Ruston Way - Summer Requiem

After a glorious, sunny weekend away, I arrive home to a 60-degree house and rain, rain the next day. My furnace is on; summer is over. The carefree, in-short-sleeves walks along Ruston Way are now something to be remembered, not experienced. So, I expect this will be a last post for this year about the sights along and comments about the Ruston Way part of my community.

Ruston Way is much-used in the summer but it never feels crowded (unless you count the cars at almost gridlock on hot afternoons). The skateboarders are in evidence; bicyclists, too. The cyclists, who ride on the sidewalk because the roadway has no shoulder, are, for the most part, courteous and not out to scare the bejeezus out of pedestrians. I note, however, that unlike other places I have lived, cyclists here generally don't give you warning they are approaching from the rear with either a bell or a friendly "on your left" (although the latter doesn't work very well anyway for those directionally challenged).

I enjoy seeing the fishers, most of whom are on one of the piers. I'm curious who they are, how often  they come here, if they catch anything, and if they eat what they catch. I should ask them but instead I take a photo, from a distance so they don't feel self-conscious. I am nervous about taking someone's picture up close. I want to respect privacy and, truthfully, I don't want to be challenged. I see people sitting alone at picnic tables, benches, the seawall, or on a rock reading, writing, drawing, contemplating. Like my curiosity about the fishers, I'm interested in these people and would like to question them; ask them what they are doing. Perhaps I could create a "Blog pass" and ask to interview them.

One scene sticks with me. An attractive man, probably about my age, with a silver-gray ponytail, earring, wearing jeans, is lowering himself onto a bench with the help of a cane. For some reason, I think "Viet-Nam vet."  When I come back the other way, he is still there and is staring at a couple of pictures he has pulled from his wallet. They appear to be of a woman and a child. I am struck with sadness, although the tableau may not at all represent what I perceive.

Not very many days later, at the same spot, unmistakable happiness is represented by a bride and groom having their picture taken on the pier. Again, even though a professional photographer is taking pictures of them, I don't want to intrude. Instead, I sneak in a shot when they're not looking.



I start to look forward to reaching the historic fire boat because that's where I usually turn around to start back to my car. It's a shame people are not allowed to clamber around on the boat but that's the way of historic exhibits. I'm not necessarily a boat person, but when I see it, I'm reminded of the times I've seen the fire boats out on the water spraying huge arcs of water, looking very much like a skookum lawn sprinkler on steroids--a very showy display.

To reward and push myself just a little farther, I like to go just beyond the fire boat and the fireman's memorial to look, again, at the mosaic-tile seashell display that is somewhat hidden off the main path. I'm not sure why this installation brings me such pleasure but you should see for yourself.

The Walk to Proctor District

As a change of pace, we'll leave Ruston Way and walk to the Proctor District to transact some business. I need to go to the post office to mail a couple of big envelopes that seem to require a tricky formula to determine the amount of postage. But that's ok, because this gives me an excuse to combine my walk with takin' care of bidness. I love being able to walk to the Proctor District! I love being able to multi-task!

Even close to my home I enjoy some quirky things like the mural on the side of a big apartment building on the corner a block away. Over the last three years I've watched that building change from a decrepit (there's really not a more polite description), abandoned or possibly flop-house with a faded wall mural reminder of one of its former lives as a corner store (Oh! remember those? I have very fond memories of wonderful penny candy...yes, really, one cent for wax lips and mustaches; pop-filled wax tubes; licorice records with a little pink dot in the middle; lik-m-ade) to a well-kept, new windowed, carefully painted apartment building.

And just down the block from that refurbished building is a modest house with a completely immodest garden! This guy's garden contains flowers, apples, raspberries, strawberries, peas, beans, shrubs, pears....oh the list goes on....and that's just the part that lines the sidewalk. I really like this garden. It uses space to grow food and it's attractive, at least to those who prefer an over-the-top style of gardening...and there's no lawn.

But speaking of lawn, I'm always amazed when I come to two average blocks with average homes (nice, but not outstanding) that have the greenest, most velvety lawns I've seen outside a golf green. Did they all sign a pact? Do they all use the same gardener? Today I was rewarded with actually seeing two guys tending to one of the lawns--two, count them, two--one for the lawn mower that must have been lopping off about 1/4 inch of grass, if that, and the other with the ubiquitous weed whacker whirring oh so delicately around the saplings. I thought about taking a picture, but a shot of a patch of green with my point-and-shoot would not make my case.

