Author: Mary Koch

When to Push, When to Pull Back

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While walking along Terry Street, I noticed a woman in a manual wheelchair a half-block ahead. She was struggling to cross at the intersection with Madison on Seattle’s First Hill. It’s a tricky spot to navigate even on foot: heavy vehicle traffic frequently backs up, blocking crosswalks; bus lanes and a boarding island command the middle of the street. There’s a crosswalk, but no pedestrian signal where she was trying to cross. Add to that the force of gravity resisting her attempts to push against the hill’s incline.

As I got closer, either she or the chair figured out that she needed to swivel, adding leverage as she pushed the chair backward. It still wasn’t easy, and with every push she moaned loudly. Push. Moan. Push. Moan. By the time I reached the intersection she was nearly to the curb, across the street from me. I could see she was very thin, long hair covering her face as she leaned forward to push. The chair was enormous, absolutely inappropriate for her size.

I was headed home after playing piano for that evening’s free dinner at St. James’ “Cathedral Kitchen.” I’m always emotionally floating after this gig. The kitchen serves upwards of two hundred people each night, many of them down-and-out. The music I and fellow pianists provide softens the atmosphere, makes the huge hall more welcoming, less institutional. Best of all, I get to meet people outside of my comfortable retirement community bubble.

I wondered if the woman in the wheelchair had been among our guests that evening. I was relieved when she reached the curb, both for her and for me. I would’ve impulsively run out to push (or pull) the chair, but she was safe, at least momentarily. I intuited that her needs were far greater than merely crossing the street. Far greater than I could or maybe should try to address.

Many decades ago, as I was driving off the ferry onto Vashon Island, I noticed a fellow in a wheelchair at the end of the dock, his thumb extended for a ride. Public transportation was scant on the island. Hitchhiking was necessary and acceptable. In that post-Vietnam era, young men in wheelchairs were frequently veterans.

I stopped, he adroitly disassembled his chair and stashed it in the back of my VW bug. What ensued was a marathon of visits all over the island to various “friends” who firmly declined to invite him in. It finally ended when I agreed to buy him a large can of beer and drop him at the beach where he would “drink in” the afternoon sunshine. When I told a friend this story, she said, “Oh, HIM!” She and her husband had been conned into a similar venture. Weeks later I read in the island newspaper that he’d been arrested at the tavern after throwing his metal footrest at a fellow patron.

I bring this episode up not as an excuse for failing to offer help. The event at Madison and Terry occurred just before All Saints Day. To be declared a saint, the institutional church requires that holy people must have performed a miracle. Define “miracle.” I think about well-known saints (official and not) like Francis, Gandhi, Theresa, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela. I think about anonymous saints, people who donate a kidney to a stranger, or people who spend their nights assisting our destitute neighbors on the streets. They all have one miracle in common: their willingness to be vulnerable.

Increased vulnerability is a reality of aging, and I don’t like it. As an older if not wiser woman, I fear vulnerability more than I fear death. I suspect I’m not alone. Tradition tells us that St. Francis’ final words before his death were: “I have done what was mine to do; may the Lord show you what is yours.” I listen for that quiet voice inside that does not speak in words but tells me what is mine, and maybe more important, what is not mine to do.

I believe that the Giver of Life forgives my fear of vulnerability. I know that what’s “mine to do” is to keep in my consciousness the woman struggling in the wheelchair, to remember her, just as I continue to remember the wheelchair “vet” whose injuries were far greater and deeper than paraplegia. To remember my human connection with them when I vote, when I decide how much and where to donate money and time. They and others will continue to remind me of the African wisdom of Ubuntu: “I am because you are.”

We struggle these days with the ramifications of AI and our future as humans. AI may be able to tell me how to improve this bit of writing, but it can never touch my heart, never connect with my humanity and humility. Never become a non-erasable memory like a frail woman in an oversized wheelchair did.

I Hate to Admit It: Scammers Got Me

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No one likes being duped, much less tells about it. Still, if my recent experience of falling for an online scam would help you pay better attention than I did, dear reader, here goes. (And if it makes you feel smug that YOU’D never fall for this, that’s okay too.)

Looking back, I can identify three reasons why I swallowed the bait: (1) I was tired. It had been a long, busy day and I still had one event (a voters’ forum) on my agenda. (2) I was in a hurry. The forum was about to begin. (3) The “pitch” appealed to my ego. That last one really hurts because I pride myself (!) on my skepticism and ability to spot scams.

While quickly checking email, I found this brief message from a friend: “Hi. Let me know if you got this. Thanks.” We serve on a committee together and often exchange emails about committee business. I answered, “Yes, I received it. Are you having trouble getting emails to me?”

