Peggy Sturdivant

At Large in Ballard: Standing Tall

shaneh — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 22:01:40 +0000

shaneh Wed, 08/20/2014 - 3:01pm

Photo courtesy of Peggy Sturdivant

By Peggy Sturdivant

My mother’s father, my Grandfather Teal died 22 years ago. We shared a cottage every summer with my grandparents; they arrived from Illinois in the spring, my family joined them the day after school let out for the summer.

Even as a child I knew they were not like the other grandparents who watched me tricycle past. My grandmother wore culottes, bare legs, smoked brown cigarettes and sat low in the driver’s seat of the red Pinto. My grandfather picked up any hitchhiker that he passed, brought home donuts from choir practice, treasures from the dump and rode his bike to the beach afternoons for a swim. They had taught in the Philippines in the 1920s; traveled to Europe on freighters after retirement.

Grandpa Teal outlived my grandmother by almost ten years, keeping up a correspondence with me until just before his death in 1992. Long, handwritten letters filled with articles he found inspiring, and always unselfconsciously lyrical. Born in 1900, my grandfather was 92 when he died. He was the oldest son in a large family from Buffalo, New York. He loved to sing and had a melodious voice, one that I associated with his tallness, as though his voice were the pipes above a church organ.

When we learned in June that Grandpa’s last living sibling, my mother’s Uncle Roger was failing, I had an almost opposite emotion of what one would expect. Instead of a sense of loss, I experienced a sense of “found.” He died July 7, 2014, at 98. I began communicating with these relatives who had just lost their father, but who were giving me back my grandfather. And I was able to fill in family pieces for them as though we were a jigsaw puzzle, long separated by geography and an age gap between brothers that confused the next generation.

My Great Uncle Roger and his wife Grayce lived in California, a state more foreign to us as a child than Europe. Tall like my grandfather he had hair like a rooster’s crown, unlike my grandfather’s dome. On a visit Roger set out in short shorts for a five-mile fast walk. As an adult I was graced with his thick annual letters. Sometimes he telephoned, usually if he didn’t reach my mother first, his voice an echo of my grandfather’s. A civil engineer he puzzled over remedies for my steep Ballard driveway on a stop when returning from Alaska on the Trans-Canada Highway.

For some years his letters detailed the decline of his beloved wife Grayce. After her death I didn’t notice precisely when the letters stopped. In learning that Great Uncle Roger was near death, I learned that he was still alive, living with a son in Grants Pass, Oregon, far closer than I’d realized. Both his sons were with him in his final days.

“Should we be here?” my husband asked a few weeks later, the night before a simple memorial for Roger Teal in Northern California, on realizing it would just be seven of us. I thought about it. If my grandfather were alive he would want me to be there.

We sat in “the only good restaurant in Crescent City, California” to meet five strangers. A couple from the harbor the night before, with paddleboards in the back of their truck, turned out to be two of our party. Then a tall, lean man entered the restaurant, with an equally tall son, a smaller woman between them. My heart gave a little lurch. They had my grandfather’s height: the Teal height. Just like that we were family, but interviewing each other like prospective roommates.

As per their parent’s wishes the ashes had been combined. Their sons used a mailing tube to mingle them and then carry them into a beautiful place, the redwoods. Home of the tallest trees. By a 1000 year-old tree we took turns sharing; first cousin-once removed Bryan sang “Our Father.” Then they poured the remains into a hollow. Their loss long expected, but still fresh.

After the redwoods we gathered at a cove, sheltered from the Pacific waves by a jetty. A son, a daughter-in-law, and a grandson went out on paddleboards, in the whipping wind to scatter the rest of the ashes. Bryan Teal knelt and touched his heart. The last of that entire generation of Teals plumed into the air and then fanned into the water.

These people are so cool, I thought, my people. Kindred spirits of my grandfather and his most kindred brother.

Over dinner we passed photographs and shared memories as readily as the warm bread. The difference of 15-20 years means so much during youth, so little between ages 50-70. After less than 12 hours it was hard to say goodbye. In one day we had reconnected brothers and rethreaded families. By morning we would scatter in four compass directions, as did the brothers who traversed the world in ways so different than their siblings.

On the slow drive north, back to Ballard, I remembered more I wanted to tell my mother’s cousins, and all that I needed to share with my mother. They were tall I kept thinking, and sometimes I was thinking of my grandfather and his brother, other times I was thinking about the gigantic redwoods.

Contact Peggy atlargeinballard@peggysturdivant.com

Peggy Sturdivant

Ballard.

Ballard News Tribune

At Large In Ballard: Take me to your Tigerella

shaneh — Tue, 06 May 2014 20:31:04 +0000

shaneh Tue, 05/06/2014 - 1:31pm

Jeanene Miller on her "farm."

