The Senior Scene

(Pictured: Bill Nye, aka The Science Guy, has gone from civil engineer to TV personality).

Bill Nye. Scientist, celebrity, television star, author, and The Science Guy.

And now, because of his connection to the Pacific Northwest, he’s the subject of an exhibit at the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle.

Nye has donated artifacts from his TV stardom on the Seattle-based sketch comedy show “Almost Live!” and his own, subsequent show, “Bill Nye the Science Guy.” Also on display are workplace items (vintage shop coats, desk gadgets, memorabilia) from his days working as an engineer for Boeing and other Puget Sound-area companies, and documents chronicling a Seattle team he helped organize in the sport of Ultimate Frisbee. In other words, the Complete Bill Nye. Or, as museum (MOHAI) officials note, the exhibit that opened Aug. 31 and will continue until Feb. 23 next year is “a rare glimpse into the life and work of a beloved local personality.” It’s also, they said, in line with the museum’s effort to “care for and store important local stories.”

Nye’s connection to the Northwest began in the late 1970s when he moved here to pursue his fascination with airplanes and flight at Boeing. By 1986, he had a night job as a comedy writer and performer on “Almost Live!”, which aired for 15 years on KING 5-TV. He went on to develop his Science Guy personna, which gained him national notoriety and a place in the Smithsonian National Museum of

American History for the original lab coat he wore on “Bill Nye the Science Guy.”

In addition to science demonstrations, Nye played a variety of characters on “Almost Live!”, including a farcical superhero named “Speed Walker” who overtook criminals with his goofy yet surprisingly speedy gait. A Speed Walker costumes is in the MOHAI display.

Nye heads The Planetary Society, a non-profit advocacy organization for space exploration. While earning a degree in mechanical engineering as a student at Cornell University, he was introduced to astronomy in a class taught by legendary professor and universe guru Carl Sagan.

By Mary Lou Falcone                                                                                                                                    

I am 78 years young and starting a brand-new chapter – Act Three of my life. 

If you had told me in the mid-1960s (at age 20) that I was destined to experience three distinctly different careers in life, I would have been shocked.  In my wildest dreams, I never could have imagined what was in store. Because I trusted the universe and my reliable gut reaction, I got to experience life’s expansiveness, its richness and depth, along with its trying times.

Having been given the gift of a singing voice, I used it in my early years as a lifeline to express emotion when words weren’t possible. In my teens, I trained as a classical singer at the famed Curtis Institute of Music. Then came Act One of my adult life, performing in opera and concert.  During my 20s, I realized that the singing career was my entree to something else. But what? The path took some time, but Act Two became clear when, at 28, I made the bold decision to create a public relations business. 

While I loved performing, I didn’t need it; I did need to communicate. As fate would have it, the proverbial light bulb moment took place while performing with an opera company in the midwest. My curiosity lured me to the company’s public relations department. In my spare time between performances, maybe I could apprentice there? The company’s general manager had other ideas. “Why not just take over the national and international press representation of the company?”

Even though I knew nothing about PR, I was game to try. That “yes” parlayed into a successful business that has lasted 50 years. PR allowed me to communicate with passion and knowledge about music and artists, shining a spotlight on countless careers from Van Cliburn, Renée Fleming and James Taylor, to institutions like the Vienna Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall, and LaScala.

Toward the end of Act Two, I began to wonder: Might there be an Act Three? While contemplating this notion, life took a turn that I didn’t see coming, laying the groundwork for that third act.

My soulmate, the artist Nicky Zann, was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia (LBD), a neurodegenerative disease for which there is no cure and which affects approximately 11 million people worldwide.  It is often misdiagnosed, as it mimics Alzheimer’s disease.

Caring for my beloved husband was a challenge and a gift.  The challenge was in being his sole caregiver during the pandemic, watching the person I loved most in this world slip away day by day. On the other hand, making Nicky’s impossible journey as positive as possible was a gift to me.

And Nicky gave me a parting gift.  He told me shortly before he died that I had to write. After he passed, I began to write about our love story and his illness. The writing has become a basic handbook, especially for caregivers and families.

Today, I have my third act: Advocate for LBD awareness. With the book as my calling card, I address groups of medical professionals, family members, and caregivers throughout the country, from the Mayo Clinic to the University of Nebraska Medical Center.  Additionally, I’ve expanded my advocacy for dementia awareness as an executive producer for the film, “Facing the Wind,” soon to be launched.

