Halloween at Port Gamble

It would seem that more and more commercial areas are providing "safe and sane" Halloween visiting areas, those spots where parents can send their kids and feel confident that trick or treating will not result in razor blades in apples, although it's been years since I've heard of anyone dong that. Most of those commercial areas, though, have become so overrun that what many of us grandparents remember from our youth is no longer taking place, and instead the goblins are running from store to store, grabbing what they can get and heading on home in a short time.

Port Angeles, for instance, has been doing this for so many years that it has grown to the point that a business needs over 2500 pieces of candy (or whatever else is being given out) to still be able to pass the gifts to the last visitor. I saw a sign at the Silverdale Mall yesterday which said they are no longer carrying on the tradition. No explanation, but having been the owner of a downtown business I can see the frustration of trying to preserve a tradition which seems to be out of hand.

So what does all this have to do with the small town of Port Gamble? A lot!! I mentioned earlier that most places are no longer having the events that we grandparents remember from our youth. You are probably a grandparent if you remember  "dunking for apples" (especially if you actually did it), or pressing cider, or even hay rides. Small towns did those sorts of things, and as I've said just a few times, Port Gamble is certainly a small town. There are fewer and fewer such places, but this one is proud to stand and invite kids and parents from throughout the area to join in on the fun and visit us on Halloween for fun as much as for candy.

Don't get me wrong, this "tradition" of inviting goblins on Halloween is just a few years old for Port Gamble, but it is growing,  and plans are to keep it going. So on Halloween, from 1pm  to 5pm, parents and young kids (there is no age limit, but you can tell from the "1 pm to 5 pm" that we are dealing with fairly young kids rather than middle schoolers) are invited to come to Port Gamble and join in the fun. Each business will not only have a gift for each visitor, but it will have to be earned through a game of some kind. Maybe it will be a mask that has to be painted; or maybe a "fish" caught from the other  side of a screen, or maybe a photograph to be taken home and shown to the rest of the family, or maybe a crank on a cider press to get real, fresh cider. We won't tell; you will just have to find out for yourself.

Yes, it's always a lot easier to give kids a ride to the nearest shopping center and turn them loose for a couple of hours to fill their bags with sugar. But while those kids of yours are still with you why not come and watch them having fun. Why, we might even have a treat for you!!!!

Is street repair easy to get in your town?

This is one of those quick posts which could easily be replace with a photo, but it happened so fast that I nearly blinked and missed it.

I awoke yesterday am (yes, brother, it was still am) to the awful noise of buildings being torn down, or maybe it was Mike cleaning his bbq cooker with a new kind of scraper, or perhaps it was the sound of yet another car missing the 15 mph turn and scraping its way over the cliff (2 since we moved here seven months ago, but that's another post).

The worst of the noise soon quit and I forgot about it until I got to the post office, when Laura (the postmaster, and she is indeed a master with the post office, but that too is another story) asked me what that noise was coming from the quilt store. I might have panicked, matching some horrible grinding noises with the quilt store, but since I have found no cause for panic yet at Port Gamble, I wasn't going to start now. So I promised her a full report, and headed toward the noise and  the quilts.

I soon found what the noise was. Half the street was torn up and being loaded into a truck to be hauled away. For what reason? I assumed because of faulty underground wiring or septic system, or some part of the grid work under the street that was failing. I've been told that the streets belong to the county, so I assumed that the failure was near catastrophic. And then I saw Tom, our chief of maintenance, and as always I expected a full and accurate report, and I got it.

Have you ever noticed that every once in a while a slab of asphalt will get some cracking in it, perhaps from some soft dirt underneath, or perhaps some heavy trucks from above? The asphalt is still good, can be driven on for years, and no one replaces the street because it LOOKS bad. No, but they do replace the street at Port Gamble when it is becoming rough in an area heavily frequented by wheel chairs, like in front of the pavilion  where many of the weddings are held.

This is soooo typical Port Gamble. Streets are a problem? Fix them. Don't haggle with some agency about whose responsibility it is, just do it. Do it right, of course, and do it when the problem is small, of course, but take care of it. And  so the problems are small because they are taken care of ... early. As a future  user of a wheel chair, I appreciate that attitude.

Sorry you can't move here  quite  yet, my friends, but the rentals are full ... not one house rental available. Is it any wonder that is the case when they take care of the buildings as well as they take care of the streets? And speaking of rentals, the only commercial building available above the waterfront is the Walker/Ames Building, the largest of the business buildings. All other commercial buildings are full. You ought to come by and check out this place ... full WINTER and summer.

Staying a lady in a man's world.

