Editorial: Tending the seeds of community
Published 1:30 am Thursday, February 24, 2022
Our front page is graced this week with a heartwarming story about our community’s upcoming “Seed Share” — a long-time, annual event where seeds are freely given and traded.
At this year’s Seed Share, students from Vashon’s Green School will close the circle on a project they have been working on since 2020 — producing their own Whipple beans, and handing them out to their friends and neighbors. What a gift to those who will now hold those beans in their hands.
It takes such a long time to nurture seeds, just as it takes time to nurture a child. But the rewards are enormous.
In this week’s issue, we are also pleased to introduce our readers to the writing of Mickey Fontaine, a talented 13-year-old youth who has lived more than half his life on Vashon. We are grateful for his commentary about a place on this island where he has found kinship and useful knowledge, the Vashon Sportsmen’s Club.
The knotty-pine paneled lodge, tucked into the woods on Singer Road, isn’t a place Mickey ever thought he’d find that kind of fulfillment, but he has — leave it to a teenager to remind us that we need to explore our own island more often, and seek out places and people that bring out the best in us.
We hope that here at The Beachcomber, we have planted a seed with Mickey and that he will write for us more often, flexing his gift for the written word. We’re sure that if he does, he will continue to surprise and inspire us all.
Another small, surprising news story in this paper (see page 4) is about our fire chief, Charles Krimmert, and his determination to rebuild a home for a pair of ospreys that have long nested at the fire station.
Speaking to the chief, it’s clear that he feels a kind of awe for the couple. He admires their arduous annual migratory journey and the fact that they, like all ospreys, have mated for life.
It’s clear that over the years, he’s literally looked up to them, and formed a relationship with them. And more than that, he sees the protection of these magnificent yet messy winged creatures as part of the fire district’s mission to protect the island’s environment.
There are other stories in our paper this week, which may cause more alarm than inspiration — one about a local response to crime, and another about a flaming postal truck on Vashon Highway.
There are seeds of future articles in these two stories and work for our staff of two reporters to do — exploring the exact extent of Vashon’s crime problem as well as the state of affairs at our post office. We will do our best to tackle these hard stories with measured facts. If you’re looking for speculation on these subjects, go to social media, because you won’t find that on these pages.
Vashon, for many years, has been a remarkably safe place, where property crime is blessedly rare in comparison with other communities. It hurts to know that people may be more fearful these days, in the face of recent incidents on our island, but our job is now to temper those fears with facts. Fear, too, is a type of seed — one that we don’t want to water and tend without cause.
Big things happen in small towns, week after week after week. It’s our great honor to cover local news, because ultimately, that news reveals the character of our community.
