Macrame Memories

Here is my "Rockin' A Hard Place" blog-rant for March, which I performed on Sunday March 27 at Coupeville High School's Performing Arts Center. 

So here we sit on a Big Rock.  A bunch of dudes and dudettes, many of us looking a bit gray around the edges, trying to squeeze our aging behinds into high school auditorium seats designed for much narrower teenage butts.  And feeling all warm and fuzzy about that peace, love and flower power stuff we had back in the 60s.

Well, before we go on, let me remind you of what a wise person once said:  If you can remember the 60s, you weren’t there. My friends, I was there. So you will kindly disregard everything I’m about to say.

It was pretty amazing and it happened so quick. In less than five years, I switched from reading Time magazine hoping I’d be smart . . . to reading Rolling Stone hoping I’d be cool. I careened from the sweetness of Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music” to the grunge of Dennis Hopper in “Easy Rider.” I went from Lesley Gore’s “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to” on AM radio and to a well-worn vinyl track of Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane’s “One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small, and the ones that mother gives you don't do anything at all . . . Go ask Alice, when she’s ten feet tall.”

Wow, man. What a trip. I gotta lay back.

 I was a University of Washington student in the 1960s. I started out as a fresh-faced kid wearing neatly pressed corduroy slacks and white shirts. By 1968, I was heavy into raggedy jeans and army jackets. I confess I wasn’t much of a hippie. Way too Scandinavian for that. But I did consider myself a hippie wannabe. Cool but careful.

I grew my hair pretty long on campus . . . ah yes, I do remember my hair! But I always got it trimmed before going home to Tacoma. My mom would yell at me if I walked through her door looking like a beatnik. I tried to tell her she was a generation behind and maybe she meant hippie. She never understood the difference. As far as she was concerned, they all needed a bath.

We really thought we could change the world in the 60s, and maybe we did . . . but not quite the way we hoped. We held Gentle Thursdays outside the Husky Union Building and drew pictures with colored chalk on the sidewalk. It was all about liberating ourselves from racism and materialism and the military-industrial complex. Not too successful, were we?

We protested pretty much everything: the war in Vietnam, anybody over 30, the draft, the midnight curfew at the girls’ dorm, racial segregation, the buck-a-day that U-Dub charged to park in the landfill lot by Lake Washington where you needed an umbrella to dodge the deadly seagull bombs, and -- worst of all -- the U-Dub tuition that cost us a hundred and forty five bucks a quarter. Outrageous!

I visited Whidbey Island a couple times during those years. It was like traveling to a strange, exotic land lost in time. Let me tell you about one particular time. Three of us piled into my friend Charlie’s ‘55 Chevy one Saturday. We grabbed a burger at Dick’s on 45th and headed up Highway 99 through far distant Edmonds to the ferry dock in Mukilteo. Ferries didn’t run as often then and there was no Internet to check when they did. But there was a place to eat at the dock called Taylor's Landing, if you had the munchies while you waited. Now they call it Ivar's. 

We had no idea what we’d do on Whidbey. We’d heard that some mellow people lived there. In the 60s, mellow usually meant glassy-eyed college dropouts in tie-dyed tee-shirts who said “wow” a lot.

Imagine our disappointment when we got off the ferry to find mostly bait shops and beer joints. And old dudes who looked like our dads and spent their weekends on Whidbey fishing and playing cribbage. Bummer.

Today, I realize those old dudes were just like hippies, though they’d ferociously deny that. Every weekend they turned on, tuned in and dropped out. Now, of course, their turn-on was strictly beer. And their tune-in was the tide, weather and fishing report. And their drop-out was from their wives’ list of planned weekend chores. But see what I mean? They did everything but say “wow.”

On that particular visit to Whidbey we found a hippie guy selling tie-dye shirts and macramé by the side of the road somewhere near Langley. He said there were quite a few mellow folks on the island but most of them lived in the woods so they could do whatever they wanted. He told us to drive up the island to a little ghost town called Coupeville. It had a lot of cool old buildings.

