Archive for the ‘Autumn in Oysterville’ Category

So, the other day when the lens fell out…

Wednesday, November 22nd, 2023

Perfect!

…of my glasses, I slipped it back in the frame ever-so-carefully and called my eye doctor to see if the optician was in.  She was, so I gathered my coat and purse and, also, my wits and drove ever-so-gingerly to have  it replaced properly.  It only fell out again once and I caught it before it hit a hard surface.  Whew!

Not only do I have just one pair of glasses (which I actually don’t need for distance since my cataract surgery some years ago) but I have been on the search for the same exact frames which I feel have “ME” written all over them.  I got them originally maybe 10 or more years ago at a little boutique frame shop on NW 23rd in Portland.  They were grotesquely expensive but Nyel and I both agreed:  I had to get them.  And, as far as I’m concerned they have to last as long as I do.

Identical!

I feel that way especially because the boutique is no more and I have been unable to find a pair of glasses — perfectly round with no nose pads.  The optician at my former eye clinic said she couldn’t find them.  So… I was worried… Deep in my soul, I felt that this might be the beginning of the end…

And, sure enough, when the optician repaired them she said the screws are pretty well stripped and I’d best think about getting new frames.  I told her my sad story and she said, “Well, give me a minute…” and disappeared into the back room with my glasses  She came back a few minutes later with a print-out showing my exact frames from the manufacturer.  In Portland!  Still being made!  “But,” she said, “it looks like they only come in bronze.”  I don’t think I said “Oh Yuck!” out loud, but she said, “Their contact information is on here.  Why don’t you give them a call?”

Merry Christmas!

It took me a few days to get over the sticker shock but I justified it with the old “I deserve a Christmas present from myself” argument and I worked up the courage to call.  “Hang on a minute and I’ll see,” said the pleasant voice at the other end in answer to my “Do they come in black?” query.  YES!  And today they arrived in my mail!

Am I lucky or what?  Now the question is… should I have these lenses put in them or wait until my insurance will pay (well, partly) for a new pair of glasses?  I think that might be a year from now…  I guess another phone call is in order.

I’ve never thought of myself as a screamer…

Tuesday, November 21st, 2023

… but then I don’t think I’ve ever had much occasion for screaming.  Thank goodness!  The other day, though, I startled myself with my unexpected reaction — twice! — to seeing a squirrel (maybe) run across my pantry and then, again, across the storage area next to our garage. The downside:  I think those unexpected screams startled me more than the critter.  The upside (possibly) is that he/she/it/they/ seem to be gone.

I’m not for certain-sure just what sort of varmint it was.  It didn’t run along on all fours, hugging the wall like mice are apt to do.  And it was WAY bigger than a mouse.  And it didn’t run hell-bent-for-election and sort of hunkered down like I think of rats moving when startled.  But it was as big as a rat and my impression was that it was fairly dark in color and had a fluffy tail.  The biggest give-away, though, was that it went lippety-lippety — sort of leaping along with a vertical-motion-on-fast-forward.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a squirrel run in a straight line.  Usually, there’s a tree nearby and they lippety-lip over and up as quick as a wink.  But, once I gathered my wits, I was pretty sure it was a small squirrel  — one more terrified of me (and my scream) than I was of her/him/it/them. I closed the doors behind me (in the direction of the main part of the house) and opened the store room door leading to the garage AND opened the garage door, too.  Then I called Tucker.

He, of course, was in the middle of a gathering at the schoolhouse (where I should have been but had completely forgotten…) but said he’d be over with a couple of live traps a little later.  We baited them with peanut butter and set one in the garage and one in the store room.  That was Saturday.  So far… no critters  Also so far, I knock on the doors before opening them (feeling a little demented as I do so.)  If someone is going go lippety-lippety, I prefer it done before I enter their territory.  Hearing myself scream is terrifying!

History Forum: Two Experts + A Harridan!

Wednesday, November 1st, 2023

November 2023 History Forum

Our third History Forum was a great success, if I do say so myself!  Each of the previous sessions have been fabulous, but more on the “lecture” side of things rather than like a true Forum.  So, today before I introduced our Guest Historians, I put on my old Teacher’s Hat and explained (sort of) the difference between a lecture during which you mostly listen and then leave and a Forum which requires your engagement afterwards and maybe even during.  I also explained that I wouldn’t be “moderating” so much as acting as a Harridan* to get their participation going.  (*Harridan: shrew, harpy, harpy, termagant, vixen, nag, crone.)

Just what is an “honest” mistake, anyway?

