Another border story of a sort, although this one about the Canadian border people; another Point Roberts story illustrating the possibility that Point Roberts is the place where dreams come to die.
Some years ago, a couple moved to the Point who were Canadian but apparently had some kind of green card status. He had previously been in the financial industry, I was told, and she was a lady of gardening ambitions. She proceeded to grow an absolutely fantastic lavender garden on a big, sunny, inclined lot facing northwest, more or less. Once established, the lavender was way too abundant for just one couple and she produced a one-day extravaganza each summer, a lavender tea, and she invited us all to come and share this joy.
People came from across the border and people came from the Point, and we all (as I remember) paid some small admission price and then we strolled around the house and gardens, inhaling the smell and suffusing our eyes and inner selves with the vision and scent of many different kinds of lavender, blooming in beds, blooming along a walkway that circled down and back to the upper yard, blooming in pots and vases. There was lavender everywhere one looked. The sun was hot, the skies were clear, and it was a wonderful event.
You could buy a little lavender tea, or lavender cookies, or lavender water, or lavender soap. Not too much commercial stuff, but just enough to make you feel like buying some. We went home with big bouquets of lavender and watched them dry in our kitchens for the rest of the year. And we thought what a good thing the lavender tea was and what a good thing it was that the lavender lady provided us with it.
I went the first year, and the second, and the third. And then there were no more lavender teas because at the end of the third year that I attended, the Canadians who returned to Canada carrying their bouquets of lavender were told at the border that they couldn’t bring the lavender with them. There had never been a problem before, but suddenly there was a problem with lavender, or maybe with that day’s border agents, but there was no moving them on their position.
So the Canadians wanted their money back and the lavender tea day was ruined, and it was pretty clear that nobody from Canada would ever come again for the lavender tea day. Within the year, the lavender lady and her husband sold their house and all their lavender fields and moved back to Canada. Someone came in and bought the house quite soon afterwards and immediately took out all the lavender.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Whooping Crane Stops Whooping.
This is a story that Molly Ivins told. It has nothing to do with me or with Point Roberts, although it does feature a big bird, and I believe it is true. I miss her running commentary on the dying days of the Bush Administration, and I imagine she misses doing the commenting. So this story brings her back if only for a few moments. I heard her tell it on Prairie Home Companion, so it is as I remember it and not, perhaps, as she actually wrote it.
Down in Texas, the Enron people were pretty much used to getting whatever political favors they wanted, so it was no surprise to anybody when one of the upper echelon Enron guys was appointed by the Governor to a commission. The press, which in Texas just like anywhere else, is supposed to look over these kinds of things, keeping an eye out on behalf of the people, to make sure things are more or less on the up and up. When somebody is appointed to one of these commissions, they have to fill out a bunch of papers, and the reporters were sitting around one day looking over the Enron guy’s papers. Pretty much seemed in order, except for one section that stirred a little comment. It seemed that one section of the paper had been whited out. ‘What do you think that means?’ asked on of the reporters to the room at large. ‘Hard to know,’ replied another, but considering that the general heading of that section is ‘record of convictions,’ probably ought to look into it.’
And so they did. Well, it turned out that the Enron guy at some point in the past had in fact been charged with shooting a whooping crane. Not permitted in Texas. Not permitted anywhere, really, but on the other hand, anybody could shoot a whooper by accident. I mean, you’re hunting, you see something, turns out to be a whooper. So nobody was too worried about it. People were understanding. Press and public.
But then it turned out that the Enron guy and his friends were out hunting ducks. The inquiring mind was obliged to do some more inquiring. I mean, a whooper is about five feet tall; a duck…. not so much. Hell, if he couldn’t tell the difference between a whooper and mallard, maybe he ought not be on the commission.
And then they made him resign from the commisison.
That was the first time I ever heard the phrase ‘not so much’ used like that. I hope that she was the first one to use it that way, or at least gets credit for it. You can look this story up on the web and it is more complex or different: he not only shot the whooper, but he then set it on fire and 'accidentally' buried it, I gather. In some versions it was a goose hunt not a duck hunt. But I am happy with the economical version I heard from her.
