This is the scene. I am sitting at a middle table at Bainbridge Bakers drinking a cup of tea and waiting for the husband to arrive, when I hear foreign accents behind me.
A handsome woman and her handsome husband imprisoned a petulant teenager.
Oh, how often I have imprisoned a petulant teenager!
Storming ahead, I asked, “You are tourists, aren’t you?”
What could they say as they switched from unknown tongue to English-speaking in an unknown tongue, but to agree with me?
The woman – or was it the man? – replied, “We are here for two days. We are from Sweden. Someone told us to come to Bainbridge and we just walked from the ferry.”
The husband had lived in Seattle when he was a boy, so he knew the ropes, so to speak, but the wife admitted this was her first trip. “We’re going to San Francisco then Los Angeles next.”
“And what do you think of the Northwest?”
Before she could answer a man with a backpack walked in, appearing to have just come from a hike.
“People here seem to love the outdoors,” she replied politely.
I noticed a woman carrying a bouquet of flowers.
And the flowers! They are so beautiful.”
She didn’t mention the beauty of the people.
Still, I felt that I was in a stage play and soon Bill Gates could appear and she would comment on Microsoft or, maybe, Boeing.
I told her I had been to Stockholm where I admired the harbor and one particular glass sculpture, which seemed made of ice. They lived outside of Stockholm.
We talked more on the things the family would enjoy in Seattle, and I admit, I showed off on how many ideas I had.
Finally, I asked the petulant teenager, “And what to you want to do?”
“I want to go home,” he replied petulantly.
They had a rough trip ahead.
This encounter reminded me of my little town in Mississippi. No Swedish couple ever landed in the local hangout.
We were an isolated little town: everyone knew everyone else and everyone’s lineage.
If a new face appeared, I expect my Great Aunt Bessie, the Eyes and Ears of Commerce Street, would spread the word.
I can almost hear her on the telephone, “A foreign couple is looking around our town.”
Great Aunt Bessie’s style would begin: “Do you think they are from… Columbus (28 miles away) or maybe Tupelo?”
I probably exaggerate the above, but I know if you visited our town there would be an article in the paper about my visit plus lineage, listing the “lovely parties” held in my honor.
Who needed a paper when they had my Great Aunt Bessie scanning Commerce Street?
Now, of course, here you hear strange languages, and you know they are not from Columbus or Tupelo.
I hope the Swedish couple left with a good impression of Bainbridge and the Northwest and will come again. I hope the rueful son grows up and brings his family back to Bainbridge Island, swearing, “It’s a wonderful place. I went there with my family and this lady in a straw hat was friendly.”
Such are tourists. Such are teenagers, such are the pleasure of invaders wandering around our town and enjoying the best we have to give.
Sally Robison is a Winslow artist and the author of “The Permanent Guest’s
Guide to Bainbridge Island.”
