Anyone who inches down the last 100 feet of Vashon Highway toward the north-end ferry is bound to notice four little Burma Shave-style signs just before reaching the dock. Many islanders who commute regularly look to those signs as an inspiring last whisper from the island before sailing off to less poetic destinations.
Natalie Sheard and Bethany Dilworth are not your typical milkmaids. And tiptoeing through cow pies is a long way from pirouetting across the stage.
I enjoyed a lovely dinner at the home of some island friends recently and during the evening encountered two remarkable conversations about the Vashon Farmers Market (each prompted by the person’s knowledge that I manage the market).
Fences. Where I grew up, fences were built neither for decoration nor for making good neighbors. Fences were utilitarian constructs, there for keeping the critters in and, in the olden days, the rustlers out — those bad guys who could slip in in the dark of night and steal away your assets and your security.
Decades ago, the drummer in a band I sang with announced one night before the show that he needed to be wrapped up and out the door by 11:30. He wanted to make it to the Varsity Theater by midnight to see “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” It was very important, he said. It was to be his 100th time seeing it.
My sweet godmother Pat Wittman, the first proudly Irish person I ever knew, died last week after a long illness, and so I found myself making an impromptu trek to Idaho to help my cousins and the rest of our big family lay her to rest.
We had a death in our family my junior year in college, a loss that in a quiet moment can still cast a shadow over my psyche. There was no funeral, and to my great chagrin not enough tears were shed over the disappearance of this very influential force in all our lives.
