14 minute read
June darling: Play more, live better
Play more — live better and happier
the clock says a bit past midnight, then 2 a.m., then 4.
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What is keeping me awake?
The thought of the legacy I want to leave to my grandkids — meaningful, useful guidance toward living a good life.
It is urgent because my big opportunity for intense generational encounter comes in August. Grand camp.
Grand camp is when my husband, John, and I invite our five grandchildren to come together at our place.
Many logistics are involved, but for me the more important issues are the culture and values we aspire to, the activities we provide, and the examples we set. This year, we will put particular emphasis on… play.
According to Dr. Stuart Brown, the founder of the National Institute for Play, play is as important to our health as sleep or what we eat.
Play researchers like Brown, Brian Sutton-Smith, David Elklind, even primatologist Jane Goodall say play is difficult to define, but we all seem to know what it is and why we do it. It can be humor, games, roughhousing, storytelling, art. We do it simply for… fun.
We know how to play. We did it when we were kids. We made forts in the woods, climbed trees, went to sock hops, jumped rope, flew paper gliders, rode horses, played on maypoles, swings, monkey bars, played hide-and-seek, tag.
My family played Rook, John’s Cribbage.
Play? Now? In this complex, competitive, anxious, aggressive world? Exactly.
Brown stumbled on play’s importance after researching the playless childhoods of Recent research has connected play to better brain development and creativity, cognitive flexibility, social and emotional intelligence, an antidote for anxiety and depression, a boost to resilience
murderers. Recent research has connected play to better brain development and creativity, cognitive flexibility, social and emotional intelligence, an antidote for anxiety and depression, a boost to resilience. Play even seems to slow neurodegeneration.
John does roughhouse with the grandkids, mostly because he cannot avoid it. The moment he lays down on the floor, they come out of the woodwork to roll around.
Brown reminds us that there are many forms of play. According to him, we, do however, tend to have play personalities, certain ways of playing that we consistently prefer.
The Jokers love silliness — telling jokes, being goofy, playing pranks. The Kinesthetes love dancing, hiking, running — moving their bodies. The Explorers love visiting new places, learning new ideas.
The Competitors love to play (and win) organized sports and games. The Directors like to plan and make things happen. The Collectors like collecting sports cards or sea glass, or visiting all the national parks for example.
The Artists love creating and building, painting, photography, carpentry. The Storytellers love reading, theatre, writing stories, reading fiction.
Thinking about these various play personas may help us expand our ideas of how play can look for us. It is not intended to box in our fun, but rather to give us some insight into those parts of us which may be playful in different ways.
If we are still lost about how to go about playing, Brown advises that we think about what we liked to do as kids and think how we might do some form of that play today.
John biked and skied a lot. He can still do that.
August is the perfect month for PLAYING with grandkids, prioritizing play, remembering how we played as a child and bringing more of that play back into our lives.
And for a little more adventure and PLAY, we might try out another play personality.
I am guessing my dominant play personality is storyteller, but Brown recommends that we all do some play that involves moving our bodies.
Since John is a kinesthete and enjoyed biking as a kid, we decided to buy the electric-assist, Rad bikes. I would normally not be able to bike as far and as fast, but with the electric assist bikes I can.
It is a play stretch for me. But as I consider how I want to be a good role-model for my grandkids and keep my own brain and body active, I shove myself out the door to bike in our spectacular Wenatchee Valley.
If you need more prodding for yourself or research to show to your adult children (and their kids’ teachers!) who prefer more work and less play, then:
Read or recommend Stuart Brown’s book, Play. You can also hear Brown on TED talks. Or google PlayCore and read his blogs.
Watch the PBS clips of The Promise of Play on YouTube.
Simply observe children and small primates playing; researchers say it might stir up your play juices.
Play researchers tell us as life becomes more complicated, we must be more vigilant to include play… because we need the kinds of smart, creative, thoughtful, both tough and sensitive kids play produces.
We need older people who are smart, creative, thoughtful, both tough and sensitive too!
How might you move up to The Good Life by playing?
June Darling, Ph.D. can be contacted at drjunedarling1@gmail.com; website: www.summitgroupresources. com. Her bio and many of her books can be found at amazon.com/author/ junedarling.
What Are You Laughing At?
We’re looking for fresh, true stories from local people that’ll bring a chuckle to our readers.
Limit yourself to 500 to 1,000 words and send to: editor@ncwgoodlife.com
Bluegrass’ Chuck Egner
by susan lagsdin
the bluegrass music he’s best known for didn’t come naturally, or early, to Leavenworth’s Chuck Egner.
Both his parents were music professors, and he grew up in the South with deep family roots in Memphis, but he doesn’t trace his love of that sound to familial or geographical DNA.
