Archive for the ‘Friendship’ Category

It’s The Piano Season! Did you know?

Tuesday, August 15th, 2023

Colin Staub at a Push-Play Piano in Downtown Portland

The President of the Board of the Oysterville Restoration Foundation at the present time is Colin Staub.  He has been a part-time Oysterville resident for all of his 34 years.  He has worked in the oysters during the summers, spends as much time as possible at his family’s second home here in Oysterville, even bicycling now and again from his home in Portland,  and has performed at Vespers on numerous occasions — he is a mandolin player of some note.

Sometimes when he is in town he stops by to visit — an occurrence which I consider a great privilege.  And I must say, he never makes me feel two-and-a-half times his age (and then some) — not even when we occasionally get into the thorny subject of technology and the ORF website and other things I think I might have known about once but have given up that brain space to more immediate concerns.  Like how to keep my balance when walking over uneven terrain…

“The Old Rugged Cross”

For a few years now, when he’s in Oysterville, Colin has been playing the piano in the church — sometimes ragtime, but more recently, some of the hymns from the old Methodist hymnals we used to use for Vespers.   (Though he began on the violin as a young boy and now is teaching himself the piano, he still considers the mandolin his primary instrument.)   Yesterday, he wrote me this note: There are a dozen or so pianos set up in public places around Portland right now, and I’ve been making the rounds to play them all. I was playing “How Great Thou Art” and “The Old Rugged Cross,” the versions I learned in the Oysterville Church hymnal, downtown the other day, and a guy came up and started singing along. He was visiting from Atlanta and said he didn’t anticipate hearing gospel music in downtown Portland. The hymnals are coming in handy!

When I asked Colin more about those pianos, he wrote that they are put around town by a project called “Piano Push Play” Wow!  https://www.pianopushplay.com/
They get painted by local artists and placed in various places throughout the summer. It’s pretty cool and has been going on for 10 years or so. I’ve had numerous interesting encounters with people at the pianos, exchanged numbers, had impromptu duets, all sorts of things. Last year I emailed the founder about one particularly memorable conversation and she posted about it on their Instagram:

Piano at the Oysterville Church

There was one in particular that sticks in my mind, where I sat down to play a few boogie-woogie songs and noticed a woman sitting nearby who was crying and clearly not having a good day.  By the end of the first song I noticed she was tapping her feet, although still crying.  A couple songs later she came over to the piano and asked if I could teach her a couple chords, and we ended up having an impromptu piano lesson and talked about what she was going through.  She said it was the best unexpected thing to happen to her all day, and I thought it really illustrated the power of public music.

If you are in downtown Portland this summer, keep your eyes and ears open!  You may come across Colin playing some of those old-fashioned hymns he’s been learning at the Historic Oysterville Church!

Sunday-Go-To-Meeting-Day!

Sunday, August 6th, 2023

Margot Merah and Kathryn Claire

It’s always hard for me to think of Sunday as the first day of the week.  After all, it’s the last day of the weekEND.  Even when I was a child I was confused by that.  And then the new school week (which became a work week when I began teaching) started on Monday — obviously the first day of the week.  Not Sunday.  Monday!

Well, first or last, today was a lovely day.  Vespers with Kathryn Claire and Margot Merah was spectacular!  Dayle Olson said afterwards that she had only heard such lovely harmonies when some sisters sing together, and I agreed.  Cate and Starla Gable are the perfect example of what I think of as “genetic harmony.” Kathryn and Margot must certainly be sisters in another dimension.  Once again I remember what “achingly beautiful” means.  So I think that part of my Sunday put a cap on a wonderful week (except for the plumbing issues) and set me up for a glorious week to come.

Zooming Into Next Week

Then — an early dinner at the Roo with Maggie Stuckey and David and Dayle Olson.  Great food.  Wonderful company.  Terrible ambiance.  SO SO LOUD.  But we perservered and enjoyed one another anyway.  When the immediate company is a delight, it’s easier to tune out the surroundings!  That part of Sunday was a mixed bag — a fine hullaballo ending to last week and a lovely conversation of mutual interests to start this week.

And finally — Marta, Charlie, and I talked and laughed our way out of last week and into this week with our usual Sunday Night Zoom Meeting!  Of Course!  It was Sunday-Go-To-Meeting-Day — almost all day long!

 

 

 

The Bad Patch Continues… with good friends to brighten the way!

Tuesday, August 1st, 2023

Ray and Nyel and Sydney

So, after being an entire week with no kitchen sink — well the sink was there but the faucets and spigots were inoperable — yesterday the plumber came with a spiffy new unit and installed it. “Voi” — but no la!”  Water, but not much pressure.  As I understand it… old, corroded pipes are most of the problem.

