Archive for June, 2008
June 22nd, 2008
Now I know you’re like the Band here — real enquiring minds — and you’re probably wondering why DID these resorts dry up? You might think like Prof. Bezelel over there, it was cause the fishing dried up, leaving only tiddlywinks and croquet for entertainment.
But I think the REAL reason was this: you drag the missuz out to the middle of nowhere, make her cook those salmon on a hot wood stove in the middle of summer, maybe even can a few dozen pounds to take home, then take care of the younguns while you and the boys go out for a pull on the oars and a pull or two on the jug, I’m betting it didn’t take Women’s Liberation to finish off the He-Man Fishin Era.
This next song, Devil’s Dream, might just be a window into many a fishin widow’s psyche fryin up the 9th or 10th fine kettle of the old man’s fish.
June 22nd, 2008
Used to be a time when folks from Seattle and Gomorrah would pack up the baby, grab the old lady and make the hard arduous haul up into the hinterlands of Camano. Rent a cabin out at the end of the known world then fish, clam, crab, hike, play horseshoes, cook on the woodstove, watch the sunsets from the beach setting over Whidbey and the Olympics. What some folks think of as nostalgic now or sorta Norman Rockewell Americana, we think of as home…..
It’s a real pleasure for us anachronistic South Enders to see a part of our heritage not only preserved but put back into use. A sort of living history here at Cama. We always thought of the past not just as prologue. We thought of it as prolonged.
Personally I think it’s a good trend. Something we can build on. If the price of gas keeps climbing, we can probably shut down the Mark Clark Bridge to commuter traffic. The real estate market should go thru the basement. I mean, already every house listed north of MY shack – which is almost at the end of the island – they’re advertised as North End homes. Close to amenities….. (long pause) WHAT amenities? The Dollar Store in Stanwoodopolis?
So we salute the State Parks. With a little luck and some more oil speculation, the whole island will be South End pretty soon, returned to its former pristine, backwash condition, a place where time stands still and the stills still stand. Course, it can’t come fast enuff for most of the band here…..
June 22nd, 2008
Now I remember when the Hamalainens and Worthingtons donated the land for this park. I was 8 years old. Cama Beach State Park has been a work in progress. The good lord only took 6 days to create the thing in the first place, but he was younger then, and even so he took the 7th off and invented football and TV and TV dinners and snack food and beer.
Cama Beach was a resort for more than half a century. So if it took that long to make the Park a reality, well, what’s the hurry? This will be a jewel for Camano, for the parks and for the state of Washington I hope forever. Which is half as long as it took to open it. Even God herself won’t help us if they ever find oil under it.
But here we are, commemorating that opening finally and I have to say, it was worth the wait. Course the Band has aged and the Friends of Camano Island State Parks are mostly the grandkids of the original members and I’m real surprised Jeff and Laurie Wheeler’s kids aren’t the new rangers. One thing I’ve learned in my old age, everything takes time and mostly it takes 30 4 times longer.
The park had to work thru everything from funding to 13 changes of legislature. Jeff Wheeler became a Republican 5 times and Democrat 6. The Grateful Dead Party –Jeff’s REAL affiliation, never won, but he forged forward anyway.
The folks who stayed the course, who persevered thru one million committee meetings and 500,000 steering meetings, I want to say thank you. I want to say thank you and ask ………What might you lives have been?????
But you built Cama and for that, for the sacrifice of your families and your sanities, for a lifetime of sacrifice, thank you. We all, all of us here today, we promise to remember that effort. Course, when the Legislature wants proof of the Park paying for itself, we will ask the Chinese purchasers to put up a small plaque – in English – commemorating you. Shanghai Park . Has a nice ring to it, dontchathink?
June 22nd, 2008
I run into folks all the time who remember coming here 40 or 50 years ago with their parents. You could rent a boat, rent a motor, fish for salmon all the live long day. You can still fish for salmon. Difference is you won’t catch anything.
Back then the Kings were really kings. 30, 40 pounders. Anything smaller, you used for bait. Anything bigger, you didn’t need a trolling motor. Just let the thing drag you around Puget Sound.
The days of the resorts on Camano are pretty much over. Camp
Grande, Camp Diane, Camp Lagoon, Maple Grove, Indian Beach, Tyee – all gone to rot and rust and ruin, photos now in old scrapbooks of great summers with the family on Camano Island.
So it’s pretty tremendous we kept the biggest of the resorts – Cama Beach. Someday, when all the fiddle bands have dried up and been farmed out to retirement homes, maybe the State would keep one, pickled and preserved, on display to show the next generation what life was like on backwash Camano circa 2010. Just a thought…..
June 22nd, 2008
Way back when, we used to carp about taxes being wasted on stuff like parks and libraries and museums. The damn government! Now – at least on Camano – we taxpayers volunteer to weed and paint, plant and build. Damn government for not doin it themselves!
But at least we can’t say too much taxpayer money was thrown around here at Cama Beach. Mostly, we got free slave labor. Ours. Everybody from Friends of Camano State Park, Beach Watchers, Wooden Boat, the Stanwood Area Historical Society, Shore Stewards, Cama Quilters, Waste Wise, Backyard Wildlife Habitat, Cama Beach Furniture Builders and probably half a dozen more who will never come to another band concert cause we forgot to mention them. Damn that band!
But nobody sez damn those volunteers. I know a lot of times we overlook these folks, what they do, how much of a difference they make to the quality of life here on Backwash Camano. Truth is, they make all the difference. They don’t stand around blamin government — they help make it better.
You ask me — and I know you didn’t – they’re the real reason we’re all here today and I for one want to say thank and the Band wants to say thank you and I guess you unsung heroes ought to know you’re why most of us chose to live here and not Smokey Point.
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