Sounding intoxicated, a man called 911 several times and told operators that an assassin had shot people in a nearby apartment. The arriving officer noticed that the man was spitting food and sweating as he told the story of the spirit who had come to him with the news of the murder. He pointed to the apartment (which was empty).
One evening last week, while Elsbeth was still in the hospital getting a new hip, my neighbors Ray and Louise called and invited me over for salmon dinner. They wanted to do something nice so I said okay and went next door. I was getting tired of peanut butter on an English muffin every night so I was delighted.
It was serene August evening and Ray was setting the table outside with a big platter of salmon. Louise appeared and put out a green salad, some bread and a bowl of scalloped potatoes. She announced we would have some strawberry shortcake later.
July was another relatively quiet month in the Center. There were no noteworthy crimes to report, which is good news.
We did have 11 residential burgs this month. Our average is 9. There is nothing remarkable about the number of burglaries. I mention them because five were break-ins to sheds or garages. As I have mentioned in the past, burglaries to sheds and garages usually occur in the middle of the night when we are sleeping.
Outside, enjoying the sunshine, or inside, enjoying the air conditioning - there is no denying that this is finally summer. I can now freely spend my so-called off time how I please and not how the government dictates that I must. I've worked on a few local independent films, taken a summer teen class at the Seattle Film Institute, picked up a couple new sewing projects, traveled, and of course hung out with my friends. However, as I was perusing though my family's mail, what do I find?
Bicycles are magical. Learning to ride one is a rite of passage. The bicycle wobbles between the thighs - yet stays upright. Suddenly, the world extends from the yard to the block, from the neighborhood to the city, and beyond.
This skill, once mastered, becomes intimately connected to memory, to knowledge. It's like riding a bicycle, we say to each other in our more difficult moments, bolstering ourselves against a lifetime of uncertainty. Once we learn, we never forget. Part human, part machine, on a bicycle we become a cyborg.
After several years of struggling along and begging for annual renewal of the money to keep the West Seattle Water Taxi alive, it may be that the summer service is inching toward success and maybe even extension of it annual operating schedule.
As the Page One story shows, twice as many commuters are choosing the 12-minute water taxi journey onboard the Sightseer, rather than battling traffic on the West Seattle Bridge or State Route 99 and the viaduct.
It has not been that long ago that we watched the result of the Loma Prieta earthquake and the Nimitz structure collapse, which were so newsworthy.
Los Angeles dealt with the Northridge earthquake and the collapse of much of its freeway infrastructure for months, resulting in millions of dollars in lost revenue.
Some years ago, I sat quietly in the back of the West Seattle High auditorium when two prominent and highly respected city council members held a town meeting prior to an expected announcement of their reelection campaigns. Not too long after this session, both announced their retirement from the city council.
I was not surprised. Both wanted to talk about the nice things they had done on the council.
If the best excuse the mayor and council can come up with to try to justify a tunnel to replace the viaduct is, as Tim St. Clair says, "the viaduct is likely to collapse if the area was hit by the strongest earthquake expected to happen within a 2,500 year period," then they are truly grasping at straws.
On top of that to put a billion dollar-plus levy on the ballot to increase property taxes when they already collect double what they did a few years ago is asinine.
Have the powers that be considered the possibility of global warming and the subsequent rise of Puget Sound waters and the possible devastating effort on a tunnel in downtown Seattle?
Julian Dombrowski
Arbor Heights
