A little over three years ago, I wrote about how a line of newly-planted trees along Cooper Point Rd. were broken off and killed by some crappy vandals. Later that year, the broken-off stems were cut back to the ground by maintenance workers and the grass grew up over them. Only one tree survived – the workers bent it back up and splinted the break. It’s made a full recovery.

Each year for the next two springs, the trees would sprout back from their roots. And every year, school district maintenance workers would mow them down. It was bad enough to have seen the original crime, but to see those little trees struggle back each year, only to be mowed back to roots only because it was easier than seeing the trees and helping them to recover, was even harder.

So it was heartening to see, this spring, that someone had staked a couple of the returning sprouts (the third year they’d returned from their roots). And even more heartening to see that the maintenance workers, while doing their annual mowing, observed the stakes and mowed around each of the sprouts. There are now a bunch of little survivors to join the original survivor.  

I highly recommend the current Harlequin Productions offering at the State, Sins of the Mother, by Israel Horovitz. This is a new play, by a playwright with many writings to his credit, who, as the result of a series of unlikely events, has offered it to Harlequin for its West Coast premiere.

It’s a play set in a small town, long dependent on the extraction of natural resources, recently hammered by the over-extraction of those resources. While it happens to be Gloucester, Mass., it could have easily been set in Port Angeles or the Harbor or Shelton. The characters and their language are very closely observed and the action – and interactions – are tight and fascinating.

Saturday’s performance was enriched by the presence of the playwright. While a few people left once the play was over, the great majority stayed for an interesting and spirited discussion of the play between the writer and the audience. It was particularly interesting to see a playwright seeking and responding to feedback on the play. I’ve never seen that before and it crystallized what a collaborative and incremental process is the crafting of a play, in contrast to other, less social, more solitary literary endeavors.

Go see it!

I’ve been a member of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee for a few months now, so I have to say – by now – that I’ve got my feet under me. A good deal of the work is around building and revising documents that will become part of the city’s policies. Most of our focus over my time with the committee has been the Bicycle Master Plan, which is interesting and useful, but for which I’m not particularly qualified.

In the last meeting, however, city staff introduced a discussion of “neighborhood connections,” which are “paths, trails, or other non-motorized facilities that connect neighborhoods.” In other words, those shortcuts that you can’t make in a car. My level of interest, since I’m not a bicyclist (though there is a perfectly good bike hanging in my garage), was immediately elevated.

I thought it might be of interest to readers here to know that the city has identified over 100 connections, some formal, others informal, on public and private land. And that there is some interest, at least, in developing a program to manage and promote these non-motorized facilities (it doesn’t take long to adopt this kind of planner language).

Thanks to Olyblog, I am about to begin a three-year post on the Olympia City Council's Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. I read about openings on the Committee in this post and decided to apply.

The entire process was pleasant: the application was simple, the interviews were brief and pleasant, and the communications from city staff were pleasant, welcoming, and useful. My interview with three of the city council (Kingsbury, Strub, and Ottavelli) was on March 17. Upon walking in, Jeff Kingsbury noted that I was the "most pedestrian" of the applicants (I walk to work most days, and have for years) and, such was the tenor of the interview, that I took that as a good thing (though I'm sure that there are people who would judge me fairly pedestrian). Two weeks later, it was official, and next week, I attend my first meeting.

I don't know how this all works, yet, and I expect that the advisory committees' agendas are pretty closely managed, but if you have any ideas that you think the BPAC should consider, let me know.

Earlier today, I took my dog to Olympia's Watershed Park for a walk. I parked at the new lot for the Woodland Trail on Eastside and entered the park by the Eastside trailhead. About ten yards down the trail, there was a barrier of yellow caution tape across the trail. Another twenty yards ahead was another yellow tape barrier. This one had been broken through and it included a sign that declared the trail closed due to storm damage.

We walked down into the ravine, around the entire loop and even checked the trail up to the McCormick and Henderson Blvd south trailhead and saw no storm damage, nor did we see another barrier of any kind. We did see another dozen people on the trail, too.

So, why was the Eastside entrance marked that way?

This weekend my wife and I and our energetic lab, Daisy, tried out the new segment of the Olympia Woodland Trail. This is a conversion of an old railroad grade that parallels I-5 between Eastside Street and Dayton St. (Phase II, now in design and permitting, will extend from Dayton, across Fones Rd., to the Chehalis Western Trail in Lacey.) There's a paved, 10' wide path the whole way and, for most of the way, a 4' gravel path. It's very green and cool, passing through woods and following Indian Creek for part of the way. Just the thing for a hot summer morning (or a drizzly summer day).

Park at the trailhead on Eastside, just south of its bridge over I-5, across the street from the Eastside St. trailhead to Watershed Park. There are covered picnic tables, benches, a drinking fountain, and restrooms.

