September 13, 2018 • 19 mins
A man ahead of his time, built an entire town around the timber industry. A century later, the town is building itself around and in support of a local nuisance. Finding comedy in stress, it turns out, has been a decades-long tradition in Longview, Washington. Plus, the best way to survive a volcano eruption; and how fun, industry, and ecology can thrive in symbiosis.
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www.ouramericanapodcast.com / www.bothand.fyi
For an ad-free experience or to support the show: www.patreon.com/studiobothand
Written, edited, and produced by Josh Hallmark Research by Vanessa York
Guest: Patrick KubinMusic by Borrtex, Podington Bear, Broke for Free, Cheribum / Courtesy of Free Music Archive
This is a Studio BOTH/AND production:
www.ouramericanapodcast.com / www.bothand.fyi
For an ad-free experience or to support the show: www.patreon.com/studiobothand
Written, edited, and produced by Josh Hallmark Research by Vanessa York
Guest: Patrick KubinMusic by Borrtex, Podington Bear, Broke for Free, Cheribum / Courtesy of Free Music Archive
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is an Our Americana podcast Networkproduction sponsored by Podbean. When things are
in turmoil, when the world aroundyou feels like it's crumbling, feeling joy
can make you feel so guilty.Protest and fear and anger can make it
impossible to find moments for yourself justto laugh, even if it's at everything
(00:23):
terrible happening around you. But thatlaughter, that joy is often what would
get you through all that turmoil.And sometimes that laughter and that joy is
even the solution. In long View, Washington, a sense of humor helped
a town deal with a local nuisanceand is leading them out of a decade's
(00:44):
long economic depression. That sense ofhumor may have even saved the town from
a volcano, but that's still upfor debate. Loy Washington is a very
interesting place. Actually, it's aplanned city. Lay the first planned city
(01:06):
west of the Mississippi River back inthe early nineteen twenties and named are Long
was a timber barren in Missouri,and they ran out of timber, and
so he sent scouts out west,and they found enormous tracks of old growth
timber in the northwest, and theypurchased a lot of it, and he
(01:26):
built an enormous sawmill lumber mill inLongview and then built a city to house
his workers. And so the cityof Longview was all planned, all laid
out, Everything was organized before asingle brick was laid. So in that
way, it's it's kind of unusual. It's built around a hub, which
(01:49):
is the Civic Circle and the variousroads radiate out from that, and that's
that hub, the Civic Circle parkin the enter of it is called the
Ari Long Park and that's where wehold our squirrel Fest. My name is
(02:13):
Patrick Cuban live in the city ofLongview, Washington, which is about thirty
six miles north of Portland, Oregon, on I five and I am a
member of the long View Sandbaggers,which is a group stacific booster club and
we're sort of consider ourselves Mary Pranksters. Along with doing a lot of our
(02:37):
little pranks and fun things we didin town, we came up with the
idea of having a squirrel Fest inlong View and we've been doing that now
for seven years. That's really interestingto have a town built with such a
specific intent. You know, usuallythe towns I talked to, they kind
of find their identity but it seemslike Longview was rooted in its identity.
(03:00):
Is that fair. Yeah, it'sreally a very interesting town because you know,
named after its founder, are longAnd he had a lot of money
at the time, and so hedid it right. And he built a
beautiful brick high school and a beautifulhotel on the Civic Circle, which is
(03:23):
now a historic hotel, of course, is finished in nineteen twenty three,
and then the whole town was laidout for purposes of his business ideas,
and so all of the neighborhoods downby the mill were less expensive homes designed
to hold his workers. And thenas you move towards the sort of northeast
(03:46):
to the homes become a little moreelaborate, and that was for administrative staff
and teachers and things like that.And then as you get close to the
Civic Circle, which is the centerof town, the neighborhood is called the
Old West Side, and that's allthe old homes. Like my home was
finished in nineteen twenty three, anda lot of the people were the people
(04:08):
who ran his mill, were atthe top of the heap, so to
speak, and he built a verybeautiful homes for them, or had those
homes built and then sold, andall of this was captured in photography because
he sent a photographer out to takepictures of the city as it was built
and shipped that all back east totry to lure people to come out to
(04:30):
what was then the wild West.And it was successful, which the town
grew very quickly at first, andunfortunately the Great Depression hit and that drove
his business nearly out of business,and then he died shortly afterwards. He
sounds like he was quite a bitahead of his time. Yeah, you
know, it's very interesting. Hehad in his head that there was a
(04:53):
certain social organization that makes for agood city, and so he built a
community the church that is one ofthe most beautiful buildings in town. He
invited all members of the community toworship at that church, and so it
was sort of a social experiment aswell as an economic experiment. You mentioned
(05:14):
the Sandbaggers previously, and I waswondering if you could tell me how they
started and how they came up withthat name. And I would love to
hear a little more about some ofthese pranks you guys like to pull.
