What a Month! In Edmonds, Washington and Cannon Beach, Oregon, a Great Family Adventure

Good news. Instead of reading a long story, you just LOOK -- and see pictures of my visit to Edmonds, Washington and Cannon Beach, Oregon.

Well, to be honest, there are captions. If that is too much, sorry. I'm trying to please! 

A panorama of Cannon Beach, taken by my wife Barbara, with the famous Haystack Rock in the distance.

We spent nearly a month in Edmonds, Washington visiting our daughter Misha, her husband Ed, and four grandkids, Mia, Bella, Max, and Talula. While there, we all piled into two cars for the 4-hour drive to Cannon Beach.

Now photos from Cannon Beach:

The gang --from left, Misha and Ed, holding Talula, myself and Barbara, and Bella, Max, and Mia (far right).

At night on Cannon Beach, the fun goes on. Here we roast marshmallows.

For more on Cannon Beach with all the links you need, click here.

While in Cannon Beach, Mia, Bella, and Max competed in an Irish dance competition, or Feis, at nearby Seaside. It was fascinating. Irish dancing is Gaelic in origin, high-stepping, and intricate. The Feis drew dancers from many states and Canada to Seaside's big convention center downtown.

The competition was fierce. But Mia, Max, and Bella all did well! Max was awarded a First Place for one of his dances, at his first Feis! Mia and Bella were awarded medals and trophies for most of their dances, both placing First in at least one dance each! Here they are below displaying their awards with their proud mom Misha.

Winners all! Misha altered and sewed Mia's dance outfit and made Max's vest. Next she'll make a dress for Bella!

In Bremerton, we went to the storied century-old Kitsap Forest Theater where we saw Mia and Bella perform as orphans in the musical "Annie," both with speaking roles. Deep in the forest and accessible by a quarter-mile dirt footpath, the show was, amazingly, of professional-quality.

Annie, Daddy Warbucks and his household staff belt out a song.

Mia, standing left, and Bella, sitting second from the right, play their roles as orphans.

After the show, we got to chitchat with the performers, including Daddy Warbucks himself.

We even got a chance to pose with "Annie," the star of the show, played by Sophie.

After the performance I went on a hike with Sophie's dad, Mark, to check out Kitsap's famous Big Tree. Mark had performed in the production, a first for him. He had no problem playing a small part while Sophie starred. He was proud of his little girl. (In the photo of the ensemble above, Mark is the servant second from left in the formal black suit.)

Now that is one big tree! It's also over 500 years old!

Kitsap Forest Theater is a magical place. For its remarkable history and operation, click here.


I also had a great time playing with the grandkids.

"Bald is beautiful," I told the kids. They said I needed hair and gave me some. A scary monster behind me! I had no idea. 

Through it all, Talula was, well,  all grown up. To her. 

The girls enjoy a nearby playground where I took them.

Max went flying from the neighborhood swing.

Max displays blackberries that he and I picked. We ate as we picked. Yummy!

 Ed is a great cook. His salmon dinner was delicious. His eyes are closed just to annoy me. It worked.

I also annoyed Ed. Here he is getting ready to toss his grumpy father-in-law in the ocean.

As is my habit, I also took off wandering here and there. On one such outing, I ended up at the beautiful Edmonds shore. I came across a few scenes I just had to capture.

When the divers seen in the first photo emerged, they kindly let me take their picture.

 Now was that too much to read?

What? I hear moans and groans! People, people, you can't be serious!

Now what the hell am I gonna do?

So long and keep moving.

NOTE:  I have a new short novel, Something Tells Her. Jane is abandoned at birth and then placed in ever-changing, uncaring, and often abusive foster homes. At age 12, her latest foster father makes a sexual advance on her and, with something telling her this is not right, rears back and kicks him you-know-where. Leaving him grabbing his crotch and yelping like a hurt dog, Jane runs out the door. On the street, alone, no family, nobody, not even a last name, how is she going to survive?  The E-book, is now available on Barnes and Noble and  Amazon. 

