Something Fishy

Tacoma has maintained a forested area around a creek that feeds into Puget Sound near where N Alder St meets N Ruston Way. I've walked all around this Puget Park now and have also walked the lower half of its densely canopied trail. My friend TW helped me find the Napoleon's Sweet Skills geocache there.

On my first exploration of Puget Park on June 15th, I wandered into an overgrown picnic area and was delighted to discover a fish out of water. It's another of the delightful salmon sculptures displayed in our area. It's a beautiful fiberglass work called "Soul Salmon," and I couldn't figure out why it was in a rather hidden location off the main trail. It seemed vulnerable to vandalism -- or worse -- to me. Sure enough, last week someone stole it! The News Tribune announced the disappearance and that the salmon was worth about $10k. I was very grateful to have snapped a photo of it when I saw it, because I pessimistically thought a sculpture of that value would probably be in the home of some out-of-state collector by now.

The good news is that, now a week after the theft, "Soul Salmon" has been recovered. The person who had it said he got it in trade for some bicycle wheels! The sad news is that someone in our city stole a $10k sculpture and traded it for bicycle wheels! Someone poached "Soul Salmon" and then didn't know what to do with it. I guess in Tacoma "the women are strong, the men are good looking, and [not] all the children are above average."