Photo by Peggy Sturdivant

By Peggy Sturdivant

As a little girl growing up on Samish Island Jeanene Miller loved to garden despite her family’s location by salt water and a rocky slope. It reminds me of the nursery rhyme, “How does your garden grow? Quite well, with silver bells and cockleshells.”

The little gardener grew up and left the island shores for school in Bellingham, an arts degree, work as a textile artist, 15 years working and teaching at Weaving Works in the University District. When she bought a house a few blocks above Salmon Bay she was looking to become part of a community closer in spirit to her island home. She began growing more flowers, but still found that her community was mostly that of longtime students and customers in a different neighborhood.

Then she met a carpenter who loved to cook. When Eric Clark moved in with her he said, “Can’t we have more vegetables?” Now, some years later the flowers have become secondary. Jeanene had added more above ground beds, vegetables in pots, a greenhouse for veggie starts. Then Eric started to worry, “How are we going to eat all this?”

So Jeanene started putting out plants and vegetables, priced below retail price, using the honor system. She already liked to save her seeds and to experiment with her crops, early starts and overwintering. Her philosophy was, and is, “the more the better.” With 600 tomato plants ready to go out for sale on May 9th she has achieved that “more.”

The parking strip, front yard, back yard, filling the sides of the driveway, and yes, the neighbor’s backyard…Jeanene’s garden has grown up along with her, such that she has 24 raised beds and they have had fresh vegetables to eat throughout the entire year. Through word-of-mouth Jeanene started providing others with fresh vegetables, five families last year, in what’s known as Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Unlike most CSAs she allows each family to choose what they receive on a weekly basis. She’s planning to open a few more slots this season.

When the garden started to grow sales helped her to pay for the compost. Since she doesn’t pay herself wages it’s increasingly possible that she may be able to cover her costs and even earn money towards the chicken coop she wants to add, the cistern that would help offset water costs, and paying someone to water so that she can take a vacation during the prime growing season.

“It’s built on the plants,” Jeanene said, sitting for a moment by the tables of plants in the back. Although her official tomato sale doesn’t start until May 9th there had been shoppers all day at her table in front. Devoting herself to the garden fulltime “is like a gift to myself. I thought I’d try it. I never planned on potting plants all day or starting a CSA.”

Established some 25 years ago CSAs allow the producer to sell shares in advance and allows the gardener and the consumer to have a relationship, in this case a very local one. It’s not even a matter of seeing the fields in the distance, the food being grown is no farther than her next door neighbor Kathryn’s backyard. Her list of 40 Heirloom tomato varieties reads like a riddle for me solve: Cosmonaut Volkov, Earl of Edgecombe, Northern Lights, Thai Pink Egg, Tigerella.

“I meet lots of people,” Jeanene said, a statement that will be truer every day as people find her new website, her nearly year round CSA and her tables of potted herbs and vegetables on a street just north of Market. If she interacted with all her customers she wouldn’t be able to get any gardening done. That morning she’d been interrupted several times before she could even feed Gus the cat.

Meanwhile inside the cheerfully painted Ballard farmhouse a DIY kitchen remodel is going to have to wait until the relative quiet of winter greens. “Oh, poor Eric,” Jeanene said, surrounded by1000s of baby plants and more experiments to try, “So many projects.”

As if the evidence wasn’t everywhere Jeanene looked at her winter spinach now seeding and incredibly healthy celery, “You can grow a lot of food to eat.”

I’m not worried. I think Jeanene Miller and Eric Clark are going to have a lot of help.

To read the tomato, pepper and eggplant plant lists in full and learn more about the upcoming sale the website is www.abundantgreensurbanfarm.com. Or contact Jeanene at jeanene2@aol.com.

Contact Peggy atlargeinballard@peggysturdivant.com.

At Large In Ballard: Ordinary Extraordinary

shaneh — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 19:12:55 +0000

shaneh Wed, 02/19/2014 - 11:12am

Helen Dixon and daughters Jan Dixon and Judy Montgomery

Photo by Peggy Sturdivant

By Peggy Sturdivant

Helen Dixon’s daughter Jan opened the door to me. “Somebody wants to interview mom,” I’d heard one sister call to another when I first set up our meeting.

“What do you want to know?” Helen Dixon asked me after we’d all introduced ourselves.

“Anything you’re willing to tell me,” I replied.

As far as Helen Dixon is concerned there has been an awful lot of fuss over her most recent birthday, with such a stream of visitors, “That by afternoon it was getting a bit tiresome.”

Helen Dixon is 100 years old. What’s so special about that? Still a neighbor has contacted the publisher, the publisher has contacted me, and her daughters have allowed me into the corner house just above Salmon Bay Park where the family has lived since 1948.

Daughter Judy Montgomery, visiting from her home in New Jersey, is the most inclined to tell tales. She and her sister were ages 5 and 7 when their father’s job brought the family to Seattle from Portland. Their younger brother Charles, now deceased, was born in Seattle, at Ballard Community Hospital. After a visit their dad took them to see “The Wizard of Oz” showing at the Bay Theater across the street.

