Edmonds, Now and Then 1948-2021

[@gwenbaugh7245]

Thanks for making this video collage. It brings back so many good memories: My friends and I would stop on the way home from Edmonds Junior High at Dee's Drive Inn. They made the best banana splits and Benz Soda Shop next to the Princess theatre had the best Green Rivers. The theatre would show two movies on a Saturday matinee for a quarter. We lived on 5th and Walnut and the neighborhood kids would play and explored what we called "the big revene". It had a stream, big rocks and fallen logs over the stream to get from side to side. That beautiful stream is under Ace Hardware and the parking lot there. Wow, things have changed. I know they could never get away with doing that now. I graduated from Edmonds High School in 1971 (with Bob Middleton). We are planning our 50th reunion for next September. Now, I teach at Edmonds Woodway High School. (We should obviously still be the Edmonds Tigers!) Who would have thought this pandemic would be going on for an entire year! Believe me teaching on-line is a lot of work and no fun for teachers or students. We are all doing our best. My Dad graduated from Edmonds High School in 1950 and knew Leroy Middleton. He always had such good things to say about him. Dad had Winters Glass in Edmonds for many years. I will show him this video and I'm sure he will really enjoy it! Thanks again

[@stevenbareiss9001]

I grew up in Edmonds when a working class family could afford a house. My parent bought a house near Edmonds Senior High in 1962.

[@TroyDate]

Thank you. Lived there 1964-1983. My family was one of early settlers of Edmonds. I still feel very fortunate for having grown up there.

[@junebugtheartist]

Just incredible, thank you so much for all the time and effort it took to make this. I've lived here 15 years and have never seen Edmonds like this before. It's very emotional.

[@cathymeinhold7678]

thank you for the stroll down memory lane, you did an awesome job on the video.

[@tjensen529]

Thanks for posting this video and the effort that was put into it.

[@GregBell58]

Thank you so much. I’ve only lived in Edmonds since 1983 but my wife lived here her entire life since 1962.

[@noizvendr]

our little town.

[@Quilbily]

Thanks for putting that together. It brought back memories of everything from when the train hit the oil tanker to where I went to the dentist above the drug store. I grew up in Edmonds, my parents came in 1955 and stayed until they died in the 1990's. We live at 124 3rd Ave North and so many of your father's pictures were our old stomping grounds. Your name is familiar but I graduated in 1970 so I guess our paths may not have passed too much. Thanks again.

[@jamesmiddleton6933]

I have two older brothers, Mike and Bob. Maybe you knew them.

[@suen5006]

Thank you for doing this! I remember going to the Crab Pot, and Edmonds Variety was one of my favorite places for craft supplies as a young person.

[@jamesmiddleton6933]

Just a few of the over 13,000 photos my father took. Some were impossible to stand in the same spot due to changes that were made and only one is an educated guess as to whether I found the right spot or not. The pandemic actually made it easier to photo an empty Edmonds.

[@josephholmanog7dog0doj0dan3]

Thanks for posting this - it was surreal to see some of the images. I especially like the old hotel picture. It would be great if you could digitize more and put on a web page.

[@janetjensen572]

James, may I post this to our Edmonds High School Class of 1963 website?

[@jamesmiddleton6933]

@@janetjensen572 Yes, you may.

[@janetjensen572]

@@jamesmiddleton6933 Thank you. What Class were you in? I'll give you credit as well when I post it.

[@jamesmiddleton6933]

@@janetjensen572 1973.

[@kimerlia6098]

I believe that I am the boy at the right foreground of the picture at 6:14 in the video. We were building the raft to go across the Sound to Kingston, but fortunately we were not able to actually launch it. Two of the boys in the background are Tucson's I believe, your neighbors. Jon Kimerling, living at 513 2nd Ave. 1960-64.

[@jamesmiddleton6933]

The boy in the lower left sitting is my brother Bob. I think the boy in the background standing in the light colored long sleeve shirt is my other brother Mike, but I could be wrong. I don't recognize the names of the other boys you stated but I was fairly young then and didn't hang around my older brothers much.

[@lucasrogers9055]

It would’ve worked better with drift wood idk what y’all were thinking with lumber

[@michaelnelson1740]

My father worked for your father in the Mid 60's in the 4th Ave office.

[@d.martin7692]

Change the name to Nouveau Riche Edmonds. It's character has changed. Transplants with money from out of state. Nothing like what I remember.

[@nickefgen9219]

Thank you for posting it these videos, I use to live meadow dale from 1969-1980 when my family moved to Anacortes, I remember a lot of the area there, I remember the Sculpture on the roundabout there in downtown Edmonds, I haven’t been to Edmonds in three years, is the Caboose still there on Main Street?

[@tjensen529]

Several pictures show an extremely high tide. I'm curious to know what year that might have been. I have never seen the tide that high in Edmonds.

