Curtis Crofts

Stories of life are often more like rivers than books, they ebb and flow and change slowly over the course of time until the man becomes the river.  Curtis Lee Crofts had the makings of a fine river.  His course was first charted on September 2, 1960 in Ogden, Utah.  His tributaries, the sources of life and formation of a river, were his parents Frank and Ethyl Crofts.  Together they nurtured him, helped him cut through the Utah rock, and learn how to forge his own path until eventually the sights and sounds of the Pacific Northwest lay before him.  Eventually Curtis met and married Kate Fisher, another with a fisherman’s spirit, their stories feeding into the rivers of their children Kevin and Grace.  At home in the Pacific Northwest, he made time to listen to the song the wind made as it whistled between the trees, the revving of a Harley engine as it traveled around Chinook Pass or the curve of a snow bank, the burble of a Yellowstone geyser, or the lift and fall of a wave against the rocky coastline.  Curtis listened as a fisherman who experiences eternity compressed into a moment does, when no one can tell what a spot of time is until suddenly the whole world is a fish and the fish is gone.  Keenly, and with daring purpose, he listened to it all so every moment of love, song heard, pineapple upside down cake traded for birthday wishes, dog ear scratched or belly petted, culinary treat pulled from a Dutch oven, draw of a cigar, and new place experienced, was an eternity he would always hold for they became part of his story, his river.  Every fisherman knows that eventually his rod and creel will sit untouched and his time watching the waters will end.  The lucky, like Curtis, have souls that have grown deep like the rivers and, as they are remembered, become the waters of memory and deep rivers in those they leave behind.  Eventually this watcher joined the river on April 18, 2019, and for the first time in 58 years there was only one of them. We believe it was the river.  For now, we wait, we love completely without complete understanding, and hope our stories and our rivers will someday join again.  And when we think of his life, his story, we might think what a beautiful world it was once.  At least a river of it was.  A memorial service will be held on May 5, 2019 at 3:00 p.m. at the Summit Church in Enumclaw off highway 410 mentioned.

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