Okay, well, the Sandbaggers havebeen around since the late banking six Keys,
and legend has it that one ofthe surviving Sandbaggers, Walt Maze,
(05:36):
he had moved up to long Viewfrom Portland and he'd been a member of
the Portland Rainmakers, and he cameto Longview and said, well, we
had a former club like that,and so they came up with the name
Sandbaggers and adopted a red and whitestriped sport coat and a straw hat with
a red sort of band around it, and that to this day as our
(06:00):
costume and the Sandbaggers. It's mostlylocal business people and gathers once a week
to eat Chinese food and scheme upways to kind of gently rip the body
politic. I've been a member formaybe fifteen years, but over the years
the club has really had some prettyfun stuff. I think our most legendary
(06:23):
event, which was actually picked upby national media and was running Playboy after
Hours, was when Mount Saint Helen'serupted back in nineteen eighty. That was
a huge problem that really affected ourcommunity a lot, and so people were
alarmed about what to do, andthe Sandbaggers consulted with the Witch Doctor and
(06:51):
they decided that what they needed todo was to fly an airplane over the
volcano and drop a virgin into itto tease the volcano gods, and so
his legend has it. A searchwas commenced, and unfortunately they said they
could not find a virgin in CalitzCounty, and so as a result,
(07:12):
it was decided to take it tothe next level, and so instead they
flew a small aircraft over the volcanoand dropped a mannequin into it, and
not coincidentally, the volcano stopped eruptingafter that, so it was completely successful.
Well, and to think all theseversions who had previously been sacrificed could
have been saved if they had justknown mannequins worked just as well. That's
(07:34):
right. You know, you learnthings when you practice things like this.
So a more recent sand bager prankwas our city recently moved its water supply
from under the river over to anotherlocation, so our water plant is now
vacant. So the sandbaggers we putup a four by eight sign on the
(07:55):
very busy road next to it thatwe announced that it was the future site
of the kick But Indian Tribe casino, and that got a few phone calls
to the local newspaper wondering if theywere in fact going to build a casino
within the city limits of Longview.So we just have a lot of fun.
That's I guess what I'm trying tosay. Another one used to do
(08:16):
for years. In fact, we'venever started doing this one again. We
haven't done it for a couple istypically on election day, local groups have
pancake breakfasts to get everybody out.They eat a breakfast and go vote,
and they'll have a kind of abreakfast follow up for the winners of the
election. Well, we always hadbreakfast for the losers. We invited all
the losers of all the campaigns tocome to the sandbaggers and we'd fly on
(08:39):
breakfast. So we've had a lotof fun with things like that. It
sounds like it, you know,this whole show is about community in small
town America. That it almost feelslike Longview has kind of redefined community and
made that the foundation of its culture. I think you would be hard pressed
to find a town that has abetter sense of community is a long View,
(09:01):
Washington. It's very interesting. I'ma recent immigrant. I moved here
in nineteen eighty eight, and peoplethis is the kind of town people say,
well, you know, it's overwhere the old dairy used to be.
