More than 450 John Hay Elementary School students and staff spent Friday before last, Oct. 20, walking, jogging, running and dancing 922 total miles around the school. They were caught up in the school's annual Move-a-thon, aimed at raising funds to support tutoring, arts and other vital programs at John Hay. The goal of the school's 18th Move-a-thon was to raise $70,000, and its theme was consistent with John Hay's vision: that each student will find personal success, public stewardship and a pathway to the stars. Fifth-grade students at John Hay have always focused on public stewardship and service by conducting a food drive for Northwest Harvest across Queen Anne Hill in conjunction with the annual Move-a-thon. This year they collected enough bags of groceries to overflow the main hallway. As fifth-grader Kally Patz said, "It felt good to help people who need things more than we do."
Historic Seattle presented its ninth annual Bungalow Fair on the last day of September. I was invited in my capacity as Antique Lady and arrived early on Sunday morning, Oct. 1, planning to attend a lecture presented by Megan Thomas, curator of the metalwork section of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The lecture was on the craft of C.R. Ashebee, one of the greats of the British arts and crafts movement.Historic Seattle is a 31-year-old local organization dedicated to the preservation of threatened historic buildings, education and advocacy for the arts and crafts movement. The Bungalow Fair, assisted by the arts and crafts guild committee, is the highlight of the year's activity. This has enabled them to host more than 50 architects, interior designers, antique dealers and craftspeople in metal, tile, glass, lighting and furniture in 10,000 square feet of space at Town Hall (the former Fourth Church of Christ Scientist).Historic Seattle has made the Bungalow Fair a yearly tradition anticipated by thousands of residents and visitors.Seattle's-and Queen Anne's-growth, residential and neighborhood development and architecture are strongly tied to the arts and crafts era, from the 1890s into the 1920s. One exhibitor of particular interest to me was Charles Rupert Designs Limited, its booth presided over by a very interesting couple: Stuart Stark, a third-generation Victorian (Victoria, B.C., that is) and his English wife, Margaret Graham Bell. The company was named after Stark's grandfather, an Edwardian bank manager of some style whose bank was just three blocks away from their original retail shop.
First-time home owners must have their status stamped on their foreheads. They're gullible, have stars in their eyes and think that a coat of paint will fix anything.I remember that we had been living in our present abode only about a week before the paint brushes came out."I don't think I can live with this bedroom wallpaper another week," my partner, the Lady Marjorie, said one night from the other side of the bed. "This flocked design looks like some hippie's bad trip."The next day I was down at the hardware store collecting all the equipment we'd need to strip wallpaper. There was a gallon of the caustic stripper itself, rubber gloves, buckets, sponges, scraping knives, an electric fan and, finally, drop cloths.The instructions seemed simple enough. Just drench the wallpaper with the stripper, wait five minutes or so for the glue to dissolve and then peel off the paper. I stretched a drop cloth across on the floor in front of the first wall I planned to attack, pulled on the rubber gloves, picked up a sponge and started wetting down the wall.The fumes from the stripper solution quickly filled the room, so I opened the windows and turned on the fan. This was not a job to be attempted during the dead of winter. It was getting a little breezy.You've heard of smells bad enough to peel wallpaper? Well, I was beginning to think that was the method employed by this particular brand of stripper.After we had waited the prescribed five minutes and then some, we started the peeling process. The wallpaper didn't come off in roll-wide sheets-no, it came off in three-inch by two-foot strips that require a lot of elbow grease."There's another layer of paper under this flocked stuff!" my partner discovered. "We're going to have to scrape that stuff off, too.""Just a second," I suggested, my mind working fast at some method to somehow cut the workload shorter. "This second layer with the big flowers was quite popular during the Eisenhower era," I suggested. "Maybe we could just find some period furniture and do the room in that style?"
