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  • THESE TIMES

    Kirk Ericson|Sep 21, 2023

    This is a column that ran in the Shelton-Mason County Journal on March 4, 2021. Of the 308 columns the Journal has published of mine, this one is among my five favorites. I’ll return with original drivel next week... —Kirk Mrs. Ericson and I were sitting on our living room couch recently while I did the crossword puzzle and she read the newspaper. This has become part of our morning plague routine. We sit on the couch in the early morning, drink coffee and I respond to comments she makes abo...

  • THESE TIMES

    Kirk Ericson|Sep 14, 2023

    Remember in spring 2020 when we started hearing the phrase “a novel coronavirus?” We don’t hear that phrase much now. This particular coronavirus has lost all its novelty. COVID-19 infection rates, and hospitalizations and deaths, have been rising around the country for the past couple of months. Some of the symptoms have evolved, but the disease remains. The Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved the latest dose to treat the current strain that’s going around, and those doses could b...

  • These Times

    Kirk Ericson|Sep 7, 2023

    A woman in our neighborhood many years ago was getting treatment for lung cancer. I saw her walking along the sidewalk in front of the house one day – she was getting chemotherapy or radiation, I can’t remember which – and she looked weary. We talked for five minutes in front of the driveway. She was a wonderful woman, full of that rare combination of optimism and contrarianism that’s hard to maintain over a life. At the end of our chat, she had a question. “Could you say a prayer for me?” Um....

  • These Times

    Kirk Ericson|Aug 31, 2023

    I have a friend who grew up rich, but through hard work, grit and some lucky breaks, she overcame it. When people were losing their senses of taste and smell during the worst of COVID, did their senses of hearing and sight improve? At weddings in Olympia, if the guests wear Birkenstocks, they make a point of wearing their best pair. I’m reluctant to get into the whole Jan. 6 insurrection thing here, but I do believe that flag poles should not be used to pummel someone. There’s a mental switch yo...

  • These Times

    Kirk Ericson|Aug 24, 2023

    A one-scene play It’s late afternoon in a principal’s office at an expensive private middle school. In attendance are the principal, an 11-year-old boy, and the boy’s mother and father. The boy faces possible expulsion for several alleged offenses. PRINCIPAL: Let’s get to it, shall we? We’re all here to figure out what will be most helpful … SON: I didn’t do it! Whatever they say I did, I didn’t do it. They’re liars. You can’t prove I did anything wrong! MOTHER (patting her son’s knee): Now, n...

  • These Times

    Kirk Ericson|Aug 17, 2023

    I’ve wasted enough time watching sports to know how they could be improved. Here, for your consideration, are some ways sporting events could become more entertaining … and violent. BASEBALL: I’d like to see a pitcher, just once, admit he hit a batter on purpose. Now they’re cagey about it, saying stuff like, “I didn’t mean to hit him, but you know, you’ve got to back up your teammates. You’ve got to send a message.” Sports announcers and reporters then repeat it and let the obvious lie go be...

  • THESE TIMES

    Kirk Ericson|Aug 10, 2023

    "We don't have to get fat, We don't have to get old. We don't have information that we have to withhold." -The Pretenders, "Let the Sun Come In" Mrs. Ericson and I are doing fine money-wise, but we definitely don't have helicopter rescue money. That thought arose as I looked up at Aasgard Pass, a muscle-bound stretch of slope that rises from the tourmaline-green shores of Colchuck Lake in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in the central Cascades, just outside of Leavenworth. That incline of nearly...

  • THESE TIMES

    Kirk Ericson|Aug 3, 2023

    We got a letter from the IRS last month. I nervously opened it, but it only sought our participation in a survey on what the IRS calls “taxpayer burden” – the amount of money and time taxpayers spend on preparing their taxes. That’s fine, but it should have said this, in large letters, on the outside of the envelope: “It’s OK! You’re not in trouble!” A woman out bicycling the other day was wearing a mask, but not a helmet, and it reminded me of what I adore about human beings. When I was smal...

  • THESE TIMES

    Kirk Ericson|Jul 27, 2023

    I've bought 10 cars in life, starting at age 17. All were used, save one, and only two had any dollar value when I finished with them. All, however, have story value. No. 1, 1977: A 1972 Volkswagen Super Beetle, which I bought for $1,200 from a used car lot in the Spokane Valley called Christian Brothers Automotive. At some point in the transaction, one of the brothers asked whether I was a Christian. Yes, I replied. "Good," he said, "we like to keep sales in the family." I asked what the car's...

  • THESE TIMES

    Kirk Ericson|Jul 20, 2023

    WE’RE NO. 51! In 2022, the number of (police) officers decreased by 70 to around 10,600 officers in Washington. The 4.4% drop brought the staffing rate to 1.35 officers per 1,000 people, putting Washington at the 51st lowest rate among all U.S. states and Washington, D.C., for the 13th year in a row, according to Steven Strachan, with the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs. Nationally, the rate is around 2.31 officers per 1,000 people. — The Seattle Times, July 10, 2023 ATTEMPT...

  • THESE TIMES

    Kirk Ericson|Jul 13, 2023

    Hecidora Temisqueño was washing dishes in the early afternoon of July 4 when she saw a boiling column of smoke out the window. It was rolling toward her home. “It seemed like just seconds later, firefighters were at the door telling us to leave,” she said through her son, who interpreted for her. “I was scared.” And it wasn’t much later on that Tuesday afternoon that residents around the county started seeing firefighting aircraft sucking water from area bodies of water, including Oakland Bay an...

