Bainbridge island Review
Work of island playwright performed in Seattle: Bainbridge-based playwright and composer Paul Lewis’ latest work, “The Hours of Life,” will open for a limited 12-performance engagement in Seattle beginning Dec. 5 at Seattle Center.
“The Hours of Life,” a musical play, is a historical fiction inspired by actual events surrounding an obsessive love affair between 19th century poet Sarah Helen Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe.
Though he’s better known for his dark side, Edgar Allan Poe’s tender matters of the heart are unearthed in Lewis’ new show, where a fateful encounter casts its shadow and threatens to destroy the poets’ future together. Their tale of forbidden romance is set at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and features the unlikely combination of an Austrian inventor, mechanical Turks and Bavarian grand chess masters.
The show is directed by Corey D. McDaniel of “The Wild Party” fame, a show which won the Gregory Award for “Outstanding Musical Production” and Gypsy Rose Lee Award for “Excellence in Musical Production and Direction.”
The initial staged reading of this musical, held in June 2011 at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, received an extraordinarily positive response from an over-capacity audience.
There will be regular performances at 8 p.m. on Dec. 5, Dec. 6, Dec. 9 (Industry Night), Dec. 10, Dec. 11, Dec. 12 and, Dec. 14.
There will be 2 p.m. matinées on Dec. 6 and 13 as well as Dec. 7 and 14.
The show is being staged at the Cornish Studio Theatre at Seattle Center, formerly the Intiman Blackbox (201 Mercer St.).
Tickets are on sale now, the cost is $22 per person and $14 for seniors, students and military members.
Visit www.brownpapertickets.com/event/858076 or www.theatre22.org for tickets and more information..
— BainbridgeReview.com
Bremerton Patriot
Council will not reconsider panhandling decision: Even though advocates for the homeless told the Bremerton City Council this week that they intend to bring in the ACLU regarding the city’s recent ban on panhandling, City Council President Greg Wheeler said he doesn’t think the issue will be reconsidered.
“Unless I see that a majority of the council wants to switch their votes on the ban, I don’t see this being on any upcoming agenda,” Wheeler said following the meeting. “Unless there is something that we missed, and I can be convinced of that, I don’t see this coming up again for another vote.”
The council recently banned panhandling in specific locations throughout the city including near bank ATMs, bus stops and along major streets. That was done, according to Wheeler and other council members, for safety purposes.
“As you know, I voted against the ban,” Wheeler said. “But I clearly can see where it isn’t safe to have people walking out in traffic asking for money.”
The ordinance made it unlawful to panhandle within 25 feet of an ATM or bus stop and created no-panhandling zones on many of Bremerton’s busiest traffic ways, including on Sixth, 11th and Burwell streets, Charleston Boulevard, Sheridan Road, Kitsap, Wheaton and Sylvan ways and Naval and Washington avenues.
At last week’s council meeting, several people spoke out saying that the ban limits free speech and attacks the poor.
“We consider this your war on the poor,” said Tahlure Niemy. “This ban restricts free speech and it take police away from more important duties. We ask that you overturn (the ban) immediately.”
Niemy also promised the council that he would be back at its next meeting on Dec. 3 and hopes to bring representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union.
While council members didn’t respond during the comment portion of the meeting, they did weigh in at the end of the meeting.
“I stand behind our action on panhandling,” said Mike Sullivan. “I still support the ordinance.”
Council member Leslie Daugs agreed.
“What we did was for the safety of everyone,” she said. “I’m glad we moved forward with it.”
— BremertonPatriot.com
Central Kitsap Reporter
Youth project opens in Silverdale: The walls are painted red-and-blue. A pool table, air hockey table and foosball table sit atop a striped brown carpet.
Colored pencils, drawing paper and snacks lay atop a table. At one end of the room, a woman and girl play the board game “Sorry!”
The cozy, den-like atmosphere is where the Silverdale United Methodist Church is hosting its new Kitsap Youth Project.
“You can’t ever have too many safe places for kids to hang out,” said Grant Bosshardt, a towering, bald-headed man and one of three youth leaders, along with pastor’s assistant Lyndsey Rickabaugh and Brett Hall.
The Youth Project is meant to provide children in grades 6-12 with a place to gather and have fun for an hour and a half on Thursdays.
The project began on Oct. 23 and has only held a few of its gatherings so far. The group meets every Thursday from 6:30 to 8 p.m.
The time there is structured: Sessions kick off with an ice-breaker activity, followed by singing, and then a time to talk. A lesson is also taught.
At a recent meeting, youngsters Alaura Hall and Lynzie Kenny raced each other to see who could bounce the most ping pong balls across a table and into plastic buckets held by adults on the other side.
“Yeah!” exclaimed a victorious Alaura after winning two of three rounds.
Afterward they gathered to sing a song titled “Indescribable.”
“From the highest of heights to the depths of the sea, Creation’s revealing Your majesty,” they sang.
The song ended and the group began their chat time.
“It’s incredible to us and humbling that you know every star in the sky by name,” Bosshardt said.
