I have a pair of suggestions for summer reading — one authored locally, the other by a national figure with global perspective.
You are always hearing or reading about a “teacher-gone-bad.” That’s what sells papers and makes the news.
Twenty-one years ago, office manager Robbi Pennington met a lost looking soul in the parking lot of Canyon Creek Elementary, and with a warm smile asked, “Can I help you?”
With all due respect to everyone reading this, I maintain that for the past two years I have had the best job in the Bothell-Kenmore area. I have been able to watch as many Bothell, Inglemoor and Cedar Park Christian games I have wanted. For free.
On June 10, I graduated from high school. That night, I slept a great deal more than I have any night this year, and today I started my new job working at a restaurant in downtown Kirkland. Then I missed a deadline. More specifically, I missed my deadline for this column. This is a deadline I have known about weeks in advance, which I had both written down in my planner and on my 1-month calendar. Still, in my newly graduated and unanchored state, I managed to completely forget about it.
From the weather we have experienced lately, one might not know it— but summer is on the way. The arrival of summer in our community is an occasion to be celebrated— for we are all renewed by a refreshed way of living during this season.
Father’s Day is coming up this week, and so is my dad’s 85th birthday. I sure wish he were going to be here to celebrate both occasions, but he’s been gone for 20 years.
Digging through a bunch of old photos of him the other day, I came across one from Father’s Day 1964. I was startled. It was a photo of our entire family — me, my four brothers and mom dutifully facing the camera, posing the way conventional people do. Except for dad. He is facing backwards. Why was he facing backwards? Simply because it looked funny, I guess. Or maybe he was showing off a new haircut. There was no other reason.
University of Washington, Bothell supporters of the international Village Volunteers efforts to provide means for safe, filtered water in the villages of Kenya met recently to assess their fund-raising plans for the balance of 2008.
The student and community interest in the project stemmed from a class led by professor Martha Groom in which students explored humanitarian needs in Kenya.
Letters from Bothell and other area residents.
I still recall the University of Washington freshman orientation keynote speech of five years ago, given by Professor David Salesin, where he urged students to exercise, socialize and intellectualize on a daily basis. If the message was good for the students, it was also good for their parents, I thought. I’ve tried to use his advice ever since.
I’m going to be the girl who falls at graduation. I have imagined myself falling so many times that at this point it is inevitable; I have undoubtedly engaged my muscle-memory by sheer force of imagination. Every time I picture myself falling, the probability of its occurrence inches closer to one.
The Bothell Planning Commission is trying to push through a rezoning at the edges of the downtown development. Instead of a building height limit of 35 feet, they want to raise it to 51 feet, and that doesn’t include the roof, etc. They want buildings on Main Street to be able to go to 75 feet. Can you say tunnel?
I helped a friend and his wife load their stuff into a big U-Haul some days ago. They were moving to southern California. Some people think a move from this part of the world to that part is sort of like trading a gentle scalp massage for a whack on the head with a garden rake. That’s a bit of an exaggeration. A small shovel would be more like it.
Local history buffs will have a field day in 2009. The year 2009 will see the 100th anniversary of the incorporation of Bothell. The Northshore School District will have been consolidated 50 years earlier in 1959. The Northshore Scholarship Foundation will assemble its recipients for the 25th annual scholarship recognition event.
Sporting a blue shirt with the BHS insignia, Bothell High School Principal Bob Stewart sits at his desk amidst papers and books in a cramped portable on campus. Bob knows it’s short term and, come November, will move into new digs. Not only will Bob, Co-Principal Heather Miller and the administrative staff move, but also 1,650 students are in for a big treat. How big?
Climate change has been a worry of mankind since humans first learned about the ice age. So just how much is global warming impacting our world? Why should we even care about these changes? Imagine a world without rainforests or glaciers, a world of widespread famine and drought. If society doesn’t take action now, this kind of world will become a reality. Our futures are at stake and mankind need to take care of the Earth, before it becomes too late.
The folks over at the Northshore Family Center must be breathing a collective sigh of relief.
Imagine having your life controlled by a single substance, something that we see daily and something that we call alcohol. Alcohol is the most widely used drug in the world. It is something that we all have, or will encounter at some point in our lives, and the majority of us have probably already had interactions with a person who has an alcohol-related problem. Roughly one-third of the American population is affected by alcoholism, which is nearly 65-70 million people.
Think you look so great when you’re at the beach in your bikini after basking in the sun for hours? Think you look hot for the dance after lying in a tanning bed? Think again. In reality, the dark skin you’ve been working so hard to attain is actually doing more harm than good and will eventually lead to wrinkles and serious health problems … not beauty.
In the last few days, I’ve found myself haunted by an image. It appears to be unforgettable — as it should. Recently, I was shown a picture of a child in Africa. Taken in 1993, the image displays a starving child collapsed on the ground. Those familiar with the area indicate she is struggling toward the direction of a nearby food center. Next to her body, a vulture hovers awaiting her death.
