I hear those early morning hydroplanes differently from some. The hum of the hydroplane reminds me of the “Flight of the Bumblebee.”

The hydroplane driver is insistent to get around the island first, and the bumblebee is insistent to find honey. But most of all I’m reminded of myself and my sisters, on an early summer morning in the 1920s, setting off around the southern point of Maury Island and heading north around the island in our leaking double-oared rowboat.

I hear the hydroplanes as they buzz back past my house, and back in the 20s we girls got back to our wilderness camp on the eastern shore of Vashon well before dark.

— Dorothy Hall Bauer