JACK BERNARD'S TRAVELS

Posted by jdbernard743

· August 28, 2015

Holding These Truths…

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”

Paragraph 2 of the United States Constitution

Just what truths are “self-evident”? What are the “unalienable rights”? Are all men really “created equal”?

In 1942, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, public outrage, suspicion and hysteria led President Roosevelt to issue an Executive Order that resulted in the internment (imprisonment) of all Japanese and Japanese-Americans on the West Coast of the United States. They were removed from their homes; allowed one suitcase each, forfeited their property, and relocated to camps in the interior of the country. 62% of them were American citizens.

Earlier this month M and I saw Jeanne Sakata’s play Hold These Truths at ACT Theater. This one act monologue tells the story of Gordon Hirabayashi a University of Washington senior who defied the order, saw his family relocated to an internment camp, and spent a year in federal prison for disobeying the government order. Hirabayashi, who died in 2012, took his case to the US Supreme Court in 1943 but lost the appeal. After the war, he earned his PhD in sociology and taught overseas, in Beirut, Cairo, and Calgary, until his retirement when he returned to Seattle. Nevertheless, he didn’t give up the legal fight and in 1987 the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned his conviction when it was shown that the government had withheld evidence in the earlier Supreme Court case.

The play is riveting. Ryun Yu, the actor playing Hirabayashi, held our attention for over an hour with a monologue that was by turns touching, angry, funny, and physically demanding. The play is an interesting and troubling look back at a wrong-headed government decision that led to four years of incarceration for 120,000 Japanese-Americans, but the questions it raises continue to be timely as we struggle to address today’s immigrant and refugee issues, Guantanamo Bay imprisonment, Muslim extremists, and over zealous NSA operatives.

These are three of my grandchildren. Today they live on the hill overlooking Diamond Head in Honolulu. In 1942 they, and their parents, would have forfeited their home, and been sent to an internment (concentration) camp somewhere in the desert of California or Nevada.

Yesterday, the bloviating Donald Trump told an audience in Iowa that as President he would round up all the illegal, murderous, raping, drug-addled, thieving, slacker “Mexicans” and ship them back where they came from. Never mind that there are 11,000,000 of “them” or that most cross border immigrants are fleeing repressive regimes in countries other than Mexico. But The Donald is eager to build a fence (that Mexico will somehow magically pay for) to keep the next wave of rapacious Mexicans on their side so that we real Americans can enjoy our “unalienable Rights” without any woggish brown-skinned interference. This is not an immigration strategy; it’s plain old racist demagoguery.

The world is not the same as it was in 1942. In many ways it is “better” but in other ways it is clearly worse. Population migration has become a global problem, Mr. Trump. What do you even know about immigration? Let’s stop the race-baiting, xenophobic naval gazing and look around. The wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Mali, and Central African Republic have produced a tsunami of immigrants and refugees. In April the Italian government rescued 4000 migrants in one 48-hour period and the tiny Greek island of Lesvos saw the arrival of 55,000 refugees from the Middle East via Turkey in the first seven month of this year. Germany anticipates 800,000 asylum-seeking refugees in 2015. 150,000 have crossed the border into Hungary this year and ABC News reported tonight that 340,000 Middle East refugees have arrived in Europe. According to the United Nations High Commission on refugees, Jordan has taken in 1.4 million refugees and Turkey an estimated 1.9 million all fleeing the ravages of the Syrian and Iraq wars.This is not just an American problem. We aren’t going to fix the problem if we don’t acknowledge that it is our shared responsibility as global citizens to seek humane solutions.The US Constitution is an aspirational document. The founders were dreamers but imperfect men. They imagined a country full of goodness and free of repression though some were slave owners and most regarded women as unworthy of the vote. We’ve come a long way since then.

I doubt that America will see another government action like the one that sent Japanese-Americans to internment camps in 1942, but racial and ethnic profiling, hate crime and the demonizing of groups continues to exist. Sheriff Joe Arpaio persists in flaunting federal court mandates in his relentless pursuit of Hispanics, and since 9/11 Muslims are being singled out and persecuted for nothing more than adhering to their own dress code. I continue to believe that we can do better. In spite of bilious demagoguery by self-promoting politicians the majority of Americans view the country’s founding principles as aspirational guidelines and the Bill of Rights as the best single expression of a government’s responsibility.

