AMERICAN GENESIS

A NEW CONDO, AN OLD HOME

Like a native salmon swimming upstream to fulfill its life cycle, I was determined to return to Bellingham, my birthplace, to begin a renewed life. Its modest size, nearness both to the mountains and the sea, presence of a state university, and easy access to Seattle and Vancouver had appealed to the three of us when we were there for a weekend over a year before. It was now the Friday before Labor Day, and the first two realtors I phoned from Seattle didn’t even try to conceal their disgust when they snorted their refusal to consult us on a holiday weekend, but Bev, a longsuffering, and apparently very successful, workaholic, replied, “Sure, come on up tomorrow; I work seven to seven, six days a week.” I do hope she quits a little early on the eves of Christmas and New Year’s, however. So on Saturday I reconfirmed my decision to settle there and picked two of the eight or ten units we inspected as good possibilities. Both were condominiums, the larger one an end unit in a side-by-side configuration a mile or two out of town, and the other a townhouse unit in a four-story building midway between town and campus. Initially we all favored the former, and we returned to Seattle to think about it.

This first week at home also featured some great food and wine, some good bird walks, during one of which I spotted a local rail, the sora, thereby adding a new bird to the list kept by Dow and Marlene and earning another 48 hours of their hospitality, and at its end a drive to Ellensburg where I signed the papers marking the end of 17 years of home ownership there; according to Dow, my part of this transaction took “four minutes and 26 seconds.” “How shall we dispose of your share of the proceeds?” asked the clerk from the title company processing the necessary papers. “Here’s a deposit slip for my savings account in a local bank; please take the check there.” “Fine, we might get it there tomorrow, but it will certainly be done the following day, Friday, at the latest.”

The dinner at Gasperetti’s, in Yakima, that night was superb, and I was welcomed home most enthusiastically by owners and staff alike. It was disappointing to verify that Brad was no longer head chef–he has become the headwaiter at Seattle’s Lampreia, a highly rated new restaurant in Belltown that I’ve yet to try–but the new chef clearly knows his business. As the days passed back in Seattle, there was no evidence of an addition to my savings account. To acquire that information in Tanzania requires writing the account number on a slip of paper, handing it to a clerk who then looks up the information in a handwritten ledger, copies it on the slip, which is then handed back. That takes about 30 minutes, or a bribe; here, of course, it requires touching a few buttons on a telephone. Mine are two very different worlds.

We arrived home from our individual activities the following Tuesday to hear a breathless, recorded voice from Ellensburg tell us, “I just today found your deposit slip, so I sent the check by certified mail.” She did not say where, but it seemed unlikely such caution was needed to transport it one block due west from her office to my bank, so I was not surprised the next afternoon when a postman arrived with an envelope requiring my signature. It did indeed contain the check, and I decided to invest a half-day in mastering the intricacies of Seattle’s Metro Transit System in order to deposit it in the bank’s main downtown branch. The vehicles I encountered were comfortable, spacious, and on a frequent timetable. My main surprise was that so few of them use the expansive and expensive tunnel downtown. Only a few minutes after my return the power went off for an unexplained two or three hours. This caused me no concern since I still habitually turn down my bed before sunset, my flashlight was at hand, and the local music stations came in beautifully over my battery-powered radio. Maybe life wouldn’t be so different here after all.

It had been quite some time since I flew economy class, a much longer time since I flew economy class on a filled flight, and I have never before flown in the very back corner of a filled flight in economy class. When I first received my seat assignment, 22F, it seemed okay; it is a window seat on the starboard side. But when rows 15 to 22 were invited to board first on this 737 flight to San Francisco, my fate was immediately apparent. I had arrived early enough to see a small army still standing in the terminal when the previous flight headed south, so my alternatives were clear: I could stay in Seattle or I could crawl into my two-dimensional slot–back row seats don’t recline, but of course the ones in front of them do–pray for a timely departure and a strong tail wind, and quickly fall asleep. I chose the latter and dreamt of Tanzanian matatu rides; they weren’t a whole lot less comfortable, and the price was sure right. The good news was that Tony and Eleanor had arrived on a different flight at about the same time, and they had a car, both elegant and smart, that quickly found its way to the Redwood Room with its more than adequate list of Champagnes and other sparkling wines. The very next day this same car took us to Stars, a restaurant offering very exciting food and a long list of wines. This was looking more like the life I had left over two years before.

