Fairhaven

Fairhaven Village is Bellingham’s historic neighborhood. This week the Fairhaven community grieves the loss of its oldest commercial building in a fire. The Terminal Building was home to the Harris Avenue Café and Tony’s Coffee.

 

I’m part of the Fairhaven community because we share a dog. The last time I went into the coffee shop in the Terminal Building, Bear waited on the sidewalk while I ordered my usual: “Americano to go, four shots, black, 16 ounce cup with extra room because I’m walking my dog.” The barista looked outside and asked, “Is your dog Bear? I used to work across the street at Acme, and I miss him.”

Bellingham is blessed with an amazing network of trails. If I got to choose the route, we would stick to the waterfront or go through the woods. I’m a writer, so I like to commune with nature while dictating to my watch. 

But Bear is a people person. In particular, Bear is a people-with-treats-and-hugs person. Several welcoming businesses in Fairhaven keep dog treats behind the counter. Bear has calculated the shortest route to each such establishment. (If they’re closed, Bear insists on being compensated with something from my backpack.) Trading treats for hugs has become the highlight of many Fairhaven folks’ day. At Acme Ice Cream, the dyed-haired baristas have taught Bear to shake hands. At Village Books, Bear can count on Nathan for the best back scratches. On busy retail days, Bear’s contribution to the ambience can close a sale. On quiet days, there’s time for every lonely dog person to get a personal cuddle. 

 

Then Bear shakes his hair as if humans have cooties, and prepares to move on. As Heather at Acme said the other day, “I know you’ve got your other spots, Bear.”

This fall we expanded our treat-seeking itinerary. Bellingham residents who live in the neighborhoods around Fairhaven all receive copies of Southside Living, a glossy local real estate magazine. A recent article with the headline “Meet Skylar, a Fairhaven Regular” described one dog’s foraging route. Bear and I were already familiar with Village Books, Acme Ice Cream, and the Woods Coffee outpost in Boulevard Park. But we hadn’t heard about some of the other treat-offering businesses that Skylar regularly visits, including the toy store down the street. On our next walk through Fairhaven, Bear stopped by to introduce himself to the toy sellers. 

 

It turned out to be fake news – they politely directed us next door to Bay to Baker Trading Company. This made Bear think we’re supposed to stop at every shop on the block. But he quickly figured out which door had treats behind it. Now whenever we leave Acme, Bear drags me straight down the street to Bay to Baker. At each Fairhaven location, Bear offers all the loving craved by the various dog-starved baristas, bookstore clerks, and college students we encounter. But it’s the treats that bring him back.  

Long walks with Bear help me think clearly enough to get my work done. It’s been a challenging year. This summer we averaged over nine miles a day. During the darkest time of year we’re down to six miles a day. But this week we welcome Christmas, the solstice, and the return of light and hope. 

 

In addition to walking along the seawall in Vancouver or on other trails in Bellingham, this year Bear and I have walked along the Boardwalk connecting Fairhaven and Boulevard Park almost every day. Bear thinks it’s because the Boardwalk links the supply of treats in Fairhaven to his friends at Woods Coffee. Bear is a dog. 

 

Boulevard Park has always been my favorite spot in Bellingham, with its rocky beach and spectacular view of Canada, the Olympic Mountains, and the San Juan Islands. Nowadays our path takes us past the spot where the city has poured concrete for a bench donated in honor of Henry King, the genial homeless man who used to sit near there. Henry always saved food to share with Bear. He and my brother Doug Leishman both died this spring. Every day I walk along the waterfront with Bear and think of them fondly.  

Bear’s favorite spot in Bellingham is nearby, at the south end of the Boardwalk. We learned about the kitchen door at the Chrysalis Inn from the Southside Living article revealing Skylar’s secret pirate treasure map. It’s already become Bear’s dream destination. Nevertheless, this stop on our Fairhaven pilgrimage is bittersweet because Bear can’t count on a treat every time.

 

It’s a trick of lighting. Behind the glass door a long hall leads to the kitchen. Although we can see everything happening inside, Bear’s friends usually can’t see him unless they happen to be on their way to grab something from the walk-in fridge next to the exit. Bear is patient. But some days we need to move on without a restaurant treat.