Well, how on earth am Isupposed to know where the dairy used
to be. It's now a shoppingcenter. But you know, that's the
sort of thing. People have livedhere for generations. You know, the
(09:24):
high school, as I said,was built in nineteen twenty three, and
so people's grandparents and parents graduated fromthe same high school they did. And
so that really does make a senseof community. Now, perhaps surprising member
of your community, which is whatput long view on my radar, are
your squirrels. Could you tell meabout the squirrels. Well, yeah,
(09:46):
actually we're kind of a wash inthe little nut holders up here, because,
as I told you, the OldWest Side, which is the neighborhood
next to the civic circle, thosetrees, all these old oak trees and
maple trees were planted back in thenineteen twenties, and so they're enormous deciduous
(10:07):
trees all through the neighborhood, perfecthabitat for squirrels. And so the squirrels
are just running amuck up here.And at one time I walked out my
front door and I was headed formy car, and I stopped. The
squirrels were playing, and I countedand between the tree in my neighbor's yard,
in my yard there were thirteen squirrelshaving a mad dash around. And
(10:28):
that was about the time that thewhole idea of squirrel Fest came up,
because people were complaining, you knowthat the squirrels they dig in your gardens
and bury the peanuts that the ladynext door is handing out. And one
neighbor down the street claims, andsure it's not true, but he claims
that they chewed through some wiring onhis car. And so some people don't
(10:50):
really care for the squirrels. Butwe looked at that and said, you
know, if you've got lemons,make lemonade. If you've got squirrels,
make squirrel fast. And so that'skind of where the idea came from,
is to do something fun with squirrels, and you make it at an event
that would draw people to Long View. We already had what we call the
(11:13):
Nutty Narrows Bridge, and that wasa bridge that was put in over a
fairly major arterial back in nineteen sixtythree because a builder at his office right
there in the corner and he keptwatching these squirrels attempting to cross the road
from the park to the neighborhood becauseit's all covered with these enormous trees.
(11:35):
And he got tired of watching squirrelsbeing turned into pothole patches, and so
he just went out one time andorganized his crew and they put up a
squirrel bridge across Olympia Way. Andthat bridge was quickly dug, the Nutty
Narrows Bridge, and you know,the name stuck and it kind of got
some immedia attention at that time andkind of a little bit of civic pride.
(11:58):
People just decided that it represented longView. Then when Amos Peters,
he was the builder. When hedied, then the city commissioned a sculpture
of a squirrel to be put inthe park in his honor. And that
squirrel has been adopted by the sandbaggersand we take care of the squirrel and
(12:20):
keep it in good condition, andonce in a while we put one of
our red and white striped jackets onit just for fun. So, yes,
we have lots of squirrels in longView. And now since that bridge
was put up as part of squirrelFest, we also have put out calls
for local businesses to sponsor their ownsquirrel bridge. And we're kind of an
(12:43):
industrial town and we have lots offabricators in town, and so lots of
those people came out of the woodwork, so to speak, and designed bridges
to put up, the squirrel bridgesto put up in our town. And
those bridges cross many of our fairlybusy roads between the big trees, and
so that's been just kind of afun part of squirrel Fest. I saw
(13:07):
that the Sandbaggers actually run an annualcompetition to choose a designer for a new
squirrel bridge. So the various fabricatorscome up with an idea. The first
one was created by a bunch ofco workers of a man who passed away
in our town, and they puttogether this beautiful bridge out of copper and
(13:33):
hung it I believe it's twenty sixthirty ft long something like that, and
hung it across the road in honorof the Bruce Camp and others have been
We had a local engineer, retiredengineer, bridge builder, and he designed
one that was put up. Wehad a local construction company was hired to
put a bridge across the lake.We have a small lake that runs through
(13:58):
our community as nice park around itcalled Lake Sackage Awea, and one of
the bridges across Lake Sackage Awea neededto be replaced in the company that won
the bid to build that bridge saidwell, if we're going to build one
bridge, build two bridges, andso they built a third Squirrel bridge,
(14:18):
which we also selected and put thatone up. The selection process is really
a combination of finding things that areesthetically pleasing and structurally sound, and so
we make sure that the bridges arestudied by competent individuals to make sure that
they can withstand wind and that sortof thing, and then they're put up
(14:41):
with permission of the city, andthe city selects the trees to attach them
too, to make sure that thetrees are in good health and that sort
of thing. So, you know, it's a big production, and the
Sandbaggers takes its responsibility far more seriouslythan it takes almost anything else. And
we have a lot of fun doingit, and it's part of squirrel Fest
(15:01):
at squirrel Fest where we unveil thelatest squirrel bridge, So that makes for
a fun production. So do youthink long View's history of building itself to
create a community for its residence hasreally impacted the way the community treats the
(15:22):
squirrels and has built an environment forthe squirrels to coexist with the community.
