By Dave B.
My wife and I have been on Vashon for almost 20 years. We have seen a lot of good and some not so good. We are lucky to live in a place where you can be you, get your freak on, and dress not to impress. But I have noticed a shift in attitude.
At first, I noticed it was a summer deal. Tourists were wearing on our souls, ferry traffic (if you can call it that) got to be a battle from both the north and south ends. Stop sign confusion was a hourly occurrence. We forgot how to be polite at a crossing of cars, pedestrians, animals, birds, and the occasional squirrel (my wife’s spirit animal).
Spring and fall were a welcome relief. Fall, when the townies mellowed out and the summer people (yes, we do love you) left for their winter homes in Florida or California. Spring, because the clocks moved ahead so darkness was no longer eating at our psyche. Attitudes ebbed and flowed, but our lives in the nirvana that is Vashon always renewed themselves.
One winter day, when it is just us locals, while driving to the dump, I passed by several folks walking along the route. I am a friendly person by nature and waved as I slowed down toward my destination. No one waved back. “Strange,” I thought. “Do I have something in my teeth? Do I look deranged? Am I driving like a drunk, unhappy … ?”
Not one person smiled or waived back. Some did not even acknowledge I passed by. I changed my strategy. I moved WAY out of the way to show my concern for my horrible driving and never got a thank you or a head nod.
What was going on here? What did I do other than be a Vashonite? I worried we had lost our Island friendliness. But maybe people were just having a bad day. It happens as winter drags on. I shook it off and finished my dump and recycle run. Maybe folks along the dump road just don’t like it there?
I have a bumper sticker on my car that we all know: “You go, no you go.” It’s a joke to us all being so polite that no one proceeds through the Island stop signs due to our ability to be kind. I find that less and less now at our traffic intersections. I feel that people want to get to where they are going and seem to have the right to go first, no matter who got there first.
Am I wrong? Maybe, but it does happen. My bumper sticker is now a joke, and I would take it off, but I am afraid it will tear off my paint job.
Next, I had one gentleman on my tail coming up from the north-end ferry dock. He got upset that I stopped to let a car out onto Vashon Highway and called the police on me to report my erratic driving. The next day in the Thriftway parking lot, a nice officer who had a description of my car blocked me in so I could not run, and told me the story of this atrocity. I was shocked. I told him what had happened. He said, “Have a nice day,” and left me standing there. Well, someone has manners still!
These observations have continued, and I felt it my Vashon duty to point it out to all of us. We live in one of the most beautiful, private sought-after places in the Pacific Northwest. I was in Ohio this month and it was -1 degrees. A few inches of snow at 30 degrees a year is not bad.
If we could just be more aware of what I am openly discussing here, and decide to make an effort to bring about change, it would do all of us a lot of good on these rainy winter days and nights. Being friendly, polite, happy and abiding are Vashon traits. Let’s all take a breath, wave to that strange truck passing you on the opposite side of the road, and smile at the fact you might have made someone’s day.
You would make mine …