Marilynn and I share 12 grandchildren, 5 of whom are children of color. These two are Ben and Lucie. A year ago one of Lucie’s classmates challenged her to explain “where” she was from. When Lucie failed to understand the question the classmate told her she was not a real American, that she was from India, not America.

Children can be cruel, but cruelty and prejudice are learned. We can do better. Let’s do away with our racial, ethnic, immigrant and refugee prejudices. We Hold These Truths!!!

I am reminded of the lyrics of the song You’ve Got To Be Taught from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific:

You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear, you’ve got to be taught from year to year
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught
To be afraid of people
Whose eyes are oddly made
And people whose skin is a different shade
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

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Categories : Politics, Theater, Uncategorized

Posted by jdbernard743

· August 22, 2015

· No Comments

Living On The (L)edge

There is something scary, suspenseful and mesmerizing about mountain climbing. It has the power to grab the attention of people who wouldn’t even begin to consider participating in the sport. Climbing stories, fiction and non-fiction, have a compelling quality with all the suspense of a John LeCarre thriller. There’s Maurice Herzog’s Annapurna that tells the story of the first conquest of an 8000-meter peak by a team of French climbers and James Salter’s fictional Solo Faces that contrasts the purity of climbing with the tugs of ordinary life. Then, every spring the media breathlessly reports on climbers attempting the summit of Mt. Everest. Last year’s earthquake added yet another dangerous and catastrophic dimension to the appeal. Mountain climbing is not for everyone, but the stories are.

I was never a serious climber but last week I was drawn to a new mountaineering film about to open in local theaters. I immediately thought of my neighbor, Ron. He might enjoy it too. It was a shared interest. The film is called Meru and chronicles the 2011 ascent of that Indian peak by way of the the Shark’s Fin route, considered one of the hardest in the world. The film is in theaters now and will take your breath away.

My friend and neighbor, Ron Thomson, is an extraordinary guy. He’s 85 now. In 2006 he suffered a stroke that limited the strength and dexterity on his left side, and earlier this year he had shoulder surgery to address an old injury caused when he was caught in an avalanche, and while he was recovering from that his Achilles tendon snapped. But Ron is nothing if not tough. In 2005 just before his stroke, at age 75, he rode his bike from Seattle to Leavenworth over Stevens Pass, and later when the stroke compromised his balance he bought himself a three wheel recumbent bike so he could still take long rides along the Burke-Gilman and Sammamish trails. Until this spring he was the caregiver for his beautiful long time companion, Marie, but when her dementia dictated more intense supervision he moved her to a place where she had closer supervision. Today, in spite of his physical setbacks and losses he’s still positive. He’s quite a guy and I’m proud to have him as a neighbor.

But, there is more to Ron’s story: In the 1950’s and 60’s a number of accomplished British rock climbers migrated to Canada in search of bigger mountains and new challenges. Ron Thomson was one of them. He grew up in Manchester but honed his climbing skills on the sandstone and slate walls of North Wales. In 1956 he found his way to Canada and the rock cliffs of the Canadian Rockies west of Calgary.

The British climbers were known for their aversion to self-promotion and their emphasis on style, preferring a minimal reliance on protection and an emphasis on skill. According to Chic Scott the author of Pushing the Limits: The Story of Canadian Mountaineering, Ron and his climbing partner, Brian Greenwood, set the standard of the day with their ascent of the Belfry on Yamnuska with Greenwood later commenting that Ron was a much better climber than he was but not as ambitious.

This face, on the right, is one of Belfry’s 5.10 pitches on Yamnuska. This one is named, Easy Street. I don’t quite get it but that’s what it’s called.

Yesterday, Ron, Marilynn and I went to see the climbing film. It chronicles the 2011 ascent of Mt. Meru by Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk. The Shark’s Fin route up the 20,700′ peak had never been successfully climbed. Anker tried it in 2003 but failed. Anker, Chin, and Ozturk tried again in 2008 but after 20 days on the mountain, including four stormy days on a ledge, they turned back 100’ short of the summit. The current film tells the story of their first attempt, their lives on and off the mountain, and their decision to return to Meru for one more try in 2011. The film is in theaters now and I guarantee it will take your breath away.

