Category Archives: Random Musings

The main storage bin for my weekly blogs.

What the hell was I thinking?

I’m pretty tech savvy.

I know my way around a computer. Thanks to some patient techy gurus over the years, I’ve learned a lot about those beastly machines that we stare out every minute of every day.

But not all technology is kind.

For years, I fought the idea of using a Keurig coffee-making machine. Oh, I’ve used them at times when visiting friends that have them and, so I don’t look inept, I learned how they work.

Then, recently, one was made available to me and so I thought, “What the heck?” and set it up on the table around 12-feet behind my desk. I was thinking, “That’ll be so convenient! Now I won’t have to run up and down the stairs to the coffee maker kitchen. I can have a hot cup of coffee anytime I want it in a couple of minutes.”

Or, so I thought.

It sounds so simple on paper. But here’s how it has been working for me. It’s late in the morning or early afternoon and its been hours since I finished my daily pot of coffee and I’m feeling like I could use a boost about now. So, I get up, walk over to the Keurig and turn it on. Yeah, it has to warm up first.

I go back to work. A half-hour or so passes and I think to myself, “Whatever happened to that coffee? Oh, yeah, I forgot to make it.” So I go over, put in a new pod, hit the brew button and go back to work.

Another half hour passes and I’m feeling like that cup of coffee and I realize, “Crap! I never went over and picked it up!” So, I have to take the now lukewarm coffee upstairs, stick it in the microwave for a minute and then, finally, I’ve got my hot cup of coffee.

I take a sip, get back into work and by the time I remember I’ve got a cup waiting to be drank, it has cooled down to tepid at best.

So let us review: 30-minutes Keurig warm-up, 30-minutes after I brew the coffee, I pick it up, take it upstairs and zap it, then bring it back down. Easily 80-minutes of time invested in having a convenient cup of coffee.

What the hell was I thinking?

Tim Hunter

An Amazon Christmas Miracle

There are so many reasons to not like Amazon. The impact it has on smaller businesses, the fact you can’t just talk to anyone there, etc.

I’m old enough to remember when they started back in 1995. They ran radio commercials, bragging how they were the largest bookstore in the world. Just as Nordstrom started out as a shoe store, then went full-on clothing, Amazon kept growing and growing and soon, started selling everything under the sun. As the New Year begins, they’re going to begin drone delivered in two U.S. cities, Lockeford, California and College Station, Texas.

I tend to be a steady Amazon shopper. Did you know that if you use them through the website smile.amazon.com, every time you buy something, they make a donation to a charity of your choice? I have my monetary fragments going towards the Norwegian Ladies Chorus of Seattle.

What really appeals to me about Amazon is that you can buy something and they take care of delivery. If you purchased something at a store, you’d have to wrap it for shipping, then take it to the post office. If you’re an Amazon member, shipping is free! For me, that more than pays for the annual membership.

But it’s not a perfect world, and that includes Amazon.

So, this year, for my mom’s Christmas present, I thought it would be cool to get her a new bird bath for the backyard. She currently has an ceramic, perhaps cement bird bath in the center of the backyard that, every year, she would paint again with this sky-blue paint I bought back in 1972 to paint the Senior Pond at Torrance High School, during a pond-cleaning party. After 50 years, the paint finally ran out. (God knows how much lead was in there) So, it’s definitely time for a new bird bath.

Being a fan of hummingbirds, I thought mom would like this one and so I ordered it for her.

Three days later, I was notified that it had been delivered. Yes, on the box, it said “Paper Towels” and I thought, “How clever? So she doesn’t know what it is, they put Paper Towels on the outside. Brilliant!!”

Then the big day finally arrived. And what should appear as my 94-year-old mother opened up this cherished gift from her eldest child and only son?

Friggin’ paper towels.

Well, that tainted Christmas and later in the day, I got online with Amazon to chat with one of their representatives working on the holiday. The first agent was great, apologetic and said mom could just keep the paper towels and they’d get her a new bird bath. Great!

But then he transferred me to a less sympathetic, pissed-off-they-were-working-on-Christmas-Day employee who told me, “Nope! You’ve got to return those paper towels or we can’t issue you a refund.”

