Ihave been reading lately that the fair city of North Bend is looking for some clever strategist to come up with an idea to attract tourist traffic.
Some friends and I did our own brainstorming session to see what ideas we could come up with. The first idea concerns our hamburger flippin’ mayor. One suggestion was that every 100th burger gets a special prize — the prize to be a map of the North Bend traffic circles.
We thought the Senior Center could hold a raffle for a patchwork quilt, made by a little old lady, or sponsor a drawing for admittance an hour before the usual opening time to the thrift shop.
Can’t you just see those eager tourists lining up?
We could direct traffic to Twede’s for a piece of pie and a fine cup of coffee.
Another treat for tourists would be to use some of these llamas that seem to thrive in our climate and engineer a tow rope to get customers to the top of Mount Si. Once up there, a local club — of any genre — could have a booth serving beer and soft drinks.
A contest at Mt. Si could be held involving the fastest run to the top with a backpack carrying a baby — with extra points for skinned elbows and knees. The grand prize for the “Si run” would be a free visit to one of our local medics.
My personal suggestion is that the Valley really needs a radio station of its very own. I will volunteer to help the next millionaire who wants to get the ball rolling.
I wanted to speak to the editor of the Valley Record about becoming a daily instead of just a weekly. I’ve been told that he could get a deal on the big globe that is the logo of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The Valley Record would probably have to get special dispensation from the county to close Interstate 90 for a day or so while we hire a team of workers to roll the globe into Snoqualmie.
The globe might look good somewhere on Center Boulevard up on the Ridge. Maybe they could roll it down to the golf course for the PGA tournament and celebrate the opening of the festivities by rolling it around all holes prior to the first tee off.
Of course, our mayor needs to get on the good side of Governor Gregoire and apply for a grant by telling her we were going to build a tunnel from Interstate 5 to North Bend. I can advise hizzoner that at first she will say “No” very forcefully. Then she will say, “Over my dead body.” And finally, after her next win at the ballot box, she will say “I have an idea. Let’s build a tunnel from I5 to North Bend. We can pay for it by setting up juice stands every half-mile inside the tunnel. There will be so many tourists pushing to get to North Bend that the tunnel will be paid for by the time our grandchildren reach the age of 50.
After venturing a few other ideas we reached an agreement that North Bend really had nothing to offer for the tourist trade. Guess what? We also decided that having nothing was the major reason we live here.
We like it like that.
• Bob Edwards is a member of the SnoValleyWrites writers’ group. He lives in North Bend. E-mail him at bobledwards@comcast.net.
