This Saturday morning before Election Day, a phone call came at breakfast. Morning is when my wife and her women friends check in. Caller ID didn't say who, the LCD read "Out of Area," while the little device in my office was equally nondescript: "000-000-0000 Unavailable."

It was a robot call from 37th District Democrat State Representative Sharon Tomiko Santos.

Rep. Tomiko Santos has been in office since 1998. Her priorities are education, economic development, health care, and affordable housing. She serves on several committees: Education, Finance, Rules, and Insurance, Financial Services and Consumer Protection.

This was the second time in two weeks I'd encountered Rep. Tomiko Santos. She is running unopposed for her sixth term.

Two weeks ago, she attended a meeting of the Beacon Alliance of Neighbors, a community council on northwest Beacon Hill that has had monthly meetings going on twelve years.

The representative arrived late that Tuesday night, October 18, missing her spot on the agenda. We waited 15 minutes before we decided to proceed. The topics of the night were the completion of the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trail through the East Duwamish Greenbelt, a project that requires cooperation from the State of Washington, as much of the land this gateway to Seattle will traverse is owned by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). Equal time in the meeting would be given to public safety issues arising out of the area: this summer, several women were sexually assaulted, three over a four-day period in June, while a man was murdered on Sept. 11. Much more happened.

Also attending were two staffers from SDOT, the Executive Director of the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust, the Dept. of Neighborhood's district coordinator, the policy expert from the city's Department of Policy and Management on assignment by Mayor Greg Nickels, and an area director for WSDOT whom, to her credit, Rep. Tomiko Santos asked to be there. The legislative assistant for the Snohomish County Chief Executive attended, too, as she lives in the community, and Nigel Herburg, assistant to City Councilmember Tim Burgess, and Sgt. Anne Martin from the South Precinct.

Thirty-five neighbors and public servants met for two productive hours. The city and state are now drafting a letter of intent as the basis for reclaiming the area called "The Jungle," while city government has renewed its commitment to keep our community safe for homeowners, renters, business people, visitors, and homeless folks alike.

Then 37th District Democrat State Representative Sharon Tomiko Santos spoke.

"If there's one thing I want all of you to take away with you tonight," she said in introduction, "it's you have to do a better job of reaching out to people of color."

She chided us for not being diverse, boasting she'd been raised on Beacon Hill. She kept referencing a "Beacon Hill Community Council," and told us she wanted to see people from it sitting at our table, and that Roberto Maestes from El Centro de la Raza should be, too.

Sharon Tomiko Santos was oblivious to the African, Japanese, and Chinese Americans at the table; not counting herself, a third of the people in the room were obviously people of color, while several of us are multicultural. She didn't care that Jewish people were there, gays and straights, or that the meeting was organized by someone active in Seattle's hearing-impaired community.

When Rep. Tomiko Santos tried to lecture us on the racial makeup of Beacon Hill, a Chinese American woman said she didn't understand Chinese American culture. Then an African American block watch captain took her to task.

I explained there is no "Beacon Hill Community Council." We settled she was talking about the North Beacon Hill Council, and she again demanded people from it should be at our table. I told her I am a former vice-president of that group, adding from 2003-2005, a small clique from it tried to get people not to attend our meetings.

"Well, that isn't fair," she said.

A founder of the Beacon Hill Improvement Community - another of the some 40 community groups on Beacon Hill - said, "Craig, that's not happening anymore" - it isn't - and then added he attends NBHC meetings.

I was shocked Sharon used Roberto Maestes' name to reprimand others. Roberto is a Beacon Hill leader and elder, who celebrated his 70th birthday this summer. I am honored to know him and others at El Centro. Rep. Tomiko Santos was unaware how so many neighbors have engaged El Centro, found the doors open, the staff compassionate, their programs a benefit to all.

The previous Saturday, another neighbor explained, El Centro hosted an event organized by Beacon Hill Pedestrians, a group working on mitigation with Sound Transit of its light rail station on Beacon Hill. Over 200 people attended the pancake breakfast and community planning meeting.

Representative Tomiko Santos didn't know about it, or that El Centro hosted one of the largest public safety forums in Beacon Hill history last year in cooperation with the Beacon Alliance of Neighbors. It was attended by over 80 people; 11th District State Rep. Zack Hudgins helped organize it. She was uninformed of issues involving Beacon Hill and community organizations in Chinatown/ID and Little Saigon, and did not know Japanese and African American elders who've made a difference on northwest Beacon Hill.