The “girls” recalled what it was like to live across from the park; Ballard’s prime sledding hill before all the trees grew so large. They played kick-the-can and hide-and-seek with the growing number of neighborhood children. “We’d always get hurt,” Judy said, “and come wobbling home.” Her animated reminiscences involved Field House construction tunnels and fierce games of King of the Hill at the vacant lot at the corner. Judy speaks using her esophagus, engaging her tracheotomy tube. So that I could hear her clearly she’d perch just across from me. “We’d play and play. Then they built a house and ruined it.”

“I always knew where they were,” Helen said. “Especially when they had swings over there.”

The quieter sister, Jan Dixon, announced she had a tale on her sister. “Judy decided to run away. So she packed a lunch and walked around the block because she knew she’d get in trouble if she crossed the street to the park.”

Helen recalled her first job in Seattle, when she thought her kids were old enough. She worked the nightshift on the switchboard at Ballard Hospital. She would walk down after the kids were in bed. The police knew she was leaving the kids asleep and would keep an eye on the house for her.

Working as a receptionist into her 70’s for two doctors at Northwest, Helen was reluctant to retire, wondering what she’d do with herself. “Now I don’t understand how anyone could ever be bored.” She has always enjoyed gardening; in her own and her daughter’s in New Jersey.

Knowing that sometimes the most interesting people don’t “blow their own horn” I kept working hard to coax details about Helen’s life. A longtime member of Lion’s Club, Helen had enjoyed a birthday celebration with other members at Ray’s Boathouse, a place she likes to frequent for lunch. She gets out with Doris, a friend who dates back over 40 years to the bowling league days.

About to say goodbye I ask if Helen gets out to visit Judy in New Jersey much. “About twice a year,” she tells me. (I’m always somewhat surprised that airlines haven’t tried to impose age limits).

I learn that Jan and her mother take turns visiting Judy, especially during her last five years of surgeries and treatments for cancer.

“People are surprised that I travel by myself,” Helen told me. “It’s no problem. They take such good care of you. I usually take the 3:30 flight and get to Newark at 11:30.”

Talk turns to when a doctor and nurses were teaching Helen how to remove, clean and replace Judy’s tracheotomy tube, so that she could be safely released from a nursing facility. The supervisor wouldn’t sign off, claiming that at 98, Helen was too old.

“As if I’d harm my own daughter,” Helen said, still indignant.

“We were so angry,” Judy said. Ultimately a young woman who was supposed to be qualified got rattled and couldn’t change the tube. Helen had to take over.

Given’s Judy’s health problems I asked Helen been hospitalized other than for childbirth. They all looked at one another, like they shouldn’t confess. “Once,” Helen said, “Food poisoning.” Then the truth came out, involving nachos that looked tasty at a Mariner’s game. After three uncharacteristic sick days Jan took her mom to the hospital.

“When was this?” I asked, picturing the old Kingdome.

“Last June the 26th,” Jan said. “Against the Pittsburgh Pirates.”

When does a quietly ordinary life qualify as extraordinary?

Pretty much stunned into silence I took a few photos. Judy Montgomery unexpectedly took my notebook from me and then gave me a big hug. Jan Dixon followed suit. “We didn’t think Mom would go through with this.”

“Now hug her,” Judy said pointing at her mother. So of course I did. Then I let myself out the door they had opened to me just an hour earlier.

Peggy Sturdivant

Ballard News Tribune

At Large in Ballard: Bathing Beauties

shaneh — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 19:57:30 +0000

shaneh Wed, 01/08/2014 - 11:57am

Carol E. Levin and Kelly Barry are radiant at Golden Gardens Beach

Photo by Laura K. Cooper

By Peggy Sturdivant with additional reporting by Izzi Cooper

Even on the peak day of a summer heat wave I never think to myself, “I’ll just go to Golden Gardens and take a dip.”

So I just had to ask different groups of people standing in the sand on New Year’s Day, “Do you swim here any other day of the year?”

The answer was almost unanimously “No,” with the exception of an older gentleman who said, “I swim here every day except this one.”

I’ve lived in Ballard a quarter century but this was the first year that I even went down to see people do what’s referred to as the Polar Bear Plunge (a la Ballard). My husband spearheads an annual New Year’s Day Open House so I’m always frantically cooking and hiding my clutter in the closets. But I’d noticed a certain pink glow on the friends tucking into the buffet table and righteousness when they announced, “I did the plunge at Golden Gardens this morning.”

This year on New Year’s Eve I happened to be privy to several friends making their plans the night before to meet at Golden Gardens the following morning. “What time’s the plunge?” I asked.

They looked at me. “We just do our own thing,” they said, while talking a neighbor, Carol Levin, into joining them for her first time.