Down in Texas, the Enron people were pretty much used to getting whatever political favors they wanted, so it was no surprise to anybody when one of the upper echelon Enron guys was appointed by the Governor to a commission. The press, which in Texas just like anywhere else, is supposed to look over these kinds of things, keeping an eye out on behalf of the people, to make sure things are more or less on the up and up. When somebody is appointed to one of these commissions, they have to fill out a bunch of papers, and the reporters were sitting around one day looking over the Enron guy’s papers. Pretty much seemed in order, except for one section that stirred a little comment. It seemed that one section of the paper had been whited out. ‘What do you think that means?’ asked on of the reporters to the room at large. ‘Hard to know,’ replied another, but considering that the general heading of that section is ‘record of convictions,’ probably ought to look into it.’
And so they did. Well, it turned out that the Enron guy at some point in the past had in fact been charged with shooting a whooping crane. Not permitted in Texas. Not permitted anywhere, really, but on the other hand, anybody could shoot a whooper by accident. I mean, you’re hunting, you see something, turns out to be a whooper. So nobody was too worried about it. People were understanding. Press and public.
But then it turned out that the Enron guy and his friends were out hunting ducks. The inquiring mind was obliged to do some more inquiring. I mean, a whooper is about five feet tall; a duck…. not so much. Hell, if he couldn’t tell the difference between a whooper and mallard, maybe he ought not be on the commission.
And then they made him resign from the commisison.
That was the first time I ever heard the phrase ‘not so much’ used like that. I hope that she was the first one to use it that way, or at least gets credit for it. You can look this story up on the web and it is more complex or different: he not only shot the whooper, but he then set it on fire and 'accidentally' buried it, I gather. In some versions it was a goose hunt not a duck hunt. But I am happy with the economical version I heard from her.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Horizontal Thinking
“The only thing I am certain of is that starting to write at this stage of my life seems presumptuous. It appears that we old folk, as the hour to pack our bags fast approaches, feel almost without exception that we have something important to say.”
--From The Sister: A Novel of Emily Dickinson, by Paola Kaufmann, 2003.
So that’s what this writing is all about? Or maybe not, since I didn’t just start writing at this (late) stage in my life. Reading is more what it’s about than writing, I think. And reading seems to take on a different quality when you get to that aforementioned late stage of life. Maybe it’s only true of English majors (maybe it’s only true of me, how would I know?), but there seems a strange compulsion to re-read all the books that I once read and remember liking. It’s not so much that I remember the books themselves, and maybe that’s why one turns to reading them again: to see if one still likes them.
After I moved up here, I reread all of Dickens, Thackeray, George Moore, and Elizabeth Gaskell, and some of Trollope (the other 40 Trollope novels I read for the first time). I reread some Dostoyevsky, some Tolstoy, all of The Jewel in the Crown series, and who knows what else. I just finished reading Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov, which I last read in 1960, just before I read Italo Svevo’s Confession’s of Zeno, thus linking the two books in my mind forever. Zeno is a man who can’t quit smoking no matter how hard he tries (as I recall), and Oblomov is a man who can’t bring himself to get out of bed, no matter how hard he tries, indeed, no matter how hard his friends try.
Fortunately, I quit smoking 30 years ago, so I probably can pass on re-reading Zeno, but I now find myself somewhat in the position of Oblomov, so the re-read may have been helpful. Oblomov is a world class chooser to do nothing because it’s all too much effort for the paltry rewards the world has to offer. He cannot see the point of all that striving. He may be like a man who retired very early. He may be like the Buddha.
Both Ed and I have noted that not having to be someplace in the morning tends to result in one staying in bed quite a lot longer. At first, we attributed this to the darkness of winter: why get up when it’s still dark? But then spring would come and we were still abed in the light, even if not necessarily asleep. Like Oblomov, I find I can do a world of thinking while horizontally positioned. Indeed, I can plan the entire remainder of the day, should I get up to actually have such a day. It comforts me to think that I don’t spend all this time in bed asleep. I am sure it comforted Ilya Oblomov, as well.
