All Posts in "Everything Else"

“. . .and as far as my life is concerned, poetry has saved me again and again.”

Muriel Rukeyser, American poet, Dec. 1913–Feb. 1980

All of us experience loss of one kind or another.  Sometimes we experience loss and are not particularly aware of it, perhaps because it is so commonplace, like the loss of hair on our heads.  If we do notice it, we probably give it no more than a second or two of our time, sigh an “oh well,” and continue our day.  As we age and experience more, we strategize in order to keep loss at bay.  We take supplements, faithfully exercise to keep fit and healthy, watch what we eat, and still look both ways before crossing the street.  We get educated, work hard at our jobs, buy insurance, and plan for our golden years. One day, something in our world knocks us sideways.  A job is lost, a beloved pet dies, or a spouse leaves. It is during those times, says Kay Mullen, that we can turn to poetry, an art form which “confronts everything in daily life in clear, metaphorical language. . .that takes us to the edge of what life is about.”

Kay leads workshops on using poetry to help heal and cope during times of loss and grief.  In the workshop, each participant  has time to read, discuss and write, based on a thoughtfully selected set of poems.  Although the workshops are not therapeutic counseling sessions, participants bring their own stories of loss and grief to the work that is done there.  In part, that work is to identify how poetry “works.”  As an example, Kay talked about Joseph Stroud’s “Stitching the Woe Shirt,” a carefully crafted poem about the death of his wife.  On reading that poem, one can sense the power that is wielded by the placement of only one introductory word, “inconsolable,” on one line.  Each word, each line is so powerful that “sometimes grief just oozes” out of the poem.

Mullen was initiated  into the world of loss and grief by the death of her dear husband of thirty-five years. Until that time, nothing had prepared her for all that was to come.  She had been a classroom teacher, the mother of two, who eventually became a mental health counselor and school counselor. She had, with encouragement from both her husband (an accomplished writer in his own right) and a colleague, published two, full-length poetry collections:  Let Morning Begin (Caritas Communications, 2001) and A Long Remembering: Return to Vietnam (Foothills Publishing, 2006). Her work also appeared in various journals such as Valparaiso Poetry Review, Appalachia, Avocet, Crab Creek Review, as well as anthologies: Tatoos on Cedar, Mute Note Earthward, Pontoon, Northwind. She entered  PLU’s Rainier Writing Workshop MFA program with her husband at her side for the first summer residency. And then he was gone.

Following her husband’s death, Kay devoted her time to his memory.  She spent countless hours collecting his writings, putting some together into an autobiography, others in a full-length book, and gathered together his letters, short stories and poems.  During the seven years following that, she turned her attention to her own work, her “poems of grief, memories of our first year of marriage in Alaska, poems about his illness, memories of our life together and events after his death.”  The result was her third book of poems, Even the Stones (Caritas Communications, 2012) She also managed to complete her MFA, win a Stafford award and be nominated for a Pushcart prize.

Those years were a crucible in which the strong forces of intellect, professionalism, spirit, faith and love tempered the sense of the “inconsolable” in trying to “make sense of the world after this major loss in my life.”  From her experience she is able to help others begin or continue the process of healing with poetry being the vehicle.  Her most recent workshop was in January, 2013, at Catherine’s place (a center for women in Tacoma).  Other workshops have been held at Kings Books, at the Olympia library, at Urban Grace church and even at the correctional center in Shelton.

What if a person is relatively unacquainted with poetry—who would be “good” poets to begin reading?  Mullen’s reply was, in addition to the two poets already mentioned (Rukeyser and Stroud), that a person might want to begin reading poetry by Tess Gallagher, Jack Gilbert, Lola Haskins, Mary Oliver and Billy Collins as a way of beginning to experience the “soul work” that is poetry.  A date has not yet been set for Mullen’s next workshop.

Maggie Kelly by — February 7, 2013 in Everything Else

Comfort Keepers of South King County received national recognition in January with a place in Entrepreneur Magazine’s annual Franchise 500 rankings for 2013.

The magazine cited Comfort Keepers as the leading franchise within the senior care category, as well as 59th among the top 500 franchises overall.

Kim Sanchez, owner of Comfort Keepers of South King County, said, “This kind of recognition among all franchises, nationally, is rare. It’s something all of us at our office, as well as the 700-plus locations around the world, can be proud of.”

But Sanchez said the needs of its clients are most important to Comfort Keepers.

“Ultimately, it is what we do each and every day that matters most. We help seniors to live independently within the comfort of their own homes,” she said.

Comfort Keepers was founded in 1998. In 2009, franchisor CK Franchising Inc. was purchased by Sodexo, an international food and facilities management company.