Today, the insulation team came to repair last winter’s damage under the house caused by a… drumroll!… broken water pipe.  They were fast, efficient, and neat.  But… just as they were finishing up, they asked me how to turn off the water main.  I told them I was on my own well and the best I could do was to unplug the motor.  Which I did immediately.

Ray and His Wood Glue

Apparently, they had uncovered a 3/4 inch galvanized pipe about three feet long under about four inches of sand.  “It was totally corroded and I just touched it and it split right along the pipe for about three feet and was leaking like mad,” said one of the workers.

He was so distressed, I found myself reassuring him over and over that it would be all right. I immediately called the plumber whose scheduler informed me that it would be next Monday before they could fit me in..  Oh boy.   Maybe not so all right. No flushing.  No showers.  No dishwashing.  No icemaker.

Well… not really.  I do have a water supply in  large bottles.  I’ll be able to take care of essentials…

And then Carol and Ray Hansen dropped by!  It was SO great to see them and their beautiful dog, Sage!  Ray helped me hang Nyel’s picture — a gift from Maggie — and then worried about the rocking chair I was sitting in.  “It’s going to fall apart!”

Rocking Chair and Stool Repaired and Drying

So, he brought out his bottle of glue  — how many other guys carry wood glue in their car? — and fixed not only the rocking chair but also the kitchen stool! What a guy!  (And in case you didn’t know, it is Ray who papered every single wall in this house twenty years ago — and every one still perfect!  What a guy!

Carol, bless her, was hobbling on an almost healed broken tibia that she fell on the other night  — not a re-break but a sprain with an ankle and lower leg twice the size of her other (good) leg.  Not a whimper!  Totally stoic — though she did give Ray a few “suggestions” about the picture-hanging and the gluing!  What a gal!  And what role models they both are!  If our situations were reversed, they probably wouldn’t be whining about my current water problem!  I’ll try to do better!

 

All Hat and No Horse!

Saturday, July 29th, 2023

Vicki, Shirley, Jean, Sydney — Rodeo Grounds, 2023

This morning I pulled on my boots and slapped my cowboy hat on over my windblown locks and went with Vicki, Jean and Shirley to the Cowboy Breakfast!  Nyel would have been proud.  I don’t think we ever missed a Cowboy Breakfast in all the 37 years we were together, except maybe the last year or two when he was wheelchair- bound.

Nyel absolutely looked the part.  Tall, rangy, long legs molded into those old levis, with polished boots and well-worn Stetson — Wow!  And when he got comments (mostly from guys — the girls just looked) his reply was always a smile and “Yep!  I’m all hat and no horse!”

Sometimes, especially if we knew kids who were competing, we stayed for the rodeo.  But usually it was the breakfast that was the big draw.  And all those extra pancakes that Guy Glenn, Jr, managed to get onto Nyel’s plate before we finally left the premises!

Nyel After The Cowboy Breakfast, 2014

I was glad to see Guy still hard at it today — still making perfect pancakes!  But I missed Charlie Watkins and Judy Eron of Double J and the Boys.  Charlie always got my eggs just right — “no runny parts!”  (Though, truth to tell, they were pretty perfect today, too!)

When we lined up to give our order, we were greeted by Tucker, Carol, and their son Charley and family who must have been there at the crack of dawn.  (Later, I learned that they had gone back for the rodeo, too!  I think Vicki, Jean and Shirley were planning to do that, as well.  I was content to come on home and enjoy a gorgeous summer day with a lovely wedding happening across the street!)

Bitty Redell, the first Long Beach Rodeo Queen, 1947

 We shared a table with a lovely couple, Susan and Larry(?), who have a second home up on Douglas Drive — just a stone’s throw from “beautiful downtown Oysterville.”  We urged them to come to Vespers tomorrow — I hope they do!  It’s my turn to do the “Oysterville Moment” and I think  I’m going to tell about the beginnings of the Rodeo here on the Peninsula.  (In case you are wondering… yes, it’s an Oysterville story!)

 

 

Look Who Came To Friday Night!

Friday, July 7th, 2023

Three Fine Feathered Listeners

The three youngsters hanging on every note of Fred and Marta’s songs tonight were not exactly invited guests, though we were all happy to have them listening in.  They perched quietly on the edge of their nest above the porch window, perhaps joining in now and then.  It’s hard to tell with baby swallows.

Some of us!

Actually, with all the toe-tapping and singing-along inside the house, we Friday-Nighters were unaware of the audience trio just outside the front door.  It wasn’t until the appetizers were pretty much gone and the guitars were back in their cases and the first few guests were leaving that anyone looked up and noticed.  Then it was hushed tones of “Oohhh! Look!” and “How sweet!” and cameras aimed upwards.

Bonus Daughter and One Tutu

It was a lovely ending to our new “First Friday” series — the first Friday of every month will be a musical one with guests bringing their instruments (“Can I bring my kazoo?” someone asked…) or their voices or their requests.  As Cate said recently, “There’s no food for the soul quite like group singing.”

