Stories from my college town life. The more personal stories and some history.

I grew up in a fairly sheltered childhood so my route to learning about some things was different. See article I wrote about this in the Bellingham based Betty Pages.

In my dream, they decided to reopen sauna and I was at work. I went in there and two people were already sitting in there. It seemed kind of cold, but I was visiting with the folks. Then I looked around and discovered that the sauna heater was not there. I guess a new one was to be installe? The dream didn't say. When we discovered there was no heater, we all left, but I was in there, by myself for a moment. Then a woman from the upstair office walked in. I thought she might worry that she was a woman that had accidentally stepped into a men's nude space, but no one had been nude yet. There was no need for worry.

Stump of what used to be the tallest white pine in world I think. It had died by the time I saw this on my 2005 bicyce tour, but I'm reflecting on memories from much earlier days at a scout camp called Camp Grizzley, not far from there. Late 1960's. A kid, I was friends with when we were in the 6th grade, happened to be in the Mormon Scout Troop. The LDS Church, which Pullman Herald mistakenly called the "LSD Church" when the headline editor made a mistake. I followed my friend into that scout troop and my parents were okay with that. Mormonism is a conservative theology while my family was liberal, but part of being liberal is being ecumenical. In Pullman, the church and scout troop offerings were like a smorgasbord available to the whole town; or at least that's what my mom proudly proclaimed. In the Mormon troop, I quickly got bored with the militaristic feel and never made it past 2nd class badge. There was one somewhat erotic memory that did make thing

I had a new tent and I was on my first trip with the new tent. Up near Mount Baker. I couldn't fully erect the tent as there was a lock in a tent pole that I needed to enter the password into a website for. I called REI, where I bought the tent, and they tried to talk me through the process. "Find the password in the tent and then relay it to us over the phone." I couldn't find the password, but did find a few unusual things for a tent; like a prop that looked like a rotory dial phone. Person at REI said, "don't worry." "We can look up your purchase and enter the passcode from this end." I was interested in how the whole thing worked, how the lock works from a cellphone signal. Wondered if the tent could pick up the cellphone tower, if not, the whole thing will not work in this location. My phone was working okay, but can the tent pick up the tower also? What kind of receiver would it have? A friend, that was with me, thought it was s

Pullman, WA. My 8th grade PE teacher, Mr. Bush, called me into his office for a pep talk one day. He noticed I had no interest in sports. I always tried to go as far into the outfield as I could get, during baseball. I could care less about the game. He was worried that I wasn't trying. With my lack of drive, I might not succeed in life. He said, "When you grow up, it's going to be a tough world out there." "You've got to push harder." I didn't know how to respond, except to say that I ran a home run in baseball one time. That was only after another PE teacher went to bat for me and hit the ball out of the park. He set that all up so I could run all the bases. A ploy to help me gain confidence. Walking home from school that day, it dawned on me that I had forgotten to tell Mr. Bush about the 60 mile bicycle trip I did during the summer between 7th and 8th grade. That would have been a more assuring response for him, but one usually thinks of the

Front of auditorium wing, old Pullman High School. Now at Gladish Community Center. It was spring of 1970 during the Vietnam War. A singing group called "Up With People," was preforming at the auditorium. An inspirational, cheerful group. Students must have thought this was frivolous and uncalled for. "People are dying in a war right now." As the preformers were introduced, the students clapped, but didn't stop there. They stood up and started cheering. They were cheering and cheering. Maybe laughing as well. They wouldn't sit down. This went on a while. Eventually the students did sit down and the performance took place. Next day, there was another assembly. Said to be the last mandatory assembly of the year, but it was a while till end of the year. ? The principal, Mr. Cramer, walked onto the stage and started scolding the students. He said the audience reaction to yesterday's concert was disrespectful. If students are behaving this way, they

The teacher was passing out health pills and suppliants. There was an assignment to go out and try and sell this stuff to the public; like in a marketing class. I was pretty shy about being a salesperson so I opted to not go out selling. I sat at my desk, but noticed the rest of the class had left, except the teacher who was in front of the room doing paperwork. I was afraid she would come back and ask me why I was still there and not selling the pills so I decided to leave the room also. I took the box of pills and went out into the hallway. In the hallway, I found another teacher. She looked kind of busy, but it dawned on me that selling the pills might not be a good idea due to corona virus. Selling implies human contact. Pressing the flesh, shaking hands and so forth. I thought it was strange that there would be an assignment, like that, during the pandemic. I was going to ask this other teacher about it, but I was shy and she looked busy. Then she turned to me and invited me t