Living on the Peninsula, Spring 2012 by Sequim Gazette

SPRING 2012

A DAY IN THE LIFE ... Pg. 10

Inventor Goodness in Creating Goodness

Pg. 19

West End Loggers

Pg. 22

KSQM - The Voice of Sequim

Pg. 26

Patrolling our Nation's Borders

Pg. 28

Horse Trainer Miracles Can Happen

Pg. 30 Supplement the Sequim Gazette and Port Townsend2012 & Jefferson County Leader LIVING ON THEtoPENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH

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LIVING ON THE PENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH 2012

22 24

DEPARTMENTS 8 13

Spring Recreation Gray Wolf Trail wanderings

Food & Spirits Salmon Pineapple Curry

Heart & Soul P.S. – I ate the pie

Gardening 24 Good Heartspace

41 The Living End Observe and Report

42 Now & Then

Photographic journal

SPOTLIGHT 10

Goodness in creating things for good

Miracles Can Happen

A guide through life's last journey

Nurturing students, nurtured by the land

West End logger

32 35 40

Treasures with a West End flavor

KSQM - The Voice of Sequim

Patrolling the nation’s borders

A Day in the Life of a Horse Trainer

A black & white kind of day Bucket List A majestic bull elk grazes in the highlands of Happy Valley south of Sequim. Photo by Jay Cline

LIVING ON THE PENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH 2012

Contributors PPatricia Morrison Coate

Karen Frank

Ashley Miller

Pat is the award-winning editor of Living on the Peninsula magazine. She has been a journalist since 1989 and earned degrees in Spanish from Eastern Michigan University and Indiana University. She joined the Sequim Gazette in 2004 as its special sections editor and can be reached at patc@sequimgazette.com.

Karen received her master’s degree in transforming spirituality from Seattle University. She is a writer and spiritual director in Port Townsend. Reach her at karenanddana1@q.com or www.yourlifeassacredstory.org.

Ashley is a former Sequim Gazette reporter and now is a freelance writer with a journalism degree from Washington State University. She’s a stay-at-home mother of two energetic young boys. Contact her at ashley.lavon@gmail.com.

Jay Cline Jay started as an apprentice printer for a Midwest newspaper in the mid1970s and has worked for newspapers on the North Olympic Peninsula over 30 years. He is now the computer technician/graphic designer for the Sequim Gazette and plays with cameras in his spare time.

Chris Cook Chris is the editor and publisher of the Forks Forum and a resident of Forks. He is the author of “The Kauai Movie Book” and other regional bestsellers in Hawaii. His book “Twilight Territory: A Fan’s Guide to Forks and LaPush” was published in May 2009. Cook is a graduate of the University of Hawaii.

Mark Couhig Mark's 35-year career in the writing game has included stints as a reporter, freelance writer, PR flack, editor and publisher. The New Orleans native arrived in Sequim in 2010 and is still wondering what he has gotten himself into. If you know, please drop him a line at mcouhig@sequimgazette.com.

Beverly Hoffman Beverly writes a gardening column for the Sequim Gazette that appears once a month. She is an enthusiastic longtime gardener. She can be reached via e-mail at columnists@sequim gazette.com.

Elizabeth Kelly Elizabeth has lived on the Olympic Peninsula nearly a dozen years. She has worked for three newspapers as a reporter and freelance writer. She also worked as a technical writer. She has traveled to all seven continents and continues to be curious about the world around her.

Kelly McKillip Kelly has a bachelor’s degree in biology from Marylhurst College in Oregon and a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Hayward State University in California. She works as a nurse at Olympic Medical Center and volunteers at The Dungeness Valley Health and Wellness Clinic.

Mary Powell Mary is the former editor of the Sequim Gazette. She worked in the newspaper industry for nearly 20 years, was an education reporter and also the editor for the Columbia Basin Herald in Moses Lake. She has won several journalism awards, most for editorial writing. Now semiretired, she volunteers for several local organizations and enjoys an occasional freelance assignment.

Lon Zimmerman Lon is a retired secondary science teacher from Alaska, where he and his wife, Joan, lived for 35 years. They relocated to Port Townsend where his passions are boats, books and the blues.

Cathy Clark 226 Adams St., Port Townsend, WA 98368 360-385-2900 Fred Obee: fobee@ptleader.com

Leif was an award-winning reporter and hiking columnist with the Sequim Gazette from 2003-2006. He has a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is the editor and general manager of the Vidette in Montesano.

Design:

Leif Nesheim

Cathy earned a bachelor’s degree in art from Calvin College, which led to a career in advertising design. She has been an award-winning graphic designer for the Sequim Gazette since 2004. She enjoys traveling and reading history in her free time. Clark can be reached at cclark@ sequimgazette.com.

LIVING ON THE PENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH 2012

Spring RECREATION

Gray Wolf Trail wanderings Story and photos by Leif Nesheim

iking guides, Forest Service literature and online trail reports all reference the “old” and “new” trailheads for the Gray Wolf Trail. However, the miles given disagree with each other, road markers and my odometer. I rather easily found the signed trailhead (I’d been there before) but as it was actually 6.3 miles from Lost Mountain Road (instead of the 5.3 miles the Forest Service trail guide describes or the 6 miles on the sign at the juncture with FS 2875 a mile onto Slab Camp Road-FS 2870), I wasn’t sure if this was considered the “old” or the “new” trailhead. I hiked it in 2004. Maybe there was a new trailhead a mile west of this location, as the park literature describes. Nope. I decided not to bother with finding out where I was and just hike the darn trail.

rejoins the main Gray Wolf Trail. (I should have gone right). Soon after this juncture, the trail descends to the river below. The water’s rush grew louder as I neared the river. Soon the trail reaches the river’s moss-bouldered shore near Two Mile Camp (I think). The route traversed alongside the river through a deep forest of fir and hemlock, dark in the shadows of the basalt gorge through which the crystalline water tumbles over rounded boulders in a mad torrent.

Quite a view

About 1.5 miles in, the trail enters the Buckhorn Wilderness (near the camp). The trail was covered in ankle-deep water here for a short stretch. After the campsite, there’s a large area of downed trees. After running alongside the river, the trail climbs high again — and presents a dizzying Curious about Cat Creek Gray Wolf Trail The “new” Gray Wolf Trail begins on the view of the gorge and white-capped mounHow long: bed of a former logging road and I trod tains beyond before again dropping to 8.4 miles round trip. upon a blanket of brown leaves. The trail the river. The trail flattens for a bit as it How hard: Moderate. enters a small clearing with a view of heads through stunningly beautiful forHow to get there: Turn south on Taylor Cutoff snow-dusted Maynard Mountain and est giant trees, ferns and large, lichenRoad from U.S. Highway 101, 2.5 miles west of the entrance to the Gray Wolf Canyon. covered rocks. Sequim. At the end of the road (2.7 miles), turn The river lies on the left far below down There’s a second riverside campsite right onto Lost Mountain Road. In 2.5 miles, turn a steep canyon; to the right, the slope here. The trail continues a short disleft on Slab Camp Road (Forest Service Road continues up. tance beyond before a steep scrabble 2870). In about a mile, bear left on FS 2870 After about a half mile of gentle, if up a narrow route clinging to the hillside and drive 5.3 miles to the small trailhead. mildly nondescript walking, there is a that brings scant reward. I stopped after No pass is required to park at the juncture with the Cat Creek Loop Trail. I climbing before reaching the end of the trailhead. Dogs are allowed. road, so to speak (the wayside trail detours hadn’t taken it the first time I’d hiked the trail around a slide before dropping back to river so I decided to take it, as the description I’d read level). The bridge across the river is washed out and online said it was worth the effort. hikers must return. To explore the far side, hikers must use the The loop begins by descending steeply beside narrow Cat Slab Camp Creek Trail. Creek. Then it ends at a T juncture with an unnamed trail. Either this was the old Gray Wolf Trail or the current trail switchbacked. Making friends? Hardly Go left or go right? If I guessed wrong, I’d have to backtrack. I ate lunch at Cliff Camp (the last one before the final climb). I had read nothing about any juncture with the former trail. While I was retying my sandal laces after the scramble back down Apparently some time in the 1990s it was rerouted because of had done a number on my footwear, my dog Dodge decided to slides. The closest thing I got was a reader’s trip report, posted get spooked by a group of five men, who walked into the camplast month, saying that the old trail was still passable. Nobody site. Dodge wouldn’t stop barking. said a thing about the Cat Creek Loop intersecting with the I had to hurriedly finish tying, pack up my lunch and hit the old route. trail. It was rather embarrassing. Second-guessing I took the main trail back rather than the steep Cat Creek I guessed the loop was a shortcut that cut off a switchback Loop. FYI, it’s not as scenic nor as steep so my recommendation and headed left. I doubted my decision almost immediately. The is to hike the Cat Creek Loop (don’t forget to turn right) on your river far below seemed to be staying on my right side much too way upstream and return via the Gray Wolf Trail. long with no hint that the trail would turn around or head down After reaching the car, I drove a mile east to find the old toward it any time soon. trailhead. Apparently it’s just west of the bridge across the river I saw signs that other hikers had passed by (tracks in the beside a large gravel parking area. Several men were target shootmud) so I kept going for a bit further until an overlook allowed ing there so I departed without snooping for the actual trail itself. me to see all the way down to the river below: no switchback. The second rule of safe forest travel: Don’t disturb men with guns Apparently I had stumbled onto the old route. That would mean when unarmed and alone. that the trailhead I had started on was the “new” one despite not Leif Nesheim is an award-winning hiking columnist, former matching with Forest Service literature mile descriptions. Sequim Gazette reporter and editor/general manager of The Vidette I headed back. Eventually I came to where the Cat Creek Loop in Montesano. He can be reached at lnesheim@hotmail.com. Top left: The “new” start of the Gray Wolf Trail offers a view of Maynard Mountain. Middle: The Gray Wolf River rounds a rocky bend near Cliff Camp. Bottom: The Gray Wolf River courses over boulders near Cliff Camp.

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LIVING ON THE PENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH 2012

Goodness in creating things for Story and photos by Viviann Kuehl

igh above Discovery Bay, looking out toward the Olympics, Gary McLuen works on very advanced machinery in a small shop. McLuen’s day is a reflection of his life. “It’s been a long, bumpy road to get here,” joked McLuen. His day begins around 8 a.m., with a short 50-yard commute from the home he shares with his wife, a nursing student at Olympic College. Quality of life is important, so the first thing he does every day is run Jake, the wonder dog, and feed “the girls,” his two horses, Rudy and Frosty. Each morning, they wait by the fence for McLuen to drive down and throw hay over the fence with his Bobcat loader. “Horses are a big part of my life,” explains McLuen. When he bought the property 14 years ago, he was looking for a place with a view and enough land to keep horses. “I could walk, with canes, when we moved here,” said McLuen, who was born with a birth defect that began to impact his walking at age 30, and by age 50 made him dependent on canes or wheelchairs. “Now my horses are like a magic carpet that lets me move around on the land,” McLuen notes. Knowing that if he fell off, he couldn’t get back on or walk back, McLuen is cautious and rides several times a week with Kim McGuire, a trainer and riding instructor. Back in the shop, his work has grown out of his life experiences. From an early age, growing up in Renton with his three brothers, McLuen was interested in building things. He took a radio repair night course at Renton Vocational School before he dropped out of high school at 16 to take up what he thought would be a romantic life hopping freights and working as a migrant laborer. “It wasn’t romantic at all,” recalled McLuen. He enjoyed the migrant labor but not the hobo jungles, and after a year and a half, he settled into a series of jobs, working with his hands and engaging his brain as an assembler, a laborer, a typewriter repairman, a machinist. As a machinist at Litton Industries, he worked with engineers who had been educated but had no experience with making things, recalled McLuen.

good

“Often there were problems just with making the parts they wanted and then when I built the machines, they didn’t work anyway. I started to think about better ways to build things,” said McLuen. As a result of his persistence with improvements, his boss promoted him to designer. Doing field service work, installing and repairing computer-controlled equipment in Mexico, Montreal, Canada, Sweden and Germany, as well as in the U.S., McLuen realized that he didn’t have the background knowledge to do what he wanted, so he began taking night school classes to become a mechanical engineer. “I took every math class they had,” said McLuen. “I didn’t like math, but it’s a very useful tool.” In 1992, he started McLuen Design, his own engineering company to design and develop automated equipment and medical devices, with $6,000. He worked for clients in the daytime while working nights on development of a machine to synthesize DNA, which was key to the human genome mapping project that the Berkeley National Lab was working on. “It was stressful, but once you’re into it, you want to get done and be a success,” said McLuen. For two years he persisted and in the end he came up with a machine that for many years was the fastest and most reliable DNA synthesizer in the world. The proceeds from that machine got him his land and his current facility. Today, he’s working

Gary McLuen shows one of his most recent inventions, a spinal fusion cage.

