ONLY $42.35 BUT THE MEMORIES ARE PRICELESS

              

Hi again, folks.  Well, this past Saturday afternoon, I bought the first pair of new footwear I’ve purchased in an embarrassingly long time.  It’s one thing to be committed to a green, recyclable, buy used first, renewable-resource lifestyle but I suspect that even that can be overdone.  I’ve also noticed something about fanatics which makes me not want to be one.  They don’t seem to have much of a sense of humour, do they?

 

To me, then, though this is hardly a majour financial event in my life, it has been cause for some additional reflection.  (I’ve been considering new sandals for about three months now.)  Like the so many of those who live and work in the Puget Sound, “Birkenstocks,” per se, are the footwear of choice. 

 

Money’s been a bit tight over the last several years so I haven’t had the option of a resole.  Apparently, now that times are better, it’s too late for that.  As a good friend remarked recently,

 

“Rusty, if you love those shoes at all, you’ll let them die with dignity and give them a decent wake.”

 

The same friend told me about an easy shoe store two blocks from where I live and bet me I could buy a new pair for under $50, bag a jar of instant coffee and meet them back at the house in a half hour.

 

Turns out they were wrong.  It only took me 25 minutes. 

 

And I wore the new purchase home.  With the old friends and loyal companions wrapped in tissue in the box the successors came in.  At sunrise tomorrow, I’m going down to the Ship Canal and put the box in the water to let the current carry it away.  I like the idea that by the time these sandals reach the Puget Sound, they’ll be on their way to providing miniature reefs for new colonies of marine life.

 

 

                

 

These new ones were a little stiff so I remembered what my (infamous) Grandpa Seamus did with new saddles, harnesses, belts and other leather goods we used on the ranch.  I applied a thin coat of Vaseline to the contact points and set them on the front desk to warm up in the sun.  Then I worked those contact points and the straps with my fingers until they softened up even more.  Then, after donning a pair of wool sox, I put them on and walked a mile or two.  Welcome to my world, new friends.

 

I remember how Seamus smelled when he came in from a session in the tack room.  It was a richly aromatic blend of leather, Vaseline, denim and perspiration.  I was gone many years from the ranch when I came across something which came close to that blend.  It was a line of men’s cologne and aftershave called “English Leather.”  I was a teenager back then so there’s an additional host of recollections these new sandals evoke.

 

 

               

 

So yep, to paraphrase a popular commercial I really like, the shoes only cost $42.35.  The memories, of course, are priceless.

 

Until next time, then, take care, stay well and God Bless.

 

Rusty

HAPPY SUMMER (FINALLY) FROM SEATTLE

 

                 

                  Montlake Cut looking east across Lake Washington to Bellevue

 

Well, hi again folks and Happy Summer.  It was a little late getting to our part of the world but it has, indeed, arrived.  We’ve acquired some aloe vera plants and a nice, energy efficient fan.  That and two open windows is pretty much what they mean by Seattle Air Conditioning.  For specifics, http://www.king5.com/weather/

 

It’s been interesting watching McCain and Obama trade shots.  Normally, this kind of behaviour reminds me of a perfume squirting contest between two woods kitties.  No matter who wins, neither one comes out smelling like themselves.

 

But this has a different feel to it.  As near as I can tell so far, they’re actually complementing each other.  One’s allegedly poor in economics but great in the international arts and vice versa. 

 

It also brings to mind what Mark Twain said about Rudyard Kipling, when he contended that in all the universe, there were two most remarkable men.  Kipling was one and he, Twain, was the other   Between them, they covered all knowledge.  Kipling knew all that could be known and Twain knew the rest.

 

 

 

To me, it’s a refreshing change of pace and if they can keep it up, no matter which of them wins, he’ll still be able to work with the other.  I’ve said it before and still maintain that whoever becomes president is going to have an uphill battle for awhile restoring at least the impression of dignity and equanimity to the Oval Office. 