Wednesday, October 25th, 2023

I might be nit-picking a bit here, but when I read the Page 2 headline in today’s Observer —State senator says Hong Kong gun charge due to ‘honest mistake’ — I had to stop and mull that over for a bit.  It seems to me that a mistake is a mistake.  Period.  I don’t quite see how there can be an “honest” or a “dishonest” qualifier.

But then my thinking is probably skewed by the fact that the Senator’s “honesty” (or possibly his “mistake”) involved a gun.  And a handgun at that — or so I assume since it was in his carryon luggage along with his chewing gum.  So, in an effort to see if I was mistaken (either honestly or dishonestly), I looked up the word “mistake.”  According to Merriam Webster:  noun. 1. : a wrong judgment : misunderstanding. 2. : a wrong action or statement proceeding from faulty judgment, inadequate knowledge, or inattention.

So then I asked Google, “Is there a difference between an honest mistake and a dishonest mistake?”  And the answer was:  “An honest mistake of course, is understood as someone “trying” with a sincere intent and effort to do well and not make a mistake. A “dishonest mistake” would be more correctly characterized by someone taking on a project with NO intent to avoid a mistake.”

So, am I further ahead than I was when I started?  I honestly don’t have a clue.  I can’t quite wrap my head around someone packing a gun in his carryon luggage “with a sincere intent and effort to do well and not make a mistake” if the rules (or in this case, the law) says No Hand Guns In Carry On Luggage.    I must conclude that his was not a  dishonest mistake (see paragraph above) and I can’t see the “mistake” part very clearly either.   Just plain stupid, I say — no honesty, dis or otherwise, involved.  And certainly not a mistake.

I wonder what the Hong Kong courts will say…

 

They had to go clear to Estonia to find out???

Tuesday, October 24th, 2023

Oysterville Schoolhouse — Grades 1 -8, 1-10, or sometimes 1-6 — 1905-1957

This morning a friend sent me a NYT Opinion piece titled “What Most American Schools Do Wrong.”  After 39 years in elementary classrooms in California and Washington I could hardly force myself to read on.  What indeed?  I could think of dozens of things right off the bat.

But when I read a little further I wanted to scream and shout: I KNEW THAT!  I TOLD YOU SO!  I TOLD YOU SO!  So, too, would three other teachers (of the hundreds I worked with over the years) know.  Maybe more, but only four I can name for sure — Tom Davis, John Snyder, and Miki Frace.

Multigrade Classroom Ocean Park School

Said the article:  Since 2000, every three years, 15-year-olds in dozens of countries have taken the Program for International Student Assessment — a standardized test of math, reading and science skills. On the inaugural test, which focused on reading, the top country came as a big surprise: tiny Finland. Finnish students claimed victory again in 2003 (when the focus was on math) and 2006 (when it was on science),   And then, the article continued:  Just over a decade later, Europe had a new champion. Here, too, it wasn’t one of the usual suspects — not a big, wealthy country like Germany or Britain but the small underdog nation of Estonia.

Later, in a study of 7,000 classroom in North Carolina, the answer popped out as clear as clear.  It wasn’t more accomplished teachers or smarter students or a better curriculum.  It was the fact that students in the highest achieving schools spent at least two years with the same teacher.

Multigrade Baking Project

I could have told you that even if I had not spent more than half of my 39 teaching years in multigrade (1st/2nd/3rd/ grades) classrooms and, except for rare cases in which a child transferred in during 2nd or 3rd grade, I had the great good fortune of having kids all three years.  We became family.  The “elders” helped the “youngers” and vice-versa.  You can’t imagine what it does for a kid’s self esteem to show a “math trick” to an older child having a hard time.  Or to have kids request the same stories (The Nickel Plated Beauty comes to mind) year after year because they want their new classmates to hear it!

And, if my testimony isn’t enough and North Carolina’s isn’t enough, ask anyone who was lucky enough to go to six or eight grades in a one-room schoolhouse.  They learned to cooperate and to entertain new ideas and to appreciate different points of view — right along with the math and science and reading.  Everyone?  Probably not.  But enough that their test scores were higher and their self-esteem more solid.  And truly, you don’t have to go to Finland or Estonia to see how that works!  In fact, there are probably a number of people right here on the Peninsula who could give you a testimonial or two.  But in case you want to read that NYT article, here’s the link:  https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/22/opinion/education-us-teachers-looping.html

 

Writer’s what — block? cramp? angst?