I was downhearted while driving to the Navy Region Northwest Public Comment meeting held Oct. 12 at Fort Lawton. It appeared that the remaining 26 Historic Fort Lawton properties on Officer's Row and Montana Circle would be sold to private parties and lost forever as part of Discovery Park.The notice in the Magnolia News included this statement: "The Navy Region Northwest invites you to comment on its plans to convey 26 properties in the Fort Lawton Historic District to its public/private venture, Pacific Northwest Communities, LLC (PNC)."A second purpose of the meeting was to ensure that "the act of divesting federal historic property to the private sector was considered an adverse effect unless measures are taken to mitigate the potential impact on their historic characteristics."Besides this, the Navy and PNC promised to demolish the 66 Capehart homes and sell the land to the city of Seattle for $11 million. This land would be added to Discovery Park.The Navy and PNC are a joint venture for these transactions, with PNC acting as the managing member.Discovery Park owes its existence in part to the 25 civic and environmental organizations that made up the Citizens for Fort Lawton Park (CFLP), founded in 1968. The CFLP faced a federal plan to build an antiballistic missile base on 300 acres of property at Fort Lawton. Sen. Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson and Sen. Warren G. Magnuson joined the fight that caused the federal government to abandon the proposal. Later the senators created the Federal Lands for Park and Recreation Act-often referred to as the Fort Lawton Bill-which let Seattle, as well as hundreds of cities, receive surplus federal property for park and recreation uses. Under this law, Seattle gained Discovery Park, Magnuson Park and the Amy Lee Tennis property on Martin Luther King Jr. Way.Magnuson Park had many Navy buildings. The Seattle Parks Department now leases building space to several organizations under the Park's enterprise program.
The proposal announced at a press conference last week by King County Executive Ron Sims and Port of Seattle CEO Mic Dinsmore to swap Boeing Field for a 47-mile eastside rail corridor that would be turned into trails is far from a done deal.That was something Sims' chief of staff, Kurt Triplett, stressed numerous times in an interview. But broaching the idea was necessary, he said. "We finally got to the point where we needed a reality check."The reality check involves primarily Port commissioners, but it's so early in the process that the proposal is only conceptual at this point, according to Triplett. "It's hard to know how the details will work out."Indeed, one of the details that still needs to be worked out is how much the Port of Seattle would pay King County for the airport. The county in turn would use that money to convert the rail line for recreational use, and a figure of $200 million has been mentioned repeatedly in press coverage.But Triplett stressed that no solid sale price has been established, and he noted that Sims only mentioned a cost of "hundreds of millions of dollars" in response to a question at the press conference. Also up in the air is how much money Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad would want for the rail line, Triplett added.
The Board of Park Commissioners recommended that David Rodgers Park be eliminated as a potential off-leash-dog area at its Oct. 26 meeting, but the board kept Magnolia Manor and Lower Kinnear parks as potential locations where dog owners can let their pets run free. And in a surprise move, the commissioners voted unanimously to add a section of Discovery Park near Bay Terrace Road to the list of areas where pilot projects could be set up for off-leash dogs. It is a two-acre site along the northeast boundary of the park and outside of the park's fence near the north parking lot.Commissioner Jack Collins wasn't buying it when commissioner Debbie Jackson moved to include Rodgers Park in the board's recommendation for pilot off-leash areas. "I'm ambivalent about that," he said. "I really think that's a special park."Commissioner Jackie Ramels said she had visited Rodgers Park and only saw people with dogs there. "Usually, they had two dogs, and they were always off-leash," she added.That was an issue picked up by board chairman Terry Holme, who worried that including Rodgers Park in the list of potential locations would send the wrong message to pet owners who already let their dogs run free in the Queen Anne park.
Thanks to a recent $10,000 contribution from the advisory council of the Magnolia Community Center, the Rotary Club of Magnolia is close to its goal of raising enough money to buy and install 10 automatic external defibrillators in the neighborhood.The $10,000 came from rents paid for program space at the community center, said Darrell Drew, president of the advisory council. "So if we do good management, we can put some of the money back into the community."The Rotary project was chosen because its members gave the advisory council an impressive and organized presentation when they asked for help, he said.Dick Turner, next year's president-elect for the Rotary, said there's a simple reason the defibrillators are needed. "The concern has always been that we don't have an aid car here," he said.The automatic defibrillators - which include recorded instructions - are easy to operate, and the cost for 10 is approximately $23,000, Turner said.
