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The following "Northshore Citizen" column appeared in the Bothell/Kenmore Reporter newspaper edition of July 21, 2004.
Triple Play: Jokes to baseball to tents
Along with other earlier-day and present members of the Bothell Historical Society, Sue Kienast is doing a stellar job preserving and keeping alive Bothell’s local history. Sue was quick to set me straight on Bothell’s first ordinance right after the last Reporter hit her mailbox on Norway Hill. I had made a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that today’s Bothell City Council might want to review Ordinance #1 passed at the time of incorporation. It would prohibit taking your pet ape out in public unless properly leashed. “History, like a rumor,” wrote Sue, “can sometimes turn into a fantasy.” She added, “Ordinance # 1 was a joke, a fund raising ploy that was made up before Bothell became an incorporated city in 1909.” There apparently was a connection between the “ape leash” law in Bothell and the town Mardi gras event held to raise money for good works in the town. The ordinance stated violators would be fined $5,000 worth of Mardi gras buttons (probably $5) or one day in jail. “Who knows what the real Ordinance # 1 was in 1909,” Sue mused. “City Clerk Betty Keeney and I used to laugh about the so-called 1st ordinance of Bothell. The jail was a wooden cage”. The “ape leash” law bore a date of August 4, 1889. By the way, the law applied only during the months of July and August. Apes could apparently roam free the other 10 months? The complete ordinance can be found at www.townofgrace.org/apelaw.htm and perhaps such an ordinance might be just as appropriate today for the mystical, er mythical, township of Grace.
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that Baseball in the ‘30sOur recent column on discovering the Idaho baseball buddy of legendary Boston Red Sox second baseman Johnny Pesky caught the eye of Lee Desilet in Sequim. Nothing like reminiscing about pro and semi-pro baseball as the major pastime of the middle years of the Century just completed. Reading my column about Boise, Idaho dentist Gordy Williamson’s semi-pro baseball days in Lewiston, Idaho in the late 1930s caught Desilet’s attention. “I was one of the bat boys on that Lewiston team,” Lee recalled. “We had another bat boy who could out- hustle me for the bats most of the time, but we learned a lot. I can’t remember what position Gordy played then, but I remember many of the players.” Lee later handled play-by-play broadcasts for the Yakima Bears of the Northwest pro League followed by a stint as a popular radio sports announcer in the Seattle area. His long letter contained what he called “a real oddity” featuring a Northwest baseball legend Levi McCormack of Spokane. Levi was one of the first and most popular Native Americans to pull on a wool baseball jersey and get paid for it. He played for the Spokane Indians. Lee’s story about running into Levi during the second world war in the South Pacific will be found on my website, at www.townofgrace.org/baseball.htm and he claims it’s true. Oh, did I mention that Lee’s son Paul runs Paul Richards clothing store on Main Street in Bothell and passes the Reporter along frequently to his dad?
The
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that No Gravy Train HereThe Hopelink social services agency has been helping the homeless in our north and east King County region for much longer than the recent months-long flap over providing a home for Tent City 4 in Bothell. Executive Director Doreen Marchione writes in the summer edition of Hopelink’s “Reaching Out” publication that “the arrival of Tent City 4 to the Bothell area has marked a public reality about the seriousness of homelessness on the Eastside, which is something our community may not have been aware of before. Although Tent City 4 residents may not all be from Eastside communities, the Eastside is not immune to homelessness, and in fact homelessness in our community is unfortunately very well established and is continuing to rise. “Tent City 4 in Bothell reflects a sampling of adults who are homeless, but the reality and the most sobering fact of all is that the homeless are not just adults but it is about families which children as well.” For every family it is able to help, Hopelink must turn away 12 families seeking shelter. “Another disturbing reality,” Doreen continues, “is that of the homeless we have to turn away, the average age is younger than 8 years old.” Homelessness is “indeed a problem we can solve,” she affirms. “Everyday we help homeless families and individuals regain self sufficiency. Ultimately, it is up to us to determine exactly how many we are going to help.” If you are personally interested in helping with the plight of the homeless, a list of agencies working on this social crisis will be found on my website at this address: www.townofgrace.org/homeless.htm And, as the hearings grind on and on about the fate of the next Tent City outside Seattle, isn’t it time to move beyond the protests of those who insist on making the lame point that tent cities do more harm than good. I’m pretty tired of hearing and reading statements from these public hearings how Tent City enables homelessness or that Seattle has become known as a “gravy train” for the homeless. As the time winds down until Tent City 4 must move on next month from the St. Brendan’s Church acreage, wouldn’t it be nice instead to spend that energy to plan a picnic or watermelon feed at Tent City and invite some of those “naysayers” along to see just what life is like in Bothell’s Tent City neighborhood.
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