A Tribute

My wife and I bought our home on 26th Ave East, adjacent to the Arboretum, in 1970. We paid peanuts for it, even in those days. It has sheltered us. It has grounded us among many wonderful friends. It has provided parks, and water, and urban amenities, and cultural diversity and academic opportunities, all within walking distance.  It has sustained us financially during several periods when we lived away from here. I cannot conceive of a more perfect place for us to have made our lives.

Often when a large group of people cooperate to achieve some good end, it is possible to identify one or two particular ones upon whom the enterprise truly depended; people without whom the end would not have been achieved. Maynard Arsove was such a person in the battle in the late sixties to halt construction of the R H Thompson Expressway in Seattle. Those off ramps to nowhere that we know so well are Maynard’s work. The Arboretum, as we know it, free of a North-South freeway, is also Maynard’s work. But when I think of Maynard I don’t think of him as the guy who stopped the R H Thompson, I think of him as the guy who saved my house. Without him, this place where I sit at this moment tapping on my computer would be a spot on the south bound lane, probably crammed with cars crawling home from work.

Here’s to you Maynard, with my eternal and heart felt gratitude.

Maynard passed peacefully on November 14th.