What can you do in the Methow Valley on a Tuesday in January? Tuesday is the dead zone, the doldrums, the non-eventful tweener day. It’s cold, it’s dark, the roads are snowy and the action-packed next weekend isn’t until, well, the end of the week. Even if you stay home, there aren’t any football games on TV.
So what can you do with yourself on Tuesday? Plenty, it turns out. Methow residents seem to have discovered the potential of poor, disreputable, overlooked Tuesday. So much so that, this week, you (and your familiar others) could have exhausted yourself from early to late, racked up a lot of mileage, enhanced your knowledge of many things, been happily entertained, and still not covered everything that was on the calendar. Tuesday was happening.
Let’s just review the listings from last week’s What’s Happening page for this week’s Tuesday (Jan. 14). If you’re a Kiwanian, you’d have roused yourself early for the 7 a.m. meeting at the Winthrop Barn. From there, if you’re worried about a bit of post-holiday poundage you could have dropped in on the Take Off Pounds Sensibly meeting at the Methow Valley United Methodist Church. Which would have had you headed in the right direction to observe the Okanogan County Commissioners’ regular meeting (a 9 a.m.-5 p.m. exercise in local government accountability). Check Loup Loup Pass conditions first, please.
If you were not up to that much civic-mindedness, you could have taken part in a writing workshop in Twisp. Or attended one of four Okanogan County Fire District 6 informational meetings (two each in Winthrop and Twisp). With some planning, you could have worked in a presentation about Namibia (admit it, you don’t know diddly about Namibia, and maybe you should).
Things got even livelier in the evening. At the Methow Valley Community Center, the Westendorf Jazz Trio was heating the place up with energetic music, and inviting other musicians to “jam” with them. At the same time in the same space, the Methow Valley Dark Sky Coalition was offering information about how to make our relatively clear nights even clearer.
Out in Mazama, the Coen brothers’ remake of the western classic “True Grit” was screening for free at the community club. Popcorn included, and the chance to hear great lines like “I never shot nobody I didn’t have to.” If jazz jamming isn’t your gig, you could have joined the Methow Electric Musicians Experience jam at the Methow Valley Ciderhouse in Winthrop.
An important special event, if you care about local education, also took place on Tuesday. The Methow Valley School District hosted an informational evening for residents to learn about, discuss and make suggestions for the district’s budget priorities.
And where was I Tuesday night? At Twisp Town Hall, covering the regular Town Council meeting. Someone has to keep them under watch until we fill our vacant news reporter position. I imagine everyone else was somewhere else.
Quite a few high school sports events are also on Tuesday. This time of year, that means joining Liberty Bell High School basketball fans to cheer for the Mountain Lions and Lady Lions. The Twisp and Winthrop libraries had their regular programs for kids on Tuesday, and the Methow Naturalist’s winter class continued. The usual recreational opportunities beckoned us to get outside and do something athletic ourselves.
Once a month, of course, the Methow Conservancy offers its always-informative “First Tuesday” program, unless it’s on the second Wednesday, like it was this month. But that’s an aberration.
Did I miss anything? Probably. I see from our advertisements that Trail’s End Book Store in Winthrop had a storewide sale. I couldn’t make it Tuesday, so maybe Wednesday.
So, good. More than in the past, it seems, there are options, choices, variety, opportunity. Check out this week’s What’s Happening page for a preview of next Tuesday.
But I wonder how this will play out. If everyone targets Tuesday, it may become overloaded with opportunity — a not uncommon phenomenon in the valley the other six days of the week, especially in seasons with more daylight. (I’m reminded of one of Yogi Berra’s attributed observations: “Nobody goes there any more, it’s too crowded.”) Some day soon you may be planning something and find that Tuesday’s taken.