The intervening periods were filled with more operas: The Dangerous Liaisons by Conrad Susa had had its world premier only nights before, and it proved interesting and enjoyable, particularly with performers like Frederica von Stade, Thomas Hampson, and Johanna Meier. A few seasons ago I heard von Stade and Hampson do Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria here, and that was an exciting evening; Vinson Cole was also in the cast, and I was surprised to read that it was the San Francisco Opera debut for each man. It was about the third performance, by which time the mechanical sets were working properly; Neptune rose up from the sea bottom, Zeus came down from the heavens, and it was all marvelously colorful. Quite a few of those early operas continue to yield remarkable modern productions–take as just one example Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice, a production of which I admired immensely in the Seattle Opera debut of Vinson Cole and Sheri Greenawald, ably supported by the Mark Morris Dance Group.

Macbeth was very compelling in its first few scenes the next night, but Gwyneth Jones, in the title role, seemed unusually screechy and wobbly, even for her; of course it didn’t hurt to have James Morris still around. Opera these days seems a bit up in the air; in this production even the witches fly. I enjoyed Il Trovatore the most for a variety of reasons: Verdi’s middle operas always sound so lush and exciting, and I particularly enjoy Azucena’s music, like Senta’s in the Dutchman, on this evening sung so capably by Dolora Zajick. She was the weekend’s biggest success for me, although it didn’t hurt to have Aprile Millo on stage as well. The portrayal of Manrico’s decapitation at the end seemed to me both ill conceived and badly botched, however. The mechanism was crude, the blade had to be dropped twice to expose what looked like a bloody toothpick masquerading as the neck of a headless man. Its main accomplishment was to awaken the sleeping by the gasps of their neighbors.

On arrival in Portland, Oregon, I was very pleased to be met by Mama Mary, colorfully dressed and fresh from church, and we crossed the river to her place to chat about Tanzania and Jennifer’s wedding while sipping David’s fine Oregon pinot noir, whether he approved or not. He, meanwhile, was driving home from Bend after delivering his final sermon as interim pastor there; after his arrival–this was our first meeting–we expanded both activities to include three practitioners. In due course we ventured back across the river to my hotel, the Heathman, where I sent my bags upstairs, and we drew up a table in the library off the mezzanine bar. It took a few minutes to persuade a waitress we hadn’t come to read, but once involved she performed well, and we soon had succulent racks of lamb and a superb Oregon pinot noir, especially selected by someone particularly knowledgeable, supposedly, downstairs.

I spent quite a few hours each of the next two days wandering around downtown Portland, admiring the restoration, new construction, and reorganization. Unlike Seattle, it seems to have achieved a well-organized transit system without ruining downtown businesses; its longtime department store, with the initials M and F, still operates between the city’s Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Seattle, on the other hand, wreaked havoc on its downtown businesses by digging a huge ditch, which though covered now and very handsomely appointed, seems empty most of the time and leaves buses, big monsters, sprawling all over the city’s streets; its longtime department store, with the initials F and N, still stands between the city’s Fifth and Sixth Avenues, but in shuttered silence.

I had missed the monster summer heat waves in Europe and the Northwest by the narrowest of margins, thankfully, but it had felt really good to arrive in San Francisco on a day whose high was 93. With only slightly lower temperatures here, it was extremely pleasant to walk along Portland’s park-like river embankment. My only puzzle was why the city leaders failed to find something more romantic to describe on the signs along the path than the quality of purification of the effluent liquid discharging into the river.