You know, people here in generalreally like the squirrels. It is a
part of our community. As Isaid, there are a few squirrel detractors,
and one of my neighbors down thestreet is one of those detractors,
and so we went and staged aprotest in his front yard. We poured
(15:45):
ten pounds of peanuts on his frontporch. And you know, that's just
kind of what you do when you'rea sandbagger in a town it's gaga over
squirrels, I did. In general, most people tolerate them and even kind
of like them. The only problemwith squirrels is that the more you feel
them, the more squirrels you endup with. And so we have a
number of people that put squirrel feederson the big trees, on the sides
(16:07):
of the trees, and they justkeep pumping those peanuts into those squirrels,
and then you got more squirrels,and you know what to do with to
you know, they kind of ebband flow in their population, and we'll
see in the spring how many squirrelswe have, whether we're in an ebb
or a flow. Well, Ithink it's a really great demonstration of the
ethos of long View that you guyshave taken what is generally considered a pest
(16:33):
and not only celebrated it, butbuilt your community around it. Yeah.
And you know the world is fullof lots of negative things, and we
all deal with those in our dailylives, and there's always room to look
for maybe a ray of a littlemore happiness things that are not negative.
(16:53):
And squirrels are something that bring joyto many. They bring us smile to
your face when you see them,and it's very nice to have something like
this to kind of pull our towntogether and kind of give us an identity.
Long View, as I told you, as an industrial town. It
was founded to serve us a lumbermill. Since then, we've had a
(17:17):
couple of paper mills come in,we had an aluminum mill, and as
the economy changes and industry shrinks alongto you, like many small towns,
struggles to find its new identity.And certainly we could use a lot more
jobs here. We could use someeconomic activity that would help our town grow
(17:38):
and thrive in the meantime, shallwe say we're just working on putting on
a festival for the members of ourcommunity where people can be happy for a
day. Almost everything at the festivalis free. We have kids games.
Last year we had a two hundredfoot zip line that was twenty feet tall,
(18:00):
is free for children. And wehad a group called Circus Cascadia that
comes out and they teach kids howto juggle. And to provide all of
this for free to your community reallydoes give one a very good feeling.
We usually have live music and abeer garden. So these are the kinds
of things that we do to makethe community a little bit better, a
(18:23):
little bit happier, a little bitmore squirrely. I would have to say
that squirrels are kind of fun andamong other things, you know, we
find the little hairy tree lizards tobe enjoyed to have them around. We
(18:47):
enjoy the fact that they bring alittle bit of recognition to our town,
people like you who call us andsay, hey, tell me about squirrel
Fest, tell me about long View. You know, if that's happening,
then what we're doing is working,and it's making our efforts worthwhile. Shortly
(19:10):
after recording this interview. Patrick Cubandied in a skiing accident. Not only
did he support the community through hisinvolvement with the Sandbaggers, he was also
an attorney who was passionate about advocatingfor disadvantaged children. Pat has been celebrated
as a champion of community
This is an Our Americana podcast Networkproduction sponsored by Podbean. When things are
in turmoil, when the world aroundyou feels like it's crumbling, feeling joy
can make you feel so guilty.Protest and fear and anger can make it
impossible to find moments for yourself justto laugh, even if it's at everything
(00:23):
terrible happening around you. But thatlaughter, that joy is often what would
get you through all that turmoil.And sometimes that laughter and that joy is
even the solution. In long View, Washington, a sense of humor helped
a town deal with a local nuisanceand is leading them out of a decade's
(00:44):
long economic depression. That sense ofhumor may have even saved the town from
a volcano, but that's still upfor debate. Loy Washington is a very
interesting place. Actually, it's aplanned city. Lay the first planned city
(01:06):
west of the Mississippi River back inthe early nineteen twenties and named are Long
was a timber barren in Missouri,and they ran out of timber, and
so he sent scouts out west,and they found enormous tracks of old growth
timber in the northwest, and theypurchased a lot of it, and he
(01:26):
built an enormous sawmill lumber mill inLongview and then built a city to house
his workers. And so the cityof Longview was all planned, all laid
out, Everything was organized before asingle brick was laid. So in that
way, it's it's kind of unusual. It's built around a hub, which
(01:49):
is the Civic Circle and the variousroads radiate out from that, and that's
that hub, the Civic Circle parkin the enter of it is called the
Ari Long Park and that's where wehold our squirrel Fest. My name is
(02:13):
Patrick Cuban live in the city ofLongview, Washington, which is about thirty
six miles north of Portland, Oregon, on I five and I am a
member of the long View Sandbaggers,which is a group stacific booster club and
we're sort of consider ourselves Mary Pranksters. Along with doing a lot of our
(02:37):
little pranks and fun things we didin town, we came up with the
idea of having a squirrel Fest inlong View and we've been doing that now
for seven years. That's really interestingto have a town built with such a
specific intent. You know, usuallythe towns I talked to, they kind
of find their identity but it seemslike Longview was rooted in its identity.