I wasn’t going to go in the water, but I was ready to check out this alleged rite of passage for the calendar year. At about 10 a.m. on New Year’s Day all of the fire pits at Golden Gardens beach were in use, but no one was sitting in a beach chair. Everyone was either fully dressed for winter or else wrapped in a beach towel. Along the beach groups would break from their fire and run for the water, a fine display of pale flesh. They’d submerge and then run right out again to their waiting towels.

My friends positioned themselves, the newcomer’s husband wrapped in a fleece blanket. He wasn’t going in either. Then they were off, all four of them. The women ran in and out while Josh Fliegel, currently with the Peace Corps in Fiji, and the one with the greatest excuse for finding the day and water too cold, began swimming away from the shore.

Other groups made their run: generations of families, groups of men, groups of women…meanwhile my friends went in and out, with Josh actually swimming. A man from another group approached him on one of his beachings. “I need to shake your hand,” he said to Josh. Back at his fire pit the man claimed to be just an elderly uncle of the true group leader, Kevin Van Hollebeke.

Like many groups the Van Hollebekes set their own time schedule, dating back to their first Golden Gardens New Year’s Day plunge in the 1980’s. “We’d play touch football for about an hour and then jump in.” Kevin Van Hollebeke and varying family members haven’t skipped the tradition for over 30 years, and they live in Bothell. However they do brunch in Ballard afterwards, “You have to lure them with food,” Van Hollobeke told me, recalling the toughest years were when it was raining sideways.

As one group left a fire pit, another would arrive. At eleven a.m. there was a more concerted group of people running at the water en masse. But in truth those who do it in smaller groups enjoyed better access to the warmth of the fire pits, with strangers swapping stories about different years, sharing tips for drying, warming the feet and taking the Puget Sound plunge. “Be quick and don’t think about it.”

For my friends there was a hot tub waiting that was just icing on the cake. Once in the hot water they all said they plan to do it again next year. Anna Mansbridge called the experience, “Refreshing, cleansing and invigorating.” Not usually words associated with Golden Gardens Beach, bringing home the point that it’s not about the swim, it’s about community and making a fresh start.

After so many weeks of family and holiday foods, who doesn’t want to make a fresh start? From the hot tub Kelly Barry, who had also put in the strokes, put it this way, “Starting the year off strong.”

For Josh Fliegel, the group’s 2014 die-hard, “It’s the challenge.”

Later at the buffet table I was able to look at those rosy-faced guests in a new light, understanding how doing something decidedly out of the “comfort zone” on New Year’s Day is “worth it afterwards,” in the words of one of those that plunged.

Clearly it’s not about being willing to swim at Golden Gardens Beach on any or every day of this year, just on the first day. Because it feels cleansing, it’s tradition, whether as part of a small group or a frenzy of strangers. It happens all over Seattle, all over the United States and all over the world, this need to purge and plunge into the water, usually frigid, on the day the calendar heralds as an opportunity to make a fresh start.

All along the shore, people posed for photographs or were captured in the act of running into the water. My friend Laura K. Cooper photographed her sister-in-law and friends. One resulting photo struck me as an update of the featured photo for March in the 2014 Ballard Historical Society calendar. It’s more than the pose that’s similar between the 1920 ‘Ballard Beauties’ and those of 2014. I can see the impulsiveness in all of them, regardless of the years separating them.

As first timer Carol Levin said, “I should have been doing this for years.” It’s probably what those Ballard Beauties said in 1920; what kept them strong, and beautiful.

Peggy Sturdivant

New Year's Eve. New Year's Day Polar Plunge

Ballard

Ballard News Tribune

All Aboard 2nd Hand Furniture closing shop

Guest — Fri, 15 Nov 2013 22:13:15 +0000

Guest (not verified) Fri, 11/15/2013 - 2:13pm

Photo by Peggy Sturdivant

By Peggy Sturdivant

The big CLOSING sign outside All Aboard 2nd Hand Furniture store at 6500 3rd Ave NW means just what it says. The owners Gretchen Kudla and her husband Anhdi Spath are closing the second hand furniture business this month to concentrate on their original business, Cafe Bambino.

Kudla and Spath purchased the business in 2007; they kept the name of the business which has been family owned since 1971. The antique store has been a viable business but didn't have any takers when put on the market. So Kudla and Spath decided to simply close the store, citing the demands of running two businesses over the last six years. They opened Cafe Bambino in 1997.

They are trying to sell as much as the inventory as possible between now and a proposed closing date of November 24th. After that time they will be open by appointment and items will still be listed and available through Craig's List.

The space will not be vacant; their neighbor Olsen Violins will be taking over the space and to expand their violin repair, restoration and rental program.