Entrepreneur’s 34th annual Franchise 500 ranking reveals the impact of the newest trends and the industries poised for growth, according to the magazine. All companies, regardless of size, are judged by the same criteria — objective, quantifiable measures of the franchise operation. Magazine officials said the most important factors include financial strength and stability, growth rate, and size of the system.

According to Entrepreneur, the ranking shows that many of the most competitive companies are those that go after a specific demographic. Among the top growing demographic categories nationally is senior care.

srmedia by — February 7, 2013 in Everything Else

Some of old Tacoma as it looked during the Washington territory days.

Tacoma Public Library/courtesy photo

 

Jacob Halstead: a True Founding Father

Oregon Trail Pioneer Jacob Halstead, his second wife Jane (his first wife died) and their children Jeannette, Etta, George, and Frank moved to New Tacoma in 1873 when the city consisted of two houses. Tacoma didn’t have a newspaper for several years. The first tidbit about Mr. Halstead appeared in the Tacoma Herald’s “Weekly Intelligence” column on June 2, 1877. He was in the paper because he had created hotel on wheels for Northern Pacific Railroad employees working on the tracks.

The concept of a railroad hotel on wheels was very avant garde. Mr. Halstead’s hotel consisted of five, wheeled wagons (possibly railroad cars) located at a spot ten miles from town where it was assumed a future railroad station would be located. One car was the kitchen and the remaining four were dining room/bedroom combinations. Every day, two “beeves” were slaughtered, cooked and served with coffee or tea, and whatever the cooks could make with sugar, flour and butter, probably biscuits and, at that particular time, wild strawberries. The newspaper article was a bit casual about how many men were housed. One paragraph said 300 men and another, eighty-three. Both Mr. Halstead and the men were lucky, though, because that summer a tree fell across one of the vehicles just before the workers were due to come in for dinner. The tree ruined the car, the tables inside, a lot of the dishes and cooking utensils but no men were hurt.

Mr. Halstead also owned and ran the Tacoma Hotel at 707 Pacific Avenue. During February 1878, he worked work for the Tacoma Land Company, clearing the property around their headquarters building. The following month he was back at the Tacoma Hotel having the office repainted and papered, and the whole hotel generally spruced up. The newly-refurnished hotel reopened in April with accommodations for temporary guests and boarders.

At that time, all New Tacoma’s buildings were wood, and fire was a constant danger. An organization of businessmen, which included Mr. Halstead, calling themselves The Citizens of New Tacoma, held a meeting in Smith’s Hall for the purpose of finding ways to prevent and fight fires. Less than a week later Mr. Halstead was standing in front of the Tacoma Hotel talking with a friend when they saw smoke coming from a second floor window of the American Hotel across the street. The two rushed into the building and up to the room. A pile of clothing was burning and smoking, and the floor matting was just catching fire. Their best guess was a spark had fallen into the clothing from a cigar or pipe. A brisk north wind blew that day and their quick action in putting out the fire probably saved a number of wooden buildings on the west side of Pacific from also catching fire. Not long after, Mr. Halstead’s Tacoma Hotel caught fire and burned down.

Fire insurance was little-known and Mr. Halstead had none, but he did have a good reputation. He rented two buildings on the west side of Pacific Avenue, furnished them as best he could, and rented rooms. On March 26, 1880, the Weekly Ledger announced Mr. Halstead had hired Portland architect T.B. Spring to build, a new hotel called Halstead House on the site of the old one. Plans called for a 60 x 44 ft., three-story building with a mansard roof. The first floor had an office, reading room, kitchen and bathroom. The second had a parlor in front and suites of rooms for families. The third floor was bedrooms. Altogether, the hotel had 34 bedrooms and a bathhouse next door. On September 2nd, Mr. Halstead held a grand opening ball. In early evening, people began arriving from Old Tacoma, Puyallup, Steilacoom, and the plains. At 10:00 a large delegation from Olympia showed up. They had chartered the steamer Daisy, and brought along the Olympia Coronet Band. At midnight, the majority of the dancers and musicians crossed Pacific Avenue to Smith Hall for dinner. Others stayed behind and played poker upstairs. In a game that went on for more than forty-eight hours some $30,000 changed hands. The Olympia visitors left at 4:00 am. But locals danced another hour.

Taking advantage of the new hotel, businessman M.J. Cogswell built a barbershop slightly north of the hotel and hired “a tonsorial artist from  Portland” to run it.

Eighteen eighty-one was the year businessmen realized no one was doing anything topromote New Tacoma. On July 16th twenty of the town’s leading citizens met in the hall above the store of Bostwick & Davis and organized the New Tacoma Board of Trade. Mr. Halstead was elected second vice president.

