Colton Moments

August 4, 2009

Ten thousand three hundred eighty feet. That’s the elevation of South Sister - named Charity if you happen to have the right map. Just a week and a half ago I was fortunate enough to climb that mountain. The climbing party represented three generations, four households and ranged in age from nine to 71. Everyone made it to the summit. Even me.
There is now a picture stored on my hard drive of all of us standing on the summit with a string of Cascade peaks rising up like islands on the blue-gray horizon behind us. It was a neat moment for me. I hadn’t been to the summit of that mountain in at least 20 years and that was the most recent of the several Cascade summits I have climbed.
And there I stood, with my father nearby and my kids gathered around.
I had been to those summits because my dad started backpacking with me when I was just 6. Standing on that summit we could see a lot of places we had been together over the years. And we told stories of the trips we had taken at other times, when I was old enough to go without him.
Now, 35 summers later my kids (and my nephews and an extra young man of my acquaintance) are learning this pastime that gave my dad and me so much in common - even at that time (20-some years ago) when I didn’t think we had much in common.
So many of dad’s values followed me as I moved my unused backpacking gear from house to house when the kids were little and I wasn‘t backpacking. It took a few years for me to realize it, of course, but it happened. Now I’m the age he was when we were making those trips together and I’m hoping that my values are getting packed away in the gear my kids are gathering up. They’re already starting to move out on their own and I’m praying that his values that followed me follow them as well.
Besides all that, the trip was fantastic and the view from 10,380 feet is fantastic.

July 7, 2009

Sunday afternoon was one of those idyllic times that makes you want to live in a small town. OK, I ALWAYS want to live in a small town, but that’s beside the point. The fact is Sunday was a lot of fun. It was the first installment of the Colton Farmers’ Market.
The market idea was cooked up by a local woman who I think had made a habit of attending such things in other communities. “Why not do it here?” she said. Now she’s overworked and underpaid, but it sure was a lot of fun.
There were a dozen or so vendors selling everything from beets to soap to oil paintings to outhouses. Everyone was having fun. Kent was selling hamburgers, Dennis was playing old Johnny Cash tunes and everyone was enjoying the festival atmosphere.
There were loads of people there who could all call each other by their first names – even if they hadn’t seen each other for a while. One vendor, a guy in his late 30’s, met up with a woman he hadn’t seen since he was in elementary school. They sat and talked like they were old friends.
I wandered through the booths sniffing hand-made soaps and beeswax candles and sampling fresh produce. I learned that some people I only sort-of knew had talents and interests that I would never have guessed.
It was the sort of afternoon that makes me a small-town boy. It was the sort of day that makes you enjoy people and makes you think the sky is just a bit bluer than on ordinary days. One day I should probably write a country song about it.
That’s the allure of small-town living – knowing everybody’s name, meeting folks who know how to make do with whatever they have, living a little simpler and a little slower-paced. Besides, who wouldn’t want to live in a town where you can buy a hand-built, cedar-sided outhouse?

I’ve been trying to convince Eric to start a blog for about two years, now. All kinds of people have been telling him that he should be blogging. Recently, however, the two of us got to spend some time with a very knowledgeable and helpful woman named Lee, who also encouraged Eric to start blogging. This time, I think he might have listened.

(Thank you, Lee!)

So, in order to facilitate this huge step into the cyberspace world, I have added this blog page onto our church website. All Eric will have to do is give me (or one of our children) the text for his latest blog entry and I will see that it gets uploaded. What could be simpler than that?

~Wende