 

Bear would say it’s worth the wait. Even the gourmet dog treats at Acme can’t compete, let along ordinary Milk-Bone® biscuits. One time the busboy brought out a huge piece of applewood-smoked bacon. (I would have eaten it myself, but he insisted on cuddling with Bear until the bacon was all gone.) Most days Bear gets generous chunks of chicken breast that didn’t make it into someone’s Caesar salad. 

 

Usually one of the dog-friendly kitchen workers emerges from the walk-in refrigerator with a handful of tender chicken. Occasionally they’ll bring out the whole plastic tub from the fridge. The first time I saw the treat tub, it was labeled with an expiration date and the name “Skylar.” But Bear has been busy exerting his charm. Now the tub just says “Woof!”

Postscript

This morning after I finished this essay and posted it to my blog, Bear and I walked to Fairhaven. Bear said hi to his friends at Village Books and Bay to Baker Trading Company. At Acme Ice Cream, Maddie’s farewell was similar to her co-worker Heather’s:  “Go see your other friends, Bear!”

 

Bear’s next stop after Fairhaven, Chrysalis Inn, is near the top of the Taylor Dock, where the Boardwalk begins. Before Bear started getting chicken at the kitchen door, this little park used to be one of our regular water stops. (Now Bear prefers to wait until the shelter on the Boardwalk, so he can cleanse his palate after his Caesar salad.) Even before we learned about Skylar’s secret stash at the Inn, Bear was already hanging out with the kitchen staff during their smoke break.

 

Today a couple of busboys on break called Bear over to say hi. Just as I was saying “We should have texted the kitchen to let them know Bear was on his way,” one of Bear’s favorite treat-boys came out the door – a piece of chicken breast in one hand, and an unlit cigarette in the other.

 

Walking Around Sidney Spit

During the 1990s, my friend Jim regularly invited me on his spring sailing trip from Seattle north to the San Juan and Gulf Islands. We would arrive in Victoria’s Inner Harbour in time to watch our more intense sailor buddies compete in the annual Swiftsure Yacht Race. After a fun weekend in Victoria fraternizing with friendly Canadians, our group would sail off to explore otherwise inaccessible gems like Wallace, Prevost, Sucia, and Patos Islands, before returning home to the drudgery of legal practice.

One of my favourite spots was Sidney Spit, just across the border in the Gulf Islands. We tied the Stella Maris to a mooring buoy in the bay, opened some refreshing beverages, and relaxed at the centre of the Salish Sea.

 Mt. Baker from Sidney Spit - © Mike Lathrop

From Sidney Spit you have a stunning view of four major mountain ranges:  the Olympics to the south, Vancouver Island to the west, the B.C. Coast Range to the north, and the Cascades to the east. 

 

As the crow flies, Sidney Spit is about thirty miles due west of Bellingham. On a clear day, the dogs and I can see the same four mountain ranges on our morning walk.

Last Friday morning Bear, Buster, and I began the walk in our own backyard on Bellingham’s South Hill. To the southwest we could see the Olympic Mountains looming in the distance beyond the San Juan Islands.

Crossing the street, from the neighbors’ driveway we saw the Cascade Range and Mount Baker to the east. As with so many other Northwest landmarks, Captain George Vancouver named the mountain during his voyages on H.M.S. Discovery. Joseph Baker, Vancouver’s third lieutenant, sighted the mountain on April 30, 1792. The native name for the mountain is “Kulshan,” which also refers to a local brewery and a middle school.

Mount Baker is the third highest peak in Washington, the second most active volcano, and the largest glacier field. Mount Baker ski area holds the world record for snowfall, with a total of 95 feet falling during the 1999 season. Like Mount Rainier and Mount Saint Helens, Mount Baker is part of the Cascade Volcanic Arc which extends from Mount Shasta in California to northern British Columbia.   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascade_Volcanoes

“Coast Range” and “Cascades” are actually names for the same set of mountains in two different countries. Geographers drew their boundary not at the 49th parallel but rather at the Frasier River, thirty miles north of the border. On our walks the dogs and I can see the Coast Range from the boardwalk at the foot of South Hill.

