Ballard News-Tribune. April 6, 2010.

Open to the past
He has almost four decades of experience as a premier woodworker based in Ballard, a state-of-the art workshop in the shadow of the Ballard Bridge and a briefcase that holds the secrets of a famous musical interlude.

Sam Peterson started Associated Wood Products in 1972, but in the early 60s he toured the world with the violinist David Rubinoff as concert pianist and accompanist.

Peterson was studying at Everett Junior College when Rubinoff heard the 20-year-old Peterson play while passing through on a local tour. A notably impulsive man, Rubinoff invited Peterson to join his tour. He wasn't exaggerating when he told Peterson that he would see the world.

Perhaps because Rubinoff played for live audiences more than he recorded, his name isn't as well-known as those of his mentors and colleagues: John Phillips Souza, Will Rogers, George and Ira Gershwin.

He had his own radio and then television program as part of the "Chase and Sanborn Hour." In this day and age, who can recall "Chase and Sanborn?"

Rubinoff played for presidents and schoolchildren, Elks Clubs and troops in Vietnam. He played "Danse Russe" and selections from "The Sound of Music."

He was known for his huge appetite, his Stradivarius (then billed as his "$100,000 violin"), his looping signature and the way that he always ended his concerts by reciting the poem, "The Clock of Life."

To Sam Peterson he was just plain Dave.

In his early 20s, Peterson wanted to be a concert pianist on the order of Van Cliburn.

He was perfecting his interpretation of Mozart's "25th Piano Concerto" when Rubinoff pulled him into his orbit. For the next seven years, his life was a series of concert dates – up to 121 per year.

He traveled the country three times over and became the advance agent, booking Rubinoff three months in advance in service clubs.

"Home" was the Leland Hotel in Detroit.

After seven years, Peterson realized his window of time to be the next greatest concert pianist had closed. There were teenagers who had better mastery than he did.

At 27, he concluded that if he couldn't be the best, he would leave the profession. He said goodbye to Dave Rubinoff and returned to Seattle.

After working with the architectural firm Kenton Designs, Peterson started his own woodworking shop. For 35 years he was on Ballard Avenue in a space owned by the Olson brothers.

In the last four decades he has outfitted untold kitchens, boats, office spaces and retail locations, creating cabinetry and signage from his workshop.

"I'm not the best woodworker in this town," Peterson said looking out at his beautifully equipped shop, "But, I'm one of the best."

In this main section of his life between his late-20s and his late-60s, Peterson has raised a family, succeeded as a businessman, lost part of a finger to one of his machines and not owned a piano.

Perhaps because orders are down slightly because of the economy, Peterson has more time to reflect. So, he brought out the old briefcase and gave me a call.

The briefcase is filled with programs from all those 121 concert dates per year, the newspaper photographs and interviews, and the letters from Dave Rubinoff to Sam Peterson, written on his special stationary that featured a violin and his trademark signature on the top of the page.

Most people don't know about Peterson's past. Fewer and fewer people have heard of Dave Rubinoff, who died days short of his 89th birthday in 1986.

Peterson doesn't have regrets. By the time he returned to Seattle, he'd had his fill of traveling and playing on the stage.

When the Ballard Bridge is up, the traffic backs up outside his woodshop on Ballard Way. His office walls are completely covered with photographs of his work over the years. Then, there's the briefcase, open to a past that no one passing by would ever suspect – and Classic KING-FM always playing in the shop.

There's a gleam in John Mayenburg's bright blue eyes when he talks about giving away cars. Unlike Oprah Winfrey's giveaways no one will be driving these beauties. They are miniature cars but Mayenburg doesn't love them any less.

A few weeks ago a fellow writer told me about a new shop in her neighborhood. She thought there was a story in a man who had an entire container shipped to Seattle from Alaska filled with miniature and model cars.

Although the cars are the main event in the shop John also has photographs from working on the Washington Ferries for the last ten years and decades of fishing for halibut. As he said, "I've got so many dead fish pictures."

His shop is open Thursday-Sunday, from noon to 7 p.m. The big man himself is an open book all the time.

Ballard News-Tribune. April 13, 2010

Big man, little cars
It was John Mayenburg's birthday on April 5, so he treated himself to lunch at The Lockspot. Then he went to pay his respects at the place in the road where the young men had lost their lives one day earlier.

In front of the growing memorial of flowers and notes, John spent "a sacred moment." He has always had a love of cars, as did those young men.

Mayenburg also knows about danger. He fished long-line for halibut out of Alaska for 20 years and survived a sinking in 1989.

He knows the make and model of virtually every car ever manufactured, but in his case, the cars are not on the streets. His 43,000 cars are die-cast miniatures and models, filling every inch of his storefront on 28th Avenue Northwest.

On the deck of an Alaskan ferry where's he worked for the last 10 years, John wouldn't look big. Inside his month-old "golden garden miniature cars and models shop," he looks like a giant.

In two years and another surgery, John plans to return to his job as able seaman on the Alaska Marine Highway. But right now, it's time to let go of his miniatures and Hot Wheels in their original packaging.

Mayenburg is a collector. As a boy in Magnolia, he loved his miniature cars and Hot Wheels.

After graduation and a stint at Fishermen's Terminal, he moved to Juneau, Alaska, for his fishing years.

Unfortunately he didn't return to collect his car collection before his sister made good on a threat to get rid of it. Since that loss, he has spent his adult life overcompensating, becoming a train hobbyist as well as a die-cast collector.

Since an injury, Mayenburg has needed to be in Seattle every month for treatment, and he decided it was time to ship his collection by container from Alaska and take advantage of Seattle as a retail location for selling his collection.

He makes it a point to give free miniatures to kids every day and sell rarer models to other collectors.

Already, boys on their way home from school know they can pick out a free car from one of three walls, one per day, any time they visit.

From miniatures of cars that were featured in television or movies (from "The Flintstones" to "Herbie") and with an emphasis on models from the 50s, 60s and 70s, John has a model of almost every automobile (or Wienermobile) that was ever on the road.

Although Mayenburg participates in die-cast clubs and online forums, he has no interest in selling his collection on eBay.

What John loves is people. He doesn't want to package and ship his cars through the mail. He wants to talk to neighbors who come in off the sidewalk. He wants to put cars literally into other hands.

He shows me models with windows that roll down, explains how die-casts are pre-painted metal, never plastic.

John looks like more of a railroad engineer than a small car collector until he holds the cars in his hand. Then they look at home, nestled in his big palm.

On a mostly residential street one block south of Northwest 85th Street, the exterior of the shop is inconspicuous, like the lower case letters in the business name.

Inside, the cars are stacked from floor to ceiling, interspersed with some airplane models.

"What I'm doing is tradition," Mayenburg says. "It's Alaska tradition to be giving things away."

Although only open Thursday through Sunday, Mayenburg is already welcoming people from auto body shops, adults who miss their childhood collections, parents using miniatures as part of potty-training or Easter baskets and the kids who have heard about the free cars.

"I didn't expect to be doing this," Mayenburg said, looking around the little store. "I'm not out to make money. Just give away cars, sell some at cost and recover maybe half of what I've spent in the last 20 years."

Mayenburg knows that kids, particularly little boys, will always love their miniature cars. Some will grow up to want to rebuild those classic cars, they will want to race them and show them off. But, it's safer if the steering wheels are no bigger than a button so that it is only small cars that go missing, not future lives.

As though on cue, two boys stopped outside to look at the window displays before entering.

"This is not work," Mayenburg said. "This is enjoying."

I've always loved umbrellas. Not using them, owning them. Looking at them. That said I don't know why it took me over a year to visit Bella Umbrella after it opened. Lately I've been popping in all the time to visit the umbrellas that I've rented for the Ballard nuptials in June. I was shy about asking the owner Jodell Egbert for an interview because she has had local and national mentions. Then I realized that since she's "all about Ballard" I needed to get over it.

Bella Umbrella
I would rather be chatting with Jodell Egbert of Bella Umbrella than interviewing her. Then we could just talk food, shoes and walking routes.

But after stopping in regularly to "visit" the umbrellas, I decided it was time to get in line behind The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for an interview. Those writers may have been able to talk weddings, floral and food, but could they speak Ballard?

Started as online business, renting and selling vintage umbrellas, Bella Umbrella has had a shop in Ballard since November 2008; the shop opened three weeks after owner Jodell noticed a "For Rent" sign in the neighborhood while walking her dogs. Having purchased a little house nearby, opening a shop for the business was a second homecoming.

Jodell's first apartment as an adult was in Ballard; over the years she then "hit all the hills." Years ago she wondered why someone would want to live in Ballard given its relative distance to the freeway. Now, we wonder together why does anyone ever need to leave Ballard?

"Everything I need is here," Jodell said.

Her employees think alike, each living within blocks.

Jodell values the sense of Ballard community, and she loves her retail shop on the Northwest 70th block just east of 15th Avenue Northwest.

The block is its own sweet neighborhood, home of Honoré Artisan Bakery, Delancey, A Caprice Kitchen , Space to Create and old-timer Tarasco, among others.

The shop deliberately has a French décor. With its whimsical umbrellas it is a candy store for adults (although women may outnumber men).

