Dirty Apron Day #1

Good morning... Your usual?

Yes... It's Dirty Apron Day. A melange of stories and folklore from underneath the Green Apron. Some of you partners out there will remember when Starbucks paid for laundry service for towels and aprons. You might also remember that there was an accompanying hamper to hold "the dirties". Probably the 3rd dirtiest place in a Starbucks store... slightly cleaner than the mop sink and way cleaner than the drain beneath the fridge under the bar. Now you know what Dirty Apron Day is about.

So on with the Dirty Apron. You may have heard way back when... about the battle of HS and the residents of a little Seattle neighborhood. HS tried to encroach on a city park for his driveway... well, to his credit, I believe that many other residents were also doing the same... Well, we're not going to talk about that story... we'll look at a lesser known one. The story of building HS's house. It's a 2-parter...

They used quite a few recycled materials I understand. Environmentally responsible... and very "GREEN". The original plans for the floors were to use some recycled barn timbers... from an old horse barn I believe. They trimmed and finished and I understand that the floors were gorgeous... until they turned on the heat and the wood emitted the odor of horse urine. I guess those recycled timbers were part of the floor structure in that barn. The 2nd recycled material was a beautiful stone for some of the facade... I hear they spared no expense to get this particular stone... shipped it all the way from China... The Yangtze River Dam (Three Gorges Project) actually... the one that displaced about 1.5 million people who were never properly compensated for it.

Now, I'm not suggesting that HS was responsible for that... no way. I'm sure the conversation with the contractor on how to use it was interesting. But it sure is beautiful stone. Those folks from the 1,000 villages?? They're living in government housing, trying to make ends meet. I wish they could see their stones... that would cheer them up.

Hey... You have a good day... Now go change your apron... it's filthy.

Pat Nerr...