Letter to Editor | I remember when …

||| FROM SPIRIT EAGLE |||

When I first came to Orcas Island with my 15 year old daughter in April of 1986, I got a job at Doe Bay doing various things, including painting the cabins. Sometime after that, I got a job at Rosario. I was still wearing high heels back then, having just come from Dallas, Texas. While working there, a client staying at Rosario was about to leave and went to the front desk and was verbally abusive to the front desk person. When he finally left for the ferry, a person working there call the ferry landing toll booth and told them to misdirect that customer to Friday Harbor instead of the Mainland. That was island revenge back in the Good Ol’ Days.

For about those first two months we were homeless, living in our car, until we found a home: The McGlinn House, which is now the site of the new Opal Development: April’s Grove. It was a very big house with five bedrooms, a big living room, a dining area, and a very lovely, old fashioned kitchen. I rented out some of the bedrooms to some workers who needed a home, and it worked out quite well. The one draw-back for the house, was that it apparently was on what is called a Spirit Path. Which is a place, according to the Lummi People, where the spirits walk at night. They were just a presence, but one Saturday afternoon my daughter and I were sitting in the living room and we started to hear Native music and drums. Both of us, had participated in native ceremonials, so we identified what we were hearing. There were also two early 20^th century resident ghosts in the house. When the McGlinn House was burned down for practice by the fire department, a friend saw them run across North Beach Rd. toward the Funhouse.

I remember the crows who hung out in the trees there would follow me down to work at Homegrown everyday. On the morning when the Lummi people were coming over in two Purse-Seiners to Madrona Point with their shaman to identify places on Madrona Point that were burial areas, the crows escorted me in my walk all the way down to Madrona Point. On the day when the trees were cut at April’s Grove, the decedents of that same family of crows cried and cried out in outrage and they flew to where I live, and all day they were talking and wailing. It was very painful to experience.

Orcas was still a very inclusive place back in 1986. There were dances at The Grange to which all islanders came, from the very wealthy to the homeless, and everyone danced with each other. Although, most people were able to find some kind of living accommodation during this period. There was an article in the Island Sounder from the late 80’s that I found recently. It was a Letter To The Editor that said something like, “To the persons or person who stayed in my cabin over the winter, I appreciate it that you left it cleaner than when you found it, thank you.” The island was quite safe, a safe place to live. The attitude of islanders was a very accepting one, in which All people were welcomed as interesting people. It didn’t take very long to be sized up and then integrated into the community. Islanders were very open and sometimes amused by the newbies. Thinking back to that period, I would say that people, Islanders, actually welcomed the differences in all of us. It was a very accepting community.  And eventually, we fit in very nicely.

I was the first person that Rick and Jeanne Doty hired to work with them at Homegrown, which is now the CO-OP. There, I got to know quite a few people and that helped a lot in the integration into the community. Back then the roads weren’t paved in town, nor were there sidewalks. I remember that Jeanne would pull out her herbal books to assist customers in finding the right herbal remedy for their problems. One thing that surprised me was while driving, people would stop their cars, one going north, one going south, and begin a conversation through their car windows, even when there were cars behind them. No one got impatient, this was taken as neighborliness. Evidently, Orcas Islanders had as much time in the day as we do now, but they were more interested in people than we are today. It was pure neighborliness. Cars behind the two talkers patiently waited, until they finished their conversation. No one was in a hurry, after all, the island is only 56 miles end to end.

Orcas Islanders really did want to help each other out, and we did do so without the aid of a centralized organization. Of course, there were fewer people here then. On rare occasions when individuals were habitually exhibiting anti-social or criminal behavior, they were escorted by a deputy to the ferry landing and told to not come back. And they never did, that I know of. Before the animal shelter, animal lovers would take in the stray dogs and cats and try to find homes for them, they are a wonderful group of people. Eventually, the animal shelter was built.

When “My Fair Lady” was presented at the Orcas Center I was asked to sell tickets for it in town. I was also told to go to the closet where the costumes were and get a really outrageous outfit on. After I costumed up, I walked from the Orcas Center into town and set of a table there with tickets, and did quite well. Later on, I saw a women who had passed me in her car during my walk into town. She said “Oh my goodness, I thought you were one of the strange ones who show up on Orcas once in a while, I am so relieved you are selling tickets.” See, at the time there were still some long skirted hippies on the island, and other characters. Overall, I would say, it was a grand mix of people, which made the island an enjoyable place to be. The Ramtha people also added an additional dimension to the island milieu.  The cultural/financial divide was less evident at that time.

The inception of the change on Orcas came with the first real estate ad in the Wall Street Journal. My perception of the Island is that the separation of people started then. Before, we were One Island, multi-millionaires socially mixed with all strata of people in society. Weddings were attended by any islander who wanted to attend. Big parties, dancing, and fellowship, it didn’t matter what kind of car you drove, or what your name was, or how well you danced, or how handsome or beautiful you were, you were just an Islander, Islanders All.