Blue Country

My days have become a little too much Retirementville. Because of my knees, I go to physical therapy several times a week. My therapist is a pretty young woman who moved here from Alaska. She says it is wilder and prettier than the Olympic Peninsula, and her clients were mainly injured athletes. Now in Sequim we’re old people. It doesn’t make me feel better that so many people I see in the office are on a walker or in a wheelchair. They just show me my future! But not yet. I’m walking again, and driving myself.

Then I visit Sequim Wal-Mart, which  is filled with retirees. It’s a Northwest Florida.

It‘s more expensive than in Missouri. What isn’t more expensive out here? They have a fabric department—Jackson, eat your heart out. We old people complained, apparently, and we got the fabric back.

While I am rummaging through the five-dollar DVD bin at Wal-Mart, the lady across from me says, "Are you finding anything in there that's not trash?" She is a non-descript middle-aged white woman, probably about 60, with an old-lady hairstyle, that I would have a hard time picking out in a lineup. A lot like me.

I smile at her. “I’m looking for a kid video I can watch with my grandkids this weekend.”

“Oh! I see.”

Culture war alert! When I was in Missouri, I was (usually) in Red Country. But Sequim, Washington, is a battleground of blue and red. You must constantly show your red (or blue) flag. It’s in Clallam County, which votes pretty red; next to it, Jefferson County is blue. The county seat of Jefferson is Port Townsend, which has wonderful Victorian houses that sell for millions. In Clallam County, they say Port Townsend is filled with old hippies. We live almost on the border of the two.

A large percentage of the customers at Sequim Wal-Mart are white senior citizens. A large percentage of the clerks are Hispanic or Asian—or young.

Convinced that I am safely red, the lady starts telling me her life story. She came from Long Island. The property she used to own there is now underwater from Sandy. God took care of her, she tells me. She is delighted to learn I am from upstate New York. She tells me about how her daughter got pregnant as a teenager, how she raised her grandson to be a fine young man, but that his mother is still living a troubled life. Since she has already mentioned God several times, I ask her if she has found a church. She has; she goes to a charismatic church in Port Angeles. Okay, so she won’t be interested in Sequim Bible Church—though she has heard of it, and she expresses to me her approval of my choice.

Sequim Bible Church has a good pastor with a strong evangelical message. Its main problem is that too much of the congregation looks like Sequim—a lot of retired people. Ministry to cancer patients is very big in this church. They are good Christians, but many are getting too old for active leadership.

So, less than sixth months after we came here, Mike has been asked to go up for elder. There will be a vote, but that is almost a formality. They want him. He will be the first elder to be chosen from the contemporary service, which most of the younger people attend.

Now that I’m mobile again, I’ll be attending a women’s Bible study at the church. No Bible Study Fellowship on the Olympic Peninsula (the closest is in Bremerton, on the Kitsap). I’ll look into their AWANA program. It meets at a public school—I want to see how that works!—and involves several other churches. That would be a good way to meet people outside SBC…