On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in the Philippine Sea and sank in 12 minutes. Of almost 1,200 men on board, about 300 went down with the ship. The remaining 900 men were left floating with no lifeboats in shark-infested waters. The ship was never missed, and by the time the survivors were spotted by chance four days later, there were only 316 of them left.The ship's captain, Charles Butler McVay III, was among the survivors. He was court-martialed and convicted of "hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag." Overwhelming evidence indicated that he was a scapegoat for others' mistakes.In 2000, following years of effort by other survivors, President Clinton finally exonerated Captain McVay (who died in 1968) for the loss of the Indianapolis.One of the other survivors is Eugene Morgan, boatswain mate second class, now 85. As a voice of "living history," he speaks to schools and organizations about his experience on the Indianapolis. "I was inspired to do this," says Morgan, "when I overheard a kid say he hadn't heard of World War II."
Due to poor birth-control planning, we are the semi-proud parents of four new kittens. This is my husband's fault. As you may recall in a previous column, he was unable to get the female cat into the pet carrier for her trip to the vet. That isn't the real reason he's to blame for the cat getting pregnant, though. No, this isn't a case of cross-species breeding gone wild. If it were, you'd be reading about it in the National Enquirer, right next to an article on Hillary's abduction by aliens and the resulting love child.No, this cat is pregnant because my husband let her out of the house in a failed bid to have her not be our cat. He wanted her to run away, which she did, but only to have her fun and then return in the family way. This is why my husband is culpable for the four new mouths to feed.As with most feline births, it began in the dead of night. I know this because the momma kitty started to wander the dark house, whining. OK, it was actually meowing, but trust me, she was whining. I've got four children, and if I knew I had to go through four births one right after the other, I'd be meowing, er whining, as well.
Vis-à-vis regular boilerplate crime - murder, armed robbery, burglary, those staples of the old-time daily newspapers where I be-gan what the New Agers call my ca-reer path 30 years ago - Cincinnati, my just-revisited home, and Seattle, my adopted home most of the past 20 years, have gone in different directions.When I arrived here in 1984, fresh from covering Cincinnati's approximately 50 murders a year, I discovered that Seattle, although a tad bigger, also averaged about 45 to 50 homi-cides annually.In the '90s, when Seattle's murder rate spiked and forced the creation of a gang task force, our 70-plus citizens-removing-citizens rate surpassed that of Cincinnati, where the murder rate dropped under 40 per annum.But Seattle somehow grabbed "aholt" (as we say in the near South) of itself, and lately murders have dropped to under 30 annually. At the same time, with gang problems, police brutality and racial tensions on the rise - in a city the census claims is 35 percent black, but where black activists claim a full 50 percent, many unrepresented, of the citizenry - Cincinnati's murder rate has soared. At this writing, 80 citizens (a record pace for the alleged Queen City of the Midwest) have already been removed from the faulty census roles, most, of course, the victims of gunshot wounds.To even the untrained eye, Cincinnati is a more violent place than Seattle.
Two weeks have passed since the mid-October school board meeting imploded from a lack of leadership and a surfeit of rudeness on the part of some in attendance. It's time for school administrators and parents to cast critical eyes on the wreckage. The school board has been called dysfunctional, and when it comes to the way they handle public meetings, that appears to be the case.Where was the discipline on Oct. 18? The meeting's three-hour time slot nearly doubled as the board members allowed impassioned speakers to exceed their time allotments and sat passively as rude, disruptive members of the audience interrupted the proceedings for the detriment of everyone involved. The mechanism for public input was disrespected and derailed.The board's job is to inform the audience of the ground rules, the consequences of breaking them, and enforce them if they are broken. While it may take beefed-up security to accomplish, it's the same old-fashioned and positive structure of communication parents should use with their children. It's elementary.