She was dismissive of public safety concerns and the importance of the Mountains to Sound Trail. She showed no knowledge of the efforts of thousands of volunteers who have honored the memory of the Filipino national hero Dr. Jos้ Rizal by making one of two parks in the United States commemorating him a safe, accessible, and beautiful place.

She insulted everyone in the room. I was glad that Cynthia Welti, Executive Director of the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust, left before the state rep characterized the Greenway as just "a trail." Some neighbors walked out.

Rep. Tomiko Santos can point to community honors, including receiving in 1993 a Martin Luther King, Jr. "Keeping the Dream Alive" Award. Yet her conduct two weeks ago showed she has not taken the words of the Reverend Dr. King to heart. While I listened to her that Tuesday, and heard members of my diverse community answer prejudice with personal dignity, I recalled a sentence from Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech:

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

To be judged on the content of their character is what all people deserve.

It is what Beacon Hill deserved from 37th District Democrat State Representative Sharon Tomiko Santos on October 18, 2008.

Two days later, I suffered a cut that bled for ten minutes, my bright, deep red type O blood running down my chest as I staunched the wound. It is the blood of Europeans, yes, as my blue eyes and red hair attest, but I know from my family history that the blood of my Native American great grandfather is still in my veins, that the blood of African people courses in my arteries as well.

This Tuesday, Election Day, I will vote for Barack Obama, not for what he is, but for the content of his character. As I mark my ballot at Beacon Tower, I'll remember Dr. King's words, "We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline."

May our representatives join us in that endeavor.

I am, of course, outraged.

I have been robbed of that most precious possession, reputation.

For almost a year I could boast I was Seattle's most notorious vigilante, an identity a couple of homeless activists gave me. They're too scared to go for a walk in Seattle's woods with me. It's not because I'm fearsome, it's just that they're afraid, not of me, but what they would find.

They don't want to walk that mile in the other guy's shoes. Recalcitrance is not a particularly American character trait, irony plays in matters big and small.

Now another has been branded in public as a vigilante. He's a two-generation South Ender who admits to carrying a handgun when he walks his neighborhood. Controversy around his public stand has prompted flame mail on a local listserve - what doesn't? - but also some jerk posted fliers in the neighborhoods about him, featuring a photo taken from another publication. The poster, however, still lacks the courage to identify him or herself.

Hot buttons surround us: the Constitution is our common reference. If any discussion proves the worth of the First Amendment, it is the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms.

When I work in the Jungle, I carry some tool I can use as a weapon. No, I'm not paranoid. I've been jumped by drug runners in the past, and though I resolved that situation non-violently by telling them to move on, I'd be delusional to believe that all of the people who wander Seattle's woods are as harmless as elves and unicorns. I and other park and forest stewards in Seattle have carried machetes - Parks tells us not to, but there are times when nothing else will do for clearing invasive plants. My preferred long blade is a German sapper's bayonet, circa 1916. It was meant to up end a Mauser, an engineer would use it to clear fields of fire.

Regular readers of this irregular column can attest I'm not a fan of Beacon Hillers buying heat and hanging with posses. There are two and only two groups of gun owners, responsible ones and idiots. Membership is pretty even in those groups.

Of fools I've known who've shot themselves, a couple stand out. One was an idiot I knew in college who shot himself with a .22 Ruger revolver while practicing his "quick" draw. He wasn't very quick.

The other was a former Marine colonel who worked at a prestigious local law firm. He kept in his attach้ case a large modern automatic, which blasted a hole in him in his office one day.

In some workplaces, yellow-livered redneck peckerwoods have sidled up to test my caliber. My answer is always the same.

"My weapon of choice is a recoilless rifle, but the government doesn't want me to own an antitank weapon."

No, I'm not a vigilante. Neither is the man whose picture appeared on fliers posted anonymously on Beacon Hill power poles this week.

The Second Amendment is a reality for the United States: what we make of it as citizens is what we choose. Some support it, some don't.

Since Seattle has a professional police force, I don't need to carry firearms. If I lived in the country again, I would own certain guns, as there is no reasoning with rabies or feral dogs.

