So earlier this week, Tuesday through Thursday, the weather here was barely above 70 with low and high level clouds and a suggestion of a chill in the air, caused no doubt by the moisture, the temps, and the wind.
It came somewhat as a surprise. I mentioned to several friends about the “Fall feel” and they all agreed it was definitely Fall-like. Fall, of course, only starts near the end of September and this weather was happening with more than a week to go still in August.
A Faux Fall but a glimmer and hint of what’s coming. We all know it. The days are getting shorter. Remember, here in the high latitudes, the Summer’s are filled with 18-hours of daylight. Any decrease in that amount of light begins to get very noticeable. No longer is the sun rising at 4:30 am; nor is it any longer setting at 10:15 pm.
Since I can see the sun rise and set - directly - all year long, there’s another distinction which occurs for me. In high Summer, the sun sets to the far right of where I sit when I’m at my desk (control room?) upstairs. In the afternoons I can barely see the monitor screens because of the glaring sunlight.
The sun is now setting pretty much directly in front of me. I know from experience that at the darkest moment of Winter, the sun will set to my far left when I’m sitting at my desk. That’s a huge swing, indicative of the latitude, the tilt of the Earth, and the ellipse which is our orbit. The sun’s rays are now more often than not obscured by coastal clouds - another harbinger for when the sun won’t appear at all because of the cloud cover.
There are certain trees, I don’t know what they are because I’m really unschooled in the ways of an arborist, which begin to shed their leaves about a month before all the other trees. These trees have been shedding their leaves now for about two weeks, filling up the dormant grassy areas with their faded lifeforms and blowing in the wind. They contribute to a late Summer phenomenon which I’ve only recently begun to appreciate - dust in the air.
I’ve been sneezing quite a bit of late, brought about by the deteriorating condition of the fallen leaves as they turn into smaller and smaller pieces and finally into dust. Maybe it’s the dry Summers here, but I don’t recall having these sneezing attacks this early in the Fall back East.
I’m also looking very much forward to the return of the rains. Our house has all these odd angles with differently-shaped roofs and differently-angled rooflines. We have gutters on pretty much every roofline, and with the number of drainspouts that requires, we have this wonderful cacophony of dripping water against both metal and stone which resonates throughout the house when it rains.
I like that sound. It’s the equivalent for me of being within a 1000 feet of a real ocean shoreline with its waves and lapping noises. It’s the equivalent also of being in the high mountains with the evergreen needles bristling in the strong winds. Heck, it’s even the equivalent of the sounds a mature sycamore tree makes when it faces a strong breeze in the late Summer. These are white-noise sounds. Sounds which contain equal parts of nearly every frequency the human ear can hear. These kinds of sounds can, for some individuals, serve a very Zen-like purpose and allow that individual to focus more intently - or to let their mind wander more freely.
It’s in the Fall and Winter when I do most of my painting, writing, mobile-making, and, unusual as it may seem, city exploring. The painting, writing and mobile-making are easy to understand. I’m indoors because the weather is inclement and these are the kinds of activities one can do indoors.
Exploring the city might not seem like one of the best uses of one’s time in a period of inclement weather, but for me, the fact that nearly everyone else wants to or is forced to remain indoors means that the city I explore is pretty much MY city at that moment and any lingering I wish to do or any close inspection of something I get caught up with is pretty much a private experience. It’s hard to circle around the upper concrete wall and bench which is the top of the Seattle Center International Fountain in the Summer because there are dozens if not hundreds of others trying to do the same thing or occupying space where you might walk.
In the Fall, after the rains begin, I’ll likely be one of maybe a dozen individuals even in the vicinity of the International Fountain and probably the only one interested in walking the upper perimeter. This, of course, is just one example, but it goes to show how much more personal and intimate even a large city can be when everyone else in indoors.
I’ve been here now for nearly three years exactly. We moved into our house on September 1, 2003. We began to occupy and appreciate our second and third-floor additions on September 1, 2004. We’re no longer the “new family” in the neighborhood, in fact we’re far from being the “new” family as our neighborhood has seen probably a 20-percent turnover since we moved here. That’s, to me, a good thing. Most of the houses which were vacated were owned by families or individuals who had lived in them for decades and more than likely had been born in Seattle or no further away than maybe Vashon Island or Bremerton or Everett or maybe Auburn when it was still a farming town. Many of them worked for companies no longer around.
The newbies come from a predominantly Western-states origin, with but a few houses now being lived in by Midwesterners and even fewer by Easterners. That’s sort of typical for Seattle, though. However, there is a surprisingly large number of recent arrivals from the DC metropolitan area. In many ways that’s both confirming and sad to me. I have long known that DC is a magnet for “fresh outs” (my term for recently-graduated college types) and also knew that very few who actually lived in the District would remain there for anywhere near as long as we lived there. The District is just saddled with too many layers of “over lord” to create the kind of draw and kinship which gets nurtured by families living there and growing old there. People come and they go and the District remains a “locality” for fewer than twenty-five percent of its roughly Seattle-sized population (560K for DC and about 580K for Seattle).
