“Feeling Sequimish”
Mark Couhig
Contact Mark at mcouhig@sequimgazette.com
Mark Couhig has been a writer for more than 50 years.  
His first experience with the written word arrived at a very early age when he was required to painstakingly hand-trace dotted lines in a notebook, a process that led first to a mastery of the straight, purely angular letters of the English alphabet. He soon turned his attention to the curved letters, exhibiting a full proficiency in that skill by the end of his seventh year.
Before another year had passed, Couhig had begun to cluster letters into meaningful compositions, an accomplishment for which he was awarded a coveted gold star, the first-ever public acknowledgement of his extraordinary aptitude with words.
In time he would take these words and strategically create further clusters, which he called “sentences.”
Paragraphs soon followed.
In the third grade Couhig learned the skill of cursive writing, allowing him to greatly expand and accelerate his output.
Over the ensuing months and years Couhig’s now-renown facility for dramatic narrative developed. He was able to work the delicate filigree of fiction — dramatic, purposeful action that engages the reader — to a degree that astonished Ms. Sweeney, his teacher and mentor. Of one of Couhig’s early works, “Run, Tom, Run,” she wrote, “I’m so proud of you.”  
As his facility with words grew, so too did his worldview, aided in part by his assiduous readings of “The Weekly Reader,” which he continues to regard as a formative influence in his later, more mature works.
In the fifth grade, Couhig’s repertoire and love of the written word translated to a sterling turn on the stage as Shepherd No. 3 in a new and dynamic dramatic reading of the Gospel According to Luke, a popular work of the time.
Approximately 50 years later Couhig moved to Sequim where he writes a blog.  

I can’t wait till the new playing fields are completed at Carrie Blake Park. Not because I will play on them, and not because I have kids who will play on them, but rather because I’m hoping that will bring an end to the whining about the temporary closure of a very short and otherwise undistinguished portion of the Discovery Trail. The trail spans 126 miles or so, much of it through breathtaking scenery.

When my wife and I first moved to Sequim almost two years ago — before I went to work for the Gazette — I read in the local papers letters to the editor decrying the entire plan to build the playing fields.

The letter writers complained that the closure would be inconvenient for “we seniors.” Once they were built, the playing fields would disturb the peace of those walking the path.

In recent weeks I’ve noticed continuing complaints about the temporary trail closure in the “Rants and Raves” column in the Peninsula Daily News (formerly known around the office as “The Newspaper Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken”).

I would like to say I’m surprised by the complaints, but I’m not. I’m not disappointed, either, because disappointment suggests an element of surprise.

Ten years ago my wife and I helped open a new public school in the little town where we lived in New Mexico. For decades the town’s kids had been bused off every morning to a neighboring town, a minimum 60-mile round trip through a mountain canyon that is covered in ice and snow five months of the year.

After months of back-breaking work, the new school was finally approved. Because we didn’t yet have a building, we proposed opening our tiny new school in the community center, where for the next nine months classes would take up half the gymnasium five days a week. Every single school-related item would be removed from the playing floor every single day at 4 p.m., opening it up for use by others.

“Oh, no,” said one couple, who also played the elderly card. They complained — astonishingly, in writing! — that on certain days they might feel like getting a little exercise by walking in the gym. Giving up half of the gym for the school kids was simply too great a sacrifice. Nothing would do but that they should be able to circumnavigate the entire gym floor if and when the urge struck.

Because they lacked the requisite conscience, I was ashamed for them.

I’m a senior and I regularly bike on the Discovery Trail.

But let me make it clear. I couldn’t be happier about the building of the playing fields, even if that means cutting off a small portion of the Discovery Trail for a brief time. I’m sure most of my fellow seniors feel the same.

If I ever get so old that I can’t bear the sound of children playing, and if I don’t want to see the promotion of healthful activities for kids, please take me out and shoot me.

Let me stipulate: that includes the promotion of healthful activities for all kids, even the foul-mouthed, moronic ones who would have been fortunate had they at birth been adopted by a nice family of wolves.
They need the help more than anyone.