I was sitting there, cold, huddled in a blanket, not feeling very well, a cup of coffee cradled occasionally in my hands to ensure my fingers would stay somewhat nimble on the keys of the computer, looking forward to my bowl of Chicken Noodle Soup. But my heart was warm given the sweet, contrite voice […]
Letter: Hitting (on) the rails
How much compensation should there be for Amtrak riders – and those on I-5 below – who suffered “broken bones, brain injuries, spinal wounds and other trauma” when Amtrak 501 derailed on its inaugural run December 18, 2017 just minutes after passing through our community of Tillicum? That’s the question before jurors in the Tacoma […]
Letter: The best thing about toasting marshmallows
Today, August 30, is National Marshmallow Toasting Day. Seriously. If you missed it there is a National Toasted Marshmallow Day Countdown Clock that shows the number of days, hours, minutes & seconds until the next gooey event. Relatedly, there is an opinion expressed by the editorial board in one media publication that recommends school not […]
Letter: Watering the flowers
Sometimes my granddaughter of now nearly eight months will help me water the flowers on our porch. It gives me yet another reason to hold her. Occasionally she’ll accompany me to get the mail but mostly it’s the flowers. Sometimes we’ll use the sprinkling can since that takes longer and gives us a chance to […]
Letter: “You can thank my parents for that”
He was standing in front of the cash register at our place of business from which I’m often gone that being because we just have a lot going on and, despite the beautiful weather, I’ve got things to do elsewhere. “This is for yesterday since you weren’t here, and today.” Fishermen, which this fellow is, […]
Letter: Gig Harbor is going to the Olympics
Got a call this morning from my brother Alan. His voice broke. He was emotional. Been up all night. On the other side of the world, Szeged, Hungary, at 2:30 A.M. our time, this August 24, Nevin Harrison, who trained at Gig Harbor the last seven or eight months or so, who is from Seattle […]
Letter: The Best and the Brightest
Recently we added a beautiful little, older but carefully maintained, boat and motor to our rental fishing fleet. Already we’ve rented it out twice and only to the best and the brightest – true fishing aficionados – as evidenced just this morning. Out of all the boats (row, or boat and motor with 3.3 Merc, […]
Letter: Backing Down
The bow holds steady, the stern backs down, and so we ease away from the dock. At least that’s the plan but both of us were reluctant to move. Even the coach in the launch just sat there. Not looking at us or the rest of the crew – doubles like us, fours and eights […]
Letter: When you get to where we got
At the farthest reaches of where we rowed this morning the tight puddles left by our paddles stretched it seemed like forever behind our double shell. They were the only disturbance of the mirrored surface, that and the thin vapor-like trail of our boat’s wake connecting as it were the dots we left behind. We […]