Happy Birthday Little Sister Jackie; Princess Update

On the morning of this day, over half a century ago, my two oldest siblings and I sat on the curb of the south side of Fairhaven Avenue in Burlington, Washington.

The street we lived on was one block to the south, on Washington Avenue.

On the side opposite of Fairhaven Avenue, from the curb on which we sat, was what was at that point in time, before later being turned into an apartment building, our town's hospital.

And in that hospital, somewhere on an upper floor we looked for our dad to appear at a window. We did not know which window, on which floor, just that the window would be on an upper floor.

It is not easy to try and put into words, all these years later, how excited we were sitting there, waiting.

I do not remember if it was me or my brother who spotted dad first. But, I do remember how happy we were to see dad holding our new baby sister at that window so we could see her for the first time.

All these years later I have not til now wondered why us kids were not just allowed in the hospital to see our new sister.

Our new baby sister was named after a politician's wife who was an extremely popular First Lady of the United States at the time. I never thought if it til now, but Jackie's baby sister also has the same first name as an extremely popular First Lady of the United States, however, Michele was born years before that particular First Lady became one. If Michele had been named after who was First Lady when she was born she would be Thelma, with a nickname of Pat.

I almost forgot to mention, in that photo at the top Jackie is holding her kitty baby she named Pebbles. Pebbles was our first cat.

What follows is several photos of my little Jackie sister with her older siblings, years before Thelma Michele joined the family...

Above Jackie looks to be just a few months old. Maybe older than a few months, due to the fact it appears to be summer. We are standing in our front yard, and that would be me holding Jackie.

That would be Spencer Jack's grandpa Jake to the left of Jackie, which makes me the guy on the right. This may have been a first day of school photo.

I do not remember wearing a jacket and tie at this young age. Were we heading to Sunday School? I do not know. Doesn't Jackie look cute in her little dress?

Again we look to be dressed up to go somewhere special. I have no idea where that might be. I do now it was a rare occasion for my sisters to be in a dress, particularly the older sister.

Again, in the front yard, the camera aimed west, and us kids dressed up nicely. Maybe we were heading north to Lynden to visit the grandma's.

This is the earliest known photo documentation of Jackie in sports attire. I don't believe she was in her own little league uniform. I suspect we had dressed Jackie in brother Jake's little league attire.

The last photo is from several years after all those previous photos. In this one that is dad on the left, with me in the middle, and Jackie sitting next to me. We are at the San Juan Capistrano Mission looking for swallows. We toured this mission between visits to Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm and Hollywood, whilst camping at San Clemente State Park, next to the Nixon's California home.

Happy Birthday, Jackie. See you in a few weeks!

____________

An hour or so after publishing the above an UPDATE came to my phone from Arizona. with the text in the message saying, "Princess Jackie's Happy Birthday Breakfast at Denny's."

At first I thought this message came from the birthday girl. thinking the attached photo was one of those selfie deals. However, upon closer perusal I realized the photo and text message were from Jackie's little brother, Spencer Jack's grandpa, Jake. I did not understand the "Princess" part of the message until I got the photo off my phone and saw that which you see below...

Look At Latest Round Of Washington Winter Weather Mayhem While Ruby Sleds

That which you see here is screencap capped from this Tuesday morning's Seattle Times online  front page top of the fold headline.

Throughout the day, yesterday, I was receiving incoming photos, text messages and phone calls from the Pacific Northwest with first hand descriptions of the ongoing Snow Apocalypse currently vexing several million Washingtonians who are not used to dealing with this level of winter weather mayhem.

In the photo you are looking at a cross country skier skiing on the beach in West Seattle, sking by a pair of snow sculptures which look to me to be a sea lion on the right, and an orca on the left, with the Seattle skyline faded by snowflakes in the background.

What follows is three photos from Tacoma, followed by video of my favorite Ruby niece sledding down a hill in Wright Park.

Above is the first snow photo received yesterday from Tacoma. The view is looking northwest across M Street from a second floor window of David, Theo and Ruby's abode. Snow fell all day long yesterday in the south Puget Sound zone. The snow let up a bit in my old home zone of the Skagit Valley, thus allowing Linda Lou to make an emergency trek across the Skagit River, from Mount Vernon to Burlington, to stock up on survival items at Costco.