I explained and re-explained what happened, that they had screwed up royally, but she said, “Return those paper towels or no refund.” Oh, sure, what could possibly go wrong with that? The UPS guy shows up to pick up a bird bath and the box says ‘Paper Towels’. Or, it gets all the way back to Amazon and they say, “This isn’t a bird bath! He’s trying to scam us!”

Now, it’s not like my mom doesn’t like paper towels. In fact, she said that she actually needed some.

Thanks to sage advice from my youngest sibling, Debbie, I reached out to Amazon again this morning. Debbie’s thought is that when you’re talking Christmas Day, you’re going to get a member of the Customer Service B-team and she was right. Her theory continues that, the later in the day, the lower the grade and by 5pm you’re chatting with the D- or E-Team.

Well, this morning, the Tuesday after Christmas, I was connected with Ashish, who apparently has a Master’s Degree in customer service and by the time we were done chatting, she had fixed everything. My refund was on the way, mom gets to keep her paper towels, and mom’s actual bird bath will arrive on Friday.

It was an Amazon Christmas miracle.

And to all, a good night!

Tim Hunter

The Tradition Continues

Some people have normal holiday traditions, like making home-made eggnog or having prime rib for Christmas dinner.

I make a music video.

With my career in radio, I’ve always created just the audio portion of parody songs and around the time the holiday season arrives, I start thinking that way. What could I do this year?

A lot of times, that would result in me writing up the lyrics, creating the necessary music bed, and then singing it myself. I’m not awful, I’ll hit most of the notes and it’s all for the sake of being silly. Here are a couple of early gems from back in my KLSY days, “Snow Rider” and “Tired of the Snow.”

Yeah, I have fun.

Then, 11 years ago, my buddy at Destination Market, radio brother Scott Burns introduced me to a young lady named Alana Baxter. She was in to do a commercial voice, but it eventually leaked out that she was a singer. A real, on-key singer. I asked if she would be up for working together and suddenly, I had a partner.

In the past 11 years, we’ve created 10 gems that you can view here on my YouTube channel. I’ve created a playlist just for them. In those early years, I was filming with a Flip camera (remember those?), I then switched to a Canon 70D SLR camera but eventually, I just started using the technology available from my iPhone and it worked just fine. I mean, we’re not creating feature films here.

They’re good enough for a laugh.

And that’s the goal of each of those videos. But before I share with you this year’s triumph, while out scouting out scenes to use as a background, we came upon the Nutcracker House in Ballard. Someone actually bought all the props from a previous Pacific Northwest Ballet production of The Nutcracker and they put them up every year for the holiday season. Talk about your ultimate display!

But as we got out of the car, Alana experienced a rush of memories because she, as a young girl, was in many of those productions. When she started telling me stories I said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s not waste this.”

So here is Alana’s personal tour of the Nutcracker house display.

So, after filming this tour and a few scenes for this year’s video, “Do You Have What I Have?”, we continued hopping around to various places like Swanson’s Nursery and a newer Seattle holiday attraction, Kringle’s Filling Station and in two hours, we had all the footage we needed to complete the music video.

After six hours of “grabbing edit time when it’s available”, I managed to put together this year’s song and I’m proud. Actually, I’m proud of each of the treasures we’ve produced over the years. To see the complete collection of Alana song videos, just click here.

After you’ve enjoyed this year’s achievement. Have a merry one.

And the tradition continues.

Tim Hunter

A Thought Salad

Yeah, each week, I try to focus on one thing and take a deep dive, but I got a bunch of topics rattling through my brain this week, so here goes.

A SUCCESSFUL JULEBORD

That’s the Nordic Christmas I emcee every year for the Norwegian American Chamber of Commerce at the Seattle Golf Club, pronounced YOOL-uh-bord. Last Friday was the big day and really, the kickoff to my holiday season activities. I went in, armed with jokes for my monologue and another Christmas parody song I had worked up. I took “Whoomp! There it is!” and changed it to “Whoomp! Julebord.”

