Author Archives: starsalmon

Bigfoot:

Text: 

Interviewer: Can I ask about Bigfoot? 

Dad: Oh, yeah. Big in our family. 

Interviewer: Yeah, can I ask you to explain a bit of why and what it is? 

Dad: It was just growing up in the Pacific Northwest, in the woods. I mean, you gotta figure where my parents’ house is. There was always, I remember, I thought I saw him in the creek… one night. I swear I saw something standing in the creek. And it was long enough that, like, 20-30 seconds of watching something, and then watching something like stand there, like frozen… in the moonlight and then move on. 

Interviewer: And how do you know it wasn’t a person? 

Dad: Because it was 3 o’clock in the freaking morning, and it was at my parents’ house. 

Interviewer: That’s fair. 

Later in the interview:

Interviewer: Can you describe Bigfoot to me?

Dad: Well, Bigfoot was supposed to be, like, a cross between a man, or, say, if, you know, a man and, uh, ape, or Nathander… Neanderthal. So it was like this hybrid creature. With huge feet. And they had all these casts of all the footprints that he’d made over the years, and they proved it, that it had to be, the footprint had to be real, um, because they did weight analysis.

Interviewer: In real life or in the movie?

Dad:  In real life, in like, documentaries. You know, “Searching for Bigfoot”, all sorts of things. 

Context: 

My Dad is white, 60, and has lived in Washington State his entire life. When he was growing up his parents house was fairly remote. It was in a small town, plus the actual house was a bit away from the road, in the forest, and nestled about twenty feet above a creek. He thinks he was 14-15 when this story takes place.

My dad remembers Bigfoot being a huge craze in the 80s and 90s. Everyone was looking for him. He recalls there even being a movie, called about Harry Harry and the Hendersons, about Hendersons running into Bigfoot and taking him home. My parents said that everyone really wanted it to live in their backyard, they were scared of it but also thought it wouldn’t be cool? It was the talk of the town, everyone who believed in big foot (probably half the population) believed they’d have a sighting of bigfoot.

Analysis: 

I think people believe in the Bigfoot legend because it’s fun and plausible. The pacific northwest is undeniably weird and mysterious, there is still forests and undeveloped land, especially back when my dad was growing up, parts that haven’t been really touched by humanity though now that is slowly disappearing. The legend of big foot is a primitive being, some sort of ancestor (either and ape or a neanderthal) who still inhabits the place we have moved away from, the wilderness. It’s something that is close enough to us that we can relate to it but far enough away that it’s novel. It’s close resemblance to humans also means that sightings can happen more commonly and there is room for a greater debate in belief. Did we see a human or big foot? Are those footsteps big enough? My dad’s memorate of this is a clear example, on the surface he just saw a man outside his window, but then you provide the context that it would be very unlikely for a man to be standing in the creak at my grandparents house at 3 AM. One might say probably not, but there is a kernel of mystery and ability to argue and thus the debate continues.

Salmon Days

Text: Salmon Days is a local festival about the return of the salmon to Issaquah creek. It is the first full weekend in October because that is when it’s most likely for the salmon to be fully back.

The festival started around 60 years ago, starting either before my father was born or when he was a small child. It used to be small, though still had face painting, booths, crafts, etc. my dad says that craft fairs were big back then, every town has its own little craft fair. By the time my father was in high school he can remember there was a year when 20,000 people came, in comparison the population of Issaquah back then was about 8,000. “It was one of those times where you’re just like, Maybe this isn’t such a little festival anymore”. There also were very few towns around that were doing a festival of that scale. Now it’s “freaking huge”. 

At the Festival:

  • They remember there was little crafts you could either do or buy. When my mom was a kid there was a trend where they gave you a “weird” shaped bottle, then you filled it with styrofoam balls (my dad who is older remembers it used to be sand). Then you’d put a hat and hair on it.
  • Elephant ears; which are according to my mom a “big slab of buttery deep fried gluten with cinnamon and sugar” — They have been “Epic forever”. “Anybody you ask about Salmon days is probably gonna talk about elephants ears.
  • The Parade: Saturday Morning is the parade. It used to be little and go down Front Street (the town’s main street). It would have little floats and Miss Issaquah riding down the Salmon float, a couple of marching bands. Then by the time my dad was in high school or just out of high school it became so big they had to move it to a different street. There was one year where the parade was three hours long. My parents talked about how in the pre internet world it was The thing to do, The place to be.