I figure if you kill it, eat it and bear the consequences.

That includes traffic fatalities.

Most weapons I now own I found in the woods or on the street. My wife gets nervous with things I bring home: I've found paring, steak, folding, throwing, and filleting knives. I'm fashioning a handle for a 10-inch long skinny blade of Chinese steel, the sort of knife you likely can't buy in China. It came to me without a handle, I'm crafting a new one from buckhorn.

Then I'll carry it.

Am I a vigilante?

No. I'm considering a t-shirt with a large V on it, just to make hypocrites mad.

Five years ago, other fliers appeared in my neighborhood. A wannabe politico posted hundreds saying all of King County's homeless sex offenders lived on Beacon Hill. He was an idiot.

He scared Asian American elders so they wouldn't go out in broad daylight, so they couldn't be the eyes and ears of the community while younger neighbors were at work. Crime escalated those rough days.

Do I know who posts provocative political flack at the expense of public safety?

Yes and no.

I'm not sure the guy who made a mess of Beacon Hill years ago really meant any harm, he was just trying to be important.

I'm not sure the person who posted this most recent flood of anonymous fliers means real harm, either.

What we make of the Second Amendment is as important as what we make of the First.

With freedom of speech comes responsibility.

Would the person who put up these latest fliers offer your own face and name?

Between June 20 and June 23, three women were assaulted within three blocks at the northern tip of The Hill.

I hate being right about crime. I've spent five years fighting it. Last fall, in the PI, I predicted a bad year on the streets in '08.

Were I spot on with the lottery.

Who's been targeted on Beacon Hill?

Homeless women are victims, possibly women scoring drugs, but most have been neither homeless nor doing anything illegal. All have been unfortunate to be in the wrong place at a very bad time.

At least four sexual predators have stalked these streets and SODO this year, and there's been one home invasion by two thugs who surprised a woman when she got off a bus and then forced their way into her home. They'd been hiding in an unlocked port-a-potty at a condo construction site, and had a gun.

Who are the perps?

For over two years, a serial groper targeted dozens of Asian women in the Rainier Valley and on Beacon Hill. A suspect was caught after an attack in Renton in late May, though police advised there may be a copycat.

Two attacks were made on women in encampments around I-5 on June 8th and 10th by someone who knows the camps.

The two attacks on Friday morning, June 20th – the first near Lewis Park and the second in SODO - were against women who are not homeless, according to police spokesperson Sean Whitcomb, as cited in the Seattle Times on June 21. The SPD arrested a 42-year-old man in connection with those assaults.

A guy living on property owned by the Cherry Hill condominiums was arrested for an attack on a homeless woman Friday night, June 20, after getting her high, demanding sex, and assaulting her when she refused. A neighbor helped her out.

The next Monday, June 23, a woman was raped, beaten, and strangled at 2 PM in the off-leash area of Dr. Jos้ Rizal Park. She lived but was badly hurt.

If you follow the press, you'll need several sources to get a notion of what's going on. Neither major daily tells Seattle's crime story, nor the weeklies: other events, some of them better events, override our sensibilities. It's not a story about particular people, it's just about people.

We tend to take public safety for granted, as what should be normal in America. We're more like our highways, where everyone goes too fast, eats up energy. Risk waits at the next curve: enjoy the ride.

Danger makes people smart in other societies, maybe it can in ours, at least street smart.

Homeless folks, at least sane ones, even if they have trouble with alcohol, may band into groups to be safe. Since last January, gangs of thugs and street-to-middle lowlife dealers have staked out territory, making it scary for transients in the western woods. Guys who used to sleep in the Jungle now go to Lewis, Dearborn, and Coleman Parks, up around Jefferson, tuck themselves along the I-90 and Chief Sealth bike trails, Cheasty, find some protection at the overpasses in the upper valley.

Women especially don't want to sleep in the Jungle, this year has a particularly bad reputation. That rep extends into Little Saigon, Upper Rainier, the ID, Pioneer Square, to Capitol Hill and downtown.

If you're homeless and you have some wits about you, you'll rest easier close to some public right-of-way, where passersby may help out should the going get tough, or find safety with a number of friends.

