Sir,
We are boaters and hail from Bellingham. We used to like to spend time in Friday Harbor but have gradually gone off the place in the last couple of years due to the proliferation of shabby boats littering your waters.
Behind the marina there are many shabby boats swinging on moorings. In the north end of the bay there are derelicts on the bottom on the beach and many shabby boats swinging on anchors.
Right in the middle of the bay there are several shabby boats rafted together, one of which always seems to be sinking.
Down in the south end of the bay there is even more crap swinging in the wind.
We do not like looking at this mess and are now limiting our time in Friday Harbor because of it.
We are writing local business owners whose businesses we used to frequent to tell them of our shunning of your waters and their businesses.
We would appreciate hearing from you about your intentions toward this mess.
Cordially,Mike
The local newspaper decided to publish a contest to encourage residents of the small community “to tell him exactly how the people of Friday Harbor feel”.
A letter from a Bellingham man to the Port of Friday Harbor complaining about the “proliferation of shabby boats littering your waters.” has triggered a “Shabby Boat” contest. The winner in each category will receive a Port of Friday Harbor coffee mug.
1. Best diplomatic, positive response.
2. Best diplomatic but negative response
3. Best sarcastic but printable response
4. Best unprintable response [very, very NSFW]
Dear Blogosphere; Meet my mentor and favourite asshole on the planet.
update: error corrected. Also, the comments thread is probably not-so-safe-for-work either.
Kate … I know you’re more turf than surf. But Alaska!!! Friday Harbor is in the Gulf Islands — a nice afternoon cruise from Bellingham. (http://maps.yahoo.com/maps_result?addr=&csz=friday+harbor&country=us&new=1&name=&qty= )
(Google anyone???)
If someone had located Biggar, or Indian Head or Swift Current in the Yukon (and Friday Harbor is quite arguably far better known than any of the above) your reaction would have been?
All that said, I agree with the spirit of the competition — it’s Seattle metrosexual vs Gulf Island laidback, aging hippy. One man’s sinking barge is another man’s home and castle. (Been there, done that, as it were.)
Bellingham Is South of Birchbay
almost at the arctic circle
Kate has been there
So what she says is Gold fool!!
That last guy is on drugs
Friday Harbor is the largest town on San Juan Island, which is the largest island among the San Juan Islands, which comprise San Juan County of the State of Washington. It’s just east of Vancouver Island and just south of the Gulf Islands. Bellingham is on the mainland to the northeast of the San Juans. Both towns have more than their share of Blue State knuckleheads, the direct opposite of most of us here in the portion of the state east of the Cascade Mountains. The lesson is: Retired hippies hiding out on obscure islands and crabby elitist pinkos from a snotty leftist college town apparently don’t mix well, despite their politics.
You people are fuckflakes.
Yes, Kate misread it. Get over it.
How Does that old saying go Kenny
“I will slap you so hard your head will spin like a button on a shit house door”
Alaska Style..Northernlites man ..I see lites
My post was never intended to “get all over” Kate. It was, instead, intended as a means to provide some clarity to the unfamiliar. There is not a hint of criticism of anyone, other than the feckless residents of FH and B, anywhere in my effort.
PS: I am not a fuckflake. I am a churl. Bite me.
Royslade:
Feel free to “come slap me”
424 Lower Stone Road
Ester, AK 99725
Need directions?
Jeff:
You weren’t included in that category.
I live in Lac La Biche Alberta.
We have lots of “sinking barges types ” out here… only they are on 3- 4 wheels powered by v-8’s.
Not much to look at.
But if you run into the ditch the operators will stop and help you. Help you by offering their opened beer, lend you their flat spare tire, even offer a smoke, new or used!!They WILL SHARE!! ….the dears.
God bless em all. I have more respect for these toothless fuck-ups than the PHONY hum-vee driving status-sluts recently invading our fair land.
Migraine mike
aka eastern paul
Beautiful places, the San Juans, I’ve been there many times, but. . . . They should belong to _Canada_, not Washington state, and if not for that perfidious Kaiser siding with the a-bornin’ American Manifest Destiny imperialists they still would. 🙂
Introducing the AO/Technorati Open Media 100
Want to break the lock on mainstream media? So do these folks, and they are inviting us to blow the business wide open.
http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=10852_0_5_0_C
Ken is a real smooth talker, and has a way with nuance, doesn’t he?
Ken is an original.
More importantly, he serves to reset the bar for the easily offended.
I have been fighting a migraine all morning, will make the correction (removing the reference to Alaska) I understand is required. Feel free to recorrect me if it’s still in error.
Having no knowledge of the various islands/ports of the west coast, knowing Ken’s affinity for boats and that he lives in Alaska, I came to an incorrect assumption that he was referring to a local harbour.
Hey JM! Don’t be lusting for stuff that ain’t yours. To be exact, the 49th Parallel runs well north of the San Juans, so, perhaps, most of the Gulf Islands and the southern part of Vancouver Island should rightfully be part of the US. Considering the present state of affairs, Troop 51 of the Friday Harbor Boy Scouts could repel a Canadian invasion. Come and get it.
JM: Nothing should belong to Canada they don’t know what to do with and the San Juan Islands would be tops on the list.
If Canada got hold of the islands the tax rate on all those old hippie boats would ensure they DID sink and right smartly.
Besides Canada has more than it’s share of “old hippies gone to seed” islands. Ever been to Denman Island?
And , Jeff’s comments about the whole area are right spot on. And goes a long way toward explaining the disturbing election outcome in WA recently.
Snowbunnie is correct about the sorry election for governor we recently went through here in Washington. Essentially, the crooked leftist flunkies who run King County (Seattle & environs)enabled the current governor, Cristine Gregoire, to steal the election with 120 votes they miraculously “found” on the third recount. That woman and her ilk are shameless frauds who are convinced that their self-styled “noblesse oblige” entitles them to negate any law or tradition that, heretofor, set true democracy on a sound footing. The modern Left resembles a cloud of teeming locusts that move from place to place devouring everything wholesome and leaving a wasteland devoid of everything but their dung.
“They went down to the bottom of the boat to get something- and they did, too: They got scurvy and beriberi.”
We Came on the Sloop John B.- the Kingston Trio
Check out the old dude in Uculet,(West Coast, Vancouver Island), who runs a fish smoker. (The deal with the local fisherfolks, is: give him two salmon, and you get back one smoked one! (Ever tried to inhale 30 lbs of smoked salmon?)
Your shabby boats at anchor and crap swinging in the wind is another man’s artistic content.
For antiseptic environments, you are invited to visit walled enclaves in Redmond Wa. 73s TG
I take it “gentrification” hasn’t taken root there yet?