At right: Gary McLuen’s spinal fusion cage and its insertion tool are shown in place on a life-size model of a lumbar vertebrae. The upper vertebra is out of place to reveal the cage.

LIVING LLIIVI VI NNG G OON N TH TTHE HPENINSULA E PE PPENINSULA E NI N I NSU NNSS UL U LA| SPRING | SPRI SSPRING SP PRI R I NG N|G MARCH | M MARCH AARR CCH H 22012 LIVING ON THE 2012

on the next-generation DNA synthesizer, a machine that is four times faster than any other synthesizer on the market today, makes 384 DNA pieces at once and creates smaller pieces of DNA which are cheaper and easier to use with today’s technology. “People are shocked to find that the fastest, most advanced DNA synthesizer in the world is out here in the woods,” said McLuen. This time he’s doing it as a contractor. “It’s too stressful to do on my own,” explains McLuen. “No one wants to buy an idea. They want to see a prototype, have some patent protection and know that it works. It’s somewhat expensive to patent. I had $250,000 into my first DNA synthesizer. Now that there are more people involved, there’s not as much stress.” Back at his shop, working at his computer and with his milling machinery, he has two projects in process. “Usually I just have one project at a time. Two is a lot to juggle and three is too many,” said McLuen. His two current projects are the advanced DNA synthesizer and a spinal fusion cage. The spinal fusion cage is a framework that is fitted between vertebrae to encourage bone to grow between them and thus fuse two vertebrae together. When the vertebrae are fused, then nerves are not pinched by their movement and no pain is generated. McLuen got interested in this project when talking to a neurosurgeon. The challenge was to seat the cage between two vertebrae in the convex open area at the center of the vertebrae. The surrounding ridge of bone ringing the edges of the vertebrae creates a narrow opening, much smaller than the implantation site. Current practice is for a neurosurgeon to take a big hammer and pound the cage into place. Unfortunately, the force required to place the cage also causes trauma to the surrounding tissue, the nerves and muscles, and makes it very hard to place precisely. McLuen has designed and developed a cage with an expanding screw mechanism, made of PEEK plastic, which is FDA-approved for implants, and an insertion device. “It’s fun to work with the team of neurosurgeons and a professor at the University of Washington,” said McLuen. “They have expertise outside of my field. It’s a good opportunity to learn more.” McLuen recently completed a cadaver test of the cage, with the team, which he found a bit disconcerting. “It was a torso, no head, no legs, just lying on a table,” recalled McLuen. Each team member got a chance to insert the device. All but McLuen had worked with cadavers before. “I learned something. The spine is a lot deeper than I thought,” noted McLuen. Waiting for development is a prototype all-terrain wheelchair, perhaps his next project, which can go over soft dirt, logs and other obstacles on his land, but also negotiate curbs for use in urban environments

LIVING ON THE PENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH 2012

Above: Gary McLuen shows Chimacum High School students how to weld repair bracing on school chairs. Student Kyle Cobb, right, has chosen chair repair for his senior project. Nick Conklin, standing, looks on. Below: McLuen and his dog Jake head to work on the world’s fastest and largest DNA synthesizer.

around the world. At around 2 p.m., McLuen heads off for another project, inspired by his own life experience as a teen without direction. He has been active in helping youth with learning projects since 1993. Currently, he is teaching Chimacum High senior Kyle Cobb to weld after school. Cobb’s chosen senior project is to repair the school’s chair desks by welding

reinforcing bars. Back at the shop, McLuen puts in long hours, sometimes seven days a week, depending on the demands of the job, but it’s work he enjoys — and worth it “Most of the stuff I’m working on will help people have better lives.”

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LIVING ON THE PENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH 2012

Salmon Pineapple Curry

FOOD Spirits

The following recipe is a creation of Suree Chommuang, owner and chef at Galare Thai, 120 W. Bell St. in Sequim. Suree invites you to “dine with us here at Galare Thai and travel to my hometown of Chiang Mai without ever having to leave the country.” At Galare Thai, you’ll enjoy an “artful dining experience,” featuring exquisite Thai specialties like grilled wild lobster tail in fresh mango basil cream sauce, Australian lamb satay, fresh young coconut prawn curry and phad thai with tofu. Several vegetarian choices also are included on the diverse menu. You’ll love the authentic Thai decor of Galare Thai, including the “kun toke” or party booth, which comfortably seats 11 people and is available by reservation. Galare Thai is available for private parties and catering. Daily specials are served for lunch and dinner. Galare Thai is open 11 a.m.-3 p.m. for lunch and 4-9 p.m. for dinner Monday-Saturday. Check out the website, featuring the complete menu, at www.galarethai.com. Ingredients: 6-8 ounces wild coho salmon steak Sauce: 1/2 cup coconut milk 1/2 teaspoon red curry (chili, lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves, shallots)

1 teaspoon fish sauce 1/4 cup chopped pineapple 1 teaspoon chopped bell peppers 1 teaspoon basil leaves Pinch of paprika powder

Directions: In a small sauce pan, on medium heat, simmer the sauce ingredients together for five minutes. Grill the salmon on high temperature for less than five minutes. The salmon should be firm, pink and moist. Pour the sauce over the salmon and serve. Best with red wine. Enjoy!

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“ose who have the strength and the love to sit with a dying patient in the silence that goes beyond words will know that this moment is neither frightening nor painful, but a peaceful cessation of the functioning of the body.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

very day that Paula Richter goes to work she knows the odds are high that someone will die. Another mother, father, daughter, son, wife or husband will die with dignity at home and Richter accepts that — it’s been the mission of her job as a nurse with Volunteer Hospice of Clallam County for the past four years. Richter, a registered nurse since 1980, sees serving hospice patients and their families as a privilege. “I’ve always loved the whole concept of death and dying and have been fascinated with people going through that stage of life. I felt that was where I truly belonged and what I’m supposed to do. I love the idea of being able to help families and patients journey through a time when they are very frightened. The whole idea of my being able to go into a home that’s chaotic and upset is to be a calming force to help the individual understand the dying process better.” Richter said when people are fearful about the unknown, the knowledge about the end stages of life she gives them makes them feel powerful and more in control. Sometimes hearing the facts of dying and death makes people less fearful, but not all the time, she said. Founded in 1978 by Rose Crumb in Port Angeles, VHOCC’s initial and ongoing purpose is to provide “compassionate care and support for people in the last phase of an illness or incurable disease so that they might live as fully and comfortably as possible in a home of their choosing.” The nonprofit covers an area from Diamond Point to Joyce and never charges a fee to patients or their families. It does this important work supported by individual and community donations and many volunteers, often those whose loved ones have been recipients of hospice services. The organization has seven hospice nurses, four of whom are full time,

LIVING ON THE PENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH 2012

two admitting nurses and a per diem fill-in nurse. Services are available 24/7 and about 350 patients receive services annually. Patients are admitted to hospice on a physician-referral basis only with an expected prognosis of death within six months, but Richter said some have been under hospice care for two years. Patients and families often are overwhelmed and frozen by a terminal diagnosis and may come to hospice care late in the process, even just a few days before the death. Hospice nurses don’t provide direct nursing care but oversee caregiving, equipment and pain management needs. Richter said physicians “pretty much give us carte blanche to keep patients comfortable.” What’s typical about her workday is – Robert Benchley “first, there’s no typical day,” Richter said. “I try to see four to six patients a day — seven is pushing it — and sometimes it’s only two, depending on what’s going on with them.” A visit can be a 15-minute update or, she said, “I can be chatting with family for two hours discussing what’s going on with Mom, with Dad.” She reviews reports from the overnight on-call nurse on her patients and, she said, “We talk about who is getting closer to dying, who needs equipment and/or prescriptions. Then I start making phone calls and get my schedule of visits laid out — but everything can change in a heartbeat,” Richter said. “I could get paged, I could be running in four different directions or spend the whole time being with a family, answering questions about you-name-it. There’s a lot of variety in the job and there’s always something new to learn. Just when I think I’ve seen it all, there’s always something more going on in people’s lives.” Richter speaks in near-reverential tones about her patients and their families — they are not clients to her, they’re relationships. “I love the fact I can go into people’s homes — it’s such a private space — and I go in and gain their trust and develop this relationship, something most others just don’t have on an everyday basis. It’s a very special relationship and it’s an honor because you really are able to give what they need when faced with their own or their loved one’s mortality,” Richter said. “More times than not, I will get real involved with the family and the patient.” – C.S. Lewis The hospice dynamic encourages its nurses to be themselves, professional yet colored by a human touch. Richter said she’s always considered herself to be straightforward with patients and their families, tossing in a bit of humor to relax ambient tension, and always trying to encourage patients to look for a little shred of good in every situation. “People ask if this is a depressing job. Even though I deal with dying and death on a daily basis, it isn’t something that gets to me because getting them through that journey with understanding is what we’re all about. There have been a lot of people come and go,” Richter said. “Down the road, you can forget their names but you don’t forget their faces.”

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”

Pam Busch, left, and Paula Richter, RN, scan documents in an information packet provided to new patients of Volunteer Hospice of Clallam County. Busch is a longtime volunteer but also received services for her husband and father with VHOCC. Richter has been a hospice nurse for four years. Photo by Patricia Morrison Coate

LIVING ON THE PENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH 2012

The Wigginses were all smiles at a family reunion in July 2011. Clockwise from upper left are siblings Peter and Matthew Wiggins and Pam Busch with their 89-year-old father, Porter Wiggins. Submitted photo

One death with dignity By Patricia Morrison Coate “I took care of my mother during her 10-year illness and with her grew to believe in the importance of dying well. It was very important to her to die at home in bed and we did everything to support her,” said Pam Busch, recalling her mother’s death in 1978. When Pam and her husband, Larry, moved to Sequim in 2001, one of the first things she did was to sign up as a volunteer for Volunteer Hospice of Clallam County. After half a dozen years of helping other families, Pam found her family on the receiving side of hospice services when Larry was dying of cancer. “We went into hospice about four weeks before Larry died in October 2007 and he got a lot of reassurance because the patient is in charge and hospice is self-directed.” About the same time her father, Porter Wiggins, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in e Netherlands, where he’d lived for decades. Even though he was a vigorous man in his mid-80s, “his doctor was disinclined to give him any treatment,” Pam said, so she brought him back to Sequim and he began treatment at Olympic Medical Cancer Center. She described her father as distinguished, cultured and well-educated and the much beloved patriarch of a large extended family. After a family reunion in July 2011, Pam realized this once vibrant man was failing fast and immediately called in VHOCC. “e nursing visits started in earnest and they came every day. Even though I’m a reasonably sophisticated about medical stuﬀ, I was still in a fog in some respects,” Pam said. “e nurses were there as guides, teachers, experts and friends. One of the most important things they gave us was choices and suggestions, for example putting in a catheter to make it more comfortable for Dad. I also called the nurses late at night with questions — that was one of the things I so appreciated having been on the receiving end.” Surrounded by his extended family in the living room of Pam’s home, Porter Wiggins died the way he lived — with dignity — on Aug. 3, 2011. “My father’s dying was a very poignant experience, rich and sad, but that is the nature of life — and death,” Pam said. “At some point we all get to graduate from Earth’s school and go to a better place. But how you make that transition has a lifetime impact.”

