The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

You’re married to a historian, you live a part of your life in the past. This vacation we’re in the mountain town of Index, population about 150. Yesterday we got the full tour of the Historical Museum and its Annex from the town historian. Plenty of mining tools, crosscut saws, old toasters, pieces of the Post Office, kraut cutters — about what we got half of at home. Not exactly like viewing the aqueducts of ancient Rome, more like a postcard of early life on the South End when we were the pioneers.

History is a tough sell. Not many folks tour these museums. And those that do whip through, skip reading the captions on the black and white flood photos or the loggers square dancing on a 15 foot diameter fir stump. Most of it looks like Grandma’s old house they visited as kids. A few folks come to find Grandma’s house — or at least a small record that their family actually lived in this hick burg. Genealogy they’re interested in, the history of the area, not so much.

Our own Museum, like the one here, draws virtually no one the one or two days they’re open. Even most residents are devoid of curiosity, a little busy raising kids and paying the mortgage on the subdivisions outside the newly annexed city limits. Way of the world, I guess.

We’re zooming headlong into the future, technology accelerating, AI no longer on the horizon, it’s right here right now and dragging us along. There’s no time for lolly-gagging about what was when last month feels like the distant past and tomorrow fills us with dread. Doomsday scrolling, not old histories, fills our time. We don’t have time for the old stuff. What’s in the rearview is definitely not closer than it appears, it’s way far back, almost out of sight. And most definitely out of mind.

So I don’t mind a few days spent here in the past. More and more it’s where I live. Just one of the benefits of living with a historian.

Used to be Midlife Crises came when we were shocked to realize youth had lost its bloom and wouldn’t be coming back. Although … guys bought red sportscars and their wives dyed their grey hairs and considered plastic surgery. A new set of wheels or breasts usually didn’t work — truth was, what they mourned was the end of dreams. The corporate man was never going to backpack Europe or write the Great American Novel. And his trophy wife was not going back to college for a degree in sociology. Even if the kids were….

But I’m seeing friends who are going through a different crisis, the one where mortality is closing in and so is the realization that their life was mostly mortgaged, maybe even subprimed and now the equity seems puny and someone else may actually foreclose on it. They’re retired, time is not on their side and may never have been, and now the prospect of another hard winter is really bearing down. They think maybe a move might help. Go south, go back to their hometowns, look for a second childhood or adolescence, start over and see if the dice come up Lucky Sevens. They ask me: do you think I’m nuts to do this? And I say sure, (as if I got anything against being nuts)  but … if you’re not happy here, with what you got, with the life you made, I’d take a roll of the dice too.  Plus, it’s America.  We’re supposedly the adventurous, the brave, the pioneers.  We leave the known for the unknown.  We let optimism be our guide.  Complacency is the enemy.  Reinvent yourself!  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.  Go west, young man!  At least …. that’s what we tell ourselves.  Even if most of us have settled for a secure banality.

So maybe  it’s the winter of our discontent. Friends are dying, not a lot, but a start and our turn is in there somewhere. The community volunteerism isn’t working, the house has a leaky roof and the deck is rotted, retirement is surprisingly BORING, the walls are closing in and the trips to town are maddeningly uneventful. It’s as if the life we thought we’d built on sturdy foundations is sliding toward the bluff in incremental but steady tectonic lurches. We aren’t going to be rich and famous, money didn’t buy us love, religion was dumbed down to an embarrassingly blind faith devoid of anything resembling much more than a hope for another life in the after-world or prayers for winning the Lotto. We’re adrift, unmoored and untethered, and definitely uneasy.

I know. This is how I felt when I came here. For you pilgrims, be of cheerful heart! Sometimes the grass IS greener. Occasionally you CAN start over. Dreams DO come true in the once upon a times…. And happiness may actually be just over the next hill, the one you won’t find if you don’t go looking. Good luck!