On a block that is gaining national attention (see Orangette), Bella Umbrella brings yet another distinction: Jodell has the world's largest collection of vintage umbrellas. If someone can prove that Jodell Egbert doesn't have the largest collection in the world, she would like them to reveal themselves so they can talk umbrellas.

Jodell's umbrella business began serendipitously with her own wedding and the search for an alternative to "the tent." She found a collection of vintage umbrellas for sale on eBay and purchased all 50.

Although she now acquires three to five umbrellas per week, she has never again spotted another such collection, even though she has not missed a single day on eBay since that first acquisition in 1999. It is no exaggeration that the first purchase changed her course in life.

Jodell had a bubble umbrella as child growing up in small towns like Smokey Point and Carnation but didn't own an umbrella until her wedding. More than 2,000 have passed through her hands since then, although she only owns about 800 now.

She did floral design for 16 years, often involving weddings. Beginning with her wedding (and then a visit to an umbrella shop while on her honeymoon in Paris), she was irredeemably hooked on umbrellas, from handle to tip. Jodell now designs her own line in addition to acquiring vintage umbrellas.

Bella Umbrella ships umbrellas all over the world, supplying them for weddings and photo shoots, television and movies (reason alone to see the next "Sex and the City" movie), but it's sharing her collection in person that Jodell enjoys most.

Pity the shopper in Indiana or Cyprus who cannot open the umbrellas as they choose rentals for an event or for purchase. Visitors marvel at each umbrella; ones that are different underneath, fabrics that shimmer, ruffles that earn a parasol its name of Lacy Southern Belle. The rentals go by numbers, while umbrellas available for sale reveal their names to Jodell and her staff. Soda Pop, Neapolitan, Petticoat, GiGi.

I could chat with Jodell and her assistant Natalie Cordova all day, but then this interview might not beat The Wall Street Journal piece to print. (They're holding their piece until their next torrential rain.)

Magazine covers and photo spreads are discretely framed on the walls, but Jodell describes the path to Bella Umbrella's portals as "glacial." After the business was mentioned in Vogue, "nobody called." After Martha Stewart, there was interest in the "Pink Pagoda."

Now people email and they call, locals get to pick up their rental umbrellas in person. The number of umbrellas unfurled inside each day is enough to dispel any old-wives' tale about bad luck.

In truth, the person who steps into the veritable hands-on umbrella museum provides as much pleasure to Jodell as they receive in turn.

All the cities in the United States (and all the countries in the world), yet Ballard is home to Jodell Egbert and the world's largest collection of vintage umbrellas. Why leave Ballard indeed?

The Sons of Norway at Leif Erikson Lodge #1 are not shy about happy hours, or coffee hours. Throughout the month they host daily coffee hours and regular happy hours, in particular the Norwegian Happy Hour on the second Saturday of each month.

But on a Monday night? Yup. In honor of Sig Hansen's appearance to discuss and sign his memoir "North by Northwestern: A Seafaring Family on Deadly Alaskan Waters" from 7-9 p.m. tonight, May 3rd the cash bar will be open. I don't want to encourage people to drink, but let's just say there's no better cash bar deal in Ballard, much less Seattle.

I've never watched Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch" but I know that Sig Hansen is the fishing industry's current equivalent of Hollywood's "It" girl. He's like a rock star and he's not shy about voicing opinions. His interview with the Seattle Times sent me to Ballard Avenue to look at it through his eyes. I failed.

Leif Erikson Hall is across from the garage entrance to the rebuilt QFC that is part of the project known as "Ballard at the Park." (2245 NW 57th Street).

Ballard News-Tribune. April 21, 2010

On Ballard's avenue
Sig Hansen, infamous captain of the Northwestern on Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch," is reading from his new book, "North by Northwestern," on May 3 at the Leif Erikson Lodge.

In a Seattle Times' interview with writer Jack Broom, Hansen discusses the changing face of Ballard and Ballard Avenue: "The weekend farmers markets he dismisses as 'frequented by sandal-wearing recyclers ... storefronts that once sold hardware and ship supplies are now boutiques ... It's not clear to me what they sell.'"

I'm a sandal-wearing recycler who loves the Ballard Farmers Market. So in advance of the reading, I decided to look and see if all of the old Ballard Avenue businesses had gone the way of boutiques.

Just two weeks ago, Sam Peterson of Associated Wood Products (formerly on Ballard Avenue, now on Ballard Way) recounted the loss of part of a finger due to a "stupid mistake" in his shop. That's old school.

He told me that his friend and landlord Dick Olsen didn't even seem to care about the blood on his car upholstery, but insisted that Sam fasten his seat belt.

Ballard Avenue meets Ballard Way

South toward the Ballard Bridge, Seattle Canvas Supply intersects Ballard Way and Ballard Avenue â€" the beginning or end of Ballard Avenue depending on your point of view.

Seattle Canvas Supply was founded in 1882 and is still family-owned. They specialize in marine work, declaring they will make virtually any marine accessory. They have expanded into mattress-making, of course customizing mattresses for boats (haven't you ever wondered how a mattress fits through a companion way)?

Moving north on the avenue, Ballard Hardware and Ballard Sheet Metal are still in business, with Ballard Hardware so geared to "industrial, marine and construction trades since 1952" that I can't identify most of their products.

Broomfield Marine Exhaust next to Bad Albert's is certainly no boutique. Bad Albert's Tap and Grill sounds tough, until you learn that Albert is actually a cat.

At Sutter Home & Hearth, it's obvious what they sell; the owners and staff can talk barbeque with the best of them. But, would a Norwegian fisherman like Sig Hansen really put a Big Green Egg in their backyard?

Moving farther north, there are the boutiques that Hansen cited, but also storefronts for architects and artists, the guitar emporium and one of the last truly great thrift stores run by volunteers of Ryther Child Center League. There are still the bars and taverns, place for music and pool.

Just north of the Bell Tower (which used to ring) is Eidem's Custom Upholstery, serving Ballard since 1954. It's obvious by the glass storefront what happens inside. Barrels of fabric bolts almost block the entrance door. Everywhere else is furniture in progress: a couch up on its end, a chair on a work table. Rusty old springs, old stuffing, barber chairs.

Howard Eidem is second-generation, born just two blocks away at the old Ballard Hospital. "You could say I haven't gotten too far," he said smiling.

When it comes to change on Ballard Avenue, Howard has been there to see it happen.

"There's always change, you have to have change," he said. "I remember when there was police or ambulances on the street every day because of the brawling."

He also remembers playing little league on the Loyal Realty team and how it was a treat to go to McDonald's after a game. "Back when they'd only served 100,000."

Adjoining the workshop is a room with thousands of fabric samples on little hangers, plus so much completed furniture there is no passage.

Everyone always admires a little chair in the window that was paid for but hasn't been picked up for years. Howard thinks the owner might be dead. His lawyer told him he needs to advertize it as unclaimed property, of course it's the chair that everyone wants to buy.

Howard wears sturdy shoes (not sandals), drives a big white van and used to toss empty coffee cups behind the driver's seat before his daughter bought him a "go" cup. Everyone in his shop works with their hands. But Howard also works with fine fabrics and matching trim, Queen Anne chairs and restaurant and banquettes. Would he fit the category of hardware or ship supplies?

So Sig Hansen is right. Some storefronts of businesses that supported the marine industry are boutiques now â€" and no one on Ballard Avenue is speaking Norwegian. The UPS guy and Rhonda the letter carrier were both wearing shorts, but neither were wearing sandals.

Ballard Avenue has changed. The brothels are gone. Businesses have left; closed, retired or relocated. On Sunday, the Farmers Market shoppers are a parade of people carrying their own canvas bags, buying fresh eggs and warm bread, organically-farmed potatoes and bunches of beets.

But come Monday, the businesses are open again--the boutiques and the machine shops. Ballard Avenue is still a vibrant, thriving, changing mix of work boots and high heels, protective eye wear and outrageous hats, longtime watering holes and new espresso machines.

In sandals or work boots, Ballard Avenue is the intersection of the past, present and future, no matter where you stand.

Ballard News-Tribune. Reprinted by permission.

Last night I went to see Sig Hansen talk about his memoir "North by Northwestern: A Seafaring Family on Deadly Alaskan Waters" (written with Mark Sundeen) in part because Michael Harthorne, sole reporter for the Ballard News-Tribune was going to be at the Youth and Family Initiative meeting instead. I stayed because it was fascinating.

The hall was full. Doug Warne of The Scandinavian Hour managed to interrupt even expansive Sig Hansen to make a pitch for joining the Sons of Norway. "We used to be members," Hansen said.

"Join again." Warne replied.

I've never seen so many real fisherman in one place before, and to my maternal horror there were also many children in attendance. Evidently the Discovery Channel "bleeps" Sig's profanities. In person this doesn't happen (the kids looked unfazed, I was in shock). One woman did ask, "What does your mother think about your using all these f-bombs?"

Both brothers looked over at their beaming, still beautiful mother and said, "She used to it. Keep in mind she had three idiot boys in the house, four including our dad." Sig admitted, "She didn't have it easy, believe me. We had more cars in the driveway, parts everywhere. Hell, my brother Norman had a still in his closet."

An audience member asked Sig about the time he drove a car off a cliff. His brother Edgar, ever the seeming straight man but with a perfect dose of sarcasm added, "I think we all did stuff like that but we just don't brag about it like he does."