Old dudes and hippies got along just fine in Coupeville, he said, not like in Seattle. And the brand new state highway on the island would get us there in only half an hour. So off we went in that two-toned Chevy, racing up Highway 525 that at some point turned into Highway 20 for no good reason. Wow, man. That was weird then and it still is.

I don’t have much recollection of our visit to Coupeville that day, except I think we had a good time. That was years before the tourist hordes started swarming the place to enjoy a quaint shopping and dining experience. Front Street was mostly a slow-paced hangout for locals. It even had lots of places to park.

 I asked my good friend Judy Lynn, who’s writing a book about Front Street, to help me picture what it must have been like when I was there. Judy said it’s very true. Old dudes and hippies did get along fine in Coupeville. They always have, she said, and they still do.

 She told me that in the 60s there was even a head shop in Mariners Court. Well, actually, it was an import shop called the Asian Moon. But it sold a few items that . . . well, let’s just say they were designed to enhance your smoking pleasure.

In Mariners Court there also was Knots and Bolts, a shop that sold macramé of all kinds. Macrame was so cool in the 60s! Those hippies did find some intriguing uses for hemp, didn’t they? I can just hear an old Coupeville fisher-dude back then telling the hippie at Knots and Bolts that he thought hemp was only good for making rope. But, right there in front of him, it was twisted into everything from shoulder bags to bookshelves!

 All in all, it’s easy to see why Whidbey has become so popular as a place to retire for those of us who survived the 60s. The old dudes and the hippies still get along just fine. And people still do pretty much whatever they want in the woods.

 Anyway. It was really cool to visit the Rock as a hippie wannabe in the 60s . . . even though I don’t remember much. But I’ll tell you a secret. Forty years later, it’s WAY more cool to live here as an old dude!

Peace, love and arthritic brotherhood, everybody!

Love Without The Folderol

[Here is my latest "Rockin' a Hard Place" blogtalk delivered last weekend (Feb. 19-20) at the "Postcards From Whidbey Island" variety show performed at the Rec Hall in Coupeville.]

The theme of the “Postcards” show this month is everything to do with love and sex and romance, and I’m supposed to blog about how all that applies to us on Whidbey Island. Well now. That shouldn’t take very long, should it?

I think I can sum up this whole subject by repeating something I heard a guy say to his female companion in line at the Red Apple the other day: “I love ya and all that . . . but do I have to keep sayin’ it?”

Here on the Rock, we’re just not the gushy, sweetie-pie type. We don’t go in much for moon and June and swoon and croon. As my Tacoma-born mother used to say, “For heaven sake! This ain’t New York!” No, indeed, it’s not. We’ve got too many fish to fry . . . or mussels to steam . . . to waste much time on that gushy stuff.

Now, for instance, you take the conversation I overheard a week or so ago at a restaurant down on Front Street. Picture this with me. There sits a long-married couple, having lunch. Let’s call them Kat and Bill. I know this couple is long-married because they are dressed alike: all denim, flannel, fleece and New Balance. Her hair is short, gray and curly-permed, and his is gone. She wears no makeup and neither does he.

She’s eating a plate of Penn Cove mussels, nicely steamed in white wine, garlic and butter. He’s having some broiled salmon on a bed of Ebey’s Prairie vegetables. I’d call them locavaores, except I imagine these folks were eating mussels and salmon with veggies before most of today’s trendy locavores were born.

Like most long-married couples at lunch, they aren’t saying much to each other. When they speak, it’s in a sort of Neanderthal code. He leans over and examines her plate of mussels.

“Your mussels any good?” he asks. “May want to try one.” She says nothing but grabs a mussel with her fork and spoon and puts it on his plate. Obviously, this is a ritual being repeated for the umpteenth time. He eats it and smiles.

“Salmon’s good too,” he says. He takes piece from his plate and sets it on hers. She eats it and smiles. “Good,” she nods and then says, “But way too much food. We can’t eat it all. Get a box.”

