“Breaking News!” Last week the average age of people in east Jefferson County dropped by 27.5 years! Like you, I saw the tour busses around Port Townsend carrying all those good-looking young folks to town.
They were in Safeway, McDonald’s and every store downtown. They were the men and women of the crew of the USS Nimitz docked at Indian Island for a few days.
As I drove into Port Townsend on Friday morning I noted they were still there. I had lunch with Mike Kenna at Doc’s and they were on the move to Bremerton but went by the restaurant around 200 yards from where we sat. The average age around here then rocketed back up.
BJ and 16 other women of the Ludlow Maintenance Commission, LMC, presented the eighth annual performance of the “Adorables” last Saturday. The event is part of the monthly potluck dinner at the Beach Club and it again drew the largest crowd of the season. I suspect some spouses, significant others, children, etc. were there to witness the scintillating story and catchy tunes of “Cruising Puget Sound” created by Nancy Bonderson. Folks, you cannot find or pay for entertainment the likes of this anywhere else on the planet.
For dinner we sat with a group of people whose occupations varied widely. The was a VP of operations for a small company, a project manager, a nurse, a chemical research scientist, an “EMMY winning” journalist, a college professor, a computer programmer and me, the computer salesman.
Most of those people are doing extensive volunteering now or working in real estate or writing newspaper columns or whatever. One of them, Jim Gormly, took his background as a research scientist and turned that experience into a well-known acting career with the Port Ludlow Players.
He has taken this career even further by writing a one act play! March 7 and 8 the play is one of several being presented at the Key City Public Theatre’s “PlayFest.” Jim’s work, “Oh My! God?” is being read at 7:30 on Saturday and 5 on Sunday. BJ, John Paxson and Bob Shaw along with their wives gave me some flack for being the inspiration for them to join Rotary and thus becoming more soldiers in the small army of folks selling flag subscriptions, raffle tickets and roses. (Rose sale is on, so call me or your favorite Rotarian, if you need a dozen.)
On a different musical planet, we went to see and listen to the Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra on Sunday at the Chimacum High School auditorium. It was a wonderful performance and it was great to see Port Ludlow local violinist Sharla Erich playing with them, along with our friend Pat Kenna. The highlight of the show was the “opening act,” the Port Townsend High School Orchestra. They played two pieces with amazing talent. Eighty-two of the 381 students at Port Townsend High are in the orchestra, more than 20 percent! They are raising money for a trip to LA over spring break to see the LA symphony and take advantage of the culture in Southern California. If you have an opportunity to help them. They deserve it.
The weekend held two very different musical performances for us, but here in the gray days and dark nights of the Pacific Northwest it would be appropriate to remember the words of Jean Paul: “Music is the moonlight in the gloomy night of life.”
Love a curmudgeon and have a great week!
(Ned Luce is a retired IBM executive who loves all things Ludlow.)