Early on I said that one of the things I most wanted to do with this blog was talk about some of the people who work here; they seem so unique to me in their attitude about work, in their enthusiasm, in their work ethic, that it seems  (as many people tell me) that I'm living in an amusement park, or maybe in a TV show.

I've also noticed what appears to be a bit of a bias in hiring. Most (but not all) employees of the shops here are female. Most (but not all) employees of the maintenance crew (hired by the people who own everything, and thus maintain everything) are male. I'm not going to even try to explain why so many of the shops seem to hire only females, but I can sort of undersand why the crew that repairs buildings, mows huge fields,  builds fences, etc.  are male ... it's physically challenging work! But there is one exception. And I've figured out how this lady keeps up with the men -- she works smart, as well as hard.

Her name is Kathy. Several years ago she was settled into a job she liked, lived in a place she liked (Grapevine) and as she was preparing to move into her 40's, she felt pretty good about things. Until the company she work for discovered what many others before it had .. the cheap labor of China. What a dilemma, from having it made to having to start over in no time at all.

So back to college it seemed would make sense, facing that system 20 years later than most. And what to take for a subject? Her interest  was in horticulture,  but where was a school and where were the jobs? She was advised to consider carpentry, where she could see the possibilities, where a college was waiting (Olympic College), but she couldn't see the future.

So into it she went, full speed ahead, not looking back, and now,  if you want to see someone who landed on her feet, check Kathy. Three years ago, which must have been about the time she was through school, she got employment right where she lived, at Port Gamble. And it is rarely that I have seen someone fit her job and fit with her fellow employees as well as she does..

Her hoticulture interest? Have you seen the planter box in the front of the quilt store? The one I get credit for? Not so. Since she came to work here she has been "just cramming flowers in as I find them." CRAMMING!!! With such attention to color, size, season?

And working "smart" as well as hard? Have you ever seen sheets of "slotwall" (not drywall) that are sheets of a hardwood with slots across the face to hold display cases on. I don't know what they weigh, but I would never manage to hoist them on regular basis. I watched Bill and Kathy in the quilt store one day when it was under construction. I watched as Bill hoisted one of the slotwall 4x8 sheets from a pile to the wall, and held it while Kathy leveled it, pushed it into place, then hit it with the nail gun while Bill finally wiped his brow. I could see it was not going to be Bill's favorite day that week.

But then, what a surprise. Kathy walked over to the pile, with the same difficulty lifted the next sheet, walked it over to its place and held it while Bill leveled it, pushed it into place, and hit it with the nail gun. And don't kid yourself. If its true that men sweat and women glow, she glowed as much as Bill sweated. When I  asked her what the trick was to getting the board up, she gave me the oldest answer in the book, "You have to work smart, not hard."

So what is this woman among men like when she's not at work? One of the guys going out for a beer? No way. She says she goes home to her "girl cave" with all the girlie frills that a lady could want. I haven't seen her house, but I can only picture the pinks she painted it, the flowered print wall paper, the smell of lavender, and of course the cookies in the cookie jar.

And those would not just be any cookies. She attended a potluck a few weeks ago, and about the time she arrived there the word was out that Kathy had brought her cheesecake. Never mind that she had brought a dessert and the appetizers weren't even out yet. No, as soon as someone mentioned Kathy's cheesecake it was half gone. I arrived a few short minutes later to see people scraping the last of it off the plate she brought it on.

And one other thing. This last weekend included a "Chili Cook off" which Port Gamble has never been involved in. This is the first heat of a cook-off, which means the winner here goes onto face some other winners, the winner of that goes on... you get the picture. But for me the real event was the apple pie making contest which (only for Port Gamble) faced some of the louder claimers of quality against each other, people like Steffi from Mike's BBQ and I who had been claiming easy victories all year, claiming that we were the BEST apple pie makers in the city of  Port Gamble if not in the suburbs as well.

And who won that apple pie making contest? The contest which hits the heart of every man with the thought of "Mom" and "Chevrolet" and perfect pie crusts? Was it Steffi who claimed her secret weapon was the apple tree she has at home? No. Was it me, who claimed I didn't need a secret weapon since I just happen to be a perfect pie maker? No.

No, it was Kathy who beat us all, the lady who is just as agile in the kitchen as she is behind the blade of a saw. "I've never met a nicer person," claims Bill, who works with her as much as anyone. "And if I lived with her I'd weigh 500 pounds."

On smelling the coffee

It's as easy as just about anywhere to stay  busy in Port Gamble, busy enough that one starts to loose sight of what one values. Take this last weekend, for instance, and I'm still having trouble getting photos to come up, so please bare  with me. Last weekend was as busy a weekend as I have seen in Port Gamble, evidenced by the number of businesses (new ones especially) who claimed to have had their "best weekend ever", an admirable goal, I am sure.

