“Small Town USA” came over the country station at the exact time and day I was feeling it. I was in Ellensburg, WA a town of about 10,000. With no AC on a day that was to reach 91 degrees, I was on the way to get it looked at. Even though the shop estimated $1000 or more bucks to fix it I was happy with the windows down on the way back to a smaller yet Roslyn, WA.
I-90 whisked us up to Cle-Elum in less than 25 minutes. Then it’s just a couple miles up to where we’re staying in this National Historic Place. Roslyn, built as a coal mining town on the dryer east side of the cascade mountains, is very close the wet western-Washington and is cooler because it’s 2,200 feet above sea level. We’re staying in the house of a friend from church while they travel to other areas of the Northwest. We can sit on their porch and watch the traffic of Highway 903, and hear the dump trucks, RVs, and diesel pickups roar around the corner and up and down the hill. This morning the first construction rig rattled by just before 6am. Men who evidently live in cabins or camped out on the Cle Elum River or Lake appear to be heading down to work. An RV owner might go into town for a latte at ‘Maggie’s Pantry’.
That’s right next to the famous ‘Village Pizza’, which appears in the opening credits of the hit TV series from the 1990s Northern Exposure. ‘Roslyn Café’ also appears with the moose who leads you on a tour through a fictitious Alaska town that was filmed here. We hear their food is good too. But we enjoyed our ‘village’ and peperoni pizzas across the street outside at Roslyn Park, which sits to the famous ‘Brick’ tavern containing a nice lawn where a building once stood.
Vacationers and tourists from Seattle and other towns around the county and country come for the pizza, food, drink, cooler mountain air. Relics of the coal mining and television past mingle with the odd passerby making it unclear who is local and who is not from around here.
The people are nice, but not too nice. Tourism has not eroded a Northern feel of no-nonsense service at the pizzeria and general store. The candy shop boasts bon-bons made on site, but also has classic candy choices from America’s Big Candy factories. Smarties for 50 cents.
Clara sang “God Bless America” from the stage in Roslyn Park. Her brother and parents were the only ones who heard it because we were the only ones still in the park at 8pm. She stopped once though to say, “someone’s coming”. A couple walked past on the sidewalk from the direction of The Brick and got in their car and drove away. Though it was mostly to empty tables and chairs and scattered beanbags we threw on a warm lawn, it may have been her first solo public performance. Josiah was supposed to be singing back up, but sat in front of her in a chair that was meant to represent her microphone stand.
From my perspective in Small Town USA, it’s a great day in America. I wish us all many more.