E-Books by George Pollock

"State Kid: Hero of Literacy" is fiction based on his real-life experiences growing up in foster homes; "Last Laughs," is the true story of how five foster kids (he and four younger siblings) found their way in life and each other. "Killers: Surprises in a Maximum Security Prison," is the story of his being locked up for 23 hours with killers in a maximum security prison; "I, Cadaver" is about his postmortem adventures and mischief in the anatomy lab at UMass Medical School. “A Beautiful Story” demonstrates the art and process of creative writing as a 16-year-old boy goes all out to write a story that literally saves his life. "Unlove Story," is the true story of a husband -- writing anonymously as "Elvis" -- who is dumped after 38 years of marriage and lets it all out on love, marriage, life, everything. A guy doing this? It's unheard of.

In Edmonds, Washington: Natural Beauty, Grandkids, and a Corner Office at Starbucks.

Edmonds, Washington -- unless you live there or thereabouts, it probably won't mean much to you. But if I wrote "Seattle, Washington," which is a mere 11 miles south, a light goes on.You think the Space Needle, rainy weather, Starbucks, and Amazon, right?

Edmonds? Blank.

That's how it used to be for me -- until our daughter and her husband and three kids moved to Edmonds three years ago.  Since then, Barbara and I have been spending  time in Edmonds -- recently returning from three weeks there -- and we're beginning to fall in love with it.

First, the beauty. Here's the family enjoying the beach, a short walk from downtown. Barbara is sitting on the log. In front of her are, from the left, son-in-law Ed, daughter Misha, granddaughters Mia, Talula, Bella, and far right, grandson Max.

 

Here are a couple more beach scenes:

 

Misha can't help taking photos. In addition to being a photographer, she is also an interior designer, painter, and -- a sure sign that she also has her feet on the ground -- a real estate agent. Some of her paintings, below, are on sale in a popular downtown cafe.

Not only did Misha and Ed house us in Edmonds, but Misha also took on a project for my sister Ruby: a sign for her Oxford, Mass. lakeside cottage. The job: make it something to be proud of and to last at least forever. We gave her the size. She did the rest.

Misha picked the wood (cedar), type (color and size) and background (of her own making). Most creative and remarkable of all, she drew and then painted in red, white and blue the Pollock symbol: a fish. Then, to weatherize, she sprayed front and back with polyurethane over a few days, letting the surface dry after each application.

It was an original work of art. It bowled me over. When I showed it to Ruby, her jaw dropped. It was the sign of her dreams. Everybody else in the family loved it too. Now, drum roll please, here is the new sign for Ruby's cottage:

Below left, grandkids Aidan and Nathaniel, are shown enjoying the lake at Pollock Place.
They swim and net our little fish friends for hours.

I also have my own personal doctor in Edmonds, Dr. Bella.  Here she is giving me my regular physical exam. She is very thorough and does it all.  Last summer, with her brother Max assisting, she gave me a heart transplant.

For this exam, Dr. Bella's sister Talula assisted.

Dr. Bella pronounced me healthy and well, though she was concerned about my age. She gave me a prescription for a cough.

When Talula is not assisting Dr. Bella, she screams bloody murder when things don't go her way. I got into a tiff with her over a drink of apple juice. I stood my ground and kept the drink. Then I got her another drink and we made up.

Mia and I talked a lot. She is 11. I am 75. Oh, you think that with such an age difference that we don't have anything to talk about? Well, we do.

For one thing, we talk about an upcoming E-book, "Something Tells Her." It is about a 12 year old girl, a foster child, who runs away from her latest abusive foster home. Alone on the streets, no family, nothing, how is she going to survive?

Written by Miabella T. Riley and Published by State Kid Publications, "Something tells Her" is the real deal. Miabella T. Riley is a pen name.  The author, whose childhood was spent in abusive foster homes, prefers to remain anonymous.

Spending time with Mia, I got to understand a 12-year-old girl -- how she thinks, what she knows and doesn't know, her fears. One afternoon the two of us walked to and from a park about twenty minutes away, talking the whole time. She can't wait to read "Something Tells Her."

