Nearly thirty years ago we were visiting Portland. We were impressed by their gigantic success with an open-air collection of booths and tables they called the Saturday Market.

It started largely as a venue for local farmers to sell their fruit and veggies like our Pike Place and grew into open-air booths by the dozen. They sold everything under the sun and sometimes the rain. It still is a huge success today.

In 1983 it inspired me to rally some Highline business people to emulate that fun place.

Together with Dick Dahlgard we asked Remlinger farms in Carnation and others to participate. We arranged with what was Logan Lumber (now Dunn) who happily designed and built about 20 pull-apart booths and made a deal for free use of the Burien Park & Ride lot.

We got a fine response from the public in a short time and soon had to build another score of booths. A stage was built where we could offer musical entertainment and gather prizes from local merchants to award to winners from a huge spinning wheel of fortune.

All of this was part of a vision we had to bring people to Burien. Very similar to what city planners are doing this year to help create a better city.

We were a lot younger so I was able to talk Elsbeth into spending Fridays getting ready and working Saturdays waiting on fun seekers hungry for hot dogs. We had the venue; we just needed a portable business. We built a trailer house with a big sign on top, which read "Links & Drinks." It kept us very busy each weekend.

I went to Seattle on Fridays to get tanks of soft drinks and some candy bars. We picked up wieners from Johnny Somers supermarket in Des Moines. (Johnny's family once lived at Five Corners. His dad ran a co-op grocery on 152nd) in the 1930's.

The idea was very popular and was our answer to what is now the gigantic Southcenter shopping complex. We wanted to keep and bring folks into town. Our town. It wasn't enough to prevent the departure of our department store, three hardware stores, three shoe stores, four dress shops, three jewelers, several banks, a movie house, an ice skating rink and a swimming pool. But we tried.

Elsbeth worked feverishly stocking the Weenie Wagon. She had some help from son Mike and neighbor Charlie Ganong who worked for nothing but hot dogs. She did it all with a smile as part of building a community.

Elsbeth worked from 10 till 4 and then cleaned up and went home to fix dinner for the family. You can guess what we had for dinner!

You can get involved in our community like we did 30 years ago. Go to the city of Burien website. Look for the vision for Burien topic. Sign up for a neighborhood meeting. Let's help bring some energy back to our community. http://wa-burien.civicplus.com/index.aspx?NID=919