Some years ago, my husband and I took a trip to Panama, and of course we visited the canal. Of particular interest to me was finding my great-uncle James (nickname Jinks) Jervey’s name, as he had been an engineer on the canal building project in about 1903. Sure enough, the list of names in the […]
Author: Evelyn J. Willburn
Some people’s kids
I don’t have to stick my head very far out my door, or very deep into cyberspace, to hear something about today’s generation of kids. The gist of the argument is that kids these days are whiny, spoiled little milquetoasts, whose parents have failed in their sacred duty of toughening them up. I hear things […]
Today just might be a harbor day
I don’t know about you, but for me, a day of clear skies and a gentle breeze can sometimes bring a suitcase. What I mean is when I wake up and see a “beautiful” summer day, I feel that I would be an ungrateful clod if I didn’t get out and take advantage of the […]
Shanghaied!
My husband called me at 3:00 a.m., furious. “I’ve been Shanghaied!” he shouted. Here’s the back story: when I was principal in Kake, Alaska, Husband often came up to spend some time with me. During one of his visits, I had a conference to go to in Juneau, and we decided to fly there together. […]
Living off the fat of the land
I tend to feel just a little bit smug when I pick berries, especially now that I am being so all-fired mindful about it. At this time of the season—late July—huckleberries and blueberries are out in force, and the thimbleberries are not far behind. A friend shared a genius life-berry hack, in which you clean […]
Remembering Lakeside
I haven’t been to an “amusement park” in over forty years, and I’m not about to start back up. I have two categories of amusement park: “Lakeside” and “everything else.” “Everything else” includes Kings Dominion, about an hour north of Richmond on I-95. When it opened in around 1976, we of course had to go. […]
In which the foxglove goes head to head with the pushki
Consider these two flowers. The white flowers grow on a plant that is indigenous to Prince of Wales Island and surrounding areas. It is known variously as pushki, Indian celery, and cow parsnip. The purple, on the other hand, is foxglove, which is apparently a stranger in these parts. Some would call it invasive. I […]
In which the General takes us on the road
I have very few childhood memories that are more than one or two degrees of separation from a Volkswagen. During the sixties, my decade of single digits, the aunts had a succession of beetles while our family had a bus, nicknamed the General. The General was nothing to remark about when at home, but on […]
Miniature horse verses pony
I know I spelled “versus” wrong, but bear with me. This deliberate misspelling comes from how I used to laugh when my kids and others would start up a video game and one would say to the other something like this: “Here’s where Sonic has to verse Knuckles.” Anyway, what’s all this about miniature horses? […]
Adventures with log trucks
Like many communities on Prince of Wales Island, Coffman Cove got its start as a logging camp. When we moved there in the early nineties, it was well into its first decade as a city with a population of about three hundred. In 1991, the Coffman Cove cut-off consisted of twenty miles of what was […]