Like her mom, Mia is multi-talented, a singer, dancer, actress, and a gymnast. Here she is performing during our park excursion.

The cover of "Something Tells Her" is done, with Mia posing as the girl. In the book, while her foster parents are playing with their own daughter and could care less where their meal ticket is, our heroine wanders down to the beach. She is about to wade into the rough waters when something tells her that she'd better not. She stays put.

On that beach on that day, another girl drowned. Here is the cover starring Mia:

Now Max, 6.  With three sisters, he's surrounded by girlyness.  So Max and I do guy stuff, such as tracking down the neighborhood monster. We found out where the monster is hiding -- in an abandoned house up the hill and around the corner. Next visit, we ambush him.


Max is shown here sitting across from me at Starbucks.   Unlike those gabby sisters of his, we two guys, he on his I-Pad and I on my computer, go long periods hardly saying a word.

One afternoon, Max and I walked to McDonald's where he got his favorite Happy Meal and then ran around the play equipment with other kids. On the way there and back, Max showed me how he could make the cars stop.

"Watch," he said at a crosswalk. He pressed the button. Sure enough, the cars stopped. He strutted across the street like a little emperor followed by his manservant.

"You made those cars stop," I said. "How did you do that?"

"Easy," he said with a flip of the hand. "Easy."

If afternoons were for kids, mornings were for editing "Something Tells Her" at Starbucks. I was there every morning between 6 and 6:30 and so had my choice of work spot. I picked the largest table, the handicapped table in the corner, and it quickly became my "office."

Ordering the same thing every day, coffee and a multi-grain roll, I worked every day until about noon.
At first, I wondered if the staff was going to show me the door. But all I got from every single one of them were smiles and apologies when one of them had to get something in the cabinet behind me.

"Sorry, sorry," they all said.

And they meant it, every single one of them. My corner office quickly became a home away from home.

I got to know other regular customers and they got to know me. Soon we were on a first name basis, chatting back and forth. It was like old home week. 

Two regulars are Mike and Elaine, pictured here. Elaine works for the post office and starts off her day at Starbucks. Mike, who lost a leg in naval service, always had a joke or happy story.

When I came in a little later one morning, I found Mike hovering over my regular spot. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"What do you think I'm doing? I'm saving your place."

With another regular, Dave, right, it might have gotten nasty in a place other than Starbucks in Edmonds. We both wanted my corner office.

When I came in a little later one morning and found Dave sitting there, I stood surprised and obviously disappointed. "Come on," Dave quickly said. "Sit down. We'll share it."

So I did and, between working, we laughed and told stories as everybody does in the Edmonds Starbucks. A couple of times that I was sitting in the corner office when Dave came in, I invited him to share. He waved me off. He wanted me to have the corner office.

Another two regulars are Eber and his wife Teresa, left. She goes by Terry. We chatted just about every day. Terry gave me a personal tour of the elder care facility nearby where she works.

On the day before I was to fly back to the east coast, she came over to my corner office. "I'm going to miss you," she said, clasping my hand. "I hope you come back soon."

"Gonna miss you, too," I said. "I'll be back soon. I love Edmonds."

Let me end now with a photo of Barbara and me. It was taken on the ferry to Kingston, a small quaint village where we had a wonderful few hours walking around, sipping coffee in a quaint cafe, and enjoying life and each other. Edmonds is in the background.

  So long and keep moving.

                                          Amazon E-Books by George Pollock

"Something Tells Her" is coming soon. Look for it here. Other E-books now available are: "State Kid: Hero of Literacy" is fiction based on his real-life experiences growing up in foster homes; "Last Laughs," is the true story of how five foster kids (he and four younger siblings) found their way in life and each other. "Killers: Surprises in a Maximum Security Prison," is the story of his being locked up for 23 hours with killers in a maximum security prison; "I, Cadaver" is about his postmortem adventures and mischief in the anatomy lab at UMass Medical School. “A Beautiful Story” demonstrates the art and process of creative writing as a 16-year-old boy goes all out to write a story that literally saves his life; "A Long, Happy, Healthy Life," is about how to live the title every day; and "Unlove Story," Writing anonymously as "Elvis," a husband, dumped after 38 years of marriage, lets it all out on love, marriage, life, everything. A guy doing this? It's unheard of.