 

Marta LaRue is HOW old??!!!

Wednesday, July 5th, 2023

For the second year in a row, Bonus Daughter Marta LaRue of Marin County, California, has celebrated her birthday dinner at the Depot Restaurant in Seaview.  Some of us were with her both years and we no doubt look at least twelve months older this time around.  Marta, on the other hand. told us last year that she was celebrating her 68th birthday.  This year… well, you can figure it out.  And she still looks “going on sixteen” to me!

Pat and Charlie

Whatever her secret elixir is, its magic seems to be catching — at least in terms of enthusiasm and a certain amount of silliness and gigantic dollops of joie de vivre!  We dined with our friends Noel and Pat Thomas and all of us lost ten or more years in the process.  (And probably gained ten or more pounds!)  Have you tried the Depot’s Dungeness Crab Mac?  OMG!)

Sydney, Noel, and Marta — in Marta’s Selfie

We talked about old times, new projects, the difficulties of aging and all the usual “stuff” old friends managed to cram into a get-together that has become all too rare as the years gallop along!  Pat mentioned that she and Noel and I are the last of “The Picnic Crowd” that once included 20 or more of us — Gordon Schoewe and Roy Gustafson, Jim and Kay Buesing, Charlie and Kaye Mulvey, Bette Newell, Nyel. Dorothy and Chuck Huggins, Dottie and Lee McHugh, Gordon’s Cousin Jeanne and more, besides.

And what I kept thinking was that Marta and Charlie are older than we were then…

Looking at Marta’s Selfie

 

 

 

Let There Be Light!!

Tuesday, June 20th, 2023

My Grandmother’s Lamp

Oh how I wished my mother and my grandmother could have been with me this afternoon when I opened the door and saw the old light that Del had finished fixing today!  Never do I remember it looking so lovely.  I doubt that it ever did, even when it was newly electrified.  LEDs make all the difference — or so I am surmising.

I was off doing errands when Tucker and Del came over to finish up the job Del had begun last night.  I’m so sorry I missed the by-play between them — they talk a language that I almost understand and that always makes me laugh.  But, between the two of them, they seem to be able to fix almost anything — though Tucker concedes that Del is a better electrician.  I know for a fact that they both enjoy the challenge of figuring out why something won’t work properly and then finding (or inventing) a way to correct the situation!

Seeing the lamp all alight like this makes me wonder what  it looked like when it was lit by “gas” — or was it actually kerosene?  It must have been a softer light, perhaps showing off the hand-painted globe more gently.  But it couldn’t have been as spectacular as it is now!  Thanks, Del!  And Tucker, too!

Delbert Knapp, Esq. – The Old Lamp Lighter

Monday, June 19th, 2023

Delbert Knapp, Esq.

In the case of Tucker’s friend, Del, and the lamps in my house — it’s the lamps which are old, not the lamp lighter!  (And speaking of age… are you old enough to remember that song, “The Old Lamplighter of Long, Long Ago”?)  I can’t help associating Del and that song because he has worked on two of my old lamps to get them alight once more.

Fixed Last Summer

The lamps belonged to my grandparents and were originally gas lamps.  I have no doubt that they were used in the parlor and only for special occasions.  Otherwise, how would they have survived seven children and all the hubbub that went with their growing up years?

The Lamp With The Replicated Globe

Actually, one of the globes did not survive and my mother had a friend in San Francisco duplicate it from the pieces that had been saved.  It was in the 1960s and my mother, at that time, owned The Little Lamp and Shade Shop on College Avenue right on the Berkeley/Oakland border.  She specialized in custom lamps and shades and if she couldn’t make it for you (or in this case for herself), she knew someone who could!

 The Ailing Lamp

I’m not sure when the lamps were converted to electricity, but probably 80 or 85 years ago.  And in that length of time, parts wear out — especially switches.  Del is a genius at electrical (and probably other) stuff.  He spent the better part of two days last summer working on one of the lamps and it has been perfect since then.

Tonight, he tackled the other one — the one with the replicated shade.  One of the switches has not worked for some time, so Del to the rescue!  He was able to fix the pesky switch but needs to replace a light bulb and we didn’t have the right size on hand.  Tomorrow he plans to go to… yep! … Jack’s Country Store to find one small enough for his purposes.

 

All-in-all, I’d call the day “exemplary!”

Saturday, June 17th, 2023

At The “First Salmon Ceremony 2023”

Yesterday I attended the Chinook Nation’s First Salmon Ceremony at Chinook Point, the annual event in which the first salmon to enter the river is greeted with time-honored rituals to ensure its continued return.  Several hundred people, including visitors from tribes all over the United States, participated in what some described as “the largest gathering in years.”