(03:00):
Is that fair. Yeah, it'sreally a very interesting town because you know,
named after its founder, are longAnd he had a lot of money
at the time, and so hedid it right. And he built a
beautiful brick high school and a beautifulhotel on the Civic Circle, which is
(03:23):
now a historic hotel, of course, is finished in nineteen twenty three,
and then the whole town was laidout for purposes of his business ideas,
and so all of the neighborhoods downby the mill were less expensive homes designed
to hold his workers. And thenas you move towards the sort of northeast
(03:46):
to the homes become a little moreelaborate, and that was for administrative staff
and teachers and things like that.And then as you get close to the
Civic Circle, which is the centerof town, the neighborhood is called the
Old West Side, and that's allthe old homes. Like my home was
finished in nineteen twenty three, anda lot of the people were the people
(04:08):
who ran his mill, were atthe top of the heap, so to
speak, and he built a verybeautiful homes for them, or had those
homes built and then sold, andall of this was captured in photography because
he sent a photographer out to takepictures of the city as it was built
and shipped that all back east totry to lure people to come out to
(04:30):
what was then the wild West.And it was successful, which the town
grew very quickly at first, andunfortunately the Great Depression hit and that drove
his business nearly out of business,and then he died shortly afterwards. He
sounds like he was quite a bitahead of his time. Yeah, you
know, it's very interesting. Hehad in his head that there was a
(04:53):
certain social organization that makes for agood city, and so he built a
community the church that is one ofthe most beautiful buildings in town. He
invited all members of the community toworship at that church, and so it
was sort of a social experiment aswell as an economic experiment. You mentioned
(05:14):
the Sandbaggers previously, and I waswondering if you could tell me how they
started and how they came up withthat name. And I would love to
hear a little more about some ofthese pranks you guys like to pull.
Okay, well, the Sandbaggers havebeen around since the late banking six Keys,
and legend has it that one ofthe surviving Sandbaggers, Walt Maze,
(05:36):
he had moved up to long Viewfrom Portland and he'd been a member of
the Portland Rainmakers, and he cameto Longview and said, well, we
had a former club like that,and so they came up with the name
Sandbaggers and adopted a red and whitestriped sport coat and a straw hat with
a red sort of band around it, and that to this day as our
(06:00):
costume and the Sandbaggers. It's mostlylocal business people and gathers once a week
to eat Chinese food and scheme upways to kind of gently rip the body
politic. I've been a member formaybe fifteen years, but over the years
the club has really had some prettyfun stuff. I think our most legendary
(06:23):
event, which was actually picked upby national media and was running Playboy after
Hours, was when Mount Saint Helen'serupted back in nineteen eighty. That was
a huge problem that really affected ourcommunity a lot, and so people were
alarmed about what to do, andthe Sandbaggers consulted with the Witch Doctor and
(06:51):
they decided that what they needed todo was to fly an airplane over the
volcano and drop a virgin into itto tease the volcano gods, and so
his legend has it. A searchwas commenced, and unfortunately they said they
could not find a virgin in CalitzCounty, and so as a result,
(07:12):
it was decided to take it tothe next level, and so instead they
flew a small aircraft over the volcanoand dropped a mannequin into it, and
not coincidentally, the volcano stopped eruptingafter that, so it was completely successful.
Well, and to think all theseversions who had previously been sacrificed could
have been saved if they had justknown mannequins worked just as well. That's
(07:34):
right. You know, you learnthings when you practice things like this.
So a more recent sand bager prankwas our city recently moved its water supply
from under the river over to anotherlocation, so our water plant is now
vacant. So the sandbaggers we putup a four by eight sign on the
(07:55):
very busy road next to it thatwe announced that it was the future site
of the kick But Indian Tribe casino, and that got a few phone calls
to the local newspaper wondering if theywere in fact going to build a casino
within the city limits of Longview.So we just have a lot of fun.
