Women's Lib 101

After my mother, in a fit of pique at a mostly innocent remark of mine, gave my hair a really nasty yank I only beat a woman once for the rest of my life. So far.

When I was in third grade we had a thing going where the guys would "bet" punches on the shoulder or upper arm. We could wager five that such an such would happen or so and so would win, for example. I remember getting hammered pretty good after the November 1952 election which my Democrat forever dad assured me Adlai Stevenson would win. These "slugs" as we called them, also generally accepted as intramural discipline, were not created equal. Some were real wallops. You sure didn't want to lose a bet to, or be punished by Jerry Creek! I always tried to deliver as good as I got (one comment on a report card was "Mike doesn't know his own strength") and hit pretty hard.

This passing frontier justice corporal punishment strategy was coincident with a popular game called "Flip Cup" which employed a wooden ball with a bored hole attached by string to a handle that had a cup at one end and a dowel slightly smaller than the hole in the ball at the other. The object, of course, was to flip the ball on string and catch it in the cup or spear it with the dowel. After a bit of practice we all were good at cupping, but catching on the dowel was much harder. So there was a competition for consecutive catches, and one day I was winning - had seven or something. Nancy Pasco didn't want me to succeed so she grabbed the string, to break my string, so to speak. As far as I was concerned she wasn't a girl; she was just a troublemaker who needed to be punished. I figured it was a bout a "four slugger" so that's what she got. After an apalled Denny Morris hit me a few times for not being a gentleman it should have been over, but.....no. Next day Nancy came to school in a dress with no sleeve, showing off a colorful bruise on her trouble making shoulder. Mrs. Blumer, otherwise one of my favorite grade school teachers, noticed, as she was of course intended to, and elicited a whispered "Mike hit me" from a tearful Nancy. Mrs Blumer administered a more traditional penalty for this episode and it didn't go beyond the third grade classroom, but I've never been able to shake the idea that it wasn't justice; it was Women's Lib 101.

Burn BarBee Burn

The Bar Bee Mill was a long time landmark in Kennydale. It was the last of many lumber mills historically on the shores of Lake Washington and was a serious operation, at one point processing up to 100,000 board feet a day - mostly fir and hemlock. A lot of local residents, including my brother Jim, found employment and walked to work there at one time or another. It was also something of a playground for me and my friends. While we never went into the mill proper we fished from the loading and dumping docks and log booms, messed around in May Creek at its mouth and walked the Burlington Northern railroad tracks skirting the property. The mill buildings were all-wood construction with corrugated sheet metal roofs, crummy looking or "picturesque" depending on ones sensibilities. We didn't have "icons" in those days, but if we had, I suppose the Bar Bee would have been one.

On September 22, 1957, a very warm clear day,when I was 15 going on 16 I was working in the back field on a 1942 Nash we'd brought home to fool around with when there was a commotion out front and Jim's announcement that "the mill's on fire!" Indeed it was. The whole lakeshore was obscured by shooting flame, billowing smoke and flying sheet metal roofing panels. Very soon it was obvious that the several fire engines in attendance would be for mop up and post conflagration activity only. The Bar Bee had burned to the ground on a sad but also exciting day.

We all wondered whether the Cugini family would rebuild. They did, and fairly quickly, too. The new "old Bar Bee Mill" which literally arose Phoenix-like from the ashes was of integrated design and modern (read: steel frame, aluminum siding) construction. Most would agree it was in many ways more aesthetically pleasing to the eye than the old, but it definitely lacked the personality. The renewed operation was successful for many more years. During the late 80's it gained some bit of fame when it was revealed to be just about the only mill in our country that was exporting finished product (pre-cut pillar and post framing) to Japan. George H W Bush visited Kennydale and the mill during his presidential campaign in 1988 touting it as one of his "1000 Points of Light". In the past ten or so years, however, realities of the forest products industry made it clear that it was on the way out and it was finally was razed a few years ago.

A lot of people didn't like the mill like I did because they thought it depressed property values around here. There have been a plethora of proposals for site "re-development" over the last 20 years and one of them finally came to fruition. That would be Connor Bar Bee Homes, now in the last stages of development on the abandoned mill grounds. Most think this is a far better use of the area. To me, though, gazing out the window of 3810 today, the lakeshore doesn't look any nicer than it did when the water tower with the _ BEE logo dominated the view. In fact, if I squint and use a bit of imagination a what I see is shooting flame, billowing smoke and flying sheet metal on a warm clear September day.

