This evening will be the final gathering of our “Putting the Story Back in History” class. I’m polishing up my notes with mixed feelings – glad to have the rest of the summer without a weekly obligation, yet already feeling bereft and missing the ‘Stalwart Thirteen’ – the dedicated class members who always seem so interested and eager. What a fabulous group they have been!

Tonight’s topic seems a fitting finale. I’ll be talking about “Simple Pleasures” and the way early Pacific County residents spent their leisure time – picnics, parades, and beachcombing, of course, but with panache and exuberance that is a little different from now.

The class has covered a lot of territory in our eight weeks together. We began with “Where the Settlers Came From and How They Got Here” and then looked at “Creating Communities and a Sense of Place.” Week three was “Boom, Bust and Subsistence: The Realities of Making a Living” and that was the week Tucker gave his demonstration of tonging oysters and Mary Garvey came and sang “The Oyster Shell Road” – both fabulous additions, if I do say so myself!

Week four was “Governance and Law and Order” during which I treated (or subjected, perhaps) the class to my one-woman rendition of several of the most dramatic Shoalwater Storytellers pieces – the kidnapping of the county seat, the Frederiksen murders and the hanging of Lum You. The next week we looked at more humdrum matters – “Meat on the Hoof and Flour Sack Clothing.”

The title of session six, “Good Old Golden Rule Days” is pretty much self-explanatory and last week we took a look at “The Saved and the Damned” which included, wouldn’t you know, a ghost story! Last week, too, Michael Lemeshko came and talked about his Briscoe Burying Ground project which, in itself, is history in the making!

Of course, we’ve only scratched the surface! Our area is rich with history and even richer with stories. My fondest hope is that the Stalwart Thirteen have been inspired enough to document some of their own history or, perhaps, delve into a subject that has piqued their interest. For my part, preparing for tonight’s class has put me in the mood for a summer of simple pleasures! What could be better?