The thing about the book is that I remember it as only about Oblomov staying in bed, but that is not all there is to it. It’s not that he gets up eventually and becomes an industrious and productive human being, but that he finds a way of life that supports his staying in bed. And though he dies early of a stroke, his days up until that time are absolutely satisfying to him and to those around him. His friends have gone off to have another kind of life and they too are satisfied with their busy-ness. So, it seems that the book is more about ‘everybody has to find his own way,’ than it is about ‘everybody ought to stay busy to be happy.”
This morning, when I wandered out into the living room around 9:30 a.m. (90 minutes after the goal for arising), I said to Ed, ‘Ah, what is going to become of me? I considered just waiting and getting up tomorrow at 8 o’clock.” His reply: “I believe we are people who know the importance of a goal, how to set one, and how to decide when a goal might best be at least temporarily overridden." I think Oblomov would have drunk to that.
--From The Sister: A Novel of Emily Dickinson, by Paola Kaufmann, 2003.
So that’s what this writing is all about? Or maybe not, since I didn’t just start writing at this (late) stage in my life. Reading is more what it’s about than writing, I think. And reading seems to take on a different quality when you get to that aforementioned late stage of life. Maybe it’s only true of English majors (maybe it’s only true of me, how would I know?), but there seems a strange compulsion to re-read all the books that I once read and remember liking. It’s not so much that I remember the books themselves, and maybe that’s why one turns to reading them again: to see if one still likes them.
After I moved up here, I reread all of Dickens, Thackeray, George Moore, and Elizabeth Gaskell, and some of Trollope (the other 40 Trollope novels I read for the first time). I reread some Dostoyevsky, some Tolstoy, all of The Jewel in the Crown series, and who knows what else. I just finished reading Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov, which I last read in 1960, just before I read Italo Svevo’s Confession’s of Zeno, thus linking the two books in my mind forever. Zeno is a man who can’t quit smoking no matter how hard he tries (as I recall), and Oblomov is a man who can’t bring himself to get out of bed, no matter how hard he tries, indeed, no matter how hard his friends try.
Fortunately, I quit smoking 30 years ago, so I probably can pass on re-reading Zeno, but I now find myself somewhat in the position of Oblomov, so the re-read may have been helpful. Oblomov is a world class chooser to do nothing because it’s all too much effort for the paltry rewards the world has to offer. He cannot see the point of all that striving. He may be like a man who retired very early. He may be like the Buddha.
Both Ed and I have noted that not having to be someplace in the morning tends to result in one staying in bed quite a lot longer. At first, we attributed this to the darkness of winter: why get up when it’s still dark? But then spring would come and we were still abed in the light, even if not necessarily asleep. Like Oblomov, I find I can do a world of thinking while horizontally positioned. Indeed, I can plan the entire remainder of the day, should I get up to actually have such a day. It comforts me to think that I don’t spend all this time in bed asleep. I am sure it comforted Ilya Oblomov, as well.
The thing about the book is that I remember it as only about Oblomov staying in bed, but that is not all there is to it. It’s not that he gets up eventually and becomes an industrious and productive human being, but that he finds a way of life that supports his staying in bed. And though he dies early of a stroke, his days up until that time are absolutely satisfying to him and to those around him. His friends have gone off to have another kind of life and they too are satisfied with their busy-ness. So, it seems that the book is more about ‘everybody has to find his own way,’ than it is about ‘everybody ought to stay busy to be happy.”
This morning, when I wandered out into the living room around 9:30 a.m. (90 minutes after the goal for arising), I said to Ed, ‘Ah, what is going to become of me? I considered just waiting and getting up tomorrow at 8 o’clock.” His reply: “I believe we are people who know the importance of a goal, how to set one, and how to decide when a goal might best be at least temporarily overridden." I think Oblomov would have drunk to that.