He knows the routine and signals the waiter to bring them a takeout container. “Looks like it finally stopped rainin’. Glad we got out of the house,” he says, helping her on with her fleece jacket. “Um hum. But just look at those clouds. Let’s get home before it starts again,” she says.

As they walk out the restaurant door, one of his hands gently rests on her shoulder and the other carries the leftover mussels and salmon.

Ah, yes. That’s what I call romance on the Rock. True love without all the folderol. Almost makes you want to cry, doesn’t it? And right now, who knows? Maybe Kat and Bill are sitting here in the audience. If you recognized yourselves, please raise your hands!

We do enjoy a healthy romantic life here, even if it doesn’t always show. It’s just that our words of love don’t sound like Shakespeare and Keats. Actually, more like Bert and Ernie.

There’s another kind of romance that goes on here on the Rock, and it’s very different from sharing a Penn Cove mussel with the one you’ve lived with forever. This kind is flaunted right out there in public. It happens between men and women, or men and men, or women and women, or even kids and kids.

I call it co-mance because it happens in places where our community gathers. . . like the Post Office, the Rec Hall or, even more spectacularly, at the recycling center. Now I already mentioned our general aversion to folderol in romance here on the Rock. But all those rules are tossed out the window when it comes to co-mance.

Have you ever seen more hugging or shoulder fondling or cheek-pecking than at the Post Office? The other day I saw a woman squeeze another woman so hard she dropped her roll of stamps. And a man gave his neighbor such a warm hug that she got all flush and forgot to check her P-O Box.

And then there’s what happens right here at the Rec Hall. Take a free glass of wine here and the next thing you know you’ve volunteered for the Water Festival or the Lions Club or the noxious weed cleanup at the Town Park. And, believe me, there’s no morning-after pill for what happens at the Rec Hall!

Say hello to a friend at a gathering here and they shake your hand so hard with their big, garden-calloused paw that you feel bruised. Or head for your car in the parking lot and end up in a conversation with a friend for an hour in 30-degree weather, and wake up with a lousy cold the next day.

But the best place by far for co-mance is at our recycling center. Have you ever seen such love and affection as when two strangers toss their empty wine bottles into the dumpster together at the recycling center? Don’t you enjoy those goo-goo eyes they make as the glass shatters and they ask each other how they enjoyed a particular variety?

Well, I should amend that. It’s co-mance when they toss their clear bottles in the correct dumpster and their green ones in the other. If they should happen to co-mingle their bottles, the recycling cop will put a quick end to their co-mance.

Tossing your junk mail into the appropriate dumpster at the recycling center together can also lead to a lovely co-mantic experience. “Can you believe how many Pottery Barn catalogues we get?” somebody will ask. “I know what you mean,” the other will say. “And here we are turning them into packaging for more Pottery Barn merchandise from China,” the other will say. They chuckle. Sparks fly. Ah, sweet mystery of life!

And finally there’s the co-mance that begins while stuffing cardboard boxes – carefully flattened, of course – into the designated recycling container. “Oh, I see from the box that you must’ve bought a new computer,” the boy will say. “Yeah,” the girl will answer demurely, “and I still don’t know how to set it up.” “It’s not too difficult,” he’ll say. “I’d be glad to help if you want.”

Ah . . . Can’t you just hear Cupid’s arrow flying through the air? Before you know it, they’ll be googling. And isn’t it co-mantic?

Any way. I’d like to tell all you folks that I love you. But for heaven sake, this ain’t New York! And besides I’ve got some mussels to steam. So I’ll just say, see ya!

Rockin' a Hard Place - December!

Following is my "blog-talk" for December, which I performed this past weekend at the monthly "Postcards From Whidbey Island" variety show here in Coupeville, USA. Next month's shows are Jan. 15-16 at the historic Crockett Barn. Merry Christmas, everybody!

