An Extraordinary Time

Seahawks’ Fan Wedding / Qwest Field / December 30, 2005

Though the National Football League began in 1920, the Seahawks didn’t join the NFL until 1976 under the ownership of John Nordstrom, a Seattle department store owner.

Today, season ticket holders, numbering 47,000, fill over 70% of Qwest field seats.  (Total capacity is 67,000).. Currently the Seahawks are taking as many season ticket deposits per day as they normally do per week in July, the peak ticket sales season. 7,000 new season ticket deposits have already been taken for next season.

On January 14, 2006, the Seahawks will host a playoff game. The Seahawks have hosted four playoff games in their history though they have played in ten.  They have never played in the Super Bowl.

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Sharon Bullion, 53, Puyallup,WA.  (Grooms Mother)

They are just crazy.  They are big sports’ freaks.  They will do anything. …..My favorite time of all was when I gave him his own TV so there would never be sports on mine again. 

Loren Stayboldt, 63, Sammaish,  (Bride’s father)

They’re both fun loving people and we’re a fun loving family.  This probably could be one of the most unusual, tacky weddings you’ve ever seen, but it will fun!  It will be great.

Jill Stayboldt, 27, Puyallup, WA & Todd Bullion, 29, Puyallup, WA.  (Bride and Groom)

We first met in talking about football and so after we got engaged… we wanted to incorporate football into our wedding.  It took off from there.  And Seahawks are our favorite team.

We made it a plan not to get married on a football game day.

Non-traditionally, instead of flowers girls and ringbearers we have cheerleaders and ballboys.  Our ushers are referees in referee attire.  Our pastor is a former football player.  We’ve got the goalpost.  We’ve got entrance music.  We have Seahawks colors, both two tone blues are our colors.  Everything’s Seahawks incorporated.

We’re encouraging evervbody just to let loose and pretend you’re at a game.  We’ve got everything from foam fingers to pompoms and megaphones for the audience. It’ll be neat.

Keegan Griffin, 7, Puyallup, WA (boy in center of photo)

The ringbearer brings the rings down but that’s not what I do because they wanted us to have a football but they couldn’t find out any way to get rings onto the football.  I just ended up walking out and going over there.  I just wait until its over.  ….5 minutes.  I have no idea.  Can’t tell time.  I was usually thinking about going to the bathroom.  Seriously, after they did the ending I just ran off trying to find it.  

The first oral record of tying a yellow ribbon dates back to a song written 400 years ago. Now used in a popular US military marching song, a variation of that original song goes like this:
Around her neck she wore a yellow ribbon
She wore it in the springtime
And in the month of May
And if you ask me why the heck she wore it
She wore it for her soldier who was far far away.
Though its meaning has changed over the years, the magnetic yellow ribbon stuck to back of automobiles across America is often displayed to show support for the war in Iraq. In Seattle, it has a different message among our liberal community.

Elizabeth Falzone,32, Seattle
The yellow ribbon growing up always meant that you were supporting the troops who were fighting overseas, who were fighting for this country. My yellow ribbon that’s on my car now is a reminder of the sacrifice that they all make. People will say they’re dying for our freedom but I just keep thinking they’re out there giving their own freedom away.

My cousin Lieutenant David Jimo was killed on August 12, 2005. Its so personal. Its just a symbol of hope that our troops can come home and be with their families and be able to experience love the way we’ve all been taught what love is. Everyone should be able to experience that everywhere. So just bring the troops home. Just bring ‘em home.”

Wally Rotermund, 62, Woodinville ( in photo above )
I served in the military in the ‘60’s, from ’64 to ‘66. The guys that were in Vietnam weren’t treated like they are today. I say prayers for ‘em (the troops) everyday.

There’s people that are losing their lives for our country so people can protest against the war. Last year I seen people protesting on Christmas Day in Lake Forest Park. We might not be in favor of the war but you have to go where your Commander in Chief sends you.”

Arline Hinckley, 61, Hawthorne Hills
We put the ribbon on the back of our car the last day before our nephew went to Iraq. …

We both agreed that although we do not support the war, we needed that sticker on there. I think the other stickers on the car suggest that we don’t support the war, and I want people to know that you can support the troops very enthusiastically without supporting the war. There’s a pro-choice sticker, a Kerry sticker, and a Hemlock Society sticker.”

Jesse Jackson, the first mayor of Seattle’s Hooverville during the great Depression, wrote: “Hooverville is a colony of industrious men, the most of whom are busy trying to hold their heads up and be self-supporting and respectable. A lot of work is required in order to stay here, consequently, the lazy man does not tarry long in this place.”

Today, not more than a mile south of that 1930’s settlement, a small scattered community of people live in their cars and motor homes on South Spokane Street where the West Seattle Bridge meets the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

The Seattle/King County Coalition for the Homeless conducts a “One Night Count” of homeless people in King County each year. The October 2004 count found an estimated 665 people living out of their cars. One counter wrote: “I will never forget – when I drive on the freeway that I am driving over someone’s bedroom.”