Not at all, he explained.
He’d switched from music lessons to football by junior high and was a rock ’n’ roller at heart, but in the late ’70s he was making flight simulators for the Navy and, “In our shop the senior guy got to choose the tunes, and our guy liked bluegrass. In six months, I could tolerate it.” He added, “But in a year I was seeking out bars where they played it.”
Since he moved to Leavenworth, local folks who love the twang and croon of that distinctive mountain sound have been seeking out Chuck, whether they need a fill-in bass, a raucous jam session to lift their hearts, an evening’s immersion in an American tradition or a professional sound recording. (They may seek him out now to buy the last remaining press and bottling of ‘37 Cellars wine, but that’s another story.)
That U.S. Navy experience at Whidbey Island gave Chuck a strong foothold on his next job in electronics, and after 20 years parlaying his skill and background and some serendipitous networking into a successful business in Redmond, he and his wife Candace sold the company in 1999 and moved to this area.
They’d spent most weekends at their vacation home in Plain and briefly moved in fulltime, but they became full-fledged Leavenworth locals when in 2003 they partnered with Chuck’s brother-in-law in a winery and purchased a house high above East Leavenworth Road.
By the time the Egners moved to Leavenworth, bluegrass was in his blood, and at 48 Chuck finally found his musical métier and started strumming in earnest.
He co-owned the Hi-Strung music store downtown and easily made connections with the Cashmere Coffee House and the Wenatchee River Bluegrass Festival and others, hobnobbing and plucking with some of his favorite visiting and hometown artists.
Originally a guitar aficionado, he said he immediately felt outgunned jamming with other guitarists and switched to the midsized bass violin that’s become his signature sound, a simple warm tone that Chuck feels adds depth to any piece of music.
However, he said, “I can play guitar well enough to switch off and give the others a break,” he said. “Besides, sometimes we need another vocalist, and I never did learn to sing and play bass at the same time.”
Chuck’s deep, resonant speaking voice transforms to a higher, plaintive Appala-
If you like bluegrass music, you’ve probably seen this big smile from Leavenworth’s Chuck Egner, and you’ve appreciated the deep warm sound his bass violin strumming brings to any song. An eager latecomer to both the genre and the instrument, Chuck has used the last 20 years well.
chian sound automatically when he sings traditional tunes; he could have drifted up to the porch from any Carolina holler.
“Bluegrass is country music without electricity or drums,” he explained with a grin, “And you generally sing from your heart and through your nose.”
He’s done both, in very good company. He played for 10 years with Dave Notter, Paul O’Donnell, Chris Rader, Jack Tiechner and Bruce McWhirter in the Saddle Rockers, then an overlapping five years in The Chelsea Craven Band with Chelsea Craven, John Meriweather, Justin Carvitto and Cliff Sittman.
Bluegrass music doesn’t always attract mass audiences, and it’s not a hot commercial artform, but the communal pleasure is palpable. Even for a small group, Chuck said, “It’s just more picking and grinning. We’re picking; they’re grinning.”
A turning point in his music life, equally significant to area musicians, was building in 2007 what friends call The Treehouse, a two-level hillside structure literally blasted from rock near the Egner’s home.
With three small rooms at the side that can house traveling musicians or serve as private sound studios, the top story is essentially a large open space adaptable to jam sessions, music recording, wine tastings and performance.
One particular stool and microphone set-up has stood untouched since the COVID shut down, three days before a much-anticipated session with a yodeling duo. Chuck says it’s ready when they are.
The Treehouse is walled with memorabilia: awards, framed photos, playbills, posters, a magazine cover autographed for Chuck by Johnny and June Carter Cash at a chance airport meeting.
Vintage guitars, like an 1885 Martin, two autographed by B.B. King and Bill Monroe, and those made with specialty woods still intrigue Chuck, and he’s displayed about a dozen of his favorites.
Close at hand and often in use are a full-size recording console, his handmade wine-barrel-stave furniture, a few chosen string instruments and a 107-year-old baby grand piano from Candace’s family.
Chuck figures that most of the bluegrass players in north central Washington have played up there at some time, but he’s open to other genre, recalling one cowboy, one classical, and one pop house performance among dozens. A planned August house concert is to feature the fiddler from Lyle Lovett’s band.
Chuck will keep making music, but this season he’s winding down his involvement in one major creative endeavor and stepping into another.
After 16 years, his and his brother-in-law Frank’s awardwinning ’37 Cellars winery is gently closing up. Its press and barrels and packaging have filled the big cool basement level of the Treehouse building; now there are only much-soughtafter boxes of the last bottling.