Almost immediately came the response, which I quote exactly: “Glad to hear back from you. I’ve been trying to purchase Amazon or Doordash E gift card by email, but I can’t do this now because all my effort purchasing it online proved abortive. I intend to buy it for a friend’s daughter who’s having her birthday today unfortunately she is down with cancer of the liver. Can you get it from Amazon or DoorDash online?  I’ll reimburse you back as soon as possible. Please let me know if you can handle this so I can tell you the amount and how to get to her.”

If your eyebrows are hovering somewhere near your hairline, mine should’ve been too. My friend, who is well-educated and articulate, would never have written a redundancy like “reimburse back.” The bit about “cancer of the liver” was way over the top, designed to get my sympathy. In my defense I refer you to numbers (1) and (2) above. The real culprit, however, was No. 3, ego. My friend had many others she could’ve appealed to (turned out they also got the email and were too smart to bite). I was touched that she chose me, trusted my technology abilities, etc.

On later, closer examination I saw that “her” email address had changed and the time suggested the messages came from overseas. Oblivious, I wrote:

“I might be able to do Amazon. I don’t use Doordash. What do you want to send?”

The scammers, having landed their catch, responded instantly: “Thank you so much. I really appreciate your kindness. Here are the details: Amount: $300. Email: Rogersarah25@gmail.com.  Message: Happy birthday Love from [my friend’s name].”

Pretty generous, I thought, but she could afford it. I ordered the gift card, ignoring all the red flags both Amazon and my credit card company raised. Amazon wanted re-confirmation of my credit card number. My bank texted asking if this order REALLY came from me. I cleared the hurdles, got a confirmation from Amazon that the gift card order was “pending,” and rushed off to the forum, which my friend also attended.

Afterward, I found her in the crowd and said, “Amazon said the gift card order is pending, but it should go through.” She gave me a deer-in-the-headlights look and said, “My phone was hacked this afternoon. I’ve been answering all kinds of calls from people asking what’s going on.”

I did the only thing I know to do when I’ve been played for a fool. I laughed. I was thinking, “Three hundred bucks! It won’t ruin me, but it’s a painful lesson.”

The next day, the scammers persisted with a brief, unpunctuated query, “Any luck with the gift card yet”

Yes, as a matter of fact. I’d had quite a bit of luck. First I called the 24/7 number on my credit card. After a nonproductive conversation with AI, I was transferred to “Gavin” of the Fraud Protection Team. The card hadn’t been billed yet, and Gavin read me a lecture about avoiding scams while he cancelled my card. A new one would arrive in four to six days. I was emailed a new account number so I could continue charging online. Banks are so friendly that way.

I called Amazon and cancelled the order. I also called my friend to assure her all was well. I ended the day (1) still tired, (2) done with rushing, (3) my ego appropriately deflated, and (4) not three hundred dollars poorer but a few cents wiser.

A Helping Hand — Or No Help At All?

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I learned the hard way never to give cash to a “panhandler.” Then I learned that hard-fast rules like that are made to be broken.

A man we’ll call Jerry was a regular guest at a homeless shelter where I volunteered. The shelter, staffed entirely by volunteers, operated only in winter, when nights in the Okanogan Valley are bitterly cold. The shelter required “guests” to pass a high bar: they had to be “clean and sober” for the previous twenty-four hours.

Jerry was a regular guest, earnest and helpful, ready to carry a hot casserole from my car into the shelter kitchen. He’d chat about the job he was about to get, or the apartment he was considering …

One day after the shelter had closed for summer, I ran into Jerry while walking my dogs through the park. He asked if I could give him some money. I told him, truthfully, that I never carried money when walking the dogs, only my phone. He shrugged, okay.

All the way home I thought about him, how “clean and sober” he’d been all winter. I grabbed my purse and drove back to the park, handed Jerry a twenty saying that I “knew” him and was confident he’d spend the money wisely. The next day, again walking the dogs, I spotted Jerry. He was out-of-his-mind high. 

“You idiot,” I said. Not to him. To myself. I should never have given him cash. I could have bought a gift certificate at Arby’s or something like that. More important, with the shelter closed, Jerry had lost a vital base of support. Better than cash, I could have simply sat and talked with him a while. Months later I learned that Jerry had died on the street.

Now I live in Seattle, where a disastrously high number of people live on the streets. Nonetheless, I’m rarely panhandled. When I am, I offer a believable lie that I never carry cash. I excuse the lie by donating to various nonprofits that minister to homeless people. 

A while ago, I was waiting at a bus stop when a woman rolled up with a luggage carrier neatly piled with an assortment of cloth and canvas bags. Short and a little stout, she smiled at me brightly, and I smiled back. Out of the corner of my eye, I examined what were probably all her life’s belongings. The bags were arranged so she could remove the top one, creating a temporary bench to sit upon.

