Authored by Christina Watt

If you know me, you know I love a good story, and a good joke – the more ironic, the better.

So you’ll understand why I found this recent discovery to be so funny.

Our son was looking for a famous person to “be” in his third grade wax museum project.  Our daughter decided he should be Arthur A. Denny, the settler who founded Seattle, and who also happens to be the great, great, great, great grandfather of our kids.

He was intrigued by the idea, and wanted to see pictures to understand what this would really be all about.  Naturally, we Googled images of Arthur A., and checked him out on Wikipedia.

Now, here’s where I give you a little more background to pay off the punchline – and so that you’ll understand why this story is included on this particular blog.

In his day job, Bob, or should I say, Robert Denny Watt, III, is a diamond importer, and his business is called Exact Gems.  The name “Exact” comes from the schooner that the Denny Party sailed into Seattle on in 1851, landing on the beach at Alki Point.  Bob’s sister actually came up with the name for his business years ago, and it stuck.

So when we went to name this blog, I thought, why not keep the name?  Thus, Exact Wines was born.

Imagine our surprise last night when, upon reading more about Arthur A. Denny’s history, we learned that he was an extreme teetotaler.  Indeed, according to sources on Wikipedia, he disdained and abstained from alcohol to the point that he had the customers of his store buy their liquor direct from visiting ship captains so that he would not be involved in the transactions.

True?  Who knows for sure.  But to me, it sure was funny.