William & Dylan (formerly Morgan) hike up to Snow Lake in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness on Sunday the 16th of June 2019
*This is a work in progress. Click on fotos to blow up big. Enjoy!
Snow Lake from the rocky overlook on the trail up from Alpental, Snoqualmie Pass, WA. Sunday 19 June 2019.
Father & Child…William Dudley Bass & Dylan Blair Bass, formerly Morgan Hannah… Selfie-shot atop the ledges overlooking the lake.
A vignette of unexpected homophobic dumbassery sprouting from the grotesque American intersectionality of Nazism and Trump in the Spring of 2019
War could break out in a clothing store faster than cranes can collapse. In April a crane broke apart and collapsed killing four people and injuring others. The deadly collapse occurred minutes before I was to drive into the exact spot cars were crushed. Sad. Tearful. Terrifying! Felt tragic. And sobering. Gravity is Still, the world felt on edge even as people joked and kidded and complained about things. Two burly men rambled around the urban Co-op where I worked alongside many others in the outdoor adventure and travel industry. While officially retail, our positions often felt more like education and instruction than sales alone. I felt proud to work in the Mothership. One of the perks working here was this store is one of the top three tourist destinations here in the City of Cranes. We meet so many people coming and going from all over the planet. Yes, not just from all over the city, the county, the state, and the region, not just from North America, but from all around the world! Welcome to the one city in North America with the most cranes!
These two guys stood out, however, but so did many other people passing thru. What was different, however, is these men appeared uncomfortable in their own bodies. They energetically felt uncomfortable to me with an odd mix of quiet, minding their own bidness alertness, squirminess, and nervousness. They were dressed in everyday clothes: blue jeans, flannel shirts, and baseball caps. Dirty and greasy from long hours of hard work. Without any laundering, too. So what? I’ve dressed like that myself, altho it’s been awhile. The way they wore their clothes, however, made them stand out from the all the others who wore similar clothes. To be clear, we get a fair number of homeless people and travelers passing thru, many in various stages of being unlaundered. These two guys gave off airs, a pretense of menace, as they pretended not to pose while posing. They walked quickly and heavily, as if they were stomping but not trying to stomp so they pivoted and swung around the sunglasses and stomped quickly towards me. Bam! Boom! Bam!
Farewell to a quiet giant
A working monument upstairs to the Seattle mothership store to the man who would bang out customers’ shoes so they would always fit well. Took this foto on Valentine’s Day 2025.
Well, for starters, the farewell tribute to Pete at our company Winter Holiday Party made me cry. I couldn’t stop crying either, darn it. About a quiet and humble but fierce man of fish and shoes. No, no jokes about walking in the shoes of the fisherman. The slideshow was especially wonderful. I felt moved to see all those changes in the life of a man and his family. And seeing pictures of his younger daughter, whom as an adult worked for a time at the same place her dad and I did, seeing her as this li’l bitty ol’ thang out in the woods by the river moved me, too. Then more pics of her growing up long hair and all was fun to see as most of us know her as one with very short hair. I felt both sad and happy as I was reminded of the many changes my own daughters went thru as they grew up into young adults. Plus, alas, even a little sad for myself as I head out of my middle age years into whatever comes next.
Yes, this slide show was as evocative as it was inspiring. Aye, kudos to those who worked to put it together! After all this was about an Inspired Guide who steered his family thru the ups and downs of living life all out with the sorrows and joys of lives fully lived. The slide show wasn’t just about Pete, tho. Heck, it wasn’t even about fish! Instead it was about all of us sharing our common essence as human beings. We all resonated with his story as we remembered our own stories. Continue reading
*This is a work in progress. Enjoy anyway!*
A 60 year old dad & his 20 year old daughter go on their first hike together in nearly 4 years, just the two of them without any other family & friends. Double selfie shot on Thursday 30 June 2019.