After a minute or so, she turned to me and asked in heavily accented English, “Could you loan me five dollars so I can buy bread?” I gave my standard lie — no cash. She nodded and turned away. Again, I watched while avoiding eye contact. At first, her face was stoic, but in silence, her expression changed. Her eyes scrunched to avoid tears, and her mouth was tight. What was I seeing? Defeat? The last thread of determination? I was convinced she was neither a drinker nor a user, but probably at a loss, without hope.

My bus rolled up. She continued to sit. 

“I have change!” I declared, as if I’d just remembered. My small change purse was stuffed with quarters, but it was hard to dig out more than two or three at a time. I kept digging for quarters while she shyly held out her hand. My bus was preparing to leave.

“Sorry it’s not more,” I said in a rush. It may have been close to five dollars. She murmured her thanks as I boarded the bus. I never saw her again. I’ve been asked for cash a few times since. Remembering Jerry, I still raise my hands in a gesture that says sorry, no. 

I have no grand solution to the complex problem of homelessness. I continue to donate to programs that make a difference, one person at a time. I volunteer at the St. James Cathedral Kitchen. And I follow my rules — except when my heart takes me in a different direction.

Voting Matters: I know. It’s complicated.

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“Your vote will be counted.” 

The email from King County Elections just before our Aug. 4 primary election was especially reassuring amidst all the furor these days over voting. I’d done my homework: attended voters’ forums, read endorsements and candidates’ statements. I was ready when my ballot arrived in the mail. I quickly filled it out and returned it — forgetting to sign the enclosure envelope. Turns out, that is not a minor detail.

I’d been in a rush to mail back the ballot after learning some years ago not to trust the USPS with timely delivery. Shortly after Washington state turned to all vote-by-mail, I’d dropped off my ballot at the post office the day before an election deadline. I was stunned the next week when the elections deputy in rural Okanogan County (where I lived) called to report my ballot was invalid. Seems my small town post office no longer postmarked the mail. My ballot had been sent to a distribution center a hundred miles away, where it was postmarked too late.

The elections clerk was sympathetic. (As I mentioned, it’s rural — pretty much everyone knows everyone.) The election was for a school levy. She knew I’d campaigned for it. Fortunately, the measure passed, assuaging my vexation. From then on, I placed my ballot in an official drop box at city hall, an easy walk from my home. Ironically, now that I live on densely populated First Hill in Seattle, there is no ballot drop box within easy walking distance. Hence my determination to overcome USPS sluggishness — or whatever is going on.

King County Elections, on the other hand, was anything but sluggish. Almost immediately after I received a text that my ballot had arrived, I received another text saying there was a problem. It included instructions on what to do next. Before I could even act, I received an email. Then I received a letter. On top of that, when I called, I did not get sent to the limbo of “hold.” I was immediately in touch with a living, friendly, helpful human being. It was not too late to sign the ballot, which I did, hence the affirming email. 

My enthusiasm for voting began when my third-grade teacher, the creative Miss Bogue, gave her students an opportunity to “vote” in the presidential race between Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson. Miss Bogue honored my best friend, Jeanette, and me with the task of tallying the votes. 

I suspect we eight-year-olds were minimally aware of policy issues but maximally aware of our parents’ leanings. My parents were solidly in the I-like-Ike camp. Jeanette’s were keen on Stevenson, who I thought seemed less genial. He didn’t have Ike’s grandfatherly twinkle.

Jeanette’s job was to read the name on each “ballot” aloud while I applied a solid check mark next to the respective candidate’s name. As Ike began to emerge victorious, Jeanette’s voice reflected increasing irritation. With every “Ike” like, she’d slam the offending ballot back onto the table. Funny that memory remains so clear all these decades later. Perhaps it’s because decades of voting have given me empathy for her frustration.

I’m a nonpartisan voter, not only because of my years as a journalist but because I prefer choosing candidates and issues on their merits, not by party. I’m frequently on the losing side. Worse, there’ve been times I wished I could retract my vote. A good campaigner turned out to be inept at governing, or an initiative that sounded wise at the time resulted in undesirable side effects — like Washington’s money-infected initiative process itself.

The current fracas over mailed ballots has residents in my retirement community concerned. Given a green light by local election officials, they’re figuring out a way to deliver ballots directly and securely to drop boxes. Their goal is to skip the USPS, which most residents — including me — would otherwise depend upon.

That school levy election years ago and this year’s angst are reminders of how much the privilege of voting matters to me. I’m reminded of my late mother, who was born four years before the 19th Amendment gave women the power to vote. At a very late age, she finally had the chance to vote for a woman candidate for President. That was in a primary election. Because of Washington’s weird partisan rules, she was advised by a friend that her primary vote didn’t really matter.