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
A Walk on the Wet Side
I went for a walk on the beach today. I haven’t been down there all winter, and now winter is effectively over. I was struck by how many of the cottages have been spiffed up since last summer. Part of that is because there’s been something of a real estate boom here over the past year, so the new brooms are in sweeping clean. But some part of it also just seems to be standard renewal of summer cottages. Most of these places are tiny: clearly not houses anyone is planning to live in for any length of time. And virtually none of them is winterized so you can live in them only during the summer months. There also seemed to be a bunch of new fences.
It’s not that there weren’t fences on the Point before this last round of property sales, but they tended to be casual, see through items, wire or driftwood. The new fences, though, are much more substantial—massed cedars or heavy lumber--and I’m guessing these are being put up by new owners, who bring a somewhat different sensibility about fences to us. Or maybe they are the fences of people who have recently come by a very strong dog that needs to be restrained at all times from lunging into the street. Surprisingly, roaming dogs are the exception up here. Roaming coyotes; well that’s another matter. And thanks to the roaming coyotes, no roaming cats.
Lawns and fences: American obsessions. Why most people need either one is a mystery to me, Carl Sandburg to the contrary notwithstanding.
Down at the water, the fences are all behind us. The beach is sandy…maybe a mile or two long of continuous beach. None of it’s mine, of course, and I am trespassing at all times. In California, people own the beach to the high tide; but in Washington, they own it to the low tide, so they own it all. There’s a big sign on the beach that says it’s a private beach, no trespassing, but I’ve never seen anybody do anything about it. I fantasize someone coming up to me, and the someone and I are the only people in sight as far as the eye can see, and the someone tells me that I am trespassing, and I imagine saying, “I’m sorry; did I get your sand dirty?’
Today at the beach, there is me, and an older couple (not older than me, of course), and a man with a big black dog. Looking out to the water, there is a 180+ degree view of mostly calm, dark grey water with a single silver streak far off shore where the sun is hitting it, cumulus clouds with light grey bottoms and big fluffy white tops, and blue sky right at the top. The sun is just getting ready to shine upon us fully. Edging the water on the far side are the many Gulf Islands and some of the San Juan Islands. They appear as a continuous land mass, but are themselves separated by water I can’t see. On the water is one working boat, fishing for something, as well as one large swimming seagull and what appear to be four loons. It could scarcely be or feel more desolate, more elemental. And I want to yell to whomever: ‘What’s with all those fences when you’ve got this to look at?’ I don’t know that anybody would have an answer, though.
It’s not that there weren’t fences on the Point before this last round of property sales, but they tended to be casual, see through items, wire or driftwood. The new fences, though, are much more substantial—massed cedars or heavy lumber--and I’m guessing these are being put up by new owners, who bring a somewhat different sensibility about fences to us. Or maybe they are the fences of people who have recently come by a very strong dog that needs to be restrained at all times from lunging into the street. Surprisingly, roaming dogs are the exception up here. Roaming coyotes; well that’s another matter. And thanks to the roaming coyotes, no roaming cats.
Lawns and fences: American obsessions. Why most people need either one is a mystery to me, Carl Sandburg to the contrary notwithstanding.
Down at the water, the fences are all behind us. The beach is sandy…maybe a mile or two long of continuous beach. None of it’s mine, of course, and I am trespassing at all times. In California, people own the beach to the high tide; but in Washington, they own it to the low tide, so they own it all. There’s a big sign on the beach that says it’s a private beach, no trespassing, but I’ve never seen anybody do anything about it. I fantasize someone coming up to me, and the someone and I are the only people in sight as far as the eye can see, and the someone tells me that I am trespassing, and I imagine saying, “I’m sorry; did I get your sand dirty?’
Today at the beach, there is me, and an older couple (not older than me, of course), and a man with a big black dog. Looking out to the water, there is a 180+ degree view of mostly calm, dark grey water with a single silver streak far off shore where the sun is hitting it, cumulus clouds with light grey bottoms and big fluffy white tops, and blue sky right at the top. The sun is just getting ready to shine upon us fully. Edging the water on the far side are the many Gulf Islands and some of the San Juan Islands. They appear as a continuous land mass, but are themselves separated by water I can’t see. On the water is one working boat, fishing for something, as well as one large swimming seagull and what appear to be four loons. It could scarcely be or feel more desolate, more elemental. And I want to yell to whomever: ‘What’s with all those fences when you’ve got this to look at?’ I don’t know that anybody would have an answer, though.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Great Bird!
