By Peggy Sturdivant

“I need to take a break,” I told Ken Robinson, my nominal boss, Co-Publisher and General Manager of what will always be the Ballard News-Tribune to me. “I’ve been doing this for ten years.”

Ten minutes later I was at the scene of house fire in the neighborhood, proving several things at once. The daughter of a fire engine chaser cannot change, and my father’s journalist blood still pumps in my veins. At the corner of 28th NW & NW 58th the assemblage of Seattle Fire Department responders were putting away ladders and chainsaws, hoses still snaking through the intersection.

Lately I’ve been putting more thought into whether to keep writing this column than into writing one. Other than a title, I was considering “Swan Song, or Never Say Never.” I have so many other deadlines that the list of possible columns, wonderful suggestions from all sorts of people, seemed daunting versus enticing. But they are juicy; a retired Peace Corps woman who’s involved with a Vietnamese orphanage, the Jazz Vocal teacher, the graduating UW Design students who are going to activate the NW surplus substations later in the month…

I confessed to Ken I feel less attached to the print edition now that each of its formerly distinct papers no longer has its own logo. Plus less feedback proffered to me in the produce section at Ballard Market. He let me whine for a bit, talked me up, talked me down, and then we agreed on a summer sabbatical. But especially given that it’s summer we agreed to leave the door open, just the way that my front door is now wide open to the flies and a westerly afternoon breeze right now. “If there’s something that lights you up and you need to write about this summer, just let me know,” he said.

Then we talked about my returning next fall, after my full-time summer job in Madrona is over and I’ve had that break. We discussed being less At Large in Ballard and more…at large. Right away some ideas started to bubble up in me, ones that had seemed drowned in weekly deadlines and the changes in my life since my first column back in 2007. The mystery of a garden growing in a vacant commercial lot near the Ballard Goodwill, my mother’s encounter with Garrison Keillor.

Part of the problem is that lately I’ve just wanted to garden my way out of worrying about my take on a constant erosion of what constitutes democracy, and it’s been hard to find positive story material beyond my happy tomato plants. Where are the sea lions this year? Why aren’t they singing from the buoy? Plus I get depressed in June. It’s so light all the time, especially when there are too many sunny days in a row.

After saying goodbye to Ken Robinson I noticed an alert on my computer about a fire in a single-family residence in Ballard. Probably because of that west wind I hadn’t heard the sirens. I sent a text to News Reporter Shane Harms (did we have computers or texting ten years ago? We didn’t have Shane Harms yet, but at least he’d been born). He asked if I was nearby. Nearby, and familiar with the house, an absolute beauty (1911, Hipped Roof, Historic Category 1) from the Mapping Historic Ballard project.

So ten minutes after announcing my summer sabbatical I was next to Captain Roddick as she set down her chain saw “Minimal damage,” she said upon inquiry. “Well, not minimal,” she amended. “Mostly the wood porch and back wall. We did have to cut into the roof.” The cause was charcoal briquettes from the previous evening left on or near the back porch, “Not quite spent. You wouldn’t believe how often this happens.”

“So not spontaneous combustion,” I confirmed with Battalion Chief J.M. Havner, Fire Station 18. Part of the reason I’d heeded my fire engine-chasing instincts was the recent outbreak of nearby fires due to spontaneous combustion, including one that started in a plant container.

“Not this one,” Havner said, “It’s barbeque season. Thin, safety, safety, safety. Let everyone know to be careful.”

So I did what I needed to do. Got back to my laptop by the open door and wrote this column. Because I’m not quite spent either. I may not be on these print pages, or the “front page” of the website consistently for a while, but I’m not going anywhere. So be careful.