In the morning, I take a walk around the neighborhood before heading to the bus stop and work. There's a man who's been sleeping under burlap beneath a public tree, I've seen him in the same spot repeatedly over the last five weeks, his modest possessions in a small cardboard box. When he's awake, he faces east and speaks directly to the inhabitants of his world, he gesticulates, emphasizing his words, looking over the Rainier Valley.

In other societies, at other times, he may have been called a prophet. In ours, he's crazy, maybe an out-patient from Harborview, off his meds.

I worry for him. I don't call the cops.

*Publisher's Note: The headline to this piece conforms to the spelling and style guidelines of The Hearst Corporation and the Seattle Post Intelligencer.

There's nothing like a good idea to draw critics.

As a writer, I unashamedly admit to being a thief in a long line of thieves.

At best, writing is reformed plagiarism: the common courtesy of identifying one's sources is all too often considered, well, common, the least of one's prosaic instincts.

Hence, is it any wonder that a weekend article in Brand X had discovered a discussion on a Beacon Hill list (aka, Slumberland), regarding BEHI, an acronym created by Eric Spivak to describe these heights? Eric is one of the gutsier guys I know on the hill. Besides helping to form two neighborhood organizations, he's kept up on public safety concerns, checked out trails the police won't venture on alone, and was the first in this neck of the woods to tackle cheap booze messing up people, our parks, and playgrounds.

When he came up with BEHI some two years ago, I was delighted but knew Eric was in for trouble. First, the press, dammit, has reduced it to "BeHi," much as they deliberately misspell SODO (aka, "Sodo" and "SoDo" – urk) out of sheer perversity and just bad judgment.

The second offense came in the Brand X article – not only did my neighbors find their innermost feelings on Eric's innovation exposed to all the Emerald City, but they had not been quoted nor Slumberland (aka, Beacon Hill list) properly cited.

Even worse, the writer, Tan Vinh – a Seattle Times staff reporter – expropriated my observation of a South Precinct cruiser with a BEHI bumper sticker.

Oh, the Moral Outrage (note initial caps)!

It just goes to show, there is no honour amongst thieves (note Queen's English, as in Queen Anne Hill, or QAH, derived from the French for, "Huh?").

The third, and most damnable offense of all, was reserved by Beacon Hillers for themselves.

Eric's bumper sticker and website overscores BEHI: "Good People. Good Views." (Note initial caps.) Dozens of opinions flocked the ethereal realm of the Ethernet, pronouncing the sour grapes of condemnation. Those raisons of wrath work like this logically in a classical syllogism:

Major premise: That guy had a good idea.

Minor premise: It wasn't my idea.

Conclusion: That's a bad idea.

So, should we surrender to the stodgy fogeys of factionalism, or embrace this brave, new word?

I would err with the new, properly spelled, while consigning critics to – what else? – capital punishment.

Make no mistake.

I'm not against Starbucks as a company in any way, shape, or form.

Though arguably the only place on the planet one can purchase "coffee," aka, "the elixir of life," is truly at Caf้ Vivace on Capitol Hill, Starbucks makes a darn fine product that beats out most competition.

Saturdays and Sundays, I meet up with "The Guys." We're a diverse group of know-it-alls who've been quaffing Starbucks' coffee by the gallon weekend mornings going on four years. We gossip about The Guys who aren't there, wives and girlfriends, engage in loudly humorous discourse on all topics.

Does Bellevue have culture?

Was Mike Tyson or Muhammed Ali the best boxer on the planet?

How about those M's?

Our spot in the universe of coffee is at the corner of Rainier Avenue South and MLK Way.

You can't get anymore South End than that. None of us would trade that special store for another. Up at 23rd and Jackson, a similar Starbucks brings focus to a more northerly latitude.

We couldn't have done it without Starbucks.

As a company, Starbucks has done more for average neighborhoods than any other major player in King County industry. They've supported small and mid-size parks projects, made countless donations of that rich, dark, particular house brew. Employees have consistently volunteered at more community events than likely any other business in Seattle. Starbucks has helped define neighborhoods when we needed help.

Why, then, would one of the South End's most iconographic enterprises trivialize itself taking on another?

I am, of course, referring to the coffee giant's take on the Rat City Roller Girls.

It's the battle of the logos, corporate identity vs. common sense.

Will common sense prevail?

