We — myself, Mary, and Alaric — visited Tolmie State Park, just off the Nisqually Reach, with Ji and Knut, and strolled along the rocky beach, relaxing. The water was soothing.
The trees were spectacular.
Knut led the way.
Today it’s back to the grind. My plan is to contact realtors to get an estimate on my mother’s house. I doubt that 50 years of memories will be included in the sale price.
Here in Victoria B.C. we have a small hill with the same name attached. We call it “Mount Tolmie” but it’s only about 120 meters high, with a tiny park on top. You can drive or bike up it. Decent viewpoint of the city. I wonder if the same Tolmie is involved. We also have a street after him. I have no idea who Tolmie was or even if he was a man, though memorial names to women are pretty scarce around here…
Ah, Wikipedia says that Simon Fraser Tolmie was a Premier of British Columbia in ancient times – i.e. 1928-33
This park is named after a Scot, William Fraser Tolmie, a Hudson’s Bay Company agent. The distinction between what was Canada and what was the US wasn’t so sharp in the 1840s, you know — so a bunch of places were named after him here in Washington state and in British Columbia.
You are right. The hill in Victoria is named after that Tolmie and not the later Premier. Actually Wikipedia says that Simon Fraser Tolmie was William’s son.
“The distinction between what was Canada and what was the US wasn’t so sharp in the 1840s”
Indeed. This pare of the continent was all pretty much owned by the Hudson Bay Company at one time.
He was also a notable botanist and friend to the local Indians who trekked all over Western WA and BC.
Maybe bring a video camera to document your mother’s home for the benefit of Knut .
When I was small I had very little patience for boring history, that part arrives when you are grown-up. I wish I had documented more about our farm before it was sold, and the new owner started rebuilding everything.
Seconding what birgerjohansson said. Bring a camera, still or video. Or both. Video formats change but an actual print doesn’t rely on anything other than your eyes. I look back at a lot of the photos that were just fun to take at the time and now they are priceless memories.
Don’t just take them for Knut and Iliana.
Take them for you.
Ah, I hope some rocks were skipped in that lovely smooth sea. Time with grandchildren is an excellent antidote to grief. I see the water has honored Knut by being calm and waveless.
Alaric is no less noble. (As noted by the Ric ending which denotes rulership)
Alaric I was the Visigoth King who led the final sack of Rome that ended the Western empire.
That’s my hood. My parents used to take us kids to that beach in the early 1970’s. Back then it was a county park called Jones Beach. There was a two seat vault toilet and that was the total of amenities.
The gravel beach there now is fake. It was laid down in the 1980’s to act as a breakwater to protect the buildings and bridge now in place. Before that, the beach was mostly a mud flat with a thin strip of sand above most high tides. Not great for human recreation but paradise for clams, snails, crabs, flounder, sand fleas, sand dollars and a rich variety of other flora & fauna.
The sand cliffs once were a attractive nuisance for us kids, what with the caves we dug partially collapsing on us or more commonly kids falling off them onto the driftwood logs below. But that was still better than our asphalt and steel playground equipment at school. Today, the cliffs are fenced off.
The creek there that flows into the Salish sea once supported a robust run of big fat chum salmon. The fish would get so backed up trying to make it up the creek they were easy targets for predators, us humans among them. A couple fish, two dozen Manila clams. a little driftwood, a half rack of Rain Dogs and the party was on.
I participated in the clearing out of my mothers house. Though I had not live there very long having already moved from my childhood home some years before I did live for a time in her last home. Makes no difference what you do there will be some things will get lost. It is in the memorabilia that truth and treasure is to be found. I was the one who ended up with much of that which was not disposed of maybe too much. Put in a self storage ware house when I recently move everything to new place I could still smell some familiar smells A life in small things and large all old now, the walls and doors with memories all inaccessible now, someone else is over writing all the past.
keep something cheap, mundane and personal with minimal intrinsic value save the memories along with all the old valuable family pieces