That's I guess what I'm trying tosay. Another one used to do
(08:16):
for years. In fact, we'venever started doing this one again. We
haven't done it for a couple istypically on election day, local groups have
pancake breakfasts to get everybody out.They eat a breakfast and go vote,
and they'll have a kind of abreakfast follow up for the winners of the
election. Well, we always hadbreakfast for the losers. We invited all
the losers of all the campaigns tocome to the sandbaggers and we'd fly on
(08:39):
breakfast. So we've had a lotof fun with things like that. It
sounds like it, you know,this whole show is about community in small
town America. That it almost feelslike Longview has kind of redefined community and
made that the foundation of its culture. I think you would be hard pressed
to find a town that has abetter sense of community is a long View,
(09:01):
Washington. It's very interesting. I'ma recent immigrant. I moved here
in nineteen eighty eight, and peoplethis is the kind of town people say,
well, you know, it's overwhere the old dairy used to be.
Well, how on earth am Isupposed to know where the dairy used
to be. It's now a shoppingcenter. But you know, that's the
sort of thing. People have livedhere for generations. You know, the
(09:24):
high school, as I said,was built in nineteen twenty three, and
so people's grandparents and parents graduated fromthe same high school they did. And
so that really does make a senseof community. Now, perhaps surprising member
of your community, which is whatput long view on my radar, are
your squirrels. Could you tell meabout the squirrels. Well, yeah,
(09:46):
actually we're kind of a wash inthe little nut holders up here, because,
as I told you, the OldWest Side, which is the neighborhood
next to the civic circle, thosetrees, all these old oak trees and
maple trees were planted back in thenineteen twenties, and so they're enormous deciduous
(10:07):
trees all through the neighborhood, perfecthabitat for squirrels. And so the squirrels
are just running amuck up here.And at one time I walked out my
front door and I was headed formy car, and I stopped. The
squirrels were playing, and I countedand between the tree in my neighbor's yard,
in my yard there were thirteen squirrelshaving a mad dash around. And
(10:28):
that was about the time that thewhole idea of squirrel Fest came up,
because people were complaining, you knowthat the squirrels they dig in your gardens
and bury the peanuts that the ladynext door is handing out. And one
neighbor down the street claims, andsure it's not true, but he claims
that they chewed through some wiring onhis car. And so some people don't
(10:50):
really care for the squirrels. Butwe looked at that and said, you
know, if you've got lemons,make lemonade. If you've got squirrels,
make squirrel fast. And so that'skind of where the idea came from,
is to do something fun with squirrels, and you make it at an event
that would draw people to Long View. We already had what we call the
(11:13):
Nutty Narrows Bridge, and that wasa bridge that was put in over a
fairly major arterial back in nineteen sixtythree because a builder at his office right
there in the corner and he keptwatching these squirrels attempting to cross the road
from the park to the neighborhood becauseit's all covered with these enormous trees.
(11:35):
And he got tired of watching squirrelsbeing turned into pothole patches, and so
he just went out one time andorganized his crew and they put up a
squirrel bridge across Olympia Way. Andthat bridge was quickly dug, the Nutty
Narrows Bridge, and you know,the name stuck and it kind of got
some immedia attention at that time andkind of a little bit of civic pride.
