Meeting Myself Coming and Going

Shoalwater Storytellers Poster, 1981

For someone interested in local history (that would be me), one of the strangest research experiences is to run into information about oneself (me again.)  It’s happened to me twice in the last few years – both times in totally unexpected ways and both times having to do with the Shoalwater Storytellers.

For those who weren’t around in the 1980s, just a tad of background information.  In the very early 80s, Lawrence Lessard (then the director of the Peninsula Players) and I established a small story-telling performance group.  There were six of us – Patty and Noel Thomas, Bob and Senta Cook, Lawrence and myself.  We did readers theater productions of local history.  “The Stage to Oysterville,” “The Hanging of Lum You,” “The Ghost of Mrs. Crouch” were among our repertoire

Cranberry Festival Brochre 1982

By the mid-eighties, everyone else dropped out, I shanghaied Nyel, and he and I continued the presentations.  Three or four years ago we turned over sets, scripts, and costume pieces to David Immel and Kitt Fleming.  Hooray!  We had retired from yet another fun but time-consuming responsibility!  Done!  It had been a good 30+ year run and we have moved on.

But then… I was doing some research at the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum for a Sou’wester article on place names and I ran across a photograph taken in front of one of the Charter Offices at the Port of Ilwaco.  And there we were – Lawrence and I – costumed and caught in mid stride.  I think we were portraying “The Burning of the Bruce” – the story about the Bruce Boys’ arrival in Shoalwater Bay in 1852.  Great Stuff!  But… archived with historic information about the Port?  Wow!

1982 Cranberry Festival Brochure, inside

Yesterday, it happened again.  This time, I’m beginning a new book for the Cranberry Growers Association.  Although I wrote one of my ABCs books, C is for Cranberries” on the same subject years ago, any connection there might have been between Washington’s cranberry industry and Shoalwater Storytellers never occurred to me.  But, as I was going through a scrapbook provided by one of the growers, there we were again!  Right there in dead center of a 1982 brochure about the Cranberry Fair was a listing for the Shoalwater Storytellers!

Wow!  I’ve never made any bones about my age, but finding myself listed in the archives is beginning to make me feel like a bit of a relic!  In a good way.

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