I started up the music, yelled out, “Nordic people. It’s me, your emcee, back here at SGC, with just the right song for our Julebord today…that goes a little like this…..”

CLICK THIS TO HEAR IT

Adding to the fun, I had my musical partner in Christmas music crime, Alana Baxter, join me to rap, and then dance while I wrapped it up.

Oh, and that’s “Shot ‘o Linie”.

The sad part is that I don’t think there’s any video of that performance, but it worked out better than we could have planned. First, to go from a formal dinner to “Whoomp! Julebord!” in less than a couple of minutes and two, we had Alana dress up like part of the wait-staff, so when I handed her the microphone as if to challenge her, she took off. Just awesome.

NO IT ISN’T

Yes, I order way too much from Amazon. So, having my Alexa say, “You have a package delivered” is not unusual. But then, I got photo confirmation, and it looked like this:

I see the package and think to myself, “Oh, cool! It arrived.” But then I took a more careful look and had to ask, “Uh, whose front door is that?”

So, I thought I would stroll the neighborhood and I didn’t have to go far. Keeping my eyes peeled for some orange doors, I found the above scene at my next-door neighbor Carl’s house.

Seriously, how hard is it to match up address numbers?

LUTEFISK AND MEATBALLS

So, Saturday afternoon, we attended the Bothell Sons of Norway’s annual Lutefisk and Meatballs dinner at their lodge on Bothell-Everett Highway. Being in that neighborhood the first weekend of December was not unusual for me, as for most of 16 years, I was the town crier across the street at the now-defunct Country Village Shopping Center.

I used to crack jokes to the crowd gathered at the Village about the Lutefisk dinner across the street and how the Haz-Mat team was over there cleaning up. But now, I’m over on the other side of the highway.

And man, what a treat!

The amazing crew of volunteers there cooks up enough meals for over 500 people in one day, at $35 a pop. And every year–sold out.

I can understand why. It was delicious. The much-maligned cod, when prepared properly, is delicious. I had two helpings, some of the people we were with went back for thirds.

And we were stuffed.

EVENTUALLY, WE’LL ALL BE CONNECTED

So, you’re aware of this blog. Checking the date, my very first entry goes back to Veterans Day of 2008. So, a new blog once a week, 52 weeks in a year times 14 years and you have well over 100 blogs and counting. (I didn’t want to do the math)

Thanks for the read.

Tim Hunter

Well, Here We Go

I debated as to whether I should tackle this particular topic in this rather intimate space. But I have tried to be an open book here, with my honest feelings, opinions, while also passing along the events and adventures that have gone on in my life, both good and bad.

So, yeah, it’s time to talk about a little bad.

Now, before I pass along the breaking news, this is not a plea for pity. I’ve known several people to go down this road and while we touched the surface of their experience, I’m finding out there’s a lot more when they move you to the front lines. It’s not going to be the only thing I talk about from now on, but there will probably a week or two where I share something that could be beneficial to know for someone fighting prostate cancer.

Up until my diagnosis 10 days ago or so, to me, prostate cancer was that, “Oh, it’s no big deal” cancer.

  • Sure, these days, they cure it all the time.
  • Yeah, a couple of rounds of radiation and it’ll all be behind you.
  • I know lots of people who have had it and they’re now cancer-free!

And so on….

It’s a bit more complicated than that, because no two diagnosis, patients, treatments and results are alike.

We’ve (that referring to me and my personal physician) have been keeping an eye on my situation because of my rising PSA numbers over the past 5 or so years. Since we’re making this an educational class and you may put in for college credit, the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test is a blood test that measures the level of PSA in a sample of your blood. They use the numbers as a measurement that may indicate if there is cancer present. If your doctor notices your number has exceeded X, he sends you to a urologist who tells you that an increased number is natural for men as they get older. That happens a couple of times, the PSA continues to go up, so then they do a prostate biopsy. Yes, the fun-filled task of taking a dozen plugs out of various parts of your prostate, to see if they can strike cancer. In recent years, I’ve had two of those with no cancer to be found.