 
For the Nook:

A Beautiful Story
A Long, Happy, Healthy Life
I, Cadaver
Killers

Seattle Comic Camera: From Clowns, Do We Get More than Laughs --- Maybe Much More?

Barbara and I are in beautiful Edmonds, just north of Seattle, visiting our daughter Misha, her husband Ed, and grandkids Mia, Bella, Max, and 9-month-old Talula. The clowning around has been going on practically nonstop -- much of it at my expense.

We had barely arrived when my granddaughter Mia jumps on the couch beside me.  Giggling, she pulls up a photo of me on her cell phone. Using a photo app, she puts a gold crown on my head, gives me outsized shades, and sticks a huge cigar in my mouth. 

She does this to me. Me, her own grandfather.  Where's the respect?

Mia also pokes  fun at  her 9-month old baby sister Talula, whose Christening  we had come to Seattle for. But, to be fair to Mia, little Talula herself is already showing signs of not taking life seriously.  

Brace yourself.  Talula, declining to be a cute baby for the camera, makes a mischievous, self-mocking face. Able only to goo-goo, she joshes with her tongue.

But Mia is not about to take this from her jokester baby sister. Tapping her cell phone, she turns Talula  into, well, we'll let the result, right, speak for itself.

Starting off life this way, clowning back and forth, how is poor little Talula ever going to grow up and take life seriously?

 
Honestly, little Talula has her work cut out for her. Above are her role-models dad and older sibs.  Mia is left, Bella right, and Max.  They exude  joie de vie.

Mia and Max, left, talk through their homemade communication system. Max is in a new mode of transportation that he built. It's a car, sort of. He's working on how to make it take him places. 


Of course, their dad and I take seriously our responsibility as role models, as in this photo. 

And, here I am above, the proud grandpa with Mia and Bella showing off  the hairdos inspired by their dad and grandpa. Not that I am always parading around in front of them. Sometimes I go for some quiet alone time in the playroom.

Naturally, as royalty -- I am George Francis Pollock the Third -- I wear my gold crown.  When Mia and Bella come into the playroom, always knocking first,  they come in bowing and scraping before "your royal  highness."  


Max, who has a stubborn side, has so far refused to bow to royalty. But, sooner or later, he will.  And so will Talula.  But I understand that, for her, learning to walk and talk must be priorities. A royal must be sensitive to the needs of his subjects.

Of course, this is all for fun and laughs. But what we get out of it, both the kids and us older adults, may be more than we know.  It so happens that, a few days after we arrived, people of the Northwest gave us a lesson in the importance and power of clowning around.

On July 22, Chris Wedes, better known J.P. Patches died at age 84 of multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer. He was a clown beloved by two Northwest generations who grew up watching him on TV.  From 1958 to 1981, he was the star of the locally-produced J.P. Patches Show, on Seattle's KIRO Channel 7.


 


The show was live, unrehearsed, pure improv.  For all those years, the clown made it up as he went along. In later years, even while coping with terminal disease, he performed at many local events. Always, always, he got laughs. And when the beloved clown died,  tears of mourning poured out for him.


As a comic legend of the Northwest, J.P. Patches reached into countless area hearts.  In a small way, I discovered this one day when I took Mia and Bella to the local playground. On the edge of where the kids play on the swings and climb iron bars, we found a little bouquet of flowers.


"Look at those flowers," I said.  "Somebody must have forgotten them."

But when we looked at them, we got a surprise.  They were left there on purpose, beside a little engraved metal remembrance -- of J.P. Patches, who lived in Edmonds. 

Mia and Bella are too young to know J.P. Patches. I filled them in.  "He was a clown. He made people laugh. A lot of grown-ups watched him on TV when they were kids. He just died and these people are very sad. One of them left these flowers for him."


Now Mia and Bella were sad.  "Let's honor J.P. Patches with a photo," I said.  Below is the photo of Mia and Bella beside the flowers and engraved memorial to the local comic.

