The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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Some of you grizzled up, gnarly nail pouchers maybe remember the era before Cascade Lumber.  Those terrible dark ages when we got our 2×4’s down at Copeland or Woodinville Lumber.  We were remodeling a lot back then.  Roofing, adding a deck for a new large appliance.  Prettying up the back shack for guests.  Maybe adding a skylight, couple of bedrooms.  Fixing up that grungy kitchen.

Pretty soon we were tearing down these 50’s and 60’s cabins.  Putting in new homes.  You boyz remember when they auctioned off Finistere Heights, top lot going for an unimaginable 160K??  We thought the tsunami must’ve crested up there  …..  but only a few years later and we found out that was just the low tide lapping gently against the bulkheads.  Camano Hills, Brentwood, Utsalady …. folks found Camano finally, cheapest waterfront, cheapest views, half of Seattle and a tenth of California rolled up in their Lexus SUV and paid cash.  I remember the day our assessor rolled in — old Fred — and said he had some bad news for me.  And I said we better have us a cold one then.  And he said, actually I got two pieces of bad news.  So I said, well, you know what I said, and he told me about my million dollar absentee neighbors’ evaluation across the nettle ravine.

It’s nice to rub shoulders with wealth, as you know, but it’s quite another thing to pay their same property tax.  All boats rise with the incoming tide — or so they say — but none of us ever imagined the money that was headed onto the South End’s shores and bluffs.  I just try to remember our roots, our humble beginnings, and thank our lucky stars we got property and a little shack and bright prospects from neighbors who are looking to buy our parcels so they can tear down our casas and put up fancy boathouses or an architect designed slave quarter or a simple hangar for their Cessna.

Course, that was before the real estate meltdown of ’08.  Meant we’d all have to stand pat for awhile longer.  Give us more time to clear a landing strip in the nettles for the next owner.  And to stock the fridge for the next assessor’s bad news.

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