Content about Island Life

When a clarion call rang out from the opinion pages of the Beachcomber last fall that terrorists had bombed the athletic facilities at the high school, I decided I should probably go take a look. In truth, David Hackett’s warning about the sorry state of many aspects of the VHS athletic facilities wasn’t really about terrorists, although the shock and awe contained therein smacked of sensational rhetoric.

There is a box on the floor in our house that arrived recently with the shipment of objects, devices, artwork, clocks and toys from my parents’ house. Despite its daunting nature, I am slowly going through all of it, although compared to what got left behind, this task at hand seems rather small, but not insignificant. This particular box has become both of our cats’ new prized lounge area, as it also has a folded small area rug on top and it sits within radiant (but not combusting) range of the woodstove.

“Now, only an expert can deal with a problem. Because half of the problem is seeing the problem. And only an expert can deal with a problem…”       Laurie Anderson
    

To be clear, I do not obsess on the VES fields both day and night. If I had a choice, I would pick the day time, because I like to sleep at night and I already have enough spinning around inside to keep me alert during the time of darkness, listening to the mantel clock announce wee hours I’d rather not know about, let alone experience while conscious. It should also be known that the replacement by corporate logos of real names  on public spaces is highly detested in these quarters, for what that’s worth.

I hadn’t really thought about it until I sat down to write this, but it was a year ago (possibly to the weekend) that my sister informed me that she had gotten tickets for a lake cruise and I was being asked to tag along on that Sunday afternoon with her, my brother-in-law and his two sisters who were visiting.

Along with a number of other things, the issue of parking and safety along the Vashon Highway came up at the latest Park District commissioners meeting last night. This was not really the main event that all were in attendance for- that special part of the agenda was reserved for the ceremonial bid opening for the latest iteration of that giant sucking noise that is the VES fields project.

At the end, that is all there is, because there is no time for anything else. At the end, most of the time is spent seeking a way for it not to be so, especially when the end comes from nowhere, as if the ticking clock and the calendar on the wall were not clues enough. At the end, the real end, when there is no rise and fall nor slight, surprising stir, there is a pause when things collect themselves on the cusp of memory.

A few weeks ago in the not too distant past, I was confronted by a friend in the aisles of our local food emporium and random issues forum. It was not so much a dramatic confrontation as it was a questioning as to why I hadn’t been present  at recent meetings being held to discuss the latest problem with bikes on the new foot ferries being offered up at or watery doorstep.

The first bit of activism that I participated in while growing up was a campaign to get a swim team at my local high school. As it was, age group league swimming at the time mostly stopped at age 14, making way for the big leap to high school competition and championships. Our school, although in a well-off, middle class area, did not have a pool.

Perhaps Stephen Colbert’s biggest contribution to the world at large was his coining of the word “truthiness”. In looking it up- not in a book but on the internets- I see that he set forth the principles of truthiness in one of his weekly “the Word” segments in October of 2005. No real definition was set forward, in fear perhaps that the ‘wordanistas over at Webster’ might put it in a book, and books are suspect since they are, as everyone by now knows, filled with stuff that is ‘all fact and no heart’. The wisdom that Mr.

As we continue to bumble along in seeking precedent and context in these times, we find our self turning once again to the ancient times- my ancient times. In particular, we will be going to a certain place, but the visit will occur at a number of stops on the personal timeline. Our main focus will be on sports and power, which may tip the cards enough so that one might know where we are eventually going with this. Our first stop will be at the pool, not the wrestling pit that the one in memory has become since the opening of the new David H. Koch Natatorium (yes, that Koch) in 1995.

I don’t know how you treat the transition from one year to the next, but generally I tend to try and temper disgust with what has taken some three hundred plus days to ebb and flow with a modicum of hope that the next, similar cluster of days and nights offers a chance at redemption and renewal, in spite of the fact that not enough has changed in the interim to warrant either expectations of the extraordinary, or the pyrotechnic display that pretends to guide us onward into the fog.