Acting Citizen: Grandson and Grandnephew in One Person

By James Knudsen

It is well and proper summer now, but the vacationing that typically accompanies the summer solstice began two weeks ago. Less than 24 hours after Andra finished her year at Edison High School, we boarded a plane for Seattle. Cooler climes are certainly reason enough, as we’ve already had temps in excess of 110 here in Fresno, but that was not the main draw. The main draw is…Cameron.

Cameron and his granduncle

    Cameron Smith, the first grandchild of my sister Morissa, is enjoying his first visit to grandmother’s house. A gathering of friends and family on Sunday, followed our arrival on the 12th, and Cameron marked six months as we left on the 16th.
    “Juneary” is the term for the gray weather Puget Sound receives in June, and the Evergreen State did not disappoint. Occasional drizzles accompanied us on our visits to Paulsbo, Port Townsend, Kingston, and Hansville, some of the little towns across the sound from Seattle. Hansville is the closest town to my sister’s new/old digs. “New” in that she has recently returned to the property she purchased over 20 years ago. The area is known as Point No Point, and a lighthouse marks the “point.”

    Built in 1879, the Point No Point Lighthouse signals the northern entrance to Puget Sound. It is believed to be the oldest lighthouse on the Sound, and it houses the headquarters of the U.S. Lighthouse Society.
    The society maintains the former residences of the lighthouse keepers, which are offered to the public as vacation rentals. It occurred to me as we passed the neat cottages, with signs noting the names of the keepers, what a lonely existence it must have been over a hundred years ago. Hansville numbers just over 4,000 residents in the 21st century. I suspect that may have been part of the attraction – isolation…I recall that the infamous Unabomber sought isolation. Hmmm.
    What a lonely existence too (?) for this river otter, who may have hauled out on to the docks more for our company than for a back scratching session?

Oh, but enough of paranoid hermits. Cameron really is the cutest. And though just six months, he is a very chill lad, despite the recent emergence of two teeth. Smiling, cooing, and, on the morning of our departure, figuring out how to crawl. His grandmother is delighted to finally be seeing him, having waited almost six months since his arrival in mid-December.

       And the delay was not entirely due to the pandemic. Cameron was born in Prague. Mom and dad (Martina and Chris) will be in the States until August. Chris is presently in Alaska working on a fishing boat. After that they will return to The Czech Republic, where they will continue raising Cameron. As to the why they are choosing to stay in the EU, that is another story, for another time.
    But Martina and Chris’ earlier story – their wedding – I have told (on September 23, 2017).

Copyright © 2021 by James Knudsen