Attention Vashon Small Business Owners! The Vashon Not-Uptown Business Registry is Coming Back Next month, The Loop is bringing back the Not-Uptown Business registry, and now is the time to make sure your small Vashon business is listed. We have businesses everywhere on the Island – did you know that most businesses on Vashon are…
Announcements, August 2023
The Heart of Vashon: Sharing Our Stories in Pictures and Words
By Barbara Gustafson There once was an island named VashonThe residents loved it with passionAs visitors nearedThey found it was weird…In just Vashon’s own homegrown fashion.~ Lynn Walters So begins the newly released book, “The Heart of Vashon: Sharing Our Stories,” a lovingly written tribute to the island accompanied by rich and inviting photographs. The…
August 2023, Commentary, Editorial Page
How To Run a Stop Sign
Blowing through stop signs or, should any present themselves, red lights, yields tangible benefits. It increases fuel economy, saves a few seconds, fights global warming, and generally makes humdrum lives a little edgier. Downsides include making everyone else’s lives a little edgier and slightly shorter in an actuarial sense, plus the fact that there are…
Announcements, August 2023
Concerts in the Park 2023
By Pete WelchThe Vashon Park District is proud to present “Concerts in the Park” once again this year in partnership with Vashon Events. The concerts will be held every Thursday night in August from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. Concerts in the Park is a family-friendly series of events that bring the community together to enjoy free…
Announcements, August 2023
The Vashon Interfaith Council to Prevent Homelessness Community Meal Program
By Brownie Carver The IFCH free Community Meals Program has been in existence for well over a decade. It has gone through many changes over the years, and the most dramatic change happened during COVID. The Community Meal Program stopped abruptly when COVID hit the island. Knowing that these meals are a lifeline for some people,…
August 2023, Literary, Memoir
Report from Aman Omid Village, Part 1
By Nellie Bly Prologue: This was written over the course of several deployment periods of one to three weeks. Aman Omid Village on Holloman Air Force Base closed at the end of January 2022, having in-processed and placed 16,000 Afghani evacuees. All but eight survived. For the five months it existed, and adjusting for average…
August 2023, Editorial Page
Tech Friction
By Andy Valencia Friction is certainly present in our day-to-day life. Your skateboard slows down on a level surface because of it, and some of the energy your car uses is to avoid slowing down. A different kind of friction is used to guide your behavior as a consumer; in this article, I’ll cover technology…
August 2023, Island Voices, Memoir
CowExist
By Marc J. Elzenbeck Cattle were domesticated from wild aurochs starting about 10,500 years ago. Roughly speaking, an auroch is to a farm cow as a timber wolf is to a cocker spaniel. These were amongst the biggest, baddest land-borne mammals left over from the Pleistocene, so by “domesticated,” what they mean is “captured and…
August 2023, Literary
If It Tastes Bad, It Must Be Good For You
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman As kids, we attended schools that were a quagmire of communicable diseases, where various ailments were freely communicated, just like today. Pink eye … ringworm … head lice … measles, and so on, including various rashes, itches, and the common issues of sniveling, coughs, and sometimes more serious issues of croup…
August 2023, Island Voices
Finitude and More To Do
By Michael Shook I turned 69 this summer, from which it follows, of course, that next year I’ll hit 70. That’s assuming I live that long. I expect to, but one never knows. At this age, I’ve lost a number of friends that I just assumed I’d be growing old with, some of them very…