But in my most recent blood work, I must have hit a magic number, which trigged getting an MRI and undergoing an “Artemis Biopsy”, which includes the traditional 12 plugs plus 3 bonus plugs that are taken out of the area where the MRI showed as suspicious. Once again, the 12 were fine, but the bonus plugs put me in that fast-growing club nobody wants to belong to.

The really good news: the cancer appeared to be confined to the prostate and I somehow managed to get the slowest growing cancer available. If you were going to have cancer, this is the one to get.

What’s next? Homework. My urologist ran through all of the treatment possibilities and instructed me to set up consults with two different doctors–one, in case I wanted to go the surgery route and the other, for radiation. Those are in the works.

An almost-relative and retired Seattle urologist graciously offered to look at my lab results and come to our home (yeah, a doctor making an actual house call), taking my wife and I through each possible procedure, the pro’s and con’s of each and answered all of our questions. I’m sure there will be more.

I also wanted to talk to people I knew who had been down this road before. I have a high school buddy that I’ve stayed in touch with, as well as another friend, all of us the same age, both who had to deal with this challenge. They each were diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer but, after Proton treatments, they appeared to have beaten it. Or, so I thought. After having lunch today with my high school buddy, even though he was zapped 6 years ago and considered cured, the cancer came back with a vengeance. Once again, he’s fighting stage 4.

I don’t need to go into details on what happens with the surgery or the radiation treatments, but as one friend said, “Things just aren’t going to be the same again.” The first couple of days after finding out I actually had it, I went from sad, to angry, to depressed, to overwhelmed. There are a lot of decisions to come over the next couple of weeks and then, whatever happens with treatment. Again, with having the slowest-growing variety, I don’t have to rush my decision. But when you’re hearing about the after-effects of which ever direction I go and hear things like “incontinence” and “impotence” and other i-words, frankly, it rattles your world.

My dad had prostate cancer very late in life. So late, the doctor said that he would die of something else before the prostate cancer took him and they were right. He was diagnosed in his late 80s, I’m in my late 60s. I don’t understand why my prostate was in such a hurry.

At this point, I’m going to do everything in my power to continue doing all the things I do and then deal with this in my spare time. It’s therapeutic to dive into my comedy-writing, advertising, video production and all the things I love to do because I actually forget this is even going on. Until I notice that piece of paper to my left which reminds me of the appointments I still need to set up.

I’ve still got a Julebord to emcee this Friday, an annual Christmas CD to put together and I’m working on another holiday parody song with Alana Baxter, plus getting out the annual Christmas letter, the Christmas cards, gotta grab a tree and do some shopping. There’s a lot of really good, fun, positive stuff coming and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it.

While also dealing with the elephant in my prostate.

Well, here we go!

Tim Hunter

AND WE ALL MOVE ON…

The best thing about getting older is that, of course, it’s better than the alternative.

But as I continue to rack up the years, I see others who don’t get to enjoy that good fortune. We’re all blessed with a certain amount of time on this planet, we just don’t know how much. The only consistent thing is that it’s never enough.

AUNT DORIS

Last weekend, we lost my Aunt Doris. She was the fourth of the six Brandner kids raised on the family farm just outside of Roscoe, South Dakota and in her lifetime, she didn’t get very far away. After getting married, she and her husband worked another nearby farm until he died at a young age and their oldest son, my cousin Clay, took over. Doris moved “into town” which is where she called home up until she passed at the age of 88 last weekend.

The day before passing, my mom was able to have a nice chat over the phone with her. Doris was so excited about being driven over to Ipswich, a nearby town with an actual grocery store. When you’re confined to an apartment in a small town of 269 people, something like a trip to a real-live grocery store can be a big deal.

The next day, following all the excitement of Friday, Doris had a ticket for a performance of the Edmunds Central High School’s production of “Trouble in Tumbleweed,” featuring her granddaughter, Ember.

By the way, Edmunds Central serves 32 students, grades 9-12.

Aunt Doris enjoyed the play, but as it concluded, she went to applaud and couldn’t raise one of her arms. It was the beginning of a stroke and, of course, for an ambulance to get her to a hospital, it had to be summoned from another city. By the time it arrived and Doris made the 45-minute trek to the big city of Aberdeen where the hospital was, things did not look good. In the wee hours of the next morning, she went to her eternal reward.

