The Suburban Times
A community bulletin board for Western Pierce County.
David Anderson · · ·
According to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) Point Defiance Bypass Environmental Assessment (Appendix F: Traffic and Transportation Discipline Report, p.83), “None of the individual crossings are predicted to experience accidents more frequently than one in every 10 years.”
This to save an estimated 10 minutes of Amtrak travel time from Seattle to Portland, and this in spite of proposed safety upgrades.
David Anderson · · ·
We called him Frosty the Fairytale Facsimile, our token snowman.
No corncob pipe, just a stick. There were no carrots in the vegetable bin, so a stick served for the nose too. No rolling snowballs around in the yard. No snowman bigger and better than the neighbor’s. A scraped and mounded pile of snow served just as well in which to stick the obligatory twigs. No boots, no buttons, no broom.
Dorothy Wilhelm · · ·
If you’ve celebrated fifty or more Christmases, chances are that you may be finding it hard to connect with the true Christmas spirit this year. Face it, we’re not exactly the demographic the toy and computer manufacturers are going for. I mean, do you really want a Princess Elsa doll or a USB backup for you Mac Air? I thought not.
What we need, you and I, is something to help us put the constant and dizzying changes in the holiday celebration into perspective. Luckily, the whole problem is put into perspective in a timely manner by one of our most gifted local writers. Who would that be? Well, as Mark Twain said, “I allude in these vague general terms to … myself,” Dorothy Wilhelm.
David Anderson · · ·
Of all days for our annual family outing in search for the perfect Christmas tree, it was during a blinding snowstorm.
Ok, half-an-inch of snowfall doesn’t qualify as a storm but the sun shining on the snow was indeed blinding. Though not enough to make a snowman, the snow in the winter wonderland almost-foothills of the Cascades had flocked all the U-cut Grand Firs, Douglas Firs, and Charlie Brown trees too.
David Anderson · · ·
A thief posing as fisherman? That’s an insult.
“Police seek South Hill pharmacy robber wearing fisherman’s hat,” blazed the banner this past Thanksgiving-eve.
Not ‘cowboy hat,’ or ‘stocking hat,’ or ‘baseball hat.’
Fisherman’s hat.
David Anderson · · ·
What the heck is sage for?
Other than the second of four herbs in “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme” – Simon and Garfunkel’s “first masterpiece” – why was sage included in our Thanksgiving dinner grocery shopping list?
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Lakewood First Lions Club members recently helped served Thanksgiving dinner to approximately 400 children and parents at the Lakewood Boys and Girls Club.
David Anderson · · ·
Part of Lakewood’s $55,503 grant to treat problem gamblers was used to buy one or more Sea-Doo’s to patrol Lake Steilacoom. Public Disclosure Request (PDR) documents [(2012-2013) and (2013-2014)] recently obtained from the City of Lakewood reveal this and other less-than-admirable outcomes of a unanimous vote by the Lakewood City Council on August 6, 2012 […]
Joseph Boyle · · ·
November 4, 2014, Election Day, has come and gone.
I remember middle school elections of the 1950s. Candidates made posters. Candidates made “Vote for me” paper badges for their supporters. Little effort was expended determining which candidates were most qualified. It was a silly juvenile popularity contest based on superficial issues such as who had the best posters.
As I reflect on elections in my adult life, it appears to me that not much has changed. Today’s elections are still much like middle school; silly and juvenile.