Our Town
A closer look at Sitka businesses, artists, events, topics and more!
The Soupster learns that traveling alone need not be lonely.
Originally published December 4, 2003
The Soupster vigorously dried his hair with the motel towel, brimming with satisfaction. He happily donned a thin travel robe..
On his way home at a Sea-Tac Airport motel, the Soupster gave a satisfied sigh. His was not just any motel – but one the Soupster had stayed at more times than he could remember. Often for just a night passing through, sometimes for a week on business.
The motel had gone through bad periods in the recent past, but had snapped back recently with new owners, paint, and a snappy new name. Two floors high, with a large parking lot in front. A lobby that, in season, featured Washington apples in a basket for the guests to sample. A free local shuttle. Could a pit stop offer more?
But it could. For this motel’s showers were exemplary, extraordinary – they put the showers in any other establishment to shame. The water was not too soft and not hard, not too hot and not cold. The shower loosed a stream that perfectly coated anyone standing under with a warm, cascading blanket. The knobs and valves were amazingly responsive — you got just what you wanted. This inn featured low prices and a pleasant staff. But the showers made the Soupster book a room here, time and time again.
Leaving him defenselessly mellow when a key clicked in the lock, the door swung open and a motel clerk stepped in, followed by a young woman.
“Pardon?” said a wide-eyed Soupster.
The clerk stopped in his tracks. A suitcase he was holding thudded to the floor.
“Uh-oh,” he said, as stunned as the Soupster. “Wrong room.”
“Soupster?” said the young woman.
“Sally?” the Soupster asked as she stepped forward, into the light. “Sally Wright?”
“Right,” said Sally.
“Right?” asked the motel clerk.
Sally put her hand on his arm. “This man knows my Dad,” she explained. “He’s known me since I was kid.”
“Her father and mother used to stay here all the time,” the Soupster added.
“I thought this was the wrong room,” said the clerk.
“This is the wrong room!” Sally and Soupster simultaneously said.
“You must have started work here just recently, “ The Soupster guessed and the motel clerk admitted he had. “There’s a lot of people from Our Town – well, mine and hers – that stay here. A few owners ago, the motel had some kind of deal with a travel agent in Our Town and a lot of people got steered here. New owners – the travel agent moved on – but we still keep coming to this motel.”
“It’s the showers,“ said Sally. “Have you ever taken a shower here?” she asked the clerk
“No,” he said.
“Well you should. And I’m going to right now,” said Sally. “Soupster, I’ll meet you in the lobby in half an hour and we can take the shuttle out to dinner. There’s two more people here from Our Town. If you see them, ask if they’re hungry!”
Keep ReadingThe Soupster learns it can be hard to stay true to your emotions.
When Carole left her seaside cottage, she felt good. Actually she felt angry, but she felt good about feeling angry.
Carole was healthy, pretty, lucky, sweet and well-off. Many would say her life was perfect and Carole would agree with them. If there was one thing she was missing, that was the human experience of feeling angry. For Carole, who considered herself blessed, never allowed herself to feel angry. Until today.
Today, her hot water heater burned out, the dog had a revolting “accident “on the Persian rug and her least favorite cousin called to complain that Carole never called. That was followed by bad news about her taxes delivered by her accountant who she could barely hear due to the road crew drilling the pavement out front of her house.
Carole felt an unfamiliar rising in her craw and a constriction of her neck muscles. She heard the unfamiliar sound of her own teeth gnashing. Could the world be plotting against her?
Wow, Carole thought, as the feeling washed over her. She thought of her older brother pulling away her stuffed bunny, a freckled girl making fun of her braids, a professor who had a big problem with smart women. It had been years, but she remembered the feeling of being wonderfully, powerfully angry and thought she’d like to go and see what the world did about it.
She walked down the street, reveling in this odd new power. Ahead was that old coot George coming toward her. Although a coot, George often made her laugh. And sometimes made her want to cry because he was such a sweet guy with no place to put his emotions. She could feel her anger waning. So she crossed the street and quickened her pace.
She cut down a path near the coffee shop to try and avoid another sympathetic character and almost bumped into Colleen, who was tracing the same path in the opposite direction.
“Carole,” said Colleen. “I was just thinking of you. We’re starting a new mural and I know that’s something you love. We absolutely want you involved. Want to have coffee?”
“Can’t talk,” said Carole, huffing past. “Gotta go!” She felt her anger fading again and — was forced to imagine last summer’s incident of her neighbor’s cat destroying her flowers — to stay on task
“See ya later, alligator,” Colleen called after her.
Carole put her head down and did not look up. Nonetheless, “Hey Carole!” yelled one person and “Call me!” yelled another.
With her head down and her pace quickened, Carole walked right into a parked car. The Soupster’s car. With her old friend the Soupster in it.
“Carole,” he said, getting out of the car, a concerned look on his face. “My goodness! Are you all right?”
“Oh, Soupster,” she whined, as her embarrassment overwhelmed her. “I’m trying to say angry and I just can’t!”
Keep ReadingThe Soupster hunkers down.
The Soupster was not damp, but everything outside of the walls of his house couldn’t have been soggier. In Our Town, “Fall” might better be called “Thrown At” because the rain and/or hail of the season seems propelled downward by a force greater than mere gravity.