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P.S. — I ate the pie I

Byy KKar Karen arren FFra Frank rank nk

n one of the “Sister Act” movies (for which I have an inordinate fondness), Whoopi Goldberg, who is posing as a nun, sings to a classroom of bored music students. Her chant is, “If you want to be someone, if you want to get somewhere, you need to wake up and pay attention.” Waking up and paying attention is at the heart of spiritual life. In a life ruled by habit, I don’t always pay attention to what I really want at this moment. In the morning, I eat cereal and a bagel with apple butter (what about French toast or oatmeal or eggs?). I watch Rachel Maddow comment on the news at 6 p.m. I read every night before I go to sleep. Habit is safe. We all need the comfort of the familiar, of structure that saves us from the exhaustion of endless decision-making. Structure can be a cozy home that allows us to relax and live our daily lives. On the other hand, we can construct an edifice that turns out to be a prison. We thrash around knowing that something is wrong, but struggling to find our way out. Where is out? Do we really want to be free anyway? In a world of endless choices, and endless advice about how to live well, freedom can feel like a burden. Shouldn’t I meditate? How should I meditate? Should I try transcendental meditation? Should I focus on a mantra or just sit in silence with the Great Mystery? I know I should be exercising more. But should I walk for an hour every day or 20 minutes? What about stretching and strengthening and balance exercises? Marianne, my spiritual director, says she only has one real message for people and that is to follow their deepest desires, to do what they love. Even that can lead a person astray. When I was a senior in college, I used to dance and play pool until they closed the Student Union. Then I would go back to the dorm, eat a big meal and read all night, going to the cafeteria for breakfast, then sleeping all day. I only varied my routine to show up the first day of classes, midterms, finals and appointments with independent study advisors. I learned a lot, including how to play pool very well, a skill which I still retain. I did pay attention to what was meaningful to me, to what I loved, which did not include sitting

LIVING ON THE PENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH 2012

HEART Soul through droning lectures containing only material I could read in my textbook. I loved to read. I plowed through Burling Library, studying the history of nonviolence, Soviet socialist-realist literature and its similarities to the Horatio Alger strand of American literature, and burgeoning feminist literature. Yet I still have the nagging thought that what I did was not the “right” way to do college. There are layers of longing, often followed by “shoulds” and “should nots.” I SHOULD NOT, for example, take out that piece of frozen pecan pie, bake it, slather it with caramel sauce and eat it to fortify myself after listening to the State of the Union speech. When wants and should nots smash up against each other — the irresistible force and the immovable object — nothing happens! We stay as frozen as that last piece of pie. My desire for pie was superficial, but still important, because it matters that we are able to identify what we like, want and care about. It all comes down to the search and then trusting in what you find at the end of it. Search through those surface thoughts and feelings until you come to that space that you share only with the Spirit of Life. Listen. A Sacred Voice is calling to you now: – What moves you? – What brings you joy? – What is in your heart of hearts? There always is someone (often yourself) who will talk you out of what you find as central to your existence, to your spiritual quest on this earth. Being an artist — so impractical — or quitting your job to take up farming. If you are not hurting yourself, or anyone else, follow that voice which calls to you when you lie in bed at night unable to sleep. Go to the exact center of the mountains or walk across the United States as a living prayer for peace. As Kabir put it: Wake up, wake up! You have slept millions and millions of years. Why not wake up this morning? Karen Frank is a writer and spiritual director in Port Townsend. You can contact her with questions or feedback at karenanddana1@q.com or go to the website at www.yourlifeassacredstory.org.

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2 1

A Day in the Life of a West End Logger Story by Kassidi Allen and Chris Cook Photos by Kassidi Allen

orks and the West End are home for logger Doug Allen, who graduated from Forks High School in 1986. Doug first went into the woods to work in 1984, working for Dahlgren Logging of Forks, building a fire trail around the perimeter of a logging unit that serves as a buffer in case of forest fire. Many West End loggers follow in the footsteps of their fathers. Doug’s dad, Hobert Allen, also worked in the timber industry and in a shake and shingle mill, cutting yard-wide and yard-high blocks of cedar known in the trade as bolts into shakes and shingles. Doug has logged, too, with his late father-in-law, Richard Baker, and Richard’s sons and his daughter, Doug’s wife, Shannon. “I partnered with my father-in-law and brothers-in-law in 1992, logging in Eastern Washington in the Republic area until 1996 when my father-in-law passed away and I took over the family business and moved back to Forks in 1997. I continued on my own until eventually going to work for Dahlgren Logging.” “After graduation I went to work in the brush as a choker setter and a chaser, then worked my way up the ladder, pulling riggin’, tended hook, cut trees, and eventually found my way up to a piece of machinery,” Doug recalls. For those outside the loggers’ circle of fellow loggers, family and friends, this means Doug started at the bottom of the totem pole, wrapping a thick metal cable around the trunk of a fallen tree and hitching the “choker” together so the tree could be hauled away from where it was felled. A chaser works at the “landing”, where the logs are sorted and loaded unto log trucks.

4 5

Clockwise, from top left: 1. Doug Allen fills a thermos with coffee at 3 a.m. to get him on the road for a 90-minute commute. 2. Jeremy Baker (left), Doug Allen’s brother-in-law, and Doug Allen change hydraulic hoses on the Madill boom that is used to clutch and move logs. 3. Doug Allen’s Madill shovel with a new tong-throwing head attached. The head replaces a cumbersome tower setup, minimizing crew and equipment. The operator throws chokers attached to lines down to the crew and they can be thrown a distance farther than a football field’s length. 4. Dahlgren Logging’s unit on a hillside off the Hoko-Ozette road west of Sekiu where Doug Allen works moving logs. 5. Doug Allen moves logs attached to chokers sent up to the landing. The logs will be stacked, sorted and ready to load on logging trucks. The logging trucks take the fallen timber to a mill to be turned into lumber.

LIVING ON THE PENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH 2012

The chaser cuts the limbs off and cuts the logs to length to be loaded evenly on a log truck. A “riggin’ slinger” is the worker who lays out the unit of a forest that’s to be logged. He sets up a metal tower that sends out lines. Huge metal rolling drums are attached to the cables and logs are attached to the drums to move them from hillsides below the tower up to the landing. A “hook tender” is like a foreman; he oversees the site and the crew and the layout of how they will log the section. He wears a “talkie-tooter” horn on his belt to communicate with a loud series of tone signals using something like Morse code so he can be heard faraway and above the loud sound of machinery. The main signal tells the man in the cab of a machine if he needs to let out line or to tighten up the slack, when logs are being set to be hauled up to the landing. The talkie-tooter plays a happy tune to signal the end of a long logging day, a welcome sound to these hard workers. The noise box also is used to signal emergencies or alert the men of an injury. Cutting trees is the work of a timber feller who uses a chain saw. The best job, it is said, is running the heavy equipment, sitting inside a heated or air-conditioned cab. Among the heavy equipment used in logging is a log loader that has a big a claw known as a grapple to clutch the log and move it off the landing and onto a logging truck or pick up a log out of the brush and move it up to the landing. Another machine is known as a timber buncher that an operator can use to cut a whole unit of logs without the operator getting out of the cab. A logger’s day begins about the same time a late night ends for a city dweller. Doug rises at 2:30 a.m. to prepare for a long day at a logging unit where he again works for his first employer, Dahlgren Logging. “My favorite part of the job is being in the outdoors, getting to see the wildlife and the beauty there,” Doug says. “The worst part of the job is the long hours and the weather. The alarm goes off at 2:30 a.m. I get up, get dressed and put together a lunch and coffee for a long day. I stop in at the local Shell station for a refill and I’m on my way out of town by 3 a.m.” “On the average it is usually an hour’s drive one way to work, that’s usually on the pavement. The rest is graveled logging roads. I arrive around 4:30-4:45 a.m. I check the oil and warm my machine (a 4800 Madill). Log trucks are usually there waiting on me by the time my machine is warmed up by 5 a.m. “I start loading trucks by 5 and usually don’t stop until about 10 a.m. It is non-stop trucks for a good four to five hours. The average truck load takes about 10-15 minutes, depending on the wood size. Depending on the destination of where I have sent my first round of trucks, I usually have enough time to go into the brush and yard more wood 7 to the landing to sort and stack according to destination, before the second round of trucks get back,” Doug explained. “I usually have around five to 10 sorts of wood — different sizes and species — usually with all different destinations. (There’s) lots of stress. The first round of trucks are normally back within a few hours, so that gives me a little logging time or mechanic time. This is the repeating cycle all day long until all trucks have been loaded two and three times. When all the trucks have left the landing and I have logged enough wood to load my first round of trucks in the (next) morning, then my day is nearly over,” Doug said. “I do maintenance on my machine, shut down and head for town. It’s a long hour’s drive home, then to the shop to repair hoses if necessary, get oil, fuel, grease, and turn in time. “I’m usually home around 6 p.m. I shower, eat some dinner and head for bed to get a few hours of sleep before the alarm goes off again.”

At left, from top: 6. Doug Allen uses the grapples to bring brush to the landing. The brush might slide downhill, injuring loggers setting chokers below. 7. Doug Allen, left, and Jeremy Baker put chokers back on the tong thrower line. Roscoe the black lab was with them this day for company. 8. The view from inside Doug Allen’s Madill cab looking out toward the landing. Allen is pictured doing maintenance on the boom of the logging shovel machine. The Madill company was founded by a blacksmith in 1911 in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island.

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A d ay in t he l if e of

The Voice of Sequim Story and photos bby Kell Stor Kelly McKillip

day in the life of KSQM radio station is not just a day but a 24/7 effort by the largest and possibly most dedicated volunteer staff in the county. Visiting the station is an experience in the power of a positive community of individuals from a multitude of backgrounds working toward a goal they believe in and enjoy. General manager and former Sequim Police Chief Bob Spinks says the story of KSQM began as the dream of retired Naval Cmdr. Rick Perry. Although Perry wanted to start a commercial station initially, he retooled the vision using his own resources, to create a nonprofit voice for the community. Due to the proximity of Sequim to Canada and mountains of U.S. governmental red tape, it took four years of effort to air the station’s first broadcast on Dec. 7, 2008. Since that day, the station’s programming continues to grow and evolve. Perry stepped down in 2011 leaving the operation of KSQM in the hands of the Sequim Community Broadcasting Board of Directors. Although KSQM’s daily Bob Massey, bill of fare is nostalgic who hosts the music, education and 9 a.m.-noon general information, show at the no. 1 purpose KSQM, of the station is to holds the broadcast informaGolden Mic tion in an emerAward he gency. When other received in lines of communi2010. cation fail due to natural or

man-made disasters, the two backup generators of 91.5 FM will provide ongoing service as the Emergency Alert System for the community. Weekday activities begin early at KSQM with the 6 a.m. arrival of the senior staff writer, Mark Caughay, who prepares the news, travel advisories, weather bulletins, school reports and public service announcements for the morning DJs. A retired city planner from California, Caughay has been with the station for two years and in addition to writing for broadcasts, he prepares administrative material and grant applications. Mark Schildknecht, who recently celebrated his 500th show, rises at 4:30 a.m., so he can don the headphones promptly at 7 a.m. for his live broadcast, “Mark in the Morning.” A little over two years ago, Schildknecht came by the station at the invitation of Spinks, said a few words on the air, and although he had no previous broadcasting experience, soon picked up the 7-9 a.m. Monday-Friday slot. Schildknecht hopes his listeners have as much fun as he does. He especially appreciates being able to broadcast all over the world via streaming audio on the Internet. Two loyal, longdistance listeners who have become friends are Frank and Jerrie from Houston, Texas. Schildknecht occasionally plays “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” dedicating the song to his Southern listeners. The early morning DJ winds up the week with his wife, Dianna, joining in the broadcast that has become known as “Fritter Friday,” placing Sequim and those tasty treats on the map as the fritter capital of the world. Nine to noon, Monday-Saturday, Classy Bob Massey takes up the musical score playing oldies from the 1940s-1960s. He has been a radio devotee since his high school days when he set up a broadcasting studio in his parents’ basement. After working as a radio man in World War II, Massey continued his career in Florida and Alaska. He took some time off to work for the postal service but eventually returned to broadcasting. Having been at the station since the first day on the air, he thinks of KSQM as his second home and will do anything in his power to make the station a success. KSQM awarded its dedicated DJ with the Golden Mic Award in 2010. By the time Massey hits the airways, a bustling beehive is likely to be the scene around the rest of the station. Visitors arriving during business hours will encounter one of the friendly receptionists such as retired travel agent Joan Oravetz or Mary Hood who does double duty as a DJ for her Saturday “Anything Goes” show. The already attractive reception area is made more so by KSQM’s biggest fan, Princess Laura, who donates the lovely bouquets of flowers, balloons and goodies in gratitude for the friends at KSQM who have given her a line out when she

Volunteer receptionist, Joan Oravetz (left), and KSQM’s biggest fan and great supporter, Princess Laura, pose by the balloons that Laura donates to brighten up the office.