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Peggy Sturdivant

Seattle news

All Aboard

second hand furniture

Ballard

Ballard News Tribune

At Large in Ballard: Creative Energy

Guest — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 17:13:13 +0000

Guest (not verified) Wed, 11/13/2013 - 9:13am

Meleah & Chris Gibson with daughter Charlie. Art by Stani Meredith.

Photo by Peggy Sturdivant

By Peggy Sturdivant

One day last summer I noticed a new tenant on Market St in the spot that had been occupied by the Quilting Loft before it moved next to Firehouse Coffee. “Seattle Creative Arts Center,” I read on the glass, before I dared to jaywalk across the four lanes of traffic to go to Limback’s.

I puzzled over this new entity, assuming since they had Seattle in their name they must have moved from an earlier location. The space looked fairly empty, like a gallery. Signage said Music & Art Education, Workshops, Performance Events. Who are they, I wondered? Why haven’t I heard of them?

Last week I filled out an online form requesting more information about the space. Meleah Gibson responded almost immediately. That’s when I learned this isn’t an organization or a cooperative. Seattle Creative Arts Center is the lovechild of Chris and Meleah Gibson. Although conceived perhaps slightly earlier, the birth of the business happened to coincide with the birth of their eight-month old daughter Charlie.

Chris and Meleah Gibson offer combined experience in music, composition, dance, lighting, art, live performance, sound recording and teaching. They also share their two offspring, Charlie and the Market Street space that they hope will become home to all genres of creativity, even beyond their areas of experience.

A Cornish graduate Chris teaches guitar, bass and piano, as well as songwriting and music theory. Meleah studied ballet, tap, jazz and modern at the British Academy of Dance. They met as part of a local musical production called Tuning the Air, during its eight-year run. Chris was performing as one of the ten guitarists in the round. Meleah had discovered a passion for lighting. Then both of their jobs ended and they decided to put their life savings into their shared dream of a creative center.

It was months into their search for just the right space for months when they went further west on Market Street than in the past. Once they saw the former Quilting Loft space it became the place. Meleah said, “I thought, if we don’t get this space I don’t think I can go on.” In order to create a space that could accommodate music lessons, a photography studio, catered events, performances, art shows and classes they had to do, “a ton of remodeling.”

The result is a location with fantastic lighting, in-house sound system, small kitchen, and stage area, that is both visible and invisible. It is a space that can become anything you want it to be. A practice space for a chorus, seating for an audience, a meeting place, a place for workshops in writing, painting, sewing…who knows? Meleah’s dream is for the space to one day be in use from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day of the week. It’s already home to one photographer, Ingrid Pape-Sheldon, and would be ideal for additional shared studio space. Roll-away mirrors that could transform it into a dance studio are on the wish list.

Perhaps it was baby Charlie beaming at me as well as her parent’s vision. Suddenly I wanted to make the space part of my life too. I wished there was a Ballard writer trying to write a novel in the month of November while in the storefront window. I thought longingly of a space for writers, with the coffee, but without the barista’s choice of music. I could imagine people stepping to the microphone on the stage. Artwork on the walls, a tableau in the windows to provide better clues to what would be possible inside this space.

Although it took me five months to investigate SCAC others have been more proactive. Groups practice there on Monday and Tuesday nights. Chris has been receiving music students, although he welcomes more. The venue has had monthly art installations. After opening the doors last June, “The events side of it just happened.” Birthday parties, teenage bands; they receive inquiries from quite a few teenagers; unlike clubs the venue can be for all ages.

There have been parties, book launches, belly-dancing, weddings and events that mixed art and wine. and on November 16th a woman is hosting an event there called “A Beautiful Mess.” Cynthia Sherris Johnson found the site on Yelp when looking for a place to share the photo essay she created following a personal loss and divorce. On November 23 the SCAC hosts “The Taste of Health & Inspiration” with Dena-Marie.

So the space is being found. “We’re getting into the veins of Ballard,” Meleah said. “We knew it would take a while.” The Gibsons also want to keep the space relatively affordable so that it can be home to artists. They offer non-profits a $35/hour rate for classes, $20/hour for use of a rehearsal room and the event space for $125/hour.

Thinking back on what led them to open a place that could provide a community for artists, Meleah said, “We didn’t want to waste our creativity.” Applying their energy and life savings to build that dream, the Gibsons have opened the door to the creativity in everyone. SCAC is not an organization; it is Chris, Meleah, Charlie, you and me. Because I don’t want to waste my creativity either.

Seattle Creative Arts Center, 206.297-6001. www.seattlecreativearts.com. 2601 NW Market St., Seattle 98107

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Halloween without Gene

Guest — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 17:04:24 +0000

Guest (not verified) Fri, 11/01/2013 - 10:04am

After Gene Gorge's passing, the ritualistic Halloween visit to Sunset Hill Barbershop still goes on -- even if it's not entirely the same.