Bosshardt’s lesson for the day was about risk and reward.
He and his wife recently purchased a Harley Davidson motorcycle, he said. It was a high-risk purchase for him since he wasn’t even sure he would like riding motorcycles. But as it turned out, he enjoyed it.
Likewise, he said, people risk their own valuable time if they decide to help someone in need — someone who was hungry or who needed help paying their utility bills, for example.
The biggest risk, he said, would be that if one didn’t help others then no one else might not help either.
Bosshardt used a passage from the Bible to illustrate the lesson: “Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it is within your power to help them.”
“When we give we get to understand why Jesus said it is better to give than receive,” Bosshardt said.
To learn more about the Kitsap Youth Project, contact pastor’s assistant Lyndsey Rickabaugh at 360-692-9813 or by email at lyndseyr@silverdale-umc.org. The church has a web page for the project at www.silverdale-umc.org.
— CentralKitsapReporter.com
North Kitsap Herald
Grieving mom’s home burglarized: mementos of late son stolen: Carol Tong has had a difficult year. Her friends are now asking the community to help.
The Nov. 21 burglary of her Poulsbo home occurred just under a year after her son Evan Tong committed suicide. She didn’t work for a period of months and has since lived paycheck to paycheck. That has put a financial strain on her family and she has struggled to keep her home.
“I’ve raised my children in my home and I don’t want to lose it,” Tong said.
When burglars scavenged her home, they picked through valuables, taking jewelry, boxes, and cash that Tong saved to make her next mortgage payment.
Then there’s the boxes that Tong collects, one being a jewelry box her uncle brought back from serving overseas in the military. She has had it since she was 8. That box was taken. In it was her late son’s baby teeth, as well as her daughter’s.
“That, to me, was sentimental because I had so few things left of him,” she said.
Also stolen: a wedding ring she planned to give to her daughter one day.
But it’s not just the financial loss that is being felt, it’s also the sentimental, compounded by the death of her son in December 2013.
Eleven months after his passing, Tong is grieving again.
“They took my son’s old phone that had pictures on them that I hadn’t completely transferred over to my phone yet,” Tong said.
Evan’s wallet, which she kept under her mattress, is also gone.
“They even messed with my son’s urn, with his ashes,” Tong said. “It’s on the table in my living room. They tried to get into that.”
Tong is grateful for some things, however. Her father, who was possibly around the home during the time of the burglary, was not harmed. Her daughter was away — en route home from college, facing slow traffic over the Cascade Mountains.
Tong’s father, however, may have been in the home during the theft. He came over to run a load of laundry that day.
“They were either in the house while my dad was doing his laundry or went out the window and came in after he finished his laundry because my room was completely ransacked,” she said.
Tong’s room wasn’t ransacked when her father came over, she said. Her father did notice, however, some papers were strewn about the floor, but assumed that a family cat had made the mess. The window screen in Evan’s old room was pushed inside his room, but nothing else was amiss. Her father then left.
Hours later, Tong returned home from work. Her home was further tossed about and her valuables were stolen.
She said that of all the things taken, she would like the burglars to return the sentimental box and the things that she kept of her late son.
“Please bring me back my boxes with the things they don’t want,” she said she would ask the thieves. “They would know.”
A Wish Fund through Giveforward (www.giveforward.com) was created to help Carol. The goal is to raise $10,000.
“I had cash in my dresser drawer that I was going to pay my mortgage with this month, and my friend that I talked with about this, he set this fund up so that I could pay my mortgage,” Tong said. “I’ve been fighting to keep my home.”
The fund was set up by Tong’s friend, Richard Koven. He has known Tong for more than 10 years, he said. Tong’s children have been friends with Koven’s children “for years,” he said.
“It’s just so violating,” Koven said of the burglary.
“It’s not just the money … it’s the sense of community and love.”
— NorthKitsapHerald.com
Port Orchard Independent
Harper Pier taking shape: could be completed by Dec. 31: If everything goes as planned, the Harper Pier replacement project could be completed by the end of the year.
James Heytvelt, co-chair of the friends of Harper Pier, said his group, along with neighbors, has been watching the progress of the new replacement pier since the middle of October.
Heytvelt said the community is excited about it.
“The people are chomping at the bit to be the first person to walk out on the pier,” Heytvelt said with a laugh.
The replacement pier, located in Yukon Bay near South Colby, will be smaller and will include a float for kayaks and smaller water crafts.
Port of Bremerton CEO Jim Rothlin said the contractors are looking at completing the project by Dec. 31.
Rothlin said the port is planning a grand opening ceremony along with the Friends of Harper Pier.
Removal and disposal of the old pier was completed in March 2013.
It included 128 creosote-treated pilings, 7,500 square feet of “over water structure” (pier decking, stringers, pile caps, crossbeams, etc.) and 15 tons of sub-tidal piling stubs and remnants, and detached pilings on the sea floor, which was removed with the aid of a dive team..
— PortOrchardIndependent.com