Cate Gable (left) and Judy Little (right)

I was honored to be invited by my friend Judy Little, whose forebears go directly back to Myrtle Jane Johnson Woodcock — the eighth child of Jane and Jimmy Johnson whose family lived just across the road from this house in the late 1800s.

Tony Johnson (left) talks about the First Salmon rituals

People began arriving at Chinook Point around ten o’clock and, as the morning progressed, Tony Johnson, Chairman of the Chinook Nation’s Tribal Council, welcomed us all, spoke about the origins of the Chinook People and kept us informed and entertained with traditional legends and stories about the First People. He pointed out, too, that although the salmon begin their upriver journey somewhat earlier in the Spring, nowadays the ceremony is timed to coordinate with the Tribe’s annual council meeting on the third Saturday of June.

Cooking Salmon at the Alder Fire

Meanwhile, we watched as great salmon were filleted and roasted near the alder fire nearby — the salmon that would be tasted by each of us with a cup of pure water after the First Salmon was greeted and, in a time-honored ceremony, “fed” salmon berries by all the young people at the gathering.

It must have been well past mid-day that we were alerted to start down the hill to the river to watch as the canoe bearing the first salmon arrived.  Each of us elders was offered a helping hand — I actually had a young man and a young woman, one on either side — as we walked down the well-worn path to the beach.  (Even so, I stumbled and went down on one knee, much to my embarrassment and the chagrin of my attentive helpers.  I could just hear my mother say, “No use being awkward if you can’t show it!”)

All Ages Participated in the Drumming and Singing

The salmon, wrapped in greenery that looked from where I stood like freshly picked ferns, was carried back up the hill, the ceremonies were completed, and then the drumming and singing began!  Tony announced that there would be no dancing this year — I wasn’t sure why.  Those around me expressed the same regret that I felt but didn’t feel it was my place to say so.

Charles and Mary Funk

All-in-all, I guess I was just plain overwhelmed.  I couldn’t believe how many people came up and greeted me — folks I know like Charles and Mary Funk and people I’ve never before met like Gary Johnson (Tony’s father and former Tribal Chairman) who said he enjoys reading my stories in the Observer each week.  OMG!

Bright Blankets Warmed The Chilly Day

It was a fabulous day — mostly because of the friendliness and warmth of the crowd.  So many people introducing each other, welcoming one another, renewing old friendships, catching up on family news.  But, I have to confess that I came away, also, with a dull burning in my core and an anger that cannot ever be successfully explained away.  Why is it that our nation has not “recognized” this Chinook Nation?  I’ve yet to hear a reasonable response to that question.

 

 

At the Smithsonian with Maggie – tomorrow!

Wednesday, May 17th, 2023

As many of you know, Maggie Stuckey’s latest book. The Container Victory Garden is now out!  And, as some (but possibly not all) of you know, Maggie, herself, is out and about following a very serious surgery that unfortunately coincided with the publication of the book.  Her friends and fans were devastated that all sorts of book-signings and book talks had to be put on hold.  But tomorrow comes  a fabulous peek at the book AND at a recovering Maggie!   YAY! And of all places — at the Smithsonian Gardens in Washington D. C.  AND WE ARE ALL INVITED!   This is what Maggie says:

If you wish to join the live event, registration is necessary. Fortunately, it’s an easy and free process.
Here’s how to register:
1. Visit the “Let’s Talk Gardens” series page here.
2. Scroll to the description of my lecture.
3. Click the “register here.”
4. Follow the instructions provided.
Once you register, you’ll receive a personal email with all the login information calibrated for your time zone.
Please remember, if you’re unable to join the live event, you can still access the lecture at a later date from the Smithsonian Gardens library.

Maggie Stuckey

In addition to Maggie, you are likely to see other people you know!  According to the publicity about the Smithsonian talk:

Maggie Stuckey, bestselling garden author, tells a story on two levels in her new book, The Container Garden Victory Garden.   On one level is a detailed how-to guide to container vegetable gardens, written specifically for beginners and told with clarity and gentle wit,  The second story pays honor to the Victory Gardeners of World Wars I and 2, and the many lessons present-day gardeners can learn from them. Their legacy is highlighted in 20 first-person stories from Americans alive today who remember helping in their families’ Victory Gardens – powerful stories of patriotism, sacrifice, and hope. Maggie’s presentation weaves the two together in a program that is both educational and heartwarming.

Mark Petersen and Nyel Stevens, 2017

I’m especially looking forward to seeing Mark Peterson who kindly agreed to read Nyel’s story since Nyel is no longer around to do so.  Nyel was so pleased that the story of his beloved grandparents’ garden would be included in Maggie’s book and I’m sure he would be equally pleased that Mark agreed to stand in for him.

Imagine!  A date with Maggie at the Smithsonian!  “See you” there!