Culinary interests were restricted to salmon, lamb, and Oregon pinot noir, twice at hotel lunches and once testing David’s barbecuing skills at a dinner where I renewed old and made new friendships with Tanzania Connections people. My waitress at the Heathman was a marvel, insisting that I not take the appetizer I had ordered but instead one she suggested, and immediately selecting the best of several wines I listed–it was the 1991 Adelsheim, Elizabeth Vineyard. The next day I tried the Benson Hotel’s London Grill, partly because it’s known to be good and I hadn’t been there since graduate-school days, but mainly because it’s a favorite of John’s, our Bayreuth leader. Here the wine possibilities were much more numerous, but my waitress, a grandmotherly type, although more than eager to help, was clearly better informed on her grandkids’ ages than on the vintages of cellar wines. The assistant manager, who allegedly did possess this obscure information, was too busy photographing another table’s birthday celebration to help, so I made my own selection, the 1985 Rex Hill from Archibald Vineyard. It was superb, with a lot of fruit and a long finish. Dentist John gave us a special treat at dinner that night, a great bottle of one of Washington state’s first commercial wines; he’s still trying to make up for coming home early from Tanzania and leaving Mary and me to our fates. I still thought the wine we drank that first afternoon was a great value, but the most the Nelsons could recall when I visited again some weeks later was that it came from Rex Hill and was perhaps a second label. Worthless Norwegians! Or Lutherans! Or both!

Amtrak had been testing a high-speed Spanish train on the run to Seattle, and although I was informed in advance that poor tracks restricted its speed to 45 mph, I chose to ride it nonetheless–anything to avoid another UAL coach seat. It was spacious and comfortable, and the staff was very pleasant; I was tempted to try the dining car for old time’s sake, but after four such elegant meals I simply couldn’t. Some recorded information was coming over the car’s speaker, which I largely ignored until I heard Sid Morrison, former US Congressman, defeated candidate for governor, and now evidently state secretary of transportation, assert that if the train’s speed could be increased by only 10 mph, it could compete with planes on the Seattle-Portland run. I was surprised and remain skeptical of that, but then I am just beginning to get reacquainted with American politics.

A few days later, only a fortnight after completing sale of my own house, I got involved with three condominiums, a small one that I could rent in Seattle while the deal closed on one of the two in Bellingham. Bev set up an appointment with “Magic Mike,” who would quickly set up the best possible mortgage arrangement, she said, and while we two covered forms with figures, she called to check the availability of the larger, out-of-town unit; we had agreed the day we first saw it, if it turned out to be my first choice, as it did, to offer considerably less than the owner asked. She soon returned and reported, a little, but only a little disconsolately I thought, “Someone has offered the full price, and he has cash, so that unit is definitely gone.” “It simply isn’t worth the asking price to me, so that’s fine; let’s check on the other.” It was still available, and after reassuring Mike that he would write a contract that day, off the two of us went to verify the smaller unit’s suitability. It seemed even more appropriate than on my first visit, and although definitely a bit on the small size, I am at the stage in life where some downsizing is a good idea; I was only a little uncertain as to how I could store everything until I decided what to discard.

Since I already had cash in hand for the down payment and all those ridiculous closing costs, Mike assured me everything would be finished by mid-October, but since I had already agreed to rent the Seattle condo for the entire month, he set my closing date for the end of the month. In doing so, he proved to be somewhat less than miraculous. His first mistake was to peddle, or attempt to, the mortgage to a firm that doesn’t finance condos, only houses; that indiscretion cost us ten days and one-half of a percentage point on the interest rate, but he was still optimistic. And then there was no word from anyone for a very long time.

There were many things to do other than watch Mike work his magic, however, the first being to attend a family reunion in Albuquerque. It’s really a biennial reunion of her cousins on her mother’s side, and I’ve attended many because I enjoy them, and also to assist her mother, who is past ninety now and blind, with details of travel. This get-together coincided with the great Balloon Festival, as had the previous one, which took place when she was too weak to leave home again. It was more than a little poignant to realize that one of her cousins was in a similar situation this weekend, and we would not see her again, either, but we could and did say farewell via her daughters who had come.