About now, you're thinking will she ever get her envelopes mailed? Well, a walk with a camera is a great time to actually see many things that are not central to the task at hand and to remind me of my community connections. But I confess that the entire walk took less time than posting this blog. That's just crazy! And maybe a signal to me that's it's time to sign off.

Oh, but first. A word about hubris. [Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance]. So, I think to myself "I'll plant a couple of orange mums on my parking strip; they'll look really cool." So I did, and I was right--they were rude and sassy and I was pretty self-satisfied.


About two days later, I glanced out my front window and beheld.....my comeuppance. Most of the beautiful, showy, sassy flowers on the top of one of my mums were gone. I believe some uppity deer came along and had my chrysanthemum flowers for appetizers!

More Ruston Way Musings

The next stretch on Ruston Way, heading south, is good for adding a little running to my walking. I run until I can feel my shins protesting, with my heart and lungs the second wave of the protest, then settle back into a brisk walk. I read somewhere that the combination of sprinting and walking is good--similar to fartlek--and I'm sticking to it!

Although the wide sidewalk runs next to Ruston Way (with a lawn buffer) for much of its length, it also swoops close to the water and piers and picnic tables from time to time. I like this particular little swoop, which brings me close to some dune grass that has been planted, giving the area more of a beach feel and less of a parking area feel, which it is. In the summer, I often see groups of twenty-somethings sitting in lawn chairs in the lot next to their hot-roddish cars (this is Tacoma, after all) laughing, horsing around, flirting--the usual young-people-in-summer activities.

This heather (or is it a heath? I can never keep them straight) amazes and amuses me. It reminds me more of a sea plant than a dirt plant, which, given, its location, is entirely appropriate. I would like some of these in my yard but since I've banished pink from my front garden where most of the sunshine falls, I guess that's a no.

The question of why someone would banish pink, a perfectly acceptable flower color, from her front garden will undoubtedly be answered in excruciating detail when and if the posts on my Gardening community appear.

Ruston Way Musings

After reading one book and two articles that stated, unequivocally, that aerobic exercise was a primary (actually, only) factor in reducing the incidence or severity of senile dementia ("short-term memory loss" sounds so much less creepy), I decided I'd better get with the program. I started walking around my immediate neighborhood, then realized a five-minute drive would get me to the waterfront along Ruston Way.

I park my car at the northern-most end of the sidewalk along Ruston Way, only because it's the closest to my house and it seems quieter at that end. I notice after parking there a few days/weeks in a row that the same boat is anchored there, just offshore. It's not in a marina and looks deserted. What is it doing there? Are people living on board? If so, I never see them or even a curtain moving. When I was taking the picture, a woman getting out of her car asked if I was interested in buying the boat, then offered that if she ever buys a boat it will be a much nicer one! Ha! I liked that.


At the beginning of my walk, I see that a helpful someone has taped on a bollard distances to various points. Hmm, it's .73 miles miles to the Lobster Shop and although I usually walk just beyond there I'm sure it must be farther than that!

The next thing I encounter is one of the old foundations from a business that was located there in the past. When the City of Tacoma developed the linear park along Ruston Way, preserving and celebrating the past industrial uses was a key consideration. At low tide, I've seen people scramble around it and sunbathe on top (how do they get up there?). But I can't help thinking how cool that concrete hulk could be in a video--I'm sure it could serve some spooky purpose.

Next Post: more Ruston Way musings and pics

What is "community"?

I have been whining and complaining and yearning for years for "community." I had a sense of what I meant and knew that I would "know it when I saw it" (similar to the method Justice Potter Stewart used to define pornography, Jacobellis v. Ohio).

Then, in one of those "aha" moments, I realized that my geographic community gave me a great deal of pleasure; that I loved my neighborhood, my shopping district, my access to Puget Sound. Hmmm, that wasn't quite it, but that discovery led me to think about other communities that give shape to my life. And it gave me the idea to document my various communities, if for no other reason than to regularly remind myself of what I do have, rather than what I don't. Good idea, right?

And because it's fun to share discoveries and pictures with others (at least my family will read it--won't you?), this blog was born.