Amidst the Changing Tides an homage to Puget Sound's natural beauty

 

Puget Sound is a beautiful 100 miles or so of interconnected marine waterways along the state of Washington. Its deepest level is 930 feet. Its average water depth is 450 feet. This reviewer has never enjoyed the opportunity to visit. However, I just finished an anthology, Amidst the Changing Tides: Stories from Puget Sound, that makes me want to explore its natural beauty.

The anthology is edited by Drienie Hattingh, who lives in Gig Harbor, Wash. (located on the shore of Puget Sound) Hattingh is a novelist and short story writer, and she has contributed to this book. Hattingh once lived in Northern Utah. This reviewer, although not associated with Amidst the Changing Tides, has contributed to several books edited by Hattingh.

There are 29 stories in the anthology, which includes beautiful drawings. All the stories are well edited and don't tax the reader with excessive verbiage. They provide up-and-close, often personal descriptions of life in and around the waters of Puget Sound.

My favorite offering was the story, "Senescence," by Shannon Lewis. It's a fascinating tale of the last day in the life of a giant Pacific octopus. The passages tell the tale -- incredibly -- from the perspective of the sea creature. It's a poignant story, respectful, as the octopus deals with impending death, the loss of appetites and comforts it has enjoyed for years. The climax occurs in a shallow stream as the octopus feels the warmth of the sun.

Although not a scary story, the style contained a sense of the ominous, a foreboding that I'm accustomed to reading in dark literature. I was not surprised to learn that Lewis is a published horror writer.

Another story I enjoyed, and learned a lot from, is Hattingh's "Stella and Mac," a brief but heartwarming true tale of two Canadian geese, mated for life, that return to the same tavern in the town every year since 2015, making their nest to hatch their eggs. As Hattingh notes, people come to the tavern just to be witnesses to this annual event. (I had no idea Canadian geese mate for life.)

"Sound Therapy," by Tammy Joy Lane, is an emotional story of an Iraq War veteran, a woman, struggling with depression and raising a family in the Puget Sound area, which has lots of rain and dark days. To deal with this, she embraces the area she's chosen as home, noting its beauty and charm through long walks and other activities. The climax of this story, of encountering a seal during a walk, is powerful.

"Fishing the Alaskan Waters," by Ken Malich, is a spare, matter-of-fact tale about the challenges, travel and stress involved in trying to make a living from the sea. There's no high drama in the passages, but I found myself immersed with the interesting details of fishing life. It's something I'll never experience, but I certainly respect.

As mentioned, there are 29 stories, lots of illustrations, and brief biographies. I recommend reading two or three a day. As you get to know these writers, you'll both learn a lot about and gain appreciation for life on Puget Sound, and the sea.

-- Doug Gibson

Sh! The Octopus - A Fun Lighthouse Mystery

By Steve D. Stones

This 1937 comedy-mystery feature produced by Warner Brothers is loosely based on a stage play known as The Gorilla, then later made as a 1930 talkie, and was then made into a comedy starring the Ritz brothers in 1939. In this version, an octopus is substituted for the gorilla role. The script has many miles on it from its various filmed versions. The film stars two great comedy veterans - Hugh Herbert and Allen Jenkins as bumbling police detectives. They provide great comic relief to the film.

A young artist named Paul Morgan, played by John Eldredge, purchases a secluded lighthouse so he can work in private on his marine paintings. Captain Cobb (Brandon Tynan) escorts Morgan into the lighthouse and tells him the place has not been occupied for over twenty years. Morgan finds evidence that this is not true. A soft, warm candle is on the table, indicating that someone has been there recently. A knock at the door reveals another local captain - Captain Hook, who is the only other person with keys to the lighthouse.

Meanwhile two police detectives, Kelly (Hugh Herbert ) and Dempsey (Allen Jenkins)  are traveling on the mainland by car in the pouring rain when a tire blows out. They stop to change the tire and are confronted by a screaming attractive woman named Vesta Vernoff (Marcia Ralston) soaked by the rain. Just before the tire blows out, a radio report in the car tells of an octopus sinking a ship. Vernoff tells of seeing her stepfather's corpse at the lighthouse and of an octopus that lives in the bottom of the lighthouse.

When Vernoff and detectives Kelly and Dempsey arrive at the lighthouse, a hanging corpse is discovered at the top of the lighthouse dripping blood on the table below. Kelly and Dempsey try to investigate, but discover that the stairs of the lighthouse have been removed. A secret panel opens in the wall, and the detectives find some stairs that lead to the hanging corpse. The corpse turns out to be a stuffed dummy with a bottle of ketchup dripping on the table below.

I won't spoil any more of the plot, but some of the fun elements of this film are of scenes of octopus tentacles reaching out from behind doors and a curtain. Somehow the octopus manages to get out of the water below the lighthouse and make it to the main level to reach out behind the doors and curtains to scare the main characters.

Another fun sequence shows a pair of Detective Kelly's shoes hopping around, which is later revealed to be toads inside the shoes. A turtle with a lighted candle on its back burns the seat of Kelly's pants as he is sitting in a chair. Kelly's scuba outfit fills up with water in another hilarious scene as Dempsey and Morgan try to deflate all the water out of the suit.

In March of 2008, Turner Classic Movies played this film on a double-feature with another octopus film - It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955). For further information about Sh! The Octopus, refer to Gary and Susan Svehla's entertaining book - Guilty Pleasures of The Horror Film, published by Midnight Marquee Press, Inc. in 1996.  Happy viewing.