Once I asked Paul Dorpat: Out of Seattle's past, who would you most want to have dinner with?
"Doc Smith," Seattle's one-of-a-kind historian intoned.
O man, so would I.
Dinner and a lot of drinks, if that's what it took. Have another, Doc?
Then I'd ask Dr. Henry Smith if I could have a peek at the notes he took during Chief Seattle's famous speech in the 1850s. Smith reproduced the speech in an unobtrusive newspaper column in 1887.
But there is no way to really know for sure how close Doc Smith's version followed the great chief's admonition to the white man. In fact, there is no way to know whether the gathering on the Seattle waterfront where the speech was supposedly made, attended by territorial governor Isaac Stevens, even took place.
On the other hand, how could such a hitherto mediocre writer rise to such transcendental heights if the speech wasn't more or less genuine?
There are some things we'll never know, and can't know, for sure. That's part of the mystery and beauty of the thing. Our culture has little time for ambivalence, but the mystery of Chief Seattle's speech, like the unknown spot where Crazy Horse was buried, seems just. Even the word Seattle, or its antecedent, Sealth, is an Anglo-approximation of the good chief's name.
I was thinking of this last week while standing on the overlook outside Daybreak Star in Discovery Park.
Gaze northwest across the water and you'll see a slice of white cliff topped by forest in the distance. Just to the left of the cliff is the precious estuary owned by Chief Seattle's people, the Suquamish tribe, lately fouled by the Edmonds oil spill.
One man who works with the tribe told me the emotional toll on tribal members because of the spill has been significant.
This comes on top of another ugly mess the tribe finds itself dealing with these days. The Suquamish want Old Man House Park, a state park since 1950, returned to them.
For the tribe, the one-acre site on Agate Passage, facing Bainbridge Island, is sacred. Archaeological evidence indicates this was the place of a village for at least 2,000 years. This is also where Old Man House once stood, a 600-foot-long building used for communal potlatches. This is where Chief Seattle died in 1866. The U.S. military burned the building in the 1870s, and in 1904 the government took the land to build fortifications for the protection of the Bremerton Naval Shipyard. The fortifications were never built. In 1950 the site became a state park.
The tribe wants it back.
There are those in the community who oppose the move. They're afraid, once the transfer is made, the tribe will be accountable to no one but themselves. They're afraid public access to the park could be closed.
Supporters and opponents have squared off with nasty letters in the local paper. Certain neighbors are no longer speaking. It gets personal. Feelings run deep. There have been flashes of garden-variety racism. And, among non-Indian supporters, instances of holier-than-thou self-gratification. The "Indian Problem," for whites, is a prism, and a challenge, for how we look at life, and ourselves.
I spoke to a member of a group opposing the transfer, a man in his mid-30s who lives nearby.
"The tribe claims sovereign nation status," he said. "Which means if they took over the park there'd be no recourse [i.e., accountability]."
"The neighborhood is close to the park," he said of the Agate Passage portion of Suquamish, which features far more expensive real estate than the poor streets in back of town. "It's a quiet and secluded bedroom community close to the Winslow boat."
As for the sacredness of the site: "It's significant for the tribe," he said. "But it's significant for a lot of other people who live in the area."
This, from a nonracist and one of the more reasonable voices of opposition. Reasonable, but clueless, as lawyers can be. And he's a lawyer.
Does it all boil down to amenities? And perceived threats to home values? What about history? Is it just bunk, as Henry Ford put it?
The tribe has held public meetings to gather input on the transfer. A group of non-tribal members have rallied to support the arrangement. One of them said tribal members have expressed not only their gratitude but also something like shock that they would feel anything but hostility from the white community.
Rich Brooks, Fisheries Environmental program manager for the tribe, told me, "The tribe is committed to keep the park open for the public as a park."
Indians and whites walk in parallel worlds. That's our living history. In the rallying of support for the transfer of Old Man House Park, hands have reached across the chasm in friendship.
There's a time to do what's right.
The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission will hear the Suquamish tribe's request for the return of Old Man Park on Jan. 22. If you want to right a historic wrong, e-mail Rex Derr, Director, Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission, at al.wolslegel@parks.wa.gov before then.
Say that you're from Washington State, because the input of state residents will receive more attention. This isn't just a Kitsap County or Suquamish issue. It has everything to do with the spirit of Seattle.
Or Sealth.
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