Growing up in Issaquah - Part IV

I don’t have Facebook, Instagram or Google + so I thought you all should know I had  a Starbucks Latte this morning. I also saw a rainbow. Now if the Sun, Fog and Rain in San Francisco were on Facebook, this is probably what you would see:

Sun: "It's my moment to shine"

Fog: "Yeah, for another 2 hours. Good luck with that." 

Rain: "I'm coming for you bitches"

 So here is what I have learned this week. According to the seven citations I got for trespassing and peeping, “neighborhood watch” is not what I thought it was. Who knew? WTH? I mean seriously let's talk about privacy. And let's include Facebook (because I never get tired of slamming Facebook).  I’ve never met so many people more worried about their “privacy” than ALL of the people on Facebook that share EVERYTHING about themselves. Some of you have more posts about your private life in a day than I have thoughts. When my dog sniffs another dog’s butt I can only assume that it’s their equivalent to checking a friend’s facebook page. 

Oh whoopsy, I just embarrassed my dog Skye-Pilot! Stop looking at her!

I should say ” I should not be telling you this,” at the beginning of every blog so people will listen to what I’m saying.

My childhood years were really simple times. I didn't know anyone who had been divorced, except my dad's brother. My Dad brewed his own beer and made root beer for us kids. Sometimes he made me  toys in his workshop, later which he turned into a sauna.   I still remember him making tin can (Campbell's Soup) telephones for my friend, Marbet and I. He painted them pink and scribbled 'Finland' on mine and 'Iceland' on hers. Not only could we call one another but hey, it was long distance.  I was in the house on the hill above her house. It took a lot of kite string, but we were kids and we thought that was the best thing in the world. One day I could hear her yelling from her driveway - "Answer your phone!" Well, apparently I didn't hear my tin can phone ringing. I should have told my Dad right then and there that he would never have a career in the telephone business because he forgot to add the 'ringer' to my can telephone but I didn't want to hurt his feelings.  Our houses were close enough that we could actually just yell at one another, but the tin can telephones - well, they were magical. The only real problem we had was stringing the kite string high enough into my Maple tree to make it high enough to cross over the road between us. That is how her little brother came in handy (climb higher....HIGHER).

I learned to swim in the Issaquah Creek. I don't ever recall that creek being anything but hella cold. Our summers were short so I suppose that is normal when the sun is never in the sky long enough to warm the creek waters. 

Issaquah Creek

I still love Mountain Bars (made in Tacoma (hint hint hint to my friend Savana) and cannot find them anywhere here in California., the original vanilla Mountain Bar not the cherry or the peanut butter, the original. Named after Mt. Rainier.  

I grew up on  Nehi Soda, NuGrape, Honey Dew (made in the Seattle area), some  brand of Sarsparilla, Orange Crush (still my favorite)  RC, Dr. Pepper, Shasta soda (another northwest brand), YooHoo chocolate (still drink it today)  Seven-up, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, and Schweppes Ginger Ale . My son still laughs at me when I say "I want a Pop".  I don't want a soda or a soft drink. It's called "Pop" where I come from. Soda is POP, that's all there is to it. Just like I pronounce WaRshington with an R - it's just a Washingtonian thing. 

When (and I should correct that to say "if") we went on vacation, we camped. Sometimes to places unknown to me but more often than not  we went to Whidbey Island, 

Whidbey Island Double Bluff Beach where you can see Mt. Rainier, Mt. Baker, the Cascades, the Olympic Mountain Range and sometimes if it is clear you can even see downtown Seattle

or to Green River Gorge.  That is where I saw my first baby bear cub. Yes, I am referring to "that" Green River.  The river where  "The Green River Killer" dumped all those bodies of his 50+ victims many years later.

Green River Gorge

We camped in the thick stands of beautiful Douglas Fir, in old canvas tents. If I  recall correctly I think one was a  military tent because it was soooo huge. But, I WAS a kid and everything was huge back then. There was always that scent of mildew inside the tents. No doubt just from the fact we did in fact live in Washington where wetness and mildew are a fact of life. Our forests were lush with Oregon Grape, stinging nettles, strange huge mushrooms, beautiful green lacey ferns, huge banana slugs, crystal clear rivers and creeks and lots of moss. Beautiful.  Often times, my Dad would go camping or fishing with his friends and he would take me with him. I would be the only child there.  I was about 6 or 7.  That was my age when my Dad started calling me  'spark plug',  meaning I ignited his life.  All his friends either called me 'Sis" or "Ed's Shadow". Nobody called me Vickie back then.   I don't remember too much about the fishing part of any of our camping trips, maybe because I found fish to be gross and for some reason they scared me.  I remember hiking with my Dad to look for  bears, I remember seeing his laughing friends in the middle of the water with their fishing poles in one hand and a bottle of Rainier beer in the other. I ate peanut butter sandwiches, drank hot cocoa, had my Dad's beer pancakes and chili with those little oyster crackers for dinner. On our return trips home,  I was always given strict instructions to watch my language and not tell any tales. It was an early lesson in the motto "what you see here, stays here."   I am sure the stories that were spun as all those adult beverages made the rounds around our campfire were the first things I had forgotten because I didn't understand most of them anyway.   I know those men's campfire conversations were no doubt  peppered with C***sucker, sonofabitch, and other choice scatalogical references that I was to never repeat. And true to my father, I never repeated them. Until later in life that is.