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Scott McCleary, 54 in photo above
I just got done eatin’ with those folks in that camper over there and I’m kinda – we had some turkey – so I’m kinda relaxin’ a little. Living in car. It gets cold.

I’ve been out of work for about a month now. (I do) welding and fitting and fabrication.

Other than the trains and the traffic its pretty quiet.”

Mario Ramirez, 54
I’m trying to be straight, to keep apart from the drugs and the drinkers and the smokers so I’m right here. … I need to keep working these days because I need money. I like to work.

I stay by myself. I spend the night over here, downtown, under bridge because the rain. To protect a little bit. (I’ve been living in car) “for 3 years. I would like to have a room or an apartment or sharing with somebody but I don’t have money for getting an apartment.

The situation has been very bad. Very tough. I’m just trying to improve. Hopefully I’ll be rewarded (for the hard work).”

Amanda Davis, 27 and daughter Xander Davis, 2
We wound up with one of the best Christmas days. A family came by yesterday and they gave us well over $200 worth of stuff. It was wonderful. The first time they showed up I went into serious tears. And I told them I needed to give them a hug after all the stuff they gave. They came back the third time and they said they came back for that hug.

This is a RV motor home.and it’s a real piece of junk. When my boyfriend drove it all the way down here he said he had two fires and we need to get engine work done on this. We need all kinds of help with this.

(I’ve been) homeless off and on for ten years and I have to say that this is my best Christmas ever. (Pointing to the car) It gets up to 40 miles – if that. It’s missing a window. The place has got leaks throughout most of it. In the bathroom you’ve got a big ‘ole hole that goes all the way through.

And I’m sittin here on social security and other state funding. Its just been a real nightmare all month, and then that family showed up.”

Tom Garrett, 62
It’s alternative survival. I just filed for my pension for my retirement. I’ve lived kind of outside the general run because of some specific interests I’ve had in life. I’ve been devoted to a Buddhist practice. My values are somewhat non-traditional.

Down here where the trains are running and the cars, all this movement, its terribly deteriorative. So the environment breaks down and if you want it to look anywhere decent/acceptable you have to clean and clean and clean and clean, and you don’t seem to have enough time to clean. So like a lot of other people that are outside of the mainstream it starts to look pretty junky. It is a constant thing.

You wouldn’t want to do this for very long.

It is nice to be independent. But people that are living outside are 8 times as often to run into problems. Its better to stay inside the herd. It’s not fun outside.

I’ve been living in a van and a car for a couple years. And last year, January, I lost my keys. So it was going to be a hundred for them to come out and fix all the keys and stuff. So I went to the bank and I got a hundred dollars and when I got home at night it was towed. And so I got on the bus and stayed on the bus all night. The next day I went and bought two sleeping bags and a huge piece of plastic and I lived on the side of the freeway for a month until I got enough money to go to the auction. And I was able to buy this at the auction. I’ve been here ever since.

No matter what religion you follow, praying for a drop in gasoline prices this year can’t hurt. According to the consumer price index the highest average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gas in the Seattle Tacoma Bremerton area was $2.876 in September 2005. This is the highest price paid since the CPI started tracking prices in 1978.

In this area we saw a 43.2 increase from Sept. 2004 – September 2005. Typically gasoline price rises at an average annual rate of 5.2 percent according to the Energy Information Agency.

Dan Kestle, 43
General manager of the 76 Mr Kleen car wash, a service center at 196th and Alderwood Mall parkway.
The Nativity Scene? That’s what we believe is the true meaning of Christmas. We have all these mall shoppers going by. And I think we get so caught up in the commercialism of it we wanted to make a point that Christmas is about Jesus Christ.

I’ve never heard one negative comment yet in ten years. A lot of people say “Well you’re really gutsy to do that. And I say “Gutsy? That’s what I grew up with, you know is a manger scene and a nativity scene. Its not gutsy to us. Its Christmas.

I think that people are too politically correct and they want to involve everybody but I think everybody has their own time. They try to throw them into one holiday and call it Happy Holidays but that’s not what Christmas is to us. I think some think well you’re excluding this denomination or this denomination and we’re not trying to do that. We’re just doing what we believe and that’s what Christmas is.

As a dealer we don’t know whats (gas prices) coming down the pike so to speak. But I know they are dropping. We’ve been getting 2 cent decreases about every other day. Two or three cents.

Its real funny when people complain about the gas price they don’t really understand the state of Washington is collecting, between the state and the Feds, 46 cents for every gallon. Nobody complains about the state making too much money or the federal making too much money off the gas. They always seem like ‘look at the dealer. The dealer is gouging’. Well the dealer is hardly ever.

(The oil companies sudden drop in prices after the price investigation) is kind of curious isn’t it? Of course we have no facts. I’ve always thought that there’s something going on with the big oil companies.

Its kind of a cloudy area and its hard to say if anyone’s doing anything deceitful or not fair. But every state in this union is making money off of gasoline.