The fourth mountain range we saw on our morning walk is the spine of Vancouver Island in the distance to the west.

It was easier for Bear and me to see Vancouver Island during our sunset walk Friday evening:

You can’t actually see any mountains from our house itself – only from the top corner of the backyard. In contrast, at our previous rental house I could see a mountain in Canada with a distinctive double peak as I brushed my teeth in the master bathroom. It’s part of the Coast Range.

 

A couple years ago in “Photographic Memories,” I wrote about trying to identify the jagged mountain due north of Bellingham. Here’s how I drew it from memory:

Now that I have a fancy new iPhone with a telephoto lens, I can zero in on distant vistas. I figured out the name of the double-peaked mountain to the north is Golden Ears.

The city of Vancouver is forty miles northwest of Bellingham. Even without the zoom lens I can see the mountains of the Coast Range that tower above Vancouver. 

In the distance beyond Bellingham harbor you can see the familiar pair of snowcapped “Lions” above Capilano Gorge. Even though I can’t see Stanley Park, I know it’s there below the guardian peaks that give Lions’ Gate Bridge its name:

In the same picture you can see groomed ski slopes to the right of the Lions. When I was growing up in suburban Vancouver I saw the same white clearings from my bedroom window. 

 

Here’s how I drew my childhood view in “Photographic Memories”:

Pretty close, right?

 

At night, folks in Bellingham can see the ski slopes lit up:

It’s like a beacon from the Promised Land – reminding me that the Canada/US border has been closed by pandemic for the last 320 days.

Bonus pictures of Bear and mountain ranges:

Pickett Bridge*

Whatcom Creek flows four miles from Lake Whatcom to Bellingham Bay. This summer Bear and I tried walking the length of the creek. 

Our trek began easily at the dam in Bloedel-Donovan Park, near my parents’ house on top of Alabama Hill. Together with the creek itself, hikers then drop 300 feet in elevation along the network of trails through Whatcom Falls Park. You’ll observe energetic young salmon leaping at the fish hatchery, and foolish young humans diving at the cliff pools.

The trail peters out after you pass the cemetery and leave Whatcom Falls Park. There’s a stretch between the car dealerships and the freeway where blackberries would scratch you to death if you insisted on walking next to Whatcom Creek. Bear and I decided to fast forward instead.

 

The trail markers begin again as you approach downtown, although the path merely connects a series of parking lots. The creek, park, and trail finally converge again across the street from Bellingham High School. The greenery has mostly recovered from the rupture of the Olympic Pipeline in June 1999, when 277,000 gallons of gasoline poured into the creek then exploded.

 

The last stretch of creek and trail meanders behind City Hall and through Maritime Heritage Park to Bellingham’s waterfront/Superfund cleanup site. This is the sketchy part of downtown, with numerous primitive campsites intended for homeless people and substance abuse. Bear felt safer in the blackberry brambles.

Whatcom Creek’s last cascade pours into the salt water of Bellingham Bay at the site of the city’s original saw mill. It’s also the site of the first bridge across the creek.

 

Before white settlers and lumberjacks arrived, Coast Salish people from the Lummi tribe thrived in the narrow strip between the bay and the old growth rain forest. In 1856, the United States decided to build a fort to “protect” the settlers from Russians, Brits, and natives. The Army sent Captain George Pickett to supervise construction of the fort and a military road, including a wooden bridge across Whatcom Creek.

 

Captain Pickett also built a frame house on the hill above the creek. Pickett House is the oldest house in Bellingham, and the oldest house on its original foundation in the entire Pacific Northwest. Pickett married a local Native American woman named Morning Mist. Their son Jimmy Pickett was born in the house in 1857, the same year as the original bridge’s completion. Jimmy worked as a journalist and artist before dying in Portland in 1889.

The current cement bridge at the mouth of Whatcom Creek was built in 1920, just like the Peace Arch on the Canadian border twenty miles up the road. You can see a sliver of the century-old bridge in the upper left corner of the photo at the top of this essay.

 

George Pickett began his military career by graduating dead last in his class at West Point. Just like George Custer. A year after graduation, Pickett served as a lieutenant in the Mexican-American War. He was promoted to captain for heroically carrying the battalion flag to the roof of the enemy fortress in the Battle of Chapultepec. 