What was going on? It was called "Old Mill Days" to celebrate the days when Port Gamble had a mill, I am sure, but it might have been called "four ring circus days" for what went on. For those of you who (like me) have not been here for many of these event weekends, this is the one not to miss in the future. For spectators it is the laid back weekend of being entertained and fed, and not having to think or work at what's going on.

The "four" events of the four ring circus? First was the Hotcake Breakfast which was delicious, hot, complete, and all you could eat, served early in the morning on Saturday and Sunday, to a crowd on Saturday and basically to themselves on Sunday (due to the bad weather). Don't eat at home next year, eat here. well worth it.

While I was having breakfast I was also watching the cars for the Car Show (the second ring) show up, as well  as the crowds who were arriving by hay ride. The cars, all different types, filled "The Bowl" (the name for the area behind the retail businesses), and they were  spruced up to shine like always. There must have been close to 200 cars, and for someone like me, who grew up on cars, again it was grand entertainment. Fortunately they   were there most of the day.

The third ring? THE CIRCUS.  Now I'm not sure that anyone between 12 and adult felt totally entertained, but the 10 rides or so kept our twin  grandchildren fully entertained,  as they had never been down a five story slide, been on a ferris wheel, or some of the "tamer" rides. But come  to think of it some of those teenagers  who  I said might have felt left out were probably the source of the screaming coming from the fun house and the octopus. Again, an easy way to forget your cares and just be entertained.

And finally the logging show. I grew up in a logging town but I don't recall having seen a  better show. These guys, most of them professional loggers (the ones with the faded and torn flannel shirts), were excellant, chopping through two foot thick chunks of wood in less than a minute. And the star attractions for me were the races up the standing poles  (they must have been a hundred feet tall) to get to the top, ring the bell, and get back down, and the noisy "chain saw art" which you could buy at the end. What a show, and what a way to end the four ring circus.

So what did I mean when I said that one could be so busy here last weekend that one starts to miss what he values? I mean that for me I almost missed talking with the people who came here. There were so many of them that a person could fail to see the trees for the forest. I did get to meet one woman at the breakfast on Sunday who most of her life had wanted to move to the northwest and finally, only a month or so ago, had moved her family, but not yet her husband who is overseas and will be shipped here soon. And in only the month she was here was already helping a civic group put on the breakfkast. Impressive!

But finally yesterday I had the kind of time I enjoy here the most. Kris and I went for a walk around town which she often doesn't have time to do because of the quilt store; we both had grabbed a snack at the general store, and we  were sitting at a bench by the flagpole enjoying the warm fall breeze off the water, and talking about this fun new place where we live.

There was only one other couple in sight, not far from us, and he was taking her photo with exactly the view we had been eyeing.  Now I was never one with the quick pick up lines in my formative years, but I have a  good one I use in times like this: "That picture would be a lot better if both of you were in it. Can I take one for you with both of you?" I have only been turned down once, by  a married man whose wife would not have been the woman in the photo.

And, as so often happens, we found out a lot about this couple, they had been to Buckley, he had retired from a career teaching junior high, they were here lookng for the quilt store, on and on. A unique couple as you will find, they all are fascinating with their stories to tell if you have time to smell that coffee before you gulp it down.

The Best of Kitsap's West, North of Central

I'm sure by now that everyone has seen "The Best of North Kitsap" which is put out by one of the TONS of "local" newspapers which we all receive. Of course we all wonder how objective this is, can't someone really stuff the ballot box? Can a winner really just be someone who does a lot of advertising with the paper? To make sure that such blatant wrong-doing doesn't always happen, I decided to give my own "The Best Of..." awards, finding a geographical area which I felt comfortable saying that I have experience in.

That area, to specifically define it, I decided to call Kitsap's West side, but it doesn't include the north end , but it is the northerly end, so I'm going to call this "The Best of Kitsap's West, North of Central". And just to be totally fair, I am going to define the area as East Of Hood Canal, West of Gamble Bay, North of the Hood Canal Bridge, and South of Water. Got that?

The business had to have been opened at least 1 week. Some businesses are so excited from just having opened that their reading is sometimes off, so we required a little time.

The business had to thank us profusely and show us how thankful they were by providing us with a lot of whatever they won with.

And are you afraid I'm going to cheat. Hey! You've been reading my stuff for how long and you think I'm a cheater?

So here, without further ado are the 2010 winners of The Best of Kitsap's West, North of Central, along with a little bit about why they won:

The Best Bookstore
The Dauntless Bookstore
Located in Port Gamble. Have you seen the Dauntless' tourist center, with more maps and postcards than any other business in the area. That's in addition to their many fine books.

