Wood, Metal, Stone

Surfaces from Lopez Island...

Happy old trawler

Antique harvester

Pioneer canoe

Clinic helipad

The Green and the Red

Ghosts of trucks past on Lopez Island, rusting and enjoying the big sleep while the foliage takes over.

Island Indigenous

Spent several nights on Lopez Island, Washington. Here's a sampling of the plethora of great huts to be found there.

Beach hut for rent!

Garage hut

Mysterious business hut

Artistic hut

Skeletal hut

Sepia Beach

In the spirit of the preceding postcards I take a try at electronic hand-tinting in the attempt to "improve" these badly yellowed snaps from my folks back in Michigan in the late Forties.

I might add that from my personal experience, I don't think I can remember my dad ever going swimming. He was typically under a tree, fully clothed and probably off in a poetic trance.

The original

The Tinted

And the Monochrome.
Which dost thou prefer?

Hand-Tinted

My father arrived in Seattle in the autumn of 1952, ready to start his teaching job at the U of Washington. Aside from his brief stint in California bootcamp, I don't think he had ever been outside his home state of Michigan. He had never had spaghetti, let alone see real mountains or saltwater. My mom has several of the postcards he sent her as he made the big move.

On Thursday September 18 he mailed a whole passel of postcards to her, to whet her appetite for the big move.

Parrington Hall was the building he was to teach most of his classes in, and his office was in a portable "annex" outside it amongst towering chestnuts.

Sepia Saturday: University Avenue c. 1950

Some of my earliest memories involve this street, in fact this block. My parents lived four blocks south of here and one block east, in a tall brownstone apartment across the street from the University, where my dad taught English. My mum would stroller me up and down "The Ave" daily.

Moving north along the "parade" from right to left... we ate at Lun Ting's Chinese Cafe regularly (with its pagoda-like awning), where middle-aged waiters in grey pajama-like uniforms with red piping brought us magenta-edged tiles of barbecued pork. We bought books (oddly enough) at the University Bookstore, and once I got the hankering, bought my 45s there as well. It's still there, though it has expanded greatly. At the far end of the block we patronized Bartell Drugs, whose sign always reminded me a bit of a teddybear's head. You can see it against the white of the bank across 45th Street where my folks eventually based their mortgage when they bought a house a few years later. And beyond the ubiquitous Penney's department store in the distance is the edifice of the Wilsonian Hotel; it became a retirement home, where blue-haired, mustachioed ladies wearing woolly coats the color of barbecued pork hobbled daily to Manning's cafeteria across the way...

As the Mallory Apartments in the background, decades later a good friend of mine had the bad luck to be strolling past when he was struck in the skull by a piece of steel dropped by a window-cleaner on the top floor. He recovered after a lengthy coma but I never again walked along that stretch of sidewalk.

More Sepia Saturday here...

Shangri-La

If it weren't for a couple of observant rugrats, I would have missed this tarnished gem in the forest.

In fact I have missed it, many a time; it's on the Shangri-La Trail, on Radar Peak, in the Cougar Mountain Wildland near my house, where periodically hike with Stella, our ChocoWeimaDor I (and other less furry members of the family).

This hunk o'steel is evidently a relic dating from the Cold War when there was an anti-aircraft base on the top of the mountain (really a high hill, overlooking Lake Washington toward Seattle).

I've Googled extensively trying to ascertain what kind of car this is/was, but the closest I can come is that cars around 19423 had the requisite amount and configuration of chrome. This one is missing all the identifying logos and insignia.

Elephants' Graveyard

Post-War Target Practice (since the Russians never made an appearance)

Frank Gehry's Dream (thanks to Robin for the idea)

Apres-Midi d'un Plymouth

Homunculi

A drive-by reflection on the workaday world.

Newcastle Cemetery

The old Newcastle(Washington) Cemetery contains mostly the graves of the families of miners who toiled in the surrounding hills at the end of the 19th century. The mining and logging towns closed down after a mere 50 years or so and this secluded spot overlooking tiny Lake Boren became overgrown with ivy, blackberry, and shrubbery while the fir trees grew ever taller. As is usual, the gates were unlocked for Memorial Day. The Newcastle Weed Warriors have done a great job clearing the undergrowth and sniffing out the hidden graves.

Death did to me short warning give
Therefore be carefull how you live
Prepare in time do not delay
For I was quickly called away

Silent Alarm

Maltby, Washington