At 78, my third and probably most meaningful act energizes me and hopefully will inspire others. 

Mary Lou Falcone is the author of the memoir “I Didn’t See It Coming: Scenes of Love, Loss and Lewy Body Dementia.” More at www.maryloufalcone.com

(Pictured: A clambake in approximately 1910 in Fairfax included these gentlemen. Washington State Historical Society

By Knute Berger

Cascade PBS

According to the Haida First Nations people of the northern British Columbian coast, the origins of humanity began on a beach. Raven found a large clam shell and noticed some creatures protruding from it and squirming inside. He coaxed the reluctant creatures to come out and join the rest of the world. They were the first men.

It seems apt that a clam shell would be part of an origin story in the coastal Pacific Northwest. Thousands of years of shell middens — old refuse deposits — are testament to shellfish’s role in sustaining people here. The variety and abundance of clam shells show they were a crucial source of food, proof of the old adage “When the tide is out, the table is set.” Let’s hear it for the quiet, unsung — well, barely sung — bivalve, the clam.

The receding of the glaciers left behind a pleasant homeland for shellfish. Clams were accessible on sandy beaches. On Haida Gwaii, the Haida’s island homeland, people were living sustainably on game and shellfish nearly 11,000 years ago, not long after the ice retreated and Raven coaxed humanity into the daylight. Indigenous people throughout the Northwest dug for clams, carrying special clam baskets and using digger sticks to chase them down. Many middens were the result of processing large numbers of clams, which were often smoked and dried for later consumption or trade. Dried and smoked clams made their way over the mountains. People far from the sea could still enjoy some briny goodness.

The cultivation of clam beds by Indigenous people is one phenomenon that is being revived. Many Native peoples made “clam gardens.” Some argue the term is a misnomer because the gardens involved a variety of techniques and serious heavy lifting. Shorelines were re-engineered to expand sandy beaches. Rocks were removed to increase clam habitat. Walls and revetments were erected to improve cultivation. Aquaculture here is thousands of years old.

Another, more local, origin story involving clams relates to the beginnings of modern Seattle. The Denny Party, Euro-American settlers credited with starting the city, landed at Alki Point on a chilly, wet November day in 1851. They marked a new wave of settlers on Puget Sound. Among the party was a baby, Rolland Denny, just two months old. His mother, Mary Ann, was sick and couldn’t produce milk, so Duwamish women taught her to nurture tiny Rolland on clam broth until she could. It worked. He lived to be 87 years old, the last survivor of the original Denny party.

Restaurateur Ivar Haglund capitalized on clams and kept the virtues of clam broth — or clam nectar — on menus with a winking suggestion that it might be an aphrodisiac. But he also promoted an old frontier song that said that the abundance of clams was the essence of the good life in Puget Sound country — especially for those not prosperous in farming, prospecting or any other frontier endeavor. Haglund named his Seattle waterfront restaurant Acres of Clams.

In the 1860s, when the Washington Territory stretched as far east as Idaho, western Montana and a bit of Wyoming, political observers in the eastern parts felt a division of power between east and west. Today, people might complain about the Cascade east/west divide, but back in the day they grumbled about the politicos throwing their weight around in “clam country,” their epithet for Olympia-dominated politics.

No clam is more identifiable or as great a conversation piece than the geoduck, a Lushootseed word that relates to the clam’s prodigious digging abilities (it can go deep) and because of an appendage that can’t fit into its shell and can extend up to three feet. It’s the clam’s “neck” through which it breaths and siphons sand and water. The geoduck is considered a delicacy and is used in sushi, among other things.

And then there is chowder. In the Northwest, the popular version that caught on was creamy New England-style chowder — back in the day the region was not known for tomatoes, the basis of Manhattan-style clam chowder. Food historian Jacqueline Williams says that by the 1880s, New England-style recipes began appearing in the first local cookbooks. Territorial cooks could reliably come by more ingredients, like flour, thanks to shipments from back east, and it’s a damp-weather, gut-warming tonic.

Clams are the symbol of steady, contented existence. They’ve been feeding us for thousands of years — long after they attended our birth on a beach.

Source: Crosscut, part of Cascade PBS, a non-profit news site covering the Pacific Northwest. Knute Berger is editor-at-large for Crosscut.