The Soupster was feeling bored and lonely, so he was happy when Carla called from Minnesota. “Bored and a little lonely, but dry,” the Soupster said when Carla asked how he was.
Carla chattered on about her busy kids and husband Josh and her going back to college and Josh’s new job. Then, she said “Oops, I’m getting Call Waiting, must be Josh or Rebecca, I’m supposed to pick both of them up. Can you hold?”
The Soupster did. With the phone to his ear, he wandered to the door to his back porch, where the portion covered by a fiberglass roof played wonderful rhythms as it hailed. The sound rose and fell like the aural equivalent of those little birds whose large flocks turn on a dime: sheets of sound, rippling and turning, rising and falling.
Carla came back on, “Sorry, Soupster,” she said. “That was Becky who needs another half hour before I get her. So you’re lonely and a little bored?”
“Actually, bored and a little lonely,” said the Soupster. “This is a rough time of the year, weather-wise.”
“Tell me about it,” said Carla. “I’m an Our Town girl. Remember, you just have to make it to Thanksgiving. Then the holiday lights go up and you start seeing friends and having too many places to go. And then it’s New Years and you start to notice the light coming back.”
“Encouraging, Carla,” said the Soupster.
“I hate to do this,” Carla cut in, “But I’m getting another call. Will you hold again?”
The Soupster did. The hail slacked off and a shaft of sunlight cut through the otherwise dark sky, came through the window and fell upon a small ceramic planter in the shape of a fish with big blue eyes and enormous crimson lips. Carla had presented the Soupster with the fish two decades earlier, after he helped her move. This was before baby Rebecca and even before husband Josh.
Next to the fish was a half-scale raven (or full-scale crow) carved out of wood. Steve Jessup gave the Soupster the raven after the Soupster took Steve’s parents out on his boat. An entire dog family, paper mache, stretched out on their paper mache couch – this was on the bookshelves – a gift from somebody. Above the dogs, tucked tightly, signed copies of all the books by Our Town’s writers over the years.
The Soupster touched the arms of his sweater – knitted by Giselle for his birthday. In the pantry, canned sockeye and an array of jams. All canned and arrayed by various friends.
If he wanted to, he could gaze on the paintings and sculptures tinted and carved in Our Town. Or he could pop in a CD cut by one of Our Town’s bands.
Carla came back on the line. “I can see why you feel lonely,” she said. “I keep abandoning you.”
“You know, I don’t feel lonely,” said a satisfied Soupster, taking in his surroundings. “Not anymore.”
Keep ReadingThe Soupster gets a lesson in real wisdom.
The Soupster put his head down into the wind and lurched up Lincoln St. His stomach gurgled mightily — two of the items he had eaten for lunch evidently did not get along. He thought he might chuck up?
The argument in the Soupster’s tummy reached crisis proportions and required action. Specifically, a rest room. Luckily, he was just steps outside of Pops’ Pro Prop Shop, and the Soupster knew Pops was a kindly soul — believed by many to be the smartest guy in Our Town.
Inside the shop, Pops was leaning on his front counter, listening to Susan Gregory, the owner of Notions, Lotions & Potions, a store right down the street,
The Soupster burst in with gills so green, he didn’t even have to explain himself. Pops just jerked a thumb over his left shoulder in the direction of the commode. As soon as the Soupster reached refuge, his stomach calmed. Through the thin walls, he could hear the conversation going on at the front counter,
“Judy Barnes and I had some harsh words, Pops, about whether the new Sitka Shoulder Festival should be before or after the regular cruise ship season,” Susan said. “She just doesn’t understand that ShoulderFest should be before the regular season, when the weather is good and the daylight is increasing. You’re the smartest guy in town. What do you think?”
“Ah, the shoulders,” said Pops. He stroked his chin and took a long time to answer. “I think, Susan, that you are absolutely right.” Susan left with a big smile on her face.
The Soupster was starting to think his stomach was settled, but it gurgled loudly and he decided to set a spell and see what transpired. Just as well, for a second later the aforementioned Judy Barnes, of A Kinder Kinder children’s store, made her appearance in Pops’ Props. (ed. Note: First “Kinder” rhymes with “finder” and second Kinder rhymes with “cinder.”)
“I’m just so upset at that Susan Gregory,” Judy said. “Because ShoulderFest was her idea in the first place, she thinks she gets to decide everything, right? Who would want to have their Shoulder Festival in the Spring? Everyone is trying to get their new inventory out and prepare for the coming rush!
“Having ShoulderFest at the end of the tourist season only makes sense. Think of the Clearance Sales we could have! Pops, everybody knows you’re Our Town’s smartest guy. What do you think?”
Again, Pops stroked his chin and concentrated. Finally, he said: “Judy, after consideration, I believe you are absolutely right.” The Soupster could hear the confident, satisfied clicks of Judy’s heels as she left Pops’ shop.
The Soupster – who had loved and respected Pops for years – feared that the old man may have showed himself a fraud. He stepped out of the back and confronted Pops. “You told Susan she was right and then you told Judy she was right – even though Judy said the exact opposite of Susan. Everybody thinks you’re the smartest guy in Our Town, but all you do is tell people what they want to hear.”
Pops stroked his chin and took a long time to answer. “Soupster,” Pops said, “You are absolutely right.”
Keep ReadingThe Soupster hears the gruesome story of a cat’s name.