Photo by Peggy Sturdivant

By Peggy Sturdivant

Folks Donna Williams had never met kept popping their heads into the barbershop all day long on Halloween to ask, “Will you be doing it this year?”

What they were asking was, since the death of Gene the Barber last spring will you be continuing his 31-year tradition of handing out full size candy bars to Trick-or-Treaters and vodka-laced Jell-O shots to adults? The answer, of course, was yes.

Since now-owner Donna Williams also maintains a business in Aberdeen she has never been on Sunset Hill for Halloween, but she certainly heard about it, and managed to co-exist with the utterly creepy barber dummy that usually shared the shop all of October.

Wanting to honor those for whom a visit to Gene George’s was definitive of Halloween, Donna prepared 150 candy grab bags as well as candy bars. She also received boxes of the infamous full size candy bars from folks who wanted to help sustain the tradition. Some of the earliest candy recipients have their own families now.

It was Donna’s first time making the Jell-O shots (two flavors) and she worried they were firmer than the ones that Gene made.

At dusk the first families started the 32nd Avenue NW stroll, in advance of the mobs of children who would return from downtown Ballard already heavy with sweets. The creepy dummy had been on loan and wasn’t able to return to the shop in time for Halloween.

The funny thing was that Donna looked the most worried. If I were a kid I would have been terrified in the old days, between the dummy and Gene’s sense of humor. I fell for his jokes every time. I never learned not to stick my hand in the paper bag or ask the follow-up question. And I never did have one of his Jell-O shots.

So no, it wasn’t the same on Sunset Hill without the maniacal shriek of the dummy and Gene’s personality. But from an old friend wearing one of his smocks with Gene embroidered on the left breast to the people who came by to reminisce as the evening wore on, it was pretty sweet. Only missing were Gene and the dummy, and as he might have asked, how would you tell the difference?

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At Large in Ballard: The Writer Next Door

Guest — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 19:29:43 +0000

Guest (not verified) Mon, 10/28/2013 - 12:29pm

Mark your calendar: Ballard Writers 'Big Event' on Nov. 1

By Peggy Sturdivant

You know those stressful dreams in which you are on your way to some important event and realize you’ve forgotten 1) wallet, 2) clothes, or 3) how to drive? Fill in your own nightmare. I just had mine this morning. After last November’s Big Event for Ballard Writers the Sunset Hill Community Association suggested that we set a date for the following year. It’s Friday, November 1. But I forgot to invite anyone.

We’ve had the date for a year. Ballard Writers Collective has been planning the event for months. But did I send out Save the Date cards? Give timely notice to the Seattle Times calendar? No. Sure, the other 100+ members of Ballard Writers know about Friday’s 4th Annual but it’s supposed to be for the public, not for us.

Then again, who are we? We are your neighbors. If there’s anything I’ve learned since the 2010 launch of Ballard Writers is that we are legion. It’s the woman next to me at yoga and the man who walks past my house with his dog. Either everyone has a story to tell or they have already been trying to write it, publish it, sell it, get it accepted by Modern Love in the New York Times Styles section.

Was it the fog? Was it planning so far in advance? Don’t worry about the RSVP; this is your invite. Just come to the 4th Annual Ballard Writer’s event on Friday, November 1st.

Why? It could be for the chance to ask your neighbor something you have always wanted to ask. All thirty of the participating author/writers have shared what makes their experience unique, what book they would recommend to anyone who wants to be a writer and what book they have to re-read or give as a gift.

There will be readings, the return of the amazing raffle gift baskets, a keg of a local beer, and wine purchased through Sunset Hill Green Market. There will be an “Ask the Writer” panel in addition to the opportunity to submit questions (anonymously) of any of the writers. New this year will be the opportunity to purchase your choice of three books through a $15 book pass from participating authors (while supplies last). Secret Garden will be selling additional books, as well as able to take pre-orders on forthcoming works.

In the years since we started connecting and creating events there have been publishing successes that have been recognized nationally (ask Ingrid Ricks), stuffed animals inspired (ask Nina Laden) and personal successes too numerous to mention (okay, ask Alison Krupnick, Helen Landalf, Joshua McNichols…). The world of self-publishing has changed. Secret Garden Books has survived, Egan’s Ballard Jam House has welcomed our live works and we’ve had a lot of great parties.

What we learned from a show of hands back in 2010 was how many attendees were interested in writing, whether as practitioner or a devoted reader. Having experimented with combining craft vendors (and everything short of jugglers) we’re returning to our literary roots this year.

When I asked all the participants what book they recommend to someone who announces “I want to be a writer” half of them cited Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird.” Just this week Ballard writer and “Ask the Writer” panelist Theo Pauline Nestor was able to announce she’s producing a January event “Bird by bird and beyond” in California with Anne Lamott herself. Nestor’s new book “Writing Is My Drink” (Simon & Schuster) will be available at the event, in advance of its official launch.

