Members of the senior-centered Brighton Apartment complex ride in style and celebration in Columbia City during the Rainier Valley Heritage Day Parade on Aug. 20. Photo: Betsy Berger
Interested in getting out for a nice stroll around the neighborhood with some new friends? The University of Washington's Health Promotion Research Center has a program dedicated to helping local seniors, the South East Senior Physical Activity Network. The program's mission is to increase the exercise options available to South End seniors. Over the past two years the HPRC has initiated and supported several area programs in conjunction with community organizations and the Seattle Parks and Recreation Senior Programs Walking Program, Sound Steps. Click the headline or the "Full Story" Link for senior activity groups in full swing. New groups are currently being developed.
Restoring a small tugboat for drift log salvaging and running a respected, custom-furniture making business are two vastly different operations. But if Jim Newsom had never hauled logs off the shores of Vashon Island, his current endeavor of making premier dinner tables and bed sets from trees cut in the greater Seattle area may not have happened. Plucking logs from the shore and ocean is where he experienced the creative spark that brought him to found Urban Hardwoods in Georgetown. "It was just an evolution. It was really formed around making good use of wood that was normally going to waste," said John Wells, Newsom's primary partner and fellow woodworker. [Jim] quickly figured out [the tugboat] wasn't the most effective and efficient way of salvaging lumber."
For those who have a pesticide-free yard or garden, the Washington Toxics Coalition has a new program, allowing individuals to receive a free, attractive metal yard sign to mark their landscape as pesticide free. Over the past two years, the Washington Toxics Coalition has been working with local businesses and individuals to distribute pesticide free zone signs, encouraging people who do not use toxic chemicals on their landscape to be proud of their efforts and post a symbol to let others know that their lawn is safe for children, pets, and beneficial insects. Area landscapes that have posted the signs featuring a ladybug graphic include the Seattle University along with thousands of homes throughout the city's neighborhoods.
Today's kitchen reflects peoples' busy lives. Glossy magazine photos and popular TV programs show stark, laboratory-like work spaces fitted with tremendous stainless steel refrigerators, commercial style ranges and high-tech lighting fixtures. The matching canister sets and colorful curtains of past years have largely vanished with rotary egg-beaters and dish-draining racks. But kitchens still reflect the lives of the people who inhabit them: cherished cookbook collections, favorite pieces of crockery and the ubiquitous junk drawer. >While one might purchase all new appliances or entirely remodel a kitchen, often less drastic changes are sufficient to achieve a new look or make a kitchen more efficient.
Well, it is that time of year again. The kids, at least the ones over 5, are going back to school. But there are still the little ones to entertain. And there is the weekend for those tired older scholars who need entertaining. ut have no fear. You live in a major city that features lots of things to do for parents and kids who want to, or must, hang out together. And not everything costs money.
Gregory Moore, Junior "No. I don't want to wake up early in the morning. (But) it will be nice to see my friends and teachers. The teachers at my school are really good and supportive."Zechariah Brown, second gradeNo, I want to stay home and play with my toys. Click the headline for more answers.
In my world the single hardest day of the year is the one when I realize my container garden has dwindled to one hollow-eyed daisy on a gangly stem, drawing an immi-nent division between summer and fall in my mind, if not on my balcony. Ever since May, June maybe, I did not resonate much to things beyond the warm day at hand. Autumn had nothing to do with me.Every year round this time, as August fades, full-tilt, into fall, I like to repeat the affirmation: I can cope with the months to come, I can, I can, I can. Saying so reminds me that the most common and dangerous hunger in humans is the desire to control.
Driving through the neighborhoods, it's not difficult to notice specimens of the new status symbol. We're not talking about the latest bit of swoopy, imported rolling sculpture parked in the drive-way, or even the planting of a couple of expensive big trees in the yard. No, the latest urban sign of affluence is to have a fiberglass water closet, a portable lavatory, a Rent-a-Can, perched at the curb in front of your home. Out front, it can be serviced at regularly scheduled intervals by a sanitation truck so there is never a nasty odor anywhere in the area.
