Now Playing: Seafair
Topic: Party Time
It was a pretty good weekend down at the Hydro races. Since Kathy couldn't deal with the shore hillside; we brought the portable chairs and sat above in the old peoples' section. It worked out good as we no longer worry about access to the water, we'll probably do the same next year. The chairs and rolling cooler are a lot easier to haul than the old recliners, especially taking the shuttle bus the last few years.
Speaking of the shuttle, it was a great middle age slacker experience on the ride back. We got the front handicap seats and I was facing the middle of the bus. The return trip is always packed and I was surrounded by hot, young chicks. I just sat there for 15 minutes staring at belly buttons (and other things).
When beer was first banned at the races, Kathy wrote a Seattle Times "Letter to the Editor" complaining. So, we generally agree with Seattle Times writer Ron Judd:
"Back in the day, when the next best form of local entertainment was watching glaciers recede up in Newhalem, hydro racing had a certain appeal to it.

The sport was bigger than life and faster than car racing. Plus, it paid homage to three of the Puget Sound's greatest traditional summer pastimes: drinking heavily, ogling scantily clad bodies on the log boom, and drinking heavily while ogling scantily clad bodies on the log boom.

Alas, sometime in the '80s, a bunch of busybody Seafair folks got together and decided activities A through C were unwholesome, and the summer hydro race was cleaned up and turned into an event suitable for small children.

This proved very popular with the 700 or 800 local residents who enjoyed paying to sit inside a galvanized-fenced area and watch infantile people shriek and poop in the water ? an activity the rest of us knew could easily be replicated at home, for free, by tuning in Congress on C-Span.

For everyone else, it was the death of what has become known ever since as the is-it-time-for-the-Blue-Angels-yet boat race."