Friday Tidings

I was sitting on the other side of the chain link fence watching my granddaughter’s first tennis lesson. The sunny skies and gentle breeze were a warm welcome. The teenage teachers were patient and friendly. They played warm-up games and had the little ones safely swinging rackets in no time.  A woman, whom I assumed was the tennis program director, was helping too. When a child felt awkward or scared, she played a tennis ball-bouncing game with them. I could tell she loved tennis—and motivating kids—she found a way to compliment them even when they missed the ball. During a quick break I joined the small group of four and five year olds. We gathered together and sipped from our water bottles. In the blunt honesty five-year-olds possess, a boy asked the director, “Why do you have a gold foot?” “Oh! Do you like my gold foot?” She lifted it for all of us to see. Her prosthetic foot was indeed golden. “A car ran over my foot when I was younger, and my doctor had to take my foot...

We were in the Olympic National Forest, hiking to the plane wreckage from a 1952 crash. The map directed us to a cut-off trail and then the path quickly steepened, with car-sized boulders alongside us. It was so quiet—the only sounds were birds and a creek flowing towards the Dungeness River far below.  As we hiked, I imagined what had happened to those men on that winter day.   An Air Force crew was on a rescue mission searching for survivors from a Korean airlift plane that had gone down near Sandpit, British Columbia. They were in a “flying fortress”,  a WW II B-17 and as they set coordinates to return to McChord Air Force Base near Tacoma, they encountered blizzard conditions. Extreme turbulence tossed the huge plane 800 feet up and down. Their radio connection via Seattle became static. Screenshot from Seattle PI 1952 Then the pilot clipped a steep ridge in the Olympic Mountains. As they crashed, the pilot was tossed out a hole in the cockpit, and part of the pl...

The last time I saw Grandma’s canoe, it was tucked away in the rafters of their garage. In the time since her passing, kayaks became a lighter and easier way to enjoy the lake. But I’ll always treasure our canoe trips together. I was probably ten when Grandma bought herself that bright red canoe. Grandpa liked his motorboats, but Grandma liked the quiet of the canoe—the gentle gliding across the water. I’d sit in front and she’d paddle us around the shoreline near her cabin at Priest Lake.  She perfected the art of stealth canoeing—not a sound was made. I asked her to teach me to paddle like she did. So, she had me sit toward her and watch. “See how I don’t move the paddle from side to side?” I watched her hands maneuver the angle of the paddle. “I can turn us completely around without even taking my paddle out of the water.” And she did. I had a few more lessons and then Grandma let me take her canoe on many solo canoeing adventures. She warned me to keep an eye out for storms...

On a scale of bad habits, this one doesn’t rate high, and I’ve come to see it as my personal mission—turning off the lights that my husband leaves on. It’s kind of a joke between us now. Last week, as I turned off a light that had been left on all night, I thought about how leaving a light on for others can be an act of kindness. I remember as a child—my room was down the hall, and Dad would leave a light on for me, so it wouldn’t be dark if I got up in the middle of the night. As a teen, he’d leave the kitchen light on, so when I came in late, I could see when I entered our apartment. I left lights on for my children when they were little—and in their teens when I went to bed before they did. I guess, leaving the light on isn’t always a bad thing. It’s a loving act—one that says, “I’m thinking about you.” Perhaps the light in my heart has finally been switched on to see my husband’s “habit” in a better way—a sweet way of his thinking about me.

I wanted to get some mulch to help keep the weeds down around our place. Our firewood guy said he had just the stuff we needed. He delivered two dump truck loads. It was a mix of sawdust, dirt, some good sized rocks, random-sized wood chunks and kindling. I wanted a deal. And now I had a cheap one. I approached the huge piles and began by pulling out the wood kindling and large rocks. I’d pitchfork the mulch-like remainder into my wheelbarrow. Over and over. I told myself I’d do ten wheelbarrow loads a day or until I got in a bad mood—whichever came first. Of course with my Type A tendencies, I’d always do my ten loads, even if the final three were done with a bit of grumbling and complaining. I finally finished—just as summer arrived. For my next-to-nothing cost, my weeds are buried under a ton of mulch. I know how beauty bark got its name—it looks nice. Um, my mulch doesn’t. But around here, where deer are frequent visitors, moles have staked their claim, and rabbit burrows are ...