is too ill to leave home. Spinks will have begun his 12-hour day with the neverending administrative duties required to keep the station afloat. As the former police chief prior to KSQM, Spinks recalls how frustrating it was for him and his fellow safety professionals not to have an immediate way to talk with the population in an emergency. Shortly after the station went on the air, he was on board as a volunteer, not only for the welfare of the community, but for his own mental health. In addition to all the daily duties, Spinks has great visions for KSQM’s future. A vast collection of vinyl and CDs is housed at the station. Spinks hopes to receive a grant to enable the creation of a reference library of music from 1900 on, including Native American songs and stories. He also aspires to have an inventory of music sung by local choirs that will be played on Sunday mornings. Although KSQM always will be a nostalgia oldies station, programming is reviewed every six months and the many talented volunteers are a wellspring of inspiring ideas such as Steve Berg and Lorrie Schmidt’s “Music Train.” The prerecorded show is set on a train pulling out of a station playing songs associated with the various locations. It takes 20 hours to create the one-hour program and about a year to get the minimum of 12 finalized shows needed to start broadcasting. Spinks also hopes to have an open mic for local musicians to record their original music. To add a little variety, three new syndicated programs started in February: “The Vinyl Café,” “Footlight Parade” and Kent State’s “Folk Alley” are short musical features tucked in between local programming. Director of Marketing Jeff Bankston has been a volunteer since the early days and is grateful for a community that sup-

LIVING NG OONN TH THE H E PE PENI PENINSULA NINS NI N UL NS ULAA | SP SPRI SPRING RING NGG | M MARCH ARCC H 2012 AR

ports the station through difficult economic times. He loves music and radio and feels it would be a very sad situation in Sequim without KSQM. He works to find sponsors for the station and the new, stronger transmission tower that will be located on Blue Mountain Road. The improved signal will reach many more listeners, which is critical for KSQM’s role as a member of the Emergency Alert System. The pressure is on as the tower construction must be completed by December 2013 to comply with the federal permit. Former hospice nurse Tama Bankston came to KSQM in March Above: Frank (Rusty) 2009, primarily so she could see a Carr does a little bit little more of her husband, Jeff, who of everything around spends most of his day at the station. the station including She started working at the reception stepping in as the DJ. desk but soon found there was much At right: For great music more to do and stepped into the role of and lively banter tune volunteer coordinator/office admin- into the “Bob and Bob istrator currently managing 115 active Five-0 Radio Show,” volunteers whose ages range from 12- featuring KSQM General 87, mostly retired individuals without Manager Bob Spinks, previous radio experience. left, and Bob Rhodes. Tama Bankston also is an idea Below: DJ Pepper Fisher, person. A couple of her great ideas left, hosts the “House include “Pet Lover’s Weekend,” which of Bamboo” with his is devoted to animal stories, care sidekick, Super Kat, aka tips, adoptions and raising money to Chuck Livingston. assist nonprofit pet organizations. One pound of supplies is donated to the agencies for every $10 received by the station. Four hundred pounds of items were provided during the August 2011 event. Another idea is the “Precious Memories” show, which is aired around every Valentine’s Day and includes recorded stories from listeners about their remembrances relating to a piece of music. Afternoon brings a host of DJs who arrive to entertain and inform. Music lover Dorothy Zapata broadcasts her “Dorothy in the Afternoon” show on Thursdays and Fridays. Retired and looking for something new to do in 2008, she saw an ad for volunteers. Zapata joined the station, planning to set up files but Rick Perry and Jeff Bankston had different ideas and she soon found herself broadcasting. The afternoon DJ is especially partial to the old tunes she heard her mom sing, many of which she uses in her pre-recorded show “Dorothy’s Doo-Wop Drive-in.” She often hears how much the music means to her listeners as well. Zapata has recorded more than 150 programs which air on Saturday nights. As production manager, she trains the new DJs and other staff in the recording studio. Gardeners will appreciate the informative tips on “The Garden Show” recorded by Master Gardeners such as Marilyn Elliott and Florence Larson, airing Friday evenings and repeating Tuesday mornings. Larson, who is in charge of the show, puts down her trowel for a while on Tuesday afternoons to be a DJ for the “Go with Flo” show. The sun may go down but the energy remains high when the early evening personalities enter the broadcasting booth. Music that edges toward the 1970s, lively banter and commentary can be counted from Bob Spinks and Bob Rhoads during the new “Five-0 Bob and Bob Radio Show.” The day I visited, Super Kat, aka Chuck Livingston, was on hand as sidekick DJ for Pepper Fisher’s early evening offering, “The House of Bamboo,” which features a variety of Vegas lounge sounds, Motown and surf guitar. A radio professional, Fisher graduated from the Ron Bailey School of Broadcasting and worked in commercial radio all over the country for seven years until the stress was unbearable. Moving to Sequim with his wife a few years ago, Fisher spends his days as a hardscape contractor and builder of Old West-style furniture. Hearing that a community radio station was beginning in December 2008, the former pro appeared at the door willing to do anything to be a part of the effort. A screwdriver

LIVING ON THE PENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH 2012

was handed to him and he began assembling equipment for the fledgling station. During the later evening you may tune into hear Art Moore, who also built the tower replica outside the station, Dave Grilley and Frank (Rusty) Carr ending the live broadcasting day with some jazzy folk and easy-listening music. Anytime day and night, an engineer might be stringing new cable across the floor, someone updating plans for a fundraising event, editing a clip or reformatting community announcements. Carr does a little bit of everything around the station including sitting in for tardy DJs. Life coach and community theater actress Marie O’Neill takes off a few hours from her day job each week to volunteer as the entertainment editor. Known as the Jam Lady, because of the homemade preserves she brings in, Cherie Santos is the KSQM Girl Friday. Santos comes to the station with a rich and varied background and may be found writing and editing the newsletter, helping at the front desk, doing PR, monitoring items sold at CafePress, organizing events, buying auction items, doing office work and whatever else needs to be done to keep the station humming. She’s on the lookout for locally made items for merchandising. Mojo, the station’s mini-mascot and the Bankstons’ pet pomeranian, is the four-legged member of the greeting committee. Sequim weather updates are heard throughout the day at 15 minutes past the hour followed by national weather at 15 minutes before the hour. Ferry and road information is broadcast as needed. Three times daily, Marie Oakely offers the “Senior Report,” which includes the Sequim Senior Activity Center daily activities roster and member birthday wishes. Noncommercial sound bites from businesses and foundations that support the station also are aired throughout the day. Prerecorded programming fills the late night and very early morning time although occasionally a DJ will pop in during the wee hours and someone always is on hand during emergency situations. Community radio is foremost about the community. The station provides a lost pet service to anyone missing or finding a furry friend. Birthday wishes are expressed and local events announced. Of course, song requests are taken. During Fisher’s show, 14-year-old, Sequim Middle School student Bailey Bryan was hustled out to her car by basketball teammates to listen to the premier broadcast of her song “OK. Go!”, which she wrote and performed. At the DJ’s invitation and with the school’s permission, the gym-attired girls poured into the KSQM station to celebrate the event on the air. A young lady called in to the “Five-0 Show” to request a Glen Campbell tune for her great-grandmother. Later, somewhat surprisingly, Sheriff Bill Benedict requested, Eric Clapton’s “I Shot the Sheriff.” One day is not enough to appreciate the many great people and programs at KSQM. But what is obvious is the absolute sincerity of the volunteers who clearly have a great deal of fun despite the relentless demands of the job. KSQM welcomes visitors and volunteers. Stop by the station in Kite Girl Plaza, 577C W. Washington St. during business hours 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday or call 681-0000. Visit on the web at www. KSQMfm.org to view the broadcasting schedule, learn more about the station and your favorite personalities, listen live via streaming audio and shop for KSQM merchandise. For updates during emergencies, tune into 91.5FM for up-to-the-minute information. KSQM is a (501)(c)(3) nonprofit corporation. Donations and underwriters are much needed and appreciated.

DJ for the “Go with Flo Show” and Master Gardener Florence Larson records clips for “The Garden Show” which features timely gardening tips.

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GOOD Gardening

Heartspace By Beverly Hoffman • Photos by David Godfrey

Above: The view from the master bathroom looks out across this water feature to the enclosed lawn and garden. Below: An arbor frames a mountain view and creates a transition from the sedum beds in the south to the lawn in the east.

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In the Port Townsend home of Dennis McDaniel and True Heart that overlooks the Cascades to the east and the Olympics to the west, three massive paintings hang on the living room wall. Each is painted by Maulsby Kimball, one of Dennis’ most influential teachers. Each is a depiction of “Spirit,” with colors and energy that show vitality and life. The paintings seem to be a metaphor for this artist couple who have transformed three acres, through their energy and artistry, into a space where the outdoors and the inside of the home open up to each other and then interplay off one another. The living room, with its sitting area around a fireplace made of white ceramic tiles the couple made in their ceramic kiln, opens to a cemented patio, handcrafted by Dennis to suggest swirls of a sandy beach, where a curved bench invites a dozen or so people to relax around a gas-lit fire pit. Throughout the home, the couple has framed a continual juxtaposition of an outdoor-indoor concept. In their master bedroom, the hidden bathroom shower opens to an exterior glass door with a view of a burbling low waterfall. In the other bedroom, an outdoor enclosed wall provides a meditative mini-garden for the sitting area. Dennis and True, both 71 years young, met seven years ago. Dennis was visiting the Mount Shasta area where he noted a ceramics show at True’s art gallery. They met, and through conversations and her delivery of a Shamanic mask (that he actually had dreamed about) to him, their relationship solidified. Four years ago they bought their property. Then a year-and-a-half ago, they built their home and recently finished landscaping their gardens. In between the constant projects they designed and built, True dealt with ovarian cancer. As a couple they treated the illness just as they do everything — an artistic adventure. To True’s bald head, Dennis applied body paint, a phoenix rising that covered her perfectly bald canvas. Their life is about awakening to the inner life, to be conduits to the creativity within. As they age, they guard against too much carefulness, and, instead see themselves on a sashay through Bold Street. Their wish is to both inspire and to share their life and home with others … maybe even to open it up to several small weddings each year. Their home is filled with

treasures they have collected over the years, such as the pre-Korean War Murano glass that belonged to Dennis‘ father, plus pieces by local Port Townsend artists, as well as many of their individually crafted art pieces. In their dining room, they worked with wood craftsman Robin McKann, who created a one-of-a-kind table, burled birdseye maple with a darker jarrah wood border that has live edges of the wood on the legs. In their guest bathroom, True worked with her daughter, Linna, a ceramicist from Cleveland, Ohio, who crafted whimsical fish, and then True finished the bathroom with tile she made to create an underwater scene. Outdoors, right outside their master bedroom, is the largest garden area where a pergola made of saltdrenched wood from log booms shades a sitting area where one could read for an entire afternoon. Across from the pergola is a small raised garden punctuated by colored glass art that looks like jesters’ hats. A back wall provides two things — a grounding of the visible garden and a foil for the private meditative garden behind it. On the patio, Dennis has arranged large blown-glass baubles, made by a student of master glass artist Dale Chihuly. In another section of their front garden, Dennis has stacked and scattered some clay balls he crafted, the size of bowling balls. If you picked up one of the globes and shook it, you’d hear a rattle reminiscent of whimsical childish play, an aspect Dennis is trying to incorporate more often into his art. Dennis feels he has been somewhat of a drop-out from the norm. As a Vietnamese and Russian linguist in the Army, his career, he traveled a great deal and learned from many diverse teachers. He was most influenced by Rudolph Steiner, the Austrian philosopher, artist and social reformer who is credited with being the founder of anthroposophy, where the science of Western thought is used to gain clarity within the spiritual experience. Imagination and intuition were two fundamental aspects of anthroposophy, which were Dennis, True and Annie, their 3-year-old Havanese dog.