 

And I do not imagine Americans or anyone in the International Community is going to have much patience with the Chief Executive contention that one person knows better than three hundred million what's best for them; or whether that quaint notiion is trumpeted by a pachyderm or brayed by jackass.  That styling of governing went out with the divine right of kings and it has no more place in a democracy than the gunboat diplomacy which made it possible in the first place.

 

I, personally, am optimistic.  Unassailably so.  For years, both well intentioned folks and those who simply enjoy jerking my chain have tried to convince me there’s no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Great Pumpkin, UFOS, gremlins, leprechauns, unicorns and that there is especially no such creature as a rational American.

 

                                                   

 

Until next time, then, eh?  And thanks for the ear.

 

Rusty

                                                

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

              

                         

Hi again folks.  Well, since this is a multi-national household and Sam and Felina took care of Canada Day, it falls to me to discuss America’s independence day.  I hope I can do it with the same integrity as those two other members of the global family.

I am not, at present, a real happy American.  I’ve lost a lot of faith in both the Executive branch and the Congress.  I haven’t been real pleased with presidential campaigns which call into question a tortured POW’s ability to raise his arms easily beyond a certain point and another which makes more of an issue about another candidate being half black rather than half white.  I also don’t like the idea that the Clintons thought Hillary needed Bill to help her out in the first place.

 

I don’t much like an infrastructure that makes me wonder if Katrina Relief wasn’t deliberately bungled because New Orleans is still Southern.  I don’t much care for the idea that Iraq veterans are returning with concussion wounds to the state of facilities like Walter Reed Hospital.  I don’t like the idea that a bridge in Minneapolis-St. Paul collapsed and for awhile focused the nation’s attention on why structures like that fell into such disabuse. 

 

I’ve never felt that greed and insecurity were the sole province of any political party,nationality, gender, etc.  John F. Kennedy said it best for me when he asserted that any problem created by a human being could be rectified by a human being.  God willing and the desire is there.

 

 

                                                        

 

There’s not much I, as Rusty Miller, can do to directly influence the fate of the planet, the nation, perhaps even my state and community.  But I can certainly do things that a growing number of others are doing on ALL those levels.

 

To me, independence, then, is also a personal issue.  Perhaps we, as individuals and as a nation, have looked a bit too long and depended a little too much on Washington, DC, when we should have been looking a little closer to home.  Perhaps, in our haste to keep a bit more than we’ve really needed, we’ve forgotten who we really are.

 

At least to me, we’re Americans.  We’re families, neighborhoods, small towns and cities made of small towns.  We’re about working hard for and going home to those we love and care about.  On the one hand, we consider ourselves so sophisticated but on that world stage, we’re sentimental and schmaltzy and probably the most embarrassingly obnoxious group of individuals ever assembled under one flag and 50-odd. 

 

We’re also a country whose people, according to a recent United Nations survey, contribute more per capita to international relief efforts than any nation on the planet.  In the past, whether it turned out in our best interests, America has also gone to bat for the little guy because that’s who we also are.  We’re either all little guys or descended from same.

 

              

 

In the days and weeks ahead, I’m going to talk about what some of us little folks in Seattle are doing and I’d love to hear from you in those regards, with permission to share with the whole “family,” as it were.

 

            

 

My venerable grandfather Seamus spoke for OUR house when he observed of both Americans and the human species in general:

 

“Rusty, we’re not doing too bad for a critter that was created last with what was left over.”

 

 

                                        

 

Happy Independence Day, folks.

 

Rusty

 

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HAPPY CANADA DAY FROM COUGARS CORNER

              

                             

                      HAPPY  CANADA DAY

                               

SAM:               Well, Felina.  Happy Canada Day, Lass.

 

FELINA:          Thank you, Dear. 

 

SAM:               And how old is the nation of your birth?

 

FELINA:          She’s 141, Sam.

 

SAM:               I’ve got to hand it to her.  She sure holds her age well.

 

FELINA:          Thank you, Dear.

 

SAM:               And she’s a big country.

