Hello, my name is Lisa Devereau. I am a cemetery commissioner and a funeral director. I grew up here on Vashon, and have a story about growing up here. A few years ago, a woman named Verna Bacon Everitt moved back to Vashon. She had hopes of writing for our local newspaper, so she wrote…
As you drive north and turn the corner into the quaint town of Burton, you are suddenly transported back 100 years, and are surrounded by a turn-of-the-20th-century village. What is now Burton was once a thriving village of the sx̌ʷəbabš or “Swiftwater People,” with longhouses and a potlatch house. Historians estimate that prior to European…
Seán and I were sitting out on his deck a few years back, looking out at our crab traps set in our secret spot, the Trench, just offshore. We noticed a boat approaching and suspected it was a “crab pot poacher.” Waving the boat off seemed to get no answer, so Seán, after a false…
Brette is a smart, bold, funny islander who always speaks her mind. Brette recently began working at Vashon Thriftway and utilizes a job coach accommodation through AtWork! – a supported-employment nonprofit organization that works throughout Washington state to match people with intellectual and developmental disabilities with good jobs in their communities. Brette and I shared…
The world of money has gone wild in recent years. The Loop planned a sequence of articles on the subject, starting with the basics – what is money? How is it created? However, we’ve decided to jump forward to a discussion of a new, particularly dangerous proposal that would impact how we keep and spend…
Tuition loans have more than doubled in the last two decades, causing a myriad of problems for our country’s economy. And worst of all, a majority of this burden is held by people 20 to 30 years of age, a time in one’s life that should not be spent at the mercy of unpayable debts….
This month my “big” column is about money. But I don’t want to leave the world of tech commentary entirely behind, and I have found a surprising way to save money on technology. There are roughly four major cellular companies – that is, companies who put up cell towers and run the radios which talk…
As many historians and astrologers have pointed out, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. We are living through an American astronomical Plutonian birthday – meaning that, over the last 248 years, Pluto has transited through all 12 astrological signs. This provides an opportunity to reflect on the last 248…
Okay, so what is haka? Haka is the sacred dance of fire, passion, devotion to the land, the ancestors, the clan, the Earth, and all beings – the great dance of the Māori people. My first glimpse of the haka was a few minutes at the end of the film “Whale Rider.” As I watched…
This story began on Seán’s fireplace mantel. There is an old Plymouth master brake cylinder filled with either a mouse nest or some of Seán’s cigar ashes. Some years back, after Seán returned to Vashon, he told me that his first car had been sold to an Island friend, and that somehow it had come…