Originally published October 7, 2004
Tony held his new cat in his lap, stroking its head, a slightly deranged-looking head, but Tony didn’t seem to notice.
“What’s his name?” asked the Soupster.
“This cat?” said Tony. “There’s quite a story connected with this critter.” The cat looked up at its owner with its moist, loving, remaining green eye. The cat was also missing one ear and the whiskers on the same side. One front tooth had been cracked in half. There was something wrong with one foot.
“This cat spent kittenhood living in the home of the most hated man in his neighborhood,” Tony said. “Some kind of free-lance international telemarketer. Anyway, people came in and out of the house all hours of the day and night on telemarketing business and everybody wanted to handle the cute little kitten. Two or three o’clock in the morning was the business day somewhere on the globe and somebody was always asking about the cat.”
“A free-lance telemarketer?” said the Soupster
“Oooh-boy, did they hate him in the neighborhood,” said Tony. “The telemarketer. Wasn’t just this cat that was kept awake. All those telemarketing people stopping by all the time kept the neighbors awake. And the teenage kids in the neighborhood started making a big hero out of this hated telemarketer, and don’t you know the parents didn’t like that very much.”
“So, as the cat got older,” asked the Soupster,. “did it get a name?”
“Right,” Tony continued. “The neighbors finally convinced the telemarketer to telemarket elsewhere. He abandoned the cat. So this poor guy found himself all on his own under a trailer, snuggling up to an electric heater for warmth, when he snuggled a little too close to the main electrical element and started a small fire on his head.” Tony rubbed the stump where the cat’s ear had been.
“Then he moved in with another family, one that already had these three really old other cats. Well, old cats and new cats can be like Classic Coke and New Coke — under the influence of different planets. They ganged up on our friend here – the three cats attacked him in sequence – and each one bit off a toe.”
“Ouch,” said the Soupster.
“That was the point I got him,” Tony said. “I took my new cat to the veterinarian to get his foot treated and the vet said the cat should be fixed, so I let him.”
“How did the tooth get broken?”
“That was just last week,” Tony said. “I guess I shouldn’t have brought such a lifelike stone bird into the house at the same time I got a new cat, but I really didn’t expect him to attack it.”
“So what are you calling this bad boy?” asked the Soupster.
“Lucky,” said Tony. “Just Lucky.”
Keep ReadingThe Soupster hears about a “super weird” night.
“I think there’s a full moon,” Kathryn announced. “Things have been super weird lately.”
“Weird?” the Soupster said, glancing up at dark gray clouds scurrying nervously across the sky. “Got anything to do with fall setting in?”
“Maybe,” Kathryn replied. “Another theory involves my eyesight. Been a while since I could clearly tell deer from bushes, and bears from rocks,” she admitted. “Once, on the ferry, I even thought that a beach covered in driftwood was a village,” she chuckled.
The Soupster laughed. “Makes life interesting, I guess. So, how was last night?” he asked. “Went to that ergonomics lecture, didn’t you?”
“Huh,” Kathryn grunted. “Again, weird. I’m sitting there, listening to the instructor, and he morphs into the teacher from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. ‘Anyone know what this muscle is?’ the instructor asks, pointing to a picture of a cadaver. ‘Anyone? Anyone?’ Suddenly a student belts out ‘BACKSTRAP!’ and another adds, “Now, I’m getting hungry.”
“Hilarious,” the Soupster said. “Huntin’ fever. Does weird things to people.”
“Apparently,” Kathryn said, rolling her eyes. “So afterwards, I’m walking home, trying to get cannibalism out of my mind, when our dog decides to poop in the middle of an intersection as we’re crossing the road. The middle? Seriously? Before you could say ‘full moon’ I’d gloved my hand with a doggie bag and scooped up the package. It felt surprisingly warm and I kept massaging it gently to keep releasing its heat.”
“Great idea,” the Soupster smiled. “Never heard Bear Grylls suggest that one,” he said with a wink.
“So I’m focusing on warming my hand, when a shadow jumps out at me,” Kathryn continues. “I turn around, check that I’m not being followed, and then look up to see a one-eyed street pole hunched over the road, peering down at me ominously. Averting my eyes, I catch sight of a cluster of unkempt, flowerless fireweed – Dr. Seuss characters waving tall, feathery hairdos and mocking me in rhyme. Beside them, a lonesome dandelion teases me, bobbing its seemingly innocent, fluffy white head. But I know better than to stop, pick it and blow it away. The path curves and a crowd of Indian celery plants ambush me, trying to claw at me with their dry, bony fingers.”
“I quicken my step in the direction of home and soon, I’m approaching the illuminated church billboard with its inspiring message. ‘When you’ve been barbecued, you’ll want to barbecue others,’ I read in horror. Getting closer, the word ‘barbecued’ turns into ‘rescued’ and I breathe a sigh of relief.”
“You had a big night,” the Soupster said. “Go home and have a mug of chamomile tea and try to get some rest,” he suggested.
“Great idea,” Kathryn sighed. “I’m beginning to realize why bears hibernate all winter. Starting to appeal to me, actually,” she said as she turned to leave, veering around a black cat crouching on the road, which turned out to be a pothole.
Submittied by Lois Verbaan Denherder
Keep Reading
The Soupster is called on by the teacher.