You know what I enjoy most about the holiday season on the Rock? Wherever I go, it’s as if the last 50 years never happened. I see hand-painted snowmen along Main Street in Coupeville made out of plain old plywood. They aren’t animatronic and they don’t sing “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” . . . over and over and over. I haven’t seen a single Jumbotron outside a church, scrolling the words to such forgettable modern carols as “Mommy Met Jesus Tonight.” I did not make that up! And, I’ve seen only a few outdoor light displays that require computer software and a digital sound board to perform their coordinated blinking and blaring.

Nope, that’s not how we do it on the Rock. We go in for just a few strings of lights . . . some even with colored bulbs, not all clear white . . . and they usually don’t twinkle. How refreshing is that! I actually saw somebody stringing tinsel on their tree – of course it was vinyl, not the aluminum kind I knew as a kid, and it was probably made in China from recycled TVs and cell phones. But it was still tinsel . . . and they were putting it on strand by strand. Next thing you know, Mommy will be kissing Santa Claus tonight!

A couple weeks ago we enjoyed a true holiday tradition here on the Rock. We attended the annual ladies’ luncheon and holiday bazaar at the Coupeville United Methodist Church. I doubt the menu and the merchandise have changed much since 1955.

We dined on chicken casserole with green beans mixed in and topped with buttery bread crumbs. And Jell-O salad with chopped cranberries and walnuts. And a soft dinner roll – distinctly unFrench and not the least bit crusty. Then choice of homemade pie . . . I chose mince and it tasted just like my Grandma Esther’s. Followed by a cup of hot tea poured from a pot covered by a hand-knit cozy. I closed my eyes for a moment and it felt as if Eisenhower was still in the White House and all I wanted for Christmas was my two front teeth.

Thanks to the delicious Methodist lunch, we were fortified for the difficult challenge ahead. Finding all those unique gifts “from Whidbey” that our mainland folks now expect from us. So, that afternoon we began our annual trek to the church bazaars, holiday markets, boutiques, galleries, wood carvers, potters, purveyors of local-grown food and rummage sales.

The first thing I bought was a loaf of pumpkin-cider bread baked by the Coupeville Methodist ladies. Let’s hope it didn’t spoil in the UPS truck on the trek to my sister-in-law in Syracuse. I also bought a hand-knit Methodist toaster cozy for my niece in Phoenix . . . but unfortunately she called to say it doesn’t fit her new, digital combination bread-browner and panini grill. I doubt the Methodist ladies make a cozy to fit that.

Then we headed for a host of other bazaars and came back with lots of uniquely Whidbey gifts. A wreath made out of bird seed . . . two jars of loganberry jam . . . a lavender sachet to keep your sock drawer from smelling . . . a half dozen pieces of lefse from the Lutheran ladies that I sent to my Texas friends, who mistook them for tortillas . . . a couple potholders made out of the Swedish flag . . . a table centerpiece of tastefully sprayed pine cones . . . a bee’s wax candle mounted in a holder made of mussel shells . . . a driftwood garden sign painted with a warning that trespassers will be composted . . . a barometer mounted on a hand-carved cedar branch that fell across a power line last winter. How Whidbey can you get?

Then, after shopping’s done, come those wonderful holiday occasions known as open houses. On the Rock, however, they come with a peculiar danger. I speak, of course, of re-gifting . . or, more precisely, accidentally giving the same useless object or cheap bottle of wine back to the person who gave it to you.

Re-gifting something to the person who palmed it off on you can create an awkward moment anywhere. But the risk is higher on the Rock because too many of us get invited to the same holiday gatherings. So, I invite you to imagine this scenario as yours truly arrives at a holiday open house in Freeland with a bottle of wine for my hosts. I grab the bottle as I run out the door, not paying too much attention. I can’t remember who gave it to me.

In the car I notice what it is. Somebody must have bought it at Trader Joe’s. It’s that brand known politely as a “pretty good cheap wine.” But most of us know it by its price tag – Two Buck Chuck. I hope the pretty wine gift carrier it’s in will hide the label on the bottle. My hosts greet me warmly at the door.

“Sarah and Dave, thanks so much for inviting me! Happy holidays!” I say, handing them the bottle. “Here’s a little holiday cheer . . . I hope you enjoy it!”

