When my adult children return home for the holidays, I drop everything to focus on spending time with them.
I remember hearing so often from older people as I raised my son and daughter that I should treasure the time with them because it flies by fast.
Now I find myself saying the same thing to frazzled parents of toddlers; they’ll miss those days when they look back on them.
During our nighttime prayers, I always asked God to let my husband and I live long enough to see our children grow up, graduate from college, start careers and begin families of their own. My son has launched his career and married; my daughter graduates in May and marries in August. Thank you, God!
Friday night found us gathered again at the Morgan Arts Centre in Toledo, but this time our crew of painters reached 14, ranging in age from 11 to 95 as we celebrated the birthday of Chehalis Rosie the Riveter Doris Bier with a cake by Penny Mauel. Crowded around the tables in front of easels with me were my son and daughter, my daughter’s fiancé and her friend, my stepdaughter and three stepgrandchildren, two of my sisters, my nephew and his girlfriend, Edna Fund and Bier, with Ed Fund watching.
Di Morgan welcomed us to the center and provided helpful tips as we painted pets in snow … or whatever version of that we wished. I needed all the help I could obtain as I lathered paint on the canvas as well as my fingers, hands and arms.
“Art events are such a wonderful way to relax and take a break for a couple of hours,” said our instructor, Sue Wachter of Centralia. “Seeing people develop a painting is always inspiring regardless of their artistic background.”
“Doing that as family time was really special,” said my stepdaughter, Amanda Reeder of Woodland.
“I’ve found a new hobby,” Bier said as she painted while celebrating her 95th birthday. She proves we’re never too old to take up a new challenge.
Wachter, who was born in Morton and spent seven years as a child in southeastern Alaska before returning to Centralia, began painting after her two children entered college.
“My son was in an art class at Centralia College and asked me to paint with him, and I was hooked from there,” she said. “I found the best way for me to learn was to teach. I would attend a class and come home and teach it to my friends.”
This is our third Paint and Sip at the Morgan Arts Centre taught by Wachter, who offers monthly events at the Station in Centralia, senior center in Yelm, Timber Patch Brewery in Morton and Locust Cinder in Olympia. She said events are also planned at the Morgan Arts Centre in 2023.
In addition, Wachter teaches at fundraising events and private parties, such as ours, as well as Centralia College Continuing Education courses and watercolor and silk-dying at Rectangle Gallery in Centralia, where some of her artwork is displayed. She works part time for Demme Learning, an East Coast company, as charter school support liaison working with teachers and homeschool families.
A Tacoma-based company, Artvana, also offers paint and sip nights in Lewis County. To learn more about Wachter’s classes, contact her at localartclasses@gmail.com or 360-870-6569.
Artvana can be reached at info@artvana.life. Toledo Treasures also hosts painting events.
Giant Cheese Ball Drop
On Saturday night, rather than watch the ball drop in New York’s Times Square or fireworks shoot out from the Seattle Space Needle, my husband, my son and I, for the first time ever, ventured downtown for the Toledo Giant Cheese Ball Drop. This New Year’s Eve event began in 2017, but it was canceled in 2020 because of COVID-19 and in 2021 because of snow and 19-degree weather.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I envisioned a huge round ball of cheese splatting onto the pavement near the boat launch. Instead, I saw a crane holding a five-foot-diameter circular inflatable plastic ball encircled with 100 colorful LED lights that was gently lowered onto the Chimis Mexican Restaurant parking lot as the crowd counted down the seconds to the end of 2022. Mike Morgan made the original papier-mâché Giant Cheese Ball.
“Di and I were very pleased with the turnout of over 150 people,” Mike Morgan said. “It was truly a family affair and a lot of fun.”
Music blared from a playlist put together by retired teacher Chuck Caley as fireworks donated by the Toledo Lions Club exploded in the sky. Children raced to pluck a hundred individually wrapped Tillamook cheese squares and Kraft cheese sticks taped to the Giant Cheese Ball. I enjoyed seeing people I knew, like the Morgans, Chuck and Sally Caley, Tom and Sharon Layton, Heidi McCulley, and Pastor Joseph Martin and his wife, Sue.
In addition to his wife, Caley and the Lions Club, Morgan credited John Sanford, Mike Fisher, Mayor Steve Dobosh, vision:Toledo, and the city of Toledo with helping make the event successful.
What a fun and unique way to welcome the new year. Only in Toledo, home of Cheese Days and a long-gone cheese factory.
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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.