And here we see Ruby holding her sliding device whilst attired in what looks like a colorful terrorist's uniform. You can see those aforementioned flakes falling.

I do not know if that is David or Theo sitting on the snow beside Ruby and a frozen Wright Park pond.

Tacoma's Queen V reported this morning that last night when the snow falling temporarily turned to rain she put on her best waterproof footwear and ventured out to check her neighborhood street drains to make sure water was able to flow down them, unblocked by ice. Blocked drains can make for bad street flooding.

And now that promised video of Ruby sledding down a Wright Park hill whilst being pummeled by incoming big snowflakes...

David, Theo & Ruby Escaping Washington Snow Going To Arizona With Their Favorite Uncle

Fresh incoming snow photo documentation arrived this morning from Tacoma and Mount Vernon.

The Tacoma photo is a Monday morning look at David, Theo and Ruby's backyard, with the text message saying...

"This morning, with more expected..."

I wish I was currently in Tacoma. I suspect I would be having myself a mighty fine time playing in the snow with a pair of twins and their big brother.

Two days ago Spencer Jack's dad who goes by the name of Jason called.

During the course of that call Jason seemed fairly certain that information was credible which he had been told by his dad, who is also known as Spencer Jack's grandpa and my brother, Jake, with that information being that David, Theo, Ruby and their parental units were going to be arriving in Arizona the same time I am.

I did not know for sure if this was one of Jason's elaborate instances of tricking his favorite uncle into believing something erroneous, or not.

And then, yesterday, I called Jason's grandma. I was not going to bring up what Jason had told me, figuring if it were true that even with mom's somewhat dicey memory, she would remember to make mention of this.

And she did.

So, when I am in Arizona I am hoping I get to have myself a mighty fine time with David, Theo and Ruby. There is a park at the north end of Dobson Road, at the location of the Chicago Cubs replica of Wrigley Field, with the most elaborate kid's playground I have ever seen.

Each time I've eye witnessed this park I have said it sure would be fun to play there with David, Theo and Ruby. I mentioned this to mom and she remembered us wheeling her around this park when I was there in October, and agreed it would be fun to take the kids there.

Mom also agreed it would be fun to drive the kids to the summit of South Mountain. Their parental units would need to stay home for that adventure, as there is not sufficient seating for them.

Jason is not yet sure if he and Spencer Jack will be joining all of us in Arizona next month. Last night mom was the most upbeat I have heard her in a long time, looking forward to the prospect of all her children being at the same location for the first time in years.

To make that complete it would require that Spencer Jack's uncle Joey fly down with Henry and aunt Monique, neither of whom most of us have yet met. Jason told me in that recent call that Henry is a super happy baby, laughing and smiling all the time. Henry's dad was like that when he was Henry's size, maintaining that pleasant disposition to the present day.

I don't know if I want to be the one to tell mom, but all her children may not be in Arizona next month. This morning Jason sent me that which you see below to my phone.

With the text in the message saying "It looks like Aunt Clancy and Fancy might be back in the Pacific Northwest, and not in Arizona..."

I do not know how Jason manages to keep up on so much and do such a good job of it or who his information sources are, but this time Jason may be wrong...

No Snow Angels Sledding Tacoma's Wright Park With David, Theo & Ruby

The Snowpocalypse Snowmageddon has yet to let up in my old home zone of the Puget Sound Western Washington part of the world.

This may already be record breaking in number of days in a row of the ground being covered with frozen white water.

I do not believe the depth of the accumulation has yet set a record. I was not living in Washington at the time, but I believe back at some point in time during the Roaring 20s, or maybe it was during the decade previous to the Roaring 20s, a snow accumulation well over a foot brought most everything to a halt in the lowlands of Western Washington.

A couple days ago after I mentioned the deepest snow I ever experienced in the Washington lowlands was back in the 1990s, my favorite Jason nephew then precisely informed me that that deep snow happened in December of 1995. And that at that point in time it was also the deepest he had seen until December of 2008 when Western Washington was buried in over a foot of snow. Jason suggested since this happened after my exile to Texas I was not aware of it.

