Signs Of The Times
Like I said last week, I’ve been coming to Lummi Island with my family for years upon years, as far back as I can remember. And like I said last week, the ride up to Lummi changed a lot from one trip to the next. However, having spent a few days here now, I’m struck by the things that have changed on the island as well.
When I was a little kid, I positively loved it up here (which isn’t to say I don’t now – I just get antsy being this close to Canada) and whenever I wasn’t here, I usually wanted to be. When I’d watch Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego, a children’s geography quiz show where winners received a free trip anywhere in North America, I was consistently shocked and appalled that when the winners gleefully showed the card on which they’d written their desired destination, it never read “LUMMI ISLAND, WASHINGTON.” Those morons, I had thought, are going to have a terrible time in New York City or Orlando! It never entered my mind that everyone in the world didn’t know about the tiny, isolated island where my family spent our vacations, nor the fact that maybe people wouldn’t want to blow their free trip anywhere on a jaunt to an island where the primary activities are reading or picking up slimy rocks at low tide and seeing what’s underneath. Back then, I really wished that everybody could know what a great, hidden gem Lummi Island actually was.
Well, 14 years later and my wish came true, only the people showing up at Lummi Island aren’t eight year olds with a preternatural knowledge of geography but instead rich people, who are, in my estimate, far less desirable. On my last regular trip to the island, back in 2002, cell phone reception was spotty, television was a luxury, and if you wanted Internet you had to go out into the woods with a pitchfork and shovel and dig for hours until you hit a vein. Back then, throwing dried branches on the fire in the stove and watching how they burned was my Gears of War 2.
But since then, the rich people found Lummi Island and realized that it was peaceful and secluded, and in their efforts to acclimate it to their lifestyle completely trashed all that. There are now about a dozen McMansions spread across the island like a herpes infection that promises to get much worse if not burned to the ground. Old houses facing the San Juan Islands across Legoe Bay have been bought and remodeled into mission style villas the likes of which you’d see in Southern California, completely out of place with the pleasantly ramshackle fishermen’s houses and rusting dinghies in the area. What’s worst, however, is The Asshole.
The Asshole bought the plot of land next door to that of my uncle, who lives on the island, and one door down from The Green Cabin, where my parents and I used to stay when we came up here. The Asshole, a real estate developer, demolished the old house on the property and built a sprawling three story dwelling with multiple peaked rooftops and siding that looks enough like logs to make passers by think, “Wow – this person has enough money to buy fake wood to make their house look like it’s an authentic log cabin with a satellite dish and Traeger grill!”
My uncle had a handshake contract with his old neighbor that they could both use the neighbor’s driveway to clear the 20 or so feet from the road to where the houses lay, even though the driveway was entirely on the neighbor’s property. Once The Asshole bought that piece of property, however, he informed my uncle that he would not be allowed to use the driveway anymore, forcing my uncle to construct his own. Next, he cut down a lot of the trees on the property that he felt interfered with his view.
And most recently, he’s been trying to exploit an error in a land use contract signed between the original owners of both plots that will make the beach in front of my uncle’s house his property, giving him the right to restrict access to the beach that my family has been using for multiple decades. Keep in mind that The Asshole has been coming to the island for a couple years, as opposed to my uncle, who has been living here for well over ten years.
Rich people like The Asshole have pumped up the island’s economy, too – both restaurants have gone a little more upscale, and we’ve got a winery now, which is as surefire a sign of classiness as you’ll ever get. Wireless Internet is abundant – I’m using it right now – and cell service is strong. That’s the thing about modern amenities; they’re expensive, so they almost always follow the people who can pay for them, and an influx of people usually tears apart the individual character of what was there before.
Today we visited The Green Cabin, and made a point of poking around on the beach in front of The Asshole’s house for a long time, much to his poodle’s dismay.
Truman Capps thinks that those who live in glass houses near beaches full of stones would do well to check themselves before they wreck themselves.