Ferry dock is a dangerous spot
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I steal flowers.
Autumn approaches, leaves turn yellow and red, sunlight slants low — while returning flocks of birds splash their colors across the canvas of a deepening blue sky and Sound.
The idea of spending a whole summer on an island somewhere is deliciously tantalizing — a place where I could throw away the clock and calendar and live in the timeless moment of “now.” Well, that place turned out to be right under my feet this summer.
The Vashon Island School District’s 1,500 students made their way back to school this week, a bittersweet reminder that fall is in the air and the long days of summer are behind us.
Well, the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing just wrapped up Sunday. The closing ceremony dazzled viewers with an oversized and fiery pyrotechnic finale.
Jean Bosch, real estate agent and housing advocate, captured the dilemma well when she talked to The Beachcomber this week about Vashon HouseHold’s newest project.
Remember the good old days, just a year or two ago, when $20 would fill up your car’s gas tank? Remember when the gas pumps at Engels could keep track of the cost of gas? Remember when buying heating oil didn’t require a second mortgage? Who thinks our natural gas or electric rates are going down? Our school district is facing these same dilemmas.
When Emir Nohutcu was preparing to leave his native Turkey last summer for a year on Vashon, he turned for advice to his uncle, an Istanbul ophthalmologist who had been an exchange student in Philadelphia 30 years ago.
Wasn’t it just last week that you read about vandalism in this very spot? Well, it happened again. This time, Vashon’s unidentified troublemakers smashed into the Island’s public schools and several school buses between 3 and 4 a.m. last Tuesday.
I sat in stunned silence listening to a visiting Rabbi explain that many Jews today debate whether or not they are really a “chosen people.”
We ought to be embarrassed.
For years, our community has squabbled and kibitzed over the need for a remodeled high school without ever calling the question to a vote.