“It does to me,” declared my mom. 

Dear reader, if you’ve come this far with me, I suspect your vote matters to you, too. Let us cherish and protect our franchise.

Counting the Days

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Happy Birth Day to me. Thirty thousand of them, in fact. As of today, June 30, 2026, I have been alive for thirty thousand days.

I turned eighty-two on May 12. Eighty-two is not a milestone birthday. Yet when we hit eighty, every doggone day is a milestone. With not a lot else to do on my birthday, I counted the days — including the extra ones in leap years. I realized that I was just a few weeks short of thirty thousand. There’s something numerically harmonious about hitting 30,000 on 6/30.

Statistically speaking, I shouldn’t even be here. The day I was born, in 1944, data at the time set my life expectancy at 66.8 years. Of course, I recall no expectations on the day of my birth other than to be fed and kept comfortable. 

“Life expectancy” is just a nice euphemism so we can avoid saying the word “death” or “die.” According to a study by the National Institutes of Health, children don’t begin to understand mortality — the reality of death — until somewhere between age five and seven. Perhaps that’s when death denial enters our psyche. Or, as the oft-quoted comedian said, “I’m not afraid of death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

Turns out, life expectancy has been a moving target all my life. At some point, Social Security determined that a woman born in 1944 would live to age seventy-two. Then, when I made it that far, I was given another 12.9 years. They’re going fast. 

My financial advisor’s computerized analysis is measured, of course, in dollars. The analysis goes only as far as age ninety-two, which happens to be the age at which my mother died. The good news is, there’ll still be money in the bank, er, modest investment account that, as it happens, I inherited from her.

AI was willing to get specific about my life expectancy if I divulged personal information. I decided not to go there. Instead, I stumbled onto a website, my30K.com. The site claims that “A person only gets an average of 30,000 days on this earth and you’ve used more than you think.” (It gives no source for that seemingly arbitrary number. The Centers for Disease Control puts the average life expectancy for people in the U.S. at seventy-nine, though that varies widely depending on gender and other demographics. Still seventy-nine adds up to way less than 30,000 days.)

The website asks for your birth date and immediately tells you how many days you’ve used up. I was pleased that my count matched theirs. I was invited to enter my email address so that every day I’d receive a notification counting down (or up?) my days. Again, I think not. 

I don’t need or even want to know how much longer I can expect to live. When I do think about death I recall a spiritual my high school choir sang: “I wanna die easy when I die.” The older I get, the more often I hum it.

When I was on the staff of Holden Village, a retreat center in Washington’s North Cascade Mountains, we participated in a morning prayer liturgy. One of the prayers gave thanks that “today is not our last day.” I — and other staff members — would raise our eyebrows and ask each other later, “How do we know so early in the morning that it’s not our last day?”

All I know is that today, like the 29,999 days that came before, is a blessing and a bonus. As soon as I hit the “send” button on this bit of musing, I plan to walk the three blocks to Sugar Bakery on Madison Avenue. I shall have my cake and eat it, too.

A Whale of a Tale

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With hordes of soccer fans in Seattle for World Cup competition, the “site” seeing industry is in high gear. Even the public transit systems got into the act by releasing a limited-edition “SEA26” ORCA card created by Tlingit artist Alison Bremner. Her brilliant work, which ranges from totem poles to Starbucks coffee cups, makes the card a collector’s item. 

Much as I enjoy riding buses and appreciate Bremner’s design, I didn’t try to score one of the 27,000 cards. I have enough trouble keeping track of my plain white “SENIOR” card that declares “No Photo Required.” Apparently my wrinkled face is adequate qualification for the senior discount. 

ORCA is a clever marketing acronym based on Puget Sound’s beautiful and beloved orca, or “killer” whales. It’s “One Regional Card for All.” You can use a single card to ride buses, ferries, trains throughout a four-county region. 

With more than two hundred routes just in the King County system, every once in a while I try a new one. Recently I was exploring Route 62, a zigzag journey that meanders north and east from historic King Street Station. You get glimpses of lakes Union and Green and close-up views of well-settled neighborhoods and business districts with intriguing shops and independent restaurants. After an hour or so the route concludes at Sand Point. The former Naval Air Station on the shores of Lake Washington is now home to the city’s second largest park, named for the late Sen. Warren G. Magnuson, who excelled at bringing home the bacon.

