GNA Offers Updates, Information on Local Developments, and Columnist John Dodge at Annual Community Meeting

john-dodge

John Dodge

Thursday’s Community Meeting was the once yearly opportunity for the Board of the Griffin Neighborhood Association to report to the community on recent activities, to vote in new members of the Board, and to provide a program of interest to residents on the Steamboat Peninsula. This year’s featured speaker was Olympian columnist John Dodge.

Bud Blake, Thurston County’s newest member of the Board of County Commissioners, attended the meeting and was able to speak with residents before and after the program. Mary, his wife, also attended and spoke with those eager to meet her and Commissioner Blake.

Also before the meeting, representatives of Feline Friends and Open Hands Food Bank Garden at St. Christopher’s Community Church met with interested residents.

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My New Year’s Resolution – Tree Free Printing

Actually, Tree Free Printing with Non-Toxic Ink.

Let me start at the beginning. When I was a child, my grandmother would send us a letter from time to time. It was one page. She’d start on one side of the page, then flip the sheet of paper over and write on the other side of the page. Then she’d fill in all the margins on that side of the page. Then she would flip the page back over and fill in all the margins on that side of the page.

When the margins were all filled in, the letter was done.

And, there were no blank lines. We all laughed at how eccentric it was. But, I guess, later in life, I too became eccentric because I started doing the same thing for the same reason – to save paper. However, I didn’t write too many letters that way, because my handwriting is illegible to all but a few, sometimes even to myself.

My next foray into my resolution to save paper was to switch from writing notes on legal pads, to writing notes on Jr Legal Pads, since most of my notes fit on that size paper. We now use mostly scratch paper – receipts and paper that’s been printed on one side. We haven’t resorted to printing notes on envelopes we’ve received in the mail, yet.

A lot of what I print are stories I’ve written for my wife. Some year in the future I’ll sell them, but I haven’t gotten there yet. I save paper when I print these, because they’re really condensed. OK, they’re short, very short, sometimes only one page, but they are complete stories. As my wife says, “I can write a novel in one page.”

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