#139 Harbor Daze 2

Harbor Days is interesting. Part of the constant schizoid nature of Olympia’s self-identity. We think of ourselves as the state capitol and figure pomp and circumstance is part of our heritage but we also know that the government’s really only here about four to six months a year and come summertime there’s a big stretch of water that borders our fair burg. So one of our community festivals celebrates the downtown Capitol reflection lake—Lakefair—and one of them celebrates the Puget Sound—Harbor Days. When I first heard about Harbor Days I had a garbled radio so I showed up with a tree to plant. Oops.
Among its many attractions, Harbor Days has the tugboat races and if you’ve never seen ‘em, you’re in for a treat. Let’s just say NASCAR it’s not. Or any car. Actually, it’s kind of like going to a taffy pull. Or watching paint dry. The perfect race for the geriatric set. Too bad the deck boards are so warped at Percival Landing that the wheelchair crowd get their dentures shaken loose every time they’re foolish enough to roll along the boardwalk. Percival Landing is named after this Percival guy who was one of the original dredge-a-channel boosters of the burgeoning frontier swampland that was to become Olympia. His co-pioneer, a certain Sylvester, was the cat who dug the downtown scene, dude. And his downtown park perfectly epitomizes the urban-slash-Capitol side of Olympia’s bi-polar destiny.
I saw an interesting booth at Harbor days this year. As at any summer festival, the booth entrepreneurs come out, hawking everything from tie-died aprons to homemade engine lubricant. Shitzu massage folk have their chairs scattered all over. Those places scare me. I’m never sure if a little hairy dog is gonna run across my back or what. This one booth was weird. Cause they were selling animal furs. They had one wolf hide on display and my brother-in-law was feeling it. The metal pierced maiden manning the booth asked: “Doesn’t that look nice?” My brother-in-law replied: “It probably looked better on the wolf.” She stiffened, obviously prepared for a PETA tirade. And truth be told, I wondered where the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals booth was this year. Olympia is nothing if not involved in the rights of all living things. But the lady at the booth was clever. She shifted the blame to the forest killers, the automobile industry, and everything else environmentalists love to hate. She said the wolf had been run over by a big logging truck. How clever. Blame the planet rapers but harvest the pelt anyhow. The first environmentally correct furrier. A perfect example of Darwinian entrepreneurship. Another business niche discovered and filled. And another hairy problem solved…
America, ya gotta love it.