I almost forgot to mention, in the above photo my favorite David, Theo and Ruby nephews and niece are standing with their snow sliding devices in Tacoma's Wright Park.

I miss parks with natural sled worthy hills.

And then on Facebook this morning I saw the below sign with useful information.

I do not remember if Allen is an actual town in Skagit County. I do remember the area known as Allen is located northwest of Burlington, south of Edison.

I also remember my favorite mom got a job being a secretary at the soon to open Allen Elementary.

And then a couple days later mom had me drive her somewhere, and on the way mom informed me I was going to be having a new baby brother or sister, and what with this incoming blessing the secretary at Allen Elementary thing was not gonna happen.

A few days later Spencer Jack's grandpa was the next sibling to be told a new baby was on the way. Weeks later, maybe a month, the last sibling got the news. She did not take the news well, in fact she insisted this was not going to happen, losing her spot as baby of the family.

A few months later we poured cement for a patio in the backyard. We had been to California and Hollywood the previous summer, where we had been impressed with the names and handprints in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theater. And so each of us replicated the same with our names and handprints in the fresh cement.

By then we had already agreed on the name for our new baby sibling. If the incoming was a boy he would be known as Joey. If the incoming was a girl she would be Michele. And so, using a doll's hand, a handprint was pressed into the cement, and I scratched in "Joey or Michele".

Michele is David, Theo and Ruby's mom. We had to wait until Jason had a brother to have a Joey in the family.

Tacoma Snow With Spencer Jack 747 Flight To Highway 99 Tunnel & Pike Place Snowman

Incoming new Snowmageddon photo documentation from my old Washington home zone, specifically Tacoma and Seattle

Three photos from Tacoma in incoming email this morning.

Text in that email...

Went sledding with some friends then played in the snow at the kid's school. I took the pic of the water beyond the swings because if you zoom in, you can whitecaps. The sun is out now but the wind is still biting. Other pic is just how the roads look. Main roads are pretty slushy but our streets are still white. When it freezes tonight, it’s gonna get slick!

I could see the aforementioned whitecaps in the above photo when I viewed the photo full sized, but not so much in the cropped shrunken version. That body of water is a southern section of Puget Sound known as Commencement Bay.

When I first saw the above photo all I saw was Ruby sledding down a hill. Then I opened the photo  full sized and realized that was Ruby's brother, David, on the left, and twin, Theo, on the right, trudging back up the hill for another sledding run. I may have the brothers reversed, with it actually being Theo on the left, with David on the right. Or that may be a pair of the sledding friends referenced in the email.

And above we are looking at M Street, in front of David, Theo and Ruby's Tacoma abode.

And next we are standing on David, Theo and Ruby's front porch, looking out at their snow covered front yard and an equally snow covered M Street.

The current forecast for Western Washington, sent to me last night by David, Theo and Ruby's cousin, Jason, indicates the snow is not leaving anytime soon, with more expected to arrive, along with what melts during the day, re-freezing at night, rendering driving continually hazardous.

And speaking of Jason, now let's go to Seattle, with Spencer Jack.

Last week, between snowstorms, on Tuesday, Spencer Jack took his dad to Seattle, to Boeing Field, to the Museum of Flight, hoping to explore the first 747, which is now on display, marking it being a half century since that plane took its first flight over Puget Sound. Spencer Jack and Jason arrived at 10 in the morning, with their 747 tickets having a noon boarding time. However, incoming snow grounded that boarding, resulting in Spencer Jack and Jason being given raincheck tickets for a future snow-free boarding.

Leaving Boeing Field and the Flight Museum, Spencer Jack suggested, since they were in the neighborhood, that the drive back north be via the Highway 99 Tunnel, which had opened the day before.

So, I now have my first first hand account of driving through the new tunnel. Jason's take on it is that the tunnel is brightly lit, with LEDs, that he was surprised at how the tunnel seemed to slope noticeably downhill after entering, then made a not toodetectable curve before re-emerging at ground level near the Space Needle.

