Ferry Folk

Too surreal not to share.

Gifts of Whidbey Island.

I've been silently admonished for too much motorcycles and not enough history in this feature, so this week I've found a way to combine the two. In the summer of 1953 Geoffrey Gander motorcycled around Europe and took some photos. His son compiled them into a wonderful photoblog - enjoy!

European Aura of Whidbey Island.

Tom Waits mashed up with Cookie Monster. Bliss.

Get your Cookies on Whidbey Island.

True scooter porn this week (and yes, I know it's Tuesday already) for the photoblog. Bikeexif has drool-worthy custom bikes. Click through for articles about each. Enjoy!

Customize your Whidbey Island life.

A graphic novel this week, rather than a serial. Who Takes Out the Garbage? is a moving tale of two young ladies and things that go bump in the night. Enjoy!

Take Out Whidbey Island.

A nice video to go along with this weeks music. The Pirates of the Caribbean is a nice country rock band. Enjoy!

Pirates for Whidbey Island.

I rarely feature Flickr photostreams on Friday - there are some amazing streams, but I simply don't like the format and they don't qualify as photoblogs in my mind. However, Nightmare's Fear Factory has a very amusing set of photos. Taken at the moment of terror from one of their Halloween displays, the raw emotion is quite amusing.

Text about Whidbey Island.

I try not to post a lot of political views on the blog, but this video struck home in too many ways to ignore. It makes me very scared for the future.

Occupy Whidbey Island?

One of the first concerts Rene & I ever saw was Harry Chapin, live at Whitworth College in Spokane. Harry played solo that evening - his band was stranded in Seattle, and he had flown in separately with just his practice guitar. He gave us one hell of a concert anyway.

This video is from the same time period as that tour - and catches Harry at his best. Very similar to how we saw him. One of our best storytellers, he is missed.

Taxi's Flying around Whidbey Island.

I got a new cookbook yesterday…It is one for those cute little desserts you find in shot glasses, and other small glass containers. Since I had been invited to go to a friend’s house for dinner, I thought, “What a great plan! I’ll make up a bunch of itty-bitty desserts in small glasses and take them for us all to enjoy!” Before I rushed out to the store to purchase appropriate glasses, I decided to look around the house, since I seemed to recall having some small glasses that might work. It took my husband, my son and I to remember where we had seen the boxes I remembered… Once found, it only took a moment to rip into them and see what treasures awaited.

Oh! What treasures!

The glasses, as remembered were small, in fact too small to be of use for the purpose I had envisioned. (However, the paper they were wrapped in, is another story altogether!)

My mother gave me these glasses when I was in High School. After I had grown and left home, they remained behind, sealed in their boxes for that time when I would have my own home and a cupboard to keep them in. Years later, after my parents had passed on, I brought the boxes home to Washington, where they remained sealed because of the presence of young children! Today, when I opened those boxes, I remembered why I had kept them sealed up. Lead Crystal glasses, very thin and fragile, are not appropriate for children to use. They are very pretty.

But the papers! Oh my! A Radio Shack Holiday flyer had been amongst the paper used to cushion the glasses. We all laughed as my son admitted that many of the things in the ad had long since disappeared before he was old enough to read! When was the last time you may have either wanted or needed a Morse Code Key?

However, the Walgreen’s Ad had many items we still use today… Q-Tips, Rolaids, and Nestle Toll House chocolate chips… all at unbelievably low prices! Do you recall the last time you purchased chocolate chips for less than a dollar?

The kicker was seeing the exact soldering gun I had purchased last week at an Ace Hardware store for around $35.00. It was listed in the Radio Shack Ad for $7.97! From the picture, the design has not changed much in forty years.

So, the Perversity of the Universe part? How else could you go from a cookbook for itty-bitty desserts to soldering guns in one conversation?

Desserts, glasses and soldering irons on Whidbey Island.