Owning dogs that are bred to fight and chomp on the innocent isn't against the law in our area. What is illegal is the ownership of a wild - read not-white - duck. Ask Diane Erdmann, who found out the hard way that those brave and true boys and girls who work for state Fish and Wildlife are all about enforcing the no-duck rules. Erdmann, who works in Auburn, owned a tiny duck that fit in the palm of her hand. She called the animal Gooey. She got him after the little fella was almost killed by a crow. She took Gooey to work most days, and her co-workers spoiled the harmless little quacker as much as Erdmann did.Didn't matter, though. Fish and Wildlife showed up and took the duck. Erdmann told The Seattle Times the other day that one of the brave wildlife officers actually struck her when she didn't immediately surrender Gooey. Fish and Wildlife officials said they aren't done. They are investigating Erdmann for unlawful possession of wildlife, according to the Times. I think somebody should investigate Fish and Wildlife for insanity in the line of duty.
000 people 65 and over live in Washington state. Seniors here and across the country can take an important step toward controlling their health this September by celebrating Healthy Aging Month and by asking their doctor for one of Medicare's new, preventative health screenings. These are designed to help seniors stay healthy. In addition to this service, people who receive Medicare are eligible for new prescription drug coverage starting Jan. 1, 2006. Locally, Medicare Today is joining together with community organizations such as the Wallingford Senior Center, the Tallmadge Hamilton House and Ballard Manor to help older Americans stay healthy by conducting education seminars about new benefits available as a result of legislative changes to the Medicare program.
"I was born and raised in Lincoln country," says Magnolia resident Rob Wilson in his mild, Midwestern voice, which tends to confirm the fact. A bronze plaque promi-nent in the small Illinois town of Tolono, in the central part of the state where Rob grew up, commemorates a campaign speech Abraham Lincoln made there.Rob reads Civil War history almost exclusively, because of his admiration for Lincoln but also for a personal reason: his great-grandfather served in that war. "He held me in his arms," says Rob. "He died just a few months after I was born." Rob regrets that he never has retraced the thousands of miles his great-grandfather walked during the war, but he does belong to the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War.
n 1998 Gerry Bradley, phoning from Tacoma, introduced himself.He said he'd grown up on Queen Anne and had written down his boyhood memories: Would we be interested in publishing some of them?Send them, I replied, and we'll see.The stories were rough - sometimes ungrammatical, often rambling - bearing the hallmarks of a beginning writer. But there was wheat mixed in with the chaff. A 3,000-word submission could be hacked and hewed into a pretty fair 700-word boyhood recollection. Little did I realize that his parents had just died two weeks apart and these stories were a way of deal-ing with his grief. And I certainly was clueless to the fact that, seven years later, Bradley and I would be sitting in Starbucks on upper Queen Anne where he would hand me his memoir, "Birds from the Thicket.
Now is the time to for children to have their immunizations up to date for the new school year. Hepatitis B vaccine is now required for students enrolled in kindergarten through eighth grade. Students entering kindergarten through 12th grade will be required to show proof of having received two doses of measles-containing vaccine, one dose of mumps-containing vaccine and one dose of rubella-containing vaccine (usually received as the combined MMR vaccine). Varicella vaccine for chickenpox is not required this coming school year, but will be required in 2006.
Sgt. Carlos Lazo from Seattle is awarded a Bronze Star for heroism by Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Seattle) during a ceremony at the Seattle Armory on Saturday, Aug. 20. Lazo, a combat medic, and three other soldiers from Charlie Company, 181st Support Battalion, were honored for their bravery under fire during recent combat operations in Iraq. The military citation stated that Sgt. Lazo risked his life to save others. The sergeant has been denied the ability to return to his native Cuba to visit his two sons.