 

Captain Pickett’s next assignment after building a fort, house, bridge, and biracial son in Bellingham was to command American forces on nearby San Juan Island during the 1859 “Pig War” against the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Royal Navy. The two nations went to war because an American settler shot a British pig. (And because they couldn’t agree where to draw the international border between the mainland and Vancouver Island.) 

 

This time Pickett delegated responsibility for building the fort to Lieutenant Henry Robert, who had recently graduated fourth in his West Point class. Roberts’ staunch abolitionist father was the first president of Morehouse College. After building the American fort on San Juan Island, Lieutenant Roberts went on to serve as a Union general in the Army Corps of Engineers. And to write Robert’s Rules of Order.

 

During the Pig War hot-headed local military leaders, including Pickett, wanted to escalate the hostilities on San Juan Island into a full-blown international conflict. Which horrified their commanders when news of the pig incident finally reached Washington and London. Fortunately cooler heads prevailed. After twelve years of begrudging joint British-American occupation, an arbitration commission under the Kaiser’s leadership drew the international boundary in Haro Strait between the Canadian Gulf Islands and the American San Juan Islands.

In my Thursday blog essay last week, I wrote about the pop standard “Everything Happens to Me,” which Frank Sinatra introduced in 1940. My favorite versions are by Chet Baker and by The Whiffenpoofs of 1990. 

 

While researching the history of the song, I discovered that Timothée Chalamet recently performed “Everything Happens to Me” in the 2019 film A Rainy Day in New York. Chalamet was adorable as an openly gay youth in Call Me By Your Name, and then as the obviously gay character “Laurie” in Greta Gerwig’s remake of Little Women. I’m sure Chalamet would be adorable singing “Everything Happens to Me.” However, A Rainy Day in New York is Woody Allen’s latest film. So I couldn’t even watch Chalamet’s YouTube clip.

 

I don’t have enough information to know what happened thirty years ago when the Mia Farrow and Woody Allen households faced each other in courtrooms and across Central Park. It appears that everyone involved sincerely remembers and believes his or her own story, even though their memories conflict.

Meanwhile, a cascade of recent revelations about sexism and privilege has nudged society forward. With enough asterisks I could probably watch Woody Allen’s early funny work, or his brilliant middle films. But not the new stuff. If Me Too can’t change a man, it should change his art. Or at least our response to his art.

When the Civil War broke out, Virginia-native George Pickett was stationed on San Juan Island. Pickett immediately sailed across the bay to Bellingham for the purpose of resigning his commission. His commanders told Pickett he had to resign in person at Army headquarters. So Captain Pickett sailed to Tacoma, caught a steam ship to Panama, trekked across the isthmus, sailed to Virginia, then rode to Washington D.C. to finally resign from the Union Army in June 1861. 

 

Pickett had already been sworn in as a major in the Confederate Army three months earlier. During the Civil War he rose to the rank of brigadier general. Despite his various Pacific Northwest adventures, history only remembers George Pickett for “Pickett’s Charge” on July 3, 1863 at Gettysburg – the bloodiest clash at the bloodiest battle in the bloodiest war in American history.

The current bridge at the mouth of Whatcom Creek was named “Pickett Bridge” when it was built a century ago. The Pickett House on the hill above Whatcom Creek is now a museum, with extensive written material that tells the story of early Bellingham and George Pickett, warts and all. 

 

After white supremacists marched in Charlottesville in 2017, the Bellingham City Council voted to remove the modern sign next to the bridge over Whatcom Creek. The sign was a monument to a monument to a man. The man himself was complicated and interesting. But we don’t need a plaque, a bridge, or a road sign to tell George Pickett’s nineteenth-century story. Or to tell our shared story today.

Custom Frames

Every person’s story deserves a great frame.

Humans are driven to make sense of their experiences. Faced with a kaleidoscope of sensory stimuli, our powerful brains constantly look for patterns. Meanwhile our memories shuffle themselves in order to maintain a coherent model of our personal universe. Even when we can’t find any actual meaning out there, we usually manage to make something up, consciously or unconsciously. No matter how bad things get, I’d prefer to tell a “redemption story,” rather than be trapped in a “contamination story.” 