 

FELINA:          At 3,800,000 square miles, the second largest in the world

 

SAM:               With a population density of about four humans per square mile, that also makes Canada the fourth most sparsely humanly settled nation on the planet, as well.

 

FELINA:          True enough, Dear.  But that’s not to mean we’re not of some consequence on the human world stage.

 

SAM:               Nope, Felina.  It certainly does not.  According to what I’ve read, of all of the world's producers of natural gas, copper, zinc, nickel, aluminum, and gold, Canada is in the top five.

 

FELINA:          Canada is also the world’s fifth largest energy producer, the eighth largest world trader and has the ninth largest economy.  And for all of that, it also has what is believed to be the world’s smallest jail, in Rodney, Ontario. It is only 24.3 square meters or about 270 square feet.

 

SAM:               Which suggests either an extremely low crime rate or lots of very small perpetrators, eh, Felina?

 

FELINA:          Thank you, Dear.  We are also rated on the United Nations Human Development Index as the best nation in the world in which to live.

 

SAM:               Jeez Louise, Felina.  Who’d have thought, eh?

 

FELINA:          Yes, Dear, and despite the recent controversy, we do NOT own the North Pole.  No nation does.  It is, however, believed that Santa Claus is Canadian. 

 

SAM:               So much to be proud of and yet for so long, you’ve lived in the shadow of your southern neighbor.

 

FELINA:          Only in American eyes, Sam.  During World War II and the Holocaust, the concentration camps had places where the possessions of gassed Jews were sorted out from their clothes by Jews not yet selected for extermination.  Some of this jewelry and gold was funneled back into the inmate population and to the resistance movement in camps like Treblinka.  Those sorting places were called Canada Houses.

 

SAM:               Happy Canada Day, Felina.

 

FELINA:         Thank you, Sam.  And on that note, gentle readers?  Until next time, take care, stay well and may the Creator bless and keep you.

 

To learn more about my country, please start here.  Felina

Seattle Pictorial

The name change of this blog is in tribute to a online general interest monthly magazine several of us put out from 1998 – 2001,  and over which I was the editor and chief.  

 

The staff was as far flung as our readership.  From Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, down through Seattle and then east across the Rockies and the Plains then south across the Mason Dixon to rural Mississippi, they worked as a family, in the best of the contexts of the term.

 

We all agreed that the best part of that experience was the interaction with our readers.  Through them, we heard other voices, got windows on other worlds, and had the opportunity to see how differences joined could make a real difference.

 

The name change is, as well, in memory of Tim Russert, to whom all of us of the Fourth Estate, active or retired, owe a debt we can only repay by emulation.  Tim would be the first to agree, I suspect, that we are a nation of many voices.  And many ears.  It's my hope to share a few of those we hear with you. 

 

Rusty

 

                    Seattle Pictorial

 

               

                                Sunday Morning Skyline in October

 

Living in Seattle and also being a consumer of national international media, I’m aware of the bad rap our area has gotten about the weather, among other things.  The stats pretty much tell a different story and those are available to anyone really interested and willing to spend five minutes on Google.

 

I’ve lived from San Diego to Surrey, British Columbia and it seems to me that what it comes right down to is what a person enjoys, can handle or learn to put up with.  I like it here but then my family’s been in this region so long I’ve got webbed fingers and toes.

 

For those truly interested in the facts about Seattle, here’s a real quick and easy source.  http://www.seattle.gov/html/weather.asp

 

For those who would like to see some pictures of Seattle taken by a local, read on.  All these are copyrighted by me so if you'd like to use them, please email me. 

 

 

               

      Looking west from Capitol Hill, across Elliot Bay, to the Olympic Peninsula, in May

 

 

                

                            An apartment house on Capitol Hill in June 

 

 

                  

                    University (of Washington) District Street Fair in May

 

 

                                   

          Kids With Roasted Corn on the Cob - U District Street Fair

 

 

            

Jogger on the Montlake Cut, looking east across Lake Washington to the Cascade Mountains

 

 

               

                                      Dawn over the U District       

 

 

                 

Looking south toward Seattle across the Ship Canal and the Aurora Bridge at sunset

               

Until next time, then, folks.  Take care, stay well and God Bless.  And thanks for the ear.