Often answering audience questions by saying, "It's in the book. Read the book" Sig Hansen's drink was often replenished by a blond in the front row. He claimed to be drinking vodka and coca-cola, also known as "Norwegian Champagne."

While a line formed for his book-signing, Sig Hansen disappeared. I waited a bit by the table stacked with books to get a photo for Michael until it dawned on me that if Sig wasn't in the men's room then he was outside having a smoke. ("I gotta quit smoking," he'd said earlier.) Sure enough, speaking Norwegian with another fisherman and still shadowed by a film crew (who where those guys?) Sig Hansen was in front of the lodge with other smokers.

In my favorite moment of the one-of-kind open bar Sons of Norway book signing a little girl in pink asked the brothers, "How big is King Crab?"

Brothers Edgar and Sig Hansen

Shelley created a website for the event and along with former classmates began researching the whereabouts of Class of 1962. Then in setting the date she checked the Mariner's schedule for potential conflict and set the date. May 16th from 2-4 p.m.

Along with help from the Seattle Public Schools archivist she has acquired class photos and the recipe for Webster's infamous green hamburgers.

To Shelley's delight and surprise there will also be "adults" attending the reunion, as in those who were adults in 1962, to include the legendary Mrs. Davis and Mr. Matson (traveling from Eastern Washington to attend).

I'm looking forward to witnessing the reunion and will report on it later. In the meantime, check the student list and see if you're among the missing. It's not too late, and that's Shelley Butchart's theme exactly. Several classmates have already died: she didn't want the reunion to come too late.

Do you remember 5th grade?

We've established in previous posts that the extra thirty pounds I gained while studying in France for a year are considered proof of my love of French food, especially pastries. Yes, I've read the piece in Sunday's New York Times about bakeries in Seattle. Although Besalu is a longtime favorite, I would like to have seen Honore included. Which leads me to Ballard News-Tribune piece about Molly Wizenberg's appearance in Ballard last week. Honore is directly next to Delancey on that happening block of NW 70th. Of course as Jodell Egbert of Bella Umbrella said when I confessed I hadn't eaten at Delancey, "Oh honey."

I've tried but not been in the mood to wait. Jodell shared with me her recommended table turnover time. I am not sharing that here!

Anyway, when Mr. Maple Leaf went to Paris on business summer before last he used David Lebovitz's blog to direct him to macarons and dining (something about pointing his Blackberry in the air for a combination of blog and GPS).

One quiet afternoon at home, Martin called down that the London Times had just posted their list of top ten food bloggers. "I think one of them is in Paris," he said. "It's called Orangette."

As Jodell might say, "Oh honey." You see "Orangette" lives in Ballard. Not Paris. Not Seattle. Ballard.

Ballard News-Tribune. May 17, 2010.

Meeting Molly
On the first Monday of the month, I perched amidst fishermen and "Deadliest Catch" fans on a chair in the Leif Erikson Lodge for Sig and Edgar Hansen's free-wheeling talk. The following Monday night, I crawled in the side door of the Ballard Library's meeting room and found floor space in a room overfilled with mostly women.

The common theme was adoration, in this case for the rescheduled appearance of Molly Wizenberg, author of "A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table."

The May 10 event was cosponsored by Secret Garden Bookshop and marks the conclusion of Wizenberg's book tour for the paperback release.

Sig Hansen's work life is available on cable. Likewise, through her very popular blog, "Orangette," "Spilled Milk" podcasts and "Bon Appetit" column, Molly Wizenberg's life would appear to be an open book.

Yet for all the access afforded by cable television, the Internet, social media sites and hardcopy and paperback books, people still want to meet someone in person. They want to be in the presence of the writer, hear the unfamiliar voice speak familiar words. Holding books to be signed, each person has paid for the privilege of a minute with someone they admire because of how they have crafted their life, their words and their French toast.

In this day and age, there is little that I could share with you about Molly Wizenberg that she hasn't shared first. (Okay, she's very petite, looks like she's a teenager and has a particularly perky, reddish ponytail).

First on the Internet, then hardback book and now paperback, millions of readers all over the world have delighted in Wizenberg's writing about connections created through food, starting with her late father's potato salad and through the mediocre waffles she claims to have served her mother on Mothers Day.

Likewise, her courtship with husband Brandon, their journey to the opening of his restaurant Delancey on Northwest 70th Street and her book tours have all been revealed through photographs and weaving of day-to-day life, memories and recipes. What Molly's appearance at the Ballard Library revealed was more about her readers, although in person she was as gracious and accessible as her writing suggests.

Unlike a menu filled with obscure references and ingredients, Molly's writing is accessible. She's not a restaurant critic or a food snob. She's seemingly the friend who has the recipe for that yogurt cake that happens to be warm from the oven when you drop in.

She's probably the daughter that many women wish they had and the blogger who speaks to people who aren't ashamed to miss their father's meatloaf as palpably as they miss their childhood dog.

Although raised in Oklahoma, Ballard gets to claim Wizenberg now, or vice versa. To the full house that included her husband in the back row and podcast partner Matthew Amster-Burton near the front, Wizenberg spoke about her somewhat circuitous path to food writing, by way of a Ph.D. program in Cultural Anthropology and unpaid experience at Greens in San Francisco.

She read from the first chapter of her book, took questions and then sat to sign books. Although everyone seemed delighted by every word, this was the moment for many attendees already holding copies of her book: their audience with Molly.

Wizenberg seems very approachable to her readers online, responding to comments, seemingly sharing her table with strangers, who in turn feel like they are friends â€" but, these readers and listeners also want to connect in person. They need to tell her they made her whole wheat apricot scones, and they were delicious.

Without so much as a cookie at her side, Wizenberg interacted with each person in the line, suggesting a certain cupcake recipe if "the icing is not your thing," thanking each person for attending the event, recognizing a woman who had been to the restaurant.

"It's more about people than food," Wizenberg had said about her path to doing what she loves.

Her writing has helped people to recognize their own connections to one another through food, the memory of sharing raisin bread with a beloved grandmother, an afternoon bicycling with a friend for ice cream, shared experiences.

Wizenberg's writing has in turn created an online community, but the turnout for her reading proved once again that people are also hungry for face-to-face connection.

"Thank you for sharing that," she said several times as people mentioned recipes such as her basil-shallot vinaigrette or their own food blog.

No, Molly. Thank you for choosing to live in Ballard and end your book tour here.

Reprinted by permission.
Ballardorangette

"My wife is Jill Huden. As of last month we have been married for 40 yrs. We met in 1963 so we have been together for 47 yrs. She was the Ballard Seafair Queen the year we were marrried, 1970. We met at James Monroe. Been with her ever since. Wow long time. 4 kids all doing great. Will make for a great love story."
(signed) Knut Harjo

That was one love story, but the reunion itself and the ongoing communications afterwords qualify as more a love fest. Mr. Matson looked as good as he looked 48 years ago (leaving his former students wondering, how can we look the same age as him now?). Mrs. D'Amico is in love with being grandmother to a Ballard baby. Mrs. Davis was looking glamorous. As for the students; one would think that sixth grade was a great time in their lives, second only to right now.

Ballard News-Tribune. May 24, 2010.

"We Can't Wait for the 50th"

"I used to walk by your house," Jeanette Johnson confessed to her sixth-grade crush and first "boyfriend."

"I walked by your house last week," Jim Hunter responded.

As they laughed, it was hard to believe 48 years separated those events, just as it was mind-boggling for people attending the reunion of Webster Elementary's 1962 sixth-grade class to believe they were all turning 60.

Knut Harjo

"We're just boys in old hair," Knut Harjo said.

The sign above the sink in Shelley Tennant Butchart's kitchen designated May 16 as hamburger day, with Bart as the "lunch lady."

In the requisite hairnet, reunion organizer Shelley Butchart's husband was carefully tending small green hamburgers made from the original recipe found by Seattle Public School's archivist.

Bart cooking

For several hours, the Tennant's house on Northwest 60th Street teemed with Webster's class of 1962, along with some of the mothers who once led Girl Scout troops and/or participated in PTA.

Also attending as honored guests were a few "adults" from their school days: Mr. Matson, Mrs. D'Amico and Mrs. Davis. With each guest wearing a name tag suspended by ribbon, former students kept asking Mrs. Bertha Davis, "Do you remember me?"

"Of course I do," she responded to each one, providing a specific story to prove her point.

Nothing ever escaped Mrs. Davis, who recently turned 96, in the classroom or the library; still doesn't.

The idea of reuniting the sixth-grade class was hatched by a few friends from Webster days attending their 40th at Ballard High School. They realized they remembered more of their sixth-grade friends than those from high school.

At Webster, they had often been in the same class together since first grade, all lived in the same neighborhood, all eaten the strangely green, grain-filled hamburgers on every single Tuesday.

At Webster, they were a tight group of 70, not part of 1,000 students.

So Shelley Butchart decided to organize the reunion for what marks the 48th anniversary of sixth-grade graduation. As for why they didn't wait for a more traditional year, Butchart said simply, "We'd already lost several people. We can't wait for the 50th."

One of her closest friends, Judy Gerke died last December and in tracking down classmates for the reunion she learned another classmate had also died last fall.

Butchart had been saving a story to share with him.

