Steller’s jays were discovered on an Alaskan island in 1741 by 33 year old Georg Wilhelm Steller (1709-1746) a German naturalist on Vitus Bering’s last expedition. When a scientist officially described the species, in 1788, he named it after Steller.
Last week, there was an announcement that money is available for projects that promote tourism. I think this is the wrong time to announce this. At the end of August, there isn’t a single Forks resident thinking, “What we really need are MORE tourists on the road right now!” Thankfully, once November hits, our wounds from tourist season usually are heale.
Bob Bowlby looked like just a sweet old guy in a string tie with a cane, who wouldn’t say “boo” to a butterfly.
But during the memorial in honor of his life at the Sekiu Community Center, Saturday, Aug. 23, a building full of family and friends and a feast of potluck food from the Strait communities, the truth came out. Family members, from as far away as Hawaii, stood up, and, laughing and crying, remembered and shared tales of an uninhibited life.
With back-to-school time just around the corner, I asked some friends to recall some of their memories from their days in the Quillayute Valley School system. Surprisingly nobody recalled anything about what they learned, or did they?
Back in the mid-1990s, I was in the news a lot. I even made the Peninsula Daily News, which is obviously celebrity status. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite an A-List celebrity because no woman ever asked me to sign her chest. This was probably a good thing because I was 11 and that would have been awkward. Actually, I think today it would still be awkward.
A week ago or so, some bicyclists were passing through town. They stopped at Tillicum Park and then were pelted by rocks for no reason at all. This was probably done by a local who was irritated by tourists.
Imagine my excitement when I was contacted a few months back by a former Forks High grad that wanted to do a travel story about Forks. She asked me a few questions about if Forks had ever had any women’s lib-type rallies and a few other questions about the rebuilding of the Rainforest Art Center.
With summer coming to an end, many of you are finally getting the chance to leave this narrow-minded, rainy, boring, depressing, one-stop light town! You have been dreaming about this time for as long as you can remember. You’re driving out of Forks and never looking back. Good for you! You will love the big city life (or life in any area that has more than one stop light.) There will be fun things to do, more fast food restaurants than you can count and anonymity!
It seems to me that there are way too many drivers who lose all common sense immediately upon Lake Crescent. I’m not just talking tourists either. Some of the worst offenders are driving cars with bumper stickers that read, “Proudly Supported by Timber Dollars.”
The only answer to this problem is to require certification. No valid proof that you are a Certified Lake Crescent Driver? Sorry, you’re not allowed to operate your vehicle between Fairholm and Shadow Mountain.
Nine years ago Joni Evans saved a newborn puppy that had been tossed out in the woods. Somehow it and several of its siblingS survived for about 36 hours on their own, so Joni named the dog Gunnar Grip in memory of her grandfather who after being injured in a timber falling accident had survived 36 hours before dying.
It didn’t take my bed in the hayloft being fed to the horses in the stalls below for the romance of my sleeping arrangements to be over. I confessed to Jim, my sister’s common-law husband: I was not cut out to share sleeping quarters with my dog and occasional guests such as a pig’s head. I had my eye on the lumber pile outside the barn.
