Rain, rain, go away. Come again some other day. Remember
chanting that as a child? It never worked, but I was always willing to try.
PPP
Someone referred to me as a “native” the other day, referring to
the length of time I have lived in the Valley. I protested, as I have only
been here 25 years. That is practically a newcomer. Where I grew up,
you weren’t a native unless you could prove three generations. I barely
made it, because my grandparents came out from Iowa in their early 20s. But
my Dad was born in Port Orchard, so I was OK.
I have been here long enough to remember when the QFC was
the Shop Rite and both it and the Drug Center were in the building by the
road where Giorgio’s and the liquor store are. I remember when Cal, John’s
dad, was the Druggist. River Bend was only about a dozen houses and
Wilderness Rim was Rusty Draper’s house and that was about it. Things have
changed so much in what is really a very short time.
As I approach the half-century mark, (16 1/2 months and
counting), I have started to think about the
things that have happened in the last 50 years. My family got their first TV set
when I was 2. A 10-inch black and white. I watched Life of Riley and
Highway Patrol with Broderick Crawford. My white-haired grandmother
never missed Saturday night wrestling on Channel 11 and once got so
excited, she broke her rocking chair. I was a card-carrying member of
Howdy Doody’s Peanut Gallery and never missed Captain Puget.
I met my first computer in 1973. I worked for an insurance company,
and they were going to computerized records. The computer had its
own room on the first floor, with a climate-controlled atmosphere and an
air-lock door. Fifteen keypunch operators worked three shifts to feed it data.
It crashed on the average of once a day.
Now I sit here with a keyboard and a monitor that takes up about
three square feet of my desk, with my cat sleeping on the CPU case. (It’s
warm.) Every day, I use computers and even repair minor problems. When I
graduated from high school, the job I do today didn’t exist.
Who knows what the next step will be? We live in an ever-changing
world, and the changes are happening faster all the time. I just can’t make up
my mind if this is good or bad.
PPP
The Mountain Man and I made another trip to our fishing lodge
this last week. I am happy to say that we are making progress. ALL of the
walls and woodwork are washed. Also the windows, which I don’t think had
been touched in several years. We found the ant nest that the exterminator
swore he had exterminated. Looked pretty healthy to me. The Mountain
Man made a stern phone call.
I helped him install the sink. It would probably be very romantic
to die together, but being squashed by a cast iron sink is not the way I
would choose. The Mountain man called the sink some very colorful names, but
I was raised around truck drivers, ex-Marines, and other volatile types, so
I knew all the words.
Now we get to do the fun stuff, like choosing paint colors and
kitchen flooring. You may see us glaring at each other in a hardware store near
you any day now.
We also had a really spectacular windstorm while we were there.
It blew up on Wednesday. The wind drove the river to a fury, with
whitecaps flaring under a pewter sky. I saw gulls being driven backwards as
they tried to fly to a calmer spot. Saw a lot of them walking, too! Leaves
blew past, only occasionally pausing to flatten themselves on a window,
peering in as if asking for shelter. Trees bowed, respecting the power of the wind.
All in all, it was a magnificent sight. And rain. It absolutely poured buckets!
I told the Mountain Man that most people buy a vacation place in
a warmer, drier climate. But we always did like to be different.
PPP
Thought for the Week: It only takes one psychologist to change
a light bulb, but the light bulb really has to
want to change.
Please submit items for
North Bend Nuggets to
Pat Simpson at P.O. Box 857,
North Bend, WA 98045,
or by e-mail to patsimps@hotmail.com,
or drop them by the library.
