Regarding Toby Cooper’s May 1 (“Eastsound shapes plan to revitalize swale”) story about the Eastsound “swale,” I thought that I could add a few comments to “the rest of the story.”

Some years ago, I had occasion to speak with an island native Sally Gibson Seagrave. She passed a number of years ago, and had lived in Eastsound most of her life including in the old farmhouse at the corner of Lovers Lane and Enchanted Forrest Road, which is now the OPAL offices.

Sally told me that back in the old days, “lovers lane” was not a road, rather it was a trail or path through the woods along the creek. More interestingly, the young people of Eastsound had built dance platforms in the woods. Each was probably 15 or more feet square and was raised above the wet forest floor. And it was on those platforms that Sally recalled dance parties during the past as much as 80 or more years ago. If that included the years of Prohibition, those parties must have been a “hoot.”

I wonder if our neighbors now living along the swale hear music late at night. And that, my friends, is my contribution to your story about “The Swale.”

Ed Sutton

Orcas Island