The last time I got to see Aunt Doris was at a Brandner sisters reunion back in 2019, which seems like yesterday. Doris and her sister Virginia left the Dakotas to travel all the way to Portland, Oregon, where youngest sister Judy lived. My mom and sister Debbie headed north from L.A. and my wife Victoria and I headed south to the Rose City for a couple of days.

I’m sure I have video of that group, as pretty much, when one or more are gathered, it turns into a laugh-fest.

Even though I would only see Aunt Doris and the rest of the South Dakota clan every couple of 5 years or so, when we were together, we just picked up where we left off before. I had kept up on her life thanks to my mom’s updates on the phone, but one of the most endearing things about Aunt Doris: for most of my life, she would always take the time to send me a birthday card every September. And not just a “Happy birthday, Doris” signature, but a hand-written, detailed update on everything that had been going on in Roscoe and her life that sometimes would often spill over to the back side of the card.

I’m pretty sure I saved every one of those cards. I’m going to have to dig them out and read ’em again.

What a sweetheart. Enjoy your rest. You will be missed.

MR. SLATER

Say what you want about Facebook, and I know you will, but it does allow us to keep up with people from our long ago past. This morning, I saw a post announcing to the world that my high school drama teacher, Mr. Slater had passed away at the age of 90.

I call him Mr. Slater because that’s what you called teachers back in my high school days. His full name was Charles Slater, he was the head of the drama department at Torrance High, and while I wasn’t into the drama thing, there was a time when a friend had written a play and asked if I would try out for one of the parts in his production of, “Nuts!” (hold the wisecracks at least for a moment) I got the role, Mr. Slater oversaw the production and made me as good as I could have possibly been. Acting was not my forte, but being goofy was, and somehow, we pulled it off.

That was my only real connection with Mr. S, but of the drama students I knew, they loved the heck out of him. Picture a Gene Wilder type appearance, with the big eyes and the curly 70s perm, and you have Mr. Slater.

Man, the power teachers have to make a difference in their student’s lives. It’s been 50 years since I roamed the halls of Torrance High School and I still find myself relying on some of the lessons learned there.

To all the teachers at THS, thank you.

DWIGHT PERRY

Now, wait a minute–Dwight’s still with us! In fact, they held a retirement party for him last Sunday as he hangs up whatever you hang up after you’ve been a sportswriter in the Seattle area for an eternity. Dwight not only turned the big 7-0 last weekend, but his kids organized a retirement gathering for him (on a Seahawks bye week, I must point out) so friends and colleagues could gather in Kent to celebrate his contributions to multiple print media outlets in the area, including the Seattle PI and the Seattle Times. His weekly column, Sideline Chatter, in the Seattle Times was responsible for countless people saying, “Hey, Tim, I saw you in the newspaper.”

Years ago, I decided to add Dwight to my weekly Wacky Week joke list and once a month or so, one of my lines would tickle his funny bone and he would stick it into his column. I will be forever grateful. In fact, there were times that some of my jokes that Dwight included in his Seattle column would show up in other newspapers around the country, so he was apparently being watched. To that end, when his daughter sent me an invite to attend his retirement bash, I had to at least make an appearance to say thanks. While the gathering was heavy on newspaper types, I had a great chance to meet and chat with Dwight’s son Matt, and meet one of his colleagues, Justice Hill. Mr. Hill still writes a weekly column for Cleveland.com but you’ll want to check his main website and follow his travels. Getting around the globe is what he’s doing these days and posting about his adventures right here.

I had forgotten that Dwight suffered a series of strokes last year that set him back for a while, but he got back up on his Sideline Chatter horse and returned to putting out those fun, positive stories for sports fans. I’m sure hoping that someone takes over that column, but if and when that happens, Dwight Perry is going to be a tough act to follow.

Enjoy your downtime, Dwight! You can just see how thrilled he was to finally meet me in person.

And we all move on….

Tim Hunter

It Really Happened

I have to be honest, something like this has never happened to me before.