I recently got an inquiry from an artist who was perplexed by the name of our upcoming 6th annual Small Craft Advisory Show, thinking that it was downright inconsiderate toward our artists to label it small … and worse, small craft. Craft, of course, for her and a large percentage of the population, connotes macrame plant hangers, popsickle stick whirligigs, knitted baby caps, stained glass suncatchers, scented candles, glass plates on rebar yard ornaments, custom keychains, handmade soaps and of course, plenty of birdhouses. I get it.

I tried to explain that the name was intended as a humorous nod to a weatherman’s warning for vessels to be prepared for stormy seas. And hopefully the title would evoke in the general public a sense that these crafts would be a small tsunami in their impact.

I’m afraid that argument didn’t work, but trust me, our artistic vision is anything but small. And unlike many of the artists who dismiss craft as somehow inferior to their watercolor sunsets and their numbered reproduction prints, these are craftspeople creating one-of-a-kind artworks from wood, from clay, from found objects, from glass to fabrics.

You won’t find a kitschy birdhouse here … but if you did, it would rock your boat, believe me, and that small craft warning might be welcome. What you will find are Don Metke’s museum quality wood assemblages, Russ Riddle’s exquisite Japanese inspired furniture with delicate gingko marquetry, Shannon Kirby’s carved driftwood sculpture, Chuck Hamilton’s incredible turned bowls, Monika De Nasha’s native American otter bags with traditional beadwork, Erin Marie’s organic fueled jewelry, Persis Gayle’s distinctive clay creations, Elizabeth Moncrief’s fabulous fabric wearables, David Taber’s NW inspired wood and stoneworking that one year featured a gigantic octopus with moveable tentacles, Mark Eikeland’s unique pottery and my own stained glass panels many of which became inspiration for huge public art installations.

We run the entire gamut of crafts that are definitely fine art. We aren’t what you’ve come to expect from a ‘craft’ show — we’re what Artificial Intelligence will never reproduce. We’re crafters who love our work and want to share it. Not all of it is for sale. This is an exhibition, admission is free. This is fine craft and most definitely fine art. Come down to the Floyd Norgaard Cultural Center, 10-4, Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 20 and 21. But be advised, this is the Small Craft Advisory Show. www.smallcraftadvisory.net

I forget sometimes that the island here is a vacation get-away still, even after the resorts were shuttered, sold and torn down. Even Cama Beach State Park with its dozens of refurbished cabins has closed them to habitation, maybe the last hurrah from the Resort Era when salmon were still plentiful and Camano was a fishing destination. Now folks come to their cottages or stay with family and friends, walk the beach and kayak the shorelines.

Today, though, Labor Day, the yearly Exodus begins. Range Rovers pulling trailers with dirt bikes, SUV’s with kayaks shoved onto roof racks, cars loaded with rubber rafts, coolers, paddle boards, grills and the kids — they all pack it in, head back to jobs and school, bid adieu to our sunsets, our clamming and crabbing, our desolate beaches, and drive off into their last island sunset for another year. Boats that have moored offshore get hauled in, trailered up behind trucks and driven back to a winter drydock, crab pots piled, buoys stashed, off they go, adios, vaya con dios!

For nine months we get our peace and quiet back. Walking the beaches below I won’t find my fellow hikers tomorrow. Old footprints in the sand will be gone by morning, just me and the herons now, seagulls barking, eagles overhead, hardly a boat out in the Saratoga Straits. Call me selfish but c’mon, I shared all summer with the motorcycles, the jetskis, the family reunions, the 4th of July bombardments, the traffic …. Just give me a few months of tranquillity, the least an old codger can ask.

And sure, I know these folks leaving are returning to 40 hour weeks in jobs they probably hate back in congested cities but we can’t all live in Paradise, can we? Adam and Eve didn’t have tourism, airbnb’s, VRBO’s, timeshare condos, did they? So it seems like an okay compromise to me, let a few folks share this place for a few days, weeks, months. But then they’ve got to leave. Labor Day is check out time. Seems fair to me.

