So what's the deal on the Westside? It seems like there are more "Free" piles of junk for the taking on the side of the road than usual this year. And a few of them have conditions like, "take all or nothing." I understand some piles just appear, whether the owner wants it there or not.

Are there Westside rules of engagement here that need to be chronicled? Or is this a citywide thing?

I was going to suggest Ruby Re-Usable get up there in a truck, but then I carefully Re-Read her OlyBlog interview where she states, and I am duplicating her use of upper case letters here, "People are always trying to give me their junk, especially their styrofoam, I DON'T WANT ANY OF YOUR JUNK, THANK YOU!"

In my town we had a "clothing donation" box next to a bus stop for about a year. At first it was clogged with bags of clothing. Then discarded strollers, computers, chairs, and other items too big to fit started to pile around it. Then recliners, giant couches, taxidermied caimans, parts of auto engines, etc. And now I see the whole thing is just gone.

As many of you know, a fine restaurant known as the Ranch House BBQ was wrecked by the floods last winter. The "babbling brook" turned into a raging river, ripping out a fairly recent add-on to the main building and carrying a shed (that used to be a video rental shop) many yards to the shoulder of the freeway. What made the disaster especially sad was that the Ranch House BBQ owners had managed to revive that place of business. I ate there several times and it was always packed with customers standing in line, waiting for tables.

And it was worth waiting for.

I've been going to and fro on Highway 8 ever since it was converted from the old 410. I well remember when that restaurant was the fabled and wonderful Ranch Kitchen. This flood actually closed part of the road. Unprecedented in my experience out here.

I see they have cleaned up the place quite a bit. The outlying debris is gone, the leaning and crumpled add-on has been removed. But the main original Ranch Kitchen (which survived a fire in the late 1950s, I think) still stands. A cyclone fence has recently been put up around it.

So what's the deal here? Does this fence mean the old building is going to be taken down, or, restored? Anyone out there have information?

12 mini-reviews for the short attention span, taken from dark corners of stevenl's video vault:

It is difficult to read about the Socialist movement in Washington State during the first quarter of the 20th century without running across the name of Emil Herman. Yet today he is known only to a few people who enjoy digging into the obscure corners of the local political past. So far as I can find, no one has ever provided a decent summary of his all-too-brief life. For you academics out there interested in Washington State labor history or in American political prisoners, this guy is waiting for your attention. You scholars can fill in the gaps I am woefully missing in my modest effort to cover his political life. Like some other previous Socialist Party ungovernors, Herman died young as a result of breaking his health in the course of carrying his political message with a religious zeal.

After Emil met his untimely end his widow, Ruby, wrote an essay on his career for the Oct. 19, 1928 Labor Journal (Everett, Wash.), which is the source for her quotes I'll be using.

Emil was born in Germany in 1879. His family came to the U.S. in 1882. Apparently his father, Frederick, had socialist leanings.

Ruby Herman: "He was born in Germany and brought to this country by his parents at the age of three. His childhood was the customary one of struggle with poverty and injustice-- a struggle which was maintained with very little occasional diminishment until the end. His father had some small experience as a socialist in Germany and things he would say started the mind of the boy to consideration of our social-economic problems, with the result that as soon as he had attained an age which would permit such a thing he applied for membership in the Socialist Labor Party and was admitted. When the split took place which caused the formation of the Social-Democratic parties in several states, the organization which has since become national in scope and known as the Socialist Party, he left the Socialist Labor Party and identified himself with the new organization-- in whose ranks he remained afterward."

He basically comes in under the historical radar until 1901, when an Emil Herman emerges as a clerk in the Seattle-based Washington Harness and Saddlery Company. Same guy? Perhaps. I have no record of where he was raised to adulthood. He just suddenly appears.

12 mini-reviews for the short attention span, taken from dark corners of stevenl's video vault:

The Party / directed by Blake Edwards (1968, VHS off-air). Peter Sellers, Claudine Longet, Gavin MacLeod, Steve Franken, Allen Jung. Man, this is one groovy scene. Boring, but groovy. Sellers plays a socially inept film extra from India who is accidentally invited to a posh Los Angeles party. The music is by Mancini, and Claudine Longet favors us with a song. Some hip teenagers make an entrance with a baby elephant covered in cool slogans. It is, after all, 1968. Sellers, who specialized in ethnic humor, couldn't get away with this role today. Basically this film is a series of visual jokes. Steve Franken as the drunk waiter and Allen Jung as the cook provide supporting comedy and in some cases steal the scenes from the star. This movie is an incoherent period piece with some moments of real humor between long expanses of tedium.

Over Washington: an Aerial celebration (1989, VHS off-air). Before they take us Washingtonians away to the Soylent Green Factory, we get to watch this beautiful film. It is called "going home."

Ungovernor Gilmore is a major enigma in my parade of might-have-beens. With this man, I just have to cut my research losses and move on. You'll understand why as I unfold the tale.

William Addison Gilmore did not like to be called "Bill." But apparently this life-long staunch Republican had no problem being called a Progressive in 1924. His motives in running for Governor are something of a mystery. Did he really change and evolve his view, or was he a deliberate red herring designed to throw the race into disarray? Unfortunately, there isn't that much data about his political activities between 1916-1924. We do know he returned to the Republican Party after the election. One problem for anyone who attempts to research the life of this character is the abundance of conflicting information concerning where he was when. A slippery subject, this fellow.

William was different than most other ungovernors of his era in that he was a product of the Pacific Northwest. Born in Oakland, California to Irish immigrant parents (A.B. and Anna (Bennett) Gilmore) Jan. 19, 1870, his family moved to Vancouver the following June, a city where A.B. and Anna spent the rest of their lives. The noted historian Clarence Bagley commented on Gilmore's upbringing (1929), "During his boyhood William A. Gilmore saw many Indians and learned much concerning their habits and characteristics. Fish and game were abundant. The family lived in primitive fashion, lacking many things which are now regarded as necessities."

It is possible he had a short-lived career as a teacher in Vancouver starting when he was a teenager, as early as 1887. Possibly at the School for the Deaf.

Or not.

479? 974? Reverse images of each other?

This is not a numerological coincidence. It must have some deeper meaning leading to the illumination of a mystical secret ... 

In the course of recording sightings of UMLs, I noticed that 479 and 974 were seen practically side by side!

UMLs identified in this session: 032, 065, 077, 193, 216, 266, 307, 346, 429, 439-440, 443, 463, 479, 498, 518, 545, 595, 680, 691-692, 724, 813, 816, 827, 896, 974.

Something weird happened this time.