Oh, there was that time I went “ghost hunting” with my producer, Bryon, at a south end cemetery on Halloween years ago and we talked ourselves into believing we saw some misty figures off in the distance. I wouldn’t swear to it in a court of law, but for the sake of a bit on the radio, sure, I saw something.

And I’m still not totally convinced I saw an actual ghost a couple of weeks ago, but it’s probably the closest thing to it that I’ve experienced.

So, it was a Sunday afternoon. That morning, my wife and I made a rare cameo appearance at a service at Our Redeemer’s Lutheran Church in Ballard. We had bumped into Pastor Gretchen at the grocery store the week before and she reminded us that All Saints’ Day was coming up, when everyone was invited to bring along a picture of someone they had lost and put it up in a window of the church. And so, we brought along a picture of my wife’s father, Ernie, who passed away last year.

After church, we enjoyed a rare day of not much to do, watching the Seahawks on TV and then after the game, running a couple of quick errands. As we headed home, we traveled west on 125th Street in Seattle, which happens to run right in front of the Evergreen-Washelli cemetery, where Ernie enjoys his eternal rest. I drive by that spot a lot and always look over his direction, just to make sure all is well. But this time, as I glanced over while I was driving, I immediately got chills. There, in the cemetery, not far from Ernie’s final resting place, was a man of his stature, in a blue oversized coat, just like the one he used to always wear, walking a big puffy white dog. Since I was driving, I’d check to make sure I wasn’t about to run into anything, then over to the cemetery, then back to the road and so forth until the cemetery was out of view. I didn’t stop, as I wasn’t really sure what I was seeing, plus, I didn’t want to say something that might freak out my wife.

But I was pretty damn sure that was Ernie.

I told Victoria about the sighting later and she found it “cool.” So, she didn’t freak out. If I had known that, I might have slammed on the breaks and yelled out, “Look!” But I didn’t.

I don’t know what’s in store for us in heaven or whatever awaits us after this life, but I’ve got my fingers crossed that wherever we end up, we get to spend eternity enjoying the things we loved. Ernie loved walking that dog, and people recognized him around his neighborhood as “that guy who walks the big, white, fluffy dog.”

And for probably 10-seconds, I got to see him again. Or, I think it was him. It had to be him.

It’s a moment I’ll never forget. And I know, one thing’s for sure–it really happened.

So, I thought I would share.

Tim Hunter

Let’s get political, political…

Yes, I’m going to take a gingerly stroll down this topic on the eve of those infamous mid-term elections.

No preaching, no secret agenda. You see, I’m old enough to remember when people could actually DISCUSS politics, without one thinking the other was a monster for having an opposite view. Flashing back 60 years ago when I was a kid, I recall my parents having friends over and them discussing the upcoming presidential election. (Gee, that would have made me 5-years-old) The phrase that stuck in my brain was, “Someone said that if Kennedy’s elected, he’ll have us all praying to Mary!” (Kennedy was a Roman Catholic. You know, the ones who wore togas)

Zip back a mere 40 years, and I can still see news coverage of President Ronald Reagan having beers with House Speaker “Tip” O’Neal. Yes, a Republican and Democrat, with serious political differences, but remembering the important thing: we’re all still Americans.

What the hell happened and why did we let it get this way?

I have my political beliefs, you have yours. I respect that. I’m not going to try to change your mind and I guarantee you won’t change mine, but that’s OK. Politics is only a part of who we are, it determines our future as a group and the kind of country we live in and will leave for the next generation. But it’s sad how it has become less about philosophy and debate, and more about marketing and manipulation.

As further proof I’m not trying to sway your vote, I’m posting this now. My ballot was filled out and mailed in two weeks ago. I have a feeling more and more people are getting it done early just to get it out of the way.

I’ve got a couple of videos I’d like to put on your radar. The first, this brilliant parody of a horror movie trailer about where the Democrats are when it comes to a future presidential candidate.

https://youtu.be/46WZfo1yFkI

So much truth.