And this season he’s making a seamless segue into broadcasting as a charter board member of Leavenworth Community Radio, a new web-based station that already has a Facebook and GoFundMe page and 501c3 paperwork in progress.
“On the west side, we and everyone around us were focused on work and careers. Over here there’s a totally different vibe,” Chuck said. “Creative people surround themselves with creative people. It’s a happy circle.” Share January 2020 OPEN FOR FUN AND ADVENTURE Price: $3 CROATIA BY BIKE, BOAT & FOOT Y EVENTS CALENDAR WENATCHEE VALLEY’S NUMBER ONE MAGAZINE Readers share their best days from 2019 — and what good days they were! YOUR STORY
Boat project done — after 17 years
ENJOY A BETTER MARRIAGE Y EVENTS CALENDAR WENATCHEE VALLEY’S NUMBER ONE MAGAZINE
February 2020 OPEN FOR FUN AND ADVENTURE Price: $3
Canoeing the vanishing Arctic
plus WHEN HOLLYWOOD COMES EAST OF THE MOUNTAINS EAST OF THE MOUNTAINS LEO MILLER’S LAKE CHELAN AUTO MUSEUM LEO MILLER’S LAKE CHELAN AUTO MUSEUM BEATING THE BOREDOM OF THE LOCKDOWN WENATCHEE VALLEY’S NUMBER ONE MAGAZINE
June 2020 OPEN FOR FUN AND ADVENTURE Price: $3
FLIPPING over ZambIa Kayaker finds biggest rush on the mighty Zambezi
Goathead warrior Seeking and destroying painful thorn plants
AGING GRACEFULLY WITH DOGS Y EVENTS CALENDAR WENATCHEE VALLEY’S NUMBER ONE MAGAZINE
March 2020 OPEN FOR FUN AND ADVENTURE Price: $3 Coloring the art
scene indoors, outdoors, all around the town
plus WHO NEEDS A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP? YOU DO CHASING THE NOrTHErN LIGHTS
ON A TrAIN
REHABBING A TIRED TRAILER Y FINDING HAPPINESS WENATCHEE VALLEY’S NUMBER ONE MAGAZINE
May 2020 OPEN FOR FUN AND ADVENTURE Price: $3 OPEN FOR FUN AND ADVENTURE
Walking in Wenatchee (But keeping a safe distance, of course)
plus STORIES OF RECOVERY FROM DRUG ADDICTION TO FIND hOpE hIKING ThE WILD SIDE WITh pEN IN hAND
We welcome articles about people from Chelan and Douglas counties!
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Susan Lagsdin reads her work from the Shrub-Steppe Poetry Journal, Spring 2021 issue. Susan Blair opening the launch party at Pybus Market.
Poetry is hot in Central Washington
by susan blair and susan sampson
If you think poetry is just for ancient aristocrats holed up in dusty libraries, think again. Think, The Shrub-Steppe Poetry Journal. The third edition of The Shrub-Steppe Poetry Journal is hot off the press. To celebrate, the June launch party was held in the Board Room at Pybus Market in Wenatchee.
Poets from Yakima, Ellensburg, Roslyn, East Wenatchee and Wenatchee read their work, caught up with friends and sampled delicious treats from Café Columbia. Inside, the view of local artists’ work complemented the view of the Columbia River sparkling in the sun. (There’s probably a poem in that.) The Journal is the brainchild of Susan Blair of Wenatchee.
Over breakfast one morning with fellow poets, she went down the list: Yakima has its Coffeehouse Poets, with its open mics and annual contest; Tieton, near Yakima, has LiTFUSE, an annual weekend-long poetry workshop; Ellensburg has its annual Inland Poetry Prowl; Twisp has its Confluence Poets; even Roslyn has a strong group of poets.
What about Wenatchee?
Paraphrasing the poet Adrienne Rich, Susan said she heard a silence that needed to be broken. She decided to create a print publication to showcase the talents of Central Washing-
two cats
Two cats twined together, they sleep near the woodstove, eight legs, two heads, and one heap of black and white fur— utter abandon in sleep, trusting the world to be the world their senses — Merry Roy
A poem from the Cats and Dogs Reigning collection
ton poets, the first of its kind. She recruited a staff of volunteers. Retired journalist, poet and president of the Yakima Coffeehouse Poets Ed Stover agreed to serve as assistant editor. Susan Sampson put on her retired lawyer hat and helped organize the SSPJ as a non-profit
Susan Blair wore her grandmother’s very festive Rhinestone necklace to the launch party.
organization, also donning the hat of assistant editor.
Bruce McCammon, who says he loves to tinker with computer software, agreed to lay out the book (using InDesign and then Affinity). Pictures by local
