The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I’m going up to Stanwoodopolis tonight to listen to our state park folks tell us commoners why they closed down the Cama Beach cabins half a year ago and what their plans for this park’s future are. A lot of folks volunteered time and money for this park and I’m betting they’re coming with questions and pitchforks. The Wooden Boat Foundation closed down its operation there and the ranger, Jeff Wheeler, was unceremoniously booted out too. Jeff was much beloved by us islanders, a hands-on, all around good guy. Maybe tonight they’ll tell us why he was sacked. But I doubt it.

In 1949 we islanders built Camano State Park, about 1000 people who showed up with tractors and dozers, shovels and saws, all volunteers who cleared the road and set up the beginnings of our only state park. Cama Beach was donated by the Hamalaanens and Worthingtons, some 600 acres or more along with the old resort cabins and the boat house. Once again volunteers helped repair the cabins, open up and manage the store, clear trails, make quilts for every cabin, drive the shuttles, a lot of those jobs state parks claims not to have the money for.

So for months state parks has kept mum about why they closed the park. Rumors flew. Indian bones, broken septic, damaged seawall, fire suppression breakdown in the boathouse. Guess they didn’t figure we needed any solid explanations. Now they have this meeting, basically to explain to us peasants why they won’t be reopening our park but of course to get ‘public input’. I suspect they will get plenty of public input tonight. Then they’ll go back to Olympia and do what they wanted in the first place. Always nice to see volunteerism rewarded….

We were down at the Columbia Gorge trailhead last year, emptying bladders and filling water bottles. A woman emerged from the restroom and whispered to her companion in a conspiratorial voice, “There’s no flush.” Her friend shook her head in incomprehension. “Not working?” she asked. “No, there’s nothing but a hole.” “A hole?” her friend asked incredulously. “Just a hole in the ground and no flush.”

I felt like a Cro Magnon listening in on aliens from some advanced galaxy. How could they possibly understand my dependence on a polluting gas engine? Or something as totally primitive as a cellphone? These two debutantes had missed their exit, apparently, on the way to the Ritz. A pit toilet was incomprehensible and if it weren’t such a sordid subject matter, it would have made for the nucleus of many a future discussion over bridge and tea at the Country Club. “But where, Charlotte? where does it Go???”

Indeed. Not that our two ladies could answer that question in regard to the plumbing matrix from their Beverly Hills manse to the sewer system it connects to. What matters is that it be whisked away, out of sight, out of smell. We don’t know how things work anymore — but so long as they do, we don’t need to care. The world is less and less natural to us; it’s electrons and silicon, computerized and digitized, all packaged in Black Boxes that create the new universe.

The trouble is, Charlotte, we’re still of the natural world. Body functions, pheromones, appetites, all that genetic coding of mammalian evolution in a world that’s more and more alien to us. We’ll fix that eventually. We’ll adapt to the virtual world, the one we make not so much in our own image as a clever cyber image. The natural stuff will be obsolete soon and we’ll replace the old ‘parts’ with new and improved engineered ones. The robots aren’t going to take over us humans. Us humans are going to become cyborgs.

And Charlotte, the best part is you won’t need a flush. Or a toilet either.

This spring I built a greenhouse with about 14 old tempered glass door panels I had salvaged long long ago. Treated lumber framing and cedar siding, but mostly glass. Even had stained glass in the front door and two next to that plus another two in the back. Put a 55 gallon black barrel and concrete pavers to radiate heat at night.

The first spring day that hit 70 degrees, the greenhouse hit 90. What, I wondered, would happen when we hit 80 or more? I’m growing tomatoes and a few exotics in there, probably loved that 90 degree heat but I was betting they wouldn’t like Saudi Arabia temperatures. So I cut two large windows in the back opposite the front door to let heat out both ends. This week we hit the mid 80’s outside and the greenhouse hit 105.

Course, I panicked and bought sunblocking screens for the glass roof and got that attached. Next day we hit 89 outside and the hothouse was 107. Not exactly sure at what temperature green tomatoes roast on the vine, I ordered a solar powered exhaust fan. If that doesn’t work, I’ll order a second one.

Inside the greenhouse my tomatoes are 5 feet tall while the ones I planted outside from the same seed are spindly still, just beginning to realize summer is definitely here, but cold at night. The difference between the two is astounding. I recommend a small greenhouse to anyone who still pooh-poohs climate change, still thinks we ought to drive large SUV’s and wants to drill baby drill for more oil and gas. Death Valley broke its all time heat record this week and cities from Las Vegas to Miami are burning hot while the summer’s just begun.

I may or may not solve my greenhouse overheating problem. Bad planning on my part. There won’t be any exhaust fans for Mother Earth when us tomatoes begin to fry on our vines. No sun blocking shrouds, no good fixes. Just bad gardeners, when all is said and done.

I went to apply for my State Park Annual Permit yesterday, what used to be free to us citizens, but now costs us taxpayers because the State doesn’t have enough tax dollars for what it used to have enough for so the budget needs to be balanced. Now the poor can pay what the guy launching his 25 foot Bayliner pays for a permit, same way he does at the gas station for the gas tax, same as he does at the drug store, same as he does just about everywhere he buys something. This is what we call Recessive Taxation. No breaks for the indigent. You know, folks we now refer to as Takers.

Big break for the wealthy. Evens the playing field … for somebody. I’m not so poor anymore. Maybe I should harden my heart, take up polo, spend my days investing on the stock market and figure I got mine, those who don’t, well, they probably didn’t work hard or make the right decisions. Plenty of em down here on the South End living on the wrong side of the road. Probably LIKE poverty. Got what they deserved for not going to college or working at Boeing or being born white or male.

So I go online for my permit cause I can afford a computer and DSL. Good website, easy navigation, sign me right up! I notice, though, if I apply online, it costs $5 more. And I remember the same thing happened on my vehicle licenses. They want me to go through a private vendor, see? Job creation. Get rid of that state job which, apparently, isn’t as valuable a job as a private one and now we pay less taxes, right? Sure … Course, I gotta pay it privately now. Kind of like saving money on garbage pickup in the city. Turn it over to Waste Management, your taxes go down. But you gotta pay Waste Management now. Costs more since they don’t have much competition. But at least you’re not paying more in taxes. It’s a little like contract soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Better, I hear, to pay double or triple pay for Blackwater Boyz than to recruit more volunteers or God forbid, draft kids to fight our wars!

I sure don’t want to pay more taxes. Neither does Boeing. Or Amazon. Or Weyerhauser. Or Cabelas. I guess why we give em huge tax breaks. Sure glad taxes aren’t going toward helping out our State Parks. And that extra 15% to give the private sector a piece of the pie, well, at least it won’t raise my taxes. And the poor. Let em eat cake. But I don’t recommend they order their bakery online.