So how do we pick the right frame for our messiest stories?

  

As Dolly Levi might say, the real art lies in arranging things.

When I was in Seattle writing appellate briefs, I would inevitably reach a dithering Hamlet moment when I obsessed over some cosmic ordering principle – like whether to use Roman numerals rather than lettered headings, or to lead with the contract argument rather than the torts analysis. It’s lucky I began practicing law in the era of word processing rather than typewriters, because in prior decades I would have driven my long-suffering secretaries crazy. 

You don’t need to be a lawyer or an English Major to appreciate the overarching frame of Reason. It's central to science as well:  at what point in the story should we ask particular questions, or be prepared to answer others?

In contrast with the branching framework of computer algorithms and mathematical decision trees, a narrative describes a series of events unfolds like time in a fundamentally linear fashion from A to Z. 

Like the alphabet, raw narrative is pretty boring. Good storytelling therefore focuses on just a portion of the timeline. Extra fancy writers reject boring bougie sequential narratives with beginnings, middles, and endings. Go ahead, pretend you’re Homer starting things in medias res. It’s even more dazzling when you flip back and forth in time like Mrs. Dalloway, Memento, or the new Little Women movie. 

When it comes to legal writing, however, here’s a tip: you are not Virginia Woolf or Christopher Nolan. The judge or law clerk impatiently skimming your brief is not a Marxist semiotics professor. Regardless of where an auteur’s story would begin, your “Factual Background” section needs to be framed chronologically. That’s how human brains work best.

With geography, the default frame is a map. Each cartographer chooses the proper scale and selects relevant details:

However, the same basic information can also be framed pragmatically:

“Mapping U.S. rivers like a national subway system”

Or artistically:

"A Gorgeous Map Showing Every River Basin in the US"

With mental health, the starting place for any custom frame job is the DSM-5, or "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition," published by the American Psychiatric Association.

If you flip open a copy of the DSM-5, you'll be disappointed to see its lack of precision. Most classifications are pretty mushy. They're more like the menu from a classic Chinese restaurant – the doctor picks one from column A and two from column B, and the patient gets a tasty label.

Here's the DSM menu for Malignant Narcissism:

As with the Bible and the Koran, wars are fought over each edition of the DSM. For example, is homosexuality a mental illness? No. (DSM-III, finally). Does a PTSD diagnosis require evidence of physical violence? No. (But I can tell you from personal experience that not all healthcare providers have kept up with recent journals.)

I recently read several memoirs where the each of the authors agonized over their precise diagnosis. For example, in The Collected Schizophrenias, Esme Wiejun Wang jousted with her therapist for years over the difference between "Schizophrenia (295.90 F20.9) and "Schizophrenic Disorder, Bipolar type" (295.70 F25.0). One of the factors that contributed to my childhood best friend's suicide twenty years ago was his discovery that a therapist had concealed Paul's borderline personality diagnosis. These ultimately arbitrary labels can make a huge difference in real lives.

Viewing mental challenges through new prisms can also bring healing. Last year I read a fascinating article on Slate, "Trauma in Plain Sight," which described the huge percentage of homeless people who suffer from PTSD. Including the author herself – who said getting a PTSD diagnosis changed her life, because she finally had a treatable problem.

I decided to write about Custom Frames this week because I recently published "Artificial Emotional Intelligence." Some of my social anxiety challenges paralleled the experiences described by highly-functioning individuals on the autism spectrum. 

I could probably game an online Asperger's quiz enough to get myself at least a Bill Gates-level diagnosis. But I suspect if I tried running these findings past my marvelous Bellingham physician Dr. Heuristic, he would quickly point out where the analogy breaks down. 

More importantly, in sharing the various life hacks I've figured out so far, I do not intend disrespect to anyone who struggles with their own unique challenges. 

As far as I know, none of my healthcare providers has ever written down a mental health diagnosis on my charts with more specificity than "Generalized Anxiety." I suspect anything else would overwhelm the bureaucratic drones who process insurance paperwork. 

I don't mind, because my doctor's actual treatment is working. The real purpose of good frames is to hold lenses that will help you to see clearly.