Welcome to Bickleton

There was a knock on the door today. Two women from a lady's society in Bickleton brought us a welcome basket. They bring one to everyone who moves into town. Have you ever gotten a welcome basket from your town? Neither have I. It's one of the amazing things about this place.

My favorite thing in the welcome basket was this glass bluebird. I saw them at the local market and wanted to get one while we live here. Lucky me, I got one as a welcome gift.

My second favorite thing in the basket is this recipe book: Food for the Flock. It's a collection of recipes from locals to commemorate Bickleton's First Presbyterian Church's Centennial. After glancing through it, I'm amazed at what these people think of to do with pretzels and jello, and sometimes both. I'm honestly not sure if I'll ever try one of the recipes, but they're a fascinating look into the people and the culture.

Close to Nature

Here are some views we had from our kitchen window yesterday.



We are definitely close to nature out here. Sometimes a little too close, but that's another story.

The Problem with Packages

The Bickleton Post Office is open! I can get my mail at an indoor PO Box (though that’s actually a little harder for my situation because when it was outdoors I could pull up to it and leave my toddler in the car). Best of all, if I get a package, it’s waiting for me behind the counter at the post office.

But before the PO was open, packages were held in the local market for pick up. No big deal, the store is close to the PO Boxes (in Bickleton, everything is close to everything else). The problem was that I got my slip of paper saying that my package had arrived on a Wednesday. The market is closed on Wednesdays. So I waited till Thursday.

On Thursday there was no sign of life in downtown Bickleton (you might not believe it, but there are usually at least half a dozen cars parked in the area during the day). The door of the market had a handwritten sign saying that the market was closed for the day due to plumbing problems.

But they didn’t forget about us poor residents whose highlight of the day is getting our mail—getting a package is the most exciting thing that happened to me all week. The sign said that I could go across the street to the tavern and they’d let me in the market to pick up my package. I looked across the street and saw that the tavern was closed—due to plumbing problems. The alternative to the tavern was to call R. at the given number to be let in.

Making a phone call used to be easy from anywhere. But another little quirk about Bickleton: no cell phone service. So I had to drive home, get my toddler out of the car, trudge into the house, and make a call from the landline. And what did R. have to say? Go across the street to the tavern. I told her that it was closed. “They’re closed for business but N. is there working, just knock on the door.” Maybe a local would have known that. I may live here, but I’m not a local yet.

Back into the car we went. Back down the street to Bickleton. Back out of the car.

I parked at the market so I’d have a shorter walk with my packages. As I got Ivy out of the car, an old man drove in his pickup truck.

“I think the market’s closed today.”

“I know. They said I could go across the street and get the key for my package.”

“Yeah. Well. I was sposed to meet someone here today. Guess I’ll have to wait in the truck.”

It was freezing cold and we were bundled up, which made carrying my daughter and walking across the icy street a bit awkward. I made it without slipping and knocked on the door of the tavern.

After a wait that made me wonder if anyone was really there, N. cracked the door open and I told her I needed to get a package from the market.

“Wait here, I’ll get you the key.”

I stood on the wooden porch of the tavern and waited till I was handed the keys. Another precarious waddle across the street and I unlocked the door to the market.

Now, I know I’m trustworthy. But how do the people of Bickleton know I’m trustworthy? They just hand me a key to the market and let me wander in on my own. I could be anybody. Of course, the only things readily available for stealing are cans of food. My husband and I lock our doors in Bickleton, but it’s really more for the sake of keeping in the habit than anything.

There were large piles of packages on a table near the front of the store. The fact that it was a few weeks before Christmas probably had something to do with it. But I also suspected that you had to buy more things online when you lived in Bickleton since it takes so long to drive to a store. I was expecting one package, but found three addressed to us. None of them were heavy, but one was large and awkward by itself—and I was carrying a bundled up and cranky toddler. I dragged the large package out to the porch and then got the two smaller ones and stacked them on top. Then I tried to lock the door to the market.

Tried being the operative word here.

I may have only been trying for a minute or two, but that minute or two seems much longer with a child in your arms and an old man sitting in a truck behind you with nothing to do but watch you struggle. He could have at least gotten out and offered to help.

I finally figured out that the door had to be at just the right spot to lock it (I had been trying to close it all the way like a door to a house would need to do). Then I picked up the two smaller packages and stepped off the porch—completely forgetting that I was on a porch. Oh, and it was icy and slick. I’m sure my stumbling-sliding-juggling act was very entertaining for the old man in the truck. When I found my footing again, I was still holding my packages and, more importantly, my daughter. I wasn’t sure if I should be embarrassed to have an audience or proud of the fact that I hadn’t dropped anything or fallen on my butt.

When I’d half dragged/half carried all the packages to the car, the old man in the truck knew the show was over, I mean, got tired of waiting for his friend, and drove away. The only time there was someone sitting around in downtown Bickleton that day was the five minutes in which I made a fool of myself.

I returned the key and got to the car and drove home without incident. Except for not being sure if I should laugh or cry. If I ever live somewhere that gets packages delivered to the door or the mailbox, I will always remember to be grateful for the ease and the service.

Postal Predicaments

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” (Found here.) But your house? Well, your house is just too far to drive to.

We don’t have a mailbox. We don’t get mail delivery to our house. But we get a free PO Box since there is no mail service.