Secret Garden Books might like it to be otherwise, but when it comes to our annual events we don’t really care about selling books. We want to connect. Every year I reflect on the friendships and collaborations that have come about from meeting one another. We support one another, whether by being the chemotherapy partner or the editor, the writing partner or the one who knows an agent. Who better to be a friend to a writer, than another writer? Journalist, poet, essayist, young adult, memoir, writer’s craft, erotica, gardening, cooking, historical fiction, science fiction, children’s books or simply someone who has to write in their journal, we’re all connected.

Time to go pick up gifts donated by Romanza and Sweet Mickey’s for the baskets. See you Friday night.

The Writer Next Door: 4th Annual Ballard Writer’s Collective event

When: Friday, November 1st Doors open at 6 p.m. Program at 7 p.m.

Where: Sunset Hill Community Club, 3003 NW 66th Street

More info: www.ballardwriters.org

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Peggy Sturdivant

Seattle news

Ballard writers collective

Ballard

Ballard News Tribune

Former Lockhaven owners: 'We were naive'

Guest — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 16:24:51 +0000

Guest (not verified) Wed, 10/23/2013 - 9:24am

Earl and Denise Ecklund, owners of the Lockhaven Apartments, didn’t realize renovations by the new owner would drive so many residents out.

Photo by Allyce Andrew

By Peggy Sturdivant

Earl F. Ecklund Jr. was born in 1945 but has no memory of a time in his life that his family didn’t own Lockhaven Apartments, at least until August 26, 2013.

In the uproar since Lockhaven’s sale to Goodman Real Estate and Pinnacle’s initial mismanagement of a tenant relocation process, I contacted the Ecklunds, who are still part of the equation.

Earl and Denise Ecklund are now living in the family house on Sunset Hill, where his parents lived from 1945 until their respective deaths in the late 1990’s. Although they managed a rare two-night getaway since the sale, they’re still Ballard.

When a tenant got locked out last week the call was forwarded to the Ecklund’s home phone. A mistake, but fifty years of being “the number to call” will not be erased overnight or even over the next few months.

In fact the Ecklunds still talk about Lockhaven in the present tense and using a collective “we.” I couldn’t help but wonder what it is like for them to see their former tenants, displaced en masse for renovations and rallying against the rent increases.

When Earl and Denise Ecklund sat down with me for four hours, we started and ended at the same place: “You can’t control what a buyer does with the property once it’s sold.” In between, we went back to the beginning.

Earl Ecklund Sr. spotted a foreclosed building for sale and bought it while working as a letter carrier on First Hill. He had already helped his mother purchase an apartment building by having 29 fellow workers co-sign at $100 apiece. After rent payments covered the mortgage and bills Earl realized it was a better situation than working for the post office. Acquiring and selling other apartment buildings, Earl and Ruby Ecklund applied the business model being employed by Lockhaven’s new ownership, whereby improvements allow for more rent increases.

After 1967, the Ecklunds focused on just one property: Lockhaven. They were on-site 6-7 days a week. On-call every day. Earl Sr. would arrive in his suit, and change into his work clothes as needed. Earl’s mother Ruby kept the books and did the clean-outs of apartments between tenants. After she was widowed Earl’s sister lived above the property management office. Earl’s older brother Ralph was a botanist and horticulturist who turned the grounds into his rhododendron species garden, but ‘allowed’ his brother to mow the grass.

Younger by 15 years Earl Jr. was the only one small enough to go inside the furnace boiler units to scrub the tanks with a metal brush every summer. Perhaps for this reason Earl Jr. left home after graduating from Ballard High School in ’62 and kept his distance from the family business for many, many years. He did his post-Doctoral studies in Mathematics and Computer Science. He met Denise at Illinois State; he was faculty and she was a Computer Science major.

While the rest of the family centered their lives at Lockhaven, Earl and Denise stayed in academia, at Oregon State University, two years in Oslo, a faculty appointment for Denise in Edinburgh. They always visited and helped with rent letters and computerizing the accounting systems. Their roles increased after Earl Sr. and Ruby died; Earl’s older sister was already in a nursing home.

In 2004 Ralph Ecklund collapsed while working on the grounds at Lockhaven. He was diagnosed with a brain tumor and was never able to return to work. Earl returned immediately from Edinburgh and Denise followed. They’ve managed Lockhaven ever since, even living on-site for five years (Rm. #2 in 3047).

“There have always been offers,” Earl Jr. said as we arrived back at the present, “Some remarkably tempting. My father was very close to accepting one in the 70’s.” In terms fitting a mathematician, he detailed unresolved corporation issues that complicated capital gains taxes, and “rogue shares.

“There’s other family,” Earl said, “As president I was responsible for all investors.” Over the last decade Earl Jr. would review the potential net benefit (after taxes) of a sale versus continued ownership, and until last spring it didn’t add up.

