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Grimmly Reflecting

Since January 2006, published as a 600 words FREE weekly email newsletter

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Member: NSNC--National Society of Newspaper Columnists

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Some earlier published

Gideon Bible:

The truth of it is, I stole the bible. That a woman gave it to me, means nothing...

Old Earth:

Once upon a time the earth was young, the sea new and water fresh. It rained upon...

Proportion/Perspective:

Cut this, my mother said when I was small, teaching me both proportion and perspective...

Reader Wonderland:

The first book I ever owned was Anderson's Fairy Tales...

Different Experience:

As relatives and neighbors book themselves onto cruise ships we forget...

Steerage Regulations:

The Navigation Laws of the United States did not apply to the Titanic...

Jury Duty:

It wasn't until we children had all left home that my father was called for jury duty...

Canadian Mountie:

We had a foreign visitor speak to our elementary school class. A tall, spare man...

The Old Baron:

John Langenbach was a judge for many years. My father intimidated him...

Long Lost Uncle

We knew mother's siblings and tried to keep in touch with survivors of father's...

Tidal Power:

Bonneville Dam, first of BPA on the Columbia, was selling electricity in early 1939...

Universe Music:

Small fleas have smaller fleas/upon their backs to bite 'em/large fleas, still larger...

Adulterations:

The Home Comfort cookbook with mother's stove, had a baking powder biscuit recipe...

Radio and TV:

Uncle John bought used radios early during the Depression and repaired them for sale...

Revolutions:

The guardia nacional bought themselves a country last night, he said, calling from work.

Inserts:

When I went to Seattle in 1947, Uncle John and Aunt Edna subscribed to three daily newspapers...

Fighting Back:

Nowhere has anyone anything good to say about our present mail deteriorated service.

Belonging:

Most of us belonged to one or more parent-sanctioned gangs as children...

Grandfather Richter

No one buried at Fern Hill Cemetery was more formally attired than my grandfather...

Local Purchasing:

When they married, each of my parents owned a Model T Ford, and kept one of them...

Menlo Origins:

Menlo's beginning is traced to a burial on a knoll about a mile from the county fairgrounds.

Painless Dentist:

Lester H. Owens, a veteran of World War I and a dentist, had his office upstairs on Duryea.

Severe Winter:

The severe winter of 1946/47, rare in the Pacific Northwest, changed my life.

Mr & Mrs Brigham:

The old fashioned chain grocery, a Red & White store, has been in Menlo all my life...

Libraries:

Kenneth Bullard, our first male teacher, taught Fifth Grade at Sylvandale...

Pollution:

Newcomers to Western Washington don't remember sawmills with smoking wigwam burners.

Water District:

With establishment of the water district, my parents filled the well...

Historic Courthouse:

For generations we've visited the Pacific County courthouse with interior glass dome.

Independence Day:

The 4th of July was celebrated in Raymond until 1942 with fireworks, carnival, parade.

Reading Magic:

Skidmore Slough, at the Raymond/South Bend shared boundary, was named after a pioneer.

Swimming Hole:

There wasn't a public pool, so we went to the swimming hole in the river...

Unnecessary Surgery:

Our parents paid in money; we children bled upon the sacrificial table.

Amateur Radio:

A cereal premium signal light let my little brother and me practice Morse Code.

Eleanor Committed:

Born in 1884, and in 1936 already over the age of 50, she began writing a column, My Day...

Old Blizzard:

It was Blizzard's own doing, that he wound up in the stew pot...

Claustrophobia:

Northwest of Menlo is Willie Keil's grave, Southeast a bridge crosses the Willapa River...

Sir Names:

A surname should be spelled sir name, as no woman has one, I said.

Benign Wilderness:

We cousins earned money going into the wilds to harvest leaves, bark and berries.

Earthquakes:

A teenager, I awoke to my little brother's yell from his bedroom, Mama, earthquake!

Ring of Fire:

The most beautiful, distant view of Mt. Rainier was from Uncle Otto's home atop Richter hill.

My Aunt Marie:

Ann Margaret Elizabeth Grimm was born in 1905, sixth of seven children, and adopted.

Soda Counter:

Davis Drug was open on Water Street in South Bend--now Robert Bush Drive--in late 1946.

Penny Dreadfuls:

My parents' among other books had a few Penny Dreadfuls --Rauber Pistole in German...

Stump Ranch:

My Uncle Oswin had a stump ranch out on Rue Creek, a half mile over a hill from Menlo.

Safety Attainable:

Complacent Democrats might any election year have rued their appetite for crab...

Power Outages:

My father helped build the Bonneville Substation on Highway 101 near Raymond.

Spiral Lightning:

Along the property line a gravel road climbed steeply west, and north was a large fir tree.

Alien Mother:

My mother was an alien. No, not an extra-terrestrial the way people joke now.

Tree Churches:

My logger father found God in forest cathedrals of the Pacific Northwest.

Career Military 1:

During my high school years, classmates and relatives were enlisting...

Career Military 2:

In October 1979 Panama Canal Treaties were signed, and our lives changed.

Understanding Taxes:

Preparing tax forms is more angering, when taxing evolvement is best understood...

National Passage:

The current 300,000 Grange members, have always been mostly Republicans...

Big Waste:

We waste fossil fuels by getting lost because of bad signage on world highways...

Ramage Press:

Seattle, the largest city in the smallest of the eleven western states...

Moving Experience:

We've moved a lot. That has its disadvantages...but many more advantages too.

Offensive Name:

In unincorporated Skamokawa, in tiny Wahkiakum County, stands a public building...

First-hand:

We were there the first five years during the Panama Canal Treaties transition...

Press Freedom:

There is a little more press freedom in the world now, after determination in Costa Rica.

NOAA Radio:

All it takes is one person with a good idea, and an organization for backup...

Right as Wrong:

He died at 20, needlessly in peacetime, in a foreign land as might have happened here.

Ubiquitous:

Everywhere on highways of The Americas 20 years ago, I met unrecognized Germans...

Flight of Fancy:

Come fly with me in fancy if you please, to build strange castles in the air...

Plant Quarantine:

Signs along state highways proclaim an apple maggot quarantine and fruit is confiscated.

Horror Stories:

The school horror stories in my own family encompass now, five generations...

Name Trade:

Consider the complications if brothers traded given names. My mother and her sister did.

Highway Robbery:

We came upon a band of highway robbers, near Veracruz, Mexico and kept going.

Threatened:

Make this public before I retire, he told me, and I'll kneecap you.

Not Kidding:

You can't get there from here, was true in many places in Mid-winter 1996.

Internet:

The Internet is more of a map of the world, not just a highway...

Grimmly Once, A Column Compilation: essay selections from the above, © Copyright 2009

AuthorHouse, Hard cover 978-4389-4077-9