Birth Week 2026, Day Two: Bataan Park, Bremerton / Mason County Senior Activities Association

Birth Week 1976 Local Landmark # 3: Bataan Park, Bremerton, WA Opened 1967, dedicated 1976, "to honor all the Filipino and American lives lost during WWII, especially those who died in the Bataan Death March." I can't figure out why there were apparently eight years between opening and dedication, but whatever, the dedication happened in 1976! Anyway, the park was largely made possible by the Filipino-American Association of Kitsap County. I read online that there are great views of the Olympic Mountains from there, but that's only partly true; the views from inside the park are through trees—but, there is a pretty good view from the street next to the park.
The biggest reason I looked for any 1976 landmarks in Bremerton was because I knew I'd be passing through there, and just like last year, Gabriel happened to be working an event in Kingston on the same day, and so we met for lunch after I took the ferry over from Seattle on Saturday. At his suggestion, with Lea and Tess who also happened to be with him, we all ordered to go from a downtown Bremerton vegetarian joint called Cafe Omni (frustratingly limited options, but what options they had were spectacularly delicious) and then took the food to eat over on the waterfront. Birth Week 1976 Local Landmark # 4: Mason County Senior Activities Association, Shelton, WA Formed: 1976. Incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 1981. I always go to stay the night with my cousin from Shelton (she actually lives in Union now, where when they say they're "going into town" they're talking about Shelton—that bustling metropolis of 10,000 people), and so that's where I was headed when I passed through Bremerton on Saturday. Arguably it's more efficient to drive through Olympia and around the southern tip of Puget Sound to Shelton, but I prefer to take the one-hour ferry ride from Seattle to Bremerton, from which Union is just a 30-mile drive, because I like to cut out as much driving as possible. So I paid an extra $20 for the ferry, leave me alone! Anyway, one of my biggest challenges for this year's Birth Week theme was finding something in either Shelton or Mason County that fit the theme. The best I could find was the Mason County Senior Activities Association—the Activities Center they currently use is not that old, but the Association was formed the year I was born. And guess what? They also call this building the "50 and Better Activities Center" so as of Thursday April 30, I qualify for membership! Maybe I can start commuting down for activities like, I don't know, lawn bowling. (Just kidding, lawn bowling isn't even on their schedule. Screw this place!)
So this is Eric's, Jennifer's ex-husband's, house. And it's quite different from when they first moved in there in 2015, and not just because the tall trees out front have been removed. If you look closely, you can see the cleared land in the area behind the house to the right—a ton of trees have now been cleared out, making way for a new housing development now under construction. This house is actually "in town" (in Shelton), but with this happening for once I find it kind of nice that Jennifer and Matthew's house is out in "Bumfuck Egypt" as my dad likes to call it. At least Jennifer's new house is still in an undeveloped area, surrounded by woods—not something I would ever move to, but a peaceful place to visit. Plus the drive there, on State Route 106 alongside the southern arm of Hood Canal, is really beautiful. Jennifer and I went to dinner last night at a Thai place called Shelton Thai Cuisine—I'd had a pretty late lunch with Gabriel, Lea and Tess and so wasn't really all that hungry yet, but Jennifer was starving. I was fine with going out, as soon as I reached the house. It was just the two of us; Matthew was out working in his garden and all the kids were over at Eric's house. Anyway, after dinner Jennifer drove me over to the restaurant Eric has taken over—he's gotten rid of his gas stations apparently, and now he's trying his hand as a restaurateur. Eric happened to be at a bar just a few blocks away, and that's who Jennifer is talking to on the phone in the above clip. He came right over to show us the place. We all thought it was empty as they had closed at 3 p.m. and this was going on 6:00. We were surprised to find the cook still in the kitchen, who was herself startled to see me walking back there when Eric told me I could go check out the kitchen. Maybe one day I'll actually have to come back and eat something here. We swung by the house to see the development after this, actually. Then we came back to the house and watched Mrs. Doubtfire. [posted 9:43am]

