My Seattle
Readers mourn, praise, relish and rail against home
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More than a hundred readers drew, wrote and painted in response to our plea for their memories or hope for Seattle. And for a majority of them, this city is like a lost love.
Ah, sweet memory — from 1936, 1948, 1959 and 1992, to name just some years you cited. When Boeing was Boeings, the Spanish Castle and the Eagles drew the young, and the Doghouse, Triple X Root Beer and Peter's Poopdeck Tavern were Places To Be.
White gloves at Frederick's. Milkshakes at Woolworth's. Ten-cent coffee. The moldering, bookish air of Shorey's. The kitsch of the Twin Teepees.
It wasn't that things were necessarily better or worse, many of you wrote, just . . . comfortable, like broken-in shoes. Not everyone sees it that way, of course. A few find the place cold and uninviting, in more ways than one. Whatever their perspective, all seemed to share the sense that we live in the fastest-changing era in world history, in a corner of America helping to lead the breakneck innovation. It takes our breath away, in more ways than one.
So, in edited form, this is a slice of life as you see it — the way we were, are or might be. Thanks for joining the discussion.
— William Dietrich
My formative years (late 1950s, '60s) were spent in Federal Way. Back then, it was a rural community; today it is the state's seventh-largest city and a tangle of strip malls and housing developments.
Then, we spent hours dragging small wooden hydroplanes behind our bikes until they were ground down to nubs of splintered wood. On weekends we took "field trips," sometimes miles from home, spending the entire day unplugged from parental control. But times seemed safer then, and a lot less complicated. We grew up physically active and learned face-to-face what socially acceptable behavior was all about.
During summer break, school buses hauled kids down to the Auburn valley to pick strawberries for a few cents a pound. Although our family didn't need the extra income, many families did. The valley is crisscrossed with industrial parks and office complexes now. I wonder how we will continue to feed our nation with so much of our fertile valleys and farmland gobbled up in more profitable commercial pursuits.
One time Dad stated that folks would live in Federal Way and drive to Seattle for their jobs. It seemed an improbable prediction; it has come true with startling clarity.
I remember a time when being asked where I was from evoked sarcasm like, "Do the lumberjacks still use dogsleds to get around town?" I also remember how those comments made me feel. Smug. Like I had a delicious secret I wanted to share with no one. Even then I knew Seattle was a precious jewel, mounted in the most naturally beautiful setting in the world. I still think that today, as I sit in unending traffic jams and crane my neck to see if Mount Rainier is out.
I am amazed by the laid-back, fleece-wearing entrepreneurs who have dragged Seattle, kicking and screaming, onto the world stage. We are no longer the unurbane urban area that bears the brunt of snide comments. Seattle is exposed for what it is: a world leader in the arts, aeronautics, telecommunications and technology, and, of course, coffee. Throw in our wonderland of outdoor activities and highly ranked livability and you have a recipe for being loved to death. I end with this quote attributed to Ogden Nash: "Progress might have been OK once, but it's gone on long enough."
— Laurie Needham, Fall City
In a cavernous house on a postage-stamp lot,
One of the kids had an interesting thought
That he wanted to share with his kith and his kin
Who were home at the time but nowhere within
The loudest range of the human voice,
And taking a hike was not a good choice;
And so to conserve on his time and his labor,
He opened a window and talked to his neighbor.
— Pat D'Amico, Kirkland
So, there we were, my wife and I, both born and raised Washingtonians, and our three kids, chasing the greener grass to (of all places) Texas, USA.
During our two-year stay in the sleepy northern Houston suburb of Spring (pronounced Spraing), we attempted to gel and mold our mossy lives to replicate that of card-carrying Lone Star natives. My wife purchased her first housecoat from the June Cleaver collection.
The outside air was fragrant with the scent of cockroach treatment, recently placed by our new best friend Kenny Bob the Orkin man, as the digits on the thermometer were quickly being melted away. I gathered my provisionary fresh change of dress shirt for the day, practiced my self-induced drawl and headed for the door, along with 5 million of my new neighbors.
Two years later, there we were, a typical Saturday afternoon, our three kids, my wife and myself sprawled on the family-room floor. The 35-second trip to the swimming hole, across the backyard in terrarium-like 104-degree temp, just too much to endure. Our dual, heavy-duty air conditioners eking out a barely tolerable coolness at a price of 2 cents a second. The movie selection was the newly released "Kindergarten Cop."
Suddenly, the film panned to the quaint Northwest hamlet of Astoria, Ore. With its towering evergreens, deep azure and cotton-ball skies, and seascapes, and beachfronts, and marine life that I swear I could smell through the TV speaker grills . . .
I turned to my wife and calmly stated, "We are moving back!"
