Remember when you were first taught how to write? With me it was signing the pictures I drew with wax crayons. I was three or four, and my mother taught me how to write my first name. I knew what it meant, but I didn’t care that the letter “N” only goes zigzag in a […]
Across the Fence
Across the Fence: Neighborhood Candy
Some of you may remember a long past Suburban Times article of mine in which I mentioned that candy was a rare thing in my early childhood. My mother would hand me maybe one hard candy or a soft caramel a day if I had been good. I was quite average. But in average, I […]
Across the Fence: Freaky or Funny?
Submitted by Susanne Bacon. I must have been four or five when a small traveling circus came to our suburb in Germany. It set up its one-ring tent in a meadow next to one of our supermarkets, placed their wagons into the back, and handed out leaflets. When my mother took my little brother and […]
Across the Fence: Frost
This week, Lakewood experienced its first morning of frost. Waking to a clear, sunny sky on Tuesday morning, I found that our neighborhood’s roofs were all glistening white, and so were the front lawns. The thermometer showed me a mere 31 degrees Fahrenheit. An hour later, the sky was clouded, and the magic was gone. […]
Across the Fence: Octopuses
November 8 is International Octopus Day. Now, you may wonder why I come up with such a seemingly exotic topic today. I was playfully looking into a website that deals with celebratory dates, and among others this resonated immediately with me. Because I love octopuses or octopods. And yes, that’s the plural, not octopi or […]
Across the Fence: Harvest Time
Fall does the same to me,each and every year.It makes me singand remember old poems.It makes me dance with the leavesSailing on gusts of windAnd hold my faceInto refreshing drops of rain.It makes me breathe in the fragranceOf rotting apples and decaying gardens,Of pumpkin soup,And onion tart.It makes me listen to the quiet of the […]
Across the Fence: Looking up
When I was a child, my mother used to show me the Big Dipper in the night sky and Orion. I dutifully nodded but was never able to discover them myself. To me, they were stars like any others. Beautiful to look at. Somewhat mysterious. Certainly, no constellations. Then, our city built a planetarium, and […]
Across the Fence: A Leisurely Loop
Last weekend, my husband and I decided to hike on probably one of the last sunny days of this year. So, we packed our rucksacks and walking sticks and drove over to Packwood and a tad farther on. The Ohanapecosh Campground was our destination, and from there we had planned to walk the 2.7-mile-long Silver […]
Across the Fence: A Jewel at our Doorstep
Last weekend we explored our region again. Would you think that after eleven years of living around Western Washington, there are still new discoveries to be made? Indeed! A drive to an area a little beyond Enumclaw took us to the Green River and its incredibly romantic landscape. Luckily, we had decided to go early […]