News around town: Moments to memories

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February becomes March, moments become memories, and old signs become Port Townsend Observation Deck News Around Town.

POLITICIAN T-SHIRT SAYING OF THE WEEK: “I mean exactly what I say, except when I don’t.”

LIFE & DEATH NEWS: Saturday was the first time I’ve delivered a eulogy during which I became choked up at the podium. It’s one thing to say good-bye to someone much older, who has lived a full life, and another to bid farewell to a man who was only 38, with so much left to offer. That’s the thing about life and death; we tend to take the former for granted and we avoid talking about the latter until it’s on our doorstep. Pardon the cliché, but life is for living and getting as much out of it as possible, and for some, it takes a funeral to drive that point home. Tell the people you love that you love them, every chance possible.

ON TIME NEWS: If you live here for any length of time, you begin to fall into Port Townsend time. “We’ve had to cancel several courses just because people didn’t sign up on time,” says one adult educator. “Once we’ve made the decision to cancel the course, then people call up and say, ‘Is the course going?’ Well, it would have, if you’d have signed up on time.”

THESE ARE THE TIMES NEWS: Here’s a report from a longtime Jefferson County resident of Japanese descent, emailed to me Feb. 24: “We are in Oceanside [California] at a Worldmark Resort. My sister and I were getting on an elevator and were surprised by a man who rushed out and turned back and said, ‘What! Is this the first time you are seeing a round eye?’ I was so shocked. I did not realize it was a racial slur. That along with Border Patrol stopping everyone on their way to Santa Ana Airport gives us pause to wonder what is becoming of the country we love!”

ADVICE OF THE WEEK: “Although it’s common to be overweight, it doesn’t mean that it’s normal.”

SURF NEWS: Peeling back the wooden layers of perhaps the oldest wooden building left on Port Townsend’s waterfront revealed a storefront not seen since the 1960s. Most locals would remember the business as The Surf or maybe as the (original) Sea Galley. Step back to the 1940s and 1950s, and it was The Palms restaurant and tavern. The property owners are dismantling the old building – to make way for what they hope will be a 62-room hotel – and last Thursday, the crew found what was the entrance to The Palms lounge, a large window and door boarded over on two sides for probably 50 years. Lettering “alms vern” remains on the window glass, and on the door, advertising for Squirt "never an after thirst" soft drink and L&M cigarettes.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “As soon as you put your house up for sale, someone else already owns it,” says a real estate veteran on what a seller’s mind-set must be. “They just have not bought it yet.”

(Patrick J. Sullivan of the Port Townsend & Jefferson County Leader’s first dinner out, after moving to Irondale in 1989, was at the Port Townsend Sea Galley.)