Day 1: Seattle, Tacoma
Fri., 3/30/01
“Any adversity I may encounter will just become another song and another story.” For this final week of excessive preparations, such has been my motto. And not twenty blocks into my venture—Tim (my roommate) having shot my triumphant ‘shoving off’ pictures as I boarded by tightly-packed car/home-to-be—I get to test this parable. “You’ve blown a head gasket,” the mechanic announced as I lumbered into his driveway, concerned about the ridiculous amount of exhaust shrouding my Brand-New ’86 Honda Accord at each stoplight. That obvious, eh? Realizing my need to start this venture (the longer I stay in Seattle the more I’ll prepare, creating new responsibilities for myself without really getting into the project itself), I balked at the amount of time the repair would take—and then at the estimate. Add “Ballad of the Gasket” to the to-do list...
Day 8: Yakima Sportsman State Park, Yakima, Zillah, Toppenish, Wapato
Fri., 4/6/01
...Driving just a few miles over into Toppenish (“Where the West Still Lives”), on the Yakima Indian Reservation, I’m amazed at the totality of the commercial/cultural transition from Zillah’s Mexican-American feel to the Native American influence in downtown Toppenish. The Yakima Valley is proving an excellent illustration of Washington’s multiplicity! (In some communities in the valley, Juan told me, Chicanos are actually becoming the majority, and elections over the next several years—once everyone reaches voting age—could become very interesting/empowering.)
Effie and Jeanne in the Toppenish Visitor’s Center entertain me for most of an hour with stories ranging from a German POW camp in the area during World War II to a recent, failed agricultural experiment involving the Jerusalem artichoke. Effie, who moonlights as a brakewoman on a local railline, spouts statistic after statistic...
Toppenish’s most obvious draw, however, is its murals—some sixty giant, colorful paintings by various local artists adorn exposed walls and building sides throughout downtown (and some beyond), each one claiming historical accuracy. Since the state’s centennial in 1989, the first Saturday in June in Toppenish has seen the creation of a “Mural in a Day” by a collection of painters. “It’s truly where you come, sit on bleachers, and watch paint dry,” Effie explains.
Days 28 & 29: Pullman, Walla Walla
Thu., 4/26/01 & Fri., 4/27/01
...It’s hard to beat barbequed steaks and outdoor screenings of “Animal House” and “The Graduate,” and friend Chris Priebe does a darn fine job of making me feel at home in my crash-pad just off the campus of Whitman College. Over the course of the evening, I learn of longtime Whitman president cum Walla Walla Mayor Chester Maxey’s feat of “kicking the whores outta town,” and someone explains that an old law still on the books mandates that any collection of more than five (or so) women living together constitutes a brothel, and thus Whitman’s sorority houses can only be specific floors in the dormitories. Definitely something to look into!...
Chris and Emily depart for more conventional studies in the morning, and I head out on foot to explore town and pursue my sorority/brothel lead. My descriptions of Mayor Maxey’s purported legislative actions produce a blank stare from a woman at the Walla Walla Chamber of Commerce/Visitors Center, who can only provide me with a thick packet of Walla Walla club and organizational phone numbers, so I head over to City Hall. The clerks at the information desk send me upstairs to the City Attorney’s office, where Tim Donaldson shares his cordial skepticism with me. According to Donaldson, his office just recently finished a review of city codes, and he does not remember coming across said law over the course of the revisions. However, should I find evidence of it, Donaldson says, he would love a call with the specifics. Hmmm...
Back at Whitman, I jump into a little book research in Penrose Library. While no specific evidence of Maxey’s Mythical Mandate presents itself, I do find a source that claims: “Chester was always proud of his role in ridding the city of one of its more noxious hangovers from the frontier days—Walla Walla’s 100 year tradition of ‘legal’ prostitution.” I also learn, from another source entirely, that Mossyrock’s namesake landmark, which the railroad later blew up to make room for the track, was 200 feet high.
I’m met with another hopeless chuckle as I continue my inquiries at the Whitman Admissions Office at Penrose House (two ‘Penrose’ buildings—wow!), and the woman at the front desk suggests I try the Residence Life and Housing Office in Memorial Hall. I do, and the woman there says that, in her twenty-plus years at Whitman, she’s never heard of any policy even closely resembling my story of illicit Panhellenic brothels. More likely, she says, Whitman sororities stay in dorms to avoid the costs associated with maintaining an independent house. This, combined with Donaldson’s doubt, makes a strong case for the fallibility of the original story—which, Chris and Emily explain, they learned from members of Whitman sororities! Again, hmmm...