Actually there were advantages of growing up in little Issaquah. I grew up my whole life with the same people,  attended the same schools and knew without a doubt who I could trust. Do you have those friends where you can’t even remember how you became friends but you were just suddenly friends? For me I guess it was because we all grew up together. There was only one elementary school in our town. There was only one Jr. High. There was only one High School. This was great, because you got to go to school with everyone from kindergarten to senior year no matter what part of the town you lived in. They all knew you by face and name. Or reputation. I always tried to behave but there were usually too many other options. My friends - they know about the time that I peed my pants in second grade. They even know the when, where, and who I lost my virginity to! When I was a kid I would be tromping through the woods alone, climbing trees, catching frogs and talking to the hobo's on the railroad tracks on my way to school.  When I was a kid, my social network was called “outside”. Never afraid of anyone or anything. Well, maybe frightened once.  For sure. Yes,  I was truly frightened once while in the woods. My friend Debbie and I were hiking up to Round Lake and Lake Tradition. Back then you didn't call any trek out into the woods hiking. We were just walking, even though it was all up hill. We were headed to the one spot that overlooked the entire town and  provided a beautiful view of Lake Sammamish, I-90, the gravel pits, etc. 

We were teen-agers, talking about this or that - who knows, probably about boys, plans to sneak out after dark - typical teen-age stuff. Something caught our eye to the right of us. Big. Yellow. Long tail. It would glance at us then look forward, all the while just casually walking. We didn't take our eyes off of it. It saw us. We saw it. Of all the things our parents had taught us - well, they went down the drain as if those words were never spoken. "Never run from a mountain lion or bear. It will chase you." That was always stressed to us because we were always in the woods. We lived in the woods, after all. Debbie and I both ran - ran like hell. We ran like Paarvo Nurmi, the infamous "Flying Finn". 

We were by all means literally 'flying'. Neither one of us were brave enough to look back. We didn't know if it was following us or not. Our only thoughts were to get off that mountain, run down that narrow trail to the railroad tressel - to the safety of our homes.

We flew down that trail, neither of us saying one word to one another. How could we - we were running so fast we probably couldn't speak if we had wanted to. At the bottom of the trail I ran south and she ran northwest. Now that I think about it - when we started running after seeing the mountain lion, we probably startled him (or her) and it probably ran in the opposite direction. I should have listened to my Dad - and not ran. It's amazing what panic will do - it just takes over. What I know about mountain lions today - well, I can only say that Debbie and I are lucky to not have been "lunch". After that day we were always leary about going to Round Lake. It was too remote of a place to be. We continued though, but in larger groups of friends. Safety in numbers. Today, one of King County's favorite hiking trails is where you would take off from where the High School is at now and go up along side the hill up to the power line and then follow that over to Round Lake and then from there over to Lake Tradition and then back down the other power line and down the hill past the old railroad trestle and then back down to town. Yes, the same exact route Debbie and I took when we saw the Mountain Lion. The old railroad trestle is gone. What a shame. It was fun crossing it as kids. Damn scary - but fun. Dangerous and stupid, but fun.

That's it for Part IV, I have decided to leave my past behind me - for now. So if I owe you money, I'm sorry but I've moved on and so should you. Sarcasm: confusing  people and pissing off people everywhere. I have an excuse - I’m high as a kite! Let me rephrase that: I’m stuck in a tree. I have been writing this blog in my Fort Bear tree house. Come on guys, don't take me so literal. But seriously I wish to congratulate my friend Laura and how amazingly she has trained her dogs to do whatever she wants. Check this out:

Good job Laura! Send this fella over - I have some work that needs to be done!

As I depart this blog I wish to say -

Dear President Obama: Not that it is ANY of your damn business but I just wish to clarify that I don`t own any assault weapons. All mine are defensive. I’m pretty busy today, so if you, President Obama could  just go ahead and offend yourself for me that would be great. Thanks! And by the way it is factually known that 5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette- have you thought about trying it? Maybe you and Poo-Poo Putin can do it together? 

(And if you could hear a conversation between Putin and Obama right now:

Obama to Putin:

"Vlad, I'm going to say this one more time. Stop it! This is the 21st century. We can't redraw territorial lines just because you use military force. Now stop it now or else.... I'll draw another red line. I mean it this time.")