Seattle

I traveled by plane today to Seattle and rented a car and drove through downtown Seattle and saw the ferries and drove by the Aquarium. Luckily, we left early enough to miss most of the traffic from Sea-Tac Aiport after flying in from San Francisco. Amazingly warm for Seattle at 73 degrees when we arrived but it was 86 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday which was even warmer. Though there are fires near Leavenworth, Washington I don't see the smoke blowing this direction. We drove also by the Space Needle erected for the 1960 World Fair. I was 12 years old then and my parents came up to visit my Dad's parents and my Mom's relatives then (they both grew up and met in the Seattle greater area, Dad in Lake Forest Park and Mom nearer Alkai point during the 1920s and early 1930s when they were growing up. They met in church in the early 1940s, got married in 1946 and I was born in 1948. But, we moved to San Diego when I was 4 in 1952. Dad drove his brother's 1941 Buick (a pretty blue Century) to San Diego and Mom and her Mom and I took the train to San Diego. They had me wear a suit and tie and a trenchcoat and I carried a businessman's miniature briefcase and told everyone at 4 that I wanted to be a Gentleman when I grew up. This was a really big deal in 1952 in training young men to be gentleman and to behave with chivalry and Nobles Oblige because the world was really full of assholes then especially after all the PTSD of World War II. It was a pretty scary place for women then even in the U.S. and for men too.

This is alluded to in the Anchorman I and II with Will Ferrell when you see people in the news having gang fights. People didn't shoot each other then much (except for the Mafia) because guns for killing people was considered dishonorable until the 1970s and 1980s when things started changing after the Viet Nam War.

So, during the 1950s and even early 1960s people wouldn't use guns much. Instead people would settle things more with knives, clubs, chains, or tire irons. (whatever was available at the time). People didn't carry guns much then. However, now many people carry guns both legal ones and illegal ones here in the U.S.

It's still more like this in Russia. That's why I sometimes say that Russia, culturally is in some ways the way people were in the 1950s in the U.S. both in regard to racism and in how they do things.

I spent a little time in this part of Seattle last year about this time before going up to the San Juan Islands with a friend of my wife's from college who was running for local office as I believe a councilwoman at that time. She showed us her 5 acres she bought on one of the San Juan Islands then. IT was a really fun time.

This time it's just my youngest daughter and I and I'm trying to get along with her. In some ways we are both really emotionally strong people. So, if we talk too much we get into arguments. I think I have solved the problem so far by just not talking very much to her. She's not a nervous nelly so not talking doesn't bother her when she and I are just together being quiet. Thank God.

This way we only talk about necessary things and don't get into arguments that neither of us want.