Not since Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles” have I laughed so hard at a spoof of the legendary myths of the ol’ Wild West as I did watching friends and neighbors of San Juan Island going through their wild paces in the preview performance of “The Death & Life of Sneaky Fitch,” showing through Saturday in the San Juan Community Theatre.
You won’t get to play Capt. Jack Sparrow, but you’ll be forgiven if your imagination goes wild.
More than 70 people participated Island Rec’s 2008 Chalk It Up sidewalk art contest July 19.
Betty Chevalier Nash, with blue visor, was the oldest Mitchell Bay Indian at the Canoe Journey gathering at Roche Harbor, July 24. Mrs. Nash, whose mother was Swinomish, is a descendant on her father’s side of the Mitchell Bay people, whose place of origin on San Juan Island was near that of the Lummi.
Carl Stoddard has survived melanoma, bladder cancer, prostate cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Remarkably, his name has been changed to “Comeback Kid.”
It was a gathering Jimmie Jones would have liked. The sun shone brightly in a clear sky at this spot overlooking San Juan Valley, a spot he once told his family was the most beautiful place on the island. People shared funny stories. This was Jones’ funeral, but there was more laughter than tears. Then, as the small group of mourners dispersed, a plane flew overhead, as if in salute to this World War II airman who loved the skies.
They walk for their wives, their husbands, their parents and their children. Sometimes they walk for themselves. Breast cancer, skin cancer, leukemia, prostate cancer, lung cancer … the list of deadly culprits is as endless as the list of loved ones cancer has taken away.
Seventy years ago at Northwestern University, Professor Bergen Evans used to insist that his students read the King James version of the Bible and the works of Shakespeare while taking his sophomore English class.
Orcas Island resident Damien Stark will swim the Anacortes-to-Friday Harbor ferry route — 19.5 miles — Saturday and Sunday because he believes “There is no greater joy than … not the swimming itself, but the ability to use swimming in order to help someone else.” This has been what he calls his personal mantra as he swims almost every other day, all year long, in East Sound. And this is how “Swimming the Crossing for Breast Cancer” began.
A fabulous fiddler and soulful alto lead singer — combined with a trio of instrumental wizards that even use cat food tins as instruments — make up the eclectic American roots band of Rani Arbo & Daisy Mayhem.
Mawungira Enharira are masters of African instruments will play one night only for San Juan Islanders.
Lummi, Nooksack, Samish, Suquamish, Swinomish and Tulalip canoes arrive in the San Juans this week en route to Duncan, B.C., as part of the 2008 Canoe Journey.
The Lummi Arts Festival is Friday through Sunday, with events planned in three locations: The gallery on the corner of West and First streets, Dance Workshop II on Second Street, and the San Juan Historical Museum. The events are free and open to the public.
