Pam (aka Gates) Johnson

Getting Old on Vashon

By Pam (aka Gates) Johnson As I’ve said to anyone who will listen, getting old is not fun. Many of those things I used to do with ease are now next to impossible. Things not impossible are now just too darned hard. Here is an example of the unexpected difficulties I have encountered. A few…

The History of Minnie the Heifer

Editor’s note: Even before coming to Vashon, a calf named Minnie showed off her early escape skills, thereafter aided by her bullock brother Chuck. Minnie’s original owner has written this story to fill in the many blanks in Minnie’s life before she became Leslie the Cowzilla. By Pam (aka Gates) Johnson A bunch of years…

Arrival Stories, September 2023

What Brought You To the Island

By Pam (aka Gates) Johnson I’d always dreamed of living on a farm, but resigned myself to a life in Portland, just like everyone else in my family. That all changed when I got married. I was 21 years and two weeks old, and had been married for one weekend when we packed up everything…

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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.