Day 42: Bellingham
Thu., 5/10/01
...Back ‘home,’ Roche hauls me down to the yard where he keeps his sailboat—a dry-dock moorage in the Old Fairhaven district. There I meet Char (“Shär”—rhymes with “Arrrr!”), the woman who runs Fairhaven Boatworks. As we warm up to each other and the salty stories start flowing, drama unfolds when one individual ties up at another’s buoy, refuses to move, threatens the buoy’s owner, and takes a few swings. In the ensuing mêlée, the victim’s dinghy begins to drift away from the dock (in the frenzy, Randy had forgotten to tie it off!), and Roche, Char, and I jog down with the ‘rescue hook.’ We’re too late, but the current seems to be stronger than the receding tide, and the boat heads slowly toward a nearby lagoon. Two kayakers just putting in offer to take over the rescue operation, and do. Randy, meanwhile, has called the police and followed his assailant to a nearby beach camp. He seems a bit more worked up than makes us comfortable, so Roche and I volunteer to hang around at least until the police arrive...which could be days, Char tells us—perhaps the Coast Guard would have been a better bet.
Such drama, in one form or another, is an everyday occurrence, Char tells us as we stand around in limbo. She then digs out story after story ranging from an errant hibachi left on top of creosote-soaked pilings-to-be to an armed standoff instigated by a Jeep carburetor. “A salty, salty place,” Brian comments....
Day 45: George, Grand Coulee, Conconully
Mother’s Day; Sun., 5/13/01
...No legitimate on-the-road folk venture in the Northwest would be complete without a pilgrimage to Grand Coulee Dam, the subject of many of Guthrie’s area songs, so off we head. Passing through Electric City, our chosen camping stop for the evening, we’re pleased to see signs for a Mother’s Day rodeo in addition to the carnival rides assembled in an empty lot. At the dam, we plod through the Visitor’s Center and watch its film, a sort of revisionist (yet still overtly pro-dam) take on “The Columbia: America’s Greatest Power Stream,” the original New Deal film that Woody scored. Almost as impressive as the exhibits are the avian specimens on the museum’s grounds: while one bird distracts us by harassing a marmot several times its size, another removes insects from Jay’s front fender. Next, we hit up the dam tour itself, and to do this one must first drive most of the way across the mile-long concrete monstrosity. The tour is nice—the dam is huge!—but, somewhere in the back of my mind, I doubt that Woody gathered his observations from glass elevators....
Day 49: ‘Inn Eeee,’ Port Angeles, Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge
Thu., 5/17/01
I can think of few luxuries finer than waking up and gazing into the morning light reflected on the water—what location! As I’m beginning to assemble myself for the day’s activities, the Mermaid Café—my venue in Port Angeles here on the peninsula—calls; apparently, an excited Peninsula Daily News had called them to ask a few questions about me, and a problem emerged: the café didn’t know about the show! This is troublesome...
Heading back towards Port Townsend...we stop at the Dungeness National Wildlife Refuge for some further exploring. As we walk together down the beach with the Strait of Juan de Fuca tide coming in and a container boat in the distance, we comment on how different from the cliché romantic beachwalks can be here in the Great Northwest: instead of shorts and sandals splashing in the sun-drenched surf, we huddle together in our respective Columbia parkas, keeping a safe distance from the clutches of the frigid breakers as winds whip under the impermeable cloud cover overhead....
Day 53: ‘Inn Eeee,’ Port Townsend
Mon., 5/21/01
After a lazy morning, Jess heads out for some independent rompings while I confront my songwriting to-do list from the sun-shiny comfort of the cabin’s bay-facing porch. I battle with language, history, and shifting shadows, finally emerging with a yet-to-be titled song based on the story of Theresa’s grandfather. To celebrate, I head off down the beach, and return for some more instrument-picking on the porch in the clear-but-breezy pleasantness. Had I chosen to try to convert to words the beauty of today’s scenery, I realize, I would have faced a much greater challenge. We top off a dinner of yummy leftovers with another trip into town for ice cream, and, cones in hand, we wander onto a public pier to marvel in the immensity of both the Cascade Mountains (Mts. Baker and Rainier appear particularly prominent in the pink of the evening) and the Olympics. This, put simply, is living—as I ruminate on my good fortune, ‘school’ has never seemed so far away!
Day 65: Seattle
Sat., 6/2/01
From a phantom blown head gasket and heartless speeding ticket to this: the final day arrives. Most of my time is spent arranging myself for the evening’s show: preparing a set, trying to learn the last few songs (!), reminding myself to share last-minute story details. ...A very healthy crowd shows up, full of college students, registered folkies, old friends, advisers, and an Assistant Dean. The set progresses splendidly—the ultimate validation for a spring’s-worth of itinerant musing; nights like this, after all, are why I do it. As I look out among the smiling, attentive faces, I become all the more excited to record the songs and dispatch them back into the wonderful communities that were so generous to share them with me. This stage of traveling and composing may be finished, but The Project certainly is not. What a kick!—Idaho next?
© 2001, Wes Weddell