My wife, Mary, and I moved to Olympia from Seattle a few months after we were married in 1963. We enjoyed 30 years in Olympia raising our offspring to adulthood. But time marches on and so did we. Back to the hustle-bustle of Seattle city life. After 4 years of hustle our bustle was exhausted, leaving us with the opportunity to fulfill our dream of living on the shores of the Pacific. Away we went to a house we had built overlooking the Pacific and the shipping channel into Grays Harbor at the North Jetty on the south end of Ocean Shores. We spent 20 wonderful years captivated by life on the sea and sharing our lives with the other sea loving characters in our Jetty Neighborhood. In 2017 a life-threatening illness forced us to leave our shoreside shanty to be closer to medical facilities back in Olympia.
In my early twenties while attending UW I was fortunate to obtain a position operating the AM rush hour reversible lanes across the Mercer Island floating bridge with the Washington State Department of Transportation. During my 43-year career in transportation engineering with the department I enjoyed challenging opportunities working in and managing highway and structure planning, design, construction, environmental assessment, roadside safety and utility coordination on almost every state roadway in Northwest Washington. I retired in 2004.
During my off-work hours and in retirement, woodworking, politics, landscaping, traveling, cooking at ‘Feed the Hungary’ and other volunteering took some of my time. But my most rewarding interest has been teaming with Mary raising our nine kids and enjoying the company of our 27 talented grandkids. The stork is now busy with great grandkids. After celebrating my eightieth birthday and living alone after a love filled marriage of 56 years, I happened to stumble across some information about Community Loaves that sparked my bread baking interest. That looked easy so I joined the Community. I put my supplies and equipment together and then realized I had given Mary’s KitchenAid to one of my daughters.
Mary loved to cook but she could never justify the expense of buying a KitchenAid. After we had lived in Ocean Shores for a couple of years our neighbor, Colleen, decided to sell her possessions and move to Mexico. There it sat on Colleen’s counter, the KitchenAid. It was given to Colleen years ago by her grandmother who could no longer cook. I’m not sure how old it is but I know it was made before plastic was invented. It takes a forklift to move it across the counter. Mary bought it with all the attachments for 15 bucks. Sweet daughter returned the KitchenAid when she heard of my latest, family suspected, harebrained adventure.
OK, I am determined to succeed at this and I am excited for my first easy bread bake. Disaster. Flour flying all over the kitchen. Sticky dough thrown from the mixer hanging on the walls and splattering across the countertop. Fingers glued together Dough rising more than expected and hanging down off the counter. Well, since that was so much fun, I thought I would give it another try. Not so bad the second time, so I tried again. I am now the master of my machines. Just finished creating my latest loaves, whoopy it’s naptime. Happy Breader Together baking…
THANK YOU ANDY – WE ARE INDEED BREADER TOGETHER!