I am horrified as Sarah pulls the wine out of gift bag and looks at it. Isn’t that against the rules here on the Rock? Isn’t she supposed to wait until later, when everybody’s gone and she can’t remember who brought it?

“Oh,” Sarah says. “It’s Charles Shaw cabernet . . . Fresno, 2009.” She pauses. “Um. We’ve had this, I think,” she says, faking a smile. “Somebody got us several bottles at Trader Joe’s in Seattle. But I think we gave away our last one. What a beautiful wine gift bag! It looks just like one I bought. We, uh, do have similar tastes, don’t we!”

Then somebody else comes in behind me and briefly interrupts this awkward moment. I see Sarah lean over to Dave and mutter a few words I can distinctly make out. “He brought us back the Two Buck Chuck in the same gift bag. Can you believe it?”
My eyes meet Sarah and Dave’s. Busted. I feel the blood rushing to my forehead and my palms start to sweat. How do I get out of this re-gifting nightmare?

“Well, I hope you enjoy the wine. Looks like you have quite a crowd coming, so I’ll head on in,” I say.

“We’ll catch up later in the evening,” Dave says. Then he adds, “Um. Would you mind putting the Two Buck Chuck over there on the table with the other wine?”

I nod sheepishly and slink away. I set the bottle next to the expensive vintages on the table and quickly move to another part of the room before anybody sees me. I engage in idle chatter with somebody I don’t know. Then I make a mental note to myself. Next year bring Swedish flag potholders or a barometer on a cedar branch!

That’s what I mean about the terrible dangers of re-gifting on the Rock. Too much cheap wine, too few people! Let’s be careful out there!

Anyway . . . Merry Christmas, everybody!

Here is my "blogtalk" for November that I performed this weekend at the monthly "Postcards From Whidbey Island" variety show here in Coupeville, USA:

Welcome to November on Whidbey Island. Don’t you love it? So delightfully cold and damp and dark. That unique, squishy sound I hear when I walk across the grass. All those brown leaves I didn’t bother to rake . . . just lying there, taunting me, daring me to get out in rain and do something about them.

Yes, indeed. This is one of those months they don’t talk about in the tourist brochures you pick up on the Mukilteo Ferry. They skip right from Oktoberfest to MusselFest. Nary a word about some of those Fests in between . . . like the All-Whidbey Moss ‘n’ Mold Expo. That’s a big one. Or the Island-wide Rat & Mouse In-Fest. So many of us never miss that one. I’m just glad the eat-local movement doesn’t participate in those.

But we love it here in November, don’t we? It’s that time of year when we ransack the closet to find something, anything to keep our feet warm. When we finally scrape last November’s mud off the waterproof shoes we haven’t worn for months …. you know, the ones you quickly discover aren’t really waterproof when you step into the puddle in the driveway.

It’s time to drag all the sweaters out of the drawer and hope others won’t notice the musty odor when you sit down next to them. And, it’s time to check the propane tank and discover the meter’s been on “zero” since April . . . then make a panicky call to the supplier and hope the truck arrives before they find you frozen in your Snuggie.

Ah yes, November . . . such a great month. We have several wonderful holidays during the month. We just had Veterans’ Day, and we really appreciate our vets here on Whidbey. How many veterans here tonight? Great! Thank you! I’m a veteran, too…..Uncle Sam gave me an all-expenses-paid trip to Vietnam in 1969. Thankfully, it was a roundtrip! Let’s see, Vietnam….I think that was about four wars ago, wasn’t it? I can’t remember . . . there’ve been so many.

Any way, I still feel goose bumps when the Navy guys march down Main Street in Coupeville on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. And I’m happy to be living someplace where I can attend an Interfaith Peace Vigil one moment and watch a precision military drill team the next. I love this mixed-up, diverse, military-respecting, peace-loving Rock we live on!

