Strange Signs in the Neighborhood

Late last night, coming down the back steps into the PCC parking lot, I came across a smoking puddle on the pavement. Closer inspection revealed the presence of several chunks of dry ice, presumably dumped there by the delivery guy who was closing up the back of his truck at the other end of the parking lot. But even knowing this, I couldn't shake off the feeling that a Wicked Witch had just met her liquid end. Is it Halloween already?

Then this morning, on my way to deep-six an old photo exhibit at the Rainier Valley Cultural Center, I spotted a big yellow truck on Edmonds. Nearby, two guys in orange vests steadied a ladder under one of the street trees they planted last year; a third had climbed up and stood balanced in the tree, stripping dead leaves off one of the branches. Then another one. And another.

I couldn't figure this out until I remembered: it's the Equinox. That's the First Day of Fall to you, Trees -- time to lose those leaves. Thought you'd get a few days grace period before we deployed our Autumnal Enforcement Crews? Think again.

Parking the car later that day on our way to dinner at Geraldine's, the kids and I noticed some new signage on 37th Avenue.


I was a bit surprised that whoever put this up had elected to give Columbia School top billing as a destination for our bicycling visitors, but the more I think about it, the more I like it. In fact, let's send everyone over there. Let's all take a good long look at this sadly neglected but really quite lovely historic building on 3.2 acres of prime Columbia City real estate, hemmed in on the north by a row of sagging portables festooned with wires (and how about that Winnebago, friends?), on the east by the remnants of a school garden whose pear harvest lies rotting all over the playground, and ringed all around by rusty chain link fence. Let's ask ourselves just how long the school district is going to let this place sit empty, gathering dust & graffiti. Let's sit down and articulate the dozens of higher and better uses to which this site could be put.

Let's quit wondering and waiting and whining, and make something happen here.