J. M. "Mike" Sweeney isn't actually quite as old as the City of Seattle, though you might find that hard to believe that after being regaled with one of his impromptu Seattle history lectures.

He still remembers the old Seattle Pacific Telephone Exchange for example and the clunky rotary dial phones they used (he's still got his), and can even quote you his first phone number (HOLLY-2737). As a man with total recall Mike has no use for all the new-fangled data storage gadgets out there: the PDA's, the I-pods and whatnot. He still drives a Model A Ford even, though mostly just in parades.

Mike's been living in the same house on 18th and Roxbury since it was built.

"The fire department had just burned down the old house there for practice, and my friend Vern was bulldozing the lot. I asked him: 'What're they gonna put there?' and he said, 'Another house.' So I said, 'Whose house?' and he said, 'Yours, if you want it.'

"Well, I did want it, so we worked out a deal and I bought the house and lot for $55,000 cash. That was back in 1982 and I've been in it ever since. I'd trade the whole mortgage payment I had back then for what I'm paying just in property taxes today."

Mike went almost straight from high school to work on the docks, as a waterfront teamster.

"In my whole life I've never lived or worked more than a stone's throw from salt water. A lot of my ancestors lived near the water too, on the coast of Maine, so I guess I must have it in my blood."

In 1973 Mike enlisted in the Navy and served aboard the destroyer USS Turner Joy and the ocean minesweeper USS Esteem.

After a six-year stint in the Navy he spent some time at South Seattle Community College then went right back to the waterfront, loading ships. Today he still works at the docks driving a "jitney" (also called a "top pick"). That's one of those giant Tonka toys stevedores use to load and unload containers from cargo ships. Mike knows just about everyone in the local longshoreman's union (the ILWU), including some families with three generations working on the waterfront, and has never missed a union meeting in the more than two and a half decades he's been a member - except for once when his father was sick.

With 27 years of service in Mike admits that he's "almost an old timer".

"The new kids move quite a bit faster than me but that doesn't bother me," he says. "I do my best to keep up - but not at a dead-run. As time passes I get more safety conscious and try to think several moves in advance of what I'm doing so I don't make a mistake. This is some heavy equipment I'm working with and you can't stop it on a dime.

"The old maritime terminology we used to use on the docks is gradually disappearing, but I still use it. For instance, I don't say 'rope' I say 'line' or I say 'up behind' or 'topping lift' or 'amidships guy' or 'outside preventer' or 'port and starboard' or 'main deck', which is even right to the gunnel.

"A lot of this seaworthy stuff goes back to my time in the Navy. Some of these young guys can't understand what I'm saying, but a guy who's been in the Navy and maybe on the waterfront for 40 years can. Young guys'll ask me what to call something and I'll say, 'You call that a "wire pendant" or a "shot of chain" -which is 90 feet- or an "anchor shackle" or a "turnbuckle", or a "manila line with a three-fold splice." I could rattle it off for days.

"A lot of times young people on the docks will point to something and use their own word for it and I'll say, 'Well, that's not really what that thing is. You can call it that, but it's really a "double-eye pendant,"' or whatever it may be. Of course, they know what they're talking about, and I know what they're talking about. But sometimes it really is good to use the right word for it because that way you don't get it mixed up with something else."

Mike's active in the 34th District Democrats, the West Seattle Historical Society, the West Seattle Safety Partnership and other civic associations. He's looking at retirement from the waterfront within the next few years and will most likely be spending it between Seattle and some property he owns in Maine. Near the water, of course.

David Preston is a freelance journalist living in White Center. You can contact him at preston.david@comcast.net.