“We tried to step back from managing,” Denise Ecklund said. “We have tried and tried, but if anybody called us they knew they would get an ear.”

They interviewed property managers and were turned down because third-party companies generally make their money from a percentage on lease renewals and commissions on new tenants. The turnover rate and the rents were too low.

Earl and Denise just celebrated their 37th wedding anniversary. They wanted to become retired academics, not owner/managers. When their agent listed the property in 2012 they still thought there was only a 50/50 chance of a sale. Their greatest fear in selling was that Lockhaven would simply be razed, or developed with a “build to the curb” mentality.

They were surprised to have seven interested parties, then two. Goodman Real Estate’s offer was the most viable. The Ecklunds knew of John Goodman, his Ballard roots, his home nearby. Knew, “he has a charitable side and an aggressive business side.” They recall his words, “I will be a good steward for the property.”

The Ecklunds had seen the market analysis; they knew their rents were comparatively low. “Maybe we didn’t do them any favors,” Earl Ecklund said of the short and long-term tenants. “We didn’t set out to be affordable housing.

In any given year the average turnover was one-third. The Ecklunds did remodels after move-outs and major renovations when tenants moved out in what they called “stacks” within a unit. They knew the buyers would remodel; it’s a rare prospective tenant not shocked by lack of dishwasher. But they seem almost as surprised as the tenants at the mass displacement.

“We were naïve,” Denise Ecklund said.

The rents proposed for Lockhaven after renovations are also at a higher range than what they’d seen in the market analysis, but they always raised rents after a remodel as well. Doing the renovations at one time probably makes better business sense Earl admitted.

However what’s happening with the tenant evictions prompted Earl to tell me a story about a middle manager he’d encountered who was called Neutron Dave, for his impersonal tactics. The nickname referred to the effects of the neutron bomb, which left buildings standing but the inhabitants dead.

“You can’t control what a buyer does,” Earl repeated, his oh-so-blue Swedish eyes almost transparent. “The only thing we could have done differently was not to sell at all.”

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Former owner of microhousing site: 'I didn't know'

Guest — Wed, 16 Oct 2013 16:22:23 +0000

Guest (not verified) Wed, 10/16/2013 - 9:22am

BJ Douglas at the site of former home, which is set to be turned into microhousing.

Photo by Peggy Sturdivant

By Peggy Sturdivant

BJ Douglas and her husband loved living in their 1909 Ballard Craftsman for 23 years. As parking became too difficult they moved north in 2007, but didn’t sell their old home until last November.

The Douglases had long discussions with the prospective owner about his plans to build six units, deconstruct the house for reusable materials, and “build green.”

Then three weeks ago BJ Douglas read in the Ballard News-Tribune about opposition to a microhousing development for 43 one-bedroom units at 1715 NW 58th Street. “That’s my house,” she realized.

She learned that without her knowledge the developer Bob Dedon of 1715 Apartments LLC had canceled initial plans and applied to create what’s listed as a boarding house. Stunned by this change in plans all that BJ can manage is, “I didn’t know.”

Although the 1700 block of NW 58th used to have many single-family homes it is zoned for low-rise multifamily. For this reason there was no Design Review notice or public meeting required, outside of Department of Planning & Development review. The proposed six-unit project would have been in keeping with surrounding newer construction and would have had to supply parking before recent code changes.

The house was considered a blue-and-pink showcase, with a beautiful garden and trees. Just six months ago BJ lost her husband Eric. Between his death and learning about the fate of their former home she feels completely derailed. “I used to tell people there was not one inch of the house that my hands hadn’t touched.”

According to neighbors the promised deconstruction did not occur, no removal of original fir floors or fixtures. The demolition permit was issued on August 26th. The permit issued on September 17 is to build what’s being called aPodments, characterized in part by just one shared kitchen per 6-8 units. Neighbors have organized to block the development through the website www.stop1715.org.

With the displacement of Lockhaven residents, and in their presence, the question of affordable housing was posed to City Council member Sally Bagshaw at the last Ballard District Council meeting. “My answer will make your tongue curl,” she said. “We need to look to more micro-housing or boarding house models, as well as looking at more detached dwellings – mother-in-law units.”

The fact that Douglas had to read about what was happening to her former home in the newspaper and that Lockhaven residents learned about renovations and rent increases through eviction notices highlights a disconnect between the residents, the developers and the City of Seattle government. As the Seattle Public Library system proved when holding public meetings after the Libraries for All Levy allowing neighborhood residents to be part of the process makes all the difference in the world.

As for BJ Douglas, she’s still very much a Ballard person concerned and puzzled by the mixed messages from the City: programs to reduce storm water overflow and yet increased density, waiving parking space requirements while not increasing transit options. But mostly she wants to communicate that when it comes to the plans for what’s to rise up out of the currently mud-filled hole, “I didn’t know.”

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