Kudos to the local citizenry who took flocked to local stores during Small Business Saturday recently. Admittedly, it’s not an entirely small business concept but started out through American Express OPEN, the company’s small business unit.
The credit card company typically offers small rebates to cardholders who buy from local businesses on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and other companies and local business associations join in.
Some critics like Bloomberg Businessweek say it’s like “bringing a (handmade) knife to a gunfight.” with the billions spent on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
All I know is we saw plenty of folks milling around downtown, supporting their neighborhood shops, shop owners and staffers, with plenty of holiday cheer going around.
It was inspiring, frankly, as I recalled the days I was planning to open a shop in Sequim myself. “You, with no business degree, experience or sense, open a store here?” you say? Sure. I’d sell cool stuff like silk-screened T-shirts with some Clallam County official with a bottle in hand, saying, “When I’m thirsty, I drink Dungeness Spit!” and mugs that read, “I’m Diggin’ the Blue Whole.”
(Awkward silence in newsroom, followed by struggle for control of my keyboard … )
Apparently my staff thinks I should keep my day job …
SHS alumni, beware
The fine folks at The Ditchwalker, the quarterly for Sequim Schools Alumni and “Sequim Old Timers” (their words, not mine!) are warning locals about some e-mails going around.
The subject line is “Sequim Alumni Newsletter” and asks recipients to pay a lifetime membership or buy Sequim High clothing.
But it’s a for-profit company with no connection to Sequim, according to The Ditchwalker. The real alumni group does not solicit or sell anything by e-mail — not memberships, services or products.
Speaking of The Ditchwalker …
I’m not an SHS alum but sometimes I feel like one … I guess it’s being here for the past 13-plus years. Or maybe it’s because I really enjoy the alumni publication. This November they featured a “May Day” program from May 1, 1917.
According to the program, admission to Athletic Park (wherever that is/was) is 25 cents, which got attendees into these kinds of activities and sights: a tug of war, sack races and backwards races and wheelbarrow races and a “fat man’s” race (this is pre-political correctness), an automobile parade, a May Pole dance, an address by Washington state Gov. Ernest Lister, a “balloon ascension,” “parachute leap” and aerial acts, a circus with trained and tropical animals and acrobatics (circus admission was 50 cents) and more. Dinner was a free clam bake from 11:45 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and the evening featured a two-hour concert by the Seattle Scotch Pipers Band, a “smoker” in the Olympic Hall, and to cap it off a “Grand Ball” in the in Hippodrome — admission 75 cents for men, 25 cents for women and no children allowed.
Did they/we know how to party or what?
If you don’t get The Ditchwalker, it’s only $10. Write to Sequim Alumni Association, PO Box 1758, Sequim, WA 98382.
I blame Richard Sherman
I get a lot of really obscure e-mails from all over the country from PR reps who send a variety of things, from the serious (“Belgian mining giant lied over bulldozing homes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo”) to the adorable (“New Zealand elephant celebrates anniversary at San Diego Zoo”) to … stuff like this: The HeyLets Self-Promotion Index recently ranked Washington the No. 2 “Most Braggadocious” U.S. state.
HeyLets, so-called online sharing experts, asked 2,500 Americans to rate the number of posts they typically make on self-promotional topics like trips to special locations, attendance at memorable events and work-related “good news.”
Apparently only Californians can top us in overall braggadocious-ness. I’m guessing that number spikes during weeks the Seahawks and 49ers play.
The most humble states, you may ask? Utah, followed by Oregon and South Carolina.
I get these, too
Congrats, I think are in order for Washingtonians.
According to the good folks at E-Cycle, Washington state’s statewide electronics recycling program recently passed the 250 million pound mark of recycling TVs, computers and other electronics collected since its inception in 2009.
In the past six years, Washington residents have turned in more than 5.4 million electronic devices.
We’re keeping stuff like lead, mercury and cadmium out of landfills. The Washington Department of Ecology estimates the E-Cycle program has stopped 23 million pounds of lead from ending up in the trash.
The best part? Manufacturers pay for the program under a 2006 Washington law.
So if your garage is like mine, stuffed with broken and embarrassingly outdated electronics, go to www.ecyclewashington.org.
There are 340 E-Cycle drop-off sites, including two near Sequim: 272693 US.. Highway 101 Blyn and Goodwill, 680 W. Washington St.