Of course, Thanksgiving is coming up next Thursday. A lot of us take the opportunity to fly away to some dryer, warmer place . . . but many of us are descended-upon by mainland folks eager to say they ate a drumstick on an island. As for me, I give thanks for that enzyme in turkey that puts you to sleep. Otherwise I’d have to spend the afternoon listening to our relatives complain about life on the mainland.

We’ll also be dining on the most expensive turkey we’ve every cooked. How expensive, you ask? Well, let me explain. Last spring while I was off-island, my partner Terry went with some friends to the annual Lions Club auction here at the Crockett Barn. Now don’t get me wrong. I know the Lions do a lot of good work, and their auction raises a lot of money every year for scholarships for local students.

But those Lions have been doing this auction for a long time and they know all the tricks to make sure the bidding goes through the roof. It starts with lots of wine before dinner. Then lots of good food. Then lots more wine. And then the auction begins.

When I got home, I discovered we were the winning bidders of a beautiful Narragansett turkey from a local farm. Live or dressed. Free butchering lesson included, if desired . . . it wasn’t.

Not until I googled Narragansett turkey did I discover that it’s a breed that may be descended from the wild New England birds the Pilgrims ate. Which offers me at least some comfort. Considering that Terry, after several glasses of Lions Club wine, had made the winning bid of 200 dollars. Two…..HUNDRED….dollars.

So, stop by our house next Thursday and see Old Tom if you’d like. At that price, we ought to use him as a table lamp or something. But I’m sure we will savor every costly bite of that bird.

There was a third big holiday here on Whidbey this month, although it only comes around every couple of years. This time it was Wednesday November Third. Freedom from Political Signs and Negative Ads Day! Maybe the best holiday of all, don’t you agree? It was such a relief watching people tear down all that wasted cardboard and plywood along our two-lane state highway. And finally getting back to ads for Preparation H and Polident on TV . . . instead of that annoying woman whining that the healthy snacks she makes were being taxed like candy. And imagine my delight when the recorded 800-number call we got on the evening of November Third was actually somebody pitching a credit card . . . and not Sarah Palin pitching Dino Rossi.

Of course, the downside of Freedom from Political Signs and Negative Ads Day is that now we don’t have nearly as much to complain about while kibitzing over a latte. Before November Third, I think every ear on the island was burning from all the scorched talk about politics. You’d have thought that world would end on Election Day. But didn’t. We’re all still here … a little worse for wear, perhaps, but not dead or owned by the Chinese. Yet.

And, if we’re going to argue about the hand basket to hell we’re in, is there a better place to do it than here on this beautiful Rock . . .where not much really changes? Where the tide still turns twice a day . . . and the sun still follows the rain . . . and the trees still grow oh-so tall . . . and Mount Baker still looms majestically over us . . . and in November the leaves still turn a glorious red and yellow before falling to the ground and daring us to do something about them?

We do have a lot to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Rockin' a Hard Place

This is a "blogtalk" I gave during performances last weekend of "Postcards From Whidbey Island," a new, live monthly variety show we've started here in Coupeville, Washington, USA.

I live on Whidbey Island . . . and that, my friends, takes a little explaining. We have a different slant on life here on the Rock, as we call it, versus those who live in America. That’s what we call any place you can get to from here by ferry, bridge, bicycle, kayak or hiking boot.

Now you take what I’m wearing this evening, for instance. Baseball cap…fleece vest….T-shirt….shorts…flip-flops. For those of you who don’t recognize it, this happens to be the Whidbey male’s uniform for fall weather. Now you might ask why a grown man would wear this get-up when it’s forty degrees outside. Simple. Maybe it’s forty right now, but it may be sixty in a hour or so. On the Rock, you gotta be prepared for the temperature to change. And when you’re sipping a nice warm latte someplace like William Bell’s hangout at the end of the Wharf, you don’t want to swelter in all that bundled-up stuff. On the Rock, we avoid bundling and unbundling whenever possible. Bundling is for January, not October.