The Best General Store
Port Gamble General Store
I don't remember a general store with a better selection of cards (although Kim needs to look at some from Paper Clip Art), and have you seen the TWO museums in their facility, the Port Gamble and the Shell Museums, two of the reasons kids like this place too.

The Best Yarn
The Artful Ewe
How many businesses do you know of anywhere in Kitsap County that are only OPEN three days a week because the owner has so much to do to and with her yarn before she can sell it that she barely has it ready for sale as it is.

The Best Place For Tea and Ivar's Clam Chowder
The Tea Room At Port Gamble
We chose the eatery with the most eclectic or disparate choices of food to show that they could entertain just about anyone with their cooking, providing as well an entertaining location.

The Best Place to Find Antiques
Best Friends Antiques
I like this place for a lot of different reasons, but it is so rare that one will find so many antiques placed so carefully in a garage out back of a store, that it makes searching for antiques more of a treasure hunt.

The Best Salon and Spa
Salon and Spa on Gamble Bay
This place MUST be good,  since it is so common for a customer to immediately head out of town when they are done so they can show off the "do" they received. Don't take this comment too casually, since I'm serious, they are good.

The Best Kayaks
Olympic Outdoor Center
These folks have an incredible summer program, especially their evening cruises to help get you started in your  hobby. They are second to none in helping you get started whether you own a boat or want to borrow one of theirs.

The Best Greeting Cards
Paper Clip Art
Very new to the area, the owner (me) uses the photos of his daughter, his own graphics skills, and cheap equipment to carry on a hobby/profession he had begun in his last town. As his schedule becomes more open, you will see more of his posters, brochures, greeting cards, and other creations.

The Best Place to Rent a Room For The Night
No question,  The Port Gamble Guest Houses
Leaning toward the style of a boutique hotel, they certainly have the style of any older, comfortable, classic facility. Try sleeping there one night. Talk about plush comfort!!

The Best Place To Get a Coffee
Gamble Bay Coffee
Not a surprise here, Sean has been dispensing his ware for years, and even finding new delights. Have you heard of a Tropical Jerry? It will cool you down quick.

Best Barbecue
Mike's Four Star Barbecue
Mike has some delicious choices. He recently made the bbq sauces so you can order them the way you want  them, mild, normal, or explosive!

Best Fruit and Vegetable Stand
Terrapin Farms
Where do they find so much fresh fruit and vegetables? When out of town Kris and I have tried to do what the locals do, buy locally. But it is never quite as fresh as what we see here  as "the real thing".

Best Art Studio
         And
Best  Store Helping a Neighbor
Beverly Hooks Fine Art Studio
A winner in two categories, she was picked because of the way she helps The Artful Ewe with  weaving. My understanding is that the Artful Ewe developed the notion of renting looms by the hour, it was Beverly who should be given the  credit both for helping get the system started and for keeping it going.

The best place to buy a basket
Tango Zulu Imports
Need two reasons to buy a basket at a particular place? I've got them. First is the selection. Incredible. Second to none because of where they came from which is all over the world. And the other reason? The baskets are fair traided. You know the people making them are getting a living wage.

The best quilt store
Quilted Strait
I suppose you think I picked this one because I'm married to the owner. NOT SO. With over 3500 bolts of fabric, employees that are sharp as a tack, and a bunch of other stuff (cross stitch, wool, notions, classes, new AND USED books, and an internet site that lets you shop from your own home), who wouldn't pick it?

The best little store
Second Spring
While I've joked with these two about the size of their building (have you seen it? It's just across the street from the quilt store. Don't blink or you really will miss it.), they cram an amazing selection of home-made articles inside, like aprons, kids dresses, shirts, etc. If you drop by and see something you like, BUY IT because it won't be there  tomorrow. And ask to see their fifth floor ... you've never seen one like it.

There you have it. As honest and fair a report on The Best Of ... that you will find. You know, by golly, I just noticed a real coincidence... I'm not surprised though .... every one of these places just happens to be in Port Gamble. How strange.

The change in seasons has brought ....

First, as is sooooo common among "bloggers", I must  apologize for the month that has passed with no comment. THANK YOU to those of you who commented and claimed you missed my material. As usual with me, the words will no doubt fall gracefully from my lips once I get started,  (yeach!!!) but please let me blame the passage of time on trying to cram some fun in the last of summer.

Now that I'm done writing this post and am trying to put photos in it, I find that the photos won't go in. So I'm going to do the only thing I can do, send it with no photos, and keep trying to add them. Maybe someday I'll figure out what I'm doing wrong.

So, as I said in the title of this piece, "The change in seasons has brought" .... lots of things to Port Gamble. Lets try a few.