Foraging Across the Boundaries

We still drive "around the block" a couple times a week to see what's going on. The "block" is the geo/demographic area in Kennydale encompassed by 36th and 40th Streets North on the south and north respectively and Park and Meadow Avenues North to the west and east. Now there are two more cross streets, 37th Place and 38th, which weren't even a gleam in the traffic guy's eye when I was a kid. So it's really four blocks, a pretty considerable piece of ground with a lot of action to keep track of; but somebody has to do it.

When I was a kid, before daily paper delivery took my observation opportunities to the next (and the next!) level, occasional foraging for food and/or flowers provided the cover for synergistic snooping. In the pre-spring, after forsythia but before daffodils, I always collected at least one bouquet of pussy willows for the dining table and to give to some of the neighbors, Mrs. Crotts, maybe, who lived in the house the Robbins next door have now owned for many years.

Later, during spring and early summer there was actual good food out there! Next door, to the south on what is now Swan-Vue - and also up the street at the Kosney's- was a particularly early variety of sweet cherry that was good for stealing before our own became ripe. Plums, too. Then came blackberries, the wild trailing kind. Along the ditches and in undeveloped lots there were often piles of brush and brambles that supported really healthy vines. One of the best places was right across the street at Herb and Diana's old place. I could pick around the block and get enough for at least one big pie and did so a couple times every year.

Largely via this wandering foraging lifestyle I came to know everyone, who was nice, scary, a jerk, etc. and how much of an incursion I could safely make or test on various properties. I wasn't alone, of course; we all accepted a much more casual definition in our minds of property rights in those days. Kids wandering everywhere! Many years later, after a couple of mildly uncomfortable ummm... interactions with some neighbors, I learned to revise my boundarial expectations. Kids cutting through here to and from the bus still doesn't bother me, though. Still, for the most part, my "around the blocking" is limited now to driving with a critical eye on real estate development. I know where those boundaries are, man. Everywhere!

Campy Art

We spent a lot of time outside when we were kids and there were a lot of easily accessible trees, fields and a stream around here then for our woodsy activities. A huge playground was right across the street from 3810. Until the Spencers built their concrete block house the entire area between Park and Lk. Wash. Boulevard was grass, trees, shrubs and.....blackberry brambles.

This fit in very well with one of our very funnest things to do: build a camp in the woods. The biggest challenge to that activity was keeping them secure from "the big kids" who couldn't be trusted not to wreck them for wreck of it. Oan, Jim Chapman and I rose to the challenge with a very nifty place within a huge dome of evergreen blackberry vines at the corner of 38th and Park. Herb and Diana's corner.

We pruned a crawl tunnel six or so feet long into the center of the blackberry jungle, then cut it wider and higher until we had a considerable room. Sort of like an evergreen camouflage igloo (as igloos are depicted in the comics). We either hauled out all the cut canes or stuck them back into the mound from the inside then peeled and wove maple bark for mats to cover the dirt of tunnel and floor (but, of course, we were careful to not completely girdle the young maples; of COURSE we were).

After equipping the place with the usual assortment of "stuff" we moved in and sat around a lot. We thought we were pretty clever and it turns out we really were. Only nature trashed that baby!

The World's (Kennydale) Greatest Athlete

Until the early 70's or so, if you were to ask just about anyone "whose is the most widely recognized and revered name in sports, worldwide?" the answer probably would have been "Babe Ruth". Later, it likely was "Muhammad Ali". "Pele'" may be in there somewhere, too, in the post-Ruthian eras.

At Kennydale School, however, from 1952 to 1954 it was "Jerry Creek". Jerry was an amiable big kid (he absolutely towered over the rest of us and could have been the nastiest sort of bully if he wanted) who could do everything in all our sports.Besides being a nice guy, he was the softball pitcher and basketball center who made us competitive in our interschool rivalries with Henry Ford, Sartori and Bryn Mawr - and our ultra-nemesis, Highlands. We were winners with Jerry!