Monday, October 23rd, 2023

Samhain – Traditionally a festival of fire and feasts

Since my column in the Chinook Observer is published on the first Wednesday of each month, and since the first Wednesday of November is actually November 1st. and since that day is Samhain,  a Gaelic festival  marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the “darker half” of the year…

I thought I had the perfect topic for my November 2023 column.  Added to all the above is my lifetime understanding that Oysterville is one of the “thin places” of this world. And, in case you don’t know what that is exactly:  Thin places are places of energy — a place where the veil between this world and the eternal world is thin. A thin place is where one can walk in two worlds – the worlds are fused together, knitted loosely where the differences can be discerned or tightly where the two worlds become one.

If you are a fan of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander Series (the books, more than the television shows) you will know something about Samhain and how Gabaldon involves that festival with time travel and the standing stones of Scotland.  I’d love to ask her if the concept of thin places (which has not  been specifically mentioned in her first eight books) has entered her thinking at all.

9th Book in Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon

As I noodled all this around, I thought that I had the elements of an interesting column — the perfect one to be published on November 1st!  But when I tried to make some sort of order from my thoughts, I found that I couldn’t quite write them out cohesively.  Maybe it would help if we knew for sure (or even suspected) that there were time travelers among us. Or, perhaps if we had standing stones here in Oysterville (and not fake ones like the ones in Maryhill.)  Nor do I think old pilings along the bay shore are the substitute I’m looking for.

So… I put my idea on hold for a while and filed it under “MRN — More Research Needed.”  I came up with a suitable substitute (I think).  You can let me  know what you think after next Wednesday’s paper comes out!

Did you mind sharing the limelight, Mrs. C?

Saturday, October 14th, 2023

But wait! That’s where I always sit!

Mrs. Crouch and I have been saving this afternoon for several weeks now for our date with Brandon,  a video producer from Fox13 News in Seattle.  He emailed that he was working on a story for a Halloween special about haunted places in Washington and my name was given to him by our Visitor’s Bureau.

“Sure!” said I.  I love talking about Mrs. Crouch and her villainous husband, the erstwhile Preacher Josiah Crouch.  So far, of course, there is no evidence that Josiah is hanging around this house that was once the Parsonage.  And certainly, he hasn’t set foot in the once-upon-a-time Baptist Church across the Road.  But still…  he’s definitely story-telling material!

The plan, Brandon had said, was for him to get some footage of the house and perhaps some of the church across the street.  Then he would interview me for 10 or 15 minutes in the room of my choice.  I had decided that I’d sit in my “usual” place — in the rocking chair in the library.  It seems a cozy spot for telling ghost stories.  But…

TV producers have their own ideas… the library was fine and so was the chair though he placed it on the opposite side of the room — no books in view, no fireplace in view, no cozy atmosphere.   His camera took my “usual” place. I was a tad disappointed; Mrs. Crouch was silent on the matter.

Brandon warned me that he would only be using bits and pieces of what I said.  I went ahead and told about my first encounter with Mrs, Crouch, about researching and writing about her unfortunate end in the Willapa River, and how the news stories at the time of her death led to my writing Gh0st Stories of the Long Beach Peninsula.  Mrs. Crouch remained silent.  And THEN Brandon asked me about shipwrecks on the beach — apparently another story he’s working on!  Fortunately, I’d just been working on my own story involving the Rescue Stallions and the wreck of the Strathblane or it would have been my turn to be silent!

Historic Haunts of the Long Beach PeninsulaAfter that little detour, I went right on and told about Josiah-the-Unrighteous and how getting his 1897 mug shot from San Quentin Prison prompted me to write a second book about local ghosts — Historic Haunts of the Long Beach Peninsula.  Still not a peep from Mrs. C. and, of course, not a whisper from the Reverend,  (But then, I’m pretty sure he isn’t here.  I can’t imagine that he’d come back after all the bad press he’s had.)

 I don’t expect that there will be much footage devoted to the Crouches and me.  I am already disappointed.  I wonder if she is, too.  Perhaps she’ll weigh in on her opinion when the program airs.  Brandon said he’d let me know the date and time and I will certainly pass on the information to Mrs. C. and to all of her friends and admirers.  Unless, of course, we end up on the cutting room floor…

 

It’s Friday the 13th! Again!

Friday, October 13th, 2023

Hand drawn Halloween icon with a textured black cat vector illustration.

Most years have one  Friday-the-13th but this year we are curse —  or blessed if you happen to be Taylor Swift with two.  Today is the second (and last) one of the year.  The first was in January and, truth to tell, I don’t really remember noticing.  Some years, apparently there can be as many as three!