It did with the Vashon monks of All-Merciful Saviour Orthodox Monastery, who'd marketed "Christmas Blend" coffee as a fundraiser. Howard Schultz had a prior claim to Christmas, and tried kicking them in the habit. It only helped sales for the Russian Orthodox roasters.

If Schultz and Co. are trying to block check the Roller Girls, I hope the brainy, beautiful bruisers get equal traction for their spunk.

Any bozo with enough dough can do a lawsuit. That would be Howard Schultz.

Consider the image.

When I look at Starbucks' latest logo, I think, "Corporate giant coffee that fuels me and my pals' loyalty to each other and a particular store."

When I look at the Rat City Roller Girls, I don't think about coffee. I'm not sure I think at all, my response is admittedly more primal.

Howard lost the Sonics and the NBA, maybe he thinks he can win this one. Howard suffers from orb envy and too much money.

"Starbucks" as a business name wasn't born in the Pacific Northwest, but in Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Perhaps the Melville estate will be next in the docket; since one doesn't exist, no matter. Schultz is wealthy enough, he can invent one and toss his lawyers a towel.

Who else can he sue?

For starters, the State of Washington.

There's too much similarity between the Starbucks logo and that of our beloved Lotto. See the double ring? A viable violation.

What about infractious similarity at the national level?

NASA is a good target. Consider the roundness of the logo, its communicative suggestiveness: shouldn't NASA be targeted by Schultz Enterprises, like the Rat City Roller Girls?

But why stop there?

Logo lawsuits can reach the stars.

Schultz's prized stellar bi-circular litigious uniqueness has been transgressed by base undertakings on nearby orbs: Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune.

If only he could find the owner, Howard might try justice in a King County court.

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Beacon Hill had a public safety meeting Sunday, April 27, 46 good neighbors came out, plus our DON district coordinator, Steve Louie, and the West Precinct's Crime Prevention Coordinator, Terri Johnson. Not bad for a Sunday, folks care about crime.

Things are happening on The Hill, all over Jet City.

One local creep – the Groper, there may be copycats – put everyone on edge from the Dearborn Cut down to Renton. He's busted: bye-bye!

Tuesday, May 6, a couple of blocks south of MacPherson's, a drive-by shot up Ferdinand, likely gang related.

At the Beacon Hill Pub, two men and a woman were shot one karaoke night, her old boyfriend bought a drink, opened fire. He wasn't caught, he will be. Nearby shop owners are scared. They deal in cash, should somebody with a sidearm want to feed a crack, heroin, meth, gambling, or credit card habit, those merchants would pony up the till. They bet on better times, when Sound Transit delivers commuters and trade takes off on Beacon Hill.

One businessman announced he would buy a gun and get training, encouraging others to join him. I didn't comment, he'd been broken into, once. The notion of average Joe or Jane Citizen packing heat bothers me as much as criminals.

It's not a good idea to get a weapon if you're not prepared to use it. Most people aren't, especially those with piece instead of peace.

That's what the NRA, the current U.S. Supreme Court, and similar groups miss. That's what the Folklife Gunman, 22-year-old Clinton Chad Grainger, missed as well, though he did wound three people with his 18-round Glock automatic. It's the type of gun that used to be banned in the United States, but George W. Bush allowed his Republican congress to let the ban on it and other weapons of excess slip into an ankle holster and a concealed weapon permit for a guy on methadone, that more addictive than heroin substitute.

Another victory for the National Rifle Association.

Average citizens – hunters, marksmen, collectors, hobbyists – don't constitute a well-regulated militia. They don't want to be told what to do, either. Bravado, fear, or constitutional guarantee drive options, disregarding the mystery of life leaks out from a bullet hole.

Any fool can pull a trigger.

As a civilian trainer for the United States Army, I learned a thing or two about deadly force. I reinforced combat skills for GIs, and other common tasks. The most important lesson is, if you really want to learn how to use deadly force, enlist. You'll learn not only when to, but when not to. That lesson may be reinforced in Iraq or Afghanistan today, but you will learn.

At the U-Dub, a tiny band of vociferous, immature gun nuts advocate students carry heat. I have some experience with that in the schools, too.

One April morning in 1984, when I taught at The Evergreen State College, a Greener and former mercenary for the Rhodesian government stepped into the cafeteria and shot a young woman he'd dated in the head with a .45. She died. He went away for a long time. I missed the murder by a moment, I stepped outside with my cup of coffee, then the whirlwind descended.