LIVING ON THE PENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH 2012

At left: The backsplash tiles were made in the owners’ studio, as was the mountain view behind the stovetop. Heartspace will be a host house for the AAUW Kitchen Tour on April 28. Right: The fireplace showcases the owners’ art: their handmade tiles, True’s wood turned bowls and Dennis’ ceramics and paintings. fundamental to one of Steiner’s projects — the first Waldorf schools he established in the early 1900s. Steiner felt art was healing and used Raphael’s Madonnas as particularly useful in healing. Dennis, highly influenced by Steiner, is exploring his next vehicle of art and is considering sound/light/color/and vibration as healing mediums. He is the explorer-learner, which was part of his decision to continue his mentor’s dream, and helped support and build a Waldorf school in Greeley, Colo. True sees herself as a conceptualist, whose personal experiences guide her to a sense of space and design. She works with many materials. She gathered natural objects to create her masks, which she feels are guiding spirits. She has a sense she wants to dabble with felt banners and she assures everyone there will be an element of bling in them. Together, she and Dennis can walk from their home to their art studio, Floworks,

where a drafting table, kiln, easel, tile cutter and tools keep projects simmering. She is walking energy, with ideas that flicker and rise within her. In the garden, True uses soft brush strokes to create a harmonious garden, no hard lines. They have turned Trex decking material on its side to create curved spaces where she has planted a variety of sedums. There is the element of restraint in this section. Near the back wall, however, is the element of excess where a row of peonies blooms in a heady profusion. True and Dennis’ home, named Heartspace, is their offering to others. Their Havanese dog, Annie, shares their home and loves the way she has room to run and play. Their artistry is replete in every part of their home and gardens where warm colors, natural woods and soft edges create a welcoming entrance and a gentle benediction.

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Patrolling the nation’s borders Story by Ashley Miller

he sky is slightly overcast with gray clouds and a distinct chill in the air, reminding everybody that spring still is officially a few weeks away. Dressed in a heavy green uniform with lace-up black boots and a warm jacket, Joe Romero doesn’t let the chilly weather slow him down. Rubbing the top of his shaved bald head with a strong, large palm, Romero smiles and admits that he hasn’t completely adjusted to the climate change from Texas, from where he transferred almost two years ago, to Washington. Romero, who stands well over 6-feet tall, is a supervisory Border Patrol agent. While a portion of his day is spent in the basement of the Richard B. Anderson Federal Building in downtown Port Angeles doing paperwork and making phone calls, the rest is spent in the field. “This is my office,” Romero said, leaning forward against the steering wheel of the white and green 4-by-4 Border Patrol vehicle and motioning toward the highway, back roads and wilderness. “I love my office.” The U.S. Border Patrol is the mobile uniformed law enforcement arm of the Department of Homeland Security. It officially was established on May 28, 1924, by an act of Congress passed in response to increasing illegal immigration. The Border Patrol station in Port Angeles was activated on May 16, 1988. Unofficially, the organization’s presence on the North Olympic Peninsula dates back as far

as the late 1800s when the government employed “Chinese inspectors” in Forks to apprehend illegal aliens working in logging camps. Then, in later years, mounted guards rode over the land in search of liquor smugglers. Romero said he takes pride in the Border Patrol’s extensive history throughout the country and within his own family. In his younger years, Romero rebelled against the idea of following in his family’s footsteps and attended school to become a registered nurse. During clinical examinations, he left nursing school and applied to become a Border Patrol agent. After nearly one year of waiting to get accepted into the training academy and then 2½ months of training similar to military boot camp, Romero passed the mandatory Spanish test and received his first assignment. That was more than six years ago and he’s never once regretted the decision, Romero said. “I get to work with the most dedicated men and women I’ve ever known,” he said. “I’ve seen our people go into situations where other people would run. It takes a special breed to do what we do.” Driving west on U.S. Highway 101, Romero turns on his right blinker and exits onto state Highway 112 toward Forks. It’s routine for a Border Patrol agent to drive to-

Joe Romero, a supervisory border patrol agent, joined the force six years ago. Photo by Ashley Miller

ward Forks and check each port and cove along the way for suspicious activity, then on the way back, check them each again. From Port Townsend to Neah Bay, the Port Angeles station covers 183 miles of border. During the day, agents observe vessels at sea and in the Strait of Juan de Fuca through high-powered binoculars, calling anything out of the ordinary in to the station to be checked out. After dark, night vision goggles and radiation detectors help find hazardous material and illegal activity. The equipment is so sensitive that it even can detect patients undergoing chemotherapy.

A Port Angeles Border Patrol agent demonstrates how A U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent utilizes an automated fingerprint recognition system to process an to scan a set of fingerprints. Photo by Ashley Miller individual who entered the U.S. illegally. Photo courtesy of CBP.gov

LIVING ON THE PENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH 2012

In addition to patrolling the ports of entry and hidden coves, agents routinely check in a vehicle riding considerably lower on one side than the other and transporting narcotics, or at the ferry dock and chat with citizens in each of the towns. less apparent: clean areas on a dirty vehicle or perhaps the nervous behavior of a driver. “We strongly encourage agents to get out and talk to people,” Romero said. “The citizens “I don’t care how minimal it seems, we take everything seriously,” Romero said. “We know the area best and who is usually seen around or not.” take every scrap of information and connect the dots between them.” In fact, a majority of tips and leads come from local residents and are received while Unlike a police officer, Romero can’t give warnings. agents are out and about immersing themselves in the community. “We don’t differentiate between undocumented aliens who’ve been here one day or six Romero sips from a 16-ounce espresso. Another empty container sits next to the full years,” he said as an example. “You are either in violation of the law or you aren’t. There’s one in the center console. The barista at the coffee stand knows Romero and several other no in-between.” agents by name and as loyal customers. While he empathizes with people and their situations, Romero offers no sympathy. Across the scanner, fellow agents call in license plates, fishing vessel numbers and other “Sympathy is dangerous for an agent,” he explained. “I can’t let my emotions interfere with details constantly throughout the day. On other frequencies, what I know I have to do.” the police and sheriff departments, U.S. Fish & Wildlife and Such professionalism was U.S. Forest Service communications can be heard. put to the test last summer After Romero finishes patrolling the areas he was aswhen Romero arrested Sesigned earlier in the morning, he turns the vehicle around quim resident and Korean and heads back to town. national Hung Han at the Port To a bystander, it might appear that he’s aimlessly driving Angeles Farmers Market. Han around with nothing to do, Romero acknowledged. This had been living in the U.S. for couldn’t be further from the truth, though, he insisted. about six years and never at“If people knew all that we do and we could share all that tained legal resident status. At we know, they would want more of us in the area,” Romero the time, market bystanders resaid. ported that they were shocked While the Border Patrol is well-known for arresting illegal to see a productive member of aliens, it does a lot more than just that. Agents also protect society arrested and that they against domestic terrorism, contraband or illegal trade and were concerned the family was narcotics trafficking. targeted simply because they “There is a huge problem around here with meth, heroin were Korean. Romero said he’s happy to and cocaine,” Romero said. “And guess what? It doesn’t just report that Han, after facing show up here, it’s shipped here.” Border Patrol agents transport a deportation, has the proper In recent months, the Border Patrol has renewed its prisoner who will be returned to Mexico. paperwork to be living legally in dedication toward battling drugs in the area. Photo courtesy of CBP.gov the U.S. now and continues to be “We are prepared to a friendly face at the market. go to war against drugs,” “When we see each other now, we wave and say hello. Romero said. “We raise There are no hard feelings,” Romero said. “It’s not personal or our kids in the same towns that I don’t like somebody. It’s the law.” and shop at the same stores After covering hundreds of miles in his vehicle and talkand we won’t stand for any ing to numerous people, Romero is ready to call it a day. But harm against our comhe can’t head home yet. First, he must return to town, park munity.” the vehicle in the designated parking garage a few blocks While overall appreaway, walk back to the station and then fill out the necessary hension rates have inpaperwork for the day. creased, Romero purses Officially, agents work eight hours a day and rotate between his lips and shakes his shifts so that the organization operates 24 hours a day. Unofhead when asked too many ficially, eight-hour shifts commonly spill over into 10 hours details about how many arwith administrative uncontrolled overtime for paperwork rests have been made, how and other added duties. many illegal aliens were This summer, possibly by the end of June, some of the time sent away or the number spent traveling between the station, the garage and storage of agents employed at the lockers will be eliminated when plans for a new multi-million Port Angeles station. Disclosing too many A Border Patrol agent places a Mexican national under arrest for transporting drugs building are completed, Romero said. The headquarters will be at 110 S. Penn St., near the Port details, he cautioned, can into the U.S. Photo courtesy of CBP.gov Angeles city limit, and will be able to house up to 50 agents. put agents in danger. Most importantly, keeping all the vehicles, supplies and offices in one location will Romero tries to put community members at ease by assuring them, however, that an increase response time, Romero said. increase in apprehensions isn’t necessarily something to be feared. In the meantime, Romero and the other agents try to stay under the radar and out of “The activity has been here all along but by working with the community we are able the headlines. to pick up more offenders,” he said. “We are very fortunate to have a great team of agents “We measure our success by people not knowing what we do on a day-to-day basis,” bringing in an unprecedented amount of information back to us and everything is workRomero said. “If we’re not in the news, we’re doing our jobs well.” ing in tandem.” As he drives, Romero looks for anything out of the ordinary. It could be obvious, such as

LIVING ON THE PENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH 2012

Miracles Can Happen:

A Day in the Life of a Horse Trainer Story and photos by Elizabeth Kelly

Above: Carol Madan and Sara Richerts at Olympic View Stables. Below: Sara Richerts and Cowboy ride in a trail class. Submitted photo

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eing a good horse trainer requires much more than the physical work it takes to train a horse; it involves a deep understanding of each horse’s temperament and emotional makeup. One of the reasons Sara Richerts is good at what she does is this connection she has with each of her horses. Starting when she was only 8 years old and continuing lessons until she was 18, Richerts says she “learned everything” she knows about horses from Carol Madan, her instructor during that time. Even as a child, Richerts said she dreamed of one day being a horse trainer. In those early years, she spent every day during the summers at Olympic View Stables learning to ride, care for and understand her horse, Dotts, a red and white paint, whom she originally had purchased from Madan. After working with Dotts for several years, Richerts sold him to a buyer in Oregon. “I thought I’d never see him again and really missed him,” she said. Richerts moved to San Jose, Calif., a few years ago where she further trained under well-known rider, exhibitor and horse trainer Rhonda Heiner at Big Oak Ranch in Morgan Hill, Calif. “Without Rhonda, I wouldn’t be here today,” Richerts said. “She really cares about her students.” While working in San Jose as a waitress, Richerts said she missed riding and decided to take a lesson. “At first, I was really afraid of her,” Richerts said of Heiner, “because she was like a drill sergeant. I had to take a step back and look at the big picture. Rhonda loves the people in her barn and wants them and their horses to succeed,” she added. Richerts said she enjoyed going through the rest of the “boot camp” and learned how to become better at training with up-to-date techniques. “Some things, like safety and interaction with horses, never change,” Richerts said, but added that there always are new training techniques to learn. She said she has become close friends with Heiner and will invite her up to help with workshops in the future. “Education never stops,” she reminded. Richerts said she talked about moving back to the peninsula and even joked about being a horse trainer, her lifelong dream. As if by a miracle, Richerts was delighted to see an ad in a newspaper saying that Dotts was for sale. So she bought him again, knowing what a good horse he would be for lessons. “He’s now 16 years old,” she said, “and very mellow.” A day in the life of a horse trainer begins with dealing with each horse’s disposition and each one has to be cared for on an individual basis. If one of the horses is upset for any reason, he needs to be calmed and gently reassured that all is well. Before any students begin their lessons, the nurturing of the horses comes first.