Most of my friends are left wingers. Imagine my shock to learn from the President in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination that they’re not the innocent, normal, patriotic pals I thought they were. No, it turns out ‘they’re vicious and they’re horrible’. And worse, they’re my buddies. How was I to know they were probably the most likely people to turn to violence when politics didn’t go the way they wanted. Out there on social media the news (at least to me) was that they were the most likely to use assassinations to get what they wanted. And what they wanted, according to Mr. Trump, was more transgenders, more open borders, more men in women’s sports. Sick, just completely sick, the President says, evil people. Horrible people. Vicious people. Terrorists. And worst of all, they’re my friends.

I doubt that a single one of my buddies have a gun. Not that they couldn’t run up to the Sedro-Wooley gunshow this weekend and pick up an assault rifle or two. Probably have to sign up for some shooting practice, spend some time on the shooting range wherever one might be. Gotta buy ammo. Maybe go on some Proud Boys’ websites or other white nationalist podcasts to learn how best to take on the ‘enemy’. Those guyz have guns galore and they know how to use em. Not too many left wing vigilante groups or terrorist cells, far as I know, but hell, I didn’t even know my friends were radical crazies bent on destroying America. So they might have secret organizations I’m not aware of. They sure haven’t asked me to join one, that I do know (just in case the FBI is reading this).

What else I do know is I may be guilty by association. It’s the Red Scare all over again and I’m now in the crosshairs. Along with my former friends. And most likely all Democrats in the Congress. Today I’ll probably run into town and purchase an American flag to fly out front. A big flag. And maybe a couple to fly both sides of my pickup. The truck I’m going to sticker up with Don’t Tread On Me decals and a Confederate flag or two so no one will mistake me for a leftwing radical, no sir, just your average good ol boy rightwing NRA Trump loving South Ender who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Which I can’t say the same for my vicious commie friends. Former friends!

I meet folks all the time who have jobs, careers, full employment, financial security, the whole economic enchilada …. but who don’t really like what they do. My parents called that ‘Reality’. Lucky for one of their rebellious kids, at least. I had a buddy’s kid tell me recently – at age 12 – he wanted to be an osteopathic surgeon. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? At age 12 I wanted to be a cowboy.

I mean, where’s the romance here? The adolescent will toward some kind of schoolkid passion? Some ideal of a calling untethered to adult notions of a proper career. Where’s the deep seated urge to … I don’t know, just do something fun, something for the helluvit? Mom, Dad, I got an announcement to make. I’ve been thinking pretty hard lately about what I want to do with my life. I’ve been turning it over and over in my head, you know, between updating Facebook and worrying about my acne, and I’ve finally come to a decision. Osteopathic Surgeon. Whaddaya think?

My folks might’ve been relieved I no longer aspired to Cattle Punching, but somehow I suspect they would’ve rolled their eyes and said, wait a few years, why don’tcha? You’ll find something you love. Course, trouble was, I did. I went through a number of career explorations. Restauranteur. Metro bus driver. Teacher. Substitute teacher. Dog pound kennel worker. Hospital orderly. Furniture stripper. School bus driver. Stained glass artist.

Oops. Stop the film. Rewind to stained glass artist. This is a career? This is what you went to college for? This is what you want to do? And expect to make a living??? Have you considered, oh, osteopathic surgery maybe. Or dentistry?

You could’ve knocked me over with a feather too. Sometimes life’s detours become an interstate. Occasionally passion will override the sensible and the safe and the sane. I know my friends who have impressionable children don’t want the kids near me for fear of contact contamination, but … I know this: life is way more fun, way more meaningful, way more worth living —- if you pick the life you love, the wife you love, the job you love, than if you choose the route that’s most lucrative.

Although …. I think those routes ARE the most lucrative — even if they don’t make much money. My folks might not agree, but at least they can rest easy knowing I didn’t become a cowboy. At least not a real one.

