Old-time Bothell residents with good memories must have smiled when they noticed the recent removal of the trees that used to line the front of the removed Ricketts Northshore School District Administrative Building on Bothell Way Northeast.

There was a time when the large expanse of lawn in front of Ricketts was devoid of trees. Local teenaged boys soon discovered that the lawn was a great place to hold impromptu touch-football games. Every day, a group of teens would gather and engage in a noisy game of football. The school-district staff ironically became annoyed at the noise, and a large raised planter box was installed on the lawn to dissuade the local teenagers from their playground.

Activist Mayor Dr. Walter Sundstrom wrote a blistering, humorous letter to the Northshore Citizen decrying this obvious attempt to stop the football games. The school district quickly responded and removed the planter, and anticipating a generation of tree huggers, planted a double row of trees around the building, ending the football games. The football games are gone and the building is gone and some of the trees are gone, but Mayor Sundstrom’s action is a pleasant footnote to Bothell’s history.

One who remembers,

Don Bagnall