But, those who looked at old photos together and socialized throughout the house all looked hale and hearty, still handsome and still beautiful.

A woman did a double take as she read a name tag and then looked up and up from chest to beard to full head of white hair on Paul Matson.

"You got so tall," she said, as amazed as if a sixth-grader had sprouted overnight.

Throughout the rooms, these grownups filled in the years for one another; they're back in Ballard. They got as far as Magnolia. They live in Maltby but have a boat at Fishermen's Terminal. Some see each other regularly; others haven't seen each other in 40 years.

Mr. Matson's wife, who taught at Crown Hill, remembered a drive to California for winter break with 30 boxes of cookies in the back seat, gifts from virtually every child in her class.

Everyone talked about how Ballard has changed, remembering the steep climb to the third floor of the Carnegie Library for the children's room and Paul's Café on the corner of Northwst 65th Street and 32nd Avenue Northwest.

Mrs. D'Amico (third grade) shared poems she had written; her daughter and family live in Ballard.

Bryce Williams brought copies of his writing, including a piece called "Baby Boomers," which includes the lines, "Someday, some will ask who were they? Many deaths and decades removed, Their school bells silent since the 60s."

As he was leaving, he paused to ask Knut Harjo, "Do you remember how you'd go behind the music teacher Mrs. Olson making funny gestures with your hands?"

Harjo didn't confirm or deny this other than by grinning, but his wife Jill (they didn't meet until she was in seventh grade at James Monroe because she was at Whittier instead of Webster) said his mother had saved all his report cards which hinted at his reputation as class clown.

As people began to say their farewells, preparing to travel to their homes, whether they lived within blocks or five hours by car, Butchart gathered everyone from the Class of 62 to recreate their class photo from the Webster steps on her front steps.

Marcia (McElhaney) Diers said, "Remember in school we couldn't wait to get up from this pose, now we can't get up."

Someone else suggested they sing the Webster fight song, so the boys in old hair began chanting, "Lutefisk, lutefisk, lutefisk."

Within hours, Butchart had posted reunion photos on the Web site she created for the event. I clicked between the photos of 23 original class members taken at the reunion and the photos of their 12-year-old selves in June 1962.

It's true what they were saying. Some of those kids haven't changed a bit – just us.

I want to say meet me under the clock, meet me under the bridge, but for now it will have to be "meet me at The Sorrento."

In this week's column I speak of the journey as sixteen months long, but in the truth the journey to tomorrow's book launch at the Sorrento Hotel rightly started right here on this reader blog four years, and 407 posts ago.

Four years ago on Memorial Day I started writing about Ballard. Those blogs led to my column for the Ballard News-Tribune. Those columns led me to Bennett & Hastings. They led me to Robin Abel who was looking for a writer to help tell the story of what happened to her daughter Maria Federici.

We hope the book that we have written, along with the editing, graphics and production support of incredible local talents of John Linse, Jo-Ann Sire, Scott McCredie, Mary Fickes and Magnolia's Security Press, will help save lives. As a writer, I also want it to be a good read!

I'm sorry the book launch isn't in Ballard but The Sorrento offered the Penthouse Suite. So far the book is available only through the authors or at the website that will go live on June 9th, www.outofnowherethebook.com.

The event is from 3-8 p.m. Sorrento Hotel, Penthouse Suite, 900 Madison Street.

What started in Ballard has taken me to Gig Harbor, Olympia, law offices in Kirkland, Snohomish, Renton, the catacombs of Harborview and to my closest coffee shop, The Scoop on 32nd NW, for all of the caffeine needed to research and write. Now to The Sorrento so that the book can head into the world on its own, and I can return to pajamas in Ballard.
Ballard News-Tribune. June 7, 2010.

Crossing the bridge

She died on June 24, 1988, but Lucy Rush has been on my mind almost daily for the last year.

She was 40 years old when she died, married with three children between the ages of 7 and 13. She was a local celebrity, best known as "The Safeway Lady."

For the last year, I have been working on a book project that simultaneously took me away from Ballard and yet always brought me back. Back to Lucy Rush, a woman I never met, who died as the result of an accident labeled "bizarre" on the Ballard Bridge as she walked south toward her home on Queen Anne.

She died seven days before I moved to Ballard, even as we moved north over the Ballard Bridge from Queen Anne.

For 17 years before her death, Lucy Rush represented Safeway in Washington, Idaho and Alaska: in print, television and radio advertisements.

Raised in Minnesota, she'd attended Harvard University and had dreams of acting on Broadway.

She met her future husband after returning to Minnesota and moved with him to Seattle, where she was soon beloved (and recognized everywhere) as "The Safeway Lady."

One day on the Ballard Bridge, a ladder came off a local masonry's truck and hit Lucy Rush in the head. She died of her injuries a day later. Evidently the rope securing the ladder on the truck broke.

Not quite three years ago, I met and profiled here a couple who had started a publishing company in Ballard. Bennett & Hastings were publishing Ballard writer Michael Schein's book. He had found them literally around the corner after seeking out East Coast publishers.

That connection led in turn to the opportunity to co-author a book with a woman whose daughter had been also been seriously injured because of an item that became unsecured and went through the young woman's windshield. The mother was Robin Abel; the daughter Maria Federici.

Who doesn't remember the news reports and the accompanying photo of a beautiful, dark-haired young woman who was simply driving home from work when an entertainment center went through her windshield?

Subsequent to her survival, she and her mother went on to pass "Maria's Law" so that substantial injury or death resulting from an improperly secured load was classified as a crime; and injured parties were eligible for the Crime Victims Compensation.

Since the winter of 2009, I have been on a physical and mental journey as I interviewed people all over the Puget Sound region, reviewed trial transcripts and spent countless hours with Maria's mother, helping her to tell the story she has always known needed to be told.

She believes that Maria survived "injuries incompatible with life" for a reason: so that her survival could potentially save hundreds of lives all over the United States through laws and awareness of the need to "Secure Your Load."

It has been challenging to keep my focus on Ballard while immersed in accounts of other accidents due to road debris from unsecured loads from all over the state and nation.

What was essentially dismissed as a "bizarre" accident when Lucy Rush died in 1988 is actually a daily danger. The American Automobile Association published a report that attributed up to 25,000 incidents per year involving road debris, with an estimated 400 per year in just Washington.

That doesn't include all the items that become airborne every day.

On May 23, a pickaxe came out of a truck bed and somehow passed between the seats of a couple driving on I-405 – the same road where the black-on-black entertainment center shattered Maria Federici's windshield and hit her in the face.

Once you become aware of the dangers of unsecured loads, you realize they are all around you. The pickup truck on its way to the transfer station, the landscape crew with unsecured trash cans, perhaps even an item impulsively plucked from the curb with its "Free" sign still flapping.

After 16 months of interviews, writing and editing, the book is done. "Out of Nowhere" by Robin Abel (and myself) will be released at a party from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. on June 9 at The Sorrento Hotel.

I never planned to write a book, but Maria Federici's mom is as persuasive as her daughter is indomitable.

What began as the need to increase my income so as to make a move within Ballard became long drives to Renton and beyond. What started as a project has become a shared mission: how to increase awareness of the need to secure all loads.

Every time I turned home toward Ballard, I would think about what Maria Federici lost that night in 2004. And whenever I cross the Ballard Bridge, I think about Lucy Rush, a beautiful woman who left behind a husband, three children, mother, sisters, brother and thousands of people in the Pacific Northwest who could recognize her anywhere.

It has been an amazing journey, but I'm always glad to have crossed the bridge safely and reached my home.

Reprinted by permission.

I hope I am not the only person in Ballard with the book "Hoosiers" on my bookshelf. My dad was an Indiana sportswriter and the real life match-up that is fictionalized in the movie "Hoosiers" (not related to the book) was one that he covered.

It has come to my attention that World Cup is going to be getting many people out of bed early on Saturday morning but it has also come to my attention that a local fundraiser to be held at Majestic Bay Theater is being overlooked.

Courts for Kids is a non-profit that teaches basketball skills to youth in other countries and builds them a basketball court. A Shoreline school is planning to participate in a Costa Rica project. In order to raise money they are showing "Hoosiers" at Majestic Bay at 9 a.m. on Saturday, June 12th. The cost is $10 (formerly $20) and it's tax deductible.

In addition, (or perhaps the movie is the bonus) former Sonics player Nick Collision will be making an appearance on behalf of the fundraiser starting at 8 a.m.!!

If basketball isn't the appeal, how about starting your tribute to Dennis Hopper on Saturday morning. Perhaps better to watch "Hoosiers' with the kids than "Blue Velvet."

Last week the Friday walk became a daylong affair. Is it possible Ballard is too social? Surely it's not me.

It's official as of today. One week until the Sunset Hill wedding. I refuse to worry about the weather because I've rented those Bella Umbrellas.

I've got too much to do to let myself get distracted the way that I was a week ago Friday.

Life gets in the way
A friend used to stick a sign on the door of her shop: "Gone to Post Office. Will be right back."

Sometimes she was gone for hours. It was a small town without mail delivery; everyone had to visit the post office, therefore Judi had to visit with everyone.

That's how I feel when I leave my house in Ballard. I have to visit with everyone.