When I was an undergraduate at Whitworth College, a very different institute of higher learning, guys kept guns on campus. So did I, a Winchester 290, a long-barreled semiautomatic .22 caliber rifle. The guys in my dorm exercised their right to bear arms despite policy that all firearms be checked in for safekeeping with the college.

There was a plethora of smallish arms at Whitworth. In my sophomore year, we found an abandoned quarry where we could target practice. One guy was particularly avid.

He painted the face of my roommate on a pumpkin, strutted up and let off a round from a .410 shotgun. Boasting a .22 Ruger revolver, he shot himself in the leg practicing quick draw, a fraction from his femora artery. He could have bled to death.

This marksman treated people like crap. He accused "liberals" – a term of his own definition – of being dope fiends, while polishing off cheap beer most nights. He got a crush on a nice girl in a different dorm, Chris, after Christine, after Christian, which she was: behind her back, he called her a name John McCain has used on his wife. Chris wised up; I hope he did, too.

When he graduated, he didn't enlist, but got a job as caretaker in a mortuary.

How One of the Biggest Volunteer Events in Beacon Hill History Came to Happen

An agency rep requested a meeting to work the magic of helping us.

I have mixed feelings about "meetings." If ever there were a necessary nuisance to achieve public progress, it is the public meeting.

It doesn't matter if it's a neighborhood block watch, community group, city or county council, political party caucus or convention, state or national legislative body, or a general session of the United Nations. Industry does a bit better, and the military, both mission-oriented, with narrowly defined tactical and strategic, short- and long-term goals.

Of three project leads, I showed up. If either of my pals had indicated they couldn't come, the meeting would have been postponed.

As Dick Cheney said, "So?"

I have all the charisma of a carp. I was left sitting at a table with my best friend on my block, three City of Seattle employees and two well-respected representatives from environmental non-profits.

I was the fool: I have previous experience. At first, I was upset and downbeat. Wiser heads prevailed.

"Just because a couple of people miss a meeting," one City employee told me, "doesn't mean a lot."

She's right. There's much good getting done, many do it. You have to get past shortcomings – especially your own – to get the job done.

That's the way it is with meetings. A while back, a neighbor off Beacon Avenue and 13th said, "It's projects, not meetings, that build community." That's true for Seattle's parks, playfields, sidewalks, streets, and schools.

Without us, where would we be?

Along this stretch of the street, this neck of the woods, where highlights meets the lowdown and the rubber meets the road, there are 28 different community organizations, not counting sports and church groups that might easily double the tally.

Two Saturdays ago, the City sponsored a Clean and Green event at Dr. Jose Rizal Park – Steve Louis from the Department of Neighborhoods and Ron Harris-White from Seattle Public Utilities led the effort. Ron counted 130 participants, from neighborhood groups and City of Seattle, King County, and Washington State agencies, too.

With such a meeting, who did it?

We did.

Who didn't show up?

Greg Nickels.

Mayor Nickels was billed to attend the event, yet he was in the University District, at a public safety forum about violent attacks that have recently plagued the UD. Public safety trumps park cleanups: the Mayor was right to meet with north end neighbors, but we missed him. Our South End scene deserves similar respect.

On Beacon Hill and into the Rainier Valley, we face a predator stalking and assaulting Asian women, 24 as I write this. At a March 18 PTSA meeting at Beacon Hill Elementary, 61 neighbors met with officers from the South Precinct about the attacks. There's been media coverage – only the story recorded by three TV stations whose cameras documented the event didn't hit the news, and the PI and Times were elsewhere.

What are we to do?

What we've always done.

It's time to work together, good neighbors.

He's a better man than I am.

Mr. K. used to own my home, four other houses along the street, and a small apartment building across the alley for the view. He once told me it's "the best view in Seattle." Eliot Bay and the Olympics welcome his mornings, they have for nearly 40 years.

I knew him as a retired chemical engineer. He helped define the future of parks and off-leash areas, organize neighborhood public safety, and always, always, he spoke up for making the community senior friendly.

He speaks his mind with an emphatic clarity few achieve. In one meeting, when the subject of public art came up, he described an installation off Sturgus of little concrete houses before another on a tiny hill, "It looks like the barracks of an internment camp." Not what the artist had in mind, much less the Seattle Art Commission.

