The hard work of keeping it leisurely

Originally published Saturday, July 26, 1997

By CECELIA GOODNOW
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

It's 11 o'clock on a drizzly Saturday morning at Winslow Green, the staging area for Bainbridge Island's annual Scotch Broom Parade. As the clock ticks closer to kickoff, the tension is, well, almost nonexistent.

Cub Scout Pack 565, suitably punctual, mills around as the laid-back crowd slowly assembles. The Camp Fire Star Flyers -- all two of them -- run to hug a Bernese mountain dog pulling a gaily decorated cart. Someone hands out boughs of Scotch broom and asks passers-by, "Want to be in the parade?"

People giggle and fall in.

At 11:25 -- a call to action. A fire engine pulls up festooned in Scotch broom and whooping its siren, followed by a dark green 1948 Lincoln Continental V-12. With a merry toot of the horn, they roll onto Winslow Way, trailed by about 50 foot soldiers -- moms with strollers, a yellow-slickered man shouldering a shovel, kids on bikes and a 45-year-old Scotch Broom Queen crowned at random from among the spectators. On cue, main-street shoppers grin and cheer at this annual display of silliness.

Ten minutes after it began, the parade is over. Bainbridge Island's tradition of wit, irreverence and funky nonconformity has survived another year -- with one difference. Once a spontaneous event, in contrast to the highly orchestrated Grand Old Fourth, this Kiwanian parade has been bitten by the planning bug that currently reigns on the fast-growing island. It now starts at a specific time, as announced in the twice-weekly Bainbridge Review.

"We're getting too organized around here," sighs one longtime islander.

That's the irony of life on Bainbridge Island. It takes time, thought and hard work to preserve the carefree ambience that attracted people to the island in the first place. But Bainbridge Island is a community of activists with a missionary zeal for preserving forests and wetlands and planning for controlled growth that safeguards island culture.

"People come and they're solution-oriented," said Andy Mueller, a local builder who is helping shape a 20-year plan for the island's "urban center," the former city of Winslow. "It's a great place to live."

Mueller softly hammered his fist for emphasis and added, "And we want to keep it that way."

Although 40 percent of island workers are carried off each day to Seattle jobs, they remain an "ever-present, silent voice," said Chamber of Commerce President Jeff Brein.

"They are not particularly active in a lot of day-to-day goings-on on the island," he said, "but they can be rallied to the cause of anything that threatens their well-being."