Opinion
PAT NEAL: The meaning of Christmas
With apologies to Charles Dickens.
Opinion
PAT NEAL: The perfect Christmas gift
BY NOW, I’M pretty sure we’ve all had it up to here with those phony Christmas letters some…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: Yes, Virginia, there is a steelhead
(With apologies to Francis Pharcellus Church, Editor of the New York Sun, Dec. 21, 1897.)
Opinion
PAT NEAL: A Christmas survival guide
WHY CAN’T CHRISTMAS last all year? You’d better be glad that it doesn’t.
Opinion
PAT NEAL: A Dirty Thirties Thanksgiving
THIS IS A story about Thanksgiving in the olden days.
Opinion
PAT NEAL: Hunting season excuses
AND SO, ANOTHER hunting season passes astern. I hope yours went better than mine. It was a shipwreck…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: Spawned-out salmon important to ecosystem
IT WAS DAYLIGHT on the river. The shadowy forms of overhanging trees appeared like a tunnel in the…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: The day after the election
THERE’S NOTHING QUITE like tent camping in the rain forest during the monsoon season.
Opinion
PAT NEAL: The Halloween hunt for Bigfoot
THERE’S NOTHING LIKE a hard day’s writing to make me glad I’m not one of the country’s leading…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: Predicting the coming winter
IT WAS ANOTHER tough week in the news. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, (NOAA) issued its 2024-25…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: The autumn menu
AUTUMN IS A time of plenty on the Olympic Peninsula. The salmon are running. The game is fattened…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: It’s apple picking time
IT WAS DAYLIGHT at the homestead, but I was more than a little late for breakfast. I probably…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: The composting chronicles
IT MIGHT HAVE been the American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson who was credited with saying, “build a better…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: Disaster preparedness month
SEPTEMBER IS NATIONAL Disaster Preparedness Month. It’s time to raise awareness about the importance of preparing for disasters…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: A good time on the Peninsula
1890 WAS A good time to be on the Olympic Peninsula. That was before the coming of the…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: Heed the wilderness warnings
IT WAS ANOTHER tough week in the news. We almost didn’t need a bombshell press release from Olympic…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: The season of harvest
SEPTEMBER IS THE season of harvest, when we gather the fruits of our labors. It is the realization…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: A case of mushroom fever
BY NOW, I think we’ve all had it up to here with people complaining about the rain. That’s…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: The wrath of the Thunderbird
YOU KNOW LIGHTNING’S getting closer when you feel the thunder in your bones. That’s how close it got…
Opinion
PAT NEAL: The seven stages of device deprivation
WITH THE MIRACLE of climate change, people living in the southern states of this great experiment in democracy…