There’s something very reassuring about visiting the wine cellar of a reputable restaurant. Whether it’s recognizing familiar old labels from great bottles one has tasted, or recalling the superb meals they’ve accompanied, or remembering the special friends with whom they’ve been shared, I don’t know, but it’s probably some of all of these. I doubt that I’ll ever see a greater cellar than that of Paris’ La Tour d’Argent, viewed on the night of the October, 1984 full moon, but that cost me one-third shares in a 1929 Chambertin and a 1900 Sauternes. My visit to the cellar at Stephens, arguably Albuquerque’s finest, was free because I have a “niece” who is business manager there, and unlike in Paris, my visit here was uninvigilated. Most of the labels recalled old friends, including a few fine French ones, not all of which were on the list, but two nights later, with permission from the family to miss the scheduled functions, I dined here in style, alone, and ordered a fine wine from an updated list on which the ink was still wet. The food, wine, and service were all outstanding–the staff had been advised, facetiously I’m sure, that they were in deep trouble if I was dissatisfied–and I was even able to end the weekend in our traditional way, with a shot of 25-year-old Macallan’s; in fact I had a second to compensate for being in Africa during the previous reunion.

The Sunday morning of our balloon ascent, a first for me, was perfectly clear, and the air was crisply chilly as it must be in autumn at this altitude. There was very little wind, so we hardly drifted at all, but it was fascinating to watch dozens of other balloons carrying passengers and then to look across the river where Festival balloons, many with very imaginative shapes, were floating heavenward by the hundreds; we had visited that site the previous day to see the mass ascent at close hand. Just before landing we looked down and saw a couple of greater roadrunners, another first for me. I was amazed at how deftly the pilot coaxed the balloon into the tiny front yard of a house being built in a suburban neighborhood. As I clambered out of the basket and sauntered across the street toward a nearby home, its occupants emerged, greeted me warmly and asked, “Do you need to use our bathroom? Would you like some coffee?” It turned out that this was the first time in three years the balloons had drifted their way, and they were as excited to see us as we had been with the flight. They may even have offered us breakfast; I don’t recall for sure.

Given half an excuse we can have a lot of fun together–the younger generations had plenty of cause to wonder about us–and an earlier drive to Santa Fe had provided one of those excuses. The city itself is most interesting, and I was really impressed with the Cathedral, which would be well worth a much more serious visit. But I suppose what we did best and most was to sit around the house and jabber; Gladys joined actively in this. The youngest, and only survivor of five sisters, one of whom died in childhood, she has long been the acclaimed matriarch of this clan. Her last surviving brother-in-law, Uncle Ase, husband of her favorite sister, died recently at the age of 96, which she has a few years yet to reach. Aunt Dorothy, wife of her first husband’s older brother and born on Gladys’ birthday, is the only survivor of her generation in that family. And she alone remains in her second husband’s generation. We often tell people we meet that we’ve assembled for yet another boring family reunion, and of course they laugh. But could he have been around to see this one, Grandfather Boring would have been proud.

I had a gift certificate from the Shelburne Inn, kindly sent to me when I had to cancel a reservation a year ago Christmas, that was about to expire, and since money matters were still macerating up north, I headed south to Seaview. The freeway drive through Seattle at noon on Double Ten Day was unusually dreary and seemed to require at least an hour. Once off the freeway at Olympia, however, I enjoyed the solitude, seeing very little life other than a lonesome coyote as I neared my destination. I had time for a short beach walk before going to dinner in the Shoalwater Restaurant, but there was little to be seen. The house paté was brilliant, light in color, mainly chicken liver, attractively decorated with roasted garlic creme fraiche and homemade cranberry chutney, two ingredients for which the peninsula is famous; the latter because it’s grown here, and the former because this is the landing spot of the Ark, another highly respected restaurant, known for its annual Garlic Festival. “Grilled marinated duck breast, with a dried cherry demi-glace sauce, served on fettucine noodles tossed with poppy seeds” was indeed a perfect match for the 1992 Panther Creek pinot noir, as my waitress had recommended and promised, but that was at least partly true because of the decided cherry flavors in the wine rather than the violets and strawberries some experts expect to find in this varietal.