Folks on Whidbey are modest, for the most part. We don’t go in for bragging...even though we do live in the best place on the planet and we know it. But we don’t brag about it because we don’t want America to move here. Of course, we love it that so many tourists visit the Rock in the summertime, and gush about how beautiful it is, how historic and quaint and friendly, how amazing the scenery is, and how lucky we are to live here. We just smile, say yeah, and take their money. And then we heave a sigh of relief when they’re gone after Labor Day. Finally, we have a place to park again!

We aren’t loud talkers here, either. You don’t hear us raise our voices much on the Rock... except when the Navy jets fly over. No...we like nice, quiet talk. Think it’s gonna rain? Had any luck with your tomatoes this year? Stuff like that. And when anybody brings up politics, we just nod and pretend to agree with them. Then ask ‘em how their kids are.

Another thing is, not much really changes here. No matter what anybody says, everything’s like it always was. For instance, some folks like to think hardly anything happened before Captain Vancouver sailed in a couple hundred years ago and sent his first mate Joe Whidbey on a couple-day cruise around the Rock.

Truth is, native people lived here for at least five thousand years before Old Joe ever set eyes on the place. In fact, several different nations shared the Rock. There were the Snohomish in the South, the Skagits in the North and a few Clallams growing food on the prairie. They were separate nations and spoke their own dialects.

It’s the same today. We still have different tribes sharing the Rock and speaking their own dialects. We have the Clint-ish, the Langl-ish and the Freel-ish in the South, the Coupe-ish and the Greenb-ish in the middle, and the Oak-ish in the North. Now sometimes the uppity Clint-ish, Langl-ish and Freelish poke fun at the Oak-ish and callthem Oakies. That’s certainly not nice-talk.

When Old Joe Whidbey took his cruise, he wrote that everything appeared ever so peaceful and nice on the Rock...even though the various tribes bad-mouthed each other and fought a lot. That hasn’t changed, has it? The Snohomish were basically mainlanders and they canoed back and forth a lot. The only difference today is that the Clint-ish and the Langl-ish use park-and-ride lots and take the ferry. Clallams were claim jumpers from the Olympic Peninsula who horned in on the Skagit farmers on the Prairie. Today, the Coupe-ish try to even that score by going over to the Peninsula to buy cheap stuff. When the ferry’s running, that is.

And, in the old days, the Skagits on the north end were always fretting about raids by the fierce Haida warriors from Canada. That’s certainly no different today. You know how pushy those Canadian tourists can be.

The original people on the Rock used to put aside their differences once or twice a year for this thing called a potlatch. Kind of a picnic on steroids. One tribe would host the others for several days of eating barbecued salmon and local concoctions with unknown ingredients, drinking homemade liquor and cavorting in a big cedar hall called a long house. No back-biting or fighting was permitted. Only nice-talk about kids, fishing and other pleasant stuff. And when the visitors left, they all got nice gifts from the local chief. Then, in a few days, they went back to fighting each other.

Today, it’s still the same. Only we call our gatherings potlucks. We do them in big cedar halls like the Crockett Barn or the Rec Hall. We eat salmon and local concoctions with unknown ingredients. We call them casseroles. We drink liquor, cavort and talk. No insults or fights are allowed. And when we leave, everybody gets a chance to win nice presents called door prizes. Then we go back to bad-mouthing each other.

Now let me give you an example of how all this works here on the Rock. A couple days ago, I had a phone call from my friend Carl in Langley. This is how it went:

"Hello? Oh, hi Carl. How ya doin’? Oh, I forgot. I’ll bring back that weed whacker I borrowed next time I see you. What? Oh, I just got back from Home Depot in Oak Harbor. They had a sale on the gutter screens I need to keep the pine needles out."

"What?" Carl says, "You went where? WHY did you go THERE?" he cries.

"They have good stuff," I say.

"Way too corporate for me," he says. "I only support local businesses. "Like Ace Hardware in Freeland," he says.

"You ought to give Home Depot a chance," I say.