Until the end of the 1952 school year, that is, when Renton School District expanded and built a second school in the northeast part of the city.The Creek kids were transferred in 1953 to first, Highlands Elementary, and then the new school, Hillcrest. So...in what turned out to be a hint of the free agency era in pro sports just over the temporal horizon, Jerry had gone over to the dark side and become our athletic enemy.

Before every game it was: "What are we gonna do about Creek?" We were as fearful as we had been proud. It would be nice to say we, though starless, rose to the occasion, competed as a team and even prevailed, but as I recall he beat the tar out of us, too. As other kids grew up and developed talents when we moved on into junior high (not middle school, then) and high school, Jerry's dominance diminished and then disappeared. I'm not even sure if he was on any Renton High teams. It could be that he had it too easy too early and hadn't learned to work and practice; or that he lost interest in athletics; or that he had to contribute more time to his family; or.... But just between us all, I believe he was being punished for leaving Kennydale.

Bikin' in the rain

These days we see a lot of bikers along Park Ave. No. and, especially, Lake Wa. Boulevard. They have vivid color- coordinated outfits, safety helmets, multi-geared machines and aerodynamic pants. Back in the good 'ol days we biked around Kennydale without any special gear, either on our persons or bikes. I don't think I ever saw a bike helmet (or car kiddie seat for that matter) 'til I was 40 years old.

Our youthful adventure in the bull pasture apparently didn't discourage us from doing stuff together because several years later - 1956, maybe, when I was 14 - Oan, Jimmy Chapman and I decided to try a long bike ride on a showery spring day. Our destination was Snoqualmie where my paternal grandparents lived. Oan had a Schwin "Tiger" that actually did have two speeds; he loaned a bike to Jimmy and I rode my "route bike", a wide handle bar baloon tire Schwin that you didn't shift, but "pumped".

We went up the I-90 alinement - as you can imagine, not what it is today and made it to Snoqualamie, where grandma let us dry out and gave us some lunch. We returned via Fall City, Woodinville and roads that would later sort of link up to become the locally infamous I-405. I believe we measured it at 58 miles total. It was dark and we were soaked and pooped when we got safely home. Now, 58 miles in a day is a fairly easy ride, but what we did on that trip in those conditions was a real achievement even if, as our parents noted, a "crazy thing to do".

Well, duh!

Seems like all the child rearing experts have discovered that letting kids be kids is now the way to go. Scheduling their lives has gone too far! So... there's an article in the PI's "getaways" insert today which describes one group of mom's experiment in providing "unstructured play time" for their 6 year olds. They all load into their vans and head to Seward Park from 10am to 3pm. One mom for each kid. And the PI photog. One of the moms hands out xerox maps to all at the parking lot. It was a pretty scary time, alright. One kid ran off a bit and two cell phone calls were required to reel him in. Blood from scratches, blisters, etc. was drawn three(!) times. Author deems the afternoon a success, with caveats and suggestions for "next time". Shheesh. For the record, here is some of the real spontaneous after-the-chores stuff we did in my formative years:

- Played "guns". We didn't go "bang, bang" or "pow, pow"; we made a noise that was comething like "qchiewch, qchiewch" We "qchiewed" around a lot, sometimes as cowboys and probably more often as Marines.

- Seasonally stole cherries at the Kosneys and/or Swanson places. They had especially early varieties we don't see much of anymore.

- Played marbles. Both "pots" and "chaseys". Carl Samples was a real shark and had a HUGE stash of winnings. It was not unheard of that some kids feelings got hurt over marble games.

- Played board games - "Touring", "Monopoly", "Sorry", "Clue", "Parcheesi". This was a co-educational rainy day character building activity. But we didn't know it 'til now.

- Played baseball (softball, actually) and to a lesser degree, basketball. This was also mostly co-ed. The Robel girls were damn good players.

- Raced "bugs" - soapbox cars - coasting on upper part of 36th and lower block of 40th. Ask me to show you my scar.

- Played cars.

- Messed around in the garages.

- Played "Kick the Can" and (especially) "Capture the Flag". This was an excellent place for these nightime games because there were large lots and we could be genuinely sneaky across difficult to defend boundaries. Co-educational activity.

- "Went down to the crick"

- "Went down to the lake"

No hovering moms. And no PI photographers, either.