“All horses are different,” Richerts said. “You have to try different things with different horses. My personal connection with the horse is so important,” she explained. “I have to be patient and not bring any of my own emotions to the lesson.” Along with learning to ride, each student is taught about safety and how to care for his or her horse. As the student, 11-year-old Seth Anderson, began brushing the tail of Daisy, an 8-year-old blue roan Appaloosa, Richerts had to quietly caution him to “be careful. You know, there is a bone in there,” she counseled, and then proceeded to show the youth to correct way to comb the tail. Daisy is a POA (Pony of the Americas), a breed originally developed to be a children’s pony, which Richerts obtained while still in California. She heard that the pony was going to be given away for free, Richerts said, “so we went to Puyallup with the trailer to pick her up.” “A word to the wise,” Madan interjected, “a horse is never free.” Richerts agreed, adding that her dad always told her that even if a horse has money wrapped around his neck, it’s never free. Continuing her story, Richerts said that when they got to Puyallup to pick up Daisy, her owner said he knew of another horse she could have for the price of a case of beer and, owing to the fact that the horse trailer has two spots, they ended up bringing two horses back with them. The second horse, Jack, is a 6-year-old, 17-hands tall, distinguished looking paint and he’s very intelligent. “He even managed to open the gate to his stall one day and walk out,” she said. He’s a “horse in-training,” she smiled. An unlikely pair, sort of like Mutt and Jeff, Jack and Daisy formed a bond of friendship while riding so many hours together in the trailer. While Seth was brushing Daisy, another student, Joe Anderson, 13, began to prepare to take Dotts into the arena for his “on the ground” (as opposed to being “on the horse.”) lessons. Each horse must be bridled and have a lead rope attached. As Joe started through the gate with Dotts, Richerts reminded him that when going into the arena the person leading the horse goes in through the gate first; when leaving the arena, the horse goes through the gate first. With Richerts leading Jack through his paces, Joe with Dotts and Seth holding Daisy’s rope, they each practiced with their horses, going through all the routines of speeding up, slowing down, walking backward and forward, as the leaders quietly spoke the commands. When they finished, Richerts gave Jack some reassuring pats and told him he had done a good job. “Jack is emotional and he tries so hard to please you. If you don’t reward him with a few pats on the back, it hurts his feelings,” she said. Horses learn much more than what is taught them during their lessons. “Ponies are hard-headed,” Richerts said, “but when they are broke, they make good lesson horses because they’re closer to the ground. Daisy is so smart,” she continued, “that if she feels she is done with

LIVING N ON THEE PENINSULA | SPRI SP SPRING PRI RING N | MARCH NG C 2012

her arena lessons, she will walk right over to the gate, throw her head over the edge and open pen up the gate to go back to her er stall.” One day while they were on the hot walker (a circular carousel with several arms to walk horses in order to keep them fit and in goodd condition), “Daisy managed ed to unclip herself and walk back ack to the pasture,” Richerts related. ated. “She walked slow enough too show w us she wasn’t trying to be naughty, naughhty, but fast enough that we couldn’t dn’t catch her.” A Championship buckle for Western Watching Richerts’ close Horsemanship attention to detail and her focus on safety reminds one that a won by Sara Richerts. horse is a big animal which can be harmful and dangerous if not correctly trained and managed. Much of Richerts’ keen awareness comes from her training with performance horses. Under Heiner’s guidance in California, Richerts was able to attend the Pinto World Championships in 2010 at the Expo Center in Tulsa, Okla. She placed in the Top 5 and Top 10 in several categories and won a World Championship buckle for Western Horsemanship on a horse named Cowboy. “It took us and our four horses three days to get there, Richerts said. “It was a long journey. Growing up on the Olympic Peninsula, all I knew was this area,” she continued. One can

i only imagine how astounding the t sight of many rows of bbarns and more than 1,00 1,000 0 horses and contesta tants an at the Expo was for he her to take in. At competitions such as Pinto World, perfo formers are given a patter tern to complete by the jud judges and, sometimes, the contestants c don’t know what th the pattern is until two hours be bbefore f they perform. They are judged on smoothness, swiftness, n ss, attitude, pprecision and execution ne of the ppattern. attern. These are al all techniques important for students to master. While still in California, Richerts rode a quarter horse named Pickle at the California State Championships, Region 6, where she won All Around English Champion. “Everyone had seen Pickle before, but nobody there had seen me before,” Richerts said. “They didn’t expect much from him and didn’t take him seriously,” she added. “He is a pretty horse, but short and cute, not stunning like Jack.” Everyone was surprised by their win, she said. When she decided the time had come to open her own business, Olympic Peninsula Performance Horses, where she trains horses and teaches riding and performance techniques, she met with Carol and discussed what the possibilities were at Olympic View Stables. Then everything fell miraculously into place.

If a student is mentally and emotionally ready, he or she can start riding lessons as young as 4, Richerts said. “They can’t be afraid of the horses,” she explained. The usual age for a student to start is between 6-8, she said. Because she has several good lesson horses at Olympic View Stables, a student doesn’t have to own his or her horse. Lessons usually are one hour, depending on the age of the students. Those students who are interested in showing can be members of Olympic Peninsula Performance Horses, which has several divisions so students can move up as their skills develop. Lessons for those members are specific to showing, she said, and this includes a mock show once a month for the team members. Richerts offers hourly lessons and part- and full-time training six days a week. At the end of the day, Richerts said she has seen a dream come true. “Being back where I started and working with Bob (Dr. Robert Mowbray, retired veterinarian and owner of Olympic View Stables) and Carol again is the best,” Richerts said. “We make a powerful team.” Her biggest dream for the future is to take a group of students to Oklahoma to the Pinto World Championships and “seeing everyone do well,” Richerts said. “And someday, I’d like to get a judging card and judge shows or be a mentor like Carol is to me.”

Olympic Peninsula Performance Horses Olympic View Stables, 136 Finn Hall Road Port Angeles, WA 98362 Call Sara Richerts at 360-775-5084 www.olypenperformancehorses.com

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Nurturing students, nurtured by the land Story and photos by Viviann Kuehl

they have fresh water, collecting eggs and taking in the beauty of the peaceful morning, O’Dell keeps an open mind. “The best ideas come when I’m working early in the morning,” she says. At 6:30 a.m. O’Dell starts to get ready for school, along with her youngest daughter, a high school student. Her oldest child is a son with mental health issues. Another son is living in the South Pacific, near where he was born. Her older daughter lives in the area with her son, a grandchild dear to O’Dell. By 7:10 a.m. she’s off to what she calls Beth Ann O'Dell's school days begin and end with a handshake for her “real job,” as a combined fifth-/sixth- student and parents. grade teacher at Sunfield Waldorf School another subject is taken up. in Port Hadlock. Although the process has been around 100 years since “It’s a wonderful job and I have an amazing group of Waldorf educational founder Rudolph Steiner invented this students. I am really blessed to be form of education, current brain research shows that this cycle here doing Waldorf education,” of deep involvement followed by a period of rest is effective said O’Dell. Many of her students in learning. have been with her for five years; Currently, O’Dell is teaching an ancient history main lesthe Waldorf ideal is to have the son block, covering India, Persia and Egypt, and leading the teacher move up through the class through a class play experience. grades with their class. “It’s not like the student just gets information about Egypt, By 7:35 a.m. she has dropped they really live Egypt during the block,” said O’Dell. “In Waloff her daughter at Chimacum dorf education, you really get involved with the subject and High School and is in her classit’s that way from first grade. The class play is a really big thing room, turning on the heater, in Waldorf education. We work in a social and creative way making sure everything is in and everyone is needed to pull it off.” place for the day. After costuming, at 10:30 a.m. it’s snack, a social time, Class starts at 8:30 a.m. with followed by recess out on the school commons at 10:45 a.m. a handshake greeting for each O’Dell stays with her class for these and at 11 a.m. it’s farm student, then a main lesson block chore time. for two hours. The student body gathers in a big circle, singing a garden Waldorf education follows a song and welcoming the resident farmers. Sunfield is a farm block schedule, with main lesson school and all grade-school students are expected to parblocks lasting four to six weeks, to ticipate in farm chores, including animal care, composting create a cycle of deep involvement and gardening in mixed-age groups, with weekly changes in O'Dell listens intently to a student talking about costuming ideas for their in a particular subject. Then that Egyptian class play. groups and chores. subject matter is left to rest while

ost days the alarm goes off at 5 a.m. for Beth Ann O’Dell, Waldorf teacher, parent and farm caretaker. “Sometimes I have to push the snooze button,” she admits, but even so, she loves to do her early morning chores. Getting up to take care of the livestock on the Olympic Music Festival grounds, where she lives with her teenage daughter, not only pays the rent, but gives her an hour of solitary working meditation. As a Waldorf teacher, O’Dell practices a nightly connection to the unconscious to help with the spiritual life of her class. She goes to sleep with a question in mind and lets her sleep become an arena for problem-solving. All the while that she cleans out the stalls of a pair of horses, mixes up their morning feed, gives them breakfast and lays down clean straw bedding, walks down past the orchard and the yellow barn to tend to a flock of five sheep, ducks and a flock of about 30 chickens, giving them food, making sure

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O’Dell is supervising groundskeeping work this year. Today, she’s working in the perennial garden. “It’s actually been pretty successful,” said O’Dell. “The plants are not overcome with weeds. Kids get tired of it, but they love to do real work, and I tell them we have to weed before we get into shoveling mulch. We’re tending the place where we are, making it beautiful for us and everyone.” At 11:45 a.m. it’s skills time. Three days a week, O’Dell teaches math and language arts, and two days a week, she has time to correct papers while the students are in Spanish classes. O’Dell eats lunch with her class at 12:30 p.m. in the classroom. “It’s just what we do together,” she notes. “It’s fun.” Then she supervises recess until 1:10 p.m. After recess, the activities vary with the days of the week. Monday it’s watercolor painting and at 2 p.m. the class prepares for a regional Olympiad to take place in May, with participants from other Waldorf schools around the Puget Sound area. O’Dell’s students are carving the ends of a javelin, which they will continue to use through eighth grade. They run the perimeter of the five-acre school commons to prepare for relay races. They practice long jumps and discus throwing. Tuesdays and Thursdays bring music lessons taught by another teacher and handwork, another important part of the Waldorf curriculum proved by recent research to develop mental capacity. O’Dell teaches handwork to her own and other classes. This year her class is learning to knit with four double-pointed needles, making socks and using wool spun from sheep on the farm. Last year, they did cross-stitch, developing their fine motor skills. In third grade, they learned to crochet. In first grade, students learn to knit and in second grade they learn the purl stitch. The handwork is tied to child development, explains O’Dell. An accomplished knitter herself, she enjoys helping the students; sometimes they listen to a story while they work. Wednesdays are “out and about on the farm” days. “It’s more than a walk,” explains O’Dell. “They explore, interact and make keen observations. We have a couple of what I guess you’d call wildlife charmers, students with a knack of interacting with wild creatures. They can get creatures to stick around for a longer look and are appreciated by the group.”

Students notice things like water saturation patterns over time, and where tadpoles are, on the land and in their development, notes O’Dell. “You’d think they were kind of like tadpoles, in the excitement and pure joy of discovery,” she notes with a laugh. Also on Wednesdays, O’Dell has a class meeting, a sacred circle to discuss social issues. “It could be gossip, things heard on the playground or events in the world,” explains O’Dell. “Whatever the topic, we build understanding and social skills.” At the end of every day, O’Dell’s chore wheel for cleaning the classroom gets used. “We all participate in taking care of our space,” notes O’Dell, with students sweeping, putting things away, polishing desks and neatly lining up the waterproof boots each student needs for wearing on the farm. At the beginning and end of each day, O’Dell shakes each child’s hand, with a polite exchange and eye contact. She also shakes hands with any parents arriving to pick up students. (Carpools thrive at Sunfield, which has no transportation service.) After school, O’Dell takes a breath, then usually is off to a school meeting — board, finance or faculty. She has been a member of the Sunfield board for three years and attends weekly faculty meetings. She continues on the Finance Committee but recently has cut back on other school committee memberships to make more room in her life for things beyond school. “I love Sunfield and Waldorf education, but my opinions don’t need to be everywhere and I can take some time for other things,” she notes. Back at home, O’Dell gets dinner ready while her daughter does the evening farm chores. They eat together and then after dinner she spends the two to three hours before bed correcting papers and getting ready for the next day. “If I’m not in bed by 9 or 9:30, I suffer and everyone around me does, too,” she notes. It’s a great life, one she wouldn’t trade for any other. As a young mother, O’Dell lived on a tiny tropical island in the Pacific. She worked on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. She has followed her calling to be a Waldorf teacher. Now, she feels lucky to be on the beautiful and special land where she lives and works. Her days are full; this is the best place yet.

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Treasures with a Top: This climbing axe was once used to top trees high above the forest floor. Now it’s a vintage logging collectible, much sought after by rural logging region collectors. At right: Backlighting what appears in normal light to be a white porcelain square held to the West End light by Dave Allen reveals an antique lithophane illustration created by German craftsmen.