Our Town retired school teacher Elsbeth Newhauser picked up her walking stick and dog leash and called her bulldog Gerta to her side. The two always left the house for their walk at the same time every morning and followed a route that took them down their residential street to an intersection with a four way stop. It was there that they would cross the main road before continuing on their journey.
This day, however, when they got to the intersection, Gerta abruptly sat down and refused to move. “Now, come on,” Elsbeth encouraged, motioning forward. She had barely finished her sentence when she noticed a large dog charging across the street towards them. Elsbeth gasped and pulled Gerta out of the way, then watched in horror as a bicyclist raced down the hill and flew through the intersection, swerving from side to side. A speeding car followed close behind and slammed on its brakes, but failed to stop before careening into a utility pole.
When the action came to a halt, the bicyclist was laying on his side in the street. The woman in the car struggled to open her door, then emerged, waving her arms in the air. “Why did you stop in the middle of the street?” she yelled at the bicyclist, as he scooted out from under his twisted bike.
“I had to!” he shouted back. “It was all I could do to miss hitting that dog in front of me!”
As they argued, a frantic-looking young man ran up to the intersection, looked at the other two and asked, “Have you seen my dog? He’s a large Lab.” That was enough to spark an even bigger argument between the three about whose fault the accident was.
Finally, Elsbeth’s teacher’s instincts kicked in. She tapped her walking stick on the sidewalk and shouted, “People! Listen!” The bicyclist, motorist and dog owner immediately stopped talking and looked at her. “I don’t know whose fault this was, but we’re not leaving here until we figure it out!”
At that moment, the Soupster rushed out of a friend’s house nearby, approached the group, and politely raised his hand. “Yes, Mr. Soupster,” Elsbeth said, as if calling on one of her former students.
“Mrs. Newhauser, allow me to describe what I observed just now from the front window. The dog, which was off-leash and clearly in violation of city leash laws, came running down the sidewalk and dashed across the road in front of the bicyclist. The bicyclist had, just seconds before, failed to stop at the four-way stop as he sped down the hill. The motorist, who slowed down, but didn’t fully stop at the intersection, was looking down at her cell phone as she passed me.”
“Thank you, Mr. Soupster,“ Elsbeth said. “Well then, I hope you’ve all learned an important lesson about following the rules and being considerate of your fellow students….I mean…fellow citizens.”
“Yes, Mrs. Newhauser,“ they responded all together.
Submitted by Mary Ann Jones
Keep ReadingThe Soupster celebrates Sitka weather.
“No, Uncle Bob, I’m not aware,” said the Soupster into the receiver of his landline phone, “just how hot your weather is right now.”
That was an outright lie. In fact, the Soupster knew. He regularly enjoyed playing a weather game called “Too Hot!.” The game involved reading the list of daily temperatures in the newspaper or watching the highs and lows of major U.S. cities scroll by on television and stopping at each one 80 degrees or higher to think aloud “Too Hot!” Starting in the Spring, various cities would pass into the realm of “Too Hot!” until, by August, most of the country qualified. It seemed as though too many cities were getting “Too Hot!” too early in the year and staying simmering too late into the fall. The Soupster knew from his game that Uncle Bob’s area had been hitting triple digits all week – shattering records set in horse-and-buggy days.
“That sounds terrible, Uncle Bob,” the Soupster said to his mother’s brother’s description of clothing turning sweat-soaked in minutes, engines overheating on grid-locked streets, regional power outages making air conditioners and refrigerators useless.
Of all the things the Soupster loved about Our Town and knew he would miss the most, its mild summertime temperatures ranked tops. Our Town and its neighboring villages were maybe the last places in the country where the Soupster could live without ever having taken his air conditioner out of its box – it sat in the back of the Soupster’s closet like a survivalist’s cache of water pouches, freeze-dried Stroganoff and space blankets.
“What’s that, Uncle Bob?” the Soupster asked, registering what his relative just said. “Your car was stolen when?”
During the heat wave and power outage, Bob explained, making it infinitely more difficult for him and his wife to haul ice back to their house to try and save the food in the chest freezer. The lack of transportation made it impossible for the couple to go the lakefront or other cooler escapes. Their usual last resorts – the movie theaters and the International House of Pancakes — were dark because of the blackout. Police found Bob’s car finally – minus hubcaps and, oddly, head rests.
“Why doesn’t it matter anymore, Uncle Bob?” asked the Soupster, registering alarm. “What do you mean “Eminent Domain?”
Uncle Bob explained that he worried that a developer wanted to build condos right where his neighborhood stood. Meant jobs and higher taxes for the city. In New Jersey, one city condemned some people’s houses with exactly the same outcome in mind and the U.S. Supreme Court backed the city and the developer. The city always wanted more people. More people just meant longer lines, Bob complained – at the market, the bank – even to vote. Of course, floods and tornadoes threatened, too. Along with the pesticides in the groundwater.
“Uncle Bob, you really have got to consider moving somewhere you find more pleasant.” said the Soupster.
“Never happen, Nephew,” Bob said. “Where else are real estate prices this low”?
Keep ReadingThe Soupster is unaware of criticism of his trash handling.
The second raven spread its wings and caught the air to slow its descent as it landed atop the roof of the covered unloading area of the Solid Waste Transfer Station on Jarvis Street. It picked a spot close — but not close-threatening — to the first raven who had been sitting on the roof for about five minutes already, studying the trash items spread out below.
