Years ago -- maybe thirty!! -- we had a Singing Postmaster. Perhaps you remember Casey Killingsworth? He didn't sing on the job, necessarily, but for years he and his brothers (and later his kids) were the featured musicians at one of our Vespers...
(Please Share This With Your Friends Who Might Like To Know!) Somehow this blog title sounds like a Nancy Drew mystery by "Carolyn Keene"... but, in reality, it's a here-and-now lament about two articles that were to be in today's Chinook...
I ran across a fat folder of typewritten pages -- some apparently in order, some definitely missing, and all with crossed out sentences and margin notes in my Uncle Willard's handwriting. I believe that they are part of one (or more) drafts about...
My new lawn-mowing guru has been coming on Saturday afternoons -- not my time of choice, necessarily, but "beggars can't be choosers" as they say. He does a good job, is reliable and, so far, I'm quite pleased that I found him. However, he does...
A message in yesterday's email said that my new toaster would arrive in the evening and, even though I had managed to toast those bagels perfectly in the oven, I was looking forward to an entirely new wide-slot toasting experience. "But," I said...
I'm not one for believing in signs and portents... But maybe, just maybe, there's a message in our garden's one red peony. It's the only red one. It's never bloomed before. But Nyel was ever hopeful. He had planted the peonies years ago,...
The clock said 5:25. The sun was just about to peep over the Willapa Hills to give me my morning kiss and I was... well, I was wishing I had a sorting hat à la Harry Potter. Not to sort out which of the four Hogwarts Schools I was cut out for,...
I don't know whether to celebrate our togetherness or to lament the burgeoning burden of bureaucracy here in our little village of Oysterville. Time was when families got together on Memorial Day weekend to celebrate the end of winter, the...
It seems to me that I get less done as the days go by, even though I have cut out a good number of activities as the years have passed. First and foremost, I'm retired from teaching. By my calculations that should give me at least ten hours per...
Oysterville is gearing up for Memorial Day Weekend -- the biggest weekend of the year here in our little village. Traditionally, it has been when families gather together to clean up the cemetery and decorate the graves of our forebears. ...
The Honorary Oysterville Militia (THOM) will gather at 11:00 a.m. on Memorial Day Monday, May 29th, to fire their cannon in honor of members who have died "in the line of duty" and in memory of all of our friends and loved ones who are no longer...
According to more than one "reliable" internet source: Moles are antisocial, solitary animals; they live alone except to breed. A mole typically travels more than one-fifth of an acre. No more than three to five moles live on each acre; two to...