And another dose of truth for you here. This one touches on the blinders that some voters strap on and this preacher (yes, you will hear some preaching here) absolutely nails it. Thanks to sister Debbie for passing along.

https://youtu.be/tnXNTm75nYk

But as I tell people I know who are freaking out about how these mid-term elections could go, we get the government we deserve. I hope for the best, but if we’re not bright enough to elect the right people, well, we’ll have to live with it.

So much more I could say, but for now, that’s enough.

Know WHY you’re voting the way you’re voting. Is it because of things you believe, or the marketing fears that they’re capitalizing on? Is it conviction on the candidate’s platform, or the talking points sent to them to repeat over and over because of what they found out in focus groups?

But here’s hoping you do vote so you can at least share the credit or the blame.

Tim Hunter

I’m Giving Up

I know at least twice over the weekend, I told someone that Halloween was my favorite holiday. People dressing up, acting like kids again, trick or treaters coming to the door and because I loved that holiday so much, I go all in decorating the walkway at our house.

Here’s a quick tour.

 

https://youtu.be/cnP1cDfJxNg

Most of my adult life, I’ve enjoyed decorating my house and/or porch for Halloween, going back to my Bothell days when I filled my yard with funny headstones. At this year’s Bothell Cougar auction where I was the emcee, one of the parents actually came up to me and said that she used to love coming to my home every year, to see the decorations, back when she was a kid. To me, it’s about making the holiday a little bit more special, especially in the eyes of a child. It’s scary but safe. Nothing’s going to reach out and grab them. It’s just fun stuff to walk by as they head to our door to get their candy.

Halloween is just simply a great day to be a kid! And, as adults, the day tends to bring out the kid in all of us. Maybe it reminds you of those cheesy costumes your parents would buy with the plastic masks that you couldn’t breathe out of, and that had the elastic band that would always break before you were done collecting candy. I remember one time, going to one of the homes in our neighborhood where they had what appeared to be a Halloween character on a bench…when he suddenly moved and said, “Boo!”

That feeling of being scared, just for a moment, is part of growing up. You’re talking to a kid who loved monsters and watched every Universal Frankenstein, Wolfman and Mummy movie over and over. I even collected those models you’d glue together.

As I got older, I would anxiously await Friday Nights when LA’s channel 9 would feature a different scary movie each week on their “Strange Tales of Science Fiction” that opened with this theme song.

https://youtu.be/p1ZXzfiCohs

It’s where I was introduced to such classics as “The Blob”, “Man from Planet X”, “The Crawling Eye” and “Frankenstein’s Daughter.” Back in those years, there weren’t a lot of haunted houses to go to, so we turned to our black & white TV’s to provide the scare.

Fast-forward to Halloween, 2022.

As you saw in the video above, I put up a bunch of silly Halloween-themed signs, a fake mummy, some plastic skeletons and so forth. It looks like friggin’ Halloween!

But I now live in Seattle, the Mecca for PC, non-offensive, safe, non-disturbing, the-fact-I-even-typed-those-words-offends-me surroundings. Last night, I was instructed not to turn on one of my Halloween decorations because it might scare the younger trick or treaters. Even with that turned off, there was one parent who came to the door to say that his 3-year-old was afraid to go to the house, so could he have his candy.

Back in my parenting days, what a perfect occasion to show that young, forming mind that it’s all just pretend. Look, it’s just a piece of plastic or a decoration. But I guess parents don’t do that these days. Rather than rationalize and explain, parents feed on whatever their kids give them and use it as an occasion to further shelter them. Over time, they’ll only know a safe and protected world, as long as mommy or daddy can helicopter nearby. My guess is the scariest books they have at home are the terrifying Halloween tales, “The Story of the Moldy Pumpkin”, and “Barbie’s Snickers Breaks.”

It not my goal to frighten young kids, but to maybe inspire some childhood Halloween fun like I enjoyed while growing up. Something they’ll remember when they get older. But I guess those days are done, at least where we live.

So, this afternoon, I’ll take down the decorations and at this point, I may not even put them back up next Halloween. For the twenty or so trick or treaters we had, and for all that effort I put in, to be told it’s harmful or too scary or psychologically damaging to a kid….yeah, I’m done.

