By Seán C. Malone and John Sweetman “And let’s try a wee dram of Laphroaig,” I said to Seán. A rare bottle of this peaty, rare single-malt came about as the result of a trade between us. The trade details are obscure but somehow involved a battery for his vintage Ford for a bottle of whisky…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman Seán and I had just returned from an extended trip to Hunters in Eastern Washington where his brother Mike has a large ranch that we frequently visited as “unpaid interns” to work in various neat projects, such as restoring old fish runs from Lake Roosevelt. After a long drive,…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman In our explorations of Vashon history, John and I came upon the original survey of Vashon, an 1841 map by Captain Wilkes and the “Ex. Ex.” or “Exploration Expedition,” which resulted in our Island’s exploration. His crew did not like Captain Charles Wilkes. Because of his “obstinate and overbearing nature,”…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman When Seán and I talked about this story, the original intent was to reflect our adventures in sailing various boats. Things got out of hand in that Seán had his own darn good story to tell. His boat was a wooden rig ketch of indeterminate age powered by some…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman We drank water out of hoses, ate dirt and raw oysters, and fell down steep cliffs. We had other dangerous hobbies, such as climbing the nearly vertical clay bank down at the beach or paddling logs out to the middle of Colvos Passage to wait for a freighter and…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman “Hey! That Western gray squirrel is back!” And sure enough, that troublemaker was back pestering the Douglas squirrel, and we had a protective obligation to the native rodent versus the invasive Western gray bully type, that ate a lot of Seán’s birdseed for his wild birds, which the squirrels…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman Seán and I spent several decades in Ferry County and had a number of adventures, some of which we can tell now that time has passed. The county is not the largest of the 39 counties of Washington state, but is the most remote, and like Vashon, is basically…
By Seán C. Malone and John Sweetman “How many of these joints have you done?” “Well, only one today, but it’s not even lunchtime yet.” That refers to the “Mortise and Tenon” joints we were making to assemble a “picnic cover” for our friend Bill who had a property on Indian Point. It has been…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman We were poking around the old Ford F-250 four-wheel drive three-quarter-ton pickup that Seán acquired from me about 30 years ago. It seemed to have a problem with steering. This truck still is a formidable beast, with an 8,000-pound winch and oversized custom bumpers and guards, but it was…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman One day, overlooking the outer harbor, Seán and I shared between us some “bean-hole beans” and some “smoked ham hock green pea soup.” Naturally, tasting these dishes brought up the usual conversation. Seán still makes those old “Boy Scout” bean-hole beans without an actual bean-hole fire dug into the…