This weekend, I learned more about my neighbor. I saw him in his unit cap. He was returning from the rededication of the Nisei Veterans Committee Memorial Hall at 1212 S. King Street. It was attended by Hawaii's senior senator, Daniel Inouye, who'd fought in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the most decorated unit in U.S. military history. It was an event to honor those who taught America a lesson in loyalty.

Mr. K. recruited out of the Poston Internment Camp in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1944, he enlisted as a private in the United States Army. It was a dangerous thing to do, there were a few Imperial sympathizers in the camp, and bitter bullies who resented their treatment by FDR's decision to move American citizens into concentration camps after the Pearl Harbor attack. Mr. K. accepted danger.

He had a high school diploma, would go on to receive a Ph.D. in chemical engineering, contribute to several important patents, develop a relationship with significant researchers at the University of Washington. He made a difference in times of peace.

Mr. K. made a difference in time of war.

It was a great war, some say the last good war, the war of our fathers and grandfathers. Arguably, there are great wars: last week, France lay to rest her last veteran of her Great War. War is never good, but sometimes necessary. Lao Tzu, in the Tao de Ch'ing says at the end of a battle, a victorious general weeps for the dead, for all the humanity.

Mr. K. is a second generation American citizen, Nisei. He was assigned to military intelligence. That meant the Pacific campaign, MacArthur's island hop to Tokyo, a route through Tarawa, Okinawa, Iwo Jima.

My dad fought as an engineer in New Guinea and the Philippines, slated for the invasion of Japan's home islands. Hiroshima and Nagasaki made me a child of the nuclear bomb. He and Mr. K. brought the war home with them, both became chemical engineers, but my Scandinavian dad never met the prejudice that Mr. K. or the thousands of returning Japanese-American vets faced. Even the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars refused to honor them.

And so the Nisei Veterans Committee Memorial Hall came to be.

When I saw Mr. K. walk down the street, his stolid, calm expression was gone. The bright light of his intellect wore down on the sidewalk, the firm determination I'd come to expect set in his jaw ceded to the passage of time, to the passage of so many good men his generation made great.

Mr. K. and his brothers in arms, perhaps more than any who have fought America's wars in modern times, make us children of democracy.

I know for the first time who lives so short a step away.

Friday afternoon, I got the email from the program lead for the Community Court. An Excel spreadsheet contained five names, this time all guys, while the message told me who from Americorps would help supervise the crew.

For the past six months, low-level offenders with time to give back in community service have helped Beacon Hill become a better place. They've opened the upper and lower Bayview public stairway – a large project – with neighbors pitching in, saving trees from ivy, too, especially helping an elderly Japanese couple who honored their work when their daughter said simply, "Thank you." Now, police and firemen can better serve those who live nearby.

Saturday, we hit the street.

For the last eight years, few have cleaned up the block between Beacon Avenue and College, along 14th Avenue South. It's a block of middle-class homes, some upper, a multi-ethnic neighborhood, the kind that makes Beacon Hill famous. A couple of weeks back, one neighbor came out and cleaned up the mess by the block's Metro bus stop.

Metro should have: our taxes and bus fare did not.

If you pick up a Metro bus for your morning commute at a bus shelter, you'll have a garbage can. If you pick up a Metro bus for your commute at a stop with a pole and a skinny schedule display, there may be a round, black trash receptacle that holds maybe ten latte cups. You'll likely be standing in ankle deep trash.

Last spring, three Metro bigwigs showed up at a Beacon Hill meeting – endorsed by just about every community group – and explained only bus shelters deserve a proper trashcan. The bus shelters cost $10,000. You can get a can at Home Depot or Lowe's for $29.99.

We made up for the difference on Saturday. For six blocks south and on the cross streets down to 15th, the seven of us picked up trash. One of the service workers told me, "With every bit I picked up, I said, 'I was stupid, I was stupid, I'll never do it again!'"

I told him I was lucky, given my own stupidity, not to be caught doing what any of the guys had done, at an earlier age, maybe a year ago.

At the end of the day – all four hours of our time – we'd collected 15 bags of trash, plus a long overdue electric lawn mower and an ancient teensy weensy PC monitor.