But like Route 62, I digress. On a recent Saturday, I boarded the bus and heard the satisfying “ping” as I tapped my card against the electronic reader. I was heading to the Good Shepherd Center in the lovely, lively Wallingford district. Located amidst lush grounds with arching, ancient trees, Good Shepherd was once a home for “wayward girls.” Now it’s a community center for education and arts. A writer friend, Elizabeth Clark Stearns, was premiering a one-act play, presented reader-theater style. 

The play was clever and put me in a good mood, even though the sky was spitting raindrops as I emerged. I walked briskly the few blocks to the bus stop and slipped my hand into my pocket for the ORCA card. Which wasn’t there. How could that be? I remembered distinctly slipping the card into my pocket after boarding the bus. I searched frantically through all my pockets and backpack. No card and really, no reason to panic. Yet I was distraught.

I boarded the bus and tried to slip a dollar into the cash receptacle. The bus driver handed me a receipt and explained the machine wasn’t working. I was getting a free ride! Even that small blessing didn’t calm me down. My reaction was visceral. My head was telling me everything was fine. The card’s replaceable. It could be worse. I could’ve lost my phone, or a credit card, or my entire wallet. Yet anxiety persisted in my gut.

“How did you lose it?” a friend later asked. I had no clue. In the week it took to get a replacement, I began to understand that the card means more to me than just a transit pass. It represents a paradox: both independence and interdependence. Giving up driving was my declaration of independence — from maintaining a car, insurance, gas, parking … all of it. I can still go pretty much everywhere I want, whenever I want. At the same time, I’m dependent on a community that uses and supports public transportation — a diverse group of folks, young and old, whose life styles and behaviors differ, sometimes in bizarre ways. 

There are more than a million ORCA cards out there. More than a million folks who are willing to get on a bus/train/ferry and join with others to get where they want to go. Very rarely, a passenger may be having a bad day. Even when it’s crowded, the norm is courtesy and consideration among my fellow passengers. The card represents membership in a special kind of club, a very inclusive one.

In exactly one week the replacement arrived in the mail. To celebrate, I headed to Third Avenue, where buses abound. I checked the schedule on my phone and sure enough, No. 62 was due. When it arrived, I put my hand in my pocket for the brand new ORCA card. Yes, dear reader. You’re ahead of me. It wasn’t there. 

Disbelieving, I looked down. There it was on the sidewalk. When I’d pulled out my phone, the ORCA card came along for the ride. Then it had fluttered, unnoticed, to the ground. Mystery solved. Now I know better. And it feels so good to belong to that inclusive club again.

Back in the Inclusive Club

Food for Thought: A Menu for Mother’s Day

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The retirement community where I live is offering the traditional lavish brunch on Mother’s Day. Not for me, thanks. I’ll honor the legacy of my mother, grandmother and mother-in-law with a menu reflecting their culinary specialty: left-overs.

All three — Elsie, Emma, and Edna Mae — had weathered the Great Depression. I was raised to believe that wasting food was the eighth Deadly Sin. Left-overs were a valued commodity. They stretched the food budget one meal further, maybe two. 

I recall my brother questioning our mother, Elsie: “How can we be having leftovers every night? Doesn’t there have to be a starter meal somewhere along the line?” Unfazed, Elsie would calculate not calories but monetary savings. She relished boasting, “This meal cost only sixteen cents per serving.” Obviously, that was in the 1950s.

Just as Grandma Emma had trained Elsie, I was taught the art and craft of repurposing victuals. Elsie, for example, would disguise Sunday’s meat-and-potatoes dinner as a Monday night casserole. I took it a step further with end-of-week Refrigerator Soup. That’s when bits and pieces of complementary leftovers find their way from the refrigerator into a simmering pot of stock (made from vegetable ends and peelings). It’s a “once-in-a-lifetime” recipe, because it’s unlikely I’ll ever again have the same mix of ingredients.

When my mother-in-law, Edna Mae, was living with my husband and me, I quickly learned Edna Mae’s frugality surpassed even Elsie’s. One evening I’d served a casserole of left-overs for the second time. After we’d eaten our fill, a tiny bit remained in the serving dish, barely more than a mouthful. When I scraped the leftover morsels into the garbage, Edna Mae loudly protested, “That’s WICKED!”

Food waste is only part of the wickedness that abounds in our nation these days. But it’s a compelling part. Once again, the U.S. is No. 1: Americans discard more food than any other country, nearly forty million tons — or 30 to 40 percent of the entire U.S. food supply. We throw out nearly as much as we consume. The tragic incongruity is that one in five children — that’s fourteen million kids — are malnourished. There are people facing “food insecurity” in every county of this nation. We all, no matter where we live, have hungry neighbors, some forty-eight million people.

I know many of you, dear readers, are already donating to or volunteering at food banks and soup kitchens. Thank God for you. I volunteer too, but it didn’t help clear my conscience as I scraped perfectly edible food into my compost bin one night.