The elite climbing community is a small one. I’ve always been fascinated by their exploits. Through six degrees of separation I’m connected to this team by way of an old friend. In May 2001 Daniel Duane, the son of a close friend, profiled Conrad Anker, widely regarded as the world’s greatest living climber, in Outside Magazine. About the same time he wrote another article for Men’s Journal about Jimmy Chin. In that article he examined Jimmy’s climb of a difficult California peak, previously thought unclimbed. Dan’s research and an old picture revealed that his father and climber/photographer Galen Rowell had made the climb in 1988 and Dan ended up retitling the article My Father’s Mountain. It’s a touching father-son story made all the better by the author’s surprise discovery that his own father had accomplished a difficult first ascent. It’s a reminder that we often fail to see the character and accomplishments of those closest to us.

Marilynn and I shared a lovely afternoon with Ron. I think he enjoyed it as well. He has a book about the history of Canadian climbing that he wants to show us. I’ve seen references to his climbing accomplishments online so I’m anxious to see what the book has to say about him.

This is the card his daughter Hilary sent him on his 85th birthday (April Fools Day). The picture was taken in the 1950’s. He’s quite a guy.

As I write this I’m aware that today’s Surviving Seattle post is about different kinds of survival. Writing the blog helps me survive my aversion to the weather, and a restless spirit, but on the climb Conrad, Jimmy, and Renan are living on the (l)edge in a real life and death battle, while Ron is coping with age and a body that once enabled him to live close to the edge like the climbers in the film. Survival means different things to each of us.

Categories : Film/Television, Uncategorized, Work and Adventure

Posted by jdbernard743

· August 11, 2015

· 2 Comments

What Does It Take To Be A Writer?

Alexander Maksik is a talented young writer – two well-received novels, stories published in Harper’s, Harvard Review, and Tin House as well as regular contributions to Conde’ Nast Traveler and Departure magazines. I’ve known Xander, as family and friends know him, since he was in middle school. His father and mother, both educators, are friends of mine and co-founders of the Sun Valley Writers Conference. The family counted Peter Matthiessen, Ethan Canin, and the poet WS Merwin as personal friends. It’s no accident that Xander grew up wanting to be a writer.

Real writers know there is a difference between wanting to be a writer and being a writer, a difference Xander talks about when he’s on book tours. In his self-deprecating way he tells the audience that before he became a writer he imagined himself as one – wearing a black turtleneck, jotting down ideas in a dog-eared notebook, drinking Pastis in Paris café. Eventually, after a wrenching personal experience, he became a writer – in Paris – but his writing involved long days in the public library not in a sidewalk café.

I tell that story because I’ve known several people who wanted to be artists but never followed through – a lesson that was not lost on me. I knew a woman in Sun Valley who always talked about being an artist. She designed her perfect studio space and filled it with art supplies but never seemed to get around to making art.

My former wife, on the other hand, soldiered on through a number of our living situations and whether we were living in a VW Camper or a little rented house in France she always had a sketchbook, a watercolor block, and a kid’s tin box of watercolors to get her ideas down on paper. She didn’t want to be an artist. She was one. She’s been an accomplished and successful printmaker/painter for the last 40 years. It doesn’t take the perfect space or a cupboard full of supplies to become a real artist. It takes desire, focus, application and hard work.

I imagined myself being a writer too, but it wasn’t until near the end of my work-for-pay life that I stopped imagining and started working to make it happen. In 1970, in a little house in France, I wrote fiction every day for nine months. It was bad stuff and I knew it, but I loved the process. I was 31 at the time and told myself if I wrote 500 words a day I would have a library of work by the time I was 65. When my artist wife and I returned from France I enrolled in a Creative Writing program at San Francisco State College. I completed the course work but left the program when my work-for-pay job transferred me to New York, and not only did I drop the program I dropped the habit of writing every day. Now, at 77, I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had that library of work. I always kept a journal and started a few stories but these were insincere feeble attempts to make myself feel like a writer.

In the intervening years, between San Francisco State and 2009, I thought of myself as a someday writer. I read novels and biographies. I bought books, like Ann Lamott’s Bird by Bird, Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, and Wallace Stegner’s On the Teaching of Creative Writing and scanned them for secrets and short cuts to becoming a writer. It wasn’t until I was 70, without the library of work I imagined at age 31 that I really became a writer. I stopped procrastinating and started writing again.