One thing about the aging process: It really helps you prioritize the things you spend time on, as you realize that time is a precious commodity and so why would you waste any of it on something that is not personally rewarding or appreciated? Not that there weren’t several kids that said, “Cool decorations” last night, but that’s not the part that stuck with me.

Yes, Halloween used to be my favorite holiday, but I’m ready to move on. It was fun while it lasted, it truly was.

But I’m done. I’m giving up.

It’s all yours.

Tim Hunter

That Guy Next Door

Back when my wife and I first met and we decided to merge our lives into a single home, she sold her Ballard place, I gave up my Bothell residence and we pooled our money to land a place on a private lane in North Seattle.

We love the street, the neighbors, over the years watching young families move in and having kids, getting together occasionally for the “National Night Out” in August and so on. But outside of a couple of organized gatherings, the bulk of our communication with the neighbors tends to be a quick banter in the street or by the mailbox and then we return to our busy lives.

On one side of our house is a guy named Carl, whose parents owned the place until they were gone and he took over. These days, he spends most of his time at his girlfriend’s house, but I have been in his home a couple of times and he has kept it very retro-true to the late 1950s when it was built. Shag carpet, the works.

On the north side of our house was a home not very well kept up, where a guy named Mervyn resided. I knew that from occasionally getting a piece of his mail. My first encounter with him was indirect. The phone rang, and it was one of the utilities asking if I knew my next-door neighbor, Mervyn. I mentioned that we had recently moved in when the woman on the other end of the phone said, “Well, he hasn’t paid his bill for several months and so we’re getting ready to shut off his service.” I told her thanks for the notice, I would try to reach him.

I wandered next door, planning to introduce myself as his new neighbor and to let him know about the call. I knocked and rang the doorbell and nothing. Did it again, waited a few minutes and then walked home. Now my mind is reeling. What if this guy had died in his home and that was the reason he wasn’t paying his bills? That’s a fine “Welcome to the neighborhood.”

So, I called up the Seattle Police non-emergency number, explained the situation and they said they would do a welfare check. Eventually they came, pounded on his door, he answered, they explained what was going on, and it turned out he was just fine. Just a bit of a recluse.

In the 15 years we’ve lived next door to him, I’ve maybe talked with him three times. We swapped phone numbers one time, just in case anything were to go wrong and he needed help. He never called. A couple of years ago, another neighbor who was checking on him didn’t get a response, called the police and they even broke the door down to get in. It turned out he was in his bedroom and didn’t hear the pounding.

Or so he said.

Apparently, on September 29th, Mervyn actually did pass away. We didn’t find out until this week. Draw your own conclusions.

But in reading neighbor’s emails and doing a little online sleuthing, I’ve managed to piece together this collection of facts.

He lived in the house his parents owned. They must have been original owners in our neighborhood.

I had heard when we first moved in that he was working up in Shoreline at Prosser Piano. It turns out, he was an English teacher up north in the Everett School district for 30 years, as well as a music teacher. As one of my neighbors commented, “Merv was quite a musician, player & teacher.”

He passed away shortly before his 86th birthday, living on a teacher’s pension, which explained the low-quality toupee he wore. The last time the police were called and had to break-in, they noticed that his roof had been leaking in the house. His carport was a collection of clutter and two vehicles–one he still drove from the 1970s, the other, I don’t think I ever saw it run.

He had a routine of letting his yard completely go, allowing weeds to soar above the fences. Then, come October, he’d hire some laborers and have them tear out everything down to the dirt. This process happened year after year.

Then was that light on the side of the house that hung there from the day we moved in.

He apparently didn’t have any family left, just a couple of friends who showed up to his home a couple of days ago, saying they were about as close as family to him as anyone.

Searching online, I found that he was a graduate of Ballard High School, class of 1954. Another click, and I see that his full name was Mervyn Dewey Vaught.

In his online obituary, there is nothing. Just his name, date of birth, and when he passed.

We all get to choose how we spend every moment of our lives on this earth. I can’t imagine spending the bulk of my life inside a home, just existing. But that was Mervyn’s choice. I hope he enjoyed some happiness along the way.

And now he’s gone. That guy next door.

Tim Hunter