There differences between the two cities is powerfully evident when you talk to folks about what might be local institutions. Folks here still remember when KEXP, one of the area’s magnificent public radio stations, was even more magnificent and located on campus at UW and went by the call-letters KCMU. Barely anyone in the District, or even the greater Washington DC area, remembers when WHFS was located in studios in downtown Bethesda and transmitted on 102.3 FM. Even fewer remember that it was as good then as KEXP is now. Worse, because DC and its environs don’t solicit nor provide the tools for truly local citizen involvement - even with their neighborhoods, hardly anyone in the DC metro area now knows how good DC radio used to be.
Before the era of big government, before the District even had “home rule,” the District was an outlet for rhythm and blues, Appalachian blue grass, Eastern and Southern folk and folk-rock, and blues and jazz of all variety. DC had many separate and distinct live music districts - the old Georgetown by the river, long before it became the playpen for the wealthy and chic, the H Street NE corridor - the so-called Harlem of DC, the eastern end of U Street NW - a jive, jazz and co-mingling area similar to Philadelphia’s then-famed South Street, and 7th Street NW from below Howard University to well past Howard University - a blend of Chicago, Memphis and Bayou blues and jazz.
Just like New Orleans, these musical and long-standing historical roots of the District were rent asunder by a catastrophe. Actually, several catastrophes. First there were the race riots of the ‘60’s, which had the depressed and downtrodden burning down their own neighborhoods, icons and historical roots. Then came the emergence of the US Government as the true overlord of the District and the rise of the House committee, normally stocked full of Southern Republicans, who were repulsed at the excesses of the Civil Rights movement and completely abhorred any notion that District residents would ever control their own fate. Finally, there was the homogenization of the entire region’s culture by the mega-corporations who began to take control of the communications industry, the entertainment industry, the fashion and retail industry, and everything else which goes with that.
There are still hidden historical treasures which belong to the citizens of the District of Columbia. There are still local legends and local venues whose history is known only to those who’ve committed their lives as citizens of the area. Mostly, though, there’s a vanilla sophistication which has settled on the District. Any American can visit the city and feel right at home because whatever they like back home they can easily find in DC. All the stuff which folks think makes DC what it is are really indicative of how futile it’s been for the generations of citizens who called DC home. DC is more about a display of national aspirations, achievements, concerns and even loves and hates than it is about being a community of citizens living together.
To my delight, Seattle is representative of a community of citizens living together. There’s very little external overlay which gets in the way here. True, there are just as many mega-corporations trying to control things as there were back in DC. Macy’s is the new Bon Marché. Of course, Frederick and Marsh is long gone. Nordstrom is still here, but now it’s more of the “home flagship store” than it is the fancy local department store downtown. Same for REI. Frankly, I relished the time I spent in their old Capital Hill building with the two floors of wooden slats which creaked when you walked across them. The new REI flagship store, cool as all get out, cool as the LL Bean store in Maine, is still a bit overdone and really represents just the “home” office since REI now has stores in pretty much any and all outdoorsey towns in the country.
Boeing, linked with Seattle much as Bogart is linked with Bacall, is now headquartered in Chicago. UPS, which began life here, is now somewhere in the Southwest or who knows. Amazon is still here but the Public Health Service Hospital, whose wonderful Art Deco building it now occupies, is no longer. Instead, there’s a new VA hospital whose campus and buildings are an ever-present eyesore throughout the city.
In DC, down the block from me right on Wisconsin Avenue, when we first moved in, was a locally-owned bike shop, a coffee shop, a head shop, an old-furniture-find/antique shop, a take-out pizza place of some renown, and a whole lot else. Up the street, also on Wisconsin, was one of the area’s best and most well-known camera and photography shops - Baker’s. There was also a People’s Drug, Sears and a Hechinger hardware store - a big one for each.
None of these things is there anymore. In their place are a Best Buy, more chain restaurants, lawyer and real estate offices and a new CVS - heir to the formerly-fabled drugstore chain known as People’s.
I cite these instances because even though I’m about to turn 60 next Spring, I represent a new wave of residents in Seattle - folks who came from other areas and who have their own idea about how to make Seattle a better place or more interesting or whatever one fancies. California Avenue SW, the nearly five-mile-long “main” street of West Seattle, is seeing a stunning make-over. In addition to unique (still!!) businesses which either started on California or have been there a long time, there are new businesses which came here from other neighborhoods in the city. They want a West Seattle address now.