In 2009 I was beginning a new job in Saigon, and figured if I didn’t start writing then I would never do it. I started with a blog about the daily life of an expatriate and it provided the discipline I needed. In the six years since, I’ve posted over 200 essays (200,000+ words) in two different blogs, kept a journal of over 200 pages, a notebook of “memoir notes” almost as long, several chapters of a prospective memoir and a couple of short stories. I write every day and since returning from Saigon I treat writing as my full time job. I get up, have my coffee, scan the NY Times, and sit down to work for 3-4 hours.

So, why do I write and what is my goal? I write because I like words and ideas, and I want to become proficient at using the former to explain the latter. For now, it’s enough just to write every day. Publication is somewhere down the line. A recent workshop in memoir writing required us to submit work to one or more publications for the experience – to see if there was any interest out there. I submitted work to Moss, a local Seattle literary magazine, two pieces to Creative Nonfiction, a travel piece to the SATW (Society of American Travel Writers) annual travel-writing contest, and two essays to Modern Love at the New York Times. All were rejected. It was disappointing. I know these stories and essays are good – but they were not seen as good enough for publication in the selected venues. I know there are publications out there where these things fit. I just need to find them.

It’s taken awhile to think of myself as a writer. A teacher in one of the writing workshops I took encouraged us to think of and present ourselves as writers even though we were unpublished. It was hard to do that a year ago, but today I confidently call myself a writer. That confidence came slowly and at a price – a painful family experience.

Six years ago my daughter, a professional writer and editor, visited me in Seattle. After a walk together she asked me what I planned to do when I retired from my job in Saigon. I told her how much I wanted to write and that I thought I might do something “memoir like.” Her response was to ask me if I planned to write about all the women in my life while I was married to her Mom.

It was an awful moment but it led more clarity about my writing. The relationship with my daughter took a downward turn but it brought more honesty to it and to my writing. I hadn’t intended to write about that marriage, but if I was going to be a real writer I couldn’t blank it out. From that moment on I had to allow the writing to go where it wanted to go and not where it felt safe. I haven’t gone out of my way to discuss family history or dysfunction but it’s not off limits.

This morning I heard an NPR interview with Meryl Streep and Diablo Cody, the screenwriter, about their new film Rikki and the Flash. The film is about a mother who leaves her husband and 3 children to pursue her dream of being the lead singer in a rock band. There are many painful moments in the film, moments like the one with my daughter, where anger, resentment, and embarrassment control the conversation. In the interview Ms. Cody was asked about a line she gave to Rick Springfield whose character plays lead guitar in Ms. Streep’s band. In a tense argument about parenting estranged children he says,

“It doesn’t matter if your kids love you or not. It’s not their job to love you. It’s your job to love them.”

Hard as it is to accept, I think Rick nailed it. For me writing and family are not divisible interests. I’m a writer and so is my daughter. I’d like to share what I’m doing with her. It could be a nice meeting point for the two of us. Whether we find that sweet spot or not I plan to keep on writing. Maybe she will read it, maybe not. I can’t control what she likes or dislikes, approves or disapproves. As Rick says, “It’s my job to love (her)” not the other way around, and I’m trying to honor that.

When I started to write this, Xander Maksik’s parents were boarding the Queen Mary 2 in Southampton. His father, Jon, has a contract to write about the crossing for Conde Nast Traveler. He’s a very good writer and it’s encouraging to have friends like Jon and Karl Marlantes who are get published later in life. Karl, the bestselling author of Matterhorn, tried for 30 years to find a publisher for his Vietnam War novel. He was 65 when Grove published it in 2010, and it became an award winning first novel and New York Times bestseller. It can happen.

So what does it take to be a writer? It obviously takes hard work and commitment, but more specifically it means that writing has become that person’s driving interest and occupation. I write because I value the art and craft of it, but also because I want to share myself and subjects that interest me with others. I believe that writing is the most important and effective way I can do that.

Xander and Karl write novels. Abby makes prints. Jon writes articles. For now, I blog and write essays. All are forms of artistic expression. I hope to find a wider audience for my writing soon. I’d love to see something of mine in print. It’s a form of validation and the primary way writers distribute their thoughts, insights, and experiences to a larger audience. I have something to say, and I’m anxious to say it. We’ll see how that all works out. For now it’s all about the writing…

Categories : Books, Personal/Family, Uncategorized, Work and Adventure

Posted by jdbernard743

· August 6, 2015

· No Comments

Sex in Wessex… Rediscovering the 19th Century

Lately, for some inexplicable reason, I’ve been drawn to the sick and wicked of the 19^th Century, and while summer is traditionally the time to grab a potboiler and head for the beach I’ve found myself watching multiple film versions of several enduring 19^th Century novels, reading online bios and book reviews.

