Rhododendron Rhapsody
I learned in grade school that the state flower of Washington State is the rhododendron. But rhododendrons didn’t grow well in Eastern Washington where I grew up. My mother planted a rhododendron bush in the front yard when we moved into the first house my parents owned in 1962. She nursed that bush along, but […]
Growth of the West Coast in the Mid-1800s and Beyond
Oregon City, now a suburb of Portland, Oregon, was one of the largest settlements in the West in the 1840s. Located at the Willamette Falls, which halted all boat traffic on the Willamette River, Oregon City was a natural stopping point for pioneers from the East. Starting with the Great Migration of 1843, Oregon City […]
Random Photos: When the Cares of the World Hit Hard
As I scrolled through old photographs recently, I came across pictures of my father taken on the beach at Port Townsend, Washington, in August 2006. This was my first visit to my parents’ new home—what would be their last home—in Port Ludlow, Washington. What strikes me about these pictures is that my father looks like […]
Fifty Years Ago: My 8th Grade Graduation
I wrote recently about my daughter’s 8th-grade graduation in 1999. After I wrote that post, I realized my own 8th-grade graduation was thirty years earlier—in late May or early June 1969. That’s fifty years ago—hard to believe it is half a century in the past. No lightning struck our house on that occasion, but it […]
Chihuly Garden and Glass Gallery
I’ve done a fair amount of sightseeing in Seattle, but I’d never been to the Chihuly Garden and Glass Gallery until a trip this autumn. The gallery and gardens sit under the Space Needle, but somehow I’d always passed them by. This time, I made a special visit just to see them. I was disappointed […]
Social Media: Reconnecting and Lurking
I’ve written before about how social media has helped me reconnect with relatives and friends. Well, I’ve had two new experiences in the last couple of weeks where social media again has warmed my heart in this way. A second cousin found me on Facebook recently. I’ve met her and her branch of the family a […]
Second Grade Anonymity
Throughout my first-grade year, I felt exposed. As I’ve written, I was a superstar during my three weeks of kindergarten and in the first first-grade classroom I attended, because I could read and the other pupils couldn’t. Even after we moved and I came into a new first-grade class in November of the school […]
May 18, 1980, Eruption of Mt. St. Helens
For most of the 1979-1980 school year, my parents lived apart. My father had started a new job in Bellevue, Washington, and my mother remained in Richland, Washington, with my younger sister and brother who were in school there. My sister was in her sophomore year of high school, and my brother was in eighth […]
Stories I Couldn’t Tell Before: Driving Dad’s Oldsmobile
When I was in high school, my father had this huge Oldsmobile 98. It was a big four-door sedan, the biggest car Oldsmobile made. The V8 engine could tow a boat crammed full of boxes for a summer on the lake. The passenger compartment could transport our family of six, plus our large dog, comfortably. […]
Three Weeks in Kindergarten
I started kindergarten in Corvallis, Oregon, in September 1961, when I was five-and-a-half. I was so excited to finally be in real school—I had a neighbor friend who was a second-grader, and she told me how wonderful school was. She had lorded it over me, because she went to real school, and I was just […]