July 2008

On a boat normally frequented by commuters and Mariners fans, West Seattle residents Irene Stewart and Bruce Butterfield found an entirely different use for the Elliott Bay Water Taxi: They got engaged.

On June 25, Stewart and Butterfield were celebrating their tenth anniversary of dating. Ten years earlier, they had taken the Water Taxi downtown for their first date, and they decided this year to do the same in celebration.

"We took the Water Taxi to make it easy on ourselves - nothing fancy, just a fun ride to a restaurant downtown," said Stewart, who as an aide to then King County Councilmember Greg Nickels was instrumental in getting the service started.

Stewart said everything seemed normal until the vessel approached Pier 55 on the downtown waterfront. All of a sudden, the captain veered to the left and turned the boat around so it faced West Seattle. Everyone onboard was quite confused.

Almost everyone, that is.

For Butterfield, this was all part of the plan. Earlier in the day, he made several trips to Seacrest Park to speak with the captain and crew, and enlist their support.

At 30th and Graham, a nine-year-old boy was dared to yell "F*!& Iraq" around the park and specifically in front of a park visitor who was originally from that country. The man chased the boy, grabbed him by the arm (some said he grabbed him by the ear) and said he was going to take him to meet with his parents. A 12-year-old girl ran home to tell her father and by the time officers arrived several adults were involved. The man admitted he went after the child but denied assaulting him. He says he is constantly being harassed by the kids in the park.

Tamela Thomas from West Seattle was named the female under black belt grand champion in the 2008 Tang Soo Do World Championships held on July 11th and 12th 2008. 11 martial arts students from West Seattle traveled to Orlando, FL to compete in the event. The students ranged in age from 9 years old to 48 years old. The students, who train at Evergreen Tang Soo Do Academy in West Seattle, were lead by their instructor Master Steven Elmore, a 4th Degree Black Belt in the art of Tang Soo Do.

Elizabeth held her mother's hand as she gazed across the harbor to the warships that sailed into Elliott Bay.

President Theodore Roosevelt's Great White Fleet, on a world tour, arrived in Seattle on May 23, 1908 and more than 400,000 citizens attended the gala.

If it were not for a doctor's order, Elizabeth might not have seen it at all.

Elizabeth DeGroote, nee Gambee, was born Oct.

Librarians come alive

By Shannon Schinagl

Sensible shoes. Hair in a bun. Glasses perched on the tip of a nose. Tweed suits. Do you recognize the occupation? Shhhhh! Whisper the answer! You're in the library!

Yes, librarians have been battling this stereotype for years. Thankfully, books are helping us change our image.

While some books work subtly to show librarians in a different light, others make it their mission. There are books about librarians in every genre, and for readers of every age.

Romance in the library? Yes, indeed.

'The Love Guru' misses Myers' insight

Directed by Marco Schnabel

Rated PG-13

(Two stars)

By Bruce Bulloch

After seeing a really funny movie trailer have you ever run out to see the film only to realize 90 minutes later that the entire movie produced just enough laughs to fill that trailer and nothing more?

A million years of history

By Lesley Guest

Why do we study history?

Of course, we want to know about the people who walked the Earth yesterday, and as a mother, my son's questions about my past and his grandparents' past make sense: he's probably curious about how we viewed life in the past, and what came before him. I do my best to answer his questions, and always recommend that he ask others as well for many viewpoints.

History is - in its very essence - a story. It's history, or as the feminists like to say, her-story.

Hybrids or Gas?

With no relief in sight to ever

increasing gas prices, everyone

is looking for ways to save at the

pump. Everyone got excited about

the promise of saving money with

a hybrid, but the question is; will

a hybrid really save you money?

After researching the prices of a

hybrid, my excitement started to

I recently wrote expressing our concerns about Dow Constantine's three quarter page of press in the Herald spelling out all the problems regarding "Public Safety Cuts: (June 16th, 2006). We were admittedly dissatisfied with the entire column of "problems", as he understood them, with no proposed solutions.

As I mentioned, your collective constituents already have a stomach ache, sir, and our question is what are we doing about it?

Mr. Constantine's response is "Mr.

As an atheist and Social Security survivor, lamentably, I had to forgo some of the happenings the Tribune reported last week. Which was to skip the once-a-week Shilshole Bay Beach Club offering of an $11 Beach Burger, with lettuce and tomato, and an $8 "beach special" drink. Nor did I rush over (shortness of breath, no car, non-existent public transportation) to the Golden Gardens Bath House to get baptized by the new cult (Mars Hill Church) in town.