By Michael Shook In 1972, when I graduated high school, there were about 3.4 million residents in the entire state of Washington. In 2022, there were 4.5 million residents of King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties alone. The state is now home to roughly 7.8 million people, with another million estimated to arrive during the next…
By the Footloose Foodie The “Friendly Foodie” sends greetings! Vashon friends, family, and visitors, I said I would set my feet loose this month and visit a local eatery. Please, reader, remember that I write only of my personal experience. Agree, disagree, or agree to disagree. I have no ill will or nefarious agenda with…
By Tripper Harrison “Oh, man, I am NOT going out there alone again,” said Kemal. A university kid from Morocco who speaks several languages, his English was heavily accented, but correct as usual. “Please would someone walk with me to the Lodge?” Maybe because it takes so long in the summer, darkness fell without anyone…
By Suzanna Leigh Only staying active will make you want to live a hundred years. Japanese proverb Why am I so terrified to take the helm today? We are coming into Fairhaven to tie the boat to a mooring line between two big yellow bouys. In all my decades of sailing, I’ve never tied up…
By Tioga Webb I’m going to keep this vague, because I don’t want any trouble after all these years. If you were around back then, you can fill in the blanks. Some people say Vashon is all boggy spots, at least in the winter. The bog I lived near was called Whispering Firs Bog. It…
By Andy Valencia Over the years of my life, the US has been shedding ability at a pretty decent pace. We sent manufacturing overseas, and now we have almost nobody who knows how to design for manufacturing, how to set up injection molding, how to use a mill and lathe to fabricate custom parts. We’ve…
By Seán Malone and John Sweetman “Hey Mike, he’s hiding under that patch of seaweed.” We were hunting crab with a pitchfork down at Manzanita on the south end of Maury Island. Crabs can move as fast as a person walks on dry land. Mike poked the pitchfork into the seaweed and scared the ten-inch…
There is a reason we are drawn to looking at the ocean. It is said that the ocean provides a closer reflection of who we are than any other mirror – Rick Ruben, The Creative Act: A Way of Being By Suzanna Leigh Behind us, our little 9.9 hp Suzuki outboard left a trail of…
By David Earle Last month, I wrote about Vashon and Washington State’s serious housing problem, offering solutions the King County permitting department could put in place to make it easier for lower-income individuals to buy land and construct housing. This month, I return to my point: “Land hoarding is a thing.” For instance, the Reed…
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…