Like Big Brother Seattle Before It, Spokane Will Grow
Admitting to anyone from west of Bellevue that you had graduated from Issaquah High School would have you labeled “farm boy” in 1973. Issaquah still had a feed store at the intersection of Sunset and Front, with a loading dock where a truck picking up farm supplies would block traffic.
And traffic lights? Issaquah had none except where Interstate 90 passed through town.
Even as the farm town began rapid growth in the 1970s, the flavor of Issaquah - with Seattle Sky Sports, Lake Sammamish State Park and Tiger Mountain - stayed the same.
As I was growing up on the east side of Seattle, drivein theaters were a Friday night tradition for most real guys who were 16 or older and owned or could borrow a car. It’s hard to remember any of the movies I saw. But then again, why would you go to a drive-in if you really wanted to watch a movie? During the mid-1970s, the Sunset, Bel-Kirk and most other drive-in theaters were torn down and replaced by freeway interchanges or developed into shopping malls and other commercial properties. Still, this only felt like necessary progress and not the kind of change that would alter the area’s lifestyle.
One of the first jobs I had after finishing high school was at Pacific Car and Foundry in Renton. I could leave Issaquah and arrive in downtown Renton in 27 minutes during what was considered to be rush-hour traffic.
Later, I went to work at a lumber yard on Bainbridge Island. Daily ferry rides allowed me to meet friendly people who lived all over the Seattle area. There didn’t seem to be that constant tension you see on people’s faces today.
One fellow worker had recently moved from Los Angeles to the Tacoma area and was commuting 100 miles roundtrip. I couldn’t understand why anyone would ever drive so far for a job. He, however, didn’t think it much of an imposition.
I left Seattle to spend years trying to find the fun, travel and adventure a military recruiter had promised me, always knowing that Seattle would be home. Since my infantry training hadn’t readily prepared me for that executive Fortune 500 position, I returned to school.
Going to Washington State University was culture shock. Moving to Pullman was environment shock. Where did the hills, mountains, greenery and water go? Where did civilization go?
No doubt about it, Seattle was still home.
Upon graduation from WSU, the next five-year plan led me to Gonzaga University and Spokane. Arriving here, I knew I must be at least 100 miles from the United States. However, all would be well because upon finishing Gonzaga (and now married), we would finally be going home to Seattle.
Summer 1989 arrived. We spent 10 days in the Puget Sound area looking at houses, arranging contacts for job interviews and experiencing Seattle in anticipation of at last moving home to the comfort of a place I remembered well.
We also felt uneasy because, the more time we spent, the more we came to realize that the Seattle we were confronting was far different from the Seattle I left years before. A house where we had lived in Issaquah was for sale for six times what my parents had paid for it less than 20 years before. The Issaquah-Rention commute was a traffic nightmare that took 45 minutes, not during rush hour but at midday.
Of the people I spoke with, half were fairly straightforward as they quickly sized up what benefit they might gain by granting their attention. The other half weren’t even from Seattle. They were there on business, moving there or visiting.
The Seattle attitude, atmosphere, aura and ambiance all acted together to create a feeling of deja vu from a month I had spent in Los Angeles years before.
A feeling of emptiness comes when you understand that your memories stay pure only because you have been away from a place long enough that reality and progress can’t cloud what you believe. In confusion, we headed back to Spokane.
Coming home to Spokane, we felt both disappointed and enlightened. Disappointment came from realization that a very special place during a vividly remembered moment didn’t exist any more. Enlightenment settled upon us as we looked at Spokane with clear eyes. No more younger-and-less-capable-sibling comparisons with The Emerald City.
Acceptance and awareness of Spokane as home was ever so easy. Looking at my family, our home, my job, friends, the absence of traffic, the cost of living, access to skiing and outdoor sports, the nearby mountains and water, the lack of crowding and the ambient attitude of people in general all came together to present Spokane as the place to be.
What a change of opinion, what a new impression, what peace of mind as we finally came home to Spokane in August 1989.
Today, I’m rather nervous as I look around the Lilac City. Since 1989, real estate prices have accelerated into a market beyond the means of most local residents. Our community has experienced the arrival of new kinds of big-city crime and problems that Spokane so recently appeared to be immune to.
Rush-hour traffic comes to a crawl at the I-90 curves in the Valley, just as it does on I-405 in Renton. The solution to this problem included tearing down the East Sprague Drive-in to make room for a traffic interchange. The graveyards of the rest of Spokane’s drive-ins exist under retail shopping outlets or car dealers.
Spokane’s old easygoing attitude has picked up the pace and now feels much more like the “let’s get right to business” shallowness of someplace else.
And yet, all of this felt like necessary progress that would allow Spokane to grow, not the kind of change that would alter the lifestyle that Spokane offered.
Spokane apparently is family with Seattle. As the bigger brother grows, so the younger brother comes along, too. A true characterization of the differences between the two doesn’t show a great divide, only a great delay.
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