Driving to the the post office and grocery store today, I saw great blue herons everywhere. They come back from somewhere else more southerly in the late winter and make steady appearances at the side of roads and highways that border big, flat, usually formerly-planted agricultural fields, but if all you’ve got is a really big vacant lot, that’s okay, too. You might think that they drop into the fields to find food...small rodents? Insects? Old seeds? Don’t know. In any case, they don’t seem to be looking for anything in the field. They stand by the fields that border roads and highways so that they can watch the cars go by. At least that is how it appears to me. Regardless of how their bodies are oriented, their heads and eyes are pointed toward the cars. Perhaps they think of cars as some kind of disabled birds, even some kind of heron, who can go fast but just can’t get up off the ground. And they are hoping that, this time, they'll get enough uplift to soar.
They are a big, beautiful bird and we are lucky to have so many of them—as well as of bald eagles—around. All spring, they’re both a continual presence. Because I mostly see the herons on the ground and the eagles in the air, they feel like a very different kind of bird to me, but they are both really big, and that’s probably their most impressive birdness.
When we moved here, Point Roberts had one of the largest heron rookeries in the Northwest. They were located in an alder grove over on the northwest side of the peninsula. Ten years or so ago, a big resort/golf company was fixing to build a high-end golf course here on the Point. Problem was, the course bordered the heron rookery and it was a somewhat protected site. Enough protection that the golf course company couldn’t just do whatever it wanted. Over a couple of years, various groups negotiated with the company to try to find a middle way. I’m sure there were plenty of people here who preferred the ‘no golf course’ route, but big money, big business, what have you, has its way. Here it was, promising to provide a bunch of short-term and maybe a half-dozen long-term jobs in Point Roberts. What government could say ‘no’ to that? We don’t have our own government here but if we did, that government might have figured out how to say no. But the county and the state were the heavy hitters here, and they produced some research to justify the building of the golf course in such a way and at such a time that the herons wouldn’t mind. At least that was the idea.
I saw the rookery once, before the golf course came in. It’s not a fenced or prohibited area or anything, but it is also not advertised because the people who think heron rookeries ought to be really protected didn’t see any value in having pedestrians tromping through on a regular basis. The herons are only there in the rookery while they’ve got eggs/chicks in the nest. It was a lovely sight. I was surprised to find that they were nesting in alder trees, which are not very long-lived trees, and rookeries, they tell me, are usually long-term homes. These trees were showing their age: lots of breakage from winter wind storms, but there were also lots of visible nests, though the herons weren’t in them at the time. They came back that spring, though, and used those nests.
And then the golf course got built according to the plan, and a year or two later, the herons failed to return to the rookery. Didn’t like golf or golfers, I guess. Nobody seems to know where they went to make new nests, or if they know, they’re not discussing it. The herons are still around, of course, eating in the marshlands, spearing fish out of the eel grass, and watching the cars next to the highway. It’s just that they don’t do their nesting in Point Roberts anymore. I miss that.
They are a big, beautiful bird and we are lucky to have so many of them—as well as of bald eagles—around. All spring, they’re both a continual presence. Because I mostly see the herons on the ground and the eagles in the air, they feel like a very different kind of bird to me, but they are both really big, and that’s probably their most impressive birdness.
When we moved here, Point Roberts had one of the largest heron rookeries in the Northwest. They were located in an alder grove over on the northwest side of the peninsula. Ten years or so ago, a big resort/golf company was fixing to build a high-end golf course here on the Point. Problem was, the course bordered the heron rookery and it was a somewhat protected site. Enough protection that the golf course company couldn’t just do whatever it wanted. Over a couple of years, various groups negotiated with the company to try to find a middle way. I’m sure there were plenty of people here who preferred the ‘no golf course’ route, but big money, big business, what have you, has its way. Here it was, promising to provide a bunch of short-term and maybe a half-dozen long-term jobs in Point Roberts. What government could say ‘no’ to that? We don’t have our own government here but if we did, that government might have figured out how to say no. But the county and the state were the heavy hitters here, and they produced some research to justify the building of the golf course in such a way and at such a time that the herons wouldn’t mind. At least that was the idea.
