Carl Foster plays “Down in the Valley” on a dulcimer that he made Tuesday evening in Centralia.
Carl Foster plays a dulcimer that he made Tuesday evening in Centralia.
A little leather bull Carl Foster made is seen Tuesday evening in Centralia.
Carl Foster is a matter of fact kind of guy, with an abundance of creative talent.
He will tell you the dates of his time in the Navy, the ships he worked on and that his parents supported his decision to enlist. Ask him how he learned to build a dulcimer, or work with leather, however, and he will answer, “I just do it.”
Foster has made four dulcimers — a wooden string instrument, with a long rounded body and fretted fingerboard — but his favorite is the first one he made. It’s also the one he plays regularly. Two other dulcimers hang on the wall on either side of his bed and the fourth sits in his closet.
He is currently teaching himself to play the song “Down in the Valley.”
“That’s a real crude version of it,” said Foster jokingly, as he demonstrated his progress.
Although Foster is from the Aberdeen area, he met his first wife, Lenora, in Centralia. Her parents owned a grocery store in town, and he still lives in the area today.
“I used to go in there and buy candy, or whatever, and that’s how we met,” Foster said.
He served in the Navy for nearly 20 years, from March 1951 until December 1970, and lived all over the world with his family. He knew from the time he enlisted that he wanted to make a career out of his service.
“If you treated it right, it was just a real good job,” Foster said. “I was fortunate enough I was able to look ahead to my retirement. It’s just a real good retirement. … A lot of the career military did look ahead.”
When Foster enlisted, he was a senior at Wishkah Valley High School. His graduating class had five people.
“I was a cook and I served on a tanker, an ammunition ship, and a destroyer, and a carrier, and then on a World War II LST (landing ship tank),” Foster said. “... That must have been ‘62 or ‘63 — probably ‘62. The government put 17 LSTs back in commission. They had previously been put in mothballs. … (They were back in commission) to haul freight and equipment and people in the Vietnam era.”
Then, in 1963, Foster went aboard the USS Hancock, a Navy aircraft carrier. The same day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Foster was about to go on leave.
“I knew I was going to have to go aboard the Hancock before he got killed,” Foster said. “There wasn’t anybody that had any foreknowledge of him being killed, but I was getting ready to go aboard the Hancock. I took 15 days leave and got down to Centralia … and we (he and his wife) didn’t even get out of the car. Her mother comes screaming out of the house that we had to go back up to Whidbey Island because they called me back and Kennedy got killed.”
Seemingly unphased by the story, Foster places the dulcimer on his lap and uses a small tool in his left hand to hold down the strings on the frets, like someone would with their fingers on a guitar. With his right hand, he uses a pick to strum the strings.
Next to Foster sits a table with leather working tools, and various pieces he has made such as a little leather bull with a yellow flower painted on it, or a wallet and dog leash he made for his son.
“I’m one of those fortunate people that can see something, or whatever, and then I can do it,” he said.