It was to have been a special meal. I’d purchased a spaghetti squash from a farming friend’s vegetable stand and pondered what sauce to go with it. Fresh tomato? Mushroom? In my refrigerator was an exotic cheese from the supposedly gourmet section of the grocery store. A few slices of the cheese on crackers had been disappointing. It proved crumbly, dry, bland. But as I’d been taught to “rescue” food, I decided to make a cheese sauce to top the spaghetti squash. The cheese was even more dreadful in a sauce. It smothered the squash in blandness. No amount of seasoning could perk it up. 

As usual, I had enough left over for a second meal. I couldn’t face it. With “WICKED!” echoing in my head, I chose composting. I no longer have a garden. My compost materials — along with my neighbors’ — go to a commercial composting company. Even that industry is controversial, criticized for releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and potentially polluting groundwater. 

Much of the solution to food and other kinds of waste begins with us, the consumers. If we ask ourselves with every purchase, “What’s going to happen with this product or package in the end?” we may reduce our own wasteful contributions.

There’s reason to hope. I found a company called Ambrosia that turns food waste into a household cleaner.  Elsie would’ve bought that, but only if it were on sale.

One night after the spaghetti squash disaster, I made fritters from left-over mashed potatoes mixed with chopped-up, left-over steamed vegetables and the remains of a stuffed portobello mushroom. Delicious! Even better, there were two fritters left over for breakfast the next day.

MAY DAY!

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They’re preaching to the choir, I said to myself.The “preachers,” in this instance, were public  television travel guru Rick Steves plus a real life preacher, Steves’ wife, Lutheran Bishop Shelley Bryan Wee. They were sharing a podium — not the pulpit — at St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle. Their presentation, “The Traveler and the Bishop” focussed on threats to American democracy and the rise of Christian Nationalism.

Some, perhaps many, church goers view such topics as political and inappropriate in a church. I empathize with their need for sanctuary, an escape from poisoned politics, stress, and disagreement. These are, noted Bishop Shelley (as she prefers to be called), “fraught times.”

If the war we’re waging against Iran upsets you because gas prices are soaring, that’s a political issue. When the commander in chief of the most powerful military in the world threatens to annihilate an entire nation, that’s no longer politics. That’s a threat to the very fiber of humanity. It’s a moral issue demanding nonpartisan, nonviolent discussion in churches, synagogues, temples and mosques.

“Across the United States there’s a crescendo of concern,” said Steves. “People are rising up and they’re asking, ‘What the hell is going on?’”

St. Mark’s, which seats well over a thousand, was packed. When an evening presentation was first announced — free, but reservations required — capacity quickly was reached. Steves and Bishop Shelley agreed to a second, afternoon presentation. When I arrived, a half-hour early, the “choir” was gathering. A line spanned the large stone labyrinth in front of the cathedral and half-way down the block.

I thought about the many times singing in a choir motivated and empowered me. Maybe preaching to the choir should not be discounted. Maybe it’s more impactful than the old cliche suggests.

Steves effectively summarized events of the past year-and-a-half, none of it news to this audience. Partway into his forty-minute speech he acknowledged he didn’t like using the “F” word, but . . . and then he paused, meaningfully. I steeled myself, anticipating the profane F-Bomb. But Steves had another “F” word in mind, even more profane: Fascism. 

He’s an authority. Seven years ago he produced a documentary, “The Story of Fascism in Europe.” It is frighteningly omniscient, showing events of the 1920s and 1930s that mirror what’s happening here and now. Steves also compiled what he calls “The Dictator’s Playbook: 20 Points Followed by Mussolini, Hitler…and Every Wannabe Fascist Authoritarian Since.” (Available on Facebook.)

No. 1 on Steves’ checklist is, “Establish a mythic past … and promise a national rebirth to the good old days.” MAGA, anyone? Another is to promise simple solutions to complex problems. DOGE, anyone? A vital component of special concern to me and fellow career journalists: control the information media. 

This choir member left the cathedral both energized and discomforted. It’s my lack of personal inconvenience that worries me. I’m troubled intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. But my day-to-day life is smooth sailing. I’m aware of higher prices in the grocery store, yet I’m not struggling to feed a family. Thousands of my fellow citizens cannot afford skyrocketing health insurance premiums with the loss of supplements. My Medicare Advantage plan is still affordable — while I’m healthy, at least. 

People are dying, in this country and across the globe. Some 600,000 deaths have been attributed to the end of USAID. 

Reader, please be patient while I offer another metaphor. Am I (along with so many like me) the proverbial frog who is dropped into a pot of cool water? The frog swims around as the water heats up — until it’s too late. Wikipedia offers some comfort, if you care about frogs. Experiments have determined that when the water gets hot, the frog jumps out. Are we as intelligent as frogs?