I didn't comprehend the true meaning of the adage "You don't know what you've got 'til you lose it" until that moment. Within 60 days we packed up and returned to our homeland. We never even glanced in the rear-view mirror.
Now, several years later, my entire family shares a deeper passion for our region, an appreciation that is quietly intense, and a pride that is genuine. Sure, most Washingtonians are not exactly ecstatic about the steady pilgrimage of Californians or Easterners. It is the price we all should proudly pay for the privilege of living in the mecca of these United States.
— Jeff (and Yvonne) Harvey, Maple Valley
I was born and raised in New Jersey and have lived in New York City and Virginia. I was astounded when I first came here (in 1972) that people were so cold and unfriendly. I moved into a small neighborhood outside of Redmond, a one-stoplight town in those days. No one came to say hello, bring a pie, introduce him or herself — it was grim.
We were finally invited to a party and someone actually said she didn't think she would like me because I had long hair and was from the East Coast! I watched over the years as people moved from Bellevue to gated communities on the plateau and then expected stores and services to follow them there! Talk about land-use issues!
The schools were not the nation's best funded. One day I opened a newspaper to an article saying "there's a town in New Jersey with the laugh-provoking name of Hohokus." That was the straw — I called the reporter and told him what I thought of him saying that, considering we lived in a state with a town called Humptulips. I told him I had put more energy into environmental issues since moving here, more energy into working with a group called Citizens for Fair School Funding, more energy into tax reform etc. etc. etc. If people come here from elsewhere, it is sometimes because the Great Pacific Northwest companies recruit them to come here.
The GPNW is full of regional paranoia: On the one hand it brags about all the great amenities, on the other hand it wished it were like somewhere else, but usually puts down all the somewhere elses. It is a multicultural city but you get no sense of that. The streets and sidewalks are full of unsmiling white people.
The natural beauty is always a sight to behold. I have made a good life here, met some wonderful people, have a great job and am happy. But I still miss real pizza, real hero sandwiches, and the sound of accents and voices raised in discussion and transaction.
— Susan C. Holbert, Seattle
You're almost completely on target, but you weren't hard-edged or blunt enough. Yeah, I know: P.C. carries the day in this era, often at the expense of the truth, and you can't offend those readers you wouldn't have if they hadn't moved here because it's an "in" place to live. Lots of them advertise or work for those who do.
Lots of us prefer the Seattle that's gone with the wind. Our only consolation is that while the yuppies and developers have the city at her richest and coolest (for whatever that's worth to the rest of us), we had her at her best. Those memories are the last aesthetic they can't buy up, develop off and force out.
Seattle may be richer and cooler, but riches benefit the rich and coolness has become confused with hipness. Hipness is a state of mind that benefits those who care about being hip. Once you hit 40, hipness becomes a lot less important. What does your city being hip do to enhance or maintain the day-to-day quality of your life? Besides, we've also confused cool with glitz. Cool and glitz are not the same qualities, except in the minds of total philistines. We had lots of cool, and we've destroyed most of it in bad trades for hipness and glitz.
Seattle was never as "provincial" as out-of-towners have historically charged. For the average person, the overall quality of day-to-day life was better in the "provincial" model.
Is Seattle still special? Not anymore. We've become the sociologist Daniel Boorstin's "everywhere community."
I can't begin to voice the bitterness and tragic sense of loss the city's changes have engendered in many of us. There's a vast undercurrent of emotional displacement and anomie caused by rapid and drastic change and the loss of cherished societal institutions and their concomitant social cohesion. Lots of "old-timers" are reluctant to even speak about it. Most stay silent because they know that the grim reality is that money will out, and they don't want to waste their breath and be labeled "anti-progress."
Me? At 57, I'm just a Northwest mossback with three college degrees and no millions — a demographic holdover from "provincial" Seattle, the Seattle that for decades had the highest per capita rate of college grads in the U.S. and started the national phenomenon of selling paperback books off of supermarket checkstands.
— Ed Lucas, Seattle
The article ("My Seattle, Your Seattle," Jan. 7) is one of the best if not the very best on the subject of how Seattle (and its metro area) has changed (and is changing) I have ever read.
These comments are coming from a native Washingtonian, graduate of UW, who is also a fugitive from California (La Jolla H.S. and U.C. Davis).
If my name rings a bell with anybody, yes, I am related to the late Ewen C. Dingwall of World's Fair and Seattle Center fame. I am his nephew. My grandparents go back to 1909 here. — Dr. Harry A. Dingwall, Mercer Island
I was raised in Meriden, Conn., a blue-collar, hard-working true piece of America, apple pie and all that. A series of career moves took me to Fresno, San Jose, Fremont and Pleasanton, Calif., then on to Seattle in 1993. I've also spent considerable time in Carmel, Calif., and Ireland. I hear Seattleites say they are the Ireland of the West. Get a grip. They wouldn't invite you there to sweep the streets.