It started innocently enough last month when the thermometer busted 90F for the third straight day and we decided to take in an air-conditioned late afternoon movie to beat the heat. That movie, Gemma Bovery, took us back to Flaubert’s novel and triggered a surprising amount of curiosity leading to an avalanche of late night videos, online searches, and bookstore visits. One thing led to another, one novel to another, and almost immediately a renewed appreciation for Victorian-era naturalist writers and their modern film translators

“Renewed” isn’t the right word to describe my appreciation for the era’s writers because I didn’t sincerely appreciate Flaubert, Hardy, the Bronte’s and Jane Austen in the old days. I endured a college class or two that included the major figures, but I saw them as historical points of reference in the continuum of the novel. My interest ran more to Camus and Sartre than tweedy Englishmen (and women) writing about the sick and wicked of the 19^th Century. I missed a lot of good storytelling by skating over the genre.

Gemma Bovery and the release of a new Far From The Madding Crowd with Carey Mulligan as Ms. Everdene are the one-two punch that took me back to the future. Flaubert and Hardy, like Shakespeare before them, dig deep into the psyches of their flawed but very human characters. Granted, Gemma Arterton and Carey Mulligan held my attention in a way that small print in the Modern Library editions of Madame Bovary and Far From the Madding Crowd could not, but the story lines of these novels are every bit as compelling, sexy, smarmy, and contemporary as anything Jonathan Franzen or John Updike ever dreamed up. Hardy and Flaubert, the Brontes and George Eliot, give us good stories and enough detail to hang our imagination on. We don’t need a clinical description or details of pulsing throbbing body parts to know what went on when Emma visited Dupuis in the hotel in Rouen. Our imaginations can fill in the detail.

As a writer it is Hardy’s creation of Wessex, the fictional region of southwest England where all of his novels take place, that takes us out of ourselves. Like Faulkner’s Yoknapawtapha County, Wessex lets the geography of the mind take over and free us from reality. Whether it’s Bathsheba Everdene resisting her attraction to the Mr. Oak (above) and then falling in bed with creepy Sergeant Francis Troy or Michael Henchard, the main character in The Mayor of Casterbridge, selling his wife and child to a sailor, Hardy’s readers are on a voyage through the choppy, unhappy waters of human behavior.

Even though Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy both deal with limited opportunity and the oppressive treatment of women they also share an affection for the strong willed kind. Austen’s leading ladies most often find their way to a happy ending; Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Mansfield Park all end with a triumph over adversity and the realization of found love. Hardy, on the other hand, puts his women through humiliating ordeals and twists of fate that often end in disgrace, poverty or death. The headstrong independent Bathsheba Everdene is an exception, but she has to overcome her own stubborn determination to be independent in order to realize that Mr. Oak is more to her than just a loyal farm manager. It’s only when he’s about to cut and run to California that she has her come-to-Jesus moment.

I’m know I’m late to the party, the 19^th Century one, but in rethinking these stories I realized that John Fowles’ faux-Victorian novel The French Lieutenant’s Woman, one of my favorites, has the same elements as most of the Hardy novels even though it was written in 1969. There is a mysterious French sailor, a strong willed, independent but compromised heroine, a moralistic little town, a curious town visitor who betrays his fiancé and falls in love with the heroine. There is unrequited love, suspense, disappointment and betrayal. The magic of this 20^th Century variation comes about through the intrusion of a narrator who concludes the narrative by offering three possible endings for the story. It’s a work of genius as is the film version written by Harold Pinter and starring Meryl Streep with Jeremy Irons.

This has been a summer of surprises – 90 degree temperatures in Seattle and a fascination with Victorian novels. I love hot weather but didn’t expect it here, and though I was a lit major I never could have predicted a serious interest in 19^th Century fiction. Here’s to Jane Austen’s sick and wicked and the absence of perfection – to Madame Bovary, Bathsheba Everdene, Fanny Price, Elizabeth Bennett, and Sarah Woodruff (the French Lieutenant’s Woman) – imperfect women but heroines all.