I saw the rookery once, before the golf course came in. It’s not a fenced or prohibited area or anything, but it is also not advertised because the people who think heron rookeries ought to be really protected didn’t see any value in having pedestrians tromping through on a regular basis. The herons are only there in the rookery while they’ve got eggs/chicks in the nest. It was a lovely sight. I was surprised to find that they were nesting in alder trees, which are not very long-lived trees, and rookeries, they tell me, are usually long-term homes. These trees were showing their age: lots of breakage from winter wind storms, but there were also lots of visible nests, though the herons weren’t in them at the time. They came back that spring, though, and used those nests.
And then the golf course got built according to the plan, and a year or two later, the herons failed to return to the rookery. Didn’t like golf or golfers, I guess. Nobody seems to know where they went to make new nests, or if they know, they’re not discussing it. The herons are still around, of course, eating in the marshlands, spearing fish out of the eel grass, and watching the cars next to the highway. It’s just that they don’t do their nesting in Point Roberts anymore. I miss that.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
The Crabs in Winter
A friend from the Rest of the U.S. dropped by today. He’d driven a truck over the borders to help out another friend. That friend was crossing the ocean from Blaine to Point Roberts to empty his crab pots and take them out of the water because the end of the crab season is upon us. They’ve caught crab off these waters for as long as anyone knows about it, although I have never seen one of these crabs in an edible state. You can get a license to put just a pot or two in the water, apparently, and that’s what I’d have to do to see one, let alone eat one, but that would also require me to have a boat and to take the pot out and collect the contents periodically. What with the cost of boats and the cost of fuel, it’s cheaper to buy the crab as it swims through the market.
There are also commercial licenses, which cost a lot ($40,000 or so, says our friend and then there is a yearly keeping the license fee) but which permit you to have 50 pots. Further, you can lease somebody else’s license, which will give you another 50 pots. The season lasts 2-4 months (October to whenever they close it) and you empty the pots every five days or so. Our friend says that a good season will net a crabber $100,000, at $4/pound, which is this year's price. This season, he says, was not so good.
A bad season can result from your losing your crab pots themselves. They are big wire cylinders, connected to multicolor floats (so you can find them) and cost maybe $100/each. You can lose your pots because other, bad-apple crabbers (evil doers, I think they are called) take them when you are not there looking. Or just cut your floats loose so you cannot find your pots. Or you can have a bad season because there are not so many crabs as you were hoping for or because crabs have finally gotten smart enough not to walk into the traps.
I don’t know what was the cause of this year’s bad season, but I’d put my money on ‘not so many crabs.’ When we first came to the Northwest, Eastern Canada had a big cod fishery; now it has no cod fishery. When we first came here, Western Canada had a big salmon fishery; now, though there still are salmon, they are not so common. In the early years of our residence, the markets had all kinds of fresh salmon, and if you wanted them even fresher, you could go down to the marina and buy them right off the boats as they came in. Native Americans have special fishing/salmon access in B.C., and whenever you gave a ride to a Native hitchhiker, he’d almost always ask whether you wanted to buy a salmon.
There were king, sockeye, spring, and keta. They cost, at most, $4-$5 a pound, and keta usually cost $2. (Keta is also known as ‘dog salmon’ for reasons that I take to be obvious, but it, too was pretty good.) Salmon was everywhere and we ate it all the time, and it was wonderful. Nowadays, salmon are just as available, but they are mostly ‘Farmed Atlantic,’ which means that they are an Atlantic-type salmon, farmed right here on the west coast, and with the taste of an animal that has been raised on bread crumbs or something similarly inoffensive. We still see some fresh ‘Wild Salmon,’, but it is more likely to be in the range of $10-$12 a pound, and you can't assume that it will be around in season.