(11:58):
People just decided that it represented longView. Then when Amos Peters,
he was the builder. When hedied, then the city commissioned a sculpture
of a squirrel to be put inthe park in his honor. And that
squirrel has been adopted by the sandbaggersand we take care of the squirrel and
(12:20):
keep it in good condition, andonce in a while we put one of
our red and white striped jackets onit just for fun. So, yes,
we have lots of squirrels in longView. And now since that bridge
was put up as part of squirrelFest, we also have put out calls
for local businesses to sponsor their ownsquirrel bridge. And we're kind of an
(12:43):
industrial town and we have lots offabricators in town, and so lots of
those people came out of the woodwork, so to speak, and designed bridges
to put up, the squirrel bridgesto put up in our town. And
those bridges cross many of our fairlybusy roads between the big trees, and
so that's been just kind of afun part of squirrel Fest. I saw
(13:07):
that the Sandbaggers actually run an annualcompetition to choose a designer for a new
squirrel bridge. So the various fabricatorscome up with an idea. The first
one was created by a bunch ofco workers of a man who passed away
in our town, and they puttogether this beautiful bridge out of copper and
(13:33):
hung it I believe it's twenty sixthirty ft long something like that, and
hung it across the road in honorof the Bruce Camp and others have been
We had a local engineer, retiredengineer, bridge builder, and he designed
one that was put up. Wehad a local construction company was hired to
put a bridge across the lake.We have a small lake that runs through
(13:58):
our community as nice park around itcalled Lake Sackage Awea, and one of
the bridges across Lake Sackage Awea neededto be replaced in the company that won
the bid to build that bridge saidwell, if we're going to build one
bridge, build two bridges, andso they built a third Squirrel bridge,
(14:18):
which we also selected and put thatone up. The selection process is really
a combination of finding things that areesthetically pleasing and structurally sound, and so
we make sure that the bridges arestudied by competent individuals to make sure that
they can withstand wind and that sortof thing, and then they're put up
(14:41):
with permission of the city, andthe city selects the trees to attach them
too, to make sure that thetrees are in good health and that sort
of thing. So, you know, it's a big production, and the
Sandbaggers takes its responsibility far more seriouslythan it takes almost anything else. And
we have a lot of fun doingit, and it's part of squirrel Fest
(15:01):
at squirrel Fest where we unveil thelatest squirrel bridge, So that makes for
a fun production. So do youthink long View's history of building itself to
create a community for its residence hasreally impacted the way the community treats the
(15:22):
squirrels and has built an environment forthe squirrels to coexist with the community.
You know, people here in generalreally like the squirrels. It is a
part of our community. As Isaid, there are a few squirrel detractors,
and one of my neighbors down thestreet is one of those detractors,
and so we went and staged aprotest in his front yard. We poured
(15:45):
ten pounds of peanuts on his frontporch. And you know, that's just
kind of what you do when you'rea sandbagger in a town it's gaga over
squirrels, I did. In general, most people tolerate them and even kind
of like them. The only problemwith squirrels is that the more you feel
them, the more squirrels you endup with. And so we have a
number of people that put squirrel feederson the big trees, on the sides
(16:07):
of the trees, and they justkeep pumping those peanuts into those squirrels,
and then you got more squirrels,and you know what to do with to
you know, they kind of ebband flow in their population, and we'll
see in the spring how many squirrelswe have, whether we're in an ebb
or a flow. Well, Ithink it's a really great demonstration of the
ethos of long View that you guyshave taken what is generally considered a pest
(16:33):
and not only celebrated it, butbuilt your community around it. Yeah.
And you know the world is fullof lots of negative things, and we
all deal with those in our dailylives, and there's always room to look
for maybe a ray of a littlemore happiness things that are not negative.
(16:53):
And squirrels are something that bring joyto many. They bring us smile to
your face when you see them,and it's very nice to have something like
this to kind of pull our towntogether and kind of give us an identity.
Long View, as I told you, as an industrial town. It
was founded to serve us a lumbermill. Since then, we've had a
(17:17):
couple of paper mills come in,we had an aluminum mill, and as
the economy changes and industry shrinks alongto you, like many small towns,
struggles to find its new identity.And certainly we could use a lot more
jobs here. We could use someeconomic activity that would help our town grow
(17:38):
and thrive in the meantime, shallwe say we're just working on putting on
a festival for the members of ourcommunity where people can be happy for a
day. Almost everything at the festivalis free. We have kids games.
Last year we had a two hundredfoot zip line that was twenty feet tall,
(18:00):
is free for children. And wehad a group called Circus Cascadia that
comes out and they teach kids howto juggle. And to provide all of
this for free to your community reallydoes give one a very good feeling.
We usually have live music and abeer garden. So these are the kinds
of things that we do to makethe community a little bit better, a
(18:23):
little bit happier, a little bitmore squirrely. I would have to say
that squirrels are kind of fun andamong other things, you know, we
find the little hairy tree lizards tobe enjoyed to have them around. We
(18:47):
enjoy the fact that they bring alittle bit of recognition to our town,
people like you who call us andsay, hey, tell me about squirrel
Fest, tell me about long View. You know, if that's happening,
then what we're doing is working,and it's making our efforts worthwhile. Shortly
(19:10):
after recording this interview. Patrick Cubandied in a skiing accident. Not only
did he support the community through hisinvolvement with the Sandbaggers, he was also
an attorney who was passionate about advocatingfor disadvantaged children. Pat has been celebrated
as a champion of community
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