“Patience, my tail feathers, I’m going to kill something,” quipped Raven Two in greeting, re-telling the old joke about the hungry vulture complaining to his fellow vultures. “How are you, you old grouch?”
Both ravens cawed and cackled, as a third circled overhead and landed on a nearby hemlock branch. Various other ravens, alone or in groups of two and three, occupied other trees and ledges in the vicinity, deep in their own business.
These were healthy Our Town birds, shiny and waterproof with stiff outer feathers and feathers underneath as soft and thick as fur. They were well fed.
A pickup truck pulled into the station and onto the scale outside the drive-up window of the Transfer Center office building. The window slid open and the human inside the truck and human at the window exchanged sounds that were incomprehensible to the ravens.
“A pickup truck,” noted Raven #1. “Fewer than there used to be, with all the SUVs and hatchbacks humans are buying instead.”
“What’s up with that?” said Raven #2.
“But isn’t a bed full of fresh groceries in a pickup parked in an empty lot just about the sweetest thing in Creation?” said Bird One.
“And we should know!” quipped Bird Two who cawed loudly, along with One, for a solid six seconds. This caused the raven in the hemlock to circle around and then land back in the same hemlock.
“Trash, in general, is disappointing these days,” said Raven One. “These humans are composting so much of what we used to find delicious about trash.”
“The bears have ruined it,” said Raven Two. “With bear proofing, we can’t even get the trash cans open half the time, even if the wind has knocked them over for us.”
Both birds watched as the Soupster drove up in his hatchback. He had a rickety wooden chair and a shovel with a broken handle to discard. The Soupster had just been to the grocery store and the “eagle-eyed” ravens could see three grocery bags lined up tantalizingly in the cargo area. The second bag in had green grapes at the top, Raven Two’s favorite. While not as big a fan, Raven One wouldn’t throw a green grape out of its beak.The grapes taunted both birds from behind shatter-proof glass.
The Soupster got out of the hatchback to toss the shovel and chair into the refuse pile, leaving his door ajar. Raven Two almost swooped down to make a grab for the grapes, but calculated the theft would be impossible.
Raven One looked down at the out-of-reach grapes and a trash pile with no food matter in it. It motioned toward the two dozen other ravens in the trees surrounding them. “An unkindness, as far as I’m concerned” it said sarcastically. “An unkindness.”
Keep Reading
The Soupster embraces negativity to achieve the Middle Way.
“You don’t want to not buy a boat right now,” Lars told the Soupster, as the two men met up in a light rain on dock finger G to look over some possibilities. “Don’t you think that I wouldn’t say this if I didn’t think it was a good idea?”
Despite the serious handicap of always using “the negative tense,” Lars was a crack salesman and mechanic for boats and boat motors. He knew his stuff and he always told the truth.
If Lars wanted to sharpen his merchant chops further, he probably should have smiled once in a while. But smiles may fade over time. Lars didn’t. And even more importantly to customers whose very lives could hang on a misfiring spark plug or misfitting drain plug, Lars Boats & Motors brought those customers safely home without fail.
“Not a totally terrible track record,” Lars said. “At least not yet.”
Like malaria, the Boat Fever virus lies dormant in many in Our Town, only to flare up when conditions are favorable to it.
So it was with the Soupster, who had responded to his first taste of gloriously grilled Sitka Sound summer king salmon by thinking, “I gotta get a boat.” That taste came at the Soupster’s favorite restaurant. When he saw the price of his meal, the Soupster thought, “I really gotta get a boat!”
Another of Lars’ inborn sales skills was an excellent radar – if anybody was having Boat Fever thoughts, Lars knew just by looking at them. It was a little creepy actually.
“You want to be sure not to get the wrong boat for yourself,” Lars said.
“True,” said the Soupster. “If I was practical I would get a skiff and a trailer, or a good rubber boat.”
“But you don’t want anything too small,” Lars said. “But I don’t have to explain that you’re not the King of the World on some boat that’s way too big.”
“Well, I’m not thinking of grandiose,” said the Soupster, trying out “Lars Speak.”
“Just not something that’s all wrong for me,” he added.
Lars stroked his chin. “You may not like this idea, but let me not hold it back from you.
“Don’t,” said the Soupster.
“It’s never a good idea not to consider the middle,” said Lars. “You don’t want to be the boat pilot so worried about his investment he can’t enjoy himself. But you also don’t want to be someone so worried about not staying dry that you can’t go anywhere.”
“This one here would not be a bad choice,” Lars continued, pointing out a nice compact and solid-looking cruiser tied up nearby.
“The Middle Way,” said the Soupster. “Lars, you’re such a Buddhist.”
“I’m not,” Lars protested.
Keep ReadingThe Soupster savors local botany.
“Jack, your yard is like a Greatest Hits of Our Town’s flora,” the Soupster exclaimed, as he followed his friend on the deluxe tour of the grounds.
The plants in Jack’s yard were exclusively of the temperate rainforest variety – devil’s club, Indian celery, ferns, dogwood. Foxglove and fireweed. A naturally-occurring stand of wild blueberry whose robustness Jack pruned, weeded and tended as carefully as Tlingits did with their wild blueberry centuries ago. Big, big hemlocks. Sitka spruce, boughs heavy with bright green tips.
And Jack’s yard didn’t reflect just local botany — local zoology was represented, too. Especially the historical challenges of the dominant mammal – Homo Sitkians.
