Synopsis
I sometimes think all of us here represent the last wave of American Westward Expansion. We paddled across to these islands, looked out our cabin windows one morning and realized this may be as far as we can go. We got to the tail end of these islands at the far end of this continent at the last hour of the millennium. So writes Jack Archibald from one of those cabins three decades later, musing about his journey to the south end of Camano Island. I don' t know about you all, but I was looking for one last chance to live an earlier American Dream, the one where cheap land was still available and opportunity was something you could grab with two strong hands. I was looking for the same thing the pioneers were: a fresh start. A little breathing room. New ground. I think that s what America IS. The opportunity, the Potential to recreate yourself. To hitch up the Conestoga and leave the past behind. To make your mistakes and move on. To ALWAYS feel like you can start over.... Skeeter Daddle is, of course, Archibald s alter ego, a latter day Huck Finn tromping Camano s backwash in search of an America long thought lost, a banjo on his knee and a grudge against Mark Twain for marooning him in a childhood no longer sanctuary. The author writes the way he plays banjo: headlong, brakes out, bystanders beware. If you read closely enough, you will find him grinning from every page, hiding in the old growth nettle stands of the fabled South End. The Skeeter Daddle Diaries isn t merely a recollection of Camano s South End, it s a commentary on our modern times balanced precariously on the cusp of a computer tsunami. Archibald may well be describing a Paradise Already Lost, but for a brief, sparkling moment, he ll take you back to a Garden of Eden before the gated communities. I used to think, sitting early mornings by my big woodstove waiting for the coffee water to boil, my dog, old Dr. Gonzo, watching me sleepy-eyed on the hearth with the cat curled snug up against her, all of us waiting for daylight and that teapot singing a note like a banjo s high G, I used to think: we all know what s been lost, the sound of kids rustling up, hopping on bare feet across a cold plank floor, getting up, getting going, the smell of wood smoke curling out of a chimney, the slow feel of sun coming up through the fog in the firs and the whole world slowly re-appearing, wet and dripping like a newborn thing just spanked to life, that first intake of breath, everything waiting. We think we don t have time for this anymore, but we know we had it once. We know it s right there for us to see again, coming awake out of the dawn.
About the Author
Jack Archibald is a glass artist residing on Camano Island in the American Archipelago in Puget Sound. He writes, makes public art and plays banjo. He built his home, his banjo and his life at the end of the continent.
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