last man to leave

Men go back to the mountains, as they go back to sailing ships at sea, because in the mountains and on the sea they must face up, as did men of another age, to the challenge of nature. Modern man lives in a highly synthetic kind of existence. He specializes in this and that. Rarely […]

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Gratulerer Med Dagen

Today is Syttende Mai, Norwegian Constitution Day. This is usually a big deal in Ballard, now considered a Seattle neighborhood that used to be (and still should be) its own entity. But thanks to the restrictions on free association and public gatherings, Syttende Mai is a silent affair this time around. There’s no parade, no […]

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The Juanita Beach Goldfish

For years I have been fascinated with the story of a goldfish that survived the April 29th, 1965 Puget Sound earthquake. This was a strong quake that one of my parents remembers vividly. They were just kids when it happened, and as a kid I remember marveling over their description of the strong jolts, groceries […]

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Perspective

This is the cottage I call the Feriton Fairy House. Where is Feriton, you may ask? It’s on Google Maps… right smack where the Google campus is in Kirkland, Washington. KirklandHistory.org has a well-researched explanation of why this area is called Feriton. Most Kirklanders are unaware of its historic name. Located just north of the […]

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Urban Decay II

Today the middle section of the last Kirkland Parkplace building had fallen in by way of behemoth hydraulics. An excavator scraped the innards onto the ground and then into giant trucks which hauled them away to lands unknown. ©2020 H. Hiatt/wildninjablog.com. All articles/posts on this blog are copyrighted original material that may not be reproduced […]

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Urban Decay

There are plenty of ruined buildings in the world but no ruined stones. Hugh MacDiarmid Where were these photographs taken? Sarajevo? Beirut? Chernobyl? That’s what I would guess if I hadn’t taken them. These were taken last Friday in Kirkland, Washington. The last of the Kirkland Parkplace buildings was coming down. The group of brick […]

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No Boredom!

As I said in yesterday’s post, being bored is impossible when you enjoy history and genealogy! You always have places to go, photos to take, research to complete, and stacks of paperwork to sort through. So hearing people say they’re bored during this time of social distancing sounds rather alien; some of us are finding […]

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Faeth Fiada

Wow. Check out this powerful post from The Irish Aesthete, one of my all-time favorite blogs. Author Robert O’Byrne quotes an excerpt from the prayer known as St. Patrick’s Breastplate, otherwise known as the Lúireach Phádraig or Faeth Fiada. The photography and thoughts on The Irish Aesthete are impeccably researched and brilliant. O’Byrne has done […]

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NARA Seattle

The National Archives and Records Administration building in Seattle is slated for closure, which could send countless invaluable records, including tribal records, out of state and far away. To understand the purpose of this building and why it’s important to keep these records in our state, please see Seattle Now & Then: National Archives and […]

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