Birth Week 2026, Day One: 1600 Seventh Avenue / Third Place Books

Birth Week 1976 Local Landmark # 1: 1600 Seventh Avenue, Seattle, WA
Opened (as 1600 Bell Plaza): November 22, 1976.
32 floors, 498 ft. Naturally I have to connect my Birth Week theme to skyscrapers in one way or another, right? Well, I am 50 years old this year, and so is this building. At 32 stories and just under 500 feet tall, it hardly stands out in the Seattle skyline these days—but, upon its opening in late 1976, it would have: it was the fourth-tallest building in Seattle then. Only Safeco Plaza (50 floors, 630 ft, originally Seattle First National Bank Building), the Space Needle (605 ft), 901 Fifth Avenue (42 floors, 536 ft, originally Bank of California Building), and the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building (37 floors, 487 ft) were taller. The November 1976 dedication ceremony was a big enough deal that those in attendance included then-Governor Dan Evans, and Don Ameche, the actor who portrayed Alexander Graham Bell in the 1939 biographical film about him. Bell, inventor of the telephone, was the namesake of the company, Pacific Northwest Bell, for which this building was originally named—that was the name used during construction; it opened as 1600 Bell Plaza as the result of a naming contest; and it was later named both US West Communications and Qwest Plaza, before the building was sold in 2012. Today, 1600 Seventh Avenue is merely the 24th-tallest building in Seattle, and houses mostly Nordstrom offices. I would have killed to gain access to the top floor of this building, but alas, all skyscraper elevators have secured access these days and I don't have any connections up there. I've gotten some other great shots of this building from other skyscrapers, though, and I took nine new ones from the ground right after leaving work six blocks from there on Friday.
Birth Week 1976 Local Landmark # 2: Third Place Books, original location of PCC Ravenna, Seattle, WA
Opened (as PCC Ravenna): 1976. Actually the second location of the Ravenna store, which originally opened in 1969, but Third Place Books sits on the site where PCC stood between 1976 and 2001. I'm always happy to find a PCC connection to my Birth Week theme if I can, and I found one this year! Even though PCC had a store in the Ravenna neighborhood as early as 1969—it was PCC's oldest store since moving from its very first storefront from Madrona, where that one had opened as the first-ever store in 1967—but it then moved again to its final spot at NE 65th & 20th Ave NE in 1976. The Ravenna store somewhat infamously closed in 2001, due to the 1999 opening of a Whole Foods only half a mile away, which is still there. Some PCC members were angry about this for a matter of years; I used to volunteer to count ballots for PCC Board elections as early as 2003, and one guy ran (and lost) because he was still pissed about it. I found this old photo of the Ravenna PCC, ostensibly from 1976; and I took this shot from roughly the same angle, so you can see the noticeable similarity of the building then and now.
Today, the building that used to be PCC Ravenna is the second location of Third Place Books, which it has been since 2002. I was kind of struck by the smartness of their business strategy: presumably the Cafe Arta in the back of the bookstore and The Pub at Third Place downstairs are a big part of how they have stayed in business in an area when bookstores are dying. Tracy and I had dinner in the cafe upstairs, but we did go into the pub downstairs just to get a look at it. I was delighted that the bartender down there had some knowledge of the location's history. I asked what this downstairs space had been when it was a PCC store, and he said it was a storage area—with both a lower ceiling and a higher floor, which they hand-dug deeper for the opening of the pub, apparnerently. It has a very charming, wooden, rustic vibe to it. Side note: I had been to this Third Place Books once before; I had lunch at this very same cafe (actually in 2012 it was called Vios Cafe) during my Birth Week in 2012, with coworkers who have long since moved on from PCC: Scott and Elin. Elin had worked for PCC since the late eighties, so she had well over a decade of memories of the Ravenna PCC. I actually don't remember if the pub was open then, or if it was I don't know that I knew about it. [posted 10:35am]