Every Friday morning starts with tea and then a walk with my friend Jo-Ann on her day off. These Fridays date back to school bus days; my daughter was so fearful she cried every time the bus appeared, and I had to strong-arm her up the steps. After the bus disappeared, I was the one who cried.

Ten years later, the school buses are long gone from our lives. Jo-Ann's freshman son is one of those kids loping home from Ballard High School on suddenly long legs.

After tea there is a book to drop with Mary, who wants us to circle back so she can walk with us. We decide to visit Jo-Ann's block, my old block, to make plans with another neighbor for the 15th annual Fourth of July party and talent show.

There is not a single day on our friend's calendar without an entry for the next two months, even though her son's team didn't make little league playoffs.

By the time we've circled back for Mary, it's getting warmer and we have to shed layers. We used to be on the Golden Gardens walk by 9:30 a.m., but now it's almost 11:30 a.m., and I'm hungry.

We all sit along the window at The Scoop on 32nd Avenue Northwest, and Kim Paxton demonstrates her "One-Minute Cooking with Kim" class that involves cutting and heating baked goods.

A van parks outside; child after child exits in matching school uniforms, from largest to smallest like nesting dolls.

It is the last day of the school year for St. Al's. To celebrate, every child is having a double-scoop ice cream cone, although most have opted for rainbow sherbet in the same way that kids always choose the donut with multicolored sprinkles.

With school years ending there will be new flavor in the ice cream case: bubblegum.

After coffees and chatting with James and Don, there's not enough time left for the full walk so we head north to Sunset View Park, smelling roses along the way, eyeing the spray painted prospect of a new traffic island at 34th Avenue Northwest and Northwest 68th Street. Good for them, but how did they get ahead of the queue?

Jo-Ann is considering a dog so the walks have taken on new focus.

I'm unable to stop reliving the book launch at The Sorrento, mostly because so many people from Ballard made the journey downtown on one of those days when some mishap blocked every means of crossing south of the Ship Canal.

In a room outside of Ballard, even more connections became obvious as though Ballardites take on a different hue and can recognize each other even better outside of our boundaries.

The artist Lina Raymond, whose series of paintings titled "Bearing Witness" are on display at Portalis through July, made the trip downtown to show her support. She was driven there by a friend who said as though it was a dare, "I've lived in Ballard 45 years. Ask me anything."

Neighbors, readers, fellow writers, Club Besalu members, strangers revealed to be neighbors and fellow gym members. I can't stop reliving the glorious feeling of sharing the "Out of Nowhere" launch with so many new and old friends, mixing and matching my worlds as I waved goodbye to them at the elevator.

There's one last stop Friday stop for Columbia Bakery bread at The Sunset Hill Green Market. Their sign touts 13 years in the neighborhood. It has gone by so quickly, the morning and the years.

After the three of us part, there's still more blocks to traverse, a few more chats. All morning and now afternoon I've been on my way to the computer, to my to-do list, but life and the old-fashioned rose got in the way.

My friend and neighbor the poet Carol Levin (to cite just one of the hats she wears) knows I like potential stories. She let me know when her husband set off cross-country to deliver an airplane to Fort Lauderdale. When I asked Geo for more details upon his return he protested mightily, "I was just the co-pilot," he said. "You really need to talk to Bruce."

Without too much fuss we found an evening to sit down together so that they could give me introduction to the history, legacy and wonder that is the Beechcraft Staggerwing. I wish that I had had a tape recorder instead of just a notebook.

Bruce and Geo tried to recall their first meeting.
Bruce: I'd flown to Harvey Field and this guy comes up to me...
Geo: I first saw the airplane in front of the Narrows.

And we were off on the journey of their shared relationship with a 73 year-old biplane, an airplane they do agree might be the "most complex airplane ever built."

Ballard News-Tribune. June 21, 2010.

The judge, Geo, and the Staggerwing
Nearly the farthest point in the continental United States from Ballard is southern Florida, almost 3,000 nautical miles. But, Bruce Hilyer and Geo Levin weren't sailing across the country on a boat; they were flying an antique biplane – a Beechcraft Staggerwing.

Their cross-country flight began Sunday, May 9. By the following Saturday night, both men were back in Ballard. Over the course of seven days, they had logged 27.5 hours of flying time, stayed in Cheyenne, Wyo., weathered over in Denver, Colo., been adopted by "good ol' boys" in Tennessee and serendipitously landed in Florida in time to witness the final launch of the Atlantis space shuttle.

For Levin, who saw the Hindenburg aloft when he was 9 years old in 1936, the entire trip and its grand finale at the NASA launch was a dream come true, even though it was one he hadn't known to dream.

But, that's the end of the story; the beginning is closer to 1998, when Hilyer bought the 1937 Staggerwing after seeing it at an air show in Arlington.

Geo Levin & Bruce Hilyer

A former Parks Commissioner, he had taken up flying around the time he became a King County judge. In 1998, Hilyer had ostensibly given up flying after an accident. Then he fell irrationally in love with the Staggerwing.

As the name implies, the wings are staggered with the lower wing further forward than the upper. This design has many advantages for pilot visibility in the air, but not on the ground, when its nose points skyward.

The Staggerwing is also a "tail dragger." Unlike a tricycle configuration of wheels, the front of the plane lifts off and the back wheel, the tail, drags until it is fully airborne.

They are notoriously difficult to land as they land first on one wheel and then the other, preferring to zigzag on the landing strip.

Except for metal around the fuselage, the Staggerwing is formed entirely of wood, originally covered in a cotton material but now covered in poly-fiber.

Hilyer quickly learned (the engine blew up within his first six flying hours) that his impulse buy was going to entail a labor of love and lots of expenses. "With a Staggerwing, the skill set is woodworking," he realized.

Hilyer didn't know it, but he needed to meet the someone whose childhood passion for building model airplanes in wood had merged in a pilot, master woodworker and retired Port of Seattle engineer: Geo Levin.

A mutual friend of both (a pilot and judge) realized Hilyer and Levin needed to connect. The Staggerwing was an impetuous crush for Hilyer. His resulting friendship with Levin was a match made for cruising altitudes.

Rare planes like the Beechcraft Staggerwing elicit passion in those who love flying and design. Over the course of several winters, Hilyer and Levin restored the plane, one wing per winter.

The wing would be in Levin's shop in his Ballard basement, where, "It's just a bigger-scale wood model."

Outside on the lawn, it prompted curiosity, and offers of help.

On every major trip that Hilyer made in the Staggerwing, Levin was his co-pilot (it has dual controls). A few years ago, the restoration was essentially complete.

Hilyer looked at the future and decided his work was done; it would be best to sell the plane in its full glory.

That process took two years, but the ultimate sale was accomplished in days. The new Brazilian owners wanted it delivered immediately.

Brazil wasn't an option for the presiding judge, so they agreed on Fort Lauderdale. When Hilyer called, Levin simply responded, "Where are we going?" They left four days later.

Hilyer's greatest fear about delivering the plane to Florida was possible mechanical problems "somewhere in the midwest."

There were no problems. They cleared the Cascades and the Rockies on the first day then waited out thunder storms and tornado warnings in Colorado. They survived a landing field in Tennessee without taxi lights and reveled in the hospitality afforded by their visit to the Beechcraft Heritage Museum in Tullahoma, Tenn.

They recognized Disney World from the air and then passed off the Staggerwing in an anticlimactic transfer by a hangar in Fort Lauderdale. They rented a car and set off for Kennedy Space Center to watch the final launch of the space shuttle Atlantis.

That liftoff marked the true end of the journey, one that began for Levin as he watched the Hindenburg and dreamed of flight and one that started when Hilyer fell irrationally in love with an antique.

Now that it is all over – the years of restoration, inspections, the flight across country and ride back home to Ballard – they both look on the experience as almost perfect, like that rare bird itself, the Beechcraft Staggerwing.

Reprinted by permission.

I truly spent the first part of the month of June attending retirement parties for Jay Sasnett, but I am sure there were many more that I missed. It was a blur of loving insults and a clubhouse decorated in country maps. I've heard that I chose the wrong time to visit the food table at the June 4th send-off because when former students let rip, they really let rip.

I know there were hundreds of volunteers working to pull of these events, from the invitations (all with tassels) for the Sunset Hill Community Club evening to the photo tribute (with technical difficulties) at the school farewell. I know the Lott family was in this up to their very tall eyeballs, Patty, Adrian, Carson and Lee. All in all a great month-long party for the entire Sasnett family (extended by 1,000).

Jay gets roasted

Ballard News-Tribune. June 28, 2010

Jay retiring? Yes. Jay retiring? No.
June has seemed like one long farewell party for Jay Sasnett Jr., retiring after 41 years in teaching, but all that he's really leaving is his classroom at Salmon Bay Middle School. He's not leaving his neighborhood or giving up any of his many, many outdoor interests.

Sasnett, always known to students and parents as just Jay, has claimed to be on the verge of retiring as a Seattle middle school teacher for years. Last fall, his claims seemed more valid, prompting a Facebook page devoted to the question, "Will Jay really retire?" (Savvy students asked to see the official paperwork).

Then Jay booked Sunset Hill Community Club for the first of a series of retirement parties, and everyone started paying attention.

Here's the thing, the word retiring in conjunction with Jay Sasnett is an oxymoron, no matter what context. Sasnett is the least "retiring" person in Ballard, if not the state of Washington.