Until he passed away, Mr. Halstead advertised his hotel as serving the best beer, (genuine Budweiser) the finest wines, and offering top-quality cigars.

Some of Tacoma as it looked during the Washington territory days. (Tacoma Public LIbrary/courtesy photo)
Some of Tacoma as it looked during the Washington territory days. (Tacoma Public LIbrary/courtesy photo)

Jacob Halstead had heart trouble and died on August 21, 1882 at the age of 54. He was buried at Tacoma’s Oakwood Hill Cemetery. Initially his wife, Jane, and son, Charles thought they’d run the hotel but by September the bar was released to George Bott, and Mr. Rebard of the firm Rebard and Campbell was negotiating to buy the hotel. On October 6th the paper said blacksmith John Muntz leased the business for a year. The venerable old building was torn down in 1907.

Karla Stover by — January 29, 2013 in Everything Else

“. . .and as far as my life is concerned, poetry has saved me again and again.”

Muriel Rukeyser, American poet, Dec. 1913–Feb. 1980

All of us experience loss of one kind or another.  Sometimes we experience loss and are not particularly aware of it, perhaps because it is so commonplace, like the loss of hair on our heads.  If we do notice it, we probably give it no more than a second or two of our time, sigh an “oh well,” and continue our day.  As we age and experience more, we strategize in order to keep loss at bay.  We take supplements, faithfully exercise to keep fit and healthy, watch what we eat, and still look both ways before crossing the street.  We get educated, work hard at our jobs, buy insurance, and plan for our golden years. One day, something in our world knocks us sideways.  A job is lost, a beloved pet dies, or a spouse leaves. It is during those times, says Kay Mullen, that we can turn to poetry, an art form which “confronts everything in daily life in clear, metaphorical language. . .that takes us to the edge of what life is about.”

Kay leads workshops on using poetry to help heal and cope during times of loss and grief.  In the workshop, each participant  has time to read, discuss and write, based on a thoughtfully selected set of poems.  Although the workshops are not therapeutic counseling sessions, participants bring their own stories of loss and grief to the work that is done there.  In part, that work is to identify how poetry “works.”  As an example, Kay talked about Joseph Stroud’s “Stitching the Woe Shirt,” a carefully crafted poem about the death of his wife.  On reading that poem, one can sense the power that is wielded by the placement of only one introductory word, “inconsolable,” on one line.  Each word, each line is so powerful that “sometimes grief just oozes” out of the poem.

Mullen was initiated  into the world of loss and grief by the death of her dear husband of thirty-five years. Until that time, nothing had prepared her for all that was to come.  She had been a classroom teacher, the mother of two, who eventually became a mental health counselor and school counselor. She had, with encouragement from both her husband (an accomplished writer in his own right) and a colleague, published two, full-length poetry collections:  Let Morning Begin (Caritas Communications, 2001) and A Long Remembering: Return to Vietnam (Foothills Publishing, 2006). Her work also appeared in various journals such as Valparaiso Poetry Review, Appalachia, Avocet, Crab Creek Review, as well as anthologies: Tatoos on Cedar, Mute Note Earthward, Pontoon, Northwind. She entered  PLU’s Rainier Writing Workshop MFA program with her husband at her side for the first summer residency. And then he was gone.

Following her husband’s death, Kay devoted her time to his memory.  She spent countless hours collecting his writings, putting some together into an autobiography, others in a full-length book, and gathered together his letters, short stories and poems.  During the seven years following that, she turned her attention to her own work, her “poems of grief, memories of our first year of marriage in Alaska, poems about his illness, memories of our life together and events after his death.”  The result was her third book of poems, Even the Stones (Caritas Communications, 2012) She also managed to complete her MFA, win a Stafford award and be nominated for a Pushcart prize.

Those years were a crucible in which the strong forces of intellect, professionalism, spirit, faith and love tempered the sense of the “inconsolable” in trying to “make sense of the world after this major loss in my life.”  From her experience she is able to help others begin or continue the process of healing with poetry being the vehicle.  Her most recent workshop was in January, 2013, at Catherine’s place (a center for women in Tacoma).  Other workshops have been held at Kings Books, at the Olympia library, at Urban Grace church and even at the correctional center in Shelton.

What if a person is relatively unacquainted with poetry—who would be “good” poets to begin reading?  Mullen’s reply was, in addition to the two poets already mentioned (Rukeyser and Stroud), that a person might want to begin reading poetry by Tess Gallagher, Jack Gilbert, Lola Haskins, Mary Oliver and Billy Collins as a way of beginning to experience the “soul work” that is poetry.  A date has not yet been set for Mullen’s next workshop.

Maggie Kelly by — January 29, 2013 in Everything Else