Washington Voices

Nine-month-old Austin Barton recently entered the Spokane Valley YMCA pool with his mom, Amy Barton, for a swimming lesson. It wasn’t his first trip to the pool, and he had a lot of fun, splashing in the water and giggling with his mom. Barton said her mother told her about swimming lessons for babies and it seemed like a good idea for Austin.

By the time the Jolly Roger docked at the pier, friends Keith Steiner and Cooper Proctor were no longer merely 7-year-old passengers – they were pirates. That should be expected after an afternoon aboard the pirate-themed ship, attending pirate school and watching the entertaining antics of the gruff-but-funny crew and their not-so-salty characters.

If you were to happen to take Exit 2 east of Stateline, Idaho, notice signs for a “shop sale,” and follow those signs, you’d end up at Mark Olmstead’s place. Initially, it’s not much to look at; there are a couple of shops filled with stuff that you may or may not need including tools, parts, and the occasional “What the heck is that used for?” item. If you were the curious type, you might ask Olmstead about the water feature to the west of the shops and you just might be lucky enough to be invited into the world “behind the curtain” where at once you realize that you’re not “in Kansas anymore.” It is not the rush of the freeway that you hear but water turning wheels, splashing on rocks, and replenishing small ponds. “This is my relaxation,” Olmstead said, “I can watch the wheel go round for hours.”

If Fred Mitchell hadn’t been at the Greyhound bus station in Sioux Falls, S.D., in the summer of 1944, he might never have met the love of his life. A beautiful girl, wearing a sassy white hat had just stepped off the bus and looked around for her boyfriend who was supposed to meet her. “A whole bunch of soldiers were waiting to see who got off the bus,” Nathalie Mitchell recalled.