The other day, I walked into the Burton branch of our estimable island post office system, rang the quaint little bell on the counter in order to summon a post-person and waited. The usual postmistress, if that is the right term, was on vacation, and my first thought was: “Wait! They get vacations? What about ‘Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night’… etc?”
On a warm July afternoon, Bruce Morser stood on Vashon Highway drawing. While Morser, a professional artist, has done work for such clients as Starbucks, Rolex and National Geographic, that day he and his daughter were drawing with Sharpie markers on the side of an old building.
The state Liquor Control Board is still processing more than 7,000 applications it received from around the state for marijuana business licenses.
Ballots for King County’s Feb. 11 election were mailed to voters this week and include just one item for Vashon: a request to renew a four-year levy that helps fund the island’s three public schools.
The legal battle over control of the Mukai house and garden will continue, as late last month a state appeals court considering the case sent it back to trial court.
I have lately been writing mystery novels, and so, naturally, I wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery of the great hydrangea heist at Kathy’s Corner a week or so back.
By rights, this story should be appearing in this estimable newspaper’s “Sheriff’s Report.” Why it is not is a mystery to me. But then, a lot of things are a mystery to me.
The other day I donated my tuxedo to Granny’s Attic.
I’m going to let you in on a secret: One of the funniest places on Vashon Island is the Burton Coffee Stand.
You may have noticed that, despite the fact that spring is almost upon us, the holiday candy cane decorations are still up on poles along Vashon Highway. You may also recall that I wrote disparagingly about them some weeks before Christmas.
It was straight out of one of those black and white movies typically set in prohibition-era Chicago: In the pre-dawn hours of Saturday, Dec. 3 (which at this winter latitude is about 10 a.m.), unmarked, window-blackened police cars descended upon the main intersection in Vashon town, tires screeching as they rounded the corners and slid to a stop. Doors flew open and scores of G-men—with their long coats, gray Fedora hats tilted just-so over one eye, and their submachine guns at the ready — poured out onto the street.
Perhaps you’ve noticed that there are profound seasonal changes underway on our Island. No, I don’t mean that our tomatoes are finally starting to ripen or that we are about to be swamped by a tsunami of zucchini. And I don’t mean the coming of fall. I mean the going of the Summer People. That’s right: Their semi-annual migration is now complete.
During the last few months, I have been explaining (which is hard to do when your tongue’s firmly planted in your cheek) that VASHON is not a name but an acronym — which is to say, a gathering of letters which hint at a hidden message one can understand only by parsing each letter.