RAIN!!!! Not torrential, not even steady, just often. If you've been to Lake Ozette on the other side of the Olympic Peninsula then you know about torrential. They have a rain gauge on the front of the Lake Ozette Lodge that has a measuring stick that goes to 12 and hits it just about every year. What's so special about that? The 12 is FEET. No, here we have the rain that truly keeps the  grass green, and (unfortunately for the grounds crew) growing.

But the pot holes come out too, as evidenced by this one at the 15 mph curve. Watch it!!!!

Tree peeps!!!! Whhhaaaaa??? "Tree peeps?" "What is a tree peep?"

OK,  in this day of text messaging I'm told by  anyone two generations younger than me that words usually get shortened when a person texts. So, for instance, "people" becomes "peeps". So your real question should be "what are tree people?" To answer that, let me back up a hundred and fifty years or so, when Port Gamble was just a wide spot in the road. All the founding paps (fathers) had come from New England where you have seen  or heard about the incredible fall colors. Blazing red, brilliant amber, juicy  orange (no wait, that was what they were eating), but in this neck of the woods they found green  spruce, green fir, green cedar. .. lots of color, just one of them.

So the founding fathers called back east and said "How about if your peeps call our peeps and we get some color out here." How do you get fall color out here? You get those maples that never fail you with their fall show. And who comes to see them? Those fall peeps that go running into the middle of the road to get  the world's best photo op (opportunity, but you knew that one) which is the old church, with a couple of houses, all hidden by the blazing maple show of the trees.

So what is wrong with that? Nothing if the tree peeps would follow the laws written by the highway peeps, laws which preclude any peeps from sauntering from between two parked cars onto the highway, without looking. A recent day left me shaking because I had missed one photographer by inches ... and believe me I saw the brand of camera he had and I would have been very sick if the camera had been hurt.

END OF THE YEAR COMPETITIONS
I'm sure it's the staff that puts these together. Now you know I only use first names lest someone might identify themselves and be upset with me, so I will only use the names Shanna and Tom, but I think those two have planned at least one competition (an apple pie bake-off) just to get another (free) piece of what must be described as the most delightfully flavorful piece of apple pie one can find this side of....  well I don't know where, but it's the best for a long way around. And modest though I am at times, I will admit that the pie in question is made by me. You would think that asking me for a piece of pie might be what most peeps, I mean people, would do to get one. But no, they have to make a competition out of it, claiming Shanna is going to enter a pie, forcing me to enter just to prove that while she is good at a lot of things, cooking is not her strong suit. Cooking isn't even a suit that shows up in her hand. Cooking isn't even a suit she has seen before.

So I'll enter the contest and see if she can take the loss.

OLD MILL DAYS
I should have written about this weeks ago, when I wasn't writing (duh). I'm writing this on Friday night when the carnival is set up and running, and it looks fun, skateboard competition was held tonight, and from overhearing some of the comments, it sounds like the old adage is still true "What do they call someone who finishes in second place? Loser."

 Tomorrow I am really looking forward to the logging competitions. It looks like they will have the old fashioned kind., like when two guys climb a standing log, cut a notch for the board they are going to stand on, then saw the top off the timber. And I heard they will have a log rolling contest with the loser ending up in Gamble Bay. Check their website www.oldmilldays.com for more detailed times and events.

Saturday, behind Quilted Strait (www.quiltedstrait.com) (sorry, Folks, but I get paid for these ads) will be the car show. I'm hoping this will be one of the better ones in the area, since Port Gamble lost out on their own show around the 4th of July. If you are reading this and have not been to the car show, but are planning to go, would you do me one whopping big flavor? Thank the guys who brought their cars for doing just that. For many of these owners coming to the show means early hours, having to pay to let people look at their cars, having to listen to the spectators tell about THEIR cars which were stock and not tricked out like these will be at the show. and a long drive home when it is over.

SHORTER BUSINESS HOURS

If ever I was going to say something that would get me in trouble with business owners in Port Gamble, this is the subject. Don't get me  wrong, I'm not a business owner. I  used to be when we lived in  Port Angeles, but now Kris owns the business and I help out now and then.

Some businesses plan to have shorter hours, or actually what is more common, be open fewer days during the winter. I don't get it. By closing Wednesday do they think those  Wednesday people will come on Thursday instead? It won't happen. Those Wednesday people will eat somewhere else, and that customer's visit will probably not happen.