They remember that when they were in school it was a great way to be social and connect up with your friends on the weekends. My dad, who didn’t have many friends, remembers it being a weird social experiment. 

Dad (cleaned up): You weren’t in school, so suddenly people would–you’d be walking along and people would be like, “Hey D”, you know, “Hey, how are you doing?” It’s like, “Hey, you want to go walk around with me?” You know, even though you barely knew this person. So, it was definitely a weird, like, social experiment. (laughs) So I remember walking around with people that I’d never even like talked to before. 

Interviewer: And you wouldn’t again? 

Dad: Uh, you know, maybe we’d say hi again on Monday, you know, at school, but then you’d drift back apart, you know, it’s like.

Mom: Please remember the source of this. 

Dad: Yeah, I mean, me. Hello? 

Mom: He just doesn’t maintain that sort of thing very well, so they may or may not have tried it’s unclear.

Context: I interviewed my parents, my mother who is 49, white, and moved to Washington from Idaho when she was at the age of 9 and my father who is 60, white, has lived in this town his entire life. Both my parents are introverts, but my mother had friends during high school while my dad was a bit more of a loner due his shyness and obliviousness.

Analysis: This festival is a tradition that is long standing and has evolved as the town grew, becoming a part of the way of life of living in Issaquah Washington. Salmon are a big part of living in Issaquah, with the salmon hatchery and the return of the salmon, but I think that’s really just a jumping off point for this festival for community and evolving traditions are also a big part. Both my parents remember community in high school being a huge thing that the Salmon days brought, for my dad it created a frame that allowed him to connect to his peers in a way he wasn’t able to otherwise. The Salmon return and the people gather in a ways that normally don’t, allowing for a different experience than everyday life. It’s also been going for so long that people have established their own traditions within the festival, like getting elephant ears. It started out small but took on a life of itself. It also makes me wonder if this celebration in part kept the Salmon hatchery alive, though that is speculation as I have no idea the financial situation of the hatchery nor have I heard anything.

Fideo

Text: Recipe for a soup made when your sick.

Ingredients: 

  • Noodles; Traditionally you use Fideo noodles but they can be any noodles
  • Oil, usually like vegetable oil
  • Tomato sauce – Informant’s family specifically swears by Del Monte tomato sauce, the mini ones, which you can get at smart and final for 99 cents.
  • Chicken broth
  • Optional: Bouillon cube
  • Large amount of garlic salt – informant’s family usually uses McCormick
  • Pepper
  • Worcestershire sauce
  • Optional Lemon juice and Tapatillo

Recipe: Traditionally you use fideo noodles but they can be any noodles. You put noodles in a pan with oil and fry the noodles a little bit, so they’re a little bit browned, and then you add tomato sauce enough of that to cover the noodles. You stir it, to make sure all the noodles are coated, and then after that, you eyeball an amount of chicken broth to add. It’s like vaguely double the amount of noodles that you have, like it has to cover noodles, but however much broth you want, you add the chicken broth. If you want, you can add a Bouillon cube that makes it taste really good. And then you add an eyeballed large amount of garlic salt. The Informant’s usual rule of thumb is to put in a decent amount and then when they think that it’s enough, then they add a little bit more and then they’re done. And then also pepper, and you stir it all together. You wait until it boils, and then once it boils, you shut off the heat, you cover it, and you leave it for 15 minutes. After that, it’s ready to serve. Their family traditionally serves it with worcestershire sauce in it. The Informant also thinks it’s really, really good with lemon juice and tapatio. That’s usually what they make if I’m sick and then it clears out my sinuses. 

Context: The Informant, 21, white with Mexican heritage, lives in Southern California, learned this recipe from their mom and grandmother. Though they’re pretty sure people in their family have been making it longer than that and assume it came from their great grandmother, their grandmother’s grandmother, who was the matriarch of the family and and from Mexico, where the informant assumes she learned it. The informant remembers “making it as a kid. My grandmother used to pick me up from preschool and she would take me back to her house and I would help her make Fideo, and then I would go, and I would sit, and I would watch Sesame Street, and then when it was done, she would bring me a bowl of, uh, a Fideo when I would sit there and watch PBS kids. So like Sesame Street and Zoboomafoo and Bob the Builder and all of the like. All the, all the old uh, things. And so, yeah, and then anytime I was sick, my grandma or my mom would make it for me. My grandma calls it Mexican penicillin. Um, cause it makes you feel better whenever you’re sick.”