I’m posting this late on May 1. May Day is both a call for help and a traditional day for demanding workers’ rights. And here we are, inhumanely treating and deporting people who are an essential core of our working population. That’s reality, even if the frog metaphor isn’t. How close are we to the boiling point? Can we turn down the heat? Possibly — if the preachers keep preaching, and if we in the choir sing at the top of our lungs.

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To watch the full April 26 event at St. Mark’s Cathedral click here. (Welcome and introductions  start at five minutes in, and Steves’ talk is eight minutes in. Bishop Shelley’s talk is one hour and ten minutes in.)

EARTH DAY: Is That My Bus Pulling Away?

On By Mary KochIn Uncategorized1 Comment

On Earth Day — of all days — public transportation, more specifically busses, had me bamboozled. This after two-and-a-half years of preaching about the wonderfulness of Seattle’s mass transit! How I’ve crowed about reducing my personal carbon footprint by not owning/driving a car.

My plan for the day was simple: pick up a couple sandwiches from a neighborhood deli for lunch with my sister, who lives a mere forty miles away. From the deli, I’d walk downhill seven blocks to catch the Sound Transit 594 Express, hop off in downtown Tacoma and board the Pierce Transit No. 45, which drives right past my sister’s house in Parkland.

You know the old Hebrew saying. “We plan; God laughs.” 

Undeterred by a steady rainfall, my umbrella and I arrived at the deli. The sandwiches I’d ordered online the day before weren’t ready. After a twenty-minute wait, I knew I’d missed the No. 594. I didn’t mind. It runs every thirty minutes, giving me an extra ten minutes to walk more carefully down the steep, rain-slicked sidewalk. By chance a neighbor was also waiting at the bus stop, though headed in a different direction. We agreed that we were fortunate not to be driving through rain and heavy traffic.

The 594 was a minute late, and I was a bit concerned. The wait time between the No. 594 and No. 45 to Parkland is tight. Still, the bus cruised along the express lane as I peered down at drivers — alone in their cars — making tedious if any progress.  We arrived in Tacoma right on time. I hopped off the 594 but somehow got turned around, heading in the wrong direction for the 45. By the time I realized my error, the Parkland bus was long gone. 

No matter. Our sandwiches could wait. This gave me a half-hour to explore  a bit of downtown Tacoma. What impressive changes since the 1960s when I was a student there! Buildings refreshed and repurposed. A tiered fountain takes advantage of downtown’s steep hill, spilling cascades of clear water between Commerce and Pacific streets. Even on a rainy day, it was refreshing. What used to be just plain old 9th and Broadway is now the heart of the “Theater District.” Oh, my.

Next comes the insulting part. I got back to the bus stop in plenty of time and noted that the No. 42 was parked along the curb. I figured the 45 would pull up behind it. As time for the 45 arrived, the “No. 42” started its engine and began to pull away. I turned to watch the departing bus and realized it had morphed. The electric route sign had changed from “42” to “45.”

“Hey!” I yelled pointlessly while waving my umbrella. The bus headed up the hill without me. Exasperated, not to mention hungry, I pulled out my phone and punched the Lyft app. Dominic arrived in two minutes and got me directly to my sister’s house sooner than the No. 45 would’ve.

“How much did that cost?” my sister asked. I’d been pondering the same question. The Lyft fare was a pittance when I considered the monthly cost of maintaining, insuring, parking and fueling my own car.

After our lunch and visit, I left in plenty of time to catch the No. 45 at three o’clock. So early, in fact, I barely missed the bus that departed at 2:45. Oh, well. I hunkered down. The shelter protected me from rain but not wind. Sure enough a bus pulled in at 3 p.m. As I tried to board, the driver told me we wouldn’t be leaving until 3:15. I’d misread the schedule. Upon his return from the restroom, the driver kindly allowed me to wait inside the bus and announced, “Your trip is free ’cuz it’s Earth Day.” 

I smiled, said thanks, and didn’t bother to tell him that ALL my bus rides are free. My retirement community, Horizon House, pays for my senior citizen Orca card, which covers all public transit in the region, including ferries and light rail. Every day is Earth Day.

The No. 45 got me back to catch the No. 594 with two minutes to spare. The return to Seattle was smooth sailing, but I was too exhausted to walk back up First Hill. I decided to take the G Line. It — of course — was pulling away as a red light kept me from crossing the street and boarding. Then, a miracle. Metro No. 2 pulled up. It would get me two blocks closer to home than the G Line. 