So let me assure you that there are some stores  open 7 days a week year round. I'll tell you which they are, and I hope others will tell me if  I miss some. The ones I am sure of are:

(in alphabetical order)
GAMBLE BAY COFFEE
PORT GAMBLE GENERAL STORE
QUILTED STRAIT
TANGO ZULU IMPORTS
THE TEA ROOM

Coming event

Boy, once I start writing I sure make up for taking a few weeks off. But there is so much coming up in the next couple of months that I want to tell you about, that it is hard to keep quiet. Let's start with next weekend. How can you turn down an invitation that starts like this:

"Imagine sitting in a natural amphitheater overlooking picturesque Gamble Bay on a warm August afternoon in the Pacific Northwest and looking out where once the oldest operating sawmill in the United States processed and shipped lumber all over the West Coast. Steeped in history, Port Gamble is the perfect place to have one of the West's few maritime music festivals. Now in our fifth year, we've played host to the cream of the Northwest maritime music community and continue to have much fun doing it!"

This is the opening paragraph from the "Port Gamble Maritime Music Festival" page on the internet (http://www.portgamblemaritimemusic.com/) where the writer is describing what it will be like to be here on Saturday, Aug. 14th, from noon to 5 pm. to participate in the festival.

I must admit to being a bit partial to this kind of music which seems like it is hanging on by a thread in  those few "seafaring communities" (like Port Townsend, for instance) where stories are told through music of shipwrecks and collisions, calms and storms, where the heroes were often those who went down to the sea.

And what better place to tell some of those stories (and hear them) than in a place like Port Gamble, where men have been going to sea (and often coming home) since the middle of the century before last. The venue is the grass field between the Port Gamble General Store and what we "locals" call the Walker Ames house, maybe a hundred feet away.

If the weather is good and people show up in town the way they have been doing  this summer, there may not be room for everyone, and you may miss  the likes of  Pint and Dale or  Shifty Sailors or Watch the Sky or even Sanger and Diddle.

This is my kind of Port Gamble fun ... no noisy cannons going off, no running till you collapse, no rain, just listening, singing, visiting a few stores and eating an ice cream cone on a pleasant Sunday afternoon.. If you haven't been here for awhile, come this Saturday and you will get a  taste of what this place is about.

Summer help

I debated long and hard before I decided to call this entry "summer help." Those words seem to convey a somewhat lazy attitude,  one held by a teenager who knows he can get away with murder since no one really expects much. There's other phrases that indicate that attitude, like "Maui Time," for instance, a reference point often appropriate to the speed of college students during spring break.

But I have been woefully inadequate in finding anyone who I would refer to as "summer help" in a negative sense here in Port Gamble. The summer workers must be paid well, supervised well, and held accountable to a high standard of behavior, because when I see them they are dressed well, always working, and interuptable only long enough to make sure they are friendly.

Take this mower, for instance. I'm sorry to say that I have yet to get his name, even though I have stopped him on several occasions tring to get his permission to use that machine. I've wanted to ever since I saw those machine, must be close to 10 years now.

No, he will stop, smile, turn off the engine, and let me know without saying anything the least bit bothersome, that I am not going to be running that machine while HE is responsible for it. So a couple minutes  later off he goes as always, having brightened my day and taken a short break.

I said they must be paid well. They must also have a chance to come back again next year, a chance to get a letter of reference in case there is no work here next year, and from seeing some  of them in "action", a chance to spend a few off hours with a person of the opposite sex.

Having worked one summer in college in a small town (only slightly bigger than Port Gamble), I know the influence of "being watched." It's a healthy way for kids to learn to be careful in what they say or do, knowing that if their words or actions aren't viewed properly it might make a difference in what they do in the future. And believe me, while I wasn't the "class cutup", I'm having fun trying to put some of them on the spot. It's a game we play. It's fun and it works, and they stick to their jobs like only "summer help" can in a place like Port Gamble.

I'm also amazed by how many of those "summer help kids" are now balding, full time, and still working as hard as ever to make the most of this place. One in particular (who is not balding) was very active in the crew that moved a "disheveled stable" into a "beautiful quilt store" and in the many days I watched, not once did she take advantage of being a woman to do less work. I hope to corner her in the next day or two to get her story.

One other item. Yes, I am back on the "job." (This is a "job"? Wow! I didn't even know there was a pay day.) I took a little time off to work on getting my meds to respond to me instead of me having to respond to them. I'm back and will try to add posts a couple of days a week. This place is crawling with things to talk about, a whole different perspective on life on the planet earth.

A Town With A Split Personality

When I first started hearing about explorers in school, I had strange ideas of what it might be like to be one of them. They had names like cars (DeSoto, Pontiac ... oh wait, was he a native?), got around the world a lot, and came home rich from being given so many things by the people they discovered. It wasn't until reading about people like James Swan that I found these discoverers weren't the good guys who were given presents. But that's another story for another author.

But I always wanted to be the first to "find" a small town which no one knew about, where people were always good to each other, where everyone was happy and no one complained, "and everybody knows your name."