All in all, by Jason's account, compared to going the same distance via the now closed Alaskan Way Viaduct, the new tunnel is a boring way to cross downtown Seattle, with nothing to see but the tunnel. Whilst driving the Alaskan Way Viaduct gave one an elevated view of Elliott Bay, ferry boats, cruise ships, the downtown skyline and more. But, it was acknowledged that despite its many attributes the Alaskan Way Viaduct was a noisy, dangerous eyesore that needed to go.

After exiting the new tunnel Spencer Jack thought it a good idea to head back south to the heart of downtown Seattle, to Pike Place Market.

Above we see Spencer Jack standing by a rare downtown Seattle Pike Place Market sight. With that rare sight being a snowman standing at the location famous for flying fish, well, flying salmon tossed by fish vendors.

If I have my bearings right, and my memory is working somewhat accurately, Spencer Jack is looking at the location of the original Starbucks, a short distance to the east.

No snow at my current location way north of being deep in the heart of Texas. Just drizzle and cold air. I grow tired of cold air...

Tacoma Snow Does Not Close Any Texas Pot Store

I saw this on Facebook via Tacoma's Queen V and thought to myself, self, this is an interesting variation of the theme of things I see about something on the west coast which one would not see in the imaginary free-spirited freedom loving state of Texas, where buying and selling marijuana is a crime, where in some areas it is illegal to sell beverages which contain alcohol, where casinos are not allowed, except for a couple small locations where the Indians were not chased out of Texas.

The Puget Sound's Snow Apocalypse has caused all sorts of problems affecting all sorts of businesses, including, as Queen V verbalizes it, "The pot store down the street..."

Queen V's pot store has a snow related sign which says...

No business like snow business

hours: 

Friday 8am - 8pm

Saturday 10am - (TBD)

I do not think Queen V's neighborhood pot store closing due to snow will be a problem for her, what with Queen V being extremely creative and as such she likely grows her own supply of this popular herb, rather than rely on a nearby pot purveyor...

Puget Sound Snow Apocalypse Hits Tacoma & Mount Vernon As Predicted

Last night whilst talking to Linda Lou I was informed snow was falling so copiously in Linda Lou's vicinity she could no longer see Little Mountain, that being the little mountain which hovers southeast over Linda Lou's Hillcrest neighborhood in Mount Vernon.

Linda Lou's Mount Vernon abode is a short distance from Spencer Jack's Mount Vernon abode. I did not receive a snow update from Spencer Jack this morning.

But I did receive a snow update from Spencer Jack's cousins, David, Theo and Ruby.

That would be that aforementioned trio standing on M Street in front of their Tacoma abode that you are looking at above.

And that which you are seeing below is the backyard of David, Theo and Ruby's Tacoma abode, currently with an extremely white color scheme.

My most recent successful barbecuing operation took place on the above deck, via the BBQ appliance you see on the far lower left, way back in the summer of 2008. My most recent barbecuing operation was a failure, a few months ago, in Arizona. I had flame issues.

Seeing all this snow in my old home zone reminded me of a similar snow event, back at some point in the 1990s. I do not remember the specific year. I do remember the snow fell in an amount I had not previously witnessed in the lowlands of the Puget Sound.

Up north, in Whatcom County, that being the county north of Skagit County, abutting Canada and influenced by a different weather pattern, well, just a few miles north, such as the 40 miles to Lynden in Whatcom County, which is also lowland country, but out of the warming influence of Puget Sound, snow could pile up in HUGE drifts, something I eye witnessed many times of the years, going back as far as my memory goes.

But, that Skagit County snow in the 1990s was something I had not experienced before in the area known as Puget Sound's banana belt. I was snowbound for about a week. My cul-de-sac, and the other hills in the neighborhood became a sledding, skiing mecca, way into the night, benefit of bright street lighting.

The snowy photo of David, Theo and Ruby's backyard sent me searching for photos I knew were somewhere on this computer of my Mount Vernon Thunderbird Pawnee snow covered backyard patio. Well, actually there was no backyard of the grassy yard sort. Just a big deck and a lot of trees.

That is a picnic table sitting atop a deck you see covered with snow. You can not tell it because of the pile of snow, but the deck has three levels, all obliterated in white.

And now we are looking at the Pawnee Lane front of the house, above the carport patio. Part of this patio was covered with skylights, but snow still drifted in, covering the BBQ, which is under one of those lumps of white.