But it’s breakfast that is really amazing here, and that’s prepared by David, the co-innkeeper, in his own little kitchen, rather than under supervision of the separately owned, but co-housed, Shoalwater. This day, as customary, we had four choices: a frittata emphasizing local smoked oysters, blueberry pancakes that looked sensational when they arrived on several nearby plates, a mushroom omelet using freshly harvested cepes, and a fourth that I don’t remember because I had already mentally chosen the third. My plate was a work of art as well as nouveau cuisine; the omelet was daintily streaked with creme fraiche, beautifully surrounded with various fruits and edible flowers, and accompanied by a marvelous nut bread. When my totally emptied plate was removed, the woman next to me exclaimed, “You must really have enjoyed that.” “I didn’t get food like this in East Africa,” was my instant rejoinder.

Six hours of walking on both sides of and across Ledbetter Point produced a ruddy glow from sun and wind combined, a healthy appetite, and six “new” birds, but apparently because of the unseasonable warmth, winter fowl had not yet arrived in large numbers, nor had the oysters on the half shell that night, probably for the same reason, reached their wintry firmness and flavor. At breakfast next morning David expressed surprise only at my seeing about a dozen great egrets in one flock, an apparently rare occurrence in this area. Oregon’s Cannon Beach, my family’s favorite summer vacation site during my childhood, next drew my interest, but I was sorry I’d come when I saw all its recently added specialty shops, luxury motels, and I suppose residences; I would gladly support a project to transport its signature feature, Haystack Rock, a safe distance to the south. I moved on quickly and stopped for the night in Hood River, where I stayed for the first time ever in the famous Columbia Gorge Hotel. It’s well worth a visit, and the old-fashioned country breakfast is a challenge; all one really needs are the stewed rhubarb, fresh strawberries, baked apple with cream, home-made oatmeal with brown sugar, hot baking-powder biscuits, smothered in butter and then covered with some special honey that falls from the sky, and of course, coffee, but all the rest comes too, whether or not one eats it.

Although my “business” objective on this trip was to stop at the International Programs office on the campus of Washington State University from which monthly bulletins, useful ones, have been sent to me for several years, I somehow felt compelled to detour through Pendleton, where I had spent all but the first semester of junior high school. The route from there, through Milton-Freewater and Walla Walla, looked more interesting than the direct one as well, so detour I did. The road into town came right past the school, now named for Helen McCabe, who I think was principal when I attended. I understand it has been converted to an administrative center, but the little theater at one end, where I saw my first play–it was quite an adventure to enter the Devil’s world for a few hours–still fills its original purpose. It was several years later before a special young woman resumed that training, first movies and cards, then wine and other beverages, and finally even an occasional cigar.

The first semester I did some janitorial work in the school as I recall–these were World War II days, and there was a manpower shortage of course–but the last two years I worked in a major grocery store, 20 hours per week during school and something like 56 in summer; at 60 cents per hour I was highly paid. My employer was an outstanding person whom I liked and admired greatly, as I did the many fine teachers who assisted me with any academic study I wished to pursue. The last thing I remember doing in Pendleton except for return visits was to play in the parade that preceded the Roundup; Mr. Dye, a very pleasant bandmaster, was really hard up for trombone players, so he drafted me to help out, walking in the middle of the front row, sight-reading, and I’m sure making terrible mistakes. Only a few days later I was with Seattle’s Franklin High School Band at the Western Washington State Fair in much the same predicament, except we were seated in a booth; the director of that group was an extraordinary man who influenced me far more than any other teacher. The only things I regret about Pendleton were the ninth-grade girls; they were simply luscious, and I was too immature and naive to respond. At Franklin the senior girls in my classes only wanted to copy my work, so I avoided them, that is until I too was a senior.