I think I may have found it, but I'm thinking I might be too late.

Kris re-opened her quilt store here in Port Gamble on April 20th, about four months ago. Then she had her "grand opening" on May 1, and let me tell you it was grand!! A lot of people came, a lot she knew, but even more she didn't know, but wanted to get to know. It was so busy that day that she hauled me in from taking photos to run a cash register, which I did reluctantly, because I thought it was more important just to find out more about this area and this town.

So to do that, one of the things I did with just about each customer I ran into was ask them where they lived. Expecting "Bremerton" or "Port Townsend", I got instead an incredible number of the same answers: "Hi, where are you from?" "Hansville." "Hi, where do you live?" "Hansville" "How about you?" "Hansville." "And you?" "Hansville"

"Did you folks all come from Hansville together?" "No, we don't even know each other." And so the day went. By dinner time I was convinced that "Hansville" was a nickname for "Seattle" and most of the quilters from there had come by ferry to see us.

I really didn't want to wait too long before I saw this "town" call "Hansville", although I had been there years before on vacation with our family at a place called the Last Resort. But finally Kris and I took our quick "tour" through the area ... and I guarantee you it won't be our last.

Now I was on the City of Port Angeles' Planning Committee for many years, even the chairman once, and like so many other cities we felt our job was to organize the place. "OK, all the really nice houses go over here, the single lot houses over here, businesses here, doctors' offices here," until we got to the point that you could not get lost in our city, because it was just like yours. (Did you know the streets of Port Angeles are laid out just like Cinncinatti (I think it is) EVEN DOWN TO THE NAMES?)

Hansville, it seems, is just the opposite. On the waterfront might be a 3 zillion dollar home next to a beach cabin owned by a hermit. Somewhere inland may be a 4000 square foot Cape Cod home on three acres of property that has not been mowed in years next to a half acre lot you can't see the house in, because of all the incredible landscaping. Hansville has defined the word "eclectic".

On the map it appears there is a "hub" of a city quite a ways north of where we stopped, but we had started north from Albertsons and the signs seemed to indicate that we were in Hansville all the time. If that's the case, Hansville must be huge, at least 15 miles by 6 miles, by appearance all full of residential property of a wide variety of types and sizes, with many of the "residents" being the four legged kind.

A day or two later I finally made my trek north to the end of the town, at least the end according to the map, and I think I got to the "city center". Recently I talked about Kingston and their incredible amount of parking stalls used by all their businesses (see the July 4th blog .. not to be bragging too mmuch, but it was a hit in Kingston). There were signs up for the celebration of "Hansville Days", I think it was called, but I could locate ... ready for this? ... only one business. ONE business. A kind of downsized, but efficient, Seven Eleven.

I mention all this because I honestly think Hansville has more residents in its borders than just about any town  on the Kitsap Peninsula, certainly more than Poulsbo, which claims to have only 8860, a claim I remember it having on its "Welcome to Poulsbo" signs when I played basketball against them in high school. I don't want to tell you how long ago that was, but I'll just tell you the Hood Canal Bridge was still a pipe dream.

But those people in Hansville are spread out just the way they want to be, each one on a spot of property that was probably worked out with the former owner ("Now your north corner is that bend where the creek goes around that tree, except if you don't mind I'd like to keep my garden, so maybe we can bend the East line by twenty feet to take it in...." I'm sure they worked it out years ago and still know in their head, but not on paper, just how much property they have. And that's probably the smart way to do it. Kris and I recently sold our house in Port Angeles (after having it on the market for seven days, but that's another story) and the new owner wanted our 6.3 acres surveyed. Mind you it's perfectly rectangular, two adjacent properties had already been surveyed, but still it cost $3600 to have it done. I like the apparent Hansville system better.

So my hat is off to another unique town in this county, one that has got to be seen for all kinds of reasons, its beauty, its eclectic houses, its unique farms, and the even more unique ways some of them sell their goods, but most of all, you've got to meet the people, although I don't know where you got to do that. Maybe the quilt store, or the general store in Port Gamble. After all, they don't have many stores of their own.

A few thoughts for the week

I understand that a few of you have been following my ramblings for quite a bit of the five months Kris and I have lived here, so you know that I have been spending a fair amount of my time comparing Port Gamble to other towns (especially Port Angeles, where we came from), comparing big cities to small towns, and describing the "ultimate" small town, Port Gamble. This week I had some incidents that touched on all three, and ultimately proved what a difficult chore I have before me, convincing you that I live in the best place for all.

First, early in the week I met a man who could only be referred to as a "master craftsman", one of those individuals who must be doing what he likes to be doing, because only someone who loves his work would do it so well. He was truly a professional in his field, highly skilled, well educated in his work, and frankly proud of his exploits, proud of the many people he has worked for who thank him profusely.

