At the age of 98, Jo Miller remembers as well as ever the last time she saw her late husband and fishing buddy suited up for work.
It was three decades ago — 1988, the year Ben Miller retired from a career with the Santa Rosa Fire Department that he’d launched in 1956. After a huge City Hall retirement party, Ben and Jo Miller relocated to rural Oregon and spent many good times hooking salmon and steelhead in the Chetco River.
About a quarter century into retirement, Ben Miller, who grew up in Mendocino, developed pancreatic cancer. He died in Oregon in 2004, at the age of 83.
“I miss him,” his widow said.
Jo Miller said everybody loved Ben, whose given name was Ethelbert and who was 6-foot-4 and animated.
“You couldn’t help it,” she said. “He was full of jokes and never forgot one. His personality was something else.”