An Alternate View of Seattle in 1962

I was perusing a bookshelf full of crap here at home and found a few old nudist magazines I had bought at a yard sale a long time ago. I got a kick out of this issue because it was promoting the '62 World's Fair on the cover and inside on the title page.

It's interesting to know that the Seattle has been cool for a long time.

Zombies?

We ended up with this sticker at our house recently, and I'm not sure where it came from. I'm also not sure what I'm going to do with it. Obviously, I'm probably going to stick it, but where?

I could put it on something out in my shop.

I'm not redneck enough to put it on my vehicle. Well, I guess I could put it on my Civic, but really--an old Honda Civic on a Zombie Apocalypse Response Team? What am I going to do, drive them out of town in a safe manner while explaining my mileage? I know--I could put it on my truck! No, it's not the right look either. My truck isn't lifted 24" over stock and riding on oversized tires. It has no Yosemite Sam mudflaps hanging across the back, and there is no gun rack in the window (if rednecks still even use gun racks any more). It looks more "grandpa" than redneck.

No, I don't have a good vehicle for this sticker. I could "bless" someone else's car in a parking lot, but of course I would never harm anyone else's property. Besides, I can't run worth a shit anymore. I'd probably be spotted by the owner, and they'd find my body a week later, crumpled up in the parking lot along with the sun-faded, flattened Starbucks cups that litter the ground.

Ooh, wait--the Harley! Hmm. No. While it does have a look that would compliment such a fine sticker, I'm not really a sticker person. Besides, if it were on a bike, it should be one ridden by someone that looks like Randall Tex Cobb did in the movie Raising Arizona.

I could take it to work and find a good spot for it. Now that I think about it, it does sorta speak "Boeing" somehow.

Or, I could put it on something out in my shop. 

Why Edgewood?

I don't think I ever really expected to find myself living in Edgewood. I don't know--it just seemed to be "between" everything. It was a place that was not on anyone's radar. It was a place people drive by or drive through and not notice. It has almost none of my favorite stores, and a pretty small selection of restaurants.

When Sue and I were going through our divorce I just wanted something cheap enough I could afford, and big enough to hold all my shit. I just wanted a new starting place. I was hoping to find something close enough to work that I wouldn't have to use freeways. When I stumbled onto the little duplex I ended up living in for 2+ years, I knew it was perfect. It was cheap, it had a garage, and it had plenty of space for me. It even had the back yard between the two units fenced. How often do you ever see that? It had two bedrooms, gas heat, and even a storage shed out back. When I met my new neighbor, Wendy, we became friends right away. I so enjoyed spending time at her place, watching movies or ball games, and playing with her little "chi-weenie" dog Louie, and her two kittycats. After living up here for a couple years, I realized that I really liked the rural nature of the area and the commute (or lack thereof). I can get to work in 15 minutes, and without using a freeway!

It was around June of last year when it occurred to me that my savings were growing to the point where I might be able to pull off a down payment on a house. I was also getting a little tired of the noisy furnace, the single-pane windows, and mushy ground around the place during monsoon season. I started looking at realty websites, and the more I looked at houses in various places, the more I liked the possibility of staying in Edgewood. The trouble is, a lot (most?) of the properties in the area have either a view of the valley or are on acreage, neither of which I could come close to affording. After looking for a while I found a house that I wanted to investigate. That meant I needed to get into the house to see it, right? I hunted down a realtor. I didn't buy that house, but with both of us looking, things started happening. We looked at several, but none of them did it for me. I had gotten into the routine of checking real estate sites several times a day, noting the new ones when they would pop up. Then one Saturday morning I was on the computer for a while doing more looking and had been at it for a while. I was just about to go out somewhere, so before I got up to go I hit "refresh" one more time. There was a new entry! It was so new that the pictures weren't even posted yet. I read the whole ad and realized it was only down the street where I already lived. After reading it all and checking the street view online, I hit refresh again and pictures started showing up. A big 3-bedroom rambler with a detached shop?! 1/3 acre at the end of a dead-end street?! I called my guy right away. "I have to see this house!" I told him. He called back a few minutes later and said they were having an open house at 1pm, so I could actually get inside without him this time. Well, to make a long story short, I went, I looked, I loved it, and I bought it. I love this place!

Next: Moving!