I’m glad we were here, if only at the end, of the Great Abundant Salmon Festival. My then-three-year-old granddaughter, when offered her first salmon meal, refused to eat it. When I asked her why, she said indignantly, ‘I do not want to eat a fish named Sam.” She’s 17 now and a vegetarian. But, to all the fish named Sam that we have known, I want to say, 'Thanks! You were extraordinary and we remember you fondly. I only hope your descendants will do better than the cod have and than maybe the crab are doing.' Hope is what we are working with now.
There are also commercial licenses, which cost a lot ($40,000 or so, says our friend and then there is a yearly keeping the license fee) but which permit you to have 50 pots. Further, you can lease somebody else’s license, which will give you another 50 pots. The season lasts 2-4 months (October to whenever they close it) and you empty the pots every five days or so. Our friend says that a good season will net a crabber $100,000, at $4/pound, which is this year's price. This season, he says, was not so good.
A bad season can result from your losing your crab pots themselves. They are big wire cylinders, connected to multicolor floats (so you can find them) and cost maybe $100/each. You can lose your pots because other, bad-apple crabbers (evil doers, I think they are called) take them when you are not there looking. Or just cut your floats loose so you cannot find your pots. Or you can have a bad season because there are not so many crabs as you were hoping for or because crabs have finally gotten smart enough not to walk into the traps.
I don’t know what was the cause of this year’s bad season, but I’d put my money on ‘not so many crabs.’ When we first came to the Northwest, Eastern Canada had a big cod fishery; now it has no cod fishery. When we first came here, Western Canada had a big salmon fishery; now, though there still are salmon, they are not so common. In the early years of our residence, the markets had all kinds of fresh salmon, and if you wanted them even fresher, you could go down to the marina and buy them right off the boats as they came in. Native Americans have special fishing/salmon access in B.C., and whenever you gave a ride to a Native hitchhiker, he’d almost always ask whether you wanted to buy a salmon.
There were king, sockeye, spring, and keta. They cost, at most, $4-$5 a pound, and keta usually cost $2. (Keta is also known as ‘dog salmon’ for reasons that I take to be obvious, but it, too was pretty good.) Salmon was everywhere and we ate it all the time, and it was wonderful. Nowadays, salmon are just as available, but they are mostly ‘Farmed Atlantic,’ which means that they are an Atlantic-type salmon, farmed right here on the west coast, and with the taste of an animal that has been raised on bread crumbs or something similarly inoffensive. We still see some fresh ‘Wild Salmon,’, but it is more likely to be in the range of $10-$12 a pound, and you can't assume that it will be around in season.
I’m glad we were here, if only at the end, of the Great Abundant Salmon Festival. My then-three-year-old granddaughter, when offered her first salmon meal, refused to eat it. When I asked her why, she said indignantly, ‘I do not want to eat a fish named Sam.” She’s 17 now and a vegetarian. But, to all the fish named Sam that we have known, I want to say, 'Thanks! You were extraordinary and we remember you fondly. I only hope your descendants will do better than the cod have and than maybe the crab are doing.' Hope is what we are working with now.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
I Read the News Today.... Oh, Boy!
The first of the month is the day the All Points Bulletin appears in our street mailboxes to tell us what we have missed the past month. In Roberts Creek, B.C., the monthly newspaper is actually a weekly newspaper, but the amount of news/month is about the same for each place. Which is to say, there’s not much news because it’s only local news and there’s not much local. In B.C., we get a bunch of advertising supplements, whereas in WA, we get just the paper, which has some advertising of minimal interest, only because we all pretty much know what you can buy in Point Roberts or in the neighboring small town, Tsawwaaasen. But it usually has a kind of entertainment value, if only the ‘Letters to the Editors,’ written by the town cranks.