SCOTT MERCADO"Absolutely. He is charismatic. The U.S. is lacking any sort of foreign policy, and I think that he could help improve that. I also like his views on the environment."DAVE FLOWERS"I don't know about Barack, but I am going Jon Stewart/Colbert all the way!"
As a single spotlight shines onstage at Intiman Theatre, a man stands naked, his arms spread wide. We don't know whether he's simulating a crucifixion or an act of freedom. Perhaps it is a little of both.Richard Wright was the first 20th-century African-American writer to command both critical acclaim and popular success, and his "Native Son" remains a powerful novel. The stage version directed and adapted by Kent Gash, the third offering in Intiman's five-year American Cycle, falls short of the celebrated 1940 tome. However, we must applaud the gallant efforts of Gash and the actors. Because of a snafu involving the rights for a much-touted Cheryl L. West version of Wright's novel, at the last minute Intiman switched adapters and postponed the opening. The director had but three weeks to write a new adaptation and redirect the play, while performers had to learn and perform a new script - no easy feat. Readers of the book live with Bigger Thomas' soul for 392 pages; onstage we get only 90 minutes. Director Gash's adaptation plays out in a series of fragmented vignettes, almost like a CliffsNotes version of Wright's riveting novel. But you should still see this show, because it invites serious discussions about ongoing racism in America. There are thought-provoking moments, although the production sometimes resembles a drive down a gravel road: every so often you hit a bump and lose momentum.
 As a single spotlight shines onstage at Intiman Theatre, a man stands naked, his arms spread wide. We don't know whether he's simulating a crucifixion or an act of freedom. Perhaps it is a little of both.Richard Wright was the first 20th-century African-American writer to command both critical acclaim and popular success, and his "Native Son" remains a powerful novel. The stage version directed and adapted by Kent Gash, the third offering in Intiman's five-year American Cycle, falls short of the celebrated 1940 tome. However, we must applaud the gallant efforts of Gash and the actors. Because of a snafu involving the rights for a much-touted Cheryl L. West version of Wright's novel, at the last minute Intiman switched adapters and postponed the opening. The director had but three weeks to write a new adaptation and redirect the play, while performers had to learn and perform a new script - no easy feat. Readers of the book live with Bigger Thomas' soul for 392 pages; onstage we get only 90 minutes. Director Gash's adaptation plays out in a series of fragmented vignettes, almost like a CliffsNotes version of Wright's riveting novel. But you should still see this show, because it invites serious discussions about ongoing racism in America. There are thought-provoking moments, although the production sometimes resembles a drive down a gravel road: every so often you hit a bump and lose momentum.
Is your house filled with photographs of your children? Do you email them to Grandma and Granddad, stick them on the refrigerator, carry them in your wallet or have one or two on your desk at work? Most of us are so proud and so pleased with the detailed pictorial records we make of our growing children. Now, imagine life without those pictures.For those who lived before the age of inexpensive cameras, parents had few picture options. "Little Women, Little Men: Folk Art Portraits of Children from the Fenimore Art Museum" now on display at the Frye allows us a peek at one of those options. It includes 12 19th-century portraits of children from New England and New York.In the early 1800s, our young country was emerging as a strong democracy and a prosperous nation. We had triumphed in the Revolutionary War and managed to hold our own in the War of 1812. Our fields were fertile, and our businesses were thriving. Many citizens were accumulating wealth, and capable of indulging in the same sort of refinements as did their brethren across the ocean. This included having portraits painted. Wealthy urban families called on portrait painters schooled in some of the finest academies, artists of the stature of Rembrandt Peale. The expanding rural middle class emulated the wealthy city dwellers. Only they called on unschooled itinerant folk artists to create their portraits. These limners would travel from place to place, sometimes exchanging a portrait for a few weeks room and board in lieu of monetary payment. Some of them ran newspaper ads advertising their services. Some gained their customers through word-of-mouth