Only takes an hour to cross over the I-5 partisan boundary and another to leave the blue state altogether where Trump/Vance signs as large as small billboards still declare total allegiance. We’re in Winthrop, ersatz cowboy town where we ate our ice cream cones as fast as possible in 104 degree heat while sitting on saddles, not stools, overlooking the Methow River. A fellow tourist decided we were so cute on those saddles, me a Roy Rogers in a beat up hat and the mizzus a modern Dale Evans, that she asks to take our picture. America, land of anything goes. More or less.

We’re lodged in a cabin next to the city’s new library so I walked in to peruse the joint before heading to 3 Finger Jack’s Saloon to quash the heat and thirst of a day’s tire-melting drive up through the ‘dry side’. Nice enough library. Air conditioned. Friendly staff. The usual.

Drifting by the newspaper racks I looked for a Seattle Times maybe or a Spokane Spokesman Review, but the only one they had was the Okanogan Chronicle so I pulled my pony up to a hitching post and began to read the news of the day out here in the Great Outback. Their Grange getting a new HVAC was big news, top of the fold. Bigger was a million plus grant to build Okie a new library, maybe as nice as this one. By page 3 and 4 they’d covered some old local history and a few fluff pieces about flower arranging and other crafts. 5 and 6 had some generic state news and finally, near the back but before the comics and weather, two articles of national import, one, Sen. Cantwell hoping for more money to fund the Weather Bureau, this being the land of wildfires, and the other something of no significance whatsoever, near as I could tell.

I suspect Fox News rides the range all to itself out here and if PBS or NPR still exist, they won’t for long once the funding dries up. If even the library won’t carry subscriptions for the NY Times or WA Post or even a Seattle paper, it’s probably time to check our guns with the sheriff, stop kidding ourselves and skedaddle on home, we’ve lost the range war.

Pushing my loaded grocery cart up to the checkout aisle this morning, I bumped into an old neighbor from yesteryear hunched over his own small cart, no groceries, just cashing in some card for cash near as I could tell. The cart was for leaning on since he could hardly walk. “I’m all stoved up,” he said when the how ya been’s were over. “Got arthritis. Taking insulin for my diabetes. Hard to get out of bed in the morning.”

Keith’s three years younger than me, meaning, he’s an old man. Long hair, wild beard, pushing 300, 350 pounds, sleep apnea, quit drinking 10 years ago. He’s living in the duck shacks on the Skagit delta. Last time I was there, there was no power, water had to be hauled in, heat was firewood. What you got back along the dike was total privacy, a wilderness oasis only a couple of football fields from the highway and two or three miles from the interstate. He said his woman had left him and so had the subsequent ones. As he so eloquently explained concerning his now preferred bachelorhood, “the price of pussy has gone too damn high.”

Same old Keith, a happy redneck Norwegian, mostly angry at the world but at least able to laugh at his own miseries. His son, he said, died awhile back and when I asked how, he shook his shaggy head. “Heroin. Od’d.” The kid had been riding his motorcycle, evidently had spilled gas on his pants and the muffler ignited it. Burned him terrible and they medi-vacced him to Seattle, skin grafts and finally oxycontin for the pain which he became addicted to, subbing heroin and fentanyl when he was discharged, a too familiar story. His daughter lived not far away, north of Seattle, but he hadn’t seen or spoken to her in years.

For half an hour we stood by the liquor lockup at the end of the checkouts and caught up the past 20 years, mostly a chronicle of friends and acquaintances who’d died. Heart attacks mostly. Most fairly young. Most bad diets, no exercise, too much boozing. Whoever said the good die young didn’t know our buddies.

I finally said I gotta get going and reluctantly he wheeled himself with the cart as crutch out the side door. A yellow lab pup was in the driver’s seat of a late model Toyota pickup, a leather muzzle mask over its mouth. “Chew’s everything. Steering wheel, upholstery, anything.” “Well,” I said, “good to have a companion.” “Yep,” Keith said, “I just wish he wasn’t a chewer.” “You can’t have everything, I guess.” Some of us, though, don’t have much of anything….

