Story & Photo – Joseph Boyle
Our Lakewood Historical Society, led by President Becky Huber, certainly enhances our quality of life in the City of Lakewood. Allow me to list just a few of those ways.
Letter: Hand-me-downs
‘Hand-me-downs,’ unfortunately, are usually associated with the “cheap and shoddy.”
At one time the items, commonly clothing, were valued by somebody but one day they become hand-me-downs: discarded, unwanted, outgrown.
Letter: WYSIWYG
Her eyesight shut down as she was rounding the curve, returning – thankfully – nearly as quickly as it had gone and just in time to avoid the bridge abutment. The ophthalmologist told her she needed glasses. The optometrist – who would have fitted her with corrective lenses except for what he saw – said she needed surgery. He was right. A Ping-Pong-ball-sized tumor had impinged upon her optic nerve and one of the best neurologists in the country performed eight-hour surgery just days later.
Letter: Feds, Not Fathers, On How to Roast Marshmallows
Reminiscing about my dad on this National Marshmallow Toasting Day, August 30.
If there was one thing my dad and I looked forward to at the end of a long day traipsing through the forest, clambering laboriously back and forth and up and down switchbacks and bushwhacking our way over and under fallen trees through dense underbrush and other infernal objects that impeded our access to yet another deep dark pool to catch illusive brook trout, it wasn’t toasted marshmallows.
Letter: Longing for Better Days?
Whether past or future given the present is most depressing? So did Nelson Mandela, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Cicely Saunders, Aung San Suu Kyi, Edith Cavell and Raoul Wallenberg. All the stories of these individuals just listed are found in the book by Gordon Brown entitled “Courage – Portraits of […]
Westside Story – Pierce Transit Tests EZ Boy Recliners at Bus Stops
On December 25, 2012, we published a story titled Pierce Transit Fights Obesity.
Being community minded and wanting to be a part of the solution to American obesity, Pierce Transit experimented with installing exercise bikes at their bus stop test sights.
It turns out that most bus riders do not like exercise and are actually quite slothful.
Westside Story – Missing Person
Hey, I miss you guys. My last article appeared in the June 17, 2014, Suburban Times. We have not shared one single Westside Story since.
I know some of you have been searching the obituaries for my name. Others thought I might be doing some hard prison time. There was even talk of putting my photo on milk cartons. My most loyal reader thought putting my photo on beer cans might be more effective.
Letter: Garden Party
Standing near the green beans that tower over her and her little sister, McKenzie said she wants to be a teacher “to help other people learn.”
Her little sister Gracie meanwhile has more immediate interests – eating her cereal with blueberries from the garden.
“The Garden” is where the TREE “edible education” program involves a number of local children on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 11 A.M. to 2 P.M. behind the Community Center in Tillicum.
Heritage Questions: Why do Genealogy Detectives have to go to the trouble of keeping a Story Journal?
I can’t believe it’s the last edition of Heritage Questions. It’s been fun visiting about keeping our family histories alive. The major change I’ve noticed is that we’ve gone from thinking about a workshop to understanding that we are really talking about becoming Genealogy Detectives. One of the things I found most surprising is Dee Haviland Fournier’s insistence on proving the “facts” we find and her emphasis on the importance of a Story Journal, because it’s not just about birth and death dates. It’s about real people. So for the last column today, I want to tell you why I think it’s so important that we share and understand our mutual journey.