To: citycouncil@ci.olympia.wa.us

 

Subject: Peacocks for Priest Point Park

 

 

Olympia City Council Members:

 

 

Regarding the centennial of Priest Point Park, I have an idea of how to help restore some of its history and beauty.

 

 

A native Olympian, I spent many a special childhood occasion at Priest Point Park, historically one of Olympia's beloved natural resources.  To me (and many who lived here for decades, including the 1940s and '50s), the park is synonymous with peacocks, which lived and roamed freely in that lovely wooded refuge. Delightful in their exotic India Blue beauty, they made Priest Point Park a most special place, indeed, like no other in the city or county or anywhere this child had been.  

 

 

When I grew up and traveled elsewhere, married, and returned to Olympia to raise my own children, we found that there were no peacocks in Priest Point Park or any other place in the county.  We had to travel to Pierce County and Point Defiance to find peacocks roaming free in that zoo's park, just as they had, decades before, in Olympia's Priest Point Park.

 

 

To satisfy my need for that magical beauty and, for many years, nurturing that memory of Priest Point Park's peacocks, I finally bought my own, a peahen, a peacock, one newly hatched peachick, and one an adolescent. These and others, I have raised and been privileged to enjoy and share their beauty, since the 1990s.  

 

 

Living directly across the bay, I have long thought I would like to help restore to Priest Point Park a bit of its history and former beauty by donating a trio of two peahens and a peacock (two girls 'n' a guy -- and possibly even the peachicks they may create around June or July).  They love to look at the bay from high places and, left free, they protect themselves by roosting in high trees, of which the Park has an abundance.  In the spring, they sometimes sing in harmony and counterpoint and so are nicknamed "Gretc(hen)", "Lady" and "Mr. Blue" (after The Fleetwoods, who've also been called one of Olympia's "natural resources" :). I would like to present the trio of peacocks to the community/the Park, in celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Priest Point Park and the beauty we remember from our childhoods -- so that our children and their children may enjoy it, too.  

 

 

A musical performance could even celebrate and enhance this special community occasion, and I would be happy to provide Olympia's first national #1 Hit, "Come Softly To Me", among the autobiographical songs on the upcoming solo CD (by the girl who grew up with the peacocks in Priest Point Park :) Gretchen's SWEET SIXTEEN!  And, considering the peacock's name, "Mr. Blue" would be most appropriate for this occasion, too.

 

 

May 23, 2005, The Fleetwoods will be inducted into the OHS (in this case, not Olympia Historical Society but Olympia High School) Alumni HALL OF FAME, an added reason for me to say "thank you" to the community, in this way.

 

 

Softly, and most sincerely,

 

Gretchen Christopher