It was the middle of the week and, as usual, rainy and gray in Astoria. So Lori Lum and her uncle, John Lum, decided to liven up the beginning of John's interview with a practical joke (on the poor, unsuspecting writer). Before summoning John, Lori turned around and asked, quite innocently, "Do you speak Chinese?" No? In the next moment, John Lum melted away any doubts with his kind smile and ... flawless English. A good laugh was had all around. John Lum is proud to call himself an "old-timer." Born in 1918 in Astoria, Lum is full of recollections of past decades and friends - some gone, some still around.

On Dec. 8, 1922, the 4-year-old Lum awoke. "I can remember waking up in the morning, looking out the window and everything was red," he says. Lum is talking about the infamous fire that wiped out most of downtown Astoria and burned the family's grocery store on Ninth and Bond streets to the ground. Coincidentally, the family had bought a second store on Sixth Street. "So we were able to survive the fire with that," says Lum.

Fellow old-timer Kermit Gimre, before he died last year, invited Lum to a nostalgic get-together at the Astoria Public Library to share his memories growing up in Chinatown. "When I started talking, everyone said, 'Oh, I remember that!'" recalls Lum. "By the time I was done, I'd been up there an hour!" Lum remembers during the Chinese New Year the adults would let the children off work and they'd set firecrackers. "They had a Chinese school here at one time," says Lum. "My father was the principal."

In 1926, Lum's mother took him and his sister to China, where he almost stayed. "In those days, if you could scrape together enough money you sent your oldest son to China," says Lum. "Education was important." But Lum says he didn't study in China because of Communist uprisings; his father thought he'd be safer at home. Lum graduated class valedictorian from Astoria High School in 1937. He has helped organize every class reunion since, and at the most recent one, 60 classmates attended. He was one of the first Astoria students accepted to Harvard University, but stayed in Oregon when his father fell ill. During World War II, he served in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve.

He married Clara Wong, and eventually took over his father's store. In 1956, Lum took a second job at Bumblebee Seafoods in the purchasing department. He retired from Bumblebee in 1982. Today, Lum works part time for his brother, Dave Lum, who owns Lum's Auto Center.

The piano is an integral part of John Lum. For nearly 60 years, he has played the organ at Astoria First Baptist Church. The past five years, Lum has played the piano faithfully at Crestview, Clatsop Care Center and Astor House. He has made friends, found old friends and cheered many. "One day I played 'If You Knew Suzy Like I knew Suzy,' and one lady sitting there, who never says much, started singing and sang it all the way through," remembers Lum. He mostly plays popular tunes, sometimes getting requests for World War I songs. "I have requests from people for songs that the younger people who work there have never heard," says Lum.

It comes with the territory of being an old-timer.

- Jill Foreman