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Editor's ViewpointMeditations Of A Minnesota Mossback |
George Birthington's Washday
As a transplant from the Pacific Northwest, it gives me particular pleasure to weave stories of my damp upbringing into the columns I write for this newspaper.
Some time ago we ran a piece in which I described myself as a "webfoot."
My Aunt Ruthe, a faithful reader in Corbett, Ore., kindly pointed out that Oregonians traditionally reserve that title for themselves, assigning the term "mossback" to those unfortunates who hail from Washington state to the north.
I could argue about it, as I've lived in both places, but seeing as how I was born in Seattle, and Oregon became a state thirty years before Washington got around to it, I suppose I'm going to have to give in. Auntie wins.
The Grammar Squad, that venerable proofreader of this newspaper, has been after me for some time to come up with a proper column title for those pieces I write that are more musings than muscle.
So there you have it - "Meditations Of A Minnesota Mossback" it is.
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I'm heaving a sigh of relief, having survived once more that tradition known as "spring break," when my children sprout wings and leave town for far-off places that I'm quite certain didn't exist when I was a college student.
My vision of time off was somewhat limited, I suppose, by the fact that when I was growing up, we had no money for exotic trips.
What we did have, though, was a penchant for adventure, largely due to my father's insistence on researching if the members of his family could sleep comfortably inside tents pitched on sharp, but invisible, rocks.
We learned early on that adventure didn't necessarily cost much, as long as one stayed out of the hospital.
One of the favorite annual family adventures took place over "George Birthington's Washday," a slightly twisted family moniker for what has now become the President's Day holiday. While other families stayed home because it was raining, we threw our six backpacks in the rear of the station wagon and set off for the coast for a three-day beach-hiking trip.
We knew from experience that when it was pouring in Seattle, there was likely a window of sunshine at Cape Alava. The windshield wipers beat time up until we turned off the car engine in the trailhead parking lot; out came the black plastic garbage bags that functioned as temporary ponchos to keep us, and our backpacks, dry.
At that point, we kids would begin to speculate whether the three-mile hike would end in pelting rain - or in games of hopscotch with my mother in the sand of an empty, but sunny, Pacific beach. The last half-mile would tell the story.
It was a great leap of faith, but usually worth it the next Tuesday, when my siblings and I almost always sported the only sunburns at school. And if we weren't the only ones with a tan, we consoled ourselves by knowing full well we hadn't had to book a plane ride to get one.
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I am informed that the city of Hugo has been approached by a freshman councilmember from the city of Grant, who shall remain nameless here. Apparently, this Grant city council member is upset that Hugo residents continue to use Goodview Avenue, a public street south of our city's borders.
Although Goodview is actually paved in Hugo to the Grant line, our neighbors to the south haven't followed suit. The segment located within the Grant city limits alternates between being dusty, mined with potholes, and nigh on to impassable.
Readers may remember that last year, as a result of a phone conversation I had with a Grant city council member after the United States Postal Service was unable to complete its rounds due to some pretty amazing-looking mudholes on Goodview, the city said it would re-gravel that stretch.
Apparently, now Grant council members are frustrated that their citizens are choking on the dust generated by all those Hugo residents headed south to White Bear Lake (likely avoiding that nasty left turn onto Hwy. 61).
Grant is asking Hugo residents to foot the bill for dust suppression measures.
I consider this request in the context of last weekend's "community-build" playground project, led by parent volunteers whose children attend Stillwater School District's Withrow Elementary School in Hugo. The city of Grant supplies 27 percent of those pupils, second only to May Township at 38 percent. Twenty percent of the pupils at Withrow hail from Hugo. Fifteen percent come from Stillwater, Stillwater Township, and open enrollment.
Guess how much money each community donated to the Withrow playground effort?
The generous citizens of Hugo donated $8,700; the Withrow Education Association (similar to a PTA), $4,000; May Township, $3,500; Stillwater Township, $3,500; and Cub Scout Pack 169, $3,000 from selling pumpkins.
Guess what Grant donated? As my father-in-law would say, "What the little boy shot at." Not a penny. Zero. Nada.
Grant is populated by inhabitants of large lots, who are likely feeling the pinch of ongoing increases in property taxes. But what I fail to understand is why - in the face of the Grant council's refusal to donate a dime to the Withrow school playground - they would expect the citizens of Hugo to shell out for dust control on a road that Grant has neglected for years.
Being good neighbors is a two-way street. Just like Goodview.
Deb Barnes, a civil engineer, former city council member, and mother of four, enjoys weighing in on technology, politics and human nature. A true-born mossback, she hails from Washington State.