Shelton-Mason County Journal - Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886

This is what I saw and what I heard. Two young men, who appeared to be in their mid-20s, were exceedingly drunk, judging from their muttering and their full use of the sidewalk's width to accommodate...

On a sunny afternoon in early May, I was at the Olympic Gateway Center up the hill from downtown Shelton. From the parking lot, you could see an immense, snow-covered, hulking presence to the north. I...

You might not know this about thunder: “Thunder is created when lightning passes through the air,” according to the National Weather Service. “The lightning discharge heats the air rapidly and...

I remember this. I was around 5 years old the first time I did the dishes. It happened at the kitchen sink in my family’s house, a home that was built on the then-expanding edge of the city limits o...

What do golf and life have in common? The fewer the strokes, the better. I don’t worry about computers acting like humans. The bigger threat to humanity is humans acting like robots. The best part...

Let’s you and I agree — for purposes of the point I hope to make here — that the U.S. economy has two groups: One is the group that buys new items, items like clothes, Post-it notes, push pins,...

I ran into Journal reporter Gordon Weeks last Saturday on one of the segments of the Huff 'n' Puff Trail, that 1.8-mile-long collection of loops that meander through a stand of slender firs on...

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” (1855) — Frederick Douglass, former U.S. slave “Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and...

Dear readers, I have ideas for columns that haven’t become columns yet, and maybe never will. Those ideas, some of them now nearly 6 years old, nag at me like a pile of gunk in the closet. So,...

“Ya know, Nietzsche says, ‘Out of chaos comes order.’ ” — Howard Johnson “Oh, blow it out your alpaca, Howard.” —Olson Johnson This is a newspaper. It should remain free of profanity...

Here’s how your existence will unfold if you’re born a female mason bee in the state of Washington: You’ll grow from an egg into a larva, sealed inside a tubular chamber between two thin plugs o...

“I was a willow last night in a dream I bent down over a clear running stream.” — “Crazy on You,” Heart The first time I climbed Mount Ellinor was around the turn of the millennium, and it...

What if it turns out, despite all evidence to the contrary, that life is fair? If the president of the United States and the pope were figures in the board game Stratego, which one would have the...

It’s hard to watch humans without judging, but it can be a liberating activity. Be the observer. Drop your ego, shut up, turn off the sensors that require you to criticize. Let a scene play out in...

“The sea refuses no river And the river is where I am.” — Pete Townshend, “All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes” When water molecules gather, their identities are surrendered to the...

The scene: A member of Congress caught in a scandal appears on a television outlet that he hopes will treat him with sympathy. Congressman: I’d like to take this opportunity at this time to express...

A good message for a reader board in front of an Episcopalian church: Jesus is woke. Our given name is the second gift we receive in this world, after being given the gift of life … or maybe our...

Some of you former school kids might remember when the most reliable place to find the information required to write a book report was the World Book Encyclopedia. Those volumes, whose spines in the...

I watched Saturday’s Seahawks’ playoff game with a friend, Johny Baltimore. “Baltimore” isn’t his birth surname, but it’s what people call him, mostly because he rarely appears without a...

This is a tale of two Houses: One in Washington, D.C., the other in Olympia. Let’s start with the frat House. On the evening of Jan. 6, I sat with Mary Young, my 95-year-old mother-in-law, watching...

Sixty-three years of age — my age — is a careless time to make proclamations about human behavior: One has enough wisdom to recognize patterns and enough foolishness to believe one can make...

Chickens could make a compelling argument that the War on Chickens is real. Last week’s ice storm made it clear that for civilization to function, traction is essential. The carrot-and-stick style o...

“The man without a navel still lives in me.” — Thomas Browne, English author From the Cambridge Dictionary: Navel-gazing — the activity of spending too much time considering your own...

Have you ever thought about which senses are necessary to do your job? Sound? Sight? Smell? Touch? Taste? Those are the Big Five, the big receptors. They are our connections to the material world....

I recently learned a newspaperman, who I knew while he worked for The Associated Press in Olympia, died several years ago. He was 38, had a wife and two kids, ages 3 and 6, so Jonathan Kaminsky’s...