I do not miss this type winter event. Such quickly grows old. I remember when the big thaw came it resulted in several of my drainpipes breaking loose, along with ice clogged drains making it difficult for the flat roofs to drain the melting snow.

I suspect I will be receiving more snow documentation from Washington as this frigid next week continues to shiver...

Tacoma Flu Free Snow With David, Theo & Ruby

Yesterday I emailed asking if David, Theo and Ruby had taken their parental units to Seattle over the weekend to join the thousands of Puget Sounders walking through the new Highway 99 tunnel, along with one last walk on the Alaskan Viaduct.

I opined that I assumed a tunnel walk through had not taken place, because I had received no photo documentation of such.

Soon thereafter I received a reply from one of David, Theo and Ruby's maternal parental units, stationed at the time in Olympia, telling me that no tunnel walk through by David and the twins had happened, due to the twin's time being taken up working on recovering from a bad bout of the flu, with Theo's flu bout made worse with Strep Throat.

David, Theo and Ruby had been shot with this year's flu vaccine, and then, apparently, managed to find a flu strain not stopped by this year's vaccine.

In the initial reply to the tunnel inquiry I was told some snow photo documentation would be forth coming.

A short time later that photo documentation came forth, as promised.

Above is one of those photos, a time tunnel compilation photo showing David, Theo and Ruby on a sled several winters ago, next to a photo I am assuming was taken during the current bout of Tacoma and the rest of the lowlands of Western Washington being colored white.

And below is video documenting, I assume, Theo and Ruby back healthy enough to sled down a hill with big brother David...

Clyde Picht On Fort Worth's Metropolitan Inferiority Complex Sham

A couple days ago I got one of those ubiquitous Facebook notification notices. In this instance I was basically being told someone had come up with a new name for a Texas newspaper I sometimes make reference to, with that new name being Fort Worth Star-Telesham.

Instead of Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

I've long been aware I am not the only person who has read that particular newspaper to make note of the fact it is a bit of a sham of a real newspaper instead of a real newspaper of record of the sort one reads in most towns.

I have not read this Star-Telesham Can Fort Worth avoid becoming a Dallas suburb? City hopes tax breaks help article.

The comments and the original Facebooker who posted about this, that being Clyde Picht, told me pretty much all I needed to know about what this Star-Telesham article was about.

The first few sentences of what Mr. P. had to say. (I'll share the entire post further below)...

Clyde Picht February 4 at 4:38 PM · 
I've lived in Fort Worth forty three and a half years. In all those years it seems like Fort Worth has had a metropolitan inferiority complex. Now the "city hopes tax breaks help" land a major corporate headquarters. Maybe that will get us on a par with Dallas. Like giving tax breaks is a new idea? Hell, that's one reason I ran for (and won) a city council seat. In 1997 the council was ready to give Intel an abatement that would add up to over $100,000,000 if they completed all three phases of construction. Did they go to Dallas instead? No, they went to Puerto Rico. 

_______________

I thought that that Intel development went to Chandler, Arizona. Maybe both Arizona and Puerto Rico successfully got part of that Intel action. When I saw the Intel operation in Chandler, with my own eyes, it was no mystery why a corporation would choose to locate itself at that location, instead of Fort Worth.

Or why Fort Worth never seems to be in the running for much of anything. It does not take some sort of Doctor of Urban Development to see the problems with Fort Worth which would scare off a corporation looking to locate in a modern location.

What impression does Fort Worth think it makes when something like Heritage Park, a purported homage to Fort Worth's storied history, is a boarded up eyesore which has blighted the north end of Fort Worth's downtown for over a decade?

What impression does Fort Worth think it makes with its lack of a modern mass transit system?

What impression does Fort Worth think it makes with the obvious lack of competent urban planning resulting in HUGE tracts of housing on former open spaces, without adequate infrastructure in the form of everything from drainage, adequate roads, parks and that aforementioned modern mass transit system?

What impression does Fort Worth think it makes with city parks without modern facilities, but plenty of outhouses, with miles of city streets with no sidewalks, with no public swimming pools of the sort one sees multiple of in a town Intel did build in, such as Chandler, Arizona?

