Saturday, October 15, 2005

Santa Monica Farmer's Market and Forty Lives Continued

Saturday at the Santa Monica farmer's market. I bought new potatoes, brocholi crowns, and cherry tomatoes. Then I drove back to Venice to have coffee at Abbot's Habit.

Forty Lives will be followed by Forty Jobs and Forty Places --- so the Frog Hospital blog has a plan and a direction. I have had at least forty jobs and lived in at least forty places, so it will be no trouble to compose this.

Like the time I worked as a bouncer at a disco -- honest. It was in the late 1970's. I wore black clothes and tried to stand impassively by the door. The job was short-lived however, because the security firm that hired me lost the contract.

Forty Lives, continued. We're moving into the B's now -- Barb, Ben, and Bob.

Barb Cram
doesn’t wear her false teeth at home. She retired this spring on her 70th birthday. I have known her for a long time, since my kids were small, when I first moved to LaConner. She used to run Friendship House, the homeless shelter in Mount Vernon. Years passed, but she was always drinking coffee and smoking, always on the phone, always making connections, always telling everybody what to do.

Barb took up with Pat Simpson, who was formerly the Methodist minister in LaConner. Barb and Pat being an item and also being fairly prominent, it was too much of a scandal for a small town, so they moved to Seattle.

Now Barb and Pat have a nice home with a view of Lake Washington. I come down for visits and take care of their garden. After the garden work, I take a shower and Barb fixes dinner. She’s a terrific cook.

Ben Munsey. He lived in Fishtown with Meg. Ben and Meg lived in Bo Miller’s cabin with their four children – three of them from Meg’s previous marriage. Ben was quiet then, and he’s quiet now. I believe he grew up in Tacoma and his Dad was in the lumber business.

Ben has long since split up with Meg, and Fishtown was destroyed, and Meg committed suicide years later – the destruction of Fishtown and her suicide being related – but Ben has “moved on,” at least a bit. Now he teaches at Skagit Valley College and lives in a nice old cabin with a view of Deception Pass.

Ben frequently advises me on computer questions – he is somewhat of a techie, and likes to know the intricacies of the Windows Operating System. He’s always glad to answer any of the dumb questions I run by him.

Bob Raymond and I have a difficult friendship. He and are simply not alike. For one thing, Bob is a very fussy eater – practically a Vegan. And another thing – Bob is extremely circumspect, probably the most cautious man I know. This doesn’t just bother me, I think it also bothers his wife, Dorothy, who looks like she wants to be going out for a good time and Bob is too dull to party with.

But Bob is a steady fellow. What he has to offer, in carefully measured doses, is offered genuinely. He has always been honest with me. I have often been to his house where we sit in the nook overlooking Swinomish Channel and talk about local and national politics.



1 comment:

Krista Richards Mann said...

Our Farmers' markets are closed here for the Winter. There are pumpkins still but they ship most of them in. And really, there is only so much one can do with a pumpkin. So, I am jealous of your broccoli crowns.