Discover Walla Walla

No one who knew Isabella Kirkman would ever think of her as having potential to "haunt." Isabella and William Kirkman were, as most locals know, the hardworking wealthy citizens who built the Kirkman House on the corner of Colville and Cherry. Their elegant home was finished by 1880 and the Kirkmans lived there until the 1920s when Isabella gave it to Whitman College. It was a dorm for a few years and then an apartment for many more, and was pretty much a disaster when rescued in the 1970s--just before it was about to be demolished--by a group of history-conscious citizens.

The restored home is a now a charming museum furnished with Kirkman belongings and those of their era. William died in 1893 and was so admired that mourners filled the front yard and spilled into the streets. Isabella lived until 1931, a supportive wife, a loving mother and grandmother.  The Kirkmans did have their share of family heartaches. Isabella gave birth to 10 children but only four of them lived to grow up. Photos of Isabella show a round-faced rosy looking woman who was content with her lot in life. Like I said, not a scary lady. And yet, there are frequently "occurrences" at Kirkman House--noises, voices, footsteps--and some hold Isabella responsible.

I asked around, questioning Kirkman House Museum staff and board members. I was intrigued by the idea of Kirkman "ghosts." Yes, some folks had heard "things" in the house, but the "voices" one person heard turned out to be just the whine of the paper shredder. Another noted the sensor going off at the front door when no one was around, but it was just the wind leaking in and setting off the motion detector. Those are the spooky happenings that can be explained, but there are occurrences that have no easy explanation.

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I'm married to a librarian. From a young age, he found joy in organizing and reorganizing anything he could find, including his Matchbox cars and baseball cards. Especially his baseball cards. He had dozens of them, and now, at nearly 30, he has hundreds. He doesn't collect them for their monetary value; instead he collects them simply to be able to keep current with the cards he has, and to be able to better organize his teams.

This same personality trait caused us to spend two hours one evening pulling all of our books off their shelves (we own a lot of them; we were both English majors in college), organizing them according to genre, and then alphabetically by the author's last name. We even started putting them into an online personal library program, and stopped just short of printing out our own Library of Congress labels to put on the book spines.

That is why places like Earthlight Books, a used book shop at the east end of Main Street in Walla Walla, are dangerous places for us to visit. This shop is a popular haunt for many people I know; it practically whispers their name anytime they're near downtown, and, like a true magical entity, Earthlight Books is difficult to refuse.

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The Scene: Standing in line behind a 30-something couple...

He (making conversation): What are you having?

She (wondering): I don't know. What are you having?

He (matter-of-fact): A grande caramel frappucino.

She (pondering): What should I get?

He (matter-of-fact): Whatever you want.

She (indecisive): I don't know. I can't decide. You pick something.

He (matter-of-fact): But I don't know what you want.

She (indecisive): I don't either. Just pick something for me. Anything's fine.

He (tentative): Are you sure?

She (exasperated): Yes. I'm sure. Just pick something, okay? Stop it with all the questions. Whatever you pick is fine.

He (ordering): We'll have two grande caramel frappucinos.

She (disbelieving): No, honey. You know I don't want one of those.

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Last week my dad and I took my daughter the coolest house ever. One room is a party room with a big, butterfly-shaped table. Across the hall is a miniature Italian restaurant, stocked with cheese, pasta, vegetables, and every kitchen appliance imaginable (including an espresso machine).

Next door is the veterinarian's office, where exotic animals like owls, toucans, seals, and even a dinosaur fill the cages next to cats, dogs, birds and lizards. Across the hall from that is the grocery store, complete with pint-sized shopping carts and functioning produce scales. Shelves and baskets host mounds of plastic pears, tomatoes, loaves of French bread, cans of tomato sauce, jars of pickles, and boxes of crackers.

In two large rooms nearby is a large artificial tree you can get inside and peer out through a knot-hole, musical instruments, a dress-up stage where you can be on TV, a plethora of puppets, miniature tool benches, a painting corner, water tables where you can shovel sediment into islands to divert the "river," a "fishing" hole, miniature dams, and more.

And I haven't even told you about the backyard yet. (It features playground equipment, an old fire truck, a huge wooden boat, and a place to build your own miniature log cabin.)

 

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I arrived at Olive this morning and settled in at my table. I'm here most mornings for coffee and the temptation of jam-topped biscuits. I don't get the biscuits anymore. But I look at them.

Bob and Horace are at their table-same table every day.  Bob brings his Bible. He drinks a latte and munches a cinnamon bun while he lectures Horace. Horace drinks chamomile tea and mostly listens.

Sarah, Gertrude, and Meg sit on their sofa-same places every day. Sarah has coffee and a raisin-walnut scone. Gertrude eats grapes and drinks free water. Meg has a cappuccino.

Scott's in his chair-same chair every morning-drinking his coffee-black.

Ron sits at the table at the top of the stairs-the one surrounded by stools-eating one of those biscuits I told you about. Sometimes Ron sits at the table next to mine, but not today.

Ron is sort of unpredictable.

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Happy 2011 and all that...

I'm a member-in-good-standing at the Walla Walla YMCA. I am, according to me, a reliable source of YMCA information.

It's Monday, January 3, 2011. It's 6:30am. The newly expanded YMCA parking lot is full. Folks are parking on side streets and walking all the way to the Y.

