You may have noticed that, despite the fact that spring is almost upon us, the holiday candy cane decorations are still up on poles along Vashon Highway. You may also recall that I wrote disparagingly about them some weeks before Christmas.

Ever since New Year’s, I’ve thought their continued presence was sort of like the punishment meted out to the boy who had the temerity to point out that the emperor had no clothes. There would be a certain poetic justice about that, insofar as the traditionalists on the Island were concerned, who considered my opinion (this is an opinion column, after all) sacrilege. And so the red and white plastic canes march still, up and down through town.

As is so often the case in my life, however, it wasn’t about me at all. No, this is perhaps one of the finest examples we’ll have for many years to come of the old adage, “No good deed goes unpunished.”

The canes were mounted by any number of volunteers filled with the Christmas spirit. This included employees of Puget Sound Energy here on the Island.  Someone was kind (or crazy) enough to send a letter of thanks to our local PSE office. They, in turn, forwarded the letter to corporate HQ. Great community good-will, right?

Corporate went ballistic: “Liability! If we do it on Vashon (where is that, exactly, by the way?) we’ll have to do it everywhere! Zounds!”

A cease and desist order was promptly promulgated: PSE employees were not permitted to help put up these holiday decorations. And, of course, since they were already up, it followed, by the natural logic of corporations, that employees also were prohibited from taking them down!

Your correspondent is informed that frantic negotiations are underway to have them removed soon and while I agree that soon would not be soon enough, there are other things to consider.

For example, if you linked two of those ratty candy canes together, facing each other, as it were, you’d have a heart! And Valentine’s Day is just around the corner! What a concept! “Vashon is for Lovers!” Think of the retail possibilities. This Island, a mecca for love-struck partners throughout the Seattle region.

But why stop there? If we leave the canes up just a little longer and add blue plastic to the red and white, we’re looking at a heck of a Fourth of July display. I mean, who needs flags when you have candy canes?

— Will North is an Island novelist who has, at last, finished his latest book and has nothing else to do while he waits for comments from his agent than to write this column.