The Gold Rush? Jack found a gold coin nestled in the crack between two granite slabs poking out of one section of the yard. Five hundred bucks in five minutes and then nothing else for 20 years.
Avalanche? Jack suffered a sort of avalanche in the sloped portion nearest the house and had been compelled to get a speedy Do-it-Yourself education in foundation drainage techniques.
Seismic shakes? It shook the house real good when Jack’s pressure cooker exploded while he was putting up jam.
Maybe the worst was when Jack had been shut out of the Permanent Fund for three years after extending a Mexican vacation and repeatedly messing up the PFD application
The Soupster had only a few homemade Alaska jokes, but one of them was:
Q: What’s more Alaskan that having a backhoe in your back yard? A: Having a broken backhoe in your front yard.
The lushness of early summer in Our Town always made the Soupster happy. Mountains plunging directly into the sea is a pretty heady combination, even during the worst October. But mountains plunging directly into the sea is more compelling with a lush band of lighter green right at the point of contact.
Number two, all the alder leaves and salmonberry bushes covered up the thousands of practical, but not necessarily aesthetic, choices made constantly by Homo Sitkians – like the aforementioned broken backhoe.
No backhoe in Jack’s yard, though, front or back. In Jack’s yard it was just green. Green, green and more green, and occasionally Jack.
Keep ReadingThe Soupster learns it’s all in a name.
Aaaahh… marinated black cod sizzling — a lovely sound, the Soupster thought, looking approvingly as his friend Nicolas manned the charcoal grill set up in his backyard…
Nicolas had a cowboy twang to his English when he was happy but spoke perfect Standard American when he was being serious. That never ceased to amaze the Soupster, who knew his friend grew up in the great port city of Antwerp, Belgium. Nicolas had equal fluency in French, German and Dutch.
Nicolas flipped the black cod filets. The smell now tantalized the Soupster as much as the sizzling sound. “Just once,” Nicolas twanged. “I try to flip the fish only once.”
An enormously pregnant Alice – Nicolas’ wife – waddled carefully onto the small raised porch outside the kitchen. “The rice and salad are almost ready,” she said. Alice spoke her English with a Boston brogue and, like most born-and-bred Americans, spoke English only and that’s all she needed — thank you very much for your concern.
“Basmati brown rice and spinach and seaweed salad,” she said to the Soupster, as though he had asked. “Nick’s bread, and local beer if you want it.”
“Great,” said the Soupster.
“How much longer?” Alice asked her husband.
“Funf minuten,” he said in German, holding up five fingers.
“Perfect,” said Alice and went inside.
“Your wife is nice,” the Soupster said. “I didn’t see your kids.”
“Tanya is overnighting in a tent behind her friend’s house and Brian is hiking with the Scouts.” Nicolas said, and then added conspiratorially, “My kids are such landlubbers.”
The Soupster was scandalized. “How’d they get to be landlubbers? With the way you guys take to water, you and Alice have practically sprouted fins.”
“I know, I know,” Nicolas said sadly, no trace of a twang. “I’ve tried to get them out on the boat. No way. I bought two kayaks. No way, no way. I signed them up for diving lessons…”
“No way?”
“No way,” Nicolas confirmed twanglessly.
“But I have high hopes for the new kid,” he said, brightening, “I’ve been reading a lot of sea stories out loud to Ally and singing chanteys night and day. We eat as much fish as Doc Megan said is safe. And we have a secret weapon.”
The Soupster looked up at Alice, who had come out onto the porch to usher them inside. She’d been listening in. “The secret weapon is the baby’s name,” she said.
“Gilbert,” twanged Nicolas. “Gil. Get it? Gill!”
“Or Gilda,” said Alice.
Keep ReadingThe Soupster unexpectedly wears the pants in the house.
Originally Published June 14, 2007
His nephew wore the largest blue jeans a flummoxed Soupster had ever seen on a fellow human being. That is, in the unlikely event that a well-ripened Soupster and this particular 13-year old boy would consider each other a fellow anything.
The boy was marooned, washed up on Our Town’s shores — the Soupster pitied the boy that much at least. His parents — the Soupster’s sister, one — left their son behind while on a three-day cruise to Skagway and back on the sometimes romantic Alaska Marine Highway.
It had been four years since the Soupster had seen his nephew, who had metamorphosed from a sweet and somewhat shy 9-year-old into his present state, like a caterpillar that turned into a wasp.
“Uncle,” said the boy. “Aren’t your bored living here? It’s kind of like Alcatraz.”
“It’s anything but,” the Soupster thought, but he held his tongue. The Soupster sought to keep his confidence level especially high because of the coming visit of a cruise ship carrying the girl, now woman, that the Soupster had always thought of as the “Sweetheart of Sigma Chi.” He’d dated Sally briefly in college while she was estranged from her then boyfriend and now husband, Thurston. Then and now, Thurston was successful, which the Soupster considered a fair deal for being named Thurston.
The Soupster hadn’t wanted Sally to return to Thurston and had always entertained the idea that, deep down, she hadn’t wanted to either. “What if she picked me?” the Soupster had often thought and it was that kind of thought that made him excited about Sally’s visit.
“Those blue jeans, of yours,” the Soupster said to the boy, the best defense being offense. “You know, big pants are imitating prison clothing where they take away your belt and your pants fall down.”