West End flavor Story and photos by Chris Cook

Finding the Kerosene Lamp Antique Shop in Forks begins with spotting waist-high sandwich boards painted yellow. The signs take you off Forks Avenue east on Calawah Way down to the Merchant Road turn-off, making a left where the Forks Cemetery is located. You wind around the tree-lined country road and look on your left for Chuckhole Way. Gravel-covered Chuckhole Way lives up to its name as you bounce a bit down the byway, passing parked logging trucks and homesteads, wondering where — and why — would an antique shop be way out here? Then it all comes together when you arrive at the driveway of Dave and Barbara Allen. There actually are two Kerosene Lamp Antique Shops. One is the couples’ showpiece gallery set inside a dark tan wood frame home. Fancy lamps with crystal fixtures hang from the ceiling. Light streams in through a stained-glass window. The shops’ name comes from the seed for their shop after Dave beginning to collect kerosene lamps years ago. A few dozen steps from the “fancy” building is the hub of the Allens’ business, a more down-home building that’s filled with an orderly assortment of antiques ranging from vintage phones to logging tools and much more. “We opened up in December 1999, with one small building and wondered how in the world we would manage to keep it filled,” Barb explains. “Soon, we added onto the building. A while after that we built another building. Both are full, but we decided enough is enough … no more building. The original building is mostly glass, china, pictures, lamps and assorted other

items. The second building, or the ‘Men’s Room,’ is where we keep the ‘rust.’ Lots of old tools, logging stuff, railroad items, military, coins, old cast iron banks, more lamps and pictures, glass floats, primitive kitchen items such as an old hutch, crockery, enamel, etc. and assorted other items.” The couple jokingly call their antiques shops their “retirement project.” “It’s something we had long discussed,” Barb said, “but while working we never seemed to get around to it. Dave retired in 1997 and in 1999 we started to build the building, get permits, licenses, etc., and began to find a source for inventory. It started off very slow, but has built up over the years.” Barb retired in 2004 and the focus of their working hours became attending auctions in Hoquiam and elsewhere, and selling more and more on eBay. “We really enjoy all aspects of this business,” she says, including the lure of the hunt for a certain antique piece and in discovering new worlds through exploring the purpose, identity and value of a find. “We get folks coming in from Port Angeles and Sequim quite often,” Barb says. “Once they are here, they usually become repeat customers. They drop in to see what new items we have gotten since their last visit and just to chat a while. Over 90 percent of our items come from estate sales and auctions, so you never know what might be here. We attend over 50 auctions every year and are always on the lookout for any that we might have missed.” During a visit to the Kerosene Lamp shop Barb was found busily typing into a computer, working on posting an eBay listing. Dave explained how the bulk of their sales now come from well outside of Forks, thanks to eBay, through buyers roaming the biggest virtual flea market in the universe. “We started selling on eBay 10 years ago,” Barb explains. At first the Allens sold items one at a time through the eBay online auction system, but later moved on to opening an online eBay store where items can be listed for weeks and months at a very reasonable fee per month. “This works very well for us, especially during the winter months,” she said. “We sold close to 700 items last year. One of the most unusual items we have sold on eBay is an 1860 Cobalt Tear Catcher (a tear catcher,

At left: The finer pieces from the Kerosene Lamp Antique Shop are placed on display in this wood frame building that is topped by a metal weather vane. Fine vintage crystal and glass lamps hang from the ceiling inside.

LIVING ON THE PENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH 2012

Above: Cross-cut hand saws and logging axes hang on the back wall of the Kerosene Lamp Antique Shop. Vintage logging items are popular with collectors living in the coastal forests of the Northwest and have gained considerably in value since they were sold by logging supply stores decades ago. Right: Dave and Barbara Allen work in their “Men’s Room” shop at home on Chuckhole Way in Forks. or tear bottle, is a small ornate vase made from blown glass and dyed various colors, and has a glass piece at its opening that fits an eye; tear catchers are mentioned in the Bible and found in ancient Egypt.) A couple of the more difficult to ship were an old logging spring board and an eight-foot falling saw, also a complete set of dishes that took several boxes.” Being located in Forks, a town once known as “The Logging Capital of the World,” makes vintage logging tools sought-after items and objects that are growing increasingly more valuable both in price and sentimental value. “Collectors of old logging items are looking for anything to do with old time logging — spring boards, falling saws, undercutters, cross-cut filing equipment, axes, pulleys, etc. All of which are getting harder and harder to find,” Barb said. Browsing in the “Men’s Room,” you’ll see some unusual items such as an antique Oriental ivory wax seal, a 1939 Japanese Imperial Army rifle complete with bayonet and scabbard, a prehistoric bear tooth, Indian glass trade beads mostly from Europe, hard-to-find railroad lanterns (there’s one from the line that ran between Port Angeles and Port Townsend) and a policeman’s kerosene night light. A Kerosene Lamp speciality is silhouettes. “I have collected them for many years,” Barb says. “A silhouette is painted in reverse, or on the back side of the glass, with a background of either a lithograph, print, or my favorite — milkweed. We don’t have any antique silhouettes — mostly in the collectible area, from the 1930s to 1950s. Some have convex glass which provides a bit of shadow on the background adding depth. They were used for advertising and sometimes had a small thermometer inserted. I have them from very small (about 3-inch triangle) to quite large

(an 18-inch tray).” Along with gathering a unique collection of intriguing items, the Allens get to meet a wide assortment of collectors, some wanting to know about life in Forks and the West End, as well as about the shops’ antiques. “The most fun part is the people that we meet,” Barb says. “We are off the beaten path, so when we get customers, oftentimes they will stay for an hour or more. And come from other parts of the states and the world, they want to know what kinds of plants are these and those; they taste berries if in season; and they let their dogs out to run (after we put ours in), and just chat. “Sometimes they are lucky enough to come when the elk are in our yard or the field next to us ... cameras are whipped out and fun begins. Collectors love to compare their collections, so lamp collectors often spend quite a bit of time looking at our collection of over 400 kerosene lamps and telling us about theirs. Sometimes when they get back to their home, they will send pictures of their collections or just a picture of one with a questions. Dave is very knowledgeable about lamps and is sometimes asked, ‘Are you the lamp guy?’ He has given programs about the lamps to several of the peninsula antique clubs and organizations.”

Kerosene Lamp Antique Shop 651 Chuckhole Way, Forks, WA 98331 360-374-5163 Hours 9 a.m.-6 p.m. but open anytime sign is out E-mail: dballen@centurytel.net

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A black & white kind of day With one of the most treacherous roadways in the state – U.S. Highway 101 – there is never a dull moment in a day in the life of a Washington State Patrol trooper. Story and photos by Mary Powell

n Super Bowl Sunday, Matt Phillips didn’t have the luxury of stretching out in front of the big screen to watch the two best football teams in the nation battle for top-dog status or enjoy partying in the company of friends. Instead, the Washington State Patrol trooper was in the company of motor vehicle drivers on Clallam and Jefferson county highways, carefully watching the speed scanner situated in his patrol car. It probably wasn’t the first time Phillips, or any of his cohorts, for that matter, missed a Super Bowl game, or any significant occasion, given that those in law enforcement protect the rest of us 24 hours a day, 12 months a year.

A state patrol car is an office in and of itself, complete with a computer, scanners of all sorts, a variety of buttons and knobs for sirens, flashing lights and everything in between. Complicated? A bit, at first, says Trooper Phillips.

LIVING ON THE PENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH 2012

“Our No. 1 duty is protection of life, that’s what my job is for,” says Phillips, while keeping a watchful eye on state Highway 104 traffic. “These are the people I work for, the people I protect,” he continues, indicating the general Washington State Trooper Matt Phillips stands by his patrol car before population of Washington state. Missing an occasional holiday notwith- his 8-hour shift begins. standing, Phillips is unwavering in his devoPhillips has served three tours in Iraq and four in tion and passion for the job. “I really like my job,” he says Afghanistan. As far as war goes, Phillips has pretty much in a quiet voice. “Right now I wouldn’t want to do anything done it, seen it, including watching Army buddies killed. In else.” a way, it was a life that prepared him for his future career in True, there are aspects of the job that aren’t as exciting law enforcement. as others, like the tedious paperwork. Everything a patrol In 2005 he left the 1st Ranger Battalion and joined the officer does while on duty must be logged, in particular, National Guard, to which he still belongs. traffic stops. While the numbers game gives the public and In the meantime, his father and stepmother retired to the Legislature a precise picture of what is being accomSequim. After he left active duty, Phillips decided to move plished with the state patrol, the endless paperwork tends to Sequim, enrolled at Peninsula Community College and to get tiresome. earned an associate’s degree in criminal justice. “People think we like to issue tickets, but it would be Enter Kelly Phillips. easier in the long run to let them go,” Phillips says of logKelly, it turns out, was born and raised in Auburn, Calif., ging each stop. as well. She also went to the same high school as Phillips, “but Letting traffic violators off the hook, however, would be we didn’t know one another,” she says. Another coincidence counterproductive to the basic mission of protecting lives. A — her parents retired to Sequim about the same time Matt’s little bit later we’ll take a ride with Trooper Phillips and try to parents arrived here. define his “”typical” day, but first, a little background. Long story short, both sets of parents arranged for Kelly It’s not surprising Phillips chose law enforcement as a and Matt to meet. Kelly graduated from Humboldt College, career. His father spent 33 years in law enforcement, part of earning a degree in child development. She says she had a that time as the sheriff in Placer County, Calif. wonderful job in California, but alas, fell in love with one Phillips and his younger brother were raised in Auburn, Matt Phillips. Calif., the former graduating from high school in 1998. He “We clicked right away,” Kelly smiles. “We hung out on took a few classes at the local community college, but at his boat all weekend.” age 21 enlisted in the Army, eventually serving with the 1st That was in September 2005. A year later Kelly moved Ranger Battalion, an elite special operations unit with the to Sequim, she and Matt were married in August 2007 and U.S. Army. in 2008 their daughter was born. It was quite a busy time, “I wanted to be on my knees in the mud crying. I wanted both admit. to see how far I could push myself.” He spoke to a friend who Now, with a 3½-year-old daughter, Phillips, 32, finds was with the Rangers and decided that was the best place to himself not defined only by his job, but as a family man. fulfill his goals. Which, he says, he thoroughly enjoys. Subsequently, he completed basic training, advanced Because of his varied hours, having time to “just hang out infantry training and went to airborne school where he with one another,” is a favorite pastime. learned to jump out of planes. “Nothing to it,” he says with When Phillips applied to be a Washington State Patrol a signature lopsided grin. “Once you jump out, the rest takes trooper, Kelly was surprisingly supportive. Her mother care of itself.” was a 9-1-1 dispatcher, so she was familiar with the law

While troopers drive alone, the job isn’t lonely, Phillips enforcement environment. Is she scared when he is on says. “Each trooper is his or her own entity. Every stop is duty? different and we have the freedom to determine how to “Not really,” Kelly says. “I know his skills will get him deal with that stop.” through anything.” The biggest adjustment, she admits, Here on the peninsula, there are two crews, with eight was getting used to having guns in the house. She confesstroopers in each. Backup always is available, if needed. es to “tuning out” the dangerous aspects of her husband’s “We are a tight group,” Phillips says of his compatriots. job and the potential that he could be hurt, or worse. A typical day is difficult to pin down. For one, As for Phillips, he says he has never been afraid on Phillips works 11 night shifts, then 12 day shifts, with the job, even in light of the recent spate of attacks on days off sprinkled in between. He spends much of his law enforcement. But, he admits, he has had red flags free time with his go up, making him family, including his cautious. parents and in-laws, Once he was seand enjoys taking his lected for the state daughter for walks patrol, Phillips ataround his neighbortended a 26-week bahood in Sequim. sic training course at But once he dons the training complex – Matt Phillips, WSP trooper his uniform, Phillips in Shelton. After bais focused on the sic, cadets have eight business at hand, working the roads to keep the rest of more weeks of practical instruction with experienced training officers. Upon graduation, the newly commisus safe. Ever looked closely at the inside of a state patrol sioned officers are assigned to one of the patrol’s eight cruiser? It’s literally an office, with a computer, scanners, districts in the state. notebooks, pencils, first-aid kit, blankets, oh, and a gun or Phillips’ “beat,” if you will, covers most of Jefferson two. A glass partition separates the trooper from anyone County, from Diamond Point to the middle of the Hood being arrested, who, by the way, gets to sit on a hard plastic Canal bridge, south of Brennan and Port Townsend. But, seat. Best to avoid that experience. the state patrol has jurisdiction throughout the entire WSP trooper Matt Phillips talks to a driver he pulled over for “751, Gardiner.” Phillips calls in his badge number state, unlike city or county law enforcement. speeding on Highway 104 in Jefferson County.

“Ninety percent of the job is black and white: you’re either speeding or not, drunk or not. There’s no gray area.”

