The weather warms up and so do the plastic flamingos.
Mr Bill's
Serving southeast Ballard for at least 30 years, Mr Bill's has all kinds of beers, most of your major brands of cigarettes, a full selection of salty snack treats, and milk.
Good Thing It's Not Raining Today
We were walking over near the southeast corner of Ballard when we heard a strange sawing sound. Turns out it was a guy putting skylights in his house. He had an audience of a half-dozen neighbors and we all cheered when the chunk of roof disappeared from view.
Yellow Roses
These lovely roses bring to mind the Mitch Miller Singers c. 1958 singing "Yellow Rose of Texas," and that's a shame. Whatever nobility and honor the name "Texas" used to suggest has been replaced in our Bush-DeLay world by stupidity and thuggery.
Syttendae mai: Unicycle Drill Team
Not to be outdone by the SPD, the Wildcats from Whittier Elementary put on quite a show with their unicycle drill team.
Syttendae mai: Your Tax Dollars At Work
Leading off the parade every year is the motorcycle drill team from the Seattle Police Department. Now, to some of us Ballardites, the SPD is something of an occupation force, the long arm of the hegemonists who robbed Ballard of its independence long ago. That said, it's still pretty neat to watch them throw those Harleys around.
They weave in and out, back and forth, up and down, with maximum spit and polish and pearl-handled revolvers. For one day a year they're cool. The rest of the year they're just writin' you up for nothin'.
Syttendae mai: Child Care
Even Viking warriors sometimes get stuck with the child care and have to bring the the tykes along when plundering and pillaging.
Syttendae mai: Spongebob Furthers the Agenda
Unlike a few years ago, when a local fundamentalist church sponsored a Passion of the Christ-type exhibition to the shocked horror of all, this year's parade saw Spongebob Squarepants Furthering the Homosexual Agenda. Oh, that Spongebob! What a card!
Syttendae mai: Let's Monorail
photo by Ballard Avenue
The Monorail is supposed to come to Ballard so the Monorail agency sent the interns over with their parade train. We at Ballard Avenue love the Monorail but are dismayed at the glacial pace of the project. I fear this is the only monorail we're likely to see for awhile.
Syttendae mai: Bunader
It was another great Syttendae mai parade. We'll post some pictures of it over the next few days. Here you see a group of Norwegian women wearing their bunader, the national dress of Norway. Different regions of Norway have different styles of bunader, rather like different clans in Scotland have different tartans. I don't know what region this group represents but they look pretty good doing it.
Syttende mai
It's Norwegian Constitution Day, the day Norway got its independence from Sweden. And this year it's even bigger for this is the centennial of that great day.
Ballard always does Sytennde mai right. We have a parade, music, food, and dancing at the Leif Erikson lodge. All the Norwegians take the day off and that sort of thing is contagious, you know.
Click this link for a recording of the Norwegian national anthem.
Here is a translation of the words:
Yes, we love with fond devotion
This our land that looms
Rugged, storm-scarred o'er the ocean,
With her thousand homes.
Love her, in our love recalling
Those who gave us birth.
And old tales which night, in falling,
Brings as dreams to earth
Norseman, whatsoe'er thy station,
Thank thy God, Whose power
Willed and wrought the land's salvation
In her darkest hour.
All our mothers sought with weeping
And our sires in fight,
God has fashioned, in His keeping,
Till we gained our right.
Yes,we love with fond devotion
This our land that looms
Rugged, storm-scarred o'er the ocean,
With her thousand homes.
And, as warrior sires have made her
Wealth and fame increase,
At the call we too will aid her,
Armed to guard her peace.
Criminal Trespass Prohibited
Now and again I'll run into an obstacle on the walk-every-street-in-Ballard project. This one bothered me for a moment but then I realized it didn't apply to me. I wasn't intending anything criminal. I just needed to get across the schoolyard.
Friday Cats: Big Hair
She was a tiny thing, really, but all that hair made her look practically Amazonian.
I Don't Know Much About Art But I Know What I Like
This kinetic sculpture graces a Ballard front yard. The "blades" clank slightly as it rotates in the breeze.
G. I. Joe Buys a House
There are hundreds of little houses like this all over Ballard. Built in the heady days after World War 2, they were snapped up by veterans using VA loans. They might have gone to school on the GI Bill. Now they were working and starting families. Some simple and enlightened government policies were helping millions to get a good start on their lives.
They're pretty much gone now, those veterans. But the little homes they bought and loved and kept up are helping today's Ballardonians get a good start on their lives. It's a pity the policies of the current government make that harder.
Across the Border
The other day we were patrolling the border between Ballard and The Outside. This picture looks across the DMZ towards Phinney Ridge. The Ridge isn't a bad place (and we once lived there way back in the day), but it's become a bit twee over the years. A little too precious, a little too neat, a little too obsessed with their rising real estate values. Well, Ballard's are rising very well themselves, thank you, yet we don't go all ga-ga over the latest yoo-hoo from the real estate Authorities. Living on the Ridge is all about having the latest, the most tasteful, the must-have thing you read about in Sunset or Metropolitan Home last month. It's all about insecurity and collecting stuff to assuage it. By contrast, living in Ballard is simply about being right with the world.
Sidewalk Closed
Every now and then you run into obstacles when you try to walk every street in Ballard. I think this was a new sewer line project. Luckily there were no cars near so we just walked down the middle of the street. Don't tell Mom!
Ichiro
Continuing this little baseball theme, we see Ichiro at rest while there's a pitching change. There's nobody like him in baseball and we're lucky to have him here.
Home Plate
You guessed it--there's a pitching stripe 50 feet down the sidewalk. Looks like there's an aspiring fast-pitch softball pitcher living nearby.
Long Haul with the Groceries
It better be a good party, for that's a long way to carry a couple cases of beer.
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