The tiny Bickleton Post Office was shut down without warning this past spring—we hear it’s because some federal official came by and discovered that there was no bathroom for the single employee in the building. When it was shut down, they moved all the mail to the next closest post office 25 miles away. So Bickleton residents, and those on its outskirts, had to add 25 miles to their drive for their mail. After residents rightly put up a fuss, the mail was delivered to the PO Boxes in Bickleton again. Now the residents are waiting for the post office itself to reopen.

And that was the status when we were looking into living up here. Just before we came, we got the good news that the Bickleton Post Office was reopening the Monday after we moved in. Hurrah! I wouldn’t have to live in a place so desolate that not even the United States Postal Service could touch it.

Monday Morning: no sign of life in the post office building. So we drove the 25 miles to the closest post office. The woman working there was the regular Bickleton Post Office employee.

No, no, she told us. Our informant had been wrong. The new PO was opening the following Monday. And could we wait till then to open our PO Box?

A week with no mail—not even a place for it to be sent to? Um, no thank you. (What would she have done if it was months until the new PO opened?)

We compromised. She told us our new PO Box address so we could do a change of address, but we would have to wait for the keys until next Monday when she opened the new PO at 8:30 a.m., and we should be warned that she would be swamped with customers since she’d been shut down for so long.

The Next Monday Morning: Eli was back to work so Ivy and I were alone with the task of getting to the PO. It’s a half a mile there and back, which will be an easy walk in good weather. But with the wind, cold, ice, and snow of early December, there was no way I could make the walk with a toddler in tow. So we bundled up with coats, hats, boots, and gloves and got strapped into the car for our drive to the PO.

And no one was there. It was a little past 8:30, but to give her the benefit of the doubt, I drove around town for a bit (not that it takes long to see the entire town). There was a dog that insisted on resting in the middle of the road and staring at me as if I were intruding on his private space, but still no sign of life or business at the new PO.

We drove back home, got out of the car and unbundled, and I tried calling the Bickleton PO. No answer. Next I called the PO 25 miles away. The Bickleton Postmaster answered. The PO would not be opening that day, but I could go by while she was there after 11:00 to pick up our key. By then she should have gotten a hold of the woman who used to have our PO Box and get the keys from her.

(Um, excuse me? We’ve been sending our mail to a PO Box that someone else has a key to? – The problem with a small town is that you can’t get upset at the people you deal with every day, because you will be dealing with them the next day and the next and you’ll see them at the market and the tavern and the church.)

She was there as promised with keys in hand, and had even brought our mail inside so I didn’t have to walk across the icy street with my toddler to get it out of our PO Box. The whole experience has been a weird cross between being frustrated with nothing being done in what I consider the usual way and being surprised by the little acts of kindness that are unusual in the world I come from.

So we can get our mail now. But what about packages? Without a PO to hold them behind the counter, packages represent their own problem.

Sunshine in a Snowstorm

Today's weather was completely schizophrenic. The wind blew so hard that there was a snowstorm one minute and sunshine the next. Sometimes, we got both at the same time.



The Wind (and Why I'm Here)

The wind brought me here. It could have blown us anywhere in the country, but it landed us here in Bickleton, a town reportedly settled because some pioneers decided they didn’t want to walk anymore. Look at a map of Washington—there’s a large section in the south central region with nothing there—we’re in the middle of that section.

Okay, there’s not nothing here. We could be more isolated if we lived on one of the farms in the area. But we live on the west end of town (it takes two minutes to drive from one end of town to the other, if you go the speed limit). In town there is a café with a few grocery items, a tavern (the oldest in the state), a carousel museum, a church, and a post office (so we hear, but it’s been closed down for months and has yet to reopen).

We live on a plateau at 3,020 feet. Which means it’s cold and snowy and icy and foggy and windy. Wind is the important thing. A year ago my husband was working as an EMT in Portland, Oregon. But his career was going nowhere, so last January he decided to switch careers, in February he started a program for wind turbine technicians, in October he got a job, and at the end of November it brought us here where there’s lots of wind.

I have never experienced such intense culture shock, and climate and landscape shock (is there such a thing?). I grew up in a valley surrounded by sudden and stunning mountains. We moved around the area a bit, but my adult life there was lived in a college town where there were always lots of people and lots to do. In 2006 my husband and I moved to Portland, Oregon for me to attend grad school. We lived on the outskirts of the city, but I spent almost every day walking downtown. I became accustomed to living in a metro area with a population of 2 million, and I was almost becoming accustomed to the rain, mostly because I had learned that it didn’t last all year and I would indeed see the sky again if I just waited long enough.

Now I live in a town with a population of 90. And it’s cold and snowy, which I grew up with, but living on the valley floor, I did not grow up with the kind of snow depths that can accumulate here. Despite being away from the constant rain of Portland, I still have rarely seen the sky since we moved here. It’s the fog that’s getting to me.

I used to be a perpetual student. I used to study literature and write and edit. I can still do those things, but now I do them in isolation. My full time job is raising my 18 month old daughter and cleaning a house that’s more than twice as big as any place I’ve rented before. I used to break up my long days alone with a toddler by going to the library and spreading out all my errands over as many days as possible so we had an excuse to leave the house. It’s now at least an hour drive to anything and my errands need to be run weekly at the most.

And so to ward off going stir crazy in this house (population 3) and this town (population 90), I’m going to write about my life here. You can follow along and be grateful that mail is delivered to your house and if you run out of food, it’s a quick drive to the grocery store. I used to have those things too, and had no idea how lucky I was.