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and location to the dispatcher and thus begins his 8-hour shift. Periodically he lets dispatch know his whereabouts. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t hear from me for an hour or so, they status me, so weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re fairly safe.â&#x20AC;? Speeders, accidents and fatalities are the meat and potatoes of Phillipsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; work. Everyone, he says, is always in a hurry. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Used to be everyone wanted to go 60, now they want to go 70.â&#x20AC;? The two-lane highways, in particular Highway 101 and Highway 104, on the North Olympic Peninsula exacerbate the situation. Unsafe passing is a major culprit. A physical barrier would help; however, all law enforcement officers know the issue of making the roads safer is dependent upon the Legislature, money and taxpayers. It doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t take long before Phillips begins checking driversâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; speed. The car is equipped with a scanner of sorts that clocks speeds in either direction. The first stop of the day is a speeder on a section of Highway 104, just inside of Jefferson County. Turns out the tabs on the vehicle are expired as well. After a chat with the female driver, Phillips decides to issue a warning rather than a ticket. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Each stop is unique,â&#x20AC;? he says, while writing the details on the log sheet. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I like to talk to the driver rather than just giving the pat speech. And it gives me the opportunity to see if their speech is slurred or any other problems are going on.â&#x20AC;? For the next hour or so, Phillips keeps careful watch on the traffic, seemingly doing 10 things at once, from checking speeds to getting information from the dispatcher.

Multitasking is definitely the name of the game. When he does clock a driver speeding, he makes a quick U-turn and the chase is on. One driver is clocked in at 71 miles per hour in a 60 mph zone. Turns out the driver has no proof of insurance (a $550 fine), no registration ($124), and the speeding fine ($175). Phillips decides to give the woman a break and writes her a ticket for $93 with a warning to carry the insurance and proof of registration cards. Oh, and did you know, if the registration isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t signed, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a $124 fine. Although Phillips says heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not been afraid on the job, he realizes he puts himself in harmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s way for the protection of others. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an ambush job,â&#x20AC;? he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;If someone wants to get a police officer, they will. When we stop people, we have rules, the people we stop donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t.â&#x20AC;? And yet, he calls the job fun and satisfying. â&#x20AC;&#x153;A thinking manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s or womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s job,â&#x20AC;? is how he puts it. Toughest cases? â&#x20AC;&#x153;Fatalities, especially when children are involved.â&#x20AC;? One memorable incident was when a child in a car seat was killed when the driver fell asleep and hit a tree. Most of us have, at one time or another, been pulled over by a police officer and either given a warning or been ticketed. When the black and white signals us to pull over the heart beats faster and we hope for the best. Some of us are polite, others not so much. And so it goes. Matt Phillips ends his Super Bowl Sunday shift the way he

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started, with the mission to protect and keep safe the citizens of Clallam and Jefferson counties. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all in a dayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work. 751 out. Living on the Peninsula magazine acknowledges the men and women of the Sequim, Port Angeles and Port Townsend police departments and the Clallam County Sheriff 's Office, as well as the Washington State Patrol.

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Matt and Kelly Phillips at their home in Sequim.

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DIRECTORY Products, services and ideas from across the Peninsula. To advertise in Clallam County, call Debi Lahmeyer at 360-683-3311. In Jefferson County, call Sara Radka at 360-385-2900.

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40 40

Bucket List

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Charles Dudley Merk now lives in Port Townsend. He has a bucket list just like Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman in the comedy drama of that same name. We should all have a bucket list. Dudley began working on his list while he was in Lafeyette, Minn., during the summer of 1930. He was idly watching the cows grow fat in a pasture near his home. A biplane swooped down low and spooked the cows to the other end of the pasture. The plane then came about and landed in the area now clear of cows. This was very exciting to Dudley. How he would like to take a ride. Turns out that was a possibility. The pilot told Dudley, “You keep those cows at the other end of the pasture while I sell rides today. When I finish with the last paying customer I will give you a free ride.” All day long Dudley kept those cows a safe distance from the plane. All day long the plane loaded passengers, took off, came back to land and do it all over again. Then toward the end of that long hot sweaty day, the pilot took off and kept on flying. Now it was just Dudley and those damn cows. Well, that day Dudley put flying in a biplane on his list — his bucket list. A couple of years ago Dudley’s daughter, Kristi, happened to notice an old biplane at the Port Townsend airport. Steve Goodwin was the pilot who belonged to this plane. It was a 1928 biplane and an exact duplicate of the one that abandoned Dudley almost 75 years ago. Well Dudley, Kristy and Chris, his son-in-law, all got to ride with Goodwin in that old 1928 bi plane. During the half hour flight, they flew over their home in Port Townsend, stalled the plane and had the adventure of their lives. So Dudley finally got the biplane ride crossed off the list. In the meantime, the list keeps growing. Dudley also has been hankering to jump out of an airplane — with a parachute of course. He went to Skydive Arizona™ in Eloy, Ariz., in May 2008. Once he had all the particulars down pat, he flew up to 13,500 feet. The jumpers squatted in the door of the plane and the jump commander roared out, “Are you ready to jump?” Dudley was wondering to himself, “What in the world am I doing here?” But out he went and he plummeted 8,000 feet, popping the chute and proceeding to land at the feet of his wife, Sunnie Bell. He was a mere 85 at the time and made the jump in tandem just to be on the safe side. Dudley is planning his next jump in 2013 when he will be 90. There is more on his bucket list, much more. Hang gliding for instance and a plan to try a regular glider as well. A lifelong motorcycle fan, Dudley has a friend with a BMW motorcycle with a sidecar. Every once in while Harry Reed stops by and Dudley jumps in the sidecar and they roar off to their favorite restaurant in Quilcene for a cup of coffee. The sidecar has a windshield, so even if it does mist or rain a bit, he stays reasonably dry. “Sometime we go to the Spruce Goose for coffee. “ said Harry. Oh, and there’s one other thing about Dudley — he’s been blind for two decades. His first wife died in 1996 and Dudley married his second wife, Sunnie Bell, in 2002. He has never seen Sunnie Bell because Dudley suffered retinal damage that resulted in blindness in 1991. With typical can do attitude, Dudley began to make his way around town with the help of a guide dog. Eventually balance problems lead to some bad falls so guide dogs no longer could be used. But that setback doesn’t deter him. Another item on Dudley’s bucket list is improving access for people who would like to get out and meet people and socialize. Harry explained, “ Dudley is very intelligent, he loves to tell stories, he likes to dance. The blindness now curtails some of those activities. He just needs people to interact with.” Dudley laughed and said “Yes, I like to dance, but am unsure of my balance now so I don’t go out dancing much. I do dance here with my daughter sometimes. When I was a kid I danced to Glen Miller when he played in St. Paul.” Dudley celebrated his 89th birthday this January. “Kristy made me a cake with all the trimmings. I got a mystery audio tape called Spider Mountain.” Kristy answered, “When I look at my father, I have a lot of respect because of how he handles adversity and makes the best of it. He is always going forward. He is always going to have fun no matter what the challenge is.

LIVING ON THE PENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH 2012

THE Living END

Observe and report By Mark St.J. Couhig I’m 58 years old and I’m a reporter at a smalltown newspaper. How did I get myself in this fix? After all, by the time they’re 58 most reporters have either moved on to a job as an editor or publisher, or they’ve moved on to another job altogether. Maybe it’s the job security. Or maybe not. Since 2001, more than 25 percent of full-time reporters have lost their jobs at America’s daily newspapers. You’ve read about the collapse of newspapers. It’s real, though weeklies continue to do well (whew!) Maybe it’s the money. Or maybe not. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says journalists are the lowest paid among professions that require a bachelor’s degree. To provide a simple example, the average librarian in Seattle makes 50 percent more than the average Seattle reporter. Then surely it’s the fame and adulation? Lord, I hope not. A 2009 Gallup poll asked Americans which professions have “low” or “very low” honesty and ethical standards. Journalists ranked among the bottom, barely beating out lawyers, advertising practitioners and car salesmen. The good news, I guess, is that members of Congress are considered much, much worse. e upside of reporting There are three reasons people get into the reporting end of the newspaper business. 1) They are very curious. 2) They love words. 3) They want to save the world. I have varying portions of all three, with the first two holding steady throughout my long career and the last tapering off mightily. That is the result of honestly examining one fundamental question, to wit: “What training and expertise do I have toward saving the world?” The hard answer is: none. I know the ethical standards that are — or should be — applied to those in government, specifically as they conduct the public’s business. That comes in handy. But the older I get, the more I realize that I have no special gift, no way of knowing what our public policies should be. I have opinions, sure. But these days, as the old saying goes, I’m not

LIVING ON THE PENINSULA | SPRING | MARCH 2012

young enough to know everything. Why the job? There is much to recommend the job of reporter, but the best aspects are only very rarely discussed. I feel certain that in journalism school, where no one acquaints you with certain facts — for example, the fundamental fact that newspapers are published to make money — they don’t cover them. If you’re a journalism student, or thinking about it as a career, I hope you’ll consider the following benefits of the trade: • A reporter is not an editor. Editing is a job that creates awful intrusions into your life. For example: regular work hours when you are expected to be at your desk engaged in productive labor. • A reporter is not a publisher. I’ve been a publisher. I’ve met payrolls. I’ve worked the delicate balance of having a social life that is n always skittering very close to intruding on your professional sphere. I’m no good at it. o • As a reporter, I can — I’m encouraged to — follow my curiosity. When I drive down thee road and see a new building going up I gener-d ally would like to know more. I can pull off and ask — and I don’t look weird doing it. • Most importantly, the reporter’s job is re one of the few — the very few — where you’re on treated like a grown-up. I have on occasion es: had other jobs and chafed mightily at the rules: not just established work hours, but always — ur always! — there is someone looking over your shoulder. When you work for a good newspaper — and the Gazette is a decidedly good newspaper — you are simply given a job and a deadline. The end. Do the work and you keep your job. Don’t do it and you lose your job. It’s all up to you. For many people, this is a recipe for disaster. Given the rope, they hang themselves.

Me, I love deadlines. Or to put it more accurately: I can’t work without one. • And finally, I like working as a reporter because I like reporters. They are invariably blunt, profane and have a wicked sense of humor. A little inside knowledge to wrap this up: Most people who don’t want to tell you something don’t simply admit that. Instead they attempt, through various social cues, to discourage you by making you feel inadequate, stupid, impertinent — or to suggest you smell bad. The best reporters exhibit a weird kind of social detachment. They aren’t anti-social, because anti-social suggests a response. They are, in a sense, asocial. They have achieved a serene separation from social pressures, a blindness to social cues, that is a marvelous thing to see. ey aree free. They That’s Th at’s what I’m aimin for. r And in re rre-ing port r ing — splenporting did game that it is — getting older helps me do my job.

41 41

NOW Then Port Williams

Marlyn Wayne Nelson County Park

ocated at the end of Port Williams Road in Sequim, the waterfront acreage of Marlyn Wayne Nelson County Park bears little resemblance to the bustling seaport community it was more than a century ago. From the 1890s into the early 1920s, with its long wharf operated by the enterprising Bugge family, Port Williams was a thriving commercial port of entry for Sequim that at times boasted a hotel and restaurant, post office, telegraph office and general store with an upstairs dance hall. The arrival of railroads to the area in 1914 signaled the seaport’s decline and the town site was abandoned in 1922. In 1944, the waterfront area was renamed in honor of Sequim resident Marlyn Wayne Nelson, who at age 19 died from injuries sustained in the attack on Pearl Harbor while serving on the USS California. A monument bearing his name and photograph was erected in 1999 at the one-acre park, which is operated by the Clallam County Parks Department. Historical photo: Image from the Herrett Collection, Museum & Arts Center in the Sequim-Dungeness Valley. Current photo: Reneé Mizar, Museum & Arts Center in the SequimDungeness Valley.

Fort Worden beach

he familiar sweep of the beach at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend hasn’t changed much since 1954, when the older of these two photos was taken. Trees have grown bigger and the hedgerow is taller. Gone in today’s photo is the old shingled roof over the landing la to the beach stairs and the Quonset huts that once lined the road leading le to the Point Wilson Lighthouse. However, the basic features of the view vi remain. The dock, the kitchen shelter and lighthouse on the point stand st as they have over the decades on a lovely stretch of beach treasured by Port Townsend locals and visitors alike. Historical photo from the Port Townsend and Jefferson County H Leader files. Le Current photo by Fred Obee. C

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