He wears spandex biking shorts at an age that horrifies his middle school students, and he speaks his mind on all subjects, especially on the joys of bicycling, ham radio, map-making, skiing, current events and Krispy Kreme donuts.

This is a man whose enthusiasm for his passions has boiled over in the classroom for 41 academic years, even when his hyperkinetic energy seemed wasted on the sleepwalking stage of preteens in morning homeroom.

But if the roasts and toasts that started when four decades of students and parents believed that Jay was really leaving the classroom are an indication, not one student has escaped unmarked by their encounters with him, as though his brand is stamped on every single one.

How many thousands of past and present students are part of Jay's herd? He managed to leave his mark on three generations of one family.

From all across the globe, hundreds of former students have been paying tribute since Jay made his official announcement in May.

Mapping congratulations

Fans have played "Jay trivia" and ordered a gross of Jay's trademark white hat. Songs have been performed, sheet cakes served, and in keeping with Jay's own frankness, no one has sanitized their memories during hours of "roasts."

Those stories range beyond the walls of Jay's final classroom on the third floor of the former James Monroe Junior High because his teaching time was never confined to school hours.

He led weekly after-school biking trips and organized the ski bus every year. He brought in ham radio testers and appeared to every local student like an apparition biking or jogging backwards through the streets.

He was the teacher who would hail a mortified student at QFC and ask about their country map. He had home office hours and would answer the phone, "This is Jay."

It seemed possible that Sasnett could predict weather, stating with certainty on what bicycle or winter enrichment days it was going to rain. His nearly trip-long lecture on the ski bus to Snoqualmie was the stuff of legend. His expressions and vocal delivery were ripe for perpetual caricature.

Jay was at Lake Washington Middle School and then an original teacher at New Optional Middle School (NOMS). He spent the last decade in a classroom just 20 blocks from his home.

His sons attended Ballard High School. His wife Susan always helped organize the logistical nightmare of ski package rentals.

Either his red Volkswagen camper bus or Jeep Wrangler always had a bike rack attached. Alumni reminisced about the times at Camp Orkila when Jay left other mountain bikers in the dust on the ride he always organized.

Not all the students appreciated Jay at the time, in the same way that not everyone is ready for raw garlic with their morning cereal. But not one parent or student is ever going to forget "they had Jay" over the course of the school years.

Even when he tried to give his damaged vocal cords a rest, Sasnett couldn't be described for five minutes as retiring.

Come fall, Jay won't be presiding over morning homeroom, but every student, past and present, should continue to watch their back. Jay Sasnett Jr. will still be everywhere.

I would have to say that this little drama was the unofficial kick-off for two weeks of non-stop action at what my friend Martina calls Chateau Sturdivant. Haven't I always said I can't leave my house without bumping into a story? Once you invite friends and family to town for a wedding then you don't even have to leave the house (but more on that later).

Ballard News-Tribune. July 5, 2010.

The Bicycle Thief
It was the last Friday of the school year, and there was a dangerously exuberant mood. The sun was shining. The fountain was shimmering at Ballard Commons. For most schools, it was either Field Day or an after-school party at Golden Gardens beach.

At Salmon Bay School, it was yet another retirement party for Jay Sasnett, this one ending with cake in his west-facing classroom.

"I've got my bicycle lock," I called to my daughter as we went our separate ways on two wheels.

"You're the one who needs its," she replied.

I had the lock, but outside of Salmon Bay School I realized I didn't have the key. I carried the bicycle into the building and left it near the office, thinking the side doors were locked.

Half an hour later, the only thing on the floor was my helmet and keyless Kryptonite lock. My bicycle had been stolen.

I raced around the old Monroe School in hopes that it was being ridden impulsively through the halls and the gym the way my stolen car once looped a soccer field. The janitors checked hidey-holes. The bike was still nearby. We all knew it.

"I'm going to get my bike back," I shouted and ran to where I had summoned Martin to meet me in his car. I buckled up as though prepared for a "follow that car" chase. The car didn't move.

"Where are we going?" Martin asked reasonably.

Where would my bicycle be on its joy ride? Heading out of Ballard on a bridge? Surely not climbing up the Phinney hill?

"Ballard Commons," I suggested, but in the golden light there were only wet toddlers and skateboarders appearing briefly at the top of the bowl like colorful swallows. It was practically pastoral.

"Home," I said, suddenly deflated.

Martin turned right onto 24th Avenue Northwest at the south corner of the QFC and went north. A bicycle passed in the other direction.

"That's it!" he barked and swung the car in a smooth loop.

My bicycle and its rider moved east, but Martin pulled close and jumped out of the car. I dialed 911 as Martin began yelling, "That bike is stolen."

The rider took off dodging traffic as he crossed 24th Avenue again with Martin following him into the street. People all along the sidewalk on either side took up the yell with pointing fingers.

"Stolen bike! Stolen bike!"

I continued my play-by-play to police dispatch. We'd come so close to my Trek 820 (a gorgeous bronze), but it was getting away from me, "West on Northwest 57th!"

Martin pulled up, and I got back in the car describing the rider and my bicycle all the way. Dispatch asked me questions. "Did this person forcibly take the bike? Have you seen any weapons?"

Well no, I left it sitting unlocked, but it was in a school!

Suddenly there was my bike and its alien rider again, perched on an upper lawn by 28th Avenue Northwest as though watching to see if the chase was over.

Martin jumped out the car and this time the kid (anybody under 25 in my book) dropped the bicycle in the street and backed away saying, "Don't touch me. Don't touch me."

As he moved away Martin countered. "Don't touch my car." (He had left the engine running).

Then the kid in his baggy sweats, backward hat, untied work boots and swagger
set off on foot, while I continued to describe him to dispatch.

Even as they told me to wait for an officer at the intersection, I watched the kid turn the corner and then reappear a few minutes later, having shed the sweatpants and sweatshirt, but still with a strut in his step.

Martin and I waited at the traffic island of 28th Avenue and Northwest 57th Street for almost an hour. I read a cookbook and considered having a pizza delivered.

"We haven't forgotten you," dispatch called to say. "We're just having a really crazy afternoon."

So, it was hours later when an officer rang my front doorbell. I blocked a never-seen-before cat from entering my house. "Not my cat," I explained.

The officer sighed at my impassioned account and closed his little notebook. "But you got your bike back, right?"

He apologized for the fact that an officer hadn't been available earlier and recommended writing down the serial numbers and, of course, in the future, locking the bike. A cat tried to go in the house covered in leaves. I blocked her.

"Not your cat?" he asked.

"No, that it is my cat," I said.

Then he went wearily down the front steps. Hours earlier it had seemed dramatic and urgent. The cries of "Stolen bike!" The car chase.

The officer paused and pointed at a box mistakenly delivered by UPS to our front porch. "You'd better take in your package."

"It's not my package," I protested. He gave me a long look. Officers must dread the last day of school. Friday nights. Summer. People like me.

With that, I took in the package. The least I could do is keep the box behind a locked door until, like my bicycle, it can be safely delivered home.

Ballard News-Tribune. July 12, 2010

Wooed over from the Maple Leaf neighborhood, Martin and his tribe married into my extended community of 22 years in Ballard and friends dating back five decades. He brought his Northwest past and present to merge with my hodgepodge of old neighborhood and new writing community, friends from my daughter's passages through daycare, pre-school, elementary school, middle school, high school, soccer teams, pottery classes and mother-daughter book club.

But since starting this column, my ever-growing clan includes readers who offer estate jewelry when they learn of a need, roses from their gardens, lawn furniture and "whatever is needed."

I've heard some couples mistake the wedding for the marriage, but who could resist planning a party to attract friends and family from across the globe? If it took marriage, so be it.

The goal was to throw a fun party and immersion for first-time visitors on why we love where we live. What I love best is my neighborhood, my slices of Ballard. The route 17 bus, the Goodwill and Secret Garden, the Farmers Market and Golden Gardens. The way everyone at The Scoop "really does know your name." From dress to beer, it was going to be an (almost) All-Ballard day.

The wedding day dawned as dreary as just about any other that preceded it in June's gloom. We picked up roses from a friend's garden and five dozen Krumkake she'd prepared. Up to my chin in roses, we stopped to post the "Ceremony reservation" notice at Sunset Hill Park.

What initially ensued were the hours we'd vowed to avoid, the ones in which we worked ourselves into a sweat preparing the house and grounds. What had happened to the 10 a.m. helpers? Why did the first arrivals want to decorate rather than sweep?

Then my sister returned with 10 bouquets of flowers from Pike Place Market, my mother tore herself away from the World Cup and our "coordinator" Kim Paxton at The Scoop on 32nd Avenue Northwest got us some help in the form of a van drop-off and cheerful Ballard High School grads.

After that, it was out of our hands. Martin and I just got to move through a day of enchantment.

The sun broke about 2 p.m. The chairs were ferried to the park and set up. Female friends converged in my bathroom to apply make-up. The Veraci pizza oven arrived. The caterers arrived. The alley, decorated in tulle and flowers, became a "living room." Kim's daughter and her friends dotted the park in vintage Bella Umbrellas.