That seems a big potential for bad luck, unless of course (as mentioned above) you are singer/songwriter Taylor Swift.  According to the hype about her:  She was born on the 13th (though it didn’t happen to be a Friday) and she claims that whenever she is seated in row 13 or row M (the 13th letter) at an award show, she always wins. When she ‘Tay-lurks’, she goes to a fan’s livestream and comments 13 emojis. If she sees a 13, it’ll bring her luck, but if she sees no number 13 that day, she’ll lose.

Hmmm.  Where the Friday part fits into all that, I have no idea.  (Truth to tell, I don’t really understand any of those last two sentences about ‘Tay-lurks’ and emojis…  I’m definitely the wrong generation.)

What I do understand is that the Friday-the-13th superstition has evolved over time and across cultures. It is difficult to pinpoint its precise origins.  Both Friday and the number 13 have been regarded as unlucky in certain cultures throughout history —  unlucky 13 ia traceable back to Norse mythology, when Loki, the god of mischief, gate-crashed a banquet in Valhalla, bringing the number of gods in attendance to 13 with disastrous results.

Well… whether or not you are superstitious about this day and its portents I think it’s only sensible to avoid breaking a mirror, placing a hat on the bed, walking under a ladder or letting black cats cross your path.  After all, why tempt the fates?

A Visit From The Deer People

Monday, October 9th, 2023

Mama Deer is just out of sight, no doubt waiting patiently…

Somehow, I felt their presence.  I was working in my office — no windows here, only book-lined walls, so it wasn’t a matter of movement catching my eye.  Nor of sound.  Just… a feeling.

I went into the bedroom and had a look out the bay windows to the north.  And there they were, a doe and her young offspring standing statue-still over on the Croquet Court (or what is probably more rightly called the Cannon Grounds these days.)  By the time I had my camera ready, Mama Deer was on the move, by then out of sight beyond the rhododendrons,  but her youngster was still foolin’ around.  “Kids will be kids!” I thought and felt a bit of motherly sympathy for Mama Deer.

Mom Checks Out Her Offspring’s Sore Leg

I rushed to the front door, went to the gate and looked up the street to see if, by then, they had both jumped the fence and were on their way.  But, no sign of them.  So I trotted up the road, past the house and looked into the Canon Grounds from the west side… and there they were!  Mom appeared to be tending to the youngster’s left leg and I wondered if this was the same little one that has been limping around town lately.  (He is definitely a young buck, as revealed by the antler buds visible in the photos I took!)

Scoping Out The Garden Goodies

They spent a while cruising the garden.  I could almost hear Mom telling her youngster about the pears that would appear on the ground after the next big windstorm.  They then ambled by both of the camellia bushes and scoped out the roses and geraniums, as well.  But, they weren’t doing any nibbling right then.  It must have been just a reconnaissance mission.

I’m pretty sure they’ll be back…

Where the deer and the antelope play…

Saturday, October 7th, 2023

At Surfside, August 10, 2023 – by Tucker Wachsmuth (Could this be Limping Deer’s dad?)

Except there aren’t any antelope(s)* here in Oysterville and the current resident deer has a painful-looking limp so “play” may not be an option for her.  She (or he?) is small, maybe a yearling though it’s difficult to determine.  She walks slowly around the village, sticking to the verges when she can and usually not too far from the schoolhouse.  Perhaps her home territory is in the woods behind the school.

Yesterday I watched her limp east along School Street and turn north, continuing at the same slow, steady pace past Lina and Dave’s. It seemed to me that she was walking more easily than a few days past, and I wondered if walking is helpful to her. She seems very thin to me and her forelegs and ankles look as fragile as matchsticks. I don’t wonder that something has strained or cracked.  The other day I thought the trouble might be with her left hind leg, but today I couldn’t tell if she was even favoring one over another.  She was just walking oh- so-slowly!

The Little Deer’s Mom? — Eating pears in our yard a few years ago.

I had the fanciful thought that she hoped Lina and Dave would be home and would see her slow progress past their place. They are both great with animals and the idea flashed by that maybe the little deer knows that.  I’m not even sure if she has met them but, if she has, my fanciful thought might have some basis in reality.  After all, how many times have you encountered a situation where a wounded bird or animal  just seems to “know” that a human can help?

In any case, my heart goes out to her (or him) as it does to any animal that appears to be hurting.  They always seem so stoic and so brave.  Or maybe that’s just my human urge to have them see a professional and get help!  I do hope I haven’t simply imagined that this lovely little neighbor is doing better.  I hope to see her soon in my garden, eating the pears that the wind has scattered over the lawn especially for her!

*The dictionary tells me that ‘antelope’ is plural with or without an ‘s’ at the end so… your choice.