"Winding Down in WA"

Amusing to read Kim Palka's column with the title above in the Midland Daily News online. She drove from Spokane to Port Orchard, WA to visit a cousin. (Wonder if she took the ferry across Puget Sound? That's always fun).

She mentions robins, buds on trees, and bulbs starting to come up. Well yes, spring gets a much earlier start here than Midland, where for me it was seeing the crocuses coming up through the snow in March. But it's a very long, drawn out start very unlike Midland's comparatively rapid switch from snow to soggy soil to sun, and without the delicious smell of the warming soil.

But, as she no doubt discovered right after submitting that column, at least through April we are subject to sudden plunges right back into winter.

(And I see from the comments section that there's another former Midlander out here.)

Snow and hills...

...are a bad combination here in the Seattle area. If, as I have, you have ever seen cars with occupants sliding down steep hills completely out of control, you'll understand.

So when snow started coming in last evening, people hurried home. I was a little concerned myself, but we hadn't had the preceding weather patterns that are the major contributor to our nasty snow problems.

And though the forecast said up to six inches, at my house (back up in the cedar hills) we had only three. And a lighter snow than the heavy wet stuff we usually get. So I was a bit eager to try out the 4WD truck we bought a couple of weeks ago -- all our vehicles are 4WD, but this is the biggest I've ever had. No problem at all going and coming, though our light little 2-door Tracker had trouble getting back up to the hill to the house this afternoon. (I've shoveled the hill now; there should be no problem at all for Kathy and the neighbors.)

I didn't learn to drive until after we'd left Midland, so I have no knowledge of what it's like driving there in winter. No hills, of course, but I remember my mother once being surprised ca 1966 when her VW Beetle broke loose and spun across the intersection by St. John's and Barstow Woods. I guess 4WD would be a help in new snow, before the plows get around. Beyond that just be cautious, I guess, and you might not end up like so many 4WD owners here -- in the ditch.

(Dear readers, you are quite welcome to comment, by the way. It would be nice to hear from Midlanders past and present.)

Michigan for retirement?

Okay, I've been gone for decades and even when I left "retirement" was something unimaginably far in the future, since I had years of preparation for my career still ahead of me.

But the article Painful sacrifices could push retirees out of state, in the Midland Daily news, caught my attention.

This is a big retirement state,” he said. “Retirees spend a lot of money here.

Sure, from time to time I'd thought about returning when I retire, and maybe that was reinforced by our visit last summer. Not sure about returning to the Midwestern climate (I am awfully spoiled by Seattle for all I detest its dark, gloomy winters), but I sure miss the Midwestern culture.

Rate of change

I've never thought much before on *how* cities change over time. That it happens is inevitable, but it seems I've mostly been there while the changes occur, like the 28 years I've lived in the Seattle area, so I haven't taken much note. And even when I visited Midland last summer, after 42 years' absence, the main thing I noticed was that our old house was still there, my school buildings still standing.

But right now I'm sitting in the Salt Lake City airport, returning home from a week of technical committee meetings at a conference in Las Vegas where, despite having little free time, I got to see "change" in a very big way.

I first visited Las Vegas for a trade show in 1982, and evenings had some time to wander around. I'm not into gambling or shows (still haven't seen any), but took in the sights and the lights seen from the street. I didn't return again until 3 years ago, a quarter-century later, and was amazed at the change. The casino hotels I remembered were all gone. I could only identify the street my hotel (the Sands?) was on by the peculiar angle of that street to Las Vegas Blvd.

But none of it quite hit home until my return to Las Vegas a week ago where, on the Strip to get dinner, I contrasted Vegas of memory with Vegas today. And I thought of Midland which, though it is different from Midland 42 years ago, seems to retain much of what it was then, in sufficient enough ways to look little different. And Redmond (WA), somewhere in-between, remaking itself at a rate somewhere in-between.

So I wonder: what drives the change, and what the preservation of what they were? None of these cities are poor, lacking in money, and yet there is such a difference in their rates of change.