TRAMP HARBOR DOCK
Consider a new location
I certainly agree that having a fishing dock has been a benefit for fishers both constant and occasional. Now that it appears that the dock needs to be completely rebuilt, the question has become: “Should we invest in a new dock in a location that has no parking?”
Since we are starting from scratch, we should consider putting it in a better location. I, for one, would like to see Lisabuela considered. It is already a park site with ample parking and a long history as a fishing resort. Perhaps the hours it is open could be reconsidered for those squid fishers out there.
Terry Sullivan
ISLAND HEALTHCARE
DispatchHealth worked for me
On a recent Saturday afternoon, I tripped on a cord and fell, hitting my head on our hardwood floor. A small laceration on my forehead was bleeding a bit and I knew it needed help to be closed. As an MD, I realized I was in good shape since I did not lose consciousness or have blurred vision.
I did not think I required the emergency room, so I called DispatchHealth. A nurse asked me all the right questions and made sure I didn’t need extreme emergency care. Within an hour, two of their very competent staff were at my house treating me. In 20 minutes, they had my cut diagnosed, cleaned, closed and bandaged.
I am so thankful for this new program we have on the island, thanks to our Health Care District. My DispatchHealth team included an advanced nurse practitioner, and DispatchHealth employs physicians, physicians assistants, nurse practitioners and registered nurses.
They are here seven days per week, from 11 in the morning until 7 in the evening, and I thoroughly recommend them. On specific occasions, they may take blood for lab tests, write prescriptions or even take an X-ray. Basically, they treat the same conditions as would a brick-and-mortar urgent care center.
Mary Bergman, MD
INCLUSIVITY
Solutions through connection
“If I only wished to bake chocolate cookies,
I wouldn’t need a recipe
when the sugar, eggs, flour, salt, butter and vanilla
are not the ingredients
but me becoming delicious cookies.”
The wonderful thing about visiting my son, who is a publisher, is I always discover a new book which has not been published sitting on his coffee table. This time it was The Dao De Jing: Laozi’s Book of Life: A New Translation from the Ancient Chinese Based on the Latest Archeological Discoveries, translated by J. H. Huang.
Laozi frequently acknowledges his teaching from 2,320 years ago as having been understood and lived “in the days of yore,” well before his lifetime. I am not a Daoist scholar, but I intuitively relate to core principles of its teaching. The power of the Dao is like the softness of water, and yet it can wear down mountains. It is also a harmonizing life force which circulates the web of life and embraces everyone and everything. Essentially this makes us one vibrant whole. This fact implies you can ask anything in your surroundings, even cookie dough, what it needs to be whole. The ancient idea you are not separate from another person, tree, bird, or even a project you are working on, brings all solutions back home to us-as-one inseparable whole.
Our Vashon community is a social experiment in inclusivity. What are the seeds of peace and sustainability which have been cultivated by generations of islanders? Recipes and politics deal with the right way and wrong way. Could there be another way — to water the seeds with tears and love? This fluid may appear soft and of no consequence but its wholeness could ultimately wear down mountains of resentments, fears, and confusion. If seeing what connects and choosing to respond accordingly worked eons ago, why wouldn’t it work today?
Suzanne Hubbard
