Perhaps you watched the 2008 All-Star Game last week, or at least the first six or seven hours of it. And if you did, then maybe also heard Fox Sports analyst Tim McCarver call Ichiro Suzuki the best right fielder he’s seen since Roberto Clemente.
Ah! A summer Saturday!
Let me list the joys of a sunny summer Saturday on Bainbridge.
First, no socks. We have bare feet in sandals, toes free at last to wiggle and admire. Then, airy clothes, a pair of shorts, a filmy dress or a cooling shirt, and finally a hat to keep sun off completes our summer outfits.
OK. So the Seattle Mariners aren’t exactly selling out Safeco Field, while the Seahawks are still months away from returning to action. As Seattle sports fans, what are we to do?
The current budget shortfall for the city means that very few of the capital projects will get funded this year. To me the most important project is the big dig – the utilities and infrastructure replacement in downtown Winslow. Downtown is the central diamond in the jeweled ring that is Bainbridge Island, an exception to the trend of small downtowns fast disappearing in our car-oriented society.
It certainly pays to own property, especially on Bainbridge Island. Just ask Larry Nakata.
BHS “Paint Night” and the lack of set limits for this annual ritual cause many to ask how this got started.
It was bound to happen some day, but its inevitability makes it no less tragic. A woman who says she was hurt when a small metal clip securing a decorative rhinestone heart flew off her powder-blue thong and hit her in the eye has sued Victoria’s Secret, purveyor’s of women’s lingerie. Macrida Patterson, a 52-year old Los Angeles traffic officer with no prior record of underwear incidents, tells the tragic story in her own words: “I was putting on my underwear and the metal popped in my eye. It happened really quickly. I was in excruciating pain. I screamed.”
Question: Does Bainbridge Island, where the average household’s income is somewhere around $95,000, take care of its less fortunate? Generally, the island’s social-service professionals and volunteers answer yes. But it’s not an unqualified yes. Donations and volunteers have been reasonably consistent in recent years, they say, but the current economic downturn will test islanders’ benevolence as more people slide toward the poverty line and operational costs increase for service organizations such as Helpline House and Interfatih Volunteer Caregivers.
“It’s great to see everything so beautifully grown,” he said. My beautifully grownup son was visiting recently. He was referring to our garden, of course, but I was looking at him when I agreed wholehearted.
Councilman Barry Peters recently wrote a letter accusing “a small number” of unnamed island residents of engaging in “personal attack style politics.” Mr. Peters believes that disrespectful citizens are responsible for the recent resignations of several city employees.
Considering the entertainment value of the City Council’s recent meetings, perhaps the city should start charging an admission fee. Well, probably not, since most people would just stay home and watch the shenanigans on Bainbridge Island Television.
Emotions were running high and the tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife at the staging area of the Bainbridge Annual Grande Olde Fourthe of Julye Parade last Fridaye afternoone. Anxious paraders milled about anxiously and anxiously glanced at their watches, all waiting anxiously for the parade to begin. One sign of the rampant pre-parade nervousness was the long line outside the two staging area Porta Potties located on the corner of Madison and Wallace Way. The line outside these Porta Potties was among the longest I saw all day, second perhaps only to the line in front of the booth offering free Obama stickers and the queue in front of the American Marine Bank ATM on Winslow Way.
You have to wonder about the morality of politicians, bureaucrats and Americans of all types who are strongly against torture when it’s done to us while believing the end justifies the means when the U.S. tortures a declared enemy to gather information.