This past week I had a small argument with friends regarding the Tax Man, the Internal Revenue Service, no doubt universally hated and recently under orders from the Prez to drastically cut staff. Probably most of my fellow citizens are happy as punch those government workers will be getting their pink slips. But not me. I figure the less auditors looking at the returns of the ultra-wealthy and the corporations, the less revenue is pulled in and eventually us peasants will be asked to make up the slack. Call me cynical and send me to bed without my supper of gruel.

My friends’ point of view was more on the order that the IRS was a vast network of mindless computers searching for the mistakes the accountants they had hired had made, probably necessitating the dreaded audit. They asked, in fact, did I trust my own accountant. They no longer had faith in theirs, not after their last audit, and wondered if we’d ever had one ourselves.

Hell, no, I said, I don’t trust our accountant!! Our accountant is me. He runs the numbers for our personal taxes and for my business, fills out mucho forms, everything from Self-employment tax, Schedules B, C, D and X, the 1040, Schedule 1 and a couple more I don’t remember —– oh right, our rental property, no longer rented.

My friends were gobsmacked we weren’t red-flagged. I kind of am too, tell you the truth. But … here’s the thing. Nearly every year the IRS informs us we’ve made an error on our tax forms. And except for once, maybe twice at most where they billed us a hundred or two hundred bucks, we get a fat check back for a thousand here, 4000 there, 7000 last year and this year 1600. They even pay us interest!

So my take is that these IRS employees are looking after us, they’re definitely on our side. They could have kept their algorithmic mouths shut and we’d never be the wiser. Instead, they restored my faith in Government. Although … I can’t say it did for my friends. Like I tell em: do your own taxes — they’ll take pity on the ignorant, the math-challenged and the poor. You’ll be way better off and … you’ll have a new friend.

Given that there’s a dearth of tourism down at the South End, it was a gobsmack and a half when Bert and Betty Amundsen opened up their retro auto court two miles north of the Head, not very far from the Diner, but not far enough to escape the patrons’ sneering gossip. The Siesta Motel de La Sur opened for business the year of the gas shortages when Jimmy Carter advised wearing sweaters and turning down thermostats. Tyee Store only sold gas to its regular petrol customers and even us locals were told to take a hike. Good luck to the auto court crowd…..

Course, the auto court never got a crowd. The Flathead Vintage Car Boyz howled among themselves over black coffee and chicken fried steaks and eggs. “Shoulda opened a B&B,” Cadillac Fred would say and Studebaker Ralph would fire back “Sunset Motel de Muerto”.

The Diner could’ve used the extra business. Big Larry, the grillman, had been here long enough to remember the days of Cama Beach Resort, Camp Diane, Indian Beach and a lot of others further north, folks pouring in to fish big Chinooks and escape the fumes of city living. “Might be a shot,” he said. “Nothing else, we can put up the shirt-tail relatives who visit…”

Bert and Betty lacked what you call marketing skills in the dark days pre-internet. They put a listing in the Stanwoodopolis Yellowed Pages and tacked signs on trees all the way down the island. SIESTA MOTEL DE LA SUR 15 MILES. TEN. FIVE. ONE MILE TO SIESTA DE LA SUR! If you know where to look you can still see a weathered plywood board being digested by fir bark, maybe a ‘ESTA MO’, or a ‘SI TEL’, or just a mysterioso ‘5’. The four done bedroom cottages fell into disrepair and Bert and Betty fell into heavy drinking and serious debt. They lost the place to the bank and moved away without so much as an adios. Last I heard the old motel was being converted to rent to artists as studios. Most of us already got studios in various stages of disrepair. Still, hope springs eternal down here. Everywhere maybe but the Diner where comedy trumps optimism.