Categories : Books, Film/Television, Uncategorized

Posted by jdbernard743

· July 30, 2015

· No Comments

Beating The Heat In Seattle

When I started writing about “surviving Seattle” it was all about the rain, cold and moldy feeling that hangs over the city’s reputation. So, after living in Saigon for three years, it feels a little cheeky to talk about a heat wave in Seattle. Relatively speaking it should be nothing but a breath of fresh air, but it’s worth thinking about surviving Seattle in a different way this year. Today is the 10^th day of 90F+ temperatures in the last two months and the forecast for the next four days is more of the same. We’re out of practice here, and without air conditioning or trade winds to cool things off it takes a little effort to think about cooling strategies. As a warm weather person I love these days but it’s no fun, even for me, to sit indoors and sweat it out.

I’m lucky; my own strategies start right at home. Our condo complex has an outdoor pool and I start every day, June through September, with a wake up swim. The pool is half the length of an Olympic short course pool, 12 ½ meters, and though it’s no good for serious lap swimming, but it’s a challenge to do them underwater. It takes me 20 minutes to do 50 laps, and I have the pool all to myself. The sun pops up over the top of the building next door at exactly 7:10 this time of year. At 7:30 the noise curfew is lifted and the seaplane fleet from Kenmore Air has lined up ready to takeoff as soon as the clock strikes 7:30. I love to watch them break free of the water and climb out over the city. Such a great way to start the morning and a reminder of what a great place to live.

Kenmore, the town, is a perfect location for us. It sits midway on the Burke-Gilman trail, part of a 50+ mile multi-use Rails to Trails recreational system. The Burke sits on the other side of our condo, so we can ride right out the gate and onto the trail – no schlepping of bikes or having to deal with car traffic. Yesterday I rode 15 miles south to the Seattle Tennis Club and watched part of the Washington State Open and the Blue Angels practice for their show on Sunday. From the stands this was my view:

It was hot in the stands, but the ride itself is shaded most of the way by large deciduous trees. I stopped for a Jamba Juice cooler at University Village Shopping Center and then rode the rest of the way home. What way to get exercise, beat the heat, watch top-level tennis, and enjoy Seattle.

Much as I love the outdoor stuff I know it’s not for everyone when it’s 90F. There are other ways to beat the heat and we’ve tried many of them. Two weeks ago my grandson, Will, was visiting and since he lives in rural Idaho we were thinking of things we could do that were a little out of his wheelhouse. He’s very bright and advanced for his 12 years so we proposed a Shakespeare play. He had seen, and liked, Romeo and Juliet so it wasn’t that big a stretch to suggest Shakespeare in the Park’s version of As You Like It. Grab a blanket, bring a picnic, and sit on the lawn at Richmond Beach Park. It was a hoot and the actors and minimal sets were very good. Orlando was a hunk, Rosalind a beauty, and the audience appreciative. Here’s the fight scene.

These alternatives don’t need to be highbrow. When it’s hot in the afternoon there’s always a 4:00 movie in an air-conditioned theater. Last week we saw a funny little Swedish film called The 100 Year-old Man Who Disappeared. It was light and crazy and, like all good films, left the audience with a little to chew on. And if 4 o’clock movies aren’t your thing, Seattle is the heart of a Happy Hour movement where every good restaurant in town is offering good value for showing up early. In the hot weather my appetite turns down and two meals a day, a late breakfast and early snacky supper, take care of the hunger and calorie count very well.

Speaking of eating and the bike trail, two of our favorite stops within 10 miles of home are Woodinville’s Hollywood Tavern, an upscale bistro that used to be a biker bar and the 192 Taproom, a craft brew taproom that was once a plant nursery. I especially like the 192. It’s enormous sawdust and wood chip yard full of unmatched white plastic chairs and tree stump tables is a magnet for the bicycle crowd. Late in the afternoon and every weekend a vast inventory of leaning or hung bicycles piles up along the chain-link fence while their owners check out the latest craft brew and listen to local bands take the stage in the sawdust yard for an open mike opportunity to go public. Some are good, some bad, but it’s always fun to have music with the brewski. Too bad this photo wasn’t taken on the weekend when the bikes hide the fence and the building.

There are other ways to beat the heat and have fun – ride the trail around to Golden Gardens on the Puget Sound side of town, stop at Westward to enjoy happy hour with your feet in the water and your ass in an Adirondack chair, or stop to admire the Fremont troll or Wall of Death under two of Seattle’s many bridges. Whatever works for you to beat the heat is great, but don’t complain. Enjoy. Remember the rains will come.

Categories : Personal/Family, Uncategorized