The boy stormed from the room.
The Soupster and his nephew kept a wordless truce for the rest of the day. He spent the morning of Sally’s visit cleaning house, while the boy was off on a neighbor’s boat. The Soupster had just finished the boy’s laundry, which included the enormous blue jeans.
The Soupster picked them up. Off the boy, the blue jeans didn’t seem so huge. The freshly washed jean cloth was soft and still warm from the dryer. The Soupster looked to the left and then to the right. And then he put on the pants. They fit — not like a glove — but better! The years had increased the Soupster to the point where the blue jeans fit as well as jeans had when the Soupster was in college.
He wore the blue jeans all the way to the docks, where he peered at the passengers coming ashore. “Sally!” he called out.
“I can’t believe it’s you!” Sally exclaimed as she neared. “Thurston’s coming.”
The two old friends embraced. Thurston or not, the Soupster felt great. Sally looked him over with a wicked pleased grin. “Nice pants,” she said.
Keep ReadingThe Soupster discovers sometimes you already have just what you need.
It seemed to Chauncey that almost everyone in Our Town had an opinion about The Giant Greenhouse Project. He thought local officials had provided more than enough information over the last few years to make sure the community was well-informed. After all, this was the largest construction project in the town’s history and, while the greenhouse had its detractors, most folks agreed that it was necessary. So, why were a few still not convinced that it was worth whatever it would take? Chauncey shook his head.
The problem was that there simply wasn’t an adequate supply of coffee in town. Storage levels were constantly running low, even with weekly shipments flown in from the lower 48, and the cost and environmental impact were enormous. Didn’t people understand the difficulties of maintaining a sustainable drink like that on a remote island that was too cold and wet to grow beans?
Chauncey was the first to admit that The Giant Greenhouse was an ambitious undertaking. Decades earlier, the town’s leaders had established a small coffee plantation in the mountains. They had hoped to capitalize on the “mountain-grown” slogan and export beans around the world, but, unfortunately, a large corporation used that marketing strategy first. Try as the town did to make a go of it, the poor coffee trees failed to produce more than a meager crop.
Chauncey recalled the excitement when a volunteer community work group came up with the idea of building a giant greenhouse to protect the coffee trees from inclement weather. The group met tirelessly for a year to design the concept and then put together a presentation that received unanimous support from elected officials. Town engineers sprang into action and hired a consulting firm that submitted a report confirming the feasibility of the project. By that time, the shortage had become more critical and local coffee drinkers were experiencing soaring prices and periodic shortages – or rolling blackouts, as they were called.
Now, three years later, after even more studies, designs and contract awards, construction had finally begun on the greenhouse. The excitement in town was contagious – Chauncey decided to go see for himself how the greenhouse was coming. On his bike ride out there, he spotted the Soupster who was sitting on a bench at Whale Park, drinking from a coffee cup. Chauncey pulled into the parking lot and paused. “I see you’re having your morning coffee.”
“Oh, this isn’t coffee”, the Soupster said. “It’s alder tea. Would you like a cup?”
“Alder tea…I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Chauncey said, as he took the drink from the Soupster and sipped it slowly.
“Good lord!” he shouted. It’s delicious! It tastes just like coffee!”
“I know,” the Soupster said with a broad grin, “and all you have to do to make it is boil seawater and alder tree shavings together. Guess we’re not going to run out of those two ingredients any time soon!”
Submitted by Mary Ann Jones
Keep ReadingThe Soupster and a friend get philosophical about travel.
“How was your trip to Southeast Asia?” asked the Soupster between sips of a creamy latte.
“Amazing!” Kate replied. “I’m still dreaming of Thai curries – green beans so fresh they squeak when you chew them, in coconut milk with ginger and basil. I could have a bowl right now,” she confessed, chomping on her bagel. “And a drink of cold juice straight from a coconut – top chopped off and a straw sticking out,” she added.
“Make that two!” the Soupster said.
Kate gazed at the shiny glass jar of cookies on the counter, deep in thought. “Travelling’s fun,” she mused, but there’s something about being able to walk into a café back in Our Town, see familiar folks, get a big mug of freshly ground coffee with real milk, and spend time visiting with people you know well.”
“It’s true – there’s no place like home,” the Soupster agreed.
“And,” said Kate with sudden inspiration, “there’s no toilet like the one you’re used to – one that’s clean, dry and comes with a seat and toilet paper. It can be hard to figure out bathroom etiquette when your only clues are a plastic scoop and a barrel of water next to a hole in the floor. Actually, I think I knew what to do, but was in denial,” she said.
The Soupster laughed. “I feel quite lost when my mountain of Costco toilet paper runs out,” he admitted. “Desperate times calls for desperate measures – paper towel maybe, but water? Never!” the Soupster vowed.
“Toileting aside, I do have incredible memories” Kate said. “Like, in Myanmar – thousands of ancient Buddhist temples littering the plains of Bagan, a sea of young monks chanting scriptures in a monastery, and a 15-hour trip down the Ayeyarwady River on a steamer.
“In Laos,” she continued, “waking at dawn in a tree house overlooking a misty forest canopy, to the sound of gibbon calls. And crazy bus trips, hurtling down mountain passes with incredible views beyond sheer cliffs.”
“A bit scary?” the Soupster asked.