Bella Umbrellas

As Martin and I walked the half-mile up to the ceremony at Sunset Hill Park, the path had never been as beautiful or lush as it was dotted with the bright colors of my nieces and friends ahead of us.

At corners, Suzuki students of Celia Nicks were playing violins, placed along our path as an advance surprise by Kim, who had taken my visions and made them brighter and bolder.

My friend Janis pressed a bouquet of sweet peas into my hands wrapped in a scarf blessed by a Tibetan Monk. The Belltown Pull-apart pedal cab drivers puffed into view, the final piece of all that was needed to ferry those who couldn't walk the return procession. My daughter held my eyes and nodded as the minister asked the family to pledge love and acceptance.

Martin's eyes were as blue as his shirt as he said very firmly, "I do."

As we walked back down the middle of 34th Avenue Northwest, two college-age violinists led the way. Each younger violinist stepped or jumped from their sidewalk corner and joined the front of the procession. Along the route, people came out of their houses to watch and listen to this moving force of strings and color, laughter and love.

Downhill

It was the Sunset Hill Wedding – a community union.

Reprinted by permission.

You can't just ask a neighbor, "Do you have unidentifiable brown objects appearing mysteriously in your house?" Especially if they have young children it would be downright rude. Perhaps there are others of us suffering in embarrassed silence. I was so eager to destroy the evidence I didn't even take photographs.

Ballard News-Tribune. July 28, 2010

Morning Watch
There's a new mystery. Not crop circles or UFO sightings, but unidentifiable masses appearing inside our house. They look like dried seaweed, hardened with a swoop. They break apart like compostable planting pots that you can sink directly into the dirt.

The cats claim to be innocent and aren't even very interested. We look to the ceilings. What are these clumps suddenly appearing in the upstairs hallway as though dropped from above?

If I found an unknown plant, I could take it to a master gardener; a fossil or insect I could take to identification day at the Burke Museum. If I'd spotted an animal, I could photograph it and decide nutria or water rat.

But, these gritty things don't have eyes, teeth, tails or claws. Our only clue – the objects appear when the windows have been opened on two sides of the house to allow a breeze.

I don't know whether to consult an ornithologist or an exterminator.

As a reader, I cut my teeth on Nancy Drew and soon advanced to Agatha Christie and Ed McBain. In the absence of surveillance tape, I was going to make observations for myself. So, I crossed the street, inconspicuous as always in my pink bathrobe, and studied the block from the other side.

At first, it seemed that only flower petals and porch chimes were in motion, and then my eyes adjusted as though to see more color. On second glance, there were birds almost everywhere, despite the fact that no one on the block has a designated "backyard wildlife sanctuary."

On the telephone and electrical wires that string our houses together like Cat's Cradle were baby goldfinches, looking more greenish than yellow, fluffier than the adults. An adult male goldfinch swooped onto the roof of the garage to check my peas.

A pair of pigeons sat on the chimney cap of a neighbor's roof, while the bush below the gutter teemed with chickadees. There were immature robin red-breasts all over the lawn, looking as plentiful as grackles. Could they be the bearers of brown objects through the windows?

I was sure that it had to be birds. Wouldn't the cats stir if a raccoon was in the house?

I crept to the back of the house, having added a pair of binoculars. If the front yard had been busy, there was a traffic interchange in the back.

The Royal Anne cherry tree was bobbing with more robins, those that weren't swinging below them eating raspberries. A flicker tried to chase off another American goldfinch, but then the black-and-white kitty from the corner leaped out of the shrubbery to send them both flying off the lawn.

I'm not a bird-watcher or a bird-feeding type, despite the fact that my mother has always been more diligent about feeding the birds than preparing food for her family. My mother was legend to my childhood friends for blazing a trail to the bird feeders barefoot in the New England winter.

My mother claimed that common birds were never the ones to hit our floor to ceiling windows; always the purple finch or the scarlet tanager. She would put the dead birds into plastic bags and stick them in the kitchen freezer to donate to Bird Sanctuary Museum in the spring.

But although we try to pretend otherwise, Ballard is part of the city. Sprinkling breadcrumbs or seed in the city has always seemed like just a way to attract possums, rats, raccoons, mice and the neighbor's cat. Yet some of my mother's love of birds got passed along.

It's magic to be walking along and realize a bush is invisibly filled by those little flocking titmice. I never tire of chickadees, their pertness or their song. I love to watch the flicker take its long beak into the grass and pull out a worm as easily as a kid sucking on a straw. I'm tolerant of crows and seagulls because I know either of them could peck me to a pulp.

I've seen seagulls pluck clams from a pond and break them open by dropping them on blacktop. Is there a creature who thinks our splintery fir floors are just the right surface? For what?

The kitten finds the outdoors brimming with animal life, the little ants that are everywhere this year, gnats in the grass, flies and paper wasps. She doesn't care about the snail farm that is along the damp retaining wall.

At least snails leave a trail

The snails leave criss-crossing trails that glisten on concrete in the morning light and look the dotted cutting lines on sewing patterns. Whatever is the culprit responsible for the strange brown objects; they don't leave a trail.

Under my morning watch none of the robins, grackles, flickers, pigeons, chickadees, goldfinches or crows rout in the gutters. No animals shimmy up the electrical mast with kelp in their teeth. I don't see any birds fly in, or out, of our windows.

I am no closer to solving the mystery, but don't we all need to observe our surroundings from somewhat outside of our lives? If only to find out who or what else is living with us – wondering about the clutter we leave inside of their nest.

The first time I saw this van parked on NW 32nd in front of The Scoop I stopped dead (although driving at the time). Catching up with Mr. One Name has been on my radar since that first February morning. In the meantime that very same van was the one borrowed and deployed to move rental chairs from the house to the park (and back) on the wedding day. What an honor. Someone has already remarked to Jim, "I didn't know you did weddings."

Ballard News-Tribune. August 2, 2010

Jim, serving this universe since 2029
Ask a silly question, get a silly answer. I should have known better than to expect straight answers from a man who painted his van chartreuse with slogans for a nonexistent business. Then again, is the business real and the slogans fake, or is the business fake and the slogans real?

The van color is the exact shade of a bicyclist's most visible jacket, fluorescent green. When applied in metallic paint on a big vehicle, the sight tends to stop people in their tracks.

Once stopped, they look for clues in the lettering: Desultory Logistics, one side reads, "We'll get it there…whenever." Adjustable Belief Systems reads the driver's side, "Serving Ballard and this universe since 2029." What the?

The owner of the van is a man who prefers to be known by just one name, like Madonna or Cher. His one name is Jim. Allowing only that he had a previous science career and has "morphed" into computer geek, Jim is computing director for a department at the University of Washington.

Speaking of his distinctive automobile, he allows, "It needed to be distinctive for corporate interests."

When people ask if the phone number on the van is real, he counters, "Why don't you call it?" If someone asks him, "What do you deliver?" Jim answers, "What have you got?" After all he says, referring to an unknown corporate entity, "Our hallmark is flexibility."

Some true statements slip into Saturday morning conversation at the coffee shop where Jim starts and ends his weekly walk. He moved out to Seattle from the Boston area 22 years ago, driving cross-country in three days. The green van is not his only means of transport, and his fleet also includes a sailboat named Nola, after the character in Spike Lee's "She's Gotta Have It."

Jim bought the van on Craig's List, the start of "a chain reaction." The van was white and needed to be painted. Friends mocked the white van, saying it looked like those linked to kidnappings and/or stalkers.

One morning, a bicyclist rode by in chartreuse. "I'm going to paint it that color," Jim said. "No, you're not," someone countered. He couldn't let his friend win that one.

Jason at Maaco on Eastlake painted it just that green. Then the "real estate" of the large bright sides called out for business slogans and catch phrases; what Jim calls the promotion phase of his entrepreneurial effort.

Jim considers his product to be a state of mind rather than an actual delivery service. The state of mind is general flexibility regarding a distinction on "what is real" and deadlines in general.

As for whether his life has changed since the Desultory Logistics van took to the streets of Ballard, Jim answers, "Absolutely!" He claims a lot of woman wave at him and smile. Someone on Ballard Avenue screamed, "I love your van." A potential customer, Jim figures.

The fleet is about due for service and a bit of touch-up. Jim has been considering new slogans, such as, "You can rest assured our drivers are not fugitives" or "Our drivers have some command of the French language." (They claim to serve Aix-in-Provence – as well as Shilshole and Ritzville).

In person, Jim could pass for an ordinary tallish, middle-aged bald man with glasses, until you try to ask him a question. "Why is your fleet green?"

Answer: "Because it isn't white."

Back in the old days (of this blog) I used to write exclusively for the blog. Then came the column, then came the book, then came...blah, blah, blah. Just a few months ago I heard from the SeattlePI.com. (Which actually doesn't happen that often). A new editor's name appeared in connection with community blogs and let me know that At Large in Ballard was also going to appear as part of a new category called InBallard. I couldn't help but wonder how the creator of the longtime local blog InBallard was going to feel about this? Evidently all's well but I think the PI just went with "BALLARD"" as the webtown.

But at the same time the editor asked if I knew of others interested in writing about Ballard. I made some inquiries particularly to people in East Ballard but no response. The editor said they were looking for people who wanted to post photos or write about subjects of interest to community, not just personal journals.

