July 2008

Learning to do your part

By Barbara Sims

It's all about "Going Green."

You see it and hear it everywhere you turn, and you have probably thought "I want to do my part for the earth, and my children, but where do I start?

Cutting down on our driving sometimes sounds even better when you think that less driving means fewer jarring lurches and artful swerving brought on by hitting or trying to avoid hitting the mass of potholes in our city.

There are streets that are more like a war zone than a modern American city.

Oh thank you for a wonderful story that gets Carol and Geo's life together and their house just perfectly! (At Large in Ballard, July 2, 2008)

I live in New Hampshire but have been a guest of those charming people in that amazing place and been lucky enough to have as my bed, that magical Wynken, Blinken and Nod bed built into the bay window and hanging out over the bluff with the lights of the marina below and the stars in the glass window above. It was one of the highlights of my life.

Pat Fargnoli

New Hampshire Poet Laureate

Walpole, N.H.

What a perfect profile of a magnificent couple. Having known Carol and Geo. for some - can it be 40 or 45 years? - the piece distills the essence, yet expands the dimensions, of two people I love. Thank you, Peggy, for weaving such a wondrous historic tale.

Ruth Higgins

Seattle

Amazon, Boeing, and Microsoft aren't creating jobs that pay enough money for employees to buy homes valued at over half a million dollars!

Also, if the employees are moving here from other parts of the country they likely have taken a loss on the sale of their home if they're lucky enough to have been able to sell their home. Sellers, your home prices will be dropping this year. If you're selling your home or you plan on selling your home soon you need to price it 10 percent less than current prices to stay ahead of the price drop curve.

David Bowers

Seattle

In response to Jordan Gussin's letter, Save Edith's place (July 2) and others who want a memorial for Edith: remember that her house is the art (a sculpture) and, therefore, should be preserved as the memorial: not a grassy knoll or phony plaque. The house, although she didn't build it, becomes something like Simon Rodea's "Watts Towers" or Facteur Cheval's "Ideal palace."

T. Michael Gardiner

Ballard

The tunnel would be the better safer in downtown Seattle because the another viaduct could fall down or break easy. I want downtown Seattle to looks nice.

If they build new viaduct, then it would look very ugly. The people who live in condos can see front of the water and boats. If they build another viaduct, then it could block and (they) can't see the water and boats. It is an good idea to have an new tunnel not another viaduct in downtown Seattle.

Cameron Chapman

Seattle

I read with interest your editorial, "Make Macefield house a landmark," (June 25) and agree with most of its sentiments. Growth has been too rapid in Ballard as current city statistics have shown. A June 18, 2008 column by Danny Westneat in the Seattle Times indicated that current permitted residential units have surpassed baseline projections for the neighborhood by 174 percent. These are city growth projections for the 20-year period, 2004-2024.

I live in Texas and have also been a guest with the lovely Carol and Geo.

I have slept and read and studied and practiced my guitar in the "red room" upstairs where you can listen and meditate to the call of the sea lions in the raft on Puget Sound that spreads before your eyes through the huge window in that room. And of course it is filled with Geo's furniture. I've slept in a bed Geo made so lovingly.

Every morning, when I have come downstairs, Carol has laid a poem on the dining room table for me to savor with my breakfast.

This story is full of the sunshine and radiance that being with Carol and Geo conveys. Thanks so much for the beauty and love that these two bring to the world.

Miriam Bassuk