Analysis: This soup is folk medicine and the process of making it can be thought of as a low context ritual. Rituals, especially in regards to folk healing rituals often include a narrative, I believe part of the narrative that gives this medicine it’s power is the process of someone lovingly making it for you, it is the heartwarming memory that the informant has of their grandmother or mother making this soup by that gives it its power. Even if they make it by themselves it still has that memory association, to the process and the taste. As Kaptchuk says, it has a ‘could be’ dimension to the healing through this tradition and memory.

Taking a closer look at the ingredients of this recipe the base ingredient is chicken broth which has its relation to the to chicken noodle soup, a very common recipe to bring when someone is sick. The addition of garlic salt is also interesting given garlic’s preestablished presence in folklore. We repeat these ingredients in folklore because they are familiar. We also see bricolage in the optional ingredients, lemon juice and tapatio, that the informant adds in at the end, this is a traditional recipe but it also gets personalized.

Citations: Kaptchuk, Ted J. “Placebo Studies and Ritual Theory: A Comparative Analysis of Navajo, Acupuncture and Biomedical Healing.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 366, no. 1572, June 2011, pp. 1849–58. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0385.

The Class Rock

Text: The informant told me that there was a tradition their theatre teacher did. There was a specific rock that the teacher had that was like the class rock and on the closing show you’d have to find a place to put it on stage without people noticing it. Then it would be painted to match every show. Then after the closing show they’d go backstage, they think that it was something that people did but on that teacher’s last show the teacher did it, where’d they’d hold it up and everyone would chant “rock”. 

Context: My Informant, 21, white, is currently a college student who is from Southern California, though this story is from before college. They have done theatre for a long time and are still immersed in it. They said this tradition had gone on for a while because the drama teacher had been there a while. Informant also experienced the teachers last year there. 

Analysis: There are a lot of closing night rituals in theatre. I think it shows the limited nature of theatre, and how people deal with it. This is a ritual that marks the end of a show but the object, the symbol, also lives on beyond the show, gets used over and over, and is even called the class rock. It’s permanent among something that is impermanent thus used to say goodbye. I think that ritual of the chant is also a bit of performance used to up the energy, bond, and release some of the emotions that come with an ending. It very much showcases the community aspect and energy of theatre, and the permanent but impermanent nature of it.

Biscuits – Dance

Phrase: calling sickling your feet “biscuits”

Alternate Phrase: Huckleberry Fin

Context: The informant, 21, white, grew up in Southern California, is a dancer, they explained that in dance: “there’s this thing that you can do with your feet, it’s called sickling your feet where like it’s basically like the opposite of pointing them, you know you point your feet and if you sickle them you like turn them like in toward like the inside of your feet and it’s really bad for you and it’s like a big no no in dance, like really big no no in dance. And it’s like it used to be a problem in like one of the dance teams I was on where like people would like get up from the floor and would like sickle their feet like as they were doing it, um my dance teacher used to call, she’d be like would be like telling us not to do it and she’d be like correcting us or whatever and she would call them “biscuits”? She was like don’t have biscuit feet.

Laughter

And to this day I don’t know what it means (laughter) or why they’re called biscuit feet but she was always like, I don’t want to see little biscuits out there don’t be doing that.”

Interviewer: “Have you heard anyone else use it?”

Informant: “Ummm I don’t know if I’ve heard anyone else use it. The other thing she used to call it was huckleberry fin. Like she would be like don’t be like little like huckleberry fin like when you’re gettin’ up and I did hear others dance teachers call it like, be like don’t be like huckleberry fin which I have no F*cking clue why that’s what that is. Isn’t that hilarious?

So now I say it to my dance students and like don’t be a huckleberry fin.”

Analysis: This is an example of specialized folk speech used to teach children about a specific part of dance. Ballet is a dance form that is difficult and requires dancers to start early, so it makes sense that phrases would evolve to help children remember certain elements. Sickling your feet is easy to do and requires training to learn to point your feet in the right way, the phrase “biscuits” naturally evocates a sense memory of taste, sight, and smell, making it easy to remember for children. It’s also cute and a little funny, potentially making the frustrating experience of learning a new skill easier for the young ones. 

The phrase Huckleberry fin is a little bit more up in the air. It may be a reference to the sickle sometimes used in farming, but according to the internet (I unfortunately have never read Huckleberry fin) a sickle is not a prominent tool in the story, I don’t even know if it is mentioned. But either way it is a fun way to teach an important concept to young children.