Because life is hard work and packed with responsibilities, maybe J.P. Patches gave human beings a much needed break from it all. Maybe  J.P. Patches' craziness was just what the doctor should have ordered for many stressed-out people, but never did.


Ed has an insanely demanding job. If he doesn't perform, he doesn't get his incentive pay. He works long, long hours but still pitches in with child care to a remarkable extent.  With Misha, he conducts regular sensitive and caring family sessions discussing good and bad behavior and expectations.

But Ed is also often just like J.P. Patches, playing with his kids and making them laugh. For him, regular clowning around with the kids is a welcome, stress-relieving break. For the kids, whose pressures at school and making sense of the world are more intense than many parents realize, it's just plain fun playing around with dad.


Misha generally leaves the comedy to Ed, but always enjoys the show.  Whether she admits it or not, the comic relief undoubtedly helps her do the impossible day in and day out.  Besides taking primary responsibility for the care of four kids and all that entails, she runs her own interior design business, Misha Designs. She is a licensed real estate agent. She's a photographer. She's an artist.

Here she is actually making the gown that Talula was christened in.  You'll never guess where she got the fabric. Give up?  It was from the wedding dress her mom wore when she was married 42 years ago!  

At the other extreme, Misha will grab a shovel and do heavy landscaping work.  The first week we were there, she and Ed worked together for hours in the backyard getting it ready for Talula's Christening  party.  The two of them dug, shoveled, hauled rocks.  They ain't too proud for slave labor.

The last time we were out, in April, the back yard was overgrown and largely unusable.  We returned this week to a backyard that was a beautiful,  beckoning work of art.  Below  is a photo of the setting Misha  created with Christening guests enjoying it.  

The empty seat at the left front is where I was sitting.  I had to get a photo of this joyful scene. As always with Misha and Ed, the food was fabulous -- fritatta, ham, quiche, french toast, fresh fruit and more. In addition to everything else, Ed is a great cook.


 
Let me now show a few photos from our time in Edmonds.  I took some of them at a photo shoot at the Edmonds beach conducted by a professional photographer. While the pro worked like crazy trying to get kids to look at the camera and smile -- which is like trying to herd cats -- I lurked in the background looking for natural "money shots." 

Finally, when it comes to pretty women, I'm a guy. I have a roving eye. I saw two dolls on the beach and I couldn't help myself. They were just too gorgeous not to photograph.  OMG!  One is my wife Barbara!  The other is Misha's friend Molly's mom Pat -- who doesn't like her picture taken! I'm dead!

Pat, any chance you could consider this a "money shot?" What do you think?

Dear, listen, I just saw two great looking women. I wasn't going to come on to them, honest.

Oh well, it's been a good life.

So long and keep moving.

NOTE: George Pollock's novel,  State Kid: Hero of Literacy is now available as an E-book on Amazon (Kindle) and Barnes & Noble ( Nook).

Billy Stone was a foster child.

He ran away from abuse.

He went to juvenile prison.

He went up from there.

And he did it his way.

 

Through the power of the written word. 

Amazon E-Books by George Pollock

 "State Kid: Hero of Literacy" is fiction based on his  real-life experiences  growing up in foster homes; "Last Laughs," is the true story of how five foster kids (he and four younger siblings) found their way in life and each other. "Killers: Surprises in a Maximum Security Prison," is the story of his being locked up for 23 hours with killers in a maximum security prison;  "I, Cadaver" is about his postmortem adventures and mischief in the anatomy lab at UMass Medical School. “A Beautiful Story” demonstrates the art and process of creative writing as a 16-year-old boy goes all out to write a story that literally saves his life;  "A Long, Happy, Healthy Life,"  is about how to live the title every day; and "Unlove Story," Writing anonymously as "Elvis," a husband, dumped after 38 years of marriage, lets it all out on love, marriage, life, everything. A guy doing this? It's unheard of.

   For the Nook:

A Beautiful Story
A Long, Happy, Healthy Life
I, Cadaver
Killers
State Kid
Unlove Story