I squeezed in and out of Pullman between a storm of bad weather and a storm of football fans, making only minor contact with each, and headed for Ellensburg for a brief chat with my attorney and to make some holiday travel reservations with Helen. I had hoped to stay in Yakima’s Tudor Inn, where I had spent happy visits on several occasions, including those last few days at home when I was packing up and cleaning the house before going off with the Peace Corps, but it is now closed. After checking around, we decided to try the 37 House, another interesting building whose location I knew. It turned out to be a fine building, but inadequately maintained, and somewhat casually managed Its best attributes were its other guests, a group of librarians the first night and some wine tasters from Oregon the second; I skipped dinner the first night and ate once more at Gasperetti’s the next, where again I was very pleased.

On returning to Seattle I found the north country still asleep, so I called Nancy to arrange a one-week extension on my “lease,” which she had offered at the outset, and went about my routine of puttering, walking around nearby Green Lake, eating, and sleeping. At the end of that week there occurred in Seattle a stunning juxtaposition of polychromatics, in terms of sight, sound, and movement, on two successive evenings whose glorious sunsets matched the dance and music. First it was Mark Morris’ 24 graceful and athletic dancers, supported by five stellar soloists and a substantial chorus, performing his astonishing choreography of a pastoral ode after poems by Milton that Handel had set to music: L’Allegro, il Peneroso ed il Moderato. They were kinetic, living pictures, framed in three rows, backed by a screen of changing colors and patterns, and often muted by a scrim. The impression of reflection from mirrors was almost impossible to resist, even when a close look at any of the rows clearly showed each to have different dancers. Their motions, for example when two circles of dancers merged into one, were reminiscent of the Rockettes or an ice-skating chorus, but there was much, much more here. Emotions were also clearly portrayed, whether the brightness of Allegro or the darkness of Peneroso. My favorite tableau was the last in Part the First, where the dancers slowly reclined on the floor in pairs, in one collective circle, and the lights dimmed gradually into total darkness, to the sung words:

And young and old come forth to play

On a sunshine holyday,

till the livelong daylight fail,

Thus past the day, to bed they creep,

By whisp’ring winds soon lull’d asleep.

Morris himself provided a hilarious question and answer period at the end of a prolonged standing ovation to round out an extraordinary evening.

The following night I saw Seattle Opera’s opening performance of Janácek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, with Dale Duesing and Kathryn Gamberoni in the leads and Gerard Schwarz conducting; all three have performed often and well with the company, as they did on this occasion. The costumes were at least as colorful as the previous night, as one would expect since they were after the original designs of Maurice Sendak; the movements at least as interesting but perhaps less precise and organized since they depicted those of a host of different creatures; and the music, well who can compare Haydn and Janácek? I’d love to see both performances again, but with a free day between.

So it was back to waiting, but with a considerably lightened heart, at least at the beginning of the week. Little by little the situation cleared from muddy to murky. Evidently an attorney in the Seattle office of the lending firm was not quite satisfied with some language in the documents establishing the condominium owners’ association. An attorney in the Bellingham office of the originating firm thought he had resolved the problem by phone. The Seattle office wanted it in writing, however, but didn’t bother to say so. And so on. The first weekend in November I simply moved to a Bellingham motel to wait. As I told Bev then, “Dow and I found it possible to ship documents from the jungles of East Africa to the foothills of Seattle in three days. How can it possibly require two whole weeks to transmit one page of information from Bellingham to Seattle?” She laughed at the slight humor but gave no further response. And then suddenly everything was ready, my friends rallied to move my stuff from its two-plus years’ storage in Seattle, and by mid-November it and I were under a roof in Bellingham, but in total disarray and just in time for me to leave for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. It will be months before I’m really moved in, and then the wine should be stored here also. But where? The only place available is the guest bedroom.

You’re more than welcome to visit, but if you do come, I strongly suggest that you bring a case of Champagne and a sleeping bag.

W. Vance Johnson

14 Nov 94