Now, let's talk about those evil Californians. Even though I grew up in New England, I'm still considered an outcast. This attitude of "Welcome Californians, leave your money and go back to where you came from" is infantile. When I moved here it wasn't because I picked up the paper one day and thought, "Hey, I think I'll move to Washington and piss off the people in Seattle." I was invited to move here. I didn't have to declare to the local bank my money was from California. Safeway didn't seem to care. None of the retail shops seemed to care.
I'm willing to bet the majority of people who live in California weren't born and raised there. I venture to say the same holds true for Seattle. In case you didn't know, this country is populated by a bunch of nomads. We've been that way since 1692!
The people of Western Washington know how to complain about anything, and everything. They don't have a clue of how to fix anything. Take a look at the infrastructure. I-5 through downtown is a good example. The moment the first cup of concrete was poured that stretch of freeway became obsolete. It needs to be wider. Guess what? It can't be made wider. All we can do is build around it.
You mention "we were smug!" You still are. "Climate was among the world's most temperate." Don't get around much, huh? "Our geography was the most beautiful." Of all the places I've lived and visited, this barely makes it into my top five. I will admit this place is very pleasing to the eye, but I hope to be moving soon. I'm moving because I've grown sick of the majority of people, their attitudes toward others.
I was listening to a local talk-radio station. They reported Seattle ranked second, behind San Francisco, as the worst city in the country for drug abuse. The announcers laughed at this report. Their conclusion was that Seattle people don't lie, and all drug abusers stand up to be counted. They went on to conclude that the people who live in Dallas, Denver, Boston . . . all lie, and that's why those cities were so far down the list. Give me a break. Those are the attitudes that make me angry.
Finally, the weather and business. The winter weather here sucks. It's not even winter. Seattleites wouldn't last a month in a New England winter. The small business owner should be ashamed of him or herself. I can't remember when 2 to 4 inches of snow meant you didn't have to open your doors.
Then there are the roads. King County has no clue.
I could go on, but I'm sure I can find something better to do.
— Michael C. Rogers, Sammamish
Your article describes exactly the sentiments of so many, many natives who grew up in and near Seattle and remember the really cool things about it. The unpopulated parks and beautiful beaches, mountain trails, etc. We had a much better quality of life — no waiting lines, efficient, friendly service, Brakeman Bill, Captain Puget, JP Patches, Bo Bo and Fee Fee, the Aqua Follies, room to breathe! I could go on and on.
All I can say to the newbies is if you weren't here then, you missed it, so don't bother hanging around — it's gone! Like they say to visitors to Nantucket, "If you love it, don't come back!"
— Renee Ripley, Mukilteo
One image that my wife and I have is of the young, well-dressed, boy standing on the northwest corner of Second and University Street selling drugs to passing motorists! He or one of his compatriots is always there when we travel to Seattle for the symphony. What amazes us is the hundreds of people marching into Benaroya Hall for a concert, seemingly oblivious to this spectacle! Those of us from Monroe are not familiar with this scene. It's hard to ignore the few concertgoers who stop to purchase from this young man.
Another is the hoard of panhandlers and bums all with their hands out, even in the bus tunnel! One afternoon I saw a bum (P.C.: homeless person) literally defecating on the street corner of Fourth and Stewart. He finished his business, rose from his squat and held his hand out asking for money from horrified passers-by.
I visited a shop in Rainier Valley last month and was puzzled by the nervous ambience of the neighborhood. A friend who lives nearby explained that the entire area is gripped in stone cold fear. Why? Rarely a night goes by when there isn't the sound of gunfire in what the locals call the valley of death.
Finally, there is one image I find remarkable. Our furry friends at the Pike Place Market. They scurry around here and there in broad daylight in the early-morning hours. They look well fed. Much like the local human residents one sees living in this sewer they call Seattle.
— Bob and Kay Clark, Monroe
That was a wonderful article about Seattle in the '60s, but how can you write about those old days without mentioning Emmett Watson? Wasn't he the "Lesser Seattle" guy? He could see where we were headed, so it's no surprise that he has faded away just like that dear, old provincial culture. I, too, don't want to return to the sulphur-spewing smokestacks, but I would like to go back to the "Lesser Seattle" perspective. It expressed an appreciation of the town's distinctive personality. Now they keep wanting us to be a "world-class" city, whatever that is. They think having a monorail or a tunnel or a stadium will somehow make us world-class. How provincial can you get?
— Freddie Brinster, Seattle
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