Same is true for the multi-family housing market. Much as Wisconsin Avenue in the 90’s lost it’s empty fields and low, one-story, buildings to 6, 8, 10 and 14-story new “mixed-use” projects or condos or apartment buildings, California Avenue is going the same route. Here, though, there’s an even lower height limit so the transformation will be less dramatic, but no less severe. Nearly all the single-family houses which once stood block-after-block in the southern area of California Avenue are gone or earmarked for being gone. The few which remain have themselves been converted into businesses - businesses like C&P Coffee, which occupies a fantastic and real Craftsman home of some note. That home would no doubt be gone tomorrow if C&P moves out. In its place will be either a 5-story apartment, condominium or office building - all with the first floor occupied by either retail businesses, including restaurants, or services like doctors and lawyers.
Many of the longtime and native residents of West Seattle are appalled. I’m not, but then I’ve seen this kind of transformation occur to three other cities - Harrisburg, Houston, and DC. The number of Seattle residents who are not native is growing. The number of Seattle residents who are native includes a large number who will leave because it no longer suits them - i.e., it’s gotten “too big,” or they will die in place. The city’s demographics are changing.
Seattle apparently wants desperately to be considered a “world class” city. Or at least that’s what seems to happen to anyone who wins elected office. They seem to lose sight of the fact that a city is about its residents, not about its visitors.
Let’s be blunt here - Seattle isn’t a world class city by a long shot. I’ve lived for several years in both Seoul and Paris, and have spent considerable time - seasons, in other honest-to-god world cities. This one here isn’t in that league. And, it shouldn’t want to be. Seattle is a working, workable and likeable place to live. It may be an equally likeable place to visit but it isn’t about the visitors - it’s about the residents. I don’t want people to come visit here and say “oh, wow, you have the same radio stations as I do.” I don’t want them to have to choose between restaurants or stores which they could just as easily shop at when home. I want them to see, smell, sense, feel, explore and understand why Ballard feels like Ballard and the U-District feels like the U-District and what’s becoming of Lake Union and the vast empty warehouse zone just south of it. I want them to know that the warehouse zone was once a hill and that there were once over a hundred miles of streetcar track in just the city limits - the city limits of 1933 at that. Some of the few remaining stretches of streetcar track will be gone soon when the Cascade area gets fully developed.
I want KEXP to stay no more corrupted than it is now. I want the Egyptian, Admiral, Neptune and Harvard Exit theaters and a whole bunch more to stay in business and make money because I go to them. In DC there are no more of the old, elegant, theaters. Sure, some of them have turned into things like the Women’s Museum, but there are no vintage theaters in DC except the Uptown, which still makes money, and the Avalon, which is a neighborhood-supported art venue these days and barely scraping by. I know Pike Place Market will remain, but now I worry about its management and having truly local artisans, farmers, fishers, meat people, crafts people and all the rest chased out for more profitable “national” recognition vendors. That fight, though, can be won.
In fact, if nothing else, the fierce loyalty to locality which exists here, suggests that the more Seattle changes, the more it will enrich its heritage and keep and polish those elemental Seattle realities.
That’s one of the differences in living in Seattle versus living in the District of Columbia - I don’t have to worry that some Southern bigot congressman is going to step in and quash what’s truly local. I do worry that the battle here is between business and people and that people often lose out big-time to business - big time in the form of additional tax liens. But, we can and should fight that. It’s harder to fight Congress and the US Government. The US Government doesn’t have an insubstantial presence here. In the overall Puget Sound area, the US Government has a relatively substantial presence here. But, and this is the big but, the presence here of the US Government isn’t a “my way or the highway” presence. Washington is a state and therefore has rights which the District of Columbia doesn’t.
I think it’s time to give the citizens of the District of Columbia their own voice in the US Government. There’s still plenty of things worth saving which are truly local in the District, but they need the kind of stewardship which only locals who run their own affairs can provide. It’s great to live here in Seattle. I can and do visit my city council members, my county council members and the heads of the city departments which affect me. I also know that there’s no higher authority holding reign over these individuals when I visit them. In DC there was the sometimes invisible but always ominous presence of the House committee. And, my representative there didn’t have a vote.
I’ve no idea where my local activism will lead. But, I’ll continue with it because that’s the sort of person I am. If I see something which is being done, handled or thought about in a “wrong” manner, it’s my nature to speak up and work to find a better solution. In DC I often felt that I was acting the role of Sisyphus. Here, it seems my efforts will cause a change. I’ve seen that already with some of the activities I’ve been involved with regarding parks and trails. I’ve not seen that yet with transportation, but some things take more time than others. One thing I’ve learned after working for the Federal Bureaucracy for 33 years is that sometimes change requires the person in charge to die of natural causes or retire. But, change will occur if the change agents are persistent, adamant and logical.
In the meantime I’ve worked on three unfinished canvases and am now re-energized about my art. I’ve dived deep into and remain at great depths in the world of local music, music recording, music producing and music markets and gigs. The house is in good enough condition and we’re reasonably satisfied with pretty much everything including my trimming of our too-many-plants yard that I don’t have to worry much about routine homeowner kinds of things. That’s good. I don’t have time to spend imagining ways to improve what is already a decent home.
Now, on to a decent city.