[@jamesmiddleton6933]

That was Nov 1984 a King tide. Sometimes referred to a 100 year tide. There was probably a low pressure system at that time too. That's why we took so many pics.

[@jrbailey3208]

I so desperately wanted to give you a thumbs up, and may yet in retrospect, and I wanted to give you a thumbs down, but won't, again because of retrospect. It really hurt to watch the collage you provided: all I could see is what we have lost and that we've lost so very much; not just land, or open spaces, nor just the quiet places which were so plentiful and gave us a temporary refuge allowing us to think about the problems, issues, and choices we had before us, as well as the blessings of our lives, but we've lost the real sense of a word that has been sorely bastardized these days: 'community'. I've been back to Edmonds several times during the last 30 years, and each time I've visited I'd had an ever greater sense of loss, of grief at what has taken place; that Edmonds has turned into California, or as Joni Mitchell put it: "They've paved Paradise and put up a Parking Lot!" The last couple times I was there, I couldn't even force myself to go into downtown Edmonds proper, much less down to where the old Sunset Beach wood dock used to be, and from which I fished and crabbed so often as a kid. We used to build fires down there, pulling up whatever driftwood that might burn, and just spent the nights enjoying the water, the sand, and each other's company! We were people who took President Kennedy's words pertaining to freedom, to work, to 'getting things done', to heart in a spirit of adventure and sheer love of life. What the same areas I fished at, walked through, got burgers from, fish bait (including the old pilings that provided great tube worms for bait at low tide), and yes, places to take a leak when nature struck, are all gone, wiped out, replaced with myriad signs that STOP anyone from doing much of anything! The old rock song "Signs, signs, everywhere there are signs, don't do this, don't do that, CAN'T YOU READ THE SIGNS?", says it pretty well.....don't take a shell, don't build a fire, don't even think of taking a leak........go to downtown Seattle for urination and defecation, along with the hypodermic needles of course. I'm NOT against 'change', the world we enjoyed as kids had changed as well, from the time of our grandfolks, but the main part of the change we inherited had remained the same: FREEDOM to live our lives, to help one another in a real sense, rather than smoke and mirrors of today-words without meaning from people who care for nothing but power, and consider history and tradition impediments to gaining more power. Thank you for taking the time and doing all the hard work of going through the photos, of finding all those places and going to them, and then doing MORE hard work in producing the video collage and then the post production work in uploading it to your channel....for that alone I figure you've earned a thumbs up......like I said at the beginning, retrospection allows one a bit better view with time to think. I'm a member of the Class of '75, and I've signed quite a few comments with a signature that decries the monster that is now 'Edmonds-Woodway', just to remind people that while I no longer call Edmonds my home, nor ever could call it home again, there are some of us still above ground who remember what it used to be, and that what Edmonds used to be was BETTER than what it is today. Cheers from an Edmonds Tiger (Long Live the Purple and Gold!)

[@davshort]

Change happens everywhere. The Edmonds you grew up in is not the Edmonds I grew up in, but we can both recognize it as the town we lived in. Edmonds is a boutique white enclave that has changed the least of any surrounding community. If you want to preserve things in amber... well, you can’t. I think your objections stem from trying to reconcile your memory with the present. The town grew and changed, like all towns do. Don’t try to preserve it exactly. That’s what pictures are for. Keep in mind that I am quite high as I write this.

[@jrbailey3208]

@@davshort I'm truly saddened by your response.

[@jrbailey3208]

@@davshort The Edmonds I grew up in was defined by character and what was in a person's heart: their actions. The Edmonds you grew up in is defined by a person's skin color. You are a racist. My Generation believed in the words of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. We believed a person's actions spoke louder than their words. Your generation believes that words are everything, that speech is violence rather than a fist. My Generation believe that the response to bigoted, fascist, Marxist, words of hate, were words of freedom, of Liberty, of the openness of freedom of choice, of the openness of the heart and the soul. Your Generation sees nothing but skin color, you are of the same mindset as Bull Connor, and George Wallace! You define Edmonds not as a community, not as a place of people of Worth, or of character, but rather of skin color! You are a racist! I choose to remember Edmonds is it was in reality: not merely in my mind; we had our sins, we had our mistakes, but we faced them, we chose to conquer them: "We did it in the Road!" Your generation believes everyone is guilty on the basis of skin color, as long as that skin color is white. You can keep your racism, I choose to believe in the better half of the human soul! I believe in judging people by their character and actions not according to their skin color! Enjoy your racism and bigotry! Sincerely, an Edmonds Tiger (Long Live the Purple and Gold!)

[@nickefgen9219]

When you said they paved Paradise and put a parking lot I Immediately began to cry because that’s Exactly what they did with all these people moving here Especially from California, I grew up in Meadowdale since I was born in 1969 until I moved away in 1980 to Anacortes, I got back and see Edmunds every Few years, but I haven’t been back there for 3-4 year’s