 

Rusty

      

 

 

 

Tags: photgraphs of Seattle

MEET SAM & FELINA MOUNTAINLION AND WELCOME TO COUGARS CORNER

                                          COUGARS CORNER

                 Meet Sam and Felina Mountainlion

 

Sam and Felina Mountainlion are a pair of mated cougars with the rare ability to telepathically communicate with human beings and other species besides their own.  I first met the male of the pair when he was a kitten in the Pacific Northwest and was privileged to record the first several years of his life for a small press in Bellingham, Washington.  It was at about the time Mount St. Helen erupted and Sam was, in fact, partly responsible for that event.

 

He and I have stayed in touch down the years and I’ve transcribed editorial columns he’s “dictated”of his observations on the human species for several rural newspapers.  He also interviewed Santa Claus for the Portland Oregonian’s Sunday magazine one Christmas and a story of how he helped a troubled truck driver rescue a snowbanked stationwagon full of kids during a Rocky Mountain blizzard was written up in a national trucking magazine.  For columns published in the Whatcom Weekly Times (Bellingham, Washington), the Society of Professional Journalists awarded him an Excellence in Journalism citation.  To the best of our knowledge, he is the only cougar to be so honoured.

 

As a couple faintly reminiscent of Tracy and Hepburn, Sam and Felina were editorial mainstays for The Northstar Journal, a general interest monthly ezine which published for three years in the late 1990s.  They were well received and also carried by the Canadian arts ezine Cream.

 

It is both an honour and a pleasure to be sharing them again.

 

Rusty

 

 

 

Felina:            Well, dear, isn’t it nice to be back in touch with our human neighbours?  It has been quite some time now, eh?

 

Sam:               Felina, sometimes that really depends on how you define “nice”.  But yes, it’s been awhile.  I was counting on a longer’awhile’ but it’s an election year in the Land of the Eagle.  And from what I can gather, not a particularly dignified one, either.

 

Felina:            I know, Sam.  The Land of the Maple Leaf is not so different.  Except perhaps, that since we are not a majour player, less attention is paid.

 

Sam:               Canadian humans have an advantage.  Most of them are descended from fur trappers and professional canoe paddlers.  A good stretch of white water or a clan of beavers doing construction work makes a lot more noise than any of them could.

 

Felina:            Whereas American humans?  Since we’re obviously indulging in stereotypes?

 

Sam:               By their own admission, refuse of teeming shores.

 

Felina:            Humans of a rather large spectrum of diversity.

 

Sam:               And an extremely interesting process of assimilation.

 

Felina:            Certainly a complex one, eh?

 

Sam:               Sure makes you appreciate the simple life.

 

Felina:            Perhaps that is why they are here?

 

Sam:               To make us appreciate the simple life?

 

Felina:            Sometimes even a bad example serves a good purpose.

 

Sam:               Like that sculptor who got asked how he could take a block of marble and make of it something entirely different.

 

Felina:            By knowing what that block of granite was meant to be and chipping away anything else.

 

Sam:               I’m sorry, but I don’t see that happening.

 

Felina:            Perhaps not among the candidates, Sam.  But among the voters, among those millions of private citizens, it may be different.  They have lived for the last four years especially under a national executive who has told them that it doesn’t matter to him what they want, he knows best.

 

Sam:               The average American human’s worst nightmare.  Alfred E. Neumann at the end of the red phone.

 

Felina:            If this is true, they will not make the same mistake again. 

 

Sam:               And if they do?

 

Felina:            If they do, we can only have compassion for them.

 

Sam:               And continue to learn from a bad example.

 

Felina:            And with that, gentle readers, until next time, take care, stay well and may the Creator bless and keep you.