HURRICANE RIDGE, WASHINGTON — A cartoonishly cute furry animal the size of a morbidly obese housecat sits perched on a moss-splattered rock outcropping near the crest of Hurricane Hill in the Olympic mountains. Minutes before, we stopped on the trail to catch our breath — my bride and I both feeling the effects of thin air — and read a sign describing the cute critters. This particular species is called the Olympic marmot. It has kinfolk across the continent, including the woodchuck and even squirrels. The Olympic marmot, which is a darn fine name, is a protected species because numbers are dwindling...
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DISCOVERY BAY, WASHINGTON — The tide rides in twice each day, slides out twice as well. On this day, first high tide was at 1:17 a.m., an event I missed. By then the sleepy waters of Discovery Bay covered the crunchy layer of shellfish and the cedar-shingle-covered sand. It lapped close to the wiry grass. By 8:56 a.m. the tide had receded out nearly to the white buoy placed to mark the lowest edge, a linear distance of about 45 feet and a height difference of more than nine feet. By 5:29 p.m. the tide was at its highest level of the day at 8.1 feet, and by 9:24 p.m. had receded again, but only...
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VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA — The Inner Harbour downtown is lined with sailing ships, seaplanes, whale-seeking boats and the massive ferry that brought us here from Port Angeles, Wash. The walkway along the harbor’s edge is replete with vendors and street performers, commonly called buskers. Flowers abound, bursting out of hanging pots on the streetlamps, spelling out “Welcome to Victoria” in blooms on the bank opposite the province’s stately parliamentary building. The temperature is in the 60s on a late July afternoon. I am plotting, thus far unsuccessfully, how to stay here until first...
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I was scouring websites for editorial ideas the other night, for my stringer work opining for the small newspaper in Kansas where I worked last year. Writing three editorials weekly keeps my skills sharp and provides eating-out money. I’m pretty fast at writing editorials after 29 years of doing so.
The key is finding a topic on which I can provide an opinion. With subject in hand, I can pound out 350-400 words in a half-hour at the most, thanks to the boundless resources of the Internet. There is really nothing on which I can’t find background material, stories, quotations and whatever...
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I was reminded of the Sex With Chickens story while eating at Cowboy Chicken the other day. That’s a new franchise in Longview of which the Beautiful Mystery Companion — aka my bride — and I have become quite fond. Cowboy Chicken sounds like an unhealthy food choice, but actually the bird is roasted and the side dishes are fresh vegetables. What a concept: Fresh, healthy food in East Texas, no less.
Anyway, seeing all those naked chickens spinning their way on a spit through the ring of fire to land on plates of hungry people reminded me of a fight I had with the Leander Police Department...
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I have recently become a big-city commuter. I live in the exurbs of Austin — in a land of cookie-cutter houses — and drive daily to the University of Texas campus to draw a paycheck working a dream job. I’m a lucky guy.
The prospect of this commute worried me. I am not good with traffic issues, generally. It makes me crazy when I am headed back to East Texas on I-35, and everything just stops for no apparent reason. The most frustrating aspect of those sudden stoppages is that one has no idea why it is taking place, or how long it will be before things loosen up. Sometimes it is caused...
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My brand-new 13-year-old daughter is in love with my iPhone. One of her fondest wishes is that we buy her one. Well, if wishes were horses, and all that. Both her mother, my bride, and I agree that is an unnecessary expense — considering she has a laptop, iPod Touch and an adequate cell phone on which she can text faster than I can type. And I’m pretty fast.
What she loves to do most of all is take photos of herself. That is an activity that the latest model makes easy, since it allows one to switch the “viewfinder” so that you can see yourself on the screen and aren’t just shooting...
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Golf is a good walk spoiled. — Mark Twain
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Samuel Clemens must have never broken 80. That would have changed his outlook. I have shot in the 70s just five times. You remember such momentous events, though the last time I did so was more than 10 years ago. I lost my obsession with this game when I concluded:
• I will never be more than a mediocre golfer, able to shoot in the low 90s most days but perfectly capable of blowing up and busting the century mark.
• The game takes too much time. I should be more productive in my leisure hours.
• A sport where drinking is not only...
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We met on a cold February afternoon 40 months ago, at a downtown coffee shop in Longview. Julie had emailed because she liked a column I had written about unpacking boxes of books, the simple pleasure of revisiting those old friends as I set up a new house. She suggested we have coffee and see if we might get better acquainted, possibly become friends. I agreed, intrigued. It turned out to be the most fruitful column I have produced in nearly 30 years.
I walked up the alley from the newspaper office at the appointed hour, reaching Green Street as Julie crossed, wearing a maroon raincoat, curly...
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My fiancé and I were walking Rosie, the World’s Cutest Dog, the other day. I am quite certain at least some of you will take issue with me unilaterally bestowing that title on Rosie. Some of you might even be under the misapprehension that the World’s Cutest Dog resides at your house. There surely are a number of dogs owned by readers that are mighty cute. I have two grand-dogs, Zelda and Ernie, who live with my daughters and fall into that category. But both daughters would admit if pressed that Rosie has that cute thing going on in a major way. They want to stay in the will, for one thing.
An...
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