The guys were great. Neighbors came out and thanked us. Drivers on the busy arterial slowed and gave us the high five, thumbs up!

No one was a criminal. We were just guys doing the good work, making a difference.

How the Pacific Medical Center Was Rebuilt

It was Saturday, about eight months after our last Big One.

We stirred to a jackhammer.

"They're starting early," my wife said.

I got dressed, pulled on some sneakers, stumbled down to PacMed.

PacMed rises 14 stories, 15 to count the roof.

February 28, 2001: PacMed took a hit in the 6.8 Nisqually Quake.

A guy steered me upstairs, where I met Ron LaMarche, a solid, serious man, the project superintendent for Sellen Construction, the outfit tasked with the restoration.

"We had to move a 400-pound piece of masonry." He grinned. "You're the first neighbor we've heard from. Do you want a look around?"

I did.

Ron led me through the closed medical clinic. Consider how long your home is, say 50 feet. Now, imagine a crack running midway through concrete parallel to the floor, longer than your house, broader than your apartment, a significant break in a load-bearing wall. Offices stood abandoned.

I donned a hardhat. We climbed to the tower, as far as we could go in one of two functioning elevators. PacMed has six. During the quake, a slab of red brick weighing several hundred pounds fell from the wall of one of the shafts, through the roof of an elevator car. It was unoccupied.

At the 10th floor, we took the stairs to the tower.

The stairwell was cracked. Ron pointed at a couple of red crosses painted on the wall. "Where you see an X, there's structural damage."

We stepped onto the tower's first floor, the eleventh. The cool autumn morning swept along the platform. Workmen went about their business. It was eerie, open where walls should have been. I breathed deep for the scenery. Fog sat on Eliot Bay, sun low to the east, Lake Washington shimmered in the morning.

"It's spooky up here," Ron said.

I've worked on roofs before, and big remodels and concrete pours, but they were small compared to this. The good-natured banter typical of guys who bring buildings into the world was missing. The wind brushed around us.

The PacMed tower stands on four corner columns. All suffered extensive damage. I counted 11 cracks plunging into a 22-inch thick concrete structural support.

Epoxy set the tower straight, and steel, muscle, and smarts. Eight layers of blue carbon fiber wrapped the corner posts, the stuff of stealth aircraft, Kevlar helmets, bulletproof vests, the shoring of the Alaska Way viaduct.

Why did the tower fail?

The builders of PacMed used red clay bricks extensively, not the bricks you've carried in your hands, admired in chimneys or Pioneer Square, not the old cobble stones that peak through Seattle's potholes. Some flooring and secondary wall support came from hollow red bricks, like a cinder block, but a 1' x 6" square. They don't make them like that anymore, split into equal chambers, walls about three-quarters of an inch thick. The quake rumbled through them like a drum.

Sellen erected an enclosed chute through the center of the converted hospital to remove debris, with sprinklers to keep the dust down. Three crews worked in shifts: they had a lot to do.

The 90,000 orange bricks that faced the art deco building were originally anchored to the substructure with metal links called "dogbones." If you go to your closet, grab a metal clothes hanger, cut out a section about 10 inches long. Fold it into an oblong: you've got a dogbone.

Approximately every eight feet, PacMed's builders connected the exterior wall to the interior with a dogbone. On one corner of the tower, dogbones weren't connected at all, and in the quake, it crumbled. About 80% of the tower was damaged.

Three steel girders stabilized the tower for the rebuild. The two longest poked out of windows on the north side. Up there, exposed to weather and a killer view, workers tied onto safety lines.

Along every exterior wall, the heavy, deep pink, terra cotta window crowns had been perched only by grace of gravity and grout. That's been fixed with steel straps and bolts.

When the Nisqually Quake hit, hundreds of Amazon.com employees fled the building, most from the south side, the wrong way to turn. After the fright, people milled in the north parking lot. One by one, cars blocked the Jos้ Rizal Bridge in Beacon Hill's worst ever traffic jam.

The north extension, built in 1994 to stabilize PacMed during an earthquake, worked - sort of. To the west, a crack edged upward where the extension shifted under the load.

Buildings have memory. Concrete, steel remembers where the building sat, and it tries to find its place.

Is PacMed safe now?

Better than before. Sellen Construction's quality work, modern materials, and professional dedication have made PacMed safe.

Until a bigger one.