Ever since then the only posts I've wanted to do spontaneously have struck me as a personal journal. I don't respond well to being told, 1) what to do, and, 2) what not to do.

In this spot I used to natter on about all sorts of things, but lately I've actually attempted self-censorship (see personal journal above). Plus there is a real difference between posting when and what you want versus meeting a column deadline every week for the Ballard News-Tribune.

Then there was a lovely email from a reader who actually said he'd be willing to subsidize some of my coffee habit in order to allow me to wander Ballard. He referenced how I write about small things (that could be considered mundane). Then I became obsessed with whether I'm too mundane. Could there be such a thing as mundanity, like profanity or insanity?

So in order to break through this blog-writer's block I am going to allow myself a post that is mundane personal journal.

At 5 a.m. the fog over Magnolia hadn't reached Shilshole yet. But it was very foggy by the time the Salmon Bay Sand & Gravel trucks arrived to do another pour at the new construction on the west side of the street. Since the cellphone driving ban became law I've noticed more cars simply pulling up to the curb so the driver can talk on the phone. Let's just say that the driver of the silver car this a.m. picked the wrong spot. I stood laughing as I watched his car pinned as the cement mixer backed up to the other truck that would be doing the actual pour. Such small amusements.

By 11 a.m. the fog had lifted in time for me to watch a Navy ship pass. If it was another vessel I could have clicked on www.marinetraffic.com but the military ships don't have the same type of transponders (yes, we have become obsessive about checking this site). The vessel must be arriving for Seafair.

Unable to focus on anything particular today I stayed on the chaise lounge that serves as my desk, office and chair and planted future seeds. Contacting filmmakers about doing another Ballard night, planning an author panel.

I'm confident that by the time the washing machine cycle is done it will be sunny enough to hang out the clothes. It seems so quiet since Salmon Bay Sand & Gravel left. I really like that their drivers wear orange shirts. How's that for mundane?

But then a moment of interaction. I was sighted by two women climbing my stairs. Since a family already showed up to reclaim the squeaky giraffe toy that I found on the parking strip two weeks earlier I knew this had to be a religious visit. I tried hiding below the window pane of the front door but they'd seen me and called in "Hello..." through the letter slot.

I opened the door and suddenly remembered a moment from my wedding day. I'd opened the door to an entire family fronted by a little girl holding up a Jesus sign. I believe I screamed something about, "It's my wedding day," smiled at the little girl and slammed the door.

Only one of these woman did any talking, the shorter one, who held up her index finger every time she spoke. "We're students of theology," she said. "We'd like to speak with you about the bible. Have you ever studied the bible?" she asked.

In college I told her. The truth is that I figured as an English major I would understand all those biblical references better if I took a religion class, but I signed up for New Testament instead of old Testament and kept wondering why no Cain and Abel? That was also when I taught myself to drink coffee because I really hurt my jaw one day when my face hit the desk particularly hard. I looked around and everyone else was clutching a mug. I started with instant using tap water, but that's another story.

I don't want to talk about the bible (as that supposed to be capitalized?) I told the woman's index finger. Why is that some of the biggest people have the littlest voices? "But have you read the bible as a prophecy?" The woman wanted to know.

I blurted out, "I just finished reading the book 36 Arguments for the Existence of God," hoping that would convince her to leave, although it was a work of fiction. Then I spotted something startling. Two men in harnesses standing on the very peak of a steep roof to the northwest, holding onto the chimney cap actually. "You should try to talk to them," I said pointing.

They looked over. "We already did," the woman said rather sadly.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Goodbye." With that I closed the door even as the woman raised her finger to speak again. Then they plodded down the steps and I went back to my chaise lounge.

And that's my slice of life for today, Tuesday, August 2nd. Time to hang out the laundry. Only four more hours until !Zumba!

An article in the business pages of today's Seattle Times caught my eye regarding Goodman Real Estate's proposed plans to build a 15-story 200 unit apartment building near waterfront by Colman Dock (between Marion & Columbia, Western & Post).

I've managed to go at least a year without writing about Goodman's plans for the former Azteca site on Seaview Avenue NW but the news article prompted me to check on the permit status for the "live-work" bungalow proposed as new construction at the exquisitely remodeled site.

What always strikes me is that John Goodman loves water. His offices are on the waterfront at Pier 70 and likewise his private marina is on the water at Shilshole. Now comes plans for an apartment building (in a switch from past office/commercial developments) east of the viaduct by Pier 49. The Times piece surmises that Goodman could be sitting on a "gold mine" based on quotes from land-use economist Matthew Gardner, "Will (demolition of the Viaduct) increase property values exponentially? Absolutely."

Back to the plans for an additional building on the former Azteca site which got my attention last year because of the seeming conflict between a permit that said first floor eating establishment and the lack of a first floor kitchen (but many upstairs view bedrooms). Checking back on the permit status the project is marked as "on hold" through 5.15.2010 due to absence of a second set of plans. The permit application reads, "Project On Hold" until 5-15-2010. need one more set of plans----hold ends 5/15/10, cancelled if not active at that point bmc."

That's the update as of August 2010, almost three months since the permit was marked to be canceled - so perhaps the beautifully landscaped, gated pier that was once home to freshly made tortillas (and in an earlier incarnation the Golden Tides nightclub) will stay as is while Goodman's corporate arm heads into design review for the Colman Tower.

That's my Goodman update for the year. Probably.

I'd say that I don't know why it took me a week to post last week's Ballard News-Tribune column, but I do know why. The answer is in this week's column - blackberry obsession!
Ballard News-Tribune. August 9, 2010

Rayburn takes on Ballard
"You want to run something, don't you?" Dr. Rayburn Lewis recalls the new CEO at Swedish Hospital saying to him back in 2008. "How about the Ballard campus?

Lewis claims he had to keep from jumping up and down for joy. Recounting the story, he still looks like he could jump for joy, especially in light of the nearly completed new medical building that will dramatically increase the range and level of services available to patients in Ballard.

Talking about the new facility, Lewis, as executive director, beams as though speaking of new toys. As it happens, these toys are actually pieces of cutting-edge technology that will enhance medical services, but Lewis, who is also senior medical director, can say bowel resection and make it sound exciting. (His specialty is internal medicine).

I've wanted to interview Lewis ever since Zita Niemeyer, manager of Surgical Services (and a 45-year employee) decided to introduce us last November. My impression was that we chased him down the hall. I noticed he managed to be very light on his feet and still polite.

We next met at one of Jay Sasnett's retirement parties, and he gave me his card with direct contact information. "There's not a lot of hierarchy at Ballard," he said.

Lewis is 60 years old, born in Tennessee but raised in Michigan after his family moved north. He came out to Seattle in 1974 for University of Washington Medical School and never left.

He met his wife Beth here and they've raised two sons, one still an undergraduate and the other pre-med. Like so many parents whose children "had Jay" at NOMS and Salmon Bay, Lewis has fond memories of camp at Lake Wenatchee, especially the ropes course. He also shares a love of bicycling.

There's a framed poster of a bicycle racer in his office; Lewis' bicycle commuting clothes hang next to a file cabinet. Lewis bicycles to work at least three times per week during the summer, part of his personal and professional goal to promote health and fitness for the whole Ballard campus. No headphones; for him the ride is contemplative.

His idea of fun outside of the hospital is a weekend like one recently spent at Mt. Hood, climbing, bicycling, river rafting. His wife asked why he was smiling at dinner. He told her it was because it felt so good to hurt that much from their recreation.

He may enjoy the recreational time away from the hospital, but it's obvious that Lewis loves his work, particularly revitalizing the Ballard campus and creating a stronger role within the community.

When he arrived, the hospital had many strengths, but some services had gone away due to retired physicians, aging machines and specialization at other campuses. Lewis is rightly proud of his work in recruiting new physicians, who in turn bring new services to Ballard.

The new building is the most visible example of revitalization at Ballard campus, and Lewis is excited that it will give Swedish-Ballard a more visible presence on Market Street. As the largest local employer, Lewis sees the role of the hospital to be employer, medical provider and good neighbor to industry, merchants and residents.

During construction Lewis has gotten to don the hard hat, drive a backhoe and watch all phases of the new facility. Although he was medical director at Swedish-Cherry Hill during a major renovation, it wasn't his baby.

The new building will have an expanded emergency room and consolidate primary care clinics.

Lewis feels strongly about his role and that of the hospital in the community. Ballard Swedish is one of the largest employers and it serves everyone.

As CEO, he feels responsible for his employees and all the potential users in the north end, from marine industrial companies to restaurateurs. With the emergency room serving 20,000 in 2009, he feels a public health responsibility not only to promote safety in the community but also for employees through their health and commuting choices.

No matter the topic, Lewis is curious and engaged. We discussed Dutch Bikes and Medic One, the Fremont fire tragedy and the new Swedish Community Health Medical Home clinic that can provide the bridge for individuals and small to medium size businesses.

While showing off some sites in the hospital building, Lewis noticed anyone who seemed lost and provided directions. Then he walked me out to where I'd parked my own bicycle to see my wheels.

It occurred to me as I rode home that it's just possible that Dr. Rayburn Lewis is having too much fun. He makes running a hospital seem like a joyous sprint, and for the first time since college I almost missed hearing the sound of the starter's gun.

Reprinted by permission.