"But it’s in Oak Harbor," he says. "Do you realize how many quarts of gasoline my Prius would burn to drive up there? And it’s Oak Harbor, for cryin’ out loud. Taco Bell . . . Burger King . . . Starbuck’s . . . Wal-Mart!! I moved to Whidbey to get away from all that," he says. "And those people live there." he says.

"Well, Carl," I say, "The Republicans have to live someplace. Be nice. You’re being very un-Whidbey-like."

"Yeah, well," he says, "You can burn fossil fuels going up there to ship your dollars off-island into the greedy palms of corporations if you want. I choose not to."

"OK, Carl," I say. "Whatever. Want to see a movie at the Clyde later in the week? I hear they’re finally playing Avatar."

"Great," he says. "Love to. Text me with the time. Gotta run. I’m catching the 1:30 ferry."

"Where you going?" I ask.

"Gotta pick up a roll of weed-blocker and some organic slug bait at Lowe’s in Lynnwood," he says. "Bye!"

Anyway, that’s how it goes here on the Rock. The new ferry’ll be running by the time we meet again. I can hardly wait to feel the big rattle they can’t seem to fix. I’ll blog about it next month. See ya then!

A Hill of Beans

I have decided to start posting on my blog again, after a six-month hiatus. What prompted this fit of ego-journaling? The political season, in part. The cacophony of negative ads is starting to hurt my tender ears and it's impossible to avoid them. The turning of the season, in part. The leaves are becoming red and yellow, and the temperature is brisk in the mornings. The looming start of my Social Security benefit, in part. I am officially old. Note to Tea Party candidates: Keep your grubby government paws off my Social Security! And Medicare, too, while we're at it! And, also, the Twitter-ization of modern life. My thoughts don't stop at 140 characters. So blog again I shall. Whether you like or not!

Time for Pie

I haven't posted recently. I've been too busy teaching a seminar in Dallas, mowing our three acres on Whidbey Island (way, way too early -- thanks to the warm winter), and generally pursuing retiree activities. It's amazing how the hours fill up when you're not working!

But, of course, I have not been immune from the nasty palaver going on about health care reform. It's not possible to escape it in newspapers and on television, radio and the Internet. It almost sounds like we're headed for a second Civil War. The rhetoric is merciless and beyond hateful. Are we really citizens of the same country? Doesn't sound like it when we hurl epithets worse than we used to hurl at (real) Nazis, toss bricks through political office windows and sever propane lines into homes of relatives of those who voted for The Bill We Wanted To Kill.

Maybe we should let Texas secede. And throw in Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee while we're at it. Let 'em pay for their own health care, their own military and their own Social Security. Or maybe we should let states opt out of the mandate that all of us should have to pay something for health care. As I remember my U.S. history, that's called state nullification -- a concept that was first refused by Andrew Jackson in 1832 and finally killed (I thought) by the Civil War.

Or maybe we should all just have a piece of pie and a cup of coffee and talk this over. If we are who we say we are -- peaceful citizens living in a democracy, abiding by the law and accepting majority rule and minority rights -- then we ought to be able to talk with each other, not at each other. If Democrats are Socialists, Communists and Fascists (all at the same time), and Republicans are Corporate Fat Cats and Gun-Toting Loonies Who Wear Teabag Earrings, then we can't enjoy each others' company, can we?

But, as I see it, we're all in this together, weathering tough times, anxious about our country, fed up with selfishness and greed, watching our standard of living decline, worried about the future. So maybe we can still figure out where our common ground is. Remember that our parents did, as did their parents and their parents' parents.

So come on over, the coffee's on and the pie just came out of the oven. Here are some lyrics written by Irving Berlin in 1930 that say it well:

Just around the corner
There's a rainbow in the sky.
So let's have another cup of coffee,
And let's have another piece of pie.

Trouble's like a bubble,
And the clouds will soon roll by
So let's have another cup of coffee
And let's have another piece of pie.

Let a smile be your umbrella
For it's just an April shower,
Even John D. Rockefeller
is looking for the silver lining!

Mr. Herbert Hoover
Says that now's the time to buy.
So let's have another cup of coffee.
And let's have another piece of pie!