinan Karasu). In addition, he is survived by five
grandchildren: Ximon Dunedain, Justin Knapp, Kristen Furseth, Brian
Furseth, and Esra Caglayan.

He was preceded in death by his brother Jim, sister Barbara and
grandchild Christopher.

He was a loving husband and father, and much beloved by those he
leaves behind. We miss him.

Memorial Contributions in his name may be made to the Kitsap Regional
Library (360)405-9158.

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