Vashon Island, WA Weslie Rodgers, maker of smile dispensers Weslie Ann Rodgers passed away on June 23rd, 2025. Perhaps best known for her “Please do not eat animal” sign campaign, her touch can be found almost anywhere you look on Vashon. She and her husband Saul first reached Vashon in 1979, and have been permanent…
Announcements, July 2025
Wanted: Program Coordinator and Assistant for the Vashon Old Friends Club
The Vashon Care Network and Vashon Senior Center, in partnership with the Presbyterian Church, are launching the Vashon Island Old Friends Club, a daytime program for adults living with dementia or cognitive decline. Based on the successful Old Friends Club model (www.OldFriendsClub.org), the program offers engaging, meaningful activities for participants while giving family caregivers consistent, scheduled…
Announcements, July 2025
Music Mends Minds (MMM)
By Rich Osborne Eight years ago, my buddy Karen Dale came up to me and said “Rich, you have got to come out next Tuesday afternoon and sing and play guitar with this group of musicians at 1:30 at the Vashon Community Care Center (VCCC). We have a sing-along for folks living with Alzheimer’s or…
Island Voices, July 2025
The Epic Battle of MPH, Vashon Style …
By Dave B. MPH. What does this acronym mean and what does it mean on Vashon? Theatrically, in the Washington State Driver Guide, crafted carefully by our genius government officials, it means miles per hour. Posted on signs all over our great country and Island are suggested speed criteria for our gas-guzzling and hybrid, semi-hybrid, all-electric cars, trucks,…
Island Voices, July 2025
Some Reflections upon Re-entry
By Michael Shook Civilized. While wandering the streets of Paris back in May, that was the word that I thought of. Why civilized? Goodness knows, France has as many misguided actions as any other nation, but that only places them with humans in all countries and cultures. If we were to disqualify a nation on…
Island Voices, July 2025
The Glorious Headline Challenge – A New Way To Search
By Cynthia Delgado While one may imagine that the Vashon of yesteryear was an innocent and bucolic existence marked by wholesome and simple endeavors, the truth is our little green Island has always been eccentric and touched by controversy. Why, just a glance at these headlines from 1905, 1922, and 1908, respectively hints at just…
Island Voices, July 2025
Condo Time?
By Pam (Gates) Johnson Sometimes, living in an apartment doesn’t seem like a bad idea. Let me give you a little backstory. I’ve been living on my little farm since 1975. It has a house (duh), a barn, an orchard, a garden, a big lawn, and fenced pastures. My life-long dream was to live on…
Island Voices, July 2025
Cranked Ice Cream
Seán Malone & John Sweetman Seán and I grew up on different islands, but shared so much of the same experiences. We always knew the “warning signs” of summer, which arrived in July, not June, which was typically a gloomy month. The signs of summer were not merely longer daylight hours, warm days, and the…
Health Matters, July 2025
Community Healing with St. John’s Wort
By Jane Valencia A few months ago, in a conversation between herbalist and frequent Loop writer, Kathy Abascal, and co-editor Caitlin Rothermel and myself, we spoke about the ability of plants to work on the entire spectrum of our health from the physical, psycho-emotional, to the spiritual. We speculated: if herbs can address dis-ease on…