What impression does Fort Worth think it makes with something like the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, currently stuck in slow motion trying to build three simple little bridges over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island? A congested eyesore with no current end in sight, with the ever changing project timeline now extended to near the end of the next decade.

Clyde Picht, wise observer of reality that he be, makes note of Fort Worth's metropolitan inferiority complex. I was not long into observing Fort Worth, up close, as reflected in the Star-Telegram, that it seemed to me the town seemed to have a massive inferiority complex, particularly with what seemed to me to be a bizarre fixation on Dallas that came across like a jealous sibling envious of its famous, more interesting, more dynamic, better looking, taller, big brother.

Years ago I made a webpage about an aspect of nonsense which I had thought ridiculous in the Star-Telegram, which I called Fort Worth's Green With Envy syndrome. A sort of subset of that massive civic inferiority complex.

Anyway, as promised, the rest of what Clyde Picht had to say about Fort Worth's attempts to lure suitors with tax breaks, including making reference to Fort Worth's over done penchant for TIFs. A civic behavior I don't really understand, which Deep Moat III has helped me understand a little bit better.

Clyde Picht's Facebook post in its entirety...


I've lived in Fort Worth forty three and a half years. In all those years it seems like Fort Worth has had a metropolitan inferiority complex. Now the "city hopes tax breaks help" land a major corporate headquarters. Maybe that will get us on a par with Dallas. Like giving tax breaks is a new idea? Hell, that's one reason I ran for (and won) a city council seat. In 1997 the council was ready to give Intel an abatement that would add up to over $100,000,000 if they completed all three phases of construction. Did they go to Dallas instead? No, they went to Puerto Rico. The city wants corporations to give high wages but they want to pay low wages.

When the city council majority voted to support a herd of fifty longhorn cattle in the stockyards to increase the tax base by millions I posted a web article suggesting that if 50 longhorns could provide so much economic impact to the stockyards, a herd of 2000 cattle could make the city flush. Nobody believed it, of course, and I doubt the cattle in the stockyards really pay their way.

So here we are today. TIF #9 is giving the Trinity River Vision, Central City Project, Panther Island debacle over $350,000,000, to support a project which has ballooned to over a billion dollars to increase the tax base by a billion when it gets completed and built out thirty, forty, fifty or one hundred years from now. Not being an economist all I can say is Gee Whiz!

Where do we get these geniuses at city hall that think bribing companies with tax breaks is better than providing a clean city with up-to-date infrastructure, good transportation, and a qualified work force? We already have a major transportation hub and low cost housing and qualified work force, so let's work on what we don't have and can the tax breaks.

Spencer Jack's Mysterious 1027 Washington Snow Tracks

What you see above arrived on my phone over night. As soon as I saw this I knew I was seeing Spencer Jack. And that Spencer Jack was standing on a flat open field covered with snow.

But, where is Spencer Jack standing I sat and wondered?

This did not look like Mount Vernon. The mound in the background looked too small to be Mount Vernon's Little Mountain. And where does Mount Vernon have a field this flat, near houses? On the west side of the Skagit River? No, can't be there, what with there being no hill at that location.

And then I realized where Spencer Jack was standing.

Maiben Park.

In Burlington. The Washington town I grew up in after moving from Mount Vernon where we briefly were located after moving from my Eugene, Oregon birthing location.

That mound in the background is Burlington Hill. This hill actually looks way bigger in person. Spencer Jack's grandpa and I spent many hours playing on Burlington Hill. Including pushing our bikes to the top for a dangerous high speed coast back down.

Behind Spencer Jack's right shoulder you can see a pink house. To the left of that house is the house I grew up in, 1027 Washington Avenue.

It never dawned on me prior to thinking about it due to seeing this photo, that growing up across from a city park, in a small town of a couple thousand, on a street with sidewalks, with the park having modern restrooms and running water, along with its picnic facilities, and a swatch of old growth forest, why eye witnessing a larger American city of over 800,000 with streets without sidewalks and parks without restrooms, but plenty of outhouses, so surprised and eventually disgusted me.

Wichita Falls, where I am now, is a Texas town much more like the American town I grew up in than the Texas town of Fort Worth, which was my disturbing introduction to Texas...