Finally home, I pondered the day. I realized each missed bus gave me an opportunity: to walk more slowly, safely downhill; to chat with a neighbor I don’t see often enough; to explore a renovated downtown Tacoma; to admire the stuffed animals in Dominic’s Lyft car and learn he’ll be a first-time father “very soon.” 

The 3:15 bus coincided with the end of the school day. What a scene! Teens tumbled onboard with adolescent bravado masking their self-awareness and uncertainty.  A few blocks further, the driver lowered the ramp for a homeless man whose pull cart was piled high, presumably with all that he owned. His large dog made friends with a chihuahua riding in a kennel on wheels. A cyclist taking a shortcut efficiently loaded his bike on the rack in front of the bus and hopped on.

Public transit is people being with other people — different people — going and getting somewhere together. If I still had a car, I would’ve driven alone to my sister’s and back. Where’s the story in that?

HOME: What’s it worth to you?

On By Mary KochIn Uncategorized1 Comment

The “starter” home that I bought in 1974 for $10,000 recently sold for $840,000. No, not my financial coup. I’d sold it for $30,000 five years after I bought it. I’d considered that outrageous good fortune.

Originally built as a summer cottage, it clings to a side hill on the very northern tip of Vashon Island, across from Seattle. It has one bedroom, a cramped kitchen and a panoramic view of Puget Sound’s marine life with snow-capped Mount Baker far in the north, the Olympic Peninsula to the west and city skyline to the east. Considering the million dollar view, you could argue the new owners got a bargain.

“You should’ve kept it,” murmured the friend who told me about the sale. I sighed. Many times through the years I thought about that dear first home. Sitting now at my keyboard I drift off … I’m standing at that big front window, mug of coffee in hand, drinking in all the beauty that stretches out before me. Too wonderful to be mine. 

I shake myself back to reality, to practicality. I sold the house because I was marrying my beloved, moving to the other side of the state, and would have neither time nor energy to maintain an island haven. We already had a second home: our newspaper office, where we shared the work we were both devoted to.

If I did have that $840,000 (minus fees, commissions and taxes), what difference would it make in my life now? None. Nearing age 82, I’m content with my lifestyle. Throughout the past decade of downsizing I discovered I have everything I need and too much of it. My financial advisor says I have enough money to last my lifetime, with some left over. Well, we’ll see. 

I could increase my charitable giving, although it always takes more than money to solve our real problems. With inflation, that $10,000 I invested in 1974 has the purchasing power of about $66,000 today. Good luck finding a starter for that amount. A one-bedroom in King County now goes for $350,000 to $550,000, says Zillow. Even for those of us who no longer need a starter, the Seattle Times reports that Washington is the seventh most expensive state for older adults. 

It’s all about numbers, unbelievable numbers. 

“More than 90 percent of all money — more than $50 trillion appearing in our accounts — exists only on computer servers,” writes Yuval Noah Harari in his book, “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.” He notes that “most business transactions are executed by moving electronic data from one computer file to another, without any exchange of physical cash.” On the book cover, above the title, above Harari’s name, is a blurb praising the book by someone who knows something about computers and money— Bill Gates.

Harari defines money as an “inter-subjective reality that exists solely in people’s shared imagination.” In simpler terms, he says, money is “a system of mutual trust, and not just any system of mutual trust: money is the most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised. (Italics his.)

For example, he suggests: “Christians and Muslims who could not agree on religious beliefs could nevertheless agree on a monetary belief, because whereas religion asks us to believe in something, money asks us to believe that other people believe in something.” (He really likes italics.)

Money has never been my motivator. It’s been a concern, a consideration, but never an end goal. Years back, my late husband John was figuring our net worth while applying for a business loan to purchase new equipment for the newspaper. With an astonished voice he declared, “Mary, we’re millionaires!” That was back in the day when a million bucks meant something.

For him, it wasn’t a measure of greed, wealth, or the supposed easy life that a million dollars could bring. It was an objective measure. Starting with nothing but talent and grit, he’d turned a small town newspaper into a million dollar business without, mind you, sacrificing his journalistic integrity. I enjoyed the richness of sharing in that achievement. 

Ultimately, our million dollars and more got sucked up by the medical industry following John’s brainstem stroke and paralysis. Over the remaining years of his life, he went from millionaire to Medicaid. The most common cause of bankruptcy in our nation is medical bills. We escaped that and the ignominy of a Medicaid divorce, thanks to a capable lawyer.

The last time I visited Vashon Island, after John’s death several years ago, I was amazed that my little house was still standing. I suspect now its days are numbered — the numbers being $840,000. The new owners likely will tear it down and spend at least that to build something more appropriate for the view I’d reveled in. 

I gave it up for something worth much more than any amount of money. Nostalgia but no regrets.