  • THESE TIMES

    Kirk Ericson|Jul 6, 2023

    I hate know-it-alls, but I really hate mass murderers. We need to get to the point in our nation where we can dislike people solely for the content of their character, not the color of their skin. My 95-year-old mother-in-law recently asked what I thought of her grandson’s girlfriend’s hairdo. “Actually,” she corrected herself, “her head is shaved, so it’s more like a head-do.” Do you ever say something to your child that you could never have imagined coming out of your mouth? It happened to m...

  • THESE TIMES

    Kirk Ericson|Jun 29, 2023

    Four Fingered Jacks: The best name I’ve seen for a fireworks stand. One Fourth when all four kids were under one roof, our father announced we would have a safe Fourth of July. He got some of us into the backyard, had us sit in lawn chairs on the concrete patio, and then perched a road flare about 50 feet away atop a wall separating one level of the backyard from the next. He popped the cap on the flare. I can’t recall whether I said or thought this when the flare burned out: “Is that it?...

  • THESE TIMES

    Kirk Ericson|Jun 22, 2023

    “Everybody says how easy it is to cook, but it isn’t any easier than not cooking.” — Maria Bamford “Did you ever hear about the Norwegian who loved his wife so much he almost told her?” — Author unknown “Bob Dylan always told me, don’t be a name-dropper.” — Chrissie Hynde “I would start a revolution, but I just bought a hammock.” — Zach Galifianakis “I wear this St. Christopher medal sometimes because I’m Jewish and my boyfriend’s Catholic. It was cute the way he gave it to me. He said if it d...

  • THESE TIMES

    Kirk Ericson|Jun 15, 2023

    File this one under “Beware of trucks bought from Canadian mines.” Mrs. Ericson and I were nearing her car in a parking lot a couple of weeks ago. She was several steps ahead of me when she depressed the button on her key fob several times to unlock the car door, to no effect. A fellow standing on the running board of a utility truck about 50 feet away started making noise, directed at us. The man’s truck was a working person’s rig, not one of those spotless Ford F-150s people buy to “protect th...

  • THESE TIMES

    Kirk Ericson|Jun 8, 2023

    Count on this: We'll soon have people who claim they developed PTSD from fighting in this nation's culture wars. One experience I miss about having babies around: Not being able to say "zero" when people would ask how old my not-yet-1-year-old kids were. Something true in America: Dystopia sells. Overheard rant on the street: "Incans made adobe out of bananas ... at least I think that's true." Invention idea: Shoes with a built-in odometer. That way, you might be able to say, "I got 700 miles...

  • THESE TIMES

    Kirk Ericson|Jun 1, 2023

    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 their lateral staggers. I was maybe 30 steps away, walking toward them. It was 10:30 on a Thursday night, May 18, and I was a quarter-mile from my son's apartment at the north end of Green Lake. I was at the end of a 5-mile walk from South Lake Union. Sanctuary was at hand and no one was around but...

  • An Olympic task: Identifying our home mountains

    Kirk Ericson|May 25, 2023

    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 entered The Shopper and asked a woman inside if she'd mind coming outside to look at something. We walked out to the parking lot and I pointed to that mountain. "You know the name of that mountain?" I asked her. "I'm not sure," she said. "Mount Rainier?" "No," because I knew that for sure. I...

  • Some facts, reactions to thunder, lightning

    Kirk Ericson|May 18, 2023

    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 causes it to expand. The temperature of the air in the lightning channel may reach as high as 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, five times hotter than the surface of the sun. Immediately after the flash, the air cools and contracts quickly. This rapid expansion and contraction create the sound wave that we hear...

  • I know the right way to do the dishes

    Kirk Ericson|May 11, 2023

    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 of Spokane in the 1950s. I stood on a stool. Light from the sun streamed through the windows. That is my origin story. I learned early, and I learned well. I entered the professional dishwashing ranks when I was age 17, working in a steamy, fetid, after-thought of a space next to the kitchen at Clinker...

  • Random thoughts for a day in May

    Kirk Ericson|May 4, 2023

    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 about living a long life is you get more opportunities to become a better person. An outdoor loveseat covered in moss has forfeited any claim to being a loveseat. If you tell a person on the street that you don’t have spare change for them, it’s not a good time to also mention that you own two homes...

  • Find, fix, kill: How we acquire what we own

    Kirk Ericson|Apr 27, 2023

    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, ping-pong paddles, slot screwdrivers, French presses and automobiles. And the other group is the one downstream from the first group, maybe enjoying a swim while they wait for those items to float by. When wireless earbuds became popular in the 2010s, I thought, “What a swell idea.” You can listen to...

  • Happy meetings on the Huff 'n' Puff Trail

    Kirk Ericson|Apr 20, 2023

    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 several acres across the road from Shelton High School. A drawing of the trail on a handout I was given last weekend makes the loops look like a lopsided, five-lobed shamrock. The trail, owned by the City of Shelton, is covered in wood chips, and it's flat. The rise in elevation can't be more than a foot...

  • Q&A: Frederick Douglass and Donald Trump

    Kirk Ericson|Apr 13, 2023

    “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 is being recognized more and more, I notice.” (2017) — Donald Trump, then-U.S. president Moderator: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight, we have a really special event for you. Through the magic of cyber-optical, quantum-artificial intelligence, we bring you a question-and-answer session with...

  • Pick a column, any column

    Kirk Ericson|Mar 30, 2023

    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, I’ve decided to clean out that closet. The story ideas that follow are getting tossed. It’s spring cleaning for the head. Here’s how you can help. Check out the following stories and pick one that you’d like to see written into a column. Tell me. My email address is at the bottom of the column and I’ll...

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