“Huh!” Kate grunted, eyebrows raised. “It’s nice to know that a bus trip in Our Town isn’t a matter of survival of the fittest, and that drivers use gears instead of stopping every few miles to hose down their breaks with cold water.”
“Also, over there, the women may seem exotic, but it’s nice to know that our daily beauty routine doesn’t involve grinding down tree bark to make a stinging paste to rub in beige circles on each cheek. I’m glad our jewelry doesn’t include a permanent stack of heavy brass rings around our necks, and that a pedicure doesn’t mean dangling our feet into a tub full of hungry little fish.
“Well, Soupster”, Kate concluded, “it’s good to get off The Rock and it’s good to come back.”
“Gotta agree with you there,” the Soupster replied – “like Dorothy said, there is no place like home.”
Submitted by Lois Verbaan Denherder
Keep ReadingThe Soupster contemplates the future.
The Soupster sipped a frothy, fizzy, pinkish punch from a clear plastic cup. He and the friends who surrounded him raised their plastic cups to wish the best to Glenn the plumber, who was finally retiring.
One would think a man who had spent nearly 50 years with half his body crammed under a damp sink might be a little stiff in the joints, but not Glenn. Delighted that so many of his friends had come to see him “off,” Glenn flitted effortlessly from one to next like a honeybee intoxicated by a field of flowers.
The only person the Soupster trusted more with his pipes than Glenn was the Soupster’s former gastroenterologist, Dr. Berra. And Glenn was a close second. Over the decades that Glenn had kept the water flowing at Chez Soupster, he had dealt with exploding pipes, leaky water heaters and, worst of all, really, really rusty bolts holding the broken toilet seat on. And he had done so as cheerfully as he now visited with his guests.
“Gonna miss Glenn,” thought the Soupster, “like I miss Dr. Berra,“ who had retired to Gig Harbor the previous year.
A lot of the people in the room were customer-friends of Glenn’s, and a large portion of them practiced other trades. For “birds of a feather” reasons, many of them were near retirement age themselves.
The Soupster did a quick head count and realized with a start that he might soon be losing Burt, his auto mechanic, his dentist Linda, his bartender Tracey, and Big Leon — who could fix anything. And that was only the people in the room!
It’s common knowledge that people don’t seem older to themselves – that they feel like they’ve always been the same person inside. Seeing the people around you get older can be more profound, especially if they perform a vital function. Who’s going to fill your cavity or mix your martini?
The Soupster admitted that he felt some vertigo every time he dealt with an especially competent professional who was young enough to be his son, or worse. Once, pulled over for having expired plates, the Soupster got out of the car with all the confidence of an older and wiser man ready to forgive the impetuous youngster, except that the officer was right. The old Soupster’s embarrassment was punishment enough, evidently, because he was let go with a warning.
In Our Town, the Soupster sometimes got the double dizzies when dealing with an authority figure he remembered as a little kid. The banker who signed the Soupster’s loan was the same kid the Soupster saw win a Hoop Shoot in the 1980’s.
Glenn’s daughter had brought her small children to the party and a few of their friends had tagged along. The Soupster looked them over and wondered which of the little people might morph into authority figures of the future.
Would any of them shoot for the moon someday? Would any of them walk on the moon someday?
A plump, fresh faced three-year-old waddled up to the Soupster. “I want to be an astronaut!” she said.
Keep ReadingIs there such a thing as too much help?
“Hey, Buddy. Good to see you.”
“How’s life, Soupster?”
“How is life? How can you ask such a question?”
“I am fixin’ to leave this dang town.”
“Oh no, Buddy. Why do you want to leave Our Town?”
“I just have to, Soupster. It seems that nobody can mind their own beeswax. They are always sticking their nose into my business.”
“Whoa, there! It is a small town and it is spring and it is foggy and you know we just use each other for entertainment this time of year. Just what is this business you are talking about, Buddy?”
“Soupster. Everybody is just too dang nice.”
“Did I hear that right? TOO NICE? What is wrong with that?”
“Do you remember when the doc told me to walk at least twenty minutes every day?”
“Yes, I do and I do see you out there sometimes.”
“You got it, Soupster. Sometimes is right. It seems every time I get my shoes on and start out I can’t get more than a half block from home and somebody stops to give me a ride back home. I explain what I’m doing and turn them down but there is always another do-gooder neighborly sort right behind them. Finally, I give up and get all my exercise crawling in and out of cars. As soon as they drop me off and pull away I start out again. I haven’t made it a full block all week.”
“They are such good and kind people, Buddy.”
“Well. That is not my only problem Soupster.”
“Do tell me more.”
“Well you know how my Taurus is always leaking. The trunk is real swampy so on nice days I leave the trunk lid standing open so it will dry out.”
“Does it work?”
“Not hardly. Some do-goody has to walk by and close the lid. I even took it to the airport, thinking it would work out better there with all the strangers coming and going but I hadn’t even finished one cup of coffee before it was shut tight. And there’s more, Soupster.”
“More?”
“All the young ‘uns are now helping me up the curb and stairs even when I don’t want to go. They also stop and wait to help me cross the road when I don’t want to. I just want to stand in the yard and watch the birds. We caused quite the back-up at the round-a-bout yesterday.”
“Buddy, please don’t leave Our Town. Wait until the weather turns for the better and all the tourists come back. The nice people will get over it and barely have time to bother with you.”
Submitted by Rose Manning
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