Pam (aka Gates) Johnson

I Believe We Are Not Alone

By Pam “Gates” Johnson As far back as I can remember, I have always believed that we are not alone. To my Mr. Spock mind, it doesn’t make any sense that, in all of the gazillions of planets and solar systems and galaxies, we are the only “intelligent” life form. Granted, I am not an…

November 2025, Recipes

Thanksgiving Recipes

By Pam “Gates” Johnson Soft Dinner Rolls My daughter-in-law Sarah loves these rolls. I make them for her every few weeks. Ingredients 1 cup warm water2 tbsp soft butter1 egg3¼ cups bread flour¼ cup sugar1 tsp salt1½ packages dry yeast (about 3 tbsp) InstructionsIn warm mixing bowl, mix water, yeast, and sugar and let set…

Island Voices, October 2025

The Urge to Purge

By Pam “Gates” Johnson It’s not spring, so why has the spring cleaning bug landed on my shoulder and begun to scream in my ear? It is telling me … PURGE! CLEAN! DOWNSIZE! I ignored the screams until they started to drown out everything and take over most of my waking thoughts. Okay. I get it….

Island Voices, September 2025

Sleep

By Pam (aka Gates) Johnson When you think about it, sleep is kind of a weird thing. It is an altered state that can creep up on you at any time, day or night. When you are in it, you don’t know what is going on around you. Sometimes it is deep and unconscious. Sometimes…

August 2025, Island Voices

The Importance of Having Friends

By Pam “Gates” Johnson You have to be a friend to make a friend. As I get older, I’m realizing how true that old saw is. It was a lesson that took a long time to learn. So here we go into the way-back machine. When I first came to Vashon, the only person I knew…

Island Voices, July 2025

Condo Time?

By Pam (Gates) Johnson Sometimes, living in an apartment doesn’t seem like a bad idea. Let me give you a little backstory. I’ve been living on my little farm since 1975. It has a house (duh), a barn, an orchard, a garden, a big lawn, and fenced pastures. My life-long dream was to live on…

Island Voices, June 2025

This Getting Old Stuff is Not for the Faint of Heart

By Pam (aka Gates) Johnson Oh yeah, everybody says it’s better than the alternative, but I’m not sure. Nobody I know has tried the alternative enough to give me a firm evaluation on the pros and cons. I’m not saying that I am ready to shuffle off this mortal coil just yet, but again, getting…

April 2025, Island Voices

My Grandson Wants Me to Write a Cookbook

By Pam (aka Gates) Johnson If you’ve read a few of my columns, you probably guessed that I like to cook. Nothing much pleases me more than to prepare a meal for friends and family. Back in my school-working days, I would make meals for the entire McMurray staff, 30 people or so. It was…

Island Voices, March 2025

A Little Health Thing

By Pam (“Gates”) Johnson The on-going health saga of Ma Johnson continues. After a little heart-related health scare recently, the doctors decided that the root cause may be sleep apnea. We all know at least 10 people who have sleep apnea and are getting along just fine with a CPAP machine, so my fear-ometer dropped…

February 2025, Island Voices

Post-Christmas

By Gates Johnson What does one my age do when the holiday chaos has passed? Remember all those appointments and meetings and lunches and whatnot that got put on the back burner while attending to more pressing things? Well, the time has come. So, here I go. First off, those visits to specialists that were…

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Hello. I am Gates Johnson also known as Pam Johnson also known as Mom or Mimi or Ms. Johnson or even, reaching far back, Pam Getchel. I was born in Portland, Oregon about a thousand years ago, or 1949 to be exact, but who is counting? I met a young man from Vashon (long, weird story), got married, and moved here in October 1970. In 1975 we bought the house I still live in. It has five acres, and over the years we have had too many animals (horses, cows, goats, chickens, dogs, cats) to count. We got my daughter a Welsh pony when I was pregnant with her. My son came along a couple years later, and by default, he got into horses too. We traded a few bales of Island hay for a little black heifer calf we named Moonbeam and she became our milk cow. Sometime in the 80’s I got a job with the school district and spent 32 years there, working my way up from being a substitute playground aide at Burton Elementary to Executive Assistant to the Middle School Principal at McMurray. I was also assistant leader for the Rock Riders 4H Club and I ran the Strawberry Food Co-Op. Now retired, I spend my time writing (memoir is mostly done and am working on a cookbook), hanging with my pool pals, and coming up with strange ideas (Maury Island Incident Festival?). Thursday nights are family dinners at my house, where I can share my recipes with my very interested in cooking, 10 year old grandson. Life is good and has been very good to me.