Is he a highly skilled   surgeon? No.   A carpenter who crafts some of those buildings which seem so beautiful to those of us who can't afford them? No. Well what then, a car mechanic who can fine tune an engine to get the most horsepower and least emission from it, while stirring up more horsepower than it was ever designed to produce? No, but that would be good. No, this man delivers gravel.

I've really done it now, Ollie.

"He delivers gravel?" I hear you say as you reach for the mouse that's been waiting to be pounced on.

You may have to hear me out, because it's people like this that are changing my perspective. This gentleman works in one of the large towns that surround  our suburb of a small town, and because it's a large town, he delivers gravel ... and nothing else. No, the company is big enough to have their own cement truck drivers, their own bark deliverers, but he delivers gravel.

You and I would be bored, right? Climbing the walls from our third load on. So why not him? Because he has taken it upon himself to be the BEST at what he does, and I believe him. The gravel he was bringing was to help build a parking lot, which someday might get paved, but not now. You should have seen him.

He backed the truck up (I can hear Tim, the Toolman Taylor, saying that to Al, finishing with his "Whoh! Whoh! Whoh!" to signify this guy is good.), he raised the bed to just the right angle to get the most pressure he could on the gravel without "spitting" it out, and then the real tricky part. In one motion he popped the clutch to get the truck immediately up to speed, he opened the gate on the bed so the gravel would come flying out,  and he kept that truck at exactly  the same speed the whole length of the new parking lot to make sure the thickness of the final product was the same from one end to the other ... and that was what was so glorious... it was exactly the same thickness in every load he brought, front to back, side to side.

And when he jumped out of the drivers seat and I said "Wow, that was incredible", he beamed with pride, because HE knew it, but wasn't sure anyone else did.

What's this got to do with anything? So what if he's a good truck driver? Give a thought to this. Because he worked for a big outfit in a big town, there was no time for him to be doing anything else. Sure, there was bark to be delivered, but there was one man to do that too. If he worked in a small town he might have other things to do, other deliveries to make, other floors to sweep, but he didn't. He worked in a big town so he had one job to do, and did it better than you or I could imagine it could be done.

So the conclusion. Can we just say that some people flourish better than others under the pressures of a big city? So let's not go too far and claim that big cities provide an opportunity for ALL people to do their best, just some people ... including at least one gravel truck driver.

Incident number two.

I've developed a wonderful relationship with the director of the Kingston Chamber of Commerce after she flattered me with some nice thoughts about my "Fourth of July" blog, which she sent to all her board members, as well as a local newspaper. The "good relationship" means that she sends me (just about every day) announcements about coming events in the thriving metropolis of Kingston. And I reciprocate in this warm relationship by ... reading them.

Last night (Saturday) I knew was concert on the waterfront night,because it was Saturday and we were near the waterfront, and we heard The King. Yes, just as I might be accused of seeing ghosts in Port Gamble, you could accuse me of seeing The King, Elvis, in Kingston. As we were nearing the driveway that seems to loop around the stage, you could have seen me nearly falling out of our car as Elvis looked my way and I made a fool of myself by waving at him. I didn't notice (Kris did) but we never made eye contact so I'm not sure he knew his biggest fan was there. I'm sure a lot of the girls there thought he saw THEM, but I doubt that he did, since he didn't notice me.

But how does Kingston do it? The place was packed, but not uncomfortably so, we could stand at the back and see with no problem, the weather was WARM, the beers were being served without yelling, and I'm sure every grandparent in the county was there to see that man who has been hiding away while their kids have been growing up.

I like my Port Gamble, but this Kingston is starting to look nicer ... and cleaner ... than it did when I saw it on the fourth. Kris and I are thinking of going to The Oak Table for breakfast tomorrow. That's a restaurant that started in Sequim and now has a branch in Kingston, one which we visit when we feel just a touch of homesickness...

And finally. There's a lot to do here. I've told you that. And frankly I haven't had time to do everything, but there is one event that I hope I'll have time for. Sean came back last Tuesday evening from a kayak sunset cruise around the area, which he said he totally enjoyed. It provided a look at a fish hatchery, loads of otters following them, a gorgeous sunset and new friends to go with another time. I had planned to go, but had to beg off at the last minute. Next time I won't!!! Sponsored by the Olympic Outdoor Center, other evenings start in other locations, but I'm partial to the one in Port Gamble (every Tuesday). No experience necessary! And they provide EVERYTHING you need. Call them at 360-297-4659. What did they pay me to say this? NOTHING. It's one of those things the locals do and we have so much fun we forget to tell others. But I'm telling you ... it's a kick (and John makes sure it's safe).