I spend quite a bit of time on foot around town, especially on the west side. The stretch of Cooper Point Road between Black Lake and the Percival Creek bridge caused a couple of thoughts to occur to me today.

The first was this morning, and I was on my way to work, walking. I was approaching the Auto Mall on south/westbound on Cooper Point Road and crossing the first driveway into the West Hill office park. I was well across the driveway when I noticed that a car had come up behind me on Cooper Point and turned left into the driveway, while I was already in it. I was annoyed, but the thing that makes it interesting is what the driver of the car did. He looked at me, but without any particular expression. (I was looking for sheepishness or at least dismay.) But he did gesture, first an open palm wave and then a thumb up. I have no idea what that was supposed to convey. Does anyone?

The other is just a general observation. I find that, for the most part, the great majority of drivers are polite and attentive to pedestrians. Of all of the places that I walk on the west side, the area around the Auto Mall, just a couple of blocks west of the scene of today's little incident, has a concentration of drivers who are just a little less polite and attentive. Walking through the Auto Mall today, I waited quite a while before I was able to cross the street. Once I did assert my turn, it was fine, but no one was going to give me the right-of-way, not in the Auto Mall. Is it because I'm in the Auto Mall, without a car?

A very special person, whom I was proud to call a friend, died last weekend. I met Jo Jenner at a discussion group we call The Salon in late 1992. She had recently lost her husband, Julian, and was spreading out a little into the community. I was struck, at the time, by her dignity and her sadness.

The Olympian had a very nice article about her impact on the community of artists in town and an obituary (link to search: search for 'jenner') with an excellent photo and details about her life that were new to me.

She was a generous, intelligent, sensitive, strong, and creative woman. The obituary has a story about her that gets to some of the kind of person she was, showing her sense of justice and her sense of humor:

Mr. Jenner's banking career led to a four-year posting in Hong Kong for the National Bank of Commerce in 1967, and Jo worked as a volunteer for several years with the Family Planning Council there. Her creation of a promotional poster featuring a pregnant man earned international media attention.

I hope that I am as creative, connected, and committed as Jo was when I’m her age. We’ll miss you, Jo.

Cross-posted at Peregrinate.

Last night, I used the bus to come home from downtown, as I do from time to time. I picked up the 48 to Evergreen on 4th, in front of Bayview Thriftway about ten to seven. Things were normal until we got to Division and Harrison, where the bus driver turned right onto Division. Now, that's one way to get to Evergreen, but the 48 is supposed to go to the mall first.

Passengers from the back asked if the bus wasn't supposed to go to the mall and the driver replied that he'd turn around. Which he did. It was sort of fun to turn left into the Westside Center parking lot, in a bus, and work through the pedestrians and parked cars and back out onto Harrison.

Things returned to normal. The driver took us to the mall, where he then berated one of the group of passengers who had first noticed the wrong turn. It was for horseplay, but I wondered if it was related to shame in his error.

When we left the mall stop, the driver turned left onto the road that heads west out of the mall to Cooper Point (which has a name now -- it's on a street sign at the new light on Cooper Point -- but I don't remember it), and then turned right onto Kenyon.

By the time we reached Harrison and were in the right lane, I realized that the driver had taken another wrong turn. We should have driven straight out of the mall to Cooper Point. This time, I asked if we weren't supposed to go to Evergreen and the bus driver, who had now turned right onto Harrison, heading downtown, said he'd turn around.

Two wrong turns in 10 minutes.

The driver turned around in the parking lot of the strip mall just east of Wendy's and then turned left on Kenyon to pick up the route again. I got off at Cooper Point and 14th, so I don't know the final count of wrong turns, but I wonder what was going on in that driver's head. Either way too much or not quite enough, I'd say.

So said Dwight Pelz, Washington State Democrats Chair, in a short speech this afternoon at the Heritage Park fountain, which followed a pretty successful (as far as success can be measured for these symbolic events) rally against the war along 4th Avenue today. Of course, his use of the word insane was based on the folk definition of insanity, which is doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting different results. Not a real diagnosis, nor even much of a rhetorical step above cliché, but it does make a good lead.

I went to the rally not because I it might bring about a change in policy (I’m not insane, by any definition), but because I thought it was time, once again, to stand out in public with others who think the same as I do as witnesses to our belief that the war is wrong, has always been wrong, and should be ended. Now. 

There were more people out than a year ago and the responses from those driving over the bridge, going about their daily business, were more weighted to the positive side. Whether this was because of a change in thinking, which subsequently led to the recent election results, or because of those results themselves, I’m not sure. It’s probably both. I wouldn’t be surprised to start to hear whining about how hard it has become to support the war.

Cross-posted at Peregrinate.