"I had to walk TWO WHOLE BLOCKS," Les complained.

"I'm parked way over on Palouse," Steve said. "This town is getting too dern crowded, if you want to know what I think."

"Nobody wants to know what you think," Les said.

If January 2011 bears any resemblance to January 2010 or 2009 or 2008 or even 2007, by January 24 the resolutioners will have given up and gone back to their old ways.

"Can't wait till February," Les said.

"Me, too," Steve said.

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I just returned to Walla Walla from New York City. I was there for several days and-as I always do when visiting the Big Apple-I ate my share of bagels at iconic delicatessens.

But never again!

My wife makes bagels that are way better than NYC bagels. And she's just started teaching a bagel baking class at out farm! That means that she's always tweaking her recipes. And that means I'm always sampling great bagels. (It's the least I can do to be supportive.) And that means I'm stepping up my exercise program.

It's all worth it.

My wife makes the best bagels on the planet-no joke.

Check out her classes at out farm website www.detourfarm.com and click on the "Baking by Hand" tab. You'll be glad you did!

 

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My father was a doctor. Not a kid doctor-an old people doctor. So he didn't doctor us, but insisted that my mom, Coco, haul my brothers and me to the pediatrician for annual physicals.

Every year, Coco dutifully tricked us into her station wagon under some false promise. "We're all going to the movies, yippee!" Then she'd cheerfully lie to us as she drove, until one of us smelled a rat and screamed, "We're not going to the movies! We're going to the doctor!"

Oh, the injustice of it all.

We pleaded. We cried. Boy, did we cry! Red puffy eyes, wet salty cheeks, snot bubbling from our noses-the whole deal. We'd been to the doctor. We had experience. We had good reason to be scared witless.

At the doctor's office, we sat nervously in the waiting room pretending to read Highlights Magazine, trying to control our sobs. We watched innocent and mostly good little children emerge from the examining room with tears streaming down their cheeks.

"McLeod boys," Nurse Curtis called, summoning us into the examining room.

I dove for the carpet and put a death grip on the leg of my chair. While my younger brothers watched, Coco tugged me loose, threatening to dock my allowance.

In the examining room, Nurse Curtis instructed us to strip down to our Fruit-of-the-Looms. The doctor will be in shortly, she said. Nurse Curtis left the room while Coco arranged us in birth order. As the oldest, I was to "go first."

"Sammy," Coco begged. "You're the oldest and I expect you to set a good example for your brothers. Remember last time we came to the doctor? When you fainted out there in the waiting room? We're not having fainting this year. You got that?"

"Yes'm, but..."

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Do you remember back in school when the first essay of the new year in English Comp was themed, "How I Spent My Summer Vacation?" For me, 2010 was the first summer I have had off in over 12 years and also one of the first where I didn't travel too far from the area.

It was a summer of taking in many local events, as well as working a wine bottling line, attending winemaker dinners featuring the skills of our local chef's and their favorite food and wine pairings. I took in a geology "terroir" tour, went out wine tasting and even hung with my siblings at our tri-annual family reunion camp-out. The Summer of 2010 will be marked as one of the most memorable events for me as 200 of my wine blogging peers arrived in Walla Walla. Finally, my blogging buds now understand what I have been blogging about now for years - Walla Walla.

I even took in non-wine events, such as the hometown Walla Walla Sweets baseball games (a fine example of why baseball is one of America's favorite pastimes) and an evening of Shakespeare Uncork'd at the Fort Walla Walla Amphitheater. Uncork'd was an evening of an adapted classic, but with fresh air and a view of the stars. Even if wine isn't your forte, there is still plenty to do in the Walla Walla Valley. If you want to see my "feathers ruffled" all I have to hear is the phrase, "There is nothing to do in Walla Walla" and I will figuratively stomp of the perp's tiny little head.

Summer is now just a memory, but the autumn crush is here. Wineries around the valley have prepared their cellars for their annual harvest. The year 2010 will go down in Eastern Washington vineyard history as one of the coolest years since the crush of 1999 - meaning a late start for many of the wineries. However, last week many of the area wineries were finally able to start bringing in their fruit such as Amavi, Gramercy Cellars, L'Ecole #41, Long Shadows, Three Rivers, and Woodward Canyon to name a few. The word on the street, I mean the word in the vineyard is "The 2010 vintage will either be the best or the worst in Washington State history." All bets are on it will be one of the best. Cheers!

 

 

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I have a problem. I have nothing to write about. This blog is due. My head is empty. It's a caseload of bad timing.

These Tourism Walla Walla folks can get a little churlish if I don't get my blogs in on time-as churlish as a possum with its wormlike tail caught under a wood pallet loaded with hundred-pound bags of chicken feed. (Just FYI, that's seriously churlish.)

But what can I do? My mind is a blank slate.

"You're saying that like it's something new," Annie said. "That's not anything new."

"Well, engage that over-active feminine brain of yours and come up with something for me to write about," I replied, churlishly. "I have to get this blog written today or these tourism people are gonna..."

"I know, I know," Annie said. "Get churlish as wet possum. You're about to wear that word out."

"The possum wasn't wet. It had its tail caught."

"Then write about the possum," Annie suggested.

"It bit its own tail off and ran away. End of story."

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