Sacred Heart Hospital

This picture is of Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane. For years this hospital was administered by Sister Peter Claver of the Sisters of Providence. We lose much as time passes and life becomes more and more complicated. Sister Peter Claver could handle it all but those who worked with her and knew her first hand remember the personal touch of this fine person. Will the past ever become the future?

Air Force Cemetery, Spokane

Fall at the Air Force Cemetery just off Government Way and West of Fort Wright. There are a surprising number of infants and very young children buried here. Children of enlisted men. The most prominent death years were 1955, 56, 57. Odd. Surely infant deaths are common but there are too many. Something must have been happening which was unusual. One wonders about radiation of parents as the fathers flew the bombers going to and from Fairchild Air Force Base just west of Spokane.

Puget Sound Late in the Day

The cars and their drivers are heading home from the Olympic Peninsula a couple of weeks ago. This very nondescript picture shows the everyday nature of ferry travel on Puget Sound. This is the ferry run between Kingston and Edmunds just north of Seattle. The picture does not show it, but there were several commercial fishing boats at work just south of the ferry run. They were working purse seines.

Late Fall: A Road West of Town

Here is a picture of a gravel road west of Spokane. The winter sky was beautiful that day. Soon the road will be covered with snow and impassible for most of the season. The conditions will force one out of his car and onto his feet. Wonder if there is a metaphor there which might apply to the current economic conditions which are starting to make demands upon us to become different. How might we become different? By becoming self-sufficient, by slowing down, leading simpler less money intense lives. The economic downturn will get us to move away from our intense effort to pass though life hardly noticing the pleasures of truth life affords. But maybe nothing will come of our difficulties. Of course nothing will come of it if we can find a way to "buy" our way out of it for another 20 - 30 years.

Mount Spokane, November 2008

Winter is on its way. Mount Spokane, just a few miles north of downtown Spokane, has had its first snow of the season. About 10 inches, but much of it melted at the lower elevations of the ski area. The depth in the woods at the base of the ski area was still at 8 inches or so the weekend of November 8, 2008.

This morning, November 14, 2008, it was cold in Spokane, below freezing. That means colder weather at higher elevations. The sky was clear this morning but now it is greying. Weather is moving in.