Nevertheless, after reading the March edition of the APB, I found myself feeling a little down. Then, Ed read it and commented, ‘There’s nothing in this paper that made me feel good.’ A true and lively statement, and worthy of all men (and women). An article on the border leads us to believe that the people responsible for the border think the situation is just going swimmingly. (Which might be a better way to cross the border.) The decision about a cell phone tower (which would provide cell phone coverage here) has been postponed yet again. Now, I don’t really have a dog in that race, but it would be better if it just got resolved instead of keeping people crazed over a yet longer period. (One, but not the only, issue is that the Parks and Recreation Board would like to rent some space to the tower builders so that they’d have a little income without having to ask for additional tax levies, which they probably wouldn’t get. The other issue, on the NO! side, features concerns about health issues, which surely we would then share with the entire U.S. population given the level of cell phone coverage around.)
The third issue is water, of course. The Water Board has now gotten the developers to more or less agree to foot the $3 million cost of this giant storage tank that they want to build. The developers will then get those up-front costs back when they sell the houses and assess each of the new owners for their share of the 3 mil. I’m dubious about how this is all going to work, and can easily imagine this tank coming apart like the 3 Gorges dam in China is reputed to be about to do. Bound to be bad for property values if that happens.
But worse is the description of the developers’ plans for high end developments of 150 houses in gated communities (apparently more than one of these). I can imagine McMansions with fences around them and their neighboring McMansions with their own fences (good fences do make good neighbors), and all the McMansions in each development encircled by yet another fence. Meanwhile, all of us here are encircled by a figurative fence—that is to say, The Border: fenced mansions in a gated community inside yet another gated community. Is this the future I was hoping for? Not. So. Much.
I know, now that I’m here, let’s pull up the road (the carpet?) and not let anyone else come. Actually, I’m entertained by the idea of more people, but not of gated communities with McMansions with helipads on their roofs so that the owners don’t have to fool with the silliness of the border; owners that are able to pay those very big charges for their piece of the storage tank. Why, I ask myself, in the midst of the worst housing downturn in U.S. history are we contemplating the building of 150 McMansions inside a gated-fence?
Ahh, I remember: it’s the nature of Point Roberts...always on the wrong side of history.
Nevertheless, after reading the March edition of the APB, I found myself feeling a little down. Then, Ed read it and commented, ‘There’s nothing in this paper that made me feel good.’ A true and lively statement, and worthy of all men (and women). An article on the border leads us to believe that the people responsible for the border think the situation is just going swimmingly. (Which might be a better way to cross the border.) The decision about a cell phone tower (which would provide cell phone coverage here) has been postponed yet again. Now, I don’t really have a dog in that race, but it would be better if it just got resolved instead of keeping people crazed over a yet longer period. (One, but not the only, issue is that the Parks and Recreation Board would like to rent some space to the tower builders so that they’d have a little income without having to ask for additional tax levies, which they probably wouldn’t get. The other issue, on the NO! side, features concerns about health issues, which surely we would then share with the entire U.S. population given the level of cell phone coverage around.)
The third issue is water, of course. The Water Board has now gotten the developers to more or less agree to foot the $3 million cost of this giant storage tank that they want to build. The developers will then get those up-front costs back when they sell the houses and assess each of the new owners for their share of the 3 mil. I’m dubious about how this is all going to work, and can easily imagine this tank coming apart like the 3 Gorges dam in China is reputed to be about to do. Bound to be bad for property values if that happens.
But worse is the description of the developers’ plans for high end developments of 150 houses in gated communities (apparently more than one of these). I can imagine McMansions with fences around them and their neighboring McMansions with their own fences (good fences do make good neighbors), and all the McMansions in each development encircled by yet another fence. Meanwhile, all of us here are encircled by a figurative fence—that is to say, The Border: fenced mansions in a gated community inside yet another gated community. Is this the future I was hoping for? Not. So. Much.
I know, now that I’m here, let’s pull up the road (the carpet?) and not let anyone else come. Actually, I’m entertained by the idea of more people, but not of gated communities with McMansions with helipads on their roofs so that the owners don’t have to fool with the silliness of the border; owners that are able to pay those very big charges for their piece of the storage tank. Why, I ask myself, in the midst of the worst housing downturn in U.S. history are we contemplating the building of 150 McMansions inside a gated-fence?
Ahh, I remember: it’s the nature of Point Roberts...always on the wrong side of history.
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